My father’s shop was attached to the west side of the car house. That was where my father worked on his inventions and special projects. In that shop he would come up with all kinds of unusual things to use on the farm, and they all worked! After he died I had the chore of going through all that stuff and cleaning it out. I found wheels, gears, angle iron, and contraptions that only he would have known what it was good for. Between his shop and the scrap iron pile behind the garden, I hauled off several loads of rusty gold to the scrap yard in town.

He often colluded with a blacksmith that lived on the edge of town near the airport. Together they built the heavy metal contraptions Daddy designed. Once he came up with a way to unload an entire wagon into the corn crib in a matter of seconds.

They built a long ramp on the back side of our two-story corn crib. There was a telephone pole installed in front side of the crib and on top of it was fastened a large pulley system. He ran a cable through the pulley, down the ramp and connected it to the tongue of the wagon. The other end was attached through the bottom of the ramp and hooked to the rear of the tractor. After he had the wagon in position he would drive off in the opposite direction of the corn crib and the wagon would travel up the ramp to the top of the building and hover over an opening in the roof. Then he walked up the ramp, pulled some pins on the tailgate of the wagon and the entire contents would drop into the crib below.

People driving down the highway sometimes caught a glimpse of what looked like a wagon sitting on the roof of the building.

Across the lane from his shop was the tractor shed. In the tractor shed we parked the A-John Deere and the Super-A Farm-All tractors. We, also, had an iron wheel tractor he used in the swamp where the ground was too rough for rubber tires. There was another tractor shed further back where he kept the Ford and David Brown tractors.

When our apple trees were ready we would cut apples into thin slices, climb on top of the tractor shed and lay them out on towels we had spread out on the tin roof. There, they would dry in the sun to be eaten by us or used in Mother’s kitchen. Yellow Jackets seemed to like the apples as much as we did. It was always a fight to see who wanted them more.

There was another building on the west side of our house. It was a one room country store my father kept for the workers on the farm. He named it after my oldest brother. He called it TERRY’S CORNER. He kept a few items for folks so they wouldn’t have to make a special trip into town. The few shelves held candy bars, chewing tobacco, snuff, canned vegetables, sardines, Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco and cigarette papers.

Near the tractor shed was the chicken house. We raised our own chickens for a while. When I was small our mail man would deliver the baby chicks in a big box to our house every spring. We kept the chicks in one side of the chicken house and the laying hens in the other side. When the chicks matured they became our layers and we ate the older ones.

In later years, the postal service quit shipping live chickens and my father learned it was easier to go to the county fair and buy the first blue ribbon egg layers that were auctioned off by the 4-H clubs in the county. So, he started doing that. We would let them settle in and start laying before we would kill the older ones and put them in the freezer.

We would take the ones that were on death row out to a fence by the tractor shed, tie them up by their feet, cut their heads off and let them bleed out. The reason we tied them up by their feet was because if we didn’t, they would often run around after their heads had been cut off. Sometimes they ran under buildings or equipment and were hard to retrieve. Oftentimes the dogs and cats would get excited and chase after them. It was even worse when we were little and we were being chased by headless chickens. That was the stuff nightmares were made of.

After we killed them we dipped them in a kettle of scalding hot water and plucked out their feathers. We had a fire barrel nearby and the remaining feathers and fuzz were burned away. The smell was awful. At that point we washed them and turned them over to my mother who cut them up and saved what was edible from the insides. The cats fought over the discarded parts we didn’t use. Usually, the gizzards and hearts were saved for gizzard stew. It took several chickens to make but it was wonderful, believe it or not. We called it Country Caviar.

It was my chore to keep the chickens watered and fed, plus gather the eggs every day. One time while doing my chores my cousin, Craig Foster, was tagging along. While Craig was distracted by the egg gathering, I slipped out and latched the door from the outside.

Unbeknownst to me, he was already apprehensive about being in the henhouse. Being trapped inside only heightened his fear to the upmost level. My memory of the event though waining has been refreshed each time I visit with him. Sadly, he now suffers from chick-a phobia.

There was an old man that came by our house occasionally to shoe our horses. Most springs he would borrow money from my father to plant his crops and every fall when he sold his crops he would drop back by to reimburse my father. Daddy never charged him interest on the money, but the man insisted in giving him something extra for the loan. It may have been sorghum molasses, peanuts or sugar cane. – whatever he had to spare.

One year he gave us a pair of turkeys; a gobbler and a hen. I don’t ever remembering having turkeys before then. When we took possession of the turkeys Daddy thought he would start raising them so he threw them in with the chickens. I loved to watch the Tom strut around and gobble. I was amazed at the all the different colors his head and neck turned and the sounds he made.

Unfortunately, our dogs liked watching him, too. One day he flew out of the pen and it didn’t take long for the dogs to tear him to pieces. That left only the hen. She became lonely and grumpy.

She was sitting on a hen’s nest one day when Mother went in to gather eggs. Evidently she didn’t like it when my mother thrust her hand under her looking for eggs. She felt violated. That thing went nuts and lit into her. When Daddy came home at the end of the day and saw how scratched and pecked up my mother was, that was the end of our turkey ranch. Turkey was on Sunday’s menu.

