No Hill Too High for a Stepper

by Mike Mahan

  “Why in the world would you run off without telling us, Mike?” Tootsie yelled. “You could have been kidnapped or anything.”

  All I could do was bring forth a weak “Sorry,” but I wasn’t really sorry for having done what I did. I crawled in the back seat next to Mother, who looked relieved and hugged me tightly. All she said was that I should have told them what I was doing, and my wonderful mother never ever mentioned the incident again.

  Another memorable trip occurred closer to home when I was in high school. It was spring vacation of my junior year, and Ed Givhan and I were feeling the call of the open road. The weather at home was spring-like, and we thought it was the perfect time for an adventure. Ed’s car, Papooshka, had just had some work done on it so it was in top-notch shape, and after thinking it over we decided to go to Gatlinburg, a town in the Great Smoky Mountains that was a favorite vacation spot for Montevallo people. Since Papooshka could comfortably carry four, we decided that we would ask two others. Our first choice was Harry Klotzman, who lived across the street from Ed, and on a whim we decided that we would also ask a younger member of the Highland Avenue group, James Elbert Mahaffey, who was called Teeny. Teeny was four years younger than Ed and me, but he was very mature for his age. I guess we thought that this excursion would be a learning experience for him.

  Milton “Weed” Jeter, a Frog Holler rebel, standing on the running board of Ed Givhan’s 1939 Dodge lovingly called Papooshka. The Baptist Church and Plaza Grill are in the background. The magnolia tree to the right of the church was later cut down, for a church addition, over the long and loud objections of many town citizens.

  Harry immediately agreed to go, but Teeny was a bit more reluctant. His mother and father were at work that Friday morning, and he would be unable to get their permission. His older sister, Mary Charles, said he could go, and Teeny apparently decided that would suffice. Ed, Harry, and I had amassed maybe thirty or forty dollars, and Mary Charles advanced Teeny ten or fifteen dollars. With gas being only eighteen to twenty cents a gallon at the time, we had enough money to go about anywhere. Ed and I got out some maps and plotted our route. We filled up Papooshka’s gas tank at Buddy Allen’s Shell Station, picked up some blankets, and gathered up bread, peanut butter, mayonnaise, bologna, chips, Vienna sausage, beans—anything we could find in our parents’ kitchens. We each brought along one change of light clothes, but nothing warm because the March temperatures were perfect. We were ready to hit the road for the mountains.

  Of course Ed was our number one driver. Harry rode shotgun, and Teeny and I started out in the huge back seat. We drove all day on two-lane roads, beginning to get into the mountains around Gatlinburg late in the afternoon. The higher Papooshka climbed, the lower the temperatures dropped. A few miles outside of Gatlinburg, a heavy snow suddenly began to fall. By this time we were several thousand feet above sea level, and the temperature was in the teens. Papooshka’s heater was hard at work, but she could not produce enough BTUs to match the outside temperature. Snow began sticking to the blacktop pavement, making it slick and barely visible.

  Our original plan was to camp Friday and Saturday night at a campground in Gatlinburg that we had seen on the map, but we really had no idea where the campgrounds were. Ed, you could see, was getting tense, his hands holding the steering wheel tightly. “Holy shit,” he said. “I can’t see a blasted thing. What do y’all think we should do?”

  For some reason, everybody seemed to be looking at me for an answer. “Well, I don’t know about you fellows, but I think we better get our asses off this road. I mean we could get killed in these conditions.”

  “But where will we stay?” Teeny asked.

  I thought a minute and suddenly had an idea that was powerful in its inevitability. “We’ll stay in the car,” I answered. “We’ll find a place to park, and then we’ll wrap up in our blankets and let the heater run. We can spend the night in Papooshka. Tomorrow may be better.”

  The guys agreed there was nothing else to do, and Ed found what looked like an abandoned parking lot and drove to the far side of it. We grabbed our blankets.

  “I’m hungry,” Teeny said.

  “Let me get something out of the trunk,” Ed said, opening his door and going out into the whirling snow. He returned with a large sack of food, and we all set to making peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches.

