Auntie Dee Dee's Lonnie Beeman Stories

[Sibling Chatty]

Lonnie Beeman is a guy that's based on the friend of a friend's brother. It'll take a while to transpose all the Lonnie Stories here, but be assured that most of them are 93-100% true.

Lonnie is not the brightest lightbulb on the Christmas tree.

So...

Well, the other day I was talkin' with my friend, the Optical Wonder Human. I call him the Optical Wonder Human because he makes glassess for a livin'. Anyway, the OWH has this friend we'll call Ted, mostly because that's the name we're usin' to keep my behind out'n the courthouse just in case Lonnie and crew can find a Writ Twit (excuse me, lawyer) to take on a case for 'em.
Now, Ted lives in a tiny town in Central Texas. We gonna change the name of this here town and most of the folks because some names gotta be changed to protect the innocent. Others we changed to protect the ignorant. It ain't much of a town, but it's got the things you gotta have to be a small town in Central Texas, like a couple gas stations, a convenience store, a Ford dealership, a HEB grocery store, a donut shop, the feedstore and a real nice baitshop and restaurant, with good steaks and intimate tables overlooking the scenic minnow tank. Oh, yeah. Some of the best barbecue in the world. REAL barbecue, Texas style. None of that Carolina stuff, where they cook up the wrong animal. Beef.

Now, real quick here, I gotta explain the HEB grocery store. It's ain't Heb, it's H E B, okay?? He done named it after hisself. The man's name was Howard Edward Butt, but the store is Aitch Eeee Beee.

Them older Butts was mighty Baptist, and they didn't wanna hear no Butt cracks...

(Mama done went to college with one of them Butt girls.)

Back at that time, they was two levels of Baptist, reg'lar Baptist and Mighty Baptist. The Butts was so Mighty Baptist that they stores didn't sell no beer nor wine nor cigarettes for years. The Mighty Baptist has been replaced by the Shiite Baptist, them what got Jesus and Tom DeLay confused in they minds (usedta be it was Newt Gingrich, but he got excommunicated when he declared Jihad on the wrong folks). Heck, Tom thinks he's the Federal Gub'mint, why cain't he be his own Jesus, too? Understand, the Shiite Baptists don't mind if ya drink a bit, or smoke or even consort with Wanton Wimmen, as long as you vote their way and don't get sent to jail.

Speakin of Wanton Wimmen...
Lordy, don't get me started on them silly Shiite Baptist wimmenfolk...the typical one is a bleached blonde housefraud. She's generally a neo-(C word, we don't even spell it out at my house) and a Limbaugite to boot. Hells bells, she's prob'ly a card-carryin' member of the Halfvast Right Wingin' Republican Women's Club and Submissiveness Society (commonly referred to as the Belles of Heaven), and rumor has it she picks her teeth at the dinner table.

Ooops, I think I got carried away there.



In this tiny town, which shall be knows as Ardelle, life consists of High School football season, huntin' season and the rest of the year. Bonds formed on that football field are not easily broken. That is why Ted has this problem. Technically, it ain't rightly Ted's problem, but it done got to be his problem by default, and de fault we talkin' about is the faulty wirin' in the heads of Ted's brother, Wally and his best buddy and teammate, Lonnie Beeman.

Lonnie is an example of Darwinism at the worst. Born late in life to a pair of good, solid citizens, Lonnie's always been a disaster waiting to happen. Take a mediocre intelligence and combine it with a lack of common sense, toss in the social saavy and business accumen of a common ground squirrel (and maybe some of the looks of the squirrel as well) and you got Lonnie. Wally, on the other hand is just your run of the mill Weasel Faced Mouth Breather.

Let me 'splain a bit about Lonnie. His Daddy seen for hisself a while back that Lonnie was gonna be a handful to deal with. So old man Beeman took him into the family business. The Beemans own a bit of land and run some cattle, they do brush hoggin', some septic tank work, level land for plantin', dowse for water and dig wells and stocktanks. None of requires a college degree, but it does require some sense, which Lonnie ain't got none of.

