Funny Country News from Hogspore Arkansas 10-2007

Here is the October 2007 news from Hogspore Arkansas brought to you by its leading citizen, Clet Litter:

10-02-2007

Here’s a diet update:

First day of my diet, I bought 2 dozen doughnuts from Donald Doughnuts, and yeah I used the drive-thru window. I covered them doughnuts over with a shop rag and drove out to Clear Creek so nobody’d see me eat em.

I ain’t the man I used to be, cause I could only push down 15 of Donald’s pastries. Punkin says I’m more than the man I used to be … by bout 50 pounds.

On diet day two, I weren’t hungry. I remembered how I’d cheated on my diet and I come to feel too guilty to eat.

Two week’s gone by and I dropped 20 pounds, just from them guilty feeling. I started to tell Punkin what happened but I thought, “This is the first time a diet’s ever worked on me. If I fess up, I won’t feel guilty no more.

I plan to stay guilty and keep on a losing weight. If the guilt starts a wearing off, I’ll go get a booster batch of doughnuts.

There’s a new Farmer Brown’s Safari and Animal Oddity Museum on Highway 71, bout 30 miles out of town. We had a coupon for ten folks. Punkin couldn’t get enough friends to go, so we swung by Larry’s Assisted Living Facility and took 3 of the residents. Larry let us use the van.

We headed up Highway 71 with 4 old pick up trucks and a wheelchair equipped handicapped van with 3 old fellers bungee-corded down in the back. I wanted to play that song “Convoy” but my eight track player’s been broke fer a long time now.

We pulled onto the grass parking lot, “The Nairobi Parking Lot”. We was the only ones there and there weren’t no other parking lots, but Punkin still made me write down where I parked the truck.

First thing we did was take in the Animal Oddity Museum. It was made up to look like an old red African barn, kinda like what we got all over Hogspore. There was a table with some mason jars showing the wonderment of double yolked eggs.

We seen a small antelope with tiny little antlers. It musta been sick cause it barked at me and one of them antlers fell off. I sure hope the little feller gets to feeling better.

Then we saw the Arkansas two-headed Elk. He musta been 500 pounds, maybe 300 pounds if he was dressed out proper. He was only eating with one of his mouths. Farmer Brown said he had a bad tooth that had to come out, once he got his truck’s wench fixed.

We had us a close call in lion country. The wheel chairs got stuck in a mud pit, just when some lions started wandering up. We all took off for the Nairobi Parking Lot. I went back for the 3 old fellers, cause I wanted my cash deposit back that I give Larry that morning.

I heard they closed Farmer Brown down. The two-headed Elk turned out to be a one-headed Elk with a giant goiter and a face painted on it.

Here’s a joke to pull on somebody this coming Thursday, October fourth. Tell a friend, “You know…today is “Over and Out Day.”

They’ll come back with, “What do you mean “Over and Out Day?” 

Then you say, “Ten Four.”

There ain’t another good joke day like that a coming till “Ballerina Day” next year on February 2.

10-09-2007

“Clet, I need some old chestnuts of early-on Hogspore.”

That’s what Mayor Ringer come to ask me last month. Now the Mayor’s got a new tourist brochure coming out full of Hogspore facts and what a nice town we got. The pamphlet’s got them country time folktales that serphisticated folks love to read bout. Kinfolk and friends helped out with their yarns.

The Mayor’s happy with the stories, but he couldn’t use any of what Mumford Pickens offered up. Mayor says he wouldn’t even believe a preacher, if that preacher was standing too close to Mumford at the time.

So I’m gonna give you one of Mumford’s potboilers:

“Clet, this here account is bout the first true love affair what ever happened in Hogspore, Arkansas.

Many a year ago, fore the town got to be all growed up with the 800 some odd people we got living here now, there was just a few settlers scattered around. They was the ones with the broken wagon axles. When the wagon train left em behind, they got to hear how dumb they was fer buying a pre-owned wagon with 100,000 miles on it from Pittsburg Al’s House of Used Conestoga’s.

