Halloween

By: Garland Davis

My neighbors putting up Halloween decorations and all the stores stocking great displays of tooth rotting candy to placate the little goblins bring back memories of a couple Halloweens where I grew up in Western North Carolina.  Halloween in the country in the fifties was a little different.

The road I lived on was dirt and gravel until 1958.  It was about a mile and a half long and ran from NC 411 to NC 66.  There were a total of eight occupied houses, one antebellum log house without a roof, various stock barns and two tobacco curing barns along its length.  If a kid was of a mind to go Trick or Treating all he would get was an apple at the Vanhoy sister’s house.  Everybody had apple trees.  We were kind of burned out on apples by the time Halloween came around.

Besides, being pre-television farm country, most people went to bed at sunset and were up and had the cows milked by sunrise.  Just about everyone had a pack of free range dogs who would raise hell if one put a foot on their property.  Most dogs would just raise a ruckus, but some folks had dogs that would bite.  This brings to mind my grandmother’s Blue Tick Hound, appropriately named Blue. Blue would bite anyone except my grandmother.  She would baby talk to him’s and he would wag his tail and act like a little puppy.  My uncle used to say that Blue was “so God Damned mean that he was afraid to go to sleep.  He feared might wake up and bite himself.”

My grandmother lived in a three room house. One room was originally a log cabin (BTW it is still standing) built in 1825.  Two other frame rooms had been added.  The kitchen was on one end and the log room on the other end.  Each room had a front and back door.  Blue was usually on the porch in front of the door of whichever room my grandmother was in.  When my grandmother went to work at the hosiery mill, Blue would sleep in the drive way. My uncle Frank had just gotten his first car and came home one afternoon while Blue was napping in the drive.  He blew the horn and yelled for Blue to move.  Blue just looked at him and went back to sleep. He jumped out of the car and yelled, “Blue, you son of a bitch, I’m gonna kick the shit out of you.”

Blue had a different idea.  He came up off the ground with a growl and grabbed a pants leg in his mouth and ripped it half off.  Frank in fear of his life, scrambled for the car, dropping his keys as he did so.  Blue went back to his bed and went back to sleep.  Every time Frank tried to get out to get his keys, Blue would jump up and growl.  He spent the entire afternoon in his car waiting for my grandmother to come home.

The only people on my street that didn’t have dogs were the Vanhoy sisters and Mr. McCandless.  Mr. McCandless lived in the first house off 411.  He farmed a little, but primarily raised ducks which he sold to a butcher in town.  He refused to keep any dogs because he was afraid they would kill the ducks or suck the eggs. Mr. McCandless was a crotchety old fellow whom we used to torment.  In the spring and fall, we would walk to school instead of ride the bus.  Mr. McCandless would be on his porch reading his paper.  We would stop out of his sight and pass his house one at a time.

The first boy would say, “Good morning Mr. McCandless.”

He would look over his paper and reply, “Good morning boy.”

A couple minutes later a second boy would pass, “Good morning Mr. McCandless.”

He would lower the paper a little more forcefully and say, “Good morning” In a slightly gruffer tone.

And so on with a third and fourth boy and each reply to the “Good morning” getting gruffer and louder.  About the time the fifth boy offered him a good morning, he would jump up, stomp around, throw the newspaper and yell, “Good morning, God dammit, Good morning!”

It was the fall of fifty-five or fifty-six, a few days before Halloween.  The four of us that usually ran together, Junior, Bobby, Joe, and I were walking home from school when Mr. McCandless accosted us in front of his house.  He was carrying a double barreled shotgun.

He said, “I knowed its you boys that turned my shithouse over last year’s Halloween. I’m letten’ you know that I’m spendin’ the night in the shithouse with this here twelve gauge loaded with number six shot.  Jist letten’ you know afore you come messin’ around my shithouse.”

We assured him that it wasn’t us who turned his toilet over the previous year. But he had thrown down the gauntlet.  Now we had to do something.  We had a stock of cherry bombs and M-80’s that we were saving for New Years, but decided now would be the appropriate time to use them.

We snuck through the woods and came up behind the shithouse. Junior threw a couple of rocks against the outhouse to ascertain if he was actually in there.  He yelled, “I told you,” and stuck the shotgun out the door and fired it.

Joe had the deepest voice and yelled, “Come out of that shithouse with your hands in the air or we will shoot.”

We started lighting the bombs and throwing them around the toilet.

Mr. McCandless yelled, “Git away from my shithouse,” and discharged both barrels through the door.

Mrs. McCandless, thinking that the old man was involved in a gunfight, yelled out the back door, “Herman, I called the Sheriff, stay in the toilet till he gits here.”

Hearing that, we all ran off through the woods.  By the time the deputy sheriff arrived we were safe in the old barn across the road from my house.  The sheriff picked up a group of boys from across the railroad tracks who were on their way to turn the McCandless out house over.  It seems they had been the culprits the previous year.

