Honed Virtue, A Coming of Age Story: Impacts of Youth

By David Radmore

In this coming of age memoir, we follow young Danny Davis living in rural Oregon during the Great Depression and see through his hopeful eyes what he believes is the path to simply living a good life. Early tragedy orphans him, but the love and support of a multinational extended family leads him to a remarkable invention at thirteen years old, that sets the entire family up for life financially.

The characters woven through Danny’s story will make you laugh, cry, and at times shock you, but one thing's for sure—once you start reading this book, you will want to keep reading and see how life’s twists and turns shape Danny and prepare him for future adventures.

Written adeptly by the author, you are the fly on the wall and can’t help feeling you are part of the scene, wondering if this story can really be true.

“… this story grabbed me from the first page. The amazing adventures and accomplishments of this young protagonist were a thrill to read.”
—A. Glass, Five-Star Review

Honed Virtue is Volume 1 of The Saga of Danny Davis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Top Reads Publishing, LLC
• Release date: May 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781970107210

David Radmore

A navy veteran of World War II, David Radmore has lived an exciting and adventurous life. He volunteered in the Peace Corps in Nigeria training athletes for the Olympics, traveled the world many times by plane, ship, motorcycle, and bicycle. He’s flown planes, taught high school, organized the Stockton Cycle club, and been a musician, athlete, and husband. He is “always in the company of friends!”

Book preview

Introduction

Honed Virtue is the first novel of a series about the life of Danny Davis, from ages five to fifteen. He is a remarkable youngster who many of us would enjoy knowing as a best friend and confidant. The number and varieties of fantastic adventures and experiences in his life may seem improbable, but you will feel as if you are part of his journey. This first book sets the stage for the type of person he will be throughout his life. It begins with him as a young boy approaching the age of six. Growing up in the rural area of Oregon in the 1930s, life is quite different from today. It is the time of the Great Depression, and everyday life is a struggle for all. But Danny has an amazing family and loved ones who teach him many secrets of life.

Chapter

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 1

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Precocious

Five-year-old Danny and his mother Mary were taking in the last baskets full of washing from the clothes line. A vigorous wind had whipped the wrinkles and creases from most of the laundry. Mary plunged her face among the sundried clothes and inhaled deeply. Ahhh, this is one of the truly delightful fragrances in nature. Danny sniffed his bundle of laundry and nodded vigorously.

When they went inside, Danny started smoothing and folding handkerchiefs on the kitchen table while his mother started ironing bed sheets. She was proud of his eagerness to help with household chores, and was smiling at him when she suddenly noticed the grass stains on his clothes. Danny, what were you doing when I called you to come home?

Fucking Beverly Jean. Danny’s innocent smile distracted his Mother.

WHAT!

First we picked buttercups for her mother who made cookies for us. Then I pushed her on the swing but she screamed and said she was afraid to go so high, so she dragged her feet on the ground. Maybe she’s just a scaredy-cat. I thought…

His mother interrupted, Danny, what was the first thing you said to me? Isn’t Beverly Jean older than you?

Yes. She’s way past seven but she doesn’t seem so old when we’re playing. Once it was her turn to push me, she barely got my feet off the ground so I stood up and pumped. That was lots more fun. Then Beverly Jean wanted to play ‘hospital’ and I was supposed to be ‘the doctor’ while she was the ‘nurse,’ but I didn’t know how so she showed me as she talked.

Is THAT what you meant when we first started talking? Mary replied only slightly relieved.

Beverly Jean showed me how to fuck her, he calmly continued, smoothing wrinkles from the handkerchief. From Danny’s perspective, it was as normal as if he had told her they had made mud pies. To him, he had simply been playing with a friend. One activity was no more important than the other.

Mary was aghast! Where on earth did you learn that scandalously naughty word? Her Puritanical background forbade her from saying THAT word. She was so upset and shocked by his statement that she dropped the iron. She was positively speechless, and it wasn’t until the hot iron started scorching the sheet that she regained her presence of mind.

