Okay, a little prelude here. First and foremost this is all in fun, and the last thing I want to do is make anyone mad, so if I get so much as a little odd comment, I will remove this post. Many, many moons ago in a course I was taking we were given a list of names of everyone in the class and instructed to write a story using those names, with the only rule being it could not be derogatory or demeaning to anyone. I have to say it was a lot easier with 20-30 names than with 129, but see how many you can find. I have used homonyms, synonyms, misspellings, fractured English, you name it; but I ended up with this story.
Henry Lynn Wilkerson wanted to be a farmer so he bought a large tract of land near Loudon. It was between farms owned by Allen McCallister and Arnold McNew and was bordered on one side by the river and on the other side by a two lane highway. He moved in with his wife, Blair, his 5 sons, Thomas, Dunkin, Julian, Mitchell and Wallace, and his daughter Lindsey. He liked the idea of being near the river so on crisp, sunny mornings he could rowe along in his boat in the bright sunshine and relive the memories of when he was a helmsman in the navy. He also liked to sit on the front porch in the evening and look out over the river as he listened to Elvis Presley, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Andy Williams and Ray Stevens on his stereo.
He divided his land into four sections. On part of it he wanted to grow something. He didn’t care what it was as long as it was green, even though he had never grown even as much as a rose before. He put a lowe fence around that section as a barrier to barr animals from getting in and eating what he grew. On the second section, near the river, he built a fish hatchery that was made up of several little pooles. He stocked it with fish common to the area, like catfish and bass, but he also added trout and imported fish too, like rudd from Europe. On the third section he planted trees. He thought he could sell the timber or make different wooden products to market. The woody landscape would also help protect his property and ward off the wind and rain. On the forth section he built his house, a barn and a couple of sheds, and being a good Christian he put a cross over the door of the house for good luck.
After a time he had moore work than his family could handle so he went to Knoxville to try and russell up someone to help him. He found two men, Nathan McCullough and Scott Schrimpsher.
“You can have the growing fields,” he said to Dunkin, “but listen carefully to Nathan son. He knows a lot more about farming than I do.” They divided the field in two parts, one large field for a cash crop and a little field for a family garden.
He put Julian over the wooded section and paired him up with Scott, who at one time had worked for a large lumber miller where he operated a tree bark skinner and one of the large board sanders. Julian turned out to be an excellent carver and set up one of the sheds to make ornamental wood letters for signs. Each order had the correct amount of letters and several rectangular pieces of finished wood called spacers, or blanks, to fit between the letters when making words. The boxes were checked just before shipping and if one of the spacers were missing, the boxes were labeled “Put in a blank and ship”.
He put Thomas in charge of the livestock. He got several cows and two bulls, a huge black Brahma bull called Ton, and a smaller one the boys nicknamed Little Ton. He also bought two horses; one was a quarter horse and the other a big gray Morgan he used for horseback ridings. He also bought a dog, a large Husky, to help herd the cattle. He liked the way the boy and dog tended to the livestock together. “That’s good son,” he told Thomas. “You did a fine job in training the dog to be a guider for the cattle.”
One evening he was talking with Wallace. “This has turned into a good farm. I hope you and your brothers carey on with it since you boys did a lot of the work. Without you boys this place wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel son.”
