Good Ole Boys

GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 1

I was raised in a small town in north Florida. But, I started the first grade in Arcadia and graduated here. The north Florida town was called Chipley. For as far back as I can remember, my brother and I spent every summer with our grandparents on their 100 acre farm. We were awaken every morning by either the sound of our grandfather coming by the window with a pickup truck full of people to pick cotton or the smell of grandma frying bacon in the kitchen or even both. What a memory. What a wonderful memory. Those summer days molded me into whatever I am today. It didn’t seem like work. Chores I mean. We saw them as things we did, not things we had to do. From pulling weeds in the cotton fields to loading watermelons, it all seemed like the right thing to do, not a obligation that had to be met. Back then, pulling weeds before you went swimming in the pond or creek seemed only right. Going up and down street by street selling watermelons at 4 melons for a dollar on a Wednesday so you would have money to go to the picture show on Saturday seemed only fair. Have you ever cut okra? Well, let me tell you about this one time when we went to cut okra with our cousin Tony.

Okra will itch and itch your hands when you cut it. But one day Uncle Tommy (one of our favorite uncles) told us how to stop that itch. Yea and wait till I tell you how grandma got his butt over it.......

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 2

I loved my days with my grandparents. We always called them granddaddy and grandma. That’s the way they wanted it and it sounded normal to us. We grew up to the sound of Christian music on the radio, going to church on Sunday and gospel sings occasionally. It was a good time to be young. The only worry might be if it was going to rain before we could get in the pond. Our grandparents were the best, no cussing & no yelling, except when Uncle Tommy told us to rub the okra leaves on our hands and arms to stop the itching. After running to grandma as fast as we could go with our hands and arms itching like crazy, Uncle Tommy soon quit laughing when grandma got him. I won’t forget that loud voice she used when she said, “TOMMY” as she got on to him for telling us that. After all, we didn’t know that the leaves was what caused the itch in the first place. Hard lesson, but well remembered. At the beginning of every summer we did whatever it took to get my dad to carry us up to Chipley. Our summer started in June back then, and lasted until Labor Day. On Labor Day was the big reunion. It had been going on my whole life. Mom and dad and the rest of our family would come up for the reunion and then take us home. Our last summer in Chipley was September of 1969. I turned 16 and got my drivers license the following October. I still went back, but only when I wasn’t working. What a life we had...

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 3

We have had those reunions for as long as I can remember, raw oysters on the half shell & all of my uncles sitting around at an old cooler. About every third oyster they opened they would have to give one to us kids cause if they didn’t, we would stand there with a very sad face until they did. That was until we got old enough and then we took our own turn. Raw oysters on a soda cracker with hot sauce, man ole man, what a combo. Don’t forget the Pepsi. Mmm mmm mmmm… Well, I still haven’t grown out of that. They are just harder to get now and not as safe, or that’s what they want you think. I think that rumor of a oyster could make you sick was made up by someone who wanted them all for himself.

Still to this day, my brothers and I will get a sack of them and sit out back, eat oysters and talk about our good ole days. My dad had 4 brothers; John, Doyle, Tommy and Joe. Uncle Joe is the only one that is still alive and we have our yearly reunion at his place. Family, what would we do without family? From the very first, our grandparents taught us about family. They would say that when it gets tough you can count on your family. So, when our kids and grandkids came along, that’s what we taught them. Family. When you’re young it sounds important and you want to be close, but as you get older, you can see how very important it is. My brothers and sister have been having our own family get togethers at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving at my brother’s house, Christmas at mine. Thank God for our family. Thank God...

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 4

Oh we could go swimming in our uncle’s pond almost any day the work was done, but on Saturdays we could go to the city swimming pool where all the kids went, boys and girls. Thirty-five cents is what it cost and it was worth every penny. It seemed like almost all the kids in town went there. Boy was that fun. All the friends you would make and not even know their names. And guess what, it had a diving board. Yep, and I had to show off how good I was. Well I did, scratched nose and everything. How did that scratch get right between my eyes from diving too deep, well I just don’t know. Everybody else wondered the same thing. But that wasn’t the only scratch between my eyes. A few years later I threw a straight crow bar at an oak tree and it threw it right back.

Guess where it hit me? Right between the eyes. Three stitches and right before we went to Chipley for the summer, so you know the only thing I was worried about.

Yep, going to Chipley for the summer. Three stitches was not going to stop me. No sir. Besides, I couldn’t even see the stitches. I never really got hurt during the summers, at least not enough to tell anybody. Grandma would have made me stop playing and sit down until I felt better.

Not a chance would I tell her. She was the best grandma a boy could ever have. I miss my Grandma very much…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 5

What I would give to go back to those good ole days. Never a worry in the world. Happy, happy, happy. We didn’t have a TV until about three years before we had to quit going up there. Our grandparents only had a radio. Saturday nights were spent listening to the Grand Ole Opry and gospel music.

It sounds kind of funny, but that’s what we did. We would sit right beside the radio and listen. Sometimes we would play Chinese Checkers. You know up to six people can play that game at one time. At first grandma just taught us how to play but she would never win. That’s how great she was. Never winning. Who does that? Always letting one of us win the game. Now we were all very competitive, we did play to win, but not grandma. Nope, it just made her happy for us to play.

Her job was to referee while we were playing. When they did finally get the TV, black and white of course, my granddaddy started watching wrestling right away. Not being used to a TV, he would jump up and down and swing his arms and shout crazy things at the television. When our parents would take us up there we would usually get there about four in the morning. I can still remember the smell of coffee. Grandma and I would stay up and play Chinese Checkers until dawn. Then she would start breakfast and me and granddaddy would start feeding the animals. That was just life. That’s what everyone did. We all had our place and we all loved every minute of it.

