“Woodrow’s a nickname. Remember those little metal-framed round glasses that President Woodrow Wilson wore? As a kid, I had those same kind of spectacles. Now you know.”
“Why blue mud?”
“Have you never seen a blue mud pond?”
“No.”
“First of all, blue mud stinks; boy, howdy, does it ever; that smell’d knock a buzzard off a gut wagon. If a pond’s not looked after or it’s dug wrong, the water drains out and leaves a few inches of blue-gray mud in the bottom; a blue mud pond can last 6-7 months or years and years. It’s just as deadly on day one as it is when it finally gives up the ghost. For some reason, the cat-tails keep on growing so from a distance, it looks normal but up close, big as life, it stinks and it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Blue mud’s worse than quicksand. Once blue mud gets hold of you, it won’t ever let go.”
“Really?”
“You heard stories about folks escaping from quicksand or bein’ rescued from it?’
“Yes.”
“Ever hear tell a story of anybody ever gettin’ outta blue mud?”
“Well…I guess not.”
“Now you know. So if you ever come up on somethin’ that looks for all the world to be a pond but there’s no water and it smells somethin’ fierce, just high-tail it outta there.”
Olena Boyle
Mr. and Mrs. Hiath
Jimmy [“Pootus”] and Tom & Helen Greene
Jasper and Millie Shell