Shoot, I thought to myself.  I knew what he wanted.  He wanted me to hand him wrenches.  Uncle Lonnie considered himself a surgeon when it came to mechanic work and anybody standing nearby was destined to be his assistant.
    “Where’s Woody?” I asked, knowing he was probably still asleep.
    “Aww, he and some old boy went camping last night.  I’m surprised you didn’t go with ‘em.  Hand me that big screwdriver.”
    “Didn’t know they were going.”  I was glad I didn’t know about it.  The last thing I wanted to do was spend the night out in a field somewhere getting eat up by mosquitoes.
    I reached into the toolbox and picked up an extremely large screwdriver.  “This one?”
    Uncle Lonnie took it from me, picked up a hammer lying on the fender and proceeded to beat the screwdriver between the carburetor and the manifold.
    “I can’t get…WHAM…this booger…WHAM…loose…WHAM…from the…WHAM!  DAD GUMMIT!  GIMME A RAG, QUICK”
    I saw liquid squirt over the engine and Uncle Lonnie jumped back, banging his head on the hood.  The cigarette fell out of his mouth and in an instant, WHOOM!  The engine was on fire.  I jumped back and stood there looking for something to fight the fire with.  I pulled off my tee shirt and started beating the flames back.  Uncle Lonnie ran toward the corner of the house and came back with the water hose going full blast.  In a couple of seconds the fire was out, the carburetor was full of water, the insulation under the hood was smoking and my “Keep on Truckin’” tee shirt was pretty much ruined.  We stood there for a second or two in amazement, looking at the damage.

    “Is your Daddy home?”  Uncle Lonnie asked calmly, like this sort of this happened everyday.
    “Yeah.  He don’t go to work till 8:00.”
    “I guess I need a ride up to the parts house.”
    As he was walking into the house, I told him I had to go.  I put my fire eaten, water soaked, gasoline smelling tee shirt on and started back pushing the mower to Mama Pope’s.  The sun was peeping over the treetops now and it was getting pretty hot.
    When I got to Mama Pope’s, her Buick wasn’t there so I figured she must have gone to town or something.  The grass in her yard was knee high.  I needed a bush hog instead of a push mower.  I pulled the starting rope about ten times and the motor never once even fired.  Removing the top from the gas tank, I remembered that I had forgotten to fill it up.  It was dry as a bone and I didn’t to bring a jug of gas with me.  I went around back of her house to look in the tool shed where she might keep a can of gas.  When I opened the door, I was surprised to see about fifty glass jugs sitting on shelves.  In the dim light I examined each of them to see if any of them had gas in it. All but one of them was empty.  I took the lid off the one that was about half full and sniffed it.  It kind of smelled like gas, but was real clear.  I took it back outside and swirled it around some, examining it for gunk on the bottom.  “Must be premium,” I thought to myself.
    I took the cap off the lawn mower tank and poured it full.  I put the jug down and gave the mower several pulls.  It wanted to start.  I gave it another big pull and it kicked over, puffing out smoke and back fired a couple of times.  “That gas must be old or something, I better see if there is another can in the shed,” I muttered as I tipped the mower over emptying the tank onto the ground.
    Over in the corner of the shed there was a blanket or something hanging up.  I went back and opened the door wide open so to get some more light in the shed.  It was an old army tarp.  I pulled back the tarp and lo’ and behold there sat a whiskey still, big as life.  To tell you the truth, it scared me to death.  Mama Pope was making moonshine and nobody knew it but me. Unfortunately, knowledge such as this was akin to witnessing a murder and being seen by the murderer.  If I said anything to anybody I would be dead meat.  Nobody would believe it anyway.  I scrubbed my foot around on the dirt floor, trying to cover up my tracks.  I backed out of the shed and shut the door, wishing it wasn’t true and dying to tell somebody. Then I realized that I must have filled up my lawn mower with some of her home brew.
    About that time, Mama Pope came driving up.  The back end of her Buick was riding low.  The jug of shine was still sitting over by my mower.  I panicked, did a quick step, but it was too late.
    “Hi, Coy, Jr.  Would you help Mama Pope get some stuff out of the trunk?”  She had a kind of whiney voice.  “I had to run to the co-op to pick up some feed.  What happened to your shirt, honey”
    “I burned it on Uncle Lonnie’s car motor.  What kind of feed?  Dog food?”  She opened the trunk and there were six 50-pound bags of corn and four huge bags of sugar.
    “How did you burn it on the motor?  Just set them inside the shed, honey.  I’ll get the door for you.”  She opened the door and motioned where she wanted the goods.  I made several trips back and forth while explaining about Uncle Lonnie’s car. “That boy, that boy.  I swear I don’t know how Ida puts up with his hi-jinx.” She said, shaking her head and pushing the door closed.
    “Don’t you think you ought to lock that?”  I asked.  Shoot, I’m stupid, I thought to myself.  Now she knows that I know about her still.
    “No.  I never lock it.  Somebody would think I have something worth stealing if I did.”
    “Oh, I need some gas for the mower.  Have you got some?”  She looked down at the mower and saw the jug.
    “What’s in that jug?  Isn’t that gas?”
    “Uh, uh, no ma’am.  That was sitting in the shed…but it must be turpentine or something,” I must have been beet red as I stood there digging my toe in the dirt.  But I was kind of proud how quickly I came up with that line though.
    “I should have some in the shed.  Let me go look.  Here, I’ll put that back in the shed.”
    I handed her the jug and she went in the shed for a second, then came out with a metal gas can.  I took it, thanked her, and poured the contents into the mower.  I must have pulled it twenty times before it cranked.  A huge puff of black smoke bellowed out and I commenced to mowing.  Mama Pope watched me for a while and then went into the house.  I felt like she knew that I knew about her whiskey still.  I could feel her watching me the whole time I was cutting the grass.

to be continued...