Best Stories of 2011 - Number four

The Dogs of Wing
      We had no house dogs at Wing, mind you. Any dog of ours unlucky enough to stray indoors quickly caught a broom on the behind to usher them back out. I understood that they lived or died on their own good luck. Money was not spent on dogs if they got sick. But, nevertheless, dogs were a big part of my life at Wing.
     Contact with dogs came early in my memory. Spot was an aging, cancer eaten long haired dog,
nearing the end, faintly recalled in my earliest recollections. Not so faintly recalled is the rifle shot that ended his suffering existence.
Snippy was a short haired, black, chunky feist. He was a fine squirrel dog without a hunter. Harold, my older brother, his hunting partner, had gone off to college. Snippy spent his days, lying in the warm sun, dreaming of days gone by. On cold winter nights, he would jump up through the open crib door of the barn, work his way into the hayloft, and burrow in for the night. One very cold morning, with temperatures hovering near the single digits, I approached the barn. Then I saw him. Snippy lay, curled up in a ball in the snow, frozen solid. Above him was a closed, and latched, crib door.
     Next came Chubby. We just never hit it off. He was my sister Barbara Lou's dog. Very ill tempered around me, he growled when I came around, I picked at him in return, and our relationship deteriorated from there. Even as an old dog, most of his teeth gone, he would attack my shoes in a rage if I ever came near his food bowl.Chubby often liked to visit in the neighborhood, and I assume he was unwelcome. He once came home with a tin can full of gravels attached to his tail. Dad finally got tired with his constant carousing and took him to a man in need of a dog five miles away. The next morning he was home, and he stayed awhile this time. Chubby loved to chase cars, and his hobby eventually led to his undoing.
     My very first dog of my own was Champ. I built Champ a house, painted his name over the door. We wrestled and played, getting closer daily. As Barbara Lou and I rode to the cucumber patch one morning, Champ followed. When we arrived, I said, "Let me out so I can watch after Champ while you turn the truck around." But I was too late. Bumped and knocked off balance by a front wheel, the rear wheel ran over his snout. Champ got up, walked a few steps, looked at me, and I saw the light begin to fade from his eyes. Slowly he fell. I raced to kneel beside Champ, my shaking hand feeling a faint heartbeat ebbing away. It was a long time before the memory of Champ began to ebb away.
     When I first got Tooter, he was an eight week old, part German Shepherd pup. He sported a black and white cross on his chest. I carried him, resting on my forearm, the two miles back to our farm. As Tooter grew, he learned quickly. He became my constant companion, as we hunted, fished, and trapped - or just roamed the bottoms and mountains for the fun of it. He quickly learned to "stand," "heel," or "back up." Once learned, he obeyed perfectly. If I needed help getting up a slick creek bank after looking for mink sign, I had only to say "back up." Tooter backed into position, waited until I grasped his tail, then pulled me up the bank. Tooter was a world class runner, by human standards. Using the "Stand"  command, I timed him at seven seconds flat for the hundred yard dash, eclipsing the world record by two seconds or so - for a man. Tooter saved me many times. One hot summer day, as I walked barefoot down the weed covered lane to fish at Lilly Pad Lake, Tooter was in the heel position. He suddenly jumped ahead of me, then off to one side. Looking down, I saw a large moccasin, coiled and fangs bared, lying where my next step would have taken me.
     Tooter became a good squirrel dog, though not in the normal sense of the term. He did not trail squirrels, but ran, crashing through the underbrush, scaring any self respecting squirrel into movement. His sharp eyes caught the flash of fur, and another squirrel was treed. Once he had him in sight, he would follow as the squirrel jumped from tree to tree. We worked well as a team. While I quietly waited on one side of the tree, Tooter crashed to the other side to turn the squirrel. They were an important source of meat for my family. The only meat we ever ate was either salt pork, an occasional chicken, or meat I hunted of fished for.

Best Stories of 2011 - Part Two

      The job started in the middle of the year. It wasn't until later that I realized it was because they had already lost so many teachers that year. It paid two thousand dollars for the semester, big money to me. It was sort of a bits and pieces job, just fill in where a teacher had been destroyed and quit, where a senior sponsor had been run off, where another just couldn't take it anymore and walked. It didn't seem to matter that the subject matter didn't match my degree, my area of expertise. But really, at that point I had no area of expertise, although I was pretty well convinced I knew it all. I did get one physical education class, in my field, and that actually turned out to be my salvation at St. Paul

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      I knew the coach, Billy Max, an old A&M grad himself. He invited me to share his trailer. I went along with him to lots of his games. His senior boys team was very short, no good, and would pass up a layup any day for the glory of gunning a thirty foot shot. Just quite naturally, they won no games that year. His junior boys showed promise, and the girls teams were fair.

      I was nearly out of transportation, having problems with my old Chevy. The fuel pump shut down on me on University Avenue in Little Rock one day, and a cop showed up and helped me get it towed back to a station. Fortunately, my brother Harold, who I had bought the car from for several cows, had saved an old fuel pump in the trunk. Said it would work in a tight. Well, I was in a tight. I had it put on, and Harold was right. It did work in a tight. Long enough for me to get back to the spot where the first one quit, and it quit too.

      As soon as I got a paycheck, I sold it and headed to town to decide between a 1966 Corvair and a 1966 Mustang. Wouldn't you just know it, I picked the Corvair, brand new, two thousand three hundred dollars.

      Teaching went pretty well, everything considered. I had a hard core group of hillbilly boys in my PE class, but I was a hard core hillbilly too. Some of these guys, I knew, were at the forefront in running off teachers, so I put in a little segment on distance running right off. Since I had just come from being a college distance runner, I led them out on a two mile route. They were determined to not let a teacher outdo them in anything physical, and they kept up until they just, one by one, collapsed. They respected physical things much more than teaching ability, fortunately, and we got along OK. One of my boys collapsed to the point that I had to load him up in my car and take him to the doctor in Huntsville, twenty miles away. We were late getting back, he was still pretty much out of it, so I drove him home and milked his goats for him.

Best Stories of 2011

Since May 2011, I have posted 169 stories on my blog. As we near the end of 2012, I have decided to post the five most-read stories from 2011, starting today with the fifth most read story, Meeting her Family and Milking Goats. I have added to or changed some of them, even the name. I hope you enjoy them!
     Barbara and I have spent the last two weeks going over and proofing my book, Spreading Wing. Four hundred pages worth. It should be ready for sale on amazon.com in America and Europe in December 2012. I hope you enjoy it!

Meeting Her Family and Milking Goats - A two part story

     I met Barbara at the Delta Dip in Dumas, home of the Ding Dong Daddy. I knew immediately I wanted to marry this girl. But, I had this problem. I just could not talk to a girl I really liked. Well, Barbara was so fun, outgoing, bubbly and pretty, she just brought out the real me. I managed to set up a date with her for the next week. The time was January, 1966.

     Following her directions, I headed for Watson Saturday night. I had misgivings. It was a well known fact at A&M, twenty-five miles away, that a young man just did not venture into Watson, alone, after dark. Watson had three or four really bad young dudes, they loved to fight, and they were good at it. I slunk down in the seat as I drove down Main Street, well, actually, THE street. It was dark, but not nearly dark enough. Watson was like an old western town. In fact, at least one old western movie was made there. I couldn't help but remember all the men I had seen die in the street of just such a place, in the movies. Well, I made it through town, breathing easier, and headed for her house, out a winding gravel road three miles through the cotton fields.

     When I arrived, Barbara invited me in. I thought the whole family must be there, but no. I just barely scratched the surface of the Dunnahoe clan that night. Her little sisters, two squirmy little girls, whispered and laughed to each other about how tall I was, how big my hands were, and would you just look at those feet! Her brother, about my age, was there with his wife and baby. The brother, JD, shook my hand and all, but the look in his eye was anything but friendly. It wasn't until years later, I began to piece it all together from his stories. I began to realize, JD was actually the one I had heard stories about at A&M. He was not real big, but he had mastered the art of getting three running steps in and throwing the first punch in a one punch fight. Little did I know, the real danger was not on the streets of Watson, but here, in this house, looking at me hard.

Barbara's dad, I liked immediately. But her mom quickly found things to do in another part of the house when I came in, so I didn't get a chance to really know her that night.

     I was going to Wing one weekend, to see Mom and Dad. Barbara was going to Little Rock that weekend, to see sister Frances. So we set up a date to go to a drive in movie Saturday night.

On Saturday, Mom wanted me to take her to Gravelly to pick up a bunch of cats someone was giving away. They were guaranteed rat catchers, and Mom had a pretty good crop of rats at the cow barn. We did, and they were a wild bunch. I finally got all of them in a tow sack, and we headed home. Halfway there, they somehow got out of the sack, and tore up jack, running all over my clean car all the rest of the way. Well, after I got them delivered to Mom's barn, I cleaned that car up really good for my date with Barbara.

     We were in the middle of the drive in movie, and things were going good. All of a sudden, Barbara sits up real straight, and pointed toward the windshield. "What IS that? Every little bit, I see these little things float by, looks like a cat hair!" "I don't know, Barbara. Sometimes, a fellow just sees little things floating around in your vision. Perfectly normal, they say."

