Picture This 4 Me

The Demoniac Cat

2009-04-16T09:10:00.000-04:00

Nosey the Cat,
Part 1: Nosey Comes and Goes Away

Nosey was a cat. He was a male, yellow and white striped cat whom we got as just a very small kitten.

Nosey was cool. When he was just a kitten he had such an inquisitive spirit that there was nothing he didn’t get into. Sometimes he couldn’t get out. Not long after he arrived he walked head first into a small brown bag, and that’s where he stayed. We found him rolling around on the bathroom floor trying to get the bag off his head.

He loved to explore. If there was a crack or crevice or hole that he could get through he had to check it out or die trying. It was up trees, in holes, under the trailer we lived in: there was no end to the places he would get in to.

Nosey was the only cat I ever liked. I played with him. There is no other cat in history you can say that about. Sorry, but I am not a cat person as a general rule. In fact, I hate cats.

But I thought Nosey was different.

My dog, Bigfoot, was not a big fan of Nosey. More about him later but suffice it to say that Bigfoot sent Nosey up the tall poplar tree in front of the house almost as many times as the sun came up.

We had Nosey for several years while we lived on the Catawba River. He grew into a pretty large cat. He wasn’t fat like Garfield, but healthy and tall, and he always liked to play games and be petted.

That is until one fine summer day…

I was sitting down on the river bank watching the water flow by. The river comes around a long sweeping bend right above where I was at, and there is a big rock, a smaller rock that was almost an island, and then a long, wide, slow pool. From the pool the water begins to grow shallower as it flows down against a rocky shoal. The river splits around the shoals and most goes to the far side next to the Dolphin Fish Camp.

Those increasingly shallower waters are a great place to wade and turn over rocks hunting crawdads. There were crawdads in abundance, and the current swept away the dirt we stirred up fast enough that they couldn’t escape under the cover of the cloudy water. Roy and I used to wade in there and catch them a lot. I don’t know why, other than it was fun.

Roy caught the biggest crawdad I have ever seen right there in front of where I was sitting. He turned over a rock and there it went, scooting backward by scooping water with its enormous tail. Roy took off after it and saw where it scooted up under another big rock. He flipped that rock, and then another, and another, until he cornered the monster. He held up his prize and I am jealous to this day. I think that crawdad was an easy eight inches long. It was a brownish fresh water lobster! It was HUGE! Especially when you consider the fact that of all the other crawfish we ever caught, the biggest would have been lucky to hit four and a half inches. We were astounded. That was a boyhood prize to brag about. If we had owned a camera, I’m sure there would still be pictures of that unlucky crawdad floating around.

Of course the crawdad did get in one last piece of revenge and literally pinched the blood out of Roy with one of its enormous claws. I forget what ended up happening to it after all the showing it off and scaring the girls with it but it does reside in the back of my mind with intense clarity. Did I mention that I’m still jealous of that catch? Not really, but I turned every rock in that river over that summer and never even came close to catching one like that. Oh Well

Back to Nosey.

As I was sitting there watching the river flow by, soaking up the sun and just being care free and relaxed, I looked over to see Nosey sneaking along in the grass. In his mind he was king of the jungle stalking a wildebeest or gazelle. I watched him slink along for a moment then called him.

“Hey Nosey. Come’eer boy! Here! Come on now, get over here and let me pet you a moment.” Nosey just stopped and looked at me. Imagine my arrogance at interrupting his hunt.

He finally began to wag just the very tip of his tail, which was a curious habit he had. The last two inches or so of his tail would wag in slow motion when he was interested in something. After a moment or two he strolled over and crawled up in my lap as I sat there Indian-style.

I petted him, and talked to him, and scratched his ears, just like I always did. And we sat there in the sun for a long time just quietly watching the summer morning slide away toward after noon. The trees were green, the sun was bright, the shade was deep and cool, and the river just drifted by without a care. It was picture perfect. For a while.

As I sat there playing with Nosey, I was totally unaware that legions of demons from the devil’s vast array of forces had crept in and quietly taken over my once lovable cat. A nasty, horrible plan was afoot to attack humanity from a totally new and unexpected angle: the cats of the world. I guess serpents had become too obvious.

Suddenly, with no provocation whatsoever, the docile kitty in my lap became a whirlwind of yellow and white fur, claws, and teeth. It looked like the Tasmanian Devil on speed. I was frozen for a brief second in total shock at the tornado in my lap. Then the tornado latched on to my left thumb.

It wasn’t just a scratch, I was getting plenty of them on my legs and arms. The demons that had possessed my cat had driven it to believe my thumb was a shaved, pink, mouse. So Nosey tried to eat it.

Out of the whirlwind came a set of razor sharp teeth, with one target: my left thumb. The teeth found their target with all the murderous precision of the deadliest felines on the planet.

The needle-like fangs of the upper and lower jaws sank deeply right into the cartilage of the joint of my thumb. The teeth were on opposite side of my knuckle and sunk in deep. I don’t think Nosey could open his mouth far enough to turn loose if he had wanted to. And he obviously didn’t want to.

I jerked my arm back and up and down, and the cat came with it. Left, right, up, down, back and forth, and the insanely hateful creature that had once been a cat was still latched on to my thumb. Pain was racing up my arm and searing through my brain with white-hot intensity. Reason and thought were no longer a part of my existence. All I wanted was rid of the Bengal Tiger that was eating me alive.

When I finally shook him loose, Nosey landed on the ground at my feet. I don’t remember standing up, but there I was: standing on the river bank with a demoniac cat at my feet. My turn.

Faster than the cat could move I swooped down, scooped up Nosey, and flung him as far as I could throw him out into the river.

Splash! Up popped his head and here he came swimming back, as I stood there on the bank with my whole arm throbbing from the massive pain radiating from the joint of my thumb. I watched the cat swimming back…

I met the monster as soon as he stepped out of the water, yanked him up and sent him sailing even farther out into the current. Splash!

This time Nosey went with the current and came ashore way down at the top of the shoals where I couldn’t get to him. I turned toward the house and gripping my thumb tightly with my right hand as if to squeeze off the pain and keep it in my thumb only, I went up the hill and into the trailer.

Mom treated the wounds. She washed them with alcohol, (which was almost as bad as the bite itself), and put some Raleigh salve and a bandage on it. It was all to no avail. By the next day my thumb was swollen to the size of a thick broom handle, and I had blood poisoning, with a streak of red following my veins up my arm. It was a doctor visit and antibiotics for me.

Nosey ran off. I guess the demons drove him into the wilderness to scavenge for his food. I doubt that my having baptized him in the river had exorcized the demons that now owned him body and soul. He sure didn’t turn into a good, gentle Baptist.

Time to time I would see him at a distance, but it was a long time before he got close to me again. But that will be in my next story.

The Long Walk of the Stroller

2009-03-24T12:29:00.004-04:00

The Long Walk
I was eleven or twelve maybe. It’s funny that I don’t remember exactly how old I was because the incident was deeply imbedded in my mind. A permanent mark on an otherwise blank slate, so to speak.

It was summer time, and a hot one at that. I was spending a week with my Grandma and Grandpa Heavener at their home in Longview, NC. They lived on 21st Street SW in the single-story-canary-yellow-with-dark-grey-porch house, a couple hundred yards down from 1st Avenue.

The Circus Hall of Cream was right across an open lot in plain sight on 22nd Street. I wouldn’t be visiting that too often. I think only once all week. Maybe. It was a mighty temptation and a trial of patience to look at the people getting all that cold delicious ice cream on those hot summer days. I endured with the all the patience a young man could muster in that situation. That is to say I begged for ice cream like my life depended on it.

I’m sure I was on my Grandpa’s last nerve and it was getting kind of frazzled. So as a distraction he asked if I wanted to go swimming at the public swimming pool a few blocks over from their house. I jumped on that like a hobo on a ham sandwich.

“Well, get your swimming shorts on and ask your Grandma for a towel and I’ll run you over there for a few hours” Little was I to know that those words signaled the beginning of one of the longest days of my life.

Grandpa took me through a couple of backstreets a few blocks over to where the swimming pool was already beginning to fill with young people swimming away their Summer day. I was a little nervous since I was alone, but no big deal, I was just going to swim and splash and dive as much as possible. So, when he dropped me off and gave me a few dollars for admission and maybe a snack, I was ready to go.

Grandpa leaned over and pointed over toward the intersection of 17th Street SW, and 5th Avenue SW. “If you get tired and want to come home or something happens, all you have to do is follow that road and it comes out right behind our house.”

I never thought to ask which road he meant. 5th Avenue does go over two or three blocks and curves right behind Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house. 17th Street leads off into the vast unknown metropolis of the Hickory/Longview area.

I nodded and said “Ok.” Then I headed for the admissions gate. I paid my way in with something like two dollars, leaving me with about fifty cents. That was cool with me. I headed for the water.

I grew up swimming mostly in the Catawba River. It was a great place to swim and I wore it out every summer. It was a rare treat to swim in an actual swimming pool. I learned to wade, progressed to dog-paddling, then to a more conventional stroke, all in the river. There were no diving or sliding boards on the riverbank so we just ran and jumped as far as we could out into the water. Now here I was with a whole pool, all options included. The water was clear and sparkled with that aqua-blue tint that seems to only be found in swimming pools and no other body of water on earth. I often wonder if that color has a subliminal attraction to it that makes the water more inviting to the human mind. Do they add that on purpose? Or is it a trick of the color of the liner underneath reflecting back into the water?”

I sighted in on an empty patch of water and ran, jumped in a high arch and cannon-balled right into the deep end. The joy on my face must have glowed as I swam to the side and climbed out to do it again. And again, and again. I don’t know how deep the pool is, but I swam to the bottom, across, and up the other side. I rolled over and looked up at the bellies of all the people above me on the surface, then swam up, caught my breath and did it again.

From side to side and from one end to the other and back. Jump in, dive in, climb in and out. I made several trips to the diving board. Then something remarkable happened. I started getting bored. I did not know anybody there and what good was all this with no one to share it with? I went and bought a soft drink with my left over money, then went over and flopped down in one of the deck chairs to soak up some sunshine and rest for a few minutes.

Leaning back with the sun shining on me felt great, so I just relaxed and soaked it in. With my eyes closed the sounds became clearer. I could hear a constant unintelligible babble all around from the crowd of pool-swimmers and sunbathers all around me. Beyond that the sounds of various songbirds in the trees around the parking lot and the shrubs in adjoining yards were lending music to the mid-morning backdrop. The sounds of cars and trucks humming by on side streets around the pool were there also.

The only other pool I knew of at the time was the Catawba Pool in Marion. It had a booming juke box from the time it opened in the morning until it closed at night. I learned all the hit songs of the mid-seventies; it seemed from that juke box. I didn’t go to the pool; I lived across the river from it so we could hear all the music from it during the days it was open and we were outside.

No juke box was playing at the Longview pool. Maybe it was too early and they had an agreement with the neighbors.

Juke box or none, the next sound that assaulted my ears was a horrifying noise that snapped up my attention with the intensity of an explosion and scared me silly at the time.

Suddenly, out of the warm, peaceful morning, this new sound crashed with painful harshness. BLOP-POP-POP-OP-OP-BLOP-POP-POP-OP-OP BLOP-POP-POP-OP-OP!!!! It was about a dozen motorcycles, all pulling into the parking lot of the pool. I sat up to look at the new arrivals.

