Aces and Eights

 

     One of the things that dad picked up in the Navy was a desire to gamble. I say that he picked it up in the Navy but it could have been something he already was familiar with and just refined his skills in the Navy, at any rate, dad liked to gamble. It wasn't until I turned 13 and went to work at the grocery store where he was the butcher. Up until then I thought those times when mom was ticked because there was very little money were due to his drinking.

     There are many forms of gambling, i.e. cards, dice, horse races and dog races, then there are the lesser known local forms of pitching coins, side bets and pulling Coke bottles. Dad didn't bet the horses or dogs and I'm not sure he ever got into a dice game but beyond that he was ready, willing and able.

     When I went to work with him I would often find him and a couple of the younger guys passing their break time in some form of gambling. We called it pitching pennies in school mainly because pennies were all we could afford to loose, dad and his cohorts were usually good for dimes and quarters. The game was played when two or more participants would toss a coin against a wall or any straight edge, the coin had to hit the wall then flop back , the coin that landed closest to the wall won and the other participating coins would be forfeited. The amount of the initial bets didn't add up to a lot but over 15 - 20 minutes you could loose a couple of dollars and in 1960 two dollars was a tidy sum.

     Every grocery store sold soft drinks just as they do today and all overstock was stacked in the backroom. This was before aluminum cans and plastic bottles, all soft drinks came in glass bottles, we sold the standard Coca Cola, RC, Pepsi and several other brands of the era. The bottles came in cardboard "six pack" containers, four containers to a wooden case with the brand logo, there were also 24 individual bottles in a case and the cases were stacked about 15 high against a wall in the stockroom. For reasons known only to Coca Cola, their bottles were made in various cities around the nation and the name of the city and state of origin was embossed on the bottom of the bottle. Over the years the bottles found their way around the country as they were used over and over again and again so that there might be bottles from several states and cities in a case and that presented an opportunity for gambling.

     The game was called "pulling Coke bottles". It was played when two opponents randomly selected a case of cokes, empty or full didn't matter. A bet was established, usually a quarter but sometimes higher. Each player would select a bottle and look on the bottom for the place of manufactor, the bottle that was made the farthest away won. There were 12 pulls in each case and should there be a doubt as to the exact mileage a call was made to the local AAA office.

     Side bets occurred when a bet was already in place and another individual would bet on who would win. Dad liked to do side bets when we would go to turkey shoots.

     When Linda and I came home on leave as I was shipping out to Vietnam the first time, it was in November of 1967. The local VFW or American Legion would have "turkey shoots" where participants would shoot at targets with shotguns, the person closest to the bullseye won a prize. Prizes would be cash money, bourbon whiskey, frozen turkeys and baked hams. Money and bourbon were the general prize and usually cost about two dollars to shoot, up to 15 shooters would shoot at the same time. Frozen turkeys and baked hams were special shots and usually cost double the regular shoot.

     Dad had a 12 gauge shotgun but it didn't hold a good shot pattern but a friend / customer had one that held a much tighter pattern so they would swap guns for the season that ran weekends from early October till the week before Christmas. 

     Drinking and guns, as a rule, don't mix but they were different times then. Dad couldn't go too long without a drink but when I was with him he at least let me do the shooting and that's when the side bets would start. Shells were furnished for every shoot and as we were loading dad would tap the guy next to me and bet him that I would come closer to the bullseye. The first weekend we were shooting we came home with one ham, two turkeys, a couple of half gallon bottles of Henry Mckenna bourbon and around $50 cash.

     While there are many card games in the world of gamblers, in dad's world it was poker. Coming from Southern Baptist background I would say that this was something he picked up while in the Navy.

     Growing up, I always knew dad had a drinking problem but I didn't know about the gambling till I became a teenager. There had always been times when he stayed out till the early morning hours and I remember times that he would come home and tell mom she had to tighten the belt but I didn't know why. I later learned that I saw a lot of things through rose colored glasses.

      The parents of my generation were a different breed, they grew up during the "great depression" and jumped right in to a world war. Dad was just a kid when he went to war, the things he did and saw most likely set the tone for the life he lived. 

