Laredo 1978

I’d been hitch-hiking for a couple months and caught a ride with a fellow who took me to DC, where I met a friend of a friend who put me up for a few days. While there through some misadventures I got back in touch with this fellow, who was leaving to visit a friend in North Carolina. I’d told him of my plan to go to Texas to find a place to sell trees, and he insisted on loaning me his car. I picked up another hitch-hiker on the way and while we were in Laredo met a couple local guys who took us over the border to Nuevo Laredo, where they had a fenced-in area called Boy’s Town with all the bars and cat houses. We weren’t there for the girls, just to check it out, and afterwards went back to Pancho’s ranch house, where his family had a long, skinny ranch a few miles out of town; that’s how they do it there because there’s not a lot of water they have a short section by the river and a bunch of land like a finger where the cattle can roam. In the morning Pancho’s mother came in to the bunk house where the four of us were sleeping, saw the empty tequila bottle on the bar, gave a little smile and tossed it in the trash. On the bar were two cafeteria trays, one covered with a bunch of pot, the other dried peyote. We had peyote and a joint for breakfast, then Pancho drove us back to town. 🙂

Notes~

mostly 500-word versions or social media conversations

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Denver, 1965~The “West Side Story” story

A “neighborhood improvement” organization got a government grant, and a community organizer with, clearly, no theatre experience directed. Through attrition and poor casting decisions I, the youngest student in Smiley Junior High, landed as Officer Krupke. The gang members were muscular and fifteen. Their supposed leader Tony was the second-youngest student in the school, another undersized, immature eleven-year-old. Tony and I both wore thick glasses and had high, squeaky voices. Tony’s girl Maria was a fully matured, top heavy black girl, with a much deeper voice.
For months we started rehearsals, and ran out of time halfway through the second act. A week or so before the premiere our director, realizing we didn’t have a full play, started the final scene. Another quick scene was improvised to tie it all together, then the search for props began. An A-frame ladder served as a balcony, a refrigerator box a building, a door laid on its side a fence. None of us had even tried to sing, so a tape of the Broadway production was cued up.
The end result was incomprehensible. Preadolescent, pasty-white, bespectacled gang leader Tony squeaked across the stage, falling in love with a much taller and older black girl, dressed like a cafeteria lady.
Tony professed his love in a high soprano, Maria responded in her contralto, and the tape crackled to life, at double speed. Chipmunks shrieked out the first few words of “Tonight, Tonight” at five times the proper volume, then stopped. Tony and Maria waited, blinking, arms limp by their sides. Five minutes. Ten. The tape fumbled and mumbled. Finally, “MMMuuuhh—-rrr—rr———rr–rrrria, I’ve just met a girl named Maria!” boomed forth in an operatic tenor, while the loving couple waved their hands and lip-synched badly, Maria perched like a house painter above.
Catcalls came from the audience; drinks flew from the balcony. The audience below screamed at the jokesters above. The curtains closed, the lights came on. The assistant principal strolled onstage and made several choice threats. When the curtain rose, there was a refrigerator crate next to the ladder, a door leaning sideways on its lower half. A gang member stepped from the crate and told another Jet what had happened offstage, explaining the missing scenes–the dance, the war council, the rumble, the two gang members stabbed–the Reader’s Digest version of the middle three-quarters of the play. I blew my whistle and, stepping onstage as Officer Krupke, shouted the two lines my role had been reduced to. About this time a fight broke out in the hallway, and the audience poured out to watch. We played the final scene, screeching from the hallway overwhelming the dialog, to about a dozen stragglers.
That was our only performance. The remaining three were cancelled.
Our months of rehearsals, were over.

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I was sick for about ten years. I’d catch the flu, wouldn’t get over it for months, get the flu shot, catch it again, wouldn’t get over it for months again. Rinse, repeat. Saw a lot of doctors, asked a lot of questions, took a lot of pills, felt like crap. All year every year. It took me a long time to lose faith. Don’t get me wrong; modern medicine is excellent at some things. Trauma, treatment of many acute diseases, top-notch. Chronic illness, no. It took me a long time to figure that out. I got a job managing a health food store. Talked to a lot of sick people. Almost everyone, including medical professionals, wanted a magic pill. They’d eat and drink what they wanted, as much as they wanted. Do what they felt like doing. They’d come in, ask questions, get answers, a new pill to try, and keep doing everything the same. Maybe one in ten would attempt a lifestyle change, and one in fifty would change. That’s normal, I was that way too. After years of talk and research, I came to feel the ancients had it right. Almost any condition can be cured by proper diet and the use of herbs, sunshine, vitamins, exercise, chiropractic, yoga and massage. The Chinese, in a nutshell, felt that illness was caused by an imbalance between four flavors~sweet, salt, sour and bitter. Each of these flavors~chemical compounds~does something when ingested by the body. Most people want lots of sweet, get enough salt and sour and nowhere near enough bitter. After ten years of dragging myself to work and coming home exhausted every day~even when work was nothing but sitting in a chair~I gave blood, and it was rejected. Their preliminary test for AIDS had come back POSITIVE. They sent a letter, which my PREGNANT wife opened! I had to get several more expensive tests to learn that I had a tick-borne immune deficiency, and was told, confidentially, as if it was a precious secret, that I should’ve never gotten the flu shots to start with, and that about ten percent of all people should NEVER be vaccinated! I quit taking all those pills, which had never worked anyway. Quit getting the flu shot. I took A LOT of bitters and quit refined sugars (the chemical signature for white sugar is C12 H22 O11, which is far more difficult for the body to process than fruit sugars which are C6 H12 O6), and slowly got better. That year, I didn’t catch the flu! The next spring, the next summer, I had a bit more energy. I wasn’t so tired, all the time! When I’d gotten out of the Navy, I’d been in the best shape of my life. I could do 60 pushups on one deep breath, stay in position, catch my breath, do 60 more and repeat ten times, for a total of 600. Once, I even did a thousand, just to see if I could. I hadn’t done that~hadn’t done any~in years. I started with a dozen, worked my way up to 60 again and maintained there. Kept with it until 2001, when both of my shoulders were injured in a car wreck (on April Fools’ Day!). I won’t tell anyone what to do. If you want my recommendations, you’re welcome to them, but your health is up to you. If you want to listen, to me or to anyone else, that’s your right. I, however, have precious little confidence in mainstream medical opinion, and have now told you why. Peace.  

My parents had my chart done when I was born (by Laurel Keyes) and she instructed my mother to make sure the time was recorded in Standard Time, rather than the daylight savings time then in use locally. My birth certificate, handwritten, thus said “E.S.T.”, which I’ve spent an unbelievable amount of time explaining to know-it-alls is, indeed, correct. I rectified it on my own with certain info and the cherry on top was the arrival of a large, long-awaited check on the very day jupiter entered my second house. Rectification, in my opinión, is an essential step which should never be omitted or taken for granted.

Lulu.com

Createspace–Amazon

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The third of June, 1953 was another sleepy, dusty Delta day. Billie Joe McAllister had just jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge, according to the song, the book, and later the movie. It was a number-one hit for a girl who, like my mother, was a dark-haired Southern singer named Roberta, born on the 208th day of the year. The newspapers of the day didn’t mention Billie Joe, instead celebrating a new Queen of England, and a beekeeper named Hillary who had just climbed a mountain.
I was born that day in a run-down hospital on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which eighty-four years earlier had hosted the world’s first artificial insemination. It was standard in 1953 for a new mother and her infant to spend a week in a decrepit hospital with assorted sick people, but a day later our little family left for North Carolina in search of fame and fortune. My eight days in The City later fascinated all the Jewish girls I later met, who’d read a great deal about the Lower East Side (why it was capitalized I don’t know), but by the time I noticed girls, was no more. “Urban renewal” in the 1960s leveled the neighborhood, replacing it with the shining twin towers which themselves fell in 2001.
My first and most successful production, at the age of three weeks, was in the outdoor drama “Horn in the West”. It had begun in 1952, in response to the success of “The Lost Colony”, starring Andy Griffith. Andy was in the Outer Banks of the Tar Heel State portraying Sir Walter Raleigh while my father, Ned Austin, was in the Blue Ridge portraying Daniel Boone. He’d dated the lead actress until he was smitten with the music director, Bobbie Jones–not by her beauty, but by her willingness to tote off a huge prop anvil, carelessly left onstage. That weekend, on their first date, he proposed. She refused, until he sobered up.
Both were seasoned performers, and after the first season of “The Horn” had moved to New York, where they starred in such Broadway shows as “Kiss Me Kate”, “Pal Joey” and “The Crucible”–not on Broadway, though. The theatre troupe they belonged to, “The Pickwick Players”, operated out of a converted barn, upstate.
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When winter came the cold wind blew hard and fierce off the Rocky Mountains, and I’d be well bundled up walking to kindergarten. One morning I was on the icy sidewalk leaning back into the wind. A sudden gust caught me, 49 pounds of kindergartner, and I was airborne. I flew through the air for a few yards, then was set lightly back on my feet. I didn’t even stumble.
Cars were works of art in the 50s. The two-tone, peach-and-white ’56 Mercury next door belonged to a couple who moved in shortly after we did. Elliott and Eleanor’s son, Seth, became my best friend. Elliott was Jewish, but Eleanor was Catholic, and neither was kosher. My mother was concerned with what Seth could eat, until one day he asked for “more ham”. Seth and I often watched TV together. Television had a well-defined schedule; kid shows on Saturday morning and after school, news at noon and 6, family shows afterwards. One Saturday he and I were watching cartoons and the signal, never very strong, was fading in and out. I discovered that if I moved a little to one side the reception would get better, or worse. For the next hour as we’d watch I’d move imperceptibly to the left, the signal would deteriorate and I’d wave my hands around, telling Seth I had “magic”. I’d stand, point, give a hand-clap or a stomp, move a little to the right and the reception would be fine. My mother got a call from Eleanor later that night asking just what I’d taught her son to do, because he was standing in front of the TV waving and stomping and clapping and practicing his “magic”.
We spent a lot of time doing kid stuff together. We’d chase birds with a salt shaker and try to pour salt on their tails. We wore towels around our shoulders and jumped off the sidewalk, practicing to leap tall buildings. We’d swing and slide with a girl my age named Becky and her little brother Bo, and ride tricycles up the hill to where a teenager named George had 1940s cars in his driveway–Oldsmobiles, Henry Js–then coast back. We all had cookie-cutter houses of three or four styles with postage-stamp front yards that seemed huge to a 4-or-5-year-old, but weren’t. The backyards were much bigger; ours had a cherry tree and a small garden, with a rhubarb bush in the corner that our dog regularly peed on. Rusty was a Great Dane/Boxer mix who looked like a huge Boxer. He was very protective of me and my little brother, and not much bothered by anything but Volkswagens. The Volkswagen was an unusual little car at the time, it looked and sounded different from anything else on the road. A Volkswagen would drive by, and Rusty would attack. The Volkswagen would run off with its tail between its legs, and Rusty would march home in triumph.  ———————————————————

The Mayfair Barber Shop
I worked at my father’s barber shop from the time I was eleven years old, shining shoes and sweeping up at night. All the barbers had interesting stories. When my father bought the shop, he took over the first chair. The second had always belonged to a quiet fellow named Joe Maldonado. Joe was Hispanic, but mostly Indian, and emphatically not Mexican; his family had lived in the area before it was Colorado, before it was Texas, before it was Mexico, before the first Spaniard rode through on an odd animal he called a “caballo”. Joe and his six kids spoke Spanish at home, the same language their Colorado-born and bred ancestors had spoken for the previous three centuries. His father was a miner in Walsenburg, and there’d been some labor troubles. One day someone walked into the bar where Joe’s father was minding his own business, and shot him dead. Mistaken identity. Joe’s mother, brothers and sisters all moved to Denver. Joe got a barber’s license, and supported them all. For twenty years he was reliable and conscientious, driving to work daily, but one morning my father got a call. Joe was in jail. He’d been stopped by the cops, and didn’t have a driver’s license. He never had.
Joe wouldn’t bet against the Broncos. Denver’s football team was never good~for about fifteen years it held the worst team record in any major-league sport~but Joe always bet on them anyway. He’d take the point spread, but they’d usually lose by even more points. Due to Joe’s influence, I also didn’t bet against the Broncos~but I just didn’t bet on them, period. In 1978, they finally went to the Super Bowl, and for the first time, I bet a dollar~and lost. Nine years later, they went again. I bet again. They lost again, by more points. Twice more they lost, each time by even more points. In 1990 this was the worst loss in Super Bowl history~49ers 55, Denver 10. Four dollars, gone.
Eight years later, the Broncos again went to the Super Bowl. They took the field in their new navy-blue and bright-orange uniforms~technically they were the “visiting” team, but they’d never lost in their new “home” uniforms, so that’s what they wore. Green Bay was heavily favored; the NFC hadn’t lost in thirteen years. I wanted to bet a dollar again, but my friend wanted to bet five. I did. Martina Navratilova predicted a 31-24 win, and the Broncos came through. I won that five-dollar bet, and became the only guy in history, that I knew of, to win money betting on the Broncos. They won the Super Bowl the next year, too. For the first time in my life, I had trouble finding anyone to bet against the Broncos.
Joe didn’t see it. He’d had heart surgery a couple years before, and died on the operating table.
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“I laughed! I cried! Then I read the book!”–some girl who thinks I’m cute
“The funniest thing I’ve seen since last night!”–Anony Moose
“Funnier than Ken Burns!”–DJ Austin, Google+
“Viagra-$0.70; Cialis-$1.10; Viagra (Brand)-$ 5.40; Cialis (Brand)-$ 5.50”–Yahoo inbox

Ted’s Tales

After his father’s death in 1902, all my grandfather’s older siblings moved back to see after Mama and help with the harvest. In the summer of 1903 a handsome young man, age 27, drove up to their house, with a horse and buggy rented from the livery stable.

No one recognized him, but he explained that he was King Callaway, who had left ten years previously and had been working in his uncle’s grocery store in Temple, Texas. He wanted the oldest sister, Lucy, to go for a ride. She did.

He lost no time in proposing marriage, and insisted that the marriage take place without delay, since he was on a two-week vacation.

Lucy, age 24, protested. “Why, King, I don’t really know you. I remember you only as ‘one of the big boys’ in Union School when I was in the fifth grade!” He told her he was desperately in love with her even then, but too bashful to say or do anything to let her know. He vowed back then that he was going to marry her, if possible, as soon as he was old enough and able to support her.

She asked why, in all those ten years, he’d never once written to her, and didn’t even write before making the long trip. He said he’d started many letters, but just couldn’t find words for how he felt. He had, however, written someone else to inquire whether Lucy was already married.

Well, the longer he stammered out his love for her and how all those ten years he’d worked and saved to that single purpose, the more Lucy realized she was also in love with him! Within hours she’d happily agreed to the marriage, but insisted it be a church wedding, which would require at least a week to make the preparations. “But I don’t want you to spend all your savings at the hotel and livery stable,” she said, “I’ll send Charlie to follow you to town. Turn in that horse and buggy, check out of the hotel and come back with Charlie. You are going to stay here. Mama and I will be busy and I can’t see you much, but Charlie will keep you busy and out of our way.”

The church wedding was held just as Lucy planned it, and off they went to Temple, Texas.

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I had an account with a little local bank which my parents made for me when I was a month old. I had it all the way through until I was in my 40s; the bank was bought out about three times and I had no problem with any of them; they even gave me a safety deposit box because I’d been such a long-time customer. Bank of America took over and I never had more trouble in my life! All they were, were greedy bastards, to put it nicely. I quit them many years ago~

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if he loved me why did he never use any of the gifts I gave him? Never once wore the tie, put anything at all in the clamp hand, etc. I may not use the presents my kids give me a great deal but I make some semblance of a show about using them.

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I wish it were so easy. There is a piece of land in the family where Perri and I had built a home. Our two years of work were dismissed, without comment or consideration, several years ago, in favor of a golf course which never happened. I’ve always felt an attachment to the property, far beyond anyone else in the family, because it was my dream. Now the property has come up for sale, and to be a good guy and to get along I haven’t said much. I was hoping to spend a day or so talking with my mother, and had planned an overnight stay. Rob and Sam understand the circumstances, but when our hoped-for overnight visit turned into twenty minutes, for the third or fourth or fifth time, based this time upon the theoretical emotional problems of a cat who may have faced a theoretical thunderstorm outside (let’s not get into the capabilities of a cat to hide from a thunderstorm), I felt I, and my family, had been punked, by the same sister who had proclaimed, gratuitously, to the rest of my brothers and sisters–and I can cite chapter and verse, to those who question it–that I should “never” have children, because, based on the fact that I wanted to live in the same unfinished home, which didn’t at the time have running water, though I did have a pump which I’d intended to install, that I would be a “terrible” parent. I’m tired of being the butt of this kind of ugliness. I have some legitimate things to discuss with my mother and I have the right to do so. To have my legitimate concerns and plans for a simple overnight visit, discussed beforehand, dismissed because a cat “may” have a problem “if” a thunderstorm happens feels to me not like a legitimate concern but a deliberate insult. I am sorry for tying up your Facebutt feed, Sam, but sometimes something needs to be said. I wish I didn’t feel the need to say it but when I feel like crap twenty minutes after my mother leaves with the sister who has said to the rest of my family that I would be a “terrible parent” and for that reason still have a bit of resentment towards, I won’t deny it because I’m not Jesus–I wish I could say “I forgive” and forget it–but forgiveness implies somehow the object of forgiveness will cut it out, not keep it up, and I see no evidence of that. The property was a dream, yes, but dreams can vanish when nobody gives a shit about a promise, which I have accepted. What I don’t want is for my kids to feel they are less important in the heart of their grandma than the theoretical emotional needs of a cat. All for now–

Where America came from
Daily Mail Online
The map that shows where America came from: Fascinating illustration shows the ancestry of EVERY county in the US
For decades, Lady Liberty, mother of exiles, stood watch as millions of immigrants arrived in the U.S. in hope of a better life.(…)19,911,467 Americans: The surprising number of people across the nation claiming to have American ancestry is due to them making a political statement, or because they are simply uncertain about their direct descendants. Indeed, this is a particularly common feature in the south of the nation, where political tensions between those who consider themselves original settlers and those who are more recent exist.
D J Austin
I find the conclusion that anyone who says they’re “American” is too ignorant to know their ancestry or has a political axe to grind is offensive. The areas where “American” is strongest are the ones where the people living there have been there for a couple hundred years, their ancestry, totally mixed, is a little bit English and a little bit French and a little bit Irish and a little bit German and a little bit Scottish and a little bit Russian and Swedish and Portuguese and a large chunk of American Indian and so on. To say one’s ancestry is one or the other of any of these would be a lie, and these “Americans” don’t have a strong (and blatantly false) ethnic identification with any of them either, but America is where their grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-great-great-great grandparents grew up and American is what they are.
Torsten Adair
German-British.  (Mother was a legal immigrant.  Long distant ancestor was a British soldier who went AWOL after the Revolution.  Otherwise, my father is “American”.  Even the strain from New England would probably say the same.
ramilo holter
can I just say  that America is now, just a mutt?  sorry!   Seriously…I think,  the real Americans are the Native Americans?  I don’t want to say,  Indians…not that there’s anything wrong with that… Just a term in general?
Dana Blankenhorn
+D J Austin Regardless, the ethnic stream holding the largest share of the river dominates the culture, just as is the case with religion. It just is that way, and saying “American” is a cop-out. The fact that so many people choose to take that cop-out is interesting, and if most people in a place do then that will be its cultural identification.
My ancestors came here 4 generations ago from Germany, 6 generations ago from Ireland, and 5 generations ago from England (via Poland). It’s not how I identify myself now, but it does have an impact on how I look at culture, and denying that fact is silly, political correctness at its right-wing worst.
Jake Sharman
+D J Austin I agree wholeheartedly. I have always defined as American and American only, even though I have been told that I am of Irish and Native American blood. The reason is because I am adopted and don’t really feel connected to my ancestry other than a few faded memories of the “before” years. So, my reason for defining as American isn’t political and it isn’t born of ignorance.
D J Austin
+Dana Blankenhorn  HOW is it a cop-out? After this rant, you still have NOT identified yourself as something OTHER than American. Why should you? And how many generations before those 6 or 4 or 5 did your ancestors from England (via Poland) come from Mongolia (via India)? In Mexico and most other Latin American countries these kinds of ethnic identity questions are illegal, as well they should be. A Mexican is a Mexican, a Guatemalan a Guatemalan, not Japano-Mexican or Turkmenisto-Salvadoran or Russo-Peruvian. I find the idea that I don’t “belong” to the country of my birth offensive, and I am most certainly not “right-wing”. Anyone born in America is American. Now let’s bicker about why the United States is called America when Canadians and Uruguayans and Argentinians are Americans too! 😉
D J Austin
+Jake Sharman  yes I have some Native American blood on all the branches of my family tree as well as Scottish, German, French, Welsh, English, etc. and don’t “identify” with any of them. It’s not ignorance, it’s not political, it’s not ethnic, it’s not cultural. It comes from a deep sense of where my roots are, my soul. If we all go back far enough everyone’s lineage started in Africa too; that doesn’t make us African.
Dana Blankenhorn
Where most people come from, how most people were raised, creates local American cultures, which are distinguished from one another. Atlanta ain’t Minneapolis.
D J Austin
yes, indeed, local American cultures. London ain’t Yorkshire either 😉
Torsten Adair
It’s not a melting pot, it’s a tossed salad.
Each wave of immigrants brings something to the mix.
But you all do realize that immigration is a strong component of the American (U.S.) mythology, right?  The Shining City on the Hill?  The beacon for a better life?  A chance to reinvent yourself?  (And this still continues with each high school class that leaves to go to university, or move to the Big City.)
Furthermore, we are a labeled population.  While my brothers are baby boomers, I’m at the beginning of Generation X.  What can Nate Silver tell me about myself?
D J Austin
I grew up in Colorado, in a neighborhood where many of my friends’ ancestors were from right there, before it was a part of any country at all. They were labelled Mexicans, and it pissed them off. They weren’t from Mexico, had no allegiance or connection to Mexico and their ancestors had never lived there. They had every right to be pissed off. They were “Americans”, as much as that refers to the United States Of….., and nothing else. I am too. Why, if we’re a “labelled population”, is there something wrong, political, nit-picky, silly, right-wing or ignorant about the label “American”?
Jake Sharman
Maybe it is the fact that I am both adopted (severing me from my blood line) and barren (ensuring that the blood line will not continue through me), but I have never strongly defined as anything beyond my own culture: Texan American and now American British. I do give nod to my Native American and Irish blood, but I’ve only known about that for about 12 years, and I am not sure how much of the information I’ve been given can be trusted.
So, most of my life, my ancestry has been a guessing game. People have thought me to be French, Israeli, Mexican, Arab, Irish, and even part African American. The only thing I’ve ever been sure of was that I was born in Texas and that, at age 6, my birth family gave me away to strangers (to me) because those strangers asked if they could have me.
The bottom line of this is that while I will now say in a conversation that I am part Comanche, and I have taken great interest in the Comanche culture in the past 12 years, I would never put “American of Native American descent” on a census form; I would put “American” only, and I don’t see that as a cop-out.
Torsten Adair
My mother is German, so that culture permeated my upbringing.  (Wine!  Chocolate!  Beer!  Meat!)  My mother’s grandparents lived in eastern Germany before the War, which is now western Poland.  So I guess I’m “honorary Polish”, but only when my Polish-American friends are celebrating.
I am “Nisei”, to borrow the Japanese term.  Many people in NYC are this, the offspring of immigrants.  Lots of us in NYC, usually in the outer boroughs.
Simon Smith
Hhm I’ve never been happy with English as a race, as it has to be one of the most mongrel groups going. Celts Picts Romans Angles Saxons Jutes Romans Vikings Normans to name but a few in our geneagology
Jake Sharman
I’m the offspring of immigrants. My [adopted] parents were both from Oklahoma. They immigrated to Texas in the 1950s. ; ) Dad came in on a work visa, and he never left… Winning the hearts of the small town they hid finally settled in, they were offered amnesty and made naturalised Texans.I am actually the only one of us born in Texas. My oldest brother was born in Illinois when my dad was stationed there during his army days (they had a small trailer that they towed so that Mother could stay with him). My sister and brother (adopted, natural siblings) were born in Oklahoma. Their mother was Cherokee.
Anthony McGowan
Apparently not one person of Scottish heritage in the whole of USA, I think the mail has been writing scots out of history again
Loraine Slessor
Australia was built on immigration, but you don’t hear them having these debates – I’m intrigued by why Americans cling to their ancestry so passionately, even several generations back?
My mother was French Canadian with a native American bloodline, my father English. I was born, educated, nurtured and grown in England.
I am English, end of.
Harriet Miller
I am a bit afraid to look at my county, because it is the the most backward county in Georgia, if not the entire United States! My country: In 1860, Dade County seceded from not only the state of Georgia, but also from the United States, however the secession was never recognized to have any legal effect. In 1945, the county symbolically rejoined Georgia and the United States.
D J Austin
+Anthony McGowan the one “ethnicity” I’m consistently identified as is Scottish, though I’m certainly no more than an eighth. I was discussing this same subject with a girl from England one time, and the first thing she said was “Oh, definitely Scottish! I can see you’re Scottish, absolutely!”
Kay Passa
I’m Italian American solely because I was raised in a very strong Catholic-Italian-oriented culture. As I grew up, I realized I was “different” in some way from all my WASP classmates. They had Turkey on Thanksgiving, we had Lasagna. They rarely saw their relatives, we had weekly dinners at my grandparents house with all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. They talk with their mouths, I talk with my hands. My heritage simply gives me a reason why these differences exist.
My dad was full-blooded Italian, even though he was born in America. My great-grandparents spoke Italian better than they spoke English, even though they were born in America (my great-great-grandmother was actually pregnant with my great-grandma on the boat ride over). Both my grandfather and grandmother learned very little Italian because their parents instilled in them that, “you’re an American so you’ll speak English.” A few of my relatives even had to change their Italian last names during WWII to American derivations just so they could find jobs.
Ethnicity should be celebrated because it’s part of what makes us all unique, but at the same time, I’m very happy my ancestors left the Old World to come here to start a better life for their family, including me. The least I can do is be proud of their accomplishments and the hardships they overcame so I could be born “American.” 🙂
D J Austin
+Kay Passa  I grew up a long ways from my father’s family (my mother’s family comes from all over the map!) and my heritage if anything is hillbilly, which we celebrate with big family reunions in the summertime, banjo playing and among certain cousins a bit of moonshine. It’s not considered “ethnic” but it’s most certainly American and most certainly not anything else either. If I ran around in a kilt I’d pass for Scottish, but I’d be faking it as much as if I put on a beret or a bowler or war paint. The only label I don’t wish to claim is Yankee (I was born in New York City, but left after eight days), though this is the label the rest of the world uses!
This is really the nut of the problem. What is acceptable to one group is rejected by another. I speak Spanish and have many times seen mystery in the faces of South Americans when I explain that folks in my part of the USA definitely aren’t “Yankees”, in Spanish a relatively innocuous description of anyone born north of Mexico and akin to the habit of Americans to refer to anyone born south of the same border as “Mexican”, though Argentinians will tell you different!
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I think the Republicans are locked in a cannibalistic, downward spiral, which will destroy the party in the next couple of election cycles. I think a reasonable alternative to the next Republican extremist will emerge, perhaps with the Libertarians, maybe someone else, and a great number of reasonable people who are nevertheless not Democrats will jump ship. When it happens, it’ll happen quickly, as it did before. It happened to the Whigs. The Republicans didn’t exist before 1856, and four years later they won the presidency. People think they’ve always been here and always will be but they weren’t ordained by God, no matter what they may have said.~DJ
Interesting, Dave, and you may be right.  Centrist (i.e., rational) Republicans are scared right now, knowing that the right-wing extremists are marginalizing themselves, and the mainstream party is faced with either splitting (and losing lots of elections at every level), or keeping the crazies and losing the Presidency for the foreseeable future. I’d like to see both parties split.  I don’t feel my perspective is represented very well by the Democrats (though they’re a helluva lot better than the Republicans), and I think the mainstream press would be forced to present a more nuanced and detailed perspective on all the issues if there were four parties.  We might actually get some new ideas put out there.  And multiple parties would mean the only way to govern would be to form a coalition, and people would have to learn to compromise instead of making threats and stonewalling. Sometime back I read an article (I think in Yes! magazine) about the Vermont Democrats.  There’s a separate leftist party (I forget what they call themselves) that caucuses with the Democrats at the state level, but retains its own identity.  As a result they don’t get lost in the Democrats and aren’t taken for granted by them.  They also are taken seriously by all the voters of the state, because their ideas get put out there at election time.  That’s how Bernie Sanders got elected to the Senate.~carol

oh, I’d like to see that happen too, but I don’t think the Democrats are as stupid as the Republicans!~DJ

Could anyone be as stupid as the Republicans?~carol

ha! I was watching Ken Burns’ “Prohibition” on Netflix, and I can answer that. The Prohibitionists. They had what seemed a good idea at the time, but were so rigid and inflexible that in the end they blew it. If they would have said, well, maybe beer and wine are OK, let’s just cut out the liquor, we’d probably have had a very different country. It’s the same with the Republican party today, too much emotion, not enough thought.
Of course, that could have gone for a lot of others too, the British could’ve said, well, send over a few Colonials to represent y’all, then; the Confederates could’ve said, well maybe we could agree on a method to eventually free the slaves, etc. etc.~DJ

I didn’t know that about Prohibition.  Inflexibility probably ruins a lot of good ideas.  Isn’t it ironic that the right-winger extremists are always waving the flag, but the principles they insist on sticking to result in deadlocked government–in other words, their principles call a halt to the actual workings of the democracy they’re so eager to wave the flag for.~carol

it’s really interesting, the next time you can see it, do. The idea of prohibition really started in the 1820s, people in general drank a lot more then and it started as a women’s movement to close the men-only saloons (often downstairs from the brothel); it was a crusade launched by wives to keep their husbands at home and out of the gutter. A women’s movement was quite strange at the time, but by the 1840s women’s suffrage became intertwined with prohibition. Prohibition was tried in Maine and a few other states in the 1850s, but they were all repealed. This led to the Civil War (people sometimes think it was more complicated!) and over the next 50 years women won the right to vote in Wyoming and several other states. The idea of prohibition became strong in the rural areas but not the cities. The government was dominated by the rural states, an amendment was proposed and passed and was sent to the several states, whose state capitols would be surrounded by hordes of screaming, chanting, hymn-singing women from the Women’s Christian Temperance League. It was approved by 36 states, and it was law. Then a bunch of gangsters shot each other and it finally came down to a women’s group taking on the WCTU, Franklin Roosevelt was elected and the country was wet again!~DJ
I knew the Temperance League and the suffragists were linked, but I didn’t know how or why.  Now it makes sense!  Did you know that our great-uncle Henry Toombs (Aunt Adah’s husband) designed FDR’s house at Warm Springs, GA and believe it or not, ran moonshine runs for FDR with FDR’s chauffeur?  Mama found a book at a PC library sale called The Squire of Warm Springs, and it’s there in black and white.  I bet Uncle Henry got his share, too.  Also, while we’re on them, Aunt Adah knew Miss Lillian Carter (I think through her political/social work, but maybe your mom knows for sure) in Atlanta.  Knight family trivia.  : ) ~carol
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The Underwear Elf, the Underwear Elf
‘Cuz Santa can’t do it all by himself.
Checking on your skivvies by stealth.
The Underwear Elf – The Underwear Elf,
Look in your drawer and see for yourself.
He sneaks in and hides on your shelf.
He knows if you’ve been wearing
Your underwear too long
He knows if you like boxers
or if you prefer a thong – whee!
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Base Twelve!
Edward 2008 almost caught in a stampede?
6-3-93 Older than Dirt cake.  Randy had a boat and we’d all go together to Hyco Lake or Lake Cammack.
Sept 14th 1993–go all the way to Chapel Hill to get special first day covers for their UNC Bicentennial stamp, address them to myself and they are rubber-stamped and tossed into the regular mail.
May 93–Ruth comes to town, we drive to the beach for the day; then take a horsey carriage ride through Old Salem.
David Holt came to the elementary school 1990s, I’d clipped the tip off my ring finger when trimming trees and couldn’t play his banjo when offered.
Rob’s Port-A-Potty job!! Mid-70s
1994–Pepsi the bird
summer 94–hike up Grandfather Mountain & I bring back a beautiful white rock with crystals.
1995–Perri’s folks move to a trailer in Alabama. We visit the gravesites of Perri’s relatives around Athens, which go back almost 200 years. I replace the timing belt in the Hyundai the day McVeigh blows up the Federal building. I already know this is a local guy and not an Arab. On the way back visit Fran’s family in Montgomery.
Dec 95 snows a few inches and I go skiing in the side yard. Christmas Perri gets a 3-D puzzle (castle)
Spring of 96 the new house in Athens is built. July 4 1996 in Naples.
99 Edward comes home on Mother’s Day, I gave Perri diamond necklace. Edward’s first bath in a galvanized tub. He only cries when we take him OUT.
July 99 Edward to Myrtle Beach. We go to Boone end of month to family reunion and my mother’s family also has a family reunion that year.. Edward was feeding himself at 3 months.
Aug 99 Wes & Helen & family come to visit. They’ve recently moved to Wilkesboro
Fall ’99 in Sept Edward’s first word-”ball”. We’d hang out in the hammock & I’d play banjo while Edward had a coconut shell ukelele and would join right in.
letter published in Seventeen magazine concerning vegetarian diet, early 1970s. Letter in Playboy late 70s
In ’83 Kevin had a tree lot by the Food Lion in Boone, while I worked at the school.
In ’85 and ’86 I worked at the ski slopes and didn’t sell trees.
bought the Studebaker spring ’91
1990 Easter break put in grape arbor, Perri broke foot.
Laura worked at Tusculum 89-95 & met Tom, married in 93.  Genny graduated 90?
in 1998 gave blood, Perri got the test results while she was pregnant, looked like AIDS. After several expensive tests it come up as babesiosis or something related, likely from a tick bite.
In the 70s the main road between Boone and Blowing Rock was the most heavily traveled in the county. Appalachian was developing from a small teacher’s college into a major university, and though Watauga County had outlawed beer and liquor sales in 1949, the local option law stated that a city could vote to allow sales within its borders, which Blowing Rock opted to do in 1965. The local opposition had made it difficult, scheduling the referendum in the middle of the winter when many of the residents of the resort town had escaped to Florida, but enough of them drove back up the mountain to pass the referendum in 1965 and Blowing Rock instantly became the place for everyone to go within a 20 or 30 mile radius, which included the students of ASU. The law allowed beer and wine sales to anyone over 18, which included all the students on campus, and a great many bars and music halls opened in Blowing Rock in short order. The standard reply to the question, “what is there to do at night in Boone?” became “Go to Blowing Rock’, and everyone did. Those who were too drunk to drive on the main highway at the end of the night had a number of back roads to choose from, mostly gravel, and one of the roads of choice not only went by my house but was a 3 mile shortcut for me. For the first couple of years after I returned from the Navy my Model A truck was on the road, and as it was considerably slower than most of the cars on the main highway I generally preferred to take the back roads anyway. I never received any actual traffic tickets when I was driving the truck, though there were a couple of occasions when, not being able to see the gas gauge at night because there was no light inside the cab, I ran out of gas. Since there were no gas stations open at that time of night in the area, I’d crash out on the back of the truck until morning. A couple times I was picked up for public drunkenness, but since the truck had no key–I knew how to start it, but nobody else did anyway–there was no key in the ignition and thus no charge for driving under the influence. Not that I was that drunk anyway–the standard at the time was 0.15%–but I spent the night once in the Wilkes County jail and once in the Watauga County jail, but when the cases came for trial they were dismissed. (STORY OF WILKESBORO & BOBBY). The Watauga County charges never came to trial as I’d recently helped the sheriff catch a criminal and it was dismissed more or less as a favor for that.
Rob went to barber school in Winston March-November 1990, stayed with us during the week. When Anne and the kids would come down Grant & Jordan spent LOTS of time on the computer playing games etc. Something new and different in 1990!
George Bush doesn’t know what a scanner is, which uses laser mirror, cost him the election in 1992.
replaced the carpet after Daphne died, Hitler’s 100th birthday
Wonder Years debuts in 1988 (?) and Kevin resembles my younger brother Sam. The show is set in a time and place and with a family very much like ours.
Perri meets my Aunt Daisy while early-morning lap-swimming at ASU 1984. They find out later she & I are an item.
Feb 87 we go to NYC stay in App loft 12 or 13 of us. Mia Miller is there too. We take the pix while there we’ll be looking at Sept. 11, 2001 early A.M.
May ’87 Go to se Laura in Asheville, she’s recruiting for Tusculum, we go to Biltmore & afterwards meet Robbie Schultz who’s recruiting for UNC. He invites us to a “Let’s Kick Dick Nixon Around Again” party on his resignation date.
early ’87 called scopes Kallistoscopes
fall’87 Victoria sleeps over
Beth comes to Boone Aug ’88, divorced from guitar player
Elmira St. washing machine hooked up to drainage pipes OVERHEAD and machine would fill up with waste water.
worked in Dan’s second hand shop ’82, Tom G ’85, Jay C ’86, Gary Barskey from Glitters started buying my stuff in ’87, my first retail customer, he was at Buckhorn lot at the time.
Ringo is born on Halloween that year (1990), lives exactly 11-1/2 years, dies Easter 2002 (March 31). Edward is just a little guy, I tell him the Easter bunny needed a helper and we agreed Ringo would go with him.
Wes & Helen married 9-86
sold first Kallistoscope to Doug Beckham 12-86 and later traded it back.
worked with Tom 84-85 he later married Gay K. Kay
Worked with Jay in 85-86, he left pickup gate open to save gas money but lost stuff off the back of the truck. summer 87 sold at Mystery Hill & Anna sold soap, was married to Jay,
1982–Rafael, rubbing alcohol & sassafras, crawling on the mountain, drill bits which later I suspect as having been burglarized from dentist, his plans to burglarize a store in Alaska
I’d been living in the tent spring 1981 but that was the summer the trees were cut (I think) and in the process my tent destroyed. I got another tent and stayed there again from the summer of 1982 on.
Greg Gaines married Terry’s younger sister Janice. Terry committed suicide in my driveway.
Rafael–crawling up the mtns looking close up at plants, eating mushrooms, sassafras in rubbing alcohol, his eventual talk about burglarizing a shop in Alaska & the drill bits he traded me which I later suspected were acquired in suspicious circumstances. Jeff (someone’s brother) who also traded me drill bits he’d probably lifted from the Navy for jewelry.
Greg(?) in Dayton(?) who picked me up, got me to drive all over town & dropped me off at the same point that night $40 richer.
before you can find your center you have to know who you are.
stained glass window for bathroom completed 1980?
Jesus had a golden porta-potty?
Ned Taylor hit by car & killed New Year’s Eve for 1980 (1979-80).
Tom had come by himself spring of ’81(?) with a duffel bag full of peyote, which he was legally entitled to do, being the first white guy who had fought the feds long enough and hard enough to gain the right to pick it and practice his religion in the Peyote Way Church of God.
Cholera shot leads to weakness, sleepiness which contributes to discharge & later infection w/babesiosis which leads to many years of flu shots etc. making me sick not better & finally AIDS diagnosis when Perri is pregnant for first time after we’ve been together 16 years. Vaccination  “reactions” aren’t only a few bumps and itching, they can have serious, lifelong, consequences.
1976 or so–The story of Bob & I sleeping on the back of the truck after running out of gas, going to the Wilkesboro jail, Bob pays ticket but I fight it, case dismissed, deputy sees me & asks if I knew anything about the pot under the back seat.
In Laredo everyone in long sleeves but me, in shorts. “Let’s go inside, it’s chilly”. The temp is 77º.
Need more about Kathy Daunis, brotherly rivalry, renting of room, tripping journal, waltzing, before Summertown
What were my social faux pas at the party in Colorado, 1996? What indeed!
meeting Mark Brown & Bob Richardson on Mark’s 18th birthday
Steve McNichols & I played a volley that went on FOREVER, we remarked that we’d never, ever forget it, and forgot it for about 40 years.
Mark Brown’s 18th birthday meeting him & Bob Richardson. Marks father was mayor of Seven Devils until he got a DUI, resigned, died of bone cancer on my birthday six months later (1986?).
Check floor plan Montclair & Annex
how many apts etc. in Denver before Boulder?
name of Dalmatian? When was the CU put up & when taken off side of mtn? Where was Broomfield (where Elliott Goldstein got off so as to save 15¢ on the toll?)
Where exactly was the hospital in NY? Near the twin towers, but where?
Joined 2nd grade after Xmas break. Tooth fairy brought dimes not quarters(?)
The cop who ticketed me for turning left against a red light in Hollywood went to St. James as a kid, a block away from Montclair.
Maturity was less defined than 18 or under 18–in some states you could drive a car and hold a job at 14, could marry at 13 or 14 (or in California no age limit at all with permission), you could be a paperboy at about any age, etc. When you dropped out of school at 16 you could still do about anything. That this isn’t so now has a lot to do with these kind of changes and not so much an inability or immaturity in someone who was 14 or 16. Kids have no real chance to grow up now before they’re 18–or if in college not really until 22 or 23.
A pic of some Hollywood heartthrob in a fan magazine about 1961–a guy of 23 or so on a scooter with 3 or 4 girls of 11 or 12 or 13 stuffed on for the ride–on a public road and no helmets to be seen on any of them.
The 60s–or 70s–were all about not trusting authority etc. but really it was because nobody who grew up in the Cold War expected to live to be 21 or even 18. That anyone did was a bit of a shock to those of us raised on hiding under the desk waiting for the flash and nobody trusted the older generation to keep any of us alive. Nobody could be concerned about haircuts & such if they weren’t expecting to live to maturity anyway..  Those who were “over 30”–as in “never trust anyone over 30”–were old enough that by the time of the Cold War they’d already reached maturity and had no clue what it was like not to expect that no one–not you, not any of your classmates–who wasn’t yet 30 would live to see it.
Sylvester the snake when I was 10–my brother and I playing with our juvenile sidewinder rattlesnake pet, not realizing what type of snake he was but fascinated by the strange way he’d spin like a coil spring when locomoting.
Running around the neighborhood trying to put salt on the birds’ tails–Boulder
Grandpa & Grandma Jones came to Denver again, winter 1966 at Spruce St? 1968?
Bela & Mary Reiner–Bela engineer, Mary had been a teacher but worked in a factory?
Judy Wallace and Linus the dog, fall of 1970
Sooner or later I should mention that I was kidnapped, out of the parking lot, late one night. I don’t like to talk about it. It’s personal and, mostly, will remain so. I was eating my lunch in my car, a fellow came up to me and asked if he could have a ride, that he would pay me for it, and I said OK. When we got to where he said he needed to go he held a knife to my throat, took my wallet and tied me up, then drove around in my car until the cops pulled him. He threw me out of the car, the cop car screeched to a stop, almost hitting me, and the cop fired his pistol after the shadow running into the night.
The investigating detective I talked to a day or two later was an absolute prick. I never trusted the fuckers again, and still don’t. While I am immensely grateful to the patrolmen who assisted me that night, that particular son of a bitch deserves to die, and there are many like him. I have had the immense pleasure of pissing on the memorial bridge of another of this species of prick; they are unfortunately NOT few and far between, and I will not, cannot, support the Policemen’s Benevolent Association or anything else along those lines, ever. End of story.
There are a few things that I discovered from that experience. One, the cops are NOT necessarily your friends; they are often scum. Two, I could and certainly would kill someone if I needed to, no question about it. I haven’t needed to, and don’t plan to, but could I? Most certainly. Three, once you get to the point where you are absolutely, completely scared, to the furthest limit of your fears, you’ll never be scared again. When you compare how scared you are to how scared you were, you’ll find you’re only 90%, or 80%, or 50% or less, and when you RATE your fears like that, they disappear.
Boys’ Foods 1968
Yellowstone 1967?

Something I wrote awhile back, presented in remembrance of Richard Heit, now gone fifty years~

For Easter week, 1969, many of us from high school Spanish classes around Denver had taken a trip to Mexico. When we returned, the neighborhood was in a glum mood. A few days before, our friend Mark Leftwich’s younger brother Mike had gotten his driver’s license, and in celebration of his first day driving had taken several of his friends for a ride in the country, to a place called Picadilly Road. All the teenagers in our neighborhood used to go to Picadilly to drink beer and shoot off fireworks, for no good reason except that there was nothing and nobody there except, by legend, an old albino man who supposedly lived in a cabin and terrorized children. There were plenty of stories about the old albino man, but I never saw him. Picadilly Road was hard on cars, too, except for Wayne’s Rambler. Wayne would drive out there when we were all about sixteen, a half a dozen guys in his 1958 Rambler station wagon; we’d wipe out a six-pack or two and drive back. Anyone else would end up in the ditch or blow a tire or overheat or run out of gas, and walk home. Not Wayne. The Rambler made it every time.
So anyway Mike Leftwich skipped out of school on the last Friday before Easter break and went out to Picadilly Road with his brand-new license and a carload of friends. My friend Monk and a friend of his sister’s, Kathy, were supposed to go along too, but decided not to at the last minute. Mike took the Oldsmobile up to 90 on the old dirt road and didn’t slow down enough on a curve. The Oldsmobile flipped, rolled and Richard Heit went out the window, or had been hanging out the window, and the car rolled over him.
He left a dent in the roof. Everyone else was okay, and it looked at first as if he might survive–he’d been working out and was very strong–but three days later, he died.
The funeral for Richard was that Wednesday. It was the first funeral for a friend I’d ever been to, my first for anyone my age, and the first time I’d gone to a full Roman Catholic service. My mother and I went to the church, sat towards the back, listened to a lot of incomprehensible Latin and kneeled awkwardly when everyone else did–save one family in front of us, who remained seated for the whole thing. We left quietly when it was all over, without saying anything to his family. I’m not sure why, it seems to me my mother didn’t think we should bother them, though I wanted to say something. Richard came from a large family; like me he was the oldest and had a brother about my age, though because I was a year ahead of my schoolmates, Joe was a year or two behind me, and I didn’t have that much contact with him. I don’t think I ever said more than a dozen words to Joe, though I often saw him around the neighborhood.
There wasn’t much left of the school year after that, and it couldn’t come fast enough for me. I was tired of high school.
Bruce Bonner from high school went to barber shop, I was too shy to ask him for a shine (when he wasn’t wearing sneakers), he worked later at the hippie King Soopers, was drafted, years later found & called him on the phone.
Crash pad resident Dan Jones later worked for King Soopers
About 1979, my father quit smoking. My sister wrote him a letter, explaining that she was recently married and one day expected to have kids, and said that if he didn’t quit she didn’t think her kids would ever get to meet their granddad.
Well, he’d quit dozens of times before. It’d last a week, or a month; once he quit for several months and chewed tobacco instead, which he’d spit out the window while driving, leaving long brown streaks down the side of our pretty yellow 1965 Ford station wagon. Anyone riding in the back seat had to roll up the window, or sit on the other side. Eventually he’d get drunk and one of his friends would give him a cigarette, and it was all over, again. My sister came to me with the letter, and I read it before he saw it. I told her I understood what she was doing and how she felt, but that I saw very little chance anything would change; he’d smoke his Newports and drink a case or so of Old Milwaukee beer every night until he died, and I didn’t know when that would be; that I wished him well and hoped otherwise but that the way he was coughing and wheezing and stumbling around I figured five or ten more years and he’d probably be gone, and that giving him the letter was a nice thought but most likely pissing in the wind.
Well, she gave him the letter, and I was wrong. He decided he did, indeed, want to see his grandchildren, quit smoking, and never smoked again. For awhile he got some little tobacco lozenges and pouches to keep in his cheek, but after about 50 years of smoking heavily, unfiltered Camels and then filtered menthol Newports, he quit completely. He nearly quit drinking too. When I was a kid he’d drink three or four beers a night, more on weekends; when I was a teenager he’d polish off a six-pack before driving home from the barber shop–perfectly legal at a time when 0.15 was the permissible blood alcohol content–and he was a careful driver in any case. By the time I was 18 or 20 it’d be a 12-pack a night and by the end of the 70s the better part of a case. He went from 20 or so Old Milwaukees to a single Beck’s or St. Pauli Girl. He also decided one day to brew his own, and started drinking Grolsch in the resealable bottles. He bought the kit and made some excellent beer, which he’d leave in the barn to settle until it was ready. They had a real kick, too. A couple of those large Grolsch bottles full of homemade dark beer would match a six-pack of anything domestic. Once, several years later, I was cleaning up in the barn and under the straw found a single lonely brew, which had been sitting there in the cool and dark for over 10 years. I had a bit of trepidation when I popped the top, but its scent proved luscious and rich and a half-hour later it was nothing but a magnificent memory.
walking home from Smiley & the strip mall, peanuts, fudgie & drink for 25¢, looked at the sidewalk all the way home, knew the contractors for each section of sidewalk, didn’t know the houses trees etc. because I was always looking down. For vision improvement started looking up.
explain grading points? 4.0=A etc.?
Pearl Bailey show Jan.-May 1971 before moving to Hollywood my father starts correspondence with her–”your show is too damned good! I can’t keep my mind on my poker game and I keep losing!” & continues correspondence until moving to NC
check date on Heit’s car ride–Mar. 31st
Check if possible Barry Burns–OD in 80s?
grandpa & grandma Jones visit Denver winter 1966? He can’t walk around block because of change in air pressure, they don’t need slippers & can go outside in sweaters when it’s colder than anything in Fla or SC
the dirty look after the Troubadour success & my dropping out of the group
Sam was in Tiger Beat magazine (page 32) for Mtn Born summer of 71
visit brother in Telluride & snowshoes, drop thru snow, Rob saves Fran, who disappeared lost virginity when living at Garden Grove house in early Oct. 1971 after getting front teeth broken. VD? Uncertain, but was taking penicillin anyway, for broken teeth.
How did we get those unobstructed shots of the freeways of California on the way to the beach and back? How indeed!
Lane Moller sports car, ride to missile base, trespass, get stoned, watch the sunset
unicycle, juggling, drums w/4 sticks
Letters to Bhakti Mike–why sleep in shit?
Lane Moller sent a joint.
Pee in the whiskey bottle! (Cliff & Rob)
Chet showed up with $50 he’d borrowed years before, passed it through the kitchen window, then my father borrowed his car and wrecked it!
Fixed the Futura & had a free car for a year
Lowrider times–& camping at the Kern River. Passed on a blind curve I’d seen ahead had nobody on it & threw a bunch of cookies at the girls in the car, 1950 Oldsmobile I didn’t trade for & Danny, Allen, Frederick(?), John & his girlfriend, 4 valium passed out, firecracker under car ended it all.
Yappy Dog Corner story
Celebrities–in Pete’s:
Davy Jones–wallpaper steamer, driving Austin car
Darren McGavin, pickups, paint compressors, jack hammers, sanders etc.
Michael Constantine–stake truck
Dick Clark–paint compressor, etc.
Jack Cassidy–chain saw
Alejandro Rey–chain saw (told “Passion Play” story; some little town in South America, Jesus on the cross tells the dates & times of the next performances)
Stu Gilliam–vibrator sander, to work on Model A
Roger Davis–rake, shovel, etc. never returned
Allen Sues–car polisher
Elaine Giftos–stake truck
Meyer Lansky–bad check posted on wall
Jayne Mansfield’s account–Mickey & Edy Hargitay
Chris Crosby–chain saws, various
George Peppard–rug shampooer
In Austin:  Stevie Ray Vaughn–jammed on front porch with him at Jean’s party, played harmonica while he played guitar. Knew him as Kevin’s friend when I was staying at the house across the street behind the tree lot
In Boone: Doc & Merle Watson, Sid Bartholomew, Jim McLendon, Monique St.Pierre (Playmate of the Year 1979). Rob “shared a bottle of champagne” with Kim Basinger, whose movie included Cindy Martin’s cabin.
Hillsborough: Penn Jillette, Playmate of (October?) 1980, worked for Adam & Eve, signed my foldout from that month in 2000. Various porno stars.
Texas —  John’s dog  — Kris wasn’t so sure about a couple guys showing up, one of whom knew John’s dog.
extra notes, etc.
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if there were a couple other guys there I’d usually start the “hiking” phase of hitch-HIKING. There are times when I’ve walked 20 miles or so; there were also times when I hitch-hiked from Austin, Texas to my front door in Boone, NC in 28 hours–a trip I drove in 27! I once caught a ride in Denver as I was walking down the entrance ramp, stayed the night in a motel with the driver, stuck out my thumb while I was unloading my pack from his trunk the next morn and caught a ride to LA, where a friend picked me up. Total time hitching, on a 1500 mile trip, less than a minute!
My suggestions: Hitching, wear light clothes. Trains, dark clothes. The road is the people, the train is the country. You don’t need as much stuff as you think; when you carry it all on your back you find out what you don’t need! 2-3 pairs of socks and underwear, one long johns, one sturdy pair of shoes and one old pair of sneakers, a pair of shorts and some long pants, a couple t-shirts, a big metal cup, a P-38 can opener, a can of sterno, a lighter, a toothbrush, a fork, a spoon, a water bottle, some soap, a pocketknife with a few blades, a roll of good strong twine, a couple big sewing needles and a roll of strong thread, a floppy hat, a jacket with a hood, a long fabric raincoat (you can layer clothes if it’s cold), and I alway carried a foam pad, sleeping bag and 2 large lawn & leaf type bags, one with the bottom cut out and duct-taped to the top of the other so it was a bag like 6 feet long, to sleep in & stay out of the weather. It should all fit into a good medium-sized backpack (with frame) and a shoulder bag. Forget the guitar, take along a penny whistle or a harmonica. A small vise grips (with wire cutters) and some wire would also be good. I carried a bag of simple tools to make jewelry with, an astrology book to do charts and a deck of tarot cards. Also don’t forget a bottle of cologne! Deodorant is good, but not after the 3rd day! I also kept a film canister full of cayenne in my right jacket pocket ready to flip the top and throw it if I needed to; I didn’t, but it gave me confidence a time or two. If you’re out my way definitely drop by!
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I’m saying, be true to yourself, don’t fake it. Forgive if YOU feel it, not because anyone, any book, any religion, Dr.  Phil or Oprah or Jesus or even your own idea of what is Divine and Loving and Merciful and Kind says you SHOULD feel. If you DON’T,  YOU DON’T. Look within, and follow your heart. Be true to YOURSELF, above all else. Don’t pretend. Don’t say you forgive someone if you don’t feel it, and don’t feel guilty or bad or less than divine if you don’t.  YOU’RE the one who decides if you forgive someone or not, according to whatever YOUR standards of comfort are. It’s not something that can or should or deserves to be decided by anyone else, be they saint or devil. It’s your soul, your divine soul, and forgiveness is not another’s choice or judgment or call to make, it’s yours. To make a judgment on another human soul, to tell them what they SHOULD do or feel, based on anything less than a deep and loving understanding of where they are and where they’re coming from is, in and of itself, completely, totally WRONG.
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depends on how many objects you stuff in there. Classic, visible planets, you’re a bowl. Ten thousand asteroids, nobody’s a bowl. A bowl cannot contain a grand trine, grand cross, grand sextile or anything else along those lines because all the planets are contained in half the chart. Your own chart comes very close to having the classic planets stuffed into 1/3 of the chart rather than 1/2, actually.  If you go inside the cosmological map and look at your own position on the surface of the earth, there’s an additional couple points usually added to the mix, however–the ascendant and the midheaven (and by extension the descendant and what’s called the “nadir”, though technically it’s the anti-midheaven). These aren’t positions of planets but rather positions indicating our placement on a planet–earth–and are often figured into aspects in the same manner as planets.

HI DJ!
I happen to agree with all that you advised!   I will follow these steps then.   I am suppose to meet with him tomorrow and will act just as a friend and not be overly engaged with him.  He seems almost like a commitment phobe…. I will wait for him to show and tell with his consistent actions, instead of just words alone.
Thanks again for your unfiltered honesty… it was definitely very helpful.
I will move on and start dating again…. not all gung-ho about it but it’s a step in the right direction.
Hope all is well with you.
Take care, Lisa

I wish I had a nice, quick, easy answer for you, but I know how crazy that crap can get. I’ve been there too.
I guess point by point,
1) Yes, he’s probably scared shitless by love. Most men are. I don’t think most women understand this very well. A woman sees security in love, but a man sees responsibility. I’m not sure what to recommend, though, except to get on with your life. Don’t expect that if he’s being a wussy–let’s speak frankly here–that he’s gonna get his courage up by you hanging around and being “supportive”. He needs a CHALLENGE, and by the way you do too.
2) If he cares deeply for you he’ll SHOW it, you won’t have to “sense” anything. Avoid him for awhile, not that you’re angry, just busy, and if he wants to do something, you have other plans, involving other men, and he’ll have to wait his turn. Don’t go for any crybaby crap either, you have a right to do whatever you want with YOUR life, including seeing who you want, when you want to.
3) a “fragile” heart is going to be broken anyway, by what you do, or by what you don’t do; unless you really WANT to be his nursemaid, in which case you’ll be treading on eggshells all your life in fear of smashing it, a task at which you will SURELY fail. Get on with YOUR life and don’t let it be ruled by his “vulnerability”.
4) and finally–yes, you deserve the whole pie. Do you feel good about this relationship? Do you think you ever will?  I don’t think he’s capable, personally, but who knows, he may surprise you. Still, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Anyway, that’s my 2¢. Don’t worry about his happiness, if you’re not happy he won’t be either, and if you two aren’t destined to be happy together, then after the inevitable crushing and shattering of hearts and screaming and crying is over you will both find someone else and there will be four happy people where there were two unhappy people.
I don’t know if I have the answers for you, maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. I only know my own mind. If you think I’m way off base, tell me–
All the best, you deserve it–DJ

Hi DJ.
I forgot to look at the moon.   What a shame.   Glad it’s been good for you.  Hope all is well on your end. DJ – I’d like to get an honest male’s opinion, if you don’t mind. What can a girl do when the guy is hot and cold a lot…. I can sense that he cares deeply for me…. yet, the hot and cold is not something that I like very much.   I prefer stability and consistency. I can’t stand drama…. and that’s what I am getting.  Is this something a girl should address with words or actions?  What is best to do?   I don’t want to nag and be annoying.  DO you believe that there are men who are scared of a woman they have strong feelings for?  Scared of feeling love?  And what do you recommend for the girl in a case like this? I don’t want crumbs…. I deserve the whole pie…. yet I know how fragile this man’s heart is…. and don’t want to hurt him further or enable this behavior by accepting crumbs.   I don’t want to desert him, yet I don’t want to be a “too easy, too accessible girl who’s forgettable and has no worth”. Any thoughts?  Do you have male friends who are like this?
Thanks…
Lisa

Hi Lisa!
I don’t think it’s good or bad to have a lot of emotion, or lack it–what serves well in one phase of life serves poorly in another. Everyone also has a history; one person learns to express their emotions, another learns to rein them in. I have a fair amount of mutable too, 4 planets in gemini, lots of air and fire, not much earth and water. I don’t think most astrological writers do well describing gemini; I don’t feel like a butterfly, or a little kid. It took me a long time to figure out who I am and what I want, which is my particular spiritual journey. It doesn’t have so much to do with emotion; when I followed emotion it didn’t lead me to a good place. I don’t wish to overwhelm you with details but I had an old girlfriend who pestered me for 20 years (a scorpio), even when she was married, and later when I was married and she was divorced. When things got tough with my (cancer) wife I went to see the scorpio, and it turned out badly. I did a lot of screaming at my wife from 2000 miles away, but we eventually got back together. I didn’t need to empathize with my wife, I needed respect from her; she’d been treating me too long like a ten-year-old who couldn’t dress himself or manage money. It may be different for you but by your brief description it seems to me you’re being taken advantage of for your good nature and that you also need respect. It’s no good to empathize with someone if it makes you feel like crap. I’m sure if you talk to anyone who’s been married a long time you’ll hear similar stories. No relationship is free of discord, in marriage you keep your heart open and one eye closed. You accept that another person has good qualities, and overlook the bad. You can’t make them perfect, but you can appreciate them, be true to yourself, and respect yourself.
Take care  ~DJ

Hey there Doovinator.
Your email made me laugh a bit… yeah… in touch with your feelings… airy faery… is me.  I am pretty in tune with my inner child at this point in my life… so, “Twin Flame” type of verbiage resonates with me.  Just wasn’t sure if you spoke the same language, now I know. You are correct of course…. when someone is mature all around… they can be anything or anyone… even a TwinFlame. You know… you mention that I also have a lot of mutable in my chart… yet, there are certain things I know I can’t and won’t tolerate or settle for or “dithering over”.  This comes from my growing spiritually, emotionally and mentally these last 3 years.  But you made a great point about him.  He is right now not in a receptive or open mode.  So, in his efforts to protect himself from hurt… he does tend to “dither” back and forth with me and also protects himself from love. Is it bad to have so much emotion, as you say?   Cause I do notice within me, that as I develop spiritually, I am very empathic… hence very emotional… too emotional in fact.  I am working on having more discipline with it.  But I see that as a beautiful thing, emotions is where we gain true power.  When we ignore our emotions… we are not being honest.  So, why may I ask, do you speak of it in a not so positive way?   BTW – he doesn’t show any emotion… he puts on a great poker face. And when a person is evolved enough to be truly balanced no matter which sign they are…  will it ever reflect in their charts?   Cause when I read up on my sign… I don’t sound like a gemini they portray me to be.  I prefer truth, honesty, faith, loyalty, dedication, accountability, respect and a real family life.  I don’t cheat, flirt or manipulate my way in life at all.   So way off base, but that’s a gemini life it seems.
Thanks again for your insights.
Lisa

Subject: Re: Thank you for your wonderful advice….. sorry it took a while
Message: hey no need to be sorry for anything. You have a right  to ask what you want, don’t apologize. I don’t know what is meant by “twinflame”; it sounds kind of  touchy-feely new-agey to me but hey, everyone has their style. I figure I know what I know,  but some people love clouds and smoke and if so,  fine. It doesn’t make much sense to me, though, that someone with no planets in fire at all–your aquarian–can be anyone’s “twinflame”. I don’t think you’ll marry this guy, there’s just too much dithering.  You need someone who knows what he wants, and he doesn’t. He’s sensitive
and lovable, but a puppy dog, he can’t clean up after himself. Eventually you’ll yell at him for peeing on the carpet, again, and you’ll get tired of pulling out the Lysol. I don’t have a complete chart
for him so I don’t know details; I’m sure he’s a sweet guy, great to talk to–but to live with?  I don’t mind much that he has a lot of water; so much emotion can get tiresome but it’s not a deal breaker. What’s not so great is that you have an awful lot of mutable and he does too. A better choice for you would be someone with more cardinal and fixed in the chart. A leo or cancer, some years older, would probably be good. Sagittarius or capricorn might also work out well. As for “the one”, there’s no such thing. Everyone has good and bad. You value their courage, but put the cap back on the toothpaste. That’s life.
I suspect astrologers DO tend to have a wide life experience. I never thought mine was that unusual as a kid–actually, my job experience list started  with selling lemonade and then shining shoes at my father’s barber shop, both of which I did before I was 16, but the rest took place after I was 16, and largely, I’ve come to see, because of the influence of my father, so recently dead, who never feared much of anything. He told a story about when he was 19 and quivering in a ditch, a mass of jelly, while Germans ambushed and killed his whole company around him (he was one of 18 left), and he pulled out his pocket Bible and read, at random, “fear not he who destroys the body, but rather who destroys the soul”. After that, he had no fear of much of anything. It took me
awhile to understand where he’d come from, but I did find out. Once you’ve been to your outer limit of fear, nothing will ever be quite as fearful to you again; fear becomes something you measure, and once you’re measuring, it disappears. For myself, I was kidnapped at 16, and after having a knife at my throat, over the next couple years came to realize that as my limit, that I’d never, ever be that afraid of anything else again, and I could rate my fear a “6” or an “8” or a “2”, and once I started doing that, it disappeared. I’ve never since had much fear of anything, certainly not losing a job, which probably accounts for my doing it so often!!
Four jobs I have had (in my life? Forget 4, I’ve had at least 5 in the past year):
1)teacher of English as a second language,
2)accounts manager for Rent-A-Center,
3)salesman of newspaper ads for a ragged little county weekly,
4)salesman of adult toys for a company I worked for before and now returned to
5)stained glass kaleidoscope craftsman/salesman.
I’ve also had jobs (or made money) in over 70 other professions (counted them up a year or so ago), many were seasonal or temporary (ticket salesman at a ski slope, tobacco cutter), though some lasted over 25 years (Christmas tree sales, jewelry crafting).

This aspect is one  of my favorite subjects! This is one of the answers I wrote for Yahoo Answers, which I discovered about 2 days ago:
This aspect, five signs apart, is called a quincunx, and one sign is “feminine” (earth or water), the other “masculine” (fire or air). In my experience there’s a much stronger attraction from virgo, but aquarius not so much, instead intrigued by cancer. Cancer in turn is mooning over sagittarius, but sagittarius hardly knows cancer exists, and is trying to chat up a taurus, without much success. Taurus is baking cookies for libra, libra is sighing over pisces, pisces is writing poetry for leo, and leo is looking over the bulletin board hoping capricorn will pass by. Capricorn passes right by, intrigued instead by gemini, who is bewitched by scorpio, who is bedeviled by aries. Aries is in turn showing off for virgo, who is entranced by aquarius. A merry chase! Such is the way of romance. A more direct answer to your question is that as time goes on you’ll probably find your virgo plodding and dull, but utterly devoted. As long as you understand and appreciate this, things could work out well, but if you eventually decide that handsome cancer you work with is more appealing, beware!
(the answer was for aquarius/virgo)
In my own case I had a scorpio girlfriend who married a guitar player in a shiny suit. She always told me it was a business arrangement, that he would raise her son (who was 4 at the time) and she would have his children. I was simply incapable of believing anyone would actually make such an arrangement, which was my mistake! She continued to write and bother me for the next 17 years, and always her letters would tear my heart out, about how her “wings were clipped” and she felt like the “temple prostitute” and always, always signing her letters “with love” or “love and light” or such. I eventually went through a rough patch with my wife and left to go visit her, where she treated me not like a lover but an Al-Qaeda spy! After 3 months I went back to my wife (she’d been working with discipline-problem kids for 12 years and had eventually started treating me like one of her 9-year-old brats, but we worked it out when she quit that job and learned to respect that I was a husband, not a child), but I still heard from my scorpio occasionally (it’s hard to let go of over 20 years) until the scales fell from my eyes one day and I figured out I was an idiot for not believing her to start with–it was the only thing that made any sense. She and her ex-husband (they’d gotten divorced six months after I got married) hated, hated, HATED each other, even after 12 yrs. apart, and had no respect for each other–I told her it was because she hadn’t been a “temple prostitute” in a past life, but HIS ACTUAL prostitute in THIS life, because what is it when one makes a “business deal” involving sex with another, leaving a true love behind? I told her she was never, ever to bother me or my little family again (by this time we had a baby boy, after 16 years together, which was another reason I’d left, it had been my wife’s choice, very much NOT mine, not to have children), and to go, and sin no more. I haven’t heard from her again, and doubt very much whether I could ever manage to be decent and civil to her if I did. I was very hurt, and it went on for too long. That’s my scorpio story, what’s yours? 😉

Wow! That’s intense. I dated a French guy – October 29, 1954 Nimes – who was eight years older, when I was right out of college. He lied about his age. He was a control freak to the max. Nothing was enough. No matter how much I did for him, I could never prove my love. Finally, I got a nice promotion and that pushed him over the edge. Right away it was, “You don’t care about me anymore, you only care about your job.” He really damn near sabotaged me. Finally, right after I came back from my first business trip – a photo shoot to St Bart’s with Cindy Crawford and a famous French photographer (My boyfriend wanted to be a fashion photographer.), my boyfriend was acting strange (intentionally, it seemed.) The very next weekend I caught him in bed with a Brazilian girl. But it had been an awful relationship from the start. He refused to kiss me – probably because he knew I enjoyed it. I was not permitted to have any joy in the relationship. Why did I stick it out? Well, with Neptune on my descendant, I guess something seemed better than nothing. He had Saturn conjunct my descendant, surprise surprise.

– October 29th is my sister’s birthday! (1963). Man you got one of those super-scorpio types too, didn’t you? My girlfriend–if you could call her that–was Nov.17,1952, 16 aquarius rising. About 7 months older than me, but vastly different experiences. It was a really strange relationship right from the start–I was pretty new in town (Boone, NC) and out with some friends when we went to someone’s apartment I didn’t know, and she was there. I soon discovered she’d been out west (I’d grown up in Colorado, she’d just left a bad marriage in Arizona), the only person in town from out west; she’d been a vegetarian as long as I had (9 years at the time), the only person I knew who had been, and definitely the only person I could talk to about astrology and Eastern thought who understood enough to have a real conversation instead of asking questions and putting me into “teacher mode”. This was not just the only woman I’d ever met who understood where I was coming from, she was the only person, period, I knew who was on the same wavelength. Seeing as I was new in town and catching a ride with friends, I had no idea where we’d been that night and by the time I found out, she was gone. That was the only time I saw her for about six months. She would pop in and out after that, always off doing some secret mission; I didn’t really want to have that much to do with her for a long time, it was kind of scary, but neither of us could ignore the chemistry, & neither could anyone else–more than once people remarked that when we were in a room together it was electric. She’d go out with some of the other local guys but I really didn’t give a damn, I figured I could wait her out, but then the guitar player bought her off, and the last thing I wanted anything to do with at the time was a band, as me and my family had had a band in Hollywood a couple years earlier and had done reasonably well in showbiz but about went crazy. Anyway after she took off (both these marriages were to aquarians named Michael!) I was pretty well  devastated and didn’t have a really decent relationship for the next six years, in fact I hung around town for a year or so and then thumbed around the country for the next five. I blame most of that on neptune, conjunct saturn, opposite my twelfth-house venus, also pluto opposite my moon. ~DJ
Yeah, I thought it amazingly short-sighted of Adam & Eve not to make a computer available to me, so I brought an old typewriter from home (I have quite a collection, probably 50 or so I’ve picked up through the years, mostly for $5 or less). I didn’t care to explain every item in the catalog to every Spanish-speaking caller sixteen times a day, so I made up a rudimentary catalog of my own. It would have probably been a better catalog if I’d been a native Spanish speaker, but I’m definitely fluent and it was good enough to save me 20 minutes or so on each and every Spanish call–instead of explaining all the vibrators, lubricants, nipple rings, etc. I’d say, “I’ll send you a catalog”, stuff an envelope and take the next call. I ended up getting for Adam & Eve over 5 times as much Spanish business as they had before, in 3 years. I was definitely the best salesman they had on a regular basis–I wasn’t always at the top of the list but was always in the top three. It was a very interesting and fun job which was completely spoiled by office politics. When I quit they tried to hire four different people to replace me in the next three months, and finally had to split up the work between 3 people.
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Good Heavens!  What a story! I broke up with my wife several years ago, for 2-1/2 months, and went to see an old  girlfriend (scorpio sun & moon, aquarius rising). I got along fine with her son and the older daughter, but the younger daughter definitely didn’t care to have me around, either. That wasn’t the only reason we didn’t stay together longer (have I already told you this story?) but it didn’t help.
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You did tell me about breaking up with your wife and then realizing she was right for you.  But not that there were 3 kids in the old girlfriend picture.  This was a little different in that we went to Ohio (for strange and bizarre reasons) and the son (age 24) followed because he needed to dry out and get a job.  He was a brat with us, so his grandmother paid for an apartment for him.  He still didn’t get a job.  He moved back to PA about when we did & went back to his mother’s (sleeping on the bottom bunk of his 12 yr old brother).  Finally, my SO said “Get a job or I’m going to start driving around with you to help you find one.  Apparently, that was a fate worse than having no money hence no car, or the “humiliation” of sleeping under his little brother, or potential homelessness.  He got a job.
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I’ve got a bit of German too, also Scottish, Welsh, French, English and god knows what else. The picture is kind of scrambled with both my grandfathers’ and one of my  grandmothers’ families (for one thing, the courthouse burned down in 1871, destroying all the records of the time), but one grandmother had a well drawn family tree going back to 17th century New England.
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It’s too bad.  Genealogy can be fun if you have time.  My mother’s family goes back to the 17th c. too.  It looks like a telephone book and it’s 40 years out of date.  I bet there’s a lot of people can go back that far…
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I wish women weren’t quite so concerned with that. I find something beautiful and  enticing in almost every woman. It’s not who has the biggest boobs or the smallest belly, it’s the variety; every woman is a bit different, much more so than men. I’m sure that’s why men’s magazines feature nude women but women’s magazines don’t much bother with nude men–good-looking guys are pretty much muscular with few differences–hair & skin color, general hairiness and length of schlong–but women have an incredible variety of body shapes and sizes, and men like to look. Also, women in general will have little trouble enticing men out of their jeans if they so desire, but not so vice versa. As Billy Crystal put it, women want to have a soulmate for sex, men just want a place.
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It’s a good point.  I’ll try to keep it in mind.
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Pretty much the other way around in my family, though I wouldn’t call her a clothes horse. My father had the annoying habit (to mother) of working on the car, etc. in whatever he had on, be it rags or his Sunday best.
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Oh!  That would be VERY annoying.  I agree with your mom!  haha
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My brother and sister went to Yale. I didn’t go to college at all after high school–I  graduated at 16, took “a year off”, and didn’t go back for about five years. I eventually went to Appalachian State University for a year and two different community colleges, one for 2 years and one (for Spanish) for 5 or 6 years. I teach sometimes as a sub at  Alamance Community College here in town, I had a regular class for 3 years but it was cancelled last Christmas.
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Oh, too bad.  I hope you get another one.
Where is it that you live in NC?  Is it anywhere near Gatlinburg, TN. (Or however you say it.)
Take care, Rows  (oh, it was so confusing in database class. always talking about columns and Rows.  If I were 1/2 asleep, I always thought the teacher was calling on me.  “…columns and ROWS…” “what, what? What was the question?”  Never before crossed my mind that my name was a homophone.)
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Hey that’s pretty funny – the movie part that is!  I think I recall you saying something about popping a blood vessel one time.  Was this before or After you quit messing with the weather…?  I’m glad it turned out OK for you.  I suppose I will be saying that in 12 year.  Although I had this weird premonition that I would die at 42.  I wouldn’t think anything of it except that it happened at same time I remembered a premonition I had at 20.  Back then, I knew that at 40, my life would be exactly as it is.  So that 20 year old premonition was coming true as I was having the second premonition.  Nearly went out and got that “astrology of death” book.  But its too creepy.
… it is kinda funny.  There IS an old boyfriend I’ve know for 18 years.  I STILL have a crush on him.  And it’s funny too because he used to get mad at me over that stupid respect thing (sorry).  But I couldn’t make any sense of it.  The littlest things could be disrespect.  Is that what was bugging you?  He was an Aquarian too. like me  I was so happy to go out with someone crazier than I was!  Haha. But what a mess it would be to get involved with him again.  Or anyone really.  I want to be more OK with myself. Did I say that already?  I also would like to figure out what these painful sensations I have around computers & other situations are…so I can figure out how to make a living.  I’ve seen stuff about electromagnetic hypersensitivity.  EMH.  And YOU!  🙂 – cell phone people – are supposedly the big enemy.  BTW – can you get me a better deal with Cingular,…. Ive been a customer for 6 years, blah, blah, blah…  Is this having Sag on 2?  I want special treatment!  (anyway just kidding) Some say my sensations are totally psychological, others spiritual.  I think nep in sco in 1st house is saying something, but what?
Hi Rose,
I don’t post much at aa mod anymore either; once in awhile at aa tropical but I haven’t had a lot of time lately for it. I’m working  customer service for the AT&T Wireless side of Cingular–the two companies have merged, but not their computer systems, etc. and I’m on the “blue” side, not the “orange”. We’re not overpaid, but the work isn’t particularly hard. Still, I’m looking for somethng closer to home (I’m driving about 40 minutes each way), and where I can use my Spanish. I think it’s pretty common to be emotionally troubled around 40, though believe me it’s not the end of the world, I passed it up almost 12 years ago. My marriage was sheer hell for me too, about then. I got so damned mad one night I was throwing laundry around–I knew if I touched anything else I’d break it–and screaming at the top top TOP of my lungs that DAMMIT, you are going to to RESPECT me, etc. and went on and on and stormed out the door and walked about a mile in my socks on a cold night with no jacket on. I know I popped a blood vessel–the right side of my head pounded for days and for several weeks if I got the least little bit worked up about anything it would throb some more–and it was clear to me I’d lost some part of my sanity, I wasn’t rational and I knew it. I ended up going to see an old girlfriend who’d been writing me for 17 years–it
occurred to me one day I wasn’t happy, she wasn’t happy and I’d known her for twenty years. I spent the spring with her and occasionally called home to scream at my wife some more, from 2000 miles away. My wife and I did eventually patch it up about 3 months later but everything was different, sometimes more painful but mostly better. I wouldn’t have changed a thing, though, it was necessary. I don’t judge how anyone works out their life anymore, it’s ever so easy to SAY how I would have done it, and a whole ‘nuther ball o’ wax to LIVE it. Don’t be sorry, and don’t be bitter, and don’t be proud. I’d hold you and hug you and wipe away your tears if you were here, you know.  As it is, get yourself a copy of Message in a Bottle (forget about the movie, it’s terrible) or Gone with the Wind and cry and carry on and remember, Tomorrow Is Another Day–
Much love,
~DJ
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Well, we’ve pretty much covered the life history thing.  Just read a cool article on Robert Moss’ website about dreaming and the new work he’s doing with people…really cool and a really interesting guy.
Eileen

Hey Eileen–
I know how it is. My father was a tyrant too. I never thought of him as alcoholic at the time, but Denver was recently declared “the drunkest city in America”, and it was a relative thing. Many of his friends were hopeless, chronic drunks and he wasn’t quite like that. He wouldn’t drink until after work, but he’d finish off a six-pack before coming home, then drink several more beers before dinner while picking on me for whatever imaginary thing I hadn’t done that day. It was a ritual. He smoked about 3 packs a day too. I had the misfortune of being the smartest kid in the most paranoid state in the union; Colorado was where they made the atomic bombs and dug out the mountain to put the government in. My fate was sealed; I was to be a rocket scientist, everyone knew it and if I didn’t want to be one, the whole world would die. I was promoted in the first grade and spent the rest of my school years separated from my brothers and sisters, the youngest, smartest kid in class and the most socially maladjusted. I  had precious few friends and no girlfriends at all. When I turned 16, I got a station wagon, and spent all my time in it or at my best friend’s house. I never came home except when I was certain my father wasn’t there. I graduated high school while I was still 16. Had I not graduated, I wouldn’t have gone back. I got a job working the night shift and stayed away from home. One night I had my first sexual experience, but it wasn’t nice, I had a knife at my throat and I don’t like to talk about it. The cops were absolutely no help; for years afterward I hated anything in blue with a blind fury.
My brother starred in a Disney movie, and wrote the title song–at 11 he was the youngest member of ASCAP ever–the first movie ever shot in Telluride, Colorado. Since my parents had been in show biz all along, we all formed a family band and moved to Hollywood. Two years in Hollywood and I was pretty near insane, but a month or so before leaving I actually met a girl. I moved back to Denver while the rest of my family moved to North Carolina. I wrote her several times a week and some months later she came through to see me–traveling with my younger brother, whom she decided on the train she loved as well. I didn’t hold it against her, but it wasn’t much of a confidence builder either, especially as my brother already had plenty. I was 21 before I had another girlfriend. I had several in the following few years,but never kept any for long.
I hate to sound like I have a clue what it’s like to lose a fiance. I don’t, but I do want to tell you about our friend Cindy, who lost her fiance a few months before we met her, and spent the next 15 years or so with totally wrong men–married, or just losers. She’d stay with them in these idiotic relationships for years. I finally took her aside about 7 years ago and had a heart-to-heart talk with her about it. She admitted she knew all these guys were wrong from the start, but it was easier to lose them that way. She then found a good fellow, and they have 2 kids. Finally I really want to tell you I totally disagree that you are selfish for raising a child. Nobody has all the answers. You do the best you can, and that’s the best anyone can do. You are not selfish. I wish I’d have had the choice. On three occasions, I’d have been happy to have a child, but she decided to abort–twice I didn’t even know about it til afterward, which pretty well wrecked the  romance–and once it was Perri, after we’d been married a year or so. before we had kids we’d talked–or better to say she’d unilaterally decided–for 16 years. I made it clear when I came back to her if we didn’t have kids I’d have left for good. Everyone’s different. My sister’s kids would have been better off never having had their father in their lives. I told my sister-in-law (who keeps up with the gossip) that there was only one thing I wanted to hear about kevin–that he was dead. It would be better for everyone, including him. Well Eileen I don’t know where to go from here. You take care of yourself.
Goodnight,
~DJ
Hey David:
About the time you were hitching your way around, I was trying to figure out how I could have been so stupid and selfish as to bring a child into the world without a father.  My father was an absolute tyrant and I was terrified and more than defensive about any man having  control over me or my life.  I left home when I was seventeen and didn’t write, call or go home again for five years, I was so mad at my old man. Just took off one night with my backpack, crashed at the house of a guy who was a friend of a friend and stayed there until I’d “gotten rid of” my virginity with him, which my father held up as the only thing men really wanted from a woman.  Figured if I got rid of that, I might understand what the big hoopla was all about. Never did, maybe never will.  Travelled where I wanted to, with whom I wanted to and lived my life like a woman who didn’t care what anyone thought about her…and that was the truth.  Finished all but two college courses towards a teaching degree – paid for by waitressing and then, on a whim, took off to Colorado with friends.  Fell in love there finally with a wonderful man – got engaged and then he got killed…I fell apart…quite a revelation for the woman who was always on the move, letting nothing get in her way.
Went back to Syracuse and met Jubal’s father…just back from Vietnam…has just left his wife and two children in Florida where she was cheatiing like crazy on him and, as he found out, had been all the time he’d been overseas. We were both hurtin’ cowboys…I liked him. He was and is a good man but I didn’t love him like I had the man I’d lost.  I’ve never loved anyone that much again, except my son…don’t know that I ever will.  Let Jubal’s father know that I wouldn’t marry him or have an abortion if I got pregnant so we’d better be careful, but if I did get pregnant, I’d never ask him for a
thing.  Careful is as careful does and some things are just meant to be.  I got pregnant, didn’t get married although he asked me to, kept Jubal, and the rest is history. What was I thinking?  Not much and not well.  My father had been such a disappointment it never occurred to me that kids needed a father, good or bad.  Jubal has done O.K.  better than most but that was the most singularly selfish act of my life.  My son is the best thing that ever happened to me, I hope I live long enough to know he thinks the same of me. The longest I ever lived with a man was five years when Jubal was little.  I tried but never could seem to figure out how to talk to a man about stuff that was important to me.  Both my parents were alcoholics so communication wasn’t something I had any experience with.  Also, I seemed to pick men who loved to smoke and/or drink like pros.  Not a good combo with my background.  I kept getting cleaner and straighter in my life but those bad boys, how they did love me.  I finally hung up my spurs, pushed away from the table and said no more for me. I think based on half a lifetimes experience that in order to make it I’d  have to be with a man who has a strong love of “god/goddess” or the force that organizes life in the universes.  Someone who sees me as a mirror, a reflection of what he needs to work on in himself as I see him…a relationship that isn’t an I TRADE YOU.  Guess as we get older lots of stuff that seemed so important just falls away. It’s still pretty confusing when you’ve got children in the mix.  The buddhists say you grow faster with a partner in life because you can’t hide from your shit.  Guess that means you’ll reach enlightenment before me.  Don’t forget to save me a seat.
Eileen
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Pattern of Speech – Wiyum – I gaad-dymo- pu-te-nit-OK?  William – I got it I’m gonna put ten in it OK?
Also a fellow who gave me a ride to Boulder when Monk had given me the pills, gave me a big chunk of hash and a hit of acid.
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Sam 8-21-09  Lovely to see you again.  Well it appears Robin got the statistic backwards:  it was actually an 85% FAILURE rate.  After reading this I’m even less inclined to think “there’s something to” it; in fact it appears that little figure 8 I drew is the high water mark of remote viewing.–s

Doesn’t surprise me, I suspected the 86% was either way too high or the standard for a “hit” was way too low. I think I did better than average with my tree and peaked-roof house, but taking it SO seriously and especially, personally, is just plain silly. It’s difficult for me to see what kind of military or other advantage could be gained in such an exercise anyway; let’s say I “saw” Osama Bin Laden in a cave on a hillside with a big tree by the entrance. Even if I was 86% sure of it, I haven’t learned anything surprising. Unless I “saw” something very specific, what’s the point? Even then, it’s so incredibly open to “postdiction” or even outright fraud as to be useless.
I was really glad we had the time with mom today, the real “psychic impression” that I STRONGLY “received” about the whole visit was that Genny would find some way to request something exorbitant from her, over the phone, before we left. I didn’t bring it up beforehand, but I was even MORE than 86% sure it would happen! ~DJ

sam–LOL about the whole remote-viewing-Genny thing, as with most of Rob’s brain waves there are so many things wrong with his thinking that you can’t get to them all, especially not because it’s so DISRESPECTFUL.  Barry said essentially the same thing when I told him about Genny’s call–“well OF COURSE she was going to call and try to cut the whole thing short because she wasn’t there and couldn’t stand it.”

Is Rob that big of a rage-filled asshole when I’m not around?  I’m starting to think I should really just avoid him entirely (unless he’s with Luanne who seems to keep that obnoxiousness in check) because it’s not worth it.  And I was rather offended when Mom launched into that thing about “I’m not seeing much respect coming from either of you.”  What sort of respect did she have in mind for someone who can’t go ten minutes without another insane grandstanding pronouncement designed to throw a spotlight on his special relationship with the universe?  Frankly next time he goes into that “you’re calling me a liar” thing I’m going to say “OK, you’re a liar, you’ve always been a liar, you’ll always be a liar, there I’ve said it, now you can’t blackmail me with the threat that I”m calling you a liar.”–s

Oh I just kind of skate on past all that psychic mumbo jumbo, I KNOW he takes it much too seriously and personally and it doesn’t mean that much to me one way or the other. That whole disrespect thing with him started with Anne, who may have been a good mother but was a nightmare as a wife. She was truly horrid to him for years, he finally stood up to her and was ready to leave when she got sick and at long, long last started treating him as human and not some particularly odious variety of pond scum. They once planned a family trip to the beach together; he hadn’t been to the beach in several years and on the day they were going to leave he came home from work and there was nobody there, she called him FROM THE BEACH, she had taken the kids and left him home alone.They got in a fight one time and she didn’t do any house cleaning AT ALL for 12 YEARS. They finally paid me & Perri to clean the place up, we threw out over 150 lawn-size garbage bags full of trash, and that didn’t include the basement or the barn. There was even over $50 in loose change under all that crap. She had her own trust fund, didn’t need to work and didn’t spend a dime of it on anyone but herself. She bought a new van for $25,000 while Rob went into bankruptcy. All she did around the house was sit on her ass, talk on the phone and drink Coca-Cola, it’s what killed her; she wouldn’t stop even when her kidneys were failing. One day she got a drink of what Rob was drinking and said it tasted pretty good, what was it? It was water. Before she died she was trying to get a transplant and was talking Grant into giving her one of his, I called him and told him not to do it, because she hadn’t made any effort whatsoever to get healthy, and I’m glad I did; living with one kidney ISN’T just like living with two, Grant would have lived with the effects all the rest of his life and even had the surgery been successful Anne would have gone through the new kidney in just a few years anyway. I don’t want to speak ill of the departed but I don’t believe in whitewashing the plain truth. I’m glad that Rob’s learned to speak up for himself once in awhile, even if he’s touchy over silly bullshit. Don’t let it get to you. He didn’t like it when I remarked about how many books he hasn’t finished either, which I’m sure is at least nine times as many as he has, it’s a personality quirk and doesn’t really harm anyone. He’s in a hell of a lot better frame of mind now than he was some years ago, and the same for Luanne, who had similar issues of her own, and between the two of them they’ve had a hell of a time of it, in the last ten years or so they’ve had to clear up estates of nine relatives between them. I’m glad I’m not there!
It really was a lovely time, I’m glad we were there just the three of us and mom, wish it could have lasted longer. Are you coming to the family reunion next weekend?
~DJ

Yeah I’ve heard the stories about Anne being horrible to him, and that is lamentable, but this behavior predates all that.  I remember him back in the early ’80s bellowing “because I believe Lemuria actually EXISTED!!!” when we challenged it as an example of a country beginning with “L.”  I thought he was going to throw something, and that was not an isolated example.  Here we are some 25 years later, still getting tantrums because people don’t respect his beliefs, integrity, intellect, whatever, and what’s worse in a public setting!  I wanted to say “where does it say in those thousands of books you read to throw a tantrum when people don’t respect your intellect?”  But what I found more disturbing than the tantrums and the pointless grandstanding pronouncements was all this resentment he was keeping in, as evidenced by the way he characterized my demeanor in imitating me and also saying “you went on and on mocking dad’s voice” et cetera.  Wherever all this rage is coming from, I don’t care to be exposed to it.  I don’t find it harmless at all, I think it’s toxic.  He also displayed a detestable and revealing bit of condescension when he bloviated at you “I suppose I should just discuss the weather like everyone else.”  Oh I get it, you think talk of the real world is dull compared to your world of wonder where trees show you time-lapse movies and reveal that some things have been here longer than others.  Gee, since we’re in the historic section of Charlotte I would imagine that the church has been here a long time, but thanks for confirming that with your cross-species communion.  Anyway neither he nor Mom are going to get another opportunity to treat me that way.  I was not planning to go to the family reunion, but I think this experience would’ve in any case changed that plan.

I’m glad you told Grant not to donate a kidney.  She hit me up for one as well, and it never went anywhere but it did make me think under what circumstances I would donate an organ.  I decided I had the right to expect that the recipient would treat the organ with at least as much respect as I had.  Not more, necessarily, but not less.  And her general disregard for her own health seemed reason enough not to endanger mine. –s

Everything you say is true, I was appalled as well with the vitriol. I can’t get pissed about it though, Rob is a wounded soul. Something you probably don’t know is he had a conversation with Luanne the evening before and she was breaking up with him, because he had insisted that she and Leah and Anna not eat the nut mix that Noelle bought with her own money at $7 per pound and offer Rice Krispies in return at $1 per pound. He loves Luanne, he’s known her for more than 40 years, they were sweethearts in 3rd grade, but he won’t let her trespass upon his feelings for justice with Noelle. Luanne is rough, raised in poverty and violence, doesn’t know social conventions. Rob is rough too, but at least understands that waiters should be tipped and Rice Krispies are no substitute for pecans and macadamias. I doubt they’ll break up, but I’m sure it was heavy on his mind. He needs some slack, yes his tantrums are juvenile, but in fact emotionally he’s far more fucked up than anyone else of us right now, Luanne is supporting him and fixing up HIS house on HER credit, she’s LOSING her house in Colorado in the meantime to foreclosure while they’re doing all this, including paying ME to fix HIS roof, and her son is bothering her because he’s living in the house where her husband of 28 years died in the driveway and he wants her to pay everything while he sits around in the basement playing computer games and smoking pot. He’s 31 or so and doesn’t have a job and hasn’t ever held one for more than a few months and she has nothing but bad feelings about the house she lived in for all those years for similar reasons that Rob feels about Anne, both of them were treated like scum and lied to, her husband hid about $100,000+ in assets from her while they were married etc. etc. etc. She’s very good to Rob, but he’s still loyal to his daughter. It’s commendable, I know he’s being an asshole but I admire him for what he has been putting up with anyway. If he wants to lose himself in the stories trees have to tell then what the hell, it doesn’t hurt anyone and he feels better connecting with The Universe as it hangs in Charlotte instead of the bitch I tried to sell scopes to. He escapes the unpleasant present, and we go on with our lives. Maybe someday he’ll see how full of crap that kind of touchy-feely shit is, in the meantime he’s my brother and my family and even if he and his fiancee and her daughter were in the way for the four days which me and Perri had originally planned to be a romantic getaway we still had a good time and the kids enjoyed themselves and everybody got sunburned on the beach and we all ate pizza and burritos and love each other anyway–
~DJ

Thanks for the context.  They say “to understand all is to forgive all,” an aphorism he strains to its limit. I guess he will always be a needs case and his feelings will always take precedence over everyone else’s, and if I don’t find ways of avoiding his company I will have only myself to blame for the result (especially since I apparently have nothing better to do than plot his latest humiliation).  I’m thinking if Luanne didn’t dump him when he told her (for her benefit, so she would not cling) that he never loved her and was ditching her to travel the world as a rich supermodel-dating artist’s representative, she will probably weather the Rice Krispies episode.  But I can’t help wondering how long it will be before the burden of supporting him shifts from Luanne to Noelle (who, I couldn’t help but notice, only came up in conversation as a witness to his powers).  Apologies if this exchange has grown tiresome, but to what attempted romantic getaway are you referring?–s

we all went to the beach Aug. 13-17, Rob & Luanne & her daughter & granddaughter Leah and Anna came along, they had their own motel room but were basically there the whole time. It was OK, it was a really nice vacation but not what we’d originally planned. I didn’t mind, life is much more fun when it doesn’t follow your plans anyway. I was probably closer to Luanne’s family than my own when I was in my teens. I’ve known her since she was like 8 yrs. old and have kept in touch for 44 yrs.; she & Rob didn’t see each other for 34 of those years so I was really the one she came to crying when she & Rob broke up the first time. She’s rough and redneck but honest and frank and truly and exceptionally loyal, and really cares for him, has since the 3rd grade. I think they’re good for each other. Yeah, I get annoyed at Rob’s psychic touchy-feely bullshit but it’s not a big deal to me. I really, truly, don’t care, so arguing about any of it is a waste of time. If Rob wants to believe the earth is hollow and aliens run the government, so what, it’s irrelevant. I think it’s too bad it’s causing a problem between yall, we had a good time at the family reunion, Luanne & Leah & Anna were there too as was Ray and nobody talked about remote viewing, you missed a lot of interesting & cheesy gossip. ~DJ

Oh I agree, I think Luanne is the best thing that’s happened to him in years.  Apparently other people have a problem with her but I think she’s great.  I’m sure she’s the reason he did not lapse into grandiose cosmic anecdotes. And other than the fact that they’re conversation killers I really don’t care either about his idiotic occultism.  In fact if all I’ve done is rolled out of bed and plopped my ass in someone else’s car on someone else’s dime for a twenty minute drive, I don’t care if he wants to sit there seething at the notion that I’m plotting his ridicule or trashing Dad’s memory.  I just don’t see why I should drive six hours and rent a motel room to subject myself to Rob’s character assassination and Mom’s condescending you-are-partially-responsible-for-a-grown-man-throwing-a-tantrum lectures about mutual respect.  I can be anywhere else but in their presence, doing anything else with anyone else, and oddly enough no one feels the need to attack my character.  I wasn’t planning to attend anyway because Barry had to work and we usually go out to dinner on Saturday nights, but going forward if Rob is there without Luanne you can count me OUT! Sorry however that I missed everyone else’s company and a lot of interesting and cheesy gossip.  Maybe you’ll pass along the best nuggets.–s

well one thing was Doris totally pissed off Peggy, Doris told her she’d “come up in the world” marrying into the Austins. I suppose the Austins are marginally better off overall than the Arnettes but not so much I’d point out the difference! There’s a whole new feel to it lately, so many of the old faces are gone and so many of the others are getting married & such. It’s really interesting, the conversations are more real now instead of how we all come from a long line of saints etc. The only one of father’s generation there was Daisy, Ella is 98 now and didn’t show and that’s it, there’s no one else. Buddy is gone, Anne & Jordan are replaced by Luanne, Leah and Anna, Sarah is gone, Rob C. is replaced by Ray, June is gone but Clyde is coming around again, though Tammy isn’t, Patsy has a relatively new husband & a couple other relatives have new squeezes too, Edward is a sharp trader, he ended up trading a Susan B. Anthony dollar to Tristan for two cut topazes, James missed it by being too late but he has a family now, etc. etc. etc. Even the food was different. As for respect I really, truly, don’t give a damn about all that psychic stuff, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other what Rob believes or what my father believed, all that 12th planet crap and all the rest may or may not be true but what the hell does it matter? It’s like the Catholics eating Jesus, if transubstantiation is a miracle, it’s about the most worthless miracle I can think of and I wouldn’t want to eat the stupid cracker in any case, but if someone believes what’s it to me?
~DJ
Wow hard to believe Aunt Ella is 98.  Did Lula die?  Either I forgot that someone told me or no one did.  I can’t imagine what context would be appropriate to tell Peggy she’d “come up in the world” but it seems she’s always been getting shade from one cousin or another, I think Collis’s offspring were more into that shit but it’s true we’re hardly the Astors.  Glad to see Edward is a sharp trader, that will serve him well throughout his life.–s

Yeah, Lula died a couple years ago, she made it to 99 and 9 months or so. I hadn’t thought about it but I guess you’re right about Collis’ family being so socially conscious. What I’m really glad we all got away from was great-uncle George’s family and all that crying and disaster!
I was thinking about Muhammad Ali visiting Ireland and a generation or two ago people would have said, well that’s where he got his poetry, and wouldn’t have thought twice about it, I’m inclined to say Edward has my Scottish blood and that makes him thrifty but it’d probably kick up a fuss–
~DJ
1-30-13 was cleaning out my email and came across this little gem I thought you’d like to revisit. I really tore up my shoulder in October (I was pulling up a fencepost, it snapped, I fell, hit my shoulderblade on a rock, dislocated my shoulder, messed up my rotator cuff, tore a muscle and damaged the brachial nerve bundle to my left arm; now my left hand stays numb all the time but otherwise I’m pretty well recovered after some months of agony). It wasn’t comfortable to sit at the computer and I didn’t clean out my email since, until now. Last night I eliminated about 3000 messages!
How’s things up there? The weather missed us, lots of wind but very little rain and it’s a lovely day out, for the last of January. ~DJ

Rats, that sucks! Between that and stepping on the rake you’ve had some rough breaks in the yard. I blew out one leg on a rowing machine maybe ten years ago and can STILL get a twinge if I’m sprinting and step the wrong way, but fortunately that’s been the worst for awhile. I overdid it on the walking and gave myself a hairline fracture in my foot just before the holidays (self-diagnosed but I did the same thing to the other foot many years ago) but that seems to be gone now, it takes about 6-8 weeks of staying off it as much as possible.
Reading that exchange about Rob and Mom brought back a lot that I hadn’t entirely forgotten, and I’m glad I didn’t, but I think I have a bit more perspective about it. I think there is a useful degree of denial that makes life more livable, but everyone has to regulate their own dosage. Just the other day I was playing back a conversation I had with Mom while she was here and rewriting it: “Yes, Mom, you cope with reality by putting a better face on it, I cope by making fun of it. Each is a variation of the same thing, and each has its price.” I’m afraid that her visit here so soon after Rob LaRocco’s death exposed her to a particular zeal I was feeling to leave nothing unsaid.
The weather has been colder, wetter and windier than usual–these Roanoke winters are typically a hop skip and a jump, this is beginning to feel like a trudge! How is the family?–s

yeah, I wreck the motorcycle a couple times, twice go off the side of a mountain, total a couple of cars and get my worst injuries putzing around the yard! I talked with Rob for a long time last night; he’d sent an email a couple weeks ago that I just found, asking for the chord changes and lyrics for a little song “Popcorn”, which has proven far and away the most popular composition I’ve ever written. I was explaining to the kids one night how a lot of times composers will make up “working lyrics” off the top of their head and used “Yesterday” as an example, which was originally “Scrambled eggs”–and I pulled up a little chord progression I’d been messing with, sang “Popcorn, grape juice, rubber tires on my car”–and then they wouldn’t let me change it! I taught it to Clara Kate and Edward, and it’s their favorite song, all their little friends know it, all my friends and even strangers I met at parties and the train station!! It’s got one chord in it I can’t name, can’t even find on the chord identifier app site–it’s a variation on a B, I’m thinking maybe a Bm7—E-B-D-A-B-F#. Rob’s doing well, he’s lost EIGHT INCHES off his waist and he and Luanne are doing this “mostly vegan” diet with a little fish. She’s really been good for him. I think both of them were pretty well beat down from long marriages to difficult spouses. I see him fairly frequently (and with Daisy Anne just down the road expect to) and we make up drinking songs (“Drink Some More”, “I Don’t Wanna Lick The Puke Off The Floor No More”) and talk about touring Australia. Daisy is a gem, little bitty, sleepy and agreeable. Grant’s family now has the same days of the month for birthdays as mine; Joie shares June 26th with Perri, Grant and Clara were born on the 11th and Daisy and I on the 3rd. I expect their next baby will be born on the 7th like Edward!
The kids are fine and Perri’s getting a lot of work substituting, though she’s not happy being away. I can understand that she’s frustrated but I just can’t find that much work out there, and I don’t want another crappy job if I don’t REALLY have to take it. I signed up with all the agencies around town and Vocational Rehab–they took me because of my less-than-perfect left hand and detached retina–and I haven’t found anything yet but springtime’s coming and I still have about 3 more months of unemployment. I have had a couple of speaking engagements–my astrology talk did well in Raleigh and I got another in Tarboro, which was about twice as far but paid twice as much! I’ve also been putting together my book–after going to a class with Genny I decided to cut it up into 4 books and I’ve got pretty much everything but a cover for the first, which I’m calling “Bozo’s Boy”. I don’t have the programs or the knowledge to make up a cover on my computer and Perri has been dragging her feet but I talked to one of her friends this morning so maybe will have it in a day or two. I was furious with Genny for a while, but she’s been trying to be friendly for many months now and Tristan seems to be doing better too. Anyway that’s the Austin update from here; stay warm!  ~DJ
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Look, everyone dies. Some with smiles on their faces, some with poop in their pants. It’s unfortunate that some die scared, or too young, or before they’ve finished what they wanted to, but everyone gets there one day, no matter what. Be gloomy if you like, but the percentage of people that live a good life is pretty high. Celebrate life!
~DJ
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I was involved in an imbroglio at work at the end of November.  My supervisor, who had always been picky and totally a micro-manager, had begun to correct my Spanish.  I didn’t mind so much when she’d correct other things about my work, because for the most part I’d ignore it and do what I did anyway, but her Spanish was nowhere near matching mine and she knew it.  I’d originally felt that I’d been getting along fine with her but for years it had been going downhill a little at a time and I’d repeatedly requested to her boss that I get off her team.  In late summer she “corrected” a Spanish word I’d used for years to state the credit card had been approved, though “aprovechado.”  She said I’d been doing it wrong, that the “proper” word was “aprobado.”  The very next customer I had asked me if his credit card had been “aprovechado,” however, and I went to her boss, Al, and said to him that I’d prefer if she didn’t “correct” my Spanish.
Well, she was totally furious about that, and tried for the next several weeks to get me fired.  My monitors were flunked for petty and picayune reasons – part of answering the phones is that supervisors listen in or random calls to assure quality and I was threatened with termination when a customer called me a “dumb ass” and I told him we weren’t going to listen to that kind of language – a perfectly acceptable thing to do – but when she wrote it up she said that the customer said “ass,” not called me a “dumb ass,” and that I wouldn’t be getting my bonus that quarter.  Not that I cared that much; sales commissions amount to far more than bonuses anyway – but suddenly she had problems with the way I was pronouncing my “Rs,” with certain pauses I’d use in my spiel to assure clarity – “can I have your Credit – card – number – please?” and the like.  After a sort of double – teaming session in which she crudely insulted me (include letters)  I stayed away for the rest of the week, and after Thanksgiving was presented with a large stack of supposedly flunking monitors and such, which I refused to sign.  I gave letter #2 to HR, Jerry, and Phil and as of a month later heard nothing fore about it, though I was ready with witnesses and firepower if need be.  All for the twisted politics of a little bitty part of a company I’d been doing a good job for, for years.

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Looking at the past century or so, most of the real social changes have come about not because they were instigated by men, but by women. Labor and safety laws? Initiated largely because the Triangle shirtwaist fire, almost all women died, but men and boys had been dying for years. Women’s voting rights were closely tied to the Temperance movement, and both Prohibition and women’s suffrage happened at roughly the same time. Some years later Prohibition was rejected, not because men were saying much about it but because of the opposition of women (see Ken Burns’ fascinating series). Social change away from feminism will come not because of the complaints of men (the wussies!) but because women see how it wrecks the lives of their sons (and daughters).
My 2¢~
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Jenni James my problem is that I’m a perfectionist, and I tend to look closely at my flaws when painting.
D J Austin In stained glass there’s a thousand-year old tradition to always leave a flaw – because, it’s said, perfection belongs only to god! My advice for any artist, or really for anyone doing anything, is to know when something’s good enough, then leave it. If it takes an hour to get  90% perfection, 99% takes two hours. Double it again to reach 99.9%, but even after eight hours you’ll only have 99.99%, you’ll never reach 100%. Decide beforehand what’s good enough. For some things it may be 99.9%, but for most things 90% is excellent, and even 80% or 50% or even 20% may be good enough. Anything more is a waste of time, life, and happiness

Jenni James +D J Austin thank you so much for what you said. Very inspiring. I’m going to try and work on it
D J Austin  +Jenni James personally I think that’s the hardest lesson to learn. Most people will look at your work and see something beautiful, but you’ll see some minor flaw, because the reason it’s beautiful (or functional, or whatever) is that you fixed a few other flaws. 90% of all people won’t notice, 99% won’t care, and 1% will never be satisfied no matter what you do. Be happy with the 99% and forget the rest!
Jenni James+D J Austin thank you so so much! You’ve been a great help!
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vaccinations aren’t for everyone, I personally got the flu vaccine, AND got the flu afterwards, for TEN YEARS, before I gave blood one year and found out – or actually not me but my PREGNANT wife found out – I was supposedly positive for AIDS. Several tests and several hundred dollars later – and much soul-searching over abortion or not over our FIRST child, at the age of forty+, I learned I had not AIDS but a “cousin to AIDS”, and all the money I’d spent over the previous decade on medicines and sick days I’d lost at work and feeling like crap ALL YEAR LONG and ALL THAT SHIT could have been avoided by NOT getting the “flu shot” to start with. Doctors don’t know everything, will NEVER know everything, and often don’t listen or give a shit about anyone outside of the “percentages”. I find it EXTREMELY irresponsible to call measles a “serious disease” and pointing out that “a thousand” children die of measles when more than that die of choking on Chicken McNuggets. Yes, measles causes dehydration. Drink water. Yes, measles depletes vitamins A and D. Take vitamins. Make your kids drink something besides Mountain Dew and eat something besides candy and TAKE CARE of your kids.
I don’t think vaccines are always wrong. My son is happy to get shots for rabies, tetanus and antibiotics, but I think assuming that everyone should be injected with all possible germs found in fecal matter and rotten dead carcasses, “killed” with toxic chemical baths, in a society where it’s NOT the standard for people to shit in a cup and toss it in the gutter in the morning, and never take a bath, and step in horse shit every day, and let rats run through the house, I think this needs to be re-thunk.
My 2¢
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Well the way to talk to people is by RESPECTING them. I am SICK of hearing “anti-vaxxers” as if it’s acceptable. I’ll tell you who believes in vaccines. Vaxx-‘Em-More-ons. Only Vaxxemorons, mindless dumb asses who don’t know how to think for themselves, would EVER believe that pumping babies full of countless varieties of diseased rotting flesh, bacteria and poisonous chemicals has NO side effects whatsoever. If you can’t RESPECT another point of view, whether you feel the same or not, then YOU’RE the dumbass, I say. Now show me how much bullshit you can stuff into a sentence, please.
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There is nothing else like being in a tornado. I was in a little cinder block gas station building when a tornado passed over (it was nearly horizontal, or I probably wouldn’t be telling you this now). The front doors were sucked completely open, it went from sunny to nearly pitch black and all you could see outside looked like the static on a TV screen. The air pressure changed instantly and a loud roar passed by. Two giant trees were knocked over and there was no way to get out of the parking lot until several more drivers came by and helped us move the trees. My car was moved several feet and was a little marked up but was OK.
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I talk to far more women than I do men, and I’ve been married 30+ years. Practically the first thing I told my wife when I met her was that I was going to talk to whomever I pleased. I don’t care who her male friends are either. If you can’t trust someone it doesn’t help to share passwords and all that crap.
I think the real problem with most modern relationships is nobody wants to fulfill the female role. Women all want to be strong, strong, strong and when they screw it up men are too timid to tell them to get out of the way and let a man do it. As a result, he whimpers in the corner while she shows off how strong she is, and then bitches at him for not doing what she REALLY wants him to do – but can’t possibly say without compromising her “strength” – which is take over. A woman can’t be both a damsel in distress and a dragon slayer, and a man can’t save a woman from a dragon when she insists on carrying the sword.
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it always helps to have a structure people can relate to, and I find geometry to be an excellent coat-rack. Ask a carpenter why rooms are square (it’s the most practical use of space) but why triangles reinforce the corners (they’re inherently strong and stable and squares aren’t) and relate that to the Lagrangian points in the orbits of planets (the apexes of a triangulation of the orbit), When talking to an astronomer work the other way; relate the Lagrangian points to the architecture of a house. When talking with a merchant ask why items are ordered by fours or sixes or dozens or by the gross (far more efficient to ship than by fives and tens and hundreds) and then remark on the geometry of the base-twelve system he or she uses in this very practical way vs. the totally impractical base-ten counting system which will never be used to ship merchandise (and which I think should be scrapped entirely, forget the metric system!). Relate that to the way atoms line up to form hexagonal crystals which are very strong (quartz) or squares which are totally crumbly (salt). Ask the pizza guy why pizzas aren’t cut in five slices instead of six, and ask the drunk in the bar why the little bubbles in beer line up in triangles. Everyone can relate to geometry, whether they know it or not.
I always start readings or discussions with flat-out scientific facts first–this planet has more mass than this one, thus greater gravity; this one moves faster than that one, when the sun is rising people (creatures, plants) are getting up and starting things, when it’s setting they’re shutting things down, there’s more things going on when the full moon is out because there’s more light, the weather in the middle month of a season is much more predictable than it is in the first or last months; even such things as the southern hemisphere has much more water and far fewer people than the northern (this covers why leo is different from aquarius, etc.), why mercury and venus are always close to the sun, what is a retrograde planet etc From there it’s much easier to say this sign is this way *because*, or mars in libra means so-and-so *because*, and so forth.
If you don’t start somewhere, you don’t start. If you read what I wrote, you’ll see I also give a good grounding to *what* and *why* the ascendant and midheaven are what they are and *how* they work. “Size or mass contributes nothing towards potency” may be partially true (the ascendant and midheaven are geometric foci of energy, which not only correlate to mass but are the entire basis of the natal chart) but is absolutely no place to start a discussion with anyone who doesn’t understand the most basic nuts-and-bolts of astrology, particularly if they’re of a scientific bent.
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Walter Williams column July 10, ’15:
Let’s list major problems affecting black Americans. Topping the list is the breakdown in the black family, where only a third of black children are raised in two-parent households. Actually, the term “breakdown” is incorrect. Families do not form in the first place. Nationally, there is a black illegitimacy rate of 72 percent. In some urban areas, the percentage is much greater. Blacks constitute more than 50 percent of murder victims, where roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered each year. Ninety-five percent of the time, the perpetrator is another black. If a black youngster does graduate from high school, it is highly likely that he can read, write and compute no better than a white seventh- or eighth-grader. These are the major problems that face black Americans.
Let’s look at some of the strategy since the beginning of the civil rights movement. The black power movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s held that black underrepresentation in the political arena was a major problem. It was argued that the election of more black officials as congressmen, mayors and city council members would mean economic power, better neighborhoods and better schools. Forty-three years ago, there were roughly 1,500 black elected officials nationwide. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, by 2011 there were roughly 10,500 black elected officials, including a black president. But what were the fruits?
By most any measure, the problems are worse. There is the greatest black poverty, poorest education, highest crime and greatest family instability in cities such as: Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala., Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Buffalo, N.Y. The most common characteristic of these predominantly black cities is that, for decades, all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations. What’s more is that in most of these cities, blacks have been mayors, chiefs of police, school superintendents and principals and have dominated city councils.
Political power has not lived up to its billing.
So what should black politicians and activists now be focused on to address some of the problems confronting black people? Let’s look at some of the fiddling by some black politicians, white liberals and some intimidated white conservatives. How about banning the Confederate flag from public places because it is alleged to be a symbol of slavery? What would that do for black problems? By the way, one could make the case for also banning the American flag. Slave ships sailed under the American flag.
What about Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s proposal to “help” his black constituents? He has proposed to dig up the bodies of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife and remove them from a city park. One wonders whether he thinks marshaling resources to do that is more important than dealing with the city’s 145 murders, 320 rapes, 6,900 aggravated assault calls, and 3,000 robberies. All of the Memphis black homicide victims were murdered by other blacks.
What about a ban on the use of the “racist” term “thug” in reference to black criminals looting stores? How about a ban on “stop and frisk” and proactive policing as a measure to increase public safety in high-crime neighborhoods? What about more teaching, as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has done, that what blacks need to fear most are white policemen?
In the wake of the Charleston murders, some people promote the false narrative that it’s white racists who are the interracial murderers. That’s nonsense. FBI crime victimization surveys show that blacks commit 80 percent of all interracial violent crime.
The bottom line is that even if white people were to become angels tomorrow, it would do nothing for the problems plaguing a large segment of the black community. Illegitimacy, family breakdown, crime and fraudulent education are devastating problems, but they are not civil rights problems. There is little or nothing that government or white people can do to solve these problems. The solution lies with black people.
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My sister-in-law was kind of of a pain–very intrusive; not that we didn’t love her but she had no concept of what was her business and what was others. When she’d visit she’d go through our underwear drawers. She’d ask questions about the personal lives of OUR friends whom she’d never met, call us up with every little detail of gossip; never failed to interrupt my wife at the ONE time on the ONE day she told her NOT to call–8 pm on Thursday when “Mystery” was on (this was before VCRs were widespread). She’d keep us particularly well informed about a junkie ex-husband of my sister, a former friend of mine, to the point I finally told her, “Anne, the only thing I want to hear about Kevin is that he’s dead”. It was good sometimes, she knew everyone’s birthday, what their relation was to us, who was a third cousin and who was a fifth cousin and how many kids they had and how many times the wife had been divorced or whether the husband had been to prison. The one thing she never failed to bring up was when mercury was going retro. Every time, she’d call and I’d answer questions–for twenty-five years. When she died I completely forgot to check the calendar and missed merc retro totally, wasn’t even aware until about 2-1/2 weeks had passed. Only then I went over all the crazy things that were happening and thought, OH MY GOD! Without even realizing it, I’d relied on her calls so much, it was such a part of the scenery, that I didn’t even check it for myself anymore!
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Regarding the quincunx, it’s an aspect between two signs of different sex, element and quality. Crazy but unrequited sexual tension develops, towards the dexter or right-hand sign. Thus aries (fire, cardinal) is ardently attracted to virgo (earth, mutable), but virgo is fixing dinner for aquarius (air, fixed), who isn’t hungry. Aquarius is puzzling over cancer instead, cancer is mooning over sagittarius, sagittarius targets taurus while taurus waits on libra, libra sings to pisces and pisces writes poems for leo, who’s trying to impress capricorn. Capricorn wants to catch gemini but gemini is pulling hair over scorpio, who’s trying every possible trick to attract aries. I’ve never seen it fail. The yod is two quincunxes, one to the left and one to the right, but both from a male to two female or a female to two male signs, none of them of the same element or quality whatsoever. This is why the yod has so much nonsense written about it. It’s an intense and sexual attraction between signs which have nothing in common at all. Adapt this to your interpretation as you see fit!
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Some Erotica
You know, I have a hard time with names, but I never forget a pussy.
Betsy, or Susan, or whatever your name, don’t think I’ve forgotten you, because I never will. and what’s in a name anyway? I can see your face, your lovely lips, your soft and smooth and willing flesh, scented of roses and coconut, or citrus. Your pussy is sticky, stiff around the edge. It’s squishy inside, and feels flat when I lay my dick on it, even though it isn’t. I love to slip down into that warm strawbelly jam, to be coated, enveloped. When we move your nipples gyrate, and sometimes get twisted into my chest hair. I love you from the back side, too, Shari or Donna, when your smooth butt rubs my abdomen and my hands wrap around your peaches, or melons or cherries. I remember you, Brenda, and your hand around my shaft, when I think about leaving the woman who makes fun of me. I used to remember your phone number, but it’s been years and who uses phone numbers anymore? It’s been so many years up and down and in and out I don’t remember anything about you but your curves, your liquid, languid curves.
I remember, Connie, how I met you at the club and when you told me your name was Cheryl I told you it wasn’t. When it was time for your dance you stood before me, naked, and I, against the rules and the law, let my fingers twirl through your pussy hair and felt your hot syrup drip. And Debbie, when I was dressed like a girl at the Halloween party, you in a toga came up and told me you’d never kissed another girl. I said I hadn’t either, and a silly kiss became a lightning strike. Suddenly your tongue was hot and your belly warm and your tits heaving against me filled my chest from bicep to bicep. I held you close and when I let go the shadows on your toga revealed a damp cunt. My girl didn’t like it at all, and I heard your boyfriend didn’t either.
And other Debbie, you were so full and sweaty and fat and sassy under that sundress that you looked pregnant, but when my boner pressed against your pussy it didn’t feel pregnant. I know what pregnant pussy feels like; hard and round but cool, sticky but not wet. It was a sin for the ex-nun Judy. I looked her full in the face, her belly big against mine, breasts engorged, husband god knows where. Cousin Mindy was in the next room, and it took a week for Mindy and I to get over the weirdness before we fucked, on a mattress out back, Mindy stiff and hairless down there, maybe a virgin though I didn’t ask and me almost technically a virgin as well. I told her she was great, though I really didn’t know We did it three more times and gloried in our fabulous grown-uppedness.
Mindy’s friend Joni’s let her boobs run wild and free under her blouse, milky white and pale like her eyes. I looked deep into your eyes, Joni, and when we kissed I felt you up. My fingers tasted salty and I dreamed of you naked, with your legs spread slightly and your cunt cracked open just a little. I kept my hand in your cleavage when we laid on the floor talking. I was happy for both of you when you left on a road trip with Derek, even though I’d never fitted my penis into your butt crack or got it salty except for the little bit of your creaminess I smeared on the slit of my dick head.
It was different with Sally. The solid stiff top curve of her very roomy cunt rode the bottom vein of my cock when I stuffed it in from behind. I came all over her cunt lips, which spread out like butterfly wings. It dripped down into her ass crack, and I creamed my own balls. We smeared the fluids around, grinding leg to cunt and dick to tit. Sally grabbed my joint. We kissed each other with salty tongues and fingers in motion, then licked it all off, skipped supper, did it in the shower and on a bed of fresh linen. The next day we wore swimwear, and I kept my hand on her ass cheek while hers fiddled with my cock. When crumbs fell in her belly button I reached over, one hand cupping a nipple and a thumb on her clit. She arched her back as I licked up the crumbs and sucked them out of her navel, breathing deeply the sweet sandy scent of day old bikini bottoms with pussy inside. We left the beach, and parted ways.
Georgia, you were tiny, but voluptuous, and when you lifted your leg I slipped it in. I couldn’t kiss you, only smell your hair and feel your huge titties against my stomach. I grabbed your ass cheeks and pushed hard as you licked and sucked and bit my nipples. When we came you grunted softly, and smiled.
It was easy to slip it to Jean. She had pock marks on her face and funny looking purple scars she called keloids, but her body was smooth and when she pulled off her panties I pulled her on top of me, pushing my cock into her rough-cut honey pot while she said oh, what the hell. Jean was occasionally dry, but a few drops of ice water from last night’s drinks would start the penetration, her pubis and my dick hairs icy but her pussy lips grabbing my shaft tight. We’d rub together and mix it up in her vaginal chamber like a cup of creamed corn. When I passed through Texas she was mine but when I left we fucked who we chose, for five years. Sometimes she had a boy friend or I had a girl back home. We’d go out for burritos, hug and maybe kiss but it went no further. If unattached, we spent every day together.
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it’s like riding a bike; you learn your balance point side-to-side on a bike and pretty soon can ride it with no hands. Once you’ve learned to mount a unicycle, and to land on your feet and send the unicycle flying instead of you (which is why unicycles have bumper rods on the front & back of the seat!) you’re simply finding an additional balance, a pivot point, front-to-back. It’s approximately an inch or so behind your belly button. Find it, feel it, and you’re a master!
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I talk to far more women than I do men, and I’ve been married 30+ years. Practically the first thing I told my wife when I met her was that I was going to talk to whomever I pleased. I don’t care who her male friends are either. If you can’t trust someone it doesn’t help to share passwords and all that crap.
I think the real problem with most modern relationships is nobody wants to fulfill the female role. Women all want to be strong, strong, strong and when they screw it up men are too timid to tell them to get out of the way and let a man do it. As a result, he whimpers in the corner while she shows off how strong she is, and then bitches at him for not doing what she REALLY wants him to do – but can’t possibly say without compromising her “strength” – which is take over. A woman can’t be both a damsel in distress and a dragon slayer, and a man can’t save a woman from a dragon when she insists on carrying the sword.
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I don’t know if “briefly” is possible! 😉 I started shining shoes in my father’s barber shop at age 11; worked in a grocery store from 16-18, then the family moved to Hollywood and we had a family band as well as a family business renting tools & equipment in West Hollywood, which I managed half the week. After 1-1/2 years of that I moved back to Colorado for a year where I worked for awhile cleaning up at the Air Force base and later on a landscaper crew, then sold Cutco knives briefly & moved back to NC where the rest of my family had inherited a dilapidated farm. I helped fix up the farmhouse etc. and at the end of December 1973 joined the Navy, was a machinist mate but got discharged after a year. I was a dishwasher, etc, for awhile and was going to school on the GI bill, took welding, machine shop, sales/marketing and then had an astrology/palmistry shop with a friend; it was under the same roof as a jewelry/crafts shop on the other side and I took to making puzzle rings. I ended up thumbing around the country pretty much continuously from 1978-82, selling rings & staying with friends or sleeping under bridges and coming back to NC a couple times a year to tend to the farm trimming Christmas trees, which I sold in Austin, Texas each Christmas. I met my wife in 1983 and went back to school for a year, took a lot of temporary jobs laying rock, roofing houses, carpentry, cleaning up etc. in the meantime and always making jewelry, toys & other crafts; I eventually ended up making more stained glass kaleidoscopes than anything else from about 1985 on, but I also was a carpenter making storage buildings for awhile and then managed a health food store for a year. About 1993 I volunteered as an English teacher to Spanish immigrants and took some more Spanish classes, then got a few jobs as a foreman over a Spanish-speaking crew in print shops, etc. until in 1998 I started selling sex toys, etc. for Adam & Eve and running the Spanish & foreign language department for them, such as it was (pretty much a one-man operation with a bunch of phrase books). I quit that in 2001 and briefly had a job estimating for a vinyl fencing company before getting 2 jobs on practically the same day, interpreting for Wrangler jeanswear, who’d moved all their production to the Caribbean (they’d let go 3000 people that year and hired one guy–me) and a part-time job with the college teaching English to Spanish speakers. Held both those jobs until late 2004, then worked briefly and VERY unhappily as customer service for Cingular cell phones. Got a job with Rent-A-Center in 2005, kept it until 2007, my father died in February, then worked as a salesman for the local paper for a few months before returning to Adam & Eve for another 4-1/2 years.Had surgery for a detached retina in 2010 or thereabouts. Wrote 1000 pages of my memoirs mostly on my lunch hour during this time. Left Adam & Eve quite furious at them on the 4th of January 2012, injured my left shoulder that summer, worked as an appliance salesman that Oct-Dec and was again out of work until spring 2013 when I worked cleaning up at the rest stop until I injured my RIGHT shoulder that summer! Got a part-time job with Michaels Arts & Crafts in July or August as a framer but in the middle of 2014 cut my left wrist severely and was on worker’s comp for several months. Currently I still work at Michaels but not framing; mostly stocking shelves and occasionally interpreting & running a cash register. All along I’ve made crafts; right now I’ve been making more bamboo flutes than anything else. I counted up all of them and in my life I’ve held about 75 jobs in 50 years!
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It can be boredom and immaturity, but there are all kinds of reasons people look outside of marriage, etc. When someone, male or female, feels like hell, furious and depressed, floundering, trying not to drown, and another person comes into their life who brings a smile to their face after a long dead while, sometimes this leads down a rabbit hole – and sometimes this person is simply a reminder of how life used to be, and there comes a desperation to recapture what is lost. This isn’t just playing around, this is a deadly serious attempt to breathe when a relationship has become suffocating. It’s easy to tell people what’s right, what they should do, but can be hell to do it. I think the main reason people cheat is their spouse thinks they own them. Nobody owns anyone, married or not. This makes the owned spouse subject to the judgments and whims of the owner, begging for crumbs, trying harder and harder and harder to please, and the marriage becomes not equal but beggar/boss or master/slave. At this point there’s no logic left and the slave, scared and intimidated, will do anything to break free, right or wrong or logical or smart or deceptive or stupid or crazy, because anything, anything is better than what they have and any action at all seems like the right one. I’m not saying it’s always like this but it certainly is sometimes. My 2¢, and 33 years of marriage.
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+Kitten Holiday I totally agree, pissing each other off is life, and an important part of a relationship.
I’m not in the market, gals, I’ve been married for over 30 years (just once, by the way) so what I’m saying isn’t anything but the advice I give to friends with crappy love lives, like mine was in the last millennium.
Some things never change, and never will. Women who are worth a man’s time don’t want a guy who’s always “nice”, they want a challenge. A guy who ignores a woman who’s being a pain (and she knows when she’s being a pain as well as he does) is a challenge; a guy who cries and pleads and begs at the first heated words is boring and a wimp.
And by the way romance is indeed a game. A wonderful, totally fun, fulfilling, flirtatious, lifelong game, and a game in which you trust, respect and appreciate the other person and their abilities, value their viewpoints and strengths and love them enough not to hurt them, because it’s a game where people who don’t follow the rules hurt the ones they should care about. It’s not a game to stumble blindly through, wrecking everything by not following rules. It’s the most fun game of all, but it’s also serious. It’s for real.
I’d rather speak my mind and have a woman be furious with me than have her ignore me because she’s bored to tears. You can’t make up if you never fight. If a woman wants to walk, that’s fine, too, because some women are my type and others ain’t worth my time. If she ain’t worth my time, I’d certainly rather lose her than waste my time.
I’m OK either way. 😉
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2016–What bothers me the most about this campaign is the nastiness directed at Bernie Sanders and his supporters by Clinton and her supporters. Bernie has gone out of his way to be civil but I have been told literally dozens of times that because I prefer Bernie I’m “flushing my vote away”, I’m “letting Hitler win”, etc. to the point where a couple days ago I ended my affiliation with the Democratic party, and I’m the guy who wore a Kennedy pin in his first-grade school photo. I wasn’t inclined to bash “the other”–there’s no “others” anymore–and in fact until a few months ago I supported Hillary, with a few reservations. I now, without ANY reservations, DO NOT support her AT ALL, nor do I support a Democratic party which believes the way to victory is amassing the most money from the richest, bullying the rest into submission and force feeding them the choice of the corporate overlords. I am now proud to be an INDEPENDENT and will vote for whom I please, regardless of how it affects the soulless and corrupt remnants of what was formerly a proud and worthy Democratic party. Bernie or bust!
I’ve never really liked Hillary, though I voted for Bill twice. Ross Perot had interested me before he dropped out and back in, in 1992, but the second time I held my nose and voted for Clinton over yet another World War II guy running things, though I wasn’t happy with Bill in 1996. Hillary reminds me of an old girl friend I didn’t so much break up with as escaped from. She’d be a great grandma, telling stories to little ones, but in the car on the way home we’d have to tell the kids how grandma makes things up sometimes and gently but firmly refuse her offer to stay with us for more than a week. As a president she’d be a disaster pure and simple.
I liked her well enough last October. Her actions since then have thoroughly disgusted me.She plays the political game very well, but it’s a crooked game, and I’m sick of it.Sarah Silverman explains it very well–when everyone in baseball was “juiced”, you may not have liked it but that was the way it was, and you still had your favorites, etc., but when you see there’s a better way, you KNOW it’s better and you want it to be played THAT way. That’s what Bernie has done. He’s shown everyone that you DON”T need $100,000-a-plate dinners and it’s BETTER, and he’s BETTER, and I can’t support the other way any more, because I never liked that kind of way of playing the game to begin with, even though I knew everyone WAS doing it. I like Drumpf considerably less than Bernie, but he IS playing the game differently and he’s NOT a Bush or Clinton, both families multi-multi-millionaires who’ve been running the country like their personal club for the last 36 years and ready to make it 40 (there’s been a Bush or Clinton in one of the top three offices in the land for 32 of the last 36 years, and W. actually called Bill “my brother from another mother”). That’s enough. I’m not voting to keep the oligarchy in power no matter HOW much they spend to tell me it’s inevitable; Bernie or bust for me, and if not him then it’s gonna be Trump, because I can tell you for a fact that Hillary can’t win.
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The parallel when considering a void-of-course moon–
good question! Since declination is geometry on a different plane, I think it should also be considered, but I don’t think about it in quite the same way. I like to think of the geometry of aspects in two ways~visual and musical.
The declination determines if the moon is “parallel” or “contraparallel” to a planet, which is an astrological way of saying they’re lined up along the celestial equator (think of this as a circle drawn around the earth at an angle which crosses the equator at two points, on one side touches the tropic of cancer and the other the tropic of capricorn).
When the planets or the moon are in parallel it adds power to another aspect, since the geometry of the aspect is precise along two planes rather than one, but of itself the parallel doesn’t “activate” an aspect which isn’t there. It’s like running a pick down a guitar string vertically, rather than striking it horizontally. This sets up a harmonic on the string, but it’s more of a subterranean vibe and a background effect rather than the definite power of striking the string directly. So yeah, the parallel should be considered, but not as a call to action; it’s an aid to getting organized rather than striking out in a new direction. My 2¢, hope it helps.

To Tammy on father’s day–
Tammy, don’t ever feel that you “have to” forgive anybody, for any reason. It’s not an obligation. You may want to be a good Christian, and for that reason hear, or feel, forgiveness is “necessary”, or want it to be so, but as a good, honest, true, HUMAN SOUL, your forgiveness, or lack of it, comes from within YOUR heart, not anyone else’s, and not to please anyone else. Don’t listen to those who speak of “obligations”. They don’t have your life, your soul, and cannot tell you what is within, or should be within, your heart. Be true to yourself. Be true to your heart. Be true to your soul. Don’t pretend. Don’t make excuses for those who haven’t asked for and are not deserving of your forgiveness–on YOUR part, not anyone else’s, not the church, not “God”, for true forgiveness will never make you feel bad, or lessen your SELF-respect. If you cannot forgive, in your heart, or simply don’t wish to, that doesn’t diminish you, as a person or as a dignified and worthy soul, for it isn’t for others to read your heart. Be true to your heart. Much love, from your cousin, ~DJ

I think the laws against, essentially, being Jewish, were for all intents and purposes ex post facto laws. I don’t see an existential problem in this instance (the Nuremburg trials), which I’d characterize as using an ex post facto law to counterbalance the use of a previous ex post facto law which executed others. There is no compensation which can be given back to the dead.
That said I don’t believe defending or denying the holocaust, questioning its extent, etc. is beyond the pale of free speech. There are legitimate reasons one could question the official narrative, the most obvious being that Stalin was infamous for suppressing and rewriting history to justify the execution of his enemies~by the millions, even tens of millions~and virtually all the death camps were found in territory overrun by the Soviets. Stalin would routinely execute not only the witnesses but the families of those whose testimony went against him as well. If those who testified at the Nuremberg trials had relatives in Russia they knew very well that anything they said which would cast a bad light Stalin’s way, rather than towards the greatest enemy of Stalin’s entire life~Hitler~then the lives of their wives, children, parents, sisters, cousins would be forfeit. That’s not an atmosphere in which the truth is likely to be revealed.

Remember what vaccines are actually made of–feces, dead rotting corpses, fermented animal dander and every disgusting thing on earth, bathed in toxic chemicals and injected into your child seventy times or more. No surprise that many children have bad reactions. The medical establishment plays percentages; if 90% of children are OK after the vaccines that’s the end of the story for them; the idea is that everyone is better off because only 10% have a problem. If your kid is one of that 10% you’ll see it differently!
—————-

Memorial Day 2009–I know memorial day is a day to hang around in your underwear and drink beer, and it’s sort of a downer to mention it, but I just saw the story of Eddie Hart on UNC-TV; he was killed in action in Germany on the same day Roosevelt died, and I didn’t realize until tonight that he was in the same battalion as my father–the 83rd, although it would be a big surprise if they ever met, as my father was in Company B and Eddie was in Company G, and my father was captured in November
of ’44 while most of the action covered in the story takes place some months later. In any case I visited Fredericksburg a month ago, and it was an almost surreal experience–you climb the hill where the fighting took place, and there are the graves of over 15,000 soldiers, over 12,000 unknown. The graves of the known have a round-top
tombstone, but the unknown have a little granite marker about 6″ square with a number on it–and often another number underneath. It looks as if about half the graves have a name on them, until you start looking at the little markers, and some of them have a number on top and no number underneath–one guy buried there. Go along the rows,
though, and you start seeing 2 and 3 underneath the number–2 guys, or 3, buried there. Go a little further to where the fighting got more intense and you see 4 and 5 and 7. Finally at the top of the hill the markers say 9 or 11 or 15, and you’re standing on a spot where fifteen guys are buried, nobody knows who, and likely none of them lived half
as long as I have now.
The next day we went to Washington DC; in the morning we saw the Bureau of Engraving and watched millions of dollars being printed right before our eyes, then went to see the memorials and waited to meet my sister, she works in DC. They have a wall at the WWII memorial with a star on it for every soldier lost in the war, and believe me
there are lots of little gold stars. After that we went to the Vietnam memorial; at first I thought I’d read through all the names until I came to Dave Tiffany–I’ve mentioned him before, he was my friend and was in the Memorial Day issue of Life magazine, 40 years ago today; he’d moved away to California the year before and I didn’t know he’d
joined the army (though I knew he’d planned to) and when I was thumbing through the magazine came across his picture–David Lewis Tiffany, 19, Riverside, California. He had just turned 19, not more than one or two weeks before, and now he was in Life magazine, in the One Week’s Toll of the Dead in Vietnam, Memorial Day issue. I had a
general idea of the sector in which I’d find him, but it soon became clear I’d spend the rest of the day looking if I did it that way so I went over to the registry and looked him up–he was on something like the 28th panel, 12th line from the top, and I had to jump to touch his name.
We had a really good vacation; I hadn’t had 2 weeks off in 5 years or more, and even though I was getting over the swine flu enjoyed myself thoroughly, swimming every day, playing my banjo on the porch–and I’m damned glad I’m here today and not some marker in a field somewhere with “USN” on it.
~DJ
——————–
Feb ’07
Hi Eileen–
> “Whenever God Closes One Door He Always Opens Another, Even Though Sometimes It’s Hell in the Hallway”I think I’m in the hallway!I’ll be changing jobs after next week, I busted up my elbow & shoulder when the lift gate collapsed on me & said to hell with this, I’ve busted my toe, my thumb & now this for the company, & I’m not ever gonna go anywhere in Rent-A-Center because I insist on my day off instead of working 60 hours when I’m scheduled for 48, & now I’m using up my dental benefits; my  mouth hurts, my shoulder, my elbow, my back, my father’s dead, I’ll owe about $500 for the dental work on top of the insurance when it’s all done, which it’s not yet, I have another several fillings to go. But–it’ll be a better job, more pay with fewer broken bones, I’m excited about it and mercury’s retrograde now, which will last for about another week. I can deal with it!~DJ& moreOMG Eileen I am clueless what to say. I was going to tell you abt my cousin dying this past week. In the past 2 yrs. I’ve lost 9 kin or friends, but jeez nothing as dramatic as that. Plz send me your phone #. I got a new job 2 wks ago, selling ads for the local “gossip sheet”, the Alamance News. This week I got over $1000 in sales, which meant I got a $50 bonus on top of my reg. 10% commission. My boss had to pull out the contract & check it, nobody’d ever made a bonus before!!  I made more this week working 32 hours than I’d made at my last job working 48 hrs., in fact it’s the best paycheck I’ve made in abt 5 yrs. Please call, I have the weekend off. Don’t know what to do with myself; I haven’t had a regular schedule for the past 3 yrs or so, much less a relaxed workweek. I went out to see a couple bands tonite, most of the guys were in my regular Boys’ Night group (we meet every 3rd Tuesday). I played cowbell and so got to sign the poster!!
Good luck,
Much love,~DJ— Eileen Malay <malaydi_3@hotmail.com> escribió: Life just does not get more exciting than this.  I lived at 303 Gere Avenue in Syracuse up until St. Patrick’s day when my landlord and resident in the apartment next to mine decided to shoot his oldest son, his wife and eventually himself.  The police were unaware that I was in the house and the story they are putting out about that leaves acres of wiggle room.  They blew out the living room window where I was sitting, then the bedroom window, then two kitchen windows.  My initial take on the situation was that someone with a shotgun was firing at the house and after I got done running around upstairs trying to find a “safe spot” I finally had the presence of mind to grab my cellphone from the top of the fridge where it was recharging and made a low crawl to the cellar.  Heading down the cellar stairs, I finally realized I was having a coughing fit and was being gassed and thus under attack by the police.  All part of the great mystery at that time but after I called 911 the swat team came and got me out of the house. The police did not have an EMT check me over after this or tell me that the clothing I had on was toxic.  I know that I was bombed with 3 different types of CS gas, a veritable chemical cocktail.  Now ten days later, the police say that they have to coordinate with the city police, state police and sheriff’s office to determine exactly what they used and what the concentration was.  Ooooh they noses is so gonna grow.  I had to call them a day later to find out when/if I could get stuff out of the apartment, since I had no clothing, and my automobile which was parked outside of the apartment. Had to call them back Tuesday and they let me take my car which had been contaminated from the fallout gas and residue from the house which made me have an even more serious chemical reaction than I was already having.  The next day the had the car towed to a place that puts on protective gear to clean police vehicles and they gave me a ride to the emergency room -at my
request.  Of course, my work insurance paid most of it but I have to pay the $100 deductible.  The PA who checked me out never asked what dosage I inhaled or over what length of time I was exposed. She sent me home with the advice to drink lots of water and get fresh air.  She told me she looked up tear gas on the internet before she spoke with me so she would know what to recommend.  Six hours in the emergency room just to learn my lungs and blood work looked OK, my blood pressure was fine and I don’t have diabetes. AHHH gotta love the silver lining. Drove my supposedly clean car Friday and got sicker…yadda yadda got no car but my insurance will cover a rental until they can figure out how to determine whether it’s a total loss.  So I have missed five unpaid workdays so far, my house is labeled a health hazard and my son and I have been told that we may never get much, if anything back…It’s a Hazmat, DEC nightmare in a residential area.  What were they thinking? The never provided me with a place to stay.  I have been sleeping on my sister’s couch trying to move from shock and tears to the angry part.  As my friend Chris says, I have been behaving like the perfect victim. The police did give me $1,000 to pay for work clothes so I could go back to work and they say they can give me $4,000 more if I fill out an application and agree to never sue them.  Ummm, I don’t think so.  The lawyers I work for say I should take the deal, so I contacted another lawyer that a reporter with Channel 5 News referred me to and he immediately said, “Don’t sign anything.”  Much more encouraging response since I still don’t know what the long term health effects could be according to the AMA.  The internet says that I breathed enough in 5-7 minutes to kill the average human.  Guess those that watch over me were working overtime that day. The hardest part is that my son, who you know is a veteran of the war in Iraq (2 tours with 9 years total in the Army) had all his military records, uniforms, commendations, awards, pictures and memorabilia-everything but his work clothes and hockey equipment in the apartment and still have not had the courtesy to call him about the status of their retrieval. He has called them several times requesting info to no avail.  So we got a ways to go and no way of knowing whether we will ever be compensated for our loss. My son and his girlfriend have rented a two bedroom apartment in Fulton and, since I am sick and homeless, they have offered to let me stay with them until I get some of this resolved.  I am seeing a doctor tomorrow and hope that I will be able to go back to work soon.  I don’t have an address as yet but will have mail forwarded as soon as I have a car and can get to the post office. This e-mail address is good but I don’t have daily access to a computer.  I would say call my cell but really guys my bill is $200 just from this week and going up so e-mail is best.
Say a prayer for us.  If we create our own reality, I need to go back to school.  Ah well, hindsight may tell me I did a great job on this scenario. As my son used to say, “how bad can it be mom, they aren’t shooting at us, are they?”  Wanna bet?
Love and blessing to you all.
Eileen& 2010
jeez! glad you’re OK!
A couple yrs ago I was driving back from work in a little ratty old Honda I had at the time and was actually CHARGED by a big stupid buck! I tried to get over but took a pretty good chunk out of his neck, he ran off and I don’t know if he made it or not. The Honda already had damage to that fender from a wreck about a week before, so I went to the junkyard and got another fender but couldn’t say how much damage from the deer and how much from the other car (which they never paid–expired insurance–but it was only $50 or so anyway and didn’t really hurt the value of the car, it was a rust bucket to start with).
Also last yr I hit a deer in the Cadillac, it was foggy and I came around the curve, slowed down and wasn’t going more than 15 or 20, didn’t do any damage except broke the little plastic adjuster for one of the headlights, which I replaced for about $2. The deer didn’t like it but ran off and was probably sore but OK.
Perri and the kids are coming back this week, been away for 6 weeks. Change of routine again!
12/06
OMG that “teamwork” one reminds me of some cats my parents had twenty or 30 years ago–one or two of them would push on the front door, while one climbed up the
screen door, then dropped down and  grabbed and turned the front door knob. The door would swing open a bit and all would get in the house!!
Hope your Xmas is going well. We put up our tree yesterday–the little ones are definitely in the spirit!
~DJ
Possible duplicate: Well, we’ve pretty much covered the life history thing.  Just read a cool article on Robert Moss’ website about dreaming and the new work he’s doing
with people…really cool and a really interesting guy.
Eileen
Bicycles

Thu, 7 Oct 2004

Hey Eileen–
I know how it is. My father was a tyrant too. I never thought of him as alcoholic at the time, but Denver was recently declared “the drunkest city in America”,
and it was a relative thing. Many of his friends were hopeless, chronic drunks and he wasn’t quite like that. He wouldn’t drink until after work, but he’d finish off a six-pack before coming home, then drink several more beers before dinner while picking on me for whatever imaginary thing I hadn’t done that day. It was a ritual. He smoked about 3 packs a day too. I had the misfortune of being the smartest kid in the most paranoid state in the union; Colorado was where they made the atomic bombs and dug out the mountain to put the government in. My fate was sealed; I was to be a rocket scientist, everyone knew it and if I didn’t want to be one, the whole world would die. I was promoted in the first grade and spent the rest of my school years separated from my brothers and sisters, the youngest, smartest kid in class and the most socially maladjusted. I had precious few friends and no girlfriends at all.
When I turned 16, I got a station wagon, and spent all my time in it or at my best friend’s house. I never came home except when I was certain my father wasn’t there.
I graduated high school while I was still 16. Had I not graduated, I wouldn’t have gone back. I got a job working the night shift and stayed away from home. One mnight I had my first sexual experience, but it wasn’t nice, I had a knife at my throat and I don’t like to talk about it. The cops were absolutely no help; for years afterward I hated anything in blue with a blind fury.
My brother starred in a Disney movie, and wrote the title song–at 11 he was the youngest member of ASCAP ever–the first movie ever shot in Telluride, Colorado. Since my parents had been in show biz all along, we formed a family band and moved to Hollywood. Two years in Hollywood and I was pretty near insane, but a month or so before leaving I actually met a girl. I moved back to Denver while the rest of my family moved to North Carolina. I wrote her several times a week and some months later she came through to see me–traveling with my younger brother, whom she decided on the train she loved as well. I didn’t hold it against her, but it wasn’t much of a confidence builder either, especially as my brother already had plenty of female attention. I was 21 before I had another girlfriend. I had several in my twenties, but never kept any for long. I hate to sound like I have a clue what it’s like to lose a fiance. I don’t, but I do want to tell you about our friend Cindy, who lost her fiance a few months before we met her, and spent the next 15 years or so with totally wrong men–married, or just losers. She’d stay with them in these idiotic relationships for years. I finally took her aside about 7 years ago and had a heart-to-heart talk with her about it. She admitted she knew all these guys were wrong from the start, but it was easier to lose them that way. She then found a good fellow, and they have 2 kids.
Finally I really want to tell you I totally disagree that you are selfish for raising a child. Nobody has all the answers. You do the best you can, and that’s the best anyone can do. You are not selfish. I wish I’d have had the choice. On three occasions, I’d have been happy to have a child, but she decided to abort–twice I didn’t even know about it til afterward, which pretty well wrecked the romance–and once it was Perri, after we’d been married a year or so. Before we had kids we’d talked–or better to say she’d unilaterally decided–for 16 years. I made it clear when I came back to her if we didn’t have kids in the plan I’d have left for good.Everyone’s different. My sister’s kids would have been better off never having had their father in their lives. I told my sister-in-law (who keeps up with the gossip) that there was only one thing I wanted to hear about kevin–that he was dead. It would be better for everyone, including him.
Well Eileen I don’t know where to go from here. You take care of yourself.
Goodnight,
~DJ
Eileen wrote:

Hey David:

About the time you were hitching your way around, I was trying to figure out how I could have been so stupid and selfish as to bring a child into the world without a father.  My father was an absolute tyrant and I was terrified and more than defensive about any man having control over me or my life.  I left home when I was seventeen and didn’t write, call or go home again for five years, I was so mad at my old man. Just took off one night with my backpack, crashed at the house of a guy who was a friend of a friend and stayed there until I’d “gotten rid of” my virginity with him which my father held up as the only thing men really wanted from a woman.  Figured if I got rid of that, I might understand what the big hoopla was all about. Never did, maybe never will.  Traveled where I wanted to, with whom I wanted to and lived my life like a woman who didn’t care what anyone thought about her…and that was the truth.  Finished all but two college courses towards a teaching degree – paid for by waitressing and then, on a whim, took off to Colorado with friends.  Fell in love there finally with a wonderful man – got engaged and then he got killed…I fell apart…quite a revelation for the woman who was always on the move, letting nothing get in her way. Went back to Syracuse and met Jubal’s father…just back from Vietnam…had just left his wife and two children in Florida where she was cheating like crazy on him and, as he found out, had been all the time he’d been overseas.  We were both hurtin’ cowboys…I liked him.  He was and is a good man but I didn’t love him like I had the man I’d lost.  I’ve never loved anyone that much again, except my son…don’t know that I ever will.  Let Jubal’s father know that I wouldn’t marry him or have an abortion if I got pregnant so we’d better be careful, but if I did get pregnant, I’d never ask him for a thing.  Careful is as careful does and some things are just meant to be.  I got pregnant, didn’t get married although he asked me to, kept Jubal, and the rest is history.
What was I thinking?  Not much and not well.  My father had been such a disappointment it never occurred to me that kids needed a father, good or bad.  Jubal has done O.K.,  better than most, but that was the most singularly selfish act of my life.  My son is the best thing that ever happened to me, I hope I live long enough to know he thinks the same of me.
The longest I ever lived with a man was five years when Jubal was little.  I tried but never could seem to figure out how to talk to a man about stuff that was important to me.  Both my parents were alcoholics so communication wasn’t something I had any experience with.  Also, I seemed to pick men who loved to smoke and/or drink like pros.  Not a good combo with my background.  I kept getting cleaner and straighter in my life but those bad boys, how they did love me.  I finally hung up my spurs, pushed away from the table and said no more for me.
I think based on half a lifetimes experience that in order to make it I’d have to be with a man who has a strong love of  “god/goddess” or the force that organizes life in the universes.  Someone who sees me as a mirror, a reflection of what he needs to work on in himself as I see him…a relationship that isn’t an I TRADE YOU.  Guess as we get older lots of stuff that seemed so important just falls away.  It’s still pretty confusing when you’ve got children in the mix.  The buddhists say you grow faster with a partner in life because you can’t hide from your shit.  Guess that means you’ll reach enlightenment before me.  Don’t forget to save me a seat.
Eileen
I’ve been reasonably happy at Rent-A-Center, clearing a little better pay, once I’ve factored in what I was spending on gas money & drive time–I get about 8 hours overtime every week & only drive 4 miles to work instead of 40, so the actual time away from home including drive time is about the same, the paycheck is about the same ($1 less per hour, but always overtime) and the gas & wear and tear on the car is WAY less. I also don’t sit on my butt all day and have lost about 25 pounds, I’m hovering around 200 now for the first time in about 5 years. The store I’ve been at has had some problems, but I haven’t aspired to management, so none of the crap has fallen on my head,
& we’re moving to new and much more spacious quarters in a week or so and things should be looking up. It’s kind of a funny story–when I’d been there a month or
so, my co-worker who’d been hired at the same time got into an argument with the manager, who was a wet-behind-the-ears 21-year-old, about “who his boss was”, since he’d been told 3 different things by the other 3 guys who worked there, and the manager told him that he, and me, were “peons”, and everyone was our boss. I’d been  minding my own business and had nothing to do with the argument, but once I heard that I was a peon I informed the manager that if that was the way he wanted it, I didn’t have any responsibility at all for anything, and for the next several months I did nothing but drive the truck, load the furniture, etc. and didn’t touch any of the accounts, inventory etc. while everyone else caught hell for the store’s performance, which was dismal. Now seven or eight months later there have been five managers, but I’m the senior member of the team, everyone else having been replaced including the guy who hired the original manager! I think things have settled down now though
 and by the process of elimination everyone has to pay attention to me, since I’m the only one who knows all the customers, a position I’d never have been in had I
 not insisted on being a peon all along!
 Take care, hope you have a great summer!
———————————————————-

This guy has had thrice a number of jobs in one year than I’ve had my entire life! ( I’d say close to 30) I’ve never seen anyone so lucky finding jobs and so ridiculous in quitting them, getting fired etc. I’m trying to see what’s going on as well as asking; When is he finally going to settle down into steady work? I’ve also noticed the appearance of a grand trine which I would like some insight into. My attempt at analyzing this is in the comments.

Comments

David A Jones I see he has Saturn in the 6th house. So do I. I’ve always seemed to have trouble with the management of the companies I’ve worked for, usually involving something ethical which I have no intention of doing, and as a result have rarely worked more than 3 years at any job. I’ve always had something crafty on the side, and never felt I HAD to put up with the office politics, but added up I’ve had over 50 jobs in my life (approximately one a year for as long as I was working).  Marie Angela He’s got you beat  David A Jones Oh I don’t doubt it; I’m only pointing out the first thing I saw. Marie Angela Well, thanks for your input. It’s interesting his grand trine falls on all the money making houses, the 2nd, 6th, and 10th. I’m thinking that’s probably why jobs come so easily to him.  Marie Angela I see career, money-making houses to be the 2nd, 6th, and 10th. All these are ruled by water signs in his chart which to me shows that he has to be strongly emotionally attached to what he’s doing. Cancer ruling the 10th house which is ruled by the moon, being the planet that rules emotions, cycles, and often fluctuates …his moon in Gemini which can mean changing of ideas and perhaps conflicting thoughts, and ideas ( gemini’s dual nature) Saturn is passing through Sag and Sag is notorious for it’s commitment issues, plus uranus and chiron passing through the 6th house bringing up emotional issues ( possibly) and an unconventional, rebellious streak mixed with mars which can heighten tension and anger issues. Yes, he does have issues with authority and some temperament problems dealing with difficult people.  David A Jones I agree. Good analysis. I see the 2nd house as money earned by personal possessions, things that one owns. The 10th is money earned through what one presents to the public, skills which lead to a career. The 6th house is service to another in exchange for money; employment. As you say, they’re all water signs. and particularly, his 6th is pisces, The mutable water sign, the “most watery” of the water signs.  Marie Angela So Pisces in 6th being wishy-washy. His passion is music but has yet to profit from it . Uranus should be sparking some creative ideas here but he’s young yet so….(23)  David A Jones What I see is a 10th house ruled by the moon, and the moon in the tenth house, in gemini. A strong indication of a tenth-house rather than a sixth-house source of funds; gemini is a classic salesman. This is where he’d do well, in my opinion.  David A Jones Music is also good, but not as an employee. A proprietor? Especially with that aries sun~  Marie AngelaDavid A Jones Funny you should say that because he does love sales…He did well out in another state but iis struggling to find anything in this one. The 2nd house Scorpio/ pluto with north node is what strikes me as very interesting and concerning. I’m not exactly sure what to make of it just yet.  Marie Angela Thank you so much for all your input . Sometimes the more I stare at a chart, the more perplexed I become. It’s like doing complex math to me 🙂  David A Jones One of the first things I like to evaluate is the relative strengths of the 2nd, 6th and 10th (and in a related, resonance-type way, the 8th, 12th and 4th). Which house is strong and well-aspected is the one the native should choose. The second house is strong, and jupiter is there, but not, in my opinion, well-placed in the sign of scorpio, and there’s that pesky pluto too. Lots of skullduggery in the second house; better to pursue the tenth. The sixth, mars and saturn? Please~  David A Jones Complex math is EXACTLY what it is! Applied geometry, the search for patterns and resonances. Astrology follows the same resonances as music, or architecture. It’s all geometry!  Marie Angela Math was always infuriating to me lol.  Marie AngelaDavid A Jones You’ve given me quite alot to analyze and dissect here, thanks so much for that !! Pluto, scorpio in the second house …maybe he should be a male escort haha. He does have a bit of a checkered past that he’s trying to fly straight and get his life together now. Not selling sexual things but other scorpian like things that I hope stays in the past for him.  David A Jones It was to me too, but I discovered the most infuriating part was that the math we learn is base-ten, while the math of the universe is base-twelve. I figured out how to do the base-twelve stuff on the knuckles of my fingers, and the math of astrology made much more sense.  David A Jones Yeah, Scorpio. I don’t have any in my chart, but most people born in the last half of the 20th century have lots of it. I try not to get caught up in all that! 😉 ———————————— Some people seem nice, but aren’t worth the effort it would take to piss on them. ——————————————– Well, I had a tree lot on Airport Boulevard just north of I-35; there’s a shopping plaza there now, and on Harmon Ave. behind it, I rented a spare room from a guy to sleep, shower etc. One morning I was eating breakfast and Stevie dropped by; we all talked about various places in town; he had a gig at a place downtown, I don’t remember the name, then Stevie left and the guy I was renting a room from said that he was a crazy good guitar player, that I should see him sometime. That year didn’t work out, but a girl I was seeing when I passed through Austin also knew him; he was just a local hippie at the time. The next year, or maybe the year after that, she lived in a big house at the edge of town and she and her housemates threw a big Christmas party, at which Stevie showed up. There was a group of folks jamming on the porch and I had my harmonica; Stevie picked up an old acoustic and we all played blues for a long time. I talked with him a bit; what bands we’d been in and such and kinda-maybe-sorta getting together sometime again, but I lived in North Carolina and had to leave town a couple days later and it never happened. ——————— revised Joe story The Mayfair Barber Shop   I worked at my father’s barber shop from the time I was eleven years old, shining shoes and sweeping up at night.   All the barbers had interesting stories. When my father bought the shop, he took over the first chair. The second had always belonged to a quiet fellow named Joe Maldonado. Joe was Hispanic, but mostly Indian, and emphatically not Mexican; his family had lived in the area before it was Colorado, before it was Texas, before it was Mexico, before the first Spaniard rode through on an odd animal he called a “caballo”. Joe and his six kids spoke Spanish at home, the same language their Colorado-born and bred ancestors had spoken for the previous three centuries.   His father was a miner in Walsenburg, and there’d been some labor troubles. One day someone walked into the bar where Joe’s father was minding his own business, and shot him dead. Mistaken identity. Joe’s mother, brothers and sisters all moved to Denver. Joe got a barber’s license, and supported them all. For twenty years he was reliable and conscientious, driving to work daily, but one morning my father got a call. Joe was in jail. He’d been stopped by the cops, and didn’t have a driver’s license. He never had.   Joe wouldn’t bet against the Broncos. Denver’s football team was never good~for about fifteen years it held the worst team record in any major-league sport~but Joe always bet on them anyway. He’d take the point spread, but they’d usually lose by even more points. Due to Joe’s influence, I also didn’t bet against the Broncos~but I just didn’t bet on them, period. In 1978, they finally went to the Super Bowl, and for the first time, I bet a dollar~and lost. Nine years later, they went again. I bet again. They lost again, by more points. Twice more they lost, each time by even more points. In 1990 this was the worst loss in Super Bowl history~49ers 55, Denver 10. Four dollars, gone.   Eight years later, the Broncos again went to the Super Bowl. They took the field in their new navy-blue and bright-orange uniforms~technically they were the “visiting” team, but they’d never lost in their new “home” uniforms, so that’s what they wore. Green Bay was heavily favored; the NFC hadn’t lost in thirteen years. I wanted to bet a dollar again, but my friend wanted to bet five. I did. Martina Navratilova predicted a 31-24 win, and the Broncos came through. I won that five-dollar bet, and became the only guy in history, that I knew of, to win money betting on the Broncos. They won the Super Bowl the next year, too. For the first time in my life, I had trouble finding anyone to bet against the Broncos.   Joe didn’t see it. He’d had heart surgery a couple years before, and died on the operating table. ————————- I love romantic comedies, I’m vegetarian, have far more female than male friends, love to sew, cook, etc. and for several years not only found myself to be a gay magnet but also in the odd position of having a great many bisexual or even lesbian girlfriends. Does this make me transgendered? Hell no. I also like football, fixing cars, military history, and have never had a problem attracting straight ladies. I’m a confident, heterosexual man, married for over 30 years, have never had an interest in a gay lifestyle and have no problem with who I am whatsoever. ————————– Why don’t guys approach women they’re interested in anymore? Is it our (girls’) fault

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It’s absolutely the fault of forty years of feminist bullshit. The old myths and archetypes are powerful for a reason–because they’re true. Deep down inside, men want to rescue the damsel from the dragon, and women want to be rescued. Feminism has been trying to turn this on its head with a modern myth that a strong, powerful woman can do it all, but that won’t replace the older, deeper, truer myth, it only frustrates the not so powerful, not so strong average woman, who then lashes out at the average guy for not being whatever the hell kind of guy she’s supposed to want, which not even she knows for sure. The average guy, after dealing with several of these women, doesn’t want to hear it again and keeps his distance. There’s no stronger and happier woman than one who acknowledges her own femininity to the full, including her weaknesses and her desire for a man with a man’s strengths to help her with the things she can’t do, and no happier man than one who can help a woman and be appreciated for it, but for the equation to work women have to be true to their natural feminine soul, not true believers in the artificial feminist construct. My 2 cents.

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Something to remember about AOC is that the House of Reps is a strange beast; some members represent an entire state, some just a corner of one. AOC doesn’t even represent a city, she represents a neighborhood, literally less than 1/4 of 1% of Americans, and hers is the most bombed-out moonscape of a neighborhood in New York City. She’s getting a lot of publicity because that’s what the media does, but she’s not gonna run riot over the 99¾% who don’t ride the subway to hell twice a day.

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Alternate West Side Story~

Denver, 1965~
Bonfils Theatre had produced “Gideon” the winter before, my first professional production since I’d portrayed “Three-Week-Old-Baby” in an outdoor drama called “Horn in the West”, at the age of three weeks.
I was Jether, the shepherd boy. Although it took a lot of my time, the role didn’t engage much of my brain, as I had no lines. Jether did, however, have black hair, which was sprayed in each night and later washed out as rivulets of black muck, coursing down my face and shoulders and remaining in the bathwater during my now-obligatory nightly bath, settling into every wrinkle of my body, giving me a weird, old-man Goth freak appearance the following day. My hair was always nasty, and more of the black goo would wash out in the showers in gym class, where it would pool in my eyebrows, under my eyes and around my nose. After that play everyone in the family decided that henceforth they would DYE their hair when necessary, with the result that everyone had red hair for Life With Father the following year–except me, because I wasn’t in it, having survived that spring an absolutely traumatic school play, the worst-ever production in the history of the world of “West Side Story”.
A neighborhood improvement organization with a government grant put it on, and the director was a community organizer who obviously had no theatre experience whatsoever. I was encouraged to audition, and got a small part. Within a week, several of the major characters had quit. Through attrition and poor casting, I, the youngest student in Smiley Junior High, landed as Officer Krupke. Other portrayals were worse; the gang members were muscular and fifteen, but their supposed leader Tony was the second-youngest student in the school, an undersized, immature eleven-year-old like me. Tony and I both wore thick glasses and had high, squeaky voices. Tony’s girl Maria was a fully matured, top heavy black girl, several inches taller than him, with a much deeper voice.
For months we rehearsed the play from the beginning, running out of time halfway through the second act. A week or so before the premiere, our director realized we didn’t yet have a full play, and started rehearsing the final scene. A quick scene was improvised a day or two before the performance to tie everything together, and then the search for props began. An A-frame ladder was quickly put into service as a balcony, a refrigerator box became a building and a door laid on its side was a fence. Since none of us had even tried to sing, a tape of the Broadway production was cued up in an old reel-to-reel tape player, with a microphone backstage hooked to the public address speakers in the auditorium–a system which had not yet been tested when the doors opened for our first matinee.
The end result was incomprehensible. The first few minutes went all right, but then everything fell apart. Preadolescent, pasty-white, bespectacled gang leader Tony squeaked across the stage, falling in love with a much taller and older black girl. She appeared to be one of the cafeteria ladies, perched on a ladder for no discernible reason.
Once Tony had professed his love, in his high soprano, and Maria had responded, in her contralto, the singing began. The tape crackled to life, set at double speed, and chipmunks shrieked out the first few words of “Tonight, Tonight” at five times the volume of the dialog on stage. Tony and Maria then waited, blinking, arms limp by their sides. Ten minutes, twenty, while the sound crew fumbled and mumbled, the speakers popping and rumbling, mangled tape sounds squawking occasionally from the superannuated tape player. It tediously, fitfully groaned to life–halfway through the wrong song. Another ten minutes went by while Tony and Maria fidgeted. “MMMuuuhh——–rrr—rr————rr———rrrria, I’ve just met a girl named Maria!” finally boomed forth in an operatic tenor several dozen decibels louder and lower than Tony had seemed capable of, while the loving couple waved their hands and lip-synched badly, Maria perched like a house painter above.
Catcalls came from the audience and a couple cold drinks flew from the balcony. The audience below screamed at the jokesters above, the curtains closed, the lights came on and the assistant principal strolled onstage to make several choice threats before the play continued. When the curtain rose, there was a refrigerator crate next to the ladder, with a door leaning sideways on its lower half. A gang member stepped from the crate and told another Jet what had happened offstage, explaining all the missing scenes–the dance, the war council, the rumble, the two gang members stabbed–the Reader’s Digest version of the middle three-quarters of the play. I blew my whistle and, stepping onstage as Officer Krupke, shouted the two lines my role had been reduced to. About this time a fight broke out in the hallway and the audience poured out to watch. We played the final scene, screeching from the hallway overwhelming the dialog, to about a dozen stragglers.
That was our only performance. The remaining three were cancelled.
Our months of rehearsals were over.

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Thoughts on abortion~ There was a time that way too many babies ended up in orphanages, unwanted and unloved. I knew some of these kids, always in trouble and with no one to turn to. I also used to see their mothers, who would show up in my checkout line with full bellies and a crisp new driver’s license, then disappear after a month or two. I knew high school girls who had abortions, and the pictures of some of them in the high school yearbook had black borders. One of the worst of crimes a hundred years ago was “baby farming”, where rural women would promise to find a home for babies, but kill and bury them instead. I used to feel abortion was a better alternative; a necessary evil, in a world where even worse things were happening.

None of these things exist anymore; they’re as foreign as the horse and buggy, and that’s good. Babies who are unwanted now are almost always adopted by eager and loving parents, and the problem for infertile couples isn’t which baby to adopt, it’s finding a baby to adopt at all. There are innumerable safe and expedient methods of birth control, and I now feel abortion is a totally unnecessary evil. I do indeed believe that babies have a consciousness, and a soul, before they’re born, and can feel the same pain when they are torn apart in the womb as they would if they were torn apart afterwards. This isn’t just about the rights of a woman, it’s also about the rights of a child, the right to live. I do feel this is holy. It doesn’t make me more holy than anyone else, but I’m entitled to express my sincere, respectful, honest beliefs.

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Edited bike story~
When I was about 14, I took a frame from an old 26” bicycle, removed the pedals and sprocket, put the front wheel from a 20” bike in the back, turned the front fork backwards and attached a tricycle wheel with pedals on the front. I took the bicycle seat apart, flipped the seat support around and reattached the seat so that it rested on the frame a foot in front of its regular position and used an old piece of pipe for handlebars. It was rideable, just barely. It was good that the pipe was a foot wider than standard handlebars, because furiously pedaling the tiny front wheel from a much more horizontal angle, rather than from the nearly vertical position of a tricycle, produced huge torque, which was only compensated by holding to the pipe for dear life and pulling it one way, then the other. Since the pedals were directly connected to the front wheel, one also had to pedal full-time when underway. It was possible to coast downhill by resting one’s feet on the front fork, but that wasn’t easy to manage either, as the pedals flapped furiously and made it difficult to steer. As there were no brakes, the only way to slow down was to either plant one’s feet on the pavement to the sides or drag toes behind, which was also a problem–the bike sat lower to the ground because of the smaller wheels, so the foot-to pavement angle to avoid the flailing front pedals was out of whack. Neither could one stand up to get the angle right without the bike flipping out from underneath. The braking was ineffective, but fortunately it was nearly impossible to build up speed anyway. It was fun as all get-out, but wildly impractical. It would’ve worked well in a circus act.
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Mahonchak
When I was in high school there was a teacher named Mahonchak, a petty dictator who severely enforced every possible infraction.

There was a patio where we’d eat lunch, and patio duties revolved weekly among the teachers. It was Mahonchak’s week. Ten minutes before lunch was over, whichever students were in detention picked up trash. This was usually pretty relaxed, but nothing was ever relaxed about Mahonchak. He was a field officer; a warden barking out orders for the patio patrol.

Steve and I hid behind a bush towards the end of lunch period; Steve had an M-80, and I had a cigarette. We punched a hole close to the filter, stuck the fuse through, lit the cigarette and put it in a paper bag. I threw it in the trash eleven or twelve minutes before the end of lunch period. We were expecting a 7-minute delay.

In the next several minutes everyone threw their trash on top of our time bomb, filling up the 60-gallon trashcan. Mahonchak gathered his convicts, and the patio was soon spotless. Steve and I were sure we had a dud. The bell rang, but just as the last peal faded away, KA-POW!!! Our fuse FINALLY found its mark, and the top three-quarters of the trash flew ten feet in the air! Mahonchak turned purple and completely lost it, screaming, grabbing the collars of random students to try to force them into lunch duty, but the bell had rung, lunch was over, we needed to get to class, end of story!

What Steve and I hadn’t calculated was that our cigarette was of the new, 100 millimeter size, which lasted over ten minutes. The result was far better than we’d anticipated; we totally got away with it, and Mahonchak’s purple, incoherent rage was an awesome, wonderful bonus!
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David A Jones (LOWER EAST SIDE PICTURE) I was in that neighborhood for about a day when I was first born. My mother stayed a week in the hospital because that was how it was done, then they brought me home, packed up the car and left the next day. 😊

Pierre Yorke
Pierre Yorke Thanks for sharing. I immediately thought “And then what?” Your comment reads like the first sentence at the beginning of an autobiography. Regards Pierre

David A Jones
David A Jones Pierre Yorke Hah! Thanks! I actually have been writing my memoirs; maybe I’ll start with that! 😁
From there, my parents drove to Boone, North Carolina, where they’d met the year before. Both had been cast in an outdoor drama, “Horn in the West”, my father as Daniel Boone and my mother as a singer and music director. I was in the cast at the age of three weeks! The show is still running, 67 years later!
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We Move to Hollywood

My parents met in an outdoor drama produced in Boone, North Carolina, called “Horn in the West”. My father, as Daniel Boone, was the star of the show. When my mother, a singer, carried off a prop anvil carelessly left onstage after a scene change, he knew she was the girl for him! They were married in October.

They moved from North Carolina to New York that fall, to star in several hit Broadway shows, including “The Mikado”, “Kiss Me Kate”, “The Seven Year Itch”, and “Oklahoma!”. They didn’t star in any of them, though, and in June returned to “the Horn”, where the part of Three Week Old Baby was written in to take advantage of my talent. After the success of my inaugural season, we all moved to Colorado, where my father starred in several kiddie shows on TV until, as part of a negotiating strategy, he told the management to shove a plaster giraffe up their ass. They elected not to, and my father instead took a lucrative offer as Third Chair in Harold’s Barber Shop. He moved up quickly, nine years and five more kids later buying the shop and renaming it The Mayfair.

My youngest brother Sam, age eleven, made a movie for Disney, and when my father visited Disneyland, he found a Magic Kingdom. He decided the family should move, and we bought an equipment rental yard at 8770 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. My father, my brother Rob and I drove out in June, then my father drove back to Denver. The rest of the family followed at summer’s end.

The eight of us all crammed into a little house in Garden Grove which my father rented from an actor friend, Burt Douglas, who had a regular gig on the soap opera All My Children. In January we moved into a much bigger house in Granada Hills, which we bought from the performer Bo Diddley. It had a huge swimming pool, five bedrooms, wrap-around driveway, a fountain, a guest house (which became mine) and a couple utility buildings which my brother claimed, but the cherry on top was a recording studio in the backyard, a cement block building with egg crates glued to the walls. We formed a family band which did rather well; there was a battle of the bands hosted by The Troubadour in West Hollywood at which we appeared and were one of the three bands chosen (out of fifteen or twenty) to appear at the end of the month. Of those twelve bands, we were chosen to appear at the end of December as one of the best twelve bands of the year!
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When a guy is popular or powerful, women throw themselves at him; this is why guys play in bands. It’s what Trump was referring to when he said, “you can do whatever you want”. A woman with a plan will entice a man, but then refuse him, then entice and refuse some more, because she wants him exclusively, and doesn’t wish to be one of the “groupies”. If she then feels uncomfortable, thinks he’s insincere, or HE refuses HER, she decides he’s a “pig”, who gave her red wine instead of white (for example Aziz Ansari). If she wanted him, threw herself on him, but he got tired of her or didn’t want her, then accusations start. That’s the way it is and how it’s always been. Always will be.
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Donald Trump has money, but he grew up in Queens. For those familiar with New York City’s social structure, Queens is several rungs down the ladder. No matter how much money one has, if they’re from Queens they don’t have “status”. It’s the overriding reason he started buying and building in Manhattan, because his father never “made the grade”. I used to do phone sales, and anywhere else in the country I’d mention that I had a cousin who lived in a town or neighborhood close to whoever was on the line, and get a very friendly, positive response. In New York the first question I’d get would be, “What neighborhood?’, and if they lived five blocks the wrong way they didn’t give a shit about my cousin, it was either too snooty of a neighborhood or not snooty enough.
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Pete’s Rental

In the summer of 1971, my father, my brother and I moved to Garden Grove, California, to a house my father rented from an actor friend of his. My father stayed a couple weeks and then left to tie up a few details in Colorado. I’d just turned 18, my brother was 16, and we were alone in California, for the next few months.

I worked 69 hours a week at the rental yard my family had bought in West Hollywood, with an additional 14 hours or so of travel time. We were open for ten hours every Monday through Saturday, and nine on Sunday. My brother stayed home occasionally, and met some of the neighbors, but I arrived home late, got up early and did all the driving. I left at 6:30 am and returned around 7 pm, unless I stopped for groceries.

For the first month or so, Pete’s son Hans showed us the ropes, and after that we hired a fellow who’d previously worked there, Les, who showed up from 9 to 5 on most weekdays. I put in ten hours every day. I couldn’t take a day off, because my brother had no driver’s license. It mystified me why he never wanted to get his license, but it didn’t bother him.

This caused some real trouble later. Because he didn’t have a driver’s license, if anything needed doing, I left him home. Once or twice a week he’d wash the clothes, chlorinate the pool, take out the trash, mow the lawn. One day I came home and HE WASN’T THERE!

He wasn’t at any of the neighbors’ homes. I drove the nearby streets and alleys, asking around, finally calling my parents in Colorado. They hadn’t heard from him. He was MISSING!

As it turned out, this was one of those idiotic and deplorable stunts which gave the Orange County cops of the time a bad name.

My brother had walked less than a mile to the pool supply store that July day but, foolishly, without shoes. He got the chemicals and started home, but stopped in the shade of a tree. A couple cops saw the long-haired hippie kid and decided to hassle him, making the ridiculous, lying, illegitimate and illegal assertion that “someone had reported him drunk”, at eleven in the morning.

My brother was fond of cramming his pockets full of stuff. He was wearing a cargo jacket and a special pocket vest, both with numerous items in every pocket. They had him pull out all his stuff, and one thing he pulled out was a small canister of tear gas. Totally legal in Colorado, and in every other state of the union. Except California. In California, it was a felony.

Our father had originally bought it for him after he’d been robbed by a gang of delinquents in junior high school. The cops were sympathetic by now, but they’d drawn a crowd, and had to do something. After an hour piddling around, they took him in.

That was just the start. He was at the juvenile facility, and was allowed to make a phone call, but I was in West Hollywood, which was a long-distance call~as was a call home, half-a-mile away. The juvenile hall he was being held in was served by AT&T, but our neighborhood was covered by a little company called General Telephone, which operated in small pockets here and there~and any call from one system to the other was long-distance.

Because whatever call he would have made from a half-a-mile away, to anyone he knew, would’ve been long-distance, it was not allowed. Seven hours later, when I came home at 6 pm, nobody knew where he was.

Not even the cops. They didn’t have any record of an arrest. My parents called, from Colorado. They were told the same. They frantically called every police department, hospital etc. in the area, but heard nothing. At three or four in the morning, a cop knocked on my door, woke me up and told me what had happened~but since I was 18, not 21, and this was 1971 and not 1972, I couldn’t pick him up. My parents had to call a friend they knew from Colorado, who now lived about fifty miles from us. He pretended he was an uncle, and signed my brother out.

And that was that. None of us heard back from anyone. Perhaps the case was mis-filed, perhaps thrown away. Probably, the cops decided to forget all about it. My parents were ready to sue, but didn’t.
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I was on Guam in 1974. It was fascinating; Agaña was rebuilt after the second world war, but it was so torn up they simply flattened everything with bulldozers and set up a street grid. The old property lines didn’t match, so there ended up being lots of odd-shaped buildings and funky parking lots. If you walked off into the jungle you’d still find twisted metal parts, burned out cement, old scraps of fabric in strange places. A friend and I were exploring and came across a skinny, bombed-out airstrip completely covered in forest canopy, an open space through the trees on either end. There was a little island about a mile offshore you could walk to, ankle-deep water washing over smooth, white coral the whole way. We knew a couple guys that lived in a house outside of town that was basically built out of all kinds of trash, completely open to the air over the side walls. Come twilight they’d light a bug coil to keep away mosquitoes. They had like a 2-acre back yard that had storage sheds made out of old refrigerators, etc. When something made it to the island it basically never left.
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I haven’t seen the Vietnam veterans mewmorial on Guam; it undoubtedly wasn’t there 45 years ago. It’s such a long time to say it that way, while “1974” sounds like not long at all! 😁 I’m technically a Vietnam-era veteran, as I signed up on December 28, 1973 and the Vietnam “era” ended three days later, though the war had ended for the USA several months before. We were supposed to tour the Pacific after our ship was overhauled, but since the commander of the base at Guam had previously been the captain of the Ponchatoula, the overhaul was assigned to Guam even though the ship was really too big. When I came to the ship the overhaul was already behind its schedule, which was supposed to be five months. Half the crew was pissed off about it, because for a six months stretch the wives and kids would come over but they weren’t gonna for five. It actually lasted close to eight months, so the tour of Australia, the Philippines, Japan was cancelled, pissing off the other half of the crew! We headed back to Pearl and got an extra month to slack off though, so it wasn’t bad. Since most of the overhaul of the engines was already done by the time I’d arrived, I’d had like three months’ of pretty much a vacation!
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(neptune +democrats?) There’s certainly reasons to look to other planets as significators, the “hopey-changey” stuff is certainly neptune, but I’m pretty much a traditional pragmatist. I go with the closer planets whenever I can, for multiple reasons. I believe in patterns; the traditional planetary rulerships formed a mirror image, and each planet ruled one masculine and one feminine sign, one “by day” and the other “by night”. I’m not happy with disrupting the pattern; there’s a harmony to the planets as real and significant as musical harmony. I have a background in music, and see the whole of the cosmos as vibrating to the same geometry as musical notes. Introducing new notes to a chord will never eliminate the harmonies which were there before, they only add to it, sometimes in doric or ionian or phrygian mode, but the harmonies can be found. Mercury harmonizes with uranus, venus with neptune, mars with pluto, so they are called the “octaves”, not only for esoteric reasons but very real geometric ones, which is a whole ‘nuther discussion. Venus is exalted in pisces, and therefore resonates with jupiter as well, but consistent with the rabbit hole of music theory saturn is exalted in venus’ sign and so forms a relationship with jupiter and neptune through its resonance with venus. You can look to the root key through any of the harmonies, but I prefer to use saturn for the democrats, since democrats, the “donkeys”, generally have fewer resources and are living a bit more ascetically (saturn) than republicans, the “elephants”, who have more resources (jupiter). Saturn-ruled people have less and want more, while jupiter-ruled people have more and wish to keep it. This is the very basic outline of something that’s far more complex than it first appears, just as a barbershop quartet can sing a simple melody in continuous four-part harmony. To name how a specific candidate fits into the picture you need to consider vastly more than “jupiter vs. saturn”; and as an example both Trump and Reagan were democrats for a long time before they were republicans. I also don’t believe the parties are static, they have a birth, life and death just like people, and at various phases they respond to different vibrations. I think it very significant that the White House magnolia, planted by the first democratic president, was cut down in 2017, rotten to the core. I think that to the extent the democrats don’t disappoint their saturn-ruled core they’ve got the advantage, but betray the saturnine principles dear to the hearts of the base (and they’ve certainly been doing a lot of that lately) and they’ll lose. My personal opinion is that the democrats are as rotten as the magnolia, and will soon be superseded by another party, as the whigs were replaced by the republicans in 1856, one neptune year ago.
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In 1973, I was 19 and leaving LA for Denver, where I’d lived before. My truck was a ’31 Ford, and I had a motor scooter on the back, which didn’t run. I’d had starter trouble, and had been hand-cranking the truck for many miles. I’d had an unexpected expense, stopped and sold my TV to get gas money. Where I’d stopped, I met a guy who looked a lot like me, was also 19 and was driving the opposite way, by the same route, in a ’49 truck. I noticed 4+9=13 was the year of my truck in reverse, and we were going opposite directions! That was ONLY the beginning. He’d been living in a city about 50 miles north of my destination, moving to a smaller one about 50 miles north of my point of origin. We’d started on the same day, were both leaving our families for the first time, headed from the city we’d been living in for two years and going back to where we’d grown up, both planning to live with a friend. His truck, like mine, had had starter trouble, and he also had a scooter on the back, which didn’t run. I took him into town to borrow a few dollars from a friend, as he’d also had an unexpected expense! His first name started with D, as did mine, and both of us had brothers named Rob. When I dropped him off, I got confused by the squirrelly signs for the highway going through Santa Fe and went in a circle, where I saw him and his friend going in a coffee shop. They gave me directions, but when I was leaving a part fell off my truck, so I circled around the block and met him a third time! I felt like I’d spent the afternoon with my own reflection!😁
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When I was fourteen, my father bought a shotgun and sat in his barber chair all night while I sat in my shoe-shine stand. We stayed up, vigilant, while riots were going on a mile away. They didn’t reach us, but it’s personal when your family’s livelihood is on the line. It’s not a literary discussion, or a chapter in a book. I don’t need “research”. The riots MUST stop. Like him or not, Trump is the president, and he’s taking action, not twiddling his thumbs.

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In elementary school I thought the cutest girl, EVER, was Sambhavi V. (I never learned how to spell her last name and neither did anyone else) She was from India, wore colorful clothes, had a developing figure at eleven or twelve and didn’t mind that I noticed, in my shy nerdy way. I didn’t know how to talk to girls but was thrilled when we teamed up together on some little project. She had a fun personality and an exotic beauty. I don’t recall anyone teasing her, the only “brown” girl in school, in fact she was quite popular. I don’t know what Nimrata’s problem was but I can assure you that I found everything about Sambhavi lovely, and incredibly exciting.

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The illiterate or pre-literate tribes of Africa, societies who until the 20th century had no written language, had a lack of empathy which literate peoples found astonishing. This was the true reason behind the establishment of apartheid; these tribes couldn’t be be trusted to act civilized, or even to understand what “civilized” meant. When translators compiled dictionaries of these previously unwritten languages they found no words expressing long-term consequences for immediate actions; the best they could do for a “promise” was “I’ll try”, for example, with no understanding that a “promise” involved continuous, repeated trying until an action was fulfilled. This created terrible problems in business and politics, because a “contract” meant nothing, a “treaty” meant nothing; the only transactions which were recognized were between one individual and another, face-to-face, in the moment. There was also almost no understanding of “morals”, of the “right” or “decent” thing to do, of the feelings and emotions of others. This continues to be a problem to this day, as the only concept of “authority” in these languages is “what the boss-man says”. In the Rwandan genocide, for example, it was very easy to persuade the Hutu to slaughter the Tutsi. The boss-man got on the radio, and told them to do it. Listen as this white guy tries to explain to these modern-day immigrants why they shouldn’t rape women:

https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/157/075/454/playable/e96d479f52d545c5.mp42

reply~Ran into a YT of a linguist(?) who studied African languages and the differences were really striking. No word for half or other fractions. There is literally “up the tree” or “at the base” nothing between. He gave many other really basic examples.
Folks spotted his large dictionary and asked him why he had it. He explained that he didn’t know the full language – they laughed. He said “well you don’t know the full language, right?” No, they replied, they knew everything.

With a simple language, you CAN know it all. But there are thousands of concepts that cannot be put into that language!

Ethics, forward periods in time, any time beyond the span of one’s lifetime in the past, there are a LOT of examples that simply cannot be translated and therefore entire cultures cannot – literally cannot think about them. And after a few millennia, nobody needs to as the IQ is so low that there cannot be real progress. Culture, invention, all of it beyond them. I don’t like the reality of it, but it cannot be escaped. And now we are importing literally thousands into our technically advanced cities.

No second floor structures. Buildings that any European of 6th grade age and education could build (but nothing more complex), etc. And these fall apart or collapse when bad weather hits, killing or injuring those inside.

There is a reason that for well over 100 years Europeans have been going to various places and building wells, irrigation, transportation infrastructure. As soon as they leave, the entire thing falls into disrepair. Many cultures cannot understand that work today ensures water tomorrow. They don’t use and didn’t develop sanitary facilities. Telling them that a manure pile next to the well will poison them isn’t going to stop them. As soon as you leave, that well will become fouled. (It would be interesting to see how many times USAID and the Peace Corps have sent teams to the exact same villages to re-dig the wells and re-establish sanitary facilities in many nations!)

As with the current slide in South Africa, all of that will be wiped away or inoperable in another decade or two. With the upcoming famines (as well as the ever-present Communist revival because nothing sounds better to low IQ populations than Communist propaganda) that I expect will sweep through Africa, the Chinese will own most, if not the entire continent.

Lord Doovinator, part-time wiz@Doovinator

that’s been THE problem with the African continent for centuries, if not millennia. These societies have no understanding of the long-term or how to improve. No lessons from the past. No building for the future. Do you have that guy’s video links?

reply
I really didn’t expect to find it!
I hope you enjoy. I remember it as quite a wide ranging talk.

I would bet that it’s similar in some parts of S. America and certainly the Aztec fondness for their death deities has not died out, as bumper stickers, flags, tattoos, hats and vehicle decals will show – there’s a lot of skull and death motifs in those communities that apparently Christianity never was able to remove and now they have come back in force.Read more

African Language and the African MindYouTubeLink FeedSalutedReplyUnrepost···1

 I’d be curious to hear your thoughts – been a few years since I watched it.

Lord Doovinator, part-time wiz@Doovinator·3d

@DunnoNuffinCovid well it just makes SO MUCH sense — people don’t realize how much of civilization is learned behavior, one step at a time, built on the foundations of what has come before, and the more literate people in a society, the better.
Something he doesn’t touch on in this video is also how the promiscuity and lack of “morals”, for want of a better term, undermines the society. Most tribal societies are matrilineal, meaning that property passes through the mother’s line, not the father’s, as the mother is obviously the mother but the father somewhat speculative. The mother takes care of her kids and “her man”, but if she dies the property goes to her family, not his. This means the men have no real desire to make improvements, etc. since the house and land they work on isn’t theirs, nor necessarily their kids’. The island of Santo Domingo illustrates what happens with this dynamic. Colonized by Europeans, it was some of the richest territory on the planet. The western half was taken over by Africans and organized as if it was an African society; the eastern half retaining European standards. Haiti, to the west, is now a completely hopeless basket case while the Dominican Republic, to the east, is still and has remained relatively prosperous.

reply: Great points! I concur entirely but your post brings up a few things I’ve not heard. Good food for thought.
In a much earlier post I took a look at the IQ study done in Haiti – really scarry numbers! What a low IQ population does with a dysfunctional culture is really something else.

And it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the big cities over the next couple of years.

Bozo’s Boy~in Carolina

In the Appalachians
If you haven’t seen the award-winning movie “Bozo’s Boy”, or the blockbuster series “Bozo’s Boy in Hollywood”, it’s because they haven’t yet been produced, but I was there–born on the same day that Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge, according to the movie “Ode to Billy Joe”.

For twenty-nine years after that “sleepy, dusty, Delta day”, I breathed in, and often breathed out. In the spring of 1983 I lived in a tent at Snag End, at the base of Snaggy Mountain, outside Boone, North Carolina.
I could walk to my cousin’s barn, which she rented out for parties. She let me in for free, and I helped clean up. One night a girl I’d seen the week before made a smartass remark about my wardrobe. Perri was a member of the Numuziklub (new music club) which rented the barn a few times a month. Across from her were a couple of fellows with about twelve teeth between them, and she pulled me into the seat next to her. I saved her from the pirates, and we went home together. That night, and every night since. Some couples meet in a bar, some in a barn!
Perri went to Lees-McRae, a college nearby. Her family had recently moved from Sanford, Florida and now lived on Beech Mountain, a few miles away. My father’s family had lived in the area for generations, but I’d grown up in Colorado.
We spent a season in my tent, but soon decided to build an earth lodge. For the next couple years we dug dirt and pounded nails. Our first house started as a huge tent made from chicken wire and old carpeting, but I brought leftover plywood and shorty 2x4s from my construction job to make the roof, then covered it with tarpaper and roofing cement. In its final iteration, it was well sealed from the weather, and toasty warm in the wintertime.
Beech Mountain
Perri’s mother had been divorced, and had three kids when she married Ed. The kids called him Daddy-o, and from then on they were Mams and Daddy-o. Ed and Janis raised two more kids, then bought an old mill house in Tennessee and moved the 18th-century hand-hewn plank boards to the top of Beech Mountain, where he’d reassembled the two-storey structure and added a basement, sub-basement and a spacious attic. When I met him it was open from top to bottom, with only a small section of floor in the kitchen. He’d fallen and broken his arm, but had only put a little Ben-Gay on it and was sitting at the kitchen table, going over plans. Ed had bought the top of Beech Mountain and subdivided it into what he called the Crest of Beech. In the meantime he and the family were living in a small house a mile away. He was a veterinarian, and had an office in a building which I’d roofed the year before, in cedar shakes. Wildly popular in the 1970s, cedar was supposed to last eighty to a hundred years. It’d been little used in the south, but a new technique, alternating rows of shakes with layers of tarpaper, was introduced. Unfortunately, tarpaper held moisture, and after fifteen or twenty years all the cedar shake roofs rotted. More work for guys like me~
The winter of 1983 saw some of the coldest days on record. My sister’s husband Kevin and I often drove to a package store in Blowing Rock (until 1990, Boone was a dry town) and one displayed a huge bottle, a jeroboam of champagne, which had been there for ages. Kevin asked the price. The proprietor, in a mood that day, said, “Tell you what. Give me $10 and you can take it home.” I immediately pulled out $10, for a $100 bottle of champagne. I left it in the earth lodge next to the stove, but the temperature got down to -25º that Christmas, and even with a constant fire going, and large rocks maintaining thermal mass surrounding the stove, that huge bottle of champagne was mushy frozen when I rescued it. We opened it on New Year’s Day, 1984, a date which seemed ominous due to George Orwell’s melodramatic 1948 book, but in review was mostly pedestrian.
1984
Through the spring and summer of that overblown year we lived in and worked on the earth lodge. In May we took a vacation, loading up Perri’s tiny Subaru and exploring to the Outer Banks. It was a first for both of us, and we had a lovely time. Highway 64 traverses North Carolina “from Manteo to Murphy”, and we went from Manteo to Corolla and Duck in the north, then drove south, taking pictures with an ancient box camera (I’d been buying old cameras since I was twelve). With it we took double exposures of ourselves on the beach, arty shots of our dream vacation, and stopped at every lighthouse, where I’d snap Perri from a snail’s-eye view with the lighthouse looming overhead.
In Kitty Hawk we paced out the flights of Orville and Wilbur Wright. We fought off seagulls at a picnic shelter and visited the site of the Lost Colony, a patch of grass where the English settled in 1587, well before the Mayflower. They were lost to history, likely melting in with the Indians a few miles inland. We bought caps with long bills in front and sunshades in back. We stayed in the Hatteras Hotel, which even at that late date had no television, only radio, but for $20 a night suited us fine. We rode down the coast and took ferries across the Albemarle Sound, one a short jaunt, the other a journey of hours. We paid 50¢ each to see a fireman’s museum in New Bern, and went to another in Belhaven which contained Eva Blount Way’s collection of strange things–thousands of buttons, weird animal parts in formaldehyde, a 1/4” drill which had electrocuted a carpenter, old magazine covers, more buttons, fleas dressed up as wedding guests, more buttons and more buttons. We moseyed back across the state, stopping at the Rose Hill winery, the Duplin winery and the original town of Washington–known by Carolinians as The First Washington. We saw the world’s largest coffeepot in Winston-Salem, snapped pictures of us underneath it, and in June were back in Boone.
The following autumn, I washed dishes at the elementary school while Perri transferred from Lees-McRae to Appalachian State, pursuing a teaching certificate. For Christmas my parents gave us a “symbolic” gift–a light bulb. Instead of running an extension cord down the hill from Kevin and Fran’s trailer, we’d have a real power hookup at the earth lodge! I was overjoyed! My father was helping us!
It didn’t happen. A month or two later, one of my cousins tried to plan a golf course on my grandparents’ land, which now belonged to my father and his five siblings. If they all got together, there’d be enough land, and everyone would own a share. This might have been acceptable, but it didn’t work out. The bank wanted to buy everyone out. As for the power hookup, it wasn’t gonna happen. A promise he’d never really thought about keeping.
I thought the whole affair over, but Perri was furious. It wasn’t considered that the two of us had put over a year of money and sweat into our home and the property. We weren’t asked. The golf course was announced as a given, an aside, and of course our earth lodge would be torn down. She saw it as an outright, complete betrayal, of promises made, a breach of trust.
She was correct.
War Stories
Every generation has war stories, literally or figuratively. They’re keys to one generation understanding another. Or not.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, my father was sixteen. Ned and some friends were playing mumbly-pegs, which in the Appalachians was a stick-and-rock game resembling baseball. Everyone rushed in from the meadow and gathered around the Sears Silvertone when the Gene Autry Show was interrupted. The war was daily news, but Ned didn’t think he’d be part of it. He was the student body president, and a popular debater. He finished high school and went for a year to Mars Hill College in Mars Hill, NC for a year. While he was on summer break, the Allies invaded Normandy, and the Army called for volunteers to join the Air Corps. In August, 1944 he signed up to become a pilot, but the Army Air Corps had 30,000 more volunteers than they needed. He was drafted into the infantry–a depressing development, but he didn’t back out. After 17 weeks of boot camp in Ft. McClellan, Alabama, he volunteered to be a paratrooper and was sent to Ft. Benning, Georgia. Before he finished training, the Battle of the Bulge began. He got a two week furlough, but on Christmas Day was in Ft. Meade, Maryland, and on New Year’s Day, 1945, was sailing on the Queen Mary.
It took four days to cross the Atlantic. Thirty thousand men slept in 8-hour shifts. Waiting for chow took forever, and after tasting it, he decided the British didn’t know how to cook, and survived on cigarettes and candy bars. He trimmed other soldiers’ hair for pocket change (and later became a barber). They docked in Glasgow, took a train to Southampton, crossed the English Channel and rode in boxcars to Riems.

Germans had infiltrated the area, wearing American uniforms. Everyone had to keep up with the current passwords, one of which was “squirrel”. He was assigned to the 35th Division, 1378th regiment, Company B. They went into Alsace-Lorraine, where the snow was waist-deep.
It was a brutal winter. The first night, his outfit was on one mountain and the Germans, across the valley, on another. It was snowing, and the temperature went to 30 below. The Germans were sending out patrols; their black boots marched through the snow past his foxhole. He kept quiet. The guy beside him was coughing, but the patrol passed him by.
His feet were freezing. Trench foot. He cut up an army blanket, stuffed it in his boots. From that day onwards, for the rest of his life, he wore tight shoes.
Not much fighting was going on, so his company moved south, traveling through Belgium and France in trucks. In one little French village a woman and her daughter waved to the trucks and cheerfully yelled out “Boolsheet! Boolsheet!,” which some smartass must have told her was a greeting–so the soldiers waved and yelled “Bullshit!” back.
The Germans were retreating, and the Americans lined up outside villages to fire their weapons. The brass had decided every squad needed two Browning automatics, and Ned carried one. It was a pain in the butt. It fired a lot more ammo, but half the time it’d jam. It was heavy, and got heavier as they marched. One moonlit night, about 2 am, they heard a sniper and everyone hit the ditch. Ned fell asleep, and when someone killed the sniper, he slept until someone shook him awake. They were lining up to take the next village, and just then a mortar shell landed where he’d been sleeping. A little mound of dirt on the ditch bank saved him from being hit, but the guy next to him was killed.
They went into the village at daylight, firing away. In a little gingerbread house there was a man of eighty or so who didn’t care that Ned had a big Browning rifle and wouldn’t put his hands over his head. He just kept cussing in German and pushing him away. They put the civilians in the central square, and secured the village.
They’d reached the Ruhr River. Everything was misty and muddy. German burp guns were going off in the distance, shooting out beams like headlights. There was a phone line between the foxholes, and a couple guys named Quinliver and LaBota were in a barn. A little before daylight, Quinliver called and said, “Sergeant, there’s a patrol outside the barn.” The sergeant asked Ned whether he and Bryant had seen a patrol. They hadn’t. The sergeant asked, had Quinliver? They didn’t know. The sergeant told Quinliver and LaBota to “let ‘em have it,” and all hell broke loose. At daylight, there were five little cherry trees near the barn which Quinliver and LaBota had shot to pieces. The sergeant separated them, and Quinliver became Ned’s partner.
On the 4th of March, 1945, the soldiers entered a small village which appeared deserted, except for an air raid shelter in the side of the hill with a stovepipe sticking out the top. Like most of the officers, the lieutenant was a college kid who’d had 3 months of training, but didn’t know much. A lot of these “ninety day wonders” quickly got themselves killed. The “little lieutenant,” as they called him behind his back, was at the mouth of the shelter, yelling. Ned told him he knew what to do. He climbed to the top of the stovepipe, put a big clod of dirt on it and 15 or 20 villagers came out, coughing. Among them were two soldiers, who promptly surrendered. They said they weren’t really soldiers, but had been captured, put into the army and left behind as snipers. They told the Americans the German outfit had pulled across the Rhine, a few kilometers away. The little lieutenant told Ned to guard the civilians, which they didn’t usually do.
Ned leaned back on the shelter, pulled out a K-ration, started eating. The sergeant came along, asked what he was doing. He was guarding the civilians, like the lieutenant had ordered. The sergeant growled, “You know better than that! Get your ass back up front where you belong!” He went back.
The last house in the village had a doorbell. Quinliver went to the back door while Ned rang the bell. Inside was a girl of twelve and her little brother, crying, holding their hands up, repeating “Nicht soldaten! Nicht soldaten! (we’re not soldiers!). Their grandparents were at the table, eating dark German bread. Ned picked up a piece and spread jelly on it. The grandparents, realizing the soldiers were hungry, went to the cellar, pulled out several loaves, and soon the whole squad was eating bread and jelly.
While they were standing in the kitchen, the little lieutenant said to Mahl, the staff sergeant, “Mahl, I don’t know–but I have a funny feeling I’m gonna get it today.” Mahl said, “Aah! Don’t talk that way, lieutenant,” He said, “Well, if something happens to me, you take over.”
There was a chill in the air.
As they left, the lieutenant told Ned and another fellow that it was their turn to be forward scouts.
They were in rolling hill country, and the road forked at the base of a little hill. The captain ran up with a map, and told Ned to go right. Just then, a German flare went up, and they knew it was a trap. Ahead to the right was a gravel pit, and Ned dived in.
All hell broke loose. The Germans had a machine gun and a mortar set up on the hill. The machine gunner opened up, but didn’t have the gun aimed and hit the dirt in front of Ned, who jumped and ran up the bank. The other fellow was hit. The Germans opened up on the company with machine guns on both flanks, and the mortar in the middle. A sergeant named Jackson joined Ned on the bank; he started to get up and fire his rifle, but Ned told him to get down. He did. They heard a tank coming and ran the other way, through the trees. A Tiger Royal with an 88mm gun came rolling down the road, firing toward the area they’d just left. By now, the lieutenant was a pile of dirty, bloody flesh. Mahl had been killed, and most of the company was piled in the road, dead or dying. Ned and Jackson lay on the hill beside the road. Ned knew the machine gunner could see him; the tracer bullets were pinging all around. He kept saying please, God, don’t let me die–then decided if he was going to die he’d read the Bible. He opened his little pocket Bible at random and read, “fear not the man who can destroy the body, for he cannot touch the soul.”
The firing stopped. Jackson said, “Austin, we can surrender.” They didn’t have anything white to hold up, but held up an old pair of gloves and left their rifles behind, hands in the air.
There were ten men left. A guy named Bachard walked up to a German soldier, and the soldier asked him, in English, “Do you have a family?” Bachard replied, “Yes. I have two daughters, and I‘m from Oregon.” The German said, “I have two daughters, too. I haven’t heard from my wife for 3 months. I don’t know what’s happened to them. War is hell, isn’t it?” Bachard said, “It really is.”
The Germans put everyone in a potato shed. They sent a doctor, who examined the wounded and told them, “Someone will come for you. Don’t leave the building or you’ll be shot.”
They were taken to the next village. The American artillery started up, and they were almost killed by their own artillery fire. They went across the Rhine on a ferry, and spent the next night in a home where a German woman fed them barley soup. It was new to Ned, and one of the best things he’d ever tasted. They were then taken to Dortmund.
As prisoners, they didn’t have a change of clothes, were covered in lice and were always hungry or thirsty. They spent the night in a railway station in Essen, watched by two guards. One was an old fellow who’d been a prisoner of the British in the last World War; his name was Willy, but they called him Pop. He spoke a little English, and they got along well.
They were then held in an air raid shelter in Essen, and various Germans with relatives in the States came by to talk. One of the German soldiers, when asked about the American military, said the artillery was excellent, the Air Corps was excellent, but the infantry was a joke.
Leaving Essen, they were simply passengers on a train, with Willy as guard. There was little point in taking elaborate measures, this far behind the lines, this late in the war. They went through a tunnel, heard planes above and stopped in a rail center. The American pilots would circle the train as a humanitarian act to let the civilians get out. All the civilians left the train and ran up the mountain, while the prisoners and Willy remained inside. The American P-47s bombed the rail center and strafed the train. When the destruction was finished, the civilians came back and started spitting and throwing rocks at the prisoners, but Willy got some German soldiers to protect the prisoners from the civilians. They couldn’t ride the train anymore, and started walking, but Willy made arrangements to have them ride on top of a bus. Willy handed his rifle to Ned as he climbed up to guard them–what was Ned gonna do, start shooting?–and when the bus cleared out, they got inside.
School children would practice their English on them, reciting nursery rhymes and asking simple questions. Ned asked them if they could get tobacco, and they gave the prisoners a bag of tobacco. None of the German people seemed to see the prisoners as enemies, just wretches who had even less than they did, which wasn’t much. The prisoners got one loaf of moldy, soggy black bread per day. Not tasty, but nutritious.
They arrived at the Lindberg prison camp, and were interrogated. A German lieutenant, who spoke very good English, talked with Ned, and Ned said, “Lieutenant, I feel very fortunate, because I don’t know anything that could be of value to the German army. You know more about what I know than I do. I understand that early in the interrogation, before you torture us, you’ll be very kind to us to see if we know anything. I wonder if you could give me a cigarette.” The lieutenant laughed and said he didn’t smoke, but called in a captain who gave Ned five cigarettes in a box. They asked what state he was from. He told them North Carolina, and they asked about a paper shortage they’d heard North Carolina was having. They asked a few questions about gas, and he told them yes, all the soldiers were very well prepared against a gas attack. They asked him if he had any friends in the 15th Army. He’d never heard of the 15th Army. They told him they weren’t surprised. The 15th Army was going to be the army of occupation.
In prison camp, for about a week, they got a big slice of black bread each day, with potato soup, which was just boiled potatoes in dirty water. One day everyone got a full loaf of bread, and were all loaded onto French boxcars. There wasn’t enough room to lie down, only to stand or squat. Each boxcar had a can for water, and one to use as a toilet. Sometimes the water can got filled, sometimes it didn’t; they were always thirsty. They spent the next two days inside a tunnel. When they pulled out they were worried about getting bombed, because none of the boxcars were painted PW (Prisoner of War) and the Americans were bombing like crazy, all over Germany.
The train pulled into a little village. There were small openings covered in barbed wire in the corners of the boxcar, and kids started throwing in tiny green apples. They thought it great fun to hear the prisoners inside yelling and fighting for apples. Ned wondered how many people these poor kids had seen in his condition.
The lice would crawl over their skin when it was warm. Quite a few prisoners lost their minds. They’d cry. Ned or one of the others would lecture them and tell them to be strong, how everyone was gonna get out and so forth. After seven days, Ned had a premonition. He knew they were getting off the boxcar that day, and started telling everyone. Most of the guys thought he’d lost his mind, too, but they got off! Some guys didn’t. They were too weak, and died right there.
They walked for two or three days, sleeping wherever they stopped. They finally walked into a village, and the villagers brought out a huge washtub full of soup, which was unusual as Germans rarely gave prisoners anything; they often didn’t have anything to give. The prisoners knew it wouldn’t be long before they were liberated, and on the night of March 29th, 1945, the guards simply disappeared. A buddy of Ned’s climbed a barn to watch when they heard tanks coming, and they all ran to meet the tanks, which were American. The division sent ambulances and trucks for the prisoners and took them to a field hospital, where they burned their rotten, dirty clothes. They were de-loused, showered, given new uniforms, and ate and ate and ate. They were sent to Paris and spent two weeks in the hospital, where those who could got frequent passes into the city, and had a wonderful time.
One day Ned was interviewed by a captain, who put Ned’s papers in a basket. When the captain was out of the room Ned saw they were for his next assignment. He threw his papers and the next few under them in the trash, and he and the other few guys spent another two weeks in Paris. After a month, he was shipped home. It was May 8th, 1945. Germany was out of the war and Ned got a sixty-day furlough. He thought he might have to go to the Pacific, but the atomic bomb ended that. He was discharged in November of 1945, went back to the farm and back to school.
Ned graduated from Mars Hill College, went to New York City and from there to a summer stock theatre in Surrey, Maine. He never became a preacher, which had been his mother Minnie’s wish. A few years later Boone held a Daniel Boone festival, and from that came an idea to start an outdoor drama like the one then playing at the coast, starring Andy Griffith. A rustic theatre was built on a hill outside town, and Ned landed the role of Daniel Boone in “Horn in the West”.
My mother Bobbie was a singer in the cast that summer. When Ned saw her carry off a heavy prop anvil which had carelessly been left onstage, he knew she was the girl for him! After one date, he proposed. She waited until he sobered up, then said yes.
Trust
Did the war shape my father’s character? Of course. It shaped everyone’s character, and affected everything. In the 1950s, cheery musicals were replaced by dark drama. People drank too much. Method acting, the popular style of the ‘50s, now seems overblown and out of control, but the world felt a need for psychological excess.
It affected the kids. Baby boomers grew up in a world of fear. At age five, six, eight we’d hear a siren and fly under our desks, assume the kiss-your-ass-goodbye position and wait for the bomb to vaporize us. Metal bracelets, which we all wore, reminded us that we might be little piles of ashes in a nanosecond, but whoever swept up would know which crispy fry was who by our tags. None of us expected to grow up. I thought I’d be lucky to see fourteen and drive a motor scooter.
If we grew up, though, we knew what to expect. We’d be fighting the Russians, on land, on sea and in space. All the smart kids would be rocket scientists.
I was smart. I was the smartest kid in the state; my Stanford Achievement Test scores said so. I’d been promoted a year, which also made me the youngest, smallest, and physically least matured in my class. I was easily bullied by students, teachers, the system~but especially by my father.
He was brutal, which wasn’t unusual. Lots of boys were smacked around, whipped, beat up by their fathers, even their teachers. A common idea was that a boy would be smacked around until he got to be big enough to hit back. Didn’t make it right.
Parents get what they give. Give love, get love. Give honesty and respect, get honesty and respect. To be remembered as a fine person, be a fine person. Most thought my father warm, generous, funny. He could be, to them; they only saw that side of him. I knew better.
When he got drunk he was mean. Black tar mean.
When I was younger he’d drink a beer or two after work, but this gradually increased; by the time I was a teen he’d drink a six-pack before coming home and three or four more at the kitchen table. He’d pick a target~usually me~and “interview” them, pretending to be interested in their life, but this was really psychological probing; he’d dig and dig and pick and pick; subtly, “reasonably” asking insulting questions until his adversary exploded. He’d smirk, get up and leave, the “winner”. He claimed it was psychological analysis, useful in his acting, but it was ugliness, nothing else.
He was a deeply jealous man. When he saw innocent, pleasant, happy people he’d make horrid, despicable comments to them. He once blindsided a polite, cheerful waitress by asking her what it was like to live her life as ugly as she was. He kept it up through dinner, loudly telling his dinner companion, my brother, that if he were that ugly, he’d commit suicide. She ran to the back and cried.
He was pleasant when we’d work together. I shined shoes and cleaned up the barbershop as a kid. We sold Christmas trees together when I was older, but if I did anything well, be it praiseworthy, notable or simply competent, he’d find a way to wreck it.
For me this became commonplace, ordinary. He was thoroughly, completely, predictably untrustworthy, forgetting a promise before he’d finished making it. Sometimes this was carelessness, but often, I came to feel, deliberate malice. Why? I don’t know, though I’ve thought about it. A lot.
I never did anything mean or vindictive to my father. Though I shouldn’t have trusted him, I did. If he had issues from his childhood, from the war, from growing up in the Depression, well, so does everyone. He was deliberately malicious, and that was wrong, and I’ll say it as long as I like, even if I’m spitting it over the railing in heaven.
He’s dead now, and I’m relieved. Is that wrong? Should I care? Psychologists say to forgive “for your own good”. Religious leaders quote Jesus or Buddha and say forgive your enemies, forgive seventy times seven. This I did, and more. I felt worse, not better. If I make a Jesus face and say “I forgive”, my heart is still bruised. I’m worn out. I tried to love him but, for his own incomprehensible reasons, he hated me. I feel no obligation, no desire, no wish to pretend otherwise. It’s over.
After the golf course debacle, I should have shaken off the dust, gone with my woman and left for good, but I had a misplaced wish to be a loyal son, to build a life, a business, to prove my worth to my undeserving father and to the Austin family, who’d lived in the valley for two hundred years.
I hadn’t felt at home until I moved to North Carolina. I’d grown up in Colorado, where I’d always felt like an outcast; I only kept up with a couple acquaintances from Hollywood, where I managed our rental equipment yard and played in the family band. I had lots of friends in Austin, Texas, where we’d sold Christmas trees for years and everyone remembered my name, but in Boone, I had family. I’d built a home. I felt at home.
It didn’t mean as much to Perri. When the plans for the golf course fell through, like seventy-seven hundred other plans and promises of my father’s, I didn’t think twice. To Perri, however, it demonstrated that whatever we did meant zip to him. She was correct, I was blind. I continued working on the earth lodge, but Perri got one apartment, then another. We stayed in the lodge occasionally, then let friends live there, then we moved away and our dream rotted away. After thirty years, it collapsed.
Snag End
I brought my Model A truck to Snag End to work on it with Jake and Kevin. Jake and Jody had been living on the property, in a bus. Jake was a great help, but Kevin turned increasingly erratic. He and Fran had joined a weirdo cult before they got married. They’d quit the red-haired loony’s church shortly after the wedding, but Kevin had taken up drinking. He’d drink a couple beers late at night for a couple weeks, then start after lunch. Soon he’d be walking around at 9am, beer in hand, and a week later the liquor bottle would be half-empty at 11am. By 4pm Kevin would do something stupid. He’d quit drinking for a few weeks, and the cycle would repeat.
We all worked planting and tending Christmas trees, sometimes for various farmers and sometimes for the family. We’d rented a U-Haul van to take Christmas trees to Texas for several years, but decided we needed something better.
My cousin worked for the school bus garage in South Carolina. There had been a horrible fiery wreck in Kentucky where a drunk driver, going the wrong way on the freeway, had plowed into the passenger side of a bus. “The Carrollton Bus Crash,” took place May 14, 1988. Twenty-four children and three adults died when its gas tank was punctured and exploded. School bus safety was improved, but rather than re-fit every bus in America, they sold old ones, cheap. We bought one for $600, and took out all the seats. It wouldn’t go over 45 miles per hour, and only made four or five miles per gallon, so we purchased a used, 2-speed rear end for another $250. In top gear it now made 60 miles per hour, and got seven or eight miles per gallon.
Perri’s mother Mams worked for the Beech Mountain Club, a homeowner’s association which ran the camp, ski slope, skating rink and other activities on the mountain. One of its attractions was the Land of Oz, a theme park based on the movie, which my brother and I had auditioned for in 1975. It closed in 1981 or ’82, and Perri got possession of a few items; we still have a small step-stool, but a disco ball disintegrated, leaving behind hundreds of 1/2” mirror squares which still occasionally float through our lives, appearing in a dusty corner or sneaking out from under a blanket in an old trunk.
Perri’s friend Cindy had also worked on Beech Mountain. Her parents knew mine, though I didn’t find that out until later. The winter before we met, Cindy had an argument with her on-again-off-again boyfriend of many years. He’d stormed off, wrecked his car and died. For many years afterwards Cindy was involved with one inappropriate guy after another–guys who were married, living at home at 40, way older, etc. One day in the late 1990s she and I had a heart-to-heart talk. She realized she’d been picking guys she kinda knew from the start weren’t gonna work, because it wouldn’t hurt so much when they left–or died. Soon afterwards she found an appropriate fellow, and settled down.
Perri went to school and found a part-time job delivering pizzas when we moved into the apartment. She had a habit of hitting me when we disagreed, and one day I’d had enough. I spun her around and punched her in the center of her back. That ended it. People say men should never hit a woman, but neither should a woman hit a man. One day I saw a 250-lb. woman on Phil Donahue sitting by her 125-pound husband and she (punch!) said (punch!) that HE’D(punch!) HIT (punch!) HER (punch!)!!! Nobody noticed that she was taller, weighed twice as much, and had just punched him five times.
For six months or so we received a subsidized rent, but when I received a raise of 25¢ an hour, the rent suddenly doubled. We moved into the Mountain Ridge apartments outside town, up a steep hill. It was approximately the same size, and rent, that we’d been paying before, but the neighbors were a problem. Below us lived a redneck fellow named Kenny. Kenny was pleasant, but had two jobs and worked all the time. His pregnant wife, her mother and her no-count brother also lived in the one-bedroom apartment. The three of them watched TV all day, drinking soda and chain-smoking cigarettes. Kenny’s wife kept a broomstick handy, and banged on the ceiling when we walked around the apartment. The floor squeaked, but what the hell were we supposed to do? When our neighbors to the left played music, she’d bang on our ceiling. When our neighbors to the right got into arguments, she’d bang on the ceiling.
To our right, our neighbors loved the Doors, and when they got into arguments they’d crank up the stereo. We’d hear Jim Morrison braying “Don’t you love her madly?” interspersed with squabbling from the wife, thundering from the husband, yelling from the kids and banging on the ceiling. We were happy that Kenny’s wife kept the temperature cranked up to 80; the heat came up through our floor. Our power bill was under $50, while theirs was over $300. We even opened the windows to cool things down, a small, but delicious, compensation.
Perri’s brother Wes’s girlfriend, Helen, worked for a local resort. As a “perk”, she got a two-week stay in a condominium in Florida, and the four of us went to Disney World, visited Perri’s half-sister Joy and her friends in Sanford, then across the state to see Joy’s sister Glee in Sebring and brother Jimmie in Fort Myers. After a couple weeks we headed home. I wanted to visit my two sisters, who were in Melbourne, but Perri wanted to leave. I was not happy. We’d visited with her family for two weeks. She saw my glum mood and we stopped, visiting my sister Genny, her husband Suzuki and my sister Laura.
We stayed at Mountain Ridge apartments through the winter of ’85. I got a job selling ski tickets at Beech Mountain. It was crazy enough driving up the road home in deep snow, much less up Beech Mountain. One day I had to put on the “chains” supplied by Toyota, little clamps with two chains about six inches apart. The tire would spin and grab, spin and grab. I got up the mountain an hour late and used a full tank of gas. I stayed at my supervisor’s condo that night, and thereafter took Perri’s four-wheel-drive Subaru while she drove the Toyota to school.

On the Beech
Selling tickets was fun. On busy days I’d take in $20,000 or $30,000, one day $50,000, but most days, especially early or late in the season, I’d bring a book. I’d read a book a day, sometimes in Spanish, which I was mastering.
We split from Mountain Ridge Apartments in the spring of 1986. Perri started classes down the mountain in Morganton while I stayed in the earth lodge. We’d bought an Oldsmobile from Suzuki and I suggested to Genny that with the money they should take a vacation out West. They did, and had a great time, but Suzuki wanted to stay in San Francisco while Genny wanted to be a star in New York. They eventually divorced, though she called him, late at night, for years.
I took classes at Appalachian and worked with a couple rock masons on the off days. We built chimneys, walkways, patios, and I’d pick up leftover pieces of plywood and 2x4s from job sites and put them in the earth lodge. By the fall of 1986 it was a solid structure. That summer and fall I sold jewelry, flutes and toys at Mystery Hill, a tourist attraction along the Blowing Rock Highway, and found that my best sellers were stained glass kaleidoscopes. In late 1986 I made one which combined a color wheel and a tumble box, and christened it a Kallistoscope.
O Canada
For spring break of ’86 we started for a camp-out with my Earth Studies class, packed the Subaru and waited, but nobody showed. It was supposed to be the last weekend of Easter break, not the first. Since we already had everything packed we picked up our champagne bottle with 2-1/2 years’ worth of dimes in it and with the $200 or so and an Exxon card headed north. We drove to Niagara Falls, crossed into Canada, and then called everyone back home, who’d thought we were in Virginia! We toured Canada for the afternoon, bought souvenirs, then went to Cortland, NY, where I had many friends from five years of hitchhiking through town. I’d often stayed with Barb, who was out of town, but Eileen was there. We stayed the night and I kissed her goodbye, for the first, and last, time.
In New Jersey we visited Kevin’s parents while we got the shock absorbers to the Subaru replaced. The mechanic couldn’t believe how worn-out they were. Four years of gravel mountain roads had destroyed them completely. No resistance whatever. We tried to pay with our Sears Discover card, but Sears in New Jersey didn’t take a card from North Carolina. We had to arrange a round-about transaction from one bank, to another, to another, to put money in Kevin’s mother’s bank account to pay the mechanic. We stayed in New Jersey while the car was being fixed. I went with Kevin’s brother. I ordered my first legal drink of liquor, in a bar connected to a liquor store. I was 33, but had never ordered anything but beer or wine in North Carolina and during my five years of thumbing around hadn’t gone in any liquor bars. It felt strange ordering “whiskey”, then came the question, what kind?
I didn’t know. I was a country hick. I was even wearing overalls.
Kevin’s brother was wild and crazy, but friendly and very funny, like Kevin. We rode his three-wheeler ATV, a style popular in 1986 but even then being phased out for the far safer four-wheelers. One of the fellows on a four-wheeler hit a guy-wire and it snapped, flailing about wildly. It was fortunate he had a four wheeler. It now had a deep dent in the front, but on a three-wheeler he’d likely have lost his arm, his head, or both.
They told a story about a friend. A local landowner had stretched a cable across his private road. Their friend had gone riding, and the cable had taken off his head. The landowner was convicted of manslaughter.
Kevin’s parents were gracious and accommodating. They put us up, fed us, showed us around town and gave us a few dollars when we left. A few months later Kevin’s brother got a new job, celebrated, did too much cocaine and died.
We visited New York City for the afternoon, where my brother’s boyfriend Rob commented on my overalls. It hadn’t occurred to me that overalls were a fashion statement; they were convenient for travel, but in New York City, for what other reason than fashion would I wear them?
Shortly afterwards my youngest sister graduated from Warren Wilson College. We visited her in Asheville in May. It’s a lovely area, tucked into the mountains, and she got a job as a recruiter for the college, where she recruited our sister Genny.
My father asked me to draw the horoscope for a sale of our tree farm that year, to a fast-talking preacher. I warned him, but it was like pissing in the wind. Since we were getting out of the business, I rented a shop. I planned to get started with the half interest he’d promised me, but when I brought it up the promise he looked at me like I’d lost my mind. The shop went under, the preacher cut down hundreds of trees, sold them, didn’t pay up, and we got the tree farm back, minus all the best trees. I went back to trimming them, my “half interest” a big fat zero.
I lived in the earth lodge that winter and sold tickets on Beech Mountain again, while Perri found work student teaching in Alamance County. I’d visit one or two weekends a month.
Terry
A few years earlier, I’d occasionally dated a goofy, hilariously funny girl named Terry Smith. I knew her family well; she was a sweet, intelligent girl who’d been off to college, but now was back in town. I’d drawn her astrology chart years before, and now she wanted me to tell her about it. I told her to drop by. She came one night when it had snowed, and I was stuck on Beech Mountain. She pulled into my driveway and put a hose from her tailpipe into her Volkswagen bus. She was found the next day.
I learned later it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to kill herself. More like the fifth. I’d known her for years, but had no idea.

Perri’s parents had given us a VCR for Christmas, a top-loader with no real remote control, only a tiny box attached by wire, with buttons for play, pause, fast forward and rewind. There was a row of thirteen buttons on the front, and each could be manually tuned into a television channel using a hidden thumbscrew. I’d been practicing my Spanish, and had taped Spanish TV when I could, but only had 2 or 3 tapes. I’d play them all night while I slept, with the sound low and the picture dimmed.
After moving down the mountain Perri took a job at the local mall in a store called Just My Size, for larger women. I moved down in the spring. We’d socialize with her colleagues, sometimes taping movies from cable to watch together. One afternoon we’d seen a movie starring a popular punk rocker, Wendy O. Williams. We thought Steve and Chris had cable, but they’d spent good money to rent a VCR and the same not-very-good movie, which we watched again!
I worked on my kaleidoscopes and by the spring of ’87 had come up with an original and creative design. I’d sold a few at flea markets and acquired a regular customer who had a booth at a flea market and later a shop in Greensboro, the first place to sell my Kallistoscopes and puzzle rings.
My last winter in Texas, I’d caught a bad strain of the flu, and couldn’t shake it, never really felt like I was over it. The next summer I’d be absolutely exhausted after work, and in winter I’d catch it again. None of the pills worked. I thought it was chronic fatigue syndrome, a popular, non-specific ailment, and got interested in herbal remedies. They worked, but demanded a different mind-set. People are accustomed to taking pills, but herbal remedies require what seem to be massive amounts. Instead of one tiny pill four times a day, it’s a full cup of tea every hour.
In the spring of 1987 when the ski slope shut down I moved to Alamance County. Perri had found a tiny house about a mile from school and was student teaching special education. I was trying to make a go of kaleidoscopes and jewelry. My intent to have a profession that didn’t involve working in a particular place, so that I could pack up and move back to the mountains without a lot of complications. I made kaleidoscopes in the back room, drove around the state and sold them. It worked okay for awhile. Sometimes I’d come home with a thousand dollars, sometimes a hundred, but Perri had a steady salary, and as far as I knew we were planning to move back in a few months. Perri had put in for a teacher’s position in Boone. She hadn’t heard back yet, but it was no great surprise in a town centered around a teacher’s college. Sooner or later, her name would come up.
In the fall Perri was a teacher at Hillcrest School, minding emotionally troubled kids in special education, with an assistant Pat, who with her husband Randy and kids Carly and Leah became good friends. Another family was her colleague Loretta, married to Charles, with a daughter Jennifer.
We’d gotten a PCjr. computer from a fellow who worked for IBM; he’d supercharged it and now it had ten times the power of the computers Perri was using at school. A mind-blowing, exceptional 640K of memory.
We got a tree lot at the mall in Burlington at the Sears store–they had an outside garden area, unused after the fall. About a week into the season the Sears manager wanted us to pay the rent and all the expected percentage of the profits, up front, before we’d sold anything. We hadn’t been specific about when the rent and percentage of the sales would be paid, but that was ridiculous. I charged it to my Discover card and put Sears last on my shit list. My parents had a similar problem with Sears. They’d been loyal customers for 20 years, but after moving from Colorado to California were suddenly slapped with a $250 limit on purchases, which meant no washer-dryer combo in their new house. The next year I rented a lot in town from a fellow who’d been a customer and also said to hell with Sears.
Married!
In 1988 Perri and I married. On Leap Day we ran off to Danville, Virginia, not telling anyone what we were doing. We’d thought about it years before when we’d gone to Niagara Falls, but the secret plan got out and it didn’t seem so fun. By 1988 nobody suspected, except one of Perri’s colleagues who figured it out on her own, and gave us a nice basket of champagne and sweets. We’d made wedding bands for each other and wore them afterwards, but as both of us wore a lot of jewelry for sales purposes, nobody noticed. It wasn’t until October that my youngest sister asked about my ring. I wore it for several years, but one day when soldering a glob of molten metal rolled off a kaleidoscope and into the open-weave design of the ring, where it badly burned my finger. I stopped wearing jewelry while working, and eventually altogether.
The house we’d rented was four rooms with an open area in the center where the living room, kitchen and bedrooms met. To the back the bedroom had a half-size door for a half-size bathroom. Behind the kitchen was a small workshop, and behind that a deck. The second bedroom we used for a den, and there was a staircase in the den leading to the attic, finished and insulated but with only about 5’9” headroom, in the center, which wasn’t enough us to use comfortably. My sister Fran left her husband Kevin later that spring, though, and it proved perfect for her and her four kids. They’d left North Carolina when Kevin got his fourth DUI and stayed in Arizona while Kevin got ever more crazy. Genny and Suzuki visited them on their western tour, and Suzuki gifted Kevin with a fancy Japanese sushi knife, since he was working as a cook. Kevin later attacked Fran with the knife, and cut off her hair. She took her two toddler boys and premature, twin baby girls–one on oxygen, the other brain damaged–and left. We had a nicely finished attic with bright, painted walls and wall-to-wall carpeting, which only had about 5’10” headroom down its center~cramped for me but perfect for her and the kids. When Kevin found out where she was and started calling, we bought an answering machine. He filled up its hour-long tapes with angry, drunken rants. Fran took up with, and later married, a fellow named Rob she’d known since she was ten, and they moved in together after six weeks,. There were now three Robs in the family–my brother, my other brother’s boyfriend and my sister’s husband.
Six months later, Beth came to Boone. I’d been crazy about her, but she’d run off with a guitar player. After twelve years, she’d gotten divorced, in the same month I’d married. We had a long talk. I had a hard time getting to sleep that night.
In August of ’88 Perri and I took our second trip to the Outer Banks, with Loretta, Charles and Jennifer. I sold a few scopes in a shop in Ocracoke and on the ferry back from the southern islands opened up the hatchback and set several on display. I sold a couple to ferryboat passengers and met a fellow named Roger who owned a frame shop in the little town of Inman, SC. He bought several, and became a regular customer. We visited many places we’d not stopped before; Spot, Duck, the USS North Carolina. We camped out on the beach.
Our dog Daphne was hit by a car that summer. We’d been driving a few miles to the YMCA, playing racquetball and swimming, and sometimes she’d ride along. We’d walked home with her one time when the car had a flat, and some days later we’d left her at home. She decided to find us, and was walking to the YMCA when she was hit. The driver took her to the vet, and she lost a couple teeth but otherwise recovered.
Perri had her own classroom that fall at Hillcrest School, a glorified closet on the top floor of a building which had been built in 1931 and had no air conditioning. The first couple weeks were sweltering, but after September it became a nice cozy room to deal with the dozen or so kids who were too disruptive to stay in regular classrooms. She was happy to be teaching and had a good year, though her whole purpose was to take “emotionally disturbed” kids, who wouldn’t mind anyone else–teachers, parents, nobody–and make them mind her. She was good at it, too, but it’d lead to problems between us.
In the winter of that year I was off selling Kallistoscopes in the Subaru while Perri had the Oldsmobile. There was an ice storm, Perri couldn’t get the car out of the driveway and the power was out. She was in the cold dark house with the Oldsmobile stuck uselessly in the driveway, and decided to walk to the little store a block away and buy a soda. She got bundled up, put on her boots, headed out, slipped along the ice and tromped through the snow to the little store on the corner–but it was closed because of the weather. She went to the soda machine. It was working–but she only had one dollar bill, and the machine wouldn’t take it. She trudged back home again, glummer than before.
We taped hundreds of movies, because we knew we weren’t going to stay in the little house and didn’t want to pay for cable TV after moving. When we left we had about 400 or 500 movies. We listed them in a booklet we’d printed in the unmistakable dot-matrix computer print font which was universal in the ‘80s. We soon learned how fast we could see every last movie a half-a-dozen times each!
For Thanksgiving ’88 our parents had a get-together. Sam, his boyfriend Rob and my sister Genny were all down from New York; Perri and I were up for the weekend. Genny had offered my parents’ farm as a temporary home for a dog while her friend was out of the country, a big, dumb Irish setter named Leo. Perri and I were in my old room on the former front porch, Sam and Rob were upstairs. On Thanksgiving morning, first thing, Perri and I were awakened by Rob booming out, “Leo, you fat, stupid pig!!!” Rob had come downstairs to breakfast and discovered Leo had stolen the turkey and scarfed up so much that he’d puked all over the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
Our landlord Teddy had had a rough month. He split up with his wife and his brother died in a cycle wreck. He wanted to move back into the little house. We could’ve crammed everything in a jumble into the bus after Christmas, but he gave us an extra month. Perri moved in with her old friend Cindy, who was now living in Burlington. I stayed in the mountains and unsuccessfully tried to show the farmhands down the road how to make parts for kaleidoscopes.
We snuck in to see our new house. It was lovely, built in 1940 on a lot just under 2 acres. There were splendid archways leading from the living room and dining room into the hallway, and the kitchen had been accessorized with a breakfast bar which went through the wall into the den. Except for the kitchen, den and bathroom, which were linoleum, it had wall-to-wall carpeting. A couple of window-unit air conditioners and an oil-burning furnace under a grating in the floor controlled the heat. There were two very nice fireplaces, a large open front porch and an enclosed back porch. It had been remodeled ten or fifteen years before, and city water lines had just been installed, though the well still functioned. The property included a vacant lot to the right, while a small house to the left had been given to a daughter and the lot split off. There had been a well serving both houses, but a new well was dug many years beforehand.
A grapevine in the side yard was supported by a few old pipes torn out when the house plumbing had been replaced. There was a carport and a small cement-block building in the backyard plus a tumbledown wooden shed way out back which had a very large overhanging roof. It looked as if it had been a barn but half had been torn down.
With the bus packed and parked at Steve and Chris’ house, Perri stayed with Cindy and I spent the month in the earth lodge. We moved into our new digs in March. I set up my workshop on the back porch. Perri had applied for work in Boone, but hadn’t heard back. I wanted my work portable, for when we moved back within a year or two. Kallistoscopes, jewelry, toys–these could be made anywhere.We bought the house as an investment which we could sell or rent out when the time came.
Our dog Daphne was around 20 years old by now. She’d arrived at my parents’ house fully grown some 17 or 18 years before, and had adopted us when we lived at the earth lodge. She rode everywhere with me. I took her to work on Beech Mountain and she waited outside the ticket booth. She’d been slowing down and Perri’s father had given us some veterinary medicine, as her heart was failing. That spring my father was also in the hospital; he had quintuple bypass surgery and because our house was a lot closer to the hospital than the mountains were, everyone stayed with us. While he was recovering, Daphne died. We wrapped her in her favorite quilt and buried her under the magnolia tree in the side yard. It was Hitler’s 100th birthday.
Daphne had gotten incontinent in her old age and the carpeting stunk. We’d already pulled up the lime-green shag carpeting in the spare bedroom so I could use it as a glass workshop. Now we pulled out the olive green carpeting in the living room, dining room and hallway, leaving only the main bedroom. Under it all was a lovely oak floor. It seemed strange that anyone would cover up an oak floor with wall-to-wall carpeting, but that was the style. When we visited the older couple who fixed our lawnmower, we started telling the story and realized, halfway through, that they had wall-to-wall carpeting even in the bathroom, undoubtedly considering it the height of luxury!
About six weeks after Daphne died, Perri met a woman outside the grocery store giving away puppies. She found that the pups were born on the same day, and arranged to bring me one for my 36th birthday. Angel came home that June 3rd.
I felt strange about my 36th birthday because I’d noted many years earlier that Marilyn Monroe’s chart and mine were very similar, and Marilyn had died when she was 36. I didn’t consider it relevant that Andy Griffith was born on the same day and was still going strong.
Colorado
Perri had not been out West since she was a baby, so when school let out in 1989 we traveled to Colorado. I wanted her to see my old stomping grounds and meet buddies from high school. We drove through the never-ending plains of Kansas and finally saw the mountains, way in the distance, at the Colorado line. We got a chuckle from a postcard offered in Kanorado, on the Kansas border, advertising inexpensive accommodations to skiers–the slopes were over 250 miles away!
Many in the East have no concept of Western distances. Some friends from New England planned a trip to Colorado and thought that over the weekend they’d drive to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, since both were but one state away. Yes–but from Denver that’s a round trip of over 2000 miles!
By late afternoon we’d arrived, and Perri wanted to look for a place to stay but I insisted we go straight to Monk’s house. His mother gave us the spare bedroom. We spent several days exploring the mountains, visiting with friends, going to parties with Monk and his siblings. Monk had left the Hare Krishnas. My brother and I had taken him to the temple in Boulder in 1971; he’d joined in March 1973 and left five years later, though he still went to the temple. I’d thumbed through shortly after he’d quit the monk life and we had a few beers, which was the first time since that he’d had intoxicants. Once or twice a year I’d thumb through and keep in touch. He married for a few years Tara, a gal he knew from the temple, then briefly a “wild Indian”, whom I never met. By 1989 he was married to Carissa.
We went by their apartment and had a nice visit. At one point Perri and I were in the other room, passing around a joint, when I heard a commotion in the living room. There was a coked-up guy yelling that Monk owed him money and brandishing a gun. I introduced myself and held out my hand. To shake hands he had to put the gun away, and I explained we were visitors from out of town, that I didn’t know what was going on but it could all be worked out later and now wasn’t the time for it. He left quietly. Monk and the rest were dumbfounded and grateful beyond words. I didn’t think it was such a big deal. I calmly and sensibly told him to come back later, but everyone else was amazed. For the rest of the night Carissa blatantly tried to seduce me, touching me, flashing me from the other room. She was a good-looking woman, but I didn’t need the drama.
Monk invited us to stay the night, but I didn’t want the complication. In the next few days we visited all the brothers and sisters, sold enough kaleidoscopes and jewelry to finance the trip and visited all the haunts I knew as a kid. We went to Boulder and drove along the timberline, went to the Botanical Gardens, City Park and the Museum of Natural History. It was a lovely visit, and though I’d intended to come back the next year for my 20th high school reunion, we’d seen everything and everyone important and I discovered I didn’t have that much interest in coming back the next summer to meet my old classmates. I’d been living in North Carolina for 15 years, and visiting with a woman in tow who’d never been there I found the difference striking. I’d been very much the hippie, but my hair and beard were now trimmed short, while Monk had gone from the shaved pate of the Krishna devotee to wilder and woolier than ever.
Our clothes were subtly different, too. Perri and I had packed along several brightly tie-dyed and patterned shirts we’d acquired at a “Charlie’s Tobacco Field Festival” my cousin’s boyfriend had put together, a “Redneck Woodstock” where we camped overnight in the bus. We sold a few things but made more money selling kaleidoscope “views” for a quarter each. Monk’s sister Margaret especially loved the shirts, which were common in the South but caused a sensation in Colorado, and she sent us several Colorado themed shirts in exchange. Fashion is like that. What’s common in one region is unknown in another, and when an outsider comes to town, there’s a new fad.
After returning we settled back to life in the country. We had three big pecan trees in the backyard and baby ones sprouting in the field, which I carefully mowed around. In the spring I transplanted them. We fixed up the house, replacing the tiny and inadequate squatty little water heater stuffed under the bathroom with a standard one relocated to the back porch. When the sales girl tried to load it into my car I was apprehensive about helping.
I felt a proper respect for womanly strength and ability precluded my manly desire to load it, lest I be labelled a sexist pig. It was difficult to be courteous to women in the 80s, they didn’t want help. A strong liberated feminist needed a man “like a fish needs a bicycle”. Unfortunately, women who tried to do manly things weren’t very good at it. Such was the ‘80s. Try to help a woman, she’d be pissed. Let her do it herself, she’d be pissed.
I made twelve dozen scopes that year. I’d settled on design elements which made them easy and fast to assemble as well as beautiful and strong. Many kaleidoscopes were made with 150 pieces or more; mine used 25 or 30. I’d found a “coaster/ashtray”, made by a glass company in Indiana, that was perfect for the tumble box, sturdy and distinctive on the end of the scope and with the added advantage of lighting up around the edge when viewed in strong light–but it was soon discontinued, so I bought a kiln and made my own, with “Kallistoscope” and “DJ & PJ Austin” molded into the glass.
A mirror which worked well, front-surfaced quartz glass, is now used with laser readers everywhere but in 1989 was new, different, expensive and hard to cut. I broke a lot of it before I discovered carbide glass cutters.
Thanksgiving was the big occasion in Perri’s family, and we went to Beech Mountain for the week. We did some rock climbing and visited with JB and KC, friends from work. KC had been adopted, later found that the initials for her born name and her adopted name were both KC, and JB simply preferred initials. We had a lovely time and have a souvenir picture JB took from under the table at the bar, featuring KC’s underwear. KC’d been married to Dave, who’d had an affair with a co-worker named Sherri. They split, KC had moved back to Pennsylvania for awhile and was now happy and single.
We filled the bus with trees and took them to Burlington. Our tree lot was next to a little store owned by Richard, who’d bought a tree the year before. He saw my signs and hired me to paint a couple, which tripled his deli business. I camped in a tent and Loretta and Charles watched the lot for a couple evenings in exchange for my editing of Charles’ doctoral dissertation. It had been rejected twice, but after I’d cut it by about half Charles received his doctorate.
We went to Boone for Christmas, and then it was…
The Nineties
Our house had oil heat the first year. We only heated half, but the bill was over $150 per month, so we brought the woodstove from the earth lodge and installed it in the living room. My mother was happy to see the Fisher stove leave; as long as it was still at the earth lodge it could’ve been carted back to the house, and she didn’t want it, given my father’s propensity for accidents. Her hearth had never been constructed properly and the farmhouse was also better insulated than in their first winter, when snow blew through the walls and the water froze in the toilet. She was tired of the aggravation and ashes, but I kept a record and found that we spent one-twentieth as much on heat!
Perri’s family had a reunion that March in Florida. Her brother Wes drove a Budweiser truck and she danced as Spuds Mackenzie for a promotion. Everyone showed up in “Old Calvin Mill” T-shirts and Perri was VERY happy to take off the Spuds Mackenzie outfit, which was way too hot. We stayed with Wes and Helen and their little dog Wilhelmina, who had a freakishly pronounced underbite and whose name was longer than she was. We visited Sanibel Island, passed through Silver Springs, saw Perri’s sisters in Sebring and Sanford, but as we passed St. Augustine I wanted to visit my sisters. Perri didn’t want to. I said drop me off and I’d hitchhike. I meant it. She stopped. We had a nice visit.
My youngest sister Laura had graduated from Warren Wilson College five years before and now was working as a recruiter for Tusculum, a small college in Tennessee. My sister Genny was now graduating and we spent four days in Asheville visiting the local attractions. We explored the Biltmore estate, which can properly be called a castle, and later that evening we met a friend of Laura’s, a recruiter for the University of North Carolina named Robbie, who invited everyone to his “Let’s Kick Dick Nixon Around Again” party, scheduled on his resignation anniversary, August 8th each year. This annual party morphed into a decades-long once a month gathering of a wide variety of friends loosely associated with UNC, including local musicians, merchants, professors and visitors.
There was a balloon festival in Burlington when we returned, and colorful, original balloons filled the sky. It happened every Memorial Day weekend for years, but was discontinued in the late 1990’s.
In August my mother’s family had a reunion in Boone, the first for them in many years. For decades my father’s family had two about a week apart each summer, one for his father’s family and one for his grandfather’s, but they lived in the area. It was new for my mother’s family, who came in from all over, Maine to Florida to California. We spent a week canoeing local rivers, climbing mountains, mining for gems, seeing sights and telling stories. My mother’s family had roots in colonial Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida and Indiana, where a doctor ancestor had gone to practice after the Civil War but instead brought a beautiful young woman back to Florida with her piano. There were at least three versions of how the piano was transported to Florida, including wagons and canals and barges and one involving a hurricane and piano lessons on the high seas, but the truth was that a railroad had already been laid for most of the journey.
In the fall we were back in Swepsonville. Perri was teaching school and in the afternoons took our dog Angel to the playground after hours, where she’d climb the slide ladder and slide to the bottom. This proved a mistake, as one day she went there on her own, crossed the highway and was hit. She was born on Hitler’s 100th birthday and died on John Lennon’s 50th. I mixed up whatever liquors we had in the pantry and called it an Angel–vodka, spiced rum, creme de menthe, cherry kirsch, a little Kahlua, some cream, a few flakes of coconut. Her colors, and quite good.
In December that year my father came down to help sell Christmas trees. One of us would stay on the lot in the bus, which had a bed, hot plate, coffee pot, radio and TV. We got along well enough but when he went back to the mountains he stole my Skilsaw, which had my name ground into the handle in letters one inch high and 1/4 inch deep. I didn’t know what happened to it.
Ringo was born on Halloween of 1990, and we brought him home for Christmas. Our friends Jeff and Sue’s dog had puppies, and he was the smallest of the litter. Their daughter had christened him Bingo, but when we saw he had a “ring go’ round his tail” we called him Ringo. He was so small he could fit in the corner of the windshield behind the inspection sticker and in my jacket when I unbuttoned the top button. I walked him around the perimeter of our property every day and picked flowers for the kitchen. Our property line was well-defined in the back and sides with trees and ditches and we planted a couple dozen “red tips” along the front. The first night, Ringo dug up 8 or 10 in a row. We replanted, but they never came up right. We replaced them with crepe myrtles.
Randy and Pat had a little white dog named Oscar. One day shortly after Angel died they brought Oscar play with the neighbor dog, but he ran into the road and was killed. They also got a Christmas puppy, a small dark cockapoo they named Tangles. Both had been born on Halloween! Thy had a wonderful time chasing each other and digging in the yard. Ringo never stopped digging. He was a wonderful, smart dog, part pit bull and part Walker hound, loyal, brave and protective, but never outgrew the digging. We had a cement block work shed in the back yard and he dug so much under the back corner that both walls were undermined and developed huge cracks.
Since our anniversary is Feb. 29th, which only happens every four years, I always did special things on Valentine’s Day. After many years of heart earrings and heart themed glass boxes and rings with dangly hearts and such, it was hard to think up something original, but I cut a dozen pieces of wood into the letters “U” and “B” and buried them in Ringo’s hole. That morning I gave her a shovel and told her to dig in the corner–and she dug up a biscuit! Ringo had buried it on top of my project from the night before, but she dug a little deeper and found the wood. I told her it was a “wood U-B mine”.
We took another trip to Florida in the spring of 1991. Chris and Steve moved. We had a bus, so we drove them down. With its two-speed rear end, it went 60 mph down the freeway for several hours. We drove through North and South Carolina, the bus going a little slower, a little slower. We got off the freeway when our speed slowed to 45, and poked along through rural South Carolina looking at all the little houses with the blue lines around the windows and doors–to keep out the voodoo. By late afternoon our bus was making 35 miles an hour and we decided to pull into the parking lot of an auto parts place. It was 6pm, but they were closed for the night. We parked and walked next door to a musty motel, the Chat-n-Rest. We then went across the street to the Chat-n-Chew. After a chat, a chew and rest, I climbed under the hood the next morn, found the gas filter was clogged and got a new one from the parts place. We arrived in Jacksonville and spent a couple nights. While Chris, Steve and their son Jason unloaded their stuff we visited with Perri’s friend Kathy from high school, who lived in Jax with her new husband Gary.
When we’d unloaded, Steve rode back with us to pick up his car and we discovered “bus surfing”. With the seats out, there was nothing to hang on to, and as the bus swayed and shifted, maintaining balance felt like surfing. The floorboard had hundreds of 1/4” holes where the seats had been attached, and in a rain the spray came through the holes, making the illusion even more real.
My brother Robin decided to take up barbering that fall. The barber school was in Winston-Salem, closer to us than to Boone, so he stayed with us through the week and went home on the weekends for the next 6 months.
We had a push mower for the lawn, and Loretta and Charles gave us another which they said needed repair. I took the cap off the gas tank, which was from a 3-liter Pepsi bottle, replaced it with a real gas cap and it was fine. Now we could mow together, but as we had close to two acres this was still quite a job, so we bought an old Craftsman riding mower.
We visited Florida again that summer. It was Wes’s 30th birthday and we spent a week in Naples, drinking lots of Budweiser, partying and visiting several places in southern Florida, including taking a boat ride which was supposed to end up in the Dry Tortugas but which was cut short because of weather. We visited Perri’s older brother, a chiropractor in Fort Meyers, and on the way back passed through Sanford, where Perri’s sister Joy gave us a dishwasher. It barely squeezed into our little hatchback, and we roped all our luggage on top. We installed it, and it worked fine all week. We then left to visit my sister for the weekend.
When we returned the connection had popped off. The entire house was flooded, except for the one bedroom which was still carpeted. It’d been spared due to our uneven floor, which at 50 years old had settled. We mopped up for a couple days, but it became obvious we couldn’t do it all. We called in the insurance company, tore up the remaining carpet and linoleum and had contractors refinish the beautiful oak flooring underneath. We took out the window to the bathroom and set up a ladder through the window to get in and out, and climbed in through our bedroom window from the front porch. We had a lot of firewood we’d packed onto the bus that year from Perri’s father’s property development, and piled it up to enclose the front porch. Our furniture was all piled in the bedroom, the front porch or the bus. I made the porch my workshop for the summer while renovations were underway. Once the floors were done, we continued. By now I’d crawled under the house to fix plumbing, put antenna wire to all the rooms, replace the antenna wire with coaxial cable, jack up the house, again and again. I was tired of crawling.
We’d financed the house with three loans. One we signed for, a second co-signed with her parents and a third with mine. Keeping up with three different payments was a pain and we wanted to refinance, but the house appraised at a lower value. After the flood Joy and her husband Howard came to visit, and we renovated the kitchen, the bath, added a half-bath and trashed the 1970s paneling. Underneath was heart pine, and after a few coats of spar varnish it was beautiful all by itself. We put in closets, ceiling fans, display cases. When the house was appraised again, its value was up $15,000 on an investment of $6000, all on credit cards. We refinanced, and paid them off.
I’d planted 100 or so pecan trees, and we started a garden, with a couple friends sharecropping. Bobby was Vicky’s fiance, and though their daughter Misty was seven or eight years old Vicky kept putting off the wedding and they lived apart, she with her parents. Bobby worked the garden that year and the next, but late the following summer he was starting a business with a friend. He was working on the hydraulics to a dump truck, his friend came back from lunch and saw Bobby’s feet sticking out from under the bucket.
The funeral was truly heartbreaking. They’d never married, Misty had no daddy and the preacher didn’t know him. Bobby hadn’t been to church, but the preacher did his best, calling him a different drummer. It was our second funeral for a contemporary since moving down the mountain. We visited Vicky and Misty that night and drank up Bobby’s beer.
In late February 1993 I went to sell scopes in New York City. I stayed with my brother for a week and my sister for another, but sold nothing. I helped Genny clean out her apartment. We filled fifty lawn-size trash bags. She had magazines with unread articles, clothes intended for Goodwill, broken furniture and appliances. She wouldn’t throw away the magazines until I showed her similar articles which appeared every month. When I left, her apartment was in order.
On the train home I conversed with a Puerto Rican in Spanish. I held my own, and we played cards with a souvenir Amtrak deck. He told me the names of the four suits–espadas for spades, corazones for hearts, diamantes for diamonds and flores or “flowers” for clubs. I told him “diamantes para las bonitas, flores para las feas”–diamonds for the pretty girls, flowers for the ugly ones, my first joke in Spanish. We laughed, and a woman across from us shifted uneasily. I asked her, would she rather have flowers, or diamonds?
Seven Year Itch
I’d thought by now we’d finished renovating, but Perri wanted to keep going. Every comment turned into another project. One day I looked out the window and decided our grapevines needed a little more support. I was going to add another pipe to the two pipes laid across a couple of clothesline “Ts” we had. Perri instead wanted to replace the structure with a grape arbor, which involved buying a dozen 4x4s, four panels of heavy lattice, several 2x6s, a post-hole digger, a couple gallons of water seal and assorted nails, bolts and tools. Early in the process she stepped in a post hole and broke her foot, and for the next couple weeks I built the grape arbor and did all the work around the house while she sat with her foot in the air and stewed.
I knew her nasty mood was due to the broken foot, but after ten or twelve days of unrelenting criticism I let her have it. It was the first time I’d been exasperated enough to scream since we’d been in the new house, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Perri had a difficult job, and it was no help that her friend Loretta was a harsh woman. Perri fell into a pattern, coming home after a rough day and screaming at me for whatever caught her attention. I spent more time cleaning (the wrong way), organizing (the wrong way), washing (the wrong way), mowing (the wrong way), trimming trees (the wrong way), making the bed (the wrong way) or cooking (the wrong way), and less working on scopes. Instead of appreciated I was criticized; my business was “my hobby”, I was doing nothing, she everything. It’s a destructive spiral, not uncommon, and often starts after seven years. Right on schedule.
I’d moved to the flatlands specifically because we weren’t planning to stay. Because of that I’d established a crafts business, but she managed the bills, and my contribution was simply thrown into the pot. She’d applied in the mountains but hadn’t heard back. If I brought it up she’d get mad. If I brought up the mountains in any way she’d get mad.
It’s difficult job to teach kids nobody wants. They need love, but don’t get it at home, and teachers aren’t parents. Teachers of the emotionally disturbed don’t even leave their problems for someone else. Next year, same kids, plus or minus a few. Some have terrible stories. One kid lived with his father and stepmother. One day he found out a secret. His father had killed his mother, and had been in prison. I liked him; he was wild and difficult but seemed a good kid stuck in a bad place. He’d stay with us for a week or two and do yardwork. One day trimming the yard he accidentally “ringed” a young tree, which will grow back from the root but the top is doomed. It was a simple mistake, but he turned ashen, shaking as if his execution was imminent when I wasn’t even mad. He was well-behaved when with us, which was why Perri was a great teacher. We talked about adopting him.
Shortly after we were married, she’d gotten an abortion. I disagreed but didn’t feel it was my call. Twice before a girlfriend of mine got an abortion, but neither told me until later. I’d have been happy to marry either one. If it would’ve been a good match is another question, but afterwards it didn’t matter. It was a breach of trust for them to tell me nothing, and the romance was dead.
Perri had plans which didn’t involve a child. My sister Fran had other plans. She knew one of her twins would be brain damaged and had been given the option to abort one, but kept both and led a complicated life.
There are several sides to the question. As a teenager I checked groceries in a store near what was called a home for unwed mothers. Girls came through, bellies out to there, paid with checks and presented a shiny new Colorado driver’s license, replacing one from Texas or Nebraska. They’d show up a dozen times and then disappear, their babies in an orphanage. The lucky ones were adopted, but if they stayed a year they were quite likely to grow up unwanted, unloved, a bother. A problem.
I’m not of the opinion that these poor, lost, luckless souls are better alive and unloved than never born. Foes of abortion don’t deal think about thousands of kids without any parents at all. Adoption wonderful when there’s a shortage of kids and an excess of couples. It’s a terrible answer when there are too many kids.
So are the other options. In ancient times unwanted babies were smothered at birth, left by the side of the road, floated down the river in baskets, sold into slavery. They’d grow up gladiators, street urchins. Populations which had grown large would start wars with their neighbors, kill them and move into their houses.
A crime which was common a century ago is now so obsolete that most people don’t know what it is. A woman running a “baby farm” would take in babies, supposedly to find them homes, but soon enough they’d die of “natural causes”. She’d starve them, smother them, bury them in the field or feed them to her pigs.
Safe, hygienic abortions also, make no mistake about it, save lives. On one side of town girls would “vacation”, shopping in the grocery store around the corner; across the tracks the high school lost a girl or two every year or two for “unexplained reasons”. That said, I don’t feel abortion is “a good thing”. I don’t strongly object to some regulation. The choice shouldn’t be easy or smooth. I think it’s her right, but he should know.
This became contentious. I wanted to move to the mountains and raise a family, but Perri was growing increasingly hostile. We hadn’t heard back about teaching jobs either, though it’d been years.
Still, I tried. I made kaleidoscopes, jewelry, bamboo flutes, fabric hats, wooden toys, made my rounds every few weeks. I brought spring water back from the earth lodge in a dozen 2-1/2 gallon jugs. I did shows, stayed weekends, trimmed trees, rewired the farmhouse. Any occasion or reason I could think of. She rarely came except to visit her family. We’d stay with her family a week, then see mine for dinner on our way out. I didn’t entirely mind this–my father would get quite unpleasant after he’d finished off his nightly twelve or sixteen cheap beers. He was pleasant in the daytime, told funny stories and was complimentary and generous to most people, though my contributions were routinely overlooked. At night, though, he was horrible, drinking, chain-smoking Newports and systematically tearing apart the ego of whatever family member was across the table. It was a sport. He’d incrementally turn a pleasant dinner conversation into something vile, and when his companion felt like crap, he’d won. He’d eat something and go to bed. It was a pattern.
My sister one day wrote him a letter, one I saw little point in. She hoped some day he could meet her children, but with him smoking and drinking didn’t think he would. I didn’t think it’d do any good, but he actually quit, after more than fifty years smoking. He didn’t quit drinking, but he’d only have one beer after dinner.
It made a difference, but it was too late for Perri, and I still wasn’t comfortable. I’d seen it before, and he had hurt me. I wanted to feel he’d changed, but it wasn’t my obligation to believe him and certainly not my wife’s.
There was dissension growing between Perri and I, but it hadn’t taken over our lives. Perri’s harsh friend moved and we became closer to her assistant. The girls would gossip, the boys played backgammon, their daughters played in the yard. I showed Carly and Leah how to make jewelry, and everyone made crafts. Randy and I had both gone to George Washington High School, though his high school was in Virginia and mine in Colorado. We often camped together on weekends.
One weekend Perri’s college friend Robbie visited with his new wife Patti. The six of us discussed astrology, and found that each of us were married to the next sign in line. I was Gemini and Perri Cancer, Robbie was Pisces and Patti Aries, and Randy was Pisces and Pat Aquarius. Even more amazing, all our mothers were Leo, except for Robbie, whose father was.
That Christmas we set up trees in our front yard. The old fellow who’d owned our lot next to Richard’s deli had died and Perri was tired of the hassle, so it made sense to forget the rent, the commute, the schedule, the camping and sell trees from the house. I’d brought 75 trees for the first season, which proved the right amount. I sold them all, then late in the season bought a dozen from a fellow for $2 apiece and sold the last on Christmas Eve. I’d been putting a tree in the earth lodge all along, decorated mostly with old cans, but now I wasn’t spending much time there. It had been ten Christmases. I wanted to make it a dozen, so I put a tree in it for two more years, but it was abandoned. Our entire little community had broken up. Jake, Jody and the kids had finished overhauling the bus and driven down the road. Fran and the kids had left Kevin, and Kevin sold the trailer for a bag of pot. Adam and Karen left their teepee and euthanized a healthy dog. Their buddy Peter had left. Nobody lived in the earth lodge anymore, the dwelling in which we’d invested so much time, so much labor, so many dreams.
Round Robin
My five siblings and I started a round robin. We sent a batch of letters to each in turn and at the end of some weeks we’d exchange our old letter for a new one. It took awhile to establish protocol. The first collected an immense weight of paper and miscellaneous objects. It was lost before it made my mailbox. It’d included long letters from each of us, the spouses and children, kid’s drawings, pamphlets, cassette tapes. We agreed to limit content to letters from the six of us, plus occasional notes from others. Sam provided postage as his Christmas gift and I kept the archive.
I loved it. Everyone had a take on the family dynamics, and I had a record of the moves, breakups, new loves, new children, new cars, changes in seasons from whatever locations we were in, and all of us were in different locations. I was “down the mountain” in Alamance County, Robin was living in Sugar Grove outside of Boone, Sam had moved to New York City after graduating Yale, Genny had followed him there, Fran was in motion and Laura was in Tennessee.
My archive started in spring 1993. I’d gone to a kaleidoscope show in Kentucky; there were 65 exhibitors, twelve were from California, six from North Carolina and the rest from all over. For my birthday I got a small scooter. It had no pedals and was thus at the time in a legal limbo; the law stated that a moped couldn’t have an engine over 50cc but said nothing about pedals. It had been changed to require pedals, but mine was grandfathered in–important, because for years I became the only guy in town who could drive my motorcycle without a tag, license or insurance; all I needed was a helmet. It also outran all the all the other mopeds, it had shaft drive and I’d modified the carburetor.
I also had a 1959 Studebaker. It’d been featured on a promotional placard for a car show, and I was given one of the brass plates from an old guy, Robert Lindley, who worked on Studebakers and owned hundreds.
I sent the robin to my brother, and it continued on a crooked path. Since Genny and Sam lived in New York, it traveled not in birth order but 1-2-5-3-4-6. Sometimes one of us dropped out or moved, but it continued a confused path. The second round was lost when Genny sent it to the wrong address. She started another, which arrived after I’d sent a copy and Sam had replied.
Our house was back in order. The washing machine had been banished to the back porch and all the carpeting was gone.
Rob’s letter referenced some family conflicts and techniques for conflict resolution. Fran had moved into George Wallace’s former home in Montgomery. When she tore out the shag carpeting in the bathroom there were newspapers from 1975 underneath, on top of marble floors. It’s a huge house now, formed by bricking 3 structures together–the main house, servant’s quarters and a detached kitchen/dining room on the other. It had once been exceptional, but had come on hard times. The foundation had sunk, in places several inches. Doors wouldn’t close, upstairs flooring tilted inwards, the roof leaked, the hexagonal mosaic-tile floors in the fancy 1920s-style bathrooms were cracked and only half the bathrooms worked, distressed parquet floors were covered in lumpy carpet, former breezeways badly paneled, deteriorated brick walkways unevenly concreted over. A sad house, for a man who had met a sad end. George Wallace had been a progressive liberal by Alabama standards, though he became a symbol of old-time Southern conservatism. His famous stand in the university door was intended to prevent the riots and killings which had taken place in Mississippi, and was largely for show. He was shot in the 1970s and ended his life in a wheelchair.
Genny worked at Jan Hus Presbyterian Church in New York, but quit, and had some angst over a fellow named Walter, whom she felt like she should like but didn’t. She was in therapy, which she felt was good for her. It wouldn’t always be. Sam had an album, Rock and Roar, Dinosaur”, coming out by sheer chance in the wake of Jurassic Park, and was involved in theatre and music.
Laura had married Tom, the football coach. It was funny; Perri’s uncle Tom was a football coach for Austin High School in Alabama, and he married a woman whose name started with “L”. She’d received a promotion and was thrilled to announce a pregnancy! In March they’d welcome Matthew Cody, or Catherine Dakota, and the robin returned to me.
I was proud of my plumbing. There’d been no way to work on the plumbing without turning off all the water when we’d moved in. I’d bought cut-off valves as I went along, but in the winter of ’92 the only remaining faucet, in the tub, blew out. I was out of town. Perri found a wrench and ran to the front yard while water spewed, and I put in one last valve when I returned. I proposed a number, 1-900-ASK-DAVE, since I was often answering everyone’s practical questions.
In July Rob was in a poetry slam at a coffee house in Boone. He enclosed a few poems, a note from Anne and a “report” from his son Grant on “nothing”. At 100 words exactly, it was a gem:
“Nothing is when you want something and you don’t get anything. When you look at something transparent you think, is there anything there? If you said nothing is there nobody would look around or pay any attention to you. Some people say it as an expression like, ‘Oh, it was nothing’ when they are trying to say I didn’t go through any trouble to do it. If there wasn’t nothing you would have to use words like ‘not anything’ or ‘wasn’t anything’. Think of it this way, ‘If I had nothing, then I wouldn’t have anything at all’. That’s it.”
By August Fran’s brain-damaged daughter Sarah had discovered a fascination with breaking glass, and Fran awoke to find dozens of plates smashed on the floor. Genny was singing professionally, had made an ad for Bloomingdales and was roller skating. One of her rollerskating friends was working on a song called “Brontosaurus Rumors”–my brother’s song! His name was Robert. She worried if they became an item, there’d be brother Rob, Sam’s boyfriend Rob, Fran’s husband Rob and Genny’s Rob.
I’d remarked that I was “The Recorder”, and Sam adopted the sobriquet “The Controller”. We needed rules, and he proposed several. Length of the letters in the robin didn’t matter, but promptness did. Others in the family could contribute to a special “holiday issue”. Also, Rob’s wife Anne was an inveterate, unapologetic snoop, called everyone who received the robin and then broadcast the latest news, so that when the robin arrived it wasn’t any fun. Calling on the phone to find out what was in the robin was OUT!
C.U.T.
Laura miscarried in August. There’d be no Matthew Cody or Catherine Dakota. Football season was beginning and Tom was gone all day. Our parents visited Tennessee, and swapped stories into the night.
I’d fixed up the scooter and was riding it everywhere. The brakes were no good, but it was easy enough to wear old shoes and stop like Fred Flintstone. I didn’t mention the miscarriage. It was painful to me to talk about kids and I didn’t want to mention Perri’s abortion. Rob commiserated with Laura, then filled us in on his life. He’d wrecked his bicycle, was recovering. He enclosed a long note about his church, which Genny had heard was a cult. He didn’t see it that way, but needed to address a scandal. He and Anne had joined Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT). Several church members had tried to buy guns, under assumed names, to prepare for the apocalypse prophesied by Guru Ma, as she was known. For persuasion it underwhelmed, but it explained some of his motivations, though none of us started studying the Ascended Masters. Towards the end of her life Elizabeth Claire Prophet fell into paranoia and dementia.
Fran was dealing with school and psychologists. The teachings of CUT weren’t for her. Too much mysticism. She impressed the bigwigs at work with her grasp of computer software and they invited her to move to Texas, which suddenly led her Alabama employers to be super-nice and ease her workload. She had some issues with the house. They discovered a gas leak in the main heater and had to move into the guest apartment. The fridge and bedrooms were in the main house, but they managed.
Genny recounted a depressing 3 day workshop sponsored by the GBCS for UM, or General Board of Church and Society for the United Methodist Church, and found herself with “White Person’s Guilt”, when average white Americans feel horrible for what people they never knew did to other people they never knew, without realizing that the other other people did horrible things to other others and the other others did horrible things to other other others. No race of people, no religion, no sex, no class or type, is without sin. Lots of it.
She enjoyed New York though. She met Jacques Costeau at a party at Peter Yarrow’s place (of Peter, Paul and Mary) and had some poems published in The Religious Observer.
Sam sent the robin on, it got lost for a week, I sent him a copy of my copy, then the original showed up and he sent it with his contribution and a different zip code. He’d purchased a “Supermind Computer” advertised in Omni magazine. He had a meeting with Music Sales Corporation, who were eager to bring out “Rock and Roar Dinosaur” but hadn’t actually returned his calls. He’d also gotten in touch with the understudy for his role in the Disney film “Mountain Born” many years before, Jamie Newcomb, who had moved to Oregon and was starring in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
A Murder Mystery
Sam was involved in a murder mystery. A hot dog vendor in Haverstraw had found a severed head in a garbage bag at a scenic overlook. Sam had known him. The last place the middle-aged gay man, Michael Sakara, had been seen was at a bar where Sam played piano, and Sam’s friends had been the last to see him. Everyone was questioned. Sam asked the rest of us if we had any impressions. I read the robin, and got a flash of a thin fellow, staight blonde hair, who worked in a large building and drove a big light-blue car. His name was something like Mark, but not Mark. Suspicion later fell on a male nurse from St. Vincent’s who drove a powder-blue Buick, whose name was Mike. In the end, however, Richard W. Rogers, referred to as the Last Call Killer, was convicted.
Laura was in good spirits. Tusculum College had almost closed a few years before, and the football team discontinued until Tom was hired, so the team was Tom’s baby. Early on, the whole team had caught the flu, but afterwards, as a feather in Tom’s cap, they won several games, one by a score of 43-13.
For Christmas of 1993 I was again selling trees from the front yard. I worked on kaleidoscopes in the living room and kept an eye out the window. When Pat & Randy visited the kids “sold” trees to each other. One day a fellow I knew from Boone came by. I’d known Alan for at least fifteen years, he was from Boone and had moved to a house on Worm Ranch Road, a mile or two away. He’d been going by Ras Alan and fronted a reggae band. His car was a white 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon, with a brown interior–exactly what I’d driven at 16! He let me drive it for an afternoon.
Banjo
I was learning banjo. Perri had given me one for Christmas the year before, and it was a great choice. I’d tried to learn guitar, but my left hand was a problem. My middle finger and thumb had been broken, my little finger mangled and my index finger deeply cut through the knuckle, with nerve damage. I’d try a few chords but it was painful. The banjo was less intimidating. I soon got a book of favorite American songs and learned many. It was the first stringed instrument I enjoyed playing; as a kid the cello had been a chore. I could now play drums, harmonica, penny whistle, bamboo flute and a South African instrument called a likimba, a variation on a kalimba or thumb piano, with an inverted “V” for a top bar which makes the keys sit compactly. Its rosewood resonator box had cracked and I’d tried to buy another, but there was an embargo on South African products and they were unavailable. I tore the box apart, replaced it with oak and had a sturdier instrument. I announced that 1-900-ASK-DAVE had been discontinued due to a low prophet margin, then included some remarks on an interesting astrological aspect, the quincunx. A person will have strong romantic attractions to the sign fifth in line, which isn’t reciprocated since the object of one’s affection is also attracted to the sign fifth in line. It also included some clippings. My scopes had been featured in a fall festival in Greensboro, and I’d been interviewed in the local paper about vegetarians as I was one of the only ones in the county. The article contained a few “vegetarian” recipes–but the first ingredient of the first was chicken stock! I wrote a letter to the editor, pointing out that a chicken was not a vegetable! I’d also been in the paper dressed as Willie Wonka for the second-graders, for which we’d been up all night making a brown top hat. I didn’t like the photo. My eyes seemed desperate, full of false cheer.
Happy Holidays!
We’d been discussing a “Holiday Edition” ever since the overstuffed ground-pounder had disappeared that spring, and Sam the Controller announced that this was the month. Genny started it off with an announcement that her squeeze of four months was off to Australia, and offered a couple scenarios where he either 1) came back or 2) didn’t, and she either 1) took him back or 2) didn’t, but Sam assured us she was fine. He also contended that while the Church Universal and Triumphant wasn’t the Branch Davidians, there was still a peril, as Sufis warn, of gorging on spiritual ideas prematurely, which eliminates their capacity for later impact–which is why Sufis don’t have a “big book of knowledge” and instead say “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. With a short note from Sam’s Rob–La Rocca–the robin was on its way.
Tusculum football had done well in the last half and had beaten Georgetown. Union College had also done well, until they hit Tusculum. The final score was Union 49-Tusculum 80, and Tom won Coach of the Year. She announced another pregnancy, and Tom included the cheery holiday statement, “I think I pass gas better than anyone else in the family!”.
Robin’s letter wished everyone a fine Christmas and included some cheery statements from Guru Ma, whose spirit contacts from history and other planets delivered, in an identical monotone, identical warnings about a coming nuclear apocalypse. Fran’s contribution was short. She and Rob were depressed with the domestic situation; daughter Sarah continued to be a problem and Rob had become a house husband, but Fran was doing well at work and everyone was healthy. Genny was in good spirits, though she noted she was now the only one single among the brothers and sisters; she and her Japanese husband Suzuki had been split up for 3 or 4 years, but she called him frequently until he announced he was marrying again, a gal who looked a lot like her. She was still happy to be in therapy, and was putting on a cabaret act.
February’s letter from Sam the Controller announced that, due to increasing delays from Fran, the robin would henceforth be sent direct to Genny and he’d send a copy to Fran. The “Merry Christmas” edition, launched in November, hadn’t returned until February. “Rock and Roar Dinosaur” was finally released, a cassette and songbook/picturebook combination. From there the robin went to Laura, whom the Board of Trustees had just praised as a “marketing genius”. From nearly having closed, Tusculum now had the highest application and acceptance rate in its history. She listed her wants as a piano, a computer and a long trip to see the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Old Faithful, etc. I’d seen them, but it hadn’t occurred to me that my siblings had not. We’d been to Yellowstone when she was two, and with my father driving had always sped past everything. I hadn’t seen them until I was on my own.
Mercury Retrograde
In mid-February we’d debated trading in our Hyundai, which now had 118,000 miles. Perri said there was a noise in the front end. I took it for a spin and good god, I thought the wheel was falling off. I thought perhaps we should trade it in immediately, but I jacked up the wheel, took off the hubcap, wiggled it, started the engine and let it spin–no problems. Everything was tight. Then I spotted–the loose wheel weight rattling around inside the hubcap. I performed a thing-ectomy, which immediately restored our dying car to full and vibrant health.
I’d taken a job as a trailer park handyman. The secretary’s car had a problem. Half of her electrical system had failed, and two or three guys were looking under the hood and pulling at wires. I announced I could fix it and told her to jiggle the key. Everything sprang to life. Another problem at work, a washing machine which wouldn’t turn, I found to be an extra spacer installed where it shouldn’t have been. I knew big problems with minor causes are common when Mercury is retrograde. I was a hero!
The job was crappy, fixing up old trailers as cheaply as possible. I didn’t like it and didn’t last long. I started volunteering at night school, teaching English to recent immigrants. It was the first time I’d regularly spoken Spanish, and it helped my comprehension immensely. When someone knows English, if there’s a word one can’t think of, one can always use English. When someone doesn’t know English, it’s still necessary to find a way to explain things, using whatever Spanish comes to mind. After three hours, twice a week, I’d drive to work with random, nonsense Spanish phrases floating through my head–they sounded real, but were jibberish! I also had several VCR tapes, which I’d leave playing while I slept, and I’d buy romance novels in Spanish. Romance novels have several advantages. They’re predictable; the couples will get together, break up and get together again. They’re easy to read; they’re written simply enough for a poorly educated teen to enjoy, and they’re short. I kept a sticky note on the page and jotted down strange words, then looked them up, alphabetized and made my own sticky-note dictionary, containing only words I didn’t know. I’d finish a book and read it again. Eventually I was fluent.
Unwelcome Advice

Genny’s contribution changed my focus. She’d written a truly vile series of accusations dredged up by “therapy”, a 20-page rant. Our parents were “monsters”, our family “dysfunctional”, our society full of fiendish and violent Men. It was a common theme of the time, promoted on God-only-knows how many talk shows. Women’s lives were “unfulfilled”, because of Men. Her examples of “abuse” were petty and absurd. We’d had old coats in the winter, which made us “abused”. There was ice in the toilet bowl one morning, so we were “abused”.
These attacks hurt. I felt they were not only baseless, but that my sister was piling onto a tiresome pop-psychology bandwagon. She gratuitously, menacingly and with blatant disrespect “advised” me that I shouldn’t ever have children, because with my “history of violence” I’d most certainly be an “abuser”. In this ugliness I saw echoes of my father, who had no compunctions about using such “psychological” insults to tear down unsuspecting and innocent people. She was doing the same. I told her I was definitely a misunderstood child, but it was up to ME, not HER, to decide these things and ABSOLUTELY NOT her place to decide whether I should raise children!
I said our childhood wasn’t perfect, that nobody’s was, and that much of her reaction wasn’t due to “abuse” but a lack of deprivation to start with. I’d been in the military, and knew what I needed. She’d been in “therapy”, and knew what impressed a “therapist”. In the military, if the toilet froze you’d dig a hole. If you were cold, you’d build a fire, find a blanket, stuff newspapers in your clothes, not complain about old coats. I said I was overjoyed to have ten fingers and toes, working eyes and ears, clean water to drink. If kids learned through childhood “misery and abuse” to LIVE instead of DIE, then it didn’t matter if they had Nintendo games or sticks, they were better off than privileged New York whiners in “therapy” who didn’t know the difference.
When the robin reached Robin, he was in a production of “the Unsinkable Molly Brown”. His sons were in a student-written version of “the Iliad”, and his second son Jordan was building a balsa-wood bridge in a competition which had started between the physics and mechanical drawing classes in my high school in Denver, when I was there. It eventually went statewide, then nationwide, then worldwide.
Another Murder Mystery
Genny was involved in another murder mystery in March. A college friend had been strangled in Queens. She went to the funeral mass and got a very creepy feeling shaking hands with the stepfather. It was now three years later. She casually mentioned her friend’s case to a couple police officers and they arranged a meeting with the investigating detective–who’d had the same creepy feeling. Her case was featured in the March 1994 issue of Redbook.
Sam had started a new gig at a restaurant named Pegasus to complement his longtime gig at Marie’s, worked on theatre projects and was taking accounting. He’d purchased a Powerbook 180 with 10 megabytes of RAM, making it by far the most powerful computer in the family.
Sam’s English teacher, Nanci Nance from Watauga High, was visiting. She was everyone’s favorite, except me, since I’d never met her. Laura was doing fine with her pregnancy. She and Tom had refinanced the house and were planting a garden. She too knew Genny’s friend and had the same creepy feeling about the stepfather.
In March it was my turn again. Mercury retrograde had hit me hard this time; all four vehicles were broken down, though my moped was still on the road. Turned out we’d bought bad gas, all at the same gas station, though the Hyundai needed a new engine even though I’d replaced one of the valves the year before. I was pleased with Hyundai valve assemblies, they simply screwed out and a new one screwed in. I replaced the valve in the driveway of my parents’ house in an afternoon. It needed a new engine now, though. The transmission was also starting to pop out of one gear. It could’ve been repaired, but it was cheaper to replace the engine and transaxle than to repair the components. We’d refinanced the house, paid off all the credit cards and had $2000 extra, but that evaporated quickly. I’d lost my job at the trailer park, which actually rather pleased me. Mobile homes manufactured before the 1970s had absolutely no quality standards. They were built with cheaper and cheaper materials until by the 1960s they had particle board floors and the kitchen counters were stapled through the outer walls. In the early 1970s there were new standards, but since the old ones weren’t being moved they sat in the same place while the floors rotted out and rodents invaded through the holes. Many had mouse colonies under the tubs, the plumbing was garden hoses and clamps and “repairs” were done with duct tape and wire. One trailer we were preparing to rent had a huge hole in the corner of the living room. The owner’s son told me to put an end table over it and leave. I told him it was a hazard; a kid could fall through it and break a leg. I scrounged a piece of plywood and started greasing the 4” decking screws. The owner told me not to bother greasing the screws (which meant burning out the drill). We ran out of screws. I went to the hardware store. The new ones came pre-greased!
Static
Perri and I were fighting more. She was dismissing my dreams as fantasies and there were no calls coming from the schools in the mountains. I wasn’t happy, and felt a need to take action, though I had no idea what kind.
Rob had the best insight into this. He made the very germane observation that the partners we had all chosen tended to lead us along. Due to our upbringing, our relationships were based more on appreciation of our talents than on love and understanding of a whole person. It felt right. I’d never felt whole. I had little understanding of who I was or what I wanted, even though now I was over 40. He observed, through a tale involving his kids buying candy at Sam’s Club and selling it at a profit, that our parents treated profit-making ventures as “scams”, which had certainly had been the case when I’d sold Christmas trees. My father never felt I was entitled to anything at all, “deal” or no.
Sam had been also been fighting with his Rob. Sam’s Rob had been seeing a truck driver named David. One night Sam was commenting to his boss at the piano bar that he was sorry to be late but had been fighting. One of the customers asked him why, and he said mock-cheerily “the complete dissolution of a twelve-year relationship”. This fellow had just left a relationship of fifteen years. They soon moved in together on Staten Island.
Laura was still waiting on the baby, which by ultrasound seemed likely to be a girl. She and Tom decided on Mary Catherine.
Things had settled some in May. I’d bought a word-processing typewriter from a friend leaving town and remarked how easily it saved a letter and re-typed a copy by simply hitting three keys. It was a great advantage over our clunky IBM PCjr. which had been such a marvel seven years earlier. I printed letters and cards and wrote promotional copy for crafts. It was laughably limited compared to the computers of a few years later, but light-years ahead of the dot-matrix printers of the time. I loved it. A kid left who’d been driving Perri bananas–and by extension me, since she’d drive me bananas when she came home. I was happy not to work for the guy who was too cheap to buy nails to fix his rat-infested trailers while he parked his Jaguar next to the Mercedes he’d given his secretary/lover. Everyone in the park seemed to be divorced and smoked too much, and most of them also drank too much and did too many drugs. I was happy to once again dedicate my days to crafts and my evenings to Spanish. We’d had it out, and had decided it was a seven-year-itch. She’d been tired of seven years in the mountains, I was tired of seven years in the flatlands.
I’d always wanted to move back, the sooner the better, but she announced one day we’d leave in 2017, after she retired from teaching. This was 20+ years longer than I’d intended, and even though our town was pleasant, secure, we had friendly neighbors and room enough to raise a garden, the prospect of staying there while our home in the mountains rotted away bothered me severely.
Robin had been hit by another driver. He had some whiplash, which made it difficult for him to work, but had been going to a chiropractor and feeling better.
His boys were preparing to go with my mother on a trip across Europe and Russia. She’d won a “Teacher of the World” contest and decided to take the boys with her. Genny and Sam were in better spirits. They’d gotten together to see off the threesome, and all had a great time with Sam and his new boyfriend. Laura was eagerly anticipating her baby girl.
We’d finished most of our remodeling, I thought. We had ceiling fans and a pool to jump in when it got so hot our hair started to melt. There was a fallen-down, overgrown fence in the backyard which made the poison ivy under it difficult to pull up, but I finally bit the bullet and spent a full day pulling the fence and all the ivy out, then took an extremely hot shower and scrubbed hard, which was reasonably effective.
I’d enrolled in Alamance Community College taking Spanish at night, and we gave a party at the end of the quarter. There were 29 folks there, speaking Spanish, German, Chinese, Pakistani and English. There was no trouble with languages. Someone always knew another one.
What Does a Kid Need?
A discussion developed in the robin over what children needed. I felt, as always, that children need food, love, shelter and an occasional hot bath. Running water, electricity, these are nice but lack of television doesn’t evidence abuse or neglect. I found it ridiculous to say that a child “needed” to have brand-name jeans and cable TV and Nintendo. Still do.
By the end of July the world travelers returned, with tales from Amsterdam, France, Germany, Poland, Russia. Rob and Anne picked them up in Maryland but their transmission gave out. Genny had found a new job and her friends at the Church Center gave her parties and lunches and pound cakes and gifts and flowers all week. She then left for San Francisco to sing at a wedding and was met by her ex, Suzuki. They had a long discussion over coffee. Sam’s Rock and Roar Dinosaur album and book had come out. He and Barry (his new squeeze) visited Boone and he autographed copies at Cheap Joe’s downtown. Cheap Joe ran Boone Drug and had been great friends with my father for years. Joe had gotten in trouble in high school for “borrowing” a couple scarecrow-type hillbilly dolls from a bench outside a business called Mystery Hill and setting them up on a bridge overlooking the Blue Ridge Parkway with whiskey bottles in their hands. He later became an artist and started Cheap Joe’s Art Supplies online, which did very well.
Laura obnoxiously pointed out that caring for her newborn son (NOT a daughter!!!) was more difficult than caring for my poor flea-bitten dog. I hadn’t contended otherwise, but gave it a pass, as she had a six-week-old baby boy to deal with, NOT named Mary Catherine, born on the Fourth of July. In the way that some discussions become contentious when you leave the room, however, the next time the robin came around there was a long debate as to what constituted child abuse, and whether running water or its lack was acceptable. It came down to whether a totally theoretical child, of MINE, would be abused, or not, by the mere fact that it lived in the earth lodge, which hadn’t been finished anyway, and which I hadn’t intended NOT to have running water to start with.
I’d related an idea of printing a book about making a book, starting with nothing–to start with a pair of hands, dig ore, smelt type, use sharp rocks to cut trees, pound them to pulp, make paper, to start with nothing and make a book. The cotton, glue, dyes for the cover would be grown and processed, and the whole process would be photographed, using chemicals which would have to be refined and formulated and cameras to be made. It was nothing more than a dream, but it kicked up a storm of abusive, way over the top replies as if I fully intended to raise my kids in an outhouse. All I’d said was that LOVE was more important than interactive toys, and told of when I received a second-hand repainted bicycle for Christmas and was thrilled with it. Again I received contentious replies, still arrogantly debating whether I should have children. I ended up seriously pissed over the implications of something I hadn’t said, and for the next year the round robin was acrimonious. The parents among us weighed in, the urban dwellers weighed in, and without intending anything of the sort I was defending the right of a hypothetical parent to raise hypothetical children in a hypothetical rural house which didn’t, hypothetically, have running water.
It was a stupid, ignorant debate, but a mark of the fall of 1994, when the last of a long series of outer planets was passing through Scorpio in a truly remarkable series which had lasted over forty years. The outer planets, from Jupiter onwards, spend at least a year in each astrological sign. Saturn spends two and a half years, Uranus seven, Neptune fourteen and Pluto, because of an eccentric orbit, anywhere from fourteen to thirty. It wouldn’t be unusual for a couple of planets to line up, but from late 1953 until the end of the twentieth century there were only a few brief periods with no outer planet in Scorpio. From October of 1953 until the end of the ‘60s there only were 38 days in 1956, 50 in 1957. In the 70s there were 3 years, from October of ’71 to November of ’74, and four months in 1975, then it went twenty more years. Everyone experienced this exceptionally long span. For Americans it’d started with the senate hearings of the Scorpio Joe McCarthy and continued through the Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union. Six of the next seven presidents served six years or less, three of them were shot or shot at. Scorpio been had affecting things for a very long time, and by 1994 most people were harried, worn out, paranoid. The fear of nuclear annihilation was fading, but 40+ years had taken its toll on the psyche, and delusions were accepted as fact, discussed on talk shows, prosecuted in court. Bus drivers were Satan worshippers who were eating babies! It was “proved” through “repressed memories”!
Before the trailer park I’d worked part-time constructing storage buildings for a fellow whose daughter ran a health food store. It was easy, fun, outside work. Storage buildings was don’t need to meet code. We built them well, but didn’t worry about covering wiring or roofs withstanding a hurricane, we only had to put them on a trailer and set them on blocks in someone’s yard. Afterwards I worked managing his daughter’s health food store when she was out of town, which was frequently. It was a wonderful job. I learned a great deal about herbs, vitamins, supplements, health foods. It was eye-opening to read about prescriptions and their side effects, and to watch people ignore recommendations. They’d ask about a specific health issue, listen and nod, buy a few pills and change nothing. One person in fifty might make an effort. It’s a pleasure to teach them but they’re few and far between.
I wasn’t happy at home, and got close to a co-worker, a cute girl of seventeen who was also vegetarian. I was 24 years older, and nothing happened, but her moon was in Gemini. I saw possibilities; one never knows where life might lead. She went to Michio Kushi’s macrobiotic cooking school in Massachusetts that fall, and wrote me regularly. Her name, like many influential women in my life, was Elizabeth.
Delores was also a co-worker. We shared a tiny checkout booth with cash registers on both sides and were within a foot of each other for hours at a time. When you’re physically that close to someone you can’t help but get to know them well. We flirted some, and compared notes.
She was a Jehovah’s Witness. I’d always thought Jehovah’s Witnesses a little weird. They’d had crazy ideas about the end of the world in 1984, and when it didn’t happen I tormented them with questions when they came to the door, friendly enough but designed to make them squirm. When we worked side-by-side I found that, yeah, it was a little strange, but religion isn’t logical, rational, sensible or reasonable. It’s always mystical, fantastical, eerie, weird. People buy into religion according to their comfort level, but live their lives and deal with practical things regardless of creed. They have domestic disputes and carnal desires and cars that need alternators and nephews getting into trouble. Delores had started attending the temple when she met her first husband. He later bought a Harley, took up with a biker chick and they divorced. She met her next husband Marty through the temple, but he only showed up a few days a year.
Marlene, who ran the health food store when she wasn’t on vacations, also held a fringe religion. She identified as Christian but observed a Saturday sabbath and most Jewish dietary restrictions and holy days. I loved the business and did it well, but Marlene had a suspicious nature and trouble relating to men. She had no sex life that I knew of, male or female, and often wore her father’s cast-off clothes–so much so that I asked Dolores if she even owned women’s clothes. Marlene always said it was to save money, which seemed a poor reason, but she was almost pathological about money. She was the cheapest woman I knew, though her family was comfortable. She wasn’t particularly interested in her health nor that of her customers. Though she avoided pork, she stuffed herself with fast-food burgers when nobody was looking.
Perri and I went to a Halloween party at a friend of Cindy’s. Dave was a painter of custom motorcycles; it was a wild bunch. We were dressed as twin bearded ladies, with identical shirts and skirts. She’d put on a fake beard and I put on lipstick. At the party a girl said to me, “I’ve never kissed another woman before”, and I said, “I haven’t either”. She kissed me.
Not just a peck. We were both surprised by how suddenly passionate this silly kiss was. My wife wasn’t happy and neither was her boyfriend. It was a symptom of something deeper.
Because I was working that Christmas, I had to hire a fellow to watch the tree lot three days a week, so we didn’t make much profit. Afterwards we went to the mountains. My mother had hired a carpenter to fix the kitchen floor, and he was available over Christmas week, so he tore out the floor while she left to spend the holidays with Laura and Tom. Perri and I arrived, dog in tow, and left Ringo with the dogs at the farm house while we visited Perri’s parents. Anne came to feed the dogs, walked into the kitchen and stepped right through the floor. Ringo heard the commotion and came to investigate. She grabbed him and climbed out, unhurt except for some nasty bruises.
My father’s holiday letter talked about changing himself. He found it difficult but gratifying and said he, like the rest of humanity, lived within illusions dictated by environment, that many thought patterns were knee-jerk responses to stimuli. He said the sight of Newt Gingrich on TV caused great squirts of bile to flood his intestines, but the Dalai Lama soothed him. He wanted Newt Gingrich to meet the Dalai Lama, and hoped that Newt didn’t pee on his leg.
Perri was happy 1994 was over. Hillcrest school, which had been built in 1930 and had no air conditioning, had moved to a new building over Christmas break. She was thrilled with the new school and happy to be without one of her most troublesome kids, who’d been placed in an institution. Robin had received a new computer from Santa, a Macintosh Performa 360CD, but by exploring the hard drive and clicking on everything had installed so many programs that he had very little memory left, and a week later had to use a word processor to contribute to the holiday robin. Anne and the boys sent a page each and Noelle, the youngest, a picture of a bird. For New Years Robin had taken up Tai Chi and loved it. He was now working days in the barber shop with our father and nights in a restaurant, where he shared a bottle of champagne with Kim Basinger. “The Winter People” was shooting down the road, in fact part was shot in our friend Cindy’s old cabin. Kim had come to Stonewall’s restaurant. He was her waiter. At the end of the night she’d left a little champagne in the bottle, which he polished off.
Robin also had a troubled relationship with our father. When I was old enough to stay out late enough to avoid him, my brother was next in line for his drunken dinner table assaults. My youngest brother and the three sisters skated through, safe in their little world while my father spewed bile in the kitchen. My brother said that he’d changed a lot and that he hadn’t seen him drunk in years. I wasn’t so sure. I’d also worked with him. He was easy to work with. The ugliness came at night.
Genny’s 33rd birthday came at the end of January, and she was in high spirits. Sam and Barry had just returned from a whirlwind tour of Italy and Switzerland, and Sam used up all his adjectives describing it.
Tom had a new job in February, football coach at Wofford College, and he and Laura moved to Spartanburg, SC. I was rewiring my parents‘ house. A fellow who had driven into their front yard one night was doing a lot of work on it as well. The farmhouse was on a popular back road to Blowing Rock, where the bars were, and Dave had crashed into the briars. He was a carpenter seeking work and a place to stay. My father let him work on the house in exchange for free rent on the trailer which had replaced Kevin and Fran’s down the road.
That we had the same name was an irritation. I’d hear my father praising Dave and realize it was him, not me. He’d dismiss what I’d done, crediting my work to others who’d done a small portion. Jeff had worked on the greenhouse, but he’d put in 3 hours to my 60. He’d say Uncle Lewis put in the bathroom, not him and me. The rock wall I’d taken all summer to build in the front yard was a “repair”. When I painted the roof he never bought the last gallon of paint and it became something I “hadn’t finished”, which Dave replaced. Dave deserved the praise my father repeatedly gave him, but it irritated me greatly when I’d hear him talking about what Dave had done and realize it wasn’t me, and that Dave had exchanged labor for rent, while my free labor from the goodness of my heart was being ignored. My brother’s next letter dealt with this. It was difficult for us to finish things, because our father, he noticed, would start things but abandon them, and if we continued he’d tear them down to make “improvements” which never happened. It was difficult for either of us to take pride in our accomplishments, because we got no credit and they didn’t stay finished anyway.
I rewired the house as a Christmas present that year, because it needed it, and saw my Skilsaw on the back porch. I hadn’t seen it in over a year. It had my name ground into the handle, in letters an inch high and a quarter-inch deep. He’d stolen it.
Genny was scouting for a new job and enjoyed being single. Sam had moved in with Barry on Staten Island while his old boyfriend Rob lived with David in Manhattan. They were still friendly. That they didn’t live together made it easier on both. Rob was working with Broadway singers and Sam had quit piano playing in smoky bars, freelancing as a “party pianist”. Laura was getting accustomed to her toddler taking his first steps. She loved her new neighborhood, and though she didn’t like local schools it was hardly a concern while Austin was under a year old.
I was less satisfied, and expressed my frustrations. I was making little more than minimum wage at the health food store. Marlene was far more interested in money than in health, and was paranoid as well. When we’d run the rental yard in Hollywood we’d figure a loss of 3 to 4 percent due to bad checks and the like was normal. If losing more than that, your policies were probably too loose, if less you’d miss a lot of business. When selling Christmas trees we were even less concerned, taking checks without much bother; none of the trees would be worth 10¢ on on December 26th. Marlene took two forms of ID and called the bank on every check. She got only one bad check that I ever knew about, for about $15, and put sticky notes on the back door, the desk, the cash drawer and the bathroom mirror warning us about Cherry Smith. She was one of the first businesses to have a credit card verification machine and wouldn’t take cards if it was down. She’d tail her customers, and recommend way more than they needed. She’d mark the price up 400 or 500% on products recommended for serious illnesses such as cancer, on the theory that cancer patients were going to spend it on medicine anyway. There was a monthly newsletter from an association whose sales started on the first of the month, but she wouldn’t pass out the newsletters for at least a week. When they were gone, a week or so later, she’d immediately pull off the sale tags. Items on sale were marked with a dot of a certain color. Most would go on sale once or twice a year, yet many of the bottles had over half-a-dozen dots, making them over five years old. Some food was so old it had changed color, but she wouldn’t throw it out. I’d set the old stuff in the back room, where she said she was going to send it back, but three days later it’d be on the shelf again. The ketchup was particularly nasty. The first half-inch was a black crust, the rest a pale orange. I saw it back on the shelf and decided I was tossing it and anything else that was that bad. Over the next couple of weeks I got rid of a dozen or two superannuated jars of sauces and was fired. I didn’t care. I was disgusted. The health food store went downhill, Marlene’s father died a short while later and Delores bought it for next to nothing. She threw out over half the stock.
I was tired of the town, too. I didn’t want to be in the flatlands, and had only come down because Perri had planned to take a job in the mountains at the first opportunity. The opportunity hadn’t come and Perri wasn’t pursuing it. I found it a flat, hot, preachy little town, where great philosophical discussions bogged down in creationism vs. evolution and whether Satan’s influence would strengthen as the millennium approached. I didn’t like the yard decorations. Cement chickens. Plywood butts tending flowers. I didn’t want to raise a family there, not that it looked like we would. I didn’t care about local history or local politics. It wasn’t a good place to sell crafts, and I didn’t like the earth lodge being abandoned and the trees badly tended.
Perri didn’t see it that way. She had a good job, friends, and had already decided a lot of things with or without my input. She’d been dealing with disruptive children that nobody else could handle and for nine years had been making them do what no one else could. All day it was her way, not their way. It didn’t matter what they wanted, they did what she told them to.
It was her job, and she brought the attitude home. She told me what we were going to do, where we were going to go, what I was going to wear. I tried to make decisions or talk over plans but was summarily slapped down. My kaleidoscope sales were doing OK, but when I ordered supplies she wrote the checks.
We decided that I’d take over half the finances. I’d handle the house payment and she’d take the rest. I did what I said, sold enough scopes to make the payment, ordered supplies and had about fifty dollars left. I thought we’d have a nice night out to celebrate. I cleaned up, dressed up and planned to take her to her favorite restaurant.
Things Blow Up
She came home and I was in a great mood, the first time in quite awhile. I greeted her at the door, spiffed up and ready to go.
It was not to be. She immediately grilled me and discovered I’d deposited the $800 into the wrong account of our two at the bank. She said I couldn’t handle money and took the rest. She then told me she’d been to her favorite restaurant at lunch, she didn’t like the way I was dressed and that she and her friend had other plans anyway. I went from feeling terrific to terrible in five minutes. I stayed home and cleaned up around the house.
She came home and started again. It was unbelievable that I’d put money in the wrong account. This kaleidoscope thing wasn’t a business, it was a hobby. I couldn’t take care of business, I couldn’t handle money. She didn’t want to hear about the mountains anymore, either. I was abusing her when I talked about moving. We’d move in 2017, when she retired, and I wouldn’t mention it anymore. And how were we ever going to have kids, if I couldn’t handle money? She was already taking care of a child. Me.
I shut up for a week or so. She wrote the check to order supplies, but she wrote it on a credit card, which bounced. It was the second time she’d bounced a check to that supplier. I got a money order and she said she’d mail it. She didn’t. I brought it up, she blew it off. She didn’t want to hear about it any more. And I should get a vasectomy. And she didn’t want anything to do my family.
Well, that finally, finally did it. I’d had it. I was re-folding the laundry–she didn’t like the way I’d folded it–and I completely exploded. I screamed and screamed and threw laundry around–I knew if I touched anything else I’d break it–and screamed some more and some more, that she was NOT going to talk about my family that way and she WASN’T going to tell me I couldn’t handle money and she WAS going to pay for the supplies and we WERE going back to the mountains and my scopes were NOT a hobby. I kept screaming and throwing laundry and finally stormed out of the house.
In my socks. In the snow.
I didn’t know where to go. It was February, 1996. It was cold. It was snowing. I was in a T-shirt and socks. I walked a half-mile down the road, stopped and looked at the tiny snowflakes swirling and sparkling in the air. I turned around and came back.
Everything was quiet. She’d put away the laundry, and was making dinner.
Dinner was excellent. Potatoes with rosemary. Spinach with spicy tofu and sesame seeds. Mixed veggies, lightly fried. We didn’t talk much.
I was calm, but I knew I’d lost my sanity. I was croaking like a frog. I couldn’t speak. My head throbbed; I was certain I’d blown a blood vessel on the left side of my forehead. I wasn’t angry. I couldn’t be. If I started getting worked up my head throbbed even more. It was painful enough keeping calm.
I didn’t go to our bed that night. Somewhere, sometime, I’d read that you shouldn’t go to bed angry. What a crock. All that means is that whoever is the most tired gives up so they can sleep. It was the first time I’d slept on the couch.
When we got up the next morning, things were better, sort of. I’d obviously frightened her. She was sweet to me. I couldn’t talk. I had a headache.
Things weren’t the same. I’d settled down, but I was unbalanced, and knew it. We had our second wedding anniversary a few days later–the 29th of February, so we had actually been married eight years–and Perri’d started making plans to move back to the mountains. She’d renewed her job application–she hadn’t heard back because the application had to be renewed every six months, but she hadn’t renewed it in ten years. She was trying–but I was crying.
There was something wrong with me. I kept my temper down because I had to. If I got agitated my head would throb. I worked in my shop, made scopes–but suddenly, for no reason, would burst into tears in the middle of the afternoon, great heaving sobs that drained my energy and left me a wreck for 20 minutes–then I’d get back to work.
I drank too much. I hadn’t drunk anything until evening for years, except on Saturdays, and I’d always go a couple days a week without drinking–but now I’d take a tug off the liquor bottle in the afternoon, to calm down and take the edge off my despair. I’d met a woman, Teresa, who’d admired my kaleidoscopes and was learning how to make them. She’d cut glass pieces, I’d buy them from her and take her crafts along when I’d sell. For awhile I was in a band with her husband, but she and he were breaking up. I’d call her and we’d talk and cry for hours. I’d also been making kaleidoscope kits for my old girlfriend Beth, who’d written me occasionally for years. She wanted to sell kits, so I put together parts and instructions and sent them to Arizona. I’d gotten a PO box down the street to use for business, but now it became the address I’d use to write her. I knew she’d been crazy too, many years before, and desperately needed someone who could relate. We’d now known each other for 20 years, which seemed incredible. I’d send off kits and a letter, she’d send a check and a letter. I’d saved our correspondence for years, but had burned it all a year before and now only had one remaining letter from earlier times, which had escaped by hiding in a book. It was written not long after she’d married the guitar player, and was full of references to how she’d wanted to be with me but couldn’t, that she’d married Luke because she had to, she was trying to fly but her wings were clipped, she was the temple prostitute in a past life who was now tethered to the ground, the domestic Goddess. I was her Wizard, but Oh, the Karma which befalls the Wise One–and signed “Love & Light, Beth”.
And my heart had been tethered to hers in some way, all those years, through all those letters. Her son had told me “I love you, Dave Austin” when he was four. He grew up, she had two daughters with the guy in the shiny suit and wrote me heart-wrenching letters for seventeen more years, eleven married and six divorced.
I tried hard not to write every day. She’d had a boyfriend for a year, but called me in the middle of the day when he wasn’t there and my wife was working. I told her what a mess I was, how hopelessly crazy, how I knew she’d been there, knew how I felt. It was a comfort to talk. I’d lay in the middle of the floor and cry.
I needed to get away for awhile and a friend suggested I drive with him out West. John was an older fellow who knew me from the health food store. He worked with stained glass and I’d shown him how to make kaleidoscopes. He wanted to leave his wife, and I wanted to make a business trip out of state. I made a dozen Kallistoscopes and we left on April 17th. Two days later in Eagle Pass, Texas, I sold my first large stereoscope, which gave me enough to help with the gas and support myself. On the 21st we arrived in Tucson and at 7 am I first saw Liz, as she was now calling herself. She’d broken up with her boyfriend when she knew I was coming, and she let me stay at her place. After a month I wrote a letter to include in the robin:
Hi Sam!
And everyone else on down the line, since I want this letter included in the robin and my address right now is sort of uncertain–
I left Swepsonville on Apr. 17th, which makes it one month today–I’ve been staying in Tucson with an old and loyal friend, Liz, I knew I needed to see her because a couple months ago I lost my mind and I knew she’d been there before and I’ve known and trusted her for twenty years.
I left not knowing exactly what I was doing; I badly wanted to take a trip to the West again because I’d been 8 years away, and also I wanted to try selling kaleidoscopes on my own. I knew Liz knew the market in Tucson and I also knew I badly needed to hear her perspective on life, so I came to Tucson first. I didn’t expect to be staying here more than several days; I knew she had a boyfriend and a life. However she broke up with him the same day I left so when I came we had more time to talk than I’d anticipated. We really had some seriously unfinished business to talk through anyway because we are old lovers and I never really wanted to give her up but she ran off and got married, and that’s really why I spent the next six years or so thumbing around the country, because I never really wanted to marry anyone else. She was married for eleven years and got divorced 5 months after I got married. If I’d have seen her 5 months earlier I doubt if I’d have gotten married–but anyway for the next 8 years we stayed in touch and she wrote me several honest & painful letters about what all she had felt and done and what she was up to and in general they really tore at my heart because I never really and truly forgot about her.
Anyway a couple months ago me & Perri had another big fight over money & finally decided I would make the house payment and use the rest for supplies for kaleidoscopes, etc. I fulfilled my end of the bargain when I went out selling when I made $800, made the house payment and had $250 left for supplies & a little extra I figured we could go out to dinner on that night etc. & I was feeling really good when Perri walked in.
Well, she told me I’d put the house payment in the wrong one of the 2 accounts we had with NationsBank & I obviously couldn’t handle money & she’d have to make my order for me & I’d have to hand over the money & she didn’t want to go out to dinner because she’d already gone out to that restaurant for lunch & so she took my money & went out to dinner with her friends.
It happened so fast I didn’t know what hit me. I’d had a great day & done everything right and inside of 5 minutes she had trashed my day, insulted me, robbed me and split. I felt like I’d been mugged.
To add to the insult she didn’t get the order in for a couple weeks while I ran out of supplies to finish anything, meanwhile still riding me about the next month’s house payment. When she did put in the order she sent a check drawn on a credit card which didn’t have enough to cover it which blew another week as well as boogering up my account with Delphi Glass for the 2nd time. Then when I came to her with my concern she told me she’d take care of it after the weekend, but by the next Tuesday or Wednesday she hadn’t done it & I mentioned it again & she sort of casually said, “I have more things to think about than you”, and blew it off, then started ragging me about how I’d folded the laundry. Well that was a long ways from the only reason for what happened next but it was one straw too many for me. I started screaming at her at the top of my lungs and kept it up for probably five solid minutes and throwing laundry around and completely lost my mind. I said I was not one of her 9-year-old brats and she had better learn to respect me as a man and my family was just as good as hers (an old, old fight) and she did not have the exclusive right to decide for us if we were going to have children or not without consulting her husband, and she knew I hated the flatlands but she had kept me there for ten years anyway, and on & on. I’m sure I was purple I was so mad and I’m sure I popped a blood vessel because for weeks I got pounding headaches whenever I got worked up. I left & walked down the road & back for 20 mins. or so & when I got back had her write out a check then & there for an order & send it off & then a weird kind of calm settled over me–but I knew I was mentally unbalanced. I had completely lost my equilibrium and was totally out of touch with my emotions and I knew it. I was a wreck. It was a nervous breakdown. I started crying every morning and writing long letters, mostly to Liz because I knew very well she’d been there and could understand better than anyone about going thru that sort of thing. I knew I had to see her & planned this trip partly for business, true, but also to be able to see her, because I knew I’d never really be able to get myself straightened out again otherwise & she was the one person I knew that I trusted and felt could help.
So I’ve been here for awhile longer than I’d planned but I’m getting a lot of kaleidoscopes made up & making a few contacts & feeling a whole lot better. I don’t know what I’m going to do from here but I’ll get around to some more states pretty soon & probably pick up my car in Colorado & get back to NC before too long. I don’t much know what the future might be but I do know that I’m glad I came. You can go on & on about counseling, etc. but everyone needs to do what they think is best and I think I have done what is best for me for the time being and thus for everyone because I wouldn’t be any good for anyone the way I was. I feel like I have rediscovered something about myself I’d been out of touch with for a long time.
Much Love–Dave
P.S. Someone else needs to make the copies this time! DJA~
I had too much faith in my lady love. When I’d arrived, she’d been suspicious and cool, which seemed odd–the woman who’d been signing every letter with “Love” or some variation–never “sincerely” or “best wishes”–for seventeen years. We got along, but she seemed to want me to prove something, which was simply strange.
I found out much more about her. She’d been married at 20, had a son and left her first husband. She told me he’d forged a sword and to make it magical needed a ritual sacrifice. She’d run from him and I’d met her. She’d made a business arrangement with Luke under the apple tree–this is what she’d called it, had always called it, what they’d agreed to. He’d raise her son if she’d have his kids. Her son, 4 years old, had hated this choice–”NO!”, he said, “ANYBODY but HIM! George! David! Anyone but LUKE!!!”–but marry they did, moved out West and sent me a Polaroid shot of the cutest, happiest baby girl I’d ever seen. Four years later they had another daughter, one she didn’t want. They’d been thinking of splitting up, but he got a vasectomy and they stayed together for a few more years. He started fooling around and they had an incredibly bitter divorce. I arrived eight years later, but they were still furious with each other. He’d remarried, changed his name and tried to reverse his vasectomy. None of it worked–they didn’t have kids, he left her and changed back his name. Liz remained single and bitter, drank too much and kept the girls on weekends.
I’d been trying to sell scopes and rings in Tucson, but it was the end of the season and Liz wanted me to get away more anyway. She’d been introducing me and sometimes fixing me up with her friends. I took a sales trip with a fellow she knew. We were away for a week, camping out and visiting interesting little towns. I sold enough to pay for the trip but little else. A few days later I took a bus to California and met up with John, whose prospect wasn’t working out either. I visited a couple friends, whose romantic lives were also in turmoil; there was something in the air that spring–and John insisted I drive his car back while he flew home to his wife. That was fine with me, and I picked up my stuff in Tucson a few days after my 43rd birthday.
While I was gone all hell had broken loose. I’d gotten along with the son, who was now in his twenties, and the older daughter, who was 17, but the younger one, age 13, had been a challenge. I’d babysat with her the weekend before I’d left for California, when Liz was out of town. The daughter stole some pot from her mother’s purse, which I didn’t know about, and when Liz grilled her she said I’d been peeping, as a distraction. I was out of state, an easy target, and the daughter didn’t want me there anyway. When I rolled back into Tucson Liz was furious, but it was clear to me it wasn’t working out anyway, so I packed my stuff and left without a fuss.
I continued on to Colorado. I’d planned to fix up the 1962 Falcon which I’d given to Monk many years before. His father had made it into a sort of pickup and driven it for a few years. He now offered it back if I wanted it. Since I had a car, though, I didn’t immediately need it. I visited for a week, staying mostly with Monk’s mother. I’d say Monk had gone downhill in the intervening seven years, but he’d already been at the bottom. He was still married to Carissa, though they’d separated a few times. Still lived in a little apartment on the wrong side of the tracks, still dealt drugs and used cars. Carissa was a masseuse. She claimed that she wasn’t screwing the customers, though everyone knew she was. I took her to appointments. When we were alone she was all over me, and suggested we get a room. She was good looking, luscious actually, and I was sorta-kinda single, but she was still my best friend’s wife. I didn’t want to go there. I told her I needed my money for the trip home, which was true.
I spent the night at Monk’s apartment, Some friends had brought over crack. I traded them a few silver rings and shared it with Monk and Carissa. I’ve never cared for crack. It’s medicine-y, not very pleasant and doesn’t last long. Carissa wanted more, and more. Didn’t want to give up the crack pipe. In the morning Monk offered me a place on the couch to stay as long as I wanted, but I left. The next few days I visited with his family while a car appearing to be an undercover narc incompetently followed me around. I sold a couple scopes and had money to get home, but there were be a couple small scopes missing. Monk later confessed that he and Carissa had taken them to get more crack.
Three years later Carissa was arrested for trying to hire someone to kill Monk. She needn’t have bothered. He died a year afterwards.
I spent the next week moseying, toured my old hangouts, took a drive to Boulder, saw the house we’d lived in when I was a toddler. It seemed incredibly tiny. I went to Central City, explored the mountains, then at night started for Kansas (the best time to drive across Kansas). I stopped in Topeka, spent some hours in Kansas City and went to St. Louis, where I spent most of the day. It’s lovely in the springtime, hell in summer. I then drove to my cousin’s house in Knoxville, spent the night, and on to my parents’ house in Boone, where I stayed the weekend. I arrived back in Swepsonville on Perri’s birthday, hoping to surprise her, but she wasn’t there, having gone to Florida to visit her sister. She’d changed the locks. I broke a small window and crawled in.
Things Settle Down
I went about my business. I returned the car to John, who’d reconciled with his wife. I rode my moped and got a job landscaping with Delores’ husband Marty. Perri came back a few days later. It took awhile, but we worked things out.
There’d been a real turning point for me that spring. I was living with Liz and once in awhile calling back to Perri, mostly yelling. I’d told her I wanted a divorce, and we’d decided who’d get what. I was still furious, even though Liz was proving to be less than trustworthy, clean and reverent. I’d found Liz would tell a tall tale if it got her what she wanted, but Perri never would. Perri called me one day nearly in tears and asked for my permission to buy a lawnmower with the credit card we’d decided was mine.
It was the first time she’d ever asked my permission.
I found it touching, and her simple and heartfelt honesty a sharp contrast to the woman I was with. A few days later it was my birthday and we talked until the battery on the phone went dead. It wasn’t a reconciliation, but it went a long way.
I signed up for Spanish classes at night school and volunteered at the Catholic church to teach English to recent immigrants a couple nights a week. I joined the chess club. She found a job teaching the profoundly retarded rather than the emotionally disturbed. The change was wonderful; she’d often say she felt she’d been dying in the old job, that it was draining her, wrecking her physical and mental health. Taking care of children, some of whom couldn’t talk, some in diapers at age 10, all needing gentle loving care, brought out a tenderness in her which she’d lost.
There was a lot of stuff to move around. Before I’d made my Quest to the West, we’d made plans to move back to the mountains. We’d moved stuff to the attic, on the bus, in the earth lodge, a tent, a back shed and at my parents’ house. There was stuff in our Subaru, under the carport, in the Studebaker. Perri’d also moved all her stuff from school, which was stored in the tool shed and the attic.
Robin had also been having domestic difficulties. Anne had a trust fund, and spent it on things she wanted while Robin worked. She did little but talk on the phone and drink Coke. Robin announced one day he wasn’t going to both work and clean the house. She said she wouldn’t either, and for twelve years the dishes stayed in the sink, the clothes stayed on the floor. They went out to eat. Grant, Jordan and Noelle visited their friends’ houses. Their friends didn’t visit them.
They decided to make a new start, and hired Perri and I to clean house in summer 1996. We started in the corners of each room and pushed everything into the hallway. By nightfall it was so crammed we couldn’t see over the pile, and had to go room to room through the windows. We threw out well over a hundred bags of trash. My brother paid us a hundred dollars, and as part of the deal we also kept $138 we’d found in loose change.
There’d been a hurricane that summer, and though it did little damage to our house Marty and I had plenty of work and plenty of firewood. We worked together until Christmas, mowing lawns, trimming trees, doing construction and working on cars. Perri acquired a Volvo, and felt very much the professional.
After Christmas I reconnected with John, my partner on the Quest to the West, and we built storage sheds as well as kaleidoscopes together. He’d seen the sheds I’d made with Marlene’s father and decided we could do it too. Some months later I got a job supervising a crew of Mexican immigrants in a print shop in Durham, 12 hours on the night shift, 4 days one week and 3 days the next. It was the first job where I spoke Spanish full-time, and I was not only the supervisor but something of a god both to my crew and to upper management, as nobody would get anything done if I didn’t interpret. It was a temporary job, though, which under the rules of the time could be forever temporary, and was physically demanding. Needlessly so. We were supposed to stay on our feet for the entire twelve hours. All chairs had been banned from the floor. It was a great opportunity to socialize after work with Mexicans, though, and at 7 in the morning we’d buy a case of beer. When you work from 7 pm to 7 am, seven in the morning is after work. I still made kaleidoscopes and storage buildings on my days off.
After six months I’d had enough and found a better job, closer to home, supervising a Spanish-speaking crew in another print shop, though this print shop printed fabric. It was slower paced and far more pleasant, but after two months I was laid off. I then found a job in a plant which glued huge rolls of paper. I was part-time safety inspector and part-time Spanish supervisor, though I only had one fellow to supervise.
Ringo and I daily walked around the property, picking flowers. One day Ringo found a HUGE caterpillar who’d eaten ALL the leaves off one of my baby pecans. It was as big as my thumb. We named it Swepsonzilla. It was a Hickory Horned Devil, which becomes a Royal moth. That spring, we saw Hootie and the Blowfish with our friend Lori and her temporary boyfriend. Lori had married a prisoner she’d met as a prison counselor, but while he was locked up was going with a fellow named John. It was a Lori Story. Lori always did the strange and dramatic and wrong. She was nearly 30, but for awhile had a boyfriend who was sixteen. John wanted to stay with her, but they split up because she was married.
We spent a week in Florida that spring, and when we came back Perri got a bus license and became a driver for a multiple-handicapped children’s camp for the rest of that summer. We took one other quick trip to the beach, staying in a condo on Oak Island as a promotion. When Thanksgiving came we visited Perri’s parents in their new house in Athens, Alabama, then came home and sold trees.
The Volvo heater core had sprung a leak, and I had to tear out the entire dashboard to repair it. About six months later, a woman pulled in front of Perri and it was totaled. We refinanced the house yet again in the springtime, and pulled out enough extra to buy a four-year-old Toyota truck, basic but well-maintained.
When Lori’s husband Michael got out of prison in the spring of 1998 we went to the beach for a quick weekend. Lori’s parents had a beach cottage, and while there we took photos pretending we were in the movie Maximum Overdrive, shot in the area, which my father’d been in. Perri played Stephen King being cussed out by the ATM, I played my father the bridgemaster and Michael his stupid sidekick. We played cards with the cards from my wallet. We found a slice of watermelon in the market and used camera angles to make it look like a truckload, and Lori was an excellent stand-in for Marla Maples as she got creamed by the watermelon. Ringo was conscripted to be the goblin on the front of the diesel rig, for which we’d substituted our little pickup. A napkin became a waiter’s pointy hat at the diner, and various items were flung into the air and shot from strange angles. Great fun!
That summer Perri and her mother took a trip to Florida together, without the rest of the family. Her mother had never stopped at South of the Border, on I-95 at the South Carolina line, which she thought tacky, but they had a great time.
Teresa, who’d been my employee, had left her husband and moved to Idaho with a new husband. I’d traded a nice stereo Kallistoscope to her for a silver flute, but she had a piano that needed a home, and I traded her the flute back for the piano, which was sitting in my workshop when my sister Laura expressed her desire for a piano that September. We traded the piano for Laura’s flute!
We sold trees again, but my heart wasn’t in it. After nearly twenty years of selling, I’d made enough to make the house payment, which for me was a mark of achievement. My father’s response was to joke that that we needed to “renegotiate our agreement”, since I was making too much money.
It wasn’t really a joke. I didn’t trust him. I loaded a couple dozen trees on my pickup for a few years but otherwise abandoned the enterprise and never did business with him again.
I may have been recovered, domestically, but Robin was warring with his wife, and Fran, who for her work had gone to Panama with the kids while her husband Rob remained in Montgomery, was having an increasingly hard time handling Sarah, brain damaged, obstinate, ten years old and quite strong. She had a Panamanian maid, but as she was the only one who spoke Spanish and only there for a few minutes morning and night, everyone expected her to air all their complaints at that time. Genny had moved from New York to the trailer at Snag End, and Sam was in rural New Jersey, having left not only Manhattan but Staten Island.
We’d been much better, but I still wanted the children we hadn’t had, nine years into our marriage. That summer I was skimming through the paper and saw the list in the paper of all the babies born locally that week–and all of them, a dozen or more, had parents younger than we were. Later that day, Perri knew something was wrong, and I showed her the column. I was sobbing. I knew that if we didn’t have children, we were going to break up. She’d avoided the issue for fourteen years, taking birth control pills, getting an abortion eight years before, scheduling her fertile days, trying to talk me into a vasectomy, even talking about getting her tubes tied, but this, for me, was the end.
The Porno Biz
A new job. I’d been hired by a woman named Sheila to start a Spanish department at Adam & Eve, the sex toy and porno-by-mail company.
Before I was out of training Sheila was gone. Her daughter had been a casualty in an office war, and Sheila quit. I’d been introduced to all the departments–the folks who wrote the catalog, the website geeks, customer service–but on the second day of the second week of my three-week training the black girl teaching the class came in looking white–and announced that the entire customer service department had been fired. From now on, everyone would “multi-task”. In 1998 nobody had discovered how many tasks one person could simultaneously do wrong. Instead of just doing one job at a time, we’d do everything, all the time–phone orders, ten-key mail order entry, customer service over the phone, through the mail, etc. etc. etc. I was also expected to do all this in Spanish as well as English. The elimination of the customer service department was part of this “transition”, and since Sheila had also resigned, the Spanish department–her baby–was in limbo. Everyone outside of customer contact wanted my help, but I was supposed to be “multi-tasking”. If I wasn’t answering phones in Spanish, I was doing it in English. Beside the phone was a big stack of little cards marked to receive or not receive a catalog, or not marked at all, in which case we sent another card. When the cards ran out, we had stacks of letters with ads torn out of magazines. These contained checks, or didn’t, or credit card numbers, or didn’t, or cash, for which we’d send back a check with a note that said we didn’t take cash. If these were finished we had stacks of mail with customer service questions. We’d work on these piles of paper until the next call came, which we were supposed to answer in 3 seconds. I had all the foreign language items as well–not only Spanish. We had a girl who spoke French–coincidentally, we shared the same birthday, and she was the only other vegetarian. I kept a big stack of phrasebooks on my desk in Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, even Russian and Tagalog. Most of the foreign correspondence wasn’t complicated–we didn’t send anything outside of the United States and Canada, so the bulk of my notes said “sorry, we don’t ship to (Italy, the Philippines, Brazil). My biggest problem was the Spanish speaking customer who had a question about an item. We didn’t have access to the website (tell me about it!) so everyone but me transferred these calls to the warehouse. Since nobody in the warehouse spoke Spanish and there was no way to see an item online, I placed the customer on hold and ran to the warehouse. Several times a day I was taking care of a customer service problem when I “should have been on the phones”.
It quickly became obvious to me that multi-tasking was multi-screwing-up. I told management I needed a certain amount of time to devote to Spanish, nothing else, and if I had to punch that damned calculator all day I was going to kick it through the window. I got an hour at the end of the day for Spanish. There was no Spanish keyboard available, so I brought in an old portable 1930s Spanish-language typewriter and typed short descriptions of several items and made a 2-page Xerox copy list, which saved me literally hours on the phone and quintupled our Spanish sales.
Perri’d become pregnant, finally, in September of 1998. We had a scare in October. I’d given blood, and it had been rejected. Perri opened the letter, and it said I needed to get tested for AIDS.
Well, it scared the crap out of both of us, naturally. Fifteen years together, she finally gets pregnant and now she needs to know if I have AIDS, if she has AIDS, if the baby has AIDS. I had to take several expensive tests before I found out that I had indeed had an immune deficiency illness, many years earlier, described as a “cousin” to AIDS–probably babesiosis. It sounds like an addiction to babes, but it’s tick-borne. When I’d filled out the questionnaire to give blood it’d asked my medical history for the previous ten years. I’d had a case of the flu which recurred and never really went away, but that had been more than ten years before. I spent a lot of money on prescriptions, which did almost nothing, and finally tried large quantities of herbal extracts and remedies, which worked. Nevertheless, the antibodies were still there, fourteen or fifteen years later. I was told I could give blood in the future if I let this be known, but I never will again. It was expensive, scary and I wasn’t treated fairly.
In 1999, after the new year, John and I started building a workshop so that the baby could have the spare bedroom. We fixed up the house yet again. Perri wanted central air conditioning so we sprang for that as well. John had wanted to put in the labor on the workshop for free, as a gift to us, but after a fight with his wife we gave him $700. He soon left his wife, again and for good.
Perri was overjoyed to be pregnant and preparing for the baby, but when I described her joy in the robin Laura took offense to a particular phrase, that men liked to be a knight in shining armor for a fair maiden. This struck me as particularly silly, because she’d married a football coach, and who in modern times is more the knight in shining armor than a football coach? For whatever reason, she wasn’t interested in scrawny, bespectacled accountants.
There’d been an ad about that time for MasterCard or Visa, showing what “one strong woman” could do–the idea was that she could fix up her house, but how? By hiring twelve strong guys. The commercial didn’t show “one strong man” hiring twelve women to do the plumbing and masonry and drywall, it would’ve been ludicrous. Fire departments anywhere, affirmative action or no, are 99% men. Construction is over 90% men. Thus shall it always be.
It bothers me when the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marines put women in combat, not because women can’t do the job, because for the most part they can. Once a woman is captured, however, she can be raped and violated and used as a sex slave, which will be repeated 67 times a day on the news all day long for twelve days, and then 600 strong males–knights in shining armor–will get their nuts shot off saving the fair maid. None of the armed services would send in 600 women to save a man. Brave knights save fair young maidens from dragons, because that’s what brave knights do. Brave young maidens will never save fair knights. They save babies, not knights. To say anything else is a line of crap. Spout it for a hundred years and it’s still crap. When the shooting starts, knights do the fighting, just like in fairy tales, and maidens hide with babies in the caves. That’s the power of myth. They’re fated, and inevitable. The Knight in Shining Armor saves the Fair Maid, the Princess kisses the Toad, Beauty saves the Beast and the Wicked Witch is carried off in a tornado. One can kick and scream and say “NO!!! My life is NOT that way!!!”, but sooner or later one looks around and realizes one has indeed been the Wizard, or the Dragon, or the Fair Maid, or the Ugly Duckling or the Wicked Stepmother. It’s too bad this is only seen in the rear-view mirror. It’d save a lot of kicking and screaming.
When my marriage was out of balance and not like the myth it was supposed to be, I had to leave on a Stalwart Quest. I didn’t know The Answer, but I’d been getting letters for twenty years from an alternate myth in a parallel universe–for if we’re not caught up in one myth, we’re caught in another. In this other world I was the Powerful Wizard, not the Obstinate Child. I didn’t see that in her myth she was the Temple Prostitute, which she had clearly and honestly told me, but I didn’t believe. I’d still get occasional letters, and she’d apologized for the scene when I left Tucson, but now I had a Fair Maiden and a Babe On the Way. Now, as the bearer of the Mighty Sword of Truth, I had to tell her the rest of her Myth–that the Truth was that she truly became the Prostitute she’d claimed to be when she married not the Wizard she loved, but the Turd in a Shiny Suit who offered her a Business Deal. There’s only one word for a Business Deal involving Sex, topped with any amount of Frosting, and Wizards have More Important Things To Do than consort with Prostitutes. I don’t remember which myth that is, but it’s one of the classics. You can look it up.
The spring went by quickly and the baby came late. On May 7th, a week after he was due, we checked into the Women’s Hospital in Greensboro, and though the delivery had already been planned for that afternoon, Perri had gone into labor the same morning. At 6:54 pm we welcomed Edward Zephram Austin. Taurus sun, Aquarius moon, Scorpio rising.
The Babe
The name was something new. For years Perri and I had thought that Mercer Calvin would be a good name. I’d always thought the Mercer an elegant little car, and Calvin was her maiden name. As the time approached, though, she felt the name was from her past, not something she wanted to use. She wanted Theo Mercer, but I didn’t. I liked the initials MCA, but didn’t care for TMA. Initials weren’t something my parents thought about much; mine are DJA, which seemed okay, but then came RAA, SMA, FEA, GMA and LAA. Robin didn’t care for RAA, Sam saw his name scrambled, Fran’s brought her embarrassment when she went to Spain with her initials embossed on a giant handbag, because FEA means “ugly girl” in Spanish.
I thought one common name and one more unusual would go together nicely. Edward was her father’s name, and Ned mine, and as Ned is a common nickname for Edward, we chose it. That left a middle name. Some weeks before he was born we were watching a Star Trek movie and learned that Zefram Cochrane was the inventor of warp drive. We had our middle name, and the initials EZA. An added allure is that a few years from now the inventor of warp drive will be named after our son, not vice versa!
We’d thought a choice of nicknames would be nice, but Edward was a serious baby and nothing else fit. He wasn’t an Eddie or Ed or Ned or Ted or Audie. Occasionally we’d call him EZ, but mostly he was simply Edward.
Everyone sent their congratulations. Several people came to visit the hospital–Randy, Pat, their kids Carly and Leah, Lori and my brother Robin’s family. Perri and Anne had had a game going for years. Anne hated Joe Camel, the cigarette mascot, and Perri’d hide a Joe Camel cup-holder in her house when we’d visit. She’d send the kids looking for it and return it on her next visit. Joe appeared all over. When Robin and Anne moved into a new house Joe was waiting, courtesy of their realtor, and when Anne had a temporary job Perri had a friend mail him to her, in a stranger’s handwriting and with a different return address. It didn’t matter, Anne knew what was inside, and sent it to Perri without opening it!
When Anne arrived, I was holding a fake bundle with Joe Camel in Edward’s place, but she rushed right past it. She didn’t look at the baby, she wanted to see Perri!
Perri’s life was now all about diapers and breastfeeding and lack of sleep. We’d bought a WebTV unit shortly before he was born and she started an email list and sent out “Edward Updates”. Cindy, her friend of over 20 years, had her first baby, a girl, 3 weeks later. She and Ally lived about a half-hour away and visited often, sharing toys, clothes etc.
We’d moved our bedroom from one side of the house to the other during the initial renovation. Now we made my workroom a nursery and moved my glass and tools into the newly built workshop out back.
Edward initially had gray eyes, but within a couple weeks they were brown. This followed the family pattern; all of his cousins, both on Perri’s side and on mine, had brown eyes. I was the oldest of three boys, followed by three girls, and all the children in my siblings’ families as well were boys followed by girls. My brother had two boys, then a girl; my first sister two boys, then two girls, and my youngest sister two boys. This also applied to the cousins on my mother’s side of the family; of the four, one cousin had two boys, another, one girl, and a third, two boys. None of the brothers, for two generations, had an older sister, and none of the sisters a younger brother.
Edward as a baby was a prize. He was quiet, and studious, and loved bananas. Perri tried to teach him sign language, which she’d studied and used as a teacher, and eventually he picked up a few hand signs, but he had his own. “More” wasn’t his two little fists touched together, it was a hearty slap on his high-chair table.
When Edward had been born I’d bought a box of cigars. When I’d been a child, even well into my twenties, almost all men passed out cigars when a baby was born. I found it difficult to give them away. I bought a few chocolate and bubble-gum cigars to mix in with them, and went through about five times as many candy and gum cigars as I did real ones. I didn’t pass out the last cigar for almost a year.
Edward was a cheerful baby, despite his serious countenance. When something surprised him he’d cackle almost uncontrollably. When he was 2 or 3 months old he had a little round-bottomed bird with a bell inside that tinkled and righted itself when pushed over; I showed it to him when we were lounging on the bed. He laughed all afternoon.
He was always strong. When first born he arched his back and held his head up, and he never cared much to crawl, preferring from an early age to grab things and try to stand. Our house has two wide archways , between the living room and the parlor, where we put hooks to either side and hung a bouncy chair, which he loved. He’d walk until the chair pulled him back & spun him around, then bounce and walk some more. I’d sit in the recliner next to him and play the banjo. He loved it. I won a small banjo-type ukulele in a costume contest at work, gave it to him and he’d play along with me. He had a large futon in one corner of his room and lots of toys, but his favorite was a nubby foam ball. When he was four months old, I asked him if he wanted it and he said, very clearly, “ball”–his first word. When he was old enough to have a set schedule I’d play songs for him at bedtime, not only on the banjo but also the guitar. I’d initially found the guitar too intimidating. I’d broken or badly cut every finger on my left hand at some point. My thumb, pinky and index fingers lacked flexibility. When someone would show me guitar chords I’d be stymied, but once I learned banjo chords I picked up a guitar for $17 when Sears closed down its catalog warehouse in Greensboro and learned to fudge a few chords. I bought a book with a couple hundred classic American songs and learned quite a few, though playing many chords in a non-standard way. I wasn’t great, but that wasn’t the point. I’d play a few songs, strum a bit in minor keys and Edward would be fast asleep.
In the fall Perri’s sister Glee and her new-ish boyfriend David came up from the coast to escape the approaching Hurricane Floyd and stay with us for a few days. Perri sent an email to the rest of the family:
Glenda and David were united in Holy Matrimony on Friday, September 17, 1999. The double ring candlelight veranda wedding (on our front porch) took place at 9:20 pm. Dave Austin officiated. Edward Austin and Perri Austin, the bride’s nephew and sister, respectively, were witnesses for the happy couple. Perri also served as ring bearer, photographer and caterer.
The bride wore a lovely shade of blue jean. The groom was attired in jeans of blue. We all wore blue jeans, except for Edward, as Glee and David had not come prepared for a wedding, but for an evacuation.
An intimate surprise reception followed. A small cake of white trimmed in blue and purple was adorned with the couple’s names and a ribbon (I ran to the store, bought a small cake and had their names put on it while they were out buying rings, so it was a surprise). The gala affair was made more festive by the party poppers (confetti). Gifts included a phone card and wedding album (they had been using a phone card while staying here, so I thought it a good idea to get them another one, so that they would have enough minutes to contact family. Also I didn’t want to get them anything “house-like” as a gift, as they are not in a situation in which they need “stuff”. I took pictures, had them developed the next day, then put them in a little photo album).
After a two night honeymoon in Swepsonville, the couple safely returned to their home in Newport, NC.
It was the first time Edward put his signature on anything. He was four months old, so I helped him hold the pencil, but it still came out a scrawl.
Perri continued the “Edward Updates” on WebTV. I ordered a new, internet capable computer through work at $25 per paycheck for 2 years–an Apple. It arrived–the G3 unit, keyboard, mouse–and no monitor. The very same day, the G4 was introduced–so I called them up, said I couldn’t use a computer without a monitor and, by the way, we didn’t want the G3 now–so as it turned out, we bought the first really modern computer, on its first day.
My wife was nevertheless concerned about viruses, so for the next year or two we continued with WebTV for the internet, though according to a calculation I’d made based on a list of viruses known to infect Windows vs. those for Macs, if a virus were to infect a Windows machine once a week, a Mac would catch one every forty years.
We have a video of Edward unwrapping a gift at his first Christmas. He tore the bow off, played with it, tore away the paper and played with it awhile, opened the box and played with the box top, took out the tissue paper and played with that, then pulled out the present and threw it to the side. He also got a toy that you’d put balls on top and bop them down through a series of inclined planes, then they’d pop out at the bottom. This would delight him for hours.
The Millennium
As the end of 1999 approached, everyone’s mind was on the next millennium, which had recently been christened Y2K. Computer people were going nuts, psychic hot lines burning up, millennial doomsday survivalists laying in supplies of wheat and beans and ammunition and everyone, everywhere, preparing for a huge party. Perri and I had a supply of wheat and beans and such which my co-traveler friend John had given us–he’d been a Mormon and had packed a year’s supply of food in his basement but had hardly used any of it, in fifteen or twenty years. He gave it to us, along with a kitchen-sized flour mill. We had three five-gallon drinking water jugs and a water filter, and the extent of our further Y2K preparation was to buy a fourth jug.
When the millennium came it was low-key for us. We had a seven-month-old baby boy, so we bought a few party hats and a bottle of champagne. When the millennium rolled around we lit off a few firecrackers I’d illegally imported from South Carolina, popped open the champagne and all had a little, even Edward who had a drop I gave him on the end of my finger, then things continued they way they always had. The world was still there the next day, and we had five extra gallons of water.
At work things were again in crisis. I’d been doing well, but all I was getting was grief. After the first year I was ready to quit, loaded up all my stuff (except for a few clippings and such I left on my desk to look like I was still there), took my vacation time, all my sick days and prepared to walk in the next day and quit–but Allah be praised, Hilda, the main source of my problems, had been fired, along with her troublemaker friend Barbara, who’d been stealing from the company even as she tried to get me fired (she spoke Spanish, but so poorly that she caused more problems than she solved). I decided to give it another shot.
A year went by, and I thought things were going along okay, when my “team captain” Heidi, out of the clear blue, announced that she didn’t care what schedule I’d worked out with management, I could “multitask” with everyone else or punch out and go home without pay. I went to her supervisor and told him I’d been doing a good job for the company, handling a lot of work that nobody else could and getting very little in the way of either compensation or respect. I told him that whenever I took a customer service call in English which had been transferred to me from some other associate who spoke English it would tie up the Spanish line for 20 minutes and I’d have six Spanish calls in a row asking why they’d been on hold. I told him that Spanish was customer service and I didn’t intend to tie up my line with customer service calls that a dozen other associates could handle, and that I did intend to punch out and go home, that I had vacation time coming and I was going to take it, right then, and decide whether I wanted to come back or not.
Well, Heidi’s ultimatum had worked–on her. While I was on vacation I received the single snottiest, bitchiest, pettiest, most infantile, unprofessional email I’ve ever received from anyone, anytime, anywhere. I forwarded it to several choice people, and that was the end of her. Dearest Heidi, I hope you are multi-tasking in hell, groveling and licking the puke off the floor.
When I came back, I was given a raise and made head of the Spanish department (which consisted of one guy, me). I was given the option to set up my schedule the way I saw fit and no customer service calls in English. Since I didn’t spend time on problems which other associates could handle, I made more sales, a lot more money and was way more happy.
I bought a 1982 Honda for $300 and put another $1100 into repairs; I figured it was a good deal, as I now had a Honda with new tires, brakes, etc. for $1400. About six months later, a woman hit me and her insurance gave me $750. I fixed it for $65 and drove it for another year, then sold it for $600. A year and a half’s transportation for $115.
We told the family that Edward was a whiz on the computer; we had to watch him or he’d whiz on it. He’d also figured out particle physics–he could spread particles all over the house! He was an airplane pilot–the bouncy chair had given way to an airplane swing in the archway–and while he piloted his plane he’d play on the ukulele while I strummed the banjo or guitar. As for reading, he’d pick up books, flip through them and babble on with great expression, though it was difficult to tell what language he was speaking. We called him “Mister Boom-Boom”, because he’d say “boom-boom-boom-boom” as he crawled all over the house.
On his birthday we gave him one special present–a box of cereal which had been sold for a short time called Millennios, which we’d stuffed with mementos of his first year–a time capsule, to be opened when he was ten.
No hurricanes came through that year, but summertime was stormy. In 1996 Hurricane Fran had ripped off our back storm door, a single 3’x6’ piece of tempered glass. I’d put it back and in 1999 Hurricane Floyd ripped it off again, laying it down in the back yard. That summer I was mowing and a wayward pebble did it in.
There was a tornado which passed through one morning when I was on the way to work, an unusual one which hugged the ground horizontally rather than forming a vertical cone. I saw it coming while pumping gas; I thought I’d finish and mosey on inside but it came on way too fast. I ran towards the low cement-block building, and by the time I got inside the rain was blowing sideways and the power was out. The wind came from the back and blew so hard the doors on the front were sucked wide open. Outside the side windows, all was a nasty gray with particles flying through it, very dark. It looked like the static on a TV screen but much darker. The girl behind the counter screamed and hit the floor while I and another customer looked at each other in astonishment.
When the tornado had passed we couldn’t leave the parking lot; there were trees across the road to either side and the power line was down. We waited for a few guys to show up and help us move the trees. The freeway was closed, and I went on the back road for three or four miles, stopping and waiting for help whenever another tree was across the road. Finally it was just me, one old farmer, and a huge oak tree, and I decided to see if the freeway was clear. It was, but blocked behind me, so I cruised on the empty freeway the rest of the way to work. My three-mile detour had taken me an extra hour, but it made little difference. The power was out and pretty soon the phone lines too, so we all went home. I spent the rest of the day cutting and loading firewood.
The pickup was a tight fit for Perri and I with Edward’s car seat in the middle; it was a manual transmission but when I shifted gears I had to go from first to third to fifth. We put a car carrier in the bed of the truck for our stuff when we’d go up the mountain to Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was now clear that my father would sabotage any decent profit I would’ve made selling trees, but I loaded up my pickup and sold a couple dozen out of stubbornness. This continued as a personal goal until I’d sold trees for twenty-five years, then I packed it in.
The new millennium arrived for real, some would say, on January 1, 2001, though the big parties and the doomsday predictions were over and the bags of beans everyone had packed away were a joke. The Y2K bug had been a mosquito. I was making more kaleidoscopes now that I had a dedicated workshop. I’d come home from work, put in an hour or two and Edward wouldn’t know the difference. When Papa arrived home, of course, no more work would get done that day.
One of the fellows at work had a son a few months older than Edward, and we started hanging out together. Like most couples with kids our age, they were younger, but most couples our age had teens or older, and we didn’t have as much to talk about. When your kids are in diapers and theirs are driving there just aren’t as many stories to swap. I’d thought Steve & Kim to be good friends, and we’d see them a couple times a week. Their son was bigger, though, and not well disciplined. Steve had been in the same department as me but had gotten a job “upstairs”. He soon started sending an email list under the persona of a perverted, angry, profane clown named Rimme. These were somewhat funny but sarcastic, offensive and generally disgusting. They got longer and angrier; it became clear Rimme the Clown was taking up more than Steve’s break time and he was fired. It became a downward spiral for Steve as he got and lost one crummy job after another. I still considered him a friend and tried to help him out, letting him borrow my car, giving him our extra refrigerator, but as his personality deteriorated we didn’t want his kids hanging out with ours that often and began turning down some of his invitations. We’d see them once a week, but maybe not twice. One day we’d been out of town for the weekend and when we returned there was a long, extremely ugly, absolutely disgusting rant on our answering machine, calling us fat country fucks and a dozen other things. We let Randy, our mutual friend, listen to the tape and told him Steve would never, ever, ever be allowed in our house again. Steve thought it would be no big deal, and Kim called wanting to patch things up, but Perri told her there was no way possible as long as she was married to Steve. They divorced, but she moved to Florida and we lost touch.
We had another friend Steve from work, however. Second Steve encouraged me to play the guitar, and I got to be reasonably good. He joined the Navy after hearing my stories, and afterwards moved to New York City, where first Steve was living. I saw they were facebook friends, but later they weren’t, which was no surprise. I didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t need to.
Edward was a toddler now, getting into things. We had cement steps leading to the back door, with a railing made of 1” galvanized pipe. Edward took to swinging on this pipe, and seeing as how it was cement on one side and a 4’ drop on the other I reluctantly fenced the gap and wrecked one of his favorite swings. He also had a habit of running out the back door to the old shed and climbing a rickety ladder I’d leaned up against it to access a wood rack. I fenced in a good-sized area of the backyard and connected it to my workshop so that he couldn’t get out, and he had a huge playground where we kept a picnic table and enough distractions for him to keep himself occupied while I worked.
I stayed at Adam & Eve until the spring. I’d been promised a transfer at that time, but when it didn’t come through I used up all the flyers I’d laboriously Xeroxed, trashed the special customer lists I’d made, took my stuff and quit. They had to hire 4 people to do my job.
I started with a company 3 miles from home, Always Vinyl, and loved it. I rode around town, made estimates, drew plans for vinyl porches, railings, fences and decks. The pay was almost as good and I was five minutes from home instead of half an hour. If I wanted to come home for lunch, I did. I learned AutoCAD (computer assisted design), construction techniques for vinyl and building to code. It was a small company, there were 3 of us in the office and 3 or 4 more in a warehouse across town. I’d run around with a tape measure, punch the information into the computer and come up with a materials list, a plan and a price. I’d leave at 5:30 and be home by 5:35.
April Fool!
Well, when things change, they change fast. On April Fool’s Day, at 11:28 on a Sunday morning, there was a light fog. I needed to return some movies to the video store. I debated taking Edward, but decided it’d be a hassle strapping him in. Some few dozen yards down the road there was a traffic light, which I stopped for, and when it turned green I headed across, eastbound. BAM!!!
A northbound truckload of inebriated Mexicans found my truck with theirs. They slammed into my right rear so hard it spun the truck completely around, knocking off the wheel and scattering parts all over the road. I came to rest in the left lane on the other side of the intersection, having completed an entire 360º spin. Nobody was seriously hurt in either vehicle, but I was more hurt than any of them. When the truck hit I held onto the steering wheel as I was slammed into the car seat on the passenger side, pulling the muscles in my right shoulder and aggravating an old injury to my neck, then when the truck spun around and abruptly stopped my left shoulder slammed into the cab stanchion, damaging it as well.
The insurance company lost on that one. The driver was picked up for drunk driving and on his release immediately split for Mexico, never to be seen again. He’d been on the road exactly two days. The insurance company wanted to settle with me for $5000, but I contacted a lawyer and got twice that.
For a couple weeks I couldn’t even turn over in bed without severe pain–when both shoulders and your neck are out you’re pretty near helpless–but I did put on a neck brace and go to work, though I was fairly worthless for anything but AutoCAD and typing, but it only lasted a couple more weeks, because the company went under.
I automatically received unemployment, but I couldn’t have worked if I’d wanted to. With my settlement we had enough to live on and buy another car. We looked around and found for sale the prettiest, cleanest car I’d ever seen outside of the showroom floor, parked by the side of the road. It was a 1989 Cadillac Brougham d’Elegance. What the French had to do with it I don’t know, because the stickum on the window said it was “Made in Texas by Texans”. It had only 77,000 miles–almost exclusively highway miles. The previous owner, who’d passed away a few months before, had not allowed any smoking, eating or drinking in the car. The mechanic gave it an absolute thumbs-up. We’d had him check out another car, newer and a thousand dollars cheaper, but he said that while the other was a fine car, if we didn’t buy the Cadillac he’d buy it himself. It had a small V8 engine–an Oldsmobile 307–and was slightly underpowered but got about 25 miles per gallon on the highway, with regular gas. I used the absolutely pristine second set of gold-plated keys–issued with the vehicle and never used–to drive it home. Two days later Perri and Edward drove it to Alabama for a visit, and for the next six weeks I had peace and quiet while they visited her parents in their new house.
Genny welcomed a baby as well. Tristan’s one month anniversary was also his cousin’s 17th birthday, and my father’s 76th.
I was on unemployment for 8 months. The settlement for the wreck helped out, and I’d made kaleidoscopes in my workshop, but most of all I was thrilled with the opportunity to hang out in the backyard with my boy, cutting, foiling and burnishing glass pieces, swinging him in his airplane, watching him play in the grass. It was a marvelous time, never to be recovered. He had preferences; like any two-year-old, including me, he had a favorite hat–a yellow hard hat just like his hero Bob the Builder. Of all the cartoons, Bob the Builder was best. It was true that Bob didn’t pay a lot of attention to safety, hanging off the side of cement trucks and such when they drove to the mayor’s house, but he had a wonderful attitude–”Can we do it? Yes, we can!”–in comparison to Dragon Tales, with one dragon always afraid of everything. The message a toddler got wasn’t that there was no reason to be scared, but that even a huge dragon would whine when any stupid thing happened. Teletubbies were simply puerile, and Barney didn’t know the lyrics. It was especially grating to hear Barney-addicted toddlers disputing their parents’ versions of well-known songs, claiming that Barney didn’t sing it that way and implying that their parents didn’t know better. Caillou was a whiny little four-year-old going on two. There were other good cartoons–Oswald the Octopus, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Franklin the Turtle, but Bob was best, and far and away our favorite. Edward walked around in his hard hat, pockets full of tools, and knew if we asked “Can we fix it?” the answer was “Yes we can”! Perri got a part time job straightening out computer problems for the school while I stayed behind with the boy. It was an idyllic time I’d eagerly anticipated for over 20 years.
I’d been pissed at the smug, self-satisfied statements of parents who had children at a younger age, as though it took wisdom and dedication to make a baby, and highly annoyed at parents who’d say, loudly, that children were a pain in the ass, or they had no intention of having any more, or that I’d hate when they were teenagers, or a dozen other things. I’d spent a very long time matching stories of what someone’s kids did with stories of what someone else’s kids did, feeling empty and alone. Now my boy was walking and breathing and I treasured every second. He didn’t misbehave, much, and I hated to paddle him, only did once or twice and never again, never wanted to, never needed to. I’d tuck him into bed and scare away the monsters with monster spray, which was sold in the grocery aisle as air freshener. There was a crew widening the road in front of our house and we spent many days watching the big yellow machines move dirt. We took photos by the pound and videos by the mile and read books about fairies and princes and went to the zoo and the aquarium and visited with all our relatives and friends and showed everyone what a fine young fellow he was.
That Day
The summer passed, and I recovered slowly. I mostly puttered in my workshop, cutting glass and trying not to lift anything heavier than Edward. One day after Perri and I had been up late, going over old photos, I went to my workshop and turned on the TV. There was a building on fire, and a few seconds later, an airplane hit the building beside it. Perri was walking out the door, and I called to her as she headed towards the car. Some of the photos we’d been sorting not ten hours before had been of ourselves, posed together on the top of that very building.
I spent the rest of the day in my workshop, Edward playing contentedly on the floor and the TV tuned to PBS. The kiddie shows played all day. I didn’t change the channel. I was exceedingly grateful they didn’t show endless news, remembering when I was young and Kennedy was shot and there was nothing else on for days. Edward was too young to have known the difference but certainly would have known his papa was distracted and anxious. It was worse for my brother. Six months before, he’d left his life in Manhattan, where he’d lived for 20 years, and one of his regular gigs was playing piano in the restaurant at the top of the towers. He had a great many friends who were now dust.
And Life Goes On
I had a large pile of small glass pieces I’d accumulated and decided to use all these scraps in a special edition line-up that year. When the Christmas season came I had 50 exceptionally beautiful scopes that sold like crazy. It was good, because I’d been low on money; unemployment and insurance payouts run slim after eight months. We still had a good Christmas. We didn’t need to hide anything, just turned the pictures on the boxes to the wall. When Edward’s pedal-power excavator and the other presents showed up on Christmas he didn’t notice that the boxes were gone. It was the last Christmas we could get away with that.
After the new year, I got two jobs in two days. Wrangler Jeanswear had shifted its production to Latin America. They laid off 3000 people and hired one–me, because I spoke Spanish. I also got a job two nights a week with Alamance Community College, teaching English to workers who only knew Spanish. I was to begin both jobs the first week of January, but there was a record 3-foot snowfall that weekend so I started with Wrangler the next Monday morning and ACC Tuesday night.
The round robin arrived. Robin was concerned about Lizard People taking over the government, Genny’s son Tristan turned one, Sam got a digital camera and Laura was happy not to have to move again, just yet.
Perri had taken up pottery, a special sort called Maya Ortiz, and was making beautiful pieces. I ran electricity to the bus so she could have her own workshop. But as for me, my truck died, then my dog died.
My truck, a 1972 Ford pickup I’d bought the year before, blew its engine a few miles from home. I bought a 1994 Chevy pickup from Perri’s Maya Ortiz pottery instructor which had originally been sold in Panama and was exempt from emission equipment; a big sticker under the hood said so.
Ringo had been in failing health and died on Easter morning, March 31, 2002. He’d lived 11-1/2 years exactly, as he’d been born on Halloween, 1990. Perri wanted to tell Edward he’d died, but he was such a little guy. I told him the Easter bunny needed a helper, and we decided Ringo could go with him. I didn’t see the point in introducing the little fellow to tragedy before he’d turned three, and I think it was best. There was no bringing back the dog, so he might as well have been helping the Easter bunny. I buried Ringo in the early morning in one of his favorite quilts, in the side yard where we’d buried Daphne in one of her favorite quilts thirteen years before. It was the best end I could give him. He was just a dog, but damn, it hurt.
Anne’s health continued to be a problem. She was on dialysis. Robin had a vending machine business that wasn’t doing so well, largely because Anne couldn’t help, and there was drama in the barber shop. Genny was enjoying her blue-eyed boy and taking classes for a teaching certificate but wondering about her second marriage. Sam loved rural New Jersey. Our parents visited, his high school English teacher in tow, and they’d taken a helicopter ride around Manhattan, which he highly recommended, calling it depressing but exhilarating–depressing to fly by Ground Zero, exhilarating to see all the activity going on at the site. Laura and Tom were settling into the football season in Trion, Georgia and enjoying the enthusiastic following for high-school football there, though annoyed that their house in Cumming hadn’t sold.
Edward was three now, with energy to burn and a three-year-old’s sense of humor. We were proud of his use of meter, rhyme and metaphor when he recited his poem:
Edward’s eyes are brown, Papa’s eyes are blue
Mama’s eyes are brown, Like brown poo-poo.
He had a yellow bouncy ball with a handle and bounced all over the house. Perri had set up “school” for him in the school bus along with her potting supplies. I was still sore on wet, cold days, but there hadn’t been many of them until September, when I pulled out my hoodies. I’d had neck pain since the 70s, but not so much before my April Fool’s Day wreck. Now not only my neck but my shoulders hurt. Left side one day, right another. I’d been in good shape after working the rental yard in West Hollywood, and better shape when I got out of the Navy. For awhile I could hold my breath and do 60 push-ups, perch on my arms and catch my breath, do 60 more, catch my breath and do 60 more, then 60 more, as long as I wanted. I did over a thousand once, just to prove I could.
Now, I couldn’t do half a dozen. My shoulders weren’t up to it. I’d also been sitting at a desk for years, and weighed over 200 pounds. I wanted to be under 200 for New Year’s 2000, and for one brief shining moment I was, weighing in at 198 on the millennium. I did it the next year, and the next, but it was getting tougher.
Robin had checked into a hospital for chest pains, but he was all right. He used a CPAP machine at night, and Anne was still on dialysis. Genny split from her second husband Seth, and she sounded unbalanced. We all planned a show for our parents’ 50th anniversary in October, Sam playing the piano and everyone singing songs from our Hollywood days. Laura had received her teaching certificate from the state of Georgia, after a convoluted now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t bureaucratic snafu.
Perri had a surprise for me in October. Edward had drawn a turtle family for Mama. This turtle is Papa, he said, this one’s Mama, this one is Edward and this one is my baby sister. She asked him and he was quite sure, this was his baby sister. There were glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling in Edward’s room, and three in our bedroom–two large ones for Mama and Papa, and a small one for Edward. I came home one night shortly afterwards and when I hopped into bed there were two small stars on the ceiling! Edward had been right!
Work was going well. I got a $1000 per year raise, but of the four companies I’d represented, one had gone bankrupt and we’d cut loose another, so I was only handling two.
The anniversary weekend was a great success; we rehearsed beforehand and put on a good show. There was a minor dust-up when Fran wanted to bring Sarah along and announced that Sarah would be singing, loudly and off-key, no matter if she were in the program or in the back of the church. Sam and I both responded that there was no point in putting on a show if we knew beforehand it was going to be crap. There was a lot of guilt-tripping thrown around, but Sam and I said absolutely not. Sarah played in another room while the program went on and was content. It was the first time all six of us had sung together in thirty years. A couple of times there’d been five of us, but not six. Edward was on stage with us, and loved it.
There was only one person missing, Ned’s sister Daisy. Her husband Alf, the uncle who drove us in antique cars when we were kids, had passed away that morning. Nobody at the celebration was told until it was over. Sam had come from New Jersey for the event, but his partner Barry stayed behind, and Barry’s father died the next morning.
The show was wonderful, though.
Edward was big enough to trick-or-treat. Perri’d joined a group of mothers with toddlers called Time Out Playgroup and they had embroidered T-shirts. All the kids went trick-or-treat together; Edward liked dressing up in costume and going out with his little friends, but when it was time to go to a stranger’s door we practically had to push him. Once the candy dropped into his plastic pumpkin, though, he was transformed. He was on a mission. He ran to the other houses! We had to wait for the other kids!
My Sister’s Ride, again
The robin for the rest of that year was taken up with a discussion of sister Laura’s ride of nearly forty years before–the physics involved, the plan, even which sister was involved. Rob had remembered it as Genny’s ride, but Laura confirmed it was indeed her who flew through the air and landed in the bunny poo. Sam didn’t remember boosting anyone onto the rope from the stairway, and Genny accused Rob and I of deliberately trying to harm our little sisters.
It was a baseless accusation, and we were quite hurt. My sister had turned an exuberant childhood experiment into a burning, blinding example of brotherly betrayal. We’d told our little sister to hang on, as she’d done hundreds of times before, and it seemed that a younger sister who’d shown no predilection to let go of a rope she’d been told not to let go of, wouldn’t, and would return safe and sound to the arms of her brothers after a thrilling and memorable ride. It had a scientific value too–we’d be able to see if it was possible to ride the rope to the garage roof. That our plan on second thought may have been more dangerous than it was on first thought was not surprising, as all of us were kids. The discussion continued for months, with several of us sending pictures and diagrams and models and analyzing distances and the heights of the tree, picnic table and garage roof. Genny continued spewing vitriol, telling of plans she had for a “Penis Park” where people could stroll and see all the hateful and horrible things MEN were responsible for throughout history, and arrogantly accusing Robin and I of deliberately attempting to kill our little sisters. Shame on you, I told her. We had the judgment of children, because we were, and children don’t have good judgment. If she didn’t trust her adult brothers, that was her problem, and I thought her “therapist”–whom I was certain had pumped her full of this crap–should be imprisoned for malpractice. I asked her what “hidden agenda” the “therapist” had, reminding her that if her problems went away the “therapist” would lose money while Genny drove away her family, spouse, everyone who loved her, and became a fearful, whimpering, poverty-stricken Dobby the elf-slave.
We were comfortable that winter. There’d been an ice storm in December which knocked out the power for a few days, though with a woodstove for heat, cooking, hot water and a couple lanterns to read by we were well set. There was plenty of firewood around the county too, free for the taking. Santa brought Edward a big wooden train table, which he loved. We quickly learned the best policy was to hot-glue the track to the table. Perri got materials to make scrapbooks from one of the mothers in the playgroup, and I got a scanner for photos, several books and a full set of twelve harmonicas from Sam, one for every key.
2003 started, remarkably enough, on January 1st. At Greenwich midnight, 7pm local time, we shot off the illegal fireworks I’d brought back from Tennessee, shouted “Happy New Year” and Edward went to bed. We stayed up ‘til midnight and had a glass of champagne. We knew by now that we’d have a baby girl in May or June, and had settled on the name Clara.
At work I’d won hockey tickets to the Carolina Hurricanes. Edward had a blast, and brought home a souvenir hockey stick. One gal won tickets to the rodeo, though she had no interest in seeing it. She was told they were given randomly, like a drug test, and asked if she could take a drug test instead!
We walled off the breakfast bar and added shelves and a pantry to the kitchen, then added a lovely folding glass door. When starting work we found under the 1970s paneling and 1940s wallpaper the same lovely heart pine that was in the bathroom, which we then sanded and varnished. Perri painted a “rug” on the floor with flowers, vines and a checkerboard pattern. We walled off half the back porch to enlarge the den and put a doorway through, added a window and painted it in colors Edward chose–red, orange and yellow. We added a “padded cell” playroom closet with rugs on the wall, then went to the nursery and painted birds and bugs and flowers on its walls. It was getting expensive. I told Perri we weren’t going to put in one more dime, and finished it by using all the scraps. The last day, while we were talking on the phone to Cindy, the space shuttle Challenger broke up.
Perri’s mother came to visit in May. Clara Kate (Clara Kallista) was expected on May 24th but actually arrived at 2:36 am on June 11th, 2003. She was born in our nursery, in a pool of warm water, attended by a midwife and her assistant. We went to bed, Clara Kate in her cradle, Perri’s mother on the futon in the living room. About 6 am, Edward ran into our room and excitedly announced to us that he had a baby sister! Perri’s mother left a couple days later, my mother came that weekend and we had 40 or 50 other visitors.
I took a couple weeks off from Wrangler to enjoy my baby girl, making kaleidoscopes to supply a couple galleries I’d been neglecting since I’d taken on two jobs. Clara Kallista (Kallista is Greek for “most beautiful”, and we also call our scopes Kallistoscopes), or Clara Kate, was a happy and exuberant baby. Her brother, now 4, was thrilled pushing her stroller and stayed nearby most of the day. The play group had a wide range of activities, and the kids visited farms, went swimming, rode the carousel, visited the zoo. A wonderful summer.
The stand for Edward’s cradle was rickety and broken, so we suspended it instead by chains from the ceiling next to Mama’s side of the bed, which worked better anyway. A little push would gently rock the cradle, for a much longer time. We took walks to the corner store a mile away, Clara Kate in the stroller and Edward walking, riding, holding his sister. We’d identify the trees on one side of the street going there and on the other side coming back. There’d been a general store halfway to the corner, but it’d been taken over by a fellow named Ron who worked on TVs. Perri and I had bought TVs from him and had him work on a couple, one a 1952 model. He puttered around and replaced a few parts but never got it working and I took it back 2 years later. A few weeks afterward I drove by and the whole place was gone. The building didn’t exist, nor any of the hundreds of TVs in it. I didn’t know he’d died. I knew vaguely that he’d had health problems but he was only 60. His wife had asked TV places in the area but none wanted the stock, and she didn’t think to simply put a sign out front. I’d at least have taken out the tubes; perhaps I’d have taken over the shop and sold antiques and crafts–but in the blink of an eye it disappeared. They bulldozed it, had a bonfire. A hundred years of history, gone.
There is a piece of Swepsonville’s history in our backyard. According to an old fellow there was a ball field there. There certainly used to be something, because there’s a long line of bricks just under the dirt on a ridge which angles across the back field, cutting back at a right angle, terminating in a hump which was particularly hard to mow until I dug up a brick corner post which had been grown over. The rickety shed in the back also had an unusual design, 8’x16’ with a door, open window and a roof with an eight foot overhang. There was a long water pipe going to it. A concession stand? At least one major league ballplayer came from Swepsonville–Dusty Cooke, born in 1907, who played for three major league teams between 1930 and 1938–the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Reds, and then managed the Phillies in 1948. Did he play in my back yard? Probably.
Swepsonville was a mill town. The mill burned down in the 1880s and again in the 1890s, but was rebuilt both times. In 1989, the abandoned mill burned again. Fire trucks from all the surrounding counties came, the twelve-alarm fire was seen from the freeway three miles away and made the national news.
The round robin next arrived with news that Anne’s grandfather had passed away. Her father had died in a car wreck when she was a toddler and she’d been raised by her grandparents. It was the start of a long string for Robin’s family. Her mother, who’d outlived her stepfather as well, passed away that summer, but I’m getting ahead of my story.
Sam was doing well in New Jersey, working for a health foods distributor and playing piano gigs. Genny had separated from her second husband and had her hands full with her toddler. Laura and Tom’s high-school band had come dragging in after half-time at a game and Laura related why. One of the kids in the minibus had farted, and the smell was so horrible that another kid threw up. The smell caused two more kids to throw up, and one of them was a girl with a medical problem which made it impossible to stop throwing up without special medication. The bus pulled off the road and four more kids got sick. Three police cars, two fire trucks and an ambulance arrived. The girl with the medical problem was taken to the hospital. The chaperones weren’t happy to be stuck cleaning up so much puke, but got really angry later when they learned the police, who were trying hard not to laugh, had put a copy of the report in a special scrapbook of “funniest police reports”. The kid who’d farted was claiming it until the police arrived, then he denied it. He became a minor celebrity in school, and though the local papers didn’t run the story, the papers in the rest of the state did.
Edward was in biddy league soccer that year, which was a hoot. The four-year-olds would chase and kick the ball with only a vague notion of what to do with it. The coaches finished every play with a pep talk ending “WHERE’S THE GOAL?”, and they’d shout and point “THAT WAY!”.
We went to Alabama for Thanksgiving. Since her parents had moved there, where her father had grown up, Thanksgiving had become very big indeed. Edward’s cousin Luke had been born with blue eyes–the first of the Calvin grandchildren with blue eyes, and the first born after the millennium. This now meant that of the seventeen grandchildren born to Perri’s parents or mine before the millennium, all were brown-eyed. All the rest, born afterwards, had blue or hazel eyes. There’s another coincidence. Among our kids and all their cousins there’s never been a boy-girl-boy or girl-boy-girl. If the sex of the children changed it stayed that way. On my side it’s more pronounced; I’m the oldest of three brothers, followed by three sisters. Among the children of the six of us, there are no boys with an older sister and no girls with a younger brother. My cousins on my mother’s side follow the same pattern; my uncle’s daughters both had two boys and my aunt’s daughter one girl.
So we went to Alabama for Thanksgiving, and Edward surprised everyone. When there were 30 or 40 of us gathered in a circle, someone asked who wanted to give the blessing, and Edward, 4 years old, announced, “I can do that!” He proceeded to take charge, telling everyone to bow their heads and say “Amen” when he was finished–and then said, “God is great, god is good, and we thank him for our food. By his hands we all are fed, thank him for our daily bread”. It was exceptionally well done, amazed everyone and was short. There was nothing to be said after that but “Amen”, and everyone filled their plates. Perri and I were left stunned and immensely proud.
Santa, 2003
Mams and Daddio came for Clara’s first Christmas. It was her turn to play with the bows and simple toys while her brother got a telescope, a science kit and Legos. Clara and Edward posed for a lovely Christmas session at the store and later with Santa and Mrs. Claus. It was a cold, snowy Christmas but everyone was safe and warm.
We’d bought a time-share the previous summer and now owned the last week of April at Massanutten Mountain in Virginia. When we went to visit our daughter was not quite one. It was the week before “prime time”, less crowded and more fun. We were offered a discount card on activities if we listened to a sales pitch, and while the salesman was explaining the wonderful new features, Clara Kate took her first steps! She strolled the 3 or 4 steps from Mama’s chair to Papa’s, and from there the sales pitch fell on deaf ears; we couldn’t have cared less, and he blew it by not making a big deal–”Oh, how sweet! Now let me show you…”. We spent a lovely week in the water park, swimming pool, hot tub, sauna, jacuzzi, steam room. We took classes in glass etching, tie-dying T shirts, we played mini golf, ping pong, we walked the nature trails, rode the ski lift and simply watched cable TV. I brought my banjo and a clarinet I’d picked up for a dollar at the school sale and serenaded the geese and ducks from the balcony.
When Clara Kate arrived we’d decided it’d be nice to have a deck. We went to the lumberyard, chose a plan and built it with far sturdier materials and extra supports. We added a gate, so the little ones could play without wandering, and a 75’ clothesline. I had jury duty when we were finishing up. We put a guy away for 20 years, for pedophilia. I came back after my long weekend and put a second coat of stain on the deck. It’s surprising how often one will take part in a life-changing event, then do mundane, ordinary things.

Mams and Daddio came for Edward’s fifth birthday and stayed the week. We bought a Jump-o-line blow-up trampoline, and all the mothers from playgroup came together at the park down the road. The kids had a wonderful time. I bounced a bit with Clara, but her main activity was walking, between Mama, Papa, Edward, and slamming full-tilt into the side of the Jump-o-line. Later that week we had a picnic at Mackintosh Lake, where everyone rode paddle boats. One of the mothers, a gal from Switzerland, brought along a unicycle and several juggling items. I’d had unicycles in California, but through the years they’d been given away or sold, so it had been 20 years since I’d ridden one. I did all right, and juggled reasonably well, but not both together. She and her husband eventually joined the Cirque de Soleil, and I resolved to get another unicycle.
Edward’s friend Reade had a birthday that August, and we went to the Burlington Indians baseball game. Edward had been to a Greensboro Bats game and Carolina Hurricanes hockey, but this was a first for Clara. The kids ran on the field and met the mascots, and Edward was thrilled to win five “Billy Bucks” in a contest.
Later that summer we went camping with another playgroup family and took a hike on Hanging Rock. Edward walked the whole way, and found a red lizard; Clara Kate rode in a backpack and was tuckered out before we made the top. There were shallow caves to explore and trees to climb, and at the summit Clara Kate was wide awake again to view over 100 miles of mountains. Playgroup also visited the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, which had drums to bang on, xylophones, elaborate mechanical toys, gardens, animals, bug and science exhibits. Two weeks later it was the Burlington city park, where they rode trains, cars, the carousel and played on the playground while the adults made lunch in the gazebo.
After summer it was time for soccer league again, and Edward as before was #4. Clara came to watch her brother and explore the surroundings with Kelly Ann and Rebekah, the younger sisters to Edward’s friend Reade. In October everyone went to the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, an exotic animal park with over 750 animals from six continents, and everyone took a horse cart and fed the animals over the side.

I lost my job at Wrangler that September. I’d been managing fewer contractors as the work migrated from Latin America to China, and since I didn’t speak Chinese, that was that. I left with a pretty good severance package plus unemployment, and medical & dental for the rest of the year. I was happy with Wrangler even though I’d been let go. Many companies try to make it difficult on employees, hoping they’ll quit, saving a few bucks but building animosity. This is a mistake. I still like Wrangler and buy their products, because they treated me fairly, but I was once again out of a job while my child was a toddler. It’s a wonderful thing to spend time with your little one, but it’s nicer to have money than not. Once more I made up large numbers of kaleidoscopes and flutes in the workshop while my son and daughter played in the fenced-in yard or on our new deck. On rainy days I’d cut and foil glass with PBS on the TV or tapes of Bob the Builder or Veggie Tales. I like Veggie Tales, though sometimes the Christian message is heavy-handed and the story lines strained. Banishment to the Isle of Perpetual Tickling isn’t execution.

I’d gotten the job with Wrangler the same year they’d laid off 3000 people in Greensboro, and hired one accountant~me. I had no background in accounting, and knew nothing about jeans except how to wear them, but I did know Spanish, and all the production from the plant in Greensboro had been contracted to Latin America. It was a sweet job for a few years. I managed the contracts for four companies, but then more production moved to China. Soon there were three companies to manage, then two, then one. My managers tried to keep me occupied~I did some color checks and research, but there was simply not much work for me; I’d have to stretch two days’ work into five. I ended up spending a fair amount of time surfing the net, which is how I found The Sandwich Project.

This was a British website devoted to sandwiches; they take ’em seriously over there. There were about a thousand recipes. You’d post a sandwich, and people would vote it from one to five stars. You could vote as many times as you pleased, and the sandwich ratings would go up or down. On Monday there was a Canadian sandwich in the top ten~some kind of Boxing Day Special, which was all the leftovers from Thanksgiving between two pieces of bread. It sounded like crap to me. I gave it a low rating, which knocked it out of the top ten. On Tuesday, I went back. It had about fifteen more votes, placing it again in the top ten. I voted it down once more. Wednesday, 25 or 30 more five-star votes had put it again in the top ten. I voted about 12 more times and knocked it out. Thursday there were about a hundred more votes and it was back in the top ten. I rated it low 30 or 40 times, taking it back out. Friday, three or four hundred more votes. Back in! I took it out.

For the next week I voted down and my Canadian nemesis voted up, until there were several thousand votes on that particular sandwich, while none of the other 999 had more than ten or twelve votes, tops. The website finally shut down for a couple days, and when it came back up you could only place one vote per day on any one sandwich.

I found it interesting that a Canadian would place so much effort into keeping a sandwich in the top ten, on a British rate-my-sandwich site, though I suppose you’d say the same about the American who was knocking it off again!

We went to Alabama for Thanksgiving again. I faxed in my unemployment papers for two weeks, and half thought about moving, as the terrain is more mountainous in the area, but the local job market wasn’t very robust. Daddio was hard of hearing and some thought he was losing his sharpness, but I thought he was mellowing and thinking for himself. He was voting for Kerry instead of Bush, though most of his relatives were old-line Alabama conservative. One of my brothers-in-law brought up the election and all I said was that Bush deserted his post in time of war but Kerry didn’t. Daddio agreed.

We’d been down there just a few days and got a phone call. Robin’s wife Anne was getting a kidney transplant. They’d been talking about it for some years and some in the family wanted her son Grant to donate a kidney. I told him not to. It would be a great physical limitation on him for the rest of his life, and I knew she hadn’t been taking care of herself. She’d never stopped drinking caffeinated soda pop, she’d merely changed the brand. Robin had once been drinking a glass of water, Anne took a sip and asked him what it was. She didn’t recognize the taste of water! She got very little exercise, and I knew she wouldn’t last without some changes, even with a new kidney. The question became moot, however, when they found a donor kidney.
She didn’t make it. She died in the hospital, the day before Thanksgiving. We were in Alabama and couldn’t make the funeral, but went to a memorial on her 48th birthday a couple weeks later. An old-timey mountain music band played and a good time was had by all, considering the circumstances.
Christmas was a bit slim but the kids were little, and thrilled with what they got. Edward was too perceptive for us to leave boxes in plain sight so the gifts stayed stashed until they went under the tree. I’d sold at least a few Christmas trees every year for twenty-five years, but this year hung it up.
It was a fun New Year’s; again at Greenwich midnight we shot off fireworks and yelled “Happy New Year!” and got them in bed at 7 pm. The next morning I was building a fire and got a call–Robin’s younger son Jordan was dead.
Well, I dropped everything and went to the mountains to be with my brother. He’d now lost his wife’s grandfather, her mother, his wife and his son in the space of just over a year. He was distraught, of course, but handled it well.
Jordan was 20. At a college New Year’s party, he had too much fun, fell to sleep on the porch and froze to death. He was the latest in what had been a rough run for the Watauga High class of 2000. He had lost ten friends, one also named Jordan. When I was driving up the mountain I saw a spot where several memorials had been set up for Jordan. The other Jordan.
I stayed with my brother four days, and finished off the bottle of Lagavulin, my favorite 16-year-old single malt Islay Scotch whisky, of which I drink perhaps a bottle in two or three years. We also shared a bottle of rum and some beers with his friends and a long string of young women who came to the door crying. When I was sure he was in good hands I went back to my own wife and family, still out of work but in a happier household.
Creepy Jack
I continued to sell kaleidoscopes, and in March found a customer service job for AT&T cell phones. It was a long drive but I enjoyed the work–at first. AT&T was a great company, and had I been hired a month earlier I’d have been direct hire, but procedures had changed and for 90 days I was a temp.
Towards the end of the 90 days, AT&T cellular was bought by Cingular, and they hired me on temp for another 90 days, even as others were hired direct. The job quickly went from one I enjoyed to one I hated with a passion. AT&T had perks and benefits and a number of policies which made it easy to satisfy the customers. They had a lot of business customers, and tried to keep them happy. With AT&T, we came to work in blue jeans and everyone got a free phone at the end of training, with a free limited plan, which we could expand any way we wanted at discounted rates. We had access to every cell phone website in the world and were encouraged to learn about all the companies, their technologies, band widths, service plans etc. and find out how they differed from AT&T domestically and internationally. When a customer had a problem we could wipe out $500 on our own authority. If they had a plan they liked they could keep it, whether it was currently offered or hadn’t been for years. If anyone wanted to quit the company, we made it as easy as we could and told them to come back when they got tired of the other guys. Many did.
With Cingular’s orange creep “Jack” on the wall, our blue jeans were out, though the customers wouldn’t have known if we’d been our underwear. Jeans were made a special treat, Fridays only, to associates who had the best numbers on a long list of “goals”, which kept going up. Cingular’s tag line was “raising the bar”, and everyone had to be “better”, every week. There were daily emails with daily changes. Someone was clearly obsessed with wardrobes; several times a week there were updates on which sandals, shirts, pants, skirts, jewelry, hairstyles, etc. were “appropriate”. I had to buy several pairs of pants for this creepy job when I had dozens of perfectly good jeans from my days at Wrangler, in a rainbow of colors, tucked away unused. There were no rewards for meeting the numbers, you just got to keep your job another week, and as I was on my second 90 days as a temp while everyone else around me was a direct hire, my restrictions were particularly onerous. I couldn’t request a day off. If I were more than 15 minutes late I’d be fired. I couldn’t buy a phone for 6 months, since I’d been 3 months a temp for AT&T and 3 more for Cingular, though everyone else already had one. The employee plan for Cingular phones was worthless anyway. Employees BOUGHT the cheapest model USED phone and got a local plan, with twenty minutes a month. There were no upgrades, either to the phone or the plan. Since local calls didn’t include my home a few miles away, I made long-distance calls home from the pay phone in the break room at exorbitant rates.
Customers were treated the same. A Cingular customer had “roll-over” minutes, but after a couple months they’d disappear. If you decided to change your plan in any way whatsoever, that initiated a new two-year contract, and if you cancelled before the end it was an additional $175 per phone. We had a lot of customers who’d had two Cingular phones for two years and decided to move on, then found that since they’d added time or took off texting a week after sign up, they’d only fulfilled a year and 51 weeks of their “new contract”, and now owed $350 for disconnect–something I couldn’t change, as we could only wipe out $250, even if it was only a day early. This led to a lot of demands to speak to supervisors, who would tell us to “take charge of the call” and send us back to the upset customer, who would then be stratospherically pissed. We’d argue for another ten minutes, then try to get a different supervisor on the line, again.
Tech was handled the same way. AT&T had staff members in the building who could handle almost any problem, but Cingular had a call center in Washington State where the tech people came on line ten minutes later, told us to tell the customers to do the same five things we’d already told them to do and hang up. We’d call tech support again, wait again, plead with them again to please take care of this customer’s problem, again, which occasionally they’d do. We had no access to the internet, either, except the same Cingular site available to customers. When Katrina hit I talked with reps from other cell companies, and they were obviously more relaxed and had far more information available than we did. I resolved to find a job, any job, with one of them. Or anyone else.
I was nearing the end of my 6 months as a temp–by which time I was one of 2 from a class of 60–and nobody could call me at all, for any reason. My wife wanted to tell me my father was in the hospital, called Cingular in Greensboro but got Washington State, who absolutely would not transfer the call at all. My father got heart surgery. I asked for half the next Friday off to see him before visiting hours were over and was denied in a particularly nasty way, which meant that instead of driving an extra 20 miles after work I had to drive 60 miles on Saturday. I was certain I was going to quit, but the absolute final straw came when we were again refinancing the house and I needed verification of employment. Nobody gave me a number to call, for three days. I continued asking, and the supervisor, full of attitude, finally gave me a website address where I was to go and pay $12. They’d tell the bank I worked there–a week later.
I then received a call, from the clear blue sky, from Rent-A-Center, where I’d completely forgotten that I’d applied several months before–and got a job, starting the next Monday. I told Cingular nothing. I didn’t show up on Monday, called an hour late and said I wouldn’t be coming in, ever!
Rent-A-Center wasn’t a great job, but compared to Cingular it was heaven. I worked over 50 hours a week and only had one day off at a time. We worked late Saturday, took Sunday off and came in early on Monday. My other day off was supposed to be Tuesday, but they had all kinds of excuses why I was “supposed” to work that day as well. Fortunately I’d told them before I started that my wife worked that day and we didn’t allow babysitters. It didn’t stop them from telling me I needed to come in, but I never did.
There were three stores in the area, the first managed by a fellow who didn’t care about the ten rules posted on the wall. I realized one day he’d made me break all ten of them on the same day, and the next time I was out of town I called the district manager, who transferred me that afternoon. I worked at a second store for the rest of the week, then at the store I’d preferred anyway. It was run by a young guy, and despite the long hours was a fun place. It wasn’t boring–we’d drive trucks all over and pick up items from out of town, sometimes 100 miles away. We’d pick up and deliver living room sets, bedroom sets, refrigerators, washers, dryers, stereos, computers and most of all the gigantic, immensely heavy television sets which everyone wanted before the hang-on-the-wall type was invented, and nobody wanted afterwards. We’d haul these boulders up and down several flights of steps or into trailers where we had to remove the doors and people would spend more each week to watch the big TV in the den than they did on food. Theoretically the TV would be paid off after a certain amount of time, but this often stretched out for additional months or even years and in the end cost 2 or 3 times what they’d have paid in a store. This was a different class of people, with their own way of thinking. I could understand renting a refrigerator or washing machine; these appliances weren’t just conveniences. It was also understandable when folks would only be in town for a few months, had friends visiting or a business need. What wasn’t sensible were the large numbers of people who made very little but spent half their paycheck at Rent-A-Center, when they could have bought everything outright from Goodwill. The huge TVs weren’t available, but even a fairly large TV at Goodwill would have been $35 or so and saved them literally thousands of dollars. It’d also save aggravation, because when they missed a payment we’d pick everything up again until they made back payments and late fees. One fellow with a club close by decided to pay daily, rather than by the week or month, and every time he missed a day it’d be another $10 late fee. After a year or so he decided to trade his TV in, and by the time he owned the obsolete behemoth he’d paid over $12,000 for something that by then sold for $200.
The saddest part of the job was seeing how these people, who had little, spent the rest of their money. Everyone put cigarettes and beer on top of their list, followed by fast food. Most of their trailers and apartments were crammed with KFC buckets, pizza boxes and cockroaches. One customer’s walls were covered with congregations of cockroaches a foot square, in the middle of the day. It stunk so bad that if I’d gone in I’d have puked. My co-worker and I had to remove the trailer door to get the refrigerator in, then he had to install it while I waited outside. I saw the manager of this store a few years later, and he said it’d been like working for Satan. I had to agree. I left after two years, but occasionally I’d drop by to see how things were going. I’d still recognize the customers, but none of the staff.
Robin was having a tough time getting over the loss of his wife and son, but in July I called back to talk with the family of my old friend Monk’s sisters, as I did from time to time. They told me that their sister Luanne had also lost her husband, in April. I told Luanne to call Robin, and they talked for hours. They’d been sweethearts in the second grade, but had been out of touch for 30 years. Luanne had been married for 28 of those years, Robin for 25. I’d known Luanne’s husband rather well, but Robin had never met him, nor her his wife Anne. Luanne soon came to North Carolina. They stayed together, answered sympathy cards, settled estates, fixed up houses and got everything going smoothly.
Genny increasingly seemed mentally ill. She saw stalkers everywhere. She’d been living in a trailer up the road and talked about people walking across the roof. She flipped out when neighbors recognized her. She moved into the upper floor of our parents’ house, then repeatedly insisted that one night someone had come into the house, hung around in the front hallway for forty-five minutes and left. When I analyzed the story, her only evidence was that her dog, dreaming, had made a “wff” sound a few times outside the door she was cowering behind. She insisted Tristan had mental illness, allergies, on and on. He was running wild, not eating well at all, and my feeling was that Genny caused most of his problems through her timidity, fear, and violently hateful attitudes towards men.
Sam moved to Roanoke that summer. He and Barry had taken a trip through Virginia while visiting Asheville, and had decided to take a side visit to Harrisonburg, where Rob and Sam had visited some years before but Rob had spent the whole time grumbling. He and Barry loved the area and found a house near downtown, built in 1915 and recently renovated.
Tom had taken a coaching job with a high school in Kentucky, but Laura didn’t like it and yearned to return to Georgia. I didn’t go with Perri and the kids to Alabama for Thanksgiving that year, since I’d just taken the Rent-A-Center job, but they had a great time and were home for Christmas.
Robin got a job teaching skiing at a local resort, which was interesting because he hadn’t known how to ski, but he stayed one lesson ahead of the class and everything worked out. Sam and Genny both had problems at work in the first half of 2006. Sam and Barry were both eventually hired at Verizon in Roanoke, and Genny was on unemployment. She was fighting her ex-husband for custody of her son, who was still screaming, breaking things, violent, disrespectful. wild.
That spring I bought a Geo Metro from a fellow at work. I gave him $100,  put about $300 more into it, and got 40 miles a gallon. My 1972 Ford truck still sat in the side yard.
We went camping with a family from playgroup who’d by now become good friends, Keith, Tami, and their kids Jacob and Andrew. While we were cutting watermelon, Edward stated that he was six, wasn’t a baby anymore and should learn how to use a knife. It was true. I showed him how.
Professional Astrologer
I gave an astrology talk that summer at a local bookstore. There’d been an astrology class offered through Appalachian in 1974, but ten people had to sign up and only six showed. We had a long discussion, however, and I talked for a long time afterwards with a pretty gal named Sally. She and I occasionally telephoned each other, but I hadn’t heard from her for several years when she found the number to my parents’ house, they gave her mine, and we started visiting again. Her sister Nancy now lived close by and was involved in a group which met once a month at a bookstore. She invited me to speak and I prepared a talk called “Patterns of Compatibility”, which dealt with the geometrical relationships between astrology, architecture and such things as how honeybees build their hives and why the bubbles in a glass of beer form into triangles and hexagons. The talk was a huge hit, and I stayed at Nancy’s house while we talked way into the night. I called in sick at work–which was the only way to get any time off at Rent-A-Center, except to call in dead–and one of the things I mentioned to Nancy was that I was supposed to pay for a mattress we’d picked up from a woman’s house. The woman had rented a mattress, we went to get it and her mother told us which one. She was wrong. It was a muddy night, and we’d gotten a couple droplets of mud on it. The woman wanted a new mattress.
Nancy had been a corporate lawyer for Philip Morris, and helped me write a letter explaining that I’d been informed by a responsible adult on the premises which mattress to pick up, that we’d attempted to call the shop but they hadn’t answered the phone and since the woman’s mother was acting as proxy and we acted in good faith, were not responsible for her error and weren’t obliged to pay. I became a hero at work and the district manager, a big guy who liked to bully people, was demoted and transferred to a much smaller market many states removed.
In the summer I got another call from someone I hadn’t talked to in may years. Tom had kept in touch with Jake and Jody, but had pretty much disappeared from our lives when we left Snag End. One day Tom got in touch through email and Facebook. Tom told me Jake had committed suicide some years before, but had no details. Fran also lost a family member. Sarah, the twin who had been born brain damaged, had finally been put into a home. She’d been left briefly while the tub was filling and had turned off the cold. The hot water was of sterilizing temperature, she was badly scalded, went to the hospital for a month and on August first, died. She was eighteen. Another memorial, five in three years. It wasn’t the last.
Sundries
There’d always been a quickie market on the corner a mile away, but this summer a Dollar General went in across the back field. At first Perri and I wondered if we should move, seeing commercialization coming so close, but it proved a wonderful convenience as we could walk to pick up groceries and sundry items several times a week.
Sundry is an interesting word. It’s not often spoken, but used to be painted on signs everywhere, usually in the plural. When I was a kid I thought that sundries were various fruits which had been dried in the sun–raisins, prunes, apricots and such. My mother as a teenager had seen “sundries” advertised but never knew what they were. She and her brother went into a store and asked to buy some sundries. They found out.
I’d heard a story from the fellow who sold me my Model A truck, in California. He said it was one of three on the West Coast, and that one more had been destroyed in a flood. It had an extended chassis and had been one of four custom-built in 1931 for the Helms Bakery in Long Beach. It had the same wheelbase as a Double-A truck but was not a Double-A. Many years later a friend at work told me he’d seen a story on cable TV about a fellow in Germany who owned a similar truck, which he’d purchased in California. The German said there’d been only four in the world, and that one had been destroyed in a hurricane, one had gone to Canada and disappeared and one had gone to North Carolina and disappeared. I tried to find the show he’d seen, but had no luck.
I told this story to a co-worker at my new job, he researched it on the internet and told me almost the same thing–that there’d been four trucks, one had been wrecked, one went to Canada and disappeared, one went to North Carolina and disappeared, and one went to Germany. I tried to find this information myself, but wasn’t an internet geek. There the story remains.
My father was fading fast that winter. He was on oxygen and acting bizarrely from time to time, though usually coherent and in good spirits. He was receiving hospice care, and I’d hung a TV from the ceiling above his bed where he’d watch all day with the volume turned up. The greenhouse I’d worked so long and hard on, which he’d never allowed me to properly finish, had rotted under soggy sheets of plastic and had been torn down, but a contractor had built a small one right outside his window. He only puttered around in it a few times, as it was a major effort, but Robin planted a bunch of vegetables in the dead of winter. Hardly any of them would make it to spring but it cheered my father to know something was growing.
Sam and Barry were settled into their new house and new jobs, but Laura and Tom were in their third house in under a year. They were back in Georgia, and had a large backyard which faded into the woods. They saw turkeys and deer and a feral cat which begged at the door but never came in. Tom had been selected as coach at the Georgia All-Star football game, a great honor, even though his team that year had a less than stellar record of 4 wins and 7 losses.
I’d traded the old banjo that Sam had used in the movie “Mountain Born” to Robin that Christmas for a kid-size violin. The bow was worn out, but we purchased a kit and re-strung it. It turned out well, and we gave it to Edward. Perri had also given me a tiny violin ornament to hang on the tree. Edward had a magic set from Santa, and that afternoon took the ornament and said, “Hey, Papa! Watch this!”. He put it in a box, covered it, waved his wand and pulled out a full-size violin!
We had other projects. We took apart an old wheelbarrow and saved the tub to build a flying machine. It’s not finished yet.
Clara Kate was proving a chatterbox, sociable and thoughtful even at 3. She got down my mug one morning, filled it with water and brought it to me, not because I’d asked but because she thought I’d looked thirsty.
I was still working at Rent-A-Center, but getting tired of it. I’d broken a bone three times–a toe in 2005 when a washer fell on it, a thumb in 2006 when a heavy shelf fell and in 2007 a pin which I’d been complaining about for months popped out as I was climbing on the lift gate of a truck, causing me to fall and crack an elbow and rib. I was on light duty the next week when a phone call came and my wife told me to come home right now, but wouldn’t say why. My father had passed away. It was February 10th, 2007.
We went to Boone the next day and spent a week. We finished the bottle of Lagavulin I’d bought 2 years earlier after the death of my nephew. Rob and Luanne took care of many details. Luanne’s father had passed away the previous Thanksgiving and between them they’d dealt with nine recent deaths. They organized the sympathy cards and made sure everyone in the family had a chance to read them.
We learned details about our father’s life and times we hadn’t known before. A cousin mentioned that when my father had been reported missing in action in Germany he visited my grandfather, then in his 70s. She was shocked at how feeble and old he seemed. He was getting around with a cane, his voice was quavery and he seemed at death’s door. A month later news came that Ned had been liberated, the cane disappeared, he had a spring in his step and all was right with the world!
It was difficult for me to sort out my emotions. I could charitably say that my father had been a mixed bag, but the truth was I’d been furious at him far, far more often than I’d ever had thoughts of love. I’d try to think nice things but there wasn’t a lot there.
I thought of the funny things. When we’d gone to Texas he went to the radio station and made commercials about Booger the dog–half Great Dane and half wolf or something, he said–who was always out for a walk when anyone asked to see him. He said that we were small tree farmers–four feet tall with boots on. We sold those trees like wildfire. I remembered that we’d gone so many places and done so many things–we’d played in a band in Hollywood, ran a rental equipment business where I learned to use, repair, maintain every tool and machine imaginable, plus gained the confidence that whatever the job I could handle it, whether sanding a floor, pouring cement, maintaining a jack hammer, sharpening a chain saw. We’d learned how to trim trees, grow a garden, buy and sell in the stock market, install a toilet, patch a roof.
Still, the overwhelming feeling when I’d try to think these good thoughts was the torpedo to the gut just when I thought things were going well. I knew that no matter what, I wouldn’t be able to relax and enjoy my accomplishments or the fruits of my labor. I’d gotten along with him in the last twenty years better than I had before, but only because I’d utterly stopped believing in him and didn’t get involved when he’d try to lasso me into another project. He’d recently wanted to graft and grow Japanese maples; I watched how he did it but never intended to get into the business. I couldn’t trust him. I knew that, somehow, he’d wreck it. He’d disrupt my plan, tear something down, steal it, block it, neglect it, leave it in the rain, let it break, give it away–and I wouldn’t get credit. He’d corral me into a project, get me started, then when I’d feel like I was accomplishing something he’d find a way to make it come to nothing. I’d be left with ashes in my mouth. When I painted the roof, he never bought the last gallon–something I knew better than to do myself–and made a joke of “the ‘T’ house of the August moon”. When I put in a nice reflecting pond under the willow tree with a couple lawn chairs and a table, a pleasant spot to relax and have tea, he tore it down and threw together a cement-block-and-plastic monstrosity the very next day, claiming that the water flow to the half-acre pond in the meadow would be obstructed, though my kiddie-pool-sized pond obstructed nothing. He destroyed it because it was something I’d made which was beautiful. That was the end of it. I tried to say I loved him and missed him, but it left me with a sick feeling in my belly. It wasn’t true. What I felt, truly felt, was relief. I was happy he was gone.
At the end of 2006 Monk and Luanne’s father Edwin died, and at the beginning of 2007 my father died. My family wasn’t greatly disrupted because my father left everything to my mother, and though our middle sister raised a stink it was for now resolved without a war. It was different with Monk’s family, and my brother was involved because he was living with Luanne. There was a trust set up to administer much of the property when her father Ed died, but there were many complications, not the least because their mother had dementia. The family split into factions. Monk had died eight years before, but much of his estate had not been resolved, as it was largely tied up in used cars of uncertain title which had been acquired years before at police auctions. Some of the titles had been cleared, some hadn’t, and many ended up in the hands of his father when Monk repeatedly went to the nuthouse or into the Krishnas. These in turn had been “sold” to one of the sisters when their father was applying for food stamps and couldn’t keep them as his property. A further trust had been challenged by the eldest surviving son, who’d been married three or four times and whose mother Marion lived with him. I tried as best I could to stay neutral, which was a lost cause. I was a bit more sympathetic to the eldest surviving son than Luanne. He’d worked with his father on several ventures and had little to show for it, though how much was attributable to his father and how much to his own spending habits was debatable. The youngest son, who’d also been in the nuthouse a few times, made a few dollars by selling parts from the 200 or 300 cars, which weren’t his, but neither was it clear for a time whose they were, though two were technically mine. The court awarded all the cars to the third sister, and she sold them all. The resulting fight inclined her for a time to the eldest brother’s point of view, and the eldest sister was also on his side for awhile. Luanne and Rob cleaned out the house their father had lived in and found junk packed to the ceiling in every room. I’d been in there many years before, the only guy from outside of family he’d ever let into the house. In cleaning it they discovered many of their things hidden away. Silverware of theirs, still packed in its box. Christmas presents from other members of the family for their kids, still wrapped. It seemed Ed stole whatever he wanted from the family, whether he could use it or not. It didn’t surprise me much. My father did the same.
Edwin had received 100% disability after World War II. This was a Catch-22. If he ever worked, he’d lose his disability pay, and if he lost it he’d have a devil of a time getting it back again if he tried to work but couldn’t. Ed was wounded when his ship was sunk in the Pacific. He floated for days in a raft and many years later had an operation which removed a vertebra in his back. He was continually inventing things and starting businesses, but his suspicious nature limited their success.
The eldest brother started filing court cases and all the rest of the family had to show up in court for one thing after another, over 20 times in the next couple years. When he lost every case and every appeal he packed up his girlfriend and mother, moved to Florida and started over.
Like so many times, including in my own family when Robin’s wife died, lawyers got more than anyone else. People who work in professions where trust and integrity are important are often the ones who abuse it the most.
Home School
We officially set up a home school, Austinwood School, when Edward was six. I taught the kids history and Spanish in the morning before work, and Perri taught them math and English in the afternoons. I’d taped an instructional soap opera called “Destinos” which went through 52 episodes of Raquel searching out members of a family who, since the Spanish civil war, had scattered to Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Puerto Rico and the United States. After 20 minutes of story there was a question-and-answer session. They soaked it up.
After we returned from the mountains I found a job which was supposed to be full-time selling ad space for the weekly paper, the Alamance News. In practice the job was considerably less, as I spent my day looking for businesses that might want to advertise, writing them down and bringing them back for an OK before making a pitch. It would’ve worked fine if my boss had looked over the list and crossed off a few, but he’d approve at most one in three. Since he’d spend most of his time hanging out at the courthouse, I wouldn’t see him for a week, sometimes two. I’d bring longer lists, he’d OK fewer prospects. I tried not to go back to the same businesses until at least a month had passed, but I couldn’t. Pretty soon I’d go back every third week and hang out for a half-hour just for something to do. I should have been checking on twenty or thirty a day, but only had fifty a week. I worked four months, bringing in a smaller and smaller paycheck, until one day I hadn’t seen him in three weeks, gave him a list of over 300 businesses and he okayed 26. I’d signed a non-compete agreement, meaning I wasn’t supposed to work for any other papers in the area for at least a year afterwards, but I wrote a letter “to whom it may concern” stating that the agreement was for me to have a full-time job, that I hadn’t been allowed to do it and I considered the agreement null and void. I applied to a few other jobs in the area and made crafts again, while my wife fixed computer problems part-time for the school.
Our roof started leaking and I didn’t have money to fix it, but was painting all the cracks with several gallons of black mammy, hoping to get through another couple winters, when a fellow drove up and offered to put a roof on my house if I’d give him the 1972 Ford truck now sitting in my side yard with a blown engine. I instantly agreed, and bought some roofing shingles and a few supplies on credit. I’d been ready to sell the truck for a few hundred dollars, but got a new roof instead, plus several hundred extra shingles. He’d over-estimated the shingles by about a third, but I didn’t care.
Flashback
While job-hunting I’d heard good things had developed at the company I’d worked for six years earlier–Adam & Eve–and applied. I was greeted warmly, with the easiest job interview I’d ever had–”this is just a formality, we really want you back”. I joined a training class that was already underway.
It was partly desperation–our mortgage was two months behind, our credit cards maxed–but it truly was a different environment than the one I’d left, at least initially. I enjoyed being back. I knew quite a few faces from before and they were happy to see me. There was a real Spanish department, 24/7, and we had a real Spanish catalog, not just Xeroxed sheets. The internet had been completely unavailable to us before, but now we could take a look when necessary, eliminating the need to regularly run to the warehouse.
The Scouts
2008 was the year Edward officially became a Boy Scout. He was too young by a year, but to form a full troop he became a boy scout at 9 instead of 10. This was appropriate, as he’d also unofficially joined the Cub Scouts a year early, attending Tiger Cubs at 4. He’d been a Wolf and Bear and Webelos, took part in the activities and had a wonderful time. The scouts met in the same building as Time Out Playgroup. I’d missed most of the Cub Scout activities due to the insane number of hours required by Rent-A-Center, where the only guaranteed day off was Sunday. When I worked with the local paper I had plenty of time for Cub Scouts, but when I went back to Adam & Eve my schedule again limited my evenings, though I had every other weekend off and went to some of the campouts. It was a good troop; Troop 40, which by coincidence had been my troop number as a kid. I’d been disappointed with our troop, but Edward’s had something going on every week and many weekends. They built catapults, had boat races, were in the Pinewood Derby, where Edward nearly every year won Most Original or the like and finally won for fastest car, an actual trophy for an actual accomplishment. I never won a trophy, and was really happy that he’d won in a competition. He would have gone to the regionals but was visiting his cousins in Alabama. He’d done well as a scout, earning dozens of merit badges, pins and belt loops.
I was in a bowling league once. The first year they  passed out a great many trophies, about 3/4 of which went to the same 5 or 6 people, who were first in one category or another. None to me, who’d been second in several. It made no sense to me–why give 3 or 4 trophies to the same guy and ignore 2nd or 3rd place in anything? The following year I won first place in a couple categories but they passed out cash prizes instead. I won about $80, but I’d have preferred a trophy. Any trophy. My wife has one for “most improved swimmer”. She places little value on it but I’d love to have my name on it. I don’t know if a kid can avoid receiving a trophy now, it’s not like when I was growing up, but a trophy for something is better than nothing. I received a couple pins from Junior Achievement, one for perfect attendance and one for $100 in sales. I was the only kid to receive two, but pins aren’t trophies.
The Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts were good for him, but the program got bogged down in church politics in late 2008 and the troop disbanded. We tried to find a suitable one nearby but couldn’t. It was a shame too, because that winter Edward and Clara Kate were trying to retrieve something from a neighbor’s pool, the ice on the surface cracked and Clara Kate went through. Edward saved her life. I wanted to send the story to Boy’s Life for inclusion in a comic-strip treatment of scout heroism they do each month, but to be in Boy’s Life he had to be a scout, and through no fault of his own he wasn’t, they wouldn’t have printed it and he wouldn’t have gotten the award. He couldn’t even subscribe.
Then again, scouting was losing some of its luster. The other troop in town was connected to one of the most evangelically poisoned churches around, and while faith has always been a part of the Boy Scouts, professing a faith to a rigid, scary, dictatorial branch of Bible thumpers who won’t shut up is way worse than belonging to nothing. The other possibility was a troop about 15 miles away, a very good troop but too far to drive.
When Robin would go to Colorado, he’d leave his car for me to drive, because he didn’t want his daughter driving it. Noelle was hard on cars. In the winter of 2008 he left it with me while Perri and the kids were in Alabama–they went for Thanksgiving and returned before Christmas–but towards the middle of December Noelle’s car gave out and Robin let her take the Nissan. I’d been brewing beer and had saved several bottles I’d promised to give him when he came back, which I sent with Noelle in the trunk of the car. She put the 6-pack of 22-ounce bottles in her fridge, but Genny saw them and, since Noelle was under 21, made a fuss. Noelle put the bottles in the trunk of her non-functional car, and on a warm day they exploded–which wouldn’t have happened had they stayed in the fridge. The result was a huge smelly mess in Noelle’s car and no beer for my brother.
2009 started out cold, and there was enough snow to make bricks by packing it in a cooler and building a kid-sized igloo. A couple years before we’d built an igloo out of the ice in the pool; this year the pool ice was thick enough to walk on, and we have several pictures of me and the kids “walking on water”.
In the spring of that year our Mennonite group decided to plant a community garden on our extra lot. We tilled a wide area and planted tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, lettuce, beets, corn.
My mother and I had discussed, later in the year, our plans for the property. I mentioned a dream I’d had for ages, of setting up a Mountain Mechanical Museum, maybe on the hill in back of the farm. I didn’t know. My plans were vague and I hadn’t mentioned them, because I knew I couldn’t rely on support from my father; even had he told me to start building I’d never get the front door open before he’d find a reason to tear it down. When I mentioned the idea to my mother, she said the house would be a good place for it, and I had a place to park my modest dream.
Then my sister heard about it. I was particularly annoyed at Christmastime. Genny had a habit of periodically writing everyone asking for money for home improvements, and I’d beg off, knowing that 1) I didn’t have the money, 2) had already done more than my share, 3) the money would go into a black hole anyway. This year she sent an email, saying she’d decided what our mother’s Christmas present should be and asking for donations, stating “if everyone kicked in $35, we could all buy her (specific nice thing for $200) instead of (all the crap you all were planning to give her), but if any of you don’t contribute it’ll be $40 for each of the rest of us”. It was guilt tripping and blackmail. $35 was no big deal to her, but to be fair, if my mother got a $200 gift, didn’t my wife deserve one too? My mother-in-law? Father? Father-in-law? My kids? She was single, lived at home, paid no rent, water, power or babysitting. I had bills and a mortgage. I’d been thoroughly broke and months in debt when I’d started back at Adam & Eve, part-time, four months before, with a family to support. What she’d suggested would not only have superseded and belittled the present we’d already bought, but also blown a huge hole in Santa’s budget. Even more galling, to me, was that while my sister was laying a guilt trip on us, her son Tristan, all by himself, had more toys and more expensive toys than both of my kids put together. I kept my mouth shut, and gave everyone the presents we’d already bought.
Touristing
We left a few days early for our week in Massanutten that spring and went to Washington, DC to see my sister and her new boyfriend Ray, stopping first to see the battlefield at Fredricksburg. It was the most moving part of our trip, and I wrote a particularly heartfelt letter on Memorial Day:
I know memorial day is a day to hang around in your underwear and drink beer, and it’s sort of a downer to mention it, but I just saw the story of Eddie Hart on UNC-TV; he was killed in action in Germany on the same day Roosevelt died, and I didn’t realize until tonight that he was in the same battalion as my father–the 83rd, although it would be a big surprise if they ever met, as my father was in Company B and Eddie was in Company G, and my father was captured in November of ’44 while most of the action covered in the story takes place some months later. In any case I visited Fredericksburg a month ago, and it was an almost surreal experience–you climb the hill where the fighting took place, and there are the graves of over 15,000 soldiers,
over 12,000 unknown. The graves of the known have a round-top tombstone, but the unknown have a little granite marker about 6″ square with a number on it–and often another number underneath. It looks as if about half the graves have a name on them, until you start looking at the little markers, and some of them have a number on top and no number underneath–one guy buried there. Go along the rows, though, and you start seeing 2 and 3 underneath the number–2 guys, or 3, buried there. Go a little further to where the fighting got more intense and you see 4 and 5 and 7. Finally at the top of the hill the markers say 9 or 11 or 15, and you’re standing on a spot where fifteen guys are buried, nobody knows who, and likely none of them lived half as long as I have now. The next day we went to Washington DC; in the morning we saw the Bureau of Engraving and watched millions of dollars being printed right before our eyes, then went to see the memorials and waited to meet my sister, she works in DC. They have a wall at the WWII memorial with a star on it for every soldier lost in the war, and believe me there are lots of little gold stars. After that we went to the Vietnam memorial; at first I thought I’d read through all the names until I came to Dave Tiffany–I’ve mentioned him before, he was my friend and was in the Memorial Day issue of Life magazine, 40 years ago today; he’d moved away to California the year before and I didn’t know he’d joined the army (though I knew he’d planned to) and when I was thumbing through the magazine came across his picture–David Lewis Tiffany, 19, Riverside, California. He had just turned 19, not more than one or two weeks before, and now he was in Life magazine, in the One Week’s Toll of the Dead in Vietnam, Memorial Day issue. I had a general idea of the sector in which I’d find him, but it soon became clear I’d spend the rest of the day looking if I did it that way so I went over to the registry and looked him up–he was on something like the 28th panel, 12th line from the top, and I had to jump to touch his name.
We had a really good vacation; I hadn’t had 2 weeks off in 5 years or more, and even though I was getting over the swine flu enjoyed myself thoroughly, swimming every day, playing my banjo on the porch–and I’m damned glad I’m here today and not some marker in a field somewhere with “USN” on it.
~DJ

We continued on from Fredericksburg to a motel outside DC and in the morning took the Metro; it was early and not everything was open, but after breakfast we went to the Bureau of Engraving and took a very enjoyable tour watching them print money, and the kids got shredded cash souvenirs. We had an hour to explore before we were to meet up with my sister and went to the Holocaust museum, but decided the kids were too young for it. We talked briefly with a very pleasant guard, who later that year was shot and killed buy some crazy fanatic. I was sorry to hear of his tragic and unnecessary end. What was accomplished? Nothing.
We went by the Washington Monument and took silly pictures of me wearing it as a hat and Edward holding it in his hand, then met up with my sister at the World War II memorial. We should have coordinated a little better, because the memorial is huge, there were thousands of people there and it took a long time to find each other; we had a cellphone but the battery’d run out. I then went to the Vietnam memorial to find my friend Dave Tiffany’s name, but it was a long walk to the memorial and Perri and the kids decided to hang out. At first I simply looked over the names but very quickly knew it would take hours that way, and went to the flip chart guide to find out which slab and row he was on. I found him, and had to jump to touch his name.
I went back to the Lincoln Memorial and the reflective pool and looked around again in the crowds for Perri, the kids, my sister and finally found them, then we all went to lunch at a lovely little deli just down the street from where my sister worked at the Justice Department. After lunch we went to the Smithsonian Institution, where we once again got lost among the miles of exhibits and multitudes of people. I got separated from the rest at The Hope Diamond, but we’d all agreed on a meeting place and shortly moved to the park, where we had a snack and watched a fellow try to set up a pigeon trap using a box, pencil and string, which didn’t work. Edward in particular was tickled with the absurdity of the contraption, baited with a french fry. I’d been sick with the flu for several days before we’d left and had no stamina; I dozed off in the afternoon sun while the others got acquainted with my sister and her new boyfriend Ray. We went to a movie, which I mostly slept through, then had dinner and rode the Metro back to the motel.  In the morning we headed to our condo in Massanutten. They’d made improvements–they always seemed to be improving something–and we had a fun week.
One of the things the resort does every year or two is to invite us to what amounts to a sales pitch, sometimes over a special weekend later in the year and sometimes at the beginning of our stay, and for listening we get a lot of free coupons to various activities. We went to the water park and took classes in glass etching and beading and played some mini-golf and went to a couple of restaurants and did a lot of hanging out in the condo overlooking the golf course and watching cable TV. Clara Kate and Edward loved the cartoon network. One night a fellow put on a show for the kids. He held the Guinness Book World Record for blowing up balloons in a certain time, which he’d trade off with a clown in Germany. He invited Edward on stage to help him with a trick and Clara Kate told a joke in front of 200 or 300 people–”What do you call a fly without wings? A walk!”. He gave her a balloon dog with a leash and Edward got a balloon hat.
A day or two after returning from Massanutten, Perri and the kids left for Alabama. They stayed through the month of May, and had originally planned to be back by my birthday in June but stayed a couple extra weeks and spent both Edward’s birthday, May 7th, and Clara Kate’s, June 11th, in Alabama while I enjoyed peace and quiet. I’d bought a scooter the previous Christmas just to have a means of transportation if the Cadillac broke down, because I didn’t want to be stranded while the rest of the family was 1000 miles away.
While we were traveling I read over a letter my mother had sent, which I thought unfairly attacked me. Genny had been asserting “I wanted everything”, based on my father’s worthless promises. I’d indeed been promised plenty, but it meant nothing, and I only desired a fair distribution, whatever that may have been.
She’d also written a book, which I hadn’t seen but mother hated. I read it over, because Genny thought I’d be the most objective. I probably was, but I didn’t like it either. It was essentially two books, one reviewing her romance and breakup with Suzuki, which was thoughtful and well-written, though I thought she should have stayed with him. The other started out funny, but brought up the same old crap. Our father was a monster, our mother a monster, her two oldest brothers, monsters, all served up with sour spleen and monster sauce. I’d thought she was over it, but it was an endless tape loop from her years of “therapy”, stirring and bubbling. It bothered me. It had to stop.
When she’d split from her second husband Seth she decided the trailer was unsafe. Alone at night, she’d see stalkers everywhere. She told wild, insane stories about people walking across her roof. Her son was totally out of control and she didn’t discipline him. He ate nothing but crap, and her and his stuff now so filled the two large bedrooms upstairs that they weren’t used. The junk had taken over the living room, the computer room, part of the main bedroom and was starting to invade my mother’s study. The back door was blocked with piles of her stuff. When Perri and I stopped by after Massanutten we saw to it that a small TV was installed in Tristan’s room so he had no reason to lounge in the living room, and all his stuff went back in his room. We took all the junk from the back porch, the living room, the study and the computer room and made her either haul it upstairs or throw it away, set up a yard sale for the nicer items and made the study into a music room, with a piano, a comfy couch and pictures of the grandkids on the wall. My father had canned a huge amount of food as well, and Perri and I filled the trunk of our car.
The round robin was lost that year, and lost again. In December of 2008 I started it once more, revising its confused order to the more logical youngest to oldest. I began by recounting Thanksgiving 2008. While Perri was in Alabama, Genny and I finally took my father’s ashes to the top of the mountain. We’d delayed so everyone could get together to make the hike, but it had been nearly two years. I finally made the decision to make the hike myself, and Genny came along, which was a mistake. When we got to the hilltop, instead of a nice ceremony and a few words, Genny called everyone she could reach from her cell phone to find out if they wanted some of the ashes. Nobody did, but she insisted we save some back for the two siblings she’d failed to reach. I thought it ridiculous, as they hadn’t expressed a wish for any such thing, but we sprinkled most of the ashes and trudged back down with a few still in the box. She planted a tree with some of them on the mountain, flushed a few down the toilet in accordance with a wish he’d expressed, and the rest sat on a shelf until I scattered them in a field.
Once again Genny wanted to buy mother a Christmas present that she’d decided on, each of us to pitch in. I’d had enough. I exploded in the Christmas round-robin. I felt I’d been insulted, belittled, joked about and accused of motives I didn’t have, and stated that I would have no part of, and resented, having my Christmas list hijacked. I further said I was tired of hearing how greedy I was, that I’d been promised plenty, but that we all knew that my father’s promises, any of them, would disappear in a flash and he’d look at you as if you were insane for believing them, that we’d all lived with the premise that a promise was never, ever, ever a promise, no matter if it had been reiterated forty times for forty years, and that this was a sick, sick way to live.
People are entitled to believe in promises. They adjust their lives and actions based on promises, and if a promise is broken that is, and should be, considered a sin. It’s a reasonable human expectation. A promise is a promise. The entire structure of civilization is founded on the notion that people will keep promises. It’s the breaking of a promise which is a sin, not the trusting in a promise.
We grew up with a different dictum, that a promise can be broken at any time, for any reason, and never means a goddamned thing.
When there’s no expectation that a promise will be fulfilled, there’s no promise which can’t be superseded, at any time, and nobody knows what to expect, nobody knows what they’ll get, everyone wants everything but expects nothing. Everyone throws a thousand pieces of spaghetti against the wall, hoping that someday one or two will stick. I said I had no interest in surfing into a guilt trip so that Genny could steal the credit for everyone’s love of mother on the cheap. I said I wanted to fix up the old home place, too, but not to pay someone else money I didn’t have. I’d already put my sweat and labor in countless improvements without any pay or acknowledgement whatsoever. I reviewed all the events of my life, starting at age 7, of how my father beat me and whipped me until he drew blood for no good reason and how when I’d tried to be even-tempered and pleasant he’d pick at me and pick and pick and pick while I was at the dinner table, while I tried to be nice, and he’d insult and accuse until he found a soft spot and I’d explode, and it was all a sick game, I might as well have been a trained seal. It was sadistic, disgusting, and even then he wouldn’t let up, and I’d stare at the flecks in the linoleum floor and feel like hell.
I recounted how I’d worked at Pete’s Rental in Hollywood 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, for months without a day off, driving an hour there and an hour back, and how I’d wanted to buy a car after my Falcon had been wrecked, found a ’59 Chevy sedan delivery I really liked, bought it, came to work one day and he had sold my car–forged my signature and sold it. Which wasn’t even the only time–he sold a Studebaker truck I was buying, after I’d put a deposit on it but had yet to straighten out the title. He stole my toolbox from the cab of my 40-year-old truck before I started on a 2000-mile journey, and I limped along with nothing but a vise grips and a screwdriver. I mentioned when I joined the Navy how he took all the stuff I’d carefully packed away and tossed it in the rain, wrecking a beautiful antique radio among other things. How I’d been promised 50% of the tree business but ended up with less than minimum wage and nothing when he’d sold it. How Perri and I built the earth lodge, working for over two years and using thousands of dollars of our own money, then receiving a “symbolic” gift of a light bulb for Christmas, only to be told a month later that the earth lodge would be torn down. How after 20 years of selling trees, with my mythical 50% ownership regularly receding or disappearing, I’d managed to make enough one Christmas–and by the way so did he–that my half of the profits, which he shared–had finally been enough to make my house payment, and though he hadn’t worked the trees for years he then remarked that I was making “too much money” and that we’d have to “renegotiate our agreement”. After recounting the 48 intervening years of this shit, I noted that my sister, at the tender age of 46 living in her mother’s house on her mother’s dime, was the one calling me greedy and amoral, while telling all of us what she thought we should pay for a Christmas present she had chosen.
The robin went to my youngest sister, who sent a chatty note, then up the line to Genny. My mother decided she needed to reply, and said she basically agreed with what I’d said, but it sat for six months waiting on Genny.
Genny and I took a trip together to Chicago that April and patched up most of our differences. She had friends in Chicago, a lesbian couple who had a very nice place in the middle of town. Her friend’s partner was a transplant surgeon and they did very well. They’d adopted a baby boy and Sarah stayed with him while Daniela worked. Sarah gave her two-year-old car to Genny, and Genny bought tickets to Chicago and invited me along. We stayed a few days, had a lovely time and drove back.
We talked there and back, and by North Carolina were getting along pretty well. I did, however, come away with a couple realizations, in that when she’d come from many years in New York she’d been paranoid about things which were simply part of small town rural life. A fellow in a black pickup came by as she walked down the road and asked a question which revealed that he knew who she was, and she flipped out. She found a beer can and cigarette butts in the yard, and flipped out. A critter had walked across the roof, and she flipped out. Her dog made a few “wffs” while dreaming, and she flipped out.
That said, we were both in a better mood. The only flare-up we had in Chicago was when the four of us went to a restaurant around the corner, run by a small vegetarian religious group. Daniela and Sarah were talking about intrusive people, and I made a comment that my sister-in-law Anne had been intrusive, which seemed obvious. Genny said she wasn’t. I said she certainly was, at which point Genny remarked that she was dead. I said just because she was dead didn’t mean she hadn’t been intrusive. When Anne came to visit she’d rummage through our underwear drawer, and you don’t get more intrusive than that. I didn’t mean anything negative by it. Anne was intensely curious, and I didn’t hold bad feelings about her personality quirk. It could be convenient, or a pain. She’d spent her life on the phone. When we had news she’d broadcast it, but it annoyed us when she’d call, we’d finish, call another family member and their line would already be busy–with Anne telling them our news. Perri loved the show “Mystery”, which played Thursdays at 8pm. For years, she told Anne to call at any other time–but no matter, she’d start watching, Anne would call. She’d share updates about Fran’s first husband Kevin until one day I said the only news I wanted to hear about Kevin was that he was dead. It was a game. Nobody would tell her a juicy tidbit, and we’d see how long we could keep it secret. It had been the same with my father. Tell him a secret, it wouldn’t last the hour. Her son Jordan was particularly good at not revealing anything. He’d be on the phone with a friend, say “Oh really? Wow!” and so forth. As soon as he hung up she’d be on him like a tick, peppering him for details. Jordan would say, “he’s having peas for dinner”, or the like. We always felt she’d be good as a private eye but missed her calling. Intrusive, yes. Hateful, no.
Anyway we left Chicago and shared the driving. By the side of the road in a rough-looking steel town was a fellow who looked like a laid-off steelworker selling roses. I bought 3 from him–one for Genny, one for Perri and one for mother. She dropped me off at my house, I gave her some boy clothes and a spare soy milk maker.
Perri and I had learned how to save money. Perri had learned to cook vegetarian, which can be cheap or expensive, but what makes it cheap is a large array of kitchen gadgets. We had a mill and a breadmaker, so as to grind our own wheat and make bread for about 15¢ a loaf. A soymilk maker makes nut or grain-type milks for about 25¢ a gallon. A water filter ($40 for a new filter every few years) assures spring-water quality almost for free, and a distiller I picked up for $50 made distilled water (or spirits). We even got a soda maker, and using only healthy ingredients it was a dime a quart. As an experiment, we added up how little we could spend to make a nutritious meal for four, and spent $3.
I picked up the robin on a visit to the mountains that summer, where it had languished for six months, and sent it to Fran and Ray, where sat for two more. Things had settled down since the death of her daughter and the subsequent breakup of her marriage to her second husband Rob. Rob had always seemed a decent guy, but far too distracted–largely due to dealing with Sarah. He was a thoroughly nice guy, but absolutely overwhelmed by everyday life. Sarah was big and strong but had the mind of a toddler. Fran went to work and Rob minded the kids, but the house was a wreck, and he completely blew the most minor of tasks. He overdrafted the bank account regularly. His car was impounded five times within a month because he failed to renew the registration. Even re-stringing a guitar seemed to be beyond him. After Sarah was gone there was little reason for them to stay together, and Rob went away to live with his parents at fifty. He got a job as a security guard and his parents arranged for a divorce lawyer while Fran sent along $100 a week. Soon enough they divorced.
By the time my letter of December reached Sam it was October, and its 35 stationery-sized pages had assumed mythic proportions. Sam jumped in. He was on unemployment, fighting termination from Verizon–they eventually settled with a nice fat check–but had discovered one of the nicer challenges that I’d known about unemployment–unstructured leisure, which is not at all what one thinks it will be when one wishes for more free time. One can turn to philosophy on an unstructured afternoon. He and Barry had set themselves up with a low overhead when moving to Roanoke, and now he found he could get along fine on a lower income as well, though the need to live frugally was a constraint.
My mother’s reply to my letter had mentioned that my father’s plans and promises were simply dreams, and his own plans never got anywhere either, because when a small project was mentioned he’d have bigger plans. She’d mention painting the bathroom and he’d talk about adding two more rooms. He was going to build three A-frame cabins on various parts of the property; he cut the lumber and left it out to season–and rot. She brought up the Browning quote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp…”, but said it would’ve been better if he’d reached for something he could grasp. It seemed to me to be a useless sentiment, too–if one can’t grasp what one is reaching for, what’s the point in reaching?
But reach he did, and completed very little. Small improvements were postponed because BIG improvements were planned–and so neither small improvement nor big transformation happened, and often small and adequate was torn down and undermined in favor of–nothing. Castles in the air and clouds.
On receipt of my letter Sam recalled a business proposal our father had given him to take some Christmas wreaths that the Coffeys, sharecroppers for my uncle, were making. Sam could go to New York florists for orders. Nobody asked what the wreaths would cost to produce or ship, what the mark-up would be, what price the market would bear, how many wreaths the Coffeys could make and how quickly, when they’d have them ready–but Sam in his spare time was supposed to make presentations to merchants he didn’t know on behalf of vendors he also didn’t know based on information he didn’t have. Which is, of course, the reason for writing things down. Drawing up an agreement brings up all the reasons a bad idea is a bad idea, and gives everyone involved in a good idea a clear understanding of what is expected of them and what they’ll receive. Sam was accused of being “too selfish to help the less fortunate”.
They had a confrontation shortly afterwards. Genny, after moving to New York, had brought along some tapes called “A Course In Miracles”. Unfortunately Genny didn’t have a VCR, an expensive novelty at the time, and she wanted to watch them on Sam’s VCR–but there were sixteen or twenty hours of Miracles and Sam was too busy to watch the tapes, which he found insipid anyway. Genny complained that she couldn’t get Sam to watch the tapes with her, and our father called long-distance to tell Sam he was “selfish”–for not watching several hours of tapes which he didn’t want to watch and didn’t have the time for. This was the umpteenth time, and the last, my father had accused him of being “selfish”, because Sam told him that unless he could respect what he chose to do with his time, his space and his life, he could get the hell out of all three. That was the end of the accusations about Sam being “selfish”.
The robin then passed to Robin, who was doing better. He and Luanne had been together for three years, sometimes in Colorado, sometimes in North Carolina, sometimes somewhere else, sometimes separated by distance. They both had houses they’d inherited, fixed up and rented, which provided a certain amount of income and freedom. Robin was barbering and riding a bicycle to work. He also had some words about Our Father, who Wert in the Kitchen, Twelve Pack as his Bane. After I’d more or less disappeared from the dinner table, spending all my time at Monk’s house, it was left to him to hang around the kitchen when father was on his eleventh beer, putting up with the put-downs while Sam and the girls played in the other room. It was almost a duty to him; he’d hang around and say nothing while father ran out of ammo and was reduced to asking, “What’s wrong with you, Rob?”, over and over. There was no answer, because it was the wrong question. The question had always been, What’s wrong with you, Ned? He’d either sit and pick at someone or stew until he got a good head of steam. It was one or the other. He was funny, and generous, and lovable to his friends, but to his kids he was mean, dishonest, unreliable, violent. He made unlimited promises to his kids, selectively forgetting them before they left his mouth. None of the siblings were as involved in his plans and promises as I was, but all learned how to be better parents, by being exactly who he was not.
Rob’s parenting style was gentle guidance and honest respect. His wife Anne, though they had issues as spouses, gave them liberal indulgence and watchful supervision. They were rarely spanked, as they felt a parent’s superior strength should be used to help, not enforce conformity to a parent’s preferences There’s a risk, though. When children have a choice, their choices can, in fact, kill them. Jordan lost ten of his friends and his mother in the five years before he died, which seemed an extraordinary number for a small-town kid who hadn’t yet turned 21, and because of that he valued friendships a great deal. All his friends were his best friends. He took recreational drugs on New Year’s Eve, slept on the porch that cold night and froze to death before anyone noticed where he was.
The Glory of Sight
In November 2009 I noticed one evening a small spot to the right of my right eye’s field of vision had disappeared. I didn’t think much about it. About four or five years previously I’d stepped on a rake and, like everyone’s seen in five hundred cartoons, was whacked across my face with the handle–but the rake wasn’t sitting tines-up, it was tines-down. Instead of the fulcrum forming a first-class lever, this formed a third-class lever. My foot went through the yoke, and the rake when it flew up had triple or quadruple the force. I was staggered, and I thought for a second I’d pass out. For two or three days there was a shadow in that eye, but it went away and the eye doctor thought it OK. For the next few years I’d occasionally see a bit of shadow if I was tired or sleepy, but with rest it’d be fine. On this evening, though, the spot didn’t go away, and a day or two later the bottom of my field of view was strange and discolored. my eye doctor told me to go immediately to the hospital. By the time I got there more than half my field of view was compromised, and I was scheduled for surgery the following Monday.
I was suddenly glad I was a veteran! I’d rarely mentioned it since I’d left the Navy 35 years before. Through the 70s, 80s and 90s it wasn’t something one mentioned. People had mixed feelings about the military. Only since the attacks of 9/11 had people started appreciating veterans; usually they were neutral at best. It felt strange to receive discounts and hear people thank me for my service on Veteran’s Day, not that I’d done more than float around the Pacific on Uncle Sam’s boat. I’d always felt obliged to say I was a Vietnam-era veteran and not a Vietnam veteran, meaning I was in the Navy when the guys were coming home and not going over, trying to establish that I wasn’t as crazy as “real” Vietnam veterans.
Monday morning at 6 am Perri drove me to the hospital. My field of view was now reduced to one little pizza slice in the upper left corner; everything else was a vague grey shadow even in bright light, like looking at a faded, underexposed black and white photo in a dark room. They took me to the operating room, put me out and I went home that afternoon with an eye protector and a bottle full of narcotics. They’d stabbed me in the eye and tack-welded my retina with a freeze wand, then told me to lie on the couch on my right side for a week. My eye looked like a little bloody red ball of Play-Doh. I went back after the week and the eye checked out OK, but I still had to lie on my side and couldn’t travel to the mountains or ride on a plane–nothing that involved a change in air pressure. I had a gas bubble in my eye, which would absorb in a month or so. Perri brought me books-on-tape from the library; I couldn’t do much else but listen. Reading was out, TV was painful, I couldn’t lift anything over five pounds or even strain on the pot very hard. All I could do was lie on the couch, listen to the radio or a tape, eat something mushy and pop another pill.
We had a bunch of folks over for Thanksgiving weekend. Genny nearly ruined it for mother, telling her they’d have to go back to the mountains in two hours to mind Genny’s dog. We put our foot down and told her she was staying the weekend and if Genny needed a dog-sitter she could damned well find one on her own. They stayed for three days. It was a real family gathering. Genny and Tristan only showed for a few minutes, but my niece Noelle, her brother Grant and his fiance came by, as well as my cousin Carol, who lived a few miles down the road. Carol had a horse from the time she was little, and the horse had died the year before, but she had a half-interest in another horse. Her mother, also named Carol, had been incoherent for some time and in a rest home where our uncle Pete visited every day, but she was too confused to travel.
I was glad I’d floated on that government boat more than 30 years earlier. A detached retina would’ve set me back $12,000, but I didn’t pay a nickel, just a few dollars for narcotics. “Don’t say I never gave you anything” is used when one has been given something of questionable value, and until then summed up my feelings towards the Navy. I’d joined for all the right reasons–I was patriotic, cared about my country, wanted to do my part and needed the work. It was at the tail end of the “Vietnam era”, though, and honestly, the Navy didn’t need me. The war had ended, there were clearly twice as many guys in the military as necessary and I was greatly distressed by the vast waste of time, talent and especially money that I saw. When I was told to throw away a $1200 gauge which I could’ve fixed in half an hour for less than a dollar, I was done. I took the most efficient way out, which amounted to getting in trouble for one penny-ante thing after another. Because my discharge was under honorable conditions I collected unemployment for a year and went to school on the GI Bill for two, figured I was even and didn’t think about it again until 35 years and one defective eyeball later.
I went back to work after Thanksgiving. It surprised me that driving wasn’t a problem but that looking at a computer screen was. The gas bubble in my right eye jumped around like a flea on a griddle and I wore dark glasses for some time. Christmas was skimpy that year, but Our Apple G4 was still working fine, but after ten years there were so many things it couldn’t do it was like driving a Model T on the freeway. Some friends gave us a newer computer, I sold a few kaleidoscopes and a girl in Japan I’d known from almost my first day on the internet sent me $100. I sent her back a very nice kaleidoscope.
To list all the places my kaleidoscopes have been takes awhile. They’ve gone to several states in the USA, to Canada, Costa Rica, Argentina, Spain, Chile, England, Australia, Japan, Germany, Finland; other crafts of mine are in Africa and Russia and above the Arctic Circle. Those are the ones I know about.
The robin was captured by Laura after the new year and stayed in Georgia until May. She’d been laid off from middle school and hired by her old boss to teach English as a Second Language at the elementary school. She loved the classes but hated her new principal, whom she assessed as a “racist jerk”. A side effect of her frustration was a spectacular garden, which she’d tended so as to work off her annoyance. Her kids were well and Austin was ready for a driver’s license, which he was excited about and his parents weren’t.
The big event that spring was the marriage of Robin’s son Grant to his girlfriend Joie. I presided at the wedding. As a minister, I have a pretty good track record. As far as I know, all my marriages–the earliest in 1975–are still going strong, excepting one at which the couple didn’t have a marriage license. I presided at the vows, but they didn’t want the “piece of paper”.
It was wonderful. Grant and Joie were married under an apple tree in full bloom. The band included a stand-up bass player from Grant’s band plus his father Robin on violin, sister Noelle on guitar, me on banjo and my mother and three sisters singing. After a couple of songs I accompanied my my daughter on guitar while she sang “A, You’re Adorable”, which stole the show. I went to work but got off early and went back to the party, where my son found a Carolina chameleon, which he kept as a pet and named Shim, because we weren’t sure whether it was a boy or a girl.
On my birthday that year I was doing a little maintenance on my car. I had the day off and had been getting phone calls all day. About 7 pm I got a call from Laura. I thought she’d wish me a happy birthday, but Tom had died! He’d been jogging, sat down in the locker room and fell over. He was always a big guy, but seemed to be in good shape, though his diet could have been better. He’d been born on Valentine’s Day in 1952–the day before my childhood best friend Monk. Monk had died at 48, Tom at 58.
I went to Georgia the next morning and stayed until Monday. It was amazing how many people came to the funeral and memorial. Friends and family arrived from Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, the states where he’d coached, and the entire Armuchee Indians high school football team showed up in their uniforms.
Renovations
My brother had a tree fall on his house that spring, and the quote to fix it was several thousand dollars. I looked, decided it wasn’t that bad, and told him I’d give him my shingles at cost if he didn’t mind the color, which was close but a bit lighter. I had a large pile of high-quality shingles left over after my roof replacement 3 years before, and was eager to get rid of them. He agreed. There was some minor structural work, but not near so much as it had appeared, and we did it in the space of a long weekend. I’d quite overloaded our Expedition taking shingles up the mountain; I drove 50 mph in the right lane for most of the distance, but it got hairy at times. When I was finished I left him a few extra squares and he gave me a few yard implements, including a lawnmower and the unicycle I’d tried to talk him out of a year or two before.
Perri and I had long been a part of a group which met on Thursday nights. Some were friends from our now-defunct playgroup. It was more of a meeting than a church. While the kids played we had free-ranging discussions, basically but not exclusively Mennonite. I was familiar with a tangentially-related Quaker group particularly insistent on being called the Society of Friends rather than the Religious Society of Friends, as they maintain Quaker thought is a belief, not a religion. One of the central Mennonite themes is to help others, and we’d often gone with others to feed the homeless or fix up a house. I had a storage shed in my backyard on which I’d replaced the roof and patched it several times. The recurring problem was because the roof was too flat and wouldn’t drain. It was again leaking badly after a hard winter, and one of the group suggested that could be a project for the Greensboro Mennonite church. Over the space of a long weekend we all emptied the shed, tore off the roof, put on a new, sturdy, gabled roof, shored up the masonry walls, shingled it, painted it and did some yardwork. The church took care of the expense except for the shingles, of which I still had several.
When we were done it was painted a cheery white and yellow with a sandy beige roof, but there was more to do. I left the fellow who’d done most of the planning–a contractor in “real life”–with a nice kaleidoscope and started on the other projects. My workshop hadn’t been painted, and I gave it two coats of white with a brown trim. I’d had a carport beside the tool shed which the winter had not been kind to, which I pulled down and rebuilt. Just as I was finishing the rebuild my ladder collapsed and I cracked a rib. I was getting up and Perri called me from the kitchen. The power to half the house had gone out.
It wasn’t a great surprise. Our house had been wired in 1940, 70 years before. Some additional wiring had been added in the 1970s, but the original remained. Part of it, somewhere, had failed, and we ran extension cords from one half of the house to the other. We’d already invited a friend for Thanksgiving, and had to step over extension cords but it came off OK. Perri talked with her sister, and she and her husband John decided to come up from Florida to rewire our house. He was an electrical contractor and brought along his tools.
For the next month the six of us lived with all our furniture piled into the center of each room. We laid out pads in the basement crawl space and pulled up the flooring in the attic. December came in cold, enough that even with a space heater the electrical tape didn’t stick, something new for John from Florida, who only wore shorts. He thought it defective, but when I warmed it up it was fine.
Electricity is hard for most to understand. It’s invisible, almost magical. It’s a little like plumbing, but not really. What it’s more like is the high-pressure steam used to power ships in the Navy. Superheated steam, at 600 or 1200 pounds per square inch, has to flow through insulated pipes, and leaks are not only a nuisance, but dangerous.
Electricity, however, doesn’t flow inside a wire but on its surface. The larger the surface area, the more it’ll carry. For most household wiring bell wire is used; it’s sturdy, withstands heat and won’t flex with the current. Household current naturally has a vibration. Just like a guitar string vibrates when plucked, an electrical wire vibrates. In the USA this is 60 cycles per second. This produces a specific note–a low “B” hum–which can be heard if the current is strong or the sound amplified. This vibrational flexing also leads to metal fatigue, which in household appliance cords is alleviated by bunching several small wires together. When wire is heated and cooled enough, though, smaller wires fail, which leads to faster and greater failure in the rest. The spot of maximum fatigue is next to the plug or at the point where the cord enters the appliance, which is why appliance cords have “boots” on either end. The greater the number of smaller wires in a cord, the greater the amount of current it can carry relative to its size, but also the greater heat buildup where the current meets an obstruction such as a smaller cord or a defective connection. The insulation around a cord also acts as a heat sink. A spliced area should have just as much or more tape or other insulation as was there was originally; a splice should be wider than the cord, not narrower, and splices in house wiring should be made within a junction box so as to isolate and dissipate heat.
In 1940, house wiring was rudimentary. There’d been a light and a socket in each room but not much else. In our house there’d been two circuits, one for the kitchen and one for the rest of the house, and a single telephone, centrally located. None of the wiring had a ground, and switches were installed with scant regard to which side was hot and which neutral. The wires were copper coated with tin, which seemed a good idea as it made soldering connections easy, but a problem developed with screw-tightened outlets and sockets. With repeated heating and cooling, tin became tin oxide, and far less conductive. With the natural 60-cycle vibration inherent in alternating current, the connections loosened ever so slightly and the gradually worsening conditions led to greater heat buildup than the sockets were designed for.
Most splices in non-load-bearing wires are now connected using screw-on nuts instead of soldering, as the nuts not only guarantee a large surface area for connection but also provide separation between splices and a heat sink around each. There’s nothing wrong with other types of splices if they’re done correctly, but one can’t see inside a connection to know it’s done right.
In house wiring in the United States there are two wires providing power to the main box, coded red and black. Either is connected to a neutral, coded white. Hook up red and black and you get 240 volts, which is used for stoves, hot water heaters, clothes dryers and large air conditioners. Hook red or black to white and it’s 120 volts. Regular circuits in a household are hooked to a circuit breaker with a red or black wire to the outside and a neutral bar in the center, which is a grounding connection. Electricity comes through the hot side, the smaller tang on a polarized plug, and returns through the neutral, which is larger to assure a more certain connection. The operation of appliances is generally the same no matter which way the hot and neutral are connected, but if a switch cuts the neutral rather than the hot, the hot wire will be hot even if the switch is off. Anyone working on the wiring can still receive a nasty shock.
If there’s a separate grounding post, this will be the longest of the three, so as to make certain the ground is the first to connect and the last to disconnect should the plug loosen. The ground, which is really a spare for the neutral, can be attached to metal plumbing pipes, a stake driven deep into the ground or to the same center bar as the neutral in the main box.
The need for a grounding wire wasn’t well established until well into the 1950s. At first, grounding outlets were only required if outlets were located within 8 feet of water pipes, for reasons that became clear to me and my friends when we’d touch my refrigerator handle and the water faucet at the same time. A few years later grounding was required in kitchens, bathrooms and outside outlets, and an adaptor was available that converted a 3-prong grounding plug into a 2-prong plug with a green wire or tab to connect to the screw holding the faceplate of the outlet, which only grounded the connection if the outlet box was metal and connected to a metal conduit. Sometimes it was, sometimes not. In most wiring from the 1930s and 1940s the wiring was woven fabric treated with a rodent repellent, so that even with an adaptor connected there was no ground. It wasn’t until the 1970s that grounding receptacles became standard throughout a house, along with polarized plugs for double-insulated items–i.e., items with a non-conductive plastic casing, rather than metal. Even so, grounding adaptors were still available, and widely misused, until the 1990s.
As we started exploring the guts of the house, I with my cracked rib doing very little, we found something strange. The house had supposedly been built in 1940, but the bathtub was dated 1941. I’d also noticed the southeastern half of the house had a far better foundation than the northwestern. When Edward and John started replacing wiring, it was routed oddly. The circuits and breaker box installed in the 1970s were logical, but in the original wiring, one circuit went to the refrigerator and, originally, a well pump under the house, while the other passed over the kitchen, went to a ceiling light and outlets in the parlor, the living room and porch light, then underneath into the crawl space, from whence the two bedrooms and bathroom were hooked up before once again going overhead to the kitchen ceiling. It seemed the house must have been built in stages, the kitchen, parlor and living room finished first and the rest added later at considerably less expense.
The wiring from the 70s also had problems. The interior fusebox remained and a breaker box added outside. Because copper was getting more expensive, the contacts on the 70s breaker box were aluminum–again, something which seemed okay at the time. Aluminum was much lighter and cheaper than copper, and had been used for many years in high-tension wires. There were certain things about aluminum, though, which proved unsuitable for house wiring.
Without special connectors, aluminum wires pit and oxidize, leading to greater resistance, greater heat and a greater chance of fire. It was abandoned for house wiring, but for years was still used in circuit boxes. A special paste was spread on the contacts, but the paste wouldn’t last forever. The contacts corroded and breakers failed. This process accelerated when the breaker box was in the weather, but it was safer there when the breakers failed. The corroded tangs in my breaker box were useless. Over several years the extra tangs were filled up, and full-size breakers replaced with skinny ones which fit two in the same space but generated more heat, corroding faster. By 2010 there were no fresh tangs left, and though the wiring failure wasn’t in the circuit box, the box needed replacing.
John, with Edward as apprentice, pulled out all the wiring. Edward climbed under the house, passed tools, pulled wires, installed junction boxes and learned a great deal about electricity, more than I’d remembered myself. I’d taken a course on the GI Bill which qualified me as a Class B Electrician, a category which had later been eliminated. In the intervening years there’d been several amendments to code and new types of equipment which John knew well. He did it right, putting in a whole-house emergency breaker outside and installing an enormous new breaker box on the back porch, with copper contacts throughout and twenty-five separate circuits, one for every room and every appliance. We replaced every receptacle, switch and socket. After working under the house and in the house we went to the attic, whose floor I’d pieced together from plywood scraps. We piled everything to one side, took up the floor, replaced the wiring, piled the stuff to the other side and replaced all the nails with screws, which electricians prefer. We put a few lights and receptacles in the attic and reorganized the storage. At Christmastime we were still cramped, but most of the work was done. I gave John and Joy my most elaborate stereo Kallistoscope, and a day or two later they were on the road. We spent the next few days cleaning and organizing and by New Year’s were comfortable in our newly rewired home. It had taken over a month and several thousand dollars, which we’d again put on credit cards, but was worth it.
Winter 2011 was a cold one and it snowed several times but we had plenty of wood. Sam had found a better job closer to home. Fran was divorcing her second husband and arranging to revoke her first husband’s rights as heir of record, as she hadn’t seen him in years and he hadn’t paid child support. She’d had to contact him when Sarah died and was surprised he was still alive. Robin and Luanne had fixed up her Colorado house, returned with her departed husband’s jewelry supplies and were making earrings and necklaces by the truckload. They’d taken a jaunt to Florida, spent time at the beach and came back to care for Robin’s house in Boone. It had been used as an upstairs/downstairs apartment for years, which had been grandfathered into the town ordinance, but the city lost the list of exceptions and tried to fine them several thousand dollars. After a thorough search the letter appeared.
Perri and the kids went to Alabama in April to help her mother recover from knee surgery, and they returned in June. They had yearly tests to take. Home schoolers have to meet standards and in North Carolina are tested once a year by assessors. Perri knew one in Winston-Salem who had two daughters Clara Kate’s age, and we went for the day. We toured an interesting excavation outside Salem. Bethabara was a farming community settled by Moravians in the 1750s, with the intention of moving everything to what later became Salem. Most of the buildings were dismantled and moved in the 1760s, leaving only foundations. They were forgotten for two hundred years, until a farmer plowed up several piles of rocks. The records of the abandoned settlement still existed, though nobody had known where it had been, so all of the buildings were identified and tagged with little plaques. Some of it has been reconstructed, and people dressed in period clothes explained it all. Very interesting.
Genny’s son Tristan also took his tests that day, and met us at Bethabara. While the others took a tour, I stayed behind with him learning some tunes on a penny whistle I’d bought at the little museum. Tristan and I explored. There was a large barn filled with tools of the period and on the grounds was a reproduction of a palisade fort constructed for defense during the French and Indian War, enclosing an acre or two of the gray stone foundations. Some were for single men, some for women, some for families, there were communal kitchens and the like, with vegetable and medicinal herb gardens to the side. In the center was a bell, rung for various activities. Tristan was relatively well-behaved, a welcome improvement.
Perri’s birthday was shortly afterwards, and the kids and I made her a puzzle ring. It’d been awhile since I’d made jewelry, but Perri wanted a new ring. I showed Edward and Clara Kate how it was done and let them do much of the work. After that there was a crafts fair in the mountains. Robin and Luanne had signed us up, but when we got there the “crafts fair” was advertised as a “big yard sale”. After two hours it was clear we weren’t going to sell much, so we left and played guitars all night, making up drinking songs and planning a tour of Australia, an Astro*Carto*Graphy “hot spot” for Robin and I.
Robin’s son Grant had a small house down the road and was expanding it to three or four times its size. In the new living room was a picture window with a 2’x 6’ opening overhead. He commissioned me to make a stained glass window, the largest piece I’d ever tried.
I decided to make it in 3 panels. In Grant’s yard there was a geodesic dome used as a studio, and I made a stylized dome for the center panel, with Grant and his wife Joie smiling within. To one side was a day scene in springtime, to the other a night scene in winter. It took a lot of planning and sketching and time, and though I had stained glass on hand it wasn’t nearly enough. For the springtime there was a big sunburst in the corner. By chance, I’d dropped something on a light blue panel I was planning to use and shattered it, but the cracks fanning out from the middle made a perfect start for the sun’s rays fanning out across the sky. The rest of the sky was taken up with clouds and progressively darker blues, while the mountains and trees below were done in greens, with a pond and creek in aqua winding through. The nighttime side featured a sky in progressively darker shades of purple, with the moon and several stars done in a striated clear glass. The mountains were angular and the trees rounded in the springtime, the reverse in the winter, with angular, conical, snow capped trees and round mountains, an icy pond fed by a frozen brook between them. The dome was yellow and orange near the sun, fading into deep brown shadows. Grant installed it reversed from the direction I’d intended, with the sun and springtime to the right and the winter to the left, matching the location of his house. It looked great.
Clara Kate had acquired a new pet over the summer, a box turtle she named Michell, for whom we built an enclosed area with a small pond and plenty of shade. Perri read up on box turtles and decided to build him a spot across the yard, a bit more in the sun and out of the flood plain (such as there was), next to the glass shack. We now had four pets–a parakeet couple named Millie and Dixie, a turtle and Edward’s Carolina chameleon Shim. For some years we’d also kept two of our neighbor’s dogs, which I didn’t mind as she tended them, though they’d periodically escape, showing up tired and hungry in the evening. Towards the end of summer only one came back, and as one of her other dogs had died she took the remaining dog to her pen and we were out of the dog business. It may have led to a larger number of deer checking out our garden in the middle of the night, but the dogs never scared off that many. A fairly good deterrent seemed to be to periodically sprinkle cayenne pepper over everything, and pee along the perimeter late at night.
Laura was doing well. It’d been over a year since Tom had died and she was moving on. She was pursuing a master’s degree with the intention of teaching technology to grades k-12. Her two boys were in high school, and both in band camp for the summer. They were checking out colleges, one of which was Berea College in Kentucky. I knew Berea, and loved it. All the students receive a full scholarship, but all need to demonstrate financial need. They could go there if Laura was poor enough, which was iffy.
I don’t mind the family leaving for six weeks or so once or twice a year. The kids visit their cousins and Perri helps her parents, who are getting older–her mother in 2009 was 79 and father 81–while I hang out in the house and leave my clothes on the floor if I feel like it.
Men are fundamentally different from women in this. No matter how much women think men could or should care about certain things, they have other interests. Women do more housework because they want a clean house. Men don’t care so much.
Women may see this lack of interest in the condition of the home as something deliberate on a man’s part, but that’s a mistake. Men like other things. Sometimes men’s interests may seem childish, but it’s entirely wrong to think a man is a child. He may put up with being treated as one and even appreciate it occasionally, but he’s not a child and sooner or later will not consent, at which point a woman will learn to respect him as a man, or lose him.
In the summer of 2009 we were invited to a condo in Myrtle Beach for the weekend, and Robin, Luanne, her daughter and granddaughter came along. We had a place to stay at the resort as long as we attended a sales pitch, and they got a motel a few miles away. We had a great time. The resort had plenty of amenities–a pool, tennis courts, etc., but the main attraction of course was the beach. Our friends Randy and Pat had gone to a promotional weekend and purchased two weeks. They traded out their weeks nearly every year and went all over the country, but we’d been happy with our relatively unpopular week at Massanutten and had never exchanged. Massanutten was close to home, and uncrowded in our “off” week. We once visited Mount Vernon, where George Washington lived, and had been in the midst of thousands of jostling tourists while trying to get a glimpse or feel of what it must have been like in Washington’s day, which was impossible. At Massanutten in the “premium”–and far more expensive–weeks, there were three or four times as many people, which complicated everything. Other attractions were also less crowded in April, the staff less overworked, in a better mood and more willing to help. The same went for Myrtle Beach in the summertime–we had a great time at the condo feeding swans, playing guitars and going to the beach, but far less fun going to town, jostling in the crowds. We contemplated buying a week at the beach but decided against it. We returned to Swepsonville well relaxed and my brother and his people went back to the mountains to fix up his house.
Robin & Luanne did a lot of fighting with lawyers. A local judge, who’d seemed to my mother to have been one of the good guys, had instead proven to be in cahoots with a couple shady lawyers who’d raided the trust fund Anne’s grandparents had set up for the grandkids, treating it as a personal piggybank. Robin had his run-ins with the law–he counted a total of 9 times he’d been in jail for one minor thing or another–but that didn’t mean he was hopeless in legal matters.
That fall several Mennonites went for a campout at Hanging Rock. We split up during the day but came together for a large communal dinner. Afterwards we sat around the campfire and played guitars. One couple–Jeff and Clare–was very interesting. Jeff knew some riffs and shuffles I was unfamiliar with, and Clare’s father, like mine, had been in television when she was a kid. We chatted around the fire as it burned to embers.
The next morn was Sunday, and the group assembled for a service, with guitars and clarinets and drums and horns, but as we started the park ranger told us not to play, which was something new, as they’d done it for some years without a fuss. Keith and Tammy thought it was probably the ranger’s preference rather than a camp rule. I didn’t care. Sunday service never appealed to me anyway. We all sat around instead and discussed our lives, which was more interesting. Several of the folks had been missionaries in various parts of the world, and many had grown up in faraway places. One family was from Ethiopia, and several had recently returned from Morocco, Egypt, China, Peru.
Another Marriage
In 2010 Frances and Ray had been together for more than a year, and now that both were divorced were free to marry. The ceremony was in a ballroom in Asheville with dining and dancing afterwards. Perri and I came the day before and toured the Biltmore House  with the kids. Biltmore is essentially a castle, built by George Vanderbilt just before the 20th century. He’d toured the castles of Europe and wanted to build something magnificent in America. In the 1890s he built his own railroad to haul in marble and lumber. It was a working farm as well as a residence for George, his wife and child and whatever visitors came to stay, of which there were many. There was a bowling alley, a swimming pool, a workout gym, changing rooms and servants’ quarters by the dozen. He was progressive for the time, seeing to it that the staff was well provided for. There were vineyards for wine and acreage for vegetables and fruit trees and game for hunting. Dinners were always sumptuous and almost entirely supplied from the grounds, which were developed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park. The mansion has remained in the Vanderbilt family and was a private residence until the 1950s, when it was opened to the public as a sort of museum. After the tour we moved on to a display of Tiffany stained glass at one of the galleries in the village.
Louis Comfort Tiffany invented copper foiling. Before his time glass pieces were surrounded with a lead channel, the lead soldered at the seams and filled with grout. The Tiffany technique made for much more slender and elegant channeling around the stained glass and correspondingly a much greater transmission of light. It was a superior lamp shade, and Tiffany set up a studio in New York City, where he sold them for what would amount to a year’s pay for most people. He based most of his designs on nature–leaves and flowers and branches–and made lampshades both for kerosene lanterns, which were still widely used, and for electric lamps, which were relatively new.
After the Tiffany exhibit we stopped at the blacksmith shop, and he put on quite a show. He began by playing a tune on the anvil with his hammer–the first “heavy metal music”, he said. He proceeded to show how to fire up a coke fire. Coal, when partially burned, turns to coke, which produces a hot fire without smoke or fumes. He heated a steel bar, cranking a hand-powered fan to add heat and pouring water around the edges, which sounds counter-intuitive, but above 1500ºF water breaks into its components, hydrogen and oxygen, producing an even hotter fire. When his rod was heated to a bright yellow he banged it into a leaf shape on the anvil, adding small pieces, shaping the leaf’s veins and details. He then cut it from the rod by beating it over a sharp edge, heated the stem, beat it slender and added a curve to make it into a fob for a keychain. A very interesting  and informative presentation, after which I asked him a few questions. He’d grown up a few miles away in Tennessee, and had been a blacksmith all his life, making his first leaf when he was 15. He never wore gloves–he said when you don’t wear gloves your hands make their own gloves–and had been working at the Biltmore, demonstrating blacksmithing, maintaining the estate, for fourteen years. I showed him my puzzle rings.
Perri and I stopped for a picnic in the park before going to the local Aldi’s grocery and the Goodwill. Aldi is a German chain which operates in the most minimal way possible and offers great prices; I needed a pair of pants because I’d mistakenly packed my son’s pants for the ceremony instead of mine. The Goodwill in Asheville was a good one; we got several very nice shirts, a set of ruby-glass goblets and gave $1 for a jigsaw puzzle we’d seen selling at the Biltmore that afternoon for $12. The ruby goblets were particularly a prize; I’ve always picked up colored glassware to use around the house, with the intention of using any broken glass in my kaleidoscopes. There’s plenty of green, brown, blue and yellow available, but red glass is expensive and rare. “Red” glassware is usually a thin film coating over clear, useless for kaleidoscopes, as the coating flakes off and sticks to the inside of the color wheel.
About Television
We went back to the Holiday Inn to make a few sandwiches for dinner and watch television. Since the kids were born we haven’t had cable TV, so television’s something of a treat for them, though when I was in my 20s we didn’t have a television in the house at all. No computer or internet, either, so it’s not the same for them, as they see a fair number of shows over the air, pulled up on the internet or on DVD, plus movies and games.  From late 1973 to about 1985 I didn’t watch television, and feel it was a great advantage. I learned many skills I wouldn’t have bothered with had I been sitting in front of the boob tube. Instead of watching Laverne & Shirley, I was making ever more elaborate puzzle rings from silver and gold. I learned to sew, to make bamboo flutes, wooden toys. I made metal sculptures with an acetylene torch, learned how to throw pots, paint signs. The only disadvantage was that when I heard a joke, it’d almost certainly have been told on Saturday Night Live or Happy Days or Saved by the Bell, and what I found fresh and funny and new would’ve been heard by others several times before. My cultural references stopped. When everyone was breathless over Who Shot JR, I didn’t have any idea who JR was and when my friends said “Dyn-O-Mite!” I had no clue why. I made things and read books, I didn’t watch shows. Working at the school I cleaned up and on my lunch hour read kids’ books. When I sold ski tickets I read a book a day. In the afternoons I’d bang out rings, sew hats, play harmonica. I’d read a book while lying in bed instead of watching Jay Leno.
We’re not anti-technology. I think it was great for me not to have a TV all those years, but we have one now, in our bedroom with an over-the-air antenna. In the living room we have one hooked up to a DVD, VCR and Netflix, and the kids have devices to play games. They can use them whenever they’ve done their schoolwork and chores, but we have control.
Edward has an X-box, which I had to take apart a couple times to open the DVD drawer. I finally removed the entire plastic case. The warranty is, of course, voided, but since when is a warranty worth the hassle? On most fairly cheap items the “shipping and handling” charge is equal to the original price! This is no warranty at all, and should be clearly stated on the package. Harry Truman once proposed a law that whoever manufactured a product would be required to provide replacement parts for 25 years. I have hundreds of VCR tapes which I have no intention of trashing, but they’re only playable on VCRs, which are less and less available. I pick them up for $5 or $10 at the thrift store, but if one craps out it can’t be fixed. I once picked up a fancy VCR which originally sold for a thousand dollars and was worthy of the price–case of cast aluminum, solid steel parts–but was made before remote controls, so it sold for $1. I used it for years but when a minor part wore out it was unavailable at any price, and a VCR which had given good service for fifteen years was a piece of junk for want of a $2 part. By then a new VCR sold for $25, but it was plastic. It wouldn’t last a fifth as long.
It’s a mixed bag. Had Harry Truman had his way, no new VCRs would’ve been available at $25, but parts for quality VCRs would have kept most out of the landfill. Electronic products have a short life, but why is debatable; many are simply obsolete. At the school sale there were entire pallets stacked with computers, shrink-wrapped, 6 feet high, for a dollar. No takers. Huge, heavy, fancy rear-projection TVs which sold for thousands were five years later selling for $100, and cell phones more than a few years old are worth nothing at all. Twenty-five years is too long to be practical, but five or ten would be nice.
I propose a similar law. No crazy screws. All products should be serviceable with regular tools. I like puttering with old mechanical things, and they don’t have screws with a triangle on top. I’m glad to see them in demand, too. Typewriters I picked up for $5 years ago are being refurbished and sold for hundreds. Old box cameras I paid 59¢ for as a child are $50 and up. Antique sewing machines I’d buy for $20 sell for hundreds. Old toasters, coffee pots, fans, clocks, movie projectors, adding machines sit in the corner of my attic. My wife isn’t always happy, but love me, love my junk.
Fran’s letter was written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. She and Ray had just returned from a lovely honeymoon in Jamaica and she was the happiest she’d been in years. Ray had found a job after almost a year, and she’d put the chaos behind her. Her oldest son, his wife and daughter lived close by, her daughter not many miles away and her second son was doing well in school. Sam was happy with his new job, for an accounting firm. Barry was dealing with Verizon termination #2, but with Sam’s income, the second job loss didn’t hurt much. Robin held the robin until November, which was National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, and in 30 days he had a first draft. Not necessarily a good novel, he pointed out, and described his as “horrendous”, involving telepathic mind-controlling space aliens and too many plot twists to follow. Luanne had discovered ultra-couponing, and they’d seen a candy display at the pharmacy with candy at 99¢, buy one, get one free.  In addition, there were 50¢ coupons on each package, so after the coupons, they were–free!  He bought them all–a dozen bars or so–for a few cents in sales tax.
I continued my memoirs and decided I’d be all scribbled out at 1000 pages.  I typed 130 pages and took it to the mountains at Thanksgiving.  My sister’d also been writing a book, a new version, balanced, fair, well written. She related a hilarious tale from the first grade. Seeing that her friends with bag lunches could trade sandwiches and desserts, she decided she wanted a bag lunch as well.  It became a test of her mother’s love. Mother failed miserably. Instead of making a sandwich, she had Genny make her own sandwich.  Strike one.  She packed an apple for dessert, worthless for a trade.  Strike two.  Finally, she packed it in a grocery bag instead of a lunch-sized bag.  Strike three, her mother didn’t love her! She was so overcome by emotion she sat under a pine tree, cried and was late for school.  When she arrived the teacher saw she was upset, but instead of telling the teacher that her mother didn’t love her and her lunch bag was too big, she said three boys had chased her.
Well, the principal was called – a huge man – and vowed to “get to the bottom of this.”  Genny couldn’t identify any of the mythical bullies, since there weren’t any, and it was resolved with Genny promising to identify the bullies and praying to God not to tell Santa Claus what a bad girl she’d been, lying about her lunch.
We all read to each other, and mother cleared up a few details I’d scrambled.  It was interesting to hear the same incidents from three perspectives, and the unfamiliar details in the lives of other family members. My project was a retelling of my life, a time-lime, with detours for philosophy, the outline rudimentary. At eleven I’d started a diary, and I maintained a journal or record until my late twenties. I stopped because they didn’t seem to do me much good. Page after page of failed romances, I felt like hell.  It didn’t occur to me that the hell was a psychological tape loop installed by the manufacturer, that there wasn’t a plan my father wouldn’t overturn, that any business, project, dream, or romance would end with a torpedo to the gut.  It surprised me that writing memoirs worked so strongly on my emotions. Scribbling on paper reminded me of the endless treacheries, guilt mongering, worthless promises forgotten before they were made. My own lack of willingness to forgive.
It’s popular to state one should forgive whether another deserves it or not. It didn’t work for me. He’d aced me out of every family activity; I was in none of the plays–Life with Father, A Christmas Carol, Peter Pan–in which everyone else participated. I didn’t go to school with any of my siblings. I was in none of the movies, commercials. I was eighteen before I took part in a family production, the band, and at the pinnacle of our success my father slapped away my first fan. He gutted me, for no reason other than I was liked.
I’m better than he was. I respect my kids. I don’t hurt them, steal their things, feed them rancid and insulting “insights” dressed up as psychology. I treat them right, don’t tear them down, don’t give their things away, sell them without consent, belittle their accomplishments. If I make a promise I try to keep it. A couple years ago I was given a van and thought about selling my Cadillac, which I’d promised to Edward. I saw that he’d be hurt if I sold it, and didn’t. That was the right thing. It felt good. Pretending a forgiveness that I didn’t feel, didn’t.  Truth counts. I count. I have integrity. I believe in myself, my essential honesty. That means something. It’s important. Powerful.
I can forgive my father for stealing my tools, wrecking my pond, keeping more than his half of profits, breaking promises. What I won’t forgive is intangible. The contention that others should be forgiven for one’s own comfort–well meaning and truthful as it is for many–is to me the same oppressive crap I was forced into agreeing with when I’d signed up for algebra instead of wood shop.  What is liberating to me isn’t forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it. I did that for years. I made excuses. My father was a prisoner. His father was a tyrant. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. and etc. I forgave him and forgave again, again, again. Still felt like crap.  The truth was, I did forgive him, for everything except that which he took which had no value to him, to anyone but me. My glory.
I won’t pretend to give it a pass. Forgiveness, like respect, is earned. Whatever there is of karma or limbo or heaven and hell or purgatory or repentance, that is for his soul, not mine. I have no guilt for what I don’t feel. He never made things right. That’s the truth, and it gives me peace. The universe can forgive him. It’s not my responsibility. When the fires of hell burn out, he’ll be forgiven.
Back to the Future, or something like it
Christmas came on December 25th, surprising no one. We didn’t have a lot of money, for the fifth or sixth year in a row, but money is the least of considerations at Christmastime. We spent $100 or so at thrift stores and discount outlets, and made several of our presents for each other. Edward made a cute pillow with a funny face, long arms and legs for Clara Kate. Perri made multi-color monkey pillows for the kids which wrapped around their necks. I’d planned to make hats, but the others had tied up the sewing machine for so long and I didn’t have the time. The weather was mild, the house peaceful and warm.
On the final day of 2011 I’d scribbled one thousand pages of  this narrative on twelve legal pads, and after four years and uncounted retellings and rereadings of favorite episodes as bedtime stories, countless questions to my parents, siblings, cousins, friends as to what happened that time so many years ago, and who was there, can you get in touch with them, how did it happen, was that before or after the other thing? At the end of all that, in the hours before the New Year, for no reason other than a thousand pages seemed a good place to stop, I wrote–
THE END

—————Notes—————-

“War Stories” adapted from “From Mumbly-Pegs to Hell and Back” by Ned and Genevieve Austin, 1990s

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When adults don’t pay attention it doesn’t bother me. Adults choose their life, but it annoys me when children have poor health, allergies, mental problems or diseases and parents don’t have the will, or simply awareness, to help the kids eat right. Kids who start life with poor diets later have difficulties, for the rest of their lives.
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Perri smoked, but I’d been vegetarian over half my life and hadn’t smoked in years. I didn’t try to change her, but within a few weeks she’d quit smoking, and eating meat except for occasional fish. I was pleased. People do what they want, and when they’re ready they’ll listen. Some folks find religion, some want health, some want to keep their boyfriends. I don’t judge unless I’m asked to, and even then not one person in fifty pays attention. It’s a nice surprise when they do.
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I’d had a green 1972 Dodge Coronet for a couple years, a great car that didn’t get very good gas mileage, and bought a Toyota station wagon from my brother, who’d become a used car salesman. The Toyota had 160,000 miles but came with a little notebook in the glove box detailing everything that had been done it, a habit I immediately adopted.
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Trump loves a scrap, and that’s why the “deplorables” love Trump (and that ONE WORD lost about 5 states for Hillary!). I didn’t vote for the guy either, but I like him one hell of a lot better than any democrat I can name except Tulsi and kinda-sorta Bernie, who talks a good game but folds way too quickly. The ones I truly despise are the corporate sellouts like the Clintons, the DNC, Biden, and 90+% of the democratic field–and I was a registered democrat for 44 years.

astro stuff

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Oct 4, 2021

No year can go by without three or four mercury retro periods, as mercury’s year is only 88 days. Because venus and mars orbit at something approaching the same speed as earth, in no year will they be retro more than once, and in many years will skip the retro entirely. For jupiter outwards, every planet will spend from four months to 5-1/2 retro, but only when all these planets line up roughly opposite the sun will they be retro at the same time. This demonstrates just how very slow the outer planets are; in the springtime, early 1980s, uranus, neptune and pluto were in this area as the jupiter/saturn conjunction joined them; the next jupiter/saturn conjunction, in the 2000s, was out of phase for the retro, and by 2021, 40 years later, uranus had only progressed 5 signs, neptune 3 and pluto, 4 (it has a weird orbit which placed it closer than neptune for awhile). Thus they’re still all close together in the retro area, now in the fall, and after 40 years the second jupiter/saturn conjunction has joined them. This means the 5 outer planets are all retro together from Aug. 20th to Oct. 7th, and mercury makes six!

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sept 22-2021

The sun will enter libra today, or to put it differently, the sun as seen from the earth (represented by the center circle in the chart) appears to move into libra (represented by the line between the virgo and libra glyphs around the edge of the chart). While the chart as a whole is rotating clockwise at 1º every four minutes, the sun (as seen from the earth) is moving counterclockwise at 1º per day. Opposite the sun are all the planets except mercury and venus, which are always close to the sun, and mars, now only 4º away and getting closer, as the sun moves twice as fast. Any planets in approximately the one-third of the sky opposite the sun will be retrograde, as the earth (in the center) is moving faster in relation to the sun and appears to overtake them all, at rates depending on distance: about 1º per month for uranus, neptune and pluto, 2º for saturn, 4º for jupiter and 8º for mars. Currently, all the planets from jupiter outwards are in the third of the sky between taurus and capricorn, and thus retrograde (the moon is too, but it’s never retro). Mercury will also go retro in about a week, at a rate of about 1º per day, but it stays close to the sun. Expect confusion and distraction, planned and unplanned, until mid-October, but things buried for years will be revealed in the next four months.

 

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The faces (or decans) in the Chaldean scheme are ruled by the planets in turn, but there’s a problem~mars rules two in a row (end of pisces, beginning of aries) for no apparent reason. The other scheme allots the second and third decans to the rulers of the other signs in the element; the three decans of aries (fire element) are thus mars (aries), sun (leo), jupiter (sagittarius), taurus decans are venus (taurus), mercury (virgo) and saturn (capricorn), etc. I don’t pay much attention to the terms or the decans, personally; I like to keep things simple and don’t care for the clutter. If you go down that rabbit hole you can put in Arabic parts, god only knows how many asteroids, etc. After a certain point all you have is mud.

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It certainly can be subjective, which depends on the desires and orientation of the astrologer, the client, the planets, the time of day, phase of the moon, etc. From one generation to another the perspective and focus changes as well; on average just over 50% of all people should have one or more planets in scorpio, but for anyone born in the 2nd half of the 20th century the likelihood is over 95%. I don’t have one, so it often seems I’m on a rubber raft at sea when everyone else is talking scorpio-type themes; I can’t relate. Most born from 1995 onwards don’t have this strong scorpio theme in common, and everyone discussing generational differences notices a real change in gestalt at that time, whether they know anything about astrology or not.

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My parents had my chart drawn when I was born and I carried it in my wallet from the time I was ten; I didn’t find anyone who could tell me anything about it for years, and with my first paycheck at 16 bought a bunch of astrology books and learned to draw and interpret charts on my own. I tried to make a go of it when I was in my 20s but never made enough in my shop to do more than pay my share of the rent. It has however been incredibly useful and inspiring over the past 52 years (am I really that old?). It takes a lot of years to read charts reliably but I did have some notable successes. About my seventh year of drawing charts I remember telling a friend not to party at a certain house on the beach on a certain weekend; as it happened the PRESIDENT visited the house next door and they all would’ve been busted! The one thing that will never change is that no two charts are alike; they may have things in common but every chart is unique, and demands a unique answer~

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Anybody can be a fraud, so I won’t say astrologers can’t be, but people have their specialties and compatibilities; an astrologer can be a wonderful counselor to one person and struggle with another. Some people will hear and follow your advice, others will hear what they want even if it’s not really what you said. One of the problems is also the fight for the almighty dollar; it’s hard to refuse that $50 consultation when your refrigerator’s empty and you’re low on gas, even if you said everything you could think to say last week. It’s why I don’t much do that anymore; far too often I felt as if I were being drained, rather than being inspirational~

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I want to see the patterns. Set the rulerships in a circle and the sun and moon (leo and cancer) are next to each other, mercury (gemini and virgo) next to those, venus (taurus/libra) next to mercury, mars (aries/scorpio) next to venus, jupiter (sagittarius/pisces) next and saturn (capricorn/aquarius) the two signs opposite the sun/moon. Masculine and feminine signs alternate, and each planet rules one masculine and one feminine (except sun/moon, one apiece). The planet ruling the opposite sign is in its detriment, and the exaltation and fall make a certain sense of their own, rather like music theory. I don’t use terms, but they’re based on “critical degrees” timed to the motion of the moon; a term is approximately half-a-day’s moon motion. Faces are essentially decanates, 10º divisions of the signs, which I also don’t pay much attention to but I’d hardly call anyone an idiot for using them. Ptolemy was a smart guy, he didn’t just make this stuff up.

And also, regarding planets ruling houses:
Everyone has their techniques, but I’ve never said planets rule houses. I relate the houses to the activities one is involved in when the sun transits that area of the sky. From about 6-8 AM one is in a netherworld between awake and asleep (the 12th house), while the opposite, 6-8 PM (the 6th house), one is leaving the business world and settling into the personal. The 11th is 8-10 AM; one greets co-workers and has meetings of a business or non-romantic type; from 8-10 PM (5th house) people socialize, look for romance and generally avoid business. The houses rule these opposites; they also relate in thirds such as 2-6-10 which rule various types of personal possessions, jobs, finance or 4-8-12 which are family and other people’s needs or property, but a house is not a sign, and I feel it’s a stretch to combine the two or to claim a planet rules a house. My 2¢.

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Once I had a job where I could walk home late at night, for about a mile, through a deep valley oriented east to west. It was in a little town far from city lights and I found my way by the light of the moon, or if there was no moon by the light of venus, which cast a deep purple shadow, by jupiter, whose shadow was a royal blue, or saturn, a slate grey. I could never detect a shadow cast by mars; it’s just not bright enough, though the expected shadow would be a shade of green. The town is much bigger now and there are too many lights to see such shadows, even in a deep valley late at night. It’s too bad; they’re magical.

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Anybody can be a fraud, so I won’t say astrologers can’t be, but people have their specialties and compatibilities; an astrologer can be a wonderful counselor to one person and struggle with another. Some people will hear and follow your advice, others will hear what they want even if it’s not really what you said. One of the problems is also the fight for the almighty dollar; it’s hard to refuse that $50 consultation when your refrigerator’s empty and you’re low on gas, even if you said everything you could think to say last week. It’s why I don’t much do that anymore; far too often I felt as if I were being drained, rather than being inspirational~

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Astrology is related to meteorology. An astrologer is in many ways a weatherman, a forecaster. About 90% of the population lives above the equator, and for them the midsummer sun, in leo, is strong and hot; this month is said to be “ruled” by the sun. The opposite month, in midwinter, is “ruled” by the cold, dark planet saturn. Other planets “rule” other months in direct relation to their distance from the sun. This is the nature of “rulership”

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The quincunx aspect (sometimes called inconjunct), is almost opposite but not quite; these are five and seven signs distant in the zodiac (150º apart). One sign is “feminine” (of the earth or water element), the other “masculine” (fire or air), but they share neither element, nor quality (cardinal, fixed or mutable are the qualities; these being the first, second or third month of the season) so this aspect is often found in crazy, overly-dramatic romances.
In my experience, there’s a very strong attraction from a sign towards the nearer, fifth sign, but not much towards the seventh. Aries is attracted to virgo, but not to scorpio; to aries, virgo seems organized and practical whereas scorpio just seems obsessed and extreme. Aries is impulsive and passionate, but to virgo this appears unhinged or unreliable, and virgo, instead, is attracted to aquarius, who’s intrigued by cancer. Cancer in turn moons over sagittarius, who hardly notices cancer while trying to chat up taurus, without much success. Taurus is baking cookies for libra, libra is sighing over pisces, pisces is writing poetry for leo, and leo is hanging around hoping capricorn will pass by. Capricorn does pass, right on by, intrigued instead by gemini, who is bewitched by scorpio, who is bedeviled by aries. Aries is, naturally, showing off for virgo who is, of course, entranced by aquarius. Ring-around-the-rosy, a merry chase!
Much more compatible, but not as dramatic, are the signs next to each other, the “semi-sextiles”(30º apart). These are also feminine-to-masculine and share neither element nor quality, BUT will often share venus, mercury or both, planets which cannot be shared by signs in quincunx (mercury will never be further from the sun than one sign, venus one-and-a-half). This provides a level of communication and harmony between signs otherwise, in many ways, “incompatible”.

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My wife is a cancer and I’m a gemini, we’ve been together 38 years. It’s a good match, though we usually end up spending about a month apart each year. Sometimes, she has her life, I have mine.
We have some friends, he’s pisces, she’s aquarius, they’ve been together 40+. My brother, capricorn, was married 25 years to a sagittarius before she died. I think in general the semi-sextile is a good match, though yes, the two signs are very different. That keeps it interesting!

actually it’s more than just sun signs. Our moon signs are also semi-sextile, as are our rising signs! 

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People find themselves in the same patterns, somehow. I don’t truly believe in coincidence. Sometimes we can’t see, or understand, the pattern, but it’s there. This time, three cancers married to three leos. Awhile back, my wife and I had two couples over, it turned out all of us were married to semi-sextile partners, and all had leo mothers except one; she had a leo father! The random chance of that is clearly thousands-to-one, but I don’t see it as chance. I spent about five years thumbing around the country when I was in my 20s, and had friends I’d drop in on in half a dozen states. It was eerie how many times I’d find people in the same situations~the same players, the same circles of similar friends~thousands of miles apart. I attended a memorial in New York State, a couple years before The Big Chill came out. The friend was named Al, he died in a Porsche, the “cast of characters” was similar, and we all stayed the weekend at a big old house on a lake. I knew a Red-Haired Rick in North Carolina, another in Texas; they looked alike and acted alike; one was a few inches taller. I sat at two rustic tables in two similar bars a thousand miles apart. Five guys at the table, four named Dave. At one the fifth guy was named Dan, at the other, Don. I met a guy with my first name, we both had a younger brother named Rob, owned the same color and size car and had lived within a few miles of each other in three different states. I dropped in on the family who lived in the house I grew up in. The son looked like me and had the same job; his father was a teacher and mother a hairdresser; my father was a barber and my mother a teacher. I could go on for the rest of the day, but you get the point~

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Usually “pop” astrology will state that earth and water are compatible, as are air and fire. Superficially, this is correct, but real relationships are much deeper; people are compatible in some ways but not others, and what’s important is that they’re compatible in a few ways and willing to overlook the rest. I call these toothpaste-tube issues; I often hear, “I could NEVER live with someone who….(squeezes the toothpaste tube in the middle, etc.) Guess what? You’re not gonna find anyone who matches everything on your list. Nobody’s perfect!

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This is a chart drawn for the moment a question is asked (“horary”, “of the hour”). The querent (the one who asks the question) is a leo, and he’ll be putting on a presentation.
Only the traditional, “visible” planets, and their rulerships, are considered, because the outer planets are very slow moving and far away~if you have a flat tire, you don’t care about the rubber crop in India, though that may be of interest to a tire retailer six months from now.
We start with the chart ruler, the ruler of the ascendant, libra, which is venus. Venus is in virgo, and since venus is in the sign of virgo it’s “disposed of” by mercury. Mercury is in leo or “disposed of” by the sun, and the sun is in its own sign, leo, so it’s the “final dispositor”.
The focus of the chart is on a presentation which is beautiful (chart ruler venus), which is achieved through planning and attention to detail (venus in virgo). Virgo is ruled by mercury, and mercury in leo indicates success through the leo desire to show off, stand straight, project confidence. This is very strong in the chart, as sun, moon and mercury are all in leo. The aspectarian (aspect list) shows this in red, indicating “bad”, but this applies to planets too near the sun in general, not specifically when the sun is strong in its home in leo. The whole point of this chart is to project strength, so in this case and with this sun placement it’s good. We ignore uranus, neptune and pluto (the price of rubber in India six months from now) and only look at jupiter and saturn. They’re in saturn’s sign, aquarius, and not involved with the other five planets, just doing their own thing on the other side of the sky. Eventually everything needs maintenance, but for now the opposition of these two slower planets doesn’t mean much. Final conclusion: Organize, walk tall, put on a show and everything should go well.

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The charts for the USA (sagittarius rising), the Pearl Harbor attack, the battle of Midway, the election of 2020 and inauguration of 2021.
I’ve stated before that the election of 2020 resembled the battle of Midway; to clarify, I should’ve said the election chart resembles Pearl Harbor, which produced Midway. Let’s look at why.
A quick glance at the Pearl Harbor chart vs. the 2020 election reveals a striking visual similarity; firstly, they simply look alike. Also, both began with four planets retro, mars in aries, and saturn conjunct outer planet(s) in earth signs. The Midway vs. election comparison reveals mercury retro for both, with mars and jupiter weak and venus strong. Finally, the inauguration chart contains a huge number of squares and, like Midway, the moon in its last degree.
The main point to remember about Midway is that the attackers were hugely confident and at first appeared to be annihilating the enemy; from the afternoon of June 3rd until mid-morning of June 4th, the Americans attacked, scored zero hits and lost about 50 planes, while the Japanese lost half-a-dozen.
By 10:20 am, about nineteen hours after their initial attack, the Americans were down to their last available planes, still having hit nothing. Suddenly, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, five minutes and nine bombs later, three Japanese aircraft carriers were doomed, followed by their fourth a few hours later. Three hundred years of Japanese dominance in the Pacific, gone.

USA (Sibly chart):
https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Nation:_USA_No.1
Pearl Harbor:
https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Military:_Pearl_Harbor
Midway:
https://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?clang=e;btyp=w2at;rs=3;nhor=86
Election 2020 (at sunrise in the eastern USA):
https://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?clang=e;btyp=w2at;rs=3;nhor=90
Inauguration 2021:
https://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?clang=e;btyp=w2at;rs=3;nhor=91Nation: USA No.1, horoscope for birth date 4 July 1776, born in Philadelphia, with Astrodatabank biography – Astro-DatabankHoroscope and astrology data of Nation: USA No.1 born on 4 July 1776 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with biography

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An astrology chart is divided into twelve sections or “houses” based on divisions of twos and threes and their multiples. In all practical matters this geometry is essential; square rooms are useful, but are made with triangles reinforcing the corners because triangles are strong. Without triangles, squares are weak. This applies to all of nature; a cubic crystal (salt) is soft; one with a triangular or hexagonal structure (quartz) is hard. It applies in music; an octave is a sound wave exactly half as long as another, and a harmonic is a third or two-thirds as long. Bridges are built with harmonics in mind; the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse in 1940 illustrates why. When one hears about “angles” and “aspects” and “compatibility” in a chart, it’s literally geometry, applied to the concerns of everyday life.

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2021

Mercury has left gemini, where it lollygagged for over two months (May 4th-July 12th). It will spend far less time in cancer, leo and virgo, 16-18 days each, then hang out in libra, again for over two months (Aug. 30th-Nov. 5th) before heading into scorpio. These two-month periods are the limit for how long mercury can spend in a sign; by the time its next retrograde period arrives in January of 2022 it will follow a much more familiar pattern, starting in aquarius, retrograding into capricorn and then back into aquarius. Gemini (and Trump, with a gemini sun) has enjoyed a long period of development and will now have a two-week period of frustration before mercury proceeds into leo, virgo and libra, all more harmonious. From the end of July through the first week of November things go smoothly again.

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When I saw this Juneteenth was made a federal holiday, the first thing I thought was, mercury retrograde, this won’t be good. I suspect some years down the road it’ll be known for “the Juneteenth massacre”, or something like that~

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Mutual reception refers to the ruler of one planet in the home of another, for example venus in aries, mars in taurus. In mutual reception, both planets are enhanced and strengthened regardless of whether they’re considered dignified (well placed, strong) or debilitated (weakened). They reinforce and support each other. Mutual reception favors a deep, complex, nuanced understanding of what is usually seen as simple and straightforward. In a chart with mutual reception there is no “final dispositor”, no single planet in its own home which provides a significant, obvious solution.

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Horary astrology question: My son asked, “where is my wallet?”. The chart is radical (fit to be judged) because the ascendant (libra) is in the middle of the sign, neither in the first couple degrees nor the last. Ruler of the chart, venus (ruler of libra ascendant or “rising sign”). Venus is in gemini; the ruler of gemini or “dispositor” of venus is mercury, which is in its own sign, making mercury the “final dispositor”. The rising sign is of the cardinal quality (libra, capricorn, aries or cancer, the first months of their respective seasons) so the item will be found quickly. A wallet indicates money, ruled by the second house of possessions. The second house in the chart is ruled by scorpio, which indicates stagnant water, sewers etc. and bathrooms, which is where the wallet will be located. Mercury, the final dispositor, is in the ninth house, above the ground and in an air sign (as is the chart ruler) so the wallet will be found above ground in an airy rather than wet or hot place. Since mercury rules clerks and my son works as a clerk, it will be found in a place 1) somehow related to his work, 2) above ground (not an earth sign, and in an elevated [9th] house) 3) not in a hot or wet place (fire or water signs), and 4) in the bathroom or somewhere similar (scorpio).
The wallet was very soon found (cardinal sign rising), in a laundry bag in the bathroom (scorpio) hanging on the wall (above ground) in his work pants (gemini, the clerk’s clothes). Success! 

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The wonderfully thorough astrologer Carolyn Dodson passed away in November of last year (at 83), so I can’t ask her why her chart of the USA is drawn for 2:13:32 AM standard time (2:10 AM local mean time), though I’m sure she did her research. Gemini rising seems a good choice, though what’s known as the Sibly chart gives a more logical time of 5:10 PM and sagittarius rising. This also seems a good fit for the expansive, adaptable American people, as well as the nature of the USA as a union of multiple states all with their own governments, and essentially makes the question a choice between (mutable) air and (mutable) fire.

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 Like all the planets (except the sun/moon) saturn traditionally rules one masculine sign (aquarius) and one feminine (capricorn). Since it’s the furthest of the “naked eye” planets it also receives the least light from the sun, so black. On a moonless night in a valley far from light pollution it’s also possible to see the shadow cast by saturn~a deep slate grey, essentially devoid of color.

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Ted’s Tales

FOREWORD
These are the memoirs of my grandfather, a man who was the youngest of ten children, all born in the nineteenth century. I have lightly edited them for clarity and continuity, but not content. These are his words, and his life. If you enjoy this glimpse into his world half as much as I’ve enjoyed organizing it, my time has been well spent!
~DJ Austin

PREFACE

When our three children were young, my wife and I often amused them with stories of our youth. Now that they’re married and have children of their own, they’ve urged us to write our memoirs. I hope they will all enjoy these stories of our youth, and theirs.

One Line of Descendants of Secretary William Claiborne

About the year 1916, my mother, Mrs. M.B. Jones, in Miami, Florida, was informed that a man by the name of G.M.Claiborne, of Lynchburg, Virginia, had spent years compiling a family tree of the descendants of William Claiborne, a list which had been printed by the J.P. Belle Company in Lynchburg.

Claiborne quoted from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (page 311, Vol. 1 No. 3; January, 1894), in its “Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents”:

“The ancient family Claiborne derived its name from the manor Cleburn or Cliburn (named in the Doomsday Book of AD 1086) in Westmoreland, near the River Eden. The family was for many generations lords of this manor.” The author then lists names, dates and a few facts about each person in a direct line to William Claiborne, who came to Virginia in 1621. Claiborne later became Secretary of State for the Colony, commanded two expeditions against hostile Indians and conducted a sort of “private war” against Lord Baltimore’s settlers in Maryland over property rights.

Here is he direct lineage to Mrs. Mary B. (L.M.) Jones:

1) William Claiborne (about 1587-1676), 14th generation from Hervey Claiborne (c. 1200 AD).

2) Lt. Col. Thomas Claiborne (1647-1683), fought against Indians and was killed by an arrow.

3) Capt. Thomas Claiborne (1680-1732), known as Thomas Claiborne of Sweet Hall.

4) Col. Augustine Claiborne (1721-1787), Licensed to practice law in July 1742. In 1742 settled in Surry County, naming his new home”Windsor”. Became major in the militia in 1749 and vestryman of Albemarle Parish  in 1751. Was Burgess for Surry County from 1748-54. Colonel, Sussex County militia from 1754 and County Lieutenant in 1767. Clerk of Surry County and Sussex County from 1749-1776, succeeded by his son William. In 1779 was elected State Senator, but as County Clerk was declared ineligible.

5) Maj. Buller Claiborne, born October 27, 1755, second lieutenant of Second Virginia Regiment, October 2, 1775; captain from March 8, 1776, to July 27, 1777; brigade major and aide-de-camp to General Lincoln, 1779-1780; commanded a squadron of cavalry at the battle of the Cowpens; appointed justice of Dinwiddie in 1789; sheriff in 1802-04. Married Patsy, daughter of Edward Ruffin, of Sussex County.

6) James Claiborne, son of Buller, born about 1780, married Sarah “Sally” Brooking, moved to Sparta, Georgia and died after 1850 in Eatonton.

7) Sarah P. Claiborne, daughter of James, born 1825 in Sparta, Georgia, married John Cole Bearden, died in her daughter’s home in Putnam County, 1895.

8) Mary Brooking Bearden, daughter of Sarah, born 1861, married Lucius Marshall Jones, died 1927. Ten children:

Lucy Mary Jones Callaway 1880-1967; J. Walter Jones 1881-1967; William H. Jones 1883-1904; Lucius Albert Jones 1885-c.1961; Charles G. Jones 1887-c.1968; Sarah Estelle Jones Marshall 1889-c.1953; Wilbur Hudson Jones 1891-1942; Malcolm B. Jones 1893-1959; Lambdin L. Jones 1896-1980; W. Ted Jones  1899-1980.

INTRODUCTION

“No person is an island”. Much of what we are, we owe to others–parents, grandparents, teachers, friends and even strangers. My grandparents all died before my birth, so I know of them only what I’ve been told.

My Jones grandparents lived in the town of Eatonton, Georgia. They had five sons, of whom my father was the youngest. Grandmama died in 1864, when the boys were aged 6-16, and the family needed a woman around. It was near the end of the Civil War, and there must have been a number of nice widows among whom Grandpapa might have found a good wife who would love the boys and provide them with a happy home life. Oh, that he had borne his grief with more patience and wisdom! He just may have persuaded Mama’s widowed mother to marry him!

But, alas, living close by was a selfish old maid who quickly adorned herself in mock sympathy, and succeeded in leading poor Grandpapa into a marriage contract! Very soon it became clear that she wanted only the man, for she set about making life miserable for the boys! Uncle Matt, already sixteen, got a job and left home quickly. Each of the others followed, at the first opportunity.

I asked Mama why Grandpapa allowed that woman to get away with such meanness, and she answered that he was a sick man, physically and mentally, and didn’t live but a few years after his first wife’s death. He just didn’t have the strength to run his own home.

All the other boys moved far away, Uncle Watt a hundred miles, the next three to Texas and Arizona, but Papa got a job and lived in Eatonton in a boarding house with friends.

Mama’s mother was Sarah Claiborne. She married J.C. Bearden, but he died right around the time of Mama’s birth, in the summer of 1861. The Civil War had just started, and Sarah considered her situation. She was a young widow with an infant baby, a home, a small farm and two slaves, named John and Jane. They didn’t leave; she gave them a plot of land and continued to work the farm as friendly neighbors, sharing the crop and their proceeds.

Three years later, the Yankees came. A lieutenant with a small band of soldiers stopped at John and Jane’s home and announced, “We’ve come to free you! You’re no longer slaves!” John replied, “Thank you, Mister, but we’ve been free for three years’, and showed them the legal paper that Grandmama had signed. The lieutenant said, “I want to meet this lady!” On arriving at Grandmama’s home a short distance away, he commanded the soldiers to stay with the wagons, and “not touch one thing belonging to this lady!”

After a brief, polite conversation at the front door, Grandmama invited the officer in and served sandwiches and coffee. They chatted for a few minutes, then the lieutenant led his men away.

CHAPTER I
THE JONES FAMILY
In 1877 Grandmama and her 16-year-old daughter Mary attended a “singing school”, a series of one-day meetings of singers from all over the county with an experienced instructor. Lucius Jones, aged 19, and a buddy from Eatonton also attended. Lucius “just couldn’t keep his eyes off Mary,” and whispered to his buddy, “I’m gonna marry that girl!” At the first intermission he arranged an introduction, and within six months they were married and living with Grandmama. So began the Jones family, and henceforth these two will be called “Papa” and “Mama”.
Papa still kept his job at the hardware store in town, where he’d been living for three or four years. His salary was more important to their future than what this “town boy” could do on the farm, and besides, John and Jane were managing the farm quite well without his help. He bought a horse and buggy, and commuted to work. He later arranged to work at the store part-time during the busiest hours and full-time only in the harvest season.
At home Papa spent a lot of time with John learning about farming, which helped him at the store. The more knowledgeable he was, the more the store made, and the higher his salary. He kept the two-job arrangement for a good many years, to provide for his growing family, add a second story to the house and buy more land and equipment.
Considering the farmer’s need for domestic help, the Jones children arrived in a perfect sequence—a girl, four boys, another girl and four more boys. I was number ten. Each, according to custom, was given two names, chosen to honor relatives and then close friends, but when I arrived this procedure suddenly came to a halt. I don’t know whether they ran out of friends or, having taken a good look, decided a friend wouldn’t appreciate the honor! I don’t know how long I remained nameless, but finally Lucy, the oldest, came to my rescue. She suggested “Theodore” in honor of a new national hero. The name was accepted, and thereafter, like my namesake, they called me “Teddy”.
For two years I had only one name. My big brothers, ever alert for an excuse to tease me, pointed out what for me became, literally, a crying shame! Everyone else had two names, but I only had one! Mama soothingly assured me I had a right to choose another, myself—but every name I thought of turned out to be the middle name of a brother, information gleefully provided by my tormentors! Lucy again helped me, suggesting “Otis”, for James Otis, another national hero. I accepted, but now the teasing turned to the order of my initials. If I chose T.O. they’d call me “To”, and if O.T. I’d be “Ot”!
By now, I was furious! I wanted initials they couldn’t poke fun at. I went through the alphabet and decided on W.T., but again they teased me! “You can’t get by with just an initial! What’s ‘W’ stand for?” Once again “Sweet Lucy” saved me, coming up with a name no one else in the family could claim—Wallace, for the heroic Scotsman, William Wallace.
The family and, of course, everyone else, continued to call me “Teddy”, or occasionally, to tease me, “Teddy bear”. As I got older “Teddy” sounded too much like a little boy, so when I was 12 and we moved to Miami, I firmly demanded that no one in the family should call me anything but “Ted”. They gracefully complied, and ever since, that’s been my name.
By the way, our parents instructed all of us to call Lucy “Sister”, as a courtesy to the oldest sibling, but all through her life she earned the honor, because she was the smartest, wisest and sweetest of all of us. I wish it would’ve been possible for her to live closer to the rest of us after her marriage.

CHAPTER II
MAMA WAS WONDERFUL!
Mama could, and did, do just about everything any woman could do in those difficult days of 1875-1910, and she was an expert in all of them. She was a wonderful wife and mother, a superb housekeeper, cook and seamstress, an expert gardener with both vegetables and flowers, a charming hostess, a firm, fair, loving disciplinarian, a smart and frugal economist, and a wise and sympathetic nurse, always quick to respond to calls for help from neighbors, white or black. She was also guardian of the health of her aging mother, her husband and her ten children, successfully rearing all ten into strong adulthood.
I remember late one afternoon when someone came rushing to tell Mama that little Cuyler Clopton was critically ill with diptheria. We had no telephones in our rural community and Mama was just about set to prepare supper. The four oldest children had left home, and the others were busy milking. Papa and Will had died some years before. Mama told me to run to the barn and tell Charlie to ride Myrtle into town for a doctor, the other boys to fix their own supper and for me to hitch Helen to the buggy. I was just barely big enough to do this; it was the first time I’d done it alone.
Meanwhile, Mama had collected all the medicines she thought might be useful and grabbed a little food to eat on the way. I drove the mile or so as fast as the horse could go. Mama said she’d stay all night as long as she was needed. As she rushed in I could hear Cuyler struggling for breath, and was scared for him (Cuyler survived, and lived to be 92).
Except for shoes, stockings and “Sunday” suits for boys, Mama’s purchases for clothing were limited to cloth, thread, and yarn, which she made into dresses, pants, overalls, shirts and sweaters. She made underwear out of flour sacks, pants and overalls out of blue denim, shirts of homespun cotton and sheets and pillow slips (except those for visitors) of unbleached muslin. Of course she taught the two girls to make their own clothes. She carded cotton to pad quilts, the tops of which were made of various colored scraps. Some were beautiful and artistic; others, for us boys, were made of most anything at hand with little care for design. She saved feathers for feather beds and pillows, and made mattresses of cotton covered with striped bed-ticking.
Mama also earned money, both before and after Papa’s death. Black women for miles around, both field and domestic workers, had neither sewing machines nor the skill to make pretty “Sunday” dresses for themselves and heir daughters. They came, eager to pay the fair prices Mama charged. We churned the milk from our herd of thirty-odd cows and Mama, using one-pound wood molds, molded the butter and shipped it to Macon for sale. She also packed and shipped eggs. Consequently, our family consumed very little sweetmilk, butter or eggs, but we had plenty of buttermilk, skim milk, vegetables, fruit and meat, along with hominy grits and sugar cane syrup the year-round. We raised almost everything we ate—from our farm, our enormous vegetable garden, plenty of peach and apple trees, a few pear trees and figs, a big scuppernong grape arbor, and strawberries, wild blackberries and plums. Mama stocked cabinets and shelves from floor to ceiling with canned, preserved and dried fruit for each winter. Our deep, cool cellar held Irish and sweet potatoes and a barrel or two of sugar cane syrup. We killed hogs and “yearling” male calves and cured the meat to fill our smoke house, and of course we had quite a flock of chickens!
One rule Mama had about eating, I have heard expressions of disapproval at the telling. If we greedily or carelessly loaded our plates with more than we could eat, she put our plates in the cupboard just as we had left them. At the next meal we had to eat what was left on the plate before she’d let us have a clean plate and more food. What was so bad about that? One minute of unpleasant eating. You can be sure no one repeated THAT mistake, and when we saw another take the consequences we avoided it ourselves! What’s good about it? Just think. Of all the food ten children didn’t waste, and of ALL the food not wasted in later years, due to that training!
To Mama, waste was as bad as profanity. She’d find a way to recycle anything edible. Left-over food returned to the table as stew, hash, soup, bread pudding, “cush” goulash, and various casseroles (if you don’t know what “cush” is, ask someone’s grandmother. Not in my dictionary!)
With all the work Mama did, she didn’t have time to tell us much about the interesting experiences of her youth, or read stories to us as we did with our children, nor did we get much rocking and singing to sleep. When Mama did talk of past events it was when she was resting and we were through with our day’s work and home study. When Mama was resting, her fingers were busy with mending, knitting, crocheting or tatting. She also never neglected her Bible, the Methodist Christian Advocate, or praying. She tithed, believing that at least a tenth of everything she earned belonged to the Lord.
Mama was familiar with the Bible, and taught Sunday school for many years, kept posted on missionaries and their activities, and hoped at least one of her children would receive a call from the Lord to be a foreign missionary. She was also familiar with the history and polity of the Methodist church, and had they had women officers in those days I’m confident she would have been one. She made communion wine from our grapes, prepared the elements, and kept the cups, plates and clots ready for use. She saw that her sons cleaned the church regularly, including removing all mud-dauber nests. I’ll always treasure the memory of her singing hymns while working. She memorized the words and music of more hymns than anyone else I’ve ever known. Surely, Mama WAS wonderful!

CHAPTER III
LIFE IN PEA RIDGE
I wonder why our community was called “Pea Ridge”. As I recall there’s a slight ridge on a north-south line through gently rolling terrain, and the road followed this ridge. I remember how we used to sow peas on infertile land, and after picking the peas plow the vines under to enrich the soil. When we lived there the ridge soil was still not very fertile, so perhaps our forbears decided to give the pea-vine treatment to the ridge, thus “Pea Ridge”?
My earliest memory is one I treasure, for it’s the only one I have of Papa alive. On a cold winter evening, our family was seated in a semi-circle before an open fire. I was in the hand-me-down high chair beside Papa, both of us leaning back against the huge wardrobe. Mama rang the supper bell and Papa picked up the chair, with me snuggled against his chest, and carried me to my place at the table. Age, 33 months.
Papa and a few others had mustaches, but I only knew two men with chin whiskers. Long chin whiskers generally indicated old age. I called these two “Cat” Clopton and “Cat” King. I was, for no other reason I can recall, afraid of them. They’d visit occasionally, walking, and our house was a favorite rest stop. When I saw them coming, I’d hide under the house!
Rural life, for children and youth, had long-term benefits. Lack of money for commercial toys forced us to improvise, so we developed imagination, ingenuity and skill by making our own. We made pop-guns, sling-shots, slings (like David’s), bows and arrows, cross-bows, javelins. We made our own baseballs and bats, swings, sleds, balloons from hog bladders. We built dams~big ones for swimming ponds, little ones for water wheels~boats, bridges, rabbit traps, butterfly nets, “jumping frogs” out of chicken bones, rubber bands, sticks and rosin. We made whistles and flutes from bamboo, and had a lot of fun rolling hoops.
Of course most of our time was devoted to work and school. For nine months of the year we were at school from 8 AM to 4 PM, walking back and forth regardless of distance or weather. Before leaving for school, we each had to milk three or four cows (by hand, of course), turn the cows out to pasture, run the milk through a cream separator, wash up, change clothes, eat breakfast, leave home before 7:15 and walk the two miles to school. When we returned home, we had to change back to overalls, round up the cows from the pasture, feed and milk them, run the milk through the separator, wash up, eat supper and do our homework by kerosene light. In the early fall, we had to pick cotton for an hour or so before doing all the above.
Saturday was NOT a holiday! In the fall the last round of cotton picking was particularly painful, because the sharp, now-hard cotton burrs cut gashes in our chapped fingers. Milking stalls, stables and the whole fenced animal yard had to be cleaned, and the manure stored in pens for future use as fertilizer. Fall was also time to harvest and store various crops, fruits and vegetables, and repair machinery, fences and tools. We’d then cut and stack the winter supply of wood, and with the first cold weather, butcher and prepare meat for the winter.
One year came The Great Freeze. No TV, radio, nor even a telephone to warn us in advance. Morning greeted us with a light snow which soon gave way, much to our regret, to sleet. Hurriedly the cows were milked, but there was no point in opening the gates to the pasture, for cows, horses and mules huddled close in the barn and stables. Chickens crowded their roost in the chicken house. Huge stores of firewood and stovewood were stacked inside. Sleet kept falling until the ground was frozen solid. Afternoon required another milking of cows and an extra heavy feeding because of lack of pasturage.
And the chickens had to be fed. Only Mama’s customary “come and get it!” Call could pry them loose. The chicken house door had been propped open to avoid us going out and risking a dangerous fall. Mama opened a window and, as Lambdin and I watched at another window, she threw out an abundance of scratch feed. What a show it was! A hundred grown and “frying size” chickens came rushing through the open door, wings spread, trying to alight on the food! When their feet hit on the ice, though, they skidded on by! The leaders, slipping, falling and bumping each other in a frantic struggle to get back, collided with and were bowled over by others just coming in for a landing. What a delightful sight for young boys to remember!
Summertime was work time, from dawn until bedtime. Dairy work, breakfast, field work with broad brim straw hats until sunset, then dairy work again. Mama rang the bell (the size of the village church bell) mounted atop a high cedar post, audible everywhere on the farm. Women and girls in bonnets or straw hats gathered peaches and, later, apples, peeled and sliced and spread them on clean, wide boards to dry in the sun for winter. They also canned fruits and vegetables. If weather permitted us to keep abreast of farm work, we boys went swimming Saturday afternoons. Rainy days and Sunday afternoon also offered opportunities for play, but swimming was forbidden on Sunday.
Sunday, even though the cows, horses, mules, pigs and chickens required the same attention as every other day, was a welcome relief! We only had preaching one Sunday per month, as our church, Concord Methodist, was one of four churches on a “circuit”, with one preacher for all four. We did, however, have Sunday school every week, and it was a pleasure to dress up in “Sunday clothes” and see the girls all dressed up pretty. There were two entrances to the church from the porch. Women and girls sat in the right half, men and boys to the left. Down the middle, atop the pews, a railing was nailed. For regular courting couples seats on either side, and next to, the railing were always available by common courtesy.
A few more briefs about life in Pea Ridge:
Riding Gabe Callaway’s tricycle; I never had one.
Sliding on pine-straw covered hills, with barrel staves for sleds.
Smoking “rabbit tobacco”, then chewing pine straw to cover the odor.
Mama called us out of bed to see Halley’s comet in 1910, and the Aurora Borealis.
RFD#1 didn’t come by our house. I had to walk a mile to Mr. Johnson King’s store to send or pick up mail.
When our kerosene ran low I’d carry a dozen eggs to Mr. King’s store and trade them for a gallon for our oil lamps.
Lambdin and I would ride mules loaded with bags of wheat and corn about three miles to Armour’s Mill. We’d watch him open the gate of his mill-race to divert water from the creek, watch the huge water-wheel gather speed, then go in to see the big round mill-stones grind our grain. Mr. Armour would take out his toll for payment, and we’d carry home a supply of water-ground flour and cornmeal.

Our old well, so close and convenient to the kitchen and the “wash up” back porch, got fouled some way and Lambdin and I had to carry water from a spring almost a half mile away for a year or so, until we could dig another well~AND the new well had to be six times further away than the old one!
On my walks for kerosene or mail I’d occasionally meet Mr. John Manley, always with a beautiful horse and buggy. He’d smile broadly, bow, hold up a hand and say enthusiastically, “Hello, little man!” He made me feel important, and I loved him for that!
Vaccination of everybody, at our homes, for smallpox.
Riding as many animals as possible~horses, mules, cows, calves, hogs.
Mocking bulls until they chased us; running and climbing fences to escape.
Mr. “Newt” Wilson’s barbecue. Neighbors invited free!
Annual Easter picnic at Bell’s Mill, Monday after Easter. Nice, big meadow, baseball game. A few braved the cold creek water for a swim.
Annual Pine Grove picnic after crops were “laid by”.

Annual County Fair. Harness horse races, Japanese acrobats, hot-air balloons.
Oconee Springs. Summer vacation site for rest, mineral water, courting. Hotel, “Lover’s Lane”, all near Oconee River Ferry (old-time current-propelled flat boat). I once saw about a dozen wagons of Gypsies cross. Horses were scared, reared, hard to manage. One, not hitched, held by bridle reins, pulled his man off the ferry, but both swam to shore. Some show!
George Stallings, manager of the Boston Braves, organized and trained a Negro ball team nearby. While a game was in progress a young Negro man arrived late, walked behind the plate umpire and a foul tip hit him in the head. All he white people present expected him to fall with a broken skull, but he just calmly asked, “How do the score lie?”
Negroes believed in ghosts. Floyd, son of Albert Cutley, fed our horses and mules after dark one night. My brother, Malcolm, wrapped in a sheet, jumped out at him as he started home, about a half-mile away. The last 100 yards he kept yelling to his sister, “Roberta, open de door!” When he got there the door wouldn’t open so he ran around the house yelling, Malcolm behind him, then through the open door, slammed it shut and locked it!
Watching the “chain gang” work the roads with huge road scrapers. They had chains locked to their ankles so they couldn’t run, and guards with shotguns kept close watch over them. We surmised that most of the Negroes were there for stealing or fighting with razors or guns, but always wondered what the white men had done.

CHAPTER IV


THE CLOPTONS

Lambdin and I, the youngest, were more fortunate than the others in our family, in that we had friends near our age living just one mile away. We could visit and play together often. We also walked together to and from school in addition to playing and swimming together. Their father was quite interesting to us, and as we didn’t have one, quite important in our lives. Cousin Tommy (most people in Pea Ridge were kin, and we usually claimed kin with most of the others) was more lenient with children, particularly on Sundays and concerning activities that other parents were more squeamish about. He bought roller skates for his boys and let them skate in the hall of their home, even though the skates marked up the floor~but isn’t that the primary purpose of a home? A place where a family can live, grow, learn and love in an atmosphere of freedom and happiness? Besides, there was no other place to skate!
The Clopton children consisted of six boys, the two oldest being near the ages of Lambdin and me. As one who grew up without a father around, I was interested in how Cousin Tommy enjoyed seeing his boys have innocent fun and how he never seemed to worry over whether they would do anything reprehensible or overly dangerous. He sometimes went with us when we went swimming. One Sunday afternoon he let us take the chassis of an old buggy, with no seat nor hitching shafts, and play with it on a steep hill. Walter steered it standing on the rear axle with a rope tied to each end of the front axle. Others held on to the connecting rods. We sped again and again down the hill, avoiding the ditches on either side of the road. Of course Walter could have lost control and several of us been hurt, but not really seriously. Besides, we knew that Walter was a good pilot, and it was so much fun!
One Saturday afternoon Cousin Tommy went with us to Cedar Hole, our favorite swimming pond in Turkey Creek. Instead of keeping little Cuyler “on a leash”, he let him run ahead with the big boys. Although Cuyler couldn’t swim, he was the first to strip down, dash in~and go under! My big brother Malcolm pulled him out. Some of us ran to meet the rest, screaming excitedly, “Cuyler almost drowned!” Cousin Tommy, instead of scolding Cuyler, just smiled and said, “Buddy, did you get scared?” He knew Cuyler had learned his lesson from the frightening experience, and scolding wouldn’t have helped at such a time. We admired his poise and wisdom.
Another important experience with Cousin Tommy for which Mama, Lambdin and I have always been deeply grateful. Lambdin and I both entered the County Corn Club Contest for boys to raise as much corn as possible on a certain size plot. Each boy was to do every bit of the work himself, including “breaking up” the land with a two-horse plow. For my age group the plot was a quarter acre, for Lambdin’s a half-acre. We selected plots just outside the strong fence that surrounded our cow lot, barn and stable compound.
All went well until almost harvest time. One morning we went out to milk and discovered all of our cows in the corn, having a wonderful time. As quickly as possible we herded them back into the lot and boarded up the fence, but all three of us were in tears, believing all our hard work had gone for nothing! Our hopes were shattered!
Cousin Tommy was one of the judges for our district, and Mama telephoned him. He hitched up a horse and came in a hurry. He walked up and down each row, counting the ears of corn that were still on the stalks and those on the ground. With pencil and pad he wrote the numbers, row by row, for each plot. He then filled a bushel basket with average size ears, counting the number required to fill the basket. By dividing the total number of ears in each plot by the number required to fill the basket, he reported, on the date for the final judging, the number of bushels each of us raised, and we both won prizes. It must have taken him several hours to do.
One last great favor Cousin Tommy did for us, before we moved to Miami. Mama had made a list of the furniture we could use and the Critz family, to whom we rented, arrived before we were ready to go. Lambdin and I were too young to crate and pack everything, so Cousin Tommy did it! Bless him!
Here are a few more memories I’ll jot down briefly about the Clopton boys.
I first saw comic strips in the newspapers at the Cloptons~I remember ”Slim Jim” and “The Katzenjammer Kids”.
King, a third grader, spanked Cuyler, a first grader, during recess. Cuyler, more angry than hurt, went crying to the teacher, Miss Sudie Dickens, who had a sweet sense of humor. She called King in just as she was about to take a dose of medicine, probably cough syrup. I happened to be near, and saw or heard all that followed. I remember the twinkle in Miss Sudie’s eye as she said, “Well. King, you know you shouldn’t spank your little brother. I’ll have to punish you, but I’ll let you choose the punishment. I’ll either whip you or let you take a dose of this medicine.” King hesitated a few seconds and replied: “I believe I’d rather take the medicine.” She poured a spoonful and when King had swallowed it he smiled and said, “A~m! I’ll spank him again if you’ll give me some more of that! His sense of humor matched hers!
Walter, in the first grade, reading aloud, stopped at a word he didn’t remember. Professor Savage: “Walter Clopton, don’t you know THAT word?” Walter, timidly: “No sir. Do you?”
Lem was sitting happily on he cloak room floor with girls on either side of him., with Margaret Montgomery, the prettiest girl in school, VERY close. All the rest of us boys were too bashful and afraid of being teased if caught in such a situation, but Lem had a way with girls~and boys, for he thoroughly enjoyed it and, instead of trying to tease him, we boys envied him. Any one of us would have gladly given away his lunch in exchange for that privilege, provided there were no other boys around.

CHAPTER V
COMMUNITY LIFE
In my childhood, doctors weren’t called to a rural home except for serious illness, and to reach one somebody had to ride a horse to town and find one at his office, or, store, or home. So far as I know the nearest hospitals were in Macon and Athens, each some 40 miles distant. The “State Normal and Industrial School for Girls” was in Milledgeville, fifteen miles distant, so in addition to the school infirmary there may have been one there as well. The State Asylum was also in Milledgeville, but that wasn’t thought of as a hospital, only as a place of care and confinement for those mentally ill for whom cure wasn’t expected. There were always one or two doctors in Eatonton but, in order to earn a living, one had to own a drug store. Consequently, we seldom called a doctor or used prescription drugs.
Common home remedies included the following:
Iodine for small cuts, scratches and stumped toes (ouch, how it burned!). Oil of cloves for toothache, until bad cavities forced us to go to a dentist to have the tooth filled or pulled. Loose teeth were secretly manipulated with fingers until they dropped (if we didn’t perform this operation in secret, we faced having it extracted by a big brother with pliers). Warm salt water for mild sore throat, turpentine and sugar, or even kerosene and sugar, if severe. Soda for burns. Mustard plasters for chest colds. Hydrogen peroxide or arnica salve for open sores. Turpentine or Sloan’s liniment for bruises, sore muscles or “growing pains”. Miles anti-pain pills for headaches. Doan’s Kidney pills for back-ache (Mama’s favorite medicine). Cough syrup (Foley’s Honey and Tar) for coughs. Calomel, and Johnson’s Chill and Fever Tonic (oh, how bitter!) for fever. Paregoric and laudanum (both containing opium) for relieving pain, and of course the ever reliable and inevitable castor oil (ugh!).
Now for a little about school life.
Union School was a one-room, one-teacher school with an enrollment of about 30 pupils, grades one through eight. In the center was a big stove, the pipe of which went straight up through a thick masonry section in the roof. It wasn’t a “little red schoolhouse”, but a nice, big, white building with green blinds and trim. It had a porch and, between this and the school room, an adequate cloak room. On cold mornings someone had to build a roaring fire in that stove before school began at 8 o’clock so that the big room would be warm when the children arrived. I never knew who did it. The size of the desks increased from front to rear, and between windows on both walls were blackboards. The teacher’s desk was on a raised platform.
Here are a few memory “shorts”:
Our “flying jenny”, on which two persons sat on opposite ends of a mounted pole and others pushed the pole around and around. We cut down a tree about five feet above the ground, trimmed the top of the stump to leave a cylindrical pole on the center about a foot high by four inches across, then trimmed an 18 ft. length of tree trunk, split it in the middle, and put wedges in the split to keep it open enough to fit over the pole. It would’ve been better to bore a large hole, but we didn’t have an auger.
One game was “Hail Over”. Sides were chosen and we lined up on opposite sides of the building, each side trying to throw a rubber ball so the opponents couldn’t catch it.
“Fox and Hounds” was another game. One day Luther Clements was the fox, running with his coat on. As my brother, Malcolm, was about to catch him, he unbuttoned his coat, held his arms straight back and Malcolm grabbed his coat. Luther kept running, leaving Malcolm with his coat and a red face!
Teasing “Ibby” McLeroy (now what could that be a nickname for?) on the way to school, she kicked our shins. She was a scrappy little girl, and very pretty!
Joe Allan Bell, a “town boy” of about 13, came to live with his uncle and aunt, entered Union, and introduced us to the game of marbles.
One day a teacher, having entranced the younger children with a fairy story, promised to call a fairy to come to a window for us to see her. We hadn’t noticed that an older girl, Sarah Callaway, hadn’t come in after recess. The teacher, Miss Kate Snipes I believe, got everyone excited with anticipation, then called for the fairy to come. Sarah held up a hand dressed as a “fairy” to the windowsill. In response to questions from the teacher the “fairy” nodded or shook her “head”.
Hattie Callaway was the instigator of the April fool picnic. Without Miss Kate’s knowledge, she had all of us agree to come early. She left a note on the door, “April Fool!”. Miss Kate was mad until somehow she learned that her “pet” Hattie was responsible, then quickly shed her anger.
One day Miss Kate made us nail short boards, for seats, on the limbs of a tree, so we could all sing and be “birds on a limb”. She sent the boys up first. Joe Allan refused, but finally gave in, angrily, climbing past all the rest of us while the girls and Miss Kate waited on the ground, and in passing hissed, “I hope I fall and break my neck!” I was afraid that for such blasphemy, God might just let him do it!
Professor Savage sometimes played baseball with us. One day the ball lodged in the front ventilator behind a loose 2×4, and my brother Lambdin climbed into the attic to poke a stick at it. He accidentally nudged the 2×4 and it fell on Miss Kate’s head! It hurt her just enough for us to be glad it happened! Miss Kate then took half the ball diamond (the front yard of the school), had it plowed up, fenced and planted a flower garden! Now there wasn’t any room to play anything but base stealing, hide-and-seek, hail-over and marbles! To top it off, she made us all work her garden!
One day the teacher heard a rumble and shouted, “It’s an automobile, children! Run and see it!” It was the first automobile we ever saw. We learned later it was a red Maxwell.
An interesting stop on the way home was Mr. Tom Spivey’s sawmill, cotton gin and syrup mill. He wasn’t a farmer but operated the three mills and a country store, making a good living for himself and his wife (they had no children; we wondered why, but wondering was all we could do). Mrs. Spivey would mind the store when Tom was operating one of the mills. It was fascinating to watch them gin cotton, saw lumber, grind cane and boil the juice into syrup in a huge cauldron, six feet across! When no machinery was running, we had fun playing on the huge saw-dust pile. We might get punished for getting home late to our chores, but the adventure was well worth it!
I’ll always remember with admiration and gratitude Professor W.C. Wright, formerly Principal of Eatonton School and in our time County Superintendent, but this was true of everyone who ever knew him. When he visited, he always showed a sincere interest in US, the pupils. He didn’t deliver dry, platitudinous little talks on “The Importance of Education”. He made us feel certain that he loved us but what he said and how he said it. He liked to shake each student’s hand. We loved that man!
About twenty-five years later, I was a pastor in Bartow, Florida, and read that he had been brutally beaten to death by some teenagers to whom he’d given a ride. They’d robbed him of his watch and what money he had, then drove off in his car, leaving him dead or dying by the roadside. They were caught and punished, but it was a terrible shock to all in Putnam County, and all of us scattered over the country who had known him.

CHAPTER VI
THE FAMILY SCATTERS
When Papa died of pneumonia in February 1902, Sister was age 22 and in her fifth year as a teacher at Union School. Watt was at Georgia Tech on a work-study scholarship, and immediately came home. For almost a year Mama had all ten children at home with her, which was of course a wonderful comfort as well as a great help. This not only relieved her of work and responsibility, but kept her occupied with their social activities and made it possible for her to have a restful vacation at Oconee Springs. Grandmama had died six years earlier, and her former slaves John and Jane had preceded her. By purchasing adjoining land from time to time, our family now had 421 acres, with three colored families also living on the land as sharecroppers. That fall Estelle, having finished school at Union, went to Eatonton for the ninth and tenth grades.
In addition to the social life of the older children, another quite interesting diversion came into our lives. A colored woman, Frances, whose man had left her, came with her two young sons to live in a large, one-room house our family had built just 200 yards from our home. Such separations being rather frequent, this house served for many years as a refuge for similar women, who provided domestic help for Mama. The younger son, named Sandy, was effectively deaf, and his mother was unable to control or communicate with him. Mama took over responsibility for Sandy, and the rest of us gladly assisted her.
After the 1902 harvest Matt, Will and Albert all secured jobs in Eatonton. Charlie, then fifteen and the oldest of the children at home, was the only one who liked farming. He accepted more and more responsibility for the farm, the dairy and the relations with the colored tenants. Unique among us, he not only liked farming, he loved it, studied it, worked hard at it, and within a few years became, by existing standards, an expert farmer, blacksmith, carpenter, veterinarian and all else a good farmer has to be. He also loved bird hunting, fishing and harness racing.
Charlie used to court two or three girls at the same time, by horse and buggy. He’d work hard all day, then drive the buggy several miles. He’d go to sleep as soon as he left a girl’s house, depending on the horse to find the way home. One night when he awoke, he discovered he was in front of the home of another girl he was courting! He dashed away as fast as he could. The next time he dated that girl, she told him about some man who stopped in front of her house about midnight. She looked out her window and saw him leaving as though someone had shot at him! Charlie said he told her he wondered who would do such a fool thing!
In the summer of 1903 a handsome young man, age 27, drove up to our house with a horse and buggy rented from the livery stable. No one recognized him, but he explained that he was King Callaway, who had left ten years previously and had been working in his uncle’s grocery store in Temple, Texas. He wanted Sister Lucy to go for a ride. She did. He lost no time in proposing marriage, and insisted that the marriage take place without delay since he was on a two-week vacation.
Sister, age 23, protested. “Why, King, I don’t really know you. I remember you only as ‘one of the big boys’ in Union School when I was in the fifth grade!” He told her he was desperately in love with her then, but too bashful to say or do anything to let her know. He vowed then that he was going to marry her, if possible, as soon as he was old enough and able to support her. She asked why, in all those ten years, he’d never once written to her, and didn’t even write before making the long trip. He said he’d started many letters, but just couldn’t find words for how he felt, but had written someone else to inquire whether Sister was already married.
Well, the longer he stammered out his love for her and how all those ten years he’d worked and saved to that single purpose, Sister increasingly realized she was also in love with him. Within hours she happily agreed to the marriage, but insisted it be a church wedding, which would require at least a week to make the preparations. “But I don’t want you to spend all your savings at the hotel and livery stable,” she said, “I’ll send Charlie to follow you to town. Turn in that horse and buggy, check out of the hotel and come back with Charlie. You are going to stay here. Mama and I will be busy and I can’t see you much, but Charlie will keep you busy and out of our way.” The church wedding was held just as Sister planned it, and off they went to Temple, Texas.
Early in 1904, Watt and Cousin Jim Clopton read, or heard, of a fast-growing little town named Miami, in South Florida, and in a spirit of adventure went down to find something different and exciting. They found it, in fact too much of it! Land south of Miami was available for free, the only requirement for a homestead of 160 acres being to live on the property for a year. The land was covered with a thick growth of palmettos and a scattering of pine trees, and inhabited by scores of rattlesnakes and millions of mosquitoes. The first job was to build a little rough-lumber shack to live in, and make mattresses out of pine straw.
If they were to develop the land, as many did, they had to cut away the palmettos with machetes and pile them up to dry. With grub-hoes, they’d dig up all the tough, stubborn palmetto roots. They’d have to burn all this, then plow the land and plant vegetables.They’d have to buy lumber and screens, a cook stove and water pump, tools, mosquito repellent, liniment and other medicines and, of course, food. They’d either have to buy or make beds, chairs, tables, cabinets, etc. All of the above-mentioned was for sale by an old-timer who had already established a store and supply house.
They could develop the land, but would they? There was an alternative. They could apply for the homestead and just hold it as an investment to sell years later. All they’d have to do would be to live on it for 365 days.
Not surprisingly, they chose the latter. They took with them bicycles, their homestead assignment paper, a few small carpentry tools, extra clothes and as much canned food as they could, all on baskets attached to the handlebars. They had money enough to buy lumber, screens, tools etc., and built a shack, with the advice and help of the “old-timer”. Now two overwhelming obstacles loomed before them. They needed food for a whole year, and could they really bear to stay there 365 days? Jim came up with an idea to solve both at once.
They already knew Mr. E.L. Brady, Miami’s leading grocer, and Jim had worked for him for awhile before they decided on the homestead. Jim asked Mr. Brady to give them both a job to earn money for food, and they’d work alternate weeks, to relieve the loneliness, boredom and inconvenience. Mr. Brady agreed.
Jim worked the first week. They’d already planned to both leave after breakfast on Sunday, on bicycles. When they met halfway, each would inform the other of the situation ahead of him; what projects needed to be done and how to do it. This worked very well, or perhaps I should just say it worked, for two months.
The old-timer’s store and supply house also served as a gathering place for homesteaders within a two or three mile radius. Any time they wanted fellowship they could ride or walk the sand trails to the store, usually in the evening, build a bonfire surrounded by smokescreen fires against mosquitoes, swap stories, play cards and drink drams. One evening Watt decided to walk to the store. A few hundred yards from his destination he became aware that he was being followed by a wild beast! He ran the rest of the way as fast as he could, and just as he got within range of the light from the bonfire heard a growl, and something big ran into the bushes. The old-timer said it was a panther, so all the men spent the night around the fire, sleeping on the ground and taking turns tending the fire, for panthers wouldn’t come near fire.
Watt immediately lost all interest in the homestead, an interest which had already undergone considerable deterioration. When he met Jim that Sunday, they both went to the old-timer, accepted what he paid them for their meager possessions, returned to Miami in time for supper, and a day or two later returned their paper to the land office.
On July 4th of that same year, several families including ours had a picnic together in a lovely spot near the Oconee River. The young people went swimming, or wading for those who couldn’t swim. Will, Albert and Estelle had come out from town for the picnic. A young lady, Gladys Palmer, got into trouble, and Will tried to save her. They both drowned.
In the spring of 1905, Albert moved to Miami, and that fall Estelle began her two-year teacher training at State Normal School in Athens, Georgia. Meanwhile, another colored man who worked for someone several miles away persuaded Frances to come live with him. She and the older boy went away, but Sandy refused to leave, preferring to live (or at least sleep) alone and eating all meals on our back porch or in our kitchen. We developed a fairly adequate sign language and lip-reading system for communication. Sandy was fascinated with trains; somewhere, sometime he’d seen one. One day he took a discarded wood-burning stove, stuck a joint of pipe on it, put it in a wheelbarrow, built a fire in it and, lining us boys up behind him for cars, ran up and down the road shouting “choo-choo-choo-choo” and from time-to-time “blowing his whistle” by screaming as loud as he could “woo-hoo-o-o-o!”
Sandy was also entranced as he watched Estelle playing our foot-pedal organ and singing. One day Lambdin heard Sandy singing in our buggy house across the road, though it sounded like the singing of a happy, well-fed hen rather than a person. Investigating, Lambdin discovered Sandy had cut pieces of tin with tin snips about the size and shape of the white keys on our organ and nailed one end of each, all close together, clear across a window sill. The projecting ends would bend with the slight pressure of his fingers, then spring back. Now he had his own organ, and was playing and singing, his seat an empty wooden box.
Sandy stayed with us for about five happy years, before reluctantly “accepting” an urgent “invitation” to join his mother, brother and “step-father” elsewhere.
In 1907 Estelle, having graduated Eatonton High School and State Normal School in Athens, accepted a teaching position in Cairo, Georgia, 200 miles distant. Right away she began writing Mama about a man she was dating. He was 26 years old, an expert home builder, a Presbyterian, and oh, so handsome! I remember two things I didn’t like about her description: he was too old for an 18-year-old girl, and what in the dickens was a Presbyterian?
Putnam County was almost totally Methodist, except for a few Baptists, none of which I knew, and there was little love lost between the two denominations. One day, just a few weeks later, we returned from school to find Mama holding a telegram in her hand and weeping. We anxiously asked what was the matter and she exclaimed, in a tone of great dismay: “Estelle is married!”
I at once jumped to the conclusion that Mama’s grief was caused by Estelle marrying a Presbyterian, and concluded they must be as bad as Catholics! Of course, at eight years old I knew nothing about Catholics; rabble-rousing politicians had stirred up rancor as a way to win votes. Later I was relieved to learn that Mama’s distress was rather due to Estelle’s flouting of propriety~too short a courtship, not introducing the groom to the family, secret marriage and worst of all, no church wedding!
Eleven months later, Estelle brought a sickly two-month-old baby home for Mama to help with. Very soon, he was improving rapidly. One day they entrusted his care for a short while to Lambdin and me, ages 12 and 9. We pushed him in his new carriage until he was asleep.Something caught our attention and, forgetting about the gentle slope of the porch, we left the carriage. Seconds later it was bumping down the steps, and before we could reach it, it was upside down on top of Ralph! Fortunately the walk wasn’t paved, but after we removed the carriage poor Ralph had sand in his eyes, mouth, nose and ears! In response to our screams, Mama and Estelle were already on the scene. When they cleaned away the sand, a careful examination revealed no broken bones nor bruises. Ralph continued his rapid progress to robust health and two months later Estelle, a much wiser mother, took him back to Cairo.
Hudson (we called him “Hut”) got a job in Eatonton, finally fulfilling his long-expressed determination to be not a countryman, but a citizen! Charlie, now 21 and quite mature both in wisdom and skills, had accepted almost total authority and responsibility for all matters pertaining to farm and dairy. We younger boys resented his authority, but realizing Mama had yielded it to him, had grudgingly submitted. The next year, 1909, Charlie decided the old house should be demolished and a new one-story house should replace it. He hired men, and worked with them, to cut timber from our land, have it hauled by ox-cart to a sawmill and sawed into lumber, which was laid by and seasoned for use in 1910. He arranged for Clyde Maxwell, Estelle’s husband and an experienced builder, to be in charge of the work. To provide living quarters, he first sealed tight and fumigated the house formerly occupied by Sandy and various others, then added a second room to it.
I doubt whether Sister Lucy was informed of this project, as she selected this time to come with her two children, ages 5 and 3, to visit. There were now eleven of us in two rooms. Mama, Sister, her two children and I slept in the big room, and all cooking was done there. Eating took up two-thirds of the other room, and Clyde, Estelle and 2-year-old Ralph slept in the other third. Lambdin slept in the buggy house, Charlie in the cotton-seed house and Malcolm in the hayloft.
Charlie hired two carpenters and, being an experienced carpenter himself, worked with them, with Clyde as foreman. Malcolm, Lambdin and I were pretty good at helping to tear down the old house and at toting brick and lumber, so all hands were kept busy. When all the work was finished, Malcolm left with Clyde, who had just been appointed manager of a General Merchandise Store in a small town near Cairo. Hut was still working in a store in Eatonton, and Sister, recognizing his clerical acumen, sent him to a business college in Texas. Now only Mama, Charlie, Lambdin and I were left of the family of twelve.

CHAPTER VII
LEAVING THE FARM
You may hazard a guess as to why Charlie, now 23, wanted to replace the old house with a new one. You probably guessed right! Almost immediately he and his sweetheart, beautiful, lovely and vivacious Florence Boone, were married, and of course he brought her into the new home. Lambdin and I were delighted with her, but Mama had entered a stage in life in which some women unjustly become suspicious of the people dearest to them. I’ve never known a more honest man than Charlie, and Mama had loved him for staying with her and managing the farm when all the others were leaving, but now she accused him, to his face, of “secretly maneuvering to obtain sole possession of the property.”
Charlie knew nothing about this type of illness, and was bewildered, deeply hurt and indignant. His hopes and dreams were smashed, and now he took his wife to Atlanta, where they rented a small apartment and Charlie got a job as a grocery clerk. We three were left in a most untenable situation, and now had to place the farm for sale.
Though the misunderstanding was unfortunate, I believe that all concerned would’ve eventually agreed that future events brought more happiness. Florence was city-bred, and probably wouldn’t have been happy for long on a farm. Mass farm production with heavy and costly machinery on level and fertile land soon made small farming on hilly and rocky land almost entirely unprofitable. Charlie rose rapidly in the grocery business, soon had a management position and bought a home with 12 acres of fertile soil for gardening. Their three boys entered scientific occupations. Mama finally succeeded in renting the farm, and she, Lambdin and I soon moved away. A few years later, the farm sold for half the price Mama had originally set.
In the summer of 1911, Mama went to Miami for two weeks to discuss with Albert and Watt their insistent proposal that we all move down there. During her absence, Malcolm came to stay with us. Malcolm had become an expert cook, so she knew we’d be well-fed. Her last words were, “Have fun!”
Malcolm, now 18, invited one of his friends for each of the two weekends; for the first, Oscar Spivey, for the second, Luther Clements. In our family girls fed the chickens and boys chased them, sometimes for good reason, such as to protect ripe figs or freshly planted seeds; other times just for diversion. If Mama wanted to catch a chicken or two, she just walked out, sounded her “chow” call, sprinkled some scratch feed around and picked up the ones she chose.
For us, this was a problem. If we wanted to catch a chicken for Sunday dinner we had to hit it first with a rock. The first Sunday went as planned, but on the second they scattered far and wide. We had to split up to cover more territory, and when we came back, we had three chickens! Malcolm made biscuits~not tea biscuits, these were 3” around and 1” thick~and for dinner and supper we four boys consumed, in addition to an ample supply of vegetables and fruit, three big chickens and sixty-six biscuits! Mama returned, and we assured her that Malcolm had fed us very well, we’d done our jobs and, yes, had fun!
Malcolm returned to his job with Clyde Maxwell. While the Maxwells stayed with us the previous summer, all of us, Mama included, had become mighty fond of that Presbyterian. He later became a very active, influential Elder in his church, and much later I, too, became a Presbyterian!
In the fall of 1911, Lambdin and I attended school and, of course, kept doing our chores, which were gradually diminishing as Mama had advertised for sale all our animals, farm machinery, etc. All the purchasers except two provided delivery of what they’d bought, but two Eatonton residents requested that we boys deliver to each a cow, and they’d pay us. One Saturday morning we set out on foot, leading our cows with ropes. Each cow had a young calf, included in the price, which was willing to follow its mama without trouble. I left my calf at Mr. Belvin’s farm about four miles away, but Lambdin had to take his seven miles, into town.
Fortunately for us there were small streams to ford, which provided drinking water, and all went well until we reached our turn-off road to the purchaser’s home. This was about 20 feet from, and on our side of, the railroad crossing. Just as we reached it, the screaming whistle of a freight train shattered the mid-day calm and a “giant beast” came roaring from the mouth of the “canyon” (a cut through a hill), breathing out black smoke and clanging a loud bell. Neither cow nor calf had ever encountered such a monster before, so both were terrified. The side road provided escape from the sight, but not the sound, of the train, as the tracks ran parallel to the road. The roaring and rattling of the invisible cars seemed to be right over them, increasing their panic!
We finally completed the delivery of the animals, were each paid one silver dollar, then sat down in the shade of a tree and ate our lunch. We returned by another road and took a dip in our favorite swimming hole at Turkey Creek. What a day!
I had a frightful experience about this time which Lambdin didn’t remember at all. While transporting crated furniture in a wagon for shipment to Miami, Lambdin crossed Town Creek, which like many of our bridges had no railings, just heavy timbers nailed flat across. Mama and I arrived about a half-hour later in a buggy. It had rained all the night before, and when we arrived the bridge was completely underwater. Seeing fresh wagon tracks on both sides, I said to Mama, “Lambdin made it across, so we can, too”. I took off my shoes and stockings and slowly, cautiously, gingerly led the horse across the flooded bridge.
The Critz family, parents and five sons who had rented our farm, arrived from North Carolina a few days before we were ready to leave. There wasn’t room for all of us, so the Rosses, with generous hospitality, graciously took us into their spacious home and, on our day of departure, left us at the train station with a nice box of food.

CHAPTER VIII
ADVENTURES IN MIAMI
All seven years I spent in Miami were adventuresome, but I’ll try to give the highlights.
After the train had left the station, Mama asked Lambdin, “Where is your overcoat?” “Oh,” he replied, “I left it in the railroad station. I won’t have any use for it in Miami.” We arrived in Jacksonville in time to catch the 9 AM train. I’ve heard of “the slow train through Arkansas”, but I’ll bet it was faster than the Florida East Coast train from Jacksonville to Miami that January day in 1912. It took us 17 hours to travel that 360 miles. So many stops! Most of them seemed to be for nothing more than a crossroad. We arrived at 2 AM, sweaty, dirty, tired and so sleepy!
The Miami railroad station, at that time the end of the line, was close to the Terminal Dock at the end of old Sixth Street (now N.E. 6th Street). Henry M. Flagler, owner (or at least principal owner) of the railroad, a chain of luxury hotels, and the Terminal Dock, put the station there for easy transfer of passengers and freight for ships to Havana and the West Indies. From here, passengers to Miami hired hacks. The story is told of one man asking his colored driver, “Why in hell did they build the station so far from town?” The driver, after a brief hesitation, replied, “Well, sir, I s’pose they wanted to put it close to the railroad tracks!”
Among Albert’s close friends was Mr. John Frohock, who insisted that Albert take his Cadillac to meet us, so our very first automobile ride was enough to rouse us from weariness, at least for a little while. Our home wasn’t quite ready and our furniture was in storage. Albert took Mama and me to the Fort Dallas Hotel, where Matt was boarding, and Lambdin with him to Mrs. Gamble’s boarding house. When Matt saw my underwear, he broke into hilarious laughter which, with some difficulty, he muffled to avoid awakening the other guests. Across the back of my union suit, in large letters, were the words” OHIO SALT COMPANY”. Matt had probably forgotten that he was the first of eight brothers who had been so clothed. The next morning he bought me my first pair of BVDs (store-bought underwear).
My first adventure in Miami was a deep-sea fishing trip.
About 30 of the hotel guests, all Northern tourists, chartered the boat. All save one were adults; this one was a boy about my age so they invited me as a companion to him. The hotel packed baskets of good food, which most of the group didn’t enjoy much since all but two of us got seasick! For the same reason, there wasn’t much fishing. We returned to Cape Florida (now Key Biscayne) for lunch. I enjoyed that day very much!
About ten days later we moved into our new home, Watt and Albert now paying board to Mama to cover expenses. For some reason we boys weren’t to enter school until fall, either because we had missed so much or because we needed what we two could make working. Even with our meager earnings, eight months of work would help. Lambdin delivered groceries and I delivered packages for a dry goods store; he received $6 and I $4 per week, with us furnishing the bicycles.
I recall only three floats in a parade early in my Miami sojourn. All were ordinary panel trucks with no decoration, so the first was almost ignored, until the people lining the street saw into the open rear doors. A popular magazine had daringly (for those days) included a full-page picture of a beautiful young woman, apparently nude, with her hands crossing over to cover a certain part of her anatomy. The title of the picture was SEPTEMBER MORN. On the back of the truck stood a girl who appeared to be that same young woman, fitted in flesh-colored tights. Across the truck, below her feet, was the same title. Men whooped, whistled and laughed, while women blushed, some of them turning away in anger.
Bringing up the end of the parade were two more trucks, both very funny to us youngsters. Sitting in the rear of the first was Miami’s well-known, 465-pound “Fatty” Palmer, with a sign above him, I EAT ULLENDORF’S MEATS. The truck behind him bore the skinniest man I’ve ever seen, with a sign, I DON’T.
Our store had a mid-summer sale for which they employed a professional sales manager. Instead of relying on newspaper advertising and local distribution of handbills, he insisted on a handbill in every house from Miami to, and including, West Palm Beach, 70 miles north! Lawrence Gautier, an experienced driver, was hired to drive Mr. John Burdine’s car. In the back were me, another boy, and thousands of printed handbills which we were to distribute in at least 19 towns and villages. At the town border we’d have to get out and, walking, put a handbill behind every screen door or into someone’s hand. The car would wait for us under a shade tree at the far end of town. All the boss would do was sit on his fanny beside the driver and occasionally take a gulp of whiskey.
When we went to a restroom and had a chance to conference with Lawrence, he agreed that this was the craziest way possible to secure customers. Very few people had cars, and those that did wouldn’t drive 70 miles or even half that far to save a few dollars, nor would anyone ride the train. When we got to West Palm Beach, we boys were worn out. After dinner we were supposed to work all over that town of 4,000. They had stores almost as good as those in Miami, with a population of 7,000, and their merchants would probably laugh at our folly rather than resent our invasion~but the latter idea occurred to our driver. Just as we started our afternoon’s work, we heard what sounded like the firing of a shotgun. Lawrence had already suggested the possibility of local resentment to the boss, who’d had enough drinks to believe it. When Lawrence frantically exclaimed, “Oh, good lord, someone’s shooting at us!”, the boss screamed, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”. I’m pretty sure that Lawrence slipped out of the restaurant while the boss was in the restroom, and arranged for someone to fire a gun or light off a giant firecracker when we got in the car. Two hours later, we were back in Miami!
Before the Collins Bridge was completed, one of my buddies and I were, I’m confident to say, the first to ride bicycles all the way across it to the beach. The bridge itself had stopped at the point where the land-fill was to reach, this being sand pumped from the bay by dredge-boats. When we rode that far, we found that over the swamp a walkway had been constructed, about three feet wide, with flimsy handrails for the workmen. We were reasonably sure that if one of us should fall against the rails we’d wind up in the swamp five or six feet below, so we had to keep our concentration for 200 yards or so to reach the dirt road leading to the beach. Needless to say, we made it over and back, safely. After the bridge was completed and a road paved to a point near the beach, down by the two casinos, people began to build homes and move in. Among the early birds was my Sunday school teacher, Mr. T.E. James. One Sunday he invited us to dinner, and afterwards we went for a walk back towards the edge of the bay. By the edge of the swamp, we saw a raccoon with its head stuck fast inside a tin can. We knew he’d done his best to push it off, and without our help he’d starve. I quietly approached, took hold of the tin can and twisted it until it came off. He walked a few steps, turned back and gave me a look of gratitude deeper than human words could express.
The City Council, about this time, decided it was high time to replace the old coral rock pavement with something permanent, at least on the principal business street. They considered brick, but someone had learned about creosoted wood block, popular in several other cities. Apparently, they hadn’t learned enough!
The blocks were as large as the cobble-stones they replaced, but after the roadbed had been carefully graded, they fit together and formed a smooth surface. Everyone was happy with the new paving~for awhile. With the first big downpour, however, the blocks popped up and washed into hundreds of little piles. The street was practically impassable. It all had to be repaved with asphalt.
School opened, and I was in the eighth grade.We knew that after school, we weren’t to re-enter the building, but a few days later I was half-a-block on my way home and realized I’d forgotten my tablet and had math homework to do. I went back in, and just as I pulled my tablet out of my desk, a gruff feminine voice shouted: “What are you doing here?!” Timidly I replied, “I just came to get my tablet so I can do my homework.” Again she shouted: “No you didn’t! You came in here to steal something!”
I had no idea who she was, I’d never seen her and incidentally, never did again. I was still fresh from Pea Ridge. I’d have run out of there like a rabbit if she hadn’t stood in the doorway. I still wonder why she said not another word, and let me go by. I learned later she was Miss Adah Merritt, but never learned what position of authority she held. When I got home, I told Mama; she was angry, but wouldn’t let me go across the street to tell our neighbors, the school principal and the county superintendent!
For the first few years in Miami, I had girl trouble, but not the way you might think. I liked them, but was terribly bashful with any girl I had a crush on, and I always had a crush on one or another! My first real love was for Floy Wharton, immediately upon entering school. She was the youngest in our class, aged 12, and the smartest and cutest! But when she and I were alone~well, I’ll quote something she said to a girl who wanted to help me, or maybe both of us: “I like Ted Jones, but he just can’t talk!” Maybe I should’ve asked her friend to help me to become more lively and interesting, but I just got discouraged. I was afraid to ask Floy out, and instead began to hang out with other boys and fiddle with cars.
I got a paper route with the Miami Herald, the morning paper. I had to get up at 4:30 to be there by 5. Since it only required 1-1/2 to 2 hours, I’d be home in time to change clothes, eat breakfast and get to school on time. On Saturday I’d collect 10¢ per week from my customers, turn in the Herald’s part and if I didn’t have another job in the afternoon (which I usually did) I was free.
One afternoon I went to watch water polo at the Royal Palm Hotel, and saw five or six old canoes stacked against a wall, which looked like they hadn’t been used in years. I was keenly interested in a canoe, and the caretaker quickly agreed to give me my choice for a paltry sum. One of my buddies, Donald Roop, helped me tie it on a car and we moved it to where we could make repairs. A new canvas cover and a few coats of shellac and it was in fine condition. I lived only a block or two from the river, and Donald and I, or I alone, had a lot of fun on the river and in Biscayne Bay. Once we paddled across the bay, portaged across he peninsula and, just for kicks, paddled about 150 yards into the ocean. We had to make a very quick turnaround to avoid being broadsided and capsized by a wave!
In the summer of 1914 I delivered telegrams for Western Union, in addition to my paper route. Late in the summer things were slow one afternoon, and we boys got to playing outside the manager’s office. He opened the door and angrily told us all to be quiet. We stayed very quiet except for a widow’s son who had a wooden leg, who’d also had to drop out of school to help his mother. He made a big noise, the manager came to the door, pointed straight at me and said, “You’re fired! Turn in your cap and come back Saturday for your pay!” I would’ve felt terrible to point out the error, as the job meant so much to the other boy, and to me it just meant two weeks’ vacation before school opened. I quietly followed the boss’s instructions.
I liked all my teachers in the eighth grade, but when I got to high school, we had a history teacher who was perfectly wonderful, Miss Gladys Beckwith! She had traveled all over western and southern Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land. Occasionally she’d lay aside the text book and say: “This morning let’s take a trip to Rome (or Athens, Paris, etc.) and while helping us “see” what she had seen tell us about what happened there in history, thus stimulating us to study and appreciate history with greater interest and enthusiasm. Best of all, we knew that she loved each of us and tried to inspire us to be good persons. She never moralized or “preached” to us, nor scold us. She simply reflected, by her personality, goodness, kindness and love. She didn’t have discipline problems, because no one wanted to do anything that would hurt her.
She also stimulated in us a deep appreciation for our country, describing the thrill she felt looking at the Statue of Liberty on her return, and teaching us to sing, “America for Me”. Twenty years later, on a brief trip to Miami, I went to see her. She asked, “On such a short visit with your family, why did you drive twelve miles just to see me? When I told her how we loved her, she wept with gratitude. Oh, what a teacher! Oh, what a beautiful person!
There was a long-haired, long-whiskered carpenter who rode a man-size tricycle with a big wire basket for his tools. He claimed to be Jesus, and preached to small groups who gathered around him upstream, by the river. One week he told his congregation, “Next Sunday I’m going to walk on water!”
A couple boys who lived nearby noticed that the preacher was leaving planks under some bushes, and that Thursday and Friday was working after dark. The water there is black with silt and muck from the Everglades, so a person can’t see anything an inch or two under the surface. The boys went out late Saturday, discovered a platform just beneath the surface, and removed three or four wide boards. Now you know the reason for the drama of his sermon that Sunday, and why it ended with a splash!
We boys heard about an old Spanish fort in the jungle some three or four miles south of Miami, close to Biscayne Bay. Long ago it had cannons on top, and others poking through the east wall. A well-beaten path led to the doorway, framed with heavy timbers. Many of us, with lanterns, walked through that doorway leading to where Spaniards once slept and stored ammunition, but I never heard of anyone going very far, due to fear or rattlesnakes, wildcats and panthers.
One Sunday afternoon three of my friends left their bicycles by the road and walked towards the fort. Suddenly one looked up and saw by far the biggest snake he’d ever seen. They quickly decided one should ride back and get Von Moser, an authority on snakes, while the others stayed and watched. Pretty soon they heard a wagon coming, then the man and boy arrived with their arms full of ropes. Von Moser told the boys, “I’ll grab its head while you space yourselves three feet apart and hold on tight so it can’t crush me,” and gently nudged it with a pole. They captured the snake and put it on exhibition. A boa constrictor, it was 18 feet long and 6 inches around, and had apparently gotten aboard a boat in Central America, escaped or was let loose nearby, and grew to its monster dimensions. It died after several weeks in captivity. I saw it; almost everyone in Miami saw it, but I wasn’t one of the three who first saw it!
When delivering papers in the Southside residential area, I was crossing a bridge and saw some unusual activity. Captain Charlie Thompson had caught a monster of a fish, 30,000 pounds, of a type which had never been seen before, and I stopped to watch them pull a damaged boat, and the fish, from the water. I was one of the first to see the “sea monster”. They later mounted it and exhibited it in Miami for some time, then loaded it on a railroad flatcar for exhibition across the country. Its nose and tail extended slightly beyond both ends of the car.
In the summer of 1915, I was working in the office of Albert’s Garage, across the street from the county jail. John Ashley was awaiting sentencing for killing an Indian. Three strangers drove in and asked for us to install new batteries in their Model T. Albert and I, and most of the mechanics, had gone to dinner. The boy who remained said later that the three of them walked upstairs where all the general repair was done, apparently just looking around. One came down alone, crossed the street and a moment later a shot started a great commotion.
The man dashed back to the garage and commanded the boy to drive. “I can’t drive a car!”, he protested, and the man ran across the railroad tracks into a wooded area, a city policeman chasing him. The other two came running downstairs, jumped in the Ford and sped away. When we returned, we learned Mr. Hendrix, the deputy sheriff and jailer, was dead. The policeman and the fugitive had shot each other to death, and the two strangers had escaped. It later developed that John Ashley’s brothers had planned the jail break. His brother Bob drank some whiskey to build up his courage, had drunk too much, and spoiled the family plan by going in alone. I was glad Albert and I, and the mechanics, had been gone to dinner! We might have ended up as hostages in a “wild western” gun fight! We might have even been victims!
CHAPTER IX
ROAD TRIP
Early in the summer of 1916, a close friend, Van Kussrow, suggested what turned out to be a most outstanding adventure, a bicycle trip and ten-day camp at Wekiwa Springs, near Orlando. Due to a lack of roads, we’d have to go north to Daytona, then southwest. We arranged a schedule: Day #1, West Palm Beach. #2, Fort Pierce. #3, Cocoa. #4, Daytona, and #5, Wekiwa. We shipped to Orlando a 6’x8’ tent and a few things we wouldn’t need on the way, and took with us a pup tent, some compact cooking/eating kits, blankets and a .32 pistol (which we were glad not to have to use). We wore Boy Scout uniforms (a great help in making friends). We also took a 40 foot rope to loop over the spare tire of any Good Samaritan who’d tow us. Looping, instead of tying, so that in case of trouble we’d turn loose and the rope would stay with US!
A nice couple in a little Saxon car towed us the 35 miles from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach the first day, so we arrived well ahead of schedule and made our first unfortunate mistake. Instead of finding a spot free of mosquitoes for our camp and taking a swim, we swam in he ocean and then, not being tired, rode a few miles inland, so as to not have as far to go the next day. Consequently, by the time we set up our tent in a roadside spot and ate our supper the mosquitoes were already swarming, and we couldn’t get inside the pup tent without them crowding in. Since we were outnumbered, we hurriedly gathered up our belongings and fled from the conflict, now in darkness on a shell road with plenty of potholes. Our only hope was to find a house with a screened porch and a light on, so we could avoid awakening the occupants.
After 15 miles of rough riding, we saw it! The light was upstairs, so we knocked rather vigorously. A ‘voice from above”, came down, quite unlike the kind one reads about in the Bible. “Whaddayah want?” “We’re two Boy Scouts trying to camp out, but the mosquitoes are keeping us from sleeping. Will you let us sleep on your porch?” “No! There’s another house with a screened porch up the street. Nobody’s living in it. Go there!” (when we returned to Miami, we told of this to a man familiar with the village of Hobe Sound, and he said, “No wonder you got such a cold refusal. That is the home of the Ashley Gang of bank-robbers and murderers!”). Wow!
After two or three hours of sleep, daylight awakened us~well, it half did. Our sleepy eyes saw the rippling water from which the village got its name, and we went for a quick dip in the nude before the day’s ride. Three seconds in and one out, and we were covered with practically invisible sand flies, all stinging furiously! We grabbed our clothes, jumped on our bicycles and, still nude, rode to a place free of insects and dressed. Since we’d made a practice of riding 15 or 20 miles before breakfast, we rode the 15 miles to Stuart and dined in a little restaurant. By noon we’d reached Ft. Pierce, our second day’s goal.
Oh, what a welcome! A Boy Scout hailed us, took us home with him. His mother welcomed us, fed us, gave us a bed for the night and a wonderful breakfast! Our third night, in Cocoa, we bought a bottle of “Sweet Dreams” mosquito repellent and slept on the dock by the Indian River. On the fourth day we started for Daytona and stopped for breakfast in Titusville. A crowd gathered, asked a lot of questions and announced there was a new road to Orlando which would save us a whole day’s ride!
The first ten miles were OK, but then it was all sand! New, yes. Too dog gone new! Half done! We’d ride a little, then push a loaded cycle. Ride a little, push again!
By mid-afternoon we’d reached the Oveida railroad station and one store. A traveling salesman there suggested, “Ship your bicycles and I’ll take you to Orlando. Your bikes will be in Orlando before breakfast.” We stayed at a hotel in Orlando, had supper and breakfast at a restaurant, paid the small charge for freight and were away again. In Winter Park, we were hailed again by a Boy Scout. After a few questions, he said he’d bring some boys and girls with a picnic dinner to Wewika Springs on Sunday.
Wewika is a beautiful sulphur spring, the source of a small river. There was a diving board, a canoe with paddles, a nice camping space, a big grove of oaks and a large home on a hill, with apparently nobody home. Boys and girls came on Sunday, and we had a wonderful time throughout our stay. There was plenty of food, swimming, canoeing, and a roller coaster into the water. You can be sure we returned by way of Daytona Beach, where we slept far out on the fishing pier, our tow rope tied to each of us and on both sides to the railing. When we arrived back in Miami, both of us being carrier boys for the Miami Herald, we got our pictures and a write-up in the paper!

Meanwhile, our country got involved in World War I. All men 21 to 30 had to register for the draft, but nearly all I knew rushed to enlist. At a patriotic rally in the high school auditorium, I sang my first public solo: “Over There”. I wore an army uniform and held a big flag, the staff reaching about five feet above my head. Just as I finished and was walking backward for the curtain to fall, the guy with the rope pulled too fast and the curtain caught the flag, pushing it down. I held on and pulled a dipped flag back. Was embarrassed, though.
In junior class in high school I had grumpy and boring teachers, and after an attractive job offer I became a drop-out. I liked my job and my boss just fine (wholesale mill and plumbing supplies). After one year and a good promotion for me, the company transferred the manager and sent a quick-tempered Irishman, who also liked his liquor; this might have affected his temper. The Irish manager bawled out others when a kindly word of correction would’ve been better, and I decided I wouldn’t take such unjust scolding. All went well for six months, then he made a good customer mad and tried to blame it on me. I picked up my pay and immediately got a better-paying job driving a truck for a construction company at Dinner Key Naval Air Base, just below Miami.
Into the army went my brothers Hudson, Malcolm and Lambdin, along with so many others. Those who didn’t enlist were regarded as “slackers”. Miami’s one motorcycle patrolman joined, and I bought his motorcycle. The Home Guard was organized for those under 21 and over 30, and I joined it. We drilled at night, and it was fun watching some of those “oldsters” trying to go through the Manual of Arms with our wooden guns.
We were now into 1918, and Von Moser and our German music teacher, who had taught us the German national anthem in high school, disappeared, supposedly to a concentration camp. Soon draft registrations included the ages 18-35, and I registered. I decided that, before I was called, it was as good a time as any to take my long-yearned-for motorcycle trip.
CHAPTER X
ATLANTA BOUND!
In August I started assembling equipment for my trip. The motorcycle trip, like the bicycle trip in 1916, was originally planned as a twosome. We were to start out and ride until we ran out of money, get a job for a few days and resume travel. The other guy had an accident and couldn’t go, so I set out alone with no particular destination in mind, looking for adventure. I’d registered with the Miami draft board, but intended to enlist as soon as Congress extended the age limits, which wasn’t expected for several months. I believed I could complete an interesting trip before time ran out. Dressed in Army breeches and leather puttees, with a generous supply of luggage securely fastened to a rack behind me, I made the 366 miles to Jacksonville the first day. After a night in the home of a friend, I made a brief visit to Camp Johnston nearby to see my brother, Lambdin.
My brother Albert, who had driven a new car from Detroit, warned me, “It’s almost impossible to drive a car over the sand road between Jacksonville and Waycross, Georgia. You’ll never make it on a motorcycle!

The road from Jacksonville was all Albert said it was! It was literally a trail, consisting of two sand ruts made by wagons and later widened by the few cars whose drivers dared to try it. I had to learn to stay in the center of a rut without permitting my front wheel to touch a side wall, or it would immediately plow in and throw me. After several harmless falls I learned how to do it, but had to run in first gear about half the time and hardly ever got out of second gear. This of course made the engine run very hot, and I frequently had to put my left foot on the handlebar to keep my leg from blistering. It took me eight hours to travel that 80 miles, but I made it, and immediately and proudly sent Albert a postcard. With the ordeal over, I went to a hotel for a shower, supper and a long night’s sleep. I still wonder if I may have been the first to cross that stretch of road on a motorcycle. I’m sorry I didn’t think to check with the Waycross papers.
I soon discovered that the sight of a motorcycle was about as rare in south Georgia in 1918 as an automobile in Pea Ridge had been in 1908. People ran to their porches to see me go by.
A group of young people on their way to take a swim stood around a Ford with a flat tire. They’d patched the tube but had no pump. I offered mine, but a motorcycle pump is much smaller than than an auto pump, so it took quite awhile. While one pumped the others inspected, with a keen interest in my machine.
I started out again, and just as I was nearing a small farm house, rain began falling. The farmer had heard me coming, and was waiting with a friendly welcome. I turned into his grassy driveway and, after parking my steed in his shed, I ran to his porch. We played checkers for 45 minutes through the pouring rain. He won every game, with ease.
When the rain stopped I thanked him for his hospitality and prepared to leave. He calmly told me: “You ain’t goin’ nowhere on that thing. If it don’t rain no more maybe you c’n go tomorrow, but you’re gonna stay here tonight.” He didn’t offer any explanation, nor did he insist when I said, “Oh, yes, I can travel this road.” I knew about the clay roads in middle Georgia but had heard that the sand-clay in south Georgia roads was good in all weather~clay for firmness, mixed with sand to prevent skidding or bogging down. I noticed a sly expression on his face as I left, a look that seemed to say, I know something you don’t, and I’m going to enjoy watching you find out!
As I turned from his driveway into the road, my bike and I immediately ceased to coordinate. We skidded and twisted and almost sprawled into a muddy roadside ditch. With considerable difficulty, I got back into the farmer’s driveway, and when I looked up he was laughing. The joke was on me, so I joined in the laughter. When I asked about those south Georgia all-weather sand-clay roads he said, “Well, if you’ve got four wheels under you and drive carefully you can usually manage all right, but around here we ain’ got enough sand to match our clay, and nobody can make those two-wheelers go on a wet road. Now you jus’ put that thing back in the shed and consider yourself welcome here.”
By lamp-light, we had for supper a big platter of fried chicken, plenty of hot biscuits and preserves. I slept in a small room by myself on a mattress made of corn shucks, and slept well. Before I left I took some money from my pocket and tried to pay him, but he drew back almost as if he’d been insulted and said: “Friend, when I get so hard up I have to charge a neighbor for spendin’ a night in our home, I sho’ will be in a awful worse shape than I ever been yet!” He, his wife, his family (five young children) all impressed me, a poor tenant farmer family, “poor in this world’s goods”, but rich in character, hospitality, friendship, sense of humor and happiness!
As I neared Pea Ridge, the rural community of my childhood, my feeling of nostalgia was suddenly interrupted by a terrible scream as I passed the Arthur Clements home. I braked, turned around and parked by the front steps. No answer to the knock, nor to a loud call. The door was locked, and as I started around to the back, a peacock strutted out! “So you’re the one who brought me rushing to the rescue of Miss May, you rascal!”, I said with great relief, for I don’t mind admitting I was scared. I went on to pop in on cousins and friends and made brief visits to Concord Church, Union School, the old home place and dropped in on Sandy. Concord was where I “joined the church”, at about age 9 in a revival, with the Reverend Thomas Luke, who at our home peeled off his coat and rolled up his sleeves to play catch with the boys. What a nice way for a preacher to act!
I hadn’t decided where I’d go after a brief visit with Charlie and family in Atlanta, but as it turned out I didn’t have to. Congress made that decision~France. Papers announced the extension of the draft, and I tried to enlist, but enlistments were temporarily suspended and the draft postponed due to a shortage of leaders and equipment for training. I got a job, enlisted and later sold my motorcycle, but didn’t get a notice to report for duty until November 11th~Armistice Day! I reported, but a wire had already arrived ordering that no more men be enrolled in military service, so an hour later I was back on the job!
During the next 18 months, there were four significant developments in my home, my social life, my work and my religion.
My employers had an arrangement that saved them a lot of money on insurance and provided convenient living quarters for one of their regular employees, always a single man. The man who had this nicely furnished room, in a rear corner of the second floor, got married, and I was the fortunate one who succeeded him.
I’d been boarding with Charlie and his family three miles west of downtown Atlanta. To get to work at 8 AM I had to get up at 6:30, walk three blocks, catch a trolley and walk 3 more blocks to the store. The girls I dated lived in the eastern part of town, so when I got off work at 5, I had to go home, clean up, eat supper, change clothes, catch a trolley, transfer to another and, after taking my date home, repeat the trolley rides, often arriving home about 2 AM. Now I could be at my new home by 11:30 or 12, sleep until 7:30 and be at work at 8.
There was one requirement connected with my residence. Each night, as soon as I was in to stay, I had to tour the building and, to assure the insurance company, pull a signal lever at the far end of each of the four floors. In my tour I used the elevator and carried a flashlight and a pistol, which I was glad that I never had to use.
As for my social life, a co-worker was a member of a social club made up of male office workers. He introduced me at a meeting, and I was selected for membership. They specialized in dancing, but occasionally took dates to Warm Springs or other interesting places. Every activity was as clean and wholesome as a church picnic, but one Sunday I was at church with Charlie and the preacher said with particular emphasis, “Any man who tells me he can get on a dance floor, put his arms around a half-naked woman and not have evil thoughts is just not telling the truth!” That very day, I became a church drop-out!
Three weeks later, my superintendent invited me to go to church and home to dinner. Of course I accepted. The church was Presbyterian, and the people particularly friendly. The minister preached about God’s love. I soon joined that church and became a regular participant in its activities.
One holiday Charlie invited me to go with him and his family to see Uncle Watt and his family near Marietta. I’d sold my motorcycle by now, but knew Charlie liked to walk around the farm, so I wore my riding breeches and leather puttees. I was to have supper at Charlie’s, which meant I’d be leaving around 9 or 10 PM, with two walks alone in darkness, one from his house to the trolley and one from the trolley to the store. For protection I took my pistol, because gangs of youth occasionally beat up young men from other areas of the city to discourage them from crossing their “domain”.
It was a cold night, and I’d worn my overcoat. When I reached the end of the line, I stepped into a little neighborhood drug store to wait, and became the center of interest of about eight young men. They began with questions. Was I courting one of their neighborhood girls? I told them I’d been visiting my brother and his family. More questions, and threats, as they began drawing closer in a semi-circle. I backed against a wall to prevent being surrounded.
With my right hand holding my loaded pistol in my overcoat pocket, I tried to look unafraid. One said, “I believe he has a gun.” I prayed that I wouldn’t have to draw it, and that the street car would come quickly. The car soon arrived and I backed out the door, opening it with my left hand. One fellow reached as though to grab me. I said, “Don’t put your hand on me”. I walked to the car, looking back over my shoulder the whole way, and kept my hand on my pistol until I reached the trolley. My fears weren’t without cause; a young fellow had been killed by a gang in that area. It wasn’t murder; they’d been throwing rocks and one hit his head.
During the summer of 1919 our church had an assistant minister who with his wife left to become missionaries in the African Congo. We also had two missionaries as visiting speakers. After the war, a spirit of religious dedication was growing among young people such as I had never seen. I began to feel that God was working on me, but recoiled from serious involvement.
That fall two of my friends left for Davidson College, with the intent of becoming missionaries. I struggled against what increasingly seemed a divine call. For six months I refused to tell anyone about this, lest others should try to exert influence one way or the other.

There were two considerations on the negative side; I liked my job and the people I worked with, and had already been promoted twice. I also had the idea that missionaries just had to be too doggone pious to be interesting. I intended to get married in due time, and was determined to marry an interesting person.

Finally, I put two challenges, or tests, to God. First, to make me dissatisfied with my work, and second, to show me a girl with a wonderful personality, wisdom, common sense and a sense of humor, who would also be thrilled to be a missionary.
In just a short time, I was dating a girl who had all the qualifications, and she seemed as much in love with me as I was with her. I told her what I was considering, and she said, “Oh, I think that would be wonderful!” At the same time, I’d been contrasting my work in merchandising with what it must be like to be a minster, teaching people who never heard of Him. I decided God had met my demands, but as I put pressure on Nell she began to retreat from what I felt was very nearly a commitment. She finally told me she had decided to marry another man, a ministerial student in his senior year.
I went home to my room in the store and cried, in disappointment and anger. I accused God of tricking me, but the next morning when I awoke the truth dawned on me, most beautifully. I saw what a fool I’d been in not seeing it earlier. I said to myself: You have seven years of preparation before you can afford to get married. Nell is 21 now, loves her man and is ready to marry him when he graduates in two months. Why should you expect her to wait seven years for you? God has done what you asked; you didn’t ask him to provide now the one who, seven years hence, would go with you, he showed you one with all the qualifications who would be thrilled to be a missionary. Can’t you believe that there are others just as wonderful, or even more so?
Seven years later, when I was ready, I married a woman who far surpassed Nell, and every other woman I’ve known. We didn’t become foreign missionaries, but spent more than forty years together in the ministry.
CHAPTER XI
DAVIDSON COLLEGE
When I first indicated to my minister, Dr. Hemphill, the certainty of my calling, he started planning with me those seven years of education. I told him of my two big problems: only three years of high school, and lack of money. He assured me that I’d already received most of the help I’d need: loans from the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education and from Davidson College, which would be cancelled if I followed my plan. There’d be no charge for tuition, which left only room and board, books, clothing, laundry and travel. He’d done part-time work for these in his seminary years at Davidson, waiting on tables and washing dishes, and some supplemental preaching.
I was accepted at Davidson, contingent on some prescribed summer study in high school English and a medical exam. The doctor recommended a tonsillectomy, which he assured wouldn’t affect my singing voice. I received it at Grady Hospital, for free. One of my friends also suggested that if I played in the band I’d get free trips to football games, so I spent almost all my free time that summer reading English books and learning the clarinet.
Before summer ended, I had one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life! I’d been asked by a friend to be an usher at his wedding. I’d never been to a formal wedding except for my sister Lucy’s, when I was five. I didn’t remember much about it, and didn’t remember my friend mentioning a rehearsal. That evening I had a date for a picnic at the base of Stone Mountain, 15 miles away. As we were eating supper, the groom arrived to whisk me away. I took my date along, but decided it was better for them to think I forgot about the rehearsal than to reveal I knew nothing about weddings!
Our church gave those of us going to college a gift party, and quite a send-off. We were met at Davidson by a reception party of upperclassmen, registered and assigned to our rooms. These were in one of two hastily-built barracks used by the Students Army Training Corps three years before. They were the cheapest and poorest housing units on campus, but quite comfortable. We freshmen were given a booklet covering general rules and Davidson songs and yells, and were introduced to the members of the student council, the YMCA cabinet, cheerleaders etc. and were given a certain amount of time to learn it all. Then, the hazing rules were explained. I’ll never forget one warning from the student body president, Buck Currie (later Rev. Armand L. Currie). “You may have been a cannon in your hometown, but you’re nothing but a pop-gun here!”
Two weeks later I came up against my only real obstruction at Davidson. The head of mathematics had checked my records and saw that I hadn’t had plane geometry, and said I’d have to drop out, because nobody could pass solid geometry without it. I stated my case, but I might as well have been talking to the Sphinx, and dropped the class. It wasn’t until two years later an additional math teacher was added to the faculty, and was helping me arrange my schedule for junior year. I mentioned that I hadn’t taken freshman math, and told him my story. He said, “I’m not supposed to know that,” a clear invitation to enroll in his class. I did, and passed with a good grade, then borrowed a plane geometry book from a local high school student, and studied it a short while. I then told the head of the department that I was ready to take an exam on plane geometry, and passed!
In 1920, there were some disadvantages, but many advantages, to being a 21-year-old college freshman. It was difficult at first to stop work, run errands, take orders and face paddling and various indignities from younger kids just one year out of high school, but I realized I’d have to be a freshman, anyway. I accepted all this with good humor, and my maturity and life purpose helped me stick with my studies. They also helped me to become a leader in the glee club, drama, and the YMCA. There was even a financial advantage! Many younger boys were still growing, and as they outgrew their clothing they sold me what I could well use for far less than it would’ve cost new.
I also secured better summer jobs. After freshman year, I sold rubberized aprons (then new on the market) door-to-door to housewives. Almost every contact was a sale! After sophomore year I was hired as Assistant Youth Minister at First Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Georgia. During my junior year, I managed a boarding house, so had no board to pay, and spent that summer singing in evangelistic meetings around Atlanta. In the middle of my senior year I directed the choir of the Presbyterian church in Lexington. North Carolina, commuting in a rented Ford, and that summer I preached on Sunday evenings at a mill chapel in Lexington and conducted Vacation Bible School at both locations.
Now for a few interesting incidents:
I was in the Glee Club, a soloist in the college quartet and a member of the Davidson College band all four years. Our first trip with the Glee Club was to Flora McDonald College. The train made a long stop at Hamlet, so we all ran to get a sandwich nearby. The service wasn’t equal to the rush of so many customers, and just as our orders were placed on the counter, the whistle blew, the train started and we all grabbed our food and ran without paying, leaving the waiter staring in helpless anguish. The next day he was equally but much more pleasantly surprised when, on our way back, we all rushed in and paid him!
When on stage at Flora McDonald, a freshman forgot his words in the middle of his solo. After an instant’s pause he called his pianist: “Frank, come here a minute.” Frank came, he pointed towards the audience and said, “Right over there is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life!”, then whispered quickly, “Okay, I’m ready now!” Frank returned to the piano, the solo was completed and the audience apparently thought the whole thing had been planned to add a comedic touch to the performance. That freshman, was me!
For Christmas I stayed with Charlie’s family. They’d just had a gas heater installed in the bathroom. I had a date with Caroline, the girl I’d picnicked at Stone Mountain with. Charlie had offered me his car, and Florence had some new sheet music she wanted me to sing while she waited for Charlie to come home from work. She called when she knew I should’ve been out of the bathroom and dressed. No answer. She sent six-year-old Charles to the bathroom and he ran back calling out, “Uncle Ted’s dead!” Florence called the neighbors, who pulled me out of the tub and started administering artificial respiration while Florence called for an ambulance. I didn’t regain consciousness until 9:30, when I saw Charlie smiling at me. To my questions he answered: “In Grady Hospital. Gassed by that new heater which was improperly installed. No, you can’t leave until tomorrow. Yes, we called Caroline.”
The clarinet I bought to play in the band was a different pitch from the other instruments, so I had to slip the joints to make it longer, and thus lower the pitch. I couldn’t read music, so I played tenor by ear instead of the melody. I got by, both at football games and in concert.
As youth minister after my sophomore year, I discovered many young men had dropped out of Sunday school and Christian Endeavor (now known as Presbyterian Youth Fellowship). The core of this group boarded at the Perry Jackson home, and others gathered there for the tennis court, pool table and piano, plus Mrs. Jackson’s hospitality.
The head pastor, Dr. McGeachy, wanted me to board there so as to try to get them back to the church, which I gladly did. Somehow they got the impression my title was Assistant Pastor, and I saw at the long dining table many glances of apprehension. It could naturally be judged that I might frown on playing tennis and pool on Sunday afternoons. They invited me, which seemed to me a test, but I was glad I’d already promised to visit and sing at an old folks’ home that afternoon. I wanted to get Dr. McGeachy’s instructions.
When I asked the minister, he snorted about those who’d criticize playing tennis on Sunday while they’d ride in cars and fuss about what other drivers were doing, so I told the fellows I’d be happy to play with them. Soon I had them gladly stopping in time to wash up, eat supper and go to Christian Endeavor with me. They confided why they’d stopped going to Sunday school (they didn’t like the teacher), and told me if I’d teach the class they’d return.
This put me in an uncomfortable spot. I went to the Sunday school superintendent and told him what was happening. He immediately made the change, and the tennis players returned.
Other exciting things happened. On my arrival, Dr. McGeachy told me of his plan to have the first Daily Vacation Bible School in our denomination. Mrs. S.H. Askew, one of the best known teachers in the South, would be the leader. I went from house to house inviting mothers of all denominations to send their children. I led music and recreation, and told Bible stories. For two weeks we had a wonderful school; it was an inspiration to everyone.
Dr. McGeachy, however, had a month’s vacation, and his secretary two weeks, so some of their duties were assigned to me. Two of the Wednesday meetings were to be conducted by the elders of the church, but the other two were mine, and I was also to preach one Sunday afternoon in a little chapel. I did fairly well with the prayer meetings, but found I couldn’t possibly talk for more than five minutes on any of the texts I’d used for sermons. In desperation I called a visiting Presbyterian minister, and to my relief he agreed to preach, if I’d sing a solo.
He wanted the solo before the sermon. I looked through the ancient Sunday school song book and the only song suitable was: “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere”. When I began singing, people began walking out! I didn’t know whether to keep singing or stop! There weren’t but about a dozen people in the chapel to begin with, and by the time I’d finished at least half were gone. The others were sniffling and wiping their eyes.
When I finished, they all came back in. I suffered all through the sermon, whatever it was, and on to the end of the service. Had there been a back door I’d have escaped through it. Finally several ladies apologized to me, explaining, “That was Papa’s favorite hymn!”
While substituting for the secretary on her vacation, I had to sit at her desk on two Monday mornings, count all the loose cash in the Sunday offerings, open each envelope and credit its contributor in a big book and finally put all the money in a big bag to take to the bank.
The first Monday, I was finishing up and had money spread all over the desk when a tramp walked in who looked like Lon Chaney in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. I greeted him with my most engaging smile as I quickly scraped the money into the desk drawer, and asked, “Won’t you have a seat?” As it turned out, he only wanted a job, so I telephoned a man who put him to work cleaning up a vacant lot. The money got to the bank in minutes!
Toward the end of my junior year, when elections were held, I was chosen as President of the YMCA, the Glee Club and the Dramatic Club, all of which meant a lot of travel and many wonderful experiences. All the offices included expenses for travel, or I couldn’t have afforded them. Travel included the college YMCA conference in the Blue Ridge and the International Student Volunteer Convention in Indianapolis, for volunteers in the Foreign Mission Service. The latter met during Christmas vacation, and there were at least 1,000 students from colleges and universities all over the USA, plus several from other countries. Both meetings were deeply inspirational. I often ponder which college experiences were most helpful in my life, curricular or extra-curricular.

It’s only fair to mention that shortly before my graduation, I felt it important that if I was to be preaching against the evils of alcohol, I should have at least one experience with it. My brother Malcolm acquired a bottle of medicinal whiskey, and under his watchful eye I drank a considerable portion, until he told me when I’d had enough! I definitely got drunk, but had no desire to do it again!

My senior year was easy. I didn’t leave college Phi Beta Kappa, but with only three years of high school I was delighted to get a diploma, an ODK (Omicron Delta Kappa) key and high enough grades to be exempt from all senior mid-term and final exams~and Mama came all the way from Miami for my graduation!
CHAPTER XII
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

In the fall of 1924 I entered Union Theological Seminary. I was disappointed to learn the seminary and church was unaware of the Student Volunteer Movement, so the Board of World Missions wasn’t receiving funds to send us. The seminary curriculum was also geared only towards training ministers for churches. I did have two excellent professors for Christian Education and Church History, and an excellent part-time teacher of Public Speaking, but also an extremely dogmatic, old-time theological professor, who permitted no discussion. I didn’t like my three years with him studying Hebrew and Greek, but I had to do it, to get a B.D. degree.
In the summer of 1925 I served as chaplain (preacher and counselor) at the Virginia Masonic Home for Children. There were 225 kids, ages 5 and up, including some college-aged for those who wanted to go and could succeed. Prior to my arrival they’d had only seminary students, eight months of the year, leading Sunday school in the mornings and preaching on Sunday evenings. I recruited teachers from the Richmond Presbyterian churches to fill in during the summers.
On July 4th the assistant superintendent, a former army captain, was fired, and I was asked to take on his duties~work assignments and the discipline of boys~until “a successor could be secured”. I hesitated over combining the two jobs, but the superintendent, Mr. Turner, insisted. I said my form of discipline would be a far cry from the stern military type practiced by the captain, and he said that was just what he wanted; that I could count on his full support. The boys had enthusiastically indicated their delight when he’d gotten rid of the captain, so I was confident they’d cooperate with me.
Mr. Turner made no effort to get another Assistant Superintendent. I told him I liked the work, but wasn’t ready to make a complete break with the seminary, for I might be led into the ministry. We agreed that if I took only half the course load and spread the work over two years, I’d only be absent from the Home for about four hours a day, and that when the children were in school.
He was also hoping to establish a Boy Scout troop. Would I be interested in being Scoutmaster? I agreed, but thought it also important for the high school boys to have a football team. Mr. Turner was keen about football, but very doubtful that the Board would approve the expense of equipment and coaching before they’d finished paying for their new building. I told him there were plenty of former college players at the seminary who’d do the coaching without pay, and suggested that if the Board members could see their boys playing football they’d gladly pay for the equipment.
With my salary of $150 per month plus room and board, I was willing to gamble on this proposition. I told Mr. Turner I’d be responsible for the equipment if the Board didn’t pay for it. The sporting goods store agreed to charge the equipment to me, and I secured a good quarterback and a lineman to coach three afternoons per week. A man from the store measured 25 boys for uniforms, sewed names on them and threw in a few footballs. They didn’t win any games the first season, but most of the Board members came to see them play, and quickly paid for the equipment.
I also organized a Boy Scout troop, paid for their uniforms by the same method, and had them ready for the summer Jamboree, a camp-out and competition among all 30 troops in the district on a ten-acre campsite.
I made a terrible “bobble” the first night. The camp bugler was doing a lousy job, and I had a 14-year-old trumpet player, Emory, in our Home band who was a whiz. The Scout Executive rather grudgingly agreed to have him play “Taps” after the camp bugler, and the contrast was that as between a beginner and a professional. The next call was to be “Reveille” at 6 AM, followed by inspection at 6:30 and breakfast, served from an army field kitchen. Quietness settled over the camp.
Later, I was awakened by a noisy group nearby, looked at my watch and read it as 6:10. Half awake, I exclaimed, “Great guns, that bugler didn’t rouse half the camp! Wake up, Emory, and sound “Reveille!” I marveled that he did so beautifully, after his rude awakening. Now wide awake, I took another look at my watch. Instead of 6:10, it was 2:30! I ran to all my boys in heir pup tents and told them to maintain absolute silence, lest our troop be penalized for my blunder!
The Scout Executive and his assistant dressed hurriedly, and toured the camp. As they passed I heard the former say, “It sounded as if it was from over this way, but but all these seem to be asleep.” The next morning, they gave our troop an excellent rating on neatness, but at assembly the first announcement was a mild scolding to the culprit, whoever he was: “Scouting,” he said, “includes fun along with training. I can take a joke as well as you can, I believe, but waking up 600 people at 2:30 in the morning is not a very good joke!”
In the end, our troop was third in the over-all combined activities score for what turned out to be a very successful Camporee!
Meanwhile, I’d become involved in other activities. In the spring of 1925, I started three years of vocal lessons with an excellent teacher in Richmond. Since I’d joined a Masonic lodge in Atlanta, Mr. Turner urged me to go on through the Scottish Rite to the 32nd degree. This required a lot of educational instruction, some of which was deeply spiritual in nature. Early in the course each of the 45 or so of us in the class was asked to write a definition of God. Naturally, I wrote the one in the Presbyterian “Westminster Shorter Catechism.” This was unfamiliar to everyone else, including those conducting the training. It was so far superior to all the others written that I was asked to stand and read it to all present. I’m confident this is what later led to my election as Class President, and I had a feeling of guilt for not revealing its origin, but we didn’t know the class was to be asked to elect a president.
As a 32nd degree Mason I was eligible for admission to the Mystic Order of the Shrine. Some members of the Shrine Chanters, knowing I wasn’t financially able to pay the membership fee, offered to pay it for me if I’d join the Chanters. If I did, my expenses would also be paid to attend the next two Shrine Conventions, already scheduled for Los Angeles and Miami. Oh, what a temptation!
Along with the above, Mr. Turner kept talking about changing to some other work before very long, and wanted to recommend me to the Board for his successor as Superintendent. I was taking the other classes at the seminary to complete my second year of study and, although I was determined to finish that year’s studies, I really wrestled with the decision between the ministry and the Home, which offered the opportunity to have a far-reaching influence over its continuing enrollment of over 200 youngsters.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RIGHT GIRL
Two months after the 1926 fall terms began, I decided I was ready and anxious to find the right girl and get married. I asked a friend who’d become well acquainted with all the young ladies in the new class, “Who’s the sweetest, smartest, best all-around personality in that class?” Without a moment’s hesitation the answer came, with intense enthusiasm, “Eloise Knight!” I quickly made arrangements for an introduction.
My first impression was quite encouraging. She looked and talked like the dream girl I’d never met, but had longed for. I made a date for the theatre, and afterwards we dated regularly until the Christmas holidays took her home to Clearwater, Florida.
Our correspondence was encouraging. I met her at the train, and tested her by stopping at the theatre without asking for a date. She asked me what I was doing and I said, “Getting tickets.” I knew she was the kind of girl who wouldn’t be taken for granted unless I was the right man, and when I got by with that, I was pretty sure we were “on our way”! Soon we were engaged, and planned an August wedding! Ah-hah, just seven years after Nell chose the older man, and when I was ready to be married, I was provided with the most wonderful bride!
Meanwhile, everything had been going well at the Masonic Home. Our football team had won half their games, which we considered excellent for their second year of play. I had one more project I wanted to start before our wedding~a swimming pond.
The Home owned quite a bit of acreage, mostly devoted to farm and pasture, but in a wooded area 200 yards behind the cluster of buildings, there was a small stream fed by two or three springs. I believed that twenty husky high school boys and I, by removing a few trees and a lot of dirt, and building a good dam, could build an acceptable swimming pond.
Their work on the pond would have to go a little at a time, because these boys all had other work to do, on the farm and dairy. There was also school, football, baseball, band practice. Even if it required a year or more, though, and another year to fill and settle, it’d be worth it.
After determining the proposed boundaries, and two months’ work, the next job was mine alone~blasting the hard soil loose with dynamite. I borrowed an electric detonator, bought dynamite, caps and plenty of insulated wire. I only had two days before the departure date for our wedding. Exploding one charge at a time worked well, but time was running out, so I decided to explode the last three charges together.
It was a mistake. There were only two upheavals of soil. One charge either didn’t explode, or was set in wet, soft soil which absorbed the force, and I had to find out which. I couldn’t leave it in the ground, unexploded, to be dug up by the boys.
Naturally, I also preferred not to be a victim, which I might be if I used heavy tools. I carefully scraped with a shovel until I was about two feet above the dynamite. From there I considered it wise to use a big kitchen fork and spoon, and to be very cautious even with these. I finally found proof the charge had exploded in soft dirt, and it was safe for me to leave.
The wedding was set for late afternoon on the beautiful lawn of the lovely George Williams home at Nacoochee, Georgia, where Eloise’s family was spending the summer, and where Eloise had taught in a mountain school for three years after graduating from Agnes Scott College. Except for the wedding party, I was among strangers, so when a devoted former pupil of hers, Albert McClure, suggested I give him my car key so he could hide it from pranksters, I was wary. Eloise assured me it would be fine, so I agreed.
The wedding was perfectly beautiful. At the reception afterward, I was delighted to see Joby Rossee and his wife, who had driven up from my home town of Eatonton, Georgia, and two of my brothers, Charlie and Malcolm, with their wives from Atlanta.
After the reception Eloise’s brother, Robert, spirited us away in his car, skillfully eluding the pranksters with Albert McClure’s help. When we arrived the key was not in the spare tire cover, nor anywhere to be found! A friend had told Eloise to remember the first words of her husband when the two were alone, for they might be both surprising and interesting. Those words were, “We’re in an awful fix now!”
Bob had rushed back to block any pranksters who might have gotten by Albert, so there was nothing we could do but sit on our suitcases while daylight faded. Eloise still assured me that Albert wouldn’t fail us, though, and about twenty minutes later he came running through the woods with the key, saying the pranksters had almost caught him and he was afraid they’d find the car and the key!
With a big hug of gratitude to Albert, we hurried away to our first overnight stop at Clayton, Georgia. Afterwards, Dr. and Mrs. Sloop had invited us to spend our honeymoon in their guest cottage at Crossnore, North Carolina, in he heart of the Blue Ridge mountains. It was a perfect arrangement; comfortable, completely private and close enough to the village for convenient shopping. After a week there, we drove up through the Shenandoah Valley, visiting Natural Bridge, Luray Caverns and other interesting places, then down to Richmond and the Masonic Home. Eloise had been there with me on a number of Sunday evenings, and was joyfully welcomed.
We each had another year in school, and together we decided on the ministry rather than the Masonic Home. Our first year together we lived at the Home while I continued my work and Eloise commuted to school.
CHAPTER XIV
SHODDINESS AND EVIL
A memoir implying everything was always happy is neither complete, nor honest. There are those who, either thoughtlessly or intentionally, hurt others, including me and Eloise. It also seems wise to note that, however much one may love their church, it is and always has been composed of people. We who enter the ministry must, as people, expect personal difficulties and even injustice, and try not to harbor bitterness in our hearts. We, more than most, should promote peace and justice where they don’t exist. It’d be folly to always expect success, but in our encounters with shoddiness and evil actions it’s possible, and profitable, to learn how to promote both peace and good policy.
We’d planned to stay at the Masonic Home through the summer of 1928, then move to the seminary for my senior year. With my salary of $150 per month plus room and board, the two of us could save enough for our expenses, but the chairman of the presbytery’s Home Mission Committee made a request.
I was asked to serve as supply minister in a little Home Mission Church about 25 miles from Richmond, full time during the summer at $125 per month and then $50 during the school term.
I knew he was a good man and an experienced, hard working minister, but I shouldn’t have assumed he’d also be a good committee chairman. It didn’t occur to me that he would ask a young man with a wife to take a church with no manse and no provision for rent at such a small salary, and I assumed that if there were a difficult situation such as a division in the congregation he’d know about it and tell me. On both of these important matters, he turned out to be incompetent and shoddy as a chairman.
When we arrived, we found the church had no manse, and his committee had not secured an apartment nor provided payment of rent. Eloise and I spent hours searching and finally took a tiny, run-down, upstairs apartment at $40 per month. The Clerk of the Session (the number one man) invited us for dinner the first Sunday (we noticed he wasn’t at church) and told us he and his wife would not be attending because the other members were angry at him; however, they’d continue to contribute.
As we made our first round of calls, we got a cool reception. I began to feel like the Israelites in the wilderness, longing for the “fleshpot” of the Masonic Home! One very frank woman told us as we were leaving, “We hope we’ll learn to love you as much as we love Dr. Porter.” This was our first clue, but we didn’t want to ask questions, only to gain their trust. In their own time, they’d confide in us.
In the next couple weeks various churchgoers began to tell us the whole story. Dr. Porter, a Presbyterian minister now in charge of the American Bible Society office in Richmond, had ministered to them for six years and they all loved him dearly, except for Mr. Williams. This man owned a profitable business, had more money and education than everyone else, and insisted on “running things”. Dr. Porter insisted on Presbyterian polity, with Session meetings, Deacon meetings and, when the occasion demanded, Congregational meetings. As for the Superintendent of Home Missions, a fellow named Curtis, he was supposedly under the authority of the presbytery’s Committee on Home Missions, but was really just a “lackey” of Mr. Williams. Both resented Dr. Porter, and these two men were the ones who requested of the presbytery a young man to take Porter’s place.
Here is where the shoddiness of the Home Mission Committee became apparent. When these men bypassed the Session, the Congregation and the presbytery’s own Home Mission Committees with their request, the Chairman of the Committee should’ve ruled the request “Out of Order”. He should’ve promised that his committee would make a thorough study of the situation and report back to the presbytery. Instead, he let the irregularity pass, came to me and asked me to take over the church.
We went on with the pastoral calling, including the Williamses. At the end of the first month, though we economized in every way possible, our expenses totaled $108, and our first check was for $100, not $125. I immediately notified the Chairman and he promised correction. I also told the Scotts and they said we could board with them. We moved into an upstairs room, under a tin roof, paid regular board and Eloise helped Mrs. Scott with the housework.
Toward the end of July, Mr. Scott told us Mrs. Scott’s health was not good and suggested we find another place. The Mauneys took us in. For the other two months our checks were for $125, but we never got the $25 owed to us, nor any apology or explanation. All through the summer we never saw nor heard from Mr. Curtis, and wondered why. We later decided he must’ve resented the Chairman bypassing him and employing me.
Back at the seminary we, with two other couples, had rooms on the third floor of the President’s home and took meals in the seminary dining room. Eloise and one of the other wives got jobs as clerks at a department store. Eloise was an unusually personable and talented young lady, and was most gracious in selling what a customer wanted if it was in stock. She realized her talents didn’t extend to persuading someone to buy a substitute they didn’t want, however, and decided to resign. Fortunately Mr. Turner at the Masonic Home needed a teacher for special students and slow learners. He knew she would be good at that, telephoned her and she happily commuted, which certainly helped us get by later on when my $50 stipend ceased.
Among those who enrolled in seminary that fall was a converted Jew who for a number of years had been an active Presbyterian minister. He came for further study, toward the degree of Doctor of Theology. We all liked him and I invited him to go with Eloise and me to preach at Colonial Heights Church. Our people liked him so much they suggested that I invite him to preach for the evangelistic meeting early in November. I did, and he agreed. The next Sunday I announced his acceptance and the Session chose the week most convenient for the meeting.
At long last I was to have the “privilege”(?) of meeting my “boss”, Mr. Curtis. What a brief meeting! He hailed me on the seminary campus, having had someone point me out, I assume. No introduction, no handshake, no questions about how my work was going, no reference to my friend. He just stated, “I’m going to do the preaching at the evangelistic meeting at Colonial Heights”, then turned and walked away. The following Sunday I called a meeting of the Session after the morning service and reported what he had said. They exploded, each declaring: “If Curtis does the preaching I’ll not set foot in the church!”
Meanwhile, one of the seminary professors had become Chairman of the Home Mission Committee, and I reported the whole story of the developments in the church. He told me, “Go ahead with your plans. I’ll take care of Curtis.” The next Sunday I announced this. Since I was in school and could do little to spread the word, the congregation must have spread it enthusiastically among themselves, for the church was filled to the brim every evening, with ten or twelve standing in the rear.
The next time I heard from Mr. Curtis, two months later, was similar to the first. He hailed me on the campus in January and said: “I’m going to preach at Colonial Heights next Sunday. You can take the day off.”
“Don’t you want me to go with you?” I asked. I didn’t have any desire to go with him, nor the slightest belief that he would consent. I was being mischievous, trying to force him into betraying at least a hint of malice or a desire for vengeance. “No, I said for you to take the day off!” I wished I could be there in concealment, however!
Incidentally, other students who had served under him had dubbed him “Pope Curtis”. I was quickly learning why!
Monday he telephoned me to meet him, at a place insulated from any activity on campus. Characteristically, he was abrupt. “The people at Colonial Heights want your resignation, and I suggest you give it next Sunday, effective immediately.”
“But,” I protested. “I know those people love me. I have a right to be given a reason.” “I’d rather not discuss that,” he said. After more insistence on my part, he finally said, “Well, for one thing, they say you didn’t devote full time to the work; that you were employed part-time at a sporting-goods store.” I asked, “Did you contact the manager or anyone connected with the only sporting-goods store in Petersburg?” “No, I just took their word, and I don’t care to prolong this discussion.”
“Well, I do!”, I said, “If you had contacted anyone connected with the store, he would’ve told you he’d never heard of Ted Jones!’ “I will not discuss this any further!”, he said, “You resign next Sunday!” He then wheeled around and walked to his car.
I talked to the President of the Seminary. He actually wiped tears from his eyes and said, “It hurts me for anyone to mistreat one of my boys,” but he advised me to resign. “Soon you’ll be requested to visit churches seeking a minister, and you’ll want to accept a call from one of them.” But I saw evil, and shoddiness that should be exposed and overcome. According to Presbyterian polity, I shouldn’t resign to the congregation because they didn’t employ me. Curtis couldn’t fire me, for he also didn’t employ me. The only way my relationship to that church could ethically be severed was by my resignation to be offered, or my dismissal to be made, to the Home Mission Committee. All of us had erred in not following Church polity, clearly stated in the Book of Church Order. However, I was the winner, for after the service the following Sunday, I was greeted with this petition;
“We, the undersigned members of the Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church, do respectfully urge the Reverend W. Ted Jones to reconsider his resignation snd to continue as our minister.”
This was signed by every member present. The paper was passed around and signed during my sermon. I never noticed the activity, and my sermon no doubt received very little attention. Had it been presented to me before I left the pulpit, I’d have told them what Curtis told me, and would’ve continued three more months in order to, hopefully, get all concerned to look at the Book of Church Order and straighten it all out. Perhaps the Committee would’ve brought back Dr. Porter. I went to see Mr. Williams, but he said, “I feel so ill today I just don’t feel like talking to anyone.” Somebody must have later straightened things out for the young man who followed me there, though, for he later told me they had no trouble in the church while he was there.
Lessons to be learned from this:
Encourage only outstanding youth to enter church service, never “misfits”, viz. Curtis.
Know and follow the Book of Church Order. The Presbyterian Church lists four steps in a divine call to the ministry:
The call of the Holy Spirit
The recommendation of the Church Session
Examination and approval by the Presbytery
A call of one or more churches to be a minister
Further, a youth minister must answer some questions regarding his or her key responsibilities:
Has there been undue pressure by a parent or other person?
A check with the school on his or her diligence or deportment
Must have the ability to explain in detail the responsibilities involved
Does one honestly believe he or she is already in the process of becoming, and has the ability and will to become, such a minister as a layman would choose?
Don’t “pass the buck”. To do so makes it very difficult for the Session, the Presbytery Committee and the Presbytery to turn a minister down. To a Presbytery I would also urge: If a person by some default squeezes through but is not wanted by a church as a minister, please do NOT make him or her Superintendent of Home Missions or Executive Secretary!
CHAPTER XV
WEST VIRGINIA
Before graduating from the seminary, I visited and accepted a call to two small Home Mission churches near Huntington, West Virginia. Since the seminary school term ended three weeks before the end of public school, I had to leave Eloise at the Masonic Home. In Milton there was a manse, and we’d shipped our living room furniture, which was already there. I bought bedroom furniture, slept in the manse and boarded with some church members. I had a “back-log” of sermons, so I spent most of my time calling and getting acquainted with members in Milton and Barboursville, nine miles apart. I was so lonely I wrote to Eloise and told her I’d meet her halfway, and bought a train ticket only to Lewisburg, West Virginia. Was I glad to see her!
The people were very nice to us, but there were few in our churches and very few young people and children. The towns were not growing, and we soon realized there was no challenge. In the fall we received a letter from Mrs. McLeod in Bartow, Florida, saying their minister had left, and asking us to consider coming to their church. She was a long-time friend of Eloise’s mother, and her daughter Mary Stewart had been Eloise’s roommate for four years in college. I wrote her that I couldn’t consider leaving these churches after only six months, but wished her letter had come before I’d accepted the call.
Eloise’s sister Evelyn visited us in the fall and, when our people learned she was to be married December 29th, knew we’d want to be present. They asked if we wouldn’t rather take our vacation in Florida in the winter, saying, “We might be snowed in then anyway.” Of course, we gladly accepted. The McLeods were invited to the wedding and, believing we’d be there, got the church elders to agree for her to invite me to conduct the Communion service at the Bartow church on the first Sunday in January, the Sunday after the wedding. We knew her real purpose was to have the congregation meet us and join her in attempting to persuade us to move to Bartow.
The groom in the approaching wedding was “Mac” Richards (Rev. Dr. J. McDowell Richards). His father, pastor of the Davidson Presbyterian Church and a bible teacher in college when I was there, was to conduct the marriage service. All the groomsmen were Columbia Seminary classmates of Mac’s who had been preaching for several years. The wedding was to be in the family church in Safety Harbor on Tuesday evening. All these preachers were present for morning worship the Sunday prior to the wedding, and the family had assumed that, according to custom, their pastor had invited one of them, perhaps Dr. Richards, Sr., to preach.
Eloise, her mother and I arrived at exactly eleven o’clock, already slightly late. As we walked from our car we expected to hear the congregation singing the doxology. Instead, all was quiet and the pastor was standing at the door. He greeted Mrs. Knight and Eloise and then said, “Hello, Ted,” and grasping my arm announced, “You’re preaching for us today.” I remonstrated as firmly as possible, but he tightened his grip and continued pushing me down the aisle. By this time practically every set of eyes in the crowded church were on us. Either I must preach or a most embarrassing and confusing situation would follow. My voice was mute, but my heart screamed frantically, “Oh, Lord! PLEASE give me that sermon I preached in West Virginia last Sunday!” I kept my mouth shut during the doxology, the Lord’s Prayer, the hymns and responsive reading, trying to keep my mind open to this.
As the minister announced the second hymn, to be followed by the a scripture reading, I stepped to the pulpit and tossed a quick glance at that long line of preachers in hopes they might pray for me! While they sang, I thumbed the pages of that huge Bible and, just as they reached the last chorus, found what I was searching for. I read Romans 5:1-8, and was amazed at the way the last week’s sermon kept coming to my mind and voice. It felt like a miracle!
The next Sunday in Bartow, I was prepared with notes for a Communion meditation and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We were impressed with the attendance at both Sunday school and morning worship, more than we’d had at both our little churches in West Virginia put together, with many more young people and children. Bartow had a population of 5,000 and was rapidly growing, while Milton and Barboursville had about 1,500 each and few prospects for growth.
Eloise and I both felt an intangible something that seemed to say, “these are the sort of people you will feel more relaxed and comfortable with.” The elders met with me informally that afternoon, and I let them know we’d like to come to Bartow, but that we couldn’t in good conscience leave our churches for at least another six months. I advised them to call for someone else, but they didn’t follow my advice. Six months later, we moved.
CHAPTER XVI
BARTOW
The move, itself, was quite a story. First came a bit of questioning, which I expected. “If God had called you to West Virginia, isn’t it strange for you to be leaving so soon?” My answer was that God had called me to be a minister, and out of five invitations I’d chosen theirs. Had Bartow called me first, I’d have gone there because it presented a greater challenge and opportunity, and incidentally, the salary was the same. They agreed, reluctantly, to let me go.
We traded in our old car for a new one, had our furniture crated and hauled to the railroad station, and were ready at 4 PM on the day we were to leave. We stopped at the station and I signed the bills of lading, then a bomb fell on us! The agent said, “I’m sorry, Ted, but the railroads have a new ruling since you came out here. We can’t ship used furniture collect.” “How much?” “Seventy dollars.”
In the car, I explained our situation to my wife, now 8 months pregnant. “We have two alternatives. It’d be terribly embarrassing to ask Mr. Hall to loan us money under these circumstances, but I know he’d do it. We can also drive on and make a brief visit with my brother Malcolm. He’s in Greenville, which is about 300 miles from here; we have $5.63, for supper, breakfast and a night’s lodging, and our tank is full of gas.” As quick as a flash, she said, “Let’s go!”
This was 1930, when our lodging would cost about $1 each. We could get a good supper for 75¢ and breakfast for 50¢. In Bluefield, after breakfast, I inquired as to the best route to Greenville. When we reached our car, a highway patrolman was waiting for us! “Oh, oh!,” I said, “what have we done now?” He asked, “Where are you people going?” “To Florida.” “Well, don’t go through Virginia. We have a dealer’s war going on, and if they catch you with that West Virginia dealer’s tag, they’ll make you buy a Virginia plate.” I explained our situation, and he gave me one of his cards, then told me the name of the Virginia patrolman then on duty. “Tell him, if he stops you, that I said to let you by and I’ll do as much for him sometime.” I was really hoping to be stopped, because I wanted to see the officer’s face when he saw Eloise!~but we saw no officer.
We made it, had a pleasant overnight visit and left with enough money for the rest of the trip. I took Eloise to Safety Harbor to stay with her family and close to the doctor in Clearwater until after the birth of her baby, then went to Bartow and plunged into my work, sleeping at the manse and boarding at Mrs. McLeod’s with several other regular boarders.
I was disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm, but Mrs. McLeod explained that the Depression had hit Florida hard a year before, and the reason the former minister left was that they got behind with his salary. Some of the other members had opposed calling another minister, but Mrs. McLeod said brightly, “But you and Eloise are just the ones to revive the interest and courage of our people! Let’s pray together!”
I was glad she didn’t ask me to pray first! My, how that woman could pray! She’d been praying for that church a long time, and now she was sure God had sent Eloise and me to answer her prayer, and her words rang with praise and thanks, plus words of assurance and faith that God would lead us into the hearts of all the people. My prayer began with gratitude to God for Mrs. McLeod, whose faith had never faltered, and her faith in us. I promised to remember that God had led us to Bartow and that we’d follow his guidance. I prayed we’d find in every difficulty a challenge and opportunity.
I knew my first duty was to get acquainted, in a spirit of joyful anticipation. I remembered some advice from seminary school: first feed your sheep, then you can lead them. As their pastor I felt I should feed them with a sincere love for them as persons. I wouldn’t presume to pray for anyone unless they clearly wanted me to, as I’d need be accepted first as a friend, before expecting acceptance as a pastor.
A person must be in dire straits to want a stranger to pray for him, but of course the seriously ill, elderly or shut-ins would be prayed for from the start. From the pulpit, I needed to “feed the sheep” the word of God. The “food” had to be nutritious and palatable, especially in the first year. I didn’t have to make it nutritious, only to find the recipe. My job was to be selective, to feed them what they needed most. This began with love. God’s love.
So began my ministry in Bartow.
CHAPTER XVII
NEW ARRIVAL
Our first baby was due around the end of July. Every Sunday evening after church I drove to Safety Harbor to be with Eloise, returning Monday evening. The last Sunday in July was the 27th. I told Eloise I’d stay at home all day except church and meal hours, and made sure she had the phone numbers for the manse and Mrs. McLeod’s boarding house. No call came. After evening service I hurried over and, when I arrived, I seemed to see a radiance in her face more beautiful than I’d ever seen before.
At 4 AM on Monday, she wakened me and calmly said, “It’s time to dress and go.” I was amazed at her poise; however, I’d never seen her afraid, and as long as she lived I don’t remember ever seeing her afraid. At about 8 PM a nurse brought out a little baby girl and said to me, “She’s your baby, take her.” She let me hold my baby for a minute. What a thrill! Then she said, “Come see your wife. She and baby are both fine.”
After the kisses and hugs, I told mother and baby I surely did appreciate their timing. Just perfect, and weren’t we glad our baby was a Floridian! Oh, what a happy day! I telephoned the McLeods, and they put a notice in the paper and spread the word by telephone. When I returned to Bartow, our baby had brought about some encouraging changes in our members. Congratulations poured in, conversation picked up, and presents for the baby started coming. One thing that bothered us was that while there were four doctors in Bartow, there was no pediatrician. That was soon taken care of. I missed a meeting of the Rotary Club and visited the Lakeland club to keep up my record of attendance, where I met a former Davidson College friend who was a pediatrician. He asked if I had any children and as quickly as I answered he said, “You bring that baby to me as soon as convenient. I’ll give her a complete examination and the necessary immunizations.” We did. He refused payment and added emphatically, “And that applies to any more in the future, plus regular check-ups, and you be sure about those regular check-ups!”
Now Eloise could attend meetings free from worry about our baby, and we could begin planning strategy together for our church. Its needs were numerous and easy to list, but we wanted to rank them in the most favorable sequence. We were distressed that the women were divided into two groups, which we called the Marys and the Marthas. The Marys were loyal to the Women’s Auxiliary, which emphasized Bible study, prayer and missions. The Marthas chose the name “Earnest Workers”, and focused on the local church. They promoted church suppers, cake sales, rummage sales etc. It seemed obvious that as long as the women were sharply divided we couldn’t make much progress.
Eloise, being a woman of wisdom, came up with an answer. Those whose main interests were in what would be generally termed “spiritual life” should make the first move toward unity. She suggested to Mrs. McLeod that, in view of the circumstances, all members of the Auxiliary should join the Earnest Workers. After the first shock, Mrs. McLeod saw the wisdom of the suggestion and together she and Eloise talked with Mrs. Wallace, who was president of the Auxiliary and admired by all the women. It was a great but pleasant surprise to the Earnest Workers to receive the request, and this union turned out to be just what Eloise predicted, both an essential first move and the one which led to unity on other matters in a natural sequence. The other needs Eloise and I listed (privately) in the following order:
Social activities to strengthen unity: picnics, parties etc.
An evangelistic meeting with an interesting, well-loved preacher
A supper for men, with a dynamic speaker, music and fun
Elections of more elders, deacons and teachers
A complete remodeling of the church building
A church school building more suitable to our needs
Remodeling of the manse
The unity of the Marys and Marthas prepared the way for a Presbyterian Church picnic at a nearby lake, owned by a phosphate company and used by their employees, some of whom were church members. The company gave us exclusive use for the day. Kissenger Springs, similar to Silver Springs but smaller, was a favorite local swimming spot, but we’d be just part of the crowd there, which would defeat our purpose. At this lake, we could plan and conduct activities, have a swimming and diving competition, some playground activities and a picnic dinner, just for Presbyterians to have some fun together.
Next we had a party at the manse for adults. I’m sure all were surprised that we should attempt such a huge party at the little old manse, but we pulled it off. Someone years before had built a porch across the front and down both sides of the house, which made the house awfully dark in the daytime. We intended to remove the side porches someday, but for this evening they were a treasure. I installed wiring and overhead lights all around, then borrowed 15 card tables and 60 chairs from Whidden’s Funeral Home.
Our entertainment was limited to one game, but it was one which continued for a long time without any lapse in interest~a progressive alphabet game. On each table was a stack of 26 plain white cards, each bearing a letter of the alphabet, all shuffled and letter side down. Eloise and I made up a story of love, marriage and adventure, with blanks for insertion by players at each table of a word beginning with the letter of the next card turned over, each of the four players rotating the turning of the cards. The person who first called a word kept the card. When the alphabet had run through, the two with the most cards progressed, and the cards reshuffled. For a week afterward, people were asking, “What in the world was going on at your home the other night? I haven’t heard so much hilarity in years!”
Soon after this, Mrs. Albinson had a party for young people at her home. She had gala decorations and a variety of lively games, proving that a church youth party, with a little planning, could be a whale of a lot of fun. This was the first time I’d seen a hostess invest a little money and a lot of imagination for a church party.
Our next project was for a week of preaching in September with a well-known and much-loved minister, Dr. U.S. Gordon of Gainesville. We knew that for six evenings, Sunday through Friday, he could stir our people with interesting, reasonable and moving sermons, and he accepted. Meanwhile, I’d read in a church paper of the Belmont Covenant Tithing Plan that had worked wonders in a small and discouraged church in Roanoke, Virginia. I spoke to Eloise and we decided to try it, but not yet; we’d keep this as our secret until 1932.
We needed more men in the church, and the ones we had we needed to become more active. We decided to ask our women to take on two projects; the first to prepare a good supper, free, for at least 50 men, including our inactives and others not members of any church but, hopefully, prospects for ours. The ladies would arrange for the use of the Woman’s Club building, and I’d assume responsibility for attendance, a dynamic speaker and musical entertainment. This would be in November. The other project was to serve dinner to the presbytery at their spring 1932 meeting, but not for free, for it was customary for presbyteries to hold one-day meetings at their own expense~and if we must pay for the Masonic Hall or had any other expenses, that should be included in the charge for the dinner. They agreed to both requests.
I sent some letters to arrange speakers for our events and one to the Belmont Presbyterian Church. All responded favorably. With our September and November programs planned, we left on August 1st for our first vacation since arriving in Bartow, to Montreat, North Carolina.
Our 1930 Chevrolet wasn’t equipped with a trunk, so I had one made of wood and securely fastened it on the back, but I foolishly didn’t put a padlock on it! Eloise’s mother, Mrs. Knight, had already gone to Montreat by train, but left some of her clothing for us to bring. At our last overnight stop, her clothjing and most of our baby Roberta’s clothing was stolen. We were at a tourist home near Brevard, and when we arrived some men were working on a car; I was sure they were the thieves. I drove to the sheriff’s office and urged them to go at once and recover the clothing, but they said it’d be better to wait until the men were sure we were gone, for until then they’d probably have the clothing hidden somewhere. They assured me they’d take care of it and have the men arrested in a couple days. Three days later I drove the 50 miles back to Brevard, with only a shred of hope, and was put off again. They had my name and address in Montreat, but I never heard from them again. We did have a wonderful stay in Montreat, but one of my rules since then has been, if you’re ever in trouble away from home, go to the nearest Presbyterian minister.
Back in Bartow, the week of preaching by Dr. Gordon proved to be all we had hoped for, and Bob McLeod, the Presbyterian minister in Winter Haven, came over each night and led the singing. He’d been a close friend to both of us in college, and our teamwork added to the interest and effectiveness. At the fall meeting of the presbytery, many of the ministers were interested in learning that the Belmont Church minister was to speak at our spring meeting, for they’d also heard of the Belmont tithing plan.
Much of my time was now devoted to inviting men to the men’s supper. Most of them had heard the speaker or heard of him from others, and I invited 95 men, but told them I needed a definite “yes” or “no” so that the ladies could prepare. Besides our regular active men, 47 promised to come, and did. We had a mini-orchestra and a men’s quartet for entertainment before the address. Our speaker delivered a dynamic talk on “Churchmanship”, and what it meant to a man, his home, his family and the community as well as the church, liberally sprinkled with humor.

