I got a letter
in the mail from the folks back home the other day: They’re all fine, harvest is going on…and
down near the bottom Mom wrote, “I suppose you heard Sheriff Bob’s ‘gone on to
Glory.’”
Well, no letter came in
the mail from the folks back home the other day. I was just taking what some
might call “literary license”…distorting the truth…just a tad.
For one thing Mom
wouldn’t’ve cared that the harvest was going on, she and dad weren’t
farmers. And for another, Mom lived some
150 miles from Sheriff Bob’s territory, she wouldn’t’ve known who he was.
It all sounded nice
though, to think Mom might send a letter in the mail. It harkened back to another time, long before
the Internet and cell phones and long before Mom “went on to Glory” herself.
No, just like in
a previous chapter when I found out “Big Deal” Thompson was dead…I was
mindlessly surfing the Internet and typed in Sheriff Bob’s name to see what he
was up to.
Well, just like
“Big Deal,” he was dead too.
I’d say ol’ Sheriff Bob had had a good life,
he was about 90 when he died.
I liked Sheriff Bob.
Sheriff Bob was the first sheriff I ever got
to know up close and personal. He was
sheriff when I had a radio job back in the coal mining country of
Appalachia. I played Country music from
sign-on in the morning until 10 in the morning then I’d go out and gather news.
It was getting to talk to Sheriff Bob that I
formed my opinion on how a county sheriff ought to be: A county sheriff should know his people and
by knowing his people, well, that helped him in dealing with what needed to be
done…de-escalating things like a row between a husband and wife, taking a kid
who had discovered liquor back home to have his parents dish out discipline and
of course the more serious things a county sheriff would run into…burglaries,
robberies and murder.
For instance there was the time I was at
Sheriff Bob’s office mulling over the reports from the previous few days and
saw that Sheriff Bob had single-handedly caught Junior Whittel who had escaped
a prison camp over in the flatland part of the state. Junior had made a name for himself a couple
of years earlier by stealing a car, shooting up his neighbors houses and taking
a few shots at deputies who came to stop him.
Here in the future he’d probably’ve been charged with threats to
national security and buried under the state prison for 20 or 40 years, but 35
years ago the judge realized Junior was drunk and having a bad day so he sent
him off to prison for 3 years.
Junior was a year into his sentence when I
reckon he’d had enough of prison work camp life and escaped.
Sheriff Bob was standing nearby going over
some paperwork. He was a big, tall
fellow, just a bit taller than me and I’m 6-foot-3. Handlebar mustache, full head of hair, no
sign he was going bald even though he was over 50. If he was in The Old West they probably
would’ve written a song about him, describing him as a mountain of a man.
“How’d you do it, Sheriff?” I asked.
Sheriff Bob looked over the top of his
reading glasses.
“Do what, son?”
“How did you single-handedly capture Junior
Whittel?”
Sheriff Bob chuckled, took off his reading
glasses and leaned on the counter.
“Well,” he said, “the prison camp is over in
the flatlands, about 200 mile. Now
Junior ain’t that bad, he’s just stupid, and I ain’t sayin’ that as a mean
thing, I’m just sayin’ it as a statement of fact. I figured all Junior wanted was to come
home. You put a hillbilly like Junior
down in the flatlands he’s gonna get homesick.”
“He escaped on a Sunday so I drove over to
Skinner’s Valley Thursday around lunch time,” Sheriff Bob went on, “I drove
over to his momma’s place. I figured a
determined mountain man could make 200 mile in 4 days, walkin’, hitchhikin’.”
“So I knock on the door and Junior’s momma
opens up,” said Sheriff Bob. “Howdy Mrs.
Whittel. How are you doin’?”
“We’re doin’ alright, Sheriff. Pulled in a good tobacco crop this year. Sure could’ve used Junior’s help.”
“’Well,’ I say to Mrs. Whittel,” said Sheriff
Bob, “’I suppose you know why I’m here.’ And Mrs. Whittel looks down at the
ground and says, ‘Yeah Sheriff, he calt me the other day from the flatlands
said he was on his way home. Come on in
and I’ll make you some coffee.’”
“So,” said Sheriff Bob, “There we are sittin’
and talkin’ and havin’ coffee, just us two.