Now virtually all my exposure to motorcycle riders up to this point had included nothing other than seeing news and movies on TV that primarily spoke of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang and the violence and evil that they were involved in. They were depicted as the most dangerous, evil, low-life scum on the planet. Looking at these new arrivals did nothing to assuage that assessment.
They were mostly men, a couple with female riders on board. Their hair was long and stringy and oily looking, and all had beards of various lengths and degrees of unkemptness. Some had black leather jackets with various patches and emblems sewn on, while others wore denim jackets cut off at the sleeves. All wore dark sunglasses of different styles. Boots and jeans completed their attire.

I sat there in fear and awe, with my imagination feeding the various scenarios that my mind conjured up. All of them ended up with a massacre with me in the middle of it. The thought crossed my mind that maybe they were there looking for someone who was among the crowd around me here. I looked from face to face all around the pool. Most looked totally unconcerned, while others were looking through the chain-link fence at the new-comers with a bit of nervousness like myself.

The Motorcycle riders that were now dismounted and congregating under the trees were talking and laughing and saying words my young ears were not supposed to be hearing. The longer they stayed there, the louder they got.

My desire to continue swimming died without a whimper. I was ready to go.

I looked toward the road Grandpa had shown me as a way to get back to his house, and made a fateful, yet bold decision. I was leaving as quickly as possible. I was not going to hang out here and get swept into whatever these “Hell’s Angels” had cooked up for the hapless victims at the public pool on that sunny afternoon.

I got my towel and my tee shirt, (I had no shoes with me), and headed out the gate as nonchalantly as a kid can walk. Out the gate, turn left, down to the corner of the fence and turn left again. Then I was on 17th Street heading toward the intersection Grandpa had pointed out. I walked along in the edge of the grass, looking back occasionally to see if I had been followed.

I made a clean get-away.

So off down 17th Street I headed with the sun on my shoulders, the world at my feet, and Grandpa’s house right around the next curve. Or around the next corner. Or a few blocks over. It didn’t matter, I was on my way. I walked past the entrance of 5th Avenue SW and continued down the street, coming to 7th Avenue, and looking this way and that for a landmark I might recognize, decided that since we had made several turns to get there, then I must need to turn here.

7th Avenue goes east and connects to 14th Street which angles northwest to 2nd and then 1st Avenue. I followed each one until I stood on the corner of 1st Avenue looking left, then right, then left again. It looked familiar, but I just wasn’t sure which way to turn. Across the street Hickman Hardware was open and just up the street to my right was the old Snack Bar restaurant.

“I’ve been by that before, maybe it’s this way.” So I turned east on 1st Avenue and set out for my next land mark. It would be a long time coming.

I walked deeper into Hickory as the sun climbed and the temperature followed it. I was well on my way making great progress, going in exactly the wrong direction.

The street numbers were counting down as I walked, but I did not pay that any attention. I needed to find the right street, but really did not understand the numbering system at the time, plus I did not know that it was in fact 21st Street that my Grandpa lived on. I was simply searching for landmarks that I had seen before.

I spent all my young life playing in the woods and roaming the mountain and riverside around our house at Marion, and never came close to getting lost. In the woods, it seemed, I had a very accurate sense of direction. I was not finding this to be so in the city of Hickory.

I walked past the old bus station, and there was a furniture store diagonally across the intersection, with an awning and some wooden chairs beneath. I walked on. I looked for something to tell me where I was. I found nothing. I walked on.

I finally stood in front of an old house near where Hwy 127 crosses 1st Avenue. That house is no longer there. It was torn down many years ago, but that was the house that decided me: I must have gone too far and missed my street. It was there I turned back and for the first time all morning started walking in the right direction. It wouldn’t last.

I walked all the way back to 14th Street SW and stood there looking around. Why it never occurred to me to walk in Hickman’s and ask for help, I’ll never know, but I stood there for several minutes and decided maybe I had been going the right way after all. I turned back on the route I had already traced, determined to look a little closer at the streets as I passed them this time.

The sun had gone behind some clouds, which was a great relief for the moment. The intense heat of it shining down on my head and shoulders was getting very uncomfortable. A breeze began to blow and dissipate the heat which had been clinging to the city streets like a hot blanket, and the coolness of it seemed to boost my energy as I walked. It grew steadily dimmer in comparison to the sunlit morning.

About the time I passed the old bus station for the second time, I noticed that strange musty, dusty, damp smell of fresh rain on hot pavement. I trudged on up the hill to the next street and found the source of that smell, or rather it found me.

A few drops fell at first hitting the hot pavement to dry and disappear, and then more began to fall. I turned and headed back down the street to that little furniture store with the awning next to the side walk. There were several oak chairs under the awning for sale. They were in the dry; I was not.

“Hey mister, do you care if I sit down here for a few minutes until it quits raining? I don’t want to get soaked in this rain.” He told me sure if I was dry. So I climbed up in the big oak rocking chair and watched the rain fall on the hot street. The dry, hot pavement gradually gave in to the cooling rain as steam rose from the streets in low, wispy puffs that quickly dissipated in the breeze. The rain came in a steady patter at first, then harder. For a few minutes it came down hard and fast, by the buckets full. Then it slowly faded away. By that time I thought I knew where I had made my navigational mistake. I should not even be on this road; I should go back up to where I turned on to it and go back down that street, for surely that was where I missed my turn.

I thanked the guy who had let me sit on his new furniture, then headed west with a renewed sense of purpose. I marched steadily on until 14th street was once more under my feet.

I turned left on 14th and crossed those odd double bridges where 14th Street crosses 2nd Avenue and Highway 321 at the same time. The bridge looks like a “Y” with the intersection of the two streets actually starting on the bridge itself. I crossed 2nd Avenue and hurried on down 14th Street. When I got to the end, I wasn’t where I thought I should be, but I knew where I was.

14th Street SW comes out and ends on what is now just Highway 70. It was known in those days as 64/70 and was a busy four and five lane road that ran east/west through Newton, Hickory, and on westward through Hildebran.

I looked both ways and took stock of my situation. Little did I know that once again I was less than a half mile from my Grandpa’s house, but city streets were proving to be my undoing and I just could not pick out how to get there.

However, one thing I knew and knew for sure: from where I was at right now, I knew exactly how to get to my Aunt Randy and Uncle Mike’s house. Exactly that is, except I had no idea how far it was. There was just one logical decision in my not-so-logical brain. Go to my Aunt’s house and ask them to take me back to Grandpa’s.

By then I suppose it was around one or two in the afternoon. The brief shower that had helped so much to cool down the streets was gone and the sun was back, trying with all its might to make up for lost time. I turned east on 64/70 and set out, for that oh-so-long walk.

The roadsides of Highway 70 were not so much developed then as now and there were groups of businesses here and there, punctuated by long stretches of woods and weed patches. I was still in a fairly busy area as I started. I figured a couple of hours and I would be just fine.

With a fresh dose of confidence and a sure sense of direction, I stepped out. My feet were getting tender from all the walking but I was tough and it wouldn’t be much longer. Or so I thought.

It’s a long flat stretch from 14th Street to the small valley where the Kmart was located, but I trekked along at a good pace, and made a good deal of quick progress. Down that hill, up the next past the Howard Johnson Hotel. Then another little flat and there was the Village Inn Pizza place and an old hotel that I have never known the name of. All of these land marks were familiar to me. I wasn’t yet tired so I looked and walked and ticked off the landmarks I recognized.

I went under a bridge and down a hill, then under the set of bridges that carried Interstate 40 over top of Highway 64/70. There were a couple of small car lots and an auto parts store or something just east of the bridges as I climbed the hill. My bare feet were miserable, and by the time I reached the top of that hill I was not really looking at landmarks or anything anymore, except the traffic and where my next step would fall. It was very painful to step on sharp rocks or sticks so I had started selecting each footfall carefully.

I was also watching traffic in the narrow hope that I would see someone I knew. Mainly I hoped my Grandpa was out looking for me. It occurred to me that they might not even know I was missing yet. I can’t recall a time he had set for picking me up if I did not come home. The afternoon was wearing on but had he gone to get me yet? I thought maybe so. I hoped so.

One step after another, I trudged along, watching traffic and the roadside ahead. I was on the north side of the Highway, walking facing traffic. It was something they had drilled into us in grade school and I stuck with it without thinking about why. Startown Rd. passed on my right, then the college, known in those days as Catawba Valley Community College and Technical Institute; CVCC&TI. Long name. Who cares? On I walked.

I recognized 84 Lumber as I came to it. I looked back at where I had come from, forward to where I was going, and down the slope by the huge graveyard that covered the hillside from just east of the lumber store to the bottom of the hollow next to the Hickory Motor Speed Way. “Must be awful hard to rest in peace there when the track is open,” I thought as I looked at the smooth green lawns and flowers and marker stones. The very depressing thought hit me that that might be where they put me if I don’t make it to Aunt Randy’s. I think that’s where I began to lose hope, at least for a time.

I crossed the top of the hill where Fairgrove Church Road intersected 64/70. Stupid me walked right past the Highway patrol station and didn’t even realize it. At some later date, we drove by on our way somewhere and I saw all those Highway Patrol cars and thought how close I had walked to being rescued and went right on by.

At that intersection there was a lumber company called Moore’s and a couple of mobile home sales lots. The grass had been mowed and was stiff and sharp. Every step was painful as the stubby clipped stalks stabbed into my bare feet. I tried walking on the edge of the pavement, but the road surface was blistering hot. I walked on the balls of my feet trying my best to find a place to put my feet down that wouldn’t hurt. I was about ready to give up.

I stopped, looked around, stood there as forlorn a figure as you can imagine. I was right dead center in front of the mobile home lot on the north side of the road. The shoulder sloped up to a fence of some sort and was covered with that stiff, stabbing grass all the way. I looked east, then west. I stood there for a long time looking both ways. I was hot, tired, hurting and ready to quit. I don’t think I have ever felt so alone as I did there on that hot, dry, miserable roadside on that sun-scorched afternoon. I walked up on the slope of the shoulder and sat down in the grass and started crying. I really let it out for a while, all alone in the middle of nowhere and no one knew where I was at.

It’s amazing how many people can drive by an eleven or twelve year-old boy sitting on the roadside, miles from anywhere, crying his eyes out. Yet cars continually whizzed by. None even slowed down. Maybe that was actually for the best. People weren’t as weird or mean back then, but you never know.

Little did I know but by the time I was sitting on the roadside figuring I was lost for good, a full scale search was underway in the Longview area. They had the police out scouring the neighborhoods and friends and relatives of all kinds were combing the streets outward in every direction from the swimming pool. My uncle was an avid CB radio buff, and he was on the horn with truckers on the roads, and citizens around town asking if anyone had seen me anywhere. So far the answers had all been negative.

I sat until I got it out of my system. I am fairly certain that I was getting dehydrated by this time. My feet and legs felt heavy and I was running out of steam. I limped and hopped through the stiff, prickly grass to the roadside, turned east and started walking. The road ahead was sloping downhill into a small depression and a few trees stood next to the road providing some shade which felt good in the crushing heat. The sun had begun to feel like a heavy fire on my neck and shoulders.

As I neared the bottom of the depression, I looked up and my heart skipped a beat. Coming straight toward me was a North Carolina State Trooper in his cruiser. The black and silver car with the enormous “bubble-gum-machine” blue light on top and the State Seal on the door was just coming down the other slope. The cavalry was here, to save the day! I looked for just a second and threw up both hands and began waving to the officer. I had the towel in one hand and was waving it over my head like a flag on the Fourth of July. I tried jumping up and down but the grass and rocks stabbing into my feet put a quick end to that. The Officer, (God bless his heart), smiled, threw up his hand, and kept right on driving. I stood there in disbelief. “Where did they find that guy? I thought cops were supposed to help people. Did he think this was some kind of parade and I was cheering him on?” I didn’t get it. I stood asking myself these questions for a minute or so then, shaking my head, turned back to walking. So much for help from the cavalry.

