Vinny's Great Move, Asheville 1920s
Vincent Bossard, known to everyone as Vinny, lived at the boarding house for three reasons: it was near downtown, Miss Sophie's food was superb, and she let him take a bath every day if he wanted to. He didn't work at a public job because he didn't have to. Every month he received a government pension that gave him enough money to pay Miss Sophie for room and board, which was essentially all he needed, and after he had paid that he still had twice that much money left over to spend or save. He saved a lot more than he spent. He was able to do this because he wore a suit of clothes for years, and what else was there to spend anything on? Miss Sophie washed and ironed for him for an extra three dollars a month, so after that anything that he spent his money on, he considered to be for luxury.
Vinny smoked five cigars every day the sun rose except on Sunday. But even this didn't cost him anything because a tobacco company in Durham sent him three boxes of cigars every month because they said they especially appreciated what he had done for the country. Each box had fifty cigars in it, so he received one hundred and fifty cigars every month, which was more than enough for him given the fact that he cut back to only three or four cigars on Sundays.
Vinny smoked fewer cigars on Sundays because he didn't smoke during church and Sunday School, but he actually smoked more tobacco on Sundays than on the other days. He did it this way: when he got down toward the end of each cigar that he smoked during the day, he took out his pocket knife, opened a blade, and stuck it into the cigar as close to the mouth end as possible. He was thereby able to hold the cigar with his blade and smoke it down to a smaller stub than if he held it with his fingers toward the end of the smoke because his fingers started getting burned when the cigar got down to about an inch not counting the ash. By using this method of completing his smoke, Vinny ended up with a much smaller stub than he would have otherwise. But even here Vinny practiced his innate frugality, for he did not discard this stub by throwing it onto the courthouse lawn, or even putting it in one of the nearby ash trays. Instead, after he had allowed the cigar to burn out, he carefully rubbed the ash off the end and placed it in a small goat hide leather pouch that he had acquired in Cuba in 1899 after the war. On Sundays, he took these accumulated stubs and chopped them into tobacco flakes and smoked this tobacco in his pipe. Uncle Vinny was both a cigar smoker and a pipe smoker, but all in all he preferred his cigars — he just didn't want to be wasteful. When someone once asked him if this chopped tobacco from the ends of the cigars didn't taste nasty, he said No, no man — these cigars are like life — they get better toward the end.
What Vinny had done for his country that the tobacco company in Durham especially appreciated was he left the lower part of his leg in Cuba in 1899. When the major army evacuated Cuba that year after they had won the war, the United States left the black Ninth Infantry Regiment there to support the occupation. They did this because seventy-five percent of the white soldiers got the fever while they were there, but the blacks seemed to be immune to it for the most part; by the time they left only 73 of the Ninth's 984 soldiers had got the fever.
But Vinny hadn't got his leg shot off in a real battle. He lost it when he was ordered to chase down one of his own colleagues who had moved into a house of ill repute in downtown Havana. He had gone after the errant soldier, who was actually a white man who declined to evacuate with the rest of the force because he preferred his current living conditions over those that he knew he would experience if he returned to his daddy's farm in Alabama. After inquiring at the house of ill repute about the errant soldier, Vinny was directed to a small town several miles outside Havana where someone told him the soldier was setting up a new business. Vinny got to the town and someone alerted the soldier that a man in uniform was looking for him so he started running out of town. Vinny chased him and the soldier led him through a swamp where Vinny got snake bit right at his knee. He nevertheless continued and caught up with the soldier, who ended up having to tote Vinny back to town because by the time Vinny had finally caught up with him he, Vinny, had become so sick he could hardly move. Notwithstanding his current circumstances, this soldier was still a good man — he was just committed to ameliorating his living conditions and he believed that Havana and its environs constituted a prime location for doing that. He was scheduled to be honorably discharged from the army as soon as he set foot on American soil anyway. And he couldn't let a comrade in arms just die without helping him, if help him he could.
