The Silver Dollar Kid

By Xlibris US

I will be judged harshly by some for my actions, but it is not about right or wrong
or good or bad, it is only about what happened and led me to develop into the person
that I have become, through my many adventures and what I did about them. I have
no intention of trying to flower it up, to be more appealing, it is not a fictional story.
I have included situations that stick out the most in my mind and just omitted many
other experiences that were interesting to me, but probably not to others. I have also
just omitted some names of those who do not wish to be identified. My intention is
not to embarrass anybody else, but just maybe myself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499051636

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Prelude

My name is John Batchelor and this is the story of my unusual life. It is of great interest to me and I hope you find it interesting as well and it might even prove to be a tiny bit educational.

Some names have been omitted to protect the bashful.

I have presented it as honest and factual as permitted by my memory. I wonder what Dr. Phil would think about it. I think it would give him a headache, it has often given me one. I am the first to admit that I have done many, many stupid things and made many misjudgements and don’t recommend it for anybody to follow in my footprints. I dont know why, but my cup has always been half full and I continue to count my blessings everyday and fully realize that I have been very lucky and now in my old age, I am positive that my life is and has been 99% better than everybody else that lives and has lived in this planet of ours. I don’t regret most of my life and as one man once said Anything that constitutes a memory has not been wasted. Looking back, if I knew better at the time, I probably would have done many things differently, but then again maybe not. I have never done anything that I thought was wrong, regardless of what others thought, I have always felt compelled to be true to myself first and only deviated when I had no choice. If there is anything that I regret, it is having to give in to peer pressure in an attempt to pacify others and of course I have had to give in more than I would have liked to, to get along with those who have had a lot of control over my actions and endeavor to micromanage me, including those that simply feel that they own me. I have always been an independent thinker and Monkey see - monkey do, has never been a driving force in my life. I am old and in my twilight years now and the water that ran under my bridge weighs heavily on my feeble old brain.

Some of that water was clean and clear and some of it was a little muddy and some of it resembled quicksand. I will be judged harshly for some of my actions in all of this, but it was what it was and it is all now just water under the bridge. Like Popeye said I yam what I yam and that is all what I yam

Born John Houston Scott, my story starts on 6 Dec. 1942, the day of my birth even though I don’t remember anything about it and only what I was told whether true or not. Most likely who I am started long before I was born, influenced by who my parents became and therefore having an effect on what I became.

This story is not about good and bad or right and wrong. it is just about what happened.

My mother told me that my father was off participating in World War two, that unknown to me was only starting its second year and for some reason she was living someplace in Northern Georgia and went to visit a friend in Chattanooga Tennessee and I was delivered in her house by a midwife. My younger sister told me that my mother told her that I was born in a hospital someplace, but I happen to know that my birth records are kept in Birmingham Alabama. I know that we had some relatives living there, because when I was around 7 yrs old we went to visit for a family reunion. I am not sure if that was from my step fathers side of the family or my mothers, but I am pretty sure it was from my mothers side. I just thought I would mention it even though it has little bearing on my story. When I was younger, like everybody else, I was preoccupied with myself, but now I am sorry that I didn’t take more interest in the lives of my parents. The problem is that I have not found any of them to be as honest and open about their lives as I am. Everybody has made their own mistakes and had their own hardships and that is just a part of life in my opinion. I have lied many times just to grease my way through life, but at this stage of the game I don’t feel like I am obligated.

CHAPTER 2

The Early Years

I am pretty sure that before my memory kicked in, I was aware of many things that registered in my subconscious, but it took things that were outside my normal experiences to jog my memory.

