BK's Vent Window View
 

 A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter September

 

            Small towns still dot the middle part of the US, but there aren’t as many as in the past when service station attendants not only pumped your gas, but automatically checked a vehicle’s engine oil and washed already spotless windshields.  Then we termed those establishments “filling stations.”  Attendants were “pump jockeys.”  The value of these guys increased greatly if one happened to take a wrong road after failing to spot the red barn next to the white silo that marked the correct turn.  A pump jockey always knew how to get from here to there and back, although it was seldom that any two of them suggested the same road choices.  Fewer still could provide the necessary information without using terminology suitable for a career Marine.

            Route markings in those days were often more than a bit confusing.  A traveler who lacked map-reading skills could literally disappear.  Some folks believe that North Dakota and “Upper” Montana were settled by the cross-country travelers who strayed into those areas by accident and never made it back to civilization.  By 1940, as travel distances increased, people learned that routes not traveled on a regular basis mandated a visit to the local “filling” station’s map rack.

            Back when, even if a trip was not in the offing, I scanned those “roadmap libraries.”  This expanded my limited knowledge of US geography.  In one instance, I found an unsullied road map of Rhode Island on the counter of a local Skelly station.  In 1950’s Pawtucket that might have been expected but, in a rural town such as Stanberry, MO, a find of that sort was a bit like suddenly discovering it was possible to receive an Omaha station on your eleven-inch, black and white TV if the clouds were right.  When added to the availability of KFEQ in St. Joe and WDAF in Kansas City, a wrestling aficionado could watch mat battles everyday but Sunday.

            Stanberry was, and still is, a neat little town with a wonderful, cannon-studded park smack-dab in the center of its business district.  However, in 1955, there were only two people within the city’s boundaries who, at the mention of “Rhode Island,” thought “state” instead of a breed of chicken.  That is not a slur upon Stanberry’s residents—it’s just that as a topic, Rhode Island Red chickens were and are far more likely to pop up in local conversation than an East Coast state with a town named “Pawtucket.”

            Now, in my ongoing effort to be fair, that last is not meant as a slight upon the City of Pawtucket; my guess is that chickens in general—not just Rhode Island Reds—are seldom discussed by Rhode Island residents except at outdoor barbeques.  It may be fair, though, to suggest that there are not many people in Pawtucket who might guess that “Stanberry” is a town and not something plucked from a bush for use in a pie.  The one Pawtuckian likely to know this would be a local pump jockey, one of the old school types who, with hopeful eyes, pores over roadmaps of far away places until a signal bell alerts him to an arrival at the farthermost gas pump.

            Small town America still boasts a few “filling” stations, but they wear the silence of a haunted house.  They lack the clatter of Model-A Fords sputtering up to glass-topped pumps and the hurried shouts of, “Fill ‘er up—regular.”

            An old-time pump jockey would leap into action, even as he mused about a town seen on a map of New Mexico.  Tay-ohs?”  He’d shake his head and plan, “Someday, I’ll head south on US 169, hit Route 66, and go west ‘til I hear a Tay-ocian pronounce it.”



A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter August

 

            On many occasions when commuting from Houston to St. Joe (hmm, sounds like a line from a song) in the late fifties, I wished for a through route that would allow me to make use of all the horses under the hood of my V-8 Ford.  The car got decent mileage, but gas was cheap, so I didn’t worry about that anyway.  Unfortunately, all those drives were on two-lane highways because at the time Interstates 29, 35, and 45 were little more than rumors traded between long-haul truckers.

            The Department of Defense--Ike was still president, so perhaps it was still the “War” Department—had dictated many of the standards for our Interstate highways by then, but only a few short legs of those particular routes existed in 1958, most of those on the outskirts of the largest cities.

            Apparently what convinced Eisenhower to sell the Interstate concept to Congress and taxpayers was his exposure to German autobahns following WW II.  His time in office ended before many of the super highways were useable because Interstates took time to build.  Concrete roadbeds had to be wide enough to allow rapid evacuation from areas hit by a nuclear bomb.  And, if rumor had it right, Interstates were also designed to allow the cross-country transport of an IBM.

            Costs skyrocketed (no pun intended) because overpasses had to accommodate the width and height of the missiles the military might be forced into shuttling around the US if the Cold War ever turned hot.  Not surprisingly, that’s when the highway department decided to make the concrete roadways (“Holy pothole, Batman”) only seven inches thick rather than match the German standard of twenty-plus inches. 

            Differences existed in areas besides construction, too.  Germany’s autobahns were regulated on a Federal level.  In this country, the Feds still rule on finance, dimensions and maintenance, but states control the speeds in their territories.  Interestingly, few states west of the Mississippi posted speed limits before Interstates appeared.  When I studied for my driving test in the early fifties, the rulebook stated that a driver “should proceed at a safe and sane speed.”  Guess how teenagers translated that!

            Car companies were quick to recognize the value of Interstates to profit margins.  Automobiles grew in size faster than grain-fed steers.  And, as they became longer, wider, and heavier, Detroit’s engineers realized the new machines had room for more of everything.  The mid-fifties saw the horsepower war between Ford and Chevrolet grow; paint and bright-work layered every make.  The chrome on a ’58 Oldsmobile reflected more light than a diamond bedecked Liz Taylor trolling for a new hubby.  Chrysler, meanwhile, generated fins faster than a school of fertile sharks.  And, headlights!  Car companies finally decided four were enough, but still cannot agree on where to put them.

            Even as US drivers began to ply the new Interstates, a well-constructed, air-cooled bug from Germany hit the US market.  AMC and Studebaker were VW’s only competitors until the Big Three awakened.  “Econo-car” sales boomed in the early ‘60’s.  Power upgrades naturally followed and Falcons, Novas, and Valiants led us willingly into the pony-car wars.  As Mustangs and Camaros did battle with GTOs and Chargers, they all became larger as did VW’s offerings over the years.  “The better to cruise the Interstates, my dear,” said Mr. America to Mrs. A.  “Well then, fill’er up, Honey,” she said, and he did.  And, we did; and everybody else did.  And, now ..?