The other Halloween that stands out in my mind was the year before my dad died.  There were four sisters who lived about a quarter mile down the road.  Their last name was Rising.  Most everyone referred to them as the Rising girls. I half way had a crush on and lusted after one of them, but that is a story for another time. They went to a different school than we did.  The demarcation line between two school districts ran between our houses.  Our school bus came in from 411 and turned around in our drive.  Their school bus came in from 66 and turned around in their yard.

Their mother owned all the land across the road, including the old log barn across from my house.  We had used it for our cows for a while when Hurricane Hazel flooded out our barn.  Other than that it was vacant.  To us it became the Alamo surrounded by Mexicans or Fort Apache surrounded by Indians.  To the Rising girls it was a play house or a Sweet Shoppe for their girly games.

That Halloween they came up with the idea to turn it into a haunted barn.  They enlisted our help.  We thought it a great idea and fell enthusiastically into their plan.  They were cutting bats and spiders from craft paper and wanted us to make ghosts.  They had a bunch of old sheets and wanted us to stuff them with straw, paint eyes on them, tie rope around them and hang them from the rafters. There were also four or five old pairs of overalls and shirts.  They wanted headless bodies lying around.

We worked hard making ghosts and dead bodies.  There was a bag of athletic tube socks included in the pile of clothing.  I came up with the idea and the others, thinking it a great idea, joined in.

We stuffed the socks and put dicks on all the ghosts and dead bodies.

The girls discovered our additions to their creatures about the time my dad came home from work.  As he was getting out of his car, the youngest girl ran over to him and, crying said, “Mr. Salmons, we were trying to make a haunted barn and them mean old boys put peters on all the ghosts.

My dad gave me a halfhearted ass whipping, but I figure he thought it was funny.  I heard him laughing about it when he told my uncles and cousins.

We had to make our fun at Halloween without the rewards of today’s tame trick or treating.

Aunt “Becker”

By: Garland Davis

A couple of times a year my grandmother got the urge to go to the mountains to visit her sister.

Aunt Becker (Her name was Rebecca, but everyone just called her Becker) was my grandmother’s young sister.  She was a spinster and had taught elementary school until 1932 when the State of North Carolina instituted the requirement that all public and private school teachers have a college degree. People say it pissed her off and she never got over it.  She lived in a two-room log cabin at the head of a rift known as Possum Holler.  She got water from a spring up behind the cabin.  The outflow from the spring fed into a creek that ran into another stream and eventually added to the muddy waters of the Yadkin River. There was a town of the same name at the mouth of the holler about a mile below Becker’s cabin.

I really don’t know what aunt Becker did for income.  I know she sold some eggs from her hens and honey from the stands of bees she had up behind the house.  She was also a midwife and was the go to medical authority up the holler.  She had a reputation for being able to witch the heat out of a burn.  Becker had a garden and went halves on a couple of hogs with other occupants of the holler.  She had a smokehouse behind her barn.  The hams she smoked and cured were delicious, but it was almost impossible to talk her out of one.  Probably the only reason I ever ate any of her ham was she would always give one to my grandmother.

I remember my dad talking with my uncles about her. They said she had frowned so much that her face would probably break if she smiled.  I remember one of them saying that Becker was the stingiest person they knew.  The story was that no one could best her in a trade.  One of my uncles said, “Ole Becker is so tight her ass squeaks when she walks. She can squeeze a Nickle till the Indian fucks the buffalo.”

Becker had about a dozen cats.  All named “Kitty.”  She didn’t feed them.  She and the cats had a synergistic relationship.  They kept the cabin and barn free of mice and pests and she didn’t have any mice.  See, I told you Becker could get the best of any bargain or relationship.

Becker kept a Bible in every room of the cabin, the barn, and the outhouse.  I never figured out why.  I’ll bet she could quote the entire book verbatim.  I know she sure quoted passages to me many times.  And she wasn’t above preaching to you, whether you needed it or not.  She seemed to dislike, if not outright hate, little boys and I guess she figured that we needed preaching to.

I hated going to Possum Holler.  Every time we went, the first thing she would say to my dad was, “Did you git that boy’s name changed to Salmons yet.  You know he’s a Bastard.  Ain’t no reason to advertise and let ever body else know.”  Besides, who wants to be a Davis?  They’s just a bunch of worthless drunks and moonshiners.  Ain’t a dang one of ‘em any good.  Even Jefferson Davis was a drinker.  Ain’t nothing good ever come of drinking.” My mama refused to go with us to the mountains.  She said having the Davis name put down by Becker once was more than enough.

This brings up the story of Becker and the moonshine.  “Square (his name was Squire Cleary, but everyone called him Square) spent one fall moving a liquor still up the side of the mountain above Becker’s cabin.  He hid it well, and figured that, come spring, he would become the main supplier of White Likker (Moonshine) for all of Possum Holler.

