Stony Lonesome

     I just got back from yet another trip to Yell County.  I have been going up there pretty regularly lately.

     The Gillum’s have had a presence in Yell County since 1898. With my brother’s death recently, that presence has been dwindling. Only my sweet sis-in-law, Louise, and my nephew, Big Dan, still remain. I decided some time back that I had to always keep some sort of permanent presence there, if only for part time. Thus my son Corey and I have been in the process of putting a cabin up there for some time now.

     My nine acres is a spaghetti shaped parcel that stretches across the highest part of the old family farm. I call that mountain (hill?) top Stony Lonesome. Actually, I borrowed that name from my favorite author when I was a child, Jim Kjelgaard. I read his book, Big Red, and his other books that spun off that. Over and over. Just recently I located a copy of Big Red in the library, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did 50 years ago. The story is about a boy and his dog, and many of his adventures played out atop and around Stony Lonesome. At the time, I had a big dog, Tooter, who was my best friend, (No offense, Sammy Turner) and many of our cherished adventures took place on and around our very own Stony Lonesome. As a child, that’s where the whippoorwills abounded, just like in the book. They’re still there.

     As a child, we grew many grapes up there. Tubfulls. That mountain top has long been regarded as the best garden spot on the farm. Deep topsoil, with deep red clay below.

     Somebody, eons ago, moved the rocks off the very top of Stony lonesome, and made a long rock fence along the edge. Any surface rock on top of Stony Lonesome is lonesome indeed. That must have happened when they discovered what a good garden spot that is.

     After my brother Harold sold me that plot, he put many days in hauling rocks and gravel onto the road up to the top of Stony Lonesome. So, the road is still passable, but actually, I think it may be the roughest driveway in Yell County, what with all the erosion that has happened on that steep hill. The soil is mostly gone, only rocks remain.

     The cabin itself is pretty close to being finished, but the bathroom, and the associated modern day conveniences, is still far off.

     Big Dan and I placed a 500 gallon water tank behind the cabin, and rain water is funneled off the roof to it. I was excited when the recent six-day rain filled it up, but that faded when I saw that the valve at the bottom dripped. A lot. Three drops per second. So, I had to siphon that tankful out, and start over. Now, I’m holding my breath waiting for the next big rain, to see how the new valve behaves. (Late note: no drips this time – it worked) In the meantime, water off the back roof is funneled into a big trash can for utility use, just like the water barrel we used when I was a kid in Wing, avoiding many long trips down the hill to the well.

     As I grew up, our toilet was a two-holer down the hill. For now, mine is a porta-potty out in the thicket and a five foot deep hole. No need to build a surround. And the stay is more pleasant with nice fresh air coming in from all directions. The thickets grow really, really thick on top of Stony Lonesome. Just carve out a trail and a small opening. But I do have one big advantage: real toilet paper. (double bagged in zip lock bags.) No Sears and Roebuck pages for this generation of Gillums! We’ve moved on up! My nephew told me the other day that he had heard a rumor that my outhouse had no house. Just an out. I had to admit that was true.

     My son, Corey, and 9 year old grandson Carson were with me this trip. Carson finally talked his dad into accompanying him to the “bathroom” in the middle of the night, but he stirred up a whole pack of coyotes in the thicket. I’ve not heart such a fuss in many years, that close. Both from the coyotes and my city-boy grandson. But Stony Lonesome is making a Fourche Valley hillbilly out of him pretty quickly.

     My last overnight stay there with Carson, it was raining pretty hard. All the time. Carson kept wanting to build a campfire. I tried to explain the physics involved with building a campfire in the rain to discourage him. He just would not buy into that. A little later, I glanced outside. He and his dad were sitting beside a campfire blazing brightly in the driving rain.

     I need to give you a little background info here. When Corey was about that age, he was constantly challenging me to build a fire under the most difficult of circumstances, using only what I could find out in the woods and one match. It was a good chance to impress my son, so I worked hard at it. I guess my most significant achievement was building a fire in a snowstorm, and early one morning on a camping trip after it had rained all night. Next we moved on to flint and steel. My oldest grandson, Christian, was so impressed by that, he worked and worked until he had mastered that art too.