A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter July

 

                        The 1955 Ford sedan parked in my garage will have seen sixty years of heavy use in approximately two more years.  The car serves as a reminder that time leaves its mark on men as well as machines.  A bit over a half-century ago, when people encountered a sixty-plus-year-old man, they doubted he’d be around to hear next Sunday’s sermon.  The subject of their conjecture probably felt the same.  Since I sailed past the poet’s magical “three score and ten” some time ago, that’s a presumption I’m allowed to make.

            A look in the mirror supports that reasoning; most noticeable is the ring of white that borders my thinning hair.  I once thought white sideburns accented the graying remainder, making me appear trim and distinguished like whitewall tires add class to a vintage automobile.  I was wrong.  White sideburns cannot help a face that has the weary look of a dog with a lifetime of rabbit chasing under its collar. 

            That’s not a complaint.  A man my age, assuming he has “chased” his fair share of rabbits, should look a bit worn.  Of course, one must remember men are similar to cars in that extreme use affects the aging process more than birthday numbers.

            Einstein failed to grasp this truth as he developed his theories.  His approach to relativity overlooked this important point: a man’s vehicular choices over the years may reveal more than is immediately apparent in his preference for certain makes and models.  (I am sure that most of you realize that it was necessary for me to add “makes” to the preceding sentence—otherwise, the mention of male preferences for “certain models” could be misinterpreted by one of those aforementioned rabbit chasers.)  Car choices made by a young man can be explained by a number of things, but one of the Four “P’s” usually rules.  Pennies come first on the list because money plays a major role in such decisions.  Next--even if money is an issue--appeal to the opposite sex comes into play, making the second item on the list Pheromones.  Male or female, a person’s automobile can send signals that overwhelm the most powerful of haute couture perfumes.

            Performance is the third factor that controls a car selection and, in the case of “gear-head” kids, that too often appears first on their list.  Parents, as usual, rank last.  True, some kids buy their first car after they escape parental domination, but that is difficult these days since the cost of insurance on a vehicle owned and operated by a young driver costs almost as much as a tank of gas.

            In the Fifties, a car was easier to insure, but tougher to finance.  I learned these things in 1958 when I faced up to the realization that my Pennies were too few to permit the purchase of the new Ford with its big V-8 that occupied the dealership’s showroom. Sticker shock torpedoed Performance as, wisely, I walked away from years of debt.

            I ended up buying a low-mileage tan (buckskin in Ford-speak) and white ’55 Customline.  I lived 900 miles distant from my Parents in those days, so their input was nonexistent.  The final item, Pheromones, affected me more than the young ladies I knew at the time.  I thought that shined-up, twin-piped, three-year-old Ford made me look pretty darned sexy.  Nowadays, since I mostly “hang out” with AARP types, the old iron in my garage is unlikely to trigger anybody’s pheromones.  Still, when I get behind the wheel and head out on tour, that mid-fifties Ford makes me feel young again--young enough to make it through at least another year’s worth of Sundays. 



A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter June

 

            “Lay of the land” is an expression regarding a perception of those surroundings or circumstances that may have an affect upon one’s future.

            For a literal example of the first case, take the geography—the lay of the land in Southern Iowa and Northern Missouri where once Levis were bibbed and bandannas outsold Kleenex.   Only a few small bits of those areas match the images held by many US citizens.  Some folks, especially those in the coastal states, once believed that every square inch of Iowa was flatter than a blown tire; Missouri was a sea of straw-hatted Huck Finns smoking corncob pipes and yanking catfish from Mark Twain’s rivers.  Those who happened through the southern portion of the state probably went home certain that Missouri was a land of rocking-chair grannies.  Such notions were and are farther from the truth than a teenager explaining the dented fender on his dad’s Buick.  In fact, the rolling hills, twisting streams, and narrow byways along the IA/MO border are a composite of bucolic purity laid out in 640 acre, mile square “sections.”

            In the second case, a teenaged lothario from this region tends to be more intent upon the curves of his sweetie than those of the graveled roads leading to her house.  Naturally, he drives twenty mph faster than safe and sane, the two words least likely to surface in the sex-clogged brain of a teenaged boy.  (Female teens may have been just as dysfunctional but, even after fathering three daughters and accruing nuggets of knowledge over the years, I claim no comprehension of feminine thought processes.)

            Speeding vehicles on country roads send limestone dust rising high, white clouds of grit that settle upon rural greenery like talcum during a diaper change.  After midnight, at the least hint of a breeze, roadside bushes flutter like sheeted ghosts furthering the illusions that drivers encounter on dark nights.  However, it is disillusion that leads teens, males in particular, into errors of judgment on the road and elsewhere.

            In the early ‘50’s, a typical guy lacked the mental capacity needed to keep up with his expanding interests—tall girls, short girls, and all those in between.  It was perfectly natural that he expected some cuddling from his date after investing three dollars in an evening out in Small Town, USA.  First, there was her movie ticket; next was the popcorn purchase.  Later, after the black and white double-feature ended, she had French fries and a chocolate shake at the diner.

            The theater was the first place he didn’t get kissed.  Worse, after two hours with an arm over the back of her seat, his shoulder ached and his neck was kinked.  The second place he didn’t get kissed was under the pines up by the old B. P. O. E. cemetery.  He had parked the Chevy, moistened his lips, and eased an arm around her shoulders.

            “That moon’s beautiful, ain’t it?” 

            She leans away from his arm. “My dad’s probably wonderin’ where I am.” 

            At this point, the boy realizes the evening does not favor his romantic notions, and he starts the slow (where there is life, there is hope) drive toward the girl’s home.  It’s nearly midnight when they reach her front door, and there she hesitates just enough--noses collide as his lips skid across hers.  Finally!  His hopes are realized but, unless he hits a deer en route home, the Bugs Bunny cartoon at the Bijou will be remembered as the high point of this particular evening.  Still—there was the kiss!  He feels a glow of satisfaction as he reviews the evening.  The lay of the land seems to hold real promise.



