Howdy Folks! I'm Fuster Buskins 4e2l4q

Howdy Folks! I’m Fuster Buskins

by Darrell Sroufe

Copyright © 2012 by Darrell Sroufe.

Cover photography and graphics by Scott Rousseau Designs

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918096 ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-2406-2 Softcover 978-1-4797-2405-5 Ebook 978-1-4797-2407-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All song lyrics copyrighted by Homespun Good News Music—ASCAP

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Contents

Prelude

Chapter One Banjer Pickin’ & Mountain Music Sangin’

Chapter Two Old Timers & Moonshiners

Chapter Three Unlucky In Love

Chapter Four Tourist Folks What Come Into Klufford’s Holler

Chapter Five Gospel Mountain Music Sanger

Chapter Six Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem

Chapter Seven Aunt Hazel Strikes It Rich

Chapter Eight TV Box Edjucation

Chapter Nine Modernized Newfangled Gizmos & Gadgets

Chapter Ten Dollywood & Nashville

Postlude

To all the kinfolk in Maryville

Prelude

After twenty-five years, hillbilly comedy character Fuster Buskins retired from show business in 2012. He started out performing as Cornbelt Buskins in October of 1987 at a coffeehouse in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His name was changed to Fuster Buskins in 2001 before going to Nashville and becoming the lone artist managed by Homespun Good News Music and signed by the Udderly Good Records label. Both small entertainment companies were my own, so g Fuster was an easy decision.

Fuster Buskins, as evolved from Cornbelt, made his debut as a theme park entertainer in 2003 at Dollywood. After that he moved on to Stone Mountain Park just outside Atlanta, Georgia where he spent several years entertaining the park’s four and a half million annual visitors. From there he headed out on the road going from South Carolina to Southern California doing shows at fairs, festivals, churches, senior centers and anywhere else his southern humor was welcome.

I emphasize ‘south’ because that is what the Fuster Buskins character always was, a pure born and bred Southerner from a backwoods, back hills and backwards mountain town called Klufford’s Holler. Though both Fuster Buskins and Klufford’s Holler are fictional creations, what inspired and brought them both to life was the very real and wonderful stuff that makes up childhood memories.

For me, the best childhood memories took place some twenty-two miles outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was in a little Smoky Mountain foothills town called Maryville, Tennessee. My grandpa and grandma’s farmland acreage, which included a large holler area, provided the inspiration for Fuster Buskins and his hometown of Klufford’s Holler. The stories of the Fuster

Buskins show always revolved around the townsfolk of Klufford’s Holler, and most prominently the town preacher Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem.

Reverend Elmer T. had the unenviable job of trying to keep the small mountain community full of moonshiners, ‘tabacky’ growers and odd assortment of other townsfolk on the straight and narrow. Ornery as they all were, they represented simple, lovable mountain folk doing their best with die hard old fashion ways in a modernized, sophisticated world full of new-fangled contraptions and ideas they had little interest in or much use for.

The backhills, backwoods and backwards ways of the townsfolk of Klufford’s Holler provided enough humorous material to fill all of Fuster Buskins’ shows, numbering well into the thousands, for years. In time they provided enough material to fill a book. And here’s the book… with the complete comedy fodder of Klufford’s Holler as told in all its southernisms by the little town’s travelin’, banjo pickin’, strorytellin’, song singin’ and poem writin’ resident Fuster Buskins.

So kick your shoes off, sit back and have a good time reading this complete collection from Fuster’s shows done for a quarter century, from 1987 to 2012. It just might provide enough rib-tickelin’ old time comedy laughter to last another quarter century, or as long as folks’ hillbilly funny bones stay alive and well anyway. Enjoy!

Darrell Sroufe 2012

Chapter One

Banjer Pickin’ & Mountain Music Sangin’

Howdy Folks! I’m Fuster Buskins. I’m what ya call a mountain music sanger. Mountain music, in case ya don’t know what that be, is the kinda music what comes from the heart, is played by ear and is sung through the nose.

Anybody what’s a mountain music sanger and goes out to make a livin’ at it is kindy called a diplermat of whar they comes from. That’s what I’m telled, anyway.

I never rightly knowed what a diplermat is, but if I was gonna be one of those as a mountain music sanger, I figgered I’d best find out what one is so’s I could be as good a one as I could. So I asked around about it and the best I could summize is that a diplermat is a feller what thinks twice before he says nothin’.

After studyin’ on it a spell more though, I arrived at the conclusion that diplomercy is basically the art of sayin’ “Nice doggie” ’til ya can find a rock.

It took me a spell to larn how to be diplermatic. I heared tell that the differ’nce tweenst bein’ diplermatic and undiplermatic is the differ’nce between sayin’, “When I look at you, time stands still” and sayin’, “Yer face could stop a clock.”

It’s also the difference between sayin’, “You’ve got an open mind” instead of

sayin’, “You got holes in yer head.”

I also heared tell that really experienced diplermats can tell folks to go to hell in such a diplermatic way that they actually looks forward to the trip.

I try to do good at that bein’ a diplermat, but I wouldn’t never wanna tell folks to go to hell ner nothin’ like that. That’s ’cause I’s a borned again Baptist, so’s I always try to git people to go to heaven instead.

People are funny ’bout religion when it’s brung to ’em, though. A lot of times they act like they think heaven would be hell and hell would be heaven. They say they think heaven would be borin’ and hell is whar there’s a big party goin’ on or somethin’.

It’s hard to figger how folks has done got thar thinkin’ all warped up and switched ’round backards like that. That’s the way folks’ minds seem to work nowadays, though. Folks only seem to wanna believe what they wanna believe.

If ya tell ’em thar’s a billion stars up in the universe they’ll believe ya, but if ya tell ’em a bench has just been painted, they have to touch it to be sure.

Bein’ a Baptist I try to unwarp folks thinkin’ and switch ’em back the other way by gittin’ ’em saved. I do my best at bein’ a mountain music diplermat and a soul savin’ Baptist all at the same time.

I like workin’ at what I do. I think workin’s a great thang. The way I figger it,

workin’ is such a great thang that folks shouldn’t aughta hoard it all too much at once and always save more of it for tomorry than they do of it today.

I reckon my job as a mountain music sanger diplermat and soul savin’ Baptist might be the good Lord’s callin’ on my life, besides bein’ a pig farmer, which is a good callin’, too. I can do some mighty fine pig callin’ if I do say so myself.

I’m also a banjer picker. They’s a lot of folks ’round Klufford’s Holler what say to me, “Fuster, how did ya larn to pick on yer banjer?”

I say, “Well, I just sit it on my lap, put one hand on the round part strings and the other hand on the stick part strings, then I commence to wigglin’ my fingers and out comes banjer music.”

I weren’t too good at banjer pickin’ at first, but I did larn it good ’nuff to get by after a spell of finger wigglin’.

I larnt somethin’ else, too. If at first ya don’t succeed, you’ll git a lot of advice.

The problem with advice though, is ya never know if it’s good or bad ’til ya don’t need it no more.

After a while I found the secret to success in anything is just to start from scratch and keep on scratchin’.

Ya just gotta keep goin’ with thangs. Keepin’ on goin’ just takes a strong will. Givin’ up takes a strong won’t.

‘Course the only thang worse than quittin’ is bein’ too afraid to ever start. The main thing is ya gotta do is persist. If ya ever give up ya’ll never know how close to success ya were. I mean, look at the feller what invented Preparation G.

When ya do start somethin’ ya aught not do whatever ya do to be reconized ner praised fer it. You can get awful chill waitin’ fer somebody to cover ya in glory.

A lot of times when I first commenced to doin’ banjer pickin’ shows I was ’bout the same as a bellboy in a honeymoon hotel. No matter how I good I did my job, folks couldn’t wait ’til I left.

Sometimes I would be introduced to my audiences as a very warm human bein’. But down south in the summer, who ain’t?

I must confess to ya though, I one time did gived up on tryin’ to be a perfessional banjer picker fer awhile and tried to get me a real job, but thangs didn’t go so good with that.

I didn’t understand them durn applications. Like where it says ‘Who do we notify in case of an accident?’ I just put ‘A doctor’.

Sometimes folks go to schoolin’ a long time to git a good job. I found out that when young’uns graduate from schoolin’ they have somethin’ called

commencement speeches where they’re told, “The future is yours!”

Then when they go try and git a job they’re told “The present ain’t.”

I larnt the reason fer that is ’cause twenty year old graduates always wants to have them jobs what pay wages of folks who’s got thrity years experience.

I didn’t have no experience in nuthin’ neither when I tried to git a real job, so I went on back to try and have a banjer pickin’ and mountain music sangin’ career again.

As time went by I larnt that when ya get good ’nuff at somethin’ to whar ya can make a livin’ at it, like banjer pickin’ and mountain music sangin’ fer example, you’ll get a followin’ after a spell.

Sometimes that leads to flattery, but ya gotta be careful of that. Flattery is like perfume. It can be sniffed but it never aughta be swallered.

When it comes to followers, I found the one’s what foller ya the closest is tax collectors. Them tax collectors always want ya to fill out income tax forms and such fer ’em.

I found out it takes a lot more brains to fill out income tax forms than it does to make the money.

For too long I reckon income tax forms will all be the EZ kind what’ll just say:

1. How much did you make last year? $ 2. Send it in.

I gits confused ’bout taxes sometimes. The star spangled banner says we’re in the land of the free, but the IRS says we ain’t.

I gotta hand it to the IRS though. Anybody what makes that much money without advertisin’ deserves our respect.

I called the IRS office one time about my taxes and asked what the difference was between the long income tax form and the short income tax form. They said with the short form the government gets yer money. With the long form, the ant gets yer money, then the government gets the rest of yer money.

Either way, I found that doin’ yer income tax forms is kindy like Russian Roulette. Ya never know what blank is gonna do ya in.

When I finally got my taxes done I took ’em to the IRS office in Knoxville. When ya go in the office there’s a sign on the door that says ‘Watch Your Step’.

When you leave the office there’s a sign on the door that says ‘Watch Your Language’.

There’s also a big wall paintin’ of an eight ball on the IRS office with an arrow behind it pointin’ to a sign what says ‘You are here’.

I don’t much like payin’ taxes, but I don’t reckon nobody else does neither. An ideal situation would be fer the government to live within its means instead of ever’body elses.

It hardly’s worth it to save up fer a rainy day anymore ’cause ya always wind up getting’ soaked by the IRS.

The only good thang ’bout it is, if ya ever think ya been forgotten and nobody cares, try not sendin’ in yer taxes fer a year.

Even though I don’t like taxes, I reckon it’s just a part of what comes along with havin’ yerself a career. Like I sayed, I like my mountain music sangin’ banjo pickin’ career and folks ’round Klufford’s Holler seem to like me doin’ my banjer pickin’ too, but I have come to find not ever’body in other places does.

Mostly its city folks what don’t like banjer music. So I’m glad I got started up with my career in the country and that’s whar my opportunities mostly come from.

In the city when opportunity knocks on yer door, by the time ya unlatch the bolt, turn the deadbolts, unlock the chain and turn off the burglar alarm, it’s gone.

When I was a young’un I saw a big city for the first time when ma and pa took

me to Knoxville to go to the bank buildin’ thar. While pa was in the bank with me, ma went off shoppin’ in a store next door to the bank.

While we was in the bank pa saw a shiny silver door with a bunch of numbers up top of it open up. Then a fat old lady went into it and the door closed. A few minutes later the door opened up again and a purty young blond lady stepped out.

Pa said, “Fuster, go fetch yer ma.”

The reason pa went to the bank was ’cause he wanted to open an . When he talked to the bank feller he said he wanted it to be a t . When the banker asked him if it was to be with his wife pa said, “Naw. I prefers it to be with somebody what’s got a lot of money.”

One thang what pa said perplexed him about that bank was, if they can count so good, how come they got ten teller winders and only four tellers?

When pa come outta the bank, he saw Harvey Nertherbunt from down in Klufford’s Holler. Harvey was goin’ along a sidewalk downtown draggin’ a chain behind him.

A policeman walkin’ the beat stopped Harvey and said, “Why are you draggin’that chain behind ya?”

Harvey said, “Well, I reckon ’cause it’s a whole lot easier than pushin’ it.”

It turned out that Harvey had that chain ’cause his jalopy had done died on him and he needed somebody to tow him to a mechanic shop, so he took the tow chain along with him.

He just didn’t have his jalopy to go along with it though and after a spell he’d done fergot whar it was. But there weren’t no use in not keepin’ a good tow chain, so he just dragged it along with him ever’place he went.

When pa went to say howdy to Harvey he asked him what he was a doin’ in Knoxville. Harvey said he come to Knoxville on a regular basis to talk with all the big city geniuses he meets.

He said, “It’s just a danged shame that all the people what know how to run the country are drivin’ taxi cabs and cuttin’ hair.”

Harvey said he was lookin’ fer a job, too ’cause he just lost one from always comin’ in late. When his boss asked why he always came in late Harvey said, “‘Cause it makes the day shorter.”

His boss said, “Do you know what time your fellow workers start?”

Harvey said, “No. They’ve already started by the time I git here.”

Ma and pa would sometimes take each one us young’uns out on a special trip to Knoxville.

One time they took my brother Orville with ’em to the Sears & Roebuck store in Knoxville. Orville wandered off and they didn’t know whar he’d gone, so they asked one of the security people if they help ’em find little Orville.

The security feller eventually found him standin’ by the escalator starin’ at it.

The security feller asked him, “Are you Orville?”

Orville said, “Uh-huh.”

Then the security feller took his hand and started to take him to ma and pa, but Orville resisted, still starin’ at the escalator.

Seein’ as Orville seemed so fixated on the escalator, the security feller said, “Would ya like fer me to explain how an escalator works?”

Orville said, “Naw. I’m just waitin’ fer my bubblegum to come back.”

The only time we all went as a whole family to Knoxville was to go to one of them fancy movin’ picture show houses up thar. Ordinarily ma and pa wouldn’t of squeezed us all into the jalopy at once to go to the movie, but there was a sign on the ticket winder what read ‘Under seventeen not itted’.

The movie we went to that time was one of them monster pictures. It was the scariest one any of us young’uns ever saw. A lot of people thought that, too. Fact is, it’s the only time I ever saw the movie concession stand sellin’ Pampers. Pa bought eighteen of ’em fer us all then had to go git eighteen more to clean up what the first batch couldn’t hold.

All us young’uns started out as bein’ kids, but Pa had a special idear ’bout what to do when we all commenced to becomin’ teenagers.

His idear was when we turnt thirteen, he’d put us in a barrel and feed us thru a hole. When we turnt sixteen, he planned plug the hole. Ma didn’t like his idear too good though, so he never did that and we all had purty regular teenage years.

When my brother Ebert got old enough to have a job he started himself up a paintin’ business. For his first job he got hired to paint the yeller lines on a new highway they just put in over in west Knoxville.

The first day Ebert did real good and the highway boss was impressed with how fast he worked. Come the second day it seemed Ebert worked a bit slower and didn’t git as many stripes done. Then on the third day he worked slower still and got even less stripes done.

On the fourth day Ebert got so few stripes done that the highway boss come to him and said, “I’m gonna have to fire ya. The first day ya done real good, but now yer just too slow. How come ya slowed down so much and ain’t gettin’ anywheres near the stripes ya done on the first day?”

Ebert said, “Well, ever day I kept gettin’ further and further from the paint

bucket.”

After he got fired from his highway stripe paintin’ job Ebert went to one of them high falootin’ uppity class neighborhoods of Knoxville to try and git some paintin’ work whar the money would be real good.

He went knockin’ on doors askin’ if anybody needed some paintin’ done ’til one feller said, “Yeah, sure. Go around to the back and paint my porch.”

So Ebert went and around back, did the paintin’ job and then knocked on the door again to git paid.

The feller paid Ebert and said, “Did ya get the whole porch painted?”

Ebert said, “Yeah, I shore did. But that ain’t a Porch. It’s a Mercades.”

When it comes to high falootin’ upper class city folks, they just don’t seem to understand ner like country ways. They don’t understand ner like my banjer music, neither. I don’t fault ’em fer it. Banjer music ain’t fer ever’body I don’t reckon. Fact is some of my teenage young’un friends back in Klufford’s Holler didn’t like my banjer playin’ when I first started out neither.

They’d say to me, “Fuster, can we pick on yer banjer?”

I’d say, “Okay.”

Then they look at my banjer and say “Ya ain’t nothin’ but a dumb ol’ banjer… and yer kinda ugly, too. Ya just look like a big ol’ lollipop with strings on it.”

Then they’d say, “Fuster, do ya know what the difference is tweenst a banjer and an onion?”

I’d say, “No.”

They’d say, “Nobody cries when ya cut up a banjer.”

Then they’d say, “Fuster, do ya know what the difference is tweenst a banjer and a trampoline?”

I’d say, “No”.

They’d say, “Ya take yer shoes off fer ya jump up and down on a trampoline.”

Then finally they’d say, “Fuster, do ya know what perfect pitch is?”

I’d say, “No.”

They’d say, “That’s the sound of a banjer hittin’ an accordion when ya throw it in a dumpster.”

Folks what say bad thangs to ya while yer tryin’ to play yer banjer I found is what’s called hecklers. Hecklers have what ya call bad manners.

Bad manners is kindy like bad teeth. Nobody knows ya got ’em ’til ya open yer mouth.

Hecklers are ’bout as welcome to banjer pickers as a hog caller in a public libery.

I never answered the hecklers back like what other banjer pickers I knowed of did. They’d answer hecklers by sayin’ thangs like, “Sir, It’s was okay to donate yer brain to science, but shouldn’t ya have waited ’til ya died first?”

They’d also say to women hecklers, “Ma’am, what yer sayin’ reminds me of a padded brazier. Yer makin’ mountains out of molehills.”

I just let hecklers make fun if they want to. I figger it’s what’s called payin’ yer dues. Even though some folks didn’t like my banjer playin’, I’d write songs to the music it made and I’d sing ’em, mostly ’cause I don’t know how to play nobody else’s songs.

The way it happened was I learnt my spellin’ to write words over at the Witherspoon spinsters’ one room school house combination libery where I went all the way up to third grade.

Spellin’ always helps out a lot with writin’.

Ever since that I found out some words rhyme with other words and that’s what makes poems up. So I commenced to tryin’ to make up poems, just ’cause.

When poems come to me, I’d write ’em on down. I reckon it was somethin’ called inspeeration.

Since I’d done took up banjer pickin’, I found out I could hum along with what was a’bein’ picked, so I commenced to hummin’ along with the music comin’ out of the banjer. Then I figgered out that maybe I could put some rhymin’ words to my hummin’ and that would make my poems into songs.

So that’s whar my poem writin’ part of my mountain music sangin’ career come in. I just took my poems and put ’em into my hummin’ and lo and behold, they becomed songs. And that’s how I becomed a mountain music sanger.

I got started up with my mountain music sangin’ and poem song writin’ on the family pig farm in my little hometown of Klufford’s Holler a way back up in the Smoky Mountains.

Klufford’s Holler is a good place. Folks in Klufford’s Holler don’t get out much, though. Fact is, the biggest city most of the folks in Klufford’s has been to is Walmart.

They ain’t much to see in a little town like Klufford’s Holler, but what ya hear makes up fer it.

One time I writ a poem song ’bout Klufford’s Holler and I’d like to sing it fer ya. But bein’ as I don’t know how to quite do any singin’ here in a readin’ book, I reckon I’ll just have to put down the poem words to it fer ya here.

What I writ about my hometown of Klufford’s Holler goes somethin’ like this here…

Way up in the backwoods in the hills of Tennessee. That’s the place I come from where life’s still like it used to be. On a Smoky Mountain pig farm, that’s where I’s borned and raised. In a little spot what time’s fergot called Klufford’s Holler USA.

Now Klufford’s Holler’s worth about five dollars. Maybe ten. Just a rickety town that ’bout blows down with every gust of wind.

There’s shanty shops and a restyraunt serves gopher grits and all. And outhouses sittin’ all about in case of nature’s call.

So just foller yer nose up Pig Waller Road to Klufford’s Holler USA. Look fer the sign that says ‘Stop on by! But revenuers go away!’ Come say howdy next time you find yerself up our way. And ya might as well just stay a spell in Klufford’s Holler USA.

Now we’s all hillfolk neighbors and we’s all mountain kin. We sits like warts out on the porch from mornin’ ’til days end Pickin’ our banjers, clappin’ our hands and a’singin’ ’til past dark. Now and then we take a bath

and some days we might work.

And on Sunday mornin’s we all go to the Town Hall Baptist Church where the preacher learns us about Jesus and ya know it never hurts to know where all good things come from and give thanks to the Lord fer our shacks ‘n’ families. We’re doin’ fine and dandy. And who could want fer more?

So just foller yer nose up Pig Waller Road to Klufford’s Holler USA. Look fer the sign that says ‘Stop on by! But revenuers go away!’ Come say howdy next time you find yerself up our way. And ya might as well just stay a spell in Klufford’s Holler USA!

After a’ learnin’ up how to pick the banjer, do sangin’ and music ‘n’ poem writin’ and all, I beginned my mountain music sangin’ and songwritin’ career.

My career begun in a place called Dollywood, which is also in the Smoky Mountains. Dollywood is a mighty fine place and they’s lots of nice folks what work thar.

One time I even got to work with that Dolly Parton herself. She’s a real nice lady, too. Dolly’s got a lot of kinfolk what works at Dollywood and they’s all mountain music sangers and pickers just like I was, so I got to know a lot of her kinfolk.

One of Dolly’s kinfolk at Dollywood is her Uncle Bill. Bill Owens is his name and Uncle Bill was the one what took Dolly off to Nashville to get her started up in her country music sangin’ career when she was just young.

