Two older adults playing musical instruments in a rustic old cabin or shed setting. 1:39
moronbrothersKY channel icon moronbrothersKYOriginal creator 475K views Save

Poor Herb and the new bus that raced a train

In an old cabin, two men with a banjo and a guitar get to talking, and one asks the other if he remembers that January out in Jefferson City, Missouri. more

He does. That was the trip when Rhonda Vincent got her brand new bus, a big, pretty one. The teller is careful to say this is only the story he heard. A good tall tale usually starts that way.

Rhonda's husband, Herb, was looking the bus over when she called him aboard. "Get up on here," she said. "Let me take you riding." Soon they were flying down the highway, Herb looking out the window and Rhonda telling him, "This thing will fly."

Then she looked up and saw a freight train coming to cross the road. Here was her chance to prove it. "I'll beat that train," she said, and she sped the big bus up. Herb asked her what she was doing. "You can't beat the train," he told her.

Just in time, she saw she wasn't going to make it. She hit the brakes, and the new bus slid down the road sideways with its tires squalling, until it screeched to a stop just short of the train. Herb sat there with his eyes wide open as the freight went by right in front of them.

Those old rubber tires were burning and smoking on the blacktop. Rhonda looked over at her husband and asked one small question. "Do you smell that?"

Two older adults playing musical instruments in a rustic old cabin or shed setting. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
In an old cabin, two men with a banjo and a guitar get to talking, and one asks the other if he remembers that January out in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Herb's answer is the punchline, and it has nothing to do with the tires. The whole story comes out slow and dry, the way stories get told on a porch, with the other brother putting in a "Yeah" near the start.

Lardo and Burley, the Moron Brothers, also sing parody songs on banjo and guitar, but a story like this is where their timing shows. Many viewers say the two remind them of their own relatives, or of how stories got told where they grew up. One guessed that making it look this easy takes a lot of practice and a little genius. Nobody hurries and nobody oversells it. They just let the train go by.