1956

“Ped-The Old Farter”

A Story Written By Ronnie Nichols

Copyright January 14, 2014 by Nichols Productions

8642 Brenda Drive-Harrison, TN 37341

Foreword

The following story was written for entertainment purposes and wasn’t meant to have any political or social undertones. This story came from my imagination after many years of wondering what my Grandpa had missed by dying so young (45). The characters in this story are mostly based on real folks. We all know that Grandpa can’t come back from the dead, but it was interesting to imagine how he would react to this modern day world. The graphic language used in this text was an attempt to be as accurate as possible with this situation. I made no attempts to sugar coat this, nor did I try to make it politically correct. I tried to imagine what my Grandpa would say about things based on my recollections of him.

I’m not saying that Grandpa’s way of thinking was right.  I’m sure some folks will be embarrassed and disappointed with some of the language used here and some of my crude, off-the-wall attempts at humor.  This is not meant to shock folks or make any statement about race or sexual orientation. Writing this forced me to think about all the changes that have come about in the past 60 years. Some of these changes came about so slowly that we may not realize how much things have changed since then. This story started as a list I compiled of the things that my Grandpa did not live to see. It grew from that to the following story. I hope it causes you to smile and maybe reflect on things. If you have a Grandpa who is living, give him a big hug while you can. He’ll be gone before you know it and he won’t come back.

Ronnie Nichols

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: A Familiar Voice

Chapter 2: The Old Neighborhood

Chapter 3: The Beer Joint

Chapter 4: Our House Guest

Chapter 5: The Fishing Trip

Chapter 6: The Picking Session

Chapter 7: The Tirade

Chapter 8: The Home Depot

Chapter 9: McDonalds & Michelob

Chapter 10: Washer Throwing

Chapter 11: The Wal-Mart

Chapter 12: The Party

Chapter 13: Breakfast At Hardees

Chapter 14: The Flea Market

Chapter 15: The Waffle House

Chapter 1- A Familiar Voice

    I guess it all started when I was doing some digging into my family’s genealogy. I’d never paid much attention to the details of our family history. I’m sure my older relatives told me a lot of facts when I was a young boy, but those facts didn’t seem important at the time. As I got older, I wondered about some of our ancestors. In about the year 2000, I downloaded a program to list your family tree on the computer. I started putting information into this program and asking questions of my parents. (Both of whom were still living at that time.) The more information I got, the more fascinated I was with the process. This search has taken me to cemeteries, libraries, churches, schools, and old neighborhoods in East Tennessee, North Georgia, and Western North Carolina.

So, here I stand in Beautiful Greenwood Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The year is 2012 and I’m a 63 year old Grandpa standing over my own Grandpa’s grave. It is Wednesday, two days after Memorial Day, and I wanted to pay my respects. Several members of our family are buried here but I’m standing over my Grandpa’s grave.

I stand there looking down at the grave marker of my Mother’s Dad, William Perry Ballew, born April 6, 1911 died July 8, 1956. He died at age 45. It’s hard to imagine that I’ve lived almost 20 years longer than he did. He lived through some hard times with the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the Korean War. He was a carpenter and worked outside in the sun a lot. He smoked cigarettes as a lot of adult men did back then. He also was prone to drinking alcohol from what I was told. All these factors probably contributed to his relatively short life.

I had done some research into our family history a few years back. There was not a whole lot of information available on our part of the Ballew Family prior to Charlie Ballew, my Great-Grandpa. My Grandpa (they called him Ped) was buried next to his Mother, Belle, and close to my Grandmother (his ex-wife), Flossie, and a few more of his brothers. His father, Charlie Ballew is buried in this cemetery but in a different location away from the rest of them. Charlie died in 1933, years before my Grandpa and Charlie’s wife, Belle. Charlie was buried in a plot with his two daughters. There was not a marker on either his or the two girls graves. I don’t know why these graves are separate from the rest of our family. I have a feeling there was a lot more to this story than I knew.

Standing there over Grandpa’s grave, my mind drifts back to some of my childhood memories. I remembered his death in July of 1956. I was 7 years old (going on 8) and my brother, Paul, was 9 (going on 10). Our family was on vacation in Mississippi when it happened. We had just visited him in Nashville at the Veterans Hospital a couple of days before. He’d suffered a heart attack and he looked frail when we visited him. He’d promised to take my brother and me fishing when he got out of the hospital. Our vacation was cancelled and we returned to Chattanooga. The funeral was held in East Chattanooga at Avondale Baptist Church. We buried Grandpa in this large cemetery called Beautiful Greenwood in Chattanooga.

Now, I’m standing here thinking about the time when Grandpa was at our house in Duncan Park.  He was installing a new front door in our house. He was using a hammer and chisel to fit the lock into the door. I was probably 4 or 5 years old.

“Grandpa, what is that?” I asked.

“It is a chisel,” he replied.

I reached down and touched the chisel. It was hot and it burned my finger a little.

“Leave that alone,” Grandpa said in a gruff voice. Then he started using a hand plane on the door edge.

“Grandpa, can I do that?” I asked.

“I’ll let you try it,” he replied.

    I picked up the plane and the instant I touched it to the door he said,” Give me that plane boy, you’re goin’ agin’ the grain.” I didn’t know what that meant but I knew I wasn’t doing it to suit him.

Then, I got to thinking of that big old boxer dog that Grandpa brought to our house for Paul and me. This dog weighed around 75 pounds. His name was Bobo. He liked to get up in our rocking chair and sit. He’d drink from the commode and trail it through the house. He was also bad about farting. He woke Daddy up a lot at night loping around in the house. I remember us having to clean up after him when he messed in the floor. I don’t remember what happened to him but I remember he didn’t last too long around our house.

Next in my memory, I’m still in our house in East Ridge. Grandpa was staying with us for a few days. I think he had been sick. Looking back and adding up the evidence I figure he’d been an alcoholic and was getting over a drunk. He was probably pretty shaky at that time. I had just learned to juggle (2 items). I probably saw someone doing it on TV. I had two oranges and I was showing off to Grandpa. I was juggling them and I let one get away from me. It hit Grandpa on the arm and he let out a barrage of cuss words. Grandpa didn’t seem too impressed with my juggling.

Then, I remembered the time we were fishing down below Chickamauga Dam. Grandpa brought Paul and me down here to go fishing. He’d bought us some of those level winder fishing reels. The rods are steel and the reels were hard to cast without getting the line all tangled. We were excited to go fishing with Grandpa. I’m not sure Bill Dance or Roland Martin could have cast these fishing reels without getting a backlash. We stayed tangled up a lot and we didn’t catch any fish. We boys played a lot on the rocks and started throwing rocks into the water to see who could make the biggest splash. Grandpa didn’t like us throwing rocks in the water. He said it scared the fish. I don’t remember us catching any fish. I remember we watched a freight train going across the river on the railroad bridge located below the dam. Paul and I counted the cars and listened to the strange noises that this train made.

Next, I remember being at home again in Duncan Park and Grandpa had built a little raft from wood and car inner tubes. It was about 8 or 10 feet long and the width of an inner tube. It seems like it had 4 inner tubes, two on each end, with one on top of the other. The frame was 2X4’s and there was a space in the middle in which to ride. It was probably 2 feet tall. It looked top-heavy as best I can remember. Our home was about a quarter mile from Spring Creek which ran through Mr. Callahan’s cow pasture. This creek was not very wide or deep. We carried this raft through the cow pasture to the creek to try it out. It didn’t float real well and we came back home pretty quickly.

Now, I’m thinking about watching Grandpa install some kitchen cabinets in Mama’s little kitchen. They are actually just open shelves but they add a lot of storage to the small kitchen. I remember it was about the same time she got a new washing machine. It was located in the small kitchen underneath those new shelves that Grandpa built. Mama had to open the back door about an inch and run the drain hose out that door when she washed clothes. I remember that this water always made the grass grow fast around the back yard area. In those days, Mama didn’t have a clothes dryer and she had to hang the wet clothes on a clothesline in the back yard.

Next, my mind skips forward and I remember Grandpa was pouring concrete with 3 or 4 other guys at our house. He was pouring a concrete patio beside the house and also pouring several inches more concrete on top of the existing sidewalk. I remember Daddy had some dirt hauled in and spread it out in our yard. I think he was trying to get some topsoil so the grass would grow. Our yard had that hard, red, Georgia clay that you have heard about in songs. Grandpa kept hollering at Paul and me because we walked on the wet concrete. We tried to write our names in the wet stuff but Grandpa put a stop to that. It seems like I remember it rained on this concrete before it set up, but the job turned out well.

Then, I remembered when I was trying to ride my new bicycle that was about a 26 inch model. I think Paul and I both got a bicycle (just alike) for our birthdays. Our birthdays were both in August we celebrated them together. I’d guess we were about 6 and 8. Paul was 2 years older and taller than I. He could reach the pedals all right, but I was having trouble reaching the pedals on mine. Grandpa brought out a hacksaw and he sawed the top bar off my bicycle so I could reach the pedals. It solved my problem. I think Daddy probably saved that bar and welded it back on in later years.

     Now I’m thinking about the only Christmas I remember with him. Grandpa showed up on Christmas Eve and agreed to take us boys to Ringgold to get us some firecrackers for Christmas. He drove us down to the fireworks stand and he bought us a bunch of firecrackers, cherry bombs, and M-80’s to play with. I remember he said as we drove down the old 41 Highway that it looked like we were going all the way to Ring Hole (Ringgold) before we found the fireworks stand.

Next, I thought about the time Paul and I were at Grandpa’s small apartment. He lived near the Salvation Army in the Dodds Avenue area. It may have been some apartments that the Salvation Army owned. I don’t know if he was working at the Salvation Army or if he was one of their people that they helped. Grandpa took us to Camera & Craft Store in East Ridge and bought us some model airplanes to put together. He helped us with them and we were having fun. We were spending the night with him.

These are about all the memories I have of this man who died so young. I guess I’d been standing there ten minutes or so thinking of these times before I decided to return to my car. I pulled a few weeds from around his flat copper grave marker and brushed off some dirt from it with my hand.

As I turned to walk back to my car from the grave, I heard something that sounded like a real loud fart and someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind. It startled me because there weren’t any other folks around. When I turned around, I saw this old man. He was dressed in pretty ragged clothes and his old boots looked like they were on their last mile. He appeared to be about 6 feet tall and he probably weighed in at about 160 pounds. He was as we say long and lanky.  He had a receding hairline but he still had a head full of hair. His hair was not as grey as mine. His skin was tanned with a leathery appearance and he had a wrinkled face. He had on a plaid shirt and some faded out khaki colored work pants. He had high cheekbones and his features would indicate to me that he had some Indian Blood.             

“Damn, did you shit in your pants? You startled me,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to do that. Well, I meant to fart but I didn’t intend to startle you.” he replied.   

“What do you want?” I asked.

    At first, I thought it might be one of those “homeless” people. They can be seen standing on street corners these days begging for money.

    “Oh, I just thought I’d see if you had time to talk to an old man.”  

    His voice sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it.

    “Talk about what? Who are you?” I asked.

    “You were just over there visiting my grave.”

    “Oh, shit, I don’t believe in ghosts,” I quickly said.

    The sound of his voice was low and pleasing. His Southern Drawl seemed so familiar. I grabbed his shoulder and gently shook him. I could tell he was real. He felt warm and alive just like a real person.

    He said, “Son, I appreciate you visiting my grave.”

    “But, how is this possible? Why are you here?” I asked.

    “I can’t exactly explain it, but God allowed me to make this little trip to make up for all the times we missed. I’d like to spend a little time with you so we can get better acquainted. Maybe we can take that fishing trip I promised you. You can show me all the things I’ve missed out on and I can fill you in on some of the things you didn’t know about me.”

    “How do I know that it is God who allowed you to come here?” I asked. “You know the devil has powers too. He could have sent you.”

    “You are right about that. I guess you will have to decide where I came from for yourself.”

    “What was the name of that big old dog you brought to Paul and me when we were boys?”

    “Oh, you mean old Bobo,” he replied.

    “Yeah, that was his name. What was my Grandma’s name?”

    “Her name was Flossie Elizabeth Smith before we married.”

       “What was my Mama’s name and when was she born?”

       “Her name was Dorothy Delores Ballew and she was born on May 30, 1930.”

    “Well you definitely know something about our family and our past. You have my interest and curiosity aroused. I don’t understand all I know about this situation but I’m inclined to try to make you feel at home and welcome you.”

       I reached out and shook his hand. His hand was large and his grip was strong. This was the grip of a working man with a hard, rough feel. He had some fingernails that were misshapen, probably the result of hitting them with a hammer through the years. These weren’t the hands of an office worker or a professional person. He looked me dead in the eyes when we shook hands and I was somehow comforted by his stare.

       “Come on and let’s get in the car.”

    We walked toward my car.

    “That is a funny looking car,” he said. “The paint looks mighty shiny.”

    “It is clear-coat paint. They put on a base coat and then apply clear on top of it for an extra shine.” I replied.

    “I remember when you could only get a car that was black in color. They didn’t shine like that, though. The old T Models were what I learned to drive on. You had to get out front and crank them. It was a job to get one started. There were a lot of broken arms because of them. My Daddy was a religious man but cranking a Model T Ford would test anybody’s patience. I think one of the few times I heard him cuss was when he was trying to crank that old car. I recall when I was younger we’d go out on a Sunday drive in our old Model T. We’d always have a flat tire or the radiator boil over or something to make the trip eventful. Of course it was a big step up from a trip with a horse and buggy. Most of the roads were not paved and you’d end up getting stuck in the mud sometimes. A twenty mile trip was a long ride back then.”

    “When my Daddy first got a T Model, he drove into Atlanta and he didn’t know what the traffic lights were for. He almost got hit several times before he realized that the red lights meant to stop.”

    “This thing is shaped funny. It is shaped kindly like a turd. Looks like a big bear shit it out. I always liked the 1955 Chevrolet 2 door hardtop. I had a 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe that I liked, too. This thing reminds me of the Hudsons or Studebakers they used to build.”

    “They design car shapes using a wind tunnel these days. It is made so it will slip through the air better,” I explained.

    “Can’t you afford white wall tires and hubcaps?”

    “White wall tires are mostly out of style now. Most cars don’t use hubcaps these days. Many automobile wheels are decorative in nature and made of aluminum or some alloy.”

“It looks like these tires are all about flat.  How much air pressure do you run in them?”

       “They carry about thirty five pounds each. These are low-profile tires. They don’t sit very far off the ground. Besides, there is a little gauge on the dash that will warn you if you have low pressure in a tire.”

    “Do you have a spare?”

   “Yes,” I said, “I have a spare.”

    “Well, where is it?”

    “It is hidden under the carpet in the rear floor pan.”

    “I noticed that there is no trunk on this car. It’s made crazy.”

    “It is called a hatchback. It is designed to be more practical.”

    “I liked the old cars that had running boards. They even had some cars that had a Mother-In-Law seat in back. In the old days, you thought about things like spare tires and having some tools to patch an inner tube when you went out.”

    “There have been quite a few changes since then. Most automobile tires these days are tubeless tires. There are fewer flat tires than there used to be.”

    “Where is the handle to open the door?

    “Pull up on that little painted handle.”

    “Is this the door handle? Hell, it’s hard for me to get in that door. The seat sets too low.”

    I opened the door and helped him settle into the seat.

    “Where is the window crank? It is too hot to ride with these windows rolled up.”

    “This car has air conditioning. We don’t need to roll the windows down.”

    “What are all these buttons on the inside of the door for?”

    “Those buttons are electric switches that lock and unlock the doors and switches to roll the windows up and down.”

    “What in the hell does SRS stand for?”

    “It stands for Supplemental Restraint System.”

    “What is that?”

    “The car has airbags that pop out of the dash in case you get in a wreck. It is to protect you from injury.”

    “It must be an automatic transmission?  I see that there is no clutch pedal.”

    “Yes it an automatic transmission. There are mighty few cars that have a clutch pedal these days. In fact, the automatic transmission has become the standard now.”

    ‘What are these things sticking up by the seat for?”

    “They are the part of the seat belts.”

    “Seat belt,” he said.”Like they have in an airplane?”

    “Yes, it will help hold you in place in case of a wreck.”

    “Oh, hell, I don’t want to be tied down in this thing.”

    “Why do you have these headrests on there? Can’t you hold your head up to drive?”

    “The headrests are designed to protect your neck in case of an accident.”

    “Do folks drive that fast nowadays? Shit, I don’t know if I want to ride with you if all you think about is hitting something.”

    “I remember holding you in my lap when you were 2 months old when we were going to Dalton, GA. Your daddy was driving and I held you in my lap in the passenger seat. Your Mama was in riding in the back seat with your brother.”

    “Grandpa, it is against the law to ride with a child in your lap these days. They may even put you in jail for that. They have these special seats for babies and children to ride in. They have to ride in the back seat and be strapped down.”

    “Sounds like a bunch of bull shit to me. Do you need the Law to tell you how to take care of your children?”

    I didn’t answer.

    “I guess some folks do need some help in taking care of their children. I remember Delbert Richardson fell out of his parents’ car when we were kids. They were turning a corner and he was in the back seat. He evidently grabbed hold of the door handle and the door swung open. He fell out on the street but he wasn’t hurt too much. It just skinned and bruised him some. He was wild as hell and we always told him it was because he fell out of the car on his head.”

    “I do like that fancy wood on the dash and doors. That took a real craftsman to carve that quilted maple out and put such a shiny finish on it. Maybe things aren’t quite so bad after all.”

    “I hate to disappoint you but those quilted maple pieces are made of plastic. They make them look like the real thing, don’t they?”

    “Yes they do,” he said in a disappointed tone.

    “How do you pronounce that name? He spelled it out N-I-S-S-A-N? I never heard of Nissan.” (He pronounced it nice en)      

    “This car is a Nissan and it is made by the Japanese.”

    “Well, you can forget about me riding in it. I spent 4 years shooting at those little bastards. We’ll just forget the whole thing. Where is the door handle? Let me out of here.”       

    “Oh Grandpa, settle down, there aren’t any Japanese in this car. We are allies with them now and they make a lot of products that we use every day in this country. Now, calm down and buckle your seat belt.”

    “Well, if you had been around when those bastards bombed Pearl Harbor you might not feel as fond of them. They caused this world a lot of heartache and grief. We should have dropped more of those atom bombs and eliminated them from the earth while we were at it.”

    I pulled the car out onto the road and started driving toward the Wilcox Tunnel which goes through Missionary Ridge.

    “This old tunnel is lit up like daylight now,” Grandpa said.

    We got through the tunnel and out the other end into the bright daylight.

       “I wish you’d look.”

    “What is it?” I asked.

    “It’s a damn nigger. What in the hell is he doing out here in this part of town? Look there, he’s wearing someone’s old pants that are too big for him. He is holding his pants up with one hand out in front of him and his underdrawers is shining in back.”

    “Run over that bastard. Just bump him a little to get his attention. You don’t have to hurt him. Just give him a little reminder of where he belongs. Send him back to 9th Street. Chase him up on the sidewalk a ways. We used to have a lot of fun running niggers up on the sidewalk with our cars before the War.”

    “Oh, you can’t do that these days, Grandpa.”

    “Why not?”

    “Well, the Law won’t let you by with that.”

    “I guess the next thing you’ll tell me is that the policemen are niggers, too.”

    “Well, yes there are a lot of them on the police force now.”

    “The black folks had what you might call a revolution back in the 1960’s. They marched and protested about Civil Rights until the laws were changed. Do you remember when there were separate drinking fountains and bathroom facilities for the colored folks?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

      “They had to ride in the back of the buses. They couldn’t eat at public lunch counters with white folks. The schools were separate and they didn’t mix them up. I think it was called Separate But Equal.”

    “That is right and it worked pretty well.”

    “Well, there were so many protests and so much trouble in this country that the U.S.Army had to step in and stop the violence on several occasions. The black folks had what they called a Sit-In where they would go to a public lunch counter and sit until someone was arrested or they were served.”

    “They also had marches where they all marched for Freedom. There was a lot of unrest in this country and a bunch of new laws were passed. The blacks now have full voting rights and the same rights and privileges as white people.”

    “They integrated the schools and they even sent the kids in buses out across town to a different school to make sure there was a mixture of blacks and whites in the schools. The blacks had some powerful leaders one of which was Martin Luther King Jr. He was assassinated, but he was responsible for a lot of the laws have been put in place or were changed. He is recognized as a national hero now in this country.”

    “You won’t see black people tipping their hats and moving to the back of the buses now. They can go to the best schools and colleges. They can run for political office. We have some fine black folks in the Government now. The Government has tried hard to make it fairer for both black and white folks.”

    “Oh, hell, this world is messed up.” Grandpa said.

    “Where is that banjo music coming from?  Is it on the radio? That sounds like Earl Scruggs. It is too early in the day for the Grand Ole’ Opry.”

    “As a matter of fact, it is Lester & Earl & The Foggy Mountain Boys. They are recorded on a CD.”

    “What is that?”

    “Well, there have been some changes in the way we hear music. When you were living, if a car had a radio, it was what they called an AM radio. In the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, they came out with FM radios in automobiles. These radios had the AM and FM bands on them. The FM radio was supposed to be clearer with less static. It was even enhanced by sending 2 signals to provide stereo sound. This is 2 speakers with the sound divided so that individual sounds can be divided to make it sound more real.”

    “The music was recorded onto vinyl records for years. There was also magnetic tape which was the standard for a long time.”

    “I guess it was in the 60’s when they came out with 8 track tapes. You could install the players in your car and hear the music as you drove. The tape was enclosed in a plastic case and it was on an endless loop. You could choose between 4 different tracks at any point. They were really popular for a while.”

    “Then they came out with cassette tapes which were self contained tapes with the tape inside a smaller plastic case. These tapes could be rewound and also played in the forward and reverse modes. The sound quality was good and the cassettes were small enough to carry around easily. These lasted for quite a while until the computer age came along with the digital recording.”

    “Now days most recorded music is digital in nature. This is hard to explain but it is new technology that allows more music to be recorded on a smaller device. These digital recordings can be recorded on what they call a CD or an MP3 file. This has changed so quickly that it is hard to keep up with it all.”

    “The radios in cars today have a lot of choices for listening. You can listen to AM Radio, FM Radio, cassette tapes, CD’s, MP3’s, Sirius Radio, and who knows what else.”

    “I don’t know how you are making it play, but I like the music. It sounds like it is real.”

    “That looks like a little TV screen on the dash. Do you watch TV while you drive?”

    “No, it’s not a TV it is a GPS. Listen.”

    I turn Lester down for a few seconds and play a little sample of the GPS directions.

    “So, you’ve got a weird sounding woman who tells you where to turn while you look at a little map. Your Grandma did all that 80 years ago. That was part of our problem. She thought she was smarter than I was.”

    “Yeah, but she didn’t have access to all the maps that this thing does. It is connected to 3 satellites that are in orbit around the earth. These can tell exactly where you are anywhere on the planet and be very accurate.”

    “A satellite?” he asked.

    “Yeah, our country and other countries around the world can launch a rocket with a satellite on top of it. These rockets can put a satellite in orbit around the earth.”

    “They even sent men (called astronauts) into space. They have a space station orbiting up there and folks go there and live in it. There is no gravity out there and they float around weightless in that thing. They stay for weeks and months at a time.”

    “Where do they take a shit? Do they stick their asses out the window or do they have little turds floating around?”

    “No Grandpa, they have a special commode that takes care of that. I think those special commodes cost several million dollars apiece. We even sent men to the moon and back several years ago.”

    “I’m not sure God meant for man to travel like that. What did they find on the moon?”

    “Nothing but a bunch of dust, I reckon. The satellites have enabled us to communicate around the world almost instantaneously. There is no information in the world that can’t be sent through this network. They have learned a lot from the space industry that has advanced our technology.”

    “What in the hell is technology?  Boy, you sure like to use a lot of fancy words.”

    “You got any hogs, boy?”

    “No Grandpa I don’t have any hogs. Why do you ask?”

    “Well, it has turned is so cold I figured it would be a good time to kill one.”

    “I’ll turn the temperature on the air conditioning up a little.”  

Chapter 2: The Old Neighborhood

We got through the Wilcox Tunnel and headed down the hill and crossed Chamberlain Avenue and were approaching Dodson Avenue.

    “If I remember right, Bill Penney Tire and Marine should be on this corner. What happened to it?

    “Bill Penney Tire has been gone for several years. They recently built this convenience store on the property. I need to pull in there and get some gas.”

“We lived in this neighborhood for years down on Rubio Street. Avondale is a good community to live in. There are hard-working folks here who get along with their neighbors real well. It looks like it has run down a lot. Why are all those houses painted with all those bright colors?”

    “Well, Grandpa, the black folks have pretty much taken over this neighborhood.”   

      “There are niggers living in Avondale!  I never thought I’d see that.”

    “I noticed on that sign that is said, Regular Unleaded, $3.85. What did that mean? Is that gasoline?”

    “Yes, that is the price per gallon for gasoline.”

    “The last I remember it was $.22 a gallon. Shit, you better be sure the man checks the oil, washes your windshield and back glass, and airs up your tires for that. Are you going to get it filled up?”

“Yes.”

    “This is an odd looking gas station. It looks more like a store than a gas station. Those gas pumps look funny. This place doesn’t even have a hose on the ground that rings a bell when you run across it. Where is the attendant? I don’t see the wash bay and mechanic’s bay?”

    “Well Grandpa, you have to pump your own gas now. The gas attendant is mostly a thing of the past. If you want your windshield washed, you have to do it yourself. It usually costs money to air up your tires.”

“They charge money for air?”

    “Yes.”

    “It looks like a grocery store in there.  Can I go in with you when you pay them?”

“Sure, you can go in with me, but I can pay for it out here.”

    “Oh yeah, I want to see that.”

”The gas pumps used to say, Contains Lead and now is says Unleaded. I never understood how they melted lead and got it to mix with gas anyhow. What is ethanol? It says it contains 10% ethanol.”

    “Ethanol is made from corn and they mix it with the gasoline for some reason. It is like alcohol but it is not made to drink. They removed the lead from gasoline several years ago.”

    “That seems like a waste of good corn to me.”

    “When I was overseas in the Pacific during the War, we made us a still. We’d make alcohol out of anything we could find that would ferment and turn to alcohol. When I was a teenager they had this thing called prohibition. You couldn’t purchase alcohol legally until 1933. I was grown before I could legally purchase a drink. I grew up sneaking around and drinking whiskey. Not only was it illegal, my daddy was a preacher and he was against it. Maybe that caused me to want to drink it more.”

