The Bubba Chronicles: New Tales Of the Old South

By David R Austin

The Bubba Chronicles--you're likely to meet someone you know.

Many of the stories follow Bubba Conroy, his friends, and family in a small Southern town. We first meet Bubba as a young man in church who, in his attempt to get saved, ignites a near-fatal medical crisis. In later life, seeking recognition from his peers, he gets himself into some complicated, awkward, and humorous situations.

A young Bubba and his buddies challenge the legend of a fearsome swamp creature and get far more than they bargained for.

Celebrating the New Year holiday, Bubba finds himself abandoned, freezing, and in hot water with his wife.

A lounge owner, threatened by a gang of troublemakers, single-handedly demolishes them while quoting Bible verses.

A group of young people show up for a fun water-skiing outing that goes hilariously yet tragically awry.

A preacher who only wants to fly

A naive young policeman, weary of routine patrol duties, seeks respect and acceptance, but ends up disastrously.

Mesmerized by a magnificent hunting rifle, Bubba deals and scrimps to buy it but immediately loses it in a weird twist of fate.

The Bubba Chronicles. Stories of humor, surprise, triumph, disappointment, joy, and heritage.

Enjoyable and entertaining...even if you weren't reared in the South.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685174330

Book preview

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The Bubba Chronicles

New Tales Of the Old South

David R Austin

ISBN 978-1-68517-432-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68517-433-0 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by David R. Austin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Cast of Characters

The Columbia Café

Tabby's Blue Light Lounge

The Swimmin' Hole

Bubba Gets Saved

The Pig and the Tree

The Legend of the Rougarou

Looking for Rougarou

The Great Eggnog Massacre

The New Year's Eve Party

Picture-Perfect

The Hunting Rifle

Cowboy Boots

The Minister

The Policeman

The Artist

Ski Daddy

The Frozen Date

The New Truck

About the Author

For Brenda

My love, my soul, and my best friend

Introduction

First, let me say before anyone gets excited, all the characters and events described in this book are fictional, and if they resemble any situation or anyone you know, it is just a coincidence. However, many of us who were born and raised in the rural South or a small Southern town may have similar shared experiences and can surely relate to some of the events and characters contained herein.

I initially began writing these stories in response to tell us about when you were a kid requests from my children, and it grew into a project that has lasted for more than a few years. My children are now grown and gone, and I harbor the hope that they may one day read these stories and remember their father with some measure of love, understanding, and forgiveness. I would want them to know there has never been a moment that I have not loved them.

Rather than being a book which one might read from beginning to end, this is a collection of vignettes and short stories which sometimes relate to one another, but just as often, do not. However, you will find some characters used repeatedly in several of the stories.

Bubba Roy Conroy is the central character in many of the stories, and he is a composite of men I have known and observed. Although often clumsy, bumbling, and inept, he also possesses much of the good which Southerners value. He works hard, loves his family, and although not possessed of great intelligence or financial resources, uses his wits and perseverance to attain those things he truly desires. He doesn't attend church much, but in his heart, he believes in God, is unabashedly patriotic, and lives by what he considers a relatively moral code. Some of the stories are of Bubba in his youth, and in others, he is a mature man.

Other characters represent the diversity of people often found in small towns—a policeman, an artist, a minister, and friends we've grown up with and known all or most of our lives. There's also the dialect of many Southerners—the occasional curse, which, rather than being intended as a vulgarism, is more often used to add emphasis or degree to a statement. However, this is not to say there are not times when something just needs a good cussin'. There are colorful words or phrases unique to the region, all delivered at a slower pace than is heard in other parts of the country. Of course, there's the Southern drawl, which can range from a delightful melodic blue-blood lilt to a full-on mangling of the English language. In whatever style it is delivered, it is invariably colorful and expressive.

In retrospect, it seems that I've written two basic types of stories—one to describe places and another about the people who populate those places and the things they do there. As with most any hometown, places and people are often inseparable. So it is with this writing. In my heart and mind, my hometown and those people I've known and loved are inseparable. They are an integral part of who I am, how I think, and who I've become.

So, dear reader, this little book is, more than anything, meant to entertain, but as I've written, I've shed a tear or two, I've smiled and even chuckled aloud a few times. I've found that it has also given me a measure of understanding and appreciation for a lifestyle that is fading from the scene as information overload, digital doodads, fancier pickups, and a seemingly growing scorn for traditional roots and culture pervade our increasingly divided society.

As I age, I sometimes find myself yearning for that calmer and simpler time before the internet, political correctness, rap music, and BOGO pizza. I miss summer days at the swimmin' hole with my buddies, Doo-wop songs on the radio, my dad and mom, and I miss my children. Perhaps in my next life, I'll be granted the gift of sounder judgment and an instinctive awareness that will permit me to savor and appreciate the things in life that are most precious and the wondrous days of an all-too-brief youth. Sadly, we too often fail to know the true value of a time in our life until it becomes a memory.

