Chapter 7

DESPAIRED EVEN OF LIFE

 

(From the beginning of my 5th grade of school in September 1956, until I start the 7th grade entering junior high school in September 1958. Daddy and we his sons tear down our old shack and build a new house for our family. Daddy remarries.)

 

After becoming our pastor in 1952, Pastor Cobb had invited the men’s quartet from Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, Tennessee to come to our church a few times. One quartet member would blow on the pitch pipe and the 4 of them harmonized so well as they sang old hymns acappella. One or more of those young men would preach the 2 or more church services they attended. Bobby Jackson was a member of the quartet with a good singing voice. He was also a powerful preacher boy. For 2 summers, Pastor Cobb had Brother Bobby come as the evangelist to preach our annual revival.

At this young stage of my life, The Holy Ghost powerfully convicted me of my lost condition and easily convinced me of the reality of eternal Hell fire that awaits each soul that dies lost. I knew I was headed for that place of eternal torment. Time and again, when the invitation was given at the end of a “Hell fire and brimstone” sermon, I would go to the altar and kneel and pray, confessing my sins and asking forgiveness. Each time I did so, I felt forgiven and saved (from eternal Hell fire). That sure felt good to this little sinner.

But within a week, sins of hatred, meanness, anger, harsh words, fist fights with my brothers, and possibly lying would come forth from my being. The devil would then accuse me of losing my salvation and reverting to a lost Hell-bound sinner. And the evidence was strong enough to convince me that was the case.

Free Will Baptist doctrine teaches that a saved child of God can lose his or her salvation by sinning. In the 1950s, a good number of the adult church members in my church were “repeated regenerationists” who believed that a person could be saved, then lost, then saved again, but lost again if they went back into sin. They believed any soul could continue that horrible cycle any number of times during a lifetime. And it was most easy for the devil to convince me of that, mainly because the Holy Spirit so wonderfully, clearly and fearfully convicted me of the sins in my life.

The result was that most of the time I felt “hopelessly” lost for all eternity, because I was totally failing as I tried to hang on to my salvation by not sinning. All the adult Christians around me appeared as saints to sinful brat me. I would never have thought that any of them had been as sinful as I, when they were 9 years old. More and more, I became convinced that I would never be able to make Heaven my home.

Such “hopeless” thoughts weighed heavily on my mind endlessly, especially during long hours of the drudgery of hoeing cotton in that hot sun. I just knew that my life on earth would be nothing more than this present drudgery and that when it shortly ended, I would be tossed into eternal Hell fire. Thus for a period of 7 years or so (say from 7 to 14 years of age), I wished I had never been born. If eternal retribution were going to be my certain fate, it sure would have been best had I never been created at all. “Therefore I hated life”. (Ecclesiastes 2:17)

(From the start of the 2nd paragraph of this chapter thru the previous paragraph, are the reasons for the title of this chapter, not the fact that my Mother had died.)

Thank God that His Hand was upon me for good, convincing me that I was the chief of sinners and in need of a Saviour. This caused me to desperately seek the Saviour and to be found of Him and to be eternally saved by Him. “If you cannot tell the time and the place you got saved, then likely you are not saved.” From pulpits, multitudes of well-meaning preachers have bellowed out the previous sentence (or one similar to it). Their motive is good. They want all the lost souls under the sound of their voice to get saved.

I cannot tell the time I got saved because I went to that altar many times to get saved. Praise God that I do know for a certainty that (along the way) a Loving God saved me, made me His child, and daily (and nightly) is guiding me on my earthly journey to God’s Glorious Heaven. I am, most thankful to God for saving me eternally. And as I pen these words at age 70, I invite you to “Come thou with us!” Please call on The Saviour of the world to save you. Please join me on my journey to Heaven.

We’re marching to Zion. Beautiful, Beautiful Zion.

We’re marching upward to Zion, The Beautiful City of God.

Mrs. Newman is my teacher when I enter the 5th grade in September 1956. This year I work in the lunchroom with another boy taking the returned plates, scraping off the remaining food into the large metal garbage can (for a hog owner to take to his hogs), and then running the plates and silverware thru the dishwasher. I was appalled to watch my fellow worker choose, take, and eat from the remaining food on students’ plates. There was no rule against doing that. It was not stealing food (from those hogs?). I just thought it too low a thing for even a poor boy like me to do.

But as I watched him daily doing so, the benefit of eating free, healthy food won over my pride, causing me to lower my standards. And when no one else but my fellow worker was watching, I too chose my favorite scraps on those plates and partook of them. It was quite a step above the prodigal son eating husks with the swine. I wasn’t a prodigal son, just a poor son. In our hurried work at lunchtime, that guy and I had no time to use fork or spoon, just pick up a food scrap by hand, shove it into mouth, lick fingers if food remained on them, and keep busy at our work. (Yes, it certainly would have been an interesting sight for you to have observed.)

The number of students at Vernon school is increasing. So this year, I watch construction workers block off a section of our large playground and start construction on a new school building that will become the elementary school next year. The junior high school classes will expand into the present elementary school classrooms. There is no other outstanding school news for my fifth grade. By the grace of God I studied hard and made very good grades and thoroughly enjoyed everything at school. It was fun being there, interacting with many people, learning, growing, and steadily pulling myself up by my own bootstraps (or so I believed).

At home, the seasonal farm work continues as usual so I will cease commenting on anything other than changes or new developments in it. Also, I have adequately described the annual joys of Thanksgiving and Christmas events, so I will cease mentioning those 2 fun days unless there is significant, related news. This 5th grade Christmas, Daddy agreed to let me buy my own BB gun at Christmas if I could save up enough money to buy it ($7 or so). I was able to save enough to buy the Daisy lever action air gun for BBs. It was cheaper than the “pump” version that had a stronger discharge. Fortunately I did not start out by firing it in the wrong (opposite) direction as I did with my first slingshot.