     Back to our story. I was so impressed with Carson’s driving rain campfire, I just had to investigate. He had used a store-bought fire log to get it started. That’s not fair, is it?

Forever A Hillbilly: Half-Priced Houses

Forever A Hillbilly: Half-Priced Houses:      I had always thought in the deep recesses of my mind, someday I will build my own house. Mostly by myself. I decided, now was the ti...

Half-Priced Houses

     I had always thought in the deep recesses of my mind, someday I will build my own house. Mostly by myself. I decided, now was the time. We borrowed twenty-five thousand dollars in 1978, and I set in. I didn't know how to build a house, but I knew how to use a saw and hammer. Pretty well all of us raised in Wing learned to do that. The rest I learned along the way. If I got to a point where I was stumped, I went and looked at other houses under construction, and just did like the big boys did. When I first started and was doing the dirt work, a friend said, “I don't know how you ever make any progress. Every time I come by, you're leaning on your shovel.” Actually, I was very busy thinking. Trying to figure out what to do next. I did, however, dig the footing trench in one day. Lots of sand, no rocks.

      It was pretty well framed up, and my daughter Kinley, about four, was sitting in the front yard, playing in the sand. She had a spoon in her hand, and dug up a spoon full of sand just as we saw the mosquitoes were eating her up. We scooped her up, along with her spoon full of sand, and she quietly reached down and pulled a gold ring from the spoon. We figured that was a good omen for the house.

     I was working on the master bathroom when Barbara and Kinley came over with the news. Elvis Presley had just died.

      Some of the finish work I saved for the pros, like the cabinets, carpet, and brickwork. I knew I couldn't hide my lack of skill there. I found a little trick that worked well. After a contractor had been on the job one day, I went over his work until I found a flaw. Then I ragged him until he re-did it. His work quality now moved up a notch. Most contractors will only do their best work if they are pushed to it by picky people. It's all about speed with them. Many will go too fast if you let them.

     When it was finished, we turned three thousand dollars back to the bank. A one thousand, seven hundred and ten square foot, three bedroom brick house for twenty two thousand dollars. Including the lot. But, that was 1978. Prices have changed some since then. But the labor expense saved amounted to close to half the cost. It took ten months, after school, weekends, and a summer. I never, in my life, become as completely focused as when I start building a house. Barbara has a lot of trouble getting me away from it, for any reason other than my teaching job.


      I wound up building the next two houses we have lived in also. But not for that price. Thirty eight thousand dollars in 1983 out in the country, in the woods four miles from Arkadelphia. It was a two story frame house. Our new banker was very hesitant about lending money. He said most people who set in to build their own house were soon overwhelmed and quit. But, I had done it once already, so he finally relented. When the house was finished, and he came out for the final inspection, he told me I should build houses for a living. No thanks. Once the banker does his final inspection and declares it finished I take his word for it and just quit right there. I'm sick of it by then, and I have never finished up every little detail .Who am I to argue with a banker? Usually, it's part of the garage that is eternally unfinished.

     Water was a problem. We first dug a large bore well, thirty or so feet deep. Plenty of water, but the test came back bad. So, we dug a small bore well, 200 feet deep.  It tested bad also. The next sample was bad. The bank would not finalize our loan until we passed a water test. The third sample was accidentally dropped into the microwave for a minute or so. It tested perfect. Sometimes, one just does what one must do.

     After our kids grew up there, Barb wanted back in town with city water and cable TV. That third one, twenty years ago, cost sixty eight thousand, the one we still live in. But this time, the soreness in my body did not end after a few days. It was there, every day, for ten months. I was getting too old for this.

