Encounters: A Memoir

By Charles Francis

Finding a form in which to present the stories was difficult. Each piece is meant to stand on its own, no connection between them. I arranged these stories according to the location at which the events occurred and they follow roughly the time line of my moving about.

For those of you who may enjoy viewing my photographs and reading some of my verses, you may visit my web site, Plato's Cave, at: cephalis.blogspot.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491731604

Charles Francis

I have always enjoyed telling stories about the interesting places I have been and the people I have met. When I began keeping a journal a few decades ago, I was frustrated because my writing style seemed overly contrived and pretentious. It took years of practice for me to develop a more natural written voice. When I retired from a career as a medical photographer in 1987, I began taking creative writing courses at the University of California at Berkeley and later at San Francisco State University. As I read my stories in class, my classmates suggested I publish them to make them known to a larger audience. This collection is a result of their suggestion.

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ENCOUNTERS

A MEMOIR

Copyright © 2014 Charles Francis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3159-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3160-4 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 04/15/2014

Contents

Introduction

The Stud Farm

Grandma’s House

Swimming Hole

Homeless

Detroit Welcome

Blue Highway

My Navy Career

Model A West

Hitchhiking

Home Coming?

West Coast Redux

Perkins

Cumberland

Leatherwood Cafe

Bayou Blues

Haircut

Queen for a Day

Playa Del Rey

Santa Barbara Story

Sally and the Siamese Cats

Criminal Justice

Marie

Holiday Cheer

Eleanor

Melvin and Henny

Millie

Sheldon and Mabel

Canta Rana

Raff Is Back

Eddy-Taylor Pharmacy

Leander’s Pharmacy

Scottie’s

Good Deeds

The Smoke-in

Death in the O.R.

Mission Street Bus

The Miser

Deliverance

Divorce

El Batey

St. Martin

Forbidden Games

Caribbean Holiday

Hungry Hookers

Double Bypass

Chiffon and Billy

Differing Versions: The Same Incident as Told to Different People

The Fillmore

Introduction

I have always enjoyed telling stories about the interesting places I have been and the people I have met. When I began keeping a journal a few decades ago, I was frustrated because my writing style seemed overly contrived and pretentious. It took years of practice for me to develop a more natural written voice.

When I retired from a career as a medical photographer in 1987, I began taking creative writing courses at the University of California at Berkeley and later at San Francisco State University. As I read my stories in class, my classmates suggested I publish them to make them known to a larger audience. This collection is a result of their suggestion.

Finding a form in which to present the stories was difficult. Each piece is meant to stand on its own, no connection between them. I arranged these stories according to the location at which the events occurred and they follow roughly the time line of my moving about.

For those of you who may enjoy viewing my photographs and reading some of my verses, you may visit my web site, Plato’s Cave, at: cephalis.blogspot.com.

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The Stud Farm

An old man dreaming

I’m a small boy again,

Seven years old

Awaking on the farm.

Sunk in a cozy nest

In grandma’s feather bed,

Peeking over the quilts

Eager to greet the day.

Hanging on the wall

Large tinted photograph—

Uncle Howard in his casket—

He’s kin I’ve never met.

His hands are crossed

Upon his chest,

He looks like he’s asleep.

"Hey, morning Uncle Howard.

"Are you embarrassed

’cause your head’s

A trifle squashed?

Please don’t be!

"A coalmine cave-in

Crushed out your life;

I’m not bothered by it—

Secure in the familiar".

I hear grandma opening

The stove’s iron mouth

And tossing in the wood

Gurgling of the kerosene.

Then whoosh!

The roar of flames!

That blazing fire means

Not long ’til breakfast.

Outside I hear a racket

Coming up the hollow,

Woodsmen talking and

Jingling of mules’ traces.

Must be the lumbermen

Come to fell the big trees

Up the hill above the house.

Oh boy! I gotta see.

Bang! thru the screen door,

Dangle over the porch rail,

They look at me and laugh.

Darn, I plumb forgot

I’m in Aunt Martha’s nightie.

