Athens Stories, Part 1

My late grandmother Rosanna lived in Athens, Tennessee, and she told some terrific stories about my family, the house she lived in, and various people in the town. My sister and I have always said we needed to get these stories down before we forget them. We'll see how this goes. I'll start with a little story from my family's history.

My aunt (one of my grandmother's three children) and uncle had an unhappy marriage. She was a lovely young woman who was a teacher, and he was an ex-serviceman who must have been quite the charmer. Family lore says he spent a mere matter of days in the military before getting discharged with a heart condition—something everybody always says he faked. I'm not really sure how you fake a heart condition, but I've heard he was a master malingerer.

Anyway, they met on a street corner—a day my saintly grandmother described as being one of the darkest days of her life. They married, and he proceeded to lie around the house while my aunt went to work to support him and, eventually, their two kids. This ne'er-do-well was, reportedly, a great cook—he held down a job as a chef for a few months at a swanky club in Athens. But that didn't last, so he turned to other endeavors, including spending my aunt's paycheck on western wear; as the story goes, he blew $500 on cowboy boots and other accoutrements.

One day, he was lying in bed as usual, and my aunt had gone off to work. My elderly great-grandfather, a former Baptist preacher, decided he agreed with the book of Proverbs—that if you spared the rod, you would spoil the child. Apparently, this line of thought extended to in-laws who were all grown up. So he broke off a branch from a tree, went into my uncle's house and then into the bedroom, where he proceeded to dole out some punishment to the Slumbering One.

The end.