Have you ever been the mood to write a short story, just for the fun. Stretch the facts a wee bit, for the story line? Consider that Bill and Aiko truly were brothers, both unmarried and living in the same town. Each year they went to the county fair and had done so for almost 75 years, both now being 85. This is the short version of my "southern" tale in progress...smiles!
The first contest Bill and Aiko entered was when they were 10 years of age. A costume created by their aunts Sandy and Lisa was worn reluctantly, but their dance routine choreographed by Jo proved to be a delight for the county fair crowd and the clapping can still be heard echoing in the hills and valleys so many years later. Although they never again entered a costume contest, the other contests at the county fair proved to be very worthwhile for the brothers. In fact the money awarded was saved and allowed them to take a vacation to one of the Arab countries where they entered a cross country horse race, which they won and with the purse bought several hundred acres in Florida. Their intent was to raise Arabian horses, but alas the land was not fit to farm or raise horses. It turned out to be full of peat moss, which they sold on shares to a company which still bales peat moss and returns them royalties.
Being farmers, it was quite natural to enter various live stock and farm animal contests each year. The brothers had won the most unusual animal contest one year with their crockagator. For those not so familiar with this portion of the "tale," the national liars contest is held in Raymond, Mississippi each year and this fair winning, was turned into a bodacious "lie" so below is the truth.
Bill loved to fish, even more so than Aiko, so each morning Bill arose at the break of dawn to set his hooks, then put his fishing gear into the row boat for those 30 pound bass which populated
their modest pond of 47.235 acres. Not every morning, but quite often Bill came in with a string of bream and the largest bass he had caught, which he kept, throwing the smaller bass back into the
pond to grow larger for a later day of fishing. He always cleaned the bream and bass and had fish and grits ready for his brother Aiko, who normally arose about mid morning. The brothers ate and ate
until about noon and then took a long nap.
Then one summer the fishing had almost stopped to a trickle. Both knew that the lake was being taken care of, no over fishing, so what was the problem, they mused. Bill found the problem, or so he thought, which was a 35 foot alligator. Being an animal lover Bill put the alligator into Elmira's wading pool, fenced it where the alligator could not get out. Of course the alligator was fed, but that is another story.
Little by little the fishing improved and in a few months everything was back to normal. The brothers ate and ate, took a mid day nap, that is until they hear a horrible noise near the pond where
the alligator was kept. Rushing outside they found a crocodile making unusual overtures to the alligator. They opened the gate, in went the crocodile and the rest of the story is a crockagator. Yup!
On one end was the head of a crocodile. On the other end was the head of an alligator. For some reason the crockagator was the meanest animal they had ever seen, but being an unusual farm animal the
brothers entered it the country fair and won the most unusual animal contest.
Not rightly sure what year, but Bill won the largest hog contest. Aiko had always dominated this particular contest because he attended to farm chores with gusto and on a regular basis, might I add. But Bill, well Bill had rather fish, that is until one year he entered the hog contest with determination. He awoke unbeknown to Aiko early from those mid afternoon naps to feed his Jersey Red hog, but the hog was not gaining enough weight to be a champion. So a bright idea. Why not cork up the hog? So he did and Bill's hog won the country fair that particular year, much to Aiko's chagrin.
"Bill how did you manage to produce such a champion hog of 1,500 pounds," asked Aiko and thought to himself how in the world will Bill remove the cork. What will be the consequences too? Of course Bill had not considered the consequences of his devious act, but when he won the local angular s contest a few months later, he had an idea. The grand prize was a parrot and a monkey.
Hark! Train the monkey to pull corks out of a bottle. The monkey became quite proficient and just in time, for the hog was becoming quite large and in danger of "exploding." Bill arose early from another of those mid afternoon naps took the monkey, hog and a case of Miller Lite into the back forty. While Bill and the Miller Lite were safely protected behind a large boulder, the hog and the monkey were out in the open. Several Miller Lites later, there was a loud explosion, which gave rise to the expression, still uttered in the county years later. "Where were you when the fit hit the Shan?"
Dear reader if you insist we will tell you more of the exploits of the brothers Bill and Aiko, but let me skip ahead to when they were both 85. Yup! They lived many more years, but that too is another story. For each of the 75 years up to their 85th birthdays, Bill had always wanted to fly in the crop duster. But Aiko always said, "Bill the charge is fifty dollars and fifty dollars is fifty dollars." But to celebrate Bill's parrot Elmira and her 50th birthday, both talked about taking the crop duster flight, rather loud too.
The pilot overheard their discussion and proposed that he would take them free, if nary a word was uttered during the flight. The brothers agreed, hopped into the crop duster and away they went. Ups and downs, loopy-loops and everything a crop dusting plane was capable of doing, but nary a word from the brothers. When the plane finally landed the pilot commented that he sure was astonished that they had said nothing and the ride was free.
"Well," said Bill, "there was a point when I almost said something."
"Oh, when was that" asked the pilot?
"When Aiko fell out of the plane," said Bill.
Where Aiko landed when he fell out of the plane and what happened is quite frankly a legend in the county where the brothers have lived for the past 120 years.
Copyright: 1986-2010