I must be a funny sight—

A skinny barefoot boy

In a too big nightgown.

Uncle Watson calls out,

"Be quick, get dressed!

We’re taking the mare

To the stud farm today."

Why we doing that?

That’s how we get mules

Is what he tells me

So I still don’t know.

What a treat for me!

Mysterious destination

Farther in Kentucky

Than I’ve ever been!

Two of us on Bess’ back

No problem for her;

She leaps up a bank

Almost unseats me.

Far off we hear a whinny.

Bess’ ears perk up,

She shivers under us

Making skittish steps.

What’s wrong with Bess?

She smells the stud

How far is it now?

’Bout two more miles

It’s hard to believe

Her nose is so good;

The closer we get

More nervous Bess.

We see the stud

Big, impatient stallion.

"We better get down;

Bess might buck us off."

The stud stretches his neck

Out the barn’s half-door,

Snuffles, snorts, snuffles

Bess dances, excited.

Uncle reins Bess back

Within the stallion’s reach.

Big Red gently nuzzles

Bess’ quivering hind end.

Bess squats down a bit,

Her pee splashes the dirt.

The stud tosses his head

And kicks at the boards.

Uncle Watson wrestles Bess

Around behind the barn

Clear across the back lot

Into a wooden restraint.

The stud farm man

Opens barn door a crack

So a big, ugly jackass

Can see our heated mare.

Get ready, Jack,

Says the stud farm man.

The jackass’ pied pecker

Telescopes down. Good God!

Door’s thrown open wide

The mangy critter charges

The terror-stricken Bess.

No! No! I want to scream.

He mounts her rear;

She tries to kick—

She’s a wild thing

Held fast in a trap.

The stud farm man

Aims Jack’s huge pecker

Into Bess’ wet opening,

In seconds it’s all over.

I can’t swallow.

My eyes are burning.

My heart’s so full of hate

I can’t hold back my sobs.

Grandma’s House

I’m so excited, Isom lies just around this curve here at the mouth of Garner Creek. Look yonder! There’s a pickup truck coming up the gravel road from Blackey, leaving a cloud of dust behind. They need to blacktop that road; the dust gets on everything. I got to climb up in the seat to fetch my shopping-bag suitcase down from the overhead rack and get to the front of the bus.

Here you are, boy. Downtown Isom, Kentucky. The driver laughs and opens the door to the bus. I step down onto the gravel shoulder. The old familiar buildings extend for about a block in either direction: the general store, the post office, a cafe, the tobacco barn and the livestock auction barns.

The general store across the road is run by Arizona Holcomb. Her son, Herbert Hoover and I are exactly the same age, 13, and we’ve been pals for all the summers that I’ve been coming here to grandpa’s farm. Hoover’s daddy, Bryant, is a railroad engineer. Hauls coal from the mines to the tipple at McRoberts in the giant loading yard at Hazard. He’s been making this run over fifteen years. Bryant is an odd duck; he keeps a bunch of beehives behind their barn. He once took me back there and showed me how he makes a beard of bees. The swarm hung from his chin half way to his waist. I don’t know how he keeps from getting stung. I got stung once and it hurt something awful.

There’re several men sitting on the bench outside the post office. I recognize one of them; it’s my uncle Hiram.

Howdy Ebb, he says to me, you down here for the summer? His red hair makes him stand out. I don’t like uncle Hiram because he once gave my head a Dutch rub that really hurt. Since then I keep my distance. His own kids are scared of him. Aunt Ella treats me nice though. My mom is older than Ella and helped raise her when they were girls at home. Once a rattlesnake bit her when she and Hiram were courting. He cut the bite with his pocketknife and sucked out the poison. Yuck!

