Full Text of the Excerpt

BRENT GLASS:

Where would you go around here? Where could a young couple go? There were no movies, right?

JOHNNIE JONES:

Yes, movies. You'd go to the movies and go to the church and mess around. I've always been a man that goes to church on Sunday morning. And I get up Sunday morning, I'm headed for the church. I'd say, "You can stay here 'til I get back if you want; I'm going to church. Or you can come on and go with me to church." I'd leave them here and go on.

BRENT GLASS:

Well, when you were growing up, how did young men learn about women?

JOHNNIE JONES:

Well, they didn't have to learn them, they already know it. See, that's one thing you don't have to learn, a man or a woman. They already know that. It come up in moderation.

BRENT GLASS:

Oh really?

JOHNNIE JONES:

Yes.

BRENT GLASS:

Your father never sat you down and said, "Now look, son, this is what woman's like, or this is what you do with a girl, and so on and so forth"?

JOHNNIE JONES:

Yes, he'd tell you that. And in other words, he'd tell you, he'd say, "Don't you marry that girl. She ain't the right type for you." He'd say, "She's a bad girl, so don't do so and so." Well, that's left with you then. He tried to straighten me out. I remember him telling my brother once (he was about to marry a woman), he said, "Don't you marry that girl." And he messed around and married her. Well, he got the bad end of the deal.

BRENT GLASS:

He did?

JOHNNIE JONES:

Yes.

BRENT GLASS:

What was the reason your father had told him not to marry her?

JOHNNIE JONES:

Well, one thing, she'd run around, and she'd drink and mess around. He knowed it, but he wouldn't sit down and tell him the whole detail; he'd give him a hint of it. But he couldn't stop him. He just kept from doing what Daddy told him not to do. See, I've always been a hand. If I was going to do something, I'd go talk with my father.