Jimbo's Big Money-making Scheme

“We won!” Jimbo exclaimed. 

I was not surprised at Jimbo’s show of jubilation. He was always more emotional than I. But as part owner of the enterprise, Jimbo and Tony Racing Team, I was happy that we had won our first race.  We were in our fifth year at Bradley elementary school and life was good.  It was good to have my blood brother with me at school now. His family had moved during the summer and now Jimbo and I could attend the same school.  It had been a number of years since we had stood under that big oak tree and cut our palms with our pocket knives and shook hands mixing our blood. He had a Roy Rogers knife and I had a Hopalong Cassidy knife.  I wasn’t exactly a Hoppy fan but Santa Clause somehow got confused. It was said that the great Cherokee chief, Attakulakula, had held war council under that tree. 

Neither Jimbo nor I came from very well-to-do families.  We didn’t receive allowances like the rich kids did.  We were always trying to find ways to get some money.  There was bubble gum to buy and fireworks and other necessities for growing boys that required money. Jimbo was always very clever at coming up with ways to get some money other than out right stealing. His latest scheme was a pretty good one although it did involve gambling.  As a Baptist, I was against gambling, or at least my momma said I was. Now Jimbo was a Methodist and he said they looked at things a bit differently. In other words, if we put a percentage of our winnings in the collection plate on Sunday, everything would be alright. But in the back of my mind I knew that if Momma found out I was betting on the races she would skin me alive. And that was no happy thought! So Jimbo came up with the idea of a critter race. Most folks reading this probably have never heard of a critter race much less seen one. 

The critter race idea was a spark of genius. A six foot in diameter circle was drawn on the dirt.  The critters were released in the center of the circle and the first one to get outside the circle was the winner. The only rule was that the critter had to be small enough to be hidden in your hand.

We won the first race easily.  Jimbo had found us one of the fastest critters around. It may sound weird but one of our critter’s biggest advantages was that it was afraid of the light. Jimbo was the trainer, vet and everything else pertaining to the critter. I was the financial manager.  I took care of the money. I covered our bets. The lowest bet allowed was a penny and you could go as high as you wanted. Billy Pickelsteimer would bet a quarter. His daddy owned the local gin and cottonseed oil mill. We liked Billy! 

On the second day we had a bit of controversy.  We could have said that Jimmy Robinson was trying to cheat but in order to cheat you have to break a rule. The only rule about contestants was that they had to fit in the palm of your hand. Jimmy’s critter was a spider with eight legs. We all complained and Craig Steifle wanted to fight about it but things were solved without violence. Jimmy plucked two legs off the spider and everyone quit complaining. People tried all kinds of critters though. Davey Wardlaw brought some kind of flying bug but it wouldn’t fly when he released it.  We were proud of our critter and kept him in a Three Torches matchbox. 

On the third day the other boys were getting a bit upset because we were winning all the races. So we made thiem a deal they could not resist.  We said that we would bet all our winnings on Friday’s race. Our winnings tallied up to $3.53. We were already planning on how to spend it. I was thinking that the races might get so popular that maybe we should think about charging admission. 

For whatever reason, I don’t remember, Jimbo had asked me to keep Pedro, that was the name of our critter, at our house. Friday morning at breakfast.  Mamma said to me, “Son, I was in your room putting away some clean underwear for you when I saw a pile of change on your dresser. There was over three dollars there. Where’d you get all that money?”

“Eh..” I began, “...at school Susie Wilkerson’s puppy got run over by a car so we’re collecting money to help her buy a new one.” I had lied. I  hoped Momma would never find out or I would have a rough row to hoe.

“Well, that’s a nice thing to do,” she said, then added, ” While I was in your underwear drawer, I found a match box. You know you’re not supposed to have matches! I opened  the box and would you believe a nasty, dirty, filthy cockroach jumped out. I stomped him flat, twisting my foot so there’s nothing but a greasy spot on the floor now. Now you’ve got to tell me what that cockroach was doing in your underwear drawer?”

I was speechless. I put my hand over my mouth, blew out my cheeks looking like I was about to throw up, knocked my chair over getting up from the table and ran out of the room. 

