Camping With a City Girl

Can rednecks peacefully co-exist with city slickers? Sure, if
we can train them in our redneck ways. Some are more
trainable than others. Remember my friend "Betty," from my
post Watch Your Mouth? She was a city girl who took a job
out in Redneckland.

We had a travelling teachers' party every Saturday. We
played Trivial Pursuit, or poker, or barbecued, or floated,
or played golf. It didn't matter who hosted, we always found
something to do. Two of our married teachers, who shall be
known here as "Frank" and "Fran," had some land outside of
town where they raised cattle. They decided we would have
a campout in tents.

Betty had not been camping, but she had a good time wherever
she was. We all went out on Saturday afternoon and started
a barbecue. Betty climbed up on the John Deere tractor and
pretended to drive. She had on a big straw hat like the Hawaiian
Punch guy, and sang "Green Acres is the place to be, farm livin'
is the life for me. Land spreadin' out so far and wide....." Fran
took her picture, and later it appeared, framed, in Betty's
house.

Betty was amazed by the creek. Actually, the creek was dry
at the area where we camped. It was just bedrock that had
been worn smooth over about a million years.

"Hey, Frank!" Betty hollered. "How much did it cost you to
pour this creek?"

"What do you mean?" asked Frank.

"You know, the concrete for this whole creek."

"Uh...Betty, that's rock. Erosion from water and little rocks
did it. It's not concrete." Frank was one of the high school
science teachers.

"Oh. When are you going to breed these cows?"

"Betty, those are steers, not cows."

"OK, so when are you going to breed them?"

"Betty, you can't breed steers."

"How come?"

"Because they've been castrated."

"Oh. Where are we all going to sleep?"

There were a bunch of different size tents set up already. Betty
and I were supposed to share a little bubble-looking tent. It
was barely big enough for the two of us. Even worse, it was
not on level ground. We put our borrowed sleeping bags in,
and Betty said, "I'll take this side." The high side. I did not like
that idea. At that time, Betty was bigger than I was. Not taller,
but rounder. "Great," I told her. "If you roll over in your sleep,
you won't be able to stop. You'll either smother me, or our
tent will go rolling down the hill to the concrete creek." Betty
laughed and agreed to switch sides with me.

It was not a restfull night. "Zip up the door of that tent," Betty
ordered. "A bear might get in here."

"Betty, if there's a bear brave enough to come up here in all
this noise, I don't think a zippered cloth door is going to stop
him."

"You're so funny," said Betty. "Let's spy on Bob." She crawled
to the door flap and peeped out. "Look, he's poking the fire.
Now he's sitting on that log. I wonder what he's thinking."

"I can hear you, you b#}%*s," said Bob. He was not amused.

Betty started to laugh. Loudly.

"Shut up, Betty!" yelled the male half of the couple in the tent
next door. They were two of Betty's closest friends.

Betty laughed harder, then said, "Shhhh. Listen. I think they're
making out."

"Don't make me come over there!"

Betty shut up and went back to spying on Bob. Now she
tried to whisper. "Look, he's going to pass out in the fire.
His head is bobbing. No...get back! He's coming over here.
No...he's getting in his truck. You've gotta see this. His feet
are hanging way out. He's too tall to sleep in his truck."

"Shut up!!!!!!!"

The next day, Bob declared, "You can lead Betty to a concrete
creek, but you can't shut her up."