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Beyond The Cotton Fields, Part 5


Part 5 of Beyond The Cotton Fields. This part of my first book was one of the most difficult to write. I was emontional spend by the time I wrote the last chapter, Farewell To Oak Hill Farm. In sharing my life and memories with my daughters I pretty much told everything I had seen or felt while focusing on the positive parts of my life. We all have negative moments, but I purposely chose to dwell on the the good parts. Thankfuly, time has smoothed away many hurts I encountered while growing up. I hope you enjoy these chapters.

HOMETOWN FAVORITES

There are people we know that make such an impression on us we can never forget them. There were people in my hometown that made wonderful impressions on me and I would like you to remember them as I do. They are the people who give towns and communities their uniqueness and individuality.

In some instances names have been changed or left out intentionally.

MARGIE MILES DEVORE

We encounter people every day on our journey through life. Unfortunately, many times we judge them on first impressions. I learned long ago not to do that. You never know how beautiful a person is until you get to know them. Such was the case with Margie.

Margie was the owner and operator of a local slaughter house in my hometown. At first glance she may have appeared to be a little rough around the edges. She wore overalls or blue jeans most of the time. She was short, stout, a straight talker and drove a truck.

Looks can sometimes be deceiving. Once you got to know her, you knew she had a heart of gold. She was an interesting and wonderful person who did not hide her opinions on any subject. She called things like she saw them and the world would be a better place if we all did the same.

Margie went to the local livestock sale barn on Tuesdays when the auction was held and sat there among all the men to buy cattle. There was no foul language used around her. She did not tolerate it and would put a man in his place when she heard a profane word.

We raised our own beef and when it was time to have a calf slaughtered we would take it to Margie's place on the north side of town. She would process it and call us when it was time to pick it up.

When my father was terminally ill, Margie frequently drove out to our farm to visit him. She often brought a stack of western novels she had finished reading so my father could read them while he was confined to the house. She knew he loved westerns.

She learned that near the end of his life, one of the few things he could take for nourishment and enjoy was fresh buttermilk. She heard about a farmer in the south part of our county that frequently made fresh butter milk. On many occasions she drove several miles for that buttermilk and brought it to my father.

Angels unaware? Yes, I know Margie was one of them. Look around. You probably have encountered one, too. They are everywhere.

STEVE CAGLE

Steve Cagle was in my oldest brother's class. Steve had Cerebral Palsy. His loving family wanted him to be involved with the children his age, and he was.

He went to school everyday just like all the other children. It was said he excelled in history and often fellow students would ask for his help with the questions they had about homework. He was an avid reader.

When my brother's class graduated in 1965, Steve was there, also. He marched down the aisle and received his diploma just like everyone else. That was how special our school system was. I don't have any idea how he did in school… how his grades were or how much he participated in school activities, but he was an important part of the class.

Steve probably taught his classmates many lessons that were not found in the text books. They learned to accept people who were faced with challenges unlike theirs. They learned life does not always give everyone the same advantages and some have more difficulties to overcome or deal with than others. They learned to take up for their classmates. Like I said, they were learning from him as much as he was learning in his classes at school.

When I was in town on Saturdays I often saw him walking along the street flying the little balsa wood airplanes he bought at the dime store. He could spend hours on end playing with the planes.

At other times I would see him at Bill Tabor's drug store reading comic books in the magazine section. He must have read every comic book in the store. I'll venture to guess he was probably an unofficial authority on all the major super-heroes of the 20th century.

One Sunday morning Steve was on his way to church and while passing Tabor Drug's he noticed the door was open, so he walked in to take a look at the comic section. Mr. Tabor had run in the store to prepare a prescription for a customer and did not know he was there.

When he finished filling the prescription he hurriedly left on his way to church and Steve was locked in the store by himself. Fortunately, someone came by and saw him. Mr. Tabor was sitting in church when someone tapped him on the shoulder and informed him of the mishap. He excused himself from the service and returned to the store to let Steve out.

I was younger than Steve and I did not get to know him on a personal basis, but I always wondered what his thoughts were. He always seemed happy and in his own little world. He was another treasure of our little town that the people held dear to them.

During the writing of these stories I have had the privilege of contacting many people who I have written about. Several have brought up his name and the fond memories they have of him and others that made our hometown a special place to grow up in. Unlike many who have faded into the past never to be remembered again, Steve is part of our past that is remembered fondly.

Time has marched on for him as it has for all of us. His eyesight no longer allows him to read like he once did. Now he has become a Jeopardy fan and amazes people with his knowledge and ability to answer the questions.

I can now look back to where I grew up and realize how special those people and times were. Steve is among the good memories.

NO LUCK HALLAWAY

I, personally, did not know No Luck Hallaway even though I had seen him in town on several occasions. I can only imagine why he received the nick-name, No Luck.

And that is what everyone called him….No Luck. No Luck, as far as I know, was an okay person. I never heard anything disparaging about him, other than he was called No Luck.

Evidently, No Luck wanted to be a public servant. Several times he ran for public office. A few times he actually got a few votes, but he never came close to winning a primary or an election.

The last time I remember No Luck running for public office, he wanted to be our sheriff. I cannot remember who he was running against, but it was no contest… as usual. And as usual his opponent won by a landslide.

The morning after the election, No Luck was walking along Main Street with a small Banty Rooster under his arm. Someone hollered, "Hey, No Luck, what are you going to do with that little rooster?"

To which he replied, "I'm gonna have a feast and invite all my friends who supported me in the election."

Some may wonder why I put this story in this chapter. No Luck taught me a valuable lesson. He taught me that if you believe in something strong enough you should never give up. If you are knocked down… get up and keep trying, but never lose your sense of humor. If we can't laugh at ourselves we are a pretty sad lot.

JOHNNY HIGHTOWER

He was a walker. Johnny lived on the edge of town and come rain or shine he walked into town every day of the year except for Sundays.

Johnny had Down syndrome and was known and loved by everyone in the town. He always dressed nicely. He wore a hat, white shirt, slacks and dress shoes. He had certain stops he made on his way into town and on his way out of town. You could set your watch by him. He took the same route every single day.

He began his daily trip into town by stopping at Rosamond Atkinson's store at the intersection of Highways 14 and 25. After that he made his way to Sullivan's Grocery Store before walking on to Mr. Garvin's convenience store on West Main Street.

After he crossed the railroad tracks he made his way to Aubrey Sullivan's Barber Shop. The first time I met Johnny was at the barber shop. My father and the three of us boys had our hair cut every two weeks at Aubrey's. His barber shop was in a front room of his house. Tacked on to the side of the house was a little store that Aubrey's wife, Gladys, ran. It was, also, the waiting room for the barber shop. A window connected the barber shop and the store. Aubrey would take a mental note of who was in the store and holler through the window for whoever was next in line. When our turn came we walked out of the store, onto the porch, and entered the one chair barber shop.

The waiting room/store had wooden soft drink cases that we sat on end and used for chairs. It was like hunting over a baited field for Mrs. Sullivan. Kids waiting for their hair cuts had to have a soft drink and a candy bar. In the fall my father would drop us off at the barber shop for our 50 cent hair cut, and then he would drive around the corner to the cotton gin.

That was one of Johnny's stops coming into town. I had never seen anyone like Johnny. He was always smiling. He talked funny and was like a big child in an old body. I was young and did not know there was anything wrong with him. All I knew was that he came in every time we were there to get a hair cut and Mrs. Sullivan always gave him a Coke and a candy bar… no charge. She would talk to him for a few minutes and he would give her a big hug. When his Coke was gone he would burp real loud. Then he would smile real big and say, "Scuse me." I would always laugh.

After that stop Johnny would leave and start his walk into town. It was only when I was older I found out he had Down syndrome. He would visit just about every store on Main Street. All the store owners knew and loved him. Most of the time they would give him a nickel or dime and he would visit a minute or two before moving on to the next store.

Years later, Johnny's nephew informed me Johnny probably drank fifteen or more Cokes on his daily trek into town. He, also, said there was no doubt in his mind that Johnny was saved when he passed away. He had a passion for baptisms. Whenever he learned of a church having a baptism he made arrangements to be there. I was told he had been baptized in ponds, creeks and in most of the churches in town. He wanted to make certain he was ready.

I was further informed that Johnny had probably been to every visitation held at the funeral homes in town. He liked to pay his respects to the dearly departed. After his health and legs began to fail him his nephew became his best friend and chauffer when he turned 15 and obtained his driver's license.

They say people with Down syndrome do not live long. Johnny was the exception. He lived to be an old man who had to use a cane to help him with his walks into town. You see, all that walking was actually good for him and it was most likely the reason he lived so long… that and the love and support of his family and all his friends in town. Who says life is not good?

CHARLIE

Between our house and town was a sharp curve we referred to as Dead Man's Curve. Just before the curve on the right side of the road was the county farm. Some called it the poor house. Actually, there were three or four long buildings. Each one had a front porch that ran the length of the building and each building had about four rooms with doors that opened to the porch.

The poor house was where people who were really down on their luck went to live. I can only remember old people living there. They had no family to take care of them. So, the county would let them live there and provide for their basic needs… food, clothing and shelter.

Each Christmas we took baskets of food and other items that were needed to the people at the county farm.

Across the road from the poor house was the caretaker's home. Also, in the curve on the right side of the road was a barn. They kept a cow there and a couple of mules. They used the cow for its milk and the mules were used to work their garden.

Charlie was in charge of the mules. Charlie was an adult who was challenged. He would work the mules in the garden and whenever a vehicle passed he would always stop and wave until they went out of sight. There were people in the community that would ask Charlie to plow their gardens for them and we often saw him walking down the road leading the mules while going to someone's garden nearby.

When he was not with the mules he was sitting by a door on the porch in a straight back chair watching for people driving down the road. He loved to wave at them. I remember Daddy would stop by from time to time and check on Charlie to make sure he was alright. He loved company, but could not carry on a conversation. He would just stand there and nod and giggle.

One by one the old people passed away and the rooms at the poor house grew vacant. Charlie was the last one left. As far as I know he was there all by himself. Finally, the county decided to close the poor house. Its day had passed, too.

I heard the caretaker took Charlie in and he lived with him. Eventually, the old buildings were auctioned off. Someone bought them and moved them to a church camp in the south part of the county. The county, eventually, cleaned off the lot and built an office complex there.

When I go back home and drive down that road I always think of Charlie. I imagine he is in heaven now, sitting near the gates and waving at the people as they come in.

THE LADY BEHIND THE GLASS

People die every day and families pay their last respects to honor their memories in many different ways. It may be by the funeral or a special casket or something special that the deceased may have wanted.

I recently read about a man in Chicago who had a casket made that looks like a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can. He loves that brand of beer. Currently, he is using the casket as a giant beer cooler. Different strokes for different folks… so the say.

There was a beautiful lady who died many years ago in the county where I grew up. I have never seen it, but when I was growing up I heard from countless people that she was buried in a glass casket.

She was either the daughter or wife of a wealthy logger in the area. Her death was expected and arrangements were made to preserve her body for the ages. When she passed away her body was prepared for burial and placed into a casket with some type of glass container that was placed under a vacuum and sealed.

It was then placed in a grave and a special top was slipped down over the top of the grave that covered the glass container. It was said that several times over the years funeral directors would, occasionally, perform a burial in that cemetery and out of curiosity they would get several men together and lift the top off the glass casket to check on her.

They say she always looked just as she did the day she was buried. Unfortunately, over the years the top was taken off too frequently during the daylight hours and moisture from inside the body was drawn up to the top and caused the glass to fog over. After that occurred the lady was no longer visible behind the glass.

WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

I had a good friend who would visit an elderly cousin of mine. One day she called him and told him someone she knew had passed away. The funeral was being held at a church out in the county and she wanted to go, but she did not have a way to get there. She asked if he would be willing to take her. He had nothing going on that afternoon and went by to pick her up.

While driving through the county on some remote road, my cousin remarked as they passed a house that old "so and so" lived there. Then she said, "He is not the man he thinks he is."

My friend was puzzled by her statement and asked what she meant.

She said, "Well in my younger days I used to work for the county health department, and I know for a fact that his father was sterile. There was no way that man could have fathered children. Not many people knew that. Those matters were kept very private in those days. However, he and his wife raised several children. They needed children to help out on the farm and raise the crops."

My friend looked at her and asked, "If his father was sterile how on earth did he manage to have a son and all those other children?"

My cousin stoically replied "Well, I'll put it this way; he had a real good neighbor."

LANDMARKS FROM DAYS GONE BY

There are places in everyone's hometown that remain in their memories which make hometowns special. Louisville was no different. Some of the places I have already mentioned in other chapters. Places like the ice house where we bought blocks of ice and water melons and the Soldiers Monument which still stands at the intersection of Main Street and Columbus Avenue. Also, dear to my childhood memories were the Strand Theatre where I was born on the second floor and where I took my first date. Then there was Lake Tiak-O'khata where my cousin Diane Bennett taught me how to swim.

There were a few landmarks in days gone by that are no longer around. There was the Winston Hotel that stood at the corner of South Church and Park Streets; the Annie Williams antebellum home that stood where the Sun Flower grocery store parking lot is now located on South Church Street and the old First Baptist Church building that stood on the corner near the present church.

Another old building that fascinated me was the old hotel on Depot Street. It was the Luther Tate Hotel. As long as I could remember there was a sign over the front entrance that proclaimed, "LUTHER TATE HOTEL, UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT." I guess it was constantly under new management.

Down the street near the railroad depot was The Depot Café. There was a story that circulated about a midget that was in the café one time and he claimed he could change his weight so that no one could lift him off the floor.

Several young strapping boys on the high school football team heard about him and decided to go down to the depot and try their luck at picking the little fellow up. To prove that he could be lifted off the floor, the little man would let some small guy in the café lift him up to show all the people standing around that it could be done.

When any of the football players put down their money and tried to lift him, he supposedly changed his weight and they could not pick him off the floor. Many tried, but if they tried to pick him up under his specific instructions their efforts were futile. Before leaving town he shared his secret with another small guy and that person shared the secret of the "magic weight change" with me.

I discovered the little secret worked every time. It did not matter how strong the person was, they were not able to lift me. When I was younger I had a lot of fun with that trick.

In years past many of Louisville's streets had been brick. As times changed the bricks were slowly paved over with asphalt. Depot Street was one of the last brick streets I remember.

If people can be landmarks there was another man I often saw on the streets of Louisville who could not talk, but gosh, could he draw. I never saw him without a drawing tablet. He would see someone and quickly draw their picture. Then he would approach them and show his handy work.

More often than not, the person whose picture he had drawn would reach into their pocket and give him a few dollars. I never knew his name and by the time I was old enough to go to town on my own he was no longer there. I have often wondered about him and what became of our artist on Main Street.

