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Drew heard his dog, Chester, barking in the distance, but kept still as the wind coursed though the high grass on either side of him.
He watched intently with his chin pressed against the ground as the Union gunboat slowly glided past the sandbar. Eyeing the big guns in their portals he marveled, as it swept wide, presenting a menacing starboard broadside to the entrenched enemy.
He had found a good vantage point just above the curve in the channel where he could see the Confederate camp just down stream. Cannon had been placed on a rocky overlook with field artillery hidden some distance back from the water’s edge on the inside of the bend. He had been watching for sometime and had observed no movement in the rebel camp but he was sure that once the ironclad came into view, all of that would change…
“James Andrew!”
He jumped up from his hideout and quickly snatched the warship from the waters. He gathered the rebel soldiers as quickly as he could and bounded off through the brush.
A call of “Andrew” from his mother would bring a boy reluctantly in for supper, but “James Andrew” usually meant some form of reckoning was looking for him.
“James Andrew!” His mother called again.
“Coming!” he answered, struggling to maintain both armies as Chester, the Border collie, was now running haphazardly under foot. A rebel soldier fell by the wayside, which did not go unnoticed. Chester quickly snatched it up and streaked across the yard and up on the porch where he dropped the little man at the feet of Drews’ mother. He sat back and gazed up at her almost smiling, the way dogs do.
“You are such a tattle tail”, She said as he kept glancing back at Drew who was coming across the yard.
Drew frowned at Chester. “Traitor”, he said, as he aimed one of the cannon his way. Chester had a way of wearing a halo when things hit the fan, something that Drew could not seem to master.
“Drew, I asked you to cut down those bushes behind the shed. Did you do that before you went to the creek?”
Drew dumped the soldiers on the porch and replied, “No Ma’am,” knowing that she already knew the answer anyway.
He walked around to the garage and gathered up the axe and an old pair of loppers. The bushes had been there since before he was born and had only recently died, of old age, he assumed. He failed to see the immediate need to clean up the area but would not argue the point with his mother. He only hoped that there would be some kind of adventure in it, though the prospects looked very unlikely.
He hacked away at the bushes and before long he had gotten to a point where what little was left was thick branches down close to the ground. He went back to the garage and returned with a shovel and began digging at the base of each bush. Drew was growing tired of this chore and became frustrated at the depth of the root ball.
He stopped for a moment and stepped back as Chester sniffed the excavation. Drew could not understand why such a job couldn’t wait till a time when he actually wanted to do it. He began to think about doing other things and wondered how he could manage an escape.
“What cha doin’?”
Paul had managed to slip up on Drew unnoticed, something he enjoyed immensely, usually finding Drew talking to Chester and carrying both sides of the conversation. Another minute and he might have done just that.
“Mom wants me to dig up these bushes,” Said Drew.
Drew resumed working with his shovel as Paul stood overlooking an ever-increasing hole around the bushes.
“I just came up from the creek,” said Paul, “Thought you’d be there.”
“Was.” Drew scraped the loose dirt from the hole and stopped again. “I got captured. Got hard labor. Working on an escape.”
Paul squinted, “Digging your way out, huh?”
“Yep.”
They both grinned and grabbed the low branches of the bush and gave it a good shake. These chores always seemed to go faster when Drew’s friend Paul showed up. The end result being that they might finish sooner and vacate to a more favorable endeavor.
The digging went on for about another hour broken up by several distractions involving the finding of an old piece of chain, an iron rod and two halves of the same arrowhead.
Finally, the ground surrendered the remaining ragged stump and the two boys leaned back against the shed on either side of the hole. Drew thumped the ground with the iron rod as they discussed the possible scenario of a band of Chickasaws trying to find a lost arrow, and maybe having to finish off a wounded bear. He drew back with the rod and speared it into the hole, making a strange metal sound. Both boys stopped and looked at each other.
“Treasure!” they said almost at the same time.
Drew pulled out the rod and both boys began digging with their hands and soon cleared the soil from around the edges of what appeared to be a small metal box.
Paul stopped digging and leaned back from their find.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
“What? Smell what? I don‘t smell anything” Drew stopped, and stared at Paul in bewilderment.
“Where’s your septic tank?” Paul asked, looking at his hands.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last week Polly Tabors septic tank was pumped out and it smelled just like this.” Paul waved his hands toward Drew’s face.
Drew shook his head, “So what you’re saying is, you fell in the mess and never washed your hands?”
Paul was laughing now but then thought about it and stopped again. “Well, where is your septic tank?”
Drew studied for a moment.
"Other side of the house,” He said, “Sort of down the hill.” He pointed at the metal box, “This ain’t it.”

Work in Progress.

