Memories from a Shoebox

By Bob Fields

Memory is more than a dustbin of time, stuffed with yesterday’s trash. Rather, memory is a glorious grab bag of the past from which one can at leisure pluck bittersweet experiences of times gone by and relive them. (Hal Boyle).
Here are my memories of growing up in a small Northern Maine Town.
Some of the stories have appeared as tales in earlier books or regional publications. Some of my eBook stories are appearing for the first time in print.
I include a few “Culture” stories highlighting the change in social attitudes between then and now.
Most of the stories are firsthand accounts of personal experiences. Others, tales told to me by older boys: Tom Huggard, Kempton Smith, and Billy Putnam. I cannot vouch for their accuracy. Putnam, for instance, swore that a man’s sperm traveled about a woman’s bloodstream delivering instructions to various body parts so she could build a proper egg. He called the phenomenon Spermocity. Tom Huggard swore that a boy who lingers too long in his genital area risked blindness. Kempton Smith advised us that “Girls won’t get pregnant if they jump up and down after having sex.”
So much for sex education in the 1940’s.
Everything else is about Ghosts, my close friends, or me.
As James Wirthlin said, “Some memories are unforgettable, remaining ever vivid.” Maybe he should have added that they are often embellished, to make them more interesting.
These are some of the most vivid recollections from the shoebox of my mind.
Bob Fields. Proud member of The Charles Street Gang.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Fields
• Release date: Feb 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781542365758

Bob Fields

Bob Fields possesses an exceptional talent for translating his broadly based life experiences to the written page. A veteran of two wars (three if you count Wall Street), his hardscrabble early life taught him real life lessons; the application of which propelled his success in a military career and numerous business ventures.After his retirement from business in 1999, he began a career as a Free Lance Writer. His work has been published in regional magazines and company oriented newsletters related to the environment. He has published two print books describing life as a boy in the 1940s, and a highly acclaimed novel; “Rendezvous with Destiny” a well-paced story about discrimination, love, murder, revenge, redemption, and the ultimate understanding between people with disparate backgrounds in small town America.Bob is currently working on several short stories soon to be published as an anthology about Maine as it once was.Like me on Face Book

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PART ONE

THE CULTURE SERIES

Chapter One

Color Blind

In April of 1952, I heard the word nigger.

For the first time.

During my younger years, we had black families in town. I recall a barber, Chet something, and a boot maker, Harry Hill. Maybe there were more. I have been rattling my brain but can't think, for the life of me, if I or any of my friends, ever thought black people to be different. Different color, yes, but not socially, like the caste system in India.

James Hill, Harry Hill's nephew, visited Houlton one summer when I was 13. He hung out with my friends and me. We played pickup baseball, went fishing at Cooks Brook, and showed him our secret swimming hole in Hobo Heaven, down by the fertilizer plant…or was it a starch factory? Anyhow, my point is he was one of the guys.

But then, maybe we did see black people as different. At least the older folks did. Ricker College, a small college in Houlton, sponsored an annual minstrel show, as did the Houlton Grange (an Association of Farmers), and I think the high school did one.

In case you don't know, a minstrel show is a form of entertainment developed in the 19th century consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performed by white people in blackface. Most shows depicted blacks as happy go lucky, not too bright, and very musical.

Popular in the 1800s (Mark Twain wrote about them); these shows began falling out of favor in the late 1950s as the Civil Rights Movement became active.

My first encounter with the word nigger came during my basic training at Sampson Air Force Base in upstate New York. My forty-man trainee group (called a flight), included two Black men, one from Philadelphia, named Charles, the other, named Jared, from New York City. Charles and I bunked next to each other and, because of the closeness and the common interest to get through a demanding basic training program, we bonded. We became friends.

Charles was easy to like. He smiled with his eyes; know what I mean? His grin was so wide; you'd swear he had extra teeth. But, it was the eyes that dragged you to him: his brown eyes, big as a quarter, shined when he smiled like they were programmed to light up whenever the corners of his lips curled up. Which was often. He loved to smile.

Not so with Jarad.

His outlook on life, his natural mistrust of others, was typical of young men born and raised in the South Bronx section of New York City. A short, stocky man, he was always edgy—like he expected trouble. His temperament showed in his face. He had brown eyes like Charles, but his were not bright…they were dark and brooding. Rumor had it that he carried a concealed razor used to cut anyone who dared challenge him.

