won the cause but lost the war

won the cause but lost the war

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Old Jed Clampett would sit on the porch of the mansion with his second cousin Jethro and shoot flies off the thick walls surrounding his home. [1] Sometimes old Jed would whittle and sometimes he would jump up suddenly and dance an ancient  jig. Jed would take off his hat and cross it across his chest out of respect, whether dancing or whittling when Granny sat with him and whistled " Dixie".

It was good to be in California away from the sadness of the lost cause back home in the Hills of the South. No matter how much oil money Jed had there were still so many times he didn't want to remember and so many places back home he wouldn't go.

Old Jed was a strange old duck. For diversion sometimes he wanted to become a bull fighter and sometimes he wanted to become a legitimate philanthropist. Anything to fill up lost time.

Sometimes old Jed just whistled " Dixie" and tried to forget lost causes as he shot flies from the wall there at the house.

When he slept at night old Jed would dream and dream about "laying around the old shack there in the hills until the rail train came back." [2]
end

[1] Beverly Hillbillies created by Paul Henning a Film ways Pre-sentation

[2] "Rolling in my sweet babies arms" not attributed; traditional American folk music in the public domain.