A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter May

 

            I spent many nights at Charlie’s place during our sophomore year in high school.  Sleepovers there held more potential excitement than a Saturday night movie at our local theater.  His house at the very edge of town was a trove of oddball personalities, a kind of Alice’s Wonderland deck of cards with extra jokers.  Still, I liked it; Darla, his mom, gave us lots of space, served dessert with every meal, and seldom made us do chores.

            Charlie’s older sister, Sue Lynne, represented the downside of life there.  In her eyes, we appeared to be morons even before she overheard us planning a joyride in the ’35 Plymouth sedan stored in the shed out behind the house.  The car belonged to Charlie’s grandfather, Hatch.  Although Sue Lynne doubted our ability to drive it away or even start it without being caught, she nonetheless kept quiet, content for us to risk the old man’s ire on the off chance we’d succeed.  In that case, she would reap the benefits of its use or, at the very least, blackmail us for cash.

            Grandpa Hatch, and Charlie’s great-uncle, Alfie, usually retreated to their quarters before we got home from school.  That suited me.  They made me nervous, old Hatch in particular.  I was a stranger, and a stranger might be a revenuer readying to jail him for his basement winemaking or, worse, a cop plotting to take his car.  Unknown to me, after one of Hatch’s Sunday drives almost turned into a demolition derby, the town marshal had ordered him to park the Plymouth and “leave it parked!”

            Charlie’s Uncle Alfie suffered a kind of dementia.  He never spoke to anybody but the face that “lived” in a hallway mirror located just a step or two down the hall past Charlie’s room.  Apparently, he could see in the dark, for sometimes, late at night I’d hear Alfie haranguing his reflection.  Fortunately, the old man’s ramblings seldom lasted more than the fifteen minutes it took for me to go back to sleep.

            Charlie never did stay at my place--turnabout was the usual policy, but he probably thought that if I was willing to overnight in his house, mine must be worse.  For sure Charlie’s was not a Father Knows Best household; in fact, his dad was gone, maybe even dead, but I never dared ask.  His mom dated a long-haul truck driver who took her dancing in a bug-spattered Peterbuilt.  Sue Lynne practically lived in the home’s only bathroom—not a bad thing considering how she looked with green goop plastered on her face and wearing the stench of a Toni home permanent.  Add in Hatch and Alfie and—well, Charlie’s was life in a peepshow tent at the county carnival. 

            By year’s end, he and I were spending a lot of time out in the little barn where the Plymouth was collecting dust, bird droppings, and cat tracks.  The battery had gone dead but, in that era, rural folk still remembered how to hand crank an engine.  We were both exhausted before the fuel pump finally pushed gas enough into the carburetor and the car’s flathead six finally began to fire on all cylinders.  After that, we ran the motor daily, keeping the battery charged--until the gas tank ran dry.  In between those heady moments when we took turns driving two feet forward and two feet in reverse, Charlie and I walked the fences around the twenty acre pasture behind the barn seeking a route off the property that did not require us to drive past the house.

            We never found one--a good thing, I later realized.  The next year, after two failed attempts, Charlie obtained his license to drive and promptly drove the Plymouth into a concrete bridge abutment.  Apparently, Charlie inherited Grandpa Hatch’s driving skills



 
A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter April

           

            There are those who might wonder what a boy learns about girls and cars from his use of a bike or a yoyo.  “Look, no hands, Ma,” is not the best way to survive in a high-speed automobile.  Nor is “walking the dog” with a yoyo likely to upgrade a lad’s ranking by the fairer sex.  On the plus side, a bike rider may gain improved spatial cognition for keeping a car in the proper lane while a yoyo might provide the coordination needed to operate the mechanical devices one sometimes encounters on clothing.

            Some of my readers are saying, “Yeah, but,” as they question the validity of my arguments that either of these skills might add anything to a boy’s social capabilities when in the company of a female.  Right up front, I’ll say, “Not much,” and add that his mother is a boy’s best bet when it comes to learning how to behave around girls.  Still, when a boy starts dating, hormones tend to outweigh parental input, largely because that quantum leap from bicycles and yoyos to girls and cars comes to a boy in a single instant of fire and flame like lightning striking an oak.

            A number of my friends commented upon the failures they experienced in their first romantic endeavors and, in almost every case the guru they relied on for advice worked at a local full-serve gas station.  Now, I’m not one to sell pump jockeys short when it comes to guidance in matters involving the opposite sex.  Early on I figured out that the guys who manned the gas pumps, especially those on the late shifts, had a greater supply of sex magazines than the average newsstand.  Ergo!  These chaps surely knew what was what—and how---and, probably, who.  However, it soon became clear that their primary interest was cars--motors and speed, not girls.  They talked knowingly and glowingly of dirt track racing and drag strips but never commented on the racy strippers pictured in the magazines they had stashed behind cartons of thirty-weight oil and anti-freeze. 

            In the end, access to those research materials did little to improve my knowledge or skills with the females that occupied my attention.  My study of those magazines was a bit like looking at a Goodyear blimp while airing up balloons for a kid’s birthday party.  Maybe that’s why the guys down at the local Texaco said so little about those airbrushed beauties found in Playboy.  Greasy reality trumped Hefner’s fictions.

            As to the truths exhibited by teenage girls in the ‘50’s, what you saw was not necessarily what you got.  Starting in 1951, clothing for girls began to accentuate the best of Mother Nature’s gifts.  Seamless stockings and strapless dresses with narrow waists accentuated by bulky crinolines gave females the shape that would make the ‘50’s memorable for boys of that era.

            Magazines for girls in those years served up the newest clothing styles; Modern Romances offered “the mostest with the firstest” in a take off on a WW II line.  By 1953, the only thing with more styling changes than automobiles was women’s wear.  Car grills and sweater girls pretty well occupied the attention of US males.

            As ad agencies shifted into overdrive, the girls got “Riding Hood Red” from Max Factor “to bring the wolves out.”  Gals were not immune to colorful hardware either; they adored the tri-colored Dodges that appeared in ’55, a line that included pink-trimmed “La Femme” hardtops equipped with matching parasols.

