Shade trees and bourbon …

Sun finally rose enough today to see outdoors so I went to take a look. We had all gone to bed last evening under the threat of severe weather. It was a Force Five Weather Apoplexy Event for the TV weather children. I awoke several times during the night, from dreams involving pulchritudinous English majors, to listen to the commotion as it passed through. The sounds were alarming but soon succumbed to soft voices cooing, "Let us go then, you and I … ."

This morn, all seemed okay. The electricity worked. My knees worked, bofe'em. I remembered my name. Outside, I saw no "victim" trees or utility poles. People don't understand that while, yes, quaint neighborhoods receive great charm and ambiance from mature, splendiferous, trees, evil weather tends to blow those trees over every great once in a while. It's one of life's trade-offs. One can live in a gated "cult" subdivision in the comfort that everyone looks exactly like you, or someplace in old America where shade trees offer a place to drink bourbon of an afternoon while people walk by who may appear quite different, but still expect you to wave.

I'll take my bourbon, storms or no storms.

A victim tree from several years back.

A Peaceful Wildness

Fiction Friday: First part of an early effort based on stories I heard in my family's country grocery.

AFTER THE STORM

By Jimmie von Tungeln

           The men all laughed. Thomas Hyatt was telling about the Donaldson girl and her version of the storm. They had heard it before, but it was worth listening again just to hear Thomas tell it. He leaned back until they thought the nail keg would slide from under him, and, throwing his face into a surprised circle, mimicked a young girl.

           "And do you know what Daddy? While the house was up in the air and I could feel it a'turnin' around, I seen that mule of our'n."

           "Honey, how could you see the mule with him on the ground and you in the house and the house up in the air and it turnin' around and you probly scairt' to death anyhow?"

           Thomas stopped for effect, brought the nail keg up straight again and reduced his face from large to small again.

           "That mule wadn't on the ground Daddy. He was up in the air too, cause I see'd him right outside the winder."

           Thomas slapped his leg while the rest laughed in unison. "And they fount that mule clean over on the Darkis place, I'm tellin' you. At's five miles from Armistead and the Donaldson place ain't more'n a mile from town."

           "Next thang you be tellin' us they back plowin' with him," said Odell Rogers.

           "No sir, his plowin' days is done but he had one hell of a ride a'fore he re-tarred," said Thomas and the whole room roared.

           "At was one storm all right," said Rufus Chidester as the laughter died away. He said. "I 'spect that 1947 will be a year folks 'round here remember for a long time."

           "It took your barn didn't it?" said Odell.

           "Took my barn and the houses on both sides of mine but left mine standin'," Rufus answered.

           "I druther it took my house than my barn," said a small man named Chester Winstead. "I got ever thang I own tied up in that barn and all at's in the house is the old lady and two kids."

           "A good barn ain't easy to come by," said a voice in the group and they all nodded.

           "I reckon you heard about the Walker boy?" asked Rufus. Assuming they hadn't, he continued. "Him and some other boys was playin' in them woods over by the Bayou Bridge when it hit. He looked up and saw it comin'. There bein' no place to hide, well he just stood there watchin it comin'. It jumped over them kids somehow and kept goin'. They say they have to put him to bed now ever time a cloud comes up, it upset him so bad."

           "He's liable to end up like his Daddy," said Chester. He lit a cigarette from a wooden match and quickly took two drags. He stepped to the center of the group and kicked the latch on a large cast iron stove. When the door swung open, he flipped the burnt match inside, watched it flare for a second, and closed the door with his foot.

           "How many they counted so far?" he asked after he was back at his seat.

           "Somebody told me thirty-two," said Rufus. "At's countin' six bucks in that one house up by Ridgway Road. Shootin’ craps. That’s what I heard they were doing."

            “No,” said the Grocer, and everyone turned to hear him. He looked at Rufus. “They were at a club in that old school building on the hill. Earnest Tiggens got out of the pen a year ago and started a club for young boys on Sunday afternoon, teaching them how to box. That’s all they were doing. They found three of them across the highway, with Earnest. The rest were scattered around.”

           "Won't be no cotton choppers this summer," said Chester.

           "I don't know what people gonna do," said Odell. "They tell me it's the worst storm ever hit Arkansas."

           "I tell you what I'm fixin to do," said Thomas. "I'm fixin to wait for the government. They supposed to help people when something like this happens."

           "I didn't thank the storm hit your place," Chester said.

           "Hell, the government won't know that unless y'all tell 'em," he replied and they all laughed.

