Tattoo Man

This morning I walked down past the Harper city pool and what to my wandering eyes should appear but a man that was tattooed all over his body. He was wearing one of those little French bathing suits that barely covered the parts that needed covering. I don't reckon there was a part of his body that hadn't been under the needle. His head was kept shaved and there was an image of a brain right on top. It made a person wonder if he was marked up even under his skimpy little outfit. Frank Lee Person, an old fellow that has lived here all his life, has never been one to hold back his tongue with regard to what he's thinking about. He was down there swimming his laps when he came up out of the water and saw tattoo man walking up to the diving board.

Frank Lee yelled out, "Man, you can't get in the water with all that stuff all over your body."

"Ain't no law say I can't," said the stranger.

Frank Lee asked the pool supervisor to intervene and the fellow said he didn't think he could get involved for fear that tossing the tattoo man out would probably result in his having to touch him and he just wasn't prepared for that.

Frank Lee addressed the tattoo man again. "Man, I don't know how you can walk around looking like that."

"You don't understand," he responded. "Without my styling I would feel plumb naked."

All I can say is I had one little tattoo placed on my upper back when I left home for the Korean War. It had a rose and underneath that the word BETHEL, my first wife's name. I still got it. There were two reasons for that markup on my body. One, Bethel was my first love. And two, I was drunk when I got it.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

It's Football Time

Last night I got a late phone call. It was Hollis and he was in Nashville for the Ole Miss/Vanderbilt football game. It was an SEC game and the season opener. Last year Vanderbilt came back from a seventeen point deficit to defeat Ole Miss so all the Mississippi fans were all revved up wanting revenge. Hollis said he figured I would still be up because the game was real exciting. Ole Miss jumped out to a ten to nothing lead, but Vandy score twenty-one unanswered points. They led at half time twenty-one to ten. Ole Miss started the second half by scoring, then Vandy scored, and the lead went back and forth till the last couple minutes of the game. One of Vanderbilt's best players was hit hard and had to leave the game and Vandy was deep in their territory with a fourth down and a lot of yards to go. They went for it and made a first down. The injured player came back and made a big gain. Then next play Vandy scored and led by three points. There was just over a minute left when an Ole Miss running back made a long run for a touchdown. On the kick off to Vandy the ball went into the end zone and the man who received it made a good run back. A face mask penalty put the ball close to the fifty yard line. Vandy was coming back when the ball was intercepted and that ended the game with Ole Miss winning: Thirty-nine to Thirty-five.

It was good to talk to Hollis and hear him so excited about the victory.

I know a lot of you may not be interested in football but I had all that in my head and just had to get it out.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Keeping Up With the Mowing

It's been raining a lot over here in Harper County and with that comes a need to mow at least twice a week. You won't find it written down in any book and it certainly can't be found in the Bible, but one of the biggest sins in the mind of people around here is a yard that doesn't get proper attention. If you want to be talked about at the barbershop or in the various sewing circles just skip a needed yard mowing. Jasper Leadbottom had his mower in the shop last week. To keep the gossip mongers off his back he painted up a big sign and erected it in front of his house.

SORRY FOLKS

MOWER IN THE SHOP

I hope it works for him, but I doubt it.

Boasting

It's kind of a hard thing to talk about yourself just the right amount. If a fellow goes on too long and with too much information it turns to boasting.

Yesterday, Samuel Barqueson came into the barbershop. He moved away from Harper about twenty years ago and was back visiting his mother. Horace McFarlowe made the mistake of asking what Sam, we used to call him Sam, was up to.

"Well, a lot," said Samuel. "Y'all probably know I was first in my class in law school so that got me a good position right off the bat. I was with the number one firm in Atlanta and it didn't take me too long to move up the ladder. I did the research that won one of the biggest cases the firm had (up to that date) and the partners were so impressed they gave me my own office. Within three years I was asked to be a partner, but I told them to wait a couple of years and let me get a little more experience. But within a year they insisted and so I made partner. As y'all know I have always been passionate in my political beliefs so when a committee came to me and asked me to run for state senate I couldn't turn them down. I won. I stayed in that body for several years in spite of several attempts to get me to run for governor. I just couldn't justify all that time and money when so many people in the state don't have a clue about what's going on. I have served the Chamber of Commerce, church committees, feed the hungry committees, flood support, hurricane support, and too many other committees to name."

He looked over at me and asked, "Harvey Lee, what have you been up to?"

