Part 3 — Park Stays Forever
Miss Agnes leaned on her great-grandsons arm. “In 1959, Jeffreys grandfather Harlan Lassiter was mayor,” she said. “He tried to sell the old fairgrounds that my father gave the town. The county court found the sale broke the deed. Harlan paid the buyer back out of his own pocket, apologized on the courthouse steps, and the town voted him out in November.”
The gym was so quiet I could hear the flag rope tapping the pole outside.
“I remember what he told me that day. He said, Agnes, a town that sells its promises has nothing left to sell.” She looked at Jeff over the top of her glasses. “I thought you ought to hear it from his own words.”
Jeff Lassiter set both hands flat on the table. For a long moment he did not speak. Then he said, in a voice I had never heard from him, “I did not know that story.”
The county prosecutor, seated in the fifth row, rose to confirm what she had told me in September. The deed was valid, the reversion clause was clear, and any sale would put the town in legal jeopardy and return the land to the Pruett family. Miss Agnes said the family had no wish to take it back. She only wanted the promise kept.
The council moved to rescind the ordinance. The vote was 5 to 0.
A gift given to a town is held in trust, and the people who hold it are only its keepers.
The builder from Columbus received a letter the next morning. The contract was void, and the $2.1 million escrow was returned. Melanie withdrew her listings that week and volunteered to cooperate with the state ethics commission, which reviewed her office and the earlier vote.
Jeff stepped down as council president and asked the commission to review his conduct. He came to my house on Saturday morning with a pair of work gloves, and he asked if he could help me mow.
I handed him the second mower. By nine oclock there were fourteen neighbors on that grass, children racing with little flags, and Miss Agnes in a lawn chair under the maple.
On Memorial Day the council unveiled a new plaque beside Dannys. It held a copy of the 1931 deed and a single line: given in trust, kept in trust. The flagpole had a new rope, and when taps began, the whole town stood, hand over heart, in a park that was staying exactly where it was.