#linthead

Daddy and the Sweet Old Lady’s Apoplectic Fit

I was never exactly sure whether my father, Bill Strickland, was an amateur adult or a professional adolescent. Here is just one of the many incidents that led to my confusion. The Pledgers, Bryant and Erma, a middle age childless couple, were our next door neighbors in Fairfax, an east Alabama mill village, when I was growing up. Mr. Bryant operated the Sinclair Service Station at the…