Happy New Year!
Here we are once again, staring at the one-time-a-year opportunity for another ‘do over’ or to use a golfers’ favorite word, a ‘mulligan.’
Even way back in Mesopotamia two thousand years ago, folks like you and me celebrated the chance to make amends for past behavior with new resolutions.(their new year wasn’t our new year, but that’s another story)
Down through the centuries, many life-altering events have occurred on January one. In 1660, Samuel Pepys made his first entry in his famed diary. Another was that in 1897, Brooklyn merged with New York to form the city, New York, and the next year, the Lightship replaced the Whistling Buoy on San Francisco Bay.
Earth-shaking events all, however, they all pale in comparison to that the momentous event that took place on the outskirts of Wheeler, Texas on January 1, 1944.
The Great Snowball Battle for Chapman’s Lake!
There had been several heavy snowfalls that year and ongoing snowball battles were common around our small town. Sneak attacks raged across the courthouse square, on the sidewalks, around the corners of the five and dime.
East of town, Chapman’s Dairy overlooked a ten-acre lake. To us boys, however, it was the Pacific Ocean. The pasture rose gently from the water’s shores to the milking barn about a quarter of a mile distant—a perfect sled run.
Now, Mister Chapman never minded us wild-haired boys traipsing across this pastures as long as we didn’t disturb his milk cows. We always gave the herd a wide birth, one of the no small reasons being there were three or four bovines with short tempers. One was especially temperamental. For some reason, her horns had grown down instead of up, and had to be cut to stay out of her eyes.
We called her ‘Crosseye” as well as a few other names when she chased us.
When the snowfall was extra heavy, the cows seldom strayed down to the pastures. Cows don’t paw at snow to remove it from forage like a horse. They push the snow aside with their noses, and if the snow is extra heavy or icy, their noses become tender and the dumbbells just stand there and starve.
Consequently, ranchers and farmers put out feed around the barn in covered troughs if possible.
That meant we usually had the whole snow-covered pasture to ourselves.
That year after Christmas, Jerry, Tony, Donald, and I were building a snow house when several older kids from the other side of town (six blocks away) showed up to challenge us to a snowball fight at Chapman’s Lake where they had built a fort.
We readily accepted the challenge and agreed to the winner-take-all-prize, next Saturday’s popcorn money, a whole nickel. All we had to do was take their flag down from the fort.
Nothing to it. Or so we thought.
When we arrived, we spotted a red flag waving over the small fort. One of the kids had cut it from his Pa’s discarded longjohns. They said it meant ‘no quarter’. That made no sense to me, but a flag was flag.
Leaving our sleds at the top of the hill, the four of us attacked the fort, but were quickly beaten back. Our leader, Jerry, decided we would attack with our tanks, meaning sleds.
We’d fly past the fort, loose a few snowballs, regroup for another pass. His plan sounded good in theory, but we soon discovered it was full of holes. Sitting on a whizzing sled and throwing snowballs called for a delicate balance none of us had mastered.
I fell off more than I rode; Tony crashed into the fort; Donald caromed off one side of the fort into the lake. Jerry was the only one who managed to ride and throw at the same time.
The battle surged back and forth. Each surge took us closer to the flag. Snowballs zipped through air. I guess all the whooping and hollering reached the herd of milk cows.
That’s the only explanation I have for the garbled bellow that rolled down the hill, jerking all of us around. Our eyes bugged out like stepped-on toad frogs when we spotted Crosseye shaking her head back and forth and charging down the hill in a bovine’s stumbling lope.
Pelting her with snowballs, wee took refuge behind what was left of the fort, but she didn’t hesitate. She went over the top, scattering us and taking down the flag.
When the last piece of snow had settled to the ground, Crosseye stood there in triumph, glaring at eight kids sprinting across the pasture in every direction like frightened prairie hens.
They claimed they won because we didn’t get their flag. We claimed Crosseye was our secret agent and since she took down the flag, we won.
They wouldn’t buy that. In the end, we decided upon another battle at another time, but it never came about.
Crosseye?
Well, we moved to Fort Worth five years later. She was still in the herd and still as ornery as ever.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Christmas Magic
If you’ve been out and around much at all the last few weeks, you’ve noticed it. It puts a smile on your face, a lilt in your voice, and a bounce to your step. It usually appears around Thanksgiving and unfortunately, lingers only a few weeks.
It is as warm as the smiling sun overhead, as solid as the ground at our feet, and as satisfying as a warm fire on a frigid night.
I call it the Christmas Magic.
Okay, so that’s corny, as in lame, but you can’t deny that in the last few weeks, most folks seem to be just a tad bit more jolly, a tiny bit more patient, and a teeny bit more cheerful.
That magic is intangible, beyond one’s touch, but, mysteriously, still as palpable as Aunt May’s homemade rum and bourbon fruitcake.
Caught up in the joyful ambiance of Christmas, I, as many, wish that intangible wisp of enchantment could last year around.
The pragmatic side of our psyches insist it’s only natural that after the first of the year to wake up with the disturbing feeling that something is missing. And no, I’m not talking about the hole in our bank accounts.
We’ve just spent days and weeks in anticipation of Christmas Day and then New Years. And because we were so anticipating the gaiety and cheerfulness of the holidays, once they are behind us, there comes a natural let down.
But there is no reason for that Christmas magic that fills the Season of Giving to fade away just because the calendar changes.
As I crept up the ladder of age, I came to realize why my father and mother always replied ‘I don’t need a thing,’ when asked what they wanted for Christmas.
Sound familiar.
At my age, I don’t need anything thing. I get a kick out of seeing the delight sparkle in the eyes of those to whom I’ve given what I could afford.
If you’ll look around, you’ll see that despite the problems we face, usually our blessings outweigh them. Might not seem like it at the moment, but Santa Claus is with us year around, or can be if we make the effort.
Don’t think so?
Recently, I read a delightful article in Newsweek Online of a mother’s concern that her seven-year-old would learn there was no Santa Claus.
Over the years, being the loving parent she obviously is, she had enhanced the magic of Christmas for her son by encouraging him to help with the decorations, add to the crèche, bake cookies, and yes, even spread reindeer food in the snow to light the way for Santa.
Can’t you just imagine the excitement coursing through that little guy’s veins? At the end of the article, she expressed relief that he had managed this Christmas still believing in old Saint Nick, but she had the feeling that sometime before next year, he would learn the truth.
She ended the article with the observation that despite what he might learn, as long as he believes, he will enjoy that special magic year around.
Perhaps that is where so many of us go wrong. Somewhere along the way we stop believing in Santa Claus just because those beliefs fly in the face of logic. I have a couple good friends who have reached the four score and ten mark who believe in Santa Claus, and I kid you not, nowhere will you find a couple jollier or more cheerful gentlemen. They brim with the anticipation of life and the excitement of each passing day.
