Now this is a good 'un! So I'm writing ROBERTOREG'S NOTES on Chapter 6 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD and on page 63, I find Hearn Bannon saying, "Look at that bank walker's strut Buck's got." So I ask myself, "What's a 'bank walker's strut'?" I found out that the term "bank walker" comes from the habit of  certain young men back in the "buck nekkid at the swimmin' hole" days to confidently walk the bank after hanging their trousers and underwear on a nearby tree limb instead of discretely entering the water out of modesty. This practice comes down to us in the present-day in the guys who like to walk around the locker room without a towel. (from April 15, 2007 Raleigh News & Observer) 

"We are learning, as has every generation passing before us, that memories gain value when those who make them leave us." COURTNEY HADEN.

Chapter 32 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD opens with Buck Bannon celebrating winning a $2775 bet he made with the male citizens of Aven. Buck bet the men that the Aven Opera House could be built in 30 days.  Buck was a "sure thing" bettor so he was able to "fix" the outcome by forcing his building contractor to work overtime in order to finish the job in 30 days.  The contractor was forced to absorb the overtime work's expenses because Buck threatened to report him to the State of Alabama in Montgomery for the unlicensed use of convict labor in the construction of the Aven Opera House. The opera house was completed on the thirtieth day after the first brick was laid and Aven Mayor Bannon won almost three thousand dollars off a bet he made with his fellow citizens, at least one of whom lost $500.

The third section of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD consists of only Chapter 5 and Interlude #3. By showing the circumstances under which the Bannons leave their farm, this short section sets the stage for the rest of the novel. In Chapter 5, Buck convinces his aging parents that their failing health guarantees that their cotton farm is an unsustainable enterprise and that an alternative and profitable form of commerce may be found in Aven because that's the place where the area's poor farmers go to borrow money each year to finance their next season's crop and when that crop is harvested, those same poor farmers must surrender their harvested crops to their lender or turn over all property which was used as their collateral for their initial loan. Buck's mother is repelled by Buck's description of such a way of making a living but Buck wins the argument simply by saying, "Them that furnishes live a long time. The land don't break them." 

The Bannon's farmland had certainly broken Buck's father, Joe Bannon, and Buck's mother knows it. Since she is the decision maker in the Bannon family, she makes the choice to leave her old way of life for the modern conveniences of Aven's emerging industrial urban society. She summons all her faith in preparation for this radical change and sends up a simple prayer to her Lord, "Please don't let me be scared of all them folks."

One of "all them folks" in Aven is a former railroad brakeman named Jake Willis. The reader only sees Jake in the novel's interludes which are a literary device which the author uses to advance the novel's time line. Interlude #3 opens with a miserable Jake Willis talking to himself as he stares into the flames of the fire he has built with the scrap wood left over from the construction of the big house Buck Bannon is building for his family in Aven. "Bible says we'll always have pore folks. But how come, by God, it's got to be me?"

Jake lost his watch and his job in Interlude #2 so now he's doing odd jobs for his lender, Buck Bannon. Buck convinced his mother and father to move the family to Aven and now he is constructing them a house big enough to serve the large Bannon family. Buck has hired Jake to be his nightwatchman.

Jake's friend, Bascom Wooten, overhears Jake's complaints and joins him at his fire. Bascom checks the time on his watch and remarks that it is past midnight. Seeing Bascom look at his timepiece irritates Jake even more because it reminds Jake of his own railroad watch which he lost to Buck due to a late payment. Without his watch, Jake lost his job as a brakeman. Jake continues to gripe to Bascom, "Be damned if they ain't somethin' wrong when a man can lend you two dollars on a sixty-dollar watch, then in two-three year have it run up to more'n the watch cost."