During the spring and summer months the center of Main Street was often where truck farmers would park to sell fresh vegetables from the back of their vehicles. In the spring they would have "greens" followed by a season of strawberries and blackberries. Blackberry season gave way to tomatoes and fresh corn.

In the fall we often bought sorghum, sugar cane and pumpkins from the street vendors. I guess my favorite was the gentleman who came to town and sold small bags of parched peanuts. I always watched for him because he knew the art of roasting his peanuts to perfection.

Other landmarks that have disappeared over the years were Fair Lumber Company on Highway 15 South and McCully's Grocery store on the corner of East Main and Columbus Avenues. There were a couple of grocery stores on Main Street when I was younger. One was owned by Mr. Ralph Hathorn and another was Jitney Jungle owned by the Smith family. Foster's Department Store was located at the corner of Main and South Court Street. It was owned and operated by Roscoe Foster and his son, Elton. Blon Harris Hardware was located on the opposite corner of Main near the old Western Auto Store.

There were two funeral homes on East Main that were across the street from each other. One was Green-Wilkes Funeral Home and the other was Harris Funeral home. The city park was located on South Church Street where a little building was located that may have been Winston County's first Library. The Community House was north of it and was where the old Masonic Lodge was located on the upper floor in years past. It was later remodeled and the lower floor became the Chamber of Commerce while the upper level was rented out for private events. When I was younger I attended a lot of dances in that building.

Slowly, the city park disappeared as the new library, and the city hall were built.

Another landmark, the old courthouse, was torn down and replaced by the newer one in the 1960s. I always thought the old courthouse looked like a spooky place because of its gothic architecture.

I can still hear the roar of kid's skates as they packed into the old skating rink on weekends north of town. The skating rink was a huge building with a wooden floor. It sat on the edge of a hill and the sound would penetrate the under side of the building and travel for a long way. It almost sounded like an airplane getting ready for takeoff.

Other stores from the past that are no longer in existence on Main Street were the Walker Chain Store, Ben Franklin's, Frazier's Shoe Shop, Minneola's, Hickman's Drug Store, Scott's Pharmacy, Files Barber Shop, The Duck Shop, A. Q. Anderson's Drug Store, Jones' Men's Wear, Stubbs Department Store and Libby's which was a shoe store.

Time has changed the names and facades of most of the buildings, but the thoughts of walking down Main Street on Saturdays where the sidewalks were always crowded and everyone seemed to know everyone else will always be a treasured memory.

Ibi nullus locus similis domus est.

(There's no place like home.)

"CHECKING OUT" A WIFE AT THE LIBRARY

My wife and I recently celebrated an anniversary. Prior to our anniversary we attended a wedding in Mississippi and I was able to visit with cousins I had not seen in several years. One cousin and I were discussing the wedding and guessing how the newlyweds had first met. Then she turned to me and asked, "How did you and Tina meet? How did you two become engaged?" I must say that brought back a flood of memories.

I first saw Tina Mercer when I was studying for finals in the Winston County Library while I was at Mississippi State. I was sitting at a table studying when she walked through the door. The first time ever I saw her face, I knew she was the one. But, as luck would have it she was with her boyfriend who introduced us, so I passed off any thoughts I had about asking her out. Besides, she was only 15 at the time and I was 20. I have often joked with my daughters that I checked their mother out at the library.

The next time I saw her, I was no longer in college. I was working for a construction company. I was driving through town one weekend when a car pulled along side mine. It was her! She was riding around with her brother, his girlfriend, and another couple. They were going to a cookout at the local sandpit where young people hung out. She was no longer dating anyone and asked me if I would come with them. I was a bit shy and tried to back out of the invitation, but they insisted that I come along. We had a great time and I knew I had to see her again.

About a week later we made a date to go riding on a Sunday afternoon. I cannot remember where we drove. We were enjoying each other's company so much the afternoon flew by. Before we knew it, it was time for her to be home. The age difference did not seem important to us. She was wise beyond her years even though she did look young.

When we drove into the trailer park where she lived I saw her father pacing back and forth in front of their place. I remember thinking that he looked very upset. It was the first time that they had met me and I was bringing their daughter back home a few minutes late.

As she got out of the car I could hear him ranting about them going to be late for choir practice. I figured I had blown that date and I was afraid to call her back. I just knew I had gotten her in trouble.

Some time passed by and I ran into her again at one of the local hangouts. She came over and we started talking. I apologized for getting her in trouble the last time I had seen her. She laughed and said she was not in trouble. Her father was always like that.

I was raised to believe that if you raised your voice it was a sign you were mad. But, of course, I was raised in the South. Her folks were from Pennsylvania and for them it was normal to carry on a loud, vocal conversation. Her father was in the paper industry and they moved around a lot. She was born in upper New York State, and they had lived in Minnesota and Florida before they ended up in my hometown of Louisville.

We talked for a long time and I ended up driving her home. Before we said good night she told me she was moving away to Kentucky. I thought, "This is great. I finally meet someone I like and she is moving away." Such was my luck.

She made me promise to come see her in Kentucky. I said I would, but deep down I could not fathom traveling that far. I had rarely traveled away from home. I figured I would never see her again. Traveling to Kentucky would be like taking a trip to Mars!

We kissed good night in the cold December rain and that was the moment I knew I had to see her again. It was like in the song, This Magic Moment; I knew she was the one… and some way, some how I was not going to let that earth angel slip out of my life.

After she moved away, we began writing to each other. The more letters we wrote, the more we learned about each other and the more we found we had in common. Three months later, in March of 1974, I set a date to go see her.

I had no idea how long it would take to get to where she lived in Kentucky. I got up at 4:30 in the morning and started driving. Shortly after I crossed the Kentucky state line I was traveling down Purchase Parkway when I saw a barn on the side of the road with smoke billowing out of it at every crack and seam. I was frantically looking for an exit so I could go back and tell the farmer his barn was on fire.

I was later relieved to learn the barn wasn't actually on fire. They were merely making dark fired tobacco. I had a lot to learn about Kentucky.

I arrived at her house before lunch. I was tired, but floating on air. I could not believe I was that far from home. The trip seemed to take no time at all. I visited with her parents a while and then we left to spend the afternoon together. She gave me a tour of Paducah. I thought Kentucky was beautiful. The biggest difference I saw between Kentucky and Mississippi was there was no cotton… just tobacco.

That evening her parents took us out to eat at a place called The Embers. I was so tired I could hardly focus. Sometime during the meal I nodded off. When I awoke I was extremely embarrassed. I had no idea how long I slept. Her parents thought it was funny and we ended up having a good time after I woke up. They knew I had had a long day.

The next day we went to church together and shortly after church I packed my bag and prepared to leave on my trip back to Mississippi. It was during the period of the oil embargo and most gas stations were closed on Sundays for fuel rationing. I had topped off my tank the evening before and I was hoping I could make it back home.

Tina made me promise to come back to see her again. She was crying when I pulled away from her house. I knew if someone cared enough about me to cry when I left she must love me as much as I loved her. I knew I would be back to see her again.

It was not long before I made my second trip to Kentucky. It was the Saturday before Easter. I knew I loved her and did not want to let her get away. I wanted to ask her to marry me, but she was only 16! I did not have much money and I still lived with my parents while I traveled around the country on construction jobs, but somehow, I had to make it work.

Before I left for Kentucky I bought a stuffed Easter Bunny and I found one of those plastic eggs that candy comes in. I took the candy out and put in a rock I picked up out of my driveway.

That evening after arriving at her house we left for our date. I kept trying to find just the right moment to ask her. Dinner passed and I had not asked her. We went to a movie and I had not asked her. Finally, we were riding around and I pulled the car over in front of someone's barn. I felt a little more comfortable with the barn setting.

I gave her the Easter Bunny and she loved it. She thought it was cute. Then I handed her the Easter egg. She looked inside and found the rock. She pulled it out and with a puzzled look asked, "Why is this rock in here?"

I explained that it was "just a rock". I told her that I loved her and wanted to marry her, but I did not have enough money to buy her an engagement ring … or a "real rock". But, if she would hold on to it I would save up and get one that was a little more appropriate.

I was not sure what to expect. For all I knew she might have thrown it at me. She didn't. She said, "Yes!" and it was official… we were going to get married. We had only been on four dates, but we knew we were meant for each other no matter how many miles separated us or the difference in our ages. We kept it to ourselves for a while because we did not feel like the time was right to tell her parents.

When the day came that I was going to formally ask for permission to marry Tina I was a little nervous… after all she was just sixteen and I was twenty one.

I had gone over and over in my head what I wanted to say and how I was going to approach her parents. When I finally thought I could do it I waited until they had made a trip to Mississippi to visit their son, Terry.

We were at his apartment. Tina and her mom, Betty Jo, were cooking supper. Her father, John, and I were sitting at the table talking when I decided the moment might be right.

I knew from my visits to Kentucky that John always had a glass of wine in the evenings before retiring for the night. He said it helped him relax and go to sleep.

I asked, "John, did you bring your wine with you?" Of course he did… it was like… "Don't leave home without it."

Then I said, "Well, you might want to pour yourself a glass. I have something I want to talk to you about."

He looked at me and said, "No, I only have a glass before retiring in the evening. It helps me relax."

Then I said, "Well, I have something I want to ask you and you may want to be relaxed when I ask you."

That got the attention of the two working in the kitchen. Betty Jo froze and looked at me.

All eyes were on me at that point and I was trying to remember what I had planned on saying. Suddenly, my mouth opened and my brain shut down.

"How would you feel about an addition to your family?"

As soon as I said those words I knew it did not come out right. Betty Jo's jaw dropped and John just stared a hole through me as he said, "I think I am going to need that wine after all."

Tina was standing there with a look of aw, not knowing what to say.

Immediately, I went into defensive mode. "No, no, no! It's not what you are thinking. I am trying to ask for permission to marry your daughter. We haven't crossed the line or anything like that!"

I could see a collective sigh of relief on her parents faces. I guess they were so relieved that their worst fears were unfounded that they both said, "Oh, thank heavens! Yes, yes, sure, that would be wonderful."

Then the questions of when, where and are you both sure you are ready for this big move were asked. After I had answered all their questions satisfactorily they welcomed me to their family. I suppose the shock and aw factor worked after all.

Later we told my parents and they were elated, too. I began making plans for where we would live and Tina was busy finishing high school and working after school to earn enough money to buy a wedding dress.

I asked my father if I could use an old tenant house on our farm and fix it up to live in. It was in very bad shape. It had to be completely rebuilt. I borrowed some money and set out to restore it to its original 1920s appearance.

It had been built by Wilson and Hat Clark shortly after they were married. It was one of those homes that had a pyramid tin roof and an "L" shaped front porch that was common during that period. The house was located about a mile from the highway on a gravel road and I knew it would be difficult for my new "city girl" to live that far out in the country, so I made arrangements to move it to a lot I owned on the highway.

When I first walked into the old house there was a piano sitting in the corner of one of the front rooms. I wondered where that huge old thing had come from and why it remained in the house. The house had been vacant for many years.

The home's foundation was made of huge sandstones spaced ten or twelve feet apart. The tin on the roof was loose and leaking badly and there was no plumbing at all. There were windows missing and the doors were dragging on the floors when I tried to open them. Overall the house was in pretty sad shape, but I was proud of it… it was mine. My father decided to make it my wedding present.

The first few years after my father bought it from Mr. Clark, tenants had lived in it. The last person I remember living there was someone who had worked on the place, but that had been several years ago. The house had sat vacant for quite a while. I am sure there were a lot of memories in those old walls and I was about to make a few more.

I wanted to keep the house's original appearance, but it definitely needed some modern amenities. All that work had to be done in four months. That was when I was to be married. It was already August and I had no time to waste before the January wedding date rolled around.

Before the house was to be moved to the lot I had, the chimney in the center of the house had to be torn out. That turned out to be quite an ordeal. But, I kept telling myself… just one brick at a time and slowly the chimney disappeared and the house was ready to move.

The only thing left to do was remove the huge old piano in the front room. It had to be taken out before the house mover arrived, but try as I might, the old piano was not going to budge. It was massive and beautifully made with carvings and graceful curves. It puzzled me that it was there and why anyone would leave it behind. I thought, "Perhaps, they could not budge it either."

It was in a pretty rough state. It was marred and scratched. The base had several large cuts on it, keys were missing and some of the ivory was peeling off. Still, there was something about the piano that was special. I could just feel it.

Moving day came and the piano was still sitting in the front room. The head of the moving crew told me I could leave it, but he would not be responsible for any damage it incurred or caused during the move. We shoved it into a corner and hoped for the best.

The house was jacked up, placed on dollies and as things unfolded it turned out the house was too wide to be moved down the gravel road that led to the highway. We ended up cutting fences and taking a short-cut across one of my father's old cotton fields, through a cow pasture, between the old cotton gin and the barn until we finally made it to the highway.

Along the way, a tree raked tin off the roof and part of the front porch fell off. Otherwise, the structure was still in good shape. At the new lot the house was set up on blocks and the move was over. When we managed to get inside to check for interior damage I discovered there was none. The old piano was still sitting upright in the corner. It was as if it were saying, "I was here first and I am not going anywhere."

At the time I was working at a building supply during the day. At nights and on weekends I would go over to the house and work until late at night. One afternoon I was working in a back bedroom when I happened to turn and look at one of the walls. It was glowing orange. It looked like it was on fire!

I panicked. I thought the house was on fire. I ran to the front bedroom to look for the fire. There was nothing there! I did not smell any smoke nor could I hear the crackling of a fire, so I went back to the other room I had been working in. The wall was still glowing orange. I touched it and it was cool.

Upon closer observation I noticed it was amber… resin. The old wall was made with virgin pine timber that was full of resin and when the sun shone on the wall in the other room the resin in the wood glowed. It was a very unusual sight.

I patched the roof and painted it to keep it from rusting more than it already had. There was just enough money to paint the three sides that faced the road. When I got to the back there was only a little paint left over. That was when Gerald Ford was president and the campaign for the fall election was going full throttle. He was hoping to get elected.

His campaign slogan was "Whip Inflation Now" or W.I.N. for short. I painted a big star on the back of the roof and put "W.I.N." in the center. Across the top and bottom of the star I had enough paint to write GOD BLESS AMERICA AND LEAKY OLD ROOFS. I thought no one would ever see it. I was in the middle of nowhere and the message was on the backside of the house.

As luck would have it, a photographer was flying over our area and happened to see the roof message. Someone said he took a picture and it appeared in the Jackson newspaper. I never saw it, but so much for obscurity.