I was able to avoid Momma and get on the school bus. At school I told Jimbo the story. We forfeited our race and gave everybody their money back. When I got home I told Momma about the critter races but conveniently left out the part about betting on the races.

However, Pedro, whom we billed as the fastest cockroach in Mexico will live in infamy!  At least for us. And I never got skinned alive!

_____________________________________________________________

This is a work of fiction.

Night Ride With Sarge

“You can call me John, Frank, or Sarge,” he said.

I was trying to keep up with the tall man in blue as we walked across the parking lot toward the police cars. It was the last part of the Citizen Police Academy offered by our local police department. This was the “ride along”; the event we class members were waiting for.  And I was no different.  All  other lectures with exception of D.U.I. stops and using speed detection equipment had been at the station. 

“Okay, Sarge,” I said.

“We’ll be using this old Crown Vic since my car is in the shop,” he said as we approached the patrol car. “And remember, you will stay in the car at all times.  I don’t care if I’m getting my ass beat, you stay in the car!”

“Got it,” I said,  I did not feel argumentative. 

Once I entered the car, I realized the lack of space in the front. With the space needed for the laptop and other electronics the passenger seating was rather limited. 

“This car doesn’t have a laptop, so I’ll be doing things the old fashioned way,” he said as he lay several printed pages on the platform designed to hold the laptop.

He fired up the Crown Vic and we were on our way. I listened as he explained how the papers on the platform contained a list of what he had to do during his shift. “There’s something I always do at the beginning of each shift before I begin work on the list. We’re going to Bucky’s Quick Stop,” he said.

“We taking a break to get started?” I said with a smile.

“Yes and no,” Sarge retorted without any humor in his voice. 

H“Bucky’s is my local source of information about the community.  I can find out if anything suspicious is going on around there.”

“Pretty smart,” I said.  

There was no response. I had hoped I would see some kind of action. Cops, Adam 12, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues and more recently Blue Bloods were my favorite TV shows. 

We drove around while Sarge worked his list. He checked one place for a vagrant and a house where criminal activity was suspected.  And finally we were heading out of town on a busy fourlane street when Sarge said, “Hold on!”

He turned on the blue lights and he executed a u-turn. The tires squealed. I heard the engine gasping for air as the acceleration threw me back in my seat. I always get an adrenaline rush when I’m in a vehicle accelerating. Our quarry was a small red pick-up truck. 

"What’d he do?” I wanted to know.

“He didn’t dim his lights,” Sarge said.

The truck pulled over into the center and stopped. Sarge alighted and approached the vehicle but soon returned to the car. He was holding a driver’s license in his hand. “Do you know how to pronounce this name?” he asked, showing the license to me.

“Can’t help you, Sarge,”  I answered.  I have never been good at pronouncing  Middle Eastern names,

Sarge continued to stare at the driver’s license, then,  with a sigh he went back to the motorist.  Upon his reentering the police car, I asked him if he had given the driver a ticket. He said he had not, but had given him a stern lecture about driving on a restricted driver’s license.  The young man driving the pick-up was violating the restrictions of his license.

The night staggered on. No excitement.

The radio crackled.  Sarge said it was a rookie cop who needed a veteran’s help. A few minutes later we were at another convenience store. There was a young officer, an elderly lady, and a small Indian man in front of the store.

I stayed in the car as Sarge approached the trio.  Within a few minutes the young cop had put the old lady in his police car and the Indian man had disappeared back into the store. As they were leaving the young cop stopped his car beside our car. 

Sarge said to the young officer, “Remember, when you get her home go next door and tell her daughter what happened. She’ll take care of her.”

“What was that all about, Sarge?”  I wanted to know, thinking, did they arrest little old ladies?

As we turned back on the major street, Sarge said, ” Hijab, the store owner, called the police. He couldn’t get the lady to leave.  Even though she had driven there, she said the car wasn’t hers. He offered to call someone for her but she said she didn’t know anybody. So he called us. This happens every now and then with old people.  They shouldn’t be allowed on the road.”

I was not fond of Sarge’s last statement. I’m seventy-six. 

We had a few more traffic stops that night. Not much excitement, and that was good. In retrospect, I would go through the Citizen Police Academy again.

And I'll get my police excitement from television.

_____________________________________________________________

The names have been changed in thi story for obvious reasons.

