Best Damn Liar In All The World

 He is having a good laugh from beyond the grave right about now. 

Yesterday afternoon I began to put dates and times together and realized, I had been had. It started so innocently at dinner with my parents years ago. I commented on Grandpa leaving the coal mines of Kentucky for work and a better life. He and my grandmother settled in Decatur, Illinois. He drove a city bus for a living, beginning with the trolleys and my grandmother managed the bank lunchroom at Citizens National Bank. Never overlooking a chance to lie and to stain a reputation, my father seized the opportunity to tell a story, with truth involved but the lie came to his father and his father's brothers. Truthfully, my father is one of the best liars that ever lived. He took in everyone, he lied to and about everyone. No one got a pass, he tore us all up. His lies and the believability of them hoodwinked family, friends and eventually strangers. 

That night at dinner he told the story of the Possum Hunters. Historically, this was a group of men who saw the success of the Night Riders breaking up the monopoly on prices of the American Tobacco Company in Kentucky. They patterned themselves after them to break the hold that the coal companies had on miners. The PH also took men to task that didn't treat their families right then began a reign of terror over several counties because they expanded their vision and began to terrorize those they had grudges against, or were too wealthy, or living in sin and then they turned to taking racial matters in their hands. Men, women and children were whipped, tied up and beaten. The death of one man got attention because he was electrocuted on a coal car. Accidentally though, cause these men didn't know that after the first little shock the volts were accumulating and the next little shock, it killed the man. The end of the gang came when the leader of the pack...was kidnapped and tortured so he would give up the names of men in the group. Or the other thought is, his own gang of men killed him. He died during the torture and these kidnappers took him, hung him from a tree. Most in the community knew he hadn't hung himself or that the hanging killed him. Newspaper accounts and a true crime book, Murders in Muhlenberg County gave these details that backed up the truth part of the story my father told, but here is his twist. He shared his father and uncles were a part of the Possum Hunters. He made it sound like these four brothers were the ones that killed the man on the generator for the coal cars. I left that dinner in utter disbelief, my sweet, kind grandfather? My jovial Uncle Lloyd? Quiet Uncle Aubrey? Even cranky Uncle Lawrence to do such a thing was a stretch. I began asking my brother and cousins, have you ever heard this story? Did anyone ever talk about this? That the four brothers had to leave Kentucky as not to be prosecuted for this man's death? They left with the blessing of the local sheriff that said, I will not pursue charges if y'all leave the state and don't come back to the county while I am sheriff. Two went to Indiana and two went to Illinois. I contacted the author of the book Murders in Muhlenberg County. He talked with me about these happenings and stories. He explained, it was not a small group, but a rather large group and he had never heard anything about the four brothers being an integral part of the coal car story. So, in some ways that assuaged some fears. The story became less intriguing and everyday life filled up any time that I gave to it, every once in a while. But the story set the stage so to speak for future stories. 

Because this has been a season of distractions without much focus, writing has always been a way to make my way back and be less distracted.  Writing fiction is not my strongpoint but I thought, it will stretch me to take a "true" story and fictionalize it in several pieces of short story form, i.e. Ellen Gilchrist style. This project was not to get a book published or gain the interest of any professional but I was going to do this as a birthday gift next year for my brother. I had lunch with a friend who writes best seller fiction and her second book, under her real name comes out soon. Her contract is for two books, so she is working on the third and the subject matter has my interest. I consulted with my friend about research, policies of 1950 police investigations, where to find articles to help keep the story in the times it happened. She was a great help. One source she suggested was Ancestry and Newspapers sites. Got the trial memberships and I've been hooked and a paying subscriber since joining. The newspaper site adds so many details. Bonnie was intrigued with the story I told her, beginning with this Possum Hunter story as told to me by my father then culminating into the sensational and unbelievable story that I wanted to be the true focus of the project. On Ancestry I began looking into events, paperwork and anything else I could find. I also started with the family, my grandfather's siblings and parents. It was exciting to find Mama and Papa Doss' marriage certificate. For the first time I had cause to pay attention to birth years. It wasn't adding up. My grandfather was the second oldest of the siblings but the oldest brother. He was born in 1905. Hmmm...the Possum Hunters were at their prime from around 1912-1915. My grandfather would have been a boy when all this happened. Lawrence and Aubrey would be toddlers and Lloyd, the supposed ring leader of the brothers, was a newborn. Dang! Now when I was told this story by my father research on the Internet wasn't too much of a thing being in the glorious days of  AOL and dial-ups. My father's story of his father leaving Kentucky over being a part of a gang that murdered and stirred up mayhem, couldn't come to the light until much later. That later was yesterday.

I texted my brother with this new information and then wondered is the last story he told Doug in the final years of his life, true? A story that ruins the memory of a favorite aunt and her siblings, including my grandfather. On the perimeter, tainting other family members, including our mother, of being complicit of knowing facts in the story.  Doug texted back, we will never know and my response was, our father was the best damn liar in all the world. 

To be continued.....