Metamora Jam

[TommyK]

Well, went to my first Metamora Jam. The pickers was thin and the crowd was thinner.

 

But after the drizzle quit about noon, the sun shone and it was a gorgemous day.

 

We even got to witness a bona fide Navy retirement. They took up the gazebo, so we moved over to the band stand. Some really good pickers. I played until I was too tired to go on... that and I had to get home to supper.

 

I did stop by to look at the new Abraham Lincoln statue. Lincoln, you see, had lawyered at this court and other court houses on his circuit back in the day. Actually there's two life-sized bronze statues. One is of a quite old woman, not Mary Todd. My interest was piqued!

 

The information plaque explains that the female stature is of a woman he represented in a murder trial. This septuagenarian wife was abused by her, also septuagenarian, husband for years. She was accused of killing him with a stick of stove wood. It happened that this old woman made her escape from the court house. Nobody in the community, including the sheriff had any desire to pursue her as, it appears, they all thought her husband deserved it.

 

When Lincoln was confronted about encouraging her to escape. He said he did no such thing. He said that when she asked where she could get a drink of water, he told her, "I understand Tennessee has good tasting water."