As soon as spring broke, old Square surreptitiously carried corn, corn meal, sugar, and yeast up the mountain.  He struggled, but with the help of a borrowed mule was able to get a mash barrel in position.  Then he packed in a couple pounds of bacon and enough canned beans to last a couple of weeks and set to making a run of likker.

After two weeks, Square had four gallons of prime White Lightin’ ready for market.  He would have had more, but he probably over taste tested it making sure the quality was high.  He packed up his four jugs in a couple of canvas bags, slung them over his shoulder and started down the mountain toward his fortune.

Someone had tipped off the Revenuers that a still was operating up the mountain.  As Square was coming down the path with his wares, the revenuers were going up.  Square saw them and realized that he was close to eighteen months on the road gang if they caught him with illegal whiskey.  He slipped off down a path that ended just above Becker’s spring.  One of the revenuers had seen him and turned to follow.  Square did the only thing he could, he poured the moonshine into Becker’s Spring, hid the jugs and drifted innocently up the path to meet the revenuer.  He came up with a story about hunting ‘Sang (ginseng) to explain his reason for being on the mountain and carrying empty bags.

About ten minutes after Square had dumped the white lightin’ into the spring, Becker came out with her buckets to get water for the house.  After she filled the buckets, she took an old gourd dipper and got herself a drink.  The water tasted strange.  She took another drink and then another.  It tasted better the more she drank and she felt really good.  She grabbed the buckets of this new wonderful water rushed to the house and brought every bucket and empty jar she had to save as much of this wonderful elixir as possible.  She kept sipping at the dipper.  It was the most wonderful thing she had ever drank.

Becker usually went down to the Possum Holler General Store on Saturday morning and to the church on Sunday mornings.  She never went down on Saturday evenings or nights.  There were scandalous things happening.  Why there was drinking and there was a dance on the front porch of the general store.

After drinking a considerable amount of her new found elixir, it being Saturday, Becker decided to go down to the store and see what this dancing stuff was all about. She put a pint jar of water in her tote bag in case she got thirsty and set off down the holler.

People in Possum Holler and environs still talk about the night Becker Flynn went crazy or was possessed by Satan or something.  They said she was smiling and laughing and howdying everyone all the way down to the store.  By the time she got to town there was a crowd of twenty or thirty people following her to see what she was up to.  People said it was the biggest crowd of people in Possum Holler since they hung that Burgess boy back in ’29.

It is said that Becker was “plumb scandalous.”  She was dancing and throwing her skirts up where you could almost see her bloomers.  She was drinking water and it seemed the more she drank the more she danced.  Finally worn out from dancing, she sat down to rest and went to sleep.  Fred and Mary Jepson got her into his wagon and they took her home.

Sunday morning was the first time that anyone in the holler could ever recall Becker missing church.  The events of Saturday evening caused the preacher to modify his sermon.  He preached on fighting Satan’s demons that try to lead the good Christian astray.

Square Cleary figured out what had happened and told Becker about pouring the moonshine into her spring.  After a while, Becker changed her name from Flynn to Cleary.  That’s right! They were married. For years, Square ran his still just above Becker’s bee hives and she became much friendlier and stopped railing against drinking.  If someone said something disparaging about alcohol or drinking, Becker excused it by quoting Bible Verse Timothy 5:23 to them.

Timothy 5:23 – “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.”

Missiles of October

By:  Garland Davis

During a thirteen-day period fifty-three years ago, the U.S. and the Soviet Union came within hours of going to war.  The pilot of an American U-2 spy plane making a high-altitude pass over Cuba on October 14, 1962, photographed a Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile being assembled for installation.

The critical photographs snapped by U-2 reconnaissance planes over Cuba were shipped for analysis to a top-secret CIA facility in a most unlikely location: a building above the Steuart Ford car dealership in a rundown section of Washington, D.C. While used car salesmen were wheeling and dealing downstairs on October 15, 1962, upstairs CIA analysts in the state-of-the-art National Photographic Interpretation Center were working around the clock to scour hundreds of grainy photographs for evidence of a Soviet ballistic missile site under construction.

Two days after the U-2 flight, on the morning of October 16, 1962, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy informed President John F. Kennedy that U.S. surveillance aircraft had discovered the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from American soil. It was the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Just before noon Kennedy convened the first meeting of fourteen administration officials and advisers. The group became as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council.

Time was of the essence.  Executive Committee members received estimates that the Soviet missiles could be at full operation within fourteen days.  Individual missiles could probably be readied within eighteen hours under a crash program.  Most of the missiles were determined to be SS-4’s with a range of approximately 1,100 nautical miles.  This placed major American cities, including Dallas and Washington, DC, within strike range.  Later photos showed that SS-5’s with a range of 2,200 nautical miles were also included in the arms shipments from the USSR.

