THE SCI-FI MASTERS

"...For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;..."

Alfred, lord Tennyson (1809-1892) "Locksley Hall" lines 119-122


Quite a seer, was our Tennyson. Born the same year as Lincoln and died just when the fervor of automobile experimentation was at its' height, foretelling the airplane and its' commerce and role in warfare. Especially when you consider that the poem these lines appear in was first published in 1842, long before automobiles and airplanes were common-in fact before many men had even dreamed of such.

Other prophets had done so before, but few, if any, had expressed it quite so clearly. Even the Bible had its' share of prophets, and visionaries have existed throughout history. Nostradamus and da Vinci come to mind immediately. Da Vinci even made drawings of some of his and they bear remarkable resemblances to modern day inventions.

Modern day visionaries' thoughts are even more far out of mainstream writing. Three of them were exceptional: Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke. And over the past fifteen or so years we have lost all three, but their ideas live on in such stories as the Rama series by Clarke, the Foundation series by Asimov and the Future History series by Heinlein.

Isaac Asimov was the son of a Russian immigrant to the United States. He was very young when his family came to America. His life is well documented so I will not go into it, except to say that he received an excellent education, obtaining the professional use of his doctorate to teach biochemistry at the university level for a number of years. But his greatest love was his writing. And he was the writer of hundreds of books-texts, opinion pieces, criticism, general sciences and science fiction and mysteries.

When I was the tender age of ten, my father brought home a short novel named "Nightfall." From that moment on I was a fan of Asimov. The story concerned the natives of a planet located in the central core of galaxies where there was always a sun shining in the sky. Every few millennia, the movement of the galaxies was such that there descended upon the world a complete and total darkness, lasting only one night. "Nightfall" deals with the social and religious implications of such an event.

Asimov's "Foundation" series was a landmark series. Originally written as a trilogy in the late forties and early fifties, he expanded it to include his "Robot" novel characters in the seventies, and brought it full circle at the end of the complete series which ran to some six or seven books, not counting the original robot novels. The series chronicle the attempt by a changing group of men to allay the effects of the downfall of of an empire from internal corruption and to reduce the time required to rebuild a new empire from its' ashes, thereby reducing the time of chaos from thirty thousand years to a fraction of that time.

Although I have enjoyed every book he ever wrote that I could lay my hands on, I have always felt that his general sciences books were the very best. He could take extremely difficult subjects and explain them in everyday terminology which even youngsters could usually understand. My personal favorite is "Adding a Dimension," but I leave it to you to read and see for yourself. You may very well find others that you deem better, and that is what makes a horserace.

Robert Heinlein passed away a few years ago. He was, like Asimov, a very prolific writer, most always in the science fiction genre. Early in his career, he constructed a future timeline of events and people, and then proceeded to write short stories and novels based upon that future history. His future history encompassed the rise of the religious right to include a theocracy for the United States, the bringing forth of a family of very long lived men and women and the resultant turn=moil when their longevity was made public, the birth and life of a human youngster on Mars and what occurs after he is brought to the Earth for 'humanization', and many others all welded into a framework which includes the 'black hats' of the Universe. I have never tried to figure out just how many of his works are tied into this framework, but it always seemed to me that he was very consistent in the views which were expressed throughout his works.

I could not assign a favorite among his many works. Each of them has its' own worth and comparisons are difficult. My own screen name, by the way, is taken from one of his novels, "The Moon IS A Harsh Mistress." But the term appears in many other works by Heinlein. One note I will make is that he uses alternate Universes and alternate Earths throughout his histories. Many times the story actually revolves around that alternate theory. Tanstaafl simply means "there aint no such thing as a free lunch," which pretty well expresses my view on life.

The third of the triumvirate is probably the best known around the world. We all know at least one work by Arthur C. Clarke, "2001: A Space Odyssey." But a great deal of the science in that novel and film was known at the time and the novel, while interesting, does not really display the depth of his knowledge. His "Rama" series is probably much more indicative of this than many of his other novels.

Like Asimov and Heinlein, Clarke was a very prolific writer. As well, he hosted his own television series which was a scientific coup. and drew many younger viewers to the field. During his later years, Clarke teamed with other authors, most notably Gentry Lee, a writer of some renown in his own right. Clarke's and Lee's "Cradle" is an excellent novel.

For pure technical works, Clarke was difficult to match. His understanding of basic science was on a par with Asimov and his ability to weave the science into his stories was unparalleled, especially so in that he introduced it in a manner that even non-technical minds could, if not entirely grasp it, at least see that the work was well grounded in science.

His crowning achievement, of course, was being knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

All three are gone from us now. This world will, undoubtedly, have others just as great. But my time of reading will not discover them. I have large collections of all three, although my Clarke's are not as extensive as I'd like. And the science is now something that I do not keep up with too well. Newer writer that I enjoy are primarily those who deal in the fantasy genre, where science is left by the wayside and the social and interpersonal relationships are explored.

But after a few of those, I find myself rereading some of these three masters for relief and I find that the enjoyment of rereading one of their works is as much or more pleasurable than trying to grasp the nuances of new writers.

So, goodbye old friends. Your great works are for the ages now. They serve as a fine memory and current comfort to me. You will be read as long as my eyes and inclinations remain.

CONSERVATIVE LIBERALISM OR LIBERAL CONSERVATISM?

Michelle, who is a very valued commenter on this blog, indicated that she was having maybe some ideological concerns of late. It seems that her conservative views have, in some instances, devolved into some fairly liberal stances.

Welcome to the real world, Michelle.

You are not alone. Practically everyone has the same experience, or the reverse experience. I did not make this up, but someone once said that he was afraid to be too liberal in his youth because that meant he would probably be too conservative in his old age. You and I probably are the ones who fall into the 'reverse' group here.

I make no bones about it. I am a conservative. I was born in 1942, so I was able to vote the first time in the 1964 elections. I was a strong supporter of Barry Goldwater, and still feel that had he been elected Vietnam would have been over by the middle of his first term. Instead it ended more than a decade later and we still feel the effects of improper prosecution of a war. I campaigned for him, was called one of "Barry's Boys" on many occasions, and contributed money to help elect some Republicans to Congress.

Strangely, four years before, in my first year at Marshall, I had worked for Hubert Humphrey in an attempt to stop the juggernaut of Joe Kennedy's millions that was used to buy West Virginia and the presidency for his son. I got to meet both and have few words with them, and found Kennedy to be magnetic but transparent and Humphrey to be overwhelmed by the effects of the money thrown against him. Had I been able to I would have voted for Nixon that year.

I majored in Accounting in college and took a position in northern WV upon graduation. The accounting degree was useful in that it immediately placed me into management for the bulk of my career--until I got fed up with management and what it had become--and dropped out to become a lowly telemarketer. But a telemarketer who was constantly harassed by management to rejoin their ranks. During my long career I served as financial manager for a number of Fortune 500's and then became active in social work management, which was where my management career ended. I retired in 2004, just before my 62nd birthday.

None of that is important, except that, as a manager, my social and political views were pretty much conservative. Then, as now, I felt that conservatives generally were better at managing the government from a financial standpoint. And, admittedly, my social views inclined to be somewhat conservative, also. While the idealism of youth was still around, it lay hidden below my consciousness for twenty-five years or so.

I do not know of any particular thing that caused my social views to begin changing in the mid-1980's, but they began a metamorphosis that astounded me. Come to think of it, maybe I do have some inkling. It was Roe v. Wade that got me unstrung.

I do not believe in abortion as a common method of contraception. Therapeutic abortion for specific reasons, yes, I approve. But simply because a woman does not want to bear a child is not enough reason to deny that child life. In my opinion, anyway. So how did that make me become more liberal? Funny you should ask. I wondered about that too. But it started a complete review of my value system.

Always a strong supporter of individual rights, I felt that the right to keep and bear arms was critical to the national profile. I was a strong supporter of the death penalty. I had little sympathy for those on welfare of their own accord, which spilled over at times to scorn for those who were there for any reason. My, how the times do change.

After a lot of internal debate and a lot of hand wringing, excited by the experiences of living in a few major and a few tiny cities, and seeing the carnage performed by Americans upon Americans, I found I could no longer support private ownership of handguns. Subsequent developments in this area has led me to withdraw my support for even hunting rifles and shotguns, and all other firearms. And I feel I am well within the Constitution in doing so. It says "...in order to maintain a well armed militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged." Well, okay, let them keep and bear their arms in a well armed militia. That does not mean they are or should be allowed to walk the streets with them. In this case I think the conservatives have erred and continue to err in their interpretation of that great document. (That is hilarious, I typed interpretation as 'unterpretation'--maybe I should have left it that way, it makes more sense!)

All my life I had been a supporter of the death penalty. Relying upon the Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye, I paid little heed to the other one that said thou shalt not kill. The whole thing about abortion called into question, for me, just when if ever killing was allowable. Even the Bible was unreliable as it also says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. So could society, as a whole, condone killing simply because it had not worked out a way to prevent it? Clearly, if society put a murderer to death, there would be no repeat by that murderer. But it provided no clear deterrence either, as witnessed by the fact that most murders were committed by family members upon other family members. And those family members committed those murders in the heat of passion or by clear premeditation for various reasons where knowledge of the consequences meant little or nothing. I vacillated, but finally come to the firm conclusion that the death penalty was an unworkable punishment and did more harm to society than good.