Somewhere about this time, near as I can figure, or maybe in the next half hour, someone with a cb radio saw me, but did not know yet I was being sought in an all-out manhunt up in the Longview area.

I walked to the top of the hill and found a store with a long gravel parking lot. I looked at the gravel and my poor bare feet, and then at the store. I looked down the road and watched the heat waves shimmering on the blistering pavement. How much further? I had asked myself that question again and again all afternoon as I walked. The question was once again the foremost thought in my brain. I looked back at the store and that long gravel parking lot. Well, I would ask and then I would know.

I hopped and limped and picked every step with care as I headed across the gravel expanse toward the open doors of the store. It seemed like a mile to the safe, smooth floor of that building, but I was making headway. I only had eyes for the dirt in front of me, picking out the smooth spots and carefully stepping from one to the other to minimize the effects of sharp rocks, sticks, and even small pieces of glass. I made it finally and stepped onto the swept floor of the store building.

I waited a moment for the person there to finish some thing or another that he was doing, then asked my big question: “Sir, do you know much further down here it is to Newton?”

He only barely glanced at me. “I think it’s about four or five miles, maybe.”

My heart sank like a torpedoed ship. Five miles? Five more miles? That hurt. It hurt bad. I hated the thoughts of having five more miles. That is horrible. I hung my head and started to turn away, but some long drilled lesson came into play. I turned back, “Thanks. I appreciate it.” I don’t think I really did, but it was what I was supposed to say.

I stepped back outside and that Gravel Hell sat waiting on me. For some reason, and in some manner, it had managed to at least double in length while I was in the store for those brief two or three minutes. I set out carefully picking my way across the gravel toward 64/70 and the continuation of my journey. It was a long, long walk.

When I finally got back to the highway, and turned to my left and started walking, it occurred to me that that stand of trees on the opposite side of the road about a half mile ahead looked familiar. I walked along alternating between being on grass and the gravel of various drives. The more I looked at those trees the more I thought to myself that I was getting close to Newton. “That guy must not know what he’s talking about.” I finally decided. That determination lifted my spirits considerably, and they were lifted even more when I realized that that stand of trees was in fact the trees right next to the Hardees Restaurant next to the intersection of 321 and 64/70. 321 was the road I had to turn down to get to my Aunts house.

I went on steadily toward the trees. The ground was killing my feet so I decided to walk on the edge of the pavement a bit. Big mistake. The sun was still up and the pavement would have served up a crispy pile of bacon and eggs in short order had they been laid out on a smooth portion of the road. I hopped back off in the grass and kept walking.

I was hot, tired, miserable and hungry. But I was sure now where I was and how much farther I had to go. I felt better. I was going to win.

I got to a point on the road exactly across from Hardees and that stand of trees. I knew I had to get across, but the very recent memory of a few steps on the Asphalt Grill made me stop and consider how my bare feet could stand a seventy-five or one hundred feet stretch of the sizzling black-top.

My answer was to never let my feet set down for more than a fraction of a second between steps. I looked at the traffic and at the road, took several good deep breaths, and took off like the devil himself was nipping at my heels. Based on the heat, I think maybe he was. I know I must have looked a sight: an eleven year old boy with bare feet high-stepping across the road at speeds an Olympic track star would envy. I made a full-bore-linear dash across the road, up into the grass and under a tree to flop down in the shade and lift up my woefully misused and abused feet and wave them in the air. They cooled down from the temperature of the sun, to blast furnace temps, to stovetop levels, to a low burn and after a few minutes I stood up and headed for old 321 where I turned right, or south.

The trip down 321 was uneventful. There were a few landmarks that I remembered, but nothing really sticks out. I was worried again. Remembering the missed turns and wandering the streets of Hickory, it began to worry me that I might again miss a turn and end up just as lost as before. I determined in my head that if I was not absolutely sure where I was going I would not leave 321, but would just find me a place where I knew I was close, and sit down.

It was late afternoon, approaching evening by this time. I don’t know what everyone else was thinking or where they were. I knew that by now someone would be out searching for me, because it was well past the time I was supposed to be picked up.

The thought entered my mind: “Boy won’t Aunt Randy be surprised to see me.” I smiled at that. My spirits were picking up as I got closer to my destination. Soon I would be there.

I looked at one particular street, 16th Street, long and hard. That street looked very familiar. Very familiar indeed. Something about it said “This is it!” but on the other hand I was not quite sure. So I walked on. When I got down to 15th Street, no such doubts remained. That Street was very familiar, since almost every time we visited Aunt Randy and Uncle Mike that was the one we turned on. I knew once on that street it was just a couple of blocks and turn left. I made my turn and hustled across another two lanes of hot pavement, barely noticing this time.

Two blocks up, North Deal Avenue turned to my left. It was the home stretch. I began to try to walk faster but just didn’t have it in me. I was about whipped.

The driveway. Finally I was standing in the driveway. Alone.

There was no car at home. My heart sank; no one at home. “Well maybe someone is here after all and the rest are gone in the car.” I went to the small, closed in back porch, which was, thankfully, unlocked. I opened the door and walked to the kitchen entrance door and knocked. And knocked and knocked. No answer. “Where on earth could they be at this hour? Why aren’t they home? Oh well. I’m not leaving. I wait right here till they come home.”

I sat down on the step for a minute before thinking of the water hose. It rushed in upon my feeble mind just how thirsty I was. I had not had a drink since beside the pool that morning. I got up and walked around the house to the water faucet and turned it on. I let it run for a minute then got a drink. It felt so good going down that I got another, then another, and well, another. I drank until my belly was full of nothing but water. I was thirsty.

After turning off the water, I went back around to the porch and went inside the storm door onto the porch. I was tired. I sat for a while, and then lay down on the rug next to the door. It was getting darker as the sun set and twilight was fading. I pulled the second rug up over top of me and drifted off to sleep.

I awakened to bright headlights shining through the door and the sound of voices and car doors. It was late in the night, but the cavalry had finally come. I sat up and looked through the storm door at my rescuers.

My Aunt and Uncle and my Uncle Stanley if I remember correctly had come to find me here. Apparently the guy who saw me on 64/70 walking had finally gotten word there was a search going on and when he heard the description of the lost boy, he remembered seeing someone fitting that description walking along the highway, but that was all the way down a t Newton. So he got on the horn and told my Uncle Stanley who he was and where he saw me at.

My family had pretty quickly put it all together and figured out where I was headed, if that was me, and they headed down there as quick as possible. Lucky me, they were right.

I don’t recall much of the trip back. It was a whole lot shorter than my trip down had been. Before I knew it we were going past the end of 14th Street SW in Hickory. Imagine my surprise when two blocks later we turned up 19th Street SW and then cut over to 21st Street. I was that close and turned and went so far in the opposite direction.

I got a huge welcome at Grandpa’s house. There was quite a crowd there who had all been out looking for me. My Aunt and Uncle had not been home because they were out looking too. (I have often wondered how they missed seeing me walking down the road as they headed up to join the search, but I figure they probably passed by when I was in that store asking directions, or when I was across the road under the trees cooling my heels, so to speak.)

My Pop was there with Louis Shuford. He had driven like crazy to come all the way from Marion to search. When it was all said and done he asked if I was ready to come home, or if I wanted to stay and finish my week with Grandma and Grandpa. I chose to finish the week. It was only a couple more days. Surely I wouldn’t get lost again in that time…

They called me “The Stroller” for a while after that, but thank goodness, it didn’t stick. I occasionally heard stories about it along the way. There were things that I never remembered the way they have been told back to me, but that doesn’t matter. I know what happened.

The actual distance I walked that day totals up to fourteen miles on Google Maps. It seemed so long I would have sworn it was thirty miles easy. I would hate to attempt that distance now in the dead of summer.

I just found out that my Mom didn’t know I was missing. She was pregnant and very sick with my kid brother, Randy. They had hidden it from her so it did not cause any extra stress that she definitely didn’t need at that time. I had wondered why she did not come but had always written it down to having to watch my brother and sisters at the time.

Looking back, that was one long hard day. I made some stupid, childish mistakes, and I made a few wrong turns, but I survived, and I never really gave up, even though at times I desperately wanted too. The Long Walk, the sun, the heat, and my bare feet almost beat me down a couple of times, but I got up and kept going. There was nothing else to do. It’s sort of a metaphor for my whole life. Hey. Life will smack the heck out of you. Get up, get over it and keep going. I will guarantee you one thing though. I never walked off from where I was supposed to be again.

A Couple of Poems I Wrote

2009-03-20T19:26:00.001-04:00

Alone
(a villanelle)

There is no voice I hear
All the world is quiet
There is no one near

No prophet, sage, or seer
To lighten darkest night
There is no voice I hear

No enemy to fear
Or justify the fright
There is no one near

No lover lying near
To make me feel alright
There is no voice I hear

In silence falls a tear
Lonely in its flight
There is no one near

There is no one to hear
No soul in farthest sight
There is no voice I hear
There is no one near.

©2005 James L Frady

Sunset’s Calling

Last evening I heard the call again,
quietly in my soul.
Just as the dying sunset faded,
I felt the call to go.
I saw the gold-lined crimson clouds,
above the silhouettes
of ancient Mountains worn and rounded,
rising in the west.
I stared out past the far horizon,
and watched the fading light.
I felt the pull of unseen places,
far into the night.
Deep inside, a sad, lonely corner,
is hidden in my heart.
That yearns to seek new pathways,
And urges me to start.
But I must keep it locked away,
and hidden well from view.
I cannot yet go seek my dreams,
for I have work to do.

(c) 2005 James L. Frady

Still Here, Just Barely

2009-03-16T11:38:00.008-04:00

The area this story is about can be viewed by a satelite view if you go to google maps and type in Dubrovnik, then move north along the coast to find the long, finger-shaped channel that arches due east into the mountains. Click "More", then "Photos" to bring up clickable photos of the area. The click will take you to a site with pictures from various places in the area. The picture posted is a view of the place where the river flows from under the mountain.

Still Here, Just Barely

We called ourselves the Billy-Goat Club. We were just a few guys who liked to climb mountains and we were all stationed on board the U.S.S. Barney during the ’89-’90 Mediterranean deployment. Each time we visited a port that had a mountain near enough to walk to, we climbed to the top. Sometimes it was an easy hike, while others taxed our endurance severely before we reached the summit. We conquered the mountains of several ports and shouted our triumph across the land before one nearly conquered us.

We had nearly finished our six-month deployment and our final port of call was in the ancient coastal town of Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. The coastline there is rough and mountainous. I think we all had already thought of the prospect of climbing one of the mountains before we ever spoke to one another about it. We all agreed in short order that it must be done.

One immediate obstacle jumped out immediately: at that time Yugoslavia was deeply entrenched behind the iron curtain and was a communist country. We were not supposed to leave the ship in anything other than our dress blue, “crackerjack” uniforms.

Crackerjacks are the dark wool uniforms with the black neckerchief and the white sown-on stripes, known as “piping”. They are hot, scratchy, and not at all suited for a mountain climbing adventure in a foreign country.

Several of us found the loop-hole at once. We were allowed to go out in PT gear to exercise. We managed to stretch exercise from the definition of “running or jogging”, all the way out to “climbing yon mountain and conquering it for the greater glory of the Billy-goat club”

It actually took a couple of days to arrange for us all to head out, but finally, one bright sunny morning, dress in appropriate “PT” gear, we started on our way. It was a fairly long walk to get started, but the scenery was nice. The ship was moored at a pier near the end of a long, narrow fjord that arched nearly due east back into the mountains for nearly two miles. The mountain we wanted to climb was at the end of the channel and just north of it.

