The Duke happened to stop by Uncle Bubba's the other day for a short how-do-you-do. They were both pleasant and exchanged genuine niceties though it had been quite some time since they had seen one another or even spoke; it's been a long 2+ years for Bubbie since their friendship went off the rails. The heat of adversity has the ability to forge the character of a person much like a farrier shapes the red iron of a horseshoe. This has been the case for Uncle Bubba, a period of anagnorisis, the transition from ignorance to knowledge. Knowledge of what? A knowledge that there are many things in life that he got wrong. Knowing that instinct trumps intellectual reasoning, that common sense cures the wasting away of time. Not to say that he now knows everything, on the contrary, he is a babe in the eyes of God. Knowledge at this level can proceed peripeteia: a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation; that moment when the facade falls away and one finally sees oneself. It causes a crisis of spirit and crushes the ego but if survived brings freedom within one's soul.
On the surface, The Duke is the same ol' cowboy he always was and one never really knows a person under that level. But on this day, there is still a fondness there and so many good remembrances of fun, eventful times. Uncle Bubba's eyes welled up as he watched The Duke ride off into the amber light of the setting sun.
After The Duke left and things settled down, a story came to Bubbie's mind and he smiled; it's a tale by Jerry Clower near as Uncle Bubba can remember it. Jerry and Marcel Ledbetter joined the Navy. They boarded a train in Macomb, Mississippi and it took them all the way to Williamsburg, Virginia. When they arrived the bus hadn't shown up yet to pick them up and take them to Camp Perry so the boatswain's mate said, "Hey, y'all start sweeping out this depot while you're waitin' on the bus."
Jerry said, "Well, that's the first push broom I every pushed that wasn't made out-a shucks. And we was pushin' on them brooms and there was two fellas sittin' on a bench right there and they talked real funny to me and Marcel. Didn't have no idea where they was from. And we was pushin' that push broom and that fella looked up and said, 'Jeese, you's guys...' I'm 17-years-old there, I ain't never been outta the South. He said, 'Jeese, you's guys, who won the Civil War?' Well Marcel Ledbetter brought that broom right over his head and busted it and said, 'The Civil War ain't over!'"
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