Sheila's Sunland

     Every once in a while, a man realizes how lucky he is to have a good woman.  If he doesn't on his own, she will remind him.  Fortunately, this time I got it all by myself.  I go to three or four art and craft festivals a year.  They are to much work for me to do by myself.  Sheila is gracious enough to give up her weekends to help me with these ventures.
     We had gone to Marianna's spring festival and oh what a disaster.  The wind was blowing so hard, it blew a sunken Spanish treasure ship up all the way from the gulf.  Finally we gave up and took our tent down before it blew away.  As we were loading our stuff into the wagon, the lady next to us was telling Sheila that we needed to go the Christmas festival at Sunland.  She said there was always a big crowd and everyone was buying Christmas gifts.
     The big day of Sunland's festival had finally arrived.  Up at three a.m., the wagon is already loaded, and we head off to have fun.  We get there just before dawn and it is bitterly cold.  By the time we find our spot, unload and set up, the sun is shining bright and we have shed our heavy jackets.  The crowds were there, but no one was buying.  Thoroughly disgusted, we answered questions and carried on mini conversations with everyone.  All the time wondering when are the paying customers going to make an appearance.  The heat was getting to be oppressive, the dust was stifling, and Sheila's frustration level was rising.
     Around lunch the crowds got really heavy.  There seemed to be a lot of people there with problems.  Even for Florida, this was unusual.  The black lady at the tent next to us was a small framed, neat and dignified elderly woman with class.  As the white woman, in her face, shaking with the palsy, bent over at the waist. talking incoherently, scratching her nose, the lady acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  I looked at Sheila, her mouth was open and a bewildered look was upon her face.  I was looking at her, looking at the black lady's husband, looking at the black lady.  No one offered to go her rescue.  Poor thing.
     There was a procession of groups that came by the vendors.  Each group had five or six people with diminished mental capacities and one normal person as a chaperon.  A few had a near normal grasp on reality, but most were off in space with no way home.  Some were able to move around on their own, but others were not.  Sheila looked at me with a puzzled look on her face.  "What is going on?", she asked.  "Do you know where you are?  This is Florida's mental institution", I informed her.  "What the **** are we doing here, you jack***?" she asked.  I explained that the Christmas festival is their way of raising money and allows the patients to mingle with friends and family.  She calmed down and eventually got into a festive mood.
     As the day wore down, we were loaded and ready to go, Sheila had to go to the bathroom.  While she was gone, I helped myself to a coke out of the ice chest.  About halfway finished with the drink, I heard the sound of steel striking flint. When I looked up I saw Sheila coming across the hard dry dirt.  Her hips were on her shoulders, her arms swinging stiff with each step.  Her stride covered six feet easily and each time her heel touched down, sparks flew in every direction.  After being married for thirty nine years, I knew better, but stupidity always wins.  "Do you want a cold drink?", I ask.  "Shut up and get your ass in the truck," she responded.
     Leaving the compound, she told of going into the restroom.  It was deserted, and when she sat down in the stall, she heard the door open.  Some one came in and yelled "Whooo, whooo, whooo.  Then she went by each stall banging on the doors. When she finally got into a stall, Sheila got out and started to wash her hands.  When the woman heard the water, she yelled Help, help and started banging on the walls of the stall.  "Ain't my job", Sheila said and left.
      I stopped in the middle of the drive and laughed until I cried.  This pissed her off even more, but I could not stop.  She finally came around and started laughing also, albeit not as heartily as I.  To this day if I am having a bad day, thinking of this brings a smile.  If I am having a good day and think of it, I bust out laughing.  Thank you, Sheila for an interesting life.

The Scrooge With Rouge

There is an old town
in England, it is told,
of a man of great reknown.
But if I may be so bold,
to tell of one living with the prick,
who in trying desperately to feel fine,
gave up beating him with a stick,
and gave in to drinking fine wine.
Every day just before lunch,
you know that she was feeling good,
simply because shse had drank a bunch.
Picking up the stick of wood,
she threatened to put him in his place,
she yelled, I am the Scrooge
that every day, to my face,
I apply a pound of rouge.
You had better be nice and make a pass
or I will grab the spirits three,
and with them, I will thouroughly beat your ass,
turned pitifully over my knee.
Merry bah-humbug Christmas from
the Scrooge with rouge.

