RRN Online Volume 494

November 19 '05

Volume 494

Book Signing Folk Tales, Facts, & Fabulations

Miss Callie - Looking Pensive Both Miss Callie Young and Miss Virginia Dillard kept me informed regarding the date of the book signing for "Folk Tales, Facts, and Fabulations." Miss Virginia told me the book signing would be at the Pontotoc County Library and would be jointly sponsored by the Pontotoc Historical Society and the Pontotoc Woman’s Club.

A couple of weeks before the event, Miss Virginia commented, "We want to recognize everyone who contributed an article for the book. I’m thinking we need some sort of name badges."

I agreed that hers was a good idea, and it never occurred to me she might be hinting for some help with name badges. But, after I’d had a few days to think about it, I decided it would be something that I could handle. So, the weekend before the book signing I phoned Sara Sue, who has a pretty good hand for calligraphy, to see if I could enlist her help, as well.

Miss Virginia was delighted when I told her Sara Sue and I would handle the name badges for her. Sara Sue asked for a listing of all the contributors, but I told her there was no way to know who of the eighty-nine would be there and who wouldn’t. Other than those who were selected to read an excerpt, there weren’t many name badges that could be made ahead of time. Somewhat reluctantly, Sara Sue agreed to help.

I planned to reuse the name badge holders that were left over from the July fish fry. Sara Sue and I made a trip to Tupelo to purchase some name badge inserts and to shop for a calligraphy pen set. The pen sets we looked at didn’t suit her, and she talked me into making our own badge inserts. Had it not been for the quality time I spent with my sister, I might have considered the venture a wasted trip.

If Miss Virginia had been subtle in hinting for help with name badges, Miss Dot Hardin was forthright with her request. Miss Dot and I bumped into each other at a luncheon, sponsored by the Fine Arts Club on Friday before the Tuesday of the book signing.

"You’re just the person I need to see," she said, grabbing me by the arm. "We need some bookmarks for Callie’s new book. Can you put something together on your computer? "

"Fifty or so bookmarks and fifty or so name badges," I thought, "Okay, I can do that."

I told Miss Dot I’d throw something together for the book signing, and she was pleased.

The book signing event was scheduled to run from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., so I made sure Sara Sue and I were thirty minutes early. Arriving, I found a program and saw that I was second on the list of readers, but Miss Virginia told me the schedule was subject to change, depending upon the availability of the readers. I had previously told Miss Virginia that I would be there for the duration of the event, and I would be available anywhere on the program she needed me.

Sara Sue set up for name badge distribution just inside the south entrance to the meeting room and was soon busy writing the names of contributors on the badges.

Miss Dot bragged on the bookmarks, Miss Virginia liked the name badges, and Miss Callie seemed contented with the occasion.

Jimmy Roberts, President of the historical society, did a superb job introducing everyone on the program. I don’t think the program ran as smoothly as Miss Virginia had hoped. She had conceived having Miss Callie share first followed by a series of ten readers spaced out over the three-hour program. Meanwhile, since food was being served, folks were encouraged to help themselves but most were reluctant to do so while someone was speaking.

Jimmy Roberts announced a lunch break shortly before noon. At the time, only one of the ten readers had been heard. As a result of some readings or presentations running a bit long, and the necessity of additional breaks, the program didn’t conclude until almost two thirty. Still, I counted it a roaring success, as many individuals stayed for the entire program.

Miss Virginia had asked me to read my article, "Thaxton General Store," which I didn’t mind doing, though given my choice, I would have chosen a different one. Based on comments I heard during one of the breaks, Miss Virginia made the right decision. Several expressed remembrances of my Uncle Ernie’s general store at Thaxton.

Others reading or presenting a selection from the book were: Sarah C. Naugher, Claude Jones, Floyd McCullough, Dr. John Patterson, Ruth Pitts McCullough, Jane Sudduth, Ralph Jones, Judge Fred Wicker, and Marlin Swanson.

Due to a last minute problem in getting the new book bound, only fifty books were available at the book signing. A last minute decision on the part of the historical society pushed the price of the book from $25.00 to $30.00, but I doubt the increase will hinder the sale of what is sure to become a collectable for anyone interested in the history of Pontotoc and Pontotoc County.

Persons interested in purchasing a copy of "Folk Tales, Facts, and Fabulations" may contact the Town Square Post Office Museum.

