Cry Wolf

When he was about six or seven years old his mom dressed all of the males in the family in white suits, white shoes and white hats for Easter Sunday.  She dressed all the females in yellow dresses, etc.  She told Chuck to wait on the front porch with his daddy till it was time to leave for church, and told him he had better not get dirty!

He went out to the porch and just stood around, with his hands in his pockets, kicking one of the support posts that held up the roof of the porch.  His daddy said, “What’s the matter with you Chalie?”  He told his dad, “I’m mad as hell.”  Papa asked, “Whatcha mad about?”  Chuck replied, “Mama’s trying to make a damn preacher out’a’ me Papa and I don‘t like it.”  

At that time Chuck had never seen any man dressed in a white suit except a preacher. Needless to say he got his backside warmed before they left the house for church.

Chuck loved to play marbles.  He got so good at it after a year or so none of the boys in grammar school would play with him.  He’d have to play with high school boys, and some of them wouldn't play 
with him either.  He had a favorite marble he called a taw, or toy. 

Shooting Marbles

Back in those days they shot the marbles with their thumb.  They would draw a big ring on the ground and the ones you could shoot, and knock outside the ring would then belong to you.  He had a tremendous collection of marbles.  After all these years, occasionally when someone is raking leaves, another marble will turn up.

Old Roller Sjates

And another thing he loved to do was roller skate.  He was very good at it!  He was limber and agile, and very coordinated.  He practiced a lot on a concrete pad down by the Depot.

Chuck would sometimes yell, and holler and carry on like he was hurt badly, and his Mama would drop whatever she was doing and come running to see about him and he would just double over laughing. 

She scolded him time and again and told him to stop doing that!  It didn’t do any good.  She said “Son sometime you might be like the little boy who cried wolf, you might really be hurt and I won’t come because I think you are pulling a prank on me again.”

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And sure enough one day he was building a kite and cut his finger pretty bad.  He started yelling and carrying on calling “Mama come quick I’m cut bad.”  But she didn't come. 

He finally figured out she wasn’t coming and he went over to the big water pitcher they kept out by the well filled with the water for the dogs and other animals to drink out of outside.  He dipped his finger in the water trying to get it to stop bleeding and the water turned red.

Papa came home and found him out there and with the water all red.  He yelled for mama and raised hell at her about letting his child bleed to death.  He soon found out about Chuck’s crying wolf. 

He told Chuck if he hadn’t learned his lesson, then he would most definitely get his backside warmed if he played any more tricks on his mama that way.

Chuck’s childhood was not all fun and games.  He did have chores and was responsible to do them.  His dad bought biddies and one of Chuck’s chores was to feed, water and take care of them till they were big enough to sell at the market. 

Turkeys

Same with turkeys, the turkey pen was across the road from the house.  Chuck took care of them too till they were big enough for the market.  He grew to hate the turkeys.

He used to tell me how dumb turkeys are.  He said “When it started to rain I would have to drive them all back into the pen and shut them up.”  I asked “why”? 

Even though I grew up on a farm, and we had chickens and other farm animals, we’d never had turkeys, and I knew nothing about them.  He said, “If I didn't  they would stand out there in the rain looking up and drown, they just didn't have sense enough to get in outta  the rain.”

Everything was scarce and in short supply in those days.  You had to learn to live off the land and become self sufficient to survive.  Life was a little better for his family than most only because his daddy did have a job with a steady paycheck. 

But very often when you had managed to put back a little spare change, there was nothing to buy.  On the tail end of the “Great Depression” came World War II.  It was still hard times all through the war years!  Everything was rationed. Each family got stamps and if you ran out you did without!

When Chuck was around ten years old he had already been taught how to shoot a gun.  The one he liked to use for hunting squirrels and rabbits with was a 22 rifle. 

Western Field 22 Rifle

One day while he was hunting the firing pin broke in two pieces.  He had to stop hunting for the day.  When his Papa came home he sat Chuck down with a piece of metal the right thickness.  

If I’m not mistaken it was a piece of a broken saw blade.  Very little was thrown away, everyone hoarded things.  It was saved for when it might be needed, either to be fixed or used for parts in some way. He told him to take out the broken pieces of the firing pin lay them on the metal and draw himself a pattern.

He gave him a file and told him to make a new firing pin and put it back in the rifle.  My son has that 22 rifle now and the same firing pin his daddy filed out and put back in the rifle is still in it.

To be continued