A Smithy

Jonas slowly opened his eyes and frowned, realizing a throbbing headache. Thinking he had simply awakened from a night’s sleep, he struggled to reason why, practically at the end of his nose, there was a wiry white haired fellow gazing at him intently. Jonas firmly pushed the man back with a callused right hand against his chest.
“Not so fast, Jonas,” said the little man. “Are ye aware that ye have met with a serious injury?”
“I am aware that my skull hurts, and who the hell are you?”
“Now, we’ll have none of that, “said the little man, “There are ladies present.”
From a chair in a shadowy corner of the room rose a gaunt figure of a women dressed in black lace. The Presbyterian Lady’s Auxiliary had seen the need to send it’s most ardent busy-body, the moral harpy, Ms. Tripp.
“Oh yes, Jonas Finch,“ she said in a high raspy voice. “It’s plain to see that you are at yourself. It appears that prayer can only go so far and that you have not awakened as a new man ready to preach on Sunday. With such an abundance of heathens through out the county…”
“Ain’t they some hogs somewhere that you can torment?” Jonas muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” Ms. Tripp glared back at him.
“I said, I…I wouldn’t want to put the preacher out of work,” Jonas said a little louder.
“Well!” She said with some disgust. “I think the Lord could not have too many in His employ.” With barely a glance towards the kitchen she continued while walking toward the door. “Abigail, I am relieved to see that you are not yet a widow, and if I can be of guidance to his salvation…”
“Thank you, Ms. Tripp,” said Abigail hiding a grin behind small fingers. “I think we can manage.”
Jonas squinted hard as the screen door slammed loudly.
The little man leaned forward again and said in a quiet concerned tone, “Jonas, do ye know me?” he said, studying Jonas’ expression. “I am Doctor Eli Wilson.”
“Well, I reckon I’ve seen you”, Jonas said as he took a long breath and exhaled. “But, I don’t recall having business with you.”
“No sir, ye wouldn’t”, the Doctor smiled, as he sat back, closing his bag. “It has occurred this morning that Henry Mott’s Morgan horse placed hoof to head rendering ye insensible. Ye have slept through our business and God willing, our work is done.” He turned to take a coffee cup from the small table by the bed.
“I thank you, Mrs. Finch”, said the Doctor and he took several short sips once again studying Jonas. “Ye should not work this day and perhaps not tomorrow.”
“Think so, do you?”, said Jonas as he sat up and lowered his feet to the floor. He would afford no more notice of the Doctor’s mandates than if he had spoken from the other end of the county.
“Jonas, ye should not take this lightly,” said the Doctor. “As ye have lingered briefly at death’s door, ye should reflect that that door could yet open.”
Jonas seemed undeterred as a relatively tiny Abigail rushed forward leveling an outstretched arm and finger pointed directly at Jonas’ nose. “And where do you think you’d be going” Her Irish temper was well known to him and on any other day, a source of amusement.
“Do you not hear this man? Do you know how hard it would be for your children and for me if you fall over dead? Aye, you will wish to be kicked by another horse if you think to get up now!”
Jonas would back down from no one except for the fiery haired mother of his children. He eased his six-foot frame back onto the bed and breathed a heavy sigh as the Doctor tried to contain a laugh. “Mrs. Finch, I expect he is in good hands now and I should be calling on the Millers before nightfall. Sara is expecting her seventh child soon, they are hoping for a girl this time.”
“ I suppose there is always hope“, said Abigail, “T’would not be too much to ask, after six boys.”
The Doctor closed his bag and stepped toward the door.
“What of Mott’s horse?” Jonas asked.
“Well, the horse got the last word with ye this morning, and as ye can see, it is now late afternoon,” the Doctor chuckled. “Your apprentice, has since shod the horse, which I am sure, is no worse for wear, though I think him lucky not to break his leg on such a hard head.”
Jonas turned a hard look in the direction of the Doctor and growled under his breathe, “Be gone, Quaker.”
The Doctor smiled and turned to Abigail, “ I have left some powders there on the table if he should see fit to give in to it. I shall return before weeks end. Mrs. Finch, I thank ye for the coffee and bid ye good day.”
“Thank you, Doctor Wilson,” chimed Abigail, as the screen door slapped shut.
The solemn faces of three small children then pressed against the window screen looking in at Jonas. He reached out from the bed and thumped the screen and the little faces pulled back smiling. Jonas winked at the least one, Emmy, a tiny girl of four years. They all ran giggling off the porch and around the house.
Jonas watched the children playing in the dirt between the roots of a great oak tree. They recited pretend dialogs while moving stick people and few marbles along the dusty trails of imagination.
By evening Jonas was up and about with a stiff headache, the likes of which recalled his younger days when he acquainted himself with his Grandfather’s jug of corn whiskey. The ill effects soon dispelled any chance of a lasting partnership, much to his Grandfather’s delight.
Jonas was no stranger to pain. His hands and arms were scarred from the hot iron of the blacksmiths trade. Heavy work with wagons and horses had fashioned a solid figure of a man of twenty eight years.
The next morning, Jonas got up early as usual, having rested more than he felt like he needed. He had stoked the fire and laid iron aside to fashion into hinges. He fed the hogs then returned to the house and ate a good breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits.
Leaning against a front porch post, Jonas surveying the street feeling like town emperor with a biscuit in one hand and the butter spoon in the other. At the far end of the street he could see the grain mill and a heavy wagon being loaded with bags of flour. The millwright, Samuel Newsom, was walking towards him with a big smile and grain dust puffing out of his clothes.
Just then a man on a new bicycle passed Samuel ringing the warning bell on the handles. The rider passed the house ringing the bell twice more, as Jonas watched him disappear around the corner.
“Well.” he said almost out loud.
“Jonas, you got to get you one of them”, Samuel said as he trotted up the steps hardly noticed.
“What?”
“Damn bi-cy-cle, boy! I swear, somebody‘s gonna make a killing off them things before it plays out.” Samuel dropped onto the porch swing in a cloud of flour dust. “Tell me now, just what jug must a man drink from to climb onto Granny‘s spinning wheel and ride it down the road, anyway?”
“I don‘t know, but I expect he’d have to drink enough that he couldn’t walk,” said Jonas, waving the butter spoon about.
“It is a truly marvelous age”, Samuel continued, “It seems that every couple of months there’s some kind of a new contraption.”
Samuel threw his head back and rubbed his chin stubble . “Now, I believe that’s D. W. Picket’s brother, James.” he said. “You know, he ain’t no circus acrobat…does well to tie his own shoes. But I seen him the other day coming down Graves Hill just a flyin‘.”
“Well, even a rock can roll down hill,” Jonas said as he gulped down the last of the biscuit, “I’ll be impressed when I see one flyin‘ uphill.”
Despite wanting to sound like a skeptic for Samuel, Jonas could see the changes coming. He had seen steam engines and mechanized industry in his youth when his father worked in a Pennsylvania foundry. There seemed to be a machine for every job there, and he had marveled at the workings of a machine performing the skilled trade of his father, Ephraim.

