The Hitching Rail

A lot of you reading this have no idea what it’s like to live in a town of 5,000 people. You probably have lots of preconceived ideas about what life in such a small town must be like. Some of your notions may be accurate. But there are some things about life in a small town that can only be known by living there.

Several years ago, I was at our small, local hospital (before the era of small hospitals being shuttered left and right) when I noticed something that reminded me why I love my town. In the grassy area to one side of the hospital was an old-fashioned hitching rail.

On the outskirts of our town live several families who are followers of the Amish faith. They’re the ones who wear mostly black, their women wear dresses, men have beards, they have no electricity or plumbing, and they travel by horse and buggies with iron wheels.

When they come town to see a doctor or go to a store, they tie their horses to something to keep them from wandering off, and that’s what a hitching rail is for.

Amish are friendly and hardworking people, but they’re definitely a minority, even in our area. I have no idea what percentage of patients or customers they represent, though I’m confident it’s quite small.

That doesn’t matter because we try to accommodate each other in my town. We don’t all share the same views on things, but that’s ok. We’ll do what we can to make things run as smoothly as we can by helping each other.

After one of our unusually heavy snows one winter, an Amish man hitched his horses to a piece of machinery and “plowed” the snow off the road for all his non-Amish, automobile-driving neighbors.

Believe it or not we even had our version of “Earnest T. Bass” living among us for several years. Remember that character from the Andy Mayberry show? Odd and eccentric would be compliments if given to Earnest T Bass. Barney once remarked to Andy about Earnest T, “He’s a nut!”

Our version, whose name I will change to Tommy, was just a little off center. He came from a family tree that had no branches, if you know what I mean. His dipper didn’t hold any water.

Tommy talked with a severe nasal whine and had a slight speech impediment that sometimes left you guessing what he said. He told me once about an accident he had while riding on a horse.

“Someone pu’ a huckleburh under by faddle and dat horse fwohed me off!”

He always needed a shave. His hair was plastered to his head with what could have been Pennzoil 10W30. His clothes never seemed to fit his oddly proportioned body.

Tommy loved Elvis. He once had a bit too much to drink and decided to sit on the hood of his car and sing “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog.” That wouldn’t have been too bad if he’d done it in his own yard and if he hadn’t taken his shirt off. But he chose to do this when parked outside the grocery store on a busy Saturday afternoon. The police came and quietly and discreetly eased him to a less frequented area.

I’m sure that attention made Tommy happy because the only thing he loved more than Elvis was the idea of becoming a policeman. There was a time he bought an old van and used several cans of spray paint to paint on the side what was supposed to be the head of a German Shepherd. It turned out looking more like a portrait of Sammy Davis, Jr. On the other side of the van he painted “K-9 Unit.”

He was regularly seen patrolling the roads, sunglasses in place and hat pulled down low. He got in trouble more than once for using a blue light to try and enforce whatever rule suited his fancy at the moment.

Another phase Tommy went through was when he became fascinated with wanting to have a tow truck. He bought a dilapidated pickup truck and built a crude wooden frame in the bed, complete with chains and hooks. It was something only Fred Sanford would have been proud of.

Tommy actually tried to use his tow truck a couple of times which resulted in the complete destruction of his wooden creation. But in typical Tommy fashion, he wasn’t deterred. He picked up the pieces and threw them in the back of the truck. Before long he was driving the rebuilt wrecker and scanning the highways for stranded drivers.

Then there was the time Tommy wanted to run for mayor. I was pumping gas when I saw him approaching. Dressed in baggy double-knit plaid pants, a white shirt that his ample girth wouldn’t let him tuck in, and a necktie that must have been eight inches wide, he could have been a clown escaped from a circus. He was red-faced and sweating.

It took a few breathless tries on his part but I finally understood him to say that he was trying to get enough signatures to qualify for running for mayor. I looked at his list and, sure enough, he already had twenty-two signatures.

I often commented that if Tommy lived in a big city somewhere, he’d have been shot years ago. But fortunately, he lived in my town where we all recognized he meant no harm to anyone, so he was mostly overlooked.

Yeah, I know that there are lots of inconveniences about living in a small town. But for my part, those are outweighed by the advantages of a sense of community and people looking out for each other.

*Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume 1: I Didn’t Know Donkeys Could Laugh.