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I told Royann when we found out we were pregnant I would write some of my funny childhood stories just in case something happened to me and I couldn't be around to tell them to my kids. Here is another example of one of those stories for every ones entertainment.

I grew up having a normal childhood like most boys in the Mississippi Delta. I had a Mom and Dad that believed in God and tried hard to raise my brother and me right and provide us with any needs we may have. Notice I said needs. I didn't say with all of our wants. I tried hard to keep my nose clean because I knew what would happen if I didn't. Whoa!! Here is another one of those crazy quotes. "Keep my nose clean" Do bad people have dirty noses? Do bad people not have tissues? Just another quote we say that I guess and we don't have a clear meaning. My dad possessed a brown belt that my butt met a few times throughout life. I swear when I think back on my dad, I think my dad was like Andy Griffith. He would talk to me about what I did for a few minutes and tell me how much he loved me. How it hurt him worse to spank me than it did me. That is a load of crap. He should have given me that belt and let me get in a few good swats. After all that the spanking would proceed. I had a dance while I was getting a spanking and it was known far and wide like the "Twist" of the old days. It was called the "Mississippi Jig". At least that is what my Dad called it. It wasn't a dance you could learn step by step. It changed each time I would break it out.

So as you can see trouble was something I didn't go looking for, but a lot of times it found me because of the people I hung around with. I think sometimes it was my cousin's best friend. There wasn't a lot for boys to do in the country besides hunting, practicing sports, or work. One or the other we were going to be doing one of them or something related. One of the more exciting things to do for a country boy growing up and having a license and truck was to go spotlighting. It was a legal thing to do back in the old days as long as you didn't have gun. It was amazing the deer we would see at night never seen in the daytime. I think some of these deer lived in underground caves during the day. On into my college days it was something my cousins and I would do on a regular basis in the fall after work.

This one particular night myself, Heath, and Keath or better known as the "Bubbas" were riding around looking at deer and drinking cold beer. The Bubbas were twins and my third cousins. They loved fighting, hunting, farming, and women and they were a little on the short and stocky side. I have seen these two while sitting in between them at church have wrestling matches on the back pew of the church. One of the fights was so bad the preacher even stopped his sermon to watch. While riding around that night we started to run low on the liquid beverage while spotlighting on their Dad's land. It was small plot of land in the hills right above the delta that had a cabin and a barn and a few cows and goats. Well we put our money together to make the beer run into the town of Tchula just a few miles away. We had three dollars and some odd change. We knew that wouldn't buy hardly a can of cheap beer so we had to come up with a plan. There was an older man we could always take our extra meat to and he pay a premium price for any thing we brought him. Armadillos, raccoons, fish, deer, turkey, just about anything that was wild and breathed oxygen he would take it. We knew better than to shoot deer or anything at night that was illegal to kill. The last thing we needed was to get in trouble with the game warden. We devised a plan to kill one of the goats that was nestled in the stack of hay sitting in Heath and Keath's Dad's barn. As we pulled up to the barn all the goats gathered around the hay woke up and gave out a few neighs. I had my bow in my truck from the previous days hunt and it was the weapon of choice. I knew killing something that innocent was wrong and I still feel bad till this day. As the Bubba's held the light I thought to myself I would kill the oldest and meanest looking one. I drew the bow back and released my arrow to the biggest and meanest looking billy in the group. He was atop the hay stack and when I hit him he let off a scream that I will never forget. All the rest of the goats spread out around the barn as my kill rolled down the haystack. They knew something wasn't right. We loaded him on top of my Ford Explorer and tied him down with some string we found laying on the ground. I had a white Explorer most of my teen years that I drove. We got back in the truck and made our way towards the bank with our check on top ready to cash with Ole Chester. Chester lived on the outskirts of Tchula and was always ready for any wild game we would bring him. He had the crispest cash money I had ever seen. We discussed our going rate for the goat on top of the roof while going down the road. I would have been happy with five dollars. The Bubbas said we taking no less than twenty for him. In this discussion I heard a rumble from atop my roof of my car. It sounded like a bad tap dancer dancing on top of my roof. We pulled over to the side of the road to check it out. The goat was alive and kicking. Before I could say anything Keath had pulled out a knife and finished the goat off. I got back in the truck and sat there a little astonished at what I had just witnessed. I don't know what he hit on that goat because the next thing I knew my white truck was blood red. Blood was going down the sides, the windshield, and the back glass. I tried the windshield wipers and misters and it didn't help. It just smeared across the glass. We rode all the way to Chester's driving with our heads out the side windows.

We arrived at Chester's just before ten at night and to no surprise Chester was already in the bed. He was a bit of an early bird when it came to sleep. The real funny thing about Chester was anything we took to Chester he would just drag right into his sharecropper's house. He would dress it out right there in his living room. We awoke Chester from his sleep and he slowly made his way to my truck to check out what we brought him. "A goat", he screamed! "I don'ts eats no goats". This is the first meal I had ever seen Chester turn down. We drove away with our heads hung low in our blood covered truck with the goat still attached and wondering where we would get rid of this thing. Who would take this thing off of our hands? We drove into Tchula hoping somebody would pay a fair price for a fresh billy. We pulled into the gas stations talking this thing up. I think we even went as far as telling some people there in town this was a rare Russian Meat Goat. What we were selling nobody was buying. We rode for a couple of more hours trying to rid ourselves of the old goat. The town had grown quite still. The doors we knocked on nobody came to greet us. The last house we went to was across from the railroad tracks at the main crossing that ran through the middle of the town. Nobody answered the door of the house of one of the farm hands of the Bubbas. They were our last hope for getting rid of the thing. I told the Bubbas I was ready to end the night and told them I was ready for bed. We unstrapped the goat from the top of the truck and said we would leave it for the farm hand to find the next day to get and dress out and feed his family. We tied it up by his neck across the railroad crossing sign right in front of the man's house. How could he miss it the next day when he came out that morning?

We made our way home to the Bubba's house in Lexington to to get some rest from our exhausting night. I arose early the next morning because it was Sunday and there was only one place to find our family on Sunday and that was church. I made my way from Lexington to Horseshoe to get home for some Sunday morning breakfast. Tchula was a midway point to my parents home from Lexington. I started getting closer to Tchula and noticed there was a traffic jam a mile long. Tchula is not New York. It is not known for its traffic jams. I inched my way closer into town to see what was going on. I made it all the way to the stop light across from the railroad crossing and saw that was where the traffic jam was. I thought did somebody have a wreck or did a train hit somebody? With all the law enforcement lined up around the railroad crossing something bad had to happen. I made my way to the black police officer who I knew and played basketball with on occasion who was directing traffic. I saw local police, sheriffs deputies, highway patrol, FBI, railroad FBI, and media photographers everywhere. They were all standing around our goat and taking pictures and writing on their little notepads. I questioned my buddy the police officer what was going on? His exact words were "The damn KKK came through town last night and we gonna find out why they came here and what they were doing and where they are". He told me if I heard anything let him know. I told him "Dang KKK does some crazy stuff" and I wished him luck in finding the culprits who hung that goat there.

Little did I know that hanging a goat in some body's yard meant the KKK was coming for them. If I would have I sure wouldn't have hung it up there. It made the local news that night, all the local papers, Clarion-Ledger, and I even think the AP writers had it written up across the US in a few choice papers. Headlines read: "KKK strikes in Tchula, Ms". The last time I talked to my buddy the case had been closed and I hope it stays that way. I don't think I could have claimed stupidity especially us being white in an almost 100 percent black town.