Work in progress.

Ramblings

Crisp, curly ribbons fall at my feet as my old jackplane slices through the years. The hard wood yields hidden rings laid down generations ago when the world was a much different place.
The night is cold with its cutting wind, but it’s been a good day in the wood shop. Work is tolerable near the kerosene heater, as a distant radio station fades in and out like the memories of childhood summer days.

Funny how cold weather makes one think about summertime and days gone by. I am reminded of those hot days of my youth along the Ohio river near Tolu, Kentucky, where a breeze over the waters was as good as a drink. The deep dust of an old roadbed padded my bare feet and puffed out clouds as I walked. My father would shoot (at) ducks on the sand bar from here. They were so far away that I could barely see them, and it seems doubtful that he ever hit one with his pistol, but we were always facinated in his trying.

This Oak, being redeemed from aged lost causes, tends to have injuries and defects in all of the wrong places. I trim small pieces of walnut to serve as Dutchmen to repair blemishes in the table top. The color contrast will do less toward hiding the problem but more for the marking of events in the life of the wood.

In the childhood days of my father, an unknown man was found near here, having drowned some days earlier. He may have been a fisherman or a hand on a riverboat. In the 1920’s and 30’s it was easy for a man to disappear if he wanted to, and just as hard to give him a name if he couldn’t tell you. Efforts made to find the next of kin were fruitless and he was buried in the edge of a cornfield along the river. No marker was provided for a soul unknown and he and his resting place were soon forgotten.

