Grease on the Bacon
by Joe Stout
<\/big><\/small><\/small><\/big><\/big>During the three year period in the mid 1930’s when my parents operated the old hotel in Greenfield I was just starting to school on \u201cHappy Hill.\u201d
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The \u201cpermanents\u201d that lived there consisted of Herman Elam, Ms Kate Roberts, and Nick Givens among others.
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I remember Herman mostly from his card playing which I think was bridge.\u00a0 He also raised truck crop plants in hotbeds for sale.
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Ms. Kate was like a grandmother to me and as I was an only child her son, Charles Moseley, was the closest thing I would ever have as an older brother.\u00a0 Charles was not really Ms. Kate\u2019s son but rather the son of \u201cPete\u201d Moseley who was a widower when Charles was a young boy.
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Charles made tunnels for me out of cardboard boxes, soap box cars as well as many other toys that were out of the ordinary.\u00a0 This of course was before the days of the \u201cwonder toys\u201d we have now.
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One that stands out the most in my memory was an \u201cairplane swing\u201d that he built and mounted on the big maple tree on the south side of the hotel.\u00a0 It had a propeller and wings and the amazing thing was it could take off and land.\u00a0 He had mounted a pulley on the big limb and the rope that held my \u201cairplane swing\u201d was run through it.\u00a0 This way he could pull me up for take-off and lower me for landing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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Ms. Kate was the owner\/operator of The Style Shop.\u00a0 This was the place in Greenfield that those that could afford the hats and dresses that were out of the ordinary did their shopping.\u00a0 Ms. Kate made frequent trips to St. Louis buying merchandise as the seasons changed.\u00a0 It was located in a very narrow building just south of the Brasfield Drug Store on Front St.\u00a0 That building has since been torn down but The Style Shop is still in operation and is owned by Jan Coats Johnson.
\u00a0
Nick Givens, to a small child like me, appeared as the \u201cGrinch that stole Christmas\u201d or the \u201cboogeyman\u201d because of his gruff manner.
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My breakfast usually consisted of a bowl of Kellogg\u2019s Corn Flakes and maybe a cup of hot chocolate and most of the time I would be in the kitchen with the \u201ccolored cook\u201d (That was the politically correct term in those days).
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During breakfast one morning, at the big oval boarding house table in the dining room of the hotel, I heard Mr. Nick complaining about all the grease that was on the bacon in the big platter that was served.\u00a0 He called out for the cook in his usual gruff manner and she came and got the platter setting it on the table next to the sink where she was washing pots and pans.\u00a0 She then took the dishrag and wiped the grease from the bacon and platter, then returning it to the table.\u00a0 The next time you are tempted to complain about food in a restaurant to an employee, just remember the grease on the bacon.
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Mr. Givens was a photographer who developed his own pictures.\u00a0 He was constantly taking pictures of people and events in Greenfield.
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In later years I learned what a kind and caring man Mr. Givens was.\u00a0 It seems that there were two sisters that were orphaned during those hard times that he supported anonymously.\u00a0 As an old bachelor he married Ms. Stella Mae Brasfield who was in a wheelchair and worked as a cashier at the Greenfield Bank. This was a wonder to the citizens of Greenfield on such a happy union.\u00a0 Ms. Stella Mae\u2019s brother and his wife died tragically in a house fire and many of Mr. Nick\u2019s pictures were in that house.
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Much of the pictorial history of Greenfield was destroyed in that fire but some that he took and gave to others are still around.\u00a0 I have a few myself of how things were.\u00a0 This is Mr. Nick\u2019s legacy.
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grease on the Baconby Joe Stout During the three year period in the mid 1930’s when my parents operated the old hotel in Greenfield I was just starting to school on \u201cHappy Hill.\u201d\u00a0The \u201cpermanents\u201d that lived there consisted of Herman Elam, Ms Kate Roberts, and Nick Givens among others.\u00a0I remember Herman mostly from his card Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-gutenberg.php","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"full","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"MaryCarol","author_link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/author\/marycarol\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Uncategorized<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 18, 2020 6:43 am","modified":"Updated on September 18, 2020 6:43 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1095,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/1095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}