They settled down, bred up a bunch a youngins, and then died, with that ol wagon still in the front yard, a sitting up on 4 tree stumps.

This was before the town had a real name, even before a young circuit rider judge by the name of Aaron Rinseonce Hogspore rode into town. He settled here when his mule died right out from under him in front of Deckle’s Hotel and Emporium, Purveyors of Fine Whiskey and Dental Floss at Wholesale Prices.

These were the times when a hot bath, a Delmonico steak, and the comfort of a woman only cost 3 dollars, $3.50 if you wanted a baked tater and salad.”

I have to stop right here fer a pause. I forgot to tell you that Mumford asked me not to interrupt in the middle of his stories. He says it stops the excitement from building proper like. I won’t do it no more.

Mumford goes again, “In this little town, what weren't a town yet, there lived a man named Joseph Melon. Joseph took Becky Gentry to be his wife and pretty soon they was running a real pretty farm just north of town. Course, if there weren’t no town yet, then they weren’t really north of town, were they?”

I says, “You said not to interrupt and then you go ask me a question.”

“Clet, that was one of them rediculatorical questions, what don’t need no answer. Now can I go on?”

I was gonna answer him again, but I got to thinking that maybe this was another one of them trick questions that he don’t want answered. By then he was already talking.

“The Melons had 8 girls. Just when they thought Miss Becky had closed up shop, Mother Nature favored em with baby boy, Walter.

Just south of where the town was gonna be someday, Billy and Susan Dew had 8 boys and then come baby girl, Honey.

Walter and Honey went to school together in a ½ room schoolhouse. The community weren’t committed to education the way we are these days.

Well, them two kids was in love and wanted to get hitched up. Trouble was, their kinfolk were agin it or maybe it was cause they was just 11 years old.

One dark night Walter Melon pushed a ladder up to Honey Dew’s bedroom window. Walter was up the ladder helping Honey out the window, when Honey’s mamma caught em.

She yelled up the ladder, ‘What are you kids up to?’

‘Mamma, we’re running off to get married up.’

Mamma looked down and thought fer a second and then she let go again, ‘Walter Melon and Honey Dew. You Cantaloupe.’”

10-16-2007

When I get bad news, I try to hold onto it fer awhile without thinking too much bout it.

I kinda swish it around my brain and give it some wide consideration. Put it away fer awhile. Pretty soon, that news don’t seem so bad. If it still feels right bad, I put it away some more and get it out tomorrow for a good going over.

This ain’t no skill fer little kids though. They go start a fire in the bedroom, come out and close the door, sit down and go to playing in the living room. If these kids don’t get burned up, they grow up to be real good pollerticians.

I guess I beat around them bushes enough. I had some bad news yesterday. Not bout me so much as my friend Garret Calmly. He got laid off his job.

He used to work out on Highway 71 for Grimely’s Tractor Sales. He was their best mechanic. Sometimes he would have to work the showroom floor and he could sell a tractor or two. The regular salesman was jealous and Garret got sent back to the service dept.

He knew everything there was to know bout tractors. Hey, you know I’m talking like he’s gone. He ain’t dead, just out of a job, but that’s bout as close as it gets to feeling dead … without going ahead and croaking.

Garret’s got a good wife and four children that are always in the way and most often hungry, but he’s got something that he forgot he had. He’s got us town folk and every thing is gonna be fine for him and his family. That's the way we do it in Hogspore. We take care of our own.

I probably lost more jobs in my life than any most folk around. I was going over it in my head and some of my work history is sorta foggy like. Last night I figured up that I have lost 150 jobs, even though I can only recollect 145 of em. Looks like I might a been fired bout 5 times, when I didn’t even have a job at the time.

Since I am the town expert on losing jobs, I got some advice for anyone who finds hisself in that sorta fix. You got to have a funeral fer that job you just lost.

Fill up a cardboard box with some of the stuff that you already stole from the job: something like a stapler, writing pens, a pipe wrench if it don’t work good, maybe last year’s Christmas card from the boss explaining why there weren’t no bonuses.

Bury that cardboard box behind the house. Say a few words bout how you’re gonna miss that old job, but that’s just the way it is.

