Buck Lick is a small town in West Tennessee that still holds tightly to old traditions. One of those traditions is the annual Fourth of July celebration. Now, for a lot of folks any more, the Fourth of July is just another day they don't have to go to work, well, unless they work at the Walmart in Jackson. The people who work for Walmart have to work that day. The Walmart employees who live in Buck Lick, all nine of them, don't like that much and for a very good reason. For the folks in Buck Lick, the Fourth of July is a big party that involves the whole town. If they work at the Walmart in Jackson, they call in sick on the Fourth of July.
When I say the whole town gets involved, I mean the entire town and people on the surrounding farms-- all five hundred and three people as of last count. I guess we're really five hundred and five, because that doesn't include Cindy Jean Clemmons and Billy Joe Maxwell. They were born after the last time we counted noses. I don't think that matters all that much. They're only six months old so they can't do that all much participating.
The whole shebang starts off after lunch on the Fourth with the talent contest. Reverend Dobbs, the minister down at the Baptist Church and his wife run that, and make sure all the acts and people are what the TV shows call "family friendly". Last year, they had to tell a couple of girls to change their costumes. See, Margie Lou Davis and Elizabeth Ann Jacobs thought they'd dress up like girls in one of those teenagers-in-love beach movies and sing a song. Reverend Dobbs let them sing their song, but he just couldn't allow them to do it in bikinis.
Well, the way I heard it was it was actually his wife, Margaret Ann, who stopped the bikini thing. Margaret Ann is on the conservative side and thinks women should always wear dresses that almost cover their ankles. I've never seen any more of Margaret Ann than her ankles, so I guess she practices what she preaches. It's funny that they've been married for fifteen years and still don't have any kids. I figure she doesn't show the Reverend any more than her ankles either. She just seems like that kind of woman.
I thought that was a real shame. Margie Lou is nineteen and Jackie always jokes that she doesn't know how Margie Lou can sit up by herself because her breasts are so huge. Elizabeth Ann is also nineteen, but she doesn't have big breasts. What she has is an ass that'll make any man stop whatever he's doing and just watch. Jackie says my tongue hangs out when I see Elizabeth Ann, but I don't believe her.
Oh, Jackie's my wife. My tongue does probably hang out when I look at her. Her breasts are as big as Margi Lou's and her ass is...Sorry, but thinking about Jackie always make me lose track of what I'm trying to say.
After the talent contest comes the cake-baking contest. All the single girls over the age of eighteen bake a cake and decorate it for the contest. As the Sheriff of Buck Lick, I get to be on the judging committee. The other members are Otis Ward, the town barber, and Walter Jeffries who owns the feed and seed store.
We look at the decorations, then cut a slice out of each cake and have a taste. We're pretty professional about the judging process. We always swish out with some of Mabel Jeffries' iced tea to make sure the taste of one cake doesn't interfere with the taste of the next. We don't spit out Mabel's tea like they do on TV, but if those guys ever tasted Mabel's sweet tea, they wouldn't spit it out either.
About three in the afternoon comes the hog wrestle. Estle Franks brings in a dozen of his market hogs and greases them up really good with some lard. When all the young single guys in town are lined up beside the hog pen, Estle opens the gate and lets the hogs loose into a fenced in area put up by the Sportsman's Club. Those hogs weigh about a hundred and fifty pounds, and they'd be more than I wanted to tackle even if they weren't all covered with lard.
The guys chase down the hogs, and the first one to keep ahold of one for at least a minute wins the grand prize. The grand prize is the cake that won the cake baking contest, and the girl who baked it stays with the winner for the rest of the day. It's not what it sounds like. I mean, if the girl really doesn't want to be with the winner, she doesn't have to, but most of them are good sports about it, guys and girls alike.
I can tell you that hog wrestle can sure make for some strange couples. Four years ago, the cake-baking contest was won by Becky June Alders. Now, Becky June isn't beautiful, but she isn't ugly either. She's just sort of plain in the face...well, a little plain anyway. The rest of Becky June is what all young men dream about sometimes, and what some young men dream about all the time.
Becky June's only about four feet ten, and I'd guess her at about eighty pounds soaking wet. It's where those eighty pounds are that had all the guys drooling. Jackie says Becky June has what the women's magazines call an hourglass figure and she says that means Becky June has big boobs and a wide ass.
