EDITOR’S NOTE: Old File’s Store down on Bringle Ferry Road has been gone for more than a year now, moved to Gold Hill to be part of a historic village.
But Greg File remembers what he saw and heard there, remembers the tales told and opinions argued by the men who gathered around the pot-bellied stove when he was a kid, tagging after his daddy.
And one day he decided to write them down so they’d never be forgotten. And gave them names. And is sharing them with us last year and has more we haven’t hard for a second helping during this year’s holidays.
Playing possum
The boys in my dad’s day played possum a lot different from the way I’ve come accustomed to playing it.
The way they played it was to act like a possum when it was being hunted by dogs.
The person who was the “possum” got a head start and headed straight to the woods, doing everything he could do to keep from being caught.
When the “hunters” got close, the “possum” would climb a tree as close to the top as he could so he could swing the tree back and forth and grab another tree next to it and go from tree to tree to keep from getting caught.
One day Charlie Lemly was the possum.
Charlie was a good climber, and when the hunters got close he shinnied up a tall pine tree.
But that tree went up, not out. It was small in diameter and a long way up to the first limbs where Charlie was hanging on. Charlie was comfortable enough, and he didn’t have any plans to come down and get caught.
But there was another problem for the hunters. That tree was too far from any other tree to swing from it to another in any direction.
Naturally, the boys who had treed him tried to climb the tree anyway to get him, but they couldn’t. It was just too small and too far to the first limb.
So they tried to swing him out, but Charlie just hung on and went along for the ride, laughing at them.
And it was getting a little unruly when Loyle Eller sent for an ax. When the ax got there, Loyle hollered out, “I’ll get him down!” and started swinging the ax into the tree.
And it worked.
Charlie hung for about six swings, but then he came down in a hurry.
Getting all they seen
Lum’s father sent Lum and Jink to their wheat field to pull weeds and any tree sprouts they saw.
On their way to the field, they decided that when they got there they would close their eyes and walk around the field and take their time going back.
That way they could tell their dad they had pulled all the sprouts they saw and not be lying.
When they got back, their dad asked if they had taken care of their chore, and they said, “We pulled all we seen.”
Their dad thought something about that response was exactly right, but he knew his sons were truthful so he didn’t question them about it — until a few days later when he passed by the field and saw it was a real mess.
Tree sprouts everywhere. Weeds, too.
So he asked the boys about it, and they didn’t lie. They told him what they’d done.
He pondered the answer. Then he agreed they hadn’t lied.
But, he concluded, they were awful reckless with the truth — and tanned their rear ends real good.
Training camp
My first cousin Floyd Trexler joined the Marines and took his boot camp training at Parris Island, S.C.
When he got through with boot, he came home for few days before he went to another base.
While he was at home, he’d go down to the store and tell about all he’d been through and what all he’d learned.
One day my dad, Oscar File, asked him if he’d show him some of what he’d learned.
“Let’s go outside,” Floyd said.
And as soon as they got out there, Floyd grabbed Oscar by his shirt, put his foot in his stomach and fell backwards, throwing Oscar about 20 feet.
Oscar complained a little.
He just wanted Floyd to show him something about his training, but not to do it to him.
Some years later after Floyd became a Lutheran preacher and was right good at telling stories, someone asked him how he liked the Marines boot training.
Floyd was ready with his answer.
If he had two sons, he said, and one was in hell and the other was at Parris Island, and he could get both of them out, he’d get the one out of Parris Island first.
Rose Post column:
Faithful reader unravels long-ago wreck mystery
Some mysteries get solved. If you read my column in Sunday’s paper, introducing this year’s helping of The Greg Files, you might not have recognized that it contained an unsolved mystery.
But it was there all right, tucked down in an explanation about how the Eller Store down on the Bringle Ferry Road came to be called File’s Store where Greg File heard the stories told by men gathered around the old pot-bellied stove when he was a child.
The news report said that Mr. A.M. Eller and Calvin Cauble were killed and about eight others were injured when a truck loaded with 21 people overturned about 15 miles from Wilmington, “according to advices received here,” the Post reported on that summer day in 1932.
But 21 people in a truck going all the way to the beach?
That was the mystery. How could 21 people get in a truck for a trip that long? On roads that were probably two narrow lanes without an interstate even dreamed of in that Depression day?
Now Troy Kesler has explained in an e-mail about his memories of File’s Store what happened on that ill-fated fishing trip.
“I have enjoyed reading Greg File’s stories about Lee File’s store,” he writes.
“Olivia File, Lee’s wife, was my first cousin and A. M. (Arthur) Eller was our uncle.”
He was not only a well known farmer and businessman, but he’d also run for the county commission, been a sheriff’s deputy, carried mail and taught school.
And Troy writes, “Arthur owned a sawmill and a Chevrolet dealership in Denton. The Craven Post Office was located in the store.
“After Lee File completed school to be a mechanic, Arthur built a garage beside Eller Store for Lee to operate. Olivia was one of two teachers who taught at two-room Poole School in Craven that was located on the corner of Bringle Ferry and Starnes roads.
“Arthur owned two large flatbed Chevrolet trucks. He used the trucks in his sawmill business. In 1931, my father, Willie C. Kesler, built the house that my wife and I live in now. Arthur’s sons, Lester and Loy, used the trucks to haul the bricks from Badin, N.C., to build the house. One of these trucks would later be in the accident in 1932.
“I remember playing on this truck one Sunday. It was parked between the store and Arthur’s house.
“On the back of the truck, boards had been attached to the standards to make bench seats on both sides. A canvas had been stretched across the top to provide protection from the weather for the riders. The next day the group left on the trip to Wilmington.
“In 1933, my father took our family to the beach at Wilmington. On the way, he showed us the place where the accident happened. The road had been changed after the accident. The road ran parallel to some railroad tracks on the right side. Before the road was changed, it made a sharp 90 degree turn to the right across the tracks. The truck turned over onto the tracks when the turn was attempted.
“After Arthur’s death, Lee and Olivia started running the store.”
And today Troy Kesler, who played on that truck the day before it left on its ill-fated fishing trip, solved the mystery of how 21 people were loaded on that truck for a fishing trip nearly 70 years ago.
Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com
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