Thoughts From the Front Porch

If you’re reading this, thank Nikola Tesla.  In fact, it you’ve ever listened to a radio, watched TV, used a household appliance, or even turned on a light to hide the darkness, your are in his debt.   But wait, you say, didn’t Edison invent the light bulb?   Didn’t Marconi and DeForest invent radio?  Well, compared to Tesla, they were mere hackers.  You would not be enjoying their work now without Nikola Tesla.

He invented alternating current, the juice you feed to all those nice gadgets and, for good measure, also invented the synchronous electric motor that powers most of the machinery in your life, as well as the inductor systems that made modern radio possible.

I have a natural reverence for such people so, after reading of this relatively unknown genius and his work, it was only proper that I build something, some tangible monument to pay homage.   Upon discussing the matter with fellow Tesla enthusiast and workmate Steve Turner, whom several of my readers know from various local discussion forums,  my mind was made up; I was going to build a Tesla Coil.

And it wouldn’t be some puny desktop contraption, but a floor-model device of truly awesome power.  Tesla didn’t  play around, and I wouldn’t either.  Steve designed the actual circuit, and donated a huge neon sign transformer that belted out about fifteen thousand volts, just right to power the low-voltage primary coil.  The capacitor consisted of two large sheets of aluminum foil between three panes of window glass.  But the real eye-catcher was the secondary coil.

It stood more than forty inches tall;  a white cylinder about the diameter of a beer can,  precision-wrapped with a couple thousand feet of small-diameter copper wire.  That process alone took several evenings of tedious, eye-straining work as the PVC core slowly turned on a special jig I’d cobbled from an old grill rotisserie motor.  Each of the thousands of turns had to lie precisely next to the previous one, with no overlaps, kinks, or gaps.

The whole works was assembled atop a large wooden tray that housed the huge capacitor and neon transformer.  The secondary tower then got a couple of coats of protective varnish and a plastic end cap with needle-sharp discharge spike at the top, much like an antenna.  Total weight: about fifty pounds.

Finally, after checking and re-checking all the connections and mechanicals, it was time to fire the thing up.  I called Steve and invited him over for the main event.  We put our wristwatches into steel cans to protect them from EM radiation, donned safety glasses, and I timidly threw the power switch.

The transformer hummed, the capacitor’s foil sheets began to writhe and quiver between those plate glass sheets as this monster capacitor began storing huge gobs of Farads for the inevitable climax. And then…..nothing.  Not a peep, not a flash, not even a crackle.  The dang thing just sat there, wasting electricity.

Steve, genius that he is, immediately spotted the problem: the spark gap was too large. We powered the whole works down, pulled the plug, and he made one final, critical adjustment (actually, he bent two ten-penny nails so they were closer to each other, but critical adjustment sounds better on paper).

Next time we turned on the juice the scenario changed dramatically. Same hum, same squirming capacitor, then all hell broke loose. The spark gap came alive with a deafening buzz and blinding flash as high voltage crashed in a continuous stream across a half-inch gap. We powered down briefly to insert ear plugs, then fired her up again.

Yep, three was the charm;  as we brought a grounded rod near its output electrode, a beautiful reddish-purple stream of pure plasma leaped across more than six inches of space. We had made our first lightning bolt!

After dozens of tweaks and re-designs over a period of several evenings, we finally managed a ten-inch spray of fireworks like you see in mad-scientist movies.  We even mounted a pointed rotor on the steeple, which would throw a beautiful circle of light as electron emission pressure made it spin madly.  We’d done it!  Final output–better than a quarter million volts of eerie, low-amperage celestial fireworks. All design standards met.

So much energy was being converted into high voltage that my workshop would fill almost immediately with overpowering clouds of ozone, forcing us to shut down and ventilate.  The coil was so powerful that neighbors began to gripe because every time we fired it up they lost their TV reception.  They were painfully aware of the cause because the noise was easily heard from hundreds of feet away.

