- Courthouse in Cartersville, Ga.
A good laugh is something to be treasured. A good laugh is just plain good fun. I’m an old guy and I have known more than a few good storytellers in my time. My friend, Rodney is one of the best. He is belssed with the gift of gabb.
I was raised in Atlanta. In 1965, I went away to college, but not too far away. West Georgia College was only fifty miles down the road in Carrollton. It was there that I met Rodney and his friend Don, who Rodney always called Big D. They were country boys from the little North Georgia mountain town of Cartersville. Our first encounter was like the Martians meeting the Earthlings. I had never been around country folk and they had never been around city people, but in only a little time, we discovered that we weren’t very different and became fast friends.
Rodney and Don had been best buddies since the first grade. More than likely they were the class clowns. They were funny and that is what I liked most about them. I introduced Rodney to my friend Jane and for a long while they dated. Eventually, they broke up. Both married another. We graduated in 1969 and over time, I lost track of them.
Thirty years later circumstance brought me to Cartersville to live. I looked around town for Rodney and Don. Sure enough, they were still there and still close friends. Rodney worked for the Board of Education and was divorced. Don was happily married and owned an insurance agency.
After I had been in Cartersville for several years, Rodney called me one day and said, “You will never guess who I have been seeing.”
He was wrong. I guessed on the first try, “Jane.” I said. She too was divorced and in time Rodney and Jane married.
At a party, given in their honor in the home of a friend, I recounted several time how I had introduced them way back in 1965. It occurred to me that things hadn’t changed that much since college. I had this thought as I pulled and expensive microbrew out of a washtub that sat on the back deck, but back in college all we could afford was Pabts Blue Ribbon.
Later that night, it was Rodney’s turn to be center stage as he told this story in his long southern drawl.
“Big D and I played high school football. It was a hot August and we were at summer practice. Big D sprained his ankle for the fifteenth time. He was always spraining something.
After practice, I went to his house to check on him. All the windows were open and I could hear the attack fan running. This happened before houses were air-conditioned and it was really hot.
I knocked on the door. Big D’s dad, Frazier, let me in. He and Big D’s mom sat on the couch in front of a large window fan watching Andy Griffith on TV. I went up stairs to Big D’s room where he was soaking his ankle in a five-gallon bucket of hot water, only the water wasn’t hot anymore.
I said, “Let me change your water. It isn’t going to do any good to soak it if the water isn’t hot.” I grabbed the bucket and started walking to the bathroom, but I spilled a little.
Big D said, “Hay, dummy, just pour it out the window before you spill it all over the place. I went to the window and poured the water out. I heard a WHOOS sound and Frazier scream, “HOD DAMNIT BOY WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING UP THERE.”
I ran downstairs. Big D’s parents sat on the couch in a state of shock. Their hair was swept forward into a reversed ducktail hairdo and a wet cigarette drooped out of Frazier’s mouth. The couch, the chairs, the carpet, and Big D’s mom and dad, all soaked. The window fan had blown every drop of the water over every inch of the room.”
Sometimes the sun shines. Sometimes it rains, and sometimes at a good party someone tells a good story. We had a good laugh and good fun that night. As I said, when telling a story, my friend Rodney is one of the best. He has the gift of gabb.