           Just then the door opened and the laughter stopped. A large figure stopped briefly in the door and nodded across the room at the group. The room fell silent except for the shuffling of feet and the scraping sound of seats being slid across the wood floor to make room for the newcomer. "John," someone finally said. "Come set."

           "Fellers," the man said as he crossed the room to sit upon an empty keg nearest the stove. The heavy silence still lay over the group and no one spoke for several minutes. "Your family all right?" Odell finally asked.

           "They's all right," the man answered. "Took ever thang I had but we got in the cellar afore it hit. They's over at Little Rock at the wife's sister's. I been stayin' in town at night. I go out there during the day. Don't hardly seem like the same place with ever thing gone." He stopped and reached over to pick a long sliver of wood from the box beside the stove. Then he began to study it intently. The room got quiet again.

           "Anybody need anything while I'm up?" The Grocer had come from behind the counter and walked over to the group. "How you, John?" he asked the newcomer.

           "All right," said John. "I need twenty feet of well-rope if you got any."

           "I got a little. Let me look out back," he said as he moved toward the front door. "You fellers keep Thomas out of the cold-drink box."

           "Brang some wood back when you come." Thomas said. "It's a gonna git cold in here fore long."

           "What you been doin' lately, Thomas?" asked the newcomer. "Last I heard you was drivin' a truck for old man Whitaker."

           Nobody spoke. Thomas leaned over from his seat and pulled a poker from beneath the stove. He didn't say anything as he pecked the latch open on the firebox door. He pulled the door open with the crook of the poker and jabbed at the glowing fire. The flames rose and he pushed the door shut slowly and placed the poker beneath the stove again.

           "That was a while back. I been doin' a little of this and a little of that."

           "Tell him what you was doin' before the storm hit," said Odell.

           "Oh, I tried preachin' for awhile down in Cleveland County. Got pretty good at it, I reckon. Liked it too. Bout the best job I ever had.” Faces in the group nodded.

           "Tell him why you quit," Odell persisted.

           "Well, to tell you the truth," Thomas stopped looked at each of the men in the group, "The son of a bitches just wouldn't pay me."

           This time the laughter was sharp and hearty. The air about the room crackled as the men slapped their knees and winked at one another. The newcomer smiled and looked toward the door. "Thomas, you won't do," he said.

           Thomas looked past the others to make sure the Grocer hadn't returned and then said knowingly, "I can tell you this. If'n you need supplies, you'd better go on in to Armistead. That man has purt near gave away his store since the storm come through."

           "That's what I heard," the man said back to him. "I don't need much." Then he looked into the front of the stove again. "Can't afford much."

           "I 'spect you tell him that, why he'll give you anything he's got. And for free. He's been doin' it for white and colored alike," Thomas replied.

           "No, I'll pay him for what I get," John said.

           "Suit yourself," Thomas said as the Grocer opened the door leading into the store with a coil of heavy rope around his shoulders. He walked to the group around the stove and paused to remember who had sent him.

           "John, I got fifteen feet left if that will help," he said.

           "I can make do," John answered. "Just put it on the counter and I'll pay you when I leave."

           "Be glad to," the Grocer said. He looked the group over. "Any you boys need anything while I'm up?"

           No one replied and he started to leave, but then paused and turned around. "Is John the only one doin' any work this week?"

           "Ain't no use workin'. Ever thing's blowed away." Odell said. "The field hands even got blowed away. They houses is gone and they'll be headed for Detroit, follerin' the others. How's anybody gonna farm this year?"

           "I remember when people did their own farmin'," the Grocer said. "That's how I got this store."

           Thomas turned around to face him. "But now you done give it all away and you ought to be sittin' right down here with us."

           "Well I might as well at that. But if I set down with y'all, I might not ever get back up," he said and walked toward his perch.

           "Sounds like he might be gonna take up preachin' next," said Thomas and the men all laughed.

           The sounds died and the room turned quiet. Thomas told another story but there was no depth, no substance, this time and the men simply nodded. A languid peace settled upon the room. The only sound was the hum of the wood stove as the logs roared fiercely. Finally, Odell asked, "What was it like when you seen it coming, John?"

           John studied the stove for a minute and starting once to speak, waited until all eyes had circled the room and rested on him. "There's some things boys," he said, and paused again. "Some things that you can't make words fit the tellin'."

           A couple of the men nodded and he contiued. "I seen it a ways off and had time to git the family started to the cellar. They run down and before I went, I had a chance to look for myself. It was funny like. Sort of a peaceful wildness, far off like it was, and not seeming to move much at all, just whipping back and forth kinda soft like you was sweeping the yard with a willow limb."

