Clark drove his car and the man followed in his pick-up. As the man backed up to the back porch, Mrs. Clark came out of the kitchen and asked, "What have we got here?
Her husband said, "We've got an icebox."
"We don't need it. We've got one icebox."
"You're wrong, woman, we've got two iceboxes."
I don't know what they ever did with the old box, but I'm sure he didn't let it bother him in the least.
At the Royston gin, the house in which we stored our cotton was about 30 or 40 steps away from the office building. The door leading into the cotton house was on the far side, away from the office. The door opened to the outside, and the V-space behind the open door made a nice little outhouse for men, who, for any reason at all, preferred not to walk the long distance to the two- holer when all they wanted to do was stand and drain a load of water against the cotton house wall.
One day I was up in a farmer's trailer unloading his cotton into the cotton house when Clarence Clark came out from the office and stood half hidden, his front half that is, behind the aforementioned door, and began his little chore of getting rid of excess waste water. Whereupon, I seized the opportunity to play a practical joke on this practical jokester, Mr. Clark.
I went to the back of the trailer, leaned out over the tailgate so I could see around the corner of the cotton house and, looking toward the office, I said in a loud voice, "No, ma'am, he's not here now, but he was here a few minutes ago."
Of course, I was only pretending. There wasn't a woman within a half-mile. But, you know, my performance did exactly what I had hoped it would do, only more so. In a fraction of a second, Clark had put away his drainer before he had time to stop the flow of water. I could tell by the way he stepped out from his hiding place that dampness was already down beyond his socks and into at least one shoe. Then in about three seconds, when he realized what I had done to him, he looked up at me and said, "Johnson, I'll kill you for that." But he didn't. And I'm sure he felt better when he got home and got a bath and put on dry clothes.
Now, changing the subject, Anita came home from School one day and asked, "Daddy, why is it that, when kids at school tell a joke or a story, the goofy guy in the story is always named Clarence?" You know, I couldn't think of a good answer to give her, and I still can't.