    “After they legalized liquor again, I guess I tried to make up for lost time. Flossie, your Grandma, and I had a lot of problems because of my drinking. Her Daddy was killed when she was a baby. He fell off a freight train and was mangled and killed. They said he was drunk when this happened. I’m sure that memory haunted her all her life.”

    “She always was opposed to someone drinking. She had a brother named V.L. who was bad to drink. He was thrown out of the Navy with just a few months left before he could have retired because of his drinking. He would get on a drinking spree and didn’t know when to quit. When he was on a drunk, he would drink after shave lotion or anything he could get with alcohol in it. It was a sad thing. I guess she had a right to be against drinking.”

    “There was a lot of Indian blood in both our families. I think that accounted for some of the problems with the firewater.”

    “What is that little shiny plastic thing you’re sticking in that slot?”

    “It is a credit card. It allows me to buy this gas and they send me a bill at the end of the month for it. It is a pretty common way to purchase things these days.”

    “So, they trust you to pay them later? Does that man inside the store know you?”

       “No, it is not him who gives me the credit. It is a large company or bank that issues these credit cards.”

    “How does the owner of the store get his money?”

    “The bank sends him the money.  He may not ever see the cash money but it is put into his bank account.”

    “Do a lot of people have these cards?”  

    “Yes, it is a big business these days.”

    “It sounds like it is too easy to me. What keeps folks from spending more than they can pay for?”

    “Nothing. There are a lot of folks who end up with as much as $50,000.00 to $100,000.00 owing on these credit cards.”

    “That is more money than I made in my whole lifetime. So, I guess the bank will take all their homes, furniture, and cars when that happens.”

    “No, Grandpa, I think those folks just go bankrupt and then they can start all over. The credit cards are generally unsecured loans.”

    “Do they let niggers have these credit cards too?” “Yeah, they do, and women are given the same cards as men. They even give these cards out to college students who don’t even have a job.”  

    “How can they go to college without a job? Who pays for their college?”

    “The government pays for a lot of them to go. Student loans from the Government are a big thing these days. The Government also gives out grants to some students where they don’t have to pay the money back. Some young folks stay with their parents until they finish college and the parents pay for it.”

“I had a paper route when I was 9 years old. I got up at 4:00AM and delivered those newspapers. I didn’t have a bicycle or anything. I walked and delivered those newspapers. I was lucky if I had a pair of shoes to wear.”

    “Damn, in my day we were doing good if we could finish 6th grade before we had to get a job. I remember I was working at the saw mill near Marietta from daylight till dark when I was 12 years old. The First War had only been over a few years. I had to quit school to work. I sure didn’t have a credit card or parents who could afford to send me to school. Times were hard back then. Keeping food on the table was our main priority.”

    “My Mama was a midwife and my Daddy worked on a crew installing and repairing railroad tracks. He also was a part-time preacher. The preaching wasn’t necessarily for the money. Daddy always said the parishioners’ motto was, ‘Lord, You keep him humble and we’ll keep him broke’. These things along with the kids working and picking up some money allowed us to survive. Although the Great Depression was not officially started when I was living at home with my parents, you couldn’t prove that by seeing how we lived back then. Almost everybody had it hard in those days.”

    “I also was a shoeshine boy for several years in a Marietta Barber Shop. I was about 15 years old when I started that job. That was where I learned to play the guitar. It was also where I learned to drink whiskey. A couple of the barbers played music and they taught me a few basic chords. They had an old Harmony Guitar that laid around in there. When I wasn’t shining shoes, I’d fool with that guitar. It was hard to chord and the strings were usually rusty but I really enjoyed strumming on it and singing. I remember the first song I learned to pick was The Wildwood Flower.“

    “Men would come in to the barber shop and sometimes they would have a bottle of moonshine in their boot. It was during Prohibition and it was against the law. On Saturdays, I would shine a lot of shoes and boots. Often the men would offer me a drink of whiskey when I finished their shoes. I learned a lot about picking, singing, and drinking in that old barber shop.”

    “After the barber shop closed in the evening, we would often sit and play music. The neighborhood guys and the barbers would gather in there and we formed a little band. We played at some local functions and dances. We had some good three part harmony singing and some pretty good pickers. We’d play and sing and drink till daylight sometimes.”

    “There was not a lot of entertainment available back then. There was no television and most people couldn’t afford to go the movies. People gathered up at any place they could find for music. We used to go to somebody’s house and they would clear the furniture out of one room. Then we’d have us a little string music and dance all night. I learned a lot about playing music and entertaining folks at those dances.”

    “The Great Depression hit not long after your Grandma and I got married. Nobody had enough food or money. Times were hard. We had to really struggle to get by. These kids don’t know how fortunate they are to be able to go to college and have the opportunities they have.”

    “Did that writing on the screen of that gas pump say something about cigarettes?  I used to smoke those Camels. I started out rolling my own with Prince Albert. In later years after the War, I switched to ready rolled cigarettes.”  

    “Yeah, cigarettes cost a lot more these days, too. I don’t smoke (although I used to) but I believe that a pack of cigarettes is around $3.00 or $4.00 now.”

  “It is hard to believe that cigarettes cost almost a quarter apiece.”

    “Why does that gas pump make that beeping sound?”

    “It is telling me that my transaction is finished. See this little paper receipt that it prints and spits out.”

    “So, you bought $65.00 worth of gas by sticking that little card in that slot?”

    “That is right.”  

    Grandpa shakes his head. “What is that talking about where it says lottery tickets?”    

       “They made it legal for folks to buy lottery tickets a few years ago. The lottery is run by the State or in some cases several States together. You can gamble on a lot of different games. Some of the big multi state lotteries have a prize of hundreds of millions of dollars. They also sell tickets for smaller prizes.”              

    “It sounds like the numbers racket that folks used to play. They used to play it at the barber shop.”

    “It is very similar to the old butter and eggs numbers game.”

    “My Daddy was against gambling. He would roll over in his grave if he knew that they were selling these gambling tickets out in public. He caught a bunch of us boys one time when we were pitching pennies for the line. He gave me a pretty stiff whipping for that. When I was overseas in the War, we used to shoot craps. Right after payday, you could get in some crap games where there was a lot of money riding. It didn’t take me long to figure out that it was a quick way to go broke.”

“Let’s go in the store, Grandpa.”

    “O.K.” he replies.

    We walked toward the front door of the store. Grandpa looked in and stopped dead in his tracks. He saw all the black people in there and said, “This is a nigger joint.”

    “Oh no, it is for all colors.”

    “Well, I’m not going in there with all them niggers. I’ll just stay in the car. Why is that store owner behind that thick glass?”

    “It is for protection against robbers.”     

    “He probably doesn’t want to be in there with all them niggers either. That is why I will stay in the car. It looks like to me that them niggers have taken over everything.”

    I decided to forego my trip into the store.

    “Let’s go home, Grandpa and I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

    This seemed to appease the old man and he settled back into the passenger seat. We went down Dodson Avenue toward Glass Street.

    “There is the old Kings’ Delight Restaurant. That used to be a pretty rough place to hang out. They sold beer and sandwiches and there were some tough guys who hung out there. They shot pool and there were a few killings there. It is a sad thing for a man to get killed over a pool game.”

    “Turn left here and let me look at the old home place!  There may be someone still in the neighborhood that I remember.”

    “Okay.” I said as I turned down Rubio Street.

    “Good God!! Look at that. There are niggers all over the place. Our old house is painted bright yellow with blue trim.”

    There was a basketball goal in the street in front of the house and a bunch of darker colored brethren playing around it. There were several junked cars setting around, some up on blocks. The grass was overgrown in several of the surrounding yards. The houses generally looked run down and neglected. Loud Rap Music was coming from inside the house. The guys playing basketball stopped and glared at us as if to tell us we were in the wrong neighborhood.

    “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.  Let’s get our asses out of here.”

    We got back on Dodson Avenue and headed toward home.

    “The 58 Drive-In Theater used to be on that corner. What happened to it?”

    “Oh they closed it years ago. People almost quit going to drive in movies. I guess television got so popular that it hurt their business.”  

    We went around the curve at the old Watering Trough.

    “Stop and let’s get a drink at the Watering Trough.”  

    The Watering Trough was a natural spring that came out of the side of the hill. There was a little pipe and had a trough to catch the water. It had been there for years. I pulled into the parking area and Grandpa read the sign.

    “It says the water is not safe to drink. Folks have been drinking there for as long as I can remember. They used to water their horses there years ago. I’m going to get me a drink anyhow. We used to stop here and use that water for a chaser when we were drinking whiskey.”

    He got out and took him a long drink.

    “There is nothing wrong with that water. It tastes as good as it tasted when I was a boy.”

    As we were sitting there, my cell phone rang. Grandpa looked at me funny. I got my cell phone out, flipped it open and answered the call. It was my wife and I quickly filled her in (as well as possible) on who was coming to dinner.

    “What the hell is that little thing that you are talking into? It looks like a fancy Zippo Lighter.”

    “It is called a cell phone Grandpa. We can get a phone call almost anywhere we go. They have these big, tall, towers located every few miles all around the country. The signal is relayed by these cell phone towers to where you are.”

    “I saw a man holding those things back at that store. He looked like he was punching buttons on them with his thumbs. What was he doing?”

    “Well, he was sending a text message. This means they type a message into the phone on little keys like a mini typewriter and send it to whoever they please.”

    “Why would they want to type a message when they can talk into the phone?”

    “I don’t understand it either but that is the way the younger generation does it.”

    “I noticed that there are no telephone booths. We used to have one on almost every corner.”

    “These cell phones have eliminated the need for telephone booths. Almost everyone has a cell phone these days.”

    “Let me guess. The Government pays for the phones.”

    “No, folks have to pay for their own phone service usually. I do think they have a program where some folks get free cell phone service if they qualify for food stamps or if they are on welfare.”

    “I remember the soup lines back during the depression. The Government stepped in and helped the folks who were needy. I don’t think any of those folks asked for a telephone to gab on though.”

    “Things are a lot different now. It is a hard thing to sort out who is really needy and who is just taking advantage of the system. I’m sure there is a lot of money wasted nowadays on folks who simply do not want to work.”

Chapter 3: The Beer Joint

                                           

“That looks like a beer joint across the street. Let’s get us a cold beer.” Grandpa said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Grandpa. I don’t like hanging around beer joints and I don’t know anything about that place. It might be a good place to get shot or cut with a knife.”

“It couldn’t be any worse that some of the places I’ve been. Besides, we’ll just drink one beer and then be on our way.”

    “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to drink one beer if you’ll promise to behave.”

       “Oh, I’ll behave.”

       I pulled the car across the street into the parking lot of the little beer joint. We got out and walked to the door. There were 2 pickup trucks and 1 car in the parking lot.

They were old, ragged looking cars and trucks and I suspected we had made a mistake in coming here. I opened the door for Grandpa and we entered the dark room. The smell of cigarette smoke, urine, and body odor greeted us as we walked inside and our eyes got accustomed to the darkness. There was a bar with stools and a neon Miller Lite sign behind it. There were several tables scattered around the room. Several video poker machines, a couple of pinball machines, and a pool table were near the back in a separate room. There were 3 guys sitting at the bar (all wearing baseball caps and smoking cigarettes with a mug of beer in front of them) and one old man behind the bar who was the apparently the bartender. At least all four of them were white. Nobody said anything to us when we walked in. They appeared to be engaged in a heated discussion. We sat down at one of the tables and waited patiently to be served.

       “I’m telling you that baby is half black.” one of the guys at the bar said.

       “When was it born?” another one asked.

       “Last night at about 11:00PM at Erlanger Hospital. Our daughter never told us that the baby’s daddy was black. It was a shock to see it. It’s a little boy and he is cute as can be but you know what he is facing growing up. My wife and I have wished for a grand baby for a long time but we never expected this. I don’t know if I can handle it.”

       “Yeah, I don’t think I could take it.” the other guy said.

       “Hell, you just think that is bad. My daughter came home a while back and announced to us that she was Gay. I’m talking about a full blown Lesbian. She is living with another girl who looks like she would have a set of balls hanging between her legs. This woman dresses like a man and tries to look the part.”

“Damn, that is bad. I don’t know which one is worse.”

The third guy who had been relatively quiet until now finally spoke up.

“My son is hooked on crack cocaine. He has stolen everything he could get his hands on to supply his habit. We can’t let him come around our house anymore because he will take anything he can get and sell it for that dope. He has been in and out of jail until we have just given up on him. We’ve spent almost everything we have trying to help him but it seems like it is hopeless.”  

       “Can I get you guys something?” apparently it was the bartender speaking to us.

       “We’d like a couple of beers.” I said. “I want a Michelob Ultra. What do you want, Ped?”

“I want a Falstaff.”

“We ain’t got no Falstaff. What is your second choice?”

“Just give me one of what he ordered.”

      “Two Michelob Ultra’s coming up.”

       The bartender walked over to our table with the beers and slammed them down on the table.

“That will be $5.00.”

I handed him a five dollar bill and he walked away. He never said Thank You or Kiss My Ass or anything. Grandpa looked at me and took a large drink of the ice cold beer. I could tell he was dying to say something but he kept quiet.

       “We’re going to ask her about the baby’s daddy tonight,” the guy resumed his conversation at the bar. “It’s a touchy subject but we are going to have to discuss it.”

       “I’d try to get her to put it up for adoption.” the other guy said.

       “That is easy for you to say but it is not an easy thing to do.”

       “It is not that unusual these days for a young girl to have a baby and not be married, but the little mixed race baby is another matter.”

       “This beer sure tastes good. It is plenty cold and it hits the spot.” Grandpa said.

       “It does taste pretty good.” I said.

       “Let me check out these machines in the back. I used to shoot pinball a little. I figure they have changed since I played one.”

       “Okay, we’ll check them out.”

       We walked toward the back of the place and into the room where the pool table and these machines were located. It was pretty dark back there and the glow of the video poker machines was the only thing we could recognize at first. Naturally, Grandpa had never seen a video poker machine.

       “What in the world is that?” he asked looking at the video screen.

       “That is a video poker machine. You can play poker against the computer. If you get a certain hand, you win. I think it takes 3 of a kind or better to win. I’m not that familiar with them.”

       “What does it cost to play a game?”

       “I think is a quarter.”

       “Can I try it?”

       “Sure you can. I pulled a five dollar bill from my pocket and inserted it into the bill slot on the game.”

       The bill was accepted and it registered on the screen.

       “Damn, I’ve seen machines that took a coin, but never one that would take a bill. I’m assuming it can tell if it is a one or a five.”

       “Yes it can read the denomination of the bill.”

       “That was a weird looking five dollar bill. It looked to be a funny color and it was made different than I remember.”

       “They have changed the look of paper money in the last few years. The bills are a little different color and they have some extra features on them to make it harder to counterfeit them. The modern copy machines are capable of making a copy of a bill that is pretty close to the real thing.”  

       “You mean people can put a dollar bill in a machine and it can copy it?”

       “Yeah, I think that is why they changed them. They have a special ink pen that stores use to help them tell if the bill is genuine. It has something to do with the kind of paper used in a real dollar bill. They mark on a bill with this special ink pen and it helps them tell if it is real or not. All right, you are ready to play. You just touch the screen and select the cards you want to keep.”

       We stood there and played a few games of poker and drank our beer. He caught on pretty quickly and I think he was enjoying it but, as usually happens; he finally lost the money we had deposited.

       “That was fun. I hate I lost your money. That is amazing how that machine can do all that stuff. We used to play poker when I was overseas. That is a little different. I know I said we’d only drink one beer but I’d like another one. I’d also like to try out that pinball machine over there.”

       “I believe we can do that. I won’t drink another one myself, but I’ll get you one. The police are really tough on folks who are drinking and driving a car. They will carry you to jail in a minute if they catch you driving.”

       “Let me get you started on this pinball machine and I’ll get you another beer. This machine is going to be a little different than what you remember playing.”

       I fed some money into the pinball machine and went up front to get him another beer. The three guys and the bartender were still involved in a hearty discussion. They quieted down when I walked around the corner.

       “We’d like another Michelob Ultra please.”

       “All right,” said the bartender as he reached behind him into the cooler and retrieved a frosty looking bottle. “Is the old man winning at the video poker game?”

       “No, he never had played on a video machine before. He wants to try the pinball game. He says he used to be pretty good at pinball.”

       “You aren’t a cop are you?” he asked.

       “Not by a long shot,” I replied.

       “Well, we aren’t supposed to pay off on those machines but everybody does. They say For Amusement Only but we all know there is more amusement if you have a chance to win a little money. If he wins some games, we’ll pay in cash.”

       I paid him for the beer and started back around the corner. Just then I heard a lot of bells and noise coming from the pinball machine. Then it started making that sound that they make when someone hits it for some free games. I walked up to the pinball machine and it was still clicking off games. I handed Grandpa his beer. He took it and drank a big swig and smiled.

       “The Old Farter has struck again. These machines haven’t changed that much.”

       “The man said they would pay off if you hit it for a significant amount.”

       “I’d say it will be a significant amount. Let’s quit while we are ahead. I think this will make up for the losses on the poker machine.”

       I walked back around the corner to the bar and got the bartender. He had undoubtedly heard the machine clicking off the games. He walked around to the machine and looked at it and sighed.

       “Well, old man looks like you just won yourself $124.00.”

       “That is good. It will help pay my way for a few days. I might even get me another one of these beers.”    

       The bartender reached under the machine and flipped the switch off and then turned it back on. The games started disappearing as quickly as they had appeared.

       “Come on up front and I’ll get your money.”

       We followed him around the corner and waited patiently at the bar for him to get some cash. He pulled some cash out of a sack behind the bar and paid Grandpa. He never said anything else. It seemed to have disturbed him to have to give up the money.

       “Are you ready to go?” I asked Grandpa.

       “Yeah, I’m ready,” he said as he finished off the last swig of beer.

       We walked toward the front of this beer joint. When we reached the door, Grandpa sort of raised his leg and left them with one of the loudest, longest farts I have ever heard. He didn’t say anything as we got in the car and resumed our trip toward home. We made our way up Highway 58.

       “That bartender was an ass hole wasn’t he? Five dollars seems like a lot of money for two beers?” Grandpa said. “Here is the money I won. You can put it toward what I eat and drink while I’m here. With the cost of things around here, it won’t last that long,” he said as he handed me the money.

       “You don’t have to give this money to me, Grandpa. It is your money. You won it fair and square.”

       “The money is better off in your hands than mine. I never had much of it and wasn’t very good at handling what I had.

       “Okay, I’ll hang on to it for you. Yeah, that bartender is typical of what you find in those places these days.”

       “I do feel kind of sorry for all three of those other guys in there, but especially that guy with the little pickaninny grandson.”

Grandpa said he didn’t remember this part of town. I told him that this was only a little 2 lane highway in his time. Now it has about 6 lanes with traffic lights on most every corner.

    As we made the 20 minute trip to our house, Grandpa settled back and I think he almost dozed off listening to Lester & Earl singing, “Down The Road About A Mile Or Two, Lived a Little Girl Named Pearly Ballew.”

    “You know I had a sister named Pearl Ballew. She was 4 years younger than I and she had a twin brother named Earl.”

    He was quiet the rest of the way home. I think he was observing the cars and the highway. I wondered what he was thinking.

Chapter 4- Our House Guest

   

I turned into the driveway at our home and hit the button to open our garage door.

    “How did she know you were coming? Does your wife sit at the door and wait for you to come home?”  

“No Grandpa, I mashed this little button over the sun visor and it made the electric garage door open.”

    “Damn fancy-assed stuff.  By the way you could stand to lose a few pounds you know. Why don’t you try getting out of the car and raising that door yourself?”

    “You make a good point Grandpa.”

    I shut off the engine and mashed the button to close the garage door.

    “That is mighty thin framing on those roof trusses. There look to be metal plates of some kind at each joint. That is pretty smart if it will hold.  It just looks like too thin a wood for holding up a roof.”

    We got out of the car and Grandpa looked around my garage. He saw my sign that said Nichols Banjo Shop on the door leading from the garage to my little workshop. He also had to see all the guitar and banjo parts laying and hanging around.

    “Do you make banjos?”  He asked.

    “Yes, I do just as a hobby. I also do some other woodworking.  I’ve built some guitars and other stringed instruments. I enjoy lathe turning, and do some repair work on stringed instruments.”

    “We need to look at that shop, boy. By the way, what is that material that is covering those walls? I’ve never seen anything like that.”  

    “It is called OSB board. They take chips of wood and glue them together under pressure to make a sheet of material 4 feet by 8 feet by 1/2 inch thick. It makes a stable building material.”

    “I’m familiar with plywood but I was never fond of it. I liked the old way of using planks running at a 45 degree angle for reinforcement of floors and walls. That door looks flimsy.”

    “Yes it is Grandpa. It is a hollow core door.”

    We walked into my little workshop. Grandpa looked around and took it all in.

    “It is cool in here. You must have it insulated.”

    “Yes I do and it helps with the temperature.”

    “Yeah, that old rock wool sure does a good job.”

    “It isn’t rock wool Grandpa, it is fiberglass. It is little strands of glass all put together to form thick batts that fit between the wall and ceiling studs. They put paper on one side of it to attach it to the studs.”

    “In my day, you struggled to get the house warm enough in the winter. We heated with wood or coal if we could afford it. I remember lying in bed at night and seeing the stars through the boards in the roof. Mama would start sweeping the floor and by the time she got to the front door, the dirt had all fallen between the cracks in the floor. I don’t think that fiberglass would have helped us.”

    “That old hand saw hanging there looks familiar. I had one like that in my day.”

    “I’ll say you did because I believe that is the same saw. That saw and one old 3/4 inch wide wood chisel are all I have left of your tools. I got them when my Dad died. He had an old tool chest that I thought was yours but the hand tools had disappeared one by one through the years. That old chisel is a good one. I use it all the time. It has some good steel in it and it holds an edge real well.”

    “Those tools were some that I got when I got back from the War in about ’46. The Government had a program for Veterans that helped me get some tools and get a start after the War. I got up against it one time and pawned those tools to your Daddy. I never picked them up.”

    “I did carpentry work and drifted around a lot. I lived in Texas for a while after me and your Grandma divorced.  That was a HOT place to build houses.”

    “Do you have a hand plane?”

    “Yes, I have 3 or 4.”

    “Let me see them.”

    I opened the drawer where they laid. Grandpa picked out one that was about 10 inches long and dragged it onto my workbench.

   He inspected it and asked, “Where is your sharpening stone?”

    I showed him what I had, including some diamond stones and a Japanese water stone. He chose a coarse stone and a fine hard Arkansas stone and disassembled the plane quickly. He took the plane iron out and spit on the stone and began sharpening. It was amazing to see how he held the plane iron and how easy he made it look. After a few minutes he started stropping the iron on a piece of leather.

    “Do you have any hard wood around?”

    “Yes, I have some hard maple.”

    “That will be good. Get it.”

    I got a board of hard rock maple that was about 3 feet long. He chucked it up in my vise. After he reassembled the plane, he made a few quick adjustments to it while making some initial cuts on the board.

    Then he drew it down the entire length of the board. It made a swishing sound like I’ve never heard, steady and smooth sounding. When he got to the end of the board, he pulled a little curled up shaving out of the mouth of the plane. It was so thin that you could read a newspaper through it. He stretched it out on the board and it was the same length as the original board.

    “That is a nice plane boy. You had the iron sharpened with too steep an angle. It makes it hard to cut when it is like that.”

    He never commented on all my fancy electric tools. I’m not sure he even saw them. He was more interested in the hand tools. I showed him my power planer, my jointer, and my homemade thickness sander. He seemed to understand their purpose but he didn’t seem overly impressed with them.

    “Let me show you something that will blow your mind.”

    I got out two rare earth magnets that were about a half inch in diameter and a quarter inch thick. I handed them to Grandpa.

    “Do you know what these are?”  I asked him.

    “Well, since they are stuck together, I’d guess they are magnets.”

    “You are right. Now let’s see you pull them apart. I’ll warn you that they will pinch your finger if you aren’t careful.”

    Grandpa tried to pull these magnets apart and he had trouble moving them. He finally got the separated a little and they caught his finger.

    “That son of a bitch pinched the shit out of my finger,” He said.

    “I told you it would pinch you.”

    “Those are the strongest magnets I’ve ever seen.”

    “These magnets are made out of a different type of metal called a rare earth metal. They have made it possible to make things like electric motors and microphones and speakers a lot smaller, lighter in weight and a lot better.”

    I took the magnets from him and when I finally got the two magnets apart, I put one on in the palm of his hand and one on the back of his hand. They still stayed together.

    “Don’t let them bastards pinch me again.”

    I removed the magnets from Grandpa’s hand and returned them to my shelf.

    “Well, it is supper time Grandpa. Let’s go in the house and see what Nadine has to eat.”

    “Who poured this concrete on these steps?” he said as we walked out of the garage.

    “Oh, I did it myself, Grandpa.”

    “Well, you don’t have the layout right. They may cause someone to fall. The rise and tread length don’t match properly.”

    We started up the back steps leading into the house and Grandpa noticed satellite dish.

“What is that thing?” he said pointing to the direct TV dish.

That is how we get our TV signal.

“And that?” he asked pointing to the little solar lights that Dene had placed beside the walkway.

    “Those are solar powered lights. Do you see this little black panel on top of it? It catches the sun’s rays and converts them to electricity. The sun charges the batteries during the day and they burn at night without any other power source.”

    “What if the sun isn’t shining?”

    “Well, they still get some power even on a cloudy day. They even have large solar panels on the roofs of buildings that can generate enough electricity to power a home. They have even built cars with these panels on them to power them.”

    As I opened the back door of the house, Grandpa said, “That is a strange looking door lock with all those little buttons on it.”

    “Oh, that is a battery operated lock. You just punch the right buttons and you can unlock it without having to use a key.”

       We went into the house and into the kitchen area.

    “Grandpa, this is my wife, Nadine, we just call her Dene.”  

Grandpa gives her a big hug.

    “It looks like the boy got him a good looking wife.”

    “Thank you,” she said. “What shall I call you?” She asked.

    “Just call me Ped.”

    “How did you get such a name as that?”        

    “Well, my name is William Perry Ballew. I never liked William because everybody wanted to call me Bill. Perry had two syllables and it seemed too long a name to pronounce. When I was a boy, I had a paper route. When I applied for the job, they asked if I would be riding a bicycle or walking. I didn’t have a bicycle and so they classified my route as a pedestrian route. I didn’t even know what a pedestrian was. Somehow that got shortened to Ped and the name stuck. Someone called the newspaper one time when I was delivering papers early in the morning. They complained that they heard me farting as I walked by and threw the paper. So Ped, The Old Farter just kind of stuck with me all this time.”

