Vibrant Village ™

Painting by Rudine Aycock, Pikeville NC

These stories are in the words of Charles Aloysius Cathcart, known to ‘most everyone here in Coltrane as Grampa Charlie Loy. Most evenings except Sundays, he occupied a wobbly old straight-back chair in spitting distance of the squat, rusty pot-bellied stove in Homer Henderson's dry-goods store. They were collected by Mr. Cathcart’s grand-nephew Ernest, who took to hiding in the back room on Thursdays and listenin’. Thursday was only night that his mother left the house after supper. She did her visiting on Thursdays.

THE CARPENTER AND THE CARDS

Exactly forty years to the day after Thurmon Coltrane got this town named after him in a card game, he figured it was time to move into the place he’d been hammerin’ and sawin’ on for all that time and take up residin’.

Thurmon, he wasn’t much to hurry things, always said things was better done right than done right now, but after forty years of scroungin’ wood, switchin’ windows, addin’ stuff and takin’ it off, and tryin’ out different colors, he got to hearin’ pretty often from folks goin’ by about how it surely would be nice to see a vacant lot there next to the barber’s instead of what there was.

He was mighty proud of his house, but he was the only one. Didn't help he was just as likely to start carpenterin’ at three o’clock in the morning as any other time. He claimed workin’ in the dark was easier, no distractions.

Now, there wasn’t much to this town when he got started buildin’. The whole place was just a saloon, a church with one gravestone, and a general store under a tent. When Thurmon happened up on the place on his way through he told Ollie Hardbarger, now Ollie ran the store and was the mayor and owned the saloon, that he’d had enough of livin’ so far from town, wanted to settle down, so he asked Ollie if he wouldn’t sell him a piece of ground. Ollie said he would, forgettin’ to mention he’d never actually been elected mayor and didn’t own anything except the saloon, but Thurmon gave him twenty-five dollars, made four piles of rocks, that was the foundation, and parked his old wagon out back to stay in. Thurmon’s rock piles sat way off by themselves in those days and he put up a sign that said FUTURE HOME OF THURMON COLTRANE out front so folks’d know what it was.

Now, there bein’ no more’n seven livin’ here then, along with one or two snake-oil types passin’ through, it didn’t take a sign for folks to know whose place it was, but Thurmon had his heart set on it .

How Coltrane got named after him had exactly nothin’ to do with that sign, before you head off in that direction. It was a kind of poker game that Thurmon won, happened less’n six months after the rock piles. Even after six months of him livin’ behind those rock piles that’s still all there was. Every so often he’d put up some boards but he’d never get around to nailin’ ‘em, so every time it blew a wind they’d just fall down. That didn't upset Thurmon much, he’d just go stand ‘em up again. He said there wasn’t no sense in getting’ in a hurry about something as important as buildin’ a house.

Now, it bein’ as they didn’t have all the poker cards the rules had to get bent some, but Thurmon and Ollie and Uriah Redfern the preacher and Doc Tillotson and Miz Redfern, it was her cards so they had to let her play, they’d be at it every night except Sunday. They’d play twice on Mondays to make up. Didn’t have anywhere to play that had a table except the saloon, but Ollie'd push one halfway out the door so the preacher and Miz Redfern could set their chairs outside and not strictly be in the saloon. Worked pretty good.

All that playin’ poker, well it wasn’t really poker without all the right cards so it wasn't really gamblin’ and the preacher could play, it got everything anybody had, won off ‘em by somebody else until they all ran out of somethin’ for the pot and they had to get imaginative. It was a travelin’ water-finder named Tobe McGinty that come up with the idea about the name. Tobe McGinty made his livin’ goin’ around divinin’ for water, or maybe he’d call down some rain, or for a dollar sell you a little tiny bottle of what he called condensed water. He made it clear it was just for droughts. Tobe had stopped on the way through, and watchin’ ‘em tryin’ and tryin’ to think up somethin’ new to bet he hollered out, “Why not the next hand wins this whole town?” Naturally Ollie gave him a look, he figured it was pretty much his to start with, and he looked around and scratched his head and scuffled his feet and said NO but that he'd consider lettin’ the winner at least name the place anything he liked, up to but not includin’ Drury.

Now Drury was the name of Ollie’s intended, except she’d kept him waitin’ for an answer Yes or No for twenty-four years and three months, and he didn’t like to be reminded. Nothin’ more was said about actually winnin’ the town.

Besides bein’ a mighty slow carpenter Thurmon Coltrane had a poker face, but when he drew three aces and a recipe for cornbread, that was Miz Redfern’s way of makin’ up for misplacin’ the last ace, he let out a whoop and slapped his cards on the table, but right then his chair took an opportunity to collapse into tooth-sticks and he fell and knocked himself out, cold as a snowdrift, on Ollie Hardbarger’s brass spittoon. Ollie kept it close ‘coz he had no eye for distances and any cleanin’ up that got done, had to get done by him. After a while Thurmon came to, and he opened his eyes and said Thurmonburg had every possible name beat except maybe Truitt's Camp on account of his mother's people bein’ Truitts, but not havin’ too much interest in makin’ another sign he decided to use the one he had, so he just crossed out FUTURE HOME OF THURMON and that left COLTRANE. Naturally Ollie Hardbarger had already started thinkin’ about a big archy gate across the road that said HARDBARGER on one side and CITY on the other, but he had to admit that Coltrane had a ring to it and he didn't raise any objection to that cornbread recipe even though he had two kings and two queens and he was the mayor to start with.

Miz Redfern was altogether dissatisfied ‘coz it was her cards and she was sure her actual name, it was Drusilla, it surely would look pretty painted on a rock and all over flowers, and POPULATION 7 painted right underneath. Not any of the men took up for her on that except the preacher, not surprisin’.

Now, after all this Thurmon just went home and got started back on his house. He never got to makin’ a sign for the other end of town so only half the people that came in knew what its name was until they left, but some stayed instead of leavin’ so after a while Thurmon found himself livin’ right in the middle of town instead of out a ways like he started.

With time goin’ by they got a new mayor, the general store got a roof, and there got to be two rows of gravestones. How Coltrane got named got forgot or not admitted to, it bein’ as Thurmon's house has never looked any better than it did when it was four rock piles and a wagon, but you just go ask Thurmon. You can't miss his house.

Scott Bogue lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina. Five days a week he’s a freelance technical editor and writer who specializes in manufacturing and industry—but he vacations in the small town of Coltrane, somewhere in America, and the year is perhaps 1915. It might be 1912, or it might be 1925, he doesn’t know. Grampa Charlie never says.