I have always felt, and still do, that, of those who live on welfare alone, probably eighty to ninety percent have no real reason to be there except an aversion to working for the good of themselves and society. I have little if any respect for them, particularly those families now in their third or fourth generation of welfare. But at one time I lumped them all together, those permanently on relief and those temporarily on relief. And what a fool I was. For I came to realize that there are so very many that are there through no fault of their own. And those ones we must encourage and aid in any way possible. We must go out of our way to succor these unfortunate persons.

But the permanent welfare dweller is a problem of another sort. And I have no solutions for them. Absolutely they are a tremendous drain on society. Some go so far as to feel an entitlement to those funds. But, you know, I also feel we must in some ways try to generate a sense of worth among them, which they sadly lack. What programs are required and what concessions must be made and what demands must, I cannot begin to extrapolate from my own experiences. I only know that we must be much more concerned with them than we have been in the past. We cannot allow such a percentage of our citizens to ride free upon the largess of society forever.

So, yes, I have a patch of liberal views, myself. As does every thinking adult. And I also have a greater patch of conservative views. Indeed, my own personal views are currently best described as falling almost over into the libertarian areas. I am tired of government which is overbearing, grasping, insensitive and unappealing. I am tired of politicians. I am tired of those who think they know better than I how I feel about matters of importance. I am sick to death with those who pimp their own solutions and think anyone who doesn't agree with their views are undoubtedly ignorant or intentionally boorish, or whatever their latest buzzwords are for those who dare disagree.

I do not care one bit if some think of me as one of the great unwashed majority of the country. I take it as a compliment when I get a disagreement from an especially rotten correspondent, to a well reasoned argument, that he happens to not agree with. The old sticks and stones saying is true. Even some of my best friends and I disagree somewhat fiercely on some areas. And disagreement is a good thing. It shows that people are thinking.

But by the same token, the proper usage of the English language is an indicator of the intelligence of the person. A good argument is destroyed, whether liberal or conservative, by rotten language. Asking someone to add the punctuation or missing words or capitalization is the sure sign that the writer is not concerned with making a valid point, only in trumpeting his ignorance.

I'm feeling a rant coming on, and this is not the time nor place for that.

So, don't feel too bad, Michelle, you are among good company with your ideology. I dare say everyone who reads this blog is in the same position, a mix of both. And that is what is so great about this land of ours, we can be different while being a part of the one body of America. And be free to do so.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XIII

BIG YELLOW SCHOOLBUS

Part IV


When I was a sophomore in high school, the second oldest girl from the family up the road began riding the bus. She was one of four girls in the family, no boys. She was entering the seventh grade. She was 19 years old. Yes, 19. Ugly as sin and dumb as a broadaxe. And this was the year that the board decided that all bus stops had to be at least two tenths of a mile apart.We had never had a problem before, as the stop prior to ours was well up the road and the next stop was at the bottom of the hill. But now that she had started to ride the bus, that made her stop and ours only about one and a half tenths of a mile apart. The compromise was that we would walk halfway to her house and she would walk halfway to ours.

Well, that lasted a whole one day. We walked up halfway but she stood in front of her house. The bus came along and passed her up and stopped for us. The driver waited about five minutes, honking the horn every now and then. While she stood her ground so to speak. He finally took off with all of us laughing. The next morning we walked up again and she again stood in front of her house. Her father stood with her and flagged down the driver. After about five minutes, she got on the bus, her father got off and the driver pulled the bus down to pick us up. We got on and he proceeded with the route as usual.

On the way to school, my brothers and I talked with the driver and we decided that she and her family were not going to budge. We asked him if the mileage between our front path was still over the two tenths rule, and he said that it was, just barely. He also said that if we would move our spot down front instead of out back, that he could then pick her up at her house. We told him that was fine with us, and that was the way it was.

Kids are cruel. Those on the bus constantly made fun of her. She had a slight speech impediment which, naturally, the kids exaggerated, and she wore clothing that obviously were hand-me-down hand-me-downs, of such garish colors that it would make one blink. Her favorite outfit, worn two or three times per week, was a brilliant yellow and bright purple get up. Almost gives me a headache just to remember it. She wore an old rag coat year round and an old felt hat that somewhat covered her always greasy looking hair. Her manner was very abrupt, always unsmiling even when someone tried to be friendly with her.

Riding the bus home one hot late September day, all the windows open on the bus to catch whatever wind we could, we all were remarking that she was still standing when there were many available seats where she could sit. I guess maybe we were wondering why that stump didn't sit down and take a load off her legs. She had been standing all the way from school and we were now about three miles from home, about seven or eight from school. During all tghis time the driver had been observing her as the bus emptied and she remained standing.

The bus had been completely full when we left the high school and it was not unusual for there to be three or four kids who had to stand until we made a stop or two. But what ws unusual ws that the high school was the second stop--it loaded the junior high kids first, and she was in the seventh grade. There were empty seats when the bus got to the high school and she was standing at that time. Oh, well.

We had pulled off Lower Buck Road onto the hard road heading south and were approaching the stop for the kids who lived on Upper Buck Road. Suddenly someone or something, dislodged the old felt hat from her head. Out the window it flew like a bird on the wing. And such a look of perplexion came over her face that we all burst out laughing (yeah, I know there is no such word, but it fits the situation so well.) I can understand now that it was cruel of us to laugh, but, at the time it was hilarious. She moved back and forth in the aisle, three steps forward, three steps backward and repeat. And all the time the driver is watching her.She had begun to settle down a little as we neared the elementary school to pick up those kids for the rest of the trip.

Her two sisters came on board along with the rest, and sat down in the seat next to where she was standing. At this time, including the space where her sisters sat, there were probably thirty empty spaces available, many of them completely empty seats. Apparently the driver had had enough. He looked in the mirror and said, "Hey, girl, what's the matter?" She looked up into the mirror and shouted, "Find no seat!" At which point the entire busload erupted into laughter. The driver told her to sit because he was not going to move the bus until she was in a seat. She continued to stand. This conversation went on, one-sided, for a few minutes and she finally sat down with her sisters who were tugging at her to get her down. That was her last day of school.

Her next younger sister never made it to the seventh grade. She retired from public education at eighteen in the sixth grade. We always referred to her as the halfback, or the hunchback.

The youngest sister started riding the bus when I was a senior. There was no problem with her walking down to the halfway post after the first two or three times that the driver failed to pick her up at her house. The first morning he picked us both up, she at her house and me at our back mailbox. But the told us both that the stop was at the power pole midway between our houses from then on. I walked up to the pole the next day and she stood in front of her house. The driver passed her up. Same thing the next day. And the next. The next day her father stood in the middle of the road and forced him to stop. There ensued a conversation which I heard about later. The driver told me that they had gone at it pretty hot and heavy with the father making some threats and the driver had told him that the stop was where I was standing and that was the only place he was stopping in the future, that he would not stop to talk or even open the doors except at that stop. The next day and every day after that she was at that pole for the bus to pick her up.

And the funny thing was that the following year, she came down to that post for about a week and a half until some rat told her I wasn't going to school anymore.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XII

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Part III

Now and then, during these six fast years, we had floods. Did we ever have floods. When it was dry, it was very, very dry and when it was wet, it flooded. Our route, no matter which one, was beset with low water crossings (no flood control dams had been built then,) so we were at the mercy of the weather. And the weather ain't too merciful sometimes. Maple Creek, Lower Buck Road, Blue Town Road, the hard road at the end of Blue Town Road and even the four lane near town. And with a flood, it ain't a case of being late, you just are not there at all.

One merry morning in my junior year in high school we were just rolling along. At the low point on Maple Creek, we went through with no problem, the water was just at the bottom of the pavement at the high-banked curve. There was backwater at the entrance to Lower Buck Creek Road but only about six inches or so. At the dip on Lower Buck (if you have traveled it you know where it is, if you haven't, it is unimportant,) the water was two or three inches over the road at the very bottom of the dip. No problem, we rolled along.

At the railroad bridge near Inez, near where we had a bus wreck one time, the water was about a foot or so below the road so we crept slowly by and headed on to Swamp Hollow. Here we could see that the water had flooded all the bottomland of the dairy farm and we told the driver he should turn around and take us home, that he wouldn't be able to get through on Blue Town Road, past Blue Creek. He didn't listen, of course, he had a job to do.

The water was not quite into the road at two places near Swamp Hollow that were susceptible to floding and we rolled along. We started down Blue Town Road and did really well until we got to Blue Creek Road. we were supposed to go up that road but there was about two or three feet of water covering it at the lowest point we could see from Blue Town Road. So we went up the grade and turned down toward the camp. And here there was about a foot of water over the road. We stopped. The driver got out and looked. Back on the bus. And he got out and looked again. Then he mounted that old International and took us through. After that nothing could save us. We were bound for school and neither hell nor high water would keep us from it. He was just determined to get us to school that day.

He did. And was met at the high school by the superintendent of transportation, who told him to turn it around and take us back home, that the forecast was for a swift ride on the river. They were closing all the schools for the day. So off we roll again. When we got back to the turn off to Blue Town Road, the hard road was closed in two places, but we were able to get across the bridge and proceed down Blue Town. The water was now about a foot-and-a-half of water over the road. But old Buster took us through. With a mighty bow wave, the old bus made it through and made it to the top of the grade before it coughed and sputtered and died. After a number of tries, it finally sprang back into life and we were off again on our mid-morning hegira.

