The coming of Autumn usually reminds me of one of the great military conflicts in history– the Great Battle of Brewer’s Cornfield. No, neither Washington or Lee ever performed the amazing feat that two eleven-year-old boys did that fateful day in 1967. Just behind the Sims house in Ashland stood a half-acre of corn owned by Thurmon Brewer– yes, the same Mr. Brewer that my blog readers met in a previous post (see “Speaking in Cursive,” May 2,2016).
The time was mid-November and the corn stalks were already brown and dry, waving in the fall wind like zombies arranged in neat death rows. It didn’t take long for eleven-year-old imaginations to see the field as an entire legion of cruel Roman soldiers, marching shoulder to shoulder with plans to crush the women and children crouched within the walls of Fort Sims. The only thing standing between the Legion of Death and victory was an alliance of two brave boys– Mark Sims and Walt Hill— protectors of all things good and decent.
