Serious Foolishness

It was a really small town, but it had its own homegrown radio broadcaster. That was Larry, carrying his wooden pole with an empty tin can nailed on it (his “microphone”), a wooden chair (his “stage”), his guitar on his back, to the middle of town to “perform” daily for the locals. People would gather around to applaud and request songs, but all of Larry’s songs were alike, yelling into that tin can.

As far as the kids, for their entertainment, they had to create their own. Like driving their car on the train tracks, flying like the wind—until they met an oncoming train. And if the local sheriff got in their way, they just overpowered him and locked him up in his own jail overnight.

After moving up north to train show horses, they discovered those northern cowboys had their own unique way of enduring that brutally cold weather: they would just get drunk and then fight with each other. They were gang fights, but all of them were friends. Great sport. Unless you were a native there, this seemed a bit odd to outsiders.

So they moved down south, hoping for a friendlier and more acceptable way of living and got there in time to meet early integration head-on. Then they had to learn a new modified Geechee/Gullah language in order to communicate with their hired help. What they found was that as a rule, those Southerners overall were the most gracious, friendliest, lovable, and unique people of all.

As far as the weather, though it was usually more reasonable, in one day alone, they could have monsoon-like rains, followed immediately by a metal-melting heat wave, and topped off with a heavy fog that swooped down over you like a massive wet blanket that made those winters up north seem mild.