Slowly, the project began to take shape. I rebuilt the front porch, and installed new wiring and plumbing. The old man I hired to do the wiring did a good job, but for some reason he did not like ground wires. He did not hook up any of the ground wires in the entire house. I salvaged windows and doors from other old homes on the farm. Then I built cabinets for the kitchen and bathroom and installed paneling and carpet.

I had the home ready before the wedding day arrived… all except for the front bedroom where the piano was. One day a couple of friends came over and were inspecting my handy-work when one of them saw the old piano. They offered to help move it out. We managed to move it only about six feet. There was no way we were going to get it out of the house. We were just not strong enough.

Then one of my friends said, "Why don't you take it apart? It doesn't work anymore and it is in pretty bad shape. I am sure it will never play again."

It made perfect sense. I spent a day dismantling it and hauling it out piece by piece. The only thing that appeared worth saving was the cabinet. The wood was beautiful and the workmanship was nice. I took the cabinet and stored it in the old building out back behind our house.

With the piano out of the way, I was able to finish the front bedroom easily. The house was ready for my bride. I borrowed some more money and bought a refrigerator, a freezer and some furniture for the living room. We had already bought our bed at an old shop in Kentucky and I had hauled it back to Mississippi on the top of my car.

1975 was a big year for America. We evacuated Vietnam as the city of Saigon fell. The US and Soviets linked up in space with the Apollo and Soyuz space crafts. Gerald Ford escaped two assassination attempts and Saturday Night Live debuted on television. Jimmy Hoffa disappeared that year. We went to the movies to watch One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and we were listening to Paul Simon singing Still Crazy After All These Years on the radio. That was, also, the year home video tapes (VCRs) were developed and the mighty Casey Stengel passed away. A United States postage stamp had risen to thirteen cents and gas was 44 cents a gallon.

It was also the year Tina finished high school. She finished on the 10th of January, got her drivers license on the 15th and we were married on the 25th. That was a big month for her.

We were married at the First Baptist Church in Louisville. We had my brother's friend, Pat McClelland, perform the ceremony. Another preacher gave the opening prayer and when the time came for the wedding to start he was late and almost did not make it because he was out feeding his bird dogs.

The day of the wedding I decided to hide my car so it would not get decorated. When my oldest brother, Terry, was married my father was too sick to attend his wedding in Oxford, Mississippi. I drove my parent's car to Oxford with my mother and my other brother, Tonny.

We were looking for Terry's car so we could decorate it, but he had hidden it well and we could not find it. He knew we were looking for it, so he let the word out that my father had given him permission to use his car on their honeymoon since it was newer.

Several of Terry's friends believed it, so they decorated my parents' car. They really did a number on it. When the reception was over a buddy of Terry's brought the car they were to use around to the front of the church and they made a speedy getaway.

I was still wearing my tux as I drove back to Louisville that night. Mother was sitting on the passenger's side and Tonny had decided to take a nap on the back seat. We were hungry and stopped in Eupora, Mississippi to get some hamburgers at a little drive in. I parked up front and got out to order our food while Tonny continued to sleep on the back seat. I noticed people were smiling and laughing, but it did not dawn on me why they were so amused until I walked up to the window and looked back at the car. There sat my mother in the passenger seat of a car that had "JUST MARRIED" all over it!

I placed my order and when the girl handed it to me she was laughing. She said to me, "I hate to say this, but isn't your wife just a little too old for you?"

I looked back at the car and I started laughing, too. I thought about saying, "She may be old, but she's rich!" But, I didn't. I just said, "They decorated the wrong car."

When we got home my father saw his new car was decorated and got very upset. I had to get out there in the middle of the night and wash it all off.

So, when it came time for my wedding it was payback time. I hid the Pinto in my Aunt Era Bennett's garage. Tonny helped spread the word that Terry was going to let us use his Volvo to go on our honeymoon. When we walked out of the church the Volvo was covered up with shoe polish and shaving cream. We walked passed it, jumped in Tonny's car and he took us to up the Pinto.

Payback was sweet! Not only was Terry's car decorated, but he had to drive around his hometown with his wife and one year old daughter, Mindy, in a car that had "Just Married" all over it. It was the perfect "Sting" and that became our theme music.

We had taken about two hundred dollars with us on our honeymoon. We were young, in love and living on the edge, but we had each other and that was all that mattered. Our room at the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of New Orleans cost about $25 a night. We did most of our dining at burger joints and that was fine with us because the future was out there somewhere and we knew that no matter what was to come we had the present. And we lived in it.

On our first morning in New Orleans we made it down to Jackson Square and walked through the park across from the St. Louis Cathedral. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were looking at all the artists peddling their crafts on the side walk outside the park. As luck would have it we stumbled upon Café du Monde and ordered coffee with chicory and beignets.

That evening we went to the International Trademart Building as the sun was setting in the west. At the top of the building was a revolving restaurant and as we entered the restaurant someone at the piano was playing our song as we took our seats. The sun was setting in the west and pre-Marta Gras fireworks were rising into the night sky in the east. It was a beautiful night and a wonderful way to begin our life together.

Our days were filled with walks through the French Quarter taking in the history of the area. Later we made our way back to the cathedral and took the free tour by following a lady that was showing the church to her visiting relatives.

Before leaving New Orleans we went back to Jackson Square hoping to find some memento of our trip to take home with us. Everything we saw was beyond our means and we started to leave empty handed when an old side walk painter hawked us over.

He said, "You two young folks look like young lovers. How are you enjoying the park?" He had a voice that sounded like gravel sliding down a gutter's drain pipe… the result of years and years of cigarettes.

We told him we were on our honeymoon and before leaving the city we had hoped to find a souvenir to take home with us, but we were too broke for anything that was for sell there. He looked at us and smiled. Then he said, "I doubt that. Do you see anything I have painted here that you like?"

We had both admired a picture of a lion he had painted on a black velvet background and we pointed at it. Just like a used car dealer, he asked, "How much do you want to spend?"

I said, "We can't afford it. Its a hundred and fifty dollars and we don't have that much money."

"Do you have sixty? I need to eat and it has been a damn slow weekend for me. I need sixty bucks."

We looked at each other and nodded. "Okay, we can handle sixty bucks, but we would like to get a picture of you with the painting if you don't mind."

His face lit up as he posed for the picture there on the side of the street. We shook hands and walked away with the hideous black velvet picture of a lion that was probably his only sale of the day. We no longer have the picture. It was relegated to our attic a few years later when our taste matured. Eventually, the black velvet lion fell to the same fate many things do. It ended up in a yard sale. It may be gone, but the memory is kept alive in our photo album with the artist sitting proudly beside it, and a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

I had finished the inside of the house by the time we married. The first night we were there a bad thunder storm blew in from the west. The wind was whipping around and changing directions a lot. We had to get up several times that night and move the bed to keep it out of the drips coming from the leaky tin roof.

We had no central heating or cooling. In the winter we could afford to heat only the living room. On cold nights we would turn the gas space heater on in the bedroom to take the chill off before we went in there to go to bed. One night we left the heater on too long and the wasps "thawed out" in the attic. One made its way through the ceiling and was buzzing around us all night.

We did not have a washer or dryer at first. On evenings or days off we would go into town and wash our clothes at the Laundromat. My father told my wife he was going to get us a clothes dryer so she would not have to spend so much time at the Laundromat.

One morning we were awakened by a "THUMP….. THUMP…. THUMP…." One of Tina's eyes cracked open and she asked, "What on earth is that thumping noise?"

I pulled back the curtains and there was my father in our back yard with his post-hole diggers working on a hole. I looked over at her and said, "It's Daddy… he is delivering your new clothes dryer."

She was so excited she jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Her excitement was soon curtailed when she pulled back the curtains and saw he was installing a clothes line in the back yard. The city girl was a little disappointed that day.

One day Tina happened to get off work early and she arrived home before me. My father had a Doberman Pincher named Red who often guarded both of our homes. He would sit on our steps and wait for Tina to get home. When she went inside he would run back up the road to my parents' house.

It was common for him to go between our home and my parents' home during the night while watching both of our places. He was an unusual dog. The day she got home before me, Red was waiting for her on the porch steps as usual, but when she tried to go up the steps to the porch he started growling and showing his teeth. She became alarmed.

She had heard Dobermans were known to turn on their masters and she was afraid Red was doing just that. Each time she talked to him and tried to slip by to get into the house he became more agitated and growled louder. There was no getting by him. She decided to wait for me to get home and see if he would let me into the house.

When I got home she explained what was going on. I thought she was just overreacting. She was not. I tried to get into the house and he did the same thing to me. I was afraid he was going to bite me. I gave up, got in my truck and drove to my father's house.

I told him Red would not let us in our home. He was going to have to come get him and take him home. He drove over and Red began to do him the same way. Finally, my father yelled at him and told him to go get in the truck. He trotted over to the truck and hopped in the back.

I started into the house and something did not seem right. There was an unusual noise. I could not place it. It was unlike anything I was accustomed to hearing. It was almost like a motor running, but not exactly the same. It was coming from behind the drapes in our living room.

After we restored Tin-Top Ridge and moved in we saved up money and bought a washing machine. I enclosed part of the porch and made a laundry room. As it happened that part of the porch had a window that was on the east wall of our living room. We kept the drapes closed and left the window in tack.

I pulled back the drapes to look into the laundry room and when I did I could not believe my eyes. There were hundreds and hundreds of bees. If Tina had gone into the house before I got home it is likely she would have gone to the laundry room, opened the door and the bees would have attacked her.

I drove back into town and got a "Bug Bomb" to set off in the laundry room. I opened the door and threw it in. After the fog cleared, we went in and found dead bees everywhere. They were in cabinets, in the washing machine and in the clothes hamper. We were lucky they had not stung us.

Someone told me later they were on the move and searching for a place to set up a new hive. As luck would have it, they found a tiny hole in the old house. They all entered through it and were going to make a hive in our laundry room.

We suspect Red sensed the danger and that is why he would not let us into our home. He continued to greet Tina at home after that, but he never blocked our way into the house again.

We planted our first garden and she learned how to can vegetables. Our neighbor across the road came over and gave us nearly a dozen baby chickens that spring to get us off to a good start. I am sure there were times the city girl wondered what she had gotten herself into.

Our first television set was one we bought at a yard sale. It was a 15 inch black and white set with rabbit ears. For those who do not remember rabbit ears, they are two telescoping antennas about two feet long and when they are extended and positioned just right, they resembled rabbit ears sticking out the top of the television set.

Needless to say our reception in such a rural area was terrible. We could get audio better than video. Most of the time, we listened to our television. On a good day we could listen to about three channels, one from Jackson, one from Meridian and one from Columbus. On rare occasions we could hear Tupelo, Mississippi. We were lucky if we could watch a show through the haze on the screen from the Columbus station.

One day I happened to notice the power company replacing poles in our area and one happened to be on our farm. It was a nice tall pole that had those little metal prongs sticking out the side that allowed the linemen to climb up the pole while making repairs. I asked one of the men if I could have the old pole and he said, "Sure."

I borrowed my father's tractor and pulled it to the back of our house. I had big plans for that pole. I had seen the Green Acres show where Oliver and Lisa Douglas' phone was mounted to the top of a pole outside their window. The phone company did not have enough wire to run the line into the house, so they had to climb the pole every time they needed to call someone.

We ended up with something that was not much better. I dug a hole beside our house and managed to get the huge pole into it without wiping out our home. Someone told me about a lady in town who had recently connected to cable and she had an old antenna for sale. I bought it and mounted the antenna to the top of the pole. It was quite a feat dragging the thing to the top and bolting it down without falling to the ground.

There was one small problem. There was no rotary motor to turn the antenna when we wanted to change channels. I guess the lady only watched one channel. After I wired it up and ran the wire down the pole and into our living room window I had to climb the pole while Tina hung out the window and directed me to turn the antenna one way or another until the station we wanted to watch came in clearer.

If we wanted to change channels, I had to go back out and climb the pole, turn the antenna again while Tina hung out the window and hollered out directions on which way to turn it. Then I would tighten the bolt back down to secure the antenna in that position. That was fine until the wind picked up and shifted the antenna off the station.

Invariably the wind would pick up and move the antenna right in the middle of a good program and I would run out the front door, climb the pole as fast as I could while Tina ran to the window and yelled out which way it needed to be turned.

I can only imagine what it must have looked like to the people driving by our house and seeing me up a pole and my wife hanging out the window yelling at me.

We owned one vehicle. It was a 1971 Ford Pinto. Yes, it was the same car I was driving when the Trooper accused me of drag racing against a Mustang. I had owned a four door `64 Impala that my father passed down to me and for some reason I wanted something with newer paint, so I traded it to a guy I worked with for the shiny red Pinto. In hindsight I know who got the better end of the deal. But youth will let you make some foolish decisions and I certainly did that time.

Tina would drop me off at work and then drive the car to her job at the local Drive-In where she was a car-hop. Believe me, times were hard for us when we started out. In the evenings she would come back to the building supply and pick me up on the way home.

We needed a second vehicle. One day I noticed an old pickup parked along the side of the road with a "FOR SALE" sign in the window. We stopped and inquired about it. Luck was with us. The truck was priced within our small budget and for $125 I owned a 1952 Chevrolet truck.

It was not very pretty. The truck had been blue at one point in time. It was faded badly. One door was white and the other was red. The hood was another color. There were rust holes in the side of the bed large enough to sling a cat through. But… it would run.

Another problem it had was with the gear shift. It had a three speed on the column and when shifting, I had to go from first gear into third gear or it would hang up and stick in second gear. There was something wrong in the linkage that I could never fix. When I forgot and shifted into second gear I would have to pull over to the side of the road, pop the hood and fiddle with the linkage until I slipped it back into neutral. Then I could get in and start all over again.

The windshield wipers ran off the compression of the engine. The faster the truck went, the faster the wipers would work. One day I was in a hurry to get home. It was pouring down rain and I was driving way too fast for the old truck. The wipers were moving back and forth faster and faster. I had never seen wipers work that fast. Suddenly, the wiper on the drivers' side flew off and went across the road into the ditch.

I quickly rolled the window down and stuck my head out in the pouring rain to see where I was going. Then I turned around and went back to look for my wiper. I was lucky and found it sticking up in the ground. I replaced it and drove slower the rest of the way home.

Tina could not drive a straight shift. She had not had her license very long before we married. We became engaged when she was still in high school. I told her we would not marry until she finished school and had her driver's license. Shortly after she finished, her father let her get her driver's license. He had not wanted to pay for the insurance to let her drive, so she only had her license for ten days before we were married.

