6. Wheelchair Case

Notes: WHEELCHAIR CASE was collected from Brenda Russell of Lexington, Kentucky in 1979. Brenda got the story from her father, Clayton Russell who got it from his uncle Clarence Lakes in 1976. Her story identified the boy as a “colored boy.”

Curt Begley, a Berea College bus driver and native of Berea, gave another version: A dog would tree coons and climb the tree to fetch them down. He had gotten three coons and was packing the fourth off the limb when he fell off a limb out over a cliff and broke his back. The man took him out in a wheelbarrow but the dog tried to tree three more times on the way to the vet.

An engaging version from “Deacon” Hembree of Galena, Missouri was presented in the December 1977 issue of The Ozark Mountaineer.