My friends - Today, we are reviewing another essay in the group which made up the little book, "Fidelity Folks", by Dr. A. Gordon Wilson. Fidelity was better known as New Concord in Calloway County, where Dr. Wilson was born and grew to adulthood in the 1888 - 1910 time frame. He was the son of a well known physician in that area, Dr. Marquis Pillow Wilson. Today's subject is "Saddlebags, Reticules & Carpetbags". As is now customary, there will be no data posts tomorrow or on the weekend. I continue to hope that I can finish converting some items from the "miscellaneous files" on those old 5" floppies. Perhaps, over the next few days, time can be found to do so and bring one or more of them to the List. -B ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SADDLEBAGS, RETICULES, AND CARPETBAGS -Fidelity Folks -Dr. Gordon Wilson Trunks on automobiles or even trailers could hardly contain as many and as various things as people used to carry in saddlebags and other popular containers. There were many sorts of saddlebags. The best known kind were capacious and roundish, lying across the saddle and capable of holding clothes, bottles of sundry kinds, hymn books, et al. Of course, I do not imply that any one set of saddlebags had such a combination, but certainly they were put to sundry uses (I just cannot get away from that word "sundry"; it sounds learned; I heard it often in the church at Sulphur Springs). The early circuit rider would have been lost without his saddlebags to hold his linen and his Bible. I have read that a copy of Wesley's sermons, a hymn book, and a Bible often made up the library of some of the itinerant Methodist circuit riders. All travelers took a pair of saddlebags along when they went on a journey. Physicians had a special make of saddlebags, designed to hold their calomel, quinine, and other standard remedies. Late in my boyhood we children gave Father a pair of saddlebags to replace the old ones that had grown quite shabby through years of hard use, in all sorts of weather. When I was a very little boy, I used to play-like I was a doctor and use Father's very first pair of saddlebags, bought when he started his practice in 1870. Not to own a pair of some sort branded a householder as not being very well off or very good at providing. The old-time carpetbag was much more ample and could be stretched to fabulous proportions. It came to be the badge of important travelers. The very word got a bad name down South, however, and still has it. Then there was the telescope that we used when we went to visit the relatives on the other side of the county and that I used when I first left Fidelity with the fortune I had made by selling my tobacco crop and my little red mule. I can still remember how out-of-style I felt when I realized that the other fellows had discarded their telescopes and had bought brand new suitcases, I cannot define "reticule". I suppose that the word means any small container for necessary articles, usually carried by a woman. There have been so many varieties since I could remember that I shall not attempt to list them. One such container used to be carried to church full of teacakes. My brother was always decorous as long as the teacakes lasted; no amount of fear of the preacher or of what might happen when he got home could keep him quiet after the teacakes were gone. From "fourthly" to "nine­teenthly" the wriggling continued, unless Mother grew tired of it all and sought the out-of­doors and a switch. Some poet ought to pay his respects to the teacake as a moral force in the generation just behind us; many a good child at church owes his reputation to the adequate supply of these goodies in a reticule or handbag. Incidentally, I wish somebody who loves to collect would start a collection of saddlebags, carpetbags, reticules, and other forms of containers while such old time things are still to be found in attics and storerooms. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++