Forever A Hillbilly: Sammy Charles Turner Trouble

Forever A Hillbilly: Sammy Charles Turner Trouble: Sammy Turner leads me into Trouble. Again and Again    Sammy Turner was two years older than me.  We ran around together a lo...

Sammy Charles Turner Trouble

Sammy Turner leads me into Trouble. Again and Again

   Sammy Turner was two years older than me.  We ran around together a lot in the 1950’s. We had a call. “Whoo, Whoo, Whooie e ooo!” That call carried over the top of Stony Lonesome between our houses, and pretty soon we would be on a great adventure. He was a leader, I was a great follower, and somehow I got into a lot of trouble following Sammy.

     We decided to build a club house up on top of Stony Lonesome. The small pines, chopped down, made a great frame. We went to an old barn, barely standing, and salvaged lots of planks. One day we went back to the old barn, and it was flat on the ground. We must have removed a key plank the day before.  When the clubhouse was just about built, we made up the club rules, wrote them down, folded up the rule sheet and stuck them in a crack. The next day, when we took out our rule sheet, I saw Dad had been there. Another rule had been added.

     “Do not cut any more pines belonging to John Gillum.”

     Sometimes, after harvesting our peanuts, we would hang tow sacks (city people call them gunny sacks) full of peanuts up in the smokehouse. Sammy and Mack Carter, a cousin, finally got in the habit of coming by and manipulating me, two years younger, into sneaking into the smokehouse and getting them a good supply.  I made a tiny hole in the bottom of a bag. After this happened a few times, I guess Dad caught on, because one day I snuck in, and Dad was in there, sewing the hole up with a needle and thread. One good glare from Dad was all I needed, and I hauled out of there and never tried that again. Dad never cared how many I ate, because he knew how hard I worked and I deserved them. But furnishing the neighborhood boys, who he knew did not work as hard, went against his grain.

      As JR Turner once told me, “The Gillum’s were not like other people.”

     Once, Sammy decided we could catch perch in Stowe Creek by feeling under the rocks and grabbing them. That worked well, until we pulled out a big water moccasin! That was the end of that.

     Sammy had another good idea. We stuck needles in the end of our arrows, put on an extra shirt for armor, and shot them at each other. Fortunately, we were not very accurate.

     Another idea was to lay a .22 shell on the concrete, reach around the corner of their rock cellar, and hit it with a hammer. I nixed that one. Even I knew better than that.

     Sammy and I spent a lot of time looking for arrowheads. One of our favorite places to look was down close to the river. There were plowed fields there then, but now they are covered with tall pines. One Sunday, as we started out, Dad said, “Don't get out of our pasture.” Well, the good hunting was well past our pasture. When we got to the river, two miles out of our pasture, we decided to cross it and look on the other side. After we explored awhile, we tried to return to the Hale Ford, where we had crossed. Every time we reached the river, all we could find was wide and deep water. We could not cross. Well, we could have swam, but it was a little cold to relish that. We finally headed downriver and came out at Rover Bridge, a couple of miles downriver.

      About sundown, we drug in home. Dad said, “Sammy, maybe you need to stop coming over here so much.” I had cows to feed and, since Dad was waiting for me, I got right to it. Finally Dad said, “I was down in the pasture today, and I didn't see you there.”

     “We decided to hunt arrowheads in the woods,” I lied.

     “No wonder you didn't find any,” he knowingly said. I totally deserved a whipping that day, but he let me slide.

     A different trip to the river with Sammy, which Mom had nixed, earned me my only real whipping Mom ever gave me. Mom took me out under the persimmon tree. She had a big limb. I was taller than her then, and I just kinda looked at that small woman headed toward me with that limb, and I sorta smirked. She got hold of me with one arm, and we went round and round with her working on me with that big limb. You could hear my screams all over that hill. I never doubted her abilities after that.

     My older siblings filled me in early as to what Dad was capable of, so I never tested him much. A certain look over the top of his glasses and “putt, putt, putt!” was all I usually needed to keep me in line. I never could figure out what that meant exactly, and I never wanted to know. If anybody knows what “put, put, put” means, I would now really like to know.

     Sammy and I built two carts that we could sit on and steer. A piece of wood for a steering wheel with wires running to the front wheel area did the trick. We had trails made through the pines on the side of Stony Lonesome, and it was great fun. One day Sammy showed up with a car steering wheel for his cart. I was jealous. Well, I went home and started going through my brother Harold's stuff he had stored. He was a mechanic in the Air Force at that time. I found something that looked like half a car steering wheel, so I got that. It worked great. By the time I totaled my cart against a tree at the bottom of Stony Lonesome, this cart thing was getting old anyway, so I left it there.

