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SCOTT continues............. it was just a short distance to his house…that night a real cool norther blew in & was 45 degrees next morning… WILTON guided us to SCOTTs … in the back door & introduced us & left to go do some chore & would be back later.. the butane heater was on…it was that cool even for us….it was a very old housse, dirty & unkept, foul air ever thing in the house was very old, no electricity, had a battery operated radio going, no inside water, no inside privy, no kitchen sink only a water bucket full of old dirty, stagnated, water with a scum skim over it, on an old fashioned bench, with a dipper in the bucket open, dirty old fashioned wash pan along side to wash hand & face.. SCOTT was sitting in his wheel chair, he was dirty, unkept, bald head needed shave, snuff drueling out each side of mouth, had on an old brown had, he greeted us in a squeaky voice, high pitched, one that is not used very often, we grasped all this very quickly. . Ver, my wife is very good at making a person feel at ease, so she had him talking to her right away, but he was ignoring me, . .didn’t seem to want to talk with me.. he told us he could not see but very little…. that he could see out the window enough to tell when the school bus or a car or a wagon or something went by … the road was about 50 or 60 feet away, just an old dirt country road, for a single vehicle….. out that window one could see the original PAGE PLANTATION, about ¼ mile away…see page 142, Barren Co. Heritage book . . . he spends many hours looking out that window, so he says.. while Vera kept him talking, I was getting out my papers to write on & get my Polaroid Land Camera ready to shoot his picture.. he asked her what I was doing, she told him I was getting ready to take his picture …BUT NO .. he did not want me to do that, I nodded her to keep him talking, she did telling him I was going to give him one of the pictures..then he did not seem to mind.. after he saw the first one, he even posed for them as I asked him to, I guess he could see it enough to tell what it was I set it on the fire place mantel, we just kept talking, asking simple things we thought he might care about.. after this he seemed to warm up a little & talked more freely.. man, I had begun to think I might lose out on getting any information at all.. we began to admire, sincerely, the old furniture in the house & talk about it, even tho it had many years of built up “CRUD”..the dining chairs was the straight back type with once upon a time cow hide leather seats, laced on, now with old lumpy cushions that perhaps had been on there evcvery since his wife COMILE had died 9 years past, if I had those in my wood working shop at home, I would repair & refinisyh & make them look very nice…. a kitchen cabinet with old fashion pie pantry, metal panels, with air holes.. a very old sewing machine, we could not find the manfacture s name.. over the fire place hung a walking cane, I mentioned it to him he said it belonged to an old aunt of his, did not know the name.. that it had been a natural Sassafras bush, that the root had grown out of the ground & made a perfect handle, it was straight like the number 7 only the long part was straight, some one had carved a small design in the handle, it was four feet long, perhaps who used it may have used it to a crutch, not as a walking cane (now 1982 it is in my home with a tag of it’s history, it is a conversation piece DGJ). . . talking about the furniture, SCOTT really did warm up & from then on we were friends, ask & talk about any & everything, he told the following: he had never smoked but very little, afraid he would set the barn on fire, …never chewed tobacco until he was 24 years old, but now dipped snuff, . was born & raised in this house his whole life, never lived any where else but for a very short period,
SCOTT-continues next page…
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