In the back yard by the garden was an old WPA out-house (Works Program of America) that was built in the 30’s as a project to keep people employed after the great depression. As far as out-houses are concerned, it was a nice one, with a concrete base, cedar siding, a tin roof and a vent pipe up the back.

The only problem was fighting off the humpback crickets when we needed to sit down. We only used it when we were supposed to stay out of the house.

Our garden was to the west of the out-house and where we grew most of our food. It was probably a quarter of an acre, and we grew nearly every vegetable imaginable. At least it seemed that way when we were hoeing all the grass and weeds.

Just behind the garden was a pasture where my father kept a lot of scrap metal. When my brothers and I were young we did not have a lot of things to play with, so we invented things to do.

There were the corn cob wars, rat killings, broom straw sleigh rides on the big hill in front of our house, then there was the big culvert in the pasture by the scrap-iron pile.

The culvert was something our father had brought home to be used in a ditch on the east side of the farm. When he first brought it home he dumped it out behind the garden until he got around to it. That particular pasture had been a cotton field in years past. Like most hilly fields it was lined with steep terraces all the way to the lowest part of the field. Over the years the terraces settled a little bit and became less and less steep, although they never completely leveled out.

The culvert was about twelve feet long and three feet in diameter. One day we were playing out there when one of us crawled inside. On a lark one of us guys knocked the props out from its lower side, allowing the culvert to start rolling down the hill. Whichever one of us that was inside the culvert braced himself for the long bumpy ride all the way to the bottom of the hill.

As it turned out, it was a lot of fun as long as you kept yourself well-braced inside. If you did not, you stood a good chance of breaking bones or rolling out the side of the culvert and getting badly hurt.

We would push the culvert back up the hill and then two of us took turns crawling inside while one of us shoved it along as fast as he could to give it a good rolling start. It was a lot of fun, but hard part was pushing it back up the hill. We had a lot of fun with it until my father walked up one day and witnessed what we were doing. He expedited his ditch project to keep us from killing each other.

I had another encounter with a culvert, though not as much fun. When they rebuilt the highway in front our home in the late 50’s, the new road was much lower than the old one. We ended up on a high hill and the highway department placed a concrete culvert in the ditch at the foot of our driveway.

It was probably two feet or less in diameter. With the new highway and the ditches on either side of the road, water came whenever it rained. And where there was water there were bull frogs. I loved playing with all kinds of frogs but for the most part I caught toads. Occasionally, I would catch a bull frog and the bigger the better.

The bull frogs were a real treat. They could hop much higher and further than the toads and they were more of a challenge to catch. I discovered there were a few bull frogs in the ditch and I made it my personal mission to catch them all.

One day I happened upon a large one loping down the ditch. It was the biggest I had ever seen up to that point and I knew I had to have it! The frog managed to keep one hop away from me until it reached the culvert beneath our driveway. I knew if it made it to the culvert it was a goner.

Just as I almost had it, the frog made one last hop and into the culvert it went. I was not going to give up. I got down on my belly and watched it as it sat there taunting me inside that dark hole. The darn thing was daring me to come get it. It shouldn’t have done that.

I put my arms in front of me and slithered forward on my belly, but just as I almost had it, it moved a little further into the culvert. I followed. When I was about halfway through it dawned on me I might get stuck and I began to panic. It felt like it was getting smaller. No one knew I was there and they would never find me. I tried to back up and couldn’t.

Then I thought about snakes and I became even more panicked. To heck with the frog, I had to get out of that pipe and fast! I kept slithering forward until my arms made it out the other side and I was able to pull myself free. Covered in mud from head to toe I was so relieved I forgot all about the frog, but only for a moment.

Then it occurred to me that if I was outside the frog was, too. I spotted it and managed to chase it down the ditch until I finally caught it.

After I got older, I looked at the culvert one day and could not imagine how on earth I had managed to crawl all the way through it. An angel had to have been watching out for me that day.

Our well was beside the carport. It was in a little building attached to the old “car house” and my father’s shop. The well had been hand dug by my father several years before I was born. He dug a large pit that was probably eight feet square and eight feet deep. In the center of the pit he placed a big clay tile. He climbed inside the tile and dug out all the dirt until the it slipped down into the hole.

He then stacked on another tile and kept digging until he was several feet deep and the water began seeping in. At that point he threw pea gravel into the hole to filter out the mud in the bottom. Then he placed a pump and tank on the last tile he set and ran plumbing to the house. After it was completed he built a shed over the pit and well.

The water we got from that well was cold and had the best flavor anyone could imagine. It would surely beat any bottled water people buy today.

Inside the car house was my grandmother’s 36 Chevrolet. It was large and black. She parked it in there when my father gave her his old 48 Plymouth. We kids would climb over it when we were little to get up to the loft. That was where our cats often had kittens. We would play up there with the kittens and then jump back down onto the car’s roof to get down. Oftentimes we played in that old car and pretended we were taking a trip.

My grandmother told us when she parked it in there that the old car was ours and we could do whatever we pleased with it. My brothers and I dreamed of restoring it when we got older. We could just imagine ourselves actually driving it down the highway.

Then one day a professor from Mississippi State came to our house and asked my father about it. Someone had told him about our old car and he wanted it. He asked my father if he was interested in selling it. Daddy thought it over for a moment and said he would. We couldn’t believe it. He sold our car! Our car! They aired up the tires, dropped in a battery and it fired up. The last I saw of it, it was on that guys trailer going down our driveway.

I asked Daddy why he sold our car. He replied, “Simple. One car, three boys. It just wouldn’t work.” He was a man of few words.

(To be continued)

	The old churches of Louisville. I believe all except the Presbyterian Church, top center, were blown away in the 1913 cyclone that hit town.
The original Masonic Hall. The lower floor was used as a school. Presently, It houses the Chamber of Commerce.	Dairy Day parade on Main Street. Foster's Department Store can be seen near the center of the picture.
The corner of Main and Church Street. The Strand Theatre can be seen on the far left.	Luther Tate at Mule Day in Winston County.
	My understanding is that this store was around the Estes Switch area when the lumber mill was there.
These men were digging the OLD city well that was in the middle of Main Street. It was not the wishing well that was on the corner by the old courthouse.
This store stood on the corner of Main and Court Street. I believe there is a law office located there presently. At one time it was Foster's Department Store, then in later years it was Elmore's.

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Rick Algood
August 22, 2021