DRESS
CODES
From the
chapter "The Gentlest Decade"
SMOKING
GUNS
That
was the year several of us got .410 shotguns for Christmas.
Man, we loved those shotguns.
During the hot days of summer we would load up with
our shotguns, shells, snake bite kit, and a supply of slim,
small cigars called cigarillos, and head off to the woods to
experience whatever adventures nature could throw our way.
We
usually ended up on a three mile long three-plank wide
wooden walkway that was used by the natural gas company to
inspect the condition of their pipeline. The
walkway ran right through the middle of a heavily wooded
swamp-like area until it crossed over Muckalee Creek in the
form of a hanging rope bridge.
We walked all the way to the creek, shooting snakes,
squirrels, and anything else we saw that needed shooting,
creating havoc and panic in the world of nature.
Three
of us were walking back home on the dirt road that ran
through a colored neighborhood late one hot summer
afternoon, after a very pleasing foray in the swamp.
We had our shotguns slung over our shoulders.
As we puffed away on our small cigars, we regaled and
congratulated each other with compliments on our great
courage shown by jumping naked from the rope bridge into
Muckalee Creek into a section of the creek said to be
heavily populated by water moccasins.
Evidently, the owning of a shotgun and the smoking of
small cigars did not automatically endow us with a great
deal of intelligence or wisdom.
But, I digress.
We saw
a Georgia State Patrol car heading toward us and knew we
shouldn’t get caught smoking.
We had to get rid of the cigars, and fast.
We didn’t want to waste them so we slid them down
the barrels of our shotguns and continued marching along the
road as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
The trooper driving the car also lived in our
subdivision; terrible luck for us.
He pulled his cruiser in front of us and turned on
his flashing red overhead light.
He got out of the car, put on his Smokey-bear hat,
adjusted his aviator sunglasses, and ambled over to where we
were standing beside the road.
He looked like he was ten feet tall and weighed three
hundred pounds. He
stared at us without speaking for several minutes, and
finally said, “what the hell you boys think y’all is
doin’?”
I
didn’t think he would appreciate my pointing out to him
that we were probably out of his jurisdiction, and that he
had said “is” when he should have said “are” so I
replied with as much bravado as I could muster, “nothing,
sir. Why do you
ask?”
“Well,”
he said, “culuh me suspicious but the sight of three mynuh
white boys strollin’ thoo the middle of culuhed town with
shotguns tho’de over they shoulders and smoke po’in out
of the barrels of them shotguns jest don’t look right.
What ’chall think ‘bout it?”
We
thought it was a great idea to shake the cigars out of the
barrels of our shotguns before they set off the shells in
the guns, acting in the grand tradition of non compos
mentis. The
trooper made us grind the cigars into the ground, ruining
our perfect day. Furious,
but mercifully brief, punishment ensued when I got home, and
I got on with life. I
swore off cigars forever and meant it.
I slyly omitted cigarettes from this oath.
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