Compelling Journey
Prologue
This book was an itch that required scratching. The preparation gave me
decades of entertainment and the opportunity to learn about my kin.
This record comes in four parts. The first is a family history of my
paternal family, the Stubbs line. The second is a family history of my maternal
ancestors, the Hampton line. Part III is a brief autobiography. Part IV is an
anthology of autobiographical sketches written over a long period. Except for
the first in the series, these stories are factual as I recall the incidents
and they are in chronological order.
I dedicate this book to my sons, Michael Wayne Stubbs (1957) and Mark
Alan Stubbs (1960) both of whom I love and respect, and to my dear wife, Nancy
Lynn Jacobs Stubbs for her proofreading, meaningful advice, and being the girl
of my dreams.
All my love to my grandchildren: Travis, Jordan, Jennifer, Kayla, and
Aaron. You bless my life.
Earl Stubbs-2012
Part
I
1
The
Stubbs Journey
The mystery
man of the Stubbs clan is Joel Henry Stubbs born circa 1802 in the Spartanburg
South Carolina, area. The unknown factor regarding Joel is that after fifteen
years of trying, I am unable to establish the identity of his father with
certainty. It is likely that he was Benjamin Stubbs of SC, but the evidence is
not conclusive.
The SC
Benjamin Stubbs fits most of the criteria of age, military record, etc. He
enlisted after September 1, 1780, at the age of twenty. I assume he served
until the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783. Then, he enlisted December
23-29, 1813, so he served in the War of 1812 as well. A substitute replaced him
on April 30, 1816.
The census
of 1800 shows Benjamin in the Union District of South Carolina with a male
child that would fit Joel’s age.
Joel
surfaced in Spartanburg, SC, in the 1930 census. He was 28 at the time.
On 16 May
1846, Joel Henry Stubbs petitioned the congress, on behalf of his mother, for
the Revolutionary War pension of his father, Benjamin Stubbs. The government
“put aside” his request. This is a good indicator that Benjamin of South
Carolina was Joel’s father, but I am unable to establish Benjamin’s lineage.
Joel’s
first foray into the field of matrimony was a marriage to Martha McMakin of
South Carolina. She bore him six children, Sarah in 1831, Jane in 1833, Rebecca
in 1835, Martha in 1838, Abbe in 1840, and Benjamin in 1842. The name of the
boy child further supports the idea that Benjamin was Joel’s father. The 1840
census shows Joel in Forsyth County, Georgia, with Martha McMakin Stubbs and
five children.
Jane Stubbs
Daughter
of Martha McMakin Stubbs
and
Joel
Stubbs
I
accidently discovered this family when I inherited a box of old pictures. One
of the pictures was of Jane Stubbs. Several of the photographs were of people
named Pritchett. I traced the name and found that two of Joel’s daughters,
Martha and Rebecca, married a man named Benjamin Pritchett. He married Martha
first, and when she died in 1871, he married Rebecca.
The
Pritchett’s moved from Newton County Georgia to Ft. Worth, Texas, and later had
dealings with John Stubbs, one of Joel’s sons. I must assume that the Stubbs
and Pritchett families kept in contact after the latter moved to Texas. (I
connected with the Pritchett family in Ft. Worth and often correspond with
Charles.)
2
Mary
Ann Cavender Stubbs
The 1850
census shows Mary Ann Cavender, age seventeen, living with Sarah and Dick Levie
and working in a lint factory. Another unverified source indicates that Joel’s
future wife lived with her sister in Indian Springs, Georgia. Dick was 23 at
the time and Sarah McIntosh was 21. Mary Ann was 17 and, likely, Sarah’s
sister.
Mary Ann
was either Cherokee or Creek Indian. This was before the “Trail of Tears” when
Andrew Jackson forced the Americanized Native Americans of the Southeast to
Arkansas and then Oklahoma to reside in reservations.
At some
point between 1840 and 1850, Martha McMakin Stubbs died. As was the pattern of
the day, Joel needed help with his six children who ranged in age from seven to
nineteen. He married Mary Ann Cavender on 2 July 1851.
I am not
sure how Joel earned his livelihood, but one census shows him as a tin
merchant. Another listed him as a carpenter.
Mary Ann
was 18 years old when they married, and Joel was about 49. They produced their
own family while caring for the remnants of Martha McMakin’s. Josephine was
their firstborn in January of 1853. Shortly after Josephine, Andrew Jackson
arrived in October of 1853. Cynthia was born in 1856, and James came along six
years later in 1859. Mary Ann bore John in 1864.
The family
evolved when some of the older daughters moved out to marry and young ones
arrived. Benjamin Prickett married Martha Stubbs in circa 1852. They had two
children. Then, Martha passed. Rebecca, Martha’s sister, lived with the
Pricketts at the time. Benjamin married Rebecca, and they had a large family
together. They migrated to Ft. Worth, Texas.
The 1860
census shows Rebecca and Benjamin with two children. Her sisters, Sarah, Jane,
and Abbe, lived with the Pricketts.
Mary Ann Cavender Stubbs
25 August 1833--1910
Whether or not Mary Ann was pure Native
American or half is unknown, but during the 1950’s, Native Americans from
Oklahoma came to Flat Creek in Texas, and informed the Stubbs people that they
were entitled to property on the reservation. Being suspicious by nature, the
family members turned them away. I suspect that I am either 1/8 or 1/16 Native
American. ES
When the
war came, and the South lost many soldiers, the conscription rules became lax.
In 1863, Joel at the age of sixty-one, served in the 64th Georgia
Infantry for a period of one month. His enlistment was under the auspices of
Captain Prickett.
Was this
Benjamin Prickett or a relative of Benjamin’s?
Joel
furnished a man named Neil to substitute for him and became discharged on 14
April 1863 from Camp Cooper.
At this
point, Joel disappeared from the records. I suspect that he died of natural
causes sometime between 1863 and 1870, because the 1870 census shows Mary Ann
Stubbs, listed as a widow and housekeeper, Cynthia, James, and John living in
Butts County, Georgia. The same census lists James, age eleven, as farm labor.
*****
3
The
Migration to Texas
My
ancestors on my father’s side came from Georgia. As did so many families of the
nineteenth century, worn out farms drove them west.
While
sitting in a corner listening to my two elderly aunts, Valary and Ella Clyde,
reminisce about the adventures of their family members, I often heard
references to Aunt Jo and Aunt Cynthia or “Cynthy,” as they called her. Since
both of their families migrated to Flat Creek in about 1890 along with other
members of our family, my aunts spoke of them on several occasions.
Aunt
Josephine married William “Bill” Floyd and produced eight children. The names
Annie, Charlie, Willie, Alice, and Effie are familiar to me from conversations
of the older people. Willie was a woman named for her father. That was a common
practice. She was a handsome woman who never married. My mother’s name is
Willie Gertrude, named for her father William Henry Hampton as well.
Pictures of
Cynthia show that she was a great beauty. She married Noah Parker who became a
notorious murderer. They produced four children, Aube, Thomas, Alice, and
William “Bill.” When her family migrated to Texas, Cynthia took her children
and left Noah in prison in Georgia where he died.
Tom Parker,
Cynthia and Noah’s son, was a close friend and cousin of my family, the Prices.
He was quite elderly when I knew him, and he lived with the Morelands outside
of Naples, Texas. They were relatives of his deceased wife, Molly. As fate
would have it, Coy Moreland was my classmate through twelve years of public school.
Tom spent a great deal of time visiting in our home. I recall that he had a
hole in his chin left from removing a cancer.
The
rolling, sandy hills of Northeast Texas duplicated the terrain around
Covington, Georgia. The immigrants transplanted many of the names from Georgia
to their new home. Flat Creek, DeKalb County, Douglasville, and Marietta near
Atlanta, Georgia are examples.
John
Thomas Stubbs
15
January 1864--29 May 1929
Due to a
sawmill accident, John had only one arm. Both he and my grandfather, Jim, were
volatile men. After the migration to Texas, they argued and John fired his
shotgun at Jim who stepped behind a tree. Fearing Jim’s retribution, John took
his family and headed for Ft. Worth where he contacted Benjamin F. Prickett,
the husband of his half-sister, Martha.
John was a
shrewd businessman. He bought a herd of cattle in Ft. Worth, drove them back to
Georgia, and started a cattle ranch. Then, according to his progeny, John
accumulated a million dollars mostly through land speculation and the sale of
cattle. However, a bank failure robbed him of his financial gains, but
according to family lore, he recouped his million before he died.
James
Madison Stubbs
23
March 1859—20 April 1944
Since Jim
and John had endured so many hardships together as children, their estrangement
couldn’t last. Eventually, they corresponded by mail leading to a visit to Flat
Creek by John to mend the fences.
During the
1980’s, when I managed the Southeastern USA for Fisons Limited, I visited
Covington, Georgia, seeking out relatives. The first place I searched was the
courthouse. It didn’t take long to discover that the county clerk’s name was
Tom Stubbs. A visit with him established that he was John’s grandson, the son
of Lester for whom my father was named.
Eventually,
I found Johnny Caswell Johnson, John’s great grandson. We collaborated on the
present Stubbs/Johnson family tree, visited on two occasions, and became
life-long friends. He is another distant relative I email most days.
Lucy
Delula Ivey Stubbs
18
April 1860—15 March 1933
Before the
family migrated to Texas, Jim Stubbs lived near the James W. Ivey family and
his wife Arenna, Arena, or Irena. Jim married Lucy, one of their daughters, so
James and Arenna are my great-grandparents. James Ivey was sixty-six when Jim
and Lucy relocated to Texas.
Valary was
Jim and Lucy’s firstborn. She arrived in 1878 in Georgia. She was about eleven
years old when the resettlement to Texas occurred. She loved her grandparents
and the separation from them was difficult.
Flat Creek Missionary
Baptist Church
Established 1868
Members of
the Flatcreek Community established this church in 1868, many years before the
Stubbs family arrived. While it is not active at this time, interested parties
meet here once each year to conduct cemetery business, sing traditional hymns,
and share a meal much in the same way as has occurred for the past 145 years.
Most of the
older generations of Stubbs lie in the cemetery, including my parents,
grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and cousins. A permanent endowment supports
both the cemetery and church. Visiting this relic provides a warm feeling in my
heart knowing how many loved ones graced its pews and raised their voices in
worship.
My father,
Marvin Stubbs led the singing for years. The church deacons turned out my
guardian, Ella Clyde Stubbs Price, for dancing. She, of all people, could have
used the influence. No Christian saint more deserved the title than my Aunt
Augusta Stubbs due to her unfailing worship and worldly deeds.
4
Jim’s
Family
Valary
Stubbs, Jim and Lucy’s firstborn child, married Benjamin Weatherby Taylor in
1899. They produced six children, five of which lived until adulthood. They
were Stella Glyn in 1903, Mattie Inez in 1905, James Curtis in 1908, Era Aline
in 1910, Benjamin Weatherby Jr. in 1917, and Royce Allen in 1921. James Curtis
died young.
Stella Glyn
Taylor Camp was always one of my favorites. When Uncle Ben retired from the
farm, they moved to a house in Mt. Pleasant just behind Stella Glyn and her family.
She married Cullen Camp. Their firstborn was Marie. Bill came next and served
in World War II in the USN. He was a tragic figure who suffered from emotional
problems and emphysema in later life. Bobby Joe Camp was a good high school
football player and a smart guy. He educated himself and had a successful life
as a banker. Glen Dale, the youngest, owned a one truck moving business when I
last saw him in 1970.
My Aunt, Valary Stubbs Taylor, wrote
the following account. I spent many hours as a youngster listening to her, Tom
Parker, and Ella Clyde tell this story. The Mt. Pleasant paper published it
before her death in 1969--ES
The Journey to Texas
By Valary Delula Stubbs Taylor
My maiden name was Valary Delula Stubbs. I was
born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1879. My favorite book has always been and will
always be the Bible. I would be glad to hear from any of my relatives that knew
me in Georgia.
As my mind drifts back to the days of my
childhood, it seems only yesterday that my younger brother Walter and I worked in the cotton mill in Atlanta, Georgia,
when we weren't in school. I was twelve and Walter was nine-years-old. The work
in the factory was very hard, as they didn't have the modern methods of spinning thread they have now. I worked at
the spinning frame where the thread wound on the bobbin. Walter drove a little
car over the factory picking up the
full bobbins of thread.
When we
weren't working, Walter and I walked three miles to school. It was called Hope
School located near Covington, Georgia. I shall never forget our teacher, Miss
Era Allen. (My Aunt Valary named two of her children for her teacher. She named
a daughter Era and a son Royce Allen…ES)
After two
months of working at the cotton mill, Pa decided we would move back to the
country near Covington, Georgia. It was not far from Stone Mountain and the
Alcova River. Ella was little and that's where Carl was born.
My favorite
place to visit was the home of Grandpa and Grandma Ivy. Her maiden name was
Rena Morris and Grandpa's name was Jim. They lived in a large house made of
logs with several apartments. Grandma's kitchen was separated from the rest of
the house. It had a large iron stove and a fireplace for preparing food. I
thought no one could cook like Grandma Ivy.
Grandpa was
a good man. He would always go on his friends note to borrow money, and lots of
times, they would not pay him back, but Grandpa seemed to enjoy helping others.
I didn’t
know my grandparents on my dad's side very well. My Grandpa Stubbs had yellow
red hair and was from Europe. It is said that he came from Germany and had the
true German accent. (Born in South Carolina in 1802, it is not likely that Joel
would have a German accent. His father was a Revolutionary War Veteran and
could have emigrated with the Hessians from Germany. Joel could have grown up
in a German-speaking family. The 1870
census shows Valary’s grandmother, Mary Anne Stubbs as a widow, with her
11-year-old son, Jim Stubbs, working as farm labor. Obviously, Valary’s
information came from her father and grandmother…ES)
Grandma Stubbs was a full blood Cherokee
Indian. (At this time, I am unable to find my great grandmother in the Cherokee
rolls. The Creek tribe was numerous in the area, so she is likely Creek. I
cannot prove if she was a full blood Native American or half. If her pictures
are accurate, she appears full blood. Some reports show her as the daughter of
Sarah McIntosh, the daughter of a wealthy Native American of the time, but
these claims are unsubstantiated and unreliable…ES) Her maiden name was Mary Anne Cavendar. She was a pretty woman with
long black hair and dark eyes. She was also a very brave woman.
Once while Grandpa Stubbs fought in the Civil
War Grandma and her children sat by the fireside. She smoked her clay pipe and
had a gun nearby for protection. She heard a knock at the door. It was Yankee
soldiers.
They forced their way into the house. They had already stolen the cured ham and other
food from the smoke house. They had stolen the horses from Grandma's lot. One
of the Yankee soldiers walked to the fireplace, lit his pipe, and then he asked
Grandma where she had the rest of her horses hidden.
When she told him that was all we had, they said, "Ah, you are lying."
Finally, they left with whatever loot they
already had. I heard many stories like this that are true. There were the
burned buildings and factories, and I was told that Yankee soldiers did this,
but I was too young to know that war leaves scars like this.
A lot of times we children would play by the
Alcova River, wade in the edge of the water, and walk on
the big, flat rocks. We didn't realize
the danger of playing near the river. It was very deep in some places. One day while we were walking on the rocks my
brother Carl fell off, and I had to drag him out.
After living in Georgia for some time,
Pa decided we should move to Texas. There were about a dozen of us to
make the trip. Uncle Pie (John) Stubbs and his family had already moved Texas.
There was Ma and her children and Aunt Cynthia Parker and her children to make
the trip. Pa had come to Texas ahead of us to find a place to live.
I will never forget how sad I felt having to
leave Grandma and Grandpa Ivy. We spent our last night in Georgia at their house. The next day they went with us to the
train and watched us until we were out of sight.
The train drove upon a large ferryboat and it
took us to the other side of the river where we began our journey to Texas. The
trip was very tiring as the trains traveled slowly in those days. They had not
been in use very long.
Aunt Cynthia's children's names were Tom,
Alice, Aube, and Bill Parker. Tom was the oldest; he was seventeen and he
brought his gun along to protect us. There was Ella, Carl, Walter, Ma, and me.
Our destination was Jefferson, Texas, with its
beautiful cypress trees and open saloons. This was where we spent our first
night.
Two suspicious men approached us at the train
station, and we asked them where we could get a hotel room for the night. They
directed us to one, but after we had registered and got to our room, we
decided the place was rough, so
Ma, Aunt Cynthia, and Tom with his gun nearby sat up all night. The rest of us
went to sleep.
About nine o'clock that night the suspicious
looking men came to our hotel room and knocked on the door.
"What do you want?" asked Tom.
"Oh, we just came to tell you your train
is here."
We knew better as our train wasn't due until 7
a.m. the next morning. Tom told the men we would wait until 7 a.m. to leave.
Finally, the men left.
The next morning our train was on time, and a
while later, we arrived in Hughes Springs, Texas, where Pa and Uncle Pie Stubbs
met us.
We spent the next night at Uncle Pie's (John) house,
and the next day we moved to a farm Pa had rented for us from Mr. Henry Allen.
*****
Valary Delula Stubbs Taylor
&
Benjamin Weatherby Taylor
Mattie
Inez, Valary’s second child, was a Bohemian type who enjoyed writing poetry and
singing with her brother Royce. She adopted a child named Ben Marlin Nix.
The next
child, Era, was a beautiful woman who never married. There was talk of a broken
heart when young. B. W. survived the worst of World War II and still lives in
Commerce, Texas, in 2012, but his health is frail. He is ninety-four, and spent
his life as a carpenter. I wrote his military memoir and visit him often. The
army changed his name from B. W. to Benjamin Weatherby, which was his father’s
name. He made it permanent.
Royce was a
musician and songwriter. He played the piano and sang from memory what appeared
to be a limitless storehouse of songs. As a child, I sang with Royce when the
opportunity presented itself. Once, at the peak of his career, when he played
at the Adolphus Hotel’s Century Room in Dallas, he invited me to perform with
him, but I could never bring myself to do it. I just knew I would forget the
words to the songs, and I probably would have.
After her
passing, Aunt Valary’s family buried her at Bradfield’s Chapel Cemetery near
Daingerfield, Texas, on the day that the number one ranked Texas Longhorns, and
the number two Arkansas Razorbacks played for the national title in 1970. I
listened to this classic football game while driving home from her funeral.
*****
Next came
Walter James in 1881. Born in Georgia as well, Uncle Walter was unusual in that
he was a robust, athletic man. According to family lore, he was a baseball
player of major league quality. That is likely true, since one of his progeny,
Rick Stubbs, became a world-class hurdler, and Rick’s son, Drew, played
centerfield for the Cincinnati Reds.
Walter lost
two fingers due to an accident at a sawmill in Texas. Such injuries were
common.
Walter
and Augusta Stubbs and two
Children Lois
Faye and Bernice Hershel
Walter
married a great beauty, Augusta Mauldin. She was a favorite of all who knew
her. Their marriage produced ten children including Bernice Herschel in 1901,
Lois Faye in 1903, Lula Adelle in 1907, Joseph Weldon in 1909, Dorothy Mozelle
1912, Mona Rae and W. J. (Twins) in 1915, Thera Maxine in 1918, David Quincy in
1920, and Francis Laverne in 1922. I knew them all.
Herschel
was a throwback in that he was a tall man … the first in the Stubbs line. He
and my father Marvin were contemporaries, and Marvin described him as a good
baseball player. He was the grandfather of Rick Stubbs, and the
great-grandfather of Drew Stubbs.
Lois never
married. She had friends in Mineral Wells and lived there off and on. Mostly,
she lived at home in Flat Creek with her parents. She suffered from lifelong
allergies.
Lula died
at the age of three.
Weldon
became a country storeowner and fell to an assassin’s bullet in Queen City,
Texas, in 1968. His killer escaped detection.
Mozelle
married Billy Barnwell and produced two children.
Mona
married Reffer Bradford and produced six children.
W. J.
married late in life and sired no children. He served his country during World
War II as a flight instructor. Following the war, he achieved financial success
as a homebuilder near Mt. Pleasant, Texas.
Maxine was
a striking, red-haired woman. She married Ocie Riggins, and they produced three
children. She died of cancer at a young age.
David
survived World War II, but never adjusted to life before or after the war.
According to a contemporary of his, our grandfather, Jim, gave him home brew on
a regular basis while David was in the first grade. Apparently, he had a
significant problem with alcohol, since he died in a car wreck, not long after
World War II, while under the influence.
Laverne was
a handsome woman as well. She married Weldon Wommack, and they produced two
children. At this writing, she remains alive at the age of ninety.
*****
Ella Clyde
Stubbs was the third child of Jim and Lucy’s born in Georgia. She married
Judson Dudley Price, and they had two children one of which died after only a
few days. Ella Clyde never got over the loss of this boy-child, and a
hysterectomy due to cervical cancer. Both scarred her permanently and turned
her into a bitter woman.
Their
daughter, Ella Mae Price, married John L. Barker in 1927, produced no children,
and their union ended in divorce in 1940.
Ella Clyde
was a temperamental, unhappy woman who had difficulty with personal relations.
She had the capacity to turn on the charm and entertain at will, but she was
suspicious and mean-spirited by nature. She dominated my life until I learned
the rules of the game and could wear her down with unceasing pressure. I
confess to being the one person on the planet whom she loved. I suspect it was
because I stood up to her.
Ella Clyde Stubbs Price
7 July 1883—25 January 1972
The next
child born to Lucy and Jim in 1886 did not make the trip to Texas. John Robert
lived six months.
Carl
arrived in 1889 in Newton County, Georgia. He married Ada Carurle. He was a
markedly handsome man. Ada was a beauty as well. It was only natural that they
produced a bevy of gorgeous daughters. They were Christine in 1910, Lillian in
1912, Jewell in 1915, Margare in 1917, Madison in 1920, and Jacqualine in 1926.
Madison, the only son, died at the age of two.
Lillian
married Oneal Lee, and they had three children. One of them, Doyce Lee, and I
served on the board of the Texas A&M-Commerce Alumni Association until his
unexpected death from a heart attack. He was a former Texas State
Representative, attorney, and Texas State Insurance Commissioner.
Carlton S. Stubbs
1 October 1889—17 May 1966
Born in
Texas, Liller came next in 1891. She lived seven years and lies in the Flat
Creek Cemetery.
Altha Mary
was born in 1894 and passed in 1902. She lies in the Flat Creek Cemetery.
Edgar came
next in 1897. A tragic figure, Ed suffered from epilepsy and dementia. He died
in 1939. I attended his funeral. It is the first that I can recall.
Marvin
Lester, our father, was the last child. He arrived in 1900. He was more
studious than his siblings were, so he attended the Flat Creek School through
the eighth grade. That was a significant education during those times.
Marvin,
though small in stature, was a good baseball player in his own right. He was a
curveball pitcher, but lack of knowledge about how to condition or care for his
pitching arm caused him to injure tendons and ligaments to the extent that he
was no longer effective. He said that he threw his arm away.
.
Marvin is at the top
right. His cousin, Hershel, is the tall boy in the back. The first boy on the
bottom row on the left is J. O. Jordan. Next to him is Hershel’s brother,
Weldon. Their sister, Lois, is in the middle of the third row standing by the
boy with the white shirt.
Gertrude
& Marvin Stubbs
|
Nancy Stubbs
|
|
Earl Stubbs
|
|
|
|
|
*****
According to my father, Marvin Lester
Stubbs, J. O. Jordan was his best friend. Their connections intertwined for the
majority of their lives. They went to the Flat Creek School together. J. O.’s
store was within easy walking distance from Marvin’s house. J. O. married
Hannah. Marvin married my mother, Gertrude Stubbs, who passed at the age of
thirty-one. After twenty years alone, Marvin married Bonnie McKinney who was
Hanna’s sister…ES
Marvin
loved to sing. He was a natural tenor, and attended several itinerant music
schools studying shaped notes as opposed to round notes. He led the singing at
the Flat Creek Church for many years. He served as road commissioner as well.
He enjoyed a certain amount of popularity and respect in Flat Creek that he
never established elsewhere.
Marvin, Ed, Valary, Jim, Carl, &
Ella
1939
Marvin
married Willie Gertrude Hampton, known as “Gerti” to her family members. She
and Marvin produced three children: Anna Marvalynn in 1925, Dorothy Jean in
1930, and Earl Wayne, your tried and true reporter, in 1934.
Lynn
married Blewett Cotton and spent most of her life in New Mexico. They produced
two children, Carol and Gary. After Blewett’s untimely death in a private plane
crash, she, successfully, ran their company, Cotton Butane, for the better part
of thirty years.
I was Dot’s
student during her first year as a teacher. She married Joe Tom Terrell, and
they had one son, Tommy Jack.
I am the
youngest child of the youngest child of the James Madison Stubbs line. I
married Nancy Lynn Jacobs of Farmersville, and we have two sons, Michael Wayne
born in 1957 and Mark Alan born in 1960. Our five grandchildren are
Travis-1987, Jordan-1990, Jennifer-1995, Kayla-1995, (Twins), and Aaron-1996.
*****
|
[
|
Flatcreek
Cemetery
Part II
The Hampton Journey
Ephraim Burton Hampton
And wife
Sarah Ruth Peek
4
The first requisite of a
good citizen in this republic of ours is that he/she is able and willing to
pull his/her weight—Theodore Roosevelt
Anna
Liza Herren Hampton
Annie
Orlean Hampton Crossland and Milton Hugh Hampton provided most of the family
information contained in this section. Annie, my first cousin and the oldest
child of my mother’s sister, Ruth, compiled the names, birthdates, death dates,
and marriage dates in many cases, of the family of our grandmother, Anna Liza
Herren Hampton.
Milton Hugh
Hampton lived a few miles from me in Naples while I grew up. His daughter,
Nancy Jean, was a schoolmate at Pewitt High School. His brother-in-law, Coy
Moreland, was a classmate all the way through school. To my knowledge, I never
met Hugh.
Hugh’s
father, Oliver Hampton, was a brother to my grandfather, William Henry Hampton.
Since Grandfather Hampton passed almost twenty-five years before my birth, I
remained unaware of either Hugh or my great uncle Ollie who lived in my
hometown as well.
Hugh
journeyed to Alabama and researched our branch of the Hampton clan. Obviously,
he found relatives since the information he brought back is quite detailed. I
made the same pilgrimage myself, but only found a few gravestones.
I grew up
surrounded by my mother’s kin, but I met very few and became acquainted with
virtually none. A school friend, Franklin Hampton, was very much a part of
George Hampton’s family. We were unrelated. I was a member of the Ruth Hampton
side. Frank attended Hampton family gatherings and related to me tidbits about
my kin, but it meant nothing to me since I didn’t know any of them.
To the
contrary, many members of our mother’s family meet each year at the Hampton
Reunion. Due to a mean and suspicious nature, Ella Clyde Stubbs Price, my
guardian, did not encourage or even allow any contact between my mother’s
family and me. To her credit, she never spoke ill of Willie Gertrude, but why
should she? My mother was not a threat.
I can
recall one instance when I visited with my Grandmother Hampton in front of our
house in Naples. Later, in 1970, I spent several weeks in the hospital in
Garland, Texas. She had family members bring her from East Texas to my room. We
had a wonderful visit, one that I cherish to this day. She neared ninety years
of age at the time.
Little
information on our Hampton ancestors survived. Edward Hampton/Adelia Burton of
South Carolina, comprise the first generation Hugh found. Their son Ephraim
Burton and his wife Sarah Ruth Peek from Talladega, Alabama, are my
great-grandparents. My grandfather, William Henry Hampton, migrated to Omaha in
Morris County Texas, from Lineville, Alabama. He married my grandmother, Anna
Liza Herren. She was about fourteen. William Henry died of pneumonia on
November 28, 1912.
