Steven's Run

for Chuck and Ann,
       ........ they lived it too.

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly Ride."
the shade replied ---
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

Edgar Allan Poe, "Eldorado"

The the explosion shook the building. The windows rattled. 

He sat upright in his bunk.  The camp-wide outdoor speaker system blared the bugle call from all directions.

0600hrs, Fort Jackson, SC. 1955.

"Damn cannon!" he muttered, to no one in particular,  "Why d'they haft'a do that every morning?  It's Saturday, f'Christ's sake".

The cannon, a 105mm field piece, announced the raising of the flag every morning at Division HQ on "Tank Hill", a piece of higher ground, named not for military armament, but for the huge water container located there. The early morning sound of artillery together with the bugle calls always gave him a bit of a shiver, but it was an effective alarm clock. 

He was awake now, his sheet sticky from another night of sweating through the August heat of the South Carolina night. For convenience as well as comfort, the sheet was just thrown loosely over the stacked two-level bunk. Underneath, the bunk was neatly made; a little tightening in the morning and it was ready for the daily inspection. Air conditioning was unknown, at least in the Army; everyone sleeping in the barracks merely tossed a sheet over an already made up bunk, slept on it with as little clothing as possible and then dried and stored the sheet in the morning. Efficient, although the sheets sometimes became a bit rank before the next weekly issue. Steve spread his sheet loosely over the steel ends of the bunk so it would dry as much as the 90+ humidity would permit, completed his latrine duties, dressed in his work khakis (class B, no tie.) and set off for the mess hall. He was due at work at 0800.

Cpl. Johnson, the company clerk, waved him over to his table. "You had a call last night, seems your wife was admitted to the hospital.", he said, "Call came in around 2230 according to CQ's log".
"Shit! So why didn't somebody let me know?" 
"CQ said he called down to the barracks on the intercom and nobody answered, so he told them you were out in town on pass." 
"Great! That would have been eleven thirty down home, 'way past bedtime. Bet my mother-in-law loved it! She don't like me much anyway. Probably thinks I was shacked up in a motel somewhere. Guess it was too much trouble for CQ to get up off his ass and check the sign out book; he might've discovered that I didn't go anywhere last night; heaven forbid he should walk down to the barracks, it's at least fifty yards." "And that damn intercom is all the way at the other end of the building from my bunk: it wouldn't wake a scared rabbit." 

He ran out of breath; hadn't realized he was shouting. 

Johnson was calm, "Sorry man, but yelling at me ain't gonna' help now." "You need to get your ass over to the Red Cross and get your leave straightened out, then come back for your papers; I'll have them ready". 
"Time's a-wastin' man, move it!, this is the one you've been waitin' for".

---------------------

What he was waiting for was the end of a series of events he had never before experienced and over which he had had little control. Married just a little over two years before at the ripe old age of "almost nineteen", he and his young bride had plans and expectations for the future. His union job at a wholesale bakery gave them a passable income, but little chance of significant advancement; spending the rest of his life on a production line was not exactly what he wanted; not what he had studied for at business college.

The Korean war had finally worn itself out, but the "Cold War" with Russia was now first place in the national mindset; the draft system was in full swing, providing a steady stream of troops for the front defense lines in Europe. Young men were almost certain to serve a two year hitch; it was just that they could never be sure when their number would come up. One could join voluntarily, but that meant three years instead of two. 

There was one way that gave some semblance of control while costing only two years  - one could volunteer to be drafted. Members of the local draft boards were not the most popular folks in any community and were usually delighted to have someone "volunteer", whatever their reasons might be. The process was simple, just express your wish to "get it over with", sign the form and have your name placed at the top of the list. Induction could be expected within a couple of months. 

Steve and Janelle ("Jan") decided that getting on with their lives was not going to be on any kind of solid footing until the threat of the military service was put behind them. He established contact with the draft board and asked to be "drafted" as soon as possible. This was late in the Fall of the year just passed, around Thanksgiving. 

Then all Hell broke loose! Jan began having bouts of endless uncontrollable nausea, to the point of exhaustion, often stoppable only by hospitalization and the administration of IV fluids that were eventually counted in gallons. This cycle was repeated several times at different hospitals; medical professionals could not determine any likely cause or prevention, even to the point of exploratory abdominal surgery. They found nothing. These cycles continued through December and into early January with no sigh of abatement. The slightest thing could start the nausea, and once started, it would only end with hospitalization. Thankfully, there was ample insurance with Steve's group policy. 

Then there was a postcard from the Draft Board, followed by an official notification of the time and place. He tried to explain to them that this might not be the best time, but once placed in motion, the process was not about to change direction. He was to report to an induction station at a Memphis address at 0800 hours on January 28, just days before the official end of the Korean war. (Unknown at the time, this would later become important later, since, by virtue of these few days,he would be eligible for VA assistance for a full four years of college.) 

Much was to be done. Notify the employer, and the landlord, Jan would take the car, a five or six year old Chevy sedan, and move back with her parents in rural Mississippi. Fortunately their belongings were few so moving was not a major event, but the nausea continued, and his night shift job used up a major part of the available time. Events became a blur, but they got through it and he became a soldier while she returned to being once again a dependent daughter relying on her parents for help. Steve was duly inducted, sent by bus as a part of a group to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, processed into the system and assigned to a training regiment at Camp Gordon Georgia, for an eight weeks of basic training. Then there were fourteen days of leave before returning to Fort Jackson for a second eight weeks of advanced infantry education at Fort Jackson. 

By now the medical profession had determined beyond all doubt that Jan's problems had a definite cause - she was pregnant! The nausea cycles, however, continued. During his second session of training, Steve learned that the training company to which he was assigned was slated to be shipped, as a unit, to Germany. Not normal individual separate assignments to different posts, but an en mass shipment to one of the infantry divisions in Europe.

He also learned, through the helpfulness of the company clerk, of a little known regulation that provided for deferment of overseas assignments in cases of serious family emergency. It was worth a try. Family, at this point, was comprised of a young wife and her parents. They were able to obtain letters of recommendation from Jan's doctor, their minister, and other reputable individuals in the community. These were consolidated and forwarded to Steve's commanding officer, and subsequently up the chain of command, recommending approval all the way, and back down to the company level. So, when Company A, of the 506th shipped out in June, Steve was placed on Temporary Duty to Headquarters Company for 90 days, to await the birth of his first child.