            Sexy pink girls! Sexy pink cars!  Sixteen-years-old in 1954, I parked my bike and hung up my yoyo; it was time to see what my toys had taught me.




A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter March

 

            Many of my born-in-the-USA ancestors lie in a hilltop cemetery two miles from the nearest paved highway.  They rest in peace beneath a blanket of bluegrass behind the vine-laden iron fence that surrounds that lea.  A few steps away there is a small church in which all the dead and some of the living sleep through always overlong funerals.

            Access to this hallowed area is a winding, narrow lane that dead-ends at the cemetery gate.  Every other year or so, the road receives a light scatter of gravel to firm up the spongy spots, but much like plastic surgery on an oldster’s sags and bags, that serves only as short-term camouflage.

            Seldom is enough gravel applied to fill shallow potholes, let alone the deep ones.  Those remain, spaced out along the road like traps for unwary tigers.  In the late ‘40’s, the depth in some of those pits was such that, in wet weather, Dad’s 1941 Ford Tudor wallowed through them like an LST inbound to Omaha Beach.  On a number of those occasions he grumbled that if people would forego the use of tombstones, the potholes could be put to good use.  That bit of imagery seeded my eight-year-old mind with a week’s worth of nightmares even before Eddie, my older brother, began adding horror film details to Dad’s word picture.

            Those nightmares faded as time passed, but I can still visualize the grand assortment of vehicles parked around the churchyard during one funeral.  It was not uncommon to find a big bunch of cars parked in a public place, but in this instance a small boy could nose around them without a parent noticing.  As a rule, a kid my age did not so much as touch someone else’s vehicle but here it was possible for me to stroll between various machines, do a quick one foot up onto a running-board, and head-duck through an open window for a quick gander at the car’s dash area.

            Keep in mind that instruments and controls for autos of the thirties and forties were designed in a time when Art Deco was the height of fashion.  Steering wheels, radio grilles, and switch knobs were as much ornamental as they were functional.  Moreover, unlike today’s jellybean cars stamped from the same mold, chrome trimmings carried that Art Deco motif into the designs visible on car exteriors.  I could identify the make of a car from a mile away, but I wanted a close-up look at those fancier car cockpits where, when a driver toggled, switched, shifted, pushed, pulled, or clicked, dials registered, needles waved, and indicators flickered.  The driver of a ’38 Cadillac had almost as many controls to monitor as the captain aboard a DC-3.

            Now, after another check to be sure no one was looking, I hopped up for a peek into a 1940 Ford pickup.  Next to the truck was a ’36 Chevy similar to my grandfather’s, but I skipped it because just ahead of the Chevy was a black, hearse-sized Buick sedan.  No doubt it belonged to some city-folk for it lacked the crusted dirt so common to vehicles from my rural surroundings.  Sunlight reflected from its shiny paint as I eased my upper body through the window and grabbed the steering wheel for support.

                Who the …?  Hey!  Kid, get outta here!”   Two heads popped into view from beneath the blanket spread across the back seat; one had long hair, the other short.  With my brain concentrating on a speedy departure, I failed to register anything else.  Only later did I wonder at the couple’s stupidity.  Only idiots would choose an un-shaded black car for a nap and certainly they needed no blankets on such a hot day. 



 

A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter February

 

When I was kid in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s adults wore hats.  Cars then had room for a guy’s fedora or Panama, not to mention the elegant chapeaus females fancied.  However, as time progressed, it seemed as if each automotive style change included a lower roof-line.  Hats for both sexes began to shrink and, by 1960, many folks considered headgear passé except for occasions such as funerals and weddings.  It is quite probable that Detroit was responsible for ending daily hat use.

I noticed this only because the change of seasons at our house was less a matter of leaf color than of hats.  When selling real estate, Dad fancied “Panama” straws during warm weather, “snap-brimmed” fedoras when it was cold.  At home in summer, he wore a battered straw no longer suitable for business; his winter choice was a billed cap.

He gave close consideration to such things as door clearances and roof heights of the Fords and Chevrolets he preferred, always mindful of the headgear worn on his business outings.  Mom treated my father’s hats with a prideful care that neared reverence for he did not otherwise indulge himself in pricey clothing.  Her own hat (singular) had been designed by someone who apparently admired the helmet used by the US Army in World War I.  Navy blue, equipped with a veil, it was apparently indestructible and, after a decade of use, still looked fresh out of the box.

Of course, as any good cowboy or real estate broker knows, a quality hat elevates one’s rank in the herd, an Alpha male attitude that makes guy headgear so expensive.  Dad’s fedoras would last two years, but his straws were good for only one.  Hats had to look nice and clean as in those days men tipped their hats to ladies and often saluted men that same way.  Of course, “showing” rural property to prospective buyers as my father did almost daily was hard on his clothing, hats in particular.  However, one hat tragedy had nothing to do with ladies, manners, or sales.

On a bright summer day following lunch, Dad invited me to ride into town with him.  As he donned his new Panama, I yelped “yes,” anticipating a stop for ice cream.     When a ten minute stop at the bank left the inside of the car hotter than a Bessemer furnace, Dad drove past the drugstore without so much as a glance.  We were almost home when he spotted several neighbors “canoodling” for catfish in the Platte River near our bridge crossing.  Heat was reason enough to join the fun, but Dad was also quite fond of fried catfish.  He halted the car and in two minutes we had stripped and jumped into the water. 

Over the next two hours we splashed around with the other twenty or more naked men and boys, all of us grabbing fish hemmed in between the nets stretched from bank to bank across the stream.  When the “fish corral” was empty, we shared out the catch that filled two burlap sacks with carp and “channel-cat.”  That’s when everyone realized the breeze had strengthened and that a line of thunderheads was moving in fast.

Dad and I joined the flight of nude males.  Burdened with flopping fish, we looked like wingless pelicans in our mad race to the cars.  A few raindrops spattered the Ford as we tugged on our clothes and shoes.  That’s when I noticed Dad peering beneath the car.

“Son, look around over there for my hat.”

We never found it, of course.  His hat, probably lifted high by the gusting wind, was at least a mile away and possibly already back in Panama.




 

A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2008 B.K. Showalter January

 

            A two-lane blacktop connected the eastern part of our county to the western half.  Where that highway passed through small towns it was, inevitably, signed as “

Main Street
.”  My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

.”My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

.”My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

.”My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

.”My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

.”My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

.”My earliest schooling took place in one of those burgs.

            The “bus” that delivered me to Mrs. Rainwater’s first-grade classroom was a blue 1941 Chevrolet pickup with a barn-red, wooden cubicle bolted to the bed.  The box contained two benches that accommodated 12 small-sized students.  A single six inch by twelve inch window provided light, but not enough to read by.  In winter, the bus was an icebox and, while I was happy to get away from the farm, the frigid ride to school meant my first hour in class was a misery of thawing toes and dripping nose.

            Unsupervised time during recesses was the norm in 1943.   Mrs. Rainwater did require that we return to her classroom before the final bell.  That promise was easier made than honored because the school stood just across the street from a one-block square city park.  Businesses formed a “U” on the far side of the streets around the park’s other three sides; the street on the south was the state highway that wore “Main Street” signs over the four or five blocks where it passed through town.

            Traffic on Main was twice that on any other street in town.  Naturally, that made the south end of the park our favorite play place.  And, from the stage railings of a wedding-cake bandstand, one could watch trains whistle by on the C&GW tracks that marked the town’s eastern limits.  Trains at mid-day were usually freights that we saluted with a wave, although we were too far away for the train crews to notice. 

            An occasional truck rumbled through town on Main, all of them smaller than the ubiquitous, bright-colored 18-wheelers that fill today’s highways.  A lot of them were C.O.E.s because space limitations on town streets made those “stub-nosed” cab-overs popular.  And, when someone mentioned a “van,” Wonder Bread trucks came to mind.

            Truck lines used straight-bed Diamond-T or International rigs but, in our rural area, people used the same open trucks utilized for moving cows, hogs, and grain to market.  Some of those were rated “two-tonners,” but few, if any, had double axles.  Even the cross-country Trailways and Greyhound buses that plied the highway through our town rumbled along on single axles.  Buses were a common sight on secondary highways during WW II, as uniformed men and women hurried home for a few days of leave between duty stations.  For those of us kids who could read, the destination signs on bus fronts never failed to arouse wonder and envy; Denver, Little Rock, Kansas City, Des Moines—faraway  places with far-sounding names!  Travelers going beyond those points took a train, service even our small town had in 1943.

            Travel, whether by car, bus, or train, was a mainstay topic among us kids those days, second only to the war.  Every one of us had some connection to that through stamp sales, war bonds, and paper drives.  Newsreels about the battles overseas, book-ended the Saturday night knockdown-dragouts fought by Gene or Hopalong in the Land of Make-Believe.  None of us first-graders knew where Hollywood was or what it was about, but we knew it was a magic place.  Moreover, I knew the route to Hollywood started with that state highway.  In the early days of that New Year, that two-lane aorta to the high point of planet earth was whispering, “GO!”  Forty years later I went, only to learn that Hollywood wasn’t as exciting as recess in that city park across from the schoolhouse.


A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2007 B.K. Showalter December

 

Back in an ancient time, well before the occasion became commercial and politically complicated, Christmas crowned the year.  I’m still an aficionado of the Holiday Season largely because of the music, a carryover from the years when my family sang old-time carols around the parlor piano.  A new Christmas song appeared annually—I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus and Gene Autry’s Rudolph may not qualify as “carols,” but we kids belted them with off-key enthusiasm.

Nowadays, by the time parents (AKA Santa’s helpers) decide it’s time to make the shift from toys such as Chatty-Cathy and Roy Rogers cap-guns,” their once eager stocking-hangers have morphed into teenaged acne-farms.  Some of these kids are so eager to escape parental control they take frying-pan-into-the-fire leaps that require years of therapy or jail time to correct.  The fortunate ones luck into a job or college.

I was lucky.  My emancipation from the farm occurred in May of 1955, two weeks after my high school graduation and the finish of the “senior class trip.”  Each year, grads from my high school toured the Ozarks by bus.  Money earned and saved from school sponsored functions known as “workdays” during the previous four years financed a week-long trip which, as it turned out, was my final contact with classmates for months—in some cases, years.  Kids then never used telephones, especially those of us on “party-lines,” a system for gossip that could spread rumors faster than a Hearst newspaper.

Stunned when Dad said, “Let’s get you enrolled in college,” I choked back a loud “Hallelujah” and packed.  That was my final day as a farmer.  At NW State, I signed up for every job I could get, especially those available on campus during holiday breaks, and did not return to the farm until December. Then it was only because the campus was closing until January.  Still, Christmas with family seemed like a good idea.

I arrived home on the 23rd.   It Mom’s birthday, but from the way she treated me, it might as well have been mine.  That day went much too quickly, but the next, Christmas Eve, dragged on forever.  Only the excitement evident in my younger siblings made it bearable.  And, then came Christmas.  With several of the kids still faking a belief in Santa, it was fun, at least until three or four o’clock in the afternoon.

Then, I guess my boredom showed, because Dad let me have his ‘55 Chevy for the evening, the same azure and white “210” I’d used in high school.  With high hopes I set out following supper, but the loneliness I’d felt at home soon returned.  Not one of my pals was home.  I’d heard that some had joined the Navy, but now I learned the rest had enlisted in the Air Force.  Unwilling to give up, I switched genders and found class valedictorian Alicia at her parent’s home and eager for an outing.

Midwestern activities on a Christmas night are typically quiet at home occasions, unless there is a need for an ambulance or a doctor but, by pure chance, we drove into a nearby town and found a theater featuring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in Mogambo.  It did not matter that it was a year old film unsuited to the season.  It gave us a catch-up interlude for a look back at the high school years we had shared.

Later I kissed Alicia goodnight on her doorstep and headed home with a smile on my face; neither of us suspected that 48 more Christmas nights would pass before we’d have an opportunity to reminisce about the one we shared with Clark, Ava, and Grace.