This family
suffered as the result of William Henry’s untimely death. He was thirty-five at
the time. Unable to read or write, Anna was the sole provider for Ruth-14,
Nettie-12, Gertrude-7, Wayne-3, Opal-1, and she was pregnant with William,
another female, who arrived in 1917.
Omaha,
Texas--1900
Tragedy followed this
family. From left: Nett died at 33, the infant Wade died at 3, Anna, the
mother, at 94, Zeala died at 19, Gertrude, my mother, died at 31, William
Henry, my grandfather, died at 35, Ruth died at 44, and Lois died at 33. My
grandmother, Anna, holding her son Wade, buried everyone in this picture…ES
Anna
possessed no skills other than housekeeping, cooking, and caring for her children.
During the next few years, she took on the domestic responsibilities of several
families to feed her children. One such family was the Jim Stubbs family. Lucy
Stubbs, my paternal grandmother, suffered from dementia. Anna provided her care
until she passed, and Jim Stubbs fed her children. Of course, as was usually
the case, when Grandmother Stubbs passed, Grandmother Hampton and her children
had to seek a position elsewhere. My Grandfather Jim did offer one other
alternative. He asked for Anna’s hand in marriage, but she declined. Smart
woman.
Another
important way station in the struggle of this incredible woman was the Ed Storey
home. A brief marriage ensued and led to the birth of my uncle, Vernon Storey.
He is the only remaining member of his generation, and I visit with him
frequently. I love Vernon. He served in World War II moving munitions to the
front, and spent much of his adult life as a mechanic. He is ninety-five at
this writing and loves to play dominos. Vernon is another family member that I
enjoy in my declining years.
Somehow,
Anna Hampton survived. Her character represented everything that is decent and
honorable in the human existence. She possessed the pioneer spirit in its
purest form, and showed a great deal of personal strength in caring for her
family during those trying times. The memory of Granny Hampton will always mean
the world to me.
5
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things
which escape those who dream only by night.--Edgar Allan Poe
Willie Gertrude Hampton
Stubbs
Our mother,
Willie Gertrude Hampton, arrived in Lineville, Alabama, in 1905. Since I was an
infant when she died in 1936, I have no memories of her. Like a sponge, I soak
up any information I can gain about her. As her picture unfolds, I find a
source for my own personality. I am quite different from my father and sisters.
I suspect that Gerti and I shared much common ground. She loved to write
letters.
She
wrote the following to Mrs. J. A. Penny, a schoolteacher and friend, in
Marietta, Texas. Ester Penny and her husband later provided a home for
Gertrude’s daughters and my sisters, Lynn and Dorothy Stubbs.
This letter written by Willie Gertrude
Hampton Stubbs is to her sister Opal. She makes reference to her children Marva
(Lynn), Dorothy, her brother Vernon, Christine, Jewell (Marvin’s nieces), Ella
Price (Marvin’s sister) Anna (Her mother), and Lucy Stubbs (Marvin’s mother).
Willie
Gertrude Hampton Stubbs wrote this card to her brother, Vernon Storey, less
than three months before she died in July of 1936.
Willie Gertrude’s sister, Lois,
wrote this letter on January 21, 1936. They were both concerned about the
health of their mother, Anna, who lived to 93. Both Gertrude and Lois passed
away within a year.
6
Zelma
Ruth Hampton Hampton
Memories
Shared
By
The
Children of
George
and Ruth Hampton
As
Compiled by
Alma
Lavern Hampton Vaughn
Originally
Published by
Brenda
Hampton Godwin
I am certain that before my mother, Willie
Gertrude Hampton Stubbs, passed in 1936, I spent quality time with my Aunt
Ruth’s family, but since I was an infant, I have no recollections of the
events. Ruth’s son, George Weldon, was the one I knew best, because he was at
Naples High School when I started there in the first grade. He kept reminding
me of who he was and who I was. Unfortunately, I could only relate to the
memory of my sisters who lived a scant nine miles away in Marietta. I visited
with them only three or four times while growing up in Naples.
My separation from the Hampton family, for the
most part, lay at the feet of my aunt and legal guardian, Ella Clyde Stubbs
Price, who grabbed me up at my mother’s funeral and never let go. Fearing
anything or anyone that would risk losing the replacement for her own infant
son who died after a few days of life, she cut me off from the Hamptons, even
though they were within easy visiting distance. I recall only one visit from my
grandmother, Anna Liza Herren Hampton, while growing up. Ella Clyde did not
invite her into our house, but we had a short visit at the car. This visit
occurred during the 1940’s. I did not see her again until 1970.
That year, I contracted viral pericarditis, a
serious infection of the lining of my heart. While in the hospital in Garland,
Granny Hampton arranged a visit. She was ninety at the time. We spent forty-five
minutes or so together that day. I never saw her again. I consider those
moments some of the most important in my life.
Even though I made no real effort to connect
with my Hampton relatives over my adult years, I began to form relationships,
beginning with Vernon. We lived in Garland at the same time, and he always
tuned up our lawn mower. Much later, I began working with Annie on her family
tree project. Gradually, I found that these wonderful people were my real family.
It is ironic that with two exceptions, my Stubbs cousins have all passed. Truth
be known, there was little warmth given or received over the decades from the
Stubbs, and they lost their relevance in my life decades ago with the exception
of Rick Stubbs and his family and Ben Taylor and his family. However, my associations
with the Hamptons grow stronger as I move from one generation to the next.
Having attention deficit disorder made it difficult since my ability to recall
the names of people I have met several times is quite limited and embarrassing
at the same time. I do the best I can.
Ruth and George’s children are the core of the
Hamptons of East Texas. As their number succumbed to age, their offspring took
up the mantle and held the family together. The primary reasons for this
close-knit group stems from their parents. Even my mean-spirited guardian, Ella
Price, had nothing but good things to say about Aunt Ruth. After re-reading the
magnificent Memory Book produced by Brenda Hampton Godwin, compiled by Lavern
Hampton Vaughan from the memories of her brothers and sisters, with additional
excerpts from Robert Marlin Hampton, and Evelyn Hampton Jacobs, I cannot
conceive of how a set of parents could give more to their family than did
George and Ruth. I so admire George who took up the mantle of his wife when she
passed to raise and provide for his children.
7
Moving
Day 1938
For
several years, we lived on the Milt Heard farm at Cornett. Our brother, Robert
(Tuff), drew his first breath there. Vernon came to see him. He got over by the
bed in the fireplace room and got a good look at him, and he said he was such a
pretty baby.
Papa
farmed this land on thirds and fourths. That meant Mr. Heard got 1/3 of the
money crops, and 1/4 of the feed crops. Mama and Papa decided we would move to
their place at Cross Roads.
We moved in wagons with two mules pulling each wagon. One
wagon and team was Papa’s and he borrowed one. We think the latter might have
belonged to John Betts. Annie and Albert lived on his place and farmed on
halves. That meant that John furnished the seed and equipment to farm. They did
the work, got half of the harvest, and John got half of the harvest.
The wagons both made more than one trip. The moving started
early that morning and lasted all day. In fact, we may not have moved all of
our belongings in one day. We moved all of the farm equipment as well as
everything in the house. Probably the hardest thing to move was the
wood-burning cook stove. We could not move it until Mama cooked for the day and
the stove cooled. We didn't have a lot of furniture. We had a safe to keep food
in, a cabinet, four cowhide bottom chairs, and a bench. The bench made it possible
for all the family members to sit around the table for a meal. Mama and Papa
sat on one side in two chairs, two kids sat at each end in a chair, and the
rest of us sat on the bench. It was a little crowded, but I don't remember that
being a problem, except once when Auvis was about two years old, and he fell
off the bench. He hit his head with a snuff glass and cut a gash over his eye.
I don't think the glass broke.
Snuff glasses were the only kind of glasses we had. We were
happy with them and didn't know there was any other kind. The bench also served
as a wash bench on washday. Mama carried it outside and put her tubs on it.
Besides this kitchen furniture, we had three full size beds
and a half bed which we called a "little bed”. I'm sure we had lots of
jars of canned stuff to move and a few clothes. We didn't have a lot of
possessions, but moving was still a big job.
The nearest way to the new house was through the woods. It
may have been five miles, maybe less. It would have been twice that far or more
around the road, so the wagons went through the woods. This meant the wagons
had to ford Kelly Creek. The water was low enough it did not get in the wagon
bed, but it was down one steep bank and up the other. I don't guess the mules
were afraid but the little kids were.
The wagonload that carried the chickens, little kids, and
Evelyn got to the house in Cross Roads after the middle of the evening. She was
about sixteen years old. 15 or 20 of the hens smothered to death in the move.
Evelyn dressed one to cook and threw the rest away. Mama got to the new house
about sundown. When she learned about the chickens dying, she gathered them up,
and with the help of the family, dressed them, boiled them until tender,
probably 3 hours or more, and deboned them. She put them in jars and pressured
them. She did all of this after a hard day of moving plus the woodstove had to
set up and the stovepipe run through the roof.
Mama never had a doubt about what to do about those chickens.
The only way she could keep them from spoiling was to can them. So that is what
she did. It took her all night, and she worked by the light of a coal oil lamp.
She was fortunate to have an Aladdin lamp, which gave better light than the
regular coal oil lamp. That lamp had a mantle that turned to ash after
lighting. It was very delicate and would break apart if anyone moved the lamp.
Then, we could not use the lamp until we replaced the mantle. (Auvis restored
this lamp.) Though Mama had no electricity or refrigeration to help out, she
never missed it, because she had never had it.
It was a lot of work to can these chickens, but some of the children
remember how good they were when Mama made dumplings, stew, or dressing. She
may have made other dishes also.
Maybe we forgot, to some degree, what a job it was to find
the jars among the boxes of things just moved. There surely were other
hardships and inconveniences, but Mama was not one to waste anything. She
didn't consider that it was too hard. She just did it.
8
Hog
Killing Day
Every year the family killed hogs for meat for the family. We
usually killed them in November, but could kill them as late as March. To
slaughter hogs, you need a cold, dry day, and, hopefully, no wind. We did this
work outside, and a cold wind would make it hard, if not impossible, to do the
work. The farmer needed experience to pick such a day. This was before the days
of television and electricity so he had no radio for a weather report. The
cities and towns had electrical power. The rural areas didn't get electricity
until in the 1940's, and many rural families didn't get it until the 50’s or
60’s.
When Papa made the decision to kill hogs, we usually killed
two on the same day. We filled the wash pot with water and built a fire around
it. The water had to be the right temperature to make it possible to scrape the
hair off the hog. If it was too hot, it would set the hair, and we couldn't get
it off. We tested the water by dipping our hands in it. It was the right
temperature when someone could dip his or her hand in it three times.
While the water was heating, we dug a slanted hole in the
ground, and then we put a barrel in the hole with the lower edge of the front
off the barrel even with the ground. They put boards down in front of the
barrel. After we completed all of this, and the water was the right
temperature, it was time to kill the hog.
Papa shot the hogs with his .22 rifles. That was the only gun
Papa had and the only one he needed. When the hog fell, George Weldon and
Lawrence jumped over the pen. Each grabbed a front leg and turned the hog on
its back. Then, one would stick a butcher knife in its jugular vein so its
blood would drain out. They put the hog on a slide hitched to a horse and drug
it to the barrel. They put it in the barrel, back end first, and poured the
water over it. When they could pull the hair off easily, it was ready to
scrape. They put it on the boards and all who could get around it, scraped the
hair off with a knife. If the hog was too big to go in the barrel, they put him
on the boards, lay tow sacks on him, and poured water on him until he was ready
to scrape. When they scraped the hair off, they slit the skin on the back legs,
and hooked the ends of a single tree under the tendons in the legs. (A single
tree is a piece of wood about two feet long with metal pieces on each end.
Farmers use it to hitch a mule or horse to a plow, wagon, or slide.) The
workers pulled the single tree up into a tree with a rope, thus hanging the hog
off the ground. They poured water on the hog and washed it, and then they split
it open and let all its insides fall into a tub. Then they poured water inside
the hog to wash it.
They separated the insides that were in the tub. They took
out the heart, liver, and melt (the spleen). They gave the melt to the kids who
would roast the melt over a fire and eat it. Some people cleaned the entrails
and ate them, but our family did not.
Our women took the entrails and stripped the fat off them to
make lard. This was a dirty job. Sometimes you would burst a gut. When this
happened, you had to tie it off. We saved all of this fat, plus any trimmed off
the meat, and rendered lard out of it. ,
Meanwhile, the men put the hog on a table and cut it into
hams, shoulders, middlings, pork chops, and ribs. The trimmings from these were
ground into sausage. They had to use the right proportion of lean and fat meat
to make the sausage cook and taste right. After the sausage was ground, Papa
would season it with sugar cure, salt, sage, and pepper. Mama would cook one
for him to see if he needed to add more seasoning. Early in the year, Mama
would make small, long sacks out of flour sacks and stuff them full of sausage.
We hung them in the smoke house and used them as needed. If the weather got too
warm, Mama would fry the sausage, pour grease over them, and seal them in jars.
We could eat these anytime, as they would keep all year like this.
Papa sugar cured the hams and shoulders. We ate them first as
they did not keep as well as the middlings. We put the middlings in a box and
covered them with salt. They would keep like this until used. We made bacon
from middlings.
On the day we killed the hogs, we cooked tender loins and
sausage for supper.
Hog killing day was a full day of hard work for all the family.
Sometimes a neighbor would help, and we gave them a portion of the meat to show
appreciation.
The killing of the hogs made it necessary to do other things.
Soon after we processed the hogs, we rendered the lard ... usually the next
day. The fat that was stripped from the insides of the hog and entrails (this
was sometimes cooked separately), and the other fat that was trimmed from it
was put in the wash pot. First, we cleaned the inside of the wash pot. We built
a fire around the pot, and we cooked the meat to separate out the grease. We
stirred the contents of the pot occasionally with a hickory stick to keep the
meat from burning. We called the remains of the meat cracklings after we cooked
the grease out. Then, we dipped out the cracklings and put them in a cornmeal
sack to let the grease drip out. When they were cool enough not to burn your
hands, we squeezed the grease out by twisting the sack with a homemade tool
made with two boards hinged together. We opened the two boards, lay the sack
between them, and pressed the grease out in a dishpan. We stored this lard and
that in the pot in 5-gallon cans. We used the lard for seasoning vegetables,
frying chickens, potatoes, etc., and for piecrust. We would grind up a few
cracklings and use them to make crackling bread, but we used most to make soap.
To make lye soap, Mama put water in the pot and built a fire
around it. When the water got hot, she added one or two cans of Eagle lye and
stirred the pot with a stick until it dissolved. She was careful not to get the
lye on her or breathe the fumes from it. She usually used a handle cut from a
worn-out broom for a stick. We called it a punching stick because we used it to
punch down clothes when we boiled them in the pot. Next, she added her pigskins
and cracklings. She cooked and stirred them until the lye ate them up. She
might add more water so that when she finished the soap, she would have more
than half a pot full. When the fire went out, she would turn a tub over it so
nothing would get in. The next day, she cut the soap into bars, took them out
of the pot, and stored them for use as needed to wash clothes, dishes, and
hair. We bought hand soap to wash hands and feet and to take our weekly bath.
9
Wash
Day
Washday needed to be a sunny day since it took most of the
day to do this job. We moved the bench from the eating table outside to hold
two washtubs. We filled them with water. One of the kids or Papa would draw all
this water from the well for Mama. She cut up lye soap in the wash pot, and
built a fire around it to boil the water. The wood for the wash pot was usually
tree tops drug up from the woods where we cut firewood for the cook stove or
fireplace.
Mama sorted the white clothes, colored (wearing) clothes, and
overalls into piles. She put the white clothes in a tub and scrubbed them with
a rub board and lye soap to get out stains and dirt. Then, she put them in the
pot to boil. Meantime, she got the next pot full ready. When the clothes had
boiled awhile, she lifted them out of the pot with the punching stick and put
them in a tub. Next, we rinsed that batch through two waters and hung them on a
line. The clothesline was wire stretched between two poles, and it had a pole
to prop it up in the middle. This pole lowered the line to hang the clothes
then prop the line higher for them to dry. The line would not hold near all the
clothes, so we hung the towels, washrags, underwear, and other things on the
barbwire fence that kept the cattle out of the yard.
We did not boil the good clothes that we wore to church,
school, and wherever we went. We scrubbed them on the rub board, rinsed and
starched them, and hung them out to dry. We tried to hang the colored ones in
the shade and brought them in as soon as they were dry to keep the sun from
fading them. We made the starch by boiling water on the wood cook stove and
adding a paste made from cold water and Faultless starch. We bought the
starch.
We washed the work clothes such as overalls, jumpers, and
chambray shirts last.
This was before the days of bleach, but the lye soap and
sunshine did a good job of helping keep the clothes white, but Mama put bluing
in her rinse water to whiten the clothes also.
When she finished washing, she sometimes used the water to
scrub and rinse the kitchen floor. Pine planks made up the floors, and we
cleaned them by pouring on water then scrubbing them with a broom. Then, she
rinsed and swept the water off. Sometimes, we used an old pair of overalls to
dry off the excess water. Then, everyone stayed out of the kitchen until the
floor dried.
Washday was a long, hard job but in about 1936 or 37 it got a
little easier. Mama got a gasoline-engine washing machine. She bought it from
Alvin Irving. Papa had a feed grinder, and he traded it for the washing
machine. Washday was still a big job, but easier than before. We filled the
wash pot with water, heated it, and put it into the washing machine. Starting
with the white clothes, we washed a load at a time in the machine. After the
first load washed, Mama ran those through the wringer into the first rinse tub.
She put another load into the washer while she rinsed the first load and hung
them out. She changed the rinse water often. We changed the first water and
moved the second rinse to the first. The washing machine eliminated boiling the
clothes in the wash pot. It shortened the washday by several hours and was much
easier on Mama. Sometimes the hardest thing to do on washday was to get the
machine started. It had a kick lever to start it and sometimes it took a while.
Another big job followed when we finished the washing.
10
In this theater of man's life, it is reserved only for God
and for angels to be lookers-on--Sir Francis Bacon
Ironing
Clothes
We had to iron all the clothes we wore to school and other
places. This was before the days of perma-press, and they wrinkled while
drying. We could iron on any day but Sunday. It helped if it was a sunny day,
as you had better light to see. We always ironed by daylight since we had no
electric lights, and the lamp could not be put in a good place to help with
this.
Early on ironing day, we cleaned off the table and wiped it
clean. Then, we laid out the clothes on the table, one at a time, and sprinkled
them with water. It helped if the water was warm, but it didn't have to be.
Sometimes, we put water in a jar and punched holes in the lid to sprinkle the
clothes. Sometimes, we sprinkled by getting water in our hands and sprinkling it
on the clothes. After we sprinkled each piece, we rolled them up in a folded
sheet. After we sprinkled all of the clothes, we rolled them together in the
sheet and allowed them to set two or three hours to get uniformly moist so they
would not have dry spots and wet spots. Then, we ironed them.
The ironing board was padded. We turned two chairs back to
back to keep them from falling over. We put the ironing on these chairs and the
other end on the foot of the bed in the fireplace room. Mama had three flat
irons … one small, one medium, and one large. We heated them in the fireplace
or on the wood cook stove. When we started to iron, we had to wipe the smut of
the iron first and then iron the garment. When the iron began to cool, we put
it back in the fire, got another, and wiped the smut off it. Ironing for our
big family was usually an all day job and a very hard one too. In later years,
Mama got a gasoline iron. That iron didn't get smutty. It was a great
improvement over heating the flat irons in the fireplace or on the cook stove.
Ironing was still a big job, but not as hard as before. In later years, we kids
learned to appreciate electric irons and then permanent press.
11
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The
shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing--Abraham Lincoln
Canning
Every year when the vegetables were mature or ripe, Mama
canned them to feed her family during the winter when there was nothing growing
to eat. Though all the family helped, the main responsibility was on her
shoulders. She would always try to fill all her jars and usually canned at
least four hundred jars a year. She never had a good place to keep her canned
goods and empty jars until 1939. That was the year she got a freestanding
pantry built. She was so proud. At the same time, she got a freestanding clothes
closet built to hang our good clothes in. The closet was probably four feet
wide, but it had enough room to hang all the good clothes for our large family.
One year, the family lived near Mr. Andy Long and family. He
had a lot of green beans, and he wanted Mama to pick them. She did and canned
36 ½-gallon jars.
When berries got ripe, Papa and the kids would take several
one-gallon syrup buckets and go to the woods to pick berries. The briars stuck
us, and chiggers covered us. When we got home, someone had to pick the chiggers
off you. Meanwhile Mama stayed at the house and got things ready to can the
berries. She cleaned the kitchen after breakfast, strained the milk, cleaned up
after that, and got dinner started. Usually, the kids washed the jars the day
before. Then, we washed the berries in the washtubs through two or three
waters. Next, we heated the berries in water on the wood stove and sealed them
in quart jars. We used the berries for cobblers or jam, or sometimes we ate
them with cake or whipped cream.
Mama helped pick the beans when they were ready to can. The
kids could not always tell which ones were ready to pick. After we picked them,
everyone helped shell or snap them. Those had to be pressure-cooked.
Mama usually bought peaches and apples. She canned some in
quart jars and dried some. To dry them, she sliced them thin and spread them
out in the sun until they dried. She had to protect them from chickens and
flies to do this. Someone would usually give her pears, and she made preserves from
those.
Mama and Papa gathered wild plums, grapes, and muscadine. She
made jelly from them. She washed and cooked the grapes and plums. Then, she
strained the juice through a meal sack to make the jelly. Sometimes, she made a
cobbler out of the plums. She popped the muscadines open; put the plummies in
one pan, and the hulls in another. She cooked them separately, made jelly from
the juice, but she canned some of the hulls to make cobblers. She ground up
some hulls to use, instead of raisins, to go in mincemeat.
She made mincemeat at hog killing time. She used a little of
the meat from the hogs head and feet and a lot of fruit. Sometimes she used
dried fruit. She used apples, peaches, and raisins. We ate the mincemeat on
buttered biscuits, or made it into pies. She made a custard pie and added
mincemeat to it in a crust made from hog lard and flour.
Canning corn was a big job. After we gathered it from the
field, we shucked and silked the ears. We silked them with an old toothbrush.
I'm sure we left a few silks on it, but they didn't hurt the taste. After we
silked it, we put the ears in a tub of water. Those cutting it off the cob took
it from the tub and cut it with a sharp knife into a dishpan. When they get a
dishpan full, we brought it to a boil on the stove. We added water to make the
right consistency. When it began boiling, we put it in the cans. We handled
those hot cans with rags to keep from getting burned. We sealed the cans, put
them in the cooker, and pressured them at 10 pounds for an hour. When we
finished the cooking, we let the steam off, opened the cooker, and emptied it
for the next load.
We usually canned corn in tin cans. We used #2 cans that
would hold about sixteen ounces. Mama had a can sealer, and the Cornett
community had a cooker that people could use. Mama had a cooker too, but when
canning corn, it was real handy to have two. Usually, the neighbors would help
each other on corn canning day. This was field corn; no one raised sweet corn
back then. One day, our family, and the Claude Eaton family helped Mrs. Nanny
Boone (Mrs. John Boone) can corn. There were probably about 15 grown-ups and
some kids there. Mrs. Boone fixed dinner for all the helpers. Someone mentioned
that we didn't have corn for dinner. She replied, "I kept thinking I'd
have a piece of a can left over, but I never did." I bet that bunch could
have eaten several cans.
Sometimes, Mama canned little potatoes. When they dug them,
she scraped the little ones and canned them in quart jars to have when all the
others were gone.
She always canned lots of tomatoes in Y2 gallon jars and lots
of peas. She worked hard to put up food for the family when there was none in
the garden.
Mama not only canned for her own family, but when there was a
need, she helped others also. One time, Nolan and Mary Annie Caldwell were
canning in cans. Annie Mae Smith was going to seal the cans for them, but her
sealer wouldn't work. They came to get Mama to bring her sealer and seal the
cans. Mama had just got dinner ready; she had her plate filled ready to eat.
She left her food and went right away, as they needed to get the cans sealed as
soon as possible. She was always ready to help when there was a need.
When canning in glass jars, the pressure had to go down by
itself. Sometimes, it would be after nightfall before the last cooker finished.
When we finished the cooking, we had to remove the cooker from the stove. We
could not turn off the wood stove as our stoves today. Those cookers were heavy
as they contained two or three layers of cans amounting to twenty or more cans
in one cooker.
12
They say that
blood is thicker than water. Maybe that's why we battle our own with more
energy and gusto than we would ever expend on strangers--David Assael
Occupation
Papa was a farmer. This is how he made a living for his
family. Mama was a farmer's wife. She helped him in whatever way she could. All
the family worked together to raise and gather the crops.
In about 1935, Papa got sick and had to go to the Veterans Hospital
in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mama and Morris took the responsibility of getting
the crop in that year. The bigger kids helped, and Annie took over the cooking
and care of the little kids.
Mama and Papa milked about 15 cows. These were straight run,
not dairy. I'm sure some of the older children helped with the milking. Mama
wanted to sell the cream off the milk. While Papa was in the hospital, she sold
a cow and bought a milk cream separator. She sold the cow to John Betts. He and
Claude Eaton came to talk to Mama about the cow. Mama was in the field plowing
with a scratcher. The Bermuda grass was very bad. While she talked with John
about the cow, Claude made a round with the scratcher. He was so exhausted he
only made one round. Mama did what was necessary to get that crop planted.
Mama got her separator. When we finished milking, we strained
the milk into the separator. When we turned the handle, the cream came out one
spout and milk called blue john came out the other. We fed the blue john to the
hogs. It would probably compare to the 2 % milk bought in the stores today.
One of the best cotton crops Papa made was in 1936. He made
18 bales of cotton that year. He paid the kids 50 cents a hundred to pick. He
didn't usually pay us. We had what we needed, and we picked anyway. Mama and
Papa taught us all to work together to get done what had to be done. I, Lavern, was four years old, and
Mama made me a cotton sack out of a
meal sack. It might hold 10 pounds of cotton. Papa told me he would give
me a nickel if I would fill it up. I got it full, but I remember that Papa put
several hands full of cotton in my sack. I went with Morris when he carried the
bale of cotton to the gin. He stopped at Herbert Arnold's store and let me
spend my nickel. I bought a peanut patty. It was so big, I could not eat it
all, but Morris helped me eat it.
Evelyn and Jean spent some of their money for clothes. Mama
sent an order to Sears Roebuck for pajamas for Jean. She ordered Jean a pair of
red overalls and Evelyn a pair of blue ones. Jean was going to wear hers to the
county meet at Linden. She was going to play baseball, but she fell and hurt
her hip and didn't get to go. Her overalls went though. Her friend, Christine
Vaughan, wore them. Her dad wouldn't let her wear overalls, but he wasn't at
the county meet.
Mama thought tomatoes was a good idea for a money crop. She
encouraged Papa to plant them for the market. Early in the year, probably about
February Papa sprouted his seed. He put them in a tow sack, wet it, and put it
under the heater to sprout them. Meantime, he built a hot bed to plant them in.
This was dirt, framed in boards. It was probably three or four feet wide and
about eight or ten feet long. He ran a tunnel down the center of the frame. He
built a fire at one end and the heat would travel through the tunnel and keep
the ground warm for his seed. This was where he planted his sprouted seed and
let them grow until they were about four inches high. Then, he moved them to a
cold frame. The cold frame was bigger than the hot bed and did not have the
tunnel. He set the plants in the cold frame about five or six inches apart. He
marked his rows in the cold frame with a rake. He put corncobs on the tines of
the rake about five or seven inches apart, then he marked the rows both ways,
to form squares. The plants were set in the middle of the square. When he
removed them from the cold frame and set them in the field, he cut them out in
squares, leaving the dirt around the plant. Papa put those on the slide, hauled
them to the field, and set them out in rows.