He really had  no job.  Possibly to get him out of the company area during duty hour, he was assigned to the regimental personnel office.  His duties were to empty waste cans as needed and to sweep and buff the floor at the end of the day.  If he ran out of things to do, he just sat.  Boredom overcame him and he began volunteering to help with the minor repetitive clerical duties that the higher ranking clerks hated. Everything was done without the aid of modern copiers, computers, etc.  A couple of manual typewriters and an old mimeograph machine comprised the office equipment, and 3 x 5 card files were the memory banks. It was a busy office, the regiment was graduating trainee recruits at the rate of a company each week.  Orders for 120 trainee assignments had to be cut and processed for each graduation.

As his meager clerical skills became known, he was soon dressing in khakis and working a full day just like the other clerks - then emptying the waste cans and buffing the floors at the end of the day.  He eventually became responsible for picking up the "undesirables" from their company assignments and delivering them to the discharge center.  Since a jeep and driver were always assigned to the office, his job consisted of just riding in the shotgun seat and assuring that the recruit was properly disposed of.  Riding in the front right of an open jeep, dressed in khakis, he was occasionally mistaken for an officer by a walking recruit who mistook the regimental crest on his cap for a lieutenant's bar. The simplest solution seemed to be to just return the salute and keep moving; it was kinda fun anyway.

The Forth of July provided a long weekend so he took the opportunity to travel back to Mississippi to visit his expectant wife. This was a trip of several hundred miles by Greyhound, and required considerable effort to avoid the patrolling MP's at the Atlanta depot. (His pass had a limit of 50 miles. Atlanta was a bit over the limit; Mississippi was about 500 miles.) He found her in reasonably good condition, between hospitalizations and quite glad to see him. The weekend passed quickly and it was decided that he would drive back in order to have a quick way to return when the baby came. 

The return trip was uneventful save for encountering a state police road block in Alabama. They were only checking drivers' licenses in an effort to promote safety during the holiday weekend. No problem, right? Well, not exactly. He was driving a car with Mississippi tags. He was dressed in civilian clothes.  He had a Tennessee driver's license, which, unfortunately, had expired in April. Tennessee law provided that a license did not actually expire so long as the licensee was an active member of the military. OK, no problem, right? Well, not exactly. 

These were his thoughts as he topped the hill and saw the roadblock about a half mile ahead. There was no where else to go. He could prove that his license was still valid, but to prove it he had to show that he was on active military duty, and to prove that, he would be showing that he was well outside his pass limits, and, therefore, technically AWOL. OK, just keep your mouth shut and hope for the best, he thought, there's no way out.

He stopped as directed; the trooper approached his open window and asked to see his license. He fumbled and managed to retrieve his wallet. Luck was with him, for just as the officer took the license, his partner shouted a question to him from across the road. He turned to answer, dropped the license along with a brochure about Alabama laws, gave a cheerful "drive careful",and hurried back across the road. Steve finally exhaled, engaged 1st gear and quickly left the scene. 

The car, of course, was an unknown to the military, and could not, therefore be taken on post. It was well after dark when he found an out-of-the-way parking lot in which to stash the car and take a bus back to his barracks. With the help of the personnel office staff, he was eventually able to bring the car on post, to be readily available when the need arose.

-------------------

The need had just arisen. A quick trip to the on-post Red Cross office where the emergency situation was certified, and a loan for gas money was negotiated, then back to pick up the pass, stuff a couple of changes of underwear and a spare uniform into the "AWOL" bag along with his shaving kit, and he's off to Mississippi. It was almost noon by the time he passed through the West Gate headed for what would be the longest day of his young life. There had been no further word from the hospital. Privates did not make outgoing long distance calls from military phones and the in-laws had no phone at home anyway. Well, he thought, maybe it will all be over by the time I get there.  He was to have no such luck.

It's well over five hundred miles from Columbia, SC to New Albany Mississippi, almost all in two-lane highways with grade crossings, stop signs, traffic lights and city streets.  Steve took a quick survey of his map inventory; he found two somewhat tattered highway maps, courtesy of Shell Oil, and mentally computed his route.  He folded the Georgia map to show the first portion of the trip, and stuck it over the sun visor for ready reference while driving, and headed southwest toward Augusta.  Intersecting US 78 in about forty miles, he would then follow that route all the way home.  No route changes, just 500 miles of driving, which would include  the city streets of Augusta, Atlanta, and Birmingham.  No problem, right?

The current means of conveyance was a 1950 Chevrolet four door sedan, white in color, powered by a six cylinder in line engine that was the standard for General Motors for decades until Ford's patents for their powerful V8 expired, somewhere in the mid-fifties. It was a "plain Jane" bottom of the line Chevy with around seventy thousand miles already on the clock. It had a stick shift transmission (three forward, one reverse), with the shifter on the steering column.  There was no electric windows, cruise control or air conditioning.  A fifteen gallon tank and a 18-20 mpg consumption rate meant a fill up every 250 miles.  With only a half full tank to start, this meant at least two fill ups to get home.  Gas cost around 30 cents per gallon so the tank could usually be filled for less than $5.00.

At somewhere just west of Augusta, at a gas station with a small cafe alongside, he told the attendant to fill the tank and please check the oil, then scooted into the cafe to order a hamburger to eat as he drove and a bottled coke to provide the liquid.  He paid the attendant for the gas and was back on the road in less than ten minutes.  The process was repeated near Atlanta and again near Jasper Alabama.  The sun beating down, and now it was well over it's noon high point and becoming ever more in the driver's eyes.  He didn't own a pair of sunglasses.  The humidity and the heat, of course, produced perspiration and his uniform was soon soaked; the only relief available was the cooling effect of the moisture's evaporation fed by the wind from the open windows.  

Constant manipulation of the accelerator and brake pedals eventually caused leg cramps and forced him to rest the right leg on the right side seat and use the left on the gas pedal.  A bit awkward and clumsy, but effective - definitely not recommended for city driving.  The day wore on with agonizing slowness. Stretches of open road punctuated by small towns with 30 mpg speed limits, bigger towns with traffic lights, open roads with higher limits but still with grade crossings and farmland traffic.
  
