Travels With Becky

All about Bill

Bill Riney was a character and horse trader in Temple. A farmer from Hillsboro bought one of Bill’s horses, but was back the next morning with a complaint:

“The hoss died, Bill.”

Bill said, “He never did that before.”

Jim was Bill’s buddy, gave him rides different places (Bill didn’t drive), sometimes helped him out. There was a tree needed taking down. It was kinda close to the house. Bill said, “Jim, climb up and cut that big limb off so it won’t clip the house.”

Jim climbed up. Next thing he knows he hears Bill’s chainsaw revving. Bill’s chewing into the base of the tree.

“Did he forget you were up there?” I asked Jim.

“No,” Jim said.  “He was just being funny.”

Tax woes

In Loudon, the newcomer who’d moved up from Dunstable, Mass., unloaded on the town clerk one afternoon. He raved about how much he loved Dunstable and how lacking Loudon was – no streetlights, no kindergarten, the roads don’t get plowed, no trash pickup.

“If you dislike Loudon so much,” the town clerk said, “why’d you move here?”

“Low taxes.” 

In another town, the new landowner complained about his taxes. “Why that lot’s not worth anywhere what you say it is,” he said to the selectman. “Half of it’s swamp and the other half ledge. There’s a powerline through the middle, not to mention a right-of-way to the neighboring lot.”

The selectman was unmoved: “If it’s such a lousy piece of property, what’d you buy it for?”

More from Judy!

Three more quick stories from that wonderful storyteller Judy Whitcomb Hall.

On the playground, two boys had a disagreement and a teacher wondered whether to intervene. Before she did though, a third boy said:  “Mrs. Whitcomb, if they wanna fight let ‘em fight. If they don’t, let ‘em don’t.”

Story Two: Mrs. Whitcomb asked her students to write a sentence using the word border. Ephraim wrote: “My mother sleeps with the border.”

And finally, one more Whitcomb family story. The boy said a bad word. Mother said, “We don’t talk like that at home. Pack your bags.”  So the little fella packed his bags. His even littler sister said, “Henry, where you gonna sleep?”

Henry said, “How the hell do I know?”

Thanks, Judy. Your stories are classic!

'Man on floor!'

Judy Whitcomb Hall’s father, Jim Whitcomb, worked in his later years in maintenance at Keene State College. This event occurred when he was 84 years old. 

He got notice that some work needed to be done in a room in Huntress Hall, a girls' dormitory. Normally, when a man entered the dormitory, the girls would call out “Man on floor!” to warn everybody what was coming.

On this occasion, Jim found nobody around. The place seemed emptied out. Which was OK with him. He went to the third floor, knocked on the door in question, and a coed opened it – stark naked! Jim stuttered and stumbled and finally managed to stammer:  “I’m here to fix the knobs on your chest.”

News from the hill

Judy Whitcomb Hall of Troy comes from a long line of Troy Whitcombs. She tells of her grandfather, Oliver Patch Whitcomb, who delivered milk to the Boston and Maine train station. The depot master would always ask: “Any news on the hill?”

One day, Patch said, “Roger had his hand taken off.”

“No!”

“Ayuh. He put it on his wife’s knee, and she took it off.”

Son of a gun

In Troy, a woman told of her grandfather, a rascal. In his day, the factory workers all brought guns to work.

“Guns?” I said.

“Well,” she said, “it was the 1800s."

The rascal came to be in possession of a stuffed blue heron, taxidermied and very realistic. He stood it in the little pond in front of the factory. Then “ran like hell.”

Must have been open season on great blue herons.

Which reminds me of the time I was walking the dog in the woods behind my house during deer season, not my brightest move. But we were both wearing blaze orange. Lo and behold, we came upon a deer, not twenty feet in front of us. 

What did I do?

Grabbed the dog and hit the deck. I didn’t want us to be in the line of fire.

Another time, same woods, the dog and I were walking and we came upon a hunter. We stood on the ridge and could see him slinking around in the ravine.  He seemed to be stalking something wild, but he didn’t notice us, standing there.  Didn’t want him to turn around quick and mistake us for prey so I yelled, “Hey!”