"Nuthin'," I replied.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Savvy Kids

This morning Wendell Wash was still talking about his little granddaughter, Sally Jane. He was taking her home after a little morning visit at their house. She asked him if the ice cream had been by his house lately. He told her he hadn't seen that truck in a long time and she said she hadn't either. For about a mile she didn't say anything. He said he was looking at her in the rearview mirror and could tell she was deep in thought. Finally she said, "Grandpoppa, why don't we buy our own ice cream truck and we could park it behind your house under the apple tree and we could take it out whenever we wanted to." Wendell told her that was a good idea and he would think on it. Sally Jane was silent for another mile then she said, "But I reckon it would be a good idea to run it by grandmomma. Don't you?"

Kids today ain't just smart, they know how things work too.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Precocious Kids

Kids today are pretty smart. When we (a bunch of us grandpas) meet for coffee every morning one of the main subjects of conversation is about our grandkids and the things they said during the week.

Jasper Wheelfarb was telling about little Billy. He and his wife, Malverine, were keeping Billy one morning and Malverine was trying to talk on the phone. The little boy kept interrupting. "Don't you know what privacy is?" said Malverine. "Yes, it's when daddy is in the bathroom," replied Billy.

Wendell Wash told about his four year old granddaughter, Sally Jane. She wants everything done a certain way and will not hesitate to tell how she thinks things should be. Wendell's wife, Barlove, was setting the table for dinner and Sally Jane didn't like the order in which she was spreading the silver so she corrected her grandmother. Barlove said, "Aren't you being a little bossy?" "No, I'm just being observant," said Sally Jane.

I know we weren't half as smart as these kids when we were little.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Guitar House Revisited

A while back I told about this house out in the county that was built to look like a guitar lying on its back. It is complete even to the paint job and the wires running down the fret where the strings would be. Since then the owner who thinks himself a great musician and had a day job down at the plant that makes women's undergarments has gotten a promotion. He is now warehouse manager and apparently receives a higher salary. Yesterday he was showing off plans for a larger house. If the weather holds out during the winter months, next spring him and his wife plan to move into the new place. They are replacing the guitar with a cello.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Breakfast Memories

When I was a boy back in the late thirties we would visit my daddy's brother down in Louisiana several times a year. One of the things I remember most was the breakfast my aunt served. Fried eggs were presented on a platter, grits in a big bowl, bacon and sausage piled on a large plate. The sound of coffee spurting up in a couple of old percolators was our breakfast music. The thing my daddy liked best was Auntie's biscuits. They were large and flaky and were brought to the table directly from the oven. Butter was in a large block and the cream was so heavy it would not fall off the spoon no matter how hard you shook. We open our biscuits and piled on butter then the heavy cream and watched as the molasses slowly dropped on to the top of our concoction. Fortunately for my daddy and me my mother's breakfast was devoid of the fatty cream. I reckon that's one of the reasons I have lived into my 80's while all my uncles on my daddy's side barely made it into their seventies. My aunt's breakfast sure was good though.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Fisherman

Geezer Johnston just rode by on his old bicycle on the way to his favorite fishing spot on the lake. His fishing rod stuck up in the air like a radio antenna on a police car. One thing I always notice about him is the smile he seems to have tattooed on his face. He is eternally happy. Geezer whose real name is Seymore retired from his law office a few years ago. He was once the mayor of Harper, state representative, candidate for governor (he lost by less than a thousand votes), and county judge. Now he is just a fisherman.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

A Lifetime of Sick

I ran into Merlene Pottshaw down at the bank yesterday. Her mother passed away last week and I wanted to express my sympathy. "It was for the best," she told me.

"Mamma lived for 96 years in pure agony. I reckon y'all all knew that. She experienced every ailment listed in her medical dictionary and consequently had every test known to man short of an autopsy. She read the obits on a regular basis and would take on the disease left behind by the deceased more often than not. If she would have been allowed an x-ray every time she requested one she would have lit up like Madam Curie and would not have even been a candidate for the Nobel Prize. In a way illness or perceived illness was like a tonic to her. We think it's what kept her going so long. She asked her doctor to prescribe every drug she saw advertised on TV and when she talked him into it she preceded to have all the side effects listed on the little pamphlet they give out down at the drug store. Me and the other children had to make a tough decision. She had told us many times she wanted to have an autopsy after her death to tell everyone once and for all just how bad off she was. We just couldn't bring ourselves to do it. Hope she forgives us. I think you could say mamma truly enjoyed poor health."

I had to get away as quick as possible because I started to feel a headache coming on. Hope it's not a brain tumor.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

A Laconic Citizen

Yesterday we were driving down Harper Lake Street when Dorothy spotted Webster Newfoundland  out in front of the barbershop. He was just standing there listening.

