BY ROB KAISER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WILLIAMSTOWN - It can be said of any city: Peace is as easy to come by as lunch on a plastic plate. Williamstown has lots of plastic plates.

''It's a peaceful little town,'' said John ''J.T.'' Toole.

Wednesday morning, Mr. Toole, a retired tobacco farmer, found peace in a cup of coffee down at Lucas Drugs. Antiques dealer Pat Curry found it in the doorway of his store at 154 N. Main St.

And Mary Lou Dills found it under a green tent at Williamsburg Cemetery.

But where had the mayor found peace? Those who knew weren't saying. Robert Hall Jones, accused of official misconduct, theft, perjury and some other things, was lying low. His daughter said he was out of town; his secretary said he'd be in later.

Toward noon, it was business as usual at Genesis Styling Salon, the shop Mr. Jones owns adjacent to his lime-green house. But the sign out front gave a clue to the mayor's plight with this cryptic message:

''If you make a mistake, make a new one each time.''

Spat over money

Mr. Jones has been accused of many things. Predictability isn't one of them. If he has done all the things a grand jury alleges, he has, at least, followed his own advice: Each mistake has been new.

The mayor is an original. He's caffeine in a 2 a.m. town. After fighting with a city councilman, Mr. Jones cut a city check to pay his attorney and his $322 fine for disorderly conduct.

Mr. Jones repaid the city for the fine, but he has refused to repay the $1,400 attorney fee. City and state laws allow local governments to provide for the legal defense of employees and elected officials, he says.

A grand jury indicted Mr. Jones last week, but as of Wednesday he had foiled efforts to replace him.

Not much conflict

The air around Mr. Jones is electric. Wherever the skinny, silver-haired man goes is the only place in this sleepy, little town that's not as placid as an afternoon on Williamstown Lake.

The men who gather at the EZY Stop come in from the tobacco farms and cornfields up and down U.S. 25 and Kentucky 36 to drink coffee and enjoy the company of neighbors. Discord? Not in this town of 3,100. Not most of the time, anyway.

But this thing with the mayor ...

''It's a shame all the people can't get along,'' Pat Curry said.

Mr. Curry was mayor once - of Dry Ridge. He supports Mr. Jones.

''I sort of like him, really,'' he said, flicking ashes into the sidewalk near the base of the wooden Indian that stands guard near the door of his shop.

Until Mr. Jones' spat with Councilman Mark Risen, the closest thing to conflict on Main Street was the dickering at Mr. Curry's antiques store. It's where Jimmy Jackson of Lexington stood early Wednesday, haggling over a 24-year-old Grant County band uniform.

''Ten bucks,'' Mr. Curry told him.

''What about seven?'' Mr. Jackson said.

''How 'bout eight?''

''Seven,'' Mr. Jackson said.

''Eight.''

Mr. Jackson laughed, then handed over eight dollars.

Mr. Curry was three cigars into the morning. He smokes 10 a day, most of them while standing in the doorway watching the world go by. But he was out to lunch, the door locked tight, when Mary Lou Dills went by.

Not so peaceful

Ms. Dills, a native of Grant County, died this week in Indiana. She came home to be buried, however, and her funeral procession turned out of Elston-Stanley Funeral Home Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. and headed south on Main Street.

It passed Mr. Curry's store, and the hand-lettered sign in the door that said ''Back in 15 minutes.''

It passed Alice's Restaurant, where fresh coffee had just finished dripping into a pot for the lunch crowd and a sign in the window advertised the special: pork tenderloin with two vegetables for $5.79.

And it passed Lydia McMullin's real estate office on the way to a quieter plot of land, in Williamstown Cemetery.

In a few hours, in a special meeting of the city council, some people would try to bury Robert Hall Jones. That wouldn't be nearly so peaceful.

STORY

Rob Kaiser is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. His column appears regularly on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. He can be reached at 578-5584.

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