For most tinkerers, this would have been enough, but not for Steve.  He just had to feel the power for himself; had to actually experience it. I warned him it could be dangerous, even fatal, but he’d hear none of it.  “Nothing to it”,  he explained.  “High voltage only jumps from point-to point.  I’m going to keep my hand flat so there will be no sharp angles.” Yeah, right.

Once again, I threw the switch, and Steve slowly moved his flattened hand palm-first into the radiation field. It was awesome; a beautiful, fuzzy cloud of deep purple plasma slowly reached out and began to spread over his hand. “See?  Nothing to it.”

A second or two later, his finger must have twitched or something, because the plasma suddenly condensed into one brilliant bolt, all of which arced into his middle finger. He was too stunned for even the usual de rigeur cusswords as his arm instantly became a useless, dangling appendage. It slowly recovered within a few minutes that must have been a scary eternity for poor Steve. He told me later at work that the arm ached and felt funny for about a week afterward.

Needless to say, no more experiments that night, and definitely none at any time that involved human flesh.

Views From Benny Hill is a series by Jerry Smith

Views From Benny Hill

Once in a while simple logistics require that we old patriarchs spend a Christmas Eve alone. Our offspring and their assorted kin are all scurrying about, trying to visit eight places at once, and there’s just not enough holiday to go around. Many of us old goats opt instead for a quiet evening at home, so we’ll be in better shape for the feasts and gatherings on Christmas Day. For whatever the reason, Christmas Eve can sometimes be a lonely, sad place. That’s why I decided to go home for the holidays this year.

I’ve loaded my stereo system with about three hours worth of music that’s been in my family for decades. We’re talking Perry Como, the Statler Brothers, Henry Mancini, the Naramore Family, and other 33 rpm record albums I started buying as far back as 1964. This music has accompanied Christmases for my family since there was only two of us, barely able to afford even a record album, and has been played every year since for audiences ranging from two people to a hundred, then back to a few, finally to one. Every joyous part of the holiday season, and a few sad ones, is indelibly blended with those albums, now copied to audio cassettes.

With my gift of near-total recall it’s a simple matter to relax, let the music do its work, and drift backward toward home. Not this home, but the ones I get homesick for even when I am at home. First stop is sometime in the late 1980’s at my last family home, a big split level in Moody with its huge moss rock fireplace and roaring fire made from real wood that I harvested and split myself. No gas logs here. It’s real fire and smoke and ashes, and warmth for all the four or five dozen guests who’ve joined us for family gatherings of food, presents and fellowship.

Many of those folks are no longer of this Earth, except for captured images on video tape. The same music is playing in the background, and all of us are busy passing around new grandchildren, getting better acquainted with brides & grooms, and generally making a mess that’ll take the old lady days to clean up. I linger here only a little while, and quickly move another decade or two backwards to even warmer Decembers.

Next stop is our old home in East Lake, the place where my kids were raised. Our Christmas tree is much simpler and cheaper. It’s decorated in part with ornaments donated by my Mother, once used on other trees further back in time. Among them are delicate globes made of thin glass, originally two dozen of which we seem to break at least one every two years or so. There’s less than a half-dozen left, so we’re extra careful.

My wife and I always left the tree lights on after Santa’s visit. Next morning we would lie quietly in bed and listen with amusement as two pairs of feet in footed pajamas sneak their way into the living room, way before dawn. Those two boys know better than to awaken us, but just have to sneak a peek at their yearly windfall. We hear whispered things like “Gaw-leeee” and “Wow” and “looky here” as they quietly browse among brand new Rockem-Sockem Robots, bicycles, .22 rifles, air hockey, Etch-A-Sketch, all the fine and simple things that once made kids’ eyes grow big on December 25. Then the little game begins.

Anxious to tear into their loot but highly reluctant to rouse sleeping parents who, unknown to them, have been awake the whole time, the kids begin to make noises; small ones at first, then progressively louder in an effort to awaken us naturally and not provoke righteous anger. Of course we always do our best to refrain from laughing out loud until the strain is finally too much and we pretend to wake up. At the first sound from our bedroom, the kids immediately begin ripping paper and enjoying their little victory. Kids will be kids, and mine are merely continuing a tradition that started way before I was born. Seeing and hearing them in my mind’s senses causes me to move even further back, when their father was the child and their grandparents were still young.