      I've said it before, I loved my parents in spite of their character flaws. I miss them.

     

The Papermate

 

     When Linda died she left behind more than memories, more than her legacy of two sons and two grandchildren, she left behind things. We all have an accumulation of things, things that are important to us, things that are important to other people and things that hold no value to anyone. Linda left behind hand made quilts, embroided pictures, scraps of cloth and little rolled up balls of yarn. Just things to most people, they represented the beauty she made from them, surprisingly many of the things she made went to people she didn't know but they were things those people needed, that was the way she lived her life.I gave most of these things to Danny and Clay who would hopefully hold them as keepsakes to be passed down through generations. I kept very little for myself.

     There was one thing that I hung on to, it was nothing of any great value but it was something she used on a regular basis. It was an inexpensive ballpoint pen made by a company called Papermate, a company that has been in business for several generations. She was very particular about her writing instruments, Papermate, she said was the only pen that felt good in her fingers, the ink didn't glunk up and the ball moved smoothly across the paper. Papermate had been her choice of writing instruments for years for years.

     Writing letters used to be her way of keeping up with people who lived far away but E-mail replaced that form years ago so her writing was regulated to writing checks for the payment of bills and that's where I found it - wrapped inside the checkbook.

     I kept the pen just as I found it, it was hers and somehow this inexpensive pen became a piece of Linda that I could still touch so I have been using it since she passed away. Last week the pen wrote for the last time. I might could find a refill for it but somehow that just doesn't seem right, I'll hang on to it for a while longer maybe even till I'm gone, I'll have to give it some thought.

     The biggest issue for me is that this was one of the last pieces of Linda that I had, now it's only another of many memories.

Granny Was Not A Sissy

 

     Linda was not only beautiful, she was smart and strong willed. She knew what she wanted and she found a way to get it, I was probably the only thing she wasn't sure about wanting but I won her over. When faced with adversity she came up with a plan then put it into play, I think the Army called it "adapt and overcome".

     The instance that came to mind and caused me to write this piece came about in the summer of 1968, Linda had just turned 19 a few months earlier. I hadn't been back from Vietnam very long when we realized the cost of living was higher than the paycheck could cover. I decided that returning for another tour in Vietnam where my check would not be taxed and would increase another $65 a month was the thing to do so off I went.The object of this move was that Linda would receive the extra money and everything would be OK but she came to a different conclusion. About a month into my tour, I got a letter telling me she was back in Florida and working at her old job. 

     I have to admit that I was upset at first after all this was something that most young girls would not do back then but most girls were not Linda. The car we had was a stick shift, she was alone and her destination  in Florida was a hair under 2500 miles. She made the trip with a couple of problems but she was lucky enough to have found some very nice people who helped her out.

     When I got out of the Navy, we had been married 2 years but we had only spent about 10 months together. It didn't take too long for me understand that I should never tell Linda she couldn't do something, it was like waving a red flag at a bull. 

     This streak of tenacity served her well over the years, many was the time she dug her heels in. I hope MJ developes some of the strength of her grandmother, it's in her genes.

    

Saturday With The Grandkids

 

     Normally I will pick up MJ and Matthew on a Saturday morning and Kay and I will spend time with them doing various things. Hopefully we are creating memories.

     When I arrived a few weeks back, Matthew was playing a game on the TV and wouldn't stop so MJ and I went off without him. Kay had something going with her Master Gardening group so it was just MJ and I. The first stop was the botanical Gardens where we walked around looking at plants and I watched her play in the kids area, sometimes we talked to each other. 

     After a while we took off looking for the remains of and old settlement, we wound up bypassing it and went to Greensboro instead. We wanted to have lunch there but MJ couldn't find a suitable eatery on her phone so we went to Madison in search of a Dairy Queen, she and her phone took me right to it. After lunch it was time to head for home.

