Hank

By Jeff Lyon

Hank Marvin was Jeff Lyon's great uncle and his grandmother Stella's twin brother. Hank and Stella lived in the small town of Willow Springs, Missouri where they were born in a small house across from the Baptist Church Jeff's grandparents attended until they passed.

As a boy growing up in Irving, Texas the tiny hamlet in the Ozarks where Hank lived on a hardscrabble 80-acre spread was fascinating. The holiday visits to Jeff's grandparents' home in "Willa" were fun and festive, but the time spent during the summer when Jeff and his siblings were handed off to his grandparents to give his own parents a break from raising four kids were priceless memories.

Why Hank chose Jeff to accompany him on fishing trips, rock hunts, hunting excursions and daily errands over his siblings was never explained. The two girls and younger brother were usually left to amuse themselves at grandma's, while Jeff joined Hank in what the growing boy considered high adventures.

Hank had been a decorated soldier in WWII, a train-riding hobo during the Great Depression, and entrepreneur on his rocky farm searching for ways to scratch out a living. His hard-earned wisdom and common sense were imparted to Jeff through "stealth advice" embedded in humorous tales about his kinfolk and two sons. Jeff Lyon absorbed much of his laughter-laced storytelling from Hank's tales and "Show-Me-State" relatives.

Hank is a heart-warming and rib-tickling story about the love and hillbilly wisdom shared with his grand nephew. Jeff Lyon passes on the lessons and laughs from a young age until attending Hank and Stella's funerals. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a Hank influencing their lives and a chance to experience the beauty of the Missouri Ozarks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Lyon
• Release date: Nov 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452317472

Jeff Lyon

Jeff Lyon is the son of a truck driver and preacher’s daughter. He grew up in Irving, Texas, earned a Communications BA from the University of North Texas and then went ski bumming in Colorado. Jeff returned to Texas to work for the City of Lewisville before heading to Florida to become a licensed yacht captain. Jeff's next move was Chicago where he spent twelve years teaching sailing and captaining charters on Lake Michigan. During Chicago’s harsh winters he wrote travelogues, books, short stories and screenplays. Jeff returned to Florida to write and captain boats. The next move landed Jeff with his wife Karen in Charlotte, NC. Currently, Jeff and Karen live on Chickamauga Lake in Chattanooga, TN. Jeff's adventurous tales are based on personal escapades and filled with extraordinary characters.

Book preview

Hank

Jeff Lyon

Smashwords Edition December 2009

Copyright 2004 Jeff Lyon

Discover other titles by Jeff Lyon at Smashwords:

Bliss http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/4540

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PREFACE

HANK is not a literal biography chronicling the life and times of Stan Marvin. This book is comprised of my personal cumulative memories about Hank and the times he shared with me. His influence on me as a boy and young man I consider to be positive and worth telling to my readers. I have made no effort to document the exact times, places and events of this tale, but wish only to pass along my experiences and thoughts about a very dear Great Uncle, friend and mentor.

It is my sincere wish that every mother’s son will be so lucky as to encounter a Hank to help them with life’s questions, inject humor into their souls and add meaning to everyday events. This book is my way of saying thanks to a very special man.

CHAPTER 1 - HANK

In my earliest recollections of Hank, he was an older man. He had short-cropped grey hair with a very large nose and a fondness for overalls and sturdy shoes. Hank was my Grandmother’s twin brother. He lived just outside the same small town of Willow Springs, Missouri, where they were born. Hank was deaf in one ear and highly opinionated. To a small boy he was bigger and louder than life.

Our family of six made all the usual visits from Irving, Texas, where I grew up to see my father’s parents on holidays and special occasions, but it was the two-week stays during our summer breaks from school that the bond between Hank and me grew strongest. My parents would meet Grandpa and Grandma at a resort in Arkansas and pass off their four kids for a much-needed break from child rearing. Two weeks later, they would deliver us back to mom and dad and it would be my Grandparent’s turn for a break from dealing with four kids.

Hank drove an old Ford pickup that like me was born in the late 1950s. It was sort of a cross between drab green and a weathered gun barrel blue color. The original wooden bed was long gone, and a thick sheet of steel had been welded in its place. The truck’s cab leaked when it rained, and the vacuum operated windshield wipers labored to make slow sweeps across the glass. Hank seldom traveled fast enough to worry about not being able to see well on rainy days.

Hank’s old Ford had a granny-gear in its manual transmission that was perfect for creeping up the rocky hills and down the hollers of the Ozarks. It was also ideal for hauling firewood or transporting a canoe to and from the pristine local creeks. Inside the drafty truck was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. That Ford looked as if it had escaped from a wrecking yard, but Hank was still driving it when his time came.

Hank never graduated from high school, but was a voracious reader and frequented the local library for books. Hank was sent to Europe during World War II, but never talked about the war to me. I took that as a sign not to ask. Unconsciously I absorbed more life lessons and had my opinions shaped further by Hank’s stories and ideals than I realized. Hank was a good man and the only time he ever disappointed me was when he died of old age.

I have always harbored a love for writing, but until this book have never really pursued the formal forms of the art. However, I have always been fond of penning letters. Anyone that took the time to write a letter to me always got an answer. At some time during my high school years, Hank and I began to trade letters on a regular basis. Eventually it evolved into a weekly exchange of missives.