A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2007 B.K. Showalter November

 

A few Midwestern towns can still claim ownership to Bing Crosby’s Dear Hearts and Gentle People, key to what made them so pleasant in 1949 when his song topped the charts.  County seats are the most impressive burgs of the lot, largely because of the courthouses.  Such an edifice rules a downtown like a regal eagle amid a flock of Plymouth Rocks.

 The courthouse square once was a thriving place on Saturdays.  Pedestrians wandered from store to store, eyeing newfangled wonders that sometimes affected their good sense.  Cash, however, was still in short supply following the war which meant a Saturday spent in a real downtown was often all one could afford for entertainment.

In “my” town, an A & P shared most of a block with Montgomery Wards; J.C. Penny’s sat beside a Farmers State Bank.  Watson’s Drug rubbed shoulders with an International Harvester dealership.  Sometimes, in front of those two businesses, aromas from the soda fountain crisscrossed with the smell of new rubber and fresh paint that emanated from a new Farmall tractor visible on the showroom floor.  I-H dealers also carried refrigerators and other appliances, so housewives were often seen inside next to the big, red machine.

There were a number of rollercoaster “humps” in the town’s red-brick streets. One scarcely noticed them when circling the square, but beyond that congested area when speeds reached thirty mph, the bias-ply retreads on Dad’s Ford thrummed like a bass viol.  Sometimes, the sound seemed to tie in with the ragtime beat coming from the car’s loose front bumper, especially when a broken hanger on the exhaust pipe chimed in with a two-note squeak on the bigger bumps.   

Maples and elms lined the streets, silent sentinels that guarded the residents from an excess of summer sunlight.  Toward evening, the quiet ended as regiments of cicadas kicked up their heels and commenced a rhythmic serenade that lasted until the night air cooled their ardor.

The leaders of 2007’s tour of Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas sprinkled in a number of rural county seat towns for our viewing pleasure.  There was minimal activity around most of the courthouses as we circled various downtown squares with one exception.  In Mindin, NE, a glance up at the ornate building’s highest point offered a surprise.  Four stories up, the lower half of a man’s body dangled from a window in the cupola.  Needless to say, the alarm bells in my brain jingled an alert.

The Ford leaned right like a drunken camel as I cranked in a hard left turn and whipped it into a U-turn.  Now, keep in mind that a “U-ey” at low speed in a car with no power steering is not an easy task but, in this case, the adrenaline had already kicked in a dose of super-powered strength.  As it turned out, workmen were doing maintenance on the cupola or, in the opinion of one CHVA’er, stringing Christmas lights.  Whatever, it was not some guy planning a spectacular end to protest NU’s lousy football team.  Still, all things considered, Mindin offered more than the expected museums.  The courthouse there rivaled the one in Clarinda, Iowa, my birthplace where, except for the Glenn Miller museum, not much has changed since the day of my delivery.  Bing’s Dear Hearts and Gentle People are still there, but on Saturdays they now dine at a McDonalds out on Highway 2.


A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2007 B.K. Showalter October

 

The ability to comprehend and compare measurements by sight is a skill that does not get proper recognition.  I think it is amazing that most of us can look at an opening such as a door and know at a glance that it will accommodate the height and width of our body despite yesterday’s pig-out at the local donut shop.

Those close-up eyeball measurements in which the brain apparently compares openings against the body’s dimensions seem simple enough, but beyond those “shuffle through the doorway” situations, estimating size and distance becomes more complicated.  Scrape marks on the sides of garage doorways and the right-front fenders of too many sedans are proof enough that when reckoning a passage for something larger than personal dimensions, most folks should grab a measuring tape.

Fore-shortening, a technique used by landscape artists to illustrate depth in their sketches, shows the remarkable ability of a human brain to measure distance by sight.  This becomes more apparent when the operator of an automobile adapts course and speed to the constantly changing views of the road ahead.  Somehow, as his (or her) brain combines topographical features, lighting and other conditions affecting visibility, and the ever changing sight angles from the driver’s seat, the wheel-person not only keeps his vehicle in the proper lane, but regulates its speed.

At this point one must salute the grand machines we humans are.  Not only can we steer a vehicle through crowded streets at high-speeds, we can at the same time talk on the telephone, listen to a backseat driver, and scan the cute cabooses strolling nearby sidewalks.  And, somehow, except for the strolling cabooses, we seldom apply any conscious thought to these things.

Our lack of attention to the activities surrounding us while we’re on the road points out just how dangerous “grand machines” are, especially those who are twenty-plus years older than the vehicles they drive.  It seems the younger the automobile, the more “stuff” one must attend to just to get it moving.  With seatbelts, bifocals, automatic door locks, arthritis, automatic temperature controls, backup warning systems, and automatic garage door openers, one really is not connected to the car and the road until one is a couple blocks from home.

So, it may be that we are safer drivers in our vintage machines than we are in a more recent offering from Detroit (or wherever) simply because there are fewer controls to remember.  Of course I know that newer cars are much safer to be in should an accident happen; airbags alone can mean surviving a wreck and the only time my ’55 Ford has an airbag is when one of my uncles is aboard.  “Windbag” is a better description in that particular case. 

The point here is that as we age, we need more time before we can slip into that automatic mode that allows us to process the information streams arriving from eyes and ears.  We also need to process and consider experiences learned during previous outings.

That means you should take a second look at the width of that gate you’re planning to enter so, guys forget that cute caboose in the short skirt and you gals ignore the guy biking along in those skin-tight pants over in the left lane.

Keep your eyes on the road ahead or the next thing you “foreshorten” may be the vintage iron that uses up so much of that space in your garage.



A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2007 B.K. Showalter September

 

Grandfathers have it easier than dads.  Kids’ fathers are trying to control and, therefore, ruin the plans of everyone under the age of twenty-one.  They’re right by the way; as a grandfather I can now admit it.

A grandpa’s job is simple; take some kernel of history from those infamous “yore” days, dig up a few colorful happenings of interest, then bend the truth until it snags the attention of a young listener.  sadly, fathers seldom have time to waste on things of that sort.  They are good at barking orders, but forget to tell stories that are just fun to hear and that make no moral point.  They do try—I did, anyway, but more often it was “take out the trash.”  That’s never going to sound like a quest worthy of pursuit unless dollar bills are taped to the lid of the target garbage can.

