Longing for Home and Other Short Stories

By Jay Thomas Willis

I have written this book of eighteen short stories. A representation of my longing for the past, yet I realize one can never go back into the past. Each story contains approximately 2,500 words. They will take all of us back into our own private past. They imply that you can never go back home; because, home will be different after all these years. But in some cases, home can be better than it was at one time, if you can afford to add modifications to your environment. You will thoroughly enjoy and be well entertained.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781663203304

Jay Thomas Willis

Jay Thomas Willis graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University with a B.S. degree in sociology. He also graduated from Texas Southern University with a M.Ed. in counseling, in addition to receiving a MSW in social work from the University of Houston. Willis has held numerous social work positions.

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Copyright © 2020 Jay Thomas Willis.

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 author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-0331-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-0330-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020913464

iUniverse rev. date: 07/24/2020

DEDICATION

To Rhonda who could have been my lady had I been secure enough in myself.

The natural inclinations of the universe will force you to confront your most horrendous fears….

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Longing for Home

Chapter 2 My Dear Carrie Ann

Chapter 3 Pushed Beyond Limits

Chapter 4 Moving on

Chapter 5 Blue Bloods

Chapter 6 Cajun Queens

Chapter 7 Mrs. Drexel

Chapter 8 Fantasy

Chapter 9 Flight 1313

Chapter 10 Math Scandal

Chapter 11 Superstition Ain’t the Way

Chapter 12 Graduation Ghost

Chapter 13 My Career as a Truck Driver

Chapter 14 Dream Collage

Chapter 15 Staying Out of Jail

Chapter 16 Narrow Escape

Chapter 17 Jealousy and Envy

Chapter 18 Life on Our Farm

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I acknowledge thanks to all my teachers at the old Galilee elementary, junior high, and high school.

Thanks also to my professors at Stephen F. Austin State University; Texas Southern University; the University of Houston; the University of Illinois—Circle Campus; and Loyola University of Chicago.

They all provided me with the best education they could.

Thanks to my wife, Frances, for helping me with an occasional point of spelling and grammar.

"What we think about constantly is

magnified in our minds, and will eventually

become manifest in our behavior."

"You must always see yourself in a positive light,

and try to maintain your dignity and self-respect."

ONE

Longing for Home

I retired several years ago and owned a modest two-story, five-bedroom, brick home, in a South Suburb of Chicago. On this night, I was lying there in my comfortable, king-size bed with a warm comforter. It was in December, almost Christmas. There were four inches of snow covering the ground, and it was about 20 degrees below. My 60" Samsung Smart TV was blaring something from a rerun of George Blumer on the Word Network. That’s the way I chose to allow myself to drift off to sleep. I had a light insomnia problem. Most of my insomnia came from the fact that I napped during the day, and found it more difficult to get to sleep at night. It is said that one shouldn’t go to sleep with the TV blasting, but that’s the way I chose to do it. Not going to sleep listening to TV might be healthy for different people under different conditions. They say it is OK to go to sleep listening to music, as long as it’s not too loud, but not regular TV programming.

Finally, I drifted off to sleep. I found myself on my way back to East Texas; a mostly rural area about 125 miles southeast of Dallas, Texas. My parents finally got running water and telephone lines many years after I had long since left the area. The roads were not kept up or regularly paved.

We didn’t get a graded-dirt road until I was six years of age. Before that we had no electricity. Prior to that all we had was a three-mile trail.

After my mother and father were married, they spent time in a number of sharecropping situations in and around Hallsville, Texas, living in shacks on plantations. It was the best they could do. Some of their sharecropping situations were for Black landowners. Finally, in 1929 with a baby coming, my mother wanted to settle on a piece of family land and build a home. My father consented, so they built a tin-roof shack made of recycled lumber on a fifty-acre parcel of land that was handed down through her mother’s side of the family. My mother and father couldn’t afford new lumber, so they tore down an old house a few miles away, hauled the lumber by wagon, and built the house. New lumber in those days was a rare commodity. They didn’t really have the money for new lumber. This was common in those days. They used what they had. Most people in the area existed under similar conditions. Since it was during the Depression, building materials were even harder to come by.

They built the house in the small-rural community of Hallsville where their land was located. The land was approximately three miles off the main highway. The land is west of this winding, two-lane, blacktop, curvaceous, hill-ridden road; about twenty miles south of Hallsville, and twenty miles north of Marshall. When my parents first got married there was only a three-mile trail leading off this two-lane, curved, crooked, hill-ridden stretch of main highway in 1929. There were tree limbs, creeks, and deep ditches along this trail. But they managed to transport the materials on a wagon and built the house. It is hard to imagine how they did this by wagon. When my older sisters and brothers were children, they walked to the bus stop at the end of this three-mile-pig trail. They walked through the mud, the dew, the streams, the grass, the ditches, and the overhanging tree limbs. I’m sure that not having a decent road contributed to some of them dropping out of high school and leaving home prematurely.