      A sheet rock hanger guy, in his mid-fifties, lived next door. He kept a close check on my progress awhile, then told me I was going to make it. A neighbor woman commented, “I’ve been wondering what’s going on over there. I never see but one man there, yet it just keeps going up.” The sheet rock hanger’s son told me one day, “I never want to be old. I want to die by fifty.” I asked why. He said, “I never want to hurt as much as my father does, every morning when he gets up.” A few months later, his father died suddenly, no one seemed to know why. But I did. Hanging sheet rock every day, for an old man, is a man killer. I had learned this on my first two houses, so this time I left the sheet rock hanging and finishing to the pros, the young guys. Three or four days as opposed to two months. The sheet rock hangers told me when they finished, it was the most square and plumb house they had ever worked on. A plus, I guess, for being so slow in framing it up.

                                                             

      The city inspector was the bane of my existence while I built that last house. Although it was legal to buy permits and build one's own house in Arkadelphia, plumbing, electrical and all, he was determined that you just can't build a house like that, alone.  He was there, nearly every day, finding things wrong.

I pulled a fast one on him once. I had the under-the-slab plumbing finished, uncovered in a four foot deep trench, and he was getting out of his truck, coming to inspect. I noticed a drain curve turned the wrong way. I knew he would say, "You can't do that! That will cause the drain to stop up every couple of weeks! Pull it out and redo it!" I threw a shovel full of dirt down on top of that joint as he walked up, gambling he was too lazy to get down in the ditch and check it. He didn't, and twenty years later, it has never stopped up.

     A couple of times, I had to bring him an engineering book to prove my point. He once decided that  two by six inch studs, two feet apart, would not hold a two story house. He told me to put another stud in between. I finally convinced him that two by sixes spaced that way could carry more weight than two by fours spaced sixteen inches apart. I let him read it right out of the engineering book. But the last time he came out, as I was finishing up, he was different. He smiled and said, “You know, a man should never have to do what you did on this house, alone like that, but once in a lifetime.” And I was doing it for city water and cable TV, for heaven's sake! I decided that day that he and I finally agreed on something. This was my last house.

    Then we started buying old, rundown rent houses, and I fixed them up. After the first one, our banker realized I would quickly fix it up, make it worth more. Sweat equity, he called it. I never had to make a down payment on another one. I even made a profit on a closing once, because rent was due. But like I say, that was then, and things have changed in banking. We made sure our credit rating stayed around eight hundred. And I have changed. I've got to renovate a trashed apartment next week, and what I really want to do is write. I wouldn't mind if I never saw another hammer and saw. Anyone want to buy sixteen old houses and apartments? Have I got a deal for you! (This story was written some time back. I now own only four rentals to work on. I’ve stopped climbing up on steep roofs, and squeezing under low houses, so my profit is much less. A product of being 69 years old. I don't do that kind of work anymore.)

    I still have 3 or 4 storage buildings around town where I keep materials I bought cheap, garage sales and all, for renovating houses. HSU renovated a huge old house on campus once, and Barbara asked me why my renovation jobs do not look as good as that one did once they finished. I patiently explained the difference between a two million dollar renovation, and a two hundred dollar renovation. She never mentioned that again.

Forever A Hillbilly: Goodbye, Fayetteville

Forever A Hillbilly: Goodbye, Fayetteville: Goodbye, Fayetteville       In 1973, my family and I lived at Fayetteville, Arkansas. I had been coaching basketball at Woodland Junio...

Goodbye, Fayetteville

      In 1973, my family and I lived at Fayetteville, Arkansas. I had been coaching basketball at Woodland Junior High for seven years.

      Dad was not doing well while we were at Fayetteville. He was still struggling to keep the farm going at Wing, Arkansas until my brother Harold retired from the Air Force and could take over the farm.  Dad had several bad spells, and my sisters and I swapped off a lot, being there to help them out. One really bad time, he got so weak he could not take care of himself, Mom was not strong enough to lift him, and my sister Jonnie and I had a hard decision to make. We checked him in at a nursing home at Ola. I’ll have to admit, Jonnie was the stronger one in making that decision we had to make. Personally, I spent a lot of time crying along about then. I had heard on the family grapevine that Aunt Lula was pretty high on me, but that ended when Dad went to that nursing home.

