Pigs and hogs


Fervent readers of my epistles (maybe that should be "fevered" readers) will remember the garden patch found by a 15 year old turkey hunter on the family farm. There's more to the story. The guy, who got snagged for having a well worn foot trail from the errant garden back to his own house, which connected to several other finely kept gardens, some on his own land, has an uncle. The uncle seems to have gotten himself lost. He got lost just before all the police in the world stopped in to visit his house. I'm sure it was just a social visit to sell tickets to the Al JeZeera Shrine Temple's barbecue benefit for the sheriff's Department, but Uncle Titus was feeling a bit reclusive at that moment and took off. After they got over getting their feelings hurt, the officers looked around and were puzzled as to why someone would leave Five Million dollars worth of pot and lots of cash sitting at home, all lonely and everything, without even inviting the policemen inside to share in Nature's bounteous harvest. That just ain't neighborly and Uncle Titus is in the big social doghouse in Rhea County Tennessee.

He would be in fine company, alongside the County Commissioners who voted to not allow gay people into Rhea County. Rhea County is now Gay Pride Central, with all sorts of really fun marches and demonstrations going on. Turns out that 75% of the people in the county have a gay friend, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, son, or daughter, and the other 25% are lying. The commissioners quickly met again and rescinded the vote, saying they were confused. Everybody around here pretty much agrees with that assessment. I don't think Uncle Titus is all that confused, but he sure is in trouble.

My friend Matt has a saying he likes to throw out concerning bidness deals. "Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered!" Uncle Titus has his name on over twenty parcels of land, some of them pretty large, and several lying right next to Steve's family farm. Titus bought a few of them last year for a good bit of money, which is kinda odd because Uncle Titus only reported about $20,000 in income on his taxes according to the local sheriff. He didn't seem to have a job that would pay what is roughly the yearly income of the Assistant Manager at Hardee's. It is, however, a good bit more than the prospective starting salary of a University of Tennessee graduate with a degree in exercise Physiology, and the sheriff got to wondering about that. The entrepreneurial spirit "Done took over old Titus!" was all the sheriff could come up with. In this part of the country "The Spirit" takes over a lot of folks, just not that one. Titus shoulda quit while he was just a pig!

We don't know where Uncle Titus is. These danged hurricanes are pounding all the usual refuges, like Florida and Jamaica. I know God is really punishing Florida for not counting the votes, but what the heck did Jamaica do? Uncle Titus could disappear into the wilds of Mississippi but now Hurricane Ivan may have a bead on that state too. Anybody that knows much about Mississippi has to wonder why God doesn't just park one on top of the state and leave it... So anyway, Titus has to head somewhere else.

We figure the sheriff found what there was of the cash left behind, and frankly we think there was a whole lot more. Titus is an enterprising fellow, so we figure he's headed out to the borderlands where the last Cracker Barrel restaurant sits gleaming in the evening sun, paying cash for everything.

Just one more crop of corn was all that hog wanted. Think about that, next time you see pork chops on the menu at Cracker Barrel.

Peace,

Steve