There is more so-called free money floating around due to the U.S. Stimulus Package than Carter has Little Liver Pills.
Arkansas is getting a nice chunk and the project list reads not so much like a "Oh!" list but like a "What the heck is this?" list.
Did you know the state is going to receive a $3.636 million for hybrid striped bass research? And, a grant for $3.45 million is going to the Dale Bumpers Rice Research Center. That's on top of the $3.45 million ponied up for the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center. And, don't forget that more than $10.5 million has been allocated for research on fish, rice and small farms.
How’s the money going to be spend? Who cares? It’s free!
What else is Arkansas getting to drive the economy?
There's another $994,000 for studying endophytes; the UofA in Fayetteville is receiving $580,000 for its agriculture law program (just what we need, more agri lawyers); $1.95 million for conservation efforts (could just as well be "liberal" efforts) by the National Water Management System in Little Rock; and $519,000 for catfish and baitfish research.
(For the record, an endophyte is a plant growing inside another plant. Googling can make one smarter. We must assume that because someone applied for the grant and the federal government approved the money, it is important to reviving the economy.)
Ever been to Dierks Lake down in Southwest Arkansas? That little lake is getting a facelift to the tune of $1.26 million. The Osceola Harbor (Osceola has a harbor?) is on the tab for $1.1 million. The Delta Regional Authority is getting a whole bunch of money from several grants and it's not worth the time to total them up.
Something identified as "food damage reduction" is up for $1.1 million; $950,000 for landscaping of Fort Smith's Garrison Avenue; $330,000 for extending water and sewer lines in Warren, and; $237,000 to design and engineer a trolley car extension in Fort Smith.
Shoot! And here I thought there'd probably be some trivial projects hidden in the monetary laundry list.
If there’s one city in the state that needs help in alleviating traffic, it’s Cabot. The city needs a railroad overpass that actually relieves traffic congestion, needs another exit ramp off Highways 67-167 and needs some major road widening to expedite traffic flow.
Money has been allocated for road projects in Little Rock, Arkansas City, Washington and Benton counties, Fort Smith, Vilonia, Bella Vista ... and a railroad overpass in Marion. Nothing for Cabot in the Washington gimme list.
A personal favorite gimme grant is for $100,000 for "community-oriented crime-prevention efforts by the Cotton Plant Police Department."
For the record, Cotton Plant is where Andy and Barney lived before they moved to Mayberry.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Money, money everywhere, but . . .
It's time for
the piper to
pay all of us
There is more so-called free money floating around due to the U.S. Stimulus Package than Carter has Little Liver Pills.
Arkansas is getting a nice chunk and the project list reads not so much like a "Oh!" list but like a "What the heck is this?" list.
Did you know the state is going to receive a $3.636 million for hybrid striped bass research? And, a grant for $3.45 million is going to the Dale Bumpers Rice Research Center. That's on top of the $3.45 million ponied up for the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center. And, don't forget that more than $10.5 million has been allocated for research on fish, rice and small farms.
What else is Arkansas getting to drive the economy?
There's another $994,000 for studying endophytes; the UofA in Fayetteville is receiving $580,000 for its agriculture law program; $1.95 million for conservation efforts (could just as well be "liberal" efforts) by the National Water Management System in Little Rock; and $519,000 for catfish and baitfish research.
(For the record, an endophyte is a plant growing inside another plant. I looked it up. We must assume that because someone applied for the grant and the federal government approved the money, it is important to reviving the economy.)
Anybody seeing the pattern here?
Ever been to Dierks Lake down in Southwest Arkansas. That little lake is getting a facelift to the tune of $1.26 million. The Osceola Harbor (Osceola has a harbor?) is on the tab for $1.1 million.
The Delta Regional Authority is getting a whole bunch of money from several grants and it's not worth the time to total them up.
Something identified as "food damage reduction" is up for $1.1 million; $950,000 for landscaping of Fort Smith's Garrison Avenue; $330,000 for extending water and sewer lines in Warren, and; $237,000 to design and engineer a trolley car extension in Fort Smith.
Shoot! And here I thought there'd probably be some trivial projects hidden in the monetary laundry list.
With Cabot's ultra-high level need for traffic congestion eradication, surely there's something in the plan for an overpass, street widening, road extensions ... something. Anything.
Let's see: Nope, not there. No, not in that column. Where can it be?
There's gimme-money transportation projects all over the place, but not one mention of Cabot. Money has been allocated for road projects in Little Rock, Arkansas City, Washington and Benton counties, Fort Smith, Vilonia, Bella Vista ... and a railroad overpass in Marion.
No Cabot. No surprise there.
My personal favorite gimme grant is for $100,000 for "community-oriented crime-prevention efforts by the Cotton Plant Police Department."
For the record, Cotton Plant is where Andy and Barney lived before they moved to Mayberry.
the piper to
pay all of us
There is more so-called free money floating around due to the U.S. Stimulus Package than Carter has Little Liver Pills.
Arkansas is getting a nice chunk and the project list reads not so much like a "Oh!" list but like a "What the heck is this?" list.
Did you know the state is going to receive a $3.636 million for hybrid striped bass research? And, a grant for $3.45 million is going to the Dale Bumpers Rice Research Center. That's on top of the $3.45 million ponied up for the Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center. And, don't forget that more than $10.5 million has been allocated for research on fish, rice and small farms.
What else is Arkansas getting to drive the economy?
There's another $994,000 for studying endophytes; the UofA in Fayetteville is receiving $580,000 for its agriculture law program; $1.95 million for conservation efforts (could just as well be "liberal" efforts) by the National Water Management System in Little Rock; and $519,000 for catfish and baitfish research.
(For the record, an endophyte is a plant growing inside another plant. I looked it up. We must assume that because someone applied for the grant and the federal government approved the money, it is important to reviving the economy.)
Anybody seeing the pattern here?
Ever been to Dierks Lake down in Southwest Arkansas. That little lake is getting a facelift to the tune of $1.26 million. The Osceola Harbor (Osceola has a harbor?) is on the tab for $1.1 million.
The Delta Regional Authority is getting a whole bunch of money from several grants and it's not worth the time to total them up.
Something identified as "food damage reduction" is up for $1.1 million; $950,000 for landscaping of Fort Smith's Garrison Avenue; $330,000 for extending water and sewer lines in Warren, and; $237,000 to design and engineer a trolley car extension in Fort Smith.
Shoot! And here I thought there'd probably be some trivial projects hidden in the monetary laundry list.
With Cabot's ultra-high level need for traffic congestion eradication, surely there's something in the plan for an overpass, street widening, road extensions ... something. Anything.
Let's see: Nope, not there. No, not in that column. Where can it be?
There's gimme-money transportation projects all over the place, but not one mention of Cabot. Money has been allocated for road projects in Little Rock, Arkansas City, Washington and Benton counties, Fort Smith, Vilonia, Bella Vista ... and a railroad overpass in Marion.
No Cabot. No surprise there.
My personal favorite gimme grant is for $100,000 for "community-oriented crime-prevention efforts by the Cotton Plant Police Department."
For the record, Cotton Plant is where Andy and Barney lived before they moved to Mayberry.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Meeting a mermaid
A mermaid spoke to me just this morning.
She was in the shower, sitting astride the soap dish.
She wouldn't tell me her name,
said she wasn't from around here,
that I wouldn't know her folks, anyway.
We talked about yesterday's weather,
and guessed at the temperature of the water
that hit us both
like bubble bullets,
and (this got very deep)
about life.
Mine.
Not her's.
She was interested in the fact
that I was a heavy sleeper,
love thunderstorms,
gray horses at the track,
kittens but not cats,
that sometimes I cry in old movies,
the kind where James Stewart loses his wife
or where Shirley Temple is feeling rejected.
And she seemed especially interested
that I love children
and have an affinity for those
who are feisty
appreciate not being talked down to by adults.
She persuaded me to tell about my first love.
Ahhhh. Wanda Burkett,
red hair the color of cherry carrots,
teeth the size of ping pong balls,
freckles too numerous to count.
A true woman,
the first to get the glands of a 13-year-old
East Texas hickernut all a-dither.
The mermaid also liked my corny jokes,
especially the one about Nome, Alaska,
and she asked me to tell her some funny stories.
She laughed when I remarked,
with a studied serious expression,
that I was one punny fellow.
I decided I liked the way her bottom lip
wrinked in the middle when she laughed.
That was a spur of the moment decision,
one I believe I will retain.
She laughed some more,
as did I,
and I got a mouthful of water
and spat it in her direction.
She looked pleased I took the time to notice her.
Turning off the water, I said goodbye.
She smiled . . . and was gone.
That was just this morning.
Oh, sorry! Look at the time.
I have to go.
Time for another shower.
She was in the shower, sitting astride the soap dish.
She wouldn't tell me her name,
said she wasn't from around here,
that I wouldn't know her folks, anyway.
We talked about yesterday's weather,
and guessed at the temperature of the water
that hit us both
like bubble bullets,
and (this got very deep)
about life.
Mine.
Not her's.
She was interested in the fact
that I was a heavy sleeper,
love thunderstorms,
gray horses at the track,
kittens but not cats,
that sometimes I cry in old movies,
the kind where James Stewart loses his wife
or where Shirley Temple is feeling rejected.
And she seemed especially interested
that I love children
and have an affinity for those
who are feisty
appreciate not being talked down to by adults.
She persuaded me to tell about my first love.
Ahhhh. Wanda Burkett,
red hair the color of cherry carrots,
teeth the size of ping pong balls,
freckles too numerous to count.
A true woman,
the first to get the glands of a 13-year-old
East Texas hickernut all a-dither.
The mermaid also liked my corny jokes,
especially the one about Nome, Alaska,
and she asked me to tell her some funny stories.
She laughed when I remarked,
with a studied serious expression,
that I was one punny fellow.
I decided I liked the way her bottom lip
wrinked in the middle when she laughed.
That was a spur of the moment decision,
one I believe I will retain.
She laughed some more,
as did I,
and I got a mouthful of water
and spat it in her direction.
She looked pleased I took the time to notice her.
Turning off the water, I said goodbye.
She smiled . . . and was gone.
That was just this morning.
Oh, sorry! Look at the time.
I have to go.
Time for another shower.
Friday, March 20, 2009
When I die . . .
Smallish rants,
philosophical
meanderings
This is what I want my politically correct obituary to say when I decide to go toe’s-up:
George Sidney Smith, a French-Welsh-English-Irish-African-Native American-American, was jerked to Jesus today after saving newborn triplets and their mother from certain death by four rabid pit bull dogs.
“It was the bravest thing I ever saw,” Mrs. Beelzebub Slawman, the mother of the triplets, said. “He saw the danger and threw his body between the attacking dogs and me and my precious triplets – Ebekasneezer, Loki and Prettypenny.
“He died with a smile on his lips.”
The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations of Krispy Kreme donuts be made to the local homeless shelter, to be renamed the George S. Smith Shelter for the Unjobbed.
**
Ignorance you can do something about. Stupidity goes straight to the bone.
**
I do wish The Pope would keep his tongue in his mouth and his thoughts in his head on the subject of condoms.
First, he’s not supposed to know anything about such things, and secondly, The Pope talking about sex is like a politician plying his trade in Washington-on-the-deficit talking about fair play and honesty.
**
Okay, here’s an admission: I’m overweight.
At 6-2, I weight about 227 pounds. The mirror tells me that at 63, I don’t really look all that bad. I have not yet felt the urge to go to the Golden Corral or any all-you-can-eat buffet and look at the other patrons just to raise my self-esteem.
But I need to lose 20-25 pounds. I know it and I plan to get right on that project … after I finish icing the carrot cake with caramel icing.
But I don’t have the problem that a Bellevue, Nebraska policeman has. Chris Parent lost his job because at 5-9 and 300 pounds he was considered obese and unfit to be a police officer.
He sued and got reinstated because of a badly worded policy manual.
Report is that he’s on restricted duty, that he will only be allowed to run down those accused criminals he can actually catch … like candy-grabbing toddlers.
philosophical
meanderings
This is what I want my politically correct obituary to say when I decide to go toe’s-up:
George Sidney Smith, a French-Welsh-English-Irish-African-Native American-American, was jerked to Jesus today after saving newborn triplets and their mother from certain death by four rabid pit bull dogs.
“It was the bravest thing I ever saw,” Mrs. Beelzebub Slawman, the mother of the triplets, said. “He saw the danger and threw his body between the attacking dogs and me and my precious triplets – Ebekasneezer, Loki and Prettypenny.
“He died with a smile on his lips.”
The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations of Krispy Kreme donuts be made to the local homeless shelter, to be renamed the George S. Smith Shelter for the Unjobbed.
**
Ignorance you can do something about. Stupidity goes straight to the bone.
**
I do wish The Pope would keep his tongue in his mouth and his thoughts in his head on the subject of condoms.
First, he’s not supposed to know anything about such things, and secondly, The Pope talking about sex is like a politician plying his trade in Washington-on-the-deficit talking about fair play and honesty.
**
Okay, here’s an admission: I’m overweight.
At 6-2, I weight about 227 pounds. The mirror tells me that at 63, I don’t really look all that bad. I have not yet felt the urge to go to the Golden Corral or any all-you-can-eat buffet and look at the other patrons just to raise my self-esteem.
But I need to lose 20-25 pounds. I know it and I plan to get right on that project … after I finish icing the carrot cake with caramel icing.
But I don’t have the problem that a Bellevue, Nebraska policeman has. Chris Parent lost his job because at 5-9 and 300 pounds he was considered obese and unfit to be a police officer.
He sued and got reinstated because of a badly worded policy manual.
Report is that he’s on restricted duty, that he will only be allowed to run down those accused criminals he can actually catch … like candy-grabbing toddlers.
Lord, save us from ourselves
State fish?
Please don’t
waste the time
Shame on the Legislature. Pox on their addled heads.
Taxpayers money was actually used recently to gather information and debate whether or not to make the blue catfish the official state fish.
A House of Representatives committee heard testimony and deadlocked 10-10 on pushing the catfish into governmental notoriety. Testimony and comments by dissenting committee members joyfully pushing for brown trout and smallmouth bass.
What of the channel cat? Rainbow trout? Crappie? One must not forget pond perch and sunfish! More of those bobber-pullers are caught in Arknasas than any other fish. Shoot, perch are the catch-and-release-and-catch-and-release-again king of Arkansas fishdom.
It’s nice to see the members of the legislature having fun.
Good for them. Now, quit the shenanigans and get to work on the important stuff.
Like what? Don’t know off-hand. But anything the legislators work on will be more important than which fish deserves to be at the top of the fish pecking order, so to speak.
ANOTHER CABOT FAUX PAS
I made a bet with myself recently about a road project in Cabot.
I bet that the turning lane expansion on Campground Road heading into Pine Street would not relieve much traffic. I bet that the “planners” and construction folks would not think of putting a wide, white “stop here” bar across the left-hand lane for traffic going straight or turning left.
I bet that people in the turning lane would not be able to see to the left because of cars pulled up to the intersection, prohibiting a safe right turn on red.
I won the bet.
Effort to ease up on a problem or alleviate it altogether isn’t worth much if the end result is practically the same as it was before the effort was made.
Come on, Cabot! You’re better than this.
STIMULUS MONEY COMING
Arkansas is going to get a big chunk of economic stimulus money and that’s a good thing, right?
Depends on your perspective.
Remember the hoards of money passed to state, county and city entities from the new Department of Homeland Security following 9/11? Like many government gimme programs, some of the money was well-placed. Too much of it, however, was nothing but rat hole money.
It seemed during the initial shelling-out period, that all a government entity had to do was send in an application and money fell from Washington-on-the Deficit like rain. Cities from Arkansas to Washington state received funds to purchase HazMat vehicles; some sheriff departments got submersible vehicles to check out . . . what? . . . reports of poison being dumped in reservoirs?
Just like the deficit-building windfall back in 2002 and beyond, the stimulus money will awaken the greed in public officials and billions will be handed out that will accomplish little.
It’s the way of government, regardless of who is in office, to spend and waste. And, yet, though the cycle is clear and ever-present, the taxpayers simply sit back and take it.
The abuse of power, that is … and the money, of course.
Please don’t
waste the time
Shame on the Legislature. Pox on their addled heads.
Taxpayers money was actually used recently to gather information and debate whether or not to make the blue catfish the official state fish.
A House of Representatives committee heard testimony and deadlocked 10-10 on pushing the catfish into governmental notoriety. Testimony and comments by dissenting committee members joyfully pushing for brown trout and smallmouth bass.
What of the channel cat? Rainbow trout? Crappie? One must not forget pond perch and sunfish! More of those bobber-pullers are caught in Arknasas than any other fish. Shoot, perch are the catch-and-release-and-catch-and-release-again king of Arkansas fishdom.
It’s nice to see the members of the legislature having fun.
Good for them. Now, quit the shenanigans and get to work on the important stuff.
Like what? Don’t know off-hand. But anything the legislators work on will be more important than which fish deserves to be at the top of the fish pecking order, so to speak.
ANOTHER CABOT FAUX PAS
I made a bet with myself recently about a road project in Cabot.
I bet that the turning lane expansion on Campground Road heading into Pine Street would not relieve much traffic. I bet that the “planners” and construction folks would not think of putting a wide, white “stop here” bar across the left-hand lane for traffic going straight or turning left.
I bet that people in the turning lane would not be able to see to the left because of cars pulled up to the intersection, prohibiting a safe right turn on red.
I won the bet.
Effort to ease up on a problem or alleviate it altogether isn’t worth much if the end result is practically the same as it was before the effort was made.
Come on, Cabot! You’re better than this.
STIMULUS MONEY COMING
Arkansas is going to get a big chunk of economic stimulus money and that’s a good thing, right?
Depends on your perspective.
Remember the hoards of money passed to state, county and city entities from the new Department of Homeland Security following 9/11? Like many government gimme programs, some of the money was well-placed. Too much of it, however, was nothing but rat hole money.
It seemed during the initial shelling-out period, that all a government entity had to do was send in an application and money fell from Washington-on-the Deficit like rain. Cities from Arkansas to Washington state received funds to purchase HazMat vehicles; some sheriff departments got submersible vehicles to check out . . . what? . . . reports of poison being dumped in reservoirs?
Just like the deficit-building windfall back in 2002 and beyond, the stimulus money will awaken the greed in public officials and billions will be handed out that will accomplish little.
It’s the way of government, regardless of who is in office, to spend and waste. And, yet, though the cycle is clear and ever-present, the taxpayers simply sit back and take it.
The abuse of power, that is … and the money, of course.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The column that wasn't published
For more than two years it has been my pleasure to write a column titled "Footprints" in the Cabot Star Herald.
The column has been "retired" in the paper but will appear here regularly as a news and commentary blog.
Comments? Ideas for column fodder? Just let me know at gsid143@gmail.com.
A wise country philosopher once said, "Words with which I do not agree deserve their moment in the sunlight just as much as words with which I do agree."
But Eddie Joe,
beer is just
liquid bread!
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams can’t win for losing.
Williams must enjoy getting the political snagglewads knocked out of him, because he keeps playing his same one-sour-note song: “Alcohol, legal or not, ain’t got no place in Cabot. Can I get an ‘amen?’”
