Steve and Bobby

". . . to go beyond is as wrong as to fall short."
Confucius

He was climbing down out of a loggers truck when I first saw him.  I was later to learn that he got to school every day by hitchhiking in to town from his home in a small farm community on the western edge of the hills.  Cache Valley consisted mainly of a half dozen large farm families, a one room school, and a Missionary Baptist church.  It was a farm community that tractors had yet to invade; "horsepower" meant something other than the size of a gasoline engine.

Daylight was just breaking and the truck's headlights still brightened the street in front of one of the two "general" stores in the village.  Pollard, at that time, was a busy farm village, boasting of two stores, a grist mill, a blacksmith shop and an auto repair shop.  The railroad still existed, although it's primary reason for still being was to transport the bales of cotton from the cotton gin to market. We had our own doctor and two service stations, one on either end of town, just an easy rifle shot apart.

Steve seemed a little tentative as he crossed the street, glancing back at the truck's dim illumination. which revealed his jeans, faded but clean and the nondescript short sleeved shirt that he wore.  He was about five foot six and was a bit chubby.  Not obese, but still carrying some of his "baby fat" in the demeanor of a well fed teenage farm kid.  Weighed maybe 190. He carried  neither lunchbox or books, and stood a little off to the side of the small group waiting for the decrepit old bus for transport to the high school in the manner of one who wanted to fit in but lacked the skills to do so. The modified pickup truck bringing a half dozen or so kids from the flatland communities to the north had just unloaded it's cargo, so, in total, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty passengers for the aging vehicle.
 
It was in the shortening days of early December, 1947. The bus, of faded vintage at least ten years prior, finally made its noisy arrival, "Tadpole", a 260 pound senior guard on the school championship football team, at the controls.  His years of handling farm vehicles qualified his skills and his size and demeanor assured his position; he took no crap.  The bus was not terribly old in terms of mileage, but ten years of gravel roads had taken their toll.  It had four seats, benches actually, each running the full length of the bus.  Already seated on the rightmost bench nearest the front door was a smallish, middle-aged lady who we knew only as "Miss Hazel".  She was a teacher at the elementary school in the county seat.

Miss Hazel lived with her widowed mother on the family farm a couple of miles west of town. They made no attempt to farm the eighty or so acres, but lived off their small garden, the rent from the tillable land and, of course, Miss Hazel.'s salary, meager though it was.  She routinely parked her 60 hp, faded blue prewar Ford sedan in the village near the bus garage and rode the bus to her job, a gas and money saving habit no doubt derived from the wartime days of gas rationing.

The bus was quickly loaded and grumbled its way out of town and began its gravelly progress eastward on US 62 toward school.

There was never any dozing since sudden stops often cause the passengers to slide forward on their bench. We had to stay somewhat alert and anticipate the stops.  One of these stops precipitated an idea in the mind of one of the passengers.  Bobby Brower, a couple of years older than Steve, was an overly mischievous second child of a sometimes Baptist preacher and was living validity of the generally accepted  axiom  "preachers' kids are the orneriest". Bobby circulated among the rearmost passengers, mainly male, suggesting that, on the next stop, they should all push a little harder in their sliding forward.  This  proposal was directed especially to those seated on the bench upon which Miss Hazel sat.  Some were even recruited from the other three benches and persuaded to change their seating so as to be in position to add to the effort.  Steve, being relatively new to the group and wanting badly to "fit in" went along with the plan.  What harm could a little push like that do?  He had misjudged both the force that could be generated and the damage it could do, or maybe he just wasn't thinking at all. 

He was, however, about to learn  something about people

When the time came and the bus brakes provided the opportunity for the inertia to cause the bodies to press forward on the seat, Bobby took a running start from the rear of the bus and slammed himself into the mass of sliding students in an effort to exert the maximum amount of available force on the teacher.  His real motivation remains a mystery.

She didn't exactly scream, it was sort of a huge exhaling, a grunt and a rather large whimper.

The bus stopped.
 
She sobbed.

There was a silence punctuated only by the erratically idling motor.

Tadpole took in the scene; he had caught the unusual movement in his interior mirror, even though his attention had been on the road and the reason for the sudden stop.

Bobby, standing now in the rear, started a laugh and stopped abruptly when no one joined in.  His grin deteriorated to a sheepish grin.

Tadpole's gaze would have frozen tap water.  "You'll stay on the bus with me", he said and sat back down behind the wheel. 

Bobby's grin evaporated.

Steve tried to become invisible.

As everyone but Bobby unloaded at the school's double front doors, Tadpole collared me, "Go fetch Mister Thorndike", he growled.  I stared at him.  "MOVE!", he said.  I did.

We heard later that Miss Hazel had been taken to the local hospital, examined, and given a good supply of aspirin and taken home.  She was hurt, battered and bruised, but thankfully, no bones were broken and no internal injuries noted.

She lost several days' work.
 
Bobby was seen being escorted into the superintendent's office, and later leaving by the rear door of the auditorium as Mr. T held the door open.  We assumed that the incident was duly reported and thoroughly investigated; Bobby was not seen in school for a few weeks.  Steve was identified as one of the perpetrators. 