One day I got to talkin’ to Uncle Bill thar in the employee lunchroom at Dollywood and he advised me to go off to Nashville, too, ’cause he said it might further my mountain music sangin’ career. So, that’s what I did. I left Dollywood and headed off to Nashville.

But I also had to leave the family back on the pig farm in Klufford’s Holler. That was kinda hard ’cause we was always kind of a close family.

‘Course ma and pa had eighteen of us and we all lived in a one room shack, so that’ll make ya close to each another.

Pa, he’s a mountain music sanger and music ‘n’ poem writer too, and one time he writ a song poem ’bout us young’uns what goes…

Somethin’ in my family plan’s gone wrong. Me and my wife decided to have only one. But thangs they turnt out differ’nt over time. We crossed the line. Now we got nine.

It were supposed to be a nice, neat life. One little child and me and my sweet wife. But thangs they seem to happen now and then. It’s happened again. Now we got ten.

So now there’s baby food and bottles all around. I’m runnin’ kids up and down all over town. And dirty diapers make our home smell not like heaven. This new one’s Devon. He’s number eleven.

Our kids are pourin’ out the winders and the doors. Each time I look around, whoop-dang, there sits one more. There ain’t no room here in our house what’s left to dwell. I’ll move myself. Here’s number twelve.

Well, that’s the way it’s always gonna be I reckon. Again today my wife said, “Honey,

I’m expectin’.” You’d think we’d had enough after about a dozen. But I give up. Let ’em keep a’comin’.

‘Sides a’bein’ a mountain music sanger and songwriter, pa was also what folks called a front porch pheeloseefer ’cause he sat out on the porch and thunk ’bout stuff a lot. Then he’d say what he was thunkin’ ’bout. Thunkers like pa is fer some reason called pheeloseefers.

What pa thunk and then pheeloseefeed about was a lot of thangs in life, which is what thunkers mostly pheeloseefees on. He’d sit fer days and even weeks sometimes a thunkin’ in his rockin’ chair out on the porch. Then he’d rear back and commence to pheeloseefisin’ to whoevered listen, which was most times just ma and us young’uns.

He’d say thangs like…

“A wallet is a device what lets ya lose all yer valuables at the same time.

The person what always smiles when thangs goes wrong is a repairman.

Family reunions is when ever’body gits together to see whose fallin’ apart.

Juries is made of twelve people what’s been chose to decide who’s got the better lawyer.

The world is made up of two kinds of people, which is the good and the bad. And the good decides which is which.

If somebody says it’s the principle of the thang and not the money, you can bet it’s the money.

Wisdom is knowin’ when to close yer mouth ’fore somebody else does.

If we are what we eat, nuts must be a common diet.

If yer palm itches, it’s a sign yer gonna get somethin’. If yer head itches, you got it.”

Then after a spell pa would stop pheeloseefeein’ and sit and thunk up some more pheeloseefees ’til he reared back and commenced to pheeloseephyin’ again.

Pa’s philoseepheein’ come from his thunkin’ a lot of them thar deep thoughts. One of the deep thoughts he thunk about was why God growed big punkins on a little vine and growed little walnuts on a big ol’ tree. Then one day a walnut fell outta a tree and hit pa on the head.

He looked up the tree and said, “Lord, I’m sure glad they weren’t no punkins up there.”

‘Course pa didn’t always pheeloseephee ’cause he had to make sure all us young’uns was provided fer, which was through the family pig farm business. So pa kept purty busy with that, along with ma and all us young’uns.

We was a pretty big family. We weren’t only big numbers wise, we was all pretty big round the middle, too. Fact is I dare say my brother Orville was so big that in the mornin’ by the time he got on his BVDs, they spelled ‘Boulevard’.

My sister Roberta was so big that ma and pa nick named her Bureau ’cause she had four foot wide drawers.

When Roberta put on her lipstick she had to use a paint roller and she’d have to go out in the driveway to iron her dresses.

Roberta finally did decide to go on a diet so’s she could git herself a man. She did git one what was a geetar picker named o’ Melvin Staggerwalt from over in Stuckinville. Then after they got hitched up Roberta went off her diet and ballooned back up big as ever.

Roberta and Melvin’s marriage was a deezaster right from the start and they wounded up gittin’ themselves a deevorce. Roberta deervorced Melvin on of Melvin bein’ careless about his appearance. Not long after they got hitched he didn’t show up fer near ’bout two years.

Melvin wounded up leavin’ Stuckinville fer fear of Roberta comin’ to try and find him. He moved up to Knoxville where he ed up with country music band what he picks his geetar with now.

They even put out a record I once heared played on the local Knoxville radio station. It was a song what Melvin had writ about his marriage to Roberta. The words to it went…

Oh, she’s bigger than a mountain is around. She picks me up on o’er her head and throws me down. Then she drops down on my body and then perceeds to squash me and she don’t git up ’til I’m driv in the ground.

I married me the meanest woman could be found. Ways of kindness she ain’t never been around. Oh, she’s skinny when we married but nowadays she carries in excess of seven hundred fifty pounds.

Well, then came the day I finally said my piece. I said ‘Darlin’, I could melt ya down fer grease’. The next thing that I recall

I woke up in the hospital where I guess I’d been fer just about a week.

Oh, she’s just a little touchy you might say. So I had to kindy larn to keep my place and try not to hurt her feelin’s so I don’t git knocked through the ceilin’ and it tends to keep the bruises off my face.

’Cause she’s bigger than a mountain is around. She picks me up on o’er her head and throws me down. Then she drops down on my body and then perceeds to squash me and she don’t git up ’til I’m driv in the ground.

So, Roberta come on back home after her deevorce to be with all her seventeen siblins again. Even though ma and pa had so many of us they was real good to us all.

Now ma, she mighta been just a little too good to us all and sometimes pa would say us young’uns was spoiled.

Ma said, “That ain’t true, ’cause most all the mountain kids smell like that.”

Ma and pa both had purty strong opinions on thangs. What they each saw as irable firmness in themselves they saw as hard headed stubbornness in the other.

Ma wanted to raise us all the same, but pa, he wanted to raise us individual like, respectin’ to our different personalities.

Like with me for example, when I was a baby, pa heared tell that if ya take a baby and ya sit that baby on the floor and ya put different objects out in front of him, whatever object he would reach out and grab fer would show what his interests is and the direction he’ll probably go in life.

So, pa sit me on the floor and he set three different objects out in front of me. He set a Bible, a bottle of whiskey and twenty dollar bill. Then he waited to see which one I’d grab fer.

Well, I hear tell that I reached out and grabbed all three of ’em.

Pa said, “Lordy be! He’s gonna be a politician!”

Then pa commenced to wonderin’ if any of his other young’uns would maybe be politicians, so he come up with a way to find that out. He sit all my siblin’s down on the floor and put a bunch of lemons in front of ’em.

He figgered whatever one of ’em picked up a lemon and squeezed it dry was bound to be somebody who’d work fer the government.

Pa never much liked politics, but he did always vote over at the courthouse in Stuckinville when elections come about. There was an election scandal one year though, when the state of Tennessee sent in some investigators to question all the voters.

When they called in pa they asked him, “Did you sell yer vote?”

Pa said, “Nosiree. I voted fer that thar feller ’cause I like him.”

Then the investigators said, “We have evidence you were paid fifty dollrs fer yer vote.”

Pa said, “Well, it’s just plain common sense that if a feller gives ya fifty dollars, yer gonna like him.”

Even though pa liked votin’ ’cause of the money he got fer it, none of us young’uns ever did go into politics. The closest we ever come to politics is the pile o’ticks we’d get in our hair whenever we’d go walkin’ through the woods in Klufford’s Holler.

As fer me, I becomed a mountain music sanger and banjer picker, like I was a’tellin’ ya ’bout. I do got other talents though. Like for example I can clog. Yeah, I clog a lot. All I have to do is eat a bunch of cheese.

When I’d clog up when I was a child, ma and pa would never give any laxatives’ ner castor oil fer it. Naw, they’d just take me to the outhouse, sit me down and tell me ghost stories.

Chapter Two

Old Timers & Moonshiners

It was good growin’ up in Klufford’s Holler. They’s lots of nice folks what live thar. I ’specially like the old timers. I like to get together with ’em whenever I can, ’cause I’m getting’ a quite a few years on me myself.

Not as many years as them real old timers, though. Why, them real old timers, when they first come into Klufford’s Holler, they started out with nothin’. And today they still got most of it.

Before the old timers come into Kluffords Holler I hear tell the Indians lived whar the town now is. I don’t know much ’bout Indians, but from what I reckon they must be the folks what invented porch rockin’ chair gossip, ’cause they had a chief named Sittin’ Bull.

One time I heard tell a newspaper feller up in Knoxville interviewed one of the old Indians from around the Smokies. One of the questions he asked the old Indian was, “What was the most challengin’ smoke signal you ever sent?”

The old Indian answered, “It’s rainin’ like crazy here!”

I hear tell that when white folks come into our country they made treaties with the Indians. I don’t know much ’bout that neither, but they tell me them treaties

was broke so much that they must have been sent by mail.

I thinks maybe a lot of folks in Klufford’s Holler must has Indian blood in ’em. Most ever time ya ask folks around the holler to do somethin’ they always say “How?”

Anyways, along with the old timers, not hardly anybody else in Klufford’s Holler has too much of anything either. It’s just a small town with some farms spread out over pert near forty acres. Downtown’s just a few shops. One of ’em is Fletcher Gulley’s Farm Tools Combination Feed & Grain Store. He sells lumber thar, too.

Not long ago Lum Nallsmeter come into Fletcher’s store wantin’ some lumber. He telled Fletcher he needed some two by fours.

Fletcher asked, “How long do ya need ’em?”

Lum said, “Quite a spell. I’m buildin’ on to my shack.”

The old timers in Klufford’s Holler don’t think of theirselves as bein’ old, ’cause just like with ever’body else, old age is always twenty years older than what ya are.

Like with ever’body else too, the older they git, the futher they had to walk to school as a boy… at least fer the very few what went to schoolin’.

Nathanel Gortshinner is one of the oldest of the old timers in Klufford’s Holler. He was 105 on his last birthday. When a Knoxville newspaper feller got wind of how old Nathanel was, he come into Klufford’s Holler to do an interview with him.

When the newspaper feller asked Nathanel what he attributed his longevity to, Nathanel said, “Well, I’m not sure yet, but I got me a lawyer negotiatin’ a deal with three differ’nt breakfast cereal companies.”

One of the Klufford’s Holler old timers named Farley Dunslopper found out about a game called golf awhile back and commenced to goin’ up to a golf course in Knoxville to play. Not long after that he found that his eyesight was gittin’ so bad that he couldn’t see whar he hit the ball to.

One of the other golfers on the course was an old timer too, who had great eyesight. So Nate asked if he could team up with him. The old feller was more than glad to team up and when Nate hit the ball he asked the other old feller if he could see where it went.

“Sure did” the old feller said, “Now if I could just where it went.”

What the old timers in Klufford’s Holler like to do is get together and pick their banjers, manderlins and gueetars ’round the pickle barrel at Harlan Crumpton’s Cowbarn Restaurant. Then they eat vittles.

Whilest they eat they mostly talk about their hard times.

That’s one of the great thangs about America. It’s ’bout the only country in the world whar ya can talk ’bout hard times over a twenty dollar steak.

One time when Harlan brought the old timers their steaks he was holdin’ his hand on top of them. When they asked him why he was holding his hand on the steaks, Harlan said, “So I don’t drop ’em on the ground again.”

After they eat, the old timers always have a piece of Harlan’s pie. Harlan has two kinds of pie, apple and peach.

Near ’bout ever’time after the old timers finish their pie, one of the old timers will ask him, “What kind of pie was that, Harlan?”

Then Harlan will ask, “Well, what did it taste like?”

The old timer will say, “It tasted like glue.”

Then Harlan will answer, “That’s apple. The peach tastes like plaster.”

Harlan never was all that good of a cook. Come Thanksgivin’ one time he called up the food editor of the Knoxville newspaper to ask him how long to cook a turkey.

The food editor said, “Just a minute” then turned to look at his recipe book.

Harlan said, “Thanky” and hung up.

Like I sayed, I go up with the old timers at Harlan Crumpton’s Cowbarn Restaurant and pick my banjer along with ’em ’cause of getting’ a lot of years on me now.

But ya know, if I had a chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t want to. I mean, who’d want to go through stuff like potty trainin’ and teenage pimples again, ya know?

Sides that, I have since larnt that life’s big problems never seem to come at ya when yer a teenager and ya know ever’thang.

What else I larnt is that when yer young you can figger out all of life’s problems over coffee and cigeerits, but when ya git older, coffee and cigeerits is the problems.

I also larnt that when yer old enough to read the handwritin’ on the wall, yer old enough to know better.

Another thang I larnt is that when ya come to the end of a perfect day, it prob’ly ain’t over yet.

When I was young though, I must confess I did sow my wild oats and did some things I shouldn’t have did. Like fer example I did some of that moonshine

drinkin’ when I was young.

There’s a lot of moonshinin’ that goes on in Klufford’s Holler and a lot of it is done by the old timers. The old timer what did most of the moonshinin’ in Klufford’s Holler is Grizwald Klump.

Grizwald had the most well knowed moonshine operation goin’ this side of Bluff Mountain. Folks would come from all over the Smokies to get moonshine from him, and sometimes even as far away as Knoxville.

Problem with that was, the revenuers up in Knoxville got wind of Grizwald’s moonshine still and they sent a revenuer agent on into Klufford’s Holler a’lookin’ fer Grizwald’s still.

When that revenuer agent come into Klufford’s Holler he started askin’ a whole mess of questions, so everybody got tight lipped.

Grizwald had a little boy named Klem though, and when that revenuer agent heared tell about Klem bein’ Grizwald’s boy, that revenuer agent went and found Klem and he said, “Little boy, if you tell me where your daddy’s moonshine still is, I’ll go find it and then I’ll come back and give you a dollar.”

Little Klem’s eyes just lit up wide and he said, “Oh! I’ll tell ya where daddy’s moonshine still is! But you give me that dollar first!”

The revenuer agent said, “Why should I do that?”

Little Klem said, “Well, if you go lookin’ fer daddy’s moonshine still, you won’t be comin’ back.”

So anyway, like I say, a lot of the old timers in Klufford’s Holler do some moonshin’, but it wasn’t old timers what started me drinkin’ moonshine when I was and sowing my wild oats.

The reason I started drinkin’ that moonshine was because of my very first love named Millicent. She was what’s called a perfect ‘10’ and had an I.Q. to match.

She was a moonshiner too, and larnt it from her pa.

So, ever’ time I went over to court and spark Millicent, she’d want me to drink her moonshine with her, so I did. I was plum in love with Millicent though she didn’t much seem intersted in my feelin’s fer her.

She did let me smooch her a couple times, but she didn’t want me a’tall and commenced to git mad when I wanted to smooch on her some more.

It forelorned me quite a bit and I writ one of my pinein’ love song poems ’bout her, what goes…

She surely is a looker. She’s ever’thang I want.

From the fleas in her hair to the gunny sacks she wears to her missin’ teeth up front.

So I took in to chasin’ her and tellin’ her them sweet-talk lines. But in spite of my infection she won’t look in my direction ’cause she’s a first cussin’ of mine.

Oh, kiss ‘n’ cussins. Kiss ‘n’ cussins. That’s all it’ll ever be. Kiss ‘n’ cussins. Kiss ‘n’ cussins. My own kin don’t want me. Oh, she waddles like a possum. She looks somethin’ like a chimpanzee. But each time I try to kissin’ her she starts to cussin’ me.

Oh, how I tried

to make her see my side though her pa and mine is brothers. We could still go ’round and do the town and not fuss about family matters.

But she’d say, “That is incest.” And I’d say, “What’s it got to do with bugs?” We could have somethin’ special. It don’t gotta be official. We’d just tell that it’s a relative love.

Oh, kiss ‘n’ cussins. Kiss ‘n’ cussins. That’s all it’ll ever be. Kiss ‘n’ cussins. Kiss ‘n’ cussins. My own kin don’t want me. Oh, she waddles like a possum. She looks somethin’ like a chimpanzee. But each time I try to kissin’ her

she starts to cussin’ me.

So whilest I kept on a’tryin’ to court and spark Millicent I’d drink her moonshine with her. We drank her moonshine fer quite a spell, up ’til that revenuer agent from Knoxville come into Klufford’s Holler and caught her a’moonshinin’. He arrested Millicent and she got throwed off into prison.

But even after she went to prison, I loved her still.

Chapter Three

Unlucky In Love

After my first love Millicent got throwed off into prison, I had to find myself somebody else to love ’cause she was gone. I was always kinda unlucky in love, though. Never could find me nobody to love.

I even sent my picture on into the Lonely Hearts Club. They sent it back marked ‘We ain’t that lonely’.

There was one I girl liked from Muckwaller, which is the next town over from Klufford’s Holler. Her name was Cinda Sue. But me bein’ unlucky in love, Cinda Sue didn’t like me in the way I liked her.

She did let me take her fer a walk one time, so I took her fer a walk on the family pig farm to try and impress her with it.

While we was a’walkin’ on the pig farm I tried to get up the courage to give her a little kiss.

Just about that time a couple of the pigs started rubbin’ noses together and I thought, ‘This here’s my opportunity!’

So I said, “Cinda Sue. Ya see them pigs out yonder rubbin’ their noses together? It kinda makes me wanna do the same.”

Cinda Sue said, “Go ahead. Thar yer pigs.”

I kept a ‘tryin’ to court and spark Cinda Sue, though. I even writ her a love poem song what I sung to her. I thinks it was what commenced to meltin’ her heart down fer me. The song I sung to her went…

Oh won’t ya please be my hillbilly honeybunch? I’ll take ya to the swamp fer a crawdad lunch Then we can go fer a swim with the bugs ‘n’ critters in thar, too.

Then we can lay all day a’dryin’ out on the porch swattin’ flies and a’munchin’ on some possum, of course, ‘til the night comes ’round ‘n’ we can the hounds howlin’ at the moon.

And we’ll be goin’ ‘O-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ Oh honey, be mine. ‘O-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ Love in the moonshine.

Oh, honey bunch I so much want ya to come to my one room, dirt floor, hillbilly home.

’Cept fer termites, snakes ‘n’ skunks it’s a nice little titled shack.

The sun it comes right through the roof. There’s runnin’ water when it storms. There’s plastic bags to shut the winders in the winter months. It’s got pigs and possums in the front and a buncha junk cars out back.

And we’ll be goin’ ‘O-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ Oh honey, be mine. ‘O-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ Love in the moonshine.

Oh, honey say yes ‘n’ it can all be yers ‘long with a two holer outhouse I marked his and hers. I’m a’hopin’ that you’ll wanna ’cause I done bent a nail to a ring.

And can’t ya see us thar years from today? Pickin’ fleas and ticks from each other’s hair gone gray. Poppin’ jug corks ’til the night starts us howlin’ at the moon!

And we’ll be goin’ ‘O-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ Oh honey, be mine. ‘O-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ Love in the moonshine.

So finally my courtin’ paid off and she give into my love and infection. I even

writ another a poem song ’bout Cinda Sue some time later on. I was still unlucky in love and we winded up a’partin’ company. Here’s the poem song I writ about her though…

Long time ago, Lord, I was so alone and sad up in my shack there with my faithful hound dog Sloan. Then one day a young thang walked on by my place what made my heart drop in my socks so I started to chase…

Cinda Sue, oh, Cinda Sue. Yer a plain and simple girl and I plain ‘n’ simply do love you. Cinda Sue, oh, Cinda Sue Yer a plain and simple girl and I plain ‘n’ simply do love you.

Took her out to breakfast. Picked her flowers, too. Took her out to lunch and then we spent the afternoon.

Took her out to supper. Took her to a show. Asked her if she’d marry me and she just said, “No.”

Kept up with my courtin’ all the way ’til June. Popped the question once again. She said, “I guess you’ll do.” Took her to the preacher, he pernounced us man and wife. Couldn’t afford a weddin’ ring so I give her my pocket knife.

Took her to my shack and I showed her all around. Showed her how to feed the chickens, slop the hogs and milk the cows. Showed her how to cook and clean and wash my shirts and pants. Fer too long she’s up and gone

and I ain’t seen her since.

Cinda Sue, oh, Cinda Sue. Yer a plain and simple girl and I plain ‘n’ simply do love you. Cinda Sue, oh, Cinda Sue yer a plain and simple girl and I plain ‘n’ simply do love you.

So, that’s what come of my time with Cinda Sue. It’s too bad she left ’cause she woulda fit so well in the family.

My family is a combination of the Irish and the Cherokee Indians. They like to sit around campfires and peel potaters.

Anyway, I been a bachler feller most all my life. It that ain’t so bad, though. I’ve lost out at love a lot of times, but I’ve larnt that love’s a game and ya got to be a good sport about it.

The only problem with bein’ a good sport is that ya have to lose to a lot in order to larn to be one.

From what I hear tell, a bachler is a feller what can make a fool outta hisself without bein’ told about it.

Another thang I hear tell is a lot of bachlers is like concentrated bathtub soap powders. They work fast and leave no ring.

I don’t worry none ’bout gittin’ married no more. Worryin’ is too much like a rockin’ chair. It gives ya somethin’ to do, but it don’t git ya nowheres.

Married folks ’round Klufford’s Holler tell me what their married life is like. From what they say sometimes I thank I’d really like to git married again, but other times I don’t. Some say marriage is made in heaven, but then so’s thunder and lightenin’.

From what I seen with the married folks’ ’round Klufford’s Holler is that in the first year of marriage the husband speaks and the wife listens, in the second year the wife speaks and the husband listens, and in the third year they both speak and the neighbors listen.

