Newscoma

It is the week of Halloween and Dan Lehr reminded me this morning that I need to point you to Aunt B.’s ghost stories from Nashville. They are a sight to see, well textured and really wonderful. Get on over there later today when you have your jammies on and read them all.

There are ghosts here. They were real people that made huge contributions to this town, molding it in ways that sometimes I agree with, and other times I don’t. This is the case of every town. It is a part of every community.

I consider Hoots as a county, and even moreso as a state of mind here in northwest Tennessee. So I will tell you that once Martin was named Frost Depot, or as my grandmother called it, simply Frost. The oral history tells us that the name was changed, and ironically, My $10 attorney, Mr. Bob, currently lives in the original Martin  home. He’s never said, but I am assuming the name was changed to prestige and money during economically depressed times due to vanity, but that is just my uninformed opinion. He was an alderman here for years and now I love to listen to him tell the tales of the bootleggers who were plentiful around the county, the juke joints, the way the economy has ebbed and flowed over the last 50 years. Yellow fever decimated the community over 100 years ago, and a cemetery sits down the road from the locally-owned Dairy Queen which is really the only DQ I will eat at. Gravy and french fries? Shut yo’ mouth, they are exquisite. The tombstones at the Yellow Fever Cemetery stand high on the small, crowded street and, as a child, its normalcy in the middle of a residential area somewhat frightened me.

There is the man that still wears the hat that Fats Everett gave him whose name is simply Smokey. A straw fedora that has seen better years, but that sat on the head of a man who statue sits on the grounds of the Obion Co. Courthouse.To put the age of Smokey into context, let’s remember that Fats died when I was three.

She is at least 80-years-old but she is regal, her hair done once a week at the beauty shop and her tart tongue is active as ever. She is named Mrs. Jane. She is still self-sufficient although she recently fought a tough bout with cancer, that

Reavis' still sets on the courtsquare

she told me she calls the “rotting” disease. She was the editor at one of the newspapers during WWII, and when the men returned from battle, she lost her job. She was a female editor that kept a town informed and together. As the soldiers returned, she was relegated to a secretarial role at her local church. She never looked back.

She is a hero for all women, although she would shush me if I said that to her.

The pies were made in the early morning hours, and the fellowship of the City Cafe, owned by Ned’s mom Lucille, were where the menfolk would gather to discuss the gossip of the day is now a Cash Advance place. It was a strong cup of hot coffee and a fresh-made piece of pie. The pies were womens’ work. They were and there is no getting around it. Widows, including my maternal great-grandmother, would get up in the early morning hours and make dozens of pies to head to the local cafes. There was never a misstep. They were always perfect. Not only did they raise families, they were a part of the town’s daily culture without even knowing it.

Every cemetery has a story. Of the man who was buried north to south instead of the traditional east to west due to the rape of a woman. He was buried so he would not be able to join the other spirits during the Rapture. Superstitions are firmly in place in the state of mind of Hoots. These tales have not changed when it comes to the obsessive habits of the community. I don’t think, however, that anyone has been buried north to south in nearly 100 years but I could be wrong. One never knows what happens in the shadows of a small town.

Our population in northwest Tennessee is small, yet our farms are strong. We have powerful voices, and smaller, behind the scenes advocates that we won’t get lost in the shuffle in this economy as we did during the depression. We fed ourselves, we have some moxie and we remember our dead. We know that one day, that we wish to be remembered as well.

Our ghosts are on every corner. We treat them well.