McClendon Studios Presents: The Assistant Manager at Snuffy’s

McClendon Studios Presents:

The Assistant Manager at Snuffy’s

A finance company hired me away from another finance company.  One of the main reasons they hired me was because they had purchased many credit accounts from the Western Auto Store in Iva and were having a hard time collecting them.

They had hired a new assistant manager just after they purchased the accounts with the idea that he would collect those accounts.

When I started working at this finance company, it was plain to see that this new assistant manager had a serious dislike for the town of Iva.

The assistant manager would complain whenever he was assigned to chase Iva. Chase is the term we used when we went to collect face-to-face with someone in the field by going to their house or place of employment, or wherever.

Our manager would send me to Iva most of the time. And, most of the time I would come back with money.

The assistant manager could not understand how I did this.  Our supervisor assigned the assistant manager to go with me to Iva to meet the sheriff’s deputy to go serve Claim and Delivery papers and pick up some items.  We were to meet the deputy in the parking lot at the now closed Western Auto Store.

While we sat and waited, I got thirsty.  I decided to go across the street to Snuffy’s Tavern and get a Diet Coke.

I asked the assistant manager if he wanted one.  He went berserk.  He said that those people would kill me and that he would not have my blood on his hands.

I went anyway.  I went in, got my drink, and ran into an old friend from Iva and talked in the doorway of Snuffy’s.

We walked towards the car and the guy asked where I worked now. I told him "X" Finance.  He said, "Oh yeah, I owe ya’ll a little money. I would have paid it, too, except they sent a little jerk to collect it."

 He asked how much he owed.  I had his card in the car because we were supposed to look him up while we were in Iva.  I asked the assistant manager to hand me the card. He shook as he handed it to me.

The man I was talking to recognized the assistant manager as being the little jerk who had tried to collect from him. I explained that the assistant manager was a city boy and did not know how to act around people. The man handed me the money to pay off his account.  I gave him a receipt.

The deputy came and we served the papers.  Then, the assistant manager and I went to see some different people who had past due accounts.  I knew all of them and where they lived. 

We went to one house and I was invited in to supper.  The assistant manager and I sat at the table sipping tea while they ate and the subject came up about where I was working.

I told them "X" Finance and the man said, “Oh yeah, I owe them some money.  How much do I owe them?”

I looked at his card and told him and he gave me the money. He then realized who the assistant manager was and said that he was the reason he did not pay.  I told the man that the assistant manager just did not understand people from Iva.

We went to two more houses.  Each time the story was the same.  People paid and then recognized the assistant manager as being the little jerk who told them they had to pay or else.

When we got back to the office, the assistant manager told everyone that he could not believe what he had seen.

People were begging me to take their money. We collected more than we went after and I did not have to raise my voice or threaten anyone.  He went on to say he never heard me ask anyone for any money.

People respond when you treat them with respect. When you tell people they have to do something, they will do all they can to fight against you.  The secret to handling people is to remember they are people.  They are not “debtors” or “past dues” or something else impersonal.  They are people just the same as everyone else.

Race doesn’t matter either.  Everyone is a person.  Years ago, some people would harass my father about selling to people of other races on credit.  He said, “In my eyes, everyone is green.” 

When I was a collection manager at several finance companies, I found the best way to let people know you were trying to help is to ask, “What can we do to help you get caught up on your bill?”

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Crybaby Bridge

Green Bridge

© 10 June 2004

Suzanne G. McClendon

The night was sweltering by the time we got to the bridge. The humidity hung in the air like a river that lost sight of its banks.

The official name of the bridge was “Green Bridge”, but all of us knew it as “Cry Baby Bridge”. Everyone knew the story; we were out that night to prove it one way or another.

Legend had it that a woman, her husband, and their baby girl were traveling down High Shoals Road to the Broadway Community. The man flew into a rage and stopped their carriage on the bridge. The woman struggled and fought against him with every fiber of strength that remained in her weakened body. 

He was too much for her and grabbed the baby and threw the little one over the side of the bridge. He continued beating the defeated mother until she was dead and threw her over the bridge to join her baby in the rapidly rising river.

All of the kids in the area liked to go hang out at the bridge at night just to see what would happen. You were supposed to go at midnight with a full moon overhead (have you ever noticed that these stories ALWAYS have a full moon?). 


The car was to be parked in the center of the bridge and then you were supposed to get out and either throw your keys under the car, or put them on top of your car where they weren’t easily accessible to you. Then, you were to shout over the edge of the bridge three times “I killed your baby!”

I thought that was an awful thing to do, but, that was what we were there for. We had to do this, to play along, in order to find out the truth.

In anticipation of this night, I had decided to go to the local history room at the library. Several books had references to the bridge. One of them mentioned a woman’s name and that she’d met with an accident there. 


I got what information I could from the books, and then went to the newspaper archive section. Our library has newspapers on microfiche and microfilm from over 100 years ago.

I scanned the papers starting with those after the building of the bridge, but before the birth of my parents, because this legend entertained them as teenagers, too.

What I found was amazing! There it was, in black and white, the story of Amanda Armstrong and her unfortunate night on the bridge. 

It appeared that her husband went on to the gathering in the Broadway Community after he’d tossed his wife and child off the bridge. He’d arrived at the gathering disheveled and disoriented and mumbling incoherently about the bridge and the baby. There were scratches bleeding on his face.

Several of the men formed a search party and loaded up the buggies to go to Green Bridge. 

The river was really rough that night, but against all odds they found Amanda. It was too late; she was dead. But where was the baby? They couldn’t find Bessie no matter how hard they tried.

Donnie Armstrong was arrested and put to death for the murder of his wife and the suspected murder of their baby. But it didn’t end there. It wasn’t long before people were talking about the strange happenings on the bridge at night…the woman’s screams, the baby’s cry, the loud splashes in the water that left no ripples.

All of this was on my mind that night as we drove to the bridge. We stopped the car in the center of the bridge, put the keys on top of the car, and went to the side of the bridge; only I didn’t join in the shouting. I couldn’t say those awful words. 

Suddenly, in the midst of all the shouts of “I killed your baby!” I saw her… the tear-streaked face was the same as the one in the newspaper article from so long ago. The others freaked; I stood there, amazed at what I was seeing. She wasn’t this horrendous, skinless, warty, chain-rattling ghost. She was a grieving mother, a mother that could not sleep in peace until she found her baby and they were together again. I couldn’t help but cry right along with her.

Of course the guys all thought I was crying because I was scared, but I wasn’t. I wanted to find her baby for her. But what was the chance of that over 50 years after the crime?

I could not sleep that night, for hearing her mournful pleas of “where is my baby?”

I still can’t sleep, twenty-two years after that night on the bridge. I will not sleep until I find her baby and she sleeps in peace.

© 10 June 2004 Suzanne McClendon