           "How long did you watch it?" asked Odell.

           "Oh, not long. I seen it was getting closer and figgerd that there was gonna be hell to pay, and I closed the cellar door."
           "Speakin' of hell to pay, look comin' yonder," said Thomas..
(To be continued.)

Bad Days and Margaritas

Some days you’d just as soon forget. Yesterday was one. Oh, I can’t say that. Any day that ends with you still standing and on the right side of the grass isn’t bad.

It’s just that yesterday wasn’t all that good.  It was the Donald Trump of bad days.

Here’s what happened.

It started the night before. We went to bed as usual, thinking “grand thoughts of the morrow.” Just before I dove off into dreamland, I heard thunder but didn’t think much about it. I was off on a trip with some high school buddies headed to Chicago to join the Mafia. Somewhere along the line, we picked up Ursula Andress and Bo Derek. That’s all I remember. Just as Bo took my hand and Boléro began to play, my roommate, best friend, and guardian of morals stirred and woke me up.

It was pitch black. No electricity. How can you make out with Bo Derek in total darkness?

I didn’t think much about it at the time. We were staying at our house in Lonoke, AR and the electricity goes off from time to time because of all the beautiful old oak trees the town is known for. No problem. I would awake and all would be well. I’m optimistic that way, or I used to be.

Anyway, my aged bones were complaining so I went to the den and switched to a recliner. All went well until the sun came up and the light awakened me while I was still calling for Bo to come back. Odd … the electricity didn’t usually stay off that long. I went back to sleep.

 

Photo courtesy
Brenda von Tungeln

An hour or so later, I gave up on Bo, and thought maybe I should take a look at things. I went to the front porch and looked. Oh my goodness. A huge oak lay against the house across the street. The owners have been working on it for nearly two years. Now a tree had crashed into it and one limb had pierced the roof.

I went outside in my pajamas. Across the intersection diagonally, a massive oak lay across the wing of a house.

Across the side street from us, a tree lay against the power line. There was nothing against ours, just some small limbs in the yard. Thought I’d best awaken El Jefa. I went in and spoke gently, “Our house is fine, but I think there has been a big storm.”

And so it began. While talking to some of the neighbors, I found that the storm had covered a large area, including around our farm. We rushed there. All was well, just a couple of limbs across the county road. My traveling companion moved them.

Then I learned it had hit Little Rock and surrounding cities. My cell phone contained a gentle inquiry from my magazine editor concerning an overdue deadline. It was finished, but I needed internet service. So off to LR we went. Things were calm at the condo. They had gotten the electricity on about 2:00 a.m. with some water damage on the first and second floors. The router was working so I sent the work in.

By this time, we needed a break. Luckily, we knew this Mexican restaurant where they serve frozen margaritas. Just the thing to help one calm down after a storm.

While we were there, the security system let us know that the electricity was back on the Lonoke house. So we rushed back there. All was well, so be early afternoon we finally made it back to the farm to do a little work.

Farewell June 20^th. I’m gonna “Scarlett O’hara” you. Today is ... guess what?

Growing up Southern: March 24, 2018

Sometimes I see how smug some people are with their positions in life, and it makes me wonder. Things can and do change, after all.

Growing up in a small country grocery store, I heard and saw a lot. Some made a great impression on me. For example, I’ve mentioned the tornado that struck our rural community in 1947. People talked about it for years. One man in particular has stayed on my mind off and on for years. He taught me a good lesson in how not to take life for granted.

He told us all a story, while we sat around an old pot-bellied stove, of how his family had hidden in a storm shelter during the storm. When he thought it had passed, he came out alone. In his words:

“Everything was gone. The house, the barn, the sheds, the truck, One tree still stood. I walked over to it and looked. There, stretched across two stacks of bricks, was a wide plank my girls had been using for play as a ‘kitchen stove.’ Everything was still there, even some mason jar lids they were using to make mud pies. The storm had left it untouched.

“I looked around at the place. Everything I had was gone, wiped clean. But there under that tree was that little play spot made of a board and some bricks. I walked over to it and flicked one of the jar lids with my finger. It tumbled off with no more pressure than that. The spot was all that had survived the storm.”

Thinking about it, we have some stormy days ahead in America. One can only wonder how many empires will fall and how many seemingly insignificant things will survive. Things can and do change.

Dinosaurs first appeared on earth about 200 million years ago. They became the dominant life-forms, until their sudden extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period about 65 million years ago. That is when a meteor struck the earth near the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and created the so-called "Fifth Extinction." The only land creatures to survive were the small animals that could hide from the dinosaurs in caves and crevices.

