Bubba and Clem Get Ready to Open Up

Bubba and Clem set to work fixin up their new dive shop. They hired em up a couple of young folks to hep getting all set up. They got Judy Westly and her cousin Henry Turnipseed to do some cleaning and opening up the boxes of dive stuff.

The fellers went and got em a stor dog last night. They drived down to Macon to a friend of theys uncle Bob. They found the perfect dog, he were a Boxer dog about 4 months old. Bubba took a reel shine to him. They was gonna fetch him home and name him tomorrow. The trip home was sumthin else. See it seems that the new pup took to having gas. Clem thunk it were Bubba and vice versa. Next morning over a heaping plate of biscuts and sausage gravy with crispy bacon, the determined it were that darn dog what had the vapors. Right then and thar he were called Rudy.

They took to opening all the boxes of dive stuff like kids at Christmas. After about 5 hours wented by, the new diver shop looked like a fancy place. They seemed to have a nack on setting stuff out to look reel good. Heck it looked like them fancy shops down in Florida. They even bought em one of them big ole flag poles like you see at a Fod car dealer with big 'merican flag on it. They got em a reel big flag made to look like the bus. It were white wid a red stripe on it. You could see it from the interstate. Bubba figgered it would draw the yankees driving to Florida in like flies to a dead cat. They also had a big ole sign made what says Bubba and Clem's Dive Emporiun and Gas Station on it.

Clem membered them plastic girls and went to fetch them from a closet. They dressed one of em in a pretty wet suit all pink and purple. Then they strapped on a fancy new BC while remembering it were named for Bubba ans Clem. They put on sum booties and a pair of pink fins. Next came a mask and snorkel tube. They even hitched up a divn knife on her leg. They hanged her from the roof to make it look like she were divn. The other plastic girl was gonna

be dressed up like that cute yankee gal in the yeller bikini strang thang. Clem figgered they would go downtown to the big ole sto called K Mart and fetch em a bikini ( it just had to be yeller ). It were a sight fer sore eyes to see these two rather large good looking men shopping fer a yeller bikini on a blu lite special.

Well they suited the plastic girl up in the yeller bikini and boy did she start looking like that yankee gal. They put on her a wig with long dark hair fixed a pretty mask to her face and on her feet a set of them reel long freediving fins. They stood her in a corner where she look like a diver. When Bubba wernt looken, Clem snuck him a kiss on the cheek.

They was almost ready to open the stor fer bidness.

They was gonna have em one of them grand opening shindigs with free food and drinks to try to sucker the folks into buying stuff. They was gonna have it on the tv and radio. It were gonna be the biggest divn shindig Hotlanta ever seed. They was gonna have a double two page ad in Rodales Magazine hopping to draw folks from as fer as Kansas to the sale.

The grand prize was gonna be a week for 2 divers down to Belize, wherever that is at. A good ole boy what was reared in Louisiana has got him a resort place down there and he gived them the trip to use in the grand opening. Fellers name is Few Harkey. Bubba thanks they call him few causen he ate a few too many meals.

Most of the dive manufacturers gived them some stuff to be prizes. SeaQuest was too darn cheap to give em nothing but a bill.

They was gonna give away a full set of stuff to the person what had the best name fer the bus. HINT HINT- we need input here.

Ther food and dranks had to be jus rite. Well nobody knowed food like granny Ida. They was gonna go fetch her from her place down in the country in Upson County and get her to cook em up a spread. They was gonna go all out here, theyd be more food than at a 12 car funeral.

Bubba wanter to try out the hog roasting pit and they sent cousin Lamar Taylor out to catch em a couple piggies. They would keep em in a pen over at Jim Bobb Simpson's farm to fat em up on corn. Lamar would catch em on Son Arlin's ranch down in Sarasota, Florida.

Granny would fix up a huge pot of possum and dumplins, a kettle full of Brunswick stew. She would have squash, beans, corn, and every kinda pie you can think of.

Clem figgerred he could aford the good kinda paper plates what don't fall apart when de greece soaks in and plastic knives and forks too, but he would use rolls of Bounty fer napkins just like him mammy did.

They was gonna have that good Georgia ice tea too, you know the kind thats so sweet a darn quarter will float on it. They wern't gonna have any Shlitz or hard licker.

The next thang they had to do was put it in the paper and send out indentations to everybody in Atlanta.

TO BE CONTINUED

Bubba and Clem stories copyright FDU, Inc., 1998