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Rite

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Rite By Fred Holt           When Elbert Frazier hired Uncle Roy Harley to work weekends at the funeral home, some people in town wondered just how he would do, especially on Sunday, out in the country.   Uncle Roy didn’t go to church much.   When he was younger, he ran around to honky-tonks.   He had a reputation of being tough. My mother thought he managed country funerals very well, in fact, because he was tough.   Elbert worked with the families while Uncle Roy whipped everybody into line.   He told them exactly what to do and where to sit or stand during the service.   He also drove the hearse.   On Sundays, he made sure that he got back to town by suppertime to catch Jack Benny on the radio.         My mother played the music for Elbert’s country funerals.   Growing up in Pike County, she learned gospel songs for church and prayers meetings, and she went su...
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Art

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    Art By Fred Holt We finally got an Art teacher. Miss Myrtle Langston came in 1943 to spend the summer with her sister. She brought her things from Monroe and made a studio upstairs at her sister's boarding house. She wrote friends before she came that she would do some painting and that she might take a few pupils We never had a regular Art teacher, unless you count Miss Allie Mae Temple and Miss Sue Martin. In Primary School, Miss Allie Mae taught us to make Indian teepees out of construction paper and Japanese umbrellas out of toothpicks. In the fifth grade, Miss Sue told us about artists like Winslow Homer and Grant Wood, and we all made Poppy Day posters for the American Legion Auxiliary.   But they weren't regular Art teachers. During school, Miss Allie Mae kept the auditorium and Miss Sue kept the library. Miss Sue taught Art at her house the summer before Miss Myrtle came. Harvey Donegan and I took from Miss Sue, together with some girls, in...
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