The soldier enlisted the services of a mule wagon and driver and transported Vinny back to Havana and dropped him off at the first hospital that he came to. The medicos saved Vinny's life but not his leg. They cut it off just above the knee, mended the stump, and took him to his bivouac as soon as he was well enough to be moved there. The soldier that Vinny had been chasing stayed in Havana and became a very successful businessman. The army put into his records that he had died in a swamp from the fever. As the years passed, the character of his investments evolved, becoming more conventional, and in 1919 he cashed in and returned to Alabama, where he bought three farms adjoining his daddy's place, hired a farm manager to oversee the three tenant farmers who ran the farms, and placed his daddy in charge of the whole operation at a salary that was more than five times what he had ever made in a year of farming. After he got his daddy settled in and established as a serious farm operator, the former soldier moved to Durham and started a tobacco importing business, specializing in Caribbean, especially Cuban, cigars.
Vinny convalesced in Havana for three months after losing his leg, and finally made it back to New Orleans where he had grown up as Vincent Bossard among many siblings and cousins and other distant relatives who had paid him very little mind until he returned with his disabled veteran's pension. This income was sufficient to sustain him, but because of the love visited upon him by so many of his relatives, Vinny was penniless by the middle of every month. So after the middle of the month he hobbled down to the Quarter with his crutches and harmonica — known as a harp by everybody south of the Mason-Dixon Line — and sat on a bench with his hat on the ground in front of his feet and played, and played. By the end of the day there were usually enough pennies and nickels in his hat to buy his supper and the next day's food, but nothing more. This was not so bad though, for his relatives didn't come by much during the second half of the month because they knew that Vinny was broke and wouldn't be there anyway because he needed to work and earn a living.
Vinny carried on like this for a few years and his family grew and grew, and they spent more and more time with him during the first half of the month so that soon he was penniless after the first week of every month, which prompted him to hobble down to the Quarter now for three weeks or so every month and make music for money. During the fourth week of one month a few years after he returned to New Orleans, it occurred to Vinny that he probably had more relatives than anyone he knew and that somehow he needed to get away from them. Although he loved music, he hated making it for money. Music to him was part of his soul — it always had been, just as it had been for his granpappy who had taught him how to hold the harp and blow through it without spitting in it too much, and how to put the sounds together until you were making a song — your song — and using this as a way to tell people what was in your soul.
But doing this for money was kind of like prostituting — at least that's the way Vinny felt at the time. And that's what finally made Vinny decide to do something about his relatives, or more precisely about his financial situation. He had to leave this town.
Vinny's veteran's payment came on the second day of every month, or on the last day of the month if that was a Friday. The month after he made his decision was one of those Friday months, and this helped him a bit. His closest relatives would usually begin to show up during the afternoon of the second day of the month to check on Vinny's welfare and this would usually continue for about a week. He had never told his relatives that his money came early if the last day of the month was on Friday. The government had made arrangements for Vinny to pick up his money at a bank on the date that it was to be paid to him. This month he had laid his plans carefully. For the last two months he had even cut back drastically on his eating and had saved every penny he could from playing his harp.
On Friday morning when he got out of bed he put everything he had except his crutches into his army duffel bag and set it by his door. He took his crutches and made his way to the bank and collected his payment for the next month which began the next day, Saturday morning. He walked back toward his room and along the way he stopped a carriage and hired it to take him to the train station by way of his residence. The driver took him back to his room and fetched his bag for him. Vinny went to his landlady and paid the next week's rent just in case he needed to come back for some reason. He told her he was taking a little vacation up in the mountains. She told him that was fine by her and that she hoped he enjoyed himself and maybe he could bring her back a little something from the mountains because she had never been able to get away to the mountains. Vinny said sure.
He arrived at the train station and the driver took his bag to the baggage room. Vinny thanked him and paid him and then bought a one-way ticket to Asheville, North Carolina, and boarded his train. When he arrived in Asheville early Monday morning he asked a Negro porter if there were any boarding houses near downtown that would welcome a man of color from New Orleans.
