Cousins, Chapter 3, Homer and Frog Giggin’
Posted by Pete | Posted in Downloads, News | Posted on 14-07-2010
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In the Fifties in Alabama the school were segragated…But we had a few black friends during our teen years, two that we hunted, swam, and fished with pretty regularly. I rolled those two guys into one character and called him Homer. Most of the stories involving him are based on fact and in the Final Chapter of the book is mostly true. In chapter three, there are a couple of stories, one about the wreck of the Chevy Panel Wagon was told to me as a true story, but I changed the characters and then the story of about us working at the sawmill is dang sure facts. But anyway, I think this chapter turns out pretty well and I hope you will enjoy taking the time to read it.
Pete, I must tell you that I really enjoyed readin “Homer and Frog Giggin'”. It is a welcome break from the “hum drum” boredom of my workday, but it is always good to read about the “good ole days” of the Fifties and earlier in Coal fire. They weren’t necessarily “good old days” when we were going through them in the sense that anyone would particularly care to go through them again, but they were “good ole days” in the sense of looking back on them as very fond memories. It may be a tragedy that kids today, while sitting daily in their comfortable, climate-controlled homes, surfing the Internet and playing their video games, will not have memories such as these to look back on as they age (assuming that many of them will age in spite of their drugs, obesity, and inaction. It is a very well written chapter, and it captures the life of the period very well in rural west Alabama. Good job!
There is one thing that I wish your would think about doing. In a future chapter, I wish that you would think about working the story of how our Uncle Shorty (Treetop) got his name (or nickname) into a future chapter. I realize that you probably could not write it the way that he told it on the day of my Dad’s funeral, especially since I do not believe that you were there to hear it, but I wish that you would attempt the task. I have attempted it with very little success, and I heard the story from Uncle Shorty’s mouth. It is too bad that cell phones, ipods, and camcorders were so late in coming. Of course, there were magnetic tape recorders, but most of those were so bulky that there were none of those around to record the event. It is a tragedy that this story has perhaps died with the “greatest generation”. The main thing that I remember about the story now, after 32 years, is the fact that the telling of it caused everyone within our uncle’s hearing to almost literally “roll in the floor” with laughter. It made the solemn event of my father’s passing much easier to bare. I just don’t remember many of the details of the story. Some of the other cousins, who were there, may remember more. Hope so!
Well, first thanks for the kind words on chapter three of Cousins. Uncle Shorty stories are mixed in all the cousins book chapters, but you may not reconize them as his stories. On all of my return trips to Alabama over the years, the one thing I could count on was a visit from Uncle Shorty and as you know, any visit became a time for stories. My sweetie says that I get my story telling abilities from Uncle Shorty. I dearly enjoyed everyone he told.Secondly, I do remember some of the Treetop story but I would need some help in retelling it as I never heard the story first hand. Somehow, I miss that one.
Thanks for trying! I will re-read Cousins to see if I will recognize it and continue to meditate on that day I heard it first hand right after my father’s funeral. Perhaps I will yet remember enough of the story to put it to paper although I could never tell it the way that Uncle Shorty told it on that day.
I my humble opinion, no one could tell a story like Uncle Shorty. He was a jewel in that department.
True! But Uncle Shorty is now dead. He won’t be telling anymore stories except in Heaven. Unless a minimum of that performance that he gave on that afternoon in August of 1978 can be recovered, another great story by and of the “Greatest Generation” is forever lost. My rapidly dimming memory may yet resurrect most of it if only I can ever expunge from my mind the garbage of the Internet and this chemical world, which bombard it on every side, long enough for my memory cells to work unimpeded.