An explosion of suppressed laughter came from the living room where John, Danny’s father, was having tea with his mother, Gran.

When Mary partially recovered, she tried to rationalize that she hadn’t heard him correctly. I doubt if you actually did such a terrible thing or even understand what that word means.

What word?

You know what you said you did with Beverly Jean.

Oh, you mean fu… but his mother clasped her hand over his mouth to keep him from repeating that word a damning third time.

Don’t you dare use that naughty and wicked word again or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap! You can’t possibly know what it means.

Danny wanted to show his expanding knowledge, I do so know. I put my pisser in her pisser. It tickled us so much we had to stop and rub ourselves. But we didn’t hurt anybody. The boy had never seen his mother so upset, and he wasn’t certain what was wrong. Tears welled up in his eyes. He wondered why she was so angry with him.

We weren’t doing anything wrong. We were just playing. Did you know that girls don’t have anything to pee with on the outside? He stopped talking as he became aware of his mother’s increasing dismay.

When Mary recovered slightly she ordered. Go stand in the closet with the light off! Think about what you told me you’ve done with Beverly Jean. This was the most severe punishment Mary could devise for her son. Her entire body was trembling. Not another word from you until I tell you to come out! Hearing this exchange, John and Gran looked at each other and came into the room.

Danny was at the age when his vocabulary was growing rapidly, and many words were no longer under parental control. Mary had been dreading the time when he would start learning such words, and the thought of him knowing the worst of them all was too much to imagine. Yet here they were, he said it and he wasn’t even six years old! Gran, would you please talk with him. I can’t.

"Never mind, Mary, I’ll have a chat with young Danny.

In the closet he could hear his mother talking to his father, It seems that Beverly Jean is not a very nice girl and Danny shouldn’t play with her anymore!

Danny’s father felt there was no problem at all. He tried to explain to his wife that the incident was a simple matter of curiosity and maturing. Didn’t you and the other kids in your neighborhood do the same things? I know we did.

That he could even suggest such a question had her beet red with embarrassment.

Asking Gran to talk with Danny was absolutely the best thing Mary could have done. They could chat freely about almost anything that came into the boy’s mind. Gran opened the closet door and enfolded him in her arms, and his anguish was partly relieved by sobbing and subsequent huge gasps for air. She wanted to be sure he didn’t become fearful of dark and enclosed places, so they remained inside for a while. Her hugs were comforting and reassuring. In her gentle and supporting manner she asked, What seems to be the problem my fine young lad?

"I told Mother that Beverly Jean and I did something that made her so upset she said I had to go into the closet. I heard her tell Dad that I’m not to play with Beverly Jean anymore.

What was it you did with Beverly Jean that upset your mother so? Gran replied.

Beverly Jean showed me how to fuck her. We were just playing. Did we do something wrong? Am I bad? And where do naughty words come from if we aren’t supposed to say them?

Gran gulped a time or two as she gathered herself to deal with Danny’s question.

In other countries and other languages many words are totally correct and socially acceptable. In this country, we use the words breed, copulate, or terms like ‘make love,’ and ‘sleep together.’

Oh? But what makes the other word bad?

Gran paused for a time before replying, People do. Yes, I reckon its people who make it a bad word. It’s best if you don’t use that word or talk about such things.

But how am I going to know a word is bad when I first hear it?

If you have a question, ask me before saying it elsewhere.

Okay. He could always talk to Gran about anything without her getting upset with him, and she always made sure he understood whatever they were discussing. Why was mother upset when I told her I put my pisser in Beverly Jean’s?

That’s something that’s done mostly by grownups.

Why do they do it? It tickles too much.

When a person gets older it doesn’t tickle, and they express their love for each other in that manner. Also, that’s the way they start making babies.

Did Beverly Jean and I make a baby?

Gran chuckled and replied, No, my fine lad. You’re much too young for that.

