I tend to keep an eye at Uncle Julius from the first day I met him and he advised me not to buy the vineyard because it was goophered. I feel like his motives were to keep us away. I can’t blame him; he was probably living off the vineyard. To his bad luck, I don’t believe in goopher tales, and so I purchased the land. My wife in the other hand liked his tales, and was very pleased when I told her that I would hire Uncle Julius as our coachman to keep us company, and tell us his stories.

I started carrying a notebook, to take notes and write down what uncle Julius does and tells us. I considered studying stenography at that time, since i wanted to write as fast as Uncle Julius spoke; I thought it would be difficult since Uncle Julius talks in African American Vernacular English. In my notes, I try to write down exactly how Uncle Julius speaks; I believe it might be difficult for readers to read, but I tried my best to write it as phonetically as possible. I find it interesting that when he quotes a white person, he quotes them in the AAVE, and so I wonder if he quotes me in the AAVE as well.

keeping Uncle Julius supervised has been beneficial, since the actual reason for hiring Julius was for his vineyard experience; he has been living in the land and knows the land better than anyone. I would say that Uncle Julius knows the land too well; there are times when I feel that Uncle Julius is hiding things from me. The notes have proven to been of great use; Thanks to rereading the tale that Uncle Julius told us about a year ago of the man who was turned to a wolf, who killed his wife who was turned into a cat, I was able to find a bee-tree with honey in the woods near the swamp when I finally decided to clear the space up.

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