Water over the road at both places near Swamp Hollow. We went through and rolled along. Water just breaching the road at Inez. We rolled along. Dirty brown water swirling about a foot deep at the dip. We rolled along. backwater visible all the way along Lower Buck to the hard road. We rolled along.

Water covering one full lane at the high-bank curve at Maple Creek. We moved to upper lane and rolled along. I rode the bus all the way up Maple Creek road and he turned the bus around. We broke speed records coming back down Maple Creek Road to my house. I was the only kid left on the bus. When I got off I wished him luck getting home. He lived about two miles farther south on the hard road, but there was one more place the water usually got over he road before he would get there. He took off fast and told me later what occurred.

He turned right onto the hard road. He noticed there was no traffic. He rolled along. He drove to the top of the hill and started down to Jones Creek. WHOA UP, BUCKO! Jones Creek backwater completely closed the hard road with about four feet of water. She'll drive, but she won't float. Buster had to back it up about a quarter-mile to the drive-in near the top of the hill and get home by canoe and shanks mare

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XI

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Part II

While we always called the road Blue Town Road, it was actually Camp Road. Blue Creek Road is about a half mile from the camp and goes up a hollow that would take you to the hard road at the top of Dunns Hill if you followed the cowtrack on up the hill. Just before you get to Blue Creek Road coming from Sandy, there is a hill and a longish run around the hill to get back down to Blue Creek.

Whenever we had a good rain, the road in this stretch became very muddy--greasy, we used to say. It was mainly red clay mud and the gravel washed off soon as it was applied. If the gravel didn't wash off, it was ground down into the clay by the traffic anyway, so it did no good. As we were such a studious and conscientious lot, we naturally hoped there would be no untoward occurrences as the bus navigated this tricky little piece of landscape during such times. No one likes to be stuck out on a hillside waiting for a tow when they could be safely ensconced in a warm classroom learning to decline a Latin verb or proving that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (and thank you, too, Pythagoras.)

Sure. And God didn't make little green apples, either.

When it got good and soupy and the bus made its' way up to the top of the hill, we all hoped that the brother and sister who lived almost to the top of the hill were going to school that day. For if they did, the bus had to stop to pick them up and then go into low gear and that was always a potential slide in a coach that long. Never would we think of doing a "student body left" while the driver tried vainly to keep it out of the ditch. Never. Always. And about 50 % of the time it worked.

It was always too muddy to get outside so we sat and sang songs or whatever else suited our fancies until they brought a tow truck, tractor or another bus (seldom--why get another bus in the ditch?) Besides, we were guaranteed to be at least an hour late getting to school. Eventually (after a couple of years) they got smart and overloaded the area with gravel and stone--and then they changed the route so we didn't go that way anymore.

Of course, that was not the only place the bus got hung up. Ferguson Ridge Road was always a great place for it to happen also. This road, once the top of the ridge was breasted, was pure red clay, all the way from the top of the hill at the cemetery to old schoolhouse. And there was the place where the bus got hung up regularly, especially in the spring of the year.

The bus had to be turned around here, and the driver went just beyond the schoolhouse and then backed in beside it, made a few back and forth moves, and then made a sharp right turn and was on the way back out the ridge toward the hard road. There was a large tree in just the wrong place and the driver had to turn the wheel a little left and get the side clear of the tree before he could go on out. The schoolhouse was built on fill dirt that had been shoved over the hill and then leveled for the site.

If it had been raining for a while, the dirt turned to pure red clay mud, slick and soft and the back end of the bus would sink . The more the driver tried to move, the farther it sank. When this occurred, we had to wait for an extended length of time since this was at the very end of the route in terms of distance from the garage, plus the fact that there were no telephones in the area, and this was long before the advent of cb radio or cell phones. So we had to wait for someone coming by on the road to even send for help. There was a road just across Ferguson Ridge Road that went down the hill into the next county, but in all my years of being around there, I only saw a vehicle on it one time, and that was a huge logging truck.

The only help was to catch someone driving down off the ridge and have them call the garage. Now there were kids from only three families that we picked up at that stop and they had walked upwards of a mile to get there. There were no telephones and the traffic was very light, most of their fathers had already gone to work before the bus ever got there, and most families only had the one vehicle, if they had one at all. We sat there, on occasion, as long as three hours before the folks at the garage realized we were stuck somewhere. Then they had to run the route backwards to find us. Once or twice a logging truck happened by and pulled us out.

This schoolhouse was a one-room school that had been closed and consolidated into Maple Creek Elementary the year that I was in the fifth grade. We picked up about fifteen kids from that closure and another fifteen or so from the closing of Upper Buck and ten more from Lower Buck (my cousin was the teacher at Upper Buck when it closed.) The board had added one more room to Maple Creek Elementary and had expanded the kitchen to accommodate the influx of students. After the addition of these three schools, Maple Creek Elementary had about eighty kids altogether.

The old schoolhouse on Ferguson Ridge then became a church. I have no idea what denomination this church was supposed to be. And, for my brothers and I, and a few other folks, too, the easiest way to get to the church was to go up to the head of Maple Creek and ascend the old road to the top of the hill whee the church was located. At one time, that old road was capable of being negotiated by old time automobiles, then by trucks only and then by jeep only and by the time I was old enough to know anything, by horse or foot only, after a slip developed and took three-quarters of the roadway with it. That road had been the main way to get to Ferguson Ridge back in the 1920's and 1930's but fell into disrepair during the 1930's and the war years. Going by foot for us was a trip of about one-and-a-half miles from our house to the church.

The other way of course was to go out to the hard road, north on the hard road for about a mile then up Ferguson Ridge Road for about three miles, for a total trip of about five miles. So it was natural for us to go up our hollow and up the hill. About halfway up this hill, there was a pool of water just off the old road. This pool had some of the best tasting water in those parts, especially when you were climbing that hill. I don't know how it tasted when you were descending the hill, because I never needed it then. And as I grew older I realized that drinking that water may not have been such a good idea anyway, as you never knew who had been up and down that hill before you or what they may have done in their travels.

After the church had been established for a while, they decided to put a big press on to reap the large number of young people who came to the church but spent most of the time outside socializing. Their method was to sponsor weiner roasts (ok, we called them weenie roasts.) All the swells and not-so-swells attended these functions, as well as a large number of the local girls. As it was church-sponsored, no one thought of bringing in anything alcoholic (unless you looked in a few of the cars.) On the whole, everyone was very well-behaved, even the normal adolescent and post-adolescent profanity was muted. One fellow did ask the preacher for a 'church key' one night, but that was not too bad (as a matter of fact, the preacher pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to him.) The food was good, the company better and everyone had a good time. Sure beat those school-sponsored 'socials.'

The better part of these get-togethers was that there was nothing else going on at the time in the area. The weenie roasts were held on summer and early fall evenings when it was warm, but not hot, out on top of the ridge, and were welcome diversions for all the locals. Plus, there was no preaching, no altar calls, no pleas to come to the Lord. Just a social get-together where all were welcome. After the church folks left, it got a little looser, but even then was pretty well controlled.

Coming home we usually walked off the hill by the road so we could stop at the little drive-in restaurant at the end of the road at the hard road. Here we could listen to good country music, drink a pop and talk--plus see who else was hanging out that night. Most nights we had one of our unmarried uncles and a bunch of friends and a looney guy from down at the bottom of the hill walking with us. Local folks said he had a steel plate in his head as a result of a prior injury. He acted half-crazy and his grandfather was the local bootlegger. He'd walk along telling wild tales and occasionally screaming at the top of his lungs. When he was quiet, which happened sometimes, it was very peaceful to listen to the crickets and katydids and all the tree frogs calling out in the night.

My brother used to tell the tale that when he was hunting one day, he happened to be near the old mans' still. The revenuers had been there and smashed the still and upended the barrels of mash and the drippings had flowed into the sluggish little stream that flowed out of the hollow and joined another creek to form the northern branch of Maple Creek. Some of the old mans' cattle had wandered down to get a drink from the creek and had sampled some of that white lightning. He said they were stumbling and weaving and falling down from the effects. Just like the men who drank it did.

IT'S FRIDAY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

There are times when I let my righteous indignation get the better of me.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that my responses to certain individuals and certain situations have not been completely indicative of my true feelings. I have noted an increase in my basic conservatism, to the point that I find I have been less than forgiving of those who are the of the liberal stripe. Whatever the reasons, I do not find that I wish to continue this trend.

I am a conservative, in thought and deed. But I am not an extreme conservative. I hold more moderate views, and, in fact, agree with the liberal view in many respects. Yet I have seen my reaction to the extreme liberals to be a 9-9 push toward the far right. My normal laid back style has been corrupted. And I will change that.

I am an intelligent person. Therefore I should have realized that the posters of the far left have been inciting me to my responses. But I fell into their trap, and responded as they wanted me to. No more. I am on to their baiting.

I am a forgiving person, probably too forgiving, at times. But, nevertheless, I do tend to get my points across, at times in a most acerbic way. At other times, I get my points across in a straightforward manner. I much prefer the latter method.

I am not a lurker. When I see something with which I disagree, I do not stand back, I jump right in and let the writer know that I disagree. I do not do this for every item, as I do not have that much time. But if I feel it is important, I do let the writer know that I feel they are wrong and give reasons why I feel that way. But, of late, I have found that I have been going on gut reaction, rather than reasoned argument.