     “OK, Ped. I wish I hadn’t asked. Are you hungry?”                                                                                          “Hell yes, I could eat the ass out of a cow.”

    “Well we’ll see if we can find you a cow ass or something to eat,” she said.

    “How would you like a big old bowl of pinto beans with some corn bread?”

    “That sounds good to me,” Grandpa said. “They make me fart though. I hope you don’t get your feelings hurt over a little fart.”

    “Oh, no, I guess you could say I’m used to it by now.”

    “It is nice and cool in here. I noticed you have these ceiling fans running in here. It reminds me of the old days when they used them in a lot of business places. That was back before air conditioning was popular. I was telling Ron about how we lived when I was a boy. We didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. Summertime was often a miserable time. It was hard to sleep without modern conveniences like electricity and air conditioning or even a fan. The first home I ever was in with air conditioning was when Ronnie was a boy and his family lived in East Ridge. His Daddy was one of the first in the area to have an air conditioner in the house.”

    We all sat down at the bar for our meal.

    “There are some strange looking appliances around here and I’m curious. What is that little white box over there on the counter with a glass front on it?”

    “It is a microwave oven. It heats things really fast. You can put a cup of water in there and get it so hot you can’t drink it in a few seconds. You can also pop popcorn in it in just a minute or two,” Dene replied.

    “I remember when I was a boy we had a wood cook stove. Mama would make biscuits in that oven every morning. We boys had to keep the wood chopped and split for her stove. It seemed like we were always chopping wood. In the summer time it would get so hot you couldn’t stand to be in the kitchen. It felt good in the winter. Those biscuits and cornbread that Mama made were mighty tasty.”

    “Is that the refrigerator over there?”      

    “Yes it is.”

    “What is the little thing on the front of it for?”

    “Oh, that lets you get cold water or ice without opening the door.”

    “When they came out with those electric refrigerators, they looked like an ice box with an electric motor on top. They were loud. Some folks put them out on their porches because of the noise. I remember when we first got hooked onto the electric grid. It was not much more than a few light bulbs but we thought we had arrived. The electric lights were much brighter than candles or the gas lights of the day. This was a big change. Night time seemed a lot different than before because we had lights to see by. The other appliances came along later.”

    “I noticed that your stove doesn’t have eyes on the top of it to cook things. It looks like the top is black colored glass or some such thing.”

    “This stove does have a tempered glass or ceramic top on it. You can cook in a pot or pan on it. The heating elements are down underneath the glass and the glass is made to withstand the temperature. It makes it a lot easier to clean up.”

    “I still remember when your Grandma and I bought our first electric toaster. Sliced bread in a toaster was the thing in those days. That Flossie was a good cook.”

    “I like the top on this bar. I can tell that is curly maple and I like the color and finish on it.”

    “Ron made it and finished it,” Dene said.

    “That is a liquid stain and some of that new water based finish, Grandpa. You thin it with water but after it dries it is as tough as lacquer or shellac.”

“What do you want to drink, Ped?”

      “I’d like a beer if you’ve got one. I like Falstaff if you have it.”

    “I haven’t seen a Falstaff Beer in a long time. I’m not sure if they still make it,” Dene replied.  “I think Ron has a Michelob Ultra in the refrigerator.”

    “That’s a funny sounding name for a beer but I’ll try one.”

    “Grandpa, would you like to ask the blessing on our food?”

    “Sure, I would.”

    He bowed his head and this blessing followed:

    “Lord, I thank you for letting me visit here. I hope I can be a positive influence on the people I meet. I ask for Your help in my efforts. You know my weaknesses. Help me not to cuss or fart too much. Bless this food. Amen.“

    Dene brought the food and Grandpa’s beer. He tasted it and said it was real good. I thought Grandpa was going to burst his gut when he started eating. He really liked the beans and Dene’s cornbread.

    “That is the best cornbread I ever tasted.” Grandpa said.

    “It’s my own recipe. I add a little mayonnaise to it, too.” Dene replied.

    “Well, it is so good it will make you slap your Mama.”

    “I noticed that your kitchen sink only has one handle on it. Don’t you have hot water?”

    “Yes we have hot water. That is a single handled system that mixes hot and cold water together depending on which way you lean the handle. They even have some nowadays that you only have to touch the faucet to get the water to come out.”

    “I remember the days before we had indoor plumbing. Those outhouses were too close to the house in the summer and too far away in the winter. It was a real improvement when we got an inside sink and toilet. A big old claw foot bathtub was nice, too.”

    “I remember the old electric wringer type washing machines. They had little rollers that you ran the clothes through to wring most of the water out of them after they were rinsed. Our neighbor, Mary Smith, got her titty caught in the washing machine wringer one time. She was well blessed in that department anyhow.”

    “Those housewives worked as hard if not harder than the men did back then. The electric appliances made things a little easier for them. I remember they used to call it blue Monday because that was the day they did their washing. They had to keep the kids all clean and in school. They had to keep the house clean, do all the cooking and the clothes washed and ironed.”

    “I like the knotty pine wood in your ceiling and the wood floors. It’s what we used to call v-grooved wood.”

    “That’s right Grandpa. it’s still called that.”

    “That looks like oak or ash in the floor.”

    “It is ash.”

    “My Daddy was a travelling preacher. He didn’t believe in drinking, cussing, dancing, or anything like that. When he found out I was playing the guitar, He was really mad. He said it was THE DEVIL’S BOX. There were 11 of us kids in our family. I was the second oldest boy. You know how they say the preacher’s boy is always the meanest. Well, I think that held true in my case. I was seldom able to make my Daddy happy. He was a good man but we just didn’t see eye to eye. We worked 6 days a week and often from sunup to sundown. On Sundays, I wanted to break loose and be wild but we always spent most of the day at Church.”

    “One time when I was about 8 years old, we were at a revival meeting and my Daddy was preaching. It was in the summer time and I was barefooted. It had been a long, boring sermon for a little boy and I’d drifted off to sleep a few times. We were sitting on these wooden pews. I was near the back of the Church and I had my feet on the back of the pew directly in front of me. There were two big fat women sitting in front of me. When the time came for the invitation, we were all urged to stand. When those two women stood up, the wood on the pew caught my toe and mashed it. I couldn’t stand up because my toe was hung. I started crying. Those two women turned around and saw me crying. Thinking that I was responding to the invitation, one of them said that she’d go down front with me if I wanted to go.”

    “It’s my damn toe!” I said.

    “It seems like that was typical of the troubles I had growing up as a preacher’s kid. As I look back on it, I realize that my Daddy was on the right track. I just wasn’t ready for that kind of life.”

       We finished the meal and I said, “Would you like to sit in the living room and watch a little TV and rest a bit?”

    “Sure that sounds good.”

    I showed him over to my favorite recliner and got him seated in it.

    “What are those little buttons on the side of this chair for?”  he asked.

    “Those are switches for the electric motor which lets you lay back and prop up your feet if you want to.”

    Grandpa settled into the recliner and I leaned it back for him. He resisted it at first but apparently it felt pretty good after he leaned back.

    “And those little round things on the wall up near the ceiling?”    

    “Those are smoke alarms. If the house catches on fire these things make a loud noise to awaken you or get your attention if you are already awake.”

    “That sounds like a good idea.”

       “Do you have two TV’s in the same room?”

       “No, the smaller TV screen is a monitor for our security cameras. The four pictures on there are from cameras that are located outside. They are set up to record any movement that happens outside our home. It deters the thieves and dishonest people. We also have a burglar alarm system that will automatically dial the police if someone breaks in. It also has the capability of dialing 911 in case of a fire or other emergency.”

       “What is 911?”

       “It is a number that they came up with years ago. You can dial this number on the telephone for any emergency. The people there answer the phone and send the proper personnel to respond.”

       “I noticed your sign out front that said you have cameras on the property.”

    “Is Amos & Andy still on? That Andy and the Kingfish really tickle me. Calhoun is the lawyer.  They always have some funny stuff on their show. The Kingfish always had a scheme to pull over on Andy.”  

“No, Grandpa I don’t think Amos & Andy is on tonight.”

    “What about Red Skelton or Jack Benny, or Milton Berle?”

    “Those were all good shows but the TV is a lot different now.”

    “Here, try this.” I handed him the TV remote.

    “What the hell is that?” He asked.

    “That is a remote control for the TV. You can turn it on or off, adjust the volume, or change channels with these buttons.”

    “It doesn’t even have a wire going to the TV?”

    “No it is wireless.”

    “Are you too lazy to get up and change the channel? There couldn’t be over 3 channels are there? Where are your rabbit ears or do you have an outside antenna?”

    “We now have satellite TV. The signal comes from a satellite in orbit around the earth. This signal comes into the house just like the telephone lines or the electric lines do. There are hundreds of different channels to choose from on there.”

    “I remember when we had a battery powered radio. We’d all gather around it on Saturday nights and listen to the Grand Ole’ Opry. We’d hear Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, and a lot of others. That was good music back then. Sometimes the battery would go down or the signal would fade out.”

    “We also had one of those old record players that played those old 78 records. It set in the corner of the room. Daddy was particular about what we got to listen to, though. He was afraid we’d get the urge to dance I guess.”

    “I remember after I was grown when we first got a TV set. It was in the early 1950’s. That TV had a real small screen and it set up on a stand. We had to have a big, tall outside antenna to pick up the TV station out of Atlanta. Then we got a TV station in Chattanooga and we could watch it. It was WDEF Channel 12. We didn’t need to change channels very much back then. The station didn’t start broadcasting until the afternoon. You could turn on the TV sometimes and see a test pattern that was on there until the broadcast started. The station signed off before midnight. I remember they would play the National Anthem right before they signed off.”

    “Well, I’ll let you control this thing,” Grandpa said. “I don’t want to learn about all these gadgets. I’d be happy just to see Amos & Andy.”

    I flipped the TV through several channels.

    “That looks real,” he said. “It is not like the black and white TV’s I have seen.”

    “This is High Definition Digital TV.”  

    “I don’t know what it is but it sure looks clear. That is a big picture,” he said, looking at the Samsung 75 inch LCD TV that is mounted on the wall.  “It almost looks like being at the picture show. That TV set looks like it is only a few inches thick.”

    I flipped on through a few more channels.

    “Good God look at those titties. Do they show that kind of stuff on TV now?”

    “Yes, Grandpa they show a lot of that kind of stuff on TV these days.”

    “I like to see a good set of titties as well as anybody, but I didn’t expect to see bare titties in your living room on a TV set. It is embarrassing to see that in front of your wife. What do you do when little children are around?”

    “Well, we have to be careful what children watch. They have a rating system that is supposed to guide you as to what ages should watch what shows.”

“Grandpa,” I said. “I just remembered that there are some episodes of Amos & Andy on YouTube. I can go through the smart TV and pull one of them up for you. Wait a minute.”

I switched the TV to the WiFi mode and searched YouTube for Amos & Andy. Sure enough, there were several episodes on there. I started one of them and Grandpa was happy. He settled back and started watching it and laughing. He looked happy and relaxed. He shifted around and raised one leg slightly and farted real loud.

    “Excuse me” He said.

    With that, I think he drifted off to sleep. Dene and I moved into the kitchen and out of range for Grandpa to hear us.

    “What are you going to do with that old man?” Dene asked. “Is he moving in?”

    “No, I don’t think he will stay too long. What could I do?  As I was walking away from his grave, he tapped me on the shoulder from behind. He said God allowed him to make this trip to make up for all the times we missed because he died so young. He said he was going to hang around for a few days.”  

    “He is dressed funny and he smells like he needs a bath. Do you think he will keep us up all night? He sure has a big appetite and he passes a lot of gas. He will probably embarrass us around other people. I don’t understand why he came here but I’ll try to put up with it for a little while. He’s going to have to have a bath and wash those stinking feet. I still have some of your Dad’s old clothes that may fit him. Those old boots he has on look like they are worn out.”  

    “When he wakes up, you try to convince him to get in the shower. I’ll go look for some clothes for him to wear.  He can sleep in the spare bedroom if he behaves. We can’t put him out. After all he is YOUR Grandpa.”

    Grandpa napped for about 30 minutes. He farted a few times but then he rose up in the chair. I mashed the button on the recliner so he could set up straight.

    “I missed the last part of that show. Maybe I can catch another episode next week. I know you’re wondering how long I’ll stay. It will not be for long. I’ll try not to be in the way too much.”

    “Grandpa, I’m retired from my job now and we can do some of the things we didn’t get to do before.”

    “I noticed that you and I have a lot in common,” Grandpa said. “I always liked music and I played guitar a little.”

    “I never knew that until you mentioned it a while ago, Grandpa.”

    “Yeah the music ran in our family. Some of my brothers played, too. I also liked working with wood and anything to do with working with my hands. It is apparent you do, too. I used to enjoy fishing. You remember our fishing trips we made down below the Dam and in that little creek behind your house don’t you?”

    “I sure do Grandpa.”    

    “I always had a problem with cussing when I get mad and I hear that you have the same problem.”

    “You are right about all this, Grandpa.”

    “I know you always favored your daddy, but you took after me more than you realize, boy. We’ll try to squeeze 56 years into a few days. God apparently felt that you and I both needed this time.”

    “Grandpa, what if we went fishing tomorrow?”

    “That would be great,” he answered.   

    “Dene said you had to get in the shower and get some clean clothes. She also said you need to wash your feet.”

    “Aw hell, she sounds like your Grandma, Flossie. I’ll take a shower and wash my feet.”

    He goes into singing a little of, “Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton, my feet stink but yours are rotten, look away, look away, Dixieland.” He ended it with a loud fart.

    I said, “If we are going fishing tomorrow, we need to get some rest.”

    I showed Grandpa to the spare bedroom.

    “This is where you can sleep. Dene won’t let you get into that bed until you take a shower.”

    “OK,” He said.

    I showed him to the bathroom and tried to explain how the single handle faucet worked. I showed him where the soap was. He seemed reluctant to accept the fact that we use liquid soap instead of a bar, but he finally agreed to use it. I gave him one of those “throw-away” razors. I also showed him an electric razor. I didn’t expect him to try the electric razor. He seemed a bit puzzled by it all but I left it with him.

    “Dene has some clothes laid out for you in the bathroom. Lay your old clothes in the floor and she will take care of them. What size boots do you wear?”

    “I wear a 10 1/2 triple E,” he said.

    “Good. I think Daddy’s old boots will fit you just fine.”

    I took Grandpa into his bedroom and showed him how to turn on the TV. You may wake up and want to watch a little TV. I shut the door and left Grandpa to get cleaned up. Returning to the living room, I told Dene about our fishing trip. I asked her if she wanted to go. She said she thought we would do better with just the two of us. We listened as Grandpa took a shower, sang Dixie, and farted. When all got quiet, we assumed that he had gone to bed.

Chapter 5- The Fishing Trip

    I woke up early. The clock said 6:40AM when I rolled over and sat up on the side of the bed. I reviewed the events of the previous day and pinched myself to see if it was all a dream.    

Dene had apparently been up a few minutes. She always goes in the kitchen to make the morning coffee. I heard her talking to someone and I figured out that Grandpa was already up.

    “Did you sleep well, Ped?” I heard her ask.

    “Yes, I did but I woke up early.”

    “Ron said you and he are going fishing today.”

    “Yes, I reckon we are going. I don’t know where he plans to go. I remember that we passed by the lake when we came up the highway. It looked like some good fishing spots along those rocks near the bridge.”

    “I’ll bet he intended to take you out fishing in the boat.”

    “I didn’t know you had a boat”

    “We sure do. It is parked under the shed in the back yard. You probably didn’t notice it when you came out of the garage last night. It is an aluminum boat that is over 17 feet long. It is called a Bass Tracker. It has a big old Mercury Engine and it is well suited for fishing.”

    “Well, that sounds like writing home for $5.00 and getting $10.00 back in the mail.”

    About then, I walked into the room. I noticed that Grandpa had the clean clothes on and the boots I’d laid out for him. I could smell the Old Spice in the air so I knew he had shaved.   

“Good Morning, Grandpa. It looks like the clothes fit you pretty well.”

    “Yeah, they did.”

    “Are you ready for a cup of coffee?” Dene asked.

    “Sure I am.”

    Nadine handed him and me a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

    “This tastes good,” Grandpa said. “I think you have yourself a good little wife. She is mighty pretty too. It looks like she keeps a clean house. I can’t see a speck of dirt anywhere.”

    “She is one in a million,” I said.

    Dene fixed us a big breakfast including scrambled eggs, biscuits, bacon and sausage, homemade gravy, and some sliced cantaloupe. Grandpa dove into this breakfast like it was the only meal he was ever going to eat. He smacked his mouth and burped and farted. He sprinkled a lot of black pepper on all this food. He had to stop and blow his nose on a napkin several times before he finished. I guess the black pepper made his nose run.

    Dene and I were both finished with our breakfast long before he was. We sat and watched him eat. It made us feel good to see him enjoy this meal so much.

    When he finished, he said, “That gravy reminded me of what Flossie (my grandmother and his ex wife) used to make. She was a good cook but we just couldn’t get along. When I was on Guadalcanal in the war, I used to dream of a breakfast like this. We’d better wait a while before we go out in that boat. I’ll have to go shit after this meal. Does that boat have a crapper on it?”

    “No Grandpa, it doesn’t.”

    “I’d hate to get out on that water and have to shit. I’ve done that before but I’ve learned a lot in my years.”

    “We’ll wait a while before we go. I don’t like getting out at the crack of dawn anyhow. I like to relax and make it enjoyable instead of making it like work. That will give me time to shower and shave this morning. You can take it easy while I do that.”

    I took a shower and shaved and went to the living room to look for Grandpa. He wasn’t there and I asked Dene where he went.

    “He said he was going outside for a little while.”

    I walked out the back door and there he was kneeling down pulling grass up from around the garage.

    “I thought I’d make myself useful while we had a few minutes. It looks like the grass is getting pretty high, so I thought I’d help pull some of the worst up around the building. I was going to dig some worms up but I didn’t know if that wooded area belonged to you or your neighbor. I also didn’t know where you keep your digging tools.”

    “The wooded area belongs to me but we’ll just buy some worms.”

    “I appreciate your help with the grass, Grandpa, but we have an easier way to do it now. I have a gasoline powered weed-eater for that job.”

    “I figured you probably had some hand clippers somewhere to trim with. I suspected they were in that little shed but it is locked.”

    “Come out here and let me show you something.”

    I took him to my little storage shed behind the garage and opened the combination lock.

    I opened the door and he said, “Shit, look at all this stuff.”

    I got out the weed eater and showed him how it uses a plastic string to cut the grass. I filled it with gas and pulled the cord a few times until it started. I let it warm up a few seconds, did a quick demo and showed him how to bang the cutter on the ground to extend the plastic string. Then he took over and he looked like a kid with a new toy. He caught on quickly. He trimmed all the grass around the garage, house, and everywhere he could find to use it.

    It finally ran out of gas.

    “Who would have believed that a little piece of plastic could cut so well? I’ve seen the power mowers that run on gasoline, and bush hogs that go behind tractors but nothing like this. It amazes me how lightweight the whole thing is and it still has so much power.”

    “Wait right here,” I told him.

    I started my John Deere 42 inch riding mower and backed it out of the shed.

    “This thing will mow a 42 inch wide path.”

    “I’m familiar with that John Deere name. They always made good tractors and equipment.”

    I showed him how to engage the mower and how the hydrostatic transmission worked.

    “Do you want to try it out?”

    “You’re damned right I want to.”

    He sat down on it, started the motor and took off like a bat out of Hell. He had the entire back yard cut before I knew it.

    “Grandpa, I hate to make you stop but we have a fishing trip to go on.”

    He reluctantly got off and I pulled the mower back into the shed.

    “I remember when folks just swept the dirt in their yards. They didn’t have any way to mow grass.”               “Let’s hook up that boat and get to the river.”

    I backed the car up to the boat. I got out and removed the cover that was on the boat. I lowered the trailer down on the ball of the hitch and attached the wires and safety chains.

    “That is a nice looking boat. Those seats look like they would be comfortable to fish from. I’ll bet that big old Mercury Motor will push this thing along real good.”

    “It does real well.”

    I got everything hooked up and checked to be sure it was safe.

    “Let’s get in the car Grandpa and we’ll go. Dene fixed us a snack and she has already put it and some drinks on ice in the built in cooler. She may have even slipped a few beers in there.”

    “The cooler is built into the boat?” Grandpa asked.

    “Yeah,” (I showed him the cooler compartment in the back of the boat).

    “That is handy isn’t it? We’ve been out there in a little wooden rowboat and been so thirsty that we drank the lake water before. What is that little thing?  Is it a TV screen?  Do you watch TV while you fish?”           

   “No, it is a fish locator. It has a probe that goes in the water. It shows you on that screen what is under the boat. You can see little dots where the fish are and see how deep the water is and what structure is under there.”   

“That big old motor looks heavy. I hope we don’t have to raise it up and let it down.”            

“No Grandpa, it has a hydraulic motor on it that raises and lowers it. It is made so you can adjust it while you are driving the boat across the water. It helps the boat get on plane and ride smoother. Get in the car and we’ll go.”   

Grandpa got into the passenger seat.  

    “It’s a law now that you have to buckle your seat belt when you are riding in a vehicle. The police will write you a ticket for it.”    

    Grandpa fumbled around a little and finally got the seat belt buckled.

    “You learn quickly old man.”

    As we pulled onto Highway 58 going South, Grandpa asked where we would fish.

    “I thought we’d go down below the dam and look for some of those big bream and shellcrackers.”

    “That will be good. I love to catch those things.”

    “By the way, you should tell folks that I’m just a friend. If you tell them I’m your Grandpa, they will start asking a lot of questions that neither of us can answer.”

    “Okay. I get it. We’ll stop and get some red worms and some crickets at Hamilton’s Sport Shop.”              

Grandpa and I went in the door at the local bait shop. The lady who runs it spoke to us in her usually friendly manner. I had been in there quite a few times and she recognized me, but she didn’t know my name. She was a pleasant lady, not too bad looking. I’d say she was close to my age. She often has her parents in there with her and they were present today. She took our two cricket containers and asked me how many I wanted.      

“Put about 100 in each and we need 3 boxes of red worms.”

“You have company today don’t you?”

“I sure do. He is my cousin who is visiting from South Georgia. His name is Ped Ballew.”

“It is nice to meet you Mr. Ballew.” the lady said. “This is my Mama and Daddy sitting over here. I’ll bet you are about the same age.”

“Oh shit,” I thought. We are in trouble now. I could imagine him telling them he was born in 1911. (That would make him 101)

“I’m damn near 80,” Grandpa said. “I’ve lived a sheltered life. I played guitar in Hank Williams Band until he died. We all missed old Hank after he died. I’ve played in Roy Acuff’s Band and also played with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs for several years. I worked in Hollywood with Gene Autry and a while with Roy Rogers. I never got a band of my own because they said I was too windy.”

“Well, it is nice to meet a celebrity. I knew your cousin here plays music locally. He was in my husband’s high school class and he entertained us at the 40 year class reunion a while back. Here are your worms and crickets. Where are you fishing today?”

“We plan to go down in the river below the dam today and hunt some of those big bream and shellcrackers.”

I gave her my visa Card and she processed it. She handed me the little slip of paper to sign. I signed it and we were on our way.

“I hope you have a good trip. It was nice to meet you Mr. Ballew.”

We returned to the car and put the bait in the boat.

       “That credit card business looks too easy to me.” Grandpa said as we got in the car. “Did I lay it on too heavy?”

       “No. I think they believed every word. They are probably looking on the internet for your name right now.”

We made the trip down Highway 58 and onto Amnicola Highway toward the River Park where they have a nice launching ramp.

    “Did you know I helped build that Dam?”

    “Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember Uncle Bill saying you worked on it.”

    “It was a big project. We built forms and helped with pouring all that concrete. I worked on it for 3 years. It was in the late 1930’s before the Big War. It was hard work and long hours. They paid good wages in those days. Jobs were scarce and I was proud to have one.”    

    “You wouldn’t believe it but I remember times in the summer before this dam was here when you could almost wade across this river. I’ve also seen it frozen in the winter where you could drive a car across it.”

    We reached the boat ramp at the River Park about a mile down the river from the Dam.

    “There used to be a boat ramp up closer to the dam near the railroad bridge.”

    “It is still there but the water is pretty swift up there and I prefer using this one.”  

    “There are some bridges here that weren’t here before. That dam didn’t have a bridge across it when we built it. That railroad bridge was the only bridge between the dam and the Walnut Street Bridge.”

    “Yeah, they have built several bridges along this river. The first bridge across the dam was only two lanes. They widened it several years ago.”

    “I remember when they built the first bridge across the dam. I watched a train come over that railroad bridge a few minutes ago and I saw something strange.”

    “What was that, Grandpa?”

    “I’ve never seen a train without a caboose before. Why doesn’t it have a caboose?”

    “Well they eliminated the cabooses several years ago. They have some little boxes that go on the back of the last car that do the work of the caboose.”

    “It looked like there was something attached to the last car.”

    “All that stuff has to do with the technology of the day.”

    “Are there any of the old steam engines running?”

    “No, Grandpa they have gone to all diesel engines. I think they are actually diesel/electric. The diesel engine generates electricity that actually turns the wheels.”

    “Those old steam engines were a sight to behold in their day. They had some power and they made a lot of noise, too.”

    “They have a railroad museum that sometimes runs a steam engine on a pleasure trip. They run from the old station on Chamberlain Avenue in East Chattanooga out through the old railroad tunnel to a new facility they built in the Shallowford Road area of town. A lot of folks like to ride on the old steam trains especially in the fall when the leaves are turning. That is the only passenger train left around.”

    “What is all that writing on the boxcars? It looks like weird designs and writing that makes no sense. It looks like some kid has been playing with the idea of being a sign painter.”

    “Oh, there are young folks that take spray paint cans and go around painting stuff on the sides of railroad cars. They call it graffiti. They even paint that junk all over buildings and anything they can find.”

    “It sounds like someone needs to catch them and give them a good ass-whipping. The police make you buckle a seatbelt in a car but they don’t do anything about kids ruining someone’s property?”                

    “You make a good point, Grandpa.”

