The French Kiss in Woolmarket MS

I was still going what we called going steady with Sheila (8th grade) when I got invited to a hayride at the local Methodist church. The Reverend was a 19-year-old named Brother Charles. Sheila came from one of the most prominate families in Woolmarket. She had a pool in her front yard.

When we got started, I looked around and there were at least 3 women (girls) to every boy. I didn’t think too much about it, because I was going to get to kiss Sheila. But during the night, I found out those women hang together and sometimes it can work to a young mans advantage. Sheila soon felt like the wife on Little Big Man (I think her name was Sunshine) and felt she should share her man with the rest of the girls, sitting around with no one.

So she sent me on a mission. First up was Terri, the older woman. She was in the 10th grade. She was eating chocolate malt balls. Kissed on Terri about 20 minutes and she would let you brush beside some new territory every once in while. Next was Brenda…also an older woman…. Brenda was a cousin of Sheila. Then on to Susan, the local hotty…Stayed with Susan till Sheila moved down and we moved back to our normal spot.

Sheila and I made out for about another 30 minutes when she noticed that no one had approached Cheryl. She was sitting at the back of the trailer and no one had kissed her. Cheryl was skinny as a rail and when Sheila suggested I go kiss her, I was not all that excited about it! I think Cheryl heard part of the discussion and was somewhat embarrassed when I agreed to do my duty for God and Country. She told me, you don’t have to kiss me if you don’t want to. I said I want to.

When we kissed she did something strange; she opened my lips and stuck her tongue down my throat. I thought …hmm this is different and did the same thing back. We kissed for about 10 minutes and then I went back to Sheila. I stayed with Sheila for the rest of the night.

Two days later, I get a call from Sheila and she is mad as hell that I didn’t tell her that I knew how to FRENCH KISS. I said what the heck is French kissing? She said don’t play innocent with me, you know what it is? I said, no I don’t. She said it is where you stick your tongue down your girlfriend’s throat….I said; oh that is what that was. Those French folks know how to do it right!


Side Note: Saw that skinny little girl (Cheryl) about 20 years later at a school reunion and she was drop dead gorgeous. Wish I had French kissed her some more.




Art Nalley
Redneck Heritage Network
@2001

Things I learned from Grandpa and Daddy Buck

I had two grandfathers that were as different as night and day. One a city slicker and the other a farmer and they both taught me things in their own way. I guess I will start with Grandpa Nalley (the farmer) who taught me about hard work and comedy timing. He had a very dry sense of humor and you had to pay close attention to catch when he was playing with you. He talked slow and very drawn out. For part of my life we lived in a trailer next to my Grandfather's place while my father was overseas in the military. During those couple of years all of us boys worked for Grandpa. Get up early in the morning go to the barn and shuck corn. After you had about six burlap sacks full you would throw them in the back of his truck and go up to his corn mill building. The building had a big pulley looking thing coming out the side that Grandpa would hook a tractor belt to engage his PTO and the milling machines in the old building would all start moving. We would make up about fifty bags of corn meal and then he would load them up in his truck and make his store rounds selling them. If you were lucky he might buy you a coke but you learned to not brag about it later cause Grandma would get on to him for doing so. She was tight; I think it had something to do with growing up in the depression. Grandpa said one time ain't nobody but the lord and the banker know how much money Mrs. Nalley has.

Remember me saying Grandpa Nalley taught me comedy timing? Well here is a story I like to tell about him because it is so much out of his normal character. Now you have to have the mental picture of them first. They are at this time both around 70 and sitting out on the front porch peeling apples. Grandpa and his pocket knife dressed in his overalls and Grandma in an old dress, long down to her ankles with her kitchen apron on. The chickens were just out the door eating some corn Grandpa had thrown to them. An old Rooster was out strutting in the yard and about every minute and half he would top a chicken (that is country for getting some, for you city folks) well after that rooster had topped about his forth hen grandma leaned over and said to Grandpa: I sure wish you could do that. Grandpa looked a little hurt at first and just looked down at his apple and kept peeling it. It was then I noticed he kept one eye cocked toward that rooster. Sure enough about 30 seconds later that rooster topped him another hen. Grandpa leaned back in his chair and said real slow…. I probably could if I had a fresh hen each time.

