Magnolia Blossoms and Bad Tasting Water

By Tom Boggs

Magnolia Blossoms and Bad Tasting Water is a series of excerpts and stories from the simple and carefree days in the rural South after World War II and through the fabulous fifties, as remembered by a man who lived it as a boy and young man, and who saw and heard about the characters and the events firsthand.
It was inspired by the weekly newspaper columns entitled Days Gone Bye written by the author, Tom Boggs, over a period of more than thirteen years and still going. The chapters are filled with folks and events that are familiar to anybody who lived in those times...and for those who didn't; the history, the laughter, the funny happenings, and the serious side of the book will appeal to readers of any age or from any region of the country.
This book is for those who want to spend a few light moments reading about goings on around an old courthouse, about high school football rivalries, old time religion, going to the picture show, and being ten back then. there is also remembering the fading warriors of the forties, the music of that era, the past time of hunting, fishing and bullfrog gigging, and just plain old keeping those memories alive for those who lived it...and for those who with they had.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467039697

Tom Boggs

Tom Boggs, a former Army Green Beret Full Colonel, lives in Demopolis, Alabama where he is still active in Veterans Affairs, practices law with the oldest firm in Marengo county, and raises Black Angus beef cattle on his 140 acre farm ten miles from town. He is often called upon to speak at various functions, and is usually requested to include historical and humorous stories from weekly newspaper columns he has written since 1998. The readers of his column have encouraged him to write a book based on his weekly ramblings about old times in the rural South, with emphasis on the fabulous forties and fifties; thus Magnolia Blossoms and Bad Tasting Water. Tom Boggs was raised in the West Central Alabama County Seat town of Linden during the forties and fifties, the son of a lawyer, District Attorney, and Circuit Judge, who moved to the county in 1933, and a mother, whose family had been in the county singe the early 1800's. He learned about the history and the people of the area from his mother, who Miss Linden of 1933, and he learned the art of storytelling from hid daddy. The author and his wife, Alice, handle all of the work on the cattle farm themselves, with special help from grandchildren, who sometimes get sidetracked fishing or swimming in the pond or hand feeding the donkey. He is presently working on a Historical Fiction Novel, but feels a special kindred spirit with his first book about people, places and times unique in the history of this country.

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© 2011 Tom Boggs. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/11/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4670-3969-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-3970-3 (sc)

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

A LITTLE BITTY HISTORY LESSON

CHAPTER 2

OUR OWN OUTLAW, RUBE BURROWS

CHAPTER 3

RECOLLECTING THAT YEAR

BEFORE THE BIG WAR…1940

CHAPTER 4

FADING WARRIORS OF THE FORTIES

CHAPTER 5

GOINGS ON ‘ROUND

THE COURTHOUSE

CHAPTER 6

MOOSE AND ME

CHAPTER 7

WHAT’S ALL THIS TALK

ABOUT THE BOGUE?

CHAPTER 8

BAD TASTING WATER

CHAPTER 9

FOLKS YOU’D MEET ON THE STREET

CHAPTER 10

BEING TEN BACK THEN

CHAPTER 11

HUNTING, FISHING AND

BULLFROG GIGGING

CHAPTER 12

WHO WERE YOU WITH LAST NIGHT

CHAPTER 13

DEVILS, TIGERS, ELEPHANTS

AND OTHER SUCH CRITTERS

CHAPTER 14

THE FOLKS WE HAD

IN THAT OLD COURTHOUSE

CHAPTER 15

RADIO, TELEVISION

AND PICTURE SHOWS

CHAPTER 16

PLACES AND FOLKS

OUTSIDE LINDEN TOWN

CHAPTER 17

CHRISTMASTIME REMEMBERED

CHAPTER 18

EVERY DAY WAS A

SPECIAL DAY AT OUR HOUSE

CHAPTER 19

THAT OLD TIME RELIGION

CHAPTER 20

IN LIVING BLACK AND WHITE

CHAPTER 21

THE JINGLES IN OUR

BLUE JEAN POCKETS

CHAPTER 22

OLD TIME MUSIC AND

STUFF ON THE RADIO

CHAPTER 23

SIMPLER DAYS ON THE SUCARNOCHEE

CHAPTER 24

KEEPING MEMORIES ALIVE

GLOSSERY OF TERMS

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mama. A true Southern lady; a friend to everybody, black and white, rich and poor. Miss Linden of 1933, and a beautiful inspiration to me as she always encouraged me to hitch onto a star.

