The
High Cost of Living
Just
before noon on Friday, October 4, 1935, Dr. G. O. Moss drove over
to my parents' humble home, a 4-room unpainted tenant house on Trinity
Church Road, near the intersection of Gantt's Grove Road, about two
miles from Mooresboro, to deliver their new son—me. After the
doctor left, Daddy spent the rest of the day helping Grandpa pull
fodder.
Daddy
later got this enormous bill for $25. He was able to pay it from the
proceeds from our cotton crop. Thank goodness I was born in the Fall.
Inasmuch
as the date on the bill was wrong, 1934 instead of 1935, I recently
asked Buzzie Moss, son of the late Dr. Moss, if I could get a refund.
He thought not, guessing my warranty had probably run out.
The little
house no longer exists. What remains is just a fallow field, with
no evidence that anything important ever happened there; last time
I drove by, I could see that no bronze plaque had been erected on
the site. —Reno Bailey
Artifact
and information courtesy Ruby Fraser Bailey