     It was a fairly long drive from Madison to Jefferson. Along the way I tried to have a conversation with MJ and while she would answer my questions that was about it, mostly she was involved in her phone. The more I thought about it the more I was getting perturbed, MJ was a child of her times and I expected her to be interested in her old grandpa - what was I thinking.

     A couple of miles from home, I decided to say something so I pulled off the road.  As I put the truck in park I told MJ that I wanted to talk to her so she needed to put her phone down. I asked her if she had read any of my blog and she said dad had read a couple of stories to her. I asked if she knew why I wrote my blog, she said "so you will remember", I said no I remembered everything I wrote. I went on to say that one day I wanted to know something about my grandparents but there was nobody alive to tell me what I wanted to know. I told her that I wrote my memories down because I knew that some day she, her children and maybe even later generations would have questions that only I could answer and me writing down my memories would be the only way for them to get their answers.

     It was about this time that she started to cry, when I asked why she was crying she told me that some things just made her cry. I gave her a hug and told her that I loved her and told that I would like it if she would put her phone down and talk to me when we were out and about. MJ told me she didn't know what to ask about so I promised to work on that part. She asked if I would teach her how to fish and I said I would which takes me to the next part of this memory.

     Fast forward a couple of weeks. I called Danny to ask if the kids were doing anything that Saturday, he told me MJ had a school function but Matthew was available so I asked if Matthew would want to spend time with me. He called back and said Matthew said yes.

     So, Saturday morning I picked up Matthew and away we went, I had no idea what I was going to do to hold Matthew's interest. Then I remembered that I had two spinning rods in the truck so I asked Matthew if he wanted to go to the lake and fish, I told him I would teach him to cast a spinning rod. We got to the lake and I put lures on the rods and started showing him how to hold the rod and cast it then retrieve the lure. I taught him how to untangle the lure without getting stuck with a sharp hook. Matthew hasn't had a growth spurt recently and I noticed his small hands trying to grip the rod and just knew he would get frustrated but be surprised me, in no time he was doing a two hand cast and getting good distance.

     After a couple of failed cast that didn't go too far he was starting to get the hang of it but most importantly he didn't give up. It wasn't long that he was making some pretty decent cast, every time he did I made sure to compliment him and encourage him to try again. After a while we stopped for lunch at Dairy Queen, for whatever reason Matthew went into one of his moods but once the meal was done I asked if he wanted to go home or do some more fishing.

     We went to three different spots that afternoon. At the last place my back was starting to ache from all the standing so I found a place to sit and just watched Matthew making cast after cast. We were both disappointed that the fish didn't cooperate but I explained that some days were like that. Matthew was quiet on the drive home, when we got there he pushed past mom and dad and went upstairs. I told Danny what we did and asked him to tell Matthew how proud I was of him.

     Several days later, I talked to Danny. He told me how much Matthew had enjoyed our outing, it was all he talked about later that night. Danny said he told Matthew that he would dig out one of his rods and let Matthew show him what I had taught him then he would teach Matthew how to do it right. In no uncertain terms, Matthew informed Danny that "grandpa knew what he was doing".

      This was not the first time MJ and Matthew had gone fishing with me but they were younger then, maybe now is a better time. I hope they learn to enjoy fishing, I hope they remember who got them started.

     

     

Older By The Minute

 

     Sometime in my earlier years I figured out that the day you are born is the day you start die. This line of reasoning defines the phrase "getting older by the minute".

     Looking back, I never gave getting older much thought, I mean, after all you don't think much about getting old when you are starting first grade but if you really think about it you did a lot of thinking about being older. when you were maybe four you watched other kids head off to school every morning and you wanted to go also but mom said you weren't old enough so you thought - I can't wait till I'm old enough to go to school. There were also the times you wished you were old enough for a bike, walk to school by yourself, can't wait till I'm a teenager - the list of think you wished you were old enough to do at that age is endless. During the whole process you never once thought about the reality that you were in fact getting older by the minute. Those years between birth and adulthood were the greatest times of your life and you won't even realize it for a several decades.