Thank you Granddaddy and Grandma for everything. I mean that, thank you.

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 6

I know when you’re young you see things a little different. When you grow up things were not as big as you thought they were. But, I sure thought that big old oak tree covered half the house, all of the grape orchard, all of the back porch and some of the chicken pen.

LOL, well it didn’t. Our grandparent’s house was a big three bedroom house with a living room, dining room, kitchen and hallway.

And yes, it was a lot bigger when I was young, lots bigger (it’s about 1200 square feet total). And for the yard, when you came in the circle driveway there were hundreds of giant pine trees with lots of pine needles and pine cones. You could slide for miles on those pine needles. On the left side were two large pecan trees. We used their shade to load watermelon trucks, there was a lot of shade. On the right side was another drive that went through to the barn out back with that big old oak tree right at the southeast corner of the house. You know the one, the one that covered everything. And there was a covered well to the south of the oak tree. Our granddaddy dug that thing when they moved in and covered it when they got the new well with the electric pump. The pine trees are gone now. Our granddaddy had them cut down. He said it was for the money, but we think it was because of all the lightning they caused. My grandma was very afraid of lightning, she would make us go into the closet with her during the lightning. She would pray as loud as she could for the Lord to save us from the storm. She was filled with the Holy Ghost and beliveve me, she was not afraid to speak in tongues. If I told you what the old homestead looked like when I was growing up, you would think the place was something out of a magazine. Well, it’s not but to me it was a mansion and it will always be. At least in my memories…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 7

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Remember I said that every summer we were at our grandparents farm? I called it a farm because not only did they grow vegetables but they had a few cows, pigs and a lot of chickens. There was a corn crib out back about 50 ft. from the chicken pen. I always called it a barn. It had a room about 20 by 20 ft. with a large door. This door opened so you could get corn out with a big shovel. It also had a carport like structure on the north side that my granddaddy kept his old 8n tractor under. Behind the crib was a pig pen. I mean a wire area with a lot of mud in it, lot of mud. And behind all that was the cow pen and pasture. They only had about 25 head of cows, but they all had names. The one we liked the best was a real old cow named Longhorn. Now I don’t remember if all the cows had horns or not. They might of had, I just have forgotten. Anyway, we wanted to ride Longhorn. She seemed friendly enough. Granddaddy said it was ok with him if was ok with her so we petted her more and more until we could take turns getting on her back. She didn’t seem to mind us at all but she would just sit there and eat her cud. That’s what granddaddy said. He always said she was just chewing her cud. One day, I had gotten some corn out of the crib to feed the chickens. I put about 10 or 15 ears in a sack & just as I was about to start putting them through the grinder my brother and cousin were getting on Longhorn so I walked over to see how it was going. Soon it became my turn and I had forgotten all about feeding the chickens. Not wanting to miss my turn, I got up on Longhorn with my sack of corn in my hand. After a few minutes of sitting there, I got to thinking about the corn in my sack. I knew that cows loved corn too so I pulled one out and gave it to her. She loved it. I tried to give her another one and she turned to get it so fast that it came out of my hand and went about 5 ft. away. She didn’t waste a second, she ran straight to the corn and started eating it. Mmm I said. So when she had eaten that one, the next one I threw about 20 ft. away. Guess what, off she ran. Well I don’t have to tell you what happened after that. From then on, when we got on Longhorn, we had a sack of corn. We could now ride a cow. The ride was for as long as you could throw the ear of corn.

What a summer. What a life. What a childhood. What I would give to go back to those days....

GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 8

The farm had about 20 acres of cotton. Back then there was no such thing as a machine that would pick the cotton, so we had to get people to pick it. Remember one of the ways that we were woken up each morning was the sound of our grandfather coming by the window with a truck load of people. That was usually about daylight or maybe a little later, but not much later. Anyway, they would go by the house into the field and start picking as soon as they could because of the heat. I asked my granddaddy quite a few times about how he got people to pick the cotton. He would always say that he would show me one day. Well, finally one day came and he woke me up way before daylight and took me with him. We drove up and down roads and just asked people standing by the road if they wanted work. Some would say, “what you got”? He would say “cotton”. Then some would say “give me a minute” and he would come to the truck with more people. Some may have been his family and some could have been just friends. But, it did not take long to get a truck load and off to the house we would go, right by the window that I was usually sleeping in and right out to the field. Me being the oldest grandson, my granddaddy would always want me to run the scales. You see each person that picked the cotton had equipment. That would include a sack, some gloves and a hat. One day, a young boy about my size came to the scales. I weighted the sack and unloaded it into the trailer.

My granddaddy was coming by with his cotton. He had been picking all morning and had filled his sack. Well, I asked him to figure out what the amount was that this young boy had brought in. He took out his paper and figured. I stood there surprised. Now it was only about 90 cent or something like that but that was a lot of money. So I asked my granddaddy if he would pay me the same if I picked the cotton. He said, “why sure I will”. So the next morning, first thing, I got a sack and went to work. In about 3 hours I had maybe a foot of the sack. My fingers were cut to the bone. Cotton was a flower and in the flower is the cotton, but you have to dig it out.

Well, I brought my little bit to the scales and I had made about 15 cents. I turned to my granddaddy and asked, “can I get back on the scales”, at which he laughed and said “of course”. I never picked cotton again. I would rather cull watermelons?????