It would be a wonderful ending if we could say that Steve learned a valuable lesson here which went on the guide him the rest of his life, but, alas, if this was true, it was not apparent to anyone at the time.  He was simply terrified.  Having come from a one-room farm country school where punishment had been doled out with switches, paddles and/or belts and an assault on a teacher was considered an act on par with that of a traitor in wartime, and having just recently been through the school's customary subjecting of freshmen boys to a gauntlet of belt wielding upper classmen known as the "belt line", he had no clue as to what might be his fate. 

He went into low profile, fearfully awaiting a sentencing. but mercifully suffered no further attention over the matter. It was not discussed.

But no one recalls Bobby's ever being a passenger on the bus again, and, other than a subsequent firearms "accident" in which another student gained a flesh wound in a leg, was not much about him was seen or heard.

And no one remembers whether or not he completed high school.

Ab

for Dessie

. . . I'm sure she remembers.

There  are  only three things that  can kill a farmeer: 
lightning,  rolling  over in a tractor, 

and  old age.                             Bill  Bryson                                      



 Splat!   A huge drop of \water hit him in the middle of his forehead.   He opened his eyes slowly and tried to turn over onto his left side. The pain was like a knife, whichever muscle the tried to use.                                                                                                                                                                                       

Drip!  He looked up and only saw the underside of the rough boards that made up the bottom of his wagon bed.  The water was oozing slowly through a crack between two boards and forming the drops which had awakened him.  He moved aside just before the next drop fell.  By rolling painfully back until he was lying on his right side, he was able to look out on the rain soaked area that surrounded him and his farm wagon.  He stared for several minutes in absolute astonishment and disbelief.

*******

It all began early that morning. Ab had risen early as usual, assessed the coming day as he tended to the morning chores of feeding and milking.  He had determined that it was going to be a fine sunshiny day, and the cornfield he had planted two weeks earlier at the Fox Pond, would be needing its first plowing. There had been only a little rain and that several days ago; the ground would be just right.
After breakfast, Ab stabled the mules, curried and brushed out the worst of the dirt in their coats and put on the harness getting them ready for a full day's work.  He went in, had his breakfast, picked up his lunch and returned a half hour later to hitch the mules to the wagon.  He tied the one-row, mule -rawn cultivator on behind the wagon and set off for the Fox Pond.
Ab had two forty acre blocks of land.  The home forty where the house and barn were located and the Fox Pond, another forty acre block located a little over a half mile to the west, as the crow flies, but almost a mile by road.  The sun was only about an hour high when Ab parked the wagon in the grove of trees on the north side of the forty and hitched the mules to the cultivator.
The sun was warm on this early spring day, the soil was just right for plowing, otherwise the morning was uneventful.  When Ab judged the sun to be directly overhead, he stopped for his dinner, unhooked the mules took them to the creek for water, and fed them corn from the bag in the wagon.  He noticed a number of smallish clouds drifting leisurely up from the western horizon; they seemed to be generally a little bigger as the day wore on. Not unusual for springtime; no problem unless one got really big.
Mid afternoon found the plowing going well; he could complete the field by sundown if all went well.  As the sun slipped further toward the horizon, it became more and more cloud covered; eventually becoming covered by the clouds.  Ab kept a wary eye on one large dark cloud and made a mental observation that he might have to finish tomorrow.
He looked to the west as he turned the rig into another row.  The cloud was very dark and suddenly the wind changed markedly.  It had been blowing softly west to east; now it came briskly from the east.  He knew the signs, he stopped, unhitched the mules, and, leaving the cultivator in the field, drove them briskly to the shelter of the trees and his wagon.  It would hopefully be only a passing shower and maybe he would be able to finish today after all.  He tied the mules to a nearby tree and slipped under the wagon to check what might be remaining in the lunch pail.
The roar of the approaching precipitation was louder than usual; it hit hard, balls of ice the size of marbles or bigger.  The hailstones beating on the tree leaves and sometimes on the mules surprised and alarmed the mules, who snorted and tried to bolt.  Ab knew they were securely tied, so he didn't worry.
Suddenly, the air became charged. It almost crackled in the manner that makes one's hair stand on end.
Then there was a blinding flash and an unbelievably loud crash. Ab lost consciousness.

******

Now he was awake and peering our from under the wagon upon a scene he would never forget.  The tree where he had tied the mules lay split from top to bottom and lay in two pieces.  On either side, each with his own half of the tree, lay the mules.  They were quite still, and a tiny wisp of smoke creeping upward from one of the collars.The rain had dwindled to just a pattering of drops; hailstones littered the ground, the tree was split, and worst of all, the mules appeared to be dead.  Ab crawled painfully out from the wagon, found that what he had suspected with regard to the mules was entirely correct.
"lightning" he muttered, "damn".
He stood stone still, staring, for a long time. 
He looked to the west where the clouds were beginning to break and a small patch of blue was visible.
Well, he thought, it's a long walk home and it's getting on to feeding time. 
I'll come back tomorrow.

He picked up his lunch pail and started slowly for home.

He did not look back.

Coon Hunt

for Jim and Marty

". . . sing your sweet song for me,

throw your sweet voice to the wind . . . ."

