I missed telling stories at Sweetfields Farm this spring because of the quarantine. I think they had a limited admission policy and required social distancing while going through the maze. When the earth stops trying to kill us all, I highly recommend taking the family out to the farm. It’s lots of fun. Sitting at home trying not to get sick, I recall all the interesting people I’ve told stories through the years. One particular group sticks in my mind.
There I was under my tent canopy telling stories at the farm as visitors went through the five-acre sunflower maze. A group of young adults came up and sat down.
They were in that delightful age between twenty and early thirties when no one could accurately tell how old they were. All of them were about the same height, had straight brown hair and wide friendly brown eyes. Their faces were a pleasant olive color with no blemishes. They could have been of Hispanic background, Italian or from the Middle East. They had pleasant smiles and impeccably clean white shirts and pants.
One young man, who acted as the leader, took out his smart phone.
“Do you tell your own stories or something else?” he asked, revealing perfectly straight white teeth.
“I tell stories I make up and sometimes I steal stories from people who have been dead for a long time. Right now I’m telling Native American legends.”
“I like to ask questions,” the leader said, holding up his phone, ready to punch the record button.
“Oh sure.” I was hoping they would notice I had a basket with a sign “Storytelling Fund.”
“How old are you?” he asked in an even, very respectful tone.
“I’m sixty-nine years old. I’ll be seventy in October.” I didn’t mind telling my age. I was proud to have made it to be an old man. Besides, if I were agreeable enough, maybe they’ll leave a dollar tip. I remembered when a dollar was still a lot of money.
“Where did you grow up?”
“In Gainesville, Texas, north of Dallas and Fort Worth. It was a small town.”
“What was it like growing up?”
For some reason, I decided to talk about legal discrimination in the South of the 1950s and 1960s. I described segregated schools, whites-only restrooms and colored water fountains.
“I was so young I thought black people were getting free Kool-Aid and we weren’t.”
All the lovely young people gently laughed. This was odd because when I had told that joke before, people acted like they didn’t get it or if they did get it they didn’t think it was funny.
I told them I was called a N-word lover because I didn’t understand why black kids had to go to separate schools.
The lovely ladies in the group wrinkled their brows and murmured in sympathy.
At that point I said I didn’t know why I decided to talk about the cultural situation back at that time. I usually tried not to say anything that could be interpreted as being political. If I upset anyone, they wouldn’t leave a tip and I needed the gas money to get home.
“That’s all right.” The leader nodded and smiled. “We like to learn things.”
I became aware of an awkward pause in the conversation. Since they enjoyed asking me questions, I thought I’d ask them a few things. “So, are you visiting from another country?”
“No, we live here,” he replied.
“Then you must be from Tampa Bay?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Orlando.”
Okay, I told myself. Nobody from Orlando, which was in the middle of the state of Florida, would ever think of themselves as being a part of Tampa Bay any more than they would say they were from Cape Canaveral. It was at this time I officially became uncomfortable.
“Are you doing a college research project or something?”
“No, we just like to ask questions.”
“How nice.” I smiled, thinking of the many Twilight Zone episodes where strange new people in town just liked to ask questions.
How the hell do I get rid of these weirdos?
Maybe there was something wrong with me instead of them. Maybe I’ve watched too many Twilight Zone reruns. In either case, I felt it best to go into my usual spiel to prod visitors politely to move on.
“Thank you very much for dropping by and visiting with me. I hope you’ve enjoyed your day at Sweetfields Farm. Be sure to ride our tractor tricycles, shoot the potato cannon, play the water pump game and watch the pig races. You might also want to come back next October when we have the cornfield maze and pumpkin patch. I’ll be telling a new batch of stories then.”
The leader put away his cell phone. They stood and shook hands with me. Nice, firm, friendly handshakes from attractive young people with nice friendly smiles. They each put a dollar in my tip basket.
That night I told my son about my close encounter of the third kind as he was dressing for his night shift job. I asked him if I awoke in the middle of the night and found these young people dressed in white standing in an iridescent glow in the middle of my bedroom should I go with them to their spaceship.
“Sure,” he replied, “why not? But leave your credit card with me.”

(Transcript of the last performance of a radio advice program originating from Del Rio, Texas)
Announcer: Telephone lines are now open so call in your questions for Miss Maude, the sweetest church lady this side of the Pecos River, and Mr. Grady, who has been the janitor of the Eternal Flame of Truth Church for sixty years.
Miss Maude: Good evenin’, folks.
