Jebediah and his cousin Clem were out hunting. It was late November, and there was a definite chill in the air as they slogged through snow drifts that in several places were up to their armpits. They had been out for several hours and had succeeded in losing their way. Jeb insisted that the way back to the tractor was towards the setting sun, while Clem was adamant that moss only grew on the south side of a rolling stone, and thus the direction they needed to go was “thataway, yonder,” which happened to be the direct opposite of the direction in which Jeb was pointing. Neither one of the men was dressed for the weather, since their overalls were not waterproof and there were holes in their boots. Both had assumed that they would bag a moose shortly into the trip and be on their way home, apparently forgetting that moose are not native to Arkansas.
After wandering aimlessly around the forest for what seemed like hours, Jeb called a halt. “We needs to get a fire goin’,” he told Clem. “We’re gonna freeze to death out here.” The two of them gathered some branches from underneath trees that they passed and stacked them in a pyramid formation. Jeb leaned over with his ever-present Zippo and attempted to light the sopping wet branches.
Nothing happened. Although Jeb held the flame as steady as he could in the blustery wind, the branches stubbornly refused to catch fire. It was at this point that Jeb had a brainstorm. The ensuing chain of events was hereafter to be referred to as the Unfortunate Mayonnaise Jar Incident of ’97. “The wind keeps blowin’ them flames out,” he said to his cousin through chattering teeth. “We needs us a way to keep them out of the wind.”
Clem thought hard, and gradually a look that can be likened to a beaver sneaking up on a pine tree came over his face. “I’ll just empty out my moonshine,” he told Jeb. “Then we can dump the branches in the jar, and that’ll keep the wind off ‘em.”
Jeb, of course, was dead set against this course of action, since Clem’s moonshine was not only the best in the county, but also came in handy both as a paint remover and if you ran out of gas. The oversize mayonnaise jar Clem was carrying was full of the stuff, and Jeb was not too keen on dumping out the elixir that thus far had kept the two of them in high spirits.
He had to admit, however, that Clem’s idea was the best one on the table, so he took the jar from Clem. After downing an enormous gulp and letting Clem do the same, Jeb dumped the contents on the branches, and then set the branches inside the jar. The resulting formation looked rather like a vase of flowers in a psychotic tree surgeon’s front room. It was difficult to see the actual branches, since the fumes from the moonshine jar were obscuring the view, but he peered through the haze, leaned forward and struck the flint on the Zippo.
Reports are hazy after that, but both men were eventually found, staggering through the forest, clothed in blackened rags and not much else. Channel 9 News reported that rescuers were drawn to the small mushroom cloud emanating from the center of the forest. Clem’s hair eventually grew back, and Jeb is learning to get by with less than the standard accompaniment of eyes and ears. National Park Service employees spent two days searching for the remains of what the men swore was a moose that they had bagged before things went horribly awry, but were unable to locate the carcass.
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