Charles Sims

The Greatest Gift

     Ah, the sounds and smells overwhelm me.  Food and people everywhere.  The fresh home baked bread sent it's wonderful pungent aroma over to me on the slight breeze blowing my way.  I had not eaten in several days and the fragrance was overwhelming.  The small amount of food that we had went to feed the wife and kids.  With no money to buy food, I watched the street vendor out of the corner of my eyes.  I was not normally a thief, but with hunger and the amount of people milling around, I was just waiting for my chance.  Eureka, there it was.  He turned his back for a moment to speak to a customer and quick as a fox, I snatched the bread and ran. 
     "Thief, thief", he shouted and I knew that I was in trouble.  My bad knees slowed me down and allowed the young men to overtake me.  As desperate as I was, I could not escape.  Being caught could mean the loss of my hand, but desperate times make for desperate measures.  After loosing a couple of teeth and a broken nose, I was taken before the magistrate.  As he looked at my condition and listened to my sad story, he had compassion on me.  Instead of cutting off my hand, he sentenced me to six years hard labor.  Now I know why I got to keep my hand.  Nothing to do with compassion.
     Prison was hard, however I did get one meal a day or rather I got to eat one time a day.  Just enough to keep up my strength, but that was more than my family got.  During the day was terrible, moving heavy stones to pave the roads was back breaking work.  Later due to my age, I was given to the group that poured sand and soil into the cracks around the stones to level out the road.  It was night that was the worst, though.  We were kept in the dungeon with no light, locked in our own stocks by our hands.  You soon learned to control your bodily functions until you were released in the morning.  The sound of grown men crying and weeping made my plight only the more deplorable.
     This night, at the end of my sentence was different.  From a slight distance, we could hear two men praying and singing psalms at the top of their lungs.  Praising their God as if they were on top of a mountain, not down in a deep, dark, damp dungeon.  They were locked in their stocks with hands and feet.  This was reserved for the worst offenders.  When they had been brought in during the day, the jailer was given strict orders to guard them with his life.  If they escaped, the jailer would be killed. 
     As Paul and Silas prayed, the dungeon was rocked back and forth by a massive earthquake that shook the foundation.  The doors came open and the stocks were broken away from all the prisoners.  The jailer seeing the destruction and supposing the prisoners gone, pulled his sword to take his own life.  Paul cried out with a loud voice, "Do thyself no harm, for we are all here."  The jailer cried out for a light and went in and kneeled to Paul and Silas.  "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"  "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thou house."
     As I heard the story of Jesus Christ and His death and Resurrection, I believed also.  The following week I was released and reunited with my family.  I knew that had I not stolen the bread, I would never have received the most precious gift of all, eternal salvation.  God is with us
    

Bill Sketo

Ahoooo! Ahoooo! clackity, bang,
As I look up with a start,
my fork falls with a clang,
the misty vapor makes my eyes smart,
Who's there? Who's there? I ask
as I reach deep into my vest,
and pull out my half empty flask,
as he reached out, it put my heart to test,
and grabbed my liquor. "Sketo, Bill"
he shouted, as my whiskey he downed,
while he rested on the window sill,
give that back and leave me, I frowned,
or a rope I will find,
and a tree with a low limb
to hang you from behind,
and rename you Jim.
Take your spirits back from me,
all I wanted was a soul to scare,
and you wanted to find a tree,
just to show that you did not care,
Oh, but I do, I do and that is true,
as the air is clear and the moon is bright,
my liquor is not shared by you,
as you gave me such a fright.

Newton's Hole

Ah, here it is, finally. We have been waiting for this day all month. This has been building up for weeks now. Sheila and I, Charles and Maureen, Donnie and Thelma and Wayne and Paula have been visiting the cemeteries at night looking for ghosts. If there were any around, we probably scared them off. All of us would pile into my two door Chevy, drink beer and hit the back roads to the cemeteries. Oh, the lies we told and laughed at.