Dorothy said, "If you look up laconic in the dictionary you will find Webster's picture there."

Of course I went to the library as soon as I could and of course Webster's picture wasn't really in the dictionary, but I did learn that laconic means basically that he is a man of few words. And it's true. He will just stand or sit and listen to the person talking to him and if he does have any comment it is usually in the form of a question. To find out more about what the person is saying, doncha know? When he does come out with a declaration it usually borders on the profound.

One day last year I overheard a conversation between Webster and a stranger in town.

"Good morning, sir," said the stranger.

Webster just smiled.

"I'm thinking of moving here. What are the people like?"

Webster struggled out a question. "What are they like where you live now?"

"Oh, they are terrible. My neighbor is so nosy she reports everything I do to my wife. The people at the church are against everything. The schools want the kids to follow unusually difficult rules that make it hard for parents to have time to pursue things they are interested in. The city council actually gets the police to hand out fines if you don't keep your yard mowed. You can't blow your horn in the city limits. Throw one little coffee cup out the window of your car and you're as much as a criminal. I can't wait to get out of there."

"Well, I think you'll find the people around here just like those where you're coming from," said Webster.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Eye Test

I am happy to report that the streets of Harper are safer today. Yesterday Luster Little failed his eye test down at the place where you go to get your driver's license renewed. Luster is about ninety-five years old and has been a danger to our citizens for the last several years. Even though he has had many close calls he has never been in an accident himself. However we all suspect he has caused a few with his erratic driving. A stop sign or a red light was a signal for Luster to blow his horn and proceed across an intersection. I have often seen him backing out of parking places with the accelerator pushed to the floor and his left foot slowly, ever so slowly, releasing the clutch petal. When he had to parallel park it was a time consuming experience that left his old Chrysler either too far out in the street or on the sidewalk or grass.
Yesterday I happened to be down at City Hall where they do the vision test for renewals when Luster came in. He wears these real thick glasses that make his eyes kinda look like lizard eyes and was feeling his way up the stairs to the testing room. I helped him up the last four steps and accompanied him in. The young woman who was giving the test was real patient and gave Luster ever opportunity to succeed.

"Read the lowest line on the chart that you can, Mr. Little."

"There ain't nothing but a "E" on that paper. Y'all ought to change that. A fellow what wanted to cheat could come in here and claim he saw a "E" when he really didn't 'cause it don't never change, doncha know?"

"Can you see a light flashing to your left?"

"There ain't no light."

"Can you see a light on your right?"

"There ain't no light in that box. If there's supposed to be a light you need to get that thing fixed."

"Mr. Little, do you have an eye doctor?"

"Do I have a eye doctor? I reckon I do. I have to go ever month for a check. She says I got the worst case of Macaroni This Generation she has ever saw?"

Well, he didn't get his renewal and he just couldn't believe it. It's good news for most of the people in Harper, but not so good for me. I have volunteered my services to take Luster to the doctor, grocery store, and barbershop and any place else he needs to go. I reckon I felt bad about him having to deal with Macular Degeneration and all. That big old car will just sit in his driveway because his daughter went over yesterday after she heard about his ordeal and confiscated the keys.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Marry Up

My mother told me when I was a teenager and started to chase girls that a man should always marry someone who was better than he was. She figured a woman has more influence on a man's behavior than the other way around. And I followed her advice in three of my marriages and in one of them not so much. I reckon three out of four is pretty good. My last marriage, to Dorothy, makes my mother's advice seem particularly correct. Dorothy is definitely better than me in 'most every way. She is better looking, more logical, better organized, and certainly more intelligent than I ever hope to be. And she has absolutely no ambition to pull me up to her standards. I asked her one time how she managed to avoid judging and nagging while my other wives were hellbent on making me more like them. Dorothy said, "It would be like sitting on the sofa watching a funny, well written sitcom and rewriting the plot."
She said it would bust up the enjoyment of the show if you were hard at work while viewing it. See how smart she is?

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

An Accident By Any Other Name

The dangest thing happened down at Harper General Clinic yesterday. My good friend Cleavemore Reynolds, retired airline pilot and Sunday School teacher, was admitted for an operation on his frozen shoulder. It had gotten so bad he could not move his arm up or down, or sideways. They don't do a lot of this kind of surgery at this hospital, but Cleavemore's granddaddy gave a big money contribution that enabled them to build a surgery suite and Cleavemore was bound and determined that his procedure be done there. A qualified surgeon came down from Jackson and all was set for 7 a.m.

