Back in the 1970s I hung around the loading dock at Jimmy Butler's country store every chance I got. Country stores were where the best stories were told and a person who stopped at Butler's could hear one most every time, if he stayed awhile to listen.

One fall day I hit the jackpot. A local man, as big as a fullback (and of course called "Tiny") had married his high school sweetheart and gone to Cozumel, Mexico, of all places, for their honeymoon. Here's Tiny's story, remembered and told as best I can:

"Well, I hadn't ever been on a airplane but the first two we got on didn't spook me a bit. They loaded me and Erma on in St. Louis and dumped us out at Dallas as smooth as haulin' eggs. Same thing at Dallas. You don't hardly see them big airplanes you ride in, for they just run you down a chute and load you in like beef, and the seats are all soft and tilted back like an armchair. I went to sleep the whole way and so did Erma.

"But down there in Mexico, we got off that big plane. When I told them we was heading for Cozumel, they sent us a ways down to a little old shack of a place where the airplanes was all little bitty old things, looked like kites. I was uneasy about fitting me and Erma in one of them, but it turned out there was several more going too, and they just stuffed us in there like marbles in a sack. The pilot came on the speaker, called us "Amigos," said his name was Hay-zoos and hoped we'd enjoy our flight. Erma said, 'Now don't these people come up with pretty names?'

"But boys, I'm here to tell you that Hay-zoos hit every bump he could find in the sky and Erma got sick as a cat. And about time we about got used to the bumps, the bottom fell out of the air someway and here went that airplane, down like a rock! Everybody went to screamin', and I was one of them-only louder. Then, I felt like I was going to mash through the seat and Hay-zoos come on the loud speaker and says it was just a air pocket we'd fell into and there wasn't nothing to worry about. That wasn't a bit of use to Erma, who'd passed out anyway and only woke up for us to land at Cozumel. We didn't know it but a hurricane had been through there a week before. Erma set up just in time to look out the window, and seen that whole airport was littered with tore up airplanes, every which-a-way like they'd all died in a pile. That time she out-screamed the rest of us and kept it up well after we landed and got out."

Tiny paused in his story, one of the listeners commented. "Don't sound like your honeymoon got off to much of a start."

Tiny shrugged. "Well, we had a pretty good time considerin', outside of a sunburn apiece and a spell of the green apple quickstep. But I knew the honeymoon was over when we got on the plane back. I knew I was in for it, when about the time we got buckled in, the pilot says 'Hello, Amigos! My name is Hay-zoos and I hope you enjoy your flight.'"