People talked about – Peg Leg Pete

One man’s creed

Many oldsters are given to philosophizing, as did Thed-ford Russell a while back, as he sat on his cabin stoop deep in the Piney Woods of Texas. Thed is no scholar-just a sage from the spittoon age. He talks about cars and telephones when they had to be cranked, and when a nickel’s worth of candy was enough to pass around. He even remembers when men didn’t expect girls to be sunburned where they are now!

Thed adopts no recognized religion, but by living close to nature he’s learned a tolerance toward all men and all creeds, believing that Jew, Gentile, Protestant, Catholic, aborigine and modern Indian all share a basic belief in a Supreme Power that guides their destinies. He abides by old quotations that admonish man not to hurt others in ways he himself would find hurtful. He adheres to the thought that no one is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. He regards his neighbor’s gain as his own gain-and his neighbor’s loss as his own loss. This common creed is all that counts with Thed, and he describes separation into sects on a par with people who look at the same picture-but through different lenses.

Peg Leg Pete

Now that we’re becoming a nation of act-alike, talk-alike, dress-alike people, our individualities are stifled and how rarely we see the colorful characters so prevalent in the past. Usually they were the salt of the earth and full of fun about their infirmities-particularly Peg Leg Pete. He was poor of purse but rich in recollections. Pete’s beard was sparse as second-growth timber in a clearing. He wore his overcoat until it was scorched by the summer sun and clung to his battered straw until the season’s first frost.

Pete had problems with his wooden limb but what a line he had about the troubles he had! To hear him, the sap of his first one froze when winter set in and split the limb in two. His second got so soaked in a storm that it warped and never tracked quite right after that. For the third, he chose a rich mahogany only that didn’t match the furniture at home so his wife made him toss it out. On the next try Pete picked a crabapple branch … but it lasted only until spring when it started to sprout … so he finally turned to sound and wormy oak. Then, darned if the woodpeckers didn’t give it a fit!

Looking back, how much more colorful were Pete’s troubles, than our current complaints about putting on pounds, taking off inches, catching a virus … or fighting the common cold!

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