So, what do I do now? Where do I go?

For the most part, there will be little change. There will be less confrontational responses from me. There will be more reasoned responses from me. And, there will be fewer responses from me. I found myself jumping into discussions where all I was doing was adding heat. And my normal moderate views do not support that activity.

I became embroiled in the Clinton/Obama cesspool. And for no good reasons. That is a problem the Democrat party will have to sort out. I don't really have a horse running in that race, it is too comical to really matter, and the mudslinging of those two can only add to the Republican coffers of tools to be used when the real race starts. So why should I get involved and try to correct their errors? I shouldn't. And won't. Unless the participants try to drag the conservatives into the slime along with them. So my political comments will become very few for the time being. At least on the national scale.

Local politics, however, will probably receive a larger share of my attention. As will local social issues, and statewide politics. I do have dogs in those races. And expect to participate in discussions of them.

Contrary to the diatribes issued by the liberal faction, I find that the conservatives like myself have a more idealistic view than the hard-line conservatives and the liberals as a group. I do not find that to be a problem for me. I have always been rather idealistic. But I tend to be somewhat of a pragmatist, too. Ideals do not feed the hungry nor clothe them nor shelter them. That takes pragmatic action. But even the most pragmatic person must have goals and ideals toward which they want to steer governmental and societal actions. And this must not be read as any religious bent, for it is not.

I am constantly disappointed by those who tout their idealistic notions and then fail to act upon them. I attempt, always, to move my life toward my ideals. Many successes and more failures. But the attempt must be made in every action that a person takes. Failure to reach the goal or the ideal is not a moral issue. Failure to attempt to do so is a moral issue.

A PICTURE IS WORTH ONE THOUSAND WORDS

In no particular order, here are three that Hootie likes--at least he covers the bottom of his cage with them. That does mean he likes to read them, right?


JUST LUST

She set her cap, said "He's the man
Whom I want to wed,"
Not thinking of the other ones
That may have shared his bed.

They married, and he left her flat
After two months and went his way,
Leaving her with HIV,
Her reward for their play.

And six years later, to the day,
After she became his wife,
We laid her in a cold, cold grave,
When she gave up her life.

So, girls, remember, though it be love,
Or passion if you please,
There's danger in this big old world
Whenever you spread your knees.



AHHH, the train of truth rolls on unabated--


GRACIE

Once red hair, now mostly gray,
We wonder about her life.
She lives with a man across the way
And we know she's not his wife.

She had a good man once, she says.
But for some untold reason, lost him.
Who knows? Maybe she wanted too much
And he wouldn't pay what it would cost him.

Whatever the reason, she's stuck with it now,
And lives with the man who does the chores.
Seems like she's angry all the time,
While stirring the neighborhood wars.

A no-account woman that no one likes
And avoids whenever they must--
Just wanting nothing to do with her,
And all the resultant fuss.

We pray for her when we go to church,
That she'll repent some day,
And become the woman she could be--
Or else stay out of our way.


And flights of fantasy, too--


THE MAZE

The moon came out late that night
And shone on the snow so white.
It almost seemed like broad daylight
Though it was midway through the night.

I looked out and saw the deer
Walking in the yard so near.
They walked over to the weir
To drink the water, crystal clear.

They turned and came back through the snow
And started playing by the window,
Running and leaping to and fro
Making patterns in the snow.

The tracks were there for three more days,
In the snow looking like a maze.
From times long past I recall their play
When I remember the good old days.


Happy Easter everyone.


Yams and ham and taters, too.
Beans and corn and biscuits, woohoo.
Banana pudding and cake with strawberries
Let's all eat and be merry.
And remember the reason for the day.
Christ arose in the Passion Play,
And wiped our sin from the slate.
Remember, now, and pass the plate!

HUH?

I just released Maple Creek Memories X to the post. When I went to look for it, I assumed it would be the leader. But it wasn't there. After a few minutes of flipping back and forth, I found it. I had typed it before the last poetry entry but had not published it. Blogger inserted it before the last poetry post. So now I guess I'll have to release them as I type them. And that doesn't give me any time to edit the way I like to. Dagnabbit!


Hey, my son just showed me a neat little trickie. Disregard this post and understand you are dealing with an old fart who sometimes doesn't .

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES X

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS
Part I


I began attending junior high school when I was just eleven years old--well, eleven and a half, let's say, back in the Dark Ages, 1953. We lived about eight or ten miles away from the school, but, due to the route they had the bus run, it turned out to be more like fifteen or twenty. Depending upon what year, and what time of year, the route ran something like this--starting at the head of Maple Creek to the hard road, north to Ferguson Ridge and out it to the old schoolhouse/church, turn around and back out to the hard road, north to Sandy Road, east on Sandy Road to town--just a nice early morning ride. The route reversed on the way home. This was a total of about twenty miles one way.

Some of the other routes we traveled were rather more extensive. One was the same as the first except when we reached the burg of Sandy, we turned left and went over Blue Town Road to Blue Creek, went up Blue Creek and turned and came back out to Blue Town Road then on to the spur road , right to the four lane , across it to Cabbage Heights and following it to town. This route encompassed more like twenty-six to twenty-seven miles. Our bus was rated for 66 seats. By the time we reached the junior high school, we had over 100 on board.

One other route, one that didn't last very long thankfully, was to start at the schoolhouse/church on Ferguson Ridge to the hard road, up Maple Creek and return, back down the hard road to Upper Buck Road, up and back, then to the foot of Dunns Hill, turn around and back to Sandy Road, to Blue Creek Road to Blue Creek, up and back, to the spur road to the four lane , across Cabbage Heights and on to the town. This added another five miles, so on that route we traveled about thirty-two to thirty five miles each way. And to do all this, we only added about seven kids.

But the best route, and the one we normally ran was the one just mentioned except that we did not go down Blue Creek Road but went through Sandy, crossed the river and straight on into town. This way, we had only about sixty kids on the bus by the time we got to town. But it took more time as we had to unload and walk across the Sandy bridge, then reload to continue.

After a run like that with all those rowdy--and we were--kids, the driver also drove a second route (usually the Mudcat Hollow run) for the late schedule kids. They came to school an hour later and left an hour later. School started at about eight, we left at three and late schedule left at four.

On late April/early May morning in 1954, we were on the Sandy Road and were starting around the curve above the railroad tracks, near where the country club entrance is now. Probably fifty or so kids on the bus, from seventh through twelfth grades. Me and three brothers, at least three of our cousins the whole gang we hung around with, were all on the bus. I was sitting on the outside window seat (read that as passenger side), my next older brother beside me and his friend beside him on the aisle. Directly across the aisle were another of my brothers and his friend.

BANG! SNAP! CRASH! and the bus starts over the hill. The driver saw enough to get it angled right so it wouldn't go all the way to the bottom of the hill, he just kind of laid it into a thicket of bushes on a flat before he was knocked out by the mirror coming through the window at him. The bus was held up by a large oak tree that was on the down side of the thicket.

Broken glass all over the place, it is dark, and a ton of weight is on top of me--little old me who might have weighed eighty pounds then. As the bus was rolling over I was raising up and twisting to get to the aisle. Didn't make it, of course, and was pressed back under all that weight.


Screaming and crying. Light beginning to show now. A big guy helping to pull me up and out of the crash. Half-dazed, wondering what happened, how many hurt, how many killed. Voices--"what happened to--and name the kid," "and what happened to--" "where is-" "you are bleeding--my God, your arm, its a bloody mess, here let me tie it up for you----get out of the road everybody--has anybody called the cops--how about an ambulance--she's hurt real bad--you need to get stitches in that arm, too--everybody get back to that wide place at the curve--somebody get around that curve and stop traffic-- my Mom called and the ambulance is on the way, so are the state police--they know at school, we called them too--they are sending another bus and help."

Confusion.

My oldest brother putting me in a car with the janitor from the high school and the ride to the hospital. Waiting in the emergency room all by myself while my cousin is lying in the next room and God knows how bad she is hurt. She isn't even conscious. Having to help the nurse fill out papers and forms and names and, no, we don't have a telephone so you can't call my parents. Finally they sew me up and it looks like a 'V' on the back of my left elbow and the joking that if you were on the right side of the bus your right arm should be hurt, not your left. My cousin's parents are here now and they look worried, really worried, but there is nothing I can say to help them, but I just know she's going to make it. God, she has to.

Emory, the janitor, finally got me and took me home. We all went to school the next day. Except Anne, my cousin. She lay in the hospital for weeks and finally came home. She was back in school when the next year started, graduated, became a nurse, married and moved away from the area. Had three or four kids and passed away in 2007 at her home in Georgia.

Our school bus bit the dust that day. Old Number 90 would not roll the roads anymore. She was a real mess when they pulled her out of that briarpatch. So we got a new bus, right? Sure. They reactivated 89 and we rode her for a year or two until the board could afford to get a newer bus. Same driver. He said he wouldn't let a wreck stop him. And he didn't. He drove for another two years and then retired. And he crept around that curve. The day of the wreck, the bus had had all wheels on the pavement, which was pretty wide in that curve, but from that day on he put the outboard wheels on the dirt to go around it.

Except for one or two day substitutes, we only had three regular drivers on that route while I was going to school in town. The fellow who had the wreck drove all through my junior high years, then a one year driver and finally a two year driver--who actually drove the bus route for about ten years before it was all over. Neither of the two replacements had a personality to match that of the first.

