Whoa!
Justin Other Smith

When my daddy, Manuel Smith, first started telling me this story, he said he wuz about 16 years old but over the years, he seemed to get younger ‘most ever time he told it ’n the last time, he said he wuz 12 year old ’n they all lived on the farm out on Leatherwood.  All, being my grandparents, John Sam ’n Nora Smith, my daddy, Manuel, ’n my two aunts, Eunice ’n Josephine, both younger than my daddy, (he wudn’t my daddy then, of course, him being only 12 years old at the time).
Now Grandpa had bought hisself a Nash automobile. Not that he much cared for, or for that matter, even believed in automobiles, having a strong preference for horses ’n mules but the times were changing ’n lots of people were talking about automobiles and they wuz  gettin’ to be pretty common ’n Manuel wuz already a pretty good driver ’n even had a driver’s license which he had filled out a form that he’d sent, along with a quarter, to Frankfort to get. Even though you didn’t really need a license to drive.
Anyhow, Manuel wuz splitting firewood in the barnyard. My grandma, Nora, was gathering eggs ’n the girls wuz somewhere up in the barn because Manuel could hear them giggling.
Manuel wuz the first to notice the yellow cloud of dust moving along Leatherwood ’n he knowed it had to be an automobile coming pretty fast to kick up that kind’a dust but he didn’t know it wuz Grandpa until the dust shifted direction ’n he saw the Nash headed for the creek ’n heard Grandpa yelling.
Now, my grandpa, John Sam Smith, was a quiet man. An almost silent man, he wuz a man who wudn’t prone to chewin’ his cud twice’t, so to say, ’n a lot of the time, if you wanted an opinion out of John Sam Smith, you had to pry it out of him ’n he wudn’t a man who pried easy.
 He was a pious man, a righteous man, who never raised his voice, seldom swore ’n wuz well thought of by ever’body that knew him.
But Manuel heard him now. When he told me this story,  he swore that he thought the whold world must’a heard him. Before he saw him, he heard him.
“DAMN YOU, WHOA.”
And out of a cloud of yellow dust, here come the Nash automobile, bouncing over the rutted lane, splashing through Leatherwood Creek, a red-faced John Sam clasping the steering wheel in a death grip…”Whoa, damn you. Whoa.” he shouted as he drove the Nash straight into the side of the barn.
Now, I don’t really have to tell you that he had ever’one’s attention. Manuel stood there, axe in hand, gaping. Nora was frozen ’n the girls were staring down from the hayloft as John Sam leapt from the driver’s seat with a tire iron gripped in his white-knuckled fist.
“By God!” he said, as he lunged to the front of the car, “I’ll learn you to whoa when I say whoa.” And he took an almighty whack at the radiator of that Nash automobile, busting it ’n cursing at the hot steam that come hissin’ out.
Now, my father was 90 years old the last time he told me this story ’n he still couldn’t tell it without laughing. He said it proved that even the most gentle soul had limits that you just shouldn’t go beyond.