dawn

Dell has a guy hanging around when we were kids.

He lived in this shack behind Josh’s house.

No power,no plumbing, sheet metal roof,wood starting to decay.

And this guy was around for our entire childhood it seems..

He would go into the woods behind the house, he would go way back there and make campfires and drink .

And you would roll up on one of his little spots.

Dead Fires and liquor bottles.

Flip..

He and Dell and Wayne were tight in the ’70s, I’m pretty sure he was a part of their cocaine operation, I know he was a part of their weed operation..

Dell told me a story..

Where they were traveling through the woods and found a old house with rotted wood, And bees were living in it.

And they were drunk.

And they wanted the honey.

So the three of them decided to smoke it out, flip found some paper and lit it on fire, and tried to smoke out the bees on the outside of the house.

Long story short, the house caught on fire, The fire department saw the smoke and they came as far as they could, but they couldn’t get their trucks back there.

So they all set and watched it burn.

Turns out there was pot plants behind the building.

And they all came back after it had rained, and the ash had soaked into the ground.

They took seats they had been collecting and filled the area with pot seeds

They came back and watered the best they could, They checked in on it, every few weeks..

As The legend goes, they had pot plants taller than you or I.

They had some primo shit,out in the woods.

And this was a big deal for the ’70s, pot wasn’t as available as it is now..

Anyways,, They had people trying to steal it. Trying to sneak down there in the middle of the night. Friendships were destroyed, I’ve heard that guns were drawn. Fist fights. Threats of exposure…

Now, I don’t know how it happened, But someone in the sheriff’s office actually called my grandmother, to tip her off. That the DEA was coming to raid the woods of Midland North Carolina.

Hells Half Acre.

And the Burgess Brothers went out to the woods with machetes and garbage bags.

And they harvested it at all.

Because of a tipoff.

Some real country, good old boy shit.

That’s the version of gangster in this area.

The version of Tupac.

The version of Al Capone .

I fought the law, and the law wanted to kill me, but I’m slippery.

Tar heel style.

(off topic 🥱)

You’re right… I was thinking about Flip, How audit was to have a vagabond in your backyard.

But it was totally fine, flip loved being alone, he kept to himself and hung out with Dell after all the kids went to bed…

That’s sweet.

That’s a sweet friendship.

I ran into a me as an adult, when Jeremy he and I were playing acoustics at some redneck cookout..

Skynard and such…

He gave me a hug and cried when he saw me.

Apparently, he had turned his shit around, And he had a car, a job, and he had a wife .

And it had been so long since Parks Lafferty Road.

All the woods out there.

Josh and Adam once had pigs in the backyard, In this little pen eating up food…then the Burgesses threw a massive party called a ‘pig pickin’

And it took several of them to hold the pig, he was huge, And they got on all sides of him,,

And Flip put the barrel of a nostril up his nose, and it went ‘pop’.

I remember it very clearly.

(perhaps they should have led the children aside..)

Yeah but, I saw the men gather, on some caveman shit. I saw them work out a plan together..

You hold it here,I hold it here, Flip you go in for the kill, we’ll be out of harm’s way.

Then they did it.

And I remember seeing so much blood flowing out of this pig snout..

Then they dragged it to a tarp, They cut a huge slice down the middle, Then they tied ropes up to a nearby tree limb and they pulled the pig up, suspended by its legs.

Entrails running out..

And this is all happening, in a party type atmosphere.

The entire little neighborhood, we would let our Christmas trees dry out until February. So they’d be ultimate dry..

Then they would have these HUGE bonfires. And the kids would play kickball, and run around in a group together, and be happy.

The Men did the killing.

And prepared the food.

And drank,and smoked, and snorted cocaine.

Those early days, that age, that place… That beautiful stretch of land. The real Love I had with my family and my cousins, as a child.

If I could remove Pat, And the nights and weekends with him…

I’d say that was the best time of my life.

The purest.

So precious, innocent 😇

We all loved each other, and that was real..

(tell em how it is now)

Josh and Adam hate me, we barely talk on the few Christmases I go…

They both went deep deep into religion, too deep. Two reasonable men, intelligent, capable..

Deeply in the power of Jesus Christ.

Deeply.

Adam became a minister, fell in love with public speaking.Being heard.

They both shacked up hard with ultra Christian women…

My other cousin Michael is an atheist, And he was becoming a huge fan of comedy before I knew anything about it.

To this day.

Michael is the one that bucked..

They blocked him from Facebook and Instagram, for the things he was saying, and the things he was laughing at..

It’s a shame.

Feels like a religion has claimed friends of mine .

Like I lost them because of this foreign substance..

I’m sorry, I started rambling..

Flip was the most well-off homeless person I’ve ever seen.

Not spoiled, he had next to nothing, he worked odd jobs for my grandfather and other locals.

But he did not submit to the rules.

It was a conscious choice.

He saw the entire world, and he said “no thank you”

Imma go out into those woods,and imma drink. Far away from the people,and the sounds of car engines.

I’m going to build a fire 🔥

I’m going to construct an exit, for at least a few hours..

Flip, Uncle Dell, Uncle Wayne, cousin Josh (older), cousin Adam(younger),

Cousin Michael (much older)