When he wasn’t busy sending letters to the editor of the local newspaper with directions for correcting whatever wrong he envisioned at the moment, Hank found time to write to me. Hundreds of Hank’s letters arrived in my mail over the years. It did not dawn on me until my 30s that Hank would not be around forever. I began to save his letters, but regret the loss of every note that I threw away.

CHAPTER 2 - GRANDMA AND GRANDPA’S HOUSE

My Grandma and Grandpa, Stella and Ross Lyon, lived in a two-story house with a full basement a short walk from the Five and Dime store on the main drag through Willow Springs, Missouri. The town had one traffic light, which blinked red on the through route and yellow toward the side streets. We had to cross a small creek and then the railroad tracks to reach the tiny downtown area, which took only minutes by car or on foot.

Grandma’s basement was a wonder to me as houses in Texas rarely had them. It was dark and cool and smelled damp down there. Shelves from the floor to the ceiling were lined with canned pickles, blackberry preserves, strawberry preserves, peach preserves and assorted vegetables put up by my Grandma. I could never figure out why they called it canning when everything was in Mason jars. I managed to live many of my childhood years having never tasted store-bought jams or jellies. Grandma always sent us home with cases of the stuff and brought more when she visited Texas, which was seldom.

Grandma did laundry down in the basement in a group of galvanized tubs. One contained an agitator with soapy water and clothes were run through a hand-cranked wringer from it to a rinse tub. The wringer was then swung around and the clothes got another mashing before falling into a second tub full of rinse water. A final squeeze and they were ready for drying. It was a labor-intensive process and took most of the morning to complete. I could sit on the steep wooden steps that led from the kitchen above and watch her go through the familiar motions for hours.

Everything went outside on the lines in the back yard to dry, and Grandma’s wash always smelled fresh and sunny. I was too short to hang stuff, but handed many wooden clothes pins up to her before I reached an age were the laundry no longer interested me.

My Grandpa was the head of Missouri State Highway and Road Maintenance for all of Howell County. He drove home each day in a black and white State Highway car and I was sure he was some sort of trooper. He took me to check on a load of road tar that was being transferred from a railroad tanker to a storage tank at his maintenance yard one evening, and I got to see some of what Grandpa really did.

Grandpa introduced me to some of the men that worked for him. It was easy to see that he was highly respected and well liked. Grandpa never said a whole lot, but when he spoke his men listened and did what he told them to do.

Taking care of all those roads didn’t leave Grandpa with a heck-of-a lot of time to fool with me, but I was always happy to see him pull up in his black and white cruiser around dinner time each evening. He taught me how to run his riding mower and split wood with a wedge and maul. If I was lucky we would burn trash in a barrel out back, and he’d go on about the cans that had been accidentally thrown in the refuse as he picked them out of the ashes.

Never one for any big displays of emotion, I don’t recall ever hearing my Grandpa shout or witnessing him break anything in a rage. At the peak of his anger, when my Grandma had provoked or upset him, he would say firmly, Well poop, Stell! My wife and I now use this phrase to ease tension in less than desirable situations.

I remember an unusually large number of rabbits stealing vegetables from Grandpa’s and the neighbor’s huge gardens one summer. Grandpa agreed to help me build a rabbit trap to deter their thievery. It was our first and last project together. I don’t think Grandpa had a lot of patience with city boys who didn’t know much about using saws and hammers.

The trap was just an oblong box with a sliding door on one end. A hole was drilled in the top of the other end and a notched stick stuck through it to the inside. An external cross stick was used to make the connection between the trigger and the raised door. When a bunny entered the box to get at bait placed at the far end, it would jostle the notched trigger stick and release the door to slam shut.

I still think it was because Grandpa was left handed that I could not follow his instructions; but after many crookedly sawed boards and bent nails, he finally finished work on the rabbit trap for me. It was not pretty, but it worked.

I set the trap at the back of Grandpa’s large lot and could see it each morning from the upstairs window of his house. After two days the trigger was sprung and I raced out to claim my furry prize. I snatched up my trap, slid the door open and peered inside. Snarling back at me was a face full of flashing teeth. The thing I’d captured was hissing and spitting in frothing anger and disgust. I slammed the trap’s door closed, threw it on the ground and ran toward the safety of Grandma’s kitchen. I don’t know if anyone witnessed this display of cowardice, but it was a beauty.

About that time Grandpa stepped out the back door. He was headed for work. He had no problem discerning the fear in my eyes.

Grandpa said, Boy, what’s wrong with you?

My stammering reply was, Grandpa, I caught some kind of monster in my rabbit trap and I’m afraid to go back and get it!

Calmly he took my hand and said, Well, let’s me and you just go see what’s in there.

Grandpa was fearless as he strode purposely toward my trap, which contained an awful beast and was rocking back and forth on its own as we approached it. He gave me a knowing look and some good advice. Jeff, turn your trap upright facing away from you, slide the door open and back away as fast as you can.

I knew there was evil in there and protested, But, Grandpa, what if that thing gets me?

Grandpa grinned and said, Well now, we just won’t let that happen.

I yanked up the trap’s door and stumbled backward. As I fell on my rear the mangiest looking rat thing I had ever seen bolted out and made a break for the brush along the fencerow.

What the heck was that? I asked.

Laughingly Grandpa replied, Jeff that was one ill tempered possum. I don’t think he cared much for your trap. Just because you build a trap for rabbits don’t mean they’re the only critter looking for a free hand out.

I swear the old man had some extra spring in his step to go with the broad smile on his face as he turned to leave. I could