In January 1957, I turn 11 years old. I get no birthday presents, no news media reports it, but I still greatly rejoice that I am growing up, something I want to do in a hurry.

However, big changes occur this year regarding our family. Daddy begins dating a widow named Lucille, giving her a ride to church and sitting with her in church. Soon he announces to us 4 kids at home, that we are going to move out of our collapsing house, tear it down and build a new house. Such news filled me with joy, highly excited over getting a new house to live in.

I think I was the kid that brought up the obvious question. ‘But where will we live while we tear down and rebuild?’ Daddy answered that we would live nearby in the now vacant collapsing old house where Clyde’s family had previously lived.

I chuckled thinking that Daddy couldn’t be serious about us living (even temporarily) in such a dilapidated house. Why, I had already personally mentally condemned that vacant shack as being unfit for human habitation and even furthered its awful condition by occasionally chunking a rock thru one of its window panes when I walked past it (and no other soul was around to hear or see my crime). Though I chuckled now thinking Daddy must be kidding, I certainly didn’t speak up about my crimes.

But (in awe) I saw that Daddy was most serious as we soon began to clean up that old vacant shack. Daddy cut pieces of scrap tin to place in each window frame that was void of a glass pane (while I earnestly pleaded the 5th by keeping silent about my crimes, feeling badly about them now, seeing that I will have to live in that house for more than a year). “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” That Scriptural Truth applies to bad little boys as well as to adults.

The east half of this shack’s wooden front porch fell in some time ago, (but I had not broken it down by bouncing on it). That was one of the few destructive acts of which I was innocent. To enter this front door, we walk across the bare earth where that collapsed section of porch is now missing and up the makeshift wooden steps to the remainder of the porch, which fortunately extends back this way past the front door that opens to the hallway.

There is a back door in the kitchen, but no back porch. The back door was crudely handmade by nailing 3 boards in a Z figure onto vertical boards to hold them upright in place. (I pretended that Z stood for Zorro.) This personally handcrafted Zorro back door had no doorknob. Instead (about 4 feet up the door facing) one nail held a short portion of wooden board (about 10 inches long) in the “facing” (frame) of this door. That board was the door’s latch. Rotate it by hand (pivoting on the nail) straight up and down the facing to release the door for opening it. Rotate the board 90 degrees crosswise across the door to hold the door shut. Simplicity to the highest degree.

Due to the fact that this shack was slowly collapsing, this back wall was leaning a few degrees inward. Thus, we had to keep this back door latched when we wanted it closed, because the door automatically opened inwards (into the slant angle) when the latch was rotated to the vertical, releasing the door. I wonder if we could have gotten a patent on that type of “automatic” door.

The faithful slop bucket was placed in this kitchen to receive scant food remains for the hogs. But we were missing the convenient sewage water disposal device of a funnel thru a hole in the kitchen floor thru which to funnel kitchen wastewater downward to the earth. No problem. Just rotate door latch to the vertical, releasing the automatic Zorro door to swing open inwardly of its own accord, and fling the pan of dirty dishwater out into the backyard full of weeds. (Modern conveniences in perfection, and most cheap to boot.)       

We pack clothes and such in cardboard boxes to haul them to this house in the car and move larger household items by horse and wagon about 400 yards out to this house. This shack has a fireplace in the west wall of the living room for heating instead of a wood stove. Daddy places his and Mother’s double bed in the corner of that small living room. Janiece sleeps there. We place to the other 2 double beds in the small bedroom across the hall. Daddy and Joe sleep on one bed. Sid and I sleep on the other.

Daddy and we boys set in tearing down our family house. We continue the farm work in the fields and vegetable gardens as well. All our farm animals, chickens, hogs, cows and horses stay in place. Sid and I now walk that 5-minute walk to our barn early in the morning to milk cows, feed animals, and then walk back to our temporary house to eat breakfast before catching the school bus on the road behind that house. (The back of the house is toward the highway. A narrow dirt road is in front of the house.)

Summer of 1957, we work all our crops in addition to tearing down the house. We were plenty busy. Daddy buys a used chain saw (ever so loud and noisy that old saw was) and with it cuts down pine trees in our woods, hauls them to a “sawmill” where he and the sawmill’s owner saw them into appropriate sizes of lumber to use in building our house. Sidney and I help. I am fascinated with the sawmill’s operation. 

One summer day Daddy let Sidney and I go fishing with Uncle Hershel and the next evening Aunt Virgie fried our catch of fish at their house and our family of five ate that delicious fish supper with Uncle and Aunt. I stuffed myself with fresh fish and the good vegetables.

At the end of the meal as the adults are talking, Aunt Virgie announces some delicious news. “We’ve got ice cream in the freezer.” How my ears perked up and my taste buds instantly began savoring that store-bought ice cream. But regretfully Aunt Virgie has more to say. “I’ve heard that eating ice cream after eating fish can kill a person.”

For the first time in my life I was faced a cause for which I felt willing to risk giving my life (eating delicious store-bought ice cream, after eating fish). Daddy spoke up saying that he didn’t think there was any truth to that fable. I didn’t speak up, but I sure was willing to be a guiena pig by stuffing myself full of ice cream to see if that might be my last act on earth (parting this life in such a delicious and satisfied manner). I hung suspended in hope a minute or 2 as the 3 adults debated back and forth on the subject. But in the end Aunt Virgie dropped the idea of an ice cream dessert, much to my disappointment (missing my chance to possibly become a martyr to ice cream following fish).

At this time, at church Lucille is teaching the Sunday evening children’s League (Training Union) class that I am in. She arranges with the small TV station in Columbus, Mississippi for our class to be on their live Saturday morning children’s program. I got all excited about that. The day of our dazzling performance, Daddy takes Lucille and a carload of us kids. Two or 3 other church adults chauffeur kids, a total of about 12 of us kid movie stars making our first debut onto the screen. The studio workers arrange us seated center stage, rehearse that show’s theme song with us a couple of times, and “presto” the show goes live on the air with a studio worker banging on a piano and us country hick kids enthusiastically singing.