Augusta, Thompson, Cowington, Atlanta.

Grind out the miles; Crowd the speed limits. Leave papers are in order, but don't need the delay of a stop.  Pit stop for a few minutes to stretch, gas up and grab a burger.

Villa Rica, Anniston, Pell City, Birmingham.

Blazing afternoon sun in the eyes.  Occasional farm traffic.  Once in a while there is evidence of a large roadkill, usually a mule.  Animal owners are responsible for any damage, but are seldom identified.  Drive on. Another pit stop.

Just after sundown, just before the Mississippi line, a section of US78 just outside a small town that was quite different.  The two-lane highway became a four lane divided boulevard, brilliantly lighted and bearing a sign which proudly proclaiming this stretch of road to be "The George Wallace White Way". Perhaps the name has since been changed.

Jasper, Winfield, Hamilton, Tupelo.

Tupelo, Mississippi!! Twenty some odd miles to go! Enough gas to make it.

Somewhere past ten o'clock, he parked on the street in front of the hospital, stretched and walked, tired, sweaty and generally rumpled inside the hospital to inquire of his wife.  
Yes, she was here, and no, she had not yet delivered.
 He stared in amazement for a moment.
"No kidding?, where is she?"  
"She's in 205, but visiting hours were over at nine."  
"Anyone with her?"
"Her Mother."
"Thanks."

He turned and headed for the elevator.  No one challenged him.

It was 10:55 P.M., August 27th.

---------------------------

There she was, all 105 pounds of her, nine months' pregnant.  The almost constant nausea and frequent hospitalization had prevented any significant weight gain, but the glow of pregnancy was still evident.  She smiled weakly and stretched out her arms for an enthusiastic hug and kiss.  Her mother's greeting was somewhat cooler, albeit civil.

The atmosphere in the maternity ward was subdued; short quiet conversations, bustling nurses, and an occasional clank of a metal bedpan, all punctuated by the unique sounds of labor from an expectant mom.

Her pains were still 30 - 45 minutes apart, accented by waves of nausea that almost overcame the medication fed through the slow IV drip. 

Time dragged. Terrible coffee, leftover from God only knows when and discreetly delivered by a helpful nurse.  Bottled Coke from a machine in the lobby.  Fresh pack of Winstons and a candy bar.  

Around three in the morning, when the pains were down to around ten minutes, Nurse announced that she was being "taken down to delivery." "You can come along," she said.  Her tone was more commanding than informational.  "I've called Dr. Parker." she added without taking her attention from the patient.

He followed obediently as she was transferred to a trolley and wheeled down the hall and watched as she was transferred to the center table, settled into the obligatory stirrups and draped with a sheet.

Another nurse appeared with a cloth face mask and a tank of ether, and a slightly paunchy, sixtyish and balding man appeared, scrubbed and was helped into his operating uniform. This was the small town doctor who still made house calls and always carried a sack of candy in his car to toss out to any children he saw in his travels.  He had delivered the mother-to-be some twenty years prior.

It began. Pains more frequent. Push hard!  Again!   NOW!

Nurse attempts to induce sleep, poured too much ether, soaked the patient's face, all to no avail--she never went out. He held her hand and watched in amazement as her abdomen collapsed, not unlike a rapidly leaking balloon; now a flurry of activity at the other end of the table; Doctor lifting the baby by his heels and hurrying to the next room. 

"It's a little bull," he announced quietly, to no one in particular.  He moved with the speed and efficiency of many years' experience.

It was 3:37 A.M.

Another lump in her stomach deflated as the afterbirth was expelled.  Nurse said, "you can go back to the room now, we'll bring 'em down in a few minutes."

The new mother arrived dressed in a clean gown with her hair freshly combed; her new offspring arrived a few minutes later and was placed in her arms. She beamed with pride.

Doctor stuck his head in the door, white shirt, rumpled tie,  " Hey soldier, c'mon, I'll buy you breakfast."
Steve looked to his wife; she nodded.
"Bring me back something."
"What d'you want?"
"A big cheeseburger, and maybe some fries."
He stared at her, unbelieving, looked questioningly at the doctor. who also nodded.
"Well, how about a milkshake too?"
"Absolutely!"

-------------------------------

Scrambled eggs, sausage, toast and jelly as only a southern short order cook can make, along with freshly made coffee at the all night restaurant in the Greyhound station; small talk with the Doc; questions about Steve's service so far; stories of Doc's WWII tour. 

He picked the takeout burger and walked slowly back to the hospital. The adrenalin was beginning to fade.  Doc went home to change and start his day.

She snatched the bag from his hands and devoured the burger in record time.
No trace nausea.  Amazing!  (It would return with the second pregnancy, but that's another story.)

Nurse handed the new father a small bundle, saying, "would you like to hold him?." With his head in his father's palm, the toes barely reached the elbow. Six pounds, seven ounces.

He lay the baby beside his mother, took her hand, "I almost forgot."
"Forgot what?"
"Happy Birthday!",  "It is today isn't it?"
"I guess it is.  I forgot too!"

It was 5:12 A.M.

She was 21.

------------------------------

Epilogue:  The "little bull" was given the first name of his maternal grandfather and the middle name of his father.  Nurses at the hospital provided the nickname that stuck. Steve fell asleep on a nearby cot and was out for the entire day.

Runaway

For Father's Day

"A man is the origin of his actions."
                                       Aristotle

Steve didn't talk much at first, but as time went on and we spent more time in class and shop sessions together, he began to open up and I began to learn more. 

He was somewhat overweight, 185 on a 5' 6" frame, wanted to play football, but said his mother wouldn't hear of it.  Practice was after school and the bus left promptly at the end of the school day and, besides he was needed at home to help with the crops and the evening chores.  End of discussion.

Good student, but not an overachiever.  His closest sibling, a brother, had evidently been a star student in the same school some ten years earlier.  Most of the current teachers had been there much longer and they all remembered.."'You as smart as your brother?" was a common question, to which there seemed to be no good answer, he seemed to feel that A's were possible, B's were OK, and C's were dangerous ground.  He seemed to always be looking for the simplest and easiest way to handle any problem, and could clear up for me almost any math problem that I might be hung up on.  Good in shop, but obviously unfamiliar with any of the larger pieces of equipment like table saws, planers and edgers, welders, etc.

