y daddy eefed," Obe Sipple said much to our surprise, not at what he said but that he had spoken at all, it was so seldom he did. This was during one of those after lunch sessions at the New Zion Gen'l Mdse. Everybody who was going back to work had already gone and those left had settled in for the afternoon around the table.
Obe was short for Obadiah. There was an old story, probably untrue, that when he started to school and the teacher asked him his name, his speech was so slow and he took so long getting the first syllable out that she thought he was through, wrote it down in her book and moved on to the next child. Obe didn't mind having his name shortened, I imagine, since it meant less work on his part. Somebody once said, mistaking mouth for brains as we have a tendency to do, that Obe thought about as fast as he spoke, but that was by no means true. Obe was a woodcarver, an occupation that didn't require much talk, and a good one. He had wise hands. They could sense the form within the wood. Once I wanted an owl for my living room mantle piece. He patiently sorted through nearly his whole wood pile, hefting each piece, turning it this way and that, sometimes running his fingers gently along its surface, before he found just the right one.
"Owl," he said, holding it up and grinning. And it was. All it needed was releasing, which he did with consummate skill, and it brought me joy ever after.
Most of Obe's carvings were left unfinished. He sold to the Arts and Crafts set, and he understood early on that they preferred them that way. Primitive, they called them and shelled out ridiculous amounts for them.
Obe, in his forties, had never married, lived alone on the place that had belonged to his grandparents, then to his mama, and was now his. He came into town two or three times a week to the New Zion Gen'l Mdse to listen and laugh at the stories that were told. No one ever remembered him telling one or even trying to.
"What the hell is eefing, Obe?" Billy Blackburn asked, as usual without thinking. In a few hours it would be dark, not time enough for Obe to explain even if he tried. Wisely, he didn't. He thought about it a minute or two and then gave up.
Beechum Luvel, our mayor, and, right or wrong, our resident expert on just about everything, saved the day. "Eefing is a way of singing some syllables by breathing in. It makes a weird sort of sound which some people, myself included, find enjoyable, especially when it's done right. I have heard a few good eefers in my time. I never heard your daddy eef, Obe, because I was off to the wars before he come to this part of the country, but I'm sure he ranked right up there among the best."
"Mac Davis could eef," Cecil Ledbetter said. Ledbetter (no one uses his first name) raises soybeans. Once you get them in the ground and going there's not much to do until harvest except maybe spray them now and then and worry about the weather. You can do that in the rear of the New Zion Gen'l Mdse as well as any place else.
"Who in the hell is Mac Davis?" Billy asked.
"TV star."
"Never heard of him."
"Before your time," Ledbetter said. "Had him a TV show. Sung songs like, 'Lord, It's Hard To Be Humble.' Would eef ever once in a while. On one of his shows taught how to eef. Slowed ever thing down and told you how to breathe and all. I worked on it and got to where I could eef a little."
"Cliff Edwards," Beechum said, "now he was the granddaddy of eefing. It was him that give it the name. Learned it from black performers over in Missouri. Used to do it in the teens and twenties in blackface. Sold seventy-five million records, they claim. I knowed him as an old man. Retired, but still eefing. We done a duet once, me on the juice harp and him eefing."
"I never was any good but I got to where I could eef a little," Ledbetter said.
"Frank Floyd, now he was another eefer," Beechum said.
"Never heard of him, neither," Billy said.
"Frank was the blamedest performer I ever saw. He'd take out his teeth and stick a French harp in his jaw like it was a cigar and he'd sing awhile and eef awhile and then waller that French harp around in his mouth and play that awhile and then waller it back out of the way again and play the kazoo. Never used his hands once."
"Where'd he keep the kazoo?" Billy asked.
"Didn't have no kazoo. Just used his lips to make the sound. He could do just about any wind instrument. Seen him play two French harps at once, one with his mouth and the other'n with his nose, lead on one and harmony on the other. Now, that takes concentration!"
"Now I come to think of it, they was a man on Hee Haw that eefed," Ledbetter said. "Fact, it was two of them. Sometimes they eefed together. Sometimes one would eef and somebody else would hambone."
"What in the hell is hambone?" Billy said.
"Don't you know nothing a-tall?" Ledbetter asked.
"You're being too hard," Beechum said. "Billy, growing up in modern times, hasn't had the educational opportunity we had, the opportunity of doing for yourself. Make allowances." To Billy he said kindly, "Hamboning is setting up a rhythm by double slapping your thigh and then double-slapping your chest. I can hambone a little."
"I can eef some," Ledbetter said. "We could give him a little demonstration."
"Fine by me. What you want to eef?
"'Went to the River' is the only one I know."
"Lead off and I'll find a place to jump in," Beechum said, hitching his chair around and leaning forward so as to shorten the distance between his thigh and chest. We all leaned forward, too, not wanting to miss anything.
Ledbetter cleared his throat and began.
Went to the river--eef!
Couldn't get across--eef!
Beechum had come in with a steady flippity-flop flippity-flop, flippity-flop, flop .
Jumped on a nigger--eef!
Thought he was a hoss--eef!
Spurred that nigger--eef!
Run him through the sand--eef!
Come on, black man, pull for the land--eef
Eef-ah! eef-ah! eef-ah! eef-ah! eef-ah! eef-ah! ah!
"Hey!" Billy said, "You used the N-word! You ain't allowed to do that no more."
"Why not?"
"They don't like it."
"They who?"
"Nuh--black people, that's who."
"I don't see no black people to not like it," Ledbetter said. "Besides, it wasn't me. It was the song. It's older'n you and me put together, and that's the way it goes."
"You're s'pose to change it."
"Ain't my song. You don't like it, you change it."
"Daddy could hambone," Obe said.
Like Beechum, I didn't know Obe's daddy. I was off to the wars, too, but I had heard the story. He had been a musician, had a little string band and an old car, roamed all over the Southeast seldom making more than expenses. Once when he was playing in the high school gym over in Princeton, a few miles from here, he looked out into the audience and there was Obe's mama-to-be. He married her, gave up the band, moved in with her and her folks and vowed to settle down, but he just couldn't do it. Within a year, he was on the road again, leaving her pregnant with Obe.
"Once he was eefing and hamboning at the same time," Obe said. "Mama thought he was having a fit, throwed a bucket of water on him."
"That ain't the way you treat people having a fit," Billy said.
"Worked for dogs, Mama said."
Even Billy got it and laughed.
"Died before I was born," Obe said, "in a car wreck. Asleep at the wheel, they said. Just a picture hanging on the wall to me. Never got to hear him eef," he added with profound regret.
