Boyhood Adventures

By Aaron L. Carter

Boyhood Adventures (Second Edition) is a work of historical fiction based on the experiences of three eight-year-old boys living in Texarkana, Arkansas, in 1953. Dennis Williams leads Lee Farmer and Frank Cherry on wild and crazy nocturnal, supernatural exploits worthy of detailing in any personal journal. T

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors Press
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643146867

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Copyright © 2021 by Aaron L. Carter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-64314-684-3 (Paperback)

978-1-64314-685-0 (Hardback)

978-1-64314-686-7 (E-book)

AuthorsPress

California, USA

www.authorspress.com

Contents

INTRODUCTION iv

CHAPTER 1: Texarkana History 101 1

CHAPTER 2: The Whitworth Sharpshooter 6

CHAPTER 3: The Gramercy House 15

CHAPTER 4: Bramble Park 23

CHAPTER 5: Crypt of Infamy 33

CHAPTER 6: Back to School 54

CHAPTER 7: Flashback to a Moonless Graveyard 73

CHAPTER 8: Haunted Halloween 93

CHAPTER 9: She Was Terrible, Beautiful, and Nice 115

CHAPTER 10: Mr. Benjamin Franklin Holt 121

CHAPTER 11: I Know Who You Are 138

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 141

INTRODUCTION

Memory is a strange thing. I remember standing in my crib when my parents came home from a date night. It’s not like they walked through the door with a pet monkey or a Shetland pony, but it is nonetheless a bona fide memory. So if that remains so clearly embedded in my mind, why can’t I recall what I had for lunch yesterday?

Well, puzzlement notwithstanding, I accept my memory of some things over others as matters of fact. I have my mother to thank for moments of superb comic relief during the earliest years of my life. I was richly entertained as I watched her kick the living daylights out of our crusty old washing machine. She was a devout Christian who seldom used irreverent language. But oh, how those expletives would fly as she battled yet another breakdown of our antiquated Speed Queen. My father had purchased the aging contraption from Uncle Merle for a steal. Forever after, the brothers would argue about which of the two had done the stealing.

The machine was a product of wartime industry, with high-quality materials devoted to building ships, tanks, aircraft, and jeeps. The washer was equipped with a wringer, but the mechanism seemed to have a mind of its own, determined to torment my mother without mercy. I watched her struggle countless times, angrily tugging on clothes in an effort to extricate them from the jammed wringer. There was a roller release lever, but that was broken as well. The machine failed so frequently I came to know the repair man by his first name. While Dad was upset with Merle for selling him a piece of junk, the brunt of his ire seemed focused on himself. I believe he felt foolish for getting suckered by another one of his brother’s persuasive sales pitches.

I don’t remember how much a fortune was in 1950, but that’s how much Dad said he paid for a brand new Maytag. Mother was happy though; it never broke down. I was less thrilled. I had begun to look forward to Fred’s visits, on which he gave my brother Wayne and me a piece of penny candy. Wayne and I had become partial to peanut butter logs. Most of all, I missed Mom’s fits of rage as she engaged in mortal combat with her dilapidated Speed Queen. I believe my early childhood experiences may be one of the reasons I prefer reality TV today as opposed to scripted sitcoms.

My memory of turning six years old is strong. That was when my life really began to pop. Dad gave me my very own hunting rifle on that birthday. Afterward, my life was seasoned with hunting and fishing with my dad. Outdoor activities topped my list of things I most enjoyed.

I remember Dad moving the family to a new home at 1103 Fulton Street in the College Hill community of Texarkana. That was in August of 1951. Dennis Williams was my next-door neighbor. We were the same age but quite dissimilar. He was taller than me by a good two inches. I was wiry, he was lanky. I had blond hair, he had brown. I had hazel eyes, his were brown. Typically, I wore shoes. Dennis went barefoot except at school or church. Within a week of our first meeting, I discovered a terrible fault in his character. On a hot day in September, we were standing on our respective sides of the picket fence separating our homes. I watched Dennis seemingly delight in torturing a captured grasshopper by pulling the legs and wings from its body. Then with a moronic smirk on his face, he tossed the mortally wounded insect to the ground. He seemed to derive some form of sick pleasure from watching the critter writhe in the grass. I hated that. My guts churned as I witnessed that living creature suffer. It was as though I could feel the agony of that insect. It didn’t matter to me that locusts ravage local crops. I was okay with eradicating agricultural pests, but I was absolutely not okay with torturing any living thing.

