Cletis Clyde's Mem-wires

Howdee, folks. Cletis Clyde here.

I was a-thinkin' that someday I jest might try to write down some of my mem-wires. So whilst I was a-thinkin', I got to wonderin' what rememberances I would want to jot down in a book. I reckon I should start wiffin my days when I was little.

When I was a youngin' I used to walk into class at school every morning with a black eye. After a while my teacher got worried and asked me about it.

"Cletis, why do you come to school every day with a black eye? Are you getting into fights?"

I answered, "Our house is very small, miss. Me, my mother and my father, we sleep on the same bed. Every night my father asks, 'Cletis you sleeping?'

"When I said, "No" he slapped my face and gave me a black eye."

So the teacher says to me, "Tonight when your father asks again, keep dead quiet and don't answer".

The following morning when I came to school my eye was fine, so the teacher breathed a sigh of relief.

But the day after that I came back with two black eyes.

Alarmed the teacher asked, "My goodness Cletis, why the black eye again?"

I told her, "Mam, Dad asked me again, 'Cletis are you sleeping?'...and I shut up and kept dead still. Then my father and my mother started moaning (you know) at the same time. Mom was breathing heavy, and kicking her legs up and squealing like a hyena on the bed.

Then my father asked my mother, 'Are you coming?' Then my mom said, 'Yes I'm coming, are you coming too?' My dad answered 'Yes'.

They don't usually go anywhere without me so I said, 'Wait for me...'"

Then they is the time that I looked into a mirror for the very firs' time. You see' it was like this, my uncle was always a-sayin' that my paw an' maw was jest about the ugliest couple in the hills. I guess my paw believed him and 'cause of that he said we could never have any mirrors in our house.

After living way back in the remote hills of West Virginia all my life, I decided it was time to visit the big city. In one of the stores I picked up a mirror, and not knowing what it was I looked in it.

Not ever having seen one before, I was surprised at the image staring back at me. I said, "How about that! Here's a picture of my Paw."

So I done bought the mirror thinking it was a picture of the old man, but on the way home I remembered that my wife didn't like my father a'tall. So I hung it up in the barn so's she wouldn't see it.

Afterwards, every morning before I would wander there and look at it. Then I'd go in there in the afternoon and then again a-fore suppertime.

My wife began to get suspicious 'bout all my many trips to the barn. One day she followed me out to the barn and found me lookin' in the mirror.

She shoved me aside and when she looked into the mirror, she screamed, "So that's the ugly bitch you's been runnin' around with."

I 'spose I could put down a few lines about when I was a-datin' a-fore I got hitched. What book of mem-wires don't have stuff 'bout courtin' and a-sparkin'?

A while back, when I was considerably younger, I picked up this purty gal at her parents' house down the holler a bit from where I lived.

I really fancied her and wanted to impress her. I'd scraped together some money to take her to a nice fancy restaurant.

Hell's bells iffin she didn't up and order the most expensive items on the menu. She musta thought I was made of money cause she got some champagne, shrimp cocktail, and lobster.

I asked her, "Does your maw feed you like this when you eat at home?"

"No," she replied. "but my mother's not expecting me to get on my knees in front of her fly either."

What can I say? I asked her if she wanted dessert.

I remember the time that I learned that a feller can meet some gals by a-ridin' on a bus.

I was on a bus one day, when this purty young woman sat opposite me. Tarnation iffin she didn't start to breast feed her baby right there in the seat next to me!

"Come on, eat up, or I'll give it to that man over there," she says to the baby.

I don't have to tell you that sure got my 'tenshun.

Ten minutes later, she is still trying to feed the baby and says, "Come on, or mummy will give it to that man over there."

Well I looked over to the woman and says, "For heaven's sake missus, will you make your mind up. I should've got off this bus 3 stops ago!"

I think I would like fer my mem-wires to show that I'm really quite a romantic feller.

One night after a long days barbeque, I was a-sitting with my wife on the back porch. I was jest relaxin' wiffin' a cold Carlings in hand.

I felt that life didn't get no better than that and so I said, “I love you.”

My wife piped up, “Is that you, or the beer talking?”

I answered, “It’s me ... talking to the beer.”

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