Bothered Pines Mobile Home Estates

Introduction: On 1 May 2005, I began a blog that was basically an ongoing, two-month story of the perfectly redneck roadside called, Bothered Pines Mobile Home Estates.

It was my first effort at doing an ongoing short story... and I based some upon actual life experience, not just for myself but with others I knew on a personal level. Existence down here can be a lotta things.

Then there was a major life upheaval. In fact, I had a previous membership here at ATS that got lost in the mayhem that followed. My current membership name is the one I established after emerging from the life-crisis phase of existence.

Anyway, I just chased it all down... and, sadly, found all the pictures I had associated with this story had disappeared with my domains at the same time. But, I am going to rebroadcast here - in text... a bit at a time.

Each episode will carry the exact, original title and text.

Characters:
Redoubt (I had to use this name at the time... and it just never went away)
Aunt Curdle
Uncle Percy
Bucky

Notes:
It is not offensive and basically makes fun of about every turn of life here in the South. Hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome to Bothered Pines Mobile Home Estates


SUNDAY, MAY 01, 2005

Meet the staff

Now then, just ease on over to the rental office and take a seat. Uncle Percy will be with y’all shortly. Be sure to have the first month’s rent in exact cash and ready ‘cause Percy cain’t count too well.

Here’s the rules:
No pets. That means no dogs, cats, possums, birds, snakes, gerbils or raccoons are allowed on the premises in any way, shape or form. The sole exception to this rule is cockroach bugs and you’ll be happy to know that you won’t have to look very hard to find a few to make friends with.

Younguns are ok but you gotta keep ‘em under control! We don’t cotton to having a bunch of mealy-mouthed brats running around and creating a ruckus and if we catch one, we gonna feed ‘em to old Guthrie. (Guthrie being the gator down in Mill Silt Pond).

You are required to keep at least one non-running pick-up truck on cinder blocks at all times! This may be displayed in your front yard or driveway. Plain old cars are OK iffens you ain’t got no truck.

Unused, nonworking appliances can be stored on your porch so long as you don’t cover them with nuthin.

You must maintain no less than 12 empty beer cans within eye-shot of the road. Them what are in the back of the broke down truck or car don’t count!

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MONDAY, MAY 02, 2005

To: Residents and Visitors of Bothered Pines Mobile Home Estates
From: Percy Pepper, Proprietor

There will be no more hunting in the park! Theodis Briggs has his pants full of buck-shot this morning ‘cause somebody mistook him for either a wild turkey or a deer. Now, how in the hell anyone could mistake old Theodis is beyond me! He is 6 foot, 5 fingers tall and got a beard as long as an August day! He don’t look nuthin’ like a doggone turkey or bambi neither!

The way I figure it, one of you been turning the bottle too high and got shine-blinded! Tell your wife to put the shells in her cookie jar until you sober up!

Nuff said on that... Aunt Curdle has a few choice words for y’all too.


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The Greater Possum Rot Free Will Church of the Almighty Rock will be having its annual rummage sale this Wednesday. Iffens y’all got something that you don’t want and would like to put a down payment on your ticket to glory, just drop it off at the church parking lot. Oh, and Reverend Jeremiah Amos Dandy will personally be saying prayers for each donor. Hallay-yullia!

Also, LeeAnn Pester’s Golden Comb Beauty Emporium is running specials on streaking and highlighting. All you gals what got them dark roots growing over yer ears will be interested in this and the rest of us will appreciate yer attention to this matter.

One more thing. One of y’all gots a youngun who has a habit of leaving ABC gum in his pants pockets and that is sho nuff gumming up my Kelvinator. So if y’all would be so kind as to empty your little crumb-snatcher’s pockets before dropping off yer laundry, it would make my life a helluva lot easier!

May the good Lord take a liken to ya before the undertaker can.

-Curdle


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TUESDAY, MAY 03, 2005

I guess now is as good a time as ever to give y’all a little low-down on our little corner of Alabama. You see, wayyy back during Hoover’s depression, things was really bad down here. Was down right primitive compared to now and to be honest, I wasn’t here back then... but the story goes something like this...

Nobody back then had electricity or indoor water taps or actual-to-goodness bathrooms (ceptin' for outhouses). The roads were mostly old horse trails. But then came Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the CCC and WPA. They came a calling and with them came better roads and all kinds of electrical wires, telephone poles and better water too!

What they did was to set up base camps along side RR tracks where they could get supplies in and ship stuff out. For the most part, what they shipped was lumber and this area here was prime for that sort of activity. One of them camps was called ‘Possum Trot’ (I have no idea why they named it that) and they was mostly cutting pine trees and sending it to the mill.

Another camp just down the road a piece called ‘Redoubt South’ (my place) was where the mill was what cut the trees into lumber. It was built over what was once a fort where settlers used to go to hide from the indians and that is where the name come from.

Every thing was perking right along until the war began in 1941 and all the workers left to go fight the Japs and Germans. The old lumber mill was mostly abandoned and the worker’s camp become a ghost town. After the war, the men folks came home and things began to pick up again. The mill was put back to use and a lot of locals got jobs in the lumber trade. The old worker’s camp was taken up by some of those what were both doing the cutting and working the mill. One day, they decided they had themselves a town and wanted to give it a name and it is here where the story makes a slight turn to the left.

You see, during the war when everyone was off fighting, some of the local youguns got it in their heads to have some fun with some whitewash and the sign what used to say ‘Possum Trot’ became a sign that said ‘Possum Rot’. Yup, they painted over the T and thought they had a hoot on their hands, and I guess they did ‘cause when the newly formed town was looking for a name, they looked at that old camp sign first and well, the rest is history.

