Richard of Wayside Mountain
Chapter I Richard Fleeman is the man from Wayside Mountain who seldom walks in lockstep with the world around him. You might even say the lad walks to the beat of his own drum. Richard is a well-known figure around Rich Creek and vicinity, where he greets every male thusly: “You look like old man McGillicuddy Sworps but you’re uglier.” Richard would’ve made a great marriage-counselor. His opening dialogue with the womenfolk he meets goes something like this: “That dirty rotten rat you married is cheatin’ and two-timin’ you .” He then strongly suggests the pretty damsel should initiate divorce proceedings within the hour and forget that lowdown scoundrel she had married. No male of the human species, according to Richard, remains loyal to his sacred marriage vows longer than 3 days. And then Richard makes a bee-line for the male spouse and tells him: “ You better get ready. Your wife is gonna’ pack her clothes and leave you.” Yes indeed, a most interesting fella’ this man called Richard. In direct contrast with computer analysts, Wall Street yuppies, cocaine-sniffing jet-setters, and a varied assortment of other robot-like entities who spearhead a generation of “beautiful people” in this modern age. As a matter of fact, this is a story of contrasts. Night and day, here and yonder, up and down, black and white, rural and urban, hares versus turtles. People with steely nerves as compared to those poor souls stricken with acute cases of St. Vitus Dance. Stuff like that. Actually, this particular story will end with the telling of Richard’s involvement in a certain football episode ( we’ll get around to that in due time ). But first ya’ gotta’ understand. Any person who engages Richard in conversation mu7st be alert, vigilant, on his or her toes. Otherwise you’re gonna’ miss something! You see, his oratory comes from all sides at the same time, a salvo of words that can leave the listener reeling backwards and, in the end, completely bowled over. The late Casey Stengel, long-time manager of the New York Yankees, was famous for his style of speech. Casey answered questions with a series of totally unrelated sentences first rambling here, then wandering off way over yonder. His answer to a single interrogation might touch on 47 different subjects, none of which had anything to do with the question. His incoherent manner of speech became known as “Stengelese.” Listen here pal, Richard is better at double speak than Casey ever was. This lad from the mountain utters some real jewels, absolute gems. I call it “Richardese.” Here is a sampling, and remember, it comes as a single non-stop sentence with no pause, comma’s or period marks. Richard is talkin’ and friend, ya’ gotta’ hang on: “you wuz so ugly when you wuz born your mammy tied you in a sack and throwed you up on a barn with a tin roof so the sun could cook you before the hogs climbed up and rooted you down to a field where a bunch of cows could lick you like a block of salt before a bull stepped on your head and then a bunch of doctors looked and said it wuzn’t no use operatin’ on a punkinhead cause a big puff of wind wuz gonna’ blow and make the creek rise and besides you ain’t got sense enough to git outta’ the rain that’s makin’ the creek rise cause a washin’ tub has made you blind with too many pick handles stickin’ outta’ yer pocket.” Then a slight pause before ending with: “guess I cooked your goose, didn’t I ?” Richard is the world-champion of “chefs with words.” Not only can he “cook your goose”--- he’ll fry yer eggs” too…
Chapter II
Those one-sentence monologues spoken by Richard come in a staccato-like manner, much like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machinegun being fired on full automatic. They can easily ramble on for four, five minutes---maybe even longer. Usually descriptive in nature, he likes to tell people how devastatingly ugly they are. Usually---but not always. This “gent about town” can also keep us informed about the latest housewife in Rich Creek who has slammed a skillet off the head of her hubby. Evidently there’s a lotta’ soreheads down there because, according to Richard, every married dame in that booming metropolis has, at one time or another, put numerous knots on the noggins of their wayward spouses. A curious lot, those Rich Creek housewives. Their favorite weapon is that old standby, a skillet made of cast-iron. Quite often Richard will pull a