“Welcome to Channel 4, where everyone always sees more.

Every day of the week, throughout the year,

Channel Four is always here to bring you loads of cheer.

We are so glad you’re all here! Open the door!

Welcome you all! Welcome to Channel Four!”

(Isn’t it amazing, the way dumb vain ditties tend to lodge in our minds forever.) Then the host comes to each seated child with the microphone, has the child give name and age, and interrogates each kid concerning that which their lives consist of. Hogs. Pigs. Horses. Cows. Fishing. Playing. Such made up the content of our amusing answers to a small TV audience.

Also, each child was allowed the opportunity to give a short individual performance (if they desired). But only a few of us country kids was talented enough to even think up an individual performance. Of course I was one of those few. (No, I did not replay my first shot with a slingshot.) Rather, I recited the poem, “What Is A Boy?” (I will spare you the boredom of reading it here, simply because I have forgotten most of it.) But this kid actually stood holding a microphone, dead center in front of a real TV camera (just like presidents of nations do) and clearly cited my poem from memory with no glitches or mistakes. (Some presidents have done worse with their deliveries.)

Back in the Vernon area, our church people who had a TV were glued to it, proudly watching their own church kids star. We Yerbys had no TV in our shack. Janiece was older than Lucille’s kids’ class, so she stays home. But she walks thru the woods to Mr. Ormond’s house, tells wife Annie that we kids are appearing on TV this morning. So Annie tunes in Channel Four in plenty of time for us to sing our welcome song to her and Janiece.

While I am reciting my poem, Mr. Ormond walks in from where he was working outside. He briefly stares at the child star on his TV screen. “That looks like Richard”, he says (thinking it couldn’t possibly be this barefoot farm boy).

“That IS Richard!” Annie answers up loudly in her slow Southern country drawl. Greatly amazed that I have made the “Big Time”, Mr. Ormond continues to stare and listen to “What Is A Boy?” Less than 4 years ago, I briefly watched TV for the first time. Now I is appearing on TV. Marvels do happen, even to poor country kids.

My speech lasted only 3 or 4 minutes. But upon handing the mike to me, the show host walked gracefully off camera, then hurried further away in the studio and quickly “lit up” to quench his “nicotine fit” (such an example for the host of a children’s show). Anyway, my eyes sort of became glued onto him (puffing hard offstage to get his fix), wondering if he would get back to me by the time my speech ended. But because he has practiced those brief puffing breaks many times, he has them timed perfectly. This time he gracefully arrived back at my side with a few seconds to spare before taking the mike from me and complimenting me on my fine speech. Though this boy could smell the stench of the cigarette smoke on him, none of the TV audience can smell it. I reckon that fact has some merit to it.

A herd of talent scouts soon descend upon our farm shack with lucrative contracts for me to sign. Disregard that last sentence. It is fiction. Having been a child star for 30 minutes, I quickly revert to my opposite Cinderella outfit (barefoot in ragged farm clothes) and just keep slaving away at my summer farm work, while the entertainment world continues to turn as usual, totally ignoring my fine talent, much to their detriment.   

Though my farm family is poor financially, each summer I can eat to the fullest of delicious apples, peaches, grapes, watermelons and cantaloupes that God’s nature produces in abundance on our farmland. We grow many other fresh veggies that grace our meal table, but I considered the above list the most delicious treats. Each on the list was set out or planted and cultivated by us. The previous owner of our farm had set out the fruit trees, a scupidine vine (similar to muscadine, but sweeter), and a grape vine. I delighted to stand at either of those vines, picking the sweet fruits off them and eating them on the spot. Wild dewberries, blackberries, huckleberries, mulberries, plums, muscadines, and such, abounded in the meadows, woods, bushy areas, on ditch banks, and such. But chiggers (redbugs) abounded more, and delighted to attach themselves to my body and eat away at me causing irritating itch. We made jellies, jams and preserves from many of these berries and fruits and occasionally baked a delicious pie from them.  

When we get our old house completely torn down, the county road commissioner for our district hauls a bulldozer here on a truck. Austin is its operator. With the bulldozer, Austin grades the house and yard area level to accommodate building a new house. No longer is there a large rock under which earthworms find food and shelter.

We dig foundation trenches by hand (pick and shovel). Then we haul rocks in the wheelbarrow down from the hill behind the house place and line those trenches with rocks (freely given by God) to reduce the amount of money-bought concrete that would be needed. We mix concrete on site and wheelbarrow it to the trenches, dump it in and smooth it. After it hardens 2 days or so, then Daddy begins laying the concrete block foundation. It sure looks different from the piles of rocks on which our old shack set. ‘This is great!’ My heart proclaims within me as I look at those straight and level rows of concrete block foundation. ‘We are going to have a grand house!’

In the hot summer sun, Sidney and I brush creosote onto the wooden pillows that are to be placed on top of the rows of concrete blocks. The creosote burns our skin badly as we brush it in the hot sun.

These wooden pillows were 6 inches by 8 inches (I think). They were heavy. It was an immense relief to me to finish brushing creosote onto the final one because then the blisters on my face, hands and arms would start healing. All workers present would together lug the heavy pillows one by one and place them in line on the rows of concrete blocks. (At times, one or 2 other men would help Daddy, Sid, and me. Lucille’s youngest son, Rayburn, helped on occasion.)

Upon placing the last pillow, Daddy soon begins nailing on the subfloor. Our old house had no subfloor. Our poor family is moving up in the world. As the area of completed subfloor increased, it felt so good to be able to walk around on that floor (as opposed to walking on the ground below it as we had been doing). We tote more boards and stack them on the floor, along with our water jug, tools and such. ‘Truly, a new house is shaping up right before our eyes!’ That was most exciting to watch.  

One summer day Joe walks from the house down to the field where Daddy, Sid, and I are farming to bring news to Daddy. “Brother Ritch came to look at the house. He was walking around on the subfloor and a board broke thru under him, skinning his leg.”