—You got any money? the porter asked.
—I do indeed, said Vinny. He showed the porter the wad of bills that he had just received from the government, and a little leather bag that was full of silver and copper coins.
—I'd say Miss Sophie would be glad to take you on, but you better let me walk you over there and take that bag for you. And you better not be showing that money around or you won't have it long in this town.
Miss Sophie's Room & Board was only a little over two blocks from the depot. The porter hoisted Vinny's bag onto a small wagon and invited Vinny to sit on it for the two block trip to the boarding house.
—No thanks. I'll take these here crutches and walk right along with you.
Thus it was that Vincent Bossard moved from the Quarter in New Orleans into Miss Sophie's Room & Board in Asheville, North Carolina, where he lived the rest of his life.
Settling In At Miss Sophie's, Asheville 1920s
Vinny settled in to his room at Miss Sophie's, and the first morning there he wrote a letter to the tobacco company in Durham informing them that he had moved to Asheville and provided them with his new address. He then spent about a week getting used to Miss Sophie's cooking, which was not hard to do. She didn't cook cajun, but she knew how to cook. At every noon and evening meal she put out at least two meats and three or four vegetables. The boarders ate at one long table family style, and filled their plates family style. In fact, as the days passed, Vinny began to feel like he was part of a family at Miss Sophie's place. There was another colored person there, a young school teacher, and she was one of three females that stayed at the boarding house. There were five men.
Miss Sophie made some modifications to the house so that there were nine rooms to let which meant that each boarder had a private room. She installed a sink in each room to take some pressure off the three bathrooms that were available to the boarders. She had her own separate two-room apartment just off the kitchen and her own bathroom. The two full bathrooms upstairs were designated for the three ladies, and the five men shared the full bath downstairs and the water closet. She provided a chamber pot with a lid to each resident for use in each room. Rent included a weekly change of bed and bath linens and the laundry of these items. In cold weather Miss Sophie put what she called a feather bed in each room. This was what many in the north called a comforter, which might be described as a huge pillow — way bigger than the bed — that was stuffed with feathers which one could hardly stand to sleep under except in the most frigid weather. If the weather was not below zero — and it rarely was — most residents put a sheet on top of the feather bed and slept on it instead of under it. This is probably how it came to be known as a feather bed in the south.
If a renter wanted Miss Sophie to do his or her laundry she provided that service as well at a price that was competitive with the local laundries, and included ironing. Her residents were well fed and quite comfortable in their living conditions.
Miss Sophie made it clear when she interviewed an applicant that there were plenty of good boarding houses in the area, and that if one was uncomfortable eating at the same table or living in the same house as a person of another color, or even a Cherokee, then they should seek room and board elsewhere. Her boarding house was open to anyone she chose and that was that.
As far as Vinny could tell, that was fine with everyone there. Her rooms were always occupied, and there appeared to be a waiting list. The only complaint that he ever heard about the arrangements at Miss Sophie's was that it was almost impossible to keep from putting on weight if one stayed there for any length of time. In fact, the food was so good that she put in a second long table in the dining room and accepted day boarders for breakfast and dinner, essentially doubling her clientele except for supper. It may not have been a restaurant officially, but it was a fully integrated southern eating establishment as early as the 1920's.
Vinny began to get fat. Every morning he ate a breakfast that consisted of eggs and sausage and ham and fried pork chops and fried chicken, and often fried tenderloin chips and grits and some of the best biscuits that he had ever tasted. Miss Sophie had a Negro lady, Jamie, that helped her cook and she made the biscuits. She made these with lard and buttermilk and white flour, and occasionally delighted the guests with biscuits that had copious amounts of hog cracklins mixed in. These were the solids that remained in the bottom of the lard vat when chunks of fat were thrown into the cast iron pot and rendered over fire into lard. In Vinny's opinion few experiences in life were as sublime as biting into a hot biscuit that was filled with cracklins and slowly chewing it, and then washing it down with hot black coffee. After breakfast he either settled into the parlor and listened to the conversations of those who remained at the house — which were few because most had some kind of daytime occupation — or went to the front porch and rocked the morning away, watching the world go by.