switcheroo and call ‘em fryin’ pans. I’m gonna’ do a switcheroo too. Surely by now everyone should assume I’m not overly fond of sophisticated “moderninity.” Well, you’ve damned sure arrived at a correct assumption. You see, it’s like this. Us poor un’s are being duped, getting both shafted and havin’ the wool pulled way down over our eyes. In these modern United States of America are millions of people with a peculiar occupation---“sellers of snow.” Just look around ---they’re everywhere! In years past we experienced some small flurries, but are now being blitzed by blizzards! Blinding snowstorms! Listen at me pal, better watch what you buy! Futurists, a late-blooming evil new to our world, are the culprits. Too bad they put in an appearance on planet Earth. These nuts have sho’ nuff’ “throwed” a large number of monkey-wrenches into the orderly functioning of our world. Yoyo heads I call ‘em, who need 12 sets of blueprints and the advice of 43 consulting firms to build a birdhouse ( and then screw up it’s construction ). They’ll also educate you in “perfect and prime numbers” while standing in a torrential downpouring of rain. Simply because cucumber heads don’t know when water is cascading down from the leadened skies above. Futurists, first- class knuckleheads, have gotten everything outta’ tilt…nuthin’ works anymore! I’ve been giving this considerable thought, and midst all the murk and gloom there remains one bright ray of hope. Maybe these dolts will wend their way to the edge of the world, peer downward, lose their balance, and topple over into the gaping abyss. Then folks with a greater degree of normalcy can resume their more relaxed , slower-paced style of living. Weedin’ gardens, feedin’the chickens, totin’in a few buckets of coal and some kindling wood---gittin’ a little damned dirt on their hands. Stuff like that. In the unlikely event normalcy and a “slowing down process” should stage a comeback in this crazy mixed-up world, a prediction is offered. The sale of blood-pressure pills and other soothing balms for jagged nerves would fall to near zero. Futurists have saturated the earth. Many people call ‘em “educated idiots.” They have an uncanny knack for positioning themselves in elevated “seats of power” in our government. This allows these jerks to be both a nuisance, and damned dangerous. From such lofty pinnacles their harebrained ideas can wreak the maximum damage on the greatest number of people. Proof of this is very, very easy. Just flip on the idiot-box to CNN, or read the morning newspapers. Yeah, we’re a hi-tech society who keep the offices of psychoanalysts and other quacks filled to capacity. And why are we visiting these people? Why hell pal, wake up. We go there seeking advice on “how to cope with life.” Hey pilgrim, how about it? One good way to do that is to forget about making “splashes” during the puny 75 year lease we each get here. All the combined Kings and Presidents of past history have made only one wee teensy-weensy ripple.And that was quickly diluted by the on-rushing tidal-waves of eternal time…
Chapter III
No one has yet accused Richard of being dull, and it’s a virtual certainty no such charge will ever be charged. His statements come in whirlwind fashion, not quite at the speed of light, but coming close. Even the best of listeners can’t absorb “Richardese” when he really gets it going: “You look like Old Man Festycroopmorelus. You wuz so ugly when you wuz born your mammy throwed you in a well that wuz dry and you bounced back out like a rubber ball and she caught you by your toenails and made you squall like a scalded cat and buzzards flew over and took one look and said you wuz too ugly to eat and 4 of ‘em dived down and broke their wings and the rest of ‘em flew away and told a bunch of crows and they didn’t want you either and one crow told your mammy not to have any more like you cause the chickens wuz gonna’ quit layin’ red eggs fer elephants to step on and that made Old Man Sworps take one look at a ugly baby in a crib that caused Sworps to drop deader’n a doornail that wuz bent and rusty and then everybody had to climb down a chimney to git in the house.” The inevitable pause of 3 seconds and then it came: “Guess I cooked your goose.” You sure did, Richard. And fried my eggs too. Now listen folks, it’s extremely doubtful Casey Stengel, were he living today, could top “Richardese” such as that. Old Casey might make it a close