and painting away. The caption read:“ That little dot …”( in the big picture)“ is this.”( inset picture of uncle Will).
Uncle Cam was on a bomber crew in World War Two and they got shot down over occupied France. He was picked up by the resistance underground, and spent the rest of the war hidden away in the attic of a chateau, sampling the local vintages.
After a somewhat wild teenage and young adulthood, in keeping with his brothers, Uncle Curly( Clarence) Arnold became a preacher and a school teacher. I actually had him as a teacher in the sixth grade when he was teaching at Sprunica Elementary.
Uncle Curly just kept banging away until he eventually got a master’ s degree in education. That’ s a long way from Eureka, Alabama.
Although my Tryon uncles weren’ t nearly as colorful as my Arnold uncles, they were still an interesting lot.
They grew up here in Brown County, mainly up around Peoga and Spearsville and north of there in a place they always called“ possum holler,” but which historical research has revealed was actually named“ Blossom Hollow.”
Uncle Edward was my father’ s fraternal twin, and while they weren’ t identical, they of course bore a strong resemblance to one another. Uncle Edward was first born and was like a bigger, more vital, more adventurous version of my father. Dad was the intellectual one, the smart talker. Garnet Parsley told me once,“ Edwin would start the fights and Edward would finish them.”
Uncle Edward had a big white horse and when I was little he would put me up in the saddle and then make the horse rear up like the Lone Ranger. This seems like it would be fun, but is in fact terrifying to a five year old.
Uncle Edward did important work in the invention of the automated change machine, back when it was entirely mechanical. He once saved his family when their house burned down in the middle of the night.
He and Uncle Bob rode motorcycles, big Harley Davidsons, and they would come roaring down to our house where there was a simmering debate between my older brother and father about the relative safety and sanity as well as the political
implications of motorcycle riding. But he couldn’ t say that stuff to his big brothers.
Uncle Bob had been a wing walker. He earned enough flying hours to qualify for his pilot’ s license in exchange for being the number two in a barnstorming act, a job entailed walking out on the wing of an old biplane as it zoomed around to thrill and amaze the locals.
He also worked as a“ Hell Driver,” driving souped-up cars around a figure-eight track, jumping over ramps and through flaming walls and so forth, again, for the amusement of the locals.
Uncle Bob was also one of the first long-haul truckers, driving some of the first freight trucks cross-country before power steering or the modern highway system.
Uncle Roy worked his whole life on the Western Union Railroad.
Uncle Elmer saved many family artifacts that no one cared about or remembered to keep track of, including my grandfather’ s fiddle.
Each one of these could take up a story of their own with all of their exploits and adventures. They made my childhood in Brown County a lot more colorful.
Not to mention all of my amazing aunts. But we will have to save that for another time. •
May / June 2021 • Our Brown County 55