Doc Stevens

 Tondeleo: I've been writing from my notes and recordings about the immense creativity and the drive for self expression in even the poorest and the most uneducated people. In the rural areas of America, at least the ones that I have been to, there seems to be no limit to these traits.

If I was poverty stricken, I would try to not attract attention to myself. But for these rural Americans, it seems that the poorer they are, the more need there is for self expression. They seem to have a need to say, "HEY! Look at ME! I may be poor, but I am SOMEBODY!"

One  example of this is the Ford pickup truck that belongs to Doc's friend, Big Dave. Dave hasn't had it registered or insured for about two years now. Something happened somewhere that caused him to park it in his garden for a while. Neither he nor Doc feel that it is important enough to talk about, and when I pulled Marilyn aside to ask about it, she says it is something that we don't talk about. It just "is" for now.

I asked Big Dave what year it is, and he says that it's a couple of different years.  "It doesn't matter."
I ask about the modifications he's made on it and whatever else he can tell me about it. Here is what he said:

Big Dave: I'm not drivin' it right now and it makes me feel bad, you know? It's sittin' there wastin' under a tree when it ought to be drived. 

Well, it's a 4X4. Got 4 wheel drive. That means it's good for drivin' in the woods and in mud and snow without gettin' stuck. I got 31" tires on it. I lifted it up like 3 inches, to make it a little taller. When I go deer huntin' I can take the truck out there, so I'm not walkin' and draggin' the deer around through the woods. Especially if I get two or three of deer.

Tondeleo: I notice that it doesn't have a grille. And, you've painted what was behind the grille silver. Does that mean you're not going to get a new grille for it, Big Dave?

Big Dave: Yeah, my truck lost his front teeth in a fight with a white oak tree! 

I couldn't find a grille that was any good, so I took some of that mesh that you use in front of a fireplace and put it in there to protect the radiator - that's all a grille does anyway, and then painted it all silver... (laughs) it looks like I at least know he ain't got no teeth anymore! 

I painted the shiny metal around the headlights black, and I painted the bumper black because I had some black spray cans and didn't have anything better to do. So I painted stuff. 

Tondeleo: What else can you tell me about your truck, Big Dave?  Remember, I don't know much about these things, and people who read my blog may not know very much about them...

Big Dave:  What else? Uhhh, I got a cap on the back. I tried paintin' it cammo by sprayin' around leaves here an' there. It didn't come out too good. 

I can sleep in there if I'm out deer huntin' or duck huntin'  over the weekend or anytime, really. If I got my tools in the back, the cap keeps the rain off of them. Keeps people from just reachin' in my truck and stealing my stuff. Havin' a cap on the back's a good thing... 

I could clean it out back there and have a date back there.

Marilyn: YUCK! You're so GROSS, Big Dave. NO self respectin' woman would get in the  back of your old truck!

Big Dave: Well, I don't always go for the self respectin' type...

Tondeleo: I notice that you have painted the back half of your truck black. Was that because you were bored, also?

Big Dave: I painted the back part of it black because I'd had a wreck into another tree. 


Tondeleo: Your license plate says Dog Man. Does that have a meaning?

Big Dave: Yeah. I'm a dog man.

Doc: Yeah, he's a dog man, all right.

Marilyn: Big Dave really IS a dog man, Tondy.

Tondeleo: OK, I think I get it... you're a dog man, and it says it on your license plate... 

Marilyn: Well, he loves his dog Bulkley more than anyone on the whole earth, Tondy. Bulkley is head of the pack, fifteen years runnin.

Big Dave: Yeah, ain't nobody better n' Bulkley. Well Christine is, but she's Asian.  

Tondeleo: ... uh, ok... I think I get it...  so, what is the meaning of the four horseshoes on the front of your truck, on the front of the bonnet?

Big Dave: My truck ain't got a bonnet, first off. It ain't a woman. A car ain't got a bonnet either. It's a hood. The meaning of the horseshoes on the front? It means good luck. You oughta know that, boy. But it means somethin' else, too. Somethin' people gotta figure out. But I'll tell you; I don't want you sittin' here all night. It means what might be good luck for me ain't good luck for someone else.

Tondeleo: Like what?

Doc: Like for the HORSE! That's a lesson right there, good luck for one is bad luck for another. People can  look at the front Big Dave's truck and get a life lesson, if they're thinking while they're looking.

