FRIENDSHIP, LOSS AND FIGHTING

The parking lot for the high school was on the other side of the building. Most mornings the guys would meet up there before class. One Monday morning was quite different, a member of our football team was missing. He hadn't been seen since dropping off his girlfriend at home in the new town of Kearney. That had been Saturday night, the night that the mineral creek bridge had washed out. During the Monday morning parking lot meetup word came in that his car had been found downstream from that washed out bridge. Three Harmon Cousins were standing together when we got the news, Ronny Harmon, his brother Donny Harmon and myself.
There was no plan made, somehow we just knew. We were going looking for him. Before we could load up and leave, the principal came up to us and tried to get us to go on into school instead. However the upperclassmen would have it no other way, they would search for our friend. The Freshmen, including Donny Harmon and I, would stay behind at school, as a concession to the principal by the older boys. Later that day Ronny Harmon found our friend about a mile down the creek from the bridge before it ran into the Gila river. Ronny was a pall bearer at the funeral.
It wasn't long before the annual "ditch day" when upper classmen played "Hookey" from school for a day by tradition. The ditch day turned into a school wide gathering at the small park located at the Gila river where Mineral creek joins. The majority of the high school classmates had left the parking lot as a group to remember our lost classmate. School administration had no idea what was going on, so, worried about the mass exodus, they called the Police, whom found us later that afternoon down on the Gila River, the wake for Les Mcdowell was over.

TACOS GAS AND SUNRISE

I can remember that morning on the construction job quite well. It was in mid November in Tucson Arizona. I was living in a camping trailer that was getting smaller by the day as I struggled to stay on the job.
I expect that part of my problem was that my mind kept sneaking off and going back to Arkansas for Deer season. It had been a strange construction job that was plagued with labor and management issues right along. Then there was that other thing, my mind just kept sneaking off to the Ouachita mountains for deer season.
Taco Bell was opening a string of new locations across Tucson and they were selling ten tacos for a dollar. When I had filled up with gas the evening before as I cashed my check, I had walked across the street and bought a big bag of tacos.
This morning just as I left the camper I grabbed that bag of tacos and hefting it, I thought, wow, there may still be a dozen still in there. They would be lunch on the job later. After a quick stop for a bag of ice and cold drinks for the ice chest in the back seat, I arrived on the job.
I could tell right away that something was up. The foreman was in a huddle of guys gesturing with his hands in the air, instead of looking at blueprints and sending guys off on jobs. I walked up to the group and got the word, we would be off until further notice. They would call us.
Amazingly I realized that the stars had suddenly aligned !
I didn't even go back to the camp trailer, I cut across town and came out on the highway down by the triple T truck stop. The sun was just coming up, I had a ice chest full of cold sodas, a bag of tacos and I was headed east, and, yep here it comes, it was deer season in Arkansas.
By the next time that the sun came up I was beginning to smell the pine trees in the air, the sodas were warm and I was down to my last taco. I could deal with all the stuff I had left in the camp trailer refrigerator when I got back, . . . . . it was deer season in Arkansas !

COFFEE, DARK AND SILENCE

It was pretty comforting to see that old battered Stanley thermos jug sitting on the desk near the laptop. Dented and scratched, it's green paint faded and worn thin, yet I knew it was still a good one. It would hold fresh hot coffee for hours, even when being opened to pour a cup at various times through the day.

Something had awaken me during the night, and I thought back upon it. An old ghost from SEA, South East Asia, had followed me back stateside and would come to visit from time to time. Probably prompted by sleeping in one position for too long and a aching hip.

Though it was 0330 hrs., it was time to get up and sit for a bit. No checking the cell phone for messages, no seeing if there might be an email on the laptop, just me and the warmth of a hot cup of coffee in the dark, still of the night.