Now, Becky June's breasts aren't really all that big. She's just really small so they look that way. I think Becky June knows full well what those breasts do to the guys because she always wears plaid shirts that are about two sizes too small. She has to leave three buttons undone at the top because she can't begin to get them buttoned. I have to admit that deep cleavage she shows is pretty enticing.
It's the same with her ass. It's pretty small, really, but when Becky June puts on a pair of tight jeans, it's like watching two baby pigs trying to get out of a burlap sack. I know what all the young studs are thinking, because I think the same thing. That's what she was wearing that Fourth of July -- tight jeans and a red and white plaid shirt.
Once Estle had all his hogs greased up, all the young guys in town stripped off their shirts so they could show their muscles and chest hair, and lined up for the hog wrestle. Estle let those hogs go, and you never saw such a ruckus. There were hogs running everywhere with guys chasing and grabbing for them. A guy would catch a leg and get dragged a few feet before the hog shook him loose and trotted off. The guy would get back up, wipe the lard off his hands on his jeans and off he'd go again.
I noticed one guy just standing there in the pen watching and grinning. Elmer Eugene Biddles is a little over six feet six, as big as a house and strong as a bull. He earns his living down at the feed and seed store loading farmer's trucks with animal feed and seed corn. He loads fast because he carries two fifty pound sacks at a time, one under each arm. He never impressed me as being all that smart, but then, Elmer doesn't talk very much so it's hard to tell. He just grins all the time
Anyway, Elmer Eugene just stood there watching for a while, and then started walking into the mess of guys and greasy hogs. I could see he had his eye on one particular hog because he kept turning in the direction that hog was going. Pretty soon, one of the other guys grabbed that hog around the middle and held on tight. The only problem he had was that lard. The guy scraped it off with his chest and arms as the hog wiggled out of his grasp, and I'm pretty sure he got a good mouthful or two before the hog shook him lose and trotted off straight for Elmer Eugene.
When that hog got close enough, Elmer reached down and grabbed him behind the front legs and picked him up right off the ground. Now, the hog wiggled and squealed a lot, but since he didn't have any feet on the ground there wasn't much he could do but wiggle and squeal. Elmer just held on and grinned. Randy Ray Masters, the man who owns the hardware store, ran up and started his stopwatch.
I'll tell you it seemed to take forever before Randy Ray blew his whistle. Elmer Eugene eased the hog down gently and patted him on the back when he ran off. Randy Ray raised up Elmer Eugene's arm and declared him the winner. Elmer Eugene just grinned some more.
Randy Ray led Elmer Eugene up on the stage in the park pavilion. Becky June was already there with her cake. Elmer Eugene grinned at her and Becky June blushed, but she grinned back.
Well, after the hog wrestle, the guys go home and clean up, and then come back for the barbecue. The barbecue is really just a big potluck except the town furnishes the meat and the Buck Lick Sportsman's Club is in charge of cooking it. Cyrus McCain, the man who owns the grocery store, gets the town a good bargain on chicken halves and pork chops every year. The Sportsman's Club stacks up two rows of concrete blocks about three feet apart, lays down about a cord of maple logs right after lunch, and by about four, they have a bed of coals fifteen feet long between the blocks. They use some grates made by Vance's Welding over in Jackson and start slapping on the chicken and pork chops. In about an hour, you'll start to drool just by walking by that fire.
The women of the town try to out-do each other with what they bring and they bring a lot. The Fourth of July is about when gardens start to yield tomatoes, green beans, and other vegetables, and the women need to clean out last year's canning to make room for this year's. There'll be casseroles made from every vegetable you can think of, Jello molds full of berries, pears, apples and about anything else you can think of, and berry and sweet potato pies that'll put you into a coma if you taste them all.
That year, I kind of lost track of Elmer Eugene and Becky June. Being the town Sheriff and all, I didn't want to insult any of the women in town by not tasting what they brought. Jackie kept looking at my plate and shaking her head.
"You keep eating like that and you'll never be able to get close enough to me to do anything."
I swallowed my mouthful of lime, pear and cottage cheese Jello salad and then grinned.
"You can always play cowgirl, you know. You like that as I remember."
Jackie smiled and patted my stomach.