After the address I thanked the speaker, the ladies and the musicians, then said, “I’m sure you men realize there’s a Presbyterian motive here. The Bartow Presbyterian Church is throbbing with enthusiasm, and growing in numbers, too. I’d like every one of you to become an active member, and I’ll be calling on each of you personally as soon as possible. I want you all to say “yes!’”. We didn’t get all 47, but we got about half pretty soon, and a few more later.
CHAPTER XVIII
SPRING 1932
At the 1932 spring meeting of the presbytery in Bartow, the Roanoke minister told of the Belmont Covenant Tithing Plan. Though he’d told of it many times before, he hadn’t lost any of his enthusiasm, nor did he bore us with too many details. His happiness over what the experiment had meant to individuals and families, as well as his church, was impressive. He spoke for about twenty minutes. A number of men asked questions, and many of the ministers and elders were eager to try the plan in their churches. He had written me that he would expect only his expenses for the service, but after dinner, when he’d gone to his hotel room to rest, the presbytery voted to pay them plus a reasonable honorarium, and I received congratulations and thanks for persuading him to come.
That night almost all our members were at the church, ready to try the plan. Only a few questions were asked before someone made the motion and asked if I had a copy of the agreement to sign. Since Eloise and I had been looking forward to this moment for eight months, I of course had a paper ready, in contract form. The order of signing was: the minister, the elders, the deacons, the members, then any other persons not members but wanting to participate. Tithing began the Sunday after all, or practically all, had signed, and lasted thirteen weeks. All receipts were to be deposited in a special building fund account. After thirteen weeks, all who wished to cease tithing were free to do so. From then on I carried the paper wherever I went, so I’d have it ready if I met anyone who hadn’t yet signed.
Everything went as planned. Eloise and I made a secret, private list of members who hadn’t signed on the night of the meeting. We started with the names of those we were sure would sign and continued through those who seemed most doubtful. Of course, the further we went on the secret list, the more names the doubtful ones saw on the paper. One of the most doubtful eventually called me back and asked to sign. I don’t recall but one member who declined. After a few weeks one of the men at the bank exclaimed, “Where in the world are you Presbyterians getting all this money?!”
Mr. Albinson, the most experienced builder in Bartow, drew up plans, and the committee set the evening of October 17, 1932 to sign the contract. Eloise was expecting our second child, and at about 5 PM called the doctor. He examined her and, in effect, said, “not today”. After supper I went to the meeting, and Dr. Hargrove joined his three buddies for their weekly bridge session. About 8 PM our next-door neighbor and close friend Virginia Gallemore called. “I’m taking Eloise to the hospital! I’ve called Dr. Hargrove, and stuffed a few things in a suitcase! Pick it up on the side porch, and hurry!”
The doctor finished his hand, then arrived just in time to catch the baby, another girl. Nobody blamed him; babies aren’t supposed to come barging into the world like that. However, the next time we called, also on his bridge night, he threw down his cards and sped to the hospital!
I only missed about half-an-hour of the committee meeting. Not much demolition was necessary, just the lean-to Sunday school rooms, the old bell tower and the old, ramshackle windows.
During construction, we held our meetings in the Masonic Hall. When actual construction began, we had a ceremonial corner-stone laying and when it was completed, a dedication service. Someone mentioned that this was really a remodeling, and questioned the propriety of the observance, but this was such a milestone in the life, growth and spirit of the congregation that we believed the celebration was appropriate. The Reverend Doctor Henry Louis Smith, one of the four famed Presbyterian Brothers and an outstanding leader, was our speaker, and the church was packed for this triumphant occasion. Needless to say, Eloise and I were mighty happy after 2-1/2 years of wonderful cooperation by the Bartow Presbyterians.
The church building was redesigned to face the busier street and set in the middle of the lot, about 16 feet from the sidewalk. A beautiful white travertine stone front , 20 feet wide, reached above the pinnacle of the roof, and huge, heavy double doors, extra high, swung wide. The rest of the building was surrounded with a brick veneer, the inside walls covered with knotty wood paneling and modern windows and pews installed. At the rear, adjoining the sanctuary, an even larger building was erected, forming a “T”, with variously sized rooms for children’s departments, adult and youth classes, a minister’s study and office. To avoid going into debt, this building was left unfinished inside, but usable. Later, brick veneer, inside walls, and doors were added to complete the structure, which served for some thirty years before the continued growth of the congregation brought more changes.
The thirteen-week period of the Belmont Tithing Plan had long since ended. On the thirteenth Sunday, I’d done what the Belmont minister had done. Whether to continue tithing now was not a corporate decision (if the others will, I will). It was now an individual decision (whether others do or not, I will). Having thus stated the situation, I suggested that anyone who had discovered that tithing had enhanced their spiritual life and wished to continue, to say so. Quite a few did, and in so doing they encouraged others, so the money kept coming in. The manse was remodeled, and the Sunday school building completed.
CHAPTER XIX
OUR CHILDREN

Since these memoirs are being written at the behest of our children, it’s high time to recall some interesting memories about them.
On the same vacation were our clothing was stolen from the trunk were a couple other incidents. We were nearing a small town in southern Georgia, where we’d planned our first overnight stop, when darkness overtook us. Our headlights had shorted out. One-year-old Roberta was in the back seat, asleep, so I reduced my speed. It was a very dark night and we couldn’t see to the front at all, so each of us leaned out the window to see the edge of the pavement. After a few minutes I stopped, and Eloise asked why. I said I had a strange feeling there was something in the road, though neither of us could see a thing. She pulled the flashlight from the glove box, and we saw a cow standing broadside in the road, calmly chewing her cud. Holding the flashlight out the window, I slowly drove up to the cow, and actually had to nudge her with the bumper before she moved.
At the little hotel that night Eloise asked for milk for the baby. The proprietor brought her a pint bottle, and Eloise asked him if it was pasteurized. He hesitated, then said, “Well, I reckon you’d call it half-and-half.” “What do you mean?”, she asked. “The man feeds his cows, but all day long he turns them out to pasture,” he said. Eloise, with his permission, went to his kitchen and pasteurized the milk herself, before his wondering eyes.
In those days, psychologists said, “Don’t rock babies and sing them to sleep. Don’t cuddle them much, either. Put them on the bed and leave them.” We ignored the psychologists, and have never regretted it. Now they’re saying,”Babies are in constant motion before birth, so it’s wise to rock them, and they need lots of cuddling, because physical contact is the best evidence to them that they are cared for and loved.”
Sometimes it’s difficult to get a little child to eat. Georgia, our elderly colored nurse, found a way to make ‘em eat, and enjoy it! She’d hold up a spoonful of oatmeal and say, “This is a frog (or turtle, or alligator)”. They’d laugh, and soon the food was all gone!
Among our close neighbors were an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Orr, whom our children called Orr and Aunt Mamie. Orr enjoyed telling how Roberta once insisted he should sing to her. Sitting in his lap, she looked up and said, “Sing, Orr!” He’d never been a good singer, and many years had passed since he’d tried, but she insisted. “SING, Orr!” After a few grunting sounds, she yelled, “HUSH, Orr!”
Roberta started singing early. From ages 5 to 9 she stood on a box in the choir loft at every infant baptism and closed the service with “I Think When I Read That Sweet Story of Old”. She began piano lessons at age five, and later we often had to stop her from practicing and get her outside for some physical exercise. In her teens she attended Transylvania Music Camp in Brevard, North Carolina, and for one summer the Trapp Family Music Camp in Vermont, all paid for by a friend until she was old enough to be a camp counselor. In college she majored in voice, and then landed a job as music director for “Horn in the West”, an outdoor drama in Boone, North Carolina. In the fall of that year she married Ned Austin, the star of the show, who portrayed Daniel Boone.
Carol was “the quickie” of our family. Born quickly, she continued to be quick about everything. Quick to cry, quick to stop, quick to get angry and quick to get over it. Quick to go to bed and to get up, quick to respond or react. She was quick in school and to learn how to do things with her hands. She walked before she was nine months old, and played a little song on a piano in a recital before a large crowd when she was five. She learned quickly how to make doll clothes, and then her own. Whenever we planned a trip, she was the first to get her belongings packed. On the second occasion our car lights shorted out, she was out of the car the instant it stopped, before anyone else.
Once she reacted instantly, but for lack of knowledge the wrong way. A neighbor boy named Marvin playfully waved a firebrand in our backyard and a spark ignited Carol’s long blonde hair. Fortunately, both parents were in the house and Carol ran. Screaming to the door. Roberta was also screaming: “Don’t run! Lie down and I’ll put it out!” Carol didn’t heed her. I met her at the door, threw my coat over her and smothered the fire. The only damage was an almost imperceptible loss of a few hairs and a very small skin burn. She ran so fast the fire couldn’t catch her!
Carol has a knack for knowing what to do and how do it quickly, without any lost motion be it physical, social, moral or spiritual. She inherited much of this from Eloise, but added her own ingenuity.
In childhood and youth, Carol was right much of a home-body. She wasn’t interested in going to camp unless one of her parents was among the leaders. She wasn’t timid, just cautious, but Roberta and her younger brother Ted were more adventurous.
The first time we took her to Sunday school, she taught us a valuable lesson. We were a few minutes late and the room was full of strange, active, noisy kindergartners. An elderly lady stooped to remove her coat and she started screaming. She knew we were planning to leave her, and was mighty quick to let us know she didn’t like it! She much preferred the security of home and her beloved Georgia. From this experience, we learned to tell teachers and parents two important things before enrolling a child in Sunday school. On a weekday a mother, teacher and child should meet and the child get acquainted with the teacher, and the play-things. It’s also good to have the child arrive early (but after the teacher, of course) and get started on a favorite activity.
It isn’t proper for a minister to baptize his own child, for he and the mother must assume the parental vows. Since Dr. J.L. Oates, the ARP (Associate Reformed Presbyterian) minister, was a close friend, we asked him to baptize Carol (Mac Richards had baptized Roberta). This was a Sunday when both our churches were holding communion. I requested a hymn while Dr. Oates walked the block from his church. When Mrs. Liles started the introductory measures, I realized it wasn’t the hymn requested, and I said, “Mrs. Lyles, I believe you have the wrong book.” Someone had placed an old-time songbook on the piano, and she was playing “Hold the Fort, for I am Coming!” After the service, Dr. Oates and I laughed as we imagined how it would’ve been if he’d entered just as we were singing, “See the mighty host advancing, Satan leading on!”
A year and a half after Carol, Teddy was born. He, also, was born on Dr. Hargrove’s bridge night, but this time he’d only played two or three hands when the phone rang. He threw down his cards, grabbed his coat and dashed out the door, but unlike Carol, Teddy kept us all waiting until almost midnight! I felt sorry for Dr. Hargrove, as he loved to play bridge. Finally a nurse stepped out into the hall and, to avoid waking the other patients, whispered, “it’s a boy!” I responded, but not quite in a whisper, “Hot dog!” We’d planned for only three children, and since we’d had two girls, both of us were hoping and praying for a boy. I wanted to share the news, but it was too late to telephone. I drove all over downtown hoping to find a policeman or pedestrian, but had to go to bed without telling anyone!
When Teddy was three months old, Carol 21 months and Roberta 4 years, all three of them came down with whooping cough. Fortunately my annual vacation, in August, was just a few days later, and Dr. Hargrove said the best place for them was at the beach. We spent most of our vacations at Clearwater Beach during our time in Bartow, not only because we liked it but because it cost practically nothing. We rented a house on the bay side of the island, and were glad to be away from the crowd and noise on the gulf side, but could get there in five minutes. The rent was $50 for the whole month, and I received more than that for supply preaching the four Sundays in Tampa. While I was there, Bartow had laymen from Lakeland, Winter Haven and Tampa supply for me.
One summer we vacationed at Fernandina Beach, lived in the manse and I preached in their minister’s absence. While there I spent one day on a shrimping boat, as a guest of the captain.
The beach at Fernandina compares quite favorably with that at Daytona, but in the 1930s was much less crowded, so it was an ideal vacation place for families with small children. One day in the manse a spider stung Carol. We rushed her and the quickly-killed spider to the doctor, but he assured us it wasn’t the dangerous kind.
Babies, we are told, have only two instinctive fears, fear of falling and fear of a loud noise. Teddy adopted Roberta as his protector; when he heard a siren or other loud noise, he’d run to her. She soon adopted a policy of running to Teddy if she heard a loud noise, including a siren, an approaching thunderstorm, a low-flying airplane or the roar of a hurricane. One day Teddy succeeded in unfastening the window screen, and fell through the living room window. Eloise heard him scream, ran out and picked him up, unhurt but scared. Relaxing in the security of her arms, he said, ”It felt good ’til I hit!”
One night Eloise was trying to rock Teddy to sleep. Unfortunately she was more tired and sleepy than he, and as she was singing the spiritual, “I got shoes, you got shoes”, Teddy sat up straight and challenged her theology by asking “Where do they get shoes?” Eloise, half asleep and a bit annoyed, responded, “Oh, people don’t have to wear clothes there.” Teddy, now fully aroused, shouted, “If they don’t wear clothes in heaven, I don’t want to go there!” One day Teddy did something that made Carol very angry and she shouted, “That’s why nobody likes you!”. Teddy calmly said, “I like me.”
We lived on a street where a good many colored people walked by on their way to work or shopping, and Teddy would often talk with them. One day Eloise took him with her to Lakeland to do some shopping and lost him in a department store. She found him on the sidewalk, looking in the display windows. It was time for a serious talk about wandering away and getting lost. “Honey, after you’d walked away from Mother, I looked for you but you weren’t in the store. Suppose you’d suddenly realized you didn’t know where I was, you didn’t know where you were and you didn’t know how to get home. What would you do?” Calmly, as always, he replied, “I’d go up to the first colored man I saw, tell him my name and ask him to take me home.”
Someone gave our children a few bantam chickens, including a rooster. I built a pen in our backyard, adjacent to Dr. Hargrove’s sleeping porch. Soon, in a tactful, roundabout way, he let us know that the rooster was awakening him at day-break. It was fortunate that Carol was sick in bed, as Eloise then fed her chicken soup. Carol, not knowing its origin, happily gobbled up!

Another pet our children received was a beautiful fox terrier, which they dearly loved. One day I saw “Kim” writhing in pain in our front yard and rushed her to the veterinarian. It was no use. She’d been poisoned. Our next-door neighbor was the publisher of the daily paper, and that afternoon a conspicuous block on the front page announced that someone had poisoned our dog. Other dogs had also been poisoned, and Bartow was already aroused. One druggist said a certain woman had bought poison from him “to kill rats”. A neighbor then told us she’d seen this woman slowly drive past our house and throw a package into our yard. Of course, the children were grief-stricken, but before supper a man we didn’t know telephoned us and offered us a Pekingese. I took all three kids in the car to pick up the dog, and they quickly transferred to it their affection.
CHAPTER XX
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES

Our treasured memories of Bartow include much more than ministry and family life. When a group of people struggle together against daunting obstacles and succeed, they develop a love for each other which lives on. When I think of Bartow, I remember a town with wonderful community spirit. Many of the 5,000 occupants in 1930 were born there, and many others had lived there long enough to share the “hometown spirit”. I think this community spirit enabled them to weather the Depression confidently and cheerfully. Bartow was large enough to have a lot of activities and small enough for each person to know almost everyone.
One of the first community activities I took part in was the Red Cross. I also took part in a local talent and comedy show sponsored by the Jaycees, to benefit the Milk Fund for underprivileged children. I became a Rotarian and served as a scoutmaster for the local Boy Scout troop. With the encouragement of the McLeods, we raised money for the employment of a Bible teacher in the public schools of Bartow, a position which continued for more than forty years.
I’d heard of an excellent high school band in Sebring, fifty miles away. I wrote the bandmaster asking him to put on a concert in Bartow’s city auditorium, so as to encourage our youngsters to do the same. He played to a packed house, and soon we had a fine band as well. I invited Gypsy Smith, Jr. for an evangelistic meeting, and with all the churches united in support once again packed the city auditorium. I also served as Director of the Bartow High School Band and, unofficially, as the high school chaplain.
I’d like to acknowledge my gratitude to the many friends who cared enough to tell me of persons in the community they believed I might be able to help. An elderly couple in town operated a small neighborhood store.They were Presbyterians, but had never affiliated with a church because they felt some of their customers might go elsewhere, and they were barely scraping by. They dearly wished they could take a day off each week, but didn’t dare.
There were perhaps twelve or fifteen such neighborhood stores in the area, in the white and colored residential areas. I typed up a proposed “covenant” based on the yearnings of this couple. If all the store operators would agree to sign a pledge and close on Sunday, then all would have a free day. With this covenant on a clip-board, I visited all the merchants in the area and all except one signed in a spirit of jubilation. That one finally gave in when I told him of the publicity which would follow. A date to begin was posted on every store front and in the paper. Their joy was my reward.
The county judge asked me to serve with two physicians on the County Sanity Examining Committee. My responsibilities didn’t involve the medical or psychological condition of the persons examined; I was there for compassion, persuasion, counseling and consolation. We had to send some to the state mental hospital, but in many situations the individual or family just needed counseling. In one case a wife was trying to get her husband committed so that she could get control of his property. He’d done a few stupid things, but certainly didn’t belong in a mental hospital.
The chief of police asked me to help him with persons in dire need, or in arguments between family members or neighbors. In these, counseling often brought reconciliation. Early one very cold morning, he took me into a black residential area. On the front porch was an elderly colored woman lying on a cot, with one ragged blanket over her. The chief said she’d been living with a family in another house, taking care of the children of a working mother. She had tuberculosis, but it wasn’t the contagion or infection the family feared, it was a superstition. If anyone not a family member should die in the home, they felt some terrible evil would come on the family. They knew she was to die soon, so in the middle of the night when the neighbors were asleep, they put her on this porch. Chief Mizelle asked me what I thought we could do.
I told him to take me to County Hospital as fast as possible, with his siren sounding full blast. There, the Nursing Supervisor said they had no isolation room for infectious diseases. I asked if they’d provide essential care if we’d set up a tent, and she said yes. We found a tent, the sheriff sent convicts and a guard to set it up and the woman was cared for until her death, a few days later.
One of our members, Mr. John Tharp, was the dairyman of Bartow. He’d bring his wife and children to church, but sleep in the car. The first time I visited, I met Mrs. Tharp and the children and then went out to the barn where he was working. He apologized for not attending, but said that he had to start work at three every morning. I told him I’d rather he sleep in his car than in church, and with that bit of levity a friendship began. He asked if there was anything he could do for the church, and I said it’d be nice to have a grass lawn; that if he’d send me some of that manure I’d get some men to dig up that hard-packed yard, spread the manure and sprig the yard with centipede grass. He sent men along with picks and shovels, and orders to dig up the yard and smooth it over. Then he sent manure enough to spread and several wagon-loads of top soil. He’d have had them sprig the lawn as well, but I wouldn’t let him. I did that.
One day when Mrs. Tharp and the children were visiting family in Virginia, Mr. Tharp’s sister telephoned me that he was sick. I went out and learned that, whatever else might be wrong, he was terribly constipated. There was an enema bag in the bathroom so, over his protests, I gave him an enema. He was extremely embarrassed that his minister had done that, but when it was over he felt so good that we had some jolly laughter about it.
Mrs. Orr told me once about a local doctor who was very smart and would call on anyone, white or black, rich or poor. If they were very poor he wouldn’t charge them, and if they were destitute he’d pay for their drugs and have a box of food sent to them. He was, however, an alcoholic, and a lot of people who’d like to go to him and were able to pay wouldn’t, lest he be drunk.
His office was near my study, and I talked with him one day. I introduced myself, told him mutual friends had told me that he was smart and did a lot of good for the poor, but how sorry they were about his drinking. Then I told him if he wanted for me to go away and mind my own business, I would.
He said, “Mr. Jones, I’ve been drinking like a damn fool for a long time, and everyone knows it. You’re the first person ever to talk to me about it, and I want you to know I appreciate it. I’m not going to promise you I’ll never take another drink, but I’m glad to know you’re my friend.”
I don’t claim any credit for the change in that doctor, but he started keeping regular hours and a year or so later had a new office built. Meanwhile, many times he came to my study and handed me a five-dollar bill, saying, “You know who needs it, so put it where it’s needed.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE HURRICANE
The 1935 annual Presbytery Pioneer conference (ages 12-14) was scheduled for the first week in September at the Clearwater Beach Hotel. As we were traveling from various churches on Labor Day, without car radios, we were unaware that a hurricane was already pounding the men constructing the Oversea Highway to Key West, eventually killing over 200 of them. Early Tuesday morning I saw a group of men huddled around a radio, ran over and learned the storm had turned north, heading up the west coast. I rushed to the director of the conference, told him the news and urgently insisted that “we get these kids away from here as fast as possible!”
I was dismayed at his disagreement, but he’d recently come to the Tampa church from Rock Hill, South Carolina, and knew nothing about hurricanes. He wouldn’t consider leaving just as the conference was starting.
I’ve never understood why the other adults didn’t join together and over-rule him. By noon the Clearwater radio station was broadcasting police directives every five minutes, ordering everyone off the island immediately. Now, it was too late to pack, and even too late to get buses or trucks from the mainland to help with transportation. We were told by telephone to bring the ladies and girls to Peace Memorial Presbyterian Church and men and boys to the gymnasium next door. Clearwater people were bringing food there for us. Each of us who had a car was loading it with youngsters and making trip after trip across the causeway through rain and gusts of wind so strong as to be very dangerous.
The telephone exchange was busy with calls from anxious parents, who were told the children were safe in the buildings mentioned above. After the kids were all safe, police led us with cars to a safe storage place. All through the night the roar of the wind and crashing of debris against the walls made sleep nearly impossible.
The next morning, very early, during the calm of the storm center, we men rushed over with the help of the police and dashed from room to room stuffing everything into satchels and pillowcases. Two trips of 8 or 10 cars took care of all personal property, and the young people had to search through the scrambled mess for their belongings. We feared the other side of the storm might force us to stay in Clearwater another night, but it must have turned into the gulf. Parents and ministers came for the children and all of us got home on Wednesday. Everyone was alive and nobody hurt, though I doubt everybody got all their belongings.
We spent four more years in Bartow, and our social life was particularly delightful. Most important was the book club Eloise joined soon after our arrival. Composed of young matrons of a similar educational and cultural background, they were wonderfully congenial. They had frequent parties, and these included husbands. Eloise’s sparkling sense of humor was often the stimulus for hilarity, and we the husbands were also friends in civic and community activities. Our social life in Bartow far surpassed what we’d experienced anywhere else, and as our church grew many interesting people became deacons, choir members, teaching staff, etc. I also had a delightful fellowship in the Rotary Club, a genial Monday afternoon golf partner and occasionally played tennis.
We were on vacation at Clearwater Beach in August, 1939, when a pulpit committee from Highland Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, N.C. appeared, having been directed by our Bartow friends how to find us. I’d have been more interested if everything hadn’t been going well in Bartow, but frankly I’d been hoping for an increase in salary. Our church membership had increased both in number and in financial well-being, but I found it difficult to take the initiative. Still, I delayed my response to the Fayetteville overture.
I finally agreed to visit in mid-October. This visit was marked by an interesting, but alarming, coincidence. Two of us got off the train with identical suitcases. Two church officers met me, one picked up a suitcase and they rushed me to the home of my host. Only then did I see it was the wrong luggage! We telephoned the station-master. My luggage was now in the possession of a lady who had immediately boarded a train bound for Wilmington, NC, some 85 miles distant! The station-master contacted his counterpart and arranged for the exchange of luggage the next day, in time for me to be properly attired for the Wednesday night service. On Sunday I received a phone call stating that the congregation had voted unanimously, and an official Congregational Call was being prepared, requesting me to become their pastor at a salary of $3,000 per year, with manse, all moving expenses and membership in the Minister’s Annuity Plan should I accept, which I did.
If we were so happy in Bartow, why did we agree to leave?
When we went to Bartow in 1930, that church was so disorganized and discouraged that they were unable to get together a Congregational Meeting to issue a call to anyone. Mrs. McLeod, in desperation, asked the Plant City pastor for advice, and he suggested she write describing their situation in full and ask if I’d agree to come on as Stated Supply Minister.
Stated Supply is a very loose relationship, requiring no Pastoral Call and no stated obligations on the part of either church or minister, except if the minister is asked to supply for a limited time, and they weren’t even willing to go that far. Eloise and I came with no assurance for the future except Mrs. McLeods’s faith in God and in us, and our firm belief that God would surely enable us to do what was needed. They only agreed to pay me the accepted minimum salary of $150 per month.
As for the Ministers’ Annuity Program, that was approved by the General Assembly, Synods and Presbyteries after we arrived. It provided that the church pay 7-1/2% of a pastor’s salary plus the rental value of the manse, and the pastor pay 2-1/2%, into a retirement fund. In the 9-1/2 years we were there I never called attention to the fact that I wasn’t officially their pastor, and never mentioned the annuity program.
Several times, they got behind with the salary. I’d have to go on Monday morning to the Treasurer, an inactive member, and he’d give me what the deacons received in the Sunday offerings, which was in itself a demeaning procedure. Usually, the deacons learned when they were in arrears and went out to get what was necessary to catch up. Even so, were it not for occasional unsolicited checks from Eloise’s Aunt Adah in Coral Gables, we’d have been in more serious trouble. I also had to borrow on my life insurance policy, several times.
Once they got so far behind that, since it was quite clear they had by then accepted us and their responsibility to us, I announced to the deacons: “I resolved from the time I entered the ministry that I’d never complain from the pulpit about my salary. It hurts for me to say this, but it hurts me to meet people on the street to whom I am indebted. I assume, of course, that they believe I’m guilty of neglecting my just debts, and I won’t tell them that you’re behind in payment to me. I believe you can and will correct this situation.” At the close of the meeting “Tommy” Thompson, then chairman of the Board of Deacons, met me and said, “Ted, you spanked us, but we certainly deserved it. I assure you we’ll catch up and stay up from now on!” And they did!
I probably hold the record, though not an enviable one, for length of service as Stated Supply Minister in any one church. All the people came to believe that I was their pastor, and they certainly treated me as such, which is far better than officially being pastor of a church torn by friction.
I was officially received into the presbytery, but no one asked why I wasn’t installed by the presbytery commission, nor why the church and I didn’t ask the presbytery to dissolve our relationship. Had I been asked, I’d have replied that you can’t dissolve a relationship that never existed. I was, in a sense, an “ecclesiastical outlaw”.
We loved our church, our people and our town more than we’d have believed possible, but with three children, our family really needed more income. The Bartow church had added $300 per year for car expenses after two or three years but, counting Minister’s Annuity, Fayetteville’s increase amounted to $1,200 per year, and now the Bartow church was in a position to call another minister with complete confidence in their future.
The last Sunday evening before our departure was one of the most wonderful experiences we’d ever had. All the Bartow churches held a Union service in the Methodist Church as a token of appreciation and love. Several brief speeches were made about our success in the church and our service to the community. Eloise and I were seated on the platform, struggling to hold back tears of joy.
CHAPTER XXII
FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

Before we left for Fayetteville, nine-year-old Roberta had been studying the songs of Stephen Foster in school, since it was the 100th anniversary of his birth. Roberta dearly loved to sing and, believing that the Southern influence in Foster’s songs meant that he was a Southerner, that these songs were sung only in the South, and that North Carolina was “up North”. When Eloise asked her what she was going to miss the most about Florida, she wistfully said, “The old Southern songs,” and named off several Foster tunes. A few weeks after our arrival, Eloise asked her what she liked the most about our new home. She replied, “The Northern accent!”
We arrived at the beautiful and spacious nine-room manse about fifteen minutes ahead of the van containing our belongings. Mr. John Wilson, Clerk of the Session, was waiting and gave us a cordial reception. After a most pleasant greeting, he drew me aside and said something I’ll always remember: “My church and my home come first in my life, and I don’t want either to lack for loyal support. Perhaps you could use some money at a time like this.” He handed me a roll of bills, clearly intended as a gift, not a loan. Since we really didn’t need it, I thanked him and declined to accept it, but he exacted from me a firm promise that at any time I should need money that I’d let him know.
Fayetteville had long planned a festival for the bicentennial of the arrival of the Highland Scots in the area. On the first day of the celebration, a parade of the descendants of the various Scottish clans marched down Hay Street in kilts and Scottish regalia. Each group carried a banner bearing the name of the clan; “McLeod, McLean, McDougald” and so on, and a number of the men played bagpipes.
The next day our five-year-old son, Teddy, said he didn’t want to go. We asked why. He said he didn’t have the right clothes to wear, and in a tone of considerable disappointment wailed, “All the men and boys here wear dresses!” After we assured him that only those in the parade wore kilts, and only for the celebration, he agreed to go with us. The festival continued for several days, with contests in highland fling dancing, bagpiping, jousting and so on.
One morning shortly after the celebration Eloise looked in to see if Teddy was up and dressing. He was lying in bed with his arms, legs and neck twisted and distorted. Eloise was terrified lest he had polio, but as she cried out he straightened up, and explained he was only practicing some stunts!
Carol, age seven, was a first grader in Bartow when Lincoln’s birthday was observed. After the move she came in angrily one day and announced to Eloise: “I hate Abraham Lincoln! He was a Yankee!” One of her new playmates was, of course, responsible for her sudden change of attitude. After Eloise explained that Lincoln was actually a friend of the South and was often cursed at by many Yankees for his compassion, Carol went out with some new ammunition to use on her friend.
One of the deacons at Highland one day asked if I’d be offended if he bought me a suit. I felt my stock of clothing was then quite adequate, but lest I offend him, I agreed. He had the salesman open a catalogue to a “pulpit suit”, with what I called a “claw-hammer” coat and striped trousers. I protested: “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think of wearing one of those monkey suits!” He said that was standard pulpit apparel in Fayetteville; the First Presbyterian, St. Luke’s Episcopal, First Methodist and even the First Baptist ministers all wore them. I finally, grudgingly, agreed, believing that he represented the desires of my new congregation, but I never felt happy in it. I thought it pompous, and wished I’d held out until I could consult my Session. I had a suspicion it was pride on his part and a desire to get “in step” with the big “First Churches”.
I saw the cutest little bicycle one day, a trade-in on sale, just the right size for Teddy on his sixth birthday. I taught him to ride, carefully instructing him to confine himself to the little-used streets around our block and never to cross or ride on Hay Street, the main thoroughfare from downtown to Fort Bragg and all points west. This street was one block from, and paralleled, Clarendon Street, where we lived. Our church faced it, on the far side.
Almost two months later Teddy appeared at my study door. I should’ve welcomed him on his first visit to my study, but I was so upset over the danger that I was intent on just one thing, getting him home safely. I walked beside him to the corner, a five-point intersection. The odd street was on about a 30º angle from the west-bound one, and until recently a red light had stopped all traffic, but now a green arrow had been added to allow the increasing Fort Bragg-bound vehicles to continue after the straight-ahead traffic had stopped.
Teddy sat on his bicycle, ready to go at my word. I should’ve walked across with him, but when the light turned red, I simply said, “Go,” and he started. I then saw about a half-dozen army trucks thundering along in the far lane, following the green arrow. I hollered “STOP!” And dashed after him as he slammed on the brakes. The trucks zoomed on by about three feet from us, and when the light changed we walked across to the sidewalk. I hugged him for a minute or so, saying “I’m so glad you stopped!”. He said, calmly, “I heard you holler stop.” I sent him home, and when I got back to my study put away the half-finished sermon I’d been working on and started another.
Teddy’s near-accident inspired a sermon for me, and my congregation, not only on behalf of our own children but for all the children and youth of the city and for the young draftees just beginning to come from homes far away. We must do all we can to let them know we care for them.
On a family drive across the Cape Fear River into a rural area, we saw some goats, including some very small ones.l Teddy begged us to buy one of these and the owner said as soon as they were weaned he’d sell us one for $5. We gave him our name and phone number. Our neighbor had the biggest dog house we’d ever seen, but his dog had died, so he gave us the dog house for the goat. About this time Mrs. McLeod and her daughter Mary Stewart, from Bartow, came by to visit on their way to Maxton, NC. Teddy told them about the goat and Mrs. McLeod gave him $5 to pay for it. She asked where he was going to keep it, and he showed her the dog house.
When we brought the goat home, the farmer told us what to feed him and gave us enough food for the first day. We bought more on the way home and put an old blanket in the dog house for him to sleep on.
Teddy and the goat quickly became close friends. A few days later we saw a group of soldiers in an army truck stopped in front of our house, laughing hilariously. Teddy had pulled out his old football helmet, and on his hands and knees was engaged in a head-butting contest with the goat!
In due time, the goat grew bigger and began to resent confinement. Instead of bleating and waiting for Teddy to jump out of bed and let him out of the dog house, he’d butt the door open, run to the porch and bleat for his friend to come out. Now we had to tie him to a tree to prevent him from tearing up the screen door, or running away, which he did two or three times. We’d then all have to run after and try to catch him before he got into trouble. Finally one Sunday I announced as we sat down to dinner, “That goat had better be securely tied, because if he gets loose again I’m not going to chase him!”, and just then Eloise looked out and exclaimed, “There he goes!” We all ran, jumped into the car and gave chase. We found him on the other side of the busy Fort Bragg Road, where a man had tied him to a tree. We took him home, and after dinner took him to the farm of a member of our church and gave him away.
CHAPTER XXIII
HIGHLAND CHURCH
Highland Presbyterian Church was the most perfect church I’ve ever known. Its organization, activities and spirit of love and spirit were wonderful. All the elders, deacons, teachers and leaders in the Women-of-the-Church were dedicated, punctual, knew what to do and how to do it, and absolutely dependable. Their one great need was for a completely new building, but the approaching war, followed by the war itself, precluded its replacement for almost a decade.
Soon after our arrival Mr. Wilson suggested that I go to Richmond and employ the best available senior in our School of Christian Education to serve our church, which I did. In our first year there we received fifty persons into our membership, The young lady employed arrived in June, 1940. The Minister’s Association, with the enthusiastic support of the churches and the leaders of the public schools, also employed a wonderful young woman to teach the Bible in the schools, and later added another.
Congress had passed a draft law, for Hitler had conquered most of western Europe and Japan had almost completed the conquest of China. Our involvement in the war was increasingly becoming inevitable. Fort Bragg was in the process of a massive expansion, and draftees were arriving by the thousands, in trains and buses. Civilian employees were also coming, to work at the newly-built Veterans’ Hospital and at Fort Bragg. All Fayetteville residents were being encouraged to rent their spare rooms.
The world kept spinning. Since Eloise and I had been married we’d been associated with Colonial Heights, the Seminary, West Virginia, Bartow, and now Fayetteville. Teddy had a tonsillectomy, Roberta an appendectomy. A wire arrived from Bartow saying Mrs. Lizzie Dial was critically ill and calling for Ted Jones, so I caught he first train, but arrived too late. I conducted the funeral service.
We rented two rooms, and later three, to ladies. One was rather plump, and when she had shown affection for Teddy, he told Eloise he wanted to give her a present. “One of those things ladies wrap around themselves,” indicating a brassiere. Eloise persuaded him to give her something else!
Our dentist lived across the river and kept horses. He had me take the children over to ride them, which they enjoyed very much. Dr. Robertson’s boys had a pony, and let our kids take him home with them one day. I concluded the pony didn’t like girls, because when 8-year-old Carol got on, he decided to trot home in a hurry, three blocks away and across busy Hay Street. Afraid Carol would fall off, or worse, I ran as fast as I could but couldn’t keep up! They did, however, make it safely.
Roberta went to visit a friend, and they built a little fire in back of the house. It got away from them and spread across an expanse of dry grass, threatening the neighbors’ homes. The fire department raced down the street and put it out. They suspected three boys, but soon left, and I didn’t learn until much later that Roberta and her friend were responsible!
The police chief invited me down to headquarters one evening, and I was greeted by a group of off-duty police and firemen. He’d received a letter from the Bartow police chief telling him of my friendly help and suggesting he get acquainted with me. They gave me an honorary membership in the Police and Firemen’s Association and asked me to serve as Chaplain, which I accepted. Soon we held a memorial service in my church for all the police and firemen who had died in service. I had my first and only ride on a fire truck, sitting beside the driver with people gaping at me, probably looking to see if the church was on fire and wondering why I hadn’t telephoned instead of personally escorting the firemen!
A conflict developed over whether to permit movie theatres to operate on Sundays. On one side were the army officers and chaplains, on the other a lot of church people, and the City Council was soon to rule on the matter, after hearing from both sides. A motorcycle patrolman took me for a ride in his sidecar to show me the young draftees walking the streets, trying to find something interesting to do. A highway patrolman took me out another night on Lumberton Road to show me the road houses, famed as “sin centers”. “If the church people knew their own teen-age sons and daughters were coming out here on Sunday nights, they’d be glad to open the movies,” he said, “and most of those nice young draftees would surely go to the movies rather than these bawdy houses!” Fortunately, the City Council voted overwhelmingly to approve Sunday movies.
Our church people were careful to see that anyone who came to our worship service in uniform was invited to someone’s home for dinner. We arranged for 85 to come in convoys with a chaplain every Sunday evening, and then had 20 minutes for worship, 20 for refreshments, then time for fellowship and a game (with mothers and young ladies both present), then 20 more minutes for singing, always ending with “Steal Away to Jesus” and a prayer. The Women-of-the-Church set up a program assisting officers’ wives by buying, preparing and serving suppers at church every Wednesday night, the officers only paying the cost of the food. This brought together officers and wives who lived in rented rooms or apartments in our neighborhood, and allowed them to get acquainted in a church atmosphere.
At the suggestion of one of the chaplains, I went to Fort Bragg and organized a men’s chorus to sing in churches and USOs. In this group were a professional school music teacher and an excellent pianist. Once organized they could be, and were, set loose on their own. I requested that their first performance be in our church.
Everything went wonderfully, except for one brief hitch. The music teacher, who was leader of the chorus, was a Roman Catholic, and in those days their church was strictly against their members attending a Protestant church. The Catholic chaplain of that regiment forbade the leader, and any other Catholics, from singing in my church. The colonel of the regiment, though, was a Presbyterian elder. When word came to him of this situation, he summoned the chaplain and reprimanded him severely. “When you were a civilian priest,” he said, “you exercised considerable authority over your members. You are now in the United States Army, however, and I am your Regimental Commander. Mr. Jones organized that chorus, and they are going to sing in his church!” They did, and sang beautifully!
Then came Pearl Harbor.
The Army restricted all outside activities, concentrating on training to fight as quickly as possible. Tight secrecy and censorship shrouded all military activity. Eloise’s only brother was a reserve officer, and was called to active duty. Just before leaving California, he telephoned and told his wife they’d all been issued Arctic clothing, but that this was to deceive any spies who might reveal secrets. A week or two later our children picked up the Fayetteville afternoon paper from our porch and yelled, “Hey! It’s Uncle Bob’s picture!” On the front page was a large picture with the headline, “First U.S. Troops Land in Australia”. There was Bob standing in front of his men, the first off the ship, with others descending behind him. Bob advanced rapidly in rank to Colonel, and he and his unit of Army Air Corps men were awarded the coveted Legion of Merit, for defeating the Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Coral Sea and preventing the invasion of Australia.
All this time, Eloise was both the teacher of the Women’s Bible Class and a Girl Scout leader, while trying to run a home half filled with lady roomers. She failed to charge enough to make but a very little profit, and the cost of living was rising.
Eloise was developing arthritis, and Teddy had asthma. I therefore wanted to get them out of Fayetteville, and preferably back to Florida. In the summer of 1943, we vacationed in Montreat, NC, and met a former Davidson College friend. I told him of our concerns, and he said, “I have a sister who’s a member of the Ocala church. Their minister recently moved away. I’ll write her about you!”
CHAPTER XXIV
OCALA

Soon a letter came, inviting me to visit the Ocala church. They received me cordially, and soon after I accepted the Pastorate at a salary of $3,600. We were willing to leave even the wonderful Highland Church to free our little boy of his terrible malady, and believed he’d recover there. Only one thing gave me concern. One deacon told me privately, “They’re planning to refurbish that old manse. If I were you I wouldn’t have my family live in it. Make them provide you a nice home in a good neighborhood.”
His assessment was blunt, but correct. After receiving the call I accepted, but said that I knew they were repairing the manse and asked when I should come. They said they’d rented a home nearby, and to come as soon as possible. We lived in the rental house for about six weeks.
In a remarkably short time, Teddy’s asthma was only a memory, but a far more wonderful health benefit resulted from that move. As soon as the Ocala paper announced our arrival, mentioning that my wife was the former Eloise Knight of Clearwater, a former pupil of Eloise’s, now a young doctor, came to greet us. He hadn’t seen her for eighteen years, and instantly noticed some alarming changes in her appearance, which had developed so slowly that doctors in Bartow and Fayetteville had missed them. He tactfully refrained from telling us, but telephoned Eloise’s sister Adah. From Atlanta, Adah called and told Eloise to see a doctor without delay.
Of course, Eloise immediately made an appointment with the young doctor, Hartley Davis. She waited while he attended to patients. On his desk she saw a book opened, to her ailment, and took liberty to read about pituitary tumors. There are two kinds, one of which can be treated with radiation, but another requires brain surgery. Both lead to enlargement of bones in the face, hands and feet, gradual loss of vision, loss of sanity, and finally death. The only way to determine which type Eloise had was to try the radiation treatments.
I must tell of Eloise’s amazing courage. After the visit, when our children were 13, 11, and 9, she told me what she’d read in the book, and about the treatments to follow, then calmly said, “I want you to promise me. If these treatments aren’t successful, I want to postpone the operation as long as possible. If either my facial features or my mental condition becomes embarrassing to the children, I want you to tell me, and then I’ll go for the operation.” If she ever experienced fear, self-pity or shed a tear, neither I nor anyone else ever knew it. She was marvelous!
Dr. Davis sent her to an ophthalmologist to measure and record the breadth of her vision. After each series of X-ray treatments, to both temples, another measurement. Fortunately, the treatments worked. After her death in 1969, I wrote the doctors, thanking them for giving Eloise twenty-five more years of life. They both replied, praising Eloise for her sweet disposition and extraordinary bravery.
Our move to Ocala provided Roberta and Teddy a most welcome opportunity to change their “call” names to Bobbie and Ted. All of our children were musical, and wanted to be in the high school band. As soon as they entered high school Bobbie and Carol were in; Bobbie playing clarinet and Carol French horn. Ted wanted a trumpet but wasn’t quite ten years old. We bought him one anyway, believing it would help his asthma, which it probably did. He played so well by the time he was in 8th grade that he was the first eighth-grader ever promoted to the high school band! We were delighted that all three of them were in the band at the same time!
The manse rested on brick pillars high enough for dogs and cats to go under, sleep, breed, fight and shed fleas. The Building Committee should’ve taken care of this, but I collected used laths from a lumberyard and, working in the front yard so as to be seen by all, latticed it myself.
When warm weather came, the fleas hatched out from their winter quarters under the sand. Millions of them! At first they were in the garage behind which my predecessor, an enthusiastic hunter, had kept a pen for his bird dogs. Next, more came out from under the house! I managed to buy scads of DDT just before it became unavailable and, after several copious applications in the garage and all around the house, conquered the pestilence.
During our first year we found all our people to be very relaxed and friendly, but too relaxed towards the church! With fifteen elders, we could only count on four for all session meetings. The eldest elder, Mr. Gerig, I called Mr. Opposition, for he was quick to speak out in opposition to any change. Two more would quietly vote with him, and one consistently with me. I believed the ones who weren’t attending would have voted with me. I chided them mildly, and one said, “I lose what religion I have when I’m in one of those meetings!” I told them they were leaving me out on a limb, but they did favor changes and were easy to work with. They favored rotation of officers, which Mr. Opposition vetoed in one of those truncated meetings, but they insisted on rotation of deacons. Since Mr. Opposition was primarily concerned with his own position, he just said, “It won’t work, but you can try it.” It worked fine, of course.
A group of mothers with young children, from various churches, petitioned the Minister’s Association for a week-day kindergarten. Our church, just across the street from the block containing all three schools, was the logical place. Mr. Opposition fought hard, but found himself confronted by an army of mothers. Soon, kindergarten was in session.
In the meantime we got involved in other projects. I suggested to the Minister’s Association that we have Bible teaching in the public schools, and secured support from a Jewish rabbi and a Catholic priest. Two questions were raised: Isn’t it illegal? I read a letter from the state attorney general, stating there was no law against it. The Baptist minister also stated the Baptist position on separation of church and state, but I reminded him of the prevailing custom all over Florida of inviting ministers to speak in public school chapel programs, to invite students to revivals and children’s services and preach sermons for commencement or graduation. That persuaded him, and the positions were financed without difficulty.
The Ocala church had a beautiful building, erected 16 years before our arrival, but they still owed over $5,000 on it. One deacon said he hoped I wouldn’t talk about benevolences like my predecessor did, but I told him they should’ve had that building paid for, and if they didn’t pay it off in a year I’d have to talk benevolences, which were also in arrears.
They quickly and easily raised $10,000, but instead of benevolences they spent the remaining money on paint and a new oil furnace to replace their old wood-burner. One Sunday soon afterward I heard a terrific explosion about 8 AM. The janitor had lit the furnace, and narrowly escaped death. The explosion blew soot through every vent in the building, covering the floors, pews, walls, everything. I spent the next two hours telling all arrivals they couldn’t enter the building until cleaning and repair had been done. I suspected an act of God, because they raised that money in a hurry!
At the next meeting of the Presbytery, the chairman of the Stewardship Committee recommended increases in benevolences for every church except Ocala, and said, “For several years we’ve been asking Ocala for $3,000, but they haven’t paid it. I recommend reducing this to $2,000.” With the support of the elder who was our Commissioner, I moved that this be raised to $4,000 instead. The next Sunday I reported this to the congregation, adding that I thought they’d be ashamed if smaller, poorer churches were contributing more than Ocala. No one complained, and the money was raised.
There were two tragedies among the Bartow Presbyterians which needed my response. The McLeods were returning from their summer home in Montreat when a collision in Rutherfordton, NC caused terrible injury to both of them. Among other injuries Mrs. McLeod suffered a broken hip and had to be hospitalized, but several days after I arrived by train Mr. McLeod expired. I told Mrs. McLeod, and was deeply impressed by her response. She quickly wiped away her tears, and with a smile said, “Ted, my prince is with the King! I want you to escort his body to Bartow and see to it the Presbyterian Quartet at the service sings, ‘I Walk With the King, Hallelujah!’”.
Shortly after D-Day, when the troops landed in France, Mary Stewart telephoned me from Bartow. The Tharps had been notified their only son, Thomas, had been killed, and on the same day their home was totally destroyed by fire, including practically all its contents. She didn’t tell anyone she’d called me, lest I might not be able to go. I went by bus, borrowed Mary Stewart’s car and went to the home of the neighbor who’d given the Tharps the use of an apartment.
Mr. Tharp arrived in a pick-up truck. As we put our arms around each other he said, “I was working, and hadn’t planned to come back for at least another hour, but I kept feeling as though a voice was telling me, ‘Go home, go home!’ Now I know why!”. We then went to the room where Mrs. Tharp was prostrate with grief, a lady friend attending her. What a privilege it is to be able to console persons in times of great sorrow!
In Ocala, our Sunday school superintendent had conflicts with his work schedule, and resigned. I telephoned a church member for an evening appointment, and after the normal courtesies he said, “Well, I know you want me to do something or you wouldn’t have phoned. Go ahead and spill it!” I told him I wanted him to be the new superintendent, and he blurted out, “What the hell did you come to me for? I don’t even go to Sunday school!” I was glad he asked, for it was a real pleasure for me to answer, “Because you are one of the best men in this town!” He was almost speechless with surprise, then began protesting. He said people would laugh to hear, “Jub Selph is a Sunday school superintendent!”
I told him one big mistake many churches make is in confining their leadership selections to those who attend all church meetings but have no real talent or the personality for leadership. I said I preferred to look for these qualities, and then persuade these people to dedicate themselves to the church. I also said his friends might laugh at first, but that then I thought they’d say, “Jub wouldn’t accept that responsibility lightly. If he’s going to get active in the church, so am I.” I promised to help him as needed, and he said he’d think about it. A couple of weeks later he accepted, and several of his friends did, indeed, become active in the church.
Meanwhile, Eloise and I decided to concentrate on youth activities. I organized the Senior High Vespers and the Youth Choir, while Eloise organized the Junior Vespers and became a Cub Scout den mother. We also found leaders for the Junior High and Beyond High School Youth Group. None of these had existed beforehand. The Women-of-the-Church had been sponsoring two underprivileged youngsters for Presbytery camp, but before long we had thirty. The Men-of-the-Church sponsored the Boy Scout troop, which was already active. We also treasured the assistance of Kenneth H. MacKay and his sister, Annie Drake. We were delighted to learn later that Jub’s daughter Ann and Kenneth’s son “Buddy” had married.
I can’t over-emphasize the importance of the Pioneer Camps, which in the Suwanee Presbytery were held at the Florida State Forestry Camp, Camp O’Leno, on the Santa Fe River. These were directed, year after year, by the Reverend Dr. Edwin F. Montgomery, pastor of the Lake City church. Boys and girls alike adored him for his wisdom, patience and understanding. Eloise and I were delighted that our three children all attended and came under “Dr. Mont’s” influence for at least three years each. Each camp and conference lasted a week, and parents assisted me with transportation. The Jacksonville churches chartered a bus.
With all this activity, it was inevitable that the elders would ask for a Director of Christian Education, which would need the approval of the Session. The usual four were present, and Mr. Opposition. was “agin’ it”, of course. Instead of calling for a vote and recording a negative, I ruled that since so many parents, deacons and elders had called for a director it wouldn’t be fair not to include them. I called for a short meeting of all the deacons and elders after the next Sunday service. I stated that Eloise and I were going to Montreat for a vacation, that I was hoping to get a young lady as Director, wanted to be sure she’d not be embarrassed by any lack of welcome and stated, “If there is opposition, please make it known now”. All kept silent.
I knew there was a young lady in Montreat who might be available, and Eloise and I went for a little ‘get acquainted” visit with Nell Proctor. She proved to be pretty, healthy, vivacious, mature, dedicated and smart, with a mind of her own and not at all timid. We didn’t mention why we called, but were pretty sure she knew. After a short ride of about five minutes, we all agreed, completely and enthusiastically. She began in the position after our vacation, on September first.
The first thing on the program after Nell’s arrival was the annual dinner the women gave for the choir. This had always been a good meal, followed by a regular choir rehearsal. Would Nell try to do something to put a little fun into it? “Sure!’, she said. She made cute place cards, with music notes drawn on them, and asked me if I had songbooks for a male quartet. I did, and brought them to her. With place cards and flowers, the table was beautiful.
Mr. Opposition had been a member of the choir for many years. I hadn’t told Nell that anyone had opposed her hiring, but she figured it out and knew what to do. She selected a proper time and without announcement walked to a piano which had been placed near his table. She looked at the three men sitting there and, beginning with the the eldest, held out her hand and beckoned with her forefinger, saying “Come here, Mr. Grieg,” then repeated the signal and called each of the others. To complete the foursome, she called me. Each obeyed, wondering what she was up to.
Deftly, she picked up four books from the top of the piano, each opened to an old familiar song. Handing these out, she said, “Sing!” She couldn’t have done anything that pleased the old gentlemen more. Mr. Grieg was absolutely charmed.
A few years later I saw Nell in Laurinburg, NC, where she was Director of Christian Education at the First Presbyterian Church. She had moved to Maxton, NC, married Dr. Lloyd McCaskill, and had three children.
I was invited to a Visitation Evangelism program in Atlanta, and after training conducted one in Ocala. I selected participants based on personality and friendliness, beginning with Jub Selph. The result was seventy new members, about half by transfer and half by profession of faith. The Sunday for the reception of the seventy was a great day in the history of the Ocala church.
After Pearl Harbor, Floridians feared lest their long coastline with numerous bays, inlets and islands would invite attacks, and the Florida State Guard was organized. Composed of men not eligible for the draft, by late December 1943 the fears had subsided but the Guard still continued in case any disorder should arise. One of our members, Trusten Drake, was the Major, and in charge. I joined as an outside activity, to promote fellowship and maybe occasionally serve as a chaplain. Not long after this we were called into action when two young black men were accused of raping a white lieutenant’s wife out in western Florida. For fear of a lynching the trial was held in Gainesville, forty miles from Ocala.
We were alerted on the day before the trial to prepare for a phone call at 3 AM. The phones rang and we gathered at the armory, where we were given instruction and issued rifles, bayonets and live ammunition. While we were checking our equipment, I heard a number of the men grumbling over being ordered “to shoot or bayonet any white citizen to protect those black SOBs”. In the Guard, I was just “a buck private in the rear rank”, but I was also a minister, and pastor of one of the leading local churches. As the latter I felt it my duty to speak, and my request was granted.
Standing beside the Major, I expressed sympathy for the feelings I’d heard expressed, and declared that no one would regret it more than I, if I returned home having killed or wounded a fellow citizen. I reminded them that some ten million of our men were fighting and dying to keep this country a land where every person has certain inalienable rights, including a fair trial by a jury if accused of a crime. I said, “I don’t intend to have any part in betraying our soldiers in their absence. I believe that if there is sufficient evidence to convict these two colored men, they will receive the penalty prescribed by the law. It is my duty, and yours, to see that they have a fair trial.”
My little speech received enthusiastic applause. We and two other Guard companies, from several counties, stood at strategic places for over two hours. The evidence was presented, the men pled guilty, were convicted and returned to prison to await death sentences. There were no threatening incidents, and all of us returned home glad for having done our duty.
As our bus rolled past the Ocala courthouse, I stood up and yelled, “Hey, fellows! That’s the most beautiful courthouse I’ve seen all day!” Got quite a laugh. I’d slept in a separate room that morn, awaiting the early call, and when I returned home I found my bed covered with plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. It must have happened shortly after I’d left at 3 AM, while the others were asleep, or they’d have heard it. I sure was glad I’d gotten an early call!
CHAPTER XXV
BOBBIE AS A TEENAGER
Since Bobbie, our eldest, spent all her high school years in one town, she received honors and recognition not given to her siblings, even though they too were outstanding in ability and personality. She spent four years in the Ocala High School Band, six years at Camp O’Leno. She passed the Senior Red Cross lifesaving tests at sixteen, and her singing made her well-known throughout Suwanee Presbytery.
When she was a high school junior, she got a case of the mumps and had to miss the fall rally, in Gainesville, of the Presbyterian Youth, a real disappointment for her. This was the meeting where the Presbyterian Youth officers were selected for the year. The custom was to select a high school senior for President, and the nominating committee followed custom, selecting Bobbie for Vice-President. From the floor, though, someone nominated her for President, and she was elected by a big majority! I telephoned her the news. She was certain I was wrong, that she’d been elected VICE President, and it took a fair bit of persuasion to convince her!
Mr. Stephen McCready was so impressed with Bobbie’s singing that he wanted to send her to the Trapp Family Music Camp in Vermont. Because of her youth, we persuaded him to change this to the Transylvania Music Camp in Brevard, NC. He sent her there for two summers, then to the Trapp Family camp.
As a senior, Bobbie entered the Presbyterian Scholarship Contest. On the last day for mailing she had all the papers finished, except that one hadn’t been typed. We had a surprise; a very important out-of-town visitor came for supper. Bobbie finished her paper at 11 PM, and its posting was required before midnight. The post office was closed, but its lights were on. I knocked and yelled, but got no response. I drove her to the railroad station, where a man had taken the outgoing mail for the 12:30 northbound train. I begged him to sign a note on the outside saying he’d received it before 12:00, bur he, in fear of prosecution, refused. I finally wrote a note on it, and signed it myself.
Bobbie won first prize! A scholarship for $2,000! At Bobbie’s birth, dear Mrs. MacLeod had set aside a gift of $2,000 toward her education, and church-related colleges allowed a tuition discount for ministers’ children, so that in 1948, when she enrolled at Agnes Scott College, $4,000 nearly covered all four years!
With Bobbie off to college, one evening in March 1949 I received a phone call from the office of the Presbyterian Board of Education in Richmond, Virginia. Would I consider accepting the position of Regional Director of Christian Education for the Synod of South Carolina?
Without enthusiasm, I said to send a letter and I’d consider it. The letter described in glowing terms the nature of the work and the opportunities for constructive service. It urged me to attend a two-day meeting the following week in Charleston.
I had some concerns. I’d be traveling a lot; Carol and Ted would have to leave their friends and become strangers at a new school in a big city. Eloise would have to give up her job as a visitor for the Welfare Department, and there’d be an $800 reduction in salary.
But there were positives, as well. The Board’s payment of all my travel expenses should offset the difference in salary, and I was confident that Eloise, with all her education, experience and personality would easily find a job as a public school teacher. The challenge of a new job also appealed to me. I went to the meeting.
When I arrived, I was amazed at what I found already being done there, and what was planned for the future. I recalled how bored I’d been with the church as a youth, and began to feel a calling to do something to improve this, their weakest area of church life. I rode with some Committee members to Columbia, but was told by two realtors that there wasn’t a house to rent fit for my family, only houses for sale. I didn’t have $2,500 for a down payment, so I declined the job and went home, expecting to stay.
The chairman then telephoned. Two laymen had offered to loan the down payment without interest, and to accept as repayment only the difference between the mortgage payments and the monthly rental allowance from the Board of Christian Education. This meant that I’d gradually become the owner of the house, without paying a dime. That sealed it for me!
I accepted the job, but told the chairman that I wanted him and the board to withhold the announcement until the Sunday after Easter, when I’d present my resignation. I made a quick return trip to Columbia and was met by a layman qualified to evaluate the condition of the house. He pronounced it a good buy, and I signed papers to take possession on April 30th, at which time the realtor would have the utilities turned on and the house ready.
Soon after returning, Jub Selph told me he’d been soliciting funds to buy us a new car. I confided in him my pending resignation and told him Eloise and I would be embarrassed to accept a new car and immediately leave the church. I told him that, after my announcement, he should go around and return what he had collected. He agreed to do this, but was very reluctant.
The Communion service on Thursday evening and the Easter services, with all the choirs participating, were all that we’d hoped for. The following Friday I announced my resignation to the Session and Sunday morning to the congregation, effective April 29th. There was no objection to my family continuing to live in the manse until the schools closed.
A few days before I left, Jub Selph made a little speech at the monthly meeting of the Men-of-the-Church. Addressing me, he said: “We wanted to give you a new car, not for what we expected of you in the future but for what you and your lovely family have already done for us. If you hadn’t stopped us you’d have the car. Those who’d already given wouldn’t take back their gifts. My pleasure isn’t nearly what I’d wanted it to be, but I’m pleased to present you this $800 towards the intended gift”.
I bought a new Ford and instructed a mechanic to put our 8-year-old Oldsmobile in the best possible condition for my family. I arranged for a reputable mover to pack up our belongings on a date my wife would set. I’d have preferred to stay with my family, but I’d been asked to observe some experienced workers in Sumter to prepare for my future job, which would be of tremendous help. This was scheduled at the First Presbyterian Church there, for May the first through the third.
CHAPTER XXVI
REGIONAL DIRECTOR
Since I was moving into an empty house, I tossed a single mattress into my trunk, along with a few linens, a pillow and a blanket. I didn’t plan to sleep there more than a few nights in the month of May, for I’d be traveling the whole month. I planned to get acquainted with as many ministers, pastors, synod and presbytery members as I could, since I’d be working with them. My brother Malcolm and his wife lived in Savannah, so I dropped in for an overnight visit. I was surprised and delighted that they were also moving to Columbia, they in about two weeks. We phoned my family and shared the news.
I went to my office first, and phoned the realtor. My keys were with the neighbors, who were also Presbyterians. I met with some of my new colleagues for lunch and moved my few things into the house after supper. We went to Sumter for the three-day “clinic”, and it was well-named, for it reminded me of a medical team. I was impressed by the tact, courtesy and thoroughness of the Sumter church leaders.
I’d already decided to spend the rest of May traveling throughout the synod, and then my Synod Assistant added another. She was resigning September first to go back to seminary, so I’d have to find her successor. Eloise would’ve been the best choice, but with two children in high school she couldn’t afford to be away from home as much as the job required. Eloise had my travel schedule, and set up a time to meet in Columbia.
Bobbie and Carol were disappointed in the small room they had to share, but this was only for a few days. I took Bobbie to Transylvania for her fourth summer, this time as a counselor. I stopped at Queens College in Charlotte for a week-long Youth Conference, and learned of a plan to establish vocational guidance centers all over the South. I got the first one assigned to the South Carolina Synod, a major achievement.
We received a serious disappointment on my return to Columbia. The public school board had a rule against employing any new teacher over the age of 35, due to the pension program. Eloise insisted she only wanted to help get two children through college, and would gladly sign any papers declaring her ineligible for a pension, but the superintendent was adamant. We had a rough year, financially, but we’d been through them before, and I was sure we could weather the storm. I received a number of invitations to supply preach when pastors were on vacation or ill, and in churches temporarily without pastors. The honoraria varied from $25 to $50, depending on the amount of travel and the size of the church.
Then came letters from Virginia Gallemore and her daughter Virginia Fran. Virginia Fran was to be married on September 10th, and wanted me to conduct the service and Bobbie to sing. The wedding was to be in New York City where her father Roy, a captain in the Navy, was stationed.
The Gallemore family had been among our dearest friends, and the most wonderful next-door neighbors we’ve ever had. Roy served as Captain of a submarine until the death of his father, the publisher of the Bartow, Florida daily paper. Roy then retired from the Navy and took over its publication. When World War II engulfed our nation, Roy was requested to return to the Navy, and meanwhile their two sons, Roy Holland and Gilbert, had both graduated from the Naval Academy and entered the submarine service. We were delighted to accept their invitation, which came about two months before the wedding date.
A little later, I was in Montreat for a meeting and drove by the Transylvania Music Camp for a brief visit with Bobbie. Immediately, the director of the camp, Dr. Pfohl, drew me aside and urged me to transfer Bobbie from Agnes Scott to Queens College, where there was a better music department. This was really a decision for Eloise to make, so I telephoned her to catch the first bus to Brevard. Eloise and all four of her sisters had gone to Agnes Scott, so I knew this decision would be difficult for her, but under pressure from both Bobbie and Dr. Pfohl, she yielded.
New York law required a permit for non-resident ministers to conduct a marriage, and the permit office closed at 4 PM. It was after three when we emerged from the Holland Tunnel, and I held up traffic long enough to get directions to the courthouse from a policeman. There were “No Parking” signs everywhere, but I parked anyway, grabbed my papers and told the nearest policeman of my mission. He pointed and said, “Okay, just around the corner.” The permit only took a few minutes, but when I returned Eloise was nervous, and the children were chattering about how some local folks had seen their license and commented about “these crazy South Carolina people”.
I left Eloise and the girls at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, where Virginia had made reservations, and Ted and I drove out and stayed with Eloise’s sister Genevieve and her husband, who had an apartment in town. The evening before the wedding, the groom’s father gave a dinner for the wedding party at the Waldorf-Astoria and the next morning the Gallemores entertained with a breakfast at the Sherry-Netherland. The wedding was in a small chapel in the Marble Collegiate Church. Bobbie sang “I Love Thee”, by Grieg, and “Because”, by d’Hardelot. Along with the immediate families of the bride and groom was Virginia’s brother Spessard Holland, who was formerly Governor of Florida and was now a United States Senator.
We were a few days late getting the children into school. Bobbie was now a sophomore at Queens College and Carol and Ted senior and sophomore at Dreyer High School in Columbia. All had to start over making friends and gaining acceptance in their new schools. They managed, but it wasn’t always easy.
Our first Christmas in Columbia was seriously marred by an auto accident. Ted and another boy were in the old Oldsmobile. Ted said, “I don’t feel good. Will you drive?” Ted knew the brakes were not very good, but didn’t think to mention it. The other boy had no driver’s license, but didn’t tell Ted. The collision resulted in $200 damage to the other car and about as much to ours. The driver’s father agreed to pay half the cost of repairing the other car, and I had to sell our car to pay the other half. Thank God there were no personal injuries!
For twenty-four years, I’d owned cars with no insurance! Our family was without a car, thereafter, when I was away, but the high school was within walking distance and the bus line passed by our house, so the situation was bearable. Whenever possible, I left the Ford~now insured!~with the family.
Early in January 1950, I boarded a plane for a week-long meeting of the Board staff with the Regional Directors, where we reviewed the activities of the past year and planned for the future. Next came the annual retreat of the Directors of Christian Education. Mel Hobson was now Synod Assistant after her predecessor, Jane Chamblee, had left. She suggested Oconee State Park for the three-day retreat.
This park, in the mountains, was built for summer vacations, and soon after we arrived snow began falling. Our cabin consisted of one large room and two small private rooms. Our only source of heat was a huge open fireplace. Because of the frigid weather, all the ladies had moved their cots into the big room, but I had to take one of the little rooms and close the door. I gave one command: “The last one ready for bed, OPEN THIS DOOR!”
I’d already piled all the wood I could onto the fire, but of course it didn’t last. I awoke, shivering, several times to build up the fire, and to get to it I had to step over several cots, each with a young lady inside. Once, a plank of the cabin wall fell to the outside, and I had to dress, go out and prop it back up with sticks. I didn’t sleep much.
The next morning I had to wait until all the ladies were dressed before leaving my cold room. At breakfast the conversation ranged from where the next retreat would be to skillfully embroidered teasing about me “climbing” over them at night, and my insistence that I didn’t “climb“ but merely “stepped” over them just kindled mock jeers. Incidentally, they decided on Ocean Drive Beach for their next retreat, but at that retreat, for the first time in years, the temperature dropped to sixteen degrees! Thereafter, the dates for the retreat were set in the spring!
As Easter approached, Carol skillfully and beautifully fashioned her own Easter dress and bonnet, but when the day dawned she had an acute pain in her side. We called our friend Dr. John Timmons, who rushed out and told her, “Honey, I’m sorry, but you’re not going to wear those pretty things today. I’m taking you to the hospital and tomorrow your appendix is coming out!
Eloise, at this time, had been selected as Bible Teacher for the South Carolina Synod, and was often away visiting churches throughout the state. She couldn’t “touch home base” sometimes for several days in a row, but in her absence I visited Carol frequently.
CHAPTER XXVII
ORANGEBURG AND ONWARDS
One day in conversation with the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Orangeburg, Dr. Frank Estes, I mentioned our disappointment that Eloise had been unable to get a teaching position in Columbia. He said, “I’ll bet Dr. Ruston would accept her.” He did, with enthusiasm, so late that summer we rented our house and moved to an apartment in Orangeburg, just as Carol was beginning school at Agnes Scott. I sometimes had to commute the 42 miles to Columbia, but often stayed with Malcolm and his wife.
It’s interesting that often when one has to make a change in life to secure an advantage, others advantages come with it. Ted had enjoyed an interesting life until we moved to Columbia; he’d had close friends in Ocala, had been in the high school band, had gotten work scholarships to Transylvania Music Camp two years in a row. In the much larger high school in Columbia, he’d been a loner, an odd duck among strangers. Now in Orangeburg, he was immediately accepted as an interesting person, a musician most welcomed in the band, in the chorus, as a soloist and a member of the male quartet. He loved and admired his teachers, his fellow students and his minister, all of whom enjoyed his company.
He plunged into his studies with intense enthusiasm, and with three other boys organized a “mini-orchestra”, which played every Saturday night for a public square dance on a street in Hampton, a small town fifty miles distant. Their pay started at $15 per night, but as the crowd of dancers increased so did their pay.
He was so happy, and doing so well with school, that Eloise and I decided to let him stay, boarding with friends, when events moved us back to Columbia. Dr. Fred Poag became minister at Shandon Presbyterian Church, and called on Eloise to accept the position of Director of Leadership Education as well as Church Visitor, combining duties of which she was well qualified, and which she enjoyed much more than teaching school. We moved to a nearby apartment, sold the house we’d bought two years before and bought Eloise a car. Ted spent the summer of 1951 working for his architect uncle in Atlanta and living in their home.
Non-residents were ordinarily required to pay tuition for a son or daughter in school, but the Orangeburg school refused to accept it for Ted’s last year of high school, which was “icing on the cake” for us. In the spring of 1952, Ted graduated from high school, and Bobbie from college. That summer both sang in “Horn in the West”, an outdoor theatrical production in Boone, NC, depicting local experiences during the American Revolution.
Bobbie fell in love with Ned Austin, the star of the show, who portrayed Daniel Boone. Their wedding, in October, was in the chapel of the First Presbyterian Church, in Charlotte, where Bobbie had been a member of the choir when she was at Queens College. They then went to New York and joined the Actor’s Guild, hoping for theatrical careers. They both got jobs, but not in theatre. Bobbie was a guide at Radio City, where many spoke of her “happy southern accent”. Ned was a shipping clerk in the afternoons and evenings, which left his mornings free to visit theatrical employment offices.
Carol returned to Agnes Scott College as a junior, and Ted enrolled at Duke University. In the spring of 1953, Carol and Lewis S. (“Pete”) Hay, a student at Columbia Theological Seminary, met and fell in love. Both had one more year in school. During the summer Pete served as a student preacher in Sumter, close enough to Columbia to continue a regular courtship. Ted stayed at Duke for summer school.
We knew Bobbie and Ned were scrimping to get by, but every letter was cheerful. When Bobbie called from the hospital to announce the birth of our first grandchild, David, Eloise phoned Virginia Gallemore to please go see what help they needed. Her report back, in essence, was, “Relax, they’re doing fine!”. They returned to Boone just in time to participate again in “Horn in the West”. A slight change in the script, and Bobbie appeared onstage with three-week-old David. After the battle of Kings Mountain Bobbie searched the field for her husband, reported wounded. A soldier called out to her, “He’s dead”, and she sat on a stump to sing a song of grief. She’d joggle Davy just enough so that he’d move or whimper, and the audience would discover that he was a real baby, not a doll.
That fall Carol and Pete decided that courting was interfering with their studies, or more probably the other way around, and on December 23rd they were married, in Shandon Presbyterian Church. After a Christmas honeymoon they lived in an apartment until they both graduated, then moved to Princeton so that Pete could get his master’s degree. Pete began teaching at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC in 1955, and soon they had two daughters, Kathy and Carol.
Ted, by attending summer school, graduated from Duke after three years. He did his Army basic training at Fort Jackson and, since his major was in math and physics, was eligible for Army study and service in guided missiles. After a year in El Paso, he was stationed at a missile site near Boston, married his Duke sweetheart and at the end of his army stint was employed by the Sylvania corporation in Waltham, Massachusetts. He continued his education with night school at Northeastern University in Boston, and earned a Master of Science degree.
Ted and Elaine had two daughters, Karen and Audrey. In the late 1960s, they moved to the Pacific atoll Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Ted’s five-year project was the building and testing of an anti-missile site, with an associated radar complex. The giant radar’s purpose is to keep a round-the-clock watch for missiles which may be fired from Asia, and to distinguish between real missiles and harmless decoys. The anti-missile missiles, guided by radar, are targeted to intercept and explode enemy missiles.
Engineers and technicians live on Kwajalein with their families and fly to and from work on a 30-minute flight to the other island. Kwajalein is roughly L-shaped, with one leg used as a runway and the other for residences, mainly mobile homes. They have a school, church, theatre and various recreational facilities, including for swimming, boating, sailing, water-skiing, and scuba-diving. They put on plays and musical performances in the theatre, and vacation in Hawaii, Japan, the USA and other places. They loved living there, but as the girls reached their teens it was time to come home.
After New York and North Carolina, Bobbie and Ned moved to Denver, where they spent about sixteen years in teaching, television, barbering, theatrical participation and a a bit of real estate investment. Three boys and three girls, in that order, completed a large and musical family. Sam, the third and youngest boy, starred at the age of twelve in a Walt Disney made-for-television movie, “Mountain Born”, to which he also wrote the theme song. The family moved to Hollywood for two years, and then back to Boone, NC, Ned’s native home.
We’ve visited our children regularly, both at their homes in Denver, Boston and Clinton, and with family reunions in Cherry Grove Beach, SC. Eloise and I have been mighty happy and proud of our children, their spouses and all ten of our grandchildren. I’m sorry Eloise didn’t live to see Sam’s movie, but glad she lived long enough to know all of them well.
Eloise worked at the Shandon Presbyterian Church for five years and led the development of Christian education until, in that area of activity, it was by far the number one church in the Synod. The Synod then chose her as my assistant and we, together with the help of many others, led it to number one in Leadership education, through clinics, leadership training and laboratory schools, and department training centers. After five years as my assistant, Eloise developed cataracts and had to retire. By then our work had grown so that we needed two assistants and secretaries!
In 1954 a friend handed me a check for the $3,000 down payment on a home so that we could get out of the small second floor apartment we were in, and refused to accept interest, or any note to indicate indebtedness. The first item on our monthly budget thereafter was a $50 payment to him. Five years later, when I made our last payment, I discovered he’d kept no records in connection with the loan at all! What a liberal and trusting friend! I’d tell you who it was if I weren’t sure he wouldn’t want me to!
It was wonderful to have a nice home for fifteen years, particularly when so much illness was ahead for both Eloise and me. In 1956 I had a heart attack, and had to take a month off for recuperation. In 1961 Eloise began a series of eye operations for cataracts and detached retinas. In 1965 I had another serious heart attack, and retired in 1966 when Eloise had the first of a series of strokes, crippling her left leg and arm. My age was 67.
I took Eloise to a leading neurologist, but he frankly told me nothing could be done, and that she would continue to have more strokes. A second one occurred in 1968, further affecting the same leg and arm. In 1969 an apartment became available at the Presbyterian Home in Summerville, and we moved in October 1st, after listing our home for sale and selling almost all our furniture.
On December 21st, Eloise had a third stroke, and spent Christmas at the local hospital. In our apartment after she’d been released, she fell and broke a femur just below her hip, which was repaired in the Charleston hospital. She begged to go back to the apartment, but the doctor said I couldn’t take care of her. I insisted on a two-week trial, and cared for her for ten months, taking her to meals and for rides in a wheelchair, until her fourth stroke in June 1971, when she went permanently to the infirmary. I’m glad I had the privilege of caring for her for those ten months.
Ted and family were planning to return from Kwajalein, and on August 14th, a Saturday, were to show slides of the island and the activities there. A “Ted Jones Sunday” was planned at the home, with Ted Sr. to preach and Ted Jr. to sing. I wrote Ted that his mother was failing fast, that my sermon would be for her, and for him to sing something appropriate. He did, singing “In Heavenly Love Abiding”.
Eloise was a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, neighbor, friend and patient. Through all of her years of work and all her infirmities, she never complained about forced frugality, never wavered in love and compassion for others, never turned away from an opportunity for service, was always cheerful and creative and never lost her wonderful sense of humor. She was, in every respect, a most beautiful Christian lady. One of her favorite verses was Matthew 25:40, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of my brethren you have done it unto me.”
I had the privilege of planning the memorial service. I selected the scripture readings and hymns and engaged one of Columbia’s finest baritones to sing “The Holy City”, all planned before Eloise expired on October 22, 1971. Members of her family came from as far as New York, California, Georgia, Florida and all over the Carolinas.The service, in Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, was conducted by two of our long-time minister friends, Dr. Julian Lake and Rev. E.G. Beckman. At the suggestion of the pastor, the congregation came forward to be close to the family.

A Revision of Parts of Proverbs 31,
for a Twentieth Century Wife and Mother
by
The Rev. W. Ted Jones

(read by a minister at the memorial service)
A good wife and mother is of vastly more worth than a fabulous store of jewels. She looks well to the ways of the household, and does not eat of the bread of idleness. She disciplines herself, and inspires others to emulate her in self-discipline.
Strength and honor are her clothing. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and from her lips flow words of grace. She fosters restraint in anger and frowns upon selfishness and snobbishness.
She encourages her children with love and kindness, but insists upon their doing well what studies and chores are assigned.
When her children are small, she holds them in her lap and rocks them to sleep, singing lullabies, hymns and spirituals.
She takes them to the house of public worship and dedicates herself in the Holy Sacraments. She teaches them the basic truths about Jesus.
She sits by beds of illness and comforts her children through the long watches of the night. Her children and husband seek and follow her wise counsel through the years in many difficult decisions.
Her love reaches out beyond her own home, and the children of the neighborhood gather around her for stories, songs, games, to draw pictures and partake of the inevitable refreshments. She teaches in the church school, serves as Cub Scout den mother, leads Girl Scouts in lively meetings and adventurous camping experiences. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her arms to the needy and lonely.
Her children grow up to call her wonderful, and her husband also, and he praises her and comforts her in her illnesses. Her friends are myriad, and shower her with praise.
Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her far and wide among the many upon whom she has bestowed her love, and to whom she has given of her life.
I’m glad we came to South Carolina, where she was privileged in having more and greater opportunities than ever before of putting Matthew 25:40 into practice. I’m grateful that so many people in South Carolina came to know her, to admire and love her. I’m grateful that she lived to know and love all the fine persons our children married, and all of her wonderful grandchildren. Finally, I’m grateful that she had the privilege of spending her last two years in the Presbyterian Home, amidst so much tender loving care.
With contributions from her family and friends, the room from which her Savior led her, free from physical afflictions, to His home prepared for her, a bronze plaque designates the furnishings as a memorial to her. That room, and not her grave, is sacred to me. I look upon it with reverence, and hope to have the privilege of being there when He comes for me. Another Presbyterian Home is to be built in Clinton, and a good proportion of my contributions will go to it so that many other elderly persons may have such tender care as we’ve had here.

AFTERWORD
My grandfather’s memoir ends here, though he lived another nine years. He spent most of his next few years arranging his affairs and planning his funeral. Active and sociable before, he became listless and depressed. After six years, his family persuaded him to move to the Presbyterian Home in Summerville, South Carolina.
Good idea. He perked up, wrote more letters, joined the social scene. After a few months, he wrote a letter, full of indignation, to his kids. The residents were teasing him; they couldn’t believe he’d merely been enjoying the company of a certain woman who sang and played the piano with him nearly every day. How dare the others assume there was a romance! Their relationship was strictly platonic, and entirely respectable!
Two weeks later, another letter. He and Lucile were to be married! At the age of seventy-eight, he married Lucile Boswell Neely, a retired teacher from Hartsville, SC, widowed for thirty-nine years. My uncle, laughing, wondered if he’d proposed to her in the front seat of the car, or the back!
Lucile had written a textbook, “Hartsville, Our Community”, which was used in the Hartsville Public Schools for many years. I have the first copy which she autographed as “Lucile Jones”, which was also the first time she’d signed her name as “Jones”!
Shortly afterwards, I told my good friend and business partner Marcus Brown about the event. His father was from Hartsville, too, and had an Aunt Lucy. Mark’s great-aunt had married my grandfather! Halfway through our twenties, we became cousins!
Ted and Lucile had two wonderful years before he passed on, at the age of eighty. At his memorial, it was hard for the family not to joke or laugh, because all through our lives, when he’d been there, we’d ALWAYS had fun!

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Are We There Yet? ~ A Memoir

My mother named me Dorothy Roberta Jones after her sister, Dorothy Roberta Knight, who passed away at the age of thirteen. I’ve at times gone by Roberta, Dottie Bob, Bobbie, Miss Jones, Miss Roberta, Mrs. Austin, Roberta J. Austin and Bobbie Austin. I also answer to Mom, Aunt Bobbie, Grandma and Great Grandma. This memoir, then, was written by Roberta J. Austin, a.k.a. all of the above.

“Are we there yet?” was a question I heard often from my children whenever we were traveling, and it’s taken me a lifetime to realize that the answer should always be, “Yes”, because the trip is always as important as the destination.

In this memoir, names have not been changed, and events have been described as I remember them. If some of the particulars are muddled or off-track, I apologize.

I’ve had conversations with many of my family and friends which have helped me to clarify details, and I’d like to thank them all. Special thanks to my oldest son, David, who encouraged, prodded, consulted, edited and typed this whole thing! Without that (especially the occasional prodding!) I’m sure this project wouldn’t have gotten done.

New York City, October 1952
New York City was incredible! I loved the cacophony of horns, sirens and jackhammers accompanying the currents of pedestrians and vehicles that rushed down the skyscraper-lined streets like waters roaring through a great canyon. My stride quickened to match the tempo of the city as I hustled from subway to new job. The aromas of ethnic foods assailed my nostrils and foreign tongues sifted through the hubbub, heightening my enthusiasm, coloring my new life. I was a college graduate now, a newlywed, a working woman and pregnant! So grown up! What a contrast this was to my childhood!

Bartow, Florida, April 1935
The organ faded to stillness and my daddy’s voice filled the small church as I wriggled on the hard wood pew. Carol and Teddy, my younger siblings, had been taken home after Sunday school to stay with Georgia, our colored cook. I was old enough, at nearly five, to attend church. My feet didn’t reach the floor, so one of the deacons had built me a foot stool. I tried to live up to the trust that had been placed in me, but the sermon, never more than twenty minutes, seemed very long, and it was hard to sit still. Celeste Barnett, the teen-age girl I sat with, started drawing pictures on her church bulletin to entertain me. My mother was in the choir, and so was Celeste’s daddy. Amy Hall, the grocer’s wife, sang soprano. Mother sang alto, Daddy sang tenor, and Mr. Barnett sang bass. Mrs. Lyle played the organ. I always enjoyed the music. I couldn’t yet read, but the hymns sung at every service–the Doxology, the Gloria–I knew by heart, and I joined in lustily. I added many other hymns to my repertoire as they became familiar. When Mrs. Lyle played something I particularly liked, “Kamenei Ostrow”, for instance, I determined to someday learn the piano.

Mrs. McLeod was a main support for the First Presbyterian Church. She ran a boarding house in Bartow, and her daughter, Mary Stewart McLeod, was my mother’s roommate at Agnes Scott College. When Mother was pregnant with me, she and Daddy lived in West Virginia, but Mother had Florida sand in her shoes. When Mrs. McLeod’s church needed a minister, they called Daddy. Mother admired Mrs. McLeod, a strong, stalwart old lady. She always wanted to write her biography, but due to one facet of her life, never did.

Orr and Aunt Mamie
Mr. and Mrs. Orr lived across the street and were like grandparents to us. We called him “Orr” and her “Aunt Mamie”. Aunt Mamie had an upright piano and played spirited gospel hymns. They weren’t Presbyterians, but once in awhile if Mrs. Lyle couldn’t be at church, Aunt Mamie filled in. One time she asked me, “Which music do you like best–the slow music Mrs. Lyle plays, or the peppy music I play?”
With the innocence of a child too young to recognize a loaded question, I answered without guile, “I like the music Mrs. Lyle plays.”
“You do?!” Aunt Mamie laughed heartily and gave me a playful spank. I didn’t understand why that was so funny.

Aunt Mamie raised chickens in her back yard and I sometimes helped her collect eggs, but didn’t really enjoy it. I was squeamish about reaching under the hens. Sometimes the eggs were soiled and I didn’t want to touch them, but when a hen was setting and her eggs started hatching, the baby chicks fascinated me, as they did Carol and Teddy.

Teddy was just two years old when Mother took the three of us to a photographer to have a group portrait made. To put a smile on Teddy’s face, Aunt Mamie lent one of her baby chicks for him to hold. Our sitting went well, and later, when Mother received the finished portraits, she proudly showed them to us.
“Teddy, who is this?” she asked, holding his portrait. “Dass Aunt Mamie…” he began.
“No, Teddy, that’s not Aunt Mamie.”
Showing some exasperation, he repeated, “Dass Aunt Mamie…”
“Teddy, you know that’s not Aunt Mamie! Who is this?”
Very fast, he responded, “Dassauntmamie’s chickabiddy!”

The first time I was in church on Communion Sunday I was sitting next to Celeste as usual. I was intently interested in the tiny glasses of grape juice on the communion trays, and deeply disappointed when they passed over my head. When I later I told Aunt Mamie about this, she went immediately to her kitchen, prepared some grape juice and bread, and we had communion at her kitchen table. I thanked her and feigned satisfaction, but it wasn’t the same without those tiny little glasses.

The circus was coming to town, and Aunt Mamie and Orr asked Mother if they could take me. The day we were to go, I wasn’t feeling so well, but didn’t tell Mother because I didn’t want to miss the circus. We went, but my chief memory of that day is of throwing up my first cotton candy! I haven’t cared for cotton candy since!

One night Daddy didn’t come home for supper. Mother said Orr was sick and Daddy was with him. Mother put us to bed before Daddy came home, and they told us the next morning that Orr had gone to heaven. I cried, but they said Orr was with Jesus now and had no more sickness or pain, so I guessed I should feel happy.

A Miserable Vacation

In 1934, when we went to Miami Beach, all three children came down with whooping cough. Mother’s sister, Adah, came to help her nurse us through. The disease is aptly named. We were whooping and coughing and vomiting, and one of the neighbors heard all that carrying on and called the police to break up our “wild party”! We were quarantined and spent our entire vacation confined to the house, but we were too sick to care. Teddy, only 3-1/2 months old, almost died. We recovered, and returned to Bartow. When I hear modern mothers objecting to immunizing their babies, I think they can’t have any idea what those childhood diseases are like or they’d be grateful for the shots!

New Car
In the summer of 1935 it was decided we needed a new car. Daddy found that it’d save money to travel to Detroit and buy the car direct from the factory. Mother’s sister, Nancy Lou Narmore, lived with her family in Ann Arbor while Uncle Phil was studying for his PhD, so we made plans to stay with them in Michigan while arrangements were made for the car. Teddy stayed home with Grandmother. Mrs. Rusk, a member of our church, wanted to ride with us back to her home in Michigan, and we shared expenses. She rode in the front with Daddy while Mother rode in the back with Carol and me. She read our horoscopes every day, and warned Mother and Daddy when to take heed.

Mrs. Rusk made it an eventful trip! When we stopped for gas in Georgia, Mrs. Rusk gave the attendant a credit card, and we left. A few miles up the road Mrs. Rusk exclaimed, “Oh! I forgot to take back my card!” She’d also forgotten to sign the slip, and the gas station attendant, thinking he’d been ripped off, had called the law, who arrived just about then. Daddy persuaded them that it was a big mistake, not a scam, and they escorted us back to the service station so Mrs. Rusk could sign for the gas and retrieve her card. Mother delighted in telling this story, because the attendant had told the officers there was “a man and his wife in the front seat and a seventeen-year-old girl with two small children in the back!”

On July 28th (my fifth birthday), Mrs. Rusk read her horoscope and it told her to avoid travel. Mother and Daddy had to be pretty firm with her to get back on the road, but travel we did, into Ohio hill country. Both Carol and I got carsick, and Daddy repeatedly had to stop the car so we could get out and throw up. Mother wanted to give us some cracked ice, but there were no service stations for miles. Finally, Daddy stopped at a house on a hill and Mother climbed to the front door to ask the lady of the house for some ice. While Mother was talking, Mrs. Rusk noticed a clover patch on the hillside and asked if we might look for four-leaf clovers. I celebrated my birthday eating cracked ice and searching for four-leaf clovers. Some birthday! Maybe we shouldn’t have traveled! Anyway, we finally got to Michigan and had a fun time with our cousins, Phyllis and Bennett. The ride home in the new car, without Mrs. Rusk, was uneventful but slow, because a new car had to be broken in. We traveled the long trip home going 35 to 40 miles an hour.

Big Wedding
“Ro-ber-TUH!”
“Yes, maam?”
“Run upstairs and get my sewing basket.”
“Yes, maam!”

When I was five, my relationship with Grandmother was not comfortable. I was a little scared of her. She was never mean, but there was a sharpness in her voice when she called. In later years I learned to appreciate Grandmother and enjoy her company, but not at five years old!

Mother’s cousin Jo Montanus, whom we called Aunt Jo, was having a big church wedding in Coral Gables and wanted me to be her flower girl. I needed to go down several days beforehand to have the seamstress fit me and make my dress so I could be there for the photographer and the rehearsal. It was decided that Grandmother and I would go down on the train, while Mother, Daddy, Carol and Teddy would come along in the car in time for the wedding. This was BIG!

I’d never ridden on a train nor been to a wedding, so I didn’t know what to expect. Neither did I know that branch of the family very well. I’d met Aunt Jo once or twice and her mother, Great Aunt Adah, but Uncle Philip not at all. In short, I was taking a plunge into an unknown adventure with a bunch of near-strangers, and I had strong, mixed emotions: excitement and trepidation!
Our train was leaving Bartow early in the morning, so Mother had packed my little suitcase the night before. Daddy took Grandmother and me to the train depot, gave us our tickets and a big hug, and we hustled out to the platform where the train was hissing and puffing.

“All aboard!” called the conductor and the bell clanged. Another quick hug from Daddy and I mounted the steps with Grandmother. We turned at the door, waved goodbye and found seats. With a jerk and a clang, we chugged away and I left everything familiar behind.

The porter treated me like royalty, lifting my small bag to the rack above our seat alongside Grandmother’s larger one, then directing us to the diner, where we ate breakfast. I had half a grapefruit sprinkled with sugar, two slices of buttered toast, a poached egg and a glass of milk. Our table was covered with a snow-white tablecloth and at each place there was a large white napkin in a tent-like fold. The service was elegant. It included a large plate, a smaller plate, a cereal bowl, two forks, two spoons, a knife, a coffee cup and saucer, a miniature dish of salt with its own tiny spoon, a glass of ice water and a shallow bowl of water which Grandmother said was a finger bowl, to dip your fingers into if they got sticky.

I don’t remember how long the train trip took, but I know we had lunch in the diner as well. I think we may have arrived in Miami in time to have supper at the Montanus home in Coral Gables.

My memories of the house are patchy and peculiar. Why do I remember a tiled roof, but don’t remember any other details of its exterior? I remember nothing of the colors or interior décor, but I remember brocade draperies and thick carpets, giving me an impression of wealth. The one detail I remember vividly was the cuckoo clock on the wall. I’d watch it and wait for the cuckoo to come out, which it did every fifteen minutes. Most of the time, there wasn’t much else for me to do. I went to the seamstress three times–once to be measured, again to be fitted and finally to try on the finished dress. I then sat twice for the hairdresser; once for pictures, once for the wedding. She used a curling iron that was heated on a bed of coals. We then went to the photographer for portraits–many portraits. Individual portraits of the bride, the maid of honor (Aunt Genevieve), each of the bridesmaids and each of the flower girls (Nancy Bennett and me). Group portraits as well. Most of the time I was sitting still, watching the bustle, trying not to get dirty, staying out of the way. I was surely glad when my family arrived, the day before the wedding!

For the wedding, Nancy and I had baskets of rose petals, which we scattered in the aisle as we walked ahead of the bride. That’s all I remember about that; I just wanted to finish and get back to my family!

When the hoopla was over, we drove back to Bartow, traveling the Tamiami Trail, which is now Highway 41. Just as it started to get dark, we had a flat tire, and Daddy said, “Oh, phooey!” That was his swear word. He got out to change the tire, and Mother made us stay in the car because she heard bobcats screaming in the swamp. I worried about Daddy, but he said they wouldn’t come near when the car had its lights on, and he also had a flashlight to keep them away while he changed the tire. I don’t know if that was true, but I felt less afraid. Daddy changed the tire and we drove home.

Ghosts, Recitals and Parties
Halloween was always a big event in Bartow. The downtown merchants decorated their stores and set up booths. There were fortune tellers, haunted houses, “go fishing” tanks with prizes to catch, windows that said “Soap Me”, a cake walk and a costume parade, with prizes for the best costumes. When Teddy was two, Mother made a ghost costume out of an old sheet, but when he looked in the mirror he scared himself and started crying. She discarded that idea and went shopping. He ended up in a monkey costume, and rode on Daddy’s shoulders in the parade. He won first prize, a coconut cream pie!

Miss Culpepper was our piano teacher. Carol and I took lessons, and a highlight of the year was our piano recital, when we wore long dresses and played solos for an audience! One year we played a duet, “March of the Wee Folk”, and Carol played a song she’d made up herself. We announced our own numbers, so Carol walked onstage and stated, “I shall play ‘Fairy Queen’ by….me!” She was four years old, and so cute! She played and sang, “Fairy Queen is sitting down. Little fairies bring the crown.”

The following year we went to Winter Haven for a joint recital with the students of a teacher who was Miss Culpepper’s friend. Miss Culpepper was riding alongside Mother, who was driving, and the three of us were in back. Suddenly, our sedan’s back door flew open, with Teddy holding on to it. Carol and I both screamed, and quick as a flash, Miss Culpepper reached back, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to safety. Shortly afterwards they began designing cars with doors that opened towards the rear instead of the front.

Our next-door neighbors were the Gallemores. Mr. Gallemore was the editor of the local newspaper, The Polk County Record, and Mrs. Gallemore was a high school English teacher. They had three children, older than us; two sons, Roy Holland and Gilbert, and one daughter, Virginia Fran. Mrs. Gallemore–Virginia–was my mother’s closest friend and like an older sister to my mother, who had five younger sisters. I often heard, “Virginia Gallemore says…” and “Virginia Gallemore does…”, and we’d usually do likewise.

Virginia Fran was like an older sister to me. She was four years older, and I’m sure there were times when it was a drag to her to have me coming over to her house to play with her and her friends, but she never made me feel anything but welcome.

Virginia Fran took piano lessons from Miss Culpepper, and so did her friend Dale Taylor. Dale had her lesson just before me, and one day as she was leaving I heard her tell Miss Culpepper she was going to Virginia Fran’s birthday party that afternoon. I was unhappy to hear this–Virginia Fran was having a birthday party, and I wasn’t invited! I guessed it was going to be a big girls’ party, and I wasn’t big yet. Later that day, I was moping disconsolately in the yard, still feeling hurt, when Melana, our colored cook, called out to me, “Roberta, come in and take your bath now.”

Bath? In the middle of the day? That could mean only one thing! “Am I going to Virginia Fran’s birthday party?!” I squealed gleefully.
“Shh-shh-h! It’s supposed to be a surprise!”
Now I felt a little insulted. My mother and Melana hadn’t told me about the party because they thought I couldn’t keep a secret! Well, their strategy had backfired!

First Voice Lesson
When I was seven years old, Daddy thought it’d be nice to have me sing a solo for infant baptism. He taught me the song:
I think when I read that sweet story of old
When Jesus was here among men
How he called little children as lambs to his fold
I should like to have been with them then
I wish that his hand had been placed on my head
That his arm had been thrown around me
And that I might have seen his kind look when he said
“Let the little ones come unto me.”

Mother felt I should have a lesson first, so she sent me to Mrs. Reid, a voice teacher. Mrs. Reid said my vowels were too flat, especially my short “a” sound. She wanted me to sing, “…when I read thaht sweet story” and “…he called little children ahs lahmbs to his fold”, etc. I tried.
At home, Mother asked me about my lesson. “I get all mixed up,” I said. “I’m trying to sing ‘thaht sweet story’ and ‘ahs lahmbs’ but then I keep singing ‘Jesahs’ and ‘amahng men’”.
“Oh,” she said, “then don’t change anything. Just sing the song.” That’s what I did.

Yo-yos, Jacks and Jump Ropes
Our back-door neighbors, the Hargroves, had three girls: Mimi (Mary Claire), who was one year older than me, Dolly (Dorothy Waldo), who was between me and Carol by age, and Judy (Judith Lee), who was Teddy’s age. Mrs. Hargrove’s name was Dorothy, and she was called Dot. Her mother, Mrs. Waldo, who lived with them, made sugar cookies for all the neighborhood kids at Christmas. We liked the Hargroves, played with them every day, and Mother and Dot would often chat.

All the neighborhood kids usually got together in ours or the Hargrove’s yard. Kids today sometimes ask me, “What did you do for fun if you didn’t have television or video games?” Well, it depended on the weather and the time of day. If it was hot we played in the lawn sprinkler, running in and out, screaming and laughing. If it rained and there was no lightning, we ran in the rain. We played hopscotch, jacks, marbles, jumped rope. We roller skated on the sidewalk, pulled each other in wagons, rode tricycles and bicycles, played Freeze Tag, Crack the Whip or Hide and Seek. We had lots of games, but one of our favorites, especially at dusk, was “Ain’t No Bears Out Tonight”. This was a kind of reverse Hide-and-Seek. There was a home base, but the person who was “it” (the “Bear”) would hide while the others stayed “home” and counted. Then we’d all run around the yard, singing “Ain’t no bears out tonight. Daddy shot ‘em all last night.” We’d sing it over and over until the “bear” came running out to grab someone, then we’d scream and run for home base. If someone got caught, they were “it” for the next round.

Tonsil Trouble
We didn’t like Dr. Hargrove very much. He was proud and aloof, but was the only surgeon in town and he also delivered babies. He delivered Carol and Teddy, and took out my tonsils. I was almost eight when they decided my tonsils and adenoids had to go. I was looking forward to the operation because they told me that afterwards I could have all the ice cream I wanted. When I awoke, however, I had such a sore throat that I couldn’t even swallow ice cream! I felt so betrayed! All I could take was cracked ice, which I let dribble down my throat. I don’t remember how long I spent in the hospital–two or three days– but a week after surgery I was sitting quietly in my back yard playing jacks (I’d been warned not to run or play hard) when suddenly I began spitting up blood- a lot! Back in the hospital they tied a gauze bandage in my throat, through my nose, to stop the bleeding. They said I’d hemorrhaged because I’d been playing in the sun. It wasn’t until years later that I learned Dr. Hargrove had made a mess of my tonsillectomy, also cutting off the uvula in the back of my throat! I was still in the hospital on my eighth birthday, so Daddy brought in my present–a new bicycle! It was shiny blue and had “balloon tires”. My old bike had been a hand-me-down with skinny tires. I was thrilled! I couldn’t ride it, but I’d look and know it was mine!

Lost in the City
Mother had grown up on my grandfather’s grove located on a bay near Clearwater, Florida. It’d been a family custom to pile into a large motorboat and cross the bay to Tampa to go Christmas shopping, so one year Mother decided we should all drive to Tampa. The night before our adventure in the big city, Mother gathered us in the kitchen for some special instructions.

“Now, it’s important to stay together and not wander off. But just in case you do get lost, don’t go looking for us. We’ll be looking for you. Stay in one place until we can find you.”
After some additional instructions, Mother asked a few questions to be sure we understood and would remember.
“Teddy, what will you do if you get lost?” Drawing on his own life experience more than on Mother’s instructions, he replied, “Well, I’d go up to a colored man, and if he wasn’t a ghost I’d…”

Carol and I interrupted him with hearty laughter, because we knew that ghosts were whiter than white and would never be mistaken for a colored man! Pondering this in later years, I’m struck by the memory of the special bond we children felt for “colored folks”. We trusted them, believed in them.

Mother went back to her instructions, and it’s a good thing she repeated them, this time focusing on what to do, rather than what not to do.
“If you’re outside, stand still and look for a policeman to help you. But remember, we’ll be looking for you and will retrace our steps, so stay where we’ve been so we can find you. If you’re in a store, go to the nearest clerk and tell him or her that you’re lost. The clerk will know what to do.”

Maas Brothers was a huge store. I looked up at a gigantic web of 4-inch tubes radiating from an office on the second floor all across the ceiling and down to each cash register. The clerks would put money or messages into small containers and the tubes would suck them right up into the office. It was amazing!

It had a speaker system too. After a little while Mother looked down at us and said, “Where’s Teddy?!” The words had just left her mouth when the speaker announced, “We have a lost boy at the women’s jewelry counter.”

We looked back to see a white-faced Teddy standing on the counter where he could be seen. “You did exactly the right thing!”, Mother said joyfully as Daddy reached Teddy and lifted him onto his shoulders. Her advice had paid off–and made us all mindful to stay together when we were in a strange place!

Home Delivery
There were lots of home-delivery items in those days. Mail was delivered, of course, but also milk and dairy products, laundry, dry cleaning, groceries and newspapers. The most exciting delivery was the iceman! He drove a horse-drawn wagon loaded with big blocks of ice. He was so strong! Housewives had a card to put in the window. It was printed on both sides, with two numbers on each side, one right side up and the other upside down. There was 25 over 50 on one side, and 75 over 100 on the other. The card placed in a window with one number facing out and right side up told the iceman how large a block of ice to deliver. He’d chip off a block of the proper size with his icepick, grab it with tongs, carry it into the house and hoist it up into the icebox. When he chipped off a piece of ice, small pieces fell on the wagon floor, and we kids would scoop them up to eat–or sometimes to drop down each other’s backs!

Funeral With an Unexpected Twist
Daddy was with the McLeods when Mr. McLeod passed away, and I heard him tell Mother, “When Mr. McLeod died, Mrs. McLeod got this radiant expression on her face and said, “My prince is walking with the King!”

A couple days later, Daddy was conducting Mr. McLeod’s funeral when a hooded, white-robed figure appeared at the back of the church carrying a spray of white flowers. A soft gasp and a stunned silence moved through the congregation and my dad paused in mid-sentence as the figure slowly walked up the aisle, placed the flowers on the coffin and walked back out. After recovering his composure, my dad called for a hymn.
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee.
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me.
Nothing more was ever said about this episode, but Mother stopped talking about writing Mrs. McLeod’s biography. She had many things in her history to be proud of, but the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t one of them.

Bartow 1938—What Is It?
These were the years of the Great Depression, but we didn’t know much about it. Sometimes a man would come to our back door, Mother would feed him, he’d do a little yard work and move on. My allowance was 25¢ a week, and it went a long way. Five cents went to Sunday school, and I’d spend the rest any way I wanted. A penny would buy candy or chewing gum. On Saturdays I’d usually spend 10¢ on the movies, which included an exciting cowboy serial with a cliff-hanger ending, a cartoon and a feature film.

One Saturday when Barbara Taylor, Vella Jean Hall and I went together, a man sat next to Vella Jean with his hat in his lap. In a few minutes, she said, “Let’s go get some popcorn.”

I was a bit puzzled, because we didn’t have any more money, but we all went to the lobby. Vella Jean said, “That man gave me some candy, and put my hand on something in his lap. I don’t know what it is.”

Barbara said, “Let me sit next to him. Maybe I can figure it out.”

We returned. After a few minutes, Barbara whispered, “I’m thirsty. Let’s get some water.”

Back to the lobby we trooped for another consultation. “It feels like a finger,” said Barbara, “but I don’t know what it is.”

My curiosity was piqued. “Let me sit next to him,” I said. Back to our seats we strolled, with me in the lead. Soon the man reached over, gently took my hand and surreptitiously put it under his hat. He wrapped my fingers around his penis and began to move it up and down.

Mystery solved! I knew what it was, though I had no clue what the man was doing. Unlike Barbara and Vella Jean, I had a little brother, and the masculine anatomy wasn’t unknown to me. I withdrew my hand and said, “Let’s get some candy.” Once more we walked up the aisle, but this time we didn’t return.

“That’s not his finger,” I announced to Barbara and Vella Jean. “That’s something men have that they pee with.”

We decided we should tell someone. My house was closest, so we went there and told my mother. She called Mrs. Taylor, and they took us back to the theatre. We waited outside while they spoke to the usher, and then a policeman arrived. Soon we were being asked, “Is this the man?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure,” I said.
“Yes!” said Barbara emphatically.
“Yes!” announced Vella Jean, “I’m positive!”

With that, the policeman hauled the man away. Mother and Mrs. Taylor walked with us back to my house. We played and talked in the yard while Mother and Mrs. Taylor went inside “for a cup of coffee”.

I wondered what happened after that. I worried that we might have identified the wrong man. No adult ever mentioned this incident to us again, and I didn’t understand why the police had been called. I soon forgot about it, until one day I noticed a paper on Mother’s desk.

“I stood in the lobby,” she’d written, “and saw him come out of the theatre. His trousers were unzipped.” I read the rest of the page and realized my mother had written out what she was going to say in court. I felt better knowing that Mother had other evidence than my uncertain identification.

Four Strangers
That summer we vacationed at Clearwater Beach with our cousins. One day a group of four strangers came to visit my dad and they were not dressed in beach attire. After they left the adults were discussing their awkwardness at the unexpected arrival of men in suits and ties, and Aunt Adah said, “I was trying to make my long face hide my short shorts.”
The strangers were from Highland Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Shortly after we got home from vacation my dad received a call to that church.

We’d lived in Bartow for nine years, and Dad had done a lot for the community. The church had more than doubled in size. They’d added an education building for Sunday school classes and mid-week activities, including a men’s club, women’s auxiliary, youth group and others. He’d been active in the Boy Scouts, helping to chaperone a group going to the New York World’s Fair. He’d encouraged the high school to organize a band, and helped gain support for it in the community. He’d also talked down angry mobs, and helped prevent two lynchings. He was very much esteemed in Bartow, but felt it was time to move on.

When my teacher heard about our impending move, she suggested to the class that we think about who should move into my vacant seat. That set me to thinking what special qualities I had. I never got a blue ribbon on field day. I played hard, but there were always contenders who were faster, stronger and more athletic. I wasn’t very good in arithmetic. I had to practice multiplication to the rhythm of my yo-yo or jump rope–especially the sevens! I was in the top reading group, but I’d known I wasn’t the best since the first grade when I’d come upon the word C-U-P-B-O-A-R-D, and had pronounced it “cup board”. Buddy Campbell and Viva Kathleen Tillis had both known that it was pronounced “cubbard”, and politely corrected me. But I was the most musical! We sang solfege, using the syllables do, re, mi etc. to read a melody before singing the words of a song. Classroom teachers followed up on music lessons and some of them didn’t feel competent to lead us, so they’d ask me. I did this, gladly! The best singers, next to me, were Alice Ruby Whitten and Nell Singleton. I suggested it should be one of them, and left it to the class to decide.

The church in Fayetteville was close to Fort Bragg, which was the training center for the soldiers of the 82nd and 101st Divisions–the last stop before they were shipped overseas. Dad saw this as an opportunity to serve his country. We saw an opportunity to see snow!

North Carolina
When we moved to North Carolina, I was in the fourth grade, and my teacher, Mrs. Poole, was the aunt of my best friend, Sybil Corbett. Sybil’s mother wished to become a teacher as well, and was working on her certification at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. When her mother relocated for the summer, she told Sybil that she could bring along a friend, so Sybil invited me, and we moved to Chapel Hill together while the rest of my family stayed in Fayetteville.

Sybil and I hung out together while her mom was in class. UNC had a swimming pool, and her mom, wisely, signed us up for swimming classes.

My dad and his seven brothers had grown up close to a swimming hole, and one brother, Will, had drowned while trying to rescue a young neighbor. My dad felt strongly that everybody should learn to swim, and frequently took us to Eagle Lake and Kissimmee Springs. It sounds odd, but all my dad taught us to do was dog paddle. I really learned to swim in Chapel Hill that summer; different strokes and kicks, how to swim on my side, belly and back.

A Gathering Storm Across the Sea
The radio was an important center of information in the 1930s. Radios were large pieces of furniture which usually sat against a wall in the living room, and we’d listen to comedy shows like “Amos and Andy”, “Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy”, and Bob Hope. Sports events–boxing and baseball–were broadcast, and President Roosevelt addressed the country with his “Fireside Chats” to spread hope during the depression years. In the latter part of the decade, regular shows were interrupted with increasing frequency by an urgent voice announcing, “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin.”

Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany, had marched his armies into Austria and taken over, then marched them into Czechoslovakia, and the rest of the world watched with mounting concern. This was reflected in our parents’ faces, and in the fact that our radio was always on, to catch breaking news. We didn’t pay much attention to the radio and would play noisily with our toys, but once we heard that urgent voice we stopped everything and got quiet so our parents could hear.

Kilts and Khakis

The discordant drone of bagpipes and the slow, deliberate rhythm of drums wafted through the colorfully clad celebrants. They were marching down Hay Street towards the town square. Highland Scot settlers had founded Fayetteville, so Scottish kilts and bagpipes filled the air. It was the town’s Sesqui-Centennial. I learned that Sesqui-Centennial meant one hundred fifty years, but never found out what happened in 1789. This didn’t trouble me until 35 years later, when in a North Carolina history class I mentioned this celebration. The professor asked me what they were celebrating. To my chagrin, I didn’t know–and still don’t!

It didn’t matter then, though. The parade was strange and exciting–and our enjoyment was enhanced by the fact that it was the only thing we’d been allowed to go to since we’d arrived! We’d moved from Bartow only to find that Fayetteville was in the throes of a polio scare and the schools were closed. Children weren’t allowed to attend indoor events. No school. No Sunday school. No movies. Nothing indoors. It wasn’t a good way to start life in a new community! We could go to the parade, since it was outdoors. After Thanksgiving the quarantine was lifted, and we prepared to go to school. Teddy protested that he didn’t have the right clothes to wear. “Here, all the men wear dresses,” he said.

We were eager to go to school and meet new friends. Teddy was in Kindergarten, Carol in second grade and I was in fourth. I liked my teacher and new friends, but I had so much homework! Much more than I’d ever had in Florida! After working on it until ten o’clock a couple times, I learned to start earlier!

Snow
We’d been ecstatic about the idea of moving to North Carolina, because we knew they had snow. December came. The brown, bare trees and lawns were bleak and cold, but the only snow we’d seen was fake–cotton batting or mica chips in Christmas scenes. Swirling “snow storms” inside celluloid-domed paperweights. We were disappointed and longed for our old friends and the green trees and grass of Florida. Maybe North Carolina wasn’t so great after all!

Bedtime, New Year’s Eve. Mother read a story from The Wizard of Oz, then listened as we said our prayers. We asked God’s blessing on all our relatives before asking, for the umpteenth time, for snow. As we crawled under the covers, Teddy expressed a lack of faith. “It’s never gonna snow!” he grumbled.
“Oh yes, it will,” said Mother gently.
“When?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. One day you’ll look out the window and you’ll see white flakes floating down like ever-so-light soap flakes. They land silently on everything, and blanket the whole world. You’ll see! Now, go to sleep!”

Soon I was dreaming of the Emerald City of Oz. It was all green, like my old neighborhood in Florida. Carol and Teddy and I were in the hall of the Great Wizard, telling him he was a fake. He hadn’t made it snow. The Good Witch of the North appeared and said, “Look out the window. It’s snowing!”

It slowly dawned on me that the voice of the Good Witch in my dream was my mother’s voice. “Look out the window! It’s snowing!”

It was snowing, all right! White flakes, like Mother had said, only far more beautiful than I’d imagined! The ground already had a light cover of glistening white, and the air was full of dancing snowflakes!

“Carol! Teddy! Hurry! It’s snowing! We’ve gotta get out there!”
“Huh? Snow?”
“Look! It’s snowing!”
“Snow! It’s really snow!”

We’d never dressed so fast! Mother made us eat breakfast, then we got on our jackets, caps, mittens and galoshes and ran into the front yard! A number of soldiers, who knew this was our first snow, drove by to watch us while we played.

The once-bare trees and bushes were now sparkling white fountains in an enchanted land. Fairyland! I turned my face up and let the snowflakes fall on my outstretched tongue. I caught some on my mittens and studied the intricate, lacy patterns. Teddy picked up a handful and threw it in my face. I threw some back at him, then at Carol. We threw it in the air just to watch it flutter and float down. We rolled in it. We took off our mittens to see how it felt. Cold!

We began to organize our play. We made a snowman. We built a snow fort. Our neighbors came over, we built another fort and had a snowball fight. We lay on our backs and waved our arms to make snow angels. We got out our never-been-used sled and took turns sliding down the hill. Finally we gathered some clean snow in a big mixing bowl and added milk, vanilla and sugar to make snow cream.

I’m sure we had lunch that day, because Mother wouldn’t allow meal-skipping, but I don’t remember it. I just remember the enchantment of that long-awaited snowy day. To this day, every time it snows, I still feel the awe and wonder of that magical first snow.

Sleet!
In Fayetteville, a snowy day was a special occasion, because it was beautiful, light—mostly 2 or 3 inches—and rare. Many winters were never graced with a snowfall. Sleet may not have been more common, but it was more memorable—and not at all welcome! Our first experience with sleet came when we were scheduled to drive back to Florida, where Daddy was to perform a wedding. Canceling wasn’t an option, so Daddy drove to a service station, and they were happy to fit him with chains—on all four wheels! We then piled in—Mother and Daddy in the front seat, we three kids and our dog Toughey in the back. We headed out, slowly and cautiously. By the time we got into Georgia, the sleet was gone and the roads clear, but we still crunched down the pavement. Eventually one, another, another link broke, slapping the fenders, CLANG! CLANG-CLANG! CLANG! We were in a rural area, but we didn’t pass unnoticed, and we kids were so embarrassed that we all hid on the floorboards, Toughey panting and drooling all over us! Daddy had no idea how to remove chains, and thwacked down the highway for several more miles before finding a service station to take our brand-new, ruined chains off again.

1940—Allergies and Cousins

Our energetic activities were rudely interrupted when we got measles–the hard, red measles. Once again we were quarantined! Measles affected the eyes and had left some children blind. Some others (including one of my cousins) had become deaf as a result of the high fever. We had to stay in bed in a darkened room, with ice packs to bring down the fever.

We’d been plagued with allergies before the measles hit, and after our quarantine was lifted Mother, exhausted from nursing us, took us by train to Florida, to see an allergist. Most of our fellow passengers were in uniform. Teddy struck up a conversation with a couple soldiers, but Carol and I were too shy; we just watched him and stayed close to Mother. Our train, a very modern Streamliner, went through Jacksonville and Tampa, and got us to our destination with only three stops on the way.

We spent almost a month with our Knight cousins, who lived between Clearwater and Largo in a house close to where Mother’s home place had been. Mother’s brother, Uncle Bob, had been called back into the military. Aunt Marguerite, who’d been Mother’s best friend since childhood, cared for three boys and a girl. For a month we were a family of two women, seven kids, a cow and some chickens.

Our time with our cousins was so much fun! I idolized my oldest cousin, Bobby, who was four years older, and a wellspring of knowledge. Botany was one of his interests, and he identified plants as we walked around the grounds, using scientific names which I quickly forgot. He was a fine pianist, and had a book of Bach two-part inventions. He could easily play them solo, but he let me play the right hand while he played the left. He was the one who milked the cow, and once when I was watching he said, “Roberta, open your mouth!”. I did, and he squirted milk directly into it! With the younger cousins we played with fiddler crabs down by the bay, fished from the bridge and had rotten-orange fights in the grove!

Twice a week we drove to Tampa to see the allergist. He made vaseline lattices on our arms, one on each upper arm and one on the inside of each lower arm, with six or eight squares on each surface. He made a paper diagram delineating the allergens. Those on the upper arm were injected just under the skin and those on the lower arm were rubbed into a scratch. After the doctor had decorated our arms, we went home for two days, returning to “have our arms read”. From this procedure he made a long list of pollens and foods to avoid, and concocted serums to desensitize us. After we went back to Fayetteville shots were mailed to us and administered by a doctor neighbor three times a week. Eventually, our allergies diminished.

Vacations at Montreat
Montreat is a Presbyterian church retreat in the mountains of North Carolina. Ministers and missionaries came with their families to reconnect with old friends from college and seminary. There were conferences – for ministers, for Directors of Religious Education (DREs), for church musicians and for youth. We discovered, however, that there was not much for children to do. It rained a lot, which put a damper on hiking, rock-hopping, and swimming. We learned first-hand what “cabin fever” meant!

Grandmother always had a jigsaw puzzle on a card table and we could stop by and place a few pieces. Sometimes we played checkers, and Grandmother taught me to crochet. I’d brought along the latest Nancy Drew book, but had it read before the end of the third rainy day. There were no stores or movie houses, and our cabin was rather primitive. We had plumbing and electric lights, but no telephone, and no radio!

Though my dominant memories of Montreat are of rainy days with nothing to do, there were happy times as well.

Getting acquainted with other Presbyterian PKs (Preacher’s kids) was great! It was fun to do things together in the summertime, and we’d reconnect in unexpected places–at college, at church in strange towns. Many friendships formed at Montreat have lasted through two or three generations.

Our main activities, when it wasn’t raining, were rock-hopping in the creeks and mountain-climbing. Sometimes as teen-agers we’d get bold enough to swim in the cold, cold waters of Lake Susan.

One evening a trio of us girls decided to thumb to Black Mountain and go bowling. At the bowling alley we met a couple of Black Mountain boys, who invited us to ride with them for a hamburger and a Coke. It seemed a good way to top off the evening, so we piled in and drove the quarter-mile downhill to the roadside café. When we’d finished talking and eating we jumped back in the car–which wouldn’t start.
“If we push it off and go downhill, it’ll start.”
We did, and it didn’t. We tried again, and again, getting farther and farther down the mountain. It was getting later. And later. And did I mention that even if we could call home, there were no phones in Montreat?

We girls decided our only option was to say thank you to the guys and try to hitch a ride back up the mountain. The boys decided to stay with the car.

We didn’t have to wait long. A trucker stopped and offered us a ride. We climbed into his cab, thanking him effusively, as there was almost no other traffic and we were beginning to get scared. We hadn’t ridden very far when we saw a set of headlights approaching, very slowly. As the headlights got closer, I recognized my dad’s car! What a joyful reunion!

Clique Claque
“To join or not to join–that is the question.” My apologies to Mr. Shakespeare, but it seems an appropriate introduction to the topic of social cliques, something I knew nothing about until 1940. I was ten, and the students from Westlawn School joined us at Haymount School, bringing with them a cohesive group they called “Our Crowd”. Ironically, the students who had always been at Haymount were now the outsiders, the ones who might, or might not, be accepted by “Our Crowd”.

This was confusing, and presented to me a new dilemma. Did I want to be in “our crowd?” I didn’t know. What did that mean? I had friends, and some of us were in groups in my neighborhood, Sunday school class, etc. – but this was different. A group that was – what? It seemed to be defined only by who was in it, and some people were more solidly “in” than others. Yes, I wanted to be in “Our Crowd”, but also to keep my friends who were not “in”. Well, okay, I could be on the fringes, but not really “in”, which pretty much thereafter became my place in the social structure. In high school I joined one sorority, left it, joined another and left it as well. In Queens College I joined a sorority, then dropped out. I was a slow learner, but it finally dawned on me. The prime, if unacknowledged, characteristic of every clique is its exclusivity.

Scouts & Sports
My mother knew what to do. She organized a Girl Scout troop and kept us far too busy to mope about whether we were “in” or “out”. We knitted squares for afghans, folded bandages, collected scrap metal, planted gardens. We picked cotton, learned first aid and junior life saving, baby sat so that soldiers and their wives could have an evening out. We learned bird watching, forestry, crafts etc. and earned points towards merit badges. I went to Girl Scout camp at Lake Lure, learned canoeing and participated in a nine-mile hike to Chimney Rock.

Hiking, swimming, bike riding, roller skating and tree climbing were favorite activities, and we had a lot of friends to play with. Sometimes we’d organize a game of hide-and-seek or roll-a-bat (loosely based on baseball), and Gilly’s big brother taught us football. In the eighth grade, I played football with a bunch of boys in a vacant lot in another neighborhood. Mother wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I loved it! We played tackle, not touch, and she was afraid I’d get hurt, but I was just as tough as the boys, and loved the rough and tumble of it.

My dad taught me tennis, too, and several of my friends took up the game. At the tennis courts, we played and managed a soft drink stand for pocket money in the summer. The Coca-Cola company set up a large red cooler and stocked it with ice and sodas. We watched it, sold drinks, collected the bottles and paid the company share. It was fun, and easier than a lemonade stand.

My bicycle was my transportation. We’d walked to Haymount Elementary School, but Alexander Graham Bell Junior High was farther away. I rode my bike to school, to the grocery, the movies and around the neighborhood. I had a basket on the handlebars and a rack on the back. Sometimes my Pekingese dog Tootsie would ride in the basket.

Preparing for War
Fayetteville was a small town whose main point of reference was the Square, a historic open structure which before the Civil War had served as a slave market. The main street, Hay Street, went from the Square through the downtown and up the Hill. Hay Street ended one block past the church in a fork of two highways, one going the six or seven miles to Fort Bragg and the other leading out of town towards Raeford. As the country mobilized in response to events in Europe, more than 50,000 soldiers went to Fort Bragg for training, while their families and support personnel came to Fayetteville, creating an acute housing shortage. The people of the town rallied to the need by taking in roomers, and Mother did her best to accommodate as many as she could. The manse was large, and we sometimes had five to seven people living with the five of us. Roomers came and went as soldiers got shipped out and new recruits were brought to the fort.

It was a broadening experience for me. Our roomers came from many diverse backgrounds. There was Mrs. Delgado from Cuba, who taught me some Spanish and introduced me to her favorite drugstore treat, chocolate sundaes. Mrs. Spiesmacher from Germany taught me some German. She was visited and interviewed by an FBI agent to make sure she wasn’t spying. Mrs. Zanker was from Switzerland. She and her husband had a baby, Ardis, and I learned a lot about child care from her. Mrs. Boyer, from Louisiana, taught me how to make peanut brittle, salt water taffy and divinity fudge. One of my favorite roomers was Caroline Whitaker, a secretary, who loved to play our Steinway grand piano and sing popular songs. She had lots of sheet music and I sang with her almost every evening, developing an extensive repertoire. Also, many of my school friends who called themselves “army brats” had lived in lots of different places and had fascinating experiences to share.

The character of this small, southern, Scotch town changed radically. The soldiers, from varied backgrounds, were united by their sense of mission and had an energy that was contagious. Everyone developed a strong commitment to strengthening our country’s defense and supporting our troops. We bought defense stamps and invited soldiers to dinner. The church turned its Sunday evening services into special times of hospitality. Soldiers came in army trucks with their chaplains for supper and a church service, followed by entertainment. My dad organized a glee club at Fort Bragg with about fifty voices and met with them once a week. They sang at public meetings in Fayetteville and at our church on Mothers’ Day. Dad also took his guitar and sang funny songs at the USO.

Our Heroes
It was hot and humid in the summer, and soldiers would pass out from heat stroke. Mother got a water cooler for our back porch and encouraged all the neighborhood kids to get drinks as often as they wanted. She kept it well supplied with ice water and paper cups.

The movies showed soldiers in training at Fort Bragg, and we copied much of what we saw. We marched and practiced crawling close to the ground, pretending to be under enemy fire. When we saw paratroopers learning to land, bending their knees to absorb the impact of the fall, we’d practice that as well. We tried it from a tree, but it was hard to find a branch of the right height. Then we noticed the garage! Its roof was gently sloped, almost flat, and we could climb onto it from a tree. It was perfect! We climbed and jumped and practiced, and none of us got hurt!

The soldiers were our real-life heroes, but we copied comic book heroes as well. There was Superman, naturally, and Batman & Robin, the Green Lantern and Captain America. We collected and traded comic books and imagined ourselves to be impervious to danger–but not to werwolves, or Frankenstein’s monster! I was walking from Louise Tibeau’s house one night and was positive I’d heard something skulking in the bushes, following me. I took off running and didn’t slow down until I’d slammed my front door!

The Goat
Mrs. McLeod and her daughter, Mary Stewart, were visiting in Fayetteville when Mrs. McLeod heard Teddy was about to turn six. “Ooh, Teddy,” she said, “what do you want for your birthday?”
Teddy surprised everyone with his prompt reply. “A goat.”
A ripple of amusement passed through the adults.
“A goat?” she said, “Then you shall have one!” She pulled out her checkbook and wrote a check for $5.
To her everlasting credit, our mother took this turn of events in stride. She filled in the check to a farmer, Mr. McPherson, and brought home an adorable kid in time for his birthday, which he named Mac in honor of Mrs. McLeod.
Dad provided a large doghouse in the backyard for Mac, and a rope to keep him from wandering. Teddy received a child-size football helmet so he could butt heads. It became a favorite activity for Teddy, as Mac did “what comes nacherly”. They had a lot of fun together in the front yard.

Our street, Clarendon Street, was parallel to Hay Street, and was used as an alternate route for army convoys so they could avoid heavy traffic. They moved slowly, but the soldiers never seemed to mind when they passed by our house, being entertained by the small boy and his baby goat butting each other playfully.

The baby goat, however, grew up. He’d come to love the company of children, bleating constantly for us to play. Twice, when he felt we weren’t paying him enough attention, he broke the rope and ran away. We ran after, fearful that he’d run into Hay Street and get hit. We couldn’t catch him, but the attendant at the service station on the corner did–both times! It was time for school to start, and we realized we couldn’t keep Mac in town, so Mother took him back to Mr. McPherson. I don’t know if she paid him to take Mac back, but another interesting saga had come to its end. We never forgot Mac!

The Pony
Dr. and Mrs. Robertson and their three boys were going on vacation, and they needed someone to take care of their pony. They wanted to be sure the pony was ridden, brushed, fed and given water. Would our family be interested?

Would we?! We’d always wanted a pony, and now we’d have one for a whole month! Our garage became a stable; straw was hauled in and spread over the dirt floor for the pony, whose name was Alice. A sawhorse served as a rack for her saddle, and we procured two buckets–one for water and one for oats.

At first, Mother or Dad would saddle Alice, but I learned very quickly and took pride in shouldering the responsibility. I was almost eleven, and felt very competent. Carol and Teddy were too young to saddle her, but they helped feed, curry and of course ride her.

The second day, I was riding Alice when she decided to go back to the Robertson’s. “Whoa, Alice!” I cried, pulling on the reins. Mother ran behind us, but couldn’t keep up. I hung on while Alice carried me down Clarendon Street, up Hinsdale and toward Hay Street, with its heavy traffic! Alice had the sense to stop when she saw all the cars, and Mother, huffing and puffing, caught up. Together we walked Alice back, talking to her in soothing tones.

We had no more trouble. Alice understood she was to stay with us. All the kids in the neighborhood rode her, and we put our kittens on her back for a family pet photograph. Occasionally, when she was tired of riding us, she’d buck. We’d dismount and lead her home.

Rationing
When the war started, grocery shopping got complicated. When Mother planned meals, she had to consider not only our budget and our allergies, but the various food shortages. Did we have enough red stamps for roast beef, or would we have to settle for a meatless Sunday? Just about all foods were rationed. Red stamps were for meat, blue for canned fruit and vegetables. Each adult could have one cup of coffee per day, and sugar was severely rationed. We loved canned pineapple, but it was a rare treat because it cost so many ration stamps. Forget butter! We had margarine, but it came white, with a pack of coloring which we had to mash and mix well to turn it yellow. That was often my job; mash and stir, mash and stir until the color was evenly distributed. Every car had a gas ration stamp on the windshield–A, B or C–and the owner had a ration book to go with it. Cars with C stamps received the most gas; they were for doctors and emergency personnel. In those days doctors made house calls, and their transportation was considered essential to the well-being of the country. My dad had a B stamp, because he was a minister and also called on people in their homes. Most people got A books for enough gas to get them to and from work. Very few auto trips were made by anyone, and when you did get on the highway, the speed limit was 35, so it took a long time to get anywhere!

Danger! Fire!
The wails of sirens drowned out the humdrum sounds of our neighborhood. My friend Louise and I watched anxiously as a vacant lot was being rapidly consumed by a blaze–one we’d started! We’d heard “rabbit tobacco” was growing behind Louise’s house, and didn’t know what it was, but packed a couple corncob pipes with a likely looking weed and lit up. The embers overflowed, and the fire got away from us! We ran to Louises’s and grabbed the phone!

“There’s a fire in a vacant lot, and it’s getting near some houses! 820 Brantley Street! Please hurry!”

We watched, along with several neighbors, as the firemen arrived. After they put out the fire, they questioned three boys, and we worried at what they suspected. I like to think we’d have confessed if there’d been trouble, but I’ll never know, because the firemen left and everyone went home.

I was eleven, and should’ve known better.

It wasn’t my first experience with fire. At five, my three-year-old sister and some neighbor kids were playing in our room while our parents visited in the parlor. I’d sneaked some matches from the kitchen, and was showing everyone how to strike them on the box, lighting one after another. A match burned down too far, and was dropped–right into our doll’s bed!

“Our dolls!” we screamed, and our parents came running. They picked up the flaming dolls and beat out the fire. It dampened my curiosity–for awhile.

When I was seven, we had a project which involved melting wax. We were in the playhouse in the backyard, and the fire we were using got away from us. We tried to beat it out, but a spark flew into my sister’s long, beautiful hair and set it ablaze! She ran out of the playhouse, fire streaming behind!

“Carol! Don’t run! Lie down and roll over!” I yelled. She kept running, of course. My dad came rushing out of the house, threw his coat over her and smothered the fire.

There are many legitimate uses for fire–we cook with it, burn brush, keep warm on a cold night and enjoy its warm glow as we dream next to a campfire–but I was just plain foolish sometimes in my fascination. My confidence in my ability to control it was misplaced, and I was lucky none of my misadventures ended in tragedies. Treat fire with great respect! It’s not to be played with! It can get away from you VERY fast!

A Tale of Two Towns

Ocala, Florida, November 1943. Except for the terrain, it’s hard to imagine two towns more dissimilar than Fayetteville and Ocala were in 1943. Both towns were situated in gentle rolling hills, but Fayetteville was a small town bursting at the seams with soldiers and young families. In Ocala there were no young men between 18 and 50 except an occasional man classified 4F who wore a lapel pin explaining to the world why he wasn’t in the service. We’d moved for health reasons. Dad had a heart condition and allergies had continued to plague Ted and me, so we welcomed an opportunity to move back to Florida, with its slower pace and kinder climate.

Victorian Manse

In Ocala the preacher’s house was next to the Presbyterian church. Across the street to the front was the primary school and on the other side was the Baptist church, so it was surrounded.

It was old-fashioned, with gaslight fixtures on the newel posts at both ends of the spiral staircase. There was an enormous dining room; Mother said they must have planned to use it for church dinners. My bedroom was on the second floor, directly above the music room. The house had high ceilings and a screened porch. In one corner was a two-story bay window topped with a cupola.

It wasn’t easy living between two churches. I played bass clarinet, Carol the French horn and Ted the trumpet. One summer evening, all windows open, we were playing some popular songs when a stranger knocked on the door. The Baptists were having a prayer meeting and they couldn’t hear anything but us! Could we please stop? After that we checked before practicing.

Ocala High School 1944-1948

High school was wonderful, for me. The opportunities were limitless! I could sign up for DCT–Diversified Cooperative Training–and have a half-day school, half-day work schedule, and have a paying job! I could sign up for auto mechanics and learn to fix a car! I could even learn to fly a plane!

No, I couldn’t! My parents insisted that I take the academic track and prepare for college. Including Latin! I did–but I also took Spanish, band, typing, glee club, and home economics. These I added to my required courses by eliminating study hall and physical education. Marching band provided exercise, and I went swimming and hiking on my own. I was used to lots of homework and didn’t need study hall.
Amo, Amas, Amat

Latin class was a drag, but we liked our teacher. A little gray-haired lady, she loved our football team! Every game, there she was—hollering from the sidelines, right behind the benches! We loved her enthusiasm for football, but oh! how we struggled in her class! We’d labor through Julius Caesar, referring frequently to the glossary in the back of the book. Sometimes the definition wasn’t helpful, as with the phrase “sub juga”–”under the yoke”. Totally bewildering to a bunch of Florida teenagers, who’d never heard of a yoke! But then one of the boys, coming to the phrase, said “they were subjugated by the Romans”.

Subjugated! Sub juga! Of course! A light dawned for me–but a different one for our teacher! She marched over to him and put out her hand. “All right! Give me the pony!”

We learned something else. A “pony” was a translation, which we weren’t supposed to have!

Band

I jumped enthusiastically into all the extra-curricular activities I could crowd into my day. One year I launched a weekly radio show, featuring local performers and spreading the news about high school activities to the community. Opportunities for me to perform as a singer abounded. I sang in assembly programs at school. I sang for local men’s civic clubs (the Rotary, the Lions Club, the Kiwanis etc.) and women’s clubs (auxiliaries and garden clubs), at school dances, at church and at the Florida State Fair. I was often invited to sing on the school bus, at a party, or on a picnic, and would jump into an a capella rendition of “Indian Love Call”.

We had marching practice after school three times a week. During the football season that meant a new routine every week. There were concerts in the park, parades at the state fair and other celebrations, plus the all-important regional band contest. We always rated a One, and were very proud to uphold that reputation. Besides band, I played solo and ensemble performances. One year I played bass clarinet in a clarinet quartet and also a piano accompaniment for Mary Brent’s oboe solo–but forgot the piano music! It was in my box in the band house, which was locked! I called my mother–who else? She or Dad could always be counted on to rescue me, if rescue was possible. Mother called Mrs. Wigham, the band mother. Together they went to the band house, broke in through a window, got the music and took it to the bus station, where they sent it by the next bus from Ocala to Tampa. The bus driver handed me the music in the bus station and I rode back in time to play with Mary Brent. We rated a One!

Student Strike
One of our coaches got fired, and we didn’t know why. He was well-liked by the students, and a bunch of them, mostly upper-class football players, got together to decide what to do. They decided to go on strike, and they spread the word to the rest of the student body not to attend classes the next Friday, which became Strike Day.
This put me in a quandary. As a member of Student Council and the Honor Society, I felt an obligation to do the right thing, but what was the right thing? I tried to talk some of the students out of it, but I didn’t have any influence on the football team. I went to the teacher who was Student Council advisor for her advice. She talked to the faculty, and they decided to allow the strike as an opportunity for the students to exercise a democratic right. They were to be charged with an unexcused absence, but no further penalty.

Senior Strike Day became a tradition at our high school. One day each year the seniors would cut classes and go to the lake.

I still don’t know what happened to the coach, or why he got fired!

A Dream Job
Central Florida has several incredibly clear springs–Rainbow, Juniper and the best-known, Silver Springs. One could take a bus nine miles to “the springs” for a dime, ride bikes, hike or pile into someone’s family car to go for a swim and a picnic. I thought Rainbow and Juniper Springs nicer; they were in a natural setting and Silver Springs was commercialized, but it was closer. There were glass-bottom boats for viewing the 80-foot-deep caverns at the bottom with amazing clarity. There were catfish swimming and sometimes human divers putting on a show on an underwater stage. On two sides a boardwalk offered an opportunity to shop, watch a potter work with orange-blossom scented clay or visit the Ross Allen Reptile Institute. Ross stood on a platform in a pit of rattlesnakes, picked one up with a hook and milked it, holding it just behind its head and placing its fangs over the rim of a glass jar. Its venom would spew into the jar, he’d drop it and hook another.

In high school I earned most of my spending money baby-sitting, and one summer one of Ross Allen’s lab technicians hired me. It was a dream job! I’d ride the bus to her house, pick up her kids, ride the bus to Silver Springs and spend the day hanging out. We’d take a picnic lunch and do all the touristy things–ride the boats, handle the (non-poisonous) snakes, stroll the grounds and play on the grassy lawns, all for free!

The Wildcat Den
My dad noticed that teenagers in Ocala didn’t have much to do in their spare time and that the women’s club had a very nice clubhouse that they only used occasionally. He talked them into sharing their space for “a good cause” and organized a teen club. The football team at the high school was named the Wildcats, so the teens named their hangout The Wildcat Den, which opened for sock hops on Friday nights. A juke box and a couple ping-pong tables were brought in, a pool table was put on the screen porch, a few board games were donated and The Wildcat Den was open Saturdays as well. It became THE place to go after football games, and different high school clubs would sponsor dances. The clubs would form committees for decoration, publicity, music, refreshments and cleanup.

June 1945—Presbyterian Youth Fellowship
“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” The sound of forty young voices rang out, filling the auditorium with an enthusiastic rendition of the chorus from Handel’s “Messiah”. We were at a youth conference in Montreat, and most of us were singing this iconic piece for the first time.

Every seasoned singer knows there’s a trap for the unwary in this chorus. Near the end, as the music reaches the height of excitement, with voices weaving double forte in a frenzied exchange, there’s a sudden rest—a silence—before charging into the finish. In a first rehearsal, someone almost always jumps in, singing loudly into the silence. It rarely happens in performance—except when it does! My good friend Pat McGeachy boomed into the silence with his resonant bass. It’s the kind of mistake it’s hard to forget!

Besides the large, church-wide youth conferences, there were synod and presbytery conferences. A synod is a state organization, which is divided into smaller, geographic presbyteries. We were in the Florida synod, and our presbytery included Jacksonville, Gainsesville, Lake City, Ocala, Palatka and all towns in between. Our Presbyterian Youth Fellowship, the PYF, held its conference each summer at Camp O’Leno near Gainesville. I couldn’t go because I had the mumps, but my dad was there as one of the sponsors. He came home with some surprising news.
“You’re the new Presbytery President of the PYF”, he announced.
“You mean vice president, Dad.” I was quite sure about that.
“No, he said, “President!”
“But that was supposed to be Rosemary! I was on the nominating committee, and we nominated her. She’s been our vice president all this past year. I was just chair of the Spiritual Life Committee.”
“Well, they made you the president.”
“How did that happen? I’m not ready to be president.”
“After the report from the nominating committee, they asked if there were any nominations from the floor.”
“They always do that, but nobody nominates from the floor.”
“Well, this time they did. A blonde-haired girl from Jacksonville – I think her name is Margie – stood up and nominated you, and you got elected by a pretty good majority.”

June 1946—Band Election
Time to elect band officers for the next school year! The Ocala High School Band had an excellent rating, and the officers were responsible for student discipline while marching and in concert. The band had always had a boy captain, a girl first lieutenant and four second lieutenants. I’d been the only junior elected the previous year (second lieutenant) so I felt I had a shot at captain. I was encouraged by the guys seated near me and thus in my sphere of influence – mostly drummers and tuba players. They enthusiastically helped me carry on a spirited campaign against two opponents, both boys. My best friend Sonya was running for first lieutenant, unopposed.

We voted by secret ballot, and our band director, “Pop” Armstrong, plus the five outgoing officers, counted the ballots in the band office while the rest of us waited quietly in the classroom.

Pop gave us the results with an incredulous look. “We have a three-way tie for captain!” he announced. “I never thought that could happen, but it did. However, there was one person who voted for Sonya, who wasn’t running for captain. If that person will change their vote, we’ll have a winner.”

Nobody moved, nobody said anything. “It’s a simple, fair way to break the tie. Whoever voted for Sonya, just vote again.”

The silence was heavy. There was a quiet, suppressed gasp as Sonya arose and went to the office. Bobby Jordan became our captain, Sonya the first lieutenant.

The following week, Pop called me in to his office and closed the door. “I need to tell you,” he said, “there was a miscount. I went through the ballots again and you had one vote more than Bobby or Murray. You should’ve had it.”
“Just leave it alone,” I said. “Bobby Jordan will be a good captain, Sonya a good first lieutenant. I promise to be a good second lieutenant, and we won’t tell anyone.”

And we never did, until now!

Transylvania Music Camp—1946

The sonorous tones of a French horn playing “Till Eulenspiegel” wafted on the breeze and mingled with the polyphony of a string quartet rehearsing chamber music and a rich baritone voice singing a Schubert lieder. From where I stood, barefoot, on the gravel drive, the sounds seemed to come from the trees in the forest. Music permeated the atmosphere. Paths through the forest led to small cabins where musicians and campers practiced.

I loved everything about this camp! The informality, the friendships, the music everywhere! I played bass clarinet in the band, hiked in the woods, swam in the lake, waited tables to pay my tuition, and fell in love—over and over again!

Dad had discovered this camp in the summer of 1945 when the Transylvania band gave a concert in Montreat. Dad had always loved band music, and after their first number he came back to our vacation home to get us. “You’ve got to hear this band,” he said. “They’re from a music camp, and they’re really good!” We jumped into the car and went to the concert. We were impressed! I decided to go to band camp the next summer.

Mr. and Mrs. Steven McCready were members of our church in Ocala. They had no children of their own, but took a great interest in us. I’d worked for Mr. McCready in 1945 as a file clerk and girl Friday, running errands and such. When he heard of my interest in Transylvania Music Camp, and my plan to wait tables to help pay the tuition, he paid the rest and did so for the next four summers. The fifth summer I was old enough to be a junior counselor and, with waitressing, went to camp tuition-free.

We had six weeks of music camp, with terrific musicians as counselors, and they played along with us in the band and orchestra. I played bass clarinet and one summer took cello lessons, but wasn’t very good on the cello and gave it up.

The atmosphere of the camp was permeated with music. There were paths through the grounds that led to small practice cabins. There was music everywhere, all the time. I loved it!

We had an excellent chorus. We put on Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and sang Brahms’s “Alto Rhapsody,” Fauré’s “Requiem,” Bach cantatas and a lot of Madrigals. After the six weeks of camp came two weeks of the Brevard Music Festival. The campers went home but I stayed to wait tables along with about eight others. That was especially exciting! Professional musicians came from New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, and all around. They joined our counselors and teachers and formed the Brevard Music Festival Orchestra.

A Trip to New York City
Virginia Fran Gallemore, who’d been our neighbor in Bartow, was getting married. She wanted Dad to perform the ceremony and me to sing. The wedding was to be in New York City, and our family was invited to be guests of the Gallemores at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

Of course we’d go! This was a very special occasion!

Dad had to go to the courthouse before the wedding and register his credentials with the city to make everything legal, and the Gallemores arranged everything else—the church, the organist and our reservations.

Traffic was heavy, and to a newcomer New York streets were confusing. Dad, trying to get to the courthouse, turned onto a side street only to have a truck driver coming from the other direction roll down his window and shout, “This street’s one-way, Buddy!”. He took the first opportunity to do a U-turn, and then had to find a parking space. He pulled into one, then saw a sign that said it was a 20-minute zone. Fearing his business would take longer, he went to the nearest store and explained his purpose, finishing with a request. If a cop came by, would the store owner explain things? The owner said he’d try, but that Dad still might get a ticket. He didn’t.

The wedding went well. I sang “Oh Promise Me” and Dad led Virginia Fran and Carl in their wedding vows. There was a fancy reception afterwards, where I had my first taste of alcohol—a creme de menthe!

Thunderstorms, Hurricanes and a Tornado

Thunderstorms in Florida are often exceptionally dramatic, with brilliant flashes of lightning and pounding, ear-shattering thunder. I found them exciting, and fun. It felt comfortable to be cozy at home with my mother and siblings while the storm raged outside. Sometimes the power went out and Mother lit the kerosene lanterns, which made it a special occasion for us children.

Hurricanes added a sense of danger. We knew they caused terrible damage to trees and houses, and hurt people who didn’t have adequate shelter. Mother and Daddy once opened the church basement as a public refuge. We sheltered between twelve and twenty people (some coming and going), and Mother made a big pot of soup and lots of coffee to share. Since the manse was next door, we scurried back and forth during the lull, when the eye of the storm passed over.

A hurricane once blew through when Daddy was away with a group of young people in Clearwater Beach. We were in Bartow, but Mother was concerned about Daddy and the young people.They had to evacuate the beach, and the causeway was underwater! Someone had to walk in front of the caravan to be sure the road was still there!

Worse than the hurricanes were the floods and tornadoes they often spawned. Hurricanes would knock down trees, but tornadoes flattened everything! I was once visiting my friend, Sonya Goldman, who lived on the southern outskirts of Ocala. We were playing in her carport when we heard a massive rumbling coming toward us, and fast! We scrambled into the house and hunkered down as the sound seemed to pass directly overhead, then moved on.

“What was THAT?!”We turned on the radio, and learned that a tornado had just passed over our town, deflected upwards by a hill close to Sonya’s house. The only damage it had done was to lift the top off the town’s water tower, and deposit it in our algebra teacher’s back yard! We had super-chlorinated water on tap for about six weeks before the town was able to get it fixed!

Graduation

High school graduation was very emotional for me. Seniors in the band played “Pomp and Circumstance” for the procession before taking their seats with the class. I watched all my friends pass down the aisle while we played. I realized we were all going our separate ways–some to jobs, some to college–and that I would likely never see many of them again. To this day, I still remember, and feel, the same strong emotion every time I hear “Pomp and Circumstance”. Oh, the power of music!

Agnes Scott College 1948-49
My mother and her sisters had gone to Agnes Scott, a Presbyterian women’s college in Decatur, Georgia. I’d heard so much about Agnes Scott that I never considered going anywhere else, and when I won the $4,000 Presbyterian scholarship, it was settled.

Three of Mother’s sisters lived in the Atlanta area, and I had a standing invitation to visit whenever I could. I loved visiting, but campus life was busy so I didn’t see them often.

The first real challenge for freshmen at Scott was Black Cat, a big fall show put on by freshmen and sophomores. It was a class competition with faculty judges determining  whose show was best. Obviously, the sophomores had a huge advantage; they already knew each other, knew what the show was like, had more experience, etc.

I was elected Black Cat chair for the freshmen. I had no idea what I was getting into, but Dean Scandrett helped me figure it out – what I needed to do, the committees that were necessary, what kind of talent, etc. I posted a sign-up sheet on the bulletin board for writing, costumes, music, lights, scenery, etc.

Soon we were working on a script, holding auditions and rehearsals, scrounging for costumes and props, painting scenery. It was a great way to get acquainted and we had a wonderful time. We didn’t win; the freshmen almost never did – but what a way to start the year!

Student elections rolled around, and I was elected one of two freshman representatives to the board. All our (many) social rules were on the honor system. We were obligated to report ourselves for violations, and the punishment was to be “campused” for whatever amount of time was appropriate.  If we walked to Decatur for a cup of coffee and a piece of cherry pie, we were supposed to sign the book in Main Hall and also in our house, which was Inman Hall.  I’d sign in Main, but forget to sign at Inman – then report myself and be campused for two weekends!

The Metropolitan Opera was coming to Atlanta, and my roommate Barbara Brown and I bought tickets to see “Otello,” “La Traviata,” and two other operas.  For that I had to get special permission to go because, as usual, I was campused.

It was the first time I’d ever seen an opera. I’d listened on the radio, which gave me a headache, and  I probably wouldn’t have gone if Barbara hadn’t been so enthusiastic.  Being there was quite different from listening on the radio, though.  I really enjoyed it.  Later that year when a Broadway company came and did “Carousel” I was even more taken!

I loved dormitory living.  It was like having a hundred and twenty sisters. We often got together after “lights out” in somebody’s room and snacked on food from their packages from home. We talked about everything–trials, tribulations, hopes, dreams, fun and romance–

Columbia, South Carolina 1949

When Dad accepted an appointment as regional director of religious education for the Synod of South Carolina, the family moved to Columbia. I had just transferred, as a sophomore, to Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina. Carol was a senior in high school, and Ted a sophomore.

Ted, however, didn’t move with the family. He moved in with the family of his friend, Manning Hiers, and finished high school in Orangeburg. It was a stellar experience for Ted. He’d never shown any interest in school, and had been satisfied with passing grades until high school in Orangeburg, when his Cs and C+s became As and A+s. My parents made arrangements for him to stay.
Carol had made straight As wherever she went to school, and I was happy with As, Bs and the occasional C. To each his own.

I first saw Columbia at night, on a trip home from Queens. It was beautiful; the lights of this city on a hill, as I saw it through my windshield, kindled my interest and appreciation.

Columbia was a small-to-medium sized city with a southern ambiance. It had a farmer’s market downtown and street vendors selling boiled peanuts. Fort Jackson was there, and the army was mobilizing for war in Korea.

The summer climate was much like it had been in Fayetteville–hot and humid. Mother said, “The Joneses and the Army sure know how to find the hottest spots in the USA to put down roots!”

I was at Transylvania Music Camp for the summer of 1950, but in 1951 I stayed in Columbia and went to summer school for six weeks at the University of South Carolina. I’ve never known that kind of heat before or since! It was difficult to take notes in class because my arms and hands were soaked with sweat and the note paper got wet. Sweat dripped off the end of my nose and off my elbows, forming puddles on the floor. I looked down the aisle and saw pools of sweat on the floor next to every desk!

It didn’t cool off at night, either. I’d shower and dry off, but before I could get my pajamas on, I was wet with sweat again. I put a towel on the bed underneath me to sleep on, and a damp towel over me to cool off.

Queens College
In the summer of 1949, Mr. McCready visited Transylvania Music Camp. After he had a conference with the camp director, James Pfohl, I was called in and told they’d been discussing my future. Mr. McCready would finance my vocal future if Mr. Pfohl would be my guardian. I was incredibly impressed and honored by this, and ready to do whatever they suggested. Delighted at the prospect of becoming someone’s protégé, I transferred to Queens College to sing in Mr. Pfohl’s choir. Mr. Pfohl was head of the music department at Davidson College nearby, and directed the choir at Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.

When I transferred to Queens, I had to use my one social engagement a week for choir practice.  As a sophomore, I’d have had two per week if I’d maintained a better-than-C average, but transfer students couldn’t use their grade average from another school. They had to accept freshman rules until they’d established an average at Queens, so I couldn’t leave campus Friday or Saturday nights. I went to the dean (who was also my English teacher) to try for special permission to (a) not count choir practice as a social engagement, or (b) have sophomore privileges. I pointed out that my grades in my previous school had been well above average.

I pleaded my case with Dean Albright. I thought I had some compelling points:
1) Choir practice shouldn’t have counted as a social engagement. It was a condition of my transfer to Queens, and the choir director was my  “vocal guardian”.
2) As my previous school had a higher academic rating than Queens, those grades should have been acceptable.
For some reason, these arguments didn’t endear me to the dean, and I remained on campus every weekend for the first six weeks.

Although I’d established a poor relationship with the dean, I loved Queens. The music department was great! John Holliday, its chairman, encouraged me to concentrate on singing, saying I had the potential to become a Kirsten Flagstad.  I didn’t know who Kirsten Flagstad was, but I was impressed, and worked harder. Music had been one of many things I’d done to be “well-rounded,” but it was time to think about my future.

When I transferred to Queens I lived in a house/dorm. There were seven others–Mary Ann Worth, Bonnie Blue, Dot McLeod, Beth Dobbins, Reid Regan, Cornelia Dick and a girl named Ruth. We bonded strongly and quickly. Bonnie and I were also on the student government board and in the college choir together. When we went on choir tours we’d smoke in the back of the bus, and we both had a crush on Mr. Holliday, whom we thought resembled Roberto Rosselini, Ingrid Bergman’s lover.

One time Bonnie had severe abdominal pain and was hospitalized. I went to visit her, and she had a sudden pain while I was in the room. I rang for the nurse, but she didn’t come fast enough to suit me, so I ran to the nurses’ station to get someone STAT! I decided then that Bonnie needed someone in the room with her, so I took the bus back to the dorm, got my comb and toothbrush and sneaked back out. I spent the night in a chair next to her. That was my first deliberate infraction of school rules. I expected to have trouble the next day when the dean found out, but I didn’t care. The dean agreed, however, that someone should stay with Bonnie, and assigned one of the school nurses. X-rays revealed a twisted intestine. She had surgery the next day and was soon able to return to school.

When I married, Bonnie Blue and my roommate Fran McPherson, whose father had sold us the goat, were my bridesmaids. We exchanged Christmas cards for several years, but eventually lost each other’s addresses. That was the last time I saw either Fran or Bonnie.

Bonnie Blue
It’s many years later. My alumnae journal from Queens College came, and I turned to the class notes. Not much from the class of 1952. Dot Folger’s son died.

It’s very sad. We expect to go through grief over a parent’s death, but not a son’s or daughter’s. My son Robin lost his son Jordan just six weeks after the death of his wife, Anne, and it devastated him. My daughter Fran lost her daughter Sarah, and it hit her very hard. My heart went out to Dot.

I then turned to the Births, Marriages and Deaths section. Births and marriages aren’t happening in my class anymore, and I was looking to see who died. Bonnie Blue Covell! No! She was my best friend in college. I cried; I always thought we’d get to see each other again, someday.

The Dump
This isn’t about the place you take a load of stuff you want to get rid of and bring home more than you took. I’m referring to the process by which a relationship is ended.
I never had the kind of dramatic confrontations I see on television, with the dumpee expressing heartbreak or rage. I simply let relationships “fade away”, like what General MacArthur said about old soldiers. I was sometimes the dumper, sometimes the dumpee and sometimes the good friend who acted as a go-between.
“Corky, are you upset with Rose?”
“Armand, are you mad at Jacquie?”
“If you’re not going to wear Glenn’s bracelet anymore, he wants it back.”

Sometimes things would get awkward and confusing for the dumpee. Two cases:

George Stelogeannis was my boyfriend in Ocala High School, and everyone knew we were “going steady”. He hadn’t shown any interest in girls before me, and we were together most of the time. We were in the band, he playing trumpet and I bass clarinet, and we were both officers, he captain and I second lieutenant. Neither of us fretted about who to take to the sock hop; we always went together, frequently double-dating with Bob Fort and Barbara Wiggins. We always hung out together with friends before school, in the same spot in front of the bandhouse.

One Friday night we’d been to the sock hop with Bob and Barbara, and had just stopped in front of my house. Barbara commented, “Bob, I’ve always felt I could really trust you.”

I chimed in, “Me too–and I trust George too.”
Barbara shot back, “Oh, I’ve never ridden with you, George. I didn’t know you drive.”
“I don’t.” he replied.
“Oh,” I said, “I didn’t mean that!”
Things were getting awkward.
Bob said, “I think she means she trusts him in another way.”
“Yes,” I said. “Well, I’d better go in.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.” said George.

He did, and for the first time, he kissed me. “I feel so gay!” he exclaimed–by which of course he meant “happy”.
“Me too.” And I went in, feeling that the awkwardness had passed. BUT…

Monday morning I went to our usual hang-out spot, and several of my girlfriends were there, but no boys.
“Where’s George?” asked Sonya.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him this morning.”
“There he is!” exclaimed Mary Brent, pointing at a group of boys on the other side of the bandhouse.
“Oh well, I guess he doesn’t want to talk to me this morning.”

Or any other morning, as it turned out. That first kiss was a goodbye kiss, and nothing was ever said. It was over. We were still in the band and both at officers’ meetings, but now we were just casual acquaintances. No explanation asked or given. Not then, not thirty years later when we talked, like old friends, at our class reunion.

With Steve it was even more confusing. I was older, in college. We met at Transylvania Music Camp. J.T. Fesperman got eight of us together to sing madrigals. One of the women sang tenor and one of the men alto, which was weird. I suggested they trade parts, but they refused. They said they always sang those parts, and J.T. agreed, so that was how we sang–not only madrigals, but also Bach chorales and cantatas. The male alto was Steve.

I thought he was a little strange in other ways, too. His tastes were intellectual and esoteric, and he carried a copy of “The Inferno” from Dante’s Divine Comedy in his pocket, reading it in his spare time. He knew all the musical modes–Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, etc. He appreciated early folk songs and Gregorian chants, as well as Mozart and Bach. My friend Elynor said, “When you’re with Steve it feels like you’re worshiping at the fount of learning.”

It was true. I was in awe of his intellect, and came to appreciate other aspects of his personality. He’d worked as a forest ranger and knew all the trees and forest plants. We were walking in the forest one day and came across a patch of Indian pipes, which I’d never seen before. He stopped and called my attention to them, giving me their name and explaining they were so white because they were saprophytes, living on dead leaves. They are beautiful, and I’ve seen them occasionally on my property, but they don’t return every year. It feels like a special gift when they pop up.

Our friendship turned romantic, and one evening as we were walking he stopped and kissed me. I kissed him back and he declared, “I should profess my love for you, but I honestly don’t know how to.”
I was stunned! And thrilled! I loved him, but never thought there was a chance that he might love me! I would always remember those words.
Strange words.
We weren’t in a Jane Austen novel. Who talks like that?
It didn’t matter. Steve loved me.

Camp was ending. We were to sing a Bach cantata at Al’s church in Brevard, and Elynor invited us to her uncle’s house afterwards for a beer party as a farewell. Five of us went, and we got noisy; we moved our party to a remote cornfield, finished our beer, then went back to our cabins.

The next morn, Mr. Pfohl sent for me. He asked what I’d been doing the night before.
“We sang a Bach cantata at the Presbyterian church in Brevard.” I said.
“I mean after that. I heard you were drinking.”
“Oh–well, I was. I thought I was free. Camp is over, and the music festival hasn’t started yet.”
“What were you drinking?”
“Beer.”
“Where? Who was with you?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I know you were at the Camerons’ house, and there were several of you.”

That gave me an idea where his information had come from, but I had no intention of adding to it. I was twenty years old, and this had been my first beer party. I’d wondered what one would be like, but now I felt remorseful. I also had to write a letter to my dad confessing what I had done, and give it to Mr. Pfohl to mail.

Without my help, Mr. Pfohl discovered the identities of three others and had a conference with each, prescribing appropriate punishments. The last of the five wanted to turn himself in, but we told him that he was the youngest, at eighteen, and it’d be the worse for us if they thought we were a bad influence on a juvenile!

But I digress. I was telling about The Dump.

Steve and I corresponded. I wrote more letters than he did, but I treasured every one of his. When Thanksgiving break came, I went to New Haven to visit him. Our mutual friend, J.T., was also at Yale, and I really enjoyed our weekend. At the Yale library Steve played for me a recording by “a well-known male alto” and one of Benjamin Britten’s “Concerto for Tenor and French Horn”. We went to a rehearsal where his friends were working on a Bach chorale, and I sang soprano. We sneaked into a rehearsal led by Paul Hindemith–and got thrown out! We went to dinner at Morey’s, where I had my first slice of pizza. I thought we were both enjoying the weekend, but when he took me to the train station he gently let me know we were not destined to share a future. We went our separate ways.
But wait! Fast forward through a blue Christmas to spring. Back at Queens I received a telegram: WILL ARRIVE IN CHARLOTTE TUESDAY. LOVE, STEVE.

What a wonderful surprise! I signed up to use one of the dating parlors and a friend volunteered to take us from downtown to the college. Suddenly, I’m not dumped anymore–or am I? I invited a few friends to have coffee and cake with us, we spent a pleasant afternoon at Queens College and said our goodbyes. That was the last time I saw him. I don’t know why. Another relationship just–faded away!

Breaking Away
Myers Park in Charlotte was an affluent neighborhood, but I was appalled when the budget for our church was approved by the congregation. Current expenses (salaries, utilities, suppers, etc.) far outweighed benevolences (missions, orphanages, colleges, hospitals), and I believed it should’ve been the other way around.

It was the spring of 1950. I’d become disenchanted with Mr. Pfohl as my “vocal guardian” and, with this additional incentive, decided to break off our arrangement. My friend Bill Whitesides was a student at Davidson College and encouraged me to change my membership to the First Presbyterian Church downtown, where he sang in the choir. It served the inner city, and Earl Berg was the choir director. He was a friend of Mr. Holliday’s, and played violin while Mr. Holliday played piano. They didn’t know that on the evenings when they played together in the music building at Queens, I’d sit outside the window and listen. I thought I’d like to join Mr. Berg’s choir.

One thing worried me, though. Mr. Pfohl was chairman of the music department at Davidson, where Mr. Berg taught. I wrote Mr. Berg a letter, explained who I was and told him I’d like to switch churches and sing in his choir, but not if it’d make trouble for him.

One evening the following week when I was practicing in the music building, I heard a knock on the door. It was Mr. Holliday.
“Miss Jones, Mr. Berg would like to talk to you. He’s in my office now.”
I went to Mr. Holliday’s office and sat down with Mr. Berg. He’d be happy to have me in his choir, and assured me it wouldn’t cause any problems.

What I didn’t know was that Mr. Berg was also contemplating a switch. He left Davidson and joined the faculty at Queens. His wife Eunice was the organist at First Presbyterian, and we became close friends. I often babysat their two daughters.

I enjoyed being a part of the congregation there. I liked the minister, Charles Schaefer, and one year organized a youth choir. Wednesday night practice was a treat. The Bergs and several members of the choir would go across the street afterwards and chat away the evenings over coffee and cherry pie.

Summer School

Columbia, South Carolina, 1951

I thought Fayetteville was hot in the summertime. Columbia is worse!

I’m sitting in class in class with fifteen or twenty other students, most of them teachers, trying to take notes. My hands are so sweaty, and the paper so wet, that I have to be careful not to tear the soggy page! Sweat is dripping off my elbows onto the floor, and as I look down the aisle I see that all of us have the same problem! Next to each desk, is a small puddle of sweat, and the air is so humid, it doesn’t evaporate!

Why am I here? Because, in spite of Mr. Hollidays’s pep talk, telling me I could be another Kirsten Flagsted, I have cold feet. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make a living as a singer, and need a fall-back plan.

I was a voice major in college and German lieder was my forte, but during my junior year I realized there wasn’t a strong demand for singers of German lieder; not even Lotte Lehman was well-known outside of music circles. I changed my major to Public School Music and needed about eighteen hours of education courses, so I enrolled in summer school at the University of South Carolina. For the first time in five years, I didn’t go to Transylvania Music Camp but spent the summer at home with Mother & Dad, and took an afternoon job as a typist.

Dad shared office space with a fellow Presbyterian minister, Leslie Patterson, who used a Dictaphone to record letters every morning for me to transcribe. My classes were all in the mornings, so I typed his correspondence in the afternoons and left it for him to sign and mail. I rarely saw him at the office.

Quest for the Golden Mean

“So what are you going to be, Teachers?” Our professor was challenging us.
He reviewed modern and classical ideas ideas in education, then asked, in stentorian tones, “Will you be an authoritarian who sticks with the familiar, rote style of education, or follow the messy modernists who teach learning by doing? Or—(dramatic pause)—will you find that GOLDEN MEAN, using the best of each approach, and reach that magical goal, an ideal education for every student?”

I will find it, I thought, and like to think I did find that golden mean.

In another class, we were discussing the stages of personality development. Our text described the infant’s focus on personal needs, the social awareness of toddlers, the altruism of teens, the practicality of those in their thirties and the philosophical acceptance found in the elderly.

I was twenty, and most of the students were several years older. I was a little bothered when we discussed adolescent altruism, describing it as a stage, but didn’t say much until one man spoke up. “Yeah,” he said, “I can see that. You get a family and lose that altruism when you have more practical things to think about.”

“Oh, but you shouldn’t lose your altruism! That’s important!” I protested. “We need to keep that, no matter what!”

I suddenly remembered that I was the youngest in the class! The others smiled and gently acknowledged our difference of opinion, and to their everlasting credit, none asked, “How old are you?” I had just proven their point!

I got the education credits I needed, but missed Transylvania Music Camp. I did, however, spend two weeks at the Trapp Family Music Camp in Stowe, Vermont.

Trapp Family Music Camp
After sweating through six weeks of summer school in the hot, humid bowl of Columbia, South Carolina at USC, it was a huge relief to head for the cool mountains of Vermont for two weeks at the Trapp Family Music Camp in Stowe. Not only was I refreshed, I was widening my cultural horizons and being introduced to a different genre of music. I plunged into a different religion and had musical experiences I’d previously only read about. I’d had many good friends who were Roman Catholic thanks to the great mixing bowl of our public school system, but had never met a priest or a nun and thought of them, if at all, as aliens from another planet. Yet here they were, lots of them, interacting with us in very normal ways, making music, laughing, having fun! Our music was quite different from anything we’d done at Transylvania Music Camp. We sang very old folk songs and chants, reading from old-style music notations. We played recorders, which were the forerunners of flutes, and had mass every day.

I’d learned classical Latin in high school. We’d listened to Bing Crosby’s Christmas album and laughed at his pronunciation in “Adeste Fidelis”, but I now learned that he was correct! The Latin used in Roman Catholic liturgy was not classical Latin at all, but more like modern Italian.

I’d attended a Trapp Family Singers concert when they were on tour, so it was interesting to meet the family. Captain von Trapp had passed away by this time, but Madame von Trapp (Maria) was as energetic as ever, though quite mature. She and the captain had had two more children, a girl named Maria and a boy named Johannes. Maria was 18 and Johannes 12, while the other family members were all adults. Some taught classes at the camp.

Perfect Pitch
When I was seven or eight, my piano teacher got the idea that I might have perfect pitch. I’d stand with my back to her while she played a note. “That’s A” (or E or G), I’d say. She told Mother I had perfect pitch–but this was after my piano lesson, when I could remember middle C. I’ve since talked to people with perfect pitch, and can say without a doubt that I don’t have it. I have a good pitch memory, but can’t immediately recognize a key or start on a given note. I carried a pitch pipe for awhile and tried to develop perfect pitch, but to no avail!

Eidetic Imagery and The Zone
Nora Dean Parker, a friend of mine, had eidetic imagery. I’d never heard the phrase, but she told me that it was like a photographic memory. When she was taking a test, she could sort of “look up” a page in her mind and “read” the answer. It was a gift.

It sounded kind of like perfect pitch to me. I’d struggled to develop perfect pitch without success, but maybe I could develop eidetic imagery in time to get me through my senior recital! Pergolesi’s “Salve Regina,” with its long, repetitive phrases and slow tempo, was giving me trouble. I tried visualizing and “reading” the piece and got through it, but it was a struggle. I didn’t have eidetic imagery.

The Queens College choir went on tour in my senior year. The big number for our concert was Debussy’s “The Blessed Damozel,” and I had the soprano solo. I knew I sang it well, but one evening I felt my voice soar effortlessly, automatically. It was wonderful!  Afterwards, Mr. Holliday exclaimed, “What happened? That was amazing!”  Bonnie Blue added, “I know! I’ve never heard you sing like that!” I’ve since heard athletes and performers speak of being “in the Zone,” and that’s where I was! It felt a lot better than eidetic imagery!

Closing/Opening
In life, every closing is an opening. I had mixed emotions at graduation from Queens–sadness at leaving people and places I’d come to love, but excitement thinking about the great unknown of my future. I’d been taught by others for sixteen years, and saw my graduation as an end to that phase. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next, and was still exploring options. I’d lacked faith in becoming a singer like Lotte Lehman, specializing in German leider, and had shown it by changing my major from voice to public school music–but teaching, while it offered security, didn’t seem exciting. I felt secure about the future, knowing I had a teaching certificate, but it didn’t seem very adventurous. Far away places with strange sounding names were calling. I’d studied several languages–Latin, Spanish, German, French–and though I wasn’t fluent in any of them, I thought I could become so with practice and looked for opportunities to travel.

Three of my friends at Queens–Reid Regan, Beth Dobbins, and Bonnie Blue–also wanted to see the world, so when we saw an ad in the Charlotte Observer for airline stewardesses, we checked it out. A representative from United Airlines was to be interviewing prospects in downtown Charlotte, and the four of us talked with him. He was actually recruiting for a school that offered training, said we were all good prospects, gave us some papers to send in and wished us well. Reid did become an airline stewardess, but Bonnie, Beth, and I went in other directions.

A representative from the U.S. Foreign Service came to interview seniors who had a background in foreign languages, and I talked with him. I applied for a position, they did a very thorough background check, and offered me a job to start July 16th, 1952 in Washington, D.C. I was excited, and ready to go, but then Bill Whitesides told me his friend, Tom Nichols, would be the music director for a new outdoor drama, “Horn in the West”, opening that summer in Boone, N.C. He was looking for singers.  Would I like to be in it?

I would, if I could delay my Washington job. I obtained a postponement until September and left for Boone. That decision had far more impact on my future than I’d foreseen.

“Horn in the West”—1952
Boone was a small town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. Few people had heard of it in June of 1952. It wasn’t on the way to any major cities, but was approached by two-lane winding mountain highways, U.S. 221, 321, and 421. Appalachian Teacher’s College was there, and two small tourist attractions nearby, the Blowing Rock and Grandfather Mountain, but its main industry was farming. Community leaders wanted to increase tourism, and boost the economy of the region. Oh, boy! Little did they know!

Outdoor dramas were becoming increasingly popular. North Carolina had two, both successful: “The Lost Colony” in Manteo, and “Unto These Hills” in Cherokee. The dramas, performed in large outdoor amphitheatres, told stories from the history of a region and had large casts, incorporating acting, music, and dance. To stage one seemed an awesome undertaking for a town the size of Boone.

When I arrived, I was impressed with the preparation that was taking place. The theatre was nearing completion; sets were being built, scenery painted. We actors and singers pitched in. The costumers had a huge number of costumes to make. While all this was going on, during rehearsals, we had promotional appearances to make on Charlotte’s TV station, parades and press encounters for photographs and interviews. It was a very busy time!

I didn’t know anyone when I arrived, but it didn’t take long to get acquainted.  Most of the female members of the cast lived in a dorm-like house on Grand Boulevard, two blocks from the main drag, King Street. The director of the show, Kai Jurgenson, lived with his wife Jo (the lead female dancer) and their baby in a semi-basement apartment in the same house.

Those of us who could do musical notation were pressed into service to copy the music. Because I’d taken music directing 101, I was also asked by Tom Nichols to be the assistant music director, leading the choir so he could move about in the audience area to hear what it sounded like.

My role was small, but I had a solo. After the fierce Battle of King’s Mountain, I sat alone on a large rock as the smoke cleared. A single spotlight shone through the darkness and I sang, unaccompanied, “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.”

In an early chorus rehearsal, I found we needed more male singers and immediately thought of my younger brother. Ted had been to Transylvania Music Camp with me, and had also sung in my youth choir in Charlotte. Tom Nichols immediately offered him the job, and once again I had the pleasure of sharing an adventure with Ted.

One night, after a scene in the blacksmith’s shop, the villagers (singers) were ready to come on and I noticed the stage hands had forgotten to remove the blacksmith’s anvil. I knew the lights would be coming on, so I picked it up and carried it off. As I exited the two stage hands assigned to carry it almost bumped into me, then noticed I had the anvil. I sat it down and rushed back just as the lights came up.

I had no idea that I was soon to become a legend. “Two of our strongest male stagehands were assigned to that anvil, and she just picked it up and carried it off!” “That thing is heavy! I’ll bet it weighs more than she does!” “Can you believe that? How strong is she?” Ned Austin, who portrayed Daniel Boone, wanted to see who had caused such a stir. Ned had been dating Louisa, the leading lady of the show, and it hadn’t occurred to me to think of him as a potential boyfriend. I didn’t know until years later that the anvil episode was instrumental in bringing us together, but simply noticed that he seemed interested in me. He seemed to have just the right balance between the artistic and the earthy. A farm boy, who’d lived in New York City. A Baptist who had learned Eastern meditation. I was fascinated.

I Said Yes!
Never mind that job with the foreign service I was supposed to report to in September.  I’d been eagerly anticipating that adventure, but love changes everything!  I may have sung to thousands that my true love had black hair, but I was asked on a date by a man whose hair could only pass for black in a dark basement on a moonless night! The actor who played Daniel Boone asked me to marry him before our first date was over, and a few days later, when I was sure he was sober, I said yes!

Ned
Ned was the youngest–by far–of six siblings, nine years behind the youngest of his sisters. His dad was a farmer and shepherd who also served the community in many other ways–tanning hides, clearing land, preparing bodies for burial. Helpful and generous, he was also tough, and a hard taskmaster with a hot temper, showing little or no patience when there was a job to be done–and there was always a job to be done! Two incidents come to mind.

Ned said his brother Lewis, at 22, was just as hard-headed as his dad, and when they clashed, get out of the way! One rainy season, debris had collected in the creek and the water was flooding the back field. Lewis went with the mule to clear away the debris, but  Sam, his dad, thought the wet mule might get sick. Ned was only five, and was in the house with Minnie, his mother, who was watching the window and heard the commotion.

“He’s a-comin’ to the house!” she shouted, as Ned’s dad stormed up the path. “Here, Neddy! Take the shotgun and climb into the attic!” Little Ned hid with the shotgun while his dad stomped around, bellowed and finally steamed off. He threw sticks at Lewis and mule while they finished up, but the creek flowed again! Tragedy averted!

Ned’s cousin Max related another tale. “One time Uncle Sam was a-beatin’ on Ned with a hickory switch and Aunt Minnie came out to stop him. He turned on her and started a-beatin’ on her! He had a terrible temper!”

There were many times that temper turned on Ned–for simple things. Going to a movie. Not working fast enough. He had many chores, and in short didn’t have the happy childhood I’d enjoyed.

He did, though, have an independence his town friends lacked, because he usually had some money. He’d sell apples at the college. He had a garden plot of his own, and sold the cabbages. He had a little money most of the time, and he could do most anything around a farm–milk a cow, plow a garden or fix a machine. If he couldn’t repair it, he’d rig it. And–it’d work!

By the time I met Ned, he’d had a colorful and varied past, and I was impressed! I found that his talent as an actor had shown itself early. As a youngster he was so good at storytelling that the teacher sent him around to tell stories to the other classes. After high school he’d signed up for the Army Air Corps to become a paratrooper, but they had too many volunteers and he was assigned to the infantry. In the last weeks of the war he was captured by the Germans, but once liberated used the GI Bill to pursue his passion for drama. He studied at the Plonk School of Creative Arts in Asheville, then at Mars Hill College, then the University of Denver in Colorado. While there he took an interest in Hinduism, Buddhism and Eastern religions, and practiced meditation.

After leaving Denver, Ned entered the Berghof School of Acting in New York City, where he studied with Uta Hagen. He spent two summers doing summer stock theatre in Maine. “Horn in the West” was not his first professional gig, he was a seasoned performer. After finishing the season in Boone, we had high hopes. We were going to make our splash–on Broadway!

Truth or Dare
The game was Truth or Dare. “Do you believe in free love?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“Wait a minute. You’re supposed to tell the truth!”
“I did.”
“Non sequitur! Harry, we need to do something about this. It doesn’t add up!” (Much laughter).
“Yes it does! You said free love. Not free sex. I believe in free love, but I think sex should wait until there is love. I’ve never been in love, so I’ve never had sex.”

That conversation had taken place early in the summer of 1952 when Jean Hillman, Harry Coble and I were hanging out with Kai & Jo Jurgenson in their apartment. Now I was in love. Ned had asked me to marry him and I’d said yes.

But I had a concern. What if we got married and I couldn’t have sex? Don’t laugh. I really was worried. I’d read about a rare affliction called “infantilism”, which meant some women’s plumbing just hadn’t developed. If I had such an affliction, it wouldn’t be fair to Ned, and we should find out before marriage! So…

The summer was over. We were parting ways until the wedding, which would be in the middle of October. By the end of September I’d missed my period. Nobody knew but me, and I wasn’t about to tell anyone. Except Ned.

What’s the Rush?
I’d thought a small home wedding would be nice, but Mother had other ideas. “You’re the first grandchild to get married. Your wedding has to be at least big enough to invite your cousins, aunts and uncles.”

“Well, if it has to be a church wedding, I want it in Charlotte. I hardly know anyone in Columbia, and Charlotte would be convenient for Ned’s family too.”
As soon as agreement was reached, the pressure to delay it was on. There was so much to do! Aunt Adah invited me to Atlanta “to shop for my trousseau”, and we got my wedding dress and my “going away suit”. They were beautiful, but her real motive was to “talk some sense” into me. She sent me to her doctor to be fitted for a diaphragm, but still tried to talk me into waiting.

We were at lunch in Rich’s coffee shop when she pulled out all the stops. I shouldn’t get married yet. Ned and I were going to New York and we didn’t even have jobs! I’d get there, get pregnant and end up being a financial drag on my parents. Because of me, Carol and Ted wouldn’t be able to finish college.

I burst into tears. She called out, “Waiter, look what I’ve done! I’ve made my niece cry! We need a treat! What can you bring us?” He brought a dessert list, and we ordered chocolate tortes and coffee. The wedding plans went on, as I returned home.

Our Wedding
Earl Berg had been my voice teacher, and his baritone filled the chapel, with Mrs. Berg at the organ.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow,
They toil not, neither do they spin,
Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
If God so clothe the grass of the field,
Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Be not therefore anxious, saying “What shall we eat?”
or “What shall we drink?” or “wherewithal shall we be clothed?”
Your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness,
And all these things shall be added unto you.
Be not therefore anxious for the morrow,
For the morrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”
Matthew 6:28-34

Mother commented laughingly that he’d chosen a most appropriate text for our wedding, as we were leaving for New York City with no jobs and no place to live!
We were married in the chapel of First Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, and had the reception there as well. Somehow, Mother had managed to make all the festive arrangements–invitations, flowers, cake, etc.–from Columbia. I’d selected the dresses for my maid of honor, Carol, and my two bridesmaids, Bonnie Blue and Fran McPherson. Rev. Schaefer performed the ceremony, assisted by Rev. Fred Poag, the minister at Mother’s church in Columbia. Everything went well, with one glitch–the photographer failed to show. For me that was “Oh, well…”, but Mother wanted photos. She sent my outfit to New York. I was supposed to find a photographer there, but didn’t, so our only wedding day photo was a snapshot taken by Ned’s brother-in-law, Alfred Adams, at the reception.

Honeymoon
The trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway was our honeymoon, and it was gorgeous in October! The mountains were aflame with color. Maples, oaks and sassafras flush with reds and oranges blended with  the yellows of aspen and birch against a background of evergreen. A breathtakingly beautiful setting for a couple deeply in love, on the edge of an adventure!

We’d actually driven the wrong way from Charlotte, and spent our first night at a small hotel in Kannapolis. Our elevator operator, a plump, pleasant black woman, exclaimed, “I believe this is a new couple!” and we grinned and admitted she was right. The next morning was a Sunday, so we visited a little church, then traveled on to New York City. Ned’s friends Harry Lowery and Marcie Bannon were waiting to greet us and take us to an apartment they’d found for us on West 72nd Street.

First Apartment
How exciting to have a place of our own! I was in Wonderland! Everything was amazing! Our apartment was a fifth-floor walk-up about the size of a postage stamp, but I loved it! There was one room with a sofa, two chairs and a double bed, and a kitchen the size of a closet with a three-foot-tall fridge and a two-burner hot plate. The bathroom had a larger-than-average basin, which doubled as the kitchen sink.

Harry’d been a guide at NBC, and had arranged a job interview for me. My first day as a guidette, a man on my tour tried to give me some money. I politely thanked him and told him no. Later, Ned and Harry laughed, and said, “That was a tip! That’s the custom in New York!”

I took groups on guided tours around the studio. I was explaining and demonstrating things I didn’t understand myself, but had a memorized spiel. Once a fellow who worked at a TV station asked me about coaxial cable, and I could only say, “That’s all I know about that. You know more than I do, I’m sure.” He grinned, and we moved on.

One part of the tour called for me to “interview” a member of the group on closed circuit TV. When I asked my interviewee, “Where are you from?” She said “Jamaica”, and I said, “Oh my goodness. You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” It wasn’t until later I found out Jamaica is a New York City suburb, on Long Island!

We took the subway to work and everywhere else in Manhattan. Our car was an unnecessary possession that presented parking problems, and was only appreciated when we went out of town. I had no place to more than hand-wash a few clothes, so I took them to a Chinese laundry in the neighborhood. The man at the counter wrote something in Chinese, took my pillowcase of clothes and said something I didn’t understand. I walked out wondering if I’d ever see them again, but when I returned he took one look at me and immediately pulled out the right package. I don’t know what he wrote, but afterwards he never failed to match me with the right set of clothes.

Christmas Blues
I’d never been through a Christmas season when I wasn’t singing in a choir, and had always been home to attend Christmas Eve candlelight services with my family. I wasn’t in the choir in Manhattan and wasn’t going home for Christmas, but I wanted to go to a candlelight service for Christmas Eve.

About ten days before Christmas, Ric Satriano came to town. Ned had told me about Ric, his very best friend, and had hoped I’d like him. Of course I would! I was going to like all of his friends!

I greeted Ric warmly, served him chili and beer and we all sat down to eat. I looked forward to a pleasant conversation, as we’d had with Harry, Marcie and other friends, but Ric never made eye contact with me. He and Ned talked about the Hindu Truth Center and made plans to go there together, but it was clear that I wasn’t included! A couple times Ric looked at me, back at Ned, and said, “Damn! What’ve you done? You’ve changed everything! It’ll never be the same again!”

“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, “I’m not a ball and chain. You and Ned and whoever can go wherever, whenever you want to! Excuse me. I’m going for a walk!”

I went to the park alongside the Hudson River. It was beautiful there, and quiet. I walked for awhile, then returned to find Ned in a panic.

“Where have you been? I’ve been all over the neighborhood looking for you.”

He was even more upset when he found I’d been walking in the park. By the river. At night.

“Well, it was clear I was ‘persona non grata’ at the apartment with you and Ric. so I left. I’d have gone to bed instead, but our bed is in the living room, so I couldn’t.”

I went to the candlelight service alone, and on Christmas morning Ned & Ric went to the Hindu Truth Center without me. I had a sixteen-inch Christmas tree I’d decorated with my earrings, and I ate fruit cake and listened to Christmas music on the radio, wishing I was home!

Better Days
We may have been ready for Broadway, but Broadway wasn’t interested in us. Nevertheless, it was wonderful to be in New York City!

Ric’s girlfriend Liz Dalton came to join him in Manhattan. Ric stopped resenting me and found the four of us could have a lot of fun hanging out together. We had lots of friends, all theatre folks. We all worked clerical jobs during the week, partied on weekends and “made the rounds”, going to auditions for acting gigs. I was pregnant, and so was transferred to the ticket office, where I worked into the spring. Ned’s New York friends made me feel at home. Harry and his girlfriend Marcie Bannon invited us to a Christmas party at Marcie’s apartment. They decided to marry shortly afterwards.

Harry and Marcie Get Married
Harry and Marcie were planning to wed in Webster Groves, Missouri–Marcie’s hometown. Harry asked Ned to be his best man, thus committing us to a round trip of about 1600 miles. I had no qualms about the drive, I was just happy for Harry and Marcie. They were married in a Catholic church, then we went to Marcie’s parents’ home for the reception, a catered affair with alcoholic refreshments freely dispensed by a staff of colored servants. While I was socializing in the living room, two things were occurring. It was sleeting outside, and Ned was in the kitchen declaring to the catering crew that they should all have the equality he’d been fighting for in the war, getting more vocal and more sloshed as they refilled his champagne. Finally someone noticed that it was getting icy outside and suggested we should leave while we could.

Marcie’s parents saw Ned was in no condition to drive, and Mrs. Bannon invited us to stay the night, expressing concern for our safety, but I assured them I could manage.

“Have you driven on ice much before?”

“No, but it’s a lot like driving through sand and mud. Not too fast, not too slow, no sudden turns or stops. Steady does it.”

All of which is true, but in Indiana I realized I was the only driver fool enough to be on this solid sheet of ice in the pitch black night. It was a couple tense hours before I saw any other lights but my own headlights, and the night clerk at the first open motel was astonished that anyone was out traveling in this weather!

We had a good night’s rest, and made it to Manhattan the next day, safe and sound.

The Subway Commute
The New York City subway system is an engineering marvel! It moves millions of people from home to work and back each day, fanning out under the five boroughs of the city, mobilizing people twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I descended the steps to the subterranean caverns which house this amazing array with some trepidation. It was rush hour, and everyone seemed to know exactly what to do and where to go—except me! The hubbub of voices, in many tongues, was frequently drowned by the reverberating rumble of arrivals and departures.

I stood to one side for a minute, then played “monkey see, monkey do”. Some were taking their money to a window in the graffiti-covered wall, so I did too. I handed over a five-dollar bill and received a handful of tokens. In response to my query, I was told to take the A train, so I followed the crowd, put a token in the turnstile and went through to stand with the crowd on the platform until my train arrived.

After that first intimidating experience, I found subway travel to be easy and fast. There were maps on the walls of the stations and in the trains, showing where each train went, and where one could transfer from one train to another. It was easy—that is, until I became “great with child”. In about my seventh month of pregnancy, I began to feel scared to be in the bustle and push of the crowd, both on the stairs leading down to the station and standing on the platform with its three-or-four-foot drop to the tracks below. What if I fell?

Fortunately, I didn’t.

Brighton Beach
The climb to our fifth floor apartment was fine when I was slim and energetic, but the more pregnant I became the harder it was to climb stairs, so we found a semi-basement apartment in Brighton Beach, in Brooklyn. Brighton Beach was an old Jewish neighborhood, and I’ll never forget the look on the proprietor’s face when I went to the meat market and asked for pork chops. “Pork chops?!?! Lady, this is a kosher market! We don’t sell pork!”

I had a lot to learn! Our landlord was a rabbi, but we hardly ever saw him. His wife did all the business dealings. I learned not to go upstairs to pay the rent on a Saturday. She couldn’t do business on the sabbath–or any Jewish holiday.

Ric and a couple friends had found a job with a puppet theatre group which was going on tour, so Liz came to live with us. She was pregnant too. Ned found a night job at a factory in Brooklyn while Liz and I commuted to clerical jobs in Manhattan.

Ric and Liz called each other frequently, running up a huge phone bill, and when they were on the phone Ned and I would go for a walk on the beach.

One day Liz reported that she hadn’t felt life in her baby in a day or two, and stopped in a clinic to find out what was going on. They told her she’d had what was called a “missed abortion”, meaning the baby had died but her body hadn’t yet gotten the message and gone into labor.

Late the next afternoon, Ric and Liz were on the phone, so Ned and I went for a beach walk. We returned to find Liz in bed in an advanced stage of labor, unable to get up.

Ned had been present when his dad had delivered baby lambs, but I’d never even been allowed to watch puppies being born. I felt like Prissy in “Gone with the Wind” when she exclaimed, “Miz Scarlett, I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ babies!”.

Liz had noticed a doctor’s shingle in a window up the street and asked Ned to fetch him. Ned ran out and returned shortly with a stocky, gray-haired man carrying a bag and wearing a stethoscope. At first he thought I was the patient; I was obviously very pregnant. We indicated Liz, in the bed, and he examined her briefly while Liz told him about the “missed abortion”. He called for an ambulance and she was whisked away to the hospital in Coney Island, where she delivered a stillborn little boy.

Pickwick Players Summer Stock Theatre
Blauvelt, NY, June 1953
All of Great Britain was abuzz with preparations for the coronation of Princess Elizabeth. Ric and Liz were abuzz with preparations to open their summer theatre, and Ned and I were abuzz with preparations for a new baby and a trip to Boone. We’d paid our rent in Brighton Beach through the end of May, so we moved on the first of June to the Rockland County Playhouse to await the arrival of our baby, sharing space with Ric and Liz and the “Pickwick Players”, helping with chores while the cast and crew made plans for the summer season. The theatre was a converted barn, and the guys had tied a long rope to the rafters. They’d swing from a loft above the stage and land on the floor. They were having great fun, and daring others to try it. Ned said I couldn’t, because I was too pregnant. That was enough for me! I climbed the ladder to the loft, got a grip on the rope and jumped. It was fun! I swung widely back and forth, gradually came to a stop, and went into labor!

David Jones Austin
Women’s Hospital, Manhattan. “She’s not gonna have no baby tonight. She don’t have enough pain. You go on home and call in the mornin’”.

That’s what the black nurse’s aide told Ned, so he left to spend the night with Harry & Marcie in Manhattan. It was true that my labor contractions weren’t intensely painful, but I’d read Dr. Grantly Dick-Read’s book Natural Childbirth, and was practicing everything I’d learned, breathing and relaxing and letting my body do its work. I felt resentful at not being taken seriously, but was vindicated when a doctor came in and exclaimed, “Let’s get her out of here! Fast!”

My wonderful baby, David Jones Austin, arrived at 3:27 am on June 3rd, weighing in at a hefty nine pounds! He was supposedly premature, since we’d been married in mid-October. We told our families he weighed six pounds. I think they knew it wasn’t true, but nobody questioned it except Ned’s cousin and best man, Earl Payne, whose wife was a nurse, and to them we admitted he wasn’t premature. Our theatre friends in New York knew, but they didn’t care.

A Surprise Visitor

Other than Ned, I didn’t expect any visitors while baby David and I were in the hospital. Our friends were all busily preparing for their summer season in Blauvelt, and they knew we’d be coming by the theatre to say our goodbyes before leaving for North Carolina. I was surprised and mystified when a nurse told me I had a visitor. Who might it be?

It turned out that my mother had made a phone call to her dear friend Virginia Gallemore, our former next-door neighbor in Bartow. I didn’t know, but she was in New York! We had a delightful visit. She was glad to see me in good health and good spirits. She said I had a beautiful baby, and would give my mother a “good report”!

As soon as baby David and I left the hospital we went back to the Playhouse to prepare for the trip to North Carolina, where Ned would again portray Daniel Boone in Horn in the West. He’d bought three diapers before we left the hospital, and I wanted to stop and buy a dozen more, but Ned refused. “These will be enough to get us back to Boone, and my sisters will have plenty of diapers when we get there”, he said.

Hah!

Every stop along the way, I had to take two diapers to the rest room and wash them, then hang them out the car window to flap in the breeze as we trekked down the road!

We FINALLY arrived at Ned’s family home, and were warmly received by his mother, dad and sister Daisy. We took our things to the upstairs bedroom which would become our home for the summer, and as I took the two soiled diapers to wash, Ned told Daisy we’d surely be happy to get some hand-me-down diapers from her and his other sister Ella.

“I don’t have any diapers now, Ned!”, she said, “Tommy is five years old!”.

Of course Ella, whose youngest was six, had none either. Ned finally went out and bought a dozen diapers!

Life with Sam & Minnie
I’d wanted an apartment in Boone, but Ned’s parents insisted that we should live with them, and we did.

Ned’s dad Sam had mellowed with the years and was a most agreeable person. He enjoyed sitting on the front porch holding his grandson and talking with him while Ned’s mother Minnie and I were in the kitchen fixing supper. I called them Daddy Austin and Mother Austin when talking with friends, but in the house I called them Dad & Mother–the same thing I called my own parents.

Minnie made baby David’s first toy. She took about six Mason jar rings, strung them onto a clothes hanger wire and hung them across Davy’s crib. He quickly discovered how to whack the rings with his hands, and he’d kick up his heels and coo with delight as they jingled!

My respect for Minnie grew to awe when I lived with them and realized what her life had been. Neighbors helped each other, and shared the fruits of their labor. When men came to work the fields, it was the custom for Minnie to feed them. She didn’t slap together a few sandwiches and hand them out–she fixed cornbread, biscuits, green beans, potatoes, corn and tomatoes, all from her garden, and stewed chicken and country ham. And cooked it all on a woodstove. She had an electric stove, but preferred the wood stove, which she was used to!

Besides the electric stove, her children (Ned’s siblings) had provided a number of home improvements, including indoor plumbing and a washing machine. Previously, to wash clothes she had to carry water from the spring, build a fire under a big tub, scrub the clothes on a washboard with soap she’d made from ashes and fat, run them through a hand wringer into rinse water, wring them again and hang them on a line to dry. Every job she did was so much more complicated and difficult than anything I’d ever had to do that I could never complain again without thinking of her and feeling ashamed of myself. She was amazing!

Breast Feeding
Of course I wanted to breast feed my baby, and did so right from the start. My milk was plentiful and he had a good appetite, so when I took Davy in for his six week checkup, he weighed thirteen pounds! Oh well–we continued to give evasive answers to “How much does he weigh?” and finally people stopped asking.

Breast feeding a baby is easy, natural, healthy and, among our circle of friends, was socially acceptable, so–whenever he got hungry–anytime, anywhere. Why should it not be so?

Summer’s End–Harvest Time
By the middle of August, we were harvesting more than we could eat. Minnie had lots of Mason jars. We washed them, bought a few dozen more and a number of lids and rings and pulled out her big pressure canner. For the next two weeks we prepared corn, green beans and tomatoes enough for Minnie and Sam, plus several boxes for Ned and me to cart with us to New York.

When Horn in the West was over, we packed up our clothes, vegetables, baby supplies, our beagle Homer and baby Davy and headed north, first to the Rockland County Playhouse, while we searched for a place to live.

The Loft—Lower East Side, Manhattan
Nance and Ray, actors at Pickwick Players, were friends of an artist couple who’d found an old warehouse available to rent at 80 Jefferson Street. They were converting the top floor into a studio and living area for themselves, and were looking for couples to move in to the other two floors and share the rent, which would be $30 each. We jumped on it.

The building had been taken over by pigeons, so the first job was a massive cleanup. Then came a search for furniture–not just beds and tables but heaters, refrigerators, cookstoves, etc. It was hard work, but fun too–at first!

The police stopped by one night to see why there were lights on in what had been an empty building. We learned it wasn’t zoned for residences, but the policeman announced, “Now, this can’t be your apartment, but you can have a studio. If this is your studio, you’re allowed to live in it.”

“Okay,” we said, taking our cue from him, “this IS our studio. We’re actors, and the other couples are also actors and artists.”

“We’re actually glad to have someone here,” he said, “Keeps it from attracting vagrants and drug dealers.”

Unfortunately, Homer soon selected a corner of the loft as his bathroom. I walked him as I carried Davy, but apparently not enough. More to clean up.

Our gas line had a low spot which would fill with condensation. The heater and stove would work for awhile, shut off unexpectedly, then the gas would come back on, unlit. We had to turn off the gas, which meant I had to keep Davy in his snowsuit full-time, considerably complicating diaper changes. Aunt Genevieve came to see us, took one look around and said, “Bobbie, how are you going to make a home out of this joint?”. With the baby, the cold and the dog we had more problems than we’d anticipated, and began to talk other options.

More Weddings
My sister Carol and my cousin Phyllis were both planning December weddings. Phyllis asked me to sing for her wedding in Atlanta, and Carol wanted me for matron-of-honor at her wedding in Columbia. All things considered, we decided to pack up and say goodbye to New York City.

My parents welcomed us to Columbia, where we prepared for Carol’s wedding. Carol was a student at Agnes Scott College, and her intended, Lewis “Pete” Hay, was a student at Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. After the wedding they went back to their respective colleges, where they graduated the following June.

After Carol’s wedding we went to Atlanta, where we stayed with Aunt Adah for Phyllis’s wedding to Dean Matthews. Aunt Adah enjoyed playing with little Davy, rolling on the floor with him and laughing. Both weddings went well. We stayed with my folks through Christmas, then returned to Boone.

Back on the Farm
One of Daddy Austin’s sheep gave birth on a cold winter night, and he brought the lamb into the house to dry and warm it. He found it had a hernia; a fold of its gut was protruding through an opening in its belly. He recruited me to help him operate on the lamb. We gently pushed the section of gut back in and stitched up the gap.

There was always plenty to do on the farm. Once the ground had thawed, Ned plowed his parents’ garden and those of a couple of the neighbors. Mother Austin milked the cow, and Davy liked to feed the chickens, rolling around in his walker with her. I learned to wield an axe and split wood.

Another Opening
When summer came, we hired Ned’s niece, Minnie, to babysit Davy while we both worked in “The Horn”. I landed a speaking part this summer. The role of Mary had been combined with that of Betsy, which tightened up the story line and gave me a bigger part. Betsy was to be married, and had a shivaree before the wedding. In the shivaree, a noisy, boisterous celebration, the guys all picked up the couple and lofted them overhead, running them across the stage and setting them down at the door to the cabin. “Be careful, I’m pregnant!”, I told them, and they were, letting me down easy every night as we looked forward to having a sibling for Davy.

Ned bought a calf, and fed him through the summer. In the fall his sister Lula came to help process the meat. Some was frozen, some ground into hamburger and some cut up and canned.

We did Horn in the West for three summers, but decided not to go back to New York with a toddler and a second child on the way. I wanted our children to have a yard to play in. Ned had loved Denver when he was in school, so we decided to move there. We bought a metal trailer chassis and built a wooden trailer body on it.

Westward Ho!
US Highway 70W, September, 1954.
In the fall of 1954, we loaded up our homemade trailer with all our belongings, including several cases of home-canned foods, and headed west in Ned’s 1949 Chevy, with high hopes! In Denver, we found a basement apartment in the home of Granny Eldridge, who did baby-sitting in her home and was happy to look after our toddler while we looked for work. That proved to be easier said than done! Pregnant, and showing, I wasn’t able to find work at all, and Ned did door-to-door sales–but he noticed there were always ads in the HELP WANTED section for barbers.

In January, our second child was stillborn. As I lay in bed in the ward at Denver General Hospital, staring vacantly at the ceiling, someone in the nurse’s quarters above played Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Baby” and my loneliness and grief became intense. The pain subsided, however, the minute I hugged little Davy. We went home, and discussed what was next.

Upward Bound
With my trimmed-down figure, I quickly landed a job as a receptionist in the X-ray department at St. Luke’s Hospital. Ned enrolled in barber school and took a part-time job unloading freight. Davy was safe with Granny Eldridge, but not stimulated. We moved closer to work and I enrolled him in Humpty Dumpty Preschool, where there were toys, room to play and lots of other children.

Our schedule was quite demanding. Ned had to be at work at 4am and we only had one car, so I’d bundle up a sleeping Davy and drive Ned to work, come home, grab a few more ZZs until 7am, cart Davy to preschool and go on to work at the hospital. Ned would walk from work to barber school for his classes, where Davy and I would pick him up at 6pm and head home to supper. After a few months, Ned found a 1938 Studebaker on sale for $50. We bought it, and loved it! Everything was easier with two cars, and the Studebaker, though old, was reliable–and cute!

Medical personnel are great to work with. I liked everything about my job. Pretty soon I was pregnant again, and Ned finished barber school and went to work at the TV station. Davy said he had two daddies–one at home, and one in “that TV box”!

New Baby–Robin
One night in January, quite suddenly and without warning, my water broke. Ned took Davy upstairs to stay with Nettie & Joe, an elderly couple who’d become good friends, and I grabbed several towels and called the hospital. Shortly afterwards, Robin Alister Austin arrived, at an even 6 pounds!

Ned was now working part-time at the TV station and part-time as a barber, and with the improved finances I stayed home with the boys. We moved to a larger apartment and my mother came to visit.

First House—Spring 1957
The Denver area was in a housing boom, and we saw ads for houses all the time. We began looking at houses on Sunday afternoons, then talked with a realtor and were soon signed up to move into the all-new Martin Acres project in Boulder.
Boulder was a small but fast-growing college town west of Denver, and our first view of it was dramatic. The approach from Denver was by a toll road. It crossed 30 miles of the flat plateau that gave Denver its title of The Mile-High City, but Boulder was nestled up against the Flatirons. These are an aptly named, towering rock formation which introduces the Rocky Mountains. The effect is breath-taking. Dry, westerly winds known as “Chinooks” blow across the town, and when they came, I’d take out my wash and by the time I’d finished hanging, I could take it down again–all dry!

The Neighborhood
There’s a great “esprit de corps” among young families moving into a new neighborhood. Everyone is making their house a home. We all planted grass, shopped for furniture, put up swing sets and fences, had get-acquainted barbecues and block parties. Our kids were all preschoolers, and they played happily together while we moms did housework and got together for coffee. We also began to take an interest in politics. The Irwins and the Goldsteins were strong Democrats, and Bobby Jo Irwin organized us to do block work.

Becky Irwin and Seth Goldstein were the same age as David, and the three of them became fast friends. They played together most of the time, while Becky’s little brother Bo tagged along. Robin wasn’t yet old enough to be out with “the big kids”. He’d play in the house or the fenced-in back yard while I cleaned up or washed clothes. One morning he was looking out the front door one minute, and gone the next. I rushed out to look for him and noticed David’s tricycle was also missing. I’d seen him watching closely while David was riding it, and deduced what likely happened. Suspecting he’d go downhill, I went that way. He wasn’t allowed to cross the street, so he’d gone around the corner, where I found him. I didn’t know he could ride a trike!

Beach Trip
After we moved “out West”, we made the long trip “back East” every few summers to visit Ned’s family, and mine. We’d stay in Boone at the old home place or with one of his sisters, all of whom lived within “a holler” of each other. We first returned in 1957; David was four years old, Robin 1-1/2 and another “on the way”. We spent a wonderful week in Boone with Ned’s family. It was the last time we were to see his father, who passed away within the year.

My family was more spread out than Ned’s, and my parents had a smaller house, so we had our reunions at the beach. That year, my father rented spaces in a building styled like a military barracks at Springmaid Beach. The rooms had built-in concrete beds with foam mattresses. Guests were responsible for their own laundry, and made their own beds. We ate our meals at a large on-site cafeteria.

My sister Carol joined us there, with her husband Pete and their little girl 
Kathy, who was about two. Carol and I relaxed, playing in the sand and surf with Mother and the kids, while Ned and Pete explored the area in our green Chevy.

New Baby—Samuel

I was pregnant again, and after our return went to Dr. Cowgill in Boulder for pre-natal care. I’d hoped to try natural childbirth, and he told me he believed in it too, but that he felt it best to use very little medication and for the mother to be awake. I was by now experienced, so when my labor started on December 9th I busied myself at home, getting things ready, “nesting”. I washed clothes, cleaned house and cooked most of the day before having Ned drive me to the hospital. The delivery was seamless. I was sedated, but awake, through the whole process. He weighed seven pounds, and Samuel Monroe Austin nursed as soon as he was placed in my arms.

One day when he was eight months old, Sammy got tired of crawling. He stood up and walked. A day or two later the children were in the backyard, playing at the swing set. I noticed Sammy on the slide. Using his hands and feet, he’d climb up the slide instead of the ladder, then turn around and slide down!

Sammy had an interest in music from a very young age. When he was four, I took the kids to see “The King and I”. In the movie, Anna keeps reminding the king of Siam that when she came to teach, he’d promised her a home of her own. He’d failed to keep that promise, so she taught his children to sing “Home Sweet Home”. After the movie, I was cooking supper and heard the piano. Sammy was plinking out “Home Sweet Home”! He could barely reach the keyboard!

Music Teacher
By now I’d secured my Colorado teaching certificate. Colorado required only that I produce my North Carolina certificate plus a letter from a North Carolina principal verifying that I was qualified to teach. I hadn’t taught school in North Carolina, but one of the actors in Horn in the West, Charlie Elledge, was a principal in Marion, North Carolina. He was happy to vouch for me. I started teaching music that September at Arvada Junior High, in Adams County outside Denver. There were three other teachers from Boulder who worked there. We had a congenial carpool, and life was good. By February, however, I was pregnant again, and didn’t finish the school year.

Trading Houses
Our neighbors across the street had friends who lived in Denver, but worked in Boulder. We lived in Boulder, but worked in Denver. Their friends were searching for a house in Boulder, and we thought it’d uncomplicate everyone’s lives if we simply traded houses.

As far as the paperwork was concerned, it was the easiest house buy ever. We assumed each other’s GI Bill loans, made an appropriate payment for the larger equity they’d built up in their house and together hired a lawyer to manage the documents. The hard part came on moving day.

The logistics were tricky. We had to time our moves so that we crossed paths on the road, to be sure each house was empty and ready for the switch. It was an exhausing day for me, especially, because by now I was eight months pregnant.

Baby Frances–A Girl!
My mother, Eloise, and dad, Ted, came out to visit us in August. They were prepared to go home on the 21st, Mother’s birthday, but that morning she made the comment, “The only present I want is a new grandbaby. We’ll stay another day if that’s about to happen.”

“I’m sorry, Mother, I’m not feeling anything yet.” I responded. They got in the car and drove away.

They hadn’t been gone long when my labor started. We didn’t have cell phones, so there was no way to call them back. By the time they reached a motel and called us, Ned was able to announce that they had a granddaughter, Frances Eloise Austin.

Our first baby girl was petite, weighing in at five pounds, six ounces. I felt like I was playing with a doll when I bathed and dressed her. Even as a baby, she was different from the boys, and the boys treated her differently, too. They looked after and protected her.

Rosemary Street
Moving into an established neighborhood is different, because lasting friendships have already been formed between the children and adults. We were welcomed and accepted, but as friendly acquaintances, not bosom buddies. Our children were a little younger than the rest, and it felt like it would always be “us and them”, until our next-door neighbors moved out and the Reiners moved in.

Bela and Mary Reiner had lived in Hungary when Eastern Europe was under the control of the Communists. Bela had been a freedom fighter in the failed Hungarian revolution of 1956, and he, his mother and wife Mary had to flee the country when the Soviet tanks rolled in. David was very excited to learn that Bela was a scientist, and their kids Peter and Susie, the same ages as Robin and Sam, played well together with ours.

Contrasts in Cultures
Our new Hungarian neighbors invited us over to see their Christmas tree and celebrate a traditional Hungarian Christmas. Their tree was decorated with candles–real candles, which had been lit before we’d arrived. They turned off the house lights and put on some Christmas music. It was beautiful–but I couldn’t resist asking, “Aren’t you afraid the tree will catch fire?” I’d never seen actual candles on a Christmas tree–only in pictures on Christmas cards. They also had a small nativity scene laid out on their mantel, with intricate carvings of Mary, Joseph, the baby, some shepherds and several animals. We sang “O Tannenbaum”, in German.

“O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum Wie treu sind deine Blätte Du grünst nicht nur sur Sommer zeit Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum Wie treu sind deine Blätte”

They turned on the house lights and put out the candles, and Bela asked, “Can you polka?”

I’d learned to polka in a P.E. class when we’d studied folk dances, but had never since had occasion to.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly, glancing at Mary and Ned, who both seemed interested in watching but not participating.

“Mary doesn’t like to dance,” said Bela as he started the music. The polka is a very active dance, and I lasted through the whole of the 78 rpm record, but was pretty winded at the end. We sat and talked awhile longer, munching on delicious Hungarian scones Mary had made and drinking wine, then thanked them and said our goodnight.

To the other side of Bela and Mary’s was an older house, one of the few in the neighborhood built before the 1940s. A family named Martinez had moved into it shortly after we’d moved into ours. Their forefathers were from Colorado, so they were of Mexican ancestry–insofar as Colorado was for centuries a part of Mexico, and they and their ancestors spoke a fair amount of Spanish. Lonnie Martinez was David’s age, and Lonnie’s younger brother David was Robin’s age. They invited our boys to a birthday party, and hung a piñata from a tree in which they had a clubhouse. The boys became good friends, and my son David received a very special gift from them when we later left the neighborhood. Their house was built beside a small stream in an area which had apparently been inhabited for centuries, as Lonnie and David found chips of pottery, arrowheads and such in their yard or in the vacant lot beside it on a regular basis. When it was time for us to move across town, they presented David with a very old fire-starter stone. It was roughly egg-shaped and weighed about ten pounds, about 6”x8”x4”, with an inch-deep depression in the center where one could put kindling and on the side strike a rock against it, producing a spark. The stone was smooth on the bottom but had a great number of pits around the depression on top, attesting to its frequent use in a time when matches were an impossible dream.

Back to the Beach
It’d been four years since we’d seen our families in the Carolinas, and we had two more kids by now, so in the summer of 1961 we again rolled eastwards, this time in an olive-green, two-toned Volkswagen Microbus. Ned pounded together a platform and covered it with a large mattress so that we could all sleep in the back as we traveled. Bad idea. We drove straight through, but it was extremely uncomfortable in the blistering summer heat. In Saint Louis it reached 104ºF, and was unbelievably humid. The tiny Microbus windows were our only ventilation and the roof, three feet above the mattress, baked us like an oven. All the kids had heat rash, and Frannie diaper rash, by the time we reached Boone.

After a week in the blessedly cool mountains, we drove on to Cherry Grove, which at the time was a small beach town well removed from Myrtle Beach. Dad had rented a two-story beachfront house, with a smaller houser in back. Carol and Pete, who now had two little girls, took the upstairs apartment in the big house while Ned and I, with our three boys and one little girl, stayed in the small house. We each fixed our own breakfast and lunch, then got the whole crowd together for supper, which Mother, Carol and I took turns preparing.

We had a lovely vacation by the beach, then after we left we drove back to Boone to pick up a gift which the Austins had bought for us—six rustic kitchen chairs and a large rocking chair, handmade by a local character known as Uncle Pink. We drove back to Colorado with the lot of them strapped to the top of the bus!

Mesa Verde
Later that summer we went to southern Colorado to visit the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, which David had studied in his third grade classes. It was tremendously interesting, but safety wasn’t yet a priority; the dangers weren’t clearly marked, the trails narrow and rattlesnakes numerous. Our kids were between two and eight years old, and I was pregnant. On one trail we discovered, at the end, that the long, continuous line of tourists had to climb about forty feet on a tall, rickety-looking ladder! We struggled, Franny on my back. At the top a tiny, half-inch plastic baby doll slipped from the papoose of a two-inch souvenir doll of Franny’s, tumbling to the bottom! Franny was hysterical, but there was no way to return; the long line of people passed the tiny baby doll up to my screaming, crying daughter!

Natural Childbirth
I was pregnant again, and found Drs. Bradley and Bartlett at Porter Hospital, run by the Seventh Day Adventists. It was the only one in Denver which allowed Grantly Dick-Read’s method, and held classes for mothers-to-be to prepare them for delivery without anesthesia. Fathers-to-be attended some of the classes as well, learning about the process so that they could be supportive. Ned would be with me in the delivery room and participate in the birthing. They called this the “Bradley Method”, and I was thrilled to be a part of it.

Deep Freeze
About the middle of January, Denver went into a deep freeze, the kind my Minnesota-born professors talked about, when gas lines would freeze and cars wouldn’t start. We bought an electric engine heater and pulled the car into the front yard so we could plug it into an outlet in the house. The Stantzes across the street had a similar idea; they put a 100-watt light bulb under the hood of their car and covered it with a blanket to keep out the wind. At about 10 pm, we heard the prolonged honking of a horn and looked out the window to see fire coming from their engine compartment! Before we could bundle up we heard a siren and a fire truck pulled up. The fire was quickly extinguished, but their 1957 Plymouth station wagon was ruined.

Since I was pregnant again, the neighbors shared our concern about getting me to the hospital, and several of them had said, “If your car won’t start, call us and we’ll TRY OURS. No guarantees!” But we were lucky. When I started labor, we didn’t wait around. Ned went out immediately, and the car started right up.

New Baby—Genevieve
January 23, 1962
Natural childbirth, at last! What can I say, now that I’ve experienced it? For starters, I felt sorry for the mothers-to-be who weren’t Bradley and Bartlett patients. While they were moaning in pain, I was practicing my breathing, working with my body, trying to relax and alleviate the pain. How exciting it was to be aware, as the time came to push, that my baby was on its way into the world! And how wonderful to have my husband share the experience! To welcome together our beautiful baby girl, Genevieve Marie Austin!

My hospital stay was only two days, and my wonderful neighbor, Mary Reiner, had cleaned my house while I was gone!

We set Genevieve’s crib by the picture window so she and I could look out to the front yard, because it’d be Lord knows how many days before we could go outside! The deep freeze persisted, but our house was warm and comfortable, and the snow-covered world outside was beautiful!

Normally, the other kids would’ve played outside, but the bitter cold prevented it. We played games, sang songs and used our reel-to-reel tape recorder to send taped messages to our families back east.

Frannie’s Big Adventure
I was pregnant again, and staying home. I taught piano to neighbor children while Gennie was in her playpen and the rest of the kids played outside. One day Frannie, age 3, came in during a lesson and said, “I’m going to the store to get some candy, okay?” We played pretend a lot, so this announcement didn’t surprise me. I said all right, and continued the lesson.

About ten minutes later Kristen and I went to the front door to check on the kids.
“Where’s Frannie?” The boys gave me a blank look. Right then a car drove up and a lady brought out Frannie. She’d really gone to the store, but of course had no money, and she was so young the lady knew she wasn’t supposed to be there  and gave her a ride home, following Frannie’s directions! I thanked the lady, and she gave me a look that asked, how can you be such an irresponsible parent?

Music, Music, Music!
Northglenn 1962
Just north of Denver was the fastest growing school district in the United States, Adams County District #12. They were building a new elementary school every year, and sometimes moved into a new school before it was finished. I needed to work, and Denver wouldn’t hire a teacher who had a baby less than a year old, so I applied to Adams County and was hired immediately as a music teacher. Many of the music classes were held in houses we called “the cottages”, and I was assigned thirty-five classes in one school and two cottages. Four days a week I had to drive to the cottages. It wasn’t my dream job, though I was enormously popular with the kids. It was gratifying to see them light up when I walked into the cafeteria, but I wanted to know them better. I couldn’t remember eleven hundred names, and all the first- and second-grade songs got tiresome, although I worked hard to make them interesting. I wanted to be a classroom teacher, to get to know thirty children well and teach more challenging subjects. I enrolled in graduate school.

Mechanical Intelligence
Once a week I’d come home, fix supper, and leave Ned and the kids while I rushed to classes. Since I hadn’t eaten, I’d grab a candy bar from the vending machine before class. One night I put in my quarter and got nothing. The next week it happened again! The third week I stood in front of the machine debating whether to give it one more try. I put in my quarter, and it gave me–three candy bars!

I’d talked with my principal Mr. Schmidt and the assistant superintendent Mr. Reuter about switching from music to classroom teaching. They were agreeable. They were hiring new teachers all the time as the district added classes. I was pregnant again, so I took leave in June, and in September Mr. Reuter called with an opening for fourth grade. As my baby was soon due, we decided he should hire someone else and I’d let him know when I was ready.

On Again, Off Again–Baby Laura!
One night in October my labor started. Everything was going well, except that I had a persistent cough and couldn’t control my breathing very well. My doctor gave me some cough syrup when I arrived at the hospital, but my labor stopped! He said to walk around to give it a boost. That worked, but when I lay back down it stopped again. I had to walk this baby into the world! A hospital corridor isn’t an interesting place for a long walk, but a mom does what a mom’s gotta do! Finally Laura Ann Austin decided to make her appearance, and it was well worth the wait. She was a beautiful baby with a surprise for all. She had red hair!

The Pill and Stability
With three boys and three girls, we had a wonderful, balanced family. A half dozen. Six was enough. By now there was a birth control pill, and I took it.
We were buying the Mayfair Barber shop, where Ned was barbering. It was nearby, and doing well. In nice weather he rode a bicycle to work.

We needed a bigger house, though, and a bigger car. We traded our Volkswagen bug for a VW Microbus and began looking at houses. I spotted a “For Sale” sign about six blocks away, on Spruce Street. It was larger, older and had been converted into a duplex. There was one apartment downstairs and one upstairs, with a long outside staircase leading to the second floor. Included was a little house next to the garage, with an entry from the alley. It’d been rented for over ten years by a mother and daughter, who wanted to stay. We found a tenant who wanted a rent-to-own contract on our Rosemary Street house, and the two rentals nearly made the payments on our house. It was perfect!

Meanwhile, I’d returned to Adams County as a sixth grade teacher. I loved the sixth grade, and felt I’d found my niche. After so many moves, changes in employment and additions to the family, we thought we were where we wanted to be and could settle down. So we thought!

The Kennedy Effect
Friday, November 22, 1963. The girls were in the living room, watching cartoons on TV. From the kitchen I heard words I’d learned to dread: “We interrupt this program to bring you an important news bulletin.” I stepped into the living room in time to hear the announcement, “President Kennedy has been shot.”

I called Ned at the barber shop to tell him, but he already knew because they had a TV in the shop. We waited and watched to see how seriously the president had been hurt. It seemed a very long time before we heard any more about his condition. We watched as he was rushed to the hospital and taken inside.

Mary Reiner came to the front door. She saw the tears in my eyes, and wanted to know, “What will happen now? Are you afraid?”
“Not afraid. Just sad. We love our President and he is seriously hurt. We’re worried about him, but not afraid for the country.”
“Will there be a war? Who will take over if he doesn’t recover?”
“The Vice-President will become President. It’s in the Constitution. It will be a peaceful transition if the President doesn’t survive.”

Finally word came from the doctor in Dallas. President Kennedy was dead.

Kennedy had brought something special to the presidency–youth, grace, vision and hope. His era was dubbed “Camelot”, and as the country moved on, his leadership and energy was sorely missed.

The Texan
It’s hard to imagine a stronger contrast in style than the one between Kennedy and his successor Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was a guy’s guy–a Texan through and through, a rough-hewn rancher who didn’t mince words. He proved far more successful working with a cantankerous Congress than Kennedy had been. He was far more able to advance civil rights and start the war on poverty.

But if civil rights and the war on poverty were stars in Johnson’s crown, Vietnam was the albatross around his neck. It’s hard to remember how we got sucked into that war, but in it we were, and the bigger question became, how do we get out?!

It seems to me that about every President has had his good times and bad. I didn’t like “Tricky Dick” Nixon at all, but I credit him with getting us out of Vietnam. Our involvement in that war had been such a divisive issue in the country that even after the war ended, the bitter feelings lingered. Our Vietnam veterans didn’t receive the joyful welcome home that had been offered to the veterans of World War II. The same had been true of the veterans of Korea; the country didn’t support those conflicts as fully as they had for World War II.

Westlake School

In an effort to ease overcrowding while a new school was being built, Adams County reopened Westlake, an old rural school that had been closed for some years, for sixth grade only. Next to a small lake of about an acre, its playground consisted of a backdrop fence for softball and two basketball hoops. We had softballs, bats, kickballs and jump ropes. That was about it. There were four sixth-grade classrooms, and we taught the usual subjects–language arts, science, social studies and math, plus physical education, music and art. Our principal checked in once or twice a week from another school, but otherwise we were on our own. We set up our own schedule, and agreed to be mostly self-contained rather than departmentalized, which allowed us more flexibility. We shared some areas of expertise; Greg Wolfe sometimes taught art in my class while I taught music in his. Lois Mattes taught remedial reading while we covered her class for physical education a couple days a week. Ramón Sanchez taught Spanish to all our kids.

Physical education usually began with calisthenics, then went to a game of kickball or softball. When winter set in and the lake froze over all the kids brought their ice skates (we chipped in for some skates from Goodwill for those who didn’t have any). The kids taught me to ice skate!

Our lunches were delivered by van, and we had library carts in our rooms. Every time Junior Scholastic sent a book order form we added to our classroom carts.

It was a dry spring, and March brought windy days. We were playing softball one day and the wind started kicking up sand, so we retreated to the classrooms. It turned out to be a terrible sandstorm, the air outside so thick we couldn’t see out the windows. Fine dust was blowing into the building, making it hard to breathe, and I had the kids put their heads down to keep them calm. After about forty minutes, the wind stopped as suddenly as it had started.

The kids raised their heads and looked out the windows. “Ms. Austin, our lake is gone!” they exclaimed. It was, indeed! the wind had dried it up!
That afternoon I saw, to my consternation, that the lake was not the only casualty of the sandstorm. My poor car! The rear window of my pretty pink DeSoto was shattered, and the entire back seat filled with sand. Some of the paint had been sandblasted off, and I wasn’t sure it would run if the sand had gotten under the hood. It was with some trepidation that I turned the key, but it fired right up, and I drove home, relieved. It was Friday, so I had the weekend to clean it up. My insurance paid for a new rear window and a repaint.

Westlake was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life!

The Beach, Again
We made the same arrangements to vacation in Cherry Grove in 1965 as we had in 1961, and drove the same Microbus~but we’d learned a couple lessons. The platform/bed in the back of the bus, never a good idea, was long gone, and we decided to camp for one night rather than drive straight through. Still, what I most remember most that year was~car trouble! After the previous trip, in which we putted along rarely reaching 60 miles per hour, Ned’s mechanic recommended replacing the Volkswagen engine with a Porsche engine, which we did. The larger engine immediately increased our power, but as it was also air-cooled, also increased the temperature in the engine compartment. Ned made sheet-metal scoops for the side air vents, which became a popular accessory after every Microbus driver from the Rockies to the coast watched us pass them by!

The highways were improving by 1965; the Interstate system had begun and many of the slowest sections had been bypassed. This time we all had seats—including our German shepherd, Fritz! The weather was cooler, and we rolled along comfortably until the early morning of the second day, when a sudden high-pitched whine in the engine compartment let us know it was time to take a break. Ned dug into the engine with a vise-grips, a pair of pliers and a screwdriver—all the tools he had—and extracted the generator.

Improvising, I took the kids on a blackberry-picking expedition in the Tennessee hills while Ned hitch-hiked to the nearest town. By nightfall he’d installed a new generator and we drove on to Boone. We spent a wonderful week there, then trekked towards the beach.

The bus rolled easily “down the mountain” and into the South Carolina flatlands, but about 50 miles outside of Columbia we heard a BANG!, and coasted to a stop. We called my brother-in-law Pete, who arranged for a tow truck and piled the rest of us into his Chevy Impala for the hour-long ride to my parents’ house. The next morning Ned spread an old blanket on the front lawn and for the next few days spread car parts all over it while he dug into the innards of the engine. When my brother Ted arrived the next day with his wife and two kids, the fifteen of us squeezed into Pete and Ted’s cars for the trip to Cherry Grove. Dad, Mother and Ned drove down a couple days later.

Ted was joining us for the first time. College, the army, work and travel had interfered until 1965; now he arrived with his wife Elaine and their two daughters, Karen and Audrey, in tow. By this time our families were complete. Ned and I had three boys and three girls, Carol and Pete had two girls and Ted and Elaine had two girls. Their ages ranged from David, the oldest at twelve, down to Laura, not quite two.

We especially appreciated Ted’s presence when we played with the kids in the surf. Our other men weren’t particularly enthusiastic about this aspect of beach life, approaching it as a duty, not a delight. Ted jumped in with gusto! When he splashed around with us, everyone had a great time!

The Strife of the Sixties
The sixties roared in, and disrupted our complacent, mellow lives. We became marchers. Peace marches, Black Pride, Gay Pride, Chicano Pride, Women’s Lib, Earth Day–we were there! I sometimes marched with my red-haired youngest daughter riding piggy-back. We marched, fasted, protested our way through a decade of turmoil. Our society transitioned from one controlled by white men over forty towards one that accommodated all the diverse peoples of the United States of America.

The superintendent of my school district, Mr. Stukey, wrote a letter to the paper about “that rag-tag bunch of hippies” who were disrupting society with their marches and demonstrations, and I wrote a letter to him–not the paper–telling him that I was one of his teachers and also one of that “rag-tag bunch”. I said it wasn’t our goal to disrupt society, but to ensure that the freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution were extended to everyone, not just a favored few. I remarked that I hoped to continue working in the Adams County schools but that I’d continue to march and demonstrate for the changes I believed were needed.

At our next district meeting, Mr. Reuter came over and said, “Mr. Stukey is looking for you. He wants to talk to you.”

I could see Mr. Stukey’s tall frame from across the room, and moved in his direction, wondering if I’d have a job in the morning. To my great relief, Mr. Stukey held out his hand, shook mine and thanked me for my honesty. He said he didn’t agree with me, but appreciated the way in which I’d addressed our differences and hoped we could continue to work together for the education of our children.

I stayed with Adams County for eight years. For five of those years I was chair of the curriculum committee, which selected the language arts and social studies textbooks.

Teacher Appreciation Day
The clatter of the roller coaster, the wheezy organ of the carousel and the smell of cotton candy fill the air. It’s Teacher Appreciation Day at Elitch Gardens!

The amusement park was closed to the public, and teachers from all the schools in the Denver area were invited to come with their families. We spent the day having fun together before school started and the park closed for the winter. I took all six of my children, now aged four to fourteen. I used a “buddy system” to make sure I didn’t lose anyone. We’d stopped at a concession stand and were walking, with our snacks, through the crowd. Dave suddenly announced, “I’ve lost Laura!”

We retraced our steps, and hadn’t gone far before we heard. “You guys! You guys!” Laura was standing in one place, calling for us just as I had coached her to do. All safely back together, we rode the ferris wheel, pigged out on popcorn and had a glorious day.

I noticed one thing in particular about that day: there was not a shred of litter anywhere. The cleanup crew had nothing to do except empty the garbage cans. Teachers practice what they preach, and I felt proud to be one!

Yellowstone

When I was growing up, Mother talked about Yellowstone National Park in the same loving tones she used speaking of Florida, or “The Beach”. We had a demitasse spoon souvenir from Yellowstone, and it had a blue swastika on the handle. I didn’t think we should have a Nazi spoon in our house, but Mother explained that the swastika had been an American Indian symbol before being appropriated by the German Nazis; in fact, the spoon had been crafted before there even was a Nazi party. We kept the spoon, but stopped displaying it. In my head there was a mysterious quality about Yellowstone and its geysers, especially the one called “Old Faithful”. I always wanted to see it for myself.

In 1966, when Laura was a toddler, we took our tent and went on a camping trip to Yellowstone. It was amazing! So beautiful! But if I thought Mesa Verde was dangerous, this park was even more so! There were geysers and boiling springs everywhere. The park service had constructed wooden walkways for tourists, but there was no railing between my two-year-old and a deep pool of boiling water!

And then there were the bears! I was squatting next to our campfire cooking breakfast, when a bear came strolling out of the woods towards me!

“Ned!” I called, “There’s a bear coming towards me! I think he smells the bacon! What’ll I do?”

“Let him have it! Just move away!”

“But it’ll burn him, and then he’ll be mad!”

I decided there wasn’t any more time for analysis, and ran to the Microbus, where the rest of my family had already had sense enough to gather. We watched as the bear ambled over toward the food, then passed it up and went on his way. I guess he wasn’t hungry—or maybe just had sense enough not to get burned!

Yellowstone was truly memorable. A wondrous adventure!

First Grade–Oh My!

When the Adams County school administrators decided to move the sixth grade classes to the junior high schools and call them middle schools, I requested a change. I’d twice taught in junior high schools and felt they weren’t the venue for me. I preferred self-contained classrooms.

I was offered a first-grade class and gladly accepted. I hadn’t realized what an adjustment it would be! In October, I wrote a letter to my parents:

Denver, Colo.

Oct. 12, 1967

Mother and Dad,

First grade is absolutely the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done! I’m better adjusted now, and so is my class, but the first two weeks were marked by constant lower backache (from bending down) and sore feet (from never sitting). This school district has no Kindergarten, so my children (30 of them) are having their first school experience. The first two days were so chaotic I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. I found it impossible to get their attention and hold it for even five minutes, except when we were moving. We did a tiptoe tour of the school building, had a practice fire drill, toured the playground to define our play area, and had an extra recess. As far as my children were concerned, I might as well not even have been present in the classroom. They were interested in the two child-sized toilets, the sink, the water fountain, the pencil sharpener, and the paper towel dispenser. Someone got a slight injury and they found out I had Bactine and band-aids. That gave me center stage for awhile, but not in the way I’d intended! They’d used up a whole roll of paper towels, two bars of soap, a box of band-aids, a full bottle of Bactine, and most of their pencils had been sharpened down to half-size.

The second day, I set up new rules. I’d sharpen all pencils. Drinks, only after recess. Hands to be washed only after using the toilet, pasting or painting. Only one towel used to dry hands. No washing of desks during school time, unless we’d been pasting or painting.

I still had problems. If I told one child to sit in his desk and not on it, four others would promptly sit on theirs so that I could tell them too. I was mulling this over on the second night when I remembered a young second grade teacher who had a beautifully behaved class and never said a negative word. When I came to her class to teach music she’d say, “I like the way Tim is sitting”. Everyone would look at Tim and sit like him.

I tried it on the third day. I looked around my class of wiggling, squirming, climbing, chattering monkeys, none sitting quietly and attentively–but I watched, and soon saw one facing front. “I like the way Daniel is sitting”, I called out.

The result was instantaneous, and magical. Daniel looked surprised and stopped the turn he’d already begun, instead straightening himself proudly in his desk. The chatter stopped. The children looked at Daniel, straightened up one by one and waited expectantly. “Do you like the way I’m sitting?” piped a small voice–then another, and another. I realized I’d have to do a roll call if this gambit were to be successful. All right.

“I like the way Danny is sitting, too. And Veronica, and Susan. I like the way Arnold and Steven and Robert are sitting. Sherri and DeAnn look so nice and quiet–and Diane, and Scott, and Terry. Greg, Allen, Karen, Kathleen, Chris, Mike–you all look so nice sitting up straight in your desks that way. And…” et cetera, ad infinitum it seemed, but if I missed anyone I got the question again. Having complimented thirty children by name, I was able to get on with the first really decent class instruction we’d had. During the day I repeated the routine several times, but each time it worked like magic, and they gave me a full ten or fifteen minutes of attention. Of course, much of our activities don’t require silent attention, but now I know how to get it when I need it, and no longer have to call the roll. They’re satisfied if I say, “This group looks like they’re ready to listen.” How exciting it is, now, to see them progress, from letter sounds to words and reading!

Everyday Family Activities

I wrote about my family, beginning with Gennie and Laura’s activities:

Gennie and Laura both go to Kiddie Kampus, a child care center open from 7am to 6pm. I drop them off between 7:15 and 7:30, and pick them up on my way home, usually around 4:30. The first time I had a meeting after school I worried that it might be too long a day for them, but they asked me to come later every day because they had so much fun that last hour! The center has a very creative program, with dancing, music, gymnastics, story-telling, art and play. Gennie has Kindergarten class there, with a certified teacher.

Rob, Sam and Frannie go to Ashley School just up the street from the house, so they’re the last ones to leave the house in the morning. They walk with a group of neighbor children, all together. David has to leave early, because he has a before-school lab. Ned leaves for the barber shop after Dave, then I leave with Gennie and Laura.

David shows the same half-hearted interest in high school that he did in junior high. He’s found something to catch his enthusiasm, though, in a program for high school boys and girls called Junior Achievement, sponsored by local businesses. Every Wednesday night he goes to the Junior Achievement building for his company meeting. The boys and girls in his company come from high schools all over Denver, and their sponsor is the Gates Rubber Company. A group of men from Gates are their adult advisors. The group chose their own name for the company, and David’s suggestion was unanimously chosen over seventeen others. They manufacture and market carpet pads to go under the accelerator pedal in a car. Name: the PED-PAD Company. They learn about business hands-on. They sell stock, find distribution outlets, manufacture the product, sell and share the profits with their stockholders. It’s the kind of educational experience David enjoys, and he’s pitched in with great enthusiasm. Meanwhile, he inextricably stood in danger of failing Spanish, up until now one of his best subjects. After a talk with his Spanish teacher, I decided to let him drop Spanish now, when there won’t be any grade on his record, and he can focus on other subjects.

Robin got off to a bad start this school year when he was assigned to the same teacher, Mrs. Hough, that he had last year. She was the first teacher, ever, to consider Robin a discipline problem. She had (1) nullified a class “good citizen” election when the class chose him. (2) Deprived him of the privilege of going with the class to the Denver Symphony Orchestra concerts. (3) Taken his name off their list of nominees for student council, each with the vague explanation that he was “not a good citizen”. I called the school principal and requested that Robin be transferred to another class.

“She personally requested that he be in her class again this year,” Mr. McCormick said.