VERSES AND VERSES KEEP COMING UP

It is that time of year. The blooms are just beautiful again.


CROCUS

Peeking through the fallen snow,
Crocuses are starting to grow.
Flower heads of blue and yellow
Give a lift to this old fellow.

Winter, long, with cold and sleet,
Made for wet and chilly feet.
But now the crocuses are coming strong,
The wait for Spring will not be long.

Very soon green will appear,
Bringing us a lot of cheer.
In April's warmth, there'll be no dearth,
Of other flowers on this earth.
But for now I'll enjoy the hours
Gazing at the crocus flowers.


I wrote this a couple of years ago. We had had a long cold winter followed by a rapid warmup in February and then a lot of snow in early March. Just as the last of the snows were melting, there appeared the crocus flowers pushing their way right through the snow. The vibrant blues and yellows sitting on top of the snow made you want to get out and enjoy the warm southern winds that were blowing in.



And here's one about an old fellow I knew as a kid. He passed away in the 1950's, a bent frail old man, but he kept up his pattern right up until his death.


DOCK

Frail and old and crippled and bent,
He walks down the road each day at ten.
Summer and winter and fall and spring
He walks to the store and back again,
No matter what the weather may bring.

He carries with him rocks and a cane,
Rocks for the dogs and the cane for his pain.
The dogs have learned they have to steer clear,
For he throws a rock straight as a spear,
And none of them want to get hit again.

He doesn't need groceries from the store
But he goes there each day to try to learn more
Of what's going on in the neighborhood.
Especially to learn about the good
People he knew in days of yore.

Once he's spent an hour or more
With the folks down there at the store,
Learning all the latest news,
About who's doing what with who,
He buys a paper and heads out the door.

He makes a few stops along the way--
Watching old Jim baling hay;
Or Harry cleaning up his yard'
Maybe Bill working on his car,
Then ambles on home to spend the day.

We've all come to depend on Dock.
He's just as good as any clock.
He goes by each morning at ten
And then, at noon, he's back again.
The dogs still don't like those rocks.


And why not a song of pain to finish it off--

ANGUISH

Sittin' home thinkin'
Won't go out drinkin'
Kids are all sleepin'
Dawn comes acreepin'

Bad things you done
Broke up our home
Out with the wild crowd
Out where the music's loud

Dancin' with men
Same old thing again
Don't know what to do
Still in love with you

Life was grand
When I was your man
Can't take it anymore
Want to walk out that door

Can't do that,
There's the kids
God, what made you
Do what you did?

I'll be here
'Cause I'm their Dad
Won't tell them
How you're bad

'Cause they love their Mom, that's true
Just as much as I love you.


Enough for today. Later.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES IX

LANTERN JAW


He was a really good man, I guess. At the time I knew him I really didn't think so. But time has a way of smoothing out some bumps and glossing over a few of the disappointments and torments we had as kids. And, as kids, maybe we didn't know as much as we thought we did. It is always much easier to think well of someone than you you may have earlier in your life.


Lantern Jaw was a teacher at the junior high school in town. He taught Industrial Arts classes--Metal Shop and Mechanical Drawing. I can't say whether anyone ever really learned anything useful in any of his classes. For me, I never saw any works of art turned out by any of his students while I was in school there. Some fairly nice, but nothing outstanding.

I first met him when I was eleven years old (I started school when I was five) and he was trying to tell us how to make a small metal pan. This pan was to be made out of a Number 10 tin can, flattened, rolled, traced and cut to shape, bent, polished and soldered. Easy, right? It would be now . But at eleven years old, I didn't even know what tinsnips were, much less what solder was.
OK. You have four class periods to get this done.

First class period--
Get a #10 can
Remove paper label
Remove bottom of can
Using tinsnips, cut can along seam to make sheet of metal
Roll metal flat
Trace drawing of shape on sheet, using awl
Insert cut lines and fold lines on shape, using awl
Secure teacher approval of shape drawing, cut and fold lines
Using tinsnips, cut out shape drawing in rough
Trim blank pan to correct configuration per shape drawing
Secure teacher approval of pan blank, as cut
Bend pan blank along fold lines
Secure teacher approval of bends
Polish corners of pan with steel wool
Solder corners
Polish finished pan
Secure teacher approval of completed pan

Ah, that was easy. Let's see how far we came along--
Got the can, removed paper label--oh, oh--can opener broken.

We sit the rest of the period in a dingy, dusty and stinking room. Lantern Jaw lectures us for about an hour on nothing anyone is in the least interested in. Actually, I cannot remember what he talked about, only that the talked. And talked. And talked.

So, how does it go in the second class period? Not too bad. We actually got to cut the bottom out of the can and roll it flat (the trick was to roll it so that the rings around the can were removed, and then turn it over and roll it the other way to flatten it.) But the hard paper drawings were all cut and frayed plus there are only four or five awls and there were about forty of us in the class. Now, after two full class periods, we were about where we should have been halfway through the first. But, that is okay, we still have eleven weeks to go at two classes per week. Oh, after the awl fiasco, he again devoted the rest of the period to talk, talk, talk.

When we got back the next week for the third class period, we got some really good news. No, I mean reallllly good news. The ninth grade classes had taken the seventh grade classes projects and placed them in the trash barrel and the janitors had dumped them. No one knew this until we came in for the third class period and we found our cribs empty. Back to the old drawing board, so to speak. Peel, snip, rool, trace, etc. By this time we actually knew what the machines were--mostly anyway, and we zipped right along until we discovered that the bender did not want to work properly and would only bend about half the line correctly, the other half having to be done by hand. About three people actually got their pans done that day, the rest of us did not. About a half hour before the period ended, someone threw some water in the forge and the resulting explosion resulted in sore butts for us all (since no one would rat out the perpetrator of such a deed) and a twenty minute stand in the rain while the smoke cleared.


Period four was forty-five minutes of lecture on the dangers of throwing water in a hot forge and the fact that it took a couple of hours or a couple of days to regain proper temperatures--I never did get which he meant as he said both a number of times (but what the heck, I was just a seventh grader and wasn't supposed to be smart about such esoteric things, anyway, right?) The other thirty minutes, we tried to find our projects--no luck, so back to the drawing board again.

To shorten the sad tale, my metal shop project for that first year turned out to be THE PAN. Two class days before the twelve weeks ended, I turned in my pan. Lantern Jaw was his usual sarcastic self but gave me a B on it. He then told me that my grade for the twelve weeks would be a D, as I had not completed any other projects. In point of fact, only two kids did, and they were two of the three that had gotten their pan done in the very beginning. The rest of us had no chance to get anything accomplished as our projects kept disappearing between class sessions. All of went to the Principal and he directed that we receive the grade we got on THE PAN for the twelve weeks. Good move, Baldy. OH, sorry, you don't know about Baldy yet. We'll get there in another post, sometime. Maybe.

Lantern Jaw's jaw hung just a wee bit lower and he was not a happy camper.

We next encounter Lantern Jaw as eighth graders. A year wiser--or dumber. Guess what we were supposed to do? Correct. We got to do THE PAN again. But I think we were smarter. We had four or five guys who knew how to make them and to do it quickly. They became our 'helpers' and made all forty pans themselves. We all went through the charade of presenting them to Lantern Jaw in the proper sequence and all got an A on THE PAN--every single one of us. He was overjoyed, he thought he had a bunch of geniuses working there.

We all then had to select our projects for the balance of the twelve weeks--and we still had eleven of them to go. We all got together and decided to make knives. There was a twofold thing going on here of course. There was not nearly enough metal for the blades for all of us and the other classes too and we left notes scattered around as to the reasons we wanted to have our own knives--gutting squirrels, deer, cutting wicks off lanterns. All in fun.

So he decided we would all be able to make knives, except that, as materials were in short supply, we would do it as teams. One would do the blade, another the sand work in the foundry, and the third would do the finishing (knocking the burrs off the handle, filing, shaping and polishing.) This was an ideal solution for Lantern Jaw. No one would be allowed to take the knife home with them, after grading the handles would be melted down for reclamation and the blades would be blunted and used again another time.

It was also the ideal solution for us. We had those same guys do the work while Lantern Jaw was kept busy near his desk answering stupid questions all us dummies came up with, along with bringing poor quality fakes up to show him so he could demonstrate his expertise in correcting them. But it worked great. We all ended up with an A minus or a B plus for the twelve weeks. And no more Lantern Jaw until next year.

When we returned to school for the ninth grade, we were hit with terrible news. The Mechanical Drawing instructor had left over the summer and no new teacher had been hired. As Lantern Jaw had some experience in this, he was assigned both Mech Drawing and Metal Shop. As the rooms adjoined, he would have two classes going at the same time. So we had him for Metal Shop in the winter and Mech Drawing in the spring. And believe me, Metal Shop in the winter was no fun at all.

We had a cold, snowy winter. The Metal Shop was at the top of the hill and we had to walk up that hill after the gym teacher had driven his car down it and made it icy. I never could understand why he felt it necessary to drive up a street and then down that hill on the narrow unpaved lane. Maybe he didn't know how to back up or maybe reverse gear was gone in that old Nash and he couldn't turn around like any normal person would do. hatever, that has nothing to do with Lantern Jaw.