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 9

Cotton was not the only thing that we grew on the farm. We also had watermelons, acres and acres of watermelons. Our Uncles Joe and Tommy would help our granddaddy with this adventure. My uncles would get the crews together and get all the best of the watermelons out of the field and put them on trucks. This went on for several days. They would load them under the giant pecan trees beside the house. I don’t remember how many trucks would get loaded, but I think it was about 6 or so. Big semi-trucks would take the watermelons to far away places, but smaller trucks would pick them up in the fields and bring them to the semis. When this was all done it was our turn. We would go with granddaddy into the fields and see if there were any watermelons left that would be good enough for us to sell. Sure enough, if you walked up and down those rows you would find a few melons that had not been picked. Granddaddy taught us to thump the melons, if it sounded hollow then it was ripe. We would walk beside granddaddy’s pickup and get the watermelons he told us to until the truck was full. Then the next morning about 6 am we would start our trip. It was about 50 miles to Panama City.

That’s where we would go, all 4 of us, Granddaddy, Grandma, cousin Wade, my brother and me, all sitting in the front of that old truck with no seat belts.

That old truck didn’t have any. Grandma always packed us some boiled eggs with egg salad sandwiches & boy were they good. Boiled eggs and pop cola.

Dang was that gooood… We would drive up and down the streets beside the paper mill. That paper mill would stink, man would that stink. There was house after house, so many people. I guess you get used to the smell after a while cause I didn’t see any of them holding their noses. Up and down the streets we went, yelling as loud as we dared, “Watermelons, watermelons for sale... 4 for a dollar”. Over and over we yelled that same thing until all the melons were gone, then we would start home. I remember one time my grandma was counting out the money and it was about $30. I suppose that was probably a lot of money back then. It was just fun to us. Riding up and down the streets in the back of the truck. Kids our age yelling back at us.

Those were the days. I sure miss em, especially my grandparents…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 10

Our grandma had three sisters that lived in Chipley. One had a turkey farm and one planted crops of different things. The only thing I can remember about the third one was she lived up the road and had a giant, and I mean giant pecan tree right in front of her house. It was just off the road and covered the road and her house. The sister that had the turkey farm lived in an old style house. There was an opening right down the center of the house. It had a tin roof, wood sides and sat about three feet off the ground. There was a large front porch that ran all the way across the front. When you stepped up on the porch you could walk all the way through the house to the back porch. That opening was about twelve feet wide. The first door on the right was a bedroom that was very large & had its own fireplace. The second door was a storage. First door on the other side was another bedroom, just not as big and no fireplace. The second door on the left was the kitchen. Even back then, I wondered why the stove used wood to cook with. Yep, wood. Even we had an electric stove and we were poor. We didn’t really eat over there, but I can remember Aunt Bessie cooking breakfast on that stove with some really good biscuits. There was a fence, I don’t remember what kind, some kind of metal. It went from one side of the house to the other. It made kind of a square out back. The back part of the house was inside the fence, so if you walked out on the back porch, the turkeys could get right to the porch. Oh My Goodness, you would of had to of been there. There were thousands of turkeys, thousands.

When you walked out on the porch they would come running. And the noise.

You could not hear yourself think when they began to holler. And when my aunt would come out it got a whole lot worse. And yes she had a bathroom. Did you wonder about that? Yep, she had one but it was a good 50 feet from the house.

It had a nice path that you could follow though. I don’t think they wanted it too close to the house cause of all the smell. I mean it didn’t have any running water and it sure didn’t have an exhaust fan. I would have to say it stunk & I mean it stunk bad, real bad. You know how they made those out houses? Well let me tell you. They dig a big hole and set the out house right on the hole. Aunt Bessie always bragged about her out house cause it had two seats. I don’t really miss that out house...

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 11

One very fun filled summer we decided to make some bows and arrows. You know, so we could hunt and play Indians. Trying to find the perfect stick for the bow was just as hard as finding the perfect sticks for the arrows. After what seemed like hours, my cousin and I had our choices, my brother was still looking for his.

Here we were shooting everything we could with our new toys and having so much fun with sticks and string & rarely hitting a thing, when from around the corner of the house, here comes my brother with the most perfect bow we had ever seen. Perfect length, perfect width, perfect shape and smooth as it could be. Well, we wanted to use his bow because it was perfect & it worked better than any of ours. Boy was it nice. So you can imagine how we wanted that bow. I remember trying to make so many offers, from doing my brothers chores to paying him money, but he just was not going to let that bow go. We never thought to look where he had gotten his bow from to see if maybe there were more. Our shooting had taken us a long distance from the house. Boy was that a great day. No worries, no phone calls and no trouble. At least until we got back to grandma’s house. It was just about dark when we came running back to the house. Our granddaddy had already starting feeding the animals and doing the things he had to do around the farm.

All of a sudden, we heard the sound of our granddaddy calling for us to come around to the other side of the house. It appeared that someone had cut down his newly planted peach tree. I swear that I didn’t understand at first what was going on, but my brother must have known what happened because he went running for grandma. Well I guess you know now where my brother got his bow. Man what fun times we had at our grandparents house.

I miss those summers.

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 12

My grandmother’s other sister was Aunt Almer. I know that’s a strange name, but that’s the name I remember. She lived on a small farm, and had lived there a very long time. Now my granddaddy had an old 8n tractor. He would tell us stories about him plowing with his mule, but we never saw him. He even had half of one of his fingers cut off from chasing that old mule. The mule ran off and he had a rope on it. He ran by a tree and tried to wrap the rope around the tree. Well that worked but the rope caught one of his fingers and cut it off.

