This is old blowers and I want to finish up on that story that I was telling you last time You know I told you about and I ain't gonna go through the whole story But I told you about old Brenda Puckett You know she writes for the paper and she wanted to do some interviews with me about growing up down here and and wild wood and and you know jobs that I had done and and and how I had to live and and You know what the school was like and then the last interview She asked me you know what we done for for the fun of it and I told her about the you know the shooting marbles and and pitching horseshoes and making bows and arrows and and making them slingshots and and shooting that popcorn and You know I told her about wasting that popcorn shooting it off of the the ceiling and making them You know pinion sounds them like a ricochet sounds like he here in these western movies And and I told her a total or about all of us getting a whooping for doing that and how we had to start using gravel You know if we were gonna make him ricochet sounds because they didn't want us wasting popcorn, you know And I told her about all that and she published them Them interviews in the paper doesn't want a week and she didn't say who it was she just said it was a long time Resident who was gonna tell about what it was like growing up down here and and and some of the history and and and how the You know the community had changed But one mistake that I made when I done them interviews and I said something and I wished I had to set it because I said that I didn't think the kids nowadays had the imagination that we had and and I wish I hadn't said that because Well, first of all I believe some of them even though she didn't mention me by name I think they guessed who it was because you know I had talked to them and told them different stories and they never did say nothing to me about it except That every now and then I'd run into one of them and they'd say they had been trying to develop They imagination or they was trying to work on their imagination And I could tell by that that they know who I you know who had said that and so I told them I said, you know, I didn't mean to say that I just I just you know was talking when I ought to have been thinking about what I was saying and So they you know, they didn't they didn't say nothing. They just said that was all right and so I was talking to Some of them up every one day. Oh, Jimmy Vander's Stig and that old girl up there they call her dirty. I don't order name is and oh Sharon she's one of the girls up there one of the she was a cheerleader up there and I was talking to him And I said well don't look like y'all gonna get to take her senior trip next year because every time y'all get a little bit of money You spend it and I said I don't guess you're gonna get no trip and oh Jimmy Vander's dig he said well, he said you never can tell he said you know if we can just use our imaginations and so I didn't pay him no attention, you know, and I want on and I Tell you about it was about two weeks later.
You know, I told you that I used to always go to that option up there whenever I came up at that stock bar and sometimes I find stuff to buy up there you know, they've usually got some some cattle up there and and Sometimes they've got stuff up there. You know where somebody has a Couldn't pay his taxes, you know, and they're selling his stuff And then sometimes somebody be foreclosing on a mortgage and you'll have stuff up there to sell cheap And so I try to go whenever I can it always Happens on Thursday and so last Thursday. I started up there I was gonna see if I could find something and and so I got down the road about five miles and I got into the Off-list traffic jam that I've ever been in and I would have turned around and gone on back home Except that by the time I thought of it There was all of these cars in behind me and I couldn't go no way not not backwards and not forwards And so I couldn't do nothing but just sit there Well finally the traffic started moving, you know real slow and so I don't think I could do was move with it and about Oh, I was I spent about an hour in that traffic and I finally got up there to the bridge and I figured out what was going on See them kids had set up a toll booth up there at the head of that bridge and The only way you could get across the bridge was to pay the toll and they told me it's it It's gonna cost you a dollar to get across this bridge Well, they wasn't no sheriff or no police up there and the reason that wasn't is because the police couldn't get there because of the traffic They couldn't go nowhere So them kids had that bridge blocked and I didn't have no choice I give them a dollar and they let me on the cross and so I went on up to the stock barn and they had a little Ocalf up there about old about two months old I reckon and I bought that half a calf and they had some hay up there that They were selling cheap and they had some old fence rails that that you know I can always use some fence rails and so I bought they were selling them cheap and I bought some fence rails and a couple of rolls of a Bob War and And I loaded it on the truck and started them back home and I had gone about Five miles and I run back into that traffic again. It's the same as it was and of course I had to get home, you know, there wasn't nothing I could do and that was on the road So the finally the traffic started moving and I I was in that traffic about another hour And I got up to that bridge and you know them kids had moved that toll booth Cross on this side of the bridge and they charged me another dollar to get across the bridge and So I didn't have no choice but to pay it and You know them kids I don't know how much money they made but they had enough money to take their senior trip next year and They give the rest of it to the school and they said they was giving it to the classes Coming up so that they could have senior trips to and they reckoned you know Jimmy Vanderstig told me that he reckoned it would It would last three more years that there'd be enough money there for the next three classes to take senior trips And and the people in the town you know raised saying about with them kids and they wanted them You know they wanted to money back but the the sheriff said he didn't know what he could do because Some of them people that you know that paid to get across the bridge didn't even live in that community Didn't even live there was from out of state even and he didn't know what he could do about it And he said now he could Go up there and and He could you know arrest some of the kids that he know some of them cuz some of them had been identified Well, they didn't want him to do that You know and he said well what do you want me to do?
And so he went up there and talked to different ones of them and he know you know he know Battle Jimmy Vanderstig goes Jimmy Vanderstigs and everything that goes on down here and And of course the sheriff knowed him because he'd been in jail up there one time and he talked to him and old Lester Clark and Two or three different ones of them. He said to boys. I'm not gonna do nothing to you this time But he said if you ever try something like that again that you're gonna be in jail and so Jimmy said that you know he told him they wouldn't do it no more He said they just was trying to raise some money and he said that was the way they come up with so anyway they got to keep the money and they gonna take their senior trip and and I'm gonna tell you one thing I ain't gonna say kids ain't got no imagination I ain't gonna say that no more because they proved me wrong. So that's the story and and Although the only thing I want to tell you is just be careful about what you say because you never know when it's gonna come back on you