Now, while we are discussing these home fires here,
let us clarify a few things and speak
of these fires in depth,
because evidently you are not receiving the true message I am
sending out here.
Now we do have two kinds of fires going on.
I have a fire, and you had a fire, because you see,
your fire has just about burned out.
It could be that you've been flicking your big
so much elsewhere until you done run out
of fuel.
I don't know this.
All I know is this house is cold.
There haven't even been any
ashes in this fireplace recently.
And I am about to add a third fire here,
an outside fire.
Now this fire has not yet started because I
thought you should know the consequences
of getting a fire started on the outside.
I am not talking about dropping a little
lit match somewhere on a wet day.
I am talking about burning down
a whole damn county.
Smokey the
Bear would hate me after this.
Now only you can prevent
this farmer's fire.
You can start by getting
the fire started right here.
I don't mean just one of them little
smoke signals going up,
cause your name ain't
Geronimo.
Now either you do this,
or there's going to be enough sparks flying around here till the
whole neighborhood goes to
think it's the 4th of
July, because I'm declaring
my independence.
My right for a man to offer me a
Tipperary law.
Oh yes, I'm going to be smoking.
Now I know you don't want this to happen,
because once you get an outside fire started,
you can't control it.
Every time you think you done about smothered it,
a good gust of wind come
through and set that
Mickey
Fickie on fire again.
And you could end up with
a wildfire.
And wildfires do have a
tendency to spread.
Oh no, don't think you can start a fire across
town and it's gonna stay over there.
If you mess around and get burned, it's gonna beat you home,
and ain't no need to tell your
old lady nothin' about it.
I can't do nothin' this week, baby.
I was liftin' somethin' down too heavy at the job,
and I got a strain.
No, buddy, the strain gonna be on your ass,
cause you done messed around and let these
outside fires reach your house.
And when an outside fire spread
all the way to your house,
you wake up one morning and your house is on fire,
building, collapsing down around your ass.
And you in trouble.
I ain't bullshitting.
You in trouble, boy.
I'm talking about the heat is on.
The heat is on.
Mm -hmm.
Oh, yeah.
All the heat is gone.
And when that much heat
get in your house,
Niagara
Falls couldn't put that mickey pickey out.
And strange things starts
happening around the house.
And then you come home one day,
lo and behold,
There's a different kind of log in the fireplace,
a log bigger than yours, a longer log than
yours, an d it just burns for hours,
even after the log burn down the coal stay hot, then
you know you're ass in trouble
It's time for you to gather
your twig and split
Now I want to tell you something here
This is what is about to
happen in our situation
I've been checking out the logs in the neighborhood,
nice logs, in fact there's a whole goddamn
An d I am ready with my axe to
chop down that first tree I see, baby.
I want you to know this.
So what I suggest you do here,
if you want to keep these home fires burning, is do like
they do when they go down town shopping if
you see something you want an d you
don't have the money or it might be a
little too expensive or whatever the
case is right now now ain't the time for you to
get it if you really want it you
oughta put in the layaway
Millie Jackson 