Charles and Jared argued often. They used cuss words that were new to me, some of them referencing the other’s mother. Towards the end of training, after one of their arguments, Charles told me Jared was a nigger.

I looked puzzled at the comment.

Frowning, he looked at me and said, Bob, I'm a black boy; Jared is a nigger.

I asked him, What's the difference?

Nigger is an offensive term used to describe a lazy, no-good, dishonest black man. That's Jared. I use it as a term of contempt. I work hard, I’m honest, and strive to become a better person. That's the way my momma taught me. That's the difference.

I nodded like I understood. Sorta like men nodded agreement to a wife even when they weren't listening, or, even if they were, they don't know what she said.

After basic training, the Air Force transferred me to Korea, and then, after serving a year at a base near Pusan, my squadron moved to Eglin Field #9, a new air base in the Florida Panhandle, now named Hurlburt Field.

I worked in the Ammunition Storage Facility (descriptively called the Bomb Dump by the 40 airmen who worked there). We worked in 4-man crews stacking bombs, crates of fuses, small arms, and rockets. One of the men on my crew, Jason Baskerville, was a black man from New Hampshire. He reminded me a lot of Harry Hill's nephew, James. Because of that, and his outgoing nature, we became good friends and worked well together. The other guys called us the salt and pepper couple.

Baskerville and I were in one of the Quonset huts doing a weekly inventory of dummy warheads used on the bombs (used for practice) when Corporal Millhouse, our crew chief, told us to check out a Jeep from the motor pool and make a supply run to the Navy base in Pensacola. We were running low on safety clips used on bomb fuses. Fortunately, the supply squadron at the Air Station offered to loan us what we needed.

Baskerville and I jumped at the chance to do something other than spending the day stacking bombs, boxes, and ammo. It was early morning, so we could get to the naval air station and back by quitting time. It was also a chance to take a relaxing 40-mile drive on the road contiguous to the shoreline of the Gulf.

On the road, after about twenty minutes, I spotted a faded green building the size of a large ranch house. Like most older buildings close to the Gulf, it showed its age. Peeling paint exposed weathered boards. It had a rusty tin roof, and the building tilted towards the Gulf. To counterbalance the tilt to the water, the owner propped up the shack with a row of cement blocks.

The shack entrance was a screen door whose chipped and peeling paint accented the run-down theme of the building. Over the door, hand painted sign read, Sam's Diner, Best Brakfast in the South. Two frayed Confederate flags bracketed the sign.

I wondered at the time if people in the South spelled breakfast differently.

Baskerville, riding shotgun, had a copy of the Air Force Times in his lap. He studied the crossword puzzle while tapping his tongue with the tip of a pencil. Apparently, he'd not heard about lead poisoning.

He raised the paper, pointed the pencil at me and asked, What's a makeshift flyswatter? Nine words, last two are e r?

I thought a minute, had no idea of the correct answer, so said, How ’bout ‘cannoneer’? He could shoot it with a 105mm Howitzer. We got those shells at the bomb dump.

You serious, man? What's a cannoneer? Not that it matters, said Baskerville as he looked back at the puzzle. There ain't no n in 17 down—ain’t gonna fit."

I'll explain it later, right now let's pull into this shack disguised as a diner and get a cup of coffee.

Sounds like a plan.

The parking lot in front of the building had a novel mix of older pick-up trucks. All rusty. Some had a 2X10 plank for the front bumper; some had the plank mounted to replace the back bumper; three had no bumper at all. The look reminded me of a used, really used, car lot.

I spotted a ’55 Ford backing up, so held back until his slot next to the entrance was clear. I pulled in beside an older pickup (maybe an International). It was dark gray, had a gun rack with three rifles mounted by the back window, a large, gray squirrel tail festooned on the radio antenna, and in the bed a rusted wheelbarrow, two shovels, a rake, and a mid-sized tool box with the logo CRAFTSMAN on the dented cover. I guessed the guy was a stone mason or worked cement.

The noise from inside the diner indicated it was full—probably working men going through a morning ritual, swapping yarns about the job, the boss, the wife, the neighbors, the good old days, and the government.

One guy, a burly man with a Corona in hand, laughed while pounding the bottle on the table vividly describing the athleticism exhibited by clandestine girlfriends.