My other Grandfather we called Daddy Buck he was actually my step Grandpa as the real Grandpa died before I was born. Daddy Buck loved drinking beer and he loved telling stories. That sounds like someone I know. Us boys loved sitting around listening to him tell his stories and he had a very colorful life. He quit school in the 4^th grade and went to work in the mill. That was the expected thing back then. Later he got into moon shinning and he did some vaudeville. Some would say he was a mean old guy but he just liked to teach boys life lessons like the time he bet me fifty cents I couldn't pee thru and electric fence. Now for you that have not had this experience sooner or later the stream decreases and the electricity increases. Then there was the time he told me that if you put butter on your hands you can catch bees and they can't sting you. Daddy Buck was also the author of the family ghost called Red Eye. Red Eye had one big eye in the middle of his head and he hung around graveyards during the day and would venture out at night to eat little children. Red Eye liked his food tender. Red Eye is still passed down in the family as soon as a kid gets old enough to listen.

Daddy Buck and Granny would come down to Mississippi most Christmas's (they lived in Jacksonville, Fl) and he always had a grocery sack full of fire cracker's for us boy's to shoot around the fire. We men folk would hang out at night, telling stories and shooting firecrackers while the women folk stayed in the house doing whatever they did. You could make good money hanging around Daddy Buck as he would pay you a nickel a beer to fetch it for him. My stories are nothing compared to the ones he could tell and I don't know how many times in my life I wished I had written them down as I can't remember them real clear today but remember they were great.
At the end of a night we had this man ritual where we would all circle the fire and piss it out. Then if needed we would bring the hose, but most the time Daddy Buck had enough beer in him to take care of it.

I remember one year someone took a picture of that ritual. Well back then they had film on rolls and it may take you most of the year to use the roll up and then you had to take it to the drug store to get the film developed. Mom had been to town and she come thru the front door mad as hell. Stuck that picture in my Dad's face and said who took this picture? You could have had me arrested; everybody's in the store has probably seen it! My Dad and us boys thought it was funny but Mom didn't see the humor in it at all. Well it is time to clean up the garage and work on the tractor a little. I had read a story by a young lady about her grandmother that inspired this story, hope ya'll like it. Chapter 2 will be about marrying my Granny as Genny is so much like her it is scary from time to time. She has her love of life and laugh down pat.


Art Nalley
Redneck Heritage Network
@2010

Past Throat Cancer Story

It is the 3^rd day of treatment and starting to feel some of the effects. I don't feel the treatment but my voice is getting worse and my taste buds are going away. They gave me a damn list of things I can't have over the next six weeks and I swear they must have interviewed me during my sleep to find out what I like and outlawed it. I love a tomato sandwich and guess what mine are just coming in and I been eating them every night for a week. No can do. And you know that orange juice I like in the morning with my sausage biscuit, no can do. You know all those years of smoking made me spice everything up to the max so I could taste it; you guessed it no can do.

These folks don't have any sense of humor at all but I am trying to train them. They took my picture (a dad pose) and every time I come in they ask me if that is me. Today I put on my glasses and looked real hard at the picture, which made the tech's look at it real hard too. I looked around the waiting room and said; you see anybody else that damn good looking in here? They laughed and said come on back Mr. Nalley.

They made this special mask that supposedly only fits my face so when we got in the room I said, okay you ask me each time I come in if the picture on the treatment schedule is me but what is there to say you are using the right mask, you got my name on it? He showed me that they did and then assured me that the mask is so specialized as to facial features that if he tried to use someone else's it would not fit. I look and they got all the other current patients mask hanging up in an open closet. I pointed and said good damn thing I ain't got prostate cancer I would hate to be hanging in there and have the female tech's come by and judge me each day before treatment. The female tech laughed her ass off and the male one actually blushed.

Well I beat that cancer and recently got my five year okay and later had prostate cancer but had surgery versus radiation. Hope none of you ever face this in your life but if you do, put a little humor in it. It helps.

Addition:

It appears I have become the poster boy on Goggle, Bing and Yahoo for a picture of throat cancer. This story by far is my most read story on my blog.  It was written in an attempt to put a little humor into the situation because no one likes to hear they have cancer.  So don’t just stop with this story, I have over 60 more on my blog and I prescribe for you to read no less than one per day.  If you are a man trying to figure out a woman you will like a lot of my stories.  But most important by far is find humor in all things humor and laughter will cure you.

Art Nalley
Redneck Hertiage Network
@2005

Décor and Ed-u-mah-cation is everything?