                                                                Darren Haverstick;   "Pearl"
                                                                                              sung by Cedar Hill

Coon hunting is an activity peculiar to particular parts of the country and practiced by small minority of the population, mostly males, who love the outdoors and enjoy the quiet and companionship of friends and their dogs, in pursuit of the small furry animals.  Since the racoon is primarily nocturnal, the hunt is, of necessity, at night, which is when most of the spare time for farm communities exists.

Ingredients for a coon hunt include a campfire, coffee (and/or other liquid refreshment), food of some description, a light source, a weapon or some other means of getting the coon out of his tree. And, the most important item, a good coon hound with which to find the object of the operation.  The light source would usually be a carbide lamp of the type used by miners. It produces light by means of an open gas flame located in the center of a metal reflector.  The gas is generated by a controlled flow of water from a small tank into a container of carbide chunks, the chemical reaction of which produces a flammable gas which is directed to the nozzle in the center of the reflector which is then lit and burning to produce light. I am no chemist, but I know it works. How much light it produces is quite another matter.

Harvey announced to his friends at the Wednesday prayer meeting that he had acquired a new dog.

Said he was just a pup, 'bout a year and a half old, but from good hunting stock.  "He does rabbits and squirrels OK, but I want him to learn about coons.  Think I'll take him back in the Overcup one night and see what we can find."  "How about tomorrow night?"" says E E, "come on up after dark and we'll go."

Now Harvey and E E are both in their teens and have completed the first eight grades of school.  E E has gone on to high school and Harvey is still at home helping his father on the farm.  E E traps and supplements his spending money with the sale of hides.
Thursday night finds the boys and Harvey's dog, Blue, entering the wetlands to the North of E E's father's farm. The land is flat, wooded and interspersed with areas of ankle deep water. At some distance to the North lies the part where deeper water exists and where a huge five pronged cypress tree provides the only real landmark in the area.  They find a relatively open area on relatively dry, low ridge, and are able to start a small campfire.  Blue watches, with his eye on the knapsack where he suspects there is food.  Harvey looks at Blue:  "Blue, go find something".  Blue looks puzzled. "BLUE--RABBIT, FETCH"  Blue got up, stretched, and trotted off into the woods. "dumb dog," Harvey says under his breath.

By now the coffee is hot and the snacks have been consumed and the boys are enjoying the quiet of the night in the light of the dying fire and the last quarter moon overhead.  The carbide light is lit and burning on low flame.  Peaceful, Nice.

The silence is broken by the sound so well known and so dear to the hunter - the melodious long notes of the hound on a trail.  "He's got something" says Harvey, "listen to that, ain't that beautiful?"

They listened quietly to the music as it moved farther to the North then changed to a more intense flurry of shorter notes and did not move further.  "He's treed him, LET'S GO!", and they were off.  Harvey in the lead with the knapsack on his shoulder and the carbide lamp firmly attached to his cap, leaving E E to bring up the rear - in the dark.

E E arrived a few minutes later than the rest.  He was amazed.  In the dim light of the carbide light's open flame, he saw a small oak tree, maybe three inches in diameter and perhaps 25 feet high. Blue was on his hind legs, bracing his forefeet on the tree and speaking fiercely and loudly to what appeared to be the world's largest coon, who was perched precariously in the fork of the tree, about 15 feet up.  Harvey was observing from the other side of the tree.  " Wish I'd brought my 22," says E E.  "No problem," says Harvey, " it's a small tree, I'll just shake him out - Blue will take care of him".  and proceeded to do just that.

The coon hit the ground with a resounding thump and a fierce snarl in Blue's direction. Blue stared in quiet disbelief; he had never in his young life seen so large a rabbit. Coon snarled again; Blue considered the situation-for about two seconds then chose discretion over valor and quickly left the scene.  He was  not seen again  that night.  Coon, sensing his window of opportunity, leaped on top a fallen tree trunk and sped north to freedom with all possible haste.

"He's getting away" says Harvey, "if he makes it to the deep water and the big cypress, we will never get him."  And with that he charged off in pursuit, leaving E E in the dark again. E E is attempting to follow but being hampered by underbrush and deepening water underfoot.  Suddenly the sound of Harvey's pursuit is interrupted by a thump, a grunt, a splash and then silence. And darkness.  "HARVEY, YOU OK?"  A splash.  muttering. "Yeah, I'm OK".  E E found him, and tripped over a root and went down too.  "Coon got away", says Harvey.  "and the light's out", says E E "where's your matches?"  "Right here in my bib pocket, I keep them there so they won't get ---"  he stopped ---wet". he said, now holding a handful of soaked matches, which he threw into the water. "You got a lighter?"  "Don't smoke", says E E.  "Shit!", says Harvey.

Apparently they had been closer to the deep water than they thought.  Harvey had tripped over a submerged cypress knee* and tumbled headlong into water up to his chin.  E E had followed suit and now both are soaked.  They are also near the middle of the Overcup with no light, no food, no compass and the moon is going down.

"We better get home," says E E. "Which way is home", says Harvey.  "Look, says E E, There' the big dipper; and the North Star, we just go the other way and we should come out in Dad's north forty."  Harvey looked at the stars of the big dipper, hanging just over the dim outline of a huge cypress tree, then turned the other way and headed South.

Plodding through ankle to knee-deep water, crashing through underbrush that was felt, not seen, and beset by regimental strength flights of mosquitoes, they broke into open fields just as the moon was setting.  "I know where I am now," says Harvey, "I'm as close to my house as we are to yours, I'll just go home from here".