Old Smudge the Cat was on the job. He was laying on the roof of the jeep. Silently observing every least sound and movement. He looked at the kitchen window where I watched in silence. Somehow he knew I was there. A brief "I SEE YOU' passed between us, like two silent sentry's passing in the dark, giving a slight knod of the head that meant "ALL'S WELL".

As the ghost faded into the past once again and the hip ceased it's aching, I knew Smudge was right, all was well and it was back to bed for me.

I thought, as I dozed back into a restful sleep, some people here on the internet complain about cat tracks on their car but not me ! It's a small price to pay for being sure that there are no Mice chewing on the jeep's wiring. No snake around our door step. No rodent sneaking in the house to plunder.

Thanks, Smudge for a job well done and leaving your calling card for us to see.

UNCLE CHUCK AND THE HARLEY DAVIDSON

UNCLE CHUCK AND THE HARLEY DAVIDSON

The walk back from the mail box was usually pretty dull. Ol' Ruff, my buddy and squirrel dog had already stirred up all of the excitement that he could on the way up to the mail box. But today was different, there had been a letter from Uncle Chuck in the mail box !

It was the biggest part of a mile out to the county road and that was where the mail box was located, on the letter carrier's mail route going west towards Oklahoma. On the way out Ruff had chased and treed every squirrel along the way, and, he had stirred up the resident water moccasin at the branch crossing.

The long walk back was going pretty quickly as mom read the letter., with occasional breaks for such things as crossing the stepping stones at the branch. And the usual stern admonitions to Ruff and I, such as get out of that and stay away from the other, so on and so forth. At the branch crossing we could still smell the stink of that old water moccasin that Ruff had really riled up.

As Mom continued to read we learned that Uncle Chuck, Charles Thurman Harmon, had went halves with a buddy he was in the Army with, and had bought a Military surplus Harley Davidson. And, now here is the cool part, they planned to ride it home from way over near the coast.

Now, talk about exciting ! Here was a cool Uncle that I hadn't seen since I was too young to remember, a warrior coming home from the great war, on a Harley Davidson motorcycle ! They would be traveling US Highway 70 to Durant Oklahoma and since we were not too far off of the route would be stopping to visit for a few days. Holey cow !

Speculation ran high around the evening supper table that evening. Topics about the travel time, Army discharge date and weather were being thrown about so fast that we forgot to turn on the battery powered radio to hear the Louisiana  Hay Ride program. That was a favorite radio show that we almost never missed.

We knew that they would ride mostly in the daylight and avoid riding at night, especially when they started up into the Ouachita Mountains where the roads were considerably in worse condition.

Time seemed to pass ever so slowly as we listened for the exotic motorcycle sound coming down the road to our house. A few days later when we finally heard that sound the weather had changed for the worse and it had slowed down their progress. They were both still in Army Uniform with heavy wool long coats, gloves and goggles on.

Ruff just knew that we were being attacked by a dragon and rushed out to bite a tire, nearly causing a wreck by the well in the front yard ! After getting Ruff called off, the hugging and back slapping began.

Soon the whole family was sitting around the kitchen table exchanging tales and catching up on family events since Uncle Chuck had last seen us.

Coffee, sausage biscuits left over from breakfast and lots of smiles and laughing. Uncle Chuck was home at last !

AMERICA'S SUGAR BEET HARVEST
http://www.theperennialplate.com/episodes/2018/10/america-betty-and-larry/
Feature Article in Perrenial plate

