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Tater is humbled Tater and Marlene is at a feed shovelin conference out in San Francisco and as you can probably guess, some of them boys is pretty sharp. One of em gave a talk on how to shovel feed so's you can stack it high as you want, and tell you what, Tater didn't understand but a tenth of it. Thought he knew shovelin, but seems like they's some mighty subtle tricks you can do with that shovel Tater ain't never tried. Humbled. Then Tater and Marlene went over to one of Marlene's old friends house for dinner. Took the number 31 bus out there, and tell you what, they's some crazy folk on that bus. About half the regular folk is Chinese, and they just sit there real quiet, then a crazy feller gets on there got a feud goin with another crazy feller already on there, and they commence to shoutin and promisin to "fuck you up" at each other. They carried on for a number of blocks until one of em got off, and the other one kept on carryin on to hisself until he got off. Ain't got nothin like that in the holler, except maybe when ol Roy Cooter gets a snootfull. Mumbled. So Marlene and Tater get off up there and get to her friend's house, and by God, they had cooked a big ol chicken standin up like it was singin opera or somethin, And they had fancy cheeses and fresh plucked radishes and little tiny squashes and saffron rice and fresh killed salad and about twenty different wines, and DAMN it was good. BUt what was humblin was when they commenced to talkin. Now, it weren't nothin to do with feed, but it was politics, and while Tater has his opinions, he don't think on em much. He just gets a few thoughts in a row seem to be related and then he says em and that's it. But these folks had thought about this stuff, so that you comment on somethin they just said and then they go off and talk about that like they was readin it outa some book already wrote real good, not a "mmm hmmm" or a "tell you what" or "you reckon?" in there at all. And it weren't just politics. They talk about the weather, they know their weather science, and they talk about the economy, they know their economy science, and they talk about doctorin, they know their poultices and such. So Tater had to keep his mouth shut a whole lot so's he wouldn't sound a fool, but that's a good thing. It's good to spend some time with folks smarter'n you so you get a sense of where you fit in to the big picture. Humbled, Tater Gumfries

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