Sweet Potatoes

By T. Whitman Bilderback

The year is 1922.

Greg Edmondson, a World War 1 veteran and medical student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, has set off on a trip in his new motor car to visit his Aunt Gossamer in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Shortly before he arrives at Aunt Gossie’s, Greg has car trouble, and seeks help on a nearby farm, whose big cash crop is sweet potatoes. He meets Samantha, a beautiful girl with a sweet disposition.

This is the heartwarming story of a budding romance, set in a time long past, in T. Whitman Bilderback’s story, “Sweet Potatoes”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T. Whitman Bilderback
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310829086

T. Whitman Bilderback

T. Whitman Bilderback is retired, and lives in Tennessee. He spent over forty years as a TV repairman. He served in the United States Navy as a Petty Officer 2nd Class, also called Electronics Technician 2nd Class, on what was then called a “kiddie cruise”. Mr. Bilderback is the father of author T. M. Bilderback, proving that the writing gene runs in the family.

Book preview

SWEET POTATOES

By

T. Whitman Bilderback

Sweet Potatoes

T. Whitman Bilderback

Copyright 2014 by T. Whitman Bilderback

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright Page

Sweet Potatoes

About The Author

Other Stories By T. Whitman Bilderback

In the summer of 1922, during a break in my studies at Vanderbilt, I received an invitation, or more truthfully, a summons, to visit my Aunt Gossie in Vicksburg. Please don’t get me wrong, a visit to Aunt Gossie’s was always nice, and after all, she was the closest family I had left. She never had children of her own and has always treated me like her son, especially after my mother, Faerie Mae Davis Edmondson, died. My mother never liked her first name and used the name Mae (My grandmother was fascinated by fairies, long before it was in vogue). Gossie was short for Gossamer. I loved Aunt Gossie dearly, though it was sometimes difficult to stick around when she started in with the Civil War lectures. She couldn’t let go of the past, and to my young ears it sounded very ancient and irrelevant. I mean, we had just gone through the Great War, some forty million people had died, and the horrors of the trenches, machine guns and gas warfare sort of trumped the great siege of Vicksburg and the fact that some poor souls had to eat rats. But Gossie wanted to talk about her war, and I didn’t want to talk about mine, so you can understand a certain amount of dread thus fostered in anticipation of the visit. Of course, I had lived my war, or a small part of it, first hand, and still lived it in my nightmares, whereas Gossie had learned all about hers second or even third hand. But, still, I did look forward to seeing her and to the automobile road trip and whatever unknown adventures awaited me. I loaded my trunk and a small tent into the Model T, checked all the tires including both spares, filled up the tank at a filling station, adding a full spare gas can and a can of water, threw in some nonperishable food including apples, crackers and cheese, and hit the road. I figured I was well prepared and was wearing sturdy lace boots and a duster and cap.

Back then, it was a long trip from Nashville to Vicksburg by train, and even longer by automobile. But I was young and loved driving my Lizzie, and welcomed any excuse to do so. Roads were not very good, and some were impassable, by automobile especially, in winter and spring due to snow, ice and, mainly, mud. But it was summer and I was confident that I could meet any challenge. I acquired the best maps I could find and expected to have to rely on strangers for directions. I later realized that many people had never been further from home than a day’s journey in a buggy or wagon, about thirty miles, so most directions were only good locally. I wound up getting lost a few times, once when I had to detour because of a washed