This is old Lois and I'm going to wind this story up now, this story that my girl Emily called the inferno. I'm going to wind that up today because I think this is going on long enough. And this is this is what Emily called the aftermath that that's means, you know, what happened after the the far and she told me to name this aftermath. But and I'm going to do that, but before I can do it, I've got to go back and tell you one of the thing about the far that I left out in the last podcast.
Now you remember I told you that they had parked three or four buses back there behind the chicken house and they was buses that they didn't use no more. And they could should have been took to should have been took to what they call M&R maintenance and I don't know what M&R stands for maintenance and reposition or something. But anyway, what you're supposed to do when you when you don't need this stuff anymore, then you turn it into M&R and then they'll get rid of it. That's what the state you know, requires you to do when you if you if you spend the state money, they won't let you get rid of stuff on the open market.
They make you take it to M&R way anyway. They should have done that and they was going to, but they just hadn't gotten around to do it yet. Anyway, what I was going to tell you was that at least two of them buses had gasoline in them. I ain't saying they was plum full of gasoline.
I don't know, but they they had, you know, a goodly amount of gas in them. And them buses exploded is what they do. They and that that caused a lot of the problem because the far department couldn't get close to the far because they was afraid that buses was going to explode. They didn't know, you know, how many of them, which ones of them had gas.
And so they had to just stay away from the whole thing and let it burn. And that's what they done. And so that was the reason that they couldn't put the far out. But anyway, I'm going to get back to the store now and I'm going to tell you about what Emily, my girl, called after map.
And when the far was over, the first thing that I've done is I want to go Jimmy Vanderstig because, you know, Jimmy Vanderstig knows everything that goes on down here. And he's, his daddy is a banker and Jimmy, he knows all them people. And then he runs around with the, you know, the ordinary people in the town like me and Olester Clark and the rest of them. And so Jimmy knows everything that goes on down here.
And I said, Jimmy, I ain't asking you who done it. I just, I don't want to know who done it. I don't want you to tell me because I don't, I wouldn't want nobody to ask me and I'd have to lie. And so don't tell me who done it.
But what I'm telling you is this. If you know who done it, you need to tell them to lay low and don't come out and brag about it because, you know, I know what Lester Clark done back when y'all, egged the principal's house and I know what he done. And this is a more serious thing because if you talk about this, well the FBI be down here only because you can get arrested for stuff like that. So I warned him.
I said, you tell whatever you do. You tell whoever it was. Don't say nothing about it because they could go to the penitentiary for stuff like that. And so he said, he'd, he said he appreciated me telling him and he said he would make sure that people kept quiet about it.
So anyway, that was the first thing I'd done. And then I'm going to tell you what happened after that, you know, it happened to me and I'm going to tell you about that. And I'm going to, I'm going to make a confession to you that I don't think I've ever told you. I ain't ashamed of it.
And I'm going to tell you about it in the next segment of this podcast here. Well, I'm going to go on with the story now. And the first thing I'm going to have to do, I don't think I've never, I know I ain't never told y'all nothing about it. Back when I was a young feller, I used to like to set fars.
And I don't mean, I don't mean I done arsenic because I didn't, I didn't, I didn't burn stuff up that, like I didn't burn up houses or, or stores or nothing like that. It's just that if I seen something on the side of the road that I know would burn, I would set far to it just to watch it burn. And I can't explain, you know, why I like seeing that kind of stuff, but I did. And if I was to come on a stack of towers, say that, that was away from everything else, so it wouldn't set nobody's house on fire, nothing like that.
Then I'd set far to it just to watch it burn. And like I say, it wasn't arsenic because I didn't, I didn't set stuff on fire that that belonged to other people. It was just junk that I seen that I just like to watch things burn. Well, I done two years in a penitentiary for that.
And what they, you know, and they broke me a set and fars. They sure did. I never did want to set nothing on fire after that. And I understand now how bad that was that I done that because I was, I was keeping the far department busy.
They couldn't, they couldn't take care of their jobs because they was trying to put out the fars that I set. And sometimes, you know, they would be busy there when they was needed somewhere else. And then, besides all that, well, you know, I was a pollutant air, you know, that stuff, it don't just go away. You know, that smoke and everything, it pollutes the air and makes it hard for people to breathe.