I thought it would be good for her to learn to drive the old truck. We were afraid to start out on the highway, so I took her to a pasture beside our home. At one time it had been a corn field and there were still steep terraces in the pasture. I instructed her on how to drive over a terrace. The trick was to go over them at an angle to prevent the truck from nose diving into the ground on the lower side or getting hung up on the top of the terrace.

We went over how the clutch worked and when to press it in and when to shift from first into third gear. We practiced it a few times sitting still before we started the truck. It had a key that was switched to the on position and there was a push button starter in the floor near the gas pedal that cranked it.

She started the truck and after several false starts and stalls managed to get it moving. So far, so good. I was sitting on the passenger side with my arm resting in the open window. Things seemed to be going fairly well as she was picking up speed and getting ready to depress the clutch and shift into third.

About the time this was happening we were coming upon a steep terrace. She was angling in on it like I had told her… which was good, but suddenly, she gave it more gas, popped the clutch and shoved the lever into third at the same moment we were approaching the terrace.

I had a feeling things were going to be bad. The truck went air borne, leaping over the terrace and when it came down it landed on the front right wheel. It landed so hard that when it hit the ground my door popped open. The door and I flew forward and banged into the front fender…about that same moment she stomped on the brakes. Then the door and I came flying back and I was thrown back into the cab of the truck.

Thankfully, the truck stalled out and we slid to a stop in the pasture. I had a flash back to some of my more vocal days of construction work and began to speak in tongues. She was still in shock from the ride, but when I screamed out whatever it was I said while I was speaking in tongues she threw open the door, got out and ran all the way home. She never learned how to drive a straight shift and she was not interested in hearing about my "out of truck body" experience and the moment I almost died.

I have mentioned the old truck was not pretty. I decided to spruce it up a bit. I did not have money for a professional paint job, so I bought some brown floor enamel paint at the building supply and I went to work. When I finished it was all the same color! What an improvement.

From a distance I could barely see the brush strokes. In fact, the further away I got the better the truck looked. That was about the time I thought it might look better in someone else's yard, so I put a "FOR SALE" sign in the window and before I knew it someone wanted it worse than I did.

One day my father had a colt that was missing. He was very ill and was not able to look for it. Tina and I looked everywhere for it and after walking the pastures searching for it we discovered the spring rains had caused the ground to cave in that was over the old well. Evidently, the colt had been walking over it when the ground above gave way.

The colt was cold and in shock. Tina and I pulled it out of the well and carried it to the old cotton gin. When the veterinarian came he looked it over and just shook his head. He did not think it was going to make it. He gave it several shots and told us the only way it might survive was to keep it warm.

Tina and I placed the colt in the back of our truck and carried it to our house. I carried it into the front bedroom and placed it on a tarp covered with hay. We sat with the colt all night trying to keep it comfortable. But, in the wee hours of the morning it died. That was a sad day. The colt was not just any colt; it was JB's last colt. We really hated to tell my father it was gone.

JB had died a few months earlier. He was Daddy's favorite horse and he had owned him for over twenty years. Someone in the community had bought JB in another county for $100. He was a beautiful black stallion, but when they brought him home they discovered they could not ride him. He would go mad when they bridled him and tried to ride him. They thought he was dangerous and decided to get rid of him.

That fellow sold him to another neighbor for $75. He thought he could break him. He had no luck with him either. He ended up selling him to yet another neighbor for $65.

That neighbor had the same thoughts. He was going to break him and end up with a beautiful black stallion. He soon discovered there was nothing he could do with JB either. That was when my father bought him for $55.

Daddy got him home and worked with him a while. He had owned horses for many years and thought he would try a different approach. He put a halter on him instead of a bridle. Then he put a saddle on him. JB was fine. Then he put one of us boys on him while he led him around with the halter. Still, JB was fine.

That was when it occurred to my father that JB did not like bridles because of the bit that went in his mouth. He designed a bridle that had a different type bit that did not press on his tongue when the reins were pulled back. After the design was finished he went to his friend, the blacksmith, and hired him to make the bit and new bridle.

He came home and put the bridle on him. He saddled him up and led him out to a pasture where he summoned up the courage to climb on him and ride. As it turned out, JB just had a sensitive mouth.

All the previous owners were sick because they let such a good horse get away from them. My father was offered a lot of money over the years for the black stallion, but would never sell him. He told us he would not sell him for a shoe box full of money. He loved that horse.

The day JB's leg broke was one I will never forget. Tina and I were working in our yard when we heard my father's old truck coming up the road. I could hear my mother wailing loudly as the truck turned into our driveway.

My father was crying, too. JB had been his pride and joy for over two decades. He told me he had found JB entangled in a fence and he thought his leg was broken. That meant just one thing… he had to be put down. The thought of losing JB was almost more than my father could bear.

I drove over to the barn to see what I could do. His front leg was dangling in the air and I felt sick. We called the veterinarian and we were told what we expected… he needed to be put to sleep because he was hurting badly. My father put a halter on him and led him slowly over to the edge of the pasture behind the cotton gin.

The vet helped JB lay down so he would not fall when the shot took effect. Then he gave him the injection. My father's friend, C. C. Huntley, heard about JB's death and came over with a backhoe. He dug a grave and JB was placed in it.

Someone else heard about the tragedy and gave my father a piece of granite for a headstone. JB was well known in our area of the country and had sired numerous colts.

Daddy never got over JB's death. That was why I hated to lose that colt. It was his last link to JB. That day I took a shovel and dug another grave near JB behind the cotton gin.

The first year we were married passed by quickly. A couple of weeks before our first anniversary my wife went to visit her mother and father in Kentucky. While there, they flew to Minnesota to see her brother and his family. When it was time to return home it began to snow. It snowed so much she was not able to get back in time for our anniversary.

While she was gone I was bored and thought I might tackle rebuilding the old piano. I had thought about turning its cabinet into a desk and that was the perfect time to work on it. Each evening after work I tinkered with it and I had it finished by the time she returned.

Where the keys once were, I placed a marble top that I found in an old salvage shop. In the area of the strings and hammers, I built shelves. Below in the area behind the pedals I installed our stereo. It was sitting in our living room when she walked through the door and she loved it.

When we moved to Kentucky we took the piano with us and as our children came along they would sit at the desk top and pretend to play on an imaginary keyboard. Their imagination allowed them to play Nursery Rhymes and Christmas Carols.

As the girls grew older we decided they needed a real piano. We located one in a used piano shop near Reidland, Kentucky. There was no room for the old piano so we stored it in our garage. Several times over the years I thought about getting rid of it, but something told me to hang on to it.

Then shortly before our 21st anniversary, I returned to Mississippi to visit the farm where I grew up. My brother had joined me for some hunting and we took time to catch up and reminisce about the "good ole' days". As we were walking over the farm we were talking about all the people who had lived there while we were growing up.

He said he had learned where one person was and he had seen her on a prior trip to the farm. I mentioned I would love to see her again. Later that day he made a call and Martha asked if we could drop by to see her before we left.

It had been over thirty years since we had last seen each other. She had spent most of her first ten years growing up on the farm. She lived with her father and grandparents. Her folks had taken me fishing a lot when I was a boy and we had played together at the edge of almost every pond on the farm.

We drove to her home near Philadelphia, Mississippi, and it was great seeing her after all those years. She had become a teacher, was married and had three children of her own.

She told me that one Christmas when she was little my father came to her house and gave her a present. It was a dictionary. She had never had a dictionary before and she was very proud of it. It was about the only Christmas present she remembered getting that year and she still had it.

As we were catching up on old times, she asked about the old home I had fixed up. I told her what all I had done to it and I told her when we moved to Kentucky I had to sell it.

She said she remembered living there when she was a young girl. Then she asked if the old piano had been in the house when I fixed it up. As it turned out it was the piano her grandparents had given her when she was young. They had hoped she would learn to play and made her practice on it every day.

She said she hated practicing and one day she got so mad that she brought an axe into the house and started swinging away at the piano. I suppose that was why all the scratches and indentions were near the base!

Eventually, she learned to play and became very good at it. When they moved away to another house they were not able to take the piano with them. They all hated to leave it behind, but there was no room for it where they were going and that was why the piano was sitting in the house when I found it.

At that moment I realized why I had hung on to it all those years. I felt guilty for tearing it apart and turning it into a desk, but Martha did not mind. She was glad to know the old piano was still around. It was a treasure of her childhood.

I asked her if she would like to have it back and her face lit up. "I would love to have my old piano back! I don't have anything from my childhood and that would be wonderful."

When I returned to Mississippi a few months later I took it with me and returned it to its rightful owner. After thirty years it was home again where it really belonged. It filled Martha's home with music again. Not the music heard with the ear, but music heard with the heart. And I am certain the old piano had some wonderful music to play.

Over three decades later Tina and I look back and are amazed at where we started out and how far we have come. Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined being where we are today. Thirty years ago we could not have imagined raising three daughters, traveling throughout the United States, Canada and Europe or being grandparents.

There were times we did not know how we were going to put food on the table, pay the doctors, buy clothes for the girls or send them to school. It was only by the grace of God we made it. I guess if you are in love anything is possible.

Looking back, I am still amazed it all started out with a library card, a rock and an Easter egg. Etta James said it so well when she sang At Last. Happily-ever-after and Fairy Tale endings can come true.

Silex, papyrus, forfex, bibliotheca pectum.

(Rock, paper, scissors, library card.)

TWILIGHT TIME

Cotton was not the only thing we grew on the farm. We grew corn and raised cattle, too. At one time my father had nearly 150 head of cattle. It had taken him years to work the herd up to that size. But, nothing stays the same forever.

In the 60s we had three bad crops in a row. The first year we lost the crop because of a drought. It was so dry that year the corn never matured. It was like the story my co-worker told me. He said, "It was so dry the Baptists started sprinkling, the Methodist started using Handy-Wipes, the Church of Christ began handing out rain checks and the Catholics were trying to turn the wine back into water." That was dry.

The following year was blistering hot. The county agent said the heat affected the tassels, causing the corn to not make. The third year almost everyone in the area had the same misfortune we did… bad seed. Hardly any corn made it out of the ground. We were hurting. We had to buy corn to feed our livestock.

In 1964 my father bought some property at an auction on the courthouse steps. The north part of that property was nothing but a kudzu field.

Kudzu is a big leafy vine that will grow over anything in its path. It will smother trees, buildings and power lines. It knows no boundaries. The only way to get rid of it is to graze it out with livestock. The only other use the vine has is erosion control and jelly.

I learned from a friend that the blooms of the kudzu vine could be harvested and somehow, processed into jelly that tastes a lot like Muscatine grapes. I was surprised my mother had not tried that. She made jelly and preserves from almost everything that grew on the farm… apples, blackberries, pears, peaches and figs to name a few.

My father managed to put a fence around the kudzu and had a small pond dug to water our cattle. When we were preparing to sell cattle, my father would drive the herd into the kudzu field to top them off. The kudzu was high in protein and the cattle loved it. The short time we kept them there, they always gained weight. When they had been there a couple of weeks we would load up the ones we wanted to sell and take them to the auction barn near town.

One year there was a steer that did not want to leave the kudzu. Try as we might, we could not get that one steer out of the pasture. He always ran off and hid in the kudzu. Finally, my father said, "If he wants to stay that bad we will just leave him here."

From time to time we tried to trick him into a corral we built, but he was not going to fall for it. After a while he just disappeared. For years we did not know what happened to him. Then one day I was visiting back in Mississippi and I ran into one of my father's old friends. He laughed and asked me if I ever found out what happened to the steer.

I said, "No. It just disappeared into the kudzu." That was when he laughed and told me the rest of the story. He said a neighbor was able to catch him and he ended up on his table. I told him that was good. I am sure his family needed the steer far worse than we did.

One summer night someone knocked on our front door. I heard my father get up and go out to the front porch. Then came the words all cattle farmers hate to hear. "Mr. Algood, your cows have gotten out and there are a lot of them in the highway."

My brothers and I knew what that meant. We did not wait for him to come back to our room. We all got dressed as fast as we could and ran to the highway. It was a very dark night. There was no moon for light, but the sky was full of stars.

We had one little flashlight to share among the four of us and we were trying to determine where the cattle were and how best to get them back into the pasture. The old saying that the night has a thousand eyes was especially true that night. The black sky was filled with lightening bugs. They were everywhere. We had a hard time distinguishing what were the eyes of the cattle and what were lightening bugs.

We figured there were only a dozen cows that got out and after a few hours we managed to drive them back into the pasture. Daddy invested in a flashlight for each of us after that night, but he gave strict orders they were not to be used except for emergencies.

Yeah… right. We used them so much he finally quit buying batteries for us and we were back to where we had been before. He did manage to keep one large flash light that he would not let us use. It was his and we were not to touch it.

Not long after that, Bang's disease hit several herds of cattle in our county. Unfortunately, it managed to get into our herd as well. Daddy had to sell most of our cattle for diseased prices. It wiped us out. When Bang's disease gets into a herd the land has to lay idle a few years before other cattle can use it again.

Among the many cattle we had to get rid of were two nice bulls. One was Zato. Zato was a huge white faced Herford who had horns that went straight out across the top of his head. He was a friendly bull, but the horns were very intimidating. Whenever he jerked his head to swat at a fly the horns looked as if they would rip someone apart. I tried to give ole' Zato plenty of room.

The other bull was Rollo. He was even larger than Zato, but he had no horns. Rollo was a big pet. My father would help me up and I would sit on Rollo when we had him in the lot behind our barn. As small as I was he probably thought I was just a big horse fly. He loved for us to scratch him between his ears and we had to be careful not to get caught between a wall and him or Rollo would lean into us trying to get his head scratched.

There was one other small bull we had at one time. His name was Ferdinand the Great. We named him after a mascot for one of the milk companies in our area. One of my brothers had him for a 4-H project and he, also, became a pet.

At one time we had him in a pen near our garden while prepping him for competition. After the competition ole' Ferdinand did not come home.

We were at the supper table one night and I said, "I miss Ferdinand. Where did he go?"

One of my brothers spoke up and said, "You just ate him for supper!"

I was terribly upset for a while. It was after that my father explained the facts of farm life to me. From that day on, I learned not to get attached to the animals on the farm.

We managed to hold on to a few cattle that were on the south side of our farm. They were not exposed to the diseased cattle. Out of those we were able to keep a few for beef.

Fortune smiled on us once again and my father was offered a job forty miles from home working in the state lime pits. It was hot and dusty in the summer and cold and dusty in the winter. When the rains came the lime turned into a white paste. Work slowed down until the lime dried out.

My father's truck had lime in every conceivable nook and cranny. He joked that he could take a jar of water with the lid on it, set it in his truck and the lime dust would find some way to get inside. I believe it could.