By noon he could not truthfully say that he was hungry but the aromas coming out of the kitchen coupled with the arrival of the noon eaters urged him back to the dining room table. So he went, and he ate, and then he rocked the afternoon away on the porch and watched the world go by some more. And then he went back to the table at supper time and ate his evening meal. Vinny was happy, and getting fatter.
What more could a man want? His room and his board and his laundry consumed barely a third of his monthly payment from the government. His cigars cost him nothing because of the nice tobacco company in Durham. He had already received his first shipment of these at his new address because he had notified them of his change of address as soon as he got to Asheville. They had even thrown in some extra cigars with a note congratulating Vinny on his move to North Carolina.
At this point none of his funds were diverted to any of the Bossards in New Orleans, who he knew must be experiencing a dearth of funds for their daily needs, but he could not concern himself with that. They would just have to make do themselves, perhaps even go to work. Here he was happy, the residents liked him and were friendly to him, and most of them called him Uncle Vinny, which pleased him immensely. He had turned fifty a few weeks after he arrived at Miss Sophie's, and she had thrown a party for him after supper on his birthday. All the residents were there and each of them gave him a little something. And then he gave each of them a fresh cigar, including the women, and invited everyone to join him on the porch for a smoke. Two of the ladies politely declined, but to his utter amazement and joy, the young Negro teacher lady said sure she'd love to smoke a cigar with him on the porch, and she did. And then Miss Sophie came out to the porch with a tray that had a decanter and several small glasses on it and proposed that everyone serve themselves and raise a toast to Uncle Vinny, which they did, including the teacher lady, who sat in a rocking chair next to Vinny. When everyone exclaimed how good and how smooth the whiskey was, Miss Sophie explained that she had received it as an offering from one of her early suitors up in Murphy — or actually way up in the mountains outside of Murphy, and that it was at least fifteen years old and that she couldn't think of anyone she would rather share it with than Uncle Vinny and his friends on this very special evening. With a twinkle in her eye she said that she doubted that its makers had paid taxes on it, but what did that matter — it was delicious, taxed or not. Uncle Vinny was happy, and because he was getting fat just sitting here on the porch, he determined that beginning the next day he would take his crutches and make his way to the courthouse lawn and sit on a bench for the morning, weather permitting. This would give him some exercise that he was not getting at the moment. He explained this to the teacher lady and she told Vinny she thought that was a great idea. When she told him she needed to turn in because she had to deal with twenty-five teenagers all day the next day she didn't call him Uncle Vinny — she just called him Vinny. He thanked her for smoking the cigar with him and she said she was the one that needed to thank him and that maybe they could do it again sometime. She went back in the house and Miss Sophie poured him another glass of that delicious Appalachian Mountain nectar, and Vinny was happy. He was home.
One morning about three months after moving from New Orleans to Asheville, Vinny left the breakfast table at Miss Sophie's Room and Board and went to his room and loaded a little sack that he usually carried slung over his shoulder. He made his way down the front steps and the path to the sidewalk and headed for the courthouse which was about four blocks away.
He had already made the trip three times, but did not tarry there on the earlier trips. Today would be different. He decided he needed to spend more time away from Miss Sophie's front porch. He moved along at a nice pace with his crutches and arrived at the courthouse lawn a few minutes later. There were several benches on the lawn. Vinny picked out one that faced south. It was under a big oak tree which would provide him shade in the summer time and a warming sun during cold weather. During his earlier surveillance trips he noted that this bench was never occupied, so he decided to claim it today by possession and use.
Vinny's first visitors were some pigeons and squirrels who came claiming some offering or another for use of the bench. He crumbled one of the biscuits in his bag and tossed the crumbs to the pigeons, and to the squirrels he tossed a handful of unshelled peanuts that he had taken from his personal stash. He liked to watch them go through the shelling process before eating them or stuffing them into their cheeks.
