Stolen Treasure – Con Men Strike
Most children, and adults – if they would admit it, dream of finding buried treasure. Barnard and I were often seized by this urge, and would grab-up shovels and run off to dig up a most excellent spot.
At seven years of age, I thrilled to a real treasure adventure, when Daddy arrived home from work, telling us about a buried treasure found close to Vida, AL.
Barnard and I hurried through supper, rushing Mama and Daddy, “Let’s go! Let’s go, we wanta get there before dark.”
Everybody seemed to know Daddy. If he hadn’t met them through buying timber, land and pulpwood over five, central Alabama counties, they knew him from all-day singings at their churches.
So it was no surprise, when the elderly couple came sprightly from their house into the front yard to greet “Mr. Stewart”, waving us to their backyard to see the hole, where the buried treasure had been pulled.
After much discussion amongst the adults, we trooped inside to behold what had been buried.
The house was the common, wood-framed, farm dwelling with parts of the ceiling floored, serving as a loft, and part open to the rafters.
A large crockery churn sat in the loft with a rope around its neck. This rope ran from the churn threw a block and tackle – a necessity – they said, to raise and lower the heavy treasure.
The churn, pitted and leached by alkalinity in the soil, looked old. It had inch wide, red writing, brushed on it, stating the amount inside, and that it had been sealed with lead and acid.
They eagerly told their story:
Two men, strangers, stopped by their place about six weeks before, telling them that there was treasure buried in their yard, and if the couple consented, the strangers would dig it up, and split it equally between them.
“We thought we had us a couple of crazy city-slickers.” The woman said, “I mean, look at this house, ain’t nobody ever lived here with money enough to bury.”
“And you could tell they were from some city; they talked funny, and had hands that had never shelled an ear of corn,” the man said showing his well callused hands.
The woman took-up the story. “So we just listened to them talk, and well, if they wanted to dig up our yard, didn’t put blisters on our hands, and I can plant petunias in the hole come spring.”
“We were danged-sure surprised when those two hit that churn. Lordy, it was so heavy, took me and those two all we had, to lift it out of that hole.” The man explained.
The strangers convinced the couple to store it in their loft, unopened for some days, before they all got together to divide it, cautioning the couple to tell no one lest the government take it away.
A few days later, one of the guys stopped by, wanting to take the elderly couple to a fine restaurant to celebrate. These were country folk, who didn’t own a car, and who had never been to a fine city restaurant. They were delighted, cleaned-up, dressed in their finest and went with him.
The date set to divide the treasure came and went. The couple became antsy and decided to open the churn for a look-see at the treasure.
They knew something was wrong as soon as they began lowering the churn – it was way too light. When it reached the floor, the seal had been broken, the top loose enough to move around and nothing was left in the churn.
To my knowledge the loot, nor thieves were ever heard from again.
November 23, 2010
· 
Carolyn · 
No Comments
Tags: buried treasure, stolen treasure, vida alabama · Posted in: country life
A Wailing in the Night – Mysterious Death on the Railroad Tracks
The house, where I came into this world, was situated about a third of a mile from the GM&O railroad, that ran from Montgomery to Tuscaloosa and had a depot in Billingsley. In the middle 40′s, steam was still king, and I was three or four when I saw my first steam locomotive, but I remember it well.
Mama and some neighbors gathered at a house down by the public road, busy doing grown-up stuff. The railroad tracks were about 150 yds away, and left to my own devices, I began wandering closer to them. I was familiar with the sounds the trains made, but I had never seen a freight engine up close.
I heard a train approach, so I waited for a good look at it. I had just looked up, and from around the curve came a big black-iron monster; a monster that could have only come from That Book Of Revelations Mama talked about so much: black smoke belching, demonic sounding whistle screeching, big arm like-things (side and main rods) sticking grotesquely from its sides, pumping those iron wheels – I turned and screamed all the way back to Mama and hide my face in her skirts. The adults were very amused.
I now had a picture to go with the train sounds. It wasn’t long and the night trains became just another sleepy-time sound, sort-of a lullaby.
One cool dark and quiet night, I slumbered, hearing the approach of the nightly freight train. It’s steam engine chug-chugging in faster and faster intervals picking up speed to climb the hill beyond our house, when the familiar lullaby was rent, simultaneously by the scream of the whistle and the shriek of iron wheels locked, sliding on the metal rails until it stopped.
