Pictures, Short Stories and Anecdotes from PoorTown
© 2004 James D. Pearce and Rebecca P. Pearce
All articles and photos in The PoorTown News are used with the expressed consent
of the credited contributors, and remain the property of those contributors.
Number 122
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AHOSKIE SIDELIGHTS ~ V
This is one of a series of chatty columns about life in Ahoskie, written during World War II for the Hertford County Herald by Gwendolyn Pearce (Mizelle), a onetime resident of Poor Town. Some excerpts from these columns have appeared earlier in The Poor Town News and more will appear in future issues.
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Canned rattler? ...... Well, not exactly, but Pete Parker managed to get one into a half-gallon jar, alive, last week ...... Pete was working near Windsor when he found the snake ...... It must have taken a little nerve when he picked the snake up just below its head ...... Then he put it in the jar and fetched it home.
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Why do little boys, along with a lot of other things, hate to get haircuts? ...... Passing the City Barber Shop the other day, I heard a young gent just "going to town." ...... Boy, did he sound mad!
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The Newsome boys: ...... Irving is back in town now, rating a Second Lieutenant and wearing his wings ...... And Dick, our baseball hero, and his wife and son are here ...... Incidentally, Dick brought a broken leg along ...... Lucky for Dick the baseball season was just about over when it happened.
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"Brother, let me touch that coat," was a plea from a number of soldiers when "Bright Eyes" walked into a new army camp at Greensboro with Cpl. Dutch Overton to visit Pete Overton ...... "Bright Eyes" was wearing the new plaid tweed he has.
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We were sorry to hear that Merle Vaughan was taken to Norfolk General Hospital Friday night ...... But we're glad to know he's doing nicely and hope he'll be coming home soon ...... He's quite contented, I hear ...... with a pretty nurse to care for him.
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The wedding will be coming off soon ...... Or haven't you heard? ..... Anyway, the pretty Miss Thelma Horton, who is now employed by the National Farm Loan Association, will be Mrs. Mills Elwood Vann in just a short while.
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We'll miss several of the school teachers of Ahoskie High, now that they've gone to their homes or elsewhere for the summer vacation ...... I have a feeling that some "certain people" will miss some "certain teachers" more than others ......
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AULANDER'S TALKING TABLE
Jeanette White, Bertie County NCOne of your readers wrote last week ("Mailbox," in The Poor Town News 121) about the "speaking table" in Aulander, which has been one of the few real mysteries in my adult life.
My children and I went to see the table one night, and the house was full of people who wanted to see an inanimate object that talked by knocking on the floor when two people, never less, were touching it lightly.
My son was wearing a hat (with a hole in it) that night, and I asked him to leave it in the car when we went inside. As the table "talked," I asked if my son was wearing a hat, and it answered no. I asked if he had worn a hat to Aulander, and it knocked yes. Then it told me where the hole was in the hat. My aunt was in the crowd, and it told us her age, which was a surprise because even her husband didn't know how old she was.
I was convinced that one of the people touching the table was causing it to knock, even though there was no way they could have answered those two questions. So I asked if my daughter and I could be the ones controlling the table, which continued to knock and correctly answer other visitors' questions even though I know we weren't causing the bumps. That much I know as a witness.
The rest is what I heard, so I can't attest to its truth. I was told that the people who had the table stored furniture for somebody, who retrieved everything but the table. A newspaper editor from Ahoskie eventually heard about the table and figured out a way to get more than yes and no answers. She cut out letters of the alphabet and placed them in a circle around the table, which then rocked across the floor to spell out answers.
I believe the table said it held the spirit of a girl named "Abigail Williams," who died at the age of 16. I thought the table said Abigail drowned and it was not an accident. Your reader said she died in a fire and that the owners bought the table at an antique shop, so maybe my memory is incorrect. If we knew the origin of the table, some of these facts could be checked.
This table goes against everything we have ever been taught. A table cannot hold the spirit of a person, but there are people who believe that the spirit of a person who dies traumatically will stay with an item or place. Why did two people always have to be touching it before the table answered questions? Was it some type of poltergeist activity? Where is the table now? This story has crossed my mind many times in the past 50 years and I have never figured it out.
