Stories With Humor

Tyrrell and Washington Counties, NC

I

“Years ago people in Gum Neck went by water. They ordered groceries, sold their crops, and killed and shipped their meat by boat from Cherry Ridge Landing. A story was told about a man named Fred Armstrong. He killed and dressed his hogs and sent them by boat to Elizabeth City. A few days later he received a note back saying that due to the fact that your hogs were not well dressed, we couldn’t pay you but 3.5 cents a pound. There was nothing he could do so he said, ‘Well, I knew they weren’t well dressed because they didn’t have anything on but a burlap bag.’”




II

“This story was told about a man by the name of Paul Jones who ran a store. About one-quarter mile down the road there lived a preacher. One day this preacher told his son to go down to Mr. Paul Jones’s store before church to get some cheese and eggs, then come on back to church. So the boy did what his dad said. When he got to church his dad was preaching on the apostle Paul and said: “What did Paul say?’ Then he said it again louder, hitting the pulpit with his fist: … ‘What did Paul say?’ His boy, thinking his dad was asking him, stood up and said, ‘Mr. Paul said you couldn’t git no more until you paid for what you is got.’”

Buddy Brickhouse

III

“A minister went to see an elderly, bed-ridden patient. As they were talking he noticed a bowl of peanuts on the bedside table and reached over and got a few and ate them. Then he said to the sick woman, ‘These are really good peanuts, aren’t they?’ She replied ‘I don’t know about that, but the chocolate on them was delicious.’”

Source: Some of the Blue Hens Chickens: Tyrrell and Washington County Folk Culture. Collected by local residents in July 1997 and published by the Humanities Extension/Publications Program at NC State University in September 1999.