The heating system in the Metal Shop was basically the foundry/forge and the soldering ovens. The overhead heaters worked about one day a week and the floor heaters simply did not. we had the class the very first thing in the morning so the shop had set overnight with no heat since the foundry was turned way down overnight and the soldering ovens were turned off. Most days we had ice on the floors and it was impossible to see outside unless you scraped the frost off the windows. But we muddled through. We again made THE PAN, using our proven system. And this year we did welding.

Well, some of us did. We took on a class project, a section of fancy wrought metal fencing. Six feet high and twenty feet long. All we had to do was bend it, weld it, polish it and paint it. Yeah, right--we also had to come up with ways to do it too. But we got it done and it looked great. We put it in as the front wall of the tool room. Got an A on that too, as a class. Of course, you know as well as I that most of us didn't do a whole lot on the project, a little grunt work here and there, and let the guys who knew what they were doing do their thing. But that was okay with Lantern Jaw, it gave him an audience for his talks. And he used it to his advantage.

He regaled us more than a few times with tales of what he and his buddies had done while in the service. And those were not always nice things. That led us naturally to discuss among ourselves some of the things we might get by with if we had the guts to do them.

Dull winter turned into spring and we were freed of Metal Shop and went next door for Mech Drawing. Now how mechanical can drawing get. You know by now what we did in Metal Shop. Care to guess about Mechanical Drawing. Right, we drew THE PAN, from all perspectives.

Now Lantern Jaw was a real creature of habit. The administration was another case. Every twelve weeks, the administration juggled our gym, art and music schedules around. In winter, we had Metal Shop as our first class (actually two class periods) and art or music afterward. In the spring, they shifted us to gym for first period and Mech Drawing for the next two. Anything to confuse you. In any event, every morning after second period started, about 9:15, the teachers all gathered in the kitchen for morning coffee. Some took only a few minutes, some took most of the period. Lantern Jaw was a talker so he usually took the whole period.

As he left each morning, he would always get a drink at the fountain and turn and say, "In a few minutes, guys," and disappear. When he got back, it was always, "I got held up this morning," walk to the fountain, take a drink and then sit down at his desk.

Our last class period before the year end, the process was normal. He took his drink, made his statement and walked out the door. We sat and talked until we saw him leave the kitchen to make his return, then each of us urinated on the fountain. He arrived, said, "I got held up," and leaned over to take his drink. We all burst out laughing. "What's so funny, guys?" And I couldn't believe it, but not a single person finked. We all got one whack with the paddle while laughing our fool heads off at the puzzled look on his face.

As we walked out the door for the last time, we were all saying that it must be something in the water, our last tribute to Lantern Jaw.

I didn't see Lantern Jaw for a number of years, but when I did see him he was only older, still Lantern Jaw. He was a volunteer at as local hospital at the time. He still lived in the same place in town where he always had. It had been about thirty years since I had seen him. He passed away a few years ago at 87.

ANOTHER FAVORITE

I make no comments, except that I loved my grandfather very dearly.


REBIRTH


The geese are on the wing tonight
As we walk homeward from the church.
The moon is shining very bright
In this season of rebirth.
Frogs are peeping in the ditch
Half-full now with fresh rainwater.
Fields are plowed, the earth so rich.
The fenceline piled with last years' fodder.

Daffodils of gold and white
Light our way across the field,
Glowing in the full moonlight.
Winter's harshness now has healed.
The wind is warm upon our face,
Blowing from the south tonight.
We feel secure in God's own grace
As we walk toward the porch light.

The old man, sitting in his chair,
Waiting for us as of old,
Flecks of silver in his hair,
Is wearing a sweater against his cold.
We tell him of the evening service
He couldn't attend because of his ills.
The hound beside him seems so nervous,
Wanting to be out in the hills.

But he won't go without his master,
And his master won't go again.
But his mind was always faster
Than his body could carry him.
In his mind he walks the hills
Remembering a time long past,
When he traveled past the rills
And a longer shadow cast.

He knows his time is growing short
Upon this earth he loves so well.
That old man has held the fort
But now he hears the ringing bell.
Go with love, and we'll soon join you.
Open wide those Pearly Gates.
Here we come, Grandpa, to meet you
Where our beloved Jesus waits.



He was only 79 when he left us back in 1956. I was not quite fourteen. I remember him better than a lot of others whom I knew much longer, and whom I loved just as much. But Grandpa had a very strong influence on me. And I try to pattern myself after him as much as I can. He was an uneducated man as far as schooling goes, but was wise in every way. A gentle man who knew when the whip needed to be cracked, but would cry when he had to do so, who could handle the plow or the rake and still was able to cook and clean if that was needed to help around the house. He was almost blind physically, but had a vision that far exceeded that of most men.

And, like me, he was a storyteller, too. Many Sunday afternoons he would sit and keep us spellbound with his memories of the times when he was a youngster, in the 1880's and 1890's. He saw the bicycles become the rage, and then the automobile, and then the airplane and the jet. One day in the early 1950's, I was probably ten or so, he told us of the coming travels to the moon and ventures out into space--and he knew enough science to make us believe it, too, almost twenty years before it happened.

A marvelous old man. I just cannot tell you how much I would like for him to be here with me so we could sit and talk about life again.

AH, HOOTIE, YOU'RE A GOOD MAN--ER, OWL

Well, folks, life hasn't been too easy around the old homestead this past week and a half. The old body is beginning to show its' age a little bit. The doctors are working on it, but they haven't found it yet. But I have. I'm waiting for the doctor to give me a call now so I can tell him where the pain is coming from and tell him to schedule me to visit the correct specialist. The ct scan showed nothing because they looked in the wrong place, I think. Once they home in on the right area I think we'll know the problem and can solve it pretty quickly. Hell of a thing to happen on my birthday, but life goes on and so will I. A little cut and snip and we'll be ok again.

In the meantime, I've fallen behind on my project. And am going to fall farther behind for a short while. In the meantime, old Hootie has brought up one more of my older poems for your pleasure. This a favorite of mine. That said, here is


COUNTRY BOY


They come back each year about this time,
Quacking and swimming and floating and flying.
"The ducks are back," he shouts to me
And runs to the bog, so young and free.

I won't allow hunting on this piece of land,
'Cause we all like the ducks, so brassy and grand.
They're loud and messy, hungry and wild.
And really treat for this handsome young child.

He runs and hollers, "Get back in the creek,"
Not knowing they'll all be gone in a week.
Except for the four who stay here year round,
There's Wingy and Sloopy and Crip and Bound.

He named all four two years ago
While nursing his 'hurt', a broken toe.
He'd sit in his chair and feed the birds,
And talk to them in his special words.

He's only seven, this special boy
And to his PaPa he is really a joy.
He lives in the city but when on my land,
He's a country boy, this great little man.



I guess it is one of my favorites because everyone assumed that it was real. Not so. The only real thing about it is that I won't allow hunting on my property, other than that it is made up of pure air. But I can picture the land, the bog, the ducks cavorting and the noise. Nice to have an active imagination. I can see whether there is light or not, I just have to look back into my mind and draw up pictures that are pleasing. And this one is.

MUST BE SPRING

Here are a couple that I wrote a few years ago-spring is the season. Must be the warm days we have had lately.


APRIL, 1962

Where are you going this warm spring day,
So fast you don't have time to see
The blooming flowers, the birds on the wing,
The waterfall flowing for you and me?

Is it really so needful you get there so soon
That you can't take a moment to look?
The beauty of nature is best seen first-hand,
Not as pictures in some dusty old book.

Just stop the car and get out and walk
Through the meadow and over to the trees.
There's flowers all over, with colors so pure.
Just don't get stung by the bees.

The winter is gone, with its' ice and snow
And the heat of summer is not here yet,
For now it is glorious springtime, and that's
About as good as it gets.

So take your time and look around,
The sun is high, the sky is blue,
Birds are singing, the grass is green,
And it's all there waiting for you.

07 Feb 2004



And one with a twist--


THE WISH

In the creek by the old oak tree,
Fish are waiting to be caught.
They jump and swim so merrily,
I'll take the new rod that I bought.

I'll take my set of waders, too.
They should work well in the creek.
The morning's crisp and spring is new,
Fishing should be at its' peak.

I'll take my bait, and also flies,
And hope to catch a great big bunch.
I'll clean them when I get back home
And serve them up for lunch.

Last night I dreamed of going fishing
Like I did in days of yore.
But I'll just have to lie here wishing
After losing both legs in that war.


29 Jan 2004

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES VIII

THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES IN THE BIG CITY


In the fall and winter of my junior year in high school, my brother and I got jobs at a car wash in downtown Huntington, WV, just beside the old Sixth Street Bridge. No, not the new one, the old one where you had to pay a toll to cross. Right about where the Bob Evans is now. Oh, okay, let's retrace some geography then.

Third Avenue used to go straight through to the west end of Huntington (as did Second.) It was called Virginia Avenue once you passed First Street. Second Avenue was what is, generally, now called Veteran's Memorial Boulevard. Both were relocated, or eliminated, as a result of Urban Renewal (spell that SUPERBLOCK) and the new bridge which is located at Fifth Street. At one time, the City Market, contrary to what newbies may tell you, was located on Second Avenue between Sixth and Ninth Streets, spreading out to the flood wall on the north and Third Avenue on the south. There were also a few bars and restaurants in the area, along with a few supply houses . The City Market was never located at Fourteenth Street West. There were some businesses in that location, old Central City, that sold minor amount of produce, but it was not a great concentration like the market on Second Avenue was. In fact, what remains of the old City Market is now located on Seventh Avenue between First and Fourth Streets. There was no room for the local farmers to relocate there and so the farmers' market that was on Second Avenue died out in favor of stands in the surrounding rural areas until the new Central City Farmers' Market was developed, about fifteen to twenty years after the farmers were run out of their old home on Second Avenue.