He had an emergency appendectomy in November 1971. Unfortunately, he was not well enough to travel by November 28th and missed attending my brother's wedding where he was to be the best man.

The appendectomy incision would not heal and he had to travel to Jackson for follow-up surgeries thereafter. In the summer of 1972 they discovered the reason the surgeries were not healing. He had colon cancer. He had extensive surgery and needed blood transfusions. As a result of the transfusions he came down with hepatitis.

After several months he was well enough to return to work at the lime pits in east Mississippi. Several months after returning to work he developed other health problems, including a cough that would not go away.

Daddy was diagnosed with lung cancer in the spring of 1974. I remember when he told me, it was such a sobering moment. I thought to myself, "He never smoked… so how could he get lung cancer?" Well, that is not how they told him. They said he had spots on his lungs. We suspected the cancer from his colon had metastasized to his lungs.

He was initially told he had six months to live. He decided to go through chemo-therapy to try to get rid of the spots. The treatments did slow the progression of the disease, but the side effects were terrible. Each treatment left him very ill. We had to drive him 95 miles to Jackson, Mississippi to take the treatments and on the way home we had to pull over several times while he got sick on the side of the road.

His graying hair eventually fell out, but for a while we had hope because some of the check-ups showed the spots shrinking or stabilizing.

As my father's health began to fail he realized operating the farm was becoming too great of a task. He did not want my brothers or me to be "promised to the land" like he had been. He wanted more for us.

Little by little he sold off the remaining cattle and horses until he was down to only two horses, J.B. and Traveler. After J.B. broke his leg and had to be put down there was only one left and my father never rode a horse again.

After my father became too weak to handle a horse while checking on the farm he bought a used dirt bike. If he became tired while off in a remote area of the farm he simply pulled over beneath a shade tree and rested until he felt stronger.

He always wore a western hat and never drove the bike fast enough to blow his hat off. He was seldom in a hurry to get anywhere. One day he was feeling pretty good and decided to ride into town. As he entered the city limits a policeman saw him and pulled him over.

When my father asked what the problem was the officer informed him there was a helmet law inside the city limits. Daddy said he was unaware of the law and apologized for violating it. The policeman told him it really was not a problem… "just don't come back to town without a helmet."

My father turned around and went back home. Immediately, he started pilfering through his closet until he found his old World War II tank helmet and goggles. Back to town he went ready for battle. He passed the same policeman as he entered town and waved as he went by. The officer just smiled and nodded. That was good enough for him, too.

One day I came home and found a large car sitting in our driveway near the road. I walked up to it to get a better look and saw several country music 8-track tapes lying on the front seat. It was a much nicer car than anything we had ever owned and when I entered our house I asked my mother about it.

She said, "You will never guess who it belongs to… Jerry Clower."

Those were the days shortly after Jerry had released his coon hunting story on record and everyone in our area knew about him. He was chemical salesman for The Mississippi Chemical Company located over near the delta. He had started telling stories about growing up with his friends, the Ledbetters, while selling fertilizer and had become a popular after-dinner speaker before making it big.

As luck would have it he was on his way to Macon, Mississippi to speak to the Rotary Club that day when his radiator hose burst. He walked up to our house and was greeted by my father and mother.

He told my father he had to be in Macon by noon to speak at the Rotary Club, but his car had broken down. He wanted to know if my father could help him out.

My father immediately recognized his voice and was thrilled to help him. He made a call to a friend who was a mechanic and arranged for him to come out and replace the radiator hose. Then he told Jerry to hop in his car and he drove him to Macon in time to make his engagement.

When my father came home he dropped him off at his car and I was disappointed I did not get to see him. Jerry was grateful and offered to pay my father, but he refused to take anything. He was just thrilled to meet him and assist him that day.

Jerry was a Gideon and gave my father a bible, an autographed record of the Coon Hunt story and a few other little things.

It was not long after that he made it big and quit selling fertilizer. He became one of Nashville's biggest country comics during the years that followed and the day he walked up our driveway was one of my father's fondest memories.

Seldom did my father let down his guard with me. He knew better. It was only in his last few months that he felt I was old enough and mature enough to share some of his private thoughts with.

A few months before he became bedridden we were sitting on the front steps of my home baring our souls to each other. Suddenly, he burst out laughing and reminded me of a time he had to scold me for something I had done.

He said it was all he could do that day to keep from rolling with laughter at what I had done, but he knew better than to let down his guard... even in that lighter moment. That moment was what he and I referred to as The Mississippi Safari.

….I can't remember when I received my BB gun. It seems like it had always been around. When I was a little boy I would get dressed in the morning, eat breakfast and run out the back door seeking some new adventure. When I did I always grabbed my BB gun on the way out.

I know I will receive some special punishment in the hereafter for all the birds, rats and snakes I sent to the afterlife just because they happened to be within shooting range. I thought anything that sat still for long was a target. BBs were cheap.

I was a pretty good shot. I could shoot pecans out of the top of the trees that surrounded our home. I never managed to strike a match to my dismay. It seemed I was forever shooting the tips off.

I loved that BB gun. One hot summer day I was exploring the north side of our farm. I was about a mile from the house and I decided I did not want to walk back through all the briars and thickets to get back home.

Even though my feet were as tough as leather, the briars were a nuisance when I had to stop and hop around on one foot while trying to pull out the stickers. That particular day I made my way to a gravel road that ran from Calvary Baptist Church to the Clark farm.

I was sauntering down the gravel road toward the church when I saw something big and black moving beneath a large oak tree on the side of the road. It was a buzzard. He was extremely hot and had his wings outstretched to cool himself in the shade of the tree.

I saw him before he saw me and my heart began to race. I had never shot a bird that big before. I began to think of how proud my father would be if he saw me bring such a trophy home.

I knew my little BB gun would not phase such a bird. I would be lucky if I could just sting him. Then it occurred to me there might be another way to bring the beast down with my gun. I schemed for a minute and decided it just might work.

I positioned the tree between me and the buzzard and slowly walked up behind the tree. I must have been pretty good at it, because the bird never moved.

Suddenly, I sprang from behind the tree and I took a swing at the ole bird with the barrel of my BB gun. I was like major league ball player driving one out of the ball park. He never knew what hit him.

I was ecstatic. It was the largest beast I had ever brought down with my BB gun. I could just imagine how excited my father would be when he saw me bringing home the large bird.

I knew not to touch the buzzard. After all, they ate dead things and that was nasty. I looked around for something to pick the bird up with. Finally, I found a long limb with a forked end. I scooped the buzzard's head up between the forks of that stick and it lodged there.

I tested it to see if it was stout enough to lift him and it was! So, off I went down the road holding the limb over one shoulder with the buzzard dangling from its forked end. My BB gun was resting over my other shoulder.

As I stated before, I was about a mile from my home. I made it down the gravel road and to the highway. The further I traveled the heavier the bird became. I had to stop often and rest. It was hot and I was burning up. As I made my way down the road an occasional truck or car would pass by. They would wave and blow their horn at me. I was really proud. I had impressed them with my savvy hunting skills.

Finally, I made it to the driveway that led to my house. I was filled with renewed strength from the adrenalin pumping through my veins. I could not wait to show my folks what I had done that day.

As I walked up the driveway to the house I saw my father and one of the men on the farm working on a spray rig attached to the back of our John Deere tractor. The helper noticed me first. He slowly stood up and looked in my direction. I could see by the look in his eyes he was immediately impressed. Then I heard him say to my father, "Lord help us… Mr. Harold... Mr. Harold… Look yonder." He was pointing in my direction.

My father stopped what he was doing and turned to see what he was pointing at. I was beaming and holding out the limb with the buzzard dangling from it.

What I had thought would be a wonderful father/son moment suddenly turned ugly. He did not react anything like I had expected.

"BOY, WHAT IN THE WORLD HAVE YOU GONE AND DONE! You have killed a buzzard! Don't you know you aren't supposed to kill buzzards? Those are the creatures God created to clean up all the dead things on this earth. What in the Sam Hill were you thinking? Now, what are you going to do with it?"

He had really burst my bubble. The helper had walked behind the tractor and was trying hard not to laugh. He was, also, trying to stay as far away from the buzzard as possible.

I remember thinking... I must have done something pretty bad… again… because every time I did he would start talking about some guy named Sam and his hill. I knew I was in trouble. I just stood there with my mouth open. He was looking at me as if I had become a serial buzzard killer or something.

Then he asked me again, "Well, boy, what are you planning on doing with it?"

I could sense this was not the moment to suggest we have it mounted and put by our fire place. So, I said the first thing that popped into my head, "Feed it to the cats?"

"NO, you are not going to feed it to the cats. That thing probably has all kinds of germs and diseases on it. It eats dead things that are rotten. Take that buzzard out back behind the garden and dig a deep, deep hole and bury it! Then I want you to go in the house and take a good hot bath and wash off all those germs. After you do that go to your room and think about what you have done. NOW, GO!"

That was the day I gave up my plans to become a big game hunter. Not only was my father not impressed... I had to take a bath and spend the rest of the day sitting in my room wondering if God was going to punish me by letting me catch some awful disease from that buzzard.

As we talked that day I reminded him that when I was little I loved to watch him shave. There was a science to his procedure. First, he would open up the medicine cabinet and take out the shaving mug and his razor. Then he would hold his shaving brush under the hot water before putting it in the mug to work up a lather. When the lather was just the right consistency, he would splash hot water on his face and take the brush and apply the lather.

That was when the good part took place. He would turn a little knob on the end of the razor and the top would open up where the double edged razor blade sat. He would take the old blade out and insert a new one. Then he would twist the little knob and the top of the razor would close again.

Then the scraping would begin. He had a very course beard and with each pass of the razor I could hear his beard being scraped off. He always started at his side burns and worked his way toward his nose. When he got to his upper lip he made a funny face as he scraped the area beneath his nose.

I was always concerned when he shaved his neck because he would look up, stretch his neck and feel his way around. I was afraid he would cut himself. When he did he would take some tissue and stick it to the wound until the bleeding stopped.

When he was finished he took out the Aqua Velva and splashed it into his big hands and rubbed it all over his face. He would always look over at me and tell me to hold out my hands. That was when he splashed some on mine so we could both smell like we had just shaved.

I used to wonder if I would ever be big enough to shave like him and have my own razor and Aqua Velva bottle. When I was a teenager I opened one of my Christmas presents one year and there was my very own razor and bottle of Aqua Velva! I had arrived!

We sat and talked about our past for a long time that afternoon. That was unusual because my father was a quiet and reserved man. He had the most integrity of anyone I had ever known. Though he seldom showed affection, I knew he loved me and he knew I loved him.

I told him there was something I had wanted to tell him for a long time, but I never knew how to say it. He turned and looked at me. With tears in my eyes I said, "I just need to tell you that I love you."

His eyes had filled with tears, too. He said, "I know that son, but it sure is nice to hear it. I want you to know something, too. I am very proud you are my son and I love you, too."

We sat there a long while trying to regain our composure. We had finally said it and we both wished we had not waited 23 years to verbalize what we felt for each other. I made a vow that day that if I ever had children they would not have to wait two decades to hear me tell them that I loved them. And, they did not.

It was not long after sitting on those steps that day and sharing stories about what all we had gone through together that my father became bedridden. I cherish the memories of that day. It was as if we had made the passage from father and son to a relationship much closer.

All through his illness he never lost his spirit. He was always up and we drew strength from his optimism. He lived over two years after the initial diagnosis. It wasn't until two years passed that we gave up hope. It was March of 1976 when his doctor told him it was useless to continue the treatments. He was afraid the treatments, if continued, would kill him before the cancer did, so he was more or less sent home to die.

One day a minister from town came to visit Daddy. By that time my father was gravely ill. The preacher was sitting in the bedroom visiting with my parents and as they were sitting there talking they noticed the preacher grew very quiet. He looked pale.

At first my mother thought the sight of my father in that condition may have been too much for him. Then the preacher perked up and started talking again. A few minutes later it happened again. That time the preacher looked visibly shaken. He looked over at my mother and quietly asked, "Did you hear it?"

Mother was a little unnerved and asked, "Hear what?"

"The music… That music… Did you hear it?"

She said, "Nooo… I didn't hear a thing."

That rattled the preacher, but he regained his composure and played it off as if nothing had happened.

A few more minutes passed and he turned ghostly white and stood up. "There it goes AGAIN! That music… it… it's like chimes and bells. I can hear music. Don't you hear it?"

My father looked over at him and smiled. He said, "Don't get too upset preacher. That is just the clock in the hall. They aren't coming after me yet!"

The preacher was terribly embarrassed. I suppose he thought he was hearing heavenly music. It made us wonder about his salvation because Mother said he was rattled.

Between March and June the 8th we watched as he grew progressively weaker. I dare say he weighed about 80 or 90 pounds when he passed away. The last few weeks of his life were a testimony to the faith and the strength he carried with him to the end. He was always lifting us up. Whenever we entered the bedroom where he was confined, he always greeted us with a smile and a wave. Even after he lost the ability to talk, he could communicate with his smile. It seemed the more he suffered the more we could see the presence of Christ in him.

The night before he died our neighbor, Mary Metts, dropped by to check on him. She was a nurse and often dropped by on her way home to see how he was doing. She told me his vital signs were dropping and I might want to call my brothers and let them know it would not be much longer.

I stayed with him that night until about one or two in the morning when my brother, Tonny, drove in from Forest, Mississippi. He told me to go get some rest and he would sit with him until morning. I hated to leave, but we had no idea how long he could hang on.

The next morning about 6:30 the phone rang. It was Lester Hamill. He had gone over to check on my parents. He told me to come quickly, Daddy was fading fast. By the time I got there he was gone. Tonny told me shortly before Daddy died he sat up in bed and spoke. He told Tonny he had to go. My brother thought he needed to go to the bathroom and tried to reassure him and get him to lie back down until he could get the bedpan.

But, that was not the case. After weeks of silence and not being able to speak, he shook his head and said, "No, I have to go." My brother was able to get him to lie back down and it was then my father looked over at the corner of the room and smiled a very large smile. He waved at someone only he could see. He then looked over at my brother and waved at him and said, "Good Bye." Then he was gone.

I have a good idea who he saw, and I wish I could have been there to see him, too. I arrived just moments after he passed away. There was no sign of stress on his presence, only peace. Our doctor was also the coroner and we called him to let him know my father had died. He came out immediately and stayed with us until we got our wits about us. We made some calls and then started making arrangements.

I'll never forget when the men from the funeral home came and were taking Daddy out of the house on the stretcher; my father's dog, Red, sat out in the middle of the front yard and began to howl the most mournful howl I have ever heard. He kept it up until the hearse had driven down the driveway and turned toward town. He knew his master was gone.

