"Bud and Neeter"

Bud and Anita Gravely (pronounced with a short “a” - “Grav-Lee”) were the odd couple to end all odd couples. Odd, not from the standpoint of being different from each other. To the contrary, Bud and Anita (this writer’s family always called her by the true, Southern, pronunciation of her name - “Neeter”) fit together like hog jowls and turnip greens. They were simply, as a couple, different from anyone this writer has ever known.

Bud was a giant of a man. Standing over six feet tall, Bud tipped the scales at 275 pounds if he weighed an ounce. His massive hands resembled slabs of thick, country ham. His handshake would easily wrap around the average man’s hand almost double. By the time this writer’s family lived next door to him, he was well into his forties and bald.

Few were the times when anyone saw him without an olive green cap on his head, and his “uniform” of work clothes on. And, few also were the times when Bud gave evidence of having recently bathed, showered, or otherwise groomed himself.

Bud grew up on a sharecropper’s farm in the north Georgia mountains. There was little reason to suspect that Bud had received training on personal hygiene during his formative years.
 Country folks of Bud’s era did not have inside plumbing. Therefore, any gesture toward cleanliness came either in the form of Saturday night baths in the river, or “spit baths” taken while standing beside an open fire and a scalding kettle of water. These spit baths were also known, particularly in the military, by the term, “P.T.A.” baths (i.e., peter, tits and armpits). Bud was not a card-carrying member of the P.T.A.


During his adult years, Bud’s extended family tried to get him to fly across country to see some kin folks in Texas. When he refused to even get aboard an aircraft his relative remarked, “Why, Bud, you can get killed quicker in a bathtub than a jet plane.” Bud’s reply: “I ain’t a-getting’ in one of them (bathtubs) neither.”



There were evidently no dentists in the hills of north Georgia during Bud’s boyhood. In the country, when they were used, a “toothbrush” was nothing more than a twig cut from a certain variety of tree. The end of the twig was frayed and fanned out in a circular “brush” design. With no toothpaste available, the twig was rubbed vigorously and dryly over each tooth.

It is doubtful that Bud Gravely ever used one of these natural devices. He had only one tooth in his head. When he smiled or laughed, that lone, deeply yellowed, front tooth shined like a hood ornament on a new Rolls Royce.


Bud spent his young life plowing fields, and/or working from sunup to sundown in a north Georgia saw mill. He never once walked on a golf course, or played a game of tennis down at the local country club. Bud’s recreation was work. It was all he had ever known. He was a throwback to a time when a man looked, behaved and smelled like a man. There was no such thing as G.Q., political correctness, or even cologne in Bud’s world. They say that, on his tombstone, just below his name, the inscription reads, “Here Lies A Good Hard Working Man - Amen."



In the 1950’s, Bud moved to Atlanta from the mountains in search of a job. Farming and saw-milling didn’t pay much back in the hills. Bud had heard that Atlanta was growing, and that there were lots of construction jobs that paid good wages. While he did not particularly relish the thought of living in the city, if there was a decent living to be found in Atlanta, Bud was willing to try it.



For the first few months, Bud knocked around at different things, but was not really satisfied with any of the jobs he hired into. Most of the initial “positions” he found were factory jobs, requiring him to pull long hours working in dark, dirty, dismal conditions. Since Bud had always worked outdoors back home, these foundry-like surroundings were like a prison to him. He hated every minute.

One night, he dropped into a little tavern just off Northside Drive near downtown to have a beer and rest his tired body. The name of the place was the, “Ease On Inn.” The music in that little beer joint was loud and the lights were dim. But, the beer tap was one of the coldest in Atlanta. The bartender and one of the bar’s patrons soon struck up a conversation with Bud. Little did he know that this conversation, as well as certain things associated with it, would soon change his life forever.



When a country boy comes to the city, the first thing that gives his heritage and pedigree away is his thick, rural accent. Bud was a mountain man, and a country boy through and through. When he spoke in his hillbilly drawl it resembled a mixture of Gomer Pyle, Briscoe Darling, and Ernest T. Bass all rolled into one. Too, Bud’s deep, barrel-chested voice was as big as he was. Even with the tavern jukebox going at full volume, practically everybody in that little place could hear him when he talked or laughed. He soon became the evening’s entertainment for the crowd of fish-eyed, half-drunk city folks that frequented the Ease On Inn.



The patron that took a liking to Bud happened to be the chief dispatcher for the old McDougal-Warren Concrete Company in Atlanta. McDougal-Warren had a large fleet of concrete trucks, and was a major player in the construction-related trades in Atlanta during its burgeoning growth of the 1960’s and beyond. As a result, they were always on the lookout for good drivers. The dispatcher sensed that Bud was just the kind of hard-working, honest fellow that his company could use. “Come on down to the plant on Monday morning,” the dispatcher said, “I think we can put you right to work.”

The pay was good, the work was outside, and Bud had plenty of experience driving big trucks during his saw mill days. He walked out of the Ease-On Inn later that night thanking the Lord for such good fortune.



Bud loved two things in life – country music and beer. He could never get enough of Ernest Tubb, George Jones, or Hank Williams. Whenever their records played on the radio, Bud sang along with every word. When Bud showed up for work on Monday morning, he asked the dispatcher, “Does them concrete buggies have a ‘radidio’ (mountain vernacular for ‘radio’) in ‘em?” “Some do, some don’t,” said the dispatcher, “I’ll try to find you one that does.” Bud’s reaction to the dispatcher became his staple reply whenever something pleased him, “Boy-Howdy!” he said.



Bud’s second love bore his name - Bud-weiser. He was perhaps the real-life, southern counterpart of Norm Peterson - actor George Wendt’s loveable character from the popular television sit-com, Cheers. Like Norm, if beer was being served, Bud Gravely was there. There was more Bud in Bud’s refrigerator than food. His idea of a big Saturday night was to sit at the kitchen table by the radio listening to the Grand Ole Opry, while polishing off a six-pack. He often said that if they didn’t serve beer in heaven, he might have to think twice about going.



These two great loves in Bud’s life kept him going back to the Ease On Inn. He soon became a regular in that little juke joint – again, much like Norm Peterson at Cheers.



There was also another reason Bud kept going back. Her name was Anita.

Anita (or, “Neeter,” as explained earlier) was not a beauty, bless her heart. She was a tiny, petite woman with a complexion that was rough as a catcher’s mitt. Her countenance was further marred from years of inhaling cartons of Pall Malls and Lucky Strikes. Her teeth were, well, not hers. And, they were also not their original color. Smoking ruins the enamel on the teeth (even false ones) just as it does the pores of the skin.

Like Bud, Neeter did not practice good, oral hygiene. When she smiled, it was a deep, dark, brown and yellow train wreck.

Too, Neeter was not one to bathe or wash her straight, jet black hair. It hung just short of her shoulders in a matted, semi-tangled mess, and resembled the strings from an old mop that had been used to swab a cabin floor full of coal dust. This writer’s sister offered on many occasions to wash it and style it for her. Neeter’s reply, later borrowed and made famous by none other than comedian, Larry-The-Cable-Guy, was, “We’ll git-‘er-done one day.” To this writer’s knowledge, that day never came.

Neeter’s clothes were rarely clean, and reeked of the stench of cigarettes. She had only a handful of mix and match outfits in her entire wardrobe. Guessing Neeter’s sizes, this writer’s mother would occasionally sew, or buy, her a new outfit and give it to her for an early birthday or Christmas present. Neeter was always appreciative of Mama’s acts of kindness toward her in this way. She would always tear up, hug my mother’s neck, and proceed to wear the outfit until it also reeked of cigarettes and alcohol.


Neeter was not a beer drinker like Bud. She said the very smell of it made her sick. Go figure. Her potions of choice were either Ripple or MD 20-20 (i.e., cheap wine), with an occasional shot of Heaven Hill Whiskey as a chaser.

Alcohol and nicotine are a powerful tandem. Neeter was held hostage by both of these demonic forces for as long as this writer knew her.



Neeter was also from the country, but not from north Georgia. Her lineage was in Carroll County, near the Alabama line. Neeter never talked about her childhood nor any extended family. As far as anyone knew, Bud was all the “family” she ever had.

Neeter spoke with a lisp. It almost sounded like a hair-lip impediment. She was usually difficult to understand, often having to repeat sentences - especially for strangers. This writer and his sister grew to understand almost everything Neeter said, and thus "translated" for her when others misunderstood.

Despite the challenges she faced, Neeter was most always a happy person. She laughed a lot and enjoyed it when company came to her house.



No one ever knew if Bud and Neeter were legally married. When this writer’s family moved next door to them in the early 1960’s they were already a couple. They met when Bud started going to the Ease On Inn. Neeter was employed there serving beer and working the cash register. They often recalled that it was love at first sight for them.