     Some 50 years later, Ken Gillum, Harold's son, called me up and said, “You would never believe what I found up on the hill. I can't figure it out! A B-29 steering wheel! Did you ever hear of a B-29 crashing up on the hill?”

      I told him, “Ken, I think I can help you out on that one.”

      A year or two ago, one of Sammy's teachers at Fourche Valley School in the 1950’s told me, “Sammy was the smartest student I ever had. He was so far ahead of everybody else, he was bored. He spent his time thinking of troublesome things to do. He helped me out a lot in deciding teaching was not for me.”

Forever A Hillbilly: The Burning Cross

Forever A Hillbilly: The Burning Cross:      When Barbara and I sold our photography business in 1998, we invested much of our profit in two large, older rent houses, both in sm...

The Burning Cross

     When Barbara and I sold our photography business in 1998, we invested much of our profit in two large, older rent houses, both in small towns a good ways from Arkadelphia. I spent several months cleaning them up and remodeling them, then put them on the market. Buying one of those turned out to be a mistake. It didn't rent well. Took a long time. Then, when it did rent, I found out it's hard to keep a good eye on whats going on there. It finally rented to a couple of women. After a couple of months, they just stopped paying rent. We started the process of eviction. Turns out, that had been their MO for some time. Pay rent a couple of months, then live free for six months, while the eviction process winds at a snail's pace through the court system, month after month.

     In Arkadelphia, that process moves fairly quickly along. But in the county where this house was, it was painfully slow. It all depends on how quickly the law serves notices, how hard it is to find the proper person to serve it to, how far apart court dates are, etc. It also depends on how well the renter understands how to work the system, stretching it out. And, these two were pros. Plead innocent the first time before the judge, to get a later date set maybe a month or two down the line. When the final court date did arrive, after six months, and they were finally before a judge with all the facts on the table,  the judge gave them twenty four hours to get gone. But that back rent money is hard or impossible to recover, if they don't have a steady job, or a known bank account that is not moved regularly. Or, If you just don't have a clue about were they disappeared to. I never saw a dime of that rent.

     Another renter, a year or so later, wanted to “Rent to own.” I was ready to sell, so we worked out a deal. With a down payment, the renter takes over upkeep expenses, pays the property taxes, insurance, and keeps paying about the same amount each month as they paid in  rent until it's paid off. Then it belongs to the renter. 

     This buyer was a single mother, with mixed race small children. She worked at McDonald's. Things went along well, for a short time.

     This town, it seems, has, for the most part, all white people. One night, a cross burned in her front yard. Then guys harassed her most of the night with fireworks thrown up against the house.

      But this was a gutsy little woman. The next morning, she called the FBI. A hate crimes investigation was soon under way. One of the guys came by the next day. He apologized to her, begged her to call off the FBI. Her answer: “I don't want to hear it. Tell it to the FBI.”.

     After another day or so, fearing for her children, she told me she wanted out of the deal. She was moving. Knowing this was not her fault, that she was a victim here, I agreed to give her every penny of her down payment back, and I did. Though legally, the down payment was mine to keep. She moved in with her mother. She started moving her things, and I took the house back over.  

     About three days after the cross burning, I was fishing on Lake DeGray early one morning. My property manager called me there. The house was burning down. Nobody was living in the house, but much of the renter's stuff was still there. I immediately started getting the names of the fishermen around me, with their contact info. I wanted to be sure I could prove where I was when this happened.

     When Barbara and I arrived at the house at about nine AM, it was a total loss, nothing much left to burn.  A few volunteer firemen were mopping up. A large team from the FBI were just moving in to investigate. I talked to the FBI awhile, told them what I knew.

     The cross burning was easily solved. One of them had been identified. So, the dominoes began to fall. While some local people had quickly told the investigators it was just “Children, playing tricks,” some of the “children” charged were over forty. Pretty old children.

     The house burning was a different matter. Those charged with the cross burning maintained they knew nothing about the house burning. A popular idea being spread around  town was that the victim of the cross burning, herself, burned the house. Though anything is possible, I had trouble with that theory. She had nothing to gain. I had already given all her money back to her, for which she was very grateful. Nobody was ever charged in the house burning, to this day.