And there's a bunch of reasons why you ought not to do that. But I was young, I was a young feller and I didn't know nothing about that. And I didn't understand what I was doing. I know it was wrong.
I did. And I ain't making those excuses for myself. But anyway, like I said, they broke me of that set and fars and I ain't never done it since. But, you know, when that far bus broke out up here at the schoolhouse, well, you know who the first person was that they thought of was me.
And so they all come down here talking to me and first of all the police and then the FBI, the EPA, the ESP, and I don't know all these places, these budgets of people that will look into fars, you know, they all come down here. And naturally, I was the one that they suspected and they was right on that because I had, you know, the track record, so to speak, I had been convicted of that. And I understand, I ain't complaining about them investigating me. Well, what they wanted me to do was to give my alibi of where I was the night before.
Well, I had alibi, but I couldn't tell them because, well, it involved somebody else that I would get in trouble. Or I wouldn't get them in trouble, but, you know, I would be telling something that was private and I ain't going to tell you what I was doing, but I wasn't doing nothing illegal. I wasn't doing nothing that was getting the law. And that's all I can say.
But they wanted more and they kept saying, you know, they was going to haul me off to jail if I didn't give them alibi. And of course, I wasn't about to do that. But I told them I said, no, I didn't have nothing to do with the far. I ain't sitting no fars since I got out of the penitentiary.
Well, they didn't take me to jail, but they, as soon as I got rid of one group of people, there'd be another one down there. I think the ASPCA was down here and I don't know what all them letters stands for, but they was all investigating me to find out if I was involved in the far. And it took me about, I guess, they finally give up when they couldn't get no proof again me. And there wasn't no proof again because I didn't have nothing to do with it.
That's the truth. I didn't have nothing to do with that far. I don't know who did it. I've got my suspicions, but I don't know who done it.
But it took, you know, I was in, I was under investigation for, well, they finally left me alone about a week ago. I don't, I ain't seen nobody down here since, but for about a month, they was questioning me every day. I couldn't hardly get no work done. And finally, I told them they had to take care of them, these cows, and they wanted to talk to me.
They was going to have to come out to the barn a lot to do it. And they done it. They just worried me to death. But like I say, it's my own fault because I shouldn't have done all that meanness back in a long time ago.
And I guess I'll always have to, to paper that. And I ain't complaining because I ought to have no better than to do what I've done. But anyway, I think I finally convinced them that I didn't have nothing to do with it. And they, they questioned everybody down here, you know, about, about what, what, you know, about that far.
And they did, they know anything about it. And, and old Emily, you know, I'm not talking about my girl. I'm talking about old Emily. This old girl down here to, into the street.
She, she was a character witness for me. And she told them she knowed that me and know I didn't have nothing to do with it. And old flossy butts, she told them that, that I didn't have nothing to do with it. And Jimmy Van Der Stig, you know, he spoke up for me and old Lester Clark, of course they don't pay no attention to Lester because Lester ain't got, well, he's not playing with a full neck.
But anyway, it finally is over. And I, I'm gonna tell you the truth and I'm gonna wind this thing up. But I'm gonna tell you the truth. That far tickled me to death.
That's the first real good far I've seen since I got out of the penitentiary. And so it did tickle me. I ain't gonna lie about that. But you don't have to worry about me because I ain't gonna sit no far as no more.
So that was what happened and they figured out who done it. And I hope, you know, if I ever do find out what, who done it, I'm not gonna turn them in. But I am gonna talk to them and tell them how, you know, how wrong that is, you know, to do that much damage and pollute the air and, and, you know, let all them chemicals lose on people. I'm gonna try to talk to them and, but I ain't gonna turn them in because I wouldn't want to send nobody to the penitentiary.
So anyway, that's the end of the story. And it, it, it was, you know, a lot of fun to me because I got to see a far without having anything to do with it. It was kind of like, oh, I don't know. It just was real.
It was a beautiful sight to me to see that far. So I'm gonna wind this up now and get this on the podcast. I'm, we'll be talking about something plum different. I hadn't told you, but we didn't have the singing all day and dinner on the grounds that I told you about.
And I'll tell you why in the next podcast that I do.