GROWING UP AMERICAN: A Collection of Childhood Tales Page 11
“2.”
“ Now there’s your two cents, and how much is 80 out of 100?”
“20,” and bingo, I had it.
It sounds like a complicated process, but to a child who could not comprehend how numbers and letters could work in an equation, who was nearly in tears trying and failing to memorize her multiplication tables, it was truly tangible. I could take off the little from the whole and come up with the right answer every time. It seems like a little thing, a kindly man at the counter of a little once-a-year grocery store, but that few minutes of time he took helped me throughout my whole life. In college I helped pay the bills working at an Arby’s restaurant and I was always assigned the task of working the drive-in window during rush hour because, unlike so many of my contemporaries, I could count back change.
Big Brother’s Watching
You always hear about the big brother in stories standing up for his little sister. Punching the bully that made her cry or racing for mother at the first sign of a skinned knee. My brother’s style was a little different and much less hands-on. I remember my first trip on the school bus to middle school and the usual nonsense where someone tries to take your seat. I was a few rows in front of Jonathan who was too cool to let his sister sit with him, when one of the older boys tried to make me move to the back. I said no and ignored the lout but could also clearly hear someone address Jonathan on the situation. "Hey Jon, someone’s botherin' your sister." Jonathan looked forward and simply said " She can take care of herself," and that was that. This was pretty much his standard answer to any situation I found myself in but secretly I always knew he would be there if I really needed him. I didn't truly know the full extent of this until one night while out on a date. It was a typical date. I was just going out to a movie with a young man who worked at K-Mart with Jonathan. I'd only just met this clean-cut young man and had agreed that a movie would be fine.
We entered the old Ritz theatre walking through the double oak and glass door, moving into the warm pop corn-scented lobby and walked to the glass-topped concession stand. My date dutifully offered to buy a coke and pop corn, which I accepted, and then retrieving our snacks we turned together toward the screening room. With popped corn in hand the young man calmly turned to me and asked me a surprisingly stunning question. He looked right at me and asked, "Is it true you carry a .38 special in your purse?" Not missing a beat I smiled and said, "I'd never tell." I never went out with that young man again but from then on I knew that my big brother had spread the rumor that I was armed and could indeed take care of myself.
Graduation Day
My senior year in high school was my brother’s second senior year in highschool. For whatever reason he simply decided that during his first senior year he just didn't need to go to school. So we found ourselves in classes together. Jonathan's second senior year he discovered theatre, a place to express his someone dramatic nature, bond with a group, and of course meet girls. He performed in the play M.A.S.H and then the production of "The Death and Life of Larry Benson" and finally he talked Missy and me into trying out for the chorus line in the school production of "Annie Get Your Gun" in which he already had taken several large roles. It was loads of fun being involved in the play. We got to dress up and sing, and generally be crazy teenagers on the cusp of our real life.
The whole rehearsal, production, organization, and backdrop became our responsibility and we all took charge. I painted the backdrop for most of the scenes and enjoyed my time both solitary and group working on these cardboard monstrosities. It didn't hurt that I got out of classes as well. As we continued to pour our hearts and souls into this little show we and drew together as a crew. We felt in charge. When the night of the play finally rolled around with nerves high we began our warm up for the night of song and dance but some how we moved from singing scales to Bohemian Rhapsody in quick succession. We helped each other with hair and make up and with great gusto put on our first of three shows. It was dazzling, well we were all dazzled by the stage lights anyway and it all went off with out a hitch.
The next three productions were the same with only minor and hilarious add libs by Jonathan. It was a spectacular time. We had a wrap party where teachers were scares and kisses where abundant and just wound down from the high of actually putting on a show. I especially remember the end of the last performance when all of us went back to the music room to shed the costumes and heavy make up of the stage. We sang, we laughed, we hugged each other. I felt that the closest I'd ever been to my big brother and sought him out to make sure to give him a hug. He was standing in the shadowy hallway near the school cafeteria when I found him wearing his gray suit and leaning casually against the wall, darkness almost obscuring his face. I walked up to him and still in my long purple skirt and white stage shirt stood on tiptoes and gave him a big hug. "I love you big brother," I said, and for once he said, "I love you too."
***
Just a few days later I had the privilege to walk across the graduation stage behind my big brother I had followed my whole life. He graduated with flare and with the loudest applause of the night. I can see him turn his tassel as he received his diploma and smile up into the bleachers at my mother in her bright red and white dress, wore especially so that we could find her.
Three days later I could follow my tall, gangly, older brother no more. On the way home from a cousins wedding a drunken driver didn't notice his motorcycle and pulled out in front of him. He was life lifted to Altoona hospital and in a blink we were all there with him. I remember sitting in the drab waiting room, while friends and family came and went. We all huddled together, crying and praying. I finally fell asleep curled up on a chair. Someone had covered me with their jacket as I slept. The suddenly I was on my feet, wide awake, and my heart cried halleluiah, as my mother raced out of the waiting room door and rushed to Jonathan's side. He was gone. He had slipped away to glory and was home but I couldn't follow.