So, as you prepare to read this book, fix yourself a big glass of sweet iced tea, take it out to the porch, and settle onto the glider for a trip through some of the new Old South.

David R. Austin

September 2020

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

—Robert Breault

Cast of Characters

Bubba Roy Conroy—A bearded, 342-pound, thirty-eight-year-old high school dropout who lives life in the fat lane by driving a dump truck for a local supplier of sand and gravel. Married to his fourth cousin and high school sweetheart, Mary Lou, he is the father of two children, a boy and a girl. He's a loyal member of the Moose Lodge and a member in name only of the Antioch Baptist Church, not having attended services since his father's funeral five years ago.

Bubba Roy commonly wears bib overalls over a plaid flannel shirt, a greasy camo baseball cap, and beat-up cowboy boots. He considers it a matter of pride that he hasn't had a real haircut since his father's funeral. His favorite things are food, beer, his pickup truck, his dog, his buddies, country music, watching NASCAR and rasslin' on TV, and his wife and kids—in that order.

Mary Lou Conroy—Wife of Bubba Roy. A high school graduate only because her mother would not allow her to drop out during her senior year to marry Bubba Roy. She had wanted to become a legal assistant and work in a lawyer's office. Instead, she's a night-shift supervisor at a garment plant and drives a school bus. Her once blond hair is now dishwater brown and has not been inside a beauty shop since Bubba Roy took her to her high school senior prom. In addition to her two kids, she's also added sixty pounds of padding to her five-foot-four frame.

Mary Lou does not normally cuss except when she and Bubba Roy are having a fight or when she's dishing the dirt on whichever of her girlfriends is it. Her favorite things are her kids, food, Thursday night bingo at the Moose Lodge, Bubba Roy, and watching NASCAR and rasslin' on TV—in that order.

Kelvin Seth Conroy—Son of Bubba Roy and Mary Lou. Kelvin, or Snake as he is known to his buddies, is a seventeen-year-old, 235-pound lineman on the high school football team whose claim to fame is having downed four Big Macs in a single sitting at the local McDonalds.

Although slow and clumsy like his father, both Kelvin and his parents have been convinced by the coach that a professional football career is in his future. In an effort to field a team each season, the coach tells all the players they're pro material, and both players and parents firmly believe him while disregarding the fact that their school has not produced a single professional player over the eighty-seven years of its existence. Kelvin has managed a grade point average of 1.8, but the coach and the school principal fudge a bit to give the boy the 2.0 average required to play football.

Kelvin's favorite class is shop in which he has spent the entire school term welding various lengths of pipe together to construct a deer stand. He's been working on his deer stand for the past three school years.

Lawanda Kim Conroy—Daughter of Bubba Roy and Mary Lou, she's two years younger than brother Kelvin and is already given to being overweight and frumpy. She's the secretary of the home economics club at school and a soprano in the school choir because, she says, it gets her out of having to take an academic class. She's not particularly interested in school but is madly in love with Jessie James Mitchell, a third cousin on her mother's side. Lawanda and Jessie, or Poonie as he's more widely known, talk about running away to the next county and getting married. The fact that Lawanda is only fifteen years old has pretty much prevented the pair from executing their plans thus far.

Poonie's father, Rousell, is a logging contractor and has already taught his son to drive a log truck, handle a chain saw, and run a skidder in the woods. Lawanda considers him a prime catch with a ready-made fortune. She wants to quit school, marry Poonie, move into a double-wide mobile home on a lot next to her mother's house, and retire to the life of a well-situated homemaker.

Lavoris Tabby Walker—A decorated former United States Marine sergeant and proud owner of Tabby's Blue Light Lounge, a supper club catering to the local black community. Tabby is a gregarious large man known for serving good food, full measure drinks, and maintaining his club as an upscale gathering place for those desiring to dine, dance, and socialize in a more dignified setting. Honest and hardworking, he is well-respected in his town.

E. Graham Gary Wisham—A local artist whose favorite subjects are the region's historic buildings, which he skillfully renders in pen and ink and occasionally tints with watercolors. Slim, bearded, gregarious, and laid-back, he enjoys his life at a leisurely pace, drawing or painting when the mood strikes him. He can often be spotted at the Columbia Café, a cup of coffee near at hand, gossiping with whoever passes by, or if not there, sipping a beer, smoking, and gossiping in the cool twilight of the bar at the Wagon Wheel Inn. He's also something of a local news hound, always in the know about police, political, municipal, and civic activities.

Arthur Clyde Jr.—A minister and pastor of the Antioch Baptist Church. Arthur is the son of an eminent minister father and chaffs at his role as a pastor, longing instead to take to the sky as a pilot. A loving but dominant mother holds Arthur's reins and oversees his ministerial role, inwardly disappointed that her son has failed to achieve the prominence of his father. As he goes about his daily duties, Arthur inwardly struggles with his human frailties.

Latimer Lam McGee—A young police officer who dreams of big-time police work. Tired