The Old Lantern

When it comes to matters of the supernatural, my beliefs are limited to what I have seen, and so far I have seen nothing. However, one night in the fall of 1969 almost changed everything.
My brother, Jerry and I, and brothers David and Mike Swan, had just wrapped up another evening of guitar playing at our house, just outside of Marion. It was one of those warm nights with clouds racing past the moon, and leaves tumbling across the road like varmints in the darkness.
The old two-story house up the road had been abandoned for years. It was probably built before 1900 and was well beyond repair, and was sometimes used to store hay on the ground floor. The upstairs was a bit of a mystery, one we were eager to solve.
We headed up the road with an old miners lantern that Grandma Johnson had given me. It shined a dim but steady light in the autumn wind.
The front porch planks had given way to the weather. Seeing the exposed floor joists as an obstacle, we went around to the back of the house. The back porch was not much better, but did afford passage. The old screen door was hanging by the top hinge only and had to be lifted and set aside. Nobody wanted to be first and just as certain, nobody wanted to be last, but we all wanted to be within the light of the lantern. Together, we stepped inside.
The first room had been the kitchen with its old linoleum floor and buckling cabinets. Each step sent mice running. We made our way through three rooms and advanced to the stairway at the front of the house. The stairway, just inside the front door, went half way up the flight to a landing where the stairs turned full about and continued unseen to the second floor. Moonlight shown through a window at the landing, just beyond the range of the lantern. The shadowy fingers of a tree limb reached across the wall by the stairs. We hesitated as the wind gave movement to the specter.
Bravery can be cultivated by the company one keeps, and the more company one keeps, the braver one gets. Besides, we had a lantern, so we started up the stairs.
At that moment, the lantern flickered and dimmed. We quickly backed down the stairs as the light steadied and brightened. Panic gave way to humor as we joked about the other guy’s wild-eyed reaction, never admitting for one minute that anyone was scared. We gathered our collective nerve and marched up toward the landing.
Suddenly, the lantern went out as if snuffed by some phantom’s breath. Now, the first was last and the last was first, and whoever it was that was screaming seemed to be right on my heels. We tore through the house, crashing into obstacles that didn’t seem to be there before, but nothing short of a solid wall was going to keep us from that back door.
We burst through the screen door, shattering the one remaining hinge, and sending the door flying. Once out, I could see that everyone else was in front of me. I wasn’t about to look back to see what was behind me. We didn’t stop until we got to the front yard of our house.
Later that night I relit the lantern, which burned without waiver, as it did on many occasion since.
The old house was finally razed in the Summer of 2008, but the old lantern’s failure on the stairway will remain one of this life’s little mysteries.

Night Visitor

I think it’s safe to say that most everybody is afraid of something to some degree, and it really doesn’t have to be a genuinely threatening thing or situation. It bothers us and that’s really all that matters.
Though darkness in itself may hold no demons, those other things that make us shiver and run can become many times more intense in the dead of night.
One particular night I was suddenly awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of a Weed eater passing near my head. At first I thought I might have been dreaming, but there it was again. As if tethered on a string and rotating around the room, something was making low passes above the bed. I pulled the sheet over my head and froze. Then a thud and a couple of bounces brought silence.
I hesitated briefly then threw back the covers and jumped to the center of the room. I pulled the string on the ceiling light and began scanning the room to find the invader. Searching the area of the suspected crash site, I found nothing. I flipped the sheets back from the bed to make sure that I would be sleeping alone, then pulled the light and got back into bed. Whatever it was, it was still there.
It was a warm summer night and a slight breeze came through the screened windows. But I felt the chill of fright as my hair stood on end and I tried to convince myself that nothing dangerous could have gotten in through the screens or closed door. By the time I had eliminated every entry but the chimney over the grate, the visitor was roaring around the room again. I knew at that point that it was not a bat, it was not a bird, and that I was not going to stay in that room with it.
Again, the phantom crashed, a little closer this time I thought, as it tumbled across the floor. I rolled from the bed and pulled the light back on. After a brief search, I knelt down and looked under the wrought iron bed.
There, against the back wall I saw movement. Thinking that I may have a bird after all, I pulled the foot end of the bed back from the wall and flopped across the bed to take a look.
My skin began to crawl as I watched this two and a half inch near-mechanical black army tank of a creature elbowing it’s way through the usual under-bed-debris. It stopped for a moment flipping up two panels on it’s back exposing wings big enough for FAA markings. I held my breath and thought “uh-oh.”
I became airborne about the same time as the bug. He continued zooming the room as I flew off the front porch.
A short time later when it crashed again, I crept back into the house and covered it with a coffee can but couldn’t bring myself to attempt to scoop it up. I tried to sleep but kept hearing the can being pushed across the floor. Eventually, I set my shoe on the can and tried to get some sleep.
I don’t recall what became of the night visitor in the morning though I am certain that he was somehow evicted.
It had been a long night for both of us. He had been trapped in a small round room reeking of coffee, living the nightmare that he might never get out, while I lay awake listening, desperately afraid that he would.