Steve's parents owned a small farm three or four miles west of town and still used horses or mules when most farmers in the area were more mechanized, with one or more tractors.  His father, had grown up in a large family back in the hills, worked as a farm hand in Missouri, and, after military service in WWI and marriage, sharecropped in the fertile land of the Missouri bootheel cotton country.  His grandfather, Frank, had been an accomplished carpenter and bricklayer who spent a lot of time away from home. There were indications that he had lived and worked on the river in his early years. The mother had died before age 30, after bearing nine or ten children, only six of whom survived to adulthood.  The only remaining clue to the great-grandfather's skills was found in the tombstones of a family graveyard in southern Illinois, where all the names and dates of the younger children are neatly and carefully carved on the stones.  Except Levi's, which has crude characters and irregular spelling.

Steve's mother, Lela Mae, or just Lee, was in her mid thirties when Steve was born in the middle of the Great Depression.  His maternal grandfather had gone west in the late 1800's into Oklahoma, married a Texas  girl and fathered nine children, of whom Lela was the last, and, although her mother had died shortly after her birth, amazingly for the times, none of the children perished.  Unable to manage his large family on his own, their dad brought the family back to his home state of Missouri in the early 1900"s, where the older ones married, found work of some kind or joined the military.  Friction between the teenage girls and their stepmother led to their being placed in the more affluent homes in town as live-in domestic help.  Steve's mother was one of these, where she learned a little of household management and began to earn spending money.  Unfortunately, schooling was not an important item; she only went as far as the fourth grade.  In this context, she met a handsome young farm hand, five years her senior and just back from France, who knew there was money to be made in the cotton fields.  They were married, scrounged up some essential furniture items and found a place further south in the bootheel where they could start.  The house was cramped and fatigued, but it was good land and profitable even after the owner took his share.

The crops were good in spite of the sandstorms, their first child was soon born, followed by two more in the quick succession.  Cotton was high and times were good.  Special things were added to their possessions.  New farming equipment, plows and cultivators, a radio and phonograph for the house, and after an exceptional harvest, a brand new Ford Model T.

Things began to change.  The oldest, a girl, contracted some childhood disease and died, just short of her second birthday, bringing on depression for both parents.  Henry occasionally came home late from taking a load of cotton to be ginned and sold.  He complained of a long line at the gin, and the smell of alcohol lurked somewhere behind the mask of his Old North State hand rolled cigarettes.  On at least one occasion, which he could not remember, he had unsuccessfully taken on a man who stood a foot taller and outweighed him by at least 50 pounds. The honeymoon was over.  Lela decided it was time to take a hand in things. The blood of her Puritan and Huguenot ancestors (whom she never knew about) came to the fore.  She began her crusade.

She encouraged her husband's vague dreams of owning his own place, she argued that the good times would not last, that they should quit the sharecropping scene while they were at the top of their game and they should have a place of their own that could not be taken away suddenly as could the land they now farmed. They needed more living space for the bigger family.  She was persistent, she was strong and she was vocal, so they located an eighty acre farm in the Arkansas hills.  It was time to move. 

They contracted for the place, trading their new car in the bargain, took a mortgage and moved.  They would not own another motorcar for almost twenty years. The fact that the new home was located in a community dominated by a small, fundamentalist Baptist congregation, was an added bonus.  Playing cards, dancing, etc. were forbidden, and, the consumption of alcohol in any form was heartily condemned.  The Communion cup held only grape juice.  It was a dry county.  Praise be! 

It worked.  There is no evidence that Henry ever had another drink as long as he lived there.  They fit in well and were quickly accepted.  The land, only about half of which was tillable, was reasonable fertile.  They struggled with the mortgage, able to pay only the interest during the worst years of the Great Depression, but with her encouragement, he joined and helped raise the church from the brush arbor in which it began and rose to become a Deacon in the church and a member of the School Board. 

Church meetings were held for preaching on Saturday night, Sunday morning and Sunday evening. Wednesday evening prayer service and Sunday morning "Sunday School" completed the agenda, subject, of course to the availability of ministers and funds with which to pay them.  Meetins were held, with or without preaching.  It was a bonus for the adults if there was preaching,and a bonus for the kids if there was not. Revivals were held every summer when the crops were "laid by" with morning and evening preaching for two solid weeks.  In the interests of saving their young souls, the children were marched from the one-room school next door to every morning service during revivals.  (School was two months in the summer and five in the winter, coinciding with the slack farming seasons, and the children were needed in the fields.)  There was not much time for other entertainment, had it even been available.  There were movie theaters in town, but movies were sinful.  It was rumored that there were bootleggers in town also, but they never came to Cache Valley.  (no business there).  The nearest bar/saloon/liquor store was thirty or forty miles away.  Few were prosperous enough to own an automobile until the effects of the Depression began to recede and those who did were occasionally involved in late night accidents on the two-lane country roads up near the state line.  Clay county was quite dry.

Revival meetings were held at neighboring churches, established and/or formative, all hoping to draw the faithful from neighboring congregations to bolster attendance.  There always seemed to be a considerable backlog of sinners to be saved, and the number of the converted and the contents of the collection plate, would hopefully grow as the membership rolls increased.  It was a time of labor intensive farming and large families that provided a new crop of children in their teens each summer.  The reputation of most of the visiting revivalists was known, and, if not known was advertised and perhaps slanted in an effort to draw more attendees.  All this by word of mouth.

During the summer hiatus, word came that the revival being held at a one-room school house well back in the hills to the South, was in session with a fantastic preacher and many souls were being saved.  The meeting was sponsored by a very young congregation that had not, as yet, any fixed meeting place.  There being nowhere else  that could accomodate the expected crowd, the one-room schoolhouse often served as community centers.  Separation of church and state was an issue that was yet to be raised, and prayer and scripture readings were a part of every school day, as was the Pledge of Allegiance.  At the regular Sunday church services in the valley, it was decided to eliminate the regular Wednesday evening prayer meeting, and, to the extent possible, all should attend the revival in support of the newly organized group in the hills.