Oh. Danny thought about that for a minute and concluded, That’s good. It’s not much fun playing with babies because they only cry, pee, and poop. With his problem solved and his question answered he relaxed. Gran opened the closet door and together they went to the table to begin Danny’s lessons. Danny found paper and a pencil and made a printed letter A. Next to it he made the same letter in Arabic script with a straight line going down and hooking to the left at the bottom. He followed the A with the entire alphabet for both languages. This indicated to Gran that he was over most of the earlier trauma and was ready to begin one of their learning games.

Now that’s well done! Gran said.

Earlier in the year, Gran had started teaching Danny the alphabet in English and Arabic using words that Danny saw daily. The first word he learned to spell was STOP because it was on the sign that was at an intersection near his house. Dozens of other words were written in both English and Arabic. They learned ten new words daily.

Later Danny’s thoughts returned to Beverly Jean. She had envied his prick because it was right out there and easy to use. Girls had to pull down underpants, squat and splatter, and worry about getting their skirts wet. Boys could just unbutton, whip it out, and let it fly. They could direct the stream to wash ants off blades of grass or make them scurry to their nests. They held contests to see who could squirt the longest distance, and compared their tool for length, diameter, and how erectly it stood. It was a source of great pleasure and boys presumed male superiority because girls didn’t have one. "Gran, is my prick going to drop off pretty soon?

Lord no, my fine lad. Whatever put such a notion in your head?

Beverly Jean doesn’t have one and she’s older than I am, and one of her teeth dropped out of her mouth this morning. I was just wondering if . . .?

Put your mind at ease. You will not lose that equipment. It’s there for life. When boys and girls are young, teeth fall out and new ones replace them, but not the other.

Then what happened to hers?

That’s one difference between boys and girls. Girls never get one.

Danny felt that girls were cheated because they didn’t have such a handy tool. He remained perplexed by the question his mother had asked about where he had learned that scandalously naughty word. Suddenly he recalled that Beverly Jean had been talking with several older neighborhood girls and a boy, and then Danny and she tried doing it. He also learned the word scandalously that day from his mother. He had a good idea of what it meant by the way she used it. Danny gave Gran a huge hug and said with satisfaction and security, I know I won’t learn naughty words from you.

Gran replied, As long as we are learning new words, perhaps we should include many of the naughty ones. What they mean and when and why they might be written or spoken will be useful knowledge. You already know words that refer to getting rid of body waste materials such as poop, pee, and piss. In a few weeks you will know most of the inappropriate words and when and where you shouldn’t use them.

A sparkle of light showed in Danny’s eyes. That’s a good way to keep out of trouble. I like my mother and don’t want her to be angry with me.

Gran and Danny continued their study of words and their meanings, including ones in Arabic, English, and a category they called inappropriate. None of the words were sensationalized. Emphasis was placed on developing a more colorful speech pattern and an expanding vocabulary.

Youngsters emulate each other including how they talk. Teachers were continually being amazed that Danny and many of his playmates had a command of the language a year or two above grade level. Rightfully, credit should go to Gran.

That evening, John’s all-male quartet met at his house. He had a fine baritone voice and was a valued member of the group. They were to sing a special anthem at church the coming Sunday. John recounted the incident regarding Danny, and Mary’s reaction. The men howled with laughter for ten minutes, and each time they started to sing, one man or another would begin to chuckle. They would be partway through the song when one of them would explode. The men understood youngsters and their curious nature.

Well, we didn’t get much singing done, Bob the bass, commented, but we had a great time. What are we going to do this Sunday if one of us gets a crazy grin on his face?

Chapter

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Gran

Later that night, when Gran was tucking Danny into bed he asked, Gran, how old was I when you came from London to live with us?

You were a sweet little three-year-old.

"Is Gran your only name?

No, my lad, my other name is Annie Louise and I was one of seventeen children.

Wow, 17! Where do they all live?

Why, they live all over. At this Gran, with a faraway look in her eyes, remembers her poverty stricken childhood. Death was no stranger to her as five of her siblings had died from pestilence, malnutrition, diseases, or the inability to stay warm in the cold weather.

How did you learn Arabic?

Five older brothers served in the British Royal Artillery in Egypt and the Sudan where they learned to speak Arabic. They deemed it an honor to be members and to fight and die for the greater glory of the British Empire, and three of them did. When the two survivors came home on leave, they would speak Arabic to discuss secret matters. I loved learning new things and asked them to teach it to me. They not only taught me the language, but also the history, geography, and about the people of Egypt and the Sudan. They even bought me an Arabic-English dictionary which included a section on how to read and write the language. I still have it, and it is one of my prized possessions.

Gran, you speak it so well you must have been really good in school.

I loved learning, but at that time all children who were poor were limited to four years of education. My teachers wanted me to continue with my training because I was eager to learn and remembered everything, but it wasn’t permitted. She shrugged her shoulders, set her jaw, and smiled a bit That’s how things were, so there’s no use grumbling about it. She stroked his head, kissed his cheek, and said Sweet dreams Danny my lad. We’ll have lots more to talk about tomorrow.

The following morning, during breakfast, their conversation continued. I was married in 1891 at the age of 29 and had one child, your father John. He was a bright boy, attentive and quick to learn. At that time, the British Educators allowed the poor people to have an additional four years of schooling for a total of eight years.

Gran, how come they didn’t let poor people finish their schooling?

"That’s just the way it was Danny. And at that time, Britain had one of the most advanced educational systems in the world.

"I was married several years when my husband left us. I did everything I could to keep your father and me safe and well fed. Somehow we managed to get by.

"There was so little money to live on and no work to be found, so when John was fourteen he was sent to the United States as an indentured servant. Things worked out for him though as he learned carpentry among other valuable skills, joined the army and served in World War I thus obtaining his American citizenship.

"After the war Danny, your father settled in Oregon where he met and married your mother. Five years later, you were born.

Come on lad, we have our words to learn today. This was a daily routine that persisted from the earliest of Danny’s memories. It was so ingrained, that they agreed on the words they would learn each week, even if they were not going to be at home. Learning the words included: spelling, reading, writing, and their singular and plural usages.

Danny’s breakfast plate was made of aluminum, and it had the ABCs embossed around the edge as well as the numbers zero through nine. It seemed as if he always knew those letters and numbers. His father even encouraged him to learn them backwards. This was a fun game. Having learned to recognize the letters and the sounds associated with them, reading seemed to be the next logical step. Guesswork was involved in the process because words didn’t always look as they sounded or sound the way they looked. These words were imprinting, forming, and organizing in the boy’s young mind. As time passed, they blossomed into understanding.

Gran had made a collar to fit around Danny’s ABC … plate. On it she had inscribed the Arabic alphabet. As often as possible, letters in English and Arabic, which had similar sound, were next to each other. The results were predictable but not easy. Of course, difficulties arose when one of the languages had a letter and sound not found in the other. For example, there is no letter P in Arabic and no equivalent sound. There were too few opportunities to write in Arabic, and it took Danny much longer to write reasonably well in that language than in English. Other than when he was with Gran, there were no opportunities to see, hear, or speak Arabic.

This unique calligraphy is an art form in itself. Gran, with her penchant for fancy crocheting, found an additional outlet for her creative nature in the decorative, aesthetic media of Arabic Script.

While Danny was writing, Gran discovered that Danny was truly ambidextrous. He wrote English words from left to right with his right hand. Arabic was written from right to left, so he wrote it with his left hand. It was easier for him that way because his hand was not in the way of his writing.

After their studies, Danny asked, Gran how about telling me some more stories about Uncles Harry and Alfred and their military adventures?

As Gran started to tell the stories she switched back and forth from English to Arabic depending upon the characters she was representing, and the tales always included a boy Danny’s age.

Danny, Arabic-speaking people may not be able to understand us because I learned it second-hand from my brothers, and we all spoke with a cockney accent, as I still do. It’s part of who I am.

Later that morning, Gran got ready to do her daily volunteer work helping others in the neighborhood. She was easily recognized by her charming accent, and was best known as a hardworking, immigrant woman who was not one to grumble or complain. Annie Louise was always ready to give a hand with housecleaning, caring for an infant or the elderly, and doing any domestic chores that needed attention. She was also known to be scrupulously honest and accounted for every penny when she did the shopping for elderly people who were shut in.