F.P. Church said it much better than I in his response to Virginia O’Hanlon when she queried the New York Sun on the existence of Santa Claus. ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”
There was not a soul in the world who could say that Santa did not exist if they witnessed the sparkle in the eyes and the broad grin on the faces of my two youngest grandsons, Keegan and Mikey, as they hop on their scooters or fire up their space rockets on Christmas morning.
That same excitement is no different in homes around the world. It’s just that during the Christmas holidays the love for one’s fellow man is even more pronounced.
But if you look, if you pay attention, you’ll see proof of Santa’s existence throughout the year. Perhaps it isn’t as noticeable among the stories of mayhem and murder, but it exists.
You’ll never convince that single mother there’s no Santa Claus after her son was given a new wheelchair by the Shriner’s to replace his dilapidated one. And what about the little girl who won a raffle at school and put aside her own wish for a beautiful little doll so she could instead select a hand-sewn blanket she knew her invalid mother admired?
No Santa Claus?
In Minneapolis, a parent was hit with unexpected car repair bills just before the holidays, wiping out the family’s Christmas budget. When she went to pick up the vehicle, a stranger had paid the bill. You think that family doubts the existence of Santa Claus?
And who is it that drops a $1700. gold Kruggerrand in the Salvation Army’s pot every year? Who is it paying off Wal Mart and K Mart layaways around the country?
No one can tell me that the spirit of Christmas is not alive throughout the year. It’s just that in the midst of our hustle and bustle, it sometimes takes a back seat, but it is always there, waiting to be dusted off.
As long as the human heart is filled with understanding and compassion, there will always be a Santa Claus, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
It is as warm as the smiling sun overhead, as solid as the ground at our feet, and as satisfying as a warm fire on a frigid night.
I call it the Christmas Magic.
Okay, so that’s corny, as in lame, but you can’t deny that in the last few weeks, most folks seem to be just a tad bit more jolly, a tiny bit more patient, and a teeny bit more cheerful.
That magic is intangible, beyond one’s touch, but, mysteriously, still as palpable as Aunt May’s homemade rum and bourbon fruitcake.
Caught up in the joyful ambiance of Christmas, I, as many, wish that intangible wisp of enchantment could last year around.
The pragmatic side of our psyches insist it’s only natural that after the first of the year to wake up with the disturbing feeling that something is missing. And no, I’m not talking about the hole in our bank accounts.
We’ve just spent days and weeks in anticipation of Christmas Day and then New Years. And because we were so anticipating the gaiety and cheerfulness of the holidays, once they are behind us, there comes a natural let down.
But there is no reason for that Christmas magic that fills the Season of Giving to fade away just because the calendar changes.
As I crept up the ladder of age, I came to realize why my father and mother always replied ‘I don’t need a thing,’ when asked what they wanted for Christmas.
Sound familiar.
At my age, I don’t need anything thing. I get a kick out of seeing the delight sparkle in the eyes of those to whom I’ve given what I could afford.
If you’ll look around, you’ll see that despite the problems we face, usually our blessings outweigh them. Might not seem like it at the moment, but Santa Claus is with us year around, or can be if we make the effort.
Don’t think so?
Recently, I read a delightful article in Newsweek Online of a mother’s concern that her seven-year-old would learn there was no Santa Claus.
Over the years, being the loving parent she obviously is, she had enhanced the magic of Christmas for her son by encouraging him to help with the decorations, add to the crèche, bake cookies, and yes, even spread reindeer food in the snow to light the way for Santa.
Can’t you just imagine the excitement coursing through that little guy’s veins? At the end of the article, she expressed relief that he had managed this Christmas still believing in old Saint Nick, but she had the feeling that sometime before next year, he would learn the truth.
She ended the article with the observation that despite what he might learn, as long as he believes, he will enjoy that special magic year around.
Perhaps that is where so many of us go wrong. Somewhere along the way we stop believing in Santa Claus just because those beliefs fly in the face of logic. I have a couple good friends who have reached the four score and ten mark who believe in Santa Claus, and I kid you not, nowhere will you find a couple jollier or more cheerful gentlemen. They brim with the anticipation of life and the excitement of each passing day.
F.P. Church said it much better than I in his response to Virginia O’Hanlon when she queried the New York Sun on the existence of Santa Claus. ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”
There was not a soul in the world who could say that Santa did not exist if they witnessed the sparkle in the eyes and the broad grin on the faces of my two youngest grandsons, Keegan and Mikey, as they hop on their scooters or fire up their space rockets on Christmas morning.
That same excitement is no different in homes around the world. It’s just that during the Christmas holidays the love for one’s fellow man is even more pronounced.
But if you look, if you pay attention, you’ll see proof of Santa’s existence throughout the year. Perhaps it isn’t as noticeable among the stories of mayhem and murder, but it exists.
You’ll never convince that single mother there’s no Santa Claus after her son was given a new wheelchair by the Shriner’s to replace his dilapidated one. And what about the little girl who won a raffle at school and put aside her own wish for a beautiful little doll so she could instead select a hand-sewn blanket she knew her invalid mother admired?
No Santa Claus?
In Minneapolis, a parent was hit with unexpected car repair bills just before the holidays, wiping out the family’s Christmas budget. When she went to pick up the vehicle, a stranger had paid the bill. You think that family doubts the existence of Santa Claus?
And who is it that drops a $1700. gold Kruggerrand in the Salvation Army’s pot every year? Who is it paying off Wal Mart and K Mart layaways around the country?
No one can tell me that the spirit of Christmas is not alive throughout the year. It’s just that in the midst of our hustle and bustle, it sometimes takes a back seat, but it is always there, waiting to be dusted off.
As long as the human heart is filled with understanding and compassion, there will always be a Santa Claus, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Christmas on the Farm
If you’ve ever passed through or spent time up in the Texas Panhandle during the winter, you know just how cold the weather can be.
The eastern Panhandle is rolling sand hills; the west is prairie land flat as a wet leaf. And I’m here to tell you that neither conformation does in now way inhibit the wind howling down from Santa Claus at the North Pole.
Of course, we kids always looked forward to the first snow, but the initial thrill quickly wore off. Slugging through ankle deep mud to feed the animals and milk the cows has a way of throwing and ice-covered blanket over any degree of excitement.
Growing up, we lived next door to my aunt and her husband. He had a couple cows. He milked them in the morning, and with Dad overseas, my job was to milk them in the evening. It was a tedious enough task when the weather was nice, but during the winter, the snow and rain and mud put a quick end to a fifth grade boy’s delight over a fresh snowfall.
I was never one to complain when one of the cows started drying up. Now, I don’t remember actually muttering the words, but I probably added a footnote to my prayers at night to assist the old cows in drying up.
Even spraying cats with warm milk couldn’t detract from the cold slithering up my coat or pant legs as I squatted at the old bovine’s side.
About the only thing colder than milking cows in the middle of the winter was utilizing the two-holer out back. That’s a cold beyond description. Even the spiders and snakes left.