  “What a hell of a time to have a damn picnic,” Harry said.

  We all laughed grimly.

  Now we were ready to get some rest so we all wrapped up in our blankets. Harry and Ed kept their places in the front, I stretched out on the back seat, and Teeny—who was appropriately nicknamed—lay in the floor space between the front and back seats. But nobody could think of sleeping, as the car seemed to be getting more frigid by the minute. Papooshka’s heater was putting out all it could, but it just wasn’t up to the job. We tried to keep our spirits up by telling jokes, but by midnight no one had slept a wink.

  “All right boys,” Ed said decisively, “this is just not going to cut it. I’d rather slide off the side of the mountain than to freeze to death in a parked car. There is nothing for us to do but turn around and head south to a lower altitude.”

  We had already thought of returning to Montevallo by way of Stone Mountain, Georgia to see the great stone carvings of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, so we all agreed that we should head in that direction and hope we could escape the snow with our lives.

  Ed took the wheel and down the mountain we started, curve after curve after curve, the snow still falling, the six-volt battery powering the headlights wavering. But miraculously Papooshka came through for us. We never saw Gatlinburg, despite its being the purpose of our trip, but we were quite relieved to make our escape. We knew, however, that we were definitely not out of the woods. The snow was still coming down hard, and we were low on fuel. Papooshka was getting thirsty. We had no idea where we could purchase gas at this time of night, but like magic we found an all-night filling station and we were able to breathe new life into our endearing lady.

  Harry and I offered to spell Ed at the wheel, but he insisted on driving, so the rest of us went soundly asleep. Luckily, Ed managed to stay awake, and we arrived at the Stone Mountain entrance early in the morning. There was no sign of life—no guards or ticket sellers—so we just drove past the entrance booth and parked in the lot next to it. We decided to walk down into the woods and make ourselves a fire. Our teeth were chattering, and Teeny was shaking so bad he looked like he had the Saint Vitus dance. Luckily, we were all Boy Scouts and knew the proper technique for making a fire. As we huddled around the open fire, we opened two cans of Vienna sausages, which we ate with light bread. “This is the best Vienna sausage I ever ate,” Teeny said, and none of us disagreed.

  Probably no one understood my thirst to roam better than my dad, pictured here with my friend Harry Klotzman, who accompanied me on some of these trips.

  Afterwards, we stumbled back to the car and fell asleep. When we woke up around noon, things had warmed up a bit, much to our satisfaction, and we walked over to the viewing area and marveled at the great stone images of the Confederate heroes. After five minutes, we were ready to hit the road.

  “Where next,” Teeny said, perhaps a little dispirited.

  I must say I was thinking of my comfortable bed on Shelby Street, and I think the others were having similar thoughts. “You know,” I said, “Teeny’s mother is probably worried about him, so I move that we head back to Montevallo.”

  “I’ll second that,” said Teeny.

  The others agreed, and Ed cranked Papooshka and we headed for Highway 78, which would take us south toward home. There was mainly silence as we drove along, and we arrived late on Saturday evening. Ed dropped me off, and I walked to the kitchen and raided the refrigerator. Mother and Dad seemed glad to see me.

  “And how was the trip?” Mother asked, rubbing
my back.

  “Just wonderful,” I said. “Just wonderful.”

  The trip to Gatlinburg might not have run as smoothly as many of my travels, but it took its place alongside all my other adventures as something I found essential in my life. I was always pleased to return to Shelby Street, but early on I knew that I possessed a wanderlust that would take me far and wide.

  17

  Montebrier

  My excitement mounted as I waited on the curb, a pair of roller skates and a small box of clothes on the grass next to me. Would the blue 1937 Plymouth ever turn the corner off Main Street onto Shelby Street to pick me up for a weekend at Montebrier, a large home sitting on Mahan Creek, just a few miles down below Montevallo in Brierfield? Mr. and Mrs. Bill Pittman, the owners of Montebrier, had called from Birmingham before starting the two-hour drive to Montevallo so I had a rough idea as to when they would arrive, but well in advance I stationed myself on the curb. Between the ages of eight and eleven I would replay this excited anticipation time and time again, particularly in the summer. Little did I know then that one day I would own the place and live in it.

