"The Adventures of Uncle Luther and Uncle Tom"
News From The Country Store

by Bobby McDonald

Springtime is come to East Texas and the flowers are bloomin' 'round most anybody's front porch. Those folks that is plannin' on havin' a garden has done got is plowed and the mule done put out to pasture. About all the work to be done from here on out is with the ol' gooseneck and Uncle Tom and me done figured out a long, long time ago that workin' with a hoe is real work. That's why we leave that up to the women folk in our life! Why, I even went so far to git Ida Mae a new gooseneck hoe for Christmas. Now, she ain't got no right to do no gripin', do you thank?

Rat after Ida Mae brought me my bacon and eggs over easy this mornin', I done told her that I'd noticed a few weeds growin' out there next to the collard greens. She nearly spillt the coffee in my lap and acted like she didn't appreciate that piece of news. As I told Uncle Tom, you cain't figure out what is gonna make a woman "blow-up" on you!

I got to the store this mornin' jist in time to see the kids that were catchin' the bus to school in Sulphur Springs. We got some fine youngun's here in Switch Corner and Catalpa Flats. I'm real proud of my nephew, Walter Ray. Walter Ray will be graduating this year. He's 'bout the finest lookin' ol' cuss you ever did see, fer twenty years old, and gonna have an eighth-grade education to boot. He's gonna make some ol' gal a real prize someday!

Now, you know that Walter Ray don't git to Sulphur Springs real often, when he ain't hittin' the books. And, the word around the Country Store this mornin' was what a gentleman he's become. You see. They say that he took that pretty blonde headed gal of Duncan Smith's to town last Saturday night, as a kinda celebration that he's gonna be graduatin' from the 8th grade, and they took in the picture show and went to the Dairy Queen for a real treat.

To show you what kind of a gentleman Ol' Walter Ray is.......that little gal told the clerk at the Dairy Queen that she wanted a Banana Split, as her treat. Ol' Walter quickly told 'em, "Go ahead and give her the whole thang. I kin pay fer it!"

Have you ever seen such manners in a boy so young?

Word is that they went to the "Bloody Bucket" Picture Show and saw one of them thar real Westerns starin' John Wayne. Now, you don't git much more romantic than that, especially when the Ol' Duke comes and unties the gal from the train track jist before the train runs over 'er. Walter Ray done told me he could snuggle by a gal lak that almost ever' Saturday night. Of course, I had to give him some adult advice and tell 'im that is the kinda talk that will go and git a good man in trouble. "Son, that's how me and yo're Aunt Ida Mae got hitched, " I told 'im. "Make certain that gal is the one that you gonna want to wake up next to when she's old and wrinkled!"

Of course, Walter Ray cain't imagine that the pretty little blonde headed Smith gal is gonna ever be old. But, you jist wait 'til she has six or eight kids and does the washin', the ironin', cookin', and tends to that garden a while. She's gonna git to showin' the signs of age real fast! Even the best of 'em do!

Now, here I was tellin' Uncle Tom 'bout what a good boy Walter Ray was and who but Ol' Rudy Lumpkin came walkin' up the road to the store. Now, you know they ain't anybody as big a huntin' and fishin' liar as Ol' Rudy. No matter what kind of story you is tellin', Ol' Rudy is gonna try to tell one bigger.

Here I was tellin' 'bout Walter Ray and whut a catch he was and Rudy got to talkin' 'bout his son, Rudy Junior. The boy's still wet behind the ears, at eighteen, and don't know whut bein' a gentleman is all about. That's when Rudy commence't to tellin' a big windy about what a hunter and fisherman he is. Why, he claimed that Junior went to try out the shotgun that his great-granddaddy left him and was in a boat out in the middle of Runnin' Creek. With one shell in the gun, a flock a wood ducks flew over and Junior let the hammer down on that gun. The gun kicked so bad that it sunk the boat and when Junior came up he had done killed five ducks, three catfish, and two bass with that one shot!

Now, me and Uncle Tom both thank Ol' Rudy Lumpkin is lyin'. What do you thank?

That's the way Ol' Man Lumpkin is. He tells his story and then he leaves for you to try to figure it out. He don't stay 'round long for you to ask him some questions, neither. Jist as soon as he got finished with his story he went in the store and left us out here on the porch to try and decide if that thar boy could a done such a thang. The screen door slammed and he went in the store to git him a Co-Cola and a plug of Brown Mule. I'm still a bettin' he was lyin'!

Jist as I was 'bout to git all that thar tale straight in my mind, I got interupted. A city slicker foreignur come pullin' up next to the front porch askin' if this here road went to Dallas. Uncle Tom jist sit there lak a bump on a log and didn't say nuttin'. He just cut his eyes over toward me and said, "Luther here kin tell ya!"

Wells I told the foreignur that it was the road the that went to Dallas, and he thanked me real nice like and proceeded on.

Then, I hain't got settled in real good to jawin' with the boys good 'til here come the feller back by the front porch, agin. "Hey, Ol' Man (he called me an old man), I jist saw a sign that said I was goin' to Texarkana. Why did you tell me this was the road to Dallas?" he asked all angry and red in the face.

"It is the road to Dallas. You's jist on the wrong end!" I tolds him, as he said some cuss words I ain't never heard before.

With folks mad at me and Ida Mae back at the farm a needin' some supervising on her gardening, I decided to call it day and head on home for dinnertime. That's when I forgot to git the matches that Ida Mae had told me not to forget!