Every night, Bud could be found down at the end of the bar with beer in hand. Neeter would park herself in front of him, leaning over the bar, smiling, smoking her Pall Mall or Lucky Strike, and refilling Bud’s Bud every few minutes. Theirs was a “marriage” made in Milwaukee.



When they became a co-habiting couple, Neeter quit the beer joint. Bud made enough money at McDougal-Warren to support both their habits. She never worked outside the home after that, and rarely left it at all, during the years this writer’s family were their neighbors.

Bud and Neeter’s house was a small, two bedroom, one bath, shotgun frame on about an acre of ground. Bud grew tomatoes and a few other vegetables in a garden each year on the back of their property. He always shared the excess from this garden with our family.

Neeter was not a, “Good Housekeeping,” subscriber. Their place smelled of beer, wine, liquor, and cigarettes. It was always dimly lit on the inside, with the same bluish, black-light haze found in most clubs, bars, and beer joints. Daddy observed once that when Bud and Neeter quit frequenting the Ease On Inn, they brought its décor home with them. Visiting their house was the closest thing to going into a beer joint that this writer ever knew as a lad.

No matter – Bud and Neeter’s place was always filled with a warm welcome for any visitor, regardless of how it may have looked or smelled. This writer and his sister made an almost daily trek to Bud and Neeter’s, mainly to escape their own household chores for a few hours. Bud and Neeter always kept ice cold Cokes and snacks on hand, just for us.

Regardless of the unkempt air of their surroundings and personal habits, Bud and Neeter rarely got sick. Evidently, if enough alcohol is perpetually maintained in one’s bloodstream, germs, bacteria, and other infectious maladies have no place to take hold and blossom.

On the rare occasions when one of them was sick, the employment of mountain, home remedies, plus a little nip from the jug, was all the “doctoring” they would submit to.
Bud did not trust easily. Mountain people are that way. Once they get to know you, there is no more loyal friend to be found than a true mountain person. Country folks tend to look after their own. However, until they decide to accept you, country folks (and particularly mountain folks) can be more than a little standoff-ish.

The top three categories of folks that Bud Gravely had absolutely no use for were politicians, doctors, and TV preachers. He believed that all three were nothing more than liars and thieves. As a result, he refused to vote, allow anyone to examine him when he was sick, or go to church on Sunday.

Bud was well into his fifties when his chest and stomach began hurting. He labored with the pain, refusing to go to the doctor. “They’ll just poke me, stick me, cut me, and charge me an arm and a leg for nothing,” he reasoned. Still, the pain worsened. Bud tried multiple home and mountain remedies, but with no relief. Stubbornly, he maintained that his plight would pass in time, and that he couldn’t afford to be off from work to go see a doctor. Still, the pain worsened.

Out of desperation, Bud finally asked one of the other neighbors in Riverside who DID support televangelist healers to call in and ask for him to be cured. Still, after the call was placed, the pain continued and grew worse.
Finally, Bud agreed to see a doctor – as long as this writer’s parents went along.

The appointment was made for a Thursday afternoon. Daddy took off work early. Both families climbed into Bud and Neeter’s old station wagon and headed to the doctor’s office.

Dr. John Manget (pronounced, “Mar-Jay”), was a G.P. His practice was located in a beautiful old, renovated civil war home near Ralph McGill Boulevard in the heart of dowtown Atlanta. Though this writer’s father was also averse to doctors, Dr. Manget had been able to help both him and my mother with various illnesses throughout their marriage. Daddy told Bud, “This man will help you – give him a chance.”

Bud and Neeter were both extremely nervous as our car full of folks filed into Dr. Manget’s waiting room. Neither of them could read and write, so Mama and Daddy helped with the filling out of the medical forms - making sure that everything was in order before the nurse came for Bud. When she did, he asked Daddy to go back to the examining room with him. After much pleading, this writer got to go along too.

Witnessing an examination in a doctor's office, especially when the examinee was someone other than yourself, was a really cool thing for a young boy.

Before Dr. Manget came into the examining room, the nurse came in and asked Bud a long list of questions regarding his condition. She took his blood pressure, temperature, pulse, weighed him, and then told him to take off his clothes. Bud turned white as a sheet. His eyes widened. “I ain’t about to strip for nobody, especially no man!”, Bud defiantly declared. The nurse was calm but firm. “Mr. Gravely, you MUST take off your clothes, and put this gown on for us to be able to examine you,” she said, in an authoritative tone.

“G-O-W-N!", Bud sarcastically bellowed, “ain’t nobody gonna’ make me wear no G-O-W-N!” Bud uncrossed his arms and stood up as though he was about to fight someone. The nurse shot back, “Mr. Gravely, we DON'T play games in this office. If you want US to help you, you WILL take off your clothes and you WILL put on this gown, and you WILL do so immediately!” With that, the nurse turned and gruffly left the room, slamming the door behind her. The force of the slamming door rattled the clear glass, cotton ball and tongue depressor canisters on the shelves.

Bud looked at Daddy, then at this writer. He was truly at a loss for knowing what to do next. Mountain men did NOT take orders from women, and they certainly did not take off their clothes in front of other men. Daddy assured Bud that this was standard procedure, and that we would step out of the room long enough for him to change into the gown.

As we left the room and stood in the hall, we could hear Bud talking to himself. “Weren't none of my idea to come up here in the first place… Stupid doctor can’t help me none no way…Good thang Daddy ain’t here to see this…How in the world do they 'spect me to git into this here ‘funny boy’ gown anyhow?”

When Bud finally opened the door for us to come back in, it was hard not to laugh. Here was this giant, Herculean, man looking most uncomfortable in a scant, thin hospital gown. It was certainly a sight to behold. “Ernest, can you help me snap this thing?” Bud asked my father. Remembering what Bud’s backside looked like as Daddy helped him fasten the snaps on the back of that gown brings a profound smile to this writer. The old, cartoon one-liner always comes to mind, “Now I know what they mean by I-C-U.”

Once the gown was in place and Bud’s adrenaline was settling down, the doctor finally came in.

Dr. John Manget could have easily been a black-headed Dr. Kildare. He was the epitome of, “tall, dark, and handsome.” Standing eye to eye with Bud, he introduced himself and sat down on his rolling stool to begin the session. After asking the same questions as the nurse, listening to Bud’s heart, and pressing several places on and around Bud’s stomach, Dr. Manget said, “Mr. Gravely, I think your problem is with your gall bladder…We should do a couple of tests.”

Having never been to a doctor in his life, Bud didn’t exactly connect with the kind of tests Dr. Manget was referring to. He thought that these tests were going to be similar to something taken in school, and Bud hadn’t seen the inside of a classroom since the 4th grade.

Dr. Manget explained, “No, Mr. Gravely, these tests aren’t something you have to study for…These tests are medical procedures we perform on you.” When Dr. Manget got to the part of his explanation that involved tubes, Bud’s face turned ghostly white. He asked, “Ezzatly (mountain pronunciation of “exactly”) what kind of tubes, and what fer?” Bud asked, in a visibly and audibly shaken tone.

Dr. Manget patiently explained, “The tests are called a Colonoscopy and an Endoscopy.” He explained to Bud how that both tests would be done back to back, and that he wouldn’t have to go to the hospital twice. Dr. Manget, as diplomatically and as accurately as possible, described how a tube would be placed in Bud’s rear end for one test and then in his mouth for the other.


This writer thought for a moment that Bud Gravley was going to cry. Here was this mammoth hunk of a man’s man, sitting in a strange doctor’s examination room, with three other males present, clothed in nothing but a grossly undersized and paper-thin hospital gown, being told that tubes were going to be inserted in two of THE most important openings in his body. And, that nothing could be done to ease his pain and suffering without these humiliating procedures. Any man would have been at a loss for what to say.


After thinking about Dr. Manget’s explanation for a long minute or two, Bud slowly raised his head. “All right, Doc,” he said, with a deep sense of resignation in his voice. “But, I jest got one favor to ask,” Bud said. Dr. Manget sympathetically nodded and waited for Bud to finish. He took a deep breath and said, “All I ask, Doc, is that you put that tube down my mouth before yuns puts it up my butt!”

Both Dr. Manget and Daddy tried not to laugh. “Mr. Gravely,” assured Dr. Manget, “you can count on it!” With that, Dr. Manget left the room, and we left Bud alone so he could get dressed. Bud took some extra time before coming back to the waiting room - likely to contemplate in private what was about to happen to him. When he finally did come out, Neeter and Mama both hugged him. It was apparent that enough had been said for this day.

On the way home, the only words that were uttered came when Bud leaned over to my father and softly asked: "Ernest, does it hurt when they stick that tube up your rump?" Daddy assured Bud that they would give him something to relax him, and that it would be so painless that Bud might even drift off into a nap while they were doing it. Bud trusted Daddy. His words of reassurance seemed to satisfy Bud and put him at ease.

