Boyhood Adventures

By Aaron L. Carter

A sortie involving a moonless visit to a cemetery reputed for supernatural and threatening manifestations qualifies as a worthy nocturnal event for the boys. A condemned structure formerly serving the county as a prison for the criminally insane is deemed irresistible. But highest on their list of destinations for adventure is a place that will haunt their memories forever: the old Gramercy house. Known by most students attending College Hill Elementary School, it is as a place of infamy, occupied by restless spirits who horrifyingly repel trespassers. Rumors about the place motivate any normal, red-blooded, adventure-seeking country boy to be drawn past the front gate. Such was the case for Lee Farmer, Dennis Williams, and reluctantly Frank Cherry in October of 1953.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493164028

Book preview

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter I

Texarkana History 101

Chapter Ii

The Gramercy House

Chapter III

Bramble Park

Chapter IV

The Haunted House

Chapter V

Back To School

Chapter VI

Haunted Halloween

Chapter VII

She Was Terrible, Beautiful, And Nice

Chapter VIII

Mister Benjamin Franklin Holt

Chapter IX

I Know Who You Are

INTRODUCTION

When my four children were very young, I would tuck them into bed at night and read to them. Their favorite stories included Berenstain Bears, The Spooky Old Tree, and Bears in the Night, both written by Stan and Jan Berenstain. But their favorite bedtime stories were those I verbalized, featuring the adventures of three eight-year-old barefoot boys who lived in Texarkana, Arkansas circa 1950. Long after I thought the novelty of those stories would most certainly have worn thin, my children continued to ask to hear them. It seemed, the more frightening the stories, the better my children slept at night. Go figure.

When I retired, my children—now parents themselves—knew I planned to roll up my sleeves and get serious about finishing a book I’ve been working on since 1988. The demands of having a regular job and being a family man, combined with my church and civic responsibilities to occupy every minute of my life. Finding periods of uninterrupted time to work on a book never quite made it to the list of action items on my Franklin Day Planner. Finally, the blessings of retirement provided the time I needed to get serious about writing. The book I intended to finish was entitled, Wings of Valor. It is a book of fiction—based on fact—about my experiences as a combat helicopter crew member with the First Marine Air Wing in the Republic of South Vietnam from August of 1966 to September of 1968. As much as my wife wanted to see this book published, my daughter preferred that I work on something else:

Dad, she said. What about the haunted house? What about the graveyard? What about the funny-farm? I need wholesome and savory bedtime stories for my kids. Well, it seems that a command performance has been called for and—once again—I find myself at the beck and call of my adorable daughter.

While the geography detailed in this book will be familiar to some true-to-life, old-time residents of Texarkana, Arkansas, it is important for the reader to understand that this is—after all—a work of fiction, birthed by the overactive mind of a capricious writer. While some of the references cite historical fact, those facts have no true relationship to the fictional elements of my story. Notwithstanding, fictional elements will be co-mingled with historical fact sufficient to provide ample frustration for avid history buffs. In light of the aforementioned, readers attending middle or high school must resist the temptation to use the facts set forth in this book as a reference for taking a test on U.S. history. You would almost certainly fail the exam.

Names of characters described in this book vary from fact to fiction. A few names are true to the history of the southwestern United States. Stick Elliott and Billy Scott, for example, were truly race car drivers at the time cited. My family watched them drive sprint and stock cars on the dirt track at Riverside in West Memphis, Tennessee. For racing fans, the performance records of both drivers are available on the internet. Stick was somewhat gregarious and had a great sense of humor. He could be your best friend off the track. But in a race, he was not a man to be trifled with, especially on a dirt oval. I believe, if Dale Earnhardt and Stick Elliott had been race car drivers during the same era, fans would have had a difficult time deciding which man most warranted the moniker of The Intimidator.

General James F. Fagan was a Civil War hero of mine. I find wartime strategic philosophy to be most fascinating. I learned about him in the fifth grade as our class studied Civil War personalities, especially among the Confederacy. I immediately became a fan of General Fagan upon learning of his sniper teams.

The names of Frank Cherry and Dennis Williams are purely fictional but the characters are based on actual friends of mine just as described in the book. Dennis was every bit as mischievous as the story describes. Dennis could sniff out adventure better than a hound dog on the fresh scent of wild game. Without Dennis in my life, I am certain I would have chosen the safest and most boring course of action throughout my childhood. It took the influence of Dennis Williams to ignite the spirit of adventure in me; as he most certainly did. Anytime there was a choice to be made, regarding our nocturnal adventures, Dennis would opt for that which caused our brains to excrete the most endorphins. And I’m sure it won’t take you long to figure out, Lee Farmer is a depiction of myself.

