As Ugly as Homemade Sin

On my most recent This American Life podcast there was an incredible story about a boy named Bobby Dunbar. In 1912 Bobby Dunbar disappeared. But a boy was found 8 months later who was presumed to be this child. The parents went to identify him. But another woman came forward to claim that he was her child, Bruce Anderson. Julia Anderson was an unwed mother whose son had been found traveling with an older man, a drifter, named William Walters. A trial was held and in the end the child was given to the Dunbars and the court claimed that Julia Anderson had no claim to him. In 2004, the great-granddaughter of the child presumed to be Bobby discovered the truth. She researched the case for four years and her discoveries had alienated her from her own family, unhappy were they to hear the truth.

One of William Walter's descendents told a story about a woman who took her little grandchild with her wherever she went. She said that this woman was as Ugly as Homemade Sin, and that's why she always took her grandchild with her wherever she went. She said that her Uncle, William Walters, traveled with the child who later was identified as Bobby Dunbar, to ease his way.

I love those old phrases - like Cheap Christmas Trash, and Ugly as Homemade Sin. They remind me of the way my father and grandmother talked. My dad used to say So and So was a 'useless as tits on a boar hog.'