     One of the drawbacks of being a kid is that old age relates to anybody you have to look up to, I mean really bend your head back and look up, when you are five being old is somewhere around fifteen, old age is over thirty and everything else is just antiquated. 

     I couldn't wait till I turned eighteen, at eighteen I would be an adult and could do anything I wanted to do but I quickly learned that I could do those things only as long as someone older had the same ideas. Turns out that "Uncle Sam" wanted me to join one of the Armed Forces, four years later the real world in general said I had to get a earning a living - no more free rides, it didn't sound fair but then nobody said life was fair.

     Turning thirty for most people was a major setback, personally I never understood that but some people went into a major midlife crisis mode becoming moody and crying a lot. Sure it was a milestone, one of life's many but for me it was just another birthday just like all of those that followed. I kept doing what I thought was expected of me, providing for my family, making the boss happy and all the while I was getting older by the minute but still getting older was not something I gave much thought about, when I did I just joked about it.

     I guess I finally started giving my age some thought somewhere in my fifties not that I was slowing down any but it was more that I was tired of having to deal with people younger than me who hadn't lived half the life I had but thought they knew everything, youth is wasted on the young. I made it to retirement age, it felt good not to have to get up and go to work. Linda and I were footloose and fancy free, no one to answer to except each other. Life was great, for a while, anyway.

     I retired in my sixties, older? yeah but I didn't really feel it, there was still that layer of old age above me that I had yet to reach. I qualified as a senior citizen and was moving into "old fogey" status, "older than dirt" is the ultimate goal. I had yet to admit I was old, I didn't feel old and was fairly active but it was only a matter of time as I was getting older by the minute.

     Reality finally reared it's ugly head a few short years later. Linda had been ill for sometime, I assumed the role of caregiver, where ever she needed to go, I took her, whatever she needed ,I got it for her, she could no longer do the simplest things. She could sit up on the edge of the bed and rest for a few minutes before standing, one night she slipped to the floor, when I tried to help her I found I didn't have the strength to help her because she couldn't help me. Luckily there was a young neighbor next door who came to our rescue. This incident was the turning point for me, at that time I felt really old, I could no longer care for the person I loved more than life itself.

     That was more than ten years ago, in many ways I have maintained my individuality but I'm afraid I'm about to cross the threshold into the "old fogey" status. The brain wants to maintain the status quo but the body declines to cooperate on a regular basis. Before I get down on one knee, I make sure there is something nearby to help me back up, the day to day aches and pains accompanied by moans and groans serve to let me know that I'm not only alive but also older than I was the day before. There's not much I can do about getting older, it sort of goes with the territory and while I'm happy to still be in an upright position I know there are many who never made it this far.

     So here I am about to turn 78 in a couple of months, I got arthritis in most of my joints, my left knee is on it's way out. I now see at least six doctors annually and I good nights sleep consist of five or six hour and not consecutively but I wake up each day and find something to do, even if it hurts.

     While I don't dwell on how much longer I will be around, the thought does cross my mind. There is so much more I want to do and see, most importantly, wanting see my grandchildren turn into young adults is high on the list but somewhere there is another list with my name on it and a date, in the mean time I'm getting older by the minute.

Fishermen Make Good Friends

 

     Last week, I was talking to my brother Clint, we must have been talking about fishing because he told me a fishing story about dad that I never knew. 

     Let me preface the story by saying that dad was an old school fisherman extraordinaire. My earliest memories was of him driving away with half a dozen cane poles sticking out the back window of the car, somewhere in the back seat was a can of earthworms he had dug up the night before. His tacklebox was a small metal box filled with bobbers (plastic and cork) some hooks and lead weights although old spark plugs or rusty nuts worked in a pinch. He fished rivers, creeks and farm ponds, a rock, tree stump or maybe a bucket served as a chair. Usually, bream and catfish were the catch of the day.

     Pat and I got to go along with him about the time I started school. Old Hickory Lake was still in the creation stage so dad would seek out a favorite spot along Spencer Creek back when he could drive along a dirt path beside the creek until he found a suitable spot to stop, the banks of Stones River had many good spots when we moved closer to town. Pat and I were still a bit young and had short attention spans, dad spent a lot of time telling us to stop throwing rocks in the water or sit down and be quiet as we were scaring the fish away but somehow we learned to fish.

