When I met bubba

I started to remember when bubba and I first met; it was several years ago when we were
just kids. I grew up on the East Side of Chicago. I never knew what it was like to live
in the country till I was about eight years old. Then I went to spend the summer with my
grandmother, or as Bubba would say "gan mammy". So my parents loaded me up in the car and
we headed out the Blue Ridge Mountains. The trip seemed to take forever. But then at the
age of eight a trip to the super market felt like hours and hours.

When we finally arrived into the Blue Ridge Mountains it was like the whole world had
changed. The air was cleaner, the water sparkled, and birds even sang a different tune.
The further you went into the mountains you started to see a totally different type of
people. They became more and more down to earth and their language became southern and
undistinguishable to me.

When we finally arrived at my grand mothers I realized that I had entered a totally
different place than I was used to. I was in Hogs Holler; a little tiny community spread
over 100 miles of land that had forests, swamps, and gators, or for you city folk,
Alligators. Lets not forget raccoon or coon, Squirrel, Deer, Bear, Possum, and several
other eatable varmints, as bubba always told me.

Now I thought I was going to be so bored out of my mind here in hogs hollar that I was
ready to leave the minute that I arrived. But my parents and grand mother had another
idea for me. They told me about how much fun I was going to have learning about how the
mountain people live and all the animals I was going to see here. Well at eight years old
I really didn't care about that, I just wanted to be back home playing baseball and
swimming at the local YMCA.

When my mom and dad left my grand mother said it was time for bed, I looked at the clock
and said:
"Are you kidding, its only 8 O'clock"
"We get up pretty early around here" grand ma said, " So you better get your rest."

Well the next morning Grandma was true to her word, we were up at the crack of dawn,
there were chickens to feed, cows to milk, and all kinds of other chores to do before we
even had breakfast. I didn't know it, but my cousin Bubba had shown up in the middle of
the night; he was staying at grandmas too.

Now Bubba was sort of strange to me, because he dressed a little funny. He had on
overalls that were to short, they came up about 4 inches above his ankles, and he had no
shoes and no socks. He always walked around with his hands in his pockets chewing on a
weed. He looked like something out of a Walton's show.

Well we got to eat breakfast, it sure was a big one. Ham, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and
grits. Now I had never had grits, so I had no idea what they were and I just kind of made
a little pile of them and stuck them in the corner of my plate and ate everything else. My
grandma sure could cook. I was getting ready to get up from the table to put my plate in
the sink when I got a tap on the back of the head. It was my grandma,

“Now you better eat everything on that plate boy, we don’t waist food here like all those
city folks do, so you eat those grits. I thought to myself "EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" grits, what
an ugly word for a food. Well I choked them down with as much butter and anything else I
could find to put on them so I could go out and play after all the work I had done.

I put my plate in the sink and grandma said, “now that’s what I like to see, a boy that
does what he’s told.” Now you get out side and play for a while so I can get a few things
done, then we will start the days work around here. Start the days work around here. I
thought I had already done the days work.

Well anyways I went out the back porch and started looking around. I noticed bubba was
sitting in the middle of the cow pasture with a stick, pocking at something. So me being
the inquisitive eight-year-old I was I decided to see what was going on.

There was bubba with a stick in his hand pocking at a cow patty, and flipping it at a
frog sitting in the sun. I thought to myself, “what in the world is he doing?” So I just
sat and watched for a bit as bubba flipped cow terds at this frog. It seemed that there
was no point to what he was doing and no type of entertainment at all. So I asked bubba
what he was doing and he replied

"I is feddin da toad his viddles, jist like granma did ta us."

"ok since when do toads eat cow terds bubba?"

“Naw da don et cow terds ya idjet, just ya sit fer a spel”

So I sat and watched. Now you have to remember that bubba is from hogs hallar, born and
raised, so he has a language all to himself. So basically you learn as I did what bubba
means. So what he said was that I was an idiot and I needed to just watch and learn. We
must have sat there for about 15 minuets, that old toad didn’t move a muscle the whole
time. Then all of a sudden flies started coming around where bubba had flung the cow
terd. And sure enough the frog had his breakfast. Ok so it wasn't the highlight of the
day, but I learned something about nature that day. If you are patient, you will get what
you want or need.

well after we feed the toad bubba suggested that we find something more entertaining to
do. Or in his words,