Bizarre Tales from Macon County

I am a sucker for a good story and I was born into a family of great storytellers. Though I am a professional author, I am by no means the best storyteller in my family. I am not even close to the best. I also married into a family of storytellers. This makes me doubly blessed. In addition, Macon County, Tennessee is a place blessed with great stories to tell and great people willing to tell them. I lean on some of these people and their stories to provide me with entertainment and inspiration. The stories in this book, all of them bizarre in their own way, come to me from family members and other citizens of Macon County. In addition, I draw some of these stories from my own recollections. Though I remember most of the "family" stories, my sister, Wanda Clark, filled in important details of a good many of them. I could never have written this book without her help. I have made no effort to separate fact from embellishment and I have made no effort to prove or disprove any of these stories. In addition, I am sure that there are several versions of some of these stories floating around. That's okay by me. Great stories should have many versions. After all, each of the thousands of retellings of a great story is a version in itself. These tales come from memories and memories are unreliable. That's okay too. Again, I have made no effort to prove that any of these stories are in any way accurate. It's all about the stories - nothing else. Some of these stories are very old. Others are from the Twenty-first Century. Some have endured the test of time. Others will be around for many, many years. Some of the stories have a disturbing element. Others are just fun. Not all of these stories are set in Macon County, but all of them came to me from individuals with Macon County roots. I have written what I hope are entertaining narratives and I present these stories for entertainment purposes only. Readers should accept them for what they are intended to be -fun little stories - and nothing more. Beyond the stories, at the end of the book I have included some local history resources I use and a list of my other local history titles. I hope you find those sections useful.