One of the Hollow's more interesting characters
Dear Folks, well the days are getting shorter and the nights longer back here in our Hollow. I sure like those long late summer evenings sitting on the front porch shelling out the last of my Christmas limas or tiger-eye beans or finishing up a few easy outside chores but I have to admit I kind of look forward to fall or early winter evenings too, maybe enjoy the first small fire in the fireplace while revisiting some of my favorite autumn poetry by Robert Frost or Mary Oliver and cradling an antique mug — my great grandmother’s -- full of hot tea or mulled cider with, of course, a generous splash of Old Bushmills. Or two. I guess it also reminds me of old times and old friends, some who long ago traipsed up their last mountain trail. People like Pine Sol Barker. Even in our Hollow where we have our share of folks who’ll “fit right in,” Pine Sol, or “Piney” was memorable, not because he was handsome or flashy or anything but because he simply wasn’t.
His mother, who had been widowed at Omaha Beach on D-Day was in labor nearly two days before her baby finally came into the world, reliable rumor had it he arrived feet first. When she finally got able to talk, a nurse over at the old Lee Memorial Hospital in Marion, somewhat impatient to get her forms filled out, asked the young mother what she wanted to name her baby. Still under the effects of pain medication, she asked what was the name of that good smelling stuff they used to clean her room and when she was told it was Pine Sol she immediately stated that was the name she wanted her newborn to have. And so it was. She never got completely well after that and when Piney, as he had come to be called, became an orphan three years later the county more or less dumped him on the doorsteps of his only two known relatives, great uncles as far as anybody knew, a pair of bookishly absent-minded retired college professors who had a little slab-wood sided cabin down near the creek. It was lined wall to wall with books, at least a thousand, mostly of classical history, some in Greek and a few in Hebrew and with a tiny kitchen where nobody ever washed dishes. When either of the two old men or Piney wanted to eat he just scrapped out the cleanest dirty skillet and fried up some eggs and sardines or Spam or just ate cold Beanie Weenies out of the can or carrots out of the garden that weren’t washed, simply brushed off. Of course Piney grew up healthy as any horse. He tried school for awhile but halfway through the fourth grade he didn’t drop out, he just quit going and nobody seemed to notice. By the time he was eight he had read nearly all the thousand or so books, could converse moderately well with the old men in Greek and had a rudimentary grasp of Hebrew. When his peers were still reading about Dick, Jane, Salley, Spot the dog and Puff the cat, Piney could recite discourses of Socrates and Plato and, of course, he was widely regarded as “simple” by people who didn’t understand him but he just let it ride. He was a gentle boy, always called older folks Sir and Ma’am and was well-liked even though hardly understood—make that seldom if ever. He would walk down the road and greet all the neighborhood dogs, cats, horses and cows by their names and smiled at them and they smiled back. Once someone accused him of living in his own little world but he just grinned happily and said folks knew him there.
The only clothes he had consisted of a pair of Round House bib overalls, Converse All-Stars ankle-high black tennis shoes and, in winter, a WWII surplus heavy wool overcoat. He was an inquisitive boy always poking into bushes and lifting rocks and if there was anything plant, animal or mineral that he didn’t know the Latin name of nobody knew what it was. He was a walker who took long hikes on any trails there were and on deer or bear paths if there weren’t. Folks said it was because he came out feet first.
When the two old great uncles finally died he carefully packed up all their books and sent them to the University of Virginia as they’d asked for in their wills, scattered their ashes in the little garden and then just took off walking and was never seen again. Over the years his whereabouts became as speculative as sightings of Big Foot or the Wooley Booger. Some swore he was repeatedly hiking the Appalachian Trail from Springer to Katahdin, others that he had been spotted playing the Hammond B-3 organ for the Grateful Dead. The small cabin where he lived with his great uncles has long ago fallen down but not a few people report seeing a ghostly porch light where it used to be. I guess that they, or somebody or something still leaves the porch light on for him. As is mine for you. Love, your Aunt Billy.