Mr. Grady: I gotta git outta here and milk Josie Belle. She’s about to bust a gusset. So iffen you got a question, you better call in fast.
Announcer: We just got our first caller of the night and it’s for Mr. Grady. Tell us your name, sir.
First caller: This is Homer Dipsheidt.
Mr. Grady: What can I do for ya, Homer? And make it fast.
First caller: Well, Grandma died in Fort Worth night and Mama’s wantin’ me to take the Greyhound up to her house in Cleburne, so I can drive her into town for the funeral. I got so upset about grandma that I went out to Mel’s tavern and drank up my whole paycheck on beer. I can’t afford the bus ticket no more. Should I call Mama and ask her to wire me the money?
Mr. Grady: Oh hell no. First, the phone call will cost too much. Then when you git to Cleburne your mama will expect you to pay the gas to drive into Fort Worth and on top of that you’ll have to pay her back for the bus ticket.
First caller: Mama will git awful mad.
Mr. Grady: Let ‘er git mad. You got a job to go to. By the way, tell your boss Jim Ed at the poultry farm I said hey.
First caller: I kinda wanna say good-bye to Grandma. She raised me, you know, when mama got caught stealin’ a car to run off with that travelin’ Bible salesman.
Mr. Grady: Aw, your grandma ain’t gonna hear you say good-bye. She’s dead.
First caller: But—
Mr. Grady: Get off the phone and let somebody else git a chance to squawk at us.
Announcer: Next caller is for Miss Maude and the name is Miss Odeen Fluger…fluger…how the hell do you saw that?
Miss Maude: Oh my goodness, I know Miss Odeen. What can I do for you, hon?
Second caller: Well, as you know, Miss Maude, old Mr. Dewberry went on to his heavenly reward last week, and they read the will today. I was flabbergasted to find out old Mr. Dewberry left me $500 with strict instructions to invest it in Sinclair Oil Company.
Mr. Grady: What the hell were you doin’ to get $500 out of ‘im, girl?
Miss Maude: Ever’body knows Odeen has been cleanin’ his house and cookin’ his food for the past three year.
Mr. Grady: That’s a hell of a lot of cleanin’ for $500!
Announcer: So what is your question, Miss Odeen?
Second caller: I don’t know how to go about investin’ in anythin’ so I thought Miss Maude could help me.
Miss Maude: The stock market is way too risky, my dear. You take that money and put it in a passbook savin’s account at the bank.
Mr. Grady: I wouldn’t trust that old devil down at the bank. You git that money in cash, put in a cigar box and hide it under your bed.
Announcer: And our next caller is Mary Beth Klownhausen. It seems Mary Beth has a bone to pick with the both of you.
Miss Maude: Oh dear me.
Mr. Grady: I didn’t hold no shotgun to ‘er head. It’s her own fault to call in to a silly assed show like this in the first place.
Third caller: Iffen you remember, I called last month ‘cause Kerwin Klownhausen asked me to marry ‘im. I didn’t know iffen I should or not ‘cause he jest got away with killin’ Susie Belle Mundkowski.
Miss Maude: Now the jury said he didn’t do it so you can’t say he did kill Susie Belle.
Mr. Grady: Listen, girl, you’re uglier than sin and marryin’ a damned killer is the best you can do.
Third caller: Well, Kerwin talks in his sleep and he’s sayin’ he did kill Susie Belle ‘cause he found out she was foolin’ around with Homer Dipsheidt.
Miss Maude: You should have slept with him first then you’da knowed he was a killer.
Third caller: But Miss Maude, you’re always sayin’ never give away the milk unless he buys the cow.
Mr. Grady: Susie Belle Mundkowski was a slut. You ain’t a slut, are ya, girl?
Third caller: No I was a virgin on my wedding night. Otherwise I’d never marry a killer.
Mr. Grady: There you have it. He’s not gonna kill you ‘cause you ain’t a slut.
Miss Maude: You’ve made your bed, Mary Beth, now you have to lay in it.
Third caller: But I’m scairt.
Mr. Grady: That’s what you git for callin’ in to a silly assed show like this.
Announcer: And we’re running out of time. Do you have any last word of advice, Miss Maude and Mr. Grady?
Mr. Grady: Stay away from the sexo-maniacs.
Miss Maude: I don’t know what that means, but I’d say Mr. Grady knows what he’s talkin’ about. He’s worked at the church for 60 years.
