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I write a great deal about Mr. Jimmy. He makes me laugh because he doesn’t mince words and I’m quite smitten with him. Agree with him or not, he breaks it down and will call you foolish in a moment’s notice. I am not excluded from this practice.

Yesterday, as I was waiting to go to an event while showing off my fish pictures, I made a grave mistake within the earshot of Mr. Jimmy. I said that I didn’t care for Charles Dickens. Now, you might like him, he’s just not my cup of tea.

Mr. Jimmy was reading a spy novel quietly while drinking a Miller High Life. It’s his beer of choice, and on occasion, I’ve heard him say that if he could buy Miller ponies, he would as he only wants a bit of his favorite elixir. The manager of our local Rural King was talking to Squirrel Queen while we were paying up to head down to what is known in Hoots as The Gap. (No, it’s not a clothing store, it’s a burned out building that is actually very cool. It’s been cleaned up and about once a month, local bands play there while a  restaurant holds promotional events. Last night, it was a luau. I, of course, was wearing a Zombie Appreciation shirt that Designer Chick from East Tennessee sent me. That’s how I roll.)

Anyway, the manager said that he wasn’t a fan of Charles Dickens. I agreed and said of the classic writers, he wasn’t one of my favorites.

Mr. Jimmy’s head popped up from his book and he roared. Seriously, I thought I might fall of my stool and I was looking at Squirrel Queen, who just gently smiled as she moved ever so slightly away from Mr. Jimmy and myself.

Mr. Jimmy : (glaring in my direction)  “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

Me : (realizing that I had just stepped in dog excrement.) “Umm, huh?”

Mr. Jimmy : (getting his best Billy Mays voice on with me)  DICKENS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST WRITERS EVER!!”

Me : (scrambling because I realized that this could go poorly in very quick fashion. I found my words carefully.) “Well, I realize he did a lot for literature and he set the stage for a lot of writers, it’s just not a period of time that I liked.

Mr. Jimmy: (I was eyeballed heavily as he sat in his fedora holding onto his library book, campers.) Do you like Jane Austin?

Me: Not especially. (I thought better than to bring up the new Pride and Prejudice with the zombies in it because I wasn’t sure if Mr. Jimmy might  shoot me on the spot and we have those pesky guns in bars laws now.No, I was safe, as denoted here.)

Mr. Jimmy: She’s too damned romantic for me. (He was winding down but as you know, this can change on a dime with Mr. Jimmy.) “Well, what writers do you like?”

Me: “Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of folks and I like a lot of different things.”

Mr. Jimmy : “I bet you like beatniks.”

Of course, this took me aback. If my face could have shown visual evidence of being stricken, it would have at that very moment.

Me: “Well, yeah.”

Mr. Jimmy : (He glanced back at his book) “You’ve never even seen a gol-damned beatnik. Damned kids don’t know what a beatnik is.”

Me: (Having to agree with Mr. Jimmy that, alas, I had indeed never seen a beatnik especially having grown up in Hoots but I did love to get me some Allen Ginsberg on when the occasion hits me.) “Well, you are right.”

Mr. Jimmy : “I KNOW I’M RIGHT, (expletive, expletive.)

And, of course, he was.

Mr. Jimmy: (He turned back to his spy novel and I could tell he had finished the conversation. You learn these things over time.) “I gotta read this book.”

And, as it happens with Mr. Jimmy, I was dismissed.

This is the way of Mr. Jimmy. Ironically, this morning, I thought about pulling out some Dickens and my old version of “Howl”.

I tend to listen to Mr. Jimmy about certain things. I guess I’m revising my summer reading list.