So, early Wednesday evening, Steve's dad, with the help of the eldest son, now a teenager, completed the evening chores earlier than usual and hitched up the pair of mares for the trip.  Small mares they were, as teams go, but well suited for the wide variety of duties of a multi crop operation.  Dixie on the left, solid black and quite spirited, and Star on the right, a somewhat more calm roan with the forehead markings that gave her the name, composed the team.  Both were well rested from the lack of field work for the past few days and seemed to relish the break in the boredom of inactivity.  Harness is an abbreviated version of the full dress version, the little used portions such as the breeching having long since discarded, being useful only as a rather ineffective means of keeping the wagon or other load from riding up on the heels of the team on a downward slope.  Only a free rolling wagon or similar vehicle would benefit from this; it was rarely used.  The harness showed the wear and tear of many summers, the aging leather straps were stiff and cracked from sweat and the buckles were bent and straining at worn adjusting holes.  Chains either worn or rusted in the inactive portions.  Back bands and belly bands were sweat stained and fragile.  Likewise the reins, one inch leather straps used to enforce the driver's voice commands to the team, were, like the rest of the gear, showing the results of many summers under the relentless Southern sun.  Each rein splits near the horses' shoulders then passes through steel rings on the hames and to each horse so that they turned and stopped at the same time; a team.

The wagon is mostly wood. Wheels have steel hub centers which turn on the steel spindles of the axle, but the remainder, hub, spokes and rim, save for a steel band in contact with the earth, is wood.  Wood that must be kept moist in order to stay together.  Dried out wheels disintegrate, so moisture is provided by several means, parking the wagon in the creek being a common one.  Wagon frame is also mostly wood,  Fixed rear axle and a front carriage frame, wheel on either side pivoting in the center with the long tongue, perhaps four inches square and slightly tapered, reaching forward between the team to the neck yoke, the crosspiece that is attached at either end by chain to the bottom of hames on each horses collar, and at the center to the wagon tongue by means of a ring or short piece of chain..  This is the steering mechanism; the wagon tongue moves left and right following the team's movements.  Wagon itself has no brakes; only the resistance transferred to the neck yoke by the team's moving slower than the wagon can reduce the speed.  Not exactly a great safety system for use in hill country.  Ralph Nader would have cringed.  Wagon cargo box, ten or twelve feet long and maybe five feet wide is of wood, sideboards and endgates maybe twelve inches high with a seat and footboard across the front of the box for driver and one or two passengers. With time the seat may have been reduced to merely a wide board across the sides, with the footboard long since gone.   Passenger seating would be occupied by a brakemen, if, indeed there were any brakes.  Additional sideboards were available if needed to accommodate more cargo.

Wagon is ready, family is scrubbed and cleanly dressed.  At this time the family consists of the teenage older children, two others of about the same age, a niece and a nephew, children of an older brother who had been rescued from an unhealthy environment resulting from an ugly divorce.  Steve, is maybe two years of age.  A couple of quilts for the wagon bed cushion and to double as a pallet for the youngest during the expected long sermon are loaded, and a bag of snacks included to help keep the young one quiet, the teenagers filled and maybe some left for the long ride home. 

Mother and Steve are on the seat beside Dad .  Meeting house is perhaps four or five miles of gravel road away. This is excitement for all.  Mom and Dad are anxious to hear a good sermon and join in the singing and listen to the individual testimony of the believers, ofttimes revealing past experiences and touting the changes and benefits brought about by salvation and baptism.  The teenagers are not so much interested in listening to a sermon lasting of hour or more, as they are in the meeting of new friends of the opposite sex and perhaps finding that special person for a "boyfriend" or "'girlfriend."  They live in hope, but typically their youth and lack of social skills dooms them to find safety in groups of the same sex;  single-person cross gender friendships are still a few years away, but the hormones are beginning their work.  Concern for their "conversion" and the cleansing of their sinful souls by their salvation is not primary in their minds.

It will be brought pointedly to their attention as the sermon draws to a close, the invitation hymn is sung and the sinners invited to come to the altar to kneel and be prayed over by the faithful..  Appropriate mentions of the rewards of salvation are repeated until an acceptable response is attained.  A sinner is deemed to have been saved when he can stand and confess his feeling of the spirit having moved within him or her, lifting the burdens of sin and replacing it with the love of Jesus.  Some shout the glory of the change while others speak softly with the preacher or one of his helpers, awed by the experience.  Salvation of a sinner is the occasion for celebration by the faithful; the bigger sinner he or she may be, the bigger the celebration.

The "mourner's bench" is eventually cleared by either salvation or failure, the saved given the appropriate celebratory acknowledgement and presented to the congregation, accepted as candidates for baptism and members of the church.  The failures slink quietly back to their seats, or out the back door, unnoticed. With another long prayer for the perseverance of the converted, and a plea for the breakdown of the resistance of the remaining unrepentant, this night's meeting is over.

The team is reattached to the wagon, children rounded up and loaded and the journey begins, Mom and Dad on the seat, teenagers sprawled on quilts in the wagon bed and the two-year at mom's feet, already soundly asleep.  Due to the midsummer long days, it is now the changing hour between daylight and dark, just enough light to see the road, but not enough for one to distinguish details.  Clouds gather in the west and a dim flash of light in the distance illuminates the horizon.  "Cloud comin' up," Dad says to no one in particular, "could be a good one;  really hot today, 100 or better, just the thing to bring on a storm."  No one responds; kids are quiet, some already asleep.  More lightning flashes, now with low rumbles of thunder following.

Dad counts the seconds between the flash and the rumble and mentally compares it to the preceding one.  The cloud is coming closer, from the West-Southwest as usual. Evidently some much earlier experiences had heightened his fear and respect for the summer thunderstorms that frequent the country's midsection; he watched every storm that came within his sight or hearing, carefully noting their formation and direction at the cost of losing most of his night's sleep, and frequently rousing the family and herding them to the dirt floored and log roofed cellar beneath one of the farm's outbuildings. It was a scary place, frequented by bugs, mice and sometimes a blacksnake.

