Having spent the biggest part of my life in the Appalachians — from Georgia to Western Maryland — I’ve always enjoyed “Mountain Humor.” It seems there’s a never ending flow of stories and tales. Some of them are true and some maybe not quite so true, but you’ll always find someone who’ll “swear that’s the truth.” One such story I’ve heard several times, is a real legend in itself. I’d like to share that story with you so you can experience the flavor of “Mountain Humor.” It goes like this…

There were these two fellas, Zeke and Abe, who went fishing on a hot summer day. Being mountain men they knew where to fish and the ways of the fish. Well, they got down to the river when they remembered they had no bait. They dug up some worms at the bank and along with some bugs they figured they had some pretty good fixn’s. Well they went on out in a small boat and after a couple hours hadn’t caught a thing on either them worms or bugs, not even a nibble. They was about to give it up when Abe looked down and seed a big ol’ snake come swim’n by with a big frog stick’n outta his mouth. Well ol’ Abe fig’rd that frog might make some purty good bait so he reached down fast as light’n an grabbed that there snake. Then he tried ta pull that frog from the snake’s mouth, but that snake wern’t a giv’n up that frog wit’ out a fight, naw sa, he hung on fur everthang. Well ol’ Zeke reached in his pocket an pulled out a bottle o’ Jack Daniels fine sip’n whiskey, for madicinal purposes of course, and poured about two shots in that snake’s mouth. Well when he tasted that good whiskey he turned loos’o that frog purty quick, rolled over a couple times and disappeared deep into the water. Well now ol’ Abe n’ Zeke were fish’n just fine with that frog an just catchn’ a whole mess o’ fish when they heard a bumpn’ on the side of the boat. They looked over to see what it was, an’ dang if that ol’ snake wern’t back with two frogs in his mouth, so help me that’s the truth.