Heritage

IF YOUR SNUFF’S TOO STRONG, IT’S WRONG…

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

The following is an excerpt from PATHWAYS, a book about growing up Southern in the Fifties and Sixties.

A strange pathway I follow. Despite having imbibed no distilled spirits of any type, I find myself following a mental path involving snuff, Arthur Smith, my Great-Grandmother Griffin and trying not to lose my cookies on a sideline in Spartanburg. Where do memories like this come from?

I grew up with Arthur Smith. Anyone remember Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks? I would understand if you had never heard of him, but you need to do a little research…look up Arthur Smith. I always thought he was just some old guy with a country group who sang through their noses. He hosted a radio program on WBT in Charlotte Carolina Calling and later the first country-western television program to be syndicated nationwide for thirty-two years.

Smith hosted a morning show first on WBT Radio and then on WBTV. Through this medium I was forced fed “old time” country music by my grandmother and parents. They listened as if it were a religious experience. Country music of the Fifties included the likes of Red Foley, Ernest Tubbs, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams along with Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks. It is as far from what we call country music today as liberals are politically from conservatives. What I believed to be a “regional” country music “wannabe” celebrity was quite successful on a national stage and even helped to pen “Dueling Banjos” from the movie Deliverance.

What do I remember about him? A commercial tune for Tube Rose Snuff. “If your snuff’s too strong it’s wrong, Try Tube Rose, Try Tube Rose.” For some reason all I hear in my mind’s ear is Arthur, Brother Ralph and sidekick Tommy Faile singing the commercial. Later in the early Seventies, I sat on a quilt at an open air “hippy fest” listening to Sweet Baby James Taylor humorously singing the same tune. Weird what you remember…

Should you desire to read the end of this, and other stories PATHWAYS may be purchased in book form or downloaded using the following link http://goo.gl/6yB5Ei

MAW-REESE an excerpt from Pathways

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

This EXCERPT is from the short story MAW-REESE and is a story that takes place in the Fifties. It is about how the issue of race raised its ugly head and got into the way of a friendship.

We had played together every Monday for the previous two years… every Monday when the sun was shining…regardless of temperature, since we had turned four. A lot of my memories have become muddled with the passage of time or the fact I was just four or five, but there are bits and pieces that I grab on to and, if I hold on tightly enough, they will turn into memories. My recollections of Maw are quite clear. Mondays were Nannie’s wash days and she still held on enough to the old ways that she did her wash outside even though a wringer washing machine had replaced her washboard and tin wash tub. There wasn’t enough room inside the house for the washer, especially after an indoor bathroom had been added to what was once a back porch. Water was boiled on the old gas range and carried outside to the washer. After the clothes were washed or sometimes “blued” in the old, claw foot style bathtub, they were hand cranked through two rolls called a wringer, an act that scared me to death. I was always fearful a body part might get caught up in it. The clothes were then hung out to air-dry or freeze if the temperature was too low. On days it was not in use, the washer became my personal spacecraft or tank and, despite my fear, they possessed a hand-cranked machine gun or pulsar cannon.

Miss Maggie Cureton was Nannie’s wash woman and friend even though during those days saying your friend was a “colored” wash woman was not something a white woman could admit. After Paw Paw died and Nannie moved in next door with us and our new-fangled washing machine and dryer, Miss Maggie became obsolete but was not replaced. Miss Maggie just became Nannie’s fishing buddy. I’m not sure a woman would like to be described as “thin and wiry” but it is the description I must use. Miss Maggie looked to be as tough as harness leather with strong muscles roping her thin arms. She was also as black as the end of a burned stick and always wore a kerchief around her head, unless she donned a huge straw hat given to her by my grandmother. While small, she could pull her weight and then some when lugging around baskets of water-soaked sheets or stringers loaded with fish. My fondest remembrance of her was the way she addressed me as “Honey Chile.” Her endearment was a little more loving than being referred to as one of the “you chaps” which was as close to an affectionate utterance every received from my grandmother.

One Monday morning Miss Maggie did not come alone but brought Maw and his two-year-old sister Bessy along with her. Maw’s mother, Maggie’s daughter, had found work at a church in Lancaster and would later marry a minister. Maw and Bessy were Miss Maggie’s grandchildren. While Maggie was ebony, Maw and Bessy were not. They were more the shade of the rich Luzianne coffee and cream that my grandmother drank. Their skin was shiny and seemed to glow in the morning light which accented their reddish hue. I heard them later referred to as “redbone” and was too young to understand the dynamics of someone who was bi-racial. The shine of their skin was due to the perspiration caused by their already hot and humid walk across the wide, sometimes cotton and sometimes hay field that separated their home from ours. Maw was my age, a few months older, and stood with his right foot planted firmly on the ground with his left nervously tucked, toes curled, under his instep. Both he and his sister were barefooted and dressed in hand-me-downs as was I, but I had not had to navigate the stubble and briars left behind from the last hay cutting. While only slightly older, Maw was already a half-head taller and several pounds heavier. Not intending to be stereotypical, Maw was the athlete I wished I could have been.

