Pete's News

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT 
AND SOME THAT AIN'T

Howdy folks! This here's ol' Pete and Rosebud comin' at you again!

I run into my ol' buddy Bucky Jones last week. Me and Rosebud was down to Silas's store when he come in down there. Ol' Bucky left from up here right after he gradgeated outta school. He moved to the city and don't get back up this way much no more. He used to. He used to come back 'bout ever weekend. He'd get offa work on Friday evenin' and hit the road back home to see his mama and them.

I never thought ol' Bucky'd move off and stay gone like he's done. I thought he'd go off somewhere for a while, get the bright lights out of his system and come on back to the farm up here. Course you can't never tell about somebody, but he wasn't one you'd think would stay gone very long. I 'member when he first left here he was green as grass. He hadn't never been nowheres, didn't know nothin' about nothin' 'cept what's right up here around 'im in Gump Holler.

The only reason he went to start with was that his secont cousin Charley had gone earlier and started tellin' him about the big money he was makin' and how he ort to come get him one of them high payin' jobs too. He said he'd help him get hired on and told him he could bunk up with him where he was stayin' 'til he did. Finally, ol' Bucky decided he'd give it a try.

He caught the bus and went over there where Charley lived at and, shore 'nuff, it wasn't long 'til he got a job and was doin' good. In fact, he done good enough that he decided to get him a car to drive so he wouldn't have to ride the bus ever time he come back home up here. Him and Charley worked at the same place and he was ridin' to work with Charley ever day, but it'd make it easier if he had his own wheels. So he went down to the Sweet Deal Note Lot to get him somethin'.

The first thing he seen was this shiny red pickup settin' out there. Boy, he thought, that's the purtiest thang I ever seen. I've gotta have me this pickup. And he did. He went in and made a deal to pay so much down and so much a week 'til he paid it off. No big deal there. He was makin' good money.

Ol' Bucky didn't know nothin' about stuff like that. I know what your thinkin'. Him bein' as country as a sack of taters and dealin' with some city slicker car salesman, it could've turned out real bad. But it didn't. It was a purty decent ol' truck. Yeah, it had some rusty spots on it, but they'd put that bondo stuff on it and some new red paint so's you couldn't tell it. The tires was purty good. The motor was so-so, didn't burn no oil or nothin'. Bucky was satisfied and, when you come right down to it, that's what counts the most.

He drove it back and forth from the city to back up here in the holler several times and never had no trouble. Well, he did have a little bit one time, but it wasn't the truck's fault. I guess it was Charley's fault if it was anybody's.

From where he was livin' at, it was a long drive all the way back up here to Gump Holler. You could make it all the way in one settin', but Bucky'd only had that truck a little while and since he didn't know if it was gonna give him any trouble or not, Charley made him promise he'd break the trip up and not be drivin' in the dark. "Go 'til it gets good'n dark," he told him, "and then stop at a motel. Sleep a few hours and then go on the rest of the way the next mornin'."

Bucky thought that made sense, all but the part about stoppin' at a motel. He didn't know why he needed to stop at no motel, but hey, that's what Charley said and he hadn't never steered him wrong before. So he seen this motel and pulled in close to the front door, shut the engine off, laid over in the seat and went to sleep.

Everthing was fine for an hour or so, 'til this feller from the motel come out, pounded on the winder and woke him up. "Hey," he said, "what're you doin' there?"

Ol' Bucky was a little put out with him for wakin' him up. "Well, I was sleepin' 'til you come along," he said.

"You want to get a room?" the feller asked.

"No, I'm okay right here. I don't need no room."

"Well, umm. . . Look, you can't stay here if you ain't got a room," he said.

"I can't? Why not?"

"Well, umm, 'cause this here is a motel."

"Yeah, so? I ain't botherin' nothin'."

"Yeah, I know you ain't, but we charge money for people to stay here. That's how we make a livin', see? You have to pay to stay the night here and sleep."

That didn't make no sense to ol' Bucky, but he wasn't one to go 'round causin' trouble so he give the man what he wanted for a room and slept there the rest of the night in his pickup. Long about daylight, he woke up and got back on the road.

But after awhile he got hisself a girlfriend up there in the city and then he quit comin' down so much. He only come down maybe once or twice a year after that. "Besides," he said, "twenty dollars is just way too much money to spend for parkin' a pickup.

You can contact Pete and Rosebud by email at
bstover43@yahoo.com