Living with Spirits Good and Bad: The Life of Robert D. Mcphee

By Robert D. McPhee

This book covers various parts of my life from the time I was seventeen years old. On my eighteenth birthday I left home hitch hiking 300 miles to my aunt`s house where I had a cousin being married. My uncle was a German immigrant and I lived with them for a time. He taught me that if I took any job and tried to do it better than anyone else did that the employer would find something better for me. This proved out to be true as I started at the bottom of a Bakery company and in nine years I became the manager of that company. In the early days of that employment I learned a lot about salesmanship and became a leader

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449702700

Robert D. McPhee

As the author of this book I have lived a much diversified life. I have had a career in Tool Making, Bakery management, Bakery marketing consultant, TV store owner operator, Sales manager for others and thirty years in the hearing aid business. Have change residence twenty two times.

Book preview

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

INTRODUCTION

After living an active life in several different locations for sixty years, Robert McPhee found himself in a small, rented brick house near the end of a two-mile blacktopped road in Conover North Carolina. He had recently moved into the house with his ailing wife; he was hundreds of miles from family members, and had become unemployed. He applied for unemployment and would walk two miles daily to the nearest store to purchase a newspaper, searching for employment. There were very few houses along the road, and all were on one side. The other side of the road was woods. Those walks were good exercise and gave Bob plenty of time to reflect on his life up to that point. At times, he decided to do the walking through the woods, where the only sounds were from the small animals and the rustling of the brown and yellow leaves in the breeze. It was in this setting that he began to think about life in general and wondered what our purpose in life was all about. He came to the conclusion that there was bound to be more to understand about life than what he had experienced. After much meditation, he decided to pray and give himself to God for his services. He also made a vow that the next time they moved, he would, if at all possible, attend church every Sunday.

Bob decided to search for reasons for life. He started his search in church and the study of the Bible. After a short time of study, he became more of a believer but was not satisfied. He wanted to make contact with God. After many prayers and much meditation over a period of time, there came in view a light. The more he strained to see God, the larger the light became. The light was like a small semicircle, and as time went on, this semicircle grew, until one day it completed the circle. With this, it looked like a human eye. The outer circle was yellow like the white of an eye, and the center like the pupil, but it was colorless and seemed to have no bottom to it. This process took quite a period of time and seemed like a training process with the completion of the circle a climax.

In Bob’s effort to see God, he concluded that what he saw was embedded in his mind and is all anyone will ever see of God. A short time after this, a chill came over Bob, and he seemed to be set free of everything; anything of material matter was no longer important to him.

Bob has come to the conclusion that people talk to God with their conscious mind, and God talks to people by leaving thoughts in their subconscious mind. The thoughts come to people, and many times they do not realize that thought may have been placed there by the Holy Spirit, and do not realize where it really came from. In asking God for guidance for everything he does, Bob knows where the thoughts come from and is very grateful for them.

1

CHAPTER ONE

My life began on June the fifth in the year 1921. I was born in living quarters above my grandfather’s general store in Alanson, Michigan, a little town about twelve miles north of Petoskey, the largest city in that part of the state. The territory is in Emmett County and is called the tip of the mitten of Michigan. In the 1920s, the town was only a few years old, and my great-grandfather was one of the homesteaders. The county is heavily wooded with evergreen trees, and Alanson sits in a little valley with a river running through on the eastern edge. From the river to the main road—about two city blocks—was the main street.

As Main Street crossed the main road, there were railroad tracks and a depot. Beside the depot was a large wooden corral used to load and unload livestock for the train. A little further was a rather high hill that had a road about halfway up. A set of steps was installed going up to this level, and there existed a yellow house where Doctor Gillette lived and had his practice. He was a typical old-time doctor who made house calls. All babies were born at home at that time. About two blocks from the doctor’s house on top of the hill stood a two-story white wooden schoolhouse. As the next nearest school was ten miles away, many students traveled five miles to school. This school had twelve grades, and the ninth grade usually had twenty-some students. However, by the time graduation came, only half that many remained. Behind the school, land was cleared for a baseball field, and the rest was forest, with McPhee Creek running nearby. The general area had several inland lakes, and one named Burt Lake was the second largest in the state. The river going through town ran into this lake five miles downstream. The river started upstream a couple of miles as the outlet from Crooked Lake. The terrain was natural for building a resort for the summer trade.

With all of this lumber available and the river to float the logs, it made it a good location for factories that made wooden products. One factory made broom handles, and another made butter bowls. All transportation was by horse and wagon, and a little later by railroad. The climate in this area was mild in the summer, and many folks from the southern part of the state traveled north to escape the heat. In the winter, however, the weather was severe at times, with temperatures well below zero.