“That’s interesting!” I said, and told him my reasons. The principal complied, telling Robin and the teachers only that the transfer was made to balance enrollment, and Robin is much happier. He’s on the school safety patrol and they assigned him to the corner that’s considered the most hazardous, because he’s considered to be the most responsible. He’s also been chosen student council representative . I’m confident he’ll do better in this atmosphere than in the one of disapproval he was in before.

Sam and Frannie are both doing well in school, bringing home straight As and liking it.

Go, Go, Go!

Journal entry, Jan. 7, 1968

Our family went to City Park to ice skate this morning and enjoy the cold weather (low 5ºF, high 28ºF). We took along the snow disc and the toboggan, and did some sledding before coming home for hot chocolate and lunch. Laura and Gennie went ice-skating for the first time and spent about as much time on their bottoms as on their feet, causing much hilarity.

Saturday, January 13, 1968

This was my day to chauffeur; everybody had somewhere to go. I took David to a Junior Achievement meeting in southeast Denver at 8am. Robin and Sam went to Rishel Junior High School in southeast Denver for Citywide Orchestra rehearsal from 12 noon until 1pm. Violin lessons in northeast Denver at 2:30pm followed. I had Robin back home for his birthday party at 3:30, when I took him and five other boys to Bowl Aurora to play pool, then back to the house for cake & ice cream. At 9:30 I went to pick up David. It was a long day, but the girls were fine staying at home and playing with the neighborhood kids. I love this neighborhood!

Our Last Beach Reunion

We sold the Microbus and drove a yellow Ford station wagon to the Carolinas in 1968. Our week in Boone marked our last visit with Ned’s mother, who was now in her late eighties.

By this time my mother had weakened, in body if not in spirit, due to multiple health problems. Her pituitary tumor had required radiation treatment, diabetes had affected her vision and a stroke had left her with mobility problems. Dad had hired a colored woman (as she preferred to be called) to assist Mother, but Anna was a caretaker, not a maid.

At the beach, Carol, Elaine and I shared the cooking and cleanup, as we had in the past, and Anna ate with us. The young folks enjoyed swimming in the surf. Mother, despite her physical limitations, enjoyed the beach. With Anna’s help, she walked along in the wet sand, listening to the surf and, in her words, “recharged her spirit”.

After supper, we all gathered, as before, swapping stories, laughing and singing together, accompanied by Kathy and Pete on their ukuleles. When our week was up, we said goodbye to Carol and Ted’s families. We returned to Columbia, to spend a few days visiting before the trek to Colorado. While we were there, we went to a restaurant for lunch.

It was a bit of a production. Dad went in first, to talk to the proprietor. We were determined that Anna should sit with us, but South Carolina was in the midst of its integration woes. There had been unpleasantness and sometimes violence, but we didn’t wish to cause problems. All we wanted was a peaceful lunch. When Dad returned, he announced, “Okay, it’s all arranged. We’ll have a table in the private dining room, and all of us will be served there—together!”

And that’s what happened.

A Hot Summer—East Side Action Center

A Hot Summer—East Side Action Center

The summer of 1969 saw an increase in turmoil in Denver and I wanted to help my community, so I volunteered to work at the East Side Action Center in Five Points, a black neighborhood in the inner city. I was working with Augusta Wright, a black woman running a program to secure summer jobs for black teen-agers. I was to take care of the office while Gussie did the real work, going into the neighborhood to talk to black businessmen about hiring youngsters for the summer. It was a good program. The businessman didn’t have to pay, just to train and mentor the kid and keep him occupied.

Five Points was a neighborhood where a white policeman was greeted with catcalls and a raised fist–the “Black Power salute”–and Gussie once asked me, “Aren’t you afraid to come down into this neighborhood?” I said, “Gussie, I think some of us just have to not be afraid, or we’re never going to get through this.”

As much as I’d enjoyed my work in Adams County, I felt sheltered in the suburbs while Denver was going through upheaval. I wanted to do what I could, so I applied and was hired as a sixth grade teacher. I’d hoped to be assigned to a school in Five Points, but Colfax Elementary was interesting too. It was a neighborhood in transition. It’d previously been a Jewish neighborhood, but now most of our students were of Latino descent.

1970

Society went through enormous changes in the Sixties, but our family life remained relatively stable.
Our family, which had expanded every two years until Laura’s birth in 1963, stabilized at eight. We’d moved, but remained in the same neighborhood. I changed jobs, but remained a teacher. Ned was working in the same barber shop he’d joined in 1959, which he’d owned since 1964.

There were changes, though, both inner and outer. Our family life became centered around two big interests: Dramatic Arts and Political Activism. We participated in plays, musicals and concerts, music lessons and summer music camps. Sam and the girls produced and acted in silent 8mm home movies, with plot lines, action and special effects.

We also campaigned for political candidates. We went door-to-door, wrote letters, attended peace marches, demonstrations, rallies and conventions. In these efforts to bring peace, integration, abolition of capital punishment and civil rights for all, we seemed always to be losing the battle—but we were winning the war. Situations didn’t seem to change, but attitudes did.

What Do I Call You?

There were many terms I knew not to use because they were racial slurs, but during these times it got complicated. I’d always referred to Negroes or colored people. Now, some preferred to be called either Afro-Americans or African-Americans. Others said, “Bobbie, I’m not African. I’ve never been to Africa. I’m Black.” Some Mexican-Americans didn’t like the term Mexican, and settled on Chicano. Others preferred Hispanic, or Latino. It was a confusing time. It still is, in some places, for people who want to be “politically correct”–and, oh yeah!—some of the Hispanics anglicized their names, so when I called the roll confidently using the Spanish pronunciation, they giggled and corrected me!

My Sister, Carol

While I was living in the West demonstrating and marching my way through the sixties, my sister and her husband Pete were among the real heroes of that tumultuous decade. They were liberal integrationists living and working in the South. It was easy for me to speak out against racial bias and injustice in Colorado. It was much more difficult in the South, where segregationists were struggling to maintain their way of life and sometimes resorting to violence.

Pete was a professor at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, and Carol was an elementary school teacher. They worked openly in their community, church and political party to advance the cause of racial equality. They and their friends endured many risky and unpleasant situations: obscene phone calls, garbage dumped on their lawns. Even open threats and insults in public meetings.

Once at a party in Denver there was a young man who’d just returned from a motorcycle trip through the South. His long hair had caused him problems, and he stated “The world would be better off if the ocean would open up and swallow everyone in the South. They are so prejudiced!” (this from a person who had previously said, “Don’t trust anybody over thirty!”).

“I grew up in the South,” I replied, “and what you said just now is actually the most prejudiced remark I’ve ever heard.”

There were, and are, a lot of ill-mannered and prejudiced people in the South, as there are everywhere else. But there were, and are, a lot of fair-minded and courageous people too, and they’ve brought about big changes in our society. I’ve always admired Carol and Pete for who they are and how they’ve lived their lives.

My Brother, Ted

Although four years younger, my brother Ted was often a trailblazer for me. We always had similar interests–we both went to Camp O’Leno and Transylvania Music Camp. We both played in bands and sang in choruses, and performed in “Horn in the West”. He’d acquired the Charles Atlas body-building course from an older friend who’d joined the Navy, so I exercised with him too. At one point in our foolish youth we both took up smoking. I thought I was keeping it secret until he told me that our mother and grandmother both knew he smoked, so I stopped trying to hide it. I now realize that non-smokers can almost always tell if you smoke, whether they mention it or not.

After Ted graduated from Duke University and completed his army service, he and his wife Elaine bought a house in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He went to work as a research scientist for Sylvania, and was assigned to develop anti-missile missiles for the government. He and his wife and two daughters were sent to Kwajalein Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean just north of the equator, where they lived for ten years. Ted and his family joined the Unitarian Universalist Church while I was still exploring various religions. It wasn’t until some thirty years later that I once again followed my brother’s lead.

On a visit to Denver, Ted introduced us to shish kebabs over our backyard grill, which we have enjoyed countless times since. He took me and the kids to the playground, and watching him gave me ideas for using the playground as a teaching tool. On the merry-go-round he showed them how moving toward the center would cause it to spin faster, demonstrating centrifugal force. On the swings he talked about inertia, weightlessness and gravity.

Show Time—Frannie the Biker

Ned and some of the kids signed up with a talent agency in Denver, where they got audition experience and occasionally a job. Once Sammy was hired for a “stop smoking” promotion on the radio. His boyish voice was broadcast on the national airwaves singing, “Daddy, Daddy, why do you do it? Daddy, Daddy, why do you smoke? You know it’s not healthy, you’ll have to admit, So Daddy, Daddy, why don’t you quit?”. Meanwhile, the piano player had been chain-smoking the entire time!

When Ned took Frannie to an audition for a florists’ association commercial, they liked her and asked, “Can she ride a bicycle?” “Of course!” said Ned, and she got the part, with one weekend to learn how to ride!

Big brother Dave saved the day. He put Frannie on the bike and ran beside her, holding her up while she teetered on two wheels. He was patient and energetic, and it paid off. She was able to ride a bicycle to the florist’s for Mother’s Day. There was just one glitch. She hadn’t learned how to stop, and the cameraman had to jump out of her way! Her commercial played during the Miss Wool pageant that year, and won a Clio, a national award!

Theatre

As a family, we were always involved in theatre and music. Ned and the kids did TV and radio commercials and Ned was almost always in a play with the Denver Community Theatre. I sang in two of the summer musicals given by the Denver Post Opera Company, ”South Pacific” and “Sound of Music”. One or more of our kids were in community theatre shows, and for three years at Christmas all of us, except for David, played the Cratchit family in “A Christmas Carol”, presented by the Third Eye Theatre.

Genny was Tiny Tim. At first they let it seem as though a young boy, G. Austin, played the role, but then the newspaper ran a big story. “Tiny Tim is Genevieve”, it announced, with a picture of her in costume and a story about her first grade class in school. She was a natural, very believable as a young crippled boy, and the audience was truly moved when she said, “God bless us, every one!”

There were other shows as well; school productions, community theatre and the Denver Post Operas. We were in “Gypsy”, “Sail Away”, “Oliver”, “Life with Father”, “South Pacific” and “The Sound of Music” to name a few. Some were good, some were not. David was never in these productions as Ned insisted that he concentrate on his homework, but in junior high he was Officer Krupke in a truly awful production of “West Side Story”. I was critical at the time, but later learned how tough it was to put on a show with kids that age. My own production with seventh and eighth graders was no better! Whether they were good shows or not, the kids were getting on-stage experience acting, singing, dancing, playing music. They had other activities as well, such as 4-H Club and Junior Achievement. I was the principal chauffeur to lessons, rehearsals, meetings etc., and spent lots of time on the road.

Mountain Born

Sammy auditioned and got a part in a movie to be filmed on location on the Western slope, in what was at the time a largely abandoned silver mining town named Telluride, Colorado. He was twelve years old, and would stay in Telluride for six weeks for the filming. The company provided a tutor, and he lived with the cameraman and his wife.

Hank Schloss, the director, came to the house to make arrangements and asked Sammy and me to go costume shopping with him. Sammy was given a script, which had a small rectangular piece cut out of the cover. Ned wondered what had been cut, and weeks later we found out–”Walt Disney Studios”! This was a Disney film, intended for the Sunday night show “The Wonderful World of Disney”. Sammy not only starred in it, but even composed the theme song!

Bad Trip

One night we came home from a show and were readying for bed–the kids were already upstairs–when David came to the back door raving, “I’ve killed myself with acid! I’ve killed myself! Take me to the hospital! Take me take me!!….” He went out, tried to climb the door post, came back in but wouldn’t sit down. He’d lost his shoes somewhere and was pacing wildly in the snow in his sock feet. We got the car keys, but couldn’t get him in the car, so we called the police. Two officers put him in the police car, red lights flashing, and we followed them to Denver General Hospital. They restrained and sedated him.

Now I understood the meaning of the expression “bad trip”, which I’d heard about from some hippie friends. I knew David was experimenting with drugs, but didn’t know what to do about it. Neither did anyone else, as far as I could tell. There was plenty of advice from many sources, much of it conflicting and none of it seeming to me successful. I didn’t know our second son, Robin, was also involved. We talked about it and I signed both boys up with a counselor, but they skirted the real issues and came home with a canary to replace the bird they’d lost. We muddled on.

I realized by now that Ned’s drinking was becoming a real problem. When he wasn’t in a play, he’d begin as soon as he closed the barber shop. A couple of his friends would drop in for a long-lasting game of poker and he and the barbers would drink beer with them until about ten. I tried to have the kids fed, all homework done and everyone in bed before he got home, so he wouldn’t have anyone to pick on. He picked on the older boys anyway, but he was much worse when he’d been drinking. I’d gone with him as his “support buddy” to several quit-smoking groups and tried to talk him into Alcoholics Anonymous. I said I’d go with him if he wanted me to, but he insisted that he did not have a drinking problem!

In my marriage, I tried too hard to avoid conflict. Ned was a harsh disciplinarian. He’d whip our boys with his belt, and call the girls “ugly” or “fat”, but when we fought over this he’d accuse me of “handling them with kid gloves”. By today’s standards, he abused them. At the time many would say “spare the rod and spoil the child”, but in retrospect, I should’ve taken the kids and left. I felt helpless, frustrated, and ineffectual, but since I didn’t know what to do, I did nothing.

Landlords

A customer of Ned’s at the barber shop, a realtor, invited him to come look at a large old house on Downing Street. The woman who owned it was starting to show signs of dementia, and when her son visited he called and said, “Put this house on the market for a quick sale! I’m taking my mother to California with me!” We went to look at the house, and bought it. Thus began a new saga in our lives!

There were two older women renting rooms upstairs. They wanted to stay. Good. We advertised the apartment downstairs and rented it to a nice young couple–we thought!

Fast forward to the next month. Ned went to collect the rent.

“We’ve got wall-to-wall people in that house, and nobody had any rent money. One of the guys said, ‘I knew it! I knew somebody would be expecting some rent!’”

“That nice young couple?”

“Not there any more!”

They’d posted a note on the bulletin board of the community college: CRASH AT OUR PAD #10 DOWNING ST.

It took us a month to get them all out, and another month to clean up and repair the place!

First Steps—Getting Ready

Sam spent five months in Telluride, Colorado, filming the Disney movie “Mountain Born”, but Sam didn’t like the song they were using. Ned took him to Los Angeles, and while they were there Sam played and sang his version of the title song to the executives of Disney Studios. They liked his version better, and bought it! Sam became the youngest member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)!

Ned attended a meeting of the Screen Actors Guild with his old friend Ric Jury. Ric’s friend Geoff Deuel took Sam to see the agent Meyer Mishkin. Sam signed with the Mishkin Agency. The reasons for moving to California were piling up.

We did nothing irrevocable, but took several tentative steps. We sold the Rosemary Street house, put the Downing Street house on the market, began investigating businesses for sale in Southern California. I secured a teaching credential for California and started sending applications.

Mountain View Friends Meeting

Meanwhile, we’d become regular attenders at Mountain View Friends Meeting House. This association was influential in several ways. For Ned and me, it was the first meaningful religious experience we’d found in a group in many years. We’d participated in a prayer and study cell in the Boulder Presbyterian Church, but that was in the fifties. The Quaker meetings strengthened our commitment to peace, love and inner light as a way of life. We established warm and lasting friendships. Our family was asked to give a musical program, and for the first time all eight of us performed together. The Friends loved it!

On the “Inherit the Wind” Set

“I’ve been miscast in this show! I can’t believe in the William Jennings Bryan part. I want to play Clarence Darrow!”

“Well, good! I wanted to be William Jennings Bryan. Let’s trade parts!”

With that brief exchange, Ned and Jack Dorn went to the play’s director and arranged the switch.

The result was an impressive production of “Inherit the Wind”. The lead characters both physically and philosophically represented the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925. Their onstage debates were frequently continued afterwards when Ned and Jack would have a beer. The two became fast friends, and Jack, who also had family in California, would often stop by the barber shop at closing time, when Ned played host to a poker club.

The Go-Ahead

Harlan Knudsen, a friend of Ned’s, told him about a friend who owned an equipment rental yard in Hollywood and wanted to retire. Harlan was visiting that spring, so Ned went along to look over the business and came back with an  agreement to purchase. The barber in the second seat, Joe, who had been there even longer than Ned, bought the shop and we bought the rental yard. Ned took Robin and Dave to Los Angeles. He installed them in a house in Orange County rented from an actor friend of his, Burt Douglas, while they learned the business from the former owner’s son Hans. Ned returned to Denver to fix up and clean up our house on Spruce St. before putting it up for sale.

A Sleepless Night

I was getting ready to go to bed when the phone rang. It was Dave.

“I don’t know where Rob is.”

“What? Why? What do you mean?”

“He stayed at the house today to do laundry and clean the pool, but when I came home from the rental yard he wasn’t here.”

“And he’s not there now? Maybe he just went to grab a bite or go see someone. Do you know anyone in the neighborhood he might be hanging out with? Have you checked around?”

Dave had already checked around the neighborhood; Robin didn’t have any transportation and hadn’t been there long enough to know anyone.

Ned came in. “What’s going on?”

“Robin’s missing!”

We told Dave we’d call the police and the highway patrol. He should stay by the phone.

Our first call told us nothing, but the second gave us a number to call at Juvenile Hall.

“Yes, he’s here. He was picked up this morning for public drunkenness. He’s asleep. You can pick him up in the morning.”

“Drunkenness!?! He doesn’t drink! And especially not in the morning! And we’re in North Carolina! His brother will have to pick him up!”

“Is he 21? He has to be released to an adult.”

We called Dave back. He was 18 and not legally an adult, but Jack Dorn was in California now. We called him the first thing in the morning, he drove the 100 miles or so to Orange County from his home north of LA, pretended to be his uncle and signed him out.

After Robin was released to Jack, we got the whole story. Robin had walked to the pool supply store to get acid and chlorine for the swimming pool. Both Robin and Dave had long bushy hair and dressed in hippie style. Robin was a pack rat, too, who always carried an assortment of stuff crammed into his pockets. I’d made him an additional vest with four big pockets to avoid wear and tear on his pants. To add to this, he was barefoot! On his way home from the next town over, carrying a jug in each hand, he sat down in the shade of a tree by the side of the road and waved his feet in the air to cool them off. The police, driving by, saw a hippie and made the dubious claim that someone had called them to report a  drunk.

They had him empty his pockets. Among all his papers and cards and rocks and marbles was a small tear gas canister. That little canister had a history; Ned had bought it for me, and insisted I carry it, when I was going to graduate school at the Denver extension center of the University of Colorado. It was located on Larimer Street, known at the time as Denver’s skid row. I’d carried it, but never used it. Later, when Denver was bussing kids to promote integration, Robin was bussed to the predominantly black Smiley Junior High School. One day he missed the bus,  and was walking home when a gang of black kids jumped him. He got away, but I gave him the tear gas to carry with him. That little tear gas canister, it turned out, was legal in every state but one–California. It had gotten him arrested.

Why hadn’t Robin called Dave? Well, our phone service in Garden Grove was with General Telephone, but the next town over was Pacific Bell territory, so a call from Juvenile Hall, a couple miles away, was long distance! Robin’s one call had to be local, and he didn’t know anyone in town to call!

A Car and a Van and a Model A

Ned rented a U-Haul van and was loading our furniture into it, struggling with a lift of about four inches at the top of the ramp. After he’d loaded about two-thirds of the furniture, I saw him talking to our five-year-old neighbor, Geri Ortiz. He came in grinning. “I should’ve talked to Geri sooner! She pointed to a small sign on the van and asked, ‘Isn’t that supposed to be like this?’ and pointed to an illustration showing how to hook the ramp to the van! I’d have saved myself a lot of work if I’d noticed that and hooked it up correctly!” A little child shall lead us!

Sam wrote a song about our westward journey. Besides the U-Haul van, we’d rented a tow bar to bring along Dave’s Model A Ford. Ned drove the van, I drove the car, with our kids and pets distributed in both. We were, in Sam’s lyrics, “A car and a van and a Model A, Going our westward way”. In contrast to the gradual change of the sixties, our lives in the 1970s were changing suddenly and drastically.

Location

My first impression: Stop the roller coaster! I want to get off! So many cars, so fast, so close together! I didn’t like freeway driving. Eighty miles an hour, six lanes of traffic, bumper-to-bumper, trying to get over to the exit?

“Well kids, this is Los Angeles!” Silence.

“I don’t think I like Los Angeles.”

“Me neither. I want to go back to Denver.”

“We just got here. You haven’t seen it yet! You’ll like it when we’ve had time to explore and get settled.”

Would they? I wasn’t so sure. My nerves were on edge and my eyes were burning from–fatigue and eyestrain? Or–SMOG! Oh, lord, how did they stand it?

Stop that! Several million people have learned to live at this dizzy pace, and they’re not collapsing! They cope. It’d be a challenge, but we could do this–and I’d learn to like it!

It was a fast-moving city, but as intimidating as the freeways were, there was a lot to like. The weather was gentle, the people creative and individualistic. Opportunities abounded. I did, actually, like Los Angeles!

Vocation

Poverty Pete’s

Being proprietor of an equipment rental yard is not at all like barbering or teaching. Because we served a wide swath of the population, including construction workers, we were open from 7:30am to 5:30pm six days a week and 9 to 5 on Sundays. We had one employee outside the family, but running the business was up to Ned, Dave and me. Robin helped on weekends, but he was in school during the week.

The rental yard was a shabby-looking place. The office was a wooden shack with a leaky roof and a fenced-in yard where a guard dog was kept. The grounds around the office were a parking lot for an assortment of trucks, trailers, cement mixers, compressors and whatever, chained up or locked up at night. Inside the building was an office, a counter and a storage area. It was littered with drills, grinders, rollers, sanders, pumps, ladders, jack hammers, etcetera.

My first big job was to learn the names of all the tools and equipment, so I could pick up the right thing to hand to a customer! It was a busy place. Often the first customers of the day were waiting when we arrived. We were doing well financially. Poverty Pete’s was a well-established business in an excellent location. At 8770 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, with a clear view of the HOLLYWOOD sign. Pete’s had been there for twenty-five years, originally as a used-car lot. All along, the railroad owned the property, maintaining a thirty-day lease on it–so there was no sense in building an expensive structure. Pete named his business “Poverty Pete’s”, printed humorous business cards and dressed like a tramp.

The Family Tree

Someone at Disney studios suggested that our children form a family music group. They recommended a choreographer, Alex Plasschaert, to help polish the act. Plasschaert had worked with the Osmond Brothers, the Jackson Five and several other groups, and we got in touch. The children had real potential.

Laura was a captivating, red-haired, freckle-faced eight-year-old with an independent spirit. Genevieve had beautiful brown eyes and blonde hair, and a flair for instant friendship with the whole world. Fran, the older sister, had an easy grace, natural and steady, and performed with pizazz. Sam, the youngest brother, had already organized his younger sisters to make home movies and sing songs together. He played the piano and taught them songs or manned the camera and directed their action. Robin and David had gone their separate ways. Robin played guitar and had written a couple songs himself, but had his own rock group with friends. Dave had wanted to learn string bass in school, but I stupidly talked him into taking cello instead. Robin and Sam were taking violin at the time, and I had visions of a string quartet. That wasn’t going to happen!

Alex heard the kids sing some of the songs we’d done for the Mountain View Friends Meeting in Denver, and was favorably impressed. He agreed to work with them and choreographed some numbers. He suggested that Dave play drums, and he would teach him! We came to an agreement; Alex was expensive, but our rental business was doing well so we could afford him. He helped us find a drum set and hired a music arranger to work on some songs with them. Dave became an excellent drummer!

The music arranger didn’t work out. I was totally disappointed in him; he didn’t write anything down, so we had nothing to guide our practice sessions after he left. Alex came back to work on choreography, and the kids didn’t know the songs he’d asked them to learn. When I explained why we had no music to work from, he fired the music arranger and the kids worked out their own arrangements. They knew how to harmonize, and did it well.

The Family Tree played several gigs in LA. Several night spots invited them to perform, two of the most popular being the Ice House, in Pasadena, and the Troubadour, in West Hollywood. They really looked to be on their way to stardom!

Uh-oh!

“The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry” (Robert Burns). The Family Tree was enthusiastically received by many in the entertainment industry. Our business at Pete’s Rental was thriving, the kids were doing well in school and we’d bought a great house in the San Fernando Valley–from Bo Diddley! It had its own studio and swimming pool. Life was good–no, life was great!

For a year and a half. Our lease with the railroad company was up for renewal. We knew that, but the business had been at the same place with the same lease for twenty-six years and we were confident it’d be renewed. Not so! The lease was cancelled and we received notice that we must vacate the property.

We found an empty lot on Venice Boulevard that we thought we could fix up and move into. It was cluttered with junk and a small office building on one side had lots of termite damage. We signed a lease and went to work. We called a local character called Tobacco John to come haul away the junk and installed a large chain link fence. We called in an exterminator and repaired the termite damage, then began moving equipment. We put up signs and printed flyers advertising the new location. Then we waited–and waited. Almost nobody came to our new location. Nobody!

Whadda We Do Now?

We were struggling at the new location; it was a nicer building and the lot was paved, but there wasn’t as much traffic and our flyers weren’t bringing in the customers. Word came from Boone that we had inherited the home place – a house on 20 acres of land, plus a separate tract of 13 acres a mile up the road, and we called a family meeting. Without a substantial income (substantial? How about NONE?) it was clear our savings wouldn’t support us for very long–so, what were our options?

(1) Stay put, and keep trying to build our business in the new location? We had a great house, with plenty of rooms for everybody and a large swimming pool, but a long commute to our business in heavy traffic.

(2) We could return to Denver. We had lots of friends there who would help us find a place to live, I could quickly find a teaching job and Ned could barber.

–or–

(3) go to Boone, where we had a house to move into and many beloved relatives.

Whatever choice we made, we’d have some money to help us get established from the sale of the tools and equipment we had in our business. We needed to decide quickly, however, because with no income we were currently living off our savings and what sales we had already made.

All the kids except Dave wanted to move to Boone, where they had uncles and aunts and cousins they knew and enjoyed from past family get-togethers. Dave wanted to return to Denver, where he had close friends. We opted for Boone, but Dave was 19, had many job skills and was pretty independent, so he went to Denver on his own—driving his Model A Ford truck! The rest of us piled into two pickup trucks, one with a camper on the back and the other hauling a trailer, and said goodbye to Los Angeles.

The Salton Sea

“We’re rolling! We’re rolling!” My fitful sleep was interrupted by my panicked daughter Genny. We were parked on gently sloping land overlooking the Salton Sea, and if we were rolling, I had to act quickly. A quick look out the window assured me that we weren’t rolling. The truck was in gear and the brake locked. Funny how the jostling of a long day of travel can trick a body into a sensation of motion, even long afterwards!

The Salton Sea was an accident. In 1900 canals for irrigation were cut into the Salton Sink to allow farmers to grow crops. In 1905, though, the Colorado River flooded and breached the headgates of the Alamo Canal. For two years the Colorado River flowed into the Salton Sink before it was contained. The water has remained, 350 square miles of it, 225 feet below sea level and saltier by the day.

Assured that we weren’t headed for a watery grave, we went back to sleep. We were heading back east, to Boone, in two pickup trucks, one carrying a camper and the other towing a trailer filled with all our worldly goods.

License? What’s that?

We’d left L.A. on January 25th, and our license plates had expired ten days earlier. We knew it, but hadn’t renewed. We were going to get North Carolina plates, and figured that once we were out of California nobody would notice.

I’d felt queasy when we left, but thought it’d pass. It didn’t. By the time we reached the Salton Sea I was very sick–so sick I’d have been an unsafe driver.

Robin didn’t yet have his license, but had driven the pickup trucks around the rental yard. He became the driver of one of the pickup trucks while Ned drove the other. Now we had two trucks and a trailer with expired plates, and one unlicensed driver! We were out of California before we had to stop for gas, and breathed easier after crossing the state line.

It’s a long way from California to North Carolina, and I recovered and took the wheel on the third day. The trip was uneventful until the last day, when we reached Watauga County.

Snowstorm

In the time since we’d left, everything had changed. Boone greeted us with a blizzard, and the street signs were covered with icy snow. We had trouble finding our road, so Ned and I pulled over. I watched him get out of his pickup, walk to the road sign, reach up and wipe off the snow. He signaled and nodded to me. This was Winkler’s Creek Road.

Welcoming Arms—1973

It’d been twenty years since Davy had celebrated his first birthday in Boone. I’d baked a pound cake, decorated it with white frosting and red candy hearts and invited his cousins, ages 5 to 9, to come to the party. They were wonderful playmates, and he had a memorable time. All the cousins were grown now and away at college, or had jobs, but Ned’s brother Collis lived just up the road from the old home place, and was waiting for us. He told us the home place wasn’t ready yet, and that Ned’s sisters were expecting us for dinner. Ned parked the trailer and we piled into the camper. We had dinner with Ella and Ralph, Daisy and Alf, Roxie and Collis. It was a homecoming. Boone was certainly home to Ned, and quickly became home to me and the kids as well.

Ned’s sisters Ella and Daisy had both moved, but their houses were just across the road from each other. After dinner, Ned and the boys went to Daisy’s to spend the night while the girls and I stayed at Ella’s. They made us feel so welcome, and helped us so much to get settled, that I knew I had the best in-laws in the world!

The Old Homeplace

The next day we went to the homeplace to begin moving in.

Begin where?

After unloading the trailer, we sat down to our overwhelming TO DO list. Some of our furniture was on the front porch. There wasn’t room for it in the house. Choosing what to keep and what to give or throw away was high on our list, but there was something far more urgent to consider. We needed to shut out the cold wind that blew across the meadow from the west. Through the years the clapboard siding on the house, built in 1904, had dried up and shrunk, leaving cracks between the boards. The floorboards had gaps too, so when the wind blew the curtains flapped and the linoleum on the floor rose in rhythm with the wind. Ned crawled under and stapled black plastic to the floorboards and we stapled it to the west side of the house as well. It looked terrible, but kept the wind out. We would later buy proper materials and supplies, but knew from our experience moving Pete’s Rental that money slips away very quickly with no steady income.

Ella & Ralph, Daisy & Alf, Roxie & Collis all helped. Ella and Daisy invited us frequently to watch TV. Collis was our nearest neighbor, and he dropped by nearly every evening. He’d visit a bit and ask us if there was anything we needed. He gave us a cow, and some advice. He’d always start with, “Y’all do whatever you want, but if it was me, I’d—“. I thought his advice very wise, but Ned usually remembered only the first part, and did whatever he wanted to!

We were looking forward to a pastoral life. We got a cow, a horse, two ponies, some goats, chickens, ducks. We planted a vegetable garden, got a wood-burning stove. Our home would be a self-supporting family farm like it had been before!

Delighted as we were to have the old home, it was a mixed blessing. We had a place to land, but it demanded an enormous amount of time, money and energy to make it livable. In spite of the loving welcome we received in Boone, the next few years were the hardest of all, for me and for some of our kids. Living in poverty presented many challenges I hadn’t thought about before. Our house was shabby, with torn screens, cracks in the walls, and rotting floors. I felt ashamed to invite anybody in, and even cringed when the school bus came by. Our car was noisy, and badly in need of paint. We tried to bolster our self-concepts by working hard and laughing at our difficulties, but the experience drove home to me what a devastating effect poverty can have on people. “Poor but proud” may be true for some people, but for me it was an empty phrase.

Embarrassment was a small part of the problem, though. A larger part was the never-ending hard labor. Without a substantial income to pay others, we had to do everything for ourselves. Our kids helped with so many chores: feeding the chickens, milking the goats, painting the house, washing clothes, mowing, grooming the ponies, hoeing the garden, installing insulation in the walls and the attic, paneling the walls, splitting wood for the stove and carrying out the ashes, trying to do it all and still look presentable for school and church. Ned was the only one who could milk the cow or work on the truck, and he jacked up one corner of the house and shored up the foundation. It was all so hard! We felt embarrassed and exhausted most of the time. It ain’t fun to be poor!

We couldn’t just leave black plastic stapled to the windy side to keep out the cold, and the floors in the bathroom and kitchen were rotting away. We also needed income. Once all the kids were registered in school I applied for a job as a substitute teacher, and Ned was hired as a barber. Our daily schedule was rigorous—rise early, fix breakfast, everyone dressed and out of the house by 7:30am. Go to work or school, come home, work on the house. There were jobs for everybody. Everyone painted; we put insulation and paneling on the interior walls and spread insulation in the attic. Most of our money went into the house. Summer came, which gave us a boost in time and energy, but less money since I wasn’t working.

Teaching and Barbering, Again

Daisy and Ella were both teachers, and introduced me to principals and administrators. Ella took me to the board of education and introduced me to the personnel director. They’d just opened a new school, Hardin Park Elementary. Ella was about to retire, and the thought of moving to a new school for just a year or two didn’t appeal to her so she retired early.

Ned and I got our North Carolina licenses and again began plying our trades: teaching and barbering. I was hired as a substitute teacher, and given a teaching contract the next fall. I’d had ten years of varied experience in Colorado, and would teach for twenty-three more years at Hardin Park School.

We were on a roll! With both of us working and the kids in school, we could afford improvements. We jacked up and braced the front third of the house, put on vinyl siding, had insulation blown into the walls and attic, put in paneling. We replaced the windows and doors, and put new floors in the kitchen and bathroom.

A Tragicomedy of Errors

Still, we bungled along. We flunked fence-building; we couldn’t keep the animals where they belonged. The chickens roosted on the back porch instead of in the henhouse, and the goats hung out on the front porch. The cow ran into the woods.

Every day when Ned came home from the barber shop he’d gather the family, and we’d go hunt for the cow. It was unclear what we were to do when we found her, so the couple of times anyone spotted her and called out “Here she is!”, she just ran deeper into the woods. Eventually Ned’s brother Collis lured her out with a bucket of feed.

One day I came in from the garden with collard greens for supper and found the chickens gathered on the kitchen table pecking at cornbread. I cleverly yelled, “Ooh, my lord! The chickens!”, whereupon they scattered all over the kitchen! It took quite awhile to get them all out!

On the last day of school, Fran had just hopped on the bus when she looked back and saw one of the goats pushing its way through the front door! She called Ned from school, and he left the barber shop to get the goat out of the house! He’d been meaning to fix that latch for some time…

For some reason Ned felt no urgency about fencing. I was outside one day with the post-hole digger trying to fix a broken-down fence while Ned was in the kitchen happily making jelly. I’d raise the post-hole digger high and bring it down into the rocky soil as hard as I could, yelling “DAMN women’s lib!” with every stroke. I finally got the fence fixed, but refused to eat his jelly!

Raining Cats & Dogs

It was one of those things we never meant to happen. We had a little beagle, Homer, a chihuahua mix, Linus, and two cats, a feral cat named Rebecca who lived in the barn and a tabby we called Mama Cat, but it’d never been a problem finding homes for the kittens. “Spay or neuter” wasn’t on our radar.

We then took in a stray female dog. She shortly presented us with a litter of pups, and we found homes for all but two. It wasn’t long before all three were in heat at the same time, attracting every male dog in the county. Soon we had about twenty adorable puppies!

In a less dramatic fashion, at the same time, our cats presented us with two litters of kittens. We struggled to place all the kittens and puppies, but there were too many. Finally, in desperation, we did what farmers have done for generations and drowned most of them in the creek. That very night, a beagle from down the road, whom Mama Cat had attacked and driven off several times, broke into the henhouse and killed all the chickens!

It’s one of the most painful episodes I’ve had to write about, and even forty years later I cry thinking about it. I lose no time, now, getting my new pets fixed!

Sam Goes Back to Hollywood

Danny Crystal, of United Artists, had shown great interest in Sam when we were in Hollywood, and after we returned to Boone he expressed a desire to help launch his career, if he’d come back to Hollywood. He could live at Danny’s to get started.

We were excited for Sam, and Ned did some promotion with a clever ad in “Variety”, but I had a tiny anxiety in the back of my mind. On the way to the airport, I said, “Sam, I think Danny Crystal is gay, and he may come on to you. If he does, you just say ‘No, I’m straight’, and I don’t think he’ll bother you.”

That may have been naive of me, but our good friend Jack Dorn again came to the rescue. Danny wasn’t a predator, but he had come on to Sam. When Sam said no, Danny didn’t want him to live at his house. Jack picked him up and took him to the Dorn house. Sam made rounds and reconnected with some contacts. He enjoyed his time back in Hollywood, but returned to Boone to finish high school and get ready to go to Yale.

Arthur Visits

Shortly after our move to North Carolina, Robin’s high school buddy Arthur came to live with us for several months, while his parents were going through a divorce. He enrolled at Watauga High School for the semester. In late summer he and Robin returned to Granada Hills for a visit, and in September Robin boarded the bus to Denver, with David’s girlfriend Liz in tow. They planned for Robin to continue to North Carolina and Liz to return to California the following week.

A Bizarre Homecoming

The clang of bells cut through the traffic sounds on the Blowing Rock Highway. Carol’s family was staying at the Cabana Motel, and we were outside readying to go to lunch. We looked in the direction of the bells and beheld a Model A truck, decked out with a string of bells, pulling into the gas station across the road.

“Hey, it’s Dave! And Robin’s with him!”

We ran across the road. After warm hugs, we learned that they were about to spend their last quarter on just enough gas to get them up Winkler’s Creek Road. We gassed up the truck and invited them to join us for lunch. What a joyful and hilarious family gathering! Carol, Pete and their daughters Kathy and Carol, Ned and I and our six sons and daughters. Dave and Robin told us of their adventures driving the Model A all the way from Denver to Boone, by a roundabout route that took them through both Nebraska and Oklahoma!

Thanksgiving in South Carolina

The boys returned from the West, and settled into life on the farm. In November, Ned and Robin drove to New York to do some schmoozing and take part in a reading of a work in progress by Ned’s friend Jude Benton. Jude was writing a play, later titled “Windmills”, which he presented at the New York Public Library.

While they were out of town, my sister invited us to spend the long Thanksgiving weekend at her house in Clinton, South Carolina. We all jumped at the chance to see Carol and Pete, their teenaged daughters, my cousin Kemie and her family, and my father, now in his seventies.

It was a wonderful season to visit the small town of Clinton, which the locals pronounced “Clennon”. Carol and Pete had a lovely house. Its sunken living room’s large picture window framed a woodsy backyard with a slate patio and goldfish pond. Nothing was in bloom in November, but several variegated evergreens provided color.

Carol and Pete were both talented artists. Carol’s vibrant, colorful paintings adorned the walls, and Pete’s lovely sculpture of a nude woman’s torso (my sister) was prominently placed. It was tasteful and well crafted, but I didn’t inspect it closely!

In one corner of the living room sat a grand piano, a quality stereo system and an egg-shaped chair for cocooning with headphones. We’d recently returned from Hollywood, and often gathered around the piano for sing-alongs. When we weren’t exploring the attractions of Clinton or visiting friends, one or another of the kids would curl up in the chair or sprawl under the piano listening to headphones. One afternoon Dave lay under the piano and Sam decided to play! At the first chord Dave jumped, cut his head on a corner and narrowly avoided leaving blood stains on their pretty beige carpet!

When our visit was over we piled into our spacious green Buick and headed up the mountain. The weather was mild for November, cloudy and drizzly most of the way, but as we made a sharp right turn at the Watauga County line the weather turned fierce. Around the corner the wind howled, the snow blew sideways and the road was icy and treacherous. I pulled over; Dave took the tire chains from the trunk. They were old, and didn’t fit very well. Dave had a rough time putting them on, but after several minutes we were on our way.

For a few miles.

Watauga Winters

We drove through Blowing Rock, and at the final intersection before going down the hill towards Boone, the Buick stopped, but its brake pedal went straight to the floor! Dave discovered that one of the chain clamps had come loose, and the chain had cut the brake line!

We were, fortunately, not far from a phone, and called Ned’s brother Collis to pick us up. He drove over in his four-wheel-drive Jeep, and the six of us crammed in on top of each other for the final eight miles!

The following winter, Ned was in New York acting in “Dark of the Moon”, and Dave had accompanied him. Sam was at Yale, Robin was out of town visiting, and the girls and I were getting ready for bed. Outside the wind was whipping up one of the worst blizzards I’d ever seen, and I was so glad we’d done all that work on the house! We were warm and toasty!

The telephone rang. A neighbor had seen our horse and ponies out on the road! The girls and I bundled up, climbed into the car and fought our way through the storm. We found them down by the shoe plant, a mile away.

We knew Charlie, the horse, would follow Laura if she reached up and grabbed his forelock; he always did. Gennie and Fran kept the ponies in line behind him, and I drove back, lighting the way. We finally got them back to the barn and secure for the night.

Fran had an after-school job at Carolina Pharmacy. One of the regular customers there, a farmer, had already asked her if we’d sell our horse. I said, “Fran, tell him you’ll sell him the horse if he’ll take the ponies, too”. He agreed. The next day I sold them all, without consulting Ned!

I’ve developed a great respect for farmers, but I don’t want to be one, ever again!

I also learned that those old, big, picturesque frame houses I’d always loved, were bottomless pits. Maintenance expenses were enormous, and there was ALWAYS something more to be done!

Hardin Park School

Although I was at the same school, my time at Hardin Park was as diversified as my time in Colorado. I eventually taught every grade level from one through eight, and also summer school. I supervised the after-school program for children six through twelve, and the community school program for adults one night a week.

North Carolina wanted to improve its students’ writing scores, and Appalachian State University offered instruction courses for teachers. I took classes on methods of writing, then led workshops for other teachers.

We had international visitors. A low murmur of voices floated through the air above the carpeted hallway as I escorted three Chinese past the media center (library) and the all-purpose room (cafeteria) to the open area that was designated as my classroom. These visitors were very special—the first wave of a student exchange program with Appalachian State University.

After President Nixon recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1972, the Chinese government lifted some of its restrictions on travel, and the university was quick to take advantage of them. Professor Williamson (whose daughter Pilar was in my class) took a group of students to China on a study trip, and a group of Chinese students came to study for a semester at Appalachian.

Ned met three of them, young men, at the barber shop, and invited them to our house for a meal, then to garden with us and share our vegetables. They were interested in everything! When they found out I was a teacher, they jumped at the chance to visit my class. My class was fascinated by our Chinese visitors, and they were fascinated by the children. There were lots of questions and answers, exchanged freely. Yes, China was a very big country. Almost one billion people! About four times as many as the United States!

After about an hour, it was time for the children to line up for gym class, and our visitors to go back to the university. They walked with us down the hall.

“This school is very quiet!” one commented. I agreed. It was indeed very quiet; we’d learned to work quietly because of the building itself.

Hardin Park School was on the cutting edge of modern education. New building. Open-area classes. Team teaching. Individualized education. Forward-looking principal, and gung-ho teachers—some of them! The team teachers—two or three together—occupied large open areas with groups of sixty to ninety students, or more. Interspersed were smaller areas, cordoned off by moveable bookshelves and coat closets. These were self-contained classes, with one of the more traditionally-minded teachers, of about thirty students each. We’d all learned to work quietly, so as not to disturb our neighbors.

I’d begun there as a substitute, teaching wherever I was needed, but soon signed a contract to team with another teacher at the fifth-grade level. After I’d taught there for some time, Dr. Anderson asked me what I thought of the new school. Not one to mince words, I replied that it was beautiful, but I found it very restrictive to be teaching in open areas.

“Restrictive!” he exclaimed, “It’s supposed to be just the opposite! How is it restrictive?”

“Well, I’m used to doing a lot of noisy activities with my kids—skits, songs, dancing, games—but even spirited class discussions get too loud and disturb my neighbors. I don’t think kids need to be sitting at their seats listening, reading and writing all the time.”

I wasn’t the only teacher who felt that way. It took some years, but eventually walls went up at Hardin Park School. Whirr-rr-r! Buzz-zz-z! BANG! BANG! Much of the construction went on while we were having classes, and I drew on knowledge I’d gained from working at our rental yard to explain the function and purpose of the construction tools that were attracting the attention of my kids. They couldn’t ignore the racket, so I used the setting as a teaching opportunity.

“That’s a nail gun. It uses high-pressure air from an air compressor to shoot nails into the 2×4” wood planks, which are called studs. The vibrating sander is used to smooth the walls. The little bag on the end is like a miniature vacuum cleaner which vacuums up the dust so it won’t get in our hair. The names of the tools are nouns. What they’re doing with them, verbs.”

Nobody would’ve said this was a quiet school while the construction was going on! We teachers weren’t complaining, though, we were getting WALLS!

Administrative Internship 1978-9

Financial need is a powerful motivator. I couldn’t make any more money as a teacher, and I was already moonlighting with a weekend job at a convenience store. I decided to take school administration and become a principal.

In 1978, with my coursework completed, I approached my administrative internship at the age of 48. I had 15 years of teaching experience and the naive eagerness of a student teacher of 21. I felt my background and preparation excellent, my motivation strong, my success assured.

My first conference with my principal reinforced my confidence. He had a positive attitude, respected me and was determined to provide for me a valuable experience. I knew, and liked, all the people I’d be working with—Jim Daye, the principal at Hardin Park, Carolyn Austin, the secretary, and J.D. Greene, the head custodian, in particular. I’d also met Mr. Propst, the new superintendent, the previous spring when I was chairwoman of the Liaison Committee and we’d helped write the new Grievance Procedure guidelines.

In spite of these indications, I floundered. I couldn’t launch myself. My principal was willing to help, but was very busy. I’d been told to come into the office during P.E. time and observe, and did, several times. I got a pretty good feel for the work, but couldn’t figure where I fit in. I was eager to help and didn’t want to be a hindrance, but could see nothing I might do to be helpful except stay out of the way. I waited for someone to ask me to do something. Nobody did. By the end of my year, though, I felt accepted.

The major reason for my initial floundering was that I’d failed to review carefully the materials given to me by my supervising professor. I checked items off my list, but didn’t send in weekly reports. I’m not usually that haphazard and am at a loss to explain why, but I didn’t remember that I was supposed to be sending a report every week until my professor asked! A second reason was my lack of assertiveness. I can take charge of a situation and be a strong leader if asked, but I’ve always preferred to wait and watch until then. This wasn’t a situation for waiting and watching. I needed to assert myself, to keep bugging people so that they couldn’t forget I was there and wanted to work. After such a poor start, I made another mistake by failing to promptly notify my professor that I was having problems. After I told him I was having difficulty getting involved, it improved. Self-reliance is a good thing, but sometimes it’s necessary to seek help. Once I got past the initial difficulties, though, fortuitous circumstances made my internship rich and rewarding.

I’d met with the new superintendent the previous spring, but worked much more closely with him now. Throughout the year I also met with members of the school board, principals and other leading educators in the county. Additionally, our school was starting a self study for Southern Association accreditation, and I was appointed to the Steering Committee, the Philosophy and Objectives Committee, and the Science Committee. Now I found out what was involved in a Southern Association self study!

Snow days were also helpful. I’d work with the principal or his assistant on whatever needed doing, without interruption.

Once they realized what I needed and wanted, everyone at Hardin Park was helpful. I interviewed the head custodian, the lunchroom manager, the librarian and the assistant principal about their work. The school secretary explained the records and let me work on “dummy” records. Finally, the principal was an excellent mentor, willing to discuss his job and trusting me with the charge of the building. At the end of the year we worked on preparations for the next year, including teacher assignments and schedules. It was a very special experience!

In November, Gary Childers was named assistant principal of Parkway School. I assumed his position as coordinator of the After School Program, and also became Community School Coordinator on Tuesday nights.

The After School Program was much more than child care. It offered sports & recreation, crafts, music, drama and other activities, taught mostly by college students. As coordinator, I supervised, evaluated, assisted and instructed the teachers, recruited new ones and asked one for his resignation. I worked with the custodian to keep the building clean and secure, sometimes locking up at night.

I wasn’t satisfied with the safety in the gym, conferred several times with P.E. teachers on the proper usage and procedures for gym equipment, and made suggestions to improve safety after school. I dealt with discipline problems, sick and injured children and contacted parents as necessary. I kept the attendance records and handled the money, received messages and deliveries and compiled a monthly report on building use. In short, I was in charge of the school from 3 to 6 every afternoon and from 3 to 10 on Tuesdays.

The additional job enhanced my internship, and helped our finances. When the night custodian got injured, however, I had to do the nightly walk-around to assure all the doors were locked. It was a big building, taking up about an acre of land, and I suggested to the head custodian that I check all the doors and windows from the inside of the building. He replied, mildly but firmly, “I think you need to walk around the outside.” I did—with my heart in my throat! It was dark and lonely!

Keeping Them Safe
Learning is the stated purpose of the public school system, but all those children must also be kept safe. Fire was the most recognized threat when I was a child. so we had fire drills. When the bell sounded in short, staccato peals we immediately lined up and walked quietly outside. The teacher called the roll and we listened for the “all clear” signal before walking back in and resuming class. It was still a part of the school routine when I began teaching, and I’d grab my roll book on the way out.

In the fifties, we feared our country might be attacked, and began evacuation drills. The signal was different, and though the procedure began the same way, the children were loaded onto buses and driven around the block. This drill was complicated and wasteful, and was soon abandoned in favor of Duck and Cover.

In this drill, the signal was given and everyone, including the teacher, ducked under their desk and put their hands over their heads to protect themselves from shrapnel or falling debris. Duck and Cover was designed to be used in case of nuclear attack, but also could be used in case of earthquakes or tornadoes.

But what if someone planted a bomb in the school? We received a telephone call with such a threat, which turned out to be bogus, but couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the next could be real. At the next faculty meeting we had a plan. The office would call 9-1-1 and report the emergency, then one teacher would evacuate two classes, freeing the other teacher to help search the building. I was assigned to search the library. If I found anything that might be a bomb, the instructions were emphatic: “DON’T TOUCH IT! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE AND REPORT ITS LOCATION!”

The library!?! With its hundreds of books on shelves?! How could I possibly check behind all those books? I was pondering this question as I drove home, and then noticed the rear-view mirror! I stopped at the auto parts store, and prepared for my role.

It worked perfectly! At the next bomb scare, my class left with Mr. Surber’s and I pulled the mirror out of my desk drawer. By the time the bomb squad arrived, I’d checked behind the books on every bookshelf and under every chair and table. In five minutes I was done. The library was clear!

Tornadoes were the next worry. At the signal, we used the duck and cover position, but huddled next to the strongest available interior wall, away from the windows.

We had the plan, but hadn’t yet devised the signal. In the meantime, it was business as usual.

I had a film to show to my social studies class, and we were under a storm warning. I didn’t know that Miss Darnall, who was hard-of-hearing, had been last to use the projector. The film started with a siren, which blasted forth at high volume! Before I could turn it down, Mrs. Knight’s class, next door, had all tumbled to the wall in the duck and cover position!

Sorry! My bad!

By the turn of the century, terrorists with guns became the next threat. Schools were locked down. I was retired, but when I went to pick up my grandson I had to press a buzzer and identify myself to the office. It felt strange, and I was sad. Yet another threat challenged our schools!

Godspell—1978
Robin was attending classes at Appalachian State University when the drama department decided to present the musical Godspell. Robin auditioned, and landed the lead—the role of Jesus!

During the weeks the show was in rehearsal, a rock group came to do a concert in Johnson City, Tennessee. Robin went to the concert and picked up a metal cigar tube outside the arena, which someone had dropped. The cops searched him, and found LSD in the tube. He was busted!

The judge didn’t believe his story, but didn’t want to spoil the show. He sentenced Robin to prison, but suspended it until the weekend after “Godspell” was over.

Robin did a beautiful job portraying Jesus. He sang, danced, acted the role and then reported to Johnson City to serve six months in prison!

The Christmas Tree Farm
One of my professors at ASU was retiring and moving back to Georgia. He had a Christmas tree farm that he needed to sell, and Ned and I decided to buy it. The sale of Christmas trees each year would make the payments on the land. The property was lovely. Gently rolling hills, around a good-sized lake. We’d work in the trees, then enjoy a swim and a picnic afterwards.

There was  lot of work; much more than we’d imagined. We went to a workshop and learned how to manage the tree farm. The trees had to be trimmed and shaped every year. They had to be cleared of weeds and grass, and when some trees were harvested, more had to be planted. We had lots of help. We taught our sons, and hired their friends to help.

Dave went to Austin, Texas and found a good location, then negotiated with the woman who lived there to rent her lot. Ned and Dave then went down to set up each year. We’d wanted to make the payments on the land come due each January, but the sellers insisted on October payments, so every year we had to take out a 90-day loan to pay the professor.

The day after Thanksgiving we’d cut trees, tie them in bundles and load them into a U-Haul van. Dave and Ned then drove to Austin, set up the lot, arranged radio and newspaper publicity and sold trees. We re-used the name of our music group, The Family Tree, for our business. It was fun and profitable, and when visitors came in the summertime, we’d take them to the lake for a picnic and swim.

One hot summer day Ned and I trimmed pines all morning. Trimming pines is far more vigorous than trimming Fraser firs. It’s done by swinging a large knife through the tips of new growth while walking around the tree. We worked up quite a sweat, then Ned bought some broccoli plants on the way home and asked me to help set them in the garden.

“I’m tired. Let’s have lunch and rest, and we can do that later.”

“No. We need to do it now. The plants will die if we don’t set them out.” I reluctantly went with him to the garden.

My muscles soon started twitching and I said, “Honey, I think I’m about to have a fit.” I had a seizure, and passed out.

I woke up in the emergency room. With all that hard work in the blazing sun, sweating profusely, I’d depleted my potassium. I learned to pace myself, and Ned learned that I meant it when I said “I’m tired!”

We had lots of adventures with our tree farm. Some were fun, some worrisome. Finally, one year we cut a Christmas tree for the house. When Ned was unloading it, he had a severe asthma attack. I took him inside, gave him medicine, then went to get the tree myself. I also started choking up! We’d both developed an allergy to Christmas trees! We realized we’d have to get out of the Christmas tree business and, for the first time ever, bought an artificial tree!

Curses! Foiled Again!
It was clear we couldn’t continue in the Christmas tree business, but we could still get a nice supplement to our retirement income by selling the tree farm and carrying the loan ourselves.

It didn’t take long to find a buyer. We had several congenial meetings with a young man and his minister, who wanted this beautiful land for church picnics and perhaps someday a building lot. The trees would pay for the land, and we set up the loan with the payments due in January for their convenience.

Dave warned us.

We could sit back and enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas now, without all that extra work, so we breathed a sigh of relief, though we did have nostalgia for all the fun we’d had swimming and picnicking at our very own lake.

Pangs of nostalgia became pangs of anxiety when January came. No payment! What?!

We drove to the tree farm, and found it was no longer a tree farm. ALL the trees had been cut down! ALL!

When we tried to contact the buyers, both telephones had been disconnected.

It cost us $4,000 in legal fees to take back the now-barren land.

Family Diaspora
In the 1970s and 1980s our family scattered all over the United States and its territories, and sometimes beyond. When David arrived in North Carolina at the end of 1973, he had trouble finding work and soon joined the Navy. He went first to boot camp and training school at the Great Lakes center, outside of Chicago, then was assigned to the flagship oiler of the fleet, the Ponchatoula, which took him first to Guam and later to Hawaii. After meeting his future wife, the two of them lived first at “Snag End”, our property at the bottom of Snaggy Mountain outside Boone, and later moved to Alamance County, North Carolina.

After some time in Boone and South Carolina, Robin married Anne Sutherland and they moved to Colorado; eventually they ended up in Sugar Grove, NC, where they raised their family.

Sam went to Yale University in Connecticut, then after graduation moved to New York City and played piano for a living for the next twenty years.

Frances went to Michigan State, then spent a summer at Yale, twice went to Spain and then moved back to Snag End, where she married and lived next to David and Perri. She had four children, then moved to Arizona, divorced, moved to Alamance County and married an old childhood friend, Rob Crutchfield. They moved to Panama, where Frances found work, and later moved into George Wallace’s former home in Montgomery, Alabama.

Genevieve married a Japanese man, Suzuki. The two of them lived in Boone and later Florida, but after a vacation in Japan and a visit to San Francisco, Suzuki stayed in San Francisco. They divorced. Genny moved to Connecticut, then New York City. She lived there for several years before attending Warren Wilson College in Asheville. Afterwards, she married, moved back to Boone and had a son.

Laura went to Warren Wilson College before Genevieve, and after graduation took a job as a recruiter for Tusculum College in Tennessee. While there she met a football coach, Tom Bryant, whom she later married. They had two sons, and for the next several years followed Tom’s fortunes through Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina and Georgia.

In 1978, I attended the 30th anniversary of my high school graduation, in Ocala, Florida. It was great fun to reconnect with old friends and compare notes. The program leaders asked several questions—who’d been married the longest? Who had the most children? Who’d traveled the farthest? One of my friends had an impressive seventeen kids, but since they were foster children she declined the award and insisted that I should receive it for my six.

It was asked, How many of your kids are still at home? I found it hard to say, because they’d go away, but kept returning! Many of my classmates also expressed confusion. I was taking a graduate course in sociology that summer, and asked my professor if this was a common phenomenon. He responded that it’d make an interesting study.

Would I like to do it?

I was curious, but not that curious! I could barely keep up with the comings and goings of my own kids! In the seventies and eighties we often had one or two unrelated people living with us as well; the number of occupants in our house varied from two to ten!

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings
My son Robin was preparing to marry Anne Sutherland. She had a complicated family history, presenting several potential wedding glitches which I’d hoped to smooth over. Anne’s father had died in a street racing accident when Anne was a baby, before her sister had been born. Susie, her mother, was quite young, and when her father died his parents obtained custody of Anne. She was raised by her grandparents, who for a long time wouldn’t let Susie even see Anne, but by the time Anne met Robin, Anne was on good terms with her mother, her younger sister, her mother’s husband and a younger half-brother.

I talked with Susie about the wedding. As the mother of the groom, I wanted to be sure to get corsages for everyone who should have them. There was one for Susie, the mother of the bride, but also one for Erle, the grandmother who had raised Anne. I didn’t want to leave anyone out, so there was also a corsage for Susie’s mother—but when Erle saw all the corsages she declined to put hers on. I picked up Erle’s corsage, and with a big welcoming smile, said, “Allow me the honor of pinning your corsage on you.”

It was a lovely wedding. There was a bluegrass band and dancing at the reception, with no unpleasantness.

My niece Kathy was about to be married in Clinton, South Carolina. My dad was living at the Presbyterian Home in Summerville, and had expressed reservations about traveling.

“I might die,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the wedding.”

“Well, Ted,” replied his companion,  “Clinton is just as nice a place to die as Summerville. She’s your granddaughter. You should go.”

He told us about this conversation, and Ted Jr. joked, “It wouldn’t have to spoil the wedding. We could have a double ceremony.”

Pete, a Presbyterian minister and father of the bride, chimed in, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together to marry this young couple and bury this old man!”

They were married, and all went well.

Despite his apprehensions about dying at Kathy’s wedding, my father moved to  the Presbyterian Home in Clinton three years later, and soon afterward married a fellow resident, Lucile Neely. At first he was indignant that the other residents were teasing them, not believing they were “just friends”, but a few weeks later announced they’d taken a drive in the country and decided to marry. Pete remarked that he’d like to know whether my dad had proposed in the front seat, or the back!

The wedding was scheduled on a Sunday at noon, just after church services. Dad wanted all his children and grandchildren to attend the services, so we did. It’s difficult for a minister to write something inspiring every week, and this service wasn’t the best. After we’d sat through it all and were heading to the front for the wedding, my sister Carol whispered in my year, “Dad has just made sure all of his family came to church for one last time!” I agreed!

Genny had an interesting idea for her wedding reception. I wasn’t sure how it’d be received, but we rented a large hall and had a contra dance! I’d never heard of a contra dance, but it seemed to be a local term for a square dance, like the ones we had at Transylvania Music Camp. Almost everyone joined in, but even the guests who weren’t dancing enjoyed the festivities. It was a great way to wind things up.

During the next twenty-five years my father, my four nieces, my three daughters and all my sons married, some more than once and one not for many years afterward. There were twelve formal weddings and three elopements. I won’t describe them all, except to say the brides were beautiful, the grooms were handsome, the music was lovely, and everyone was nervous and excited!

Births, Births, More Births!
During the 80s, grandchildren started making the scene, and they were wonderful! Our first grandchild was Robin and Anne’s baby Grant born July 11th, 1982. He was followed less than two years later by a little brother, Jordan (March 3rd, 1984). They often visited us at the homeplace, and spent a lot of time by the pond catching frogs and crawdads. They would ride with Ned on the garden tractor, and both loved to sing. Once when Sam and his partner Rob LaRocco were visiting with their friend Georgia Louis, we set up the sound system and sang for each other—especially Georgia, who was a fantastic singer of black gospel songs. Shortly after the “concert”, I noticed Grant by himself in the next room, using a hairbrush for a mike and singing away!

About two months after Jordan was born, Frances gave birth to James, who on April 29th, 1984 made his appearance on Ned’s 59th birthday—of course! Since Fran, my first daughter, had been born on her grandmother’s birthday, it was only fitting that her first-born son should arrive on his grandfather’s! A year and a half later, on November 23rd, 1985, along came James’s little brother Corey. Fran and Kevin moved to Arizona shortly afterward, and on February 25th, 1988 Fran gave birth to twins, Adah and Sarah. They were premature, and had to be delivered by Caesarian section. All were hospitalized, so I flew down to Arizona to see the babies and help Kevin with the boys. Sarah seemed pretty healthy, but Adah’s lungs weren’t fully developed and she was on oxygen for a long time, even after they were allowed home from the hospital.

Back in Boone, a year later, grandchild number seven was born. Anne presented to Grant and Jordan a beautiful little sister, Noelle, on November 22nd, 1989; one day before her cousin Corey’s fourth birthday.

After Noelle, it would be five years before the next grandbaby. In the spring of 1993, Laura married Tom, and I attended their wedding in a wheelchair because I’d broken my ankle, which also caused me to postpone a trip to Russia. I left in June of 1994, and when I returned a month later had a new grandson, Austin, born on the Fourth of July, 1994.

Laura’s second baby was threatening to come too soon and she had been put to bed by her doctor. It was a very busy time for Tom, too, with football season starting, so I was glad I could go there in June of 1996, take over the household chores and look after two-year-old Austin. Champ made the scene on the 15th of September, and I stayed over for awhile to help with the baby before returning to Boone.
The next grandchildren began to arrive two and a half years later when Dave’s wife Perri gave birth to Edward on May 7th, 1999. Perri’s mother Jan was able to be there for them, and I enjoyed getting to know her when I went to visit.

Two years later Genny had Tristan, on March 29th, 2001. Her husband Seth and I were both present, and the midwife had Seth catch the baby while I cut the cord. It was very special for me, but also distressing because she had a long, hard labor and I didn’t like to see her in so much pain. I wanted to give her something, but they used other means to relieve pain—getting into a tub of warm water, lying tummy down on a big beach ball and so forth. I once had to leave the room and take a walk in the hall; it had been easier for me to go through natural childbirth myself than to watch my daughter! It was also not until I had my fourth child that I delivered without any anesthesia, and this was her first! The moment of crowning was very exciting, though, and I felt privileged to be present. I now had eleven grandchildren, eight boys and three girls.

A little more than two years passed until the closing act for the births of the grandchildren, with the arrival of Edward’s little sister, Clara Kate, on June 11th, 2003. All my grandchildren were adorable, but I once made the comment to Dave that I thought Clara Kate invented cute!

Our Hippie Commune
During the years of the tree farm and the family diaspora, Snag End gradually became well-populated.

Dave had been hitch-hiking around the country, meeting other hippies. There were Christmas trees planted at the homeplace, and at Snag End, that had to be worked and harvested to be sold in Austin, Texas. There was a spring, and a dirt road that crossed the creek and headed up the far mountain.

Dave had met Jake and Jody in Arizona, on one of his hitchhiking adventures. The following December Dave and Ned met Kevin while they were selling trees in Austin, and who should pull through but Kevin’s friends—the same Jake and Jody! The following spring Jake and Jody visited Boone, with their little girl Magic, parking in our driveway in a camper. The following year they arrived with a second little girl, and parked their school bus at Snag End.

After Christmas tree season the next year Dave decided to move to Snag End, and pitched a tent. Shortly afterward, he met Perri. Dave and Perri then lived in the tent while they dug and built an earth lodge across the road from Jake, Jody, Magic, Mystic and a third baby, Enoch, who was born in the school bus with Perri’s assistance.

Shortly before Enoch’s birth Kevin arrived, running from the law in Texas. He met Frances, and within a couple of months they were married, and with our help bought a trailer, which they parked at the entrance to Snag End. Soon afterward, a couple who were students at the college pitched a teepee there, and another student pitched a tent.

By now you may be wondering how large that spring was, and what about heating the water? Good thinking! Everybody came to the home place to shower, wash clothes, and socialize. It all worked well. Except when it didn’t.

Once their bus was parked, Jake and Jody needed transportation, so Ned gave them the use of our four-wheel drive Suburban. In a moment of beer-inspired effusiveness, he said to Jake, “You are my son.”

Dave, Ned’s actual son, was working on the driveway, which had become muddy and impassable. Jake wouldn’t help, saying, “The beast can make it through the mud.”

“But that tears up the drive even more!” countered Dave.

Jake didn’t care. He’d misunderstood the pecking order of the community, imagining himself to be in control. It was time for Ned to step into the fray and explain how things worked.

“Jake, I may have misled you. Dave is my son, and what’s mine is his. He owns that land, and he’s in charge of it. The Suburban too. You have the use of the land and the car, as long as you cooperate with Dave.”

That settled that.

Another time, Ned got a telephone call.

“He WHAT?!! – No!

Kevin had gotten angry at the power company, and had taken a chain saw to the pole nearest the trailer. Good lord! What madness!

Ned negotiated with the power company, and got the pole replaced.

Eventually, Jake and Jody moved on, Fran and Kevin moved to Arizona and Dave and Perri moved to Alamance County. We rented the trailer, and Dave and Perri rented out the earth lodge. We became landlords again.

We had our “hippie commune” for several years. When Fran and Kevin moved to Arizona, Genny and Seth moved into the trailer. Eventually, they moved on as well. The trailer then held no permanent residents, but still provided overnight accommodations for family visits.

It was, however, one more thing to take care of. If the heater wasn’t working, the plumbing would freeze. Besides general maintenance, there were the on-going bills for the electricity, telephone and lawn care. Rats got in, and made a big mess. The plumbing froze, and broke, flooding the bathroom and living room. One very wet season, the well filled up and “went artesian”, bubbling up and flooding the driveway. I started looking at it as more of an obligation and less of a convenience.

Then, one day out of the blue, two men came to the house wanting to talk about some property I owned up the road. It didn’t take very long for us to come to satisfactory terms. We visited Dusty Stacy, whom I had taught in the sixth grade and was now an attorney at law, to finalize the sale.

NC Star
I always enjoyed having visitors come to my classroom. The kids and I considered  it a special treat to have a parent come and tell us about his or her trip to “faraway places with strange-sounding names”. They often brought souvenirs to show, or slides to illustrate the scenes they were describing. It was interesting to hear a different perspective.

When the school counselor asked me if I’d allow three university students to come to my classroom to lead some self-concept activities, I agreed. They’d been trained by an organization called NC Star, were eager to practice what they’d learned, and were to come for four sessions. I’d worked with many student teachers before, and had enjoyed helping them learn the ropes.

This didn’t turn out the way I’d anticipated. I introduced the three students to the class, then sat at the back of the room while they took over. They laid out their ground rules, and I knew they were headed for trouble.

Their first rule was confidentiality. Anything anyone said was to stay in the room.

Excuse me? Here are thirty-two eleven-year-old boys and girls and you think they’re not going to tell anyone what was said in this class?
Their second rule was freedom of expression. Say whatever you want and express your feelings.

Uh-0h! You can’t be serious!

Their third rule was privacy. The teacher was to leave the room. This was just between the students, and them.

Not gonna happen! It was intervention time. The class had been getting rowdier with each new rule, but the student leaders were either oblivious or simply accepted their behavior. I stepped in and called an end to the session.

After school, I called on one of the students to request that they come in and let me give them some help with group management before another session.  They declined, assuring me they’d been adequately trained, I assured them they had not, and couldn’t come back to my class if they wouldn’t accept my help and abide by my rules.

I thought that was the end of that. It wasn’t!

I got a phone call at home from Bob Bingham, chair of the school board. “Roberta, what is this business about NC Star? We have a parent complaint, and I thought I’d get your input before the next board meeting. It’s going to be on the agenda. The parents want us to change our policy concerning volunteers in the classroom. What happened? I understand you had some NC Star students come to your room.”

I told him what had happened in my room, and that they weren’t coming back. There were a couple other teachers who’d accepted NC Star students, and I didn’t know how it had gone for them. Would he like me to come to the board meeting?
He would, and I did.

There were a hundred or more parents at the meeting. They wanted a policy that volunteers would present a written lesson plan to the school board for approval, a month before a presentation. The board allowed two or three parents to speak, and then called on me.

I agreed the experience wasn’t a good one for my class, but said we didn’t need a new policy. The policy worked. I’d offered them more of the training in group management which I’d given my student teachers, but they’d declined and weren’t coming back. I said we didn’t want a policy that would make it hard to recruit volunteers, because most of them were wonderful assets to education.

And that was the end of that!

1982
“Sam, how’s your love life? Are you and Patience going to get married?”

Sam was home on a visit from New York City and we were having a late night chat before turning in.

“No. Dad embarrassed me last summer by asking her that question. She wanted to, but I never asked. I’m in love with this guy—the one who’s been calling every night. I broke up with Patience.”
Omigod! I thought. Danny Crystal was right! Sam’s gay!
To him I simply said, “Really? So you’re gay?”

“You never guessed I was gay?”
“No. If you recall, I said for you to ‘Just tell him you’re straight’ if Danny Crystal came on to you.”

“And that’s what I did. But that was then. I was just a kid.”

“Well, anyway, tell me about this guy. What’s his name? When did you two meet? Does he live in New York?”

That’s how I first heard of Rob LaRocco, and it was the beginning of a very warm and rewarding friendship.

A Visit to New York
On my spring break, I went to New York City and stayed at a hotel in Seacaucus, New Jersey. It was a short bus ride to my favorite spots in Manhattan, and a great chance to visit Sam and get acquainted with Rob.

I felt very much at home in the city, walking the streets and riding the subways, so I assured Sam and Rob they wouldn’t have to entertain me, but Sam took several days off work. His friend Georgia Lewis, a black woman, terrific gospel singer, came from Connecticut to meet me. The three of us spent the day in Central Park and the Museum of Natural History. Rob later arranged for us to  join his friends, Saletta and Clyde and their families, for a very large home-cooked dinner, and on another evening Sam, Rob and I took in a play. I had a great time! Spring break in Manhattan became an experience I repeated several times!

That October Sam, Rob, Georgia and Genny (who was also living in New York City) came to Boone. We went to Linville Caverns one afternoon, then came home to a big dinner with Robin, Anne and their son Grant, who was just a toddler. We set up microphones afterwards and gave an impromptu concert for each other. Georgia had just finished “His Eye is on the Sparrow” when we looked around and realized—where’s Grant? We heard him. He’d gone into the next room, picked up a hairbrush and was holding it like a microphone, singing at the top of his voice! That may have been his first solo, but it wasn’t the last! The visit from Sam and Rob in October became a family tradition for many years.

My Eyes—1986
I began to have trouble grading papers because I couldn’t see the writing. I wrote notes on a few papers, “Is this a number two pencil?” and “Please write darker.” It didn’t occur to me that the problem was with my eyes, until I went to renew my driver’s license! I had trouble with the eye test, and made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, Dr. Miller.

Cataracts?!

I shouldn’t have been surprised. My mother, my aunt Adah, and my great-aunt Pink had all had cataracts. That, however, was only the beginning of a long and complex relationship with my ophthalmologist. Once again I was grateful for the great strides made in modern medical technology, diagnosis and treatment.

My great-aunt Pink was blind when I met her. I was six years old.

“Come here, child, and let me see what you look like.” I stepped forward and she gently ran her fingers over my face.

“She has Robert’s forehead,” she said.

My mother wore big thick glasses after her cataract surgery, but she could see. I got to choose—glasses to read, or glasses for distance? I now have reading glasses, but got them only after my eyes had presented many challenges to Dr. Miller, and he used many high-tech instruments to meet them.

On one office visit, I was to have a cryo treatment for a torn retina. The retina is frozen at several points around the tear, to make it stick to the back of the eye and not detach. Dr. Miller’s nurse Kay and a cute little nursing student were in the room, and Kay started explaining to the student what they were to do. “Do you know what the retina is? Have you studied the eye yet?”

I was astonished. My fifth-graders could label the pupil, iris, lens, retina and optic nerve on a diagram. I thought that much was basic education.

I was appalled to hear the student expressing uncertainty, and Kay explaining, “Well, it’s like the film in a camera.” She then attached a teaching lens to the microscope “so you can see” and encouraged the student to ask questions, because “Dr. Miller likes to teach.”

Dr. Miller arrived and the procedure began. As he worked he let the student watch and carefully explained what he was doing, but in five-syllable words that had to have gone way over the head of someone who, five minutes before, hadn’t known what a retina was!

The First Divorce
After the birth of the twins, I had to leave Kevin and Fran in Arizona and return to my job in Boone, but I worried about them. Kevin was drinking a lot, was short-tempered with the boys and seemed to have no affection for the girls, smoking around them even when Adah was on oxygen and referring to her as “an obnoxious baby” when she cried. I stopped sending money to help them because Kevin would spend it on alcohol and drugs. I sent it instead to a minister whose church was actively helping the “desert people”. I wanted Fran to leave Kevin and bring the kids to live with Ned and me, but she refused because, I found out later, the minister to whom I was sending money was telling her it was her “wifely duty” to stand by her man and help him overcome his addictions. Finally one day Kevin took a chef’s knife which had been a gift from Suzuki, threatened Fran and the babies, and cut off Fran’s hair.

Fran and the children left, stopping only when they reached Dave and Perri’s house. They put her, the four babes and their kitten in a rather large but low-ceilinged room in their attic, where she lived for a few months while getting her life back in order. When the divorce came through, she married an old childhood friend, Rob Crutchfield.

Glasnost and Perestroika—1989
What an exciting time to be teaching social studies! My curriculum was on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. There was a sharp division between East and West. At the end of World War II, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had met and decided how to rebuild and govern a devastated Europe. Two world wars had been started by Germany, so it was decided Germany should be split and occupied by the Allies. Americans and British occupied West Germany and the countries to the west while the Soviets occupied the territories to the east. Berlin, which was in East Germany, received special consideration and was divided separately, with West Berlin occupied by the Americans and British, and East Berlin by the Soviets.

It soon became clear that Stalin had his own ideas, establishing what Churchill referred to as an “iron curtain”. Stalin established extremely repressive regimes in the east. People were fleeing in droves, so he put up barbed wire and stationed armed guards at the borders. He attempted to force West Berlin into his sphere by blocking all the highways and railroads, but the West responded with the Berlin Airlift, flying in supplies to keep the city alive and safe. The Soviets built a wall through the city to separate East from West, and Kennedy visited and said in a famous speech, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). America would not abandon Berlin.

With the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as head of the Soviet Union, things began to change. Gorbachev wanted to end the repression of the Stalin era and presented a  radically different, tripartite program. Its principles were glasnost (openness), perestroika (restructuring), and demokratizatsiya (democratization).
This program brought new hope to the repressed people of Russia and Eastern Europe, and the floodgates to freedom opened. The people rose up against tyranny, deposed despots, split up old nations, formed new ones. The social studies textbook became obsolete.

I put up bulletin boards with clippings from newsmagazines, made copies of maps of the new countries, taught from the news media. My kids embraced the plan, bringing in columns and reports to add to our bulletin boards, sparking discussions.

Coöperation and Competition
A fellow teacher in Adams County had her expertise questioned when a parent asked, “Is this your first year teaching?”. She  replied, “I think first-year teachers are the best, because they’ve just had all those education courses and it’s still fresh in their minds! Don’t you agree?”

We discussed this. “Don’t feel bad because someone criticized you, that comes with the territory. With rocket science, only a few people feel they are qualified to judge. Everyone went to school, so nearly everyone feels they know how to teach. You’ll get criticism, and you’ll get praise. Listen, and learn things or discard them, but don’t get hurt feelings. Education courses give a good foundation, but you build on it for the rest of your career. The best thing about teaching is that you keep on learning!”

I’ve learned much from other teachers and from parents, and have always felt coöperation to be vital. Sometimes that coöperation is stifled when a spirit of competition gets in the way.

I’d been teaching in Boone for only a couple years when I was nominated for Teacher of the Year. I was honored, but declined. I was still the new kid on the block.

It wasn’t a selfless act. I feared that others might be less willing to share ideas with me if we were in competition. I didn’t want to interfere with our spirit of coöperation.

Years later, I was one of three sixth-grade teachers who shared certain classes. Each of us taught language arts, but our students changed for math, science and social studies. Our preparation time, and needs for varieties of teaching materials, was thus more manageable. It occurred to me, though, that both of the other teachers had won awards–Marilyn in mathematics and Gail in science–and I didn’t want to seem inferior.

In Raleigh, NC, the Children’s Museum offered a “Teacher of the World” award. Each year one primary, one middle grade and one high-school teacher received it for teaching about the world. This was right up my alley!

I had to write an essay, a scope and sequence for the year, a sample lesson plan and submit a video of myself and my classes. The video was a problem.
Coincidentally, the daughter of a professor at Appalachian State University, Joe Murphy, was in my class. I’d let a couple of his students work on a project in my class, and I called him to ask for his video tips.

“That sounds like a good project for some of my graduate students,” he said.
It was amazing! Four grad students came and videotaped me teaching, leading a computer lab, playing “Simon Says” in four languages, and discussing “pen pals” with a group. I knew I had the best video! And I won!

My Trip—1994
I was chosen as the 1992 Teacher of the World by the Children’s Museum About the World in Raleigh, and won a three-week trip to any country I chose to visit. I taught sixth grade social studies, which focused on Europe and Eurasia, and so many changes were going on there that I wanted to see them for myself.

I’d been studying Russian and corresponding with a Russian teacher of English who had invited me to visit, so I chose Russia. I’d also studied Spanish, German and French and was eager to use those languages as well, so I added Spain, Germany and France to the itinerary at my expense. I took along my two grandsons, aged ten and twelve, to get a child’s view of things, and to make it easier to meet children of other countries as we traveled. Bringing along the boys, Grant and Jordan, made it easier to meet adults, too!

Amsterdam
The educational benefits began during our flight from New York to Amsterdam. Our plane had a large computer display which charted our ever-changing location, along with the speed, altitude and outside air temperature. We left New York at bedtime but were much too excited to sleep, so we watched the screen with fascination, looking out the window now and again for possible lights and landmarks. Before we knew it, sunlight was streaming through the windows! It was the shortest night of our lives. Since we were going through six time zones, the short summer night was even shorter, by six hours!

Amsterdam was a big hit, and we quickly decided it was a good “home away from home” to center our travels around. We set an itinerary from Amsterdam to Berlin, on to Moscow and Tver and back to Amsterdam, then to Paris, Madrid and Cuenca, Amsterdam, New York and home.

Since Amsterdam is north of the fiftieth parallel, the summer nights are very short. We could read the time on the clock tower two blocks away at 10:30 pm.
Amsterdam was a wonderful city to brush up on languages. All the signs are in more than one language. TV shows are mostly in English or German with Dutch subtitles. Tours were given in Dutch, German, English and French–all by the same tour guide!

We saw first-hand how the Dutch have reclaimed land from the sea. It’s a constant struggle. They control the water with canals, dikes, windmills and pumps, and have a saying about it–“God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland!”

We visited a fishing village, where we were told that, due to the dikes, the industry is dying out as the water loses salinity. They now do a thriving business hosting tourists! We visited a cheese factory and a wooden shoe factory, and watched a diamond cutter at work. Too bad the tulips weren’t in bloom!

Before leaving Amsterdam we paid a visit to the house where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. People were talking and laughing in the line to go in, but that changed when we began viewing the museum displays. Coming out, everyone was silent, thoughtful and choked up. We had memories we would never lose.

Europe by Train
We traveled from Amsterdam by train, usually overnight to save on hotel bills. The compartments were for four people, so we always had a compartment mate and made at least one new friend every time we rode the train. First there was a German man, then a sweet old Russian lady, who helped me with the paperwork crossing the Russian border. Neither spoke English, so I gave my limited German and Russian a workout. On the return trip we met a vivacious woman from Berlin who spoke German and Russian. When we weren’t able to communicate in one language we switched to the other! Going into Spain from France we rode with a young man from Costa Rica, and returning from Madrid to Paris a modern businesswoman from Spain. Both spoke excellent English. We also talked with many students and other travelers and learned about some of the places we hadn’t seen.
Looking out the windows of the train we saw almost the whole of the North European Plain, went over the Pyrenees and crossed the Spanish plateau. We saw farms, villages, towns and many large cities.

Our first stop after Amsterdam was Berlin. The contrast was striking between East Berlin, a depressed area with boxy concrete buildings, and West Berlin, a bustling, modern, colorful city. We went to the zoo (in a bow to Grant’s interest in zoology) and took in many historic sites, traveling along the Unter den Linden and seeing the Brandenburg Gate. It was very exciting!

I had to use German more than I’d expected. It seemed nobody spoke English! I had to find a hotel, arrange for a room, buy tickets to the zoo, ride the elevated train, order meals, settle our hotel bill, get a taxi and buy our train tickets to Moscow. All in German. Our taxi driver said he didn’t speak English, but his English was at least as good as my German, so we conversed in both languages as we toured the city.

The train from Berlin to Moscow took thirty-six hours, so we met many interesting people along the way. As I’d anticipated, it was easy to get acquainted with children when I had children with me, and for them language is no barrier to friendship. The boys were a little shy at first, but they quickly learned that if they played with a toy or game together, then offered it to a watching child, they’d have a new friend. They played with a Russian girl, then with a young boy who was half Russian and half Iranian. I played with them, too, and got some good pictures and a chance to talk a bit with their mothers.

One of the most interesting people we met was Michael, a young man from Boston. A writer, he was an experienced traveler who was riding the Trans-Siberian Railway to Mongolia. Michael was a wellspring of information. It was he who told us why our train stopped at the Russian border for three hours. They were changing the wheels. The railroad tracks in Russia are a different gauge from those in the rest of Europe!

Russia
We arrived in Moscow on June 21st, the longest day of the year. We were even farther north than Amsterdam, so it was still light out at 11pm!

Here began the most difficult part of our journey, by far. With my limited proficiency in Russian, I could ask all the questions, but often couldn’t understand the answers! Not only that. The money exchange office was closed. I had only a few thousand rubles, which I’d received in change when I’d paid for meals on the train, and I needed about 80,000 (around $40) for our tickets to Tver. Besides that, we needed to go by Metro to another station to get the tickets! I was about to decide we’d have to wait until morning, when the beautiful sound of an American voice said, “Maybe I can help you. I speak Russian.” Our guardian angel was a young man who worked at the American Embassy in Moscow, and he swapped me 80,000 rubles for my forty dollars. He got us on the right Metro train and left us with full instructions in wonderful, comprehensible English where to get off and buy our tickets to Tver!

The Metro is gorgeous! It contrasted sharply with New York City’s dirty, cluttered subways decorated with advertising and ugly graffiti. I’d read that Stalin’s government had built the Metro to be something beautiful which could inspire pride in the people. It does! With all the economic problems Russia has, a lot of the places we visited weren’t well maintained, but the Metro looked great!

We arrived in Tver at 2am, and couldn’t barge in on our hostess at that ungodly hour, so we did as many other tired travelers and gathered our bags under us. We slept on them for the next four hours. At 6am I talked a taxi driver into taking us, with the rubles I had left, to Marina’s address. The elevator was broken, so we had to carry our bags up six flights of stairs to her apartment. We surprised Marina and her husband Volodya with our knock on their door. They had NO telephone, AND hadn’t received the fax giving the date of our arrival. Neither of us were too surprised at this breakdown in communications, as we’d had many such problems securing official invitations, visas and so forth.

We lived in their small flat with Marina, Volodya and their four-year-old son Vova for three days, and really got a sense of their everyday life. I’d asked Marina not to do anything special for us; we ate what they ate and did what they did.

June 22nd is a special day in Russia. It’s the anniversary of the date the Russians entered what they call the Great Patriotic War. In Tver they commemorate it by lighting a flame at the top of a huge obelisk and laying flowers at its foot, where there is a tomb for an unknown soldier and an eternal flame. We walked with Marina to the monument, laid some flowers and took pictures. A small group of old men had gathered around a red  flag with the Communist hammer and sickle on it. Marina thought they might be readying for a parade, so we hung around awhile, but no parade materialized. We then went to the banks of the Volga River and rested while the boys played at the river’s edge. Marina said that one good result of the factory shutdowns upstream was that the Volga was much cleaner than it used to be. It did look clean. There was a young woman washing clothes in it and some people were swimming, but we thought it much too cold to swim. We were wearing sweaters!

On Friday, Marina reluctantly agreed to go with us to Moscow. We did some sightseeing and bought train tickets, but she wouldn’t let me buy tickets for the diesel to Moscow–they were “too expensive”. Instead, we must take the “electric’–much cheaper. It’s also much more crowded, as we learned to our distress.

Once in Moscow, we bought train tickets back to Berlin, ate at McDonald’s and spent a most inspiring afternoon walking all through the Kremlin and Red Square. As the evening approached, we were happy and excited, but very tired. Our feet were screaming for relief, and we looked forward to sitting for three hours on the train back to Tver. Little did we know! We stood on the platform. It rapidly filled with people, and a most terrifying thing occurred. As our train came in, the crowd surged forward, clawing, elbowing and kicking to get on, while those in the train were struggling to get off! I couldn’t see Grant nor Jordan as  the current of people swept me along. I prayed that they wouldn’t fall and get trampled!

We embarked unhurt, but our feet had to wait for relief. We stood the entire three hours to Tver, then stood on the trolley, then walked the three more blocks to the Ivanova flat.

I told Marina I was afraid to take the “electric” to Moscow with all our bags. I knew we couldn’t manage them if the crowds were that bad. She reassured me, explaining that on Fridays all the workers of Moscow go to their “dachas” (small summer homes in the country) to tend their vegetable gardens. The “electric” wouldn’t be so crowded on Saturday. We mustn’t consider the diesel–too expensive! Volodya would ride with us on the trolley the next morning to the “electric”, and we’d be fine.

She couldn’t have been more mistaken! We got seats in Tver, but the car filled up more at every stop. People were two and three deep in the aisles. I began to feel panicky, but tried to maintain a calm demeanor so as not to alarm the boys.

Amidst this chaos, another angel appeared! A lovely Russian lady, an economics teacher, heard us speaking English. She worked her way through the crowd and introduced herself. Her name was Jane. Her son was about the same age as Grant and Jordan, and was studying English. Would we mind if he came over to talk with the American boys and practice the language? Of course not! We’d be delighted! Jane’s sister was also on the train, with her children. They were going to Moscow for the day, and invited us to join them. We declined, reluctantly, explaining that we had reservations on the train to Berlin. “We’ll help you get to your train”, they said. The boy’s English teacher was on the train, too. The rest of the three-hour trip passed very quickly and pleasantly. When we arrived in Moscow, our new friends grabbed our bags and led us through the milling crowd to the Metro. We bid them a warm farewell, but the English teacher was going the same direction and continued with us. She guided us to the station from which we were to depart.

We caught the train to Berlin without further difficulty, and once in Berlin activated our Eurailpasses for the rest of our travels. They’re great! Unless you’re traveling at night and need beds, you simply go to the station, see when the next train leaves and get on!

France and Spain
We rode back to Amsterdam, then went on to Paris, where we got a grand view of the city from the Eiffel Tower. We rode down the Champs Elysses, saw the Arc d’Triomphe, toured the Cathedrale d’Notre Dame. In the Paris train station we met Sergei, the only Russian who was willing to talk politics with me. He spoke fluent English. He’d been a student in the USA during our 1991-92 presidential campaign. He said Russia had been that way when Yeltsin was first elected, with everyone talking politics, but that now people were disheartened and disillusioned. They didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I asked him about Zhirinovsky, the newly-elected parliamentarian who was espousing many Stalinist policies. Sergei said he didn’t really have much support as a potential opponent to Yeltsin. I asked him who might succeed Yeltsin, and he said there wasn’t anyone well-known enough to oppose him, that only time would tell.

Our train pulled in, so we said goodbye to Sergei and headed for Spain. My brother Ted was touring with a choral group from Boston, and we were to meet him and his wife Elaine in Cuenca, a historic little town southeast of Madrid.

The Spanish trains were the cleanest and best-maintained we’d seen anywhere. Looking out the window, we could see the dry Spanish plateau. It’s similar to our Southwest, but there are many irrigated areas, green and well-cultivated.

Our positive impression of Spain was reinforced when we saw the Atocha Station in Madrid–perhaps the most beautiful train station in the world. It looks like a botanical garden! We wondered if they had “spruced it up” for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Whatever the reason, we were very impressed with Spain.

The station in Cuenca was in stark contrast to Atocha. It looked like the small town train stations I remembered as a child–rustic, a single platform, a waiting room with wooden benches. A blast from the past!

My Spanish got quite a workout in Cuenca. I had to talk with the taxi driver, get to Ted’s hotel, find out from the desk clerk that he and Elaine were at another hotel. I got directions to walk there, arranged for our rooms, etc., all in Spanish. Ted was in rehearsal and we were hungry, so we went looking for a place to eat. It was about 6pm, but everything seemed to be closed. We asked our desk clerk about places to eat. He said none would open until 8pm! We found a little grocery, bought sandwich fixings and had a picnic in the park.

The town of Cuenca is fascinating! The next morning we toured it together. Our hotel, and the train station, was built in the early 1900s, and it reminded me of the little town I grew up in sixty years before. They called this the New Town! High on a bluff overlooking New Town is Old Town, an area proudly maintained. There’s a monastery, a church, several other buildings and homes which are hundreds of years old, and an ancient Roman ruin that dates back about 2000 years. Add to this diversity a beautiful, modern auditorium and you have a real study in contrasts. The sleepy little town of Cuenca (New Town) turned out to have a busy tourist industry on the bluff above (Old Town). The people appeared poor, but their “church jewels” were a fabulous collection of bejeweled gold fonts, crosses, chalices and religious icons.

We toured Old Town on an extremely hot day–44ºC, which converts to about 111ºF! There were no public water fountains, so the bottled water merchants were doing a booming business. I thought Spain was even hotter than I’d heard, but was told they were having a heat wave.

The next day we returned to Amsterdam and boarded our flight back to New York City. There are Five Themes of geography, and we had learned about them all.

•Location. We observed the effects of latitude on climate and on hours of darkness and light, and traced our travels on the map.

•Place. We learned a great deal about people, their languages, customs and ideas. We observed the physical characteristics of the land along the North European Plain and the Spanish Plateau.

•Human Environmental Interaction. We saw what the Dutch have done with their environment, pushing back the sea, and how the Spanish have irrigated a dry region. We saw the Volga River recovering from pollution and many other examples of human-environmental interaction.

•Movement. Even before starting, we noted the importance of transportation and communication when we had trouble connecting with our Russian hosts. We used many types of transportation, and saw interesting things on Dutch and Russian television.

•Regions. We noted the contrast in living conditions in the countries of the West and those which were behind the “Iron Curtain”.
I now had first-hand stories to share with my social studies classes. I had a videotape, about 170 slides, post cards, books, money and numerous souvenirs. This trip was unforgettable, and invaluable!

English as a Second Language
In the late 80s we received several children at Hardin Park for whom English was a second language, and there was a wide variation in their mastery. They were picking it up, but we felt they needed special help. Since I’d studied several other languages and had taken a workshop on teaching ESL, I volunteered to take the kids into my room during Physical Education. I began to pester the superintendent for a full-time ESL teacher in the county, as I knew there were many ESL students in the other schools as well.

Seven kids, aged seven to twelve, came to my room two or three times a week. We had fun together, playing and singing. We played “Simon Says”, “Mother May I”, and sang “Head. Shoulders, Baby, One Two, Three”. I helped them with the sounds in English that didn’t exist in their native languages. One child said to another, “I say ‘vagon” when I mean ‘wagon’, and you say ‘lice’ when you mean ‘rice’!” They were charming, and I loved working with them, but I was glad when the district hired an ESL teacher.

Aquasize and ESL 1998
Splish! Splash! The sound of seniors exercising in the water reverberated off the walls. Ned and I came once a week to the parks and recreation pool to enjoy the camaraderie and sense of well-being the class gave us. One day, Mary Owen said something about one of the workers in her ESL class, and I perked right up.

“You teach and ESL class?”

“Yes, at our church. We have a class each Sunday at four for any Mexican workers who care to come.”

“Mary, I’d love to do that! I used to teach ESL! Do you need more teachers?”

“We can always use more teachers! The more we have, the smaller our groups and the more help we can give them. We’d teach one-on-one if we could! Come over on Sunday and I’ll introduce you!”

I started going to St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church every Sunday afternoon, working with Katy, Faith, Mary and the others to teach a group of twenty to thirty workers. Most of them did seasonal work—agriculture or, especially in our region, Christmas trees. After Christmas they’d return to Mexico until it was time to start working the trees again in the spring.

We met several times, and planned the classes around our strengths. Emile was the best linguist; he had a strong voice and was fluent in Spanish and Japanese. Emile’s wife Yvette was Hispanic and totally bilingual. Bev was fluent in German and proficient in Spanish. Faith spoke Spanish fluently, but had a soft voice. We decided that Emile and I would begin each session. We’d explain things, make announcements, then I’d warm them up with some songs before we broke up into smaller groups.

Singing is not only a fun way to relax and warm up the group, it’s a powerful aid to memory. Songs such as “Head, Shoulders” and “Sipping Cider Through a Straw” also use activities to further aid memory.

1) ”Head, shoulders, baby, one, two, three…
(touch head, then shoulders, snap fingers once, twice and thrice)
Head, shoulders, baby one, two, three
Head shoulders, head shoulders, head shoulders

(gradually speeding up the tempo)

2) “Shoulders, chest, baby, one, two, three… (etc.)

3) “Chest, stomach, baby, one, two, three…

4) “Stomach, knees…

5) “Knees, feet…

(by this time the moves are very fast and challenging, and everyone is laughing.)

We’d then reverse order—feet, knees, baby, 1, 2, 3, etc., followed by knees, stomach, then stomach, chest, on up to shoulders, head, and finally…

“THAT’S ALL, baby! One, two, three!” (and STOP)

“Sipping Cider Through a Straw” is a call-and-response, a silly song that made everyone laugh when Emile translated it for them. I’d sing a line, then they’d sing it back.

“The prettiest girl (the prettiest girl) I ever saw (I ever saw) Was sipping cider (response) Through a straw (response, etc.)
And now and then…The straw would slip…And I’d sip cider…Through her lips…And now I’ve got…A mother-in-law…From sipping cider…Through a straw…
Now fifteen kids…All call me “Paw”…From sipping cider…Through a straw!!!
The moral is…My story, dear…Is don’t sip cider…Through a straw…
The moral of…My story, dear…Is don’t sip cider…YOU SIP BEER!!!”

Emile and Yvette were both teachers. They lived in New York City, and spent their summers in Boone. Yvette taught fourth grade and Emile taught at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. From his classroom windows he could see the Twin Towers, and was an eye witness on September 11, 2001.

What appeared to be a lone plane crashed into one of the towers—a terrible accident!—but wait!! Another plane—also crashed!! This was no accident, this was an attack! Horrendous explosions! Fire! People were jumping out the windows, falling to their death on the street below!

The buildings collapsed into a pile of rubble. Almost 3000 people were killed, more than died at Pearl Harbor. The students at Stuyvesant High School put together a beautiful commemorative booklet. Emile brought a copy with him to Boone the following summer, and gave it to me.

Ned had met Emile and Yvette when he’d gone with me to a picnic for the students and their families. We’d gone to dinner together as well, and had become close friends. Now Emile had cancer, stage four, and wouldn’t be coming back to Boone. “Pray for me to whoever you pray to, and look after my girl”, he wrote. I wrote them back, expressing our concern and hoping for his recovery, but I soon received a telephone call from Yvette.

Emile had died. Yvette and I talked for a long time about the good times, funny times, bad times, but I never saw her again. Yvette stopped coming to Boone, Ned got sick and I stopped teaching ESL.

Life goes on. Friends are gone; they’re not forgotten.

Pedro
One day Pedro came to me in ESL class with “un problema”. The men he’d been sharing a house with had all gone back to Mexico, now that the trees had been harvested. They’d return in the spring, but Pedro couldn’t afford the rent without the other guys pitching in.

After a quick check with Ned, I offered Pedro a room in our house.

“¿Cuanto dinero?”

“Nada.”

And Pedro moved into one of our extra rooms.

Dos Amigos
Pedro and I frequently tried to engage in friendly conversation. This often led to confusion, but we improved our language skills. One evening we had the following exchange:
Pedro: Mrs. Austin, dos amigos vienen aquí (two friends are coming here).
Me: ¿Aquí?
Pedro: Sí, aquí a Boone. (yes, here to Boone).
Me: ¿Cuándo vienen? (when are they coming?)
Pedro: Yo no sé exactamente. Creo que dos o tres semanas (I don’t know exactly. I think two or three weeks).
Me: ¿Dos amigos de usted vienen aquí a mi casa en dos o tres semanas? ¿Vivir con nosotros? (two friends of yours are coming here to my house in two or three weeks? To live with us?)
Pedro: ¡No, no! ¡Dos Amigos es el nombre de un restaurante! ¡Cuando viene aquí, yo quiero invitar ustedes a comer conmigo! (No, no! Dos Amigos is the name of a restaurant! When it comes here, I want to invite you all to dinner with me!
Me (with some relief): Oh! That’s very nice! ¡Muchas gracias!

And when the Mexican restaurant came to town, Pedro took Ned and me to dinner!

AIDS/UU/PFLAG
Nobody said anyone at any local school had AIDS, but we teachers needed new guidelines for dealing with playground injuries, as AIDS could spread by blood contact. We teachers had a workshop, and then he school had an assembly. A nurse, Terry Taylor, talked to us and answered questions. We didn’t meet at that time, but Terry and I became close friends in the ensuing years.

Some months later, my son Sam was home from New York City, and I learned about Sam’s lover, Rob. Soon afterwards on the local TV Bulletin Board, Ned and I saw a telephone number for PFLAG (Parents, Family & Friends of Lesbians and Gays). We discussed it, and I called the number. “We have a gay son,” I said, “We’re interested in talking to other parents of gays, and maybe joining PFLAG.”

The voice on the other end of the line was Terry Taylor, and she invited us to join her for dinner at the Red Onion. She brought two teens with her. They were in her Sunday school class at the Boone Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (BUUF). Their class had been discussing sexuality and sexual orientation. We had an interesting discussion and were invited to visit their class.

We liked BUUF. We already knew many of the members, and we joined Shortly afterwards they asked me to serve on the board and organize a choir. Recently retired from teaching, I was happy to contribute.

One Sunday Terry Taylor had the program for church service. She explained that sexuality contains a broad spectrum of differences. People can be born gay, bisexual, transgendered or transvestite. Young people, especially, can be questioning. She said she felt like a voice in the wilderness, speaking up for those who couldn’t. As a nurse, she’d attended young men who were dying of AIDS. She felt there was little support for them and their cause, or for the healthy who had to hide who they were, to hold jobs or otherwise get along.

I sent an e-mail to all UUs inviting them to support Terry by having a potluck to discuss PFLAG.  I talked to retired teachers and recruited help. About twenty people signed up, and many others expressed support.  We organized and I nominated Terry for president. She declined, and nominated me. In the end I presided at meetings, she maintained our telephone contacts and we served as co-presidents of the High County chapter of PFLAG, for several years. We met once a month at UU, and sometimes visitors came. We started a petty cash fund to help those in need.

Some things we did brought criticism. One young man asked us to help him come out to his parents. At his request, we invited his parents, whom we hadn’t met, him and two of his friends to our house for dessert and coffee. After we’d talked awhile, we introduced the purpose for the gathering (his mother had been wondering).

“Wade has something he wants to tell you, but it’s difficult for him, so he wanted his friends to be here.”

“Mom – Dad – I’m gay.”

Mom said, “I don’t understand! What did I do wrong?”

Dad said, “That doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. You’re my son, and I love you!”

We explained to Mom that she hadn’t done anything wrong, that people are born with a sexual orientation. By the end of the evening, everyone seemed okay.

Wade made a point of thanking me when he saw me several weeks later. But a friend of mine said, “That was an ambush!” I don’t know. Was it?

We dealt with individual problems, but also advocated for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender (LGBT) students. We wanted to know if there was support among the clergy, so we each made an appointment with a minister to find out where he stood–with interesting results. Some ministers were friendly. Some deferred to their elders or deacons, and some were absolutely against homosexuality. We knew who we could count on if anyone came to us looking for a church!

Some students wanted to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance in the high school, and observe the nation-wide Day of Silence. Nanci Nance, a retired high school English teacher, and I talked with Gary Childers, the high school principal. The students had found a teacher who was willing to sponsor it, and needed the principal’s go-ahead.

“You know you’re asking me to open Pandora’s box here,” he said.

“I know,” I replied. “I remember the brouhaha over NC Star at Hardin Park. But we just can’t let those people block us from doing what’s right, and I think this is right!”

They had a day of silence, and formed their alliance!

Family Reunions
Ned’s family had been having a reunion on the first Sunday in August each year. All his grandfather’s descendants, the Sam Austin, Sr. family, would gather in the morning, have a huge potluck dinner and linger into the afternoon. Because it was Sunday, they’d begin with a worship service. This was followed by testimonials and lamentations from senior members of the family, which would suck out all the fun before we got to the food! Ned and I had gone, dutifully, every year, but when our children began showing up late or not at all, we didn’t force the issue. We’d go, then grin and bear it, but one year we’d had enough! We both snapped!

Our preacher cousin had droned on. “Our country is going to the dogs! They’ve taken God out of the schools!” Et cetera, etc. He finally wound down, and asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say. This was the usual call for lamentations and the gnashing of teeth, but Ned surprised everyone, including me, when he stood up and said, “I’ve got something to say! Every year we come here together and we grunt and complain! What fun is that? Our young people won’t come anymore. We get together and talk about how the country’s going downhill, and how sad it is that this one died, and how many have died. Well, EVERYONE dies! We’re ALL going to die! That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy life while we have it!”

Emboldened by his outburst, I rose.

“I have something to say, too! I’m tired of hearing how they’ve taken God out of the schools! You claim to believe that God is love. This family is full of teachers, and every one of us teachers loves the children we teach. It insults us to say they’ve taken God out of the schools! As long as there are teachers who love, nobody can do that!”

I guess we hurt some feelings, because there have been separate reunions ever since. The Sam Austin, Jr. family reunion broke apart from the George Austin branch, and doesn’t try to meet on a Sunday morning for a “worship” service. We have a lot more fun, swapping stories and cracking jokes. The descendants of each of the six sons and daughters of Sam and Minnie Austin take turns hosting the gathering, and each family determines the time and place.

I wanted my family to have a reunion. We fourteen cousins were more scattered than the Sam Austin family, so a week-long get-together every five years seemed more practical.

Smoketree
Once a year, Ted and his wife Elaine had been coming to Boone to spend a week at Smoketree, their time-share condominium. This is often occasion for a reunion. Our families have a great time in the mountains. Hiking, rock climbing, canoeing, zip-lining, rock mining, caving, sight-seeing–their week in June is a highlight of my year!

I began planning. My brother Ted helped me put together a family directory and I sent a query to find out which activities would interest the most people. After receiving the replies, I mailed a schedule to all the aunts and uncles, cousins and their sons and daughters:
Planning activities for this group was fun, because you all like everything! In the outdoors column, picnicking was tops, with swimming, canoeing and hiking close behind. The sport most enjoyed was volleyball, with softball second and tennis tied with soccer in third. Campfire was a popular choice. You all expressed interest in the ‘special attractions’ column. It included sight-seeing, art exhibits, plays, concerts, crafts fairs and shopping, and with these in mind we’ve planned the following:
Sunday night: Dinner at Makoto’s Japanese restaurant
Monday: Take a picnic lunch and go to Spruce Pine for the N.C. Mineral Museum, followed by gemstone mining (amethyst, quartz, citrines, etc.) at one of the local mines. Dinner at the Nu-Wray Inn, then to Burnsville Playhouse for a show.
Tuesday: Fresco tour in Jefferson. The fresco artist studied in Italy, then returned to paint frescoes in the U.S. Two small churches have frescoes of unforgettable beauty. This followed by dinner in Shatley Springs.
Wednesday: Canoeing on the New River, which is paradoxically the oldest river in either of the Americas, and is shallow, wild, and slow-moving. Picnic supper at New River State Park.
Thursday: On your own for shopping, sight-seeing. There’s plenty to do! Grandfather Mountain, Tweetsie Railroad, ‘Horn in the West’ are possibilities, or perhaps a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We’ll give you maps, brochures and directions. We’ll be arranging to meet the weekend crowd.
Friday: Hang out and talk at Smoketree Lodge. Share family tales, memorabilia, crafts, etc. Board games after dinner (Monopoly, Clue, etc.)
Saturday: Trip to the Blowing Rock, the most famous scenic attraction in this area and still a bargain ($2 the last time I went!) Picnic lunch at Price Park, followed by volleyball. Airwalk for the little folks. Dinner at Western Steer. Campfire.
Sunday: Outdoor family worship service, followed by dinner at the Austin home.
I’ll need to settle some of these plans with firm numbers and make reservations with deposits of money, so let me hear from you soon if you haven’t yet confirmed your plans.
Please bring a photo (preferably a 3×5 head shot in color) of each member of the family. If you’re not coming, please send one. We’ll have a camera handy in case you forget–One Hour Photo to the rescue! Karen Jones Bodenhamer is making a family photo tree for display. We’d like photos of Uncle Bob, Aunt Evelyn & Uncle Mac, and Uncle Beau too, if possible.
Don’t forget to get those “bios” back to me–just a pithy pearl of a paragraph, please, to present the essence of you (ouch!).
Love, Bobbie

Pets are Funny

1. Leo and Bear
Leo is our somewhat dignified cat. Bear was an undignified Chihuahua puppy who pestered Leo to play. Most of the time Leo was tolerant, but not playful, and simply moved away. Once, however, Leo became annoyed. He hissed and snarled at Bear. Alarmed, Bear tried to high-tail it away, scooting along the floor just as Leo jumped to get away from him. Unfortunately, they both moved in the same direction. To the consternation of both, Leo landed on top of Bear and ended up riding him piggy-back across the room!

2. Smoke, Sunny and Sheba
Smoke was my dog–an Australian shepherd abandoned by some tenants who stole away from the trailer one night. He was a wonderful old dog, eager to please and easy to train.

Sunny was Genevieve’s dog–a fast-growing Lab. She saw when he was a puppy that he was going to be a big dog, so training him was a high priority.
Sheba was Fran’s dog, staying with me while Fran and family were settling into a new home. She was strong, young and active, maternal towards Sunny when he was a puppy, but not easy to train.

Genny enrolled Sunny in dog school and took him regularly. When she practiced the fundamentals with Sunny at home, she included Smoke and Sheba. Smoke learned quickly, but Sheba didn’t.

The three dogs got along well, until one day when I’d taken them with me on a walk up the mountain behind the house.
There’d been no question who was the alpha dog in the group, but Sunny was maturing, and decided to challenge Smoke. Smoke wasn’t about to relinquish his position, and there ensued a noisy altercation between the two. They were growling, snarling, barking, rearing up at each other.

“Sit!” I yelled, my hand raised in the sit command. “Sit!” Both dogs settled down and sat still, looking at me as they’d been trained. Sheba, however, had become excited, jumping and running around.

“Sheba, sit!” I commanded.She didn’t sit, but continued her hyperactivity.

“Sit!” I said again, to no avail.

Smoke looked at me, raised his paw and placed it on Sheba’s butt. He pushed her down into a sitting position. No question who was the Alpha!

Do the Math

When Ned’s health worsened, I moved his bed downstairs into what had been the dining room. We then had too much furniture in that room, so I donated a table and some chairs to Goodwill.

Several months later Laura and her two sons came to visit. They slept at the trailer, but I invited them to join us for lunch and hang out with us in the afternoon. After I finished fixing lunch, I began setting up the table and chairs. There would be seven of us. Four chairs were in the dining room, and I looked for the rest. Two in the laundry room. I needed one more.

“What’s the matter?” asked Genny, seeing the puzzled look on my face.

“I can’t find another dining room chair. I used to have so many. I need seven and I can only find six.”

“Well, you donated some to Goodwill.”

“I know. But I had ten, and I only gave them four!’

Unh-huh!

Credo? Why?
Unitarian Universalists teach respect for all religions (Universalist) while insisting the Trinity is myth (Unitarian). It’s hard for me to put that together. In our congregation we have people from many backgrounds: Baptists, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Jews, Pagans and Presbyterians to name a few. Our Sunday services make an effort to accommodate all, and at first it seemed to me, a Presbyterian turned Lutheran turned Quaker turned Hindu turned Baptist turned Unitarian, to be an enriching cultural experience. The more rituals I practiced, though, the more hypocritical I felt. Without belief, ritual is meaningless and I’m only pretending.

Yet I look around at the daffodils, the hyacinths, the mighty maple tree. I see the tiny wren and the soaring eagle, the gurgling brook and the majestic mountain. I hear the newborn babe and the laughing ten-year-old, feel the cool green grass under the intense blue sky, and I’m filled with wonder and awe. I make no attempt to explain it or explain away beliefs about the origins of it all. I just enjoy! Why is belief so important?

Aging and Dying
After about seventy years, all of us age and face the prospect of dying. Life is a cycle, and this is its natural ending. For some reason, our society has trouble accepting this and we go to great lengths to avoid life’s grand finale. This is puzzling to me, considering the widely-held belief in a wonderful afterlife.

Although I don’t share that belief, I accept that the end of my life is approaching and hope my family will be agreeable in accepting my often professed, sincere desire to die a natural death. I’ve no special wish to have them all present when this occurs, because I don’t wish to be burdened with the need to think of something wise to say for my last words! Rather, let them all gather after I die and share fond memories of the ups and downs of our time together. Let them forgive my lapses, forgive each other and accept that we are all flawed, but lovable. Let them sing and talk together. Let my final gift be music, hope and laughter!

Daisy Adams
Daisy Austin Adams died Sunday, June 8th, 2014. She was 97 years old. Called Mama Daisy by her family, Aunt Daisy by mine, she was Miss Daisy or Mrs. Adams to the community. To me, she was Daisy–just Daisy–my sister-in-law. I loved her.

After Ned died in 2007, I thought about moving in with her. She’d dismissed her caregiver, saying their personalities clashed, and her sons said she must have a live-in companion if she were to stay in her home. She was happy when I made the suggestion–“but let me think about it”, I said. “I have a lot to consider”.

Being caregiver to Ned was tough, and it’d been a long haul. It isn’t easy to see someone you love gradually fail in strength, requiring more and more help just to get through the day–and she was 91. I was 77 at the time. What if something happened on my watch? I might not be able to deal with it! I chickened out.
I felt guilty about it, but believe it was the right decision.

Who Started It?
When my children got into squabbles, I thought it was my job to intervene. I’d question them, find out how the fuss got started and have the ones who seemed to be at fault apologize. The apology would be accepted, hugs or handshakes exchanged and play resumed. My next-door neighbor, on the other hand, would simply let them take a break, offer ice cream or a cold drink to all and let it blow over.

When she didn’t question what happened, establish who was to blame, etc., I thought she was rewarding bad behavior. Sixty years later, I realize that she was right, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong! Who started an argument is not nearly so important as who keeps it going!

My sons and daughters are lovely people, kind and generous, helpful to others, free of prejudice and bigotry, BUT—they get entangled in pathetic feuds that start years before, and won’t let go for want of an apology! To apologize, it seems, is to say, “I started it. It’s my fault.” An apology, therefore, is usually followed by “but you (…whatever!)”, which is simply an invitation to resume the argument!

FORGET IT! No apology is needed, just move on! It’s over! Past! Doesn’t matter anymore! I’m 87 now, and don’t have the energy I used to. Sometime in the next decade or so I’ll be leaving, and my greatest wish for my future is to see my family enjoying healthy relationships with each other.

Bucket List
People in their 70’s and 80’s talk about their Bucket List—things they want to do before they “kick the bucket.” I don’t have a Bucket List. I’ve noticed that a lot of the items on the lists of eighty-somethings require assistance from some young person willing to help the oldster hang-glide or parachute in tandem. We all say hurrah for the oldster, and ignore the folks who helped. I think that’s just stupid! The woman who recently swam from Cuba to Florida in spite of many stings from jellyfish had plenty of people helping, accompanying her in boats which she could have climbed into, but she kept doggedly on (although that may be the wrong choice of an adverb; a dog would probably have had sense enough to climb into the boat) and at the end of her swim she said triumphantly through swollen lips, “Never, never, never give up!”

Why?! What do these adventurers accomplish by putting themselves and their potential rescuers at risk? Why do we admire them? I think they’re not only stupid but selfish.

I have no outlandish wishes for my final years. I always wanted to ride a roller coaster, but never did and don’t want to any more. The last time I rode a ferris wheel, with two of my grandchildren, I was nauseous for two hours after we came down—so riding a roller coaster became one of several things that I used to want to do. No more!

I’m very happy with the things I’ve done and the places I’ve seen—oh, my! The places I’ve seen!

I’ve never been to the Great Wall of China, but I spent two awesome days at the Grand Canyon. I didn’t visit Machu-Picchu, but I camped with my family at Mesa Verde. I’ve never been to the moon, but I felt like I was on another planet in the Painted Desert and the Great Salt Flats. I’ve never been to Iceland, but the geysers at Yellowstone are amazing. All of these wonders are in the United States, and what fantastic memories they are!

As for the “faraway places with strange sounding names,” my one trip out of the country took me to so many notable places: the Kremlin, Red Square, the Brandenburg Gate, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Ann Frank House, the old town of Cuenca in Spain.

I don’t have a Bucket List. I wanted to leave the world a little better than it was when I arrived, and joined many causes, attended conferences, marched in demonstrations. I rang doorbells, made phone calls, presided at meetings—for peace in Vietnam, civil rights, women’s rights, ecology; you name it and I was there. I can see a lot of progress. I love to see women and blacks doing interviews, reporting the news on TV. That’s a big step forward, but I’m happy to pass the torch.

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift”
~Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve had a rich and rewarding life, and I’ve been a part of many exciting changes which I helped in my small way to accomplish. I think I leave the world a better place for my having been here, not only for what I’ve done but for the wonderful children, grandchildren, and great grands I leave behind.

Are we there yet? Wherever “there” is, the answer’s Yes! It’s always Yes! We’re there! The destination doesn’t matter!

Life’s a fascinating journey. Enjoy the ride!

-0-

______________________________________________________

Notes

Lessons I Learned as a Child—That I’ve Since Unlearned! (feel free to disagree!)

To eat all the food on my plate
To say “yes ma’am”, “no ma’am”, “yes sir” and “no sir”
3)  To refer to blacks first as colored people, then as Negroes
4)  To think of religion as good
5)  To think of homosexuality as bad, a “sin”
6)  Not ever, ever to masturbate
7)  To view interracial marriage as bad
8)  That I have to be saved from my sins, and only Jesus can save me
9)  To sacrifice everything for the ones I love
10) To “spare the rod and spoil the child”
11) That if you “raise a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not         depart from it”

My revisions of the foregoing:
1)  Eat only what it takes to feel satisfied (not “full”), then stop. Let leftovers go to waste instead of to waist!
2)  People will ask you if you are from the South or were in the service if you address them as “ma’am” or “sir”. Use a simple yes” or “no”
3)  Keep abreast of changes in terms which are “correct” for the setting
4)  The Beatles said it best for me: “Imagine [a world with] no religion”. I think         nothing is as divisive as religion. All the major wars in history have had religion as one of the causative factors. Why?
5)  Homosexuality isn’t sinful, unhealthy nor unnatural, and it’s not a chosen         alternative lifestyle. A person is homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual by genetic disposition, and everyone is beautiful!
6)  What an odd taboo! Masturbation doesn’t hurt anyone (as Woody Allen says, it’s sex with someone you love). If it’s pleasurable—and it is—what’s so wrong about it?
7)  In God’s name, why?! The only thing that sometimes makes life difficult for an interracial couple (or a homosexual couple) is non-acceptance and persecution by society (which goes back to religion!)
8)  I can’t believe that a loving Creator put humans into a sinful world in which our only hope lies in our discovery and acceptance of a story that is known only to a small fraction of the world’s population.
9)  Contrary to the religious teachings, romantic songs and literary classics I grew up believing, I now believe in assertiveness, and will never be a doormat again.
10) There are better ways to teach children than to spank them.
11) Maybe he will, maybe not. Each chooses the road they’ll follow. Besides, who’s to say what’s “the way he should go”?
———
Mea Culpa
Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day
You shall begin it serenely
And with too high a spirit
To be encumbered with your old nonsense.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve tried to embrace those words and live by them, but my chickens keep coming home to roost, messing up my serenity! I’m in my 80s now, and as I revisit my past, writing my memoirs, my blunders and absurdities stand out in my mind. It’s easy to address the episodes that caused problems for me alone, like my stupid encounter with the dean at Queens College.  Some of my blunders hurt others, though, and cause me to question my judgment.

Boys sometimes played rough–but was it playing, or fighting? Two eighth grade boys were shoving each other and one suddenly grabbed his crotch, howling. The other teacher on duty said, “Ooh! Big boys play rough!”, and I said, “Oh, he’s just putting on a show.” We ignored the altercation and the boys walked off together.

Should I have intervened? Many years later, two fifth-grade boys seemed to be “horsing around”, and one’s glasses got broken. They stopped playing. Things seemed okay, but the parents pressed charges. In the end, the father of the accused paid for new glasses and the charges were dropped. I’m glad it worked out, but cases like those still bother me.

———
I found cultural contrasts best symbolized by the types of food vendor carts found in various cities. In Columbia, South Carolina, a man sold boiled peanuts off his pushcart. In Manhattan the corners were graced by vendors of hot roasted chestnuts. On Capitol Hill in Denver street vendors sold tamales. Boone in 1952 was strictly a one-culture Appalachian mountain town, with the most available foods being liver mush and cornbread. Looking at Boone today, I’m impressed with its diversity. Within the town limits, one can dine on Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai and “good ol’ American style home cookin’. ”

 

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