The Brandon File: Sometimes it was an abnormal subculture

It was 1967 and the mills were still humming, but they wouldn't be for much longer. I've always assumed (maybe incorrectly) that the death of the cotton mills was a catapult of sorts for many of the villagers to simply give up; to turn to alcohol, drugs or laziness. And maybe it was. But that wasn't the case with Rob Grumbles. He was a fall down drunk foremost and always, regardless of the economic health of the textile industry.

By mill hill standards Rob Grumbles was wealthy; or, at least, his family was. He lived in one of the very few brick homes on the hill. The Grumbles family wealth came from the numerous rental properties they owned on the narrow streets of Brandon; linthead Rockefellers, if you will. So, Rob always had money and he loved to get drunk. It was the perfect storm.

Rob's liquor store shuffle-three steps forward, two steps back-made for great entertainment. When he needed a fix, he had to traverse the park and walk up the street past our house to West Greenville where the liquor store was. When more or less sober, Rob could make the trip with no problem, even though he had to negotiate a couple of ditches, a railroad track and a pretty steep hill. After he purchased his bottle he would immediately start drinking as he shuffled home. By the time he had made it back to the park, he was pickled. Three steps forward and two steps back: an inebriational travelogue; an alcholics cha cha.

He drank everyday and with gusto. Then one June day in 1967 he would have died had it not been for my brother Mike and our great neighbor, William Donahue, who happened to be nearby. Noticing Rob trip, stumble and fall, William said, "Mikey, we better go get that damn fool up". And it's a good thing they did, for it seems old Rob, while shuffling home from his "grocery run" had fallen face first into a hole filled with water. The hole was made when the light posts that once ringed Brandon Field (across from our house) were removed. A thunderstorm had filled it nearly to the top. Mike and William found old Rob in up to his shoulders, gurgling, unable to get up owing to his high state of inebriation. So, Mike and William saved Rob Grumbles from a likely freak drowning by dragging his drunk ass out of a mud puddle. Veritable angels they were that warm day in June, 1967.

As it turns out, Mike and William's Good Samaritan act bought Rob a few years of life. Rob eventually (unsurprisingly) died of liver ailments in 1970. They found him in the nice old brick house just across the way, "dead as a door nail", as my mom liked to say. "Hell, they probably didn't even have to embalm him", said William.

Three steps forward, two steps back no more.