Two Dimes a Day: How Two Little Boys Survived a Broken Home Caused by Addiction in the 1950s

By Robert B. McClintic

As I was contemplating writing this book, after much encouragement from family over the years, I wasnaEUR(tm)t sure about undertaking the task. I wrestled with these thoughts most of one night, and by morning, I knew how to solve my dilemma. I got down on my knees beside the bed and prayed for God to give me a aEURoeGideon-likeaEUR sign to prompt my decision. Later that day, my wife, Nellie, and I were at WendyaEUR(tm)s drive-through for lunch when Nellie stepped out of the vehicle, reached down on the ground, picked something up, and said to me, aEURoeI got you something,aEUR as she placed two dimes in the palm of my hand. I had not told her about my prayer and definitely had not told her that the title of the book, if I wrote it, would be Two Dimes a Day. I first started to laugh then the tears came, and she said, aEURoeWhataEUR(tm)s wrong?aEUR I said, aEURoeDo you know the title of my book?aEUR She said, aEURoeNo.aEUR Divine intervention at His best!My memories of living with addiction began at the age of three. My father was well educated, attended Marshall University, and was a very talented journalist and linotype operator, working for numerous newspapers on the East Coast, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. Our lives should have been very normal and happy; however, his extreme addiction to alcohol quickly destroyed any sense of normalcy. My mother did everything humanly possible to keep our family intact; however, a broken home became evident. At the age of three and five, my brother, Billy, and I were immediately thrust into survival mode. Thanks be to God for His divine intervention into our lives. Also, thank God for Blanche McClintic, my dadaEUR(tm)s first cousin, who instilled a solid biblical foundation into our lives at a very young age. This foundation still sustains us today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781098054830

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Two Dimes a Day

How Two Little Boys Survived a Broken Home Caused by Addiction in the 1950s

Robert B. McClintic

Copyright © 2020 by Robert B. McClintic

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 publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

308 North Lexington Avenue

Cousin Blanche

Two Dimes a Day

Return to Lexington Avenue and We Get a Raise

Jerry’s Run

Chicken Farmers

What’s a Green Devil?

Love versus College

ACC

Three Ps

Full Circle

Family

To my wife, Nellie, for her support, understanding, and patience with me during the years of my career change. Her personal sacrifice of raising the children and working outside the home as well made it possible for me to reach my goals. She is truly a blessing to her family, friends, and to all who know her.

To Blanche McClintic for her care and Christlike character that gave Bill and I a solid foundation in the Lord and biblical teachings. Her influence in my life helped determine my desire to be a Christian and a teacher. She has always been near and dear to our hearts.

And to my mom who always worked tirelessly to provide opportunities for her boys that she never had. Thank you, Mom, for all the times you worked three meals a day to meet all the needs of our lives.

308 North Lexington Avenue

Chapter 1

308 North Lexington Avenue

Iwas awakened abruptly by first, the sounds of the siren and then the flashing red lights as they bounced off the bedroom walls. I could hear voices coming from the downstairs living room, some familiar and some strange. I ran down the stairway as fast as a three-year-old could. I was shocked and terrified by the scene. This would be my first encounter with drug addiction.

My daddy was lying on the floor. It seemed that his whole body was shaking as he kept trying to fight the rescue workers who were trying to calm him down. My mother was trying to help hold my dad for the first responders. My five-year-old brother, Billy, was just as scared and confused as me. We both thought our daddy was going to die. Blanche McClintic and her sister, Archie, my dad’s first cousins were with us and both were trying to console my brother and me. I would later learn my dad’s symptoms were the result of three days of withdrawal from drinking. His condition was very similar to someone having a seizure. However, this was not a seizure; this was full-blown alcoholic DTs (delirium tremors). This condition can cause hallucinations, confusion, irregular heart rate, and at worst, seizures.

I can vividly remember the men loading him on a stretcher and sliding him into the ambulance. I truly believed I would never see him again. He was taken to Alleghany Hospital in our hometown of Covington, Virginia, for the night, and the next day, my mother and Blanche made arrangements to transport him to a hospital in Staunton, Virginia, where he would be admitted to the alcoholic ward. This was nothing new for them; he had been there before.

This was 1950, and as I write this in 2020, I can only imagine how many young boys and girls have witnessed similar drug-related circumstances that left an impact on their lives forever. The number would be staggering and almost unimaginable I’m sure.

