We’re all tied together. In some sense, we’re all tied together.

For Joe used to work for Johnny who is the son of Charles and Billy Fay. Billy Fay went to school with Bob who brought a snake to school and put it in the teacher’s desk and that teacher would not enter the school the rest of the day.

The principal who expelled Bob (just for one day) grew up on Red Hammer

Road, right next to where Junior grew up who shot Bo’s hunting dog, Lucky, by mistake.

He claimed he thought it was a deer, but most folks know Junior never did think much of someone else’s dog running a deer across his land.

As you know,

Junior married Claire and everyone knew it was no way any woman could live with that man very long. And she didn’t. After about a year of working down at the peanut-buying place, she took up with Jimmy, who at his stage of life would have taken up with anybody.

That union produced a hard-headed son named Jimmy Junior, or JJ, who was rather fond of the bottle.

In fact, he got drunk late one night and climbed into the loft in the barn and passed out. During the night, he had to relieve himself, got up and walked right out the upper barn door and hit the ground with a thud. JJ commenced to screaming for help, for he thought he had fallen into a well, when in fact he was lying on the ground.

The neighbors came a-runnin’ and eventually convinced JJ that he indeed was not in a well. That barn was built by the Weaver family, who to this day assemble structures for folks.

All except for Benny Weaver, who got attached to the piano at a young age. He ended up playing for the choir at church.

And always — every Sunday — on the front row of that choir was Elsie May, who thought she was hitting the right notes, but anyone with ears knew she wasn’t. But no one could get up enough courage to tell her. But that was understandable, for she had been in the choir for 40 years and had sat in that chair for the last 30. She’d seen 12 preachers come and go from that chair. The most famous being Rev. Roberts, who once a year brought his congregation down to Ballard’s pond and preached his famous sermon on Jesus walking on the water.

And Rev. Roberts actually walked on the water to prove his point. Until Phil Cole snuck down to that pond and removed one of the boards that was just beneath the water. When Rev. Roberts got to that board and fell in the water, he said something he shouldn’t have.

But Phil Cole was always doing stuff like that. He loved to laugh. And he laughed just like his dad, Phillip, whose laugh could be heard clear across the hardware store. It always bothered Hazel Lynch, who thought all people should maintain self control, especially in public places.

This just made Phillip Cole laugh a little louder. But Hazel certainly maintained control over her husband, a small, beady eyed gentleman who just happened to be first cousin to ………..

(The names and places have been changed to protect the innocent)