This is the 4th and final part of the Tubby Clark Story. Tubby’s story appeared in the Wednesday, April 28, issue of the Brown County Democrat.
Tubby’s health is good except for a few pains in his joints from time to time. He quit drinking and smoking many years ago but sheepishly admits to taking a chew every now and then.
He could be a joiner because he wasn’t home enough to go to meetings. He attends the Christian Science Church with Blanch and has gone to other churches occasionally. I knew Blanch. I used to do her hair. Politics doesn’t appeal to Tubby. He was raised by a politically active father and saw enough in those early days.
What he does miss is fox hunting. He used to have 12 hounds, a dog trailer, a camper, and a pickup truck. “But I never tried to kill a fox.” I used to buy them and turn them loose just to hear the dogs run. We used to hear from the people in town about keeping all the dogs. If any dog in town howled, I got the credit for it, even on nights when I was away running those hounds and there wasn’t a dog on the place.”
1947 was a big year for Tubby and Blanch. He won a new 4-door maroon Chevrolet sedan, raffled off by the Brown County American Legion. “Some of the boys knocked on our door, after 10 o’clock that night. They said to come down and claim the car. I thought they were pulling my leg and told them the car would be there in the morning. Next morning, I phoned Les Walker, Post Commander-and asked him about the car. He said yes, it was true, and I was the lucky guy. I was popular for a while. It was soon after the war and there were not many new cars anywhere to be had. I was pestered by people wanting to buy the car from me. I finally sold it after I‘d kept it a little while. That same year I won a pool on the Kentucky Derby and won a .22 rifle in a conservation club raffle.”
Tubby remembers a lot about Nashville and the way it used to be, such as the electric plant generator chugging into action, back behind where the Gypsy Pot is now, every night around 6 p.m., and the quiet and darkness when they shut it down around 11.
He remembers the Livery Stable where the pine Room is, and Keith Taggart working there. And another Stable just south of the Pittman House, the Maple Hotel, that became the Pittman House. Tubby had a little gray riding horse he “got off a junk wagon in Columbus.” Any time someone would yell, ‘old rags, old iron’, the horse would stop. The Old log jail lot used to be full of horses and buggies and that’s where the public restrooms were.
“When I was in the sixth or seventh grade, timberman Pete Thomas had a sawmill where the Nashville elementary school sets. His mules, wagons and logging equipment were kept where McDonalds Chevrolet garage is now. We had a little sawmill of our own up on Dad’s 235 acres, on Salt Creek Road, where I made and sold a grand total of eight crossties. I did saw the material for the little house Chud (Charles) Dice built, facing the Pine Room, on the back of Peggy Davis’s lot.
“One of the best times I had as a kid was being page boy during two sessions of the state legislature when my father was a member. I was just a kid off the farm, up there in the capitol with all the commotion, and those bright lights-and they gave me tickets to every show in town.
“I got tickled at the legislative business. They’d call a session about 10 a.m. and by the time they got settled down it would be lunch time. After lunch they’d just get settled down again and it would be 2 p.m. and they’d get ready to adjourn. I wonder if they are doing the same thing these days!”
Tubby describes his retirement, saying, “It’s hard. I enjoyed it for a couple of years, but I spend most of my time looking for something to do. I never had time to create any hobbies, except I was mechanically minded and like to tinker with machinery. I drive my car, watch TV, read, and look over the town.
“One of the things I miss most is the loafers. Every business place had a place for them, nail kegs or a bench. And most of the stores would stay open till 8 or 9 o’clock at night. Any more there’s hardly anybody to talk to and nobody wants you in the stores if you are not there to buy.
“People are always asking; how do we preserve Nashville or Brown County. To me there’s only one way, leave it alone. It used to be, when the artists and others came in, they blended right in. They wanted to leave the community just like it was.
People come here now and seem to like it, and they buy a place here, but soon they want to change what they liked before. It just keeps on going.”
The End
Theron E. Clark, 8 Oct. 1812 – 2 Mar. 1993.
Blanch M. Schooley Clark, 19 Sept. -1907 – 2 Nov. 1994.
Greenlawn Cemetery, Nashville, Indiana
Submitted by Pauline Hoover
Brown County Historical Society
