Trader

By Ray Aber

People from all over told me that I should
write a book. Because of my episodes were so
exciting, dangerous, and funny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450082860

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Ray Aber.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4500-8285-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4500-8286-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

69095

Contents

Hix Road

A Home Wun

Mom

Life on the Farm

Hopping a freight train to go to town.

Early life with Grandparents

Fun in my ’42 Dodge

Stolen Car at 18

Ray’s Cars:

according to my brother Roy.

Navy Adventure-M1

The first time I smoked weed

Kicked out of Confession

Fight on the fantail of the Ajax

The Swan

Dive of fantail

Pink Whites

Tijuana Fight

LST Harris County

HOLLYWOOD

FIRST SOLO

Nona and the ’51 Ford

Fight in Deed’s Bar

CARLTON

Anything to make a buck

Shortcut on the rail road tracks

Poachin’ Deer #1

Poachin’ Deer #2

Glass Eye James

Dropping 30 stories on

the BALL in Detroit

Roy and I fly to Cheboygan

Flight to Downer’s Grove

Flight with Broken Seal

Family Vacation at Yellowstone

Douglas Lake Bar

TJ and I, Upside Down

My 1948 Willy’s Jeep.

My jeep and my toboggan

Partridge Hunting in my 1948 Willy’s Jeep.

TJ and I and Millersburg

Catching fly over Z

A Qualude for Christmas

Trouble in a town that shall remain nameless

Marine City

New Orleans

Big Indian at Golf Course

Swing and miss

Bowling and Fred Pringle

Walking on Frozen Snow

Drunk from Wedding

Frito Lay

Spit in his Mouth

Around Curve on 750 Honda

Andy

Jail Job

Time to Leave Michigan

Mr. Truck and I head to California

Car over the edge of Grimes Canyon

Mockingbirds and Hummingbirds

Golf Cart Crash

California.

Earthquake Magic Mountain

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Hix Road

When I was a kid we lived on Hix Road in Wayne, Michigan. My family consisted of my father, Raymond E. Aber, my mom Ruby, my two half brothers Gene and Roy, and my two half sisters Aurelie and Ethel, who were from mom’s previous marriage to Stanley Brindamour, a Frenchman who liked his whiskey.

When I was 5 years old I remember riding in our Model A with my Mom and Dad. We were on Hix Road coming up to Ford Road, I could see Walt’s Market up on the left. Suddenly my dad stopped the car, opened the door and began throwing up blood and gasping for air.

Next thing I recall we were back home in the living room. Daddy was sitting in the corner—his head in his hands. I looked at him and asked him, Are you going to die Daddy? He lifted his head slowly and said, No son.

That’s the only time I recall my father saying anything to me, He was a strong, hardworking man that my mother really loved.

The next thing I remember we were on 1224 Hix Road in our living room, mom is kneeling beside Daddy Ray’s casket and weeping.

A Home Wun

When I was 10 years old mom and I had our mornings at the breakfast table. Mom would be smoking her cigarette and having her cup of coffee and we’d watch the day come to life out the big window. Way out behind the field, back behind the house, was an orchard. And on occasion, on those mornings with mom, we would hear a voice hollering coming from the trees in our next door neighbors back orchard.

A home wun . . . A home wun . . . He’d yell it over and over.

His name was Teddy, A 40ish year old man who wore overalls and a long sleeve flannel shirt. He had a child’s mentality. He was one brick short of a full load.

Teddy would have a stick and an old ball, and he’d throw the ball up in the air and he’d hit the ball with the stick. Then he’d run around the trees in the orchard and yell, A home wun over and over while he ran around slapping the trees that were his bases.

Teddy was a gentle soul, who was also very strong. Amazingly I saw this same man who played baseball by himself in the orchard, lift the back end of a jeep a foot off the ground.

Mom

Mom worked as a riveter at Willow Run Bomber Plant, a factory near where we lived on a small farm about five miles from Wayne, Michigan. Working alongside thousands of other women at that time, she helped build B-24s Liberator bombers while the men were off fighting the war. She was a regular Rosie the Riveter and she raised five of us mostly by herself until she remarried. By then mom had left the factory and was working at the Canton Tavern, where she met Morris Hoffman. He was a gentle sweetheart of a man who really loved my mom. He worked on a farm for a man named Sid.

Life on the Farm

I was in my teens when mom and Morris got married. That was about eight years after my daddy Ray died. Morris was a good man. He treated my mom well and was a good father to me. By then he was a truck driver for Hugh Rader Lumber Co. in Detroit.

On the farm where we lived outside of Wayne, we had chickens, pigs, goats, dogs and cats and one cow; her name was Tiny. I used to bug my mom and Morris to let me milk