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Channel: Fiction – The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature
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Ted Harrison “Brotherly Love”

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Southern Legitimacy Statement: When you are born of Scot-Irish and Welsh stock in Piedmont North Carolina you start with a perceived southern legitimacy, but perhaps when you grow older you want to prove it -- One of my grandfathers was a storekeeper and the other a farmer. The storekeeper died sometime before I started school. The grandfather who was a farmer gives me a sense of southern legitimacy—at least in my mind. He farmed with his son, my uncle Richard. Their homes were about a hundred yards apart, separated by a field that by turns yielded cotton, or corn or wheat. In the mid-1950s, Uncle Richard decided it was time to install indoor plumbing in his home. Running water in the kitchen, a bathroom, the works. He approached my grandfather with the idea that while the work was being done Poppa’s pump could be electrified, pipes run into the house for the kitchen and a bathroom, too. I don’t know how long the discussions took, but finally Poppa agreed. Agreed, to a point. When the work finished at my uncles home work began at Poppa’s. First the pump was electrified. No more pumping the handle up and down to fill a bucket to take into the house for use. Yes, when the modern work finished you could turn on a spigot, then fill your bucket of water courtesy an electric pump—then you could carry your bucket into the house for use. Maybe not southern legitimacy for some, but it works* for me. *Works for the Dead Mule, too.

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