    I put Grandpa out on the dock alongside the launching ramp and handed him the docking line. He held the rope while I backed the trailer and boat into the water. I asked him to tie the boat up to the dock after I got it in the water. He did a good job and tied it better than I could.

    I parked the car and trailer and returned to the dock where Grandpa was sitting in the boat, ready to go. I sat down in the driver’s seat and started the motor.  

    Grandpa was impressed with the power tilt and trim on the motor. He liked the fact that you can let it up and down so easily. I got the motor running and warmed up and told Grandpa to untie us and we were off.

    We started down the river and Grandpa said, “This is a lot of fun even if we don’t get a bite.”

    We passed a couple of bass fisherman. I slowed down as I passed them so as to not rock their boat.

    As we got near and passed by these other fishermen, Grandpa said, “Y’all doing any good?”

    I knew they were bass fishermen but Grandpa didn’t understand. These guys never answered. Grandpa had a puzzled look on his face.

    We went about a quarter mile past them and I shut the motor off. We were drifting and rigging our poles up and getting organized. All of a sudden those same guys in the bass boat came by us. They were running about 60 miles an hour and they came real close to us. They never slowed down a bit.

    “What’s the matter with you? You Son of a Bitches, you bunch of Bastards.”

    We held on to the sides of the boat as the 4 foot waves rocked us.

    “Well, Grandpa you just got a lesson in modern day fishing. Those guys are bass fishermen. They are for the most part a bunch of egotistical pricks who think they own the water.”

    “My two boys were out in a boat a few years ago and the motor quit running. My boys flagged some of those bass fishermen down and asked them to tow them to shore. They wouldn’t even stop and help my boys. They all said they were fishing in a tournament and didn’t have time to help tow them back to shore. My boys had to paddle that heavy boat a long way because of some of those low-life bastards. These bass fishermen who are out here are mostly a selfish bunch of Ass Holes. There are a few who are nice, but as a rule they don’t care if their wake turns your boat over or not.”

    “I’ll tell you about something else while I’m thinking about it. There are some things called Jet Ski’s or Sea Doo’s now. I’m sure you remember folk’s water skiing behind a boat. Well now they have these little self-contained vehicles and they are just for people to ride on for fun. It is like a motorized ski without the boat. They resemble a motorcycle on the water. There aren’t as many of these in this river as there are in the lake but they also will run by you at a high rate of speed. They don’t usually seem to care how many waves they make. These people (mostly young folks) are not usually fishing. They are just chopping the water up and having a good time. It is a lot harder to fish now than it was in the past.”  

    I had a Zebco 33 rod and reel and I asked Grandpa if that was suitable for him. He said it was. He was familiar with the closed face Zebco. We rigged up and got everything fixed like we wanted it.

    “What is that thing laying across the front floor of the boat?”

    “It is an electric trolling motor.”

    “I noticed that you didn’t have a paddle but I didn’t say anything.”

    “This little trolling motor will allow us to move the boat around slowly. It runs off a big 12 volt battery that is located in the lower section of the boat. It is quiet and it doesn’t scare the fish.”

    “Grandpa, you sit in the back seat and I’ll sit in the front so I can run the trolling motor. We can use the trolling motor to hold us in position without having to fool with an anchor and rope.”

    “That sounds good to me.”

    I installed the pedestal and fishing seat for Grandpa. He had a wide grin on his face when he sat down in that pedestal seat.

    “Oh, by the way do you want some sunscreen?”

    “What is that?”

    “It is some cream that you rub on your skin so you don’t get sunburned.”

    “Hell no, I’ll just tough it out.”

    I applied the sunscreen to my exposed skin.

“Now, the cooler is right next to you and you can make yourself at home.”

    “Did you say Dene put us some beer in it?”

    “Yes, she did.”

    “I like her more all the time. That funny named beer tasted pretty good last night. I’m going to get one out. Do you want one?”

    “No Grandpa, I’ll wait a while. By the way it is made by Budweiser.”

    I settled into the front pedestal seat and hooked up the trolling motor.  

“Let’s tight- line fish first. Put a little extra weight on so you can go all the way to the bottom.”

    We both dropped our lines in the 15 foot deep water.

    “I usually drop my line to the bottom and then raise it up about a foot or so. These fish usually stay down pretty deep this time of year.”

    “Oh Shit, I’ve got one,” Grandpa said.

    His rod was bent as he reeled the fish in. It was one of those large breams with the pretty orange color on their belly. It was big enough to put your thumb in its mouth.

    “I forgot to tell you about the live well.”

    “What is that?”

    “Open that compartment in front of you and you will see.”

    I turned the switch on to run the pump that keeps the water circulating.  

“Just drop that fish in there and close the lid. It will keep him alive for a long time because it pumps fresh water in there.”

    Grandpa dropped the big bream in the live well.

    “Uh oh, I think I’ve got one.”

    I reeled in another big bream about the same size. I took it to the live well and we were off. We drifted around that area for several hours and steadily caught those fish. We had a lot of fun fighting those big bream. We occasionally would hook one of those big shellcrackers and they pull hard. It was a special time. I don’t know which one of us had the most fun. Grandpa drank all the beer before I got one, but that was all right because I had to drive. I had some bottled water and Diet Cokes. We snacked on some cheese crackers and some bologna sandwiches that Dene had prepared.

    I showed Grandpa the plastic Fleetwood coffee can that I use to piss in. We can piss in that without having to stand up and piss over the side of the boat into the water. We just dump it into the water and rinse it out a little when we get through.

    Every so often a Jet Ski or a Bass Fishermen would come by us running at full speed and Grandpa and I would both call them every name we could think of.

    I looked at my watch and it was 4:30.

    “I guess we ought to get back home, Grandpa.”     “I’m out of beer anyhow,” He said.  “You know what my old saying was, don’t you?”

       “I think I do but you tell me anyhow.”   

    “Fisherman’s luck, a wet ass and a hungry gut.”

    “I thought that was what you were going to say.”

    “What are you going to do with all those fish?” Grandpa asked.

    “I don’t know. We can throw them back in or clean them.”

    “I don’t really want to clean them,” Grandpa said. “I noticed some niggers fishing by the boat ramp. We could give them to the niggers.”

    “That is a good idea.”

    We made the trip back up the river to the boat ramp. We pulled into the ramp and tied up to the dock.

    “Hey, Boy.”   

    The black man was sitting on the bank fishing.

    “Hey Boy,” Grandpa said a little louder.

    The man realized that Grandpa was talking to him. He said, “I’m not a boy, I’m a grown man.”

    “You’re a smart assed nigger, I reckon.”

    I saw that I needed to step in here before the situation got out of hand.

    “This old man thinks he’s back in the 50’s,” I quickly chimed in. “His mind isn’t right so don’t pay attention to anything he says.”  

    “Oh, I see,” the man said.

    “We have a bunch of good-sized bream in here if you want them.”

    “Sure, I’d like to have a good mess of fish.”

    I dipped them from the live well and we put them in a 5 gallon plastic bucket he had.  

   “These uppity niggers don’t know their place,” Grandpa said.

    The black man just shook his head and kept his mouth shut and that was the end of the conversation.

    Grandpa sat in the boat while I backed the trailer in the water. I don’t think he said anything else to the man but I’m not positive.

    I put Grandpa in the car and turned on Lester and Earl for him to listen to. I drove the boat onto the trailer and pulled it out of the water. By the time I had the boat secured on the trailer and went back to the car, he looked to be almost asleep but he said.

    “They need to do something about those fishermen who ran past us so fast. There were several times when I thought they would turn the boat over. If we were in the type boat that we used to have, there is no doubt that they would have turned us over.”

    I drove back home to the sounds of The Foggy Mountain Boys ringing loud and clear. “Let me be your salty dog or I won’t be your man at all, honey let me be your salty dog. Down in the wildwood setting on a log my finger on the trigger and my eye on the hog, honey let me be your salty dog.”

Chapter 6- The Picking Session

    Grandpa napped most of the way home from our fishing trip. He woke up as we were going up Highway 58.

    “Can you play any stringed instrument?”       

    “Yes, I play a banjo and guitar and sing a little. I also play the upright bass and write some songs.” I replied.

    “We need to play some music together. There’s nothing in the world like playing music with your family.”

    “Grandpa, what all instruments do you play?”

    “Oh, I play a little guitar and anything else with strings on it. I never fooled with a fiddle though. Fiddle players are usually ass-holes. They are hard to play music with. It seems like you can never play anything to please most fiddlers. I’ve seen a few that were alright but mostly they are egotistical bastards.”

    “I’d agree with you on that, Grandpa. When we get home and eat our supper we’ll play a little music.”

    “Do you have an extra guitar that I can play?”

    “I’ve got a closet full.”

    “My fingers will be a little tender.  I’d like to hear some of your songs that you wrote, too.”

    I turned into our driveway and drove around behind the garage to unhook the boat and trailer. I pulled the trailer under the awning and told Grandpa to go on in the house. He did and I got the boat and trailer unhooked and secured the protective cover.

    After putting the car in the garage I went into the house. When I opened the door, I heard the sound of a guitar. It was coming from my little office/music room.

    It was Grandpa and he had him a cold Michelob sitting on the desk. He had found one of my acoustic guitars laying in the open case. He apparently couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He had it in perfect tune and he was doing some of the prettiest flat-picking I’d ever heard.

    “This guitar sounds mighty good, son. Did you build it?”

    “Yes, I did Grandpa. I’ve built several acoustic guitars. I’ve also remodeled a lot of old guitars. I work on the top braces and improve the sound of them.”

    “I always wanted a Martin Guitar but I never was able to afford one. They always had that clear tone with a deep bass.”

       “I’m surprised that you didn’t have a Martin Guitar when you played with all those famous people and were in the movies in Hollywood.”

       “That was a good story wasn’t it?”

    “I try to copy the Martin sound in my guitars. There is no doubt that C.F.Martin guitars have the sound that everybody wants.”

    “This guitar sounds as good as a Martin. It also notes good. The Gibson Guitars were usually a little easier to play but they didn’t have the sound that a Martin had. This guitar appears to have the best of both worlds. I can tell the strings are not new but they still sound pretty good. Those wound strings are a funny color. They don’t look like Black Diamonds to me.”

    “No Grandpa, they are Darco Strings and they are manufactured in Mexico for C.F.Martin Company. They are called Phosphor Bronze strings and they are supposed to give an acoustic guitar a brighter tone.”

    “I remember the first guitar I ever owned. It was back between the Wars before the Great Depression. Times were hard back then and music was a big part of our entertainment. My Mama was a midwife and she delivered a baby for some folks. They didn’t have any money so they gave her an old Kay Guitar. Those old guitars weren’t worth over two or three dollars at that time.”

    “She knew I liked playing the guitar so she gave it to me. It was a smaller sized guitar and the strings were high off the fingerboard. I loved that little guitar and I’d still have it now if it hadn’t got broken in a bar fight one night.”

    “I played in some pretty rough places. There were a few of us in the neighborhood who played some and we had a little string band. I did most of the singing. We had a mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and bass in the group. We had some three part harmony singing and it sounded pretty good.”

    “In some of those bars, you had to really watch out because some of those boys got rowdy after a few drinks. Their girl friends would be looking at the band members and the boys would get jealous.”

    “That is where I met your Grandma, Flossie. She loved to dance and she was a real looker in those days. Of course, my Daddy didn’t approve of my choice for a wife. He wanted me to be a preacher and not a singer.”

    “What is that little round thing up there by the pegs? It says Snark on it.”

    “That is an electronic tuner. It has little lights in it that tell you when you have the guitar in standard tuning. Push that little button on front of it and it will light up.”

    He pushed the button and it came on. I showed him how it worked and he raised the pitch on the strings. He already had it in good tune but it was a little below the standard 440 tuning.

    “We used a pitch pipe in my day or just tuned with someone else. What about that other thing hanging up there by the pegs.”

    “Oh that is a capo. You can clamp it on the neck to change keys. If you put it on the second fret and play a G chord it will make it into an A chord.”

    “Let me try it.”

    He puts the capo on the second fret and strums it.

    “It pulled it out of tune. Two or three of those strings are sharp now. I’ll just play in an A chord instead of trying that new fangled thing.”

    I got out my banjo.

    “Nichols, huh. That looks nice. Is that mother of pearl inlay in the neck?”

    “Yes, it is.”

  “I like the way you have your name inlaid in the top of the neck. Get that banjer in tune, if you can. Damn banjos were always out of tune back when I played. Most of them played so loud that you couldn’t hear your guitar or the singing.”

    “I agree with you about that, Grandpa. I wrote a song about banjer pickers playing so loud. I try to hold the volume down on my banjo so you can hear the other instruments.”

    I got the banjo tuned pretty close and Grandpa said, “Pull that second string up just a little, I think it is a little flat.”

    I raised it a little and he said, “That’s better.”

    Do you know Wildwood Flower in the key of C?”

    I started it out and he joined in. I picked it through twice and nodded to him to pick a break. He did some mighty pretty picking. His timing was excellent and his touch was smooth. He played it through a couple of times and then I finished it.

    “That is a good old tune. It was the first tune I ever learned to play.” Grandpa said.

    “Supper is ready,” Dene said from the other room. “I was beginning to think you guys were going to stay on that water all night.”  

    “Let’s go eat our supper and we’ll play some more after a while. We need to wash the worm shit and fish off our hands before we eat. Dene, I hope you didn’t cook beans again. Grandpa has farted all day.”

    We washed our hands and sat down at the bar for supper. Dene had cooked a meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans with some iced tea to drink. We ate our supper quietly.  Grandpa appeared to really enjoy the meal and I did too.

    “I could eat that cornbread any time of the day,” Grandpa said.

    “Let’s pick some more.”   

    “Dene, do you play music?”  Grandpa asked.

    “No, I just listen. I’ve learned to tune it out. Ron is always playing and singing and I’ve learned to not hear it. I heard your guitar playing though, and it sounded mighty good. It sounded a lot like Doc Watson.”

    “I don’t think I know him,” Grandpa said. “I knew a Doctor who played a guitar once but his name wasn’t Watson. Where is he from?”

    “He wasn’t a real doctor. They just called him “Doc”. He was from North Carolina originally and he did some pretty flat picking. He got to be pretty famous before he died. He played the old time way and he was a great musician and singer, especially since you consider the fact that he was blind.”

    We went back into the office and resumed our jam session.

    “I’m used to a larger pick than this,” Grandpa said.

    “Yeah, I’ve seen those old 3 cornered picks that they used to use. I don’t have any of those. These nylon and Delrin picks do a pretty good job.”

    “Yeah, I like the tone that comes off this pick and those little ribbed places make it easier to hold on to. I’m getting used to it.”

    “Sing me one of your songs,” Grandpa said.

    I sang him the one about the banjer picker in your ear. He picked a pretty break on it and sang some tenor on the chorus the last time around. He smiled real big when I finished the song.

    “That tune is similar to Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

    “You are right, Grandpa.”

    I sang some old standard tunes and some of my originals. He played them all like he’d been playing them all his life. The more I heard his playing, the more I enjoyed it.

    I could tell that Grandpa had been a really good picker in his day. He sang some old songs such as Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Gene Autry, Eddie Arnold, and some of the early singers did.

    I looked at my watch and it was 11:00PM.

    “We’ve spent the whole evening playing, Grandpa.”

    “Yeah it has been fun. My fingers are sore as a risen. You did good on that banjo, son. I like the way you kept it quietened down and didn’t play over me.”

    “Before we go to bed, I wish you’d explain something else to me.”

    “What is it, Grandpa?”

    “What are those little curly looking light bulbs?”

    “They are fluorescent bulbs. The government decided to outlaw regular light bulbs because they use too much electricity. Now we have to use these things or another bulb called an LED bulb. The LED bulbs are expensive now but we expect the price of them to go down. A good LED bulb may cost $30.00 but they claim they will last for years without burning out.”

    “Why would the government stick their nose in something like light bulbs? Is that any of their business?”

    “No it isn’t but it seems that they are determined to be more involved in your everyday life.”

    “What is that TV screen on your desk? I noticed that it had writing on the screen and it wasn’t always making sounds like a TV.”    

    How do you explain the computer age to someone who doesn’t even know what a pocket calculator is? We who were living in the past few years had witnessed the changes as they came along. He did not know about the transistor age and the micro-chips. He wasn’t aware of the evolution of the computer as it went from the Commodore 64 through all the changes and improvements. He’d missed out on the first video games that hooked to the TV. He didn’t know about the crude games that started out such as Pacman and Pong and have evolved into the sophisticated video games that are around today. How do you explain virtual reality to him? He wasn’t even familiar with a modern keyboard. He thought an electric typewriter was a pretty big invention. He didn’t know about LED screens or gigabytes, modems, laser printers, hard drives, IPods or any such thing.

“That is a computer screen. This little box down here is the actual computer. It is capable of doing a lot of things that make our life easier and allows us to communicate better with one another.”

    “You already have a little telephone that you carry in your shirt pocket. Can’t you communicate on that?”

    “Yes, you can, Grandpa but this computer has a little more capability. There is a thing called the internet or the World Wide Web. This computer can access this internet and connect to pages of words and pictures. There are wires called coax that connect this computer and the telephone and TV to a network of things.

    You can also pull up a video with sound that has music or whatever you could think of on it. There is a feature called Email. It is electronic mail. You can type a message or letter and mash a button and send it to someone immediately. It shows up on their screen no matter where they are in the whole world. I could send an email to China if I wanted to.”

    “That would save the $.03 to mail a letter wouldn’t it?”

    “Well, the cost to mail a letter is now about $.38.”

    “If you can call someone on that little phone, why would you want to send a letter?”   

    “That is a good question. You saw some folks typing text messages. You can type in a written message and send it instead of talking live with people. A lot of the young people go around with these little phones in their hands all the time. They are constantly mashing the buttons and sending messages.”

    “Let me demonstrate what this computer can do. Sit down in that chair and watch and listen.”

    “There are some other things setting around that I don’t recognize, either. Why does that telephone have a little rectangular box on it with numbers on it?”

    “Well the phones now have a feature named Caller ID. When the phone rings, it will tell you who is calling before you answer the phone. You can also store phone number in the phone so that you can push a single button and dial someone’s number without having to punch in all the numbers.”

    “It really doesn’t look like a phone to me. It doesn’t have a dial on it.”

    “Oh no; the old rotary dials went out years ago in favor of buttons that you push.”    

“I remember when you had to pick up the phone and tell the operator who you wanted to call. The phone was mounted on a wall and didn’t even have a dial on it. Later on, we had a phone on a party line. Everybody listened to what you said when you got a call. Hell, I wouldn’t even know how to call a number on that thing.”

    “A lot of the phones now have a speakerphone option so you can talk to somebody without having to hold the receiver.”      

    “Are people too lazy to hold a telephone to their ear now?”

    “I guess you’ve got a point, Grandpa.”   

    “If all the people are like those fishermen, I wouldn’t waste my time trying to talk to them. You are telling me that folks won’t speak to you in person but you send little messages back and forth to them on some electronic device?”

    “Yeah, it is sick isn’t it?”

    “What is this thing that says Canon on it? It doesn’t look like any cannon I’ve ever seen.”

    “Canon is a name brand and that is an ink jet printer. It uses little cartridges of ink and sprays them on the paper to form the image. You can print things on it that you get off the computer. You can type a letter on the computer and print it out on this printer. You can also put a document in top of it and print out a copy of it in black and white or color.”

    “Do you see this little camera?”

    I take my little Sony Digital Camera out of the case that is lying on the desk.

    “This is a camera and it is digital. That means it doesn’t need film to take a picture. The image is stored on a little disc that can be transferred or copied to a computer or printer.”

    “I remember when the cameras really got popular. They were called a Brownie Camera and they worked pretty well. That little thing doesn’t look like it could do a lot.”

    I took a picture of him. Then, I hooked up the cord and transferred the image to the computer. Grandpa watched as I pulled the image up on the screen.

    “That is as slick as a minnow’s pecker,” He said. “I’m looking old ain’t I?”

“Now watch this.”

    I turned the printer on and put a piece of photo paper in it. I began the printing process and it a minute or two we had an 8X10 picture of Grandpa that was a clear as could be.

    “When you made a picture in my day, you never knew what you had until it came back from the drug store.”

    “Well, that is something to see.”

    I explained that there are several other little boxes around here that have to do with the computer such as modems, speakers, and other computer accessories.

    “Now, name something that you’d like to know about. Anything, you can think of and we’ll type it into the search engine.”

    “You and I both like Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs don’t we?”

    “Yes we do and that would be a good subject to search.”

    I went to Google and typed in The Foggy Mountain Boys. Up popped a screen which said there were over 572,000 results for this search. There were pictures of Lester & Earl and links to several sites on the first page.

    “Watch this, Grandpa.”  I clicked on a YouTube link and here went Lester and Earl playing Foggy Mountain Breakdown on and old black and white video.

    “Nobody can play it any better than that band.”

    “I agree,” I said. “There are over half a million such pages on the World Wide Web about this subject.”

    “What about the Grand Ole Opry?” He asked.

    I typed it into Google and the results were over 3 million.

    “Watch this,” I said.

    I pulled up my own little YouTube channel and started playing him one of my videos. It was one that I had made using my electronic harmony machine.

    As I started singing on the video, Grandpa said, “Can everybody see this?”

    “Yes they can if they have the link or web address to look at it.”

    He watched a little of the video and then said, “Who is singing the harmony with you?”

    I told him that it was electronic and the little machine added the harmony to my voice based on what guitar chords I made.

    “Well,” Grandpa said. “That’s enough for one night. I’m not sure I understand all this electronic stuff but it is something I’ve never seen before.”

    “Let’s go to bed and get some rest. Tomorrow is Friday and we have something special planned. We’ve invited our family and some close friends to come to the house tomorrow evening for a little get-together. I wanted to take you to some places that should interest you. Dene has some clean clothes laid out for you in your bathroom. She expects you to take a shower, shave, and put on clean clothes.”        

    “OK. I’ll do that before I go to bed. That woman sure keeps things all neat and clean. I feel like I should take off my boots before I walk in the house.”

Chapter 7- The Tirade

    That night after we were in bed, Dene and I discussed our house guest.

    “How are we going to introduce him to our family?” Dene asked.

    “Since he won’t be staying long, I think we should just tell them that he is a long -lost cousin. That wouldn’t generate too many questions. The kids don’t know much about my Mother’s family anyhow.”

    “That old man is an interesting guy. Although he is old and set in his ways, he still seems willing to listen and learn about new things.”

    “God knows there are a lot of new things that he missed out on in the last 56 years. I’m afraid we’re going to get used to having him around and we will miss having him here when he is gone.”

    We could hear Grandpa taking his shower and whistling Dixie. Occasionally we’d hear him let a fart. He finally quietened down and went to sleep.

    Early next morning at about 7:00 I was awakened by the sound of a gasoline engine running. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window. Grandpa had started the weed eater and he was busy trimming around the house and trees.

    I walked into the kitchen and Dene said, “He said he wanted to do something to pay his way. I think he was fascinated by that Weed Eater.”

    “Yeah I could tell he liked it when I showed it to him. We’ll let him play with it for a few minutes before breakfast.”

    I waited a while and drank a cup of coffee before I went outside. He had eliminated the grass around the edges of the house and garage. He was now busy working on the edge of the woods.

    “Grandpa, would you like a cup of coffee?”               

    “I’d rather have a beer,” He replied.      

    “Well, it’s early to drink a beer.”

    “I’m too hot for coffee right now.”          

“Let’s go in and eat some breakfast.”   

    We went back into the house and sat down at the bar.

    “I looked for the newspaper in the driveway when I got up. Don’t you get the newspaper? Is the Chattanooga Times still around?”

    “Yes, the Times is still around but we don’t subscribe to the newspaper anymore. There are so many other ways to keep up with things that we just don’t bother to take it. You’d be surprised how the newspaper industry has declined in the last few years. It is just a change in the way folks get their information. There are TV Networks that have news on 24 hours a day and local TV stations broadcast live newscasts several times a day. You can get news on the computer or even on the phone.”

    Dene had fixed some pancakes and sausage. We ate our breakfast without saying too much. When we were about finished, Grandpa spoke up and said, “I’ve turned on that TV in my bedroom for the last two nights. I woke up and wasn’t sleepy so I thought I’d see what was on it. I kept the sound turned down real low so it wouldn’t wake you up.”

“They had a commercial on there about some pill that they sell to make you have an erection. Were they talking about what I think they were? They said something about an erection that lasts 4 hours.”

    “Yeah, Grandpa it is what you think. They came out with a pill a few years ago for men that makes their sex organ work again when it didn’t before.”

    “I can’t believe some of the things I heard them talking about on that TV. They were advertising diapers for grown people to wear. They talked about a pill that makes it easier to take a shit.”

    “There was one commercial on there about dogs and cats being abused. They showed old cur dogs and cats and even skinny horses that looked pretty lank. They wanted people to send them money for the animals. They played some pretty music and talked like if you send them some money, they would take care of all the animals in the world.”

    “That was the A.S.P.C.A. They are supposed to protect animals from cruelty.”

    “They also showed a piece of carpet that goes inside your house for a dog to piss on. Don’t you know that will smell good? They talked about a product that you spray over the cat or dog piss to cover up the smell.”

    “Animals have been elevated to new heights since your time. I think a lot of people think that dogs and cats are more important than human beings.”

    “There were lawyers on there talking about suing some big company for people getting these diseases after they worked around asbestos.”

    “One guy was advertising for people in debt. Apparently, he could show them how to go bankrupt. I saw a bunch of advertisements for those credit cards you told me about. They are giving cash money back for people to use them.”

    “There was a doctor advertising for women to get their titties enlarged. How do they do that?”

    “Well, they make an incision and insert a little bag of silicone in there and sew it back shut. They have different sizes and a lot of women have them now.”

    “That doesn’t sound good to me.”

    “They also talked about some kind of operation that causes you to lose weight.”

    “They can cut you open and tie off your stomach so you can’t eat as much. It is a pretty drastic measure but some folks have lost a lot of weight this way.”

    “They could just sew their ass hole shut and do the same thing.”  

    “Then there was Smiling Bob. He was talking about something that he called male enhancement. He was strutting around like he had something to be proud of. I got the idea that his product would make a man have more than God originally gave him. Is that what I think it was?”

    “Yes, Grandpa, it was what you think.”  

    “I saw a commercial about folks who had lung cancer and talked funny because they lost their voices. They said it was because of cigarettes.”

    “They found out that cigarette smoking causes a lot of diseases. They outlawed cigarette advertising on TV several years ago. There are not as many people smoking as there used to be. They don’t allow smoking in a lot of public places anymore.”