This Halloween fell on Saturday, with a full moon shining so bright that you could see forever. As we headed out to Mt. Carmel Methodist cemetery, Sheila was the designated driver, since she did not drink. We were going to check out the haunted grave of Bill Sketo. Charles Cook was telling us of the story of how Bill had been hanged as a deserter of the Confederacy, during the civil war. He was not a deserter, but the home guard was mean as hell and bored. The six members of the home guard were in a hurry to hang him and misjudged the height of the tree limb. Bill was a tall man and able to stand on his tip toes to avoid strangling. One of the lynch mob took a post oak limb and dug a hole under his feet. To this day, more than 130 years later, the hole could not be covered up. Legend has it that Bill Sketo comes by every night and cleans it out. Well, that whipped up our appetite for the adventure.



After we looked around the cemetery for awhile without seeing his ghost, someone suggested that we head off to Newton and find the hole. We all excitedly piled into the car and went to Newton. There next to the Choctawhatchee bridge we found the hole. As we got out of the car, we grabbed rocks, sticks and debris to fill up the hole. As soon as we had it filled, the moon went behind the clouds,and It became pitch black. We were surrounded by thick woods on all sides, and a small footpath was the only way out. The katydids were howling, the owls were hooting. We could see red eyes glaring at us from everywhere, and the air was thick as blood. And then the coyote with a sense of humor screamed at us from just inside the tree line. I had never heard Bill sketoe in my life, but I know that was surely him. Some one screamed and we all hauled butt. In the dark we were all lost and confused, running in all directions. Panic stricken, I ran into a tree, saw a blinding flash of light and fell into the hole.



I could feel the weight of the world pushing me down. The hole opened up and I started falling down the hot, dark hole. I screamed, but no one was there to hear me. I reached out to grab the rocks on the side to slop my fall, but they turned to loose sand. As I fell the darkness gave way to an eerie red glow. The heat was unbearable. After an eternity, I landed in a large pit and the sight was horrific, and the smell of sulfur and fresh blood left me in a dark despair. The sight and sound of demons biting off the head, arms and legs of the lost souls was terrifying. You could hear the bones snap and the muscles and tendons tear apart with screams. As the demon chewed, the parts grew back and the faces of the lost souls relaxed and peace returned for just a moment. Then the scene repeated itself.



If I lie very still, maybe no one will notice that I fell into hell. Oh shit, that large green toad with the red eyes and yellow teeth is glaring at me, with an evil gleam in his eye. With a quick leap of his frog legs, he had my head in his mouth. Before he could bite down, I screamed, "Lord help me!" a that moment, I awoke at the top of the hole.



Sheila was holding my bloody head in her lap. What happened?, I asked. You doofus, you knocked yourself out when you ran into the tree, she replied. Everyone was standing around laughing and talking about the fun we had just had. the sun was coming up in the east and dawn was fast approaching. As the rays of the sun touched the edge of the hole, all the stuff we had piled in began to disappear. It was deathly quiet and we all froze. No one moved and we watched in horror as the hole cleaned itself out. I was glad that Sheila had pulled me out of the hole before daylight, or I might still be in the bottomless pit.

