A Burning SUV

You probably won't see this on TV since Harper is such a small place, but we had a funny (strange) happening here last week. Maudie Munch got into a big argument with her husband Cicero about wanting a new family car. Their SUV was ten years old and all her friends had newer ones. Cicero stood his ground and Maudie decided she would show him a thing or two. She doused the inside of the vehicle with gasoline from his lawn mower refill can and set it on fire. They live about two miles from the volunteer fire station and help came way too late. Unfortunately she did not remove the car from the garage (I reckon she was too mad to think straight) and set the house on fire. The volunteers did get that out and saved most of the little brick structure. Cicero says it will be a rainy day in the Sahara before he buys a new car. This morning Maudie passed by our house on the way home from the grocery store. I reckon she "borrowed" the grocery buggy she was pushing. These two ought to run for public office. I'm just saying.

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

Codswallop

Yesterday down at the cafe Bingo Whitlow and Silas Ministral got into a little discussion. Bingo is the one who used the term hogwash and Silas is the one that got the bright idea (to build an actual hog wash) from it. Bingo was talking about something he heard on TV and said, "That's a bunch of codswallop." Seems Bingo has this little book that lists words and how they got into our lingo. It was obvious to us all that Silas was a bit confused by the term. Bingo looked him in the eye and said, "Now let's see you make something out of that, Silas." Silas stood and walked around the table three times. "I'm thinking. I'm thinking," he said.

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

Hog Wash

Last week Silas Ministral, a fellow who never lets an idea (good or bad) go to waste, was listening to Bingo Whitlow talking about something he heard a politician say on the television. "That was a bunch of hogwash," said Bingo. That got Silas to thinking and that afternoon he came into the library where I volunteer and asked for a book on hogs. He told me he had an idea to build a hog wash right here in Harper. I told him I thought the expression hog wash came from the fact that washing hogs was useless since they live in mud. But lo and behold Silas found that people do have a need to wash hogs before they crate them up to ship them of to their final reward. He made a list right then and there of what he would need including the kind of soap preferred by most hog washers and left all full of pep and vigor. Yesterday I saw him go by with a large bathtub on the back of his truck and this morning I went out to his farm to check on his progress. I found him in his side yard digging a hole to deposit the tub in. He said he planned to make walls on each side and have a strip of concrete with showers for the final rinse. Hmmmm. I'll let y'all know.

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

Moving Service

I ain't gonna mention names in this one. A lady here in Harper had to have her funeral service moved to a different church than the one she attended all her life. It was because of the music she wanted to be played. She taught music here in Harper and had requested the Harper Orchestra (ten members) play Mascagni's intermezzo from his opera Cavalleria Rusticana. It is a beautiful piece of music and if you haven't had the opportunity to hear it you should do so. Anyway, the preacher at the church where the funeral was to be held would not allow that music to be played. He said they had a perfectly good hymn book with several hundred songs that would be acceptable for his flock to hear. The daughter of the dearly departed would not go against her mother's wishes and arranged to have everything moved to another church. She had seen the pastor at the opera in New Orleans and figured he would be agreeable to the selection. He even said it would be okay to have someone read Robert Frost's Birches, another request of the deceased. I ain't got no comment other than to say I like the song and the poem a lot.

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

The Boy, the Horse, and the Lawn Chair

We had a pretty bad accident in Harper County yesterday. Philo Wadswing was sitting in his lightweight lawn chair watching his young grandson parading around the pasture on his horse. When the boy got tired of riding he came up to where his grandfather was sitting and proceeded to tie the horse's reins to the chair. Philo warned him that this wasn't a good idea. The boy did it anyway. It wasn't a full minute till the horse saw something that interested him and took of for it. The chair collapsed and one of the aluminum rods stuck in Philo's upper leg. He is still in the hospital. Philo's wife, Clarabelle, told him he needed to sell that horse. Philo said, "There ain't no way in hell I'm selling my horse, but if I though I could get anything for that boy I'd start putting ads in the Harper Bee tonight." He was just kidding. I think.

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

A Green Resident

Margo Wigglestaff, a lifelong resident of Harper, is real big on protecting our environment. While I admire a lot of what she does sometimes she goes a little overboard. Her big effort right now is to get Horace Middleborough to stop burning off his sugar cane field before harvesting. Horace has done this for years and his daddy did it before him. Margo says he should harvest the unburned field, shuck off the leaves, and use them for many things that won't harm nature. Horace told her he would do that if she would come out and remove the leaves for him. Of course she ain't gonna do that. Horace asked her what the leaves could be used for and she told him he should look it up himself, she did not have time to do his work for him. I kinda hope he keeps the burning up. I know it's selfish on my part by I kinda enjoy the nice haze of molasses smoke* that drifts over Harper during the process.

* Not to be confused with the stuff that some people smoke in water pipes.

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

Boredom

Haley Comsquat was telling this morning about his son and daughter-in-law moving out of Harper and up to Jackson. She complained that there was nothing to do in Harper and she got bored.

Neville Piercelaw said he made the mistake of telling his daddy he was bored back when he was a boy living at home.

His daddy said, "Boy, you ain't allowed to be bored as long as the grass is growing and the cows need milking. It's sitting on that sofa reading funny books that make you bored. Now get up and get to work. When everything is completely caught up then you can be bored, but not before."

Neville said that was the last time he could remember being bored.

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