The area’s western border was Lake Michigan. The roads were unpaved, and when the first autos came out, the main roads from southern Michigan to this area were, at best, gravel. I was told that my great-grandfather sometimes walked twenty miles to get supplies in the wintertime. He had homesteaded two eighty-acre sections and raised sheep, done some farming, and was also a carpenter. He had come here in the middle 1800s from Canada. His father was an immigrant from Scotland. One of the eighty-acre farms he homesteaded was north of town on high ground. There was a good section of springs there that emptied into a creek that wound around and came through the town and emptied into the river. The river was very crooked, and so named. The creek was sometimes called Crooked Creek, but the legal name for it was McPhee Creek, and so it was named on maps.

As I entered this world, my grandfather ran the general store and owned the big house on the main corner of town, where he rented rooms to tourists who came by railroad. My grandmother was very good at taking care of the tourists. Grandfather had a barn behind the store, where he kept a team of horses that he used for transportation to check on his farms. The farm south of town was on level ground and good for raising sheep. The farmers all worked together to help when needed. In the spring, there would be a group to drive a herd of lambs from the farm to the corral at the railroad station, where they were loaded for the market. They also helped with the shearing once a year for the batch of wool.

The railroad was the life of the town. Folks waited for the train because the mail came that way. A man with a horse and wagon would get mailbags from the train and deliver them to the post office.

My father and mother moved to southern Michigan to seek employment shortly after getting married and it was not very long after that before they had a son named Donald Edward. Sometime during the gestation of this child, my mother developed what was then called milk leg. She became very sick, so my father moved back to Alanson and took up residence in the living quarters above my grandfather’s general store. They were living there when, on the fifth of June 1921, another son was born, named Robert Dale. The birth took place in the bedroom, and the local doctor attended the event. This was my beginning, and I think I may have been a bit of a disappointment, as I think they would rather have had a daughter at that time.

I was about two years old when my folks moved to southern Michigan. They took up residence in the small town of Valley Farms, a suburb of Lansing. The house they rented was small, with a shed in the back yard where my father raised rabbits. Next to the house was a vacant lot with a large rock close to our house. My mother liked to take pictures of children on that rock. The field next to the house had a fence that went along the back lot line, where some bees had a nest. One day, I went there with another boy and decided to secure some honey. We got some matches and attempted to burn the bees out of their nest. We managed to get the bees removed, but in the process, the fire got out of hand, and the whole neighborhood was there, trying to put the fire out. I am sure I received punishment for this misdeed, but I don’t remember what it was.

My father went to work for the Standard Oil Company, and we moved into a large house with bedrooms upstairs. At times, I would be left alone with a babysitter, who delighted in scaring me. I do believe this had a considerable effect on my behavior, because for quite some time after, I became frightened easily and often.

In the second grade, there was another boy who delighted in making my life miserable. He kept taunting me, but I was reluctant to fight—mostly because of fear. One day, I made up my mind that I was going to fight with him and beat him, regardless of how much I got hurt. That was the first fight I ever was in and we both would up with bruises. After that, he never bothered me again. The same year, I was in a school play and played the part of George Washington. My mother made the outfit for me to wear, but I was not happy in being dressed up and acting in front of a group of people.

The city airport was a couple of miles from our house, and I became very interested in flying. I made scrapbooks of pictures of planes and people flying at that time, and models out of scrap pieces of wood. This was at the time Charles Lindbergh made his flight to Paris. Will Rogers and Wiley Post were flying together at that time, until they crashed in Alaska.

The economy of the nation was in poor condition, and when banks closed causing the Great Depression, my father—being out of work—moved his family back to Alanson and took up residence in the same living quarters where I was born.

My father then converted part of my grandfather’s house on the main corner into a service station and grocery store. Our living area had a nice upper-level sun porch that ran parallel to the main street, which made it a good place to sit and watch the activities of the town. The post office was across the street, along with a drug store, a clothing store, and a silent movie theater. In the other direction was the fire station, with its large siren on the roof. When the siren was sounded, it gave off a chilling sound that would scare the life out of a person. The fire department engine was mounted on wagon wheels, and would have to be pushed or pulled down to the river for the supply of water. There was a limited amount of water in the basement of the fire station. In our apartment, we had water in the kitchen but no other modern facilities. In the back part of the building was a woodshed, and in the corner was the only indoor/outdoor toilet I ever saw. A standard fixture was either a Sears or Ward’s catalog.

My father was busy long hours in the store and station, and my mother kept busy sewing for others, so I was unsupervised. I spent my time around the river and learned to swim in cold water where the creek emptied into the river. That area was like a beach, as sand would wash down the creek and deposit in the river. I had a fishing pole and caught a few fish at times.

