On Cletus and Company
From time to time, some folks ask me to elaborate on some of the humorous people and happenings I have embedded in this strange mind of mine.
As a matter of fact, someone once told me they believed that I was put here on this earth to make people laugh. I said, ........probably.
I've always been able to accomplish that with, my singing.
Cletus Bates, an old friend, (we were roommates at correspondence school), was quite interesting.
I asked him once if he had lived in the city all his life. After a little hesitation, he said.....not yet!!
I told him one day, that I had a headache. He asked me if it was light or dark brown.
He said a head like mine was supposed to hurt, and if it stopped hurting, I should have it checked.
Said he went deep sea fishing, caught a really big fish, so big he couldn't get it in the boat. I asked him, Clete, how big was he?
Said he didn't really know but the picture of him weighed four pounds.
One must consider that I grew up in a lovely environment, around the most beautiful FAMILY, friends and neighbors, that anyone could ever hope for.
However, a trip as far away as Macon was like going overseas, and anyone that far north, was considered Yankees, and certainly not to be trusted.
It is still strongly believed in some circles, that if the South had more than rocks and sticks to arm themselves with, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney would be working out of the White House in Montgomery....
Couple my upbringing with the fact that all my life I have sought out entities
who I considered different.....strange,..maybe. Quite possibly some of them were seeking me out,.......for the same reasons.
Suffice it to say that I enjoy hearing people laugh....I use to do it with my singing, but in recent years, I have had to rely on what has attached itself to the inside of what is otherwise a vacuum sitting on my shoulders.
A rocket scientist would not leave me much to consider as entertainment,...
but folks like Cletus Bates, Tarzan Spriggs, the Tate boys, Rayburn, Clifford, and Talbert, ( all three with an industrial strength case of the stutters), and others, some real...some not so...,have.
One must also understand that they didn't experiment too much with the Kings English....not too carried away with royalty.
Having said that, let me say that translations may sometimes be in order.
A normal conversation with Cletus would be:
Hey, Clete, how're you doing?
I spect I'm O.K., hi bout chu?
How's the wife?...well, better than nothing, I guess.
Your Mom O.K.?..... We never had no mommer, we'uz too pore.
You look kinda tired....Yea, I was up most of the night trying to decide if I should get a hair, or make a car payment.
Well, did you get a hair cut?....Actually, I got em all cut.
You come from a pretty close knit family, don't you?
Yeah, we don't believe in marrying too far outside our immediately family.
Actually, our family tree ain't got no fork in it.
Cletus said he only went to school three days......his sister was sick, & he went in her place.
Ole Clete checked in with me today.
Said he'd been kinda covered up lately. Seem'd like the whole family'd been sick at the same time.....well, not real sick, just not real well.
Said his daddy'd been putting it off for years, but he finally went in and had that hernia transplant done.
Said it might be too early to tell, but his body is showing signs of rejecting it.
Said he didn't know where they would go from there.
And his mama ain't a bit better.
She'd been up three and four nights in a row, suffering from them varicoted veins,
in the calves of her legs.
Said some nights they're swole up, look like the hind quarter of a government mule.
Said the whole family had started in what they call, ...therapy. They all like the guy pretty good.
He told them, it's possible the whole family might be by-polarized.
A Russian exchange student, Ima Goofinoff, had stayed with them all this school year. She's gone now, school's out.
Sister, Maude, liked having her around....said she was a lot of company to her.
Cletus Bates and a close friend were deer hunting when the friend dropped to the ground....... his eyes rolled back in his head....... and he stopped breathing.
Clete quickly grabbed his cell phone, dialed 911 and told the operator to send someone out to help, because his friend had just fell dead.
The operator in her most soothing voice, tried to calm him down, everything is going to be alright. Just relax, and do as I tell you. We'll take care of everything.
First, we need to be sure he is dead.
Clete excitedly says "hold on a minute", puts the phone down, and the operator hears a gunshot.
Clete comes back to the phone and says, "now what?"
(Courtesy of my brother John.)
On Gospel Singers
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