(After this program ran, Kerwin Klownhausen killed his wife Mary Beth Klownhausen, Homer Dipsheidt and Odeen Flugermeister, and stole the $500 in cash from a cigar box hidden under her bed. The judge ruled a mistrial and let Klownhausen out on $500 bail because Miss Maude and Mr. Grady were on the jury and couldn’t agree on a verdict. Shortly thereafter Klownhausen skipped town and was rumored to have moved to Las Vegas. The FCC took the radio station’s broadcast license away because Mr. Grady continued to call the program a silly assed show.)

Clem lived all his life in the mountains of southwestern Virginia, and he didn’t know what to make of all this talk about a Depression. He, his wife and kids got along very well, thank you, in their two-room cabin up in the holler. He planted a patch of tobacco that paid off the damn banker every year, raised a passel of pigs that made good eating every fall, and cooked up the best moonshine for miles around. His wife tended garden so they always had taters, maters and squash, not to mention corn needed for the moonshine. The kids helped their ma with the garden and took care of the chickens. A good person right with the Lord shouldn’t want more than that.
One day he was down at the country store talking around the cracker barrel when the preacher’s wife piped up that she didn’t know if she liked the idea of this brand new theater in downtown Abingdon.
“Dadburned movie pictures ain’t worth talking about.” Clem spat some tobacco juice in a corner, which was shiny and black from years of being spit in.
“Well, Clem, I ain’t talking about no movie picture show,” the preacher’s wife replied in a huff. “It’s like real-life people standing on a stage and spouting lines, prancing about, like they thought they was something fancy.”
“Oh, they’ve been doing that for years and years.” Clem spat again. “They’ve been doing that before there warn’t no motion picture shows. Don’t you know no better than that?”
“Of course, I do, Clem. But I don’t think it’s fitting for a man to stand in front of a bunch of women and children with sweat rolling off him, so close you can see it dripping off his nose. With all that pomade in his hair, glistening black.” The preacher’s wife fluttered her eyes and fanned herself. “Now what was it I was saying?”
“You was all upset by those men sweating on the stage.” Clem chuckled. “I don’t know why you’re getting so hot and bothered about it all. Nobody around here is fool enough to waste their money to go see it.”
“That’s just it, Clem,” the preacher’s wife said. “They ain’t charging no money at all. You bring in a chicken or a ham shank and you get in to see the show.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Clem spat a really big wad this time; in fact, he didn’t have any tobacco left in his mouth. He might as well go on home.
“But that’s the truth Clem,” the old storekeep Zeke interjected as he lumbered around the counter with his broom. “It’s these damnyankees from New York. They can’t get no work up there so they opened up this theater down here, and they do their playacting for food and might near everything else.”
“Is that so?” Clem took a snot rag out of his pocket and wiped his mouth. “They’re going to starve to death. Ain’t nobody with no common sense that’ll waste a perfectly good chicken on such foolishness.”
“They got a full house every night and two shows on Saturday and Sunday,” Zeke explained.
“Defaming the Lord’s day like that. Me and the ladies Bible league are planning to march with signs and scream Scripture at the sinners as they go in next Sunday,” the preacher’s wife announced.
“Maybe some menfolk should go on Friday night first so you ladies don’t make yourselves look silly,” Clem said, halfway to himself. “I got a leftover cured ham hanging in the barn.”
On Friday night, Clem showed up at the Barter Theater in downtown Abingdon with the cured ham tucked up under his arm. He didn’t think it would be right for the wife and kids be exposed to all this foohfrah until he saw it first. The theater people seemed right glad to see him and his ham and took him to a seat down front. They told him the name of the play was Hamlet. Now that might be right funny—a play about baby pigs.
When the curtain came up, Clem was disappointed. It wasn’t about no baby pigs at all. He could hardly make out what they were saying. It was English all right, but not decent English like they talked in the mountains, but that there fancy English spoke in England. The best he could make out it was about this here college boy who came home to find his daddy dead and his mama married his uncle, and he’s mad because they ate up all the food from the funeral at the wedding, and he didn’t get nothing to eat. Then this college boy sees his daddy’s ghost who tells him his uncle killed him so he could marry the mama.
By this time Clem was fidgeting in his chair something bad. He never had no use for college boys in the first place. If he wanted something to eat he should have gone out and shot a couple of squirrels and made himself a stew. Another thing this college boy did wrong was that he had this real pretty girl who wanted to marry him, but he went off and told her to become a nun. And that poor girl got so upset about being told to become a nun that she jumped in the creek and drowned herself.