We left the ship and went through the gate just off the piers, but instead of turning right and heading down to Dubrovnik, we turned left toward the inlet and walked rapidly to get around the bend and out of sight of the ship and port authorities.

The water was clear and blue, reflecting the sky with its few puffs of small white clouds. The morning was crisp and cool with an early spring chill that lingered in the air. To our right a line of good-sized hills lifted up a wall that traced the south edge of the water way. Across the channel to the north was a high range of craggy, rock-strewn mountains standing silent and tall against the deep blue sky. We walked along with the world at our feet and nothing to worry ourselves over. We joked and ribbed each other and there was a lot to talk about as we made our way along a narrow waterfront road.

In a couple of places the land along the shore opened a bit wider, allowing a small village to exist as a cluster of houses and a few small stores, with a pier or two to access the water. The first had houses scattered up the face of the hill and some piers along the water front. It was quaint with beige-colored houses with red tile roofs packed in close proximity between the road and the hillside. The second, near the very back of the cove, was more elaborate, with an enclosed marina which was populated with dozens of yachts of every size. The view was post-card perfect, but the nicest surprise was soon to be discovered, just around a bend in the road.

We could see that the channel to the ocean was being fed by a crystal clear river at the end of the bay, but could also see that the mountains wrapped all the way around the end of the waterway. Where was the river coming from? I suspected an unexpected turn must connect the river in to the upper end of the valley allowing it to turn and flow straight out into the channel. I was wrong. A long, sweeping curve in the road brought us into view of a bridge that crossed the river. Beyond that the river ended abruptly at the base of a cliff.

It was amazing. Thousands upon thousands of gallons of water were flowing straight out from under the cliff, bubbling up into a large, clear, pool approximately one hundred feet across, and then tumbling over a broad, low waterfall to form the river that fed the channel. We stood for some time on the bridge taking it all in. I have seldom seen a prettier river.

We continued on around the curve, and turned back toward the sea, looking to our right to find a good place to climb. Before we knew it, we stood at the base of a high, steep, rocky mountain.

There were six of us if I recall correctly. We started up the mountain as a group, laughing and joking until the strenuous climb began to demand heavier breathing with less of it wasted on words. We paused occasionally to catch our breath and look back at how far we had come.

The mountain was terraced at regular intervals with orchards of some type of tree on most levels, and cultivated gardens on others. It was still early spring so no crops were planted yet, and the trees were mostly bare. These stair-step terraces continued for quite some distance up the mountain.

Time passed quickly and soon we were about two thirds of the way to the top. The terraces fell away behind us and we stood with a rough cliff in front of us and to the right, while the mountain sloped on sharply to our left. It was here we paused once again, and made the fateful decision that nearly got Tim and I killed.

“That cliff looks like it would be a lot of fun to climb.” One of us said. I really can’t recall if it was myself, or if Tim had said it, but I do recall feeling a little more adventurous that day and it seemed like a lot of fun.

Mike Murphy was quick to voice his opinion, “You’re crazy! I’m not climbing any cliff. I’ll just go this way and meet you at the top.” He pointed to the steep slope to the left and three of the others quickly decided with him.

Tim and I discussed it briefly, and noticing all the cracks, crevices and ledges, decided it would be as easy as climbing a ladder. Step by step from rock to crevice to root and we could be at the top in no time. It was as easily as that we risked death on a cold, rocky mountainside in Yugoslavia.

At first the climbing was as easy as we had predicted and we made good progress. Then things got a little harder and we had to start working sideways as we climbed. We moved around the corner of the ridge and into a V-shaped notch cut into the side of the mountain. Below us, about forty or fifty feet down, were the jaggedly upturned rocks that had fallen from the cliff over many long years and tumbled to rest there like sharp teeth looking for a tasty bite of warm flesh. I cursed my imagination and continued to climb, by now sweating from exertion.

Looking up, I could see it was still a long ways to the top, but to my right it looked like the going got easier.

“Let’s move over this way, it looks a little better for climbing there in the corner.” I said as I headed cautiously along a ledge toward the deepest part of the notch. “Watch this rock it’s loose.” I was in the lead and was trying to warn Tim of any upcoming dangers.

“Ok, I’m right behind you.” He said. I could hear him coming along as I moved up and to my right.

“OH MY GOD!” The shout from behind me made me almost fall, and the sound of a large rock tumbling down into the rubble below gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. My heart jumped to my throat and I had an instant of panic as a vivid picture of my best friend mangled and broken among the rocks below raced through my brain.

I jerked my head around to see Tim grabbing for a secure hold and grimacing in pain. He had thought I was speaking of another rock and he had stepped right on the one that was loose, nearly following it to the craggy rocks below. He had twisted his ankle, but not badly, and once his nerves settled a little we were able to continue. It was close, too close. It should have been a dire warning to us to give this crazy quest up for a safer route. No way, not us. We had hills to conquer and being a mere twenty-five years old, we were still semi-bullet proof.

After a few minutes Tim spoke up. “I am sure now that God must have something left for me to do, otherwise I would be down there in the rocks, dead.” It was obvious that the near miss on that fall had spooked him.

I chuckled dryly. “You’re right there, something sure helped you get a grip before you fell, and it wasn’t me.”

It was only a short time later we were in the notch and climbing once again became like climbing a ladder. From ledge to rock to crevice we made good progress and soon our confidence returned as we moved ever higher above the tumbled boulders, which were now sixty to seventy feet below. The top was very close and we knew that we soon would be on much safer ground.

The final ten feet lay ahead and I was still leading the way. The ledge I was standing on tapered upward to an outward-leaning rock about chest high. All I had to do was get across that rock and I would be free of the cliff and safely headed on up the mountain. Simple, yet not.

With careful study of the rock, I decided that I could step in a crack about knee high and push upward and grab a rock jutting up from the upper side and pull myself up, over and then on to the top. Once that was determined, I stepped, pushed myself up, grabbed the rock, and it came out in my hands! I began to slip backward, desperately grabbing for any sign of something to stop my movement. There was nothing but the smooth surface and I was beginning to feel the emptiness of the space behind and below. My desperate fingers clawed and felt for any sign of a crack or bump to stop my slide

My mind went blank for a second and I can’t recall thinking anything at all. Then, suddenly, there was a small tree branch, no larger than my little finger, hanging down just barely within reach. In an instant, I had the branch in a death grip. It was attached to a shrub about four feet high, growing from the top edge of the rock.

“Dear Lord, please do not let this branch break.” I breathed a whispered prayer as I pulled myself carefully back from certain death. My heart was racing, but staying where I was balanced was not an option, so I eased my grip a little further up the limb and reached with one hand to grip the hole the fallen rock had left in the top of the ledge. In a few seconds I was up and safely stationed on the top edge of the cliff.

I turned and helped Tim to get across the rock and up to the ledge, where we both sat and rested.

“Thank Goodness for that bush! I thought I was a goner!” I said, gasping for breath.

“Yeah, no kidding. I can’t believe it didn’t break! There was nothing I could do to help. You were just out of reach and all I could do was watch!” Tim replied.

“I guess the Lord has something left for both of us to do. We both came close to taking the big dive today. Lets get out of here.”

We caught the others at the top of the mountain. The view was everything we thought it would be and more. A vast expanse of semi-arid, rocky terrain stretched away to the north. Trees populated the valleys and sides of the mountains, while the higher elevations lay bare beneath the afternoon sun. We stood on the highest point and did our victory scream across the empty land. The only answer was the lonely wind in the scrub brush and broken rocks. Looking back, we could see the fjord and its blue arch toward the west into the Adriatic Sea.

There were some access roads cut into the backside of the mountain and we went down that way. We wondered from animal trail to farm path, to road down to the lower back slope of the mountain. By that point we were miles from the ship and very thirsty, and were all a bit tired.

We came upon a local farmer, who, in spite of a total language barrier, was able to understand our need for refreshment. He gave us all something to drink and with many smiles and gestures pointed out the quickest way back to the fjord and the ship beyond. We had a long walk back but were immensely gratified in having beaten the mountain and seen the country.

It was the last excursion of The Billy Goat Club. The events of most of our climbs are misty and clouded with age, but that mountain in Yugoslavia is etched clearly and permanently into my memory. Every time I think of that climb I realize that though Tim and I are both still here, it is only by the narrowest of margins.

The Poison Frogs of McDowell County

2009-03-06T05:54:00.003-05:00

Poison Frogs
I was so excited. I got to go to work with my Pop. We were going out to a house he was building somewhere in McDowell County. I have no idea where it’s at today. I’m sure by now the toad population has recovered to its former glory.

It was summertime and the morning was already thick with the heavy feeling of that deep-south humidity that can only be found in these southeastern states that form the heart of Old Dixie. The sun was coming up, the trees were emerald green, and the dew lay thick on the grass and leaves. It was not yet hot, that would come soon enough. It was warm, the sky was blue, and the day was new. I was looking forward to a big day of doing big things, though I knew not what yet.

As with every building site in western North Carolina, the ground was pure red clay. I mean deep red clay; both in color and in how far you sunk in the muddy spots, of which there were plenty. The house under construction was up on the face of a hill, though not all the way to the top, and the site had been graded level, cutting back into the hillside slightly on the upper side. With the excess dirt, aka mud, pushed off in front to level out the front yard some.

There were several piles of scrap lumber and blocks of wood scattered helter-skelter both in front and back of the house. These ranged from blocks cut from the ends of various boards, to partial sheets of plywood and chip-core, with several broken up concrete blocks sprinkled in for good measure.

Pop and I arrived before his two carpenters who worked for him. We sat in the truck for several minutes and looked at the job site. He talked about the house, but I was too young to understand all the technical mumbo jumbo about rafters, joists, sheeting, and shingles. Later in life I became quiet fluent in the trade talk of carpenters, roofers and plumbers, but this was long before that. I imagine I was pretty impressed with it all.

The two other guys arrived. If I remember correctly, I believe it was Ozzy Finwall and Bob Justice. I may be wrong on that. It’s been a lot of years.

We piled out of Pop’s truck and into the mud. Red clay is quite possibly the stickiest naturally occurring dirt-like substance on the face of this planet. Two steps and it was an inch thick on my boots. Yuck, I did not plan for that. Oh well. I could deal with it. After all, I was a boy and this was the nineteen seventies, when boys still got dirty and thought it was fun. There are still some of those around, thank Heaven above. Not enough, though.

In the very short discussion that followed I learned that Pop, Ozzy and Bob were going to work on the roof. I think they were starting shingles, or finishing the sheeting. I know they were up on top. So as they were preparing their tools, nail aprons, hammers and getting a ladder out, I piped up and asked: “What you want me to do, Pop?”

He looked up and looked around for a minute. “You see all these scraps and blocks and trash? I want all that picked up and piled right over there.” He was pointing to a spot near the end of the drive behind the house.

‘Ok, Pop.” I had no idea how big a job that would actually be, and had not something else captured my interest, I don’t think it would have taken me long to realize this was not going to be a fun day. In fact, I would have probably been ready to leave in short order.

Fortunately for me, there was an adventure waiting to begin right out front.

I began in the front yard picking up blocks; stacking several together and carrying them to the pile Pop had wanted me to add all these pieces to. There was already a growing pile there. I tossed them on and returned to the front yard. I was already wishing I had a wagon, though I wonder now if it would have helped with the sticky clay building up on the wheels.

