Living and Writing in Mexico

It’ll Do
Copyright William J. Conaway,1989

Episode 16 – It Takes Some Thought to Run for State Representative

We were sitting around one day talking about good old Tommy Thompson and how he was out of a job again.

“Isn’t Senator Flogg due to step down this year?” asked Sully. It was true: Senator Flogg had been having some trouble with the press and it wasn’t exactly a secret that he had been promoting a Florida real estate deal, which had got him some property down there. Representative Boyd Ferrel would naturally step up to take the Senate seat, but that would leave Boyd’s seat open.

“You don’t have to be very smart to be a State Representative,”: Orville reminded everyone.

“That’s one thing you can’t be,” said J.C.

Everyone admits that Tommy Thompson was the best quarterback that Cherryville ever had, but that was quite a few years ago, and life goes on.

Tommy has worked at just about every job anyone could manufacture for him. Lots of people have bought insurance policies, used cars, stocks or futures from him that didn’t really want. Whatever it was though, people could tell that Tommy didn’t have the heart for it. He should have been a coach, but he could never get his Teacher’s Certificate.

Orville went on, “I don’t think Tommy would be any worse than your average Representative. I don’t see how he could possibly do anyone any harm, and since everyone in the county knows Tommy, he could probably get the job.”

Then Sully brought up the sad fact that you couldn’t run any kind of campaign without money, and he didn’t think Tommy had any. But if you didn’t have buttons and bumper-stickers and such no-one would take you seriously. He had a point.

Most of the afternoon was taken up considering exactly how we could help Tommy Thompson in his forthcoming campaign. We agreed, most of us, that is, that the only thing he needed to win was money, and so the consideration came down to how we could get some for him. We crossed off a Benefit Goat Roping, a Benefit Beer Bust at the Fair Grounds, and The First Annual Invitational Great Tortoise-Trot–they were the only ideas we had.

Orville suggested a Wet T-shirt contest, but after we discussed it we decided there wasn’t enough good material in town to make it very interesting.

One thing about the It’ll Do, you just had to wait awhile and some one will come through the door. So we got some more suggestions. Fletch Flecher thought maybe someone could sit a flag pole for two or three weeks, but no-one volunteered to do it. There was the idea of raffling off a woman, and Gordon said he would talk to the bar-maid at the “Barn”, who would probably help out for a good cause–but that was just talk.

Vera made more sense than anyone, but that’s not unusual, when she said before we went off half-cocked perhaps someone should ask Tommy’s wife, Mary Sue, what she thought? You notice, Vera didn’t say anything about asking Tommy. Vera said she would pick up Mavis and the two of them would drive out and talk with Mary Sue.

This was fine with the rest of us, because we had started to seriously consider the problem, and there were some interesting possibilities coming to light. Vera–God Bless her–didn’t have the type of sense of humor which would allow her to appreciate some of the things we were thinking.

To tell the truth, we couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t either too dangerous, like having a Demolition Derby on Main street, or too illegal.

The idea of building a Viking ship, sailing it from here down the river and up to Scandinavia came up. Having people pledge so much a nautical mile would have been legal, if anyone would actually go through with it. Nobody wanted too. Thad came in from his farm with about eight gallons of honey in his truck and Orville suggested to him that the best hing you could do with honey was to make Mead. You could home-brew some powerful stuff with honey. Orville said mead was what the old Vikings drank.

By the time Vera got back we had pretty well decided on it.

There’s an old quarry north of town that is almost like an amphitheater, a pretty place. In the quarry there’s always some water standing; deep enough for perch, clear as a bell. We would put on a revival there, and the water would be handy for baptisms.

Now, what we would do is to make up about ten five-gallon jugs of mead. We could get the honey donated, we wouldn’t call this drink by its right name, we would call it Nectar, and sell it for fifty-cents the jigger. We wouldn’t even need a percentage from the collection plate.
Vera said that she and Mavis had talked with Tommy–Mary Sue was getting her hair done–and Tommy wasn’t sure he was the right man for the job. He was giving serious consideration to taking over the Florida business from Flogg, when Flogg retired….

Tags: books, Comedy, short stories

It’ll Do
Copyright William J. Conaway, 1989

Episode 14 – Hogs is Hogs

Hogs aren’t something to be taken lightly in Cherryville. We have too many of them and a good part of our revenue comes from them. They may not give Cherryville a very good smell but they pay the bills.

