Archive for category: Southern Style Columns

In the valley below the Gravelly Spur sometimes life was lost in the living, but at times circumstances would change that for a while.
Billy Thurston lived in a sharecropper’s house with his mother Alma and father Fred. Although Billy was just eight-years-old, he already had performed almost every task it took to help run the farm and help his parents scrape a meager living on shares.
He plowed and planted, tended to animals, and walked a few paces behind his father as they hunted to add a bit of meat to the table.
Each fall when it came time to cut the corn and tie the stalks together, in the mist the stands of corn stalks looked as if an army had left the field and propped its rifles there.
At this time of year an army of mice which made the field a home would tend to run for the cover of whatever building they could find.
This year Billy’s father told him it would be his job to place the mouse traps around the house and keep them clean of whatever they might catch.
Being mindful of his father, he went about his chore and kept each trap ready and waiting for the next offensive.
One afternoon one of the traps did not hold a dead mouse but one whose leg was caught and broken.
Billy did not have the heart to end the little one’s life. So, he cut some small branches and took a few threads from the ragged area of his overalls and tied upon the mouse’s leg a splint.
Billy carefully carried the gray field mouse to the edge of the cornfield which lay between their house and my Grandma Kitty’s and released it.
After a couple of days, my Grandma Kitty was sweeping off the front porch. As she turned and opened the screen door, in scurried a little mouse which she promptly followed with broom in hand. After quite a chase around the old butcher block table, she finally had the little critter cornered.
As she was about to bring the broom down with all her might, she saw the splint upon its leg. The sight of that little splint reminded her that every life has value no matter in what form it is carried. She could not bring herself to end this one.
She reached down, picked the animal up and carried it to the edge of the corn field to release it.
Twice the little mouse got a reprieve. The yellow barn cat Grover was not so kind-hearted.

From Randall Franks’s book “A Mountain Pearl : Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes”

I could not have been more than four or five when I decided that Halloween can only be better the second time around. It was the day after Halloween. I was playing in the den in my spider man costume that I had worn so proudly the night before as my mother took me from house to house to gather an abundance of candy.

My mother was busy ironing in the doorway of the den. She of course had the ironing board strategically placed blocking my exit from the room. But like any four year old super hero, I anxiously watched for my opportunity to escape from my captivity and when it came I was out of there like 40 pound cannonball and headed for the door.

Of course at the time I’m sure I gave no thought to doing anything wrong. In my four year old mind, I decided I wanted to have as much fun as I did the night before. So with my costume on and my bag emptied out, down the road I went.

I rang door bells, and knocked on doors. Everyone greeted me graciously, as a few pointed out I was a little late, most all managed to come up with something. Several folks even emptied what they had left in my bag. As I worked my way down the street, my mother realized that I was no where to be found and began a frantic search of the house and yard. She called the neighbors immediately around us but most of them were at work so they had not come to the door when I rang.

Of course, I was oblivious to all this in my quest for a full bag, so I kept going. Our neighborhood was a semi-circle with around 50 homes on one half with an intersecting street. With my little two legs, I had managed to work my way all the way down the street and had started around the other. My mother had already called my father at work and I believe she may have called the police. About that time, our next door neighbor arrived home for lunch and he had seen me rounding the corner. Immediately, mother jumped in the car coming after me. It was not long before I was seated beside her in our 1964 Chevy Malibu knowing that I had done something that I should not have done.

By the time I arrived home, I think my Dad may have arrived home from work. While much of what happened after is a blur in my childhood memory, I know that I did not enjoy that extra bag of candy as much as I thought I was going too at least initially.

In the excitement of the costumes, the candy, children often forget little things like the rules they need to remember like looking both ways before crossing the street, to trick or treat with an adult or responsible older child, not to eat your candy until your parents or guardians have checked it out.

I am thankful that my parents cared enough about me to almost call out the national guard when I disappeared on my little Halloween excursion. I was blessed to live in a community of caring people that looked after me as I wondered along. If I could go back and not put my mother and father through that I would.

But you know, that was an awfully big bag of candy and you should have seen those jawbreakers. Well, it is needless to say, I never did anything like that again.