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CEMETERY LIGHTS AND JURY DUTY
Ron Lupton, ColoradoWe heard about various ghost lights along the coastal swamps when we were growing up in Southeast Virginia. One of the most amazing things I ever saw was a photograph (a time exposure) made in a swampy area at night with the sole source of illumination being a ghost light. I know photos can be faked, but this was full color, in the National Geographic, several years ago.
Now here in Colorado, we have our local variety, up in the high mountain valley of Westcliffe/Silvercliffe, two old mining towns with abandoned cemeteries. One of these cemeteries has a famous ghost light that features an orb the size of a pale-blue glowing basketball, and is best viewed on overcast, snowy nights ...... It has been viewed from shortly after the cemetery was established in the 1870s, thus dispelling excuses such as reflected car or plane lights. This silent, luminous haunt moves away from those who approach it, and reappears on other tombstones or rusting gates.
Who, me? ...... Nope ...... Never saw it, but I looked ...... Another point of interest is that this famous Silvercliffe light reportedly appears only in the Protestant cemetery ~ never in the nearby Catholic cemetery ...... Hmmmmm.
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If you still have to serve on jury duty (The Poor Town News 121), just remember what my Uncle Apoc, the Baptist preacher back at Gum Neck NC, used to say about such necessary intrusions on our time:
"It's the price we pay for democracy. It's our duty as free men. Freedom isn't free. It's your right and privilege as a citizen to serve on the jury ...... Now, go on over there and hang 'em."
(Note: Gum Neck, where Uncle Apoc preached in the old days, is on the Eastern North Carolina map, just south of Columbia and Frying Pan Landing. It's part of the Federal Yellow Fly and Mosquito Sanctuary down there. ~ Ron.)
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This Week's Verse
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SLIPS THAT PASS IN THE TYPE ~:~ Landmark Threatened
A stove fire at the Quaker House Restaurant on Main Street in Woodland came during the noon lunch hour. No one was injured, and fire personnel contained the fire, preventing the loss of the building and its contents. The smoke-filled restaurant gave an eerie presents with the tables set with food and no one around. ~ Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.
And those "presents" weren't even the Christmas kind.
~:~ Demery's pending arrival has attracted attention that had been largely absent during the prosecution of Daniel Green. And the prospect of more grizzly news from Lumberton is making some people in town uneasy.~ News and Observer.
"Bearing" down in a bloody murder trial.
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MURPHY'S MEDALS
Audie Murphy was the most-decorated US veteran of WWII.
I'm old now, but I was quite young during WWII, and if I ever had a hero, it was Murphy.
Audie came back from the war broke, the same way he went. He'd never had much education, and was working as a waiter while he attended a community college, when he was discovered by someone who put him in the movies.
The result of that was that the shy, reticent Audie became a really famous movie star, basically of the six-gun-toting cowboy variety.
The story was that during the filming of one of those early Westerns, some of his male co-stars liked to tease him about his medals and some of them questioned whether he did in fact deserve all of them.
One in particular kept pestering him, and one day when they both were wearing their movie holsters and pistols, this fellow, in front of several others, challenged Audie to a "fast-draw" contest. "I think I can beat you," he reportedly said to Murphy.
Audie accepted the challenge. "All right," he said, "but we're going to use real bullets."
That ended that.
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DEBBIE AND HER GRANDMA NORA
Uncle Jim: Here is a picture of your mom (my grandmother) and me.
Sadly, I don't remember much about her. I would love it if you would write a section sometime about what she was like. I was only about nine when she died.
I only have two memories of her. One was when I was spending the night with my cousin Valerie. Grandma lived with Valerie, Keith, and Aunt Lois at the time. I couldn't have been more than three or four years old because it was in Ahoskie, and we moved shortly after that.
We were going to sleep for the night, and Grandma was sleeping with us because we were scared. I remember we thought someone was under the bed.
She comforted us by saying, "Go to sleep. Tomorrow morning you can have those little cereals that come in the little boxes." That's all I remember, so I guess I went to sleep after that.
The only other memory I have is when she was very ill and living with us in Raleigh. I was around eight or nine then, I think. I had bought a present for my dad for his birthday or Father's Day, and I went to her bedside to show it to her.
She mistakenly thought I was giving her a present. I had to explain that it was for my daddy. I remember vividly how awful I felt to have disappointed her.