Last week the Cabot city budget and personnel committee met to discuss several items, including a proposed tax on the alcohol sold at two Cabot restaurants. While the three city officials who had a hand in shepherding the controversial ordinance – Alderman Lisa Brickell, City Attorney Jim Taylor and Mayor Williams – were no-shows, the four members of the committee – Eddie Cook, Jon Moore, Rick Prentice and Tom Armstrong – did show up.
And courageously they faced the chin music played by two different bands: The Silent Firs and the Ragin’ Agins.
The Agins (as in “agin” the tax) had the loudest horn section … two emotional trumpet solos with some chattering wind instruments as background. Former Alderman Becky LeMaster and Karen Elrod, owner of Fat Daddy’s Restaurant, decried the ordinance from different perspectives: LeMaster from the standpoint of accusing Taylor of overstepping his bounds in preparing an ordinance before public comment, and Elrod, who tongue-slapped Mayor Williams for being “petty” and “vindictive.”
The Firs, for the most part, didn’t have much to say.
This issue is not about taxing alcohol served in restaurants; it’s not about family values, community morals or what’s right or wrong. It’s about fair play, equal treatment and common sense.
Until these two law-abiding and rule-following eating establishments received a wine and beer permit from the state Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, there was no issue.
Despite the fact that Lonoke County had four such alcohol-supply stations in the county prior to Kopan’s receiving its license, it was not an issue. It was not an issue when Mayor Eddie Joe Williams joined one of those private clubs.
It was only after Mayor Eddie Joe Williams went before the ABC twice to protest the lawful granting of private club status to these two good restaurants and was handed his ego in a basket both times did this become an issue.
The ordinance (which is so full of legal holes as to be laughable) was aimed at making it, at the very least, exasperating for good businesses owned by good citizens and good taxpayers to continue to do business in Cabot.
Don’t expect Mayor Williams to take this defeat – he’s 0 for 3 in the fight – in good spirits. Count on the issue will be brought up again by a fellow evangelistic aldermen … and the fight starts anew.
One thing is certain: Mayor Williams doesn’t know when to quit, doesn’t care that he is giving the city a black eye in regard to city/business relationships and will keep creating avoidable brouhahas until he no longer has the platform from which to perform.
The owners of Kopan’s and Fat Daddy’s deserve an apology from the city leaders.
Don’t expect that to happen. Petty politics can be counted on to keep good people from taking an unpopular stance.
The column has been "retired" in the paper but will appear here regularly as a news and commentary blog.
Comments? Ideas for column fodder? Just let me know at gsid143@gmail.com.
A wise country philosopher once said, "Words with which I do not agree deserve their moment in the sunlight just as much as words with which I do agree."
But Eddie Joe,
beer is just
liquid bread!
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams can’t win for losing.
Williams must enjoy getting the political snagglewads knocked out of him, because he keeps playing his same one-sour-note song: “Alcohol, legal or not, ain’t got no place in Cabot. Can I get an ‘amen?’”
Last week the Cabot city budget and personnel committee met to discuss several items, including a proposed tax on the alcohol sold at two Cabot restaurants. While the three city officials who had a hand in shepherding the controversial ordinance – Alderman Lisa Brickell, City Attorney Jim Taylor and Mayor Williams – were no-shows, the four members of the committee – Eddie Cook, Jon Moore, Rick Prentice and Tom Armstrong – did show up.
And courageously they faced the chin music played by two different bands: The Silent Firs and the Ragin’ Agins.
The Agins (as in “agin” the tax) had the loudest horn section … two emotional trumpet solos with some chattering wind instruments as background. Former Alderman Becky LeMaster and Karen Elrod, owner of Fat Daddy’s Restaurant, decried the ordinance from different perspectives: LeMaster from the standpoint of accusing Taylor of overstepping his bounds in preparing an ordinance before public comment, and Elrod, who tongue-slapped Mayor Williams for being “petty” and “vindictive.”
The Firs, for the most part, didn’t have much to say.
This issue is not about taxing alcohol served in restaurants; it’s not about family values, community morals or what’s right or wrong. It’s about fair play, equal treatment and common sense.
Until these two law-abiding and rule-following eating establishments received a wine and beer permit from the state Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, there was no issue.
Despite the fact that Lonoke County had four such alcohol-supply stations in the county prior to Kopan’s receiving its license, it was not an issue. It was not an issue when Mayor Eddie Joe Williams joined one of those private clubs.
It was only after Mayor Eddie Joe Williams went before the ABC twice to protest the lawful granting of private club status to these two good restaurants and was handed his ego in a basket both times did this become an issue.
The ordinance (which is so full of legal holes as to be laughable) was aimed at making it, at the very least, exasperating for good businesses owned by good citizens and good taxpayers to continue to do business in Cabot.
Don’t expect Mayor Williams to take this defeat – he’s 0 for 3 in the fight – in good spirits. Count on the issue will be brought up again by a fellow evangelistic aldermen … and the fight starts anew.
One thing is certain: Mayor Williams doesn’t know when to quit, doesn’t care that he is giving the city a black eye in regard to city/business relationships and will keep creating avoidable brouhahas until he no longer has the platform from which to perform.
The owners of Kopan’s and Fat Daddy’s deserve an apology from the city leaders.
Don’t expect that to happen. Petty politics can be counted on to keep good people from taking an unpopular stance.
Plying the Internet: Fun is where you find it!
For more than two years, my daughter, Mattie Smith Cummins, and I have been working on a simple, fun project we call “Screwing the Internet Spamming Scammers.”
The formula is simple: Get a scam letter from someone wanting to steal money via email … and then hook them into an email relationship via promises of quick wealth.
George “Bubba” Smith usually is a disabled Rascal Scooter-driving antagonist living on an insurance settlement. He is backed up by – in various reverse scams – by his daughter, executive secretary, or masseuse, who takes on names like Kitty Smith Litter, Pepito Bismol, Dorita Chippette, and Vienna Smith Sousage.
For the most part, Mattie didn’t like the names assigned to her, but she got great fatherly advice on the matter: “Get over it, Pepito, and answer the dadgum email!”
Below is just a snippet from more than 170,000 words in emails collected. The project is now in editing stage.
Setup: Paul James is in Africa, and has some money secreted away and wants to disperse it to someone of character in the U.S. He wants his contact to send him money for “shipping” family treasures to the U.S., and then split the proceeds at some point.
This bit of correspondence picks up the email chain near the end of the working “relationship.” All writings, spelling, grammar (or lack thereof) has been left intact as they were sent or received.
Message: Oct. 3, 10:42 a.m.
Dear George Smith,
Well the whole thing is getting me tired over here which i guess i have to stop mailing you because at this time we are not progressing with this transaction anay longer because i told you that the two documents will be issued to us from nigeria here and its from the federal high court of justice which the london bank demanded from you and i also told you to we are going to secure the two documents for you over here and send it to the bank in london and also to you so that you will submit it but you still keep on telling me a different thing but to be sincere with you now am getting tired of the whole thing and wishes to allow you be your self for now till you go to london as you wish.
Barrister Paul James
Message: Oct. 3, 2:49 p.m.
Paul:
If you think you are tired, you ought to try and walk a mile in my shoes!!!! If I could walk, that is. You're messing up here, big time. My daughter Kitty Litter and I were coming to Africa to meet you in person and offer you a fulltime job as manager of our African holdings. We don't have any yet, but we will. I want to start a critter preserve ... not the jam kind, but the protected little, furry animal kind and I need a manager because I can't recide in Africa forever.
As you sure you want to pull out of this deal this late in the game? I have my insurance trust fund and that is more than enough to buy me a bunch of Africa. Think of it, Paul James, a place where little gauzenels don't have to be afraid of being shot, where little funny looking baby giraffes can jump and play without fear of being poached. Or barbequed!
I will send you the money today to get your business taken care of down there, but we've emailed so long I need the instructions one more time. If after the deal is done, you don't want to work for me, fine. Maybe you can hook me up with someone else who can manager the preserve I’m naming after my mother’s maiden name: The Smuckers Preserve for Little Furry Animals.
I'm tired, too, Paul, but let's get untired together and get this deal going!
George "Bubba" Smith
Message: Oct. 4, 5:44 p.m.
Well i want you to know that doing business is of mind and also having pleasure is also your ability because i have never told you that i am looking for a job to be a manager of someones company and also you said you want to send me money for my own business down here which i dont found it to be serious because all i told you is just for you to get the money for the documents which will be issued to you but tell you that i dont need your money till i hear from you on the phone, so give me your real phone number and not the fake one you have been given to me or you call me so we can talk on phone so that you will not thinl am interested in your money, so if not so i guess i have to have my peace for now because you are taking me for granted.
Regards.
Barrister Paul James
Message: Oct. 3, 9:19 p.m.
Well, Paul, this business is bad business. I don't want no Nigeriaite working for me that thinks a little piddling money is better than a whole pisspot full of money like I was planning on giving you. That's short-sited thinging, and you are not the man for me. You just don't get it. I don't really NEED the money you are planning to send me. I got money. What I don't got are good, strong, loyal, good-hearted, African Christian sumbitches to work their asses off to make me even more money that I got now! It's like politics: It's not the money. It's the power that money buys!
I have given you my number 27 ways to Sunday and it's right -- 614-3295-8544. Now if you or your operator-type people can't punch them little buttons, then that's not my farking fault!
I won't call you because I have tried and the calls never go through. Too damn many numbers is what Mable the operator tells me. So, Paul, piss away a good thing because you can't make a decision if you want to. But I am going to get some land in your damn country and I'm going to have my preserve for the little furry animals. Are you in or out?
P.S. And, a word of advice, Paul James, saying "Regards" at the end of a snotty letter when you don't mean it is like wee-weeing on man's boot when he's wearing sandals. You know what I mean? George "Bubba" Smith
Message: Oct. 4, 10:36 p.m.
George or whatever you called your name, well i guess you are such a useless man by insulting a man like me because since we started this deal i have never insulted you and that is why you mail the bank in london and insulted the man over there which i understand now that you an a useless ***hole of a man because you dont have respect for humanity but i bet you that if you come to my country i will surely make your life misrable for you which am sure of breaking your ass and also squeezing your ****ing neck and twist it to a dead man but alive so becareful the way you talk to people you dont know which i know that you take a lot of alchohol which intorsicate your ***ing brain which made you not to be able to talk mannerly,***holll
Message: Oct. 4, 12:02 p.m.
Well, Mr. Paul James, ain't we the big man in the International Cussing Circus? I take exception with your characterizations of moi. But, moreso, I take exception to your inability to properly use English and your punctuation skills are -- How can I phrase this? -- on an International Grammar Suckability Scale with 10 being English textbook perfect and 1 being Nigerian pig Latin with no punctuation, you're a rousin', rompin' .08! i have respect for humanity as exhibited by my being named "Humanitarian of the Year" by the Daughters of the Clan of the Cave Bear. As to making my life miserable, my second ex-wife took care of that for you.
For the record, Paul James, "***hole" does not have three l's. And as far as squeezing my "****ing neck" and breaking my "***," (his words, not mine, Lord!) that red-balling chicken truck what hit my rice-burner has already done that for you. I think that you are upset, Paul James, simply because you realize that you are passing up a chance of a lifetime in not going to work for me. That's it! That's why you are so angry, right? You screwed up and now you are attacking me because your mental aptitude is lower than a lizard's lip!
Take care, Paul James. Take care. May God have mercy on your soul for your frightful words.
As it is written in Sodom 12:3-5: Those who curseth shall then be cursed! And they shall feel my wrath for the words they spew are as swords to flesh.
Your friend,
George "Bubba" Smith
Message: Oct. 4, 6:02 p.m.
Listen in africa we practise english because of the colonised country but for your own information english is not our main language like you people over there in the usa but let me tell you that i am proud of being african man with a whole lot of sence but like the london bank manager told you that you are a ba**** half man, i guess that is what you are now because i will be looking for a man that can handle the business and not a w********** like you that has nothing but illetrate skull which alot of drinking has made you to be an idiot man, well i will mail you one day and inform you that i have succeded in transfering the money to another person because you are not worthy to do business with which i have seen things right from the begining and also know that a business who calls himself a business man cannot even be able to produce a good house phone number or a mobile phone which means that you are a tout along the street of america.
Monkey b******.
Message: Oct. 4, 6:29 p.m.
Come on, Paul James, don’t be so hard on yourself. You may be a lot of things, but I don’t think you’re a monkey b******. Are you? Let's part as friends. I will admit I am a bit "over the top" as we say in America. Now, you admit being a low-life Internet scammer that's trying to steal money from poor people like George "Bubba" Smith and his dingy, but likeable, daughter.
What's the matter, Paul James? Can't you find a real job? Is being a fake bare-aster the best you can do? Do you get a thrill from trying to con poor men and women who just want to help people -- and, I admit, are too greedy for their own good?
Go back and read the entire email thread, Barrister, from the very first contact. You will quickly realized that the expert con Paul James, barrister deluxe, was conned by an old boy from Arkansas and his daughter in Arizona. Don't you feel ashamed about your lack of sophistication in how to successfully move a con game from "initial contact" to "payoff?" What'd they teach you in Con Game 101? You must have been absent the day when they went over the chapter "How Not to Get Conned."
If you are the best con man on market these days, there's a bunch of our ilk that are going to freaking starve to death! I will pray for your mortal soul, Barrister, but because of your cursed attitude I will whisper the words and give God a nudge and a wink when I say them.
P.S. Oh, and Paul James, if I am an "idiot man," what does that make you for swallowing the Smith family's line of bull for sooooooooo long?
You were conned, Paul James. As we say in the potato patch: Can you dig it?
George "Bubba" Smith and Kitty Smith Litter
The formula is simple: Get a scam letter from someone wanting to steal money via email … and then hook them into an email relationship via promises of quick wealth.
George “Bubba” Smith usually is a disabled Rascal Scooter-driving antagonist living on an insurance settlement. He is backed up by – in various reverse scams – by his daughter, executive secretary, or masseuse, who takes on names like Kitty Smith Litter, Pepito Bismol, Dorita Chippette, and Vienna Smith Sousage.
For the most part, Mattie didn’t like the names assigned to her, but she got great fatherly advice on the matter: “Get over it, Pepito, and answer the dadgum email!”
Below is just a snippet from more than 170,000 words in emails collected. The project is now in editing stage.
Setup: Paul James is in Africa, and has some money secreted away and wants to disperse it to someone of character in the U.S. He wants his contact to send him money for “shipping” family treasures to the U.S., and then split the proceeds at some point.
This bit of correspondence picks up the email chain near the end of the working “relationship.” All writings, spelling, grammar (or lack thereof) has been left intact as they were sent or received.
Message: Oct. 3, 10:42 a.m.
Dear George Smith,
Well the whole thing is getting me tired over here which i guess i have to stop mailing you because at this time we are not progressing with this transaction anay longer because i told you that the two documents will be issued to us from nigeria here and its from the federal high court of justice which the london bank demanded from you and i also told you to we are going to secure the two documents for you over here and send it to the bank in london and also to you so that you will submit it but you still keep on telling me a different thing but to be sincere with you now am getting tired of the whole thing and wishes to allow you be your self for now till you go to london as you wish.
Barrister Paul James
Message: Oct. 3, 2:49 p.m.
Paul:
If you think you are tired, you ought to try and walk a mile in my shoes!!!! If I could walk, that is. You're messing up here, big time. My daughter Kitty Litter and I were coming to Africa to meet you in person and offer you a fulltime job as manager of our African holdings. We don't have any yet, but we will. I want to start a critter preserve ... not the jam kind, but the protected little, furry animal kind and I need a manager because I can't recide in Africa forever.
As you sure you want to pull out of this deal this late in the game? I have my insurance trust fund and that is more than enough to buy me a bunch of Africa. Think of it, Paul James, a place where little gauzenels don't have to be afraid of being shot, where little funny looking baby giraffes can jump and play without fear of being poached. Or barbequed!
I will send you the money today to get your business taken care of down there, but we've emailed so long I need the instructions one more time. If after the deal is done, you don't want to work for me, fine. Maybe you can hook me up with someone else who can manager the preserve I’m naming after my mother’s maiden name: The Smuckers Preserve for Little Furry Animals.
I'm tired, too, Paul, but let's get untired together and get this deal going!
George "Bubba" Smith
Message: Oct. 4, 5:44 p.m.
Well i want you to know that doing business is of mind and also having pleasure is also your ability because i have never told you that i am looking for a job to be a manager of someones company and also you said you want to send me money for my own business down here which i dont found it to be serious because all i told you is just for you to get the money for the documents which will be issued to you but tell you that i dont need your money till i hear from you on the phone, so give me your real phone number and not the fake one you have been given to me or you call me so we can talk on phone so that you will not thinl am interested in your money, so if not so i guess i have to have my peace for now because you are taking me for granted.
Regards.
Barrister Paul James
Message: Oct. 3, 9:19 p.m.
Well, Paul, this business is bad business. I don't want no Nigeriaite working for me that thinks a little piddling money is better than a whole pisspot full of money like I was planning on giving you. That's short-sited thinging, and you are not the man for me. You just don't get it. I don't really NEED the money you are planning to send me. I got money. What I don't got are good, strong, loyal, good-hearted, African Christian sumbitches to work their asses off to make me even more money that I got now! It's like politics: It's not the money. It's the power that money buys!
I have given you my number 27 ways to Sunday and it's right -- 614-3295-8544. Now if you or your operator-type people can't punch them little buttons, then that's not my farking fault!
I won't call you because I have tried and the calls never go through. Too damn many numbers is what Mable the operator tells me. So, Paul, piss away a good thing because you can't make a decision if you want to. But I am going to get some land in your damn country and I'm going to have my preserve for the little furry animals. Are you in or out?
P.S. And, a word of advice, Paul James, saying "Regards" at the end of a snotty letter when you don't mean it is like wee-weeing on man's boot when he's wearing sandals. You know what I mean? George "Bubba" Smith
Message: Oct. 4, 10:36 p.m.
George or whatever you called your name, well i guess you are such a useless man by insulting a man like me because since we started this deal i have never insulted you and that is why you mail the bank in london and insulted the man over there which i understand now that you an a useless ***hole of a man because you dont have respect for humanity but i bet you that if you come to my country i will surely make your life misrable for you which am sure of breaking your ass and also squeezing your ****ing neck and twist it to a dead man but alive so becareful the way you talk to people you dont know which i know that you take a lot of alchohol which intorsicate your ***ing brain which made you not to be able to talk mannerly,***holll
Message: Oct. 4, 12:02 p.m.
Well, Mr. Paul James, ain't we the big man in the International Cussing Circus? I take exception with your characterizations of moi. But, moreso, I take exception to your inability to properly use English and your punctuation skills are -- How can I phrase this? -- on an International Grammar Suckability Scale with 10 being English textbook perfect and 1 being Nigerian pig Latin with no punctuation, you're a rousin', rompin' .08! i have respect for humanity as exhibited by my being named "Humanitarian of the Year" by the Daughters of the Clan of the Cave Bear. As to making my life miserable, my second ex-wife took care of that for you.
