A Letter from Bubba

three-room school

I got a letter from Bubba the other day. Bubba, as you know, is my old friend from my boyhood and high school days.  I don't see Bubba much anymore. The distance between us is more than a few miles. However, I do hear from him occasionally.  He hasn't joined the digital age, yet so I hear from him by way of the U.S. Postal Service. I recently received a letter from him that  I thought I would share.

Dear Tony,
You know Jimbo Dillashaw died a few days ago.  Me and Darlene went to the funeral.  It was a good funeral.  Preacher Johnson said some mighty good things about old Jimbo. I hope some of  'em was true. It got me to thinkin' 'bout that time back in school when me and Jimbo went to that church.  I b'lieve we were in 'bout the sixth grade. (Course you know we got held back a coupla times.) You remember that little three roomed country school doncha? 'Member Susie Chesnut? She was that new girl with the pretty red hair. She was cuter than a brown speckled puppy. Well...me and Jimbo wanted to get to know her a little  better. You know how it was when you first started noticing that girls was different. I went home and asked Mama if she knew anything about her.  Mama said that she thought the family had come from down about Modoc somewhere. Said she thought they had moved in that little house behind old man Johnson's place. She thought maybe they was sharecroppin' with old man Johnson. Mama said they wont Baptists like us or Methodists like Uncle Ted's bunch but went to some little church called New Hope or New Life or new something.  Well, sir! Right then and there I got me a idea! Maybe if me and Jimbo went to her church it would impress her. Mama said she guessed it'd be alright; after all we would be in church on Sunday.  But remember that we was just Baptists visiting.

Come Sunday I was all slicked up. I had shined my Sunday shoes and put on my suit pants.  I had outgrown the coat, and the pants were a little short, but I pulled 'em down kinda low. I had on a clean white shirt that was a little small.  The top button wouldn't button, but when I put on one of Daddy's neckties you couldn't tell it. Took me nearly half an hour to tie that tie, and I never did get the ends even. I slicked my hair down with some of Daddy's Wildroot Cream Oil.  Even got the cowlick to lay down.  Yessir! I was lookin' mighty good! I stopped by Jimbo's house and he joined me.  He had cleaned up a bit, but  he didn't look near as good as me. (Something he had to learn to live with.) I 'spect it was a good two mile walk to the church on that beautiful spring day. We talked about music we had heard on the radio the night before.  We were big fans of the disc jockey, John Orr, from Nashville, Tennessee. It was what they called rhythm and blues. Mama and Daddy called it the devil's music and didn't like us to listen to it.

We got to the church.  The sign said "New Life Gospel Fellowship".  Me and Jimbo went right in and sat on the back pew like the good Baptists we were. I looked up at the front of the church and they had a band.  The band started playing and people were singing. That git-tar picker was nearly as good as Chuck Berry.  He could make that git-tar almost talk.  We don't have git-tar pickers at the Baptist church. That preacher was a live wire. Didn't have on a suit coat and he had the sleeves on his white shirt rolled up. He was readin' from the King James version of the Bible. (Mama says that's the only real Bible.) He kinda yelled and hollered and told how bad we was and how we was going to hell if we didn't change. (I had heard all that at the Baptist church so that wasn't nothin' new.) Now the people jumped up and down and  said "Amen" a lot.  We don't jump up and down and say "Amen" in the Baptist church. After a while that preacher kinda calmed down and then he started speaking in a real soft voice.  And he said, "Now is the time in our service when we show the power of our beliefs." He looked over to

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the side at two men in brand new  Red Camel overalls and motioned for them to come forward.  Then he looked to the back of the church and said, "Would you two boys join me at the alter." It was not a question.  I looked at Jimbo and he looked at me and we slowly left our seats and went down the aisle. I noticed Susie Chesnut, girl of my dreams, out of the corner of my eye.  She wont smilin'. After we got down to the front, the preacher set us down on the very front row. He was only six feet in front of us. The two fellas the preacher had motioned to had brought two little cages forward. They was only about a foot square. Well, sir, the preacher reached inside one and pulled out the biggest rattlesnake I had ever seen. The thing wrapped around his arm as he held it high. Its fangs looked to be two inches long and its forked tongue  was a flickin' back and forth. That snakes tail was a shakin' and that rattlin' sound was sendin' shivers up my backbone.  I know my mouth was wide open and my eyes musta looked like they was gonna pop right out! The preacher still had that King James Bible in his right hand and he said,"In the  book of Mark chapter 16, verse 18 hit says, 'They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;'" And he looked straight at us and he said, "Now, boys, do you believe?"

I stuttered and said, "P-p-preacher, I dunno. But I b'lieve in that door back behind you."
He looked down as me and said sympathetically, "Son, there an't no door behind me."
I quickly answered," Well, where do you want one!"

Me an' Jimbo didn't waste no time getting home. I 'spect we set the world record for the two mile run. Didn't think much about Susie Chesnut  any more.

I'll write agin later,
Your ole buddy,
Bubba.