My first recollections of life was in a tiny, maybe 15 foot long trailer in a very barren trailer park outside the fence of the Miami international airport. My mother worked as a stock clerk for Pan American airlines and when I was home, a neighbor was supposed to keep an eye out for me. I took a school bus to a nursery,…… I think. I must have been about 3 or 4 yrs old and already had a lot of freedom. Our tiny trailer contained a bed at one end where we slept together and a tiny kitchen/dining room. We had a real ice box, where a block of ice was delivered once in a while and my mother just put some meager groceries on top of the ice until it melted and then she would order another block. I don’t remember anything that we ate, except one occasion that she tried to force me to eat liver and I was having no part of it, even though I had never even tasted it. She tried to entice me with a tiny carton of ice cream. She told me that I could only have it after I ate the liver and with that she went to bed for a nap. I took a few pieces and threw it under the table and ran to her and told her that I had eaten some. I went back and threw the rest under the table and told her that I had eaten the rest, so she got up and gave me the ice cream. My conscious was bothering me though and I just sat and ran my finger around in the frost on the top of the carton. She realized that something was amiss and confronted me and I broke down in tears and confessed. Strangely, my first real recollection of life consisted of a lie coupled with the tears of my bruised conscious and of course, liver. My next recollection was a visit from a girl friend of hers. She had a daughter, younger than me and they put us together for a nap in our under wear. It was the furthest thing from my mind, but the girl was intent on us, examining each others private parts. My second recollection of life had to do with the opposite sex and it certainly would be far from the last. A bus picked me up daily and I don’t know where it took me, but when it brought me back, I was told that the neighbor was supposed to be keeping an eye on me, but I seldom saw her and just went home by myself. One day when I arrived, she told me that they were having a birthday party for her son. I was frustrated. Somehow I knew that I was supposed to supply a present and I had none, but I had a children’s book that was given to me and I went and fetched it and wrapped it in newspaper. (not my best effort, I am sure) and I took it and gave it to the neighbors boy.

When my mother got home, she had bought a present for the boy and went and exchanged it.

I remember taking a couple of trips to downtown Miami, a famous city but, actually a very small town and being impressed with Burdines department store. They were far ahead of everybody else in providing an upscale store. They had the only escalator that I would see for many years and in the shoe dept. they had the only ex ray machine where you could stick your foot in and see how it fit into the shoe.

Of course I didn’t tire very easily of seeing the bones in my foot, soon, it was banned by the government as they had decided that it might be detrimental to our health.

Burdines actually consisted of two buildings across the street from each other and connected with an overhead bridge/walkway that had walls of glass, so you could see the street and people walking and driving below us. It was also the first time that I had even heard of air conditioning and all the departments were clean and inviting.

This was most likely about 1946 or 1947.

It was only a short walk to the Atlantic ocean where there was a small park with bushes and flowers, enclosed with a chain link fence. Between that and the street there was a small barren section of park with hundreds of pigeons and a vendor selling peanuts that you could feed to them and that was my favorite thing to do. I would rather go hungry than not feed the pigeons. We would always get a sandwich at Woolworths, which only sported a counter and if it was full, you had to pick out somebody and just stand in line behind him until he left. I don’t remember what I ate, but my mother always got a BLT, which I remember cost 20 cents and I was aware, even at that young age that that was very expensive.

My next recollections was about my soon to be, step father. He also worked at Pan American airlines as a mechanics helper and lived in the same trailer park. He took my mother on a date into the everglades to hunt for frog legs and I distinctly remember them jumping around in the frying pan. This was my second recollection of food after the liver episode. Soon he moved in with us and added on a tiny screened porch, which was now my room and a small living area. We had no bathroom and had to walk to the public facility.

I was given a small water paint set and with this, started my first business. I gathered and painted rocks and sold them to the neighbors for a penny apiece. (I am sure it was not my idea, but I have always been susceptible to the power of suggestion), not to say that I always did what I was told. Yes, my fourth recollection was about money. I don’t remember ever being cold and so believe that we soon moved to another trailer in Miami springs, across the street from the Pan American airlines aircraft hangers on S.W. 36th St. where obviously both of them worked and met.

He told me he had not been drafted due to his flat feet. It wasn’t too long after that that we were flooded out by a hurricane and had to move into the Pan Am hangar where they stored the carpets for the aircraft.

We lived there for about 4 days and I had a great time chasing around with some other kids that were staying there as well. We even had access to a restroom, another new experience for me.

My step father was very frugal and saved his money and so, he bought one of the first houses in Hialeah,… a 3/1 (for $1800. cash). It was just a mile down the road from a Catholic school and there I went to school until I graduated from the 4th grade in the summer of 1953. We no longer had ice delivered, but milk was delivered early every morning in glass bottles and unpasteurized, leaving the fat to accumulate at the top of the bottle. It was left on our doorstep, so if everybody overslept, it was in danger of spoiling and this delivery system stayed in place until the early 1970s, the difference now was pasteurization and they would try to increase their income by selling fresh donuts, etc.

