Well, old Buck The Collie, fresh back from his Summer Cut, has pretty well collapsed at my feet, as I write this. He has to be much more comfortable, in the 80 degree heat we are having now. He and I are sitting, on the front porch, listening to the wildlife, which means the birds, because rabbits, squirrels and deer, only make a noise when they are excited or in danger. Don't know about the Elephants and Weasels, that are probably hiding in the woods, just waiting to come out with the tigers and bears, later after me and old Buck give up the vigil.
Night creatures, can be very dangerous. In fact, on my first move to Nashville, in 1962, some of them suckers almost did me in. I was motorvatin' down 60 Highway, in my 1959 DeSoto, headin' for the "big time", yessir. Now that old DeSoto would move some, let me tell you, had a big straight 8 engine, and a push button transmission. That's right, push button. Driving it was kind'a like settin' a cook time on your microwave. Anyway, I was flying low, in this very remote region of the Ozarks, which Highway 60 bisected, West to East, all the way to Pudacah, KY. Thing about this region that you got to understand is, it was open range....that's right, no fences. I was going about 80 mile per hour, way to fast for this two lane blacktop road, but suitable for a midnight run, with country music on the radio, and a country music career, waiting for me in Nashville.
Just the other side of Van Buren, Missouri, a little town on the Current River, I topped a hill, and started down, when my lights, picked up something laying in the road ahead. As I rushed closer, I realized it was a herd of Pigs! About 10 pigs had bedded down, right in the middle of Highway 60, and there was no way to stop this Tank I was driving....
Well, if you have never run over a herd of pigs, at 80 miles per hour, in a 1959 DeSoto...don't go to no trouble trying to do it....I've done it and it ain't all that much fun.
The thing about running over pigs, is this. You hit a deer, your
bumper is gonna knock the animal away from your car, and you'll have damage in the front of the car, but that's probably all. Same with a cow or a horse. You hit a herd of pigs, it's like going over a field of giant boulders, and these boulders are screaming, like only a pig can do. They don't bounce off, they roll underneath, and stay with you. I went through the right ditch, then the left ditch, cleaning out brush and small trees, i ended up doing a 180, in the middle of the road and coming to rest, slap in the middle, headed back the other way. There was this high pitched, shrill, keening sound.....it took me a minute to figure out, since I was the only one there, that it was me...that also answered the questions of who pinched a hole in the seat...uh, yeah...that was me too, but my butt pinch probably saved my life. Seat belts were not required in '59, so my butt, holding on, was an important part of my survival.
When I got to Nashville, it took me several washings to get the pig slop off the old '59. In fact, a couple months later, when I sold my car to my producer, at the time, Billy Sherrill, he asked me about the faint odor that would sometimes waft up from underneath the old car. I just shook my head, said, "Ah, you know you're liable to pick up most anything on them highways!" Yeah, I could have added,"Like a herd of pigs", but why go into that extra detail?
They made a good car, in America, like the '59 DeSota, that had all the attributes of a Sherman Tank. In a short while, they discontinued the DeSoto, and a part of American History was gone. I'd hate to see what one of them toy cars, they are making now, would look like after it hit a herd of pigs. But, by golly, I had one of them, "genuine American made in Amerian by Genuine American workers", I'll tell you what, it saved me from ending up on Highway 60 as just a grease spot, a bacon grease spot. stan,
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