BUS By Larry Mountainborn Harmon > Made in 1949, the Chevrolet school bus had been Mena schools #9 bus. After years of service with the Mena School, the old bus then became the property of the Mena Boy Scout troop where it was worn out for the second time. In later years the bus became the property of a Mena outdoors man that converted it to a hunting/fishing camper. When I saw the ad in the classified section of the Mena Star, the local newspaper, it was simple and straight forward. FOR SALE; camper school bus, ready to hunt or fish. I called the telephone number and talked to an older man with a slight quaver to his voice. It was obvious that he was turning loose of a retired hunting lifestyle and was a bit reluctant. He had built the camper to suit him and health was forcing him to let it go. He loved that old bus and it had been the center of many adventures. He loved it enough that he could hardly stand to let it sit and rust away. He wanted to see it out there doing what he had built it to do. The inside was laid out as follows: On the highway side right behind the driver’s seat was a full size propane refrigerator. Next to it on the left was a four burner with oven, apartment size cook stove, followed by a double kitchen sink. Next on that side was a set of bunk beds that could fold up out of the way. The bathroom was all of the way to the back. On the curb side as you came up the stairs was the kitchen dinette that used two of the bus’s original seats with storage underneath. Then a cabinet and counter top, kitchen work space, followed by a closet and shelves. Behind that was two more bunks that could fold up out of the way. Mounted on the curb side rear bumper and standing straight up was the one hundred pound propane tank. On the highway side was the television antenna. The bus was painted hunter green with two black stripes down the sides. There was no insulation in the bus, that was added later. A Honda QA50, the folding handle bar mini trail, was small enough to ride under the kitchen dinette. It quickly became standard operating practice to leave Arkansas in late winter or early spring to go west and work various construction jobs. Then in the fall return to Arkansas to “winter up” for the holidays with family. When passing through or working in Arizona, Dad’s house in Tucson or Mom’s house in Superior were regular driveway surfing spots where we could catch up on family events. For a few years there were construction jobs in Southern California and in-laws there to visit. While there, the military surplus yards provided many parts to upgrade and improve performance on the bus. One of the first upgrades was a vacuum shift two speed rear end or third member which really improved our gas mileage and hill climbing ability. Hot rodder’s home brewed split manifolds for both intake and exhaust were added to a upgraded 235 six cylinder engine that had replaced the old 216 cubic inch engine. During our visits Brother Phillip developed an interest in our Nomadic lifestyle and one spring when we were heading west to California, he told us to stop by and pick him up on our way through Tucson. It was late at night because we were traveling long hours to make the construction job on time. We pulled up and he came out with a gym bag, then we were on our way. It was several days later in California that we learned that he hadn’t told anyone in Tucson that he was leaving. It was about a year or so later, as we were nearing Tucson that he said he was ready to be dropped off at Dad’s. He had traveled with us from coast to coast. One winter we had decided to spend CHRISTmas in Florida and we were running a chain service station for KAYO Oil Company in Lakeland Florida. It turned cold and snowed about an inch ! We decided that we could be at home in Arkansas where it was actually warmer for CHRISTmas. I called the company, dropped the keys in the safe, and headed for Arkansas. When we woke up CHRISTmas morning, we were in Grandma’s driveway. We sometimes pulled a trailer. At