| ||||||||||
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... |
Tom Chaney: Big Harp, Little Harp, and Billie Potts Of Writers And Their Books: Big Harp, Little Harp, and Billie Potts. Tom discusses Robert Penn Warren’s poem, "The Ballad of Billie Potts” depicting the terrors of travel in the days of flatboats on the rivers and the disaster that can come from an ‘innocent’ deception. This column first appeared 3 April 2005. The next earlier Tom Chaney column: Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale By Tom Chaney Big Harp, Little Harp, and Billie Potts In December 1811 while the Lewis brothers were butchering and burning the slave George on the first night of the New Madrid earthquake, an alarming man-made portent was making its belching, whooping way past Rocky Hill down the Ohio headed for New Orleans. Nicholas Roosevelt, shipbuilder, was aboard The New Orleans, the first steamboat to steam from Pittsburg to New Orleans -- proving to his partners, Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston, that such a vessel could navigate the rough, western rivers as well as the placid Hudson While a harbinger of the new era, 'twould be years before the steamboat replaced the earlier flatboats on The Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. And the flatboat era was the heyday of the river bandits around Cave-in-Rock. Big Harp, Little Harp, and a gang of desperados waylaid the slow-moving flatboats, killing the crews and stealing the goods. Traveling by foot to the West was not any safer. Robert Penn Warren sets a fine poem, "The Ballad of Billie Potts," in the land between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Big Billie Potts and his wife own a tavern in the land between the rivers. The hospitable host found out all he could about his guests, sent word by runner ahead to outlaws who waylaid, robbed and murdered the unsuspecting travelers. In the Warren poem, the runner fails to show one night and Big Billie sends his "whickering boy" Little Billie to alert the robbers. Little Billie decides to cut out the middleman, lies in wait for the traveler and attempts to rob him. The traveler, smarter than the average mark, gets the drop on Billie and shoots him -- not fatally. Little Billie hightails it back home, and his pap packs him off to the west. The story of Little Billie is interlaced with the 20th Century traveler fleeing west to the last motel on the last beach after getting the message -- "Flee, all is discovered!" Like the salmon, Little Billie, the modern traveler, and the tens of thousands of easterners learn little from the flight west. Little Billie comes home. He is unrecognized by an old friend, Joe Drew, and decides to have some fun with Big Billie and his mammy who don't recognize him either. He joked them and teased them and he had his funAfter supper he asks for fresh water, 'this here ain't no fresher than a horse puddle.'He kneels at the feet of his father who is ignorant and evil and old. Whilst Little Billie drinks through the reflection of one star and his face, Big Billie takes the hatchet from the bucket and plants it in Little Billie's head. Then he robs him and buries him by the spring. While Big Billie and Mammy are counting their takings figuring their luck has turned, Joe Drew arrives and asks after Little Billie. 'Air you crazy,' said Big, 'and plum outa yore head,Joe Drew leaves, they go to the spring and dig up the traveler. Mammy denies it's Billie and mentions a birthmark 'below his left tit -- shaped for luck.' The hour is late, Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, planning his next meal, and occasionally selling books at THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney - bookstore@scrtc.com http://www.alibris.com/stores/horscave This story was posted on 2016-02-28 03:55:26
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books:
Tom Chaney: Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale Tom Chaney: Money, Sex, and Murder Tom Chaney: Night Rider: Idealism's Coil Tom Chaney: Cyrus Edwards on the Elizabeth Wilson Family Tom Chaney: Facts, Facts -- More Facts Tom Chaney: What Might Have Been Tom Chaney: Manhunt Tom Chaney: Murder in Scandinavia Tom Chaney: Me Growed from a Pumpkin Seed Tom Chaney: Jim Lowe's Reading Suggestions View even more articles in topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books |
|
||||||||
| ||||||||||
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
|