Here’s to Wilmothe (Wib) Cooper Boggs

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INTRODUCTION

If you’ll sit back and relax just a bit, I’m goner do the best I can to tell y’all a thing or two ‘bout some stuff, some places, and some grand ol’ folks in and around rural Southwest Alabama back yonder in the 40s, and the 50s, and maybe a smidgen on up in those 60s.

Some of you will know these places and people, and a few will probably know ‘near ‘bout all of ‘em, but even for those who were not raised in these parts, you’ll more than likely recognize somebody just like a fellow or a gal you knew back in your own hometown. Things were pretty much the same all over the place in the simpler times of days gone on by.

Now, I was raised in the county seat town of Linden in Marengo County, being right smack dab in the middle of the black belt region of Alabama, known for rich, black dirt, and I’ve been talking about Days Gone Bye in the county newspapers for quite a spell. Devoted readers of that column been asking me how come I didn’t put some of this weekly talking in a book they could look at…and that’s what I finally did, just now getting around to getting it printed out for your approval, and I sure hope, pure enjoyment, as we all go back to a period when all seemed well, and downright simple.

Although I’ve been taught proper prose writing by the likes of Dr. Betty Jean Tucker at Old Linden High, and by Dr. Robert Gilbert over at Livingston State College, both back in the 50s, I’m just writing this pretty much the way I’d be talking to you sitting on a creek bank, and I might even use the ain’t word from time to time if I figure that’ll help the conversation flow a little easier. My aim is to do what I can to recollect some good stuff and folks, and to tell it to you in a way that just makes you feel comfortable in hearing it.

Every little ol’ chapter is a stand-alone section, and you might read some repeat stuff a time or two. Just chalk that up to my old memory bank telling me that some things might be worth getting told twice…or it might be memory bank blackout.

Tom Boggs, Jr.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must thank my wife for staying on me and encouraging me to write this book, but by the same token, I must thank the many readers of the weekly newspaper columns, Days Gone Bye, who encouraged me to condense some of that down home talking into a book they could hold in their hands, read, and ponder the beautiful past.

After I had submitted a few letters to Goodloe Sutton at the Democrat Reporter in Linden Town, it was the editor’s wife, Jean Sutton, who, without warning, put a name to the writing, and lo and behold, a column was born.

Jean contributed to the column each week during her lifetime by coming up with some drawing or picture to fit the subject…if there was a discernible subject that week.

We finally got ourselves syndicated when Inda Pugh, the then editor of The Demopolis Times, invited me to bring the column by her office every week, and that’s what we did.

I cannot write an acknowledgment without thinking of my high school English teacher, Betty Jean Tucker, and my college English Professor, Robert Gilbert, for instilling in me the love of reading, and the desire to put my thoughts down into words.

My Ma gave me a real sense of pride and interest in our Southern heritage, and my Daddy was the greatest storyteller I ever knew.

But the real acknowledgment goes to the wonderful folks I knew and loved as a boy and as a young man. This simple little book is their story, and I would not have the substance to set down these writings without them, nor would I have the loaded down, foot stomping good memory bank I got without what I know ‘bout a bunch of folks and what they did, said, and stood for back then, and where it was they did it.

Thank all y’all, and God bless you…every one.

Tom Boggs, Jr.

