Notes for Barron Bryer Scarborough: Birth Name was Barry Bryer. He had it legally changed to Barron Bryer Scarborough.
The following are items Wyatt remembers and that I remembered after he jogged my memory:
1) When I was 3 or 4, I stuttered a great deal. Papa was advised that he could affect a cure by an unusual procedure. When he was butchering a calf for our use he call me to come down to the lane from the barn at the lower home and when I done enough and not looking he hit me in the face with the freshly removed lungs or liver of the calf. I obviously went screaming to the house with blood all over me. Mama took care of me with new clothes. I gather she did not approve of the experiment. I do not recall how long I continued to stutter but not more than a couple of years.
2) In the late 1920's Papa had some finished carpentry work done on the house- posts around the porches were enclosed to make them look more like columns. Mr. Dickenson from Paoli did the carpentry. He parked his car in our driveway next to the store. Wyatt and I would get on his back bumper or he backed out and [we'd] jump off in the street or he would stop to go forward. On one such occasion or car went down the small incline to the street I feel off and Mr. Dickson did not see me but Mr. Ed Ware did and hollowed for him to stop or the wheel caught me on the alert. I was out in short time- couldn't
2) The house, which in the recent past was Uncle Clifford's home house, belongs to one of the Rowe's. About midway of the lot there was a small drain ditch, which served for drainage from our barn area and Grandpa's barn and garden area. Without any notice Mr. Rowe had the ditch filled with dirt so there was no water passage. Grandpa had Mitchell Rodgers to inquire about the purchase of the house and lot. Without letting Mr. Rowe know he had Mr. Rodgers buy the property and had the deeds made out to Grandpa- supposedly because Rodgers was barrowing the purchase money from him. The ditch was opened for drainage.
3) Around 1930 we had a small dog or mixed breed named "Dod" which we were all found of. He was very spunky and kept the cats in their place (up trees). Thus, it was heart rendering for us to see him die a slow death after eating food with broken glass in it. We never knew the culprit but some evidence obtained pointed to Mr. Mitchel Rodgers.
4) On the Rodger's place down in the valley like area Papa had the area cleaned of trees and planted in corn. Trying to plow corn in a new ground in the middle of the day in July is the ultimate criterion of difficult labor. The tree stumps and their attendant roots. Adding to this near impossible task Wyatt especially recalls us getting involved with a nest of hornets.
5) Papa had Wyatt and me to go up to the Rogers places and do various things- chop cotton, poison cotton, etc. So on to affect a better effort on two men he had hired (80 cents per day) to do the routine from work. On rainy days we chucked corn. I recall spending a number of noon hours on the back porch in the shade of the chinaberry tree. We were instructed by Papa to take the lead in getting back in the field after lunch hour. I also recall that a restroom (out house) was not readily available from certain areas. But there was an available wooded area, which we used. Although the traditional corncobs were not handy- dead limbs served quite nicely.
5) I think it was in the mid 1930's when I took Mama down on South River where we got a dozen more pine seedlings. We came back and planted a row at the top of the garden next to the schoolhouse and along the street side of the garden. They, in time, became sizable trees. Previously on a trip to north Georgia she and I pulled up some spruce seedlings and set them out along the street side- one grew quite large at the driveway entrance.
6) When I was in the 10-12-age range I had a number of rabbit boxes, which I placed on rabbit trails in the wooded areas northwest of town. On the coldest nights the rabbits were likely to seek shelter from the cold and go in the boxes. However, this required that I check the boxes each morning when the frost was everywhere. I caught quite a few which Mama fried for us.
6) One spring or summer Papa began to have extreme back pain. Dr. Griffin diagnosised the problem as kidney stones. He and Mama went over to Elberton where the stone was removed. Before they left the four of us (Sue, Wyatt, Lonnie Merle, and I) were taken in a two-horse wagon to the Manley grandparents. All I remember is it was one of the most disagreeable trips I ever made- I thought we would never get there. We obviously hit every pothole and rock between Comer and Royston. At that time Uncle Elmer lived in the small house just below the Manley home house. While we were there he helped Wyatt and me dig up a branch in the pasture for a small swimming hole. However, it was so muddy we never did really use it. I think the water was used to wet a turnip patch near by.