My Fishing Line

Despite popular belief, fishing is not entirely about fish. Fishing is about the experience or in my case, the perceived experience. Some days I can catch about as many fish while casting in my own back yard. I can live with that, as long as I don’t lose too many lures.
State records being removed from my expectations, I took a day off and headed for the lake. In Suwanee I made a stop at one of the local bait shops to get my annual fishing license and an essential chocolate cupcake.
A drive-by census of my regular fishing spots ended me up below Kentucky Dam with the snaggers and the bucket packers. The Fish and Wildlife man was standing at the top of the steps leading down to the water so I asked him as I approached if he was checking fishing licenses. I had just invested $15 dollars for my orange card, the least he could have done was look at it.
But, “No,” he said, “I’m doing a survey on krill, I may want to talk to you when you come back up.” I said “Okay,” and continued down the steps.
“Krill?” I thought, looking at my 6 pound test line, “Isn’t that something that whales eat?”
I’d heard the name and probably seen the fish but I was among seasoned fisherman and this was not the time or the place to show your ignorance. I figured I’d look it up when I got home and then I could pretend I knew it all along.
I made my way down the long stairway to the waterline where it was more-or-less elbow-to-elbow fishing. I have a real problem with #8 treble hooks whizzing by my ear so I moved some seventy-five feet down stream from the nearest snagger and laid claim to a small group of semi-flat-topped rocks.
I flipped a brand new green and orange spinner out into the swirling waters and almost immediately the line back lashed on the real. The lure sank to the bottom as I untangled the mess. This was the death sentence for the lure as I snapped off the line.
I sat down on the least pointed rock I could find, not recently painted by water birds, and replaced the line on the real.
While everyone else fished and the wildlife man did his survey, I inventoried my tackle box, and found that all of last years’ empty bait packages were still there. The white jigs I had bought in September were now orange having rusted in the bottom of the box. They would have been handy right then, but I tied on yet another brand new spinner bait and continued casting for half an hour or so, with barely a bite.
Following a cast, I pulled up the slack and felt stiff resistance at the other end. It was heavy, I estimated probably 500 pounds of trophy limestone. I was about to select something from my list of disgruntled outbursts, when it began to swim off with my lure.
This fish showed no excitement, but had every indication of something large, as if I’d hooked a pick-up truck slowly backing out of my driveway. I held my ground as it headed back upstream toward the snaggers.
The seldom heard drag brake released a length of line making that little noise that tells everyone else, “Hey, look at this!” I glanced up to see at least a couple of other guys who had stopped fishing to watch the action. I assumed my best “American Sportsman” stance as I took in some line imagining wild surface action and slow motion camera shots. It was my show now and there would be no commercial breaks.
But the fish changed it’s mind and went deep again and straight out in front of me. Again the drag buzzed as he took the line from the reel. I felt a little like the dog who chases cars; now that I got one, what am I going to do with it?
Again, I took up the line, and again he came closer to the surface. It occurred to me at that point that the lure was only a 1/16 ounce spinner, and I marveled at the stresses that it was under…
Instantly the line went slack and then gave a slight tug. I raised the rod up quickly and reeled to maintain the hook set, when out of the water popped this four inch stripper dangling from the end of my two inch spinner bate. If ever I wanted a fish to fall off the hook, this was it. I thought about the snaggers and turned to block their view of “Nemo” as I removed the hooks and dropped the fish back into the water.
I made a couple more casts and decided to leave. The Fish and Wildlife man had already left so I was relieved that my vast knowledge of krill would not be put to the test.
I opted to forgo the stairway some hundred feet away and headed straight up the steep rip-rap. It’s always farther up than it is down so I was really out of breath when I got to the top, where a lady in the parking lot asked me, “Did you have any luck?”
“Yes ma’am, I did”, I gasped. “I got all of the way…back up here… without having a heart attack.”
“Well, that’s something!”, she laughed. “At least your not bragging about some fish that got away.” She was obviously a fisherman’s wife.
Later, sitting on the porch bench at the bait shop, I turned up a cold bottle of grape soda while out-of-town anglers fueled up their bass boats and rearranged their coolers. These guys were seriously into losing lures, I thought, as I flipped through a complimentary sport fishing guide, covertly searching for krill.

Skunk Warfare

I’ve just finished doing nothing in my shop as I stand here on my back door step and hurl a flat rock to the South, where on a good day with a strong North wind, it leaves the city of Princeton and lands just over into the county. This evening’s breeze has just delivered the pungent greeting card of an old familiar acquaintance.
A month earlier I had made myself a small campfire near my workshop and was standing, admiring my outdoorsmanship at having a fire without smoke. It was dark, but not so dark that I couldn’t see the black and white visitor creeping up from behind my shop. We saw each other at about the same time, so as he broke left behind my fire, I went right to the porch of my shop. I looked back to see him standing where I had been, mesmerized in the light of my fire. He waited for a minute then disappeared under my lawnmower shed.
This had not been my only close encounter of the worst kind. We had met before on a different evening where he had also retreated underneath the shed. This, to me, established his residency, which was total unacceptable, so to quote Daffy Duck, “Of course, you know, this means war”.
I deployed the latest chemical warfare around the shed designed to voluntarily repel “Pepe Le Pew” but was disappointed to see one night that he had brought home a date. This escalated the situation beyond the realm of negotiation as I seeded the area with moth balls thinking that skunks would eat them, get sick and go away. After a few days, it was clear that sanctions were not going to get results.
I toyed with the idea of using my shop vac to inject smoke under the shed from some smoldering sawdust. In this daylight raid, I would need to plug the holes under the shed after they were smoked out. This close proximity wreaked with the possibility of a counter attack by the skunks, so the mission was scrubbed.
I’ve decided to surround the enemy in their headquarters, sealing up the gaps between building and ground, leaving a single exit hole through a small wooden box having a one-way flapper door. This way they will be locked out during the night when they go out on the town.
This is the plan anyway, lined up behind checking the rain gauge, filling the bird feeder and my favorite, semi-snoozing in the porch rocker while holding a glass of tea.
Otherwise, life’s good on the dotted line, the boundary between town and country. Standing here like emperor of all that I survey, I reason that if you have to live in a town, there’s still a lot to be said for living on the edge.