I am sure my dad never intended for his life to evolve into alcoholism. However, as I was enlightened later in my life by my mother and yes, Cousin Blanche, as Billy and I called her, we came to realize the possible root causes of his addiction problem.

My dad was born in 1909 and grew up on the family farm in Bath County, Virginia, near Hot Springs where the famous Homestead Resort, built in 1766, is located. Most people have never heard of the Homestead Resort, which is now owned by Omni Hotels. It is saturated with southern charm and hospitality, tucked into the remote mountainous terrain of Bath County. It has luxurious rooms, beautiful old ballrooms, dining rooms, exquisite shopping, skiing, ice skating, horseback riding, two awesome golf courses, and much more. Sam Snead grew up here as he honed his famous golf swing that earned him the nickname, Slammin’ Sammy. We always pass his gravesite with a large headstone on our route to play golf on one of the two golf courses at the Homestead—the Cascades or the Old Course.

The farm is now covered by Lake Moomaw, which was formed when a dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers on the Jackson River to relieve flooding problems downstream in the Covington, Virginia, area. It has twenty-three miles of shoreline today and offers great boating and fishing experiences. The farm was owned by my grandfather, Osborne McClintic, and his brother, Theodore McClintic, Blanche and Archie’s father.

Cousin Blanche and my mom would take us to visit the old two-story brick farmhouse when we were very young. We would spend all day picnicking and hiking and throwing rocks into the Jackson River. My dad and his three younger siblings lived here until my dad was twelve years old. I’m sure he would have had a normal childhood until his mother died when he was at the age of twelve.

My grandfather remarried and his new wife wanted to go to California. Osborne sold his share of the farm to his brother, Theodore, loaded up their few belongings and four children in the car, and left. I have no idea how my dad and his siblings felt about this abrupt change in their life. The excitement of going to California would have been overwhelming coupled with the fact of maybe no more farm chores would be inviting also.

However, whatever their feelings may have been, Osborne’s new wife had her own selfish agenda for the children. The car load of kids and parents arrived later that night in a small town called Grundy, Virginia. This next event is why anytime still yet when asked about my grandfather, who I never knew, I refer to him as the scoundrel. My father and his three siblings were left at an orphanage in Grundy, and he and his new wife headed for California alone.

I’m sure this was not the sole cause for my dad’s alcoholism, but I’m sure it contributed. One can only imagine the heartbreak these four children ages twelve, ten, seven, and five would have felt. Three boys and a girl—Alton, my dad; Hartzell; Hazel; and baby brother, Arnold, were abandoned by their parents, who they never saw again. Immediately, you would feel like no one loved you and your self-esteem would drop to zero. Only an orphaned child could understand their dilemma. My Uncle Arnold, who later became a highly decorated Marine during World War II on the island of Guam, may have visited his father while stationed in California. The other three never had any contact. The four children remained in the orphanage until my dad became old enough to get a job and an apartment to get his siblings out of the orphanage. My dad had worked part-time, saved his money, and later enrolled in Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Hartzell joined the Navy, Arnold the Marines, and Hazel went into foster care and graduated from Oak Hill High School in Oak Hill, West Virginia.

My dad lasted about two years at Marshall University. Mom said he withdrew because he spent his tuition money on drinking and wild parties. However, he attempted to major in journalism and enjoyed his classes and actually learned enough to work for many different newspapers up and down the Atlantic Coast. He was exceptionally talented in English, especially competent in writing, spelling, and grammar. Blanche McClintic helped him obtain his first newspaper job at the Covington Virginian, starting as a reporter and later becoming a linotype operator. He would get up each morning, put on a suit and tie, and go to work at the job he loved although by 7:00 or 8:00 p.m., he would be falling down, sloppy drunk.

Eventually, he would be fired from the Virginian. This pattern of employment would repeat itself many times during his career. Skilled linotype operators were hard to find, and the difficult task of publishing a newspaper with daily time frames, especially during WWII, worked in my daddy’s favor to be given numerous chances to improve his lifestyle. When sober, he was an extremely talented journalist, not to mention he had Blanche McClintic to always plead with the owner of the paper to give my dad another chance. Eventually, the Virginian would give up on him, and he found employment with a newspaper in Radford, Virginia. He rented a room at a Radford boarding house and held down the job mainly setting up the linotype to report on the war effort.