There has never been a warmer, fuzzier place than my own childhood home in East Lake, just a few blocks from where I would later raise my own brood. Christmas in those days was mostly fellowship and food, with relatives all over the place. How Santa Claus managed to sneak in with all us kids on pallets next to the tree is beyond me to this day, especially since we stayed awake all night telling jokes and giggling. But the miracle always happened, and Christmas Day’s gift opening ritual was virtually the same, except our elders made us sweat longer because we had kept them up half the night threatening to take a belt to us.

Revisiting those times and those people is at once an ecstatic and a sad thing, vividly reliving the most pleasant moments of younger days yet knowing I’ll never see most of those folks again in this life, nor can I see any of them as they were in those happy days except in my mind’s eye and several albums of faded pictures.

That’s when I treasure total recall the most.

Views From Benny Hill is a series by Jerry Smith

Views From Benny Hill

I’ve been thinking about End-of-the-Year letters, and some of the interesting tidbits of news that sometimes are too much information. So, I thought I’d make up one for a totally fictitious relative, Lespedeza Golightly.

Dear family—
It’s been an awful year, and I, for one, am happy to wave goodbye to this old worn out 2008!

The year started off with a bang—literally. My fool husband, Fescue, was drunk as a skunk New Year’s Eve, so I was driving home from the watch night service at church. (Don’t ask me. All I know is that he was drunk.)

As we were exiting I-59 over at Springville, a movement on his side of the car caught the corner of my eye. He had in his hand his cigarette lighter and a firecracker. (Your guess is as good as mine.) About that time, the lighter flared. Keep in mind I was trying to drive and watch at the same time. He lit the cracker, but in his attempt to throw it out the car window, the fire cracker hit the top of the window frame and fell back into his lap—with a bang. In spite of his screams, I retained great presence of mind, and I just circled back to the south bound I-59 and headed to St. Vincent’s East. The doctors couldn’t find any damage other than a small blister and a pair of ruined pants. Doctors and nurses were laughing hysterically as we walked out the door.

In February our son announced he was going to be a daddy again—his 4th. Unfortunately, he hasn’t seemed to find Miss Right yet, and we mortally can’t stand the mama of this baby. If he thought I was going to invite her to Mothers’ Day dinner, he was out of his tree.

March was relatively quiet. The power was out for two weeks after a late ice storm. We lost all the food in our freezer, and that made us have to try to make a garden this year. Might as well tell you now, that the drought killed the garden dead. Thank God for poke sallet.

April is storm month in Alabama, and, I’ll swanny, it seemed one came through about every two weeks. But the worst that happened to us was a hail storm. That ruined the car, but we didn’t have any insurance on it so we’re still driving it. Looks like it has the small pox.

May was interesting.  On Saturday before Mothers’ Day I told my son he could come if he’d leave that lanky haired girl of his at home with the baby. The baby looks like her. However, I never got the dinner on the table. Mothers’ Day I was going downstairs to get some canned beans from the pantry, and I forgot that I’d put the cat down stairs so it wouldn’t walk on the table. The cat was on the second step and I stepped on it—and as you know I’m healthfully heavy. The cat yowled once and scared the pea turkey out of me so that I went careening down the steps. Killed the cat but only broke my foot. So, I spent Mother’s Day in the emergency room.

June was maybe the worst month. My fool son married the lanky haired vixen.

We always have our church picnic in July; and, for goodness knows how many years, I’ve baked a sour cream pound cake using my grandma’s recipe. It had been a hectic morning, and when I measured out the flour, I got it out of the self-rising canister instead of the plain flour canister. So, since I didn’t know that, I went ahead  and put baking powder in as well. My word, you should have seen that cake in the oven! (I always turn the oven light on so I can check on the progress.) I’d never seen anything quite like it other than at the Volcano National Park in Hawaii. The cake rose up and kept rising up and boiling over—cake lava in Odenville—and fell hissing on the heating element where it dried and caught fire. Ruined the stove, but you know what, the little crusty pieces of cake that stayed in the pan were delicious!