I'm tryin' my best to be polite about Lonnie. There's a long-standin' tradition about bein' polite about folks what got children that are afflicted. Where other parts of the country they put their 'flicted children away in special schools, hereabouts, we keep 'em home and let 'em set on the front porch and wave hidy to the neighbors. If they's fairly well behaved, don't wear underpants on they heads very often, and can learn to not drool too much while they are out in public, sometimes the community will make some 'extry' effort to make they Mama an' Daddy feel better about 'em. Gen'rally that consist of gettin' 'em elected to a town council position, or a water board director's seat, you know...somethin' with a title but no power. Sorta like the Texas Governorship is supposed to be, by law. (It says so in the Texas Constitution. They might has well of said "Elect the oldest drunken Reprobate you got left, because this here's a figurehead job.) And that there's what we did for Big George and Barbara, even though they was carpetbaggers. We were nice to their 'flicted son, and the rest the dang country took it serious.  And lookit the mess... Anyway, lonnie wasn't quite THAT 'flicted. If his Daddy had more money, he coulda got that bad, but his Daddy wasn't gonna waste good money sendin' the boy to college if all he was gonna do was drink beer and play poker, so Lonnie lost his chance to be Preznit, although I don't 'spect he'd of done much worse.


Ahem...'scuze me, I was discussin' Lonnie's talents as an employee. Whilst workin' for his Daddy his best talent was to be the Boss's son and settin' on his narrow butt under the canopy of a backhoe or the big brush hawg. He didn't actually get to run none of the heavy equipment, because his Daddy done made the error of allowin' Lonnie to operate an automobile a couple times when he was 14, and the old man didn't have 6 weeks to spend in the nervous hospital like he did after he taught Lonnie how to drive. Except for that little spell and the incident with the bandsaw when Lonnie was takin' woodshop to bring up his grade average and maybe graduate High School his second Senior Year, Mr. Beeman, Lonnie's Daddy, had never been in the medical  hospital at all. That was gonna change.

Mr. Beeman thought that sendin' Lonnie to take a course in operatin' heavy equipment would be less spendy than a hospital stay, so he paid the tuition to send Lonnie to trade school for Heavy Equipment Operating Licensing. Lonnie graduated at the top of his class. And the bottom. He was the only student to ever have to take a full 6 month course in Up, Down, Right and Left, and Don't Drop the Bucket on Nobody. Lonnie done used that for years to tell folks he graduated first in his class from MIT. Now, in some circles, a diploma from Manny's Industrial Training is pretty impressive, but it's not like it'll get you a job as a rocket scientist.

Anyhow, when Lonnie finished school, Mr. Beeman made sure all the insurance was paid up, hung Lonnie's diploma on the wall under the calendar from Virnau's Tractor dealership, and commenced to lettin' him go out on jobs with a crew. About 26 miles out from town, they was buildin' a stocktank for one of the local farmers. There was a nice little spring to feed the tank, a reasonably good area to excavate and a narrow point to dam off to make a good sized and attractive tank. The Grosvenor family was right proud to be the first customer of the newly re-named Beeman and Son Outdoor Construction Company. Grosventer was a highly respected name in those parts, seein' as how there was a Grosventer Bank, a Grosventer Dry Goods and a Grosventer Cafe there at the crossroads, and if ya did business with the Grosventers, the community would follow. This job was the important one in getting the area's work away from the Prosssmeyer boys and their fancy custom painted equipment. If God had wanted backhoes to be painted Prossmeyer Blue, he'd have not blessed the CAT company with so much yaller paint.

Anyway, the crew had dug out the springs end of the tank nicely, and the part that needed doin' was just some straightforward diggin' with no fancywork involved. Lonnie was allowed to run the big excavator, scoopin out loads af dirt and piling 'em where they'd be handy to block off the dam side. He'd been workin' for about three-quarter of an hour when his Daddy drove up to check on the job (and the safety of the crew.)