For seven days, the Executive Committee debated the merits of three approaches to the developing crisis, while keeping a tight public lid on the Cuban discovery.  The first was a surgical air strike targeting as many of the missiles as possible.  The second was an air strike followed by a U.S. military invasion of the island.  The third was a blockade of Soviet ships thought to be carrying materials in support of the offensive missile systems.

The president opted for the blockade, calling it a termed quarantine so as to avoid warlike connotations.  This was to allow diplomatic approaches to work whereas direct military action wouldn’t.

On October 22, in anticipation of a military reaction to the quarantine, the Joint Chiefs of Staff placed military forces worldwide on a DEFCON 3 alert.  At five that afternoon Kennedy met with the bi-partisan leaders of congress.  At six, the Secretary of state met with the Soviet ambassador and presented him with an advance copy of the Presidents upcoming address to the American Public.

In a TV address at seven PM on October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval quarantine around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security.

By the evening of October 23, Kennedy and the Executive Committee had new worries.  Earlier in the day, the Central Intelligence Agency began tracking several Soviet submarines unexpectedly moving toward Cuba.  This complicated the Navy’s task of conducting the quarantine, as it now had to track the submarines in order to ensure the safety of the naval units conducting the quarantine. In addition, they were tracking nineteen Soviet cargo ships identified as on course for Cuba.

The quarantine, with the unanimous backing of the Organization of American States, went into effect at 10 AM on October 24.

Early intelligence on that day indicated that sixteen of the nineteen Soviet cargo ships bound for Cuba had reversed course.  The remaining three were nearing the quarantine line, including the ships Gagarin and Komiles.  Naval intelligence reported that a Soviet submarine had taken a position between the two ships.  The president though wanting to avoid conflict authorized the USS Essex to take whatever defensive measures against the submarine.  This was probably the most dangerous moment of the cold war, as both nations were within mere moments of turning the war hot.

Khrushchev blinked! Just prior to armed hostilities, both Soviet ships stopped dead in the water and eventually reversed course.

During the next four days, the diplomats crafted an agreement that would remove Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for the United States removal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey and a pledge to not invade Cuba.  The situation deteriorated somewhat when a U2 was shot down over Cuba.  Sensing that he was losing control of the crisis, Kennedy decided not to retaliate against the anti-aircraft site, much to the consternation of military leaders.

On the morning of October 28, Radio Moscow broadcast a speech by Khrushchev wherein he stated that all Soviet missiles in Cuba would be dismantled and crated.  The Cuban Missile crisis was over.

I arrived in North Carolina on October 14 on thirty days leave between NAS Lemoore California and USS Vesuvius.  I think I spent a good part of that leave listening to the news waiting for a recall.  There was a fear of nuclear war and the idea that it might really happen.  There was also the thought that I was going to miss the action while on leave.  If the Navy had told me to report to Norfolk or Charleston, I would have been on the road immediately.

It was a good time to wear the uniform.  The girls were more than willing to comfort a sailor who might have to go to war soon.  Of course, I tried to refrain from taking any unfair advantage of the girls, but I just couldn’t bring myself to disappoint them.

Pap’s Still

By:  Garland Davis

My grandfather (Pap) was a tobacco farmer.  Actually, he made and sold moonshine whiskey.  The farming was just a cover.  Every known moonshiner needed an illusion for the revenuers to explain his income.  Whisky was made in the spring and during the summer when the leaves were on the trees and it was easier to hide a still site, especially from the air.  In winter, Pap would move the still closer to home where he could repair or improve it.

It was the fall of the year I turned twelve.  Pap, an uncle and I had brought the parts of the still up from the river bottoms where it had been set up on some solid ground in the center of a swamp.  We ate dinner (lunch) and we were going to clean the still and hide it inside a haystack until it was needed in the spring.  My uncle had left for his job at the prison.

Pap and I were resting on the porch after eating.  A pickup pulled off the road by the mailbox and blew his horn.  Pap said, “Stay here boy.”, and walked across the yard to the parked truck.  He stood with his foot on the running board and talked for a minute with whoever was driving.  He turned from the truck and walked back to the house as the truck drove off.

“Boy, go to the shed and git two shovels and meet me at the barn.” He said as he passed the porch going toward the back of the house.

I did as he said.  As I approached the barn he was coming from the house pushing a wheelbarrow.  He said, “Lets git the still loaded on this wheelbare. We gotta bury hit.  The revenuers are gonna raid us t’night.  Havin’ a still is jist as illegal as havin’ the likker.”

We loaded the boiler, the cover, and the thumper on the wheelbarrow along with a bunch of burlap bags.  He pushed the barrow while I carried the worm and condenser box.  We went down a path and across the creek to an area where an old tobacco pack house had once stood.

Pack houses are built over a basement where tobacco can be hung to keep it moist and pliable before preparing it for market.  When the old house had been torn down the basement had been filled in.  It would be a lot easier digging.

We dug a hole similar to a grave, wrapped the various parts in burlap, lowered them into the hole and shoveled the dirt over them.  We spread the extra dirt around.  He had me bring three or four barrow loads of pine needles from the woods which he spread around the area. We also moved a couple logs and a pile of tobacco sticks from about a hundred feet away.

He told me, “Buster, don’t you be telling nobody where this still is buried. You hear me now?”

I nodded affirmatively, knowing that if I did tell anyone, Pap would wear my ass out with a set of plow lines.

We took the shovels and wheelbarrow back to the barn and went to sit on the porch and wait for the revenuers.  It was right before supper when the County Sheriff, a group of deputies and two federal agents showed up.  They presented Pap with a piece of paper and the deputies spread out to search the house and outbuildings.  The Sheriff stayed on the porch with Pap and me.  He fired up a cigar as Pap cut a bite from a plug of chewing tobacco.  They settled down in a pair of straight backed chairs to smoke and chew.  The sheriff, Ernie Shore, had once played professional baseball.  He had played on the old Boston team with Babe Ruth.  He was famous for pitching a no hitter that wasn’t a no hitter.  The Babe was a pitcher in those days.  Ruth started the game, walked the first hitter and was ejected from the game for arguing with the ump.  Ernie went in and retired the next twenty-seven hitters, no walks, no hits and no runs.  After his baseball career, he came back to North Carolina and ran for County Sheriff.  It looked as if the job was his for as long as he wanted. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me that Ernie had been behind the tip Pap got from the guy in the pickup.

“Joe, you teaching this boy the business?”, Ernie asked Pap.

Pap leaned over and spit into the yard.  He said, “What growin’ tabacca. Naw, this boy ain’t gonna grow tabacca.  He is good in school, smart as a whup. All he talks about is goin’ to the Navy when he’s old ‘nuff.”

“Joe, you know I’m talking about making likker.”

“I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout anybody makin’ likker ‘round here.  You aint gonna find no likker on my place.”, Pap answered.

The truth was there were twenty-four half gallon fruit jars of moonshine in a wooden box concealed under the feeding trough of the pig pen.  There were an additional twelve gallons in a culvert up the road.  I had crawled in and placed the jugs.  I knew that my uncle also had twelve gallons hidden somewhere on his place.

The conversation went this way for about an hour.  Ernie making subtle accusations and Pap denying knowing anything about moonshine.  This was a charade they had obviously played out before.

After an hour or so, the deputies began drifting back to the porch with negative reports.  The two revenue agents finally showed up, reluctantly willing to take a no answer this time. They piled into their vehicles and left.

Pap watched them leave and said, “We’ll wait awhile ‘fore we dig up the still.  I think them boys might be back in a few days. Come on boy, let’s go take care of the critters and get some supper.”

It was late by the time we finished milking and feeding the cows, mules, pigs and chickens. It was dark by the time we got to the house and we ate supper by lamplight.  There was no electricity in my grandfather’s house.  My grandmother would not countenance anything to do with electricity.  She felt that it was the work of the devil. (It was the twentieth century, the nineteen fifties but my Granny never moved out of the nineteenth century)

Pap died in his sleep that night.

That was fifty-nine years ago and I have never told anyone where the still was buried.  As far as I know it is still there unless the copper is completely corroded away.

Dancing

By:  Garland Davis

I have never had sense of rhythm.  I love country and rock music. I cannot sing, play an instrument or dance for shit. I have never been able to follow the music.  When I tried dancing, I appeared to be having an epileptic fit.  People threw me on my back, held me down and tried to stick spoons in my mouth.  The only thing I ever did that was musical was a part time job as a country music disc jockey for a few years.

I think it started when I was a toddler.  My uncle told me that girls had fleas, cooties, or some other kind of bug.  I resisted touching girls unless I could find one willing to let me look in her britches. Otherwise, I would only touch them just to hit them. Many years later, in the Western Pacific, I was told that some of them did have bugs.  I must have missed those.  I never caught any of the bugs they were reputed to carry.  Well, except when I was in Vesuvius.  There was a saying. “If you live in After Berthing, you either have the crabs, are getting over the crabs or are catching the crabs.”

Many of my uncles played instruments.  Guitar, fiddle, banjo and my dad played the harmonica.  They played for square dances on Saturday nights. When there wasn’t a dance, the played on the front porch or in the living room around the stove. I tried to learn the guitar, because that is what Elvis played.  I learned the chords, but my inability to distinguish one from another, by ear, brought an eventual end to my aspirations as a guitarist.

My father loved tap dancing.  My Aunts and Uncles always said that he was a good dancer.  I know that on Saturday nights when the instruments and fruit jars came out, he often entertained by tap dancing.  I attempted tap dancing once, but what I did resembled a spastic attempt to stomp ants with no relation to the music being played.

I learned to live with my lack of rhythm and became resigned to the fact that I was not a musician nor dancer.  Then came my freshman year in High School.  The daily Physical Education class on Fridays was devoted to learning to dance. The class was conducted in the gym.  The girls’ basketball coach taught dancing.  She was into the ballroom crap.  I stumbled around that gym in my socks to the strains of “Blue Danube” until I could have thrown up.  Just the sound of that music makes me a little nauseated fifty-some years later.  If she wasn’t pushing ballroom dance, then it was square dancing.  That wasn’t too hard, just walking in a circle.  The teacher bemoaned my lack of rhythm, but if you don’ have it, how can you be expected to find it.

Most of the boys shared my inability and dislike of the dancing classes.  The girls and a couple light-in-the-loafers’ future yeomen were really into the dancing.  They loved dancing and looked forward to the classes.  About once a month, the teacher would devote the class to popular dancing.  The girls loved this.  They knew all the latest dances from watching Dave Clark’s Dance Party.  When they were unable to coax the boys into dancing with them, they danced with each other.  Most of us boys were content to sit in the bleachers and make remarks about which girl had the biggest butt and speculate on the colors of pubic hair.  Although I no longer believed my uncle’s tales about bugs and cooties, girls scared the shit out of me.  They fascinated me but left me tongue tied when one of them talked to me.  Conditions pretty much remained this way until I turned eighteen and was introduced to the concept of ladies’ drinks, bar fines and commercial love.  WestPac wedding night with the meter running.

I suffered through two years of ballroom, square and popular dancing on Friday.  After leaving school, I determined that my dancing days were over.  I am fortunate that my bride of fifty years is also not a dancer.  I have lived a full life without the necessity to make a spectacle of myself attempting to dance.

Maybe it was an ingredient in San Miguel Beer, or something in the smell of Shit River.  I cannot explain it, but when on liberty in Olangapo and the Barrio, as Travis Tritt says in his song, “I’m a bonafide dancing fool.”

Tobacco

By: Garland Davis

I grew up in tobacco country.  Many of my relatives and most of our neighbors grew the leaf.  Just about every adult I knew used tobacco in one form or another.

My grandfather smoked a corncob pipe.  He would make the pipe bowls from cobs and the pipe stems from a vine that was hollow when dried.  Pap made his pipes during the winter when it was cold and wet. He went through a pipe about every month. He had a box with fifteen to twenty pipes stored in it.

Each year he would twist cured tobacco leaves and hang them in the loft (attic) to age.  He would always use the oldest ones first.  He carried it in a bag in his pocket and would use his knife to shave it off into his pipe bowl.  He always made more than he needed and sometimes gave or sold a twist to one of his friends. My grandmother dipped snuff and would sometimes smoke a corncob pipe of her own.  She also used Pap’s Virginia Twist tobacco.

My dad would light an El Cheapo cigar before breakfast each morning and leave it in the ashtray until after breakfast.  He chewed it the rest of the day, never relit it. I think he did that every day that I knew him.  I remember him coming home from work with barely a half inch left of the cigar.

My mom smoked cigarettes, Lucky Strikes.  She changed to filter cigarettes sometime after I left for the Navy and continued to smoke until well into her sixties.  She had some problems with COPD in her seventies.  Probably would have fared better if she had never smoked.

I had a couple of uncles who both chewed tobacco and smoked cigarettes simultaneously. The other uncles either smoked or chewed.  All but one of my aunts dipped snuff and most of my cousins smoked cigarettes.

And most everyone who smoked, chewed or dipped used a product of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.  The whole economy of the city of Winston-Salem was based on the eleven RJR factories spread throughout the city.  My mother is the only exception I can think of.  Lucky Strikes were made by American Tobacco Company which was located about thirty miles away in another town.

I have previously related my sole experience with snuff at age two.  I was in the seventh grade when I had my only experience with chewing tobacco.  This other fool named Eddie showed me a half pack of Beech Nut Chewing Tobacco that he had found walking to school that morning.  At recess, we went into the edge of the woods by the playground and chewed the hell out of some Beech Nut.  Back in class, Eddie suddenly jumped up and ran for the boy’s room.  He upchucked before he made it.  I didn’t throw up, but I was probably neon green.  The teacher, Mr. Edwards, immediately understood the cause of Eddie’s problem and since anything he was involved in, I was sure to be somewhere nearby, he took us to the cloak room and had us empty our pockets.  He took the Beech Nut, went to his desk and got his paddle and whipped our asses.  Never had the desire to try it again. Not because of the ass whipping.  Just the smell of chewing tobacco still triggers the gag reflex, even after sixty years.

I think I was about twelve when I snuck one of Pap’s tobacco Twists out and Junior and I made us a couple of corncob pipes and spent a whole afternoon smoking. I never looked back from that point.  For the next forty-one years, with the exception of a period in Boot Camp when the smoking lamp was out for my entire company, I smoked cigarettes and cigars. I would sneak my mom’s smokes and when I had twenty cents, I would buy a pack and keep it hidden in a crack between the logs in the barn.  There was a TV program that I liked about poker playing brothers named Maverick.  They smoked cigars.  When I had the money, I would buy cigars and smoke them.