One time a married feller in town named Ebb Sneedgroff took sick and had to go the hospital. His wife Perilla stayed at his bedside the whole time.

Ebb said to her, “You’ve always been right thar with me when I’ve had trouble, Perilla. When I lost my shirt in a bad business deal, you was right thar with me. When I had an accident in my jalopy, you was right thar with me. When I lost all my tabacky crop to a storm, you was right thar with me. When I got fired from my job, you was right thar with me.

I done come to the conclusion that yer bad luck.”

Fletcher Gully what got hitched up to Louella Suggs says he never knew what happiness was ’til he got married… and then it was too late.

Louella says Fletcher is livin’ proof that she can take a joke.

Then Fletcher says bein’ married to Louella is like takin’ a shower. One wrong turn and he’s in hot water.

Then Louella says Fletcher is like an owl with laryngitis. He doesn’t give a hoot.

One day Nate Hurffurtner was talkin’ to Hubert Beanspittle and he said his wife Edna Jo talks to herself a lot.

Nate said “My wife Matty May talks to herself a lot, too. She thinks I’m a’listenin’.”

Nate also said, “Matty May complained about the present I give her last Christmas. She told me the color was right but the size was wrong.”

Hubert asked, “What’d ya give her?”

Nate said, “A five dollar bill.”

Hubert asked, “What’d she give you?”

Nate said, “A dozen batteries. She said she heared tell that’s what makes thangs work.”

Olan and Mertyl Lomersbort from over in the far south side of the holler has been married fer nigh unto thirty two years. Mertyl has been love starved tho ’cause Olan never her shows her any infection or ’preciation.

Finally Mertyl blurted out, “Olan, why don’t ya ever tell me ya love me?”

Olan said, “Mertyl, when we got married I told ya I loved ya. If I ever change my mind I’ll let ya know.”

Delmar Hubbsmeyer has a wife named Lynda Lou and a hound dog named Slurp.

One day Delmar telled Lynda Lou, “In this life I’ve found that a man just needs two good friends.”

So she bought him another hound dog.

Not long ago Delmar announced, “Me and Lynda Lou are celebratin’ our crystal

anniversary. That’s fifteen years of her sayin’ she can see right through me.”

Seems to me that too many folks what ain’t married wish they was and too many married folks wish they wasn’t. It’s kinda like always thinkin’ the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Maybe it’s that way ’cause the folks on the other side of the fence take better care of it.

Some say marriage is all a matter of compromise. Compromise as I understand it, is an arrangement where people who can’t get what they want makes sure nobody else does neither.

Others say the whole reason fer marriage is to have young’uns. They’s a lot of folks in Klufford’s Holler what has young’uns. One of the reasons I think folks like young’uns is ’cause they ain’t always showin’ ya pictures of their parents.

Another thang I think folks like about havin’ young’uns is by the time they git old enough to embarrass their ma and pa, the thangs their ma’s and pa’s do embarrass them.

When folks’ young’uns grow up and wanna git married, that’s when one of the greatest mysteries in life happens. Somehow the boy what weren’t good enough to marry their daughter somehow becomes the father of the smartest grandchild in the world.

Flynn and Edna Nobberstoot’s little granddaughter Betsy Lou is purty smart. One time she come up to her mamaw Edna and said, “Mamaw, how old are you?”

Edna said, “Betsy Lou, it ain’t nice to ask a person how old they are.”

Then little Betsy Lou said, “Mamaw, how much do you weigh?”

Edna said, “Betsy Lou, it ain’t nice to ask a person how much they way neither.”

Then Betsy Lou said, “Yer seventy one years old and ya weigh a hundred and sixty four pounds.”

Edna said, “How did ya know that?”

Betsy Lou said, “Ya left yer drivin’ license on the kitchen table and I read it.”

Edna said, “Oh… yer readin’ already?”

Betsy Lou said, “Yep… and it says ya flunked sex, too.”

Most of the married folks ’round Klufford’s Holler do purty good with bein’ married. Most of the time anyway. When I see that, it’s what makes me wanna git married again sometimes. But like I sayed, I’m unlucky in love and don’t try to find me nobody too much no more.

I just figger if they’s somebody out thar fer me, the good Lord will bring her to me. That’s what happened to my brother Klyde when he met his wife Bernice. The first time he saw her she had in hair curlers, no makeup and was wearin’ a bathrobe and he said, “Good Lord!”

The way he met her was he had a garbage route what went by her shack. Just as he was in’ by her shack in his truck, Bernice come a runnin’ out in her curlers, no makeup and bathrobe and said, “Am I too late fer the garbage?”

Klyde said, “No ma’am, jump on in.”

Even though they’s lots of married folks in Klufford’s Holler, they’s lots of folks what ain’t married just like me. We’s called singles. I don’t know if I like the idear of bein’ called a single just ’cause I ain’t married.

I mean, should married folks be called doubles?

In the case of my big size sibling’s and the ones they married, they might should be called double wides.

Those of us what is called singles got that name when Esther Jo Bunderspell decided to start up what she called a singles ministry at the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church. The idear I reckon is fer us all to git together so we won’t be lonely bein’ as we don’t have us a mate. The second idear is, of course, that we might find us a mate outta somebody in the church singles ministry batch.

The womenfolks in the church singles ministry say the menfolks need wives to cook fer ’em but the menfolk say that ain’t true. They can cook fer theirselves just fine. The only problem is eatin’ it.

The menfolks say the womenfolks need menfolks to do men’s work ’round their shacks. Most times men’s work in the holler involves settin’ smaller TV boxes up top of a bigger TV boxes once the bigger ones goes out. Then they move the couch up closer to the smaller TV box so’s they can see the football games better while they lay on the couch eatin’ bags of pork rinds and drinkin’ cans of Bud.

When it comes to other kinds of men’s work, it’s usually the kind that don’t git done in the winter ’cause it’s too cold to do what didn’t git done in the summer ’cause it was too hot.

They’s a lot of problems what come up in the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church singles group. One is that the womenfolk tend to not like the menfolk too good and the menfolk don’t like the womenfolk too good. That’s mostly ’cause ever’body in the group is older and has done lost their young ‘n’ good lookin’ appeal.

They’s all at least in their mid-life. Folks can always tell when they’s at mid-life. That’s the time when yer knees commence to buckle and yer belt don’t.

Mid-life is also that time when ya look fer where the action is so you can go somewheres else.

A lot of the folks in the singles ministry try to stay as young lookin’ as possible. A few of them have larnt the secret to stayin’ young. They eat right, git a good

night’s sleep and lie about their age.

As they git older folks find that they generally become more quiet. ’Course they have a lot more to keep quiet about.

The mid-age folks can always tell when their turnin’ into old folks when they sink their teeth into a steak and they stay there.

Hubert Lumcurd, one of the oldest fellers in the church singles group, bein’ ’bout ninety, once writ a poem he shared with ever’body. It went…

I can live with my arthritis. My dentures fit me fine. I can see with my bifocals. But I sure do miss my mind.

Hubert commenced to take a shine to Dorathea Fupp what’s ’bout eighty five years old. He was shy when it come to tellin’ her his feelin’s though, until finally at one of the singles meetin’s he mustered up the courage and blurted out, “Let’s get married!”

Dorathea said, “That’s a wonderful idea! But who would have us?”

In the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church singles ministry the

menfolk’s chests have fallen into their drawers and their hairstyles have gone from parted and unparted to departed.

As for the womenfolk, their faces have gone from purty to pruny and their middles has gone from flatland to mountainous.

Another thang is that all the of the singles ministry gossip about one another. ’Course that goes on in general ’round the church anyway. Gossip is hard to keep settled down ’cause it most always involves knowin’ secrets what ain’t yer business, which of course is what folks generally is most interested in.

It’s mostly felt that some secrets are just too good to keep.

‘Course nothin’ makes a long story short quite as much as the arrival of the person bein’ talked about.

When it comes to church gossip I reckon it’s probably best to let it go on in one ear and out the other ’stead of in one ear, git all mixed up and then go out the mouth.

Gossip vines only grow sour grapes, of course.

It’s good to pick yer friends, but not to pieces and it’s better to bite yer tongue than let it bite others. You’ll always find that a true friend is somebody what says nice thangs about ya behind yer back.

Besides gossip, they’s other problems ’round the church, too. One is a problem with church choir attendance. The head of the choir, Mableen Fitzborkle, gits mighty upset about that. ‘Specially ’round Christmas time when the choir is supposed to do their annual Christmas program.

Last year when the choir was to be practicin’ for the Christmas program, only a few showed up off and on all through rehearsal time, except fer Unigene McGumpther what is the choir pianer player.

In thanks for Unigene’s faithfulness to always show up fer rehearsals, Mableen said at the final rehearsal before the program the next day, “I’d like ’specially recognize Unigene fer her faithfulness to always be here for every rehearsal.”

Unigene stood up and said, “Thank ya, Mableen. It’s the least I could do bein’ as I’m goin’ outta town fer Christmas tomorry and won’t be here for the program.”

Chapter Four

Tourist Folks What Come Into Klufford’s Holler

I never did know how my kinfolks got settled into Klufford’s Holler, so one time I looked my family tree and guess what I found out.

They’s still up thar.

It’s said that one of my kinfolk, what was named Zeb Buskins, come into the holler with his wife Gertrude, settled some farmland and built a shack and a barn.

It was way back when they was still a lot of Indians a’runnin’ ’round the mountains, so Zeb put up a clangin’ bell on a pole and told Gertrude that if he was ever out in the field and Indians come around makin’ trouble to clang the bell and he’d come a’runnin’.

One day Zeb was out in the field puttin’ up fence posts and suddenly he heard Gertrude clangin’ the bell, he went a’runnin’ to the shack. When he got there he said, “What’s wrong?”

Gertrude said, “Nuthin’. I just figgered you’d want some lunch.”

Zeb said, “Dagnabbit, woman! Yer only s’posed to clang that bell when they’s trouble with the Indians!”

Then he went back out to the field to put up fence posts.

After a spell he heard Gertrude clangin’ the bell again, so he went a’runnin’ to the shack.

When he got there he said, “What’s wrong now?”

Gertrude said, “Nuthin’. I just needed to know if ya wanted me to warsh out yer long johns today.”

Zeb said, “Tarnation woman! I told ya only to clang that bell if they was trouble with them Indians!”

Then he headed back out into the field to put up more fence posts.

After a while he heard the bell clangin’ again and got really mad. He stormed back to the shack and found the shack and barn was burnt down, his cattle and horses was stole and Gertrude had an arrow through her shoulder.

Zeb said, “Now that’s more like it!”

They’s always a black sheep in ever’ family and in ours it was my great uncle Homer Buskins. He was executed in the electric chair at Brushy Mountain State Prison fer murder.

The family went to great lengths to try and cover up Uncle Homer’s black sheepness. They even hired a professionalized biogreefer up in Knoxville to doctor up his part of our family’s history.

In fixin’ thangs up fer the family, when it come to how Uncle Homer died, the biogreefer writ: ‘Homer Buskins occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties and his death came as a complete shock’.

‘Cept fer Uncle Homer most all my family is purty good folks, just like most all my friends, neighbors and ever’body else in Klufford’s Holler.

Church goin’ folks they is. Baptists. Ever’body goes to the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church with the Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem, pastor.

Livin’ in the Smoky Mountains, we see a lot of tourist folks what come into the Smokies all the time. Some of them tourist folks find their way all the way back into Klufford’s Holler and I thinks the tourists what find their way into Klufford’s Holler must be church goin’ folks, too.

As soon as they come into the holler they start talkin’ church talk right off.

They say things like, “Oh Lord! Pew!”

One time we got a whole car load of nuns what come into Klufford’s Holler. They didn’t stop in town, though. They just driv right on through.

But they shoulda stopped. They shoulda stopped at Bub and Chesley Gillenwater’s gasoline station and got ’em some gasoline, ’cause less than a mile outside of town they runned outta gas. So one of them nuns had to go on back to Bub and Chesley Gillenawater’s and git some gasoline.

She didn’t have a gas can to carry any gasoline in, though. All she had was a bedpan. They all worked up at a hospital in Knoxville, so that’s why they had a bedpan handy.

So that nun walked on back to Bub and Chesley Gillenwater’s gasoline station and they put as much gas in that bedpan as they could. Then that nun walked the gasoline on back to their car and commenced to pourin’ it into the car from the bedpan.

Just about that time Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem, pastor of the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church, come a drivin’ by in his jalopy. When he saw that nun pourin’ the gas into their car from that bedpan, he stopped.

Then he rolled down his winder and said, “Ma’am. I been a Baptist all my life. But if that works, I’m convertin’ to Catholic!”

I don’t thinks he would have really done that though, ’cause like most all Baptist churchfolk he knows that when somebody changes from the Baptist denomination to another that’s what’s called a traitor.

‘Course when somebody changes from their denomination to Baptist, that’s what’s called a convert.

I was never able to quite able to figger out why them Catholic ladies what work in their church houses all call theyselves nuns. Seems to me like they’d want to go by more numbers than that, like ones and twos and threes and such.

Sometimes we git old hippies what come into Klufford’s Holler too, drivin’ them 1960’s VW mini-vans. You can always tell old hippies. They’s the ones what’s gone from takin’ acid to takin’ anti-acid.

A couple old hippie fellers what come into Klufford’s Holler saw that carload of nuns sittin’ ‘longside the road while they was waitin’ fer the nun what had gone to Bub and Chesley’s gasoline station to come on back with some gas.

The hippie fellers stopped and asked if they was okay and the nuns said they was fine. They explained to the old hippie fellers that they was just waitin’ fer the one nun to git back.

The old hippie fellers noticed that one of the nuns in the car had a cast around her arm and they asked, “What happened?”

The nun said, “I slipped and fell in the bathtub.”

Then the hippie fellers wished the nuns a good day and drove off.

Whilest they was drivin’ off one of the old hippies said to the other, “What’s a bathtub?”

The other said, “I dunno. I’m not Catholic.”

A lot of tourist folks pull into Bub and Chesley Gillenwater’s gasoline station askin’ directions and such while they get gas. A lot of times hunters pull in and ask about good huntin’ places, especially deer huntin’.

Bub and Chesley knows a lot about deer huntin’. They tells hunter folks the best place to hunt deer is way back in the mountains where ya can’t git to by car. They tell ’em ya gotta rent an airyplane and hire a pilot from the little private airport up in Knoxville to git thar.

One time a hunter offered to pay Bub and Chesley fifty dollars each if they would go along with him in a plane and direct him to where the good deer huntin’ places was, so they agreed to do it.

After the pilot reached the area he set the airyplane down in a clearin’ and they all went huntin’. They bagged three good size deer.

When they got back to the airyplane the pilot who was waiting on ’em told ’em that the four of them and three deer would be too much weight for the plane to carry.

Then Bub said, “We was deer hunting out here last year and the airyplane we rode in was just like this one, the horsepower was the same and the weather was purty much the same. We had four people and three good size deer then, too.”

So the pilot said, “Okay” and they hauled the three deer onto the airyplane then all got aboard.

After the plane took off it come right back down and crashed from having too much weight.

As they stumbled from the wreckage the hunter and the pilot asked Bub and Chesley if they knew where they were.

Bub and Chesley said, “I think we’re ’bout a half a mile from where we crashed last year.”

They’s a lot of differ’nt kinds of tourist folk hunters what come into Klufford’s Holler. One hunter what come into the holler met up with Wiley Turndunkle who had his coon huntin’ dog with him.

The hunter asked Wiley how much he wanted fer his coon dog.

Wiley said he’d take a hundred dollars, so the hunter feller writ out a hundred dollar check and handed it to Wiley.

Wiley looked at the check, shook his head and handed it back sayin’ he wanted cash.

The hunter feller said, “Don’t worry, the check is good. I’m a trustee of the Methodist church.”

So Wiley took the check and give the hunter feller his coon dog.

A while later on Wiley asked Harlan Crumpton from over at the Cowbarn Restaurant what a Methodist trustee was.

Harlan said, “I don’t rightly know, but I reckon it’s ’bout the same as a Baptist trustee.”

Wiley said, “Oh no. There goes my coon dog.”

One time a newspaper subscription salesman from up in Knoxville come into Klufford’s Holler a’tryin’ to git folks to buy subscriptions to his newspaper. He went ’round the holler all day long tryin’ to git folks to buy a subscription, but nobody did.

‘Round ’bout sunset he decided he’d stay in the holler overnight at Elsie Bell’s motel and went thar to check in.

Whilest he was checkin’ in he asked Elsie if she’d like to buy a subscription to his newspaper, to which she said she didn’t.

After checkin’ in the salesman went to bed all frustrated that he didn’t make a single sale all day.

The next mornin’ when he got up to check out he noticed through his room winder that Elsie had a small corn patch growin’ on the backside of her motel, over next to the motel outhouse. That give him an idear.

Whilest he was checkin’ out of Elsie’s motel he said, “I noticed you got a corn patch growin’ out back next to your outhouse. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a full three month subscription to my newspaper in exchange fer three ears of yer corn. Then after that if ya like the newspaper, I’ll sign ya up fer a year subscription.”

While Elsie checked the salesman out she said, “Mister, ya saw I got a corn patch out back next to my outhouse, so why in the world would ya think I need any newspapers fer?”

One time we got a tourist bus outta North Carolina what come through Klufford’s Holler. The bus was one what went all ’round the south whar the driver showed the engers different sites from the Civil War.

When the bus come through the holler the driver stopped and ever’body got off. Then the driver pointed to different mountains around the holler.

He said, “On that mountain thar is whar General Lee beat Grant’s third division army.

On that mountain over thar is whar General Lee’s army beat Grant’s nineth division army.

Then on that mountain thar is whar General Lee’s army beat Grant’s second division army.”

Then one of the engers said to the driver, “Is there any place where General Grant defeated any of Lee’s armies?”

The driver said, “Not while I’m the driver of this bus he didn’t!”

In Klufford’s Holler we all know the Civil War was a draw. The North won it in the history books and the South won it in the novels.

Sometimes folks in Klufford’s Holler and tourist folks don’t git along that good. Fact is a long while back a down right serious argument broke out betweenst a local resident named Manford Peebles and a feller from Texas.

It ended up with the feller from Texas challengin’ Manford to a pistol dual at sun

up the next mornin’, which Manford agreed to.

The next mornin’ at sun up Manford sent a messenger to the feller from Texas with a note what said, “I’m gonna be late, so just go ahead and shoot and I’ll shoot when I git thar.

Chapter Five

Gospel Mountain Music Sanger

Like I sayed earlier on, most everybody in Klufford’s Holler goes to The Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church. I been goin’ thar a long spell my own self. Fact is, one time Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem come to me and said, “Fuster, ya think you’d like to do some Decon work?”

I got all excited and said, “Reverend Elmer T! Do ya mean you want me to be a church Decon?!”

Reverend Elmer T. said, “No. I just want you to put some Decon ’round the church fer the rats and mice is all.”

So that’s what I did and it worked purty good at first. But then after a spell the rats and mice commenced becomin’ ammune to that thar Decon and then they commenced to usin’ it fer their feed and havin’ more and more rats and mice.

When that happened I telled Reverend Elmer T. ’bout it and he commenced to tryin’ to come up with another idear to fix the problem. Finally he come up with a sure fire solution.

What he did was he got up in the pulpit one Sunday mornin’ and he said, “Ever’body… they’s a whole buncha rats and mice a’runnin’ ’round the church

house here, so I figured that since they’s here all the time, I might as well make ’em official of the church.”

That’s what he did that very Sunday mornin’. He made all the rats and mice official of the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church.

Then after they become of the church, now they only show up on Christmas and Easter.

After I got done with my Decon work I wanted to do other thangs fer the church, so what I decided I’d do is, I’d write me up some gospel mountain music poem songs to go along with my banjer pickin’, then I could go out from the church as a gospel mountain music sanger. So that’s what I did.

One gospel mountain music poem song I writ was inspired by watchin’ the fleas hop around on my ol’ hound dog Sloan. It goes like this here…

Well, he used come on a snarlin’ and a growlin’ like a big ol’ mean top dog. But now he’s just a whinin’ whipped pup that’s been whomped and stomped by God.

Yes, he used to have the bite on this old world by the sin that he began

’til the Lord of all come on down from above and knocked his teeth right in.

Yes, he used to run things here on earth, but now he’s runnin’ for his life, you see. ’cause the hound of heaven hunts the hound of hell and the devil’s got the flees.

Well, the devil he flees from mercy and the devil he flees from truth. You just resist him in Jesus name and the devil’s gonna flee from you.

So go and preach the gospel and set his prisoners free. and tell ’em all to kick that old dog out ’cause the devil’s got the flees.

Now the devil’s still runnin’ ’round this great big world a’seekin’ who he may devour. But no one needs to be lunch now for who God’s punched out.

Jesus took away his power.

All you gotta do is stand by the cross and ya know ’Yipe! Yipe ! Yipe!’ he’ll go. Ain’t no nation needs to be his Kennel Ration and no man his Alpo.

So don’t ya let him fool ya for a minute ’cause he trembles when he sees yer gonna stand your ground in God and put him down ’cause the devil’s got the flees.

Well, the devil he flees from mercy and the devil he flees from truth. You just resist him in Jesus name and the devil’s gonna flee from you.

So go and preach the gospel And set his prisoners free. And tell ’em all to kick that old dog out ’cause the devil’s got the flees.

Now one day soon the time will come that mangy mutt won’t be around no more when he’s finally told to git to that bottomless pit and lake of fire where there ain’t no shore.

‘Til that day comes we gotta keep him on the run every time his ugly face may show. He’s just a dog on a chain and every now and again he’s gotta be told where to go.