The plumbing supply store is still here. I’ve never been inside it. Oh look! Lettie Ison’s cafe is closed and empty. I wonder where everyone eats now on Saturday when the crowds come from miles around for the livestock auction. The big barns are still here. It wouldn’t be any fun for us boys if the livestock auction weren’t here. We help the auctioneers herd the animals around chutes and pens and steal rides on the steers and colts. Last summer I got bucked off and landed in a big heap of manure. I didn’t bring any extra clothes with me on that trip and Hoover and I had been invited that night to a party at Jep Ison’s place. I took a bath, clothes and all, in the watering trough for the livestock in Hoover’s barn yard. I didn’t have any soap to get rid of the smell, though, and kids teased me about stinking bad all evening. They played post office at the party and no girl wanted to call me into the back bedroom for a kiss. It was awful! I hope everyone has forgotten about it by now.

Well, I better get on up the holler. I can’t wait to see grandma. When I was little, my folks left me with grandma for quite a spell. Momma said I followed grandma around like a baby biddy behind an old hen. She said I cried when they finally came to fetch me. I didn’t want to leave grandma; I love her more than anyone in the world.

Oh no, the swinging bridge is broken—sign says Danger, do not use. Shoot! I like to cross that bridge. I got the rhythm for running on it down pat. The bouncing and swaying don’t bother me; I don’t even have to hold onto the hand cables. It scares the heck out of the girls, which makes it even better.

I’m going to have to wade across the creek, I guess. Sometimes late in summer when the creek is low there are some big rocks that you can step on and not get your feet wet but the water’s too high for that now. Two years ago Jep Ison hired a feller to dig him a well at the side of his house. The man sent his boy, who was helping him, back across the creek to the road to get some more blasting caps from their truck. Coming back across the creek the boy slipped on one of the wet stepping stones and fell, right on the blasting caps in his hip pocket. They said it killed the boy.

I’ll take off my shoes and put them in the shopping bag, roll up my britches and wade across. Golly! Look at all the blackberries. I wish I had a bucket. Yum! They’re full ripe too. Uh oh, I’m getting berry stains all over me. Hey, there’s someone I don’t know living in Floyd Ison’s house. Howdy. People always say, Come in and sit a spell when you say howdy, and then you gotta say, Thank ye, but I better get on up. And now here is Floyd’s brother Corbin’s house, I wonder if they still live there. His pretty wife Eadith used to teach grade school here in Isom. Their daughter, Aerlene is the cutest redhead—same age as me and Hoover—but she’s got more brass than any girl I know. She and her cousin Hoover are always in trouble over something. I heard she fell off a horse and broke a leg. Had to take her to Winchester hospital to get a cast put on. She had to stay there in bed a few days but she got sent home fast when they caught her and an intern doing something nasty. Might be just gossip but I wouldn’t put it past her.

Here’s my great uncle Nelson’s house; he’s my grandpa’s brother. When I was little, uncle Watson used to throw a huge sack of shelled corn over the mare’s back, sit me on top of it and lead the horse down here to have uncle Nelson grind the corn into cornmeal. Grandma kept a barrel of meal behind her wood cook stove. We had cornbread every day. I liked her cornbread better than any. I must have watched her make it a hundred times. She never measured, she just knew how much of everything—a pinch of this and a handful of that.

And right here is Jep Ison’s place. He’s the poorest of his rich clan and yet he has the prettiest home site of any of them. Jep’s house sits up on a knob among some granite boulders under those big old pine trees. It’s shady and the air has that fresh pine smell. There is always a cool breeze sighing through the pine needles. I like to sit on the porch with his roly-poly wife, Hattie, She has a deep voice you can hear for miles. I could hear her singing clear up at grandpa’s house. There’s a catchy rhythm when she scrubs clothes on her washboard. I liked to help her break up beans or peel potatoes or apples. One day we were doing that and a bolt of lightning hit a tree right over there across the branch. The tree exploded with such force that it knocked the pan of beans off Hattie’s lap.

There must be a dozen young-uns in this family, from Agnes, who is grown, to Sara Ann whom the older girls wag around on their hips. I play with the boys almost every day and half the time I eat with their family. They leave the back door open in the kitchen and chickens wander into the house while we’re eating dinner. Their table is long, with benches on either side. The chickens strut around under the table and peck up breadcrumbs and stuff during supper. No one ever pays them any mind. Jep’s bunch is the happiest family I know.

