Have you ever gotten so focused on one task, one single idea, that you forgot some other important thing? My grandfather grew up on a farm outside of a 400-person town in Johnson County, Georgia. As a little boy, I heard endless retellings of misadventures and tall tales that make up the family lore on hours-long trips to the old family homestead during the sweltering, long days of summer vacation. One particular tale relates to forgetting something important, and it involves my great-grandfather James (whom I never met), my grandfather, Hughel, and his brother, Harold. How much of the tale is truth, and how much has been embellished in the years since is unknown to me, but I’ll tell the story like I heard it.

Our tale begins in the last years of the Great Depression. Times were tight everywhere, of course, but James managed to acquire a new car that the family desperately needed on the farm. Being that it was a working farm and cash was not infinite, the car was put to work. At the time, a fox had been on a crime spree of sorts, working its way through henhouses in the area, and everyone had been on alert to guard against the villain striking their farm next. ​[Click to read the full story.]