After the
plants started producing, we picked some of these tomatoes green and sold them
in DeKalb. The ripe tomatoes went to a cannery in Atlanta. They furnished the
baskets, and sent a truck to pick up the tomatoes. They had to be good with no
blemishes. Of course, Mama could not can tomatoes that had a blemish either,
but she and Mrs. Lena Wellborn tried to cook all of these. They had enough for
the community.
Another crop we planted was soybeans. Mama cooked some of
these, but the family didn't like them. We grew watermelons as well. Besides
the money crops, Mama always had a garden. It furnished us with plenty of
vegetables to eat and can for later use.
She also had chickens. She raised some for fryers and some
for making dressing, dumplings, and stew. She also had laying hens that
furnished all the eggs for the family. She sold the extra eggs and bought what
she needed.
We didn't buy much but the necessities. We had to buy coal
oil for the lamp and to start a fire in the stove. It was 10 cents a gallon.
She bought her flour, salt, sugar, soda, and baking powder. Sometimes she
bought corn meal, and sometimes we had it ground. She might buy soap. The flour,
meal, salt, and sugar came in cloth bags, which she used for many things.
Sometime Mama sold butter. She put the milk in a churn to
clabber. When it was c1abbered, we churned it until the cream turned to butter.
We put the butter into a bowl and beat the milk out of it. Then we washed and
salted the butter. If she was going to sell it, she packed it into a butter
mold that measured a pound. We left what we used at home in a bowl.
13
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon
atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them--Samuel Butler
Daily
Chores
The day began early on the farm. In the winter, Papa got up
and built a fire in the cook stove and one in the heater or fireplace,
depending on the house we lived in. Then, Mama would get up, and they fixed
breakfast before daylight. Mama always made biscuits for breakfast. She had a
big pan of flour. She made a well in this flour and poured her buttermilk in.
She measured her salt, soda, and baking powder in her hand and added them to
the milk. She put a little shortening in, mixed it up, and mixed the flour in
with her hand. She pinched the biscuits off with her fingers and flipped them
in grease that she melted in her baking pan. They would all be the same size.
Then, she baked the biscuits in the woodstove. It took a lot of biscuits to
feed Mama's family. The pan held 15 or 20, and she made two of these each
morning. Morris, Carl, and Mayo could eat this many by themselves.
While Mama made biscuits, Papa cooked the meat from the hogs
he had slaughtered. Sometimes he cooked ham or bacon, but usually he cooked
sausage. When he cooked ham, he made what he called gravy. When he finished
cooking the ham, he poured out most of the grease, then added water to the
skillet and rinsed out the skillet. We ate this with our ham and syrup.
Sometimes Papa cooked oatmeal and sometimes he made sugar
syrup. He made sugar syrup special by browning the sugar in an iron skillet,
then adding water. If he made it plain, he added a little vanilla flavoring. We
usually had syrup of some kind to go with our biscuits. Sometimes we had
sorghum syrup. Papa raised the sorghum, and they cooked it off on Uncle Pete's
syrup mill. A few times, we had ribbon cane syrup from this same method.
Mostly, we had Blackburn's syrup, bought from the country store. That would be
Ernest Hall's store, when we lived at Cross Roads. When we lived at Cornett, it
would be Olin McCord or Herbert Arnold's store. We always had plenty of butter
for our biscuits from the cows Mama and Papa milked. Mama and Papa had coffee
for breakfast. Papa would perk it on the stove. The kids could have milk, but
usually did not drink anything.
If we had not washed the dishes the night before, Papa washed
them while Mama fixed breakfast. He had to wash them before we could eat,
because we only had enough dishes for one meal.
When breakfast was nearly ready, Papa called the kids. He
didn't have to call twice. We all knew when Papa spoke we better listen. We
cooked and ate breakfast by the light of a coal oil lamp. About 1935 or 1936,
Mama got an Aladdin lamp that gave a better light. It also got pretty warm.
Once it was sitting on the dresser. Once we pushed the lamp back close to the
mirror and became so hot, it cracked the mirror. We only had this one mirror,
so from that time on, we had one mirror, cracked from top to bottom.
After breakfast, at about daylight, we had to care for the
livestock. Mama, Papa, and the older kids helped milk the cows. Sometimes, we
fed the cows while we milked them. Sometimes, we let the calf suck a little,
and then tied the calf off while we milked the cow. They always carried water
in the bucket to wash the cow's teats before they started milking. When we
finished the milking, Mama carried it to the house and strained it into buckets
or churns. We drank some as sweet milk, or we used it for cooking. Some
clabbered to churn for butter and buttermilk.
Afterwards, she had a big mess to clean up. She strained the
milk through a meal sack. She washed this through two or three clean waters,
and then hung it to dry. She washed all of the milk buckets as well as the
breakfast dishes. We drew the water from the well with a bucket on a rope and
pulley, and brought one bucket at time into the house. We had a water bucket
that sat on a shelf. Often, it was made of wood. A dipper was in this bucket to
dip out water to use and drink. Everyone drank from this dipper. A wash pan and
soap also sat on the shelf with the water, and a towel made from a fertilizer
sack hung on a nail nearby. Everyone would wash their face and hands here, then
dash the water out the back door. We washed our feet in this wash pan every
night. Sometimes, we washed this pan in the dishpan after all the dishes.
Papa and the boys took care of the other animals. After we
milked the cows, we turned them out of the pen into the pasture to graze the
grass all day. They came up at milking time, or we would drive them up to the pen
or barn. At night, we milked them again.
We fed the horses, mules and hogs corn raised on the farm.
Papa usually had a crib full of corn at the beginning of winter. We fed the
hogs slop. We kept a 5-gallon bucket in the kitchen and poured dishwater in it.
Sometimes, we added shorts, a bought feed, and poured it into the trough. They
ate it all. We gave most table scraps to the dog.
After Mama cleaned the kitchen and got the kids off to
school, depending of the time of year, she sometimes had a little free time to
do things she wanted to do or needed to do. She would piece quilts or sew. She
had a Singer treadle sewing machine, and she used it to make many garments. She
made all of her clothes and the kids clothes including underwear. The boys
bought overalls. She sewed for people in the community, especially if their
mother had died or if they just had a need. She never charged anything or
expected anything in return. She didn't have any dress patterns. She could look
at a dress in the catalog and make a dress like it. I think she cut her
patterns from newspaper. She never had any straight pins. She would put a glass
or knife on her pattern to hold it in place on the material.
When Mama cooked dinner, she cooked enough for supper. This
was great in the summer, as she didn’t have to heat up the stove again. It made
the house hotter in the summer. The only way we had to cool the house was to
open all the doors and windows and let the summer heat, flies, and mosquitoes
in. We often had cornbread and buttermilk for supper. It doesn't get any better
than that.
We washed the dishes three times a day so they would be ready
for the next meal. Sometimes, we left the supper dishes and washed them before
breakfast. When we did this, we always turned our glasses up side down in our
plates so it would not dry out and be hard to wash.
After supper, Mama liked to play 42 with the kids. Everyone
was probably in bed by 8 o'clock. The next day started by 5 a.m. at least. It
also ended early, so it could start early the next day.
14
History
teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all
other alternatives--Abba Eban
Odds
& Ends
This was back in the days before television, and very few
people had a radio. If they had one, they were picky about what they listened
to, as they had to make the battery last as long as possible. The young people
had to entertain themselves. One of the ways we did this was to spend the night
with each other. Sometimes, a visitor would have the itch. (Impetigo) Some
people seemed to keep the itch, and it was very hard to cure. When a visitor
with the itch stayed the night, the family got it. Mama's family didn't
"keep" the itch. She saw to that. Sometimes she boiled polk root and
those with the itch would bathe in it. It would break them out and set them on
fire, but I guess it killed the itch mites. It nearly killed the kids. There
was a medicine called Red Pacific that was supposed to cure the itch. It broke
the kids out also. Sometimes, Mama mixed sulfur and hog lard. She put this on
the itchy places. I don't know if it got rid of the itch, but it sure didn't
smell very good. In later years, Aunt Opal brought us some scabola salve. This
was supposed to cure the itch, and I guess it did. Whatever it took, Mama
didn't quit until she got us cured.
Another big problem was lice. When we got lice, Mama was just
as diligent to get rid of them. She washed our hair in coal oil. She combed
them out of our hair with a fine comb. Whatever she had to do, she did. There
were no drug store remedies available that we knew of. When she got the kids
cured, she tackled the clothing. She washed the sheets, towels, and wearing
clothes. She did this with the rub board, lye soap, the wash pot, and plenty of
water drawn the hard way from the well.
Mama hated whiskey. About 1929, Jean heard Mama talking about
how she hated whiskey. Papa came in one day with a pint of whiskey. She told
him that the first drink he took out of that bottle, she was gone. She put it
up in the cabinet and used it for medicine. Papa never brought whiskey home
after that.
About the same time, a lot of Papa's people visited. The
family lived at Cornett near the store. The men were out under the big magnolia
tree, and the women were in the house. Jean was outside watching the men. She
was three or four years old. Uncle Mock had a bottle of whiskey and he passed
it around. When it came to Papa, he took a drink. Jean ran into the house and
told Mama.
Mama sewed for everybody. She made some clothes for Mrs.
Wallace, a schoolteacher, before Jean started to school. Jean didn't remember
if she received pay for it, but I don't think she did.
One time, Mama got Mr. Wynnegar to take some pictures of us.
She made us some new clothes for the pictures. She made Tuff a little suit with
shorts and a shirt out of fertilizer sacks. They were real cute. Tuff was about
three years old. This was when we lived on the Heard place at Cornett.
Sometimes, before we took the pictures, Mama made Annie a suit out of
fertilizer sacks. It was really pretty. It would have to be for Annie to wear
it.
Fertilizer sacks made
a lot of things besides clothes. They made sheets, pillowcases, towels,
dishtowels, aprons, quilt linings, quilt pieces, and dresser scarves. She also
made luncheon cloths. There was a lot of work involved in getting them ready to
use. They had words printed in the material. To get these letters out, she wet
them and soaped them down with lye soap. She let them soak a while, and then
she scrubbed them on the rub board. Maybe she did something else to them, but,
eventually, she hung them out in the sunshine. When she got through with them,
they would be pretty and white with every trace of the letters gone. If Mama
wanted a different color, she just dyed some of the sacks. The material was
very good and lasted well.
Flour started coming in printed sacks. These made nice
blouses and other things.
Mama didn't charge people for sewing for them. She sewed for
whoever asked her. She made a dress for Bea, a black lady. Mama asked her how
she wanted it made. Bea answered, "I don't care Mrs. Ruth, just so it's
short and tight and has something flapping." The style was with a big
handkerchief to flap.
Mama made Annie's clothes when she got married. She made a
blue crepe dress and a royal blue long coat and skirt. A few years later, when
Annie needed one, she made her a maternity dress. She bought some wine silk
material with white polka dots and made her a dress.
Mama would darn the socks when they got a hole in the heel.
She would put a snuff glass down in the sock and patch the hole. The snuff
glass held the sock in place while she sewed.
She found time to piece lots of quilts from her scraps. She
probably did that mostly in the winter, when there was no garden or crop. When
she died, she had enough tops pieced for all of us kids to have one.
When she quilted a quilt, she carded her bats from her own
cotton to make the filler. She had to quilt these very close as cotton will
come apart and knot up when washed. The polyester battings of today are a great
improvement over the real thing.
When Mama saw a need, she did something about it. Some of us
might say, "Somebody should do something about that," but not her.
She was "somebody" and she took care of it.
When the peas dried in the field, we picked them, let them
lay out in the sun to get brittle, then we put them in a sack, and beat them
with a stick to break the hulls to pieces. This was the way we thrashed them.
Then, we poured them from a pan into a tub. The peas fell into the tub, and the
hulls chaff blew away. Mama gave these peas to people who had no food. She also
gave them milk and butter. Jean remembered that Jackie Wilson, or it may have
been Montie Mae Motley, would have starved to death, if Mama hadn't helped her.
One time at Christmas, Mama and Papa went to town in Hughes
Springs. They bought some fruit, among other things. Mama saw Bassie Kato's
kids on the street. They were dirty and hungry. She gave them some fruit to
eat. She said she would have bought them some soap, but she was afraid it would
hurt their feelings.
One time, Mama fed Montie Mae Motley and her kids, while Jake
was gone. He was gone a month, hunting a job.
When anyone got sick, Mama would go. Mrs. Nanny Boone got
sick one time, and Mama went to see her. Mrs. Boone said, "I knew you
would come." The next time she got sick, she died. Mama went, but she was
gone when Mama got there.
Mama went when Dan Boone and his wife's baby was born. That
was a sad day for everybody. The baby was stillborn. The mother, Florence
Barmet Boone, also died.
Mama had kids at home, but she was able to go when there was
a need. Annie cared for her little brothers and sisters. When people needed
food, Mama usually sent it to them by some of the kids.
When we were kids, there were two churches at Cornett. One
Sunday, we went to the Methodist church and the next Sunday to the Baptist
church. Only one church had services on any given Sunday. Mama and Papa didn't
always go to church, but the kids went. We walked. It was probably more than a
mile, but most people walked everywhere they went, or rode in a wagon pulled by
mules or horses. Not many people had cars in those days.
Annie remembers Mama going to church with the family. Mama
liked to sing. When they asked for a choir, she would go up and sing in the
choir. Mama could sing and she could yodel too. She didn't yodel in church, but
she yodeled going to milk or coming back to the house from the cow pen. Bet
those cows enjoyed it. Also the neighbors and her family, but Mama must have
enjoyed it most of all.
Mama always saw that her family had plenty to eat. She was
good at trying something different. Some things she cooked didn't go over too
well, so she only tried these once. Some of the things she cooked
"once" were a coon, a possum, and a goose. A hawk stew was just like
chicken stew.
For Christmas, she cooked a ham from the hog Papa killed. She
would make chicken and dressing. Several days before she was ready to do this,
we caught the chicken or chickens they planned to kill, and penned them. Mama
kept them fed and watered. If she killed them Christmas Eve, she cooked them,
but kept the meat cool. That time of year, temperature was usually not a
problem. The whole house, for the most part, felt like a freezer. At a warmer
time of the year, cooked chicken would sometimes be put in a bucket and let
down in the well to keep it from spoiling.
One year Mama made a pound cake. She cooked it in a small
aluminum dishpan in the oven of the wood stove. She usually made at least three
or four cakes for Christmas. One of the cakes was a hickory nut cake. They were
so good, but it took a lot of time and patience to pick out the hickory nuts.
You could never get all the hulls out so someone always got a hull in their
piece of cake. She would sometimes put a cake or two on the mantle over the
fireplace. I guess that was so Santa could get a slice or two.
Mama made teacakes for school lunches. She put them in a meal
sack and hung them up in a bucket. She put icing between two cookies and made a
cookie sandwich. This was a special treat. In those days, all the kids carried
their lunch to school. There were no hot lunches back then. They carried what
they had on the farm such as boiled eggs or egg sandwiches made with biscuits,
sausage, or ham. Sometimes we had peanut butter and crackers bought from the
store. We often paid for the crackers with eggs from the yard.
In 1935, Mama and Papa planted a big turnip patch in the
woods. They made lots of turnips and picked a wagonload. They bedded them down
(buried them) to keep them from freezing. Carrie Barnett and Anna Crossland
(sisters) would come and help Mama quilt. Mama would give them some turnips.
Martha, a black lady that lived close to Kelly Creek, would
come and churn for Mama. Mama would give her milk, butter, and vegetables. One
day, Martha went through the tomato patch and picked some tomatoes as she went
home. She lost her glasses, came back to the house, and told Mama. Mama sent
Lavern and maybe Tuff to help find them. They looked and looked, but never
found them. Finally, Lavern saw them on the top of her head, but she didn't
know those were the ones lost. She thought Martha knew they were there. Later,
after Martha got home, she found them on the top of her head.
After Mama died and Evelyn had married, Papa would get Jean
up to help cook breakfast. We didn't have a clock, but Papa could tell about
what time it was by looking at the stars. One morning it was cloudy and he
could not see the stars, but he thought it was time to get up, so he got Jean
up, and she cooked breakfast. Then Papa decided it was too early and did not
wake the kids. It must have been about midnight. He got a clock after that.
When Jean was little, she went to the cow pen with Mama and
Papa and watched them milk. Mama asked her if she wanted to milk. She said yes.
She tried it, but she couldn't milk very well. When she got older, she learned,
like the rest of the kids. When we got old enough, we all helped with the work.
Mama and Papa always worked well together. We never heard any
fussing, cursing, or raised voices from them. If they had any disagreements, it
was between them privately. I don't think any of their ten children lived up to
this example they lived before us.
Mama always cared for her family. When Willie was a young
girl, she had gone home from school. Mama saw two girls come by with switches.
She asked them where they were going. They said, "We're going to get
Willie. She's gonna get a whipping." Mama told them, "Willie's at
home and you two ought to be home." They went home. Then the teacher, Ed
Shaddix, came by. When Mama got through talking to him, he went home too.
Sometime after Wade was born, Grandpa William was digging a
well. Two white doves flew out to the well. Grandpa said, "One was for
Wade and the other for him." Wade was the first son born to them. They had
six girls before him.
Grandpa's brother, Oliver, was helping him out. Granny and
Wade were sick, and Wayne was a baby. Uncle Oliver was in the kitchen fixing a
dose of medicine for the baby. Grandpa called him to bring the lamp. He said,
“I think Wade is dying." Granny jumped out of the bed and fainted. She was
in bed for six weeks with pneumonia.
Wade did die. That was 1910, and Grandpa died in 1913. While
he was sick, his fever went real high. Mama would put washcloths on his face.
He would tell her, "You don't need to do that. It will do no good."
He told Granny, "Anna, I can't take you with me, but I will take the children."
No one ever really knew what he meant. My grandmother lived to be 93 years old.
Most of the children died young.
Granny had a hard time after Grandpa died. She had no family
here and was not in contact with her family in Alabama. Grandpa had family
here, but they didn't help her. She loaned the kids out to work for their
upkeep. Mama stayed with Isam and Maggie Trummel. Maggie was in bed with a new
baby and Isam Lee was small. Isam would beat him, and Mama couldn't stand that.
I don't think she stayed long there. Aunt Lois worked for Jessie and Roy
Haynes. Some of the people in the community did help Granny by bringing food.
When Granny was married to Ed Story, she was pregnant with
Vernon. This was 1917, the year Mama married but before she married. Mama
thought she heard Ed hit Granny. She picked up a hammer, went in there, and
asked, "Did you hit her?"
Ed said, ''No.''
Granny said, ''No.''
Later, Granny said he did, but she knew Mama would hit him
with that hammer so she said no.
Once when Lawrence was little, he got mad at somebody--I
think it was Mama. Lawrence said, "I'm going to sue you."
Mama asked, "How do you sue somebody?"
He said, “Put them in a pen and say, "Suey, Suey."
In the spring of 1939 or 1940, Mama and Tuff walked down to
Blue Lake. The mayhaws had fallen and Mama waded out in the water and gathered
them up in her dress tail. She carried them home and made jelly out of them. It
was mmmmgood.
Sometimes, the cows would eat bitter weeds when they came up
in the spring and make the milk taste bitter. We always had plenty of milk to
drink and cook with, but it was a pretty hard drink when the cows ate bitter
weeds.
Sometime, we would make ice cream in the summer. We didn't
have an ice cream freezer. We had milk and eggs, but had to buy the sugar, ice,
and salt to salt the ice down. Ice cream was a real treat for us, as we didn't
always have money for sugar and ice. We put the ice cream in a gallon syrup
bucket and put spoons in the bucket to keep the ice cream scraped off the sides.
We set this bucket in a bigger bucket and chipped ice to put in the big bucket
around the smaller bucket. Then we would turn the syrup bucket back and forth
by the handle until the ice cream was frozen. We probably didn't do this more
than four or five times. Maybe not that much, but it was such a treat we will
never forget it.
In 1944, Lawrence came home on furlough. He had just finished
Navy boot camp in California. He rode the train home, but was sick. He got off
the train in Hughes Springs and went to Dr. Jenkins office. Dr. Jenkins asked
if he had any folks in town. Eunice and Tom Dudley lived in town and Lawrence
went there. Aunt Annie was there with them. Aunt Annie and Eunice thought
Lawrence was drunk. Then, they realized he was sick. He probably had a high
fever. They put him to bed and got word to Papa. Dr. Jenkins sent Lawrence to
Veterans Hospital at Letourneau in Longview. Brother Reeder drove Lawrence and
Papa down there. Papa didn't think much of Brother Reeder's driving. He would
pass cars on hills and curves. This was in the days of small highways, one lane
going each way. Also, there were not many cars on the road. That, and the Good
Lord's watchful care, was the reason they safely reached their destination.
Papa had an old car. He carried Tuff and Lavern to see
Lawrence while he was in the hospital. They had Lawrence under an oxygen tent,
and he seemed to be somewhat asleep. Apparently, he was in pain as he grunted
with every breath. It probably hurt to breath, since he had a bad case of
pneumonia. They treated him with sulpha drugs. On the way home, we had car
trouble in Ore City. Papa got the car to a garage there, and the mechanic
carried us home. We lived at Cornett. He fixed the car and brought it to us in
a few days.
Jean, Morris, and JoNell went to see Lawrence. JoNell was in
school. Morris and Jean went by the school, and Jean told them she was JoNell's
aunt. They got her out of school to go with them. Jean was just barely pregnant
with Donnie. When she saw Lawrence and smelled the medicine, she got sick. She
went outside and sat down on the steps. Two soldiers saw her and asked if she
was sick. She doesn't remember answering them, but then she woke up she was in
a bed. She apparently passed out about the time the soldiers asked her if she
was sick.
The nurses couldn't get Lawrence to respond to them. They
would call him William and he wouldn't answer. Then they would try
"Bill" and he still wouldn't answer. Jean told them, "Try
calling him Lawrence." When they called him Lawrence, he answered.
During World War II, rationing was common. The folks at home
suffered a few hardships, but that was nothing compared with what our troops in
the battle suffered. Tires were scarce. Papa had some tires, and he traded them
to Carr McKinney for a cow. He named the cow, "Bonnie" after Carr's
wife. Papa gave Bonnie to Lawrence. She was a good cow and produced good
calves. Lawrence would never sell her. He kept her until she died.
When the family lived close to Herbert Arnold's store at
Cornett, Bruce Thomas borrowed some money from Papa. Bruce had a car, but Papa
didn't. Mama wanted to go see Aunt Nett. She lived in Avinger, so she got Bruce
to take her, Jean, and Lawrence to see Aunt Nett.
Mama always breast fed her babies. When Alvis and Auvis were
born, their mouths were too small to nurse. She pumped milk from her breast and
fed them with an eyedropper. They did get able to nurse, and she breast-fed
them until she died. Afterwards, we fed them with a canned milk formula. They
didn't grow much until they were about
three months old. Aunt Opal was there with us trying to help with them.
She kept changing the formula every day or so. Papa asked Dr. Jenkins about
putting them on cow's milk. He told him how to prepare the milk, and when we
had some fresh cows (with new calves), Papa put them on cow's milk. We heated
the milk to scalding stage on the wood stove, and then when the weather warmed
up; we kept it in the icebox. We bought ice to put in the box to keep the
icebox cool. The iceman delivered it to the house three times a week. We would
get a 50 # block of ice. When Alvis and Auvis started drinking cow’s milk, they
started growing.
George and Ruth Hampton
15
Assume a
virtue, if you have it not--William
Shakespeare
Geese
Robert Marlin Hampton
We had geese on the farm. They were not just for show. They
earned their living just like everyone and every other thing on the farm.
We used them to keep the grass out of the cotton fields. Each
morning, we drove the geese out into the cotton patch and kept them out there
eating grass until the heat of the day. Then, we let them out for the rest of
the day.
Also, we picked feathers from the geese. We penned the geese
in a stable, and then caught them one at a time. Evelyn and Jean would take a
goose, turn it over on its back in their laps, and hold its long neck and head
under one arm. Then they would pick the soft downy feathers from the breast and
stomach area of the goose. When they got a handful of feathers, they would put
them in a sack so they wouldn't blow away. We made pillows and feather
mattresses out of the feathers.
In the late thirties, we lived on the Heard Farm. Someone in
Naples contracted with some of the farmers of the area to grow cucumbers for
market. Papa decided to plant some. I think about 1 1/2 acres. We kept the
vines turned up and down the rows, which made them much easier to pick. We rolled
the vines up from one side and picked, and then we rolled the vines up from the
other side and picked it. We had to pick them every other day, but I don't
recall picking on Sunday. I 'm sure the shed was not open on Sunday, but we
never made a habit of working in the field on Sunday. We would start picking
early in the morning. After we picked them, someone carried them to Naples. We
kids hated this job of picking but we learned to do whatever needed doing. I’m
sure this cash crop was lots of help and came at a good time-probably late May
and into June and July if the season was right. It wasn't as hard to gather
watermelons and besides they were ready to eat and so good.
1955
Top Row:
Robert, Lawrence, Morris, Auvis, George Weldon, and Alvis
Bottom Row:
Annie, Lavern, George, Ima Jean, and Evelyn
16
Memories
Annie Orlean Hampton
Crossland
I was nineteen months older than Morris. I remember watching
after him and keeping him pulled back on the quilt while Mamma hoed nut grass
out of the Cotton. He was probably five or six-months-old which made me
two-years-old or a little older
Our house, that papa built down what we called the old place,
had a crack in the floor between the two rooms. Papa probably did not have a
plank left to make a piece to cover the crack. Morris was a crawling baby, and
when he found anything that would go through that crack, he put it through,
like combs and Mamma's thimble. Mamma would tell me to crawl down under the
doorsteps and go under the house to get her thimble.
Mr. Ben Taylor lived across Tar Kill Creek, and he had a bull
that stayed out of the pasture more than it stayed in. When the bull was in our
yard, Mama had to do a lot of coaxing to get me to go under the house.
One day when Mama was in the bed when Evelyn was born, that
old ugly bull came up to the window and balled real loud. Morris and I ran and
got in the bed with Mama.
Morris, Evelyn, Lawrence, Alvis, Auvis, and I were born in
that old bungalow house. There was a house there before Papa built the
bungalow. I don’t know if I was born in that house. I remember they left a room
of the old house, and we used it for a smoke house. One day Mama was doctoring
a sick chicken. She had a little kerosene in a jar lid. Evelyn picked up the
lid and drank the kerosene. There wasn't enough to make her sick, but it
frightened Mama.
I don’t remember when Evelyn was born, but when Lawrence came
6 December, it must have been a warm day. I know Aunt Net, Irene, and Mayo were
there. We children slept on a pallet made of quilts
in the other bedroom.
I woke up, and Aunt Net came in to get us settled down to
sleep.
Ima Jean was born at Cornett, but I don’t remember where we
stayed. Dr. Harry Haynes delivered all of us through Ima Jean. He was the son
of Elijah Haynes. They ran a store at Cornett. Harry married Nora Stroman,
sister of Arthur Stroman. Harry and Nora had two girls—one named Arlene. The
Haynes family moved west for the Dr.’s health.
Dr. Jenkins of Hughes Springs delivered the rest of the children.
When George Weldon was born at Cornett, Cousin Minnie
Hampton's boys came to spend the night, as mamma went into labor. Papa got Mr.
Herbert Arnold to carry Cousin Minnie’s boys and our boys back to Cousin
Minnie’s house. She apologized. I spent the night with Faye Betts. Faye and I
slept with Bernie and Myra.
When one phone rang, all the phones in the community rang.
When the phone rang, Myra slipped out of bed to eavesdrop. She came back and
told us papa had called the doctor.
After a while, the phone rang again. Myra went to eavesdrop. She
came back and said Annie has a baby brother. I felt relieved that Mama and the
baby were okay.
When Lavern was born, I spent the night with Joyce Gibson.
When I came home, they told me I had a baby sister. She was born at Cornett.
When Tuff was born, I spent the night with Aunt Alma.
I think we kept Lavern. Aunt Sallie kept some of the children.
Tuff was born on what we called the Heard place, because a merchant and cotton
buyer named Milton N. Heard owned it. He bought the land from Moody Cotton
Company.
Robert Marlin (Tuff) was born before midnight on 15 January
and Robert Earl was born after midnight 16 January. Mamma's sister, Gertrude,
begged mama to name Tuff Robert Earl.
Tuffy would fall down, but he wouldn’t cry. That’s how he got
his nickname. He just got up and tried again. Riley Gibson called him Tuffy.
Papa went to Fayetteville Arkansas, to the V.A. hospital when
Tuff was a crawling baby. Morris and I stayed home from school to help Mama.
She and Morris worked the crop, and I cared for Lavern and Tuff and worked at
the house.
One day, Lavern and Tuff were playing under the front porch
in the dirt. Lavern came in the house and told me Tuff had crawled way up under
the house. He had gotten up to where the house was low on the ground. I crawled
as far as I could and began to talk him back to me. When he would start back he
would bump his head on the floor joist, and he would stop and cry. He finally got to where I could
reach him, and I pulled him out.
When Alvis and Auvis were born, I was 22 years old. Lawrence
came after me. Albert and I lived at Cornett on Mildred and Marion's place.
Mama and Papa lived on the old place at Crossroads. Papa got up early to carry
a bale of cotton to Hughes Springs to the cotton gin. Leona Hall carried Albert
to take the cotton on to the gin and brought Papa home. Ima Jean missed school
and took care of Carlton Ray. I think Lawrence went to school. Alvis arrived
into this world just as Papa got home. He was so tiny. I didn't understand
until Dr. Jenkins said it was a breech. I didn’t really know what he meant.
This was the first we knew there were twins. The birth of Auvis caused a bruise
on one of his arms, and he groaned like an adult, but he finally quit that.
When the small children would miss behave I told them I could
see them, because I had eyes in the back of my head. One day I was sewing on
the machine when Alvis did something, and I said something to him about it. He
came around behind me looking and said, “Annie have you all really got eyes in
the back of your head?”
17
God bless thee; and put meekness in
thy mind, love, charity, obedience, and true duty!--William Shakespeare
Evelyn’s
Stories
Mama's Flowers
Mama always loved flowers and worked hard to have something
growing in the yard. When we lived at Cornett, east of the store, our house was
in the pasture, but we had a picket fence around the front yard. She had moss
rose, petunias, zinnias, marigolds, blanket flowers, and bachelor buttons.
Lavern was born December 26, 1931, and Mama had a rose bush in bloom.
In the spring and summer of 1940, she had a flower garden
between the house and road. Papa plowed the spot and made several rows that she
planted mostly with zinnias. We have a picture of Mama standing in them. The
flowers reached higher than her waist. Good food for the soul.
The Cucumber Patch
In the late 1930's, Papa began growing cucumbers for the
market. It was an early cash crop that met a need. I think he planted about two
acres. We trained the vines to run up and down the row, which made them easier
to pick, and we could plow the middle to control the grass and weeds. The best
size was four to five inches long, which brought the best price. They took
larger sizes but didn't pay as much per pound for them. We picked them every
other day. I don't recall that we ever picked on Sunday. After we picked them,
someone had to carry them to market in Marietta, Naples, or Hughes Springs--a
trip of about 6-10 miles one way. George Weldon remembered one time we picked
them, and our old pick up would not start. He and Lawrence carried them to
Hughes Springs in the wagon. He recalled that they brought less than three
dollars. Of course, this would have been in the early 1940's. We all hated to
gather this crop, but I'm sure it was a great help to our parents, and it kept
us kids out of meanness.
Christmas at Our House
Christmas was always a joyful time at our home. Mama and Papa
saw to that. There was great excitement getting ready. We cleaned the yards. We
raked, swept, and burned the trash. We made the brush brooms used to sweep the
yard out of small dogwood trees tied together with strings. If the smoke was
white then you had been good, and Santa would come to see you. If the smoke was
dark, you were going to get a sack of switches and ashes. I don't remember that
we ever did.
Our Christmas tree was always special to us. We cut a fresh
one and decorated with whatever we had such as stringed popped corn, etc. One
year at Cornett, east of the store, we had a tree so large it touched the
ceiling (probably 10-12ft. ceilings) and covered most of the large room. We
decorated it with red and green roping and balloons.
Santa always came, and whichever child woke first, the others
soon followed. Then Papa got up and built a fire to keep us warm. I remember
one year, after Annie and Albert were married, Mama and Papa made Lavern some
doll furniture. There was a doll bed with a mattress, a dresser with a mirror,
table and two chairs (one chair for Tuff) all painted blue. Lavern wouldn't you
like to have that today, but you really enjoyed it then. George Weldon got a
red goat cart. We had a pet goat at that time, and we hitched him to the cart
quite often.
Each child always got an apple, orange, candy, and nuts along
with a toy. We all shared the games. A little red "Radio Flyer" wagon
was a family gift to share. The last gift I remember getting from Santa was a
little Cedar Chest with stationary in it. I probably was fourteen or fifteen
years old. I still have the little chest today in 2003.
We always had plenty of good food.
Chicken and dressing was a favorite and still is with the descendants. One
other thing I vividly remember was the orange cake Mama made. She made her
regular cake that she baked in layers in the oven of the wood stove. How did
she set the temperature? She made a boiled icing (we called it seven-minute
frosting) to stack the cake and put thin slices of oranges between the layers
and on top. After it set a few days, it was delicious. She also made a good jam
cake with homemade berry jam.
Part I
Bits and Pieces of a life
18
If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what
we can—Thomas Jefferson
The Origin of Tears
1936
Do I actually recall
any of these episodes or do they evolve from lore relayed to me over the
decades from a variety of sources?
I suspect that the
latter prevails. It is not likely that I remember too much, since I was
twenty-three months old at the time. However, patches of light, transient
images, the pungent smell of sachet and urine, and the sounds of strident
voices dominate my recollections.
The event was the
funeral of Willie Gertrude Hampton Stubbs. She passed at the age of thirty-one
leaving a young husband and three children of which I was the youngest. Joining
me on this day of dispersal were my two sisters. Dorothy Jean was six, and
Marvalynn eleven.
In those days,
family members involved themselves in the affairs of other members, especially,
during times of severe illness. When the local physician hospitalized our
mother in Texarkana, her sister Opal, reluctantly, assumed my care. I say this
because of a postcard from Aunt Opal to another family member that survived. In
the letter, she stated that caring for me was an imposition. However, she was
kind enough to bring me to the funeral.
It was as if the
death of a good woman was a minor scene in the play. The major players in this
drama were James Madison Stubbs, age seventy-seven, his daughter, Ella Clyde
Stubbs Price, age fifty-three, and Marvin Lester Stubbs, age thirty-six, his
son and our father.
Grandpa played the
puppet master. Marvin, known within the family as Poor Marvin, had a walk-on
role. Ella Clyde co-starred as a female Machiavelli. My sisters and I played supporting
cast members with non-speaking roles.
James Madison Stubbs
had a number of names, including Pa, Uncle Jim, Grandpa, and Mr. Jim. He was a
whisky drinking, fist-fighting, patriarch, who ruled with an iron hand. Grandpa
had a still that produced white lightening. His reputation implied that he
would cut you.
Ella Clyde was a
chipess off the old block. She could talk the horns off a billy goat and was as
mean as a snake. Only Grandpa had any influence on Eller, as family members
called her.
Poor Marvin gained
his family name because of his brushes with death and his current predicament.
He was the baby of the family, had survived the 1918 flu, had survived a burst
appendix, and had lost his beloved wife. He was not a major player in this
drama. Grandpa and Eller had already written the scenario and left him out.
A logical, albeit
selfish goal motivated Grandpa. He was 77 years old and his best days long
gone. As was the culture of the day, he cared for his son, Corbon Edgar, a
severe epileptic and demented soul. After the death of our Grandmother Lucy,
Grandpa married a neighboring widow, Olie Knight, and added to his land pool.
She did not live long.
He needed Marvin to
do the heavy lifting, lead the singing on Sunday, feed the mules, farm the
forty acres, feed the stock, and serve as a hunting and fishing buddy. Grandpa
would make the biscuits, the white lightening, and call the shots. It was a
hell of a deal for everyone except Marvin’s three children.
Eller’s incentive
was primitive. She had lost an infant son when she was young. She had one
troubled daughter, Ella Mae Price Barker, but that was not nearly enough for
the family gatherings. She needed a son, and providence placed one within her
grasp. It was only a matter of being forceful and clever. She was both.
Marvin was in the
process of burying his decision maker and needed someone to manage his affairs.
He had a sharecrop to harvest, no money, hospital bills, and no backbone. If he
could get someone to raise his children, without it costing him anything, he
was way ahead of the game. I never said he was dumb.
Marvin enjoyed the
farm life. He preferred working hard to make and bring in a crop, leading the
singing at the church on Sunday, playing a little baseball, and then
chilling-out for the rest of the year.
After the burial,
Eller casually slid over to Aunt Opal and offered to hold me for a minute. Once
that simple act occurred, she never gave me back. Lives changed forever. Eller
proclaimed that she would look after my sisters and me for a while. There were
no dissenters or counter offers. We piled in Ella Mae’s husband, John L. Barker’s
Plymouth, and drove from the Flat Creek Cemetery in Cass County to a white
house by the railroad tracks in Mt. Pleasant, Texas.
Here is how matters
played out. Eller, who became Mama to me for the remainder of her life, rid
herself of my sisters after about six months. I spent my formative years with
the Price family, and then went off to college. My foster-sister/cousin, Ella
Mae, furnished the money at great sacrifice to herself.
Various family
members and would-be foster parents separated the girls, passed them around for
a year or more, but then they ended up with a childless couple who had an
enormous interest in school teaching and the hereafter. Unfortunately, this was
after damage to their psyche was done. They lived less than ten miles from me
in Naples, but I can count on one hand the number of times my sisters and I
visited as we grew up.
Grandpa brought in
another wife. Her name was Miss Anne Richerson, but she didn’t last long either.
Uncle Edgar, the epileptic, passed soon after her. Grandpa passed soon after
that. Marvin hurt his back on the farm or so the story goes. Mama drove down
and brought him home with her. I clearly recall the reunion with my long-lost
father. He spoke oddly and smelled to high heaven.
Marvin worked in a
small grocery store for a few months, and then he got a job at Red River
Arsenal in Texarkana. After the war, he launched a career selling Raleigh
Products door to door … mostly to poor black families. He moved out as soon as
possible, remarried later, and spent the rest of his life in the area.
When he lost his
health and income, his second wife of twenty years, Bonnie Rui Mckinny Stubbs,
lost her empathy and asked my sisters to come get Marvin. They shared the role
of caretakers for about a year. One kept him for a few weeks and then the other.
Finally, for reasons best explained by them, they asked me to alleviate the
problem. I placed Marvin in the Rosebud Nursing Home in Naples. He couldn’t
understand why we wouldn’t care for him in our homes. He didn’t like it at
Rosebud.
19
If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.--The Gospel
of Mark
The House by the Tracks
1936
Age three
Everyone must have a
starting place for a conscious life and Mt. Pleasant, Texas, was mine. A busy
rail center in the late thirties, local steam engines switched freight, coal,
and tank cars into units for diversion to their destinations. They emitted short, strident blasts on their
steam whistles, while the long haulers gave off extended, lonesome sounds at
all hours of the day or night. Being
accustomed to the environment, the noise became less disruptive to our everyday
lives. On occasion, when the house
shook, and it seemed that the engineer would never turn loose of the horn cord,
one stopped what he or she was doing and waited for the racket to abate.
The white house sat
on an area level with the tracks; then the lot dropped off about ten feet on the north and east sides of the
property forming something of a moat. A
large tree sat near the drop-off and was ideal for my old tire swing that took
me out over the precipice.
One of the main
streets from downtown Mt. Pleasant bordered the south side of our rented
land. The tracks sat on the west
boundary and separated our house from the main business district of Mt.
Pleasant.
The location of our
house was of major importance. We ran a
rooming house for railway personnel, while they awaited their next trip. While
I am certain that my mind plays tricks, I remember the tracks to be no more
than twenty yards from the side of our house.
When railroads dominated transportation, the giant, steam-driven
locomotives rolled past with regularity.
They exuded authority and noise.
The freight trains appeared of interminable length as they swayed
past. The long line of colorful boxcars
with a variety of identifications ended with the ubiquitous red caboose. The entire rail industry was one of power and
romance.
I recall two
neighbors. One was a person of German
origin named Hines. He had a colorful peacock in his yard and brewed wine. We purchased small bottles of home-brewed
wine from him on rare occasions, so he produced the first alcoholic beverage to
pass my lips. I call to mind the sharp
taste. Mr. Hines’ place in the
neighborhood evolved to infamy as the thirties played out and, according to
local gossip, he became a Nazi spy.
A bevy of beautiful
Latino women lived across the street to the south. Our frequent visitor was Juanita. We visited back and forth and kept up with
family gossip. They treated us to the
best tamales known to man on the occasions that we requested them.
Except for the rare
visit from family friends who had small children, I had only two playmates
during the four years I lived in the house by the tracks. One came over with his mother on a couple of
occasions. We returned the visit. His house had a goldfish pond in the front
yard. I liked playing with the boy and
many years later, we attended college together.
One of the reasons
we lived in this house was because it had a storm cellar. The cool, dark cavern
offered a great place for imaginary games and for luring a visiting little girl
of my age down there for our first game of playing doctor. Unfortunately, we
were unable to conclude our examinations, before her mother interrupted us and
suggested that we put on our clothes.
There was a front
porch on the north side with a swing. With an inspired imagination, I could
turn the north/south swing into an east/west locomotive complete with the
proper sound effects. When the little girl came back to visit, we transferred
our medical practice to the swing with the same result. Really! How much damage
can a curious five-year-old do?
A lack of basic
equipment forced me toward creativity in the area of personal
entertainment. In addition to the tire
swing, the exterior of the house provided other important areas that
contributed to my amusement. Having several tiny cars from Christmases past, I
prepared a series of roads in a sandy area behind the back porch that provided
countless hours of play. The most
important part of the exterior of the house was the chimney, my most dependable
playmate.
I could not have
been much more than four when I first tried to play catch with myself. Ella
Mae’s husband, John L., had a brother, who had played professional baseball,
and he had one of his brother’s cast-off fielder’s glove. In addition, I had an
old tennis ball and a vivid imagination. I placed the glove on one of my tiny
hands, and took the ball in the other. In the beginning, it didn’t matter which
hand held the ball, nor did it matter that I could put my entire hand in any of
the fingers of the glove. I needed to figure out whether I was right-handed or
left-handed through trial and error.
I learned to throw
and catch. At some point, I discovered that the glove didn’t help. After
eliminating my left arm as a contender, throwing with my right arm came
quickly. Catching the ball did not, but over the months, I was able to seize
just about every ball I threw against the chimney. I can’t recall anything in
my young life that provided more good times than throwing that old, dead tennis
ball against the chimney and then catching it. It was during those formative
times that I developed my love for physical games.
A lowlight during
our stay in the house by the tracks was a trip to the barbershop. I was four
years old. Not only did I hate being still for so long, but on that day, one
could literally fry an egg on the street. After the haircut, Mama and I started
back to our home no more than a hundred yards to the East. I was barefoot and
decided about halfway across a series of burning railroad tracks that I could
not put my feet on the pavement. Standing in place, I lifted one foot then the
other and vociferously alerted the world that I was unhappy with this
environmental imperfection. To add to the quandary, a train approached. Mama
had already traversed the street, and she loitered on the other side
encouraging me. She didn’t help me, but she encouraged me. Finally, as the
freight train’s whistle blared, I chose life over death, hopped across the
tracks, and endured Mama’s diatribe until we got home. Don’t ask me why that
predicament became my fault, because I can’t answer your question.
20
The
mob has many heads but no brains.--Thomas Fuller
Static
1939
One cannot live by
imagination alone. There are times when
one requires association with other humans, no matter how cantankerous or
mean-spirited they are. Before World War
II, the one thing that drew families together was the radio, and I was no
different. The radio provided
entertainment. I needed it then, and I
need it now.
During 1938, the
news turned dark, and I began listening to the big folks discuss world
events. While no one in our immediate
family expected to go across the ocean, aunts and uncles had several male
members available for the draft.
Tensions ran high. My Aunt Valary
could wax philosophically for long periods on Old Jaypan, Old Hitler, and Old
Mussolini. She had two sons, Royce and
Ben, who were prime candidates to defend our country.
Ben joined the Works
Progress Administration, a stimulus work program designed to break the
depression. Being immature, he got homesick and came home. Eventually, the county board drafted him into
the infantry. As it turned out, he
served under General Patton with bravery and distinction all the way from Utah
Beach in Normandy to Germany’s surrender.
Royce was a musician
and wrote poetry. The army examination
discovered a perforated eardrum and declared him 4F. There were scores of perforated eardrums in
those days.
*****
The first radio
broadcast was in 1906, and the technonogy became important in World War I. The
military used radios in air and naval operations. Detroit broadcast the first radio news program on August 31,
1920. KDKA in Pittsburgh was the first
commercial radio station. President
Wilson used radio during the last part of his presidency. By 1922, a million
sets were in use.
Early radio shows included adventure,
comedy, drama, horror, mystery, musical variety, romance, news, quiz shows,
talent shows, and weather predictions.
Orchestras played in the 30s and 40s.
Arturo Toscanini directed the NBC Symphony Orchestra. George Gershwin was a frequent guest and had
his own program in 1934. Country music found a place with the National Barn
Dance (Chicago) in 1924. It took on the name of the Grand Ol Opry in 1927.
Many of the stars of
vaudeville comedy pioneered radio. Bob
Hope, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and George Burns & Gracie
Allen made the transition from vaudeville to radio to television. Most women
had their favorite soap operas. They
were not a guy thing. Mama and Ellie
controlled the radio dial at our house during the daytime. We listened to Young Widow Brown, Lorenzo
Jones, Stella Dallas, Ma Perkins, and Our Gal Sunday. Our Miss Brooks was a nighttime
favorite. Rinso, Oxydol, Dreft, Ivory
Soap, and Palmolive sponsored these classic representations of life during the
Great Depression.
Two powerful
stations in Dallas, KRLD and WFAA, sent out their signals to East Texas. On some days, static was so bad, we could
hardly follow the vital conversations in progress. The stations cut back on power at night, so
the background noise increased. Weather
was an important factor as well.
I cannot recall the
story lines from any of the programs, but I do recollect that the women in the
title roles always spoke with kindness and reason, while their adversaries
sounded strident and backbiting. The
organ music in the background added greatly to the entertainment value.
Family members
established ownership of the shows and each referred to them as my
programs. Both Mama and Ellie spent
considerable time analyzing each episode, as to what they would have done had
they been involved. Stating the obvious
was the norm of the day. Referring to
the bad women as old heifers occurred with regularity.
Two radio events
made an indelible impression on me during those years in Mt. Pleasant. The first was the heavyweight championship
fight between the current champion, Joe Louis from the USA, and the former
champion, Max Schmeling from Germany.
Numerous factors
endorsed the fight. Going back to WWI,
Germany was the Western world’s archenemy.
Promoters billed the fight as a battle between good and evil, a struggle
between the USA and Germany, and black versus white. To compound matters, the two fighters had met
in 1936 in New York. Before that fight,
Schmeling confessed to having found a weakness in Louis’ style. It seemed that Louis dropped his guard after
throwing a punch. He capitalized on the
theory and knocked Louis down early in the fight. He went on to knock Louis out in the twelfth
round. Winning back the belt was not
enough, America wanted revenge against the German.
I recall that the
call of the fight came and went. Static
overpowered the speakers for a bit, and then the voices came back. My attention span being short at the age of
four, it is fortunate that the fight was a short one. I do recall that Joe Louis knocked out
Schmeling in the first round. I guess he
didn’t drop his guard that time.
After WWII,
Schmeling obtained the Coca Cola franchise in Germany and became a rich
man. He and Louis met in person twelve
times during later years. He spent
considerable money on Louis during his destitute days and served as a
pallbearer at his funeral. Schmeling
lived to be ninety-nine and was a good friend of Lawrence McNamee, the
legendary German professor at ET.
The next radio show
that got the attention of not only me, but the country as a whole, occurred in
1938 as well. It was a clear night in
October. Ellie’s husband, John L., took
a night off from the honky tonk circuit and listened to the Mercury
Theatre. The show started as usual, and
then suddenly, an officious sounding voice came on saying that the network was
interrupting regular programing for breaking news. Major cities came under attack from
unidentified beings in strange airships.
The radio reporters soon learned that Martians were the attackers and
the damage was spreading.
The family abandoned
the radio and went outside to see if we could see any Martian spaceships. The warm, calm evening produced no marauding
invaders. Other people in the neighborhood
were outside as well.
John L., who
remained glued to the radio, came out of the house and declared that the
program was over. It was a hoax. Mama wrapped up the incident by saying, “You
can’t believe anything you hear on that old radio. They didn’t fool me for a minute.”
21
If our
house be on fire, without enquiring whether it was fired from within or
without, we must try to extinguish it.--Thomas Jefferson
Old Union
1940
I worshiped the
memory of my sisters. My most prized possession was a snapshot of them I kept
hidden in a cigar box. I was not aware of their whereabouts after they left
Mama’s house, but I had only to get out the photograph to refresh my memory of
their existence.
Relatives and
acquaintances of the family separated the girls and passed my younger sister,
Dorothy, around from house to house for about a year. Then she landed in the
bottom of the pit when her benefactors relocated her to Grandpa Jim’s house along
with Marvin, demented Edward, and a host of chinch bugs.
Marvalynn, the
eldest, stayed for a time with a judge and his wife. They wanted to adopt her,
but she would have none of it. Finally,
Old Jim made his final contribution to their lives. He arranged for both Dorothy and Marvalynn to
live with a couple of good Christian schoolteachers who lived a few miles away
in Marietta. The lives of my sisters
improved immeasurably from that point.
*****
Mama’s neuralgia
took on life-threatening proportions after John L. left, and she grew weary of
Ella Mae rehashing the conditions of the breakup. It became time to move. She
chose a small house behind the Old Union Baptist Church a few miles east of Mt.
Pleasant.
Again, there were
virtually no neighbors, so my entertainment was my own. That consisted of
playing with my little dog Penny and my goat Billy. Penny got on Mama’s nerves,
so she found her another home. I played with Billy one day and fell. Mama
thought he was attacking me, so she came to the rescue. Billy hooked her thumb
with his sharp horns and cut a blood vessel. He was history in a matter of
hours.
My primary source of
amusement was a BB gun. I shot everything that moved and hit nothing, but the
possibility was always there.
Soon, I was six, and
it was time to take a major step toward my future. I was not delighted at the prospect of going
to school that first day. The most troublesome aspect being that I had a name problem.
Mama called me Bud. Ellie, called me Buddy. Uncle Dud was Mama's husband. He
provided the money for the car and the vagabond lifestyle preferred by Mama.
When he was home for the occasional weekend, he referred to me as Buck. With
all of that, Mama had informed me that when the teacher asked my name, I was to
say Earl. Only my sisters called me that … actually, they called me Earl Wayne
on the rare occasions when I saw them.
On the other hand, I
anticipated one major reward for going to school. I would learn to read. I
would no longer have to beg and plead to family members to read me the funnies.
It never ceased to amaze me how busy everyone became on Sunday morning when the
paper arrived. Having no pride where Mandrake the Magician was concerned, I
would trudge from person to person, beseeching, imploring, and stooping to any
degradation to get someone to read me the funnies. I could get the main story
line from the pictures, but I just had to know what Mandrake was saying to
Lothar. In most instances, I never found out.
I practiced Mandrake’s hand action for hours, but I could never get
anything to disappear no matter how hard I tried.
*****
I could smell the
newness of my unwashed overalls that bright September morning in 1940. They
were striped blue and white with a loop for a hammer on the right leg. Mama
held tightly to my hand, guiding me around the puddles left from last night's
rain.
"Now Bud, pay attention to me. You look
both ways before you cross that highway. If there ain't no cars coming, you run
for dear life. You're too little to go to school anyway. Pay attention to me
Bud?"
I nodded while
gazing ahead at the white frame building with the Bell tower in front. The
school sat only about two hundred yards down the sandy road from our house. The
only obstacles between the two were the Old Union Baptist Church and US highway
67, which curved in front of the Old Union community school. This less than
thriving community sat a few miles east of Mt. Pleasant in northeast Texas. The
speed limit on the highway was thirty-five mph in 1940 and traffic was light.
The possibility of danger was mostly a product of Mama's hyperactive nervous
system.
Mama chattered
nonstop since we had left home for school. When we reached the highway, there
was not a car in sight. “Look both ways,” Mama shouted, dashing for the other
side of the highway and dragging me along. By this time, my apprehension had
grown somewhat. The students that I could see on the school yard appeared to be
much bigger than me and a surly lot as well. Unmoved, Mama went charging up the
front stairs with me in tow and barreled down the hall to one of the rooms at
the back of the four-room building.
She went straight up
to a woman who appeared to be an authority figure. We learned that my teacher was Mrs. Toliver,
and she was in the process of comforting another first day scholar. The student was teary-eyed and twice a big as
me. He refused to turn loose of his
mother’s hand. Mama, not one to stand on
formality, moved between the teacher and the problem child and stated with some
firmness, “This is Earl Stubbs. He is
going to be in the primer. He is little
and sickly. Don’t let him sit in the
wind. When school is out, take him
across the highway.” Then she turned to me, “Now Bud, you behave yourself.”
Mrs. Toliver almost
but not quite managed to keep her mouth closed as she stared at Mama’s departing
figure. However, she quickly regained
her composure and directed me to a seat on the front row. For me, formal education began.
Fortunately, the
system in place only lost the first half of the school day. After our teacher established logistics, she
gave instructions for study. Most students knew what to do. They whipped out books and writing
instruments and applied them to the task at hand. I could find nothing that faintly resembled
the supplies of my neighbors. By noon, I
discovered that the room held not one but three grades.
After a lunch made
memorable by a scarlet mush of tomatoes and grits, and because of my inability
to eat even one bite, Mrs. Rice summoned me.
She inquired as to whether or not I knew the alphabet. I proudly responded
in the affirmative. Surprisingly, she picked me up and placed me on her lap.
Then she chose a small thin book and opened it. The title was Spot and Jane. She pointed to a word,
spelled it, and then pronounced it. After repeating the process with all the words
in the first line, she asked me to try. I did so, and she appeared pleased with
my results. After a few pages, she requested that I try to progress on my own.
Without realizing it, I achieved the first step toward solving the mystery of
reading the Sunday funnies.
Later in the day, an
event brought me to the attention of the rest of the student body. It concerned the large iron school Bell that
hung in front of the building. Acutely aware of the activities of other students, I noticed that after the Bell
sounded signaling the end of morning recess, everyone made a mad dash to line
up in front of the steps. After observing the same phenomenon again at lunch, I
concluded that both the bell ringer and the first in line acquired status among
the students. By the time the afternoon recess was just about half over, I
formulated a plan by which I could ring the bell and also be first in line. I
sidled up to the tower, grasp the rope, and tugged with all my limited might.
The bell started to ring. I quickly abandoned the rope and lined up in front of
the steps. The other students lined behind me without question. About the time
everyone was ready to march into the school, out walked a tall, spare man with
a stern countenance. He intently peered at a old pocket watch. He approached
the group and made inquiries.
Soon, fingers
pointed in my direction, and the tall man extended his hand to me. I took it,
and he led me aside. We proceeded to have a one-sided conversation regarding
the ringing of the school bell. I felt cooperative at the time, so I promised
not to repeat my error in judgment. Relieved that my first day at school was a
learning experience, he smiled as he walked away.
Later in the
afternoon that cursed bell rang out signaling the end of the school day. Mrs.
Toliver took me by the hand and marched me to the edge of the highway. Mama was perched on the other side looking
frantic. Along came a dilapidated model A Ford, gasping for every chug. We
watched it pass. Then the three of us went through the exaggerated ritual of
looking first one way, then the other. As the roadway was obviously clear, Mrs.
Toliver turned loose my hand, and I sprinted across the asphalt strip. Without
acknowledging my teacher, Mama grasp my hand and charged away filling the warm
afternoon with invective.
*****
Soon, we reached the
white frame house that was our current home. Mama had a way of justifying the
moves. Usually, we would stay in a new situation only long enough for her to
become bored with the neighbors at which time her vitality faltered and a move
for the sake of her health resulted.
On this day,
however, Mama and I entered the house by the kitchen door and found Ellie
seated at the table nursing the ever present cup of coffee. She wore, as was her pattern, a faded print
dress that was in shreds. It was not that she didn’t own better clothing. Her mode of dress was one of her many ploys
intended to extract sympathy. The fact
that her repugnant appearance just might earn disgust rather than pity never
occurred to Ellie. She had only just
uttered her favorite dictum which was, “I’ll stomp more hell out of her in a
minute than she can gather up in a week.
Buddy, how did you like school?
Mama, I’m going to town to find that bitch.”
I mumbled an answer,
laid down my books, and went looking for my untrustworthy air rifle. Not to be denied, Ellie shouted from the
kitchen, “Buddy, I’m all tore up. Come
and read these coffee grounds. I saw a
bird at the winder awhile ago, and I’m scared something bad is going to
happen.” There was no escape, so I parked
my gun and slouched back into the kitchen.
I intended to make this fast and brutal.
Ellie’s mode of
existence consisted of preparing, drinking, or staring at black coffee of the
vilest sort. In addition, she kept up a constant dialogue with Mama concerning
the status of her marriage to her, here today gone tomorrow, husband, John
L. It made for lively albeit redundant
conversation.
Johnny was no real
problem for me, except that he was just another family member who would not
read me the Sunday funnies. I always
knew where I stood with him. I did not exist. Actually, I preferred him to worrisome Ellie who would
whine to any warm body within earshot, age not withstanding. After thirteen
years of a marital joke, Johnny discovered honky tonks, spirits, and hussies in
that order, and he was making up for lost time.
A few months
earlier, when we lived in town and Johnny could find a bar with little effort,
the home situation became untenable. One day after Ellie tore off her dress,
because Johnny wanted her to buy a new one, he informed the ladies that he
would find other lodging. For the first few days, the only course of action was
raging overt indignation and threats from Ellie and Mama. Finally, they both
realized that Johnny was not there to hear them, and we had heard it all
before. So, they chose a more compromising approach resulting in simpering
servility. Forays into town became the order of the day seeking John L.’s
elusive car. About a week later, much to my surprise, Johnny returned. Unfortunately,
I made the egregious error of mentioning that I had sought and probably
received divine assistance in securing his return. After that, I became the
resident ear of God and chief coffee ground reader. My services in both areas
were to be frequently requested, because this was not to be Johnny's last
venture outside the bosom of his family.
Ellie drained the
cup and flipped it over. She turned it
three times in the gritty saucer making the most frightful noise. After she stopped, it was necessary to wait
three silent minutes for the spirits to do their work. While waiting, I practiced sighting my
rifle. Lord only knows, I needed the
practice. Finally, she turned the cup
over and slid it across the table to me.
To be honest, I
never had the faintest notion about what I was supposed to see in the coffee
grounds. Usually, I came up with
something inoffensive such as travel or money.
This time, since I was a bit miffed, I chose to be more creative. I gazed into the cup for a long moment. Ellie, unable to control her curiosity, ask,
“What do you see, Buddy?”
I looked up gravely
from the cup squeezing a solitary tear from the corner of my eye. “Somebody is going to be sick,” I
proclaimed. Mama looked profound and
uttered somberly, “Bud knows stuff.” I
could immediately sense that Mama was not altogether displeased. Illness was the major topic of conversation
at the family gatherings, and Mama had been disgustingly healthy for years.
Although she had tried to die since the age of thirty from various aches and
pains, she gradually lost status at the family gatherings. She had commanded no real respect since her
hysterectomy of some fifteen years previously.
Ellie was not so
easily mollified. She was interested in
information regarding the sluts and whores that constantly tempted John L. away
from his happy home. When she began to
grumble, I gazed at the coffee grounds and threw her a bone.
“Somebody is going
to move far away.” I figured it was
going to be us since we had been at the same place for over six months. Ellie
interpreted this revelation to mean that either John L. was going to depart
permanently or that she and Johnny were going to go it “on our own.” We all knew that Mama would never allow the
latter to happen. Neither Ellie nor Mama
was suited for life without the other.
After lengthy
interpretation of the reading, I was dismissed.
As I left, I could hear the spirited dialogue. It consisted of Ellie using Mama as a
non-responding sounding board regarding Ellie’s problems and solutions to those
problems. At the same time, Mama bounced
sage wisdom off Ellie who never heard a word she said.
I trudged out into
the late afternoon sunlight and headed for the sandy road. Fortunately, those who had cleared the land
that bordered the road left tall native elm trees along the right-of-way. Ancient sentinels, they provided home and
shelter for a variety of winged creatures and squirrels. The foliage was so
thick that branches from trees on the west side grew to intermingle with
branches on the east side forming a barrier to the sun. Even on the brightest day, the lane was dark
and gloomy due to the tunnel of elms.
Farther to the north the ruts disappeared over a rise. My vivid imagination invented a variety of
dire circumstances must lurk past the dark road, so I was never brave enough to
really take a look.
Certain that the
animals accepted the fact that I was completely harmless, I still faithfully
launched missile after missile toward those feathered brutes while enduring
their chirping scorn.
After a time
highlighted by my lack of success, Mama began to call. The birds ceased
chirping in fear. I started my saunter back toward the house, hurling insults
at my adversaries.
When I reached the
house and entered the back door, Mama set me to work on my numbers. I was up to
eight when she announced supper. A glance at the table confirmed my suspicions
that there was absolutely nothing there that I could abide. Nevertheless, we
began.
Mama and Ellie could
have conversations that lasted for days with one discussing one subject and the
other embroiled in something else entirely. On this occasion Ellie entertained
with alternate crying jags and cursing fits. Mama, never one to let a full
mouth stand in the way of oratory, offered advice as to what she would do if
she were in Ellie's place. Poor Ellie had no doubt as to what Mama would do.
Mama had been doing it to Uncle Dud for 35 years. What Ellie did not know was
what she was going to do. As for myself, no one appeared to care that boiled
turnips would not go down my throat.
22
Anger
is a signal and one worth listening to—Harriet Lerner
The Shooting
1940
Nothing much changed
for the next few months. Johnny came around and stayed for a few days, until
the two women abandoned the olive branch and launched a counteroffensive, then
he disappeared again. I tried the divine assistance game a few more times, but
there was so much coming and going, that I really couldn't tell if it was working
or not. I figured that even if it was, I couldn't expect to keep getting all of
that spiritual personal attention forever. It was difficult to determine
whether Ellie carried on more when Johnny was gone or when he was home. I
really didn't care much anymore. By this time, with the exception of the
occasional word, I could read the funnies to myself.
* * * * *
The bitter north
wind was heavy with moisture that sullen afternoon in December. I no longer
required assistance in crossing highway 67, and Mama had long since ceased
coming to meet me. It interfered with one of her naps. I hurried down the road as the wind bit
through my thin trousers. Nearing the house, I noticed a strange car in the
drive. John L. was laughing and talking to some people through the window of
the car. I stopped when I saw Ellie come out of the house waving John L.’s old
.38 pistol and cursing a blue streak. She pointed the gun toward the car and
pulled the trigger repeatedly. The shots
made dull thumping sounds.
The driver of the
car hurriedly backed out of the drive and headed my way. I moved off the road,
as the vehicle roared past. I heard people yelling inside the car.
Ellie dropped the
gun, fell to the ground, and began sobbing. John L. picked up the gun and
stared at it. Then, he tossed it back on
the ground, got in his car, and charged off leaving a trail of exhaust. Ellie struggled to her feet and called for
mama.
I found myself in a
quandary. I couldn’t face going home and
dealing with the scene there. I couldn’t
return to school. I needed time to
process this new situation. Shooting was
different, and it frightened me. After all, I had seen what Tom Mix could do
with a gun.
I needed to make a
decision. I could go in the house and
deal with the insanity there, or I could find out what was over the darkened
road to the north. Due to the thick
clouds and gloom, the country path through the tunnel of elms appeared
exceptionally dark that day, but for some reason, it didn’t look so bad. I made my choice, fastened my aviator cap
under my chin, and dropped the glasses over my eyes. I walked past the house and tossed my book
satchel into the yard. Then, I began
walking into the frigid and quickening breath of the north wind.
I walked for what
seemed a long time. Much to my surprise,
the road past the rise was pretty much the same as on this side. I felt no yearning to return home, so I kept
walking. As dusk approached, the dimness
increased along with the cold. My light
coat was not getting it done, so when I came upon a small creek with a culvert,
I decided to get out of the wind. There
was plenty of room under the road for me to rest for a while. I sat down and bundled up to ward off the
freezing air. I began getting drowsy and
soon slipped off to sleep.
The baying of hounds
was the first thing that woke me. My
teeth chattering, I soon discovered that I was freezing cold. Soon, something wet touched my face in the
form of the long tongue of a hound dog.
Within a minute, strong hands lifted me from the culvert and wrapped me
in blankets. I don’t recall much about
the trip back home, but I do remember feeling the warmth of the feather bed
overcome the discomfort of the cold as I drifted away.
Weapon used in the
shooting.
* * * * *
School became a
matter of routine. I completed a few arithmetic assignments during the morning
or listened to the older kids recite. Usually, when everyone else was busy,
Mrs. Rice sat me on her lap, and I would read in one of those little books.
Eventually, she informed me that I would move up a grade after Christmas. I was
learning to appreciate my time at school, not so much for what I did there, but
due to the fact that it was time away from the emotional roller coaster of
home.
The absence of John
L. and Mama’s declining health forced us to move away from the Old Union
community just before Christmas. My school experiences in 1940 ceased when we
moved back to Mt. Pleasant. Mama didn’t like to be alone with Ellie all of the
time, besides, according to Mama, the students at the elementary school two
blocks away from our house were mean. I
started over again in Naples the following school year after another move for
reasons of health. Except for the
absence of John L., our household changed little until I left for college
twelve years later. Ella Mae worked hard as a waitress and nurse. Mama
continued as Mama. Uncle Dud spent more time at home due to the short distance,
and he eventually retired to his cigarettes and emphasyma. He made one final
contribution to my life. I joined the army, but he begged me not go go. I
didn’t and it altered my life in a major way—for the better I believe.
23
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation—David
Henry Thoreau
From Tiny Acorns
1941
The
sapling at our house in Naples in 1941 grew to enormous size. A storm blew it
over, and it crushed the house.
It didn’t take long
for Mama to get her fill of the icehouse engagement in Mt. Pleasant. After a few months, we moved east eighteen
miles to Naples. The family had lived
there before my time, and the bustling town had some advantages. It was closer to Flat Creek, where Grandpa
Stubbs, Marvin, Uncle Carl, and Uncle Walter still lived on their farms. That was where the family discussions took
place. Mama’s husband, Uncle Dud Price,
lived in company housing next to the Cotton Belt Railroad Bridge on the Sulphur
River, which was a short distance away.
However, I am not sure that the close proximity of Uncle Dud was a
compelling factor in the move. His contribution
to the family came mostly in the form of money.
It was Mama’s
pattern to fumigate a house before we moved in.
She used two substances.
According to current thinking, formaldehyde candles eradicated varmints,
and sulfur candles exterminated germs.
On the other hand, it could have been the other way around. I don’t know how well the latter worked, but
the varmint killer worked wonders. When
we first walked into the house to look it over, the smell of rotting animal corpses
in unreachable places knocked me to my knees.
The stench wasn’t much better when we moved in a week later, and the
worst odor was in the kitchen where we ate.
Three trees out
front guarded the house. One was the
largest magnolia tree I had ever observed.
Another was a Chinaberry tree on its last leg. A portion of the tree flourished, while the
other part was a large dead trunk. It
stood perilously close to the storm cellar door. The third tree was a pin oak sapling about
twelve feet tall. All three of these
trees gained notoriety in their own way.
The Magnolia was my
favorite. When we first arrived, I could
not quite attain a handhold that would allow me to reach the large, lower
branches and climb the tree. It took
awhile, but, before the summer passed, I finally did so, surveyed my domain
from the upper reaches. Over the proceeding months and years, I made a seat about
halfway to the top, killed lots of Japs and Germans from hiding, and peppered
passing cars with my BB gun.
The Chinaberry tree
provided ammunition for our rock shooters.
Its location near the storm cellar door was unfortunate. Often, if it thundered a couple of times,
nervous neighbors crowded into our underground refuge fearing the worst. This could happen at any time of the day or
night.
One morning, during
the wee hours, we actually had a thunderstorm, and the wind blew down the dead
portion of the Chinaberry tree onto the cellar door. When the storm abated, and we attempted to
extricate ourselves from this haven of safety, the door would not budge. After sunup, passersby noted the dilemma and
removed the tree. To prevent another
such incident, the men folk cut down the live portion of the tree as well. The personality of our front yard changed and
so did a source of ammunition for our slings.
To justify rising
from a sound sleep during the middle of the night to go into a storm cellar shared
with snakes and black widow spiders, Mama often stated, “A cyclone is going to
come and blow us all away.” She proved
prophetic. As the decades passed, the
sapling gained the stature of a giant.
It must have been five feet in diameter and could have been the model
for the beanstalk Jack climbed. Sure
enough in 2008, a thunderstorm spawned a powerful wind that blew down the huge
tree directly onto my childhood home and crushed it. Mama was right. It just took a few decades for her prophecy
to come true.
Our home in Naples
was the second house on the east side of the Daingerfield highway across the
railroad tracks from downtown Naples.
Yes, once again, we lived on the wrong side of the tracks. The property had a nice, empty lot on the
north side, a pasture on the east side, and another lot on the south side. A barn, suitable for cows, hay, feed, and our
car, sat on the southeast corner. We had
running water in the form of two faucets: one outside for the animals and one
in the kitchen for us humans. Our former
two houses had bathrooms. This one did
not. Using the outhouse was challenging,
especially during inclement weather, and a slop jar even more so. The sounds of humans performing bodily
functions became a normal, albeit unwelcome, part of our lives.
We had a small
closet in the sleeping porch. When
forced by conditions to use a pot, I used the cabinet for privacy. Once, I found myself mounted on the utensil
when visitors arrived. Everyone
congregated in the sleeping porch. What would it look like for a nine-year-old
boy to come slinking out of a closet?
Everyone would know. After I
waited about thirty minutes, I swallowed my pride and came out. Mama didn’t help when she announced, “Bud’s
been using the pot.”
There was no natural
gas hooked up to our house at that time.
The women used a wood cook stove that required pine kindling and stove
wood. The fireplace in a front room was
the only other source of heat. We used
hardwood in the fireplace, because it lasted longer and burned hotter. If I slept in any of the other three bedrooms
during the winter, I got toasty warm at the fireplace and dashed for my icy
bed. Jumping under the thick piles of
cotton quilts; I suffered until body heat provided a warm cocoon for the night.
The fetal position was the most common method for fighting the cold.
We did have
electricity. Single bulbs hung from the
ceilings of each room with a string to turn it off and on. Ellie had a little green fan, which she kept
for herself during the stifling summer heat.
I still have the fan, and it operates smoothly.
We didn’t have a
living room as such. Most of the house
rooms held beds, except the dining room, the kitchen, and a small, narrow
storeroom, which became my place of refuge.
The main social gathering place during winter was in the bedroom with
the fireplace. It contained two double
beds, a couple of straight-backed chairs, and
Mama’s rocker, which was the only chair to have a cushion.
An biannual
migration took place in our house according to the time of year, and the
perceived needs of Mama. The summer
gathering place was the sleeping porch.
It was an add-on room at the back of the house surrounded by windows. If there was a breeze during the summer, it
was the most comfortable place for resting and sleeping. Mama did a lot of both.
On the south side of
our property was a patch of cane-like plants.
They made great spears with which to emulate characters in the
movies. My first friend after we moved
to Naples was a black boy who passed by our house quite often. Not knowing anything about racial prejudice
at that time, Junior and I struck up a friendship. We threw spears and played games right up
until the time Mama spotted my playmate.
She came storming out of the house and ordered Junior to leave and not
come back. I was bewildered and still
am.
My next playmate was
a large boy named A.J. Wells. He began
hanging out at our house, and we spent some time playing together. One day, he got rough with me. Mama proceeded to visit with his mother and
suggest that A.J. play with someone else.
He didn’t come back.
In 1941, we settled
down in the house on Daingerfield Street for the next twelve years. My home place improved as the years
passed. We got natural gas, a nice gas
cook stove, and space heaters for the other bedrooms. For a small increase in the rent, our
property owner added a bathroom. The
icebox lost out to a refrigerator, and the wash pot to a washing machine.
For as long as it
lasted, I viewed the house on Daingerfield Street as home, just as I do the
town of Naples. I still visit the area a
couple of times each year to get a hometown fix even though the house is no
longer there. There is always someone in
the local diner who can discuss old times.
Early Naples
24
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think
what we like and say what we think--Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Cross-eyed Natives
1942
Age 7
When August of 1941
completed the unrecognizable change to September, I launched my second attempt
at a formal education by enrolling in the first grade of the Naples Grade
School. My teacher, Ms. Gladys Martin,
was the same person who taught Ellie, my foster-sister/cousin, some twenty-six
years previously. The orange brick
building was the same as well. It
nestled atop the highest point in northern Morris County and held classes one
through eight. Mrs. Martin’s room was on
the northeast corner of the ground floor.
After the excitement
of going to school for the first time in several months, participating in the
early morning lineup, and marching to class after the electric bell sounded, I
found my assigned seat. The first day
did not run smoothly. Students became
lost. The quarterback of our future
football team refused to turn loose of his mother’s hand.
We observed our
classmates and formed opinions about our own clothing and school supplies. One fashion conscious young lady wore dresses
from Neiman-Marcus. Other less than
trendy apparel lagged far behind the fashion times. My overalls were examples of the latter. My school supplies included a single row box
of crayons. The high rollers had boxes
with two or three rows. Some students
had notebooks. Oh my! I had a Big Chief Tablet. The shame of it all.
When Mrs. Martin
took command and launched our formal education, my VIP status emerged. She asked for a show of hands as to whether
or not we could read, knew our numbers, and could print our names, and my hand
shot up each time. After I breezed
through Dick and Jane, a star was born albeit only briefly. It took about a month for the cream to rise
to the top and for me to assume my mediocre but rightful position in the academic
hierarchy of the class.
Naples Grade School
1886 - 1951
Destiny required
that I spend the next twelve years with the majority of my classmates. Many of the bonds formed in Mrs. Martin’s
class endure to the present time. My
association with classmates never ceased to be an important part of my
existence. I suspect that my starvation
for playmates during my early years influenced me in that direction. Paulette Coker, Don Dawson, Bill Hampton,
Geneva Higgins, Jack Harvey, Peggy McNatt, Don Nance, Bobby Presley, Randall
Raines, Tommy Walls, A. J. Wells, and Billy Williams began together in 1941,
and we graduated together in 1953.
My social education
developed on the playground, which had a dearth of equipment, since the Great
Depression was still in full swing.
There were swings, a seesaw, a carousel made from steel pipes, monkey
bars, and a set of chinning bars. There
were three levels to the latter apparatus, and the first graders used the
lowest bar. It was the only one I could
jump up and grab.
Within a few days, I
had a pal. He was tall, skinny, and had
a shock of thick, black hair. His name
was Donald Ray Dawson. We gravitated to
each other at recess and became best playground friends. Donald went home on the bus after
school. I walked home down the long hill
to town, across the railroad tracks, and along the Daingerfield highway to the
second house on the left.
Across the street
from my home was a large two-story apartment house. Four families lived there. Climbing the magnolia tree one Saturday, I
was astonished to see my good friend Donald saunter across the street. He had moved into the apartment house. Fate delivered my playmate for life right
next door. We traveled through
childhood, the teen years, and to the present time as the best of friends. Our adventures would fill numerous
volumes. We are more like siblings than
friends are, because I can still get angrier with my good friend Donald than I can
with anyone else, especially when he beats me at gin. He cheats.
I know he cheats. After sixty
years of playing, I just can’t determine how he does it.
The first grade
group of students provided my first true love.
Her name was Shirley McCoy. Like
her namesake, Shirley Temple, a mass of curls adorned her lovely head. She was the smartest member of our class, and
to rub it in, she was drop-dead gorgeous.
She had a charming, gap-toothed smile and wore little fur-topped boots
with a pocket for a knife. She had it
all. My heart broke when she did not
return to school for the second grade, and she dropped off the face of the
earth. I can only assume that she went
back to heaven.
A few weeks after
the beginning of school, a true legend enrolled in our class. His name was Jack Harvey. During the entirety of our time together,
Jack ruled. He was funny, smarter than
the rest of us, beloved by his teachers, and everyone who knew him. He never cut up in class or got into trouble. He attended church, did not smoke, and grew
into a tall, handsome athlete. Jack was
most popular, most handsome, and chosen for leadership for the duration of our
twelve years together. I still,
respectfully, refer to him as The Legend.
To this day, we manage to visit at least once each year, even though he
lives in the Houston area, and a bit of his enamel cracked over the years.
There were two
versions of Shirley Temple in the class.
Another was Paulette Coker. Early
on, while I still had some status in the room, she chose me to escort her
during the Halloween Carnival. I was
elated to do so. After Shirley ascended,
Paulette became the undisputed queen and social director of our class.
A. J. went to school
the year before, but Mrs. Martin deemed that he needed a firmer
foundation. His father died during this
time, and his difficult life became more challenging. We had many laughs and got into much trouble
making faces at one another during class.
Though I wouldn’t
know it for many decades, I dealt with attention deficit disorder. Managing
down time in class was not my strong suit, so I found myself in Dutch with
teachers for the duration of my public school time. Though Mrs. Martin was a reticent,
no-nonsense kind of educator, we maintained our friendship until her death
years later. I can say that only about
one other of my teachers.
The Naples schools
had no cafeterias. Most students brought
a brown paper sack lunch. Peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches were at the bottom of the social and culinary ladder. Money mattered come lunchtime, unless one had
special circumstances. I did. Ellie worked at Joe’s Café slinging hash or
waiting tables to be more exact. For the
grand total of twenty-five cents per day, I could eat like a king. My lunch fare included a hamburger, a coke,
and a double-dip cream cone.
I learned from my
classmates that I was the only one who did not attend the Saturday western
matinee at the Inez Theater. Asking Mama to part with hard money for something
as frivolous as going to the movies was akin to asking her to pull out a tooth
and give it to me. To say that Mama was frugal is like saying the Pacific Ocean
is wet. After months of nagging on my part, Mama finally began parting with the
nine cents for the Saturday movie. Each
time she parted with the dime, she demanded that I bring home the change.
In the movies,
heroes remained in constant conflict with natives, who were whatever spear
chunking, arrow shooting, and sparsely dressed people the movie script needed
for a corpse-littered battlefield. They
died by the thousands due to their poor weapons and propensity to charge
blazing guns. Natives were fair game.
During the fits of
imagination that overcame my concentration while my classmates engaged in
schoolwork, I invented the cross-eyed natives.
As the legend grew, my perceived sect was quite normal except for their
eye problem. They saw two of
everything. To compound matters, they
lived in tree houses, so in order to enter their houses; they had to determine
which of the two ladders was real. In
most instances, they chose the wrong one and went sprawling. The problem was worse when they climbed
down.
My creations were
inept at warfare. After all, they had to
choose the correct target for their spears, so they missed at least
fifty-percent of the time. They could
not run through the forest with impunity, because they were always picking the
wrong tree and smashing into the real one.
They had the same problem with cooking, finding food, and threading a
needle. On more than one occasion, Mrs.
Martin succumbed to class pressure and turned the class over to me. I would spin cross-eyed native tales on the
fly. Even today, every time Jack Harvey
and I get together, we have a laugh at their expense.
Naples High School
1926 - 1951
25
The Crime Spree
1945
I will never escape
the lessons of the fourth grade, nor would I wish to. One of the brief human candles that flared
during my formative years sputtered to life once again just last week. Wayne Raney, a refugee from Shreveport,
joined our class in 1944 and quickly became the leader of the gang. Wayne wore his blond hair carefully combed,
starched, khaki shirt sleeves rolled up twice, and a stiff collar raised in the
back. He didn’t walk; he strutted. He was the favorite of the girls, and his
practical knowledge was peerless, so why not?
Wayne taught us many
things, including all of the relevant cuss words, which we practiced with great
regularity. It took a while before I
realized that God would not strike us dead if we uttered the words where He
could hear them. Wayne named the
reproductive parts of both male and female anatomy with terms we had never
heard. He discussed the sexual habits of
humans on a constant basis with both expertise and color.
To my utter
surprise, he wrote me a letter last week wanting to purchase my recent
novel. He lives in California but must
still have relatives in northeast Texas, since I advertise in the Naples
Monitor each week. I spoke with him only
once since 1945. When Wayne visited a
class reunion several years ago, he had maintained his charm and good looks
albeit in an undersized package.
The fourth grade
produced numerous events and people who still crowd my recollections. Several of the people came and went, but
their presence made a permanent impression.
Hershel “Sweetpea” Welch and Ben Grimes joined us for that year and then
returned to James Bowie, a school across the Sulfur River from Naples. Patsy Green came on board, and we spent time
laughing and talking when we should have been working.
The fourth grade was
the first year that we played organized games.
In the past, we spent our recess time on the swings, monkey bars,
etc. During the fourth grade, Mrs. Exa
Tolbert, one of my favorite teachers, introduced us to softball. While our designated playground area did not
lend itself to a ball field, we made do with what we had. Chunks of concrete served as bases. The space allowed barely enough room for the
diamond, so when our heavy hitters connected, the ball sailed over the Agriculture
classroom or the gym or occasionally through a window. I learned that if I pulled the ball near
third base, it would go down a steep hill, and I could get my share of home
runs.
Mrs. Exa taught us
the game and supervised our play. When
the Bell rang for recess, we all started screaming for the positions we
wanted. Someone, usually A. J. Wells,
would yell, “First batter!” Then someone else would scream, “First batter,”
after which A. J. would shout, “I said first.”
And so on. Meanwhile, the student
who arrived first and grabbed the bat seldom gave it up. First batter was the plum, then second
batter, third, pitcher, first base, and so on. Coy Moreland was everyone’s
favorite pitcher, because he served up fat ones. During play, if someone caught a fly, he
immediately assumed the place of the hitter.
This was the first
time I had an opportunity to use any athletic ability I might or might not
possess. I had to learn to catch the
ball in my small hands. I watched the
other boys carefully. Dane Shaw had a
baseball family, and he already knew how to catch. I patterned my technique after Dane. Those days throwing the old tennis ball
against the chimney in Mt. Pleasant helped immensely. I had to learn to hit the
ball. Jack Harvey batted cross-handed,
but he was the best hitter with A. J. a close second. I soon learned that I did games well enough,
and a future jock flourished. I never
lost the thrill of victory nor the agony of defeat as described during later
years on the Wild World of Sports.
Mrs. Exa was a
resourceful classroom teacher as well.
She was firm, and that took some adjustments on my part. I recall the study of grammar and history. Did we learn our multiplication tables that
year? I believe we did. I recall the room as well lighted, and I can
see my fellow students clearly. That
means that it was a good year.
The most memorable
event during the fourth grade began with our occasional classmate, Alvis Donald
“Sunshine” Franklin. Since he did not
spend very much time in school, Sunshine had time on his hands, and he spent
some of it scouting out opportunities.
One thing he learned was that a front window of the grade school was
unlocked most of the time, and we all knew that the ice cream box and cold
drink boxes were unlocked as well.
Sunshine made a few
forays into the building and helped himself to the goodies therein. Since our gang did not always have specific
plans after the Saturday matinee at the Inez Theater, we chose to join Sunshine
on his next escapade. Four or five of us
climbed through the unlocked window and raided the ice cream and drink
coolers. What could be better?
It turned out to be
the perfect crime, but by the next week, the word was out that hardened
criminals were breaking into the grade school and stealing valuable
property. We gulped at the news and went
about our business.
Back to the
international scene. The war was winding
down. The war in Europe demonstrated the
victory of right over wrong. Patton and the Russians ran amok in Europe. US troops under McArthur and Nimitz reclaimed
Pacific islands in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese homeland. However, due to his health issues, President
F. D. Roosevelt succumbed on 12 April 1945.
That was a Saturday, and we made the poor choice of heading for the
grade school to obtain some illicit refreshments. Bad choice.
After eating and
drinking our fill, a few gang members put extra drinks in their pockets, and we
left the building. We were eating and
drinking our way down the hill behind the school, when a pair of riders
appeared. Just like in the westerns. One
was Bobby Godsey, the constable’s son.
The other was Thomas Harvey, the blacksmith’s son, and brother of my
classmate Jack.
For some unknown
reason, a couple of the boys panicked and started running. To make matters worse, they began throwing
soft drink bottles. The riders pursued
us out of curiosity. Thomas was a smart
person. When he saw the drink bottles
flying, he knew what they had discovered.
They had serendipitously exposed the heart and soul of the crime wave
that had ravished the school for the last month. Thomas and Bobby ratted us
out.
I was
petrified. I raced home and hid in my
book room, but to no avail. Soon,
Constable Godsey knocked on the front door. The constable had a marked
resemblance to Boris Karloff of Frankenstein fame. The man looked dead when he was alive. Think Frankenstein’s monster in a Stetson hat.
He asked to see
Mama, and I complied. After he left,
Mama laid out the plea bargain. I was to
pay my share of the cost of the stolen goods while visiting Superintendent
Wommack’s office the next Monday. I
might or might not get licks. I knew
that if I did, they would result in my death.
The final stipulation was that if I ever, in my entire life, took
anything that did not belong to me, Mr. Godsey would immediately pick me up and
deliver me to reform school, a fate even worse than passing away. I immediately became a Christian, at least
temporarily. I am sure that if I stole
something at this late date in my life, Constable Godsey would come out of the
grave and take me away.
The following Monday
was the real day of infamy. Sweat poured off my brow all day until the summons
came. Superintendent of Schools Wommack was a big man with wiry gray hair. He
knew my family, when we were a family, so he did not pass up the opportunity to
tell me that my sisters would be very disappointed in my behavior. That broke my heart, but it quickly repaired
itself when he allowed me to leave without the dreaded licks. I suggest that mumbling the Lord’s Prayer
under my breath during this ordeal may have swayed the outcome. Some members of our band, including Sunshine
and A.J., without such political influence were not so fortunate. Fairness did not always blend into the
politics of the time.
26
Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing
in the world’s estimation—Susan B. Anthony
Age 13
Saturday In Naples
1946
When I visit Naples
and take my drive up past the water tower, I attempt to equate the overgrown vacant
lot to our ancient school buildings full of noisy children.
A quiet East Texas
town surrounds the area. It’s mostly a
bedroom community with its inhabitants working all over Northeast Texas. Naples appears clean even with some of the
main street buildings boarded up. The
new world of Interstate Highways, TV’s, and Wal-Marts left many such small
towns behind. As a matter of course,
town businesses, and the merchants who ran them, went the way of the
farmer. However, the town I committed to
memory during the 1940’s was something entirely different especially on a
Saturday. It was noisy, colorful, and
odors permeated the air, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not. Smells told of giant steam engines and the
wet coats of free running dogs. They
spoke of hot popcorn, spent spring showers, and passing livestock and their
residue. They spoke of freshly mown
lawns and chicken fried steaks, if one was near the City Café, or moist
hamburgers and coconut cream pie if one was near Joe’s Cafe on the other end of
town. I can close my eyes, take in some
of the clean air, and paint a picture of life in the Naples of my childhood.
Even the colors
seemed brighter--especially the variety on the advertisements in front of the
Inez Theater depicting coming attractions.
On the streets of Naples, women wore bright cotton frocks often accented
with radiant head scarves and wide belts.
Both men and women wore hats. In
the summer, straw hats were the order of the day. In the winter, men wore
impressive felt hats with snap brims.
Strangely enough, only the men who worked cattle wore cowboy style
hats. A few wore Stetsons, but not
nearly as many as today. The skies
exuded blue, the lawns oozed green, and trees radiated fall colors more
impressive to the eyes of a child. It
was as if God decreed that clouds and bad weather were not welcome in Naples on
a Saturday.
Sounds permeated the
air including runaway herds of cattle emanated from the Inez Theater. No Saturday movie was complete without
stampeding cattle, numerous fist fights, and countless shootouts. A few songs and some slapstick were thrown in
for good measure. They were all on the
silver screen. The horns of automobiles
often accented the noisy atmosphere. The
toot of a horn was considered a form of greeting. Heavy trucks rumbled Northeast and Southwest
on Highway 67, competing with the endless rattle of freight and passenger
trains. Soldiers shouted in strange
accents from troop trains, as they directed us kids to bring them cokes and
cigarettes while the train was on a siding. I wonder how many lived and how
many died. We heard countless people in
conversation on the streets, and we could mostly recognize the person just from
the sound of their voices. We heard
small children squealing as they raced from one end of town to the other, their
safety assured.
No air conditioning
existed in either automobiles, homes, or in town. Even during the dog days of summer, only the
shade of awnings alleviated the heat. In
the places of business, the whir of countless electric fans moved the air and
afforded patrons a small measure of relief. The only time I noticed the high
temperature was when I walked on the burning sidewalks or highways.
The Naples I knew
and loved is gone. The world and my town
evolved since I moved away in 1953 to the extent that little bares a
resemblance to the past. I did not
witness the transformation which marks the changes even more noticeably. Naples of sixty years ago was a vibrant, busy
place whose inhabitants had a lot at stake.
However, not all was peace and light.
The wolf was much closer to the door in those days and adults were a
serious albeit fun loving lot.
Poverty-stricken people still lived in Morris County during the 1940’s.
Some went to bed hungry with several sharing a room and sometimes a bed. We did not all enjoy the latest styles in our
wardrobes. Thirty-five cents per hour
was the going wage around town, and one had to work long and hard to earn
enough money to make a difference.
I have no way of
knowing how well the local merchants were doing in those days, but there were a
lot of them. I do know that they stayed
open long hours, and that in some cases, the competition was fierce. The stakes were high. The town supported three major grocery stores
and several minor ones. There was a
movie house, a dry goods store, a five and dime, a barber shop, a bus station,
a train station, two major automobile dealerships complete with repair
facilities, a thriving newspaper, a cotton gin, seasonal produce including
watermelons and cucumbers, three drugstores, a solid bank, numerous eating
establishments, a dry cleaners, numerous gas stations, a physician, a dentist,
a lawman, an auto supply store, a public restroom, and on a couple of occasions
a summer snow-cone stand operated by entrepreneur Don Nance. I can count one high school student who drove
his own car and it was a Model A Ford....I think. There was no little league but
lots of games underway. The most important days of the week for me and my
contemporaries, were Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday was important, because school was out
for the week, and one could look forward to Saturday. Saturday was exceptional
because it was so exciting from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. on Sunday. Sunday was extraordinary, because it was
truly a day of rest that included church services and maybe an afternoon movie
at the Inez Theater.
On Saturday people
from the surrounding area descended on Naples with whatever money or credit
they had in order to buy food and supplies for the week. Citizens arranged transportation if they had
none of their own, purchased whatever they needed or could afford, and then
just roamed the streets watching others or visiting with acquaintances. People on the move virtually choked the
street from one end to the other. A coke
was a treat, and none of us knew that it was laced with caffeine. A burger cost $.25, but it would take two to
equal a normal burger today. Patrons
filled the Inez theater to overflowing from the time it opened until it closed
at 1:00 a.m. Parents went about the
events of the day and left children to look out for themselves. That meant that kids were racing from one end
of the street to the other and from store to store. Most of the adults knew them by sight and
accepted them as a part of the landscape. The children spoke to adults when
they met one they knew by name, and there was interest between the two.
Highway 67 was a
major transportation and commercial artery that ran through Our town, and
eighteen wheelers rolled through the city during all hours. Crossing the highway was not taken
lightly. Freight and passenger trains
rumbled through moving the nations goods across the country. One could take a Cotton Belt train or
Greyhound bus ride to Texarkana and points east or to Dallas and points
west. Few people in Naples at that time
had ever seen an airplane on the ground and only a very few had ever flown in
one. Occasionally, a mule drawn wagon
creaked down the street and parked behind the buildings.
The major sources of
entertainment were radio shows and movies.
I became familiar with radio voices rather than the faces of movie
stars. Examples were Laraine Tuttle and
Dashell Hammet. Soap operas such as
Young Widow Brown ran during the day along with music by the Light Crust
Doughboys from Burrus Mills. After
listening to a flour commercial, one would have thought that a Light Crust
biscuit could cure cancer. W. Leo Daniel
became governor of Texas by using the radio to reach voters and promising
outlandish pensions to the old folks should he be elected and he was. Names like Red Skelton and Jack Benny became
known all over the country. The Shadow,
the Green Hornet, and Mr. District Attorney fought crime and always won. Radio was available to most and children
re-enacted their favorite programs at school the next day. Edward R. Murrow reported national and world
news in his distinctive style. The children
of my generation listened to the reality of war news and the unreality of radio
and movie heroes. The focus of the nation postponed school athletics until
after the war.
Was the Naples of
the 1940’s a better place? That is a
question that can never be answered.
Ignorance was more pervasive.
Little real crime came to our attention other than a constable shooting
up a neighborhood doing his duty. People
were out and about, and as a result, spent more time together. A social error such as a pregnancy destroyed
lives and rarely came to light. The cast
system was real and in place. Rock hard
racism flourished. A white child playing
with a black child, except for exchanging stones in a rock fight, was not
allowed.
When I moved to
Naples in 1941, I began playing with a young black boy named Junior. We had such a wonderful time until the
grownups involved themselves. Junior
would be about eighty by now, and I hope he flourishes. I always got a howdy from Miss Veenie and her
sons Jack and Red. Some of us followed
our own instincts where other folks were concerned. Most did not. It was a
town, much like most of the Southern USA, segregated by thoughts and deeds.
At present, one
cannot find a similar way of life in small towns or even large towns for that
matter. There is little reason for
people to get out of their air-conditioned houses on a regular basis and
intermingle. Maybe it exists in developing third world countries, where
citizens still rub elbows, but not in this country. Will it ever return? Not likely.
People have too many reasons to stay at home.
The witnesses of
life in Naples of sixty years ago are showing the signs of age. Some of us are not the healthiest people on
the planet, and many of us are not here anymore. How can we be so near the end of our time and
have so few answers? Before too many
more years, the memories of the vibrant Naples of our youth will pass with us,
and the noisy, bustling place of the fabulous forties will cease to be even a
memory. It was something special. Considering the times, the people, modern
conveniences, the rearing of children, the kindred spirits, and the
opportunities, if I could roll back the clock and design my own hometown, I
wouldn’t change a thing.
27
Lack of money is the root of all evil—George Benard Shaw
Smith’s Drug Store
1949
Age 14
Two families
provided the majority of the health care in Naples during the late 1930's and
early 40's. Dr. Smith, a local family
practice physician, delivered me into the world. His small, musty office was on the main
street of Naples right next to Smith’s Drug Store, owned and operated by his
son, Wendell and daughter-in-law, Lois.
Wendell’s major competition was Leeve’s Drug Store on the next block. Mr. Leeves was a pharmacist as well. He and
his wife produced two sons, James and Jerry, who became physicians. James, or Jimmy as he was called, would spend
his professional life practicing in Naples.
However, this story
is not about health care but about an institution. Smith’s Drug store was far more than just a
pharmacy or a gift shop or a soda fountain or even a source for the latest in
written media. It was the social
gathering place at special times during the week and a major one on the
weekends. One didn’t just go to the
movie on Sunday. One went to the movie
and then stopped off at Smith’s Drug Store for a Coke and a social interlude
afterwards.
Whether by accident
or by design, Smith’s became a major part of growing up during the Naples
experience of that era.
When Smith’s was
open, and it was open most of the time, there was a steady stream of customers
arriving, leaving, or just standing around the fountain sipping a quick Coke or
indulging in the absolute best milkshakes maybe on the face of the earth.
Following the Saturday or Sunday afternoon movie, I was usually faced with the
decision of whether to spend my last 25 cents on one of those super milkshakes
or purchase two comic books for a leisurely read at home. More often than not, the milkshake won
out. It is ironic that a milkshake would
alter forever my memories of Smith’s Drugstore.
Smith’s Drugstore
was a well stocked gift shop and served as the town’s primary source of reading
material. Smith’s carried a large stock
of comic books, current newspapers from Dallas, Texarkana, and Shreveport plus
an abundance of those wonderful magazines such as Life, Look, Colliers, and
sports magazines as well.
Due to the large
selection choosing a comic book was not a simple matter. The comics were on the bottom rack and one
had to squat or sit on the floor to really sample the merchandise. There was Superman, Batman, The Flash,
Archie, Donald Duck, and many more. In
the process of selecting a couple of comic books for 10 cents each, one could
peruse several others before making this important decision. As I grew, my love for the comics gradually
faded away and magazines became more important.
Those early years created a reading pattern that would last the rest of
my life. I can’t remember when I have not had a book in progress.
Audie Murphy
I recall Dr. Smith
as being a reticent man and not prone to amusement. He died during the 40's prior to the building
of the local hospital. His son Wendell
was not a bundle of laughs either. He
was a portly man prone to Stetson hats, string ties, and expensive cowboy
boots. His jeans were always a bit too
short and his dark hair was combed back in the style of the day. I always got the impression that Wendell was
more content in the company of Big Boy, his grand champion Hereford bull, than
at any other time.
Lois, on the other
hand, was an outgoing person prone to laughter.
While she was businesslike at work, things changed dramatically when her
buddies from Marietta came in the store.
Their conversations could be clearly heard in the next block and their
laughter was rich and infectious.
Smith’s Drug Store
took on a different role during our middle school years. While it was the source for wonderful tasting
treats and the latest comic books. It gradually became a place to spend time
with girls after school. I am not sure
if other Naples school kids took advantage of Smith’s for that purpose, but our
group did. We spent our free time at
school playing sports and didn’t spend time with girls. However, after school, we all headed to
Smith’s, grabbed the back tables, and nursed Cokes for the better part of an
hour. This was where we discussed who
liked who and made plans for the next spin-the-bottle party. It was hard to say which part of the Smith’s
Drugstore lifestyle I would miss the most when it all came to and end.
I had always viewed
both Wendell and Lois as a positive part of my life when growing up in
Naples. Not many days passed without
visiting the drugstore or speaking to them on the streets so it came as no
surprise when either Billy Brunette or Richard Cole, who both worked at the
drugstore, approached me about working there.
I was in the eight grade and beginning to think about the world of work
even though making such a major change in my lifestyle was no easy decision
even at the ripe old age of 14.
I rather liked my
life the way it was. I was especially
enamored with Saturdays and Sundays. I
had radio programs to listen to on Saturday, shows to watch, games to play,
hamburgers to eat, and the general excitement of a weekend in Naples to
consider. I postulated that if I went to
work, I would necessarily have to give up most of those activities. The upside, of course, would be that I would
have more money at my disposal. However,
the money argument was not a strong one.
Smith’s paid 35 cents per hour which was the going rate for young hired
help. The money would not change my life
in any major way. Unlike several of the
other guys in my crowd, I had more than one source for spending money. The major source was my Aunt Ella who provided
the bulk of my meager funds. If Aunt
Ella was not disposed to cough up the 25 cents or 50 cents I needed, I
approached her daughter Ellie and put the mooch on her. In addition, my Uncle Dud was always a soft
touch when he was home. If push came to shove, I could appropriate a few coins
from my dad who lived next door. So
money was not a problem considering my limited needs.
However, some of my
buddies were going to work. I had always considered Smith’s Drugstore as my
favorite hang out in the entire town. I
liked the owners and knew Richard Cole and Billy Brunette who had worked there
for years. I decided to give it a shot.
The work was
routine. I served drinks, sold books,
and kept the elaborate fountain running.
There was work after school and on weekends. Saturdays were long and busy. Three employees were kept busy behind the
counter from Saturday morning to after midnight with short breaks for lunch and
dinner. Late Saturday night was devoted
to cleaning the fountain from top to bottom and preparing various mixes for the
next week. The only job I didn’t know
how to accomplish was the mixing of chocolate syrup. The senior soda jerk, Richard Cole, always
mixed that mysterious concoction. It
only consisted of milk and chocolate syrup out of a gallon can, but the
proportions were of grave importance. He
was, after all, a high school senior practically on his way to college. I don’t remember why Richard was not at work
that Saturday night but for whatever the reason, the new batch of chocolate
syrup for Sunday did not get mixed.
The next day was the
last day of my short tenure at Smith’s Drugstore. The Sunday afternoon movie
was underway and business was non-existent.
This period of inactivity was the most difficult for me because I really
enjoyed the Sunday afternoon movies. The only people in the store were Wendell
and me when a gentleman from out of town dropped in for a bit of
refreshment. I had seen the man before
and recall that he was in the insurance business. For some reason, Wendell
chose to make an impression on this man.
He commented that the milkshakes were the best in the state and asked
would the gentleman like one. The man said that he would. I started to prepare the milkshake only to
discover that there was no chocolate syrup.
I told Wendell that we were out of chocolate syrup assuming that he
would know the formula for the mix and quickly make up a batch.
To this day, I don’t
know if he didn’t hear me but after a bit, he came charging behind the counter
in a rage and proceeded to prepare the milkshake himself. I noticed that he poured the chocolate syrup
directly from the gallon can. What a
novel idea, I thought to myself. Why
didn’t I think of that? Wendell said no
more about the incident but I could tell that he was furious. Even so it was a surpise when work was over
for the day that Lois called me aside and informed me that my service were no
longer needed at Smith’s Drugstore. I
have always wondered why Lois and not Wendell broke the news.
After I was over the
initial embarrassment of the termination, I analyzed the situation as best I
could at my age and from my own perspective.
I faced the fact that I must have not been a very good employee. I must have deserved what I got or my good
friends Wendell and Lois would have been more patient during my training period. I came to the further realization that not
all of my acquaintances were my friends.
They were just business people making their way through life.
There were positives
that came out of the severance. I realized
that I could go to the Sunday afternoon movie rather than work. I could jump in the car and go places with my
friends whenever I wished. I could read
as much as I liked without being pressed for time. I could play sandlot ball
and hang out at Don Nance’s snowcone stand during the lazy summer days.
There was a down side as well. I would never be comfortable again in my
favorite place of business in Naples. I
could never drop in after school for a Coke without discomfort. As a result, I avoided Smith’s Drugstore for
the next four years unless it was for a special occasion or to fulfill needs
for magazines. The store stopped being a
part of my life and became a place of business.
I would still go in the store but would conduct my business and
leave. In later years it was even a chore
to collect the free milkshakes Wendell provided for touchdowns but I swallowed
my pride for those.
My negative dealings
with the Smiths did not end there.
During the summer before my senior year, I was keeping the company of a
young lady from Tulsa who visited for the summer. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but when
she went back home, I felt compelled to provide a parting gift. She was a smoker, so I gave her a nice butane
lighter from Smith’s. It cost $12 and I
charged it. I could lay my hands on $2 but not $12.
I began my senior
year and gave little thought to the $12 I owed.
Don’t ask me how it was supposed to get paid. I knew my Aunt didn’t like the girl from
Tulsa so I could not bear to break the bad news of the gift. Not a word was said about the $12 during the
coming months until it was time for Lois Smith to send out the year end bills.
Naturally, I got one. My Aunt Ella
quickly paid the bill but that was another instance of embarrassment brought on
by a dumb decision on my part.
The point of this
story is that my bad experience with my first job lasted a lifetime. I had to learn the difference between friends
and acquaintances. I had to learn that
lack of communication can be damaging, that life is not always fair, and that
not everyone loves me. Even though I
proved myself in the work arena time and time again with success after success,
there has always been the smidgen of doubt in the back of my mind that began on
that Sunday afternoon. Was I ever good
enough? Would I ever be?
That was not to be
the last time I was fired. Toward the
end of my career, I held a national position in an international firm and was
caught up in downsizing. My corporate
home for eighteen years punished me for being fifty-seven years old and having
a significant salary. When my
pathetically incompetent supervisor explained to me that I was not losing my
job because of the quality of my work, I felt a sense of relief. I lost my job but felt relieved because it
was not because of something stupid that I had done.
Why didn’t Richard
Cole mix that chocolate syrup like he was supposed to do? Maybe I would have
become president … or not.
28
As
always, victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan—Count Ciano
The Bomb
1952
Age 17
The Bomb was a 1939
Chevrolet that represented the residue of the failed marriage between Ellie and
John L. Barker. In 1940, he departed for
San Francisco and left her with the car and the payments. By 1953, the once-proud automobile was but a
shadow of its former self, but it was my one and only mode of
transportation. The top speed going
downhill was seventy miles per hour. The
maroon paint faded to different shades, and the fenders were without
symmetry. The inside of the ancient
relic had an old car smell.
Ellie was the
principal driver until I procured my driver’s license at the age of
twelve. We parked the vehicle in an old
barn. It had two swinging doors on each
end. If one approached the doors
carefully, there was room for the car to squeeze in with three or four inches
to spare. Ellie’s idea of parking in the
barn was to estimate the opening, get a running start, and then shut her
eyes. The result was that the car
careened back and forth between sides until it crashed into the door at the
other end. It was an effective way of
parking, but the fenders suffered. Every
four or five years, Ellie took the Bomb to the Chevrolet dealership and had the
fenders straightened. That was the only
time the car got a bath as well. After
she parked the car a few times, the disfigured fenders returned.
Several students in
my class had the use of nice cars. Of
all the automobiles that provided transportation to the Pewitt School and on
dates from our area, the Bomb was by far the most esthetically challenged. When I was behind the wheel of our family
car, I was not a proud driver.
After graduation
from Pewitt High School in 1953, I spent the summer lifting watermelons,
swimming at Daingerfield State Park, and killing time until classes at ET
started in the fall. One hot, dusty
evening, I drove around in the Bomb, seeking anything to eradicate the
oppressive boredom and decided to drive past the rural home of an off-again,
on-again girlfriend. We had dated
intermittently for the past couple of years, but at the time, we were off
again. The bloom had left the rose of
our relationship the previous summer, when a slinky blond from Tulsa spent the
summer visiting her aunt, who lived in the area. Meanwhile, I visited with the slinky blond
that turned out to be one of those lose-lose situations. After the blond slinked back home, the young
woman from Omaha and I still dated, but it was never the same. She was currently seeing one of the older
guys from Naples, who had spent his time after graduation from Naples High School,
flunking out of various institutions of higher learning.
I usually drove the
Bomb to the extent of her limited capabilities.
Therefore, it was not surprising that I enjoyed the sandy roads south of
Omaha by spinning hither and yon on that particular night. I came upon a sharp left turn and gunned the
old girl. That was when I exceeded my
driving skills and misjudged the importance of physics. The inertia of the machine responded to the
forces of gravity, slid off the road, and flipped on her side.
The Bomb
After the car
settled, the situation evolved into a period of silence broken only by the
sound of the idling motor. I sat on the
ground, or as much so as the passenger-side window would allow. Then, I glanced
upwards and viewed the portion of the galaxy discernible through the opposite
window. Gradually, it occurred to me
that action on my part was necessary. I
turned off the motor, climbed out of the open portal, and appraised the state
of affairs. Learning nothing from my
assessment, I attempted to push the car back over and failed. I had no choice but to swallow my pride,
trudge back to Omaha, and beg for help from those rich farm boys who were
always hanging around. As I started my
embarrassing journey, I put aside my usual indifference to religion and prayed
that the young woman and her new beau would not be out that night. My prayers went unanswered.
After a mile or so,
I heard a car approaching from the rear.
Fearing the worst, I made no effort to flag it down. There I was, walking down a deserted country
road on a pitch-black night, and the car did not even slow down. A glance through the swirling dust confirmed
that the car belonged to the young women’s new beau. I was not surprised at his behavior. We had a history, and it was not a good
one. My mortification knew no bounds.
Finally, a distant
streetlight broke the gloom. I strode
out of the darkness toward some of my Pewitt schoolmates, explained my
predicament, and begged for assistance.
They gave it freely since it gave them more time to ridicule. We soon arrived back at the scene, turned the
car over, and I spun away in a cloud of righteous indignation.
When I arrived home,
I parked the car in the barn and waited for a new day. After my work at the watermelon shed the next
day, I went home to find Ellie and Mama returning from a shopping trip to Mt.
Pleasant. Taking the offensive, I
suggested that the right side of the car sported fresh blemishes. Not being overly observant of such things,
the women agreed that someone must have hit them while they were shopping. I agreed with their assessment, and the
matter ceased to exist, except in my memory.
29
God is
always on the side of the big battalions—Voltaire
The Run
Age 18
Texas is famous for
oil wells, rodeos, wide open spaces, and high school football among other
things. The latter, a game of deception,
dominance, and dexterity first captured the hearts and minds of Texans around the
turn of the century. I knew little of
the sport until after World War II when we local yokels were introduced to
sports magazines. I read articles about
Johnny Lujak of Notre Dame, Choo Choo Justice of North Carolina, Smackover
Scott of Arkansas, and our own homegrown version of the super football player,
Doak Walker of SMU. In fact, the Doaker
was the first college level player I ever saw perform. It was a game at the Cotton Bowl between SMU
and Rice during FFA day at the state fair.
The year was 1948.
Football is a
diverse sport. Players with many
dissimilar physical characteristics and skills are required to make up a team.
The differences between an offensive tackle and a wide receiver are so vast
that it makes one wonder if they play the same game. Quarterbacks, receivers, and runners are the
skill players and must be able to manage the ball with consistency. Handling and throwing the ball is done
primarily by the quarterback. Kicking is
a key factor in the outcome of many games as well. For the linemen, football is
a game of brute strength, manipulation, and creativity. The best players force their opponents to
commit to courses that will result in
failure. Football is far more kin to
chess than most people realize.
Speed, strength, and
quickness are in constant use by all players.
Quickness is used to put one in place to make a play, but unadorned
speed may be the most precious commodity on a football field. Speed, when properly applied, cancels out all
the other skills. Some football skills
require years to develop and some players develop these skills to amazing
levels. A defender may be smarter, stronger, and more talented but they still
must catch the offensive player to apply any of these advantages and that is
often impossible.
My senior year had
not gone as well as I had hoped. After
earning the starting running back position, I had several good games to my
credit before the injury bug moved into my locker. At first there was a bursitis on my left
heel, then a hip pointer that was excruciatingly painful for about ten
days. Next came a severely sprained
ankle. The latter caused me to miss most
of the last couple of games. While I was
rehabilitating with some efficiency, I was still not 100%.
I had hoped for a
great season and a football scholarship to a small university but by the time
the Daingerfield game was played, I realized that the scholarship was probably
not going to happen. The coach was not
my biggest fan at this time. He viewed
my injuries as minor and my attitude that of a quitter. I was not to set foot on the field during the
first half of the Daingerfield game. My
replacement got the carries and I got splinters.
Daingerfield had a
good team. They had good size and speed
but no great runner. Their quarterback,
Richard Woods, was the most gifted athlete on the team. When he barked out the signals which were
“ready, set,” it sounded like “hada sue” so we called him “Hada Sue.” A few members of our team responded to a
special brand of humor.
We were doing better
than expected so both teams were undefeated at the time the annual game rolled
around. Daingerfield was expected to win but not by much. Their town was only 12 miles from our school
so we knew most of their players and liked them for the most part. However, the rivalry was intense. Since their school was considerably larger
than ours, we had not beaten Daingerfield since the war.
The first half
produced a defensive standoff. It was
three downs and kick, back and forth. Finally,
Hada Sue found a receiver behind our safety and in an instant, the score was
7-0 in favor of Daingerfield. However,
near the end of the first half, our diminutive fullback, Bobby Presley, caught
what was perceived by the officials as a fumble on the dead run and
scored. I clearly saw the play and the
ball hit the ground and bounced into his arms.
It was in reality little more than an incomplete forward pass and a loss
of down for Daingerfield, but who were we to argue with the officials. We missed the extra point, so when the half
ended, the score was Daingerfield 7 and Pewitt 6. The coach began to worry.
As we moved back
toward the field while the band march, the assistant coach took me aside. He was my basketball coach and I was his
captain, so we got on pretty good at the time.
He explained that the football coach didn’t think I wanted to play. He said that in order for me to play, I
needed to tell the head coach I wanted to play.
That struck me as being odd since I was all suited out to play football
and had attended all the practices, but I went along with the game. I sought out the head coach and suggested
that maybe he could put me in the game.
He agreed to do so and immediately put me in the receiving position for
the opening kickoff. After we lined up,
I stood on about the 10-yard line of the South goal waiting for the whistle to
begin the second half.
Every fan stood as
the whistle finally sounded and the Daingerfield team advanced toward the
ball. It was a huge kick, a high floater
sailing with the north wind, but I could see it was coming to me. I took a few steps back, with my eyes
fastened on the ball, and made the catch.
The game was on.
The crowd noise
reached a crest, but strangely enough, football players don’t hear much crowd
noise. They hear the slap of pads and
the grunt of effort. While no game is
faster than football, this play unreeled in slow motion, individual combat, and
maximum effort on the part of the players.
The plan called for
a run up the middle. After I took my first few steps in that direction, I could
see no real avenue to the goal line. Like most running backs, I used my vision
and instincts to best take advantage of the efforts of my teammates and the
mistakes of my opponents. Almost
immediately, a tackler detached himself from that mass of humanity and moved in
my direction. Just as suddenly, a player
with a uniform of blue and grey blind-sided him out of the picture. So far, so good but I still had about 80
yards to go.
Immediately, a second
tackler challenged me on the 30-yard line.
He looked a bit heavy, so I slammed my left foot into the turf and
leaned right. He instantly responded and
moved to his left. That was a
mistake. I planted my right foot and
slid opposite of his motion. All he
could do was reach out with a powerful arm and try to knock me off
balance. He almost succeeded, but I
managed to spin completely around and left him clutching air. 60 yards to go.
The defensive scheme
for covering a kickoff is like a funnel.
Tacklers usually cover the breadth of the field and gradually move
inward toward the ball. Battles went on
all around me. Tacklers were striving to annihilate me, and my blockers were
just as determined to protect the ball.
Only seconds had
passed since the whistle, but it seemed an eternity. The third and last tackler I faced was the
safety. He waited at the 50-yard
line. I knew this kid. He was smart and very fast. I would not be able to juke him, and I would
need to get past him if I was to score.
To accomplish such a feat seemed unrealistic at the time and conditions
looked bleak.
Running backs have
this instinct thing. The good ones are
able to see any player within their vision, but they do not focus on any one
player. They see the field as a game
board. I sensed a friend coming up on
the outside. A glance told me that it
was my best buddy, Donald Dawson, who
was a tall lanky end. He was a deadly
blocker. I ran ahead of him, and the
rest of the players were coming up fast.
I had little choice but to slam on the brakes and allow him to take a
shot at the safety.
He knifed past me
and hurled his 6' 4" frame at the opposing tacker. Just when the safety thought all of him was
past, the legs came along and turned him a complete flip. I planted my right foot, charged hard left,
and ran for daylight.
The opportunity was
there. I could not see behind me, but
that was not a concern. Nobody would
catch me from behind. For some reason
the crowd noise begin to break through my consciousness. Something very special was happening, and I
had long since shifted into overdrive.
It was then just a matter of doing what I did best and that was pick my
feet up and put them down faster than anyone else on the field.
Even though the
entire run had taken less than 15 seconds, it appeared to last a month. Finally, I covered the last few of the 95
yards and drifted into the end zone. The ref raised his hands signifying a
touchdown. In those days there was no
spiking of the ball or celebrations of any kind. The prevailing philosophy was to act like you
had been in the end zone before, and that it was no big deal. I handed the ball to the ref, turned, and
observed the roaring crowd. I saw my
teammates running full tilt toward me. I
watched the dejection on the faces of the Daingerfield players. It was to last the remainder of the
game. The picture would last me a
lifetime.
During the late 80's
Pewitt High School reached the state quarter finals, and I decided to go to the
game. During the halftime, I met a former player who graduated several years
after me. He was a retired Dallas police
officer and an interesting man. He said
to me as we were starting back up into the stands to watch the second half, “I
saw the run.” “What run?” I asked. “The run against Daingerfield,” he replied
and then he went on to describe the run almost yard by yard as seen through the
eyes of a young boy who loved the game of football. He brought it all back. So even though the run amounted to nothing in
the annals of Pewitt football lore, it meant something to that young boy and it
meant something to me.
It is interesting
that in spite of my myriad of injuries, Catfish Smith, the head coach at East
Texas State saw something in the skinny kid from Pewitt who could punt, pass,
and run. He offered me a full ride. The injury bug influenced me more than him,
so I declined.
30
To win
without risk is a triumph without glory—Pierre Corniell
The Quagmire
1952
One of the driest
summers on record in East Texas resulted in a severe drought in 1952. You can
imagine our surprise when we got off the bus in Clarksville for the 1952
district championship game and saw that the field was a virtual quagmire of
mud. Such conditions subtracted greatly from our team. We relied on speed and quickness.
We were still very
confident. I recall that both
Clarksville and DeKalb had already defeated Atlanta, so a victory in
Clarksville would seal the championship for our school. Even when we started wading through the mud
during our warm-ups, which was strange since it had not rained in East Texas in
months, we felt good about the outcome.
The Clarksville game
was important for us, and we were highly motivated. They had already suffered one defeat at the
hands of a good DeKalb team and we were
undefeated. However, for all of our
formations our team usually won with defense.
Ramey was an excellent defensive coach, but his first love was
offense. To give the edge to his team in
this important game, Coach Ramey chose to put in a completely new offensive
scheme.
As one of our
running backs, I had some speed, could throw a little, and kick a little. Ramey believed that if a coach had a gun, he
should shoot it. During the four days
before the Clarksville game, Ramey taught and coached the spread formation or
what is now called the modern day “shotgun.”
I became the new tailback and when using the spread, passed, ran, or
kicked the ball on every offesnive play. Of course even the practices tended to
wear me down, so by Friday, I was about pooped.
In addition to the
new formation, Ramey developed a cagey misdirection play to begin the
game. It worked great in practice
against the second team. It was designed
to break the back of Clarksville on the first play of the game with Don
Dawson’s crack-back block.
We started out in
the split T formation in the first series, but for some strange reason, the
exchange between Billy Williams and the all-district center, Jack Harvey,
didn’t work. No problem, we would just
try again. Same result. The exchange didn’t work. Finally, the Clarksville team figured out what
we were trying to do, and they nailed us for a loss. However, a nice 70 yard punt by our newly
anointed hero pinned them back and our defense forced a punt. On the next series, Coach Ramey called for
the spread formation and I lined up in the tailback slot.
When one runs the
ball from the spread formation, the center must deliver the ball to a moving
target about seven yards deep … sometimes left, sometimes right. I moved to my
left on that play, as we practiced all week, but in the excitement of the
moment, the ball went straight
back. I attempted to recover the ball,
and as I bent down to pick it up, both Clarksville ends buried me, and in the
process, tore ligaments in my ankle. I
was finished.
I thought Coach
Ramey would scrap the spread and revert back to the split T. I assumed incorrectly. Billy Williams had
practiced the new formation from another position, but he was a good football
player. He proceeded to step into the
role of tailback with virtually no practice in the position. He hurled his 150-pound body at the big
Clarksville team time and time again. I
marveled when he got up after absorbing the punishment he took. He just kept running, throwing, and kicking
the ball for the rest of the night. I
witnessed every ball game Billy Williams ever played and in my mind, that was
his finest hour. He was likely the only
member of the Pewitt team who could really be proud of his accomplishments that
night. Unfortunately, Billy’s heroics could not salvage the game, and the
Pewitt Brahmas went down to defeat.
The next day, I had
an ankle the size of a grapefruit, and to compound matters, my sister Dorothy
had a wedding planned. I rode with Mr. and Mrs. Bean, the Superintendent of
Schools, and we attended the wedding in
Chandler, Texas.
Pewitt High School
31
Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the
world—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Old ET
Tejas
Pledge class of 1953
To prove that a
storehouse of memories is prone to idealization, I recall the summer of 1953 as
being one of vivid colors, lazy cumulous clouds backed by a cerulean sky, and a
total absence of discomfort.
Thunderstorms, searing heat, and boredom absented themselves from this
idyllic summer unless it was the smell of wet sand after the sun burst
through. I call to mind slicing through
the tepid water of Daingerfield State Park after diving from the high
board. Underneath the platform, with the
aid of a mask, I recall going nose to nose with small black bass enjoying the
shade and crystal water of the lake. I
recall picking up literally thousands of sixty-pound watermelons during the
season in Naples as my Florida born stacker loaded boxcar after boxcar with the
black diamonds for shipping around the nation.
I gave little
thought to the upcoming school year when my life would change so
dramatically. My senior year at Paul
Pewitt School merged into a history, and a new adventure at East Texas State
Teachers College lurked on the horizon.
My cousin and benefactor, Ellie Barker, along
with a Pewitt classmate’s mother, Rita Nance, journeyed to Commerce, found us a
room, and scouted out the institution.
Don Nance, my future roommate, and I went about our summer business and
awaited the upcoming day when we would actually changed our addresses, take
care of our own business, and make our own decisions. The latter freedom proved to be to our
detriment.
The thought of
attending East Texas State Teachers College in Commerce, Texas, held no terror
for me. I was the third of my immediate
family to attend the college. Since we
were not a bookish family, none in the Stubbs family had a college degree
before us and few owned a high school diploma.
My sister, Marvalynn Stubbs, convinced herself that a college education
made a difference. She was the first
member of the family to graduate from college, and our sister, Dorothy Jean
Stubbs followed in her footsteps.
Dot, as she was
known, showed her annuals to me during infrequent visits, and built her fellow
students into campus deities in my eyes.
Additionally, I visited the campus during my high school days usually
pertaining to an athletic event. Both of
my coaches were ET alumni as were most of my teachers. The campus was about 70 miles from my
hometown of Naples. It was just far
enough to prevent too many trips home but not so far that we could not hitch
hike there if necessary.
We had little
conception of the impact fellow Naples students would have on our entire time
at the college. Several of the more
troublesome ones, such as Jack Coker and Richard Cole, just took up where they
left off at Naples High School albeit with a more mature demeanor.
They helped us make decisions that were not always in our best interests
such as spending far more time pledging a social club than frequenting the
library. As much as I would like to
blame them for my shortcomings, the literal fault nestles in my own bosom.
We had no more than unloaded our meager
possessions in our room for two at the corner of Hunt and West Neal Streets
than our friends from Naples came out of the woodwork. They offered opinions on which professors to
choose, when to schedule our classes, which classes to take, and the time and
place for the Tejas Social Club smoker.
My personal goals
differed from past behavior. I wanted to avoid any ties with a contrived social
life and devote myself to study for the first time in my life. Since declining
a football scholarship due to my diminutive size and propensity for injury, I
felt an obligation to my foster sister, who worked as a nurse, to see me
through to graduation. I did not take into account my personality.
There were reasons
why I had never devoted myself to scholarship. I was ADD but didn’t know it. I
was enamored with young females and did know it. So my natural social,
extrovert driven needs quickly booted academia and dedication right out the
window. I fell into the social scene, pledged the Tejas Club, and achieved
membership during the first semester.
Don Nance and I started
in first grade together. The only problem with my living conditions was that
the other roommate was a former Paris Junior College lineman who liked to
wrestle. Don was a tackle on our football team, and he liked to wrestle as
well. They both like to wrestle with me. Every time the furniture started to
fly, the property owner would stick her head in the phone nook and scold us. I
was always grateful though I never lost to either one.
Don didn’t like the
interference, so he arranged for us to move at the end of the semester. We
hooked up with Don Dawson from Naples, a transfer from Kilgore Junior College,
and moved into an apartment house. Dawson was my best friend since first grade
and had left KJC when he lost his basketball scholarship. Across the hall were
two guys from Farmersville and one from Wolfe City. As the decades passed, they
had a much more influence on my life than the Naples boys. Stanley Stooksberry evolved into a life-long
friend. Bill Jacobs became my brother-in-law. They both died early. Dale
Gaskell, the most stable of the bunch, earned his doctorate and did everything
right for the rest of his life.
After about six
weeks, Don Nance joined the Air Force, and Don Dawson dropped out to become an
electrician. That left me without roommates. I moved in with Stan Stooksberry,
Bill Jacobs, and Dale Gaskill.
After a couple of
visits to Friendly Farmersville, The hometown of Stan and Bill, I met and began
dating Bill’s sister, Nancy. 58 years later, we are still dating. In fact, we
have a date tonight to watch a rented movie from our twin recliners.
The next three years
of my time at ET were topsy turvy. There were good times and bad. The details
are personal. I will share that I was elected president of the Tejas Club and
have since earned the Golf Blazer award for alumni activities. I am something
of a celebrity at the university, and received several honors along the way.
The bottom line is that I had enough grade points to graduate in 1957.
A few years later, I
earned my masters from North Texas State University, where I was a devoted and
successful scholar. Go figure!
32
Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set
in extremes—Prince Clemons Von Metternich
The Panty Raid
Alice Kaiser, third girl from left, second row, unlocked the back door of
Binnion Hall.
During the ETSTC
school year of 1955-56, several East coast universities staged and executed
campus events known as panty raids. In
order to protect the reputations of the students, universities severely
segregated male and female students with regards to domiciles. There were girl’s dorms and boys dorms and
never the twain should meet. These
daring young men gained entrance to the female dorms and ran helter, skelter
through the buildings in search of ladies undergarments. In many cases, they were successful in their
quest. These episodes made national
news, horrified the country, and prompted two inhabitants of the Tejas Social
Club House to create an evening of fun that had stood the test of time 49 years
later. Here's what happened.
After wearing out my
academic welcome at ET, I retreated to the peace and quiet of the Kilgore
Junior College campus for the spring semester.
I quickly forged a reputation as a studious person and gained the
respect of student and faculty alike.
One of my
schoolmates was a navy vet named Bud Smith.
Ironically, he had shared time in the shore patrol with a former Artema
named Joe Terrell who was my brother-in-law at the time. At 5' 5", Bud
must have struck terror into the hearts of wayward sailors while performing his
duty.
After an uneventful
spring at KJC, I went back for another shot at ET in the fall. As it turned out, Bud followed me. I liked Bud, and it was only natural that I
would invite him to join the Tejas Club of which I was already a member. Bud joined and pledged. We ended up being roommates at the Tejas
House near the campus.
I had never lived in
such a public place before and it was not always easy to get to sleep
especially in light of the fact that a group of rowdy Delta County boys were in
the next room. At any rate, Bud and I
were attempting to talk ourselves to sleep one fateful night during late winter
or early spring. Our thoughts and
conversation moved to a discussion of those students in the Northeast who
staged the panty raids. To be brutally
honest, we were both a bit jealous of their notoriety.
It is impossible to
remember who made the statement "We could do that." However, history proves that one of us
did. At first, we were not completely
serious. Then we started discussing
logistics and got serious in a hurry. We
decided that we would contact the leadership of the other men's social clubs
and get their take on the idea. They
were a bit more conservative than the Tejas, and most Tejas were a bit more
conservative than Bud and me, so it was likely that they would turn up their collective
noses at the plan, and we would get on with our lives.
I spoke with Richard
Stevenson, the Artema President. To my
great surprise, he thought it was a grand idea and agreed to have reps at the
planned meeting behind the stadium in two days time. The Cavaliers, Friars, Ogimas, and Paragons
jumped on the bandwagon as well, and a nice sized crowd gathered behind the
stadium to discuss the matter.
Surrounded by men’s
social club members, my roommate, Bud Smith, got up in the bed of a pickup and
laid out the big night. The plan was simplicity itself. Mrs. Gant, the housemother and queen of
population control, closed down Binnion Hall and locked the doors at 10:30
p.m. However, a close and personal
friend of mine, a Kalir with a winsome spirit, agreed to unlock the Northwest
door at 11 p.m. After that, the troops could enter the building and pillage at
will. Raincoats and a woman's stocking
over our heads made up the dress code.
We all swore, on pain of expulsion, that if caught, we would deny any
knowledge or participation. Yeah
right!
The night
arrived. We gathered in several groups
behind Binnion Hall and waited for zero hour.
At the stroke of 11:00, someone, it could have been me, tried the
door. To my great surprise, the door was
actually unlocked and fellow clubbers started pouring through the door
spreading out and gaining every floor.
Of course, the girls all knew we were coming
At this point, it
became personal. For the next ten
minutes, every participant gained memories that will last a lifetime. Mine included charging up to the second floor
and looking for a friendly face. I found
one, took the offered panties, and headed for the exit. However, I glanced down the hall and saw
Clyde "Red" Carroll, complete with stocking over his face, walking
along chatting with the dorm mother, Mrs. Gant.
Neither appeared to be overly excited.
The male students
filled and cleared the dorm in short order with our mission accomplished. We all retired to various venues for
celebration and recounted our experiences.
We had our fun, and now the only remaining obstacle was to stay in
school. That proved to be somewhat
difficult.
Dean of Men, Dough
Rollins, went to work early the next day.
He began to call in social club members and offer them a deal. Give him names and stay in school. It didn't take long before a Paragon spilled
his guts, and the Dean invited us in for a chat. When my turn came, I looked into his kindly
face and asked, "What panty raid?"
He countered with a letter to my father stating that there had been a
panty raid and even though I had feigned innocence, Dean Rollins still
considered me a prime suspect. The man was no dummy. Nothing more was done or said about the
matter on an official basis.
It was a great
night. All the social clubs worked in
harmony, and we did no real harm except to the egos of the administration. Kent Biffle, award-winning columnist for the
Dallas Morning News, was a student at that time. He wrote an article for the paper about the
event many years later. It is still a
topic of conversation when Tejas gather.
I attended the University
homecoming fifty-three years later, and took a tour of the campus. A young faculty member was the guide. When we passed Binnion Hall, he referenced
the Panty Raid. I looked out the window
at the old building but said not a word.
Bud Smith passed at
an early age but will remain a legend in the hearts and minds of us all for his
part in the Great Binnion Hall Panty Raid.
Binnion Hall
33
It is
the fashion to style the present moment an extraordinary crisis—Benjamin
Disraeli
Salad Nights
1957
One early spring
afternoon in 1957, I lounged at the Student Union Building with a couple of
campus leaders. Two of us were presidents of ET social clubs. The other was the
newly elected president of the ET student body, so as a group, we packed some
campus political weight. This detail made the events of the next two days even
more bizarre.
The student body
president was in a more celebratory mode, so it was probably he who said the
magic word beer. We considered the idea for at least thirty seconds before
voting unanimously to make the trip to Red Coleman’s on the outskirts of Big D.
In those days, there was no running down to the local beer store and grabbing a
six-pack or three. There were two places to obtain beer from Commerce in those
days. One was Oklahoma. The other was Dallas. The Dallas trip was a tad longer
but more scenic. Nobody bought six-packs. Everyone bought cases. After all, the
going rate was $2.50.
Obtaining permission
from Nancy was not a problem. Our firstborn was incubating, and she likely
could do without making dinner. It didn’t hurt that one of the three was her
brother and my brother-in-law. We jumped into my black/white 1950 Ford Fairlane
with custom interior and hit the road. The fact that my car was well known on
campus was another factor that did not register during our decision making
process.
Driving and drinking
was the order of the day. Only the unlucky or stupid attracted enough attention
on the way back from Dallas to get into trouble. We had almost made it out of
Red Coleman’s parking lot before we popped three cans.
We sipped our way
back to Commerce and began to cruise the area and visit friends. Our condition
did not endear us to many of them. At about 1 a.m., we cruised the downtown
area for the 642nd time and noticed a fellow student, Artis Barnes,
delivering produce to the grocery stores. The student body president thought it
would be just delightful to grab a case or two of produce. We queried, “What on
earth will we do with produce?”
One of the reasons
for the election of our friend was that he was, by nature, very persuasive.
Within a minute or two, he sold us on the idea, and we furtively avoided Artis
who was working his way through college delivering food during the wee hours of
the morning. SBP grabbed a case of cabbage and one of lettuce. Then we joyously
fled the scene and drove to the Paragon clubhouse. Of course, everyone was
asleep.
Refusing to abandon
the moment, the student body president dumped both cases of produce into the
bed of a sleeping club brother. Again, he did not use the best of judgment. The
victim happened to be, James Ed Alexander, a former fleet light heavyweight
champion while in the USN. Fortunately, after James Ed gathered his wits and
saw the perpetrators, a grin appeared on his face. After all, we were both from
Naples, and I had known him for most of my life.
After that final
escapade, we had just about milked the event for all that it was worth. We
drifted home and grabbed whatever sleep was left before first class. Or was it
the second class?
The next day began
uneventfully. I went to school, had lunch, and drove downtown for a haircut. My
barber cut the best flattop found anywhere. When he finished, I strolled out to
my fine black/white Ford only to find the local law-enforcement officer waiting
with a smile on his face. He asked me if I owned the car. I admitted such. Then
he went on to explain that a robbery had occurred the previous evening, and a
witness saw my car in the area. He suggested that I collect my friends and meet
with him and the produce company owner at the police station. Uh oh, I thought.
True to my word, I
located my fellow gang members, and we spent what little time we had left
attempting to figure out a way to beat this rap. Let’s face facts. Two social
club presidents and a Student Body President did not need this kind of heat.
About all we could come up with was that we would play it by ear. What we
didn’t know was whether the rat had actually seen us taking the produce.
When we arrived, the
police officer and the Big Cheese owner of the produce company waited. The
officer explained that the monetary value of the stolen goods was $15. The BC
just wanted his money back.
I saw an
opportunity. I needed to know if we were actually seen making the heist, and I
didn’t believe that we were. I explained to the two men that I had parked my
car at a social clubhouse for much of the night in question. Normally, in such
a crime-free city, we left the keys in the car. It was not unusual for one of
our friends to borrow the car to run errands or even go on a date, since we had
so few cars available. We could not account for the whereabouts of the car for
much of the night. By this time, the BC was nodding his head.
I looked the man in
the eyes and said, “Sir, we apologize for any inconvenience you may have
suffered. We will cover any losses you incurred at this time. Rather than drag
this thing out, we three will assume the guilt for our club brothers. We will
also collect the money from the responsible parties, so we will be out nothing.
If we must spend time in jail, then so be it. My only request is that I serve
my time on weekends, since I graduate this semester, and I don’t need to miss
any classes.”
By this time, the
big cheese was nodding vigorously, and a solitary tear ran down his face.
“Son,” he said a quiver in his voice. “If you need any money before you get out
of school, you just let me know.”
Grinning from ear to
ear, the police officer informed us that there would be no jail time or any
other punishment under the circumstances.
He suggested that we must be fine young men to be willing to shoulder
the blame for our friends.
We shelled out the
$15, shook hands all around, and headed back to the clubhouse where a few cans
of ice-cold beer remained. Schlitz, I believe.
34
Be
always sure you are right---then go ahead—David Crockett
A Matter
of Honor
Before they left this vale of tears, my immediate family members called me
Buddy. The only other living person to
do so is James S. Leeves, M.D. I find
the sound of my old nickname comforting when coming from him. Jimmy and I go back a few years.
My first recollection of him was in the summer of 1942. He attended Texas University at the time, and
I had just finished the first grade. His
brother Jerry still attended Naples School, and their parents operated a local
pharmacy. I recall the smile of Mrs.
Leeves, when one entered the store, and the dark pine floor cleaned daily with
a mysterious tan powder. Jimmy was a
quiet, pleasant young man who owned a whimsical smile. To say he was thin would be akin to saying
Mt. Everest was tall.
Jimmy came and went for the next few years, as he graduated from college
and medical school. Meanwhile, back at
the home front, the local banker’s son lost his life in World War II. His father donated the insurance from the
fatality toward the construction of a hospital in Naples. The project came to fruition and two young
physicians joined the staff. One was Dr.
Charles Wise. The other was Dr. James
Leeves. Another decade would pass before
the latter’s patients stopped calling him Jimmy and started calling him Dr.
Leeves. He was still thin and still
looked like a teenager.
My connection with the hospital was personal. My cousin/foster-sister, Ella Mae Barker, or
“Ellie” as she was known in the family, became a nurse at the Naples Hospital
and spent the bulk of her working life there.
When Ellie completed a shift, she would summarize the entire eight hours
using the, I said, he/she said, method.
At least, the summaries were more interesting than when she worked at a
local café. As a result, the family
remained well versed on personnel, patients, and events at the hospital. At home, she always referred to Dr. Leeves as
Jimmy and his associate as Dr. Wise.
When she had a serious problem, she always took it to Jimmy, but she
called him Dr. Leeves.
1950 was not to be my year. In the
summer, I swam across Glass Club Lake, a rite of passage, and experienced some
abdominal discomfort. As the pain
increased, I went to avail myself of the medical expertise of Dr. Leeves. He checked it out and gave me some
antibiotics. I could tell he was not
happy about the situation.
After a few more days, it became clear something was seriously amiss. Dr. Leeves pointed out that my stomach was
“distended”, which means that it was getting bigger. I was reasonably sure I was not
pregnant. He scheduled surgery. Dr. Wise would do the honors with Dr. Leeves
attending.
They chose a spinal block for anesthesia, because Dr. Leeves discovered that
when he set a bone in my arm, the general anesthetics of the day were not for
me. While I was not in excessive pain
during the procedure, I swear I felt every snip of the scissors. They found a large mass in my abdomen, and
Dr. Wise removed it. It was the size of
a quart fruit jar. Luckily, it was not
malignant.
Dr. Leeves continued to provide for my medical needs during the rest of my
tenure in Naples. They were mostly in
the form of athletic injuries, including sprained ankles, hip pointers, and a
bursitis. I was not the toughest kid in
town.
In 1953, I moved away and eventually found myself in the pharmaceutical
industry. I called on Dr. Leeves as a
sales rep once and gave him the details of my products.
Our paths crossed again in 1970, though inadvertently. I contracted viral pericarditis, which is
inflammation of the heart lining. I will
always feel the condition derived from my first trip to Las Vegas a few days
earlier when I slept four hours out of eighty-four. I told you I was not a tough kid.
My first symptoms were chest pains, and I went to an emergency room. When I explained my symptoms, the attending
physician placed me on a bed, and hooked me up to a heart monitor.
Having watched Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare on TV, I knew all
about heart monitors. As long as the
blip was going, you were okay. When the
line went flat, your goose was cooked.
Anyway, I was lying there watching the monitor, and the line went
flat. For some idiotic reason, I was
very calm. I looked at the monitor, and
waited for my life to fade away. I waited
and waited. This sure takes a long time. I thought.
After about five minutes, a young attendant came into the room, noticed
the monitor, and proceeded to slap it rather forcefully with his hand. It immediately started blipping again.
“This crazy machine is always
doing that,” he said and left again.
Strangely enough, I didn’t faint.
Later I wrote to Don Nance, a classmate who remained in Naples,
chronicling the incident about the monitor. He showed the letter to Dr. Leeves,
who took it to a medical meeting and read it to the audience. The consensus was someone with such a weird
sense of humor probably would not die of a heart attack. So far, that is holding true.
The incident that defined Dr. Leeves in my eyes occurred in April 25,
1982. My beloved natural cousin and
foster sister, Ellie, lost her long and terrible battle with cancer. She called me to Naples earlier, and I was
staying in her apartment when she passed.
Someone called from the hospital when it happened. The phone was in another room, and when it
rang during the wee hours of the morning, I did not hear it. Later I did hear a knock on the door. It was Dr. Leeves. He was concerned as to why I did not answer
the phone, so he came by to check.
Having spent 25 years in the medical field and having known virtually
thousands of physicians, I must admit to becoming jaded in my attitude toward
the profession. I asked myself, how many
doctors would have gone to the trouble?
How many would have shown such concern for a former patient, whom he had
not treated for almost 30 years? Not
many. The act transcended the normal
doctor/patient relationship and moved into the area of being a good neighbor.
I often wonder how many special concerns Dr. Leeves has shown other people
during the more than fifty years he cared for area residents. It occurred to me that someone ought to
record some of those instances, but then reality tapped me on the
shoulder. There would not be enough
writers or that much paper. The process
would be endless. I can only say that in
my mind, Dr. Leeves is an exceptional man whose contributions to the area have
been so numerous and so consistent as to appear commonplace. We cannot take this man for granted. I sincerely hope other area residents will
take the time to voice your appreciation for Dr. Leeves, who has meant so much
to us all. I say this, knowing he will kill me, the next time he sees me.
Dr. James Leeves
35
Truth is usually the best vindication
against slander—Abraham Lincoln
Runaway
During the years Nancy and I bounced around the country, we lived in
Denver for a time. The sport of skiing
had never tempted us and never would have had we not dwelled so close to the
action. When one lives in Colorado, one
skis.
Our first foray onto the slopes was uneventful and consisted mostly of
lessons and hot toddies. The instructor
ran us through the paces, and then took us to the mountain top. We made our way down. Notice that I didn’t say we skied down. We made our way down, and then we chose to
master the bunny slope for the rest of the day.
The next trip was a weekend jaunt to Keystone. Since we had already skied
at Loveland for a couple of hours, we considered ourselves season vets. Our first instructor at Keystone went through
the lessons again and proceeded to select those ready for the slopes. Strangely, he omitted our names. I was incensed by the oversight, and we
decided to dispense with further instruction and use the intermediate slope on
our own.
We trudged to the lift, a primitive apparatus, and mounted the seats. Getting on was easy. Getting off was another matter. When we reached our destination, I bailed out
and crashed into the snow. Nancy flung
herself out into space and proceeded to jam her ski pole into her ribs, momentarily
interrupting her breathing apparatus. I
prayed for her because I couldn’t regain my feet to help in any other way.
Finally, we began to make our way down the mountain. We had to.
There was no other way to get back to the lodge and remove the ski
boots. I can think of no medieval
torture instrument that would even come close to the pain of ski boots.
To expedite the trip down, we began our figure eights and were doing well
as long as we didn’t look at each other.
On the few occasions when we did, we fell down laughing. I decided that I would die from old age
before reaching the bottom if I waited for Nancy so I picked up the pace a
bit. I am convinced that Nancy belongs
in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s slowest skier, but she insists
that the honor is mine.
The figure eights became smaller and smaller. Finally, I was heading down the mountain full
speed waving my arms and yelling “runaway” at the top of my voice. I knew that all I had to do was fall down,
but traveling at the speed of light, that did not strike me as being an
option. Other skiers peered at me
askance, as I flashed by. A line of
skiers trudged across my destructive path and a picture filled with casts,
crutches, and caskets flashed before my eyes.
Those poor innocents were blissfully unaware that they were looking into
the face of death. I cast my poles aside
and headed between two elderly skiers.
They waved as I passed.
As the parking lot loomed ahead, I viewed the seriousness of the
situation. Fortunately, it was not
crowded, and I was able to flash across, find a seam between a Caddy and a
maroon pickup, and bury myself in a pile of snow that was a remnant from the
ice age. After a moment of repose, I extricated myself, took off those
instruments of Satan, and vowed never to get within a hundred yards of anything
that even smells of skiing. So far, my
vow is secure.
36
A man cannot be too careful in the
choice of his enemies—Oscar Wilde
September
11, 2001
I clearly recall
December 7, 1941. I was seven years old
at the time and knew enough about the situation to feel a measure of fear. The result of the Day that will live in
Infamy was a lingering conflict that touched the lives of everyone for the
rest of their lives and snuffed out millions.
The continuing
impact of September 11, 2001 is virtually crashing into our existence, just as
it did the WTC, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field.
The best way I can
bring the reality of 9-11 into focus is to transplant the event to downtown
Dallas. Imagine how it would affect the
Metroplex. Imagine how many people that
we know personally would now be at the bottom of that pile of death. The events of 9-11-01 forever altered my TV
image of the people of Manhattan.
It is as if the
foundation of our lives is a house of cards.
Playing the game, we gave our savings to fledgling companies in order to
reap profits unheard of in our history.
We thought nothing of placing our lives in the hands of airlines to
deliver us to all points on the globe.
We gave up the security of lifelong benefits to enjoy a higher current
income from our employer. We bought
enormous houses, luxury cars, and spent large sums on our abundant leisure
time. We lived the good life. Now conditions may change.
I never really
thought about the consequences of a successful terrorist strike. I knew that lives would be lost but they
would be someone else’s life. I knew
that I would be concerned, but that we would just send out a few cruise
missiles and take care of the matter.
Our physical or financial world wouldn’t be affected all that much.
How has Osama bin
Laden’s brainchild affected me? My
golfing vacation in Canada ended at the Dorval airport in Montreal on
9-11-01. After dealing with the shock,
we tried for four days to find a way home. Nancy and I were able to fly to
Toronto, rent a car, and drive out of Canada.
Of course, the rental car price quadrupled. No matter that tens of thousands of travelers
were at the mercy of events, the American carriers would not honor the Canadian
Airlines tickets that we had already paid for.
We ended up using round trip frequent flyer tickets to get back to
DFW. Anyone need a couple of tickets
from DFW to Detroit? Me neither.
During the days and
weeks that followed, along with other investors, I watched my life savings
dwindle each day as the markets tumbled. After losing for 18 months before the
event, another 17% disappeared after the 11th.
The selloff of large numbers of stocks by individuals triggered computer
generated selloffs by the big mutual funds, and the bad situation increased
exponentially. Nancy and I worked hard
to secure our golden years, but it appeared that our efforts were in vain.
Fortunately, the market came back along with our savings.
Air travel, one of
the hubs of our economy, is under seige.
The automotive industry will suffer because most buyers will choose to
wait another year to purchase a new car. Many simply won’t have a job to make
the payments. Most people will curtail
their leisure activities, and that industry will suffer. Spending will drop so the demand for goods
and services will decline. Companies
will have no market for their projects and no need for many of their
employees. Food and shelter will become
important. The sports craze that
exploded over our nation for decades will decline.
I grew up in a small
East Texas town that was still suffering from the Great Depression when WWII
broke out in 1941. The war years bought
relative prosperity to the region. Not so
today. We just finished the golden
age. This war will cost enormous
personal sacrifice on the part of our armed forces, sacrifice on the part of
you and me, and vast sums of money.
Periodically, we
find ourselves in a state of war. Some
are justified. Some are politician’s
wars designed to promote a political party and prop up a bad economy. The war in 1941 saved the economy and the
nation. This one will save the country
as well.
War has
changed. There may not be clashes of
large armies in the field. The weapons
are stolen commercial airplanes, vials of bacteria, cylinders of chemicals, and
the wills of the participants. This is
the most patriotic USA witnessed since 1941, so the will is there, at least at
present. I suspect that we will not
resolve these issues quickly. We must
maintain our resolve even as conditions get worse or better. We need to recognize and meet our enemies on
whatever field is required.
This is truly a
world war. This is a religious war. We are not only defending the Christian
religion but are defending the right to practice all religions including the
right to be a Muslim in this country.
I attended a
Protestant church service last Sunday.
It was the first time I had ever heard the Star Spangled Banner sung in
church. It was a very patriotic service
and everything went well until the minister referred to the Muslim religion as
being a cult. How shortsighted. How unfair. That is like assigning the
Oklahoma City bombing to all white Anglo Saxon Protestants.
Yes, conditions
changed. We cannot even imagine the
challenge ahead. However, we are a smart
people. We are problem solvers and Osama
bin Laden is simply another problem, just as Adolph Hitler and General Togo
were problems. I get the impression from
countries around the world that all fear the sleeping giant. I hear very little rhetoric from our current
enemies. It is not a good time to prod
the giant. When the giant wakes up, he
is grouchy.
Note: In May of 2011, a team of Navy Seals raided the home
of Osama Bin Laden and killed him. The end of the war is nowhere in sight.
37
There is nothing I love as much as a good fight—Franklin D.
Roosevelt
The Great
Doorbell Caper
It was about 11 p.m. As I surfed
the web, the doorbell rang. I rose from my roll top desk, trudged to the front
door, and turned on the outside light. I
opened the door and found the door stoop empty.
Hmmm, I thought. I peered around the front yard and saw no
one. Slightly bewildered, I closed the
door and resumed my place at action central.
Just as I was about to improve on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or read
another email joke, I forget which, the doorbell interrupted my intense
concentration. Somewhat irritated, I rose; walked back to the door with
quickened pace, flipped on the porch light, and opened the walnut stained
door. By this time, I was prepared to
share my thoughts with the person on the other side. Alas, there was no one there.
Then, it dawned on me. My grandchildren had visited for the weekend and
left for home late in the day. Because
of their presence, neighborhood kids trooped in and out of our house all
weekend. It is possible, thought I, that
some of the neighborhood kids believed that the twin girls were still at our
house, and they are just being kids. I left the outside light on just to be
on the safe side and returned to the internet.
After five minutes or so, the doorbell rang. I hurried to the door, but
saw no one through the peephole. Partly from irritation and partly for fun, I
hid behind a drape and peeked out for about ten minutes, hoping to catch the
little rascals, and scare the daylights out of them. However, no one showed, so I went back to my
computer.
Not more than three minutes passed and the doorbell rang. I just sat there, and it rang again. By this
time, my patience and general good nature departed. I became angry as a hornet. I visualized the doorbell
ringing for the duration of the night so I decided to call the cops.
The dispatcher listened to my tale of woe and promised to send a patrol
officer to the street in short order. I
went back to my emails and after about fifteen minutes, my doorbell rang. I
went to the door and found a patrol officer there. He was a nice young man, who
sympathized with my plight. We agreed that the perpetrators were most likely
kids, and he promised to hide out, catch them, and put the fear in them.
“Wonderful,” I said.
By this time, it was past my bedtime, so I signed off and hit the hay.
Apparently, the mystery doorbell ringer went to sleep as well, since we were
not disturbed during the night.
The next day, I am reading my emails when the doorbell rings. I went to
answer and found no one there. “Please, not in the middle of the day,” says
I. I go back to my computer, start to
work, and the doorbell rings again. Then, from the far reaches of my shriveled
brain, a flicker of light comes on.
Understand that this was before pop-up advertisement inhibitors. I used a cable provider, and one of the ads
that popped up on a regular basis was about the price of homes in the
Metroplex. When I touched the ad with my cursor, a doorbell rang. The sound came through my speakers and
sounded exactly like my own doorbell.
38
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Big Chang
And
the Pair of Sixes
The cruise ship,
Norwegian Dream, moved slowly through the narrow waterway that is the Kiel Canal
in Northern Germany. That was the second
day of a Baltic vacation cruise, the first spent crashing through the troughs
of an irritated North Sea. Locals were out walking along the canal with their
large dogs and small children. They eagerly waved to the passengers on the
large pleasure craft as it disturbed the tranquility of the sunny morning.
Missing out on the
pastoral surroundings, warm sun, and friendly Germans, I trudged up the stairs to deck ten to the
ship's Casino, where the operators had scheduled a tournament of Texas Hold'em
poker to take place at the ungodly hour of 10:30 a.m. The fact that I am notorious for not gambling
added additional mystery to the moment.
It seemed like a great idea when during the previous evening, and after
a couple of glasses of wine, I signed up for the event,.
The fact that I
don't enjoy gambling does not mean that I don't enjoy card games. In fact, like countless others around the
world, I play Texas Hold'em almost daily on the internet but for play money,
not real money. My son Mark often
invites me to become involved in a real money game, but I always decline. This game was as much for Mark as for
me. I plunked down the $60 and took on
the bravest of the 1,700 passengers.
When I signed up,
the official involved offered tips on the game if I was interested. The tips turned out to be a series of
questions perpetrated by a glamorous Asian dealer on my preferences during
certain playing situations. An example
was, "Would you ever stay with small hole cards." My answer was an old East Texas standby,
"It depends."
As the dealer
questioned me, another shipboard World Champion of Poker “wannabe” hovered over
my shoulder. He had already signed up
for the game and was scouting out the opposition. I learned after a brief conversation that he
was a high-level bridge player with numerous master points or whatever. He
appeared stunned when I inquired if he had ever scored 10,000 points in one
evening of party bridge. Perhaps he had
never partaken of such a plebian game as party bridge.
Following through on
decisions made while influenced by the grape brings to mind an old Willie
Nelson song to the effect that last night I went to bed with a ten but this
morning I woke up with a two.
Nevertheless, I contracted for the game, so there was nothing for me to
do other than avail myself of the shark pen and get the show on the road. Little did my adversaries know how much my
opponents on-line feared and respected me.
There were ten
players. The dealer issued $2,000 in
chips to each of us and explained the rules of the game. Not everyone antes in hold’em poker. A single player antes the big blind and
likewise for the small blind. Those questionable privileges travel around the
table. In this game, the big blind was $200 and the small blind was $100. The amount would double every 15
minutes.
My strategy was to
use the large number of players and the numerous opportunities to play
conservatively in the beginning which would not be possible once the blinds
were large and often. Like most plans,
mine disintegrated early.
My new friend, the
bridge player, sat directly to my left.
I played scant attention to the other players with one exception. I noticed a large shadow covering the table
and looked up into the dark sunglasses of the largest Chinese person I have
ever seen up close and personal. He was
6'6” if an inch and smiled at me with shark's teeth that would make James
Bond's arch enemy, Odd Job, look like a cub scout. His name was Chang. From that moment forward, I thought of him as
Big Chang.
The dealer was a
young, attractive Jamaican woman with a warm smile and personality to
match. The pit boss lurked behind
her. He exuded charm as well. Every player at the table, with the exception
of me, just knew they would win the tournament and first money of $500. My goal was not to be the first one out. That almost didn't happen.
Finally, the dealer
mixed the cards and dealt the first hand.
I drew a king and a queen for my two hole cards. The hole cards belonged
to individual players and remained hidden from their adversaries. As usual,
someone felt really good about their cards and raised the pot. I covered the raise and waited for the flop.
The flop amounted to the next three common cards dealt to the middle of the
table. All players could use them as if they were in their hands.
I knew from
countless hours of playing Texas Hold'em on line that I had a good hand. It was likely that I would get a high pair
out of the flop and maybe two out of the hand.
The flop delivered
another king and a queen. That meant
that I had two pairs, which would lose to three of a kind and several other
combinations. I didn't want to depend on my two pairs to win the hand, so, I
decided to get the shoe clerks, the undecided players, out of the hand and make
a statement. Good poker players must
instill fear into their opponents.
When my turn came, I
went all in. I gently pushed my stack of chips into the center of the
table. That meant that if other players
were to compete for the pot, they must match my bet. Only the winner of the
hand stayed in the game unless they started out with more money than me. Since
this was the first hand, we all had the same amount of money. The risk was
enormous, but I had lots of experience with pressure albeit with play
money.
Texas Hold’em is a
conservative form of poker where the pressure builds. Players do not like to
take unnecessary chances, especially early in the game. One poor decision can
take a player out of the game. If I didn’t win this hand, I was gone.
Dead silence
reigned. I brought my steely blues up
from my cards to the next player and concentrated on the space between his
eyes. He folded. The next player quickly followed. At the end, only one poor sheep chose to
follow suit. He moaned when I turned
over my hole cards. However, the hand
was not over.
My opponent had two
opportunities to win the hand. The dealer dealt the turn, a single card, to the
line of cards on the table. It didn’t help me or him. The final card is called
the river. After a pregnant pause, he turned the card over. No help. I won the
hand.
Appearing stunned,
the first causality of the game reluctantly rose from his chair and vacated his
spot at the table. All of a sudden, I became feared and respected. Big Chang's toothy smile lost some of its
luster. From that moment on, that game was hombre contre el hombre.
During the next
several hands, the play went according to expectations. I had money to burn, so I only played good
hands and once lost with a full house. I
won a few good pots and watched as players fell by the wayside. I noticed that Big Chang's stack matched my
own and his smile had returned. He was a talented player and he knew it.
Time passed and the
blinds increased to $400/$200. That
changed the game somewhat. Blinds were more important but still did not justify
playing a bad hand. I did a lot of
folding and a little winning. During one
hand, when I stayed for the turn and folded when I didn't get my card, Big
Chang complained that I folded too much. That was bad form. I told him that he
could tell me how to play right after he beat me. The die was cast.
*****
The turning point
came after the blind was up to $800/$400.
The dealer blessed me with king/king in the hole. I played possum waiting for the flop. It produced yet another king. Mentally, I was dancing in the street.
Several players bet heavily on the hand but no one had gone all in. That changed when it came my turn to
bet. I pushed my rather large stack of
chips to the center and three others eagerly followed suit. I figured it would take a full house to win
but mine would be larger if I got it.
Big Chang tossed in his cards. It
was lucky for him that he did.
The turn produced at
least one and maybe two full houses. I
was not one of them. The river produced
a king. The other players were so
excided about which full house would win that they overlooked my four
kings. Finally, the dealer noticed, and
three players went home. That left the
bridge player, Big Chang, and me.
The blind was
important at this point. If one invested
$800 in the big blind and called a couple of $500 bets, the flop could be hard
to come by. I stayed with my game plan
and drew the ire of Big Chang on more than one occasion by folding when the
flop didn't produce or if I had poor cards in the beginning. He picked up on this and began to bluff on
every hand. He intended to drive me out
by winning early pots and it was working.
Big Chang and the
bridge player went all-in and the bridge player was gone. That left just me and Big Chang. His evil smile was back, and then it occurred
to me. This was the ultimate game. This was good versus evil. I represented hope and he despair. The gods were involved.
By this time, blinds
was $1600/$800. I knew I couldn't continue
to be conservative but would have to take wild chances. If I had even decent hole cards, I went
all-in. Big Chang would fold. If he went all-in and I didn't have a strong
hand, I folded. Finally, I won a couple
of good hand and my stack was slightly larger than his. The playing field was level. It just came down to who got the cards.
On the last hand, I
had jack/six in the hole. Big Chang
didn’t ever hesitate. He went all-in and, having little choice, I followed
suit. He showed ace/queen. It appeared that I was toast.
The flop was
king/ten/eight. No help for me. No help
for him. The turn was a six. I had a
pair and Big Chang had squat. I commented, grinning from ear to ear, "Game
over!" Big Chang hemorrhaged. The river was a seven. Big Chang gave off a guttural roar.
There were other
Texas Hold'em games during the course of the cruise. I was dying to get in, but the fact that I
could leave the ship as a winner wouldn't allow me to play. Big Chang turned out to be a high
roller. He was in every game and did
very well. I don't remember ever passing
through the casino without him being there.
He begged me every day to enter the games, but I told him I just wasn't
a gambler. I was a player. Finally, he offered to back me in Vegas, but
I declined.
39
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat—Sir Winston
churchill
A Magic Night
2010
It began with a
group of farmers before the turn of the twentieth century. The Stubbs family, relocated from Newton County, Georgia, to Cass
County, Texas, in circa 1890-1892. They were hard working people who cleared
land, planted crops, and harvested. During the growing season, there was not
much time or energy for frivolity; but at other times, fishing the creeks with
seines and cane poles; hunting quails, squirrels, and rabbits; and playing
baseball filled their leisure hours. Yep! The young men from the richly
populated rural areas of East Texas gathered after church on Sundays and played
America’s game. After all, it had been around for about eighty years.
My father, Marvin Stubbs, was born in 1900. He
was a diminutive drop-ball pitcher in those games. Having no knowledge of how
to prepare his arm for a season of throwing curve balls, he was typical of
players during those days. Everyone threw the ball hard on the first day. As a
result of this lack of preparation, Marvin damaged the tendons and ligaments in
his elbow and was unable to pitch effectively for very long.
Daddy described his older brother, Walter, as being of major league quality,
but I had no way of knowing if he really was. However, events unfolding during
the present time suggest that he may have possessed such talent.
Hershel Stubbs,
nicknamed Huck, was a year younger than Marvin. He was Walter’s son. Huck and
Marvin played baseball together. It is likely that Walter was still playing at
this time as well. Huck was the tallest of the Stubbs clan, and considered a top-notch
baseball player. Huck had two sons. One of them named Bernice Harlan, produced a son named Rick. It was with
Rick that the Stubbs gene for speed and athletic ability roared to the
international scene. Rick not only had speed, but at 6’4’, he had size. He
specialized in the hurdles, and at his peak during the seventies, he ranked
number three in the world. He still owns a hurdles record at the Texas Relays
in Austin. Records also show that Rick was the fastest white hurdler in
recorded track history.
Rick fathered three
sons two of whom became high-level baseball players. Clint was a senior
baseball player at Louisiana Tech. Drew played baseball for the University of
Texas and is presently the centerfielder for the Cincinnati Reds. This story is
about the last night we saw Drew play.
It occurred to my
son Mark and me that it might be fun to go to Phoenix and watch the Cincinnati
Reds play a few games during spring break. Grandson Aaron, who was thirteen and
a baseball player, was only too willing to share an opportunity to meet his
famous distant cousin and personal hero.
The Reds had called
up Drew late during the last season, and he paid them back by hitting a game
winning walk-off homerun in his second game.
Drew completed the
season with quality play. Walter would have been proud. The fact is, we didn’t
know Rick very well, and we didn’t know Drew at all. I had met Rick years ago
at a church reunion in the community where the Stubbs family settled. I enjoyed
our conversation in Flat Creek and chose to give him a call in Atlanta, Texas,
and inquire if we might meet with Drew during our visit. As it turned out, Rick
and his wife, Kathryn, planned to be in Phoenix, or Goodyear where the Reds
play, at the same time. He offered to arrange a photo-op for Aaron. Mark and I
were about as excited to see Drew up close and personal as my grandson.
We arrived on
Wednesday and went to the park, but discovered that Drew was not playing.
However, Dusty Baker, the Reds manager, scheduled Drew for the Thursday night
contest against the Cleveland Indians.
Before the game, Rick and Kathryn arranged for a picture with Drew on
the sidelines. He signed Aaron’s bat and his cap. We were thrilled beyond
words.
Our day was not
over. Drew hit a line drive double during his first at bat, and we settled in
to watch the rest of the game. After the contest concluded, Rick arranged for
us to spend some quality time with Drew at a nearby hotel.
Physically, Drew is
a clone of his father. He is tall, rangy, and in perfect physical condition. He
lives in Austin during the off-season and works out with other professional
athletes. He was gracious to us during the visit, patiently answering our
questions while querying a tongue-tied Aaron about his own athletics. The best
was yet to come.
Drew played again on
Friday night. We had good seats behind the Reds dugout and easy visual access
to the pre-game activities. The Seattle Mariners were first at bat. When their
third out came, Drew assumed his position as the leadoff hitter for the Reds.
He pulled a sharp single to left field, but a nice fielding play by the left
fielder prevented extra bases. Unfortunately, a Reds player hit into a double
play that forced Drew out at second to end the inning.
His next at bat came
in the third. He casually dropped a Texas leaguer into right center for his second
base hit. Again, his teammates failed to advance him to score. When Drew came
up to bat in the fifth inning, the Reds had three hits and Drew had two of
them. He smashed a hard line drive off the wall in right center. I figured it
was worth at least a double, maybe even a triple. I began watching that young
greyhound-like athlete churn around second base with unbelievable power. I also
noticed that the Mariner outfielder mishandled the ball slightly. That was all
that it took. Big Drew flew around third after the coach gave him the windmill.
Amazingly, the Mariners managed to get the ball back in play, but after Drew
hit the deck, it wasn’t even close. He had just completed one of the most
difficult feats in baseball-- an inside the park home run The Reds bench went
wild. So did the Drew Stubbs section of Reds fans that I recruited during the
course of the game.
I hope that Drew
enjoys a long and productive career, but three for three with an inside the
park home run is tough to beat. We were there, and, yes, I suspect is it true
that great-great grandfather Walter was of major league quality.
40
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is,
perhaps, the end of the beginning--Winston Churchill
At my advanced age, I
approach each day with the goal of squeezing the most satisfaction from it. I
see darkness at the end of my life’s tunnel and therein, perhaps, there is
light. I refuse to accept an end to my existence. I simply cannot describe the
next phase with any degree of clarity.
I hope that after
analyzing this effort, my readers can see into my soul and decide that my time
on this earth had some highs and lows, but that I managed even the lows with
some degree of empathy.
At the end of the
day, I am nothing more than an ordinary man who did the best he could with the
tools fate bestowed on him. I have no special talents and no horrible flaws. I
made no memorable mark while I visited this earth, either positive or negative,
but I was usually able to compete. That was always important to me.
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