    “There was a piece of cloth called a Snuggie that looks like a blanket. I think they even had one for dogs. They advertised some product called Beano that keeps beans from making you fart. We needed some of that yesterday.”

    “There were commercial for pay day loans and car title loans. There were a lot of pills advertised for heartburn and for sleeping pills. I saw some commercials for Bud Light Beer. Is it lightweight?”

    “No Grandpa it has less calories than the regular beer.”

    “I also saw the Michelob Ultra advertised. They even advertised whiskey on there and they said drink responsibly. Do they think someone is going to drink whiskey and act responsibly? “

    “They have a pill for people with depression. It looked like it would cure all their problems. Do people tell the Doctors what medicine they want to take these days? I thought Doctors told the patients what medicine to take.”

    “You would think that from these commercials. I think these drug companies are just trying to increase their sales any way they can.”

    “I noticed a lot of niggers on the television advertising. It looks like the nigger is always shown as the smart guy and the white guy is shown as a dummy. There were white women and nigger men kissing and hugging each other.”

    “I even saw some queers on there. They showed two men marrying each other and also two women marrying each other. If I understood it correctly, it is now legal for queers to marry one another. These queers acted like they were proud of it. They were talking about Gay people. I finally figured out that they were talking about queers.”

    “They talked like the queers are in the Army now. Do we have a bunch of fags defending this country now? There were women queers on there too. I watched part of a show called Jerry Springer. It was about trashy people who showed their asses and argued and cussed one another.”

    “There were even shows that showed women with their bare titties and asses. Some of the shows had folks on there doing it (if you know what I mean).”

    “I saw some highlights of a baseball game. First of all it looks like the niggers have taken over the game. On one picture, it showed all the ball players running out on the field and having a big fight because the pitcher hit a batter with a ball. Is that what we are teaching our kids now? In my day the baseball players were portrayed as larger than life. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Joe DiMaggio were guys little boys could respect.”

    “We all knew they were human but they kept their public image respectable. They were someone that kids could look up to. I saw a story about one ball player who had broken a lot of home run records but they took them away because they found out he was taking some drugs that helped him do it. That is a bad example to set for young kids.”

    “The basketball games were mostly all niggers. They look like they walk about 3 steps after they quit dribbling the ball. Then them big tall niggers just jump up and drop the ball through the hoop.

    It looked like shooting the basketball was not real important any more. I think they need to raise the hoop up about 3 feet higher so those tall guys would have to learn to shoot the ball. There was some nigger on there who they said was paid $5,000,000.00 a year to play basketball. I must have not heard that right.”

    “They showed some football highlights. It looked like the niggers had taken it over, too. Every time one of those coconut heads made a tackle, they strutted around like a rooster and patted each other on the back. They would jump up in the air and hit their hands or their asses together. I guess that must be some nigger thing.”

    “When they scored a touchdown, they had to dance a little nigger jig. As I remember football, the players would get up from making a tackle and go back to get ready for the next play without all the stuff they do now. In my day, when a player scored a touchdown, he did not feel he had to perform a little nigger dance.”

    “I also noticed that a lot of those ball players have tattoos. Even the niggers have tattoos. They don’t show up real well on them but they have them. When they get to be my age, those tattoos will probably be shameful to them. I also saw men with earrings. Some of them had their ears stretched out like those African niggers do. I also saw people with little diamond looking things in the side of their noses or through their lips. Some had a fish hook or something stuck through their eyebrow. They had multiple rings in their noses, ears and who knows where else.”

    “The only athletes I saw who looked normal were some of the golfers. They were mostly well dressed and normal looking. Most of them still appeared to be white. I did see one nigger golfer but I think he was really a high yellow. I noticed that they all had a habit of making a fist and swinging their arm after they made a putt. It looked to me like they were trying to brag about how good they are. I remember when Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson, and Arnold Palmer were playing golf. These men didn’t feel the need to hold their fist up in the air when they won. They had enough class to just bow their head and humbly walk off the green and acknowledge the crowd without all the show.”

    “I used to watch the Friday Night fights when we first got a TV. It was sponsored by Gillette Blue Blades. I saw 2 tattooed-up niggers fighting the other night and they were kicking and biting and wrestling around. They were doing all kinds of dirty things to each other. The rules of boxing have apparently changed.”

       “They showed the start of a ball game on one channel where some nigger was singing the National Anthem. That nigger changed the tune around and niggered it up. They can’t even sing the National Anthem without messing it up.”

    “I saw a bunch of niggers hollering some goofy poems with music behind them. I think they called it Rap. They were dressed funny with tattoos all over them. They had all kinds of metal stuff sticking out of their lips and ears. They were holding pistols and appeared to be threatening someone. They had weird noises behind the music. I couldn’t tell what was making those noises. I tried to find some real music but all I could find was a bunch of niggers. There were also some white boys on there doing the same thing.”

    By the time Grandpa finished his little tirade, Dene and I had both laughed so much we were hurting.

      Grandpa finished by saying, “I don’t think this old world is improving based on what I’ve seen on the TV. I wonder what the young children will become if they are watching this kind of stuff. On one news program they said that someone had filed a lawsuit because the county commissioners were praying before their meeting and mentioning the name of Jesus.”

    “It looked like the TV folks allow any kind of cuss word to be said but they don’t want anybody to mention God or Jesus Christ. They also said some group of people was filing lawsuits to remove the Ten Commandments from public buildings. I saw something about a Muslim who strapped a bomb to his body and blew it up killing a bunch of innocent people overseas in Europe.”

    “There was a story about a teen aged girl who was going to her Senior Prom at High School. She was going to wear a dress that had a Rebel Flag on it. The school wouldn’t allow her to go to the prom wearing that dress because of that Flag. What the hell is wrong with this country?”

    “Do you know that my Grandpa and two of my Great Uncles died at Gettysburg fighting for that flag? It is a slap in the face for them to make light of that Rebel Flag. I’m proud of that old Flag. We should all have one and fly it proudly to honor our kinfolks.”

    “I saw one news program and I hope it wasn’t saying what I think.”

    “What was that, Grandpa?”

    “They were talking about the President. The TV showed a picture of some light skinned nigger talking. Please don’t tell me that the President of the United States is a nigger.”

    “I’m afraid that is true, Grandpa.”          

“He sounded like he wouldn’t have sense enough to drive a wooden peg (he pronounced it pag) up a goat’s ass. He couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions printed on the heel.”

    “The only thing I found on the TV that I enjoyed was a Bugs Bunny Cartoon and a show about some guy named Bobby Goodson in North Carolina who was cutting trees down in the swamp. They laid trees over and made a road out of them where their equipment ran. This kept their equipment from sinking into the soft ground. He had a big old machine on tracks like a tank and with a long arm attached. Now that was really fascinating. This arm had a big old cutter and some clamps attached to the end of it. It clamps onto the tree and cuts it down with a big saw blade. Then it lays the tree down gently. They had log skidders to drag the trees to the place where they loaded them on log trucks. Now that is remarkable. Those guys in his crew knew what they were doing. You could tell that they respected Bobby for being a fair boss. His son also respected him. He seemed like the kind of man you’d want to work for.”

    “There was one motorcycle show where the father and son argued all the time. They apparently cussed each other all the time because there were these little Beeps and they blocked out what they said. They were building some nice motorcycles and they had some skills. They had some equipment to do some fancy building. I couldn’t enjoy it because they were always arguing.”

    “Another show was about a pawn shop. They were always running each other down and cussing each other. They had a village idiot on there and he was really dumb. A man and his son and grandson were on this show. They never said anything good about each other.”

    “I tried to find a good western movie but there weren’t any to be found. I did see a show called Bonanza that was kind of interesting. The Cartwright Family lived in Nevada and the Father had 3 sons. It was a good show but every time I got interested in it, they would show a commercial about something that made no sense.”

   

       “Well, Grandpa it looks like you got some real updates on how this old world has changed. You just got some of the highlights. The schools can’t have prayer any more. They won’t allow the teachers or principals to whip or paddle the kids. The schools have dumbed- down their programs so that the dumbest in the class can understand and pass.”

    “A lot of kids today can’t add or count money. They are accustomed to having a computer or calculator to do their adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. They came out with pocket calculators several years ago. You can type in numbers and this little machine will add, subtract, multiply, or divide. The results are shown immediately on a little screen. Young people have come to rely on these things and they often can’t do simple math. The young folks today use a keyboard to type on so much that a lot of them have never learned to write something on a piece of paper.”      

    “The kids today are greatly influenced by sports figures and movie and TV stars. The sports figures and movie stars make millions of dollars a year. These kids seem to want to puncture and tattoo their bodies to be like these people they see on TV.”

    “A lot of children are being raised with only a Mother. Many of the Mothers work at a job and do not have the time to spend with the children like we had in the older days. There are a lot of little bastards running around these days. These kids don’t know who their Daddy is.”      “The Government has tried to step in and be the Baby’s Daddy as they call it. These young girls know that they can have these little bastards and the more they have the more money the Government will give them.”

    “The Government even pays to provide babysitters, and meals. They even send the Mothers to school to try to educate them. A lot of parents don’t teach their kids manners any more. Most of the kids don’t have much respect for older people or adults. The parents can get in trouble with the law if they whip their children. There have been instances where a child went to court and sued his parents because they made him mind.”

    “There is a thing called politically correct. The people in the know don’t think you should say anything to offend somebody else. They expect us not to say nigger or queer or any such words. People won’t say nigger in public these days. They say, the N Word and everybody know it means nigger. We are supposed to tolerate whatever someone comes up with no matter what. It seems like the only thing that you can freely say these days is what these folks think is correct.”

    “If you mention Jesus or God they pitch a fit and threaten a lawsuit. They have even made a lot of places quit having Christmas decorations because they show Christ’s Birth. They have a bunch of other holidays that they want to celebrate at Christmas time. They don’t want you to say Merry Christmas. They expect you to say happy holidays, instead.”

    “The lawyers have caused a big part of these troubles. Anything you do these days is threatened with a lawsuit if someone objects to it. The murderers, thieves, and rapists are all protected by a bunch of laws. If they are sentenced to death, they often sit in jail for 20 or 30 years after they are convicted of a crime while the lawyers do all their legal wrangling trying to get them off. By the way, the Government pays for these lawyers to defend these criminals and play their little legal games. We spend a lot of tax money on these lawyers.”

    “Any product that is built is subject to these same lawsuits. If a manufacturer builds a product and someone gets hurt or killed with it, the lawyers will file a lawsuit and they often get millions of dollars in a settlement. Big companies are forced to do extra things to products to try and avoid these lawsuits. They are forced to carry expensive insurance policies to cover them. All this activity adds a lot to the cost of everything we purchase or do. Automobile manufacturers are forced to add so many safety things to the cars now that the price is ridiculous. If a manufacturer makes a toy and a child’s parent allows the child to get hurt or killed with it, the lawyers can sue the manufacturer and often win a large settlement.”

    “There have even been cases where a person goes to a bar and gets drunk. Then they get in their car and drive it while drunk. If they have a wreck, killing or injuring someone, guess who the lawyers try to blame? They will often file a lawsuit against the bar or even the liquor maker. They sue whoever has the most money and often they will collect. The jurors in these cases evidently think the large companies have plenty of money so they will take some of it and give it to some poor widow or family member. It is a sad thing.”

    “The lawyers have filed so many lawsuits against doctors and hospitals that the cost of medical care has gotten out of hand. Doctors and hospitals are forced to carry expensive insurance policies to cover them for what is called “medical malpractice”. The cost of these lawsuits and this insurance is passed right along to all of us. A hospital room that cost $10.00 to $15.00 per day in your time now averages around $300.00 to $500.00 or more a day. The hospitals claim they are losing money in many cases, too. It is just all out of control.”

       “This has affected the workplace too. The government has passed laws concerning what you can ask someone when they apply for a job. You can’t even ask how old someone is. When an employee doesn’t do their job, it is hard to fire them because they may hire a lawyer and sue the employer. In the old days, the potential employer asked for references and they called the former employer and discussed the person. When someone applies for a job nowadays, their former employer can’t tell the potential employer what kind of employee the person was. They will only confirm the dates that they were employed. So, when someone finally gets fired from a job after numerous opportunities to do right, they can go to another place and apply for a job. The former employer is unable to tell the new employer about the worker because they are afraid of a lawsuit. Nobody knows how sorry a worker they are or if they are a thief or even a murderer. There was a case a few years ago where a nurse in a hospital was killing patients. The hospital got rid of this nurse. When the nurse moved to a new city and went to another hospital and applied for a job, nobody told the new hospital what was going on and several more people died. It has gotten to be ridicules.”

       “My son told me the story of a woman who works for the same company he does. She’s in sales and she doesn’t do her job, but the company is afraid of a lawsuit and they have felt forced to keep her on the payroll. They gave her a lot of written warnings and just before they were going to fire her, she went to a doctor and got some Family Leave Act papers filled out. This is some law that was passed several years ago to allow women to get medical leave when they had a baby. It has evolved to take in a lot of other conditions. A person can go to a doctor and tell the doctor that they have a nervous condition and get these papers filled out. These papers allowed her to take some time off and when she comes back, she has a clean record with the company. They have to start over and document her poor working habits. She has now done this two times and they are helpless to do anything about it. She has learned how to play the system. These kinds of things add to the cost of everything you buy. It all has to be factored into the final price of an item. It is just out of control.”

Chapter 8- The Home Depot

    “I wanted to take you to The Home Depot and let you look around. There are a lot of things there that would probably interest you.”  

    “Let’s go,” Grandpa said. “I’m tired of hearing about that other shit, anyhow.”

    We walked into the garage and I started to open the door for Grandpa so he could get in the car.

    “Hell, Son, I can open the door for myself. I’m not that dumb.”

    I went on around to the driver’s side and got in. As we started down the street, I decided I’d take Grandpa through one of the high-end neighborhoods so he could see the architecture of the day. We drove to a neighborhood that is only a few years old with some new construction still going on. Grandpa looked at the houses and didn’t seem too impressed.

    “Why aren’t there any electric lines or phone lines running down the street?”

    “Well, they bury all the power and telephone lines. They felt that they detracted from the beauty. What do you think of these houses, Grandpa?”

    “Hell, they are beautiful but they look like they would be a carpenter’s nightmare. I like the way they are using the brick and stone on these houses. They are all two story houses with the roof all chopped up and such steep roof angles. The roofing shingles look a little different than what I remember.”

    “These shingles are made to look like an old-style wooden roof with the layered look.”

    “They look good from the street. I like the concrete driveways and all the flower beds around the house. The lawns look real smooth and green. I noticed that all the mailboxes are the same.”

    “Yeah, I think that some of the neighborhoods dictate what you have for a mailbox. They have a lot of restrictions in these fancy neighborhoods. There are also Neighborhood Associations who make the rules for the neighborhoods. They won’t allow you to let your grass grow too high. They also don’t allow too many vehicles in the driveways. You can’t have extra outbuildings or a boat or R.V. setting in your yard in a lot of these places. They are trying to keep the neighborhood looking good with all these rules.”

    “You mean you can’t do what you want to with your own property?”

    “Yes, to a certain extent, that is true.”

    “Could you have a chicken coop or a hog lot in the back yard?”

    “No, Grandpa I don’t think they would allow that.”

    “But, I saw a nigger going in that house. You mean to tell me that they allow niggers in there but you can’t have a chicken coop. Damn, that doesn’t make sense to me.”

    We came to a house that was under construction. There was a Bobcat Skid Steer moving dirt. Grandpa watched that for a minute.

    “Now that is nice. I’ve spent many an hour with a shovel doing what that thing is doing.”

    “Those little Bobcats are really handy. They have all kinds of attachments that they can put on them to do a lot of different jobs.”

“Those rocks look nice on that house. They look like river rocks.”

    “You’d be surprised if you got close and examined them. They are plastic made to look like rocks.”

    “Just like the dash of this car? Something that looks like the real thing, but isn’t.”

    “Yes, I guess so.”

       We came across several crews of men working. Some were doing landscaping and some were laying brick or blocks. There were several crews of carpenters there too.

       “Have the Mexicans took over the home construction in this country? It looks like most of these folks are Mexicans. I heard their music that was playing back there and I could tell it was South of the Border Music.”

     “There are a lot of Mexicans working here now. Some of them are illegal aliens who are in this country working. These home builders can hire them for a lot less than the locals. They are hungry and want to work. The illegal Mexicans are willing to do some of the jobs that nobody else will do. This is a problem in this country now.”

       “I remember when I worked in Texas years ago. They slipped across the border and worked cheap back then too. I’m surprised that they have migrated to Tennessee.”

       We drove on through the neighborhood and made our way back on the main highway going toward town. I pulled into a convenience store and told Grandpa to wait for me while I went in the store. I knew he would cause a stir in the store if there were any darker skinned folks in there. I turned up the CD of Flatt & Scruggs and told him to wait for me.

    “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

    He seemed to be happy listening to the music. I went into the store and purchased both of us a large Cherry Icee. I paid for them and returned to the car.

    I handed Grandpa his and said, “Try this.”

    He sucked on the straw and said, “What the hell do you call this?”

    “It is a frozen drink called an Icee. They come in different flavors.”

    “It tastes pretty good.”  We proceeded down the road with our drinks.

    “Damn!” Grandpa said.

    “What is it?”  I asked.

    “This stuff made my head hurt.”

    “Oh, I meant to tell you about that. You have to drink it slowly or it will do that to you.”

    We got on the freeway going toward town.

    “This is a wide road. I see what you meant by not having any place to get off until you came to an exit. They even have it fenced in.”

    We passed a U.P.S. Truck.

    “What is that?”

    “United Parcel Service is one of the top delivery services in the country now. They came on the scene several years ago and they have really hurt the Post Office’s business. They are cheap and they deliver packages fast. There are also some other delivery companies such as Federal Express. They have their own airplanes to move the packages around the country. Both these companies are big players in the package delivery business these days.”

    “I couldn’t help but notice how quiet these big trucks are. They used to be so loud but they seem to be as quiet as a car now. The shape of the cabs has changed a lot, too. Some of them look like you could live in them. It looks like the trailers are longer, too.”

    “Yeah, I think a lot of those long haul drivers pretty much do live in them.”

    We made our way through the traffic and soon we entered the parking lot of The Home Depot.

   “Here it is Grandpa.”

    “Hell, I thought we were going to the railroad station when you said Depot.”

    “No, this is like a large hardware store and building supply combined. The railroads have changed a lot from your time. There are no railroad depots around here anymore. The passenger trains are mostly a thing of the past. There are only a few passenger trains still running in the United States and none of them have a depot around here.”

    “There are still freight trains but they have changed, too. The old steam engines are all gone now and most young people today have never heard the whistle and scream of those things. The horns on the trains don’t sound like they used to.”

    “Jet airplanes are the most popular way to travel now. There are still Greyhound Buses, but they are not as popular as they were in the past.”

    “They started building Interstate Highways back in the mid to late 50’s. That was one we were on coming over here where it was fenced in. There are now a lot of them all across the country. They are all at least 4 lanes and some are even more. These highways make travelling a lot faster and safer.”

    “Now, Grandpa you try to contain yourself in this store. You will probably see some things you don’t like but try not to create a stir.”

    We walked in the door and Grandpa looked around at the tall ceilings and all the shelves and said, “Damn.”

    We started in the outdoor items. Grandpa immediately spotted a Weedeater.

    “I know what that is,” He said.

    We looked at the walk-behind lawn mowers.

    “These are self propelled. You pull this handle and the wheels turn so you don’t have to push it,” I explained.

We looked at the riding mowers and he saw a John Deere similar to mine.

    “That is like you have,” He said.  

       “Similar,” I said, “That one is a little bigger than mine.”

    I showed him one of the models that have a lever on each side that allow you to virtually turn around on a dime.

    “Those controls remind me of the times I spent in the Fighting Seabees. I ran a bulldozer and helped build roads and stuff during the War. Those old things were a lot like a tank with a blade on the front. They used big cables back then instead of the hydraulic cylinders to raise the blade.”  

    I showed him some gas powered leaf blowers and even a power washer. I explained how powerful the power washer is.

    “This thing blasts water and soap if you want it at a really high pressure. It will strip the paint off something if you get it too close.”

    “This stuff is priced awfully high,” Grandpa said.

    I showed him the little trailers that you can pull behind a riding mower to use instead of a wheelbarrow. We looked at the shovels and all the hand-digging tools.

    “Grandpa, a lot of digging these days is done with power equipment like that Bobcat we saw earlier. They are similar to a forklift but they are called a skid steer or the name brand is Bobcat. They have all kinds of digging and dirt moving attachments for them. They can dig holes or ditches, bust up rocks, smooth out dirt or gravels, and do a lot of things that we used to do by hand.”

    We looked at the Genie machines that can lift a person or material up really high and keep them safe.

    “They use these lifts to work on those steep roofs we saw earlier today.”

    “I’d say they need them because those roofs were too steep for anyone to walk on.”

    “They also have powerful pumps that they can pump concrete through at the building site. They can leave the concrete truck in front of the house and pump the concrete through a pipe all the way over the house to the back yard if they need to. It saves a lot of wheelbarrow time.”

    “Those things definitely are an improvement over the old way.”

    We looked at hydraulic wood splitters and gasoline powered wood chippers. I explained how the chipper could grind up trees into little chips that could be used for mulching. We saw the portable electric generators and the units that hard-wire into your home.

    “These generators automatically come on when there is a power outage in your home.”

       They had a concrete saw on display. I explained that they run water on it and use a diamond blade to cut through concrete or pretty much any hard material. We looked at the chainsaws and Rototillers. Grandpa said he had seen these things but they look like they have gotten smaller and lighter in weight. We drifted over toward the hand tools. There was a power miter saw setting out on the counter. He studied it pretty closely. Grandpa asked me about the laser level that was on the shelf.

“What is a laser?” He said.

    I explained how it is a real powerful light beam that can be projected on a wall or in a circle to establish a level line. He said he used to have a water level that did a good job. I also showed him a laser measuring tool.

    “You mean it can measure a board or opening and give you the distance?”

    “Yes it can.”

    “The tape measure was just coming into favor with carpenters in my day. We started out using the old folding rulers to measure everything. What are those other marks on there?”      

    “Oh, that is metric measurements. They tried to change over from inches to metric measurements a few years ago. It didn’t take hold and now we have to deal with both kinds of measurements.”

    I showed him a stud finder. Since he was mostly familiar with plaster and lath walls, the stud finder didn’t make a lot of sense to him. He looked closely at all the tool belts with all the pockets and hammer hoops. The Black & Decker Workmate got his attention. He said it looked like a good idea for holding boards to saw them.  

    “We used to make our sawhorses out of 2X6’s.”

    We looked at a mortising machine. Grandpa said he liked mortise and tenon joints, but he always cut them by hand. He was fascinated by a drill that could drill a square hole in a piece of wood. I showed him a dovetailing jig for a router. He said he’d have to see that work before he would understand it. There was also a biscuit joiner. He said that these biscuits looked like an improvement over wooden dowels. We looked at all the different glues that are on the market today. Grandpa said the old hide glue was strong. I told him that the new glues were strong too and they usually don’t require all the heat to use them.

    I demonstrated some CA glue to him. We tried it on a piece of wood and sprayed some accelerator on it to instantly set it up. He noticed the glue that was called Gorilla Glue. I told him that it was polyurethane glue but he was not familiar with that term. Then we looked at the portable air compressors. I explained that these small compressors were lightweight enough for carpenters to carry around to the job site.

    “What do they do with an air compressor?” Grandpa asked.

    “They mainly use them to provide air for the pneumatic nail drivers. The old claw hammer has taken the back seat to these air nailers.”

    They had a demonstration set up and I let Grandpa drive some nails with the framing nailer and some smaller finish nailers and brad nailers.

    “A lot of old carpenters wore their arms out swinging those old claw hammers all day long. After a few years, that stuff took its toll on your arm muscles and joints. After a day out in that hot sun swinging those hammers, you can understand why a lot of those old carpenters wanted a beer. This looks like it would be a good tool. It won’t draw a board up against another one like you can with a claw hammer, but I’d bet I could get used to it.”

    All the power planers and power tools were interesting to him but I had the idea that he was more impressed with GOOD quality hand tools.  He spent a lot of time looking at the cordless drills. He liked the Sawzall-type reciprocating saws. I explained to him how they use these saws to cut apart old work and do demolition.  I told him that the blades in these saws would even cut through nails. I tried to explain how carbide blades are so tough these days. He had a hard time believing that a saw could cut a nail without dulling the blade. Little things like the fact that Phillips headed screws had replaced the old slotted headed screws interested him. I showed him some square drive screws. I told him how the drywall screws were so handy. These hardened screws can often be used without drilling pilot holes.        

    He didn’t believe these screws could work without a pilot hole. I told him that the material we use them in is not solid wood in a lot of cases. There is a chance that solid wood will split. When these screws go into plywood or soft pine framing wood they can be used without a pilot hole. We passed by a demonstration of these pocket screws. They showed the jig and how it was assembled. We looked at all the metal brackets and reinforcements that go along with today’s framing.

    “Now I understood how the trusses in your garage were held together. Those little tabs in the metal plates go into the trusses like a bunch of little nails,” He said.

    I showed him the brackets that they use today as joist hangers and it all seemed to make sense to him.

    “They use a lot of treated wood these days. It is some chemical that they use to keep termites and other insects from attacking it. The treated wood is mostly used where it meets the concrete or the ground.”

    “They have been treating wood for a long time. We used to use creosote.”

    “The government has put restrictions on using that product these days.”

    I showed him a sample of the composite wood products that they are using now to build outdoor decks and furniture. We looked at some pictures of the laminated beams and all the engineered lumber that is available.   

He said the normal 2X4’s and 2X6’s didn’t look like they were of real good quality. I showed him the OSB boards and the other man-made sheet goods.  He saw an air nailer that is made to nail wood flooring down.

    “Why does it still have a rubber end to hit with a hammer if it is air powered?”

    “When you hit the rubber end with a hammer it activates the air nailer. The air supply drives the nails and the hammer just activates it. It makes it easier to drive the nails and you don’t have to “whomp” it as hard.”

    I showed him some samples of pre-finished flooring and he shook his head.

    “That simplifies the process a whole lot.  I’ve seen enough for one day,” Grandpa said. “Let’s go get some lunch and maybe a cold beer.”

    “It sounds like a good plan to me.”

    As we walked out, there was a man standing in front of the little out building by the door. He was apparently trying to get people to have vinyl siding installed on their homes. I knew we were in trouble when he spoke to Grandpa.

