Brain Wreck

My guest writer for today is my old friend, Johnny Wendall Thernglot. Johnny Wendall begged me not to use his name because he is absolutely convinced that if he ever becomes as famous as he quite confidently believes he could be, he is sure that he will be assaulted on a daily basis by the same bunch of paparazzi that hounded Princess Diana to the bitter end. Nobody wants that.

Now, here’s the deal. Johnny Wendall lives so far back in the Ozarks that it doesn’t even get light until about 2:00 in the afternoon. Those people on the History Channel living off the grid would be a giant step up for him. The closest Post Office to Johnny Wendall is 72 miles away, and its only open every other Saturday morning. Even Walmart and the Dollar Store are at least a 5-minute drive from him. That’s about as far out in the boonies it gets in the USA. I think JW’s chances of becoming ridiculously famous and hounded by a relentless press are about the same as my chances of free diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and hanging out with a couple of giant squid for two or three weeks.

Johnny Wendall, after a lot of arguing and arm-twisting, finally agreed to write down this amazing story for me to share with you. In order to finalize the deal with JW, I have to admit that I, in a moment of mild desperation, had to resort to a bit of blackmail. Fortunately, there is some Polaroid evidence that I found quite useful. I suppose I should write a thank you note to the company, but I’m kind of pissed at them for going out of business.

Johnny Wendall’s Story

“When I was a small child, my family was very, very, very poor. That’s three very poors. My grandma was the only reason we didn’t rate four very poors. We escaped the classification because every once in a while, when she could afford it, she would provide us a little bit of food. The food that she gave us was a great treat because our basic diet was stuff like worms and grubs and grass and sometimes, for a little bit of roughage, dirt from our floor. The dirt actually was our floor. We lived in a two-room shack with no electricity, no water, the aforementioned dirt floors, a rusty old tin roof, and big holes in the walls where you could see through to the outside world. The only good thing about our place was that when you looked through the walls our shack was surrounded by woods and mountains and there were lots of worms and grubs in our yard and also in our floors.

“My grandma, whose given name was Minnie Soder, lived on the other side of the dense woods that grew behind our house. One bright summer morning, she came walking over the hills and down the path that ran through the trees behind our house. We all had a nice visit, and as she was getting ready to leave she told me that she was planning to make my favorite dish the next day, and if I would bring our multi-use bucket, which as it was our only bucket we used for everything else, some of which I would rather not discuss, that she would fill it up with my favorite thing which was her homemade chicken plop pie. I can’t even tell you how much I love chicken plop pie. After a steady diet of worms, grubs, dirt and grass, it was a wonderful treat.

“Well, I stayed awake all night thinking about chicken plop pie. My head rock, yeah I know some rich people have pillows filled with feathers, anyway, my head rock was covered by plop pie slobber when I got up the next morning.

“The morning just crawled by, and the day seemed to take forever to get to the afternoon. Finally, finally, my mama thought she was done with the bucket for the day, and I could take it to my grandma’s house and bring back all that fresh, hot, delicious, chicken plop pie. I was so excited that I went outside and covered my feet in mud and pretended that I had new shoes to wear to grandma’s house.

“My mama gave me the bucket and she placed my good luck charm inside the bucket. She always did that when I went to grandma’s house because it was a pretty long walk and I was pretty stupid, so she figured I needed all the help I could get just to remember how to find the place.

“She was right more often than not. So, as my whole family gathered out in the yard and waved and yelled and wished me a good trip and patted me on the back and told me several times to hurry back with the plop pie, I set off on my journey swinging my bucket in time to some idiot tune I had in my head. The tune itself was pretty amazing, because up until that time in my life the closest thing I’d ever heard to music was my father telling me to pull his finger.

“Anyway, it was a beautiful day and I walked just as fast as I could all the way to my grandma’s house with vision of chicken plop pie in my head. Oh my! Due to an amazing stroke of luck, I arrived just as my grandma was pulling a giant batch of that wonderful stuff out of the oven of her wood stove. Oh, happy day! Grandma could tell how excited I was, and she knew how much the rest of the family was looking forward to my return, so she loaded me up and sent me on my way. And boy, oh boy, I just started hauling ass as fast as my little mud shoes would take me through those woods.

“I mean to tell you that I was making great time when suddenly, and I must say way beyond unexpectedly, my journey was very rudely interrupted when a lion, yes, a real lion, jumped out from behind a big oak tree. Yeah, I know. What the hell does a real lion, and a pretty big one I might add, what what what is a lion doing out in the Ozark mountains?