Fortunately, baths were taken in a washtub in the kitchen in front of the stove with the oven door open and the burners going full blast.
Come February or March, I was ready for Mister Winter to move on back north.
Luckily for us, our relationship with the two-holer only lasted during of the war for upon Dad’s return, he built us a house with all the facilities a couple lots over.
Usually, we spent Christmas on my maternal grandparents’ farm out by Lubbock. That part of Texas was sometimes given the moniker ‘Great Plains’ or ‘Staked Plains’, because it was so flat.
Those Christmases have always held a special spot in my memory. We’d spend a week or so at Mama’s for Mom’s family was fairly large, three sisters and four brothers. Not all could make it the same time, instead trickling in over a few days.
You get eight couples and their kids together, and very soon bodies are poking out every window of a three-room clapboard house.
We usually made the trip with my aunt and her husband. Both self-employed, they could take off when they wanted. Dad always had to work, so he’d drive on out the night before Christmas Eve
Since the adults took up most of the space inside, we boys played outside despite the cold. From time to time, we’d scoot inside to warm up and dry out.
Naturally fireworks, then as now, were part of the Christmas celebration, and we cousins would save up for an ample supply. Now, firecrackers on a farm were a big no-no because of the animals, so we had to wander off down to the local creek some half-mile away to set them off.
Roman candles were another matter for they weren’t as noisy as a string of Black Cats. Other than a hissing whoosh and a low decibel pop, the Roman candle served as an ideal weapon when we waged battle with each other.
Now, cousins in our family were sort of stratified, I suppose you could say. Each strata was about four or five years older than the next group, which meant the younger ones were prime objects for unabashed bullying.
The one who gave Ed and me the most trouble was Dooley. His name was Henry, Henry Shoop, but he had been stuck with the nickname Dooley as long as I could remember.
Anyway, one winter, Dooley cornered me and Ed out in the barn, which was a cavernous structure with a dozen or more stalls, two or three lofts, and no telling how many tack rooms and feed rooms.
And oh yes, in the winter, the floor turned to squishy mud from not only the weather but the afterthoughts of the bovines loitering about out of the frigid cold.
That day, Dooley was chasing us with a shovel full of afterthoughts he had scooped up with the intent of dumping it on us.
Even though he was five years our senior, the cumbersome load plus the slippery footing sent him sliding into a pile of afterthoughts himself.
That gave us time to scamper across the farmyard to the well house where we’d cached our supply of fireworks in a milk can.
Just as we pulled out our Roman candles, Dooley yanked the door open. Before he could move, we touched matches to the candles.
He stumbled back, fell over his own feet, then jumped up, but not before we sizzled his rear end with a couple balls. Laughing like lunatics, we chased him all the way to the house.
Retribution?
You bet. He finally caught us without our equalizers, carrying out his initial intent, to toss us in the afterthoughts.
The women made us strip down to our longjohns on the porch in the cold so we wouldn’t smell up the house. I swore to get even with Dooley, even though I knew I would pay for any revenge.
That night, Dad handed me the answer. He had to go back to Wheeler and I was to go with him. We’d leave early, before everyone got up. Mom and my brother would come the next day.
That night while Dooley slept on the pallet next to mine, I dumped a cup of afterthoughts in his boot.
Sometime later, Dad awakened me, and we left. I giggled all the way home.
According to Mom, Dooley pulled his boot on, then jerked his foot out and tracked the stuff all over the house before the women ran him outside.
I pleaded innocent. Mom and Dad knew I was lying, but when I saw them grin at each other, I realized they knew the truth. I kept expecting some kind of punishment, but it never came.
Until that summer. That’s when I ran into Dooley once again.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
The eastern Panhandle is rolling sand hills; the west is prairie land flat as a wet leaf. And I’m here to tell you that neither conformation does in now way inhibit the wind howling down from Santa Claus at the North Pole.
Of course, we kids always looked forward to the first snow, but the initial thrill quickly wore off. Slugging through ankle deep mud to feed the animals and milk the cows has a way of throwing and ice-covered blanket over any degree of excitement.
Growing up, we lived next door to my aunt and her husband. He had a couple cows. He milked them in the morning, and with Dad overseas, my job was to milk them in the evening. It was a tedious enough task when the weather was nice, but during the winter, the snow and rain and mud put a quick end to a fifth grade boy’s delight over a fresh snowfall.
I was never one to complain when one of the cows started drying up. Now, I don’t remember actually muttering the words, but I probably added a footnote to my prayers at night to assist the old cows in drying up.
Even spraying cats with warm milk couldn’t detract from the cold slithering up my coat or pant legs as I squatted at the old bovine’s side.
About the only thing colder than milking cows in the middle of the winter was utilizing the two-holer out back. That’s a cold beyond description. Even the spiders and snakes left.
Fortunately, baths were taken in a washtub in the kitchen in front of the stove with the oven door open and the burners going full blast.
Come February or March, I was ready for Mister Winter to move on back north.
Luckily for us, our relationship with the two-holer only lasted during of the war for upon Dad’s return, he built us a house with all the facilities a couple lots over.
Usually, we spent Christmas on my maternal grandparents’ farm out by Lubbock. That part of Texas was sometimes given the moniker ‘Great Plains’ or ‘Staked Plains’, because it was so flat.
Those Christmases have always held a special spot in my memory. We’d spend a week or so at Mama’s for Mom’s family was fairly large, three sisters and four brothers. Not all could make it the same time, instead trickling in over a few days.
You get eight couples and their kids together, and very soon bodies are poking out every window of a three-room clapboard house.
We usually made the trip with my aunt and her husband. Both self-employed, they could take off when they wanted. Dad always had to work, so he’d drive on out the night before Christmas Eve
Since the adults took up most of the space inside, we boys played outside despite the cold. From time to time, we’d scoot inside to warm up and dry out.
Naturally fireworks, then as now, were part of the Christmas celebration, and we cousins would save up for an ample supply. Now, firecrackers on a farm were a big no-no because of the animals, so we had to wander off down to the local creek some half-mile away to set them off.
Roman candles were another matter for they weren’t as noisy as a string of Black Cats. Other than a hissing whoosh and a low decibel pop, the Roman candle served as an ideal weapon when we waged battle with each other.
Now, cousins in our family were sort of stratified, I suppose you could say. Each strata was about four or five years older than the next group, which meant the younger ones were prime objects for unabashed bullying.
The one who gave Ed and me the most trouble was Dooley. His name was Henry, Henry Shoop, but he had been stuck with the nickname Dooley as long as I could remember.
Anyway, one winter, Dooley cornered me and Ed out in the barn, which was a cavernous structure with a dozen or more stalls, two or three lofts, and no telling how many tack rooms and feed rooms.
And oh yes, in the winter, the floor turned to squishy mud from not only the weather but the afterthoughts of the bovines loitering about out of the frigid cold.
