Tag: trouble

An old Texan was sitting on the porch of his rest home listening to a group of nurses griping about the Truckers for Freedom protest. When he’d heard enough, he called the ladies over and told them this story:

Harley, the old blacksmith, was the last of his kind in our area. He still used an anvil, hammer, and hand-driven bellows to heat the coals. His workmanship was in demand because he formed every knife by hand. Each piece was a masterpiece. He was a humble man, jus’ ta same.
Ole Harley had stood outside his workshop watchin’ his town gradually change, for the worse, some 30 years. Sometimes ‘locals’ would stop by n’ ask Harley ta join their griping sessions at the Cafe’. Most all folks were irritated by them same changes.
“Not today, t’ain’t hot enough for me ta care.” was his response every time.
Soon, the locals just left him be. Many thought he’d ‘lost his marbles’ and some even secretly callt him a coward. But they all decided that his silence was a sign he was ‘soft’, “what’s the word?”, yeah, malleable, to the unpleasant changes and just didn’t care.
Well, then a protest -that turned into a riot- came through our area. Harley stood in the doorway of his workshop chewing on a straw as a lot a smashin’ and burnin’ came down the street. When them punks cum shoutin’ at Harley ’bout their BLT an Q, sumthin or t’other, he pulled out his double-barrel shotgun from behind the door. When he fired it over their heads, they scattered like roaches in the mornin’.
They never came back neither. But ole Harley was arrested jus’ the same. The charge was assault with a deadly weapon. Let me tell ya now, if Harley wanted ta kill ’em, they’d been dead!
When good ole Harley made his case, he pulled out a gorgeous knife and toll the judge this…

“See this here knife, your honor? She’s a beauty, ain’t she? Ya know I ain’t never hurt no one. I never talked crossways ta anyone neither. I don’t like what’s been goin’ on but it weren’t hot enough yet.
Ya see, in order to git steel to turn into anythin’ worth havin’, ya gotta heat it up. If you try to bend it too soon, it snaps and makes a mess. But… when it gets real hot, then a man has ta strike. En that’s what I did.
It was time to shape things up for sure! “
That judge let Harley go right then and there. Last I hear, our town ain’t had a lick of trouble since.

“So, those truckers you’re complaining about, ladies, ain’t no different ‘en Harley. They wouldn’t be makin’ trouble otherwise, it’s jus got too hot and sumthin’ real good is shapin’ up now. You can count on it.”