For the record, Paul James, "***hole" does not have three l's. And as far as squeezing my "****ing neck" and breaking my "***," (his words, not mine, Lord!) that red-balling chicken truck what hit my rice-burner has already done that for you. I think that you are upset, Paul James, simply because you realize that you are passing up a chance of a lifetime in not going to work for me. That's it! That's why you are so angry, right? You screwed up and now you are attacking me because your mental aptitude is lower than a lizard's lip!
Take care, Paul James. Take care. May God have mercy on your soul for your frightful words.
As it is written in Sodom 12:3-5: Those who curseth shall then be cursed! And they shall feel my wrath for the words they spew are as swords to flesh.
Your friend,
George "Bubba" Smith
Message: Oct. 4, 6:02 p.m.
Listen in africa we practise english because of the colonised country but for your own information english is not our main language like you people over there in the usa but let me tell you that i am proud of being african man with a whole lot of sence but like the london bank manager told you that you are a ba**** half man, i guess that is what you are now because i will be looking for a man that can handle the business and not a w********** like you that has nothing but illetrate skull which alot of drinking has made you to be an idiot man, well i will mail you one day and inform you that i have succeded in transfering the money to another person because you are not worthy to do business with which i have seen things right from the begining and also know that a business who calls himself a business man cannot even be able to produce a good house phone number or a mobile phone which means that you are a tout along the street of america.
Monkey b******.
Message: Oct. 4, 6:29 p.m.
Come on, Paul James, don’t be so hard on yourself. You may be a lot of things, but I don’t think you’re a monkey b******. Are you? Let's part as friends. I will admit I am a bit "over the top" as we say in America. Now, you admit being a low-life Internet scammer that's trying to steal money from poor people like George "Bubba" Smith and his dingy, but likeable, daughter.
What's the matter, Paul James? Can't you find a real job? Is being a fake bare-aster the best you can do? Do you get a thrill from trying to con poor men and women who just want to help people -- and, I admit, are too greedy for their own good?
Go back and read the entire email thread, Barrister, from the very first contact. You will quickly realized that the expert con Paul James, barrister deluxe, was conned by an old boy from Arkansas and his daughter in Arizona. Don't you feel ashamed about your lack of sophistication in how to successfully move a con game from "initial contact" to "payoff?" What'd they teach you in Con Game 101? You must have been absent the day when they went over the chapter "How Not to Get Conned."
If you are the best con man on market these days, there's a bunch of our ilk that are going to freaking starve to death! I will pray for your mortal soul, Barrister, but because of your cursed attitude I will whisper the words and give God a nudge and a wink when I say them.
P.S. Oh, and Paul James, if I am an "idiot man," what does that make you for swallowing the Smith family's line of bull for sooooooooo long?
You were conned, Paul James. As we say in the potato patch: Can you dig it?
George "Bubba" Smith and Kitty Smith Litter
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Fine line between truth and rumor
(Excerpt from an in-progress novel: Growing Up Mostly Happy
There is a fine line between truth and rumor, and sometimes it’s so fine as to be invisible.
There is no truth to the rumor that the World History education of a couple of bunches of eighth grade students at Avery was sorely lacking in the area of an historical landmark, i.e., the Spanish Inquisition.
So what if in 1959 some unnamed nefarious no-do-gooder slipped into the school at night, wedged open the lock on the school supplies closet in the seventh grade classroom with a piece of flatware, took all forty of the World History books and exorcised the Spanish Inquisition chapter from the all with a razor blade?
So what if those students who later went to college and took history and were queried about the Inquisition trials and man’s inhumanity to man in the name of religion and responded in the only way they could: Say, huh?
So what if no one noticed – not even the eighth grade history teacher – that the Inquisition was not even included as a single line of type or as an historical footnote?
No one missed it when historical knowledge was being thrown around, how important could be it?
There is a fine line between truth and rumor, and sometimes it’s so fine as to be invisible.
There is no truth to the rumor that the World History education of a couple of bunches of eighth grade students at Avery was sorely lacking in the area of an historical landmark, i.e., the Spanish Inquisition.
So what if in 1959 some unnamed nefarious no-do-gooder slipped into the school at night, wedged open the lock on the school supplies closet in the seventh grade classroom with a piece of flatware, took all forty of the World History books and exorcised the Spanish Inquisition chapter from the all with a razor blade?
So what if those students who later went to college and took history and were queried about the Inquisition trials and man’s inhumanity to man in the name of religion and responded in the only way they could: Say, huh?
So what if no one noticed – not even the eighth grade history teacher – that the Inquisition was not even included as a single line of type or as an historical footnote?
No one missed it when historical knowledge was being thrown around, how important could be it?
Spinner
Spinner.
Awesome embroidery
of crystal light,
weaver of man's delight,
myriad patterned wonders,
none alike.
Spider.
Awesome embroidery
of crystal light,
weaver of man's delight,
myriad patterned wonders,
none alike.
Spider.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Why? Tell me why?
The
feelings I
have at this
moment in time are
indescribable. So, my inner self
asks (but not rhetorically)
why should I
write any
more?
feelings I
have at this
moment in time are
indescribable. So, my inner self
asks (but not rhetorically)
why should I
write any
more?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
What do you want from life?
If I could fly from birth to death on the feathery wings
of contentment and could go through life with cares being
smothered by laughter, with worries being chokes into
submission by tranquility, with everyday miracles
replacing everyday chores, with friends always standing firm,
and with foes going out of their way not to get in my way . . . .
If I could only spend all my days
surrounded by good books, good, cheap wine,
sunlight, starlight, the right amount of rain at the right time . . . .
If I could but experience that for a single lifetime,
God, what a dull, dull world it would be.
of contentment and could go through life with cares being
smothered by laughter, with worries being chokes into
submission by tranquility, with everyday miracles
replacing everyday chores, with friends always standing firm,
and with foes going out of their way not to get in my way . . . .
If I could only spend all my days
surrounded by good books, good, cheap wine,
sunlight, starlight, the right amount of rain at the right time . . . .
If I could but experience that for a single lifetime,
God, what a dull, dull world it would be.
Sunflower
Sunflower
silently dancing
to the melody
of the droning bee,
petals moving toward
the sun,
flower.
silently dancing
to the melody
of the droning bee,
petals moving toward
the sun,
flower.
Wisdom
Wisdom is the ability to do dumb things
and get away with it by succeeding.
Success is the end result of doing
dumb things in a wise manner.
Being dumb is the ability to screw up a good thing
even when aided by success and wisdom.
and get away with it by succeeding.
Success is the end result of doing
dumb things in a wise manner.
Being dumb is the ability to screw up a good thing
even when aided by success and wisdom.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Hard life decisions
Note: "Reveille" is an unpublished novel about a Civil War drummer boy, Charles Andre. Searching for something better than life in a New Orleans orphanage, he set out with his best friend and "pure-dee idiot" Ian O'Rourke, to join the First Louisiana Regiment. When Charles was turned down for the oddest of reasons, he was left with a major dilemma.
Chapter 5
Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of
second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
Robert Neelly Bellah
Charles and Ian slipped down the creaky stairs in the dark, staying to the inside by the wall where the boards were tight. They maneuvered down the long front hall, through a small dining room to the kitchen, moving in the pitch darkness like blind men in familiar surroundings.
In the kitchen, Ian stood by the door listening, while Charles opened a cabinet door and pulled out two fist-sized chunks of hard bread he had placed there the night before.
He psssted to Ian and moved quickly to the back door, pushed aside the floor-level, wooded, door stop with his foot and slowly opened the door. He took a step down onto the small stoop and stopped dead in his tracks, feeling rather than seeing a presence on the miniature porch.
“Sit down, Charles,” Sister Bloody said, her lilting, accented voice hitting his heart like a railroad spike. Charles sat, his legs off the edge of the porch. He heard a scuffing noise as Ian came through the door: “Sit down, Ian,” Sister Bloody repeated.
“Gah-gah-gawd-a-mighty!” Ian said in a whisper. “Why dinit ya sca-scare the bah-bejeezus out of somebody?”
Charles could feel the nun’s dismay in the silence that enveloped them.
“Why—?” was all she got out before she started quietly crying. Charles couldn’t see her but he could “feel” her, sitting on the top step, holding her head in her hands.
“It’s not you, Sister. It’s this place. Ian and me have been here our whole lives. This is all we know. There’s got to be somethin’ out there better, somewhere, yes. We left you a note—“
“I know,” the sister said, “in the big Bible, in the chapter about the prodigal son. Appropriate in a way, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’re gah-going to jin up wah-with the Confederate Army, see us a big chunk of tha-the country,” Ian said, his voice shaking as if he were cold.
Sister Bloody sniffed once, again, then exhaled loudly. “So, you think fighting in this stupid war that’s split the country, split families, and has already left thousands and thousands of good lads dead and rotting on battlefields is better than living here with people who love you?”
“Not better, Sister,” Charles offered. “Different. New.” He didn’t say the thought ricocheting inside his head.
Loves us? Who besides you?
Charles felt her hand touch his knee, move to his arm and down to his hand. She held it, gave it a squeeze, pressed something cool and familiar into it and stood up. He took the rosary with the small crucifix and stuck it deep in his pocket.
“Come here, you two,” she commanded between gulping sobs. “I’m just being selfish. You’ve been such a big help in gathering food for the little ones. I’ll just miss you, that’s all.” Dry sobs racked her body.
The trio hugged on the tiny porch for what seemed like hours, but was still not long enough for Charles.
“You be safe, you hear me?” she said harshly, finally loosening her grip around their necks. “Be gone with you, if you’re going. Remember your lessons, especially the ones from the Church. Be safe and God protect you. And come back to see me after the war when you’re all grown up. And don’t forget your rosary and Hail Mary’s.”
“We will. We assuredly will, me and Ian,” Charles said, knowing for a fact that probably was a lie.
The boys slipped down the alley, willing themselves not to look back. Both stopped at the street corner and glanced over their shoulders. They could see nothing but shadows in various shades of black.
Charles put his hand in his pocket and directed his thumb and forefinger to gently stroke the small cross.
Daylight was breaking as Charles and Ian trudged along the well-worn path at the top of the levee. A soft summer breeze blew off the river cool and clean. Their destination was several miles east of the French Quarter; they were headed toward an old boarding house that had been converted into a Confederate Army recruitment center. The irony that the recruiting center was within three or four long rifle shots of the Union encampment located just up the river at DuCrois Station, not to mention the two battalions located in the city center, was lost on the two boys.
They had hiked to the Confederate camp the previous day to check it out and were amazed that the soldiers went nonchalantly about their business as though Yankee troops were not encamped less than five miles to the north and not more than six miles to the west. Tents sprouted in a vacant lot next to the old boarding house that had served as a wagon stop for east-west travelers before train tracks cut through the back country like dandelions after a spring shower.
Uniformed soldiers stood about, rifles close by, but few at the ready. Two soldiers sat over a small fire, cooking something on a spit. Ian pointed to the pair: “Dah-don’t that look like a cah-cat carcass to you,” he said. Charles forced the image and the ensuing thought to retreat.
He pointed out to Ian a smattering of civilians going in and out of the boarding house.
“Wah-well, ol’ sah-sot,” Ian said, “Here we are. Let’s go gah-get our sah-soldiering gear and go kill us some Yah-yanks.”
Charles wanted to wait a bit and observe the surroundings, but found himself trudging along in Ian’s footsteps. Confidence was one attribute Ian had in abundance, Charles thought as they entered the building.
Be nice if he had some common sense to go along with it.
Inside they were directed to the courtyard to the rear of the house and there they got in line behind a tall, lanky man, who looked to be in his early twenties.
“How old do you have to be to get into the army?” Charles whispered to Ian.
“I’m tellin’ ‘im I-I-I’m sah-seventeen,” Ian said.
Charles looked up at Ian and encountered his goofy grin. “What does that make me look like, nine?” Charles said.
“Tha-they only want men, ya dog dah-dick! Not Frenchie runts!” he finished with a chuckle.
The man in front of Ian made his mark on a long sheet of paper, said, “Thankee Sergeant,” and moved aside. Charles watched as he was directed to follow a soldier who also had an upside down V on his sleeves.
Ian stepped up and said in a loud voice: “Eh-Ian O’Rourke rah-reporting for duty, Sah-Sir!” He finished by standing at what he thought was attention and popping a salute, which ended up looking like he was trying to shield the sun from his eyes.
The sergeant looked at Ian like he wanted to spit in his eye. “So, ya wanna be a soldier in the best army in the world, do you, Snotnose!”
Ian relaxed and nodded his head up and down like a dog with an earful of ticks. “Yah-you betcha. Indeedydo I do.”
“So you say you’re at least sixteen. That be right?”
“Sah-sixteen, it is. How’d ja know?”
“Sign right cheer,” the burly sergeant said, pointing to a long line at the bottom of the page. “Ya git eleven Confederate dollars a month, a uniform when some more come in, a blanket after a while, some other trinkets, and you get half a tent to share. You get to do a lot of walking and take in the beautiful countryside and you kin pitch yore half-sheet anywheres ya a mind to inside a set area. How’s that for a deal?”
Without reading the document, Ian signed his name in a perfect cursive script.
“Why, that’s a fine hand, indeed,” the sergeant said, showing it to a younger, less-secure soldier standing to his right. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty handwriting. You’ll do fine, Son. Get on with yourself with the corporal there,” he said as he pointed to a fat soldier leaning against the fence, “and he’ll get your gear and get you sit-e-ated. Welcome to the By God Johnny Reb Army.”
Ian jumped out of line and the sergeant leveled his eyes at Charles.
“What ya want, Boy?” the sergeant growled as Charles took a step up to the table.
“My name is Charles Andre and I want to join up, me,” Charles said, his voice cracking.
“We don’t take nigras nor runts, in that order. We ain’t in that bad a shape yit. Next!” the sergeant bawled.
Charles didn’t budge. “I ain’t no nigra an’ I ain’t no runt.”
“I said ‘Next!’ Now git!” the corporal said, loudly and with meaning.
Charles remained still, the tops of his thighs pressed firmly against the table. “I want to join up and fight Yankees,” he said in a measured tone, staring straight at the soldier.
Charles felt footsteps behind him and instinctively tucked his neck into his collarless shirt as a protective reflex.
“What’s the problem here, Sergeant?” a rich baritone voice rang out.
Charles glanced over his right shoulder and saw a tall man looking down at him. The man was in a tailored, clean uniform with gold braid, epaulets, and a shiny sword in an ornate scabbard. His hair was long, to his shoulders; a mustache perfectly framed his mouth on three sides.
The sergeant stood quickly and snapped to attention. “No problem, Major. This here quadroon or octoroon tis tryin’ to jine up is all. I was just sendin’ him on his way.”
The major’s kind eyes stayed on Charles.
“So, boy, are you a nigra like the sergeant says?”
“No, sir, Major-suh. I’s French, me.”
“How old er ya be, boy?”
“Seventeen, sir,” Charles said, stretching his age more than a year.
“So, you small for yore age, er ya?” the major said, looking sternly.
“All us Andre’s is small, then we shoot up quick-like. My spurt's about due.”
“Sergeant,” the major said, “what makes ya’ll think this young’un’s a nigra?”
“Wah-wah-well, just look at him. He’s a half-breed if I ever saw one. Part Messkin and Chinneyman, I suspect, and looks like he probably got some black blood, too. Zits obvious, ain’t it?”
The major turned back to Charles as he spoke to the corporal. “Did you happen to notice his eyes? Did you ever see light brown eyes in a nigra’s head? I did once, but it was only one eye and it was just part of that one eye. No, Sergeant, this lad is no nigra. He may have a little mix in ‘im, but nigra blood, if he got any atall, is a dribblin’. But he’s a bit small to offer up as cannon fodder to the gawddamn Yankees.”
He put his hand on Charles’ shoulder and gently pushed him out of line. “Go home, boy. Go home and thank God that you was not taken in this army this day. Come back when you are much oldah and much biggah.”
The major turned to leave, but Charles’ voice stopped him: “I’m an orphan. I got no place to go.”
Without turning around, the major, his chin seemingly resting on his chest, said, “Then go back to the orphanage. Now. Git away from this camp and when you git where you are going, git down on your knees and pray that you never have to fight in a war such as this. This is a bad-feelin’ war, boy. Go away from this camp. En don’t come back.”
Charles watched him march off, back straight, left hand on his sword to minimize the swing.
When he disappeared in the shadows of the house’s entryway, Charles set his shoulders square and marched after him. He dodged a backhand blow thrown at him by a sentry stuck like a pike by the front door. Charles skidded into the house. The major was halfway up a stairway to the right, just passing a large portrait of a bloated man with billowy white hair. The man in the portrait looked kindly and evil at the same time.
“Whatcha doin’ back, heah, Boy?” the sergeant from the courtyard said from a part of the room that direct sunlight could not reach.
Charles stepped two steps forward and snapped to attention: “Charles Andre, sir, at your service, I am.”
The sergeant walked out of the darkness and spat, the glob of dark brown tobacco juice speckling the cypress plank floor just to the right of Charles’ foot. “Go home, boy, go home now. And don’t come back around here no more.”
Charles felt his arm gripped in a death-claw as he was hustled out the front door and shoved toward the street.
He looked around the camp and thought he saw Ian in a long line of disheveled and uncoordinated recruits, marching down the wagon road toward a tent village barely visible in the distance.
Ce qui maintenat?
What now? I can’t go back. I have no place else to go.
Chapter 5
Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of
second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.
Robert Neelly Bellah
Charles and Ian slipped down the creaky stairs in the dark, staying to the inside by the wall where the boards were tight. They maneuvered down the long front hall, through a small dining room to the kitchen, moving in the pitch darkness like blind men in familiar surroundings.
In the kitchen, Ian stood by the door listening, while Charles opened a cabinet door and pulled out two fist-sized chunks of hard bread he had placed there the night before.
He psssted to Ian and moved quickly to the back door, pushed aside the floor-level, wooded, door stop with his foot and slowly opened the door. He took a step down onto the small stoop and stopped dead in his tracks, feeling rather than seeing a presence on the miniature porch.
“Sit down, Charles,” Sister Bloody said, her lilting, accented voice hitting his heart like a railroad spike. Charles sat, his legs off the edge of the porch. He heard a scuffing noise as Ian came through the door: “Sit down, Ian,” Sister Bloody repeated.
“Gah-gah-gawd-a-mighty!” Ian said in a whisper. “Why dinit ya sca-scare the bah-bejeezus out of somebody?”
Charles could feel the nun’s dismay in the silence that enveloped them.
“Why—?” was all she got out before she started quietly crying. Charles couldn’t see her but he could “feel” her, sitting on the top step, holding her head in her hands.
“It’s not you, Sister. It’s this place. Ian and me have been here our whole lives. This is all we know. There’s got to be somethin’ out there better, somewhere, yes. We left you a note—“
“I know,” the sister said, “in the big Bible, in the chapter about the prodigal son. Appropriate in a way, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’re gah-going to jin up wah-with the Confederate Army, see us a big chunk of tha-the country,” Ian said, his voice shaking as if he were cold.
Sister Bloody sniffed once, again, then exhaled loudly. “So, you think fighting in this stupid war that’s split the country, split families, and has already left thousands and thousands of good lads dead and rotting on battlefields is better than living here with people who love you?”
“Not better, Sister,” Charles offered. “Different. New.” He didn’t say the thought ricocheting inside his head.
Loves us? Who besides you?
