The residents of Leland: A town of characters

by Guest Columnist, Billy Johnson

In small towns all across the South, there are characters who are not a part of the monkey-see, monkey-do society that is found in cities. Needless to say, Leland has had its share. In the generations before all this instantaneous communication news traveled from one place people hung out to another, often times it took several days to make it across town.

One of the main places where news came and left from was the Leland Café. Joe and Catherine Zingales ran the café and were true characters in every sense of the word. Farmers gathered there before daylight and ate breakfast; their news was spread to the 9:30 coffee club. It was added to what they had to say and given to the lunch crowd.

Premo Sabbatini was a breakfast regular at the café, and a legendary downtown character. He and his sons, Fred and Paulie, were expert mechanics. It has been said a customer could drive into Sabbatini and Sons’ garage, and Mr. Premo could listen to the motor and tell them what was wrong with the car before they got out.

Some guys were arguing about last night’s baseball game one morning, while Mr. Premo was trying to eat his breakfast. He told them, “Why are y’all arguing about that game half the morning when they are going to play again tonight?” – and walked out.

Taylor Webb had an Irish Setter named Patsy. She had a habit of opening his office door and walking down the alley to the Leland Café. She would go in the back door of the kitchen and steal a chicken. When Mr. Webb came in to eat lunch, Joe would put the stolen chicken on his lunch bill.

The pool hall, owned and operated by Melcye Hubbard, was another longtime Leland hangout. Melcye was an expert snooker and pool shooter who would practice every day. In the early afternoon, he would clean the place up, stock his drink boxes, and shoot pool till he opened.

Every once in a while, Muchie Wolff would come in and challenge Melcye to a game of snooker. Melcye would promptly win whatever money he was carrying.

One afternoon, right after he had cleaned Muchie out, as Muchie walked to the door, Melcye told him, “Muchie, the only thing I don’t like about you is you’re like Santa Clause, You don’t come by but once a year.”

Melcye’s brother Kelcye would help him in the pool hall. Humphreys McGee would come in all the time and shoot pool. He had a golden retriever dog that liked those boiled eggs they had in a big jar.

One night, when Humphreys was paying his bill, Kelcye had him charged with six eggs. Humphreys told him, “I didn’t get but three eggs for that dog.” Kelcye replied, “Yeah, but he came and got three for himself.”

Every spring, when the nights started getting warmer, Melcye would leave the door open and have his overhead fans on. Robert McClellen always took that as a sign it was ready to start frog gigging. Bill Hemphill and Wade Burns were good pool shooters and played in there a lot.
In the generations before mine, there was a group of men who played dominoes at the pool hall in the afternoons. Joe Tanous was a well-known Leland character and was “the domino king of Leland.” When he had the winning domino, he’d antagonize the other players by scratching his head acting like he didn’t know which one to play. Then he’d slap the winning rock down and say, “All right, give me your money!”

His nephew, Leon Shapley, was another Leland character. He was involved in the Boy Scouts, The Knights of Columbus and The American Legion. He had many friends in every organization he was involved in. His best friend was Charlie Morlino who owned the liquor store and The Leland Motel with his brother, Buster. They had a long sign across the bottom of the front window of the liquor store that said “INFORMATION.” They knew what was going on all over town.

Alton McIntire and Bill Flood were the mailmen. One morning, Alton was in our drugstore, and a woman came in looking for my mother, Ellen Ann Johnson. My grandmother, Aetna Condon, tried to wait on her, and the lady said, “I want to see that low bushy-headed woman that works in here.” From that day on, Alton McIntire called my mom Low Bushy.

Aaron Moss and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Moss, were longtime downtown fixtures at Modern Cleaners. One Christmas Eve, I had Aaron’s son Cameron deer hunting in the hills with me. Cameron shot a big buck and texted a picture of the deer to his dad at the cleaners. About that time, my wife Cindy drove by. Aaron ran out of the cleaners hollering and screaming for Cindy to stop. She looked around and saw Aaron hollering and running after her car. She thought the cleaners had been robbed.

Frank and Charlie Cascio were some of our town’s favorite citizens. At Christmastime, Mr. Frank would be cooking hams slow on a rotisserie. You could smell those hams with the cloves stuck in them all over the store.

Wade Fisher owned Joe Turner Hardware and would be there at five in the morning with his coffee-drinking crowd of Bill Wright, Mac Durastanti, Tollie Miller, David Verner and Jack Lamberson.

Sam Giardina had Sam’s Café out on Highway 82. On Friday nights, all the football officials would come in there after the games. Tut Payne, Coach McGahey, Billy Carollo and all their football friends would tell Sam the scores, and he would get on the phone and spread the news all over town.

All the local ag pilots were characters, Fred Frazier, Booger Red, Joe Call, The Finklea brothers, Blythe Huntley, Joe Ours, Lloyd Steen and Skeet Edwards. One night, Skeet Edwards and Leo Frankel were at Sam’s talking about who had the fastest car. They left there and raced down California Avenue. One of them, I can’t remember which, won the race – but ended up in the creek.

Perhaps our former mayor, Bill Caraway, summed up Leland and its characters best. He put a big sign at the intersection of old Highway 61 and 82 that read: “Leland, home of 4,000 good people and a few old soreheads.”