In late November 1968 I returned to Athens and opened a law practice with my former classmate, Henry Blizzard.
Booth’s pool hall on North Marion Street had recently been partitioned into small offices and we rented space there for $60 a month. Edward Goodrich’s law office was located upstairs next door in the Hendrix Building. I had seen Mr. Ed around town but hadn’t formally met him. I knew nothing about his background.
He was a small, wiry old gentleman who wore thick glasses and a snap-brim hat pulled down over his balding head, which was bent downward because of a humped back. He and his elderly wife lived in the ancestral Walker home at 309 S. Clinton St. It was a two-story frame house with twin columns and unpainted clapboard siding, built in 1835 that sat among tall trees. When driving past, I was reminded of Gone with the Wind.
On a winter evening after closing for the day I decided it was time to formally meet Mr. Ed. I trudged up the darkened wooden staircase to the second floor where his faded name was barely visible on the frosted glass. The door was ajar. Although I saw no light, I stepped inside.
“HELLOOO… ANYONE HOME?” No answer. I crept forward in the dull winter light and finally saw a glow in a fireplace. Seated nearby was Mr. Ed hunched over, his face buried in a book reading by firelight, a pipe hanging from his mouth. A single bulb dangled from a ceiling cord. I reached up, pulled the string and light filled the room. The office was dusty and unkempt with tables piled high with files. There was a large library of leather bound law books and, near Mr. Ed’s feet was a tall pyramid of empty Prince Albert tobacco cans. His coat, tie and shirt were pocked with burn holes.
I poked out my hand. “Hi, I’m Jerry Barksdale, your neighbor, and I just opened a law practice next door.”
Without saying a word, he stood and jerked the light string and sat back down in his chair and puffed on his pipe in the darkness. I could tell he didn’t appreciate a young upstart entering his office unannounced and turning on the light.
Mr. Ed had outlived his clientele. Each morning I observed him trudging up the sidewalk, bent and aged, hat pulled down, headed to his office. He had no secretary and pecked out documents on an ancient typewriter. Regularly, at 11:30 a.m. he headed south down the sidewalk, going home for lunch. At 1:30 p.m. he returned to his office.
The first winter I observed a strange thing. When Mr. Ed returned to his office after lunch, he was dragging a dead tree limb. The following day he did the same. I was puzzled. I watched for him each day, and without fail, he dragged a dead limb. Why?
Finally, I told Bruce Sherrill, an older lawyer in town, about my observations and asked him if he could solve the mystery.
“Why Jerry, that’s his firewood.”
Being young and ignorant, I thought that Mr. Ed was merely an eccentric old man. But one should never judge a book by its cover. Mr. Ed was born in Virginia in 1894 during President Grover Cleveland’s administration. He graduated from prestigious University of Virginia Law School and later taught at Birmingham Southern and Athens College. But his glory days had passed him by. They were, like all our days, soon to be gone, gone with the wind.
Jerry Barksdale
December 26, 2008
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