Waymon Klutzfield, a young Harper boy, has always been known for little mishaps. Unfortunately many people have been affected and not in a good way. Yesterday all that changed. Waymon had been given the job of orderly at the hospital on a trial basis. He had been let go down at the feed and seed when he got an order mixed up and Ben Hadley planted a field intended for some edible crop with wild flowers. It came up real pretty but didn't put food on the table.

Anyway, Waymon was lifting Cleavemore on to the stretcher that was to take him down to the surgery suite and Waymon slipped and dropped his patient hard on the rolling cart. It scared Cleavemore real bad and he started waving both his arms in the air and shouting out bad stuff at poor Waymon. That's when he realized the frozen shoulder had thawed (if that's what you call it.) Everything came out okay (no operation was needed) for everyone except Waymon. The hospital administrator said the accident while it might have had a happy outcome was an accident just the same and his hospital did not allow for accidents. Waymon is once again looking for employment.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Witty vs. Silly

Years ago one of my kids told me that only about one thing out of ten that I said was witty while nine of them were silly. He said I should use my "filter" and weed out the silly ones. I thought it over and realized that I already did that. And that meant only one thing out a hundred things I thought of was witty, in the combined view of myself and my son.
One of the problems with being witty is only a small percent of the people you talk to will "get it." Whereas most people will "get" silly whether they think it's funny or not.
Thus I decided years ago not to worry about it. I just put things out there and people either laugh at me or laugh with me. The difference in these two situations has become less important to me as time goes by.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Fears

We got this new electronic sign down at the bank. Everyday they put facts (world, sports, entertainment, etc.), cute little sayings, and a few advertisements up for us to view as we get our banking done. Yesterday they had a little quote from a comedian who claimed while a lot of people had a fear of heights, he had a fear of widths. Got me to thinking about Dervon Catchwear, a guy who runs a one-man farm over on the other side of the lake. Dervon had, and I'm not sure you would call it a fear as much as a dread, of widths. If he had had his way the walk to town would be a mile shorter and while he was proud of his property he would just as soon have had the distance shrunk to accommodate a shorter walk to survey his land. When his wife wanted to buy a king size bed he put his foot down and said he had enough trouble finding her in the bed they had. He wore  his clothes and shoes too tight and that made him limp a little and gave him the appearance of Ichabod Crane.
Well, he was cured. What happened was this guy came to town giving rides in a hot air balloon. Cleaveron Wheeler dared Dervon to go up and Dervon accepted the dare. He claimed he had absolutely no fear of heights. This wasn't the case. As he was floating a few hundred feet above Harper Lake an unexpected stiff breeze sent him and the pilot drifting off course and they found themselves in the next county and on their way to the coast and the Gulf of Mexico. When the balloon operator saw the waters ahead he managed to get the balloon down in a field just south of Poplarville. Cleaveron was following them in his car with his youngest son looking up and acting as navigator. They all got back to Harper safely. Dervon claims he is now afraid of heights and to a high degree. His fear of widths has diminished as far as we can see in his everyday actions. And his wife got her new bed.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

A Morning on the Lake

Me and my friend Willie (we've been friends since we were three years old) went out on the lake today for a little fishing. It was a little cloudy and not as hot as it has been. We were prepared for the heat with our straw hats and sunscreen. Of course Willie does not have to worry about getting sunburn as much as I do, but both our wives insist we use the skin protectant. Yesterday I got two old plastic milk jugs and filled them about 80% full with pure well water. I stuck them in the freezer and let them freeze overnight. That way we had cold water all morning. I ain't gonna say much about the fishing because that wasn't the main enjoyment of the day. Just getting together and talking and teasing each other was the thing that kept us happy. Yeah, me and Willie go way back. We made an agreement years ago that we would not let any of the racial strife that affected our country get in the way of our friendship. And we haven 't.

Bad Luck Bledslo

We got this fellow her in Harper that we call Bad Luck Bledslo. His real name is Sagamore Bledslo and he is a seller of things. I say things because every time I see him he's selling something different. Well, Sagamore came into the cafe this morning all wet and disheveled and was talking real fast about how bad his luck on the way in. Here's a little of what he said:

