It’s mosquitas at night, flies durin’ the day. Them goddamn bugs work in shifts, jus’ like they’s workin’ fer a damn fact’ry. Ya spend yer life outdoors, ‘n ya gotta ‘spect some nasty dealin’s from mother nature. If it ain’t bugs, it’s the weather er some’um. Heat in the summer ‘n cold in the winter. If it’s rainin’, ye’ll most likely git wet. If it’s snowin’ ye’ll git cold. Yer out in it mos’ the time, ‘n what it is the weather decides on doin’ is what’cha live with. You live it. You may not like it part a the time, but ye’ll live through the worst of it.

Slept in places so thick with mosquitas, they was like soup. Wake up in the mornin’, ‘n find dead ones in yer hair ‘n ears. Them big red ones, feedin’ on yer blood all night, gettin’ bloated up so big they c’n barely fly. It’s like that all over the swamp country. That L&N from New Orleans to Florida, makin’ runs through them bayous ‘n swamps. Ev’rytime that train stops, them mosquitas’ll be at yer throat. Them little bastards come right in the car to where yer ridin’.  Don’t take ‘em but a second ‘fore they’s all over ya. They smell ya out. Ya be swattin’ ‘em, tryin’ ta keep ‘em off ya ‘n cussin’ out the damn hoghead fer stoppin’ in the son of a bitchin’ place. Be like ‘at all summer, ‘speshly if yer ‘roun’ them swamps.

I jungled in a place in Florida, on the Seaboard line, fer a couple-three days, had mosquitas so bad they’d ‘bout drive ya outta yer mind. It was on the edge a this big swampy lake. Lake was fulla alligators, but they never come up into camp. Hell, after three nights a mosquitas buzzin’ in yer ears, ya’d welcome a gator in camp jus’ ta have some’um aroun’ that din’t make no buzzin’ soun’. Had a blanket I’d git under, but it didn’ do no good. I’d no sooner git under it, ‘n a hundred a them little bastards’d be under there with me, buzzin’ in my ears. Got so bad I’d git up ‘n run aroun’ camp ta shake ‘em off me. Fine’ly couldn’t stand it no more. Drivin’ me outta my right mind. Got so I started talkin’ to ‘em, cussin’ at ‘em ‘n yellin’ like I was crazy. I was runnin’ aroun’ camp, yellin’ like a crazy man, ‘n ran up ta the yards, ‘n caught out on the first thing movin’. Didn’ pay no mind where the goddamn train was headed, long as I got them bugs blowed off me. Left a goddamn good cast iron banjo in that jungle.

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