So don’t back down when comes around. Resist him ’til he tucks and tail and leaves. Yes, when you’re under the blood he’s the one that’s bugged ’cause the devil’s got the flees.

Well, the devil he flees from mercy and the devil he flees from truth.

You just resist him in Jesus name and the devil’s gonna flee from you.

So go and preach the gospel and set his prisoners free. And tell ’em all to kick that old dog out ’cause the devil’s got the flees.

The very first place I went to do my gospel mountain music sangin’ was at that thar hospital up in Knoxville whar them nuns what come through Klufford’s Holler worked.

Yessiree, I went on into that hospital and to the chapel room and folks all come in and commenced to hiccup. They looked at me and then at each another and said, “They’s a hick up thar.”

Then I commenced to sangin’ ’em my gospel mountain music songs to try and cheer ever’body up.

When I got done I said, “Well, I hope ya git better.”

They said, “Well, we hope you git better, too.”

One thang I noticed while I was in that hospital is them hospital gowns is rated G in front, but in the back they’s rated X.

They charge ya $400.00 a day fer a private room and then give ya a gown what’s fully public.

Once I did my gospel mountain music sangin’ in that thar hospital, after a spell I commenced to goin’ all over the place in Knoxville doin’ gospel mountain music sangin’. Most places I went to was church houses in Knoxville. The way I found church houses was I looked in one of them teleyphone book yeller pages whar they’s got ’em all listed one after ’nother.

That was a good thing ‘about the third grade edjecation I got at the Witherspoon Spinsters one room schoolhouse combination libery in Klufford’s Holler. I learnt to do my readin’ purty good. A lot of words anyway.

Whilest I was a’lookin through them thar yeller pages fer church houses to go do my gospel mountain music sangin’ at, I becomed purty confused ’bout all the different kinds of church religions they is.

So I wounded up goin’ to see Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem ’bout that and I said, “Reverend Elmer T., why ya reckon they’s so many religions bein’ as Baptist is the only right way?”

Reverend Elmer T. said, “Well Fuster, the way I figger it is they’s just three basic Bible religions.

First they is the Jewish folks, and the Jewish folks don’t recognize Jesus as bein’ the Messiah and Savior of the world.

Then they is the protestants, and the protestants don’t recognize the Pope as bein’ the authority of the church.

Then they is the Baptists, and the Baptists don’t recognize other Baptists comin’ outta package stores and girlie magazine shops.”

After that I just figgered I’d go on and play at other kinds of churches and try and help ’em see that they all needed to be Baptists. I also writ a poem song ’bout all them church religions in the yeller pages. It went…

I opened up the yeller pages to let my fingers take a walk. And they made it through the A’s and the B’s alright but somewhere in the C’s they got lost.

And they started goin’ ’round in all kinds of strange directions. In circles, up and down and sideways. So I took a look to see what the matter could be and sure enough they were hung up on the church list page.

And how could they know which way to go when the page of guiding light was so confusin’. Yeah, my fingers lost direction in the church denominations. All they needed was the simple truth.

But they was Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholics and Episcopalians. Othodoxies and Assemblies, Apostolics, Missionaries, Fundamentalists and Nazarenes.

And all of them told my fingers, “Don’t go walkin’ after others. Come foller after me.” But all of them kept on fussin’ and fightin’ with one another. They couldn’t agree on much of anything.

And my fingers really wanted to get on with their walkin’ but first they had to find their way. And they weren’t about to walk less than alphabetically correct so’s not to be sent straight to ‘H’.

Now there wasn’t any use in goin’ ’round in that confusion.

There was only one place to look. So my fingers walked straight off of them yeller pages and headed onto the good book.

And as they went through the Bible my fingers had revival. They danced for joy on every page. And now they’ve got the right story and their walkin’ on to glory on the straight and narry way.

So take this little lesson when yer fingers do the walkin’ before they try to walk across the C’s. that salvation ain’t in church denominations. It’s under C-H-R-I-S-T.

I played my gospel mountain music songs in all kinds of churches fer quite a spell ’til thar come a time I figgered I might even have a callin’ to preach. Yes I did.

So I went to Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem ’bout that and I said, “Elmer T., I don’t rightly know… but I’m a’thinkin’ I might have me a callin’ to preach.”

Reverend Elmer T. said, “Well now Fuster, they’s only one way to know that, and that’s fer ya to git up in the pulpit and commence to preachin’ and we’ll see

if ya got the call.”

Then he said, “I tell ya what I’ll do fer ya. I’ll give ya my pulpit fer a Sunday mornin’ service, a Sunday evenin service and a Wednesday midweek service and ya git on up in the pulpit and preach and we’ll see if ya got the call.

So that’s what I did. Come the next Sunday mornin’ I got up the pulpit at the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church and I commenced to preachin’.

I thought the kind of preacher I’d like to be is one of them fire and brimstone preachers. So I preached the fire and brimstone.

Come Sunday night service I got up in the pulpit again and I preached the fire and the brimstone.

Then come Wednesday midweek service I got up in the pulpit again and preached the fire and brimstone.

When I got done I said to ever’body, “Well… how ya like my fire and brimstone preachin’?”

One little old lady in the congregation stood up and said, “Fuster, we never knowed what hell is like ’til we heard you preach.”

Chapter Six

Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem

I reckon I don’t have the callin’ to be a preacher, but that Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem sure does. He’s a very inspirin’ preacher.

‘Course no matter how inspirin’ he is, they’s always a bunch of folks from around the holler what fall asleep durin’ his preachin’. I think if ever’body what falls asleep in the church pews was laid end to end, they’d be a lot more comferble.

But Revered Elmer T. is still a mighty inspirin’ preacher and larns us our Sunday school lessons, too. He teaches on every’thang from Genesee to Reverlayshins.

In Genessee he talks a lot about Adam and Eve. He says he often wonders how many fig leaves Eve tried on before sayin’ “I’ll take this one.”

One time in Sunday mornin’ service Reverend Elmer T. preached a sermon on the subject of angels.

When he got done and closed up the service, three old fellers from the church, the old Smoot brothers Hoyt, Lloyd and Harold, was a’walkin’ down the road headed fer home and they was so filt up with faith and inspeeration from Reverend Elmer T.’s sermon ’bout angels that they claim an angel come on

down and appeared to ’em.

Nobody knows fer sure if that’s true or not, but that’s what they said.

They said that angel come on down outta the sky and told ’em, “I come to give y’all a wish.”

Then they said that angel turnt and said to Hoyt, “What be yer wish?”

Hoyt said, “Well… I got terrible heart problems. Can ya help me out with that?”

They said that angel waved his hand, it went ‘whoosh!’ and Hoyt’s heart problems was all gone.

Then they said that angel turnt to Lloyd and said, “What be yer wish?”

Lloyd said, “I got terrible arthyritus. Can ya help me out with that?”

They said that angel waved his hand again, it went ‘whoosh!’ and Lloyd’s arthyritus was all gone.

Then they said that angel turnt to Harold and said, “What be yer wish?”

Harold said, “I wish you’d go away… I’m on full disability!”

Another time a few days after Revered Elmer T. preached a sermon ’bout Eve comin’ from one of Adam’s ribs, Gustopher and Hissy Klottenstoffer’s little boy Nubby got a terrible pain in his side.

When they asked him what was wrong, little Nubby said, “I dunno, but I think I might be havin’ a wife.”

Still another time Reverend Elmer T. preached a sermon on the Ten Commandments.

Galfarb Neutegger was so inspired by the sermon that while he walkin’ out of the church he shook the preacher’s hand and said, “I done been inspired so much by yer sermon on the Ten Commandments that for the next ten weeks I’m a’gonna keep one of them commandments fer a week ’til git through all ten of ’em!”

A lot of differn’t thangs always happens durin’ church services on Sunday mornin’s. Like one time Mavis and Lonella Primberfitt’s little daughter Hayleena got sick and told her momma and poppa she was just ’bout to throw up.

They told her to git up very quietly and go on outside to the church outhouse if she needed to. So little Hayleena got up and went out, but then she come right back.

Her momma and poppa asked her, “How did ya git clean out to the outhouse and back so quick?”

Little Hayleena said, “I didn’t need to go all the way out to the outhouse. They’s a little box on a table out by the church front door what has a sign on it sayin’ ‘Fer the sick’.”

So anyway, like I was a’sayin’, Reverend Elmer T. is a very inspeerational preacher. He always has a lot of real smart thangs to thunk about in his sermons, fer as much as folks in Klufford’s Holler are able to do that.

Some of the smart thangs he says is stuff like…

Temper is what gets most of us in trouble and pride is what keeps us thar.

Freedom ain’t so much a question of doin’ what we like as it is a question of doin’ what is right.

It’s real easy to find reasons why other folks aught to be patient.

The direction yer a’facin’ has a lot to do with yer destination.

No matter how long ya nurse a grudge, it ain’t gonna git no better.

The best fix fer anger is to put it off fer a spell.

Character consists of what ya do on the third and fourth tries.

Any temptation what ain’t resisted soon becomes somethin’ ya can’t live without.

Life is like a grindstone. Whether it polishes ya up or grinds ya down depends on the stuff yer made of.

A man is knowed by the company he keeps. A woman is knowed by how late she keeps company.

Kids don’t ’member if the house was clean, but they do ’member if ya told ’em bedtime stories.

Ever’ pound of learnin’ takes ten pounds of horse sense to apply it.

God provided yer face, but you got to provide its expression.

Most ever’body thinks of sin in of what other folks are a’doin’.

The most important thang ’bout yer lot in life is whether ya use it fer buildin’ or fer parkin’.

Reverend Elmer T. says a lot of other real smart thangs in his sermons too, and at the end of his sermons he always gives an altar call to see if anybody wants to come up to the church house altar and git saved.

Somebody what come up and got saved not too long ago was Lorrine Klopperstilt. That was extry special ’cause Lorrine Klopperstilt was knowed all over Klufford’s Holler as one of them future tellers.

Lorrine claimed to be a medium. But nobody ever believed her ’bout that, ’cause we all know she’s an extry large.

After she got saved Lorrine give her testimony a while later on in church. She said, “I’m so glad I got religion now. I got a uncle I used to hate so much that I vowed I’d never even go to his funeral. But now, I’d be happy to go to it anytime!”

Not only does Reverend Elmer T. do preachin’ and altar call givin’, he does a lot of other thangs, too. Like he’s always gotta get money to keep the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church a’goin’. The main way he does it is by takin’ up the Sunday meetin’ offerin’.

Reverend Elmer T. says that the offerin’ is our charitable givin’. He says that givin’ to charity is somethin’ like wettin’ yer britches. Ever’body knows when ya done it, but only you get to feel the warmth.

Durin’ the offerin’ Reverend Elmer T. always has somebody do a special offeratory song. One time he asked me to a special song, so the one I did went…

Well I’ve heared preachin’ ’bout heaven what kindy puts me to the mind of a place that’s full of stuffy saints. stiff ‘n’ starchy all the time.

But that don’t sound good in our neck of the woods. We got a better idear at heart. We see gloryland as bein’ much more grand than cloud floatin’ and a’totin’ harps.

Now a hillbilly sees heaven as a stompin’, shoutin’ place. There in the mountains will be sittin’ eatin’ sanctifried chicken cooked up in amazin’ grease.

Listenin’ to gospel banjer pickin’, while tappin’ our toes and a’feelin’ fine. With our clod hoppers kicked off, can’t praise God enuff. Havin’ a heaven of a good time.

Hillbillies! Hillbillies! Hillbillies in heaven’s land! A little differn’t I do reckon from that stuffy view of heaven so I don’t reckon that they’d understand why we’d be happy in our shacks and wearin’ robes of gunny sacks while they all float on clouds with harps if that’s their plans. But they’d be welcome anytime to come see true paradise with hillbillies in heaven’s land.

Now throughout the hills of heaven

an endless jamboree will ring. There’ll be country angels wearin’ overall britches with some patches on their wings.

And I bet the Lord stops by at times fer that good country cookin’ of course. We’ll gather all the kin and spend millenniums with Him after supper out on the porch.

And now and then we’ll all pile in our jalopies and go fer a ride on into the New Jerusalem and see the big city sites.

We’ll say “Howdy!” to the saints and angels there about as we putter down them golden streets. It’ll be a nice place to visit but I sure would miss it not livin’ in God’s country.

And that’s how I’d picture heaven. I think the Lord would think it’s fine if that starchy ol’ religion would git a smidgen of the hillfolk’s frame of mind.

And if they did, well I believe it, that in heaven what they’d all do is one by one come the fun and be one of us, too!

Hillbillies! Hillbillies! Hillbillies in heaven’s land! A little differn’t I do reckon from that stuffy view of heaven so I don’t reckon that they’d understand why we’d be happy in our shacks and wearin’ robes of gunny sacks while they all float on clouds with harps if that’s their plans. But they’d be welcome anytime

to come see true paradise with hillbillies in heaven’s land.

Another way Reverend Elmer T. gits money to keep the church house goin’ is by havin’ church bazaar fundraisers.

The first time he did that he got up in the pulpit one Sunday mornin’ and he said, “Folks, we’re gonna have us church bazaar fundraiser, so ladies of the church, if ya would, just bring in them worthless thangs ya got layin’ ’round the house and we’ll sell ’em.”

Come church bazaar fundraisin’ day they brought their husbands.

The next church bazaar fundraiser Reverend Elmer T. had he told to the ladies of the church that nobody wanted their husbands and to just bring in other worthless thangs, which they did.

So the church bazaar fundraiser went fine and since then they has always been a purty good way fer Reverend Elmer T. to git money to keep the church house goin’.

One Sunday mornin’ Reverend Elmer T. announced to the church that he needed $500.00 to dig a new well for the church ’cause the old one had gone dry.

Ezry Glipsnort, one of the biggest moonshiners in Klufford’s Holler, said he’d give the church $500.00 of his moonshine money.

Reverend Elmer T. said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t accept money what’s come from moonshinin’.”

Then Wilber Gorshobb stood up and said, “Ya might as well take it, preacher. It’s our money anyway.”

Reverend Elmer T. come up with another fundraisin’ idea, which was to have a fundraisin’ church social square dance and charged fifty cents a ticket. He even had the church hymn band and choir do the music playin’, singin’ and callin’.

Bein’ as it was a church square dance, it had to be spiritual square dance music. So the band and choir come up with some purty good songs. One of ’em went…

Git up off yer seats now people. Git out on the floor. Ain’t gonna sit back, ain’t gona give that devil slack no more. He’s long been doin’ his dance of sin and it’s time we started dancin’ on top of him.

Now that devil stompin’ dance is one

Jesus was the first to do. And He did it so hard on that serpent’s head it got beaten, batterd and bruised. And now He wants us all to take a turn. So it’s time we learned to do some devil stompin’, too!

Now the Bible is our step by step guide to git our soles prepared and fill our dancin’ shoes with that gospel news and walk it out everywhere.

Then you just put one foot in front of the other and march up to the gates of hell and then begin to kick them in. You know that they cannot prevail!

Now this whole world is a dancin’ floor full of folks waitin’ to be shown a step that’ll set their souls free

and we can lead their feet on home. Soft shoein’ on up the straight and narrow road stompin’ on the devil ’til we’re dancin’ on streets of gold.

The fundraisin’ chuch social square dance was a big hit, so Rev. Elmer T. commenced havin’ ’em ever fall ’round tabacky harvest time in the holler.

The church hymn band and choir had to learn all kinds of songs fer each fundraisin’ church social square dance. Another of the songs they lernt went…

On the mountain side of heaven is where I wanna be with them hillfolk saints and angels fer all eternity ’cause it’s that country kinda music that’s the only kind fer me fer worshippin’ the King of kings in a mountain jamboree.

Now I wanna git out my ol’ banjer to pick ‘n’ praise the Lord while maybe Gabriel with his trumpet

s in and begins to blow. And looky! There comes Moses singin’ Sinai’s mountain songs along with the Apostles from the Mount of Olives up from New Jerusalem.

And we’ll all in that hallelujah hootenanny band in praise and celebration of our Lord. With all the pickers from throughout the holy hills of heaven’s land. We’ll give God glory forever and ever more!

Now can’t ya see King David pickin’ his harp with a smile while singin’ songs of praise in some such southern Israel style. Well, maybe sophisticated saints just won’t quite understand. But I bet it can’t help catch on and spread through all of gloryland.

Now all the pickers from throughout the ages will be there singin’ songs of praise all day without a fret or care. Countless fiddles, banjos and tub bass players and the guitar pickers will be ringin’ out that glory sound through all heaven’s hills.

And we’ll all in that hallelujah hootenanny band in praise and celebration of our Lord. With all the pickers from throughout the holy hills of heaven’s land. We’ll give God glory forever and ever more!

Another thang Revered Elmer T. does besides fundraisin’ is he goes out on visitation. In case ya don’t know what visitation is, that’s when a preacher goes around visitin’ folks makin’ sure ever’body’s behavin’, prayin’ and readin’ their Bibles and all.

For them what ain’t saved he tries to git saved and them what is saved he tries to git more sanctified.

One of the people ’round Klufford’s Holler what ain’t got saved yet is Otto Sistrunk. He’s a cantankerous old tabacky farmer what Reverend Elmer T. has been tryin’ to git saved fer years.

Last time he went on visitation to see him, Otto cut off a slice of chewin’ tabacky and offered some to Reverend Elmer T.

Reverend Elmer T. responded by sayin’ “I’d rather eat the scrapin’s off a rooster’s perch than chew tabacky.”

Otto said, “To each his own preacher. The chicken coop’s out back.”

Reverend Elmer T. once telled Otto that he aught not to grow tabacky ’cause it gits people hooked from a’smokin’ on it.

Otto said, “Oh, I’m very committed to the cause of quittin’ smokin’. But I figger in order to do that, I gotta git ’em started on it first.”

Last time when Reverend Elmer T. was out on visitation he went by old Josephine Isenbarger’s house, who is saved just fine and most of the way sanctified, too.

She’s an old widow woman of the church near ’bout ninety years old, so Reverend Elmer T. drops in on her most ever’time he’s nearby her house on visitation.

The last time he dropped by he went on up to her door and knocked, but there weren’t no answer.

Reverend Elmer T. knowed old Josephine was home though, ’cause whilest he was walkin’ up to her door he could hear her through her open winder a’singin’ ‘Just As I Am’.

So he knocked again and called out, “Josephine… this is Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem out on church visitation.” But there still weren’t no answer.

So he knocked again and called out louder, “Josphine! This is Reverend Elmer T!”

Still no answer.

Reverend Elmer T. felt a little put out by this, so what he did was, he took a piece of paper and pencil out of his pocket and he writ a note to old Josephine, which was a Bible verse.

He writ Revelation 3:20 – ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anybody will answer the door I’ll come on in’.

Then he stuck the note to old Josephine’s door and left.

The follerin’ Sunday mornin’ after Reverend Elmer T. telled his sermon and

closed up the service, old Josephine come up to Reverend Elmer T. with a note fer him.

On that note she’d writ a Bible verse. She writ Genesis 3:10 – ‘I heared thy voice and I was naked so I hid myself’.

Reverend Elmer T. was too embarrassed to do visitation at old Josephine’s house after that, so he went over to Decon Monroe Filtonbrier’s shack to ask him to go visit old Josephine in his place.

While he was comin’ up into Decon Filtonbrier’s yard, he saw the Decon’s little boy Dwayne playin’ in the yard and while he was playin’ he stubbed his toe and let out a cuss word.

Then Reverend Elmer T. said to little Dwayne, “What I just heared ya say sent chills up my spine!”

Little Dwayne said, “Well, if you’d been here a half hour ago when daddy hit his thumb with a hammer you’da plum froze to death.”

Then Reverend Elmer T. went to Decon Filtonbrier and asked him to go over and see how old Josephine was.

Decon Filtonbrier went over to her house then come back to Reverend Elmer T. and told him, “Josephine says it’s none o’ yer business how old she is.”

Bein’ a preacher, Reverend Elmer T. knows his Bible verses a lot better than most ever’body else in Klufford’s Holler. He quotes a lot from the book of James where it says that pure religion in to visit widows and take care of orphans.

They ain’t no orphans in Klufford’s Holler, but they’s a few widow women, so Reverend Elmer T. makes a point of visitin’ ’em and makin’ sure they’s alright.

Most of the widow women in Klufford’s Holler don’t mind sufferin’ in silence, long as ever’body knows about it.

Ol’ Doc Beanly visits ’em, too, just makin’ sure they’re alright, bein’ as they’s all pretty well up in age and all.

One of the widow women in Klufford’s Holler is Jennell Weikel who’s bedridden and got cataracts on both her eyes and can’t see a’tall.

One time when widow Jennell took sick her daughter Charleen asked Reverend Elmer T. come visit and pray fer her, which he said he would do directly. After Charleen told her mama that Reverend Elmer T. was comin’ to pray fer her she then went to try and find ol’ Doc Beanly.

‘Fore Reverend Elmer T. could get over to see widow Jennell and even before Charlene come get to the doctor’s office, ol’ Doc Beanly got wind of widow Jennell bein’ sick and went over to examine widow Jennell to try and find out what was wrong with her.

When he got done with the examination and left, he runned into Charleen along the way.

When she asked him to come see her mamma ’cause she’d took sick he said he’d already been thar. He said that she just had mild case of the flu bug and she should be alright. Then Charleen went back to tend to her mamma.

When Charleen got back to her momma’s shack, widow Jennell said, “That nice Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem come by and visited me like you said he would do. I sure did enjoy his visit.”

Charleen said, “Mamma, that weren’t Reverend Higgenbothem, that was ol’ Doc Beanly what visited ya.”

