Hunter(who has a blog named Chicken Fat. You can find him at blogspot.com Chicken Fat) wrote to me that I was like Forrest Gump. I was everywhere and I had met everybody.
Little did he know that Winston Groom who wrote Forrest Gump is from Mobile, Alabama and that Winston's mother Ruth Groom taught English at Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama when I was a student there from 1955 to 1958. Its a small world after all.
I also met a man here in Arlington, Va. who told me he had a fight with Winston Groom at a cocktail party in Alexandria, Va. I think one of them threw a drink on the other and then they grabbed each other and fell into some bushes. The man was a notorious book thief. He was convicted of stealing books and pages from books from the Library of Congress. Or maybe it was valuable maps he tore out of books. In any event he was convicted and served time for being a book thief.
I suspect the fight has something to do with the stealing of maps and papers from the Library Of Congress.
He also owned and ran a bookshop in Alexandria, Va.
He was shunned by all the other book people. Other book dealers and book sellers would not even speak to him after his conviction. I used to see him at estate sales. While we waited I noticed no one would talk with or to him. One of his ancestors was a famous Confederate General.
I finally did talk to him. He seemed like a nice man to me. Stealing books and papers from the LOC(Library Of Congress) was just one part of his personality.
I often like to make friends with people no one else will talk to.
Later this man told me he had a history of Oktibbeha County Mississippi which is the county my father's family settled back in 1830. I bought this rare book from him. He gave me a low price on the book. It was written by a judge about 100 years ago.
My family is mentioned in the book.
My family got 1000 acres in Oktibbeha and Noxubee Counties after the US govt. took the land from Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians in the treatry called The treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek around 1830.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Dancing_Rabbit_Creek
HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF OKTIBBEHA COUNTY (MISSISSIPPI). [Local history for Oktibbeha County and Starkville, Mississippi.]
Carroll, Thomas Battle.
About the Book | |||
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump_(novel)
