Forever A Hillbilly: Quebec City

Forever A Hillbilly: Quebec City:    Quebec City is a walled city, from times past. The people seem to look different from others we have seen, but a lot like each ot...

Quebec City

   Quebec City is a walled city, from times past. The people seem to look different from others we have seen, but a lot like each other. I've noticed this before in isolated places. Those French speakers would not speak English to another Canadian, and were very standoffish until we told them we were Americans, then they warmed up and spoke English well.

     Barbara started reading the Bible through that day, and finished it on the trip. Gives you some idea how long that trip was.

     We discovered Expo Quebec was going on, something like our Arkansas State Fair, but very different. I found a parking spot in a man's yard nearby for a small fee. Then, the man said we had to leave our car keys with him, in case he had to move cars around. Now, that was not something I was accustomed to doing at our state fair, so finally, I just took everything of value out of the car, put it in a big backpack, and carried it around all day. When we got back at the end of the day, he was still standing right beside our car, guarding it. I felt bad, and I could tell his feelings were hurt, but he was nice about it.

     We saw a lot of new stuff at that Expo. Cheese sculptures, sand sculpture, all very intricate, chickens with feathers down to the end of their toes, milk cows with giant udders, and a woman diving from a 40 foot tower into a play pool of water six feet deep.

     When we got back to the RV park, and were loading up, Barbara drove the car up the ramps onto the car dolly. Those french women screamed with amazement, then they all came over and hugged her! You would have thought she had just dived off a 40 foot tower or something! Trying to drive out of the park backwards, because I couldn't read the sign, I got hung up between two trees. All those people turned out and started directing me, in French.

     Moving on out the St. Lawrence Seaway, we blew a tire on our car dolly at Bic. The man at the only station had only one tire that would fit, and there were no other possibilities anywhere around. But he still gave me a cut-rate deal. I'm not really sure if he just liked me, or he was helping me to get on out of there, but we always got very fair treatment at the hands of French-Canadians. Little did we know, they were about to save our necks in a major way, a little bit farther down the road.

     Farther along, we left the Seaway and headed inland, across the mountains to the Acadian Coast of New Brunswick. The Acadians were kinfolks of the Louisiana Cajuns.

Big Trouble

      Traveling across the mountains, I started hearing a strange noise in my RV motor. It got worse. As we moved out of the mountains, it would barely run. Finally, it shut down, but we were still rolling down an incline out of the mountains. We were out on a peninsula, and it appeared to me we were about as far from help as we could get in North America, without going polar. We entered Caroquet, a very isolated little town out on the far end of that peninsula. We rolled to a stop, literally, right in front of the only truck repair place we had seen in many days. I went in to talk, and they could barely speak a little English. Finally, they figured out I was having motor troubles. They came out. The motor access was right beside the driver's seat. They took their shoes off, spread out a cloth around the whole area so as not to make a mess, and opened it up. The diagnosis was a thrown rod, and I knew that would cost a couple of thousand at home. He suggested they could tie that rod up, and we could limp on home one cylinder short. “Can you fix it?” I asked. Yes, they could. It would take all day tomorrow, and they would have to bring in extra help. I didn't want to face all those hills ahead short one cylinder, so we went for it. They brought out an extension cord, said we could live there for the duration.

     Barbara  and I went to an Acadian Village the next day, set up like their pioneers lived, and the people dressed the part. Their pioneer life on this cold coast made our pioneers look like a cakewalk. The English had pushed the Acadians up to this lonely, cold coast many years ago.

     Back at the RV, they had finished up. The total bill, when changed into dollars, was about $700. They had been extremely nice and helpful throughout, and after paying the bill, I wrote a very nice letter of recommendation, so that other travelers would know they were really good people. We said goodbye, and headed on.

Forever A Hillbilly: A Year On The Road

Forever A Hillbilly: A Year On The Road:   I  WAS KIDDING WITH BARBARA ONE DAY. “When we get out of our photography studio, let's buy an RV, rent out our house, and travel for a...

A Year On The Road

 I  WAS KIDDING WITH BARBARA ONE DAY. “When we get out of our photography studio, let's buy an RV, rent out our house, and travel for a year.”

      To my great surprise, she didn't even need to discuss it. She just said, “okay.”