Typically, a grandpa starts off with something he wants to talk about, like the Model-A Ford he once owned.  Usually there is a history lesson in his discourse, a bit that may, someday, help the kid remember the man who told the tale.

I recently listened in while a friend told a story to Tracy his grandson, and it did involve a Model-A, a coupe with a rumble seat.  The nine-year-old knew that a Model-A was an old car, but “coupe” and “rumble seat” were mere sounds.  Even “Model-A” to Tracy was a bit like me hearing Daniel Chester French, kit bags, or pellagra during a conversation—I can’t quite come up with the who, what or why.

“Those old Fords waded through mud like hogs in a puddle and we had lots of muddy roads back then.  Thing is, when you got to a

US Highway
you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”  My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.  “Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.  And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

you needed speed, and my coupe could cruise along at a goodly rate.”My friend’s words slowed as he recalled a some long ago trip.“Best thing about it was the rumble seat … gave couples privacy on double-dates.And, of course, I had this black lab then, too.”

The kid’s interest had been lukewarm, but with the mention of a dog, “Gramps” had just added some seasoning to the tale; it worked like grease in a frying pan.

“Name was ‘Butterfly,’ and ‘fore you laugh let me tell you it was your grandmother stuck him with tag when we got him as a pup.  Trouble was I couldn’t shorten Butterfly to a nickname that sounded decent out in public.”  That aside made his mustache quiver and his mouth pucker as if he’d bitten into a lemon.

“I think Butterfly sounds kinda’ pretty.”  Obviously, the kid was into the story.

“Well, don’t ever hang pretty on a pet you figure to take out in public.  Yelling “Butterfly” made me look like an idiot.  Lucky for me, he’d come when I whistled.”

“What happened to him Grandpa?”

“Well, remember that Ford with the rumble seat?  That dog loved to ride back there—year ‘round.  Well, one fall day that rascal jumped into the rumble seat just as your grandma and I headed out for St. Joe.  Butterfly had his head up and his tongue was a flappin’ like a flag in the breeze.  I slowed the Ford down to about thirty miles-per-hour as we were about to roll onto the Missouri River bridge.  That’s when a pheasant zipped out of the weeds and glanced off the roof of the car.  I don’t know exactly what took place after the crash flipped it into the rumble seat.  We were halfway across the bridge when the Ford finally stopped.  That’s when Butterfly went over the bridge railing after that bird.  Last we saw of Butterfly he was chasing that pheasant across the deck of a towboat called the Sergeant Floyd.  And, that, m’boy, is another name to remember.”



A VENT WINDOW VIEW\\

 ã2007 B. K. Showalter—August    (marbks@msn.com)

 

Reality TV shows are almost as real as the characters in a Sunday newspaper’s comic strip.  Among the more offensive is Judge Judy who, in network advertising, is termed “a lady” right after she tells a tearful plaintiff, “Shut up—I’m talking here!”

There are too many similar courtroom reality shows to critique in this column just as there are too many “real-life” mishaps shown on America’s Home Videos, in which children are injured and adults expose more than Janet Jackson.  People are dropped, trampled, or whacked upon with such force one might expect the country’s birthrate to fall by half.  That might be a good thing as it would lessen the audience for shows about parents taking instruction from a TV nanny.  Then we’d all have more time to watch those titillating features about wife-swapping in suburbia.

The other night, as I flipped through channels and grumbled about popular TV, the lady of the manor says, “We can’t be too hard on people who enjoy those ‘reality’ shows; we fake a similar kind of realism every time we take the annual CHVA national tour.”

“Hold the phone,” says I, “that tour is real life!  It is a historical reenactment of how things were before Toyota began making full-size pickups and Honda started selling those electrified Civics.  We drive those tours the way God intended when he built the

US Highway
system!  Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.  And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

system!Bias-ply, wide-whitewall tires, “four and fifty” air-conditioning, and a pushbutton AM radio; why, back in the ‘50’s a thousand miles from the Mexican border, the radio in my Ford got Del Rio, Texas, just as good as it got Topeka, Kansas.And, that Chicago rock and roll station came in clear as a bell all over the Midwest.”

I shouldn’t let such things upset me so, but when someone compares our vintage auto tours with the TV shows people seem to like these days, my motor revs!  Oh, there is a touch of Dancing with the Stars syndrome in our tours.  Mixed in with the battle-scarred “drivers” that most of us use on long-range trips, there are some beautifully restored examples from ages past.  Sometimes, like the missed step or twirl that ruins a dancer’s performance, a problem pops up on even the most carefully restored machine.

Still, it is wrong to compare our passion for touring in vintage autos with the unoriginal TV offerings that appeared last night.  NBC offered Outrageous, America’sGot Talent, and Last Comic Standing; CBS leaned toward a more serious reality with Criminal Minds and CSI: NY.  ABC offered ninety-minutes titled So You Think You Can Dance.

If the people running the three big networks had organized our Route 66 tour, we’d have had 66 identical makes and models lined up nose to tail from Chicago to Santa Monica.



 

A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2007 B. K. Showalter July

 

THE DAY PIGS DID FLY

An excerpt from The Doomsday Marbles

 

            A truck on the grade ahead belched smoke as the driver downshifted.  With room to switch lanes, I signaled, peeked at the rear-view mirror, and punched the accelerator.  Even as my Impala, a former Highway Patrol cruiser, revved through another gallon of gas, I caught a whiff of something far more pungent than the diesel fumes rising from the truck’s twin exhausts.

            “Pigs,” I muttered, holding my breath.  Still, a smile drifted across my face as I eased off the throttle and let a long-ago afternoon take shape in my mind.          

* * *

            Dad stepped from his year-old ‘41 Ford Tudor and limped slowly, even painfully, across the yard.  At the porch, showing unusual caution, he grasped the rail before ascending the steps.  He looked pretty funny, I thought, for he sported two black eyes and had several strips of white adhesive tape across his swollen nose.

