when I was about eight or nine years old, back when I looked like Billy Carter, my cousins, Tonya and Beverly, and I were down at our Papa and Granny’s house, messing around in the yard, probably turning things over or squirting each other with the hose, like that.

Of a sudden, our uncle Rickey, the youngest of our uncles, came roaring into the yard in his brown car and jumped out of it, grabbing his case of eight track tapes.

It must have been summer, and he must have been coming home from swimming or something, because he was barefooted and wearing cut-offs and a tank top.

There’s something about the word barefooted that just tickles me to death.

Anyway.

The car was on fire.

He flew out of that car with those eight tracks and ran in the house like he was on fire himself, saying he had to get the pistol!

He came back in about two seconds and drained the gas out with one clean shot so it wouldn’t explode.

When the dust settled around the whole situation, he walked away as though nothing had happened and said, “Those are new tires.”

Rickey has always been the cool one.