Pastor Ritch was a carpenter in addition to being a preacher, doing carpentry work to supplement the income he received from the church. In addition to observing our poor family bettering our lot in life by building a new house, he also wanted to look over Daddy’s carpentry work. So this day, he came to look at the construction.

As we tore down the old house, Daddy saved every wooden board and nail from it that could possibly be used in building our new house. I think every board we now put into the sub floor came out of the old house, each of those boards being in varying stages of rottenness. As Pastor Ritch walked the subfloor checking it out, unfortunately he stepped on a board in an advanced rotten stage. As his foot broke thru it, the board’s jagged edges scrapped the calf of his leg plenty. Regrettably that is how his inspection of our “new” house construction turned out.

Several months ago when Daddy first announced to us kids that we were going to build a new house, that news was an immense joyous surprise to me, having lived all of my short life in a dilapidated leaking shack that was collapsing on us. ‘A new house!!’ In my excitement, my simple child’s mind more or less equated newness with grandeur. ‘The newer a house be, the grander it be.’ That was my simple conclusion. I had seen several very nice houses. And I sort of pictured our upcoming house being nicer than any of them simply because it would be newer than any of them. So I excitedly looked forward to soon living in the nicest house in the area.

But upon the tragic result of Pastor Ritch’s inspection visit today, I was instantly enlightened regarding reality. Newness does not equate with grandeur. In fact, regarding my family’s new farmhouse presently under construction using old rotten boards, newness does not even equate with newness. It was a letdown to this little boy to obtain the knowledge of this reality.

Daddy replaced the broken board with a somewhat less rotten board and our new house construction proceeded in all its grandeur and rottenness. And with time, Pastor Ritch’s wounded leg healed, thank God.          

At the start of September 1957, I enter Mrs. Woods’ 6th grade class. This is my 2nd time to have her for a teacher. She is a most fine teacher and I’m glad to be in her class. And the elementary school is now in its new building (for the 1st time). But the new brick building with concrete tiled floors did not have enough classrooms (likely because the governments who paid for it didn’t have money to build enough). So they moved a 4 room, square wooden building (intact) from the existing school and placed it near this new school. The 5th and 6th grade classes (2 sections each) were in these 4 classrooms. I like being in class in this old wooden building, it’s floors not yet rotten.    

This year, as the school day ends each day, I go sweep one of the 2nd grade classrooms to earn my lunch in the school lunchroom. Regretfully there were no food scraps lying on this classroom floor for me to pick up and eat as a fringe benefit to this job.

Each school year, one or 2 movies were shown in the auditorium for students who could afford the admission charge. When I was in grammar school, I think the cost was 15 cents for kids thru grade six and 25 cents for 7th grade thru 12th grade students. Each movie time, kids who didn’t attend sat in their classroom during the movie. Usually it was same poor kids sitting in a classroom with teacher and the same rich kids attending the movie. You can guess that I sat in the classroom, but not every time. Sometimes I had money for the movie. Awe struck, I watched the devil’s friend Peter Pan do all his dazzling flying and such. I got to watch the touching movie of the black sheep that won the blue ribbon at the fair. Each year, there might be 1 magician show. More than once, I had the money to be fascinated by his trickery.

Daddy and Lucille’s dates become more frequent. During my 6th grade year at school, late most every Saturday afternoon our family would stop our work, take our weekly bath, eat supper and then Daddy would go to Lucille’s house in town to visit for 2 or more hours. We kids could tag along with Daddy if we wanted, and each of us did go at times. I often went because I wanted to watch Matt Dillon (and others) on Saturday night TV in that house. At this time, Lucille lives in Vernon with her youngest son and her mother. They don’t have a car. Lucille works at the garment plant in Vernon and rides with another worker on that short commute. On Sunday afternoons, often Daddy and Lucille go for a drive or go visit someone. If we kids want to go, we’re tolerated. I enjoy meeting new people as we visit several of Lucille’s acquaintances.

On the farm, I continue to shoot BBs at birds and such, but I long to fire heavier artillery. (Growing boys desire to move up to mightier warrior status.) At this time, Daddy owns only one firearm; a very old 12 gauge double barrel shotgun. It has been years since he had fired it. I had never known him to fire it during my short lifetime. It just stood stock down leaning against the wall in a corner of his bedroom. Occasionally I would pick it up and shoulder it. ‘Heavy! And they say a 12 gauge kicks hard!’ (Recoils sharply)

Sidney and I both grow into a desire to fire that shotgun. We ask Daddy if he thinks the old gun is still safe to fire. Soon Sid or I buy a couple of shells for it. Sid or Daddy test fires it. Upon doing so, the barrels and chambers stayed intact, causing us to deem it still safe to fire. Daddy gives Sidney and me permission to hunt with it.

As twilight falls one evening, I take the heavy shotgun out of its lodging place in the corner of our bedroom in this temporary house. Outside in the yard, I load one shell into one chamber only and start walking down the Old Road. Rabbits are known to hop out of the bush and sit in the road when twilight comes. I walk quietly, squinting down the road in the failing light. ‘There’s a rabbit!’ The lovely bunny is only doing what it enjoyed doing each evening, but today it will play the fatal role necessary in this historical scenario of promoting this boy into the role of a successful “big-eared” game hunter.

I have not yet fired this piece of heavy artillery and am plenty fearful of how hard it will “kick” me. Older, experienced shooters had told me to pull the stock tightly against my shoulder, so as to not give it any room at all to pick up speed as it kicks back and hits me. I ease the safety off, shoulder that heavy gun, and firmly gripping the appropriate place with each hand, I pull the stock tightly against my shoulder, and place my trigger finger on the front trigger that fires the right side barrel. I did not load both barrels because upon firing one barrel, the recoil can cause the trigger finger to accidently slip, pulling the second trigger and shooting from the second barrel also, giving a double punch to the shoulder. I made sure to avoid that possibility.

