Saturday, August 10, 2019

George Singleton recalls the bygone days of picket fence building


(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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