I have reached that stage of my life where nearly everything that happens of any significance reminds me of something else. Sometimes something happens and it reminds me of an event from a week or two before, sometimes it reminds me of something that happened back in the 1980's or 1990's. Occasionally it reminds me of something older than that.
I am an Auburn fan. I have been ever since I was ten years old, I am currently sixty three years old. During those 53 years I have seen a lot. This current years football season has reminded me of a lot of things. The most recent being the 2004 season. Also I have had old feelings that reminded me of when Bo Jackson played. I've even had some emotions similar to the early seventies when Pat Sullivan was there and the 1972 Iron Bowl when what looked like a losing cause turned into a spectacular delight.
Since the news broke week before last on the allegations against Cam Newton, I have been trying to put it in perspective. What does this remind me of from the past. Since the story is not over with yet, I am having a hard time figuring out exactly what it reminds me of but I have seen enough of the handling of the story and the slow leaking of information that I know what I am reminded of with regard to that.
It is a story that I have not thought about since I was in my late teens. Back then, we did not have Snopes so it might have been an urban legend, I don't know, but I do know that when I heard it, it troubled me greatly. This is how it was told to me. There was an old man that lived by himself out in the country, near Kellyton. He was a bit reclusive and did not have a lot of visitors. He was rumored to have a stash of cash hidden somewhere on his farm. One day, two or three people came up to his house and gained entry on some pretense. They overwhelmed the old man and tied him to a ladder back chair. They told him to tell them where his money was or they were going to hurt him. He told them he did not have any money. They took a pair of bolt cutters and cut off the end joint of one of his little fingers. After the commotion had settled down, they asked him again to tell them the location of his money. He again insisted that he had no money. They cut off another finger joint. They continued on that tact for several days. After a while, they apparently decided that the old man loved his money more than his fingers so they told him if he did not tell them where he had hid his money they were going to do something worse to him. He still insisted that he had not money. As it was told to me, they decided to band his arm with screen wire, so tight that the skin would pop through the grids on the wire and then shave it with a safety razor. The affect was to cut off hundreds of pieces of skin and open up his arm for bleeding and infection. The guys that told me this story said that after this had gone on for a few days and the old man still did not give up the location of his money, that the thieves took some household items and left, leaving him to die. If I remember correctly, a neighbor happened by for some reason and found him. That is all I remember of the story. I don't recall if the old man died, if the torturers were caught or any of that. It has been over 40 years since I first heard this story and about that many years since I had thought of it again, but there is something about the way the information has been presented about the Cam Newton controversy that brought that old story back to mind. Like I said, everything reminds me of something else.