You may read the end of this story and others by downloading my book PATHWAYS on Kindle or purchase through Amazon at the following link: http://goo.gl/v7SdkH

PATHWAYS by Don Miller

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

Some thirty years ago the seed that would grow into this book was planted in my head when my wife Linda and I took pre-school daughter Ashley, now a mother and wife in her own right, to play in one of the many streams that cut our property. Frogs and their pollywogs, crawdads and minnows were in abundance along with a watermelon that I had placed into the dammed up stream to cool …just like my grandparents had done many, many years earlier. I had warm memories of picking red, vine ripened tomatoes and eating them whole for lunch before having a stream cooled watermelon split open for a sweet and refreshing mid-afternoon snack. I wanted Ashley to have some of the same experiences…without having to hoe the tomatoes or watermelons. Later as I struggled to get the watermelon out of the stream she pointed out, “Wouldn’t it been easier just to put it in the refrigerator?” Yep, and she doesn’t eat raw tomatoes either. Are you sure you are mine?

Closing in on my autumn years I find that my own footprints seem to wander back to the same paths that my parents and grandparents laid out for me…no matter how much I have resisted following them These are stories of my youth and reflect the era that I grew up in. They are what shaped and define me. American Exceptionalism of the Fifties, cotton fields and textiles mills, Civil Rights and “with all deliberate speed,” the Cold War and our involvement in Viet Nam in the Sixties. These are stories of a time now past that still affect us today. I hope if you take the time to read PATHWAYS that it will trigger the memories that you hold dear.

You may purchase PATHWAYS at the following link http://goo.gl/QsTE8r both through Kindle or Amazon.

FROM SHRIMP AND GRITS TO WORLD PEACE

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

Laud have mercy! I vacillate on my favorite foods. Not much really, I just enjoy eating. If I were on death row facing my “last meal” my decision would come down to either Dutch Fork barbeque or low country shrimp and grits. I hope I never have to find out which I would choose but with the politics of today…who knows? If my worst fear were to happen today, it would be shrimp and grits.

I have discovered that the Yankees have the wrong idea about grits. My former teaching chum Frankie, who is from Ohio I think, says, “OOOOH! Grits are too bland. I would much rather eat polenta.” UUUH, isn’t polenta boiled cornmeal? Grits are boiled ground corn…smaller grains than cornmeal but the source is the same. The Yankees need to realize that grits to a cook are what a blank canvas is to an artist. If you have had bad grits, it ain’t the grits’ fault any more than a bad painting is about the canvas. It takes a master’s touch.

I have eaten grits all my life…as a kid usually for breakfast swimming in fresh churned butter and a hunk of hoop cheese melting in it. My grandmother tried to substitute oatmeal or milk toast on occasion, but I was having none of it. As I got older, I realized grits made a wonderful “canvas” for many meals. I grilled it as a cake and served it with gravy alongside chicken, pork, beef, or fish. I have even made it as a dessert in the form of grits pie that is as good as any egg custard. I HAVE NEVER SERVED IT JUST AS GRITS. Grits must have butter and cheese. You may take your pick as to which kind of cheese. I also like a little chive, green onion tops or plain old onion chopped up in it. BE CLEAR! I am not talking about grits that come in a package and are to be cooked in a microwave.

I discovered shrimp and grits, first in Charleston and later in Georgetown, some thirty-five years ago. Shrimp was a luxury at my home during my childhood and teenage years and I just didn’t know that heaven could come in a big bowl. This delicacy is an orchestration of stone-ground grits bathed in a broth, fluffy with heavy cream or creamed cheese, drowning in a dark roux gravy blessed with Tasso ham or Andouille sausage featuring chubby pink shrimp topped with chopped chives. “Heaven! I’m in Heaven!”

In 1999 my baseball team made the trip to Georgetown and were lucky enough to win the state championship. When I got home, I found a Styrofoam container sitting on my kitchen bar with a congratulatory note from my wife. Inside was a double portion of shrimp and grits. I couldn’t begin to fathom a better way to celebrate.

I truly believe we could solve the world’s problems if we could get all of the world leaders to sit down with my Southern trifecta of shrimp and grits, sweet Southern tea and Jack Daniels. Yeah, you could make it a duo by adding the Jack to the tea with a bit of mint for garnish. If you feel the need for a salad, be my guest but I don’t believe that one is demanded. I would wait until after the meal and serve the Jack Daniels with a fine cigar. I’m sure we would be able to work out our world-wide differences…just don’t tell our Muslim brothers there is ham or sausage in it. They will enjoy it much better without knowing.

A LITTLE BIT OF EDUCATION…

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

This is an excerpt from the book “Pathways” which will be released in mid-November.

I have joked to my classes that I went to the the only elementary school, called a primary school back then, that had a student parking lot. I did, but it was because I went to Indian Land School where kindergarten through twelve was housed in the same building that had just one parking lot. A long low brick building similar to all that were built in the late Forties, it sat on the top of a small hill overlooking Highway 521. The primary school was housed downstairs on one end while the junior high was up the stairs above it and separated from the high school by huge double doors. For my first eight years the only time we ventured into the realm of the upperclassmen was the occasional trip to the library or auditorium and daily, having lined up like Clementine’s little ducklings, when we quietly marched to the cafeteria for lunch. The only sounds allowed were the taps and clicks caused by hard soled shoes on the highly polished hardwood floors.

In order to meet the needs of a modern world, a gymnasium was built adjacent to the high school wing. Other buildings had been added to accommodate such non-core classes as Ag, shop and band, and to house sports facilities in the form of football and baseball locker rooms. These rooms surrounded a cannery that was opened in the summer months and used by all of the families… make that all white families in the area.
There was no kindergarten during those years either. In those days, parents were still responsible for teaching basic ABC’s, numbers, and colors and such – things that kindergarten teachers are now saddled with because parents are way too busy to teach them.

My kindergarten education was year-round and administered not only by my parents but also by my grandmother, Nannie, who was an exacting taskmaster. Even during the summer months between sessions of school my education continued. While other children frolicked, romped, hither and yon seemingly doing nothing educationally, a bookmobile would show up at Pettus’s Store. Every two weeks, like clockwork, my grandmother would take me by the hand and walk me down to Pettus’s Store “to meet the bookmobile,” a vehicle which looked a lot like a converted school bus of a great age. Inside, instead of seats, there were shelves with rows and rows of books on every subject. I would pick out three books that interested me and Nannie would pick out three books that she thought might interest me. Of course the books she picked were of some type of educational value like say Einstein’s Guide to Quantum Mechanics. That gave me a total of six possible books to read over a two week period.

There really wasn’t anything possible about it because I did not seem to have a choice. Sit your self down under yonder shade tree and read or walk yourself out to yonder hot sun and corn row and pick up a hoe. There did not seem to be anything to debate so I became an avid reader and still have not found a hoe that comfortably fits my hand…not that I am actively looking. At any time, while sitting under that shade tree, I might be called upon to read aloud and could expect to be quizzed with a Moon Pie as a treat instead of a carrot strung onto the end of a fishing pole. I did not realize how much I would appreciate that later…much later. During the winter months, activities might be changed due to the weather but still were focused on the three R’s and a healthy dose of Biblical study that went on 24/7 it would seem.

Because all children did not have the benefit of my grandmother and because “Some Children Are Left Behind”, regardless of what a former president might have passed into law in the far distant future, we could have had an elementary school with a student parking lot because the concept known as social promotion was several years down one of those pathways in South Carolina. That’s right – no social promotion! The good side of that equation was that there was no compulsory attendance rule either. Good side? I have been on both sides of the coin. I was a student when there was no social promotion or compulsory attendance and then a teacher under both systems. So which do I prefer? Unh-Unh! That is my secret but there are reasons why South Carolina’s education system ranks so low today and why we had no social promotion or compulsory attendance rule at the time.

Those reasons are connected. We are still trying to shake off and remove the cobwebs from the years when I was a public school student and cotton textiles were still king in the New South. I am not implying that it was the intent of mill owners or their politicians, held firmly in owner’s pockets, purposely to keep the state “stupid.” Well, maybe I am. One did not need a particularly “globally aware” or educated workforce to produce the raw materials and finished products associated with textiles. Remember, an educated workforce might actually ask for a raise or, worse, mention the word—union. You really did not need to know your multiplication tables to do most jobs in a cotton mill although I did, in fact, have to use a slide rule in one. Yeah and I still have yet to use Algebra in the last fifty years. I keep hoping my education was not for naught!

Textiles also provided the ultimate “alternative” school. Where does a “left behind” fourteen-year-old sixth grader go when he decides to drop out of school? In my day, they became solid, tax-paying citizens who labored in the lower recesses of the cotton mills doing those jobs that were highly repetitive, back-breaking and lower paying until they taught themselves something else that would elevate them to another highly repetitive, back-breaking but higher paying “low paying job.” Understand, these low paying jobs still provided a higher level of poverty than the rest of the world enjoyed. We were still taught that education was important and that a high school diploma was the only way to get the “better” jobs in the mill. The problem today is that we do not have that “alternative” school any more and there are only so many shifts at “Mickey Dee’s” or the like.

WASTE NOT

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

WASTE NOT is an excerpt from the soon to be released book PATHWAYS

When did we become such a disposable society? I wish people would quit disposing in my front yard. When did planned obsolescence become…planned? I remember ranting to a science class about wasting resources before I even knew what planned obsolescence meant. Does that make me clairvoyant? No, it probably makes me Clarabelle the Clown. Just because we can throw away a plastic bottle should we? Why do we change fashions every season? Hems go down, go up, then go down again while ties get wide then narrow then wide again. How many of you actually wear something until it wears out? Blue jeans maybe. How many of you really drive a car until the wheels metaphorically fall off. I’ve tried often. Linda and I bought an ’86 T-Bird with sixteen miles on it. It was a beauty. Two hundred and sixteen thousand miles later, thinking we had “licked all of the red off the candy” we traded it for a Mustang. A local teenage boy bought it…and the now father of three is still driving it. Presently I am actually attempting to see who can hit a quarter million first – me or my ’97 Cherokee “Bessie Mae.” We just cracked one hundred and ninety thousand on the “Bessie Mae” but I may be slightly ahead. Am I the only one to name his cars?

My grandparent’s generation were the ultimate recyclers and repurposers. My grandmother was also huge on sayings, “Early to bed, early to rise”, “a fool and his money” and one that I heard maybe daily was “Waste not, want not.” She lived it. Old plastic Clorox bottles were carefully cleaned, holes punched in the bottom and a hole cut about a third of the way up from the bottom. Why? It would become a martin house that would join a colony of Clorox bottles suspended over the garden providing homes for birds that became part of Nannie’s insect control. Buttons were cutoff of unrepairable clothing that would be later repurposed into patchwork quilts with matching pillow covers. The buttons themselves were put into an old Quaker Oats container for future repurposing when I didn’t play with them. My first set of drums were old Quaker Oats boxes and a really magical “comeback” toy. Shoes were “half-soled” repeatedly, old overalls that had finally given up the ghost were cut into patches to extend the lives of this generation’s overalls and blue jeans.

Fall would herald another type of recycling. Dried corn and beans were gathered, the best put into burlap cloth sacks and suspended from the high rafters of the crib. There they would wait until the spring to be shelled out and replanted to provide the next year’s bounty. Potatoes were spread and separated from each other on old newspapers in the darkest corner of the crib waiting to be made into chowders, salads and mashed potatoes. Those that survived the winter were cut, dividing the eyes, and replanted in the spring to start the cycle of life all over again.

Late in the fall an odd-looking truck would show up. It was the miller’s truck, not to be confused with the Miller’s truck. This was cutting edge technology for the period. Instead of taking your grain to be ground up, the truck showed up to grind your grain. This would be preceded by a flurry of activity as corn was shelled from the cob, dang that really hurts your fingers. Corn was ground into cornmeal and grits and no I had never heard of polenta. Even the cobs were ground into a fine powder that was mixed with water to be fed to our hogs. None of this could be done until my grandmother had chosen her feed sacks. This was the ultimate repurposing. She would use the emptied feed sacks to make “sack” dresses that she sewed on her foot-operated Singer treadle sewing machine. Rarely, until later in life, did my grandmother wear anything other than homemade dresses, many made from old feed sacks. Later they would be repurposed into cleaning rags or tie ups for the tomatoes. If they were a particular favorite they would be put into her scrap bag to become a part of a quilt.

The first fall frost would signify another “waste not” moment as a hog would be slaughtered. If you have a weak stomach or really don’t want to know how your food is processed, you might not want to read any more of this paragraph. I was amazed at how little of the hog was left after it had been processed. It began with a “crunch” as a heavy hammer was used to dispatch the hog. My uncle didn’t want to scramble the poor hog’s brains with a bullet even though the brains would be scrambled with eggs later. The hog would be hung by its rear legs, its throat cut and blood would be drained to be used later in blood pudding or other recipes. All of the recognizable parts of the hog were butchered and all of the unrecognizable parts were turned into sausage, liver mush and souse meat. Yuck! Anyone ever read the ingredient list on liver mush? Hint, liver is not the first ingredient…or the second. I really don’t want to even think about souse meat. The bones and the head would be boiled, the broth used to flavor soups and beans. Later the bones would be ground and used as fertilizer. Hog tallow (lard) would be stored and used in the making of candles, soap and biscuits. I liked eating the biscuits better than the soap that was used after I uttered an “expletive.”

While I don’t slaughter my own hogs (actually I don’t raise them), I did pick up some of my grandparents’ frugalness and their belief in environmental safekeeping. At the very least, I ask the question, “Is there anything I can use this for?” I’ve turned two liter bottles into bird houses or feeders, old pots into strange artwork, and Jack Daniel’s bottles into lamps. I have a pair of jeans that have patches on top of patches…only because they feel sooooooo good. Kitchen waste goes into a compost bin to join grass clippings and black print newspaper in my garden. Glass, magazines and plastics are separated and placed into recycling bins at our local trash dump.

Without really trying, my grandparents taught me to be a good steward of my world. As I constantly pick up trash from my roadside, I wish others had been taught as well or had paid better attention.

STUPID MAN TRICKS

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

Excerpt from the book FLOPPY PARTS which may be purchased at http://goo.gl/XdazVA

RJ was a bit of a thrill seeker. He would have been a perfect fit to play the Tom Cruise character in the movie Top Gun because RJ always “felt the need for speed” whether it was fast women or even faster cars. Since this was before a desire for fast women, RJ would satisfy himself by climbing the highest tree or swinging out the farthest on the school swing before ejecting himself for a crash landing. All of this would serve him well. When I left for Newberry, RJ left for the Navy, specialized in avionics and anti-submarine detection before retiring to a very high paying private sector job in avionics. This would lead to his obtaining a pilot’s license and an airplane. I feel sure the airplane came first.
The trouble began when we watched Roy giving chase to the bad guy who beat Roy over the head with his tommy gun before jumping in his car and racing out of town. Roy, now conscious but still stuck on a second floor balcony, whistled for Trigger and with nary a grunt jumped onto Trigger’s saddled back, saving enough time to chase down the bad guy and shoot out his tires. RJ was mesmerized. “That was great! I’m gonna do it.” I was mesmerized to but for a different reason. Roy did all of this without losing his hat and despite a loaded Thompson sub machine gun on the seat next to the villain. Immediately I pointed out that we had no horses and I knew of no second story balcony except the Nesbitt mansion and it was too far to ride to on an imaginary horse.
Not to be deterred, RJ had a plan– otherwise known as a “stupid man trick” and the reason bicycles should come with warning labels. When we played “Cowboys and Indians” we always pretended our bikes were horses. RJ decided that his bike would be his horse and that I would be his faithful Indian companion who would make sure his steed remained upright and in place. Can you visualize “Kemo Sabe” jumping off of the barn loft and into the saddle of his bike? RJ would then peddle off after imaginary desperados. It did not quite workout that way because for at least once, Kemo Sabe meant “dumbass” white boy. RJ actually missed the first time and landed butt first in the piled up hay we had used to help break his fall. We should have piled up hay on his bike saddle because he didn’t miss the second time. Who knew someone’s eyes could get that big and that your “floppies” were somehow attached to your vocal cords. He landed upright but didn’t remain that way. With his eyes as big as pie plates, his breath exploded from his lungs and he toppled sideways with his hands cupping his…you know. For the next fifteen minutes RJ was struck mute. When he finally found his voice, the first words that came out of his mouth were “If you ever tell anyone about this I will beat your ass.” Well RJ, it’s been over fifty five years and you are welcome to try.
I went to Wally World today and found myself in sporting goods looking for a new rod and reel. I did not find what I wanted but I also did not find any warning labels on their shiny new bikes that I stopped to look. I doubt there is one on my bike either but there should have been one and it should have read “Warning: Jumping into the saddle from excessive heights may render you sterile for life and speechless for fifteen minutes.” I will let you determine what is excessive.

MICKEY MOUSE WAS A JEW?

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

MICKEY MOUSE WAS A JEW?

I don’t know why the above statement, not the question, interested me then, in the glow of a flashlight, or now, in the fog of forty-eight years of brain cell death due to certain excesses involving distilled or brewed spirits. At the age of seventeen, with most of my brain cells still intact, seeing it scrawled on the wall in red paint along with a crude swastika gave me pause to think…for a moment, at least. So many questions. I knew about Hitler’s Final Solution and the death camps but what was a Jew and why would Mickey Mouse be one? After forty-eight years I still have no answers to those questions but do understand their relationship to the swastika.

I also don’t have any real answers as to why we were at Historic Brattonsville, outside of Rock Hill, late on a moonlit night. It was not “a dark and stormy” night, in fact, there was a “werewolf” full moon and no moors nearby. One might assume that it had something to do with girls and alcohol. Your assumption would only be partially correct because there was no alcohol. We didn’t need alcohol to be stupid because girls were usually all it took to cause a stupid reaction in teenage boys. I don’t know what excuse the girls had. In reality, in the spring of 1968, there was little that was historic about the dump that was Brattonsville. Brattonsville was a former plantation that came into existence in the 1760’s and grew to include some thirty buildings including a store and a three-story brick and wood manor house owned by the doctor who gave the ‘ville its name. A Revolutionary War battle fought nearby was a prequel to Kings Mountain and Camden. The buildings and store had fallen into disrepair and would not undergo renovations until the early Seventies. Since this was the late Sixties, we found ourselves in a rundown place on a “dark and scary” night.

I reiterate that there is no reason for teenagers to be stupid, we just were, and the group that I ran with was typical. For no other reason than being stupid, we somehow came to the conclusion that looking for ghosts in old abandoned structures would be an interesting thing to do. It began after a play practice but, for the life of me, I have no idea who suggested it or why. I do remember that we started a search for “alien lights” which turned out to be the distant Charlotte airport searchlight bouncing off thick, low-hanging clouds. Once we had scientifically proven there was no “intelligent life out there”, we decided to prove there was no “intelligent life” in our teenage world either. We were Successful!

One of the girls in our little group had mentioned Brattonsville which would explain how John and I, along with the two young ladies, had ended up there. My date knew a lot about the history of the area, including a story about a suspected Revolutionary War spy who had been hung from the pulley suspended outside of Doctor Bratton’s third story clinic in the manor house called “Fair Forest.” According to “her story” the spirit of the spy continued to haunt the place waiting for his soul to “cross-over” to the other side. Despite our fears, we took the late night tour of the original pre-Revolutionary War home place before finding our way into “Fair Forest” and seeing the scrawled message on the dining room wall.

Because I had the flashlight, I got to see the scrawling first, along with other graffiti, and because of that same flashlight became the de facto leader of the group. My date kept a running commentary going about the house and certain legends as we wandered through the building. A kitchen was connected to the main house by a covered causeway. It was not hard to visualize kitchen slaves, dressed in Aunt Jemima garb, the original not the modern, socially acceptable one, carrying platters of food from the huge fireplace to the dining room and served by old, dark men in black waistcoats. We visited all of the rooms, floor by floor, making note of the fireplaces and centuries-old mantels. On the second floor we found another narrow staircase and, leaving no stone unturned or in this case no ghost unfound, we made our way up to what I was told was “Doctor Bratton’s laboratory.” I had seen too many “monster movies.” On a dark night, in an old abandoned mansion, how could you not have thoughts about Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory with Boris Karloff waiting to get re-animated? You couldn’t.

As I entered the “laboratory,” actually just a large room that seemed to be part of an attic, I made room for everyone else and panned the room with the flashlight. Silhouetted against the opened floor-length double doors that led to the pulley was a body hung by the neck and swinging from the rafters. I was petrified! The hackles of my neck stood up and muscles tensed all the way down to my heels. I now understood the saying “scared stiff.” My brain said run but my body would not oblige. There was nothing wrong with my hearing and from the sounds of retreating feet in rapid motion, I knew that I was now all alone. Just enough breeze blew to cause the body to spin. As it slowly turned, I found myself staring into the blank face of a…hung…dead…department store mannequin. “Boy neat trick. A real knee slapper. Ha, you got me.” Suddenly I had the urge to pee…Glad that was frozen up, too or I might have been embarrassed. Let’s make sure that you understand that I was not being brave standing my ground. I might as well have been nailed to the spot. The only thing that smacked of being brave was that there was no puddle around my feet.
Since I had the keys to the car and it was locked, I decided to do a little more exploring before leaving and informing the rest of my little group about how badly we had gotten used. I found the “dummy” to have been dressed in blue jeans, a tattered plaid shirt and a Mickey Mouse Club hat with ears. Pinned to its chest was a sheet of paper that informed me that this was “Mickey Mouse.” When I got back to the car I did get one “Thank God.” For my return or for getting the car door open? Once inside, the next question was “What are we going to do?” I assured everyone that it was okay, “It’s just a Jewish guy named Mickey.” After a pause and some nervous laughter, I came clean and, of course, they wanted to go back and see for themselves.

This would be my last attempt at ghost hunting but not for the reason you might think. As we came back down the narrow stairs and into the main hallway I suddenly smelled cigarette smoke. Remember my hackles? They went up again because no one in our group had been smoking. As I hustled us out, I glanced over my shoulder and saw the glow of a cigarette in the crack made by a slightly opened door. No more ghost hunting for me!

I find myself intrigued that a badly written bit of graffiti and a hanging mannequin has been more thought-provoking than the possibility of having escaped death from a machete-wielding psycho or by secondhand cigarette smoke, at the very least. I still don’t know what it means to be Jewish. To my knowledge, I have met only three Jews in my entire life. All three were survivors of the Holocaust and had stories that they did not want to tell but told anyway. I thank them for sharing. All three are now gone, I hope, to join the families who they lost to the ovens. I am unsure about Jewish heaven and hell, although I guess, some had already experienced hell on earth. I wonder about that swastika and the mannequin… but for the life of me, “Why was Mickey Mouse a Jew?”

THE POWER OF RELIGION

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

THE POWER OF RELIGION

There was a time when I considered the ministry. I grew up in a family that was devout but not fundamental or charismatic…especially my grandmother who both lived her religion and could quote to you chapter and verse. Even though I lived in a small rural area, we were a high Methodist church which would be less charismatic than a lot of people’s preconceived notions. That would be high as in liturgy not as in the use of drugs.

My wife says I am religiously repressed whatever that means. Did she just call me “tight assed?” Between my sophomore and junior year, I fell under the influence of my minister, Mr. McAllister. My statement sounds like I was falling under the spell of a cult but that was not the case. He just took an interest in my piety.

During our revivals we tended to become more “hellfire and brimstone” oriented and really got into that “old time religion.” Less “tight assed?” I sometimes think of those revivals during the hot and humid days of August. Our church had no air conditioning, the only air movement coming from the open windows or fifty or sixty Wolfe Funeral home fans waving in the congregation.

During a revival geared to young adults the summer after my junior year we were told that the visiting minister’s wife was in remission from breast cancer although she eventually would succumb to it. She was a graduate of my high school, a local girl several years my senior. Somehow this made her disease more real to me. This younger man of God believed his wife was cured and her wished for recovery became the centerpiece of his sermons. He hammered his reality repeatedly, celebrating his belief that her “cure” was due of the depth of her faith. “CURED I SAY BY THE GRACE OF GA-ODD! CAN I HAVE AN AMEN?”

I can hear him tonight just as I did fifty years ago say, “If your faith has enough depth, you can overcome any sickness, any disease.” I am no more comfortable today than I was fifty years ago. Later, during a gathering for our youth he hammered the same point. He asked for any questions and timid little me raised his hand and asked, “Are you saying that my mother is going to die because her faith is not strong enough?” She had been diagnosed with ALS when I was in my early teens and would succumb to it during my freshman year in college at age forty-eight.

He looked me square in the eyes and said, “Yes, if her faith is not strong enough.” My religious commitment and belief in miracles flew through the open windows and it took a while for them to fly back. It wasn’t that I ceased to believe, I really didn’t. I simply took my religious leanings and locked them away in a deep safe place for later. It was one of those pathways that wound back from my youth. I also didn’t go out and rebel, I waited until my late twenties and early thirties to do that. I hope my old age is as tardy with its arrival as my rebellious age. Well, with my knees, this is a pipe dream.

Despite my wandering pathway back to the light, I still have many questions, not the least of which is how something can be such a powerful good, be used to do such harm? I know the answer is easy on the surface, it’s the human factor and it’s really about religions not Christian beliefs.

It was Gandhi that observed, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” The older I get the more I agree. True Christians follow the teachings of Jesus Christ not the tenants of some religion. It should never be “my God is better than your god.”

What can be bad about “Loving your neighbor or your enemies?” The statement that is quoted often, “More wars have been fought over religion than any other reason” is not true but when ideologies conflict, religion is usually one of those ideologies.

I’ve never been high about religions that play to our fears. The FAR Christian and Far Islamic right are feeding our fears. I am in the middle politically on Muslim refugees but don’t believe that we can afford to take the chance on accepting them. ISIS atrocities and the memory of 911 are just too strong. But what about our own Muslim citizens or the thirty-five hundred Muslim service members, Muslims whose families have lived here peaceably for hundreds of years or who are fighting in the Middle East for our safety?

I asked that question on Facebook and I don’t guess I was surprised by the response considering other posts that I have seen. Visions of Muslim’s scrambling aboard boats attempting to avoid concentration camps enter my mind. That could not occur in the United States, could it? It was unconstitutional but I remember studying the Japanese “internment” camps during WW II? I’m not sorry that my beliefs won’t let me believe that something like this could happen again. This time to our Muslim population.

My beliefs will not allow me to call my friends abominations either. Conservatives, Liberals, abortionist, anti-abortionist or Gay and Lesbian and homophobes. Yes, I just threw you into the group that you are all defiling or supporting when what I would really like to do is throw you all away. How can good Christians use such terms to describe their neighbors…or non-Christians for that matter? How can good human beings say those things?

