You Can't Trust Somebody Who Kicks Your Cat

October 28, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill.

As you can see in the photo here, not much going on Main Street on a Tuesday afternoon. There are days when I go out and stomp on the sidewalk just to see if I can wake up anybody in the town. But nobody ever rushes out of the stores to see what's going on. The street just sits there empty as ever. Empty might be good if Dad would let me bring my rollerskates to town, but he won't. Now, doesn't that look like the best place to skate you've ever seen, but Dad thinks I might run somebody over. I know how to stop. Now. That time I barreled into Mrs. Jeffries in front of newspaper office, well, she should have seen me coming. She could step to the side easier than I could. I was only beginning to learn to skate then. Besides, my scrapes were lots worse than hers. She hardly bled at all, and Dad made me break into my piggy bank to give her money to buy a new pair of hose. 

Did you ever rollerskate on the sidewalk? I bet you ran over somebody now and again too, didn't you? I sure do wish they'd let us take rollerskates to school. Then it would be easier to make it between classes. Can you imagine everybody on rollerskates? Even the teachers. Mrs. Watson would have to give up those spike heels. She'd probably wobble less on the skates. 

But back to running over things, that Mr. Whitlow is back to coming to sweet talk Zella. Good thing he never stays long or Zella would never get the ads typed up for the paper to come out. She hardly knows her name when he's around. But there's something about him. Something weird - something even more than him acting like he's struck on Zella. And that's weird enough.

He kicked Cat. He did. I saw him. Cat was being halfway friendly. Either that or Cat thought Mr. Whitlow might have a cat treat in his pants cuff. I'd go for the cat treat. Could be Mr. Whitlow had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch and dropped a bit of it in his cuff. Cats have good noses. And they do not like to be kicked! What kind of man kicks a cat just because said Cat is sniffing his pant cuffs and shoes? It's not like he couldn't move around Cat. Cat's very small. Poor thing's been up on the top of the fence ever since. Wes says he'll come down when he gets hungry. Unless he catches a bird. See what that Mr. Whitlow set in motion. I'm thinking he's ready to set something else in motion, but I have no idea what. But it can't be good. Just ask Cat.

So I'm back on the detective trail again. Maybe something will show up on Halloween night. That's when the goblins and ghosts come out, isn't it? Mr. Whitlow is some kind of strange for sure. 

Do you think Zella saw him kick Cat? She gets sort of blinded when that man is around. What would you do if you saw someone kicking your cat?

  

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Caught Eavesdropping

June 10, 1964

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill. This sign is awful. I took a picture of it to try to convince Dad to start a campaign in the Banner for new street signs. What will people passing through think of a town that has a rusty sign for Main Street? Most of the folks here don't pay any attention to the street signs. It's not like you can miss Main Street or get lost anywhere in Hollyhill for that matter. If you've seen Main Street, you've seen Hollyhill. 


But we do occasionally have a tourist or stranger come through. Take Mr. Whitlow. He's a stranger come to stay, or so it seems. I haven't been spying on him as much. Dad laid down the law to me after I got caught eavesdropping on Mr. Whitlow and Zella. 

Can you believe that the man has asked Zella out to dinner? A real date and everything. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it with my own ears. I heard that much of what they said before Red, the cat, gave me away by mewing loudly as he slid through the crack I'd left in the press room door after Zella told me to get lost. 

Of course, she told Dad I was spying on her. What hasn't she told him about me? Anyway, Dad said I was being way too nosy and ordered me to leave Mr. Whitlow and Zella alone. So I have to, but I still say there's something fishy about that man. And much as Zella irritates me I don't want her going out with an ax murderer. Okay, so I've never seen the man carrying around an ax. Okay, so I've never seen the man even carrying around a big stick. So maybe I am wrong. I guess we'll find out all about him next Monday after Zella goes out with him on Saturday. If she comes to work...

So since then, Dad has been keeping me too busy taking photos of the peewee league baseball games to eavesdrop on anybody except parents talking about their kids being the next Babe Ruth. But Dad knows what he doing. You get a good picture of a kid that age and put it in the newspaper, you're practically guaranteed to sell some extra issues. Put several baseball kid pictures in there and you might sell all your issues.

But I'd rather be in Australia taking pictures. Now that would be neat, wouldn't it? And especially neat today with the partial solar eclipse they're seeing there. The scientists say we'll be able to see one here in July. I can't wait. They say to protect your eyes you should look through old negatives. We should be able to find plenty of those.

