A Visit Back to Wing, edited version

This is the version of my story as I will read it Saturday night, Sept. 27 2014 on Tales From The South in North Little Rock. They have edited it to suit their program. I must read it word for word, because it has been timed down to the minute. The story was written two years or so ago, so some things in it are now out of date somewhat. Fourche Valley folks may notice this.
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     I stand on the dirt of our old family farm in Wing, Arkansas, 60 years after my childhood. Back then Dad had me believing that the whole farm would go to Hell, if he was absent from it, even for a day. And he almost never left. Yet here it is, nearly 40 years after Dad had left it forever, looking much the same. New owners now, but they are keeping it up well. The woods have not reclaimed the fields where the cattle contentedly graze, as Dad had always feared. He pushed me to mow every square inch if it each summer. Even in 1954, when those fields were nothing much but dust and a few weeds. Then he would send me out with a chopping ax, to all the spots of persimmon sprouts, to make sure not a single one survived.

As I stand here looking at the old farm, a large part if my childhood passes through my mind.

Right in front of me is where the huge barn had stood. Grandpa John Wesley Gillum used that barn to breed Super Mules.

Right over there, under that giant oak, my great grandpa, James LaFayette Gillum, built his blacksmith shop. That ground was covered with iron scraps when I was a kid. I'll bet I could bring a metal detector up and dig up a ton of old horseshoes and other old Gillum treasures.

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     Up on the hill, right there, the old home place stood, now long gone. It was a genuine kit house, ordered from Sears and Roebuck, in the 1920's, by my school teacher aunt, Hallie. But she ran out of lumber, and lumber was taken off the old Gillum home place to finish it up. My aunt Lula Bell had came over and thrown a royal fit when she found out, but the salvaging continued. By the time Hallie's house was built, the old house was not fit to live in, so the whole family made the 20 foot move in with Hallie. Aunt Hallie never lived in her new house alone, dying early, in 1941. I was born in that house in 1944.

           Fifty yards away is The Bluff, where ninety years of Gillums threw ninety years of trash that wouldn't burn. The thick trees below now hide all those glorious piles of Gillum history. A thousand years from now, an archaeologist will dig into that spot, and be filled with wonder. Gillums always produced spectacular trash.

     On out, between The Bluff and Stowe Creek, is the field of Stinging Nettle. Sister Barbara Lou and I always had to walk through it to get to the swimming hole. That's the only place I've ever seen that particular species. Touch it, and you itched for hours. Years later, I remembered this plant, and transplanted one to my biology class room, along with a big sign, DO NOT TOUCH THIS PLANT. But seems like most of my kids eventually just eased by and rubbed against it, just to spite me, when I wasn't looking. But it never went unnoticed by me in the long run. The guilty party always scratched until the bell rang, then walked out scratching. Every kid needs to experience Stinging Nettle, once.

 On the other side of the road is the Big Hill. My nine acres. As a kid, it had huge pines on it. It was cut over after I left Wing. Forty two years ago, I bought it. Thirty four years ago, son Corey and I planted those pines back. They're pretty big now, but nothing like they were when I was a kid. My brother Harold was a Forester at the time. He kept on at me to thin them out, cut out the hardwoods. Maybe I could make some money off them someday.

 But he never understood. I didn't want the money, I just wanted to see those pines like they were when Sammy Turner and I rode those carts we had made, with abandon, down that hill, dodging each big tree. Mine had a genuine B-29 steering wheel on it, and wheels off my little red wagon, removed when it was too tired to go any more. I hope I see those huge pines again before I die.

     Looking off the bridge over the little creek by Uncle Homer's house, I see the little hole of water where as a boy I fished, using grasshoppers or wasp larvae for bait. I could always count on catching four or five big perch or goggle eyes, string them up on a forked stick, and head for home to clean them for supper.
   
     I get in my car and drive over to see Elois Hunnicutt, now 94. Her sons Grady and Wayne were my good buddies as we grew up. They, Sammy Turner, Jack Larry Gillum and I often skinny dipped in that very cold, very deep hole in the creek down in our pasture. Some of the guys proudly walked the bank most of the time. Personally, I tried to stay in the water. Anyway, I worked in the Mountains for the late Mr. Alja Hunnicutt one summer during college. I got to ride 40 miles in the back of his pickup to Dover and 40 miles back, every day. I totally wore out two good pair of work boots that summer, just trying to keep him in sight in those hard mountains.

     Elois still lives alone on their farm, still has a big garden. Some time back, she fell out there and broke a bone or two. Over several hours, she managed to crawl back to her back door, but that's as far as she could get, alone. She had to lay out a good part of a day and night. Cell phones don't work well in Wing. But she's as lively as ever now, and gets around pretty good with her cane. I know I would be hard pressed to keep up with her now, much less when I'm 94.

     I drive into town and get to meet the Gillilands, the new store owners. There has been only one store in Wing, in my lifetime. I got to tell them about sitting, cluelessly, reading the funnies, throughout the great robbery of that store, 56 years ago. That is the only sure enough crime I ever remember happening in Wing. Effie Turner figured out she had been cleaned out when she came back, called ahead, and they were caught before they could get out of the valley. The robbers got a year and a day. Effie was an older lady at that time, and she died at 100, in 1979. During her lifetime, she rode in a covered wagon pulled by oxen, and saw men walk on the moon.

           I walk over to the old church next door, where the Memorial Service for JR Turner, Effie's son, had just been held. JR died this year at 102. JR fired a wanderlust in me, as a child, telling me stories of his world travels, and showing me gold he had found “1000 miles off the pavement.” Without him, all of my tales of our world travels might never have happened at all.
      I get back in my car, pull out onto the road, and head east. And as I wind out of the hills of Wing I know, as I always know in my heart, though I left these hills 50 years ago, and have never lived here again, I am forever a hillbilly, And proud to say it.