It was deathly quiet in that old station wagon the rest of the way home.
 Bud came through the tests with flying colors. His was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer and a diseased gall bladder. He later had successful surgery to remove the infected gall bladder, and stayed faithfully on Dr. Manget’s prescribed medication until the ulcer completely healed. After Bud fully recovered, he was somewhat of a changed man where doctors were concerned. He passed Dr. Manget’s name and business card along to many of his friends. “He’s the best dang butt doctor in the country,” Bud would say, “but his hands is cold as a dead man’s.” This was, likely, as much of an endorsement as Bud would ever give the medical world.

Bud eventually retired from McDougal-Warren. He and Neeter moved away from Atlanta when the population crush of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s came. This writer heard, regretfully, in later years that Bud died in a nursing home. Apparently, Neeter passed away a few years after Bud, following a short stay in hospice care. She died from complications associated with cirrhosis of the liver.

The memory of these two unique neighbors will never fade from this writer's mind. They bonded with our family, and in some ways became our family (and we theirs). Their home was never a castle, but it was a place where friends and neighbors were always welcome. Their “marriage” may not have been right in the Lord's eyes, and it certainly would never be the subject of any movie or documentary. But, their devotion to, and love for, one another was apparently genuine. Above all, they were hard-working country people who found one another in the shadow of a city that was anything but country.

Bud and Neeter, thank you for giving a young, neighborhood boy and his sister the enduring memories of your house, your yard, your life, and your humor-filled caricatures. This writer enjoyed growing up next door to you, and is grateful for the joyous recollection of his days spent watching you live your lives together.



May God be merciful to you both on His great Day of Judgment.




“Darrell The Phone Man”

Prior to Al Gore’s inventing the internet, and years before the advent of cellular devices, there was another timeless entity that brought great blessing to American culture – the land-line telephone. Alexander Graham Bell could not have foreseen what his crude “wireless telegraph” would one day become.

In its early days, the common home telephone apparatus was a large box mounted on the kitchen wall. It was always located in the kitchen because of the perpetual presence of (stay-at-home) wives and mothers. These dear ladies spent the majority of their time in the kitchen preparing meals for their hard-working agrarian families. When the telephone rang, there would almost always be one of these great women at home and in the kitchen to answer it.

If she or someone in her family wanted to make a call, the receiver was lifted from its fork-shaped rest on the side of the box, a crank was turned several times to gain the attention of the central switchboard operator, and the caller would speak into the round speaker or transmitter. Early movies and television shows such as Lassie and the Andy Griffith Show featured this variety of telephone.

Later, during this writer’s childhood, the old Western Electric rotary telephones were widely used. These large, black, monstrosities were heavy as lead, and would have made excellent boat anchors. They were connected to the wall by an extremely short and brittle telephone cord, and always sat on an end table or in the corner of the living room.

The bell on these now antique phones was loud enough to wake the dead. The receiver was powerful enough to allow anyone in the house to hear what the party on the other end was saying. The only “call waiting” there was occurred when three or four widow women were hotly engaged in a Sunday afternoon party-line conversation.

Not only was technology different in those days, telephone company personnel were as well.

In Andy Griffith’s timeless community of Mayberry, there was “Sarah” the telephone operator. Though not an actual person, Sarah was much more than a name and a segment of one-way dialogue in a script. Sarah was a busybody, a natural healing remedy consultant, a confidant, and a friend. Operators in Sarah’s day helped baby-sit kids, listened as lonely senior citizens shared their hearts, passed along grocery list items for husbands to pick up on their way home, gave romantic and marital advice to the lovelorn, and were generally good neighbors and friends to every voice they “met.” All while speaking American English without a trace or hint of a foreign accent. Oh, for those days to be back once again!

One other priceless commodity in the Bell Systems of old was the “phone man.” Dressed in work clothes and wearing a tool belt that would make any blue collar worker envious, the phone man did it all. He climbed poles with funny looking braces on his boots, strung wire from one high point to another, installed jacks and other cool, wire-driven accessories in homes and offices, and carried a big yellow handset that allowed him to hang on a telephone pole and talk to operators and all sorts of other technical phone company folks all over the place.

Little boys of this writer’s day often grew up dreaming of being phone men.

Darrell Cooper was a phone man’s phone man. He never thought of being anything else. Right out of high school Darrell hired on at, “Ma Bell,” and never looked back. Through his years as a phone man Darrell worked in residential service, drove a bucket truck doing “long lines” installation and repair, did a few years as a commercial “Communications Consultant,” and finally retired as a supervisor working out of a regional service center in metro Atlanta. Someone once asked Darrell that if reincarnation were really true what he would like to come back as. His answer – “Either a pimp or a phone man, there ain’t much difference between the two.”

Through his years of climbing poles and pulling cable, Darrell the phone man had many interesting phone man experiences.

Like the time he went to do an “install” at an upscale Atlanta apartment complex. Darrell had to show I.D. at the security gate and wait for the guard to phone the apartment resident for confirmation. When finally given the ok, Darrell pulled through the gate and parked his phone van crossways near the building he had been told to work on. Before beginning the wiring and connecting that would have to be done on the outside box, Darrell decided to go meet the customer. He would need to see the inside of the apartment and find the proper phone jack, if there was one, before starting his outside prep work for the install.

When Darrell rang the bell and knocked on the apartment door, he followed his Bell System training to the letter by loudly announcing, “phone man – here to hook up your phone.” Phone installers were taught this tactic to help prevent their being mistaken as a prowler. At least one phone man who had previously failed to properly announce his presence and intent had received a blast of buckshot in the behind as he walked away from the front door of a house filled with drunken car thieves. Darrell often said that both his wife and his girlfriend were much too partial to his behind for anything like this to happen to it.

Several minutes passed before anyone finally answered the door. Not being an especially patient person, the longer he stood there the more agitated he became. Darrell was about to walk away when he heard the locks turning inside the front door of that apartment. What he saw when the door finally did open made him most glad that he decided to wait.

“Hi, come on in,” the sleepy female voice said as the door cracked open. Darrell stepped inside and was treated to one of the greatest surprises of his phone man life. Standing in front of him was a tall, blonde, blue-eyed, well-proportioned, and completely stark naked, female flight attendant. “I’ve been flying all night, and was so sound asleep I almost didn’t hear the door,” she said, yawning and stretching her beautiful “arms” out wide. “Make yourself at home, I’m just gonna’ go jump in the shower,” she continued – as Darrell struggled to catch his breath and reply, “no problemo, ma'am.”

He sat down on the edge of the living room couch and offered a brief, silent prayer of thanks for being allowed to work in such a great job. “She’s GOT to have a boyfriend,” he thought, as he looked around for a phone jack. “And, I bet he’s hiding around the corner in the bedroom with a loaded shotgun,” he whispered. After all, someone HAD spoken to the security guard earlier and granted Darrell entrance to the complex. “If she was asleep, then who did the guard talk to?”, he wondered.

No matter, Darrell the phone man (not Darrell the pimp) had a job to do. Find the jack, connect the wires, write up the work order, and get out of there before, like his fellow phone man, his butt became the target of an angry roommate’s shotgun.

As he looked around the apartment for a phone jack, Darrell heard the shower being turned off. Before he could raise his voice to ask this beauty where she wanted the phone installed, she appeared again - fresh out of the shower, dripping wet, drying her hair, and still totally unclothed from her eyelids to her toenails. She was smiling like a Cheshire cat, and talking as matter-of-factly to Darrell as if he was her husband.

“What’s YOUR name?...How long have YOU been a phone man?...Where do YOU live?...What color phone am I going to get?...What kind of service are YOU going to give me?” She was throwing questions at Darrell like darts at a dartboard. As he tried calmly to answer each one, his unbelieving eyes couldn’t help but follow that lone bath towel as it crossed every inch of her tanned, perfectly sculptured body. She made absolutely no effort whatsoever to cover any part of herself. And, Darrell made absolutely no pretense whatsoever of even trying to look away.

“Come in here,” she said – beckoning Darrell toward the bedroom, “I’ll show you where I want MY phone.”

When he reached the bedroom door, this bold and beautiful flight attendant had perched herself on the corner of her water bed. Crossing each leg alternately, she was drying her feet, and in between each of her lovely toes with the towel. At that moment Darrell remembered the co-worker's question about reincarnation, and decided that he really would like to come back as that towel.

She motioned toward her bedside table and said that she would like Darrell to put her new phone there. “No problemo,” he assured her.

“While you are getting that done, I am going to get dressed and run down to Dunkin' Donuts for some breakfast,” she said, “do you want me to bring you back something?” Darrell’s mind, heart, and lower extremities were still racing, beating, and well, enjoying themselves immensely. He replied, “Nothing for me, thanks.” What he meant to say was, “Why don’t you stay here on the bed, just like you are,…I will run out and get the coffee and doughnuts…Then I will come back, crumble them all over your beautiful body, and then eat breakfast, lunch, and supper all in one meal…I can always come back tomorrow and hook up your stupid phone.”

