Don’t you read the darn newspaper?” LeRoy asked his good friend Bubba.
“Well I try not to when I can help it,” Bubba replied, adding “it just gets me so darn tore up, all the crap going on over in Elizabeth City, and then some politician is whining about this, and some bureaucrat is cryin about that.”
The late summer sun warmed his skin. He squinted in the brightness of the noonday sun, standing motionless, sniffing at the air, watching the traffic stream by the end of the long field.
His attention was diverted to the approaching sound - growing louder and most definitely closer. Across the end of the field, the red combine moved along thrashing and whirling.
Bubba slogged through the knee-deep water carrying several slender saplings over one shoulder and his trusty axe in his free hand.
As he neared the edge of the swamp, he noticed his good friend LeRoy waiting in the yard for him.
As Bubba approached, LeRoy saluted his friend and asked, “What have you been up to?”
The old blue Chevy rounded the corner and glided down Waterlily Road.
LeRoy was perched behind the wheel, guiding the lifeless vehicle. At first glance, Bubba was no where to be seen, but on closer inspection he was leaned down behind the truck pushing for all he was worth.
“That’s it!” exclaimed LeRoy, “put your back in it!” He did so enjoy ribbing his good friend.
Hand me that open ended wrench will ya?” asked Bubba, while leaning under the hood of the old Jeep Wrangler.
LeRoy scanned the veritable smorgasbord of tools present on the expansive workbench.
Bubba, sensing his partner’s apparent bewilderment, prompted LeRoy; “it should be on the far end, just right of the monkey wrench.”