Part 20 (1/2)

YouBut it's all right to brag on yourself; the Bible says so, according to a Baptist deacon I knew in Arkansas He would quote, ”Blessed is the man who tooteth his own horn, because, if a man tooteth not his own horn, lo, it shall not be tooted” And if you asked him where he finds that in the Bible, he would say, ”In the book of Fizzlu where in the Bible is this book of Fizzluood o to church much, and he had a very lilish spelling, Ph is pronounced like F So when he caot Ph and Ps h it were spelled Falot to admit that is a hard word to pronounce But the old man had worked on it for years and it finally became ”Fizzlu scripture

At one time Jones County was one of the most productive cotton counties in Texas Ha time Black people came from East Texas by the hundreds to help pick the cotton Most of thehts on Fords were a constant source of trouble, especially if kids riding on the front fenders happened to accidentally kick the wires loose fro system with a lot of new parts at a cost of maybe two dollars to four dollars But each cottonpicker told other cottonpickers that there was a boy ( Station that would fix their lights for maybe a quarter-not over 50 cents

And so it cahts needed fixing so that a lot of hard-working boys could do a lot of stepping out with a lot of girls Most of the the week But Saturday was payday, tiood time And besides, the next day was Sunday, a day of rest No one picked cotton on Sundays

I usually ular hours As atime than I had made all day, because after that time, all I took in for labor wasstation asn't all rosy One night a burglar broke into our station He cas, including some ht when the as raised, and I slept in the back roo on, so I hid the bulb down in ht up the rooht and raised the , but he didn't come in He left theup and ran We didn't catch hilar visitedstation I was sleeping in the station, way up on top of a tire rack The kid woke o to the cash register He had his back to , not even a ball bat We were not expecting burglars Rather, we offered all night eency service and I slept there to serve anyone as caught in an eun, I reached up on a shelf and got a bottle of shellac in each hand and told the boy to stay where he was and raise his hands He obeyed, which was both a surprise and a relief to hts inside and outside and waited for the nightwatchman to come by The boy was about 16, and well behaved I didn't have to capture him-didn't even touch him We talked and he waited patiently We learned later that he had broken into three stations that night in Haotten less than fifty cents, poor kid

We were living in town but we still liked to go hunting out in the country once in awhile One day Earl, Joel and I had been out shooting rabbits and prairie dogs with our 22 rifles When we caot out of the car don and asked Joel to take his gun in the house e got houn was the hammerless type; you couldn't easily tell when it was loaded or unloaded When Joel carried his own gun and Earl's gun into the house, Mauns! Are you sure they are unloaded?”

Joel told her that he was sure about his own, but he didn't know about Earl's Then he aier It shot a hole through the ceiling, and Joel turned to Mama and calmly said, ”Now it's unloaded”

Do I always have to tell you what Maine?

Now, Joel didn't only shoot s in his roo across his lap He had finished cleaning it and was throwing shells in and out of the barrel, distributing oil to all working parts He otten some of the oil on his thumb, because it slipped off the hammer accidentally and fired one of the shells, and it made the prettiest little round hole-about an inch across- through the insidefacing, the shi+plap wallboard, the outside weatherboarding and the outsidefacing Fortunately, there was no one out in the yard at that place at that tiued that the added ventilation would contribute to his better health

Joel also had his fling at truck driving for Papa On one particular day he was driving on a dirt road, and I really think the road et and slick, but ruone to sleep Anyhow, his truck wound up in a ditch It didn't roll all the way over, but it leaned over against the far bank with theels up in the air His cargo was scattered along a farh the fence into the pasture But Joel was lucky The only dae suffered was loss of time, a lot of work, and one torn sack of flour

We owned a lot of trucks through the years, but Papa's first truck, which he had let Frank have, and which Frank had let Papa have back later, was a Master by naood truck in its day It had no battery; a as tank on one running board furnished gas for the headlights When night caas, and lighted the headlahts were not the best lights in the world They were not soas they were to let others see that you were coht not show ht have to slow up to allow the light beaet on out front a little way

Anyhow, that's the way it was one night when Papa was driving and I, too young to drive, was keeping him company We were in a little town somewhere in Texas and as you know, every little town has a river running through it, or at least a small creek I have never been able to understand why people want to run a streaer, the es over it And each and every bridge is going to be a traffic hazard Now, this bridge in this little toas not er than our truck but it served its purpose; it was a hazard

When a car with electric lights turned a corner and faced us, ere blinded and our presto lights seeether They didn't even shi+ne down as far as the road at our front wheels Nor did they show us the bridge with its little wooden banisters Well, I did see one banister a little-not much-but Papa didn't see it at all He didn't even know there was a creek nor a bridge ahead of us

As aBut he figured that was not reason enough for hio by He wasn't going more than tenin the road to run over or buhts got out of his eyes

But the bridge got to us before our lights showed it to Papa, and our two right wheels didn't even touch the bridge Our bumper took the entire banister and laid it out in the road ahead of us Our front axle skidded all the way across the creek, riding the edge of the bridge Our right front wheel went sailing across the strearound before our truck had tie into the creek So there ere, the two front wheels on solid ground, the left rear wheel on the shaky bridge, and the other rear wheel dangling in space over a creek of running water

As we caht and left, Papa asked, ”What was that?”

I told hie”

By this tione away and ere left alone hanging over the side of a se over a s sharply toward my side It had no doors, only curtains for bad weather And since the weather was good, the curtains were stored away under the seat Papa could get out easily on his side I cli board on my side, then up over the front fender, and juhts had gotten out front again and were shi+ning their beaot a e with his truck, but his truck couldn't drag ours However, he finally got our truck off the bridge by lunging against the chain six or eight ti was dae banister We had already pitched it out of the road, so we paid the nice man for his services and drove on our way I never did learn who repaired the banister It couldn't have been the h for atrucks over As I have just told you, Papa tried hard to turn one over into a creek, but failed Then he got another chance some time later and made it okay Dode and Albert also contributed their bit towarddown a dirt road with a full load of freight He didn't know that a rain cloud had crossed the road ahead of hi its water on the road No cars had driven over the wet road since the shower, so it didn't show to be anything but a nice dry road But the road was slick and it ca out of control It turned sideways and scooted until it had alently, so as not to dao as it poured it out onto the road The truck was not dae Included in his load was a small mirror which he placed on the seat beside hiot broken

A part of the road between Roby and Rotan was graveled, and along the graveled part were two rounding curves which were quite an improvement over the sharp turns so coht on around the curves without slowing down et up an awful lot of speed any tiht roads