Occasionally, Gran bought a penny’s worth of candy to share with Danny and she would whisper: Not a word, not a word to anyone else. This was her way of making her grandson aware that this tiny touch of luxury signaled momentary prosperity that she wanted to share exclusively with him.

Gran lived a lot of her life with her son John and his family, and the values she cherished in life were shared with young Danny. Most important of these were love, attention, devotion, and respect. Her Arabic-English dictionary and its contents were a source of much satisfaction to Gran, and Danny was aware of these feelings as they devoted hours studying daily.

However, her dictionary was not the only written treasure Gran and Danny enjoyed together. During those preschool years, the fairy tales Danny learned came mostly from Sir Richard F. Burton’s English translation of Alf Laylah, Wahad Laylah (Thousand and One Nights—The Arabian Night Tales.) Gran had these same volumes in Arabic. She had found them while clearing out the rubbish of a retired university professor’s estate in town. The sixteen volume set and the six supplemental volumes comprised a treasure that was beyond her imagination. Companion volumes in the original Arabic were given to Gran as well. These proved to be extraordinarily valuable. There were also four volumes of history written in Arabic. The estate administrator was surprised to find her reading the Arabic books and gave her the lot if she would simply cart them off. These became the first books that Danny read in Arabic.

It appeared it was going to be a major undertaking for Gran to carry the books eight blocks to the bus stop, but fortunately, her neighbor Irving drove by and offered to give her and her books a ride home.

Gran and Danny’s relationship couldn’t be any closer. She enriched her life and Danny’s through the bonds of affection and developing mutual interests and pleasures.

When speaking about Danny, Gran would say, He’s smart enough that lad, but he’ll not abide the aristocratic rights of the nobility who ruled. He’s truly a product of this country right enough.

She and Danny played spoken and written word games long before he started school. The two found it much easier to speak the words of affection and love in Arabic than in English. It seemed strange to her that although she was a member of a large family, during her childhood and young adult years she heard very few words of affection spoken in English. As a result, it seemed natural to her that in her dream world her words were almost always formed in Arabic.

While Gran and Danny read their adventure stories about magic carpets that flew, winged horses, a lamp that produced powerful kinds of witches, or djinn, and all sorts of mysterious accounts, the boy was intrigued. These were always read and told in Arabic. From the time of his first memories, the Arabic language was associated with magic, adventure, thrilling experiences, romance, and secrets. Gran could weave a tale of love and romance that appealed to him. In turn, he was encouraged to create stories from his own imagination.

Despite the complexities of her life, Gran was living the most luxurious existence she had ever known. Her dream world was reality. She was not struggling daily for food and shelter for herself and her son. Although not regularly employed, she was bringing in money so that she felt that she was earning her keep. Perhaps the most important thing to her was that she had time to be with Danny, and enjoyed teaching the boy as well as learning with him.

Children learn from their parents, elders, peers, and the environment. Early on, Gran had shared the joy of her knowledge and games involving history and language with Danny. Together they developed understandings of the remarkable intricacies of traditional Arab culture as presented in Burton’s scholarly and interesting books. Their evenings were spent without radio or other distractions as they explored these books and the others which were written in Arabic. In this manner, lifelong patterns of reading, studying, discussing, imagining, and learning were established. These were pursuits of pleasure, not work. They were part of the challenges and joys to be found in life.

Gran always imparted valuable information for Danny that was basic to her own values. Honest pay for honest work. Make a game out of even your most difficult tasks so you can find fun in them. No use grumbling, just get on with the job. Learning is one of the ultimate pleasures. It’s a game of choice. Give respect and you may receive it. Work for what you want, then you will know the value of it. Don’t look to others to do what you can do for yourself. Make your own happiness and share it with others. Build the life you want and never stop the process of discovering. Perhaps the greatest luxury in life is time."

As time went by, Danny became proficient in speaking