Clem would have just gotten up and stormed out of that there theater, but they had set him down in the front row, and he didn’t think it was proper for him to stand up and keep everybody else from seeing the show. It didn’t make no sense at all. At the girl’s funeral, the college boy’s mama says “Sweets to the sweet.” That college boy jumped down in the grave thinking he was gonna get to eat the candy he thought his mama had thrown on the casket, but it turned out she threw in flowers instead. Clem decided the boy wouldn’t have been so moody if his mama just fed him proper.
The end of the show didn’t make any better sense. The college boy and the girl’s brother started a fight right there in front of everybody, and his mama got so upset they’re going to get blood on the good rug that she poisoned herself. When she dropped dead, the college boy decided to take it out on his uncle and ran him through with his sword. Then he dropped dead, probably because he never did get a decent meal through the whole play.
As he was walking out, Clem decided he was going to make a stink over this theater thing.
“Where’s my ham?” he bellowed out.
An older fellow came out of a little office and grabbed Clem by the elbow and took him through another door. Clem decided he got seen to real fast because this man didn’t want the other people to get the idea of asking for their stuff back too. Pretty soon Clem found himself behind the stage where they kept all the people who had put on the play.
“That was the worst dang thing I ever done see,” Clem announced. “I want my ham back.”
Those people looked awful worried, and they stepped away from this table with all the vittles that had been brought in that night. There Clem saw the college boy with a big chunk of his ham hanging out of his mouth.
“Oh forget it,” Clem said as he turned for the door. “He needs it more than I do.”

“Hey, brain, what do you think of that little cutie walking down the street?”
“I don’t think anything about her at all, heart. I’m happily married. And so are you. Or have you forgotten?”
“Of course, I forget all the time. I’m the heart. I can’t remember nothing. You’re the brain, Mr. Smartypants. You don’t forget nothing.”
“Don’t forget anything,” the brain corrected the heart. “Your grammar really makes my blood boil.”
“And it ain’t your blood, genius,” the heart retorted. “It’s my blood, because I’m the one who pumps it.”
“Could you two keep it down up there?” the stomach bellowed. “I’m trying to digest some food here, and that hamburger ain’t gonna metabolize itself, you know.”
“You ate another hamburger?” the heart asked in exasperation. “Stomach, don’t you remember what our doctor said?”
“You’re the brain. You’re supposed to remember those things for all us.”
“Yeah, meathead,” the heart interjected. “All this is your fault.”
“That’s right, heart.”
“Thank you, stomach.”
“I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you guys. Liver, lungs, you better listen up too.”
“I know I’ve caused us to cough too much lately,” the lungs grumbled. “So get off my back.”
“And I—I wanna know who’s responsible for all that cheap gin?” the liver asked. “You’re wearing me out.”
“That’s just it, my fellow organs,” the brain began his speech. “We’re all wearing out. I don’t know if you realize it, but we’re 72 years old. Now, that’s scary old. It’s getting on up there. We need to take care of ourselves better. I’m beginning to forget things, and I’m just too tired to keep reminding everyone to do his job.”
“You’re going to replace me with a younger heart, aren’t you? That’s what this is all about. You’re going to rip me out of my home and give it to some stronger, sexier heart. After all these years of faithful service, and this is what I get.”
“There you go, pumping yourself into another fit,” the stomach muttered. “That’s why I got ulcers. You and your fits.”
“Nobody loves me anymore. That’s all that a heart lives for is love, and you all hate me.”
“Whattaya mean?” the liver exclaimed. “You’re the center of our lives! Whoever thinks of a liver? Nobody. I’m supposed to shut up and keep on working. I don’t even know what I do, but I keep on doing it so we can all live.”
“Brain, could we move this conversation elsewhere?” the lungs asked. “That guy next to us is smoking a cigar, and I’m about to break out in another coughing attack. I know that shakes everybody up.”
“Hey, this walking around feels kinda good,” the heart exclaimed.
“Watch out,” the stomach warned. “I just processed some excess gas, and it’s makin’ its way through the large intestine.”
“Thank you, stomach,” the brain said. “That’s very considerate of you. You know what I think?”
“There he goes again,” the heart moaned. “The brain is gonna tell us what to think.”
“Can it, heart,” the lungs groused. “I’ve got a cough coming on, and it’ll make you feel even worse. We don’t need that.”
“All I wanted to say was, buddies…” the brain was cracking. “We’ve been working together for a long time, and I just want you to know it’s been an honor, a real honor.”
“Now that’s something I should say,” the heart complained. “Nobody ever lets me say the good stuff.”
“Shut up, heart,” the stomach ordered. “You’re makin’ my ulcers act up.”