Pat Daniels' Winning Lie
Well, folks I’m moving a little bit gingerly, and that’s because the soles
of my feet are a little bit sore due to the incident I am about to relate to
you today.
Now I am not from Doddridge County, but the whole point of my story is that
I have a genealogical tie to the great state of West Virginia and to
Doddridge County. One more thing I should tell you about myself, is that I
am what some folks call a Granola, I get into natural foods and I get into
what I eat.
So for these reasons, one time years and years ago, I was coming back from
visiting my parents in the North Country – and I was stopping in Toledo – or
excuse me - Columbus, Ohio, at the natural foods warehouse there. Folks in
Doddridge County had gone into a food co-op here, and we’d gone in to order
flour – 500 lbs of flour and 25 lbs of yeast, nuts and seeds and raisins and
sugars and all kinds of stuff –
So I was backing my truck into that warehouse in Columbus Ohio – and as I
was backing my truck in - well let me tell you about my truck. I had a ’73
Chevy truck, a good ol’ ’73 Chevy pick-up truck. When the fenders rusted off
the front, I replaced the fenders; when the bed rusted, I replaced that -
put a wood bed on it; yes - this truck was one of those ‘73’s that had a
side-saddle gas tank that some folks had some trouble with, but I loved that
old truck and drove it for years and years.
So I was backing my Chevy truck up in there, and I loaded that 500 lb of
flour and 25 lb of yeast and nuts and seeds and raisins, and I loaded up
that truck and covered it with my tarp and down the road I went. And here’s
where an odd set of circumstances comes to play – when that feller bagged up
my order, none of those bags were really sewn shut. So I bounced all down
the road – and in my Chevy truck the shocks weren’t too good – So as I
bounced on down the road, bags emptied into the bed of that truck and it
wasn’t long before I had a mix in the bed of that truck that would’ve made
Martha White proud. It was quite a mix in there –
So down the road I went and it wasn’t long that day like today and it just
poured down the rain – a rain like today – it rained cats and dogs, kittens
and puppies; it came down in sheets – pillowcases and bedspreads - and it
rained terrible, so I just stopped.
I wasn’t worried; I knew that the flour and the yeast, the raisins and all -
was all right back there, because I covered it up.
But little did I know there was a tear in that tarp and a lot of that water
went right down in on that yeast and flour, nuts and seeds and raisins.
After a while the rain let up and down the road I went again and it wasn’t
long until I saw that it was making a bread or dough in the bed of my truck.
I rode on, drove on, the sun came up and it was just right weather for
raising the dough – and I pulled on down to across the river in WV and the
road smoothed out and I was driving along.
I noticed after a while, that I was getting low on gas, so I thought ‘well,
I can make it to West Union’, and sure enough I got to Rt 50 out here and I
pulled off on 18.
And I looked in my rear-view mirror and that tarp was still billowed up –
you know how when you’re driving along and I thought that the air was kind
of keeping it up, but I saw that it was still billowed up back there.
So I pulled off and I thought ‘well, I’ll make it to Kelly’s Exxon here’ –
and you know how it is – there’s the Squad Room, and the Fire Department and
Kelly’s Exxon
Got there the – pumps was all occupied, so I pulled up in front of the Squad
room and parked and I jumped out and ran around real quick and sure enough,
here’s this tarp all filling up here, so I reached down and got to the bed
of that truck and grabbed that tarp and –it kind of whipped it up off that
dough and it kind of stuck and when that happened, I fell ker-plop and right
down in the dough I went!! pummmmm
Now, you’ve heard of rolling in the dough; I was floundering in the dough,
and that dough just kind of rose up around me and enveloped me up in there,
the Pillsbury Doughboy had nothing on me right then—All that showed of me
was in there was my feet sticking right out.
Just about that time, Gladys Holcraft got off her shift on the Squad. She
never looked. She put that car in reverse and backed right into the side of
my truck; hit that side-saddle gas tank - BOOM! Up it went; caught that wood
bed on fire, and baked me right as a loaf in the bed of my truck…
Now I personally don’t like being called a loafer – but just at that time, I
was a loaf.
So all this proves that I have a genealogical tie to West Virginia,
Doddridge County, West Union,
that I was raised
and Bread
in Doddridge County |