ballgame, but Richard would beat him out. Time to skip around a mite. It’s called “jumpin’ from pillar to post.” A thought just occurred about some items which are currently poppin’ up in newspapers around the country. They’re dandy illustrations of how, thanks to a so-called “state of the art technology,” we’re racing headlong toward the twenty-first century. Please keep in mind while reading the next few paragraphs…folks, it’s progress! Bank robbers and holdup men who specialize in convenience store stickups no longer rely on six-shooters for “plying their trade.” The really in-thing now is to carry your own specialized business cards, each bearing a simple message: I GOT THEM AIDS. GIVE ME THE DOUGH OR I”LL SPIT IN YER FACE! This method guarantees a successful heist, not even the tell-tale ticking of a time-bomb wor4ks quite so well. Not one bank-teller on the face of this earth is gonna’ reach for that alarm-button, but will immediately hand over all the cash to the desperado, including pennies and other small coins. There you have it folks, a good example of the giant strides we’ve made since 40 years ago when, God forbid, we had some manners, respect, morals and ethics. Ten million super-duper salesmen are at work in America today, “state of the art “ dudes ( ughhhh! ). They’re selling snow, telling us how great these modern times are. Each time I hear yet another salespitch I arrive at a very definite conclusion---I’ve been listening to the wackiest lunatic in all the wide world! But despair not, for amid all this goofiness one can still get a welcome breath of fresh air, a brief respite from “salesmen.” Occasionally a Richard will happen your way. And the Richard’s of this world ain’t sellin’ nuthin’…
Chapter IV
Richard is a dyed-in-the wool fan of Narrows Green Wave football. Through many long years he’s been an observant student of X’s and O’s, and has formed some very definite opinions about the game…”they hit him so hard the numbers fell off’n his uniform and dropped in his shoes and then next morning the rooster wouldn’t crow but they left it up to a pack of cats and dogs wearin’ sunglasses that made ‘em jump over the clouds and caused hailballs bigger’n a bushel basket to come down and hit him on the head and they hauled him off to a hospital and them doctors told the referees to penalize him 85 yards fer eatin’ two bowls of beans and cornbread fer breakfast!” End of quote. The most unfortunate people in all this world are those who haven’t been privileged to hear some “Richardese.” Richard’s excitement builds to a fever-pitch when nearing a football stadium. It’s quite noticeable, only the blind could fail to see his ardor. For many years he rode with Mason Ayres and myself to away games, and we became highly enlightened about the finer mechanisms of football…”We’re gonna’ hit ‘em so hard their feet will fall off and land in China and they’ll trade ‘em back to us fer a chew of Redman tobacco so we can cram their eyeballs full of Dick Tracy funnypapers after we hit ‘em on the nose with a skillet and then let a herd of mad bulls in before the police git here and puts ‘em all in jail.” Stuff like that lets you know what’s happenin’ out there on the gridiron. Richard will soon conduct a coaching-clinic, perhaps during the summer months. The VPI alumni association will force the Gobbler staff to attend, and those two bosom pals from the pro-ranks, Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan, will also be in attendance. I’ll go just to see Glynn Carlock of Graham High School wearin’ his silly headset with a whiplash aerial stickin’ 57 feet into the stratosphere. Rather than a football coach formulating game strategy, the man from Bluefield reminds me of an astronaut about to blast off to the moon’s lunar surface. Yeah man, a most interesting gathering of “pigskin personalities” will congregate at Richard’s clinic. One Friday night Mason, Richard and myself had journeyed over Floyd way to witness a contest. We’d gotten a 60 mile oratory about the impending game…”We’ll knock their heads and feet off and tie them heads where feet wuz and nail the feet back on top of their shoulders.” That would make for some rather odd lookin’ halfbacks, and the Buffalo linemen might seem equally abnormal. One thing certain if Richard’s prediction came true…them Floyd County trainers wuz gonna’ have their work cut out for ‘em.
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