Author: pat Stith

Payback!

I don’t remember what my brother, Pop, had done to me. Kicked me out of bed on a winter night, probably. Pop, Brother Dave and I slept in double bed in the “boys room” at our farm near Gadsden, Alabama, and sometimes Pop made me sleep on the floor. He was eight years older, so there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Or was there?

This is not Pop, or his car. But this is how he started it.
This is not Pop, or his car. But this is how he started it.

Pop had an old car — and I do mean old. I don’t remember the make or model, but I do remember he started it with a hand crank.

I decided to put nails under all four tires, back and front, so no matter which way he went all four tires would be punctured. And then I got to thinking about it and decided that would be too obvious. I’d get caught.

So I picked one tire. I propped nails against the front and back of the tire and covered them with dirt.

It worked. Payback! And he never suspected a thing.

Coming Friday: The Audit

Those Mean Old Newspapermen

My great grandfather, William Hume Stith, had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to work. Two years later, in 1900, he killed himself.

In those days newspapers didn’t publish obituaries. The only way dead people got their got their name in the paper was to get killed or die in some interesting way — or place.

His death became a "reader."
His death became a “reader.”

Nowadays newspapers are always on the lookout for what newspaper men and women call a “Hey, Martha!” story, a story everyone will want to read, to put on the front page, especially on Sundays. Apparently newspapers then were no different. Those mean old newspapermen made my great-grandfather a “reader” on a Sunday.

The headline, on page one of the Richmond paper, said: “Found Dead In An Outhouse.”

Coming Friday: Hgielar