That day, Dooley was chasing us with a shovel full of afterthoughts he had scooped up with the intent of dumping it on us.
Even though he was five years our senior, the cumbersome load plus the slippery footing sent him sliding into a pile of afterthoughts himself.
That gave us time to scamper across the farmyard to the well house where we’d cached our supply of fireworks in a milk can.
Just as we pulled out our Roman candles, Dooley yanked the door open. Before he could move, we touched matches to the candles.
He stumbled back, fell over his own feet, then jumped up, but not before we sizzled his rear end with a couple balls. Laughing like lunatics, we chased him all the way to the house.
Retribution?
You bet. He finally caught us without our equalizers, carrying out his initial intent, to toss us in the afterthoughts.
The women made us strip down to our longjohns on the porch in the cold so we wouldn’t smell up the house. I swore to get even with Dooley, even though I knew I would pay for any revenge.
That night, Dad handed me the answer. He had to go back to Wheeler and I was to go with him. We’d leave early, before everyone got up. Mom and my brother would come the next day.
That night while Dooley slept on the pallet next to mine, I dumped a cup of afterthoughts in his boot.
Sometime later, Dad awakened me, and we left. I giggled all the way home.
According to Mom, Dooley pulled his boot on, then jerked his foot out and tracked the stuff all over the house before the women ran him outside.
I pleaded innocent. Mom and Dad knew I was lying, but when I saw them grin at each other, I realized they knew the truth. I kept expecting some kind of punishment, but it never came.
Until that summer. That’s when I ran into Dooley once again.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Panhandle Winters
Last few days, we’ve had some nippy weather, at least to my way of thinking. Now, I know if you’re from Minnesota, North Dakota, or any of the northern most states, these past few days were probably short sleeve and flip-flop weather.
When I came down the gulf coast forty years ago, it would have been short sleeve for me also. Weather is quite a bit nippier up in Fort Worth, and a heck of a lot colder up in the Texas Panhandle.
How well I remember those Panhandle winters. And how glad I am they’re just memories.
Seems like beginning in October and lasting through March or April, it was bitter cold with the wind howling and blowing snow or rain or both with chunks of ice tossed in just to keep you on your toes.
In our little town, only the courthouse square and the two main highways crossing at one corner of the square were paved. All the other streets were dirt, which mean come the first really wet weather, Mister Mud showed up, gouging ruts in the road almost a foot deep.
One good thing about the ruts was that they kept you from slipping and sliding off the road. The bad thing about them was it was next to impossible to pull out of them to get into your driveway.
For us youngsters who walked everywhere, the water-filled ruts were a no win situation. If you waded them, water poured down your galoshes. If you jumped them, you buried up to your knees in mud.
And speaking of galoshes, which are rubber boots over shoes, they were an exercise in futility for seldom a day passed that we didn’t inadvertently yank a stocking foot from both shoe and boot and plant it squarely in the mud.
That was sure a sloppy mess to cram back into your shoe, but you had no choice. Even I wasn’t dumb enough to run around barefoot.
Early in the year, like idiots, all we school kids looked forward to the first snow, watching it stick against the school windows and slowly cover the ground.
Sometimes if it appeared to be thickening, the school sent the buses home earlier for the majority of the routes were over—you guessed it, dirt roads.
The rest of us, the walkers, were usually released some minutes later, and we tore screaming and shouting into the falling snow like wild heathens.
Sometimes, if the show was really heavy, I went over to Mama and Papa Conwell just across the street. Papa would take me home. Other times, a handful of us boys would carry on a running snowball fight the whole mile back to our neighborhood.
Like all kids, we build snowmen, forts, and stockpiled snowballs.
Such battles were common at recess in our small school, which sat next door to the high school. Usually sixth graders and we fifth graders stayed away from the high school crowd.
One particular day, however, the opportunity for sweet revenge came my way.
The high school boys were locked in a snowball battle with the school superintendent, who had paddled me once or twice (with more delight than I figured he should gain from administering my punishment). I was far off to one side, but I hatched a devious little plan to get back at him. I put together a solid snowball and sneaked around behind him. He was so occupied with the high school boys, he never saw me.
Stealthily, I crept closer and closer. Finally, all I could see was his broad back. Now I had him. I savored my revenge! I drew back, and at that moment, he jumped aside, dodging a well-thrown snowball.
Guess who didn’t dodge?
It caught me right between the eyes.
I bawled and squalled. He laughed and led me to his office where he turned be over to his secretary who dried my tears.
When the kids in my class heard about my misfortune, they laughed. It went on for a week. That was how long it took my black eye to finally go away.
Often we had snow on the ground for several days.
To be honest, snowball fights are entertaining for just so long, and after a few days, boredom takes over.
One winter, Jerry, Donald, and I set out to build us a small cabin where we boys could gather and while away the days.
Finding no material for a cabin, we decided to build it out of the bales of hay my uncle had under tarp. Don’t laugh. A small cave under a stay of hay can be pretty snug especially if you build a small fire for warmth like we did.
What we didn’t realize was—well, that’s another long story, better saved until we have more space.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
When I came down the gulf coast forty years ago, it would have been short sleeve for me also. Weather is quite a bit nippier up in Fort Worth, and a heck of a lot colder up in the Texas Panhandle.
How well I remember those Panhandle winters. And how glad I am they’re just memories.
Seems like beginning in October and lasting through March or April, it was bitter cold with the wind howling and blowing snow or rain or both with chunks of ice tossed in just to keep you on your toes.
In our little town, only the courthouse square and the two main highways crossing at one corner of the square were paved. All the other streets were dirt, which mean come the first really wet weather, Mister Mud showed up, gouging ruts in the road almost a foot deep.
One good thing about the ruts was that they kept you from slipping and sliding off the road. The bad thing about them was it was next to impossible to pull out of them to get into your driveway.
For us youngsters who walked everywhere, the water-filled ruts were a no win situation. If you waded them, water poured down your galoshes. If you jumped them, you buried up to your knees in mud.
And speaking of galoshes, which are rubber boots over shoes, they were an exercise in futility for seldom a day passed that we didn’t inadvertently yank a stocking foot from both shoe and boot and plant it squarely in the mud.
That was sure a sloppy mess to cram back into your shoe, but you had no choice. Even I wasn’t dumb enough to run around barefoot.
Early in the year, like idiots, all we school kids looked forward to the first snow, watching it stick against the school windows and slowly cover the ground.
Sometimes if it appeared to be thickening, the school sent the buses home earlier for the majority of the routes were over—you guessed it, dirt roads.
The rest of us, the walkers, were usually released some minutes later, and we tore screaming and shouting into the falling snow like wild heathens.
Sometimes, if the show was really heavy, I went over to Mama and Papa Conwell just across the street. Papa would take me home. Other times, a handful of us boys would carry on a running snowball fight the whole mile back to our neighborhood.
Like all kids, we build snowmen, forts, and stockpiled snowballs.
Such battles were common at recess in our small school, which sat next door to the high school. Usually sixth graders and we fifth graders stayed away from the high school crowd.
One particular day, however, the opportunity for sweet revenge came my way.
The high school boys were locked in a snowball battle with the school superintendent, who had paddled me once or twice (with more delight than I figured he should gain from administering my punishment). I was far off to one side, but I hatched a devious little plan to get back at him. I put together a solid snowball and sneaked around behind him. He was so occupied with the high school boys, he never saw me.
Stealthily, I crept closer and closer. Finally, all I could see was his broad back. Now I had him. I savored my revenge! I drew back, and at that moment, he jumped aside, dodging a well-thrown snowball.
Guess who didn’t dodge?
It caught me right between the eyes.
I bawled and squalled. He laughed and led me to his office where he turned be over to his secretary who dried my tears.
When the kids in my class heard about my misfortune, they laughed. It went on for a week. That was how long it took my black eye to finally go away.
Often we had snow on the ground for several days.
To be honest, snowball fights are entertaining for just so long, and after a few days, boredom takes over.
One winter, Jerry, Donald, and I set out to build us a small cabin where we boys could gather and while away the days.
Finding no material for a cabin, we decided to build it out of the bales of hay my uncle had under tarp. Don’t laugh. A small cave under a stay of hay can be pretty snug especially if you build a small fire for warmth like we did.
What we didn’t realize was—well, that’s another long story, better saved until we have more space.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
December 7, 1941
When I was five years old, I sat in the darkened theater in our little town watching a two-year-old film.
The theater, or picture shows as they were called back then in Neolithic times, was named ‘The Rogue’. The movie was ‘Wizard of Oz’, and the day was Sunday.
Dad was treating Mom and me to the town’s Sunday afternoon matinee, which always began at one pm, ran only one time, and then shut down for the day. Each Sunday film was shown again Monday night. Tuesdays, best I can remember, The Rogue was closed only to be open the rest of the week.
Dad wasn’t a movie-goer. In fact, not too many grownups back then were. Still the Guthrie family had enough business to keep the picture show in the black.
That was back in the country’s period of innocence. Our little town was so out of the way that delivery of new films was made at night and left at the front door of the movie house. Films to be returned were left at the same spot.
Try to imagine if you will the fate of films left in such a manner today? Probably before the delivery truck turned the first corner, the film would be in somebody’s car and heading for the pawn shop.
But, enough editorializing. Back to the movie.
That Sunday was a treat—while it lasted.
While the film enthralled me, what I remember most that day was the film stopping; the overhead lights suddenly flashing on; Mister Guthrie hurrying down one aisle and climbing up on the stage.
Holding up his hands to quiet the muttering of the audience, he told us the radio had just reported that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
Now to a five-year-old boy disappointed that the Munchkins had been turned off, that meant nothing. I didn’t have the slightest idea what a Pearl Harbor was. When I heard my Dad muyter a curse and Mom ask him what it meant, I knew something was wrong. It had to be something seriously wrong to shut down ‘The Wizard of Oz’.
At home, the family gathered, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins- all in front of the radio desperately seeking more news.
As the tragic figures grew, so did the family’s anger and resolve. Now, we had a vague idea there were problems with Japan. For months, the news carried bits and pieces concerning the rocky relationship between the U.S. and Japan.
But up there in the middle of nowhere called the Panhandle with only a couple ‘bobbed’ wire fences between us and the North Pole, the news meant little.
But as details trickled in, the words took on new meanings, and the anger and resolve grew in my family, as it did in millions of families across the country.
The surprise attack hit at 7:53 Sunday morning. The first wave damaged eight battleships, sinking five. Three light cruisers, three destroyers, and smaller vessels were lost along wit 188 aircraft. Fortunately, the main targets, the aircraft carriers, were not in harbor.
Casualties? 2,117 servicemen, 68 civilians, and over a thousand crewmen on the USS Arizona were killed plus 1,760 were wounded.
Sunday night, Japan attacked Hong Kong; Guam; Philippine Islands; and Wake Island. Monday morning, they hit Midway Island.
On Monday, December 8, President Roosevelt spoke to Congress, asking it for a declaration of war against Japan. He called the previous day ‘a date which will live in infamy.’
Congress did as he asked, and immediately infuriated Americans clamored to enlist.
I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I knew things were changing about me. And change it did. In its outrage, our country turned its bucolic existence into an all-consuming rage at its attackers.
A quote attributed incorrectly to Admiral Yamamoto, mastermind of the attack, states ‘I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping tiger.’
That’s a movie quote, not his, but it proved apropos.
The Greatest Generation, outraged at such treachery, responded with fervor never before nor since witnessed in the history of the world. All the men in my family volunteered. I had cousins in the Air Corp, uncles in the Navy and Army, and my father in the Navy. Fortunately they all returned.
A few years later in Korea, my cousin, Dooley, was lost, Missing in Action. As of November 30, 2011, he is still missing. His DNA is on record, our one hope someday he’ll be back.
Of the 16 million plus Americans serving in WWII, over four hundred and five thousand died. You and I are here today courtesy of that generation and their supreme sacrifices. We dishonor their sacrifices if we do not keep America great.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
The theater, or picture shows as they were called back then in Neolithic times, was named ‘The Rogue’. The movie was ‘Wizard of Oz’, and the day was Sunday.
Dad was treating Mom and me to the town’s Sunday afternoon matinee, which always began at one pm, ran only one time, and then shut down for the day. Each Sunday film was shown again Monday night. Tuesdays, best I can remember, The Rogue was closed only to be open the rest of the week.
Dad wasn’t a movie-goer. In fact, not too many grownups back then were. Still the Guthrie family had enough business to keep the picture show in the black.
That was back in the country’s period of innocence. Our little town was so out of the way that delivery of new films was made at night and left at the front door of the movie house. Films to be returned were left at the same spot.
Try to imagine if you will the fate of films left in such a manner today? Probably before the delivery truck turned the first corner, the film would be in somebody’s car and heading for the pawn shop.
But, enough editorializing. Back to the movie.
That Sunday was a treat—while it lasted.
While the film enthralled me, what I remember most that day was the film stopping; the overhead lights suddenly flashing on; Mister Guthrie hurrying down one aisle and climbing up on the stage.
Holding up his hands to quiet the muttering of the audience, he told us the radio had just reported that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
Now to a five-year-old boy disappointed that the Munchkins had been turned off, that meant nothing. I didn’t have the slightest idea what a Pearl Harbor was. When I heard my Dad muyter a curse and Mom ask him what it meant, I knew something was wrong. It had to be something seriously wrong to shut down ‘The Wizard of Oz’.
At home, the family gathered, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins- all in front of the radio desperately seeking more news.