I wish I'd had the chance to have known her when I was older. All of my grandparents either passed away before my birth or while I was a young child. I feel that I really missed out on a special kind of relationship that one can have in life. I love to see old pictures and imagine what those loved ones were like.
Nora Copeland Pearce, with grand-baby Debbie, around 1955.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NIGHT BUS
Boweaver's mother put the toothbrush and an extra handkerchief into the little blue bag and zipped it shut. "Boweaver," she said, "are you sure this is all you want to carry?" "Yes, mama," he answered. "They probably won't let me keep that much." "Are you sure you don't want me to walk down to the bus station with you?" The boy looked at his mother, then looked away. "No, I really don't, mama. I'd rather just go by myself." "Will you write to me as soon as you can?" "Don't worry, mama. I'll be fine." "It's bad, you going off so long and in the middle of the night like this." Boweaver swallowed. "Mama, don't worry. I'll write to you a lot, and I will do right. Everything will be okay." "Goodbye." The bus was due in at 11 p.m., and the night air was chilly. Boweaver felt cold inside. No one was around the service station where the bus was to stop. Boweaver sat on the bench in front, pulling up his legs and squeezing the little travel bag in his lap. He felt again in his pocket and found the ticket he had purchased earlier in the day. He released it quickly because his hands were damp with sweat and he was afraid he had handled it so much already that it would not be usable when the bus came. He studied the sign on the gas pump. Gulf N-O-N-O-X. He liked the way it spelled N-O-X. The bus hummed up the street and pulled into the station. Boweaver stood where it would stop with the door open. He had to step back from the door. A man in a soldier's uniform was coming down the bus steps. He was using crutches and swinging his right foot as he maneuvered through the door. The soldier reached the ground and, leaning on his crutches, turned to take a suitcase handed him by the driver. The soldier glanced at the boy going up the steps. Boweaver hesitated a moment at the front of the bus, handing the driver his ticket and staring out the window at the man in uniform, silhouetted on his crutches in the light from the single bulb inside the service station. He moved halfway down the nearly empty bus and decided on a seat next to a window. He tossed his little bag onto the overhead rack, and pulled himself over to the window seat. The bus began to move, and under a low half-moon, the soldier, the town,
the fields, the woods and the memories of the Great Depression slowly began receding down the dim pathways of the past.
The fields, the woods, the memories
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I was very taken with the picture of the old homestead in The Poor Town News No. 120. I would love to see it as an oil painting ~ it has so much character.
~ Aggie Green, Michigan.
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I used to work with Jeanie Parker in the emergency room, and absolutely loved hearing her stories about her animals ("Abraham Dolittle," in The Poor Town News No. 121) ...... In fact, I once wrote about one of her roosters for the News-Herald. Please tell her hello for me ...... And what an odd coincidence! I've also been summoned to jury duty, in Sonoma County, California, the first week of September ...... It looks like I'll have to park an RV overnight to be sure of a parking space!
~ Valerie Horne Sumner, California.
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The last time I was on jury duty was about eight years ago. I found the chairs to be so hard that I had great difficulty sitting comfortably, and the rest-room breaks too far apart for my shrinking bladder ...... I too thought it was my civic duty to serve, but now at nearly 71, I'll give up my seat for a much younger and more active-thinking person. (I too am becoming hard of hearing.)
~ Norma Scott, Florida.
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Dark, deep, and cold the current flows
unto the sea where no wind blows,
seeking the land which no one knows.
O'er its sad gloom still comes and goes
the mingled wail of friends and foes,
borne to the land which no one knows.
Why shrieks for help yon wretch, who goes
with millions, from a world of woes,
unto the land which no one knows?
Though myriads go with him who goes,
alone he goes where no wind blows,
unto the land which no one knows.
For all must go where no wind blows,
and none can go for him who goes;
none, none return whence no one knows.
Yet why should he who shrieking goes
with millions, from a world of woes,
reunion seek with it or those?
Alone with God, where no wind blows,
and Death, his shadow ~ doomed, he goes.
That God is there, the shadow shows.
O shoreless Deep, where no wind blows!
and thou, O Land which no one knows!
That God is All, His shadow shows.
Ebenezer Elliott 1781-1849
By Becky Pearce
Debbie Pearce Mottley, Virginia
Nora, who was the widow of "Cap'n Fred" Pearce,
is profiled in several Poor Town stories
Mailbox
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