The Broiler Pit: Memories of a Misbegotten Childhood

By Clyde B Northrup

A collection of original poems that record memories of growing up in a small town in the northwest--Idaho's only seaport--during the 1960s and 1970s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clyde B Northrup
• Release date: Sep 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476450711

Clyde B Northrup

Who am I?–a question I often ask myself, without ever coming up with a satisfactory answer: am I just a husband, father, professor, scholar, writer, poet, or some combination that changes from moment to moment, depending on the day, and time of day. . . . Nah, not really–but it is an intriguing way to begin–kind of mysterious and tormented, with a hint of instability that promotes empathy in the reader, and lets all of you know that I am a professor of English, down to my bones, and I cannot help but play around with language. My areas of specialty are 19th-20th century British Literature, the novel, Tolkien & fantasy; my dissertation was on Tolkien’s 1939 lecture “On Fairy-stories” in which he created a framework, as I discovered, for the epic fantasy that I used to critique several modern/contemporary works of fantasy, including Tolkien’s. I have taught at the university level for 14 years. My wife, of 30+ years, is an elementary school teacher.As a poet, I am much like Wordsworth, while as a novelist, I am more like his pal Coleridge, both of which illustrate the influence of my education and areas of expertise. My poems are predominantly narrative in nature, reflecting, no doubt, the overwhelming impulse to tell a story, using the compact, compressed form of the poem to narrate significant moments in the daily life of the poet. As a novelist, my biggest influence is Tolkien, flowing out of my study of his ideas for what he called a “fairy-story” for adults, what we term epic fantasy.

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The Broiler Pit:

Memories of a Misbegotten Childhood

By Clyde B. Northrup

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 Clyde B. Northrup.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To Jim H., who, with me, lived through many of the following ‘stories.’

Table of Contents

Broiler Pit

Grandma’s Smoking Lesson

The Day the World Stopped

Mechanical Alligator

Grandpa’s Teeth

Root Beer Floats

The Waterfall

Memory Loss

Mom’s Hysteria

Gypsy Dance

Loss of Innocence

James Bond Moment

The Principal’s Paddle

Dog Food

Dirtpile Daredevil

I Am Charlie Brown

Christmas, ca. 1970

Irrational Fears

Rockhound & the Would-be Archeologist

Speed Junkie

Pap

Rotten Tomatoes

Taste of Stale Beer

Mom’s Dessert

Leaf Fall

Nearly the Death of a Teenager

Accidental Hero

Arc of Silver

The Dangers of Aviation

The Broiler Pit

Down on West Main

north side of the east-bound

lanes there was a

door I never

entered

painted

bright red white

lettering & graphic of horned

pitchfork carrying barbed-

tail devil leading down

to bar & grill named

the Broiler Pit we often

passed

after crossing the Snake River

passing through

downtown to climb 21st St.

to visit Uncle Jerry’s

hayburner

ranch in the Orchards–

I often wonder if the founders of the grill

knew how well they

chose

name & graphic that exactly

described

city & valley home

of their eating & drinking

establishment–elevation of

downtown less than

800 feet above sea level

lowest point

in all of Idaho

putting

basement bar

closer to Hell

than anywhere else in

city county & state

this closeness to

Satan’s Inferno profoundly

influenced

valley weather–phrase

‘hotter than

Hell’ may not

have been coined specifically

about the Pit–as we lovingly

nicknamed valley–but certainly

applied to

summers brutally

hot made worse when two

rivers, at whose

confluence sister cities

sat, became lakes by

another Corps of Engineers

hydroelectric project–Lower

Granite Dam–covering

beaches where we

swam sloughs where we

fished small islands

inhabited by wildlife

cut-off by spring

run-off only accessible as the broiler

dried the Pit where we

hunted

explored

believed

ourselves famous

scouts explorers discovering new

lands like Lewis &

Clark after whom twin

cities were named.

One block east of bedeviled red

door 5th Street

climbed

steeply from downtown

businesses First

Security Bank Rexall

Drugstore Bon

Marché–this block

closed

during rare winter

snowstorms–huge

sandstone retaining walls wide

stairs west leading up to Garden

City Apartments narrow

stairs east up to Pioneer

Park with its fountain that only

operated

summers library gold mine

of knowledge huge

grassy park three

blocks long–our

playground–we

rode

bikes there

collected

aluminum cans there

ate

picnics there

grew up

there. . . .

North edge of park

fronting library

dropped

fifty feet to downtown

nearly a cliff

wrapped around east

then south laced

with trails we

watched

from that edge

fireworks & downtown

fires as businesses

burned–

Payless, Klings, One-

Hour Martinizing–

mysteriously started over

few short years–east

edge narrow cut brush & tree

covered

long