Talking about The President, and The Statler Brothers TV music show and
things…we’d been there about an hour when I look up out the window and I see a
man way off in the distance across Mrs. Whittel’s field at the treeline.”
“The man walks into the field and then starts
running toward the house and about halfway across he stops. It’s Junior,” said Sheriff Bob. “ And I know he’s stopped because he’s seen
my car. Then his shoulders slump and he
ain’t runnin’ no more, he’s walking toward the house.”
“I get up and go stand on the front porch,”
said Sheriff Bob, “And soon Junior is within talkin’ distance.”
“’Hi there, sheriff,’ says Junior. ‘Can I spent some time with my momma before
you haul me back in?’”
“’Sure,’ I say to Junior, ’20, 30
minutes. Why don’t we sit down and have
some coffee.’”
“And so we did,” said Sheriff Bob. “Junior’s
momma warmed up some biscuits for him and he talked about prison life and it
was about to drive him crazy and he missed his momma’s cookin’, things like
that. And then he and I rode back to
town. And THAT’S how Sheriff Bob singlehandedly
captured the desperado Junior Whittel.”
Sheriff Bob laughed a bit, put his glasses
back on and went back to his paperwork.
It would be years later that I came to know
that Sheriff Bob was a weaver of tall tales much like me and most storytellers. Sheriff Bob did not have a “sixth sense” of
when Junior would arrive at his momma’s house.
The morning of that day that Sheriff Bob drove out to Mrs. Whittel’s
someone had “dropped a dime” on Junior, calling Sheriff Bob and telling him
that the night before Junior was at his favorite beer joint over in Bluefield
hittin’ up old friends for drinks.
Sheriff Bob knew Junior’s next stop would be his momma’s.
A couple of years later I was in a bit of
trouble myself.
Oh not the criminal kind, it was a civil
matter that wound up in court. It was my
first time in a courtroom in a legal proceeding, first time I ran up against a
man in a suit…the opposing party’s lawyer….dressed up in a suit, pointing at me
and saying things about me that just flat-out weren’t true.
I lost my temper and started yelling at the
fellow.
The judge pounded her gavel, told me to sit
down, only speak when spoken to and the next time I did such a thing she’d find
me in contempt of court and put me in the county jailhouse for a few days.
A couple of days later it was a nice, cool
fall day, blue skies, white puffy clouds, one of my favorite kind of days.
I sat down on a bench in front of the county
courthouse, feeling the sun on my face, breathing the cool fall air, Old Glory
fluttering in the breeze, a statue to the Confederate dead nearby.
Sheriff Bob came walking up.
“Well, well, well, here’s the badass Grant
McGee,” said Sheriff Bob with a chuckle.
“Oh, you heard about that,” I said with a
smile, looking off across the street, not looking the sheriff in the eyes.
“Whole courthouse was talkin’ about it,” he
said. “Our very own laid-back country DJ
and newsman loses his cool. Well, you
know, I don’t much like that attorney fellow either. Ty Johnstone, he’s from Richmond. I don’t know why he moved out this way. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”
“You know sheriff, that judge got me to
thinkin’,” I said. “What’s it like being
in jail?”
Sheriff Bob sat down beside me on the bench.
“I like to think I run a pretty decent jail,”
he said. “Most fellows mind their p’s
and q’s in there. A country jail is a
lot different than jail, say, in Richmond, Knoxville, places like that. You type?”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Well, I’d probably put you in the office,
put you right to work typing up reports,” he said. “Probably make you a trustee right away so’s
you could be outside doing chores like sweeping and washing county cars.”
“Hmm,” I said, raising my eyebrows, “I reckon
that beats the hell out of laying around a cell doing nothing all day.”
“Devil makes work for idle hands,” said
Sheriff Bob patting me on the back. “Son, I’m going to give you some advice
about being in a courtroom…keep your cool.
Listen to your lawyer. Remember
what the judge said, speak when spoken to.
Answer only what they ask. It’s
part of the other lawyer’s job to get you upset, to throw you off balance, to
get you to react emotionally. Keep your cool.
Let your lawyer do his job.”
“Thanks, Sheriff Bob." I meant it, it was good advice.
Sheriff Bob stood up, I did too and shook his
hand.
It was the last time I saw Sheriff Bob, but
I’ve remembered him, his demeanor, his advice all these years.
So long, Sheriff Bob.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment