Oscar & Ethel

These two, uniquely themselves and uniquely joined together, live in Purchase County near the little county seat town of Scarrsville Kentucky. Scarrsville's chief claim to fame is that it is the home of Oscar and Ethel, and truth to tell, Scarrsville is just as fictional and just as real, as Oscar and Ethel.

The Sunrise Cafe is the place to know in Scarrsville. Here is where Oscar meets the old curmudgeons for coffee and gossip. It is where Ethel knows to look for Oscar when he is long from home, and he does lose the sense of time when he is swapping tales at the Sunrise.

If you are sitting in the Sunrise you can look out upon the Court House Square and find yourself confronting General Robert E. Lee. Lee is mounted on his horse Traveler who has three feet on the pedestal and one foot raised to take the next step in defense of the beloved and tragic Southland. Lee faces North where the enemy is expected to appear at any moment.

The years have bestowed a green/grey patina to both Lee and Traveler, and pigeons have added what they could to the glorious equestrian figure. It is shameful that the birds have no respect for heroes. The United Daughters of the Confederacy have the statue cleaned at least once each year, for the glory is still there in the mind of Oscar anyway and maybe for fleeting moments in Ethel's memory of the history book account of the Civil War.

Oscar is rather ordinary in appearance. Not an imposing figure. He is rather short, balding, and rotund. Academic is the word for Oscar. Athletic is an acronym for Oscar. He writes, mostly Southern Tales, for Oscar is a true Southerner. A Georgian by birth, he grew to manhood in that Empire State of the South, and it is uncertain what events brought him to Kentucky but he associates it somehow with his marriage to Ethel who is a native of Purchase County and has numerous relatives living there. Oscar claims that it was an economic decision. "I couldn't pay the long distance telephone bill if we lived anywhere else."

Ethel does have a strong affinity for her family members and she likes to talk to them on the telephone. She talks to Oscar more than he listens to her, and they do tend to disagree on many matters. Ethel calls these disagreements discussion but Oscar characterizes them as "cat and dog fights" and "knock down and drag outs." Ethel says that Oscar tends to exaggerate this as he does everything in order to show off his command of graphic language. Ethel herself is rather straightforward in setting forth her opinions, and Oscar is apt to be a bit academic in the hope of winning an argument with heavy artillery. This is not often, if ever, effective because heavy artillery is not prescribed for hand to hand, face to face combat.

Oscar and Ethel do not fight about the big things that other couples are reputed to come to blows over. No big battles over sex and money and religion or politics. No need for it. Not enough of these weighty matters in their lives to fight about. So they fight about little common things like that damn' computer. That was the way they got into the Southern Tales and that is the way they will stay there because the computer is here to stay and to rule the roost in their house because of Ethel.

I told you that Oscar is a writer, but he does not go in for modern gadgetry; he is a pencil and paper man, and he is convinced that the best things were written in Athens about four or five thousand years ago. Until he started writing his Southern Tales. But Ethel wishes Oscar would come out of the nineteenth century long enough to breath a little fresh air. She says he could work a lot faster if he would just learn to use the computer. But Oscar says he can write a lot faster than anybody is willing to publish what he writes. "So what do I need with a damn' computer?"

Ethel is a woman you would notice even if you ran across her shopping at WalMart where everybody in Scarrsville can be found at the same time. She is well preserved for her years, and although she will tell you how old she is if she thinks it is any of your business, she was offended by the local Scarrsville Clarion's advertisement of her age in a story about a traffic accident in which she was engaged, and hurt, and maybe even at fault but that is nobody's business either. "Yes," Ethel said, "I was hit by a log truck and my beautiful little car was demolished, but did they have to tell my age?"

Ethel keeps her blonde hair cut short and she keeps her short hair blonde. The only way you would know it is not natural is the roots give away her secret. Everything else about Ethel is natural, even her temper which she controls except when Oscar aggravates her. She taught school for many years and the students think of her fondly and some of them still call her on the telephone in the hope of learning something more than what she taught them when they had the daily opportunity, or maybe in the hope that they can convince her that they had learned more than she thought they had.

She is a natural born gardener too but she employs all the modern technology in the interest of winning the combat with insects and weeds and diseases that hinder the development of her tomatoes, beans and sweet corn Ethel will also fight Oscar over her garden and that is just where this story of Oscar & Ethel starts - in the Garden.