August 9th, 2008
Well, the truth is they seem to love to eat everything. In that little town in which I grew up we had so many opportunities for playing. We dug foxholes and fought wars, ran around the neighborhood all day, played tag at night, rode sleds in the winter, built forts in the summer, rode trains as they went into the rail yard and, yes, we fed coal to pigs.
Coal, you ask? Yes, coal. Many coal trains passed my house each day and, of course, coal would fall on the rails. Now we didn’t need the coal for heat, but didn’t want it to go to waste. So, the boys in the neighborhood learned that pigs love to eat coal. In the hills above our town were several pig pens. Since we had pigs and coal and a lot of free time we naturally combined them into one fun adventure.
We also fed them sandstone, but that wasn’t quite as easy since we didn’t have any sandstone trains. I guess they liked the coal. They ate it. But they ate everything. I wonder if they ever got indigestion. Did it hurt their teeth?
Don’t get me started on how they “harvested” the hams and roasts and bacon and such from these pigs. I also got to watch that in the alley behind my house. I wonder if they tasted like coal.
Posted in childhood, coal, train | 3 Comments »
August 7th, 2008
I made this note one night when I was watching Letterman. I no longer remember the connection to Dave but that doesn’t matter. Did you know that Cracker Jacks were first sold at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago’s first world fair, in 1893. Now, that statistic comes from the Cracker Jack website so it must be right. It wasn’t really marketed and trademarked as Cracker Jacks until 1896.
Did y0u know (sorry Elliot) that Cracker Jacks were immortalized in 1908 when Jack Norworth wrote the lyrics to “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” Of course you all know the phrase “buy me some popcorn and Cracker Jacks” in that song.
Even I’m not old enough to remember when these things happened (I’ve heard John McCain may be, though.) Here’s what I do remember – OK, this is going to be an Andy Rooney moment.
When I was a kid Cracker Jacks came in a tightly sealed and waxed box. I can remember how difficult it was to tear through that waxed paper without a knife. Teeth just slid across the wax. The seal on the bottom of the box, where the toy was hidden, was even worse but the toy was worth the work to retrieve it. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Cracker Jacks, but the toys back then were the best (whatever they were.)
So, why is this going to be an Andy Rooney moment? Simple. Those marvelous toys of the past are gone. What do you get now? Something made out of paper. They aren’t toys, they are throwaways. I still eat Cracker Jacks but I surely don’t eat as many as when I was a kid. What’s the point? They are only candied popcorn and peanuts. Where are the toys of old (whatever they were.) What’s more, Cracker Jacks now come in bags! Where’s the challenge to opening them?
Posted in Andy Rooney, Cracker Jacks, childhood, elliot barnes | 2 Comments »
August 1st, 2008
Do you enjoy Macbeth? Neither do I but the title fits. Picture Shakespeare’s witches stirring a huge, black, iron cauldron over a large fire. That’s what I used to see almost every year in my neighborhood. The differences from Macbeth were significant, however.
It was a huge, black, iron cauldron. It was over a large fire. There were no witches, however. Instead there was one sweet old (probably in her forties or fifties but everyone is old when you are a kid) lady tending the cauldron. I don’t know what Macbeth’s witches were stirring up but I sure knew what this lady was stirring and even though she was using a cement hoe, it wasn’t cement.
All of the kids in the neighborhood looked forward to this spectacle and its result. She would build the fire in her front yard (this was sort of country, after all) and somehow the cauldron got put on the fire. I never saw how that happened so maybe she was something of a witch. Next came the apples – lots of apples. Yep, she was making apple butter. The best apple butter I’ve ever eaten, before and since. She spent an entire day cooking each batch and we all looked forward to the samples. She never forgot to let us taste her special brew. One more sweet memory of growing up in Kenova.
Posted in Apple, childhood, love, neighborhood | No Comments »
August 1st, 2008
I just listened to my friend Ron Lambert as he was interviewed by Elliot Barnes for Elliot’s Sparklecast. I have to admit I’m not sure who had the most fun, Ron or Elliot. There’s is no question that Elliot did an amazing amount of research for the interview and tested Ron’s knowledge of our home town.
Pumpkin houses and naming conventions almost tripped up Ron but I had coached him with Kenova trivia (yep, Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia). I could tell he was a little surprised by the questions but managed to hold his own.
All I can say is that Elliot is a well prepared interviewer. It sounded like he has been reading my blog, too. How else did he come up with Ron’s “two” sisters. Like me, Ron has three sisters and a brother but only two sisters have been mentioned on-line. We got him on that one, didn’t we Ron!
Elliot is Earnestine’s BOFitUK. I guess he will have to be mine and Ron’s BOGFitUK. I did hear something about that interview being one between dueling genius’s didn’t I?
Posted in elliot barnes, kenova, pumpkin house, sparklecast | No Comments »
July 20th, 2008
Oh, how I loved those steam engines. They had sounds that were so unique. As the wheels turned you could hear the steam escaping. As they neared railroad crossings you could hear their whistles shouting “get out of my way!” At times you could smell the sulfur in the coal that powered these monsters.
We had two major railroads passing through our town, the Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio. The N&W passed about 100 yards from my home. There were several men in the neighborhood who worked for the railroads. One was actually an engineer. All of the little boys, including me, looked up to these men who kept the railroad running.
My mother hated those steam engines.
I don’t think we had even heard of a clothes dryer when I was a kid. We had four long, wire lines in our backyard on which mom hung freshly washed laundry to dry. I remember watching her do laundry and sometimes helping with the rinsing and “wringing.” The washer was on our open back porch, exposed to the weather. There were also two large, galvanized wash tubs. One was the first rinse as the laundry came out of the washer. The other was for a final rinse to be sure the soap was gone. Then the laundry was fed between two rubber rollers that squeezed out the water (wringers.) Finally, mom would hang the clean clothes on the freshly cleaned lines. They would stay there until they dried.
So, what does this have to do with mom hating the steam engines? Well, when one came roaring through our neighborhood 100 yards from our house it usually left a black layer of soot on her clean laundry. The sheets would often be almost black. Of course she hated them. Wouldn’t you? Oh, I forgot. There are no more steam engines and it would be hard to get soot into your clothes dryer, anyway.
Posted in anger, mom, neighborhood, steam engine | No Comments »
July 15th, 2008
Don’t speak to strangers! Don’t go out unless one of us is with you! Don’t cross that street alone! Don’t play with that …, it’s dirty! Don’t… Don’t… One of the most repeated words heard by a child today is don’t. There are such a wide range of don’ts that I couldn’t begin to repeat them all here.
I also grew up with don’ts. Don’ts like “don’t be late for dinner.” “Don’t go so far that you can’t hear me.” (I could hear my mother’s “EARNEST” from two or three blocks away. Maybe she was using the nearby hills to amplify her voice.) Don’t stay outside past your bedtime. Don’t forget to put your coat on before you go out in the snow.
Unfortunately, many of today’s don’ts are really necessary because of the risks to children that weren’t so prevalent when I was a child. Today more children disappear. Traffic is so much heavier. More people prey on children. Sure there were a few people that seemed too interested in us but we recognized them as “scarey” and stayed away from them.
I was talking with my son recently and could hear in his voice the sadness he has about how few of us know our neighbors. We’ve lost one of the primary things that kept me safe as a child. I knew all of the neighbors for blocks around and they knew me (not always a blessing.) My parents knew them, also, and knew that all of the parents kept an eye on all of the children in the neighborhood. A “neighborhood watch” before we knew what that meant.
I’m still not sure how I survived to adulthood, though. It wasn’t as if we didn’t have danger around us. Things like the coal trains that we liked to hang onto when they were going into the nearby rail yard. Or hanging onto the bumpers of cars and sliding on our leather soled shoes (didn’t take long to wear them out!) Or walking without escort into the local glass factory to watch the glassblowers work. Or watching the enormous saws ripping logs into lumber at the local lumber mill and then climbing the stacks of raw lumber. It is a miracle that I made it this far!
More than dangers, though, we had freedom and joy and closeness and trust. In the summer we didn’t stop playing until dark. We wandered the hills that were close to my house. We climbed the sandstone cliffs (about 20 feet high) and slid back down them. We sat in trees and ate apples and cherries as we picked them (and often paid with digestive issues.) I remember sitting in the street building dams in the gutter when it rained. Today, being in the gutter has very negative connotations. MY gutters were places to recreate the magnificent hydroelectric dams that I read about. And then I got to (figuratively) blow them up and watch the water rush towards the unsuspecting ants down the street.
I know we’ll never go back to those days but I surely enjoy remembering them for me, my kids, and both of my blog readers. I wonder, however, if we are slowly losing the adventurous spirit that grew in me and my friends during those carefree days. As they say back home, “it’s hard to tell”.
Posted in Apple, adventure, mom, neighborhood | 2 Comments »
July 1st, 2008
Ugly little beast, isn’t it? I didn’t think so when I was a little fellow. We had two really great apple trees in our yard that produced tons of yellow “early June” apples. At least that’s what we called them. They made the best fried apples you ever sunk a tooth in. They were great as pies, too. During the summer mom would preserve many jars of the apples so we had them year-round. I haven’t seen apples like those since I was a kid and the last time I was home I drove by the old house. The apple trees were gone. What a shame.
The little June bug in the picture loved those apples, too. When the apples were ripe there were lots of bugs flying around and they were very easy to catch. I’m sure PETA would be after me now if I was still doing it, but we used to fly the June bugs. It sounds cruel, and may have been, but a little boy in WVa in the fifties didn’t know about those things.
We would catch the bugs and tie thread around their back leg. It was kind of like having a miniature kite that didn’t require wind. The June bug would take off and fly in circles while we would hold the other end of the thread. We had to treat them nice and not fly them too often or they would just lie there. So, we usually had several and at night would put each of them on an apple and tie them down so they didn’t fly away. They ate the apple at night and were ready to go again in the morning.
