A Most Worthwhile Cause — The Rescue Team at Henry Horton State Park
Located on more than 1,000 acres of beautiful Tennessee woodlands and golden, native grass pastures, Henry Horton State Park is a beloved destination for campers, hikers, golfers, competitive skeet shooters, and boating enthusiasts. Bounded by the State’s longest and most biologcally-diverse waterway, the Duck River, the park attracts its share of the 150,000 anglers, paddlers, and boaters who use the river annually. A PRESENT...
The Scribners of Scribner’s Mill
Usually, this time of year, around Decoration Day, I write an article about families connected to Haynes Cemetery. This year I’m featuring an article written by someone else – an anonymous writer for the long-defunct Columbia, Tennessee newspaper, The Herald and Mail. Haynes Cemetery is located on Scribner’s Mill Road and, this year, I’m sharing a story about a member of the family for which the road is named. The Lewis Scribner...
The Hollywood Playboy Who Came to Town
Anyone who has seen the 1933 film King Kong may remember the actor Bruce Cabot who played rival to a giant gorilla for the romantic affections of Fay Wray. The role was his big break, made only two years and seven pictures into a Hollywood career that lasted 40 years. Yet, before stardom, he struggled a bit to find his place in life — which must have been a disappointment to his father, a most capable and ambitious man....
Do Bee or Not Do Bee
My brother Jackie and I were born at King’s Daughters Hospital September 27, 1953 in a building located on West 9th Street in Columbia. We were among the last babies born at King’s Daughters, established in 1913, as the present Maury County Hospital opened less than two months later. The first house in which I lived was located on Scribner Avenue, a hotbed for blossoming Baby Boomers such as my brother and me. We literally were...
Holy Ground
Haynes Cemetery always has been hallowed ground to me. Mostly because I remember, from when I was a small boy, the Saturday before Mother’s Day, my hard-working dad Jack White would load up his push mower, hand-operated grass clippers, and other yard supplies and head out in his ’55 Ford to the country, to Scribner’s Mill, where he’d join other men and women who would help spruce up Haynes prior to Decoration....
Miss Lizzie Porter
When I was a boy, there was a mysterious elderly lady who lived in an old decrepit house on the corner of West 6th and North High. Sadly, she was the subject of a lot of jokes and wild stories, mainly because she sat on her porch in all kinds of weather, surrounded by chickens, and occasionally with a side by side shotgun across her lap. Nobody, especially a kid of twelve years old, considered that she had an especially rich past tied...