© Dr. Gary D. Lemmons, June 24, 2007

When I was a boy growing up in Flowertown, our community was in that transitory stage between country and suburbia.  Sub-divisions of the 1950s version were developing in what had been largely a rural area.  Despite the growth, there was still quite a bit of wilderness for a young pre-teen boy to explore.

My cousins and I enjoyed traipsing through the "woods", as we called them, and venturing into the cut that set behind my aunt and uncle’s house where the L & N Railroad lay.  In those days, it was not illegal to walk along the railroad tracks.  Nowadays, one would be whisked away by homeland security…unless one was an illegal alien, of course.

Invariably in the summer, we would decide that we were going to camp out.  It was usually at that point that my aunt would intervene with the “hot of the presses” news that a prisoner had escaped from the state prison in Nashville and was last seen making a beeline for Flowertown.

If that dire tale had been used previously that summer, she would then resort to the one admonition that was always available.

“You boys do whatever you want to,” she would say, “but you know that something’s out!”

She would go on, “The dogs barked all night last night.  I could hear Mr. Stapleton’s cattle bellowing in the night.  Something is out… sure as the world.”

Generally, that would end our camping out plans, but we would spend the rest of the day searching the "woods" for signs of the “something.”

The truth of the matter was that my aunt and my Momma did not want us pre-teen boys to camp out alone, and it would be a lot of trouble for them to camp out with us which is what would have happened.

One summer morning in 1960, I walked down to my aunt’s house.  My uncle, who was retired from public work, was working in his mammoth vegetable garden.  It had stormed the night before and the soil was quite muddy.

Calling out to me as I walked into the yard, my uncle motioned me to come his way.  I ventured into the garden area, taking care to avoid the worst of the mud.

“Something’s out,” my uncle announced, pointing toward the ground in front of him.

Looking down, I saw a line of animal tracks that had entered, walked smack through the middle, and exited the garden at the south rim of the cut through which the trains ran.  The animal tracks appeared to be paws rather than hoofs, and there was the clear indication of claws.

“Wonder what made those?” my uncle mused, more to himself than to me. 

Later my Daddy took a look at the tracks and said he thought they were made by a small bear.

At any extent, front porch conversation in the evenings was centered on those strange tracks for several weeks thereafter. 

The other morning on my walk through my neighborhood, I noted that a number of dogs were barking incessantly.  Additionally, I noted that at the farm that adjoins our sub-division, the cows were bawling in an excited manner.

“Something’s out,” I thought to myself.

Then it struck me…that something…was me!