A Fish Story

Waving a fly swatter about, with a cigarette dancing on her lip, Hazel waded into another tale. She was more likely to conjure up the memoirs of witches or the details of some local haunting than to just tell what happened last week. Many a tale was told to make me walk faster at night past a rustle in a cornfield or a shadow by an old house. Of course, I knew the stories were subject to some exaggeration, but I never let that slow me down.
In 1975 she was an older lady, but by no means elderly, drawing upon her days as a young girl in the late 1930’s. The conversation had apparently wandered close to one of her favorite fields of memory, and she was ready to jump the fence.
In 1937 the Ohio River left it’s banks and went window-shopping on Broadway in downtown Paducah. The Cumberland was not to be outdone. Homes and farms all along the river were swallowed up in a cold swirling ruin. High water in the bottomland was slow to go down, but eventually the floodwaters receded, and when they did, a legend rose out of the water.
A local farmer noticed that in one of many low spots where the waters had pooled, what appeared to be the roof of a brown bus was beginning to emerge. It was not uncommon to find all manner of debris washed up after a flood but this bus had a two-foot long fin sticking out of it. The farmer and his neighbor made attempts to row out to the object but were turned back as it began to churn the waters.
As the water slowly dropped, it revealed a creature some forty feet long and about eight feet across, easily the biggest catfish anyone had ever seen. It had eyes as big as a softball and black as the night. The mouth was wide enough to swallow a man and was the marvel of young boys who prodded with sticks only to see it bite them off. On one occasion a man standing by its tail was knocked flat when the fish flinched.
Word travels fast in small towns and before long people were coming from miles around to see the spectacle. The farmer, being unable thus far to work the field, found himself busy entertaining and visiting with the many onlookers. He erected long tables for the food that many of his neighbors were bringing. He basked in his newfound notoriety. People joked with him saying,” You ought to sell tickets!“ But he refused saying that he rarely had visitors and was content to enjoy it.
Eventually word reached an eastern city from which two men came offering to purchase the fish for a large sum of money. Again he refused.
As the days passed the fish slowly died, as did the novelty along with it. Soon all the visitors were gone and it was nearing time to break the field for planting. But now he had a problem. In as much as a small dead fish has a big odor, a huge dead fish is absolutely intolerable, and his neighbors let him know it. The two men from the big city were no longer interested in the purchase and furthermore refused the fish as a gift.
In the end, the farmer and his unfortunate sons had to saw up the carcass and haul the fish off in chunks.
I must have been grinning in obvious disbelief when Hazel leaned back and said.” It’s the truth!” She pointed her finger at my nose and frowned. “If you don’t believe me you can go ask…” and reeled off several names of people I knew. I think she and I both knew I wasn’t going to ask any of them to bear witness to any such fish story.
So I took it for what it was: A tall tale conjured up in the warmth of a potbelly stove. I enjoyed the yarn as well as her corn dodgers and apple turnovers.
Years later, I relayed the story to another more elderly lady, and noticed that she kept nodding as if to verify the “facts” as I told them. When I finished, she sipped her coffee and smiled knowingly.
“Well, I never did get to go see it”, she said, as she pushed up her glasses. “But I know several who did. They say it was quite a sight.”