Some of the local boosters decided to have a greased pig festival. There were others who said that it was cruel and moved to stop it. Personally, I didn’t see anything cruel about a buch of folks slithering around trying to catch a greased pig–if anything it would be worse on the people than on the hog.

Of the regulars in the It’ll Do, only Alice Mae was against it. But when Alice Mae was against something it had an impact.

“Don’t you think we have enough cruelty without tormenting one of God’s creatures, Sully?” she asked.

Sully didn’t have an answer for this. Nor did anyone else at the bar, but I don’t think anyone felt that what she said made any sense. It couldn’t be any more ridiculous than picking a Home-coming Queen, and was probably less cruel.

This is how Vera and Sully almost broke up, because Vera took up for Alice Mae, and Sully couldn’t see any sense to it. Sully is anything, if he isn’t smart. So he says, “Why don’t we have a Pig Beauty Contest?”

It was a good idea–maybe better than the time we tried to start the Union Navy. We have plenty of pigs in Cherryville–and it just makes sense that some of them are more beautiful than others. Doesn’t it?

Sully was wearing that sliding grin that he gets once in a while, but he was right on the beauty contest. Why not?

Now, everyone got into the spirit of it and those that didn’t have any hogs were supplied one by Thad, who had plenty. Some of them were pretty too.

The city council thought it was a good idea, and the Chamber of Commerce put up three prizes from some of the local merchants. The radio picked it up and made a big thing of it.

Now, Sully started this. You might say it was his fault. If people hadn’t started naming these pigs after people it probably would have gone all right, but it didn’t.

The Governor was “honored” by one of the ugliest pigs you ever saw. That was all right. Reverend Thame’s wife also got an ugly one. “Rosemary” was really an ugly pig. It just went on building.

Mavis from the library, tried to put a stop to it. “Why don’t we,” Mavis said over her dark beer, “just have a people beauty contest, rather than hogs, they can fight back.”

We elected to go with the hogs.

Vera had this puppy that she was really fond of, and she entered it. It wasn’t fair, of course, because everyone knows a puppy is better looking than a hog. When Sully protested, Vera threatened something terrible and he didn’t say anything more about it. Then Old Man Williams said, “No.” and Vera backed off.

The fair grounds were not in use so the contest was held there. We had a good crowd of people and pigs. We had to take all of this seriously because about twelve kids had entered their pigs, and we couldn’t very well tell them that the whole thing was only bar-talk.

Would you believe it?–Senator Flogg was there expecting to award the prizes. Mrs. Seltz from the Chamber was there, and Pettybone from the Mayor’s Office. There were about twenty-five hogs of various sizes, each with an owner or renter.

When it came down to the judging, it didn’t take very long. If you like hogs, there were some really fine ones there. Yet, only one could win. So they drew straws, in secret, behind the stands.

The winner belonged to Alice Mae and she named it “Elvin”.
The real Elvin sticks pretty close to Cherryville these days, here is a story he told at the bar one day:

When he was a young man he left his farm home and went West. The funny thing was, he had a twin brother, Edwin, who left home about the same time. There were seven other kids in the family, and it wasn’t like they were abandoning their parents–I expect they were glad, in a way, to see them go.

Elvin went up to Oregon and found some work logging. Then he drifted back to Montana and tried to figure out how to stay on a horse and do something useful. He admitted that he wasn’t very successful at that. He tried Arkansas, working in a saw-mill. By that time he was twenty or so. He hadn’t been back to see his folks or his brothers and sisters in about three years. He hadn’t seen his twin brother either.

Right down next to the Bus Station there’s an all-night cafe. Now, how Elvin ended up in Cherryville is somewhat of a mystery–even to him. He was just drifting, he said. One night in November, he thought it was, Elvin stopped in there for a bowl of good hot chili. Who came in the door and sat down on the next stool? Uh-huh, Edward.

“Hi, brother. Those darn busses will give you hemorrhoids, don’t you know?”

“Yeah well, I’ve been on quite a few, been lucky so far”. “This chili is pretty good, though”.

“You talked to home?”

“Nope”.

“Me, neither,” Edward said. “Be seeing you, I expect.”

He never did.
We figure that Elvin has the strength of two. So does he, at times. He’s President of our Chamber of Commerce. If he had a mind to, he could be our next State Representative–but I don’t think he wants to get that far from Cherryville. I’ll tell you one thing though–if we have anything to say about it, he will be our next Mayor.

Tags: books, Comedy, short stories