Baskerville and I swung the screen door open and stepped inside. It was like we turned down the volume control knob on a radio. The place went silent as a morgue at closing time. The talking stopped; those eating set their forks on a plate; coffee cups went from lips to the table. And the cook stopped in place with a tray of eggs and grits in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

A tall guy in jeans stood at the cash register. He had a patterned shirt opened at the neck, a stained white apron, and a lower lip pushing against his upper lip. He looked determined. Or upset.

I felt Baskerville edge his body behind mine. My mind was shuffling back and forth trying to decide what was happening. This joint didn't look like a private club; all we wanted was a cup of coffee. The tall guy walked right up to me, whipped his apron off, and tossed it on an empty table. Moving towards me, he hitched his jeans up and hooked his thumbs in his belt.

The phrase Fight or Flight came rattling through my mind. It was no longer a slogan from science; it was the real thing.

He glanced at the cowering Baskerville, locked his hateful black eyes on me and said, Git the nigger out of here.

Stunned at the unexpected outburst, I explained we were in the Air Force, just back from Korea, and on our way to the Pensacola Naval Base.

I don't care where you're back from or going to. Niggers don't eat in white folks’ diners. Get out.

Baskerville tugged on my shirt and whispered, Let's get out of here; I want no trouble with these guys.

The flight thing kicked in; we backed out the door and sprinted to the truck. We jumped in and locked the doors. I jammed the transmission in reverse and mashed the accelerator, spinning the truck around. When I dropped it in first and roared out of the parking lot, stones rattled against the shack chipping more loose paint off the front wall. Baskerville, laughing, pulled his cap down over his forehead and looked back to be sure no one followed us as we headed down the last few miles to Pensacola.

Back on the open road, I asked Baskerville, What the hell was that all about?

Welcome to the Deep South, my friend. Folks down here think we belong back in the jungle swinging from trees and doing that grooming thing, checking each other for bugs. We're not allowed in any white establishment—restaurants, movies, churches, or toilets—and we always sit at the back of a bus. We even have separate water fountains. I guess white folks think our lips got infected with Ebola or that African bug that eats your skin. Burulo or Buruli something.

Wow, I heard about discrimination, but had no idea the culture of hate for black folks runs this deep in the South.

You know what plasma is?

Like in blood?

Yup. Know who figured it out?

Figured what?

Don’t know if this story is true but it does fit with the times, and it did happen in the Deep South. A doctor named Drew was a black surgeon who pioneered techniques for preserving blood plasma. Later, he became medical director of Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. In 1950, while driving three other black doctors to a conference in Alabama, Drew fell asleep at the wheel. The car swerved and rolled over, breaking his neck and crushing his chest. According to legend, he desperately needed a blood transfusion, but doctors at a hospital in Burlington, North Carolina, refused to admit him because he was black, and he died.

Can't believe a hospital would turn away a doctor, I said.

Believe it; we’re wearing Air Force uniforms, just returned from defending our country in Korea, and we got turned away from a run-down redneck diner.

During my two-year tour in Florida, my education about the depth and breadth of discrimination in the Deep South continued almost daily.

Florida State University offered college level courses to Air Force personnel at nearby Eglin Air Force Base. I decided to enroll in a political science course. It was 1956—an election year; a good time to learn more about the electoral process. A month or so before the election, a candidate for governor toured the region. His staff scheduled a rally on the steps of the local movie theater. I don’t recall his name, but even after all these years, I still see him clearly in my mind’s eye. He looked like a governor—tall, slim, lips locked in a smile, flowing, white hair combed straight back, and blue eyes that could follow every person in the crowd. His stature and presence were memorable, but it’s his message I recall. I still remember it. Like a video running in my head.

He leaned forward toward the gathered crowd and spoke low, low enough for all to hear, but the resonance in his voice projected caution, wariness, vigilance. He scanned the crowd and said, Last night, as I do every night, I tucked my little girl into bed. I patted her blonde curls, touched her cheek, kissed her forehead, and whispered to my precious little princess, ‘I promise no nigger will ever sit next to you in school.’

A person in the front row of the crowd raised his first and punched the air, shouting, Right on. Governor, protect our little girls.

The crowd picked up the chant and filled the air with, Protect our girls, protect our girls.