Life’s a bitch, ain’t it? At least that’s what the privileged dinosaurs probably thought. After all, 135 million years is a pretty good run. In the end though, all their size, genetic good fortune, and power couldn’t save them. I can almost hear them tweeting, with a last breath, “Fake news, fake news.”

Growing Up Southern: March 13, 2018

On June 1, 1947, a tornado tore through our community south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It resulted in the death of 34 people, including 21 children.

Our family had gone to Hot Springs that day and missed the actual event. Returning, we found that the home just north of ours was gone—not demolished, but gone—as was the home to the south of us. The storm destroyed 50 homes and damaged 500 others. A prominent farmer, his wife, and two children died when the funnel lifted their home and turned it upside down in Bayou Imbeau a couple of miles from us.

We would find that six teenagers died when the storm demolished a house less than a city block from ours. The news reports graciously called it “a rural youth center.” Actually, it was a vacant home where teenagers gathered of a Sunday afternoon for a friendly craps game.

Our home, attached to our country grocery, suffered only from a large oak tree blown over on the western end of the structure. That night, National Guard troops stood guard in our neighborhood to prevent looting. I’ve told before how my father gave away the contents of our grocery to the victims, ultimately going bankrupt as a result of his goodness.

Today though, I’m thinking of another subject: embedded terror. Although our family didn’t witness the storm, nor was our home destroyed, terror invaded the area like a dreadful germ left by a malicious wanderer. My best childhood friend would tremble and cry whenever a thunderstorm threatened, as would our family dog, Bob. Both had seen the storm and bore witness to its power. The fear of storms proved contagious to us all.

We feared the reoccurrence of another storm like the children of Europe must have feared another war. It was a silent, insidious terror that never left, lurking below the surface of our awareness. So it was, sometime later, when a warning was issued for a storm headed directly at our grade school.

I was in the third grade, in Miss Roundtree’s class. She was hardly past 21 years of age and the heart-throb of every boy in school. We would have faced a tribe of wild Apaches for her, even charged into a Nazi machine gun nest, had she but given the fateful order.

A tornado though? That was something different. Few students remained at the school at that moment. Only the children, of whom I was one, who waited each afternoon, under the guidance of a teacher, for the arrival of the school bus that transported “the country kids” home.

We had been shuffled into the northeast portion of the school building, our elders assuming that any storm would arrive from the southwest, from Texas. We knew how to “duck and cover” in preparation for physical emergences, and were quite ready and willing to do so.

Then Miss Roundtree announced a new plan. There was no use going to the trouble of diving under our desks unless the storm was actually upon us. We needed a lookout. A dozen sets of eyes bore into the floor, hoping to burn a hole wide enough to allow an escape from the honor.

It seemed, of a sudden, that everyone, save me, disappeared. “You,” our dream-goddess said, pointing a finger at a spot between my eyes, “Come with me.”

Off we went to the most southwestern classroom in the building. I lacked the height to see through the window, so Miss Roundtree pulled up a chair on which I could stand to watch for the terror, should it appear. My instructions were simple. “When you see a funnel cloud coming, jump down, run fast, and warn us.

Then she left. Before her footsteps faded, I heard it thunder.

I felt an electric charge on the back of my tongue, a sensation with which I would become familiar as I passed through life. Awaiting the unmanageable terror, I think I may have experienced, to some small degree, the fear that must accompany any child heading off today to what should be the most joyous and exciting period of their lives, the carefree wonder of school days. I wonder how many instead, should they hear a sharp and unknown sound, will feel that surge of electricity at the back of their tongues.

Unless you have felt it, in the singular and unwarranted way a seven-year old might feel it, you have no idea what an evil organization the National Rifle Association has become.

Terror requires eternal vigilance. 

Growing Up Southern: September 12, 2018

I’ve never been in a hurricane. Can’t imagine the horror. I experienced what they termed a “tropical storm” once. Close enough for me. I have no stomach for the real thing.

For someone from the rural hinterlands, the terrifying thing about winds connected with the sea is that they just don’t stop. On and on and on they go. We are used to a few minutes of violence, and then, like in a Beethoven symphony, the sun breaks through. None of this blowing for three days crap.

The storm I experienced originated in the South China Sea and poured over the little compound where I was stationed about three-quarters the way up Monkey Mountain outside Da Nang. We had two towers and an entry shack to guard. We were doing a fair job of it until the storm hit.

One tower stood across the road from us and some 50 feet above our compound. It provided a good view of the compound and the lands beyond the mountain. It was isolated and a bit scary around midnight, but provided a magnificent view during the day.