August was hot and no rain. Air conditioner went out and we couldn’t afford to have it fixed. But as luck would have it, some old coot came by looking for old junk furniture and stuff. I remembered grandpa’s old corner cupboard in the barn and told him to go down and look at it. He offered me $100.00 for it and I could feel cool air moving again. But, I’m no fool, I told him I’d take $200.00 and when he offered $150.00 I grabbed the money and called the AC folks. He wanted to know where it came from, and I told him grandpa grew up in Virginia. (More about this unhappy event later.)

In September Fescue turned puny and was sick most of the month.

My son came to his senses in October and filed for divorce.

November came and Fescue had a ruptured appendix. Nearly lost him. But the worst thing happened in the waiting room at the hospital while he was in surgery.

I picked up a magazine called Antiques, and there on the back cover was grandpa’s corner cupboard! I’d swear on a stack of Bibles it was the same one. It was going to be auctioned in Boston, and the ad said that as a rare Shenandoah Valley piece, finely crafted in cherry, with period brasses it was expected to bring $15,000.00 to $20,000.00. They had it all shined up, and I’ll bet they used a whole bottle of Old English Furniture Polish to make it glow like that. I took out my cell phone and called the number listed in the ad, and I talked to some Yankee with an attitude. I asked him where the corner cupboard had come from, and he told me, “Madam, I assure you the cherry corner cupboard has an impeccable provenance.” I said, “I don’t know what provenance means, but if you were here, I’d impeck your beady eyeballs out, you nattering nabob!” (I loved Spiro Agnew!) “That’s my grandpa’s cupboard,” I yelled, “and I know it because it’s got scar in the upper left door where my grandma threw a cornbread skillet at grandpa and he ducked just in time. I can see the dint in the door just as clear as daylight.”  He replied as cool as butter from the spring house, “Madam, cornbread is not an issue, and if you have further questions, you may call 1-800-555-5555.” I did, and it was the Dial-a-Prayer hotline!

As I clicked my phone shut, the doctor came out of the operating room and said that if Fescue made it through the night he would probably live. I said, “Who would have thought 20,000 dollars!”

“Well, Mam,” said the surgeon, “if you’re worried about the bill, the business office will help you work out a payment plan.”

So, it’s December and we’re getting ready for a slim Christmas, I’ll tell you. But Fescue’s home and able to sit up—although to tell the truth, he looks real bad and we may lose him yet if he don’t perk up. He looks kind of goofy sometimes—reminds me of his mother.  But we’ve made it through the year, thank the Lord, and we look forward to a more peaceful 12 months next year.

Y’all let me hear the good news from your family.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year—
Lespedeza Golightly

Joe’s Meanderings is a series by Joe Whitten.

Joe's Meanderings

May 30, 2004: Our First Interview

Well, Aunt Nancy and I made up our minds to start talking to people about the Doc and Kathleen and how they died. But how do you start to talk to people about something that happened sixty years ago? And who do you start with?

We didn’t know anything to do but get on with it. So Aunt Nancy went to calling people she thought might be willing to have a conversation with us. And I wrote a proper note asking for help on pink paper to my social studies teacher of forty years before, Madeline McBrayer. She’d always been interested in local history. Asked me every time I’d run into her over four decades where was the story she’d asked me to write about the explosion down at the train depot. I never did write that story. Wish I had.

Nancy and I were both able to set up appointments for May 30th. Mrs. McBrayer got it in her head that we needed to talk to Jennie Nichols. So she saw to it that that meeting was set up. She asked us to come to her house in the morning, then we could all go together to meet Miss Jennie, which was what I’d always called Mrs. Nichols, back when I was in school and Sunday school with some of her children. After Miss Jenny, we had a lunch date with Aunt Nancy’s interesting party. She had called Ellen Bennett, the youngest of that houseful of Bennett girls.

