OK, here we go.
The founding fathers of Pineville came together durin’ The War. James Monroe Hogg of great Blue army come runnin’ south one day, havin’ had his fill of armed conflict and sleepin’ in the mud, and he was lookin’ for a less combative, more congenial way to spend his days. At the same time, Beauregard Applebottom of the proud Gray army was pummelin’ north, seekin’ a quiet place with a lot of fruit trees where his strongly-held views on pacifism, which he developed after catchin’ some shrapnel in Shiloh , would find more widespread acceptance.
When Jimmy and Beauregard all of a sudden found themselves facin’ off against off each other on opposite sides of Possum Gulch, they started yellin’ at one another like they’d been told to do. But neither one of their hearts was especially in it, and it wasn’t long before Jimmy and Beauregard discovered they shared a mutual interest in not gettin’ their respective butts shot off. Jimmy broke the ice.
“Hey you, what’s all that tin ware and apparatus and bottles and stuff you got over there?”
“Hey yourself, that’s my portable still, but I can’t find no dang fruit in this consarned county to do any fermentin’ with.” I guess this was after Sherman Sheridan
Well, Jimmy, who’d just brambled his way though Ezra Estes’ three-acre plum tree orchard – inexplicably overlooked by Sherman or Sheridan - well, he mentions it to Beauregard, and it wasn’t five minutes later they’re layin’ their arms down and pickin’ plums. And, before you know it, they’re playin’ cribbage and gettin’ good and snockered and proving that wise men needn’t war, despite their differences.
That was the Battle of Possum Gulch, you can look it up. Shelby Foote, he’s a big-shot Civil War historian, he says the two sides fought courageously throughout the hot day to a draw, but he don’t know the facts. The only thing them boys fought bravely against was the possums who’d smelt cookin’ plums and crept on up to see what the deal was.
Next day, here comes Silas W. Estes gallopin’ up. Silas was headin’ east in search of someplace with less restrictin’ horse-thievin’ laws than back home, and he comes up on Beauregard and Jimmy, so, feelin’ neighborly, they invite him to take a limb and have a swig of plum cider.
Well, after a few swigs of plum cider, the talk turned to the fair sex like it sometimes does when young men get to drinkin’, and Silas happened to mention to Beauregard and Jimmy that he had two real good lookin’ younger sisters at home who were handy with tools, and they were lookin’ for some place to settle down and meet ‘em some righteous peaceful men and start havin’ a bunch of youngins.
Which proved to be doubly fortuitous, because exactly what those righteous and peaceful boys Beauregard and Jimmy had in mind was to first, build ‘em some houses with all this good pine around here, and second, find ‘em a couple of good-lookin’ women and start begettin’.
The three foundin’ fathers all enjoyed the peaceful, easy feeling that seemed to permeate through the quiet pine forest and so with that, plus the plethora of plum trees pleadin’ to be plucked over yonder, they decided to settle down and send some wagon fare out to Silas’ sisters.
They were both good-lookin’ too, Silas’ sisters Sueanne and Pansy Estes, and that started a proud tradition which we still got to this day. Anybody’ll tell you we got the best-lookin’ women in the state right here. Sueanne and Pansy were the pioneer ladies of Pineville, and Beauregard and Jimmy scooped ‘em up like a hot fudge sundae.
Eventually they had to decide what they were gonna call the place, because Sueanne and Pansy didn’t want to tell the folks back home they lived at someplace called Possum Gulch. Jimmy, ponderin’ gravely, nominated Hogg City. Beauregard acknowledged the fineness of that name, but suggested Applebottom Corners would be just as good and perhaps more melodious to the ear, too. Silas said he didn’t give a rat’s patootie what they called it so long as they didn’t call it Jail.
You can’t blame the boys for tryin’ to sow some legacy seeds, but when they couldn’t agree on any of those names they drank some more plum cider and, scratchin’ their heads and cranin’ their necks around, eventually came up with Pineville. If you’re comin’, we’re nestled smack in the middle of Pine County
Possum Gulch was where Pine Street First Avenue
Well, bein’ such a nice, peaceful Paradise with such nice, peaceful people, the town prospered through the years. We had a spurt of growth one time when some Mormons – seekin’ Zion Utah
We stopped allowin’ ‘em multiple wives back in 1910, though, when the county medical examiner found out we had a higher incidence of men goin’ berserk and runnin’ off into the forest tearin’ their hair out than other cities our size. It took a while for ‘em to get over the new law, but like our womenfolk are fond of sayin’, when they went out and got themselves aholt of a real Pineville woman, they quick found that one wife’d be plenty sufficient for ‘em.