The engine huffed, steam ssss-ling. Then a different, hair raising, wailing whistle pierced the quiet air of the country night. The train huffed, backing up.
The whole household erupted into activity. Daddy was dressed in seconds after his feet touched the floor. Mama ordered me to stay in my bed. No problem there.
Daddy discussed with Mama, what action to take, but that was decided for them.
“Thwack.” The front door vibrated in it’s frame with urgency. Railroad men wanted Daddy to bring his car (need for transportation again) and identify a victim.
Daddy was gone for hours and I, no more than five years old, was sleeping when he returned. So it was the next day that I learned Ole Ty, a neighbor who lived so far back in the woods that only a foot path led to it, had been lying on the tracks with his neck across one rail, was killed.
Daddy described the headless and mangled body condition of Ty. It gave him bad dreams for months.
Much speculation ensued. The engineers reported Ole Ty. never moved and it looked like he had been carefully placed with a gallon jug of white lightning by his side.
There were no law officers in those parts, and Railroad detective’s concern was with the RR’s culpability.
We’ll never know what brought Ole Ty to that pass, but the sounds of that night were imprinted in my memory and easily recalled on a dark, cool and quiet night.
October 28, 2010
· Carolyn · One Comment
Tags: GM & O, Gulf Mobile and Ohio, Railroad Death · Posted in: country life
Spring’s Celebration at Billingsley High School
At Billingsley High, in the ninth grade, the girls took two hours of Home Economics shortened to Homemake and the boys put in an equivalent time everyday in agricultural studies, shortened to Ag.
My favorite courses were the sciences and maths, but by far the most useful in day to day has proven to be – homemake. We cooked, sewed refinished and reupholstered furniture, made slipcovers, arranged flowers, learned proper table manners, how a lady was introduced, on what side of her escort she walked, proper attire for different events and how to dress and act on the first and future dates.
When spring arrived the Ag boys and homemake girls gave their annual banquet to showoff all their skills to parents and friends.
About a week before the event, the guys prepared a huge barbeque pit and secured about a cord of green hickory wood. Getting that green hickory to fire-up then burn low and maintaining it at a steady low burn, I am told, is an art form, and the only way to achieve expert pit barbeque.
Early on the morning thereof, the guys lite their hickory fire, the girls prepared several gross of chickens for barbequing, cooked side dishes, decorated the lunch room, and made sure the drinks and ice were ready.
The girls sported dresses and aprons they had made and the guys stood around their fire-pit (Neanderthals!) flexing their muscles and boasting.
It was a jolly-ole-time.
Below are pictures of my classmates and I at our spring bar-b-que in 1959. We were in charge of the ice and drinks, and of course we were clowning.
Fun at the Spring banquet at Billingsley High School
The second picture is of us eating outside, the lunchroom being reserved for parents and teachers, is shown in the background.
Spring Banquet
August 31, 2010
· Carolyn · One Comment
Tags: billingsley high school, billingsley high school spring banquet · Posted in: Billingsley High School, country life
Rolling Store Man
NOTE:   Due to the depression and then W.W.II, cars were rare amongst the country folk where I grew up. Going to the store required arranging transport in advance, or walking, or riding your plow horse.
So enterprising merchants got themselves old vans or buses, installed shelves, ice chests, stocked them with merchandise and voila’ – the Rolling Store was created.
Day to day life in the woods seldom varied. If we had visitors, it was usually some one needing Daddy’s help either to take them to the hospital in Clanton for emergencies such as broken bones, getting gored by a bull and once a neighbor hemorrhaging with TB, or to borrow the money to pay for those medical bills. Daddy gave it to them even knowing he’d probably never get it back.
So when Bernerd and I saw a bus-like vehicle creak down our long drive and pull-up under our massive oak tree – well, that was exciting, cause Rolling Store Man had arrived.
Rolling Stores didn’t adhere to a schedule, so Mama couldn’t plan a head and have money on hand, but that wasn’t a problem. What with her being known as The Praying Woman, her produce was trusted and sought after. Rolling Store Man, gladly traded for Mama’s chickens, eggs, butter and canned blackberries and huckleberries and their jams.
When he pulled up and parked, first he and Mama would determine what kind of chickens his customers wanted, whether pullets, baking hens, a yard rooster, or fryers and send Bernerd and me to round them up. She took care of the more delicate and breakable merchandise.
