“Because of the limited selection of playmates, and in spite of the way things were at the Jacobson place, we did find ways to ‘socialize’ with our nearest neighbors. My brother and I would stand at the edge of the road looking up the lane to their house. As soon as the brothers had surreptitiously worked their way as close as they could to where we were standing, they would officially come into range. That’s when we kicked off our spirited dirt clod fights. These were fun fights and all direct hits received applause and hoots of praise from both sides of the encounter. You never let on when you truly got nailed or hurt, even if you took a ‘rocker’ right in the mouth. Over time my brother and I would leave playthings for Zech and Zeph down by the mailbox after our dads had gone off to the mill. The boys would transport these treasures to their secret places in the barn or behind the sheds. We would find them returned to us, wrapped in burlap, and hidden in the weeds along the road days later after they had played with them. My brother and I had almost no toys ourselves, yet we liked sharing what little we had with them. Compared to Zech and Zeph, we were spoiled.
“Their mom was aware of our clandestine meetings and in her nurturing way, allowed the boys to slip away into the canyon that ran beyond the fields behind our houses. We would join up for big adventures in this rural wonder world, spending the days wrestling in the dust on the edge of the wheat fields and rolling down the canyon slopes into the little stream that trickled through this hidden crease in our vast backyard. After hours of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ and more dirt in our orifices than a tomato farmer used for planting, we would end our day splashing buck naked in one of the livestock watering troughs placed strategically across the long pastures bordering the canyons. We didn’t seem to mind the goop the cattle left behind in these little swimming pools. It also never occurred to us to consider how the livestock might feel about what little boys left behind in their drinking water. Drying off with dirty socks after our sundown immersions we would hike up the side of the canyon, and then split up far enough away so as not to be seen by their dad, and come back to the reality of our individual heritages. Their mom covered their return so they didn’t have to explain where they had been to Daniel Jeremiah Jacobson. Like most rural wives in our area, she was dutiful and loyal to her husband who was her provider and protector, while having a tender spot for her young boys’ survival in this harsh environment.
“Time does pass, and all of us young bucks who basically had been held back by our upbringings virtually came roaring out of the hills after puberty passed with our hormones raging so loud that the birds stayed away. Most of us had worked and saved every penny we could so that someday we could have things like the kids in town. The weekly bath ritual was replaced by the availability of daily showers at the high school (after Physical Education class), which is where our real education began. Pocket combs became as important as our jackknives used to be, and the town girls began noticing that a lot of the country guys who were shunned in the earlier grades seemed to be a little more muscular than the city boys. Milking cows and chopping wood along with hundreds of hours spent hoofing the hayfork mambo was starting to pay off. In some ways we were mad about so many years of social abuse, so we played it hard and tall, keeping our arms and butts flexed at all times.
“We didn’t have gangs in those days, but pity the poor city dude that messed with any of the country boys. Now, I admit some of the guys from the country were absolute jerks. The only way they could get a hug or a hello was to go home to Momma for dinner. But if anyone messed with rural kin, it was made very clear to these people that we protected our own. One of the sweetest memories of my macho matriculation was when I was in the early stages of being stomped by the starting guard and the captain of the football team who were both “townies.” After a few hits, and becoming very sure that I was “going down,” I suddenly felt someone at each side. It was Zech and Zeph, and when they clenched those big farm boy hands, the odds immediately shifted to my favor.
“What was eventually funny about all this posturing was that by the time we were in our senior year in high school we had all melded into the unified Class of ’55, and the emotional distance between the townies and the outlanders vanished. Government subsidies and exports to overseas markets were making the farmers and ranchers financially better off—plus the sawmill had become unionized. This meant the poor folk from the sticks were fixing up their homes and some of the kids were even getting their own cars. In my case, a well-earned 1929 Chevrolet Coupe made the half-mile hike to the long, demeaning, school bus ride a thing of the past. I paid $49 for the car and $50 dollars for the annual insurance premium.
“Zech, Zeph, and I became very close as our high school years were ending. We intuitively knew we had to share all the info about life that had been passed down to us as well as what we had experienced in the private conclaves of our isolated homesteads before we made the big break. Looking back, I now believe every direct hit with those dirt clods had created a unique bond that tied us closer and closer as the years passed. These impressions were something you couldn’t wash off before dinner.
“We were held back from growing up too fast by our own family dynamics, but this restriction actually left us with a little more energy stored up for when it came time to tackle the course before us. We were completely aware that there was something different about us as we rolled out of the woods and fields. We also knew that we did not have to explain it to other people. There were smells and sensations out of those hills we had inhaled and harbored in our growing years that could only find their way into our being because of what we had learned from living in this place. To this day, I can drive out any country road, pull over, and smell memories, soft and sweet, sad and bitter, pure and true, all a part of growing up country. We went our separate ways, but the way we got where we were going had everything to do with where we came from and that would never allow us to be separated. Time would pass, but the ties would last.
