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[/if ImageKingstree] Williamsburg County is full of high-octane lawyers. The Legal Eagle No. 3 Billy Jenkinson and Sam Floyd are like the Lone Ranger and Tonto, although Sam doesn’t call Billy Kemo Sabe. Billy’s a positive influence on Sam.

I remember when Sam’s daddy the late great LaNue Floyd convinced a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich for perjury at Boogie Bottom. This is just one of the stories from the Twilight Zone.

The week before Christmas the Legal Eagle No. 3 invited the cream of Williamsburg County society to Black River to dine on exotic vittles and rub shoulders with rednecks, riff-raff, felons, preachers and radicals. It’s an atmosphere where culture is in bloom and anyone who can recite their ABC’s is considered an intellectual.

The groceries would put a five-star restaurant to shame. Eleven pots of pileau decorated the table. Every ingredient a tribute to man’s expertise in the kitchen.  Cabbage Williamson inhaled two plates and said he found everything but vanilla wafers, croutons and chocolate covered cherries, grits, boiled peanuts and Goody Powders.

There were peas and string beans, fish, stew beef that world famous culinary guru Douglas Eaddy, cakes from the Piggly Wiggly.

Robert Arnette and “Big Mama” W.D. Evans were in charge of the collards. W.D. came down with a bad case of the “can’t help its” and Tom Thompson filled in. The collards where inhaled with great vigor. Lies were told by and to an enthusiastic audience while the aroma of pileau and collards drifted across our scenic ebony river.

The Legal Eagle No. 3 holding his grandson William Eldridge Jenkinson No. 4 welcomed the multitudes to his hacienda on the river. Billy thanked Jesus for the food we were about to receive and by the time he said “amen” one pot of collards and two pots of pileau had vanished.

In Williamsburg County the length of the prayer is determined by the quality and the amount of groceries. If there’s nothing on the table but croutons, Spam and rutabagas, you can pray till USC beats Clemson and the groceries will be untouched by human hands.

Now if you have collards and enough rice to feed China, if “amen” is not close to heavenly Father, famine can replace feast faster than Williamsburg County Council can turn Nesmith into cash for trash.

The weather, like the food, was outstanding. Sonny Boy McKenzie and Steve Montgomery got into a belching contest but Walter was declared the winner when one exploded from his award winning body and the red breast in Black River gave Walter a standing ovation.

Eating is the shock absorber of life, a tranquilizer with no side effects. If eating was a crime Sonny Boy McKenzie would be on death row. It was one of Robert Allen “Cabbage” Williamson’s last meals before his knee replacements. A knee replacement is not for sissies. Cabbage said it hurt almost as much as 31-14.

Cabbage and I are falling apart. The sound I fear most is Peggy opening a can of Ensure so I was there only as an observer. But I enjoyed watching all the hogs at the trough as they snorted, gulped, growled. There’s nothing wrong with my nose. I can still smell but I can’t swallow and my nose doesn’t have any teeth.

We congratulate the cooks on there culinary magic that produced a look of contentment on a few hundred faces.