The John Deere Man

We met a man in Mississippi at Brenda and Kerry's.  We were just sitting down with our coffee when there was a rat-tat-tat at the door.  It was Charlie.  This Charlie.  The one you see there.  Clean sturdy overalls.  Plaid shirt.  Spit-fire jacket with some kind of embroidery on the back about Steel Tractors.

We'd no sooner shaken hands when he leaned forward and told me he was 84 years old.  He nodded, as if to say, "Yep, 84, can you believe it?"

Then he told me, announced, really, that Brenda takes care of him.  She had taken care of him since his wife died three years ago, he told me.

Brenda.  You'll remember her from the Mississippi Memories post.  She is both ethereal and solid foundation. She is the anchor that allows another to be free.

Charlie was a character.  He was 84 years of living Mississippi history.

I have to admit, I couldn't always understand him.  It was the drawl.  I'm not too good at it.  In fairness, though, he couldn't understand me either.  He said I spoke too fast for him.

We decided a stop to stop at his house on the way out of town that day.  We decided that it would be better than any other museum we might choose.  We were right.

This is Charlie's little dog, Pissant.  I'm sorry, but it is true.  That was her name.  It was pronounced Pissaint, or Pissie for short.  The boys loved her.

This is what remains of Charlie's gun collection. At one time, he'd had nearly one hundred.  "Don't touch them," he warned the boys, "they're loaded."

He had all kinds of collections: pocket knives, china, crystal.  His house was like a museum.  In his great room, he had an old wood fire stove, an old metal tub, and a long dining table he'd hewn himself.  The walls were absolutely covered with antiques dating back to the Civil War, most of them keepsakes from within his family.

In his day, he was known as the John Deere Man.  He could take any rusty tractor and turn it, quite literally, into a museum piece.  He used to have as many as 18 tractors in the old barn.  We saw one.  It had been rusty, too, but was all cleaned up, refurbished, and ready for sale.

He gave each of the boys an Indian Head penny, part of another collection, I'm sure.  We could have stayed a long time combing through his house, listening to his stories.  But the road called.

We'd infused spring water with silver molecules with Brenda.  She was going to show us where she collected the spring water, and we'd planned to finish the Natchez Trace Trail before nightfall.

Charlie, though, he was a fire-cracker.  A museum unto himself.  If you're ever in town, look him up.  You won't be sorry.