7) Wyatt remembers our poisoning cotton for Mr. Lee Comer for $1.00 a day. The cotton was poisoned by mops made of rags on one end of a stick 2-3 feet long. The poison was water, black molasses and arsenic of lead. The mop was dipped in a gallon bucket of the mixture and then places in the bud area of each cotton stack. The bowl weasels would come up each night to get the due and lay their eggs in the squares, which were forming the blossom buds. I assume they like the taste of the mixture. Wyatt says we also got in a mopping exercise of each other. I do remember our spending many hours with the mop up at the Roger's place.
1) In 1932 the superintendent is the school in Comer was a man by the name of Dixon. He and his wife lived with Dupree Cox in the house, which later became our home. Mr. Dixon decreed that all high school (maybe lower) pupils must purchase a songbook to be used in chapel exercises. The cost was not great but Papa did not like being dictated to and so informed Dixon. Dixon said that we had to purchase the books if we attended school. Papa made arrangements for Sue and me to stay with Mrs. Ruth Sorrells who lived a mile or two from the school in Danielsville. I believe Mrs. Sorrells had been a teacher who roomed with Grandma and Grandpa Manley before she was married. My recollection is not great for the period we stayed with the Sorrells except walking to and from school was quite a bit of fun with Sam Joe and his sister. I also remember that I was introduced to wild strawberries. Down the hill from the Sorrells' and the Thompson's was a young pine field with wild strawberries in a portion of it. Sam Joe and I helped ourselves to them on several occasions. I do not remember how long we stayed with the Sorrell's in the 1932 (I think) school year. But for the next school year, Papa bought a 1928 Chevrolet (Dark Green), which I drove to Danielsville each day the 1932-1933 school year. It became something of a bus in as much as people knew we were going each day and would get out in the road walking expecting that we would stop for them, which we did. Mr. Corithers (Amy's and Hilda's and Buddy's father) was a regular rider. Cammie Sue was a senior and thus graduated from Madison County High School instead of Comer. Wyatt and I became proficient at fixing flat tires via patching the rubber tubes. For a number of years the only way to get to the Rodger's place was to go to Coholston's stand then proceed on the Colbre and road for a mile turn left on a road which can be better described as a washed out ditch. You went up the road up near a farmhouse then left and then followed a barbed wire fence for a quarter mile then through some fields to the Rodger's house. Many times Wyatt and I parked the T-Model track at Preston Sander's barn and walked through his pasture. About half way though the pasture was a small branch (stream). This was a source of water to drink during our lunch of pork-n-beans and Vienna sausage and soda crackers. The 1930's was the depression era and Papa was always looking for ways to cut expenses and make a small profit. He made arrangements to buy a train carload of coal that was used for heating in grates. When the rail car was placed on the siding Wyatt and I hauled several truckloads for our use and loads to others who did not have means of hauling it. Wyatt remembers how clack we got from the coal dust.
8) In the depression and in keeping with "cutting corners" when it was decided to paint the houses the paint according to Wyatt, was a mixture of linseed oil and white lead paint. I do recall a black man on an extended ladder painting near the eaves of the home (Roper) house.
9) Attendance at the University was for me and most of the others our age a matter of commuting. The Comer Motor Company provided a car for a year with William Porterfield as driver. Kendall Griffin drove for a year or two with a number of riders. My senior year Booby Lowe and I shared a room over the Varsity in the old Cherokee Hotel. At that time cars would pull into the parking area next to the curb and blow their horn for Varsity service. On at least one occasion at 1:00 AM on a hot night there was a lot of loud talking and horn blowing following a dance. One or two of the large football types living in the hotel decided it was time to quite down and so he advised the young men parked with their dates in convertibles. When the noise continued the football boys filled trashcans with water and carried them to the third floor windows and dumped the water on the convertibles.
Dr. Barron B. Scarborough, 82, died June 25 in Shreveport, La. A native of Comer, Ga., Dr. Scarborough earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Georgia. After serving in the Army in World War II, he returned to the University of Georgia to earn a master's degree. In 1952, he earned a doctorate from Purdue University and In 1957, joined the Florida State University faculty as assistant professor of psychology.
He was promoted to associate professor in 1959 and professor in 1965. He retired in 1989 and was named professor of psychology emeritus.
During his years at FSU, Dr. Scarborough created the Pictorial Interest Inventory, an instrument to assist in career counseling, and published basic research papers on a variety of topics, including the effects of radiation on conditioned responses in rats.
He also served as vice chairman of the psychology department for many years.
Barron Bryer Scarborough (b. 07 Nov 1917, d. 25 Jun 2000)
Notes for Barron Bryer Scarborough:
