Digging around on ancestry.com, Keith found a blog post about my great-great-grandfather, Jesse Trimmer, the first Treasurer of Garvin County, Oklahoma. The blogger's mother had passed along an old newspaper clipping from the Garvin County Advocate relating a story as told by his Uncle Haskell who'd been a boy at the time and witnessed this spectacle first-hand.
"Mr.
Trimmer was a "fleshy" man; and when we saw him drive by our house in
his one seated buggy he always sat right in the middle and the springs
showed they were carrying some weight; if Mrs. Trimmer, or one of the
boys was with him, then the side Mr. Trimmer was on would be pushed down
so low that it made the buggy appear as if it had a strong spring on
one side and a broken spring on the other.
In
addition to his court house duties, Mr. Trimmer kept a good large
number of hogs on the then vacant half block at the rear of his house.
He also kept a green Mexican Parrot in a cage on the back porch. And
this parrot was profane! It learned its profanity from Mr. Trimmer. It
happened this way: When Mr. Trimmer would go into the feed shed to get
feed ready for the hogs, the hogs would start squealing which is a
manner hogs have of telling that they are hungry. Every time a feed
bucket was banged, or any sound whatever that came from the feed room,
the pigs would squeal all the louder, and the longer they had to wait
the more insistent they became.
 |
| Jesse, wife Mary Elizabeth, son Fount, and said parrot |
Usually,
before Mr. Trimmer could get his hogs fed, they had set up an incessant
din -- and for anyone at all with nerves it was enough to bring a loud
vocal response from the feeder; and it helps more if some profanity is
mixed in with good plain English. This is the way Mr. Trimmer responded
to the greedy noisy shouts. He not only mixed profanity with plain
simple English, but sometimes it sounded the other way around. He mixed
plain English with the profanity.
The
Mexican green head could see and hear all these "goings on" from his
perch on the back porch-- and he thus learned the good art of
profanity. He (or she) could do it just about as well as Mr. Trimmer.
The only thing was the parrot would not cuss unless the pigs squealed
first.
This was real funny to me and my brother Homer. As soon as Mr. Trimmer came
into view, the hogs would start coming from all directions toward the
feed troughs near the shed. Then as soon as the first bucket was banged,
the squealing started-- then in a few moments when the crescendo
reached a certain pitch, the "cussin" started on the part of both Mr.
Trimmer and the Green Headed parrot.
Some
mischievous boys in our neighborhood learned that the parrot would
swear if the pigs would squeal; and that all they needed to start the
chain reaction of squealing and "cussin" was to knock two of Mr.
Trimmer's feed buckets together. When this happened the pigs would
squeal and the parrot would "cuss" -- and it would last for 10 or 15
minutes -- especially if it was late afternoon.
Once
Mr. Trimmer was real bad sick and the minister was there to visit. My
mother was there too. Before the minister left, he of course said a
prayer for Mr. Trimmer's speedy recovery. About the time the preacher
was well into his prayer someone outside hit a feed bucket. It was close
to feeding time in late afternoon. The squealing started and the parrot
started in dead earnest. The prayer was brought to rather an abrupt
close. The visitation was ended too. My mother said it was "distracting"
to have to listen to that vile, cursing parrot with the pigs squealing
while the minister was trying to pray -- and especially realizing how
sick Mr. Trimmer was."
I'd heard this story before, but not in so much detail, and without the photo -- featuring the parrot! Funny how 100 years and four generations later, I can recognize some recurring themes in my family today. Our talent for "cussin" survives.
From: http://wenonahsstories.blogspot.com/2011/04/back-from-chickasaw-nation.html
