Yeah, last week was Fair Week. Uh, huh, the Union County Fair was in El Dorado all week. Naturally, it rained, but it always does during Fair Week, so that weren’t nothing. Yes, I went to the fair, and, if you asked me how it was, I’d probably lie like some sorry yard dog, and say “It was great!” And I’d be right…at least partly right. Well, maybe your can’t be partly right, so I’ll just say some of the stuff was real fun, and then, oh my gosh, something happened that just was the worstest thing you can imagine.
Well, let me start with the good stuff and I’ll tell you the bad stuff tomorrow. John Clayton’s daddy drove me and John Clayton to the fair, and dropped us off. That was good cause only the little kids have their parents tag along with them. Shoot, we was so excited we could hardly stand it. And as soon as we got on the midway we saw the Bullet…we was gonna ride it later…maybe, if we didn’t chicken out. It sure looked scary. But before we could get even 10 feet down the midway, a man yelled at us. “Hey, boys! Come try your luck! Win a big furry dog!” Course, we stopped and looked at the booth and there was a man holding a bunch of slingshot standing out front and row after row of big white plates. “Just break three and take your pick!” Heck, I ain’t no little 8 year old, so I figured there was a trick to it. Break three plates with a slingshot from about ten feet. My six year old little borther could do that. They was a trick and we weren’t gonna fall for it. About that time this Yankee man…who really did sound funny…said, “Too hard for you, boys?” and he laughed this kinda high sounding laugh like he was making fun of us. “Richard, that Yankee man don’t think we can shoot a slingshot,” whispered John Clayton. Well, that got my dander up and I kinda swelled up and walked up to talk to the man. “What you gotta do to win one of them big furry dogs,” I said. “Just break three plates with three of the steel balls.” “Naw?” I said. “What else?” “That’s it. Here let me show you how to shoot a slingshot.”
I looked at him kinda funny. Shoot a slingshot? Heck, I’d been shooting a slingshot since I could walk. Was he serious about just having to break three plates? “Now, tell me again…just stand here with my eyes open and break three plates with three shots? Is that right?” “Why yes, boys. To hard for you?” That did it. “Here’s my quarter. Gimmie that danged slingshot.”
Well, crash, crash, crash…three shots and three broken plates. Shoot, John Clayton was pushing me outta the way before I could give the man another quarter, and Ears and Tiny was lining up to shoot. Heck, I guess that danged Yankee man hadn’t been to Arkansas, cause after John Clayton, Ears and Tiny won a big furry dog, he shut down the booth, “Damn, hillbillies!” I heard him mutter. “We ain’t hillbillies,” I yelled, as we walked away. “We’s just white trash!”
Gosh, if we had just gone home right then, but we didn’t…the Bullet was right ahead…I’ll tell you the bad part of the fair tomorrow…and belive me it’s the badest thing that could every happen to an 11 year old.
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September 28, 2009 by rhmason
September 28
Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Sept. 1944, #8
Yeah, that little problem with the big ape really did get us in deep trouble. Cause it seems like we wasn’t the only ones in the tent when that gorilla broke the bar on his cage, and you just might know a tattle-tailing little girl told everybody in Norphlet that it was me and John Clayton that done the hissing and upset the gorilla. Norphlet is such a little town you might as well had put it in the newspaper, cause daddy come in from work that next day mad as all get out. Whooo, talk about a switching! My legs hurt just thinking bout it.