"Storm's coming up fast," he says.  Mom nods and takes a quick inventory of the family, finds all of them asleep in spite of the bumping of the solid wheels on the infrequently graded gravel road.  The storm cloud has now blotted out all of the remaining light so that they are now travelling in almost total darkness, guided mostly by the instincts of the team and driver;  Flashlights are weak and used only to verify turn points.  Lightning flashes are near and frequent, the times between the flash and the rumble is down under five counts, meaning the strike is less than a mile away.

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light and the simultaneous ear-splitting sound reminiscent of an exploding artillery shell.  Dad had a instant of flashback of the trenches; he instinctively flinched and ducked.  He caught himself before diving to the floorboards, sat up and tried to steady the team.   A few seconds later came the roar of a million hailstones, pelting the wagon and its contents.  Kids scramble to get under the quilts, Mom joins them, protecting the two-year old, who is now the only one not awake.  The rest are silent, dumbstruck and terrified, not moving. The adults have their glimpse of the huge dead oak tree splitting apart in the center of the blinding light burned into their retinas as well as their memories.

Horses are terrified, Dixie rears and bolts, Star follows her lead.  Dad braces his feet on the endgate, grips the reins tightly, one in each hand, and leans back and pulls with all his might in an effort to control the team which is now hitting full stride, with the bits in their teeth.  His shouted commands and his pulls on the reins are being ignored by the terrified horses.  The right rein suddenly goes slack in his hand;  the aging and worn leather has separated somewhere up front.  Muttering under his breath with phrases probably not appropriate for church, he tossed the useless rein into the wagon bed and loosed the tension on the remaining strap.  Horses are now running free.

"Lee, git up here, I need your help." he shouts.   She came,clinging to the side board, sat backwards on the seat  then swung her legs over the seat to sit by his side.  Without waiting for her unspoken questions, he shouted, " 'got to get a'holt of them reins. 'only way to stop 'em",  She nodded.

"Here, you take this good rein; now, don't pull, just hold it, if I slip, you pull hard and turn 'em left into the ditch"
She gasped, realizing what he was about to do.  This was not a committee meeting, discussion was for later, if at all 
"Be careful"

He handed her the rein, turned his back to the team, took a firm grip on the endgate, and stepped backward over the gate and on to the doubletree near its center pivot on the wagon tongue.  Carefully attempting to keep his balance, and feeling for the tongue with his feet, he turned to face forward, and taking what balance he could from the backs of the galloping horses, worked his way forward 'till he was just behind their shoulders.

Then, in another flash of lightening, not nearly so close, he saw that the break was just to the rear of the point before the guide ring before it split to each horse's bridle.  Finally, a bit of luck; the rein was still on the animal's back, not hanging loose to the ground, and therefore reachable.   He reached, in the dark, found the top of the collar and felt for the rein, found it and slid his hand back to the point where it split away to each bridle.  He took a firm grip on it, then repeating the procedure, grabbed the left rein at the same place.  The reins now have to provide his only balance supports.  He set his feet and hauled back with all his might, feet slipping slightly on the wet wagon tongue.
"Dixie, Star, WHOA!, " He commanded.
"WHOA!,"  they slowed, their training and recognition of his voice beginning to overcome their terror.
"Whoa, whoa, now,"  Speaking softly now, as the team slowed to a walk and then stopped.

Dixie is trembling, nostrils flaring.  Star is panting wildly.  Flecks of foam are showing at the corners of their mouths, and being washed from their flanks by the now slacking rain.  Steam is rising from their bodies through the now steady but lessening rain.  Lightning flashes are now to the East and diminishing.
"Hand me that other rein, there by your feet." "I think I can splice it." Still standing on the tongue, he made a quick tie in the two parts and climbed back into the wagon.

"Everybody OK?", he asked quietly.

Heads nodded, but made not a sound.  He slapped the reins on the horses' butts, "Lets go girls,"

Later, after the rain finally stopped, the team was cared for and put away. the family dried and put to bed, they lay down for a few hours sleep, he turned to her,
" ' you scared, back there?" 
"Yes; you?
"Oh yes. Scared don't quite cover it."
"We were lucky."  "Know what's funny?"
"What?"
"Stevie, he never woke up."
"Really?" "Guess I didn't notice."
"You were kind 'a busy"

Silence, then a snore.

Fish Tale

For Vernon

"Intelligence rules the world; Ignorance carries the burden."
                                                                           Marcus Garvey

May. Isle of Wight Bay, Ocean City.

It's Early.

The day is dreary, the bay is overhung with low flying clouds and splattered with a occasional droplets of rain.  Temperature at around 70; water temp 63.  Wind from the Southeast at about five keeping the tide in a little longer.  The last remnants of the outgoing tide are oozing toward the inlet beyond the busy Route 50 drawbridge.  Small wavelets are not big enough to even rock the boat.  The fish do not appear to be hungry; not even a nibble. 

Steve and the Scoutmaster finally have managed coordinate schedules so as to try their hand at catching a few flounder, the bottom dwelling flatfish (both eyes on same side) that lurk in the deeper parts of the relatively shallow bay.  The flounder provides a mild, sweet tasting entree and the fillet, due to the physical configuration of the fish, is quite large and thick and, therefore easy to deal with.  Or, so it is said.  The allowed catch size has been reduced to sixteen inches this spring due to last year's low totals and the daily limit is increased to four.  Although it would appear that nobody has bothered to tell the flounder, this is supposed to be a really good year, or maybe they have left to avoid the crowds. 

Only a few other brave souls are in the neighborhood, most all of them with multiple lines out and letting the breeze or tide drag their bait through the deep water and then puttering upwind and drifting back again, being careful to avoid the sand bars that populate the middle of the bay.  Sand in the motor's cooling system is not at all recommended.  One of the accepted rigs for flounder is a simple combination of a sinker and a hook.  The sinker is relatively heavy, maybe 3 oz, attached at the end of the line and the bait hook, on 18 to 30 inch leader following. Hook size is the fisherman's choice, size being somewhat relative to the angler's optimism regarding expected catch.  The idea may be that, as the the sinker is dragged along the bottom it will disturb a sleeping fish, who will, upon waking, want breakfast which now just happens to be nearby at the end of the following leader.  It's a good theory, however it does not account for the disposition of the fish or his dining schedule.