So today, we got descendants of all the foundin’ fathers, plus some Mormons and everybody else who stopped by and decided to stay, plus your normal influx over the years of rootless people finally puttin’ down somewhere because they ran out of money and didn’t have no place else to go. We’re a good smellin’ town, too, because of all the pine trees of course. Imagine December and somebody’s been sprayin’ Evergreen Glade all over the place.
Well, time passed inexorably like it does, and Pineville kept growin’ and thrivin’. One time eighteen-seventy or thereabouts Mayor Ebenezer Pratt traveled up to Wash D.C. and bribed some senators to put the railroad through here, and after that, we took off like a nervous jackrabbit. Pretty soon we had – have still got, for that matter - a town square with the old brick railroad station – Greyhound uses it twice a week – and across from there is the Pine County courthouse with a Civil War cannon out on the lawn. Some people say there’s a ghost of a dead Yankee walkin’ around the square, but I ain’t ever seen him.
Then we built the sawmill, which seemed to be a pretty good idea due to all the pine trees just sittin’ around the place doin’ nothin’. Then later we built the meat packin’ plant because we had a lot of idle cows just walkin’ around too.
Anyway, across the way from the square is the bank – legend has it Jesse James cashed a check there once before he turned outlaw - then where the theater was before it burned down, and right next to that is St. Jude’s Resale Boutique. Lots of people shop at St. Jude’s – we call it Hey Jude’s - and if you see your mama walkin’ down the street with somebody else’s flowered frock on, she probably got it there for a dollar, or thirty-five cents if it’s got a bloodstain or somethin’ else wrong with it.
The houses in town are mostly homey and white picket-fency, you know, your All-American town. One time Floyd Dick, after drinkin’ all mornin’, swore he saw Wally and the Beaver walkin’ down the sidewalk on their way to school. But you got to take Floyd with a grain of salt. One time he called the sheriff because he thought he seen Shirley Temple wearin’ a hula skirt in his bathroom singin’ Tiny Bubbles and accompanyin’ herself on the ukulele.
We got all your big-city amenities too, includin’ a free public swimmin’ pool downtown where you can take a refreshin’ dip on a hot summer day. There ain’t no lifeguard, though, so be careful. We used to have one, old Peg Leg Booker, he only had one leg and you wouldn’t think it, but that old boy could swim like Tarzan.
But he fell asleep and drowned in the tub one day after drinkin’ a quart of Wild Turkey, and since then, they can’t get nobody else to do the lifeguard job. So like I say, be careful when you go down there and don’t go swimmin’ alone after eatin’ and cramp up and drown, because the town’s insurance won’t cover it if it ain’t their negligence that caused your demise.
We got churches – there’s Pine Street Methodist, Pineville Baptist, Pine County Presbyterian, the Mormons, the Lutheran, St. Gregory’s the Great Catholic, Beth’s Zion Israel Temple, Pastor Robinson’s Redeeming Grace House of Abyssinian Deliverance or whatever he’s callin’ it now, and maybe one or two others I can’t remember right now. If you want to get saved, we can fix you right up.
I go to the Baptist one sometimes, but not because I’m washed in the blood or anything. I just like their songs better, and Brother Billy’s such a powerful messenger of the Word I expect he could save Lucifer himself from damnation, he’s that good. He’d have him tithin’ by his second wind and likin’ it.
Let’s see, what else, we got your normal schools – Pineville Elementary and Pineville High – home of the Pumas, you know – plus some others includin’ Prophets of New Zion for the Mormon tots. We got your normal Laundromat and dry cleaners, Cecil’s 66 gas and convenience store, the shoe and TV repair, Chet Lester’s Ace Hardware Store, and the Dime Store for all your notions and stuff. That’s where all the old ladies go when they need a new snood.