As the tragic figures grew, so did the family’s anger and resolve. Now, we had a vague idea there were problems with Japan. For months, the news carried bits and pieces concerning the rocky relationship between the U.S. and Japan.
But up there in the middle of nowhere called the Panhandle with only a couple ‘bobbed’ wire fences between us and the North Pole, the news meant little.
But as details trickled in, the words took on new meanings, and the anger and resolve grew in my family, as it did in millions of families across the country.
The surprise attack hit at 7:53 Sunday morning. The first wave damaged eight battleships, sinking five. Three light cruisers, three destroyers, and smaller vessels were lost along wit 188 aircraft. Fortunately, the main targets, the aircraft carriers, were not in harbor.
Casualties? 2,117 servicemen, 68 civilians, and over a thousand crewmen on the USS Arizona were killed plus 1,760 were wounded.
Sunday night, Japan attacked Hong Kong; Guam; Philippine Islands; and Wake Island. Monday morning, they hit Midway Island.
On Monday, December 8, President Roosevelt spoke to Congress, asking it for a declaration of war against Japan. He called the previous day ‘a date which will live in infamy.’
Congress did as he asked, and immediately infuriated Americans clamored to enlist.
I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I knew things were changing about me. And change it did. In its outrage, our country turned its bucolic existence into an all-consuming rage at its attackers.
A quote attributed incorrectly to Admiral Yamamoto, mastermind of the attack, states ‘I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping tiger.’
That’s a movie quote, not his, but it proved apropos.
The Greatest Generation, outraged at such treachery, responded with fervor never before nor since witnessed in the history of the world. All the men in my family volunteered. I had cousins in the Air Corp, uncles in the Navy and Army, and my father in the Navy. Fortunately they all returned.
A few years later in Korea, my cousin, Dooley, was lost, Missing in Action. As of November 30, 2011, he is still missing. His DNA is on record, our one hope someday he’ll be back.
Of the 16 million plus Americans serving in WWII, over four hundred and five thousand died. You and I are here today courtesy of that generation and their supreme sacrifices. We dishonor their sacrifices if we do not keep America great.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
A Feeding Frenzy
You’ve seen videos of sharks in a feeding frenzy, ripping chunks from the prey, tearing at each other, filling the water with blood and slivers of raw meat.
That’s what the media appears to be doing today to the GOP candidates under the guise of impartial reporting. Maybe their onslaught is deserved. Maybe it isn’t.
What's the sense eviscerating a candidate when our primary concern should be to show our sitting president the road out of Washington and back to his daytime job as community organizer.
Case in point, old Herman Cain. That guy has been the center of the cold-eyed media’s frenzy for weeks now. They’ve torn him to pieces.
I’ll bet he’s glad Jerry Sandusky and Penn State came along to take over the headlines. Between that guy and the over-the-hill hippies at the protests, perhaps Cain can find a tad of respite from the heated accusations and innuendoes directed at him.
But in all fairness, you know as well as I, such recrimination, whether deserved or not, was due old Herman since he had the unmitigated audacity to surge to the top tier of GOP candidates.
The media reminds me of some of the wacky (read dangerous) deer hunters I’ve had the misfortune to run into over the last forty or fifty years.
Those are the crazies so anxious to take a deer that they shoot when a leaf moves, figuring they’d spotted a ten-point buck when in reality, all they manage is to put a hole through a maple leaf. But, they sure killed that sucker dead.
Seems like as if by magic, a bullseye morphs onto the chest of any GOP candidate who rises to the top, and the media takes aim, dreaming of Boone and Crockett headlines.
Now, I’m not defending Cain. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. I have the same reservations as any of you who struggle to keep an open mind. We need to know all about our candidates, warts and all-within the bounds of credibility.
Accusers have stepped forward, then fallen back. Makes me wonder. Is it all a ploy paid by liberals or even opposing conservatives to demean and disgrace the man? Or is it the truth?
Such is difficult to define since the majority of the media has been in Obama’s back pocket since the campaign in 2008. Anyone who opposes him is fair game.
I’ll be the first to admit, some of the poor jokers on the receiving end of the media’s Spanish Inquisition deserve much of what they get, but I have yet to see the mainstream media nitpick at the current president the way they scrutinize every thread in the fabric of his opposition’s life.
Take Michele Bachmann. A good person, she is very sincere in wanting to put America on the right track, but she made too many blunders early on when she was in the top tier of candidates. Some were outrageous, such as implying the ‘shot heard around the world’ was fired in New Hampshire’ when it was in Massachusetts. Or her assertion that Perry’s HPV vaccinations caused mental retardation.’
What do you want to bet if Obama had made those remarks, we’d never heard of them? The media doesn’t appear to be taking him to task today for the politics he’s playing with the Keystone pipeline, dragging his feet until next year’s election, then approving it.
And then along came Perry, who rocketed to the top of the candidate list and back to the bottom just as fast. Why? The media honed in on him, his hunting club with the derogatory name; his loss of memory; his deplorable debating skills; even his twang.
In his favor, he didn’t name the lease; everyone is forgetful at the wrong time; great orators are not automatically good presidents; and what’s wrong with a twang?
The result of the media’s obsession with Perry? Old Rick tumbled down the hill right behind Jill—oops, I mean, Michele, and then along came Herman, self-made, Washington outsider with plain and simple ideas at which the media scoffed.
Can’t you imagine just how frantically the media struggled to dig up bad press? And they found it in the sexual harassment business, a sordid business to which they clung like cur dogs on a gut wagon.
Cain didn’t help himself during a couple interviews when he had to pause to put together a response. That was all it took to bloody the waters, and here came the sharks, gaudy headlines glistening off their curved teeth.
I think there might have been a few shreds of old Herman left to sink to the bottom. I’m not sure, for the predators did a pretty thorough job on him.
Then came Newt, who early on had been pilloried, but survived. When Cain tumbled, Gingrich hit the top tier. Now, they’re after him like fresh chum tossed in the water because he worked as a consultant for Freddie Mac to the tune of $1.5 million over seven or eight years. What is that, $200 thousand a year? Less than half of what Joe Paterno made at Penn State.
Now I don’t know about you, but I can understand many of these candidates messing up from time to time, and okay, the media takes them to task. That’s their job. Can you tell me Obama hasn’t messed up? What do we hear? Nothing!
But sometimes, the media, in their quest for blood, overreach. Bachmann made a remark that as a youth in 1961, her parents paid five bucks for a doctor’s visit. The media pounced on it, pointing out that 1961’s five bucks was $37.94 today.
So what? She was trying to make a point, although she was somewhat clumsy about it.
They jump Perry about a hunting lease with a derogatory name over which his father had painted. And they assume Perry is racially biased because of that?
And why did Cain’s accusers wait so long? As far as I know, only two identified themselves. I suggested it before, but paid hecklers and informers is nothing new in the political jungle surrounding us.