Charles felt her hand touch his knee, move to his arm and down to his hand. She held it, gave it a squeeze, pressed something cool and familiar into it and stood up. He took the rosary with the small crucifix and stuck it deep in his pocket.
“Come here, you two,” she commanded between gulping sobs. “I’m just being selfish. You’ve been such a big help in gathering food for the little ones. I’ll just miss you, that’s all.” Dry sobs racked her body.
The trio hugged on the tiny porch for what seemed like hours, but was still not long enough for Charles.
“You be safe, you hear me?” she said harshly, finally loosening her grip around their necks. “Be gone with you, if you’re going. Remember your lessons, especially the ones from the Church. Be safe and God protect you. And come back to see me after the war when you’re all grown up. And don’t forget your rosary and Hail Mary’s.”
“We will. We assuredly will, me and Ian,” Charles said, knowing for a fact that probably was a lie.
The boys slipped down the alley, willing themselves not to look back. Both stopped at the street corner and glanced over their shoulders. They could see nothing but shadows in various shades of black.
Charles put his hand in his pocket and directed his thumb and forefinger to gently stroke the small cross.
Daylight was breaking as Charles and Ian trudged along the well-worn path at the top of the levee. A soft summer breeze blew off the river cool and clean. Their destination was several miles east of the French Quarter; they were headed toward an old boarding house that had been converted into a Confederate Army recruitment center. The irony that the recruiting center was within three or four long rifle shots of the Union encampment located just up the river at DuCrois Station, not to mention the two battalions located in the city center, was lost on the two boys.
They had hiked to the Confederate camp the previous day to check it out and were amazed that the soldiers went nonchalantly about their business as though Yankee troops were not encamped less than five miles to the north and not more than six miles to the west. Tents sprouted in a vacant lot next to the old boarding house that had served as a wagon stop for east-west travelers before train tracks cut through the back country like dandelions after a spring shower.
Uniformed soldiers stood about, rifles close by, but few at the ready. Two soldiers sat over a small fire, cooking something on a spit. Ian pointed to the pair: “Dah-don’t that look like a cah-cat carcass to you,” he said. Charles forced the image and the ensuing thought to retreat.
He pointed out to Ian a smattering of civilians going in and out of the boarding house.
“Wah-well, ol’ sah-sot,” Ian said, “Here we are. Let’s go gah-get our sah-soldiering gear and go kill us some Yah-yanks.”
Charles wanted to wait a bit and observe the surroundings, but found himself trudging along in Ian’s footsteps. Confidence was one attribute Ian had in abundance, Charles thought as they entered the building.
Be nice if he had some common sense to go along with it.
Inside they were directed to the courtyard to the rear of the house and there they got in line behind a tall, lanky man, who looked to be in his early twenties.
“How old do you have to be to get into the army?” Charles whispered to Ian.
“I’m tellin’ ‘im I-I-I’m sah-seventeen,” Ian said.
Charles looked up at Ian and encountered his goofy grin. “What does that make me look like, nine?” Charles said.
“Tha-they only want men, ya dog dah-dick! Not Frenchie runts!” he finished with a chuckle.
The man in front of Ian made his mark on a long sheet of paper, said, “Thankee Sergeant,” and moved aside. Charles watched as he was directed to follow a soldier who also had an upside down V on his sleeves.
Ian stepped up and said in a loud voice: “Eh-Ian O’Rourke rah-reporting for duty, Sah-Sir!” He finished by standing at what he thought was attention and popping a salute, which ended up looking like he was trying to shield the sun from his eyes.
The sergeant looked at Ian like he wanted to spit in his eye. “So, ya wanna be a soldier in the best army in the world, do you, Snotnose!”
Ian relaxed and nodded his head up and down like a dog with an earful of ticks. “Yah-you betcha. Indeedydo I do.”
“So you say you’re at least sixteen. That be right?”
“Sah-sixteen, it is. How’d ja know?”
“Sign right cheer,” the burly sergeant said, pointing to a long line at the bottom of the page. “Ya git eleven Confederate dollars a month, a uniform when some more come in, a blanket after a while, some other trinkets, and you get half a tent to share. You get to do a lot of walking and take in the beautiful countryside and you kin pitch yore half-sheet anywheres ya a mind to inside a set area. How’s that for a deal?”
Without reading the document, Ian signed his name in a perfect cursive script.
“Why, that’s a fine hand, indeed,” the sergeant said, showing it to a younger, less-secure soldier standing to his right. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pretty handwriting. You’ll do fine, Son. Get on with yourself with the corporal there,” he said as he pointed to a fat soldier leaning against the fence, “and he’ll get your gear and get you sit-e-ated. Welcome to the By God Johnny Reb Army.”
Ian jumped out of line and the sergeant leveled his eyes at Charles.
“What ya want, Boy?” the sergeant growled as Charles took a step up to the table.
“My name is Charles Andre and I want to join up, me,” Charles said, his voice cracking.
“We don’t take nigras nor runts, in that order. We ain’t in that bad a shape yit. Next!” the sergeant bawled.
Charles didn’t budge. “I ain’t no nigra an’ I ain’t no runt.”
“I said ‘Next!’ Now git!” the corporal said, loudly and with meaning.
Charles remained still, the tops of his thighs pressed firmly against the table. “I want to join up and fight Yankees,” he said in a measured tone, staring straight at the soldier.
Charles felt footsteps behind him and instinctively tucked his neck into his collarless shirt as a protective reflex.
“What’s the problem here, Sergeant?” a rich baritone voice rang out.
Charles glanced over his right shoulder and saw a tall man looking down at him. The man was in a tailored, clean uniform with gold braid, epaulets, and a shiny sword in an ornate scabbard. His hair was long, to his shoulders; a mustache perfectly framed his mouth on three sides.
The sergeant stood quickly and snapped to attention. “No problem, Major. This here quadroon or octoroon tis tryin’ to jine up is all. I was just sendin’ him on his way.”
The major’s kind eyes stayed on Charles.
“So, boy, are you a nigra like the sergeant says?”
“No, sir, Major-suh. I’s French, me.”
“How old er ya be, boy?”
“Seventeen, sir,” Charles said, stretching his age more than a year.
“So, you small for yore age, er ya?” the major said, looking sternly.
“All us Andre’s is small, then we shoot up quick-like. My spurt's about due.”
“Sergeant,” the major said, “what makes ya’ll think this young’un’s a nigra?”
“Wah-wah-well, just look at him. He’s a half-breed if I ever saw one. Part Messkin and Chinneyman, I suspect, and looks like he probably got some black blood, too. Zits obvious, ain’t it?”
The major turned back to Charles as he spoke to the corporal. “Did you happen to notice his eyes? Did you ever see light brown eyes in a nigra’s head? I did once, but it was only one eye and it was just part of that one eye. No, Sergeant, this lad is no nigra. He may have a little mix in ‘im, but nigra blood, if he got any atall, is a dribblin’. But he’s a bit small to offer up as cannon fodder to the gawddamn Yankees.”
He put his hand on Charles’ shoulder and gently pushed him out of line. “Go home, boy. Go home and thank God that you was not taken in this army this day. Come back when you are much oldah and much biggah.”
The major turned to leave, but Charles’ voice stopped him: “I’m an orphan. I got no place to go.”
Without turning around, the major, his chin seemingly resting on his chest, said, “Then go back to the orphanage. Now. Git away from this camp and when you git where you are going, git down on your knees and pray that you never have to fight in a war such as this. This is a bad-feelin’ war, boy. Go away from this camp. En don’t come back.”
Charles watched him march off, back straight, left hand on his sword to minimize the swing.
When he disappeared in the shadows of the house’s entryway, Charles set his shoulders square and marched after him. He dodged a backhand blow thrown at him by a sentry stuck like a pike by the front door. Charles skidded into the house. The major was halfway up a stairway to the right, just passing a large portrait of a bloated man with billowy white hair. The man in the portrait looked kindly and evil at the same time.
“Whatcha doin’ back, heah, Boy?” the sergeant from the courtyard said from a part of the room that direct sunlight could not reach.
Charles stepped two steps forward and snapped to attention: “Charles Andre, sir, at your service, I am.”
The sergeant walked out of the darkness and spat, the glob of dark brown tobacco juice speckling the cypress plank floor just to the right of Charles’ foot. “Go home, boy, go home now. And don’t come back around here no more.”
Charles felt his arm gripped in a death-claw as he was hustled out the front door and shoved toward the street.
He looked around the camp and thought he saw Ian in a long line of disheveled and uncoordinated recruits, marching down the wagon road toward a tent village barely visible in the distance.
Ce qui maintenat?
What now? I can’t go back. I have no place else to go.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Where's Lucy when you need her?
Flipping
through channels
trying to locate
any image worth watching.
Commercials tout virility, hygiene, cures
for laundry day blues.
Oh, my! Give
me better
choices.
"Idol,"
"Lost," "Model"
pale in comparison
to Andy and Opie,
or crew from the "Minnow."
Serve up The Fonz,
or Fred, Ethel,
Ricky and
Lucy.
Where
are you,
Mary Tyler Moore?
Save the day, Lassie!
Captain Kangaroo is still preferable
to Square Pants' gang.
Shout! Gimme that
old-time
programming!
Newhart
needs revisiting.
Switch "Hogan's Heroes"
for any reality show.
Where are our yesterday's heroes
when we need them?
Mr. Rogers, we
hardly remember
thee!
Now,
television fodder
is curse words,
cleavage, scantily clad
protagonists (that's the men!),
big money shows, and unreal
attempts at portraying reality.
Ahhhh! A reprieve.
Time for
"Cops."
through channels
trying to locate
any image worth watching.
Commercials tout virility, hygiene, cures
for laundry day blues.
Oh, my! Give
me better
choices.
"Idol,"
"Lost," "Model"
pale in comparison
to Andy and Opie,
or crew from the "Minnow."
Serve up The Fonz,
or Fred, Ethel,
Ricky and
Lucy.
Where
are you,
Mary Tyler Moore?
Save the day, Lassie!
Captain Kangaroo is still preferable
to Square Pants' gang.
Shout! Gimme that
old-time
programming!
Newhart
needs revisiting.
Switch "Hogan's Heroes"
for any reality show.
Where are our yesterday's heroes
when we need them?
Mr. Rogers, we
hardly remember
thee!
Now,
television fodder
is curse words,
cleavage, scantily clad
protagonists (that's the men!),
big money shows, and unreal
attempts at portraying reality.
Ahhhh! A reprieve.
Time for
"Cops."
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Excerpt from an unpublished novel
When good turns to intolerable
My father hated his job. He had loved it one day. Then, the next, he was as miserable as he could be. It wasn’t a sad thing to see really, because no one saw it coming. The mood shift was like shutting the slats on a Venetian blind. Sunlight. Dimness. Bright? Good! Dark? Bad!
Momma explained away his unhappiness as the aftermath of his boss dying. But, as a grown-up senior in high school, I knew it was more than that. Pop loved his boss, even though they were opposites in practically every discernible way: Mister Gladdis was tall, thin, quiet, stolid; Pop was short, round as a basketball, loud, outrageous. Mister Gladdis didn’t bother to smile much; Pop’s hee-haw laugh – rising from deep inside and erupting with a gush – would put a donkey’s bray to shame.
The men made a good business couple in the small drug store in the small town in the small slice of East Texas called Avery. Pop entertained the customers in sundry ways; Mister Gladdis enjoyed being entertained, and worked hard to look as if he wasn’t involved in the audience participation part of the show.
One day in early winter, Mister Gladdis didn’t show up for work, which was as unusual as an eclipse. In the town of 332, everyone knew he has “passed” within thirty minutes of the event. Dialing three digits on a rotary phone was not a difficult undertaking. Pop heard the news from the wailing widow five minutes after she found her husband on the floor of the bedroom. He was dressed, the rumor mill assured all listeners, in his work clothes – dark pants, white shirt (light starch) and medium-width black tie. His shoes were shined to a nice gloss, his hair was in place, teeth brushed. It was a business day. No one expected anything less.
I got the news just as first period classes were winding down. James Lambert was late and had heard about the demisal at Buel’s Store where he went to buy an Annihilator (or Now and Later, as the candy was sometimes advertised).
James walked into the room just as Miz Grant said, “Today, we’re finishing up ‘Romeo and Juliet’ . . . ."
James interrupted: “But, hark, what light from yonder window shines? . . . Old Man Gladdis croaked this morning. Jerked to Jesus about ten minutes ago.”
Girls in the room sounded a chorus of “Awwwwwwww.” The boys mostly patted their patent leather hairdos and flattops with fenders and tried to look cool. I panicked. My whole life could be destroyed by this piece of flippantly delivered news!
It was like a soap opera, As The World Turns or Edge of Night. Would the Gladdis Drug Store stay open? Would Pop get to keep his job? Would the Smith family ever be happy again? Would I get to finish school at Avery? Would I have time to lose my virginity to Elsa Mahoney before leaving town?
Pop couldn’t lose his job and we couldn’t move. I had a basketball game Friday against Annona to decide the district championship!
Why’d did that old man have to go and die?
All day I waited for Mom and Pop to come driving up to the school in the family Chevy, pulling a trailer piled high with household goods looking for all the world like Henry Fonda’s Joad family hieing off to California to get away from having to live in Oklahoma. Thoughts fluttered through my head like broken-wing butterflies.
My God! Will they remember to bring my comic book collection?
What about the box of Post Cereal bicycle license plates buried under the southwest corner of the house?
Are we not even staying for the funeral?
That final thought was quickly batted away, like an attic bat with a Big Bill Tilden tennis racket. Funerals were a big deal in Avery. Next to Church of Christ singing schools, it was the premo social event. No way we weren’t staying for the funeral. Mister Gladdis was a Methodist and the Methodists knew how to send a member off right to Heaven – with a lot of singing, crying, and wailing, and a good graveside service. Chances are the widow would try and throw herself in the casket as they were trying to shut the lid. That was a growing trend at dead spouse funerals that was a hang-over from the war years. Black women performed the throw-themselves-in-a-coffin bit a lot at funerals in their churches. Whites did it less often as it was not considered “seemly.”
But when white women did do it, it was always a crowd-pleaser and talked about for weeks.
The Methodists also had their denomination’s reputation to uphold. Everybody knew Methodists always had the best indoor death picnic after a funeral. It was guaranteed they would set up a four- or five-table buffet that would have fed all the prisoners at Andersonville. Twice.
At lunch, instead of marching off to the cafeteria for Goulash Surprise and green bean casserole – it was Tuesday and that’s what the lunchroom ladies served on Tuesdays – I ran the half-mile to the drug store. Expecting to see a somber the-owner-is-real-dead atmosphere, I was not disappointed.
Mom was behind the soda fountain, leaning against the back marble counter, sipping a cup of black coffee. She saw me enter and head-nodded me to her, where she put her arm around me and . . . just hugged me tight. She meant that gesture to be comforting. It was anything but. It was worse than her screaming, bawling, and gnashing her teeth. The hug had a futility feel to it: Our lives have been tossed upside down and we’re leaving town by sundown.
Breaking the hug, I went to the pharmacy area, located behind a wall full of seldom-requested merchandise – enema bags (also called hot water bottles by the town’s widows), humidifiers, tubs of burn salve, household bluing, and the like. Pop was filling a prescription when I eased around the corner.
Intending to play the part of a stoic, worldly high school senior used to life’s tragedies, I blurted out, “Hey, Pop. What’s happenin’?”
He raised his head. I looked into his red-rimmed eyes. He had been crying. Pop didn’t cry.
I instantly turned into the Despair Triplets: Stutter, Blubber, and Cry. Pop was not a hugger, having been in World War II and all, but he held me and rubbed my back and I felt his body shake in sympathy for my pain.
After school, I went to the drug store before the bus left for Dimple for a conference basketball game. The game wasn’t cancelled despite the death of a leading citizen of the community. He was not a coach and his son wasn’t on the team.
No one mentioned Mister Gladdis. Pop told me to play hard. Mom told me to play hard. Both said they would see me at the game.
I think I remember playing hard, and I know we won the game. Dimple was a sucky town and had a sucky team and we could have beaten the Dumplings (they tried to call themselves the Tigers, but they were Dumplings) if all five Avery starters had croaked that day.
The funeral for Mister Gladdis was on Thursday and the Methodist Church was packed. In the middle of the talkathon about how great a man he was, I quit studying the weave of cotton in my dress pants and glanced up at Pop.
He had a spring thaw of water running down his cheeks.
In three days I had seen my father cry two times.
No child should have to experience that.
My father hated his job. He had loved it one day. Then, the next, he was as miserable as he could be. It wasn’t a sad thing to see really, because no one saw it coming. The mood shift was like shutting the slats on a Venetian blind. Sunlight. Dimness. Bright? Good! Dark? Bad!
Momma explained away his unhappiness as the aftermath of his boss dying. But, as a grown-up senior in high school, I knew it was more than that. Pop loved his boss, even though they were opposites in practically every discernible way: Mister Gladdis was tall, thin, quiet, stolid; Pop was short, round as a basketball, loud, outrageous. Mister Gladdis didn’t bother to smile much; Pop’s hee-haw laugh – rising from deep inside and erupting with a gush – would put a donkey’s bray to shame.
The men made a good business couple in the small drug store in the small town in the small slice of East Texas called Avery. Pop entertained the customers in sundry ways; Mister Gladdis enjoyed being entertained, and worked hard to look as if he wasn’t involved in the audience participation part of the show.
One day in early winter, Mister Gladdis didn’t show up for work, which was as unusual as an eclipse. In the town of 332, everyone knew he has “passed” within thirty minutes of the event. Dialing three digits on a rotary phone was not a difficult undertaking. Pop heard the news from the wailing widow five minutes after she found her husband on the floor of the bedroom. He was dressed, the rumor mill assured all listeners, in his work clothes – dark pants, white shirt (light starch) and medium-width black tie. His shoes were shined to a nice gloss, his hair was in place, teeth brushed. It was a business day. No one expected anything less.
I got the news just as first period classes were winding down. James Lambert was late and had heard about the demisal at Buel’s Store where he went to buy an Annihilator (or Now and Later, as the candy was sometimes advertised).
James walked into the room just as Miz Grant said, “Today, we’re finishing up ‘Romeo and Juliet’ . . . ."
James interrupted: “But, hark, what light from yonder window shines? . . . Old Man Gladdis croaked this morning. Jerked to Jesus about ten minutes ago.”
Girls in the room sounded a chorus of “Awwwwwwww.” The boys mostly patted their patent leather hairdos and flattops with fenders and tried to look cool. I panicked. My whole life could be destroyed by this piece of flippantly delivered news!
It was like a soap opera, As The World Turns or Edge of Night. Would the Gladdis Drug Store stay open? Would Pop get to keep his job? Would the Smith family ever be happy again? Would I get to finish school at Avery? Would I have time to lose my virginity to Elsa Mahoney before leaving town?
Pop couldn’t lose his job and we couldn’t move. I had a basketball game Friday against Annona to decide the district championship!
Why’d did that old man have to go and die?
All day I waited for Mom and Pop to come driving up to the school in the family Chevy, pulling a trailer piled high with household goods looking for all the world like Henry Fonda’s Joad family hieing off to California to get away from having to live in Oklahoma. Thoughts fluttered through my head like broken-wing butterflies.