Hog Killin'

"Hey, look, we're smokin'," I said to my buddies. We were huddled together in the predawn semi-darkness. As we breathed out the water vapor in our breaths condensed forming clouds of water droplets appearing as smoke. The morning air was cold.. It was like this every year at hog killin' time when it first got cold. I asked Daddy why we always waited until it got cold. He said the weather had to be cold or else the hog meat would spoil if the weather was warm. 

"I'll be glad when I'm old enough to make real smoke from a cigarette!" Jimbo, my very best friend said.  We were blood brothers.

"My grandpa says cigarettes make him cough a lot. I don't want to cough like he does, " BT said.

BT was our newest friend. He had just moved close by. "I ain't seen a hog killin' before," said the smaller boy with the kinky black hair. He was a bit smaller than we were but strong for his size. I recognized the cowboy shirt he had on. I had worn it until I outgrew it. Momma said I should add it to the clothing drive at the church. I didn' t want to give it up. But I did. 

“I can’t wait til breakfast.  We always have brains and eggs!” I said.

“Yum, yum!” added Jimbo.

BT said nothing.

Jimbo said, yawning, " The men do most of the work. We just keep the fires going around the wash pots for  boiling water and cooking lard. We do other stuff they ask us to do too. If we're lucky they'll make us a ball out of the hog's bladder and we can kick it around."

"They make a ball outta the hog's innards?" BT said. 

"They shore do!" Jimbo said. 

Uncle Joe always made us a ball of the hog's bladder when they were cutting up the hog. Momma said Uncle Joe was lazy but he was a lot of fun to be around. He showed me a lot about fishing. He went fishing a lot. 

“Y’all boys keep them fires burning,” Uncle Jack said as he hurried by. He was my mother’s brother and younger than the other men.

“Yessir,” we said together.

We three kept the fires a burning. BT had come with his daddy in this old beat up pulpwood truck. His daddy cut pulpwood for our cousin George and he let Big John, BT's daddy, use the truck off the job. His daddy deserved the name ' cause he sure was big. They called my daddy Big Jack but he was not near as big as Big John. BT, his daddy and momma lived about two miles away. Momma said that BT had a baby brother too. Daddy said they lived in a shotgun shack. I don't know what that is. But I never had seen Big John with no shotgun.  

Daddy and Uncle Luther, my grandpa’s brother, had buried a fifty-five gallon drum half way in the ground at an angle. Boiling water would be put in the drum to soak the hog in. Hot water softened the bristles of hog hair making them easier to pull out. When they finished pulling hair off the hog he would be clean as a pin.  The accident happened when Daddy and Uncle Jack were putting hot water in the drum.   

They were carrying the boiling water in foot tubs. BT had brought this little dog with him. It wasn't much more than a pup but it got in Daddy's path and tripped him up. He lost his footing and spilled that foot tub of boiling water on his left leg. We heard him holler and ran to see what happened. He was laying on the ground, his face clenched in pain. His face was pale. There was blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He had bit his lip. Everybody was gathering around, they had heard him hollar. 

"We've gotta get him to a doctor. Put him in my car!” yelled Uncle Jack.  The tall thin man drove a race car for Stubby's Garage in the Saturday night stock car races at the fairgrounds. He always took off with tires a-spinning and stopped sliding.

"Ole Doc Brown ain't in his office on Saddays," chimed in Uncle Joe. 

Big John said, "I can go git Cindy."

"Why?" asked Uncle Jack.

The grizzled little man, my great uncle Luther, stretched up to his full five feet and two inches and said calmly, "Cindy can talk out the fire"

Uncle Jack's face was turning red.  He said a bad word. And then he said, "You know colored people always lie!"

“John, go get Cindy!” said Uncle Luther.

In a long minute Uncle Luther came face to face with Uncle Jack. He looked up into the younger man's face and said, " Jack, Big John don't lie!"

"BT, go get yo' mammy," Big John yelled. 

And BT was gone. Although it was two miles to his house by the dirt road, it was only bout a half mile through the woods. BT was probably the fastest boy I had ever seen. I saw him catch a young rabbit on the run once. 