Anyway, Aunt Almer’s husband (I don’t remember his name) did plow with a mule. We were way too small to try that but we would watch him plow up and down the rows. The rows were pretty straight too, considering he was using a plow and a mule. Have you ever seen a mule up close? I was small so that might have been the reason, but those things are monsters. Big strange looking animals with big ears. Kind of like a horse but different. Now her house was an old frame house way off the ground but she had a hand pump for the water right on her back porch. You didn’t have to go far for water, it was right there. And yes she had an outhouse too, just like you see in the old western movies. It had a picture of a moon on it. Well, a cut out of one anyway. By the way, that cut out was not only for ventilation but for light. When the outhouse hole gets full, you just dig another hole and move the house. I don’t think I mentioned this before but everything I’ve been talking about so far was all my dad’s side of the family. But, we had another cousin up there named Jerry. He was from my mom’s side. Our cousin Jerry didn’t live too far from Aunt Almer so one day we went over to Jerry’s house and got him to go with us to Aunt Almer’s. We had been running and playing all morning. Something had got my attention over on the other side of the hill, so I went running that way. Well, so did my brother and Jerry. The field we were playing in was full of dog fennels, very high dog fennels. All of a sudden I hear Jerry screaming at the top of his lungs. Of the three of us, he was the slowest so he was far behind. I was sure he had been snake bit.

As my brother and I ran back to him, we couldn’t find him anywhere, but we could hear him yelling. The dog fennels were so high that you just could not see him. He kept yelling and yelling and finally we figured out where he was. To be continued next week… Sorry.

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 13

Well he had fallen into one of the holes that used to be an old outhouse. Oh my goodness, what a smelly mess he was. I guess the plan of moving an outhouse from one hole to another would be to dig the new hole close to the old hole and fill in the old hole with the new holes dirt. But, they wanted the outhouse closer to the main house and didn’t want to carry the dirt that far. We tried to pull him out but it seemed like he was stuck. Some kind of a crust had formed across the top of the hole. When he broke through the crust that’s when the smell started. He just kept saying “get me out of here” at the top of his lungs. Once we saw that he was not injured and wasn’t going to sink above his head, we started laughing. Boy did he smell. I mean, boy did he stink. Wheeeew. I don’t ever remember smelling anything like that before. We were laughing so hard, we couldn’t pull him out. We tried, but just could not laugh and pull at the same time. Finally we got him out. Now we all smelled and had crap on us. Yes I mean crap on us. The old pitcher pump at the back of Aunt Almer’s house didn’t have a water hose one it. I don’t think there was such a thing back then. Aunt Almer saw us coming and figured out what had just happened. She was already laughing as we came running up to the porch. After a few minutes of pouring water on us, Aunt Almer suggested we go to the windmill and jump in the cow trough. But, she also said to make sure to clean it out when we were done. So off we went to the windmill. It wasn’t but about 300 yards or so. As soon as we got to it we jumped in. Scrub a dub dub. Soon we were cleaned up enough to stand ourselves. It didn’t take long to clean the trough out and then we headed back to Jerry’s house all wet and smelly and now it was even funny to Jerry. I wonder if Jerry remembers that. I think I will call him.

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 14

Our granddaddy was a hardworking man. He would also do odd jobs for some of his neighbors. One of the jobs he did was to make bars out of boars. You know, make geldings out of male pigs. That story later but for now I’ll tell you about his job that he worked every Wednesday.

Every Wednesday our granddaddy worked at the stock market from before we woke up until late at night. Sometimes he would even come in after we went to bed. If he thought he was going to be that late, we would all stay at his sister’s house. I don’t remember her name, we didn’t spend much time over there, but she lived right in front of the Assembly of God Church we went to in town. I remember granddaddy talking about the different jobs he would do at the market. We would sit around and listen to how he would move all the cows and how big their horns were and how he would almost get stuck with them and about how the pigs would squeal and snort and try to bite you. Our granddaddy was not afraid of anything. Listening to him was the most fun. He was the best, always making jokes about the hard work. The stories would make us think that we were there. It was almost like you knew everyone that worked there by name. Grandma didn’t drive or at least I never saw her, I am pretty sure she didn’t have a driver’s license. So the few times we went to see granddaddy at the market we had to ride with our Uncle Joe. He had a truck and trailer and people would hire him to pick up their cows or pigs and he would take them to the market. As we got old enough, we would sometimes go with him to help. The last year we went to Chipley for the summer I was 15 years old. I had asked my granddaddy lots of times if I could go work at the market with him. He would say as soon as I was big enough I could. Well I don’t know about big enough, but I was old enough, so one morning granddaddy took me with him. Oh my goodness, it was just like he said. What a day. What a wonderful day with my granddaddy. The stories that we now told together, were priceless..

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 15

I’m sure I have told you about us going to church every Sunday. Well we did.

But, you know Saturday always comes before Sunday and you have to get through that day first. Our Saturdays were not usually a work day cause we worked plenty Monday through Friday. We didn’t just hoe weeds, sometimes we had to pull them. Row after row, pull and hoe, pull and hoe. If the weed was big enough you could pull it, if it wasn’t then you had to hoe it. Certain crops needed the weeding and hoeing but not all of them. The cotton got the most attention. But, no matter what we did during the week, even if we finished early, we would want to go swimming in the pond. You see Uncle Joe had a monster pond. I’m guessing about 20 acres or so. It wasn’t just a good swimming hole, he had it stocked with bass. Oh yea, bass. I found out early that bass are not the easiest fish to catch. More on that later, this is about the swimming. Anyway, we would race from one end of the pond to the other, not the 20 acres but like maybe a few hundred feet or so on one end. My younger brother was always taller than me. We were born 1 year, 1 month and 1 day apart, but I swear I never remember him being smaller than me.