            "Well, Bill," he said, "what mischief did you get into while I was gone?"  He sounded as if he had a bad cold.

            "None!"  I loaded the word with positive certainty.  My errors during his absence seemed unlikely to interest him, but I nonetheless changed the subject.  "You sure look awful, Dad.  What happened?"  Almost six and soon to begin first-grade classes, diplomacy was not my strong suit.  Two weeks earlier Mom had listened in disbelief and red-faced embarrassment when I praised our sixty-year-old neighbor, Flossie Hearns.  "You have the whitest teeth of anybody I ever saw.  They’re shinier than our piano keys."  I’d meant it as a compliment because her teeth lacked the finger smudges that marked the ivories of our battered Baldwin.  I had no idea that her glaring dentures were oversized fakes that had caused Mrs. Hearns considerable distress.  Later Mom expressed considerable distress of her own regarding my conversational bon mot.

            Dad just smiled.  "It’s a long story so let's go inside where everyone can hear."

            I followed him to the kitchen where my teen-age sisters Louise and Leah were twisting little sister Susie’s hair into braids.  Twelve-year-old Eddie kept a wary eye on them as if he suspected they had designs on his shaggy mop.

            Mom placed a water pitcher and glasses on the table’s new and smelly red and white checkered oilcloth and, as Dad carefully slid into his chair with a quiet sigh, she filled his glass.

            He nodded thanks then turned toward his impatient audience.  “Now, what was it you all wanted to tell me?”

            “No, Dad,” I blurted.  “You’re supposed to tell us!”

            He grinned and, with a wink at Eddie, sipped his water.

            We knew he had gone with Dewey Schottel to help drive a truckload of cows to Louisiana. Dad had operated his own rig before becoming a real estate broker and agreed to help Mr. Schottel as a backup driver for a quick trip south.  Events turned the planned three day trip into a seven day odyssey.

 

"We left for Baton Rouge and made good time," Dad began.  "Everything went fine on the trip south.  Dewey's return load was hogs.  Razorbacks.  We loaded them on the truck near Star City, Arkansas, right close to where your mother was born and raised."

            He stopped for a moment and smiled at her.  I waited, expecting a joke about “Arkies,” but this time Dad just went on with his story.

            "Dewey was yawning, so I took the wheel and headed for Fort Smith.  Got there about dusk.  He took over again and started north on US 71.  I went to sleep; probably the hogs did, too.  About an hour or two later I guess old Dewey did the same, because the truck left the road and sailed down the mountainside."  Dad winked at Mom, sipped his water then looked at me.

            "Well, that Ford had a new hood ornament when I came awake--a big razorback.  Hogs started jumping out of that truck and going every which way.  I had one on my lap for a couple of bounces, so I asked him if he knew what was happening.  Mr. Pig shook his head and jumped for the bushes just as the truck smashed right over a tree.  That’s when I knocked the windshield out with my nose.  Next thing I knew, it was me astraddle the hood.  Well, sir, I hung on like a tick to a bird dog and watched pigs fly out of that truck like popcorn from a skillet.  Occasionally we crossed the highway where it hair-pinned back and forth, but we were going too fast for me to get off, so I just ducked my head and waited until the truck slammed to a halt.  Dewey had waked up by then.  Fact is his eyes were stuck wide-open.”

            Dad stopped and looked around the table.  “We were both skinned up and a bit bruised, but those hogs, I think, enjoyed the ride.  They probably went home and told their families about their carny-ride down the mountain just like I am telling you."

            We all smiled; he was home and safe.

            "I hope you aren’t planning any more trips with Dewey," Mom said.  There was a touch of granite in her voice.

            Dad shook his head with stiff-necked care as he answered with a rueful smile.  "Nope! He can handle the next trip on his own.  I've done my bit for Arkansas by restocking the northern part of the state with bacon.  Now it’s up to them folks and the pigs to take care of things.”

            Dad went to bed for the rest of the day.  Mom said he was just tired and sore from the truck ride.  It was years later that I learned about his cracked ribs, wrenched shoulder, and strained back.

 

            Seventeen years on a farm with pigs taught me more than I wanted to know about Durocs, Poland Chinas, and Hampshires, but all I learned about Razorbacks came from Dad’s story.  Eddie, however, still believes that one of those truck escapees became a mascot for the University of Arkansas.



  

A VENT WINDOW VIEW

ã2007 B. K. Showalter June

 

            Homemade bread, homemade butter, and homemade music—those were staples of life during the ‘40’s.  We had the tools needed to make these things and, generally, learned to use them.  Mom, of course, did the baking, but everyone cranked the butter churn.  As for music, the family relied upon my older sisters.  Louise played a cornet in the high school band, but at home preferred the piano.  Betty, probably to satisfy her crush on Benny Goodman, tooted a clarinet.  Somehow, even with WW II in full swing, they acquired enough sheet music to paper a house.  Evenings at home were a noisy din of Forties “big-band” hits and patriotic crowd pleasers like Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.

            The snare drum Santa delivered the Christmas after my fourth birthday allowed me to contribute to the musical sessions that began when my sisters’ came home from school.  Louise, when she pounded the ivories, always let me sit next to her on the piano bench--until the drum appeared.  That’s when she decided the bench was not big enough for two.  Of course, the real reason was that I hammered that drum with the gusto of a drummer with Wellington at Waterloo.  My fun lasted until February when one day Louise--or perhaps it was Betty—said that inside a drum, like a Crackerjack box, there is a treasure.  Oddly enough, this information came the same day that the tool for checking this fact turned up on the dining room table right next to my drumsticks.  It never occurred to me to suspect why Mom’s good scissors were located so conveniently for my upcoming research project.

            I soon learned that hand tools like scissors can be dangerous and that a punctured drum won’t deliver a decent “rat-a-tat-tat” no matter how hard you whack it.  Mom, however, got quite a bit of noise out of me when she rat-a-tatted my rear with a flyswatter.  I still cannot recall what was so funny about that day, but my sisters still laugh about my greedy ignorance and ineptitude with those scissors.