"I run out of gas. Meant to fill up yesterday but got distracted by this song on the radio that put me in mind of a high school dance I went to. Anyway I forgot. Then I realized I had left my cell phone on the kitchen table. I took it out of my pocket because it kept falling out while I was bending over picking up the Cheerios off the floor. I was trying to carry the cereal, my coffee, the milk, and my bowl of fruit out to the porch to eat out there when I dropped the box that I had open in advance of getting to the table. I decided to cut across Bill Meadowburg's field, the one where he keeps his big bull, in hopes that old Ferdinand was put up in the barn. Wrong. Here come that black monster and I barely escaped. He did nip me with his horns and tore my pants. I was wearing my suit pants because I forgot to put my regular every day pants in the wash. After I got over the fence I wasn't looking where I was going 'cause that song I heard yesterday kept coming back on me and I was looking up at the clouds trying to make out images to go along with the music. That's when I stepped in that mud puddle and had to take off my shoes and socks on one foot. I stepped on this board with a nail in it and took off my other sock to stop the bleeding. Now I've got to get another tetanus shot soon as I eat my breakfast. Dorothy, fix me four eggs, six strips of bacon, two biscuits with lots of butter, hash browns, and a cup of dark roast coffee. Damn, I forgot to take my cholesterol pill this morning."

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Gigi, the Gossip Girl

From the Harper Bee, our local newspaper:

WHAT'S HAPPENING

by GiGi, your Gossip Girl

It has come to the attention of Gigi that a certain Mrs. K has entered night school at the Harper Lake University under the tutelage of Professor M. In a comment to a confidential source Mrs. K stated she had resisted enrollment in the college preferring to stick to the home schooling she had previously signed up for. It was only after Professor M presented his credentials to her in the Harper Library between the shelves containing Fish and Game on one side and Self Help on the other that she chose the direction of her further education. She stated that her home schoolteacher had the equivalent of a junior high certificate while Professor M surely had a PhD. It remains to be seen when graduation will occur and what it will lead to.

I asked Dorothy what she thought about this. Her comment: "Thinly veiled."

The sister of the person we think is Mrs. K. told Dorothy that she called it to her sister's attention and Mrs. K. refused to believe the article was written about her. She said she had not entered the Harper Library in over five years and the person she had eyes for was certainly not professor, he was a plumber. The initials were the same but that was the only similarity she could see in the whole thing. 

I called Horace Greenleaf, editor of the Harper Bee and asked him what he thought. He said he was all for higher education and a PhD would be a better teacher than a junior high graduate. He is a little puzzled about the existence of Harper Lake University. He thought he was up on all our educational establishments but that one must have slipped by him.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Moonlighting

I hear all the time about how people find it necessary to work two jobs to make ends meet. Mostly it's the lifestyle they choose to live. I think of it as Oliver Hardy trying to get Stan Laurel's pants on. He could lose weight or he has to get a bigger pair of pants.
Around here most people just work one job. A few don't work at all and live off others, but only a few. I reckon it's okay to double work if you're a mind to. Not in the case of Ethyl Lou Pump though. She is the town psychologist. She has been for over thirty years since she move here from Tennessee. I have never been sure about her qualifications and have been a little suspicious since Mavelle Moosetrack reported that the diploma hanging on Ethyl's office wall came from a school none of us have ever heard of: Heard Knox University.
But this is about her moonlighting. Her second job is with the Harper Bee, our local newspaper. She writes the weekly gossip column "The Gossip Girl". Seems to me this is a conflict of interest. I got concerned enough to call the paper and discuss the matter with the editor, Horace Greenleaf. He says not to worry because Ethyl uses only initials and never puts in a person's real name. Also, she changes things around, like the location of a happening and the time of year and/or the time of the day. Things like that. Tomorrow I'll give you one of her columns and you can decide for yourself.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Mansfield Park (Hollis)

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
1814 - poor relation - rich aunt - second class family member - clergy - class struggle - marriage for wealth - flirtations - affair - elopement - rejection - usual Austen happy ending.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle

Paper Mill?

Today I smelled a smell I ain't smelled in a long time. If I ain't mistaken it's coming from that paper mill down in Louisiana. The facility is located some sixty miles away, as the crow flies, but we used to get a whiff of it two or three times a year. I reckon it was ten years ago when they come up with a new technique for producing their product that eliminated the use of sulphur. It was the sulphur was gave the air a rotten egg aroma. Today that same odor came floating in upon us here in Harper. I have been trying to figure it out all day. Did they go back to the old method? Did some old employee who got fired come back and gum up the works in an act of revenge? Is there another paper mill maybe off in another direction that's still using sulphur? Or is it something entirely different? A new industry? Some kind of barnyard smell?

I asked Dorothy if she smelled it and she said she didn't know what I was talking about. She couldn't smell a thing. She told me I must be smelling my upper lip. I don't think I heard that little insult since I was in the fifth grade, but I laughed anyway. I asked around town and nobody seemed to have detected anything in the air. I did get about six upper lip jokes. Now I am beginning to believe it was my imagination. I have heard of people seeing things and hearing things, but never of people smelling things. I am a little worried.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle