The grandmother tries to convince her son, Bailey, and his wife to take the family to east Tennessee for vacation instead of Florida. She points out an article about the Misfit, an escaped convict heading toward Florida, and adds that the children have already been there. John Wesley, eight years old, suggests that the grandmother stay home, and his sister, June Star, says nastily that his grandmother would never do that.On the day of the trip, the grandmother hides her cat, Pitty Sing, in a basket in the car. She wears a dress and hat with flowers on it so that people will know she is \u201ca lady\u201d if there\u2019s an accident. In the car, John Wesley says he doesn\u2019t like Georgia, and the grandmother chastises him for not respecting his home state. When they pass a cotton field, she says there are graves in the middle of it that belonged to the plantation and jokes that the plantation has \u201cGone with the Wind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family stops at a restaurant called the Tower, owned by Red Sammy Butts. Red Sammy complains that people are untrustworthy. Red Sam\u2019s wife says she doesn\u2019t trust anyone, including Red Sam. The grandmother asks her if she\u2019s heard about the Misfit, and the woman worries that he\u2019ll rob them. Red Sam says, \u201cA good man is hard to find.\u201d He and the grandmother lament the state of the world. Back in the car, the grandmother wakes from a nap and realizes that a plantation she once visited is nearby. She says that the house had six white columns and was at the end of an oak tree\u2013lined driveway. She lies that the house had a secret panel to make the house seem more interesting. Excited, the children beg to go to the house until Bailey gives in. The grandmother points him to a dirt road.The family drives deep into the woods. The grandmother suddenly remembers that the house was in Tennessee, not in Georgia. Horrified at her mistake, she jerks her feet. Pitty Sing escapes from the basket and startles Bailey, who wrecks the car. The children\u2019s mother breaks her shoulder, but no one else is hurt. The grandmother decides not to tell Bailey about her mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A passing car stops, and three men get out, carrying guns. The grandmother thinks she recognizes one of them. One of the men, wearing glasses and no shirt, descends into the ditch. He tells the children\u2019s mother to make the children sit down because they make him nervous. The grandmother suddenly screams because she realizes that he\u2019s the Misfit. The man says it\u2019s not good that she recognized him. Bailey curses violently, upsetting the grandmother. The grandmother asks the Misfit whether he\u2019d shoot a lady, and the Misfit says he wouldn\u2019t like to. The grandmother claims that she can tell he\u2019s a good man and that he comes from \u201cnice people.\u201d The Misfit agrees and praises his parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grandmother asks the Misfit whether he ever prays. Just as he says no, she hears two gunshots. The Misfit says he used to be a gospel singer, and the grandmother chants, \u201cpray, pray.\u201d He says he wasn\u2019t a bad child but that at one point he went to prison for a crime he can\u2019t remember committing. He says a psychiatrist told him he\u2019d killed his father. The grandmother tells the Misfit to pray so that Jesus will help him. The Misfit says he\u2019s fine on his own.Bobby Lee and Hiram come back from the woods, and Bobby Lee gives the Misfit the shirt Bailey had been wearing, but the grandmother doesn\u2019t realize it\u2019s Bailey\u2019s. The Misfit tells the children\u2019s mother to take the baby and June Star and go with Bobby Lee and Hiram into the woods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grandmother starts chanting, \u201cJesus, Jesus.\u201d The Misfit says he\u2019s like Jesus, except Jesus hadn\u2019t committed a crime. He says he gave himself this name because his punishment doesn\u2019t seem to fit the crime people said he committed. A gunshot comes from the woods. The grandmother begs the Misfit not to shoot a lady. Two more gunshots come from the woods, and the grandmother cries out for Bailey.The Misfit says that Jesus confused everything by raising the dead. He says that if what Jesus did is true, then everyone must follow him. But if he didn\u2019t actually raise the dead, then all anyone can do is enjoy their time on earth by indulging in \u201cmeanness.\u201d The grandmother agrees that perhaps Jesus didn\u2019t raise the dead. The Misfit says he wishes he had been there so he could know for sure. The grandmother calls the Misfit \u201cone of my own children,\u201d and the Misfit shoots her in the chest three times.Bobby Lee and Hiram return, and they all look at the grandmother. The Misfit observes that the grandmother could have been a good woman if someone had been around \u201cto shoot her every minute of her life.\u201d The Misfit says life has no true pleasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The grandmother tries to convince her son, Bailey, and his wife to take the family to east Tennessee for vacation instead of Florida. She points out an article about the Misfit, an escaped convict heading toward Florida, and adds that the children have already been there. John Wesley, eight years old, suggests that the grandmother … Continue reading A Good Man is Hard to Find-Summary<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KIb4-1Vo","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7453,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7402\/revisions\/7453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunnyyouth.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}