Until that day I had imagined he would die an old man after seeing his three sons grown and seeing his ten grand-children. I even thought he might live to see a few great-grand-children, but that was not to be. He was gone at the age of 59 and even though I was only 24, I felt very old.

My father's illness and passing had a profound effect on my life. Watching him go through his illness with the dignity he kept about him touched me more than anything I had ever experienced. He had strength I had never imagined.

I knew where he received his strength from and it led me to dedicate my life to the same God he served so well. I remember standing in front of his casket and seeing him as someone I had only just begun to know.

It was ironic that the treatments had taken away his graying hair and when it began to grow back, it came back black again… just like when he was young. The morning of the funeral I was going into town and noticed all the Black-Eyed-Susans on the side of the road by our farm. They were some of my fathers' favorite flowers. I stopped and picked one. Just before they closed the casket I placed it in his hands. It was something from the farm he loved so much that he could keep forever.

It was not the first time death visited our home. Thirty six years prior to that year my grandfather had passed away in another bedroom. He, also, died because of cancer.

As a child I was a bit leery going into my grandparents' room at night. My grandfather died twelve years before I was born and I am certain he was a fine man. When I was younger, I just did not like going into that room at night. It was… like I could feel a presence there. It was not evil or sinister. I just felt like I was being watched.

It was ironic that my wife and I chose that room for our bedroom when we moved in to take care of my mother after my father passed away. I had no problem sleeping in that room as an adult.

The summer following my father's death, we were sleeping soundly one night. It was about two in the morning, the windows were raised because we did not have air conditioning and the crickets and frogs were filling the night with their sounds. Suddenly, in the still of the night I was awakened. I do not know why. At the moment I awoke the crickets, frogs and what ever else there was to make noise in the middle of the night stopped. There was dead silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

Moments later I heard someone walking down the hall outside our bedroom door. It was one of those recognizable sounds. I knew immediately who was walking on that hardwood floor. I had heard that walk for years. Then I heard a cough. It was unmistakable. I whispered to my wife. "Are you awake?"

"Yes."

"Did you hear what I heard?"

"What did you hear?"

"No, what did you hear?"

"I would rather you say it first."

"Tell me what your heard."

"I heard your father walking down the hall, and I heard him cough."

"That is exactly what I heard."

I knew I had to get up and look. As much as I was afraid… I was excited, too. I jumped up and turned on the lights, then quickly threw open the door to see who was there. There was no one there. I hesitated, but went throughout the entire house searching each room. No one was there. All the outside doors were still locked, so no one could have left the house.

I failed to mention that as soon as I spoke to my wife the crickets and frogs filled the night with their sounds again. We talked for a while about what we experienced and tried to make sense of it. The only conclusion we came up with was my father had actually been there. Why? How? I do not know.

That was the only visit we had like that. Some may discount it as a dream of some sort. We know it was not. Perhaps he was checking on us to make certain we were okay. I don't know. Maybe some day I'll be able to ask him. But, this I do know. There is a way to hear from people who are no longer among us. It may be sound waves that circle back in time or their spirit may linger behind.

It may have been like Saint John of the Cross who spoke of dark nights of the soul where one wonders about so many things. There may be another dimension God has that is closer than we can realize as on the Mount of Transfiguration where the three disciples were shown the glory of Christ in his meeting with Moses and Elijah. Whatever it was, we experienced it and accepted it for what we thought it was… an unforgettable experience that we will understand better in the sweet by and by.

After my father passed away the equipment was sold and the land was rented out for a while. The three of us brothers had moved beyond the days of farming. Eventually, my brothers and I decided the best thing to do was plant pine trees on the land.

Slowly, the cotton fields and pastures disappeared as the years passed by and the trees grew taller. It was the twilight time of the farm as we knew it. The day of our small family farm as we had known it in the past was over.

Optimus temporarios erat. Pessimus temporaios erat.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.)

RISE AND SHINE

I have had many, many jobs over the years. Some I received pay for and some I did not. A few came with being part of a farm family. However, as the years went by the majority of my jobs were not farm related.

My mother would come to our bedroom every morning and quietly say, "Rise and shine, it is time to get up." And, thus, our day on the farm began. When I was little I was given a hoe to use in the garden. We each had our own hoe and we were all expected to do our part. Instead of jobs, I suppose I should call them chores.

When my brothers and I misbehaved, my mother would hand each of us a hoe, a sling blade or a Kaiser blade. Then she would separate us and send each one of us to a different area in front of the house. We had to cut the grass off the banks. I always hated that. All of our neighbors saw us as they drove by on their way to town and they knew we had been up to no good... again.

I started driving tractors when I was big enough to stand behind the steering wheel. When we hauled hay my father would place me on the John Deere and put it in low gear. He would get it started through the hay field and tell me to dodge the hay bales. Before I made it to a fence he would run up, hop onto the tractor and get it turned back in the opposite direction.

As I got older I was given my own cotton sack and I picked cotton, starting at 2 cents a pound. That was the only work I did on the farm I remember getting paid for. As I got older I operated the tractors, plowed fields, planted crops, bush-hogged, baled hay and broke horses. We raised cattle, too. In the winter time we had to haul hay out to the cows and break the ice on the ponds and creeks.

Before industries began moving into our area there was a lumber company that was one of the major employers in my hometown. I have been told the whistle at the lumber mill set the pace of the town in years past. In the mornings the whistle blew and the city of Louisville came to life.

At noon the whistle blew and folks stopped what they were doing and took their lunch break… just like the workers at the lumber mill.

In the afternoon the whistle blew for the last time and the workers began their journeys home… and to the labors that awaited them there.

Our home was about six miles as the crow flies west of the lumber mill and from our hill top view we could see the smoke rising from the incinerator at the mill in the east. When I was younger I had no idea what that ominous black smoke was or what was creating it.

My older brothers knew and they played upon my fears with stories that it was the image of the headless horseman rising from the pits of hell. They told me that I had better be good because he was watching out for bad little boys and if he saw me misbehaving he would come galloping out from the bottomless pit, snatch me up and take me back to the pits where he would have me for supper.

I lived in constant fear of that black cloud rising in the east and kept a watchful eye out for it, lest it come floating in my direction. There were nights when low hanging clouds hung over the town of Louisville and the glow of the street lights would reflect off of them.

Our bedroom faced the east and my brothers would taunt me and say, "Look, you can see the fires in the pits reflecting off the clouds tonight! They are probably cooking some naughty little boys."

It was during the 1960s that other industries began moving south and into our area of the country. Our town had a garment factory, a forklift factory and a saw mill. But, during the 60s a larger lumber company bought out the property where the saw mill was and brought in a particleboard and plywood mill.

Then the clock factory came to our town. It first set up a production area in a little building near my cousin's building supply business. Later it built a large complex on the south side of our town where it employed many people.

The industries provided many needed jobs in our area as they began to hire more and more people. Many, who had only farm jobs available to them before, began to move closer to town for the better paying jobs.

My first public job came when I was 14 years old. I worked at Jones' Mens' Wear, a clothing store on Main Street in Louisville. When I worked there I earned $4 a day. I went in at 8 and normally got off at 5 in the afternoon.

Doris and Helen Jones opened the store in 1950 and continued to operate it for thirty years. When Mr. Jones was younger he was the pilot of a P-38 while he served our country.

Normally, I worked on Saturdays, but during the Christmas season I worked after school, too. I was not making much money, but I did get a break on the clothes I bought. I had to dress nicely to work there and most of my money was going to buy clothes.

There was a standing rule… we always stood. The owner did not want to see us sit, lean or prop. He wanted us to stay busy. If there was nothing to do, we were cleaning or rearranging the stock. He instilled a work ethic that I adhered to there-after.

There was one full time salesman and a seamstress. The seamstress was a sweet lady who had really thick glasses and had a hard time distinguishing between my brother and me.

At one time my brother, Tonny, and I worked there together. People said we looked a lot alike when we were younger. The seamstress would always get us confused. Then we noticed she was making mental notes on which of us was wearing what. She was identifying us by our clothing.

When we found that out, we would go in the back of the store on our breaks and swap clothes. The poor woman did not stand a chance.

Charlie Agent, the salesman turned out to be a good friend. He was in his fifties and he had a glass eye. I worked with him a long time before I found out he only had one eye. Charlie was fun to be around. He collected hundred dollar bills. He did not let many people know it and I felt privileged that he trusted me with his secret. One day he opened his wallet and showed me 13 one hundred dollar bills. I had never seen that much money before.

After I had worked there a couple of years I thought I deserved a raise. One day I got up the nerve to ask. My boss looked shocked and asked me how much of a raise I wanted. I told him I needed $6 a day.

"You want SIX DOLLARS?!"

"Yes, Sir. I really need six dollars. By the time I drive into town and if I buy my lunch at the café next door that takes away nearly a dollar and a half. I could use $6." I said.

"I can't give you $6."

I told him I understood. I would have to quit and find another job.

"You can't quit! Christmas is coming up and I cannot train another person in that short time period. You need to stay through Christmas."

I thought a minute and told him I did not want to leave him in a bind, so I stayed until after Christmas. When Christmas was over we shook hands and I went my way.

He found someone that gladly took my place. But, after a few months it was apparent they needed someone else. He was involved in a lot of activities that made it necessary to miss work a lot. It just was not working out and Mr. Jones knew it. One day I received a call from him and he asked me, "Would you be willing to come back to work for me?"

"Well, I will consider it, but, I still need to make more than $4 a day. What does the job pay now?"

"How about $12 dollars a day?"

"When do you want me to start?"

"How soon can you get here?"

I continued to work for the store throughout high school and during holidays when I came home from college. When I got married Mr. Jones helped by furnishing my suit and tie at cost. Even though I did not make much money, I gained valuable experience that has benefited me throughout my life.

The summer after I graduated high school I hired on at a local factory. It was very busy work. I was a stock boy for the assembly lines. Somehow, I learned the part numbers for all the stock and kept parts out on the line for the ladies to assemble.

I was paid $1.55 an hour and I earned every penny. When I went to work in June, I weighed nearly 130 pounds. In August when I left to go to college I weighed 117. I was running all day long… and I was also running around at night, too. That was probably why I lost so much weight.

I saw and learned a lot there. I saw women crying because they could not get someone to relieve them so they could go to the bathroom.

When the higher ups came to into town to tour the plant, the assembly lines were slowed down so everything would flow smoothly. The next day the lines were sped up to make up for lost production.

The people on the other side of the wall where the assembly line went through were working in packing and the warehouse. It was hot back there in the summer time. I was told about people being overcome by the heat and fellow workers would drag them over in front of fans. When they cooled down they got back up and went to work again.

The next summer I worked afternoons in the warehouse restocking the staging area for the following day's run. That was better. There was not as much pressure back there as there was on the assembly line floor.

During college I worked part time in the library at The University of Southern Mississippi. That was a boring job but it was an extra 15 hours pay every week. I remember working with a girl that was a senior. She was a nice girl and fun to work around.

The second year I was at Southern she mentioned she wanted to see New Orleans before she graduated. I had a '64 Impala at that time and I suggested that we make the trip one day before the year ended. We found someone to cover our jobs and made the trip one Saturday in the spring.

I did not realize she liked to drink and the first place she wanted to go was a place called Pat O'Brien's. It was known for a drink called "The Hurricane". I am not sure what was in it, but it hit me like a hurricane. I spent the rest of the day walking around trying to get it together. It did not seem to faze her at all. After that I stuck with soft drinks.

I bought a yard rake and on pretty days when I did not have a class I would walk through the wealthy neighborhoods and knock on doors to make money raking yards. There were a lot of pine trees down there and I could always pick up an extra five or ten bucks.

One fall Saturday I was raking pine needles in a doctor's yard. It was the day that Southern played Ole Miss. Some students from Ole Miss had flown over our campus earlier in the week and had thrown out leaflets telling us how bad they were going to stomp Southern on the upcoming weekend. The game was at Ole Miss.

The entire time I attended college I never went to a ball game. That day the weather was beautiful. I had made several piles of pine needles when I looked up and saw the homeowner coming toward me with a cooler, a radio and two lawn chairs.

He said, "You need to put your rake down and listen to this."

He saw the puzzled expression on my face and smiled. I did as he said. I took a seat and he handed me something to drink. Then he switched on the radio. It was the fourth quarter. Southern was stomping Ole Miss and I was shocked.

We sat there and listened to the rest of the game. When the game was over we could hear car horns blowing all over Hattiesburg. As well as I remember, the score was 30-0. He switched the radio off and reached into his wallet. He pulled out a twenty and handed it to me as he said, "You are through here for the day. Why don't you head back to campus? I'll bet you would like to be there with the rest of the students."

I was in shock. He gave me twenty bucks and told me to call it a day! As I walked back toward the campus with my rake over my shoulder I could still hear the car horns blowing throughout the town. I glanced back at the doctor's house just before I went around the corner. He had gotten out his rake and was finishing up the yard. That was a good day.

When my parents became ill I transferred to Mississippi State for my third year of college. At State I worked in the Archives Department and the John C. Stennis Collection in the library. John Stennis was a famous and prominent Senator from the State of Mississippi who donated his papers to the college. It was interesting work, but it was secluded and I seldom saw fellow students.

While going to Mississippi State I also worked at the clothing store on Saturdays. I worked on the farm and helped run the Rural Water Association with my parents who were ill. It became more than I could handle, working four different jobs, so I stopped going to school and hit the road doing construction work.

My first construction job was with a construction company in mid-Mississippi. We were building a Vo-Tec School and I stayed with my brother, Tonny, in an old house. We paid $25 a month for the fully furnished home. Not only did it come with furniture, but it also came with bullet holes in the front of the house. Evidently, the previous occupant was not well liked in that community.

My brother was working with the poultry workers to help them organize a union. It was dangerous living there under those circumstances. There was one incident where my brother was to be out of town and I felt uneasy staying there by myself. I rigged a hammer up over a door in case someone tried to break in on me in the middle of the night. If the door opened the hammer would fall on whoever came through it.

It worked. Tonny's business appointment was cancelled. He came back home unexpectedly in the middle of the night and got hammered.

After I had worked construction for a while, I helped Tonny get on when they needed extra help. We were not making a lot of money so we packed our lunches every day. I believe I made $2.25 an hour. We made up a cooler of Kool-Aid to drink so we could save our money. One day it was raining hard and we were working inside the building. At lunch time we all sat in the hall on the floor to eat our lunches.

My foreman was a little man with a large attitude. We had told the guys we would share our cooler with them. The foreman threw me his cup and told me to pour him a cup of Kool-Aid. The cooler was on the other side of the hall by him. I pitched the cup back to him and told him to help himself; the cooler was there beside him.