He was always bigger, always. Anyway, we would race and he would win if we swam for a long way. On a short distance I would have him but long swims he would win. I don’t get it. But, that’s the way I remember it. Most every afternoon we got to swim some, but on Saturdays we got to swim all we wanted. It seemed like every Saturday I went to bed with water in my ears. That’s where going to church comes in. No matter how much water was in my ears, Sunday morning when the Preacher would preach, the water came out. I mean every time. It was like clockwork. Saturdays swim would put water in my ear and Sunday preaching would take it out. This happened so often that my grandma would always watch for the water. Then we would laugh together. I miss my grandma. She was the best grandma in the world. I think you could even say, she was my bestest friend, next to my granddaddy of course…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 16

I know people have fishing stories that they tell how big their fish was. I get that.

Shoot, anybody can tell a story about how big the fish was. But, that is not the story I’m going to tell. As a matter of fact, this story is about how small the fish was. As you know by now our grandparents were farmers and lived in the country. Fishing to them was not the same as it was to my dad when him and our Uncles would take my brother, myself and our other cousins fishing. No sir, they wanted big fish and a lot of them. They took us in salt water. They would spend a lot of time cleaning those fish when we got back. Then we would spend a lot time eating them too. But, back at my grandparents house it was not the same. Our granddaddy and grandma would take us fishing all the time, swimming and fishing, swimming and fishing. I think that was about all the fun they had, swimming and fishing. I am sure they did other things. I know one other thing they always wanted was to get our families together as much as they could, and they did that a lot. It seemed we were always at some family’s house to eat and have fun. Anyway, they would take us fishing in small creeks and small ponds. We would get the worms from a wet area somewhere next to granddaddy’s house. I think it was around that old well, but that’s a little foggy maybe because we dug them up ourselves. We would dig them up and put them in a can then off we would go.

Now catching fish with worms is pretty easy if you can get the worm to stay on the hook. After a lot of practice and very good intructions from both grandma and granddaddy, I was able to keep the worm on the hook. I was catching fish but most of the fish I caught were small. I would pull them up and throw them back because I thought they were too small to clean. After about two or three of throwing the small ones back, my grandma turned around and said not to throw anything back. She wanted to keep the little ones. So, being a good grandson, I kept them all. Well, when we got home and emptied the bucket of fish we had just caught, at the very bottom was a very small fish, I mean small. In fact, back in salt water we fished with bigger fish. My grandma just started laughing. You know what she did? She cleaned that little fish and fried it up for me. Oh yea, I ate it, and it was the best tasting fish in the world. Cause my grandma cooked it…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 17

Those days as a boy in Chipley have been gone a long time now. It’s funny how you can go back and relive those days if you write them down as I have done. As I was writing them down, the memories would come so fast that I couldn’t type fast enough. Sometimes the words would come out wrong or words would be misspelled. Even then, I couldn’t make myself fix most of the errors & for that I apologize. It has been great to go back and remember what we did as kids. My brother has told me that some of the things I wrote were a lttle off, that some of the things that happened were maybe a little more my fault than I remembered. Oh well, these are my memories not his. I think he is still trying to blame me and my cousin Wade for him cutting down granddaddy’s peach tree. He has always said that, and something about me telling him to drive the tractor right up behind Uncle Tommy’s pickup and turn the motor off and coast.

Then he said I turned the tractor back on and ran it into the tailgate.

Well, those are his stories and he will just have to write them down as I have. It’s funny, but most of my childhood memories have been on our grandparent’s farm. The wonderful memories would not have been possible without our family. Our uncles, aunts, cousins and most of all our wonderful grandparents. I don’t think I have ever had a meal without saying grace or a day without thanking God. And for that I thank my grandparents and my family. To my family, I say, live like you want your kids and grandkids to have the memories I had.

To my children and grandchildren, I have a whole set of ones about you and your childhood. It’s never too late to start your own stories.

Now go make your own memories…the end…or just the beginning?

It’s up to you.

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 18

Memories of my grandparents are very strong still to this day. I believe it has made me who I am, maybe even how I think. But for sure it has made me aware of how my grandchildren will remember me. And as they grow up, I realize that I want them to think of me as I did of my granddaddy. Even the name I continued on, they call me granddaddy as I did mine. Sometimes I just look and look at the pictures of us and think, where did all that time go. My youngest grandson is now 19. My only granddaughter is 20 and in her second year of college. What has happened? When did this happen? It is almost like I missed it, until I take out the pictures. My wife has always taken pictures. Yes we would always complain too, until we got them back and started looking at them. How did they get grown so fast? Trying to remember them as little children is getting harder and harder. Like the first fish caught, the first shot of a gun and first driving of a car. Oh my goodness, what a ride all that was. I tried to be there at every one of those things. We are so proud of all of them. We have two older grandsons. Both of them have graduated already and working and making their own livings. One is married and has our first great granddaughter. Wow! The two youngest are still living with their parents but I’m sure not for too much longer.

When people talk about their children they always say the youngest was different.

