A Stranger Among Us

A Stranger Among Us by Larry Hall

In the fall of 1960 when I was fourteen, I was able to wheedle my mother into letting me go stay with my grandparents near Louisa, KY.  I was terribly excited by the idea.  The last time I had spent anytime there I was six, and learned a whole new way of looking at things from my uncle Tony Lee and Cousin Max Lynndall who were both about two years older than me.

When I was six I had learned how to shoot a 22, sneak and chew tobacco, and how to crawl uninjured through a briar patch. At fourteen I had visions of learning how to shoot a shotgun, going squirrel and rabbit hunting, and just hanging around Tony Lee who never knew how much I idolized him.

My mother took me to the bus station in Portsmouth, VA., bought my ticket, and impressed upon me that I needed to tell the driver I needed to get off at Five Forks Hill near Louisa.  All went well until I got off the bus in front of a feed store at a place the driver assured me was Five Forks Hill. I immediately knew why they called it Five Forks, and that I had no idea which of those forks I was supposed to take.

A short way down the hill and across one of the roads was a garage. One of those places with an unpaved drive so soaked with oil that it looked paved. I decided I had better go ask for directions. As I approached the garage, a man saw me approaching and came out.

I asked him, "Can you tell me how to get to Brig Van Horn’s place?" I was over six feet tall and looked older than I was I guess, because he didn’t respond to me like he thought I was some lost kid standing there.  Instead he asked, "What’s he to you?"   When I replied, "He’s my grandfather." The guy stood back, cocked his head and squinted his eyes as he looked at me. I was just about getting afraid enough to think about which direction I should go when his face brightened into a grin, and he said, "You must be Maude and Hoody Halls boy!" Maude is what my mother’s family called her, and Hoody was my father’s nickname growing up, but with my mom having fifteen brothers and sisters I still can’t figure out how that man knew who who my parents were by looking at me!

© July 2000 by Larry Hall May be freely copied and distributed for personal non-commercial use.