    “Hey Pops, would you be interested in some vinyl siding for your home? It is maintenance-free. It never needs painting.”   

    Grandpa looked at me and I looked at him.

    “Don’t say it, Grandpa.”

    He was a black man and I knew whatever Grandpa was thinking would not make this guy happy. We went quietly to the car.

    “Thanks for keeping your mouth shut back there.”

    “Bunch of coconut headed bastards think they own the world.”

    “They just about do, Grandpa.”

Chapter 9- McDonalds & Michelob

    As we drove toward home, I was trying to think of a good place to get a sandwich and a beer.

    “I don’t hang around those beer joints and I don’t know where to go. Why don’t we just get a sandwich and we’ll get some beer to take home with us?

    The police are real hard on people these days for drinking and driving. They have these little meters that they ask you to blow your breath into. They can tell if you have had enough to be legally drunk by the reading on this meter. I’d rather not drink even one beer and then drive. They will put you in jail if they catch you.”

    “I’ll take you to McDonalds and get us a burger and some fries.”

    As we went up the highway, Grandpa saw a Krystal Restaurant on the right.

    “I remember those Krystal Hamburgers.”         

    The sign said 12 Krystals for $7.99.

    “I remember that they used to sell a dozen Krystal Hamburgers for $1.00,” Grandpa said.

    “Yeah, things have changed a lot.”

    I knew there were a lot of black people in the McDonalds so I just drove through. I had learned that Grandpa didn’t socialize well with the darker brethren.

    “We’ll get some lunch and take it with us. There are some picnic tables in the shade by the lake near Wolftever Bridge. We’ll stop there and eat our lunch.”

    I pulled into McDonalds and went into the drive-through line.

    “I never heard of McDonalds,” Grandpa said.

    “It is a nationwide chain that started in California. I think they are all franchises. Rich people own these franchises and they employ a lot of people. It costs a lot to get one of their franchises. They have them worldwide nowadays. I’ll order us something that I think you’ll like.”

    I pulled into the drive-thru lane and there were about three cars in front of us. The line was moving along pretty fast.   

    “What ever happened to the curb service? I remember you could pull into the front of those drive-ins and flash your lights and a pretty little girl would appear and take your order. Then they would bring your food out on a little tray that they would hang from your car window.”

    “Yes, I remember that too, but those days are mostly a thing of the past. Now you usually drive through or order through a speaker system.”

    We pulled up to the menu and speaker area and I rolled my window down.

    “Welcome to McDonalds, would you like to try our McRib Combo today?” a young (obviously black) girl asked.

    “No, I’d like six hamburgers, two large drinks, two large fries, two large Cokes, and two apple pies.”

    “Let’s see, was that six cheeseburgers?”

    “No, we wanted six hamburgers.”

    “If you will make that a combo, it will save you some money.”

    “We don’t want the combo.”

    “Did you want six large fries?”

    “No, we want two large fries.”

    “Okay, let’s start over. You want six cheeseburgers and two large fries and…”

    “We want six HAMBURGERS and two large fries.”

    “Okay, I’ve got that, six hamburgers and two large fries and two more regular fries.”

    “No, we wanted two apple PIES.”

    “I’ve got it now. Do you want cheese on those burgers? We have a special deal today.”

    “No, we don’t want any cheese.”

    She finally punched in the proper items and they showed up on the menu board.

    “Is that correct?”

    “Yes, it appears to be.”

    “Drive around to the first window, please.”

    We pulled around to the first window to pay for the food. The girl opened the sliding window.

    “That will be eleven dollars and twelve cents.”

    I gave her $21.12, a twenty dollar bill, a one dollar bill and a dime and two pennies. She took the money and started punching buttons. I could tell this confused her.

    “Could you hold for one moment please?”

    She turned away and motioned for another employee. They discussed it and decided to call in a third party.

    “Sir, we’re having a little problem and we had to call the manager. He’ll be here shortly.”

    “What is the problem?”

    “The compurter seems to be down.” (She mispronounced the word)

    “The compurter?”

    Do you have to have the computer to figure out my change?”

    “Well, we’re not very good at math.”

    Another man showed up and he punched several buttons and inserted his little card into the device. The amount of my change apparently came up on their little screen.

    “Your change is ten dollars.”

    She handed me a ten dollar bill.

    “Thank you.” I said.

    “Not a problem,” she replied. “Would you like to donate your change to the United Negro College Fund?”

    I could tell Grandpa had reached his boiling point.   

    “It sounds like it was a problem to me. The problem was you don’t know how to count.”

    I pulled forward to the next window before Grandpa could unleash his tongue lashing on her any further. They handed us two sacks and our drinks and we pulled out toward the highway.

    “Damn, that smells pretty good,” Grandpa said. “My breakfast has worn off.”  

    “Taste one of those French fries,” I said.

    Grandpa reached into the bag and got one of the hot fries. He quickly consumed it and said, “That was lairping.”

  We rode on up the highway until we reached the picnic area by the water. We got out and set our food out on the table. As I opened the wrapper on my hamburger, I noticed the wrapper was a different color than I usually got.

    “Damn, she still got it wrong. She gave us cheeseburgers”

    “It doesn’t surprise me,” Grandpa replied. “Those niggers don’t care.”

    Grandpa took to the McDonalds food pretty quickly. I managed to get 2 of the burgers before he finished off the other four. He drank the Coke and said it would have been better with a beer.

    I told him that Dene was planning a little surprise for this evening and she was probably buying him some beer at the Wal-Mart.

    “What in the hell is that?”

    “Wal-Mart is a big nationwide chain of stores. They have large stores with almost anything you need in each store including groceries. They have almost run all the smaller stores out of business.”

    “The Sears Stores (or Sears-Roebuck as you remember it) are not nearly as popular as they used to be. In fact, they almost went broke a few years ago and they still may not survive. A lot of the big chain stores that you remember aren’t around or are not as popular as they once were.”

    “There are no Western Auto Stores or Woolworth Stores around here now. JCPenney Stores are still around but they are few and far between.”          

“What is this little red cardboard thing in here?”

    “Oh, that is an apple pie.”

    He quickly consumed it too.

   “That food from McDonalds is pretty good but it won’t compare to Dene’s cooking.”  

    “I’ll agree with you on that, Grandpa.”  

    “There used to be a restaurant down on Dodds Avenue named Bea’s Restaurant. They had the best food you could imagine. Their fried chicken was really good.”

    “You may not believe this but that restaurant is still open and they still have that good fried chicken and all the vegetables. They still have the lazy Susan’s that hold the food. That is one of the few things that haven’t changed much. The price is the only thing that has changed a lot.”

    We threw our trash into the bag and put it in a garbage can. We loaded back into the car and headed further on up the highway.  

    “We’ll stop at the Bi-Lo and get us some beer to take home. Dene may not remember to get the beer. She isn’t too fond of beer drinking. The Bi-Lo is what used to be the Red Food Stores and it is near the house. You may be interested in seeing what is in there.”

    “I remember the Red Food Stores,” Grandpa said.

    We pulled into the parking lot at the Bi-Lo Store.

    “Shit, that is a big store building and the parking lot is as big as several football fields.”      

    “Yeah, these stores are called Super Markets because they are very large.”

    Grandpa farted as we exited the vehicle. I guess the McDonalds hamburgers were working on him.

    “I hope you don’t do that when we get in the store.”

    As we walked up to the door, before Grandpa could reach out to open it and the automatic door started opening. Grandpa was startled and he cut another big fart and said a few choice cuss words.

    “That scared me,” He said. “How did that thing know to open?”

   “Oh, it has a little sensor that sees you when you approach it.”

    “Well, them bastards ought to let me open the door myself.”

    I grabbed a grocery cart and we started our trip through the store.

    “This is a big place,” Grandpa said.  

    “Yeah it is.” We made our way around to the produce aisle.

    “This part looks mostly the same as I remember it except it is much larger. What are all those flowers doing in here?”

    “They sell fresh flowers in grocery stores now.”

    “Colonial Bread, I remember that. They had a bakery in East Chattanooga. We could smell the bread baking from our house sometimes. A loaf of it cost about $.20 the best I remember. Why don’t they have prices marked on things? I didn’t see anything with the price marked on it.”

“That loaf of bread costs around $3.00 I think. Do you see this little area on the wrapper with all these different lines on it?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that on a lot of things.”

“That is called a barcode. It is a series of marks that the computer recognizes and when you go through the checkout it knows how much to charge.”

“Don’t folks want to know what something costs before they get to the cash register?”

“That is the down side to the barcode system. Some stores have little devices that you can scan your item with to see what the price is before you get to the cash register. I don’t think this store has one of those devices.”

    We passed through the area with all the potato chips and snack foods and went toward the deli-area.

    “They have all kinds of food here don’t they?”

    “They even have a bakery that bakes birthday cakes.”

    We walked across the rear of the store past all the meats. We got to the dairy department.

    “We had Mayfield Milk in our day but the cartons look different. Don’t they have milk bottles anymore?”

    “No, Grandpa. They use plastic bottles on most everything these days.”

    “What is this 2% milk?”

    “It is lower-fat milk that is supposed to be healthier.”

“In my day, the Milkman came around the neighborhood early in the morning. He would set the milk bottles on the front porch. There also used to be Ice Men who delivered ice to homes every day.”  

   “What are those little bottles in that package with a clear liquid in them?”

    “That is bottled water.”

    “Damn, do people pay for water in stores these days?”

    “Yeah, they seem to think it is healthier than what they get from their water faucet at home. These bottles of water can cost over a dollar apiece.”

    “You people have gotten dumber as the years went by. I see Coca Cola in a can and a bottle. What is the little thing on the top of those cans?”

    “Well, it is a pull tab. It allows you to open a can of Coke or Beer without a beer opener. You just pull up on the little ring and it opens.  Most all the bottles all have caps that unscrew to open them. The glass bottles have pretty much been replaced by plastic bottles. A lot of the beer companies still put their beer in glass bottles though. The old cork lined caps that needed an opener are a thing of the past. These screw-off caps are sealed with a soft plastic substance.”

    “We used to gather up Coke bottles and take them to the store to get the deposit back on them. I think it was two or three cents for each bottle that you had to pay when you took the Coke bottle home. Then you could return it to get your money back. The glass bottles were refilled over and over. They did the same thing on beer bottles, too.”

    Grandpa looked around and raised his leg slightly. He let a fart that shook the rafters. I know folks in the next two aisles could hear it.  

“Excuse me,” He said.

    “Well you’ve got pretty good farting manners, Grandpa.”

    “Your Grandma, Flossie, couldn’t stand to hear me fart. I think that was part of our problems.  Well, I see a lot of brands of beer but I don’t see Falstaff.”

    “I don’t think they make Falstaff Beer anymore.”

    “That Michelob Ultra tasted pretty good. Let’s get us about a case of it.”

    “A case?”

    “Yeah, it is Friday and aren’t we having some kind of a shindig tonight?”

    “Yeah, I guess we are.”

    We loaded a case of the beer into the cart.

    “I hope that beer doesn’t increase your farting. What about some pretzels?”

    “That sounds good to me.”

    We walked on around toward the checkout line and passed by the pharmacy.  

    “You mean they have a drug store in here.”

    “They surely do.”

    “I wasn’t expecting that. What is that little chair there?”

    “That is a blood pressure checking machine. You can sit down there and mash some buttons and see what your blood pressure is.”

    We passed a rack with a display of batteries.

    “What in the hell are all those things?”  Grandpa asked.

    “Those are batteries.”

    “I recognize the big round ones as flashlight batteries but there are a lot of other sizes and shapes in there.”

    “The batteries have changed a lot, too.”      

    “I remember that car batteries changed from 6 volts to 12 volts.”

    “The battery technology has evolved a lot. Most of these portable devices that we have today use some kind of battery. All these batteries are just a portion of what is available now.”

    “There are these 1 1/2 volt and 9 volt batteries you see here, but there are some newer type lithium batteries that power all the cameras and cell phones today. They have tiny batteries that are no bigger than a pea. There are also rechargeable batteries in a lot of things. They are even building electric cars with batteries to power them. Most all wristwatches are battery powered these days. They are called quartz watches and they keep time better that the old style did. You no longer need to wind them. These batteries last for a year or longer. These battery powered watches are cheaper than the old style ones were.”  

       We had to stand in line for a few minutes to wait for the cashier. There was a mother with a cute little girl with curly blonde hair in front of us. The little girl appeared to be around 3 or 4 years old. The child picked up a piece of candy and told her mother that she wanted it.

    Her mother said, “No.”

    “I want it,” said the child.

    “No,” said the mom.

    The little girl lay down in the floor and began kicking and screaming.  Grandpa backed up a little.

    Her mother said, “One, Two, Three.”

    The little girl just laid there on the floor screaming.

    “Oh, give it here,” the Mom said and she laid the candy on the counter to pay for it. The little girl quieted down and got her way.

    After they went out the door, Grandpa said, “I backed up so the woman could get to that little girl to whip her ass. What was all that counting?”

    “Well, parents think it is abuse to whip a child and they count for some reason. I never understood the counting either but it seems to be pretty common. There was a guy named Dr. Spock who wrote a book several years back. He advocated not spanking or correcting children. I think his goofy ideas are responsible for a lot of the problems we are having today.”

    “I could break that kid from throwing those fits with one little swat across her ass and it wouldn’t be abuse.”

    We went into the checkout line and Grandpa noticed right away that the old-type cash registers were missing.

    “Where are the cash register buttons that those women used to push? They always amazed me how fast they could push the buttons and record all the items.”

    The cashier said “Some people told me that two old men were on aisle 6 and they were passing gas so loudly that it scared them.”

    “We heard that too but we thought it was thunder,” Grandpa said.

    The young girl passed the beer over the barcode reader and it beeped.

    “That recorded the price and the total will come up on this little screen that looks like a small TV. That is the barcode system that I was telling you about.” I explained to Grandpa.

    “The cashier doesn’t have to push any buttons. She just passes the barcode over the scanner and it records all the information and figures the price.”

    “Well, I’ll be damned. Where is the bag boy?”

    “Oh, they no longer use them. We need to carry our bags out ourselves.”

    I swiped my credit card and showed the girl my Bonus Card.

    “I figured there might be a little mechanical man who would come out and carry the groceries to the car for us.” Grandpa said.

    “Where are the paper bags?”

    “Oh we don’t use paper bags anymore Grandpa. We use these thin plastic bags.”

“What do you use to put your garbage in at home?  We always used those paper bags in the kitchen for our trash.”

    “We now use plastic bags.”

    “What would you use to carry your lunch to work?”

    “We don’t do too much of that anymore but we’d probably use a lunch box.”

    The young girl handed me the register receipt and said, “There You Go”.

    Grandpa just shook his head.

    We put the sacks of beer back in the grocery cart and made our way toward the car.

    “There you go? Is that any way to thank someone for their business? What happened to Thank You or We Appreciate Your Business? These young people don’t appear to have much talent for talking to people.”

    As we went out the door of the supermarket, a young couple came in holding hands. The woman carried a little baby on her hip. The child was obviously part black and part white. I knew I was in trouble immediately.      

“Look at that nigger holding hands with a white girl. They ought to hang that bastard and her too. Look, they have a little high-yeller pickaninny.”

    His words were not spoken softly and everyone in the area heard them.

    “Damn niggers everywhere you turn and now they are breeding with the white folks. It would puke a buzzard off a gut wagon. I’ll never get used to that kind of shit.”

    I got him to the car and into the front seat.

    “Be sure to buckle your seat belt,” I told him.

    “I’m not buckling no damn seat belt.”

    I nudged the car onto the highway, and headed toward home.

    “I wish I had a bottle opener. I’d drink me a beer.”

    I got one of the Michelob bottles out of the sack and showed him how it twisted off.

    “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Chapter 10- Washer Throwing

    Grandpa had finished off his beer by the time we drove the few blocks home and had calmed down some.  As we drove into the garage I could see that Dene’s car was gone. I figured she was still shopping for our little celebration tonight.

    We took the beer in the house and put it in the refrigerator. Since we had a few minutes, I decided to show Grandpa how to pitch washers.

    “Grandpa, let’s get us a beer and go outside.”

    He was ready for that.

    “I’m going to show you a game I learned in Mississippi when I took my Daddy down there to a family reunion.”

    “What is it called?” He asked.

    “It is called Washer Throwing or Washer Pitching. They told me it started years ago with my Dad’s Uncle Montgomery and some of the local folks. They would pitch silver dollars at a hole they dug in the ground. There weren’t a lot of ways for country folks to entertain themselves, so they invented these little games.”

    “Hell, you don’t have to tell me about country people making up games to play. We did our share of that when we were young. There was not a lot to do like you have nowadays. We figured out how to entertain ourselves.”

    “We’ve modified the game some but basically it’s similar to pitching horseshoes except this is a lot easier.”    We took our beers and walked out in the back yard to my little washer throwing place in the shade. I showed Grandpa the two holes that are dug into the dirt with a larger funnel-shaped top.

    “How far apart are these holes?”  He asked.

    “They are twenty feet apart. Did you see the 4 inch diameter steel pipe that lines the hole? That makes a special sound when the washer hits that pipe.”

    I did a little grounds keeping to the holes.

    “You have to clean out the dirt every once in awhile. As the washers are funneled into the holes the dirt also has a tendency to go in there too.”

    I got the washers out and saw that they were pretty rusty.

    “These are big washers,” Grandpa said.         

    “Yeah, I think they measure about 2 1/4 inches or 2 1/2. We get six washers apiece.”  

    Noticing all the rust on them Grandpa said, “It looks like you haven’t used them in a while.”

    “Yeah, it has been a while since we had a washer throwing. We have had a lot of fun doing this. We even had a tournament once and had prizes and everything.  It seemed like drinking beer and throwing washers pretty much go together.”

    When I got the holes prepared and the loose rust knocked off the washers, we were ready to start.

    “Grandpa, you throw first. You have to be behind this hole to throw at the other one. That makes it a 20 foot throw.”

    I showed Grandpa my technique.

    “I hold it in my hand with my index finger and thumb around the outside edge. I like to spin it a little as it leaves my hand. As you throw them, you’ll develop your own style. I’ve seen people throw them in all kinds of ways. Some folks tumble them as they go through the air but I never could do any good with that style.”

    I threw a few washers to demonstrate my technique. Grandpa threw about a dozen to warm up. I saw he was going to like this game. We picked the washers out of the hole and we began.

    “You are the guest so you throw first. We both stand at the same end and alternate throws. If you knock it in the hole, it is your point. If I throw a washer and it ends up laying on the edge of the hole, your washer can knock it in and it counts as your point. We usually go to 21 points. You must win by 2 points to win the match.”

    Grandpa made a few more practice throws and drank a few sips of his Michelob. Then he announced that he was ready to start.

    He made his first throw. The washer arced up in the air on a perfect line and fell right in the center of the hole making that ringing sound.

    “That is a 3 point shot, Grandpa. If the washer goes in on a fly it counts 3 points. It is three to nothing.”

    “That was beginner’s luck,” he said.

    I threw mine and it hit the dirt and funneled down into the hole but not on the fly.

    “It’s 3 to 1 now.”

    And so I introduced Grandpa to our washer throwing game.

    We threw washers for a long time and Grandpa was pretty good at it. We’d have to stop and get us a beer every once in awhile. After a while, I heard the garage door opening and the driveway alarm ringing.

    “You guys get up here and help me with these groceries,” Dene hollered from the garage door.

    We put the washers up and went in the garage to carry all the groceries in the house for her. Right away, I saw that she had gotten us another case of Michelob. We carried the groceries into the house and Dene began putting them away.

    “You fellows are getting started with that drinking a little early aren’t you?”  She asked.

    “Aw, we are just having a little fun. We’ll be alright.”

    “Grandpa has gotten pretty good at washer throwing.”

    “It is a lot of fun,” She said. “Oh darn it,” Dene said as she was putting away all the groceries.

    “What is it?” I asked.

    “I forgot to get the Chili for the hot dogs. I knew I was forgetting something.”  

    “Well, don’t worry about it. Grandpa and I will go back over to the Wal-Mart and get it for you. I wanted Grandpa to see the Wal-Mart anyhow.”

    “I showed him through the Home Depot today and he learned a lot.”

    “Are you alright to drive? How many of those beers have you drunk?”

    “Oh, I’m alright. Grandpa has drunk more than I have.”

    “You know how the police are about drunk driving these days.”

    “Yes I know but I’m fine.”

    “You guys come straight back now. I’ll be preparing things for tonight. We have some folks coming for a little party later this evening. I also need a couple of bags of ice.”

    “We’ll take care of it. Grandpa doesn’t know what a Wal-Mart is. I want to show it to him.”

Chapter 11-The Wal-Mart

    Grandpa got himself another beer. We loaded up in the car and headed to the Wal-Mart in Ooltewah, about nine miles away.  We passed a police car sitting on the side of the road. I could see the radar gun in the officer’s hand.

    “The police have these radar guns that they use to detect your speed. They can even tell how fast you are going if they are moving toward you in the opposite lane.”

    “That police car looks different. What happened to the bubble gum machine red revolving lights they used to have on top of their cars?”

    “Oh they now have light bars and the lights are LED. The police now use blue lights instead of red. These LED lights are a lot brighter than the old type.”

    “What happened to the whip antenna?”         

    “The newer technology allows them to have shorter antennas on these vehicles. Fire engines and ambulances use red lights and other emergency vehicle like tow trucks use yellow colored lights.”

    “It looked like he had a monkey cage in back of the car to me.”

    “No, that is a cage that separates the prisoners in the back seat from the driver. It is supposed to protect the driver from harm. The police have a hard job these days. They have to wear these bullet proof vests now. These vests are made of a real strong material that will stop most bullets and save their lives. Criminals don’t hesitate to shoot a policeman or anyone else these days. The police never know what they will encounter when they stop someone.”

    “It looked like a damn nigger in that car to me,” Grandpa said.

    “We are fixing to find out because he just turned on the blue lights and he is behind us. Grandpa, you keep quiet. Do you understand me? Hide that beer somewhere.”

    “I get it.”

I pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. The policeman got out and sure enough, he was a black man. He swaggered up to the window and I rolled it down.

    “Sir, you have a brake light that is not working. I saw it after you passed by me and slowed down. Could I see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance, please?”

    “Yes Sir.”

    I fumbled around in the glove compartment and over the sun visor for the papers. I found them and presented them to him along with my license and insurance card.

    “I’ll be back in a moment. Just stay where you are.”

    “He is checking to see that the paperwork is accurate. He can call in and verify our information on the computer.”

    “Do you think he smells the beer?” Grandpa asked.

    “I don’t know. Where did you hide your beer?”

       “I stuck it down between the seat and the door.”

    The policeman got out of the patrol car and walked back up to my open window.

    “Mr. Nichols I smell alcohol in this vehicle. Have you been drinking today?”

    “Yes sir. I had a beer earlier in the day.”

    “A beer?”

    “Well, to be truthful it was more like 3 beers but it has been a while.”

    “Who is the gentleman riding with you?’

    “He is a cousin of mine from South Georgia. His name is Ped Ballew and he is visiting me for a few days. We were throwing washers a while ago out in the back yard and my wife said she needed a couple of items from the Wal-Mart.”

    “He matches the description of a suspect we’re looking for in an assault case. After I looked at him, I can verify that he is not the guy we’re looking for, though. I could make you blow in this breathalyzer machine and I doubt if you could pass. Anybody who is familiar with washer pitching couldn’t be all bad. I’ve spent a few hours throwing those washers when I was a boy in Mississippi. It is hard to throw washers without drinking a beer. I’m going to give you a break and let you go. You need to get that brake light fixed.”

    “I’ll get a bulb and put it in as soon as I get to the Wal-Mart. I really appreciate your giving us a break.”

    Grandpa farted so loud it would wake the dead. I guess he had been holding it as long as he could.

    “Good God, man. Did you shit your britches? You all go straight home after you do your shopping. Let that old man go finish shitting when you get to the Wal-Mart.”  

    He walked away and got in the patrol car.

  “You see Grandpa there are some nice ones out there.”

    “He did act like he had some sense. He was polite and didn’t act like a smart ass.”

    “You don’t realize how big a favor he did me.”

    We pulled back onto the road and travelled the nine miles and entered the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot.

    “This a lot bigger than that other store we were in earlier. Shit it looks like all of Chattanooga could park in this lot.”

    We parked the car and walked toward the door.

    “Now Grandpa, try to behave yourself in here.”

    “Why do all these parking spaces say-Handicapped? It looks like they get all the best parking spaces.”

    “That is another law that the Government passed a few years back. Businesses are forced to have these parking spaces reserved for handicapped folks.”

    “How do they know who is handicapped and who is not?”

    “There are these little cards that people hang from their rear view mirrors. These cards must be obtained from a Doctor. The sad thing is that a lot of times the people who park in these spaces are not handicapped. They may be driving someone else’s car or they may have borrowed someone’s Handicapped Card.”

    “There is a pretty stiff fine if you are caught parking in one of those spaces without that little card.”

       “Who would fine you? The Wal-Mart?”

       “No, the police can give you a ticket for parking in these spaces.”

       “How could the Police give a ticket if the parking lot belongs to Wal-Mart?”

       “I know is sounds strange but that’s the way it is.”

     “Welcome to Wal-Mart,” the greeter said.

    Grandpa looked around the building and seemed in shock.

    “This building is a big as some of those aircraft hangars I saw when I was in the War.”

    We only needed a couple of items, but I wanted to show Grandpa around the store.

       “I saw all those bubble gum machines back there. It reminds me of when you and your brother were young. We couldn’t pass by one of those things unless you both wanted a penny for a piece of blow gum.”  

    “Yeah, our Granddaughter is the same way, except now these machines take quarters instead of pennies.”

    We passed by the shopping carts and Grandpa saw one of the electric carts. It was backed in and plugged up for recharging.

    “Damn, what is that contraption?”

    “It is an electric buggy for handicapped people to ride on.”

    “Is being fat considered handicapped?”

    “Well, in some cases I guess it is.”

    “I see two of those carts with people in them who look to be extremely fat.”

    “You made your point, Grandpa.”

    We walked around to the right and passed all the pharmacy items. Grandpa saw all the over-the-counter medicines and grooming products.

    “Damn, they have fucking rubbers out in public. We always knew they sold them but you had to ask the drug store man for them or buy them in the men’s bathroom.”