During that period, I had a great life, but nothing to compare it with. I was aware that other people had bigger houses and other things that we didn’t have, but I have never been envious of what others had and was always thankful for what I had, unlike many other people that I have come in contact with for the rest of my life. We had a birthday cake for my 7th birthday and I received an Uncle Wiggily game as a present. (one of those games where you threw dice to see how far down a trail you moved) It was something new to me, but I don’t think I ever played with it and don’t remember any children ever visiting and I had no one to play with, at least not in my house. I always liked to play outside with Jimmy Baker, the boy next door who lived with his single mother and a couple of years younger than me. We would invent things to do and he had a log cabin set and I would go to his house to play. The neighbors on the other side were the Paquins and their daughter Gloria, a couple of years older than me, taught me the proper way to color a page in her book. My sister Roseann was born 3 days after I turned 7. We didn’t exactly have a birthday party and I don’t remember ever having one for the last 71 years. We did have a cake though and mom sang happy birthday to me and I remember nothing of the birth of my brother David, who was born in 1950. I distinctly remembered my mother telling me she was pregnant with my sister who is seven years younger than me in the first trailer park, so I had to have been six at that time and a lot happened in that year. My mother had already determined that it would be a girl and that I could give her a name. She said it could be anything I liked, so I wanted to name her light bulb and thought it was the funniest thing ever. We argued about it and I just kept giggling and would not give up, so my mother reneged. (lucky for my sister, huh?) My 7th year was kind of a milestone, as well. I discovered that the adults had lied to me and there was no Santa Claus, big Whoop ! I don’t remember getting anything for Christmas, except clothes and a stocking filled with fruit, nuts, junk toys and maybe one candy bar but, we kept on celebrating anyway. (I was never sure what we were celebrating, but I think it had a lot to do with monkey see - monkey do, but it was fun and I liked to help trim the tree. My mother had decided that I was a Catholic and now it was time for my first holy communion… Yuk ! and my confirmation. The church had decided that 7 was the year when I would be old enough to make up my own mind about being a Catholic. More lies, I was starting to not belief in all the nonsense that they were brainwashing me with, but nobody gave me any choice. I was expected to do as I was told and go through the silly rituals. I didn’t say anything, because I knew I wasn’t going to win and just went along with them. This idea of others deciding who I should be and how I should act would haunt me for the rest of my days. I had already decided that the tooth fairy was not real, but daren’t mention it for fear of losing the nickel that I found under my pillow. My mother had an aunt and uncle living across town and we visited them often, aunt Lee and uncle Mac.

For my sixth birthday my biological father had shown up at their house when we were there (The first time I met him) and he brought me a toy car that could be peddled and took me out for the day. I begged him to buy me an ice cream cone, but he wouldn’t because he said that they had found roaches in the bottom of the cones that were stacked together, but he did buy me a pocket knife which was soon taken away from me. I also wanted a comic book, but he said that was no good for me either (I don’t remember the reason). The toy car was transported back to our trailer park and I remember playing with it for one day and then it disappeared or so my memory tells me. My mother was one to carry a grudge and told me that it was not his idea to bring me a present, but his mothers who I never met and that she probably paid for it as well and badgered him into delivering it to me. Mom told me that he was a drunken bum. I didn’t see him again until we were moved into the house in Hialeah and I must have been about 7 ½. My mother had gotten married and wanted my step father to legally adopt me and change my name. My father showed up shortly after a caseworker, who was assigned the chore of deciding if I should be adopted or not. She asked me what I thought about it and I told her that I thought it was a good idea and my father whined that they had brain washed me. Of course they did, but I still thought it was a good idea for us all the have the same name. I didn’t even know my biological father’s name, everybody called him Bud, but I later found out that his name was Leonard Houston Scott.

This was about the first time that I found out that I was a sleepwalker and my mother told me that I used to get up in the middle of the night and play with some toys. I don’t remember having any, but maybe my memory fails me.

