Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die

CHAPTER 1

EARLY MEMORIES

I'm flashing back to my first memories; they are of a blacksmithshop in Abbott, Texas. My grandfather is shoeing a horse. He isheating the horseshoe in the roaring hot coals in the furnace. I'mstanding on my tiptoes turning the bellows that blows the air on thefurnace, keeping the fire going. He heats the horseshoe till it is redhot, then fits it to the horse's hoof, cools it off in water, and nailsit onto the horse's hoof. A horse kicked him one day and rupturedhis stomach.

He wore a truss the rest of his life until he died from pneumoniaat fifty-six. I was seven years old at the time my grandfather died.The next memory is my first introduction to gospel music. It is ofa tabernacle that sat next to my house, where in the summertimewe had revivals. The Methodists, the Baptists, and the Church ofChrist all held their church services in the tabernacle. I am sittingat the table looking out the window, listening to them all. My firstperformance in church was when I was about five. I was wearing awhite sailor suit with red trim. I start to recite a poem my grandmothertaught me, but I have been picking my nose, which nowstarts to bleed. I hold my nose with one finger and while blood runsall over my little white sailor suit I recite my poem:

    What are you looking at me for?
    I ain't got nothin' to say
    If you don't likes the looks of me
    Just look the other way

My next memory is of our bumblebee fights. On Sundays we wouldall go out and fight bumblebees. I was ten years old. The farmersaround Abbott would run into bumblebee nests during the weekwhile they worked their fields. They would let us know where togo, and eight or ten of us boys would go out and fight the bees.Some days I would come home with both eyes swollen shut frombee stings.

What fun we had!

We made paddles, sawed out of wooden boxes, that looked likePing-Pong paddles with holes. One of us would go in and shake thenest and stir up the bees. Then, when the bees were swarming,everyone would start swinging. The bees always headed for your eyes.The next memory is when we (the same bee-hunting boys and me)are all hiding behind a billboard sign on the main road, Highway 81,that runs through Abbott, which is between Waco and Dallas. Wehave tied a string to a lady's purse that we laid in the middle of thehighway. A car would come by, see the purse, hit the brakes, stop,and back up to get the purse. At that moment we would pull thepurse back to us behind the billboard sign. The driver would thenrealize that it was a prank, give us the finger, and speed away. Welaughed a lot.

Another great Sunday!