This is old blower and you know I was telling you the other day about me doing these interviews for the paper you know for with old Brenda Puckett and And you know she wanted me to tell her some stories about when I was growing up And so that's what I done and she published them in the paper and a lot of people liked them You know they thought they was interested in stories and they are true stories They really really did happen But I thought I would tell you one of them since y'all don't get this paper down here They call this paper the lightning bug, but I know y'all don't get it So I thought I'd tell you one of these stories that I told her that she printed and this it's a true story It really did happen and it it happened when I was a boy about it Well, I wasn't I was about 16 years old is is and There was this old boy that come to see me well He didn't come to see me he come to see my sister and he was he was buzzing around her But he was a good old boy and him and me got to be friends, you know and later on he married my sister Now they didn't stay married very long, but he didn't marry her But at that particular time he was just coming down there to see her But him and me got to be friends and we'd run around all over the country and do stuff You know getting mischief and stuff like that You know like boys will do and so we decided that we would go down to his Grandma's and she lived down there in the Natural steps down there about Roman and it was about 75 miles away You know we lived in in Bisco and she lived at natural steps so we were gonna go down there to see her and he was you know old Clarence he was kind of wild and he used to ride the freight trains and so he told me that We could get down there on the freight train and I said well Clarence never rode none of them trains before and he said oh it ain't no ain't no trouble He said the train stops down here at Duvall's bluff for water and you know you got to do is just you'll jump in one of the box cars And he said it ain't ain't even moving so I said well I can do that You know so we walked to Duvall's bluff about over three miles away and and so that train come by and show enough It stopped there for water and and we got up in one of them box cars and And and we rode that train you know to Little Rock and on the way down there of Clarence He said well we better get off in Little Rock He said that train goes on out to natural steps, but he said it don't stop there He said you know usually when I go he said I just ride the train and I jump off of it But he said you ain't never done it before you know you might get hurt or something and I said well no Clarence if you can do it I reckon I can do it. I said Just tell me what to do and he said well it don't it's not going very fast when you get to natural steps And he said all you got to do is just you know hit the ground running is what he said and so I said I knew that so Instead of getting off in Little Rock like we should have done could have done and should have done We rode that train on out to natural steps. It's about all I guess back then it was about 15 miles Old past Little Rock, but we rode the train on out to natural steps But Clarence was wrong about that train slowing down that train didn't slow down It's beat it up and and we had to get off the train if we could and Clarence said well He said I can get off but he said I don't know whether you can or not and I said well if you can Clarence I said I'll get off somewhere or other so he put his foot down there on the ground You know and and it thowed his foot way up in the air, you know cause if that train was really moving so all Clarence finally He got he got his nerve up and he jumped off with that train But see he held on to it too long and when he did he stretched out there and he hit the ground on his face and stomach and He slid well, I don't know how far he slid but I thought he killed him I really did and so I thought to myself I got to get off of this thing somehow or other so I jumped off the train and I hit the ground running just as hard as I could and I run down through some bar a brawers in a bar patch there but I didn't ever did fall you know like he done and So I run about a quarter of a mile before I could stop and then I had to go back and see about old Clarence And I thought he was killed I really did and I got to him and finally he said up You know he was he was hurting awful bad and he set up and he said how'd you get off with that train and And I said well, I jumped off of it. He said no, you didn't he said that that train He said that was must have been going 70 miles an hour He said you couldn't have jumped off of that train.
He said that train stopped for you didn't it and I said no Clarence I I jumped off the train. I said you told me what to do and Well, he was hurt bad He was he was bleeding and he had him senders all in his face You know where he had hit the ground and and all them senders and him little old gravels off of that railroad track had buried up in his face And so he got up. He was hurt bad But he you know he got up off the ground and we walked him down there to his grandma's house about Five I guess is about About five or two yards on down the road. Maybe maybe a half mile But anyway, we walked on down there when he lived down there.
He was he was in bad shape but he his grandma got to him and she she started picking him senders out of his face and and he was you know He had him in his arms and in his own his own his chest on his belly Every you know, he had that them senders just ground into his under his hide, you know and she had to pick them all out And he was bruised all over but it didn't do no Serious damage. I mean, you know, he was so were natural, but he was just plain lucky that he didn't get killed so anyway, we stayed down there about I guess it's about three weeks and they had a lot of church doings down there and so we We went to them church doings and you know, there was a lot of girls that come to that church down there and we got interested in them We got interested in them and and we started to you know kind of courting on the sly, you know But anyway, we stayed down there about three weeks and old Clarence got over most of his injuries, you know At least he wasn't he wasn't so he was still awful bruised but we decided that we was going to go back home and So his grandma she was going to send a cow back with us to She's gonna give it to my daddy and So We didn't have no way to get a cow home, you know, except to walk her home, but she was nothing would do her But that she would give us that cow. So We took off that night about it was after church. So I guess it was about nine o'clock And so anyway, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop right here And then I'm gonna tell you about the trip back home because it took us a long time to get back home But I'm gonna tell you that in the next part a next podcast