    “Well, they have pills that women can take now to keep from getting pregnant. There have been a lot of changes in the way sex is handled and talked about. A lot of the young folks start having sex at an early age. They usually don’t bother to get married. There are a lot of little bastards running around who don’t know who their daddy is.”

    “In my day, it was shameful for a woman to have a baby without being married.”

    “Well, that is not the case these days. There are abortion clinics around where they kill those little fetuses. The women claim it is their body and they should be allowed to do what they want with it. They don’t recognize (or don’t care) that the little fetus is a human being that has a soul.”

    “There are a lot of sexual diseases around now, too. There is one called Aids that kills a lot of people world-wide. Queers are now called gay and they want to promote this way of living to all the young people. The schools even teach it to the children. You’d think that half the people in the world are queers if you believe what you see on TV. The normal person knows that this queer business is not right but this view is seldom expressed in the news media. It seems like the TV folks are afraid to speak out against queers.”

“Well, the Bible wasn’t afraid to speak out about them.”

    “A lot of people don’t believe the Bible these days. If you stand up for the principals taught in the Bible, they think you are crazy. These educated folks believe that the world started by some little one celled animal that evolved into humans over millions of years. They don’t recognize God as the Creator.”

    “I don’t go along with that at all,” Grandpa said.

    “I don’t either.”

    My cell phone rang in my pocket. I saw that it was Dene.

    “Here Grandpa, answer this phone. Just flip this lid up and start talking.”

    Grandpa flipped the phone open and said, “Hello.”

    Dene must have been surprised to hear him on the phone.

    “This is Ped, who were you expecting to hear? Hang on a minute,” He said.

    He held the phone to his rear end and let a big fart into the phone. Then he handed the phone to me.

    “I guess that is his signature,” Dene said.

    “I just wanted you to pick up something sweet for dessert tonight.”

    “We’ll look in the deli department before we leave.”

    She hung up the phone. “Grandpa, how do you fart so much?”

    “It’s just a talent,” He said.

    There was a black lady behind us and she just shook her head and smiled.

    We toured around the store and we came to the pet supplies.

    “Damn, do people spend that kind of money on dogs, cats, and fish?”

    “You wouldn’t believe it, Grandpa. I think a lot of people put their pets above human beings. They even have funerals for them and pay sitters to watch these animals when their owners are away.”

    “Do you remember that big old dog I brought to you boys when you lived in East Ridge?”

    “Yeah, I remember him. We named him Bobo.”

    “Yeah,” Grandpa said, “I got him from some friends of mine. They said he kept them up all night running through the house and drinking from the commode. They didn’t have a large yard for him to play in either.”

    “I remember he would sit in Daddy’s rocking chair and I don’t think that went over too well. He was also bad about farting. He would let some farts that would make tears come into your eyes. He didn’t stay too long around our house.”

       Just then a woman came walking by with a great big poodle dog on a leash. The dog had a sign on it that said, “Don’t pet me, I’m working.” That dog had to weigh 75 pounds.

       “What in the hell is that woman doing with that nasty-assed dog in here? Is the dog going to piss or shit in the floor and someone step in it?”

       “I’m telling you that folks are pet crazy in this country. I think the Government has passed a law that requires public stores to allow guide dogs in. It used to be that only blind folks had dogs. Now days I think these people have learned to play the system. They say that their dog is a trained animal. They aren’t limited to blind folks anymore. They can claim all kinds of needs and say the dog assists them. The folks in the stores are afraid of a lawsuit if they don’t allow them in.”

    We walked through the automatic door to the garden department. We looked at all the outdoor furniture and equipment.

    “That furniture is nicer than anything we ever had inside our house,” Grandpa said.

    “What is the deal with that big old thing with the grate in top and the lid that closes?”

    “That is a propane barbecue grill. It cooks things with a propane tank and the lid closes down to keep the heat inside. We have one at home but it is not as big as that one. The propane is easier to start than charcoal and it is easier to control the heat.”

    We came back in the store and walked through the electrical and plumbing department.

    “Back here is the automotive department. They work on cars back there and sell tires, batteries, and such. They only do minor repairs back in the shop though.”

    We walked through the automotive stuff and he saw the seat covers, wiper blades, oil filters, and such. We found a brake lamp bulb to go in the car. We got into the sporting goods and he looked at all the fishing rods and reels, tackle boxes, and artificial baits. He looked at all the different kinds of flashlights and lanterns.

    “Do they still use the old Coleman lanterns?”

    “Yes they do but they also have battery powered ones that do pretty well.”

    “We used to use carbide lamps. You took the carbide and put water on it. This generated acetylene gas that burned and made light. They used those things in coal mines too.”

    “I don’t think you could find a carbide lamp anywhere now.”

    We passed by the guns and air rifles. He asked about the paintball guns.

    “Those are little balls with paint in them. These young folks play a wargame where they shoot at one another with these little balls. They don’t really hurt you too much unless they hit you in the eyes or some such place. These kids wear protective gear and play war.”

    “They never were in a war or they wouldn’t think it was a fun game.”

      “Those bicycles look a lot different than what I remember. Do you remember when I sawed the top bar off your bicycle when you were small?”

    “Yes I do.”

    “Well, your daddy didn’t like me doing that to your new bicycle but I wanted you to be able to ride it. He bought you and your brother identical bicycles but yours was too large for you at the time. I saved the old bar and he welded it back on when you got big enough to handle it.”

    We came through the toys and games. He was looking at all the battery powered games that are for young children.

    We got to the sign that said Rest Rooms and Grandpa said, “That beer is running through me. I’ve got to piss.”

    “Well go on in there and piss.”

    I stood outside the restroom and waited for him.  After a few minutes, I went in to check on him.

    “Don’t they think you can pull a handle to flush the pisser?” he asked me.  “I found the soap and put some on my hands, but I can’t find the handle to turn on the water.”

    “Put your hands down near the faucet,” I said.

    He did and the water came on.

“Oh, shit. I don’t like a sink that thinks it is smarter than I am.”

    He washed his hands and walked toward the hand dryer.

    “Put your hands down near that machine.”

    He did and it came on. Well, knowing Grandpa as I did I wasn’t surprised when he cut a big old fart.

    “That son of a bitch scared me. What in the hell is wrong with these people? Do they think that contraption is better than drying your hands on a towel?  Damn these automatic doors, automatic pissers, automatic water faucets, and automatic hand dryers. I guess they probably have automatic ass wipers, too.”

    “Well, there is a product called a bidet that is made to clean that part of your body.”  

       “Damn, people are too lazy to wipe their ass.”

    We continued our walk around the store. As we passed by the jewelry department, Grandpa stopped to look at the watches.

“Why don’t these watches have any hands on them?” he asked.

I told him that they were digital and battery operated and that they also told you other information such as the date and even GPS information. Of course, he didn’t know what GPS was and didn’t seem too inclined to hear about it.

“How often do you have to wind them?” he asked.

“You don’t wind them. The battery provides the power

for them to run. These quartz watches are very accurate and pretty cheap.”

“I remember when a pocket watch was popular. All the old men carried them. They usually put them in the bib of their overalls. You could get one for about a dollar or less. They didn’t keep very good time, but you could get an idea of what time it was from them. We worked from daylight till dark, so the time wasn’t that critical to know exactly.”

“Here are the watches that keep up with all the steps you take each day. They also monitor your heart rate and such. They claim it helps folks keep in shape and physically fit,” I told him.

“From the looks of all these fat people, it looks like they need something.”

We passed through the electronics department with all the TV’s and computer monitors. He seemed pretty amazed with the way the shape of the screens had changed.

“I remember when you were a boy and I visited your house. Your family had a pretty big TV. I think is was a Hallicrafters. I remember it was mounted on a metal swiveling stand and it was black and white. It probably was about a 15 to 18 inch or so. These TV’s are not only a lot larger screen but they are only about 4 inches deep. In those days, if a TV had that large a screen, it would have taken up the entire room to hold it. That is a BIG change.”

“Yeah, it is remarkable how light these TV are, too. They don’t weigh but a few pounds. All the tiny components that go into them are a technological accomplishment. They take this same technology and make some big screens that are literally the size of a football field.”

We looked at all the cell phones. That little flip-phone that I carry is far from the latest thing available. THey now have these little smartphones. They are in effect, a small computer that is also a phone. They have the ability to access the internet and do a lot of other things. Most all of them are equipped with cameras that can take really clear pictures and record HD video too. Those phones also have GPS on them so you can get directions to where you are going. They also allow other people to track where you are at any moment of the day. These smart phones appear to be the thing of the future. You can do things like lock and unlock your car doors, start your car, lock or unlock your doors at your home, turn your burglar alarm off and on, monitor video cameras anywhere in the world, control electronics remotely, and perform an endless list of other tasks. These smartphones are coming out with a larger screen now and have more features every time they produce a new style. I expect them to get more and more sophisticated. The newer ones are getting so big that they are almost as large as some of the IPads and tablets. They have different applications that you can add to these devices to make them perform most any task you can imagine.”

“It looks to me like everybody you see has one of those things in their hands or in their pocket or purse. I’ve seem a lot of people punching those little things with their thumbs. I saw one guy walking around talking. I thought he was a nut, but I realized he was talking to somebody. He had something hanging from his ear.”

“That was probably a bluetooth device. They can talk on it without holding the phone in their hands. It looks weird to see somebody walking around and talking to somebody you can’t see.

When we got to the DVD’s and CD’s I had to try to explain what they were and how they work.

    “So you can put this little round plastic thing in that machine and watch a movie or listen to music.”       

“Yeah, that is right.”

    I showed him all the Nintendo, XBox, and Wii Games. Explaining the electronic video games to him was a wasted effort. He didn’t understand the concept and I’m not sure I did either. I told him about how some folks get addicted to playing these games. He seemed irritated by the idea of somebody sitting all day and playing a game like that.

We went through all the clothing and shoes and he even looked at the women’s underwear.

    “Damn that doesn’t look like what I remember.”

    Then he saw the men’s underwear that had SpongeBob printed on them and he didn’t know what that was. I tried to explain it.

    “Why do most people in here have something printed on their clothes or caps? Do these companies pay folks to wear their name on a shirt?”

    “No, these companies might pay some famous person to wear a shirt with their name on it but not ordinary folks.”

    “Then why do these people advertise for them?”

    “I can’t answer that, Grandpa. I don’t wear shirts or caps with names on them but I’m in the minority on this. It seems that most folks are easily influenced by famous people. If they see someone on TV wearing something, then most of them want to look like what they see on TV.”

    We walked through the bakery and Deli department.

    “Something smells good.”

“I think they are baking some cookies.”

    We looked at the produce and walked down the aisle where the meats are.

    “It is like a grocery store on this side isn’t it?”

    “Yes, Grandpa it is. Let’s get Dene’s chili and some of those cookies that smell so good. We’ll get the ice when we start out of the store.”

    We walked toward the front of the store and Grandpa saw the hair salon and the bank. There was an ATM in front of the bank. Grandpa asked what it was. I explained it to him as well as I could. He also saw the machine that counts your change and gives you paper money for it. I told him that they charge a portion of it for counting the change. Grandpa just shook his head.

    “People are too lazy now to count their own money without some machine to do it for them.”

    We checked out and walked to the car. I opened the hatch and used a screwdriver from my tool box to install the brake light bulb. When we came back toward home, I saw the same Policeman parked on the road near where he had stopped us earlier. I’m sure he observed whether my brake light was working or not after we passed by.

       When we were nearly home, he said, “That is one big store. I’m glad you let me look through it. I’ll bet we could have spent several days in there looking at things. I’m about ready for another beer and a little more washer throwing but I guess we should wait until we get home before we have another beer.”

        “Ok Grandpa, that sounds good to me. Oh, by the way, we don’t have to tell Dene about our run in with the Police.”

    “The secret is safe with me.”  

Chapter 12- The Party

   

    By the time we got home, it was getting to be late afternoon. We went in the house and Grandpa got him a Michelob.

    “I’ll bet I can tear your ass up in a game of washers,” Grandpa said.

    “We’ll see about that,” I replied.

    “Ron, you are going to have to be the chef for our little get together tonight. We’ll grill some burgers and some dogs,” Dene said.

    “I’ll handle all that for you. Let’s talk about our guests. We need to tell them that Grandpa is a distant cousin from South Georgia. That way nobody will be asking a lot of questions that we can’t answer.”

    “That is fine with me,” Grandpa said.

    “I know you think my ways are old-fashioned and out of date. After I’m gone, I hope you will benefit from some of the things you learn from me. You’ll have memories of the real Grandpa, the old farting fool.”

    He raised his leg and farted.

    “Who all are coming tonight?” I asked Dene.

    “I just invited the kids and their families and about 30 close friends. We have to have some judges for the contest.”

    “That sounds good. I still have to set up the microphones and the pole. We have time for a short game of washers before I have to get busy.”

    I got a beer and we walked out to the back yard. We threw a couple of games of washers and then I had to start preparing for the festivities.

    “Grandpa, you can help me with the pole. We have to bury this steel pole in the ground about a foot deep.  It has to be sturdy enough for the people to hold to without it moving.”

    I got out a shovel and my post-hole digger. We chose a good level spot near the washer court and began digging.

    “What is this pole for?”  Grandpa asked.     

    “It is our farting pole.”

    “Farting pole?”

    “Yes, we are going to grill burgers and hot dogs, throw washers, play a little music, and have a farting contest.”

    “A farting contest, huh?”

       “Yeah, we’ve had them before.”

    “What part does the pole play?”

    “Well, we mount a little bell on top of the pole so it can be easily rung by anyone. When someone feels one coming, they ring the bell and grab the pole. Then everyone gets quiet so the judges can hear.”

    “We have rules for the farting contest. You must have both hands on the pole before it counts.  We set up a farting microphone at about ass-level. We don’t want to miss hearing a good fart and the microphone solves that problem.”

    “I’ve been to a lot of things but I’ve never been to a farting contest before,” Grandpa said.

    “So, if we are playing music or washers and we hear the bell ring, everybody stops what they are doing and listens.”

       “That sounds like a lot of fun. Do I have any competition?”

    “Yes, both of my sons can give you a run for your money. Dene has a big pot of baked beans and some sweet potatoes. There are some others who are pretty good competitors. This isn’t our first contest.”

    “There will be two former champions here tonight. You’d better save all those farts you have been letting for the contest.”

    We got the pole in the ground and mounted the bell on top of it. Grandpa couldn’t resist ringing the bell and grabbing the pole.

    Naturally, he let one of his farts.

    “This is a trick fart,” he said. He made it sound really shrill and ended with a low flapping sound.

    “You might need to go check your pants after that one, Grandpa. I’ve got to get the P.A. equipment set up and light the grill. The company will be here soon.”

    I got the grille set up and Grandpa helped me set up the microphones and speakers. We set up the mic’s for singing and playing with one extra for the farting mic.       “Grandpa, come over and let’s do a soundcheck. Grab the pole and let one go.”

    He ripped off a big one and it projected through the speakers real well.

    “Now, let’s play a tune and sing one to see how the music mic’s do.”

    We tuned up and ran through part of a song. We made little adjustments until we had it sounding the way we wanted it to. I got us both a Michelob and we sat down in the chairs we had set up for the party.

    “The weather is nice and we should have a lot of fun.”

    A car pulled into the driveway and it was our oldest son, John, and his wife, Sonya. They had brought a couple of their friends with them.  I introduced them to Grandpa and told them he was a distant cousin from South Georgia.

    “His name is Ped Ballew.”     

“Damn, that boy has big arms. Is he a block layer?”

    “No, Ped he lifts weights and works out.”

    “Can he fart?”

   “Oh yeah, he can do that. You all get you a beer or something to drink.”

       Another car pulled in and it was our daughter, Sue Ann, and her husband, Curtis. I made all the introductions. Then our youngest son, Walt, and his wife, Kelly, came in with their daughter, Taylor.

    A few other friends arrived and we were ready to start. Dene was running around doing what she does so well. She made sure everybody felt welcome and comfortable. After everybody had arrived, I stood up and made a formal introduction of Grandpa to the whole crowd.

    “This is a distant cousin of mine who has been our guest for the last few days. His name is Ped Ballew. He has been secluded in South Georgia for a while so he may not understand some of the modern things you speak about. We’ve enjoyed having him and he is quite a guitar player and singer. Everybody get comfortable and we are going to start the celebration. We have the farting pole set up. Most of you know the rules for the contest. If you don’t, we have printed copies of the rules. We have 3 judges for this contest. They will give a score of anywhere from 5.0 to 10. We’ll be throwing washers and playing music during the evening so everybody just have a good time. Ped and I will play and sing a few old songs to get things started. Come on up here Ped.”

       Everybody gave him a polite hand. Grandpa got my guitar and strapped it around his neck.

    “Thank you, Ronnie for that nice introduction. I’m glad to meet all you folks. I used to play and sing quite a bit but it has been a while.”

    He grabbed a “D” chord and started on an old Hank Williams song, Your Cheating Heart Will Tell On You.  I followed him on the banjo. We sang two verses and I heard the bell ring.

    We all stopped and John stepped up to the farting mic and ripped off a big one. The judges all had cards with scores on them. They held up their scores. 8.5, 8.0, & 9.5. They recorded the scores and we resumed our singing just as if we’d never stopped.

    Grandpa got about halfway through the chorus when the bell rang again. This time it was Walt. Things got silent and he grabbed the pole with both hands and turned it loose. It seemed to shake the ground.  The judges responded with a 9.5, 9.6 & 9.8. Grandpa finished his song and we were under way.

    We played four or five tunes stopping every few minutes for a contestant. There were some who could fart pretty well and some who just didn’t have it. Some of the women were probably ashamed to fart in public.

    Finally I said, “We are going to take a little pause from this music. I have to perform my duties as chef. We’ll all eat and then throw some washers. The farting contest is still going on so don’t you judges go anywhere. Just get you a beer and a hot dog or burger and stay close so you won’t miss anything.”

    We put our instruments in the cases and got us another beer. I went to the grill and started preparing the burgers and hot dogs.

    “That smells good,” John said.”Old Ped is a pretty good singer. Where did he get a name like that?”

       “I think it is a nickname but you’ll have to ask him for yourself.”

    I spread the wieners out on one side of the grille and the hamburger patties on the other and lit the burners on the propane grille. The evening breeze blew the smoke around and the smell was pleasant. Most folks were drinking either a beer or a Coke and engaging in small talk.

    “Ped is old school just like I am. He likes the old country or hillbilly music as he calls it. The old folks called it string music.”

   “Is it my imagination or is he part Indian?”

    “Oh, I’m sure there is Indian blood in our family. He is our cousin on my Mother’s side of the family. I’ve been told that there was a picture around at one time of one of our Indian ancestors who had a bone in his nose.”

    “He doesn’t go on the warpath after a few beers does he?”

    “No, I think he’s relatively calm.”

    When the burgers and hot dogs were done, we all sat down at the picnic table to eat. I felt it would be appropriate for someone to ask God’s blessing on the food. Since Grandpa was the special guest, I felt he should do the praying.

    “Ped, will you ask the blessing for us?”

    “I sure will.”

    Here is what followed:

    “Dear Lord, we thank You for all You are and we thank You for allowing us to gather here today with these fine folks. We ask Your blessing on this food and on all we do here this evening.”

    “I hope You will allow us to fart without shitting our pants. Lord, help me and Ronnie not to cuss too much. Lord, I pray that you will help me not to lust after all these women up here in Tennessee with their titties half shining and their asses halfway hanging out.”

    “I pray that I won’t talk about niggers or that nigger president too much. I’m not used to that. Help me to be quiet about those tattoos on folks up here in Tennessee and the little fish hooks they wear in their eyebrows.”

    “Help me not to mention all the white folks who are dating and breeding with the niggers. Ron says they call them African Americans but I call them niggers. If they are African, they need to go to Africa. My folks, the Cherokees, were some of the original Americans. The niggers make a big deal out of the way their ancestors were treated in this country. My ancestors were treated worse and nobody passed laws or tried to help us. They just took our land and gathered my people up like a bunch of cattle and herded them off to Oklahoma. When the Indians married a white person they called us half-breeds.”       

“Help me not to talk about all the queers up here. Folks seem to be proud of being a queer nowadays. The queers apparently have taken over the U.S.Army. There are women in the Army and some of them look like men. I suspect that there are women queers in there too. I don’t think You approve of it but it seems pretty common now in this country.”

    “I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff since I’ve been here in Tennessee. The kids don’t mind their parents. The fishermen don’t have any manners. The people driving down the road get mad and shoot one another because somebody cut in front of them. The people in this country today go into schools and shoot innocent little kids for no reason. People strap bombs on their bodies or fly into buildings with an airplane just to kill innocent folks. They get more excited about someone using the nigger or queer word than they do about someone killing someone else.”

    “They show naked people on the TV. They sell fucking rubbers out in public. The people are too lazy to get up and change the TV channel or get out of the car and raise the garage door. There are a lot of fat people up here who can’t even walk around without a little motorized chair. They have banned cigarette smoking in public buildings but it seems they have legalized smoking Marijuana.”

    “The young folks run around with these little telephones in their hands. They won’t even look you in the eye and talk to you. They are too busy punching those buttons. They evidently don’t learn too much in the schools any more. The young people can’t count money or make change without a computer to help them.”

    “They dress so slouchy that some of them have to hold their pants up with one hand all the time. They wear shirts with all kinds of things written on them. There are cars that go down the road with ear piercing sounds coming out of them that shake the ground. They tell me it isn’t meant to be music just noise. A lot of men have long hair and the women have short hair.”

“You can’t even get curb service up here in Tennessee. You have to drive around the building and order your food through a little speaker. They don’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ any more they just say ‘there you go.”

    “They have a bunch of electric stuff that tries to do things for you. You can’t ride in a car without buckling up a bunch of belts. The kids can’t even ride in the front seat with you. They have to sit in special seats and be buckled in the back seat like a dog in a cage.”

    “The pissers even flush themselves when you get through pissing. The water faucets come on by themselves. The doors on buildings open when you walk up to them. They have little screens mounted in their cars with a woman telling them where to turn and how to drive. The Police have cameras mounted on the roads to take your picture and mail you a ticket for speeding or running a red light.”

    “They eat some stuff that looks and smells disgusting. I’ve seen several people who smelled so strong that I couldn’t stand to be within 5 feet of them. One woman smelled so strong of cat piss and cat shit that it almost made me puke. They eat that garlic on their food and it smells like dog shit on their breath. There is some other thing that I’ve smelled on some of them. I think it is some of that Chinese stuff that they eat, but it would puke a buzzard off a gut wagon.”

    “The people seem to care more for dogs and cats than they do people. There are folks up here who have pigs living in the house with them. I saw something on TV about people who they call hoarders. They live in a house where there is nothing but junk and garbage piled up high. It is trashy and nasty and I know there are rats crawling around in there and probably snakes, too. They are too lazy to pick up their garbage. We came up hard, but we were clean as we could be with the resources we had. My Mama wouldn’t have allowed any garbage to stay inside our house. The pigs stayed in the pig pen.”

    “The institution of marriage seems to be going out of style. Young girls don’t bother to get married in a lot of cases. There are a lot of little bastards running around. The Government serves as the baby’s daddy and they don’t do a real good job at it.”  

    “This world seems to be drifting farther away from You all the time. You hear about Mother Nature a lot but you can’t mention FATHER GOD. They won’t allow the kids to pray in school. They don’t want us to pray or read our Bibles out in public. The Ten Commandments are being removed from public buildings. They have removed In God We Trust from some of the U.S.Currency. I guess it doesn’t really matter because most people use those plastic credit cards now for money.”

    “The Muslims, Atheists, and Buddhists are dictating what can be said in public. In the courtrooms, folks no longer are sworn in with their hand on the Holy Bible. The lawyers have filed so many lawsuits that the price of everything you buy is out of hand. Criminals sit in prison for years while the lawyers do their wrangling. The taxpayers have to pay for the lawyers.”

    “I hope all these folks won’t think I’m crazy for the way I think. I’m old school and just don’t understand this new way of living. Amen.”

   

       When Grandpa finished his prayer, some folks were laughing and some were nodding their head in agreement. They found out that Ped says what he thinks. We started eating and John said his hot dog was cold after Ped’s prayer. A few folks said they agreed with what Ped said and some others remained quiet. Everybody seemed to be having a really good time.

    “Where have you been to get so far out of touch with this world?” asked someone.

    I shuddered to think of Grandpa’s answer.

    “Well, I’ve been in prison in South Georgia for a lot of years. I was in solitary confinement and didn’t have a lot of contact with the outside world.”

    “What did you do to get put in prison for so long?”

    “I was standing on the street watching a parade in Valdosta, GA years ago. There was a band playing and they were marching down the street. I’d been drinking a little and I eased out a little fart. About that time the band quit playing. This nigger was standing right behind me. When the music stopped, my farting seemed louder than it really was and he took offense.”

    “He called me a few choice names and also called me a Half-breed. One thing led to another and we got in a fight. He was a great big nigger and he was all muscled up like old John there. He was beating me up real bad. I picked up a brick that was lying on the sidewalk and hit him over the head with it. I didn’t think you could hurt one of those hard headed niggers, but I guess I busted his head pretty bad. He recovered from the injury. The district attorney charged me with farting in public and disorderly conduct.”

    “When we went to court, that nigger’s buddies that were with him when it happened told the story differently than it really was. They made it sound like I was just farting real loud in the nigger’s face for no reason.”

    “The judge tried to make an example out of me. I think he was planning to run for Governor or something. I got sentenced to six months on the Georgia chain gang. When I got in prison, things were so bad that I tried to escape. They caught me pretty quickly. They are pretty rough on people who are convicted of farting in Georgia. I got a lot of extra time added to my sentence for trying to escape. I ended up staying a long time in there. That is my story. I didn’t get a lot of news in that prison.”

    Grandpa and I decided to team up on the washer throwing.

    “We’ll take on all challengers,” Grandpa said.

    “That was some story you made up,” I said to Grandpa aside from the crowd.

    “I thought it was a good one. Did I embellish it too much? It was more believable than the truth would have been.”

    We started throwing the washers and Grandpa and I did pretty well. In fact, we had won 10 out of 12 games. Then Walt and John challenged us. It was a close game with each side scoring on almost every throw.

    We were interrupted a few times by the bell ringing and someone farting into the mic. We got down to the end of this game and we were tied at 20 to 20.

    It was Grandpa’s throw and he stood there sipping on his Michelob. All of a sudden he set down his beer and walked around to the farting mic and rang the bell.