This past week, Florida moved to “Don’t say Gay.” Heterosexuals where did homosexuals hurt you? If the practice of homosexuality is a sin that is between a person and their god. If you are not a practicing homosexual, or trans, or pan, it is none of our business.

If the Bible is to be believed, all people are God’s children. If it is not to be believed, all people are human and should be treated as such. Your religion does not trump their humanity.

REDHEADS AND FLASHY CARS

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

Seeing the trailer for The Quiet Man awakens a few memories. There stands Maureen O’Hara with her green eyes flashing. Those have to be real because I don’t think contacts had been invented yet. The memories triggered are not about green eyes, though, but about red hair. You see, my mother was a redhead. A real redhead, not the burgundy head that comes from a bottle, but what I guess is called bright red. She also had the freckles to go with her hair and the alabaster skin underneath that caused her to turn bright red after more than thirty seconds of exposure to the summer sun. I’ve heard that complexion called “peaches and cream”…or maybe “milk toast.” After being in the sun a little while, it was more like “peaches and strawberries.” In other words, she did not tan but went straight to burning and peeling.

I would not call my mother a classic beauty, mainly due to the presence of the Griffin’s nose which has a tendency to dominate one’s face. That proboscis would dominate the entire face of Mt. Rushmore. If I were going to compare her to a movie star of the “Golden Age”, it would be a redheaded version of Geraldine Page who, by her own admission, was a bit plain. Luckily, my mother also had the Griffin height making her a statuesque woman. If she were not my mother, I would also describe her as full-figured.

She was very shy; so shy, in fact, that she allowed her grades to drop enough in order to not have to give a valedictorian address her senior year in high school. Armed with all of this information I was shocked, appalled and quite amused to discover newspaper clippings of a local beauty pageant sponsored by Springs Mills as I went through a cedar “Hope” chest after her death.

Had I not asked myself the question, “Why did my mother keep this?” I would not have given it a second look. There was my mother, along with four other young ladies, and she was in…Gasp!..a two-piece bathing suit! The suit featured the Springs Mills logo “Miss Springmaid” – a pinup-style milkmaid, with a lot of cleavage and leg showing. I think the term “cheesecake” would be applicable and that would be the milkmaid, not my mother.

My shy mother was vying for the title of “Miss Springmaid” to represent Springs Mills, a company that made cloth for sheets and foundation cloth which an advertisement agency described as “for hip-harnesses and breast-holsters.” My mother’s suit bared her legs and midriff and accentuated other key attributes. There sure was a lot of skin being displayed! Thank God, I saw no belly button. Oh my, who was that young woman with the “come hither” look? Rita Hayworth or Lauren Bacall? She wasn’t even a redheaded Geraldine Page. Oh no! It was my MOTHER!

I guess that until that moment I had never thought of my mother or rather my parents as young people with the same drives and desires as any other young people. Even now I have an urge to blind myself for those thoughts but I don’t think it would erase them.

According to my Aunt Joyce, Eldora was quite popular and was pursued by many suitors until Ernest swept her off her feet. My parents romantic? I just can’t see it…but then again I was not adopted. At five-foot-six I find it hard to believe my father could have swept the floor much less Mom off of her feet. He did have a kind of dashing look in those photos from the Thirties and Forties.

I don’t even know how they met but would guess it would have been through friends or work. With no online-dating services or hopping music clubs, I don’t know how people actually met during those days. Church? What an interesting concept. In the same box as her clippings, I found the letters they had written to each other while Dad was island-hopping in World War Two. I’m happy that they knew the mail was being read and censored but the “R” rated versions were still “tres” uncomfortable. With silk kimonos contained in the same cedar chest, I am trying to purge the thought of Mom playing dress up as a Geisha girl. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh!

A family member related a story that made me both uncomfortable and thankful at the same time. While still in high school my mother and several of her younger female cousins were taken with a very, very distant cousin who was, like them, attending a large family reunion.

The young man was described as very attractive with piercing eyes and a strong jaw to go with a very charismatic personality and a rich baritone voice. There was a mention of a smile that would “make your knees weak” so I am guessing that this storyteller might have been smitten, too. According to her story, he also had “very wavy hair that appeared to have been styled.”

He was driving a very flashy red convertible. It might not have been red but red fits the story. This “flashy” young cousin was taken with my mother-to-be and asked if she might go for a ride with him. As you would expect during these times, he asked permission to take her for a ride in what I hope was his car. My grandparents, after some thought and discussion, refused to grant their permission citing that they felt he “might be a little too fast and flashy for Eldora.” It turns out this “flashy and fast” distant cousin would slow down and become the much beloved and revered “Reverend Billy Graham.” While he does have really nice hair, I’m glad not to be his son Franklin.