On March 19, 2008, I read an article in The News Leader. It was a story about Bible Hill, TN and the storm of 1952. The caption read within the picture, “Bible Hill never looked the same to me after that”. The report continues, “As we approach the first day of spring, many recall that fateful day nearly 56 years ago when a small community was devastated by a powerful tornado. It was the first day of spring in Bible Hill on Friday, March 21, 1952. The afternoon seemed normal enough as locals went about their daily activities. It was not until the sun went down that this quiet community suffered its greatest catastrophe. Lives were lost and property destroyed, but those that remained would help rebuild a church, store and community that is still standing today.” The story of the 1952 Bible Hill tornado brought back to mind a related story. Shortly after the storm, Uncle Sam called and my duty landed me at then, Fort Gordon, GA, near Augusta. A few months after the storm, while reading the afternoon paper, The Augusta Herald, there was a story about a house in Bolivar, TN, being completely destroyed by this same storm system, killing the father and mother, but sparing their two children. A pair of pants with a billfold containing $300 belonging to the father had just been found in a treetop near the Yellow Springs community by someone by the last name of Gibson and returned to the children. William S. Oxford_ Michie, TN

My brother-in-law, George, was among the congregation at West Frayser Baptist Church in Memphis when at the beginning of the Pastor’s sermon a wasp crawled up his right pants leg. George was able to contain the wasp after about the third sting. He finally bottled it up in a wad of the pants leg and held it there throughout the sermon. With the entire Bible to choose a text from 1 Cor. 15:55 was chosen. O death, where is thy sting? George said it took all the fortitude he could muster to keep from jumping up and shouting, “It’s in my right britches leg about 2 inches below the knee”. After an interminable length of time, the sermon finally came to a close and he made a mad dash for the exit still holding the wasp. His intention was to get lost in the crowd and not have to shake hands with the Pastor, as he knew full well what the consequences would be if he freed the wasp. No such luck, the Pastor was looking for himand came through the crowd to personally greet him. George quickly offered his left hand but the Pastor would have none of it and reached down and took George’s right hand. Standing, loosened the pants leg but the wasp did not immediately resume stinging as it was not pressed against George’s leg. The Pastor had noticed that George had jerked a couple of times during the sermon and wanted to know if the sermon had moved him. George replied it was the most he had ever been moved in a sermon, in fact he tingled all over for a time. He also stated that at no time during the sermon was there any hint of sleepiness. He finally broke free from the pastor’s handshake, raced to the men’s room and parted company with the wasp. William S. Oxford Michie, TN

The upcoming coon hunt brings to mind what has to be the best trained pair of Blue Ticks ever. Smokey and Blue.

One of my first jobs was as a high voltage lineman, a very tough and dangerous occupation. Most of the linemen were young, benevolent and close knit. Also, a lot of them suffered from faulty memories. They could not remember if they were married or single. This memory lapse caused a lot of them to become single again.

“Nameless” fell into his memory lapse category except Smokey and Blue bailed him out. To fool his wife, he would take the dogs with him on his almost nightly forage. There was a ditch near his house that ran water all year round. When “Nameless” got to the ditch he would take the dogs out of the car trunk and roll them around in the water and mud, take them home dripping wet and bingo he was off scot free.

After a while, all he had to do was to open the trunk lid and the dogs would jump out on their own, go down and roll over in the water a few times, and then go back and jump in the trunk of the car.

I daresay there will not be a better trained pair of hounds at the fairgrounds this year.

William S. Oxford

Michie, TN

When our children were 2, 3, and 5 they stayed with me in the balcony during worship service so my wife could sing in the choir. The congregation preferred this arrangement as it kept me out of the choir. The service was never dull what with them occasionally sneaking in a slingshot and shooting the pastor with great northern beans or throwing darts at the music director; even at times cutting one that could be heard all across sanctuary.

Our daughter had received a Chatty Cathy doll for Christmas that would say, among other things, “I’m hungry” when the audio string was pulled. Ironically, it was spoken in the best of New Jersey accents. On this particular Sunday just after Christmas, she took it to church with her. Just after the pastor got through reading the Scripture and began the sermon, she reached for the audio string and to my horror she beat me to it and gave it solid pull. It spit out a very loud “I’m,” before my grabbing the string.

The sermon was of interminable length, what with me trying to hold the string. The string would inevitably slip at times and a very loud “UH” would ensue. The “UHs” had utility, however, when the pastor started to talk of tithes and offerings a gentle slip of the string and the ensuing noise would get him off that subject.

William S. Oxford

Sampson Oxford lived on the East side of Holladay Rd., the first house South of Hydro School in the early part of the 1900s. Like most rural dwellers, his family kept a barrel that was used to catch rainwater; mostly to be used for the weekly clothes washday (automatic washers had not quite caught on then). In fact they were called rain barrels.

This barrel was a nice one, stainless steel, heavy gauge, about 50-gallon capacity, and sure to catch the eye of moonshiners. One morning, probably about 1920, he noticed the barrel was missing. Checking further he found it had been rolled down a road behind the house and followed the trail to a point about a half mile away where it was hidden in a creekbank thicket.

Guessing the thief would return that night to retrieve the barrel, Mr. Oxford set up a welcoming committee. He was a justice of the peace and probably had arresting and deputizing powers. The committee was armed for the most part with single barrel shotguns loaded with #6 shot and single shot .22 caliber rifles loaded with short cartridges.

The wait was not long and a gun battle ensued that would have made the OK Corral gunfight seem like a Sunday School picnic; when it ended, all was well, the thieves left the barrel and fled and no blood was shed. In fact the only discernable damage was to the top of the trees where most of the shots were aimed.

The lone exception that could be found was a beech tree (beech tree bark is light in color and as such would have stood out at night) with a large hole about the height of a grown man’s head. This scar was probably made by a pistol and was still evident 30 years later. The beech tree was where the welcoming committee was hidden and the shot was almost certainly fired by the one of thieves with harm intended.

The barrel was later handed down to my father and Sampson’s son, Arland Oxford and remained in the family until the family left the farm and moved to Nashville, TN.