He pitched the cup back and told me, "You don't understand, boy, I want you to pour me the drink."

I said, "It's right there beside you. Can't you pour it yourself?"

He told me, "Either you pour it or your ass will be out there digging a ditch in the rain this afternoon."

I don't know why I thought I had to have that job. Looking back, I should have walked over, picked up the cooler and poured the whole thing over his head. But, I did not. I have wished a thousand times I had.

It was not long after that I found another job. But, while I lived there with my brother a few interesting things happened at the old house. The house had rats… lots of rats.

My brother had two Doberman Pinschers for guard dogs. We really needed them because of the death threats we got due to his work with the poultry workers. We had built a six foot fence around the house to keep the dogs in. The dogs had a habit of chasing the rats under the house.

We had been pouring concrete one day and both of us came home hot, tired and dirty. We flipped a coin and Tonny got to take a bath first. The bathroom was unique. The faucets for the tub had been replaced and the new faucet did not fit any of the old holes in the wall. So, there was the new faucet and several large holes on each side of it.

Tonny was in the tub soaking when I heard him yell out. My first thought was the radio had fallen into the tub and electrocuted him. I ran into the bathroom to find him plastered up against one end of the tub. At the other end where the faucet was, a large rat was teetering in one of the old faucet holes. The dogs had chased it up into the wall and the rat was about to fall over into the tub with my brother.

On another occasion I had turned in early. Tonny stayed up late reading the paper. As he was reading he heard a "tip… tip… tip". He pulled the paper down and saw a rat run back across the floor and hide under the water heater that was in the corner of the room.

He went back to reading his paper. "Tip… tip… tip." It was the rat again. When he pulled the paper down to look, the rat ran back under the water heater.

That time he set the paper aside, reached over and picked up his rifle that was leaning against the wall. He propped it up and waited. The rat came out again. "Tip… Tip… BANG!" Tonny nailed the rat to the floor. I never woke up.

That was when he had a terrible brainstorm. The next morning was my morning to cook breakfast. He went to the refrigerator and got out the egg carton. He removed all the eggs, put the rat in the carton and put it back in the refrigerator.

The next morning I was opening the egg carton to get some eggs when I found the rat. I cannot remember exactly what I said or did next, but it was not pretty.

I have never been a good cook. That was a talent I never had, but I did learn enough to survive while living with my brother. I learned you do not need to put lard in a pan when frying hamburgers. I had seen my mother cook and I knew she used lard when she fried foods. I thought that was what I was supposed to do, too.

I put a big scoop of lard in the pan and then placed the patties in after it melted. By the time the hamburgers were done there was a grease fog that filled the entire house. We had to open all the windows and doors. The walls were so greasy we could take our fingers and write on them. Note to self; do not use lard when cooking hamburgers.

There was a carpenter I worked with while I was employed there. He was a little rough around the edges, but he was a lot of fun to work with.

The owner of the company sent us out to his residence to work on an addition to his home. We dug the footers and built the foundation. Then we framed in the building and the attached garage.

It was winter time and it was extremely cold. One day I got up and discovered we had received a two or three inch snow. I thought there was no way we could work on a day like that and I went back to bed. I did not have a phone, so, I could not call anyone.

The next day I reported to work and my boss let me have it. I explained that I assumed we would be off since there was a snow the day before. He informed me that it may rain or snow, but it never rains or snows on the job. He expected me to be at work every day.

Shortly after that we put the plywood decking on the addition to the owner's home. The next morning after we had put down the plywood there came a very heavy frost. Everything was covered with frost. That was the day we were to start with the shingles.

The carpenter told me to set the ladder up on the east end of the garage. He was going to hand me the rolled felt from the ladder and I would scatter the rolls on the roof. I placed the ladder against the edge of the roof which was probably twelve or fourteen feet from the ground.

Then I climbed up the ladder and started to get onto the decking. I took one look at all that frost on the steep roof and I hesitated. I did not think I could make it on to the decking without sliding off.

About that time the old man let go with some explicatives and told me to just scramble to the top of the roof. He would push the felt up to me. I knew better than to argue.

Somehow, I made it onto the decking. My fingernails were digging into the plywood through the frost and I was managing to hold my position. Little by little I clawed my way toward the top of the roof. I could hear the old man behind me as he made it to the top of the ladder with the first roll of felt.

He took one look at the frost on the roof and said, "OH, SHI…."

About that time I could not hold on any longer. I left claw marks all the way down the decking and they disappeared over the edge as I was falling off the roof. I managed to curl up in a ball before I hit the ground. I bounced a few times and then I jumped up like nothing had happened.

"You alright, kid?"

"Yeah… I'm okay."

"Maybe we ought to wait until the frost burns off before we get back up there."

"If you say so."

Shortly after that I quit and found my next job with Hughes Construction Company in my hometown. The owner of the construction company, Garry Hughes, was a former high school coach.

He had done well, but he had his sights set higher than remaining a coach. He became very successful. Rumor was that he visited a wealthy man in our hometown and asked him for the secret of his success. The man took an interest in him and helped him start his construction business.

There was an old carpenter that was a neighbor of ours in the Calvary Community who worked with Mr. Hughes when he was starting the new company. In the beginning they built rental complexes. He was amazed at how involved Mr. Hughes was in the building projects.

He would get in there and work with the best of them when he was getting the business off the ground. Once he came on a job site, according to my friend, and saw things were going slower than he thought they should, he could not find a hammer, so, he picked up the only thing he could find… a brick, and started driving nails with it.

When I went to his office to apply for a job he remembered me from riding horses on my parents' farm when he was much younger. Garry and his wife loved horses and would come out to the farm to ride. My mother would make chocolate milk and cookies for them. He loved it and often drank more of the chocolate milk than one should when they are riding a horse. `Nuff said.

I was hired and that turned out to be an experience I will never forget. His projects were scattered over three states and we left Louisville every morning about 4:30 a.m. and drove to the work sites; worked all day and then drove back home.

There were a few times I stayed on the job sites and slept there rather than face all that time on the road. After we framed up an apartment complex and got it in the "dry" I would bring gear with me to camp out on the sites. It was rough! We rigged up a hose for a cold shower and went into town for food. By the end of the week we looked pretty haggard.

I ended up being the designated driver for one of my foremen. I'll call him Joe. Joe liked the night life and when he drank he would tip more than he should. He would give me his money before we left and I would make certain he did not go over his limit and get him back to the project safe and sound.

One time we ended up in a little bar south of Meridian, Mississippi. Two older women came over to our table and sat down. They did not pay much attention to me. They thought I was just a kid. (Thank goodness!) They looked like they had been "rode hard and put up wet". It appeared they were going to take advantage of Joe's inebriated state and try to separate him from some of his money. They did not know I was the one holding all the cash.

They wanted Joe to go to a cabin out back with them and they would do this and that for him. Joe was getting prices on everything they were talking about and I thought he was considering it until he looked over at me and winked.

I told him we needed to be getting back. We had a hard day facing us the next day. The women looked over at me and started to laugh. They did not think he would listen to "a kid". But, Joe looked at me and slurred, "You know something, you are a damn good friend. Let's go!"

When we were leaving the women were yelling behind us, "You ain't gonna listen to that kid are you? You don't know what you are missing!"

Joe looked at me and said, "I would hate to imagine it."

On one project, I was assigned to work with an old man finishing concrete. He told me that in his past he had been a bootlegger. He was quite a character. I never saw him without tobacco juice dripping from the corners of his mouth.

He told me a story about a time he had been running moonshine in his younger days. He had purchased a very fast car that he kept hidden in the woods. When it was time to make a run he would take a taxi to the area where the car was hidden and leave from there. It was in the days before titles and registrations were required. He removed the car tag before he left on the "shine runs".

One night he had a trunk full of jugs filled with moonshine when the police drove up behind him. He had no tags so they could not radio in and find out who he was. They could see he was a bootlegger by the way the car was weighed down in the rear end. He poured the gas to the vehicle and was leaving them behind.

As luck would have it he turned down an unfamiliar road and was flying down it when he noticed a sharp curve up ahead. In the curve was a cemetery sitting along the banks of the Tombigbee River.

He knew he could not make the curve so he flew off the road into the cemetery and was chopping off tombstones until his car finally came to a stop. When he got out he was on the other side of the cemetery by the banks of the Tombigbee.

He opened his trunk and began throwing jugs of moonshine into the river. He could hear the police sirens turning onto the little road he had taken and time was running out fast. He took the last two jugs of shine, one in each hand, and jumped into the river. He was about half way across the river when it became apparent he was not going to make it carrying the jugs.

He said to me, "Sonny boy, that was a sad day. I did not mind losing the car, but I almost cried when I watched those last two jugs of shine sink to the bottom of the Tombigbee in the moon light. Yes sirreee, that was a terrible night."

Another time, I was working on a huge government housing project in Alabama. We were pouring sidewalks throughout the whole complex. There was probably a mile and a half of sidewalks and we were down to the last few hundred feet of a pour.

The specks required reinforcement wire to be in all the concrete. We had just run out and the foreman sent someone to get some more. The concrete truck was there waiting and the driver was not happy about having to wait with all that concrete in his truck.

The foreman decided to let him pour out the remaining concrete before the rewire got there. As it turned out, the inspector drove up about that time. He looked at the pour and said, "There is no reinforcement wire in this sidewalk."

The foreman explained that we had just run out and he had sent someone to get more. That was the only area where the wire was not in the sidewalk.

The inspector looked at him and said, "Do you expect me to believe that? I want all the walks ripped out and poured again with reinforcement wire or I'll condemn the whole complex!"

They gave us 20 pound sledge hammers with steel handles welded in them and we proceeded to bust out all the sidewalks. That was a bad, bad job. I felt sorry for the company I worked for. The poor judgment by the foreman cost them a lot of money.

I became engaged to my wife while working for that company and I thought it was time to find a job with less traveling. My cousin, Harry Bennett, offered me a job at his building supply company and I accepted it.

Winston Building Supply was incorporated about 1946. There were several prominent people in the community who joined together to start the business. Among them was my great-uncle, Walter Bennett. Around 1957 my cousin, Harry, moved back to Winston County. That was when Walter and Harry bought out the other owners and it became a family business.

Across the street from the building supply was the old railroad shop where locomotives and boxcars were repaired. Near the old shop was a scope of woods by the tracks and hobos often camped there while passing through the area. Uncle Walter, occasionally, went over and visited with them. They were an interesting bunch who told many tales about their adventures of riding the rails across the country.

That was a good job, but it did not pay as well as the construction jobs I was accustomed to. I did get to buy supplies at a discount and I was able to fix up my first home. That was an adventure in itself.

I worked with another relative, Oakley Fulcher. We all called him Oak. He was 69 when I started working there and he was still working there long after I left. He was full of wise old sayings and I loved working with him.

There was a story he told me I will never forget. He said once an old woman came into the building supply and told him she was having trouble with her commode. She wanted to know what she should do about it. He asked her what seemed to be the problem with it. She told him, "Hit' just won't swallow."

Oak was also the bill collector. Harry hated going out after delinquent accounts and Oak was pretty good at getting people to come across. He had the kind of personality that did not offend people and they would usually give him part of the money if not all of it.

He had a trick he used at houses where there was a bad watch dog. He always wore a hat. When he came to a house with a bad dog, he would take his hat off and hold it out in front of him. For some reason the dogs were afraid of the hat. He said they thought he was taking off part of his head and it scared them!

There was another man I worked with while I was there. Not only did he work at the building supply, he did carpentry work on the side. I learned a lot from him. He taught me how to make cabinets and I made all the cabinets for my first home.

I really loved that job and stayed there until after my father passed away. I had to earn more than they could pay, so I moved on.

After the building supply I went to work for another local company. It paid more, but it was hard manual labor. I was pulling wood as it came out of a dryer.

I worked the flat table. There were three of us on the flat table; an older lady to my left and an older man to my right. They put me in the middle because I was younger and could throw the wood further.

As the wood came out of the dryer we visually graded it, "A", "B", "C" or redry and threw it into buggies behind us and to the side of us. I went to work in August and it was unbelievably hot in there. We had a water cooler a few feet away from us, but we could not walk over and get a drink unless we had a relief.

The wood never quit coming out of the dryer. If we walked over to the cooler for a drink the wood piled up in the floor.

Leather aprons and leather gloves were issued to me when I first hired on. We went through a lot of leather gloves. The wood ate the leather like a child eating candy. Splinters were common and we ended up with some unreal splinters. When we did, we just plucked them out and kept pulling wood.

One day a different lady was working beside me pulling wood and her leather apron drifted to the right as she was slinging wood to the left. A long piece of the plywood splintered off and stuck into her side. It was bad. The lady yelled out in pain and just started backing up, pushing the buggy behind her out of the way.

We could not stop to help. The wood just started piling up in the floor at her station. She pulled off their leather apron and threw it on the floor. She was wearing coveralls. That was what she always wore. She unzipped the coveralls and pulled them down to the waist. Then she reached to her side and pulled out a very long splinter. Blood was oozing from the wound as she pulled up the coveralls and zipped them up. Then she grabbed her apron and put it back on.

Someone hollered for us to all back out of the way and we pushed our buggies back for a moment as a fork truck driver flew in front of us pushing the wood out of the way. Then they yelled for us to jump back into position and they pushed the buggies up behind us.

We all went back to pulling as if nothing had ever happened.

The last day I worked there was a cold day in January. Winter was just as brutal there as the summer was hot! There was a railroad track that ran through the building behind us. A cold wind was constantly blowing through the opening in the building and coming down the track.

Apparently, the dryer had no exhaust through the roof and the steam rose up and when it contacted the cold roof it condensed. It was as if we were standing in a drizzling rain all night long. (I worked straight midnight shift six days a week) By the time I got off I was soaked to the bone and very cold.

I figured I could do better than that. I did not want to pull wood the rest of my life, so I quit. I tried to go back and finish college. I went for a few weeks until my mother had another breakdown. I knew I could not focus on school and a sick parent, too, so I quit to let things settle down and thought I would go back later and finish school. I did not know it at the time, but that would never happen. My college days were over.

As it turned out Mother had to stay in Jackson near my oldest brother. I was never able to return to college, but life has a way of working out for the best, I suppose. It was time to find another job.

I was hired by Taylor Machine Works and for almost two years I worked in the publishing department there. My title was technical graphics illustrator. It sounds more impressive than it actually was. I did some drawings, but I had not been trained in technical illustration and to be honest, I was in over my head.

I loved the people I worked with. The head of the department was a small man with a big personality. I recently read where my old boss passed away. He was living in another state when he died. His obituary stated that he requested "Do Lord" to be sung at his funeral. I do hope the Lord remembered him. He was a great guy.

