DEBI

Debi is the granddaughter of Estal Pruitt who grew up .3 mi up the road from my house and went to school in what is now my home. Then it was the Air Bellows School. Estal was a respected guitar picker in his time. He was the brother of Tom Pruitt who continued in the family house until his passing 15 or so years ago. Tom was Debi's Uncle Tom. I knew Tom in my first 15 years in these mountains. We worked together, played checkers, watched Hee Haw on tv together, and he told me his life. It was a peep hole into a time I could never know first hand.

Tom was Debi's daddy's uncle too, his first uncle. Tom was Debi's great uncle. Elgin helped Tom put up hay, driving the tractor for gathering the bales and for mowing. I worked with Elgin my first summers in these mountains. Debi was then 16-18. We'd met a few times at Tom's house. She was Elgin's girl. Debi will love her daddy to beyond the end of time. Their souls are closely connected.

In the Pruitt line an occasional redhead pops up, that orange Irish hair so curly it's impossible to control. Kind of like the people that have it. Gertrudes in the Mexican film, Like Water For Chocolate, who ran off nude on horseback with a bandido, she had that hair. Debi returned to the mountains after 25 years to take care of her mother when her last marriage blew up. Victoria Crouse was her mother, Vickie. Debi is kin to the Crouses as she is to the Pruitts. Her legal last name is Brown, but I call her Pruitt, because you take everything that is Pruitt and roll it into one character, that would be Debi.