strawberries and monkeys

One of the things I really enjoy is listening to someone yell a tale, or even a story from their own life. A particular person can take a run of the mill kind of thing and just make your day. Bil Smith, or One L Bill as his fellow dormies used to call him, was one of those kinds of people. He could take a trip to Taco Bell in Marin City be a limelight event. My uncle, Windel, can do the same thing. I never get tired of hearing him or my dad tell me of the time my Papaw Elder and his brothers got in a fight at a saw mill and about the time when I think one of Papaw's brothers got into the sauce and jumped on a mule and pulled its tail up to its ears. Hmm.

Well, the other night here on Birch Avenue Bill Dorsy, a long-time neighbor and acquaintance of Barb's family came over. His brother lives in the EastBay and so we were able to talk about the California scenery, the coast and bits of Oregon. He is a large man especially after being wrapped up for sub-freezing temperature. He was very precise and calm with his measure of speaking. Somehow we got on the topic of him working freight. Oh, we were talking about the fresh vegetables and fruit that comes from the valley of California. Apparently Bill had worked for an air freight company in the MidWest.

One day they received a freight from California. The first half was full of strawberries and the second half was filled with monkeys. It was 95 degrees where he was unloading the freight. Bill said, "MMM, when you opened that door all you could smell were those fresh California Valley strawberries. And then the wind whipped around and you caught the monkeys. The strawberries were headed to the MidWest for the market and the monkeys were headed to Chicago for the polio vaccine. It made you quite hesitant to eat another strawberry or to pet another monkey."