Saturday, October 01, 2011

Big windies

Tell It For Truth
DOUG MAHNKEY IS STORYTELLING
Visit this link "big windies" for some down home Ozark style windies.
Doug Marnkey who was a lawyer in Taney county Mo. for many years.


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My first law office was down in old Forsyth on the old square in Taney County. I had an office upstairs rented from Charles H. Groom at seven dollars and half a month. I had a little wood stove, two or three pieces of furniture and little cane bottom chairs made for me by Joe Cranfil for seventy-five cents apiece. I was the first door as you got to the end of this long stairway and the next was the beauty shop and the next was the surveyor's office. I hadn't had a case. I had been there about a month and nobody had come. So I'd hear somebody coming up the stairway and I think maybe I've got a client. But invariably it would be for the beauty shop or the surveyor's office.

One day, behold, there was an old lady came in and she said, "Are you a lawyer?"

And I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She said, "Well, they tell me I've got to have a quiet title suit on my land. What would be your fee for filing a quiet suit for me?"

I said, "Fifty dollars."

She said, "My goodness, I could get a good lawyer for that."

Down the stairs she went and I lost my first client.

I enjoy telling stories like this from my own experiences. I don't know how I got started telling so many stories. My stories are mostly true stories, but now some people tell big windies. Sometimes I've embossed on them a little bit and changed the locale and the name of the people. I have told my family that many of the fellows I grew up with have amassed considerable property, collecting lands, cattle, stock and bonds, but I guess I just collected stories. I have enjoyed it. A good story, like a good companion, stands one in good stead as old age approaches. Pondering of these tales of our youth helps to make each day brighter, even though one is most four score years.

Another windy..
Purd Hays was a fine gentleman, and a good lawyer, but he was the most vicious cross-examiner. That's what made him a good lawyer, I guess. He was cross-examining an elderly woman on the witness stand and he was going after her hammer and tongs. She was giving about as good as he could give, and pretty soon she said, "Purd Hays, if you was my husband, I'd give you pisen."

And Purd Hays stood up and said, "And yes, if I was your husband, I'd gladly take it."

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