WHAT WE DID BEFORE TV

Chapter 4

God's Nefarious Characters


Two of our neighbors were Bubba Stickland and Lonny Thornton. They showed up at our house most every night during the week. The routine was pretty simple, they immediately got a biscuit from the cupboard, stuck a finger in it, making an opening and poured in molassas. Mostly without comment but sometimes, "Bertie, love your biscuits or "looks like Gertie has been here." And, she had, her biscuits were about three the size of Mom's. We use to laugh, Aunt Gertie's biscuit could last a week.

Mostly, Lonny and Bubba sat around and talked about the civil war. Sorry, not the civil war but the War Between The States or yankee aggression or how only the southerners were fighting for their honor. And, rightly so, "as North Carolina sacrificed more to the cause than any other state" Bubba would hardily state.

To say that the jargon threw in a fair bit of racism would be an understatement. It wasn’t so much tilted toward blacks rather it was just a topic of conversation although I will have to admit that no blacks were invited to these paragons of virtue prognostications.

Talking about the War Between The States seemed only right in a way. Half of modern day southerners were descendents of those who fought and one in four southern men died in the war. Lonny claimed that his great great grand Dad died and he was a direct descendent. Bubba also said he was definitely a direct descendent. Nobody could prove otherwise but it didn’t matter.

It had always been a peculiar thing that the war seemed to remain a mainstay for southerners but not for northerners until one night it was explained by Lonny. The North before and after the war started accepting all these foreigners in like Irishmen and Africans--not so many Yankees died in the war because the foreigners took up the slack anyway and were on the front lines. Trying to suggest that his reasoning seemed a little sketchy and shaky never kind of got through to him. We had heard it maybe a hundred times, anyway.

The character that we remembered the most was Royston Wallace, a local legend and some said could be the cornerstone for the book, Guiness Book of World Record. Royston could eat the equivalent amount of food at one setting that would do a family for a week. It is said that he ate 100 hot dogs at one time and could polish off dozens of pies at one setting. When he came to visit, you could hear Mom moan for a mile away. She would never think of not asking Royston did he want something to eat. He would lower his eyes and almost in a whisper say, "I think I could eat a little, Miss Bertie."

Mom was one smart cookie, however. She saved every bit of food not eaten and stockpiled it for Royston's visit. And when she set it before him, it was not just a parcel of left overs of chicken, steak, veggies but it was chicken pie or steak deluxe, she should have had a TV show. What she put out covered the entire table. We just gaped as we watched him devour it. About an hour later, she would say, "Royston, what about dessert?" Once he ate an entire Japenese fruit cake. We don't know why it was called a Japenese fruit cake, but it was something to behold: big, with about ten layers, covered in coconut, nuts, and an assortment of decorations. I don't know why she made this for Royston but she did. Maybe a test. He ate the entire cake which normally would feed us for weeks.

I don't know what happened to Royston but someone said that he died of old age, whatever that is but legendary. One of the stories going around had to do with after his death, in an autopsy, it was arevealed he actually had two stomachs. I don't know but to us kids, watching Royston was a phenomenon.

Another character than made quite an impact on us was a black man called Jimmy Sills. Dad picked him up hitchhiking and he stayed with us three months. Now, how could that be in the racist South. I don't really know other than it happened. Jimmy could sing like you cannot imagine. Dad bought him a guitar that he played from the moment he picked it up. We didn't know enough to asked how he knew or had learned but he did. And, he could entertain us for hours. One day he simply left. I saw him talking to Dad out by the road. His old valiese sat by him. Dad went into the house and brought out his guitar, handed it to him, shook his hand and he just left. We were all sad but had somewhat gotten use to seeing various ones come and go. I think I've seen Jimmy on TV a few times. His looks changed but I think it was him. If he didn't hit it big, it surely wasn't because he didn't have talent.