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TO KILL A ROMANCE
It was the middle of July and it was hot! A severe thunderstorm with hail had driven us out of the cornfield where we had been hoeing corn all day.
"You young’uns go wash and get ready for supper. Your Daddy says you can go over on the Three Top tonight if you want to. They are having services for Aletha. The burying is tomorrow." Mama yelled from the porch. "Get in the creek down there and get some of that cornfield dust off your behinds!"
We hit the swimming hole down below the old spring house faster than a Holy Roller gets religion!
This was the remote and rural mountainous areas on the western slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the late 1930’s!
We had no funeral homes and in death we simply took care of our own. We made our own caskets, dug our own graves and laid out our loved ones in their best attire. We also mourned our dead in our own special way!
We had no way of embalming and it was necessary that the body be buried within a reasonably short period of time, usually the next day and never beyond the second day.
The body would lie in state at the home of the deceased, usually in the living room and in an open casket. Friends, loved ones, relations and neighbors would come from miles around to pay their last respects. This was done in a form of a socialized gathering. These gatherings just missed being a celebration and was, more or less, a communal review of the life of the deceased.
People would bring flower arrangements of all kinds. In the spring or summer they would be fresh cut. In the fall or winter they would make beautiful arrangements out of crepe paper and other materials.
There would always be a short religious service and afterwards someone would stay with in the room with the body all night long to keep the varmints away. From death to burial the body was never left alone!
These gatherings were both a sad and a joyous occasion combined. The older folks got to visit and exchange views on the community life and the younger ones got to spend some time with their boy or girl friends and size up their prospective mates. The boys and girls would through mutual agreement pair of by two’s and the boys would walk his female partner to her home.
The next day at the local church, no less than four preachers would propel the deceased into the hereafter. I always had a wonderful time when someone in the community died!
Aletha weighed three hundred pounds
That sizzling, sultry, summer day
Her Papa found he in the barn
With Lester in the hay!
The old man flew into a rage,
He simply lost his head.
He raised his big, long, double barrel
And shot them both stone dead!
They took her Papa off to jail
And threw the key away.
Laid Lester out in a blue serge suit
And shipped him down to Tampa Bay!
They built a special coffin box
Around the massive frame
Of Aletha in a pale blue dress
And the neighbors came.
They held a socializing wake
In that time and in that place.
The main attraction for us boys
Were those girls in frilly lace.
I had my eye on a sweet young thing
By the name of Kathy Comb
And she’d agreed with a naughty smile
To let me walk her home!
The lazy moon winked in and out
Playing peep-eye with clouds above.
While a gentle breeze spread wild rose perfume
On this perfect night for love.
I placed my arm around her waist
And before we were half way home
I was stepping three feet high.
I was in love with Kathy Comb!
We left the road at Comeback Curve,
Down through some pasture land.
By the time we got to Mill Creed Pond
I had things well in hand!
The other folks were walking slow;
We’d left them far behind.
A quiet respite at Mossy Flats
Was what I had in mind.
But some bovine queen had done a job,
Splattered up and down that hill.
And one wrong step was just enough
To cause that awful spill.
Hand in hand we slid with ease,
How far? No on really knows.
But one darned thing we knew for sure
We’d have to wash our clothes!
So, we wound up in Mill Creek Pond
All slick from head to toe.
That rose perfume just disappeared
And the moon lost all its glow.
We didn’t stop at Mossy Flats,
I walked her straight on home,
Wondering if I was brave enough
To face Old man Randolph Comb!
He came to the kitchen door
As we came up the path.
He held his nose and told his wife
To fix us both a bath.
I was sitting there in the big was tub
Sipping bootleg mountain dew
When I got this awful feeling
That this romance was through!
Now, sometimes in the summertime
When the world is all abloom,
I get a smell, a breezy whiff
Of a strange wild rose perfume.
Then I think of things that might have been
And a girl named Kathy Comb,
If we had not veered at Comeback Curve
And took that short cut home!
It is strange indeed, how fickle fate
Will use most any way
To mess up all our dreams and plans
And I believe it to this day.
That, lazy, loose boweled, mangy cow
Was not a thing of chance,
But a deliberate act by Lady Luck
To spoil that sweet romance!
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