When Mother was about five the family went to dinner with the Reynolds (Maggie McNeely Reynolds was his adopted sister). After the meal, Poppy, Rayburn Reynolds and Uncle Steve announced that they were "going to see a man about a knife." The peculiar turn of phrase caught Mother's childish attention and she started asking "You're going to see a man about a knife? What man?" and so on. The women just laughed and told her that her father was having her on, but they didn't explain where the men had gone.
In fact, the men had gone to see a local bootlegger to pick up some illicit hooch.