Weeks later, my parents took my brother and me next door to visit Otis and Blanch (Dennis’s parents). While the adults visited in the living room, Dennis and I were chatting in his bedroom. I don’t recall what he said, but it was something that lit my fuse. I thrust my fist into his solar plexus as forcefully as I could, and he dropped to the floor like a wet towel. Without remorse, I stood above him, delighted to see him struggling to catch his breath.

How ya like it, I taunted. "Don’t feel so good, do it?"

I was never one to start a fight. In fact, I got the shakes anytime I was forced to defend myself. But in that moment, exacting retribution on a sadistic bully seemed justifiable, even satisfying. I’d been looking for an excuse to nail that kid as payback for his cruelty. It felt good to see him writhing on the floor just like that defenseless grasshopper. I got in trouble with Dad, but I was okay with that. He told me to apologize, and I did. In my world, obedience was the first rule of conduct. But in the depth of my soul, I felt gratified, having struck a blow against bullies everywhere.

A few days after our abbreviated altercation, Dennis approached me to say he had repented of his propensity for cruelty. I was suspicious, but it felt good to hear him say it. I was a Christian boy, believing that God forgave those who practiced forgiveness themselves. Surprisingly, over time, Dennis and I became the best of friends. He possessed an attribute I found irresistible: his relentless pursuit of adventure. He enjoyed visits to the local cemetery, the old Gramercy house, and a spooky abandoned asylum. He seemed to enjoy such things during the hours of darkness. I must confess, at the age of eight, such excursions became irresistible. I was all in.

Home entertainment for my family consisted primarily of board games like checkers and dominoes. Dad played checkers like some play chess—slowly and deliberately. I enjoyed playing the game with him. Rummy and Back Alley Bridge were popular card games with my family as well. Listening to the radio took its place as a staple of entertainment among us. We had a large Philco radio, but I wasn’t allowed to touch it. It might have been due to my proclivity for taking things apart. I was a very curious boy, fascinated by things with mechanisms. I was good at taking things apart but not so good at getting them back together again. I disassembled my mother’s Kodak box camera once. Trust me, it could be done even without a screwdriver. Mom was very unhappy with me because the camera had been a hand-me-down from her mother.

Dad didn’t get a TV set until we had been in our new home on Fulton Street for several months. So, most nights were spent sitting around the radio, listening to programs like Sam Spade, Grand Ole Opry, Gang Busters, Gunsmoke, Amos ’n’ Andy, and The Bickersons. The list of programs seemed endless. But for me, an eight-year-old boy, once Dennis had introduced me to the world of nocturnal adventures, no other pastime could hold a candle to it.

Boyhood Adventures is a work of fiction based on the true-to-life exploits of three +young Arkansas boys circa 1953. The 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 stock car racing drivers at the time cited. My family watched them race on the dirt track at Riverside in West Memphis, Tennessee. Stick was somewhat gregarious and had something of a demented sense of humor. He loved pulling pranks on rookie drivers, but he was not above punking his rivals as well. I think Stick was the first person in history to stuff a handful of hot dogs up the exhaust pipe of somebody’s service truck. Off the track, Stick was all fun and games. But in a race, he was not a man to be trifled with. It was almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing. If Dale Earnhardt and Stick Elliott had been race car drivers during the same era, I believe fans would have had a hard time deciding which man most warranted the moniker of The Intimidator.

Corporal Samuel Arbuckle Jr. is a pseudonym for a true-to-life Civil War sharpshooter. I learned of him the day my 4-H/Boys Club visited his farm in Fouke, Arkansas. I dedicate a full chapter to the man because meeting him created a virtual apex in my life. The experience instilled in me a passion for history that has never waned.

The names of Frank Cherry and Dennis Williams are pseudonyms for my two best friends. They were neighborhood buddies and classmates at College Hill Elementary School. Lee Farmer is a pseudonym for myself.

As already described, Dennis was the most mischievous among us, a natural-born trouble-finder. That boy could sniff out adventure amidst harsh doldrums. Without his influence, I am certain my early life would have been safe and boring. Whenever there was an opportunity to put ourselves at risk, Dennis would lead us down the path, causing our pituitary glands to excrete the highest levels of endorphins.

