Just a Boy

By Charles Mashburn

Actually, I wasn't just a boy. I was every boy in the good old USA who had the good fortune to grow up in a small town in the 1950s and 1960s. I didn't have an extraordinary childhood, but rather, I had an extraordinarily ordinary childhood. There were tears and laughter, good times and bad times, friends and enemies, but most of all, there was a freedom that seems to have vanished from this land we live in. We were free to be kids in a way that generations to come will look back on with envy, and this book will take you back to those days when the living was easy, but sometimes the wrath of Dad wasn't. It will take you back to that first fight, that first kiss, and all the glorious (often inglorious) times that came after all the firsts of your childhood. I dare say there will be times as you read these (sometimes slightly embellished) accounts of my youth, when you will say, "Hey! That's me! He's writing about me!" And you know what? You might be right. Right, that is, if, back in the day, you were just a boy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Oct 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781977205971

Charles Mashburn

A self-proclaimed gypsy of sorts, Charles Mashburn has traveled extensively in the US. As a child, he lived in numerous states and went to nine schools in the first three grades. At age nine, he and his family settled in the small town of Buckeye, Arizona, but after graduating high school, Charles hit the road again. He's somewhat settled now in the small city of Longview, Texas, but continues to travel with his wife, Sherry.

Book preview

1

It was the middle of June, 1959, when we crossed the Salt River Bridge on the highway into Phoenix. I was sitting on the right side of our red and white 1957 Ford Fairlane, all the windows were down and still the heat was oppressive. My younger sister and brother were in the back seat with me, all three of us soaked with sweat and wondering how people could live in a desert and why they would want to. As we sped into the city, passing cars and trucks, I noticed something very strange about one of the other cars. Then I noticed the same thing about another car, and another, and another. My eyes got wider with amazement with each car we passed. Finally I said, Mom, all these people are nuts. She twisted around in the seat, taking care not to disturb my youngest brother—four-year-old Kenny—who was curled up, sleeping, between her and Dad. The wind rushing through the car blew her long, wavy, auburn hair across her beautiful, smiling face, and she brushed it aside before saying, Why do you think they’re nuts, Charlie? I watched another car go whizzing past, then said, They all have their windows rolled up. She laughed and turned back to face the front, glancing at Dad as he gave her one of his lopsided grins.

Dad took a drag off his non-filtered Camel cigarette, blew the smoke out the window, and said, Hah hah. That was how he laughed; not ha ha, but hah hah, kind of a cross between a laugh and a cough. They have air conditioning, son, he said.

I had no idea what air conditioning was and no further explanation was offered, so I just sat back in the seat and closed my eyes, hoping I could fall asleep, wake up, the trip would be over, and we’d finally be at our new home. I think every kid knew the sleep-to-make-time-go-fast-trick. It didn’t work that time. I was so hot and so excited about getting to our new home, sleep was simply not going to happen.

I decided a different perspective might help, so I talked my younger sister, Patsy—she was seven and a half—into switching places with me. She was riding by the driver’s-side window, and our little brother, Billy—who’d just turned six, was slumped in the in the middle, not asleep, but with eyes drooping like he was on the brink. We were all small enough so that the changing of places was easily accomplished. Once I’d settled into the new position, I was quick to determine there was nothing new on this side of the highway, except the cars were going the other direction, roaring past and forcing even hotter air into our open windows. I decided I’d ask Patsy if we could switch back, but when I looked over, she and Billy were asleep, their heads leaning together. Oh, well.

I wasn’t what one would call an overactive child. I was probably normal in that sense, but then what almost nine-year-old kid is equipped to handle hour upon hour in the back seat of a car? Especially in one-hundred-plus degree heat! What I did possess (still do) was a vivid imagination and an uncanny ability to entertain myself with next to nothing. Playing in the big box the new refrigerator, washing machine, or whatever came in: I invented that. So, I did a quick search and quickly found a box, so to speak, to my liking.

Our shiny, almost-new Ford had little chrome ashtrays on the armrests in the back seat, and I began to open and close the one on my door. After a few opens and shuts, I discovered that if I opened it very slowly, the spring on the lid would make a little sound. Eeent! And then, to my delight, if I closed it just as slowly, it made another sound—similar, but not exactly the same! Yeeee-eenk! Score!

Suddenly oblivious to my surroundings, I began playing what I perceived to be beautiful music, quickly determining how to vary the sound by speeding up, pausing, and slowing down. Unbeknownst to me, Dad was not amused, and he found absolutely nothing about the performance entertaining. I was in mid ashtray sonata—my first and only—when he rudely, and quite vociferously, brought the impromptu concert to a halt.

