Simpson, you may recall, was unceremoniously shown the door by the Tucson, Ariz. Citizen after decades of quality work in which he developed a national reputation as a sports columnist.
Simpson is writing a weekly column for the Green Valley, Arizona, News & Sun, and in today's offering, his native Carthage plays a prominent role:
Raise your hand if you came from a small town with a courthouse at the center of its agrarian universe and a bench on the lawn where wise men gathered.And they were called — reverently — the “spit 'n whittle” club.At the heart of all great communities there is a simple but honorable seat of critical study and opinion, where gritty men in overalls and threadbare tweeds gather to scratch themselves and discuss the issues of the day.They punctuate their arguments with the blade of a well-worn pocket knife, pointing and gesturing and drawing circles in the breeze when not slicing off a thin piece of wood. These men are members of an honored and cherished, but sadly disappearing body of elder statesmen — a sort of Supreme Court of Common Sense.Green Valley has no courthouse square or lawn or “spit 'n whittle” bench that I'm aware of. But we’ve got plenty of seasoned citizens who’d recognize a pocket knife if they saw one, and who’d know which end of it to use.
Simpson later notes:
My own hometown, Carthage, Mo., has a beautiful courthouse, the seat of Jasper County justice. It was burned down during the Civil War, probably by Yankees, but rebuilt and refurnished with a bench for the “spit 'n whittle” boys.A splinter group, to which my grandfather belonged, “held up” the Bank of Carthage each morning, standing with their backs against the stone structure, discussing the same issues that the rival “spit 'n whittle” gang was talking about over on the courthouse lawn.
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