The flight attendant got dressed. The faded cut-offs and t-shirt she chose to wear showed off her gorgeous body almost as much as the towel had. She left within a few minutes. “By the way,” she said, winking at Darrell as she left, “my name is Chantal, and I just L-O-V-E men who work with their hands.” Again, Darrell said a prayer of thanks for his wisdom in choosing this incredible profession.

Darrell eventually completed his work in and around the apartment and, in accordance with proper phone company procedure, sat in his truck to finish the paperwork. He waited much longer than normal for Chantal to return from breakfast. Sadly, she never did.

The dispatcher rang Darrell up as he sat in his phone truck. Dispatch needed him to work a “trouble” at an address several miles away from the apartments. Disappointed, he left a copy of the work order on the bed where Chantal had “posed” for him with the towel in her hand. He also left his business card with a personal note on the back saying: “Let me know if you need anything.”

What he really meant was, “I can be back here in a matter of minutes if you need help drying off after your next shower.” It has now been well over twenty years since that unforgettable day, and Chantal the naked flight attendant has never called.

Phone men don’t always get to meet beautiful women. Sometimes their work is far less glamorous, and far more painful.

During part of Darrell’s tenure as a phone man he was transferred to a “long lines” sector of the Atlanta telephone market. The service center for this job was located about fifty miles due east of Atlanta, out in the middle of the “boonies.” Darrell was assigned to a bucket truck group which specialized in installing and maintaining long distance lines. Theirs was a remotely rural area consisting of nothing but horse farms, wooded hunting land, and an occasional mobile home or two. Darrell, however, couldn’t help but wonder if there were any flight attendants living in the area.

It was summertime and hot as blue blazes in rural northeast Georgia. Darrell and his group were working lots of overtime. The Bell System was upgrading its long lines cable to accommodate fiber-optic services planned for the future. Six, twelve hour work days each week were providing some rather handsome time-and-a-half take-home pay for Darrell and Mrs. Darrell.

This crew of phone men was working so far out in the country, brown-bagging lunch every day was the only way they could have anything substantial to eat. One day, however, the lead tech on the crew said he was tired of eating cold sandwiches for lunch every day. The rest of his men agreed wholeheartedly. They took up a collection and sent the grunt of the crew to the closest nearby town to search for any sort of hot fast food he could find.

Rutledge, Georgia, was over ten miles away and didn’t have a lot of fast-food options available. Still, the grunt was told not to bring back anything unless it was hot. No sub sandwiches or cold convenience store fried chicken would do. It absolutely, positively had to be H-O-T.

One must understand the discriminating palate of the garden variety phone man. He won’t eat just anything. But, he will eat at Waffle House. In fact, every phone man alive hires in with the understanding that for him to advance in his career as a phone man, he MUST eat at Waffle House – at least five times per week.

One of the reasons phone men favor Waffle House are the waitresses. Waffle House waitresses aren’t Miss America candidates. This is not to suggest that all Waffle House waitresses are unattractive. Some are downright ugly. But, some are quiet, petite women who need the tips they make in order to support their single-parent families. And, some are divorcees who work at Waffle House just so they can pour cold coffee and serve greasy food to men who remind them of their ex-husbands.

Phone men are attracted to Waffle House waitresses because they are “real.” They don’t smile at you while taking your order and then curse you to the cooks and restaurant management once they are back in the kitchen. The kitchen IS the dining room at Waffle House.

Waffle House waitresses don’t try to dazzle their clientele with how well they’ve memorized the menu, the soup of the day, or the orders they take. They carry their order pads in their aprons, their pencils behind their ears, and they shout orders to the cook at the top of their lungs as soon as they’re taken. It is the cook’s responsibility to remember the order.

Phone men are also drawn to Waffle House waitresses because they don’t try to sell you dessert after you have had a plate full of, “Scattered and Smothered.” They know full well that if a customer had wanted dessert, they would have said so when the order was taken. Waffle House waitresses don’t cause any grief for their customers, nor do they TAKE any grief from their cusomers. If you order it, you are gonna’ get it. If you don’t want it or like it, they will rake it in the trash can, wash the plate, and go on to the customer sitting in the next booth.

Phone men understand this work ethic completely, and appreciate it wholeheartedly.

The other reason phone men flock to Waffle House is the food. Barney Fife once observed regarding the food at the Mayberry Diner, “they ‘gar-an-tee’ their food to STAY hot, hours after you’ve eaten it.” The food at Waffle House is the same way. It has kept many a cardiologist in practice, and a whole legion of phone men fed to the gills for many years. Their menu is simple - “Scattered, Smothered and Covered.” Their coffee is strong, hot, and served 24/7. And their waffles are thick, heavy, super sweet, and loaded with MSG and cholesterol.

Phone men know when they come to Waffle House, if they leave hungry or thirsty, it is their own fault.

Alas, there was no Waffle House out in the country where Darrell and his fellow phone men were working. There was only a long, winding, two-lane country road to a town that was ten miles away. Where was that boy with the food, anyway?

It was over an hour when the phone company grunt finally returned with lunch. He was grinning from ear to ear. “Well, boss,” he said, “I found something hot!” This young food ferret opened the five plastic restaurant bags he held, each filled to the brim with assorted entrees from, you guessed it, TACO BELL!

Inside those five bags were assorted burritos, enchiladas, tacos, chalupas, chimichangas, refried beans, guacamole, and salsa. In other words, if it was Mexican, and it was hot, it was in one of those Taco Bell bags.

“Good boy!,” declared several of the crew members. Those five sweaty, dirty, deeply tanned phone men sat down in the shade of a thicket of water oak trees, bowed heir heads and gave thanks, and proceeded to devour their hot, greasy feast from south of the border.

The food disappeared quickly.

Before going back to their trucks and the hot, afternoon Georgia sun, some of the phone men crawled off in the shade to take a short siesta. “Better watch out for snakes,” somebody warned. Their group had already killed a handful of copperheads and chicken snakes during that summer spent out in the sticks.

Snakes hunt shade in the hot summer sun just like humans do. Neither nor any of the others would want to have find a hospital this far out in the country.

The crew eventually went back to work – dragging along like all blue collar crews do after a big lunch.

About two hours after lunch the infamous affliction known as, “Taco Bell Revenge,” began to take its toll. One by one the phone crew scrambled for any private, secluded spot they could find to purge their digestive tracts of the Taco Bell still churning inside. Most carried a spare roll of toilet paper in their trucks.

There was no time to look for proper facilities and amenities in the country – these phone men faced much the same predicament as does a pregnant woman whose water has broken. When it is time to “go”, phone men go – regardless of their surroundings.

When Darrell’s “time” finally came, he was parked next to a telephone pole, in the middle of an open pasture, strapped securely in his phone truck bucket, suspended at least thirty feet in the air, with his hands full of heavy telephone cable. Still, he knew, that it WAS time! Nature was surely calling, and he was compelled to answer the phone.

Darrell scrambled down out of the bucket and began to frantically search his truck for his personal roll of White Cloud. No luck! He looked under the seat, in the glove box, in the tool box, and even in his lunch box. No White Cloud! His nearest co-worker was about five hundred yards away, perched high his in his own bucket, with his own hands full of heavy telephone cable. It was clear – Darrell was on his own. And, with a hot, spicy Hispanic-influenced intestinal storm raging inside, he knew he had to act quickly.

Reaching under the passenger seat of his phone truck, Darrell found some old soiled paper towels. “They’re gonna’ get ruined anyway,” he reasoned. Time was running out – these greasy, oily paper towels would have to do!

Darrell began to look around for a “place.” He was, again, in the middle of wide open pasture land. There were no trees, no brush cover, and no mounds or hills to hide behind. And, while there wasn’t a human in sight, Darrell reasoned, “As sure as I do it here, a funeral or brass band parade will appear out of nowhere.”

Suddenly, Darrell saw the answer to his dilemma. An old tractor was sitting in the adjacent pasture, looking as if it had not been cranked, let alone used, in a long, long time. If he could just get to that tractor, he could then take cover between its back wheels and take care of business.

Darrell took off running.

The closer he got to the tractor the more it became apparent to him that the barbed wire fence separating him from his haven of blessed relief was almost impenetrable. The barbed wire was strung tightly, with the bottom and top strands closely resembling the dangerously sharp-edged razor wire seen around jails and prisons. It was obvious that the landowner was trying to keep deer from crawling over the top and smaller varmints from crawling under the bottom.

This razor-wire booby trap did not dissuade Darrell, however. He kept in his tool belt a pair of fence cutters for just such emergencies. And, if what was about to happen to him was not an emergency, there had never been one.

