Howdy Folks! I'm Fuster Buskins

By Darrell Sroufe

Howdy Folks! Im Fuster Buskins is a collection of the humorous stories and song poems of hillbilly comedy character Fuster Buskins, as played by actor/singer/songwriter and banjo picker Darrell Sroufe.

In an over twenty-five year career of entertaining at southern theme parks; major entertainment venues; doing road tours throughout America; performing on national radio and television programs; and recording several albums played on radio stations in the United States and Europe, Fuster Buskins built quite a large repertoire of material.

As his shows ran from one to two hours in length, Fusters stories and poem songs were cut, changed, added to and discarded over the years. Now, in this volume alone they all appear with enough material to fill a book and enough good old time southern humor to fill hearts with laughter for years to come!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479724079

Darrell Sroufe

About The Author Born and raised in the Midwest, Darrell Sroufe became interested in an entertainment career during his teenage years. His talents gained early recognition after becoming a finalist in a national songwriting competition paneled by lyricist Hal David of Hal David and Burt Bacharach and Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers. Throughout his youth, Darrell’s family vacations were spent in the Smoky Mountains. Those vacations brought him a fascination with southern culture and led to his eventual relocation to the south and creation of the Fuster Buskins comedy character. In the years that followed, Darrell performed as Fuster Buskins all over America. In addition to recording several albums, Darrell delighted millions of comedy fans with appearances on radio, television and in live shows. After entertaining for over twenty-five years, Darrell retired in 2011 and now brings his country humor through literary composition of the stories and song poems of Fuster Buskins.

Book preview

Howdy Folks!

I’m Fuster Buskins

by Darrell Sroufe

Copyright © 2012 by Darrell Sroufe.

Cover photography and graphics by Scott Rousseau Designs

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012918096

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-2406-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-2405-5

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-2407-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All song lyrics copyrighted by Homespun Good News Music—ASCAP

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

118791

Contents

Prelude

Chapter One      Banjer Pickin’ & Mountain Music Sangin’

Chapter Two      Old Timers & Moonshiners

Chapter Three      Unlucky In Love

Chapter Four      Tourist Folks What Come Into Klufford’s Holler

Chapter Five      Gospel Mountain Music Sanger

Chapter Six      Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem

Chapter Seven      Aunt Hazel Strikes It Rich

Chapter Eight      TV Box Edjucation

Chapter Nine      Modernized Newfangled Gizmos & Gadgets

Chapter Ten      Dollywood & Nashville

Postlude

To all the kinfolk in Maryville

Prelude

After twenty-five years, hillbilly comedy character Fuster Buskins retired from show business in 2012. He started out performing as Cornbelt Buskins in October of 1987 at a coffeehouse in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His name was changed to Fuster Buskins in 2001 before going to Nashville and becoming the lone artist managed by Homespun Good News Music and signed by the Udderly Good Records label. Both small entertainment companies were my own, so signing Fuster was an easy decision.

Fuster Buskins, as evolved from Cornbelt, made his debut as a theme park entertainer in 2003 at Dollywood. After that he moved on to Stone Mountain Park just outside Atlanta, Georgia where he spent several years entertaining the park’s four and a half million annual visitors. From there he headed out on the road going from South Carolina to Southern California doing shows at fairs, festivals, churches, senior centers and anywhere else his southern humor was welcome.

I emphasize ‘south’ because that is what the Fuster Buskins character always was, a pure born and bred Southerner from a backwoods, back hills and backwards mountain town called Klufford’s Holler. Though both Fuster Buskins and Klufford’s Holler are fictional creations, what inspired and brought them both to life was the very real and wonderful stuff that makes up childhood memories.

For me, the best childhood memories took place some twenty-two miles outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was in a little Smoky Mountain foothills town called Maryville, Tennessee. My grandpa and grandma’s farmland acreage, which included a large holler area, provided the inspiration for Fuster Buskins and his hometown of Klufford’s Holler. The stories of the Fuster Buskins show always revolved around the townsfolk of Klufford’s Holler, and most prominently the town preacher Reverend Elmer T. Higgenbothem.

Reverend Elmer T. had the unenviable job of trying to keep the small mountain community full of moonshiners, ‘tabacky’ growers and odd assortment of other townsfolk on the straight and narrow. Ornery as they all were, they represented simple, lovable mountain folk doing their best with die hard old fashion ways in a modernized, sophisticated world full of new-fangled contraptions and ideas they had little interest in or much use for.

The backhills, backwoods and backwards ways of the townsfolk of Klufford’s Holler provided enough humorous material to fill all of Fuster Buskins’ shows, numbering well into the thousands, for years. In time they provided enough material to fill a book. And here’s the book… with the complete comedy fodder of Klufford’s Holler as told in all its southernisms by the little town’s travelin’, banjo pickin’, strorytellin’, song singin’ and poem writin’ resident Fuster Buskins.

So kick your shoes off, sit back and have a good time reading this complete collection from Fuster’s shows done for a quarter century, from 1987 to 2012. It just might provide enough rib-tickelin’ old time comedy laughter to last another quarter century, or as long as folks’ hillbilly funny bones stay alive and well anyway. Enjoy!

