What They Talk About Down South

A post by an old friend made me think of a Southern tradition. You may smile if you’ve ever had a relative who told a story this way:

“There was this time Bob Ashcraft and me went deer hunting. You know Bob. He was one of the Ashcrafts from down around Kedron, not that that bunch over on Hogeye Ben Road where old man Ledbetter lived before he dropped dead. Just out in his cow barn and dropped dead. They say it was a heart attack. Dr. Reid told me about it one day when he had stopped by the store for some milk. I sold Borden’s milk and the Doc liked it. I used to sell milk from the Okay Dairy but switched to Borden’s when the Chidister boy started delivering it. You know the Chidister boy, the one whose daddy got killed at Pearl Harbor. Lots of folks don’t remember where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor, but I can tell you just where I was. I was digging fence post holes for Mr. Finkbiner for fifty cents a day. He was the one who had the bad teeth and whistled when he talked. I normally don’t care for whistling but he was funny. His wife would get onto him about it. She was from Texas, so that kinda explains it. She was fatter than Suzi Bell Austin if you remember her…”

Author's Note: I had me such a relative. He was married to my Sainted Mother. You know. She was one of the Harris girls from down at Pleasant Ridge. They were also kin to the Coats family, the ones that came from Bradley County, down past Pansy. I went to school at Fayetteville with this girl from Pansy. She was almost a pretty as my wife, who’s from over around Lonoke. Her daddy was in the 79^th Infantry Division and they fought all the way across Europe, with Patton’s Third Army for a while. Lots of folks didn’t like Patton …

Anyway, it's funny to hear them talk. My wife likes it..

I'm fixna give you about
a minute to shut the hell up.