Nancy’d called Ellen about a week before and said, “Ellen, your remember my niece, Sara Ann? She and I, we are trying to find out what all people might remember about the night Kathleen and Doc died. Would you meet with us, and tell us about what you remember?”

Ellen had been stunned by the question. She said, “I just don’t think I could talk about that. I am sorry, but no. I just wouldn’t feel right talkin’ about it. I feel just terrible tellin’ you no. I hate it. But I can’t do it.”

Nancy told her not to worry about it. That she understood.

An hour later Ellen called Nancy back. “I don’t know what in the world I’m afraid of. There’s nobody left anymore to care if I tell you all what I remember. And I’m sorry I said no. So let’s just do it. I’d love to see y’all anyway.”

So, we were set to have lunch with Ellen after all. But first we’d meet with Mrs. McBrayer and Miss Jennie.

Of course, when I was fourteen years old, back in 1963, I’d thought Mrs. McBrayer was old as the hills. As we stood at her front door, I’d already made my mind up that she’d be a truly feeble old woman, barely able to make her way around and in need of my patience and kindness. No such of a thing.

When Mrs. McBrayer opened her door, I couldn’t tell that a single day had passed since she sent us on our way to the high school, well-versed in social studies. I tried to calculate rapidly how old she might be. But I’d failed at rapid calculation, even when I was fourteen. It was no use. Now that I’ve had some leisure to study the question, I’d put Mrs. McBrayer at around eighty. A strong healthy eighty. Not so old, after all, from where I am sitting  now at sixty.  When we walked in, a big old yellow dog got up from his nap to greet us, made a circle and lay back down at his mistress’s bidding. Then the dog’s mistress said to us, “Come on back to the kitchen. I’m just putting up some preserves.” As my mother would’ve put it, Mrs. McBrayer still had the habit of command.

Well have mercy. Mrs. McBrayer had more energy than I did. While she got her preserves  jars out of the water bath canner, we had a conversation. We found out a few things we didn’t know about Mrs. McBrayer–the most significant one being that she had grown up in another county and had come to Gearing after she married in the 1950s. So she had no first-hand memories to report on the murders. Oh, but she’d heard the subject discussed aplenty. And she was eager to hear what Miss Jennie, apparently a local expert, had to say on the subject. She’d set us up a date with Miss Jennie at the Methodist Church, and we were due there shortly.

Mrs. McBrayer turned her stove off, stripped her apron off, and went for the front door, calling for us to follow. One thing I had known about Mrs. McBrayer: She always was a no-nonsense, get down to business, practical woman.

We found Miss Jennie in the sanctuary–the very same sanctuary where Aunt Nancy’s wedding had been in 1952. On that day, I’d stood right where Miss Jennie was standing, in my dark green velvet flower-girl dress. Or, rather, I’d been held there tightly by Aunt Frankye for fear I might escape and run back up the aisle–or do only heaven knows what.  I had not been a very reliable four-year-old.

“Oh Lord it’s so good see y’all.” Miss Jenny went to hugging necks. She always was excitable. Then she implored us to admire each of the needlepoint kneeler cushions surrounding the foot of the communion rail. She told us the exact member of the Womens’ Society of Christian Service who had spent all last winter working on each one.

The sanctuary seemed at first quite a bit different from the way we’d remembered it. It wasn’t dark and mysterious anymore, and it didn’t smell like carnations and red wax sweeping compound. The place was light and airy, newly painted in a pale cream shade. And it smelled fresh too, slightly lemony. But it was really essentially unchanged.  And that’s good. It’s a good thing, even though an illusion, to find that some material things never seem to change. The sanctuary had the same dark wood altar and communion rail. The same pulpit and tall chairs for the ministers. The choir loft was back up behind them, where it had always been. Thank goodness, the stained glass windows were still there. One with Kathleen and  Doc’s names, and one for Ross Gardner.

