This is old blower and I wanted to finish up if I could tell you about Uncle Fred. You know last time I told you about Fred and the preacher and how Fred wanted to join up with the choir. But I wanted to tell you, you know, Uncle Fred is a good man. And everybody down here likes Uncle Fred.
You know even the kids like him. You know, Uncle Fred is gruff. But the kids, they know that. You know, and they kids can tell, you know, what kind of person you are inside.
And so Uncle Fred is real gruff with him. But all the kids just hang around him. He's always got canned in his pocket and he gives that out to the kids. But Uncle Fred has got a big place down here.
Oh, I guess he's got probably three or four hundred acres of ground. It ain't all cultivated, you know, but he's got that much land maybe more than that. Some of it's woods. But he's got a great big orchard down here and he races peaches and apples and pears.
And then he's got a great big old field of strawberries. I mean, he's got, I don't know, about three acres of strawberries down here. And he just gives it to everybody that wants to pick it. He gives it to him.
You know, he just lets him pick it for free. And all the women come down here and pick Uncle Fred's strawberries and his apples when they're in season and his peaches. And they put up a lot of canned peaches and preserves and blackberries jam and strawberry jam and Uncle Fred just gives it to him, you know. And he just loves the kids like I say and he's always got a pocket full of candy to give them, you know, they come by.
So they all just love Uncle Fred. Oh, Flossy butts. She picks all of her strawberries and blackberries and puts up all of her jellies and fruits and she's trying to pay Uncle Fred for it a bunch of time, but he won't never take no money, you know. And of course, Flossy butts, she shares with me, you know, because I give Flossy butts milk and butter, you know, we help each other that way.
And she gives me your jellies and jams. I wouldn't have none of that stuff if it wasn't for Flossy butts. But she takes care of everybody down here like I told you. And so that's how Uncle Fred helps the community that way.
And you know, if somebody's coming down the road and they'll see him, he'll offer him something you know, a pear or apple or peach, you know, whatever's in season. And if you won't have a job, if you want to work, Uncle Fred, I'll hire you. He don't care who you are. He don't care about you race or nothing.
If you needn't work, he'll hire you. But Uncle Fred has got some peculiar beliefs. And he don't, you know, he don't take a back seat to nobody. He'll tell you right quick what he thinks.
And you know, like for instance, he don't believe the world is round and he don't. And he'll tell you right quick at the world ain't round. He says, and see Uncle Fred, he believes in the Bible and he always cares the Bible with him. And he can quote the Bible too.
I mean, he knows he's an authority on the Bible. And he's always, you know, he's always picking at my girl, Emily, because you know, Emily wants to be a scientific when she grows up. And I told you before that she's won that science award down here at school, you know, three years running. And he's always picking at her and he'll say, Emily, I went over to the end of the world yesterday and just laugh.
He thinks that's, that's funny. And it makes Emily just as mad as he can. And she thinks he's just messing with him, but, and he is, he is, but he's serious too. Uncle Fred actually believes that the world is flat and he, he goes by this verse in the Bible.
See, Uncle Fred knows his Bible real good, but he takes it literary, you know, everything in the Bible is just literary, you know, true is, and he'll take it for, and it's, you know, just exactly what it says. So he's always quoting this verse. I think it's in Revelation. I don't, I don't know the Bible and I don't claim to.
And he'll quote this verse in Revelation about the angels, stood on the four corners of the earth. And then he'll say, enough said. That's what he says when he gets, when he gets through with a conversation, he says, enough said, and that means you don't argue with Uncle Fred. But Emily, she says, you know, she'll argue with him.
She said, well, I've seen it on television. He said, well, did you see him go up in the space? So you don't believe the men went to the moon for incidents. And, and she said, well, no, I didn't see him do it, but said, I, I've seen the on television and Uncle Fred just laugh and he'll say, oh, yeah, I've seen a lot of stuff on television.
I've seen Bonanza on television. He said, do you believe that? And she'll say, well, no, that's just a show. And he said, well, how do you know that thing that you've seen was just a show?
How do you know they wouldn't, wouldn't just put in that on television as a show? And it don't make no difference. What you say, don't go free it. He's got his mind made up.
And so I told him, Lee, I said, Emily, you might as well not argue with Uncle Fred because he's got his mind made up and, and he's set in his ways. But like I told you, he is a good, a good man. And so I don't, I don't let him bother me, you know, because I know if a person is good and he's good and he might be curious, but that don't mean he can't be good. And Uncle Fred has always been again daylight savings time.
And I remember when they first come out with it back in the sixties. Well, Uncle Fred said it would, it would mess the cows up and they couldn't give no milk. And they would know, you know, what time it was. And he said, chickens wouldn't know what time to go to roost and stuff like that.
And he just, you know, before they went on it, he had all kinds of things to say. And he said they ought not to do it. And he said they was in league with the devil and all kinds of stuff. But anyway, they went on it anyway in spite of Uncle Fred.
But what I was going to tell you was that this year Fred said he wasn't going on daylight savings time. And that's the truth. It happened about a month ago. And old Fred said he told him up in the church house.
He said, I ain't going on daylight savings time. So when it come time, when it come time to go on daylight savings time, it was back under March about old three weeks ago. Well, old Fred never did say this clock forward. He left his clock just where it was.
And he told me he said, I'm just going to go on a regular time. And so that was all right. To old Fred went up to the church house on Sunday and he found out that they'd started church without him and it made him mad and he got, you know, stumped up there and told the preacher, I'm driving from the church and told the preacher that that was that one that he was on the Lord's time. And the preacher said, well, Uncle Fred, he said that's a, you know, that the government put his own list and I can't do nothing about it.
And he said, it don't matter to me really one way or the other, whether we go on to the night, but he said, the government said that we were going on daylight savings time and he said, we can't keep the clock back. It was like it was just for you. Well, Uncle Fred stomped out of the church and he studied about it, you know, cracked about it there the rest of the week. But the next Sunday, you know, he said his clock up and so he went to church at the regular time.
He didn't like it, but he did. But anyway, that gives you a little bit more information about Uncle Fred. Like I say, he is a little curious, but, but he is a good man. And he just, we've got a lot of good people down here and Uncle Fred's just, you know, part of the community.
And like I say, everybody likes him when he, you know, pulls one of his shenanigans up out to church house where they just, they just look over it and they say, well, that's just, that's just Uncle Fred. And they try to, you know, to sue these feelings, you know, whenever he gets mad or gets on one of them tears, well, they, they kind of, they'll come down to the house and to his house and visit with him and, you know, bring him some, he dips that sweet get, snuff and they'll bring him a box of snuff or they, some of that plug of that book of the woods to the back of because that's well, Uncle Fred has been chewing that stuff ever since I can remember. So they'll bring him a plug at the back and ask him how he's doing and, and, you know, try to, they just overlook Uncle Fred. What they do is they, they humor him as what they do.
They humor Uncle Fred till he gets in a good mood. So that's all I'm going to say about Uncle Fred, but I hope you understand that he is a, he is really a good man and everybody down here likes him. And so I'm going to, I'm going to stop and I'll be back on here in a day or two and tell you some other stuff that's going on down here. And I'm going to tell you there's been another episode in this saying all day and dinner on the grounds.
And I'll tell you about that the next time that the next time I have time chance to do a pot.