Having acquired the safest and most likely accurate stance possible, I again squint down the road, just barely able to make out the lovely outline of that bunny still sitting there. If he had known that this ferocious hunter was gunning for him, he would have hopped 2 farms away by now. I squeeze the trigger.

“Ka Boom!”

‘That sure was loud! But I can handle the kick OK! It hurt, but not badly! I can shoot this big gun!’ (I’m elated to just have successfully fired this shotgun, no matter if I missed my target.) ‘I wonder if I hit him! Probably missed! That’s a lot of smoke!’ In the dim twilight, I squint thru the gun smoke but can see nothing. I keep squinting as I walk that way, but see no deceased rabbit yet. ‘Likely he jumped into the bushes when I shot (but missed) and is long gone by now. Too bad!’

But as I get closer, I see the bunny lying on the road, restfully sleeping forever. The peaceful look on his lifeless face assures me that he was pleased with having played his fatal role so well, and that he no longer has any worries or cares of life. ‘I got him!’ This little hunter had bagged his game. I happily carry it home and lay it on the front porch. I walk on air out to the barn to do nightly chores where Daddy and Sid were doing the same.

‘Did you hear that shot?’

“Yeah.”

‘I got a rabbit!’ Neither of them is very excited about it. When we soon walk back to the house in the dark, I excitedly look on the porch where I laid my kill (wanting to show it off to family). But no kill is in sight. In our poverty, our poor dogs stayed half-starved. No doubt Blackie happened upon that bunny of mine, carried it out to the edge of the yard and happily, instantly set about making it his fast-food supper.

The next morning, in the daylight I walk around the yard area looking for any remains of my rabbit where Blackie had feasted on him. But I find no remains. Starving Blackie likely ate all that rabbit; hide, hair, buckshot and all! No doubt the bunny was doubly pleased that his very last act on earth was one of benevolent domestic aid, providing a well-balanced meal for a poor, half-starved Yerby dog.    

Throughout autumn, we busily harvest our farm crops as usual and keep building the house as time permits. Sidney and I each want a .22 caliber rifle of our own. Daddy tells us both that he will now let us have our own .22 rifle, but that he is not able to buy them for us as Christmas presents from him. So Sid and I each scrap and save our pennies while Daddy helps us look around for used .22 single-shot rifles (the cheapest of rifles).

Used firearms for sale abound in this rural area of hunters and riflemen. I find one in a store in Vernon that I like, priced at $12. Daddy looks it over carefully, approves of it at that price and I happily buy it. In a few days, Sidney soon buys a used rifle from one of our neighbors for $10. Each of these is a .22 caliber single shot rifle. So in December 1957, about one month before I turn 12 years old, I obtain my first “real” firearm of my very own, making me happy and proud.

Overjoyed upon buying my first real rifle, along with a box of 50 cartridges (ammo), I’m most eager to fire it when we arrive home from town after dark. “Try to hit one of those hickory nuts.” (Tho it’s dark, the nuts hanging in the tree are plenty visible against the lighter sky background.) With that urging from Daddy, I load a cartridge, take hurried aim at one nut on the hickory tree in the yard, and squeeze the trigger.

“Bang!” No kick. Not so loud. Just a little smoke. And no hit. In my excited rush, I completely miss the hickory nut in my sights. (I guess that rabbit days ago wished I had clearly missed him in like manner.) Daddy asks me to donate one cartridge to him. He loads, takes good aim and shatters the nut he had put in the gun’s sights. No problem with the sight alignment. This little novice shooter will just have to aim better. Getting a real firearm is the highlight of my 6th grade Christmas of 1957.

In January 1958, I turn 12 years old, rejoicing to add another year to my age. I want to grow up! Hurry! Am I the only child that ever felt that way?? 

Thru out the winter, Daddy and his crew of little sons continue to work hard building our new house. My heart delights to help nail together and raise the frames for the walls and see them standing in place. Now we have some “height” in place, not just the flat floor. Next, the ceiling beams and rafters. Many of the boards we nail down for the roof’s decking are used lumber. Thankfully none is rotten enough for a foot to crash thru as we walk over them in our work. Then we cover the roof’s wood decking with black felt paper (tar paper) and Daddy tacks on asphalt shingles to finish it. Those shingles will not be prone to split like the wooden ones on the old house. We could not use the fragments of those wooden shingles anywhere in building this new house (which is a blessing). We use most of them for firewood in the cook stove.

This winter or spring, one night they held a talent show at school. And of course, this highly talented boy just had to enter that show. This 6th grade boy again recites his poem, “What Is A Boy?” The talent show was open to contestants all way thru 12th grade. First, Second, and Third place cash prizes were awarded ($15, $10, and $5, I think). A small group of high school students that played and sang together as a band easily took first place. I think 2nd and 3rd place winners were high school or junior high students. Older kids who had a few more years than I to refine their talents outgunned me. (No problem. By God’s Grace I’ll just keep growing every day and with His Help, refine my talents and use them for His Glory.)

Parents and local adults attend the talent show. Daddy comes. The auditorium is quite full of souls. As they announce the 3 winners one by one and call them up front to get their loot, I hope against hope that my name will be called. Vain was my hope. But as some dignified person is closing down the gathering by thanking everyone for participating and attending, one of the lady judges quietly makes her way down the backside of my row of seats, taps me on the shoulder when she reaches me, extends one closed hand toward me and whispers to me.

“Even though you didn’t win one of the three prizes, we judges wanted you to have a prize too, a fourth prize.” Surprised, I put my open hand under her closed hand as I can readily see she wants me to do. She slowly let the coins slip as silently as possible into my hand. I thank her, put the coins into my pocket and wait till I get into the car to go home to take the coins out and count them. $1.85. Likely with Mother’s death and my family’s poverty in mind, the 3 kind judges all pulled out some pocket change and pooled it to award me $1.85. I was touched by their kind deed and was most thankful to get that spending money.