Darrell yanked out the fence cutters, nipped the top two strands of wire, climbed hurriedly over the remaining fence, flung off his tool belt, dropped his pants, crammed his paper towels underneath the tractor seat, knelt between the two tractor tires, and let nature have its way. Relief came just in the nick of time.

When he felt as if he had accomplished his mission, Darrell reached for his wad of paper towels. For hygienic reasons Darrell dared not turn around nor move excessively. He was attempting to “feel” his way along the hydraulic lines and hitching mechanism of the tractor. As his hand was nearing the place under the tractor seat where he was sure he had secured the paper towels, Darrell Cooper heard a sound he swore later that he would never, ever forget.

“Rack-Rack,” echoed the unmistakable sound of a pump shotgun being cocked and readied for firing. “You looking for these?”, a gruff old voice asked. Darrell, trembling in fear, turned to see the shiny barrel of a Remington twelve gauge shotgun being pointed at his head. On the other end of that shotgun was an old farmer (who looked to be in his late 60’s), dressed in overhauls and a long sleeved shirt, with a three day growth of white stubble on his face, a floppy hat on his head, and Darrell’s wad of paper towels in his left hand. “Yes sir,” Darrell said sheepishly, “and I sure would appreciate it if you would let me have them.”

Here Darrell Cooper was, standing in the middle of an open pasture, his pants down around his ankles, in broad-open daylight, with a dirty behind, and a shotgun barrel stuck in his face. At that moment, his entire phone man career flashed before his eyes. How he wished he could be back once again in that apartment bedroom with Chantal.

“All right,” said the old farmer – after holding Darrell frozen in that position for several minutes, “you can have the towels back, but you are NOT leaving your little gift in MY pasture…Smells like somebody’s been eatin’ Mexican.” Darrell complimented the farmer on his discerning sense of smell, while hurriedly cleaning himself with the paper towels.

That old farmer kept his shotgun trained on Darrell as he pulled his pants back up, put his tool belt back on, climbed back over the fence, stuff the paper towels into the “phone man garbage bag” that he kept on the back of his bucket truck, and climb back across the fence with a small spade shovel to retrieve from the pasture the remnants of his Taco Bell lunch.

With excrement in hand Darrell was crossing back over the fence a final time when he heard the farmer say, “wait just a minute, son – who’s gonna’ fix my fence?” Phone men carried lots of extra emergency-type things on their phone trucks, but barbed wire was not one of them. “Well,” Darrell said, “that may be a problem.”

The old farmer stood up straight, stepped closer to the fence, and said, “Boy, you or the phone company or somebody is gonna’ fix my fence, pay for my fence to BE fixed, or else there’s gonna’ lots of pain and sufferin’ for somebody,” the angry old farmer said, "you understand?"

At that point, the image of the aforementioned phone man who was shot in the derriere by the drunken car thieves flashed through Darrell’s mind. He certainly didn’t want to go down in Bell System history as the only phone man ever shot over taking a bathroom break.

Darrell grudgingly paid the old man $50 for the fence. He then got in his bucket truck and drove over to join his co-workers. He explained what happened to him, and asked for the rest of the afternoon off. Without question he got it.

On the way back to the service center to park his bucket truck for the night, Darrell vowed that if he ever got the chance to go to work doing something other than being a phone man, he would jump at the opportunity.

After all, he reasoned, Chantal’s airline could always use another pilot or baggage handler, and Waffle House always seemed to be looking for hard-working cooks and waitresses.

Either way, Darrell Cooper decided that day that if he was ever again stuck out in the middle of nowhere, in a wide open pasture, he would sooner go hungry than touch one solitary bite of a greasy Taco Bell chimichanga.

Ci?

"Well, I'll Be John Brown"

- David Decker
  September 18, 2005

"What Do They Call A Bachelor In Alabama?"

The good folks of Alabama, the place of this writer’s birth, have long been accused of all sorts of things. Anything from keeping a transmission in the bathtub to having relationships with farm animals that are not proper. To set the record straight once and for all - most folks from Alabama are able to read and write, we do wear shoes on most weekdays, and only a few of us are married to our first cousins.

Regarding marriage, Alabama folks treat marriage like they do their football allegiances. Both are, “’til death do us part.” Similarly, Alabama bachelors and old maids affirm that their lot in life is not a prison-like sentence. Rather, it is a deliberate life choice.

Meet Franklin Hardin – a confirmed bachelor who lived at home with his parents well into his forties. When friends asked him why he never married, Franklin always gave the same answer - “I reckon I’d rather want something I don’t have, than have something I don’t want!”

Alabama folks are not as dumb as some think.

Like fellow Alabamian, Forest Gump, Franklin worked when he chose to, slept and ate when he chose to, bathed when he chose to, brushed his teeth when he chose to, and, well, visited the outhouse when he chose to. There was no fuss over what to wear when he went out in public. And, no guilt over watching an Andy Griffith Marathon versus a Lifetime Channel “Chick-Flick.”

Franklin’s life creed was, “No woman – no hurry – no worry!”

Consequently, there was more than enough free time on Franklin’s calendar for the pursuit of country boy passions. Things such as deer hunting, fishing, NASCAR, and even an occasional foray into the world of, “noodling.”

Currently legal in eleven states, and highly popular in the South, noodling is an underwater sport. It involves the catching of massive flathead catfish (sometimes weighing in excess of 30-40 pounds) by sticking one’s arm under felled trees or other brush in a muddy river, lake or pond.

The noodler juts his arm directly into the catfish’s mouth and down through one of its large gills. The noodler is able to gain a sufficient grip for extracting the giant fish from its watery nest. The cuts, bruises, and an occasional severed finger are all part of a day’s work in the practice of this unique sport.

Franklin noodled, but only when he had no fishing tackle at his disposal. At those times, his hands and arms BECAME his fishing tackle.

Perhaps the greatest joy in Franklin’s life was his 20 foot Glastron Bass Boat. Equipped with trolling motor, depth finder, live well, built in refrigerator, and 500-watt sound system, Franklin’s boat was a “Mac-Daddy.” Powered by a 200 horsepower (HP) Mercury outboard motor, Franklin’s Glastron would skeet across the water at speeds well in excess of 60 mph. His could and did outrun almost anything with a propeller, and was proud to demonstrate this fact without reservation or apology.

Being the hospitable soul that he was, Franklin always enjoyed taking folks for a ride on his boat. He had a particular affinity for those who didn’t get out on the water very much. Franklin was usually on his best behavior with older folks or young children. To keep from frightening these tender souls, he would gently push his boat along the water at a very gentle pace. With those not so very old or young, Franklin was not reluctant at all to bring about fits of profound terror.

His special, pre-launch routine included asking his first-time passengers to don a life jacket, securely fasten their seat belt, and bow their head for a short prayer. Following this, Franklin would reach under his seat and pull out a motorcycle crash helmet. Strapping the helmet on, he would flip the darkly tinted safety visor down over his face. He then reached under the seat a second time. This time, he would pull out a brand new roll of toilet paper and hand it to his unsuspecting guest. These gestures were intended to strike mortal fear into the heart of the passenger.

Before his guest could leap out of the boat and back to the safety of the dock, Franklin would gun that powerful boat to full throttle. This would flip its nose upward to a near ninety-degree angle with the water, soaking the passenger in a gigantic wave. Before the terrified rider could regain any level of composure, the boat would abruptly shoot forward “out-of-the-hole” at speeds that would make even NASCAR blush.

Franklin’s high-pitched squeal of laugher and delight at what he had caused could be heard far above the roar of that powerful motor.

As one might guess, the antics of a practical joker are seldom limited to a single circumstance or venue. Franklin’s passion for frivolity did not stop at the boat ramp. He was always on the lookout for a new way to torment a victim.

First, there was the time in the early 1980’s when a new preacher came to Franklin’s congregation. During a church workday, Franklin found a still-partially-intact six pack of beer in the parking lot. He made sure it wound up on the new preacher’s desk, and that all the men knew to give the young preacher a hard time about it.

The most infamous tale of Franklin’s fun, though, will go down as one of the all-time greats in practical joke history!

Jed Weathers was Franklin’s childhood buddy. They grew up in the same area of Alabama - hunting, fishing, racing cars, and getting into trouble for the better part of their young lives together. Like Franklin, Jed had plenty of common sense, but was probably not in line for a full academic ride to Tuscaloosa. They both worked at the same warehouse loading trucks.

If Franklin’s passion was to be on a lake with a rod in his hand, Jed’s was to be up high in a deer stand with a rifle in his. Franklin occasionally accompanied his lifelong friend on these hunting trips, though he was not as tolerant of bitter cold as Jed was. There were times when Franklin opted to stay at home in a warm, cozy bed rather than brave the sub-freezing wind-chill of a highly perched deer stand.

On one occasion when Franklin chose slumber over frostbite, Jed went ahead without him.

