With all of this persian seriousness and t.d.s. politics....

by RayLee, Sunday, March 22, 2026, 00:01 (16 hours, 5 minutes ago)

maybe a little light humour will give a brief distraction. Let's go back to circa 1983....

I remember well those cold and rainy winter afternoons, dark and dreary at the city barn. Roscoe, the utility dept. superintendent endeavored to give us menial tasks for the sake of principles but the iron in our blood always seemed to turn to lead and settle in our a**es. Much sitting about and shooting the bull and chewing the fat.
There was an excellent former u.s. army coffee urn, surplus from camp seibert. For those who imbibed on something stronger than caffeine, robert newsome and shagg simpson had an old crockery churn, covered with cheesecloth, continuously brewing whatever ripe fruits or veggies they added to the bubbling and foamy concoction. You used the bottom of a soup ladle to clear a pool amongst the sudsy slime, caught a ladleful, pinched your nose against the malodor and then down the gullet. A half-ladleful once was enough for me. I learned my lessen and never tried it again. On the transistor am radio there was george jones and charlie pride and the like for background ambience.

As far as entertainment goes, a gentleman called uncle pill was the primary raconteur of the group but sleepy jackson was more clever with a lewd joke and skillet keller and razor huey would also regale us with what was interesting with the coloured folk over in peppertown. On this particular lazy afternoon razor had the floor, telling us of a memorable impromptu party that they had had.

He used a term for the celebration that I was unfamiliar with and I wish I could remember it. Even in this day and age of internet search engines and their inexhaustible data I have been unable to discover the word he used. It was along the lines of soiree or hootenanny for quaintness but more african or west Indies in origin. Anyways, I'll insert "humdinger" for the disremembered word and let razor commence dispensing with the bother of quotation marks other than the obligatory one at the beginning and one at the end.....

"In those days when segregation had just started to ebb somewhat, we had a humdinger planned at the old slave cemetery up on dump mountain. We met first at Ida's Cafe which had just began to be interrogated (that is what he said presumably meaning integration) and allow mixed company. Since ida had a pool hall and pinball arcade I had equipped myself with several rolls of dimes. I didn't like the way those rolls rode in my tight-fitting dungarees so I emptied them dimes loose into the four pockets.

The party started out slow and mellow, all of us aware of the necessity of making a good impression on honky(s). Then as dusk set, singly or by twos or threes so as not to draw attention we trekked up west hill to oak ridge then on up mountain view were the coloured cemetery was located near the entrance to the old city dump. It was sure enough dark up there once you got past the street lights.....spooky too but some of the brothers already had lanterns and burning brands and whatnot for lighting. There was car radio music and wine and malt liquors and some fine sisters, ready and willing.

Suddenly, without any warning there was a blue flash and a clap of thunder and a great gust of wind. All of the lights went out and amid the confusion someone shouted for us to look in the direction of the landfill. In the pitch black it looked like bunches of green balls of light creeping and crawling across the ground up there.

A sister screamed hysterically "them's either the haints of confederates or the ku klux !" Panic ensued and then we were, all in a mob, running for our lives back down towards town.
Now some of them kids was quite fleet of foot and greatly out-ran us. I had ahold of the hand of the wench who I intended to have my way with later and she was really slowing us down by looking behind. "There is old lucifer almost on us. I cans hears his cloven trotters clip-cloppin' on the pavements !" she shrieked.

That made our feets move faster. Then I began to hear the rattle of chains. Sometimes right above us like they was hovering overhead. Other times like they was right on our tails, yea, even at our very feets. Everybody knows that some of them old slaves, ornery field hands mostly and not house n-----s was buried fettered with shackles and chains. Having a humdinger on top of and amongst them must haved ired them-up. So we picked-up the pace and was putting space between us and them. I could tell as the rattling gradually abated then ceased altogether just as we came-up under the welcome street lights of the parking lot of ida's cafe.

Whew ! I was a blowing with a throbbing stitch in my side. My gal was puffing too and an unhealthy yellow, two or three shades lighter than normal, she was. I really was too fagged for the long walk back across town so I reached into a pocket for a dime to use ida's payphone to fetch a ride. Empty ! All four pockets.....and I had started-out with $40 worth of dimes !

Then we began laughing as it dawned-on us what had occurred. Them chains we heard was nothing more than the sounds of all them dimes bouncing out of my pockets onto the pavements."

So ended his tale. We laughed and applauded just the correct amount. When order returned we heard uncle pill clear his throat in preparation for his turn at the stump but before he could begin, booby moates, the certified lunatic amongst us interrupted with an insaneish cackle.....

"did you go back up the hill with a flashlight to pick-up them dimes ?"
Razor refused to answer but we all knew that he had not.....