‘I wonder if the reenactment of my first slingshot shot would have won a prize that night? If only, if just only, I could have reenacted my “big eared” game hunter making his first kill with that big, heavy shotgun. No doubt that talent would have brought the house down.”

“Hush, Richard.”

‘Yes, Sir. Come to think of it, that ain’t no indoor act, is it?’

Winter gives way to spring (1958) as we busily build the house. But this spring, Daddy does not plant our cotton crop. Working the cotton requires much time. This year, we need that time for building. At this time, the U.S. government will pay farmers to not plant their cotton, letting lie idle and fallow on his farm the acreage allowed his size farm by the government for cotton (a money crop that Uncle Sam “helps” keep at a good price by controlling the amount farmers are allowed to produce). So Daddy takes that payment from the government this year. We do grow our other crops of corn, hay, vegetables and such.

Seeing slow but steady progress on building the house warms all our hearts. It’s a slow go with this limited construction crew of father and small sons, the sons going to school and the entire crew doing a lot of farming. Upon getting the roof “in the dry” we nail on the outside walls (used boards), tack black tar paper onto those outside walls and install used windows that came out of an old (small) school building Daddy got for free for tearing down the building. He also got doors, lumber and such from that school building to go into our new house. “Patchwork” would have been a good name for this new castle of ours.

Upon installing the windows and doors after nailing on the outside walls, we now have the house in the dry. We rejoice in this important stage of accomplishment.

(Let me now finish up what I tell you of this school year, as the end of it is somewhat of a milestone for my family.) Janice graduates from high school. All of our family attends her class’s commencement ceremony on a Sunday after Sunday morning church. Then we attend her class’s graduation ceremony a few nights later. Now my big sister has graduated from high school! ‘Congratulations, Sis!’

Sidney is now in junior high school. And at the end of this school year (at the end of May 1958), I finish the 6th grade, completing elementary school. In these ancient days, the schools in our area have a graduation ceremony only for the 12th graders graduating from high school. But the 6th grade has a Formal. Each boy chooses a girl for his partner. I ask Rebecca to be my partner and she agrees.

The two 6th grade teachers do most of the planning and organizing for the upcoming Formal. They choose me to be the Master of Ceremonies. I am honored. We practice several times, a few dance-like routines and such. I am to make several announcement-like speeches throughout the ceremony. So I carefully memorize each announcement and practice “speaking up” so everyone in the large auditorium will be able to hear me.

The attire is to be suit and tie for boys and a nice, somewhat formal dress for girls. Several poor kids in our class do not own such clothes, so we just wear the best we have. I don’t have a suit. But borrowing one, maybe 2 articles of clothing from Sidney, I put together dress trousers, a white shirt and a bow tie. Such is what I intend to wear to the Formal. (The trousers are far down the scale of “dress” category, but at least they were not blue jeans or ragged farm clothes.)

But several days before the scheduled Formal at the end of May, a quite large package (that was not expected) came in the mail addressed to me. That was the first time in my life for such to happen to me. There was no return address on the package. We opened the package to find a boy’s fine, brand new suit (trousers and jacket) just my size. Well! There was no letter, note, or name inside with this nice present (nor a return name and address on the package), just the suit of clothes that this little Master of Ceremonies so badly needed. Well! Well!

So, attired in that nice new suit (and in Sidney’s white shirt and bow tie) I speak up loudly with each announcement I make at the Sixth Grade Formal, making no mistakes with my memorized lines. Thank God I do a good job as Master of Ceremonies and am thankful for that honor. Parents, teachers, principal, and students alike all enjoy the Formal and glory in how great we 6th grade kids are becoming. School lets out for the summer. I successfully complete the 6th grade and look forward to the milestone of starting junior high school in September. Moving up in this world! It feels good!

During my 6 years of elementary school, I seldom missed a day of school. I was eager to get out of our old house and go to a bright and lively classroom. I “dragged myself” to school on the days I was half-sick. I did not want to miss, and had a very good attendance record. Some poor farmers kept their children out of school many days each year to do farm work (especially at harvest time). Though we were very poor and Daddy needed our help, he never ever kept us out of school to work. I am most thankful for that. 

Very soon after our Formal (possibly the following Sunday night) my family goes over to Pastor Ritch’s house for a visit after Sunday night church service. We do this occasionally and it’s a fun time for us kids. Remember, Kenneth and Jerry Ritch are the ages of Sidney and me. We play together in their bedroom on nights like this while the adults visit in the living room.

Likely Daddy purposely visited them this night for the following reason. As my family is about to leave after that fun visit, Daddy asks Pastor Ritch if he was the one who sent the nice new suit for me. “Yes, I sent it. I wanted him to have it to wear to the Formal. And I didn’t even know at the time that he was going to be the Master of Ceremonies. When I saw that Richard was Master of Ceremonies, I was more than glad that I had sent the suit to him.”

Upon the surprise arrival of that suit in the mail, simple-minded little boy Richard didn’t even ponder what good soul bestowed such great kindness upon me. I reckon I just thought God Himself addressed that package up in Heaven and Personally lowered it straight down into our mailbox with no human factor involved. But Daddy thinks more deeply than his little son does. As Daddy ponders who could have sent it, likely Pastor was his first guess.

Jerry Ritch is my classmate, so his parents attended the Formal because Jerry was in it also. Thus, Pastor and Mrs. Ritch observed me carrying on as Master of Ceremonies in the nice new suit they chose for me. I know God filled their hearts with joy at that time, for their goodness to me. I am most grateful for their kindness to this poor boy.