Another half mile and E E was out of his wet clothes and into bed, with the full knowledge that in about two hours, he would have to be up to help with the feeding of livestock and the milking of cows, before having breakfast and hitting the road for school.

* Cypress trees almost always grow in or near water.  The roots around the tree sprout upward appendages which extend up to three or more feet above solid ground.  These "knees" may or may not extend above the surface, depending on the current water level.  The water was obviously high at the time of this incident.

Epilogue

Harvey stayed on the farm, until he was drafted into the Marine Corps.  He lost his life in the landings on Iwo Jima.

E E finished high school, got drafted, learned to be a bombardier for the Army Air Corp, married his high school sweetheart, and, after the war, left the Army as a 1st Lieutenant.  Since his two major skill areas
were farming and dropping bombs, and there no longer being any demand for bombardiers, bought a farm.

Blue became a loyal family pet and guardian of the farm, chasing an occasional rabbit and identifying snakes, etc.

As far as we know none of the three ever went coon hunting again.

The Medicine Pump, a true and current story.

for Josie, who was such a good sport about it . . .

Josie has a medicine pump which she must carry around, and sleep with for about 48 hours after the Iv's are completed in each round of treatment.  This "pump" looks like and is about the same size as one of the old cassette recorders that we used to use.  There is a control panel and a digital display for the countdown of the remaining medicine.  It is installed/connected at the end of each IV session and then it proceeds to inject 96ml of the medicine at the rate of 2ml/hr. 
It clicks, I think, every one-tenth of a milliliter, and show the decreasing amount of medicine remaining.  I can only imagine the fun one would have trying to board a plane with a clicking box that has a countdown to zero in it's control panel.
The term "control panel" is used rather loosely, since there is very little in the fierce little box that can be controlled by the victim.  For example, when it has completed it's task of injecting all of it's content into the patient, it screams quite loudly;  rudely, in fact.
Ideally, one should arrive at the cancer center for removal of this pest about thirty seconds before the last drop is pumped in.  Timing is quite important since the thing can only be silenced by the quite low tech process of removing it's batteries.
Now, this evil thing comes with about ten feet of tubing, which , of course, is to take the medicine from the pump to the patient's entry port located in the right shoulder area.  Since this is way too much for the eighteen or so inches actually needed, the excess is normally wrapped round and round the box before it is placed in it's canvas case.  It is then secured by Velcro straps, the cover closed and also secured, this time by a zipper.  Canvas case is secured to a shoulder strap as a means of carrying.  Batteries are inside the plastic case of the pump with one of those "push down and slide" closures which, I believe, were designed by the Japanese as revenge on us for winning the war.   Anyway, you get the picture.
Josie gets chilled easily, so on the trip up to Gettysburg to get the pump removed, she is dressed warmly with her coat zipped up to her chin, to stay.  Yes, I know the car has a heater and heated seats, but she doesn't seem to be able to unburden herself of the coat. If anything she might just reduce the heat.  You may have guessed by now that the pump is on it's strap which is around her shoulder and under the zipped up coat.  And under the seat belt!
You guessed it.  The pump ran out of anything to pump and decided to try to notify all of central Maryland and some of southern Pennsylvania.
This started a series of events and noises which defies my limited abilities to describe.  Keep in mind that I am driving, and therefore somewhat limited in my capability to assist. (one free hand is all that is available)
Josie has to first open the coat, which requires that she release the seat belt which starts another complaint, this time from the car.  Now we have the pump screaming, the seat belt clanging and we still have to open the case, release the Velcro and unroll the tubing from around the pump, just to gain access to the battery compartment door..
Pandemonium is probably a descriptive word somewhere close to what was going on in the shotgun seat.  (There really wasn't any really safe place to pull over)
After several minutes (hours?) of struggle we have the pump  exposed and the opening to the battery compartment exposed.  Which Josie now cannot open due to the sadistic oriental  latch mechanism and her chemo-weakened fingers.
We finally gained control by Josie's placing the pump on my thigh and holding it in place while I pried open the compartment and snatched out the batteries.  This only left the seat belt,
The point?  Try not to be late for appointments.

Bert

"Vengence is mine . . . ."

In the fall of 1971 a young man was killed in a shootout with the FBI at at motel in Marietta Georgia, a small town just outside Atlanta.  He had kidnapped a banker and his family and was holding them for ransom.  He was an escaped convict, murderer and bank robber who was wanted for a previous kidnapping.  His name was Marvin Elbert Grissom, and his hometown was McDougal Arkansas. 

Marvin's father was Bert Grissom.

Bert lived in the flatlands that surround McDougal and was quite well known by everyone as "someone you don't mess with".  Bert and Doug Batey evidently had a longstanding dislike for each other, a dislike which had grown after Doug, from the same part of the county, had been elected sheriff.  Sheriff Batey's office had answered a number of disorderly conduct, domestic violence, and other complaints at the Grissom residence.  By all accounts, Bert was just plain mean.

I believe that Bert's wife was the one who put the bruises on my aunt's face and blacked her eye for good measure over some derogatory remark that Elzora was alleged to have said.  Elzora was probably guilty, given her propensity to thinking a lot and speaking her mind often.

After Marvin's demise, Bert evidently suspected that Sherriff Batey had been instrumental in the FBI's locating and dispatching his son.  This may also have been true.

|Anyway, it came as no surprise, the following April, when the Sherriff's office was called to tell them that Bert was again engaged in a domestic disagreement that was about to get nasty.  Knowing Bert as he did, Doug decided to take the call personally and, just for good measure, take along a couple of deputies.

When they arrived at the Grissom residence and stepped out of the car, Bert stepped out of the carport with a 12 gauge shotgun and open fire.  Sherriff Batey and Deputy Troy Key died at the scene; Deputy Glen Ray Archer died about ten days later.  Forty-one years ago this month.

Bert sat down in the carport and waited.  And that's where he was when the state trooper arrived sometime later. He is reported to have said, "I've got no argument with you."

Bert was sentenced to life in prison, where he died sometime in the 1980's.  I've hear that a petition, with many signatures, requested his release was submitted to either the governor or the prison authorities.  It was, apparently either ignored or denied.  The entire episode was reported in detail in one of the detective magazine, but which one, I don't know.

Bud and Elzora

Bud and Elzora

 

"We live in a box of space and time . . . "

                                                                                    Roger Ebert
 

   "Lay on Macduff,

and damned be he

who first cries "Hold, enough"

Wm Shakespeare,

Macbeth, Act V, scene vii

1940: McDougal, Arkansas,

 It's a crossroads village with no real crossing of roads, having a population about 62 souls, consisting of a Post Office, a cotton gin, a general store, at least three churches, a couple of garages, a one-room school house (grades 1-8, seven months of school per year, five in winter and two at midsummer to maximize utilization of young field hands), and perhaps two dozen homes of varying  age and condition.  Situated astride US 62, (the only US highway that begins at the Canadian border and ends at the US-Mexico line, and, as yet, unpaved in Clay County), it has no paved streets, no town government, no public officials other than an unpaid school board.  Police protection is provided by the county sheriffs whose offices are located each of the two county seats, both at least twenty miles of gravel road away. Deputies  (two for each sheriff)  seldom show up except when sent for, and then quite reluctantly.  (Why two county seats?, you ask.  Not really sure, but I suspect that, in past, both road conditions and lack of good drainage made year-round travel across the lowlands an unsure matter.  Why not two counties? Who knows, politics is an art, not a science.  WWII is still eighteen months away.



Once upon a time there had been a narrow gauge railroad in the service of the local lumber industry that had spawned a "business district" nearby and, which included a number of "low income" residences, a baseball field, a Missionary Baptist Church and a movie theater, later morphed into a house of worship for the local Penacostal congregation. (Since at least 99.44% of the populace were sworn aggressive enemies of the local poisonous and numerous "cottonmouths",  the snake handling version of religion never really caught on here.)  When the rails and cross ties became a just another gravel road (albeit straight and level) the town crept down to the vicinity of the cotton gin alongside the new and improved US62, which was also straight, wider and serviced with grading at least once per month.


McDougal, the name obviously drawn from some long forgotten founder, sits in the flatlands which begin some three miles east at the hills of Crowley's Ridge and forms the upper reaches of what passes for the upper drainage plain of the Cache River. Somewhere, a few miles west of McDougal, the water flow turns westward and is taken over by Black River.  All good black dirt here, interspersed here and there by the hard to manage hard clay "gumbo" type of river bottom, and sitting atop what must be one of the largest known aquifers. Anyone's water supply is simply a matter of attaching a pointed strainer to a section of 2" pump pipe and driving a few short sections into the  earth and attaching a pitcher pump.  Unlimited, potable water, (perhaps a bit heavy in iron and/or manganese) is then well within the reach of a shallow well pump.



My Uncle Bud and Aunt Elzora owned and operated the village store, specializing (or maybe generalizing) in food, drink, gasoline, ice, and feed for animals. This included a very limited deli (although he would not have recognized the term) where my uncle would make you a thickly sliced bologna sandwich on plain white with mayo for a nickel or a dime. Sodas are five cents as well.
 
Having lost both their children when they were sharecroppers in the sandy cotton fields of Missouri's bootheel, Bud and Elzora needed little actual living space and so shared a small upstairs apartment over the store along with their fat little bulldog whose name I have forgotten, but the important thing to remember here is that, in farm country, any dog unable or unwilling to chase rabbits, tree squirrels and/or 'coons, or bite intruders and kill snakes, was deemed somewhat worthless; the bulldog lost on all counts. He was left at our farm (only once) for safekeeping while my aunt and uncle were to be away for an extended period. He died there from either old age, lack of attention or the rough farm life of our other, non house accustomed canines.  (Or maybe all the above.) But that's another story.
 
In the interests of security maybe, the owners' bedroom was located above the front of the store and well away from the stairway. It had windows that overlooked the gas pumps alongside the highway.  A gallon of gasoline cost less than 25 cents and had to be hand pumped into the pump's glass reservoir, then drained out into the car's  fuel tank.  Marks on the side of the glass measured the gallons.  A kerosene tank, complete with its own pump, sat on the front porch beside a couple of metal lawn chairs like the one in which Aunt Elzora was sitting the day she got beat up by an irate farmer's wife (more on that later):  This was the same "coal oil" tank and pump that my eldest sister, conned her younger brother, (also older than me) in to taking a drink of "water" from the pump.  She even volunteered to man the pump for him. Fortunately he realized his mistake before swallowing any significant amount of kerosene.



The ice house was along side the main building, and was simply a long low building, which had an interior wall, set perhaps 12"-18" inside the exterior with the space between filled with some local insulating material, mostly sawdust.  Floor and ceiling were similarly insulated.  Ice was procured in 300 pound blocks from the "factory" at the County Seat, twenty miles away and transported in the back of Uncle Bud's pickup.  The truck would hold perhaps four of these blocks set on edge and reaching  the full width of the truck bed.  Four of these blocks would, of course, weigh at least 1200 pounds, a bit much for the springs and shocks of a truck rated as "quarter ton".  There was, of course, in the hot summer season when ice was needed, some loss to melting, since the truck was not insulated in any way, let alone enclosed.  This was not deemed important since the ice was sold by portion, not weight.  By that I mean that one third of a 300 pound block was deemed to be an hundred pound block, and half of that was 50 pounds, etc. and sold accordingly.  Strickley a "no loss" process.  Not too much ice was sold at the store, because most homes had ice delivered to their home.
Each delivery point had a square cardboard sign, with the numbers, 25, 50, 75 and 100 printed in large numbers on each of its four sides. If all hands were to working in the field on delivery day, the sign would be hung out in plain view with the side showing the required quantity at top so that the numbers were upright and in the normal reading position. The doors would never be locked, so the delivery person (almost always a male) could carry the ice inside and place in the icebox.  About once a month, the iceman would leave a ticket and his fee would be left for him to pick up at his next delivery day.  Good reliable system, but hardly one that could work today.  Wear and tear on Bud's truck was a bit severe since it was also used racing madly around the countryside delivering grocery orders, usually sent in via handwritten notes carried by a nearby neighbor or the rural mail carrier.


Uncle Bud's accounts receivable (farmers typically charged a lot of items over the growing season, to be paid at harvest time) consisted of an old cheese box, maybe two, which held a number of ticket books such as a waiter might use to record your lunch order, one for each customer to whom he extended credit.  At each charge, a ticket was created in duplicate, one copy for the customer and one remaining in the book as a record.  Settling up involved only adding up the accumulated tickets and collecting the cash.  He could tell who had money and when by seeing who was bringing cotton to the gin.  It was suspected that in the occasional event when someone has dashed in to pick up a sack of feed or a block of ice, etc. and Bud had not the time to do a  ticket or jot down the transaction, he might charge it to several of the likely suspects' accounts, later apologizing to those who complained and removing it with a flourish from the book.  Invariably, some failed to complain, probably because they couldn't remember either.  He was convinced  that people secretly wanted to be fooled; and that, given the choice, would rather be told  falsehood than learn the truth.



His real name was Rollie (that was the way it was spelled).  He was the eighth of nine children born in just over ten years; his twin, Robbie, died at birth.  When the ninth one was stillborn, a little over two years later,  Grandma apparently gave up and cashed in her chips. She died a week later, leaving six children, the oldest being about fourteen.  One was an only daughter, age about six, who became the "woman of the house" for the next several years. Grandfather was an iterant carpenter/jack-of-all-trades who spent a lot of time away from home.  Rollie was the runt of the family, smallest of a family of smaller than average folks, and handicapped by the loss of one lung to TB, but he fared well amongst the countryside populated with rough-edged  country folk.
 
He had had stories!  Told us once of being awakened in the middle of the night by some well dressed but somewhat sinister looking group of travelers who needed gasoline.  From the bedroom window they could see an array of different license plates in the backseat of the car, from which he suspected that these might not be legitimate business men. Not an illogical conclusion since this was the era of the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and other notorious entrepreneurs.  He pumped the gas, received his pay, and gave a huge sigh of relief when they drove away.  I'd bet my aunt was watching from the window with the old Colt handy. (Only saw that handgun once, but my recollection and what I have learned since convinces me that it was a Colt single action revolver, possibly 45 caliber like those made famous by cowboys of all ages.)



She was that kind of woman, my Aunt Elzora, small and sturdy of stature, highly opinionated and thoroughly seasoned by many years of hard work, both in the cotton fields and in the operation of a general store.  She was loud and given to speaking her mind; said what she thought and she thought quite a lot. Although devoid of cusswords, (her religion forbade the use of such), her vocabulary was rich in sarcasm and innuendo; her delivery blunt.  Not highly educated, with thick, horn rimmed glasses, she could spot an error in Uncle Bud's sales ticket math from all the way across the room. She was a real "piece of work", and on occasion got into trouble for it.
.
Which brings me to the hot, dusty summer afternoon, probably a Wednesday when farm country merchants were wont to take time to rest up.  Since the populace in general knew that Saturday, being the traditional market day, would be a long and hard day for almost all the store operators, they accepted the practice and seldom, if ever, went to store on a Wednesday, particularly after dinner. (For you city folk, that's a midday meal, or at least it was then.)