     It was quite a few years before dad acquired a cheap casting reel that would get his bait further out. He spent a fair amount of time unraveling the back lash in the line until he got a nice spincast reel that eliminated the back lash but the cane poles were ever-present for years to come.

     Bank fishing was the order of the day until about 1960, that's when he had a carpenter friend build him a John boat. All of a sudden there was no place he couldn't get to on the lake. Now dad started planning his vacation around crappie season, imagine fishing every day for two weeks straight. The boat allowed him to do another type of fishing - trot-lining.

      Trot-lining is when you tie a long line (75- 100 feet) to a point on the shore and run it out into the lake or river, one end would be anchored down so the line would be submerged several feet. Hooks were tied to lengths of line maybe 10 inches long and attached to the trot-line about every 18 inches and baited with small bream or old meat. The aim was to attract and catch catfish and dad was very good at it. The line had to be checked and baited every day, the fish were cleaned and put in a freezer waiting for a fish fry cookout later in the summer.

     Now that you understand that dad was a fisherman, I'll tell you the story Clint told me.

     I'm still unclear of the year but at some point in time dad had put out a trot-line, I guess he was not on vacation as he couldn't get to check it but every few days, Clint would check it for him when he could. Clint discovered that when he checked and baited the line and came back later to check it the hooks were all empty of bait and fish which was unusual. He told dad what he found and dad determined he had a trot-line thief running his line so he set out to catch the thief. 

     Dad went out and baited the line one day and went home but he got up before sunrise the next morning and laid in wait in view of the line. It didn't take long after sun rise before a boat approached his line and a stranger started removing fish.

     At this point dad approached the stranger and confronted him. He told the man that the line belonged to him and he was lucky dad didn't have a gun. The stranger looked at dad and said I guess you have caught me. The stranger told dad that he had watched him and knew what days dad would check the line and on the days he didn't the stranger would remove and rebait the line and check it the next day before dad or Clint got there. 

     Normally the stranger would say he was sorry, promise not to do it again and leave but this time things took a different turn of events. The stranger told dad he would like to make a deal with him, he would see to it the line was baited every day and whenever dad ran the line all he had to do was remove the fish and the stranger would do the rebaiting that way they would both benefit. In addition, if dad needed more fish all he had to do was look in the freezer on the stranger's dock and take what he wanted.

     Strangely enough the two of them became fishing buddies and good friends till the day dad died, the man showed up for his funeral, had I known I would have shook his hand.

     That was more than 40 years ago, I have a lot of memories about fishing with dad and although I didn't know about this one until a few weeks ago it will now be among the best of them. Wherever dad is, I hope the fish are biting.

Happy Holidays

 

     The holiday season in the 1950's were the best for a young kid to experience, I know because I was there. 

     In 1956 dad moved us to Donelson, a suburb of Nashville. The family at that time consisted of mom, dad, me, my brother Pat and brother Clint and sister Vickie who was just a baby. We lived in a small four room house, five if you counted the bath. I was nine years old then, young enough that I still believed in Santa Clause.

     The holiday season, for us, started back in September, it was about that time that the Sears Christmas catalogue came out. It contained all sorts of ideas for Christmas gifts of all ages, clothing, furniture, sports equipment and toys. The day the catalogue arrived we tore into it with a vengeance, we went straight to the toy section and started the difficult task of choosing the toys we wanted for Christmas. The task was indeed difficult for Sears offered every toy available at that time, from tinker toys to fire trucks that squirted water.

     Over the next few months right up until just days before Christmas our choices would change, the pages were dogeared and wrinkled from constant use. Mom and dad were harassed daily with our latest decision and the reasons for why it had to be that particular toy.

