In the same house as the long staircase that took out Mama's tailbone. Two or three in the morning...Chief wakes us to a sensation of intense heat...the bed is on fire. The Chief and Betty Lou always slept in the raw and had a bad habit of smoking in bed...mix that with the usual Saturday night intake and it is not good. This night it caught up with them. Jumping from the bed and pulling Betty Lou out of harms way, the Chief rolled the mattress up and charged through the house onto the front lawn, pulled out the hose and started spraying it down...naked as the day he was born.
The next day they went to town and bought a new mattress...tied it to the top of the old '55 Chevy...and drove it home. When they got to the house, the Chief expected to roll it up as he had the night before and carry it in...it was the same kind of mattress and all. But try as he might, he couldn't roll it up. He wrestled with it for quite some time with no success. Betty Lou allowed as how it was a case of adrenalin providing super strength in times of emergency. They were marvelling at that when the neighbor lady stuck her head out of her window and shouted, "Hey, Chief! Maybe you should try it without your clothes!"