Whispers of Kosse’s Past

For many of us, history is a fascinating subject, one that fuels the imagination and leads to exciting discoveries. While looking through old photographs at the Kosse Heritage Society, I came across a group of writings written by a man that called himself “Lazy Lester”.

From the notes on the margins of some of them, I deduced that they had once been published somewhere; the Kosse Cyclone, the Kosse Echo, or maybe even the Groesbeck Journal. There were no dates, and no signatures other than “Lazy Lester”. Some of the stories are handwritten, some are typed.

I eagerly began to read them, hoping that they would contain clues about Kosse’s past that have since been forgotten. I expected to spend a few hours deciphering the old script and coming out with a handful of notes that would lead me down new paths of discovery.

Well, I did spend a few hours, but ended up with no notes. Instead, I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing so much! I don’t know who Lazy Lester was (it has been suggested that this was a pseudonym for Flew Parsons), but I know that I would have loved to have met the man that wrote these stories!!

A Walk from Kosse

By: Lazy Lester

Once upon a time there was a tall, skinny boy with pimples on his face who thought he knew it all. He was always going off on a wild goose chase, trying to find a way to get out of picking cotton and cutting stove wood; and he was from Heads Prairie. Well that night I swung off this freight train in Kosse. Mr. Rube Dillion was down there as usual, and when I told him I was going to walk out home, he said. “You know Lazy, it gets pretty dark away from these depot lights.”

Well, I started out (that was before Highway 7 was thought of.). I went over that Weaver Hill and right on down though Eutaw. It was getting darker and a little foggy. I saw a dim light in the window at Malone’s and thought about going out there and telling them that I needed to stop for the night, but I was afraid that Jack would think I was afraid to continue on. Just to be honest, I was a little more jumpy than usual.

I rounded that corner; you know where the tank of water was, and the red flowers used to be? I had just passed the Lauderdale place, and then it dawned on me; this was not a good night to be out.

I was approaching Persimmons Pond and that is where the ghost got after my uncle Harrison Clark, back when he was searching for gold. I was looking toward Persimmons Pond and could see some kind of eerie light coming up off those old dead trees.

It couldn’t be those white birds that live out there, because they don’t fly at night. The fog got thicker and thicker. Maybe it was fox fire, and maybe Uncle Harrington was right. Anyhow, I was not going to stick around to see, because it seemed like this light was settling right in over me.

I TOOK OFF!!! I went around that corner where Boyd and Gladys used to live and right across that culvert below and cut through the back of the Bill Bullock place. I figured on coming out right in front of John Kidd’s store and cutting across the Clark place right to our back door.

Needless to say, I was hurdling them fences. Just as things began to look a little better and I slowed down, I glanced over my shoulder and in the misty fog could see what appeared to be a medium sized wolf loping along behind me.

I turned it on and when I jumped that fence in front of the store, a big jack rabbit jumped up. I kicked him out of the way and said, “Move Mr. Rabbit and let somebody in there that can run!” I thought maybe he would attract the wolf’s attention, BUT NO!!! The wolf preferred to continue after me.

I knew that the gap to the stomp lot just behind out house was open, so I headed for it. Well, our old plow horse named Bill was laying in the sand in that gap asleep. That wolf and me hit old Bill at the same time and he got up in a hurry.

When I got up and the fog had lifted, that wolf turned out to be old Dutch, my collie dog. I said, “Dutch I ought to snatch a hickory limb off this tree and wear you out for scaring me like this!”

But who could hit a poor old collie dog who had treed the biggest coon ever on Pool Branch? Sometime, I’ll tell you about the real pack of wolves that got after me when I was possum hunting down on Duck Creek.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m still laughing! There are many more jewels like this in our collection. If anyone knows for sure who Lazy Lester was, we would love to know so that we can attribute these wonderful stories to a real person. Perhaps, though, it is more fun to leave Lazy Lester a mystery!