None of the boats shows any significant on board activity.  Their occupants are mostly hunkered down in their hoods to avoid the moisture laden breeze.  The lines are slack and the rods straight and still.  Engines are mostly quiet. Courtesy demands that one does not get too close to another boat and disturb "his" fish.  A cardinal sin would be entangling one's boat, propeller, or other gear in an other's lines.  Murder would probably be a justifiable reaction.

Lady at the bait shop had said that "They're catching a lot of flounder on minnows and Gulp. George caught the limit yesterday down at the Thoroughfare."  Now they knew where the Thoroughfare was (seen it on the map) and of course everyone knows what a minnow is but neither had a clue as to just what a "Gulp" was and neither was anxious to demonstrate his ignorance, leastwise in the company of witnesses. 

Scoutmaster allowed as how they would need some minnows, lady says, "Sure, how many you need?, didja bring your bucket? "  "Uh, no, I left it home," he says, "and two dozen should do it."  "Better get us a bucket too."

Steve couldn't stand it any longer.  "You got the Gulp?" his question sounding as if he wasn't sure he was asking about fish bait or some contagious infection.  "Sure," she says, and produced a small plastic bag, 'bout the size of a package of M and M's containing a handful of flesh-colored plastic thingies that looked like a cross between a minnow and a grub worm and each having a worm-squirmy body and a long wiggly tail.  The price tag showed $7.98.  They looked at each other then back at the package.  "We'll take that too," Steve says.

This is the first outing into serious(?) fishing here in the bay for these two.  Both have fished a little in small bodies of water and have been on group fishing charters in the Chesapeake, where Captain Bob chose the bait and the mate baited the hooks and helped land the fish.  Nobody here to help; they were on their own.

It all started three years or so ago when Fred, an auto mechanic friend, mentioned he had a pontoon boat that he wanted to sell.  Fred is an independent, self employed businessman and service provider, operating in that foggy 'no man's land' somewhere between manufacturers' dealerships and shady trees, the difference being mostly more one of equipment and tools rather than skill.  Not being a polished diplomat, Fred had, while struggling with a non- responsive muffler clamp, listening patiently to Steve's amateur analysis of a minor problem that his old Ranger was demonstrating, calmly suggested, from the horizontal safety beneath the car, that Steve should "stick to attempting to sell houses and leave the mechanicin' to folks who know what they're doing."  Not being totally stupid, Steve took the hint and, thereafter, asked for Fred's opinion before, if ever, offering his.

The boat, however, was located at Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County, more than 150 miles west and, perhaps, 2000 feet higher in elevation.  It had a 40 hp motor, but it seems that it belonged to the neighbor next-door to Fred's log cabin in the hills above the college near McHenry.  It was a freshwater lake boat, no salt and little sand.  Said it had not been used or serviced in a couple of years.  It might have some rotted wood and the tires on the trailer might have dry rot.  Given the length and intensity of Garrett County winters, these were not good signs. 

Deer season in the mountains provided an opportunity to examine the boat and determine the scope of its deterioration. It was ugly.  Quite simply, everything that could rot had done so or was making every effort to!  However the price was right and a deal was struck.  The neighbor was contacted concerning the motor.  He wanted about three times as much for the motor as was being asked for the boat and trailer.  Steve declined and neighbor agreed to remove it.  It is now early December and Winter is closing fast.

Winter comes early at Deep Creek and with it comes precipitation, usually frozen.  Neighbor is unable to remove the motor due to illness, boat is snowed in and he can't shovel it out, driveway is only partly plowed, etc. etc.  Garrett now gets record setting snowfall and boat, trailer and motor spend the winter under the snow for the third or fourth year, the record snowfall is slow to melt and Spring has to be drug kicking and screaming from Winter's cozy bedrooms. 

Finally, it appears that access to the boat can be had, and a local marina is contracted to retrieve it and replace the trailer tires if necessary.  They were advised to remove the motor, notify its owner of its location and hold it hostage for the cost of removal.  This worked well and the boat was ready for its new home. Title had been transferred and new license plates obtained. Tires were still good.

This is not a large unit, as pontoon boats go, but still the boat measures almost twenty feet in length with an eight foot beam.  On the trailer, the deck is about shoulder height on a short fisherman.  Add the trailer tongue and hitch and you have fair sized piece of equipment to be lugged the 150 miles home from Garrett County, not a reassuring thought when the only towing equipment at your disposal is an old Ford Ranger with well over 100,000 on the clock.

Scoutmaster has a full size Dodge pickup equipped with a big engine and four wheel drive, among other features.  He agrees to fetch the boat and assist in it's resurrection provided Steve buys the gas and gives him rights to join in the fishing.  Twelve miles to the gallon would be about its average for the Dodge, if you're going downhill and have a respectable tailwind.  Add a boat and trailer and the numbers get smaller. Fortunately, the gas tank was large enough to permit reasonable trips out past the city limits and return without refilling, but you always knew that "filler up" was going to flatten your wallet.

Boat was uneventfully retrieved (if one considers travelling down from the mountains at turnpike speeds, pulling a boat and trailer with questionable tires to be uneventful) and parked in Steve's yard where the wife regarded it coolly and without comment.  It was truly something to behold. the seats were plastic over rotten wood, the steering console leaned from the rot and the entire plywood decking was unsafe for pedestrians.  Almost all the bolts holding things together were rusted tight.  Steve considered the project carefully and planned for most of the spring and well into the summer.  It was early fall before he was able to screw up his courage and begin.

Boat spends a summer and fall being stripped down to the metal, a winter in the garage being reassembled (displacing wife's car) and then a summer having the steering console reinstalled and a motor from an old Grady transferred over from an earlier resurrection project.  Another winter and some minor usage proves the engine to be undependable.  Motor replaced and it is winter again.. Boat is christened HMF Pintail, (Her Majesty's Flatboat, in honor of the wife and the location of the beach house.)

Now it's time. All is ready. Almost.

* * * * * * * * *

Where were we?  Oh yes, on the Bay.  The tide is slack and beginning to head toward its high point, now some two or three hours away,  If there were to be any fish, they should come when the tide is moving, one way or the other.  Or so they have been told.  Hope someone told the fish.

