Your cousin Gummer (that’s Penn’s boy on his wife’s side) just told me that you and them boys are back making music after all these many years of doing honest work. I don’t mean no harm, but if your daddy was alive, he’d turn over in his grave. He was so proud of you when you got that college degree. And you were so smart about it, too. You were one of the first 100 to call and you got two for $19.95 plus shipping and handling!!!

Anyway, Gummer’s oldest girl, Wanda Lynn, saw you all picking at some hippie festival up near Asheville and she took some pictures and brought them over here last night after the circle meeting.

Now Jimmy, you know that I think the world of Thom, but I still don’t understand that long hair of his. Don’t he know it could pull on his brain? And, what if it got wet in the shower? He could break his neck. Or, what if a bird got tangled up in it? These are things that a mama worries about, even if he ain’t one of my very own.

I’m sitting here right now looking at these pictures of you all and I declare if that Darrell don’t look a whole lot more like he does now that he used to. Wanda Lynn said that you all call him the Ditch Wizard or something like that now. What does that mean? I hope that’s not a rude name or anything to do with s-e-you-know-what.

She said she thinks you put on a good clean show, even though she’s not sure that she caught on to everything you said, but that the people laughed a lot and there weren’t no fights or police or nothing like that.

You know she ain’t been quite right since that picnic several years ago with that Waddell bunch from up on Stoney Run Creek.

You remember Odell, Udell and Waddell Iredell whose daddy run the Piggly Wiggly? Well, they was going on a picnic and somebody forgot the butcher knife. They had a hoop of hoop cheese, a gut of baloney meat, a loaf of loaf bread, and a jar of Dukes mayonnaise, but no knife.

Well, Wanda Lynn allowed how as she would just crawl up under the car and slice the baloney and cheese on the fan blade up behind the radiator. So she did and everything was going good until Waddell remembered that Wanda Lynn was deathly afraid of a snake and he thought he would have some fun.

So he found a tree limb and he took that thing and run it up under the car and hollered, “Snake, snake!” They’re not really sure what all happened next, but Wanda Lynn just ain’t been quite the same since.

Jimmy, I don’t mean to run on so, but is that Mark still the lady killer of the gang? He always was good-looking for a boy. And he sure can make that fiddle talk. It makes the single women cry when he plays that Maiden’s Prayer. I’m glad he’s back playing music again.

You remember he got religion real bad one time and quit making secular music. He said it curbed his witness. I told Reverend Norman Tabernacle about it and he went and told Mark that the Lord wants us to make a joyful noise and Mark figured it was all right.

So, your mama is glad that you all are making that noise again. Write and call when you can. I’ll leave the light on and the key is still under the dog.

Love, Mama