The character named Ike was a man we actually knew by a different name. He worked as a gravedigger and grounds keeper at a local cemetery. He had skin as black as midnight but my friends and I were color blind; a rare thing in 1950’s Arkansas. Truly, it was extraordinary. There simply isn’t an appropriate place in this literary work for me to quote some of the things I heard my father say regarding people not endowed with white skin. If he had ever discovered—or even suspected—that I was friendly toward Ike—well—it could have been ugly. And, not to put too fine an edge on it, Ike could have fallen victim to harsh retribution. It’s just the way things were back then. I will never forget the first time my mother took me shopping with her. She loved shopping at J.J. Newberry—a five and dime store—but there was something there I thought profoundly incomprehensible. Installed on either side and immediately adjacent to the elevator door were two drinking fountains. Mounted on the wall, above the fountain to the left of the elevator door, was a sign that read, Whites Only. Directly above the fountain on the right side of the elevator door was another sign which read, Blacks. For some inexplicable reason, amidst the bigotry and racism of the time, my friends and I seemed immune from the ideology of the society we lived in. I believe we were more inspired by our mothers who cherished Christian values. As far as I was concerned, Ike was a good friend who demonstrated genuine affection for my friends and me. To this day, I think of him fondly and I wish it would have been possible for him to enjoy a better quality of life. Ike was a good man.

There actually was a haunted house in College Hill but not in the geographic location described. There was no shortage of rumors circulating around school about the place, just as described in my story, but all the characters described as being associated with the estate are fictitious. The accounts regarding College Hill Cemetery are based on fact although the name and location of the cemetery is fictional. All things considered, the adventures shared by Dennis, Frank and Lee, as described in this story, are mostly true.

A caution to the reader: I recommend you set aside judgment of the substance of my tale based on city folk values. We were—after all—just eight years old at the time we lived these experiences. Also important, we were Arkansas boys and country kids didn’t think like city kids nor did we behave like city kids. Boys who lived in 1950’s Arkansas were raised differently from our city-boy counterparts. For one thing, how many city boys can you think of who got their first hunting rifle on their sixth birthday? I can just imagine every city-dwelling reader reacting in total disbelief to this incredulous allegation. Believe it or not, for me—and my boyhood friends living in Texarkana—owning a Henry lever-action .22 caliber hunting rifle was as normal as fried okra and buttermilk at suppertime. My sixth birthday present was a Marlin .22 bolt-action, single-shot squirrel rifle. No, my dad—a combat veteran of the Second World War—was not a stupid man; nor was he a negligent parent. Firearms training and discipline was paramount under his tutelage. You just don’t give a six-year-old boy a firearm on his birthday and say, Okay now, go out and play. I learned that owning a rifle was serious business. Firearms are not toys! Such tenets were imbedded in my mind under the unforgiving eye of my father who was hard as steel when it came to firearms discipline. Secondarily, Dad taught me how to hit a target the size of a dime at twenty-five feet; then at fifty. I learned to hit a poker chip at a distance of 100 feet. By the time I was eight years old, I had learned enough about windage and elevation (sight dope) to hit the center of a small pumpkin at 200 yards, then 300 yards, and finally, 500 yards. And by the way: my rifle was equipped only with steel sights; no scope! Arkansas boys considered the use of a scope a pathetic crutch for a poor marksman. As far as marksmanship was concerned, there was nothing magical about it. It was simply something dads taught their sons at a very early age, just as they would teach them how to swim or how to skin a squirrel. At the age of eighteen I joined the U.S. Marine Corps. I was an excellent swimmer and I qualified at the top of my class at Camp Edson (the U.S.M.C. rifle range). Today I’m sixty-seven years old and still able to hit the bull’s eye at five hundred meters. It ain’t magic; it’s country.

Finally, readers should not be mystified by reading about the nocturnal exploits of eight-year-old boys in 1950’s Arkansas. It was a different time, a different culture, and a different society. For the most part, parents didn’t worry about country kids playing outside at night without direct supervision, especially if they had a dog running alongside them. Truly, it was a different world.

In closing, for those I’ve managed to confuse and frustrate by co-mingling fact with fiction, I apologize. For those who simply can’t deal with the country boy mentality, you might as well close the book and pass it on to a more fun-loving and less judgmental recipient. For those