Brown County Stories: Some Personal Recollections

By George Monroe

BROWN COUNTY STORIES

Some Personal Recollections

 

The purpose of this book is to share some of the fun and interesting things that happened when I was growing up in Brown County.  The stories offered here were told to my five daughters around campfires and at many bedtime sessions as they were growing up.  They requested that I tell them over and over again.  They heard these stories, and many others like them, so many times they said they felt like they actually grew up with Cobweb, and Virgil, and Hazel, and Sis, and Bobby, and Stretch.  After many retellings I was once obliged to let my youngest daughter know that I had told her everything I could remember, or even make up.  To which she replied, “OK then, just start over.”

 

The various accounts of these uncommon experiences were reinforced for my daughters when they visited their grandmother who lived in Nashville, the County Seat of Brown County, and were able to explore the territory where they took place. All of these stories are based on things that actually happened to me and other live people in the good old days in Brown County.  They are as true as creative memory will allow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2004
• ISBN: 9781420805741

George Monroe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR George E. Monroe, Ph.D. grew up in the little town of Nashville in Brown County, Indiana. After graduating with a B.S. Degree in Elementary Education from Indiana University, he returned to Nashville to teach sixth grade and serve as local Scoutmaster. He then moved to the big city, continued his education, joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and traveled to many places in the world. However, a part of him has always been rooted in the unique environs of his youth. He has published three books of Brown County Stories that are personal recollections of characters and events during that special time of his life (see his website browncountystories.com). To make a mysterious Brown County legend more available and interesting to curious children he teamed up with illustrator Irene Olds-Perry to produce this book, The Secret Cave On The Hill. He currently lives with his wife, Merle, in Evanston, Illinois.

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© 2009 George Monroe. 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/25/2021

ISBN: 978-1-4208-0573-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4208-0574-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter I The Sacred Ointment

Chapter II It Happened On Blood Alley

Chapter III Hazel’s Sweet Revenge

Chapter IV Outhouse Obsessions

Chapter V Feet Frolics

Chapter VI Fire In The Hole

Chapter VII When Bobby Came To Town

Chapter VIII The Smellin’ Contests

Chapter IX Geronimo’s Ride

Chapter X The Gambling House

Chapter XI Wadin’ On Home

Chapter XII Marvin’s Warts

Chapter XIII The Secret Cave

Chapter XIV Egg Salad

Chapter XV Fish Bait Supreme

Chapter XVI Salt Creek

Chapter XVII Melvin’s Magnificent Motorcar

Chapter XVIII Feeling The Heat

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I want to thank my wife and partner, Merle Monroe, for her patient encouragement and most valuable technical support while I was writing this book. She taught me (over and over again) how to use the computer, made countless corrections when I fouled up, relieved my panic by retrieving copy I somehow lost in the bowels of the hard drive, and commiserated with me when I forgot to save my work. She also listened to these stories countless times as I told them to our daughter, Abby Monroe, and over again later as I read drafts to my grandson, Jesse Robbins. If not for her expert help and encouragement to get these stories into print where others can enjoy them, it is doubtful that they would ever have been transcribed.

My debt is very large to the boys with whom I shared the experiences recounted in these stories. I was one of the boys myself in the late thirties and early forties. Cobweb, whose real name was Max, was my special boyhood friend and companion. He was as real and as interesting as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Others in his generation, like Virgil and Bobby and Stretch also had their own ways of turning ordinary events into really fun adventures.

When I returned in the early fifties to teach sixth grade and be the Scoutmaster of Troop 90, I got to be a privileged witness to the adventures of another generation of Brown County Boys. They were curious, hard working, creative, mischievous, and barrels of fun. They taught me a lot.

I am deeply grateful to my daughter Abby Monroe, who arrived on the scene late in my life and begged me to tell her Brown County Stories at almost every bedtime for many years. I had told them many times to my other four daughters on camping trips and at bedtime sessions as they were growing up. With Abby it became a special tradition. She heard these stories, and numerous others like them, so many times that she said she felt like she actually grew up with Cobweb and Virgil and Hazel and Sis and Bobby and Stretch. After many retellings I was once obliged to let her know that I had told her everything I could remember, or even make up. To which she replied, OK then, just start over. Abby’s interest and rapt attention caused me to keep these stories alive in my memory. That made it easy to recall and transcribe what happened many years ago as if I were observing it today.

