I hadn't gone down to see Zeke and Perletta Dooley, my old and valued friends on Blair's Creek for way too long. I made haste to do something about that back in January and just missed Zeke's 102nd birthday party.

MITCH: Zeke, congratulations on making it well into the 21st century!

ZEKE: Well the last one had it's rough spots, but hit mostly done good fer the corn, and I'm still a'kickin. Sit down and have a horn of last year's crop. Dooley's cough and cold elixir, good fer a nearly a hundred year!

PERLETTA: Most folks would just lie down and wait fer a starry crown at 102, but Zeke's always been contentious. He went coon huntin', all night of his birthday.

MITCH: Why'd you go coon hunting, Zeke?

ZEKE: Well, they claim the red oaks is all dyin' off in the Ozarks and I studied on it. Figured that'd make more den trees fer coons, and I went to test it out. My notion is, a man goes with what nature hands out. What you lose on the one crop you gain on t'other'n.

MITCH: Good theory. Tree any coons?

ZEKE: Got a old 'un and a young'un.

PERLETTA: The young'un fried up pretty, but I just boiled up the other'n fer the hounds.

ZEKE: Hounds don't make no distinctions. A hound will eat sawbelting if there's gravy.

MITCH: Perletta, do you always fry coons?

PERLETTA: Well my people was Germans and we'd put 'em in pickle for a day or two and flour and fry them, make gravy with gingersnaps.

MITCH: Hasenpfeffer!

ZEKE: Bless you!

MITCH: That wasn't a sneeze, Zeke, that's German for rabbits soaked in brine. Perletta, I didn't know you could fix a raccoon like that.

PERLETTA: Well, a rabbit didn't stand no chance in depression times if they was dogs around. We mostly ate coons and possums when the hounds treed 'em.

ZEKE: Now you see what I'm talkin' about with them red oaks dyin' off. You lose one crop, you gain another'n and adjust to nature. Make do somehow.

MITCH: But if all the red oaks die off, Zeke, all you'll have for woods down here is hickory, ash and white oak and a lot of pines.

ZEKE: Well sir, now what is them good fer?

MITCH: Let's see, ash and hickory make good axe handles and firewood, pine is easy to build with, white oak acorns are great for deer and turkeys, and the wood makes wonderful staves for whiskey barrels.

PERLETTA: Sounds like moonshiner's needments.

ZEKE: I rest my case.