# King me!

% I 'aint got but two o' them kings. You'll have to settle
for a horse.

# Ok. Horse me! . .
. . Annie-May!! . . . Bring me 'nother coca-cola . .
bring one here for Earl too. He's lookin' mighty thirsty.

* You gettin' beat bad again Earl?

% Yes'm. Reckon I 'aint ever gonna beat Harold heh. . He's
just too quick-n-sly . . sly like a fox . .

# Heh! You's right! I am sly, sly like a fox . . .
Hey! you reckon that's that English feller theh at the pump. . .
Halloo Mr. Englishman! What brings you to our
humble filling station?

& I see that you two gentlemen are making full use
of the chess set I donated to your fine establishment . .

% These English things a bit bafflin' but I reckoned we's
figured it out.

# Say, you look like you're out collectin' samples again.
Aint' it a bit hot to be diggin' 'round in dirt?

& Yes . . 'tis. I have to send another sampling to Raleigh by
Thursday. I was hoping to get everything around the old
train station sampled . . . that place is a mess, vines
everywhere. A colleague told me about your problems with
it, but I never realised it had spread over so much of the
county.

# Oh yeah, kudzu, t'aint no one from that fancy university of
yours can do anything about it. We have to come up with our
own, 'local solutions.'

& What do you do with kudzu?

# mmm Japanese eat it . . we just dump pesticides on it . .
don't know that they do any good 'cept kill alot of beetles.
Used to be we'd hack it with machettis and leave all the vines
in the compost heap, but then it took over the compost heap
as well. Durned stuff. Sometimes you can see Luther out there
hackin' away . . makes him feel like he's back in 'nam.

& Is he the fellow with the rust-stained overalls?

# Yep, that's him. Gits those stains from fixin' all the de-crepit
machinery from folks near the old station. Heck! we lost that
place a few year ago to the vine. Took the gov'ment to come in
and clean it out, and that's only 'cause they thought they could
use the ole train depot to store surplus military equipment . .
. . . Five months later the vine done overgrown _everything_ . .
I remember that colonel or major they sent out here. He tore
them two fellers at the depot apart, bring a whole troop o'
recruits to hack it back .. why even let Luther help . .
They couldn't find a damn_thing. . jeeps gone, guns gone, it
was _all_ gone. Vines ate everything. Them vines do better than
the Russian C.I.A.

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