Well, I guess you think we deserved it, huh? Naw, we didn’t deserve it! You know why? Okay, let me tell you something bout gorillas: They ain’t like people! Course, you knew that, but did you know they get upset over little things? You didn’t know that did you? I read in the world book that gorillas has been known to pull off the arms of natives that was just a-walking by where they was hanging out. And folks blame me and John Clayton for just hissing. Heck, you can hiss at me all day and I shore ain’t gonna get upset. So we got switched cause a crazy out of his every-loving mind gorilla got a little upset? Yep, I think somebody should tell me and John Clayton they is sorry we got whipped up on. But no! No sir ree bob tail; folks ain’t bout to say we is inocent. But you know something? I don’t think that danged gorilla even was bothered by all that hissing. He probably just was mad cause somebody woke him up. Huh? What if I got mad when somebody woke me up. Wouldn’t that be out of this every-loving world? Uh, huh, and instead of blaming the person that woke us up I’d get another switchin ’cause I acted up. Heck, you know life here in Norphlet ain’t fair a-tall if you’re 11 going on 12. Kids get picked on just because they is kids. We don’t have no rights, whatever rights is. Shoot, I can’t wait to grow up to 12 or 13 where folks won’t pick on me.
Yeah, some of what I just said sounds like a lyin’ yard dog. Don’t it? Well, what’s wrong with a little white lie if it don’t hurt no one? Nothing of course, but you know something, momma don’t go for that one little bit. “A lie is a lie, Richard!” Momma says. Anyway, that’s life around my house.
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September 25, 2009 by rhmason
Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Sept. 1944, #7
I don’t know how to tell y’all this, but me and John Clayton has got in trouble again, and it’s serious as death trouble…you know big time switching trouble. Well, listen up and I’ll tell you how it happened, and I think y’all will see it weren’t nothing we did.
You see we’d finally scraped up enough money to go to the circus in El Dorado…you know Ringling Brothers, Barnam and Baily… biggest circus in the entire world…that’s what folks say. Anyway, we had a special ticket a man a gaved us for putting up posters. It was to see Guaruantua, the great ape. Well, when we got into the tent where the big ape was, he was sound asleep. Heck, nobody in the entire world wants to see a sleeping ape, so I had this real smart idea…we would stand by each end of the cage and hiss like a big snake. John Clayton would hiss then I’d hiss. What we was trying to do was to just wake him up where we could see him better. The hissing started and we did, wake him up and then some. I knew we shoulda stopped, but John Clayton got carried away and after old Guaruantua got up and started shaking the bars, John Clayton went into a hissing fit. Oh my good Lord in heaven above!…he shouldn’t a-done that. For you could move one of them bars cracked, and we both let out a scream you could have heard in Norphlet. Heck, we was sure that big ape was gonna come outta that cage and start pulling people’s arms off, so we ran out of the tent screaming, “Guaruantua is escaping! Run for your lives!” Uh, well that kinda got peoples attention, and they was the dangest yelling you’ve ever heard and a big crowd of folks went running down the midway. Heck, we was running like a scalded dog and was halfway back to Norphlet brfore you could turn around.
Now, we’re in more trouble than you can imagine. The danged ape didn’t get out, but as the sherrif, said, “It was two boys from Norphlet which caused all the trouble, and we’re gonna find out who they is.”
Now, all we was trying to do was see Guaruantua stand up. It wasn’t our fault that he woked up in a bad mood.
Well, it seems like folks is always trying to blame me and John Clayton…heck we didn’t do nothing…much.