Jed arrived in the woods at about 4:15 AM. It was a beautifully clear, late fall night/morning in Alabama. As he trudged through the brush to reach his tree stand, Jed saw by the light of the full moon something that sent death chills up his neck. It was the silhouette of a rare, black bobcat.

Both Franklin and Jed had heard rumors about this bobcat roaming the woods and showing up at nearby farms, but they thought it was only a hunter’s tall tale. After all, fishermen aren’t the only ones adept at exaggerations and bald-faced lies.

On that dark, frigid morning, Jed saw the bobcat out of the corner of his eye. It growled at him then quickly darted away. It scared him so much he came very close to losing control of his bladder. He was known to be an extremely skittish and excitable person anyway.

Seeing nary a deer the rest of the morning, he climbed down from the stand around 10:00 o’clock and went straight to Franklin’s house.

The story he told about that bobcat could have sold several hundred thousand hunting magazines! Embellishing the tale like he had so many others, by the time he was finished the bobcat stood almost six feet tall at the shoulder and weighed over 300 pounds. Franklin greatly enjoyed his friend’s highly emotional and overblown account of the ordeal – mainly because it gave him an idea.

If Franklin had anything to do with it, Jed would be seeing that bobcat again, and soon!

Franklin allowed a week or two to pass. He wanted Jed’s memory of the bobcat account to grow just a little faint. When the next good hunting Saturday rolled around, Franklin told Jed he had again decided to stay at home in his warm bed. He strongly encouraged Jed to go ahead without him. Franklin KNEW that he would. He also knew that, if he could pull it off, Jed would not be alone in those woods.

Franklin’s mother, Margie Hardin, was a pack rat. She bought and stored away every tacky thing she ever stumbled across. Yard sales, flea markets, and auctions were her weakness. Her house was the Southern equivalent of Fred Sanford’s junkyard.

Among these pieces of useless clutter was an item that would soon be worth its weight in gold. Near the front door in Margie Hardin’s living room stood a ceramic statue of a black panther. Its white paws and the white markings around its mouth strikingly accented its otherwise jet black form. The panther had a vicious scowl on its face – with large, life-like fangs.

Franklin had knocked over this “worthless piece of refuse” a thousand times in his frequent comings and goings. Little did he know that one day it would be the perfect set-up for the gag of a lifetime.

Franklin turned his alarm off at 3:05 AM on that Saturday. He hurriedly donned his winter hunting clothes, loaded the ceramic panther in his truck, and set out for the woods. Franklin drove into their hunting land a different way than he was accustomed to, so Jed would not see his tire tracks in the heavy frost. He tracked through the woods from a completely opposite angle than he and Jed usually did.

Arriving at the tree stand, Franklin positioned the ceramic panther so that it was facing the open trail that Jed was certain to use. He then hid himself out of sight in a nearby thicket, well out of Jed’s line of sight. Franklin nodded off several times as he anxiously waited for the fun to begin.

As sure as clockwork, the bouncing beam of Jed’s flashlight appeared in the distance at about 4:30 AM. Franklin could hear Jed coming several hundred yards away – tripping over roots, mumbling out loud whenever he fell, coughing and spitting from the overflowing pinch of Copenhagen in his lower lip, and softly humming to himself the University of Alabama fight song. One of the reasons Jed never became a world class deer hunter was his inability to be quiet in the woods. Every deer in Walker County, Alabama, knew full well when Jed Weathers was approaching.

Franklin could hardly contain himself as Jed drew closer to the trap awaiting him. He muffled his mouth with his gloved hand more than once to keep from giggling. His only regret was that he didn’t have a camera.

When Jed was about thirty yards from the stand, he stopped dead in his tracks. Standing deathly still, his shaking hand trained the flashlight on the base of his tree. He couldn’t believe it! “Oh, no!” Jed mumbled loudly – his fright-filled words echoing through those Alabama woods. He dropped to his knees. Still muttering a combination of curses and prayers, he fitfully struggled to load his deer rifle in the dark.

Franklin, stifling his laughter and glee, suddenly had an idea. One of Franklin’s talents was his ability to mimic just about any wild animal sound imaginable. Franklin never used duck calls or other mechanical devices to lure wild game. He didn’t need them.

As Jed was still trying to load his rifle, Franklin threw his head back and bellowed a bobcat imitation that would have made even the late Steve Irwin tremble.

“Rrrrrrrrroooooowwwwww!!!”, “Rrrrrrrroooooowwwwww!!!”, again and again he screeched. Each time, as he collected his breath for the next growl, Franklin couldn’t help but snicker like a kid in church. He could hear Jed scuffling around and calling out to The Almighty in reaction to each of these wild screams.

Franklin Hardin was having the time of his mischievous life!

Until, that is, Jed snapped. His wildly excitable, hair-trigger imagination convinced him that the woods were filled with these bloodthirsty bobcats. Now completely over the edge, he swung his bolt-action 30.06 caliber deer rifle into the air and began to fire – wildly, and in every possible direction. The almost thirty rounds of magnum, high velocity, ammunition he brought with him that morning were being rapidly spent. Deadly force was zinging randomly through those dark, cold Alabama woods.

Franklin’s master plan had been that his jumpy friend would see the ceramic panther, think it was real, and turn and run away in mortal fear. Franklin hadn’t factored in the wild barrage of hot lead now ricocheting through bushes, branches and tree limbs all around him. “That idiot is going to kill somebody!” Franklin moaned, as he dodged bullet after bullet flying in his direction.

Jed was known far and wide as a terrible marksman. He couldn’t hit the side of a barn on most days. Almost everyone and everything except that ceramic panther was in danger of being hit.

Too, the Good Book promises that everyone shall, “reap what they sow.” Franklin Hardin had played practical jokes on others for many years. He had gotten away with every outlandish thing he had ever pulled on unsuspecting victims. He seemed far too clever to ever get caught, and almost impervious to payback. On this morning, however, Franklin’s chickens came home to roost.

Finally, one of Jed’s last remaining shells found its mark. The bullet hit the ceramic panther dead in the middle of its chest. It exploded with a sound similar to a detonated hand grenade. Shards of jagged ceramic glass flew through the air – with a few pieces hitting Jed’s shirtsleeve. He crouched, edged slowly forward, shining his flashlight on the spot. The biggest remaining portion of the now demolished panther was a piece of the top of its head. Lying right side up, it was coated with frost from having been outdoors during those cold, morning hours.

Suddenly, Jed recognized that this was no live animal he had just blown to bits. He correctly identified his kill as Mrs. Margie Hardin’s black ceramic panther. He growled, “F-R-A-N-K-L-I-N!...No wonder he said he was gonna’ stay home this morning!”

Jed shouted to the top of his lungs, “Franklin Hardin, I’m going to K-I-L-L you!”

At that moment, Jed heard something BIG running through the woods toward him. Before he could lift his rifle in self-defense, he heard a familiar voice. “Jed!...Don’t shoot!...It’s me.” Having heard the panther explode and the shooting finally stop, Franklin came running – mainly to inspect the damage to his mother’s cherished panther.

“You idiot!” Franklin shouted, “You mean to tell me you couldn’t tell that this weren’t a real bobcat?...Mama is gonna’ kill us both!”

Jed stood trembling in the dark with his flashlight trained on Franklin’s head. He was breathing deeply and glaring at Franklin. Fiery hatred raged in his eyes. In a deep, resolute voice, he said, “That panther ain’t the only thing that’s gonna’ tote a bullet!” as he angrily shoved his last remaining round into the hunting rifle’s chamber.

Franklin’s glee quickly disappeared. Jed raised his rifle in Franklin’s direction. This prank had now crossed the line.

With repeated expressions of regret and pleas for forgiveness, Franklin tried to reason with Jed. ‘Put down the gun, man,” Franklin begged, “it were jest a joke!” Jed was having none of it. He pointed the rifle about two feet over Franklin’s head, and fired his last remaining round.

Panicking, Franklin took off in a dead run in the direction of his truck. “That fool has done lost his mind!” Franklin screamed, as he leaped over dead trees and ran full throttle through the bushes and briars.

Though his rifle ammo was spent, Jed’s fury was far from depleted. He ran after Franklin for a good long stretch firing blanks from his .44 Colt sidearm. Almost every hunter carries a pistol into the woods. Sometimes filled with blanks, a pistol can come in handy to alert another hunter of a kill or an emergency of some kind.

Jed figured that if he couldn’t really shoot at Franklin any longer, he might as well make him think that he could. All Franklin knew was that this lunatic was still right behind him, and firing a weapon like there was no tomorrow.

There was another surprise in store for Franklin that morning as he ran out of the woods and away from his ranting and raving pursuer.

Earlier that morning, not long after Franklin had entered the woods, one of his other hunting buddies spotted his truck. This deer hunting friend of Franklin’s was on his way to another deer stand not far away. Having been, himself, a victim of Franklin’s practical jokes in the past, he decided it was time to return the favor.