There was my Papaw’s name, in the window given to him by a congregation grateful for his hard work during that initial building program. It had been without a name for so many years, because Papaw lived for decades after being awarded the honorary memorial window. One time a new minister and a new finance committee had offered the window up for sale.  Ammaw had fought for it, joined by many older members who still had their capacity to remember, and now there it was, right down front. Near the back on the west side was a window with names of Ammaw and Papaw’s three babies who had died so close together.

We’d had time to look around, but Miss Jennie was still talking about the kneeler cushions. They were indeed very nice, but Miss Jennie went on about them so long, I began to worry that she was going to balk on the discussion we came for. However, Mrs. McBrayer did not intend for that to happen. Anytime Miss Jennie tried to lollygag, Mrs. McBrayer would nudge her along.

“These girls have to talk to somebody else at noon, Jennie. We need to get on down to it.”

We followed Miss Jennie for the full tour of the new building, with Mrs. McBrayer pushing the party on from behind. Finally we made our way to a small meeting room with chairs enough, where we all sat down. And, bless her heart, Miss Jenny didn’t have much choice but to join us.

Now, Miss Jennie always did have a nervous, high-pitched, rapid speaking voice. Still southern, but faster than most. I always figured it was because she had that big houseful of children to raise right by herself. I never did know where Mr. Nichols went to. And she was teaching school to keep them fed. And teaching Sunday School to keep us all straight. Life had to be rough for Miss Jennie sometimes, but she’d always kept her troubles to herself. She’d just set her lips a little tighter and press on. It seemed to me that all these circumstances were sometimes near to giving Miss Jenny a nervous breakdown.

On the day of our interview though,  she seemed a degree more intense than usual, and more than ever determined to keep her worries private. As good as soul as she was, she sounded like that Texas Cheerleader Murderer woman. Remember that voice? the pitch rising higher, as she negotiated on the phone with the hired killer? That nervous laugh to cover up her nervousness, while she rationalized the plot for the murder of the little cheerleader girl and her mother? “Well, I’ve got these here two-carat diamond earbobs. Would you take them? They’re worth at least two thousand. Ain’t it awful what we’ll do for our children?” Even though she’d never hurt a fly, that’s how Miss Jennie sounded.

She said to Aunt Nancy, “Now what was it y’all were interested in?” just a little too loud, as if she’d momentarily forgotten why we were there.

Aunt Nancy explained our mission. “We are just trying find out what people remember about Kathleen and Doc and how they died and all. So we thought . . .  I can’t remember how old you were at the time, Jennie. I was fourteen. But it seems . . . we’re just hoping you’d remember something about it.”

Jenny looked blankly at Aunt Nancy. “You were fourteen. That puts me about . . . “  She mumbled something unintelligible and then continued. “Well, we went to the fire.” She was right defiant about that. “Edith Parker and I went to the fire. We caught a ride down there with somebody, but I don’t just remember who. But we walked back, I think.”

I asked “Did you just hear about it and go down there or. . . .”

“Oh well, we just followed all the fires. You know how it was. Somebody said who it was, so we just took off. I guess we heard the fire siren or something. I don’t know.”

“Did we have a fire truck in town?” I was not sure where the siren came from.

“I guess we did. Probably drawn by a horse.” Jennie laughed that nervous Texas woman laugh. “I b’lieve the siren came from the telephone office. I was spendin’ the night with Edith. If I wasn’t at Edith’s house, Edith was at my house.”

That put me to wondering, “Did your mama–just–let you get up in the night and go off?”

Jennie denied that. “Oh no! Our mamas didn’t know it. It was on a Friday night and everything was just calm and Minnie and Jack was already in the bed asleep. And they never did miss us. Edith ud pro’bly remember who took us down there but I declare I can’t remember who took us down there.”

Mrs. McBrayer leaned forward and put her two cents in. “Why don’t you call Edith and ask her?”

Miss Jennie just looked down and said again, “I just really don’t know.”