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September 24, 2009 by rhmason
September 24
Now, I know danged well, for sure, that y’all ain’t gonna believe a word of what I’m about to tell you, but I promise, it’s the God’s truth if I’ve ever told it. You see, some of them things that happened to me and some of them just off the wall characters just don’t sound real. Take for example, Peg. Peg? Yep, he’s been Peg forever, at least forever to me. Heck, what else to you call someone with a peg leg? Well, old Peg runs the pool hall down the street from Doc’s Newstand and it’s way and by far the most exciting place in our little town. Course, me and John Clayton can’t go in there when he’s open for business, but Peg is alway coming out on the sidewalk to talk to us and sometimes early in the morning we’ll get to go in. Peg gave me my first job, which weren’t no big deal, ’cause it was just sweeping out the pool hall early Sunday morning before church. But just Peg ain’t nothing…you know for a name. Naw, this is where it get really goofey. Peg’s brother is the city marshal and his name is Wing. Yep, Wing like a bird’s wing. Course, Peg and Wing has got real names, but nobody but God knows what they is. Now get this, and if I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’, Wing ain’t got but one arm. But look out and hold your horses, Peg don’t need but one arm to keep the peace in Norphlet. He’s a blackjack swinging marshal. Man, he can knock ‘em plumb silly with that blackjack. But that ain’t all the strange folks we got in Norphlet. Not hardly. You see I’m the official paperboy for the whole town of Norphlet. Yeah, I know it ain’t but 650 people living there, but I’m it; the town paperboy. I work for Doc Rolinson, who shore ain’t no doctor. Nobody know how he got that name, but that’s what everybody calls him. Doc also kinda funny. Way back a long time ago, Doc got his legs crushed in an accident and now he wheels around the newsstand in a wheelchair….smoking a Lucky Strike in a long holder thinking he looks like President Rosevelt….but he don’t, and they ain’t nobody in Norphlet that thinks he does. I get along real good with old Doc, except when I’m late coming in to deliver papers. Uh, well, since I late most every day, me and Doc hafta talk about why I was late, and of course I had just stayed in bed too long….but I shore ain’t gonna tell him that, so I end up lyin’ like some sorry yard dog, coming up with excuses that I even have touble believing. Shoot, I’m done out of time again and I ain’t told you about Tiny, my good friend, who looks like a walking tub of lard and then there’s that sorry Homer Ray, the bully who looks like a goat that’s been hit between the eyes with a fence post. Well, I’ll get to them in a day or two and I’ll tell you just how the sorry Homer Ray got his just deserts. More tomorrow….
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September 23, 2009 by rhmason
September 23
Okay, y’all, listen up and i’m gonna prove to you that me and Ears ain’t kid criminals. Well, first off let me go back to the watermelon patch with two big old hounds howling like crazy right on our tails, us lugging a danged big 70 pound watermelon while we was trying to just fly across that cornfield, and to top it all off old man Odom was firing away with his old shotgun full of bird shot. ‘Bout that time Ears let out a squeal like a stuck pig, “Ahaaaaaaaa! I’m hit! Shot! I’m gonna die!” Course, even with Ears yelling that he was gonna die didn’t do nothing but put us in higher gear…if that was possible. We made it to the woods with bird shot raining down all around us and the two danged dogs right on our heels. Shoot, we slipped that big watermelon into some bushes and I yelled at Ears, “Get your slingshot out and shoot them danged dogs!” Course every boy we know carries a slingshot in his back pocket and in about the time it take to blink we was a-drawing back to shoot some dogs. I guess if anything was funny ’bout this whole mess was when that first dog caught a rock right up side his ugly head. Man a-live, he put her in reverse so fast his feet was a-spinning. Two more rocks and them dogs hightailed it back toward their house. But, whooooo, you ain’t never heard nothing in your life like the cussing old man Odom made when he got to the edge of the woods. We hid behind a big old oak tree while he railed on and on, you know, how he was gonna have our hides. Well, he finally went back toward his house and we took off like two scared rabbits back toward town. We didn’t stop running till we was at the breadbox. Ears was whinning like he’d been beat with a crowbar, saying he was dying and bleeding to death. Well, I looked at the back of his neck where there was a little spot of blood and right under the skin was a piece of birdshot. Heck, I just popped it out and that was all they was to it. Course, Ears let out another yell like someone had cut one of his finger off. Well, of course we hid out the rest of the day, but the next day, which was the fourth of July we went back to where we’d hid the watermelon and in a few minutes we had it on my wagon and were hauling it back toward town. Okay, let me confess a little something: We was gonna take it to a picnic table behind the school and get so full of watermelon we’d hafta roll home, but something happened. We passed the camp where the solddiers were camped and we could see them sitting around doing nothing on the fourth, and we got to feeling bad. Heck, before we knew it we’d hauled that watermelon over to where them soldiers were camped and five minutes later me, Ears, and ’bout 10 soldiers was chowing down. So see we ain’t no low rent kid crinimals. We’s even…We did swipe a watermelon, but we give it to the soldiers, course we ate a bunch of it…..more tomorrow.
