After reading Dr. Cloer’s stories on the Appalachian dialect a couple weeks ago, my inner Scots-Irish, long buried in my subconscious, re-emerged, and before I knowed it, I was writin’ thataway. My ancestors come down the Great Wagon Road, like many of y’all’s, before heading out to Tennessee and Arkansas. This story has nothin’ to do with that, but that’s how come it come out like this. I’ll be back to normal next week — I thank. So here goes:

It was purt nigh 33 yars ago this summer, I reckon, when me and a feller name Mike Gallagher was out in the woods ep above Wahaller ookin’ to talk to a feller who’d done clumb up a tree to protest the gov’ment fixin’ to cut down way too many trees, accordin’ to his figgerin’.

Now, I didn’t know Mike Gallagher from Adam’s housecat and still don’t, ‘cept I hear him once’t

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