leaving many of their friends behind on European soil.
Now here came the krauts insinuating their way into the American economy with their undersized, underpriced cars that were threatening to displace a segment of the American car market. The fear was that these little cars would ultimately throw a whole lot of American workers out of jobs. I didn’t have to stop to hear the dialogue. I knew it by heart.
And agreed with it. “This was the car that Hitler had built for his people. They shouldn’t be allowed to sell it over here.”
I was glad to get into my red Ford and head out to the edge of town. It was a butterfly morning.
In places beneath heavy branches the shaded areas still gleamed with dew. All the early-morning kids on their trikes and bikes looked fresh and alert at the top of the day. A skywriting plane was writing “Make it Pepsi!” The radio was wailing a great old Elvis tune “I Want You, I Need You, I Love Y.” The Church of
Elvis. I was a faithful communicant.
I tried not to think about rattlesnakes or Kylie’s unfaithful husband or my loneliness.
I just tried to enjoy the day, the way all the positive-thinkers like Pat Boone tell you to. His best-seller of advice to high-schoolers “Twixt Twelve and Twenty” had teenagers laughing from coast to coast.
And I did, too, all the way out to the trailer behind the church where Muldaur had died last night. The exchange of gunfire, however, took the day down a notch. Even Pat Boone would have to admit that gunfire tends to put a pall on a nice day.
Six or seven quick shots burnished the air.
It was a butterfly day out here, too.
Except all the butterflies were hiding behind boulders so they wouldn’t get hit in all the gunplay.
The first thing that came to mind was the Hatfield-McCoy feud of lie and legend, two hillbilly families that warred with each other generation unto generation. They came to mind because the trailer resembled a shack, patched as it was with cardboard, sheet metal, stucco, anything that could be adhesed, nailed, or otherwise
appended to the rusted-out abode. A shotgun poked from its lone front smashed window.
Then there was the motorcycle with a sidecar. A very small man, not much bigger than a munchkin, looking an awful lot like Yosemite Sam with his long red beard and floppy battered hat, crouched behind his cycle, firing away with his shotgun at the trailer. What you have to understand here is that neither party was seriously trying to hit the other. Nobody’s aim could be that bad. The sidecar was more interesting than the gunfire. From it stuck the barrels of at least eight or nine long rifles, shotguns, and even—I kid you not, as Jack Paar likes to say—a hunting bow. As in bow and arrow.
The first thing I considered was the health and well-bbing of my ragtop. I swung back in front of the church and parked it there. Then I snuck around the side where I could be seen and heard. The folks firing the guns were under the impression—probably correct—t out here in the boonies nobody would bother them. Hell, nobody would probably hear them.
But being the good-citizen type, I raised my voice and said, “If you people don’t put your guns down I’m going to call Sykes and have him come out here.”
“Viola! Viola! Who the hell is this guy?” shouted the man with all the weapons.
“He works for Judge Whitney!” a female voice from inside the trailer shouted back.
“Judge Whitney! She’s the one threw me in the jug for lumpin’ Bonnie up that time!”
“Lumpin’” in mountain language means putting lumps on another person’s body.
“We better stop firin’, Ned!”
“Put your gun down and walk away from your motorcycle,” I said. “With your hands up.”
“You ain’t even got a gun,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“And you ain’t even much bigger’n me, either.”
“Right again, pal. But it’s me or Cliffie.”
He frowned and spat a stream of tobacco that was probably
Now here came the krauts insinuating their way into the American economy with their undersized, underpriced cars that were threatening to displace a segment of the American car market. The fear was that these little cars would ultimately throw a whole lot of American workers out of jobs. I didn’t have to stop to hear the dialogue. I knew it by heart.
And agreed with it. “This was the car that Hitler had built for his people. They shouldn’t be allowed to sell it over here.”
I was glad to get into my red Ford and head out to the edge of town. It was a butterfly morning.
In places beneath heavy branches the shaded areas still gleamed with dew. All the early-morning kids on their trikes and bikes looked fresh and alert at the top of the day. A skywriting plane was writing “Make it Pepsi!” The radio was wailing a great old Elvis tune “I Want You, I Need You, I Love Y.” The Church of
Elvis. I was a faithful communicant.
I tried not to think about rattlesnakes or Kylie’s unfaithful husband or my loneliness.
I just tried to enjoy the day, the way all the positive-thinkers like Pat Boone tell you to. His best-seller of advice to high-schoolers “Twixt Twelve and Twenty” had teenagers laughing from coast to coast.
And I did, too, all the way out to the trailer behind the church where Muldaur had died last night. The exchange of gunfire, however, took the day down a notch. Even Pat Boone would have to admit that gunfire tends to put a pall on a nice day.
Six or seven quick shots burnished the air.
It was a butterfly day out here, too.
Except all the butterflies were hiding behind boulders so they wouldn’t get hit in all the gunplay.
The first thing that came to mind was the Hatfield-McCoy feud of lie and legend, two hillbilly families that warred with each other generation unto generation. They came to mind because the trailer resembled a shack, patched as it was with cardboard, sheet metal, stucco, anything that could be adhesed, nailed, or otherwise
appended to the rusted-out abode. A shotgun poked from its lone front smashed window.
Then there was the motorcycle with a sidecar. A very small man, not much bigger than a munchkin, looking an awful lot like Yosemite Sam with his long red beard and floppy battered hat, crouched behind his cycle, firing away with his shotgun at the trailer. What you have to understand here is that neither party was seriously trying to hit the other. Nobody’s aim could be that bad. The sidecar was more interesting than the gunfire. From it stuck the barrels of at least eight or nine long rifles, shotguns, and even—I kid you not, as Jack Paar likes to say—a hunting bow. As in bow and arrow.
The first thing I considered was the health and well-bbing of my ragtop. I swung back in front of the church and parked it there. Then I snuck around the side where I could be seen and heard. The folks firing the guns were under the impression—probably correct—t out here in the boonies nobody would bother them. Hell, nobody would probably hear them.
But being the good-citizen type, I raised my voice and said, “If you people don’t put your guns down I’m going to call Sykes and have him come out here.”
“Viola! Viola! Who the hell is this guy?” shouted the man with all the weapons.
“He works for Judge Whitney!” a female voice from inside the trailer shouted back.
“Judge Whitney! She’s the one threw me in the jug for lumpin’ Bonnie up that time!”
“Lumpin’” in mountain language means putting lumps on another person’s body.
“We better stop firin’, Ned!”
“Put your gun down and walk away from your motorcycle,” I said. “With your hands up.”
“You ain’t even got a gun,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“And you ain’t even much bigger’n me, either.”
“Right again, pal. But it’s me or Cliffie.”
He frowned and spat a stream of tobacco that was probably
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