“I was in a state of shock, I guess. I just stood still and stared at him. The lion just stood there and stared at me. Finally, he said, ‘Whatcha’ got in the bucket, punk?’ I said, very, very quietly, ‘Oh, nothin’ much. Ain’t nothin’ that a lion would ever want.’ Well, that old lion just got a real mean look on his face. He said, ‘Kid, you’re a bad liar. I can smell fresh chicken plop pie and I want it. Now just reach down in that bucket and hand me a big ol’ piece. I’m hungry! Do it NOW!’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I then reached down into the bucket and pulled out my good luck charm that my mother had so thoughtfully packed for me. Did I mention that my good luck charm was a snub nose .38 caliber revolver? It was our only family heirloom. According to family history, my grandfather had taken it in payment from a group of Shriners for supplying them moon shine and sheep for one of their conventions.

“Anyway, I pulled out the revolver and the lion gave me a look of complete scorn. He said, ‘Boy, you look like you’re too stupid to use that thing.’ So, I very quietly shot him six times. At first, he just looked surprised, and then he just looked real dead.

“Well, right after I shot that old lion, I was a little bit flummoxed. I scratched my head for a minute, came to a startling revelation, and then I said out loud, ‘Oh, holy shit!! What have I done? I just shot the only talking lion in the world! Oh, My God! I could have been rich! We could have gone into show business together, TV, movies, personal appearances, T-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, endless tours and arena concerts, years on the road! Damn! We could have hit the big time! Oh, what have I done? What have I done?’ Man, I was so depressed at that point that even the smell of the chicken plop pie didn’t revive my spirits. I sat down on a rock for a minute, and then I decided that the only honorable thing for me to do, because I had let my whole family down and denied them untold riches, was to kill myself. Unfortunately, I was out of ammo, so I had to think of another method to end my miserable existence.

“Well, after a while it came to me. I walked off the path and headed up the side of the mountain. I knew that up in the valley between Craphole Mountain and East Craphole Mountain there was a giant glacier. It was the only one in the Ozarks that had never been discovered by the outside world. So, I made my way to the Craphole Glacier and flung myself under it, and then I waited and waited and waited for my demise until finally, with the help of global warming, it crept up on my left foot and I was pinned and ready to face my fate. In the interim, I consumed all the plop pie and all the worms and grubs and grass I could reach. I was starting to get hungry. I decided this was going to be a race between being crushed and starving to death.

“However, after a few days of being pinned under the glacier, I began to change my mind about the whole suicide business, but I realized that I was a little late with my decision. I guess it was just because I had always been just a little bit slow. Such is life. Such is fate.

“I had just about given up all hope when, lo and behold, a cow came wandering by. She looked like a nice cow and not one who was just interested in stealing my bucket and good luck charm. So, I asked her, ‘Miss Cow, do you think you could please help me?’ Well, she thought it over for a minute, and then she said, ‘Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. Are you interested in making a deal?’ And I said, with a little bit of desperation, ‘Oh, yeah. Anything you want. You just name it!’ The cow then said, ‘If you and all other humans will quit eating me and all my kinfolk, I will try to pull you out. In exchange, I will promise that all the cows, who have secretly been doing it for centuries, will stop eating humans. Deal?’ ‘Deal’, I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. The cow then grabbed me by the hair with her teeth, dragged me out from under the glacier, and saved my life. Then we shook on the deal, and she went on her way.

“From that day to this, I have never eaten another cow, although the cow may have overestimated my influence with the rest of the human race.

“As for her part of the deal, since that day there hasn’t been a single incident of a cow eating a human.

“Shortly after that I realized I’d been saved by the world’s only talking cow! Damn! Double Damn!!”

Shameless Grift #12. If you would like a recipe for grandma’s chicken plop pie, please send $20.00, American cash only, plus S&H of $19.95, to Grandma’s Chicken Plop Pie Recipe, PO Box# 2, East Craphole, AR. Please allow 12 to 14 weeks for delivery.

Be sure to catch Johnny Wendall’s new show, “Cooking With Compost” on the Foodie Network. Check your local listings.

This post is for Will, who only dines on cows, pigs and chickens. Pity the poor orphaned calves, piglets and chicks. The little orphan chiclets usually wind up in boxes at movie theaters.