Population, TN

2

Piddle Arrington was one of the ones Clem knew in a bad way. Piddle, or Paul, was begot  from millers. Piddle wasn't a miller anymore though. His clan became moonshiners and trouble makers a long, long time ago. And for most of Piddles life he was simply a trouble maker. He liked to drink but couldn't hold his liquor. He like to fight after he'd had his drink but couldn't seem to win. When he'd lost he'd have another drink and start another fight. And so on and so forth until the only fight he'd win was the one when he had pinned the mattress down in the drunk tank in the back of Clems little jail. Some folks will take a win anyway they can get one.         

Population, Tn

Population,TN

1

When you drive south down route 131 from Chattanooga you'll come across a sign just this side of the Tennessee - Georgia border that reads, "Population, TN". At the bottom of that sign it reads, "Population: 4,032". It isn't a even dot on the latest  AAA maps. It wasn't always named "Population". But you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who could tell you for sure the original name of this quiet little burg.  Depending on which story you believe it used to be called "Revenge", or "Millers Revenge". Either way no one knows for sure and half the fun of talking about it is the speculation of it all anyway. 

 The original name was blown off the original sign  some 200 years ago or so. Either  by a bad storm or an errant shot from a blunderbuss. It all happened around the time of one of the worst small pox epidemics the great state of Tennessee had seen or has seen since. And it happened there in Population,TN. Maybe, if it was shot off, the fellow who did it didn't believe there'd be anyone left alive to make use of the sign. The story has it that folks there were so preoccupied with the break out that they didn't have time or feel a need to make a new sign. Maybe he was right after all.  Later on someone from somewhere else came along and dubbed the town "Population". Kind of like they inherited it from the bottom of the sign. It stuck. 

 Other things are inherited here aside from the town name.  A miller begat a miller and a farmer begat a farmer and so on and so forth.  It was a curse to some and a blessing to others. 

There aren't many people here who you'd call rich and not to many you could call poor. Most of them are holding their own. 

 The office of sheriff was an elected post but you could pretty much get elected if you had the right last name.  Clem Baker did. As his father did. As his father before him did. And so on and so forth. There were sixteen sheriff's in the family and most of them held the post for life. Oh, there was an off election year every so often and a Miller or a Smith slid in. But usually you could run on the family name and guarantee  a victory.  

 Clem liked this town. He liked that you could walk through the heart of it and be out of it in less than ten minutes. The rural area wasn't much bigger either and  he knew most of the folks. Some better than others. The ones that could handle set backs and life's little losses he knew in a good way. The ones who couldn't he knew in a whole other way.