Darrell Sroufe

2012

Chapter One

Banjer Pickin’ & Mountain Music Sangin’

Howdy Folks! I’m Fuster Buskins. I’m what ya call a mountain music sanger. Mountain music, in case ya don’t know what that be, is the kinda music what comes from the heart, is played by ear and is sung through the nose.

Anybody what’s a mountain music sanger and goes out to make a livin’ at it is kindy called a diplermat of whar they comes from. That’s what I’m telled, anyway.

I never rightly knowed what a diplermat is, but if I was gonna be one of those as a mountain music sanger, I figgered I’d best find out what one is so’s I could be as good a one as I could. So I asked around about it and the best I could summize is that a diplermat is a feller what thinks twice before he says nothin’.

After studyin’ on it a spell more though, I arrived at the conclusion that diplomercy is basically the art of sayin’ Nice doggie ’til ya can find a rock.

It took me a spell to larn how to be diplermatic. I heared tell that the differ’nce tweenst bein’ diplermatic and undiplermatic is the differ’nce between sayin’, When I look at you, time stands still and sayin’, Yer face could stop a clock.

It’s also the difference between sayin’, You’ve got an open mind instead of sayin’, You got holes in yer head.

I also heared tell that really experienced diplermats can tell folks to go to hell in such a diplermatic way that they actually looks forward to the trip.

I try to do good at that bein’ a diplermat, but I wouldn’t never wanna tell folks to go to hell ner nothin’ like that. That’s ’cause I’s a borned again Baptist, so’s I always try to git people to go to heaven instead.

People are funny ’bout religion when it’s brung to ’em, though. A lot of times they act like they think heaven would be hell and hell would be heaven. They say they think heaven would be borin’ and hell is whar there’s a big party goin’ on or somethin’.

It’s hard to figger how folks has done got thar thinkin’ all warped up and switched ’round backards like that. That’s the way folks’ minds seem to work nowadays, though. Folks only seem to wanna believe what they wanna believe.

If ya tell ’em thar’s a billion stars up in the universe they’ll believe ya, but if ya tell ’em a bench has just been painted, they have to touch it to be sure.

Bein’ a Baptist I try to unwarp folks thinkin’ and switch ’em back the other way by gittin’ ’em saved. I do my best at bein’ a mountain music diplermat and a soul savin’ Baptist all at the same time.

I like workin’ at what I do. I think workin’s a great thang. The way I figger it, workin’ is such a great thang that folks shouldn’t aughta hoard it all too much at once and always save more of it for tomorry than they do of it today.

I reckon my job as a mountain music sanger diplermat and soul savin’ Baptist might be the good Lord’s callin’ on my life, besides bein’ a pig farmer, which is a good callin’, too. I can do some mighty fine pig callin’ if I do say so myself.

I’m also a banjer picker. They’s a lot of folks ’round Klufford’s Holler what say to me, Fuster, how did ya larn to pick on yer banjer?

I say, Well, I just sit it on my lap, put one hand on the round part strings and the other hand on the stick part strings, then I commence to wigglin’ my fingers and out comes banjer music.

I weren’t too good at banjer pickin’ at first, but I did larn it good ’nuff to get by after a spell of finger wigglin’.

I larnt somethin’ else, too. If at first ya don’t succeed, you’ll git a lot of advice.

The problem with advice though, is ya never know if it’s good or bad ’til ya don’t need it no more.

After a while I found the secret to success in anything is just to start from scratch and keep on scratchin’.

Ya just gotta keep goin’ with thangs. Keepin’ on goin’ just takes a strong will. Givin’ up takes a strong won’t.

‘Course the only thang worse than quittin’ is bein’ too afraid to ever start. The main thing is ya gotta do is persist. If ya ever give up ya’ll never know how close to success ya were. I mean, look at the feller what invented Preparation G.

When ya do start somethin’ ya aught not do whatever ya do to be reconized ner praised fer it. You can get awful chill waitin’ fer somebody to cover ya in glory.

A lot of times when I first commenced to doin’ banjer pickin’ shows I was ’bout the same as a bellboy in a honeymoon hotel. No matter how I good I did my job, folks couldn’t wait ’til I left.

Sometimes I would be introduced to my audiences as a very warm human bein’. But down south in the summer, who ain’t?

I must confess to ya though, I one time did gived up on tryin’ to be a perfessional banjer picker fer awhile and tried to get me a real job, but thangs didn’t go so good with that.

I didn’t understand them durn applications. Like where it says ‘Who do we notify in case of an accident?’ I just put ‘A doctor’.

Sometimes folks go to schoolin’ a long time to git a good job. I found out that when young’uns graduate from schoolin’ they have somethin’ called commencement speeches where they’re told, The future is yours!

Then when they go try and git a job they’re told The present ain’t.

I larnt the reason fer that is ’cause twenty year old graduates always wants to have them jobs what pay wages of folks who’s got thrity years experience.

I didn’t have no experience in