In October, 1955, we moved to a house in Glen View, between Crab Orchard and Glen White. The rent was $35 per month and it included a house, barn, and six acres behind the house. The barn was not visible from the house or main road. When I was ten or eleven years old, I was playing around the old barn with my first cousin Jimmy Cragett. The barn was build next to a hillside and we could easily jump from the hill to the roof. We had played there before, but this day was different. It was also six or eight years before we had seen a Frisbee. We made our own Frisbees with pieces of roofing torn from the barn. We would tear off a piece about a foot in diameter and sail it down over the hill. We completely stripped all the roof off of the barn. That allowed water to drip into the barn and accelerate decay.
I have always liked to sit next to a fire. Since I was five or six years old, I liked to go out in the woods and build a small fire. I was careful to make sure none of the fires got out of control. I also knew enough to burn only dry wood so the fire wouldn’t make much smoke. One summer Saturday, I went into our kitchen to get a glass of water. Mommy glanced at me and asked me what I had in my left front jeans pocket. I was carelessly carrying matches into the house and Mommy picked out the outline of the match box in my pants pocket. I said, “Nothing.” My brain was racing at 90 miles per hour trying to concoct some story that would let me escape the situation without being punished. Mommy was not taken in at all by my lie and she insisted that I empty my pants pocket . Wouldn’t you know it – the last item I pulled out was a box of Copperhead matches which were immediately confiscated. I knew there was going to be a whipping that day and I would be the whippee. Mommy told me that she was not going to whip me. She would wait for Daddy to come home and he would take care of me. I spent the day dreading Daddy’s return.
Daddy got home around 6:00 and he was in a very bad mood. Mommy had fixed supper and she brought it to the dining room table. All five of us sat down and ate supper. My food had no taste because my brain did not have time to listen to my taste buds. My brain was concentrating on the fact that the whipping would soon begin. Daddy finished his supper and left the table. I knew that was Mommy’s cue to tell Daddy that I had been caught with a box of matches in my pants pocket. My sphincter muscles were twitching in the oak chair I was sitting in. To my surprise, Mommy didn’t say a word about matches and me. She quietly started carrying food and dishes into the kitchen. You probably are not surprised that I never asked either parent about this incident. I was thankful Mommy spared me a whipping. She may have thought I had learned my lesson. I did learn my lesson, but not the way she wanted. I learned not to be careless about where I kept my matches. I suspect she knew Daddy was in a foul temper and that he might leave permanent scars on me.
I was walking home one evening after I had delivered my last newspaper. I was walking up the left side of the road up a hill. I was about 300 yards from home on the Crab Orchard side. I was bored and I had been throwing rocks at birds and other targets. I heard a car approaching from behind me. I have no idea why I did it, but I impulsively reached into my pocket, retrieved a marble, and threw it. I hadn’t been able to hit anything else I had thrown at lately. My heart tried to jump out of my body when I saw the marble bounce and hit a blue 1956 Dodge on the right rear fender. The car stopped. The backup lights came on. When he had backed up far enough to talk to me, he asked, “Why did you do that?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
He asked me where I lived and I was smart enough not to give him directions to my house. I told him I lived in a brown house across from Henegar’s Store. I didn’t know who lived there because they were not a paper customer and the house was located across the line into the Glen White School District. The driver told me to get into his car and we would go talk to my Daddy. I declined his invitation. I was not about to get into his car. I made a 90 degree turn and started running down the hill away from the road. I heard the car drive away, but I didn’t go back up to the road in case he turned around and came back. I walked through the woods until I was near the end of our driveway. I went straight into the house and I was a good boy for the remainder of the day. I never did see that car again. I doubt that the marble even left a mark on the car.
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