      As he began to get stronger, he worked hard on creative ways to take care of himself, including using his walking stick to help put his clothes on. We were finally able to take him home.

     Harold retired from the Air Force and he moved his family back to the farm, which was his plan all along. He got more than he bargained for. All the old Gillum’s around him started dying off quickly when Harold returned home.  With Dad relieved of the responsibility of the farm, Rhumatoid Arthritis became his master.

      He had a stroke, and went to the hospital at Ft. Smith. The preacher at the Rover Baptist Church was there visiting at the same time I was, once, and Dad introduced me as “My son, a teacher at Fayetteville."

      After Dad went home, every time I came down on the weekend to see them, the preacher kept trying to get me to preach at his church. I told him, "That's just not my thing." He looked puzzled by that, but he just kept on trying. I finally realized, Because of his stroke, Dad was not speaking clearly when he introduced me, and the preacher thought he was saying, "My son, a preacher at Fayetteville." Well, I didn't waste any time setting him straight about that, and the preacher finally left me alone.

      Aunt Lula, Dad’s sister, had held a grudge against Dad for decades. When Dad was in the hospital the last time, she got my cousin Juanita to take her there. "I've got to make things right with John." Dad was in a final coma state when she got there. She went in, Dad came out of the coma, and they talked a few minutes. Then Dad passed away. Aunt Lula settled her grudge with Dad in his last few moments. Dad was 78. I figured out later that at the moment Dad died, I was doing an interview with a radio station in Fort Smith about basketball stuff. My priorities were not in order. I should have been at the Danville hospital.

     By 1973, coaching was wearing thin. I had made some key enemies among the Fayetteville coaching staff, and that was not a pleasant time. I could tell you my side of it, but I'm sure they have a side of it too.

 

     I was never a good football coach. Having never seen a football game until I was grown, I never knew the game well enough. I judged myself a fair + basketball coach. I never had a losing season, but that alone does not constitute a great coach. I was a better teacher than coach. Some of the coaches I was around were good coaches, but I never knew one during my coaching career that I would judge to be a good, true man. When I read Tony Dunge's book last year, I finally realized that good, Christian coaches do actually exist, even at the highest level. But I never worked with one.

     One year, my weakest team lost seven straight games before Christmas, usually by two or three points. Some teams, and maybe some coaches, just don't have the stuff to finish an opponent off. The killer instinct.

 

     I sat down during the Christmas break, and tried to figure how we could possibly come out on top. I looked at the schedule, marked the games I thought we could possibly win, and those we couldn't. We came out 13-12, with every game going the way I had it marked.

      Coaching tends to suck you, all of you, into the game, and leaves time for little else. I now had two babies, and it was hard to be a good family man. At least, that's the effect it had on me. I wanted out.

 

      In August, Barb and I sold our trailer, loading everything in Dad's old pickup, packed the babies into our old car, and headed for Hannibal, Mo. to a physical science job without enough money to do that, at the time. We could really not afford to take that pay cut, because the new job was teaching only, no coaching. But in my heart, I knew I could not afford to stay in coaching. Barb knew I had to get out of Fayetteville, she supported me completely, and never complained. I've never forgotten that. Many years later, we moved to McCrory, Arkansas. Barbara was starting girl’s athletics under Title Nine, equal opportunity for girls. She did not coach like me. Her coaching was based on love, not fear. To my surprise, that worked much better.

      Eventually, she told me she wanted to get out of coaching and buy a failing photography studio in Arkadelphia. It would mean I had no job. But I just said, “OK.” What goes around comes around.

      When Mom found out we were moving, she said, “I want to go with you. I could cook and clean for you, and grow a garden.” I knew mom hated living alone. But we had very little time to get there and get set up before school started. I told her I would come back for her, when we got a house and got set up. I could see the disappointment in her eyes. Had I known what the future held, I would have done differently. I still have a lot of trouble about the decision I made that day. Sometime, a person just has no second chance to redo a bad decision. Mom died just before we bought a house.