Jennell said, “Oh… well… I thought he was bein’ mighty familiar with me fer a preacher.”

When Reverend Elmer T. finally did come by he prayed fer widow Jennell and sat a spell talkin’ with her at her bedside.

Whilest he was a’talkin’ to her he commenced to munchin’ on some peanuts she had on a table by her bed. Before he knowed it, he had done et ever one of ’em.

Reverend Elmer T. said, “Oh my, I done et all yer peanuts, Jennell. I’m so sorry.”

Widow Jennell said, “Oh, that’s okay, preacher. I done gummed all the chocolate off of ’em anyway.”

Reverend Elmer T. likes his callin’ as the town preacher in Klufford’s Holler, even when such thangs as that happens. He says God is a good boss to have ’cause a good boss is somebody you can work with, not for.

Reverend Elmer T. comes from a long line of preachers. His pappy was named Bermes T. Higgenbothem and he was a preacher up in Kentucky what had a church called the B.Y.O.S. Pentycostal Church.

It stood for ‘Bring Yer Own Snake’.

The town where Reverend Bermes T.’s church was was very small. In fact his church was the only one in the town.

Other than his church there was just one business in the town, which was a whiskey distillery run by an atheist feller named Maybree Willstorp.

One time Reverend Bermes T. decided to hold an all day prayer meetin’ at the church askin’ that God would put that whiskey distillery of atheist Maybree’s out of business.

While the whole church was prayin’ some dark clouds rolled in and lightenin’ started flashin’. One bolt hit the whiskey distillery and burned it to the ground.

After that Maybree sued all the of Reverend Bermes T.’s church claimin’ they had conspired with God to destroy his business.

On the day of the trial the of the church denied Maybree’s claim sayin’ they had not done anythin’ to cause the fire.

The judge wound up throwin’ the case out of court.

He said, “I find it just too plum confusin’ that an atheist believes his business was destroyed by an act of God while a church is denying the power of prayer.”

Reverend Elmer T. says his pappy Bermes T. always liked to have church picnics and liked to have his wife Nelly bake up a lot of angel food cake fer the picnics. He always cast out the devil’s food cakes that were brought. He’s also cast out the deviled eggs and tried to sober up the pickeled beets.

Reverend Elmer T. says the thing he mostly lernt from those times when he was a child at his pappy’s church picnics is that ants didn’t go to any of the church picnics. The church always took picnics to them.

Reverend Elmer T. said his pappy Bermes T. would always be the one who did the barbequin’ for the church picnics. One time he told the congregation, what was ready to eat out on the church grounds, that he had good news and bad news.

He said, “The good news is I have somethin’ cooked just the way ya like it. Pink

on the inside and charred on the outside.

The bad news is… it’s my thumb.”

Reverend Elmer T.’s grandpappy was named Reverend Amos T. Higgenbothem and he was a circuit ridin’ preacher near ’bout from the day he was born ’til the day he died.

When he was about to die, Reverend Amos T. called the town treasurer and town lawyer to his bedside. He asked them to stand on each side of his bed, then he took hold of their hands, looked up to heaven and waited to be called home.

While he laid there waitin’, the town treasurer and town lawyer asked him why he wanted them to him at his bedside while he ed on.

Reverend Amos T. said, “Fellers, I have lived for the Lord all my life and now I want to die the way the Lord died. Between two thieves.

When Reverend Elmer T. was just a little boy he showed purty good promise fer carryin’ on the family line of preachers in havin’ what it took to be a preacher.

One day he was pesterin’ his pappy Reverend Bermes T. while he was readin’ the newspaper. So his pappy tore out a picture of the world that was in the paper then tore the picture of the world in a bunch of pieces and give them to little Elmer T. and said, “Go straighten out the world.”

So little Elmer T. took the torn up pieces of paper into another room and come back in just a couple minutes with the picture of the world all taped back together.

Elmer T.’s pappy Bermes T. was very impressed and said, “How did ya put the world back so quick?”

Little Emer T. said, “There was a picture of a man on the other side of the picture of the world. As soon as I got the man straightened out, the world got straightened out.”

Somethin’ else about little Elmer T. that showed he might have a callin’ to be a preacher come one Sunday mornin’ when his pappy Bermes T. was preachin’ about motives behind givin’ to God.

Reverend Bermes T. said, “Joseph of Arimathea gave up his own tomb for Jesus. Why ya reckon he did that?”

Little Elmer T. shouted out, “Cuz He was only stayin’ the weekend!”

Elmer T.’s mammy on some nights told him bedtime stories when he was little boy and on other nights his pappy told him Bible stories.

Elmer T. sometimes got the two mixed up, but it worked out alright anyway.

One night when his pappy was tellin’ him a Bible story, his pappy said, “If the devil come a’knockin’ at yer door, would ya let him in?”

Little Elmer T. said, “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!”

Little Elmer T. was purty much like any other little boy when he was growin’ up. One time his mammy heard him scream up in his room and she come runnin’ up to see what was wrong. She found his two year old sister pullin’ his hair.

Elmer T.’s mammy gently got his little sister to let go of his hair and then comforted little Elmer T. sayin’ “She’s just two years old and don’t know what she’s doin’.”

A couple minutes later little Elmer T.’s mammy heard his little baby sister scream and went rushin’ back to see what was wrong with her.

When she got into the room she said, “What happened?”

Little Elmer T. said, “She does now.”

Bein’ raised to be fully sanctified, little Elmer T. was taught to be committed to non-violence. One night after he growed up and moved away, a burglar broke into his shack.

Elmer T. got his shotgun and went to the burglar and said, “I’m committed to

non-violence and I wouldn’t hurt nobody fer the world.

However, yer a’standin’ where I’m about to shoot!”

When Reverend Elmer T. first decided to go into the ministry he’d first thought he might have the callin’ as a missionary to one of them foreign countries. He was inspired by missionaries what come to his pappy’s church as guest preachers tellin’ their missionary adventures.

When a missionary to Africa came and spoke then took questions afterward, Elmer T. asked, “Is it true that wild animals in the jungle won’t eat ya if yer yer carryin’ a torch?”

The missionary answered, “Well, it depends on how fast yer carryin’ it.”

When he decided he might like to try goin’ out as a missionary, Rev. Elmer T. commenced to tryin’ to learn how to fly a small airyplane up at the Knoxville private airport so’s he could fly off to some foreign countries.

Things didn’t go too good with his airyplane flyin, though. When come time fer him to do his first solo flight, he went up and then come down and crashed.

When he crashed the folks in the airyplane tower come runnin’ out to him and found he was alright then asked him what happened.

Reverend Elmer T. said, “Well, the last thing I ‘member is when ya told me to go up higher, the higher I went up the colder it got. Finally it got so cold I decided to turn off that big fan out front.”

After that happened Reverend Elmer T. decided he’d best just stick around the Smoky Mountains and be a preacher to us mountain folks. He does a good job at it and works real hard, takin’ only three days off a week.

On his days off Reverend Elmer T. likes to go visit other churches ’round the mountains and see what they is like.

One church he visited a while back was a Catholic church up over in Bryson. In that church he saw somethin’ called a confessional booth where folks go in to tell their sins.

Reverend Elmer T. thought that was a right good idear and decided to put a confessional booth in the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church.

So he built a confessional booth right up front on the church platform.

Not long after he got it done, Grizwald Klump come a’stumblin’ into the church one Saturday mornin’ after a Friday night of moonshine drinkin’. He staggered his way up the church aisle bouncin’ off pew after pew, then went up on the platform and into the confessional booth.

Reverend Elmer T. saw him come in and go to the confessional booth, so he

went in the other side and waited fer Grizwald to commence confessin’ his sins.

They both sit there fer quit a spell with not a word bein’ said.

Finally Reverend Elmer T. said, “Grizwald… can I help ya with anythang?”

Grizwald said, “I dunno. Ya got any toilet paper on yer side?”

After that Reverend Elmer T. tore the confessional booth down and decided not to do what he saw done in other churches and just do thangs the way he figgered the Lord was leadin’ him in at the Klufford’s Holler Town Hall Baptist Church.

He still likes to get together with other preachers ’round the mountains though and discuss somethin’ called Theolology with ’em. Theolology is when ya try and figger out what God is like.

One time Reverend Elmer T. got together with the Pentycostal preacher from over in Stuckinville and the Presbyterian preacher from up in Thistleweeds to have lunch at Harlan Crumpton’s Cowbarn Restaurant.

Whilest they was havin’ lunch they commenced discussin’ some of that Theolology.

Whilest they was discussin’ their Theolology the Pentycotal preacher from over in Stuckinville said he believed God was somethin’ like a construction engineer.

He said the way you could tell that is by the way the human body is constructed with its skeletal system and muscles and all.

The Presbyterian preacher from up in Thistleweeds disagreed and said he believed God was somethin’ like an electrical engineer. He said the way you can tell that is by the way He wired all the blood vessels and all the nervous system together in the human body.

Reverend Elmer T. didn’t agree with either of them and said he believed God was somethin’ like a civil engineer.

When the two other preachers asked him how he figgered that, Reverend Elmer T. said, “Who else but a civil engineer would run a waste disposal pipeline right through a popular recreation area?”

While they went on Theololigizin’ they next got on the subject of prayer.

The Presbyterian preacher said he believed the key to powerful prayer was to hold hands. He said he always had his congregation hold hands when they prayed together.

Then the Pentycostal preacher said he believed that the most powerful prayin’ is done layin’ prostrate on the floor. He said he would many times have his congregation get on their faces before God in his church.

Reverend Elmer T. said he believed the most powerful prayin’ was done on yer

knees and whenever he give an alter call folks got right with God on their knees.

While they was still Theololigizin’ ’bout prayer there was a teleyphone man in Harlan Crumpton’s Cowbarn Resturant puttin’ in a new public teleyphone.

Overhearin’ the three preachers, he went up to them and said, “The most powerful prayer I ever made was when I was danglin’ upside down by my heels on a power pole forty feet off the ground.”

After they all got done Theololigizin’ the Pentycostal preacher and Presbyterian preacher headed back to their churches by way of the old wood swing bridge what goes over Trickle River in Klufford’s Holler.

While they started over the bridge an old fisherman in the holler named Harley Filtmeyer, who was catchin’ some bass in the river, yelled over to them, “I wouldn’t cross that bridge if I was you. T’aint safe.”

One of the preachers yelled back, “Don’t worry, we have faith in the Lord that we’ll be okay. I’m a Pentycostal preacher and my friend here is a Presbyterian preacher.”

Then Harley yelled back, “Okay. But if you try crossin’ that bridge, yer both gonna be Baptists.”

Reverend Elmer T. holds baptisms over at Lake Plunk in Klufford’s Holler once a month. He was out of town preachin’ one time when the baptism schedule

came around though, so before he left he told the saved part of the congregation to go ahead and do the baptizin’. He said it was fine fer any believer to baptize new converts.

When baptizin’ time came there was a few new converts and they held ’em under the water so long they near ’bout drowned.

The good news was that they did live through it.

When Reverend Elmer T. come back he heard about it and asked, “Did ya give ’em mouth to mouth recessitation?”

The congregation baptizers said, “We tried to, but they kept gittin’ up and walkin’ away.”

Where Reverend Elmer T. had gone off preachin’ to was a big church convention over in Asheville, North Carolina.

Just before he started to speak Reverend Elmer T. frantically looked through all his pockets and said, “Oh no! I done fergot to my choppers. I can hardly preach a’tall without ’em.”

The feller sittin’ next to him on the platform said, “I just happen to be a dentist and I got a new pair right here in my pocket. Then he gave Reverend Elmer T. the set of choppers.

Reverend Elmer T. popped ’em in his mouth and went up and gave his sermon.

When he got done, he sat back down, took the choppers out of his mouth and give ’em back to the dentist.

“Thanky so much.” Reverend Elmer T. said. “Ya done saved the day fer me.”

The dentist said, “No problem at’all”.

Then he popped the choppers in his mouth and said, “Glad they fit ya alright… they’s been a bit tight on me.”

After he got done with his preachin’ they offered Reverend Elmer T. a nice big check.

When they did Reverend Elmer T. said, “Oh, I couldn’t take that. I just ’preciate the honor of bein’ asked to speak. I’m sure ya would have better uses fer the money. Just go ahead and apply it to one of those uses.”

The convention chairman said, “Okay. Do you mind if we put it our special fund?”

Reverend Elmer T. said, “That would be fine. What’s the fund for?”

The convention chairman said, “It’s so we can get a better speaker next year.”

When Reverend Elmer T. ain’t preachin’, baptizin’, fundraisin’, goin’ out on visitation, goin’ to see other churches, disscussin’ Theolology or takin’ his days off, he does what most other preachers do ’round the mountains.

He does things like teachin’ Sunday school and does weddin’s when folks wanna get hitched up and funerals when folks might on.

Reverend Elmer T. always said havin’ sympathy fer those what’s lost loved ones is a good thang, ’cause it’s hearts together tuggin’ the same load.

My Uncle Ralph ed on a while back and Reverend Elmer T. did his funeral fer him.

Uncle Ralph was a used car salesman. He started out sellin’ new cars at a lot up in Knoxville. One time he even got his ownself a new car on discount from the lot.

After that he always said the loudest noise a man will ever hear is the first rattle of a new car.

When that happened Uncle Ralph tried to give it back to the lot, but they said it had depreciated.

Uncle Ralph said he didn’t depreciate gettin’ a new car what rattled neither. So he give ’em the keys, quit his job and commenced to only sellin’ used cars what folks ’spect to rattle, which Uncle Ralph’s used cars always did. So much so that Uncle Ralph was often called the worst rattler in the used car business.

Uncle Ralph did a lot of trade-ins of used cars fer his used cars. When he haggeled with his customers he’d always say, “Whattaya wanna git outta yer car?”

Most of the customers would say, “My teenager.”

When he’d ask what they wanted for a trade in they’d most often say, “A steerin’ wheel what reaches to my wife in the back seat.”

One time Uncle Ralph decided he wanted to buy a cow to slaughter fer winter meat from one of the local Klufford’s Holler farmers named Lamont Tilly.

As it happened, Lamont had bought a used car from Uncle Ralph only a few months earlier and Lamont had come to the conclusion that Uncle Ralph had profited a great deal from the purchase by all the add-on features of the car.

So, when Uncle Ralph went to buy a cow from Lamont, he attached a lot of add on features to his price too, which included:

Basic cow: $500.00

Two tone exterior: $50.00

Extra stomach: $100.00

Product storing compartment: $75.00

Straw choppers: $125.00

Four spigots: $25.00 each.

Cowhide upholstery: $150.00

Dual horns: $25.00 each.

Automatic flyswatter: $25.00

Fertilizer attachment: $175.00.

When Uncle Ralph ed on, some say from poisonin’, the family asked me to do one of my gospel mountain music songs fer Uncle Ralph’s funeral, so I did.

Whilest I was a’thinkin’ what song to do, I ’membered Uncle Ralph always sayin’ he wanted to build his wife, which is my Aunt Hazel, one of them indoor outhouses ’cause it was her dream to have one of them thangs.

Uncle Ralph never had the money ner ’nuff gumption to put an indoor outhouse on their shack, though. So I got inspired and writ me down a gospel mountain music poem song and played it fer Uncle Ralph’s funeral, which was a spiritualized poem song ’bout the indoor outhouse Hazel always wanted.

It went…

When I kinda feel the need to get away and spend some time with the Lord alone there’s a quiet little room of solitude I go to ready built right inside of my home.

Yes, it’s a convenient little place special made fer privacy where I can lock myself away from the world and get back in tune in my place of rest room and get my soul washed off in the water of The Word.

Now to some this might be soundin’ like it just ain’t fit surroundin’s fer a person searchin’ to be spiritual.

But I’m right at home kneelin’ by the throne in my Saint John’s Cathedral.

Yes, it’s there I look in the mirror of the good book, ‘n’ pick out every spot, wrinkle and blemish. And for all my inner ills I take my daily gospills. Don’t suffer heart trouble when I’m finished.

And I can sing in the shower of His blessings He pours down on me when I meet Him in that place. You can say I’m all wet but ya sure can bet I feel like I’m brand new, cleaned up in His grace.

And every now and then when I get dirty with sin I go back in and get it flushed right outta my soul. I come out feelin’ fine, don’t even gotta pay a dime there in my Saint John’s Cathedral.

So if you’re tryin’ to find someplace to spend some quiet time ya might just try it fer yerself and see. It might be a little diff’rent, but don’t let that be a hindrance.

I keeps ya humble, oh yes indeed.

Just God is with you wherever you may be, movin’ on a head or in a stall. And there’s a porcelain pew always waitin’ there fer you in Saint John’s Cathedral.

After Uncle Ralph’s funeral the pall bearers took the casket out of the church house and went to bury him in the Klufford’s Holler graveyard out in back of the church.

On their way out they bumped the casket into a tree real hard and Uncle Ralph popped up outta the casket and back to life again. He lived on another fifteen years before he died again. Like before, he never got the money or gumption ’nuff to build Aunt Hazel her indoor outhouse.

We had to do the funeral all over again and after the funeral was done the pall bearers took the casket out to bury it.

When they was takin’ him out Aunt Hazel shouted, “Watch out fer that danged tree!”

While Uncle Ralph was on his deathbed ’fore he died the first time all his sons and daughters was gathered ’round him and they asked him if he had any last wish.

Uncle Ralph said, “It smells like yer ma is in bakin’ some of her fine apple pie. I think I’d like to have me one last taste of her apple pie before I go.”

So, one of his daughters left his bedside to git him a piece of apple pie. A few minutes later she come back empty handed.

When Uncle Ralph asked her where the pie was she told him, “Ma says it’s fer the funeral.”

When Uncle Ralph died Reverend Elmer T. did his funeral. Aunt Hazel, what had been married to Uncle Ralph for forty and two years, give Reverend Elmer T. a little somethin’ extry fer doin’ the funeral service, but when he popped up back alive again she asked fer a refund.

When he died the second time Aunt Hazel held off givin’ Reverend Elmer T. anything fer doin’ the funeral service ’til after he was planted good and proper.

Once he was buried Aunt Hazel give Reverend Elmer T. some money, but made him sign an agreement that if he popped up outta his grave any time before the rapture, her money was to be returned in full ‘long with all the tithes and offerin’s she’d give the church over the last five years.

She said she’d need the money if he popped back up again ’cause the cost of goin’ down is goin’ up.

Uncle Ralph had made the request that on his gravestone these words was inscribed…

As you are now so once was I. As I am now so you will be. Prepare for death and follow me.

When the tombstone was put up over his grave, Aunt Hazel got a pencil and writ beneath the inscription:

To follow you I ain’t content

until I know what way you went.

As fer weddin’s, as many as Reverend Elmer T. has done, shotgun ones and nonshotgun ones, the most memorable weddin’ was the one where he did one fer his own self when he married my Aunt Imogene.

He’d switch back and forth from doin’ the vows as the preacher to takin’ the vows with his bride as the groom. Aunt Imogene just stood in one spot while he switched back and forth, but after a spell he got it done and they was hitched.

It weren’t long after they got hitched that they commenced to havin’ young’uns. Them young’uns of Reverend Elmer T. and Aunt Imogene’s just seemed to pop out one after another with barely nine months between ’em.

After they’d had a bunch of young’uns Reverend Elmer T. said one mornin’ at Sunday meetin’ that he needed to have a little more out of the offerin’ plate money to take care of his family expenses.

Ol’ skinflint Decon Buster Feaselhorn took issue with that ’cause he felt Reverend Elmer T. shouldn’t aughta be gettin’ more money.

He said right in front of the whole congregation, “Maybe ya just aughta simmer down some on havin’ so many young’uns all the time.”

Reverend Elmer T. got incensed by that and said, “Decon Feaselhorn, I’ll have ya to know that children comin’ into the world is an act of God.”

Decon Feaselhorn said, “Snow and rain is an act of God too, preacher. But when we get too much of it we at least know to put on our rubbers.”

Reverend Elmer T. loves his young’uns and always tries to set the best Christian example fer ’em he can and tells ’em to be fully sanctified and never resort to violence.

One time Reverend Elmer T. took ‘all of his young’uns out fer a buggy ride.

Then it beginned to rain and his buggy wheel got stuck in a rut along the road. Then they come to a bridge where they met horse to horse with another buggy driver goin’ the opposite way.

Reverend Elmer T. said, “I’m sorry, but yer a’gona have to back yer buggy up.”

At that the other buggy driver argued, “Well, why don’t you back yer buggy up?”

For too long the two men were arguin’ back and forth as the rain kept pourin’ down.

Finally Reverend Elmer T. angrily said, “Sir, if you don’t back yer buggy up, I’m a’gonna have to do somethin’ I don’t wanna do!”

At that the other buggy driver began backing his buggy up and let Reverend Elmer T. and his young’uns go by.

When they’d gone by, one of his young’uns said, “Pa, you told us to be be fully sanctified and never resort to violence. What was ya gonna do if that feller didn’t back his buggy up?”

Reverend Elmer T. said, “I was gonna back my buggy up.”

So, with rearin’ up young’uns, doin’ weddin’s and funerals, preachin’ sermons,

teachin’ Sunday schoolin’ and goin’ on visitation Reverend Elmer T. keeps purty busy. The congregation felt it was alright fer him to have a little more money from the offerin’ plate fer his family expenses.

Ever’ once in while somebody es on and Reverend Elmer T. always does the best job he can at funerlizin’. After each funeral the casket is always took out ’round back of the church and buried.

One time Jeebert Spultick and Gilbert Dunmort was out fishin’ in Lake Plunk nearby the church when a casket was carried out to be buried after a funeral. As that happened Jeebert put down his fishin’ pole, took off his hat and bowed his head.