When the storm hit its peak, a man from Oklahoma we called “Preacher” Hargraves was on duty in the tower. Of course we couldn’t see it for the driving, sometimes horizontal, rain. The wind had blown some of the roof away on our barracks so we were huddled up anywhere we could find a dry spot. Someone said, “Look yonder.”

Oh, by the way, we called him “Preacher” because he spent every spare moment reading his Bible or delivering his testimony while he cut our hair or expounded upon our wicked ways. He tended to get on people’s nerves.

Anyway, we looked and saw Preacher Hargraves running full-tilt down the hill, his M-16 slung over his back and his Bible flapping in one hand, all getting soaked. We fully expected to see a full company of NVA regulars descend the hill behind him.

When he reached where we were, he stopped to catch his breath. Our leader, a First-Class Machinist Mate named Webb asked him why he left his post. “You’re supposed to be in Tower One.”

“The storm blew the damned roof off,” Preacher explained in a manner totally inconsistent with his normal comportment.

Tower One got off easy. Tower Two was up the road a piece. We manned it with an M-60 machinegun, but only at night, and not anymore. When we went up after the storm subsided, there was no more Tower Two. It was gone completely and we never found a scrap of it.

We lived on snacks and hoarded gifts from home for three days when downed trees prevented supply trucks from reaching us. I don’t remember how long we wore rain-soaked clothes and boots. Later, we found that the storm had moved the base supports of our rather large elevated water tank a couple of inches. I suppose they rebuilt the towers, but I don’t know. I left the country soon after that.

Since then, as I say, I never wanted any part of a real hurricane and my heart goes out to those who have seen the worst of them.

Here’s an uplifting bit from Ludwig Van. Starting a 22:40, it is a masterful bit of work where, in a few seconds, he takes us from dark and brooding to a magnificent outburst of hope. It’s for our friends in Texas and Florida.

Modern view from near where our compound stood

Growing Up Southern: August 31, 2017

Folks from different places see life differently. Take storms. Inland, they are like redneck sex, over in seconds and “Let’s eat!” That’s assuming the kitchen is still standing. On or near the sea, they are like being forced to ride the entire length of Interstate 40 with Donald Trump talking all the way. It seems the agony will never end.

I’ve been in a few fair blows, nothing labeled a hurricane. One reached the status of “tropical storm,” and if it wasn’t a hurricane, I never want to be in one. And we sailed through a storm at sea in the old USS Hunley, out in what they call “The Bermuda Triangle.” I thought that was kind of neat, for Jimmy Huddleston, Sidney Bussey, Carl Ferguson and I pretty much had the fantail to ourselves before it got too bad. Everyone else was inside hugging a “head” if they could find one vacant. We were eating kipper snacks and channeling old John Paul himself.

The old girl was seaworthy, but she had a pronounced fondness for rolling. Men who had bounced across the Pacific in seagoing tugs or LSTs grew ashen at times when it seemed like she wouldn’t stop on a particularly bad roll. But, she always did. She’d shudder like a drunk with the DTs and start back the other way. Port to starboard. After decks up. Starboard to port. After decks down. Port to starboard. After decks up. Starboard to port. After decks down. Get the picture? Oh, go ahead. I don’t mind waiting.

They finally chased us inboard and closed the decks. It went on like that for two days. Imagine trying to sleep in conditions like that.

Out in the heartland, we deal with tornadoes. They are swift, deadly, and totally capricious. When one hit our community in the 1940s, it obliterated the houses on either side of our store/home. Our only damage, and it was minor, resulted from a large oak tree blown over in the back yard.

A religious person might assign some spiritual hand to all this. From our undamaged grocery store, my father gave away goods to whomever needed it and never asked for payment. Oddly, he didn’t wait for the city to tell him he needed to. He just did it, and bankrupted himself in the process. A headline praising his actions carried the subheading, “George [von Tungeln] said, ‘If you need it come and get it.’” I guess those were different times, sort of the “prosperity gospel” in reverse.

Later, I recall a man relating his story to a group gathered around the old pot-bellied stove my dad had in the store. The man had gotten his family to safety, and returned alone after the storm had passed. His home, barn, and other buildings had completely disappeared. He described walking around where they had once stood and finding the only undamaged thing still standing. It was a large board resting on brick supports, a make-believe cookstove his daughters had set up to “play kitchen.”

The storm had not even disturbed the inverted jar lids the kids had used to make mud pies.

Yes, storms can be capricious. For 32 people in our community, that particular one was also deadly.

Carl Ferguson and and the author.
Shipmates tried and true.