Holey Watermelon!
This is one of the stories that I shared in my latest book, The Southern Fried Fix. I hope you enjoy it!
The
word gun control has a totally
different meaning in the South than it does anywhere else. Where I come from, gun control means that you learn to
control your gun at a very early age. In other words, you have a gun and know
how to use it. My parents had a gun rack over their bed. That’s right, over the
bed, in plain sight, and the kids of the house never went near it.
Holey Watermelon!
Let me amend that comment. The only
time we ever went near it was when Dad would yell, “Go get the shot gun!” When
we heard those words, we knew that trouble was a brewing, and that we’d better
skedaddle.
On one occasion, our neighbor, John
Henry Claxton, decided to build a fence fifty feet over onto our property. He’d
come to Dad earlier and tried to strike a deal in which he would give him fifty
feet of his junk property in the back in exchange for fifty feet of our good
property in the front. Of course, Dad said, “No way.”
John Henry decided that he was
going to build the fence anyway. When Dad looked out and saw what was
happening, he went out and had a few choice words with John Henry. When no
amount of talking could convince John Henry not to build the fence, Dad yelled,
“Go get the shot gun!” And that’s when John Henry left.
A few hours later, we got a knock
at the door, and there stood the sheriff along with John Henry.
The sheriff looked at my dad. “Mr.
Poole, I understand that you threatened Mr. Claxton with a shot gun.”
Dad straightened himself up to his
full height and looked him in the eye. “Yes, sheriff, I did.”
“Why?”
“He was trying to build a fence
fifty feet over onto my property.”
The sheriff looked at John Henry
with a raised eyebrow. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” John Henry admitted, “but I
offered him fifty feet of my property in exchange for fifty feet of his
property.”
“And I said absolutely not!” Dad said. “Then he started building the fence
anyway, so I yelled at the kids to get the shot gun.”
The sheriff gave John Henry at hard
look. “Well, if you tried to build a fence on my land without my permission, I
reckon I’d shoot you too.” He tipped his hat at Dad. “Sorry to bother you. Have
a nice evening, Mr. Poole.”
And that was the end of that.
Anyway, back to the watermelons. It
was one of those sweltering summers in Alabama where you feel like your face is
going to melt off and you couldn’t draw in a good breath if your life depended
on it. Our family had gone to visit some relatives who lived on a big farm out
in the country. I was thirteen and Page was ten. We arrived a few days early
and had plenty of time to roam the woods before the other relatives arrived at
the end of the week for a family reunion.
Not
wanting to have to entertain the kids all week, our parents handed us bee bee
guns and said, “You have an entire farm at your disposal. Go shoot!”
Page and I, along with our boy
cousins, practiced shooting aluminum cans, tree branches, rocks, and any
unlucky squirrel that crossed our path. After a while, we grew bored and
decided to try our hands at more interesting targets—the watermelons lying
under the shade trees in the yard.
The satisfying plunks let us know that our aims were improving as we fired again
and again at the watermelons. What we failed to realize is that the watermelons
were too big to fit in the refrigerator, so they had been placed in the cool
shade of the trees in preparation for the reunion
The
day of the reunion finally arrived and relatives came in droves, carrying
casseroles and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Everything went fine until we
all gathered to eat watermelon. Mom’s eyebrows furrowed as she turned over one
of the melons and examined the tiny holes. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. They all have
holes.”
A
few people gathered around, trying to decide what type of bug had been eating
on the watermelons.
We,
the culprits, looked wide-eyed at each other and scattered like flies but were
soon roped back when an elderly aunt nearly cracked her denture on a bee bee.
Mom scolded us, but we could see the laughter in her eyes. Nevertheless, as any
good mother would, she made us eat every bite of those watermelons.
And
that year, we weren’t just spitting out seeds.
To read other funny stories about the South, check out my latest book on Amazon Kindle.