When the percession was done Gilbert said to Jeebert, “I’m mighty impressed at the respect ya have fer the dead”.

Jeebert said, “Well, it’s the least I could do after bein’ married to her fer thirty eight years.”

Chapter Seven

Aunt Hazel Strikes It Rich

When my Uncle Ralph died and was fer sure dead the second time and was buried, my Aunt Hazel went up to the Smoky Mountain Gizzetteer to put an obituary in the paper fer him.

Aunt Hazel telled the obituary writin’ feller to just put ‘Ralph died’.

When Aunt Hazel told him that, the obituary writin’ feller said, “Ma’am, ya gotta have at least seven words fer an obituary”.

Aunt Hazel said, “Seven words ya say?”

Then she thunk fer a spell and finally said, “Okay. Make it ‘Raph died. 1962 pickup truck fer sale’.”

After Aunt Hazel put the obituary in the paper fer Uncle Ralph she went and collected up his life insurance policy, which was purty sizable. Uncle Ralph got that life insurance policy ’cause he figgered it was a good bet he’d die sometime.

When Aunt Hazel cashed it in, she had more money than what she knowed to do

with. What she did at first was to treat herself to some thangs she always wanted to do what Uncle Ralph never wanted to.

One thang she always wanted to do was go see the circus when it come to Knoxville. When the circus did come to town in Knoxville she got a ticket right up in the front row.

Whilest she was a’watchin’ the circus there come a lion tamer what looked almost like movie star Clark Gable into a mean lookin’ lion’s cage. Then ’fore long he had that mean lookin’ lion puttin’ his paws up on his shoulders and nuzzelin’ his face and lickin’ it just like a puppy dog.

When she saw that, Aunt Hazel shouted out, “What’s so great about that? Anybody could do it!”

Then the lion tamer looked over at Aunt Hazel and said, “Oh yeah? I’d sure like to see you try it!”

Aunt Hazel said, “Okay, but git that lion outta thar first!”

Then thar was also a strongman at the circus what showed his strength in one part of his show by squeezin’ an orange to the pulp. He then offered $100.00 to anybody what could git one more drop of juice out of the orange.

Aunt Hazel volunteered to do it, then walked up to the strongman, took the orange and squeezed three more drops out of it.

After giving the $100.00 to Aunt Hazel the strongman asked how she was able to do it.

Aunt Hazel said, “I’m been the treasurer at our church house for the past thirty years. I’m used to doin’ that kinda thang.”

Another thang Aunt Hazel always wanted to do but never got to was ride in one of them big ol’ jet airyplanes and go see New York City.

So she went to the Knoxville airport and said, “I wanna ticket to New York City.”

The attendant said, “By way of Buffalo?”

Aunt Hazel said, “Naw. I wanna ride on one of them big jet airyplanes ya got.”

When Aunt Hazel got on the plane it took off, but ’fore long in route to New York City it started havin’ engine trouble and it looked like the airyplane would crash.

Thinkin’ she was about to die after a life of bein’ married to Uncle Ralph and desperate fer love, Aunt Hazel cried out, “Is there no one who will ever make me feel like a woman?!”

All of a sudden a handsome young man stood up from his seat and commenced to walkin’ down the aisle toward Aunt Hazel. As he did he slowly began unbuttonin’ his shirt, button by button as he slowly come down the aisle closer and closer to Aunt Hazel.

When he reached Aunt Hazel he took off his shirt, revealing a muscular body, handed it Aunt Hazel and said, “Here. Iron this.”

As it turnt out the plane landed safely in New York City and Aunt Hazel spent a whole month there.

When she come back she told us all kinds of stories about the big city. One of the thangs she said was that the murder rate in New York City is at a thirty year low, and with rates that low anybody can afford a murder.

With the murder rate in New York City is at a thirty year low, she said the kids were skippin’ target practice.

She also told us people in New York are takin’ the new anti-noise laws very seriously. She said she even saw a gang member getting’ his gun fitted for a silencer.

She told us complaints against the New York City police are down twenty-one percent. The mayor said it was ’cause of his new program called ‘There’s No Use Complaining’.

She also said other cities’ sports teams get record crowds, but New York City’s sports teams get crowds with records.

Aunt Hazel told us the rain really spoilt the New York City Marathon this year. It started out as a world-class test of endurance but by the time it ended, it was just another wet T-shirt contest.

She said when they hold the annual New York City Marathon the startin’ gun gets return fire.

Aunt Hazel told us the New York City Marathon runners start at someplace called the Verrazano, wind their way through places called Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx before finishin’ up somewheres called Central Park. She said that’s the same way most cabdrivers get you in from Newark Airport.

Aunt Hazel told us you can tell when it’s Thanksgivin’ weekend in New York City ’cause all the pigeons commence to look nervous.

She also said the best part about buying a Christmas tree in New York City is if the needles fall off, the city has a needles exchange program.

She told us you can see supermodels all over New York City durin’ somethin’ called Fashion Week. But she said ya have to look close, ’cause some of ’em is turnt sideways.

Aunt Hazel said if we ever visit New York City during Fashion Week, never to feed the supermodels.

She said they’s got a big ol’ airport there called La Guardia in New York City what’s so busy durin’ the holidays thar’s a 20-minute holdin’ pattern just for crashin’.

She told us lots of other thangs, too, like…

New York City students will now be made to study a foreign language, and it’s ’bout time they lernt English.

In a speech the mayor vowed to drive drugs from New York City.’ Then a bunch of Hollywood movie stars said they’d come unload the car.

After a hundred years, the Woolworth’s in New York City closed its doors. A lot of folks was very upset about it. Whar else are they gonna be able to make one stop and pick up a cheeseburger, socks and a parakeet?

They’re closin’ down four hundred Woolworth stores thar. That’s almost $50 worth of merchandise.

Manhattan Island in New York City will soon have more than one area code. Most folks thought it already had more than one area code. 212 and 911.

The mayor announced that the city will spend eight million dollars to get rid of the rats, which is almost the same as what the New York City mobs spend.

The city council ed a law that will allow ads on the hoods of taxis. Until then the only thangs seen on the hoods of cabs was pedestrians.

After she visited New York City, Aunt Hazel took an airyplane ride to Washington, D.C. and stayed a month thar, too. When she got back to Klufford’s Holler she told us all about Washington, D.C. ‘long with what she told us about New York City.

What she told us was…

Politics is s’posed to be the second oldest profession but she come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Politics is the art of lookin’ for trouble, findin’ it whether thar is any or not, diagnosin’ it wrong and applyin’ the wrong remedy.

Politicians can fool all of the people all of the time if their advertisin’ is right and their budget is big enough.

Ninety nine percent of politicians give the rest a bad name.

Don’t vote fer politicians. You’ll only encourage them.

Aunt Hazel said that it weren’t true that all politicians is dishonest. They is some honest ones. Like fer example she heared tell of a government contractor what tried to give a government official a brand new sports car.

The official said, “Common decency and my basic sense of honor would never permit me to accept a gift like that.”

The contractor said, “I understand. Suppose we do this. I’ll sell you the sports car for $10.00.”

The official said, “Well, in that case, I’ll take two.”

What Aunt Hazel did after she treated herself to all the different thangs what she never got to do before, like goin’ to the circus, ridin’ on a big jet airyplane and visitin’ New York City and Washington, D.C., she finally got the thang she wanted most, bein’ that indoor outhouse she always wanted built onto her house.

She had the indoor outhouse built as an upstairs room. Problem with that was though, she always stumbled on either the bottom or the top stair, so she had the top and bottom stair took out.

After that Aunt Hazel got herself indoor plumbin’ to go along with her new indoor outhouse. Then she got some contrapations what go along with her indoor plumbin’, includin’ one them thangs to wash her clothes in.

She said she had trouble with that thang right from the start, though. She said she put her clothes in it and poured in some soap powders, but after she pulled the chain she ain’t seen ’em since.

After Aunt Hazel got her indoor outhouse and plumbin’ ‘long with them extry indoor plumbin’ contraptions, she didn’t need no more money.

When she was asked what it was like to be rich Aunt Hazel said, “Well, money can’t buy ya friends, but yer enemies sure treats ya better.”

‘Fore long Aunt Hazel commenced givin’ out the rest of her money to differn’t of the family, my ma and pa included.

When she give ma and pa some that money she said to just use it to improve their lives with. She give them money first ’cause they was always so poor.

Pa always said, “Poverty is herediary. Ya git it from yer children.”

What ma and pa did after Aunt Hazel give ’em that money was they got ’lectricity hooked on up to our shack and then got some ’lectric lights.

When night time come they turnt on the ’lectric lights, which made it a lot easier for them to see to light their candles and oil lamps by.

Not long after they got ’lectricity ma and pa went to the Sears & Roebuck store

up in Knoxville and got one of them ’lectricity refrigeeaters.

Once they got that refrigeeater back into the holler, they knocked the bottom out of it. Then they dug a hole out in the back yard.

After that they set the refrigeeater up over the hole then runned a power cord out to it, and we had the nicest air conditioned outhouse in all of Klufford’s Holler.

Another thang pa got from up at the Sears & Roebuck store was a power chainsaw. The salesman told pa it would cut down thirty trees a day.

When pa commenced to usin’ it though, he was only able to cut down ’bout three trees a day.

Bein’ disappointed with it, pa took the chainsaw back to the salesman at the Sears & Roebuck store in Knoxville and said, “You told me this thang would cut down thirty trees a day and all I been able to down was about three a day.”

The salesman said, “Really? Let me check it for you.”

Then he pulled the cord and the saw went ‘Buz-z-z-z-z-z’!

Pa said, “Hey! What’s that noise?”

Ma and pa got themselves a bunch of other ’lectrical gadgets from the Sears & Roebuck store, like a ’lectric radio, ’lectric clock and even a’lectric iron.

Ma left the ’lectric iron runnin’ one time and near ’bout burnt down the shack.

She called up the fire department in Knoxville and told ’em they was a fire in the shack and could they come put it out.

The fire department said, “How do we get there?”

Ma said, “Don’t ya got one of them big red trucks?”

Thangs turnt out alright, though. Pa runned over to Aunt Hazel’s shack with a couple buckets and got some water from her indoor plumbin’ and come back and throwed it on the fire and put it out.

After that he told ma to quit usin’ that ’lectric iron to cook on and just use it fer smoothin’ out wrinkles in clothes.

That ’lectricity is purty amazin’ stuff. Pa one time even writ a poem song ’bout it, what goes…

One day on up by the road a bunch of men come diggin’ holes

and when they got all through with them they stuck these big ol’ tall poles in.

Then they strung wires from one to the other and if ya can believe it brother, when they got all done with that they strung some wires to my mountain shack.

I asked them what they was a’doin’ and they explained to me ’bout some kinda modernized newfangled invention what’s called ’lectricity.

They said I could live in a switch on world, get a radio and TV and all I needed was to have them wires what brung ’lectricity.

Oh,’ lectricity, ’lectricity a’comin’ down them wires to me. ’Lectricity, ’lectricity,

makes ya modernized as you can be. How do they do it? Well, I don’t know. Never had ’lectricity before. Don’t know as I need it but I might try ’er. So gimme some of them ’lectricity wires.

They said it’d make thangs easy fer me and I’s all fer that, oh yessiree. ’Lectricity lights don’t need no candle. ’Lectricity pump don’t need no handle. ’Lectricity tools do all the work. ’Lectricity iron to press my pants and shirts. So I told them all to wire me up and gimme some of that ’lectricity stuff.

Well, for too long I was modernized. Life got easy, so I retired. Sit all day on my porch swing

just lettin’ ’lectricity do ever’thang.

Yes, life was good but that was ’til one day I got sometnin’ called a light bill. Said I owed ’em quite a bit fer ever’thang what run and ever’thang what lit. ’Couldn’t pay, oh no siree. So there went all my ’lectricity.

Oh,’ lectricity, ’lectricity a’comin’ down them wires to me. ’Lectricity, ’lectricity, Makes ya modernized as you can be. How do they do it? Well, I don’t know. Never had ’lectricity before. Don’t know as I need it but I might try ’er. So gimme some of them ’lectricity wires.

After ma and pa got their ’lectricity switched back on onced they paid the light bill from ma’s cannin’ jar money, they went back to that Sears & Roebuck store and got themselves one of them modernized ’lectric power mowers.

When they got it to the shack they hung it from the ceilin’ and even though it was a might loud, we had a nice fan cooled shack from then on.

Not long after that Aunt Hazel give me some of her money and told me improve my life with it.

What I did with some of it was, I went and got me a third grade edjucation over at the Klufford’s Holler one room schoolhouse combination libery.

School started ever’ September when the leaves was turnin’ yeller and the teachers didn’t look too confident either.

The Witherspoon spinsters is the teachers at the one room schoolhouse combination libery and they’d just got back from spendin’ their summer season travelin’. They went way over a ocean to a place called Paris.

When they got back ever’body asked ’em what Paris was like.

They said if ya wanna know what Paris is like, just drink a gallon of prune juice while lookin’ at a picture of the Eiffel Tower by the light of a burnin’ $100.00 bill.

Durin’ their summer vacation before that they went to Florida.

When ever’body asked ’em what Florida was like they said the good thang about Florida is when ya buy a $30.00 steak at the grocery store, by the time ya git home, it’s done.

When they ain’t off on their summer vacations the Witherspoon spinsters spend their summertimes flower gardenin’, which they is both purty good at.

Their flowers are so purty, bright, fresh and crisp lookin’ you’d almost think they was plastic.

Once school starts in the fall, ’bout the same comes football season.

I never knowed too much ’bout football. I always thought the super bowl was a bathroom in Texas.

Fall is also the time when Halloween comes. One Halloween when the young’uns come to the Witherspoon spinsters house they had on bathrobes, mudpacks and hair curlers. The kids give them candy.

After I got done with my third grade edjucation, the Witherspoon spinsters told me they was gonna teach me algeebree in the fourth and fifth grades, but I quit my schoolin’ ’fore that. Reason bein’ is ’cause I already knowed algeebree. That’s the stuff what grows on the bottom of the ponds and swamps ’round the

holler.

The Witherspoon spinsters said I needed to larn some history, too. I didn’t figger I needed to though, just ’cause most of history is made up of folks what never made history.

‘Sides that, it seems history always repeats itself ’cause folks don’t listen the first time.

When it comes to history bein’ important, the Witherspoon spinsters say that the present is made up of past and the future is made of the present.

All that is too complicated fer me, so I just figgered I’d leave it to the experts. From what I hear tell, an expert is somebody what knows more and more ’bout less and less.

So I quit my schoolin’ ’fore that happened to me, ’cause it seems that experts are folks what avoid all the small mistakes as they go towards their last big one.

The good book says that too much knowledge makes folks proud. Makes ya puffed up it says. Turns ya all snobbishy and such.

Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem says that snobbishness is a confession of a person’s lack of class.

Reverend Elmer T. also says knowledge makes folks authorities and with authority folks grow, but a lot of times they swell.

He says that authorities are sooner or later all tested with a time of crisis. He says character ain’t made in a crisis, but it’s only put out on display in front of ever’body.

As fer me, I reckon the best teachin’ to git is by experience, like my ma and pa did. They always said experience is the best teacher ’cause it’s a hard teacher. It tests first and larns ya afterwards. My ma and pa says ever’day the world turns over on somebody what was a’sittin’ on top of it.

The Witherspoon spinsters got mad at me when I quit my schoolin’, though.

They said, “Fuster, do you wanna be a moron all yer life?”

And I said no… and I don’t wanna be a Jeehovah’s Witness neither. I’m a Baptist.”

Then they said, “Fuster, don’t ya know yer still mostly an illiterate?”

And I said, “No, I ain’t neither. My ma and pa was married when they had me.”

Another reason I quit my schoolin’ was ’cause by the time I made it to third grade, I was already fallin’ behind. That was okay with me. I figgered the sooner

ya fall behind, the more time ya got to catch up.

The Witherspoon spinster school marms said I got what’s called a Teflon edjucation. Nuthin’ stuck.

So I quit my schoolin’ and headed out into world as an edjucated man of the third grade. I was way ahead of my class even though I was fallin’ behind ’cause I was still just a teenager when I gradjeeated the third grade. Most of the rest of the third grade class was already drinkin’ age and carried moonshine jugs in their lunch bags to have with their possum, lettuce and tomater sandwiches.

They’s a lot of students from around the Smoky Mountains what come to the Klufford’s Holler one room schoolhouse combination libery.

Some of the students have differen religions, so one time the Witherspoon spinsters said they wanted to have a show and tell the next day.

What they said they wanted the students to bring in and show ever’body somethin’ what symbolized their religion.

The next day when show and tell time come, the Witherspoon spinsters asked Guffery Duntstein from over in Thistleweeds to come up and show the class what symbolized his faith and to tell the class about it.

Guffery went up to the front of the class he said “I’m Jewish and this here is a Star of David.”

Next the Witherspoon spinsters called on Mary Lynn Fitch from over in Stuckinville to come share somethin’ ’bout her religion.

Mary Lynn went up to the front of the class and said, “I’m Catholic and this here’s a crucifix.”

Then the Witherspoon spinsters called on Rev. Elmer T. Higgenbothem’s son Filpot to come up and share somethin’ ’bout his religion.

Filpot went up to the front of the class and said, “I’m a Baptist and this here is a casserole.”

Chapter Eight

TV Box Edjucation

When I quit my schoolin’ I didn’t quit gettin’ edjucation. I continued on with it in another way. What I did was, I went up to that Sears & Roebuck store in Knoxville and I got me one of them TV boxes.

Then I hauled it back to the shack, sit it down and plugged it in since we had ’lectricity. Then I turnt it on and on come somethin’ called the TV news. I found you can git yerself a fine edjucation just from a’watchin’ that TV news.

I learnt all kinds of thangs. One thang I learnt a lot about is them foreign countries, ’cause they’s always a’talkin’ ’bout foreign countries on the TV news.

They’s a couple countries they talk a lot about on the TV news what I reckon must be countries what take in pool players a’bein chased by the police. They’s called I rack ‘n’ I run.

One foreign country I learnt ’bout I figgered to be a country what must do a lot of meat packin’. But I thank they’s a’gittin’ into that meat and eatin’ some cause it’s called Half-a-can-a-spam.

Seems like a lot of folks in them foreign countries like to name their countries after what they cook. One of them is called Turkey, another one is called Greece.

They’s even one I reckon what’s named after cryin’ young’uns what’s called Wales.

They’s even a couple places what I reckon they named after whar they live and how they get around.

One I figger must be folks who don’t know whar to go and just saunter around a lot. They calls it Rome.

Then they’s another place whar folks must be in a hurry all the time what’s called Rushins.

They also talk ’bout our country a lot on the TV news and they say we’s a’gettin’ mighty advanced these days in our country. They say we even got human clonin’.

I think that’s a good idear. I figger anytime a human gets to stinkin’, throw some clone on ’em.

Somethin’ they talk a lot about on the TV news is problems. Problems here, problems thar, problems ever’whars. I got to thankin’ ’bout that and I thunk that bein’ a mountain music sanger I might could come up with a song what might help to solve some of the problems in the world. So I sit on down and writ me one what goes…

All around the world today

they’s lots of problems folks all say somebody’s gotta have an answer to.

Well, I reckon I can help with what works the best fer myself and they is just one thing we need to do.

We got to eat more possum. Eat more possum. Come on, let’s go and grill one on the porch.

Eat more possum. Eat more possum. Eat more possum, burp it up then eat some more.

And that is all we need to do. Eat possum burgers and possum stew. Just scrape one off the road and take it home.

You can fry it up with lizard and it’ll slide right down yer gizzard.

There’s the answer, so now sang along…

We got to eat more possum. Eat more possum. Come on, let’s go and grill one on the porch.

Eat more possum. Eat more possum. Eat more possum, burp it up then eat some more.

They say we got a lot of problems in our country on the TV news. One problem they say we got in this country is a drug problem.

I know that’s true ’cause we even got a drug problem back in Klufford’s Holler. The menfolk gotta be drug outta bed to go to work, the womenfolk gotta be drug outta bed to do the household chores and the young’uns gotta be drug outta bed to go off to schoolin’.

One problem they say on the TV news is ’specially bad in this country is a crack problem. I say I’m against that. I feel as anybody with a crack problem aughta pull their britches up higher.

One of the kinds of folks with them britches problems I saw on the TV was news was what was called crap singers. They’s mispernounced it though and said it was rap, but ever’body knows it’s really crap.

I couldn’t figger out why they’d put them crap singers on the TV box ’cause folks is supposed to have some talent to get on the TV news, or else have done somethin’ wrong.

Maybe that was why them crap singer folks was on the TV news, what with their britches hangin’ so low and their underbritches a showin’. Reckon maybe they got arrested fer it. Just as well… it’s a good idear to git shud of as much crap music as ya can.

One time Bub and Chesley Gillenwater what runs the gasoline station in Klufford’s Holler made it on he local TV news comin’ outta Knoxville.

What happened was, they went deer huntin’ way back up in the Smoky Mountains and got themselves lost. The state police and National Guard had to go out lookin’fer ’em. They was half starved to death and dehydrated when they was found.

When they did find ’em, Bub said, “We’re mighty glad ya found us. We was ’bout to give up hope. We fired a whole bunch of shots into the air to try and get somebody’s attention to come rescue us, but we plum run all the way outta arrows.”

When the TV news folks asked ’em how they got lost, Chesley said, “Well, we bagged us a deer and was draggin’ it by the tail to take it to the pickup truck. Then a game warden come by and said to drag it by the antlers ’cause it’d be a lot easier. So we did, but we got further and further from the truck ’til we didn’t know whar we was.”

