Staff Writer

Brothers James and Bill Littlejohn's friendship with Bill Craig has survived 40 years of walking in the woods cruising timber, encounters with at least one snake, a huge annual vegetable garden and a good many tales.

Folks in Jonesville know if you stay around the three just a few minutes, they are bound to say something that will make you laugh. They also know that the three do a lot of good for others, including sharing the bounty of a large annual vegetable garden the men tend.

For these reasons, the three have been named marshals of the Jonesville Christmas Parade, which will be held Dec. 6 at 2 p.m.

“I appreciate what they do for people,” said Joan Burgess, one of the main organizers of the parade. “A lot of people aren't able to work a garden and they would not have vegetables if they didn't give them to them. They are good people and where you see one, you usually see the other two.”

Sadie Parker, a friend and recipient of the summertime vegetables, agrees.

“They are the outdoingest men I ever saw,” she said. “They can outdo this 70-year-old woman.”

The men said they don't see anything special about what their work.

“I couldn't believe it,” James said with a chuckle about the parade honor. “I don't know how that happened.”

“Joan ought to be parade marshal,” Bill Littlejohn said.

“She helps everybody,” Craig said.

James and Bill Littlejohn and Craig are all retired foresters, though James continues to work part time for Scruggs Timber Co. in Hickory Grove. James is 87, Bill Littlejohn is 83 and Craig is 80. Both James and Bill are World War II veterans and Craig is a veteran of the Korean War.

Over the years, though the three men worked for three different timber companies, they sometimes worked together.

“We feel like that is the reason we're still in relatively good shape,” Craig said. “We walked in the woods for 40 years.”

Reflecting on growing up in Jonesville, their friendship and working relationship, the Littlejohns and Craig have a lot of stories to tell.

There was the time the Littlejohn brothers created a bear track. They made tracks down the road and into a creek and tore up the trees and brush to make it appear such an animal had made its way through. The neighbors were scared to come out of their houses.

“We had everybody hunting that bear with a gun,” James said. “Daddy said, ‘Ya'll are going to have to get rid of that bear. There ain't going to be anybody left living here but us.”

Over the years in the woods the men have seen some unusual animals and witnessed some strange wildlife occurrences.

James and Bill Craig remember seeing a mountain lion cross the road near the Union/Cherokee County line several years ago. Bill Littlejohn remembers once watching a hummingbird land on a vulture's back and began drilling the much larger bird with its thin bill.

And there was the time Bill Littlejohn, Bill Craig and Ernest McKnight were in the woods and a copperhead struck the heal of Craig's boot.

“I looked back and they (Littlejohn and McKnight) were running up the hill,” Craig said. “They got on top of the hill and yelled, ‘Did it get you?'”