Boat was loaded and off they went; one eye on the depth finder and the other watching for the sparce bouys that mark the mid-bay sand.  Half an hour and they're at the Thoroughfare.  Relatively deep water in the channel.  Fifteen to thirty feet, dropping to three or less about a hundred yards from the southern limit.  SM rigs two lines with squid, drops one in the port side rod holder, pulls his folding chair up near the port rail, drops the second line over, props his feet on the rail and leans back in anticipation.  Steve picks up an old bait casting rig, fishes a minnow out of the bucket, hooks him securely on the hook, flips the bait out a few feet, sets the rod in the starboard rod holder and retreats to the swivel chair behind the wheel.  The boat drifts over near shallows, putters back then drifts again.  Repeat.  Nothing happens.

Wish we'd brought some beer.
Yeah.
You get the boat license? Didn't see a new sticker.
DNR's mailing it, got the license in my pocket.  Should be OK"

Repeat the drift.  Time drags. Steve changes bait; "Think I'll try one of these wiggly things",  he says.

Now and then a bigger fishing boat roars by in the channel, up on plane and creating a huge wake.
"Asshole", Steve mutters as he once again putters back to deep water.  Tide is coming in briskly now.

Suddenly the starboard rod holder rattles and the rod doubles up.  "Fish on!"  and it might be a good one from the look of it.  SM goes for the net and Steve grabs the rod and begin to crank in the line. 
Fish is strong and lively.  Fish is maneuvered up to between the forward end of the pontoons and SM is attempting to get him in the net.  It is at this point that the deficiencies of the cheap, short handled net are becoming apparent.  SM has to be on his knees to reach the general neighborhood in which Fish is speedily and skillfully avoiding capture. 

On about the third try, Fish is finally captured and brought aboard, net and fish are on the deck, SM is still on his knees.  Fish flips out of the net onto the deck and the only solution appears to be hand to hand combat.  SM pounces, wins the match and dumps Fish in the cooler.  It's a small 24 inch cooler and Fish has to lie catty-cornered to fit in.  Fish is not happy.  Nearby boat gives a thumbs up sign as it edges a little closer, hoping to get a piece of the action.
"Nice one, uh, what is it?" Says Steve, looking at Fish.  Fish is dark blue to gray, generally shaped like bass, white underbelly but no stripes.  "It's not a Rock."
"Not a flounder either, but what th' hell is it? Sea Bass?" 
"Don't think so, where's that regulation book you picked up at the bait shop?  There's pictures"
"Thought you had it"
"Shit",  " Now we got a fish and we don't have a clue as to what it is, whether or not it's legal, and if it is, is it big enough, and how many are we allowed., or anything"
" Well, we'll just keep it 'till we find out"
"That could get expensive."
"Yeah."
"Sucker took my bait'", says Steve, and he drops his newly baited hook over the side,
"I'm changing bait. This stuff ain't workin'", the SM says, as he pulls in one of his lines. "Where's the Gulp?"
Before the line's back in the water, Steve's rod has doubled over again and another life and death struggle ensues.  SM calmly completes replacing his bait and drops the line over the side, replacing the rod in the port holder.  "I'm coming," he says as he grabs the net. 

It's another full sized mystery fish and before it is corraled and stashed in the cooler, SM's line is being tugged at wildly.  It's Steve's turn to wield the net and SM rebaits his other hook and on the next drift, three more fish are added to the already crowded cooler.  One more drift pass and the fun continues; the cooler is near about full but after the next pass, it stops as suddenly as it started.  There was silence. 

"We still don't even know what we're catching." Steve finally said, "How many we got?"
"Dammed if I know that either," SM responds, " "We better git, "fore somebody asks us what we got." "We don't want to look too stupid."
"That wouldn't be too hard, now would it?"
"Better hope we ain't got what we shouldn't 'uv."

Lunchtime has long since come and gone and their list of  forgotten things, that already includes, beer, longer net, boat stickers, regulation book, gloves, has food and water added.  By one or two o'clock they have had enough.  They decide to go home. Hunger has set in. Cooler is almost full.

Water is almost flat and the boat is running good.  Steve cranks it up to almost 20 knots before throttling back.  "Not bad for an old pontoon, huh?"  Up the canal quietly and on the lift in about 30 minutes.

The catch has to be cleaned, but first, to identify.  Disposition of the catch depends upon the book.
Fetch the book with the pictures.  'Pears to be a Bluefish.  Minimum eight inches.

SM heaves a sigh of relief, "Limit is ten."  "That's ten each." " We only got 17, and the're all over a foot long; couple of big ones will go over 24."
"We're OK then." says Steve. "Where's the filleting knife?".
"What?"
"Filleting knife, you know, the long thin bladed one used to clean fish"
"Don't you have one?"
"This is your place, remember?"

Steve searched the kitchen and came back with a knife that bore some resemblance to what was needed.  His left hand held a couple of bottles of Yingling.  "You want lunch?"

"Let;s get it over with", came the reply.

Steve held out the knife to his partner.  "I never filleted a fish." 

Scoutmaster took the knife, and grinned, ear to ear.  "Really? Well, neither have I."  "We should've paid more attention to Cap't Bob."  He ran his thumb over the knife's edge,"You sharpened this lately?" he inquired.  "It come with th' house." Steve replied.

They stared at each other for a minute;  then laughed.  Big time.  "Well, let's do it."

It wasn't pretty, in fact it was downright ugly. 'Blood, guts, and feathers' over most of the dock, fishheads that missed the scrap bucket, entrails accidently dropped on the bench, and, as they say, much, much, more.  The ladies of the house watched for a few minutes, but at the sight of blood, discovered  a number of chores that required their attention indoors.  Marty, next door, owner and operator of the thirty foot offshore fishing rig on his lift, watched in silence, then remembered that he had to be at the gym in a few minutes for his daily workout.  Eventually there was a large potful of what might be loosely referred to as fillets.  There were scraps aplenty to provide a feast for the crabs.  

Butchered Bluefish.  Tired fishermen.   No Flounder.

Hose down the dock, flush the motor, put away the gear and freeze the fish for later smoking and/or baking. 

Add filleting knife to the list. 

Learn how to use it.

Just another day.

And a long list of things not to forget next time.

 

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.