Mid July temperatures in these parts typically get into three digits, and this particular day was at least typical, maybe hotter.  The mid-day sun had by now been at work for seven or eight hours and by now the only difference between the outside and inside temperatures was the lack of direct sun inside.  There was not a breath of air stirring in the 100 degree afternoon and only the limitations of mathematics was keeping the humidity level from passing 100.  My aunt had evidently decided to take a break and had strolled across the highway to pick up their mail, and having opened the two bills, one from a canned goods wholesaler and another from the mill in Springfield that shipped the bagged stuff like flour and corn meal, she put the letter from her brother in Paducah aside for later reading, and sat down to read the paper.  She had seated herself in one of the chairs on the porch with the most recent copy of the weekly edition of the Kansas City Star, and was catching up on all the local gossip from Hazel, the postmistress.  As we all know, postmasters and postmistress are in touch most everyone in the community almost every day and therefore know lots of things about lots of people.  Most are more than willing to share.



Over the top of the well worn top edge of the editorial page, Elzora watched with growing curiosity a cloud of dust on the gravel highway fast approaching town from the west that slowed and ground itself to a halt across the road by the gas pump in front of their store.  It was a battered old A-Model Ford, circa 1929 or 30 that was holding up fairly well, considering its age.  A woman of about five foot ten inches of height and weighing around perhaps 200 pounds, descended from the car and marched around the A's steaming radiator cap and into the store.  My aunt didn't stir, she had acquired a glass of iced tea and was sipping and gossiping while keeping an eye out on the happenings across the street.  She knew that Bud was inside doing some restocking of small items on the shelves, and so saw no need to interfere. She was taking a break.



"Hazel, who was that just pulled up to the pumps?"
"Looks like Gladys Wingate, but can't be shore, she went inside too fast."
"Guess she didn't want no gas."
(Aunt E was always looking to the marketing side of things.)
" or anything else, for that matter, here she comes!"



Now it's worthwhile to mention here that the Wingates were well known farmers who owned a couple of hundred acres of the rich black bottom land a mile or two out of town, somewhere back toward the river where they housed a large family and ruled their domain with all the bluster of an old west cattle baron and handled all their problems themselves without need of assistance by, or interference from, any government agency, be it county, state or federal. It was their land, by damn, and they would do pretty much as they pleased, thank you very much!



Back at the store,things had changed.  The big lady had by now marched out the front door of the store, allowing the spring loaded screen door to slam unmercifully and it's bell to jingle madly.  She glared across the street and  set sail directly for Aunt Elzora's position.  Fortunately there was no traffic, for she looked neither left or right. Had there been any approaching vehicles, they would not have dared to interfere anyway; she was on a mission.



When I next saw my aunt, it was several days after the incident and she still had a black eye, a real shiner, and bruises on both of her forearms.  She still limped a little and had some ugly discolorations on her shins that were not quite covered by her stockings; her glasses seemed to be a little out of alignment as well.  No one ever provided any details, leastwise none that my young ears were considered suited to hear, so at this point the story becomes more or less a product of my imagination, but I think things might have gone somewhat like this:



Gladys stopped at the first of the two steps leading up to the porch, glared at my aunt and pronounced loudly,

"ELZORA, I AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOU BADMOUTHIN' ME AND MY FAMILY!"



Whereupon she took the rest of the steps in one stride; two more steps and she stood menacingly over the chair in which my aunt sat.  It was one of those painted metal chairs that almost everyone used to have before the advent of the light aluminum, webbing laced ones of today.  The chair had those metal tubing armrests on either side, so Elzora was effectively confined to the chair and unable to get up and face her opponent should she have so chosen to do so. (she wisely did not,) Elzora was mouthy, not necessarily stupid; obviously outweighed and outgunned, and probably a bit amazed as well,   for she froze and managed a weak, "w-what do you mean?"


"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, YOU GOSSIPY OLD BITCH, PAULINE SAID YOU TOLD HER THAT WE WUZ TRASHY PORE AND NEVER PAID WHAT WE OWED!"
" I never said that."
"SHE SEZ YOU DID!
"I only said that I knew you had a large family to feed and that I guessed that was probably the reason you couldn't pay some of your honest debts, and that I really felt sorry for folks that are on hard times. You do have some tickets at the store that you never paid, you know"
"ONLY ONE, FOR THE FOUR SACKS OF FEED, AND THAT WAS ON THIS YEAR'S BILL."
"It was before Thanksgiving."
"WELL, WE GOT MORE THAN ENOUGH TO PAY IT, BUT I'M NOT PAYIN ' YOU ANYTHING TILL WE GET THE CROPS OUT, JUST 'CAUSE YOU'VE RUN YOUR MOUTH SO.  YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT 'TIL WE SELL THE COTTON , JUST LIKE ALWAYS!



Here is where my aunt made her mistake, she should have let well enough alone, but her disposition would not allow it. She might have been cornered but noooo. . . . . .



 "Didn't I see Walter bringing in a couple of loads of cotton to the gin, late in the season, maybe 'bout two weeks before last Christmas?"



Gladys, having already declared her victory, had been about to leave the field and had already taken a step back, but now, having received a small but stinging verbal counterpunch, she became confused.  Most of her skills were physical, not verbal, and, not being equipped to do effective combat in that arena, she resorted to her only other option.