BOY! he shouted, his voice cracking at the end like maybe he’d strained something.

My hand froze, still gripping the open ashtray lid, as I shot to a straight-backed position, and my eyes, as big as the baby-moon hubcaps on the Ford, stared at the back of his head. I swear smoke was wafting upward from his flat-top haircut, and the muscles in his lean neck were bulging. He was silent for about a minute—it seemed like an hour—then, in a somewhat calmer tone, said, Don’t do that again, or I’ll have to stop this car. Mom shot a quick, warning glance at me, but I caught just a twitch of a smile as she turned back to face the road ahead. I didn’t know what to make of her almost-a-smile, but it relaxed me a bit and drove at least some of the fear from my petrified limbs.

Problem: I still had my hand on the ashtray lid, and was puzzling over how I could let it back down without it making a sound.

About thirty minutes later, Phoenix was shrinking in the rearview mirror and on both sides of the highway lush cotton and hay fields stretched as far as I could see. I marveled at how green the fields were in contrast to the grey and purple desert hills beyond them. I also marveled at how my arm and hand were completely numb from having been in the same position for the last half hour or so and decided I was going to have to risk moving it. Having given the situation all the attention my eight-year-old brain was capable of, I mind-walked through my simple plan one last time. I’d decided, then undecided, then decided again—about a hundred times in the last extremely long thirty minutes—that a quick closing of the lid was going to be the best solution to the dilemma I’d gotten myself into. I kept remembering how it had seemed going slow was what got the most sound out of the lid, and so I’d come to the conclusion that one quick motion would be the best way to go. Exhausted from my internal debate, my arm and hand feeling like they were no longer a part of me, I gave it my best shot. EEENT!

My eyes almost came out of their sockets as they shot to the back of Dad’s head. The short hairs on the back of his neck seemed to be straining toward me, and I imagined them screaming, "You’re gonna get it now, kid!" There was no doubt in my mind I’d crossed that invisible line between irritating him and outright pissing him off. I’d seen his anger in action, and all kidding aside, I figured death by belt was in my future. My only hope was that when he pulled the car to the shoulder and stopped, he would merely say, Get out. I imagined myself standing there on the side of the road, the merciless sun beating down on my buzz-cut head, watching the Ford vanish into the shimmering heat mirage waving above the hot asphalt. Mom would be crying, begging him not to leave me, and Kenny—awakened by her desperate pleading—would be looking up at her with that scowl that looked just like Dad’s, thinking, Hey! Trying to nap here.

Back in real time, as I waited for the car to slow and drift toward the shoulder of the highway, I glanced at Billy and Patsy, silently wishing them a long and happy life without big brother to watch over them. Then a miracle happened—I would see this phenomenon many times in the years to come. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom look over at Dad. When I dared to let my eyes ease toward her—that’s the only part of me that seemed capable of movement at the time—she was grinning, looking from me to Dad, and then, to my mixture of horror and amazement, she began to laugh. My eyes shot back to the back of Dad’s head as he looked over at her, scowling. He fought it, but couldn’t maintain his fierce look, and finally let out a hacking stream of his patented laughter. I glanced from him to mom as it slowly dawned on me I was going to live to see Buckeye, Arizona, our new home, which was a mere twenty miles on down the road.

2

I was eight years old when we moved to Buckeye, Arizona; we got there in June, and I turned nine on August first. My dad was an electric utility lineman, and up until the move, he’d worked mostly highline construction, which meant we moved wherever the line was going, As a result of his job, we moved  a lot . I went to nine different schools in the first through third grades, and needless to say, I was a tad (spell that e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y) shy and withdrawn. But in the early summer of 1959, Dad found a full time job with the local electric utility company in Buckeye—Arizona Public Service Company—and it looked like we were about to finally settle down.

It was a novel concept, the idea of being in one town—one school—for more than two or three months, but even so, it was hard at first. Being in a small town where almost all the other kids had been together at least through the first three grades of school caused me to remain an outsider, and I couldn’t completely shake the feeling I wasn’t a part of what was going on around me. My Texas accent didn’t help anything, and I made it my goal to lose it as quickly as I could. The way the entire class turned to look at me whenever I was asked to speak or answer a question was—to say the least—horrifying. Mrs. Benbow was always quick to shush the giggles and whispers, but she couldn’t take the red out of my ears and cheeks.

