If you take a right at the end of Pleasant street and go about 4 blocks you will run across the Marshall place on the right side. You can't help but notice it, as it is the only place in town with a smoke house. The smoke house is a fine white in color except for one place down by the door where it is a dirty white and looks like it has not been painted.

It was painted, but Elmo was not really paying attention when he was painting the smokehouse, and their dog, Fred, now known as Frosty, was laying down next to the smokehouse and got painted instead of the place that is shaped like a dog on the smokehouse. Elmo figured it was easer to rename the dog than it was to put another coat of paint on that section of the smokehouse.

Elmo is known all around Calhoun County for his smoked meats. Everyone wants one of his smoked hams for Christmas, and on occasion he has been known to smoke a turkey or two, but what everyone in Calhoun County really wants is Elmo's smoked bacon. To hear people hereabouts tell, there is no bacon as good as Elmo's is.

Most of the time he goes down to the butcher and buys a few slabs of back or belly to smoke, depending on the number of orders he has, and most of the time things come out just fine except - you all knew there had to be an "except" in here, didn't you? - the winter that his loving wife, Jewel Ann, got sick all of a sudden. 

Some say that she came down with the vapors, but most know it was a generous helping of Elmo's fried apples that did her in, or almost did her in. That was the year that Elmo made a couple of mistakes - the first being too much nutmeg in his fried apples. He knew that Jewel Ann loved them, so he should of hid them from her, but she forgave him.  And that was also the year the smoke house went berserk and over-smoked the bacon.

Now, most of the bacon that Elmo smokes comes out of the smokehouse with a small smell of the apple wood that he smokes it with, but what with having to rush Jewel Ann to the hospital and all, Elmo just didn't get back to the smokehouse in time, and the bacon - to put it mildly - was slightly over-smoked. 

Now Elmo spent a lot of time in the smokehouse, so his nose was smoked pretty well anyway, and when he had finished smoking the bacon he always put it in a plastic bag and marked the name of the person that wanted it on the outside of the bag so he would not make any mistakes. So it came as a surprise when Joe Brubaker came running up to Elmo shortly after he had taken home his bacon.

If you know Joe you know he loves his bacon and buys at least 5 pounds of it from Elmo a month. Joe was on fire, hopping mad, gone around the bend and pretty doggone upset by the time he got to Elmo's. It seems that when Elmo had taken his sweet wife Jewel Ann to the hospital and sat up with her all night, the smoke had really gotten into the bacon.

Joe had taken his bacon home and carefully sliced it to just the right thickness and had put a mess of it on to cook when the smoke smell hit. Now, when I say "hit" - it was not the subtle smell of the apple wood that assailed Joe's nostrils but the full force of bacon that has been smoked way too much.

 Joe's house filled with the smell of the smoke - it ran across the kitchen floor into the living room, and up the stairs and into the attic. It was strong and it was, well - smoky! Joe finally called the Calhoun County Fire Dept and had them come out and vent the house with their super heavy-duty fans so he could even get back in. The smell of smoke remained, and poor Joe is still trying to convince his wife it isn't his fault.

Except for that one occasion, Elmo has put out pretty good bacon or anything else smoked, and he asks you all to drop by and get some. He promises that there will be no more smoked bacon like that batch, providing that his sweet Jewel Ann does not get sick again. If that happens, then it's your problem.