Lynyrd Skynyrd

I indulged myself in two Lynyrd Skynyrd moments in Stones from the Creek.  Rock and roll fans will know that Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington and Allen Collins named their band after a hated gym teacher, Leonard Skinner, who acted as a dean in their Florida high school (Robert E. Lee… really) and enforced the rule against long hair.  They used a sign from his realty agency for an album cover which resulted in his having to change his phone number after a slew of hate calls from total strangers.  He, meanwhile, had become friendly with the now-adult musicians.

I have two repellent sheriffs in my stories.  The first is Raymond J. Hearn of Barnwell County, SC.  He sends Mingo Sanders to a work gang at a privately-owned phosphate mine without so much as a hearing.  His grandson is a conservative Republican congressman.

The second is John Edack of Lyon County, NV.  He also made his living arresting people in order to provide free labor for local employers.  In his case, the arrested (I won't say "convict" because there was no legitimate charge or conviction) were Pyramid Lake Paiute Indians.

Neither of these is a historical character.  They are names I assigned to characters who were performing the vicious and exploitative work that sheriffs, in fact, did in those two counties and many more at that time.  But their names, while not drawn from the historic record, were also not made up.

Raymond J. Hearn was the assistant principal of the junior high school I attended.  John Edack was assistant principal of my high school.  I have unpleasant memories of both.  They seemed to me to dislike teens and all-to-happy to punish students unfairly.  When I was myself and assistant principal, other teachers and administrators were astonished that I had such stories.  After sharing one in a graduate seminar once, I heard the hushed whisper, "And he's and assistant principal!"

The truth is that educators like that drove me to become a teacher myself.  I kept feeling, "It shouldn't have to be so bad."  And I tried hard to be a different kind of person, I think successfully.  I was surprised when old classmates started reading Stones from the Creek and did not recognize the names.   I guess my friends were able to shake them off over the last four-and-a-half decades; they had an unforgettable effect on me.  But I will not thank them.