One of the things I remember most from fourth grade was when Mrs. Benbow told us—she talked about it a lot, actually—that her family was among the first settlers in Buckeye, and she’d been there her entire life. I simply couldn’t imagine that! Even now, it’s a foreign concept to me. I left Buckeye right after graduating from high school, and I’ve been moving my entire adult life.

In any case, as it turned out, the moving wasn’t entirely over with when we settled in Buckeye. We started out our time in Buckeye in a one-bedroom apartment. I barely remember it, but it must have been fun—especially for my parents—what with two adults and four youngsters in such a small space. But hey, to kids, especially me, it was an adventure, and as you will see as my story unfolds, I loved adventure. To me, life was an adventure, even if it was so only in my mind. Always being the new kid in town had taught me to find my way alone, and I’d learned to make the things around me what I imagined them to be, rather than accepting the silence and emptiness that seemed to follow me down the road to the next town and the next classroom full of staring eyes.

In any case, Mom—I think she liked adventure, too—told us to pretend we were on vacation and camping out. She spread blankets and pillows on the floor for me and Billy, and told Patsy and Kenny they could sleep end-to-end on the sofa—the only piece of furniture in the tiny living area. The best thing—I saw it immediately when we pulled up in front of the apartment—was the A&W Root Beer stand right across the street. We didn’t have much extra money, but I remember going over there for a root beer and an ice cream cone a couple of times.

I don’t remember how long we lived in the tiny apartment—not long, I think—before we moved into our first house. It was a rental, and it wasn’t much bigger than the apartment, but it had two bedrooms and a big back yard. Thinking back on it and visualizing the tiny house, the yard probably wasn’t large at all. I’ve had several instances in my childhood memories where I recalled things being much bigger than they actually were. Our tiny bedroom was only big enough for two sets of bunkbeds and a four drawer chest. Not having an extensive wardrobe, one drawer for each kid was quite sufficient. The master bedroom was huge—the biggest room in the house—compared to our tiny room, and the two bedrooms were separated by the only bathroom, which could be entered from either bedroom. Adjacent to the master bedroom, the living room was long and narrow, with just enough room for a couch against one wall, a small TV on the opposite wall, and a beat up recliner in front of the wall-to-wall window next to the front door. It seems most of the houses back then had those picture windows in the living room, but the low hanging tree in the front yard of this house obscured any view the window might have offered. At the back end of the house, on the same side as the living room, was the kitchen/dining room, which was only slightly bigger than the adjacent smaller bedroom. Cabinets, sink, and stove were on the right as you entered through a cased opening from the living area; a refrigerator, the door to our room, and a small, Formica-top table and four chairs sat in the corner. The back door was between the table and countertop.

Monroe Avenue—Buckeye’s main street—was also Highway 80 back then, which was the main route between Phoenix and Yuma, with Buckeye and Gila Bend in between. The house—I don’t think it’s there any more—was one block off Monroe on Roosevelt. It was old, but it seemed okay to me, except for the fact all four of us kids were in the one tiny bedroom. I don’t recall how that worked out, but we weren’t there very long—less than a year—and I was sure glad when we rented another house and moved again. But a couple of the minor adventures I had while we were in the Roosevelt house deserve mention before we move on.

3

There was a dark, musty-smelling, one-car detached garage in back of and to the right of the house. It wasn’t fit or sturdy enough for a car to be stored in, and of course, I was told to stay out of it because it was dangerous and dirty. To a nine-year-old adventurer, that was a dare, and I quickly accepted the challenge. Yes, I was shy around other kids, but I’d learned to entertain myself quite well when I was alone, thank you very much. My sister was closest to me in age, but she was a girl, and so, naturally, we had very little in common. Billy, the brother closest in age to me, was enough younger so that we didn’t do much together. And Kenny… Fuhgetaboutit.

We hadn’t been there a full week, when I ventured into the shadowy, dusty den of forbidden adventure. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Sure, it was dirty and dark, but there wasn’t much of anything I could see to be afraid of. I did however find one thing of extreme interest: an old—ancient, I’d say—pair of cowboy boots. Somebody had shoved them back under a workbench at the far end of the garage, and they were covered with cobwebs and dust. The toes of both boots were curled up, and one had a heel missing, but to my young mind, they appeared to have some wear left in them, so I sat down on the dirt floor and slipped them on. Fortunately, they were several sizes too big. The main reason this was fortunate was the scorpion inside one of them had some wiggle room, but not enough so he could turn and stick his stinger into one of my toes. Feeling something in the boot move against my foot, I had that boot off and slung into the wall so fast it seemed to hit the dirt floor before I’d realized it was off my foot. I kicked the other boot off and was heading for the door when the ugliest looking bug I’d ever seen came out of the boot I’d thrown against the wall. I had no idea what it was, but the big stinger on the tail of the gargantuan, killer creature was reason enough to keep me moving. Giving no thought to the consequences of admitting I’d gone into the garage, I rushed into the house and yelled, "Mom! Come look at this bug!