  From Mr. Pittman I learned the history of this interesting house. Montebrier was built in 1866 as a private residence, but in 1929, Dick Yount, who built Palmer, Bloch, Wills, and Ramsay halls on the Montevallo campus, bought it and turned it into a country club. That didn’t last long, however, because Yount lost Montebrier in the crash of ’29. It fell into the hands of Merchants and Planters Bank, and they leased it for dances and parties from 1929–35. The Bama Skippers Band, made up of Eddie, Charles, and Mary Lee Mahaffey and a couple of surgeons from Birmingham, played there regularly.

  Dad loved Montebrier. He often called square dances there, and he also danced with the Frederick girls, who were well known for their dancing skills. When I was a baby, he took my sisters down there to dance.

  Ads appeared in the Montevallo and Centreville papers announcing dances and other events at the Montebrier Club. However, open dances were short-lived due to the rowdiness of attendees.

  The Bama Skippers, a famous local band, seated on the front steps of the Montebrier Club about 1929.

  For a number of years, Montebrier was a gambling haven. When Sam Klotzman was a young man, he won a T-model Ford with one cast of the dice, but little good did it do him. In those days, one had to ford Mahan Creek to get to Montebrier, and while Sam and others were playing, Jaybird Rutledge, a black man who lived on the property and had worked for Yount, came in and said the creek was rising and anybody who wanted to get out better get out right away. Sam decided he better get his new car out, but, when he drove into the creek, water got into the magneto, killing the engine. The creek kept rising and the water got into the engine, ruining the car. Sam sold it for next to nothing.

  John Steelman was a man of many interests and even dabbled in raising wolves for a while at Brierfield.

  Along with her husband John, Mrs. Jean Steelman, an English professor at Alabama College, bought Montebrier from the bank in 1936 and lived there, even though it was not ideal for a family. It had a forty-five-foot square ballroom, a little kitchen, a dining room, and two back rooms. The Steelmans closed in a back porch for a kitchen.

  The Steelmans did not live in Montebrier for very long. When Frances Perkins of the Department of Labor came to Montevallo to speak, she met Mr. Steelman and was impressed with him. She invited him to Washington as a secretary. He jumped at the chance, but Miss Jean would not go, remaining in Montevallo with an adopted daughter. A divorce followed, and Miss Jean got Montebrier in the settlement. Later she married Mr. Pittman and moved to Birmingham, but they kept Montebrier as a weekend getaway.

  Mr. Pittman absolutely fell in love with Montebrier, and he came there as often as he could. He was dean of Massey Business College in Birmingham, and, though gas was rationed during the time he came there, he was able to get extra gas stickers because of his position. Mother and Dad had befriended Miss Jean during her divorce, so they became friends with Mr. Pittman, and because of that I became a frequent weekend visitor at Montebrier. It was my favorite place in the world. And because the Pittmans had no children, I became like an adopted son. I called Mr. Pittman by the simple name of Mister rather than Mr. Pittman or Mr. Bill.

  When the Pittmans’ car arrived on Shelby Street, I would grab up my box, open the back door, and jump in, kneeling on the floor behind the front seat. “Hello, Mister,” I would say, because it was Mr. Pittman I was so crazy about. This six-foot-two man had gray hair combed straight back on both sides, but he didn’t seem old to me. He always wore a blue and white seersucker suit and a bow tie in the summer, and you never saw him without his pipe. He kept a pouch of Old Northern tobacco in his shirt pocket, and he had a fine metal instrument to tamp down the tobacco with or to scrape the pipe out. With Mister, pipe smoking was a high art.

  Miss Jean was not so interesting to me, but I was always cordial to her. She talked incessantly, mainly about Birmingham people I did not know, and to tell the truth she bored me to death. But I could stand it. She was a tiny woman, especially looking that way as she sat next to her gigantic husband in the Plymouth. People always said that Miss Jean was attractive, but Mister was the main attraction as far as I was concerned.