Prologue

Brown County, Indiana, is a very unique place. High, wooded hills dissected by deep stream cut valleys have gifted it with wild natural beauty. This gift also kept the pioneer settlers there isolated from the rest of the world for many years.

The first outsiders who came into the county were artists from Chicago and other big cities who were attracted to its colorful textures and the ethereal haze that hung over the hills and valleys. They found a native population that was friendly and tolerant of the strangers in their midst. The local folks were mostly dirt-poor farmers and their families who lived a hardscrabble existence on small, rocky farms. The artists provided a little gainful employment for the locals. They also bought some produce from farmers who had a little extra to sell. Under these conditions, everybody mostly got along with each other good enough.

When the artists first came to Brown County they had to be transported by horses or walk five miles from the railhead at Helmsburg in the Northwestern corner of the county. The roads at that time were muddy tracks alongside of, or actually within, rocky creek beds. As Abe Martin, the grizzled cartoon character created by Kin Hubbard to portray the essential Brown County native, once put it: "By cracky, it’s sum travelin’ ter git ter Brown County."

With the physical isolation and dearth of material goods in pioneer Brown County, all people were obliged to be creative in order to survive. They had to make do with primitive materials and equipment. Young people in this sparse environment had to fashion their own play equipment, make up games for fun, and organize special adventures. The stories in this book recall some of the creations and adventures of young people, and some adults who were young at heart, from two generations in the good old days in Brown County.

Three more recent generations of my own children and grandchildren have vicariously experienced the events in these stories by hearing me tell them. They truly enjoyed looking through this window of pioneer life in Brown County. They became concerned that other people might not have the opportunity to enjoy these stories unless they were published while I was still around to tell them or put them in writing.

It has been a fun task. I often had to stop and laugh until tears appeared as I visualized the scenes I was trying to write about. Everything in these stories is as true as my creative memory will allow. The events happened to me and other real live people that lived these events while I was around to observe and/or participate in them. Only some names have been changed to avoid embarrassment to a few persons or their relatives who are still living.

Chapter I

The Sacred Ointment

There is a place in southeastern Brown County that has always been cloaked in mystery. On top of a very high hill known as Browning Mountain, there are several large rectangular blocks of stone. Each stone looks as if it was carefully cut and shaped to be part of a very special structure. Some people have guessed that these stones were building blocks for an ancient Indian temple, like the ones built by the Aztecs in the jungles of South America. How these stones were so perfectly formed and why they are strewn about the hilltop has stirred the imagination of many local folks and visitors for several generations.

In recent times, one man sought to solve the mystery by bringing in a team of scientists from Indiana University (IU). These experts concluded that the stones had been naturally eroded out of an unusually thick layer of sandstone that broke into sections when the supporting material beneath the rock layer was carried away by fast running rain water. While this explanation by the experts seemed scientifically sound, the local folks were not really convinced. They still believed that the massive stones were hand carved and the spirits of the Indians who carved them could be felt in the deep woods where their special building blocks lay sleeping in silence.

For many years the great stones of Browning Mountain were made even more mysterious by the fact that in the deep shaded valley on the north side of the mountain there lived a very unusual man. He was said to be a mechanical engineer who had grown tired of tool and die making in a factory up in the northern part of the state. When he moved to the valley at the foot of Browning Mountain, he quickly built a small outbuilding right next to his house. There he applied his mechanical skills to create a complete machine shop mostly fashioned from salvaged auto parts. The local farmers soon learned that he could make just about anything to repair their farm equipment in his unusual shop. While they were waiting for him to weld a broken plow or make a tractor part they were always entertained by the things he created with his machine tools. There were switches and timers to operate his gates and fill the water tanks for his cows. An old dinner bell on top of the barn chimed the hours when it received electric signals from the antique clock in his shop. The ringing of that bell resounded across the fields far beyond the valley and pleasantly announced the time to his distant neighbors.

Except for the occasional local farmer who needed something repaired, there weren’t many visitors to the little valley at the foot of Browning Mountain. It was far away from civilization and that was how the owner liked it. The best route up the mountain to examine the big rocks was through the valley where his home and shop and barn were located. Although getting permission from Mr. Karl to go through his gates was easy enough, it always included a tour of his mechanical creations plus some unusual stories about the mountain. His penetrating eyes and the ancient curved pipe that hung smoking on his chin while he told his stories added greatly to the mystery of this very special place. And that, too, was how he liked it. This mysterious mountain was the setting where some of the local boys had the best fun you can imagine as