Plus a brand spankin’ new grocery store downtown called Applebottom’s Pay-less, but we all call it Pay-more. The Applebottoms, Glen and Aquanetta, have five teenage daughters, and there’s not a sour pickle in the barrel, either. But livin’ with six females has taken a toll on Glen over the years and he’s only got one facial expression anymore, which is haggard. Don’t tell anybody, but he’s got his great-great-great-grandpa’s still down in his basement. Hooked up, too.
Right down from there’s the Pineville Bowlarama - eight whole lanes for your tenpinnin’ pleasure excursions. They serve the best grilled cheese sandwiches in town there too, so you can bowl and eat, but wipe your fingers off first on account of they don’t like grease on their balls. Don’t go on Tuesday night, either, which is when all the old folks have their league. Bless their ancient hearts, what with all their lumbago and stuff they spend two minutes walkin’ up to the lane, about a minute starin’ at the pins, another minute actually bowlin’, and then two more minutes walkin’ back and tryin’ to find their seat. Plus with all the celebratin’ when somebody happens to knock somethin’ down, you have to wait two, three hours in the bar for a lane.
Speakin’ of bars, there’s the De Drop at Fourth and Pine – it used to be the Dew Drop Inn, but the light on the “w” went out about forty years ago, then the Inn broke off, so now everybody just calls it the De Drop. If you want a tasty beverage and some camaraderie with your buddies, it’s the place to go. Chloe Mae – that’s her last name, M-A-E - owns it and she’s a pretty good gal. Chloe inherited it from her daddy Clem after he had a heart attack in church and died a few years ago. Everybody thought at first that Clem’d had a divine lightning-strike seizure from Jesus due to the ferocity of Brother Billy’s preachin’, and there may be somethin’ to that. But the bottom line is he slumped over and crossed into the Great Beyond right then and there in front of God and everybody.
Some say Clem died of a guilty conscience, because Brother Billy was smack in the middle of his sermon on The Sins of the Flesh and Clem had a lot to worry about. But nobody except his wife even knew what had happened, because he just slumped over dead – bing - and put his head on her shoulder like he was dozin’ off like some people do in church. Hazel hates causin’ a scene, so she didn’t say anything about it until after the service.
But Chloe, true to Clem’s memory, keeps the De Drop up just like it’s always been. It’s just your basic ratty lil’ old dark downtown bar, though, to be brutally honest with you, but we like it. Chloe keeps the dimmer deal turned down to 2 for atmosphere, she says, plus so she only has to sweep the floor and vacuum Bambi once a month. Bambi’s the deer Chet Lester shot after he caught her poachin’ his chicken feed and taxidermied up in 1963. She’s up on the wall over there next to the Moose Booth.
The bathrooms ain’t nothin’ to write home about either, unless you’re from Elm City
There’s a string of lil’ festive twinklin’ Christmas lights back of the bar over the mirror they keep up all year, because basically Chloe says it’s a pain in the butt to haul out the ladder and climb up and down it up every year to put ‘em up, and then haul it out again and take ‘em down every year. So they’ve been up there maybe twenty, thirty years, winkin’ – sometimes merrily, sometimes ironically, dependin’ on your mood or your luck - at you when you’re sittin’ at the bar and starin’ at yourself in the mirror.
Then there’s Clem’s collection of runnin’ waterfall beer signs, which he started by accident, but beer salesmen over the years kept leavin’ ‘em, and Clem liked ‘em, so now there must be twenty, thirty of ‘em, all different. You know, they got this revolvin’ light apparatus in ‘em, and there’s a lil’ motor that turns this diorama – if that’s the word I’m lookin’ for - of a waterfall splashin’ and cascadin’ down the mountain. So when you plug it in it lights up and looks like a real miniature active waterfall right up there on your dang wall. Chloe turns em’ all on twice every year, at Christmas and Fourth of July. It’s a refreshin’ sight, too, and it always makes everybody thirsty as all get-out.
If you’re hungry, Chloe’s got a couple of racks of snack packs of beef jerky, Planters Peanuts, Guy’s pork rinds, and so on. Everybody calls it the kitchen. But don’t go lookin’ for expiration dates on the packages because Chloe’s Magic-Markered over ‘em, which, she says, is only smart retailin’. Nobody can tell the difference between petrified beef jerky and fresh beef jerky anyhow, she says, especially when they’re full of liquor, so it don’t matter. Plus she’s got some Dentyne for people under the illusion that a stick of gum is gonna cover up the fact that they’ve been sittin’ in the De Drop havin’ a few nips. Truth be told, every wife in town knows the admixtured – if that’s the right word - aroma of Dentyne and beer.