Old Mr. Beeman stood and watched as his son operated the machine. He felt an unusual emotion, almost pride, in the fact that Lonnie was doin' a man's work, in an acceptable fashion, at the tender age of 22. Pride in his son was somethin' the old man hadn't felt since Lonnie was in Junior High and had caught a forward pass and run for a touchdown in the last game of the season. The fact that Lonnie was not supposed to be on the playing field at the time since he was an offensive lineman and the Armadillos were playing defense that play, did not dampen the family's joy. Lonnie'd caught the ball, he even ran in the right direction. They may have called back the play, but, dammit, the boy'd scored six points for a few minutes there!!

Anyway, Lonnie was workin', had been for over half an hour, and nobody was hurt or dead. That was a record. Suddenly, Lonnie saw his Daddy and decided to go and say Howdy at him. He put the machine into a tight turn to head toward the Old Man, and it began to teeter. The pit was uneven and the treads were a mite slippery in the mud. As the bucket arm began to tremble and the ground started rushing toward him, Lonnie panicked and dropped the bucket.

The doctor said it wouldn't have mattered if they had found the end of the old man's boot. The steel toe-cap had smashed down and neatly amputated 4 of the five toes on the old man's left foot, all except the pinkie toe. Evidently, the toe-cap was in the part of the soil that smashed down five or so feet and managed to block up and divert the water from the spring. When Mr. Beeman got out of the hospital and the rehab hospital, he tried to convince the Grosventer's to let him excavate a bit more to locate the head of the springs, but the Grosventer's had gotten Prossmeyer in, dug for 14 days, destroyed 4 acres of grazing land, and had not located either the springhead or the steel cap and missing toes.

Lonnie had been sent to San Antonio to visit with his Mama's youngest sister, Aunt Vergie, and for about another six months, except to ask for bail money twice, he stayed away from his Dad. Everybody figgered it was for the best.

Remind me some time to tell y'alll about Lonnie and Denny goin' to visit the REAL Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Love, and don't never trust nobody with a beer in his hand that's drivin' a backhoe.

Auntie Dee Dee

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

This was ... a treat!  Strongly reminds me of the many short stories Sam Clemens loved to write.

thanks!

[Sibling Chatty]

Thank YOU, Bob.

Sadly, there's more. The Lonnie Beeman stories may someday be a book.

The next one is about Lonnie's trip to the Chicken Ranch in LaGrange... And it's a true story as well.

[Darlica]

Can we have more of these stories?
Pretty pretty please? *puppy eyes*

I love the style and the tone of it and the humour. I wish I could write like that!
In some way it reminds me of the intro of one of my favourite movies: Big Lebowski.

/D

[Sibling Chatty]

I need to get back with ol' Lonnie.

Let me see what I can scrape up...

[The Meromorph]

 
This fat old Englishman loves it!

[Sibling Chatty]

WARNING, WORK IN PROGRESS!!

NOTE: In order to better protect the guilty as well as the innocent, there will be some changes made in names of people and places. Lonnie's still Lonnie, but other identifying names will be changed and a new name for the town and football team is coming. After all, someone might recognize the Taylor Ducks...
So, Ted is now our friend from Ardelle, Texas, a small Central Texas town where the Ardelle Armadillo football team is the most important thing happening..

Poor ol' Ted.

He's fixin' to go on vacation for a while, an' he's tryin' to figger out how to make sure his brother Wally don't "come over to check on the house" and jist stay a while. Wally has some trouble at times, seein' as how either his current wife or one of the former wives tend to frown on some of his activities. Heck fire, his first wife done throwed him out seventeen times before she finally got shed of his mangy butt.

The first time they wasn't even married yet, but it counts BIGTIME, because it was a specially publically humiliatin' time for her. Especially since ever'time Wally and Lonnie git drunk they talk about it endlessly, since it's all a part of Texas History now, thanks to Marvin Zindler, God rest his soul (if it didn't git cut out durin' them repeated plastic surgeries..)