When my brothers and I were small our parents let our hair grow long. I am not saying a little long - I mean really long. We have pictures and if you did not know who you were looking at, you would swear they were pictures of girls. We were anything but.

As we got older my father took us to Aubrey Sullivan’s Barber Shop on the west side of town to get our haircuts. We received a “50 Cent” hair cut every two weeks. We would joke it was time for our “white walls.” That was Aubrey’s specialty. No hair on the sides and a tuff of hair on the top.

I was about three or four years old and had never had a real haircut the day Daddy took us to a Saturday afternoon matinee at the Strand Theatre. It was a western and the cowboys and Indians were fighting it out.

They later told me I was really getting into it, whooping and hollering while sitting on my father’s lap before the usher came down the aisle and tapped him on the shoulder. He said, “Mr. if you can’t keep your little girl quiet you’ll have to take her outside.”

Daddy always loved a good joke. He gathered the three of us boys up and marched us out to the lobby. He walked up to the usher and said, “Mister, I don’t mind leaving. I realize the boys were getting a little loud and I didn’t care for the movie that much, anyway. But don’t ever, ever call my son a little girl.”

The usher looked at him and then at me. His jaw dropped. My father then marched out of the movie theatre and took us down the street to Aubrey’s Barber Shop where I received my first haircut.

I went from long hair to a crew cut in a matter of minutes. They say I pitched such a fit that Daddy had to hold me in the chair as Aubrey cut away my locks. I embarrassed my father so bad that he ordered a barber kit from the Sears and Roebuck Company and began giving me haircuts at the house.

Daddy taped wings and a tail fin on the clippers and when it was time for a haircut he’d take me in the bathroom and we played “airplane”. He would take those clippers and dive bomb me until I had something that resembled a haircut.

Mother said I looked so bad she hated to take me out in public because my hair was so gapped up. I was their little ugly duckling. My brothers, on the other hand, were perfectly groomed.

As I grew older they began to bribe me into being good so I would sit in Aubrey’s chair. They wanted me to look presentable at church.

Many times while getting a hair-cut at Aubrey’s I saw an odd little man come into waiting room area. The waiting area was actually a small store attached to the Sullivan’s house and operated by his wife, Gladys. It was a nice setup. While folks waited in the store for their haircuts they were tempted to buy candy or a soft drinks.

I learned the little man’s name was Johnny Hightower. Johnny lived on the west end and made the same route into town every day, Monday through Saturday. He dressed well, a suit, hat and nice walking shoes.

He began his day by stopping off at Rosamond Atkinson’s store in the Y of highway 25 and 14 for a Coke. Always on the house.

The owner would give him a dime and Johnny made his way up the road to Sullivan’s grocery where he was given another Coke and a nickel or dime. A quarter mile closer to town he stopped by Garvin’s store for another Coke and a coin. Then he hit the Shumaker’s store by the railroad tracks.

His next stop was Aubrey’s Barbershop and store where Miss Gladys would give him a Coke and a dime. That’s where I came to know him when I was a kid.

He would take a big swig of Coke, burp loudly, and then take another swig. After that he’d wander out and start making his rounds at the stores in town.

Everyone loved Johnny. It wasn’t until I was a little older I learned he had Down Syndrome. He thought it was his job to dress up and go into town every day. All the storekeepers played along.

Years later his nephew informed me that Johnny probably drank fifteen or more Cokes a day on his trek about town, and he came home with a pocket full of change. He also let me know that there was no doubt in his mind that Johnny went to heaven when he passed away. On his walks through town he always visited every funeral home and learned where all the baptisms were being held the following Sunday.

Johnny didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so he was baptized in just about every church in town and the surrounding area at least once if not twice.

Johnny was an exception. Most people with Down Syndrome don’t live to be old people. He did. I suppose all that walking he did every day on his trek into and around town was good for him. Plus, all the love he gave and received from the community didn’t hurt. Disabled? I think not. He was God’s gift to our little town.

(To be continued)

These men carried bales of cotton from the old gin that was across the road from our house into town to a warehouse near the depot.	Left to right; Reuben Algood, unknow, unknown, (Probably Pearl and Thelma Bennett) Harold Algood, (my father) Louis Algood and Corrie Algood. The little boy standing in front is Harry Bennett.
Photo by Walter Bennett that was taken in the 30s. Unknown man plowing.	Photo taken by Walter Bennett in the 30s. Unknow family on the edge of a cotton field.
Corrie Bennett Algood, my grandmother, on the far right. This picture was taken when she taught school at Calvary's one room schoolhouse around 1914.	This is a picture of me with my house in the background. Note the fence and gate with a double ox yoke mounted over it. The dinner bell was used to call my father home for lunch and if there was an emergency.
This is a picture of me after I had done a little repair to our mailbox.	This picture was taken during the late 50s while the new highway was under construction. My brothers Terry and Tonny can be seen standing with Tippy and Laddie on the roadbed before paving began.

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Rick Algood
August 23, 2021