"YOU BITCH!", she roared, stamped her oversized right ankle-high work shoe, stepped forward with her left and, in one swift and deft movement, snatched off my aunts's glasses with her left hand, flung them violently onto the nearby table, and caught Elzora with a roundhouse right to the face.  My aunt only had time to turn her head just enough to catch the blow below her left eye and get her forearms up high enough to buffer the force of an oncoming left hook and its partner, the accompanying right.  From the looks of her subsequent discolorations, there must have been some participation of the shoes as well.  Best she could do was to hunker down in the chair, cover her face and try to weather the storm.



Fortunately, further damage was avoided by the intervention of Hazel and my uncle, both of whom had heard the shouting when things really hit the fan.  Gladys was pulled back and persuaded to leave the scene, but my aunt was true to her calling.  As Gladys marched across the road, Aunt Elzora seized the chair arms, pulled herself up to a standing position, and called out clearly,



"GLADYS"



Gladys froze at about where the center line might have been, had there been one, did a half turn to her left, and glared over her shoulder, "WHAT?'



Gladys stared in total disbelief.  There, standing just in front of the chair she had just recently occupied, her hands locked on either chair arm for support, her glasses listing about ten degrees to port due to their recent crash landing, and actually smiling, was my Aunt Elzora,



"Do you think you could manage half of the bill now?   We can probably wait on the rest 'till you sell the first bale of cotton."



Like I said, she was a real piece of work!

*****************

Afterword:
Progress eventually forced the store and its proprietors out of business, but Elzora outlived Uncle Bud by several decades, eventually ending up in a nursing home; I'll bet she went, kicking and screaming, when it was time.

Preacher

Authur was a close friend in "grade" school.  He was almost exactly one year older - a year and one day actually - his birthday was one day before mine. His home was somewhere in the hills south of US62- I never saw it or visited him at home.  For all eight grades Authur rode a full size bicycle to and from school. This bike had the 26 inch huge balloon tires of the era-the narrow tired european type tires were years away.  In the early school years, his legs were much too short for him to reach the pedals while seated; his only way to ride was to stand on the pedals and slide back and forth over the tank. So much so that after a while, the paint was completely worn off the tank.  But come to school he did, every day, along with a couple of nephews who were also a part of the houshold. Don't know just how far back in the hills they lived; coming to school was probably fairly easy, 'cause it was mostly downhill, but going home in the afternoon must have been a real hard job, with that bicycle.
Authur was the youngest son of a Preacher, but not in the church that most of the community went to.  The Missionary Baptist Church was right next to the school.  It was a far cry from being a liberal institution, but Preacher's church was even more fundamentalist. Pentacostal, I think, strong in their beliefs and independant to a fault.  During the time of WW2, he drove an old single seated Chevvy or Dodge sedan with a "rumble" seat which he had adapted to carry passengers or cargo as he chose. Saturdays, Sundays, and  Wednesday nights he managed to load the entire family in the car and take them to services.
Preacher was convinced that the Bible was written, if not actually by God himself, then by someone who had God's hand on his shoulder as he wrote.  Consequently, what was written in the Holy Word, was true and exact---literally. Someone once engaged him in a discussion of the New Testament story of the conversion of Nicodemus and his subsequent baptism.  You may recall that the King James verison says of Nicodemus that "....he and his house were baptised."  Preacher was asked how this could be since the only known method of baptism was by immersion.  Preacher held his ground.  He said he didn't know just how they did it, but if the Book said the house was baptised, then it was baptised, and that ended the question as far as he was concerned.
In the late 40's, as the small farms were beginning to disappear, the state of Arkansas was beginning to see the advantages of consolidating the one room schools into the larger districts with their schools located in the towns.  In the old system, anyone wishing access to schooling higher than the 8th grade, would have to find their own transportation to the nearest high school (usually 10-20 miles) and pay tuition to high school for the priviledge of attending.  Ten years before I got to high school, my older brother had ridden a bicycle on the gravel highway, (US62 was not paved unitl the mid 50;s) for three and one half miles to the nearest village and pay a fee to ride their bus to the high school, which was another six of seven miles. (I never did the bicycle bit; I found it much faster and easier to hitchhike.)
At the time I began the 9th grade, it was possible for the small one-room schools to voluntarily consolidate with the larger ones, provided a majority of the citizens of the district requested it.  My father, perhaps motivated by the potential relief from the tuition requirement of the high school, circulated a petition requesting consolidation.  . (Bear in mind, I was the only student from the district attending the higher school.)  Most everyone signed - except preacher.  I think he probably had been one of the last ones contacted.
Anyway, he begged to differ.
Actually, he didn't beg; he stood up and fought back. He had heard that the town schools only taught for half-days, and were probably not geared for maximum utilization of students in the tending of the spring crops or the fall harvests.  Small children would be let loose in the town for the other half of the day until the bus returned, as he told it. (half days had been true in the war years, the scheduling was a fact).
So, Preacher, armed with a stack of post cards and pencils, toured the entire district, asking each and every taxpayer to sign a postcard removing their names from the petition. Evidently, he was quite persuaive.  Again, most every one signed.  I'm guessing most really didn't care one way or the other. No doubt Preacher was more experienced in presenting his case than was my dad, who may have been only one left on the sheet, not that Preacher didn't ask him to remove it.
So, for another year, I had to find my way to the village, pay to ride their bus and pay tuition to the high school.  Preacher won, but next year the consolidation was mandated by law and the small family farms were one more step closer to history.