Hills of Appalachie vol. 1 no. 3

Could be that this is the damn nuttiest time of the year.

Now I’m not talkin about the typical onset of holiday madness and the fact that it’s nigh not even the day of turkey-eatin and gravy dribblin down the chin and there’s already a heapin mess of Christmas-time manifestations clogging the routes of high and low commerce ‘“ not steepin in the back of yer mind for weeks but it’s a hot poker up the hiney, a visceral onslaught only escapable by takin the forgotten backroads where such excess is hardly more affordable than a string of old dimming Christmas lights to hang year-round on the outside of the shanty.

Everybody knows this already I s’pose. It’s the seepage that saturates the culture.

It’s the nuts of another caliber though that ye gotta aim to regard with a liberal measure of caution if not plain ‘˜ol wariness.

A few days past I took the notion to take a different route walkin homeward. I started followin some raccoon prints around dusk and tracked em along the bottomland trails next to the Tennessee River just below the last sharp downslope of Cherokee Bluffs. Thereabouts the forest gets thick with shagbark hickory and a scatterin of various fourth growth oak species, but the canopy had dwindled somewhat with the falling of the leaves and I could make my way just fine. It was about then that I caught sight of something hunched and loping irregular against the dim woodlands. But I knew quicksnap what, er I should say who it twas and that being my olde amigo Kimble.

Kimble allowed that he’d been skulking hunchback-style in search of walnuts, that had been fallin plentiful, to use as key ingredient in makin his homemade drawin ink. Sometimes he ate dried em out and ate em but had to admit that it didn’t always agree with him in a gastrointestinal kinda way. And to this I told him that I could do without the extry knowledge so we kindly jumped conversational tracks elsewhere.

Anyways, we got to shootin the bull a bit about all manner of topic and I told Kimble that as he toiled at his walnut collectin endeavors to just make sure he kept his eyes to the ground and not croon that neck to the crisscrossin branches above.

He smirked at me and said “whatever the hell fer?” And so I informed him of the multiple variations of a good tale my ‘˜ol granny used to relate of how one time ago she had been huntin acorns in the woods along with her cousin Sam and how it all came to an unfortunate conclusion when Sam began fixin on a squirrel scramblin above in the branches of a huge oak. Sam it seems figured that very squirrel would make for a good supper and he kept his eyes on it straight up and kept starin it down real hard when quick and sudden he lets out a shrill and goes to floppin on the ground like an electrocuted convict.

Kimble stares me down with an edge of seriousness and breathes “it was a nut huh? I reckon your gonna tell me a damn nut hit ‘˜em in the eye?”

I stare him back and say “yes sir, it twas, an acorn, in fact, from the very tree they were standin under”

“Sounds to me,” he says “like your granny was tryin to give you a little instruction in forest safety.”

“True enough” I bark back “but you’d be wise to heed such advice this time of year. Mark my granny’s words and keep yer eyes to the ground.”

Of course Kimle had found my recounting of childhood wisdom to be nothing less of a comedy routine so he began scuttlin along kickin up leaves as he went and lookin up at the canopy and chuclklin and grabbin at his eyes and screamin and fallin on the ground and rollin and laughin even harder yellin, “oooooohhhh haaaaiiillllll faaaaarrrrrrr my damn eyes a been knocked out!!”

The dusk was just about to flow to pure dark so I’m surprised to have seen the strike of the Lord, but if I hadn’t I sure would never have believed ‘“ just as I threw up a dismissive hand to saunter homeward I spied Kimble spring from the leaves one more time and squat over and bend his neck to the sky for one last sarcastic menagerie, when straight from the sky came shootin in a blur something the size of a grapefruit and smack crack on Kimble’s head and down like a melodious sack of feces he went.

I must admit that I was a bit to stunned to react with immediate attention to this moanin foundlin casualty of wilderness violence, but I bounded quick enough to his side and saw rightoff his eye was swollen like a throbbin purple boulder. In the practical dark I began to squint and search the ground for whatever unidentified object it might be, and then I saw it.

It was an Osage Orange fruit, and if ye don’t know what such a thing is well I’ll tell you that it’s the size of a coconut, but round and textured with undulating furrows it looks like a brain, a bright greeness and dense as granite. It comes, of course, from an Osage Orange tree.

Poor Kimble had had his bell rung nicely, and although I was tempted to tell him so, I decided he knew ‘“ never question the sagacity of the oldendays, specially that from one’s granny. And as I helped him up and steadied him to the muddy small trail Kimble wanted his nuts, his walnuts, and I told him as we limped along, “don’t you worry brother-..they’ll still be there tomorrow-“