Believe it or not December is here. My favorite winter month because it is the month we celebrate the birth of Jesus. It’s a wonderful time of year because it seems everyone is in a more happy and cheerful mood, and that is certainly something our community needs.
We will start with our November jingle, a roadside sign, remember it went like this.. “No lady likes to snuggle or dine accompanied by a ??” it’s a porcupine, Burma Shave shaving cream. This was a hard one submitted by a reader and thank you. Now this is a Christmas jingle, and it goes like this… “There on the table awaiting Santa’s call is a huge bowl of…” another one that I have never heard! What could it be. I must admit that when I think of a Christmas ad it would be Santa in his red suit drinking a Coke.
In this issue I will look back over the past year. First, in my October story, I submitted a picture of a road sign erected by West Virginia department of history about the Lady that testified against her husband who killed her. Unfortunately, it was not readable. The sign read, “Interred in nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her death in 1897 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the exhumed body verified the apparition’s account. Edward, found guilty of murder, was sentenced to the state prison. Only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer. Strange but true.”
I reported on the blizzard of 1996 which turned into the flood of 1996, and you may remember the coldest temperature ever recorded in Dale Enterprise was MINUS 25 in January of 1912. Also, the WORLD RECORD reported rainfall in a five-hour period was in Nelson County Virginia, an unimaginable 31 inches. I told of a story of a World War I veteran that accidentally burned up his boots at a hunting cabin and to walk home with his friends in the deep snow, he tied burlap sacks on his feet. A short time later another traveler came down the same path and reported he saw an unbelievable sight. He tracked two men tracking the biggest bear track he had ever seen! It was actually the man with the burlap tied on his feet. Wow! Those were the days when men were men. The same group would hunt wild game and sell it to a dealer at Cootes Store and one use the money to buy a double barrel shotgun.
We shared the story of a young man that was caught carrying in sugar to his dad’s moonshine still site. He was convicted and became a felon, which deemed him unable to serve in the armed forces, UNTIL a very influential member of the draft board contacted the necessary officials and had his charges dropped, and cleared all charges so he could draft him into the military. Talk about good friends! It turns out that because of a birth defect, he was unable to serve. This is a constant reminder that the Lord works in mysterious ways. This may have saved his life from a Viet Kong bullet. And the sad story about a young moonshiner who with his back to the officer did not obey the officer’s commands to not move and put his hands up. He was shot in the back and killed because he was deaf and never heard the command.
In a flashback to July of 1980 and the first ever Fulks Run Ruritan July 4th Celebration. A community yard sale with a total of five families set up. What a difference today!
And of course, we shared the story of the two lads that didn’t exactly like school and shared it rather explicitly, which led to the story on the barber, who on a Sunday morning on his way to work overheard a message coming from a local church about observe the Sabbath to keep it Holy. He was convicted by the Holy Spirit and obeyed the scriptures and after nearly losing all he owned the Lord provided a miracle and he inherited a fortune.
And lastly, in two separate articles, the powerful story of a Marine pilot who lost his life in a plane crash in the foothills on Fulks Run, and all the people that made it possible for his daughter after two failed attempts to be able to visit the sight where her dad was killed. You already know how I feel about this story. It is the most important story that Cammie or I will ever write.
I shared with you in the beginning that December is my favorite winter month, the month we celebrate the birth of Jesus, a time of family and friends gathering together for food and fellowship which is so important, out of town family coming together. This brings back special memories to me of years ago. My granddaddy Pap Clory had eleven children, and when I was young the family had a Christmas get together and all eleven and their families were there. This was because of the love and respect they had for him. BUT, at one gathering I remember a mischievous trick that was played on some of the children. This was around 1964, and I was eight years old. We were at the old homeplace when suddenly my cousins came running through the house grabbing their coats telling us that our much older cousin needed help. He was stuck in the snow, and we all needed to go out and push him out of the snow. I grabbed my coat and started out with the rest of the rescuers when my daddy stopped me and asked, “What’s going on?” I told him about the emergency, and he immediately told me to take your coat off and stay in the house. His tone of voice told me it was a command and not a suggestion. What an eight-year-old didn’t realize, but my daddy did was our older cousin owned a Willy’s four-wheel drive Jeep with tires that could climb a tree, and it was only about two inches of snow on the ground. Just a few minutes later, the rescuers returned into the house with the older ones using language that was not suitable even from any adult. It seemed that our cousin had installed an instrument that attached to the coil of the Jeep, and when the rescuers placed their hands on the Jeep to push, he engaged a switch that sent an electrical shock through all that were pushing. Well, boys will be boys. Merry Christmas!
If you missed any of these stories they can be read on the website at thechimneyrockchronicles.com/fulks-run-follies
Comments fulksrunfollies@gmail.com
Believe it or not
Until next Time
Ronnie
Lyn, Neil, and their daughter Dana at the site
Lyn used the cone and debris from the site as a memorial to her father just outside her window so she can view it at the start of each day
Lyn when her father died
Lyn shares the keepsake book her mother Nettie made