Y'all ever seen the movie called the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas? Well that was a completely Hollywoodized, bastardized, tarted up and twisted tale about the very real and very venerable Chicken Ranch, jist outside of La Grange, Texas. You heard the ZZ Top song La Grange? Yep, that'n is about the Chicken Ranch as well.

This here's a real story. The Chicken Ranch really was a genuine whorehouse outside La Grange, Texas. It had been there for over 50 years before this nosy consumer reporter (Ol' Marvin) from Houston got all tweaked out about it. It was a dang institution, pure and simple. ANYWAY, it was not uncommon for high school boys who could manage to get a few bucks together to get in the car and go to La Grange if they were within driving distance. Ardelle, home of Lonnie, Wally and all them guys is within easy driving distance of La Grange.

And in 1969, durin' Lonnie's second Senior Year at Ardelle High, he an' Wally were havin' one of them weekends. His girlfriend (she wasn't his wife yet, due to the restrictions about playin' football in high school if you were married) and her Mama were stayin' up in East Texas with relatives fer a while. it was a Saturday night, the 'Dillos had won the game the previous night and them boys was all feisty. They was wantin' to celebrate, dang it, and the guy that usually bought them beer was in jail...fer buying alcohol fer minors. (Lonnie was confused. He didn't know that there were mines of any kind in the area, but then he figgered he didn't know everthang anyway, and why would it be so bad to have a few beers if you'd been workin' all day in a mine anyhow?)

They were in Lonnie's 1967 Mustang that his Daddy done bought him when he expected that he might graduate high school in 1967, and they had a full tank of gas, since Lonnie had filled up at the gas pump at his Daddy's bidness pumps, out at the heavy equipment yard and haybarn.

Well, it bein' a crisp cool fall evenin' Lonnie and Wally decide they wanna go to La Grange and get 'em some. A Texas tradition at the time was that any guy that could drive and had enough access to a car and the time and money to git thar was eligible to learn the mysteries of life at the practiced hands of one of the ladies at the Chicken Ranch. It was more or less ignored by local and area levels of law enforcement, seein' as how they was so much protection from the higher levels of law enforcement. Folks didn't generally raise a lot of Cain about long time bidnesses that brought a bit of prosperity to the area, and they wasn't a fund-raisin' or a charity work of any kind in Fayette County that hadn't been recipient of a decent to large directed donation that didn't bear no taint of wanton-wimmin  business, but was generaus enough that the purported donator couldn't have been the source. Anyway...back to Ardelle's young gennlemen in search of negotiable romance. They was gonna need somethin' with which to negotiate. Some money or somethin' to barter with...somethin' to barter with still not bein' out of the question at the Chicken Ranch.

After all, that was how it got the name. Durin' the Depression, when cash money was tight everywhere, a man could barter the services of one of the ladies with produce, or chickens or almost any food or household related items--or even lumber and construction materials at times. But, they generally got a lot of chickens, and for a while had one of the larges egg producin' sites in that area of the state--sendin' a truck twice a week to the markets in Austin. Necessity was truly the mother of the invention of that name, the Chicken Ranch.

Well, anyhow, them boys took to countin' up they money, and while Wally had been careful with his savins from haulin' hay all summer, Lonnie had spent a good deal on beer. He was gonna be short some cash money, and he didn't rightly know what to take for barter. His Mama would whup his hide if any of her household items vanished. They didn't take chickens no more, which was OK, since Lonnie's Dad didn't have chickens. Lonnie considered a calf, but it was late fall, and most all the spring calves was too big to fit it the back seat of the Mustang.

Them boys was about to run outta ideas, when they drove past Herman's 24 Hour Service Station. Herman was a practical man, and had never been known to turn down a good deal. Part of them good deals was takin' in spare tires for hock. You leave yer spare with Herman, and he'd give you cash money for it. You had 3 weeks to git it or he could sell it. Lonnie figgered he could git some cash together within three weeks, seein' as how his Daddy would probably start up his allowance again, as soon as he got past bein' a bit peeved about some extraneous expenses involvin' the future Mrs. Lonnie Beeman's visitin' in East Texas.

So, figgerin he could get aholt of some cash quick, Lonnie pulled into Herman's. Now Herman was a bidnessman of some reknown in Ardelle, what with the service station, the bait stand and Steakhouse all together in the native stone building he kept on addin' onto. (The native stone in many places was chunks of old concrete that Herman had chunked up with a sledgehammer and stuck together to cover up some shoddy framin' work done with old wood from some fallin' down houses out on the dry acreage that Mrs. Herman had inherited from her Grossmater.) Now, it wasn't like Herman's was a bad steakhouse. You could have a nice 22 oz, sirloin with a baked tater an' a salad, overlooking the scenic minnow tank, at a reasonable price, and the wine list included three kinds that didn't come with a screw off top. Once Herman had figgered out you couldn't take them corks out with a drillmotor, he even went to Austin and bought one of the corkscrew thing for Maydelle, the head waitress to use on the fancy wine.

Anyway, back to the trip to the Chicken Ranch. Lonnie went to see Herman, who was more than glad to take Lonnie's spare (on the fancy rims) in trade for the cash he needed to pay his way to a little bit of Texas lovin'. He and Wally checked their pockets once more and took off on the 95 mile trip. The radio in the Mustang was pickin' up the rock and roll stations from Austin loud and clear, and they were singin' along with Bad Moon Risin'  (that one song that Lonnie liked, even if the words were about there bein' a bathroom on the right) and with them singin' loud and punchin' each other in anticipation,  they wasn't payin' attention to the road so good. Lonnie clipped the edge of a tumped off bale of hay from some rancher's late season hay shiftin', spun twice around in the middle of the road and ended up in the bar ditch with the wire from the haybale cuttin' plum through his front tire.

'Hey, Lonnie?"
Silence.
"Yo, buddy-roe, you OK?"
Silence.
"Beeman, you dead or jist stupid?"
"Uuuhhh, Wally, am I right in thinkin' we probly gonna need that spare we don't got?"
"Yep, you rite. We gonna need that spare. I don't know anybody that has one that'll fit this car. Heck, the only other person I know has a Ford at all is my Aunt Melvina, and hers is an Edsel."

Our intrepid explorers climbed out of the car and sat on the upper haunch of the tipped down 'Stang, and pondered. While they were ponderin' a nice old guy in an old Chevy truck came by and offered them a ride to the next town so they could get some help. There wasn't a lot of room inside the cab of his pickup, seein' as how there was both a huntin' dog and a small sow in the front with him, but the boys were happy to ride in the back of the truck, especially since they established that he was indeed headed for Waco, which would take him directly through Ardelle.

Wally noticed movement and asked "Hey, Lonnie? What you suspect is movin around in this here loose hay? I don' see nuthin' big enough to be no more dawgs or nuthin."

Snorting from the blowing haydust lonnie allowed "Son, it's jist some little bitty ol' puppies, I 'magine that dog jist whelped and the old feller cain't put the sow back here 'cause you know a sow'll eat her own young, much less that pore ol' dawg's pups." He curled up and then streched as far as he could, and flopped back into the slightly musty dried and occupied vegetation.

Laid out on the scattered hay in the bed of the old truck, Lonnie dropped off to sleep in short order, leaving Wally to discover that there were living things of various sizes in the hay with them, including a number of small piglets, not puppies, and a good selection of field mice. As they pulled into Ardelle, the gentleman driving stopped at Herman's for gasoline, and the boys each coughed up a half dollar to help out. The old fellow was more that happy to accept, and while the gas was being pumped, he set the sow in the back to feed her piglets. Wally and Lonnie set off for Lonnie's Daddy's house on foot.

