(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator
George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere
in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Building picket fence hard work”
was originally published in the Aug. 28, 1975 edition of The Monroe Journal in
Monroeville, Ala.)
Many of you who read this have never seen a picket fence.
Others, like myself, have not only seen one, but probably have from time to
time had to help build or repair one.
If you have never worked on a picket fence, you have missed
one of life’s tempting moments.
In building a fence made of pickets, you started by placing
a post at the point where you want the fence to begin. Then at intervals you
placed other posts until you had the length of fence you want.
Then, if you were one of the wealthier families around, you
purchased four strands of new wire from the local store. This you stretched
between the posts that you recently put in the ground.
If you were from one of the poorer families, you went out
behind the wagon shed and got four pieces of barbed wire that had been used
several times.
You always built or repaired picket fences on a cold and
windy day. This seems to be the allotted time for fence-building.
You never wore gloves when building a fence. This was
forbidden because the barbed wire would ruin the gloves, and you just couldn’t
afford to tear up good gloves fixing a fence.
After the wire was strung, you took these rough-hewed pickets
and forced them, ends first, down through the wire, being sure that each time,
the wire was on the opposite side of the picket previously placed. This gave
the appearance that the wire had been woven between the pickets.
After taking time out to pick the splinters out of your
hands and pour a little kerosene on the cuts that the wire had made, you
tightened up the fence by tapping the pickets with a wooden mall.
There was a knack to tightening a fence; not just anybody
could do it – especially when you were using barbed wire for the fourth or
fifth time
You had to tap it just the right amount. Kind of like tuning
a banjo. Too much stress on the wire might cause it to break. Besides losing
your religion, you had to pull out all the pickets and start over
After the fence was completed, the memory lingered for a
while. The sore fingers, the cuts, and the splinters took a few days to get
over.
My advice to those who have never built a picket fence is:
Don’t do it. You’ll be glad you didn’t.
[This column was
accompanied by a photo of an old picket fence that carried the following
caption: Old picket fence near Lone Star community in north Monroe County.]
(Singleton, the author
of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of
79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime
resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances
Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in
Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a
U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand,
lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964
and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from
June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks
to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe
County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe
Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that
appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared
in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He is buried in Pineville
Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns
are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County
Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week
for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work
and memory alive.)
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