Bill's Stories About Growing Up
in Pistol Ridge, Mississippi
Written and Compiled by Bill Bounds
Funnies
GUESS WHO TRAINED THIS ELEPHANT
(~1975)
by Bill Bounds
Our Saraland Boxing Club traveled to Birmingham , Alabama for the annual Alabama Golden Gloves tournament. After the weigh-in, our team members went to lunch. We had all afternoon to keep our team members busy.
The team wanted to visit the Birmingham Zoo. It was a very cold, rainy day and the animals were kept in enclosed warm surroundings. Four of the boxers (kids about 14 years old) and I went inside the elephant compound.
Three of the kids had on red pullover caps with Alabama team logos. One had on a blue and orange pullover cap with the Auburn logo on it.
There was a moat about ten feet wide between the spectator area and the elephant enclosure. These four kids were standing, side by side, at the edge of the moat admiring the elephant, which was standing facing them across the moat.
All of a sudden the elephant stuck his trunk down into the moat water for a moment, raised his trunk and aimed it straight at the kid with the Auburn hat and sprayed him down with a slimy watery material from his trunk.
It took a while to get this kid cleaned up and calmed down for his boxing contest that night.
My guess is that the elephant trainer was an obnoxious Auburn-hating Alabama football fan!
WILNA AND THE ROOSTER
(~ 1945)
by Bill Bounds
Mother(Ida) had a very large White Leghorn rooster that roamed the farm with his harem of hens. This rooster became very territorial. He attacked anything or anybody that came into his territory.
One day sister-in-law Wilna came to visit. She opened the yard gate, walked into the yard and was immediately visciously attacked by this large mean spirited rooster. Luckily for Wilna, the rooster was missing a fighting spur on one leg. His one very large remaining spur stuck a hole in Wilna`s leg that was probably over one inch deep. She cried out for help and her leg bled profusely.
Millard picked up a large stick, got between the rooster and Wilna. The rooster launched another attack, Millard , swung the stick, hit the rooster in the neck. The blow broke the rooster’s neck. The mortally wounded rooster flopped around the yard a bit, and then was dead.
We had chicken (rooster) and dumplings to eat for several days.
Wilna would not eat those “ rooster” dumplings.
ARTIFICIAL WHAT???
(~2006)
By Bill Bounds
Sylvia accompanied Gus to the doctor’s office. The doctor’s nurse was
routinely interviewing Gus to obtain his medical history.
The nurse asked Gus if an “emergency medical procedure” had ever been performed on him. Gus said, “Yes”. The nurse routinely asked, “What was the emergency procedure performed on you?” Gus answered, “Artificial Insemination”.
The dumfounded nurse said, “Mr. Bounds, I don’t think you understood my question. I’ll ask again. Mr. Bounds, have you ever had an emergency medical procedure performed on you?” Gus said “Yes”. The nurse asked again. “What emergency procedure was performed on you?” Again Gus said, “Artificial Insemination.”
At this point, Sylvia and the nurse had about lost their composure. The nurse regained her composure and said “Mr. Bounds, you mean ‘artificial respiration’, don’t you?” Gus said, “Yes, that’s it...artificial respiration.”
HENRY COULDN’T PAY
(2009)
By Bill Bounds
After Henry took Amera Grace to kindergarten, he stopped at a McDonalds to get a sausage biscuit for his breakfast.
When he placed his order, he reached for his billfold for money to pay for his food. He couldn’t get his billfold out of his back pants pocket. He struggled and
struggled, holding up the line, but his billfold would not come out of his pocket.
An impatient lady behind him, waiting to place her order, said loudly to Henry,
“Sir, the reason you can’t get your billfold out of your pocket is - you have your pants on wrong side outwards.”
I don’t know how Henry solved this problem.
Henry, Gus, Millard, and Bill at the Granny Bounds Cemetery beside grave markers of Great-great- grandparentsJames and Namoi Bounds -1991
MONKEY BUSINESS
(~1954)
By Bill Bounds
(~1953)
Just after dark one evening, I was coming home from Lumberton, MS. I crossed Bear Branch bridge and an animal that looked like a spider monkey ran across the road in front of me. I stopped and backed up the car, hoping to see the animal again, and verify that it was a monkey. Indeed it was a monkey sitting beside the road. I drove on thinking, Oh boy what a story I`ve got to tell.
The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that nobody would believe my story about seeing what appeared to be a wild monkey near Bear Branch in South Mississippi. Folks would think I was hallucinating.