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September 22, 2009 by rhmason
Richard, the paperboy, from The Red Scarf, Sept. 1944, #4
Heck, y’all, when old man Odom came outta the grocery store, we was still a-wiping off the spray of tobacco juice from that big sneeze he made. He waddled by and stopped to check us out. Yeah, he kinda looked at us with one of them squint-eyed mean looks, laughed a little crackly laugh and bit off another chew of tobacco.
“Done lost my last chew when I sneezed. You boys seen it?”
Course, we not only seen it, we experienced it; danged old man! Well, he though it was so funny he let out one of them belly laughs and slapped his hands together like he was just enjoying a joke…yeah on somebody else.
“Now, boys, I hope y’all don’t get no ideas about my watermelon patch.”
Shoot, right up until he said that we hadn’t even though about getting into his watermelon patch, but when he mouthed off, Ears looked at me and I knowed just what he was a-thinking.
“It’ll be big time trouble if y’all do…big time…you hear me boys?”
We didn’t move or say a word.
“I said, did y’all hear me?” he hollered
Dang, he almost blowed us off the breadbox again, and we was a-nodding “yes” as we wipped off the spray of tobacco juice.
Heck, now you just think ’bout it. Didn’t that sorry old man deserve to have us raid his watermelon patch? Uh, huh, I knowed you’d understand if I told you the whole story. But just a minute; I ain’t told you what happened after we hid the watermelon in the woods and hightailed it. Heck, when you hear what we did with the watermelon you’ll really won’t think we is little kid criminals. You see it has to do with that big bunch of soldiers that’s camped down near Henley Hill….well, I’ll tell you more tomorrow…
I
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September 20, 2009 by rhmason
Okay, I just know y’all is gonna think I’m some kind of a no-count kid criminal ‘cause me and Ears got into old man Odom’s watermelon patch. Well, none of it weren’t our fault…Shoot, I can tell you don’t believe that line of bull, so let me tell you a little bit more how it come about. You see, it was just before the fourth of July and we was minding our own business, just sitting on the breadbox at Echol’s Grocery, when he come a-sauntering up, spitting tobacco juice just everywhere. Heck, there was enough tobacco juice slobbering down his old brown, scraggly beard to choke a mule.
Heck, I can hear him now.
“Boys, y’all ain’t never gonna believe the watermelons I done raised using some newfangled water troughs. Big uns…some ill-go near 70 pounds and they gonna be ripe by the fourth.”
Well, I piped up; “Gosh Mr. Odom, let us put our money together and buy one.”
“Ha, y’all just a bunch of kids and these melons is being raised for some big money folks.”
“We really would like to have one,” said Ears.
“Huh? Don’t y’all get no ideas….”
He kinda took a good breath, gulped, snorted, and got all choked up, and good Lord in Heaven above, he coughed and it sounded like he was strangling then, hold your horses, he sneezed like some old scalded hog, and I thought he was gonna bust a gut. Shoot, it was like an nose and mouth explosion.
“Ahaaaa, Ohhhhaaaaa!…..Choooooo, AAAAAAAhahhhh….CCCChoooooo!!!!!!”
Listen, it’s hard to describe just exactly what happen, ‘cause before we could move, a spray of tobacco juice and all kinda other yucky stuff just came at us like a wave of brown spray, and we was blowed back almost off the breadbox covered with….well I’ll bet you can guess. Dang! He just walked into the store like nothing had happened, and we jumped off that breadbox hollering, trying to wipe that slimy stuff off…heck, we didn’t have no shirts on neither and that made it all the worse.
Course, that ain’t near all of what happened but I’m outta time….more tomorrow.
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