THOSE SWEET SLEIGHBELLS

How sleigh bells turned injury and corruption into Joy and Triumph

Tenor Sleigh Bells seem to bring the sweetest of response from the Human Heart.  It is this type of bell that seems to be the most restorative to the human heart and seems to bring its spirit healing sound right down into inner soul of man, if not mankind in general.  It is a rare person who is not susceptible to the tinkling jingle of a tenor sleigh bell.

And, we think more about Sleigh Bells during the cold winter months, especially when they are attached to a horse drawn carriage. Their sounds add a positive encouragement to the atmosphere of the present world’s delight. 

In the winter of 1956, just before Christmas, my dad and his brother got arrested in downtown Paducah, Kentucky for violating he town’s Beard Ordinance.  All males over the age of 30, married or not, had to have full beard by December 24^th, or be arrested.  If you were arrested, you were placed in a steel cage on Broad Street where you were verbally abused, had tomatoes and other assorted vegetable and fruit thrown at you. 

All of this supposedly done as a community fund raiser to encourage maximum donations from the public.  The Beard growing was to be a sign of community involvement, and the fund raising which was done afterwards was to prove a charitable heart.  Well, over the years, the activation of the process became more and more empassioned as groups developed more and more desire to win the group contests.  Things got more and more unpleasant for the losing team every year.  Then followed the losing groups’ animous at the severity of the assaults on the teams that didn’ win. 

The passion to be victorious in the contest, seemed to overflow all reasonableness in 1956, and as my dad and his brother stood beardless in one of the many steel cages along Main Street, several rather large red tomatoes sailed into their cages followed by some softballs and baseballs.  Both my dad and his brother were struck in the face several times.  Their faces were bloodied and their nasal passages filled up with blood to the point that they both required immediate medical attention.  They were both immediately released from response to Local Ordinance 1201 and 1202, and they were transported to McCracken County Medical Center with serious injuries.  They were both admitted to the hospital within 30 minutes of arrival with head injuries, dizziness, and loss of orientation.  My uncle was told he might lose the vision in his left eye.  It was the first time that such activism had resulted in painful injuries to two local citizens just because they were unable to comply with the Beard Act (L.O. 1202).  The cost to these two men was never intended to occur as a function of the Community Fund Raising Act (L.O. 1201).  These two acts were intended to encourage community participation and a love in everyones’s heart for helping others, but yet after only eight years, its purpose had been perverted and now these two men and their families were paying the price for a perverted zealotry: a fanatical and uncompromising pursuit of a purpose of other unintended ideals that totally and completely destroyed the purpose of L.O. 1201 and L.O. 1202.  A charitable organization was turned into and mutated into a activity whose organizers thought it was acceptable to make an offending party pay with their health and future earning potential because they didn’t comply with the details of the Local Ordinances.

When state and local ordinances are passed, they are usually done so to bring order to a society and to make things better for the entire population, but no matter the good intentions involved, there will always be those who will find a way to corrupt and use a law or ordinance to advantage themselves.  They did not care of the outcome as long as they got to show their influence and exhibit their power and position in the community.  In other words, greed and corruption overwhelmed community service and obligation.

As December 1956 moved on into the future, and my father and uncle overcame their injuries, and were able to go back to work, the community came together and raised money for hospital bills, and personal bills, mortgages and utilities.  All of these hundreds of people who came together to support these two families who came to such injury received the benefit of the Original Local Ordinance Law (1201).

And on December 27, 1956, the city of Paducah and County of McCracken, Kentucky announced that the entire length of Main Street would be decorated and Carriage Rides would be offered during the entire evening at no costs and there would be NO Limit on rides.  Anyone could ride a carriage as many times as they wished.  Carriage Rides had always been a part of the Thanksgiving to New Years Festival of Lights.  And what had always made the Festival so exciting and so happy, was their use of the Silver Sleigh Bells on the Carriages.

It was the Silver Sleigh Bells jingling and tinkling in the night air that gave the luster to each evening events.   That stirred everyone’s souls and made the season so Bright again.

Whatever it was in the years prior to 1956, it was those Silver Sleigh Bells that touched us all at the end of 1956, and made us all so much happier, and helped us restore the community and restore two families to wholeness.  It was those Silver Sleigh Bells that signaled our hearts were healed.  That made us glad and that truly lifted our hearts to new highs, and made us realize that we could let our Spirits soar to new heights.  It was those thousands of Silver Sleigh Bells that tolled out the glad sounds of the Holidays and restored our souls, and made us all hopeful for a better, more spirited future:  one full of hope and joy and a true spirit of community and for helping others when people were truly hurting and in need.  My father (and us), and my uncle (and his) felt the love and concern of a community desiring to undo the evil of a few.  We were all proud of the Communities response to us, and we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of the community.  And what topped off the entire season were those Silver Sleigh Bells.

 

And, it has been those SleighBells that have made our seasons’ bright for the decades that have come and gone since.  Those jingling, tinkling Sleigh Bells that have made our lives bight with joy and enthusiasm ever since.  As damaging as those events were to my father and my uncle in 1956, the joy we allow to stream into our hearts in the years since is all because we allow the Sleigh Bells to lift our hearts.

Reviews

[TheRavensWoods]

I really enjoyed your story. I love the sound of sleigh bells and have fond memories of hearing the horses bells jingle as they move down the street. I enjoy your style of writing and definitely felt like I was sitting by a fireplace listening to a story told by a friend.