Anyway, tonight after Brother Ritch humbly confesses to being the kind giver, Daddy turns to me. “What do you say to him?” All this sudden and unexpected revealing of the source of that nice gift to me, took me by surprise. I was getting plenty choked up on Pastor Ritch’s complimentary words about me being Master of Ceremonies. Now Daddy calls on the Master of Ceremonies to make an impromptu speech of thanks to Pastor. I’m a lot better at giving a memorized speech than an impromptu one. Also, I’m choking up by now. So, when I should shined forth with an elegant speech thanking Pastor for such great kindness he bestowed upon poor me, instead I fight back tears as I mutter ‘Thank you’ (one of my shortest speeches ever) and head on out to our old car as soon as I can.

At the end of May, school dismisses for summer vacation. Janiece has graduated from high school. Congratulations, Big Sister! By God’s Great Grace, I have sailed thru grammar school with flying colors. Thus, big changes are occurring in our family this late spring, summer, and early autumn of 1958.

Janiece has finished her education and gains employment. Daddy buys new, planed (smooth) tongue-and-groove lumber for the floors of our house. I rejoice as we steadily nail those boards into place, covering up the rough (and somewhat rotten) used boards of the subfloor. It’s nice to actually see new building materials going in amongst so much used (even rotten) materials.

Daddy and we boys work the farm also (all except for a cotton crop). Upon buying that old hay baler a year or more ago, we sort of inherited more farm work. Other farmers ask Daddy to bale their hay for them, as bales are easier to handle and store than loose hay. Daddy’s kind nature made it hard for him to turn down any reasonable request anyone made to him. So we begin to pull that hay baler behind our car to other farms to bale hay. Daddy charged a price per bale of hay, but it was a most small fee (not very much above the cost of the baling wire and cost of running the baler).

Anyway, one hot summer day, Daddy, Sidney and I are baling hay on the Chandler farm about 3 miles past our farm. Come lunch time, we kill the engine to the noisy baler and sit under a shade tree to eat the simple lunch we brought from the house in brown paper bags. As we finish eating lunch, Daddy announces to Sidney and me that he is going to get married. This news didn’t really surprise us boys. We three talk a little about what that is going to mean to us as a family, soon start up the noisy baler and get back to the dirty hot work of baling hay.

Daddy desired to live a married life. Likely about a year or so after Mother died, he began to look around for a Christian woman to possibly marry. With his quiet nature, he did not discuss such with us kids along the way (till this day in the hayfield). He had been dating widow Lucille more than a year. I don’t know how long they had been discussing marriage. Daddy knew our old collapsing house would not last much longer and that no woman would agree to move into it. Thus, a new house is in the making. (Had Daddy not remarried, I do not even want to ponder how long we 5 might have continued to live in that old house that was leaking and collapsing on us.)

This summer Daddy is now rushing the building work to get us five moved into the new house first, and then to soon marry Lucille and move her three in with us. Upon getting the floor boards nailed down in most of the rooms, we 5 Yerbys move out of the old temporary house into our new one. Cardboard boxes and such that will fit into the car get moved in our 1940 Nash. Beds and other large items are moved on our horse drawn wagon. All 5 of us are most happy to make this move (to put it simply). We are the last humans to inhabit this old house with its automatic swinging back door, so convenient for flinging dirty dishwater from the pan into the tall weeds in the lovely back yard.

Daddy buys a used gas cook stove, obtains an outside tank for it, and thus we will no longer have to cut stove wood year round to cook on, or endure that hot wood cook stove in the house during hot and warm weather. That era ends. This is a major change for our family, going modern.    

Upon moving in, we are now living inside a construction site, a new adventure. We continue to nail down the remainder of the floor boards in all the rooms (having to move beds and such back and forth to get them out of the way of construction. Then we nail on the boards for the inner wall partitions between the rooms and along the hallway. We rush as much as possible to get each room walled in to gain necessary privacy, while trying to keep sawdust from falling onto beds and such, and continually sweeping up sawdust from the floors as we saw lumber. You would have been plenty amazed if you could have beheld the marvel of those happenings.

When we get the house completed enough to decently house three more people, Daddy gives us kids a day off. That must have been on a Saturday. He spends the day with Lucille. Later, the talk is that he and Lucille went to a Justice of the Peace (accompanied by 2 or 3 friends to be witnesses), got married, and then spent the remainder of the day as a short honeymoon time with each of them returning to their respective houses that night.

Mr. Golden Maddox graciously offered Daddy the use of his large truck for moving Lucille’s family’s things to our house. Daddy accepts the offer with thanksgiving. Lucille’s mother (Mrs. Ryan), Lucille, and Lucille’s 17 year-old son (Rayburn) move in with us. (Lucille has 4 older children. All 4 are grown, 3 are married with kids and the 4th soon gets married). 

In our new house are two front rooms (side by side). Each has a door opening onto the front porch. One room is the living room. The other becomes Janiece’s room. Each of these rooms has a brick fireplace, the 2 fireplaces being back-to-back joining one chimney above.

(Months ago, we boys helped Daddy pour the concrete footing the fireplaces and chimney would rest upon. Then Daddy himself laid each brick all way to the top of the chimney. I admired him as a Jack-of-All-Trades. He could do many practical jobs and do them well.)

The fireplaces are inset 8 feet or so from the front wall of the house, leaving room for 2 closets in a row between the fireplaces and the house’s front wall, one closet opening into the living room and the other opening into Janiece’s room. Firewood storage was the main use made of these 2 closets. They were also convenient for hanging coats.

A narrow hallway ran from the “rear” of the fireplace area to a backdoor. Behind the living room was a half partition with an opening (no door) into the kitchen/dining room. Behind the kitchen was Daddy and Lucille’s bedroom. Those 3 rooms composed the west side of the house.

As for the east “half”, behind Janiece’s room was Mrs. Ryan’s room. Behind it was the bathroom. Behind it was the last room, which became the boys’ room. We put 2 double beds into it. Rayburn and Sid slept on one, Joe and I slept on the other. The boys’ room was plenty crowded with us 4 souls in it.

A front porch and a back porch each run the entire width of the house. And we now have a carport built onto the east side of the front porch where Janiece’s room is. Don’t have to walk to the car in the rain any longer. Modern! 