  “Got to go by the store first,” Mister would say, and that meant a trip to Jeter’s Mercantile to get groceries and to McCulley’s Store, where Mister had his meat specially cut by Joe Doyle. We always ate well at Montebrier.

  Then we would hit the road in the big blue Plymouth, complete with fenders and running board. Mister always drove with his left arm out the window, and he always had the wing window opened to blow on him. Miss Jean also had her wing window blowing on her. The smoke from Mister’s pipe constantly blew in my face, but I didn’t care. I would peer out the front window through the space between the front seats, but what intrigued me most was the radio. In the middle of its circular dial was an orange button with a needle, which you rotated to tune in the radio. I’d ask Mr. to turn on the radio and, even though he knew we were not likely to find anything, he’d humor me. All we ever got was a shrill whee-oh-eeh-oh-eeh, but I liked that sound for some reason. I felt like real dude riding down the road in a car with a radio, even if it didn’t play. Mother and Dad didn’t even have a car at that time.

  After we passed through Wilton, we turned onto the dirt road that took us to Montebrier. When we arrived, we all got out and proceeded to the padlocked front door. Once we were inside, Mister opened all the windows and then went out to open the shutters. I got my box of clothes and my skates from the car, and I looked forward to skating in the huge ballroom. I took my things to the small bedroom they put me in, just right next to theirs. It was in this room that I first heard bed springs creaking and moans coming from the couple, and I knew something was up, though I was not altogether sure what.

  After getting the house opened up, Mister would get his Winchester Model 61 pump and go out in the front yard. I would watch him lift it to his shoulder and fire it up into the sky. Then we would get real still and listen. In a minute or so, we heard another gunshot from across the Mahan Creek, which ran near the house. We knew then that the nearest neighbor, Great Aunt Adelaide, was aware that we had arrived. Shortly thereafter, we would walk down to the creek, and she would walk down from her house on the other side. Then she and Mister would chat with each other from across the creek—a creek named for my ancestors. Sometimes Mister would bring Adelaide fruit that she couldn’t get in Brierfield or Montevallo.

  On our weekends at Montebrier, I got a good education from Mister. I was easy with him from the start, even standing by his side as we pissed in the yard. He was infinitely patient in explaining things to me and teaching me how to do things. It was from Mister that I learned to fish. We dug red worms or pulled Catawba (Catalpa) worms from trees, and sometimes we caught hellgrammites in a sifter Mister made from one-half-inch mesh wire. We never lack
ed for bait, and we pulled many a line of bream out of that muddy creek. And when we caught them, there was no question but that we would scale and gut them and eat them for supper.

  Mister also taught me to shoot, which started a lifelong passion for guns. He first taught me to shoot a .22 rifle, and I learned quickly. “You got to respect guns,” he told me. And he was forever saying, “There’s no such thing as an unloaded gun.” If Dad ever owned a gun, I never saw it, and my mother thought using a gun to kill a bird, a squirrel, or a rabbit was totally unnecessary, unless you were starving and needed something to eat. So it was Mister who was my mentor when it came to firearms.

  Mister also taught me to work. He was obsessive about keeping Montebrier neat, and he would spend hours in the yard. Wearing a bow tie, he would pick up the swing blade, which he kept very sharp. He’d say, “If the blade is keen and sharp, you hardly break a sweat. Let the sling blade do the work.” I think he was generally right about that, but still it took muscle power on the downward swing if the grass or bushes were large and tough. Mister said the same thing was true of an ax, a hammer, or whatever tool you were using. The tools, not one’s arms, he said, should do the work.

  Mister also taught me to limb up cedar trees with snippers and a pocket knife. To make a tree grow tall, he said, you had to cut off all the lower limbs and leaves, even if the tree is only three feet tall. That way the trees’ nourishment would move to the upper leaves and limbs. “I don’t want to duck when I walk through my own yard,” he’d say with a slight smile. He also planted a number of trees on the property, and he would baby them until they took hold. Plus he got St. Augustine grass runners on campus after Mr. Spot Jones-Williams brought the grass to Montevallo. Then he sprigged them at Montebrier and eventually got a full lawn.