This is the old bluest and I'm, I tell you the truth, I'm just a little bit mad, but I'm trying my best to hold my temper. I want to tell you what happened to me, and maybe you can give me some advice and tell me what I ought to do. But I'll try to tell this as quick as I can, but you know, I ain't never had nothing in my life that I didn't have to work off a hard board. I used to pick cotton to my back give out, and then I got a job as a night watchman, and just stuff like that, I ain't never had much education.
I had to drop out of school when I was in a second grade. My daddy moved down on the river to, you know, fishing and I had to have him, and I couldn't go to school. And then when I did get back to school with him, boys that I was with, they was already up six, seventh grade, and I was back with a little bit of kids. And so, you know, I just, I had to drop out, just give up and started trying to make my way the best I could.
Well, anyway, I was trying to, you know, do the best I could and whole cotton and stuff like that. My aunt, Juniper, which she ain't really my aunt. She was a friend of my mama's, that's what she was. We called her Aunt Juniper, but she wasn't no kin to me at all.
She just wasn't no kin to my mama. She just was a friend, and we called her Aunt Juniper. Well, I used to go up there quite a bit. She had this girl working for her, doing her washing and cooking and stuff, you know, Aunt Juniper is getting old and up in years, and she had to have somebody to help her.
And that girl was good, was good help for her. And, but that girl was a, she was, you know, a good looking girl is what she was. And I got kind of struck on her, you know, and I used to come up there quite a bit. And Aunt Juniper, you know, she didn't like it much.
She told me I needed to stay away from there. And she told me what she said was that if I would put using around up there that she would, you know, try to do something nice for me. Well, I told her I would. I'd try my best to stay away from there.
And so I started staying in home at night. And she was good as a word. She did make me give me a nice premium. I won't say how much, I don't really remember how much it was, but it was a, it was a nice premium.
And I took that money and bought me 17 of the nicest, prettiest, whole steam cows that you've ever seen. And I only decided what I was gonna do was to sell milk and butter and of course I already had chickens down here and I was gonna sell milk and butter and eggs to all these people around here, you know, there's a big lumber camp up there on the levee and there's a school down here and they, you know, they drank a lot of milk, they feed milk and butter to them kids up there. And I was gonna sell milk and butter to these people. Well, of course, when you start to do that, you got to get in with the health department.
I didn't know that, but you do, because the health department has all kinds of rules and regulations that you have to follow. And I understand that, because all they try to do is make sure that, that they, you know, that when you sell in milk that it's clean and you're gonna, well, it won't hurt people, you know. And so they've got all kinds of rules and regulations that you gotta follow. And so I worked down here for, I guess, whole better than a year, you know, trying my best to satisfy the health department.
They'd come down here and inspect and they'd find some little something I hadn't done. And, you know, they made me poor concrete down here for the, where I milked the cows and had me put in, you know, some kind of washer. And then of course I had to bypass the riser. I don't know what that is, but I had to buy one.
And they had special can jad to use. And I was 17 months getting set up down here to satisfy them, but they come down here finally and looked my place over and said, I, you know, supplied with all the rules and they, I passed inspection and they told me that I could sell milk and butter. And so I talked to the people at the school house down here into the lumber camp up there on the levy and hospitals, I've sold to this hospital down here. And I want to tell you, I started making some real good money.
That's the truth, I started making more money than I've ever made in my whole life. And I was doing awful good. You know, I was kind of proud of myself for what I'd managed to do. You know, of course I know I wouldn't have done it, hadn't been for any juniper, but, but I did, you know, what I mean, take advantage of my opportunity.
Well, I got this friend down here named Fosse, but I told you about her before. And she's not a girlfriend, she's a young girl. You know, she's a whole Fosse is, you know, 26. And I'm a old man, you know, and so she comes down here, she's a good friend, she watches television with me, but we ain't got no, you know, interest, a romanical interest in each other.
She just, she just comes down here to watch the television. She got no television of her own. And so she comes down here, well, anyway, I'm getting off the, I'm getting away from the subject, but what I was going to tell you was that last week, I got a thing in the mail. It was called a W-Dash 2 form.
It's what it was called, W-Dash 2. And what it said, the best I could make out, it said that I was, had to pay what they called income tax for that milk and butter and eggs that I was selling down here to this lover camp. Well, I just, you know, oh, flossy is, is full of the devil and she's always pulling tricks on me and she don't mean no harm. She dislikes to have fun.