Kids as young as six learned to smoke by smoking “Rabbit Tobacco.”  Wikipedia says of Rabbit Tobacco – Gnaphalium obtusifolium. Unmistakable by its creamy appearance in the still green background of the early fall meadows. Leaves long, elliptical and silver green colored. Plant up to one meter high. Unusual fragrance. Can be smoked for respiratory ailments or made into a relaxing tea. A common tobacco substitute used by children in rural areas. It is said to have a mild sedative effect. Contrary to popular belief, rabbit tobacco is not marijuana. It is known by many names: life everlasting, sweet balsam, white balsam, sweet cudweed, cat’s foot, fragrant everlasting, Indian posy, etc.

As kids we used to harvest the dry Rabbit Tobacco and would smoke it in corncob pipes. The adults thought it was cute.  No effort was ever really made to stop us.  Imprinted the act of smoking on kids early.

There is a lot of talk about second hand smoke. I really don’t believe that it is a danger.  Hell, the entire atmosphere of Western North Carolina was second hand smoke during the fifties when I was growing up.  If it was a real danger, then most of my generation would already be dead. Uh, wait a minute… most of them are, but I think it is more attributable to aging instead of the air we breathed growing up.

The anomaly in the lifestyle to which I was subjected was the person who did not smoke, dip or chew.

Now moonshine whiskey is another story.  Perhaps I’ll tell it someday.

Beauregard

By: Garland Davis

I am called BO.  I want you to know I wasn’t named for that glorified celebrity dog in Washington DC.  My name is Beauregard, a fine old southern name.  When I first came here, my kids, Jack and Jerry couldn’t say Beauregard.  They called me Bo Bo which was later shortened to just Bo. I am a Jack Russell Terrier, or mostly.  Although I look like a Jack Russell, I am a little larger and a little heavier.  I think one of my ancestors engaged in some hanky-panky outside the pedigree.  I don’t have registration papers.  Dogs never put any stock in pedigrees and registration papers.  That is something invented by you humans.  We dogs judge each other by actions and the quality of a few rectal odors.

When Trevor and Donna, the parents of twin boys who were to become my two kids, first chose me from the farm where I was living with my mother and brothers and sister. I was still a puppy, but my mother had already started pushing me and my litter mates away.  That’s another thing that I don’t understand about humans.  You keep your kids around for years.  The children usually break away from the parents instead of the parents kicking them out to fend for themselves.  You even take them back when they fail.  Dogs conveniently forget their mothers and their puppies.

You humans sure make a big deal of twins and triplets.  I was whelped in a litter of six.  But then, I’ve seen Donna without the coverings she wraps herself in.  She doesn’t have the nipples to support more than two. In my litter, there were two extra nipples and we still fought over the better ones.  How would human kids fight for a nipple?  You don’t even have teeth when you are puppies.  I sure had a lot to learn about people.

I was scared as Donna carried me away. But not too scared; she was warm and smelled nice. I didn’t know she was taking me to my two children.  I settled into her lap as we drove away from the farm where I was born.  Trevor and Donna were discussing whether I was a good idea.  I didn’t understand exactly what they meant.  I wondered who Jack and Jerry were as I drifted into a nap.  I was awakened by Donna opening the car door.  She carried me toward the door, then stopped and placed me in the grass.  I smelled many new and alluring scents.  This was an exciting place.  I hoped that I could stay here.  Memories of my past life were already beginning to dim.  I took a pee.  Donna, for some reason, found that exciting and told me what a great puppy I was.  Yep, I think I am going to like it here.

Inside the house, there was a young woman there I heard them call Babysitter.  Her real name is Amy.  She reached over and rubbed behind my ears.  Exquisite!  But, the real treat was the two young male humans there.  As their smell overwhelmed my senses, I thought my tail was going to wag off.  I don’t seem to have control of that thing.  Donna placed me on the floor and I walked toward the two boys.  I was so excited that I leaked.  Donna rushed to get a cloth and dry it up.  After introductions, it was established that I was Bo Bo and they were Jack and Jerry.  Donna told them that I was real and to treat me gently.  She also told them that if they hurt me, I would bite them.  She placed me on the floor and again cautioned them to be gentle.  They reached out and let me smell their hands and then rubbed my head.  It wasn’t long before we were rolling about the floor.  I was barking and nipping at their fingers and they were scratching my head and back.  Oh, the best time in the world!  During the time, I leaked again and did the other thing. That got me a scolding from Trevor and a trip outside.  I didn’t want to lose my two boys.  I thought I was going to be left out there.   After awhile he took me back to the boys and we prepared for bed.

