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Wordy, She Wrote

Field Notes from the Land of Cotton

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  • Alabama Type,  bibliophound

    he had lived hard and in his own view had deserved all his fields, if not more

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    ‘A gentle afternoon rain was falling as his funeral procession left the house a house which he had built, and moved down the road between fields of cotton. The cotton fields, his and his tenants, were clean of grass and well advanced in growth. The silent rain made them look their best and seemingly beg for their master’s approval as he moved by for the last time. This he would not have otherwise, for he had always liked to look at good crops of cotton, especially if they were his. One of his keenest joys was to show his “brag” patches to visitors, and all the patches seemed to be “brag” patches today, and there were more visitors than ever…he had lived hard and in his own view had deserved all his fields, if not more.’

    -Herman Clarence Nixon, Possum Trot (via Sarah Newman Shouse’s (1986) book ‘Hillbilly Realist Herman Clarence Nixon of Possum Trot’.)

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  • Alabama Type,  bibliophound

    Possum Trot, Herman Clarence Nixon, 1941

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    ‘John Maxwell for years operated a ‘government still’ on the other side of the creek from our house. Once he had a government gauger who was so strict in measuring whiskey for taxing that the still had to be shut down in a week ‘for repairs.’ Much of the product in some way got disposed of by retail on the spot, and there were occasional wild times over there. One of the Maxwell sons was shot dead one working day by his brother-in-law. There was a community story that originated before John Maxwell became a distiller and lived in a painted house. The story was that John Maxwell and a neighbor, Wash Smith, met unexpectedly one night, each going home with a basket of stolen cotton from the other. The Maxwells were goodhearted, if far from virtuous. They were good about helping with the sick and sitting up with the dead.’

    -Herman Clarence Nixon, Possum Trot, 1941

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