Letter of the month

摘要

He was the fire chief, and with the city's money, my dad, who was the head mechanic at the local Chevy dealer, bought a junked fire truck from Warner Robbins Air Force base and rebuilt it. The Jackson, Georgia, fire department had a special phone arrangement so citizens could dial one number and all volunteer firefighters would drop everything, head to the firehouse, and follow the big truck to the flames. But one evening, Dad got the call on our regular home number because the KKK had set fire to a big cross in a local man's yard. My father rushed to the scene, put out the fire by himself. The next night, men wearing white hoods began driving by our house. But my two brothers and I just waved at everyone in the procession, because we knew who owned every car that drove by. The drive-by ended almost immediately. See, this was the early '50s, and the three Rooks kids were way into cars as were most of our cohorts. I'm still in that mode, a 67-year-old female.