Local Author Shares Memoir Chapter Three

By Jeff Jobe

Community Publisher

FORDSVILLE — We continue sharing selections from From Head to Toe: Reflections on My Life, written by local author Denzil Edge.

Edge, who grew up in northern Ohio County near Fordsville, traces his journey from humble rural beginnings to a life shaped by education, faith and perseverance.

His memoir reflects on farm life in the 1940s, when much of rural Kentucky lived without modern conveniences and communities were closely connected through church, school and shared work.

The following is Chapter Three, presented as written.

I STOLE 35 CENTS

When I was four years old, money had become valuable. I didn’t know the real value of money, but I knew that it was important because my older brothers and sisters were always discussing money. Thus, I started to become interested in money. To me, money was money. All money had the same value. A nickel could have the same value as a dollar. No one in the family ever hid things from each other; thus, change was always lying around on tops of tables or nightstands. No one had much money, but they knew where their pile of money was located. So one day while the folks were outside, I decided that I would make my own pile of change. But I would not keep it in the open. I would hide it somewhere. Thus, I took a nickel or a dime from each of the piles of money and hid it away in a sock. After picking up the money and hiding it, I went outside to play with the others.

At first, no one noticed any difference in their piles of money when they came into the house. A day or two later, someone said, “I thought that I had an extra dime in my pile,” and someone else said that they were sure that they had an extra nickel in their pile a day or two ago. That discussion went on for a few days until mother got involved in the situation. She sat everyone down who had lost a nickel or a dime, and she asked them if they had counted everything carefully.

“Yes, we have counted correctly,” said everyone who had lost the coins.

“When did you learn that the coins were missing?”

They reported, “Not until yesterday.” I was standing quietly, listening to the conversation. I did not say anything. But I saw my mother look at me. She did not say, “Denzil, you stole those coins.” No, she did not say a word about the coins. She said, “Well, we will figure this out tomorrow. There must be a logical explanation.” At the dinner table that night, she said a prayer. She prayed that the coins would return and if the coins had been stolen that the Lord would forgive that person for it was wrong to take someone else’s things. Well, the next day, I took the money from the sock and put the money back into the piles. That night, my mother thanked God for the return of the money. She said that money has value, but the love of God and doing the right thing has more value than money. To this day, I have never stolen another coin.