After several loads, I came to a section of a piece of plywood lying with several blocks around and under it. I grabbed it, lifted it up and HOLY COW! LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT TOAD! I had never in my memory seen a toad that big and fat. Not only was it huge, it was a deep red that matched very closely to the color of the red clay around it. I flipped the plywood over and swooped in and the monster was mine, a sudden unfortunate prisoner of war.

I headed up through the yard. I just had to show this thing to Pop. I knew he would be amazed and impressed.

“Hey Pop! Look at this toad I just caught. It’s HUGE! And look how red it is! You ever seen a toad that red?” I was very impressed with myself and my prize. I already had plans for showing it to Roy and Johnny and Dennis and anyone else I could find. I bet I could scare Brigetta and Crystal absolutely insane with it. Probably Charity and Rhonda too. My mind was in full gear at my soon to be notoriety.

“Whoa, boy! You better throw that thing down before it bites you!” It was either Bob or Ozzy, I don’t know which. It doesn’t matter because the other one jumped right in.

“Boy, didn’t you know them red things is poisonous? That thing gets a hold of you and you’ve had it.” The toad bounced as it hit the red earth.

“What do you mean poison? I ain’t never heard of a poison toad. I’ve heard of people getting warts from them, but not poisoned.” I said with very little conviction.

My Pop got in on the act by that time. “Yep, boy. If that thing bites you your head starts to swell. Sometimes they swell so big they bust. I probably wouldn’t even be able to get you to the hospital in time. Better stay away from them red toads.”

I looked at the toad and thanked Goodness for my all-too-narrow escape. What if I had been bit? I swallowed hard and life got very serious as I contemplated my own mortality. There was only one thing to do. I had to make it safe to work around here before someone got bit.

I began my search. Walking around the cluttered yard I looked for the perfect tool. Something long enough to keep me safe, yet short enough to swing accurately. What I found was a cut-off two-by-two that was about two and a half feet long. I whittled a quick handle on one end. Then I began my quest.

Going back to the front yard, I searched high and low for the monster that was a big, fat, red, poison toad. My search was soon rewarded as I flipped over a board near the center of the front of the house. There sat the evil, vile creature.

My heart was racing. How fast were these devil-frogs? Cut I even protect myself? I raised my make-shift club to my fullest reach, and WHACK! One less poisonous red toad to menace the world. I discovered the toads were not the fastest venomous creatures God had created. That was a great relief.

I picked up that block, threw it on the pile, and went back to the front.

Upon returning to the front yard, I began to flip each block that was large enough to hide a toad under by using the end of my club. I picked up one end, peeked underneath, and flipped it over. Nothing there. Ok. I would check several then pick them up and take them to the pile. Returning, I would repeat the process.

From time to time I heard Pop, Ozzy and Bob up on the roof laughing, but gave it no thought. I was way too focused on what I was doing to protect the world from poison frogs.

I flipped over one board and there was the next little demon in red. I flipped the board, saw the toad, brought the club all the way around behind my back and over my head and down right on the top of those beady, satanic eyes. All in one very fluid and graceful motion. Splat! I was a Toad Ninja. All those hours of playing Karate and Kung-fu masters with Johnny Justice served me very well. I didn’t know a lick of real martial arts, but I was doing quite well, I thought.

Gradually the Front yard became less cluttered and eventually cleared of both scrap lumber and of deadly reptilian vermin. So I headed for the back.

The back yard shouldn’t have been as bad since I was so much closer to the main pile. I was going to throw most of the blocks into the pile.

I went for it, but was quickly losing my enthusiasm. My frog count was up to around five when I started through the yard. I was running out of steam and ready to quit. I guess that’s why I wasn’t thinking so clearly when I reached for that corner piece of a plywood board. I grabbed it and started picking it up when an average size toad jumped out, and terror of all terrors; it was one of those red-as-Satan-himself poison toads and even worse, it hit my hand! I practically fell over backward and stumbled three or four steps before regaining my balance. I turned my left hand over and back repeatedly inspecting for the tiny tooth marks that would surely seal my doom. Nothing. I couldn’t believe my good fortune! No doubt the frog had misjudged how quickly I was moving and had missed in his strike at my exposed fingers!

The toad hopped, heading straight at me! I jumped backward! He jumped forward! I yelled and made a wild swing with my club. I missed. The toad kept coming! I backpedalled, and made another swipe. The venomous evil little beast jumped to my right and I missed again.

Oh ye little spawn of the devil! I have you in my sights now! I drew back to full length, lined up, and SMACK!!!! The toad returned to the evil, hot, smoky land from whence it came, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had thought I was a goner for a second there.

That’s when I noticed Pop, Bob, and Ozzy up on the roof laughing like crazy.

My Mom's Memories of the Yancy House

2009-03-04T00:43:00.002-05:00

My Mom read the blog entry about me being scared silly in the Yancy House, and she sent me this note to relate her experiences there. Roy had done some research and had found an article indicating the house had been abandoned because it was destroyed in a fire. Neither he nor I or my Mom and Pop agrees with that. After all, we have all been there since then. I suspect that may have been a story circulated by the family to keep people away, but it apparently didn't work. Roy also reports having been in there and had a dark creepy feeling and that he has seen movements in the old house when no one was there. Anyway, I am not a believer in ghosts per se, but there are some things I have seen that are terribly hard to explain. The Yancey, (or Yancy), House is one of those things. Anyway, here is what my Mom wrote:

Dear James,

The Yancy House was a very elegant home. The floors had been carpeted in the very best carpeting available when it was built. I don't know the exact date. The heirs deserted the house---- just built a new house and left sometime during the late thirties or early forties. Why? Old Granddad Yancy, the builder of the house haunted it.

Originally the land included "Grandpa's” Mountain. But the story goes that Old Man Yancy was very sick during the last years of his life and had to spend all his time confined to his suite upstairs. Many of his days were spent in a rocking chair. When he died, his spirit remained refusing to give up possession of the house.

Yes there were other ghosts as well, but Granddad Yancy, or Old Man Yancy as he was referred to by the old people I knew growing up , was the most prominent. It was told by family and friends alike and by young people who went to "see", that beginning at midnight, Old Man Yancy would rock his chair out of his room, down the stairs, and out the front door to the porch (front) and there he would rock until dawn every night.

I don't know what else happened, but eventually, the family just left taking little of the original furnishings ,not even the books.

Over the years, people would go in and systematically strip out the carpet and anything of value and sell it. On one occasion, when I was in high school, Some of the boys in the community, (Johnny’s brother. Harry, and Phillip Fairchild, Jimmy Justice (Johnny's cousin) and some others slipped in before dark knowing some blacks were planning to go for some of the things still there.

There was a coffin stored in the attic of the old house along with other things from the civil war, Spanish American War, and World War One.

Well, this night, a bunch of the boys decided to have some fun at the expense of the would be thieves. They went in early and hid. One hid in the old coffin with a sheet wrapped around him. When the thieves arrived and made their way into the attic, that boy slowly sat up and looked around. They say the black men turned white that night. There was even talk that they were never seen again.

When I was in the eleventh and twelfth grades, all the kids in our age group would load up in someone's car after church on Sunday night and go riding. One car was a Lil Nash Rambler. We loaded up 3 deep that night (yes, 3 deep except for the driver). We decided to ride out to the Yancy House and see if we could see anything.

We left Yancy Road, turning into the drive tunneled on each side by large oaks hanging with Spanish moss. The lane bore all the traditional earmarks of an old haunted estate of the south--- a long drive by an overgrown pond, oaks trees bordering the overgrown road with a bridge over the dam side of the pond, approaching the house on the side with a fork for front or back.

This night, there was no moon. That is the night I saw the old woman standing in the window. The kitchen had been a cook house outside the main house at first. Later I think they added one to the house. Of course, we got out of there as fast as we could.

The last time I saw the house, your dad and I drove out there just "messing around" one Sunday about 20 years ago. The house was falling down. The floors were already sitting at a 35degree angle. We dared not try to enter. We just looked through old windows and doors and walked around the old gardens and then left. The old pond had been drained for safety purposes. The silt buildup had become a death trap to kids trying to swim in it.

2009-03-03T08:59:00.002-05:00

The Yancey House

My friend Johnny Justice introduced me to one of the spookiest places I knew as a boy in Marion, NC. I had never heard of the Yancey House, even though my dad had taken me and Roy fishing several times at the pond nearby. The Yancey House was an old Civil-war era house situated between the modern Airport Road and the Yancey Road, close to where the Catawba River flows into the upper end of Lake James.

I don’t know much about the history of the house or the lands around it. I imagine in its glory days, it was an impressive estate. By the time I got to know of it, it was run down and beginning to fall apart in places throughout the house.

It had been a huge white mansion with columns on the front porch and a broad front entrance. It was two tall, high-ceilinged stories up, and a cellar that was about twelve feet deep underneath. A wide, front-to-back hallway led from the front door to the back of the house, with the remains of a broad stairwell to the right. The stairs were completely gone, stripped away by some scavenger who wanted the wood for something, no doubt. Near the center of the house, a narrower hallway ran longitudinally down the center of the house. To the left end there were two large rooms and an extended back sitting room of some kind that was only one story. Turning right would take you down a hall with a set of rooms on the left and right, then an open room with a smaller room branching off it. It had a chimney and we thought of it as some kind of kitchen. In this room, part of the floor was missing and you could see directly into the basement.

The basement was dark, deep and was divided into several small rooms that to our young eyes looked remarkably like cells. Though now I see them as storage areas. We imagined slaves or servants being quartered there whether or not they wanted to be. I remember wondering aloud how many people might have died in captivity down there. Me and Johnny climbed down there once. Once. There were no stairs and we fashioned a makeshift ladder to go down into that creepy, dark, dank place to check it out. I expected at any minutes to trip over a skull or an old dried skeleton. Then I was afraid our ladder would break and leave us trapped to become the next pair of dried up old skeletons in that haunted mansion.

Getting upstairs from the main floor was a lot of work. Roy and I managed to make it climbing the edge of the remaining stair runner still fastened to the wall. It was tough because one wobble and your balance left you and you had to jump back down to keep from falling. We finally made it. Meanwhile, Johnny had gone outside and climbed a tree and out on the roof of the sitting room, then climbed in the window to the upstairs. He outsmarted us on that one. I think he knew from prior visits about climbing the tree.

The second story, near as I can remember, was basically six rooms situated with two on one end of the house with a hall between that matched the entrance hall downstairs. The other four were on the end above the kitchen end. The upstairs covered the whole downstairs, but I don’t recall the details of it as well since we only went up there two or three times all together. I do recall the empty windows that looked out on what was probably once a rich estate. From those windows you could see a pretty decent view of what used to be the front lawn, now grown up in pine trees and tangled vines.

I don’t recall a third floor or attic, but as high as the roof was I think now that there must have been an attic above the second floor.

There was one old outbuilding still semi-standing behind the house. Johnny and I got to digging around in it once and found trunks and boxes full of old letters written many years ago by the one-time residents of the Yancey House. We were not interested at the time so after looking at them for a few minutes we left the letters to the ghosts who wrote them and went on playing. I wish now I could go back and dig through them, just because of historical interest.

I often have a single thought when I see an old house standing somewhere alone, with the weight of the years folding it in upon itself. I always wonder what the stories are which that house could tell if it could speak to me of the people who lived and died there; the joys, sorrows, celebrations; the drama of real life that took place within those walls. It’s more than just a building to me when I see an old house like that. I think that started with the Yancey House. Who lived there? What did they believe? What hardships did they face? Why was this house eventually abandoned? All questions that go through my mind, but which I will never have an answer for.