     Barbara told me once about her long school bus rides home every day, and how tired she got of that. The bus gets to within half a mile of her house, then turns off on a very long crooked side road to deliver another bunch of kids, then came back out. Barbara decided one day it would just be simpler if she had the driver just let her off when he made the turn to the side road, and she could walk that last half mile, and it would be a lot quicker. So she did. She was about two hundred yards from home when she heard the bus coming. She had to sprint all out that last two hundred yards. She was not about to let that driver pass her trudging along. The next day, the driver asked her if she wanted to get off at the turn again. "Nah'. I'll just ride with you."

     Barbara and I got to date a few more times, but then student teaching was over, and I was headed to the hills of St. Paul, Arkansas in my 55 Chevy to begin my teaching career.

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Winds from Hell - Conclusion

      The neighbors continued on with the house. A group of Mennonites came down from up north somewhere, and they helped finish it. How they ever talked the dad into letting them, I'll never know. Just as they had put on the finishing touches, The city decided to use that land for the new City Hall. So it was torn down again. But I guess the old man, (who reminded me of my Dad) his hard working son, wife and kids, came out better financially. When the city takes land, I've heard they pay by the square foot, which also means through the nose. I never did know their names, or what became of them. But I still think of them occasionally, with a lot of respect.

        Much of this next segment is based of fact, as I remember it. The rest is based on the scuttlebutt around town about what was going on at City Hall. Scuttlebutt is not necessarily true, but it sure began to seem to me like it was. Some said City Hall was being transformed. Since so many were rebuilding, It was a really good time to toughen up the city building standards. The new City Manager seemed to me to be a bit of a gunslinger, and, as he came from Cut and Shoot, Texas, maybe he was

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      Our Clay street house was rebuilt, for about what the house cost me in the first place. This was the first rebuilt house to be finished since the tornado, I was told, and the scuttlebutt was, it was destined to become the test house for the new building policy.

      The current City Inspector left about that time. Scuttlebutt had it he couldn't stomach what was about to happen to these poor people trying to rebuild. Three or so new, temporary, building inspectors were brought in, from different parts of the country. I won't go so far as to say they were extreme hard cases, but in my dealings with them, I had every reason to believe they were.

     When the contractor finished with the house, they would not approve it. They had me doing more and more little changes, call them to inspect it, then they would add another list of things. The house sat empty, for days and days. There was no shortage of people wanting to rent it, because there were tons of people without a house. I spent days sitting in city hall, waiting for an inspector to go look at the last batch of improvements I had been required to do.

      A man from Catholic Relief Services came by. He had a family, he said, huddled in what was a piece of a house. A bulldozer sat in the front yard, ready to tear it down. They had no place to go. He wanted to rent my house. I told him I could not rent it to him, City Hall was not happy with it yet. He just said, "Let's go to City Hall." Well, when he got down there in front of those inspectors, I finally learned what a true hard case looked and sounded like.

      The city eased up a little. An inspector came out. He finally said, "If you will build a wooden box around the breaker box on the front porch, I'll release the house." I reminded him the breakers were already enclosed in a metal box. He looked at me hard awhile, then pointed to the front steps. "You know," he said, there really needs to be a rail there." I shut up and started building a box.

Remember, that was 1997. this is 2012. Today, we have a local guy as City Manager, who turned out to be, in my opinion, our best. And, our new inspector, he's a firm but fair man. He still calls me to task, on occasion, and he holds my feet to the fire. But only when I deserve it. As a landlord, I have every reason to suck up to those guys. But what I have just said is true, never the less.

      That was our last year in business. The tornado did not drive us out, we already had that planned. Our family was very lucky, all in all. But I sure would not want to go through it again.

Hundreds, and I mean Hundreds, of volunteers stepped in and helped our recovery. I can't say enough about the University students. Kinley had stored what we salvaged in our garage, and a team of OBU students came out one day, went through each of the hundreds ot tiny things, and cleaned each one. They really came through for Arkadelphia when the chips were down.

      During the time when the National Guard was deployed in Arkadelphia, two of them had planned on getting married. So, Arkadelphia threw them a free wedding. Business people chipped in to help out in their specialty areas. Barbara and I made the wedding pictures. It turned out to be a fun wedding for Arkadelphia, and them too, I think. It was a pleasant little respite during very hard days.

      We lost some of our best people. We all grieve for those families. They will never be forgotten. A lot of people lost a great deal. Arkadelphia has recovered, and the physical reminders of those dark days are gone, except for a blank space here and there. But March 1, 1997 will always be in the minds and hearts of all of us who were there that day.

      Nowadays, our family tells Kinley when a storm comes up, "Kinley, think about it! Nobody, but nobody, ever gets hit by a tornado – twice!" It dosen't help her attitude about it much that she has twice had to be moved out into the hallway of a hospital when she was in labor, because a tornado was heading that way. So, don't expect to find Kinley when the dark clouds roll in. She will be in her hidey-hole. I will probably be there with her.

      Thanks for reading!