The area around the old City Market was not a particularly nice one. In fact, it had few if any redeeming qualities about it at all. Bootlegging liquor was allowed to prosper on Sixth Street by the city fathers and prostitution was commonplace anywhere north of Third Avenue between Sixth and Ninth Streets, as well as other locations around downtown. We older ones probably all remember the old Market Lunch Restaurant. While I worked at the car wash I usually ate lunch at a little restaurant (if you could give it such a title) on the corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street. Just a hole in the wall, a kind of three penny lunch transported from the ghettoes of New York, nothing fancy, chipped plates, cups and saucers, sometimes rusty spoons and forks. typical eat and walk place. But good, filling food. For a quarter you could get white beans with cornbread and butter and a glass of milk or coffee. If you wanted another glass of milk or cup of coffee, ante up another nickel. More cornbread? Free.


This area is also where I saw my first drunk woman. She was black, fairly good looking, about thirty or thirty-five, and drunk as a skunk. She was pushed out of that little restaurant and reeled her way down to the car wash. I was handling the vacuum at the beginning of the line
and she reeled her way up to me and offered herself for a buck. I politely declined and got back inside the building fast. The fact that I was only fourteen or fifteen apparently never entered her mind, as wasted as she was. My reaction was to get into the bathroom and throw up there, the same thing she was doing in the alley.


We would get up early on Saturday (and any weekday when we weren't in school) and thumb a ride in to town. Coming home, we always rode the bus. It only cost forty-five or fifty-five cents, can't remember which, and the station was only seven blocks from where we worked. We got paid in cash each day, the rate was $4.00 per day from nine o'clock until five.


The foreman told us off one day by paying all the white guys $5.00 and the black ones $4.00 (he paid the black guys first and sent them on their way before paying us.) He told us not to tell the black fellows about the dollar difference. Of course, that lasted about as long as Pat stayed in the Army.The black fellows threatened to quit. He told them to go ahead if that was what they wanted to do. They all came back and we all got the $4.00 on weekdays and $5.00 on Saturdays. If business was good, we would all get a dollar or two more from tips.

Tips were all supposed to be put in the tip jar and shared by all employees except the owner, manager and foreman. In reality, only the black guys put their tips in the jar. The customers were really slick about giving the white fellows tips so the black ones didn't see the exchange. The easiest way to a tip was when the driver wanted to ride through the tunnel. You had him or her in the car while you were doing the inside detail and it was a sure thing you would get a tip as you exited the car to go bring the next one through. Salesmen were especially prone to give large tips and almost always wanted to ride through to make sure nothing was disturbed inside the car. I remember getting a number of two dollar tips that I never put in the jar. And if I couldn't be the inside detail guy, I always tried to be in the pushoff position. That was where you did the final wipe of the windshield, always ending on the driver's side, and opened the door for the driver. A sure shot for the tip. The foreman usually tried for that position but I was a little guy and could ace him out regularly. When I did though the foreman would send me back into the hole, until I aced him out again.

One Saturday, my brother didn't go in to work but I did. I took the bus into town that day, as it was really cold that morning, and I didn't want to wait around thumbing a ride. After getting off the bus at the station, then located at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, I walked over to Third and was walking on downtown. As I approached Bradshaw-Diehl (Stone & Thomas, now vacant) I was approached by a bum who wanted cash for his breakfast, he said. I told him I was on my way to work at the car wash and he could come along and get a job there too. He cursed me and said I didn't care about the veterans (had to be Korean War, he was too young to be WWII) and I told him that I did, that was why I offered him the job, that if he needed to eat he could go to the Mission, but that if he wanted the money for booze, he'd have to get it from the next guy. He followed me all the way to the car wash and actually went to work, for that day anyway. I bought him lunch but never saw him after that day.

We had gotten the job after some of my brothers' friends had worked there during the summer, and he and I began working there just after school had started. I was asked by a friend named Eddie to get him a job there and did so. That same day, my brother and I got ticked off by something ( I don't even recall what, it may have been because of the lack of heat) and walked out after getting paid for the whole day, even though we left at about 1:30 pm. Eddie quit with us and he got paid for the entire day too.

That old car wash changed hands about four or five times after that, always going downhill, and that was hard to do considering the shape it was in when we worked there. Eventually Rollyson took it over and sold out to Urban Renewal in the late sixties or early seventies.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES VII

BOMBS AWAY


One Saturday afternoon when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, I decided to go back in the Simpson Hollow, which was just over the hill out back, to do some squirrel hunting. It was an ordinary day, late October, early November. Warm afternoon, probably in the low sixties. The trees had a lot of leaves on them still but they had begun to turn. A little unusual for so late in the season, but it had been a warm fall so far. As it was so warm, I just wore my jeans and a very light jacket to go hunting. I took the rifle since I didn't like to use a shotgun on squirrels, it just blew them apart. With a rifle, I could kill them without ruining the carcass for eating.

So about three o'clock I headed up the back path to the ridge that would take me over the hill into the hollow. Once I reached the top of the hill where the gas line went over to the well, I decided to move down the line to the left, taking me back toward Maple Hill Road, and not go down into the hollow itself. I sat down at the break between the hollow and the gas line, figuring that since it was a warm sunny day, the squirrels would be playing near the top of the hill and not down in the valley, at least until the sun started to go down.

After a short while I caught a whiff of smoke. It didn't really smell like a cigarette, pipe or cigar smoke. And not like a forest fire smoke, either (we had been very fortunate this year, we had had no fires in the woods yet even though it had been dry off and on.) I heard some yelling down below but couldn't make out any words, just that whoever it was was pretty excited.

The smell became a little stronger and I realized that it was the smell of tarpaper burning. Was someone burning an old shed or something? I didn't know, and besides, there were three squirrels playing up the hill and I was keeping watch to see if they were going to get close enough for a clear shot at them.

POP. POP. POP.

Someone rattles off three shotgun rounds below me and to my left. Matter of fact it was far below me. Almost down to the road.

BRRRPOP. BRRPOP. BRRRPOP. POP. POP. POP.

Sounded like an automatic shotgun. same area. Pity the guy who tries to eat that squirrel. In the meantime, my three are still playing around and not coming any closer. I thought I would just get up and try to get a little farther up the hill to maybe get a clearer shot at one or two of them.

That smoky smell was really getting strong. I could see smoke rising through the trees. But I could tell that it was not a forest fire-yet. I was hoping that they would contain it and not let it get into those woods at the bottom of the hill on Maple Creek.

KAWUMP KAWUMP KAWUMP KAWUMP KAWUMP KAWUMP POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POP POW KAWUMP KAWUMP KAWUMP POW POW POW KAWUMP KAWUMP POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW.

Well, there went my three squirrels over the break into the hollow faster than I've ever seen anything move. I was moving too. Towards the house. It sounded like the Second World War, the bombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki all at once and it was right down the hill below me, down about Frank's house. Was Frank's house burning or what? I knew he always bragged about how much ammunition he had stored there. It just kept going off.

I couldn't get close enough to see anything through the trees and smoke. And I really didn't want to get any closer because one of the shells might come in my direction. I had to keep high enough to keep the woods and the hill between me and that house. I ran back down the back path towards our house and stopped at the end of the woods, uphill about 150 feet from our house, at the top of our strawberry patch. From there I watched as Frank's house went to the ground. The fireworks were spectacular.

Watching it was more exciting that squirrel hunting , but now we couldn't have squirrel for breakfast that Sunday morning. We had to settle for oatmeal again. Again.

WHAT'S THAT, HOOTIE? ANOTHER POEM?

Yeah, here he comes with it. Dagnabbit, Hootie, I'm right in the middle of another project. I don't have time for these poe---oh, hey that's ok Hootie. Fits right in with Jim Ross' blog too, doesn't it? Sure, lets put it up and see if it flies. Get it, Hootie, see if it flies? Yeah, I know. Not such a good yoke. But remember, it wasn't me that squashed Lorena's yolk. OK, that's it, SCRUFFY, get this bird out of here.


THE FEEDER

A streak of red, a flash of blue,
Bright yellow feathers winging, too.
The feeder is full, hanging there,
For all the birds in the frosty air.

They dip and wheel and turn around,
Chasing the seeds to the ground,
Where the doves get the overflow
Off the hard and crusty snow.

Chipmunks and squirrels gather round
Eating the sunflower seeds off the ground.
If they climb the tree and come down the string,
They get scared off when the bells all ring.

In the pines, the crows sit way up high,
Silhouetted against the sky.
They caw and holler and fly around
Watching the other birds on the ground.

As evening comes and skies turn gray
We lose the cardinals and the jays,
The finches and sparrows and the wrens,
'Til morning brings them back again.

03 Feb 2004



I haven't written a poem about the owls yet. One of these days, maybe. Whenever I get over being sore at that bunch. All I'll say right now is that I'm glad I had a good hot fire going that evening. Did you ever see an owl with the hot foot? Heh heh heh! Good thing it wasn't a hot wing, they'd never made it to Missouri with hot wings. Heh heh heh!


