The Knight in Shining Armor



It was a Saturday evening not unlike any other Saturday when my uncle bill, all of 14 years of age that summer of 1940, was walking home from his best friend Billy Andrews house across the holler down the old mill road. Uncle Bill had made that trip so many times he could do it in his sleep, It was about an hour walk most days, somewhat less if he really needed to get home.

Grandma said that Uncle Bill always liked to take the same route home from the Andrews house that took him by the old abandon school across the road from the Baptist Church and down by Shorty Millers store, a small little place no bigger than what a utility shed would be today. Uncle Bill would often stop in on his way home and have a soda, Shorty used to let uncle Bills older brother Deak run a tab and he would allow Bill to charge his soda and whatever else he bought to Deak. Soda in hand Bill was back out on the road heading down the holler.

Now in 1940 it was fairly common to see people riding horseback down those old dirt roads but this day uncle Bill saw something that he talked about for the rest of his life. As he approached the last leg of the walk he saw what appeared to be a Knight in full body armor complete with a lance and shield. The rider was coming around the bend in full gallop when he suddenly pulled up his mount. The Knight appeared confused as he looked around in an attempt to gather his bearings.

By now Uncle Bill was frozen in disbelief and did not move as the Knight spotted him about 50 yards away and began to approach him in a slow trot stopping about six feet from Bill. The Knight stood on his horse looking at my uncle for what must have seemed like an hour but could have only been a minute, staring at his jeans and high top sneakers, then proceeded to slowly continue on his way down the road and around the bend.

Once recovering from what he had seen, uncle Bill ran the rest of the way home to tell Grandma what he had witnessed, Grandma had always said that there was to much fear in Bills face for him to have made up such a story. The next morning at the old Baptist church Grandma told the story to most of the neighbors in the area but no one else had seen the Knight.

Although most of the folks in the area may have felt my uncles imagination had gotten the better of him. It's hard to say what my uncle saw that day, perhaps it was a knight that had somehow traveled through a window in time and appeared in 1940 for that brief moment only to return somewhere around the bend on that old dirt road. One thing is certain Uncle Bill remembered the incident for the rest of his life.