Tondeleo: How about the donkey that is also on the front? Does that mean anything, Big Dave?


Big Dave: Uh, well, yeah it's got a meaning... 

Doc gave me that a long time ago. That's the third or fourth truck it's been on. It's outlasted every truck I've had and two women. That donkey, well, he's got a big grin on his face. He's happy. He's sittin' down on the job. He ain't workin' and he ain't doing anything and he ain't goin' nowhere. He'll get up when and if he's a good and ready. That donkey is me, Tondy.  

Doc: It SURE is.That donkey is definitely Big Dave!

In my last post, I was attempting to get Doc and Marilyn and Big Dave to discuss the end of the world, the Mayan calendar and survival. You can read how far we didn‘t get in that attempt. This segment is from a few minutes later in that same conversation, such as it was. 

I was trying to explain to Doc, Marilyn and Big Dave how unsettling it will be, according to all the scare mongers, when the next disaster strikes. I didn’t get too far. 

Tondeleo: OK, Doc, I understand that you don’t want to buy the Mayan calendar. And, like I said, there really isn’t a Mayan calendar for you or anyone else to buy. It just was like a prediction or something… but the point is that there are a lot of people saying that people ought to be ready for a disaster or for a zombie invasion…

Doc: Aint no ZOMBIES gonna invade nobody, Tondy! Don’t get your panties in a bunch…

Marilyn: I ain’t scared of zombies, Tondy! I have anointing oil that I got at the church and I would pour it on them and rebuke them in the name of Jesus! A zombie ain’t nothin’ but a demon livin’ in a corpse. I’d cast that demon out of that zombie and command it go to back to hell and the zombie would just be a dead person again…

Doc: Yeah, one more thing for me to bury around here.

Tondeleo: Well, what about being’ PREPARED, Doc? I read you about the “37 Foods You Must Have in a Disaster.” What do you think about that?

Doc: Well, Tondy, it’s a scam pure an’ simple. There ain’t no secret foods. That guy ain’t got no special secrets. OK: you gotta have water. We got a well, so we’re ok. Then you need to have things you can store. But we live like that anyway. You been out here in the winter. When it snows, ain’t no snowplows comin’ down here. We can’t get to the store.

We have sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, turnips and such down in the root cellar. They keep as long as you need ‘em. Why it’s called a root cellar.

Then we got salt cured ham and deer jerky. We even got some catfish jerky that Big Dave makes. We’re good for meat. We do that every winter and been doin’ that since I was a boy.

Plus, we got guns and ammo and plenty of deer, rabbits, squirrels and possums. We got fresh meat year round – all we have to go is take a walk in the woods.

When we ain’t got no electricity, we play the acoustic guitars… and Marilyn don’t need no electric to play her harp.

We got blankets and a woodstove, and kerosene lamps. That ain’t no disaster Tondy! It’s how all us live out here! Poor people been livin’ like that since the world began!

And you city boys think it’s the end of the world if you cain’t get your Starbucks and the interweb! You better man up, Tondy!

Big Dave: Well, if it IS the end of the world, you’re not gonna make it anyway. You’ll be dead. The world ended, remember?

Marilyn: The Bible says all this stuff is gonna happen in the last days. Tondy, what you need is the Holy Ghost. Then you wouldn’t be scared all the time. Do you want me to cast that spirit of fear off of you? I can do it if you want…

Tondy: No thank you Marilyn. I’ll be all right. I have some freeze dried food and other supplies coming from Amazon. 

Tondeleo: I am never certain when to take seriously the things said by Americans. They have an inherent love of taking the mickey out of you, and just about the time you are believing them, they begin to laugh and you feel a right fool.

Big Dave showed me a small plastic bag filled with stiff brown and white hairs, clearly from an animal. He asked if I knew what they were for, and I said that I didn’t.

Here is how the conversation developed:

Big Dave: Tondy, this is a bag of insurance.

Me: A bag of WHAT?

Big Dave: A bag of insurance. You carry it in your car or truck, Tondy.

Me: Well, it resembles a bag of bristles, of hairs, Big Dave.

Big Dave: To the untrained eye, that is exactly what it is. But to the expert eye, it is a bag of insurance. Here, look at it up close.