They were only around for a few weeks but were fun for the few days we flew them. Little boys easily get bored. At least this one did. There was always something else to do in the summer days in WVa after the June bugs left.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
June 24th, 2008
Well, I have, although I don’t remember how old I was at the time. It was in the house in which I lived with 3 of my 4 siblings. My brother was not around a lot, or, this might have been during the time he was in Korea.
Anyway, two of my sisters were at home that day. One of them was my evil sister, of course. I can’t remember exactly what they did to get me going but they were always picking on me. I don’t even know how I survived to adulthood. They don’t tell these stories the same way, of course, but they don’t remember them like I do. Also, any bad things they say about me are lies!
On the day in question both mom and dad were at work. I don’t remember why mom had to go to work but I’m sure it was because we really, really needed the money. I remember her salary, though. It was $25 a week and, like other topics I’ve mentioned in my blogs, that’s for another story. So, they were at work and it was after breakfast because I remember my two sisters were in the kitchen washing dishes.
I’m sure they were taunting me about something or I would not have gotten angry. When they saw they had made me angry they closed and locked the kitchen door. This was an old house with skeleton key locks on every door. If I could have found a key I wouldn’t have had to break the door down. I couldn’t let them get the best of me, though. After all, I went to the movies every weekend and I knew how to open doors. I had seen my heroes do it many times with their shoulders. (Interesting fact: movies were 15 cents back then. Oh, Earnest, you are getting a little long in the tooth. We usually got a double feature, a serial and a cartoon for that.)
I remember the hallway being about 15 feet long. I went all of the way down the hall and then turned around and ran at the door as hard as I could. Well, I didn’t know my own strength. When my shoulder hit the door it immediately popped open and I fell onto the kitchen floor. The latch from the door frame fell onto the floor with me. I had ripped it out of the wall.
To make a long story short, I and my two sisters spent the rest of the day putting the door back together. Somehow we managed to make it look good enough that neither mom nor dad noticed it. I don’t know if we ever told them about it. My sisters missed a really good chance to get me in trouble by helping me. Maybe they weren’t always so bad.
Posted in Siblings, anger, dad, door, evil sister, key, mom, sister | No Comments »
June 22nd, 2008
I hope Shorty will forgive us for the picture. That’s Ian’s hat he’s wearing. I think he was born with more tongue than mouth, though.
On Friday and today Shorty had his final heartworm shots. It was bad yesterday. I thought he was getting the shots in his hip, but he was actually getting them in the lumbar muscle. He did great at the vet but the rest of the day was tough. When I pulled into the garage at home he blew massive chunks on the front seat and, like a waterfall, into the floor. I surely don’t remember feeding him that much. It took four beach towels to clean it out of the car and I also had to wash the floormat. Oh, well, he was just getting back at me, I guess.
He spent most of Friday in bed and when he wasn’t there he went from crate to crate. It was like he felt better with the walls around him. No matter where he was he couldn’t find a comfortable position and he did a lot of shivering and shaking. I hated the thoughts of him having to go again today.
We babysat Ian today and were concerned we would have a problem with him and Shorty. Earnestine took Shorty for the shot while I picked up Ian. I’m glad to report they both did great. Shorty seemed to have recovered a lot by this morning and the new shot did not hit him like it did yesterday. Ian did well being gentle to both Shorty and (elderly) Betty even though he wasn’t perfect at it. He is only two, however.
So, this is a good Shorty report. He still has potential problems ahead as the heartworms die, but I just caught him trying to see if there was food on top of the kitchen counter. Those lumbar muscles must not be too sore.
Stay tuned. I have more little Earnest stories coming but Shorty has gotten the attention for this chapter of Earnest Talks. He earned it.
Posted in Basset Hound, Beagle, Heartworms, Shorty | No Comments »
June 18th, 2008
Sort of. As many of you know, Earnestine and I have been feverishly creating new sources of contacts. I sat down a few nights ago and started developing my own Facebook (another one of those made up words) page. Now if it were a Book of Faces page I would understand, but, I digress.
Anyway, I was once again in a realm that didn’t make a great deal of sense to me but I plowed ahead. I added some personal data, searched for some folks that I knew and sent out some invitations to prospective “friends.” Then, I decided to see if Bill Clinton had a facebook page – he did, I think, sort of.
I would advise you to avoid going out to check what I’m saying here unless you are very good with Facebook. You, too, might end up like me. I just wanted to take a look at his page. I couldn’t find a place to invite him to be a friend but there was something about being a Bill Clinton Supporter.
If you know me, you already know that I am a supporter of President Clinton. I didn’t want to sign up, though, so I just went back to my page. Well, I don’t know what I did but my Facebook page now clearly said I was a Bill Clinton Supporter. I tried to remove it. I don’t think you can (right Hillary?). I tried something else (I don’t really know what) and all at once my page no longer had any pictures. It still doesn’t.
So, President Clinton, I am a supporter of yours but I sure wish you hadn’t screwed up my Facebook page. By the way, Hillary was robbed!
Posted in Bill Clinton, Facebook, Hillary Clinton | No Comments »