Out goes much Yerby junk. Our noisy refrigerator is set on the back porch to be used as a storage cabinet. The crudely built meal table is set on the back porch to set things on and under. (Daddy throws away almost Nothing!) The nail keg Janiece sat on at the meal table (and on which we boys sat for haircuts), the worst of the chairs, and other various treasures of junk are put on the back porch or in the crib in the barn. (Should have put that infamous antique wooden nail keg into the Smithsonian Institute and let the entire nation awe at it.)

In comes Lucille’s quiet and larger frig, and her dinette set of table (with 1 removable leaf) and 6 matching chairs. (No doubt that nail keg was sadly weeping in the lonely spot we stored it in the barn.) In came Lucille’s sofa and matching “easy” chair. We had never before had a sofa or easy chair. Nor (since I was old enough to remember) had we ever had a living room with no beds in it. Truly, we were moving up in this world.

When we saw Daddy rushing to move us into this house that was far from being completed, we kids were somewhat disappointed about that. “After we move in, we’ll keep working on it till we finish it.” Daddy said something to that effect, trying to make us feel better about it. But that new house never ever got built to completion. I plan to tell you more about that, years down the road.

The TV in Lucille’s house (which I had previously watched on several Saturday nights at their rental house in town) belongs to Lucille’s mother. Now it is set up in a corner of the living room and stays on much of the time Mrs. Ryan is up and about each day.

I told you of viewing a TV for the first time when I was in the 2nd grade and then I told you of watching TV at the Stacys’ house several Saturday afternoons that Mother walked us kids there shortly before Mother died. As time went on after Mother’s death, (one by one) other neighbors up and down this country road got a TV, and I had scant chances to watch TV when visiting one or two of them. Now as I am set to enter junior high school, a TV set is placed into our living room. Most regretfully an era passed, the era of Daddy’s family living without that one-eyed monster with its strong allurement, exercising its powerful worldly influence over our lives.

Early next year before crop planting time (1959), Daddy will buy a tractor for the first time. Though he will keep 1 or 2 horses for several more years, next year he will switch to “tractor power” for doing the vast majority of his farm work. “For the times, they are a-changing.” They certainly are.

I was most blessed and privileged to start my earthly journey in the setting of an old-fashioned farm. (Back in Chapter 3, I endeavored to describe the most prominent “old fashioned” details of my early life to you.) Being reared in God’s nature naturally caused me to be an outdoors person from the start. I deemed it a waste of time to be indoors during daylight hours (and even some of the “dark time” that I wasn’t yet in bed). I relished being out in nature every minute, enjoying the many pleasures derived therefrom free of monetary cost (even if it was just gazing heavenward at ever changing daytime cloud formations or the lovely moon and stars at night, and such).

From now on till I move out of Daddy’s house after graduating from high school (a period of about 6 years), the allurement of that television set in our living room will constantly call on me to come inside out of God’s nature to sit immobile before it and stare at the manmade artificiality its glow presents to me (damaging my eyesight as I stare at it).

Tele-vision was not the only “tele” to come into our house at this time. The tele-phone was also installed for the first time. These devices brought new excitement into our lives. Lucille previously had a phone in her house. At this time, I do not think Daddy would have gotten a TV or a phone (of his own will). Can you believe that when they installed our 1st phone late this summer, we were on a party line with 8 other houses? People eavesdropped on conversations they had no business listening to. People got mad and said horrible things on the phone to (and about) silent listeners. Horrible, what these devil devices do to serene life! But isn’t it even more amazing how that we just love to have it so?! The love of the world and the things that are in the world. (I John 2:15-17)

The first twelve years of one’s life are definitely the most formative twelve-year period of life. I Thank Thee, Almighty Lord God, that my first 12 years of dire poverty on an old fashioned farm were exactly that. In spite of Mother’s death, Daddy’s much silence toward me, and much hard labor and the misery of poverty, I was a happy child. Thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for enabling me to be happy amongst those trying circumstances. I give God the Glory for that blessedness of not despairing and being generally happy, never feeling hopeless. Truly, Thou hast done all things well. I heartily thank Thee for the many kind souls Thou didst lead to help our family in many ways. I desire to be like them and (for all the days of my earthly journey) do all I can to help all the suffering and needy souls in this world that I can possibly help. Please enable me to do so.

So, it comes to pass that eight souls now abide in the Yerbys’ new, large (6 room, 4 bedroom) house that is far from being finished. At the very start of doing the foundation work, we installed drainage pipes and lines for wastewater from the kitchen sink and waste and sewage water from the bathroom. Daddy installed a new double sink in the kitchen. That sure is a far cry from that stinking slop bucket I first got acquainted with in our old kitchen. We installed an ancient cast iron bathtub in the bathroom, connected to drain pipes underneath. We have future plans for hot and cold running water in the kitchen and bathroom, and a flush commode in the bathroom. Those niceties do not materialize till long after I move out of this house.

Presently all eight residents dutifully trod the path out back toward the hog pen to the outhouse where an out-of-date mail order catalog lies on the floor, always on duty to serve its secondary purpose on the farm. Lucille’s nice dinette set has 6 matching chairs. There is no room for any more chairs around the table. The times when all eight of us eat a meal at the same time, Janiece and I set our plates and glasses on the counter adjacent to the double sink and eat standing there (the counter being too high for us to sit in chairs to eat from the counter).

I don’t recall if all 8 of us ever rode together in that 1940 Nash, but 7 of us often did, we 4 Yerby kids in the back seat, Daddy driving, Lucille sitting beside Daddy, and either Rayburn or Mrs. Ryan sitting by the front passenger door. It was crowded.

“Elementary school graduate Richard, with 8 such diverse souls brought together to live under one roof, were there ever any conflicts?”

‘There certainly were!’

“Would you care to tickle our itching ears with the juicy details of those conflicts?”

 ‘I certainly would not, you nosey busybody!’

 

 

On to Chapter 8

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