COCK of the WALK

     In the spring of 1956, our family moved from my grandparents farm to the outskirts of Headland.  We rented a house from Mr. Joe Parrish.  This particular Saturday, mom was cleaning and dad was off with uncle Tex fishing.  They left it up to Wayne, who was ten, to look after me and Benny.  I guess for a while he did pretty well, but since he was all macho man, we had to head off to the Cock of the Walk fertilizer building.  It was the largest building I had ever seen.  One hundred feet high and wide and three hundred feet long.  It was made out of asbestos sheets for the roof and sides.  It had a walkway at the top that ran the length of the building, with a row of windows on each side.  Most of the panes were broken.  Not by us, we could throw rocks pretty well, but they were too far off for our young arms.  The train tracks were on the other side, and the loading dock ran the length of the building, with piles of pallets and cardboard.
    The big doors were locked, but as small children, we could slip between them and the building and go inside.  There it was, on the inside, was our personal playground.  The white powder bat guano was piled to the ceiling.  Three different piles, each just a shade different.  Wayne had been there before and knew to bring a piece of cardboard from the loading dock. Motioning for us to follow, he headed up the stairs to the cat walk.  That was the best thing we had ever done.  Our hearts were pounding from the excitement of breaking in and the height of the stairs.  We could barely contain ourselves.  The bat doo-doo was about five feet below the catwalk, and sloped to the bottom in a cone shape.  Wayne jumped with the cardboard, hit with a smack and started sliding downhill fast as lightening.  Benny and I jumped, but we did not have a cardboard sled.  We buried up to our knees in the white powder crap, and had to struggle to get to the bottom.  Wayne, however was going so fast that he could not stop.  Just as he reached the bottom, he rolled off head first, only feet away from smashing into the wall.  When we reached him, all we could see were his legs sticking out of the bat crap, and kicking like crazy, up and down.  We grabbed a leg each and pulled him out.  We were laughing at him and embarrassed as he was he bounced each of us on the side of our heads.  Smaller and younger, though we were, we bounced back.
     When we tired of blood and bat shit, Wayne showed us some dynamite that they used to break up the guano when it clumped together.  Now at this moment, fifty four years later, I know what happened to the windows.  It also explains why we could slip inside the doors.  Wonder if the building is still standing.  Wayne was smart enough to take only the blasting caps and fuses.  I think he knew that the dynamite was too dangerous.  On the loading dock was a three foot length of 2" pipe, a cinder block and an unlimited supply of rocks from the train tracks.  And every kid worth his salt, had a cigarette  lighter.  Well with all these ingredients for a fun filled Saturday afternoon, what could possibly go wrong?
     Instead of aiming the primitive mortar across the tracks to the empty field, Wayne pointed it at the White's house, a quarter mile away.   Wayne lit the fuse to the blasting cap, dropped it into the pipe, Benny dropped in a big rock and I got the hell out of the way.  No need to worry, the rock came out the end of the pipe pretty as you please.  You could see it flow through the sky and land on the tin roof of the White's house with a loud bang.  They scattered out of there like red wasps coming off the nest when you hit it with a corncob.  They heard thunder and the sky fell on them.  They were hauling ass somewhere, but where?  They never figured out what happened.  Are you going to tell them?  I sure as heck ain't.

Wild Hog

      I know that this a status, not a diary, but it is also a good place to post my stories.  This one is my entry for the September competition in writeandreview.webs.com.  The category is dreams or nightmares.  I thought some of you might like it.

     Hon, will you turn off the light when you come to bed?  Phil did not really expect an answer from Mary.  He knew that she would.  Through all the pain and suffering she was his one constant rock.  That and Joe, his best friend from grade school.  Oh, the things that they had done.  No wonder they were always in so much trouble.  Joe had married Sheila and moved in down the lane.  For Phil that was the best thing that could have ever happened.
     As he was drifting off to sleep he was giving thanks for all his many blessings. When sleep overtook him, he began to walk down the path in the field, to the woods, where Joe lived.  Rain was dripping on his face and he could feel the chill.  Wonderful!  He had never felt so alive.  His senses were on fire, almost as if he knew what was about to happen just seconds before it actually did.  A quick jump to the side, he landed nimbly on his feet as the ferrule boar rushed by.  He had heard him coming and his body, acting as a fine magnificent clockwork, moved in perfect timing to avoid the sharp tusks.  As the boar, fuming from the miss, turned around and charged again.  Phil reached up and grabbed the limb over his head.  Pulling his legs up just inches from danger, he teased that old hog until he finally tired and ran off.  Hopping, skipping and laughing, down the lane, without tiring, he eventually made it to Joe's house.
     Tapping lightly on the door, he waited patiently for an answer.  Sheila slowly made her way to the door and opened it.  Hey girl, how's Joe doing this fine morning?  Doing better Phil, he's already dressed and waiting for you, she replied.  Good, let's go get him.  Joe, you ready? I asked.  Yeah, he replied, just help me into this damn wheelchair and we will be off.
     Phil could tell that he was putting up a brave front.  That was him as he had always been, strong and brave.  As we strolled down the lane, that old hog came after us again.  With just a wave of his semi-useful hand, he just whisked that old hog away.  Thanks Joe, I am really tired of that old swine.  The light awakened Phil with a start.  What is it Mary?, he asked.  You were squealing with joy and it awakened me.  Were you having that dream again?  Yeah, Mary I did, he replied.  And the best part was when I picked you up in my arms, lay you on the bed and we made wild passionate love.  Just wait until Joe comes to help me into my wheelchair in the morning.  I'll bet that he will tell us about his nightmare.