well like i explained to you all before i ain t no drinkin man i tried it once and it got me highly irregular and i swore i d never do it again but i promised my brother in law that i d go up and watch his still while he went in to town to vote it was right up on the mountain where the map said it would be friends let me tell you one thing though it wasn t no ordinary still it stood up on that mountainside like a hugh golden opal god s yeller moon shinin on the cool clear evenin god s little lanterns twinklin on and off in the heavens like i explained to you once before i ain t no drinkin man but temptation got the best of me and i took a slash that yella whiskey runnin down my throat like honey dew vine water and i took another slash took another n another n another n for you knew i d downed one whole jug of that shit and commenced to gettin hot flashes goose pimples was runnin up and down my body and a feelin came over me like somethin i d never experienced before it was like like i was in love in love for the first time with anything that moved animate inanimate it didn t matter it s like there s a great neon sign flashin on n off in my brain sayin jimmy buffett there s a great day a comin cause i was drunk i wasn t knee crawlin slip slidin reggie youngin commode huggin drunk i was god s own drunk and a fearless man and that s when i first saw the bear he was a kodiak lookin fella bout nineteen feet tall he rambled up over the hill expectin me to do one of two things flip or fly i didn t do either one it hung him up he started sniffin around my body tryin to smell fear but he ain t gonna smell no fear cause i m god s own drunk and a fearless man it hung him up he looked right in my eyes and my eyes was a lot redder than his was it hung him up so i approached him i said mr bear i love every hair on your twenty seven acre body i know you got a lot a friends over there on the other side of the hill there s ole rare bear tall bear freddy bear kelly bear really bear smelly the bear smokey the bear pokey the bear i want you to go back over there tonight and tell them i m feelin right you tell them i love each and everyone of them like a brother and a sister but if they give me any trouble tonight i m gonna run every god damn one of them off the hill he took two steps backwards and didn t know what to think neither did i but bein charitable and cautious well hell i approached him again i said mr bear you know in the eyes of the lord we re both beasts when it comes right down to it so i want you to be my buddy buddy bear so i took ole buddy bear by his island size paw and i led him over to the still he s a sniffin around that thing cause he s smellin somethin good i gave him one of them jugs of honey dew vine water he downed it up right looked like one of them damn bears in the circus sippin sarsaparilla in the moonlight i gave him another n another n another n for i knew it he downed eight of them and commenced to doin the bear dance two snips a snort a fly turn and a grunt it was so simple like the jitter bug it plum evaded me we worked ourselves into a tumultuous uproar and i was awful tired and went over to the hillside and i laid down and went to sleep slept for four hours and dreampt me some tremulous dreams when i woke up there was god s yeller moon shinin on the clear cool evenin god s little lanterns twinklin on and off in the heavens my buddy the bear was a missin want to know something else friends and neighbors so was that still