one point a trailer with a Lloyd automobile on it. We were usually loaded pretty heavy and that put extra work on the engine. Parts were cheap and readily available. That insured regular rebuilds and modifications for performance. As the price of gas worked it’s way back up over a dollar a gallon, it was time to go back to standard manifolds for improved mileage and dependability. I missed the sound of those dual carburetors sucking air and the dual exhaust sounding off on a long pull up a steep grade in the Smokey Mountains ! One summer our job had wrapped up early, catching us by surprise and we were headed back to Arkansas, a bit short on cash. Interstate highway I-40 was under construction and we were coming out of the Carolinas, jumping on and off of completed and detour sections of the interstate. The completed sections of the interstate were not built up and if you needed gas, sometimes you would have to drive a short distance into a by passed town to a service station. On a long gradual downgrade the engine backfired and died. Ahead was a off ramp with a dug out slate pit and we coasted on in. It was hot in that slate pit without a breath of air moving. The next day the radiator was out and the front of the engine was off, to reveal a broken fiber timing gear. The distributor had seized up and the timing gear had broken. Those Tennessee mountain boys at a local service station had a good used distributor and I replaced the timing gear with a aftermarket metal gear. Three sunburnt, greasy days later, we are on the road again. This time totally strapped for cash. When we got to Benton Arkansas I traded a half case of STP oil treatment for a tank of gas and that would get us home to Hatfield. There was no by-pass in Hot Springs Arkansas and as we are passing through about noon, I began to think about that cool mountain stream near Joplin Arkansas that ran right beside the highway. It had been a hot, sweaty, greasy, three days and was thinking about taking a bath in that cool water. As I pulled into that rest area parking and set the brakes, I thought to grab a bar of soap and a towel on the way to the creek. I must have looked a real fright to those Mom’s whose kids were playing in the water. I was so focused on how good that water felt as I soaped up, that it wasn’t until I heard them calling their kids out of the water that it dawned on me. There I was, flip flops, greasy cut offs, badly sun burnt, with wild hair, soaping up and polluting their play area. I kept on scrubbing, even after they had gathered up their kids and left. Man, oh man was it ever good to be back in Arkansas ! When Hurricane Camille dead centered Gulfport Mississippi, Phillip and I decided to go down there to help rebuild and make a little bit of money too. Yeah, well, it didn’t work out that way ! We got there early found a great camping place and went looking for work. Everyone that we talked to took one look at that bus and decided that we couldn’t be trusted and some even treated us like we were going to start looting any minute. The last straw was the day that the local employment office told us it would be weeks before they were ready to put anyone to work. We gave up and left. On the way down to Gulfport the small outer wheel bearing on the steering axle driver’s side seized up while going through a town. We immediately pulled into a shopping center parking lot and it even had a auto parts house in it ! They didn’t have the bearing in stock but could have it the next day. The wrong bearing came in and it took an extra day. After taking the brake drum off, we discovered that the bearing puller wouldn’t budge the inner bearing race, no matter how much pressure we put on it,or how hard we beat on it. It was time for ole redneck ingenuity ! We filed as deep of a slot in the race as possible, wrapped a shop towel tightly around it, put a chisel in the slot and hit it with a hammer. The race split and was loose enough to take off of the spindle by hand. Soon we were on our way again.

