SUN CITY

"Ernie, I expect you don't know how our capitol, Sun City, got its name", grandpaw Bacon said to me. We had just finished a hot game of marbles. If we had been playing for keeps he would have lost all his marbles. But we weren't, because maw won't let me play keepers, so what you've heard about him losing all his marbles ain't true. "So", he continued, "I'll tell you all about it.

"When folks first settled this part of Hope, old Barph Clagwell was looking for a place to set up his still and he didn't exactly want it to be out where it could be seen by certain tax gathering blue nose government men. He finally found a deep hollow where the sun only shown directly at midday in the summer months. All the rest of the year the hollow was in deep shade from the hill sides and from the heavy tree and brush cover. It seemed like a good joke to him to name the place 'Sun'. So that's what he did and he called the product of his still 'Liquid Sunshine'. People from miles around would come to purchase a jar of Liquid Sunshine. The traffic finally got so heavy that Barph decided to put up a boarding house to house his workers and his more important customers. Well, things just grew and grew. The next thing you know, there's a whole town named Sun City. By the time he died, that was just after World War I, the place had grown so much that they had to hire a town policeman. They finally settled on Mr. Woodlot Crumpacker. I suspect that they picked him because of his extensive experience inside most of the jails in Hope. Sort of a 'Takes-one-to-know-one' approach to law enforcement. To say the least, Woodlot Crumpacker was not what you would call a well educated man. After the highway came through Sun City and cars from all over started driving through the town, the town fathers bought a police car for Crumpacker. It was a 1914 Ford Model T. Woodlot would sit in that car down at the railroad station and when somebody drove through town faster than he thought they should he would take out after them. He'd run the siren and blow his whistle and flash his lights. Generally they would stop. One time he saw this guy blaze through town at about 15 miles an hour so he ran him down. When the cars stopped ol' Crumpacker walked up to the car, flashed his badge and said, 'Where're you from, fellow?' The driver leaned out his window and replied, 'I'm from Pittsburgh.' Crumpacker drew himself up, crossed his arms, flexed his muscles and said, 'Well, you claim you're from Pittsburgh, what the hell are you doing with them Pennsylvania license plates on your car?' They say that when the man finished laughing he said it was the best two dollar fine he'd ever have to pay."