They was also another couple fellers from over in Muckwaller named Herbert and Gerbert Boggers what got on the local Knoxville TV news ’cause of goin’ bad and becomin’ robbers.

The first robbery they pulled was when they went up to Knoxville and Herbert put his finger in a rich lookin’ feller’s back while Gerbert said, “This is a stick up. Give us all yer money.”

The feller turnt around, saw Herbert’s finger and said, That’s yer finger. You ain’t even got a gun.”

Gerbert said, “Well… it’s the first thang we plan to buy.”

After they got themselves a gun Herbert and Gerbert headed out west to become outlaws. I heared tell they even went on down to Mexico to hide out after doin’ some robbin’. While they was there they saw somethin’ called bunjee jumpin’, so they thought they’d try it out.

They went to this real high cliff up over a Mexican village whar thar was a bunjee jumpin’ place. Herbert said he’d be first to go and while he got ready to do his jump they noticed a whole bunch of Mexican folks in the village down below them gatherin’ up to watch them do their bunjee jumpin’.

When Herbert jumped off the cliff he went way down to whar all the Mexican village folks was, and then he spung way back up again almost to the top of the cliff whar Gerbert was. When Herbert came up Gerbert noticed that he had

bruises all on his face as he begun a’goin’ back down.

When Herbert got all the way back down to whar the Mexican village folks was, he sprung back up again almost to whar Gerbert was on thecliff. While he was goin’ by Gerbert noticed that Herbert was bruised up even worse and was even bleedin’ purty bad.

Then Herbert went back down again to whar the Mexican village folks was and sprung back up again to whar Gerbert was and Gerbert saw that this time he was bruised up and bleedin’ somethin’ terrible. So Gerbert grabbed ahold of the bunjee cord and pulled Herbert on up to the top of the cliff.

Herbert looked awful, bruised and bleedin’ like he was.

Gerbert said, “What happened Herbert? Was ya hittin’ the ground down thar?”

Herbert said, “No… but what’s a piniata?”

Some say Herbert and Gerbert went bad from what they lernt watchin’ them TV shows what have so much bad stuff on ’em. Like a lot of folks, I wonder whatever happened to them good TV shows. I sure wish they’d bring ’em back. I even writ a poem song about that what goes…

Gunsmoke and Bonanza, Sugarfoot and Cheyenne, Have Gun Will Travel, Wyatt Erp, Bat Masterson,

Lawman and The Rebel, Wanted Dead Or Alive, Maverick, The Virginian, Wagon Train and Rawhide. Way out west on ABC, NBC, CBS.

Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Sky King. Zorro and The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid and Laramie. High Chapperal, The Big Valley, Stoney Burke, Rin-Tin-Tin, Fury and My Friend Flicka, Broken Arrow, Bronco, The Rifleman. Way out west on ABC, NBC, CBS.

Now sometimes I wonder, are they out there still? Ridin’ ranges on cable or buried in network Boothill?

Little House On The Prairie, Branded, Death Valley Days, Roy Rogers, Spin & Marty, Dick Powell Presents Zane Grey. The Travels Of Jamie Mheeters, Tales Of Wells Fargo and the rest. Why did they let such good TV ride off into the sunset? Way out west on ABC, NBC, CBS.

I sure did like them cowboy TV shows. I lernt a lot o’ thangs ’bout the old west from them shows, too.

One thang I lernt was that the good guys all wear white hats and the bad guys always wears black hats and purty soon they git into a gunfight, which the good guys always wins.

Then after that, the good guys go to the saloon on Saturday night and then to church on Sunday mornin’. So I figgered they must be Baptists.

I hear tell out west they got tumbleweeds. We got what’s called Tennessee tumble weeds, which is Walmart bags blowin’ across I-40.

I also hear tell they got desserts out west which is made of sand. We got desserts in Klufford’s Holler over at Harlan Crumpton’s Cowbarn Restaurant and they taste like they’s made of sand, too.

One other thang I hear tell they got in their outhouses out west is John Wayne toilet paper. It’s called that ’cause it’s rough and tough and don’t take crap off of nobody.

I used to git really inspired by them cowboy TV shows, though. Fer awhile I even ’magined myself as a real live cowboy too and commenced writ’ a poem song ’bout that, what goes…

Oh, I’m a cowboy hillbilly. A cowboy hillbilly. A cowboy hillbilly. Yippeekiay! Got a hog farm ranch with cattle. Hound dog rides with me in my saddle. Cowboy hillbilly, yippiekiyay!

Well, my daddy hails from Texas and when he was young he met up with a southern belle from the hills of Tennessee.

Oh, they got hitched up fer too long and they had me fer their young’un. That’s why I am a cowboy hillbilly.

Now it’s not easy I must confess to be one part south and the other part west. I got a banjer on my back and on my hip is a six gun.

I ride my rodeo through the mountains lasooin’ bears and possums, singin’ ‘She’ll be comin’ ’round the corral when she comes.’

And I’m a cowboy hillbilly. A cowboy hillbilly. A cowboy hillbilly. Yippeekiay! Got overalls with my long johns on with my western wear that I wear to town. Cowboy hillbilly, yippiekiyay!

I eat my grub out on the campfire while playin’ country western bluegrass guitar singin’ songs about horses and a’shootin’ the revenuers. I sit out on the porch of my bunkhouse shack with my moonshine jug and ten gallon hat cleanin’cowpies off my old clodhopper spurs.

And when I watch the TV box I can’t decide which best I like.

Beverly Hillbillies or them old Gunsmoke reruns. Oh well, it gets a bit confusin’, but there ain’t no way of choosin’. I’m my momma’s mountain boy and my daddy’s dude ranch sone

And I’m a cowboy hillbilly. A cowboy hillbilly. A cowboy hillbilly. Yippeekiay! I’m dusty and bow-legged. Ain’t had a bath I ages. Cowboy hillbilly, yippiekiyay!

Then I figgered I’d like to be a cowboy music sanger, so I tried doin’ that fer a spell. It didn’t work out too good. After it was all over I writ me a cowboy song sanger poem song ’bout all I’d been through what went…

I was raised out on the prairie with that campfire music in my blood and I wanted to be a big cowboy song sanger like the great ones I’d heard of.

So I found me an agency ment

‘said, “We’ll guarantee to make you a star!” All needed was my dream and to follow their scheme and fer I knew I’d be toppin’ the charts.

As soon as I walked in I got a contract and pen but since I signed the dotted line they changed their tune. I got those “Don’t blame us that your still not famous” cowboy music showbiz blues.

Now they had me buy this checkered suit and tie and paisley cowboy hat and boots and belt. They said for media mention and for public attention I had to have an image to sell.

They said your music ain’t what matters, boy. Ya gotta play the gimmick angle game. You just keep sendin’ on in our 98% and we’ll be givin’ you a name.

It seems to me that when yer bound for stardom along the way ya gotta pay yer dues.

But I ain’t seen a lick of fame and fortune yet. Just these cowboy music showbiz blues.

Well, every night I sit and sang waitin’ for the phone to rang with the news my name’s in lights at last. It gets kinda depressin’ when my audience won’t listen. Instead they sit and stare then start to laugh.

But my agency says they’re workin’ hard for me though they’ve forgot my name each time I call. And the only radio and TV offers that I get come from department store catalogs.

Well every now and then I think I’ve reached my ropes end. Gonna pack my bags and head for home. Go back to sangin’ tunes and verses for the cattle and the horses. At least they stick around and listen to my songs.

Someday I’m gonna have to shake this always lookin’ for a break ’cause I’m as broke as I can get, in debt and poor

from always takin’ my career plan to the folks who make things happen just to have them show me to the door.

But I guess that’s the life of a cowboy song sanger as I wait to make the big time who’s who. Playin’ guitar in my outfit, I’m a flyin’ bottle target with these cowboy music showbiz blues.

That name them bookin’ agency fellers gimme I later come to find was ‘sucker’. I just reckoned they couldn’t read my signature writin’ of Fuster what I put down on that thar contract they gimme. That’s okay though ’cause I quit tryin’ to be a cowboy music sanger and just decided to stick with my banjer playin’ of mountain music.

Folks always said I was a level headed banjer player anyway. They say you can always tell a level headed banjer player ’cause a level headed banjer player has go drool runninin’ out both corners of his mouth.

If I ever really did become a cowboy though, I thinks I’d like to live in Texas. I heared tell it’s not as easy fer hillfolks to git into Texas as it once was, though. What I heard was that Texans got so tired of hillfolks comin’ into their state that they put up a road block on the highway comin’ outta Texarkana and only let professional folks come into Texas.

One example I heared tell about that was a feller what was comin’ outta Arkansas what got stopped by the Texas state trooper road block and they asked

him, “Whatta ya do fer a livin’?”

The feller said, “I’m a pilot.”

So they let him on through and then stopped the next feller what was comin’ outta Arkansas and said, “Whatta ya do fer a livin’?”

The feller said, “I chop wood.”

The Texas state trooper said, “Yer gonna haveta turn on around and go back.”

The feller from Arkansas said, “Well, you let that car up ahead of me go on through.”

The Texas state trooper said, “He’s a pilot.”

The feller from Arkansas said, “Well, he can’t pilot if I don’t chop it.”

Chapter Nine

Modernized Newfangled Gizmos & Gadgets

They is lots of other stuff on the TV box nowadays besides the TV news and shows. Like fer example, they is a lot of what is called TV commercials. That’s whar they try to get ya to buy stuff they’s a’sellin’ on the TV box. They say ya can’t live without it and ya might even die if ya don’t get it.

One kinda TV commercial they got a lot of is them remedy pill commercials. They got remedy pills to make ya sleep when ya can’t sleep, remedy pills to wake ya up when ya do sleep, remedy pills if yer too fat, remedy pills if yer too skinny and about ever’thang else.

They even got a remedy pill called Viager. I didn’t know what that was, so I went and asked ol’ Doc Beanly about it. He said he didn’t know what it was either, but the drug company sent him some samples.

He said he took one to find out what it did, but it got caught in his throat. All that happened was it gave him a stiff neck.

Ol’ Doc Beanly is a purty inspirin’ person ’cause he’s the one what patches or pills ever’body up ’round Klufford’s Holler as well as Muckwaller, Stuckinville and Thistleweeds when we get mangled some by this or that or get too feelin’ poorly.

Ever’body in Klufford’s Holler goes to him whenever somethin’s ailin’ ’em. I go to him myself when somethin’s ailin’ me now and then, too.

One time I got down with a real bad cough, so I called him up on my teleyphone about it and he said to come to his office in a week.

I said, “Well, this is a purty bad cough. What if I git neemonia and die?”

Ol’ Doc Beanly said, “Well, I reckon I’ll just have to cancel the appointment.”

I said, “If I die, do ya do autopsies on dead folks?”

Ol’ Doc Beanly said, “Yeah, I prefer to. The livin’ ones fight me too much.”

I didn’t die though and the next week I went into see ol’ Doc Beanly ’bout my cough. By then I also developed a bad hearin’ problem. I told him my hearin’ was so bad I couldn’t hear myself cough.

He gave me an elixir of some kind and told me to come back in a week. The next week I come back and he asked me how I was a doin’.

I said, “That ear medicine elixir ya give me really worked. I can hear myself cough just fine now.”

Ol’ Doc Beanly said, “That weren’t ear medicine. That was somethin’ to help increase yer cough.”

One time Jerome Dipplesump, what’s knowed as the laziest feller in Klufford’s Holler and weighs four hundred pounds, went into ol’ Doc Beanly’s office complainin’ of feelin’ poorly.

Ol’ Doc Beanly had been a’tryin’ to git Jerome to exercise more by doin’ more walkin, but Jerome never did. When he went into his office ol’ Doc Beanly examined Jerome and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll git ya back on yer feet in no time.”

Then he took Jerome’s jalopy keys.

Jerome is so lazy that one time a contest was held to determine who was the laziest person in the Smoky Mountains and Jerome won. The prize was $500.00. When they went to give him the check, they found Jerome layin’ face down asleep in his front yard.

They come up to him and told him, “We have a check for $500.00 that ya won in the laziest man in the Smoky Mountains contest.”

Jerome said, “Okay. Just roll me over and stick it my shirt pocket.”

When they asked Jerome why he was so lazy and why he never set a goal in life for himself, Jerome said, “I never set a goal in life ’cause that way I’ll never be a

failure.”

Then he said, “Besides, work pays off in the future, but laziness pays off now.”

Jerome took his $500.00 prize money and bought his self a farm in Klufford’s Holler, but he never did much of anything on it. The barn was about to fall over, but then it was struck by lightenin’ and burned to the ground, so he didn’t have to tear it down.

Then a rain come and washed off his muddy ol’ tractor so he didn’t have to bother with cleanin’ that.

Lately he’s been sittin’ out on the porch waitin’ fer an earthquake to come and shake his potaters out of the ground.

Jerome one time took a fancy to Illean Witherspoon of the Witherspoon spinster school marms and even proposed to her with a little poem song he wrote fer her what went…

Honey baby when I met ya now I knowed you was the one. Even though I might be ugly and I might weigh half a ton.

So I ain’t too particular. You just me and that’ll do and I’ll love you with all my heart and half my gizzard, too.

Now I been a’lookin’ fer someone what would love me as a man. And when I won’t work, I lay ’round stinkin’ and dirty, still you’ll love and understand.

If you’ll fetch my snuff, wipe my drippin’ mouth off and empty my spittoon then I’ll love you with all my heart and half my gizzard, too.

Now I ain’t a’sayin’ I’m such a catch myself. But you could make me a happy man with a little of yer help.

You just wash my clothes and wipe my nose, shave and bathe me and brush my tooth and I’ll love you with all my heart and half my gizzard, too.

So honey baby, how’s about it now? I’m a’waitin’ here to say I do. Let’s tie the knot, take some money you got and go have ourselves a honeymoon.

Then I’ll move into yer house and you can do like yer told to do and I’ll love you with all my heart and half my gizzard, too.

Illean thunk ’bout it fer a spell and was just about to take Jerome up on his offer, but then decided that she couldn’t leave her sister Irene all alone without nobody.

Jerome said, “That ain’t no problem. I’ll just marry ya both and we can move to Utah.”

They mighta took him up on that, but decided not to ’cause they both had a crush on ol’ Doc Beanly ever since they danced with him over at Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem’s last square dance fundraiser at the Town Hall Baptist Church.

Fact is, weighin’ three hundred pounds apiece, when the Witherspoon spinsters danced with anybody they purty well had a crush on ’em.

Bein’ purty much the opposite of lazy Jerome, ol’ Doc Beanly has always been a very enterprisin’ person. He was a doctor by the time he was twenty five.

It’s said that ol’ Doc Beanly got engaged to a young lady after he become a doctor, but she broke off the engagement to run away with another man. He took it in stride though. He just asked her for the ring back and billed her all the house calls he made to her while they was courtin’.

Ol’ Doc Beanly sure is a good doctor. Ever’body ’round Klufford’s Holler ’preciates him a lot. Not only does he do doctorin’ on folks’ bodies, but he helps Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem out with doctorin’ folks’ souls, too.

As fer the body and soul, ol’ Doc Beanly always says, “God wisely designed us so that we can neither pat ourselves on the the back or kick ourselves in the butt.”

I writ a poem song once about ol’ Doc Beanly and how he helps folks out. It goes like this here…

My name is old Doc Beanly. I got an office down on Main. Folks come from miles around to see me when they got themselves a pain. But when I went into this doctorin’ business so many years ago I didn’t know how the Lord would use me reachin’ folks headed down below.

Now I go to church on Sunday to hear the message God has sent. And I just grin when sinners scoff and won’t come in when invited to repent. ’Cause I know when the preacher’s tried his best and they stay wicked as can be that sooner or later’s gonna come a time they’ll be comin’ in to me.

And it’s that medical ‘Uh-oh… ‘ evangelism works miracles, don’t ya know.

’Cause them sinners sure ’nuff all wanna become saints when their carcasses start to go. Well, they’ve all got their reasons for resistin’ religion ’til the day I give ’em the bad news. And it’s that medical “Uh oh…” evangelism gits ’em in the church house pews.

Now I’ve seen how the Lord can open sinner’s eyes when they’re lookin’ at their ‘goodbye’ X-ray slides. It does a heart good to see such conversion inspiration come to unbelievers when they’re scared to perspiration.

Though I must it I don’t rightly understand the reason why, when everybody knows that they’re bound to die, that they wait so late to git right with God

’til they’ve learned that they’re just about to leave their bod.

It’s plum amazin’ how an incurable disease can help a wicked man to repent. Ya kinda git the same effect with a heart attack or a nasty ol’ accident. I do what I can to keep ’em kickin’, but it’s what I can’t fix that really works to stop their walkin’ so proud and talkin’ so loud, git on their knees and git to church.

And it’s that medical ‘Uh-oh… ‘ evangelism works miracles, don’t ya know. ’Cause them sinners sure ’nuff all wanna become saints when their carcasses start to go. Well, they’ve all got their reasons for resistin’ religion ’til the day I give ’em the bad news. And it’s that medical “Uh oh…” evangelism gits ’em in the church house pews.

Ol’ Doc Beanly is the kinda doctor what’s still the way doctors used to be. He might not always know what’s wrong with ya, but he don’t charge ya $25.00 and then to send ya to someone who does.

He also don’t write out them squiggely line remedy pill perscriptions what only a drug store can translate into dollar signs.

Bein’ a general practice doctor, ol’ Doc Beanly does ever kinda doctorin’ there is, includin’ dentistin’.

One time my brothers Orville and Ebert went into his office and Ebert said, “I want a tooth taken out. Don’t worry ’bout usin’ gas to deadin’ the pain. We’re in a hurry.”

Ol’ Doc Beanly said, “Yer sure a brave boy.”

Ebert said, “Thanky doc. Show him yer tooth, Orville.”

They’s always a lot of folks what’s a’losin’ thar teeth in Klufford’s Holler and ol’ Doc Beanly fits ’em with false choppers. He got to be pretty enterprisin’ with that and commenced to run specials on Polygrip and peanut brittle.

He also got into the teeth braces business fer the young folks of Klufford’s Holler. Fact is, he put so many braces on Jeb and Kathy Bell Mortley’s daughter Brenda Jean that they don’t have to call her to supper anymore. They just hold up a magnet.

At the harvest season social over at Harlan Crumpton’s Cowbarn Restaurant Brenda Jean was the only kid thar what had to bob fer applesauce.

With the Witherspoon spinsters takin’ an ongoin’ shine to ol’ Doc Beanly, when they found out he did dentistin’ work, they always eat a whole bag of Oreos before they go into see him.

Other times when they’ve gone into see him they’d ask him if he had any diet pills like they on the TV box commercials, bein’ as they both weigh over three hundred pounds. He said he didn’t have any diet pills and if they wanted to lose weight they should just quit eatin’ so much and start exercisin’ more.

They didn’t do it though ’cause they believe that a person’s weight is relative… and most all their relatives weigh over three hundred pounds.

Ol’ Doc Beanly is purty traditional when it comes to dietin’. He lernt dietin’ from his ma and pa when he was a young’un. When it come to dietin’ at their house, all ya had to do was show up two minutes late fer supper.

Ol’ Doc Beanly don’t advise nobody to take all them remedy pills on them TV box commercials unlessin’ folks really need ’em. He says folks aughta be wise enough to know that all the struggles in life can’t be solved with pills.

He says that sometimes it’s best just to struggle with problems ’cause the best way to get out of somethin’ is to go through it.

Like fer example, he says if ya can’t sleep at night, don’t take a sleepin’ pill. Just sleep on the edge of yer bed and you’ll soon drop off.

When ol’ Doc Beanly ain’t doctorin’ he often sits and ponders the great questions of life. What he ponders is thangs like… .

Why does yer nose run and your feet smell?

If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

When ya open a new bag of cotton balls, are ya s’posed to throw the top one away?

Is there seein’ eye humans fer blind dogs?

If knees was backwards, what would chairs look like?

Where is Preparations A through G?

What’s the speed of dark?

When yer sending somebody Styrofoam, what do ya pack it in?

Why is there Braille signs on the big city bank ATMs?

If women wear a pair of pants, a pair of glasses, and a pair of earrings, why don’t they wear a pair of braziers?

How come ya never hear ’bout gruntled employees?

What’s a free gift? Ain’t all gifts free?

After eatin’, does amphibians have to wait a hour before gettin’ out of the water?

What’s another word fer synonym?

If somebody with multiple personalities threatens to kill his self, is it a hostage sitiation?

When sign makers go on strike, what’s writ on their picket signs?

Where does forest rangers go to git away from it all?

Why ain’t thar no mouse-flavored cat food?

Why is builders afeared to have a 13th floor but book publishers ain’t afeared to have a Chapter 11?

How can thar be self-help groups?

Why do ya need a driver’s license to buy alcyhol when you can’t drink and drive?

Why is cigeerits sold in gasoline stations when smokin’ ain’t allowed there?

If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?

What do butterflies get in their stomachs when they’s nervous?

Why is it that when ya send somethin’ by car it’s called a shipment, but when ya send somethin’ by ship it’s called cargo?

Why do folks play in recitals and recite in plays?

If ya pull the wings off of a fly, would ya call it a walk?

When yer pet bird sees ya readin’ newspapers does it wonder why yer sittin’ thar starin’ at carpeting?

What happened to the first 6 ups?

If an orange is called an orange, why ain’t a lime called a green or a lemon called a yeller?

I think folks aughta ponder more ’bout life ’fore they go ahead with thangs, just the way ol’ Doc Beanly does.

Nowadays it seems folks just want to take the easy way, but always takin’ the easy way makes ya weaker instead of stronger inside. That seems to be the biggest problem with all the modernized stuff they try to sell ya on them TV box commercials.