Well I can’t argue with that. All I can say is that even today, when I go to my doctor and he looks at my nose and says, “you know your nose is broke right?”, I always have to tell him how my youngest grandson and I were playing basketball and I was trying to stop the jump and his head came back and hit me in the nose. As tears were pouring down my face I asked him if my nose was broken and he said laughingly yes. I ran to the mirror and was surprised that it didn’t look like it. But the next doctor visit proved me wrong and him right. But I still brag about how good he is at basketball and how proud I am that it was my nose he broke. The first fish my granddaughter caught was supposed to be my grandson’s, but he wanted a sandwich and handed her the pole. I still remember her looking up at me and saying, “granddaddy my pole is acting funny”. I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything. Teaching my oldest grandson how to swim was just as real as if it happened yesterday. He wanted to swim under water, not on top of the water so we took him to the lake. In the pool it was easy, but in the lake, not so much. First time he came up he said, “granddaddy it’s too dark under there”. It was then, that he decided to learn how to swim on top…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 19

The last time I stayed at my grandparents’ house was the summer of 1970. I have tried to share those stories in my letters in the shopper. I hope you have read all about the stays at my grandma and granddaddy’s farm. It was the best time in the world for me and my brother. Anyway, the following June 13th 1971, I graduated from high school at 17 years old.

Graduated June 13th 1971 and 1 month later I broke my neck on July 14th. I’m not kidding. I really broke my neck. Graduated June 13th then broke my neck July 14th. I know, crazy right? Unbelievable, broke neck at 17 years old. Well, let me tell you how that happened. A few of my friends and I went over to Lake Placid to go swimming, just like we had done lots of times before. Somebody in our gang knew a man that owned this lot on the lake. I don’t remember the man’s name or the name of the lake but, going north on highway 27 from highway 70, it is the last one on the right just before you get to Lake Placid. The dock was about 16 ft. off the water and the water was about 6 ft. deep. All day long we would climb the ladder to the top of that dock and dive into the water. All day long, until my last dive. Obviously it was my last dive.

Now, I have never been much of a beer drinker, and I’m pretty sure that no one was drinking that day, but I am sure I wasn’t.

What happened next was too unbelievable to have been done any other way than sober. What happened next is still remembered as a miracle today…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 20

I remember standing at the top of the dock. One of my friends was with me looking down at the water. There was a fish there. He was just swimming around, kind of in the way of the dive. It seemed like we were waiting for the fish to move before we took the plunge, then I got the bright idea to just jump on him. I said, right before I dove off the dock, “I’ll get him”. And off I went. The next thing I remember is my eyes popped open and my right hand was pulled up next to my chest. I had the worst pain in the world. I felt like my shoulder was broken in two. Every time my heart would beat, the pain would go out my right shoulder. I couldn’t move my right arm. It was not doing anything. I remember I was still under water so I had to swim out but only my left arm would work. With the use of my left arm only, I began to swim to shore. When I got there, I sat on the bank trying to figure out what had happened. My right arm would not move and had no feeling.

My shoulder was on fire. The pain now was unbearable but I knew I had to do something so I got up and sat on the side of the dock. The pain now was even worse. I told my friends that I would have to go to the emergency room, that I must have broken my right shoulder. I tried to get up, but I was having a lot of trouble. One of my friends got my right arm, then another friend got my left arm and off we went to the car. As we started up the hill to the car, I felt like I was going into the clouds, that a peace was coming over me with no pain, almost to the point of passing out. Just then another friend put his hands around my neck, under my ears and held my head up. When he did that the passing out part went away and the pain came back. We made it to the car and they laid me down. No one knew where the hospital was, so they drove around and found someone to give them directions. Soon we reached the hospital. They again took all the positions, one on each arm and one holding my neck. My parents were away on vacation and remember, we didn’t have cell phones back then. The hospital tried and tried to call them, but they couldn’t reach anybody. I was only 17 years old and they couldn’t do anything without a parents permission. OMG. The pain…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 21

Slowly the x-rays began to come in. The shoulder looked good, but not so good for the neck. I had two vertebrae that had been damaged and were putting pressure on my spinal cord. That pressure was causing my right arm to be paralyzed. The doctor came in and told us what was going on. They immediately put a c-collar on me and told me to be very still. My parents still had not been contacted. The pain was unbelievable. Every heart beat was like a sharp knife going into my neck and shoulder. The nurse finally said, “I’m going to give him something for pain”. While she was putting the shot in, my dad called the hospital. Soon, he had made arrangements for me to be carried to Sarasota Memorial Hospital. The hospital over there was very small and could not handle this situation. How the funeral home got involved I don’t know, but in a little while a hearse pulled up.

That’s right, a hearse. Arcadia didn’t have an ambulance service back then. The funeral home would pick up the sick and injured and take them to the hospital.

Load and go they called it. I was under a lot of medication, and I might say, thank God for that because the pain was horrific. They had two people in the hearse, one to drive and one to sit beside me in the back. They brought the stretcher in and moved me on it. I had to lay perfectly still. They had a c-collar, but they had no way to keep my head from turning from the bumps. They placed a small towel and pillow on each side of my neck to keep me stable. After a few minutes we were off, the hearse, two people from the hearse and my best friend. My friend rode in the front and has told me on several occasions what happed during the transport. The pain medicine they had given me was making me sick. I needed to throw up. Well, how was that going to happen? I had a c-collar on and had pillows and towels keeping my head straight. You guessed it. I would throw straight up.