Even Romney has had his share of bad press regarding his flip-flopping and healthcare, and the president, with the media’s blessing, goes tiptoeing around the world without a care to his name.
You think the battlefield is bloody now, wait until the presidential campaign begins. You’ll see Chicago politics at its gaudiest.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
That’s what the media appears to be doing today to the GOP candidates under the guise of impartial reporting. Maybe their onslaught is deserved. Maybe it isn’t.
What's the sense eviscerating a candidate when our primary concern should be to show our sitting president the road out of Washington and back to his daytime job as community organizer.
Case in point, old Herman Cain. That guy has been the center of the cold-eyed media’s frenzy for weeks now. They’ve torn him to pieces.
I’ll bet he’s glad Jerry Sandusky and Penn State came along to take over the headlines. Between that guy and the over-the-hill hippies at the protests, perhaps Cain can find a tad of respite from the heated accusations and innuendoes directed at him.
But in all fairness, you know as well as I, such recrimination, whether deserved or not, was due old Herman since he had the unmitigated audacity to surge to the top tier of GOP candidates.
The media reminds me of some of the wacky (read dangerous) deer hunters I’ve had the misfortune to run into over the last forty or fifty years.
Those are the crazies so anxious to take a deer that they shoot when a leaf moves, figuring they’d spotted a ten-point buck when in reality, all they manage is to put a hole through a maple leaf. But, they sure killed that sucker dead.
Seems like as if by magic, a bullseye morphs onto the chest of any GOP candidate who rises to the top, and the media takes aim, dreaming of Boone and Crockett headlines.
Now, I’m not defending Cain. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. I have the same reservations as any of you who struggle to keep an open mind. We need to know all about our candidates, warts and all-within the bounds of credibility.
Accusers have stepped forward, then fallen back. Makes me wonder. Is it all a ploy paid by liberals or even opposing conservatives to demean and disgrace the man? Or is it the truth?
Such is difficult to define since the majority of the media has been in Obama’s back pocket since the campaign in 2008. Anyone who opposes him is fair game.
I’ll be the first to admit, some of the poor jokers on the receiving end of the media’s Spanish Inquisition deserve much of what they get, but I have yet to see the mainstream media nitpick at the current president the way they scrutinize every thread in the fabric of his opposition’s life.
Take Michele Bachmann. A good person, she is very sincere in wanting to put America on the right track, but she made too many blunders early on when she was in the top tier of candidates. Some were outrageous, such as implying the ‘shot heard around the world’ was fired in New Hampshire’ when it was in Massachusetts. Or her assertion that Perry’s HPV vaccinations caused mental retardation.’
What do you want to bet if Obama had made those remarks, we’d never heard of them? The media doesn’t appear to be taking him to task today for the politics he’s playing with the Keystone pipeline, dragging his feet until next year’s election, then approving it.
And then along came Perry, who rocketed to the top of the candidate list and back to the bottom just as fast. Why? The media honed in on him, his hunting club with the derogatory name; his loss of memory; his deplorable debating skills; even his twang.
In his favor, he didn’t name the lease; everyone is forgetful at the wrong time; great orators are not automatically good presidents; and what’s wrong with a twang?
The result of the media’s obsession with Perry? Old Rick tumbled down the hill right behind Jill—oops, I mean, Michele, and then along came Herman, self-made, Washington outsider with plain and simple ideas at which the media scoffed.
Can’t you imagine just how frantically the media struggled to dig up bad press? And they found it in the sexual harassment business, a sordid business to which they clung like cur dogs on a gut wagon.
Cain didn’t help himself during a couple interviews when he had to pause to put together a response. That was all it took to bloody the waters, and here came the sharks, gaudy headlines glistening off their curved teeth.
I think there might have been a few shreds of old Herman left to sink to the bottom. I’m not sure, for the predators did a pretty thorough job on him.
Then came Newt, who early on had been pilloried, but survived. When Cain tumbled, Gingrich hit the top tier. Now, they’re after him like fresh chum tossed in the water because he worked as a consultant for Freddie Mac to the tune of $1.5 million over seven or eight years. What is that, $200 thousand a year? Less than half of what Joe Paterno made at Penn State.
Now I don’t know about you, but I can understand many of these candidates messing up from time to time, and okay, the media takes them to task. That’s their job. Can you tell me Obama hasn’t messed up? What do we hear? Nothing!
But sometimes, the media, in their quest for blood, overreach. Bachmann made a remark that as a youth in 1961, her parents paid five bucks for a doctor’s visit. The media pounced on it, pointing out that 1961’s five bucks was $37.94 today.
So what? She was trying to make a point, although she was somewhat clumsy about it.
They jump Perry about a hunting lease with a derogatory name over which his father had painted. And they assume Perry is racially biased because of that?
And why did Cain’s accusers wait so long? As far as I know, only two identified themselves. I suggested it before, but paid hecklers and informers is nothing new in the political jungle surrounding us.
Even Romney has had his share of bad press regarding his flip-flopping and healthcare, and the president, with the media’s blessing, goes tiptoeing around the world without a care to his name.
You think the battlefield is bloody now, wait until the presidential campaign begins. You’ll see Chicago politics at its gaudiest.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Thanksgiving I Became a Man
Despite my age, I still look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas just as much as I did when I was a youngster up in the Texas Panhandle, but for different reasons.
As I youth, three-quarters of my anticipation was getting together with cousins. The other 25% was the piles of food.
Today as an age-challenged individual, I count myself blessed to be able to look forward to the warm gathering of family and friends.
No question, Thanksgiving has changed over the years.
While turkey has always been associated with the holiday, as a youngster, our main fare was chicken, and usually it was fried, but we sure didn’t argue the point.
Today after a good meal, we settle back for a football game.
Sixty-five years ago, instead of after dinner TV (there was no TV), grownups gathered around a small space heater and brought the whole family up to date on their lives for the past few months. Outside, we boys ran wild.
Like most old codgers, I’ve romanticized those days. So what? We all pick the most pleasant days from the past to remember. that's how most of us make it from day to day.
As I think back to those days, the delightful aroma of dinner on the oversized stove seemed more palpable than what comes packaged from today's vendor; the friendly joshing and laughter merrier than the inane rattling from broadcasters and color men; the days brighter, and everyones' enjoyment more fulfilled.
Usually, we spent Thanksgiving at my maternal grandmother’s. They lived about forty-five minutes north of Lubbock, right smack dab in the middle of what is called the Llano Estacada or Staked Plains.
The story goes that the early Spanish explorers used stakes to mark their path back to their camp since there were no trees nor shrubs nor hills nor prairie dog holes to serve as landmarks. The country then, as today, is as flat as a wet saddleblanket.
The drive from our home in the Panhandle was only about two hundred and fifty miles, but it usually took us around six hours in the old pre-war vehicles. Even the post-war autos took five or so hours.
That time of year, the weather was chilly—well, not chilly, but cold.