There’s a dent in the floor from when Floyd drank twenty-one shots of Jack Daniels on a bet one time and pirouetted off his stool and cracked his skull. He won the bet, but he also had to pay the Doc to x-ray him for neurological damage – which would have been an improvement, Aunt Mary said - so he came out even, I guess. Chloe cuts him off at fifteen now just to be safe, not wantin’ any more dents in the floor.
The one thing you can’t talk about in the De Drop is the Civil War. There’s a sign on the wall that says so, due to the time in 1947 when Clark Ulysses Hogg and Robert E. Lee Applebottom Jr. started arguin’ back and forth about who really won the Battle of Possum Gulch, and the nationalism of their namesakes was boilin’ up and rampagin’ through their veins.
Well, words led to words like they do when passions run deep and alcohol flows free, and they finally got into a good old rollickin’ knuckle-duster and spilled out the door onto Pine. Naturally, everybody else in town comes up and pokes their nose into it, and pretty soon everybody’s arguin’ and hollerin’ back and forth and takin’ sides in the War again, and all the old folks are runnin’ home to get their shotguns, causin’ a melee or riot right there in the middle of the street.
It’s still a sensitive issue to this day. The elegant ladies of the Daughters of the Confederacy don’t even speak to the old coots in the Grand Old Army of the Republic anymore, even on Bowling Night. Mayhaps – if that’s the right word, you’d have to ask Shakespeare - they ought to sit down with a jug of plum cider and try to resolve their differences like their wiser ancestors did.
Anyway, on down there’s Mamma Mia’s I-talian Ristoranteria, where you can get lunch and dinner specials every day of the week except Sunday when Mamma takes off and puts her feet up. Her pepperoni and pineapple double-crust with extra cheese is about the most pizzazz-packed pizza you’ll ever have, too.
Me and the dog – or should I say the dog and I? - we go down there just about every Friday night and get one, then we come home and watch a movie. There ain’t nothin’ the dog likes better than pizza, but it gives him gas so I’m tryin’ to train him to hold it and excuse himself durin’ the commercials, but it ain’t workin’ all that well so far.
A lot of the boys in town, if they ain’t on welfare or just takin’ it easy, work out at the Pine County Pork and Cow Processin’ Plant, or PCP. It’s the county’s biggest – and most odiferous - employer and has been for years and generations, moldin’ the meatpackers of the future. The boys are proud to be puttin’ their rumps on America
The sawmill closed down a few years ago, after some bearded carpetbaggin’ environmentalists from California came to town and started jabberin’ away about the dwindlin’ habitat of the North American Pine beetle – which we didn’t even know existed, they’re quiet lil’ critters and keep to themselves – and that if we kept on cuttin’ pine trees down at the rate we were, why, we’d extinctivize two and a half percent of the world’s known North American Pine beetle population inside of fifty years. They ain’t got sense enough to jump out of a fallin’ tree, I guess is what their problem is.
Well, all these dang bureaucrats got involved and before you know it, the State, bowin’ to the heavy pressure of a campaign donation from the Pine Beetle PAC, bought the sawmill and closed it down, and you could hear a big sigh of relief echoin’ through about two and a half percent of the North American Pine Beetle Kingdom. Ain’t that the limit? So if you can’t get good pine for your house and you’re forced to buy cheap Mexican pine, don’t blame us. On the other hand, though, you’re welcome to come and visit the Pine Beetle Conservation Museum
Then we got Janyce Drobkiewicz’ Hair Apparent Beauty Salon, which gussies up all the ladies. Everybody calls Janyce the Barber Pole behind her back, though. Not to be offensive, you know, just for a lil’ joke among friends. Her brother Elmer works for the electric company, and we call him the Utility Pole behind his back too. They’ve got another brother who’s in Antarctica , I don’t what they call him.
Across from there on the corner is Charlie’s Auto Parts, which is where the Western Auto used to be before Walmart drove ‘em out of business, which was too bad. I still got my trusty old turquoise Truetone radio from there which Aunt Mary gave me for Christmas when I was just a lil’ nipper and it still works, too.