The next time we saw him he was carrying a little baby and following his momma out of the woods behind our house. His momma was a kinda small woman with her head tied up in a bright red and yellow kerchief. I recognized the dress she had on, it used to be my momma's. Momma had given to the clothing drive for the poor at the Cedar Rock Baptist Church. Momma said she had worn it for twenty years and she was happy to let somebody else have it. 

Cindy took charge right away and said,” Y’all move Mister Jack to some place where I minister to him in private!”

Momma complained but complied with Cindy's wishes. They moved Daddy into a small building nearby and Cindy closed the door. 

However, young boys, being curious, found a way to see what was going on inside the building. We found a crack in the outside wall aboud an inch wide. We took turns looking inside. Daddy was laying on an old table and Cindy was bending over his leg. Her hand was palm down over the burn and moving away from her face it looked like she was blowing on the burned leg. She was saying something, but it sounded like mumbling to me. BT said, “Them’s words from the Bible.”

All of a sudden Daddy stopped moaning. Then he sat up and got off the table. We ran around to the door in time to see him and Cindy come out. 

We gathered around with the grown ups and looked at Daddy's leg. It looked bad but he said it didn’t hurt. Momma gave him a big hug and took him in the house to bandage his leg. Cindy gave us boys a hard look. I think she knew we had been watching.

The rest of us went about getting ready to kill the hog. BT, Jimbo and I had to get the water boiling again. By the time Daddy came out of the house it was boiling. He went over to Uncle Joe's truck and got the .22 rifle from the gun rack behind the seat and walked toward the hog pen. 

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Cindy had gone home with her baby. The evening sun was sinking low as Jimbo and I were cooking down the lard. BT was looking for his pup to take him home. Big John was waiting for him in the truck and he was taking home a lot more meat than the usual pig's feet. I left Jimbo with the fire to help BT. We found the little pup behind the barn. The pup snapped at BT and tried to bite him when he tried to pick him up. I saw what was the problem straight away. One of the pups front legs was broken.I guess when Daddy tripped over him his leg got broken.   It was twisted in an awkward way. When BT saw this he held his hand palm down over the pups leg and mumbled some words. I watched as the dog's leg moved back to the normal position without BT even touching it. The little dog stood up on four good legs and wagged his tail. BT abruptly turned around and said to me, "You didn't see that!"

Until now, I've never admitted that I did.

____________________________________________________________

In southern Appalachia and other parts of the rural South there are people with healing skills.  Some stop pain from burns, some can stop bleeding and heal other injuries. Some believe such claims to be true and others explain them away as hypnotism or local hoaxes. Although the story above is fiction, I remember that there was a man in our community who reportedly had such powers.   

The Monster

I’m falling!

I was on the way back to the construction site when I lost my footing.

And now I’m falling!

Sliding! 

Sliding!

I can’t slow down! The grade is too steep. The soil is so soft. It is like powder.  Really, like powder.  There is no way to get a grip or any other kind of traction. So I slide.  My velocity increasing.

Until…Bam! I hit the bottom.

I right myself.  A precautionary shake to remove the dust.

Behind me I hear a noise. Turning toward the noise I observe the dust moving.  There something behind the wall of dust…and it is big. 

In a cloud of dust it comes toward me.  Actually, charged would be a better description of its action.

I have never seen anything like it. It had huge barbed pincers extended from either side of its abbreviated neck. The small eyes seemed to look right through me. In a fleeting moment I realized that I am the victim. Before I can move, my head is held in the pincers as the tongue bores through my skull with a pop.

I feel as though my very being was being removed by some huge vacuum pump.

Darkness is coming quickly as my life is leaving me.

The last thing I remember before I succumb in total darkness is the sound of children singing.

“Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Come out of your hole!”

_____________________________________________

Doodlebug is the familiar name for the lion faced ant. It is quite small and builds a trap for it's victims. The trap is found frequently under houses in the fine soil or dust and is about two inches in diameter and one inch deep.  After building the trap the doodlebug hides at the bottom of the trap awaiting a victim, usually an ant. The ant falls into the conical trap and can't escape. The pincer armed lion ant attack the ant which is smaller and pierces its body and sucks out the inner parts of the insect. Only the exoskeleton is left. 

