In memory of Stubby “Bobo” Jones, 07/11/95 – 02/10/10
When I was about 10 years old, I learned what a “dumb bull” was. This learning experience was courtesy of my grandfather. When one hears the words “dumb bull” all kinds of images pass through one’s mind. Images of a crazy cow or a brainless runaway bull passed through mine when I first heard the term.
Dumb Bull
Actually, a “dumb bull” is not a living creature at all. It is a simple device that works without electricity or electronics. It is a crude “sound effects” generator. The sound a dumb bull creates is almost guaranteed to stampede cattle, cure constipation in youngsters,
increase sales of ammunition in rural areas, as well as cause the switchboard of your local 911 operator to light up on a boring night in a small town! In short, a dumb bull is a practical joker device that will scare the living daylights out of anything that hears it. Dumb bulls were popular in the “good old days” of our grandparents in rural areas. Dumb bulls are also mentioned in The Foxfire Books.
“The Country” means a hundred different things to a hundred different people. To me, it has always meant freedom.
There’s something about the lack of people and the open space that gives you an opportunity to stretch out and have an adventure. As a teenager that meant the ability to get into trouble without having someone on your back. Blow something up. Build a potato gun and shoot it at cars that whizzed by on Hwy 36. Build a tree house in the woods and use it as a base of operations for pine cone battles, runs to the bootlegger, or a place to stash our Playboy or OUI Magazines (which we pronounced as “O-U-I”, having no idea that it was French).
The country meant that in the summer you said goodbye to your mom at 7am and you got home when the streetlights came on. What you did in the intervening 13 hours was between you, your little brother, and whatever gang of boys you were running with that day. You were 12-years-old. You solved your own problems. You made your own fun. Read the rest of this entry »
Growin’ up in Carthage, Texas (Northeast Texas in the piney woods) in the early 1960′s, a boy is eventually going to run into the infamous Cotton Mouth snake, also known as a Water Moccasin.