My God! Will they remember to bring my comic book collection?
What about the box of Post Cereal bicycle license plates buried under the southwest corner of the house?
Are we not even staying for the funeral?
That final thought was quickly batted away, like an attic bat with a Big Bill Tilden tennis racket. Funerals were a big deal in Avery. Next to Church of Christ singing schools, it was the premo social event. No way we weren’t staying for the funeral. Mister Gladdis was a Methodist and the Methodists knew how to send a member off right to Heaven – with a lot of singing, crying, and wailing, and a good graveside service. Chances are the widow would try and throw herself in the casket as they were trying to shut the lid. That was a growing trend at dead spouse funerals that was a hang-over from the war years. Black women performed the throw-themselves-in-a-coffin bit a lot at funerals in their churches. Whites did it less often as it was not considered “seemly.”
But when white women did do it, it was always a crowd-pleaser and talked about for weeks.
The Methodists also had their denomination’s reputation to uphold. Everybody knew Methodists always had the best indoor death picnic after a funeral. It was guaranteed they would set up a four- or five-table buffet that would have fed all the prisoners at Andersonville. Twice.
At lunch, instead of marching off to the cafeteria for Goulash Surprise and green bean casserole – it was Tuesday and that’s what the lunchroom ladies served on Tuesdays – I ran the half-mile to the drug store. Expecting to see a somber the-owner-is-real-dead atmosphere, I was not disappointed.
Mom was behind the soda fountain, leaning against the back marble counter, sipping a cup of black coffee. She saw me enter and head-nodded me to her, where she put her arm around me and . . . just hugged me tight. She meant that gesture to be comforting. It was anything but. It was worse than her screaming, bawling, and gnashing her teeth. The hug had a futility feel to it: Our lives have been tossed upside down and we’re leaving town by sundown.
Breaking the hug, I went to the pharmacy area, located behind a wall full of seldom-requested merchandise – enema bags (also called hot water bottles by the town’s widows), humidifiers, tubs of burn salve, household bluing, and the like. Pop was filling a prescription when I eased around the corner.
Intending to play the part of a stoic, worldly high school senior used to life’s tragedies, I blurted out, “Hey, Pop. What’s happenin’?”
He raised his head. I looked into his red-rimmed eyes. He had been crying. Pop didn’t cry.
I instantly turned into the Despair Triplets: Stutter, Blubber, and Cry. Pop was not a hugger, having been in World War II and all, but he held me and rubbed my back and I felt his body shake in sympathy for my pain.
After school, I went to the drug store before the bus left for Dimple for a conference basketball game. The game wasn’t cancelled despite the death of a leading citizen of the community. He was not a coach and his son wasn’t on the team.
No one mentioned Mister Gladdis. Pop told me to play hard. Mom told me to play hard. Both said they would see me at the game.
I think I remember playing hard, and I know we won the game. Dimple was a sucky town and had a sucky team and we could have beaten the Dumplings (they tried to call themselves the Tigers, but they were Dumplings) if all five Avery starters had croaked that day.
The funeral for Mister Gladdis was on Thursday and the Methodist Church was packed. In the middle of the talkathon about how great a man he was, I quit studying the weave of cotton in my dress pants and glanced up at Pop.
He had a spring thaw of water running down his cheeks.
In three days I had seen my father cry two times.
No child should have to experience that.
Warning! This is about (shhhhh) s-e-x
The news is mostly good.
Arkansas is not No. 1. Not No. 2 or 3 either.
Arkansas comes in the No. 4 position for the award for most teenager pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers.
Thank God for Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico, which held the top three places.
The Associated Press story about this teen birth cultural phenomenon informed the reader that Mississippi led the nation with more than 60 birthings by teenagers, more than 60 percent over the national average of 42 births per 1,000 teens.
That figure is even more shocking if you consider that Mississippi doesn’t have as many teenagers as does, say, California, New York or Florida. But with more babies per teen capita, that gap is narrowing. (Statistically the paragraph above doesn’t make sense, I know, but it will to those in Mississippi who can read.)
Mississippi has 68 births per 1,000 teens, New Mexico has 64 and Texas, 63. Arkansas has 62, which is down from 79.5 teen births per 1,000 in 1991.
So we don’t let California or Florida totally off the hook, the rates in those states climbed by more than 30 percent in the past several years. New Hampshire with 19 births per 1,000 teens is at the bottom (or the top, depending on your point of view) of the list. You can figure that it's too cold and people wear too many clothes for much of the year when trying to figure out this statistic.
Regarding Mississippi’s surge to the top (or bottom) of the chart, a Mississippi State University researcher who focuses on children’s health issues, said it could be a one-year “statistical blip.”
Blip? Euphemism for s-e-x, it can be supposed.
The know-all right-wingnuts among us will point out that the states with proportionately more blacks and Hispanics are the states leading the grouping. Those groups traditionally have more teenage pregnancies, true. But then, other states – California, Arizona, New York, Florida, Alabama, etc. – also have a high representation of those ethnic groups in their population base.
If nothing else, the explanations by statistical and s-e-x-p-e-r-t-s for the “blip” are, well, interesting. The media attention on celebrity pregnancies, i.e., Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter, and Britney Spear’s sister, Jamie (star of the “Zoey 101” television show, resulted in teen pregnancies being considered “chic” or “hip,” according to one magazine.
Hip or blip?
So-called experts are blaming the national rise in results of blipping on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education programs that do not mention protected s-e-x. We were trying to figure out how to blame former President Bush for this unfortunate statistical “blip.”
That fact alone explains it to our satisfaction.
Arkansas is not No. 1. Not No. 2 or 3 either.
Arkansas comes in the No. 4 position for the award for most teenager pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers.
Thank God for Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico, which held the top three places.
The Associated Press story about this teen birth cultural phenomenon informed the reader that Mississippi led the nation with more than 60 birthings by teenagers, more than 60 percent over the national average of 42 births per 1,000 teens.
That figure is even more shocking if you consider that Mississippi doesn’t have as many teenagers as does, say, California, New York or Florida. But with more babies per teen capita, that gap is narrowing. (Statistically the paragraph above doesn’t make sense, I know, but it will to those in Mississippi who can read.)
Mississippi has 68 births per 1,000 teens, New Mexico has 64 and Texas, 63. Arkansas has 62, which is down from 79.5 teen births per 1,000 in 1991.
So we don’t let California or Florida totally off the hook, the rates in those states climbed by more than 30 percent in the past several years. New Hampshire with 19 births per 1,000 teens is at the bottom (or the top, depending on your point of view) of the list. You can figure that it's too cold and people wear too many clothes for much of the year when trying to figure out this statistic.
Regarding Mississippi’s surge to the top (or bottom) of the chart, a Mississippi State University researcher who focuses on children’s health issues, said it could be a one-year “statistical blip.”
Blip? Euphemism for s-e-x, it can be supposed.
The know-all right-wingnuts among us will point out that the states with proportionately more blacks and Hispanics are the states leading the grouping. Those groups traditionally have more teenage pregnancies, true. But then, other states – California, Arizona, New York, Florida, Alabama, etc. – also have a high representation of those ethnic groups in their population base.
If nothing else, the explanations by statistical and s-e-x-p-e-r-t-s for the “blip” are, well, interesting. The media attention on celebrity pregnancies, i.e., Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter, and Britney Spear’s sister, Jamie (star of the “Zoey 101” television show, resulted in teen pregnancies being considered “chic” or “hip,” according to one magazine.
Hip or blip?
So-called experts are blaming the national rise in results of blipping on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education programs that do not mention protected s-e-x. We were trying to figure out how to blame former President Bush for this unfortunate statistical “blip.”
That fact alone explains it to our satisfaction.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Carnival mind
A
carnival exists
inside my mind.
Fanciful characters, friendly freaks
mingle with myriad escaped nuances
to cavort, enjoy forced
captivity designed to
amuse only
me.
carnival exists
inside my mind.
Fanciful characters, friendly freaks
mingle with myriad escaped nuances
to cavort, enjoy forced
captivity designed to
amuse only
me.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Footprints in time
Footprints
in sand --
here-and-gone
artistry captures the reality
of a slice in time
between lovers, friends,
or, simply,
strangers.
The Catfish Man
Cigarettein hand,
the Catfish Man
checks out the scenery
around the fishing derby site.
With his drafty posterior,
he really cracks
up myriad
passersby.
A disclaimer: This is not a fake photo. It's also not one of my relatives. It's a man at a fishing tournament holding a cigarette in one hand and a catfish in the other.
PhotoShop is an amazing tool. But it's not good enough to create this.
Let's all go Googlin'
Mousing
one’s way
to increase knowledge
seems a bit lazy
unless you count the hours
it took to get
all that information
on the
internet.
Googlin'
is exhilarating
to those searching
for the most insignificant
facts, like what is the
world’s largest hummingbird or
the longest beard
in the
world?
Few
facts can’t
be found out
by search-and-click.
Still obscure facts include: Name
of person who has
the most impressive
collection of
zits.
Searching
that subject
resulted in the
disclaimer that zits are
comers-and-goers, not sticking
around long enough to
be considered countable.
Like savings
accounts.
one’s way
to increase knowledge
seems a bit lazy
unless you count the hours
it took to get
all that information
on the
internet.
Googlin'
is exhilarating
to those searching
for the most insignificant
facts, like what is the
world’s largest hummingbird or
the longest beard
in the
world?
Few
facts can’t
be found out
by search-and-click.
Still obscure facts include: Name
of person who has
the most impressive
collection of
zits.
Searching
that subject
resulted in the
disclaimer that zits are
comers-and-goers, not sticking
around long enough to
be considered countable.
Like savings
accounts.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Wailing at whales
Wailing
serves no
purpose when clinging
to a whale's back.
Whaling doesn't work for squat
when prey and vessel
are both one
and the
same.
serves no
purpose when clinging
to a whale's back.
Whaling doesn't work for squat
when prey and vessel
are both one
and the
same.
The mettle of a man
Chapter 9
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten;
bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Private Wilmer Scoggins was not someone Charles would ever seek out as a confidante or to pass the time in a friendly game of Wisk. Scoggins was not a man to sit around a campfire and enjoy a give-and-take round of casual conversation. Every time Charles saw the burly former bullwhacker he had the same reaction.
If he were on fire, I’d go to the creek to get some water to put him out. But I’d walk damn slow going and coming.
The hulking private had the face of a bully: Flat face, squashed nose slumping to one side like a wind-whipped, thick-trunked willow, and tiny, black river-pebble eyes lost in a face puffed from countless bottles of bad whiskey and the hammer of bare knuckles. Scar tissue dotted both cheekbones; busted ear cartilage, bulbous and fiery red, pulled his expansive ears away from his head.
If’n he could flap those things, he might soar high like a buzzard.
Scoggins was a loud, profane dullard, who thought being drunk was as close as he would ever get to Heaven. He hated the army, hated the officers of the Ninth, and only got along with two or three men in the company, all of his ilk – tough men, with the brains of moles, eyes always on the look-out for prey, fists always clinched in response to some indescribable internal rage.
The men of C Company acknowledged Scoggins’ strength was a blanket of unwavering courage he wore into battle. Or, his audacity in battle could be because, as one solider said in a whisper, “He’s just plain asylum-bound.”
Scoggins took an instant dislike to Charles for the smallest of reasons: The youngster’s slight stature.
“You’re too small and buggery looking to be much good for nothing,” Scoggins said more than once, eyeing Charles like a corn snake sizing up a crib mouse.
For the most part Charles consciously stayed out of the bully’s way. Like all slow-to-focus, dull-eyed, mouth-breathers, Scoggins’ attention was easily scattered and could be swayed from an intended target with relative ease.
It was fall and there was a faint chill in the air. The regiment was still encamped just south of the small village of Duroix Crossing. Charles Jacob Skimmer, a newcomer to the drum corps from the Twenty-first Michigan (who was reassigned to the Ninth “on an accident,” as he put it), was sitting under a chestnut tree near a small creek. Charles lightly tapped out sick call on a flat rock for practice while Jacob twittered on about life in Michigan. “Shore, it can get cold back home. But heck, it gets cold everwhere. The coldest I ever got in my life was in Mississip last winter. Damn near froze off my twig and berries! But it don’t get hot up home like it gets down here. Lord, but it’s hot. I hate wet heat worsen I hate the wet cold of the South.”
Scoggins stumbled onto the pair and quickly decided that tormenting the young drummers would be perfect pre-supper fun.
“Well, well, well,” Scoggins said, running blunt, dirty fingers through his bird’s nest of a beard. “If it ain’t the Rebel squirt and that other skin-beater. Whatcha doin’, boys, beatin’ on your skins!” He hee-hawed at this own joke.
Charles jumped up like he had sat on a hornet’s nest. Putting his right hand to ear, he said, “Hark! Hark, I say!”
Jacob squinted at Charles like he was about to have a fit. Scoggins’s beady eyes shrunk to the size of lentils.
“Hark!” All three held their breath. “I swear that’s cannon fire. Sounds like the Rebs are coming up the north road. Come on, Jacob! The colonel will be wanting us quick-like.”
As they ran back toward camp, Jacob looked hard at Charles. “I didn’t hear nothing. What did you hear?”
“Nothing!” Charles said, laughing. “But it was the best nothin’ I never did hear.”
They ran on toward the camp, laughing the frenzied cackle of the men jerked back from the edge of the grave.
“Hark?” Jacob said, wheezing between gulps of breath and forced laughter.
“I read it once in a book,” Charles said. “It sounded like the right thing to say at the time.” He paused. “Hark! Yep, that’s a right fine word.”
Thirty minutes later, as Charles and Jacob gathered up their supper rations, they saw Sergeant Rooney, a square-headed Irish tough squared up with Scoggins. The sergeant was screaming.
“The fooking Rebel Army is a-comin’, now ya be saying? Well, where they be, that’s a question I’ll be askin’ you?”
“Sergeant, that damn squirt—"
“You be shuttin’ your face, Private Scoggins. But since you think that the entire Rebel By Gawd Army be comin,’ I’m going to let you dig us a nice, deep hole so we can all hide in it. I want that nice, deep hole right next to the nice, deep pit at the end of that nut orchard. And, while you’re at it, cover up the old pit.
“In fact, get in the hole that you be coverin’ up. I’m sure you’ll feel right at home in that nice, deep, shitty hole with all your relatives.”
The sergeant stomped off toward the mess area and the two boys ducked quickly behind a tent as Scoggins scanned the area, his face a thunderhead of hatred.
“Best you stay out of his way for a spell,” Jacob said, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” Charles answered. He tried to sound fear-free and knew he failed.
Over the next several days, Charles spent a goodly amount of time on the lookout for Scoggins. When he went about camp on errands for the surgeon, the quartermaster, or one of the company or regimental officers, he blended in with groups of men going somewhere, or walked fast along the road next to the bivouac, keeping to its center and away from covering brush.
He admitted to himself that he was afraid of Scoggins; any sane man would be. He convinced himself that keeping away from the man was good, solid, New Orleans, Catholic, orphan common sense. Being hurt at the hands of a bully served little purpose.
Am I afraid of Scoggins?
He asked himself the question more often than he realized.
Not afraid, exactly, more like . . . cautious.
No, maybe afraid is what I am.
Not having had much experience in rough-and-tumble and none at all in what Brother Bartholomew had called the “art of pugilism,” Charles simply didn’t see any reason to fight the menacing soldier. That left plenty of reasons not to fight the man.
A couple of months after his run-in with Scoggins, Charles was headed toward the quartermaster to pick up some plug tobacco for Colonel Healy. A moisture-laded, steady breeze from the south nipped at his face and fingers as he burrowed further into his wool coat. His bedroll blanket served as a cape and scarf, but failed to keep the wind’s icy fingerlings from digging at his neck.
A roar to his right straightened him just as a blurred force knocked him from his feet. The impact launched him several feet; his momentum was retarded by a two-man tent, which collapsed under his weight. He later remembered hitting something solid inside the tent, an elbow maybe, or a knee, most likely. Yelps and grunts of pain came simultaneously from Charles and the tent’s occupant as Charles’ momentum carried him over the tent and into a small circle of men squatted around a campfire.
Stopping just short of the fire, Charles jumped up quickly and turned just in time to receive a numbing blow to his neck and shoulder. Backwards he stumbled before losing his balance and hitting the ground with his face facing the fire. Someone grabbed his leg and tried to flip him over onto the fire, but Charles kicked with his free foot, landing a squishy blow that elicited a satisfying grunt.
Rolling clear of the fire, Charles rose in a crouched position, ready to run if possible
. . . or fight, if necessary.
Scoggins!
Anger scorched his brain, a heated flatiron left on a cotton shirt. Fiery sparks hit the back of his eyes and blossomed into white-hot embers, as his brain tried to comprehend a logical solution to the problem.
He could feel his brain sluggishly starting to evaluate all angles of the situation just as a fist swept by his cheek, connecting like an iron bar into his shoulder. The blow knocked him to the ground a third time. Gathering his feet under him, he launched himself at his tormentor. With a banshee scream and fingers extended forward—eight daggers searching for a tender target—Charles left the ground and felt a high degree of satisfaction as the straightened fingers of his right hand struck Scoggins’ neck at the apex of his prominent Adam’s apple, as his left sliced into the big man’s right ear. Scoggins was trying to take a step backward to set himself firm but caught his right heel on a root, causing him to bend to the right. At impact he went ass over teakettle, turned a complete somersault, and ended up with his legs scattering the blazing campfire logs.
Scoggins grasped his neck with both hands; bawling sounds accompanied by a gagging noise strangled their way out of his open mouth. He only had time to make one feeble kick to disperse the flaming sticks when Charles started kicking him in the head with both feet.
(One soldier, recalling the scene in a letter home, wrote, “The young’un was poundin’ on him with both feet and it made a thumpin’ sound, like mess call on a little drum.” Every time he told that story to a new audience, the laughter was loud, raucous, and sustained.)
One kick connected with Scoggins’ chin and another was headed at the same target when Charles felt his feet leave the ground; his breath whooshed out by a chest-crushing weight. A feathering of red hair sprouted over his right shoulder; he grabbed the hair with both hands and yanked forward. A sharp yelp slapped his right ear like a blow from a flat stick.
Charles went airborne, hit the ground on his right side and rolled twice before his hip slammed into the trunk of a small pine. He lay still. Very still. He wanted to move, felt he should move out of a survival instinct, but his muscles refused to obey brain commands. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and took stock of the extent of the damage to his hip. The intense pain and dizziness quickly eased. Despite the confusion gripping him, he jumped to his feet and ran at Scoggins, still sitting on the ground, still holding his throat, screaming like a swamp cat beset by a pack of hunting dogs.
A heavy hand grabbed a headful of hair and jerked him off his feet. Pain sliced through the back of Charles’ head and a bubbling of tears hit the corner of both eyes. Grimacing and grinding his teeth so hard they ached, he forced his eyes open and through a thick veil of tears, he stared into the wild eyes of Sergeant Phillip Reilly of I Company.
The soft voice belied the crazed look in those eyes. “I’m trying to help you, boy. Now calm yoreself down.”
Trying not to move, Charles nodded with his eyes, blinked twice. The pressure on his hair eased, his feet found ground. “Now, git!” the gruff sergeant whispered loudly.
