I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to fill up with gas and get some bread and milk. Jake came out to pump the gas and to talk about the cool weather we have been having for August. “It’s more like late September or October,” he told me. “It's like Fall is coming on early this year. Hurshel Ledbedder was in here earlier this afternoon talking Woolly Bears. You know Hurshel sets great store by those little caterpillars. Hurshel was saying even the Woolly Bears don’t know what to make of this weather. Hurshel was claiming he came upon a cluster of the little fellas out beside a pile of lumber behind his house. He thinks they were holding a conference on weather conditions and even they can’t figure what to make of all this. Hurshel says it sure doesn’t look good for this coming winter.”
You have to take Hurshel and his Woolly Bear predictions with a large grain of salt. Hurshel has been observing Woolly Bears and making dire predictions for the coming winter as long as I’ve known him. Once in a while, by law of chance, Hurshel turns out to be correct with his predictions and he never lets you forget it. More often he misses his guess and never makes mention of the error. I suppose in that way he is like most people who like to remind you when they make a lucky hit. I followed Jake into the store and went around picking up the things I needed. Joyce Spencer was there with one of the little wire shopping carts Jake keeps handy. Joyce is Hermann’s wife, a small stocky woman with a pleasant smile. She stays close to home mostly, preferring to tend her garden and fix up the yard when she is not working in the house. I do not often see her, but she is pleasant to be around. Joyce said she hates the way the head of the deer Hermann killed a last month clashes with the living room, but Hermann is so proud of it she is reluctant to say anything. Hermann has been trying to bring down a deer without success all his life. It was last month he finally killed one by running into it on the road in his truck. Hermann had the head mounted and hung in the place of honor over his fireplace. Joyce said she is going to put up with the thing as long as possible, then find a way to convince Hermann to move it out into the tool shed, maybe hang it over his work bench. Joyce thinks having the head of a dead animal hanging on the wall of her living room is the most disgusting thing imaginable.
I found a few more things I could use and was making my way back to the counter when the biggest man I have ever seen came squeezing through the front door. He was only average in height, but his width was astonishing to observe. He was wearing a dirty baseball cap and a hard used jacket over a faded green pullover shirt. His belly bulged over his belt and his pants were too short for his thick legs. His arms and legs were covered with intricate tattoos. He wore big heavy work boots that were decorated with old mud. From the looks of him, he had never had a shave or haircut in his life. He looked around for a moment, then lumbered over toward the counter with the grace of a hippopotamus. He asked Jake where the cigarettes are kept and Jake politely told him there are no cigarettes for sale in the store. The man blinked in surprise, looking as though he could not comprehend such an idea, then he asked why not. Jake responded he had decided to stop selling them, but he had a good selection of other items the man might be interested in. The man appeared confused as though he could not understand a store that did not sell cigarettes, then he turned and made his way out the door. He squeezed into a beat up off white utility truck that sank noticeably under his considerable weight, started the motor that was obviously in need of major attention and pulled away in a cloud of smoke from burning motor oil.
“I know that man,” Joyce came up behind me. “I’ve seen him drive past with Lisa Mae Powell several times. I hear he is out to her place most of the time. You notice any number of folks on the street you thing might benefit from missing a few meals. I could stand to drop a couple pounds myself, but I swear I’ve never seen a man that big in my life. A friend of mine says that poor man weighs most of four hundred pounds. They call him Crisco.”
“There’s a lot of talk on the news about Americans being overweight,” Jake said. “But you don’t think too much about it until you begin to see a really fat person. There are a few kids that come in here that are carrying more weight than is good for them and you have to wonder that their parents don’t have a talk with them and restrict what they can have to eat. You know it can’t be good for someone to carry that much weight around. Missus Barlow who comes in right regular is a smallish woman and her husband, Nathan, is a lanky beanpole of a man. Their boy, I can’t place his name right off, is just about old enough for starting in High School and that kid is so fat his waist line looks like he is carrying a spare tire around with him. Missus Barlow sometimes complains to the kid when they are in here that he is eating too much, but she loads her grocery cart down with cookies and candy and the kid usually walks out the door munching on a candy bar he picks up while Missus Barlow is checking out. You know that kid is going to finish growing up and look pretty much like that man that just left. Any man that size is just a heart attack on the hoof waiting to happen.”
“I don’t know the Barlows,” Joyce said. “But I know several kids that don’t get out and do much. About the only exercise they get is with the physical ed classes they take at school. When they get home they plunk down in front of the television or they park in front of a computer to play electronic games and most of the time they have something to stuff inside their faces while they sit there. Kids just don’t do enough these days. When Dwayne was still living at home, Hermann always had him some chores to help out around the house. It cut down on the time he spent parked in front of a computer.”
“On the other hand,” I said, “If the food supply ever gets cut off real sudden and everybody begins to starve, those big guys are going to be the last ones left standing.”
END