When they arrived at Casa Beeman, all was peaceful and still. Lonnie figured out that most probably his Daddy had fallen asleep in front of the TV watching Lawrence Welk again, and he and his Mama had retired early. What to do, what to do...what is this? It's the keys to Mr. Beeman's brand new Pontiac Bonneville sedan. Problem solved! Take Daddy's new car, go to La Grange, have a lovely evenin' and return before sunrise so that Daddy and Mama can go to church in the new car, since Mama Beeman's 1959 Chrysler Imperial was beginnin' to show a bit of wear and tear.

So, our searchers for love or somethin' similar get the keys to the bran'new Bonneville and head toward the equipment yard to fill it u with Daddy Beeman's bid'ness gasoline, only to find that they gates are locked and there's no key for the gate or the tank lock on the car keys. Mr. Beeman wasn't a fool. He knew that the Bonneville, bein' a luxury car with the biggest engine Pontiac made--the Caddilac of the Pontiac line--was gonna need that High Test gasoline, and he wasn't a man to tempt fate. He only went down to the 'qupment yard in his pickup anyway, so why weight down the lovely leather key fob the man at tthe Pontiac house had trown in for free? So, back to Herman's the boys go to get the gasoline for the new luxury ride.

Now, after a discussion of how much more gas the Bonneville, with Hydra-Flow and the Big block engine is gonna take for the trip, Lonnie has a full tank of gas in his Daddy's car, but he's broke. Herman refused to fill up the tank with regular, sayin' that Mr. Beeman would recognize the effect of a low grade gasoline on his beautiful new car, and the cash in hand ALL went to payin' for a huge amount of High Test, some of Texaco's finest. Now, Benny still has enough cash for him to have a fun time at the Chicken Ranch,, but not near enough for Lonnie. So, Lonnie decides, once again, to raise some cash by selling something...the spare tire and wheel off his Daddy's new Pontiac. Herman is more than glad to do repeat business. He knows Mr. Beeman will square it all away soon enough.

As the boys are headin' down the highway to La Grange, they decide that they'll just drive the Bonneville home in the mornin' and borrow one of Mr. Beeman's tractors to pull the Mustang out of the bar ditch while everybody is at church, and nobody will be the wiser.

==========
There will be more exposition here, but i'm getting sick and need to stop. Will edit in ending later.

++++++++++++++++


The next day, Mr Beeman goes out to get in the car. In the front seat is a receipt for the sale of one tire and rim to the local gas station. He gets out, looks in the trunk, and--no spare. He went in and woke up smilin' boy, who allows that he don't know nothin'. The man down at the gas station kindly sells Mr. Beeman back his spare for what Lonnie got for it, and to this day, Lonnie can't figure out why his Daddy said he owed him the money for that exchange. After all, he paid cash at the whorehouse, and he didn't buy a tire...

That is a really true story.

[anthrobabe]

You know-I can not wait till ol Lonnie goes to the Nascar races

[Sibling Chatty]

I've got to add some conversations to the exposition in appropriate places, and I have GOT to purge the specific references. some of the occurances will be close enough to get me in trouble if this is ever actually published.

I'm afraid Lonnie might not get to very much Honest to Earnhart  Nascar, but he will have his fan-thing going (Richard Petty sits on the right hand of Jesus, y'all know) and spend a good amount of time at Texas Motor Speedways near Bryan.

AS long as the computer is acting up, I'm going to write and edit in here. (OK, computer, connection AND the electrical power all three. We're having rolling brownouts because of electric consumption in the heat.)

[Darlica]

Thank you!

[Sibling Chatty]

I promise to get it in better shape and to finish the second story...

I'm pondering an outline and getting it into book shape. Good humor books are few and far between nowadays!

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Horray!
I really rather liked these. And I can see various Texans I know/knew fittin' in right well.

[Sibling Chatty]

Yup. Your people are Central Texas, too, jist on t'other side of Austin...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Yup. Outside of San Antonio.