The Trumpet Player

While visiting Talbotton memories, I found myself thinking about it as the town with an overabundance of characters. Some places are blessed in such ways. So, I found myself remembering "Little Brother" who towered over us all while walking and who flew over us all with the town's only airplane. Mr. Thomas was a courthouse fixture who gave two dollar bills to children at Christmas and who was such a character that his funeral was constantly being punctuated with laughter by those who remembered him. But, the most memorable character was Felder Spivey.

He operated and owned a general store on the courthouse square that had so much stuff that aisles were an afterthought. If it was not in his store, you probably did not need it. When I made my Friday afternoon visit through the stores in town, I always enjoyed seeing Felder. In his earlier days he had been in law enforcement and was mentioned in the book "Murder in Coweta County." As a carry over from those days, he still wore his holstered pistol.

But, Felder's great passion in life was his wife, Libba. When I went in the store, he would often read me a love poem he had written for her. She was an invalid during my Talbotton years, but she never seemed to lack for attention from her doting husband. After she died, Felder would go out to the cemetery late in the afternoon and play his trumpet over her grave. A stranger might not have understood, but those of us who knew about Felder and Libba just smiled and hoped that one day someone would care enough to blow a trumpet over us.