Some Observations from the Hill
by H. H. "Hub" Brown
When Ag and I were married in 1928, we lived for a time with Ag's Mom, her brother Leo, two sisters, and a boarder at the corner of Main and Beethoven Streets in Binghamton. Our neighbors on the second floor below us were the Coffeys. He was a Linotype repairman, a Canadian who had been sent by his company to South Africa where he had become acquainted with Mary (the daughter of a missionary) who later became Mrs. Coffey. Neither had ever driven a car and Bill wanted to know if they bought a car, would I teach him to drive? I had some doubts about teaching someone in his fifties, but they were both good tennis players, so in great physical shape, and had been very kind to us, so I agreed. They bought a new Chevy sedan and he had progressed with his driving enough so that when I would feel his forearm when he had hold of the wheel, that it didn't feel as though it were made of stone.

One Sunday they wanted to go for a drive, so with Bill driving we went up near Nineveh. I saw a man walking on our side of the road, carrying a lunch pail in his left hand. I thought Bill was allowing him enough room but maybe he swung his hand out a little just as we were passing him. Anyway, the car struck his lunch bucket which struck his leg which knocked him off his feet and into the brush. Bill didn't stop immediately but I told him he had to stop. His wife piped up, "He's motioning for you to go on, that he is all right!"

By then Bill had come to a wider place and pulled over. The Coffeys were very sorry and wanted to do anything to help. They offered him money, but he said that was all right. They tried to buy him a new lunch pail, tried to give him money to buy more lunch, but he refused everything and acted as though he wished we would leave.

When we had come back for a little while, we found out why. Two state troopers showed up that evening with a long list of charges against Bill: he had been driving so fast that he couldn't stop for a thousand yards, he had deliberately crowded the man off the road, he had started to drive away but must have had second thoughts. The troopers took statements from each of us and told Bill not to worry too much. The insurance company must have taken care of everything, the Coffeys never told us of the final outcome. Later on, a man I worked with said he knew this man and that he had had an accident similar to this before.

Mrs. Coffey told us of an amusing incident that she had heard of once. It seems there was a small troupe of singers and actors that put on little shows in the small towns. One of the female singers sang of a little old lady who loved her vegetable garden but because of the hot sun she usually waited until the evening to work in it. One line in this song told of this little old lady who every evening "squats among her cabbage and peas." The next day a delegation from the church came and asked if that line could not be changed. The townspeople, they said, like Elmer Gantry, wanted to avoid the very appearance of evil. The singer told them that would be no problem. So the next evening when that song came up, it ran along much the same as it had before except the last couple lines which told of this little old lady who every evening, "squats among her lettuces and leeks."