Meeting Marlin Cont. Second Of Two Parts

The oldest of Marlin Swanson’s younger brothers contracted polio years before there was a polio vaccine for immunization against the debilitating disease. Fortunately, the March of Dimes foundation made it possible for him to receive the expensive medical care and treatment required.

"I remember taking him to Memphis and other places. He spent a lot of time in an iron lung in Vicksburg," Marlin recalled. "If it hadn’t been for the March of Dimes, I don’t know what we’d have done."

Not too long after Marlin returned to Pontotoc County, following his military service, he persuaded several of his sisters to form their own basketball team, with him as their coach. The Swanson Sisters’ basketball team played other organized teams in charitable benefits for the March of Dimes. In this way, Marlin and his sisters were able to express their appreciation to the March of Dimes for helping their brother.

"Everything we made, we gave to the March of Dimes," he shared. "We had invitations to play other teams all over the Mid South, and even one from New York. A newspaper did a story on us and it was picked up by the wire services. We also had an invitation to play in Holland."

However, because some of the women’s basketball team were married, the team chose to play only those games which did not require an overnight stay. I don’t recall the year, but not long after the basketball team disbanded, Marlin returned to Bakersfield, CA, to seek employment.

"I got a job working for the railroad. It was an office job…the midnight shift. There was an older guy, who was supposed to train me, but he was afraid if I learned his job, they’d keep me and get rid of him. When I told the supervisor I wasn’t learning anything, he moved me to another shift, and I soon learned what I was supposed to be doing. After a few months, I applied for a supervisor’s job, took a test, and got the job."

I understood the work Marlin was doing for the railroad to be something along the lines of a dispatcher, though that may not have been the job title.

"I hadn’t been working for the railroad very long when one of my sisters was about to graduate from high school," Marlin stated. "She wanted to be a nurse, but she didn’t have any money to go to school. I told her I would help her and maybe some of the others would, too. It ended up just being me helping her, but I was determined to help her become a nurse if she wanted to be one. I had to take a second job, but I didn’t mind. After she graduated, she wanted to pay me back. I told her she didn’t owe me anything. I only asked that if one of the younger ones needed help, she’d do for that one as I’d done for her."

While in Bakersfield, Marlin married and soon fathered two girls. He said the marriage ended when his girls were around seven and three year’s old. After the divorce, he married a woman who had two girls by a previous marriage.

"When folks ask how many children I have, I always tell them I have four girls. The last two weren’t mine, but I love them just as much as if they were my own," Marlin shared. "When my second wife left me in ‘79, the two girls were seventeen and fifteen. They told their mother they weren’t moving. They wanted to stay with me, and they did."

Marlin later shared that his sister, who became a nurse, died when she was fifty-eight and that his brother, who had polio, died at forty-six. The rest of the siblings are still living.

While working for the railroad, a friend of Marlin’s, who was in the produce distribution business, talked Marlin into coming to work for him.

"He said the jobs were similar, in that I’d be moving product all over the country. After a few years, I struck out on my own and started my own produce business."

Among other things, Marlin’s produce business distributes Irish potatoes in hundred-pound tow sacks trademarked "Buckhorn." He continues to work in the produce business he founded and still owns. Marlin is now eighty-two years old, but he flies back to Pontotoc a couple of times each year and spends about six weeks here on each trip.

"I used to drive to Pontotoc, but my girls won’t let me do that anymore," he explained.

After finishing our lunch at Kirk’s Grill, Marlin, Sara Sue, and I decided to drive around Pontotoc and reminisce. We drove down Woodland Street to show Marlin our old "home place" and where Todd’s Sawmill once was before heading toward our present homes. When we neared Lana Street, Marlin had us turn so he could show us the house his mother owned at the time of her death at age ninety-four. Sara Sue found it remarkable that a woman who birthed twenty children could live to be ninety-four.

Seeing our neighborhood, Marlin commented, "I could have bought all this land after Mrs. Lura Long died, but I didn’t."

I learned Marlin had been a friend of Robert "Bob" Long, the only child of my mom’s Aunt Lura Long.

"Bob was in the ninth grade, when I started high school in Pontotoc," Marlin stated. "and we kept in touch through the years."

We crept along the mostly deserted downtown streets, recalling various businesses of yesteryear. Marlin remembered there used to be a jockey yard one block east of Main Street.