Letters

Just the other day a friend of mine mentioned that his wife was writing letters. It seems that during confinement she wrote letters to those people she normally saw everyday. I thought that was rather unusual in this day of email and electronic communication.

People just don't write letters anymore. 

"Gimme a ticket for an airplane

Ain't got time for a fast train 

Lonely days are gone

I'm a goin' home

My baby wrote me a letter!" 

The Boxtops

That song was before the days of email and messaging. I know our smartphone beeps and tablet buzzes and maybe a cheery female voice announces, " You've got mail!" from your desktop. But it's not quite the same as ripping open an envelope for a message. 

Letters have been a method of communication for centuries.Half of the Christian Bible's New Testament is made up of the letters of the apostle Paul. And people had communicated in letters hundreds of years before he did.The Egyption papyrus scrolls come to mind.

Many famous letters have survived today. Napoleon's letters to his dear Josephine come to mind. 

"So you thought that I did not love you for yourself! For what, then? Oh Madame, did you really think this? Could such an unworthy feeling have been

conceived by such a pure spirit? I am still astonished at it, but less however than at the feeling which on my awakening brings me back to your feet, without resentment and without willpower. It is certainly impossible to be weaker or further abased. What then is your strange power, incomparable Josephine? One of your thoughts poisons my life, tears my soul apart... but a stronger feeling, a less sensitive mood, takes hold of me, draws me back and rules me again as if I were guilty. I truly feel that if we quarrel I should close my heart... And you mio dolce amor - Have you spared me even two thoughts?!!! I kiss you three times, once on your heart, once on your lips and once on your eyes."

Or maybe the letters of Abigail Adams to her husband, John, the second president of the United States. 

“ I long to hear that have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.”

Winston Churchill, aged 16, writes home to his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, from Harrow, in November 1890, requesting a visit from his nanny, Elizabeth Ann Everest.

"Darling Mummy, I am getting on all right and am learning lots each day. One line to tell you I am well, happy tho' very tired... Please send Everest down, because she can help me in some work. I now send you my youthful love and remain your loving son..."

The letters of military men writing home are some of the most telling of the true story of war of loneliness of homesickness.I can testify to this. Here is such al letter from a soldier in Vietnam, 1st Lt. Dean Allen, to his wife.

There are many times while I am out in the field that I really feel the need to talk to you. Not so much about us but what I have on my mind. Being a good platoon leader is a lonely job. It got so dark I had to stop last night. …

Writing like that doesn’t really do that much good because you aren’t here to answer me or discuss something. I guess it helps a little though because you are the only one I would say these things to. Maybe sometime I’ll even try to tell you how scared I have been or am now. … Sometimes I really wonder how I’ll make it. My luck is running way to good right now. I just hope it lasts.

Don’t worry about what I have said, these are just things I think about sometimes. I am so healthy I can’t get a day out of the field and you know I’m to damn mean to die. …

Sorry I haven’t written more but the weather is against me. You can’t write out here when it rains hour after hour.

I love you with all my heart.

All my love always, 

Dean

 As a sailor during the Vietnam War I can truly attest to the benefit of letters from home. On the aircraft carriers I served on the most popular plane was the COD, the mail plane. When it landed aboard ship, the crew of almost 1000

would find out almost instantly. Soon those magic words, "mail call", echoed throughout the ship. Each recipient would grab his letter and find a quiet spot to discover and devour its contents. 

Things have changed with the advent of electronic media. We can instantly send messages with our smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.  No one writes letters anymore. Except maybe octogenarians. And they even write in cursive. Another skill that has fallen by the wayside. In today's electronic media proper grammar and usage are usually non-existant. Initially due to the restrictions of some electronic media, common phrases were abbreviated. The most common was LOL for "laugh out loud". Followed closely by BTW for "by the way". There are over 100 common abbreviations used on Twitter.

Could it be there no longer will there be collections of grandmothers of family letters or other collectors of communications on paper? 

How do we preserve generations of personal communiques? It is all electronic. We could save all of our emails and Tweets on our electronic devices.  But, who would do that? And storage would soon be full.  However, I am sure Google and other telecommunication giants will keep them all in their vast server banks forever!

Perhaps one day in the distant future a teenager may discover a vintage recording of  "The Letter"  and speculate with youthful curiosity of exactly what a letter was.