     We put our house up for lease. Luckily, Rhower BF Goodrich was just about to open up in Arkadelphia. We leased it to them for a year, to be used by their executives coming into town to train new employees, as a sort of hotel. We bought an older model RV, 32 feet long. We also got a dolly to pull our car on. Barbara began to pay our major bills off, a year in advance. Everything else was on automatic withdrawal. Our house rent would pay for our lodging. We sold the business to our daughter Kinley and Mickey. We would be free as a couple of birds!

     The first day out, I began to learn how to drive that big rig. I saw right off that, in making a left hand turn, the trailing car would be thrown out into the far right lane. I had to learn to take over both lanes when about to make a turn on a four lane road. Many months into the trip, I would pay the price for that little problem. The big rig caught a lot of wind. On the interstate to Memphis, seemed like every big truck that passed us was blowing us into the ditch. And, I could not back that long rig very far, with the car on. I had to have half a football field to turn around in. Our plan was to travel a couple of hundred miles to a destination, hang around until we had seen it, then move on.

     We only traveled to West Memphis that first day. I had enough of that new stress by then. The second day out, Barbara made one of our best moves of the trip. She bought roadside service Insurance. It was on special for $69.95. It would quickly pay for itself, as it turned out. We camped near St. Louis that second night, and I ran into a lady I knew from Arkadelphia in the park. That never happened again.

     We decided that tomorrow, Sunday, would be a good day to see St. Louis. That proved to be true, and we toured many large cities on a Sunday after that. The St. Louis Arch proved to be one visit Barbara regretted. The trip up and down proved to be very crowded, claustrophobic, and the arch swayed. Although we did have a magnificent view from the top, she was so sick by then, she didn't care. I had trouble getting her in that tiny car for the ride back down. We learned another lesson that day. Mark where we park the car well. We almost never found it.

     Our next stop was in the driveway of our friends, Cheryl and Wes McGowan, in Hannibal. One of our less expensive stops.

     Moving on to Chicago, we camped a few miles outside. We toured the Field Museum. We saw the two lions who killed scores of railway workers in Africa, and actually shut down the project until a great white hunter brought them down. At the Museum of Science and Industry, we saw many more amazing sights. Then we spent lots of time just driving around seeing the sights of Chicago. Lost, most of the time. But who cares? What’s time to a hog with a year to kill?

     The next day, driving through Indiana headed for Michigan, our RV just shut down on us. The RV, fortunately, was old enough that a semi-shade tree mechanic could work on some things. I made a lucky guess, pulled the car off and bought a new fuel filter, and it worked.

     We arrived in Holland, Michigan just in time for the Blueberry Festival, just the first of many special events we would run onto, by accident, that year. Holland is all about wooden shoes, tulips, and people who came from the real Holland. We also got to watch diving pigs at the Michigan State Fair.

     After detouring inland from Lake Michigan to see the Gerald Ford Library, we drove on up through Michigan along the lake on a cold day, for us. We realized northern people are just different. They swam in Lake Michigan on that cold day, in droves, while we stood shivering in our coats watching them. Those pore' people just have no summer, and they just work with what they have. They even acted like they enjoyed it.

     We took a ferry over to Mackinac Island and spent a fun day in a society with no motor vehicles. Even the UPS man drove a horse and buggy. Someone clued us in on a neat little trick. Go into the Library, pick up a newspaper which keeps you from loitering, walk out back, and you will see the very best view of the island.

Ontario’s One Damn Road

The bridge into Canada was very tall, and driving over it in that tall RV was scary. Trying to get directions from a native, he told us, “That won't be hard to find. Hell, Ontario don't have but one damn road.” That proved to be almost true. Roads are very hard to maintain in the winter, and road crews work hard on their One damn road all summer. People seen to get impatient with the many long traffic delays on that road. Once, we were stopped in a long line of backed up cars. A northern redneck (yes, the South does not have the market cornered on rednecks) got out of his car and yelled, “Hey! What's the trouble up there?” Someone yelled back, “They're moving the bodies out of the road.” The redneck shut up.

     Sudbury is a city with no living trees within miles, except for tiny replants. A giant Nickel mine is located there, and the fumes from the plant just killed everything except the people. (Maybe I should say, everthing but the remaining people?) But, they had the most fantastic hands-on science center I have ever seen. I wondered if that giant company had built that as somewhat of an apology? I could have stayed in there for days. I even got to give a colonoscopy to a dummy. Not a live one. Before we went the way of the trees, we headed out.

     In Ottowa, we toured the Parliament Building, and Barbara got recruited to participate in some sort of play about their government. Outside, a Mountie sat at attention on his horse, full uniform, and Barbara tried to get him to get down and get his picture made with her. He didn't even blink at her, so she just hung onto his leg while I took the picture.

