Dick England owned a mountain in North Carolina. It had been in the family for generations, but he hadn’t been there since he was a toddler. “It isn’t much of a mountain,” was all he could remember his mother saying about the place, but he had a yearning to see it. So, a week between classes, he flew to North Carolina, rented a car, and drove to England Mountain.
Dick and W.S. were working together on a scientific paper concerning some research they were conducting, and it had been accepted for presentation at a professional meeting in Savannah. The day Dick returned from his trip, he came to our apartment for a study session. Naturally, I was eager to hear about his adventure, so I ran to the door when he knocked.
“Don’t ask!” he said. Undeterred, I said, “No way! I want to know what happened.” “Well, my Mother was right. It isn’t much of a mountain, but when I got half way up the hill, someone started shooting at me.” “You’re kidding!” said W.S. “I would not joke about bullets whizzing past my head.” “What did you do?” I asked. “I hid behind a tree and yelled, Stop shooting. It’s Richard England. This is my mountain. Dammit!”’
He then told us that the shooting stopped as abruptly as it had begun. “But, I stayed behind that tree until I saw a little old lady walking down the road flanked by two of the biggest, meanest looking men I have ever seen in my life, and all three of them were smoking pipes and carrying shotguns. As they got closer, I stepped out from behind the tree, and the old lady said, ‘Why, if it isn’t little Dickey England. You certainly have growed. We thought you was the revenoorers.’”
That was when Dick found out that his mountain was a haven for bootleggers, and he had almost stumbled onto one of the many stills in the area. Not wanting to go blind, he turned down a swig of rot gut, and when the old woman told him that “the young’uns are growin’ a crop down the road a spell,” he decided not to ask what they were growing, and bid them a forever fare-the-well. England Mountain was obviously a bastion of free enterprise, but “Little Dickey” didn’t want any part of it.
Since the scientific paper had been accepted for presentation, a few months later, W.S. and Dick were off to Savannah to report on their research. Naturally, I tagged along.
As the old saying goes, “Good things come in threes.” Their research presentation, W.S.’s birthday, and the NCAA final four all converged on the same day. Dick and W.S. got their presentation out of the way quickly because their session was right before dinner and all the scientists were too thirsty for cocktails to ask too many questions. The three of us had scheduled dinner at a beautiful restaurant to celebrate. (To be continued---)
Esther Blumenfeld
CROSSING WITH THE BLUE LIGHT, Blumenfeld c. 2006