The other thing that happened in the big town news was that finally the southern senators ended their filibuster on the Civil Rights bill. At last they're going to be voting on it. Or at least I guess they will. Don't know much about politics. Daddy says if I keep working on newspapers, I will have to keep up with politicians and what they're doing. 

Maybe that's Mr. Whitlow's secret. Maybe he's an undercover politician. But I don't guess politicians are undercover. They want everybody to know them and hear them too. That's the way the mayor is anyway. I can't imagine having to listen to him spout about everything at the city council meetings and then have to write about it. I'd rather write about solar eclipses. Or space launches. Or even new flavors of ice cream at the Grill. 

Yumm! Ice cream. Maybe I'll head up Main Street and have a shake. What's your favorite flavor? I go chocolate all the way.

Hunting Strange on Main Street

Hunting Strange on Main Street in Hollyhill

Hello. Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill, Kentucky where everything seems pretty ordinary the same as every day. My fellow reporter, Wesley Green, thinks I’ll spot something strange to report on here in our new venture, the Hollyhill Book of the Strange. But I’m still thinking the Book of the Ordinary would suit our little town better. He shakes his head at me and says everything seems pretty strange here to him, seeing as how he landed here from Jupiter. 

I can’t argue with that. I’m sure if I was up on Jupiter, I’d think things were strange. That’s the one that has all the moons. Wes says over sixty of them, but only four that look much like our earth moon. Think about looking up at the sky and seeing four moons shining down on you with dozens of others popping out here and there like bouncing balls. Wes says folks going out at night on Jupiter have to wear hats to keep from getting moonburnt. That could definitely make a book of the strange.

But here in Hollyhill we only have one moon to shine down on our Main Street. So come on and we’ll walk down it together. You can poke me if you notice something strange that I’ve looked at all my life and think is ordinary as can be. Of course, then I may just think you’re strange. 

First we’ll go down Main Street where the stores are lined up on either side, snuggled edge to edge. We have two stoplights – one in front of the courthouse and another up by the post office on the north end of town. The post office was built during the Great Depression by the WPA. That was the government giving people jobs and our little town got a great big post office out of it. That’s kind of interesting but not exactly strange since it happened in towns all across the country. Then again it might be strange that they built it up so high off the street. The workers must have had a fondness for building steps or maybe it was just to make the job last longer. 

We have two grocery stores, two ten cent stores, two banks, two drugstores, two ladies’ dress shops, two lawyer offices, two hardware stores, two furniture stores, two Laundromats, and two grills. Notice a trend here? Well, before you decide Hollyhill has two of everything which might be decidedly strange, I’ll point out we only have one newspaper office, one barbershop, one defunct hotel, one chiropractor’s office. There are three poolrooms that are off limits to kids like me. To make up for whatever mischief might go on in them, four churches anchor both ends of Main Street – First Baptist, Presbyterian, Christian and Methodist. The Pentecostal and Second Baptist churches are on back streets behind Main. Oh, I forgot the jewelry stores – two of them too. But only one men’s store. There used to be a movie house, but it went out of business years ago. Dad tells me when he was a kid there was a bowling alley in the upstairs rooms over where the wallpaper store is now. That’s strange enough to think about. Somebody bowling over top your head. There used to be an Opera House and hotel too, right across from the train depot, but that’s on a side street up from Main.  Oh, and I forgot the car dealerships, Ford and Chevrolet, that are right on Main Street. And there’s two gas stations at the end of town past that courthouse stoplight going south.

Whew, I’m beginning to wonder how all of these buildings can be squeezed along one Main Street. The churches and the post office do spill on down the street from the two and a half block center of town. And that most important building, the library is on another side street up from the Post Office. We have Andrew Carnegie to thank for that. I looked him up in the encyclopedia and he gave building grants to start over 1,600 libraries in America and Hollyhill’s was one of them. Thank you, Mr. Carnegie! 

So we’ve walked down Main and taken a side trip up to the library, but I’ve not spotted much strange. Did you? If so let me know so I can take another look. And meet me again next Monday. By then something exciting might have happened. Don’t hold your breath, but I suppose anything is possible. Even in Hollyhill. 

(Remember, if you leave a comment here or on One Writer's Journal, you'll be entered in a giveaway for an autographed copy of Scent of Lilacs. Each comment gives you an extra entry. Drawing March 1.)