Around this time, my uncle Mac decided to take me fishing and we went to fish on a long pier at Bakers Haulover, just north of Miami Beach. He handed me a rod and reel and explained to me that I had to hold my thumb on the reel, while casting it out, so that the line would not become entangled. Of course I didn’t do it right and it tangled the line beyond an easy repair. Uncle Mac was furious and that was the end of my first and last fishing trip with him.

He was some kind of air conditioning supervisor and had to go to Key West to check on some apartment buildings and decided to take me with him. Somewhere along the way, we encountered a man standing by the side of the road and had a long piece of plywood leaning against his truck with a rattlesnake skin tacked to it. Uncle Mac stopped to inquire about it, since we were on a narrow piece of road with water on both sides and very little plant life and the man told us that he was going to go spear fishing and came across the snake and shot it through the head with his spear gun. I didn’t know anything about this, but even so, it sounded like a fish story to me. I looked at his spear gun and it didn’t look too accurate to me, but what did I know ? I wondered how the snake got there anyway, was it a swimmer ?

We continued on our interesting trip, passing through several tiny islands, connected by bridges, until we got to Key West and my uncle went to check on some apartments and that took him about 15 minutes and I wondered what he did to them. It was time for lunch and he told me that he had a favorite restaurant that he always went to when on the island and it was on a wharf right on the water and they had a bunch of large sea turtles penned up in the water and that was their speciality and uncle Mac ordered a turtle steak for us and I told him I didn’t want to eat any. He was once again pissed off at me and told me to order whatever I wanted, so I ordered a hamburger. I don’t really remember having one before, but now it was my turn to be pissed off, since they had mixed up chopped onions with the beef and somehow I knew I didn’t like that either and wouldn’t touch it and now we were both pissed off and the last time he ever invited me to go anywhere. My recollections of food went from liver to frog legs to turtle steaks to a hamburger with chopped onions. They were the first additions to my I don’t like it list.

In later years, I made many trips to key west and often wondered where it got its name from. It seemed more appropriate to be named Key South or Key East or even Key South East. The Keys resembled a key chain of sorts, hence the name.

I found out later that the name originated from the fact that the keys curved towards the West and Key West, a 4 square mile island only 90 miles from Cuba is the last one. A little further West is the uninhabited island of Dry Tortugas.

For my 7th Christmas I received a bunch of toys from my grandfather who I had never met and lived in Chicago. After playing with them for a day, my mother decided that she didn’t want anything to do with him and packaged them back up and sent them back to him. She had deep rooted grudges against him and as far as I know never spoke to him for the rest of her life. It reminded me of the toy car incident.

Anyway, back in Hialeah, I walked to school and back, about a mile or so from our house. The nuns had brain washed me and I used to say Hail Marys and Our Fathers all the way to school and back. I remember very little about the school, except learning to write the alphabet in the second grade and was pissed off, because they wanted us to use crayons to draw the alphabet and I didn’t have any and had to use a pencil, so in protest, I drew crooked lines, because of course, you can’t draw well with a pencil. I believe I had attended 1st grade someplace else and remember having to go to summer school, due to my poor reading ability. My step father was supposedly a Baptist, because all his family were, but he never went to church and never spoke about it, at least not to me. My mother claimed to be a Catholic, but only went to church on Ash Wednesdays and Christmas eve and otherwise always had an excuse. I was expected to go to church by myself and go to confession and report my sins. I didn’t know if I had any, so I would just make up some nonsense to satisfy the priest and was told to say X amount of Hail Marys and Our Fathers to somehow wipe my slate clean. I always said some extra ones just in case. (what a good little sheep I was !) I was quickly learning to lie with a straight face born out of necessity.

I joined the Cub Scouts when I turned 8 and my mother soon became a Den Mother and I think she was a very good one and we always had some projects and field trips. We had a radio and I listened to all the stories on it like the lone ranger, Amos and Andy and Johnny Dollar and in those days, the Saturday newspaper section had a few pages of colored cartoons and I would lay on the floor on Saturday mornings and somebody on the radio would read them along with me. Television was still in its infancy and everybody we knew had one, but us.

Still I enjoyed the stories on the radio as much as people enjoy TV today. We would occasionally visit my great aunt who had the biggest TV on the market…. most likely a 21" round screen, black and white set. Color TV had not yet been invented and I would get to watch the Lone Ranger and a few other programs after arm wrestling with my uncle who wanted