Mrs. McBrayer insisted, “There’s a phone right there. Call her and ask her. It’s 555-2908.”

That was amazing. I turned in my chair to get a better look at the indomitable Mrs. McBrayer. “We’ve got the phone book sittin’ right here. I cannot believe you remember that telephone number.”

Gentle laughter rolled around the meeting room while Miss Jennie dialed the phone and Edith apparently answered.

Miss Jennie used her down and low voice into the receiver, “They wanna know who took us down there to the fire.”

They? Miss Jennie had already talked with Edith about our visit.  It had probably been talked up all over town for a week.

“Mr. Cook. Of course. And who did we come back with? Delphus Hood, that’s right. Thank you darlin’.” She hung up the phone.

Aunt Nancy asked, “Was Mr. Cook a policeman then?”

Jennie answered, “Pro’bly so. And we rode down with him and rode back with Delphus Hood.”

“Delphus Hood was always good for a ride like that,” Mrs. McBrayer said.

“Oh was he?” I thought that was interesting. Nobody answered my question.

Miss Jennie reiterated her position. “I had forgotten who drove us down there, but I knew we got down there. I can just see it to this day.” She stared into space for a few seconds, and then her accusing eye came to rest upon me. “Are you writing an article on this?”

“Well, I might write something someday. We don’t know. Right now, I’m just trying to get somethin’ rollin,’ you know?”

“In her brain,” said Mrs. McBrayer.

So I went for it. “Tell us what else you remember. I’d like to know everything you remember.”

Miss Jennie started out a bit vague, but ended with conviction, “Oh I don’t remember any details. I remember seeing the fire. It was terrible. Just terrible. Everything a complete blaze when we got there.” Then she added with certainty, “And it was never solved.”

What was never solved? Did we say something should be solved?

So Aunt Nancy went after her. “A number of  people have said something about the fire being very intense, apparently. And I think it was because there had been something poured on it.”

Miss Jennie was sure about one thing. “It was talk. It was just talk.”

“What all kind of talk did you hear?” That’s what I wanted to know.

“I don’t remember anything specific about it. It was some talk about . . .  you know. . . kids don’t think anything. . . I call myself a kid at that time, ’cause I really was. People thought . . . I believe they thought it was a . . . a deliberate thing.”

Aunt Nancy said, “And it was.”

“I just remember that. . . that’s all I remember. But it was never proven.” Miss Jennie was insistent on that point.

The telephone rang and somebody in another room said “Jennie, there’s somebody for you on line one.” She picked up the receiver, said “Hey” and listened. Then answered. “Uh, hey. We’re writing a history here. Sara Ann’s here. Hart.”

Mrs. McBrayer said to Aunt Nancy and me, “I told her you were coming.”

Jennie on the phone: “And Nancy Kate. And Madeline’s here, and her name is McBrayer. She’s asking about the Harts’ — uh — Dr. McIntosh’s house.”

Mrs McBrayer, “I called Edith before I called Jennie.”

Miss Jennie continued to Edith. “She’s just saying someday she may write something about it. She’s just wantin’ to know.”

Aunt Nancy said, “She not going to put anybody’s name in it.”

And I chimed in, “If I did write about it, I wouldn’t put anybody’s name in it.”

“Okay. Edith says she’s told you all she knew.”

“Yeah. That’s what she told me. But see? She didn’t tell me about Hood.” Mrs. McBrayer was on the case.

Miss Jennie, still on the phone, said, “Oh, I do remember that. Talk about the ring wasn’t it? It was a ring. I don’t remember. That’s it. And that’s all we remember, isn’t it?” Jennie hung up.

“That’s all we remember?”  Mrs. McBrayer asked.

“Okay,” I said. “I reckon they’ve agreed on that. What did Edith say?”

“She said ‘I just remember there was some talk about a diamond ring.’”

I looked at Aunt Nancy for her okay. She nodded. So I said, “Well, Nancy’s wearing the ring.’”

Aunt Nancy showed Miss Jennie the ring, and Mrs. McBrayer took a look too.

