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COUNTRY HUMOR
Thanksgiving turkey
By Jack S. Bray
We got him on October third;
A gangly, gawky, squawky bird.
Intentions were to feed him out,
So by Thanksgiving, he’d be stout.
The kids named him “Tom.”
From Tom the kids got quite a kick,
And even tried to teach him tricks.
They found a leash and led him out
Around the farm and all about.
Live it up, Tom.
As time went on, Tom Turkey grew,
But faster still our feed bill flew.
Still, plans of drumsticks and white meat
Kept Tom in all that he could eat.
Gobble away, Tom.
November One, I checked his size,
And mentally tried to visualize
How many Brays, both kith and kin,
Could feast on Tom at Thanksgiving.
Hang in there, Tom.
The days went by and Tom grew fat.
I whetted knives and ground the axe.
Tom preened and strutted, quite elated;
Unaware of fates that waited.
Just a few days, Tom.
Thanksgiving, on the other hand,
Turned out not quite as I had planned.
We relished gravy, stuffing and yams.
But the kids hid Tom—we all ate ham.
Christmas is coming, Tom.
A few musical definitions
By Mitch Jayne
Every now and then, somebody tackles the question of what “country” music is, as opposed to other varieties. Does it mean “the music of our country”—meaning America, or just “from out in the country,” as opposed to “city music?”
I’m no expert on this, but I’d guess that country music is what you could make for yourself in case the need came up. Sort of like everything else rural folks had to do in the days before you could buy “boughten” fence posts and factory gates, much less a pre-assembled school house.
Most rural people didn’t make musical instruments, but you could always send off for a guitar, harmonica, fiddle or banjo (things that were little and light) from Sears and Roebuck and produce homemade country music.
Obviously, you had to keep the weight down for shipping, so we didn’t go in for pipe organs, tubas, accordions or harps much. Nor did we favor trombones, because you could put an eye out with one of those. You hardly ever saw a Sousaphone or kettle drum in a parlor because they took up more room than the piano, heating stove or Uncle Globus.
In the Ozarks part of Missouri, we had additional problems. The steep hills, rough roads and creek crossings made delivering even a mandolin difficult, let alone a piano, which would arrive sounding like it had come off a bluff and was full of channel cat. And that was often the case.
So, what we did down here when the need for music became urgent was make our own instruments like the smackola—an octave of different-sized chickens played with a hand paddle. We also invented the swinette, which you could make from a young pig and a section of inner tube. And we made the shotophone—a wind instrument played by blowing over the barrels of a shotgun with corncobs in the breech to vary the notes. We used a number of percussion instruments that are still popular, like washboard, spoons, jawbone, knife whetting and slat-clapping. We have come up with others such as the Buford swat (also called the “stop that!” by some musicians) and a fingernail ticking rhythm called “poly-tickin,” which some say was inspired by listening to speeches on the radio.
I really think that “country music” depended on what we had to play at the time, which would leave out things like those Swiss horns that were longer than a political administration, and like most administrations, played just one note. We also forewent high tensioned things like harps that had more wire than a bicycle and were always threatening to implode and hurt somebody.
My take on the music argument is that if you hum it all day, it’s “country.” If you know all the words, it’s “pop music.” And if the kids like it, it shakes the ground, breaks the windshield in your truck, stunts the crops and sours milk, it’s “city music.”
I sure hope this clears things up.
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