When you owe money, you don't own yourself. You may not be in a condition of actual slavery but your "chains" are disguised under a form of contract labor and peonage or debt slavery. Your lender has a mortgage on you. This is the tough lesson that Jake Willis finally learns in Interlude #3. In the first two interludes, Jake is working as a brakeman on the railroad but a late payment on Jake's payday loan caused his creditor, Buck Bannon, to foreclose on Jake's railroad watch and as Jake says in Interlude #2, "Wheeoo, watch gone, job gone." In the novel's final eight interludes, Jake never returns to his railroad job and lives the rest of his working life doing odd jobs for Buck or for one of Buck's political cronies. Toward the end of the novel, Buck gives Jake his watch back but Jake's too old to go back to work on the railroad. As a consequence of a single payday loan, Jake Willis spends his entire working life as Buck Bannon's "mule." As Jake says in the novel's last interlude, "Me, I'm a damned mule. I just drag along, gee or haw."

 Ella Searcy Moody https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/99473117/ella-moody

 The HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC is now an e-book! Only $29.95, CHEAP!  https://www.ebay.com/itm/284837266428?hash=item42519fc3fc%3Ag%3AabAAAOSw3bpilkDk&fbclid=IwAR1zwLxCRPwPeHXCmPhINa2EWbhaYTkSlWFnMhKFYCREoyymg2_Uhd3l4u0

 Leslie Burr Cayce 1853-1937 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88291616/leslie-burr-cayce

Thomas Cayce Jones 1876-1952 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/66391914/thomas-cayce-jones

Edgar Cayce 1877-1945 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185/edgar-cayce

Walter H. Blackburn

Henry P. White 

from the December 4, 1919 Birmingham News 

 

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

taking, as Jesus did,

this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right

if I surrender to Your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

 

THE 23RD PSALM

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

THE LORD'S PRAYER

9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

 

 

THE OPTIMIST CREED

PROMISE MYSELF!

#1~ To be so strong that nothing can disturb MY peace of mind.

#2~ To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.

#3~ To make all MY friends feel that there is something in them.

#4~ To look at the sunny side of everything and make MY optimism come true.

#5~ To think of the best; to work only for the best; and expect only the best.

#6~ To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about MY own.

#7~ To forget the mistakes of the past, and press on to greater achievements for the future.

#8~ TO WEAR A CHEERFUL COUNTENANCE AT ALL TIMES AND GIVE EVERY CREATURE I MEET A SMILE.

#9~ To give so much time to the improvement of MYSELF that I have no time to criticize others.

#10~ To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

 

 

THE ROBERTOREG READER

dedicated to S.

for all the wrong reasons.

"Wrong can't ever be right. Be good, Bob."

~ Grandma Register

"EAT CORNBREAD. RAISE HELL."

~ Chukker graffiti

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

~ W.H. Murray

THE 23RD PSALM

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

THE LORD'S PRAYER

9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

THE SERENITY PRAYER

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

taking, as Jesus did,

this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right

if I surrender to Your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

THE OPTIMIST CREED

PROMISE MYSELF!

#1~ To be so strong that nothing can disturb MY peace of mind.

#2~ To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.

#3~ To make all MY friends feel that there is something in them.

#4~ To look at the sunny side of everything and make MY optimism come true.

#5~ To think of the best; to work only for the best; and expect only the best.

#6~ To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about MY own.

#7~ To forget the mistakes of the past, and press on to greater achievements for the future.

#8~ TO WEAR A CHEERFUL COUNTENANCE AT ALL TIMES AND GIVE EVERY CREATURE I MEET A SMILE.

#9~ To give so much time to the improvement of MYSELF that I have no time to criticize others.

#10~ To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

I begin this book with an introduction to guide the reader.

(to be continued...)

 Lock's 1, 2 and 3  

 page 57 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:

Jake stood up quickly and his hands shook. "Be damned if they ain't somethin' wrong when a man can lend you two dollars on a sixty-dollar watch, then in two-three year have it run up to more'n the watch cost." (clipping from the June 20, 1925 DOTHAN EAGLE)