A long time ago in a land far away, I was a kid. Now it’s hard for me to believe I am now an “old fart”.
My mother lived to be 94 years old and on her 70th birthday someone asked, “Mom, do you feel 70 years old?” She replied, “In my mind I am still 16, but my body says I am 70”.
I assume that most of us are like mom; mentally we are younger than our physical age. Possibly or memories play a big role in causing us to think younger than we are.
When I want to relax I think back to a time when I was 10 to 11 years old. This was a simpler time, a time before I became interested in girls. We lived in the country in a house that was in the forks of the road. If you were on the front porch looking north you would observe a two lane road that divided into two roads in front of our house. These two roads went to the left and right of our house and both went up hill. The road on the left was known by the locals as snake hill. There were 5 curves on the hill before you arrived at the top. Snake hill was very steep so I would push my bike to the top, and then ride down coasting with no hands on the handle bars. I had to use the brakes to slow the bike and if there were no cars I could literally ride the entire snake hill without touching the handle bars.
There were weeping willow trees around our house. Our house was in a valley and there were woods in all directions. A stump of an old tree that had been cut down years ago was in the front yard and it had flowers planted around it. This is the only place that I can remember hearing a whip-poor-will call in the evening.
The closest kids were about ½ mile down the road, so I played alone a lot. There was a big propane tank behind the house and I would pretend it was a horse. I would climb on it and pretend I was riding. When I would pretend I was driving a team of horses, I would sit on the tail gate of dad’s old pickup. I would use one of the long limber limbs from a weeping willow as a whip I could pretend I was heading out west.
There was an Indian Motorcycle that belonged to my brother Carl, parked in the driveway. There was a story about why it was there but we will not go into that now. I use to spend a lot of time sitting on the motorcycle pretending I was ridding.
As a kid, long before I had ever ridden a motorcycle, I had a recurring dream that may have been in part due to that motorcycle. In the dream I was riding a motorcycle, as I topped a hill the wheels of the motorcycle would come off the ground and I would hang onto the motorcycle preparing to come down on the road but I would always wake up just before I landed. Later in life I found the sensation I had experienced in my dreams of jumping a hill with a motorcycle was accurate. It felt the same awake as it did in a dream, except awake I got to land.
I remember my first ride on a motorcycle was with my brother Carl on that Indian. We rode into Cape and we were in Sprigg Street and had just crossed Broadway. Broadway was and is just a 2 lane street; I did not want those of you that are not familiar with Cape Girardeau to think we were in a larger metropolitan area. Someone pulled out of a parking space (they were parallel parked) and Carl had to stop abruptly. After he stopped addressing the driver’s ancestry, I think that was what he was doing because he was using words that I did not normally hear, Carl told me, “If you ever ride a motorcycle you have to watch the idiots in cars, they don’t watch for you”. Carl was right and it is still true today.
I attended a two room country school that had 8 grades in the two rooms. The school name was Juden School and the creek across the road from the school was also named Juden.
In the basement was the 1st through the 4th grades and on the main floor was 5th through the 8th grades. Unfortunately this school was way behind the town school I had come from. My first day at the school our teacher Mr. Hurt, that was his name and he lived up to it. He was putting some math homework on the board. The problems were simple fractions so I was writing them down on my paper and answering them. I thought, I will have then done before I leave and not have any home work. Then I found out that he was in front of the 8th graders and it was their homework. I did not learn anything the rest of the time I was in that school.
The lady that cooked lunch for all of us was Miss Cakie. The spelling is possibly incorrect but her name was pronounced Cake with a long E in the end. She lived on the farm next to the school. One thing I remember was the real butter that was served at every meal. I believe it was made on her farm.
Around the walls of the school room were plywood tables that were on hinges. When they were not in use they were down out of the way, at lunch time the older kids would lift them up and swing out a support under the table. We would go through the line to get lunch and take it to our table. My first meal at Juden School was somewhat of a shock to me. I sat down at our table and I started to eat. The kid next to me told me to stop eating; they had to pray before we can eat. The teacher, “Mr. Hurt” was also a preacher in a Baptists church and no one ate until they prayed.
There was a game that we played outside and it was called “Stink Box”. There were two sides with the kids would line up in a line on either side. I can’t remember all the rules but if someone from one side caught you, you had to stay inside the “Stink Box” (a box drawn on the ground) until someone from your side was able to sneak over and get you out. It was fun for us kids.
My memory has failed me as to how I got to school each day, I assume mom drove me to school, but I remember that we did walk home weather permitting. Basically one of the older kids was in charge of the group of kids. We would walk on the side of the road in a line. When you got to the drive to your house you left the group. Obviously the group got smaller the further we walked. From the school to my house was a little over a mile.
Mr. Hurt drove a 57 Ford and he liked to spin the tire when he took off. He may have been a preacher but he drove like a bat out of hell.
During the winter when it was cold enough to freeze ice on the creek Mr. Hurt would take the kids to the creek to slide on the ice. There was a culvert under the road and we all went through the culvert under the road to get to the creek. I doubt that a teacher could do that now.
Once a year our school would go to another small country school and play them in a soft ball game. I guess it was like our play day. There was no bus so someone would get parents to volunteer to take the kids in their cars.
I guess that is the end of this chapter of “country boy Don”.
From the country boy mind of Don Ford
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