Just Do It

By Earle Perkins

Hold on to your seat! This is a collection or stories of interest to all.

The author is not confessing to a lot of misdeeds in his life of doing it but he has had an

interesting and full life. His life in Northern Maine, Connecticut, The Air Force, Colorado

and California, was sometimes humorous and sometimes tragic but always true.

His story about the problems and fun of building a house on a tiny island in the

British West Indies has been published in magazines and newspapers.

There is a special treat that is included in this book. Around the World with Peanut

Butter and Jelly Sandwiches is an interesting and fun trip. It is different because it was

made without tour directors, hotel, automobile or flight reservations. He and his wife

visited many countries around the world. They saw a lot of the old worlds, the private

peoples and their problems, while stumbling along with the language, and staying clear

of the tourist traps. They were just ordinary people out for a good time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 2, 2004
• ISBN: 9781469104577

Earle Perkins

The author has written many articles for newspapers and magazines including an eleven page story about the funny and serious sides of living as a pioneer and building a house on a developing island in the Caribbean. His previous books..."Drop In! Drop out? (a romance and adventure story) and "Just Do It" (a group of true stories about being brought up in Maine, building a house on a developing island and a quite different travel story going around the world with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches)

Book preview

Copyright © 2004 by Earle Perkins.

Sketches by Phyllis Perkins

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 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

REAL TALES

PARADISE

AROUND THE WORLD WITH PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWHICHES

EPILOGE

JUST DO IT

THE MOVING FINGER WRITES; AND HAVING WRIT MOVES ON: NOR ALL THY PIETY NOR WIT SHALL LUR IT BACK TO CANCEL HALF A LINE NOR ALL THY TEARS WASH OUT A WORD OF IT

OMAR KHAYYA’M

REAL TALES

Tale 1

Maine (Circa 1924)

This is a group of wild and R rated stories dredged up from memory. Don’t worry; my R is for real. He’s going to hit that tree! Catch him! These are my first recollections as a four year old, when I sailed down the snowy hill in one of mother’s huge bread tins. My two older brothers had sneaked the large tin out of Mom’s cupboard and thought they would get rid of me in this fun way. Anyhow, I survived the crash only to be in another one that was worse. Right after Christmas, my sister, who is older by three years, put me on the swing in our big attic playroom. I screamed for her to stop swinging me so high, but she was teasing me by swinging me up into the rafters. Snap! The swing broke and I went flying into her Christmas doll carriage, smashing it into smithereens. Sister was howling for years afterward and still thought I owed her a doll carriage. These were just two, of the many comical and almost tragic scenarios I managed to get myself into. However, my personal guardian angel always seemed to be there to bail me out, and keep me safe.

Then there was my first day of school in our one room schoolhouse. I tried to run away and ran down the street to the small brook and across the stepping-stones . . . thinking I could outrun my mother. Wow! Was she mad . . . and right behind me! She grabbed me by the nape of the neck and dragged me to the schoolhouse. They put me in the last chair in the row of first graders. I remember yelling but nobody came to help. Then I was distracted and fascinated by the kid in the chair in front of me. As I watched, he wet his pants, the water running down the chair leg and creating a huge puddle under his chair. I soon forgot all my problems!

This was really a great school . . . eight rows of students, with each row a separate grade of ten or twelve students. The teacher was Alina Bridges. She was also the mother of the Governor of New Hampshire. They had a big house on the hill next door. She happened to be the most dedicated teacher I would ever meet. This one room schoolhouse was located in West Pembroke, Maine. In cold weather, a huge wood stove in the back of the room heated it. The older students were assigned the responsibility of building a fire and warming the room each cold morning before classes.

The restroom was a large two holer outside, with one side for girls and one for boys. Tissue was provided (an old Sears Roebuck catalog). It wasn’t all that bad . . . Some even learned to read in there.

Weren’t the old days wonderful?

The classes for each row of students were held one at a time. Slow students could listen to the previous class and might get it the second time around. Smart students could listen to the class ahead and not be bored. On a small scale this system worked very well.

* * *

West Pembroke is hardly on the map anymore. What a pity. It was the home of Doctor Charles Herbert Best, one of the discoverers of insulin . . . the lifesaving treatment for diabetics. The town’s only industry, the sardine packing plant closed years ago. It failed, and the town failed, because the tiny sardines being netted by the fishermen became extinct. The fish being caught were too big to fit into the cans.

Mother was a Herring Choker (down-east name for a person who packed the sardines into the cans). It was piecework and a fast worker could earn good money in those hard old days. I’d love to taste again, those wonderful cooked herring (the larger fish that were netted but wouldn’t fit in the cans). We loved to wait for Mother to get off work at the plant . . . . We would sample the hot fish, right off the racks from the huge ovens, as we waited for Mother on the platform outside the plant. These racks loaded with fish, were rolled right out under our noses for cooling off. Of course we asked! And President Washington never told a lie, either!