Up it went like a hose spraying and then down it came all in my face. The poor man trying to help me was having such a hard time. Up the stuff went then down it came. He was told not to move me or I might be completely paralyzed so he was doing all he could to help me. I couldn’t help either. My right arm was paralyzed and with my neck held down and under the amount of medication they had given me I just wasn’t any help either. It seems funny now, but then it seemed like a nightmare that I just couldn’t wake up from…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 22

The ride to Sarasota Hospital was a long one. The distance had to be around 100 miles or so. Lake Placed to Sarasota is a long ride in the back of a hearse. It bothers me now that it was a hearse, but back then I wasn’t thinking about that. My best friend had more to say about that than I did. He rode with me remember. Being paralyzed was my biggest concern. Would I ever be able to move my right arm again? Would I be able to write, to work, or even throw a ball? Then there was the pain. That too was almost unbearable. Those kind of thoughts haunted me when I was conscious. I’m not sure what kind of medication they had me on. Some kind of codeine I’m pretty sure because codeine makes me sick still to this day. I remember bits and pieces of the ride. In and out are the words I would use. Sometimes I would open my eyes and see the roof of the hearse. Maybe a little of the surroundings, but not very much. Finally we arrived at the hospital. I don’t remember much about going in but I have memories of what they did. I was in and out of consciousness, but I think they tried to put a half body cast on me, you know, from the waist up.

Somehow that didn’t work and I had to go through the removing of the cast. Somewhere in there they decided to drill two holes in my head. Oh yea, I remember the drilling. There wasn’t any pain, but I could feel the drill bit going into my head. Two anchors of some kind were screwed into my head and they hung weights off of the end of my bed to keep the two vertebrae separated and off the spinal cord.

After that, they put me in a private room. There I was lying in a hospital bed with two holes drilled in my half shaved bald head. Each hole had an anchor attached. Each anchor had a rope attached and each rope had a weight on it. What a site that must have been for my parents to see when they walked into my room. My dad told me later that when they walked in, they just stood there and cried...

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 23

There I was, only17 years old and a broken neck, lying in a hospital bed with anchors screwed in my head with weights attached. The doctors believed that if they could keep the two vertebrae separated, that the stuff between them would heal. But, there was a problem, I was only 17 years old. The only thing holding me down were the anchors screwed in my head. I could move around fine, I was just told to keep my neck and head still. Yea right. The medication kept me pretty well knocked out the first two weeks. I don’t remember much about those weeks. I’m sure my family and close friends came by, but I have little to no memory. My favorite Uncle Doyle came by, they told me.

He must of driven all the way from Chipley to see me. That’s about 8 hours of driving one way. He passed away a few years ago from COPD. I really miss him. Anyway, when I could start moving, I did. I guess the weights were keeping the vertebrae separated and as long as they did that, the pain was tolerable. The floor they had me on was just for people with broken bones. With my head held back against the bed, I had to use a pair of special glasses to see the television. The kind that had two mirrors that let you lay flat and watch the TV. One day a man came into my room and asked me if his brother could use my glasses. He told me that his brother had dove into a swimming pool that didn’t have any water in it & that he had broken his neck, and the floor only had one pair of those glasses. I told him sure and handed him the glasses. Being that young and stupid, I could move and see the television without those glasses for short periods of time, so I figured we could share. The next morning the man came back in my room with the glasses. I explained that I could see some without them so go ahead and keep them for the day. I could barely understand him, he was crying so hard. He handed me the glasses and told me that his brother didn’t need them anymore. He had passed away during the night from his broken neck…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 24

Lying there on your back was just plain miserable. Even with my friends coming in I was still having issues with the anchors. Every morning they would x-ray my neck and bring me back to my bed. The stuff between the vertebrae was just not healing. The doctor would tell me to make sure I was lying still, that my neck was not getting any better. Looking back, I am sure it was my fault, I just couldn’t lay still. I even remember curling a small bar bell to keep my left arm strong. What an idiot. I just didn’t get it. My neck was broke, I could have been paralyzed. How did I get this far without being paralyzed? I am sure God must have had a hand in that. I’m sure I did everything I could to mess it up. The floor I was on in Sarasota must have been the place for all the broken necks to go because I remember when another boy that was only 19 was brought in. They had him on a big silver wheel. He had broken his neck in 7 places they told me. They could spin him around and around. He could be turned any way they needed for him to be. Unfortunately, he was paralyzed from the neck down, it was terrible. They told me he had a diving accident as I did, that he had dove into the Peace River in Nocatee and that he had hit his head on a rock. OMG!!! Another diving accident.

Again, I still didn’t get it. I had a diving accident but I wasn’t paralyzed. Sure, I couldn’t pick my right arm up but I could feel it and move my hand and fingers, I just couldn’t pick it up. But somehow, I just didn’t understand that that could be me. That I could have been paralyzed. Even though the doctors had told me that if I had looked down, even once that day at the lake, if my buddy hadn’t put his hands on my neck and held my head up straight, I would have been. I just didn’t seem to get it. Why did I make it and he didn’t?

Is there a reason that I am still alive? Is there a reason that I’m not paralyzed?

Two other people had come into the same hospital. Two other people had broken their necks by diving. One is dead and the other paralyzed. Why am I the only one? Only God knows that answer, but over the years I have not been the only one that has asked God that question…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 25

After four or five weeks of the same kind of days, no moving around, no looking around and keeping my neck from being anything other than still, the doctor came in and told my parents that they were going to have to try something else. The traction behind my head just wasn’t letting my vertebrae heal. I would just not be still enough for the stuff between the vertebrae to grow back. They were going to take a piece of bone off of my hip and put that between my vertebrae and see if that would fuse together. But, they were not sure that would work either. The biggest problem was that I would just not lay still. I know, it was my fault.