Mama’s house had four and a half rooms. the pot-bellied stove in the living room and the stove in the kitchen kept the two rooms warm. The two bedrooms were like ice as was the bathroom out on the closed-in back porch. I tell you, there was no piddling around when you had to use the facilities.
One Thanksgiving that I remember so clearly was the year I shifted from boyhood to manhood, at least in my mind. It was around 1944. I was eight.
My Aunt Mae drove into our home at Wheeler with her husband, a bull of a man named Millard Coate. He was big and rough and his favorite curse was ‘son-of-a-buck.’ He was as amiable and friendly as he was rugged, and I instantly idolized him.
Most men in my family with the exception of Uncle Henry were only around 5’9”. Millard, or M.O. as he preferred for Millard Ore, stood well over six feet.
He drove a Studebaker bobtail with a arched plywood top over the bed. He had constructed it with twelve-inch sides so it would slip down over the sideboards and tailgate like a hat. He planned on taking the truck on to Lubbock for a job after Thanksgiving.
Since Mae had not seen her sisters, Mom or Elva, for several months, nothing would do but the three ride together and do what sisters always do, find out the skinny on everything that’s gone on since they last got together.
Me, I rode with Mo. Boy was I proud. Eight years old and traveling across the Panhandle without my Mom. A heady feeling for a younker like me.
I don’t remember much about the trip except somewhere past Plainview (the name clearly describes the how flat the land is around there), the top blew off the bed.
With a ‘son-of-a-buck’ curse, Mo pulled off and backed up.
I jumped out and almost froze when the bitter wind hit me. That land was so flat I swear I could see the North Pole. Clenching my teeth, I grabbed the top. I couldn’t budge it, but here came Mo, muttering under his breath. Without seemingly an effort, he lifted the top and propped it against the truck. He told me to hold it in place, which I barely managed to do until he shed his jacket. He bent over and grabbed the edge of the plywood, and heaved, sliding the cumbersome top back into place.
That was sixty-five years ago, and I still marvel at his strength.
Back in the truck, Mo laughed and slapped me on the leg. “By god, we got it back in place, didn’t we, boy? You did a good job. I reckon that calls for a cup of coffee and hot cocoa, what do you say?”
If you think I felt grown up helping him with the top, you can imagine how I felt when we marched in a nice warm café and sat at the counter, me beside that great hulk of a man who called out to the waitress, “Lady, I’ll have a cup of coffee and bring a hot cocoa for my partner here-with marshmallows if you got them.”
Mo’s been gone a long time, over twenty-five years.
I still miss that big old bear of a man.
Incidentally, I didn’t get the marshmallows. They were rationed, but I didn’t even notice. I was with my hero.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
As I youth, three-quarters of my anticipation was getting together with cousins. The other 25% was the piles of food.
Today as an age-challenged individual, I count myself blessed to be able to look forward to the warm gathering of family and friends.
No question, Thanksgiving has changed over the years.
While turkey has always been associated with the holiday, as a youngster, our main fare was chicken, and usually it was fried, but we sure didn’t argue the point.
Today after a good meal, we settle back for a football game.
Sixty-five years ago, instead of after dinner TV (there was no TV), grownups gathered around a small space heater and brought the whole family up to date on their lives for the past few months. Outside, we boys ran wild.
Like most old codgers, I’ve romanticized those days. So what? We all pick the most pleasant days from the past to remember. that's how most of us make it from day to day.
As I think back to those days, the delightful aroma of dinner on the oversized stove seemed more palpable than what comes packaged from today's vendor; the friendly joshing and laughter merrier than the inane rattling from broadcasters and color men; the days brighter, and everyones' enjoyment more fulfilled.
Usually, we spent Thanksgiving at my maternal grandmother’s. They lived about forty-five minutes north of Lubbock, right smack dab in the middle of what is called the Llano Estacada or Staked Plains.
The story goes that the early Spanish explorers used stakes to mark their path back to their camp since there were no trees nor shrubs nor hills nor prairie dog holes to serve as landmarks. The country then, as today, is as flat as a wet saddleblanket.
The drive from our home in the Panhandle was only about two hundred and fifty miles, but it usually took us around six hours in the old pre-war vehicles. Even the post-war autos took five or so hours.
That time of year, the weather was chilly—well, not chilly, but cold.
Mama’s house had four and a half rooms. the pot-bellied stove in the living room and the stove in the kitchen kept the two rooms warm. The two bedrooms were like ice as was the bathroom out on the closed-in back porch. I tell you, there was no piddling around when you had to use the facilities.
One Thanksgiving that I remember so clearly was the year I shifted from boyhood to manhood, at least in my mind. It was around 1944. I was eight.
My Aunt Mae drove into our home at Wheeler with her husband, a bull of a man named Millard Coate. He was big and rough and his favorite curse was ‘son-of-a-buck.’ He was as amiable and friendly as he was rugged, and I instantly idolized him.
Most men in my family with the exception of Uncle Henry were only around 5’9”. Millard, or M.O. as he preferred for Millard Ore, stood well over six feet.
He drove a Studebaker bobtail with a arched plywood top over the bed. He had constructed it with twelve-inch sides so it would slip down over the sideboards and tailgate like a hat. He planned on taking the truck on to Lubbock for a job after Thanksgiving.
Since Mae had not seen her sisters, Mom or Elva, for several months, nothing would do but the three ride together and do what sisters always do, find out the skinny on everything that’s gone on since they last got together.
Me, I rode with Mo. Boy was I proud. Eight years old and traveling across the Panhandle without my Mom. A heady feeling for a younker like me.
I don’t remember much about the trip except somewhere past Plainview (the name clearly describes the how flat the land is around there), the top blew off the bed.
With a ‘son-of-a-buck’ curse, Mo pulled off and backed up.
I jumped out and almost froze when the bitter wind hit me. That land was so flat I swear I could see the North Pole. Clenching my teeth, I grabbed the top. I couldn’t budge it, but here came Mo, muttering under his breath. Without seemingly an effort, he lifted the top and propped it against the truck. He told me to hold it in place, which I barely managed to do until he shed his jacket. He bent over and grabbed the edge of the plywood, and heaved, sliding the cumbersome top back into place.
That was sixty-five years ago, and I still marvel at his strength.
Back in the truck, Mo laughed and slapped me on the leg. “By god, we got it back in place, didn’t we, boy? You did a good job. I reckon that calls for a cup of coffee and hot cocoa, what do you say?”
If you think I felt grown up helping him with the top, you can imagine how I felt when we marched in a nice warm café and sat at the counter, me beside that great hulk of a man who called out to the waitress, “Lady, I’ll have a cup of coffee and bring a hot cocoa for my partner here-with marshmallows if you got them.”
Mo’s been gone a long time, over twenty-five years.
I still miss that big old bear of a man.
Incidentally, I didn’t get the marshmallows. They were rationed, but I didn’t even notice. I was with my hero.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
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