Charles turned to force his way out of the circle of soldiers. He stopped and slowly twisted his neck to stare at Scoggins, who was still on the ground. Charles noticed with satisfaction that there was blood on Scoggins’ shirt and a red ripple of blood ran from his ear, down his neck and dripped onto the fine dirt of the camp. He inwardly grinned when he heard the man blubbering. Consciously trying to lower the tone of his voice, he said in a sawmill whisper: “Private Scoggins, if you ever touch me again—ever touch me again!—I will kill you. That’s no threat, that. C’est une promesse. That’s a promise.”
He turned and walked away. A circle of men he didn't remember being there parted to let him through. More than one hand slapped him on the shoulder as he passed.
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten;
bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Private Wilmer Scoggins was not someone Charles would ever seek out as a confidante or to pass the time in a friendly game of Wisk. Scoggins was not a man to sit around a campfire and enjoy a give-and-take round of casual conversation. Every time Charles saw the burly former bullwhacker he had the same reaction.
If he were on fire, I’d go to the creek to get some water to put him out. But I’d walk damn slow going and coming.
The hulking private had the face of a bully: Flat face, squashed nose slumping to one side like a wind-whipped, thick-trunked willow, and tiny, black river-pebble eyes lost in a face puffed from countless bottles of bad whiskey and the hammer of bare knuckles. Scar tissue dotted both cheekbones; busted ear cartilage, bulbous and fiery red, pulled his expansive ears away from his head.
If’n he could flap those things, he might soar high like a buzzard.
Scoggins was a loud, profane dullard, who thought being drunk was as close as he would ever get to Heaven. He hated the army, hated the officers of the Ninth, and only got along with two or three men in the company, all of his ilk – tough men, with the brains of moles, eyes always on the look-out for prey, fists always clinched in response to some indescribable internal rage.
The men of C Company acknowledged Scoggins’ strength was a blanket of unwavering courage he wore into battle. Or, his audacity in battle could be because, as one solider said in a whisper, “He’s just plain asylum-bound.”
Scoggins took an instant dislike to Charles for the smallest of reasons: The youngster’s slight stature.
“You’re too small and buggery looking to be much good for nothing,” Scoggins said more than once, eyeing Charles like a corn snake sizing up a crib mouse.
For the most part Charles consciously stayed out of the bully’s way. Like all slow-to-focus, dull-eyed, mouth-breathers, Scoggins’ attention was easily scattered and could be swayed from an intended target with relative ease.
It was fall and there was a faint chill in the air. The regiment was still encamped just south of the small village of Duroix Crossing. Charles Jacob Skimmer, a newcomer to the drum corps from the Twenty-first Michigan (who was reassigned to the Ninth “on an accident,” as he put it), was sitting under a chestnut tree near a small creek. Charles lightly tapped out sick call on a flat rock for practice while Jacob twittered on about life in Michigan. “Shore, it can get cold back home. But heck, it gets cold everwhere. The coldest I ever got in my life was in Mississip last winter. Damn near froze off my twig and berries! But it don’t get hot up home like it gets down here. Lord, but it’s hot. I hate wet heat worsen I hate the wet cold of the South.”
Scoggins stumbled onto the pair and quickly decided that tormenting the young drummers would be perfect pre-supper fun.
“Well, well, well,” Scoggins said, running blunt, dirty fingers through his bird’s nest of a beard. “If it ain’t the Rebel squirt and that other skin-beater. Whatcha doin’, boys, beatin’ on your skins!” He hee-hawed at this own joke.
Charles jumped up like he had sat on a hornet’s nest. Putting his right hand to ear, he said, “Hark! Hark, I say!”
Jacob squinted at Charles like he was about to have a fit. Scoggins’s beady eyes shrunk to the size of lentils.
“Hark!” All three held their breath. “I swear that’s cannon fire. Sounds like the Rebs are coming up the north road. Come on, Jacob! The colonel will be wanting us quick-like.”
As they ran back toward camp, Jacob looked hard at Charles. “I didn’t hear nothing. What did you hear?”
“Nothing!” Charles said, laughing. “But it was the best nothin’ I never did hear.”
They ran on toward the camp, laughing the frenzied cackle of the men jerked back from the edge of the grave.
“Hark?” Jacob said, wheezing between gulps of breath and forced laughter.
“I read it once in a book,” Charles said. “It sounded like the right thing to say at the time.” He paused. “Hark! Yep, that’s a right fine word.”
Thirty minutes later, as Charles and Jacob gathered up their supper rations, they saw Sergeant Rooney, a square-headed Irish tough squared up with Scoggins. The sergeant was screaming.
“The fooking Rebel Army is a-comin’, now ya be saying? Well, where they be, that’s a question I’ll be askin’ you?”
“Sergeant, that damn squirt—"
“You be shuttin’ your face, Private Scoggins. But since you think that the entire Rebel By Gawd Army be comin,’ I’m going to let you dig us a nice, deep hole so we can all hide in it. I want that nice, deep hole right next to the nice, deep pit at the end of that nut orchard. And, while you’re at it, cover up the old pit.
“In fact, get in the hole that you be coverin’ up. I’m sure you’ll feel right at home in that nice, deep, shitty hole with all your relatives.”
The sergeant stomped off toward the mess area and the two boys ducked quickly behind a tent as Scoggins scanned the area, his face a thunderhead of hatred.
“Best you stay out of his way for a spell,” Jacob said, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” Charles answered. He tried to sound fear-free and knew he failed.
Over the next several days, Charles spent a goodly amount of time on the lookout for Scoggins. When he went about camp on errands for the surgeon, the quartermaster, or one of the company or regimental officers, he blended in with groups of men going somewhere, or walked fast along the road next to the bivouac, keeping to its center and away from covering brush.
He admitted to himself that he was afraid of Scoggins; any sane man would be. He convinced himself that keeping away from the man was good, solid, New Orleans, Catholic, orphan common sense. Being hurt at the hands of a bully served little purpose.
Am I afraid of Scoggins?
He asked himself the question more often than he realized.
Not afraid, exactly, more like . . . cautious.
No, maybe afraid is what I am.
Not having had much experience in rough-and-tumble and none at all in what Brother Bartholomew had called the “art of pugilism,” Charles simply didn’t see any reason to fight the menacing soldier. That left plenty of reasons not to fight the man.
A couple of months after his run-in with Scoggins, Charles was headed toward the quartermaster to pick up some plug tobacco for Colonel Healy. A moisture-laded, steady breeze from the south nipped at his face and fingers as he burrowed further into his wool coat. His bedroll blanket served as a cape and scarf, but failed to keep the wind’s icy fingerlings from digging at his neck.
A roar to his right straightened him just as a blurred force knocked him from his feet. The impact launched him several feet; his momentum was retarded by a two-man tent, which collapsed under his weight. He later remembered hitting something solid inside the tent, an elbow maybe, or a knee, most likely. Yelps and grunts of pain came simultaneously from Charles and the tent’s occupant as Charles’ momentum carried him over the tent and into a small circle of men squatted around a campfire.
Stopping just short of the fire, Charles jumped up quickly and turned just in time to receive a numbing blow to his neck and shoulder. Backwards he stumbled before losing his balance and hitting the ground with his face facing the fire. Someone grabbed his leg and tried to flip him over onto the fire, but Charles kicked with his free foot, landing a squishy blow that elicited a satisfying grunt.
Rolling clear of the fire, Charles rose in a crouched position, ready to run if possible
. . . or fight, if necessary.
Scoggins!
Anger scorched his brain, a heated flatiron left on a cotton shirt. Fiery sparks hit the back of his eyes and blossomed into white-hot embers, as his brain tried to comprehend a logical solution to the problem.
He could feel his brain sluggishly starting to evaluate all angles of the situation just as a fist swept by his cheek, connecting like an iron bar into his shoulder. The blow knocked him to the ground a third time. Gathering his feet under him, he launched himself at his tormentor. With a banshee scream and fingers extended forward—eight daggers searching for a tender target—Charles left the ground and felt a high degree of satisfaction as the straightened fingers of his right hand struck Scoggins’ neck at the apex of his prominent Adam’s apple, as his left sliced into the big man’s right ear. Scoggins was trying to take a step backward to set himself firm but caught his right heel on a root, causing him to bend to the right. At impact he went ass over teakettle, turned a complete somersault, and ended up with his legs scattering the blazing campfire logs.
Scoggins grasped his neck with both hands; bawling sounds accompanied by a gagging noise strangled their way out of his open mouth. He only had time to make one feeble kick to disperse the flaming sticks when Charles started kicking him in the head with both feet.
(One soldier, recalling the scene in a letter home, wrote, “The young’un was poundin’ on him with both feet and it made a thumpin’ sound, like mess call on a little drum.” Every time he told that story to a new audience, the laughter was loud, raucous, and sustained.)
One kick connected with Scoggins’ chin and another was headed at the same target when Charles felt his feet leave the ground; his breath whooshed out by a chest-crushing weight. A feathering of red hair sprouted over his right shoulder; he grabbed the hair with both hands and yanked forward. A sharp yelp slapped his right ear like a blow from a flat stick.
Charles went airborne, hit the ground on his right side and rolled twice before his hip slammed into the trunk of a small pine. He lay still. Very still. He wanted to move, felt he should move out of a survival instinct, but his muscles refused to obey brain commands. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and took stock of the extent of the damage to his hip. The intense pain and dizziness quickly eased. Despite the confusion gripping him, he jumped to his feet and ran at Scoggins, still sitting on the ground, still holding his throat, screaming like a swamp cat beset by a pack of hunting dogs.
A heavy hand grabbed a headful of hair and jerked him off his feet. Pain sliced through the back of Charles’ head and a bubbling of tears hit the corner of both eyes. Grimacing and grinding his teeth so hard they ached, he forced his eyes open and through a thick veil of tears, he stared into the wild eyes of Sergeant Phillip Reilly of I Company.
The soft voice belied the crazed look in those eyes. “I’m trying to help you, boy. Now calm yoreself down.”
Trying not to move, Charles nodded with his eyes, blinked twice. The pressure on his hair eased, his feet found ground. “Now, git!” the gruff sergeant whispered loudly.
Charles turned to force his way out of the circle of soldiers. He stopped and slowly twisted his neck to stare at Scoggins, who was still on the ground. Charles noticed with satisfaction that there was blood on Scoggins’ shirt and a red ripple of blood ran from his ear, down his neck and dripped onto the fine dirt of the camp. He inwardly grinned when he heard the man blubbering. Consciously trying to lower the tone of his voice, he said in a sawmill whisper: “Private Scoggins, if you ever touch me again—ever touch me again!—I will kill you. That’s no threat, that. C’est une promesse. That’s a promise.”
He turned and walked away. A circle of men he didn't remember being there parted to let him through. More than one hand slapped him on the shoulder as he passed.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Laugh!
Laugh
or not,
but don't chuckle.
Chucklers are the bane
of Laughter World's Visitor Center.
Lack of guffawocity creates
a sense of
chucklers being
laughadaisical.
or not,
but don't chuckle.
Chucklers are the bane
of Laughter World's Visitor Center.
Lack of guffawocity creates
a sense of
chucklers being
laughadaisical.
The aura thing
Have you ever wondered why some people can potty-train wild squirrels, while other people create mental chaos and extreme unease in animals from a block away?
Somebody ought to do a paper on it. Who, me? No way! I'm too busy aggravating the dog down the block.
Somebody ought to do a paper on it. Who, me? No way! I'm too busy aggravating the dog down the block.
Eternal triangle
Mice
are nice.
So are cats
if they are not
placed in a cage together.
Throw a dog in
and you have
artificially controlled
chaos.
are nice.
So are cats
if they are not
placed in a cage together.
Throw a dog in
and you have
artificially controlled
chaos.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Bubba Does Moscow
From 2007 visit to Russia:
I think I was approached by a prostitute in a big Russian mall. I’m not really sure.
I walked over to a mall and was in a soap shop, sniffing up all the good, clean smells. I felt this presence behind me to my right. I had my wallet zipped into my left side jacket pocket so I knew it was safe.
This voice said, “You look for soap, yes?” I turned and looked into the eyes of a young Sofia Loren, only with blonde hair. The woman was about 22-25, had on skin-tight black pants, a loose, open-necked white silky blouse and boots that stopped about 6mm below her knee. (I was in Russia and changing to metric seemed the right thing to do.)
I tried not to stare but did notice she had a 1.75 mm mole in the shape of the city outline of Riga just to the left center of her considerable, flawless cleavage; her lips were Julie Robertsish; her tongue was cuter than cute and slightly pointed; her fingernails were an off-fushia – sort of a Yoplait cherry yogurt color -- with a small, different celestial design on each one. Starting with the moon on the fingernail of her little finger of her left hand, she finished the original look with the nine planets – Mercury started on the ring finger of the left hand, then Venus, Earth, etc. (I didn’t have the heart to tell her Pluto was no longer a planet.)
I was proud of myself and didn’t stammer much at all. “Sah-soap. Looking at sah-soap, yes!”
“You don’t need soap. You smell good enough already.”
I think that was her. It could have been me.
She asked if I was American; I think I nodded. She asked if I needed a tour guide; I distinctly remember muttering something about having an appointment. I don’t think I asked her if she was going to be around the soap shop later. I also don’t think I extended my wedding ring finger for her viewing disappointment; you never know what gesture is considered impolite or crude in a foreign country.
I bought some soap for some reason and wandered off to get some ice cream. I suddenly needed something cold on my forehead. She finger-waved Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto in my direction.
I made myself a promise to get out the telescope when I got back home.
Had dinner one night at what was touted to be the best Japanese restaurant in the city. It was awful. Ordered Kirin on draft … they were out. Settled on Sapporo. Ordered broth with seafood and tempura dish. The soup was as fishy (smelling and tasting) ad bait shop water. (I am just imagining how bait shop water would taste. I don’t know from experience, but have a couple of cousins that probably would know first-hand.)
They served it in a teapot and gave you a bowl the size of an eye-rinse cup that had a slice of lime in it.I figured out the lime was an attempt to cut the fish taste. It failed its assigned task.
In the tempura dish, there was one shrimp, 12 pieces of onions, two small tomatoes, about an acre of eggplant, and a single zucchini strip. The dip wasn’t bad.
Halfway through the meal, a couple walked in. They looked French. Haughty. Gold chains everywhere. They both held a Yorkie. I named them Craphead and Fluffnut. I don’t know what they French names were.
Seated at the table next to me, they ordered. The people, not the dogs. The dogs apparently approved. The woman kept fluffing her dog’s head. I wondered if dog dandruff would help the taste of the fish soup. The man let his dog slurp some soup directly from the bowl.
I mean, come the hell on! In the South, we might take our dogs to McDonald’s, but most folks leave them in the truck! We might let our dogs eat scraps under the table at home, but at Wendy’s, they stay outside!
Other observations:
Sofia Borovskaya, Moscow correspondent for the company newsletter, escorted me to Red Square at night. It is a fairyland and really, really big. It also, I believe, has more drunks per square foot of space than any southern honky tonk at closing time. The only thing dark at Red Square is Lenin’s Tomb, but a line starts each morning about 8 and there are usually a thousand or more in line by the viewing of the 80-year-old corpse.
Wonder if Disney World ever thought about doing that for Ol’ Walt? It’d be an easy way to introduce kids to the “death” thing. “Hey, let’s go see Walt Disney’s corpse and then take in Small, Small World!”
--
The Radisson is an international hotel, for sure. The breakfast buffet is a clear indication of how international it is. Five stations for breakfast and some items are: Sushi, herring in mustard sauce, deli mystery meat, vegetable noodles (spaghetti), small hotdogs (called Hausburgher sausages. I tasted one; it wasn’t Ballpark brand) and “tomato beans” – pork and beans, slick-looking muesli … and the list goes on.
--
I helped one of the Dimitri’s at work write the acceptance letter for his son to MIT. The kid is 16 and they are deferring the full scholarship for a year for him to mature and earn money. Is that strange or is it just me? There are really people that smart?
--
Went to GUM Department Store. There’s more marble in that place than in the Taj Mahal. I went with the Dimitri with the smart kid and the entire family. Dimitri said, “Watch this.” He stopped at a vacated ice cream stand and we all gathered around and followed his lead by pointing and talking. Before long there was a line of people standing in line and crowding around.
As we left, Dimitri said he has done that same thing looking at a fire extinguisher in a glass case. (Sounds like something that would work at Wal-Mart late on Friday night, which I call Mutant Night.) Dimitri's family acted as embarrassed at him as mine does to me.
I think I was approached by a prostitute in a big Russian mall. I’m not really sure.
I walked over to a mall and was in a soap shop, sniffing up all the good, clean smells. I felt this presence behind me to my right. I had my wallet zipped into my left side jacket pocket so I knew it was safe.
This voice said, “You look for soap, yes?” I turned and looked into the eyes of a young Sofia Loren, only with blonde hair. The woman was about 22-25, had on skin-tight black pants, a loose, open-necked white silky blouse and boots that stopped about 6mm below her knee. (I was in Russia and changing to metric seemed the right thing to do.)
I tried not to stare but did notice she had a 1.75 mm mole in the shape of the city outline of Riga just to the left center of her considerable, flawless cleavage; her lips were Julie Robertsish; her tongue was cuter than cute and slightly pointed; her fingernails were an off-fushia – sort of a Yoplait cherry yogurt color -- with a small, different celestial design on each one. Starting with the moon on the fingernail of her little finger of her left hand, she finished the original look with the nine planets – Mercury started on the ring finger of the left hand, then Venus, Earth, etc. (I didn’t have the heart to tell her Pluto was no longer a planet.)
I was proud of myself and didn’t stammer much at all. “Sah-soap. Looking at sah-soap, yes!”
“You don’t need soap. You smell good enough already.”
I think that was her. It could have been me.
She asked if I was American; I think I nodded. She asked if I needed a tour guide; I distinctly remember muttering something about having an appointment. I don’t think I asked her if she was going to be around the soap shop later. I also don’t think I extended my wedding ring finger for her viewing disappointment; you never know what gesture is considered impolite or crude in a foreign country.
I bought some soap for some reason and wandered off to get some ice cream. I suddenly needed something cold on my forehead. She finger-waved Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto in my direction.
I made myself a promise to get out the telescope when I got back home.
Had dinner one night at what was touted to be the best Japanese restaurant in the city. It was awful. Ordered Kirin on draft … they were out. Settled on Sapporo. Ordered broth with seafood and tempura dish. The soup was as fishy (smelling and tasting) ad bait shop water. (I am just imagining how bait shop water would taste. I don’t know from experience, but have a couple of cousins that probably would know first-hand.)
They served it in a teapot and gave you a bowl the size of an eye-rinse cup that had a slice of lime in it.I figured out the lime was an attempt to cut the fish taste. It failed its assigned task.
In the tempura dish, there was one shrimp, 12 pieces of onions, two small tomatoes, about an acre of eggplant, and a single zucchini strip. The dip wasn’t bad.
Halfway through the meal, a couple walked in. They looked French. Haughty. Gold chains everywhere. They both held a Yorkie. I named them Craphead and Fluffnut. I don’t know what they French names were.