Forever A Hillbilly: Bishop McCollip and wife, Philomena

Forever A Hillbilly: Bishop McCollip and wife, Philomena: *      We just got word a few days ago that our dear friend, Bishop McCollip, better known to us as Father Anthony, had just passed away. W...

Bishop McCollip and wife, Philomena

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     We just got word a few days ago that our dear friend, Bishop McCollip, better known to us as Father Anthony, had just passed away. We mourn for this great man, and wish we could be there now to share the grief of his wonderful wife, Philomena. I am reprinting this story in honor of this great man, and our close friend.
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     During our Australia adventure, Barbara an I stayed at a guest house in Sydney for several nights, as we explored Sydney, and I worked up my nerve to rent a car, one with the steering wheel on the wrong side, drive across that huge city on the wrong side of the road, and figure out how to negotiate multi-lane roundabouts, and head out up the coast to points north, toward the Great Barrier Reef.


     One night, at our dinner table, we met  a great couple, Father Anthony and Philomena. We seemed to hit it right off, and after we told him we were about to head north toward Brisbane as soon as I got up my nerve to do that, they told us to call them when we arrived there, they would come get us, and we could spend a night with them.


      A few days later, we did. They came to get us, and we soon arrived at their home.  A great meal followed, and while Barbara and Father Anthony washed and dried the dishes, Philomena and I poured over her road maps. We then spent a fun evening talking. He was royally insulted when Barbara told him they sounded British, informing us that Brits sounded like they “had a plum in their mouth, and were far more pompous.” I, in turn, was offended when he indicated American football players were somewhat less that manly,having to wear head gear and padding, while Australian Footballers used none. He had to admit, however, that many of their young men got an awful lot of concussions.

      He showed us a photo of him carrying the Olympic torch, and showed us their church. At that time, it was only a small building in their back yard. He said he was placing a photo of us over the alter, and they would pray for us daily.

Their church, he explained to us, was just like the Roman Catholic Church, except that the Priests were not celibate, an unnatural thing, and, since Jesus excluded no one, neither did they. Since that time, the church has grown very rapidly, with branches in many countries. There is an orphanage named after him in Africa, and he is now the Presiding Bishop. He was 65 at that time, she 70.  We still stay in touch regularly. It was nice to sleep in a real house that night, and we awoke to many strange and beautiful bird sounds.

      After breakfast, they drove us to the beach for a walk. They literally walked us both into the ground, several miles. They offered us the use of their beach house, half a day up the coast, but we had to decline, since we wanted to cover as much territory as possible during our stay. They led us out of town and got us started on the correct road, after giving us their official Catholic blessing.

      Since we have returned home, we have, as I said, stayed in regular contact with these friends. I told him once if they ever came to the US, we would come see them. Soon, he called, saying they were going to Hawaii for the official ceremony to make him a Bishop, wanted us to come. How does one explain to a Bishop that one can't keep his word? I had to start out by explaining how far Hawaii was from Arkansas. After he became Presiding Bishop, he once told Barbara that he was taking on the name of McCollip, in honor of a Saint. Then he said, “I personally believe, there are many living Saints in the world, today, like yourself.” Well, that bothered me some. Even though it was an off-hand remark, it was, after all, said by the Presiding Bishop of the Independent Catholic Church of Austraila. Just how official IS that? How does one live with a Saint? Can I still kiss her on the mouth? Can I sleep in the same bed? Must I always walk 5 steps behind? Just an awful lot I don't know about all that.

He once wrote to tell us their small dog, whom we knew, had got in a fight with a Cain Toad and died. How could a toad kill a dog? I looked it up. A Cain toad has a poisonous skin. Bite it, and die. Australia is full of deadly creatures.

Rest in peace, our dear friend. Though I know Jesus, in your casual conversation with him, refers to you as Bishop McCollip, you will always be Father Anthony to us. You enriched our six weeks in your wonderful country of Australia greatly.