I mentioned that the Yancey House was one of the spookiest places I remember as a boy.

There were a number of ghost stories that were told about the crumbling old house. Looking at the place automatically moved your mind to the superstitious side. It looked haunted. Almost every window in the place was broken out, and wispy tatters of the remains of curtains wafted in the breeze around the edges of the blank frames. The front door was missing altogether and the ones that remained hung on rusty, creaking hinges that sometimes would shift in an indiscriminate breeze, filling the old house with random sounds. The irregular bumps and creaks seemed to echo from another time.

One ghost story I recall roughly had a daring group of young men with plans to stay in the House over night. I don’t have all the details at hand, but it seems the early hours were all laughs, jokes and pranks, but as the hours stretched toward midnight and the moon was shining in the windows, the young men began to notice shadows that shouldn’t be there. Movements out the corners of their eyes would catch the attention, but investigating revealed no one was there. Curtains moved and doors swung on hinges without the aid of a breeze. Footsteps were heard in the upstairs hallway and rooms. Whispers were heard in adjacent rooms when all the young men were together in one place. The house developed a chill, though the weather was warm and humid outside. These sounds, apparitions and movements began to close in on the huddled men, getting closer and more pronounced until one man felt the ice cold touch of a hand on his arm, and felt a cold breath on his neck. He jerked and ran for the door with the rest right behind him. They all claimed to have heard a rasping laughter as they ran down the path away from the old manse.

One thing I had heard was that often people were seen standing looking out the window. One second they were there and the next they were not. On two separate occasions I saw someone. Once when we were coming up to the front of the house I saw someone. As clearly as I could see Johnny in front of me there was someone there, in an upstairs window.

The person I saw seemed to be a woman, perhaps in her fifties, with dark grey hair and grey-white clothes, just looking at us as we walked up the path. Johnny and I had walked down through the woods to the Yancey pond dam, for whatever reason, and were coming back up toward the house. It was one of only a few times I came toward the house from the front. I looked down: “Johnny, someone is here, do you think we could get in trouble for being here?”

“Who’s here? Where?” he asked quickly.

I replied pointing toward the window, “I just saw an old woman looking out that window at us.”

Johnny looked and no one was there. I couldn’t see anyone by then either. So I figured they had moved away so we wouldn’t see them watching. We went on in before it occurred to me there was no steps for an elderly lady to climb to get upstairs where I had seen the person. Johnny began to poke fun at me about seeing ghosts, so I made up something about it must have been a curtain moving in the wind. I was sure I had seen someone, but started talking myself out of it. Maybe it was my imagination working overtime due to the stories I had heard. I guess that’s what it was, maybe…

The other occasion was the last time I can recall ever going out there.

Johnny and I were there again, and we had come in from the back and found some of the floor supports were failing underneath, the floor was buckling and sagged way down through the center of the long hallway going back toward the part we called the kitchen. It was barely holding together and I should have stayed off that floor, but I was young and stupid. I walked one way toward the kitchen while Johnny went toward the rooms on the opposite end of the house. I got just past the first set of rooms and saw a movement behind me. I glanced and thought I saw a figure disappearing into the doorway a few yards behind me. I shrugged thinking Johnny had changed his mind and was coming toward my end of the house.

I heard footsteps that seemed to come from that room, along with another noise of some kind: something dragging maybe. Then it crossed the hall to the other room. I looked back and saw nothing again, and my nerves began to sing a tinny little tune that made my hair stand up. I walked on a few more steps.

A word about Johnny: He was one of my best friends ever, but he was a prankster and loved to play jokes on people.

That thought entered my mind as I walked down the last few feet toward the old kitchen. I smiled and calmed down a bit, though not completely. It was about then I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck.

“DANG IT JOHNNY! CUT IT OUT!!!!” I yelled as I spun.

There was no one there.

That was when Johnny stuck his head around the corner all the way at the other end of the house. “What?”

My nerves shattered like a glass, but I tried not to show it.

“Never mind. I’m getting thirsty; you want to head back to your house?” I knew if I admitted to being scared I would never live it down. Not with Johnny. I wish that spook had scared him instead of me.

I don’t think I ever told Johnny about the “ghost” that haunted me that day, and I’m glad we never had the opportunity to go back. I had had entirely enough of that creepy place, and besides, it was getting terribly dangerous.

I wonder yet: Was it all an over-active imagination? Maybe it was, but it did, and still does, seem so real that my heart speeds up when I think about it in depth. I guess I will just continue to take it all at face value: Something was there, and it scared me thoroughly, and that's enough for me.

The Yancey House is gone now. I suppose there is nothing left but an old hole in the ground where the basement used to be. I wonder where the ghosts are now. Maybe the story continues as the story of a haunted cellar…

A Storm at Sea - 1989

2009-02-28T07:06:00.003-05:00

A Brief Narrative from My Navy Days.

It was 1989. My ship was off the coast of Egypt doing operational exercises. We had spent about a week playing tag with a Soviet cruiser. At times we could have thrown rocks at it and hit our target. They didn’t like us, we didn’t like them.

I went topside and took a whole roll of film up close of the communist ship. It fairly bristled with weapons. We found out later that by 1989 the ships in the Soviet Navy were literally falling apart. When I sent that roll to be developed, they kept it longer than normal, and then sent back a whole roll of blank negatives. They enclosed a note that the film was totally blank. I somehow failed to believe them, and wish now I had held that roll for development when I got back home.

So we headed south for Alexandria and spent about a week there for a little R&R. It was a liberty port and we were allowed off the ship all day if we did not have duty.

I went down to the Pyramids at Cairo, and got to go inside the biggest one. It is a big pile of rocks with a bunch of climbing, narrow passages that open up into a large chamber at the top. It was completely intriguing, and along with the Museum of Egypt, there in Cairo, made a great trip. I got tons of pictures, every single one of which developed perfectly.

Later in the week, my Chief Petty Officer, some of my buddies, and I went out to eat at a rather nice local restaurant and had a big dinner. The resteraunt would be rather upscale there, but here would be around midlevel.

In one respect, Egypt is a lot like Mexico. If it isn’t well cooked, don’t eat it. I followed this rule religiously, and only drank bottled water. I had no problems. The meal was nice and I had a fairly large steak. It looked fantastic, but it had a strange taste. The texture was not what you would be looking for in meat. It had a fine mealy or grainy texture. Everyone else said theirs tasted strange too, so we began to pick on the waiter about what kind of meat the steak might actually be. We are convinced to this day that it wasn’t beef. We finally decided it was camel, but the waiter laughed like that was real funny. We didn’t think so.

Most of the guys had a salad and some vegetables. Not me. I stuck with only those items that had been cooked at a high temperature. By the time we left Alexandria, some of those guys were in bad shape. You don’t need the details but suffice it to say they had two or three days of unrest.

We left Alexandria and headed north toward Italy, which was our next port of call and was to be a working port. It was then that we hit the worst storm I was ever in at sea.

The ship was an old destroyer; small, light on armor, and fast, with a lot of firepower. It bobbed like a cork float in a fish pond. Sailors call ships like that a Tin Can. My tin can was taking twenty-eight and thirty degree rolls and pitching like a bronc. Everything that was not tied down or secured in cabinets or bins became missiles flying off shelves or ledges often hitting other objects or people and doing some degree of damage. We had men being injured just trying to walk.

We changed our heading into the wind to try to limit the roll but this turned us directly into the oncoming waves. With each crashing wave the entire ship would shake and begin to climb, only to break through the top and crash down into the trough between that one and the next, sending water and spray across the bow up to the bridge and beyond. The captain banned anyone from being on the main deck or 01 level topside.

I went up through the interior of the ship to the bridge and then to the 04 level. Topside on the 04 level the wind almost carried me away. It was howling and shreiking in the superstructure, and it grabbed you with cold bitter fingers, ripping and pulling at every fold and seam of your clothes. I stepped out on the 04 level and let go facing the wind. I was leaning at around a fifty degree angle into the wind, letting the air resistance hold me up. Had it suddenly stopped blowing I would have fallen flat on my face. It was about then I got soaked.

I fought my way forward against the oncoming gale until I reached the forward wall of the 04 level deck, which overlooks the bow of the ship. Looking over, I was just in time to see the bow plunge from the crest of a wave, downward to drive hard into the next approaching wall of water. Green sea water ran across the nose and rushed astern, while a huge column of water splashed skyward to be captured by the howling wind and thrown straight back toward the superstructure. I caught my share right in the face. My winter working jacket caught its share and grew somewhat heavier as it soaked up some of the water.

I looked around the ship and saw nothing but massive waves and water spray that had been stripped from the crests by the wind. The salt water in the air soaked my face and stung my eyes. I could taste the seawater on my lips, and feel the power of the ocean under my feet. We were in the ocean's realm and it was showing us how small we were. I stayed on deck for only a few minutes before retreating inside to dry off and tell my buddies in Gunplot how bad it was.

It got worse.

After several more people had gotten banged up, they told us if we were not actually on watch to stay in our rack, (that’s Navy for bed). I was only too happy to comply with that, so I headed back aft to hit the sack. I stumbled along, down the main passageway, doing ok, until I had just gotten past the Chief Petty Officer’s mess. The bulkhead on my right side took a notion and just reached out and smacked me silly. Actually, the ship rolled hard to the starboard side and as I attempted to adjust my balance, I ran into the port bulkhead which was coming my way fast. (I was walking aft which means the port was to my right and starboard was on my left). Naturally that knocked me off balance so that when the ship rolled back to port I stumbled into the starboard bulkhead. I know what a pinball feels like trapped between two of those bumpers, getting smacked back and forth. The passageways on a destroyer are narrow, so I put out both hands, one against each wall and steadied, then continued on.

My rack was a bottom one and was only about eight inches above deck level. Even so, I did not want to get rolled out on the floor by another set of hard rolls. I rolled up several towels and tucked them, along with my shoes and an extra blanket under the outside edge of my thin mattress to make a dish shaped depression in the middle. It was there that I curled up and fell quickly to sleep. (It’s amazing how fast I could fall asleep back then compared to how long it takes me to wind down and fall asleep now.)

Each night we had an evening prayer which was given across the ship's 1MC speaker system. That evening during the storm it was my turn to do the prayer. We rotated that duty amoung the ship's Lay Readers, who also held services on Sunday in the absence of a Chaplin. I went to the bridge with my Bible, and read from Psalm 107: 23 - 32

23 They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
24 These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.
28 Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
31 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
32 Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

I prayed asking for God's protection and that he would see us safe through the storm and into our next port, then headed for gunplot to stand my watch. I had the 11:00pm -7:00am watch every night.

During the night, the waves began to lessen, though the weather was still rough. We felt the difference and knew we were heading for the edge of this weather system and hopefully a better day.

I went to bed that morning with my rack still rolled up on one side and the ship rolling steadily. I was quickly asleep. When I was awakened to take my next turn on watch, the ship was in much calmer seas and was barely rocking and rolling along. I had slept like a rock and don’t have any idea when we finally got away from that storm.

No one really understands me when I tell them about the ocean and how much I loved it. It’s been eighteen and a half years and I can still taste the salt in the air.

The Wrath of Mom

2009-02-25T11:24:00.001-05:00

I lay in the dense foliage and held my breath. Silence was mandatory. There was no getting around it; if I were caught it would be my certain doom.

I lay under the vines and watched in silence as mortal danger walked by within three feet of where I lay, hidden deep underneath the tangled mound of honeysuckle vines. I knew I had better make good my escape the moment the coast was clear.

