Several years ago, a day or so before a particular July Fourth, Lamar Beefeater and his chief cohort in fatuity, the infamous Lester DooLittle, decided to travel into town to acquire a ready supply of cheap fireworks ... as luck would have it, as the eager lads ambled past the Piggly Wiggly grocery store, there stood an enterprising young gentleman peddling all kinds of "discount" fireworks from the back of an old De Soto automobile, its trunk chockful of an impressive assortment of Roman candles, bottle rockets, sparklers, Cherry bombs, skyrockets, firecrackers ... and a huge explosive device the size and shape of a 3lb. coffee cannister ... the word "FLASHPOWDER" clearly printed down its side ... this thing resembled the ones the local fire department sets off alongside the river as the main feature of each Fourth of July celebration, and was nearly as large ... so the boys made their selections, first choice being that of the "big bomb" ... they anxiously forked over the agreed upon currency, both buyers and seller supposedly making out like smug bandits in the transaction, and before heading home with the goods, they stopped by the Piggly Wiggly and purchased 2 enormous watermelons, and were now flat broke, albeit filled with excitement and anticipation at their invaluable acquisitions ... and because of their newly concocted plans for that afternoon.
When they arrived back at Lamar's daddy's place, they placed the watermelons on the corn crib floor and spread out all the the fireworks next to the melons ... the very same corn crib floor where Lamar had previously failed at development of his "time travelin' machine" ... I'll save that tale for another day ... a plan was then devised in which they would consume the smaller of the two watermelons, carve a hole in the remaining larger melon, then place that huge explosive device with the word "flashpowder" printed down its side right inside of that big melon ... then touch it off ... so there in the middle of the corn crib floor, the boys propped up that big ol' watermelon with the hole carved in its center, right there in the middle of the corn crib floor ... then slid the "big bomb" down inside it ... then Lester Doolittle lit a homemade fuse with a kitchen match as they ran as hard as they could from that corn crib and out into the woods behind the Beefeater property.Well there was this explosion ... an explosion of Brobdingnagian proportions ... surpassed in magnitude only by that of the Mount Vesuvius eruption, accompanied by a towering fireball and rising plumes of thick, black smoke, this followed by numerous blasts of lesser intensity or significance ... now Lamar's mama Maude, upon hearing the grand explosion from her kitchen, and aware that Lamar and Lester were going out to the corn crib to consume their watermelons and admire their newly acquired fireworks, was now certain that a tragic accident had most assuredly occurred ... so she ran out to the corn crib to check on the welfare of the boys ... as she approached the corn crib, which was now missing most of it's roof, she saw what appeared to be chunks of some sort of red substance strewn in every direction and splattered all over what was left of the floor and walls of the old shack, along with several pieces of whitish looking fragments, shrapnel and watermelon seeds ... then it struck her ... Lamar and Lester had been blown to bits!! ... overcome with sudden grief, Maude l
et out this awful, long and loud, bloodcurdling scream, sank down face first right into the worst of that pile of gory muck and fainted away dead to the world ... now Lamar, upon hearing his mama Maude's anguished scream, came running from the woods, Lester DooLittle right at his heels, to see what the matter was ... there they found wooden planks and sheets of metal roofing scattered across the yard amongst the watermelon remains ... and what was left of the still smoking corn crib ... as Lamar inched his way toward the door for a peek, there lay his mama Maude's apparently lifeless body, face down in all that mess ... that's when it struck him ... his mama Maude had been kilt in that explosion!! ... then he too passed out and dropped face down in that pile of gory muck right beside his mama Maude ... poor Lester DooLittle, overcome with awestruck wonder and befuddlement, straightaway headed for home.To make a long story short, Lamar's daddy Henry had been watching this entire sequence of events unfold, from start to finish, from the safety and comfort of the barn, and could hardly contain himself, convulsing in laughter as he came to the aid of his fallen wife Maude and hapless son Lamar ... and after dumping a bucket full of cold water on the duo, thus bringing them both back to the land of the conscious and living, he explained to them both the graphic details of just how they had come to be in such awkward positions ... last I heard, Maude was still searching for a fleeing Lamar, rolling pin in hand ... and Lamar has been hiding in the woods, surviving on wild herbs, acorns ... and chunks of seared watermelon rinds.
--sja