He stopped long enough to raise the hood of Franklin’s truck, pull all eight spark plug wires loose, and hide them up in the spare tire underneath the rear of Franklin’s truck bed.

When Franklin finally got to his truck, he was huffing and puffing, winded and exhausted from the run, and completely drained from the morning’s shenanigans.

He threw open the door, climbed in the seat, turned his key in the ignition and stomped the gas pedal. Nothing! He tried again. Nothing! Again. Not even a click from the starter! Franklin got out, lifted the hood, and felt a sinking feeling in his gut. Franklin Hardin now knew exactly what it felt like to be, “H-A-D!” “Somebody done took all my wars,” (Alabamian for “wires”) he moaned.

His best friend was mad enough to kill him. His mother WAS going to kill him when she found out about the panther. He was out in the middle of nowhere on a cold, windy morning. He was exhausted from the life-or-death run through the woods. And now, his truck had been sabotaged.

But, he concluded, there was really no one to blame but himself.

And so, Franklin Hardin did the only thing he knew to do. He pulled his sleeping bag out of the tool box, bundled himself against the cold, fired up some Wal-Mart brand hand warmers he kept in the glove compartment, and laid down in the seat to take a nap.

His thought was, “Oh, well.”

Such is the life of a bachelor from Alabama.

Call him, “lazy,” “fun-loving,” or perhaps maybe even a little, “touched in the head.”

One thing is certain - there is no life like his.

"Well I'll Be John Brown"

- David Decker

  June 5, 2006

"Before This Night Is Over"

Blind dates are, hands down, one of the worst forms of punishment known to man (or woman). Especially if the people involved are "younger." Double, blind dates are even worse. But, the absolute worst of all possible scenarios for an evening out is a blind date that is also a, "first date."

Such was the case with one particular April night in 1974.

Scott Thomas would never have been mistaken for Tom Cruise. Not even in a Lonely Hearts Club Class Reunion for "the sensory impaired" (politically correct term for, "the blind"). In a police lineup including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, identifying Scott Thomas would be an "automatic." 



By the time he was twelve years old, Scott was tall, raw-boned, and clumsy as a yearling. He had a head full of flaming red hair, and a face covered with freckles. He wore Dickey work jeans and insulated hunting boots to high school - in the middle of downtown Atlanta - during the hippie-dominated culture of the 1970's (when NOBODY would be caught DEAD in such attire).



When Scott talked it was like listening to Gomer Pyle, Briscoe Darling, and Larry the Cable Guy all in one voice. If a baying coon dog could speak in a human voice or language, the sound would be remarkably similar to Scott's.



From boyhood, Scott invented all sorts of interesting phrases. These utterances likely meant nothing, but sounded slick - at least to him. For instance, if you passed him in the hall on the way to class, he would answer your greeting with a high-pitched, "Aww-Gaww." No one ever asked him to translate. Those of us who regularly heard him talk concluded that this must be Scott's way of equalling the catchy phrases of the time such as, "Right On!," or, "Far Out, Man!"

When something really impressed him, Scott would almost always do two things. First, he would stick out his hand for a "low-five." Second, in a hybrid sort of yodel, he would growl things like, "Daddy Rabbit!," "Boy, Howdy," or, his most common reply, "Puhhh-Teee-Gawww." Those of us who knew him best were reasonably certain the latter of these meant, "Pretty Good!" 


On most days Scott smelled like "Cooter," his extremely German Shepherd. Cooter lived a long, German Shepherd. outdoor dog, life. As with his owner, Cooter probably never knew what is was like to bathe regularly. You could usually smell him coming a few blocks away. Again, like dog, like owner.

Scott obviously missed "Health Science" in high school - especially on the day(s) when Coach Dan Kennerly talked about personal male hygiene. When Scott went hunting, he never had to wear manufactured scents, such as deer urine, in order to attract white tail buck. His natural odor was sufficient. They all seemed to accept him as kin.



One other trait of Scott's was the annoying performance of an unusual head movement. The movement consisted of two animated blinks of the eyes, three rapid shakes of the head, and a twitch of the mouth - always to the right side. It was assumed that he picked up this quirk as a little boy, and never outgrew it.

Usually, the maneuver was performed swiftly and with great frequency, especially if Scott was excited or in a highly agitated state.

Given such qualities, it was highly unlikely that Scott's dance card was ever going to be full on any given Saturday night.

Scott's best friend was Ricky Stephens. They had been neighborhood running buddies since elementary school. Ricky was a handsome, dark-complected young man about the same age and grade level as Scott. Ricky could have had any number of young fillies as his steady were it not for his extreme shyness. He wound up marrying perhaps the second of third girl he ever dated.



This brings the story to the, "mother of all dates."



One Saturday afternoon in April of 1974, Scott was outside playing "fetch" with Cooter when his mother came to the door and said that Ricky was on the phone. As soon as Scott picked up the receiver, Ricky asked, "What are you doing tonight?" When he affirmed that he was, indeed, free, Ricky said, "Good, be ready about 6:30, man...We're going on a double date."



Ricky went on to explain how that earlier that afternoon he had finally convinced Sherry Metcalf to go out with him. Sherry was a cute little brunette with cat-eye glasses, and lived right up the street from him. Like Ricky, she was a bit on the shy side - but had a great body, and had gotten a reputation as perhaps the best kisser in the Riverside community. This most likely came from her performance during Saturday night, neighborhood schoolmate, sessions of, "Five Minutes In Heaven" ("FMIH").



"FMIH" was a very popular game. Far more so than the old, time-worn, "Spin The Bottle." In "FMIH," two lucky contestants got to go into a nearby closet or spare bedroom and, with the door shut and locked down tight, experience the sweetness of making out with someone of the opposite sex. The spin of a soft drink bottle chose one's partner for the glorious journey into "FMIH."

It was during one of these memorable sessions with Sherry Metcalf that Ricky had fallen hopelessly in love.



Sherry's acceptance of Ricky's invitation for a date was contingent on him finding a date for Sherry's cousin Judy, who was visiting from Valdosta with her parents. During their phone conversation, Ricky's questions about cousin Judy included the obligatory, "What does she look like?"

"She's outgoing, smart, and has a great personality," Sherry declared, somewhat defensively. Like all guys, Ricky understood Sherry's answer. It was female code for, "My cousin bears a strong resemblance to a moose!"



Instead of balking at such a description, Ricky immediately thought of Scott. "Don't worry, I've got just the fellow," Ricky promised, "they will be perfect for each other...Can ya'll be ready about 7:00?"



Ricky hung up the phone before Sherry could ask any questions about Scott.

"What does she look like?," was the first question out of Scott's mouth, later, as Ricky picked him up for the date. "I don't exactly know," Ricky explained, "but from what I hear she's got a bodacious 'rack' on her," (this was NOT the same idea as the earlier "moose" image of cousin Judy).



This writer staunchly upholds what the Word of God says about modesty and appropriate dress. His daughters were taught these things, and were regularly encouraged by both of their parents to avoid dressing in ways that would move any young man to lust. With that said, it is simply a fact that many young, southern males are motivated to overlook even the most glaring facial imperfections in a young lady, just as long as the girl's bosom is both sizable and scantily clad.

When Ricky finished explaining the potential of cousin Judy's anatomical features, there was really only one thing Scott could say...

"Aww-Gaww!"

When the guys arrived at Sherry's, Ricky was sweating it. He had high hopes that cousin Judy would sport at least some cleavage so Scott would not say something embarrassing, or else be so disappointed that he would turn and go back home. Too, Ricky wanted Scott's focus to remain in the back seat. That way, he and Sherry could have some uninterrupted moments of anatomical discovery of their own.



What a relief it was when the girls answered the door. Sherry looked great! And, cousin Judy, well, let's just say that she was everything both young men had hoped for, and about three cup sizes more. A rather skimpy halter top confirmed this fact.



Cousin Judy was nobody's Miss America, but it was obvious to all that Mother Nature had blessed her in ways that a young man could well appreciate and be drawn to.

From the first moment Scott laid eyes on cousin Judy and her figure, his countenance glowed - and his head began with the spasms and movements he was famous for. Even a dating novice like Scott Thomas understood what a fine specimen of "female" tissue this was. "Looks like old 'daddy rabbit' hit the jackpot tonight!," Scott loudly murmured in Ricky's ear as the four of them bounded off Sherry's front porch.


Piling into the 1968 Ford Fairlane that belonged to Ricky's daddy, they sped off to the local drive-in. A double feature of Godzilla flicks was on the bill for that weekend. "Five Minutes In Heaven" couldn't have held a candle to what this particular evening was promising. Little did anyone know that the ride to the drive-in would turn out to be more like, "Five Minutes In A Much Hotter Place Than Heaven."



Ricky's evening as chauffeur for the foursome was a busy one. He nervously alternated between looking at Sherry, watching the road, and checking the rear view mirror to see what was happening in the back seat. 

