03.24.2008
Terror strikes Tweetsie
Terrorists burned pieces of my childhood during the early morning hours of March 16.
I don’t have actual proof that it was terrorists - not yet - but who else would set fire to a museum at Tweetsie Railroad housing the red western shirt, Stetson hat, boots, saddle and holster of Fred Kirby, the singing cowboy who brought joy to thousands of kids across the Carolinas in the ‘60s and ‘70s by introducing them to “The Little Rascals” and Bugs Bunny?
The building sat unsinged at the Blowing Rock amusement park since 1954 as Engine No. 12 - the only survivor of the original 13 East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad narrow locomotives - made countless three-mile loops through the mountains with generations of kids aboard, whooping it up with “Indians” who attacked and “cowboys” who fought them off. (I don’t recall the colorful railroad history lesson including anything about wealthy robber barons or Chinese immigrant labor, but it’s only a three-mile trip.)
Fred Kirby, who moonlighted as sheriff of Tweetsie when he wasn’t hosting his kids show on WBTV in Charlotte, went to the great ranch in the sky in 1996, and his gear - including that awesome red western shirt with white fringe - remained there at the museum to remind us of a simpler time, a time when men with guns showed us cartoons. That is, until March 16, when terrorists struck and burned the building down.
Again, I have no real evidence - not yet - it was terrorism, but I refuse to believe that items so important to so many could be destroyed by something as innocuous as faulty wiring or a carelessly tossed cigarette. This had to be an act of pure, unadulterated evil.
And if the terrorists really do hate us for our freedom, who is more free - even in death - than a man in a red western shirt with white fringe?
For me, as a kid with yet undiagnosed problems growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s at the foot of Mount Ida, there were three towering popular culture figures. Johnny Cash sang with what I imagined to be the voice of God. Walter Cronkite explained lunar landings and napalm. And Fred Kirby brought me “The Little Rascals” and cartoons every Sunday afternoon on one of two channels we pulled in with a rooftop antenna.
At the time, I assumed Fred was a worldwide celebrity. In fact, he was in the twilight of a recording career that began in the ‘30s and peaked in the ‘40s and ‘50s with several hydrogen-bomb-themed songs like “Atomic Power” and “When That Hell Bomb Falls,” not exactly the feel-good hits of the summer.
But each Sunday, without fail, he rode into my living room bringing Stymie, Buckwheat, Spanky, Daffy, Tweety and all the rest. I imagined him guiding a wagon train packed with scratchy two-reelers and Warner Brothers cartoons through hostile territory.
“Maybe we ought to bed down for the night, Fred.”
“No, Jim, if we push on through the Badlands we can make it to the border by sunup Sunday. The kids are depending on us, and this week we’re showing the one where Spanky baby-sits and glues the toddler to the floor.”
At the time, my America was two channels and a house at the foot of Mount Ida. And Fred Kirby was a true American hero.
So, in accordance with the code of the West, I’m giving you terrorists fair and ample warning (though, as I previously stated, I have no proof of terrorism - not yet). If you see a rider on the horizon, one clad in a red western shirt with white fringe, his saddle bags bulging with scratchy two-reelers and Warner Brothers cartoons, you best turn the other way and run.
It might just be someone seeking justice, the kind of justice we knew in simpler times when men with guns showed us cartoons.
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