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26 Downstairs  Kitchen Legacy When they were tearing down the Bank of Harlan, somebody called Daddy to say he should come empty Papaw’s safety deposit box. Papaw had been dead for years and this was the first anyone had heard of his private hidey hole. Home from college, I was at the table that night when Daddy laid out the contents: a deed, a poem, a packet of Papaw’s love letters to Jo, and a pistol. All were spread on the table amid the remains of pork chops, biscuits, and gravy when the doorbell rang and I got up to answer. Friends, not close ones, happened to be in our neighborhood and stopped by. I ushered them down the hall to the kitchen where Mother had slipped the pistol off the table and under her apron. Daddy carried in chairs while I cleared the dishes, put on more coffee, passed a plate of Lorna Doones. Poem, deed, letters lay unmentioned while visitors munched, and my pistolpacking mama sat frozen with that heat in her lap. ...

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