The excitement and the chants continued as the speaker worked his way to his waiting car shaking demonstrators’ hands and kissing babies.

The man leading the chant, the one who first shouted, Right on Governor, I recognized as Cooter Douglas, host of a morning radio show broadcast from the small town of Crestview, north of Fort Walton, near the Alabama line. Douglas began his program each morning playing the song Dixie while reporting on how many niggers tried to run off the chain gang working near the prison in Eufaula, Alabama.

I watched the crowds disperse, shook my head, and caught a bus to the base at Eglin. At class that night, I planned to ask the instructor how this rally fit with the science part of political science. That speech sounded like race baiting to me.

***

Charles Dobbins, the visiting professor from Tallahassee, peered at Bob over the granny glasses resting on the tip of his nose, and said, This is a political science class, not social science, Bob. You’re asking the wrong guy. For full disclosure, I am a civil rights activist. My answer may not be objective.

How can you separate the two? Isn’t what you do as a civil rights activist a socially driven political act? What triggered you to become an activist? It seems to me that these are legitimate questions for a political science class.

Continuing to peer, this time with his right eyebrow raised, Dobbins asked, Ever hear of a boy named ‘Emmett Till,' Bob?

Can’t say that I have.

"Emmett Till was an African American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi at age 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman in August of 1955. His crime was saying, ‘good morning,’ while passing her on a sidewalk in town.

That happened last year. And people here still admire that racist jerk Douglas and cheer a candidate for governor who uses the word nigger. Hell, that’s supporting, no, encouraging, lynch mobs.

Ever hear of Rosa Parks, Bob?

Not another lynching, I hope. Nope, never heard of her.

In December of that same year, Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest energized the civil rights battle. She became known as the Mother of the Freedom Movement.

Okay, I get all that, but why? But, how? Chapter 4 of the text for this class describes a 1954 Supreme Court decision stating that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. And, as a result, de jure racial segregation was a violation of the Constitution. So why are politicians and guys like Cooter Douglas still allowed to spread hatred of black people if their actions violate the Constitution?

Faith Meriwether, one of the four non-Air Force students in the class, raised her hand and asked, May I answer that, sir?

Mr. Dobbins removed his glasses, took a white hankie from his breast pocket, wiped the lens of is glasses and nodded, yes.

Faith stood, walked to the front of the room and faced the class. A tall woman in her early thirties, she dressed conservatively in a calf-length, blue skirt and a long sleeve, chiffon blouse with a bow tie collar. Her demeanor said look at me, and when she held her hands to her chest and steepled them, her self-assurance gave her command of the room.

I’m from Charleston, South Carolina, she began. I am quite familiar with the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. I don’t accept it. Nor do many folks born and raised in the South. I don’t cotton, pardon the pun, to the notion that the ‘South will rise again,' but I do believe our heritage is worth more than the empty-headed decision of nine white men in black robes.

My daddy is a cotton farmer and respected member of the Cotton Board in Myrtle Beach. For years, black families have worked our cotton fields as valued workers, not slaves. They are happy folk. Dad cares for them. He provides cabins for them not far from the main house. Every Saturday, Jesse, the hired man, distributes weekly food rations to each cabin. Usually, it includes corn meal, lard, peas, molasses, some meat, greens, and flour. Jesse assigns each of them a patch of land to grow fresh produce. They are happy folk. I know that because they always sing in the fields and outside their cabins in the warm summer evenings. I see no reason for rabble rousers from the North upsetting a perfectly wonderful happy life.

What about movie houses, and water fountains, and restrooms? asked Mr. Dobbins. Why can’t they share those with white folks?

Be reasonable, sir. These people came from darkest Africa. God only knows what diseases and wretched vermin their ancestors brought here and occupied those very cabins I spoke of. Blacks are bred to be immune from these infestations, but not us. Not white folks. Blacks must be kept separate. Especially from our precious children.

***

In his famous speech on the Mall in Washington, D.C., Dr. King said, I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Things are better now, but (there is always a but) our culture has yet to reach the lofty goal of judging people by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.

We have a black president. Two blacks, one a woman and one a man, served recently as secretary of state. Black men and women have ascended the top of the corporate world.

In 2012, Oprah Winfrey transformed the face of the media, changed the scope of daytime talk show TV, and showcased the downtrodden. She has become a beacon of hope for African Americans and women.