And I just figured that was something that she got up when her tricks, so I thought it away, didn't pay no attention to it. Well, last Monday, I got another one and that was from the school up here. And it was one of them W-D forms, the same, I mean, W-Dash 2 forms. I don't know what I called it while ago, it was W-Dash 2 forms is what it was.
And it said, same kind of thing that I had to pay taxes on the milk and butter and eggs that I had sold to the school down there. So I thought, well, I better check this thing out because there might be, anyway, it might not be a joke at all. It could be something that I needed to tend to. So I got old buddy down here that I talked to about stuff like this old old old, you've heard him on here before and I called him up and asked him about it, you know, and he said that wasn't no joke.
He said that he had to pay taxes, you know what they call income taxes. Well, I think that's the damnest thing I've ever heard. You know, the government don't want you to get on welfare, they want you to make your own money. Well, that's right.
I mean, you should, you ought to work for what you get, I know that's right. So you go out and you try and you work and you build up a business. And I don't know how many of you've ever been around cows, but you know it's a lot of work. You know, I don't know how many of you have been stepped on by calf.
I mean, calves don't mean to do that. They just clums in awkward and, but they are heavy when they step on your feet. And I've been, I've been stepped on by calves and cows and I've been kicked by cows and I've had to clean up after them and feed them and, you know, pasture them and work. You know, there's all kinds of work in running a dairy farm, but just about the time that you get a business built up and start to make a little money, then the government starts wanting part of that money that you worked hard to get.
And that is the damnedest thing that I have ever heard. And what's more, Dore told me that you could go to the penitentiary if you didn't pay that tax. And so I asked him, I said, do you know, do you have to do it? And he said, not, you know, you do unless you want to go to the penitentiary.
And I said, well, how much tax is it? You know, how can I figure out what I've got to pay? Because I ain't got nothing, y'all. I'm telling you that, well, I've got money for groceries, but I ain't saved nothing because I didn't know nothing about this.
And I saved a penny. And old Dore told me that tax had to be paid by April the 15th. Well, that's what it said on that form too, April the 15th. So I guess I've got to try to save some money, but I asked him, I said, how much do I owe?
And he said, well, you can't tell about that. He said, what you have to do is to harre one of these PCAs. And he said, they'll tell you, how much you owe. And I said, well, I had to pay the PCAs.
And he said, oh, yeah, that's how they make a living. So I guess the PCAs are in on the racket too, because the government says you got to do it, and then you got to hire a PCA so he can figure out how much you got to pay the government. Now that's a hell of a note, but that's the way it is, I guess. So I went up there to town and I've got this PCA.
So he said he figured tax had been doing it for 20 years. And he figured and figured and he told me I owed $6,215. And I liked to have a heart attack. And so I went on the way from there and I tried to think how I was going to raise that much money in all about a month, a month and a half.
And I decided that maybe I'd better try me a note on them PCAs to see what he would say. So there was another guy down there that had this little place in a store front down there, and I went to see him. And he took my stuff that I gave him. You know, told him how much I'd sold and how much I had been paid.
And then he convinced asking me about what I had spent. He said, what did it cost you to do it? And how much equipment did I have to have and stuff like that? Well, to make a long story short, he told me that I could appreciate that equipment and that money that I'd spent.
He said, that was what they called appreciation and that I could appreciate that equipment. And that would take away from what I had to pay. And so he convinced, he had one of them adding machines there and he started hitting them keys. And he told me that I didn't owe a penny.
He said I'd divested all that money in them, that equipment that I was telling you about while ago with a Pasteration machine and all the concrete that I'd poured and all the KMs that I'd bought. And he said that I didn't owe nothing. Well, now what I'm asking you and what I want you to tell me if you know is who can I believe? If I don't do the right thing, I can go to the penitentiary and I ain't never been in the penitentiary.
Well, I did spend one night in jail one time but other than that, I ain't never been in the penitentiary and it ain't wanting to go. So if you can tell me, you know what should I do? Should I go ahead and pay the $6,000? I don't want to and to tell you the truth.
I don't know how I could do that if I was to try because I don't believe that I can get my hands on $6,000 in a month and a half. I don't believe it's the way in the world that I can do it. But if I have to do it, I've got to try. But if I don't know the man is right in what he's telling me and he's the one I want to believe, of course, he is the one that I'd, you know, would like to believe.
He said I didn't owe nothing. So if you can tell me, give me some advice on what I need to be doing, I would appreciate it and I won't take no more of your time. I know I've talked longer than I said I would, but it takes me a while to get to the point of my stores and I'm sorry about that. But if you'll help me, if you can tell me anything that'll help me, I really would appreciate it.