"I AINTA GONNA LEAVE MY LITTLE BROTHER!"

Back in the 30's, it was a long, arduous trek to the old schoolyard in Hickory that housed the small elementary and high school buildings. To hear dad tell it, it was uphill both ways, and about a 30 mile walk, mostly under incredibly inclement weather conditions. Its funny- but dad, who was prone to wonderful tall tales as we grew up, always had a way of making us believe every word of his tales - like the oft-told story of the time he pulled a plug in the Pacific Ocean and sank the entire Japanese fleet to win the war. Compared to that, the unlikely hours-long trek that was purportedly uphill both ways was quite believable to us. One thing is for sure... regardless of the exaggerations, they certainly had to walk a fairly long dirt road to the bus stop. And with Granny at home managing any little kids, the house, the laundry and all the family cooking, she had little time to manage watching them as they trudged to and from their daily hikes.

On this particular day, Mac and daddy- who were two years apart to the day, were trekking from the elementary school, which let out earlier than the older siblings were released, so they managed the walk together daily. They were let off of the school bus, and headed in the direction of home. Uncle Mac was rather in a hurry on this day, and daddy, who was almost never in a hurry, opted to enjoy the scenery along the way, or found something of interest to slow down his gait to a painful crawl. To Uncle Mac, this was unacceptable, and after a few attempts to coax dad to speed up, Mac turned in the direction of home and headed off on his own, leaving his younger brother behind.

I have no idea whether daddy was worried once Mac rounded whatever bend, or hill, that put him out of dad's line of sight. But as told by Granny, when Mac arrived home, sans brother, Granny set off down the lane to find her small son. Fortunately, Granny hadn't gone too far when she spotted young Johnny, obviously to her great relief. But before she had gone more than a few steps to meet him, behind her, running down the lane, was a fairly distraught Uncle Mac, yelling "I ainta gonna leave my little brother!" at the top of his lungs. Either his conscience, or his heart, got ahold of him, and he was upset at the thought that his little brother was all alone on his walk from the bus stop. Granny didn't speak much about the affection she held for the kids, or about their closeness with each other, but always, without fail, I found a few tears running down her cheek when she told this story of two boys who were "thicker than thieves" for the better part of their younger days.