Our first vehicle we owned might not have been a new one but it is one we will never forget. For some it might have been a four door sedan, a V.W. bug or in my case a used 1953 F-100 Ford pick-up. Most of us had to work odd jobs, or several jobs, just to be able to pay for our own ride. I’ve always been partial to pick-up trucks. You see I needed a truck...
Read MoreA Sticky Situation
When I was a boy my grandmother, Ma, as I called her, always kept a quart jar of homemade black strap molasses on the kitchen table. To me, won’t nothing better after a meal than one of Ma’s hot cat head biscuits, a slice of homemade churned butter, a saucer of molasses and a glass of fresh cow’s milk. Why it used to be when you lived on a farm you eat...
Read MoreA Pirate’s Tale, continued
Our pirate story continues this week with Master Hawkins, his two new accomplices (Ned Low and Francis Sprigg) and many African natives being brought to the new world to be sold as slaves by pirates. It so happened on the voyage over, several of the pirates got deathly sick and died. Being short- handed the pirates brought Hawkins, Low and Sprigg out of...
Read MoreA Pirate’s Tale
The 1600’s and early 1700’s were known as “The Age of Blood and Gold”. The Spanish had claimed just about all of North and South America and all the islands in between. They robbed the new lands and its people by taking most of their gold, silver and jewels and only left the people their deadly diseases. England, France and other European countries decided...
Read MoreA Hard Row to Hoe
In my last column I mentioned how Tenant Farming and Sharecropping was a way of life for lots of farmers in the rural south after the Civil War and even up to the 1950’s. In the first book of the Bible the Lord told Adam that he would earn his living by the sweat of his brow and so it has been since then; especially for farmers. You see a tenant farmer...
Read MoreLord’s Proprietors
In our last story I talked about how the little town of Ellerbe has had several name changes in its history. First it was known as Crossroads, then Hurricane, then Fairgrounds; but how did it acquire its name of Ellerbe? Life around the South, before the Civil War, was slowly progressing along. Some of the larger farmers had expanded their farms until they...
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