How I had come to be hidden there with such danger so close at hand was more typical than not and this was not my first brush with this threat. In fact, it was the norm rather than the exception.

You see, the danger that stalked so close to my hiding place was my Mom, and she had a four-foot long hickory switch with my name written all over it. And man she was mad!

It had all started with the dishes. The chore we all hated so much. Why, I don’t know, but none of us kids ever liked doing the dishes. However, that did not erase the fact that they had to be done, so my parents had established a weekly rotation of who was responsible for the dishes. I forget the exact order of rotation, but that is irrelevant.

It was my week to get the dish-pan hands.

The problem was that the person who had them the week before had not done them at all, and they remained piled high above the sink and surrounding counter. They were all left over from the previous week, but now it was my week and I was supposed to take care of it.

My budding sense of justice was deeply offended by that. Why was it fair that the other person could skip the dishes altogether for a week, and I get stuck with them? I decided I would not do them until the other sibling made up their time and handed over a clean slate to me. I decided that. My Mom apparently did not see it that way. Maybe she wasn’t aware that they were last weeks dishes…so I told her.

"But Mom! I’ll clean the ones for this week if you make so-and-so clean up last week’s so I start with a fresh pile!”

“It’s not their week, it’s yours.”

“But they didn’t do them when it was their turn. Why do I have to do them now?”

“I’m not telling you again, now get busy.” She turned and walked through the back end of the trailer we lived in and went out of sight down the hall.

I stood there taking in that pile of dishes and sulking about the unfairness of it all. Then beyond the sink, the living room door came into focus. I don’t think consequences ever darkened the door of my young, impulsive mind at all. Through the living room, out the door and up the mountain I went so fast that I didn’t even hear the door shut behind me.

I followed a small, narrow game trail through the twisted and tangled vines of honeysuckle and saw briars till I hit a trail that cut up the hill toward the ridge where Roy, Johnny Justice and I had fashioned a crude log cabin out of deadfall trees, but then cut over across the face of the mountain to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I pecked on the door, and asked Grandma where my cousin Dennis was. She hollered back through the house and shortly Dennis and I were on the trail again. We went high and around the back of our trailer, and down into the corn fields at the base of the mountains. It was summer time and the fields had corn growing so we got into a row and headed for the river.

We were about two hundred and fifty yards or so below my house in the corn field the first time I heard my Mom yell my name. Far, far down deep in my conscience was the first tiny twinge of fear.

Squash that. I had playing to do. After all; It was summer, the sun was out, the birds were singing and I was young. I blew it off and we went on over to the river.

On the opposite side of the corn field the Catawba River ran its winding course down the edge of the corn, around the cow pastures below and then turned down past the Marion Airport toward the upper end of Lake James. I knew that river well, and played it from Garden Creek above our house to far, far below.

Across the river was the back side of the Dolphin Fish Camp, at that time owned by Johnny Justice’s dad Adolph. On our side the bank was a long, wide sand bar, which was actually mostly worn stones washed there during flood stages of the river. The lower end of the sand bar faced a long, smooth stretch of water. It was a perfect place for skipping stones or seeing who could throw rocks the farthest across the water. It was to this little corner of paradise that we were headed.

The path to get there cuts in off the old road bed, goes straight for several steps, then angles to the right for about thirty yards, before coming to the top of the bank above the sand bar. There are several places to go down the bank and the path ran right along its top opening up at each place to access the riverside. On both sides of the path are dense, almost jungle-like tangles of underbrush, vines, saw briars, poison oak, and weeds. (Not to mention snakes, ticks, spiders, yellow jackets, and chiggers.)

I don’t know how long we played but it was a good while. Time to time I would hear my mom calling me. The sense of dread that I had squashed earlier began to come back and grow stronger and more pronounced. Then I noticed her voice was getting closer. SHE WAS ON THE PROWL!

“Dennis, I hear my mom calling and I’m supposed to do the dishes. I think I better head home now.” It took a few tries but I convinced him we needed to leave. I was sure by this time he had heard her too.

So we skittered up the bank, and started out the path. I could hear Mom clearly now. She was clearly upset. Very upset. I’m talking calling down fire and brimstone and thunder and lightening and multiple lashes of the whip…and worse than all of that put together, she was threatening to tell my dad when he got home. That thought was beyond my capability to compute rationally.

It dawned on me that she was heading for our path. Without a word I went total Indian mode and leaving no tracks and not making a sound I led Dennis off into the underbrush. We weaved around two or three huge clumps of vines, which were locked in a death grip with some small trees, then circled one and crawled up under the haywire tangle of a very thick pile right next to the path. By this time I could see movement coming along the path.

It was my mom and one of my sisters. I don’t recall which one because all I had eyes for was my mom and that huge, enormous, unmerciful, four-foot-extra-limber-whip-the-tar-off-my-butt-hickory-switch.

Now, in all honestly, my mom’s whipping hurt, but they were bearable. That is, under ordinary circumstances. I had a distinct impression these circumstances were a shade beyond ordinary. I think they were perhaps even a shade beyond the extraordinary. I think perhaps I had managed to push the circumstances way up into the realm of extreme.

My heartbeat was one dull thud after another, pounding in my chest as I held my breath as if my life depended on it. I looked at Dennis and motioned for total silence. From the look on his face I could tell he did not need any urging. He knew he would get a dose of that switch too. Those were different days and my aunts and uncles could bust my rump if it needed it and vice-versa.

We watched as the switch led my mom along the path right in front of my face. I could have reached out and grabbed it. That would have been like laying hold of a live wire on a power station, and not to be advised. Ten feet away…five…three…five…ten…on down the path they went, past our hiding place. I waited until I heard them go down the bank to the river, and then made my move.

We burrowed out of the brush pile as quickly and quietly as we could and headed up the path they had just gone down. A right turn and a two hundred-yard-dash and I was home. Dennis went right on by and up through the garden, back to Grandma’s house.

When my mom found me I was nervously washing dishes as fast as I could with a big fake smile on my face, hoping and praying she didn’t tell my Pop about my great escapade.

Oh yeah, she did. No help for me there.

My mom never knew how close she came to me that day. I never told. That hiding place had served me well and I may have needed it again. As fate would have it, I never had the occasion to go into hiding there again. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t.

I never got justice over the dishes that had not been washed and were left for me but I learned two valuable lessons. Life isn’t fair; and you got be tough if you’re going to be stupid.

Not mine originally, but I find it funny

2009-02-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN DRINKING WAY TOO MUCH COFFEE WHEN.....
* Juan Valdez named his donkey after you.
* You haven't blinked since the last lunar eclipse.
* You just completed another sweater and you don't know how to knit.
* The only time you're standing still is during an earthquake.
* The nurse needs a scientific calculator to take your pulse.
* Your so jittery that people use your hands to shake paint cans.
* You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in.
* Charles Manson thinks you need to calm down.
* Your taste buds are so numb you could drink your lava lamp.
* When you call radio talk shows, they ask you to turn yourself down.
* Your life goal is to amount to a hill of beans.
* You channel surf faster without a remote.
* You name your cats "Cream" and "Sugar."
* You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.
* You can outlast the Energizer bunny.
* You short out motion detectors.
* Your nervous twitch registers on the Richter scale.
* You think being called a "drip" is a compliment.
* You help your dog chase its tail.
* You're up to four heart attacks a day.
* Your coffee mug is insured by Lloyd's of London.
* You introduce your spouse as your coffeemate.
* You think CPR stands for "Coffee Provides Resuscitation."
* Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup.
* You think Columbia would be a great vacation destination!
* You're passing everybody on the freeway when you suddenly realize: you left your car at home!

Natural Elevators on Grandpa's Mountain

2009-02-22T20:12:00.001-05:00

Bent Trees at Garden Creek

At the place where Garden Creek runs into the Catawba River, and where Highway 70 splits from Highway 221/226, due east of the river and northeast of the 221 bridge, is a small mountain. It has no given name that I am aware of, but though it is small in reality, it is forever big in my mind. We called it Grandpa's Mountain.

I spent a lot of years claiming that mountain as my own. I knew it from bottom to top and from one end to the other on the river side. On that mountain I was Daniel Boone, Davey Crocket, and a dozen wild Indians all rolled up into one. If it could talk I would have probably been worn out more times than I was and probably grounded for life…

Many youthful adventures were there to be had, and being who I was, I tried as many as could possibly be crammed into my days on the river there.

On one particular slope there was a stand of trees. They were small, young trees that had grown up where the earlier timber had been pushed off. They were tall and straight and narrow, and growing on a very steep bank of about sixty or seventy degrees. I mentioned that they were straight. Were. Fast forward thirty two years or so, and people would probably wonder why those trees are bowed so far over and grown that way. Blame it on genetics…mine that is, along with my brother Roy and Johnny Justice.

You see, they were half way up this steep bank, or a little higher and we were on top. I don’t know who thought of it, but I don’t think it was me, but what better way down than to take the elevator? And what better elevator to a boy than one that (a): was natural, and (b): was a bit risky, and (c): involved a lot of cheap thrills? (This was in the day when cheap thrills weren’t so immoral and were easier and cheaper to come by.)

I want to think Johnny was first to go. He ran, jumped and grabbed the top of one of the saplings and it oh-so-gracefully bent over, and over, and over, and lowered him to the ground far below. Awesome! Cool! Unbelievable!!!! Roy went next, with very similar results. He landed far down the bank with only a slight drop and no harm. Now it was my turn.

I was more than a little bit scared that I would miss the tree and crash to a bloody and battered ending in the valley so many feet, no it was yards, no I think it began to look nearly a mile down for a minute there. Johnny and Roy were starting to make fun of me. The minutes creep by like hours. The sun visibly moves in its course through the sky…I run…I jump…I panic…I flail and grab…and I catch my tree! Yeeee Haaaaw! And in a long graceful arch, I too, glide over and to the ground. What a rush! Eat your heart out Tarzan!

Well, we stood there a minute and looked back up that steep bank and there was only one thing to do. No we did not go home and laugh about it. That would have made sense. We scrambled and dug and scratched till we got back to the top so we could suspend any common sense we might have cultivated up until that point, and do it again. And again. And yes, again. In the end we resorted to climbing the larger trees until we got high enough for them to bend under us. That did not hold the same thrill as the jumping to them and risking our necks.

After about three jumps the trees would not straighten back up completely and that tree had to be abandoned for a fresher tree. It seemed like we jumped five or six times each. Maybe it was not that many. I only remember we were tired and scratched up when it was all said and done. And happy.

The last time I remember looking at those trees, they were still bowed from doing elevator duty. I wonder if the woods on that mountain have ever caught someone’s eye because several trees turn outward from the slope in a neat arch on one very steep part of the bank. I am very surprised we weren’t hurt or maimed or killed, but we came through whole and functional. I think.

James L. Frady

A Poem About The Crow

2009-02-22T19:59:00.003-05:00

The Crow

A crow was in my garden patch
Pecking at my plants and seeds
I went outside and ran him out
He left with utmost speed

I went back in and looked back out
And saw how soon he did return
I saw him eating up my corn
And quickly did my temper burn

I went out and threw a rock
To make him swiftly fly
But much to my dismay did see
Him circling in the sky

He waited till I went inside
Then landed for a nibble
And brought some buddies with him too
To make my troubles triple

I made a scarecrow tall and straight
And stood it by my melons
The crows never even blinked at it
And ate like feathered felons.

I tried each remedy I know
From snakes to human hair
The crows figured out all my tricks
And soon would be eating there

I gave my garden to those birds
And went off to the market
I filled my truck with corn and beans
But the crows saw where I parked it!

