Yellville, Gotta Love It

I'm so proud of the people of Marion County for voting overwhelmingly to go wet. In fact, I'll drink to that!

I loved living in Yellville. It was a happy time. There were only two lawyers in the town, DJ and KS, and somebody had to be the Municipal Judge, so DJ won the toss. Well, they didn’t really toss a coin for it – other than to decide which one of them would run for the post and which one would run for the State Legislature. Being Municipal Judge didn’t take up much of his time, so DJ was able to carry on his regular practice at the same time.

This was back in the 60s, and we had our own version of Deputy Barney Fife, in the person of one – well, I guess I should just call him Barney, because to tell the truth, I can’t remember his real name. Barney had a slight speech impediment, which caused him a lot of embarrassment, and afforded the town some comic relief. Even the lawbreakers surrendered, laughing helplessly, when he hollered, “Top or I’ll Toot!”

Anyway, Barney took his job every bit as seriously as his Mayberry namesake, and diligently watched for any infraction by the townspeople. The town had only one stop light, and if memory serves, (and it doesn’t always), it only blinked red.

One day, Barney dashed into DJ’s office, with a gentleman in tow who just happened to be passing through. “Where’s Judge A?” asked Barney, with emphasis on the JUDGE part. I explained that DJ was out of town taking depositions, or something, which deflated old Barney, so he whined, “Well, this guy ran the stop light. So, what do I do now?” The “guy” in question was a bit pale, at this point, having realized that he could very well be in one of those nightmarish situations you read about where some small town deputy throws the perp in jail, and he languishes there until the judge comes back to town or Hell freezes over.

I said, “Barney, JUDGE A won’t be back until tomorrow, and this gentleman looks pretty remorseful (the perp nods), I’m sure he will be more careful about stopping at red lights in the future (the perp nods faster), so, just this one time, why don’t you issue him a warning (perp is vibrating and nodding), and let him be on his way.”

And so it was that Barney’s first and only capture of a bad guy, “from off” had to be let go. I’m not sure either one of them ever got over the experience.