     Thanksgiving was the next stop on the holiday circuit, we were out of school for two days and the weekend. The first thing after breakfast on Thanksgiving Day we turned on the TV and spent the next two plus hours watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on our small black and white TV. It was fascinating to see all of the floats, bands and balloons. Later we would pack up the car and head out to see the family. First stop was grandpa / granny Riggan then later on to grandpa / granny Wade. Back then family holiday gatherings were traditional, we maintained that tradition until the 1970's when Linda and I moved out of state. This was a time when we would see all of our aunts, uncles and cousins, it was not the only time but it was a time made special because it was a holiday.

     The day after Thanksgiving started the Christmas movie and Christmas specials season on TV. Miracle On 34th Street was a favorite along with A Christmas Carole. Everything was in black and white, color TV was still a few years away. Meanwhile there local parades, I marched in one as a Cub Scout, carolers everywhere you went. The department store windows were decorated with a Christmas theme, they were works of art. Everywhere you went people were saying Merry Christmas as they had done all their life. Christmas decorations abounded everywhere.

     Now we get to the big day, Christmas Eve, the day the big guy comes sliding down the chimney but we didn't have a chimney so Santa had to wait until we were asleep or out of the house so he could sneak in. This had to be the longest day of the year, by dinner time mom was exhausted, first it was us kids who were filled with the excitement of the day then dad would come home with a friend or two and maybe another friend or two would just stop by. On rare occasions Uncle Paul and family stopped in and one year Grandpa and granny Wade came for a visit.

     It was a magical time, the smell of our cedar tree filled our nostrils, the bright lights and colored ornaments and tinsel lit up the living room. There were packages for each of us wrapped in Christmas paper and colorful ribbons and bows, our minds constantly wondered what was in them, we must have asked mom a dozen times if we could open just one.

     It was tradition in our house that after we ate dinner that each of us could choose one gift from under the tree and open it, that would usually calm us down some. Later on, one of two things would happen, dad would either load us up in the car and take us on a ride around the neighborhood to see all the colorful decorations or send us off to bed. If we went for a ride, when we came back mom would be standing in the door and as we got out of the car she would tell us that Santa Clause just left. Sure enough, when we went inside there would be new toys under and around the Christmas tree.

     If we were sent to bed, we were expected to go to sleep, the younger ones did but I was to high on the excitement of the moment so I would lay there and pretend. At the age of nine there was doubt in my mind - just how did Santa get in a house with no chimney? At any rate, after a while dad would come in and wake us up, Santa Clause had arrived. Now the fun begins, torn wrapping paper and empty boxes littered the floor of our small living room. As the clock rushed to midnight we kids were still at it  even the little one were to excited to sleep but dad was another story so he would go to bed, mom would have to sit up with us till the wee hours of the morning. Eventually the little ones would tire and mom would shuffle them off to bed. Pat and I being the oldest would stay up sometimes all night.

     Christmas day, we would load up the car and again head off to see the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a day filled with more presents, lots of food and candy and cakes galore, talk about a sugar high. Aunts would catch us as we walked past and pull us into their laps and hug and kiss us, uncles would comment on how tall we were getting. It was exhausting, the ride home was pretty quiet dad had to carry us inside when we got home.

     The next few days were toned down, the anticipation was over, now was the time to start wearing off the new of the toys. I wish I could say that toys were all that we got but that didn't happen, we also got new shirts, socks, jeans, and underwear.

     New Years rounded out the season, at nine years old I was not concerned with the staying up all night to ring in the new year nor was I concerned with the football games the next day.  There was though the Rose Parade from Pasadena, California where all the floats were made from flowers, we spent a couple of hours in front of the TV watching the floats and marching bands.

     On this day we usually went to see grandpa / granny Wade, Grandpa and our uncles were big sports fans and the TV would be ready for the game. In the meantime grandpa held court with his stories and tall tales that made us all laugh and granny just reveled in her children and grandchildren, a constant smile on her face. At the end of the day the season like the old year was over, for the adults it was back to the old grind, for us kids it was like every other day- a new adventure in the waiting.

     They say you never know how much you miss something until it's gone, over the years those days turned to memories something for this old man, on a cold drizzly day, to reflect on.