Oh, there is their second oldest daughter, Venus. Everyone calls her, Bat. Gee, she’s pretty. I get all tongue-tied around her. Howdy, I call out to her; hope she doesn’t come down here and want to talk. Last summer I was looking at her legs and got a hard on. She looked down at the bulge in my pants. I was so embarrassed but she only smiled.

I don’t see anyone at Hiram and Ella’s house, so I’m going straight on up to grandma’s. Oh, there she is on the front porch, her hand shading her eyes, looking down the holler to catch sight of me. Somehow, she always knows when I’m coming. She looks the same: home sewn cotton dress and apron, little wire-rimmed eyeglasses, gray hair pulled back in a bun, her face all soft, wrinkled skin from a lifetime of working outdoors, I guess. She has bow legs from rickets she had as a girl. When I was smaller and came here each summer, I would break into a run the last few yards from the house, up onto the porch, throw myself into her skirts and hug her with all my might. I feel sad that I’m now too big to do that, though the urge is still there.

Swimming Hole

From my perch on the tree limb, I felt myself falling. My hands grasped desperately for grip on the old sycamore’s thick trunk and I tore off bits of bark and skin as I plummeted downward. I fell for what seemed a great distance but perhaps it was really only a few feet.

I landed with my body wedged between the stumps of two saplings that had been carelessly felled there on the creek bank. I was stunned and it was some moments before I felt the pain. The jagged tops of the stumps had scraped off the skin along my ribs to my armpits on both sides of my body. Blood was beginning to run down on to my legs, which dangled in the muddy water.

Awed, the other boys carefully lifted me up and helped me to my grandma’s house further on up the hollow.

I was afraid even to look at my injury but my grandma examined it carefully and said in her soft voice that she would have to make a manure poultice to heal the wound. She began tearing up an old bed sheet for this purpose. Farm women were accustomed to seeing injuries and my grandma had seen much worse than this.

I felt queasy and humiliated at the idea of lugging around a load of smelly manure but I trusted Grandma’s judgment about most anything. Her adored gray head held a treasure of useful lore and many, many things I was yet to learn.

Homeless

I was scared. Even though the sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless summer sky, the world seemed an insecure and threatening place. My family and I had just walked out our front door at 422 East Third Street in Cincinnati, Ohio, leaving forever the only home I could remember in my young life. This was in I935, the depths of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans were broke, homeless and unemployed and now we were about to join this army of uprooted, desperate people who were roaming the nation’s two-lane highways desperately looking for a job—any kind of job at any pay.

We walked down to the corner to wait for the bright green streetcar that would take us on the short trip across the suspension bridge that spanned the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky. The bundles and suitcases we carried contained everything we now owned. We were leaving all our household goods, most of our clothes, toys, photographs and souvenirs and all the things that had made our house a home. I toted the burden that was to be my responsibility for the next few months—a heavy Navajo blanket of rough craftsmanship with broad stripes of black, white and red wool. It was unusually thick and seemed to weigh a ton. My parents had no idea where we were going or how we were going to survive. My younger sister and brother were unable to understand the burden of fear I was carrying in my 9-year-old heart.

We had been ejected from Ohio and were under a court order never to return under penalty of my father having to serve a long term in state prison. In a drunken brawl he had critically wounded another man with a knife and it was only my mother’s tearful pleading with a humane judge that got my father out of jail. The injured man’s life had hung by a thread for several days, during which time the District Attorney had been resolutely preparing a murder charge. The victim’s surprising recovery and my mother’s intercession with the judge had bought my father’s freedom but with a scolding from the jurist and a warning of dire consequences for further wrongdoing. The District Attorney had added the provision that my dad leave the state immediately and never return.

We got little money for our household goods. Everyone knew we were forced to leave and they took advantage to buy our belongings at a fraction of their worth. My father warned that we must hereafter be very frugal with what little cash he had. This meant that this streetcar ride to the city limits would be the last one; we would have to rely on hitchhiking to get where we were going. We piled out of the streetcar at the end of the line and began trudging single file