Lamar Lands A Sea Monster ...

I reckon I'll tell you fellers another story about my ol' friend Lamar Beefeater, Henry T. Beefeater's son ... so go ahead and settle in, 'cause it might take a while ... now then ... not only was Lamar a self ascribed inventor ... he was also an inveterate thief ... and to make matters worse ... Lamar was also a connoisseur of fine tobaccos, along with some of the cheap stuff too ... especially when it was Henry Beefeater's fine tobaccos, which Henry kept hidden beneath a stack of underwear in his dresser drawer ... however, Lamar's cravings for the herbaceous plant, combined with his habitual proclivity for "borrowing" other folks' stuff, would soon bring about a passel of frightful events for the ambitious, albeit dissolute young man ... each time Henry caught Lamar in possession of any of his beloved private stock of "baccy" ... he would forthwith drag Lamar out to the wood shed for some lessons on not stealin' and not chewin' ... however, these lessons weren't producing the desired affect ... so Lamar's daddy cogitated and cerebrated as to a positive solution to this puzzling conundrum ... now Henry Beefeater wasn't all that concerned about the stealing ... because he too was known to have sticky fingers on various and convenient occasions ... oh no ... the thing that bothered Henry most was that Lamar was constantly pilfering "his" tobacco ... and Henry T. Beefeater was getting fed up to the gills with the situation ... somehow he had to convince Lamar to stop chewing altogether ... and he thought that maybe he had figured out how to go about doing just that ... he knew Lamar had a morbidly dreadful fear of ghoulish creatures and monsters of all sorts ... that bit of inside knowledge had given Henry T. a potentially brilliant idea ... the next time he apprehended Lamar stealing his baccy ... he would tell the up-and-coming larcenist that if he continued his crooked ways, he would no doubt turn into a slimy sea monster, or worse ... likely doomed to swim around in some murky lake or ocean all by his lonesome for the remainder of his miserable existence ... and it worked! ... for a while.

There was another unscrupulous character who resided nearby by the name of Lester DooLittle, cousin to Luther DooLittle, Lamar's good friend ... now Lester was a well-known and infamous town fixture, and close yokefellow of Lamar's ... now Lester was nothing more than an older, seasoned version of Lamar ... and he too was an aspirant thief ... and he loved his baccy ... or your baccy if he could get his hands on it ... well one night the old general store got robbed ... so when the high sheriff arrived, he discovered the only items missing were two cases of Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco and a roll of Copenhagen snuff ... case cracked! ... the sheriff went straightaway to Lester DooLittle's place, and there he sat on his front porch with what was left of those two pillaged cases of chewing tobacco and that plundered roll of snuff ... 'ol Lester was wearing this big ol' grin, while at the same time trying to hold in a whole bagful of tobacco and an entire canful of snuff within his stretched out cheeks ... to make a long story short ... Lester DooLittle got to spend the next eight months as a guest of the county jail ... and while most of the town folk knew what Lester's fate was ... the only thing Lamar knew was that Lester DooLittle had robbed the general store ... Lester had took a bunch of tobacco ... Lester had chewed nearly all of that tobacco ... Lester had got caught ... and Lester had mysteriously disappeared ... consequently, Lamar had settled on the solid conclusion that because of the tobacco caper, Lester DooLittle had without a doubt been turned into a slimy sea monster, or worse ... and was now most likely doomed to swim around out there in some murky lake or ocean all by his lonesome for the rest of his miserable existence.

I'm getting close to the finale of it all now ... a couple weeks later, Lamar and Ansel Poteet, another of Lamar's best pals, reasoned out that they should squander away the afternoon in some productive fashion, so they proceeded down to the Beefeater's farm pond for a hearty bout of catfishin' ... the boys skillfully angled all afternoon without as much as a nibble ... it seemed as though those fish were nervous about something ... spooked even ... so Lamar tossed his trusty bamboo pole down on the grassy bank, reached into the ragged hip pocket of his vintage Round House bibs, and pulled out a brand-new, shiny poke of Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco ... "Where'd you git that?" enquired Ansel ... Lamar just grinned as he replied, "Out of my ol' pappy's dresser drawer" ... "But won't that cause you to turn into a monster, or something worse, like your daddy warned you about??" replied Ansel ... "Pure bunk!" snapped Lamar, as he loaded the entire bag of fresh, moist tobacco into his mouth and began working up some juice ... just when he had worked up a good spit they heard Mr. Beefeater's old Dodge pickup rattling up the dirt road leaving behind a trailing cloud of thick dust as it bounced along ... "Shucks!" ... "What am I going to do now?" Lamar screamed ..." If pappy catches me with this chaw, he just might kill me good this time!"... "Hurl 'er over in the pond!" cried Ansel ... so Lamar spit out that big wad right onto the palm of his hand, then with little time for thought, set that vile chaw firmly onto the big treble hook which was attached to his fishing line ... which also sported three or four heavy lead weights and a bright red and yellow, plastic bobber ... he then drew back and with all his might cast that contraption all the way out into the middle of the pond, where it landed with a loud clunk, then it slowly settled down to the bottom with nothing but that bobber visible above the surface of the muddy water ... and just in the nick of time ... 'cause there stood Henry Beefeater ... "Any luck boys?" Henry asked ... "No!" they answered in unison ... "Well you fellers better call it a day, and come on up to the house for some supper" ... and as Henry T. turned to walk away, there was the biggest commotion out there in the middle of that pond that had ever been heard or seen in those parts ... Lamar's bright red and yellow, plastic bobber had completely disappeared, and he was holding onto his trusty bamboo pole for dear life as something big was trying to drag him and his fishing gear right out into the water ... Henry Beefeater ran down to the edge of the pond and grabbed Lamar around the waist while yelling "Reel him in boy, reeeel him in!" ... and with the help of Ansel Poteet, after nearly an hour of tusslin' with whatever it was on the other end of that line, they drug an enormous beast up out of the water and onto the sedgy bank ... a beast later determined to be nothing more than an angry Great Northern Pike ... unfortunately, neither Lamar Beefeater nor Ansel Poteet had ever known of such a critter, nor had they ever had the displeasure of actually seeing one with their own eyeballs ... I reckon some of the local juvenile delinquents had caught the hideous leviathan at the lake, then slipped it into Henry Beefeater's farm pond as a practical joke ... the creature was probably more than five feet long, and even homelier than Lamar ... and there lying just inside it's jutted out jaw was that big chaw of "baccy" still stuck to the treble hook which was now solidly embedded in it's fat lip ... needless to say ... when Lamar saw that big wad of tobacco, in what he most assuredly thought was the mouth of a sea monster ... he turned as pale as a new, white bed sheet ... then nearly passed out ... but before he could lift as much as an eyebrow ... he looked that grand and wondrous mammal straight in the eyes, and ruefully exclaimed ... "I sure am glad to see ya agin ... Lester DooLittle!"

--sja