Porch Talk

June 25, 2014

BS 1: Welcome to Porch Talk. We’re Click and Clack the BS brothers. Today we talk about porches, porch repair, diets, weather, black raspberries, house buying, green tomatoes, burrowing dogs and women. And remember don’t talk like my brother Farmer Orville.

BS 2: Don’t talk like my brother Gene.

BS 1: Boy, do I like sitting on this beautiful wraparound porch at one in the afternoon. I night just stay here for a week.

BS 2: Yeah, you didn’t have to build it or maintain it. See, we are settin at the north and west corners, and the breeze comes both ways—or one—always. Somebody smart made this. Couldn’t have been me because I am dumb.

BS 1: And the damn buffalo gnats are gone—no bites.

BS 2: Somebody in the house be glad to tell how dumb.

BS 1: Speaking of black raspberries, how are they coming along?

BS 2: Oh the rows are full, all red, but they ain’t popped yet. Give it to July 2.

BS 1: You know the exact day?

BS 2: I said so, didn’t I? The tomatoes, though. They are way slow—they’re drownin from all this rain.  I can’t plow without strikin water.

BS 1: My friends you met from California would love to have your excess water.

BS 2: This biker guy, he is standin on the Santa Monica Pier, you know, LA, and he sees a bottle wash ashore. So he picks it up, and there is a genie inside that bottle. And the genie, he says, ‘Hey, thanks for freeing me. You get one wish.’ And the biker guy thinks, and he says, ‘Yeah man, build me a bridge from here to Hawaii so I can ride my motorcycle over to there.’ The genie thinks on it. ‘Man, that is a tall order. Can you think of somethin else?’ The biker guy says, ‘Well, I am having problems with my wife.’ And the genie answers, ‘How many lanes you want?’

BS 1: The whole joke, you were watching the kitchen door. Why?

BS 2: You know why.

BS 1: Speaking of wives, that guy that runs the fruit and vegetable stand at the old gas station, he and his wife Kathy are opening next week.

BS 2: You seen ol’ Bill? He lost fifty pounds. Every meal, he takes two tablespoons of cider vinegar and two teaspoons of honey, before he eats. He’s on the ‘Eat like a king for breakfast, like a prince for lunch and like a pauper for supper’ diet. Went from 46 waist pants to 38. Says he’s got 36 pants waitin in his closet from 20 years ago.

BS 1: What are those beautiful orange flowers?

BS 2: Tiger lilies—the original daylily before people messed with them. Don’t go walkin in my tiger lilies.

BS 1: Why would I do that?

B2 2: Reba the dog done dug herself a shepherd dog burrow, right in the middle of the lilies in the shade there. It is three feet deep, that there burrow; I ain’t exaggeratin. You go in there with your gimpy foot, you’ll fall down and sue me. That way you don’t have to work for produce.

BS 1: How many times have I volunteered to help you?

BS 2: I don’t work well with others. There is the Orville way and no other way. I told you, one of my relatives may buy the house for sale yonder? He says money ain’t no object. By god, it has always been an object for me. He asked me for advice. I got one rule regardin house buyin. Buy on top of the hill, not down it, not bottom of it. Shit goes downhill.

BS 1: Sound advice.

BS 2: So this guy talkin to a guy gets a call on the cell phone.

BS 1: Another wife joke.

BS 2: And he says to the missus over the phone, ‘Yes, honey, Yes, sugar, Yes, sweet pus.’ And he hangs up and his friend says, ‘How long you been married?’ ‘Fifty year, I reckon.’ ‘And you still call your wife sweet nothin’s?’ ‘Hell,  I forgot her name five years ago.’ You slammed on my wrought iron table, Gene.

Bs 1: That’s a rim shot.

BS 2: That’s my white paint peelin off my wrought iron table.

BS 1: I’ll repaint it.

BS 2: The Orville way?

BS 1: That’s Porch Talk for today. Remember, don’t talk like my brother Orville.

BS 2: And for damn sure, don’t talk like my brother Gene.

 

BS 1: Well, I guess I’ll head home. Physical therapy this afternoon.

 

BS 2: I need me some honey bees for pollinatin.

 

BS 1: I know a guy.

 

BS 2: Don’t fall in the tigerlilies.

 

BA-DUM-BUM.

 

 

About Eugene Jones Baldwin

I am a writer: non-fiction, fiction, journalism (Alton Telegraph), essays (The Genehouse Chronicles) and have a website: eugenebaldwin.com. I've published a couple dozen short stories and had eleven plays produced. Current projects: "Brother of the Stones" (available on Kindle), a book of short stories; "The Faithful Husband of the Rain, short stories"; "A Black Soldier's Letters Home, WWII,;" "There is No Color in Justice," a commentary on racism; "Ratkillers," a new play. I am an avocational archaeologist and I take parts of my collection of several thousand Indian artifacts (personal finds) to schools, nature centers, libraries etc. and talk about the 20,000 year history of The First people in Illinois. (See link to website) I'm also a playwright (eleven plays produced), musician, historian (authority on the Underground Railroad in Illinois, the Tuskegee Airmen) and teacher.
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