He was none too pleased.  Especially when the dog ran down and jumped up on him – just being friendly.

Flop shot

In Troy at the Gay-Kimball Library, about 35 of us gathered for stories on a rainy Wednesday summer night. Stories? Oh my gosh. Troy is full-o-stories. Every one of them true ...  ish.

They told about Clyde Huntoon of Fitzwilliam, who was quite the character in his day. Seems the locals formed a reenactment militia in 1976 to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial. They  were invited to Fort Ticonderoga for a big battle. The Troy/Fitzwilliam contingent owned a cannon in working condition. They’d fill it with powder and touch ‘er off!

In a Ticonderoga cow pasture, in the heat of mock battle, Clyde – in charge of the cannon – got a little bored. So as the reenacting Red Coats, in their beautiful (and expensive) red coats charged, Clyde loaded a cow flop into the cannon and let fly. 

The Red Coats were thoroughly sprayed.

Ticked off and spotted with cow flop, they captured the cannon – and didn’t give it back for five years.

Might as well laugh

Lynn Durham (of www.lynndurham.com)  specializes in joy. She writes, “I tell people  if they’ll think it’s funny later, then they may as well think it’s funny now – they’ll have way more fun.” 

Case in point, she tells of the prim and proper lady on a long bus tour, who needs to use the facilities at the back. She waits and waits because she’s a little embarrassed about taking the long walk down the aisle with all eyes upon her. When she can wait no longer, she braves it. Once she’s settled into the stall a bad thing happens. The bus swerves, the toilet door flies open and she’s falling out into the aisle. Then the bus swerves again, in the other direction, and she’s falling back in, the door swinging shut behind her.

Oh dear. 

Another case of, you might just as well laugh as cry.

Reminds me of the time in Cumberland Farms, a woman tapped me on the back, and in the most elegant English accent, whispered, “My dear, your skirt is tucked into your knickers.”

Oh dear.

Loop-de-looped

Arlyne from Concord, formerly of Maine, tells of accepting a ride in a stunt plane with a fellow we’ll call “Jack Dodge,” an excellent pilot.

“I asked him if he knew any tactics other than the usual ‘wing overs’ or ‘barrel rolls.’ He smiled and helped me into my seat. After making the high step onto the plane and sitting in the seat, I had to buckle the wide, leather safety belt in front. It laced on either side to the plane."

Long story short, Jack outdid himself on maneuvers.

“Sometimes the landscape was above us – sometimes below us. Darting in and out of the big white fleecy clouds was very exciting.”

It eventually dawned on Arlyne, though, that Jack was having a little too good of a time. He was laughing a lot, and his face was very red. Seemed like maybe he’d been drinking.

“I tapped his shoulder and pointed to the ground – telling him that I would like to go down. He just kept laughing and flying, now on a lower level, strafing the many buildings and people at the airport. He did this several times. I saw the police below, just waiting.”

Long story short again, when Arlyne went to undo her safety belt, it was loose in her hands. "It had not been laced on one side. I had been ‘free as a bird’ to fall those thousands of feet out of that cockpit.”

She ends her story with this bit of science and philosophy:

“A happy note: We know that if we swing a full bucket of blueberries full circle, not one blueberry will fall out."

 Blueberries and Arlyne are living testimony to the power of centrifugal force.

Thanks, Arlyne, for your harrowing tale.

Quick comebacks

Story from a woman in Temple:

“My grandmother in Maine hired a neighbor to do her ironing. The arrangement lasted more than 35 years. Toward the end, the neighbor said: ‘Mrs. Lunt, you never said whether you liked my ironing.’  Grandma said: ‘Well, I go on hiring you, don't I?’ “

Lavish praise from a Mainer.

And while I’m in exotic locales, this one, also told in Temple, is about a visit to Arkansas.  The New Hampshire traveler was looking for a famous cave that was a tourist attraction. He thought he was on the right road, but stopped by a house and asked the fellow outside, “Is that famous cave at the end of this road?

The fellow replied:  “Don’t know. Never been clear to the end.”

Set it in Canaan, call it Cilley’s Cave, and you’ve got a New Hampshire story.