I went to the horse dealer’s place to watch the horses, and I played up in the haystack in a large two-story barn. One day, while I was at the top, I fell one story, caught my chin on a rafter, and then fell to the ground. I was knocked out and was later seen by my father as I was on my way home crying. He asked me what happened. I did not know, but my chin was skinned up; I realized later what had happened.

My grandfather’s general store was typical old western store. You could buy all kinds of garden tools, hardware, and groceries. There were few canned foods but several items in boxes, packages, and jars. Cookies were available in bulk and bought by the pound. There was no refrigeration in those days, but many folks had an icebox, and the iceman would make deliveries on a regular basis. The ice was cut from the lakes in the winter and stored in sawdust in barns until needed. Milk, butter, and eggs were brought by a deliveryman.

One day, our living quarters caught fire from some wires shorting out in the attic. The whistle blew, and folks came running from all over. By the time they had the fire hoses out and the engine running—even with a water supply in the basement of the fire station—there was so much damage that we were forced to move.

We moved into a little house a mile from town, and I had to walk to and from school daily. A year or so later, we moved back into town, to a house made over from one of my grandfather’s barns. It was constructed to have four bedrooms on the upper level, but two were never finished, so the unfinished ones became storage area. The bedroom on the main level was for my parents. The house had been built on posts but later was excavated and a full-sized basement was constructed. In the basement, we had fifty-gallon drums made into a heating unit, and we burned wood or coal, whichever was the most economical.

Times were hard, but the country was getting back to normal because of many programs for construction projects by the government, like the WPA. As I entered the ninth grade, the school had just completed a gymnasium beneath part of the schoolhouse, and the school hired a band teacher for the first time. During the forming of the band, my folks bought my brother a trombone. I wound up with an old, beat-up alto horn. I was not happy with this horn, but I stuck with it and learned to play it well.

The following year, the York upright baritone was available and was given to me. That one I liked and carried home most of the time to practice. I liked it because it was the counter melody in all marches. One year, at a state band festival, the judges rated our band well but said we needed a little better instrumentation and the outstanding characteristic of the band was the baritone player. The superintendent of our school spoke up and asked if my hat still fit. I never felt anything from that kind of praise. I just was doing what I enjoyed doing.

During the last two years of high school, we lost only one baseball game; however, we won only one basketball game. We played only schools that were much larger than ours. Our English teacher led me into several events like the lead in the junior and senior plays. She had me play my horn for different groups. She also had me sing the lead in a musical score, and I sang a song taken from the Bible at the baccalaureate services during graduation. The song was taken from the book of Luke, chapter eighteen, starting with verse ten. Its basic message was for God to be merciful unto me, a sinner. Never at any time did I ever feel like I had done anything special.

One time, an Indian friend was teaching me how to tap dance. This was in the school building, and I was going from room to room. It so happened that my shoes were made with rubber souls, and as I kicked my toes forward, they left black marks that I never saw. The superintendent checked and found the same marks under my desk, and I was called into his office. This crime made me subject to punishment. He asked me if I wanted the hose or the board. I decided on the board and took the beating of my life. I never told a soul about that incident. I thought that if he made me clean up the marks, that should have been sufficient. He even insulted me for wearing cheap shoes.

I had one brother five years younger than I and frequently protected him from my older brother, who was mean. One night, as my father came home from work, I was attacking my older brother, trying to get him to leave our younger brother alone. My father was enraged, and my mother came in and said it was my fault. My dad grabbed me by the front of my shirt, lifted me in the air, and slammed me down on the bed. The bedroom was just off from the living room. He was straddling me with his fist pulled back and said, For two cents I would smack you.

I smiled and said, Look, if you do not want me, I will leave. As he let me up, I grabbed a jacket and went out the door.

I started hitchhiking down the road and caught a ride. This all started at nine thirty at night. I arrived in Petoskey and then tried to think where I should go. After thinking about it awhile, I decided to hitchhike back to Alanson and sleep in the hay in my grandfather’s barn. I caught a ride going back, but the driver was turning to go to Harbor Springs, so he let me out on the corner where he made his turn. I was standing on that corner, still ten miles from Alanson, when all at once my dad drove up in his Model A Ford and asked me to get in. Nothing was ever said, but somehow I believe he found out the truth.

My summer job when young was selling magazines to the summer folks in the resort area. One day, I was bitten on the leg by a dog, so I carried a stick after that. Other summers I worked at a trout pond recreation area where people came to fish and would pay for them by the pound. I spent time helping them build these ponds—from cutting