My friend, Bo stopped by today.
He had a couple of empty plastic milk jugs and was looking for free water. I asked him if their water had quit on them but he said, “Nope. Me and Windy are fixin’ to help out Lorellen over at her place.”
Lorellen was Bunny’s best friend I guess forever and even was in her wedding party. That is to say, she stood behind Windy in the event he tried to break and run but I guess he was tired of evadin’ and avoidin’ because the wedding went right through to the end.
What’s wrong with Lorellen’s water?” I asked Bo. But he didn’t want to talk about it much. It seems he had that one-eyed goat out to Lorellen’s place and tied it to the old pump handle on the well and while he was inside yacking it up with Lorellen and her husband the goat got to feistyin’ around and broke through the boards. When Bo went back out all he saw was a broke piece of twine that he had the goat tied with. Lorellen was madder than all get out when she found out a danged goat had got itself drowned in her well.
“Well, “says Bo, “She’s livin’ in her Grampa Tud Foster’s old place and he never would have it hooked up to the Federal supply like regular folks did” “Said it was a waste of good pipe and all, them having a good well.” And I said, “Well, I woulda thought Lorellen and her husband woulda had it hooked up.”
“Well, no,” says Bo, “Lorellen’s kind of eggcentric. You know how she is.”
“Well,” I say, “She is her Grampa’s kin and he was strange enough for two.” And wantin’ to change the subject I say, “Bo, how do you suppose Old Tud ever got such an odd name, anyway?” And Bo said, “Well I asked him that once that last year before he died when he was spending so much time settin’, just settin’, out on that old porch looking at stuff no one else could see I guess because he would sure strike up a good conversation all by himself and one day he was just a chit chattin’ to thin air and I stopped and chit chatted awhile with him and I asked him about if Tud was his real name and he said “No, it wasn’t.”
“The way Tud told it was that he was the tail end of six boys,” says Bo, “and his Ma, wantin’ a girl like most women do, took advantage of Old Pappy’s, that’s what Tud called him, Old Pappy, bein’ gone to the woods for three days with a couple a fellas he hung out with and she named the new arrival Maudie Charlene, sayin’ she would make him her girl. The Doc even had it done up on paper at the court house. Well, Old Pappy uz madder than all get out and said, “Anyone I hear callin’ that little turd Maudie Charlene or anything like is going to get throwed down and stomped on..so nobody ever did but the turd part stuck and they just called him Little Turd ‘til he went off to school and Mz. Floreen Justice, who was teaching back then, misunderstood Little Turd’s way of speakin’..their folks was from Tennessee..and wrote him down as “Tud” and that’s how he is called that to this day.”
“I thought on that for awhile then I said, "Well, it’s too bad about the water, anyway”.
We filled the jugs up at the spigot and Bo said, “See ya around,” and I said “See ya, Bo” and he started up his old truck and rattled off. I kept on doing what I was doing when he came which was not much of nothin’, and pretty soon I got tired of that and went in and went to bed.
