Saturday, February 25, 2012

Remembering The Great Steam Locomotives

Those who never had the opportunity for a romantic affair with the great steam locomotives have missed an emotional experience that is forever lost, for it cannot be produced by anything else, natural or manmade.  The great trains were an integral part of the lives of all country people, especially those who lived near a railroad, and the folklore associated with the trains filtered down even to the most remote hamlet.

During 1943 my family lived on Effie Barfield's sharecropper place, about three miles west of Chipley.  Our house was situated by the L & N railroad track that ran from Jacksonville westward toward New Orleans, and the front porch faced the railroad.  To give an idea of how close we were to the tracks, the fence of our front yard was also the railroad right-of-way fence. This was still in the time of the great steam locomotives, and when one roared by the whole house would shake.

The train whistles in those days sounded every bit as romantic as they are made out to be  in books and movies.  Many were the times late in the night that I heard the sound of one coming from way off, and would get up and go out and set on the porch until it came by.  Every engineer had his own peculiar way of blowing the whistle, and although you never knew the name of a particular engineer, you remembered him the next time he came through by the way that he worked the whistle, sort of like he was talking to his sweetheart.

You would first pick him up over around Caryville, about twenty miles west of Chipley, as he came on with a low, mournful whistle that would build up a little and then fade out gradually.  Then he would start again, and build it up a little more quickly and hold it for a moment, then give it a little boost and let it fade out quickly.  With two or three of these he had cleared Bonifay and was headed for Chipley, and by that time you could hear the engine itself, Cha cha cha cha, Cha cha cha cha, so fast that only the general rythym would register.  Withinn another three minutes he was roaring by the house, and the racing beat of the cars' wheels hitting the joints in the tracks told you that he was moving on.  That sound would last for about thirty seconds or so, until the caboose went by, then fade out rapidly.  In another minute or so you could tell by his whistle that he had cleared Chipley and was headed for Cottondale and Marianna.

I never missed a daytime train that went by while I was around the house, and always waved at the engineer.  Many did not seem to  notice, but one day an engineer tossed out a large can of sauerkraut as he whizzed by, and motioned for me to go and get it.  After that,  about once a month,  another  can of sauerkraut would  be tossed out.

Once, several years later, after we had been round and about and had finally moved back to Chipley, I was walking one day down the railroad track, on past the Effie Barfield place, to the Green Lantern which was about a quarter of a mile on down the track.  The Green Lantern was a juke joint, but they had a big swimming pool in the back.  You could swim in the pool all day for a quarter, so I would go there whenever I could get hold of a quarter.

On this particular day I had got to a point at about the middle of the trestle over a small branch when all of a sudden I heard a train whistle, and looked up to see the train coming around a curve from the direction of Bonifay.  It was barreling down the track at great speed, and I saw immediately that I could not make it to either end of the trestle before the train got there.  So I swung off over the side and hung by my hands from a cross tie while it roared by.

If the fireman had picked that moment to dump the coals from the fire box I would have been in big trouble.  As it was, I escaped with nothing damaged but my dignity, and was greatly relieved at not having to change my pants.

Monday, February 20, 2012

A Radio and A War Slogan

In the summer of 1941 I was seven years old. Our family still lived in the little house in the edge of the cemetery, a mile or so northwest of downtown Chipley. One Saturday morning my stepfather Holly went downtown and came back with a radio - a battery-powered table model. The battery was almost as big as the radio. We had to have the battery because our house had no electricity.

For good radio reception we needed a long wire antenna, mounted outside as high as possible, and with a lead-in to the radio. A few hundred feet behind our house was a good stand of pine "saplings". Holly selected two of the tallest, trimmed the limbs off, and pulled them up to the yard. He and Mama then spent the better part of the afternoon attaching the antenna and setting the poles in the ground.

That night we listened to the Grand Ole Opry, the first time that I ever heard it. I was fascinated with the radio, and kept trying to figure out how it came with the Grand Ole Opry station already on it.

A few months later, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I recall President Roosevelt's radio address to the nation the next day, in which he referred to the "day of infamy" and asked Congress to declare that since the attack "a state of war has existed between the United States and the imperial government of Japan." At the end of the President's speech Holly stood up and said, very solemnly, "This is going to be a long war."

Later on, in the spring of 1943, we moved to a place two or three miles west of Chipley and across the railroad from US Highway 90. By then the country was well into World War II. Mama would occasionally send me over to a little store on the highway, about a half mile back toward town. Along the way I would usually find several little empty candy boxes that had been tossed out on the edge of the road. On the back of these little boxes was a picture of General MacArthur. Under his picture was the slogan, "REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR!"

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Good Times On Saturday Night

Good Times On Saturday Night

In my last post I introduced the T. L. Wells & Bros. Store, with a sample of the goings on in the front, or ‘dry goods’ part of the store.

The back section of the store was where they sold groceries. It was the part of the store that I liked best.