Seated at the table next to me, they ordered. The people, not the dogs. The dogs apparently approved. The woman kept fluffing her dog’s head. I wondered if dog dandruff would help the taste of the fish soup. The man let his dog slurp some soup directly from the bowl.
I mean, come the hell on! In the South, we might take our dogs to McDonald’s, but most folks leave them in the truck! We might let our dogs eat scraps under the table at home, but at Wendy’s, they stay outside!
Other observations:
Sofia Borovskaya, Moscow correspondent for the company newsletter, escorted me to Red Square at night. It is a fairyland and really, really big. It also, I believe, has more drunks per square foot of space than any southern honky tonk at closing time. The only thing dark at Red Square is Lenin’s Tomb, but a line starts each morning about 8 and there are usually a thousand or more in line by the viewing of the 80-year-old corpse.
Wonder if Disney World ever thought about doing that for Ol’ Walt? It’d be an easy way to introduce kids to the “death” thing. “Hey, let’s go see Walt Disney’s corpse and then take in Small, Small World!”
--
The Radisson is an international hotel, for sure. The breakfast buffet is a clear indication of how international it is. Five stations for breakfast and some items are: Sushi, herring in mustard sauce, deli mystery meat, vegetable noodles (spaghetti), small hotdogs (called Hausburgher sausages. I tasted one; it wasn’t Ballpark brand) and “tomato beans” – pork and beans, slick-looking muesli … and the list goes on.
--
I helped one of the Dimitri’s at work write the acceptance letter for his son to MIT. The kid is 16 and they are deferring the full scholarship for a year for him to mature and earn money. Is that strange or is it just me? There are really people that smart?
--
Went to GUM Department Store. There’s more marble in that place than in the Taj Mahal. I went with the Dimitri with the smart kid and the entire family. Dimitri said, “Watch this.” He stopped at a vacated ice cream stand and we all gathered around and followed his lead by pointing and talking. Before long there was a line of people standing in line and crowding around.
As we left, Dimitri said he has done that same thing looking at a fire extinguisher in a glass case. (Sounds like something that would work at Wal-Mart late on Friday night, which I call Mutant Night.) Dimitri's family acted as embarrassed at him as mine does to me.
Some deaths just ... stand out
This is a chapter from an unpublished historical novel titled "Reveille: Survival, war, family" about a young musician with the Ninth Connecticut Regiment serving in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War. Charles Andre was my great-grandfather.
Chapter 24
Some deaths just . . . stand out
Charles was attending to business at the latrine, having set up on the south end of the pit; the early evening southern breeze carried the nose-hair-curling smell in the opposite direction.
Small victories make for happy soldiers.
He smiled at the thought.
A noise from the tree line behind him – a small, muffled thump, followed by a miniscule squeak – caused him to look in that direction. Cupping his left ear, he waited for a repeat. Other than the nattering of a couple of squirrels and lonely bleat of a magpie, the forest was quiet.
Something, it assuredly was. But what?
He finished up with a handful of fallen leaves, still pliable enough to use without falling to pieces, when he heard the same, high-pitched squeak.
What is that?
Buttoning his pants and arm-wrestling his galouses into place, he walked to the edge of the tree line, stopped, listened.
There! To the left!
Three steps later, Charles stopped. Listened. Three more steps. He repeated that procedure four times before his eyes followed his ears to the ground beside a fat-trunked, silver-leafed maple. He saw a brief movement and watched as a leaf seemed to skitter slowly, unaided by wind, toward him.
A little early for snakes to be out, but you never know.
Using a nearby dead limb as a poke rod, he cautiously pushed the leaf aside. Under it was a tiny, gray thing, long-limbed and lean, powering through the ground cover.
A baby squirrel! It’s a baby squirrel! Probably fell out of the tree. Or pushed out by its mama or bigger brothers.
Charles bent over and looked the squirrel over carefully.
It’s eyes aren’t even open. It’s abandoned. Poor little thing.
He carefully picked it up, and brought it up to eye level. The squirrel
squirmed out of his loose grip, digging into Charles’ fingers with its tiny claws and levering itself onto the back of his hand.
It was an overcast early spring morning; a chill, held close to the ground by a low cloud cover, settled into the valley. Without conscious thought, Charles plucked the squirrel off his hand and stuck it inside his coat, between the wool outer garment and his longhandles. Without hesitation, the tiny critter crawled up Charles’ chest, finally settling on his left shoulder, where he seemed to be either very comfortable or just petered out due to the effort.
Feeling the bump to make sure the squirrel was secure, Charles started walking back to camp. His mind ran amok with endless questions?
Where’s his mama?
How’d he survive the fall?
How can I keep him alive?
Where can I get squirrel’s milk?
Back in camp, he went straight to the surgeon’s tent, where he found Surgeon Avery asleep on a frayed cot. “Mr., er, Doctor Avery,” Charles said, gently shaking his shoulder. Charles was greeted with heavy-lidded eyes.
In a matter of seconds, Charles had the bad news: Wild animals don’t do
well in captivity. A squirrel needs squirrel milk, although the doctor had heard of squirrels surviving on dog or goat milk. There are no dogs in the regiment, and no goats. The squirrel is going to die.
Dejected, Charles walked back toward his tent, cuddling the still squirrel through his rough wool coat.
A thought hit him as he walked along the creek bank near the command tent.
I’ve got to get some milk.
There was none to be had in camp; the last milk he had seen was from a cow confiscated by a Massachusetts company on a foraging trip several weeks ago. A half-bucket of milk was drawn before the cow was slaughtered and divided up among the regiments bivouacking in the valley.
Then he remembered something: Several days ago, he had gone exploring, back up the Valley Turnpike. Just walking, looking. At a ramshackled house right on the road there had been a yard cat, huddled in a box on a porch. He distinctly remember the sounds of mewling kittens and wondered what it would be like to have a real pet, something he could take care of, something that would love him . . . unconditionally.
He hollered at Sergeant Burke as he started jogging up the road, “Be back in a bit, just going for a look-see!”
The house was further than he had remembered and it took more than half-an-hour to get there; it was as he remembered, perched right in the bend of the road. He hello-ed the house from the road, not wanting to enter the property, especially when asking a favor was in the offing. The front door opened, and a young woman stepped from the dark into the porch’s shadow. She was plain in appearance, and a baby, girl maybe, clung to her neck like a small, hairless monkey. Dressed in a patterned shift of indeterminable age, the woman automatically touched her bun, checking for stray hairs, before shielding her eyes from the outside brightness. She stood stock still, staring at Charles.
“Excuse me, Ma’m, but I am in dire need of some milk.”
Taking a step backward, the woman pulled the baby closer and put her free arm across both breasts.
Embarrassed by his abrupt introduction, Charles stammered: “What-what I mah-mean, Ma’m, is that I need some milk from that mama cat yonder. Or a cow, if you got one.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out the tiny squirrel. “For my squirrel. Elseways, he’s gonna die.”
“Don’t have no cow. You Yanks done took her. Bull and baby, too. The squirrel, where’d you git him?” the woman asked in a voice just barely louder than the sound of a bare foot scuffing across a hardwood floor. Not the sound of emphatic statement, more of an after-thought.
“Sorry about your loss, Ma’m. I truly am. The squirrel, I found it in the woods back at camp. Reckon he fell out of a tree. I would’ve put him back, but the tree was kinda lean at the top, and I heard wild mama won’t take back babies that’s done been touched by a man.”
“So, what do you plan on doin’, milk the cat?”
Charles hadn’t thought through that part. His anguish was apparently obvious.
“Bring him up on the porch. What’s yore name, boy?”
“Charles Andre, Ma’m. What shall I call you?”
“Mrs. Lancaster will do. This is Honor,” she said, nodding at the baby.
Without another word, she took the squirrel in her free hand, simultaneously handing Honor to Charles. Without a word, the woman bent to the cat-filled box, pulled the five sleeping kittens away from the mama cat and put them on the porch, replacing them with the squirrel. Calming the cat with one hand – “Easy, Sadie, it’s all right.” – she thrust the squirrel toward a middle nipple. Charles watched as the squirrel simply sat there, obviously sniffing, but taking no action.
Mrs. Lancaster grabbed one of Sadie’s nipples and gently massaged it; a single bubble of milk appeared, which she gathered on her fingertip and massaged it gently but forcefully on the front of the squirrel’s mouth. A heartbeat later, the squirrel sucked in and the milk mustache disappeared. Retracing previous movements, the woman eased the squirrel’s mouth onto a teat, and this time the squirrel latched it, holding its base with tiny, skeletal hands, and started sucking.
Charles almost cried out in joy and he watched the squirrel . . .
My squirrel!
drinking his fill.
The woman looked at him with a puzzled look. “You gonna rub all Honor’s hair off, iffen you don’t stop rubbin’ her so hard.” Without even realizing it, Charles had been rubbing the baby’s head, his ministrations increasing with his excitement.
In less than a minute, the squirrel rapid sucking motion had stopped; its claws relaxed, body went limp as it fell into a hard sleep.
The woman lifted it gently from the box, stopping to let Sadie smell the squirrel. The cat didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the visitor.
Exchanging Honor for the squirrel, Charles started thanking the woman profusely. She held up a hand, stopping him in mid-sentence: “Whatcha gonna do with it’s time to feed it again?”
What am I gonna do?
Charles placed the squirrel inside his coat and it nestled once again on top of his left shoulder. He sat down heavily on the porch and just stared at the woods beyond the road.
“How far is your camp? Is it the one past the brook?”
“Yes, ma’m, Mrs. Lancaster. I’m with the Ninth Connecticut. A fine bunch of boys, they be.”
“Can you leave camp and bring the squirrel here three or four times a day to let it feed? Sadie apparently don’t mind the squirrel nursing. Two kittens died and there seems to be plenty of milk.”
Camp life was regular for regular soldiers, as well as for the drummers – drilling still going on, chores to be done for the quartermaster and surgeons, errands to be run for the officers.
But . . . maybe.
“Let me go back to camp and check with my sergeant, Ma’m. Is it okay if I come back this afternoon?”
Mrs. Lancaster stopped bouncing the baby and cast a glance in Charles’ direction. “You better. Or the squirrel won’t make it till dark.”
She turned to go in the house, but Charles stopped her by blurting out: “Mrs. Lancaster. Your man? Is he in the war?”
She didn’t turn around. Her head dropped by degrees until her chin was almost on her chest. “He was. Not any more. He’s up on the hill now, under that lone tree. At least that’s where I put my memories of him.” With heavy steps, she entered the house and gently closed the door.
Charles turned to go, but a slight door squeak caused him to turn back. The woman, still clutching the baby, was standing in the doorway.
“The squirrel? It got a name?”
“Not yet,” Charles answered. “I thought I’d think on it on the way back to camp.”
“Squirrel needs a name. A name makes things more permanent, somehow.” Neither of them moved during a long pause. “My husband’s name was Edward. Edward Eugene Lancaster.” Without seeming to move, she closed the door.
The entire way back to camp, Charles rolled a litany of what he considered proper squirrel names around in his head. By the time he reached camp, he had the perfect name picked out.
Less than a half-mile from camp Charles met Private Joseph Dronant, a Texan who had signed on with the Ninth in New Orleans about six months before Charles.
The young soldier had just emerged from a stand of trees at the side of the road. The two had had several conversations about life in New Orleans over the past year or more so Charles was not surprised when Dronant said, “Andre! Where you been? We all thought you had runned off to join Jubel Early and his boys?”
Charles joshed back: “Been feeling a little squirrely at that, Nawlins Joe.” Without another word, he hauled the squirrel out and put it on display in the palm of his hand.
Charles recounted the tale of finding the squirrel, of getting its meal from a cat named Sadie and the sad-faced woman who was so accommodating.
“Ya named it yet?”
“Yep. Eugene.”
“Eugene? What kinda name is that for a critter?”
“It’s just a name, is all. But I’m gonna call him Johnny Reb.”
“Why, Andre, that’s just plain queer. Why Johnny Reb.”
Holding the squirrel up to eye level, Charles smiled and said: “Why, it’s a plain as the nose on your face, Joe. He’s kinda skinny and helpless, like them Rebs we been pushin’ all over these mountains. But mostly it’s because he’s got a little gray coat. Get it? Gray coat? Johnny Reb?”
Put back inside Charles’ coat, the squirrel went back to sleep immediately. And the two soldiers walked side by side into camp, laughing at the tiny irony.
Two hours later, after getting permission from Sergeant Johnson to visit the Lancaster household – “But no more than once a day. Is that understood?” – Charles approached the farmhouse. The woman was sitting on an old, flat-bottomed chair, holding a sleeping Honor in her lap.
“Back so soon?”
Charles stopped at the porch’s edge. “Named the squirrel.”
“Really? That fast? Well, boys are always making decisions fast. That’s why they get in so much trouble.”
She looked at Charles and cocked her head. “Well, you gonna tell me the name or not?”
“Eugene.”
The woman’s eyes widened. She mouthed, “Eugene?”
Charles nodded.
She cleared her throat, startling Honor. “Funny name for a squirrel, don’t you think?”
“I thought it was a fine name. Thought about naming him ‘Edward,’ but Edward seemed like a funny name for a squirrel. So it naturally fell to ‘Eugene.’”
There was a short, quiet pause, then Mrs. Lancaster started laughing. Waiting to see if it the laughter was real or forced, Charles quickly joined in. The belly-shaking laughter of her mother woke up Honor and the peals of laughter washed over the front yard.
It was Mrs. Lancaster who came up with a workable plan for keeping the squirrel alive. (“Feeding it once a day just won’t do.”) Charles agreed to leave Eugene (Johnny Reb) full time at the Lancaster farm to let it nurse with the five kittens. Mrs. Lancaster made it clear Charles could visit whenever he could and stay as long as he liked.
Upon returning to camp, Sergeant Johnson seemed a bit disappointed that Charles didn’t have the squirrel, but clapped him on the back: “That was a mighty grownup decision you made, Andre. Mighty grownup.”
Over the next three days – two of which were overcast, chilly and rainy – Charles made the two-mile trip to the Lancaster farm six times (Sergeant Johnson eager to approve the squirrel-visit requests), reveling in the thought of playing with Johnny Reb and visiting Mrs. Lancaster and Honor.
The fourth day was bright and sunny and it was dew early – the dew still covered the fields – when Charles approached the Lancaster place. He was surprised to see Mrs. Lancaster out on the porch.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Lancaster. How’s Honor?”
“She’s fine. She got up early, but is sleepin’ again. The squirrel had a bad night. It’s real poorly.”
Just like that. No preamble. No warning. No “Eugene.” Just “squirrel.”
“What’s the matter with Johnny Reb? Where is he?”
Her eyebrows arched at the “Johnny Reb” reference, but she let it pass. “He’s havin’ trouble gettin’ air. He’s not eatin’ right. His stomach is all pooched out. It’s what wild animals do sometimes. They get sick and die for no good reason. Like some people.”
Charles bent over the cat box, and picked up the tiny squirrel. It was mostly limp and mostly cold. “Oh, Sweet Mary, he’s really sick.” Without a word, Mrs. Lancaster went into the house, but didn’t close the door despite the chill north breeze slipping over the mountains and down the valley.
She watched through the cracked door as Charles cupped the squirrel tightly to his chest, rubbing it gently on his stiff wool coat; she heard his plaintive whispers as Charles bent his head and breathed words into the lank fur: "You're going to be okay…you're going to make it…you're a fighter. Please. Come on!"
He held the squirrel up chin high and rubbed its legs, brought him back down and cradled him, rubbing his chest, trying to warm him. Charles extended his arms, raising the baby squirrel up, offering him the sun’s warmth.
And, just for a moment, Mrs. Lancaster saw Charles look directly at the early morning sun, seeming to try and mentally gather its power for a miracle.
Charles’ thoughts tumbled around like a piece of driftwood in a swollen creek:
Don’t want much. Just a bit of good luck. Never asked for much. Now I’m asking. Come on, Johnny Reb!
He gathered a large breath and blew into the squirrel's face and rubbed its chest frantically. The squirrel's legs straightened. It took a breath, and went completely limp.
Charles said nothing more. His mind went blank; his eyes filled with tears that he refused to let fall. He looked at the tiny squirrel stretched out in an unnatural position in the palm of his hand. It did not move. Its black eyes, open and unfocused, stared blankly, seeing nothing.
Since he had joined the army, Charles had lived near death daily. Men died for vile diseases, of consumption, in camp accidents, and in the rigors and throes of battles. He had watched gut-shot men curl up and die, and had seen animals killed and butchered – large and small, domestic and wild – and he had never blinked an eye.
But today was different; there was no reason for Johnny Reb to die – there was no hunger, no way of life to fight for, no belief to defend. There was no blood; there was no reason.
It's just a dumb ole' squirrel.
And . . . he’s gone.
Mrs. Lancaster watched as Charles placed the squirrel on the edge of the porch and walked away, his eyes facing down to the ground and away from the sunshine. He walked to the edge of the road, stopping to kick a rock into the field across the road, like that was his mission all along.
Neither said a word for what seemed like a long time. Finally, Mrs. Lancaster said, “I am going to put Eugene in an old sock. There’s a hoe around back if’n you want to bury him.”
“It don’t make no difference. It’s just a squirrel.”
“Don’t you talk that way!” she said, stomping her foot forcefully on the porch. “Don’t you dare talk that way atall! He was yourn and he had a name. Now, go git that hoe and git it quick-like.”
There was no argument left in Charles. He turned to the house and fetched the hoe. He picked up the sad sock, cradled it in his left arm and turned toward the hill.
“Hold on a minute. Let me get Honor and I’ll go with you.”
Charles waited until she returned with the fussy child, who obviously would have preferred to sleep rather than go on a grave-digging jaunt.
As they walked around to the back of the small house, Mrs. Lancaster said, “Got any special place you want to bury the squirrel?”
“Haven’t given it much thought.”
She stopped abruptly at the corner of the house and leaned her head on the bare boards. Reflected sunlight off the parched field caused her to close her eyes.
She looks tired, tired as I feel.
Her voice was soft and thready: “I think a good place might be under that oak on the hill yonder.”
Charles had seen the spot before, but now looked at it with a discerning eye. It was a small knoll, capped by a majestic, spreading oak tree and a single, simple, wooden cross.
“I can’t think of a better place in this whole valley, Mrs. Lancaster.”
It was three days before Charles could work enough energy and want-to to walk back to the Lancaster farm. Even from a distance, he knew no one was home. More of a feeling than a fact. When he got closer he saw the porch chair and the basket of hanging flowers were gone; there was a vacancy on the north side of the barn, where the wagon had always been.
As a matter of courtesy, he announced his presence; when there was no answer, as expected; he walked up on the porch and peered through the single-paned window. Empty. He walked through the skinny front yard, rounded the corner of the house and started up the hill for the tree.
Stray thoughts skipped around inside his head like a flat stone slung on a calm pond.
Feeling this way about a squirrel is just dumb.
Wonder where they went?
Didn’t have it long enough to become attached.
Wished I could have said goodbye.
It was just a dumb squirrel.
Why’d it have to up and die?
He was topping the rise when he looked up and saw that the flimsy cross on Mr. Lancaster’s grave had been replaced with a round-topped slab of barn board. The hand-painted letters were in a bold, clean hand:
Edward
Eugene
Lancaster
b. June 3, 1841
d. July 10, 1864
Good man, husband, father
Blinking back the tears, Charles turned his attention to the smaller, wooden grave marker with small, pinched writing next to it.