Each family did their part to help cut the weeds, remove the fallen-tree limbs, and whatever else needed to be done. In the early part of my childhood I remember helping to cut weeds from and to patch up the trail. In some places, ditches were as deep as a house; and you could only maneuver the trail with a wagon, a horse, or on foot. In some places even this was difficult. Before the graded road was constructed my relatives confined their travel to daytime, and even daytime travel was rare. There were always stories about wild men, wild animals, ghosts, and goblins along the trail. Along with these things simply navigating the trail could be physically dangerous. My dad once got drunk and fell in one of the ditches on a moonless night. He dislocated his shoulder, and had to wait until the next morning to get help. Some of the community people came to assist in getting him out of the ditch. It’s amazing some wild animals didn’t attack him.

At one time, say prior to 1955, the whole community in those days was connected by a series of trails. Though, the automobile by this time had been invented many years ago, but most folks still traveled by wagon or horseback. Diffusion and invention took place very slowly. This was a backward community. Everything was within walking distance. They had a general store and their own school. They bartered with each other for commodities. There were people in the community with at least some rudimentary skills. They didn’t have to go outside the community to get things done. There were carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers; though, most of the houses were constructed of wood. Most of the houses had chimneys or fireplaces. They built their own houses, butchered their own animals, grew their own food, repaired their own tools, built their own fences, and served as midwives for their own children. They also took care of their own animals. It was a self-contained, independent, and self-sufficient community. They lived a simple lifestyle. Medical needs were cared for by a series of home remedies. There were those who specialized in these home remedies. Though, the automobile had been invented for many years, there were few automobiles before they began to build roads. I have no idea why the county didn’t begin to build roads earlier—possibly because of discrimination. It’s the only explanation I can think of. It could be more complicated than that. Town was at least twenty miles away, and the only way to get there was on horseback, wagon, or hitch a ride with someone who had a car. We lived isolated lives as if we were eighteen-century prairie farmers.

At one time my folks didn’t even buy groceries from the store like they later did. All they bought from a store at this time were things they didn’t produce: things life salt, flower, cornmeal, sugar, other spices, and household furnishings. Everything else was purchased, grown, or bartered for in the community.

I found myself on my way back to East Texas for a visit. I heard things had changed, and I wanted to see the nature and extent of these changes. My undergrad degree was in sociology, so I maintained a natural curiosity about the way people and societies function. The trip was uneventful. I found that the roads were well paved, once I got to my old homestead. They had city water, natural gas, better telephone services, access to the Internet, and every convenience possible for a rural area.

Blacks had mostly left the area and moved to larger cities: some nearby and some faraway. Other groups had moved in and bought the property. No longer were the roads narrow and unpaved. People had moved in from other areas and taken control of the area. There were many beautiful brick homes standing where shacks once stood.

I visited one of my old friends who had moved to Chicago soon after graduating from high school. I never thought he would amount to anything. He stayed in Chicago several years; long enough to get a Bachelors’ and a Masters’ degree from the University of Illinois. He even worked a full-time job while getting his degrees.

He had come back to East Texas and built a big ranch: he had cows, horses, chickens, hogs, and other animals on his property. He even had a big fishing pond. He taught at one of the local high schools. He also had a spacious log cabin that had all the modern conveniences.

I pulled up to his door about 7:00 p.m. that evening. His wife answered the door. We all went to school together.

How’re you doing Craig? she asked, good to see you again.

Find, Mary, how’re you? I replied.

John is in the study. I’ll get him for you. He’s preparing a test for one of his classes, she said.

John came out from his study smoking a pipe, nothing like the John I had remembered, he had changed his style completely.

How’re you doing, my brother? he gave me a big slap on the back.

I don’t have to ask how life is treating you. I can see it is treating you well.

It’s treating me OK. Glad to be out of Chicago. I couldn’t have stood that much longer, John said.

What do you do for excitement in these parts of the country? I asked.

I do a lot of hunting and fishing. Good clean fun. I’m going boar hunting tomorrow night. Wish I could take you with me. You’d like it; it’s a lot of fun. We shoot them with a bow and arrow, John said.

You had some children I recall. Where’re your children?

My two sons live in southern California, and work for Microsoft. They love it out there, except for the fires, earthquakes, mud slides, drenching rains, and other natural disasters. What about your children?

I have one son. He teaches at Michigan State University. He always says he wants to get to where the climate is warmer, but he hasn’t made a move yet.

He’ll get around to it sooner or later.

"How do you like it here? I asked.

I love it. It’s what I’m used to, and it absolutely agrees with me. I wouldn’t live anywhere else, John said.

Whatever happened to Carolyn? I asked.

That’s was your old girlfriend? Last I heard she lived in Dallas, but I’m afraid I hadn’t heard anything else.

I certainly like your set up. It’s just what I always wanted to build on my old homestead. Who takes care of the place while you teach every day?

I have a ranch hand who handles that for me. He lives on the premises and manages it on a round-the-clock basis.

That’s great.

What keeps you from following through with your plans?

Nothing, really, It’s about that time.

Then I look forward to having you as a neighbor. Would you like something to eat? he asked.

No thanks. I’m in a hurry, but I appreciate the hospitality, for some reason I didn’t want to put him out to that extent.

Thanks for stopping by anyway.

I must get back as soon as I can.

Somehow, I was envious of what John had built for himself, and felt like a failure in my own life.

Good luck on your trip back. Good to see you again.

Same here. See you when I get back this summer.

With that I headed for a local hotel. I could have stayed with John, but again, didn’t want to impose on him. I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Marshall.