Rolling Store Man weighed the chickens, stuffed them in cages he kept in the back of the bus, then he and Mama got down to the serious business of haggling till the value of everything was struck at that time Mama would buy.
She let me stand inside the Rolling Store beside her, where I could feast my eyes on all those fascinating items Rolling Store Man had on his shelves: Phials of first aid supplies – merthiolate, mercurochrome – rolls of adhesive tape and gauze, menthol gum for making lineament, boric acid for making sore eye solution and beautiful blue stone crystals used to cure ground itch on horses hooves.
There were tins marked with scull and crossbones, which I longed to open just to see what poisons looked like, what color they’d be, and if they would explode if I mixed them together. I’d ask questions about explosive probabilities and Bernerd, being four years older than me, would try to drag me out of the store, but I’d hold on the door frame thwarting his efforts.
There were the spools of thread and packets of needles to tempt my hands, but Mama was strict. I was never allowed to touch anything less Rolling Store Man think I might steal.
That was OK, for I knew Mama would buy us some candy, which was featured prominently on the shelves by the entrance – boxes of the luscious tasting, to Bernerd and me, rarity. I loved the penny candy. It sat in those boxes just sparkling at me. All those blues, yellows, reds and greens looked like gemstones.
When Mama completed her purchases, and Rolling Store Man trundled back down the drive, she’d hand us each a candy bar and a nickel’s worth of penny candy.
Bernerd and I would sit on the big roots under the Oak to eat our candy bar, lick our penny suckers, knowing that we were also in for a treat at supper – hoop cheese and bologna, sliced from a stalk, served on lite bread.
Wow! Life was goo-ood that day.
May 29, 2010
· Carolyn · 3 Comments
Tags: bartering, country life, rolling store · Posted in: country life
Hunting for Barnyard Treasure
When I was five or six, Mom showed me how and where to find unauthorized and hidden hen egg nest. For my safety, she drilled into me the limits within which I could hunt. At the barn, I could go no further than the beginning of the woods; at the house, the spring where we got our water was the limit. When she was sure that I would obey those rules she named me her little treasure hunter. The job filled me with pride, and I endeavored to find every maverick hen nest.
We had one flock of chickens living at the barn, and another lived around the house.
How the chickens knew which flock they belonged in, I have no idea, but they did, and visitation did not occur between the flocks, enforced by their lord-high roosters.
The barnyard flock was ruled over by an iridescent, indigo rooster that glistened in sunlight. His tail plumage, of the same color, shot-up from his body only to fall in a graceful drape. A tall, red comb rode on his head, setting off the indigo quite nicely. I loved to watch him lower one wing and prance a flamingo around one of his ladies.
The house flock’s sovereign was a large Rhode Island Red. He was no less handsome, but to me his flamingo dance wasn’t as graceful.
Hens being chickens, all seemed to want to hide the prizes they laid from the prying hands that gathered their eggs. And in the spring, when the urge to sit came over them, hitting them all at once, they would rebel, and you’d see an exodus from the nests in their pens to the woods.
Mom only allowed ten to fifteen hens to sit in a season. At twelve chicks a hen, that would be a hundred to one hundred twenty chick, which meant about 275 chickens in one flock. Too many to feed. Population control was essential.
When the hens headed for the woods, Mom would call in her Treasure Hunter to find the nests. It was great fun. I’d do exaggerated sneaks fantasizing various scenarios from busting up treasure thieves to finding nest filled with golden eggs. I found most of the nest, but not all.
Frequently, a lady would come strutting and clucking home from the woods with a dozen or more little fuzzy, peeping biddies trailing behind her.
She’d strut amongst the other chickens, proudly showing off her brood. The other hens gathered round and chicken gossip commenced.
The rooster, of course, was above even noticing the commotion.
The mother hen would scratch the dirt, then cluck a call, and the biddies would dutifully gather, pecking in the area Momma hen had scratched for them, peeping all the while.
I’d watch the hen and chicks interactions, and the pride the other hens seem to take in one of theirs having pulled one over the humans. It was a beautiful sight. I wasn’t terribly upset over having missed a few nest. In fact, I made a point to miss a few.
March 27, 2010
· Carolyn · 2 Comments
Tags: biddies, chicken behavior, hidden hen nests · Posted in: country life