Humans are strange.  They sleep in separate beds.  Jack and Jerry each had a bed and I discovered a bed between theirs for me.  There was also a water dish for me to drink from. Trevor told me that I was a good, brave dog and that it was my job to protect Jack and Jerry.  They turned the lights off and we each settled down.  I awakened frequently to check on my boys.  It was my job to protect them. I guess I cried during the night missing the warmth of my brothers and sister.

Donna awakened the boys and grabbed me and rushed outside and waited until I had relieved myself.  She told me I was a good doggie and scratched that special place behind my ears.  If they wanted me to do my stuff outside, I would.  I did learn to control myself and to communicate with them until Trevor installed my very own door into the back yard.  They had breakfast at the table and I had my very own bowl of puppy chow.  I didn’t have to fight with other dogs for my share.

There were also tasty items that the boys slipped to me from their plates.

I learned during the next few days that Jack and Jerry were almost four years old.  We spent the whole summer playing in the yard and the edge of the woods at the back of the house.  We were watched closely by Donna or a lady called Nanny.  The boys talked of kindergarten soon.  I thought that was a great new game.  Kindergarten wasn’t a game.  It was long hours of loneliness.  The boys left each morning, leaving me to watch out the window for their return.  Donna drove them in the car on her way to work, whatever that means.  Nanny didn’t come when the boys went to kindergarten.  I waited throughout the long days.

Eventually, another summer came and kindergarten ended.  We played in the yard and woods.  We ran and jumped.  And then another year of Kindergarten came and went.  We had another wonderful summer.  I was sure glad that kindergarten was a thing of the past.  Then I learned that its place would be taken by something called first grade and we would be separated again.  The good thing was that first grade was four blocks from the house and the boys could walk.  I snuck out and went with them.  When we got to the place where first grade lived, they told me to go home.  I resisted, but they scolded and said they would lock me up tomorrow.  I slowly walked home.  I went back to my position of looking out the window.  I saw them coming from first grade.  I rushed out my door and ran to meet them, telling them loudly that I was so happy they came home.

The next morning, I led them to first grade.  I learned that it was also called school.  I waited again and as the time approached for them to come home, I decided to go get them.  They might get lost trying to find the way home.  I went through my door and started toward the school.  I was almost to the school when I saw them come through the gate.  I ran to greet them and proudly led them home.  About half way between home and school there was a house with a big chain link fence and a locked gate.  I was barking for the boys to hurry so we could play, when I heard a low growl and a bark from the fenced yard.  There were two big dogs behind that fence.  They were yelling at me and my boys.  I yelled back.  That seemed to make them angrier.  I later learned that they were named Buster and Behemoth and they were Pit Bull mix, whatever that means.  I was glad that the fence was there.

As we walked to and from school each day, Buster and Behemoth learned our schedule were waiting each day to yell at us.  They would throw themselves at the fence and gate until the chain link rattled.  I sometimes yelled back at them.  Jack and Jerry were afraid of them and cautioned me against barking.

First grade ended and there was another summer of playing.  Now that the boys were older, they were permitted to go into the woods.  We had great times running through the woods and swimming in the creek.  It was the best summer ever.  Only to be ended by something called second grade.  I suffered through another school year.  I guided the boys to and from school.  Every day we were yelled at by Buster and Behemoth.  They seemed to get angrier and angrier as the days passed.

Second grade ended and we played through another glorious summer.  But, as I expected, it was interrupted by a thing called third grade.  About a week after school started, I went to the school to get the boys.  They were rushing and laughing on the way home.  I was running circles around them and barking.  Buster and Behemoth were especially angry today and were throwing themselves against the gate.  We were about a block from home when I heard a loud metal noise.  Looking back, I saw the chain link gate lying in the street.  Buster and Behemoth came through the opening and stood looking toward us as if they couldn’t believe they were free.

I yelled for the boys to run and started nipping at their heels.  They looked and saw the other two dogs and ran.  Buster and Behemoth realizing that nothing was between them and the subjects of two years hatred started running our way.  I saw they would overtake us about eight paces from the gate to our house. I yelled for the boys to run.

I turned back to meet Buster and Behemoth.  They weren’t going to get my boys!

Authors Note:  The idea and impetus for this story came from:

Tiny terrier sacrifices its life to save five children from pit bulls

Last updated at 18:16 02 May 2007

A plucky foot-high Jack Russell terrier named George saved five New Zealand children from two marauding pit bulls but was so severely mauled in the fight he had to be destroyed, according to his devastated owner.

George was playing with the group of children as they returned home from buying sweets at a neighborhood shop in the small North Island town of Manaia last Sunday when the two pit bulls appeared and lunged toward them, his owner Allan Gay said.

“George was brave – he took them on and he’s not even a foot high,” Gay told The Associated Press. “He jumped in on them, he tried to keep them off.

“If it wasn’t for George, those kids would have copped it