Ruralite Cafe: Published 12/14/00

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Canada community has lost a real storyteller

Gordon had a reputation throughout Canada community as a man who always had a story. Some were about people he knew; some were tall tales he concocted for the amusement of others. "I always liked to make folks laugh," Gordon told me more than a dozen years ago. "Anytime a crowd gets together it helps if someone can tell stories and get people to laughing and having fun."

Storytelling was once a primary source of entertainment in Jackson County. In the days before electricity or television, a good storyteller could do a lot to shorten long winter evenings.

And Gordon was one of the best. He'd often hold court up at the old Phillips' store, which was located on N.C. 281 between Wolf Creek and Tanassee Creek lakes. No matter which direction a conversation happened to take, one of Gordon's stories was usually its final destination. "People were always going on about what big pumpkins they grew," Gordon told me. "So I'd tell 'em this one:

"There was a hog pen in front of Mother's old house up on Wolf Mountain. We planted a hill of candy roaster pumpkins near that pen. It went to snowing real hard one evening, and one of the sheep didn't come in. They sent me out to look for it.

"Well, I followed that pumpkin vine clear across the top of the mountain, and then I saw a big, yellow-looking something. I got close to it, and I saw it was a pumpkin that had laid on the ground until its side rotted out. And inside there was that ewe with two lambs."

While on the subject of gardening, Gordon would tell us he "never could" understand why folks plant their "taters" around the side of a hill.

"Why then they have to dig 'em," he said. "I always plant mine in rows up and down the hill. Then all I have to do is open up the end of a row and hold a sack there to catch 'em as they roll out."

I don't know what size fish Gordon used to catch, but he sure could tell some whoppers.

"I was driving across the Tanassee Creek Lake one sunny winter day when I saw something shiny in the water. I got out to look 'cause I was worried someone might have driven off into the lake. I saw an old car hulk I'd never noticed before. Swimming around inside it was an 18-inch brown trout. I carried my fishing pole all the time in those days, and I went back to the car to get it. Do you know that fish saw me coming and rolled the windows up! I had to go back to the house hungry that day," Gordon said.

Gordon could even top himself when it came to fish stories.

"One Sunday evening I had a pint of moonshine. I didn't really have any place to go, but I got my brother-in-law's fishing pole, stuck that liquor in my pocket and went down to the head of the lake on some old logging roads. Well, I never thought to bring any bait, so I got to looking around a big chestnut stump for a cricket or something.

"When I looked inside that stump there was a big rattler all coiled up - and next to that snake there was a little toad frog. I got to thinking that I'd really like to have that toad for bait. So I got out that liquor and poured a drop or two on that rattlesnake's head. He leaned back and opened his mouth, so I poured some down his throat. That snake started looking milky-eyed and in just a minute he laid his head over against the side of the stump. I eased my hand down in there and got the toad and went on down to the lake.

"In a little while I caught a nice brown trout. I was puttin' it on a string when something flipped me on the britches leg. I looked down and there was that old rattler with two more toad frogs."

And then there were the Henry McCall stories. Gordon told them about a man from Georgia who had moved into Canada when Gordon was a boy.

"I was in the hospital in 1952 'cause my stomach ruptured," Gordon said. "Uncle Henry met my brother Garland and asked how I was doing. Garland told him I was doing better. 'Let me tell you what happened to me,' Uncle Henry told Garland. 'I was shot with a full load of double-aught buckshot right in the stomach. I never went to any doctor - I just went and got a bottle of Stop Leak and drunk it.' He said after that he went on about his business and never thought anymore about it."

Gordon said the preacher went to see McCall one Sunday to talk to him about his way of living, which didn't exactly fall in line with the preacher's view of things.

"When the preacher said that, Uncle Henry commenced to telling the preacher about the pills Doc Eden from Rosman had given him," Gordon said. It seemed the doctor had given McCall a bottle of 100 pills and told him to take one in the morning and one at night.

"Uncle Henry said he was laying in bed and poured all 100 out in his hand. One fell to the floor and the dog ate it," Gordon said. "Uncle Henry said that dog barely made it out to the yard before it died. Then Uncle Henry said, 'I ate the other 99 myself, but it didn't have that effect on me.'" Gordon said.

The preacher left Uncle Henry's house that day, Gordon said, because he didn't think he could make any progress. The next Sunday the preacher came back.

"Mr. McCall, have you ever thought to make peace with the Lord before you left this world," the preacher asked.

"If we've ever been at outs, I don't know anything about it," McCall replied.

Even before he left us last week Gordon had cut back on his storytelling.

"I don't tell stories the way I used to," he told me awhile back. "I'm getting too old to remember those old tales. I've waded many a dry branch since then."

Gordon may be gone, but he won't soon be forgotten.

I'm so glad I wrote some of his stories down, and I'm proud to tell them for him one more time.

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