Modernized stuff is s’posed to make life easier, but it’s really just makin’ life more complercated it seems. Like nowadays they got $30,000.00 school buses to take young’uns to a school whar they got $30,000.00 gyms so’s they can git some exercise.

They sure do got a whole bunch of commercials on the TV box though. They grocery stores a lot on the TV box. Nowadays they call ’em supermarkets. What a supermarket is a place ya get a shoppin’cart that very easily reaches $150.00 an hour.

They’s one kind of commercial they used to have a mess of on the TV box, but they don’t got no more of ’em a’tall. That was them cigeerit commercials.

The reason they ain’t got no cigeerit commercials on the TV box anymore is ’cause the polerticians up in Washington, D.C. made a law sayin’ ya can’t cigeerits on the TV box no more.

Then after they made that law the polerticians commenced to usin’ all that extry TV commercial time to run their campaign ads with.

Pa said he didn’t see how that made any diff’rence ’cause polerticians are just ’bout the same as cigeerits. They come in packs, it costs a lot to buy ’em, they just blow smoke and they always wind up bein’ a bunch of butts.

Pa said polerticians is to blame fer all the money mess the country is in with inflation and all. He says nowadays if somebody es ya a phoney twenty dollar bill, it’s probably the government.

He said if ya dropped a dollar bill on the ground nowadays you’ll probably get arrested fer litterin’.

He also says that ’cause of inflation if a counterfitter bought a printin’ press, paper and ink and run off a million dollar bill, he’d lose money.

Pa says the polerticians have made things so bad that folks nowadays can’t

afford to be poor.

He says the way you can tell when inflation is got bad is when gas goes out of sight but yer autimobile don’t.

He says folks don’t need to get away from it all anymore, ’cause it all gits away from them.

Pa says they’s just two thangs what go from zero to sixty in five seconds. Autimobiles and cash s.

Pa says he learnt ’bout polerticians from a couple old country and western song he heared on the radio box. One was called ‘The Oil Is All In Texas But The Dipsticks Are In D.C.’

The other was called ‘Crime Wouldn’t Pay If The Government Ran It’.

Pa knows ’bout cigeerits too ’cause he was on the cigeerit habit fer quite a long spell ’til he finally give it up. One of the reasons he did was ’cause he once fell asleep while smokin’ a cigeerit and the ashes what fell on the floor was almost his own.

After he did give up the cigeerits, he writ a poem song about it. Here’s how it goes…

Oh, I’s hooked on tabacky, cigeerits and such. I’d suck it in my innards and I’d blow it out my mouth. Smoked ’til I choaked on it fer years. Now I quit tabacky ‘n’ wish I never heared… of it.

’Cause tabacky ain’t no good fer you. Shouldn’t never aughta smoke it ner chew it, too. Shouldn’t never aughta wanna dip that snuff, ner smoke on ceegars ‘n’ pipes ‘n’ such. Naw, ya shouldn’t never wanna take tabacky ’cause tabacky ain’t no good fer you.

Oh, when I’s just a knee-high sprout I wanted to find out what tabacky was about. Went on down to Uncle John’s farm, snuck on back behind the barn. Took some tabacky on out of a pouch, rolled it on up, stuck in my mouth. Set it to fire, took a deep breath. Thought I’s gonna choke to death.

’Cause tabacky ain’t no good fer you. Shouldn’t never aughta smoke it ner chew it, too. Shouldn’t never aughta wanna dip that snuff, ner smoke on ceegars ‘n’ pipes ‘n’ such. Naw, ya shouldn’t never wanna take tabacky ’cause tabacky ain’t no good fer you.

Well, I don’t know why but I took more puffs. By and by I’s hooked on the stuff. Thirty years later I decided to quit. Throwed away all my cigeerits. Now I beat tabacky, but I ain’t braggin’, I keep a corncob pipe in case I fall off the wagon.

But… tabacky ain’t no good fer you. Shouldn’t never aughta smoke it ner chew it, too. Shouldn’t never aughta wanna dip that snuff, ner smoke on ceegars ‘n’ pipes ‘n’ such. Naw, ya shouldn’t never wanna take tabacky ’cause tabacky ain’t no good fer you.

They’s a lot of commercials on the TV box what they say ya gotta have their stuff to be modernized. Clothes is even modernized. Nowadays they got somethin’ called permanent press clothes. I reckon that’s what ended the iron age.

They also got somethin’ called checks you can pay folks with instead of money. They said ya git ’em at a bank.

That sounded good to me, so I went up to a bank in Knoxville and got me some of them checks and I commenced to payin’ ever’body with ’em.

After a spell I got a letter from the bank sayin’ I was overdrawn. I writ the bank back and told ’em they must be mistaken ’bout that ’cause I still had a whole bunch of checks left.

Somethin’ else they had at that bank was credit cards and debit cards. They asked me if I wanted them, too and they showed me what they looked like. I told ’em I didn’t want ’em.

All they were just these little plasticky cards with numbers on ’em way past ten but not even any jacks, queens, kings ner aces.

Another thang they got nowdays is cornputers. I figgered a cornputer must be somethin’ that putes up corn and makes mash and grits and all, so I ordered me on up one.

A feller come out the shack and hooked it fer me and explained ’bout it, but I didn’t understand much a’tall of what he was a’sayin’.

He said stuff like ram, screen, log on and all kinds of other thangs like that. So when he left I tried to do the best I could with what he said. I rammed it through my screen door and put a log on it. None of that did much of anythang.

Then I took it back inside and tried to git that cornputer pute up some corn fer me, but I didn’t see how in the world it worked.

All the danged thang was was somethin’ like a little TV box with a bunch of little buttons with letters on ’em out front.

I mashed down on one button and up popped ‘Windows’. So I covered it a hefty bag and duct tape.

They was a button on that thar cornputer what said ‘Enter’. I pushed it ’cause I figgered it must be a doorbell. It didn’t make no dingy sound though.

All that happened was it said, “You got mail.”

So I went out across the road and checked the box but they weren’t mail in it. That danged thang just plum lied to me.

Then I mashed down on another button and some words come up what said to

build yer own web site. I didn’t have no hankerin’ to do that a’tall.

With all the spiders ever’where in our shack they’s already plenty good web sites. There weren’t no call to build another one.

I just couldn’t understand that thar cornputer ner git it pute up any corn a’tall, so I finally give up on it. I took the whole contraption apart, hauled it outside and throwed it down the outhouse hole.

Sometimes after that when my neighbors would come by my shack and say, “How ya doin’ with that new cornputer of yers, Fuster?”

I’d say, “Well… I go on it two or three times a day.”

The only good thang I can say ’bout cornputers is that, unlike a lot of folks, when ya turn it on it at least it checks its brain to see if it’s got anything to say.

Them modernized newfangled contraptions and gizmos they got nowadays, I just don’t understand ’em ner much care to.

They got stuff called ipods and ipads. I only know about pea pods like what ya grow out in the garden, and times I’d pad the bed if ever I peed in it when I was a young’un.

Another thang they got nowadays is sell phones. ’Course that ain’t really nothin’

a’tall new. The teleyphone company’s been a’sellin’ phones fer years.

Seems like all the modernized stuff they got nowadays has wound up makin’ us all one of three kinds of people. The haves, the have nots and the haven’t paid fer it yets.

It used to be that ten cents was a lot o’ money, but the dimes have changed.

And then they’s what’s called them public service TV box ments what tries to git ya to send money in to save bears, trees, critters, fish and ’bout everything else. None of that make sense to me ’cause that’s mostly what we live on up in the mountains.

They say it’s wrong to cut down trees, have a gun and even wave the Dixie flag nowadays.

I think they’s plum crazy. It just teaches folks how to think crazy like whoever them folks is what puts them kinda thangs on the TV box.

They say stuff like men and men together and women and women together is okay, killin’ young’uns fer they’s even born is okay, and takin’ prayer, the Bible outta schools and the public square is okay.

I think it started first by takin’ the Ten Commandments out of the courthouses. With lawyers bein’ there all the time I reckon it created a purty big conflict of interest.

Sides that they’s all kinds of them TV box programs full ‘o’ cussin’ and showin’ stuff what should be only kept behind closed doors tweenst a man and his wife.

A lot of that stuff is on somethin’ called soap oprys. I figger they call ’em that cause they’s dirty and needs to be cleaned up.

Then they’s somethin’ called reality TV what makes no sense a’tall. If folks want reality, what in the world do they need a TV fer?

But they was a couple of them modernized thangs on the TV box commercials what I did want to git. One was somethin’ called a microwave oven.

I went to the Sears & Roebuck store up in Knoxville and got me one of them and hauled it back to the shack and stuck it in the fireplace. Now I can lay in front of the fire all night long in just ten minutes.

Another thang I thought would be good to git is one of them autymobiles. ’Course I couldn’t afford one of them fancy newfangled ones like what they got on the TV box commercials. All I could afford was an old jalopy.

What I ended up buyin’ was Uncle Ralph’s 1962 pickup truck what Aunt Hazel was sellin’ after he ed on. I spent the last of the money she give me to improve my life with on that pickup truck. I guess that’s what they call recyclin’.

‘Fore I got Uncle Ralph’s pickup truck I mostly got around by hitchhikin’. One

time when I was hitchhikin’ up a highway a towtruck driver stopped to pick me up. But he didn’t have no room in his truck seat fer me to sit. ’cause it was all full of mechanic’s tools. So he told me to go hop in the car he was a’towin’. So I did.

Whilest we was goin’ along the highway all the sudden a state trooper policeman’s sireen commenced to wailin’ and his lights was a’flashin’ wantin’ the tow truck driver to pull over. When he went to the truck driver, the state trooper give him a ticket. Then he come back and give me one, too.

After I got Uncle Ralph’s pickup truck I had to larn to drive the thang. It had one of them automatic transmissions ’cause Aunt Hazel said Uncle Ralph was too shiftless to learn a clutch.

She said Uncle Ralph cut the safety belt out of it too, so it would be easier fer him to leave the scene of accidents.

Uncle Ralph sometimes would go out possum huntin’ in his pickup truck. When he’d see a possum in the road, he’d step on the gas and run ’em down sometimes doin’ 60 miles an hour. It was what he called fast food.

I lernt a lot of stuff whilest I was out drivin’ Uncle Ralph’s pickup truck. I lernt what traffic lights is. They’s them thangs what turn from green to red just as yer comin’ up on ’em.

One thang that made me wonder about along roads is them deer crossin’ signs. How do they know deers are gonna cross there?

I weren’t too good with my drivin’ at first. One time I wound up goin’ the wrong way down one of them Interstates. A policeman stopped me and said, “Where do think yer goin’”?

I said, “I dunno. But I must be too late ’cause ever’body else is comin’ back.”

He give me a ticket, which I thought was nice of him just like that other police feller what give me a ticket when I was ridin’ in the car bein’ towed.

But neither one of them policemen ever said what the tickets was to. So I’m still holdin’ on to ’em ’cause I’d like to go to whatever they’s to since I can get around a lot more in my pickup truck now.

It is a purty good pickup truck. The kind you can tell it was owned by a southern married couple like Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hazel. The way you can tell a pickup truck was owned by a southern married couple is by the tabacky juice stains all along both sides of it.

Chapter Ten

Dollywood & Nashville

After I did larn to drive my pickup truck purty good I got an idear what come to me one day. I got the idear that now that I was drivin’, maybe I could drive off somewhar’s and find me a job.

So I hopped in my pickup truck and drived all over the Smoky Mountains a’lookin’ fer me a job ’til I found one.

Whar I found a job was at Dollywood. I went on into Dollywood and said, “I’m a’lookin’ fer me a job.”

They said, “Whatta ya do?”

I said, “Well, I pick the banjer some and I sang mountain music songs.”

They said, “That’s good. We need banjer players and mountain music sangers.”

So they hired me on up and I worked four or five years at that Dollywood pickin’ my banjer and sangin’ mountain music songs. Whilest I was thar I found out that they’s thousands and thousands of people what come to Dollywood ever’day.

A whole lot of the people what come there say, “Is Dolly Parton here?”

Most of the time Dolly isn’t thar ’cause she’s off doin’ concerts or makin’ records or goin’ on the TV box or makin’ movies.

But she is thar sometimes, so I’d always tell folks, “If ya wanna know when Dolly’s gonna be here, just listen to the weatherman.”

They’d always say, “How does the weatherman know when Dolly’s gonna be here?”

I’d say, “Well, Dolly will probably be here when the weatherman says they’s a big front comin’ in.”

It was good workin’ at Dollwood, and right interestin’ ’cause ever’day all the people what come thar was a mix of tourist folks from all over the country and the local mountain folks.

It was easy to tell the difference between ’em though, ’cause you can always pick out mountain folks from regular folks. Mountain folks are the ones who’s teeth look ’bout the same as what ya see in a Halloween pumpkin jack-o-latern.

They’s also the ones what has to always be kept from tryin’ to take animals in the pettin’ zoo home fer vittles.

I worked at Dollywood ’til after I met Dolly’s Uncle Bill and he advised me to go to Nashville. So I did.

Along the way to Nashville I found out it was a mighty expensive trip ’cause of how high gas prices is. I pulled into one gas station and said fill ’er up and he pointed to the cash and said, “You first.”

When I got to Nashville I went into one of them Italian restaurants thar to git me a pizzer ’cause I always heared of pizzers but never had one. They didn’t have no pizzer, though. All they had was all these big fancy named Italian meals.

I looked at the menu and said, “Okay, I’ll have yer Pageone.

The waiter said, “I’m sorry sir… that’s the number of the page in the menu.”

After I did order somethin’ and got done eatin’ they give me the bill and it was so expensive that I told ’em that it’d cost less to go to the moon.

They just said, “We would like open a restaurant on the moon, but we never will. It would have great food… but no atmosphere.”

So, I left the restaurant and commenced to look for entertainin’ work in Nashville. After I commenced to findin’ some work in the Nashville music businesses, one time I got to be on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium.

A feller who worked there said to me, “This is whar country music was founded.”

I said, “Really? I didn’t even know it got lost.”

I always liked country music. ’Course nowadays they’s so many counterfit country sangers on the market that it’s hard to tell who the real originals is. Seems ya can stick a gueetar and a cowboy hat on most anybody and call ’em a country sanger these days.

It didn’t used to be that way. You could always tell a real country music star by the look in his eye, the song in his heart and the cow patties stuck to his boots.

Whilest I was on that stage at the Ryman Auditorium though, it brought all kinds of memories back to me from when I was a child growin’ up in Klufford’s Holler. Reason bein’ is ’cause the Ryman Auditorium is whar they used to broadcasted the Grand Ole Opry from.

What I ’membered was when I were a child back in Klufford’s Holler, on Saturday nights I’d go over to my mamaw’s shack and we’d sit out on her porch a’listenin’ to the Grand Ole Opry on her battery operated radio.

I well ’member a lot of them Grand Ole Opry songs.

One was called ‘How Can I Ever Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?’

Another one was called ‘I’m Sorry That I Made You Cry, But At Least Yer Face Is Clean’.

Then there was one called ‘If I’d Shot Ya When I First Wanted To, I’d Be Out By Now’.

But my favorite one of all was called ‘If My Nose Was Runnin’ Money Honey, I’d Blow It All On You’.

And I ’member when my mamaw and me would sit out on her porch a’listenin to the Grand Ole Opry and my mamaw would talk to me durin’ them times.

She’d say thangs to me what she thunk and philosofeed about all through life, just like pa did. Some of mamaw’s thunkin’ and philosofees of life was thangs like…

A bad itch is too often just outside the reach of yer fingernails.

If ya kicked the person in the butt what’s caused most o’ yer problems, ya wouldn’t be able to sit down fer a year.

If ya can’t have what ya want, change yer mind.

The squeekin’ wheel don’t always git the grease. Sometimes it gits replaced.

Life is a lot like an onion. Ya peel it off one layer at a time, and a lot of times ya cry.

Birthdays is like underpanties. They creep up on ya.

Some folks have concrete minds. Mixed up and hard set.

Three people can keep a secret only if two of ’em are dead.

Big shots are little shots what kept on a’shootin’.

Discontentment is the penalty fer an ungrateful heart fer the things we have.

The more we count our blessin’s the less we crave the luxuries we don’t have.

What ya are is more important than what ya got.

Ya never git too old to larn a new way of doin’ somethin’ dumb.

Don’t worry if ya start losin’ yer memory. Just forget about it.

What was most important of all was when mamaw said, “Fuster, yer just a little feller right now, but yer a’gonna grow up to be a man one day and when ya do, yer gonna find out a couple thangs.

What yer a’gonna find out is that life can sometimes be mighty hard and yer also gonna find out that this old world can be mighty cold and cruel.”

Then she’d say, “I just wanna let ya know how to git through this life and git through this old world. All ya gotta know is just one thang. That one one thang ya gotta know is that yer loved.”

She’d say, “The kind of love ya need to know yer loved by is the kind of love what’ll never leave ya and never forsake ya. The kind of love what’ll always fergive ya when ya do wrong when ya ask fer fergiveness.

Ya need the kind of love what’s always on yer side and the kind of love what always has a smile fer ya while ever’body else is frownin’ and what’ll pick ya up ever time ya fall down.

That’s the kind of love ya need to know yer loved by Fuster, but that kinda love don’t come from people. That kind of love only comes from God. So the way you can know yer loved is to ask God to come on in yer heart and life.

Ask Jesus to come on in. If ya do that, then He’ll come on in and you’ll know

yer really and truly loved. And that’s what’ll git ya through this life and git ya through this old world.”

So I did like my mamaw said and I let Jesus come on in my heart and life and I found out what my mamaw told me is true. So I just always wanna that on to ever’body else what my mamaw ed on to me.

If’n yer goin’ through this life and this world, no matter who ya are, where ya are or how long ya been goin’ through it, and if ya feel like ya ain’t loved, like nobody cares or understands ya, then ya just need to know that ya really are loved. That ya really are cared about and thar’s somebody who really does understand ya.

And that’s God.

That’s Jesus.

If ya want to find out that’s really true, then just ask Him to come on in yer life and He’ll come in. Then ya’ll find out that ya really are loved, and that’s what’ll get ya through this life and through this old world.

Not only that, if ya let Jesus come on in yer life here in this world, then He’ll let ya come on in His kingdom when this life is done, just ’cause He loves ya so much and He wants ya to be with Him forever.

Thar really ain’t nuthin’ else I can tell ya what’s more important than that. It’s

my best memory what come back to me while I was a’standin’on that stage at the Ryman Auditorium. The memory of my mamaw tellin’ me ’bout the good Lord when I was a child sittin’ with her on her porch shack a’listenin’ to the Grand Ole Opry with her on her battery operated radio is the very best memory I got of Klufford’s Holler, my hometown.

And if ya happen to have any fond old memories like that, maybe ’bout yer mamaw tellin’ ya ’bout the good Lord, or listenin’ to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio box, or maybe even watchin’ them good old TV shows like Hee Haw, Petticoat Junction or Andy Griffith, then ya just might have some hillbilly in you, too. And that’s a real good thang.

So I’ll close on out with this here poem song ’bout them good old days and memories what aught never to be forgot… and God bless y’all real good!

When I’s a young’un up in the mountains we’d sit and listen to the radio. And after we got ’lectricity we’d listen to it even more, to the sounds of the Grand Ole Opry on WSM. Oh, that hillbilly music when we tuned into it gave us all a big, toothless grin.

Well, they was Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl,

Stringbean and Grandpa Jones. Tennessee Ernie, The Carter Family. They was Homer and Jethro. And they’d all come down out of the mountains, took their music out on the road. And they could pick it quick as they could pick corn and cotton or a mountain boy could gig a frog.

They’d sing, “Howdy folks! Howdy folks! It’s so nice to be here with you! Howdy folks!” They’d sing, “Howdy folks! Howdy folks! It’s so nice to be here with you! Howdy folks!”

It were a banjer and a fiddle, geetar and warshboard jamboree. Stars with hardly any edjucations

in their long johns and dungarees. Well, it weren’t a bit sofisticated but fer makin’ folks happy it worked. and we’d dance around our hillbilly shantees kickin’ up the dust and dirt.

But time goes on they tell me and them good ol’ days is gone. All our old friends at WSM has purty well all ed on. And the Opry’s moved from the Ryman, but me, I’m a’stayin’ right here just like that radio back home, busted and gatherin’ dust fer years…

. . . but singin’, “Howdy folks! Howdy folks! It’s so nice to be here with you! Howdy folks!” Singin’, “Howdy folks! Howdy folks!

It’s so nice to be here with you! So nice to be here with you. It’s been right nice to be here with you… . . . so long, folks!”

The End

Postlude

Well, hope you enjoyed the show. Just in case you’d be interested, there are several other books and CDs featuring Fuster Buskins stories and songs about Klufford’s Holler available at various book and record distributors and at most major music sites online. A few of the ones available are:

Howdy Folks! I’m Fuster Buskins! CD by Fuster Buskins available at CDbaby.com

Cowboy Hillbilly CD by Fuster Buskins available at CDbaby.com

Gospel According To Fuster Buskins CD by Fuster Buskins available at CDbaby.com

Klufford’s Holler Paperback book by Darrell Sroufe available at most major bookstores.

Taradiddles Of Klufford’s Holler: The Elsie Bell Motel Ebook by Darrell Sroufe at Amazon.com

Other books by Darrell Sroufe:

Loony Bin Blues Available in paperback at most major bookstores.

The MASS Agenda Available in ebook at Amazon.com

The Ultimate Hippie Generation Music Trivia Book Available in ebook at Amazon.com

Dollywood Days Available in ebook at Amazon.com

The Believer’s Poems Handbook by Darrell & Theresa Sroufe Available in ebook at Amazon.com