It was about half the size of the front section, but was packed with a full line of groceries and meats, and other various and sundry items. High up in one corner was a little "office" which Lee and Les took turns occupying, alternately napping and presiding over accounts.

The back door opened to an alley. Thus one could sneak in, pick up his groceries, and sneak out, without having to tromp through the front part of the store where all those clothes fittings were in progress.

There was a pass-through door on each side of the wall that divided the grocery section from the dry goods section up front. Along this wall, and the side and back walls, were endless rows of shelves stocked with canned goods and other grocery staples.

Three or four feet out from the south wall was a refrigerated showcase containing the meats and other foods that required cool temperatures. The frozen foods that are common today had not yet been developed.

In between the meat showcase and the back wall was a glass showcase containing candies, patent medicines, Bull O' The Woods chewing tobacco, Prince Albert and George Washington smoking tobacco and OCB cigarette leaves, Railroad, Dental and Navy snuff, sewing machine thread and other assorted products. This was all on one side of the aisle leading to the back door which opened to the alley.

On the other side was a row of straight back chairs, some with wooden slat seats, some with cowhide seats, the lot being in various states of condition, but all serviceable. These were provided for "guests". Between these chairs and the little stair that led up to the "office" was a catch-all stack of odds and ends: Work gloves, mouse traps, display samples of the latest styles in work shoes and boots, Duck Head overalls and jumpers, work caps, straw hats, and so on.

This part of the store had a sawdust floor. A little out in front of the meats showcase stood an old heater made from a large oil drum. Wood for the heater was stacked just outside the back door under a small lean-to shelter.

Back next to the meat showcase, on one side of the stove, was a large barrel containing salt-cured mullet. On the other side of the stove stood a large barrel containing sorghum mollasses.

Directly on either side of the oil drum stove sat two old swivel office chairs, circa 1890, one for Lee and one for Les. No one else sat in these chairs, for it was from these that Lee and Les held court. The guest chairs were across the aisle.

Some of my fondest memories are of the Saturday nights that my stepfather Holly and I spent down at the store, for the goings-on during those occasions turned out to be the earliest lessons in my practical education.

On Saturday nights the store remained open until ten or eleven o'clock, and sometimes until midnight. This was because many of the regular customers were of the laborer class who were paid at the end of the work week which usually ended at noon on Saturday. By the time these people got home and attended to odds and ends, it would be evening, sometimes eight or nine o'clock, before they could get downtown to shop for groceries and other items.

In the winter of 1941-42 Holly would often go down to the store on Saturday nights, and would usually take me with him. We would go down around seven o’ clock, whip down the alley, and enter through the back door. Holly always carried a small grocery order which he gave to Otis Hinson to fill. Otis would gather all the items, mark them to Holly's account, and put them in a little box which was stashed away until we were ready to leave.

Holly would assume his customary Saturday-night position in one of the "guest" chairs, and presently would make, in the manner of a casual observation, some remark calculated to elicit an extended response from Lee Wells, it being Holly's intent to wait until Lee's remarks reached the level of commentary so that he could join in with pronouncements of equal philosophical import.

Presently Lee's response would be forthcoming, punctuated as usual by his greetings to customers, with each return to the subject reflecting a heightened purpose in the matter.

And so it would continue until the situation developed into a full-blown dialogue between Lee and Holly, though occasionally a gracious recognition would be accorded some third party whose interest had been whetted to the point that he could wait no longer to express his own opinion.

Throughout it all, though, Lee was the senior statesman, and the course of the discussion was generally cued by some pivotal remark that he would make now and then, or perhaps even by the inflection of his voice.

In due time all relevant issues would be examined, and errant schools of thought held by those not present modified to reflect the proper perspective on the matter.

All this time I would be seated in some comfortable niche amongst the boxes in the catch-all stack of odds and ends located between the "guest" chairs and the little stair that led up to the "office". I could have occupied one of the guest chairs with as much welcome as anyone else, but I had decided early on that my best chance of hearing everything in the original lay in remaining as inconspicuous as possible.

The discussion of politics among a group of knowledgeable, cigar-smoking adults held a peculiar fascination for me, and the stage set in the Wells Bros. store, with the oil drum stove and sawdust floor, not to mention the personalities themselves, added a flavor that was priceless.

It was not uncommon for a discussion to digress all the way back to the Civil War, and if one gave a little rein to his imagination he might easily experience a brief communion with General Lee.

Eventually, the parade of customers would taper off, the discussion would begin to flicker for lack of additional fuel, and Lee's nod to Otis to begin covering the counters would signal the end of the evening's festivities.

Holly would take our little box of groceries under his arm, I would carefully extricate myself from my hiding place, and we would set out on the three-quarter hour journey home. Along the way I would usually pose several questions to Holly about points of the discussion that I had failed to grasp. He would patiently address every question, then endeavor to steer the conversation in a direction such as to satisfy himself that I had come to a reasonable understanding of matters.


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