    This was his first time to grab the pole. Everybody else didn’t know how good a farter he was like Dene and I did. It got real quiet and all you could hear were the crickets chirping. He grabbed the pole with both hands and started his performance. I couldn’t believe what I heard.

    Grandpa was farting a tune. Sure enough, He was farting Dixie in the key of “A”. He farted one verse and then sang the words.

    “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton, my feet stink but yours are rotten, look away look away look away Dixie Land.”

    Then he farted the chorus and ended it with a fancy ending. By the time he finished everybody was rolling on the ground and laughing.

    The judges posted their scores. Three 10’s.

    After that, we tried to resume our washer game but John and Walt were laughing so much that they couldn’t hit the hole anymore.  So Grandpa and I decided to call it a tie on the washer throwing game. Grandpa won the farting contest. Nobody could come close to his fancy trick farting. We played a little more music and Grandpa sang some more old tunes.

    After Grandpa’s farting performance, I think folks were ashamed of their little farts. As the night wore on, first one and then another left until no one was left but Dene, Grandpa, and me.

    We sat around the pole and talked awhile about how much fun we had. Grandpa had drunk quite a few of those Michelob’s and I think he was exhausted.

    “You know Dene isn’t going to let you get in your bed without taking a shower, don’t you?”

    “Yeah, I figured that. Well, I’ll be sure to get a shower before I get her sheets messed up. I appreciate your letting me meet your family and friends.”

    “They enjoyed meeting you, too.”

       We dismantled the sound system and made several trips to the house carrying everything back in. We picked up the guitar and banjo and put them back in their cases inside. We cleaned up all the food and plates and empty bottles and cans. We left the farting pole and several items outside and retired to the house for the night.

       “I think Dene has planned a little activity for tomorrow. We need to get you out and let you see some more of this 21st century stuff. Do you think you’re up for that?”

       “It has been a lot to take in for me, but I’m willing to see a little more.”

       He went into the spare bathroom and started taking his shower. Naturally, he was whistling Dixie and farting. In a few minutes he quietened down and went to bed.

       “That prayer he said tonight included a lot of truth. It was spoken from the heart. His ideas are outdated but a lot of them make you wonder if we are headed in the right direction, don’t they?” Dene asked.

       “You are so right,” I answered as we fell into bed, exhausted.

Chapter 13- Breakfast At Hardees

       I awakened pretty early next morning and reviewed the activities of the previous few days. I still couldn’t understand what was going on but I’d determined that I was going to enjoy our time together. It was nice to have the old man around. I’d figured out that he was unpredictable and said what he thought. I heard Dene stirring around in the kitchen. I thought I heard her talking to somebody. I sat up on the side of the bed and listened to what was said.

       “Ron and I get along pretty well. We are nothing alike but that is good. He talks a lot and I don’t. He never meets a stranger and I rarely say anything. He likes to play music and I have learned to tolerate it. I like to keep things neat and clean and he really doesn’t care. He says what he thinks a lot of times (when he should be quiet) but that is his way. He was really quiet before we married and now I can’t shut him up. We’ve been  together over 40 years, so we must be doing something right.”

       “I never was that fortunate to have a wife as understanding as you are. He is a lucky guy.”  

       I walked into the room and greeted them both.

       “Do you want a cup of coffee?” Dene asked. “Ped is on his second cup.”

       “Sure I do, I don’t smell any bacon frying yet.”

       “I thought we’d take Ped out to breakfast and ride him around a little today.”

       “That is a good idea. What about us taking him to Hardee’s for breakfast?”

       “Sounds like a good plan to me.” Dene replied. “He’ll probably like their gravy and biscuits.”

       “That was a nice party last night. You have a great family and some nice friends. I really like the Washer Pitching and the Farting Contest was right down my alley.”

       “Yeah, it all seemed to go real well.”

       We sat around a while and drank our coffee. Dene got ready and we started out the back door. As I punched in the code on the alarm system, Grandpa asked what it was.

       “It is a burglar alarm system. It is set up on a 60 second delay before it is armed. If a door is opened or if anything moves inside the house after that, it will make a loud noise like a siren. Then it will call the monitoring company. They will, in turn, call me and if I don’t respond, they will send the police out here.”

       “We never had to lock our doors when I was young. There were some thieves around but it seemed like we weren’t worried as much about them as you are nowadays.”

       “Two young boys walked down the driveway in broad daylight a few months ago and stole my battery from the boat. They even stepped on the driveway bell on their way out. It is scary to know that they were that bold. They didn’t know how close they came to getting some buckshot in their asses. That was when we got the burglar alarm and security cameras installed.”

       We made our way down the back steps and went into the garage. We loaded Grandpa in the back seat and made sure he was buckled in securely. He didn’t like being buckled in but he tolerated it. We started on the 9 mile trip to the local Hardee’s.

       “This is the same way we came when we went to that Wal-Mart yesterday. Right there is where that nigger Policemen was setting.”

       It got strangely quiet in the car.

       “You didn’t tell me about that,” Dene said.

       “He was a pretty nice nigger,” Grandpa said.   

       “How did you know how nice he was?”

       “I can see that we are going to have to explain it to you. He stopped us and said our tail lamp was not working.”

       “You are lucky that he didn’t take you both to jail. I’ll bet he smelled that beer on you.”

       “Well, let’s just say he let us go. We were fortunate that he was a washer thrower.”

       We made our way through the back roads and pulled into the Hardee’s parking lot. We found a parking place in the crowded parking lot and got out of the car.

       “There is a McDonalds next door,” Grandpa said.

       “Yep, there are a lot of them around the country. This restaurant is similar to the McDonalds.”  

       I asked Dene what she wanted and I figured I’d just order some gravy and biscuit for Grandpa. I hadn’t seen him turn down anything to eat yet. I’d figured out that he wasn’t hard to please on food.

       “You two find us a seat and I’ll go get the food.”

       “Don’t they have a waitress?”

       “No, it is a fast food place. You have to get in line and order what you want. They put it on a tray and you carry it to the table yourself.”

       “Use some of my winnings to pay for this meal, if there is enough money.”

       “Okay.’

       I got in line and Grandpa and Dene found a table and sat down. I noticed that they sat down near several old men who were regulars in there every morning. This was their gathering place to tell tales, jokes, and lies. I placed my order and waited patiently for the food and drinks. By the time I got over to the table, Grandpa had already engaged some of those old men in a conversation.

       “I had a brother that was so tall he had to put his pants on over his head,” I heard Grandpa say.

       “Damn, that was tall,” one of the old men replied as he winked at his buddy.

       I distributed the food and drinks and sat down at the table with them. Dene helped Grandpa get everything arranged on his tray and he dug in. Grandpa’s eating manners were not what you would call refined. He smacked his mouth, burped and farted. He would occasionally stop and blow his nose on a napkin.  

       “Where are you from old man?” one of the old codgers asked.

       “Oh, I’m from South Georgia, just north of Valdosta. I was raised close to Vidalia where they raise those sweet onions. The circus came through there when I was about 10 years old and I ran away from home. I never looked back. I worked in that circus for a lot of years. We spent the winters in Florida.

       “What did you do in the circus?” another one of them asked.

       I didn’t know where this tall tale would lead. I’d figured out that Grandpa could make up some extraordinary stories. I sat back and ate my breakfast and listened to Grandpa lead these old codgers on.

       “Oh, I was a lion tamer when I started out. I took care of those lions day and night. I soon got tired of smelling that lion shit, though. When those things piss it is so strong it will make your eyes water. After a few months of that, I started working on the flying trapeze. I worked with the Flying Wallenda’s for several years. They had a daughter who was beautiful. I really liked her but she was married. I had a bad habit of farting and one time when she was turning a flip, I farted in her face. I didn’t mean to but it just slipped out. She never wanted to work with me after that. Then I became a clown. I liked that but it was hard work. My farting fit right in with the clowning around. I learned that I could fart a tune. I practiced a lot and got to where I could fart about any tune. They billed me as Ped, The Farting Fool. They would line up candles when our show was about over and I would go down the line and fart them out for my finale. We drew a lot of people in with that. Some of the Church folks got to complaining about it and we had to quit doing this act.”

       Those old men were laughing hard at what he said. Every so often Grandpa would get him a big old bite of gravy and biscuit and wash it down with some coffee. I could tell those old men enjoyed his tall tales and they kept asking for more. Grandpa obliged them.

       “One Winter while we were in Florida, I went over to Cyprus Gardens. They hired me to entertain the folks there. I could ski barefooted and I also made some of those jumps over those ramps. The thing I was good at was my landing on shore. When my act was over, the boat would swing wide and launch me for my on-shore landing. I did it pretty much like all the rest of them except for my finale. When I hit the beach, I would fart them a tune like Moon River or Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I finally got tired of farting the same tunes over and over.”  

        “Yeah, I’m sure that would get old,” one of the old men said.

       “I got a job on the Queen Mary when she was sailing from Europe to the United States. I learned to play the Ukulele and worked that into my act. The Ukulele was in style back then and I learned to sing a few songs and incorporate my special talent into the mixture. You get a few drinks in those rich people and they will laugh at anything.”

       “I also worked on a tanker that sailed through the Panama Canal to the West coast. I ended up in Los Angeles and got a few small parts in Hollywood movies. I had a small part in one movie with John Wayne. He was a good actor but he didn’t have much sense of humor. He didn’t appreciate my farting. Bob Hope thought my farting act was funny but he was afraid to be associated with me and my farting. Farting was looked down on by some people back then. I drifted up to Alaska and tried my act up there for a while. It is hard to fart a tune when it is so cold.”

       “Yeah, I’ll bet your ass was puckered up,” one of the old guys said. “Did you ever go to New York City?”

       “One time I drifted through that town. I was in Central Park with my Ukulele and it was springtime. I put on a little performance and drew a small crowd of listeners. There was a guy there who liked my act. He convinced me to do some Slapstick Comedy. It seemed like my farting act just naturally fit in with that comedy. It was similar to the clown work I’d done years before. We travelled all over the country doing my farting act and entertaining folks. I’m retired now.”

       Grandpa finished the last of his gravy and those guys were having a big time.

       “We’ve never seen anybody that could fart a tune before. Could you give us a little sample?” one of those old men said.

       The manager had been listening to these tales from a distance. He came over and said that he’d appreciate it if we didn’t have a farting demonstration in the restaurant. He said something about their insurance company didn’t allow it.

       “We’ll go now,” I said. “He didn’t mean to harm anybody. He just gets excited when he gets started talking about the old days.”

       “Oh, I enjoyed his stories. I just know that there will be someone who will call the home office and report this if it goes any further.”

       “That is probably true,” I said. “We’re on our way.”     

       I gathered all our trash and dumped it in the garbage can. All the old men were shaking hands and saying goodbye to Grandpa. Dene walked out first. Just as we reached the door, Grandpa cut loose. It was loud and sounded like the first few lines of Moon River. The whole place exploded with laughter as we went out the door. Dene was already out the door and she didn’t hear Grandpa’s mini farting performance.

       “I see now where Ronnie gets his tall stories from. He has never been able to tell any that big. Ped you laid it on pretty thick.”

       “Thank you, Dene.”

       “Let’s ride down to the flea market,” I said.

Chapter 14- The Flea Market

       Back in the car, we got on the freeway and headed toward town. Traffic was pretty light and we settled in for the ride.

       “This big, wide road is nice. The speed limit is 70 miles an hour?”

       “Yeah, it once was 75 but they thought too many people were being killed in cars because of speed. They also claimed that a lower speed helped save gasoline.”

       “I guess most of these folks don’t pay attention to the speed limit, anyhow. I’ve noticed that you are running the speed limit and cars are passing you like crazy.”

       “It’s a crazy world out here.”

       We came upon one of those little Smart Cars, a little 2 person car that has recently been introduced in this country.

       “Damn, that is a little one. It is cute but it looks like they pulled it before it was finished growing.”

       “That is one of those Smart Cars. They say they are real popular in Europe. Gasoline is a lot higher over there and those little cars can be equipped to get pretty high mileage. The European version usually has a diesel engine and the old manual transmission. They manage to get 60 or 70 miles to a gallon with that setup. The American version usually has a gasoline engine and automatic transmission and our version doesn’t get as good a mileage as theirs.”

       “I noticed on a sign that diesel fuel is higher than gasoline. It was always less than gasoline before. They claimed it took less refining to make it. It is about the same as kerosene.”

       “I don’t understand that either, Grandpa. They claim it has to do with supply and demand. A diesel engine gets better mileage but you have to pay more for the product.”

       The section of freeway we were on runs pretty close to the local airport. The planes sometimes come across the freeway when they are landing from the south. As we were coming near, a big commercial jetliner crossed the sky on its approach to the airport. It was close enough to get a good look at it. I knew that it looked a lot different than anything he remembered.

       “That is a big airplane.”

       “They have changed a lot since your day. Would you like to ride over to the airport and look around for a minute?”

       “That would be nice.”

       I swung the car into the proper lane to go toward the airport. It was just a short hop over to the airport from where we were. I explained to him about the September 11th tragedy and how the airports were forced to increase security.

       “You can’t even go in the airport without going through a metal detector and scanner these days. These fools are willing to strap on a bomb and blow themselves up in order to cause our country a problem. They have even caught some guy with a bomb in his shoe. Those Muslims apparently think that this is a free ticket to Heaven if they die as a bomber.”

       We pulled into the airport parking lot and drove around through the front of the terminal.

       “Boy this is a lot different than the old Lovell Field I remember. It was a small airport with just a few planes.”

       I pulled the car to where we had a good view of the planes that were arriving and taking off. We sat there until the next jetliner was on the runway and ready for takeoff. As it started down the runway, we could feel the car shaking and the power of the jet engine was evident. The jet quickly crossed in front of us and climbed into the blue sky, made a sharp turn and was gone.  

       “That is some power. That big old plane looked too big to get off the ground. I never rode in an airplane much less a jet. When I was in the war, we travelled on big ships, buses, or trains. I appreciate your letting me witness that.”

       We resumed our ride toward the flea market. This particular flea market was an inside flea market. It had a lot of new stuff in it and was not like the old style where people brought stuff from home. It was air conditioned and walking through there was a little more pleasant than being out in the hot sun. We pulled into the parking lot and found a parking place. We got out of the car and walked into the front door. There were the normal things that we’d expect to see in a place like this. These things probably looked a little different to Grandpa with his pre-1956 perspective.  

       Just inside the door of the flea market, was a display of several different items including some coins, quilts, sunglasses, a few old books, and pocket knives. There were the small stuffed animals, teddy bears, and Beany Babies. We saw some of those cheap Chinese made tools and one booth with some puppies and kittens for sale. There was a booth where you could get a custom airbrushed T Shirt. Grandpa was taking it all in quietly.

       “Those golf clubs look a lot different than they used to,” Grandpa said as we walked by a booth with golf stuff.

       “They have improved on the design a lot. They mostly use titanium for the heads in the drivers instead of wood. The shafts are extremely thin and light weight steel or aluminum. The golf balls are designed to fly a lot further than they did in the past. The metal woods and the utility clubs are a relatively new thing.”

       “I remember when the shafts were all wooden and the drivers and 3 woods were made of persimmon. It looks like the grips have changed too.”

       “A lot of those pro golfers can drive the ball at least 300 yards and some of them can drive a ball over 400 yards.”

       “I remember when 250 yards was a long drive for a golfer.”

       “Is that baseball bat made of metal?”

       “Yeah, it is aluminum or some light-weight alloy. The ball comes off this metal a lot quicker than with wood.”

       “I think they used to make ball bats out of ash.”

       “The major leagues still use wooden bats. I think ash is the wood of choice but I’ve heard of some bats being made of hard rock maple.”  

       “It doesn’t look like the baseball has changed much.”

       “No, I think it has remained about the same through the years.”

        We came to a display of sports items including ball caps, T shirts, and anything you could imagine that they could put a sports logo on. There was a section of all orange Tennessee Vols stuff.

       “It appears that everybody takes these sports mighty serious these days. I saw some orange under drawers back there.”

       “Yeah, the University of Tennessee Football is big in this area. We also have the Tennessee Titans in Nashville and Atlanta Falcons pro Football teams. Atlanta also has a major league baseball team called the Atlanta Braves. Most of these games are televised and it is a big money thing.”

       “Do the Chattanooga Lookouts still play?”

       “Yes they still play but they built a new stadium down near the river near the old Cameron Hill. Engel Stadium is still around but they just have college and high school games there now. The old University of Chattanooga is now U.T.Chattanooga and they own Engel Stadium now. Chattanooga now has a relatively new football stadium and a basketball arena where they have different events. The old Memorial Auditorium is pretty run down and it has almost become extinct.”

       “We watched my son, Bill, play football on Chamberlain Field when he played for City High School. I have attended a lot of baseball games at Engel Stadium.”

       “What are those things?” He was talking about a skateboard that was on display.

       “That is called a skateboard. These young folks can do all kinds of tricks on those things. They even have special courses built for them to ride them and do their tricks.”

       We passed by a little instant sign booth. I explained how they put the information in the computer and then printed it out or cut vinyl letters that can be applied to a sign board. We passed a Matchbox Car display and I realized that he had not been around when the Matchbox Cars were getting started. We also passed by some Barbie Dolls and some G.I.Joe Figures. All these things must have looked different to him.

       “I’ve seen these model cars and airplanes before,” he said as we came up to a display of remote controlled models.

       “These are a lot different than what you remember. These models are powered by batteries and you can operate them with that little remote controller. They have cars, airplanes and even a little helicopter that you can fly.”

       There was a young guy in the booth with one of those little helicopters setting in front of him. I asked him if he would demonstrate it for us and he said he would. He grabbed the controller, started the rotors spinning, and flew it up in the air and circled overhead. He brought it down right in front of us and let it hover a few seconds. Then he landed it right back in front of him.

       “Damn, that is amazing,” Grandpa said.

       “I’m thirsty. Do they have those cold things that made my head hurt?”

       “You mean an Icee. They may have one of those in here.” We walked to the rear and ordered all three of us an Icee. We sat down and drank them and rested our feet.    

“Grandpa, did you fart?”

       “I may have slipped a little one out. How did you know?”

       “Because it stinks.”

       “Do you want me to let you a performance style one? I’d bet I could draw a crowd.”

       “No. I don’t think Dene could stand to see you signing autographs.”

       We finished our Icee’s and resumed our trip through this large flea market. There was a booth with some musical instruments. There were guitars, banjos, mandolins, and fiddles and such in this booth.

       “Let’s look at these stringed instruments,” Grandpa said.

       There were a couple of stools there and he asked if he could play one of the guitars. The man looked us over and said Grandpa could test drive the guitar. Ped took the Chinese made guitar and began to turn the keys to get it in tune.

       “This one doesn’t have the sound that yours does, Ron.”   

       He got the guitar in tune and started picking the Wildwood Flower. Several people quickly gathered around as folks will do when they hear music. The man in the booth realized that this may be a good marketing ploy. He asked me if I played music. I told him that I played a little. He handed me a guitar and soon Grandpa and I were both playing for this little crowd of folks. Someone asked for Dueling Banjos. Grandpa didn’t know that one. I realized that it came along after his time.

       “What about Rocky Top?” a guy in a bright orange shirt asked.

       “This is Ped Ballew and he is from South Georgia. He only knows tunes from the 50’s or before. He doesn’t keep up with the newer tunes.”

       I saw that we needed to do something to make these folks laugh a little. I told Grandpa to get in the key of “D” and I started singing Sheb Wooley’s the Naked Song.

       “I stepped out of the shower and took a good look at myself,

       Big, fat grey headed man; I thought it was somebody else,

      As I looked at myself in the mirror on the bathroom door,

    I just don’t look good naked anymore.”

      Grandpa played some pretty rhythm on the guitar. He sung tenor on the chorus. He also picked a lead break between the verses. The small crowd responded with some laughter and they gave us a big hand when we finished. We played a couple more songs and thanked the man for letting us play at his booth. He said that he enjoyed having us there. I could tell that Dene was glad we were moving along.

       “I was afraid Ped was going to start his farting one of those tunes just any minute.” Dene chimed in as we walked away.

       “Those guitars were pretty good but they don’t sound as good as the ones you have at home. I still like to play the Ukulele when I do my farting performance. These guitars are too loud and they are hard to fart over.”

       “I noticed a lot of these women have tattoos on their titties. They are showing a lot more of their titties than I remember. They have tattoos on their back right above their asses and on their necks, and ankles too. I’ve seen several people with what looks like Chinese writing tattooed on them. It looks like a lot of the big fat women have a tattoo. Do they think people will not notice they are fat if they have a tattoo on their ass? Fat women have been around for a long time but they used to try to cover those big fat hams up. It seems like they are proud of them these days. I’ve seen several big fat white women walking around with a nigger. I don’t think I would ever get used to seeing these things. Is it late enough to think about drinking a beer?”

       “It is getting to be that time of day. We’ll get a cold one when we leave here. They don’t sell alcohol at this flea market.”

       We came upon a booth where they sell these big speakers that go in the rear of cars. There was a young man in this booth who was wearing black leather pants and shirt. He had tattoos all over his arms and neck and bald head. He had studs in his eyebrows and in his ears. He also had several in his eyebrows and in his lips. We followed Grandpa’s lead and walked into this booth.

       “What are these things?” Grandpa asked as he pointed to the big speaker cabinets.

       “Well, Pops those are speaker cabinets. They will handle 2000 watts each. You can shake the ground for blocks with these.”

       “What kind of music do you play so loud?”

       “It ain’t music it is just a beat with some rhythm.” He turned one of the speakers on and played a few seconds of that noise that some young people go around playing in their cars.”

       “I don’t understand it. Why would you want to play that loud noise?”

       “Man, you are too old to get it.”

       We walked away from this booth with Ped shaking his head. Just then a car from outside came by the flea market. It was playing this loud noise and it was shaking the entire place.

       “Let’s get out of here.” I said.

Chapter 15- The Waffle House

       We headed back toward the car and I hit the remote for unlocking the car doors. When the horn blew, it must have scared Ped and he turned loose of one of his signature farts.

       “Now we’ll have to stand here until the odor passes.” Dene said. “You guys and this farting are getting on my nerves. I’m telling you right now that I don’t intend to drive you two around the town while you drink beer and fart all day, Grandpa or not.”

       “I’m sorry Dene,” Grandpa said. “That one slipped out. You’d think a professional farter like me would be able to control it better than that. I’ll try to do better. Do you forgive me?”

       He stretched his arms out and Dene gave him a big hug. “Yeah, I forgive you.”

       I was standing behind him and I thought I heard him squeeze a little one out while he was hugging Dene but I didn’t say a word. As Ped walked around to get in the back seat I heard a distinct sound that sounded like, “I’m sorry.” It didn’t come from Grandpa’s mouth.

       “Let’s go to the Waffle House and get some lunch.” Dene said as she shook her head. “There’s one right down the street. Ped, have you ever eaten at the Waffle House?”

       “No I can’t say I have.”

       We drove the short distance down the road to the local Waffle House. We pulled into the parking lot and got out of the vehicle. As we entered the restaurant we were greeted with the familiar greeting welcoming us to the Waffle House. We chose a seat and sat down in a booth by the window. The waitress quickly came and asked us what we wanted to drink. Of course Grandpa said he wanted a beer. He decided to settle for a cup of coffee when he was told they didn’t sell beer.

       “This reminds me of some of the diners they used to have,” Grandpa said.

       “Yeah, it is a national chain that was started back in the 50’s by a couple of guys in Atlanta, GA. They have grown a lot and they are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They have these restaurants all over the South and I’m not sure how far they have spread across the country.”

       After the waitress brought our drinks, we ordered our food. Grandpa had to try a waffle and Dene and I ordered eggs with cheese. As we sipped our coffee and waited on our order, we talked about the past few days.

       “I’ve enjoyed our time together. That farting contest and washer throwing was right down my alley. Your family and friends were a lot of fun to be around.”

       “They all enjoyed meeting you too.”

       “Ped, don’t start that farting in here,” Dene said.

       “Okay, I won’t do it.”

       We engaged in some small talk until the waitress brought our food. It didn’t take that long to get our order.

       “Now, that is how I remember a restaurant is supposed to handle an order. Besides, I don’t see any niggers in here.”

       “There are some in a lot of these restaurants. They can work anywhere we can. We just happened to go in one where there aren’t any black folks here at this time.”

       “Well, it is refreshing to see a place that looks familiar.”

       We ate our food and as usual, Grandpa slurped his coffee and smacked his mouth. He didn’t fart though. We finished our meal and I left a tip and paid the bill. We returned to the car and started toward home. As we got close to the Tennessee Welcome Center, Grandpa said he needed to go to the bathroom. I pulled off the freeway into the welcome center and parked in the front of the rest area. Grandpa got out of the car and said he’d be back in a few minutes. We waited for him to return for what seemed like an eternity.

       “I’d better go check on him,” I said. “He may have run into some of this new fangled equipment.”

       I walked to the men’s room and went inside. There was nobody in there. I looked around the whole rest area but I couldn’t find Grandpa. I returned to the car where Dene was waiting.

       “Grandpa has disappeared,” I said.

       We both got out and walked all around the rest area looking for him. There was no sign of him. After a few minutes, we realized that he was gone. We couldn’t report him missing to the police because they would think we were crazy. We came back to the car and found an envelope lying on the back seat. On the front of the envelope was the following: To Ronnie and Dene

       I opened the envelope and inside was a note written in pencil that looked like a bunch of hen scratching. There were some erasures and marked out places in it but it was legible. Here is what it said:

Ronnie & Dene:

    I’m thankful for all the time we had together. Thanks for bringing me up to date on all this new technology and the new ways of living and thinking. For every good thing that has come along, it seems like there were ten bad things. I think God knew I wasn’t cut out to live in this way.

    It was a good thing that I wasn’t around to be a part of all these changes. Seeing the man you have grown to be and meeting your family are the only important things I missed out on by dying so young.  I hope you will remember The Old Farter with a smile.

Ped

    I went back to the cemetery a few times over the next weeks but it was quiet. Nobody farted or tapped on my shoulder this time. Maybe Grandpa has a point about all this new stuff.

    As I drove out of the cemetery and out onto Wilcox, I saw a young, black man walking down the sidewalk toward me. Next to him was an extremely obese white girl with tattoos on her arms, neck, and ankles. They were holding hands. The man was holding up his baggy pants with his other hand.

    I felt a strange urge to run up on the sidewalk, but I restrained myself. Dene and I recently purchased a Rebel Flag and a flagpole and put it up in the back yard next to the washer court. That will remind us of Grandpa every time we go out there. Maybe I did learn some stuff from the Old Farter.