Like I said, I just didn’t get it then. No matter what they told me, I just would not listen. Funny how that sounded. Grownups telling a teenager to listen and they actually expected me to do what I was told. Maybe that helped me to be a better dad because years later when my boys were teenagers, I could still remember the doctor’s advice and how I just didn’t listen. Anyway, the surgery was set up and I was to go under the knife the next day. They didn’t want to wait once the decision was made. My neck was just not healing and they had to do something so, early the next morning, in I went. They told my parents that anytime you work with the spinal cord, there could be a problem. My mom told me later that she was scared to death that I would lose my right arm completely or maybe even be paralyzed from the neck down. She was in constant contact with my grandparents & having them pray for me. My grandparents told me later that all of my family had being praying. I am sure that my grandma spent a lot of time in her prayer closet praying for me. Remember, that’s the grandparents I stayed with every summer when I was growing up. But they didn’t tell me any of that before I went in…

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 26

I came out of surgery fine. In those days, they sure didn’t worry about cosmetics. The cut on my throat was at least 4 inches long and looked like the top of a football (fully inflated). Big, long stitches. I guess they had to go in the front to work on the front of my spine. Not sure why, but hey who was I to argue. At last , no anchors or weights attached to my head. I only had a halo. That’s what they called it, I called it a metal neck brace. It had 4 posts and padding in front of my chest and on my back. Then the 4 posts connected to a pad under my chin and the back of my head… My head was not going anywhere. They made sure of that.

The cut from where they took the bone off my hip was just as big as the one on my neck but, that one didn’t bother me like the one on my neck. During the surgery, I assume they had to push my throat over to get to my spine. All I know is I could not swallow. I could barely talk, mostly like a whisper. I remember I was all drugged up again. Most likely it was the same medication because I began to get sick again. The first day I was pretty much out of it, thank God. I only have bits and pieces of memories. I remember the nurses at the hospital were great.

They took very good care of me. This one day the nurse came in to give me a bath and I couldn’t talk above a whisper, I was really out of it. The drugs, the pain and especially the nausea. Boy was I out of it. But, this nurse had decided that I needed a bath anyway. I tried to explain that I just didn’t feel like it, that I was sick and felt real bad. Oh but no sir, she was going to give me a bath. She got out her stuff and began to proceed with my bath. Well I was getting sicker and sicker as we went along. I kept trying to talk and the words just wouldn’t come out, just a whisper. I remember trying to get her attention to tell her I was going to throw up but she just continued to wash away. Finally, I motioned to her I was going to throw up. She came closer to my mouth so she could hear. I was trying to tell her to get back, that I was going to throw up, but she couldn’t hear me so she came closer. She was getting flustered, so she put her ear right at my mouth so she could hear me. UP IT CAME.. I mean up chuck, you know.. I threw up right in her ear. Well, she jumped back saying all kinds of nasty words, but all I could do was laugh. I laughed so hard. Oh the pain… Oh the pain….. Laughing and crying. Laughing and crying. OH the PAIN………..

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GOOD OLE BOYS CHAPTER 27

When I got my senses back, it didn’t take long and I was up moving around. Going up and down the hallways having wheelchair races with my cousin. With that neck brace on (the Halo), I was in no pain. The healing process had begun. There were a few problems, like I couldn’t pick my right arm up. I could slide it around but not pick it up. And I couldn’t swallow without a lot of pain. I guess them moving my throat around just had everything out of whack. One day my cousin came over to see me and I got this great idea. If I could only eat something that would open up my throat, everything would be alright. So I asked him to go and get me a hamburger.

The hospital had good food. Maybe the doctor had told them to give me soft food, I don’t know.

All I know is I couldn’t swallow. So off my cousin went and got me a big Mac. We sat there for a minute and tried to think of what could happen if I got choked. We thought for a minute and then waited for a nurse to walk by the door. Knowing that a nurse was close, I took a bite. Yea I swallowed it but, oh my God did that hurt. I waited a minute and tried another. This one didn’t hurt so bad. So another and then another. It worked. I could swallow without pain. Maybe I should have been a doctor… It wasn’t long and the doctors wanted to release me. The x-rays showed that the bones were staying in place, so they wanted to send me home. So after a few more days, home I went. There I was with this big neck brace on and a half shaved head. The first thing my mom did was cut my hair so it looked better. In a few days I was beginning to get my strength back. My arm was getting so that I could pick it up. I couldn’t pick anything up with it, but I could pick it up. It took about six months before I could pick anything up with it.

After being home a couple of weeks, I thought it might be nice to get all of the guys together that were with me when I broke my neck. They all came over and we just sit there and talked about how lucky I was and how they just thought I had broken my collar bone. I told them about all the people that I had met in the hospital. About the ones with broken necks who had died or had been paralyzed. How the doctors told me that if I had just looked down that day at the lake, I would have been paralyzed. Then I asked which one knew enough to hold my neck up and keep me from looking down. How did they know that I would have been paralyzed? How did they know that if I had looked down, that I might have even died? They all just looked at me and stared. What do you mean they asked? No one held your head. We didn’t know you had broken your neck. We just thought you had broken your shoulder… Come on guys, someone held my neck. Now who did it? Quit fooling around. You probably saved my life. Still, no one held your neck they argued. No one……….. I look back on those times and think how very lucky I was. I wonder who did hold my neck? Were the guys just fooling around? The sweet peace I felt that day as I began to look down has never been back.….. One day, I will find out who held my neck.

And I hope that I have earned the right to see him face to face…………

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