Miss Jennie said, in a softer voice, “And that’s the diamond ring. I remember that. I remember them thinkin’ maybe it was a deliberate . . . .” her voice trailed off. Then she said “So I don’t know whether they ever proved it or not.”

Mrs. McBrayer observed, “Well, you was a kid wasn’t you?”

I pressed Miss Jennie a little more. “Well, they wouldn’t really let you up close to the house or anything?”

“On no no no no no no.”

“And so you just came on back home after it was. . . after a little while?”

“Um-hm.”

Then Aunt Nancy took a turn. “I don’t guess it was ever proved that the house was set on fire, but it was clear as a bell that it was.”

Miss Jennie insisted again. “I don’t remember that.”

Aunt Nancy continued. “And I remember someone saying at the fire . . . and I remember this being talked. I didn’t hear it myself, but they said, some man standing there said, somebody had poured fuel on this fire. Because of the smell. He said ‘I’ve smelled a many a fire started with fuel. And somebody has poured some kind of fuel. . . . ‘”

Miss Jennie had to get a word in. “I think it was suspicious. Apparently because of the large blaze it caused. I don’t know and then suddenly there it was.”

Aunt Nancy ignored the interruption.  “. . .  and Kathleen had lots and lots of silver flatware and other stuff, and it was just melted. . . .” Miss Jennie was quick to agree. “Now that’s a hot fire, isn’t it?” I nodded, just to be polite. But I didn’t want Aunt Nancy to be hushed up by that. She continued about the silver “. . . into just globs. You know there was not a piece of silver left whole. I have one tablespoon that’s really bent up and everything, but that is the only piece of sterling that survived that fire. And this piece was really beat up.”

Then Miss Jennie started questioning. “You don’t remember anything else being found? I’d heard that you had the ring at one point. I’d just let it slip my mind.”

Did Miss Jenny hear of something else that was found?

Aunt Nancy said, “She had this ring on and the wedding band, and the wedding band had diamonds across it. And Kathleen always said she wanted me to have this ring. So, of course, Mama kept it for years. My sister Frankye had the wedding band.”

I asked, “The ring on her finger, was it still intact or did you just want it in a different setting?”

“It was intact.”

“Oh good.”

“It was all set in platinum.”

Miss Jennie opined. “I guess the platinum must’ve been hard or something. I don’t know a thing about that kind of thing.”

Aunt Nancy said, “I don’t either.”

I said, “I don’t know anything about metalurgy.”

Miss Jennie got up from her chair. “I wish I coulda been more help to you all. It was just so long ago and I was so young at the time . . .”

“Just a kid,” said Mrs. McBrayer.

“That’s right.” Miss Jennie didn’t miss a beat. “Now if y’all find out anything about this I hope you’ll be sure and let me know. I’d be real interested.”

So we were dismissed. As we walked back to the car, Mrs. McBrayer was clearly dissatisfied with the information we’d been able to get out of Miss Jenny. She said, “No wonder Hemingway drank. And beat his wives.”

I felt right sorry for Miss Jennie. She’d always been nice to me. So I said, “Well, I think we made her a nervous.”

“What did she have to be nervous about? Just because one of her girls works up there at the bank?”

“The bank. I’d forgotten about that Nichols girl workin’ at the bank. Well, that might be the key to it. That might be why Jennie was so nervous.”

We took Mrs. McBrayer on home and then went on to our lunch with Ellen.

But a couple of weeks later I was looking at old county newspapers on microfiche at the Samford University library, and I ran across a Gearing Ledger with Alice Hodges’ gossip column from late May of 1948. You’ll never guess what Miss Jennie did two weeks after she snuck off to that house fire she could barely remember on account of having been such a child at the time. She slipped off in the middle of the night again. Only this time she eloped up to Risin’ Fawn, Georgia and married Delbert Nichols.

The Right Southern Corner is a series by Sara Rast
Copyright: 2008 Sara Love Rast. All rights reserved.

The Right Southern Corner