Tale 2

The Gypsies are coming! (1924)

The feared Gypsy bands visited our little town in Maine periodically on their way to the next fair. These dark skinned, happy-go-lucky, nomadic pranksters seem to have earned their reputations. Some of their fancy decorated wagons were closed in with glass windows, had rubber-tired wheels and were powered by real horsepower. They probably should be credited with having the first motor homes, powered by two horses. In most instances the fear of their arriving was unwarranted. With a little prior warning, the residents and storeowners had plenty of time to prepare for their dreaded arrival. I remember one such visit in our tiny town of three stores and a gas station garage. My dad owned a dry-goods store . . . . This is a store selling cloth, bindings, thread and paraphernalia for sewing. There was also a Mom and Pop grocery store next door. A little way down the shady street was a small snack shop with a hidden gambling room in the back. Sh!

We had no working telephones in our town. Only the area’s policeman spread the word of the Gypsy’s movements from town to town. He rode into the small towns on his motorcycle a couple of hours ahead of the Gypsies, giving out warnings that they were coming. The town’s people (if they were smart) closed their shutters and hid their animals and tools. The stores even boarded up their windows to keep them out. I can remember them beating on our doors and windows trying to get my dad to open up. As a five year old, I was frightened like all the little kids, and hid under the bed. The older kids always chided us, that if we didn’t behave, we would be given to the dreaded Gypsies! I think I survived, only because my guardian angel took pity on me.

The old couple running the Mom and Pop store made the mistake of letting them into their store. The gypsies arrived, went en masse, and cleaned them out. The women all wore huge bloomers that they stuffed with merchandise, while the others distracted the owners.

What ever became of the Gypsies? I think they were integrated into our society and became used car salesmen!

Tale 3

Automobiles (circa 1924-1926)

Let me call you sweetheart, My wild Irish rose, and Carolina Moon were some of the songs I remember as a five, going on six year old. These songs were bounced off the hillsides as we roared down the dusty roads and around hairpin turns at speeds of up to thirty miles per hour. Our musical family almost always sang as we "put-putted’ around in our open touring car. Our destinations were usually Grandma’s house or one of our favorite lakes.

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Most cars in those days were open touring cars. I remember we enjoyed and loved those cars and we put up with the many problems because that’s all we had. The tops were left up because it was a miserable job to store them on the shelf on the back of the rear seat. We had side curtains with isinglass windows (mica or transparent gelatin fish bladders from sturgeons). These curtains were snapped on when it started to rain. This job always seemed to be done too late and everyone got wet anyway. Our Model T came with solid plate glass windows all around. They were wonderful for weather but the extra weight high above the wheels on that light car made it very top heavy. I don’t know whether they came from Henry Ford’s plant or not. Anyway, they didn’t last very long. One weekend Dad came around Dead Man’s Curve and rolled over twice with all that broken glass flying around him, (safety glass was still on the drawing boards). Luckily none of the injuries were serious.

Gosh darn (sp), Oh fudge (sp) and Jiminy Christmas (sp), were some of the cuss words that I learned. Some of the words, I didn’t understand but nobody would explain them to me. The cars in those days deserved most of the verbal abuse that they got. Here are some of the reasons that the air was turned blue by the obscenities. Good tires were still being invented and all cars carried tube patching kits, tire pumps and tire changing irons. AAA was around, (New York), but we had never heard of them this far north. They would have gone broke anyway in those days . . . changing so many tires . . . starting so many cars! The service calls would have been astronomical and of course, gas and service stations were scarce. The transmission bands in the Model T were used to change the gears and needed to be tightened frequently. Some people did their own since they were easily adjusted through an access plate at the top of the transmission.

But what are Dad and all those men doing to our car? They had picked up and turned it upside down and were shaking it, vigorously. Dad had attempted to adjust the bands without tying a string on the wrench, and it had dropped inside to the bottom of the transmission. It was impossible to fish out and disastrous to leave it there. This procedure wasn’t found in the owners manual, but luckily, the car was light enough to be picked up and turned over. The wrench usually fell out and this was a lot easier than taking the car apart. (and it only cost a little cider!)

Why are we backing up the hill Dad? The Model T had its gas tank under the front seat and gasoline flowed by gravity down to the engine. However if the hill was long and steep enough, the gas wouldn’t flow up-hill, so turning around and backing up the hill solved the problem. We fixed our car by installing a tire valve in the tank. By using a tire pump and pumping like heck, we pumped air into the tank . . . where the air pressure forced the gas up to the engine and then up the hill we went. Another problem was that the car was started by hand cranking. If the spark control lever was not put in the up position (retard), the engine would kick back. The person doing the cranking would break his thumb or worse, his arm. This was a serious mistake and