Eugene
One of God’s fine squrels
In his short life,
he was loved
There was a tobacco tin between the two crosses. “Chas” was printed on it with what looked like (and felt like) a mixture of honeycomb and boot black. It was closed tight, and it took some working with a small stick to pry off the lid. The note was short:
Dear Chas:
Me and Honor goin back to MaryLand to live with my Foks. No thing left for us Here. Sorry I didn’t get to say Goodby. One of the soljers told me about you naming Eugene “Johnnie Reb.” Those are too Fine names to my way of Thinking. Don't be too Sad! Eugene had Food and Warmth and a Place in the Light for the best part of his Life. Unlike too many of us, he didn't Worry bout a World thout him, but wuz jest fine being a Squrel and content to be. As long as that was the thing to do.
Mrs. Edw. Eugene (Hope) Lancaster
Charles had never felt as alone in his whole life as he did at that moment.
He sat down between the two little wooden tombstones – one small, one smaller – and didn’t get up until the sun had set over Manussetten Mountain.
Chapter 24
Some deaths just . . . stand out
Charles was attending to business at the latrine, having set up on the south end of the pit; the early evening southern breeze carried the nose-hair-curling smell in the opposite direction.
Small victories make for happy soldiers.
He smiled at the thought.
A noise from the tree line behind him – a small, muffled thump, followed by a miniscule squeak – caused him to look in that direction. Cupping his left ear, he waited for a repeat. Other than the nattering of a couple of squirrels and lonely bleat of a magpie, the forest was quiet.
Something, it assuredly was. But what?
He finished up with a handful of fallen leaves, still pliable enough to use without falling to pieces, when he heard the same, high-pitched squeak.
What is that?
Buttoning his pants and arm-wrestling his galouses into place, he walked to the edge of the tree line, stopped, listened.
There! To the left!
Three steps later, Charles stopped. Listened. Three more steps. He repeated that procedure four times before his eyes followed his ears to the ground beside a fat-trunked, silver-leafed maple. He saw a brief movement and watched as a leaf seemed to skitter slowly, unaided by wind, toward him.
A little early for snakes to be out, but you never know.
Using a nearby dead limb as a poke rod, he cautiously pushed the leaf aside. Under it was a tiny, gray thing, long-limbed and lean, powering through the ground cover.
A baby squirrel! It’s a baby squirrel! Probably fell out of the tree. Or pushed out by its mama or bigger brothers.
Charles bent over and looked the squirrel over carefully.
It’s eyes aren’t even open. It’s abandoned. Poor little thing.
He carefully picked it up, and brought it up to eye level. The squirrel
squirmed out of his loose grip, digging into Charles’ fingers with its tiny claws and levering itself onto the back of his hand.
It was an overcast early spring morning; a chill, held close to the ground by a low cloud cover, settled into the valley. Without conscious thought, Charles plucked the squirrel off his hand and stuck it inside his coat, between the wool outer garment and his longhandles. Without hesitation, the tiny critter crawled up Charles’ chest, finally settling on his left shoulder, where he seemed to be either very comfortable or just petered out due to the effort.
Feeling the bump to make sure the squirrel was secure, Charles started walking back to camp. His mind ran amok with endless questions?
Where’s his mama?
How’d he survive the fall?
How can I keep him alive?
Where can I get squirrel’s milk?
Back in camp, he went straight to the surgeon’s tent, where he found Surgeon Avery asleep on a frayed cot. “Mr., er, Doctor Avery,” Charles said, gently shaking his shoulder. Charles was greeted with heavy-lidded eyes.
In a matter of seconds, Charles had the bad news: Wild animals don’t do
well in captivity. A squirrel needs squirrel milk, although the doctor had heard of squirrels surviving on dog or goat milk. There are no dogs in the regiment, and no goats. The squirrel is going to die.
Dejected, Charles walked back toward his tent, cuddling the still squirrel through his rough wool coat.
A thought hit him as he walked along the creek bank near the command tent.
I’ve got to get some milk.
There was none to be had in camp; the last milk he had seen was from a cow confiscated by a Massachusetts company on a foraging trip several weeks ago. A half-bucket of milk was drawn before the cow was slaughtered and divided up among the regiments bivouacking in the valley.
Then he remembered something: Several days ago, he had gone exploring, back up the Valley Turnpike. Just walking, looking. At a ramshackled house right on the road there had been a yard cat, huddled in a box on a porch. He distinctly remember the sounds of mewling kittens and wondered what it would be like to have a real pet, something he could take care of, something that would love him . . . unconditionally.
He hollered at Sergeant Burke as he started jogging up the road, “Be back in a bit, just going for a look-see!”
The house was further than he had remembered and it took more than half-an-hour to get there; it was as he remembered, perched right in the bend of the road. He hello-ed the house from the road, not wanting to enter the property, especially when asking a favor was in the offing. The front door opened, and a young woman stepped from the dark into the porch’s shadow. She was plain in appearance, and a baby, girl maybe, clung to her neck like a small, hairless monkey. Dressed in a patterned shift of indeterminable age, the woman automatically touched her bun, checking for stray hairs, before shielding her eyes from the outside brightness. She stood stock still, staring at Charles.
“Excuse me, Ma’m, but I am in dire need of some milk.”
Taking a step backward, the woman pulled the baby closer and put her free arm across both breasts.
Embarrassed by his abrupt introduction, Charles stammered: “What-what I mah-mean, Ma’m, is that I need some milk from that mama cat yonder. Or a cow, if you got one.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out the tiny squirrel. “For my squirrel. Elseways, he’s gonna die.”
“Don’t have no cow. You Yanks done took her. Bull and baby, too. The squirrel, where’d you git him?” the woman asked in a voice just barely louder than the sound of a bare foot scuffing across a hardwood floor. Not the sound of emphatic statement, more of an after-thought.
“Sorry about your loss, Ma’m. I truly am. The squirrel, I found it in the woods back at camp. Reckon he fell out of a tree. I would’ve put him back, but the tree was kinda lean at the top, and I heard wild mama won’t take back babies that’s done been touched by a man.”
“So, what do you plan on doin’, milk the cat?”
Charles hadn’t thought through that part. His anguish was apparently obvious.
“Bring him up on the porch. What’s yore name, boy?”
“Charles Andre, Ma’m. What shall I call you?”
“Mrs. Lancaster will do. This is Honor,” she said, nodding at the baby.
Without another word, she took the squirrel in her free hand, simultaneously handing Honor to Charles. Without a word, the woman bent to the cat-filled box, pulled the five sleeping kittens away from the mama cat and put them on the porch, replacing them with the squirrel. Calming the cat with one hand – “Easy, Sadie, it’s all right.” – she thrust the squirrel toward a middle nipple. Charles watched as the squirrel simply sat there, obviously sniffing, but taking no action.
Mrs. Lancaster grabbed one of Sadie’s nipples and gently massaged it; a single bubble of milk appeared, which she gathered on her fingertip and massaged it gently but forcefully on the front of the squirrel’s mouth. A heartbeat later, the squirrel sucked in and the milk mustache disappeared. Retracing previous movements, the woman eased the squirrel’s mouth onto a teat, and this time the squirrel latched it, holding its base with tiny, skeletal hands, and started sucking.
Charles almost cried out in joy and he watched the squirrel . . .
My squirrel!
drinking his fill.
The woman looked at him with a puzzled look. “You gonna rub all Honor’s hair off, iffen you don’t stop rubbin’ her so hard.” Without even realizing it, Charles had been rubbing the baby’s head, his ministrations increasing with his excitement.
In less than a minute, the squirrel rapid sucking motion had stopped; its claws relaxed, body went limp as it fell into a hard sleep.
The woman lifted it gently from the box, stopping to let Sadie smell the squirrel. The cat didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the visitor.
Exchanging Honor for the squirrel, Charles started thanking the woman profusely. She held up a hand, stopping him in mid-sentence: “Whatcha gonna do with it’s time to feed it again?”
What am I gonna do?
Charles placed the squirrel inside his coat and it nestled once again on top of his left shoulder. He sat down heavily on the porch and just stared at the woods beyond the road.
“How far is your camp? Is it the one past the brook?”
“Yes, ma’m, Mrs. Lancaster. I’m with the Ninth Connecticut. A fine bunch of boys, they be.”
“Can you leave camp and bring the squirrel here three or four times a day to let it feed? Sadie apparently don’t mind the squirrel nursing. Two kittens died and there seems to be plenty of milk.”
Camp life was regular for regular soldiers, as well as for the drummers – drilling still going on, chores to be done for the quartermaster and surgeons, errands to be run for the officers.
But . . . maybe.
“Let me go back to camp and check with my sergeant, Ma’m. Is it okay if I come back this afternoon?”
Mrs. Lancaster stopped bouncing the baby and cast a glance in Charles’ direction. “You better. Or the squirrel won’t make it till dark.”
She turned to go in the house, but Charles stopped her by blurting out: “Mrs. Lancaster. Your man? Is he in the war?”
She didn’t turn around. Her head dropped by degrees until her chin was almost on her chest. “He was. Not any more. He’s up on the hill now, under that lone tree. At least that’s where I put my memories of him.” With heavy steps, she entered the house and gently closed the door.
Charles turned to go, but a slight door squeak caused him to turn back. The woman, still clutching the baby, was standing in the doorway.
“The squirrel? It got a name?”
“Not yet,” Charles answered. “I thought I’d think on it on the way back to camp.”
“Squirrel needs a name. A name makes things more permanent, somehow.” Neither of them moved during a long pause. “My husband’s name was Edward. Edward Eugene Lancaster.” Without seeming to move, she closed the door.
The entire way back to camp, Charles rolled a litany of what he considered proper squirrel names around in his head. By the time he reached camp, he had the perfect name picked out.
Less than a half-mile from camp Charles met Private Joseph Dronant, a Texan who had signed on with the Ninth in New Orleans about six months before Charles.
The young soldier had just emerged from a stand of trees at the side of the road. The two had had several conversations about life in New Orleans over the past year or more so Charles was not surprised when Dronant said, “Andre! Where you been? We all thought you had runned off to join Jubel Early and his boys?”
Charles joshed back: “Been feeling a little squirrely at that, Nawlins Joe.” Without another word, he hauled the squirrel out and put it on display in the palm of his hand.
Charles recounted the tale of finding the squirrel, of getting its meal from a cat named Sadie and the sad-faced woman who was so accommodating.
“Ya named it yet?”
“Yep. Eugene.”
“Eugene? What kinda name is that for a critter?”
“It’s just a name, is all. But I’m gonna call him Johnny Reb.”
“Why, Andre, that’s just plain queer. Why Johnny Reb.”
Holding the squirrel up to eye level, Charles smiled and said: “Why, it’s a plain as the nose on your face, Joe. He’s kinda skinny and helpless, like them Rebs we been pushin’ all over these mountains. But mostly it’s because he’s got a little gray coat. Get it? Gray coat? Johnny Reb?”
Put back inside Charles’ coat, the squirrel went back to sleep immediately. And the two soldiers walked side by side into camp, laughing at the tiny irony.
Two hours later, after getting permission from Sergeant Johnson to visit the Lancaster household – “But no more than once a day. Is that understood?” – Charles approached the farmhouse. The woman was sitting on an old, flat-bottomed chair, holding a sleeping Honor in her lap.
“Back so soon?”
Charles stopped at the porch’s edge. “Named the squirrel.”
“Really? That fast? Well, boys are always making decisions fast. That’s why they get in so much trouble.”
She looked at Charles and cocked her head. “Well, you gonna tell me the name or not?”
“Eugene.”
The woman’s eyes widened. She mouthed, “Eugene?”
Charles nodded.
She cleared her throat, startling Honor. “Funny name for a squirrel, don’t you think?”
“I thought it was a fine name. Thought about naming him ‘Edward,’ but Edward seemed like a funny name for a squirrel. So it naturally fell to ‘Eugene.’”
There was a short, quiet pause, then Mrs. Lancaster started laughing. Waiting to see if it the laughter was real or forced, Charles quickly joined in. The belly-shaking laughter of her mother woke up Honor and the peals of laughter washed over the front yard.
It was Mrs. Lancaster who came up with a workable plan for keeping the squirrel alive. (“Feeding it once a day just won’t do.”) Charles agreed to leave Eugene (Johnny Reb) full time at the Lancaster farm to let it nurse with the five kittens. Mrs. Lancaster made it clear Charles could visit whenever he could and stay as long as he liked.
Upon returning to camp, Sergeant Johnson seemed a bit disappointed that Charles didn’t have the squirrel, but clapped him on the back: “That was a mighty grownup decision you made, Andre. Mighty grownup.”
Over the next three days – two of which were overcast, chilly and rainy – Charles made the two-mile trip to the Lancaster farm six times (Sergeant Johnson eager to approve the squirrel-visit requests), reveling in the thought of playing with Johnny Reb and visiting Mrs. Lancaster and Honor.
The fourth day was bright and sunny and it was dew early – the dew still covered the fields – when Charles approached the Lancaster place. He was surprised to see Mrs. Lancaster out on the porch.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Lancaster. How’s Honor?”
“She’s fine. She got up early, but is sleepin’ again. The squirrel had a bad night. It’s real poorly.”
Just like that. No preamble. No warning. No “Eugene.” Just “squirrel.”
“What’s the matter with Johnny Reb? Where is he?”
Her eyebrows arched at the “Johnny Reb” reference, but she let it pass. “He’s havin’ trouble gettin’ air. He’s not eatin’ right. His stomach is all pooched out. It’s what wild animals do sometimes. They get sick and die for no good reason. Like some people.”
Charles bent over the cat box, and picked up the tiny squirrel. It was mostly limp and mostly cold. “Oh, Sweet Mary, he’s really sick.” Without a word, Mrs. Lancaster went into the house, but didn’t close the door despite the chill north breeze slipping over the mountains and down the valley.
She watched through the cracked door as Charles cupped the squirrel tightly to his chest, rubbing it gently on his stiff wool coat; she heard his plaintive whispers as Charles bent his head and breathed words into the lank fur: "You're going to be okay…you're going to make it…you're a fighter. Please. Come on!"
He held the squirrel up chin high and rubbed its legs, brought him back down and cradled him, rubbing his chest, trying to warm him. Charles extended his arms, raising the baby squirrel up, offering him the sun’s warmth.
And, just for a moment, Mrs. Lancaster saw Charles look directly at the early morning sun, seeming to try and mentally gather its power for a miracle.
Charles’ thoughts tumbled around like a piece of driftwood in a swollen creek:
Don’t want much. Just a bit of good luck. Never asked for much. Now I’m asking. Come on, Johnny Reb!
He gathered a large breath and blew into the squirrel's face and rubbed its chest frantically. The squirrel's legs straightened. It took a breath, and went completely limp.
Charles said nothing more. His mind went blank; his eyes filled with tears that he refused to let fall. He looked at the tiny squirrel stretched out in an unnatural position in the palm of his hand. It did not move. Its black eyes, open and unfocused, stared blankly, seeing nothing.
Since he had joined the army, Charles had lived near death daily. Men died for vile diseases, of consumption, in camp accidents, and in the rigors and throes of battles. He had watched gut-shot men curl up and die, and had seen animals killed and butchered – large and small, domestic and wild – and he had never blinked an eye.
But today was different; there was no reason for Johnny Reb to die – there was no hunger, no way of life to fight for, no belief to defend. There was no blood; there was no reason.
It's just a dumb ole' squirrel.
And . . . he’s gone.
Mrs. Lancaster watched as Charles placed the squirrel on the edge of the porch and walked away, his eyes facing down to the ground and away from the sunshine. He walked to the edge of the road, stopping to kick a rock into the field across the road, like that was his mission all along.
Neither said a word for what seemed like a long time. Finally, Mrs. Lancaster said, “I am going to put Eugene in an old sock. There’s a hoe around back if’n you want to bury him.”
“It don’t make no difference. It’s just a squirrel.”
“Don’t you talk that way!” she said, stomping her foot forcefully on the porch. “Don’t you dare talk that way atall! He was yourn and he had a name. Now, go git that hoe and git it quick-like.”
There was no argument left in Charles. He turned to the house and fetched the hoe. He picked up the sad sock, cradled it in his left arm and turned toward the hill.
“Hold on a minute. Let me get Honor and I’ll go with you.”
Charles waited until she returned with the fussy child, who obviously would have preferred to sleep rather than go on a grave-digging jaunt.
As they walked around to the back of the small house, Mrs. Lancaster said, “Got any special place you want to bury the squirrel?”
“Haven’t given it much thought.”
She stopped abruptly at the corner of the house and leaned her head on the bare boards. Reflected sunlight off the parched field caused her to close her eyes.
She looks tired, tired as I feel.
Her voice was soft and thready: “I think a good place might be under that oak on the hill yonder.”
Charles had seen the spot before, but now looked at it with a discerning eye. It was a small knoll, capped by a majestic, spreading oak tree and a single, simple, wooden cross.
“I can’t think of a better place in this whole valley, Mrs. Lancaster.”
It was three days before Charles could work enough energy and want-to to walk back to the Lancaster farm. Even from a distance, he knew no one was home. More of a feeling than a fact. When he got closer he saw the porch chair and the basket of hanging flowers were gone; there was a vacancy on the north side of the barn, where the wagon had always been.
As a matter of courtesy, he announced his presence; when there was no answer, as expected; he walked up on the porch and peered through the single-paned window. Empty. He walked through the skinny front yard, rounded the corner of the house and started up the hill for the tree.
Stray thoughts skipped around inside his head like a flat stone slung on a calm pond.
Feeling this way about a squirrel is just dumb.
Wonder where they went?
Didn’t have it long enough to become attached.
Wished I could have said goodbye.
It was just a dumb squirrel.
Why’d it have to up and die?
He was topping the rise when he looked up and saw that the flimsy cross on Mr. Lancaster’s grave had been replaced with a round-topped slab of barn board. The hand-painted letters were in a bold, clean hand:
Edward
Eugene
Lancaster
b. June 3, 1841
d. July 10, 1864
Good man, husband, father
Blinking back the tears, Charles turned his attention to the smaller, wooden grave marker with small, pinched writing next to it.
Eugene
One of God’s fine squrels
In his short life,
he was loved
There was a tobacco tin between the two crosses. “Chas” was printed on it with what looked like (and felt like) a mixture of honeycomb and boot black. It was closed tight, and it took some working with a small stick to pry off the lid. The note was short:
Dear Chas:
Me and Honor goin back to MaryLand to live with my Foks. No thing left for us Here. Sorry I didn’t get to say Goodby. One of the soljers told me about you naming Eugene “Johnnie Reb.” Those are too Fine names to my way of Thinking. Don't be too Sad! Eugene had Food and Warmth and a Place in the Light for the best part of his Life. Unlike too many of us, he didn't Worry bout a World thout him, but wuz jest fine being a Squrel and content to be. As long as that was the thing to do.
Mrs. Edw. Eugene (Hope) Lancaster
Charles had never felt as alone in his whole life as he did at that moment.
He sat down between the two little wooden tombstones – one small, one smaller – and didn’t get up until the sun had set over Manussetten Mountain.
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