As the date for the trials for the cross burning moved to a court date, she said she was being harassed by people who came in where she worked, and calling where she now lived. She moved into another of my rent houses, farther away, and she, and we, kept her location very secret.

     Having rental property can have its ups and downs. 

I once rented an apartment out to a framing crew from Mexico. Barbara and I left soon after to travel for a year. A couple of the guys got into a fight over a woman, I understand. The fight spilled out into the back yard. One man picked up a concrete block, and busted the other guy's head open. I never heard how that case came out. Son- in- law Mickey, a paramedic, was the first on the scene. When we got back eight months later, the murder weapon was still lying in the back yard. At least, I assume it was. That concrete block had some strange dark stains on it.

Forever A Hillbilly: Scrabble Wars

Forever A Hillbilly: Scrabble Wars: Scrabble Wars and Doctor Deadlift      Early in our married life, Barbara and I were already playing Scrabble. I had played longer, all t...

Scrabble Wars

Scrabble Wars and Doctor Deadlift

     Early in our married life, Barbara and I were already playing Scrabble. I had played longer, all the way through College, and I had the edge. We realized quickly, we were both very competitive about it. Once I beat her pretty good, and she stormed out of the house, announced she was leaving, got in the car, and sprayed gravel all over that house.. Well, I knew Barbara didn't even know how to get out of town yet, much less drive home to Mama. She drove a few laps around town, settled down some, and came home.
    A marriage counselor would not have recommended it, I'm sure, but we both loved the game and just continued on playing. Pretty soon, Barbara was winning her share.
    A year or two later, we had moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Late in March, we got a very unusual 17 inch snow fall. We had nothing else to do, so we played Scrabble. She beat me like a rented mule, and I stormed out, into the real storm. I plowed through that snow until I had a pretty good trail around and around that house, just gave out, then I, too, returned home. I'm sure people driving by wondered why I had a trail around the house in that deep snow, while my car would remain snowed in for days. I should have used all that energy to dig the car out, but Scrabble anger is not a sensible anger.
    Jump ahead with me 40 years or so. Barbara, always a word freak and crossword guru, had taken command. After I had lost a very long string of games, the final loss galled me so, I lost it. I was now an old man, and that kind of rage is just not good for an old man. I grabbed the board, flung it far across the room. We didn't play for awhile, because I was digging tiles out of the far corners of that room for some time.
    When I finally found a full set of tiles, old habits were hard to break, and we continued on. I finally accepted the fact that I was going to be the majority loser, and learned to relish my occasional victory. Barbara had learned so many new words, it was hard, but we played so often, I slowly began to learn them too, at a terrible price.
    Finally, one glorious day, the Scrabble Gods just started smiling at me, frowning at Barbara, and I won 7 games in a row. This juicy little tidbit has never been told before,  It is just not a safe thing to talk about. Well, after that 7th loss, Barbara jumped up from the couch, grabbed the board, and just slammed in down, upside down, on the couch. Well, I knew it would take a long time to find all those tiles, and I was fine to rest on my laurels for some time,  and just generally enjoy this current status. But Barbara would have nothing to do with that, dug them all out quickly, and stated she was ready to play. You just don't beat Barbara like a rented mule and walk away from it.
    When Barbara got her magic phone, with internet-GPS-everything, she sought the best players she could find on the internet, and keeps a few games going all the time on Words with Friends.
    When we went to bed, she would kiss me goodnight, I went to sleep, and she would play awhile with a couple of guys/girls until she went to sleep.
    I've never been a jealous type husband, mainly because she never gave me any reason to be.
    Things change Once she put her picture out on the internet to her personal friends, made a mistake somehow, and it went to the whole internet. As anyone can plainly see, Barbara always looks good in a picture. She is an expert poser, from her photography years, and always applies all her skill to her own pictures. Soon, Dr. Deadlift responded. Wanted to play some Scrabble. Said she looked like someone who could give him a good game. I wondered about that. He could tell all that from a picture? By way of introducing himself, he referred her to Facebook to explain his name. Barb called me up to look at it. At 56 or so, he was a world champion weight lifter, and worked in Homeland Security. Well, all that was too much for me. She was taking that picture off anyway, and she cut off Dr. Deadlift when she saw how much it bothered me. I soon came to realize, I was being silly. He never talked about anything except the game, always a perfect gentleman, and he WAS a top tier scrabble player. You either trust someone or you don't, and one of the things we had both always been happy about in our marriage was the fact that we never gave each other that kind of grief. I told her to put him back on, but don't be playing Dr. Deadlift, in the bedroom, after I go to sleep. I never play Barbara any more. With all her internet scrabble, she has left me behind. And Scrabble is just something I cannot tolerate always losing at. The Scrabble Gods just no longer have a role in it. Word to the wise: Don't challenge Barbara unless you are in the top tier. You remember what I told you about that rented mule?