Frank was the antithesis of Dennis. To look at Frank, you would think him least likely to be involved in any form of ill-advised activity. He was more intelligent than Dennis and me but made concerted efforts to conceal it. Having spent the first six years of his life in Casper, Wyoming, speaking with the accent of a local boy was an exercise for him. He told me once, he felt as though he was learning a foreign language. We would often catch him using words or citing historical events beyond our grade level. Later, as our friendship with him developed, he confessed to being gifted with a photographic memory. He was born in Wyoming, but his father’s work as a roofer brought the family to Texarkana in the summer of 1951. Frank had short, curly red hair and brown eyes. He was timid, overweight, and shorter than most kids our age. The schoolyard bully called him Stumpy. Frank was no fistfighter—an important skill among Arkansas boys. As a wrestler, he possessed even fewer skills. I saw Frank wrestle at school one day. It was sad. I felt so embarrassed for him. It was like watching a chick fight its way out of its shell at birth.

As a companion to Dennis and me, Frank would be pathetically reluctant to participate in any activity he deemed even remotely life-threatening. Unfortunately, by Frank’s definition, pretty much everything Dennis and I did on those dark nights involved risk, which begs the question: If Frank was such a pain, why did we entice him to be with us? The answer comes soon. Stay tuned.

Dennis and I would always be able to talk Frank into tagging along on our adventurous outing. I’m quite certain he acquiesced, fearing that refusal to participate might jeopardize his membership in our little crew. I suppose that means Frank would rather have died than be left behind. Without a doubt, there were times when Dennis and I found Frank an annoying little pip-squeak. But there were three compelling reasons we adopted him as a friend and an official member of our adventure-seeking comradeship.

The first reason was that Frank was a natural at the game of marbles. Straight up, that boy had a gift. Shooting marbles was popular at College Hill Elementary. The game was new to Frank, but you’d never know it from watching him play. every time I saw him in a game, his pockets would be bulging with keepsies. Often, Dennis and I would be sitting on a bench, watching him work his magic. It was delightful to see Frank decimate the competition. He would stand after each shot and look over at us so proudly, with a big infectious smile on his face. His pockets would be so heavily laden I thought for sure one day they would split at the seams and I would see marbles go flooding down his pant legs. How could we not like Frank Cherry?

The second reason we adopted Frank as a friend was his skill as a baseball player. Baseball was a favorite lunchtime activity at school, weather permitting. To some extent, Dennis and I judged other boys by how well they played the game. To the best of my memory, Frank got on base almost every time he went to bat. To Dennis and me, that was a big deal. Frank wasn’t much of a fielder, but what he lacked in right field, he more than made up for with a superior batting average. I can’t recall seeing him hit a home run, but he consistently hit a single or a double. You just can’t fault a player like that.

The third reason that Frank became a member of our little crew was on me. I hated bullies. Point of fact, I despise bullies to this day. In the middle of a certain school year, a big, heavyset boy moved to Texarkana from Amarillo. We called him the Texas Bully. He had short black hair and black irises. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the face of death itself. He was built like a Sherman tank. His nose looked as though it had been broken more than once. His face was pitted like a gravel road. The core of his body seemed to have the density of solid oak. He stood an inch taller than Dennis, which made him a good three inches taller than me. I was a small-framed kid, sinewy but no match for a big boy like the Texan. Due to this, I became one of his favorite targets. I’ll never forget the first time he hit me. I felt like I’d been hit by a battering ram. I did my best to fight back, but my punches were pathetic. They glanced off him like a BB off a shot put. So as much as I hated it, I didn’t fight back every time he shoved me around. My dad always taught me, right wins fights. As a young boy, I would have many opportunities to test that axiom. I would discover, over time, that right isn’t might. Sometimes, you just need to have God on your side.

One day, during morning break, I entered the bathroom, having heard echoed cries for help. The Texas Bully had Frank backed into a corner, punching him, slapping his face, and calling him names. Frank had tears running down his face, and that seemed to make the bully happy. Hearing him call Frank Stumpy lit my fuse. I knew if I attacked the bully my butt would be in a sling. But I also knew I couldn’t just walk away and allow the