At Granny's

My thoughts travel back to the late 1950’s to the little
town of Tolu, Kentucky, where my Granny, Lil Morris lived.
We were all much younger then and times were so much
simpler. Entertainment was the real world and there was
plenty of it to go around. Life in a very small town can be
dull for visiting Grandchildren, but Sunday afternoon at
Granny’s had its little rewards.
One coveted chore was collecting eggs from the hen house.
Being “first” meant a lot in those days as we raced out the
back door with a tattered basket lined with cloth. At our
young age there was something magic about finding eggs in
an otherwise empty hollow of straw.
Now, a sitting hen was a different story. Looking into the
cold emotionless eyes of a chicken, I was convinced that any
thoughts it might have about me would be pure evil. I
always passed this one by. But my older brother, Jerry
always seemed to get there first, braving dirt daubers and
cobwebs. Then right about the time that I entered the
doorway, feeling relatively safe, he would spook the hen off
the nest and I had to run for my life! It’s no wonder the
door stayed in disrepair.
Adjacent to the hen house was Granny’s washhouse.
Although she had a new washing machine in the basement,
she could still be seen running clothes through the old
wringer. The washhouse air was thick with the smell of lye
soap and mothballs. Anyone stepping onto the old porch
was sure to hear small critters inside scurrying to their
dark hideouts. Granny was always good to us, and we loved
her, but I sometimes felt, as a five-year-old might, that this
was the place where spells were cast, and I would not
venture there alone.
Granny saved everything from used Christmas wrapping paper
to rain. Granny’s back porch and cistern top were covered
with a wide array of metal pans, tubs and buckets. During a
slow steady shower, the sound of a marimba band could be
heard through the open windows of Granny’s kitchen.
When we washed up for dinner, likely as not, we used a
white enameled wash pan full of rainwater.

Sunday dinner at Granny’s would meet you at the front
door with the smell of cream style corn, chicken and
dumplings, and homemade apple pie with it’s dough lattice
sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Being a large family
we gathered chairs from throughout the house and
squeezed in around the table. The youngest one would
usually sit on a yellow metal stepstool that was Granny’s
helper, as she wasn’t very tall. At one time or another, each
of us kids had eaten from the pewter infant’s plate that my
Dad used as a child. Granny rarely cooked a large amount
of any one dish, but rather a wide variety in many small
dishes, and always lemonade or Iced tea.
Houses in the area all seemed to be linked by a maze of
deeply worn footpaths. These were the products of careful
treading as the older residents were often seen breaking
stride to keep a footfall within the bare spots.
The path leading to the post office, which was also a private
residence, meandered onto a rolling walkway of old red bricks
trimmed with moss which were cool under little bare feet. As
children we sometimes spent a week at a time with Granny and would
delight in sending a letter home, although Marion was less than
twenty miles away. Often Granny would get a letter from
an acquaintance, exchanging a recipe, a comment on the
weather or a recitation of how a stranger was somehow a
distant relative.
The old store in the two-story brick building was a favorite
of mine. It seemed more like a gathering place than a
business. My Dad would buy us an Orange Crush or a
Grape Nehi from the slide top drink box. Licorice and hard
candy were kept in glass vending jars along an
age-darkened counter. I enjoyed cavorting with the locals,
sitting on wooden pop crates stood on end. But you had
to watch your step lest you stepped where someone spat.
Summer nights always came with the dove’s song, as a thin veil
of fog would creep into nearby fields. There, an old tractor might
putter home along a fencerow amongst freshly baled hay,
leaving lightning bugs to keep an all night vigil. One could
hear a back porch conversation somewhere near bouts in
soft voices that chimed in the evening calm. An old
speckled hound, seen briefly in patches of moonlight
through great oaks, slowly would make his way to some
familiar porch.
At Granny’s, bedtime came early. I would lay awake
watching the curtain sheers perform their slow dance on
night breezes. Tucked deep into the feather bed, I slept to
the cadence of the old cuckoo clock in the living room, and
the occasional tap of night bugs on the window screen.
These are the times that are tucked away in the fruit jars of
my memories, like preserves of the moments, to taste again
and remember.

Jardo

During my early to mid teens, my family lived three doors down from the Stallions family where my best friend, Bill lived. In those days I went everywhere on bicycle but occasionally I walked across the other two lawns to get to his house.
The edge of the Stallions property ran along a small ditch dotted with several locust trees. Parallel to the ditch, for much of the length of the property, was a steel wire running along the ground. At one end of the wire was the gable roofed, shingled white dog house, in the middle of a bare spot where grass dare not grow; home of the dreaded Jardo.
Jardo was a large sporting dog generally not known to be dangerous but in my mind’s eye he was a brown and white, red eyed velociraptor on a tether. A degree of nerve and timing was required to make it safely across the wire.
Sometimes Jardo’s chain was tangled around the stake preventing him from running the length of wire. After several days of relative safety, I fell into what would soon turn out to be a false sense of security.
One particular day as I jumped across the ditch I failed to survey the doghouse. I took a few steps and froze. The wire was bouncing on the ground and ringing the approach of snarling teeth. With no time to turn I was backpedaling towards the ditch with a carnivore lunging at my face. I believe that if I had had to go, I would have went right then.
I fell across the ditch into the grass on the other side just as Jardo ran out of slack in his chain.
I jumped to my feet, feeling foolish, and quickly scanned the area in hopes that no one had seen how really scared I was. Unfortunately, one of Bill’s older sisters who had been sunbathing at the edge of their carport, called out to Jardo. Jardo instantly became a tail wagging, tongue-slobbering puppy.
I was humiliated, but alive.
She assured me that it was safe but I turned and went home to get my bicycle. I looked back at Jardo as he happily trotted back down the length of the wire. Sometimes that which appears as a grin on a dogs face, actually is.