I got a talking to when Dad got home—mostly for scaring the daylights out of Mom—but the rod was thankfully spared. That guy could wield a mean belt. It turns out the scorpion was indeed a big one, and one of the neighbors gave us a good lesson in where they liked to hide and what their habits were. He also said there were probably lots of them in the old garage. I took his word for it; I never went back in there.

4

The back yard was huge—or so it seemed to me—and it was deemed by Mom and Dad to be fair game for exploration, but… I was NOT to go into the alley beyond. Oh? What was back there they didn’t want me to see? The garage/scorpion incident had already wandered into that place in a little boy’s mind where good lessons go to hide, it was my second Saturday at the new house, and I’d roamed every inch of the backyard well before lunchtime. Nothing. I’m telling you straight, there was absolutely nothing of any interest in our back yard. But that alley . . . actually, it was nothing more than a dirt irrigation ditch lined by tall weeds, with wood fences on either side, it called to me in that whisper only a nine-year-old boy can hear, promising adventure. I remember wondering why our house was the only one without a fence, then taking one last quick glance back at the house, I performed a stealthy side-step into the ditch, and suddenly… I was in the jungle — a very muddy one.

Of course, stealthy was merely a figment of my imagination. Reality was the ditch was still wet from the last time they’d let water from the canal into it to irrigate the yards, and as soon as my shoes hit the slick side of the ditch, I found myself on my butt in the soupy bottom of it. Quickly jumping to my feet, I took stock of the situation and determined that I’d gone well beyond the wrath-of-Dad stage, and anything I did from this point on—at least in this particular adventure—was a freebie. So down the ditch-line I went, squishing with every step, and undaunted by the weeds and what might be lurking in them. I came terrifyingly close to wetting my pants when, as I came abreast of the second house on the left, a dog behind the fence charged right up to it, barking and snarling and scratching wildly at the fence slats. My mind informed me that death was eminent if I lingered, so I rushed onward, thrashing through the weeds and slipping in the mud as the ravenous, blood-thirsty canine ran alongside me, snarling, snapping, and barking its fool head off. The dog’s owner, who I didn’t know and at that point hoped not to, yelled from the back door, Killer! Knock it off! Ice water replaced the blood in my veins. Killer? The dog barked once more, then chuffed a final warning before obeying its owner.

I was out of breath, and my heart was trying to beat its way out of my scrawny chest when I finally stopped. Hands on my knees, I gasped for air and listened as that one word echoed in my terrified mind, "Killer!" Holy smokes!

When I finally got my breathing slowed, and my heart rate had slowed to near normal, I glanced back over my shoulder, realizing with a sudden dread I’d have to go past Killer on the way home. No way was I going to try and find my way back by going to the end of the ditch and circling around to Roosevelt. But, I thought, turning to face forward, I probably should explore just a little bit more before turning back. Maybe Killer’s owner would take him inside. Could a dog named Killer be allowed in the house?

A new sound came from my left, startling me and replacing the fear instilled by Killer with a new dread. It wasn’t that the sound was scary—like the barking of a stark-raving-mad dog named Killer—it was more that I was still on edge from that too recent encounter with the brute. The soft whining sound came again, and I gently parted the weeds and peered toward where it was coming from. From my vantage point, all I could see was a weathered wood fence which, from where I stood—the bottom of the slippery ditch, appeared to be about a hundred feet tall. Then through a sliver of space between the slats in the fence, I saw something move. I gasped, stepped back, slipped, and plopped butt first back into the ditch. As I sat there, it seemed my ears were playing tricks on me. The sound I’d heard seemed to be echoing, and getting louder, sounding like a chorus of cats mewling and meowing with not a trace of harmony. I scrambled to my feet, and using the weeds to pull myself up onto the ditch bank, dropped to my knees and put an eye to one of the slats between the boards. The sight I beheld was, in its own way, just as terrifying as Killer the dog. The yard was full of cats! Granted, my