My mother, Anna Lee Addington McClintic, was an original coal miner’s daughter from Wise County, Virginia, and came to Radford to work in an ammunition plant. The war effort left her with a bleached white eyelash she said she received when a parcel of powder ignited and permanently singed her eyelash. She stayed at the same boarding house and for extra cash would take on ironing shirts after work.

Obviously, my dad wore a white shirt and tie daily, and they fell in love over an ironing board. Mom had never been exposed to alcohol hardly at all. My granddad, Addington, Pops as we called him, was a God-fearing, church-going old-time Baptist and abhorred anything related to drinking. Some of my greatest memories are visiting Wise County on weekends and waking up to the smell of my grandmother’s biscuits baking in the oven waiting to be smothered in pork-flavored gravy. If you stayed in Pops’s house on Saturday night, you better believe he will wake you up early and make sure you filled a church pew by eleven o’clock on Sunday morning. Several of my cousins, Glenna, Brenda, Deanna, and numerous other family members host the Addington reunion annually at Dry Fork near St. Paul, Virginia.

Mom and Daddy were married in 1942, and Daddy lost his job in Radford shortly thereafter. He landed a job with the Washington Post, and they moved to DC. My brother, Bill, was born in 1944 during this time. He maintained the Post job for a while; however, he eventually was fired and my mom gained employment with the Ambassador Hotel as a waitress. Mom would work two to three meals each day, trying her best to be the breadwinner. My dad was demoted to full-time babysitter.

Mom told us numerous stories about this time period. My dad enjoyed his new role as it allowed him to attend Washington Senators’ baseball games during the day and evening, taking little Billy along. Mom worried continuously that he may drink too many beers and lose her son at the ballpark. She also told about numerous occasions coming home from work and Mac, as she called him, would be drunk after selling her small appliances to cab drivers for a couple of bucks to buy a pint of whiskey.

She spent several evenings flagging down cab drivers trying to buy back her toaster, mixer, and her iron. Mom decided this lifestyle was not the best for the family, so she returned to Lexington Avenue with Blanche and hopes of my daddy returning once again to the Virginian.

Richard Beirne, the owner, was desperate again for good linotype operators and gave him another try. Thank God, he was successful for a while, and I came on the scene in January of 1947, delivered by Dr. Emmett at Clifton Forge, Virginia, in a hospital near Covington.

My mother’s first obstetrician was Dr. Burton, who was tragically killed in a plane crash out west while bird hunting two months before my scheduled C-section. When I was fifteen years old, I went hunting with a friend whose mother was a good friend of Dr. William Ellis. His mother knew Dr. Burton’s widow, and she borrowed Dr. Burton’s beautifully engraved Ithaca shotgun for me to use. This valuable gun survived the plane crash, and I got to use it for my first hunting experience and fortunately killed a turkey with it. However, I digress, and this is getting ahead of my story.

Needless to say, my dad would lose his job again, and we would have to relocate this time to Clarksburg, West Virginia, where my dad landed a linotype job with the Clarksburg Exponent. Following another relapse, my dad was once again admitted to rehab this time at Weston, West Virginia, for treatment. Mom moved back to Covington with Blanche hoping the rehab would work. Daddy got out and my mom was ready to try again to preserve our family, knowing it was a continuous uphill battle.

At this time, Blanche McClintic lovingly asserted her solution to my mom’s situation. Let me keep the boys while you try to get Mac straightened out, she told my mother.

My brother and I would stay with Cousin Blanche for almost three years. During this time, my mother survived the nightmare of an alcoholic’s wife as she was forced to move to numerous cities and towns on the east coast. Over a period of three years, my dad was hired and fired by the Roanoke Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Herald (later Tribune), and New York Times. Some of these newspapers hired and fired him more than once according to my mother.

During the lapse between jobs, Mom and Dad would drive in to visit with their boys when possible. Daddy would aggravate her most of the way until she would stop and let him purchase beer or whiskey. My dad went back to New York, got employment again with the New York Times, and lived with his brother Hartzell who discharged from the Navy at New York harbor.

Eventually, my dad was found mugged on the bowery in New York. He was robbed of all his clothes and even his false teeth were stolen, and he landed in LaGuardia Hospital’s (now Kennedy) alcoholic ward. This was all my mom could take, and she was forced to file for divorce. Later I learned that over the years, my mom was criticized by some for abandoning her children and filing for divorce. Not so, I knew at a very young age that this was her only hope