After many years of being number 3, my oldest Brother joined the Army and the next one went off to college and got married. Like Bush did early today, I assumed the tittle as the Commander and Chief. This position did have benefits. No one was around that could kick your ass and it was your turn to make you little brother’s life miserable. The number one benefit was that you got your own room. Needless to say, I didn’t like the décor of the previous occupant. I talked my father out of a record player that had a speaker about 2ft high and one foot wide. I painted the outside of the speaker case Cherry red. It had a place you could plug in a mike and sing along with the songs.

Use to love to do that when I got mad about something. I would put on a little Stephenwolf and sing “Born to be Wild” or my all time favorite: What gives you the right, to stand and tell me what to do, tell me, who gave you the power, to stop me from living like I do. Remember if you plan to stay that those that give can’t take away. I also played a lot of Bee Gee’s and Bread. Both groups put out a lot of romantic sad songs about some woman that done you wrong. So she broke your heart…go get you a pint of JD and start off listening to some songs about other folks in the same situation. Drink a little, listen a little and sing along a little. When you got it out of your system., you go. back to Stephenwolf. Bornnnnnn to be wilddddddddddddddddddd.. I am on the fucking highway, going to do it my way…born to be wild.

To hell with that woman…she doesn’t know what she passed up.

This period was in the early 70’s. Hippie movement was pretty big and you had to have long hair to be anybody. Course dad being Military didn’t care for that much. He thought the Beatles were a communist plot to take over America, by destroying its youth. For most of these years I had long blond hair down to the edge of my shoulder. I was lean and mean. My mamma said the only time my pants fit right was on payday. So I guess that means I had no Ass to speak of. I started smoking in the 8th grade so by the time I got to the 10th grade there was no desire to hide it anymore. I found an old toilet somewhere and set it up in the room halfway down the wall. No tank..just the bowl. This was to be my ashtray. Hell you didn’t have to dump it for years. Then went out and bought a poster picture of the devil that was painted in fluorescent paint. I placed the poster on the wall behind the toilet. Went out to the highway and stole one of those big yellow-blinking lights. Placed it in the bowl, blinking up at the poster of the devil. It made it look like the flames were actually moving.

The fashion of the day was bell-bottom pants and shirts with the big French collars and sleeves. Your shoe had to have at least 2 inch heals on them. Course it was hard to get your parents to dress you like one of those communist faggots so you had to buy your own.

Vietnam was still going on and those folks were shooting each other. Didn’t look like a fun place to go and when you got back somebody would call you a baby killer instead of thanking you. So unless you were crazy, there were two schools of thought. Either do extremely well so you could get a full scholarship to college (you would get a deferment and hopefully the damn war would be over by time you got out) or stay in High School. I chose the easiest…stay in high school. Failed the 9th grade twice. I even failed PE. Skipped school whenever I could and chased them women. Since I had failed the 9th twice, I decided I would quit school. 18 was a few years away, I could get a full time job and chase them women.

Only problem was getting mom and dad’s permission to do so. That 2nd summer my dad decided the house needed a new septic tank system and guess who was going to dig it since it was probably going to be my occupation in life anyway, with no education. My father invited my grandfather down for the summer also. He had recently retired. He was to supervise me digging the septic tank hole and lines. He was a real good guy and there will be many stores on him down the road. But he only had about a 4th grade education and had to work hard all of his life.

It was very hot down in that hole. You would dig a little, pick a little and then chop a little to get those pine roots out of the way. Daddy Buck would sit at the edge of the pit in a lawn chair, sipping on a cold beer and taunt the hell out of you while you worked. You need to dig some more there…do this, do that… He finally got on my last nerve and I grabbed the axe and was going to come out of the hole and kick his ass when he said: You come on out of that hole and whip this old man’s ass if you want to boy, but if you don’t finish high school you going to have some old dumb bastard like me, telling you what to do for the rest of your life. I put down the axe and looked at him and he looked like a man of conviction, he believed what he was saying and it was based on his experience. I had to listen. I did well in school the next year, which means I passed all my courses and then went to summer school 2 years in a row to catch up. By the time I reached my senior year I had an easy load. I only had to go half days.

Side Note: Doing fairly good these days and make enough to support two women. One just gives me the privilege to writing her checks however. Oh well who would have ever thought a ditch digging boy from Woolmarket would even be able to do it.


Art Nalley
Redneck Hertiage Network
@2004