From there, the folks who lived near the mill weren’t to be outdone and they decided to make a name too but they weren’t too inventive so they decided an idea honoring the old fort was as good as any. So about 5 miles from Possum Rot sprung Redoubt South. And it is here that I came in 1985 and opened the first hardware store.

Percy Pepper and the rest of his Bothered Pines Mobile Home Estates clan keep me in businesses cause most of the time, they are busy keeping the old park up and running. I also have a steady stream of park residents coming in here for stuff like cinder blocks, copper tubing and duct tape. I really ain't got the slightest notion as to what they do with all of it and I don't really care to gain any particular insights either, but they sho do make an interesting clientele.

... More to Come ...

Notations:
The characters discover the PC at this point, as a means for them to offer communications back and forth when not in direct contact. This opened the door for more options in presentation of their story.
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 04, 2005

I just love these here computer machines! Heck, when Percy first brought this one from the yard sale, I thought it would be a waste of space and that is why I made him put it on top of the old Zenith in the corner of the spare bedroom. But it ain’t bad at all once you get your hangnails unstuck from the keyboard.

Percy spent the day yesterday with Theodis Briggs at Doc Purvis’ office whist he was having buckshot picked from his butt. Seems Theodis may have been sneaking about the trailer park and peaking into windows and then got paid for his time by an angry resident with a loaded scatter gun. No one ain’t come forward to claim Theodis’ ass for a trophy yet so I spect it may all pass without ever knowing. Of course Percy is gonna take up for Theodis and say that someone was hunting in the estates and accidentally plugged the old coot whilst mistaking him for a wild turkey.

The Greater Possum Rot Free Will Church of the Almighty Rock is having their rummage sale today and I’m on the list of volunteers what will be holding the cash box. My time is 12 to 2 this afternoon. A special thanks to Bothered Pines residents LeMay and Betty Sledge for donating that old Maytag off their porch! It should fetch a plump sum and you can bet the Reverend Dandy will be doing a powerful bit of praying for them in the coming days!

One last thing. Someone was seen fishing off the old cement bridge on Sassyrats Road and whoever that was probably don’t know that the creek what runs under it also runs by the old landfill so, I wouldn’t be eating nothing I caught out of it!

-Curdle
POSTED BY AUNT CURDLE AT 7:27 AM

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Curdy, what are you doing on my computer? Don’t you have enough to do what will keep you busy? Lot 32 has got a septic tank eruption and it’s spraying half the park! Good Lord help us iffens one of them residents was to light a match! Me and Earl are gonna try and cap it off before someone calls the state folks and we have another mess on our hands.

Sara Ann Perkins says to use less bleach or whatever it is that is taking the color out of her husband’s overalls. She said that she don’t care whether they look like painter’s dungarees but her old man’s work buddies are calling him Mr. Clean and he don’t care to be associated with any bald headed guy what wears earrings!

If you come looking for me, just look for old faithful shooting up at 32.
POSTED BY UNCLE PERCY AT 8:04 AM

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Percy Pepper, if I come home and find your nasty boot prints from that septic geyser on my carpet, you are gonna be scrubbing it with a toothbrush, do you hear me? Now I have to get ready for the rummage sale so I’m fixin to head over to LeeAnn’s and get a poof.

And you can tell Miss Sara Ann that if she was to wash her own dirty rags, she wouldn’t be having no problem with faded denims to begin with! You may also inform her majesty that the cost of a basket of laundry was a victim of hit and run inflation so she can just add a few extra dollars to next week’s bill!

There’s some leftover chicken in the icebox. And what do you mean, YOUR computer? May I remind you that it was my $20.00 that you took from the mayonnaise jar?
POSTED BY AUNT CURDLE AT 10:11 AM

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Don’t fret none, Curdy. I hosed myself off outside before I even set a foot on your carpet.

Me and Earl finally got the septic gusher plugged. We went to the hardware store in Redoubt and got Mikey to cut us a 4 inch core from a block of styrofoam. We stuck that in the hole (which Earl had already stopped-up with a wad of chewing tobacco) and then after tamping it down some, poured cement over it and then covered the whole thing in duct tape.

Then after all that, folks finally began coming out of their trailers to look at the mess. The ground is covered in about an inch of septic sludge from the end of Old Poll Road all the way up to Mill Silt Pond. Sara Ann’s Muscadines looked like chocolate covered cherries. The folks what came out to look started getting mad because it smells pretty doggone bad and we thought that things might get ugly. But then Earl got the bright idea of telling the residents that once we tilled the sludge into the soil, they might actually get grass to grow and that seemed to make everyone a bit happier. So now we gotta go back to town and rent us a tiller to turn it all under.

One bad thing though. It looks as if Guthrie may have slipped in during the ruckus and snatched one of Katie Pete’s pet peahens. There were seven mounds of sludge in her yard and last head count, she said there was eight birds and there was some feathers floating on the pond. I figure Guthrie must have took it lickety-split back and is on the bottom digesting his meal.

I’m gonna work on this six pack... been a long day.
POSTED BY UNCLE PERCY AT 11:24 AM

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Percy, you know I love you with all my heart but damn hon, there you are all passed out on the couch, you smell like someone used you for an outhouse and you ain’t got a stitch of clothes on! By the grace of the Good Shepherd, you could have at least put on some clothes after you hosed yourself! And you still can’t hold your liquor. Three beers and you are out like a stray cat.

You are going to wake up though and when you do, you’re gonna smell at least half as good as this can of Glade Mountain Mist. I cain’t deal with this odor! I’ll leave another note and tell y'all about the rummage sale... AFTER I get the stink out of this house.

-Curdle
POSTED BY AUNT CURDLE AT 1:36 PM

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- More to Come -