Truck patchin’ By Larry mountainborn Harmon The last thing that I had heard as I went out the door to make the long walk to the school bus stop was, “ come straight on to the house when you get off of the bus this afternoon, don’t be dilly dallying around about getting home !” The screen door slamming probably drowned out my “yes mam’ “, as I crossed the creaky old wooden porch and front steps. I didn’t know it yet, but it was a set up. Although it was a Friday late in the summer, all Friday’s were not created equal, a taking produce to town on Saturday required a little extra effort from everyone and we were already beginning to get signs of the changing of the seasons to come. The previous Sunday afternoon while walking with Grand ma Crowell to cut short sweetgum twigs that she would fray on one end to dip her Garrett sweet snuff, she had commented, “sap’s already a’ goin’ down and the switches are getting brittle”. She would test each one that I cut for her with my Barlow pocket knife by biting one end to expose the fibers and then fray it until it looked a bit like an artist’s paint brush. That was the end that she would moisten and put in the snuff bottle, then place it between the cheek and gum. The twigs were about six inches long and about one eighth of an inch round. The twig would stick out of the corner of her mouth much like some folks do a toothpick now a days. Some days she would be sitting in her old wooden rocking chair on the front porch, which would be on the cool side of the house, rocking and looking down the road for me walking home from the bus stop. Great Grandma Crowell and Grandpa Andy were the only tobacco users in the household, Dad hadn’t made it home from the Navy yet. Grand pa’s tobacco preference was fine cut Copenhagen in the round can. Dad smoked cigarettes, he preferred the old green label Lucky Strikes. Ole Scoop wasn’t at his usual place where he would meet me as I walked home from the school bus. He was running a little late. As Scoop met me near the front porch and the screen door slammed behind us, the house was totally silent. Sometimes I would hear, “Butchie ! Don’t you be a’ slammin’ that screen door so ! Since we now had electric lights in every room, I carried my books to the kitchen and dropped them on the table. No one there and the old brown cast iron cook stove was just barely warm. Thinking they might be out in the garden I went out on the kitchen porch to look. That was when I found it. Then I knew. There it was. A message for me. Just as plain as if it had been a written note. I had inherited Grandma Crowell’s garden hoe and it was leaned up against the cook stove kindling box with my straw hat hanging on it. Everyone was down in the river bottom at the truck patch and as soon as I changed clothes, split stove wood and kindling I was to go down to the bottom to help hoe out the garden. I should have noticed that Great Grandma’s rocking chair was missing from the front porch. Yep, it had been a set up alright ! The day before going to town with a load of produce from the truck patch on a Saturday, we would have an all hands effort where we got it ready for the trip to town. Grandma Crowell would be with the team and wagon under a shade tree over by rock creek, sorting and culling produce and rocking in her rocker when it was slow. One of my jobs was to load the crates of produce into the wagon. Sometimes I had trouble getting it just right to suit her, because she wanted to make sure it made the trip to town in the wagon in good shape. The prettiest went to town to sell, anything with a blemish we would can and put up in the root cellar to be used in the winter. Now about Grand ma Crowell’s hoe, it was short and light. The head had been sharpened by filing so many times over the years that it wasn’t very wide and Grandpa Andy had taken a broken hoe handle, scrapped it down with a piece of glass until it was smooth and light. I think that the Idea was that I would use a hoe that I was less likely to chop a toe off with. Since I was shuttling back and forth between the garden out in the hot sun and the wagon in the shade, there was plenty of opportunity’s to get a cool drink from the large water jug that was wrapped with layers of tow sack material and wet down from time to time so that the water inside would be cooled from the evaporation. There was a hay stack somewhat in between the team and wagon and the truck patch. So with that in mind I could make a bit of a hole in the hay stack where it would be a little cooler than under the shade tree. It was a dangerous thing to dig into the hay stack for it could slide down and bury anyone in the cool hole. Possibly smothering them. I had been warned, but still, was reckless about it. One time I dozed off and was awakened by Grandpa hunting for me and calling “Butch” ! I got my britches dusted off over that alright ! It took me awhile to figure out why it was called a truck patch when we didn’t have a truck. Though some others had farm trucks, we were still using horses and wagons. Our hay was cut with a sickle bar horse drawn mower and the hay was drug by a horse drawn hay rake to the fodder stack where it was thrown by the pitchfork full up onto the hay pole. The hay pole was a tall cedar tree that was planted in the ground and rose around twenty feet. It formed the center of the hay stack and kept it in place. The shape of the pile caused it to shed rain and the hay was pretty well preserved that way. The cattle were up near the house in a different pasture and when we harvested the last of the garden, canning most of it, the cattle were moved down to the river bottom and turned in on the truck patch. It just gave the cattle a little something extra to start into the winter with. Grandma’s “kitchen garden” was up near the house where it was handy. I would often be sent out to that garden to get a couple of this or a couple of that as it was needed when she was preparing something in the kitchen. On the Fridays where we worked the truck patch we would get back to the house with just enough light left in the day to take a quick bath in the creek and settle down in the living room to listen to the Grand Old Opry on the old battery powered radio. That radio was one of the last things to be replaced with one that operated on electricity. Before going to the creek for my bath I would rinse out the large cast iron wash pot out in the laundry area and put a couple of buckets of water in it before starting a small fire under it to warm water for those that bathed in a wash tub in the yard behind the house. Grandpa Andy would unhook the team in the yard under a tree in case it came a storm, then walk the team back up the hill to the barn for the night. Grandma would go with him carrying a milking bucket and while he unharnessed, fed and brushed down the team, she would be milking the old Jersey cow. Drawing fresh well water for the kitchen was the last thing before heading down the hill to the branch with a towel and a bar of soap. Busy times, yes, busy times indeed.