***
Years later I told my mom about the sudden joy I felt knowing that my brother was at peace. She looked at me oddly with great sadness in her eyes and said, "He came to me. I looked up and he was standing there in the doorway of the waiting room. His arm was still broken, his face still scratch and bleeding, and he smiled. That's how I knew."
Liddle Red Wagon
The summer before I left for college my mom picked up a "Liddle red wagon". Not your traditional little tag along cart with handle but an old Ford pick up truck. I'm not sure how she heard about it but some one down river was selling it cheap so we jumped in the station wagon and drove the half hour or so to have a look. When we got there instead of finding a cleaned up, truck parked neatly in the drive way with a for sale sign in the window, we were taken around behind the house to see a slightly lopsided, faded, red truck, complete with rear window gun rack, sitting wheel high in grass an its bed loaded down with overflowing black garbage bags. Still the owner smiled and said 'she runs good, we just use her for a dump run every couple of months.' then proceeded to jump in and crank the engine over. Mom and I neither one being 'car people' listened as best we could and asked to take it for a drive. They agreed and,still fully loaded with refuse, we lurched out of the yard and around the driveway. Mom haggled a bit, with visions of the red truck being loaded up with bales of hay instead of garbage, and eventually we ended up with our new vehicle for 300bucks.
The seller's whole family off loaded the black bags, hosed out the bed and mom handed me the keys. The engine purred and whistled to life and I set out toward home. The first thing I noticed was that the brakes were a little spunky, but by down-shifting, then up-shifting, I navigated the twisting ups and downs of the mountain roads without incident. The second thing I noticed was that the shocks were shot and that every bump or dip sent me to bouncing on the black, spring loaded bench seat like a bronco rider. The third thing wasn't evident until I had to make a sharp turn at slow speed, were upon I discovered that the power steering was non-existent. So there I sat, a
ll 125 pounds of me, one foot on the clutch the other on the gas, and both arms wrapped around the gigantic black steering wheel that wouldn't budge an inch. Thinking fast I did the only thing I could. I stood straight up, foot mashing the clutch to the floor, doubled my torso over the steering wheel, and crossed my arms and while still pressing on the gas put my whole weight and strength into making the turn. It was something like pushing a water wheel backwards against the flow of the stream with your bare hands, but inch-by-inch the truck and I made the turn and managed to get home in one piece. Once home dad went over the truck with a disapproving eye, topped up the brake fluid and declared it a complete mess, but handed me back the keys. Mom and I scrubbed the whole thing down that afternoon and I hand painted the words "Liddle (that's my maiden name) Red Wagon" on the rear of the side panels before taking off to H.'s barn. I drove that wreck all summer and never has one single truck had so many mishaps. First was hauling hay. For years we had managed to provide winter fodder for my critter by collecting hay from the fields of near by farms, a practice that they charge much less for because it saves them labor, and stuffing it into the laid down back of our station wagon. One year we loaded so much hay into the Polaris that there was no where for Jonathan to sit so he stretched out, belly down, in the 5 inch gap between the hay and the roof of the car where to our delight and his great aggravation he alternately bumped his head and scratched his face coming out of the field and down the well rutted farm road.
Alternatively when we bought hay out right my cousins would bring their big work trucks, complete with heavy-duty shocks along and load them up until the wheel wells pressed rubber. So now, for once I had a truck of my own and could haul hay with out inconveniencing anyone else. For some crazy reason my cousin David, on hearing I was doing a hay run, insisted on coming along just incase there was more hay that the Liddle Red Wagon could handle. I was the first to back into the big ancient barn in Pleasant valley and David and I proceeded to heft hay into the big red bed, we'd just loaded two rows of bales when David stepped back to survey the truck. The whole tail end was only about 3 inches off the ground as if a giant child were squashing his favorite toy. You couldn't even see the bales sticking up over the bed there were so few. So grumbling I pulled my little prize out of the barn and helped load David's shiny brown Chevy, only stopping when the we thought we might not be able to get the strapped down load out the 12x12 foot doors.
The second major incident involved my friend Ronda. She had her horses up a the Lodge and although the horse trailer was available no one with a truck could be spared to haul the trailer so the Liddle Red wagon was once more pressed into service. Everything started well but as they came off the Knobs along the dirt track just before you hit pavement the truck hitch sheered, snapping the chains and sending the fully loaded, two horse, single axle trailer plowing across the road and up an embankment where it came to rest, miraculously upright, against a scrub pine. Ronda's call was panicked, and urgent and my only reply was "I'll be right there" as I grabbed car keys and raced out the door. I'm not sure if they had unloaded the horses or if they had just gotten out but when I finally arrived Bucky was calmly munching grass at the side of the road, but Beau, never the brightest crayon in the box, was still trotting about in hysterics. Somehow we managed to catch him and in just a short while Terry, Ronda's unshakable brother-in-law turned up with a truck.