Marilyn: It’s a bag of DEER HAIR, Tondy!

Big Dave: It IS deer hair in its lowest form. Insurance in its highest.

Say, if a man has had a few beers, and ends up runnin’ off the road into a tree. If the cops come by, he’s gonna be in trouble. If he gots insurance, they ain’t gonna pay. BUT! If he kicks a part of his car, say the front fender, real hard, and then spits in the bag deer hairs, they become insurance!

Me: Insurance?

Doc: Yeah, Tondy, insurance.

Big Dave: You spit into the bag of deer hairs, then you take ‘em in your hand and smear a few in the dent you made by kickin’ your fender. Put a couple of ‘em in your headlight rim.

Then you, well, that man what hit the tree, can say that a deer run into his truck, and he hit it, and ran off the road and into that tree. That’s a lot better to a cop or a insurance company than you just havin’ a couple of beers and hittin’ that tree.

Doc: I ain’t never did that, but I heard of people what done it. Lotta people carry a little packet of deer hair in they car or truck. Say it’s good luck.

I fixed plenty of peoples’ cars what had dents on ‘em and deer hair in the dents. A deer can tear up a car real bad. A deer hittin’ your car is bad luck.

Big Dave: But deer HAIR is GOOD luck if a man runs off the road. He sprinkles them deer hair on the dent and it brings good luck, Tondy!

Marilyn: Yes, but it ain’t right.

Doc: That’s why I ain’t never done it, Marilyn. I only hit real deers.

Big Dave: And I pull some hairs off ‘em for good luck. But I ain’t never did it neither. Just heard about it bein’ done by crooks. It ain’t right.

Tondeleo: I am not a hunter. I am an eater, but not a hunter. I don’t want to know where my food comes from or how it died. I don’t want to think about whether or not it was frightened when it died. I simply like to eat it.

Doc and Big Dave were telling hunting stories back in November and this one stood out to me:

When Doc and Big Dave go hunting, Marilyn makes each of them a sandwich and a thermos full of gravy to take into the woods with them to quench their thirst and to keep them warm.

I asked about why they didn’t take tea or coffee, and they both looked at me as like I was daft.

Big Dave said, “It makes you have to water the lemon tree too much.”

I said I didn’t see where that would be a problem, out on the woods.

Doc said that when you’re crammed up into a deer stand, you don’t want to be climbing up and down from it to go water the bushes – and it would scare the deer away. Soup or stew is better in the thermos than coffee or tea.

Big Dave said that a man wouldn’t drink hot tea, anyway.

Apparently Marilyn USED to make soup or stew for their thermoses. One day when they were hunting with Thurman Goodlett, he was drinking stew out of his thermos and got choked on a piece of meat.

It was only Doc, Big Dave and Thurman out there in the woods, and neither Doc not Big Dave were willing to do the “Hind Lick maneuver” to save Thurman. Doc decided that this was definitely the time to call on the Good Lord to save Thurman, if God didn’t rather have him in Heaven just yet. Big Dave agreed.

Doc and Big Dave laid their hands on Thurman and called out to the Lord to save him if He would. Doc said he even spoke in tongues just in case that would give their prayers a boost.

Fortunately, Thurman was so scared – or touched by the Lord -  that he was able to swallow the meat with little or no damage to his throat. Doc said he was real sure it was the Lord that saved Thurman. Thurman’s eyes had rolled back into his head and his face was getting blue. But then, suddenly there was a gulping sound, and Thurman was swallowing and breathing. “Had to be the Lord,” said Doc. “I was speakin’ in tongues out there.”

Since that day, Marilyn doesn’t put soup in their thermoses. Instead she fills them with red eye gravy so they can be warm and comfortable when they are out in the deer stand.

Of course, I don’t know what red eye gravy is, so Marilyn explains that it is made from meat drippings and a cup or two of coffee, some salt and flour until it is just thick enough to be like drinking hot warm silk.

I am not certain that it is better for a person than stew is, but Doc and Dave are settled on “no more stew or soup” when they go hunting.

Big Dave said, “I don’t care WHO it is what’s choking. I am not doing the hind lick maneuver.

Doc: Me, neither. I’ll pray for ‘em and ask the Lord to save ‘em. Or, He can call ‘em home. I ain’t doin’ none of that other stuff. I ain’t no doctor.