The girls were giggling and chattering away. And, Scott hadn't said one word since they got in the car. His eyes, though, were speaking volumes!



"Don't stare at them," Ricky whispered to himself, as he looked back and saw Scott glaring at the upper torso paradise sitting next to him. Trying to snap Scott out of his trance, Ricky looked back said, "Hey Scott, tell Judy about that twelve pointer you killed back last Fall!" Ricky was not about to allow Scott to offend or ignore cousin Judy. After all, no cousin Judy, no Sherry!



As they rode, suddenly and without warning, Scott slid over in the seat, snaked his arm around cousin Judy, and pulled her close enough for her to be overcome by the smell of "Cooter." About this time, Ricky had to stop at a traffic light. The drone of the tires quieted. Too, almost on cue, the radio suddenly went silent. All things had fallen into place.

Sensing that something monumental was about to happen, Ricky's heart went into his throat. Sherry turned around in the front seat to say something to cousin Judy, who had turned to look up at Scott, nervously trying to anticipate his next move.

What followed could rightly be called the, "Mother of all blind date remarks."

With his head twitching and gyrating, Scott looked down into cousin Judy's eyes, pointed the index finger of his huge, right hand toward cousin Judy's chest, and boldly proclaimed for all to hear...

 "Before this night is over, I am gonna' git them t_ _t_ _s!"



The thick, steel walls of that old Ford Fairlane kept the surrounding cars and pedestrians from hearing the emotionally charged reaction to Scott Thomas' revelation. The only sound that could be heard was Sherry's voice - screaming at Ricky to turn the car around and take them home!

After the passing of so many years, this writer cannot remember if the Riverside rumor mill ever recounted a second date for Ricky and Sherry. But evidently, the couple in the back seat on that fateful night actually did get a second shot at discovering one another's charms.

For now, over thirty years later, Scott and "cousin Judy" Thomas have three boys of their own!
 Each being the spitting-image of their, "Daddy Rabbit!"

Aww-Gaww!




"Well I'll Be John Brown..."

- David Decker
(May 7, 2005)


1 Comments:
Donna A. said...
"Great story!"

"Mama Went Green Before 'Going Green' Was Cool"

Nowadays, everybody is, "going green." Like a lot of other things that humans do, the whole trendy, fad-driven, obsession with "green" this and "green" that, has become in some ways a badge of one's being cool and hip. In essence, it is little more than a politically correct mask camouflaging a radically-driven, "environmentalist" mindset.

Folks who, "go green," seem to pride themselves on buying recycled stuff (some of the "stuff" out there that has already been used once, this fat boy does NOT want to use a second time). They also prefer to  patronize businesses and products who claim that they too have "gone green," and they refuse to embrace things like styro-foam fast food containers, plastic Walmart bags, light bulbs that really do give sufficient light to a room, and household chemicals of yesteryear such as chlordane (even though it is the ONLY chemical that really does "kill back" pesky insects and termites). Just one more reason to overturn at the ballot box the bane of over-reaching governmental dominance - like the so-called, "EPA."

In reality, the only "green" the environmentalist buzzards are truly concerned about is the growing transfer of the "green" from your pockets and mine to their own. The planet, the atmosphere, and all things related could just as well go to torment on a fast train as far as they are concerned. The "green" craze is all about money - pure and simple!

Long before the trendy, politically correct types hi-jacked the "green" world and took the rest of us hostage in it, Mama was already there. To borrow the hook from country icon, Barbara Mandrell, Mama was green before "green" was cool. But, Mama's version of "green" was anything but cool. Especially to a young man who had a lot on his budding, excitement-hungry, teenage plate.

Mama went "green" every school year with our clothes. She would either recycle last year's school clothes, or take us down to the local Salvation Army Store and buy us the "green" used clothing off the racks. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, and especially in high school social circles all over the city of Atlanta, styles like the patented Izod Alligator were all you needed to make the right fashion statement, and to be cool and "in style." Folks would unapologetically wear "puke green" shirts, sweaters, and even pants (ask this writer how he knows) as long as that little embroidered reptile was clearly visible.

When parents, and especially one's mother, have "gone green," it is NOT likely that Izod Alligators are part of the wardrobe agenda for her offspring. That little alligator did not live down at the Salvation Army Store, nor in the clothes that Mama sewed and made for us during the times that she REALLY went "green."

Mama also went "green" every Spring and Summer.

Just about every March, Mama's normally sweet and docile demeanor morphed into being something far more frightening than anything Stephen King ever conceived.

Mama's warm weather "green" crusade involved intense Spring cleaning, and continual Summertime maintenance. Things like scrubbing the bathroom tile with a toothbrush, mowing grass with a push mower or sling blade (John-Deere-riding-lawnmower-"Green" didn't live at our house), trimming shrubs, picking up dead limbs, planting flowers, cleaning out gutters, washing out trash cans, sweeping the driveway (the only "blowers" were the gasps of air you inhaled and exhaled while helping Mama "go green"), and just about anything else that meant a veritable chain-gang-like sentence of house and yard work.

As the months of Mama's environmentalist hysteria rolled along, the "green" tornado moved indoors. Her children were subjected to a seemingly endless flurry of chores which included, cleaning out closets, painting the walls of "your room" to cover up the girls' phone numbers you had scribbled there during the school year, airing out mattresses and throw rugs, taking down and washing every curtain in the house, rearranging furniture, and "deep cleaning" the stove, all the kitchen cabinets, and the refrigerator.

The "deep cleaning" concept was all but lost on this writer. Cleaning is cleaning, period. But, a Mama-gone-green "knew" deep cleaning. And, she took seriously her mission of ensuring that her children, however begrudgingly, knew it too. If Mama was "going green," she was obviously determined not to go there by herself.

Part of Mama's yearly voyage into the land of "green" included helping us kids get the "green" off our teeth, bodies, and hair. Mama would inspect our ears, our skin and scalp (for scabies, lice and bed bugs, mostly), the mouth and the teeth (for sores and cavities), and even underarms and between toes.

At least a part of what she was searching for were signs of the "relaxed" standard of personal hygiene often evidenced in young, Southern males. Just like the story of the young boy who went to summer youth camp during the "Dog Days" of August. One day, a camp counselor happened to walk through one of the bathhouses and found this boy standing in the shower area, vigorously scrubbing the cinder block walls with an unused bar of soap. When the counselor asked the reason for this behavior, the boy matter-of-factly responded that if he didn't scrub off the soap's brand logo indented in the side of the bar, his mother would know that he hadn't showered during his two-week stay at camp. Never mind that there were other "environmental" signs (i.e., intense "boy" B.O.) that would be a dead giveaway of his mindless rouse.

One other facet of Mama's being a forerunner of the contemporary "green" movement occurred without warning during this writer's upbringing. Long before there was a James Dobson with his "Dare To Discipline" mantra, and long before there were so-called mental/medical conditions like ADD, ADHD, ODD, and the "wonder" drug known as Ritalin, and long before there were street gangs and rampant juvenile delinquency in this writer's beloved home town, there was Mama.

The memory is vividly keen with images of her rushing out to the shrubs and trees, talking passionately under her breath as she went, and walking with the gait of a fireman hurrying to put out a raging inferno.

When Mama went "green" in this way, her children usually looked for a place to hide.

When she returned from this "green" pilgrimage, in her hand was a sizable portion of the environment - a "green" limb from either a small tree or a trusty shrub. Pulling the limb off at its base with an almost effortless, Schwarzenegger-like strength, Mama stripped the limb of its "green" foliage. As she headed back to the house, she would boisterously call out all three names of the offending child/children. This was designed to alert all other neighborhood children that, as Bill Cosby once said, the, "beatings were about to begin."

"Going green" for Mama in this way meant, without fail, that the offending child's legs would soon "go red" from the whelps inflicted during her parentally "green" tirade.    

Just another in a long list of environmentally-based lessons learned during the short years of having Mama as our beloved teacher.

In the end, Mama went "green" one last time. On that day, we carried her to the beloved, Northwest Alabama, coal-mining, community where she grew up. We carefully laid her to rest beneath the beautiful green grass of that hallowed old country cemetery where, as a boy, this writer often played among the tombstones and graves of family who were buried there.

It was early May when we took Mama's body home. The grass, the flowers, and and the trees were blooming everywhere. And, one would hope that Mama, in her new body and in her new home, was, and still is to this day, finding everything beautiful, alive with eternal freshness, and forever "green" - just like The Good Book says.

Mama, thank you for teaching us how to live, how to treat other people, how to love God, how to take care of the routine things of this life that must be done, and how to remember you with such love and fondness in our hearts. You "went green," just like so many other things you did, before the rest of us knew how cool all those things really were.

We love you, Mama, and we miss you here...

"Well I'll Be John Brown..."

- David Decker
  January 29, 2011