CHAPTER 1

A LITTLE BITTY HISTORY LESSON

Aw right! We ready to get started on this thing? Well, come on, then. Let’s get cranked up, run this thing up the flag pole, and see who salutes.

Now to start off with, I figure I ought to do what I can to give y’all a savoring of the flavor of this part of the world without a bunch of facts, and no figures atall.

Little ol’ places on the side of the road like Dayton and Magnolia were pretty hopping towns at one time. Up there north of the Bogue (and you gonner hear a good bit more ‘bout that Bogue later on), a bunch of those French fellows left over from Napoleon’s Waterloo landed up ‘round those big ol’ white bluffs on the Tombigbee River, and they started up a City of the People called Demopolis.

Some of y’all might have seen that John Wayne movie called The fighting Kentuckian.

Well, Sir, that picture show was all about Demopolis, when John and his buddies walked up there from Mobile.

Demopolis got a heap of old canals and some right pretty houses up there yet, but try as hard as they could, those Frenches couldn’t make that limerock produce very many grapes and olives, so most of ‘em lit out for other parts. They left the town though, and it’s done mighty well for itself.

Now, the county seat. Let’s us talk just a bit ‘bout how that came to be. Back yonder ‘bout in the 1820’s they set up a little village, and they called it the Town of Marengo on account of that was one of that Napoleon fellow’s battles he didn’t lose over there around Austria or some such place as that. They left the county named Marengo, and then they up and changed the name of the town to Hohenlinden. That was another one of those dang battles over yonder somewhere.

Well now, let me back up just a smidgen. Before they started to set up the county seat, the little bitty ol’ settlement setting where the county seat was gonner be, went by the name of Screamersville, and that was due to there being a heap of fighting and stuff going on all the time. Some folks say it never did settle all the way down to this day.

Anyhow, they built ‘em a courthouse and everything, but, like all the buildings back then, it was lit up by candles and such, and it ended up burned slap to the ground. They went ahead and put up another one long about 1848 or so, and you can see that ol’ courthouse still standing right there in Old Town, but it ain’t a courthouse nowadays. Used to be used for a Baptist Church.

According to some records dug up by my good old departed friends, Ms. Emma Hinson and Miss Haysie Westbrook, round about 1860 the population had shrunk down due to some sad reverses following flush times. The town did have a goodly number of business establishments, however.

There were three dry goods, a drug store, three groceries, two hotels, a Masonic lodge, an academy for male and female, a courthouse, jail, shoe shops, carpenter shops and, naturally, some blacksmith shops.

After the war of Northern aggression was over, things sho nuff got tough ‘round here. The creeks would get up, and you couldn’t even get in contact with Demopolis Town, which did have some contact with the outside world on the river and all. The Yankees moved the county seat up to Demopolis ‘round 1869, and they took over the Presbyterian Church for a courthouse. The seat got moved back to Linden in the middle of the county a year or so later, but they never did give us Presbyterians our church back. They ought to at least let us have our bell.

Time kept on a marching along, even down here in the Blackbelt, which is the heart of the heart of the South. Fore you knew what was what, here came the L & N Railroad long ‘bout the turn of the century, and the Frisco followed twenty something years later on. Even got some pavement in several places ‘round about the middle 1930’s, and in 1940 you could ride all the way over to Thomaston on a blacktop road. What next?

Things kinda stayed simple, and they got down right good after we got through whupping that Hitler fellow, and his buddy, To Jo, and I reckon those years on through the 40’s and 50’s must have been just about the very best of times. They were to this country boy.

I don’t have any idea how long this little Ol’ book is goner end up being. I do know I’ll natural born have to leave out a bunch of folks who ought to be included, and I might not recollect some mighty important facts that happened to the citizens of Half Acre, Putnam, Dixons Mills, Pin Hook, Salt Well, Sweetwater, Thomaston, Spring Hill, and places all in between, but you can bet your boots the tradition, fun, fellowship and loving set out in this volume is based on the people and places all over this county, whether they get named or not.

What I’m hoping