James L. Frady
July 6, 2000

Grandma Heavener and Cane Poles

2009-02-20T10:24:00.001-05:00

This is an old picture of my Grandma fishing many years ago. My Aunt Nancy had it stored away and my cousin Carolyn found out about it after reading this blog. She scanned a copy for me, touched it up with photo shop, and sent it to me for this story. I vastly appreciate it.

Grandma was much younger here than when I knew her and fished in the river with her and her cane-poles, but other than that, not much is changed.

Grandma Heavener

I was hit this morning with a clear, vivid image of my Grandma Heavener. I don’t know what triggered it, but it was suddenly in my mind; a picture from a long time ago on the banks of the Catawba River near Marion.

My Grandmother was a great woman. She could be very serious when the need be, yet at times she would be a fountain of joy and laughter. I saw both sides at various times and for various reasons. Being a boy with more energy than my brain could control, I often found myself on the serious end of the stick, but my favorite memories of her always include her laugh and her smile and those twinkling eyes that only grandparents seem to have.

The picture in my mind today is of Grandma fishing.

We lived right on the banks of the Catawba River above Marion and Grandma and Grandpa lived right up the hill from us. It was a walk into the yard at the time for us and about ten minutes for them to walk to the river bank.

Grandma liked fishing. She and Grandpa used to have a box built against the back of their well house which was full of rich brown dirt, and worms. Virtually every time they caught a worm it went into the box for use when they went fishing. They would feed the worms with old bread and news paper and such, which would decay into the soil and provide food. My cousin and I would occasionally raid the box if we wanted to go fishing and needed worms in a hurry. Most of the time, we went up in the hollow and scratched them out for ourselves, and left theirs alone. A few times I even went and dug worms just to put back in the box.

My Grandmother had cane poles; good limber canes with a length of fishing line tied on with a hook, a sinker, and a bobber. I used to think those canes must be ten feet tall, but now I’m older and I think eight or nine feet would be about right.

I remember my grandma coming to the river wearing an old dress, an apron, and a straw hat, or a bonnet made of cloth tied around her hair. She was carrying her cane poles, usually two or three, and some worms in an old tin can. I don’t recall her having a fishing tackle box at all, but she had some spare hooks and sinkers just in case. Sometimes she had a few slices of white bread to use for bait, along with the worms.

There at the river there were two huge old trees that hung out over the water, with roots that formed a small shelf next to the river. The water there was about chest deep to a ten-year-old, (namely me), and undercut the roots just a bit. There seemed to be an endless supply of bluegill, sun perch, and what we used to call pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin Seeds were small bright orange perch that we never thought much of at the time, but they were fun to catch. Occasionally a catfish or a sucker would be caught from that pool.

Grandma would bring a seat, one of those old lawn chairs with the aluminum frame and cross-woven nylon or plastic ribbons, or something like that. She would set it up, make sure it was stable, then sit down and start on her cane poles.

She would bait the first with a half a worm, unless it was small, and then lifted the end of the cane high into the air letting the hook, line, sinker and bobber swing in a nice arc out over the water. With perfect timing she would drop the end of the cane allowing the rig to softly plop into the water slightly upstream just out from the two trees. She would then repeat the ritual with each of the other canes in turn.

While she baited the other canes, the first one would drift in a slow arc down the river till the line began to reach its limits, and then swing slowly toward the shore near the roots of the trees. I vaguely remember that she would leave one or two just floating and waiting there, while one cane she kept in her hands. The line on this cane was dropped closer to the tree trunks to drift right along the edge attempting to temp the fish hiding up underneath. She would drift it down, lift the cane and move it back up, and drift it again.

Most of the time, it wasn’t long till one of the bobbers twitched, twitched again, then started bouncing along the surface. Grandma was delighted and excited. She enjoyed catching the perch and sun fish as much as any fisherman ever enjoyed catching anything. She would pick up the end of the cane carefully and try to time the bounces. Soon the bobber would lunge for the depths and just as quick, Grandma would set the hook and quickly lift the wriggling fish right out of the water. She didn’t waste a motion, but swung the fish straight into her hand, unhooked it, and dropped in a bucket next to her seat.

Often, as that one was being unhooked another bobber would start dancing across the water so that she had to drop the one and grab the other to land it. That made her happy indeed. With her fish in the bucket, her hooks once again baited, and the lines dropped back in the water she would resume the cycle and fish as long as they were biting.

I often went down to the river when she was there and sometimes would take over on one of the canes, sitting in the dirt, barefoot and cut-off shorts, fishing without a care in the world. Grandma would tell me stories and about things she remembered. I wish I had listened better.

Being a boy and terribly impatient, I couldn’t resist lifting up my cane from time to time just to check if something had gotten my bait. That didn’t set well with her.

“Put that pole down and leave it alone until you get a bite! You won’t ever catch a fish if you don’t leave your bait in the water!” Or something similar to that. Most of the time I caught a few, she caught several and we had a good time. We enjoyed the time and when it was all over I helped her carry her chair and bucket of fish back up the hill to her house. We would put up the cane poles, dump any leftover worms back in the box, and then I would wander off on a boy’s whim to roam the mountain or swim in the fishing hole we just left. I don’t recall ever seeing her clean the fish.

I miss her, but good memories go a long way.

Poem About The Izmir Turkey Bazaar

2009-02-17T12:24:00.000-05:00

Izmir Bazaar

The babbling of a thousand men
Surround me in this place
I understand not one word
Nor recognize one face
Nuts are roasting in the streets
Strange spices temp my nose
Men bark bargains as I walk by
Hoping I pause as I go
Oriental rugs catch my eye
With colors and patterns bright
A gleaming eye, “A sale my friend?”
I’m sorry, not tonight
Exotic fruits and meat and clothes
Here are brought to sell
But I’m just here to look around
Before my ship sets sail.

© 1989 James L. Frady

Written upon leaving port in Izmir, Turkey heading for our next port of call.
USS Barney DDG-6

The Old Farm

2009-02-17T09:27:00.000-05:00

I wrote this as an English paper when I was in college. It's a brief description of the old dairy farm on Jonathan Creek and the hike to the top of the mountains that overlook Maggie Valley and Lake Junaluska. I need to edit it some but I hope you enjoy it. By the way, the farm is slowly being crowded out by housing that has encroached from virtually every side. I truly miss the way it was. This description is no longer accurate because of the housing going in all around the farm. The view is now spoiled. Imagine it as it was. I have not returned since the year after I wrote this to that high lonely ridge. There is a housing development between the Farm and the ridge and it makes me sick to see it. The picture to the right is not of the place described but another part of the Blue Ridge.

The Old Farm

Feelings of nostalgia stir up fond memories as I pull off the main highway onto the rutted gravel road that led into the old dairy farm. My dad had worked here before he joined the Army and left, and when we were growing up, we had spent many of our weekends here in the summer and fall. We hunted, fished, joked, laughed and played along the banks of Jonathan Creek and on the farm, all the way to the highest ridge. In my mind there is no prettier place on earth than this old farm in mid-October. I remember frosts so thick that every leaf looked like a crystal formation built on a colorful foundation. I remember bright hickory leaves that tumbled and floated down all around as the wind blew up across the face of the mountain. I remember pre-dawn stars that were undimmed by man made light or pollution and shined like blue fire in black velvet. I remember so much and yet so little.

It is almost a pilgrimage, a sabbatical if you will. Every year when the leaves are at their peak of color, I feel drawn to this place with an irresistible pull. I can no more stay away than I can change color.

The road winds around the low ridge and into a sheltered valley that is mostly pasture but turns to woods near the top of the mountain. It then turns up by an unpainted board fence that is warped and sun-bleached from years of exposure to the harsh mountain weather. The fence connects to the old milking barn where the cows were once milked daily. The faded white block of the building and the flaking paint reminds me just how old this building must be. It is quite a shock to me to notice that the roof is falling in on one end and the door is breaking loose from its hinges. Last time I was here I had not noticed, but the barn had been abandoned and all the milking equipment moved to some new stalls built against a steep bank behind the old barn. Gypsum weed and thistles had taken over the barnyard giving the whole place a run-down look.

I carefully ease on by the barn up to the calving stall. Several newborn calves lay just inside the gate, their black and white coats standing out in sharp contrast to the golden hay. I slow down to count them. Six. When they get a little bigger they will be transferred across the road into a holding pasture until they are big enough to join the rest of the herd roaming the pastured hillsides.

Around the corner, and I head for the wire gate in the electric fence. The road is partially blocked by a shiny, new Ford tractor. Bright blue and white and barely dirty, it couldn’t be more than a few weeks old. If it had been here long, the sticky mud and cow manure would be splattered all over it. Things get filthy fast here on the farm.

As I pass the tractor the musty smell of manure seems to flow in from all sides. All the cattle pass through this gap to go to the milking stalls and the mud and manure are deep, soggy and slick. I smile as I remember falling in this mess once, years ago. Yuck! I quickly pass through and reach the silo where the silage is stored for winter cattle feed. Made up of ground up corn, stalks and all, the silage has a sweet-sour smell that on one hand rather stinks, but on the other is one of the smells that make memories of hunting here so distinctive.

Through the fence and up the hill to the place I normally park, then out and on my feet to hike on to the top. There are a number of access roads cut into the sides of the mountains, and I quickly follow one to the crest of the mountain. From there I enter a deeply shaded and ancient forest. The trees are tall, towering high overhead and stretching down deep into the shaded hollows. The canopy of leaves overhead block most of the sun, and very little makes it to the forest floor. Dead logs and loose rocks litter the ground, and the rhododendrons grow in dark green clumps all around. I imagine this is what these mountains looked like three hundred years ago when the pioneers first moved into this area. Standing very still, I wait. Soon the squirrels and a couple of chipmunks begin to move about foraging for nuts that have falling from the oaks and hickory trees. I watch for a moment, then move on up to the ridge.

Looking ahead I see my goal. There is a high knoll on the middle ridge of the mountain that is nearly bare aside from the green grass that covers it. It is easily my favorite place on earth when autumn sets the mountains on fire with the turning leaves. I mount the knoll eagerly, and though dragging for my breath from exertion in the thin air at this altitude, I press on to the top.
Finally, I stand high above Maggie Valley taking in the breath-taking view. I’ve been here hundreds of times but it never gets old. Mountains roll like waves toward the horizon, overlapping and fading with the distance. The trees light up the hillsides in vivid fall colors that defy description. Oaks splash deep red and burnt brown stains across the scene, while hickories light up in brilliant yellows in every hollow and on every ridge. Maples are flame orange touched with crimson. Dogwoods, sourwoods, and other shrubs dot bright red spots in the under brush. A cool breeze blows down the valley rustling the leaves. To the east, Lake Junaluska shimmers in the morning sun, while to the west the high rugged peaks of the Soco mountains thrust up into the clear blue sky. I drink it in, soaking up the crisp autumn air and the smells of the farm. I love it here.

I spend what seems like hours here, yet at the same time it goes by all to quickly, then knowing I must soon head home, I turn back by a different route to find my truck. My thoughts stay behind on the empty ridge for quite some time.

Ok, Here is My Plan.

2009-02-17T09:18:00.000-05:00

I will attempt to share photos and stories with friends and family by posting them here for their access. I don't know how many pictures I can post at once but a picture and a caption tell a lot of stories.

Some of my stories are from ages ago, some during my time in the US Navy, and some will be more recent. I will do my utmost to stay away from politics since I have another blog dedicated to my soapbox issues in that arena.