The Rest Of The Story Poem by Frank Avon

In those days
there were the Lewisburg Tribune
and the Marshall County Gazette,
rivals I suppose, though they
carried the same obituaries,

the same election results,
the same community news -
Catalpa, Delina, Ostella,
Verona, Grab All, Gnat Grove -
the same ads for auctions,

the same weddings (when and where,
what the bride wore, who the brides-
maids were, the groomsmen and ushers,
the reception and wedding cake,
where they honeymooned, and where

they'd live when they returned)
and brief announcements of those
who ran away to Rome, Georgia,
one weekend, and the birth announcement
seven or eight months later.

The news in the Gazette and Tribune
had to be read between the lines,
or heard repeated at the Courthouse Square,
or around the cast iron heater at the back
of one of the country stores that dotted

the landscape. Or whispered at a meeting
of the Home Demonstration Club, or confided
on the party line, with Miss SaraBelle listening
in at the switchboard, and immediately telling
several of her friends. Which her son Neilson

would tell us at school on Monday, and we
would spread from the front seat to the back
of the big yellow school bus, as we passed
Cherry Corner and the New Hope Cemetery,
or turned right on the Delina Road.

What was printed in the Tribune and the Gazette
was what was meant for history (what was fit
for history) . You had to be there to hear
(and it was important for everyone to hear,
but not for History) the rest of the story.