Scrabble Wars and Dr. Deadlift

Scrabble Wars and Doctor Deadlift

     Early in our married life, Barbara and I were already playing Scrabble. I had played longer, all the way through College, and I had the edge. We realized quickly, we were both very competitive about it. Once I beat her pretty good, and she stormed out of the house, announced she was leaving, got in the car, and sprayed gravel all over that house.. Well, I knew Barbara didn't even know how to get out of town yet, much less drive home to Mama. She drove a few laps around town, settled down some, and came home.
    A marriage counselor would not have recommended it, I'm sure, but we both loved the game and just continued on playing. Pretty soon, Barbara was winning her share.
    A year or two later, we had moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Late in March, we got a very unusual 17 inch snow fall. We had nothing else to do, so we played Scrabble. She beat me like a rented mule, and I stormed out, into the real storm. I plowed through that snow until I had a pretty good trail around and around that house, just gave out, then I, too, returned home. I'm sure people driving by wondered why I had a trail around the house in that deep snow, while my car would remain snowed in for days. I should have used all that energy to dig the car out, but Scrabble anger is not a sensible anger.
    Jump ahead with me 40 years or so. Barbara, always a word freak and crossword guru, had taken command. After I had lost a very long string of games, the final loss galled me so, I lost it. I was now an old man, and that kind of rage is just not good for an old man. I grabbed the board, flung it far across the room. We didn't play for awhile, because I was digging tiles out of the far corners of that room for some time.
    When I finally found a full set of tiles, old habits were hard to break, and we continued on. I finally accepted the fact that I was going to be the majority loser, and learned to relish my occasional victory. Barbara had learned so many new words, it was hard, but we played so often, I slowly began to learn them too, at a terrible price.
    Finally, one glorious day, the Scrabble Gods just started smiling at me, frowning at Barbara, and I won 7 games in a row. This juicy little tidbit has never been told before,  It is just not a safe thing to talk about. Well, after that 7th loss, Barbara jumped up from the couch, grabbed the board, and just slammed in down, upside down, on the couch. Well, I knew it would take a long time to find all those tiles, and I was fine to rest on my laurels for some time,  and just generally enjoy this current status. But Barbara would have nothing to do with that, dug them all out quickly, and stated she was ready to play. You just don't beat Barbara like a rented mule and walk away from it.
    When Barbara got her magic phone, with internet-GPS-everything, she sought the best players she could find on the internet, and keeps a few games going all the time on Words with Friends.
    When we went to bed, she would kiss me goodnight, I went to sleep, and she would play awhile with a couple of guys/girls until she went to sleep.
    I've never been a jealous type husband, mainly because she never gave me any reason to be.
    Things change Once she put her picture out on the internet to her personal friends, made a mistake somehow, and it went to the whole internet. As anyone can plainly see, Barbara always looks good in a picture. She is an expert poser, from her photography years, and always applies all her skill to her own pictures. Soon, Dr. Deadlift responded. Wanted to play some Scrabble. Said she looked like someone who could give him a good game. I wondered about that. He could tell all that from a picture? By way of introducing himself, he referred her to Facebook to explain his name. Barb called me up to look at it. At 56 or so, he was a world champion weight lifter, and worked in Homeland Security. Well, all that was too much for me. She was taking that picture off anyway, and she cut off Dr. Deadlift when she saw how much it bothered me. I soon came to realize, I was being silly. He never talked about anything except the game, always a perfect gentleman, and he WAS a top tier scrabble player. You either trust someone or you don't, and one of the things we had both always been happy about in our marriage was the fact that we never gave each other that kind of grief. I told her to put him back on, but don't be playing Dr. Deadlift, in the bedroom, after I go to sleep. I never play Barbara any more. With all her internet scrabble, she has left me behind. And Scrabble is just something I cannot tolerate always losing at. The Scrabble Gods just no longer have a role in it. Word to the wise: Don't challenge Barbara unless you are in the top tier. You remember what I told you about that rented mule?