Slim Randles' Home Country

Why they call it "Mammoth Cave"

[December 16, 2015]  Windy Wilson was cruising around the other day, in search of an audience, but the cold drove him indoors … at the elementary school cafeteria.

“What’s that you say? Coldest you ever been? Well, kids, let me tell you somethin’ about cold!

“When I was just a tad, we was comin’ off what they used to call an Ice Age, you know. Thassa fact. It was so cold back then we had to use special thermometers to see how cold it was. Mixed anti-freeze in with the mercury or it wouldn’t work. If you had a regular thermometer, had to bring it in the house to make it work.

“Speakin’ of bringin’ things in the house … most mornin’s it was so cold we had to bring the milk cow in the house to milk her. If you tried it outside, them faucets would just break right off! Why, one time the train coming here from the east got so cold it plumb froze solid at sixty miles an hour. Yessir, just locked up, wheels and steam boiler and the whole caboodle. This happened about four miles east a-here, but them passengers was safe. You see, that train was going fast enough when it froze that it just slid the rest of the way into town and came to a dead stop right by the station house. Thassa fact.”

Windy warmed to his cold subject.

“’Course, by the time I come along, it was gettin’ harder to find them woolly mammoths, you know. Got too dang warm for their wooliness. Yessir, they all migrated to Kentucky and holed up in a big ol’ cave. Named it in their honor, a-course. Look it up on the map. Call it Mammoth Cave.

“So it ain’t really whatcha call cold out here, but you kids should probably still dress warm … you know … ‘case the temperature drops.”

[Text from file received from Slim Randles]

Ol' Jimmy Dollar is Slim Randles' first children's book.  The book is for kids K-3rd grades and is even better when parents read it with children.  Ol' Jimmy Dollar makes for sweet dreams and if you have a dog even better.  Available now on Amazon.