The Redneck Story Book

By Gary M. Roberts

A collection of humorous stories about the south and the peculiar way southerners got things done. The stories are taken from the author's own experiences growing up in south Georgia, and as the title infers, they have a tad bit of truth to them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Country Writes Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386035572

Gary M. Roberts

Gary M. Roberts is best known for his fiction novels and short stories.  He has been published in several magazines, most notably, Modern Maturity.  His is an Army veteran and retired police officer with the Savannah Police Department, Savannah, Georgia.  He has a PhD in Theology and a Masters in Education.  He has taught both high school and college courses and was awarded a Top Teacher Award and letters of accommodation for his teaching. Currently, Gary’s ongoing project is a series of books under the title, The Xy Syndrome.  Gary and his wife Carol, who also writes, live on a small farm in southeast Georgia with their fur babies and horses..

Book preview

Dedicated to my brother, Joe,

and in memory of

our Papa

Copyright © 2018 Gary M. Roberts

All rights reserved.

––––––––

Country Writes Publishing Company

https://countrywrites.com

FORWARD

I was blessed to have been born in a time and place that was idyllic for growing up. Southeast Georgia had everything imaginable to offer and plenty for a rambunctious kid to get into. We were less than an hour from the beach, and the woods were right out my back door.

My parents were anything but rich in money, but they were wealthy beyond all in love, friends, faith, and most of all, family. We were brought up in the church; dad was a deacon and led the boy’s youth group. Mom sang in the choir, taught Sunday School and helped dad with the boys when needed.

It was certainly a different time, a more relaxed time. There were no cell phones, no computers, and only three TV stations. Radio was AM only and a music collection consisted of 45 rpm records. We had wide open spaces and innocence that allowed for adventure.

Saturday mornings consisted of cartoons until about noon, then it was outdoors until nightfall. We played cowboys and Indians, softball, half rubber, army, hide and seek and most any other game you could come up with. We built forts, tree houses and clubhouses. We played and, yes, sometimes we fought. Disagreements were usually settled with a good old-fashioned wrestling match and an occasional bloody nose, but once it was over, it was over.

Almost every boy, and some girls, had a BB gun and a bicycle. If not a bicycle, a horse, or in my case a donkey. We hunted, fished, camped, swam and sometimes just hung out.

Everybody knew everybody and actually helped each other. If you got hurt playing you just went to the closest house for a band-aid and a hug. If you misbehaved, you could count on your parents knowing about it before you got home.

Of course, we had problems, everyone does. But for the most part growing up in the ’60s in south Georgia was a wonderful experience. We were free to experiment, learn and even make mistakes. Some of the mistakes were, in fact, some of the best teachers, and certainly made for good stories.

Every story here has what I call a tad of truth. They are based on actual events and retold in a way that I hope you find as enjoyable to read as I did to write.

Gary M. Roberts

The Moss Man

Growing up the south there were always tall tales, wives’ tales and ghost stories aplenty.  They were all true stories too, and could be easily verified!  That is, of course, if you were willing to track down my friend’s cousin Barney who heard it from his neighbor’s sister’s boyfriend who got it from his best friend.

One of the best stories I didn’t have to track down because I was the first-hand witness to it.  That’s right!  Honest to goodness first-hand horror story! It was the story of the infamous Moss Man!

Now I had heard the story of the Moss Man most of my life and knew it to be true.  The way the story goes is there was once this old farmer who had a son who was exceptionally dimwitted, so much so, in fact, that the boy was ten years old before he learned to take his shoes off before taking a bath.  Course, part of the problem was his daddy didn’t make him bathe all that often and just plain forgot how to do it.

Anyway, the boy, whose name was Billy, Bobby or Harvey or something like that, grew up years ago near my neighborhood.  They say when he was sixteen, he dropped out of the sixth grade and got himself a job shaking pecans out of pecan trees.  Yep, that was a real job back then.  The shaker would climb up the pecan tree as far as he could and shake the branches to get the pecans down.  Believe it or not, they’ve actually got a machine that does that now!

The boy made a good living at tree shaking and would have done really well, too, if he had not been so dimwitted.  The story goes that after he made his first fortune of $50, he decided he would spend it like any sensible young man would, on a woman.

The first Saturday night after the first $50, he went to the dance and found himself the prettiest girl in the crowd. Being the successful young man that he was, Harvey walked straight up to her with his hat in his hand and asked her if she wanted to, daince.

Well, Marylou, being a popular girl and all, turned and saw this pecan shaker with his hat in his and said, Daince?  What is a daince?  Well everybody laughed, of course.  But Harvey, not put off by her, proceeded to show what he meant by doing something akin to the twist.  This caused the whole room to erupt in laughter.  Then, to put the icing on the cake, Marylou looked at him with spiteful eyes and said, You ain’t nothin’ but a dumb pecan shaker!  You need to go back to your moss-covered trees and hide yo’ ugly self!

Hurt by her words, Harvey did just that.  Ever since that night, they say that Harvey hides himself up in the pecan trees that line the old dirt road to town, and when he sees a car coming down the road with a boy and girl all up against each other in the car, he jumps down on the hood of the car and screams out his lost love’s name, Marrryloooo.

Now, I have to admit I didn’t know Harvey or Marylou, but I had heard the story countless times growing up, as did all my friends. Nor has any of us actually seen the Moss Man – that is until that one fateful night.

It was late October, and me and the boys were taking one of our last campouts before it got too cold for the year. It was almost dark, and we had already told every dirty joke we knew and eaten most