     Moving on into Algonquin National Park, we had just sat up camp when a French speaking family walked by. The kids started chasing a chipmunk which ran right up into our camp and into a hole by Barbara. She started talking to them, the parents yelled, “Americans!” and the kids fled in terror. 

     You would have thought they had yelled “Rattlesnake!” but then, they don't have any rattlesnakes up there. I guess they just had to have something to fear, and we Americans were handy.

     I got up really early to drive around to look for wildlife, while Barbara slept in. I got a good look at, and several good pictures of, a moose in all it's glory. Barbara was jealous. It would be many weeks before she saw one. But then, what's time to a coupla' hogs.

CONTINUED

Forever A Hillbilly: Memory Pearls - and a Regret

Forever A Hillbilly: Memory Pearls - and a Regret: SIXTY SOME ODD YEARS AGO, on a cold, rainy day, I found a tiny sparrow that seems to have fallen out of its nest. It had few feathers, see...

Memory Pearls - and a Regret

SIXTY SOME ODD YEARS AGO, on a cold, rainy day, I found a tiny sparrow that seems to have fallen out of its nest. It had few feathers, seemed to just barely be clinging to life. I picked it up, carried it to the kitchen, wrapped it up in a warm cloth, and placed it in the slightly-warm oven of our wood cook stove. Then I placed it in a cardboard box in my room for the night. By morning, more feathers were showing up, and it seemed to feel better. I fed it. After lunch, I took it outside. It stood on my finger, and began its maiden flight. It aimed for a fence post, missed it, turned around, flew back, and stood on it. It looked at me, waved its wings at me, and left me forever as it flew off into its new life.

     Twenty or so years ago, I drove to school one morning at Arkadelphia high. As I exited the interstate bridge, I saw what appeared to be the crushed body of a small kitten in the middle of the highway.  As I passed it, a tiny neck and head peeked up. A string of half a dozen busses were approaching it. I pulled off, jumped out of my car, ran to the front of the first bus, and threw up my left hand, traffic cop like, and stopped the string of busses. I picked it up, took it with me. By nightfall, it was feeling better. The next day, I gave it to a sweet little girl who wanted it badly. She smiled and hugged it as she carried it off to a much better future than it could have ever guessed, even a day before.

     These sweet moments always seem to stick in my mind.

     If you look at my wall page, you will see hundreds of chickens out in front of my house. To the left of the picture, but not is sight, sat our new chicken house, with 600 laying hens producing eggs for the Hatchery at Plainview, Ar. But those chickens, in that house, were getting tired of producing an egg a day. Those in front of our house were the next generation of layers, destined to soon replace them. They were too young to produce eggs large enough to market. But they were still producing hundreds of small eggs each day in the huge barn that was on the right of the picture. Thus during that short time in 1949, we all ate many, many very small, but very good, eggs each day.

     In the 1960’s, Barbara and I had just married. She still liked to camp in the wilds with me, but that was not to last long. We wanted a tent. I found a nice one at Walmart, right behind our house, for $36. But we lived in a house trailer, and a small one at that, and we were dirt poor. We were still debating spending that much money, when my friend who I often fished with, came over. He was just a kid, as we were, and was a college student studying finance. Years later, he turned out to be a financial genus, managing money for many large companies. He told me,  “Pat, you need to rake together every penny you can. A company up the road is about to have its initial stock offering. That company is really going to go places. Buy all the stock you can!”

     “Tommy,” I said, “look at us. Look where we live. We don’t have money.”

     Tommy walked off, shaking his head. We bought that $36 dollar tent that night. I still have it, somewhere, I think, up in my attic.

     Today my grandson Christian, who is 21 and is, also, on his way to becoming a financial whiz, called me.

      “Papaw, I hope you really enjoyed that $36 tent. That $36, had it been invested in that first stock offering of that company, would convert into $335 million today.” The company?  Walmart.

      Had I decided differently, that fateful day, I would gladly give each of you who read this a million or so. But, born a poor boy, destined to die a poor boy.

     But we did really enjoy that tent, right up until the next Fourth of July, when some other camper burned a big hole in it with his fireworks.  Oh, well. 

Forever A Hillbilly: Goodbye Africa

Forever A Hillbilly: Goodbye Africa: HEADING BACK HOME TO KENYA from Tanzania, a large truck had wrecked, totally blocking the road. A large crowd of very scary people, Masai,...