Close your eyes fer a minute of silence so you can remember what ol man Grimely said to you. “Garret, we just ain’t making nuff sales to keep paying everybody, so we’re a letting you go. You done a good job here and it ain’t nothing personal.”

Keep your eyes shut, but let that old high school yearbook smile that your wife married you for, come crawling cross your face. Remember ol man Grimely’s face … when he saw those four flat tires on his new Cadillac.

“Nothing personal, Mr. Grimely.”

10-23-2007

I seen a bumper sticker yesterday that said, “My Hogspore Elementary child is NEARLY GIFTED.

Halloween’s a coming. The town is a decorating up with witches, ghosts, and old Massachusetts’ senators. We even got signs that says, BOO. When someone flashes a BOO at me, I’m gonna have a sign that says YIKES.

There’s gonna be a big barn dance after the kids get finished up with trick or treating. The children will be all sugared up and tantrum bound. We let the children dance til they pass out from the candy. They start dropping and we move em onto a big pile of hay. We keep on a dancing and having a good time. That hay pile makes a cheap baby sitter. 

Some of the kids will be collecting money stead of candy for the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF. I remember getting in a heap of trouble when I was a kid, collecting fer charity.

I raised up over three hundred dollars one Halloween night for a charity I made up called
HEPYOURCEF.

Ebben Flow, the water control officer, says his brother Ober is up in Nashville with a recording contract. Ober Flow has got a good set of pipes on him. His first song is called, “I Said I do And Now She Don’t”. He’s right now recording a second song, “Don’t Ever Regret What You Never Done.”

Junior Bickum’s got a new truck. It’s a Ford Ozarks, 4 doors, hunting lights, remote control 360 degree spot light, trailer hitch on the back, front end two ton electrical winch, and a lead-lined steel box in the truck bed fer holding your fishing dynamite. Salesman throwed in a wide mouthed bass decal and some of them eat-my-dust mud flaps with outlines of Branson Missouri show girls on em.

What won me over on Junior’s truck was them 8 cup holders. There’s an extra large one on the driver’s side what can hold a full-filled Mason jar.

Got some high tech news up from Winslow’s Holler. The got no telephones and them
fancy little cell phones don’t work in the holler. They just yell back and forth to get things done. Sometimes 4 to 5 of them folks gets to yelling out a message at the same time, but now the state’s putting in something called HOLLER WAITING.

Here’s a joke what goes around Hogspore at election time. What do they call the Mayor of Winslow’s Holler?

They call em a Hollertician.

Granddaughter Evangeline rescued a injured otter from Clear Creek. She nursed it back to health and we set it free up near Clear Creek headwaters yesterday. She named him Otto.

Evangeline’s not real creative come time fer terming things. I remember when she was just 5 years old with her ant farm. She got to 25 names that started with A and couldn’t think of nary one more.

She’d still be crying bout it to this day, if I hadn’t sneaked in that night and hit all them un-labeled ants with some bug spray. She was upset that they was dead, but somewhat relieved that they didn’t need christening.

Turns out Otto, the Otter had a family waiting fer him. His four youngins swam out to meet him and we even seen his pretty wife waitin on the other bank fer him. I think she was his wife. Course, she might just a been his significant otter.

10-30-2007

“How to tell if she doesn’t want to date you.” I seen the story title in one of them barbershop men’s health magazines. I showed it to Punkin.

Punkin said, “You remember what I told you the first time you formally asked me out?”

I had to admit, that I had done forgot what happened that first time. Course a married man don’t need a good memory cause the Mrs. will always remember for him. Here’s what she said to me and I ended up marrying her anyway.

“Clet Litter, I knowed you since the 1^st grade and I never really liked you. Your ears and hands and feet is too big. You ain’t the smartest mullet in the ocean or the best lookingest boy in Hogspore, but I guess I’ll go out with you. I just feel so dern sorry for you, that I’m a gonna give you a pity date.”

Once she got to know my finer hidden qualities, along with my big ears and big hands and big feet, we was married and the rest is herstory.