A term that was used back when you knew the difference between a string bean and a snap bean was goosey. That term was reserved to be used only for those persons who jumped the highest when you goosed them. Well, Lofton Meredith was goosey, maybe not as goosey as Gordon Lewis, but really close. I admired Lofton Meredith but we never called him Lofton; no, we called him Major Meredith. He sat a horse as well as anyone I remember, could roll a Bull Durham cigarette at a full lope, take a nap with his head on any rock handy, and was not happy working cattle or goats unless there was one of his blackened-blue coffee pots boiling over on the red hot coals of an open fire. I will never forget one story that Major told me. Now, Major didnt tell a story as quickly as I will here; no, hed start, then roll his cigarette, light it up with the smoking end of a stick hed put into the fire, let it hang from the corner of his mouth with the smoke curling up and burning his left squinted eye, take a sip on coffee so hot that if you sat the cup down it would burn a circle in the grass, smooth the ground with his huge hand in case he needed to punctuate his story with graphics, set his old soiled felt hat back on his head and look you right in the eye as his story took me to exciting places. On such an occasion, at the work pens down at Shaffer Bottom, Major told me a story that made me laugh. He told me of the time he had a green mule he was training to pull a turning plow. He said the new mule was doing a pretty good job and he let his guard down just for a moment. Well, he said a bunch of birds flew up from a nest on the ground in front of the mule and all hell broke loose. He told me the mule went bounding across the deep, soft furrows he had just plowed with him hanging onto the plow handles. He said he was able to hold on until the mule took a sharp turn and gravity took over. He said he remembered some of what then happened. He told me he flew so high he could look down at the mule and the plow before things went black. He said he thought hed been knocked out only to realize that things were black cause his head was stuck in the hump of one of those fresh furrows. He grinned at me and said: Now Dwayne, I had hit the ground so hard I had to dig my hat outta that furrow. I still love that story and can still see Major, horseback, rolling a smoke............
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:59:36 +0000
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