In 1980, Ursula Burns was a summer mechanical engineering intern at the Xerox Corporation. In 2009, Burns became its chief executive—making her the first black woman to run a major U.S. corporation.

Rosalind Brewer made history as the chief business leader of Sam's Club, which makes her the first African American and woman to hold the position of CEO at one of Wal-Mart’s business unit.

Merck Chairman and CEO Kenneth Frazier runs a massive operation that grossed $44 billion in 2013. Merck has developed prescription drugs, vaccines, therapies and health products that treat individuals in more than 140 countries.

TIAA-CREF President and CEO Roger W. Ferguson Jr. leads the strategic direction for an enormous financial services complex that provides retirement plans for 15,000 colleges, universities, research centers, and non-profit institutions.

In most of the country, mixed marriages are routine. Respect for Blacks is common in business, the medical profession, the arts, sports, and in schools from kindergarten through college.

But, there is always a but.

In the big cities—the South Side of Chicago, the Bronx in New York, South Los Angeles, and some areas of Detroit—the tension between blacks and whites mirrors the hatred between the two as it did before 1960, perhaps more so.

Sociologists who study such things attribute the cause to poor schools, inadequate job opportunities, and an entrenched dependence on the welfare culture. The upshot is most Whites think the Blacks in these isolated regions are lazy and self-destructive, while most Blacks, encouraged by leaders such as Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan, think Whites are holding them back from opportunities because they are Black.

So, that’s the way it is. What to do?

We can only hope that a day will come when People will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Chapter Two

Girls

I am glad I grew up in an era when girls were girls, and boys were boys, and girls knew they were girls, and boys knew they were boys, and everyone could tell, just by looking, which was which.

Girls were easy to spot. Their hair was long, shiny and perfumed like lavender, or peach blossoms, or the air following a summer rainstorm. There were exceptions. A girl I slow danced with at the dance hall over the First National Grocery Store on Market Square smelled like Noxzema; her face, not her hair. Her hair was blonde, cut into short layers on the sides and back (like a pixie) and smelled like fresh cut hay stacked in windrows. She was from Oakfield.

It was easy to spot girls by the way they dressed. They wore dresses with a slip underneath. For casual dress, like for school or a movie, they selected skirts, blouses, and sweaters. Boys liked them best in sweaters. If they wore jewelry, like a necklace or earrings, it was simple. If they wore earrings, like at a dance, they were small, simple in design, and clipped on the earlobe. They didn't have holes in their ears to hang anything long and fancy. In fact, they had very few man-made holes in their body, like piercings in the nose, lip, tongue or some hidden part.

They didn't have tattoos; at least I never saw one on a girl. In fact, I never saw a tattoo on anyone. I saw pictures of them, but those were always on sailors. Those tattoos were of anchors, with a heart on top of the anchor topped by the words, I love Mother. At ball games or picnics, or playing outside, girls would wear jeans. Usually, they bought them three inches too long so they could roll the bottoms up and make cuffs. Unlike today's fashion, their jeans had no holes, no self-made rips, and their underwear didn't peek through the top or have a rip in the seat.

Which brings me to Playboy magazine, first published in December 1953. It demolished the mystery of females. No longer were their minds and emotions—and especially their bodies—objects of wonder. Hugh Hefner satirized them as naked, mindless twits, yearning to be boy toys.

I liked them better as mysteries.

Like when I took Connie Appleby to the Temple Theater to see a Fred Astaire movie. I can't recall the name of the movie. I think Alice Faye was in it. I think it was The Gay Divorcee. Gay meant happy back then.

I asked Connie if she wanted Coke or root beer (Coke was a drink back then) and her preference for candy. She chose a sarsaparilla and Milk Duds.

I told her I preferred the balcony because I was tall. I didn't want to block the view of someone sitting behind me. She went for it, and we settled down in the back row of the balcony. Two minutes into the movie, I began to ponder the mystery of how she would react to me holding her hand or putting my arm around her.

You must understand that in my day boys were taught that girls did not have the same hormonal triggers as boys. We figured any advance in the physical sense, even touching, was a treat offered only after the third or fourth date. Sort of a reward for good behavior. Church teaching reinforced the notion that even thoughts of physical contact between boy and girl constituted a sin. Most girls were virgins until marriage-or said