A Veil of Darkness

I heard only the distant cry of coyotes as I turned the door latch, and stepped inside the house with my lantern held out before me. Shadows on the walls and ceiling danced from the light of a candle, a small beacon atop the cupboard.
I placed my lantern on the broad oak table and settled into the wooden chair. Laying open my journal, I affixed the date and began to tell of this night, as my pen scratched away like a mouse in a paper bag.
It was the eve of the Sabbath, on the 8th day of December and the village was bathed in a deep darkness. The night offered neither moon nor stars as an eerie silence filled the air. A spell had apparently come over the village, as a hush had fallen on the music and voices of the night.
The oil lamps flickered behind closed windows as neighbors huddled closely and pondered the passing of the cloak. Law keepers were hurrying to the schoolhouse where alarms had gone out and all of the night sentinels had abandoned their posts. The dying of the light had left open the door to night dwellers and mischief makers.
The tall clock in the corner of the room chimed the count of six, and then seven, as it’s pendulum lazily counted off the hours. Still, the night dragged on as I closed my journal and leaned back in my chair. I wondered what the morning would bring, and if the night chill would overtake the house.
Suddenly, the room was filled with light and the chirps and beeps of appliances resetting themselves. The voices of familiar strangers once again poured from behind glowing video screens.
Yes, power had returned to the city of Princeton, and the lantern which had kept me company now seemed woefully inadequate. I turned down the wick and blew out the flame and mused that while the lights had returned, I would soon turn them out again and go to bed.
It was an otherwise normal evening, made special by the temporary absence of more that just light, but of convenience. It was a night welcomed as “something different”, to stir the imagination, a thing that’s sometimes hard to find, even for those of us living on the edge…of town.

Hoboes and White Laundry

In my preschool years of the late fifties, my family lived in a large stucco house beside the National Guard Armory in Marion, Kentucky. The street in front of our house passed the armory and came to a dead end at the foot of a railroad loading ramp.
The ramp looked to have been used years earlier when Marion was shipping spar by rail. I remember how the roadway sparkled with blue and purple. I picked up many a flashy piece believing that I had surely found a priceless jewel. I would drop them into my pocket with whatever other collectables I might be carrying, only to be lost somewhere in the laundry. I suppose that such foolishness was typical of that age, for if Mama ever found any of my lost treasures, she never let on.
A Train whistle from a mile away would bring my older brother Jerry, and I running to watch the train from the ramp. There were two sets of tracks then with at least one sidetrack under the ramp. Jerry would sometimes creep down to the sidetrack and lay a stick or a penny on the sidetrack rail. I was always relieved to see the train coming on one of the other rails for I was sure Jerry would derail the train. But the engineers never saw our sabotage and always waved as did the brakemen in the caboose, and that was a delight for this five-year-old.
Mama would always warn us to “watch for hoboes” who might be camped under or near the ramp. To me, a hobo was a cigar smoking, coal dust covered troll who would demand payment from two brothers caught standing on his ramp.
I never saw a hobo but I saw a lot of tired old men in bib overalls sometimes carrying lunch buckets. I saw sad looking men walking the ties with their coat thrown over their shoulder, not waving or even looking up. I remember older boys with fishing poles hiking to some hidden pond. They would all melt into the distant rail mirage as Mama called us home.
Like the last echoes of the steam age, a few coal-fired locomotives would pass, hissing and roaring like Mama’s pressure cooker gone mad. The noise made it seem like they were going faster than the newer trains.
With a large wicker basket and an apron pouch full of clothespins, Mama would fill the clothesline with white sheets and cloth diapers. I remember playing under billowing sheets trying to keep in the shade with my ‘57 Mercury peddle car, as the black smoke from a locomotive drifted overhead.
“I don’t know why I bother”, Mama would say, “Between the trains and you kids, I might as well not wash clothes at all.” Relatively clean diesel engines were a Godsend, but for Mama there would always be kids. Only six years later Mama passed away leaving six children, the youngest being only four months old.
These days have long gone and life is less of a wonder now, but on some days when the wind is right and a whistle sounds in the distance, I can still reach into the pockets of my memories and pull out a glittering piece of spar that Mama saved for me.