Another person I worked with was a very talented artist. I cannot remember seeing him without a cigarette or a cup of coffee. He had a weak stomach and one day someone put a chicken gizzard in his coffee cup. If the phone rang he had the uncanny habit of turning his coffee cup up and guzzling the last little bit that was left before taking the call. When he did it that day, the gizzard slipped forward and hit him on the nose. When he realized what hit him in the nose… Up came the coffee.

Larry (Judge) Mayo and another young man worked on the drawing boards making the technical drawings for the manuals. There were two pressmen who worked there during my tenure. One retired and the other one was still there when I left the company. A photographer was also on staff.

There were two men who worked in the mailing and manuals department. At one point some pranksters were calling one of them "The Masked Marvel".

They had drawn a mask on one of his pictures and had several printed up in the press room. They put them between manuals and he would find them when he pulled them off the shelf. They unrolled toilet paper and hid the pictures in the rolls. He would find them when he went to the bathroom and pulled on a roll in the stall. They were in the paper towel dispenser, too. They turned up everywhere. Finally, they pushed too far.

My boss had to put a stop to it. He told them he had had enough and it was time to stop. That was when someone moved on to the older man in the press room. He had the habit of taking an air hose at the end of the day and blowing the dust off his clothes.

The air hose originated in a shop that was next door to the press room. It ran through the wall and it had a push button on/off switch. One day someone in the shop turned the air off and disconnected the hose before pouring paint into the hose and reconnecting it.

That afternoon he was going through his routine of cleaning up before going home. When he took the air hose to blow the dust off he ended up painting himself yellow.

Needless to say, the head of our department did not like that either.

One guy liked to sneak out and go up town. He would run various personal errands. One thing he did while he was out was get his hair cut. My friends said one day the head of the company was in the same barbershop getting his hair cut when he looked over and saw the guy sitting in the other chair getting a haircut, too.

He looked over at him and asked, "What on earth are you doing here getting a haircut on company time?"

He never flinched. "Well, it grew on company time."

"Not all of your hair grew on company time!"

"Well, I'm not getting all of it cut off!"

I did get to work in the dark room and I enjoyed that. I worked with the photographer and that was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. We went on trips photographing equipment and setting up trade shows.

The most memorable trip was the one we took to Dallas, Texas when we set up a trade show for the Mid South Forestry Exposition. I drove a Box Truck out with show equipment and helped set it up. I was supposed to be out there a couple of days. As it turned out I was there over a week.

They put me up in the downtown Dallas Sheraton. I had only brought enough clothes for two days and ended up having to wash out my underwear each night and hang it out the window of the 14th floor so it would dry!

There came a point in time I felt the need to move on. I loved that job and I hated to leave, but I was ready for a job with more options. I applied for a job at a paper mill in Kentucky and I was called for an interview. Not long after that I was offered the job at Westvaco in Wickliffe, Kentucky.

As I look back on all the jobs I had when I was younger it amazes me at what all I learned and accomplished. At the time I did not realize anything was happening except I was earning a paycheck.

When I worked at the clothing store I learned a job well done was its own reward. My employer noticed how hard I worked and even though he had turned me down for the raise when I first asked for it, he eventually called me and made me an offer to come back to work for him.

The first factory job I had taught me that there were a lot of people who work very hard to provide for their families even though the pay was not very good. It, also, prompted me to stay in school a little longer and seek other opportunities.

The jobs I had when I was in college taught me to manage my time wisely and to be frugal with my money.

I learned many skills when I worked construction jobs that have come in handy over the years. I learned how to build, repair, plumb and wire houses. All of those and more have helped me tremendously throughout my life. I, also, learned it was okay not to follow someone's example, but to be an example.

The building supply introduced me to people I would never have met otherwise. It was interesting to see some of the people who came in the store from time to time. At first they did not think "the kid" would know much, but my construction experience proved that I was knowledgeable and could help them with their projects.

When I worked at the lumber mill I quickly learned to work safely and look out for my fellow employees. I, also, learned some people work very hard twenty four hours a day. And I learned it was not easy to work all night and sleep during the day!

The last job I had in Mississippi was at Taylor Machine Works whose founder started it with the motto of Faith, Vision, and Work. I was told Mr. Taylor Sr. rose early every morning for prayer and devotion before he began his day. He sought God's will in his life and was given a vision to accomplish. Then he worked very hard and created a company that is now run by the third generation of his family who still adhere to his principles of Faith, Vision and Work.

With all my jobs I learned to appreciate the people and blessings that came my way. I don't believe anything happened by chance and when difficulties arose there were opportunities to work through them. I discovered that even while at work, there are lighter moments that can be enjoyed and cherished.

I, also, learned each day was a gift… a chance to begin again.

Est tempus iam surgere?

(Is it time to get up, already?)

FAREWELL TO OAK HILL FARM

It was late in 1978 when I received the call offering me a job at the paper mill in Western Kentucky. That was the year of the three Popes. Pope Paul VI died at the age of 80 and John Paul I was chosen to be the new Pope. He was only in the Vatican 34 days before he unexpectedly died. He was succeeded by Karol Wojtyla of Poland who took the name John Paul II.

Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachen Begin signed the "Framework for Peace" at Camp David in a summit led by President Carter; Jim Jones and his followers' committed mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana and a snail darter held up the construction of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee.

The Yankees defeated the LA Dodgers 4-3 in the World Series and the winner of the Kentucky Derby was - Affirmed. Annie Hall was the movie to see that year and Maya Angelou's book, And Still I Rise was published. It was also the year Norman Rockwell passed away, Paul Simon was singing Slip Slidn' Away, a United States postage stamp had risen to the unbelievable price of fifteen cents and gas was 63 cents a gallon.

On the scale of things our little move to Kentucky was insignificant, but for us it was an earth shaking event.

The job meant a new future for us and the chance to start a family. I turned in my two weeks notice and my wife and I began to make arrangements for our move. My mother-in-law was terminally ill with cancer and the move meant my wife would be able to spend more time with her mother during her final days. Fortunately, we were able to rent a small apartment close to her in Lone Oak, Kentucky.

We made plans for our belongings to be placed in storage until we could find a house. Then began the process of notifying our family and church that we would be leaving Winston County.

Over the next two weeks we boxed up everything we owned and rented a U-Haul truck. I thought we would live in Kentucky about five years, Tina could be with her mother during her illness, and I would make enough money to return to the farm. When the day came to leave it hit me that I may never live on the farm again.

As I walked through the home where I grew up one last time I was overcome with emotions. It was the house my grandfather and father had built. It was also the house in which they died. The rooms were empty for the first time in nearly 60 years and my footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors as I walked through each room one last time. It was beyond eerie.

When I came to my old bedroom I remembered how as a small boy my mother would come and check on us just before the lights were turned off for the night. She would say our prayers with us. "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." I could almost see her as she was back then - a young mother of three little boys.

In the stillness I could hear friends and relatives from the past. All the good times and sad times we shared there were flashing before me. I guess the most vivid thing I remembered was the time my wife and I were awakened in the middle of the night and heard my father's footsteps in the hall outside our bedroom door. The incident had occurred a year after he had passed away.

Standing there, in the back of my head I was hoping I could see or speak to him one last time. I wished he would appear and tell me if leaving the farm was the right thing to do. I stood there a long time waiting and hoping for him to materialize.

But nothing happened. I was own my own.

As I turned to walk out, my footsteps echoed in that empty old farmhouse and reminded me of that night a year earlier when Tina and I had heard him outside our bedroom door. I felt as if I were being watched. I walked out onto the porch and down the steps for the last time. Part of me wanted to stay. Part of me wanted to look back to see if he was there, but I wouldn't let myself. I knew I had to leave.

There have been only a few times in my life I have felt a presence similar to that. Once was when I visited Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I had gone to the Devil's Den on the south side of the park and climbed up a trail to look out over the battlefield.

As I walked up the trail to get a better view I had an overwhelming feeling that I was not alone. Goose bumps crawled all over me as I made my way to the summit. I stood there looking across the field and I knew I was not alone. It was overwhelming looking out where thousands of people had died. Call it a paranormal experience or what you may; I could sense something all around me.

The other time I had that feeling was when I had visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. There was something about that monument and those bronze statues of the soldiers looking back at that black wall on which thousands of names were inscribed that made me feel just as I had at Gettysburg. It was powerful, moving, and inexplicable. I felt as if I were standing among all those men whose names were inscribed upon that wall.

That's the way I felt that day as I walked away from the house where I had grown up. I could feel a presence there. I knew I was not alone.

I walked out to the truck, got in, and hesitated a moment before turning the key. It was late November and the leaves on the old oak trees that surrounded the house had turned brown. Some were beginning to fall. Others were still hanging on. The few that had turned loose were blowing in the wind across the yard.

I had the same choice. I could hang on or let go and let the wind take me somewhere else. My eyes were welling with tears and I could barely see where I was going driving down the hill towards the highway. I knew I had to go with the wind. I had to let go and let it carry me to a different place.

God had opened another door for me and I knew I had to travel through it.

Standing by my mother's grave on that cold New Year's Day in 1999 I knew I had made the right choice. My wife and three daughters were with me. Relatives, friends and many neighbors I had grown up with in Calvary Community were there, too. I realized I still missed Winston County and the farm, but to everything there is a season, a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to hang on and a time to let go and let the wind take me wherever it would - beyond the cotton fields.

Age cum Deum.

(Go with God.)

TRIBUTES

Mrs. Yvonne McNeil

I hope all who read the chapter School Daze were aware that the section I wrote about my typing instructor was written with a double edged sword. All except the end of the chapter was written from the perspective of a senior boy in high school.

Thankfully, with age comes wisdom. I can now look back and see how overwhelming her duties were as a typing instructor and as a class sponsor. I would not have wanted her job for anything in the world. It was not my calling in life. But, it was hers and she did it very well. She was a wonderful human being and a very accomplished instructor.

Without her drilling the typing skills into my head I would not have been able to record any of the stories I have written about. With the perspective of nearly 40 years I can appreciate much more what she did for me and my fellow students. None of us could have imagined back in the late 60s that we would some day enter the computer age where those typing skills would become a necessary part of our daily lives.

At the time I signed up for her typing class I was thinking of being in a classroom full of pretty girls. For the life of me, I cannot remember a single person who was in that class other than me and my instructor. I am very grateful for the dedication she had for her job and teaching me how to type.

So, I would like everyone to know I thank Mrs. McNeil not only for providing me with and interesting graduation night, but for instilling in me the value of hard work and perseverance. I often struggled with typing and I never mastered any of the timed events, but I did manage to hang in there and learn a skill that has served me well over many decades. For that I will always be grateful.

Thank you Mrs. McNeil from the bottom of my heart.

Mrs. Lois Boswell

Readers may have picked up on the Latin phrases at the end of the chapters and wondered what they are all about. They are a tribute to my high school Latin teacher, Lois Boswell.

I took Latin because my oldest brother, Terry, took it. One day I heard him say Latin was easier than Spanish. I wanted to take a foreign language and I thought I might make it through Latin. Also, there was a girl taking the Latin class I had a crush on. I thought if I took Latin I would impress her. She was not impressed.

Mrs. Boswell knew I was struggling and took extra time to help me. She was a sweet person and I grew to love her dearly. There is a saying, "Latin is a language, dead as dead can be, first it killed the Romans, now it is killing me." It nearly did! But, with Mrs. Boswell's help, I made it.

Mrs. Mary Emily Majure

One of the teachers that fostered a love of history in me was Mary Emily Majure. I always looked forward to going to her classes because she made Mississippi history interesting and fun. To me, that is the key to getting someone interested in learning a subject.

She was always upbeat and positive which captured my attention and that was hard for any teacher to do. I was hyper and normally bouncing off the walls. So, here are a few interesting facts about Mississippi I am sure Mrs. Majure would love for everyone to know.

The Ringier-America company in Corinth prints the National Geographic magazine and at one time the paper mill I worked at in Kentucky produced paper for National Geographic.

Memorial Day was started in Columbus, Mississippi in 1866 when women in Columbus decorated the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers in Friendship Cemetery. At first it was known as Decoration Day, but later it was celebrated across the nation and became Memorial Day.

Jackson, Mississippi is one of four cities sanctioned by the International Theatre/Dance Committee to host the International Ballet Competition. The others are: Moscow, Russia; Varna, Bulgaria and Helsinki, Finland.

The oldest yacht club in North America was founded in 1849 and is The Pass Christian Yacht Club.

The Vicksburg National Cemetery is the second largest national cemetery in the nation. Arlington National Cemetery is the largest.

The Teddy Bear's name began after President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear while hunting in Mississippi.

Famous musicians from Mississippi: Carl Jackson, Elvis, Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner, Mary Wilson, B. B. King, Muddy Waters, Marty Stuart, Faith Hill, Charlie Pride, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Leontyne Price, Sam Cooke, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hocker and Le Ann Rimes. Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and had a twin brother that died young.

Famous entertainers from Mississippi: Morgan Freeman, Oprah, Stella Stevens, Ray Walston, Jim Henson, James Earl Jones, Gerald McRaney, Beah Richards and Zig Ziglar.

Famous Mississippi Writers: Richard Wright, Jerry Clower, Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote, Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner and John Grisham. When William Faulkner lived in Oxford, Mississippi my cousin, T. D. Clark, was a student at Ole Miss. T. D. was the greens keeper at the college golf course. He knew William Faulkner and was falsely accused if giving "Bill's" golf clubs to a professor at the college. Bill later sent him a letter of apology when the truth surfaced.

Coca-Cola was first bottled by Joseph A. Biedenharn in 1894 in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Babe Ruth's last home run was hit off Guy Bush who was from Tupelo, Mississippi.

The King and Queen of the Gypsies, Emil and Kelly Mitchell are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian, Mississippi.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast has the longest manmade beach in the world.

Blazon-Flexible Flyer, Inc. in located in West Point, Mississippi and produces the Flexible Flyer snow sled.

MRS. DIANE CARTER

Diane Carter not only taught at Louisville High School, she grew up in the Louisville Public School System. As of this writing she has a combined tenure at the school system, both as a student and as a teacher, of 55 years. She was recently chosen Teacher of the Year. She has been chosen Outstanding Secondary Educator, was a semi-finalist in the Disney Teacher of the Year program and has been chosen as STAR Teacher eight times. While visiting her in the spring of 2008 she was still debating on whether or not to retire at the end of the year.

She is an amazing lady who was one of many dedicated teachers I had while attending Louisville High School.

Concluded in Beyond the Cotton Fields, Part 6

_______________
Rick Algood
December 16, 2017

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