You got to watch Charlie, though, sometimes he buys used car parts that people - I ain’t namin’ names, but Junior Estes comes to mind - had stole off your car and he cleans ‘em up and puts ‘em in boxes like they were new.
Charlie married his third cousin Cyntheria when she was seventeen, and they’ve been together now about seven years. Their eight kids all have bright orange hair, just like Charlie, and protrudin’ teeth, just like Cyntheria. You ought to see em’ all eatin’ dinner, it’s sort of like watchin’ Whack-a-Mole.
The old Starlite Drive-In’s out on Highway 57 east of town, and before it closed it was always the best place to park if you wanted some privacy with a Pumas cheerleader. If you weren’t quite handsome enough to get a cheerleader to go out with you, you could usually snag a Puma Pep Squadder, though.
If you weren’t cute enough to go out with them, there were always the girls on the Paradin’ Pumaettes Drill Team. And if even they won’t have anything to do with you, there were the girls in band. If the girls in band won’t go out with you, I don’t know what to tell you.
I went out with a Band Girl once, come to think of it. Sherry Sue Stephens, her name was, her daddy Sherman owned the Pineville Delicatessen. After school she had to go downtown and make submarine sandwiches every day. But Sherry Sue was – I ain’t gonna sugarcoat it for you - so ugly, business fell off due to her just plain takin’ people’s appetites away, and her daddy went broke and then the VFW took over the space. Last I heard, Shirley married a Elm Citian and they started a Dalmatian dog breedin’ farm up there. They’re doin’ real good too, although they say business is spotty.
Out on the highway, which is the main route leadin’ to Mapleville if you turn right at the car wash - but you don’t want to turn yet just go on up the hill - you’ll see the “Welcome to Pineville Village – Most Of Us Are Friendly!” sign peekin’ out of the pines. And since I know all the folks over there, I’ll be tellin’ you about ‘em if I don’t get tired of this writin’ deal and give it up before then.
A half-mile up from Pineville Village, just past Elmer Hogg’s Dairy Farm and over on the right is The Dairyette, which is notorious in these parts because Charley Birdseed got sick and died there one time from eatin’ what turned out to be a botulism-burger. That was sad because Charley owed me ten dollars, but even out of times of tribulation cometh good, like Brother Billy might say, because after that the health inspector went out there and wrote Claude up and made him get a workin’ freezer and do somethin’ about the rats, so it’s pretty safe to eat in there now, I guess.
I asked his wife Sharlene for the ten dollars, but she got all teary and stuff on me and said she needed it more than I did, which I know is true, because Doc Pullum’s chargin’ her weekly for orthodonty on her daughter Candace. So I gave up and wrote it off to experience.
Candace, in case you’re wonderin’, is in band. And frankly, every time I see her, I’d rather have the ten dollars back than she have such a nice smile on a face like that, but I figure that’s life, what are you gonna do? But at least, I’m thinkin’, when St. Peter totes me up, it’ll count as a good deed, even if it was by default.
You may be wonderin’ why I’m writin’ all this down. Well, about two weeks ago, I was down at the library readin’ Shakespeare for Dummies – I’d been hearin’ about Shakespeare all my dang life, but with one thing and another I never got past the first page of any of his books – I’m busy, you know - so I decided to try to see if I could finally figure out what all the fuss is about and why he’s so famous.
And so I’m scannin’ through A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, lookin’ for some good parts, but to tell you the truth, I can’t understand a word of what Shakespeare’s sayin’ half the time. It ain’t even English, if you ask me, with all them what-sayeth-thous and methinketh’s and whatnots. So I’m thinkin’ hey, if he’s so dang famous and you can’t even make sense of what he’s talkin’ about, shoot, I can probl’y do that just as well as he can half the time.
So here's the Pine County Herald, readers and advertisers wanted. Stay tuned for all the news from Pineville, when I can get around to typin' it up. Finally, my dang lawyer, Hiram Socrates Peabody III, is makin' me tell you here that The Pine County Herald and it's contents are all protected under copyright laws and whatever else prevents people from stealin' stuff off the internet, so unless you want to get a nasty letter from Hiram, be careful.
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