The final fiasco with my truck came during that summer’s Mahaffey camp. I should mention that at this point we did have a new hitch installed and that we had successfully hauled our camper the 40 plus miles to camp with it. I had been driving this now well-known icon in the Clearfield area, back and forth between work and camp all week and enjoyed whizzing down the freshly paved back road at a reasonable speed, which of course made steering so much easier, when one afternoon I spotted a group of fellow campers dragging themselves out of the favorite swimming spot in the nearby Susquehanna river. Obligingly, I pulled off and stopped on the other side of the road to offer them a lift. Happily all scrabbled into the bed of the truck and with smiling anticipation of the few minutes of faces in the wind held on for the ride. Pressing in the clutch, I put my truck in gear, stepped on the clutch and made a lurching start to nowhere. Unbeknownst to me, the spot I had pulled onto, a freshly macadamed berm, was actually a ditch full of water that suspended the fine ash and tar of the road in and unbroken form of quick sand. Jumping out I discovered that my right rear tire no longer sat on solid road but was buried up to the axle in thick black mud. With much disappointment, but little moaning, the gang all piled out of the bed and all but one headed back to camp on foot. My soon to be college friend Stan stayed behind and worked relentlessly to 'un-stick' the pathetic Liddle Red Wagon from the mire, despite the fact that in just over an hour he would be putting on a concert at the evening services. We tried everything, dumping in dirt from the road side, putting wood under the tire, reversing, rocking, all of it, but even with a functioning four wheel drive she just couldn't budge. We had probably worked for forty- five minutes or so, Stan, steadily getting blacker, and muddier by the minute when an old 1950's style pick-up pulled up, nose to nose with my bedraggled piece of machinery. The old man driving climbed out, spit tobacco into the ditch and ambled up to my window. At the rear of my ride, Stan popped up, then stepped forward. "Looks like yuns is stuck!" the new driver announced, " How bout I pull ya out?" Needless to say we both agreed, and stood by helplessly as the bearded man in the old baseball cap un-wound his wench, hooked it on the 'Reds' front under carriage, and with me at the wheel, dragged us out. Stan jumped in the bed and with a sincere thank to our twinkling-eyed savior we drove off. That summer saw the end of my Liddle Red Wagon, something about it not being able to pass inspection or some such nonsense, so we sold it for scrap for about what we paid and that was that.
College Trip for T-day
College was the first time I had ever really been away from home so when an opportunity to go home over the Thanksgiving weekend came up I grabbed it. A classmate and I drove the 12 hours straight through where he dropped me off in Altoona PA and my friends Brian Dickey and Kevin Thomas Susan Jones (remember 'in the jungle' guys) picked me up for the last hour home which meant we got to my house at around 3:00a.m. Between the rattling of my keys and the loud whispering of letting ourselves in we woke mom. In a stage whisper we could hear her..."Pete, there's someone out there." Pete (dad) being in on the whole surprise ignored her so mom, in curlers and dressing gown walked out to the kitchen to see what the ruckus was all about. Always excited to see her kids, she squealed and hugged each of the three young’uns in her kitchen then promptly made us a cup of tea.
John’s First Visit
My mom does amazing work and even at the age of eighty she is still reupholstering and restoring old furniture. People are always bringing things to her to be renewed or just giving her old furniture so she can give it a facelift and a fresh start with a new family. Guess it would have been the summer of '90.
I was home from college and very excited about a certain young man who was driving up from Florida to see me. He would be arriving soon so needless to say I spruced myself up a bit but just as I was feeling like I might make the right impression the phone rang and Gram Hemphill's voice came across the line explaining that the horses had gotten out again and that no one was home so I would have to come up and bring them in. I arrived to find my Tanner, little Joe-Joe, and big, bad, black Sinbad happily munching grass in the barnyard. Tanner was not much of a problem but just as I approached him Sinbad tore loose sweeping Tanner and Joe along with him. I chased then up the hill and back, even taking a detour into the woods for Sinbad once or twice when Joe and Tanner decided they'd had enough fun and trotted into the barn expecting a treat for being so considerate.
They both stepped lively into a stall and happily began munching on a handful of grain I tossed their way. Sinbad decided he would at least come into the barn with his companions but having serious trust issues he did not 'p
ut himself up. I slyly closed the barn door behind him but it is amazing how much chasing can be done inside a barn. Finally, somehow, I got him into a stall then Turned and stuffed my, sweaty, slobber dribbled, and hay spattered self into the car. When I drove up the hill for home I saw two things. One, a big white pick-up truck full of furniture and a little white VW Rabbit. My mother’s aunt and uncle had arrived to drop off their old used furniture for mom to keep and John had no sooner gotten out of his car than he was put to work unloading furniture. It was some of the most profitable minutes he put in unloading that harvest gold couch and chair off of that truck. Once my mom had done her thing we started house keeping with that furniture
Marriage Proposal
John's proposal of marriage was not one of those sappy, all planned out ones you hear about and grin. It happened one afternoon in October during a routine day. John was getting ready to set out with the National Guard and while he packed and organized I sat in his room and we talked. It was one of those conversations about dreams, and hopes, and futures and everything just snapped into place. He came over to me, got down on his knee and asked me to marry him, telling me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I obviously said yes.