It was several years before I dared tell the monkey story. After I had served three years in the Army I went back to work temporarily upholstering furniture in Lumberton, MS. A lady that rode to work with me lived in a ramshackle house, located in the bushes several hundred yards from where I had seen the monkey.
One day she remarked that keeping her pet monkey confined had been a problem for years. She said she had to keep fresh fruit out to keep the monkey from straying to far away. I asked ; “Was that monkey prone to get out of his cage four years ago”. She said; “Absolutely”.
I then realized why I had seen that monkey near Bear Branch several years back. I could now tell about seeing the monkey, and tell why the monkey was there, without fear that folks would think I was hallucinating.
AMATEUR MECHANICS
(~1948)
by Bill Bounds
Brother-in-law, DV owned a very old A-Model Ford truck. This 1929 model truck had been rebuilt several times. It no longer looked like, or sounded like a conventional truck. There was no cab, no headlights, no factory made seats, and only a makeshift windshield.
It had no muffler. DV improvised a way to attach an 8 foot section of 4-inch diameter steel pipe directly onto the exhaust manifold to route the exhaust gases to the rear.
DV would let me and Millard drive this truck to haul whatever needed hauling around the farm or to town. I drove it to football practice at FCAHS a number of times.
A common happening with older vehicle engines was an engine “backfire” which sounded much like a stick of dynamite exploding.
It wasn’t long before Millard and I figured out how to get maximum backfire noises and effects with this truck engine and exhaust system. We could get the speed of this truck up to about 40 miles per hour, keep the truck in high gear, switch the engine off with the accelerator floor-boarded, wait about 5 seconds, and switch the ignition back on. This resulted in a loud backfire (about like a stick of dynamite exploding) and a streak of red fire coming out of the exhaust pipe that looked like the tail end of a fired rocket.
This was a great way to startle, or frighten any hitch-hikers or walkers along the road. It was fun!
Don’t install that rear axle and differential upside down!
The differential and rear axle of DV’s A-Model Ford truck wore out. DV bought a used rear end from a junk yard. I helped him remove the old rear end, and install the one from the junk yard.
DV got in the truck, started the engine, put it in first gear, let out on the clutch and the truck moved backwards. He put it in second gear, let out on the clutch and the truck moved backwards. He tried third gear. Again the truck moved backwards. He put in into reverse, let out on the clutch and the truck moved forward . This meant we had only one speed forward and three speeds going backwards.
We were standing there puzzled, scratching our heads trying to figure out what we did wrong.
Brother-in-law Joe Lee, a professional mechanic, drove up, got out of his truck, and asked if we were having trouble with the truck. DV told him that we had just installed another rear-end under the truck, and now we had one gear forward and three gears backward.
Joe started up the truck, placed it in gear several times to determine that what DV said about one speed forward and three speeds backwards was true.
Joe got out of the truck, knelt down and looked under the rear-end of the truck.
Joe stood up laughing and grinning at us and said “Take off all those U-bolts again and flip the rear-end over, replace the U-bolts and drive shaft and you’ll have three speeds forward and one going backwards.”
Joe drove off laughing and grinning. Neither DV or myself understood why Joe’s way would make any difference.
We removed the rear-end, flipped it over, and reinstalled it. DV started up the engine, went through the gears and, sure enough, thanks to Joe, we now had three forwards and one reverse gear.
DV’s A-Model Ford truck might have been the forerunner of the modern tow-truck.
DV bought an old worn out Packard four-door sedan that looked as big as a bus. It was very difficult to keep it in running condition.
One day while working on it, DV’s patience with this vehicle ran out. He went to his tool shed, picked up a ten pound sledge hammer, came back to the old Packard, swung the ten pound hammer as hard as he could several times, demolishing the carburetor, distributor and a few other things. He decided to haul it to the junk yard at Gulfport, Mississippi and try to get fifty dollars for it.
How to get the Packard to the junk yard?
DV was known to improvise a way to do most anything he wanted to do. He jacked up the rear end of the old Packard high enough to get it onto the back of his Model-A Ford truck, tied it down, left the front wheels straight on the ground, tied the steering wheel to the brake pedal so the front wheels would stay straight.
He headed out dragging the Packard towards Gulfport, about fifty miles away. He found that his maximum speed down highway 49 with this improvised tow truck was about fifteen miles per hour. He received a few middle finger waves and unprintable words along the way. That did not bother him at all. He ignored them and kept on going towards the junk-yard.
About five hours later the junk yard man paid DV fifty-five dollars for the old Packard.
Is this what D.V.'s truck looked like when it was new?
This house was built for Ida Bounds by her children after the previous house was severely damaged by Hurricane Camille in 1969.