Hootie is still ticked about that one. Yuk yuk yuk!

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES VI

LET IT RAIN


Teen aged boys are ignorant at times. They sometimes won't say what they need to say and, at other times, say exactly what they should not say. And other times they are completely unaware that what they are saying may be overheard by those they wish not to overhear them. Does that sound a little muddled? Then I've succeeded in my purpose. For this was one of those times when the heart may have been in the right place but so was the boy and the one he was referring to, while neither knew the other was there. Having thoroughly confused you, here is the story--


There was a woman in our community who was a hard worker. Lord, was she ever a hard worker. She had to be. Her husband did no public work. Instead he farmed river bottom land. His crops, when not destroyed by the recurrent floods, ended up going into the bellies of his mules. He did plow a few times during the spring for other farmers in the area but that was as close as he ever came to actually working for wages. And there were few of those plowing jobs to be had. He would plow up a small truck garden on the hill behind their house and the rest of the family worked it for daily food and canning purposes. His kids picked berries during the summer for canning, also, and did a lot of hunting. But pickings were pretty slim around their house, and couldn't supply all they needed for the other crop he raised--kids.

There were seven kids, not counting the one who died and with the older folks that made nine mouths to feed, clothe and provide shelter and warmth for. They did keep a cow and some pigs and they fished the river any time they could. No wonder that she worked anywhere and everywhere she could. It meant the difference between survival and starvation.

Most people in the community were down on the old man but were so proud of her for making it work for the family. When she was not already working somewhere or at home doing her work there, she was constantly on the road seeking a job from someone. I worked with her for four years at a summer camp and there was not a harder worker that could be found. She was a cook and I was general handyman. Unfortunately, her kids, all except her daughter, were pretty much as worthless as the old man. The one exception among the boys was the middle one, and he was reliable and steady as a rock as a worker. The family's name was Moore.

One hot steamy day our gang had started down the road to the ballfield a couple miles beyond the little general store in the community. On the way we met another friend, a fellow teenager, who joined up with us just as we came out of the hollow onto the hard road. We were about halfway from the hollow to the store when the heavens let loose and we were drenched by the time we ran onto the store porch. We were all talking about how hard it was raining and our friend James yelled out, "Let it rain, let it pour. Nobody's out but old Miz Moore."

He said. And she was. Looking him in the face.

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES V

HUNTIN' POSSUM

Sittin' on the front porch in the evening watchin' Gracie come down the road with her flashlight shining everywhere but the road in front of her.


Some memories are just as sharp and clear as the full moon on a frosty night. I can remember sitting on the front porch in the evening and talking with other family members and friends who liked to drop by about dark and chat. I guess some of them liked to sit on our porch better than a lot of others because our house sat up on a hill overlooking the road, the only house in the hollow which did so. This meant we could see down the road about a quarter-mile and up the road about a half-mile.

We would sit and talk for hours about all kinds of things, baseball, other people, ourselves, animals, weather--it didn't matter. What mattered was that we were enjoying each others' company.

Along the side of the road down towards the hard road, the trees lined both sides. On the north where our house sat, the hill jutted out to the side of the road and was covered with oaks and pines , except for the patch around our house. On the south side of the road, however, there was nothing but a crop field and there were a number of locust trees that had grown up next to the road. These locusts were young trees but had reached probably twenty-five to forty feet in height--fair sized trees.

Just in front of our house, across the road, there were no trees except for one large apple tree. The apples from this tree were probably the sourest things you could imagine. They never got to much more than an inch and a half in diameter, sometimes wormy and always as sour as swill.
And there was always a bumper crop of them.

The woman who lived in the shack across the field from us and on the other branch had some friends who lived up the hollow past us. Every day or two she would go up the hollow about four- thirty or five (just in time for supper) and would not come back until nine-thirty or ten.

She always carried a flashlight with her for after dark. The road was not such a rough one, having been built by the WPA in the 1930's from a sandrock base and scraped every month or so during good weather. But still, a flashlight was a good idea as you could never tell when a snake or something else just as bad would come out and try to gather some of the warmth left by the summer sun on the exposed sandrock.

One evening in late August we had a large group of kids over to a party--my brother's birthday, I think. Anyway we are all sitting around on the porch talking and carrying on. The moon was super bright, midsummer and not a cloud anywhere. You could have read a book if you wanted to at ten o'clock at night just by the light of the moon. And here she comes, flashlight and all, walking back home with a full belly from her friends' house.

As she approached our house, the beam of the light suddenly swung right onto the front porch. Probably inadvertent, try walking at speed with a flashlight at the end of your arm which wants to swing with your gait--see how it weaves and bobs--inadvertent, right? So how does it come off the road and hit our porch which is about thirty feet higher than the road? Who knows, who cares?

Our friend Neil did. The beam hit him squarely in the face and he yells, "Whatch doin'? Huntin' possum?"

The beam dropped immediately She increased speed dramatically and made it home in record time. But evermore while we lived there, whenever we saw her on the road with her flashlight, there was always a question...

MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES IV

SARAH

When young love was wasted on the young, or, as the song said, "If some folks would leave us alone."



When I was the ripe old age of five, I took a major step in life--I entered first grade. The world was too young then to have kindergarten, so we entered what was called "Primer." But since we could all read and count to ten by the time the first week was over, the teacher began the regular first grade lessons.

And just what was first grade all about? Well, I tell you what I remember about it in a few short sentences. You had to keep quiet. You had to ask to get a drink of water. You had to wait on the higher grades before you got something to eat. The older boys wouldn't let you play with them. The older girls liked to make fun of you. You couldn't just get up and go to the privy when you need to. You had to hold up your hand, announce to the whole three grades what you needed to do, and then go. And the pain could get pretty bad when the teacher was working with the third grade and didn't look up and see you pretty quick. But, mostly, I remember the teasing.

There was this girl. Her name was Sarah, but everybody called her Sallie. I don't know why, but they did. I always liked the name Sarah best. And that is what I called her when others weren't around. If I slipped up when others were around she always acted like she was mad at me for calling her Sarah. She was from up the hollow that went up Finney Creek and had about a dozen or so brothers and sisters, but I only knew her and her older sister, who was in the third grade. Anyhow, I had this friend named Jake and he was the only one who didn't tease me about Sarah. He lived up Finney Creek too.

Jake and I loved to play marbles. As long as Jake supplied the marbles because I didn't have any and my father was laid off so there was no money to buy them. Jake had brought a couple of sackfuls back from Michigan where his Dad worked before he got laid off at the car plant and came back home to live until he was called back. We played out beside the school building under and old cedar tree. It was nice and shady there and the tree wouldn't let the grass grow under it. It was nice and flat and Jake and I cleared all the rocks out so we could play marbles every morning before school took up. Sarah liked to watch us play and sometimes we let her play too because she was real good at it. And she was smart. And kind of pretty too.

Sometimes when it rained we couldn't play marbles and we'd sit on the porch of the school and Jake and I would talk about all kinds of things. Like how we would have like to have been old enough to be in the war and maybe there would be another one when we grew old enough to join up together. And then we'd have to get get up and go in and listen to the teacher for a few hours before we got out for recess. We both hoped it would stop raining, we had things to do. We'd go in and Jake would sit in the front seat with me behind him, Lizzie behind me and Sam behind her and Sarah sitting in the back seat.

I liked lunchtime because then we ate our sandwiches and got to play for almost an hour. It didn't take long to eat because we didn't bring much with us.We couldn't afford to eat in the cafeteria because it cost fifteen cents and my father was out of work. He said it took all he could scrape together just to run up a bill at the grocery store. But every now and then I'd sneak back to the side door of the school and Flo would give me an apple or a banana or orange. She liked me. I still don't know why. Sometimes she'd let me empty the trash into the big cans Henry took out after school. That was fun. And then I'd go and hunt up Jake and Sarah and split whatever Flo had given me and then we'd play marbles or swing or just sit and talk.

After school was out for the day we'd all walk back up the hard road to Maple Creek Hollow and then up it to where Jake and Jennie left to go up Finney Creek. All the way we were watched by my three older brothers and Jennie's older sister. They teased all three of us but mostly it was me and Sarah about us being sweethearts, whatever that meant. And it wasn't just them either. Mom and Gramma and Hootie picked it up. Henry did too. And so did Sarah's family. They all teased too, and that hurt worse than anything the kids could dish out.

When school ended that year, Jake moved back to Michigan with his family and I never saw Sarah but once or twice that summer. Jake and his family moved back later on and we were still close but not as close as we were to begin with. His family did a shuttle back and forth all through grade school, finally moving to Michigan to stay when we were in the sixth grade. I haven't seen him since, although I did see where his father had died a few years ago. Jake was living in Lincoln County at the time and I thought I might look him up. But I never did.

Sarah and I grew apart each year as the teasing kept up for two or three more years. We never talked about it with each other but I think we both knew that we were never going to be that couple that everyone seemed to think we would be. A few years later when we were in the eighth or ninth grade, Sarah and her sisters came around to our house on Halloween and she and I walked and talked. But I left her at the bridge spanning Maple Creek that leads up Finney Creek and did walk her on home. She and I went through high school together and then she married some guy I never heard of. They later got a divorce, I heard.