do you hear what i hear?
I called my grandfather "Pa-Pa." He was what you would call a "man's man." He grew up on a farm in central Texas in the early part of the 20th century. During the Great Depression he owned a grocery store that he eventually had to close down because he allowed too many customers who were suffering (and that he knew could never pay him back) to buy stuff on credit. He worked as a welder, down in the bowels of ships, building destroyer escorts for the Navy in the Houston shipyards during WWII. After working at the Good Year tire plant, he retired to a farm near College Station where he taught me how to fish, slop hogs, feed chickens, milk cows and drive a pickup.
But one of his most lasting legacies in my life was the term he would use every time he, well... passed gas. As long as no one else was around, he would slightly lift his right leg in order to release a loud gut-horn sound out. And after every blast, he would look over at me and ask, "Did ya hear that buck-snort?"
Apparently the term "buck-snort" had something to do with an old joke about two dear hunters who mistook the sound a male dear clearing his sinuses for flatulence.
Wherever the term came from didn't really matter. To a 9-year-old boy, anything having to do with bodily functions is funny. It becomes sacred humor when performed by your grand-hero.
This is why every time I drive to Nashville and pass this sign I have to toot my horn in tribute and keep from laughing so hard that I might hit on-coming traffic. In the Volunteer State there is a town that, as far as I'm concerned, could have been named something more vulgar.
