Safe Keeping

It was a little before Court time in Hazard. Perry County Attorney Tolbert Combs always came by Grace Strong's office where I worked. They were cousins. I was sitting there doing something or other and he came over to me and said, "Idy, I need to leave something with you to take care of until Court lets out for lunch." I told him I would be glad to. Tolbert asked me what I was eating. "Candy," I answered. He started to say he would take a bite and then he stopped himself, "Naw, I'd better not since I would have to gum it as you have just taken my teeth." I had no idea what he had in the napkin that I had just placed it in the drawer for safe keeping. I offered them back to him and he laughed, "Just keep them for me cause if I get started on a big examination up there and go to the desk to sit down I will sit on my teeth and break them all to h---. I always take my teeth out when I get tied up in a heated argument in case they decide to flop out," he said. He then turned and went upstairs to begin a new Court day.