"I’ve heard about the jockey yard, but it must have been gone when my family moved back to Pontotoc in ’53," I shared.

We remembered where several grocery store were once located in downtown Pontotoc, as well as locations of various dry goods stores, dime stores, and hardware stores. It’s amazing how much has changed in the past fifty years.

Seeing a corner building on the square, Marlin remembered, "There used to be rooms for rent on the upper floors."

When Marlin played basketball for Pontotoc High, he said it was too far to walk home, fifteen miles away, after a ballgame. He showed us the area where the Chief of Police found him sleeping in a truck one night. The Chief took him to the entrance of the building where there was a couch and plenty of heat and told him to sleep there.

"I was really glad to have the heat," he recalled.

For the remainder of the basketball season, Marlin had a warm place to sleep on ballgame nights.

When we left the downtown area, we headed back to Kirk’s Grill to say our goodbyes. Marlin gave me a Buckhorn potato sack, and I gave him the current issue of Ridge Rider News and asked him to not forget to send me one of his Christmas Memories when he gets back to Bakersfield. We wished one another well, before going our separate ways, and noted we would see each other at the book signing the next Tuesday for "Folk Tales, Facts, & Fabulations."

After spending a few hours with Marlin, I came away with a renewed appreciation of persons who lived through the Great Depression, survived World War II, and committed their lives to helping make our nation the greatest one on earth. Truly, Marlin and those of his generation deserve the accolade, "America’s Greatest Generation."

Being Thankful Guest Article

Beau graciously donated part of his column to share a Thanksgiving article from a former Pontotoc County resident. Carl Wayne Hardeman grew up in the Hurricane community and married the daughter of Ralph & Opal Graham, also of Hurricane. Carl and Mimi make their home in Collierville, TN. Carl signed the guestbook for the Internet version of this newsletter, and our subsequent correspondence resulted in him sharing the following article written in November of 2004.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

One of my favorite college professors was Craig Blackman. He is an educator, gentleman, mentor, role model, and friend. One of his constant reminders to us was to remember whose shoulders we are standing on. I think of that more often at Thanksgiving, and especially at this time I think about our troops and their families and their sacrifices.

I have so much to be thankful for and am humbled and grateful when I think of all those on whose shoulders I stand. Mimi wonders at my weight if that visual picture will detract from the message. Mimi is a blessing and a joy in my life. She loves me more than I do, and that's a lot. Me and my four siblings were raised by Momma after Daddy died and instilled with a deep sense of responsibility, work ethic, and fear of God. Mimi was, too, but she was an "only child" who was, to use a Southern expression, "petted" by her parents and a large extended family.

I'm so thankful that nowadays me and my family enjoy a heap of petting ourselves. Our children and their families live within a mile of us, are a part of our lives almost daily, have established themselves as productive citizens, and are raising those sweet little grandchildren with the same values we raised them with. There is no greater treasure and joy than us all worshipping the Lord together every time the church doors are open. Such a blessing to be thankful for. And it don't get no better than taking a napin my recliner with one or two of those sweet grandchildren when they were babies. I still do, but they had rather play.

This year has brought me several new blessings for which I am deeply thankful. Not the least is Joan Crowe printing many of my articles in this paper [The Collierville Independent]. I'm beginning to be a minor celebrity in my own mind. A few folks have asked me if I'm that fellow in the paper.

I entered two potted plants in the Mid-South Fair, and they won first and third place. I'm still beaming. I saw my first rose-breasted grosbeak in my own backyard. My peony and my bat-faced cuphea plants became my new best plant friends. My arum I thought I had killed just poked his head thru the mulch to give me a nice green plant all winter and a lovely bloom and seed stalk next Spring. I learned a new to me but old spiritual: "I'm So Glad, Jesus Lifted Me".

We still have our wants and needs and fears, but they are minor compared with those who are out of a job, whose child or spouse is in the military, who are struggling to catch their next breath, who don't know where there child is, who are facing cancer treatments, and countless other serious wants and needs and fears.

I am so thankful this Thanksgiving for the many blessings I have. I hope you are blessed and thankful, too.

Aint God good!
Carl Wayne <rowsofbuttercups@yahoo.com>

Turkey Riddles:

Which side of the turkey has the most feathers?
The outside.

Why did they let the turkey join the band?
Because he had the drumsticks.

What did the turkey say before it was roasted?
Boy! I'm stuffed!

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