These visitors drifted away after Vinny finished feeding them, and Vinny sat and watched the world go by. At about nine o'clock a string of jailhouse inmates dressed in black and white striped jail attire hobbled from the jail on the other side of the square to a side door on the ground level of the courthouse. One deputy sheriff led them, and one followed with a shotgun. No one tried to escape and it appeared to Vinny that most of them seemed to enjoy being outside for the brief walk to the courthouse. Some of them even waived at Vinny and he smiled and waved back. You might say these were Vinny's second visitors, although they were not able to draw near to him at the time because of their chains. But that would change for some of them.
No one else came that morning, and shortly before noon Vinny left his bench and crutched back to his room. He joined the regulars in the dining room and ate a big lunch and then made his way back to the courthouse for the afternoon. He was determined to set up a schedule and follow it as long as the weather permitted, for he knew he would need some time to get acclimated to the weather in the North Carolina highlands as opposed to the mild winters in New Orleans.
His bench was still available so he made his way over there and claimed it. The pigeons and squirrels immediately came over to demand the afternoon rent, which Vinny happily paid. About half an hour later a deputy walked over from the jail. He was a big white man — tall and muscular — big.
—Howdy.
—Howdy Sir, said Vinny. He touched the brim of his hat.
—Ain't never seen you around here before have I?
—I doubt it — today's the first time I've been here to sit and stay awhile, although I've walked downtown a few times.
—Where ya comin' from?
—I moved up here from New Orleans about three months ago.
—And you ain't been in jail yet?
Vinny laughed. —Naw, and the good Lord willin' I don't plan to visit your facility any time soon.
—Don't be sayin' nothin' bad about our jail. We feed'em good in there. We even got some that won't stay out. They come in and do their ten days and when we turn'em loose and make'em leave they walk two blocks down the street and steal a pouch of tobacca right in front of the store owner and sit there til one of the city boys gets there. He brings'em back and books'em and they ain't missed a meal. How'd ya lose ya leg?
—Lost it in the war in Cuba in '99.
—You sleepin' on the streets?
—Naw, I'm staying at Miss Sophie's Room and Board.
—Ah, Miss Sophie's — the only intergrated place in town. I reckon you got a pension of some kind? We got a loiterin' law here.
—That's right. I been blessed with a small pension that gives me way more'n I need.
The deputy nodded.
—I've et over at Miss Sophie's a time or two. Don't matter to me if there's Negroes or Cherokee in there. The food takes care o' that. If ya let'er know a day ahead of time ya want to eat dinner there, she'll feed ya, for a quarter. A man cain't do better'n that.
—No Sir Sheriff, you got that right. Would you care to join me for a cigar? He reached into his bag and extended a cigar to the deputy.
—Naw, I gotta get back. The sheriff just wanted me to come over and check on ya and make sure nobody's messin' with ya.
—Well here, take this one and take one to the sheriff and tell'im I said I sure appreciate it. He handed the two cigars to the deputy.
—Thank ya. I'll tell'im. What's yore name?
—Vincent Bossard, but everybody calls me Vinny.
The deputy stared at him for a moment.
—Well I'm gonna call ya Uncle Vinny if that's alright by you. You look like you're about twicet my age, and that's the way my family raised me, don't matter what color ya are.
Vinny smiled. —I would be honored. And what's your name if I may ask?
The deputy looked at the ground and kicked a dirt clod with the toe of his boot. —Vincent Sewell.
Vinny smiled again. —And what do people call you?
The deputy waited a moment and then kicked another dirt clod and looked off toward the jail before answering.
—Vinny, he said, and then they looked at each other and both broke out laughing, knee slapping, belly wrenching, lung wheezing hard.
Thus it was that Deputy Vinny and Uncle Vinny bonded with each other. The deputy was Uncle Vinny's third visitor, and the first who had a philosophical exchange with him on the courthouse lawn. From that moment forward, deputy Vinny would have taken a bullet for Uncle Vinny.