Donnie Remenbers Lingo

One of my earliest stories is the one about the electric fence on the Lingo place.

Bud, my daddy, decided to build an electric fence around the pasture across the road from the house. He worked hard to put in all the posts, and install the insulators on the posts. He installed the wire all the way around the pasture. He hooked up the power box to the wire and tried to test it out. It would not work no matter what he did. He walked all the way around the pasture again trying to find out where it was shorted out. It all was in good shape but it still would not work. He was about to give up when he noticed that I was following him around with my hand on the wire. Must have been summer because he said I was barefoot and only wearing a diaper. I was the short. The electricity did not seem to bother me. He got me to stop shorting out the wire and it started to work just fine. The next Sunday they went to church. While there they invited the preacher to have dinner with them. After dinner Daddy wanted  go to the barn for something. The preacher came along. Daddy told him not to touch the fence because it was charged. I ran ahead of them and just ran under the fence and flipped it over my head with my hand and went on like it was not working. The preacher reached down and touched the fence only to get a terrible shock. It was on.

Daddy told this one on me.

Daddy had bought a mean bull and was keeping him in the lot right across the road from the house. The lot just south of the fish tank water trough. The bull was so mean that he could not even go inside the fence of the lot or he would charge. He had climbed the fence quickly a few times already by this time. He says that he came out to the lot and found me standing in front of the bull. I had a switch and was switching the bull on the nose and the bull was just standing there taking it. He said it really scared him because the bull was so mean to him. He was in fear of me loosing my life to that bull. He started yelling at the bull to get him to come away from me and then at me to get away from the bull but neither of us moved much. I finally came over to the fence where he was and he rescued me from the bull.

Memories of the Lingo Place (I think it is called the Billbery place)

I remember swimming in that water trough tank. I mean really swimming in it and some time later in life I went back there and found the tank was only 12" deep on the sides and only a little deeper in the middle so the water would drain out when they needed to clean it out. It always had catfish in it too.