“Twenty years sped by and we quieted into our manhood each in his way. We stayed in touch and made a point of taking little detours in our travels in order to symbolically throw a few dirt clods at each other and trade timeworn toys. Then one night Zech called to tell me their mom was dying. ‘Levi,’ he said simply and softly, ‘Zeph and I want to know if you could come home to be with us during this time.’ I caught the next plane heading homeward.
“The local airport runway shared the edge of a wheat field not far from where I grew up. When the bouncing little two-propeller plane finally stopped, I climbed out onto the cracked and weathered edge of the runway. Instead of walking toward the shed-like terminal, I headed straight off into the field in the direction of familiar rooftops only a couple miles away. It had been a long time since I had watched the dust poof up around my shoes as I walked out of the fields and on to that well-known country road that had taken me home many years ago. Things became even homier when I looked up and saw Zech and Zeph waiting for me by their mailbox. When I came into view, Zeph reached down as if he was going to pick up a dirt clod and throw it at me. The gesture had all the meaning and warmth of a kind hello. Actually, what he had picked up out of the weeds and held clutched in his hand was an old baseball they had forgotten to return over a quarter of a century before. They wrapped it in burlap and, in handing it over to me, it felt like we were enacting a secret ceremony. By taking that old worn ball out of their hands into mine, the ritual was complete and a timeworn passage was sanctioned. We walked up the lane to their house, me in the middle with arms around me from both sides. I met their dad, Daniel Jeremiah up close and face to face for the first time. The greeting was awkward but country cordial. He sat silently at the bottom of the stairs so he could hear her if she called.
“The boys and I reminisced and caught up on the trials and trails we had covered since we last saw each other. Then there was a soft sound from the top of the stairs. Daniel Jeremiah rose quietly and went up to the bedroom to tend to his wife. W
e stayed down below for a while and, then almost upon nod and cue, we silently made our way up the stairs and stood outside the slightly opened door. Daniel Jeremiah had propped up pillows behind her head and had his big left arm cradled behind the pillows for additional support. I saw her with her hair down for the first time. She looked soft and angelic—backlit by a candle and talking very clearly and firmly to her husband of many years and many tears.
“‘D.J.,’ she said, ‘I have been faithful to you, this land, this house, and to our boys since the day you brought me to these hills. I have always done everything you ever asked and never questioned or refused your ways. I have plowed when needed, starved if necessary, and looked ugly on purpose so you could be at ease. I brought our two fine boys up in the ways of the Lord, and every day have said a prayer for you and them so we will all be together in that sweet land that is our eternal promise. Even now, if I have anything left in me that can get up and move out of this bed I will use the very last of me to do anything you ask for you and the boys.’ She stopped talking, turned her head aside for a moment, and stared at the shuttered window across the room. Turning back, she looked at her husband straight on and with one long shimmering sigh said, ‘D.J., I only ask that you don’t bury me in those boots. I don’t want to meet Jesus lookin’ that-a-way.’ She turned slowly to the door, looked at her boys, holding them in her gaze like a mother’s embrace, and then, turning back, she smiled at Daniel Jacob and closed her eyes. At that instant the wind blew the curtains almost straight out from the wall and then suddenly dropped straight down again, almost pressing themselves tight up against the windowsill.
“I stayed in my old room at my folk’s house that night. Long into the evening I could hear Daniel Jacobs’ guttural sound, moaning across the fields on the other side of the fences over a half-mile away. This time though, it was much lower and softer. Like with his boys in years past, I think he was calling her to come back up the lane—to come home.
“After the funeral, my brother and his wife drove the three of us to the nearest municipal airport, which was about a hundred miles away. It didn’t seem odd at all that this trio of dirt heavin’ cowboys were holding hands in the back seat of the car—never uttering a word for the two-hour drive. We just stared out the windows at the rolling hills and put away our memories like childhood toys as we left another piece of our beginnings behind. We didn’t have to organize it amongst ourselves or agree upon its form. This land was our lungs and heart. We didn’t have to tell it how to breathe and beat for us to understand our common bond. We knew how we grew up, we knew about the lasting things that would keep us close forever.
“Outside a barren bedroom door a few nights earlier, our souls were buried as one in the soil of our remote country homeland—buried and bonded forever in the parting words of one of the most beautiful women that had ever graced this land.
“We said goodbye at the drop off curb for departing passengers. Before they walked away Zeph turned around and handed me something wrapped in burlap.
“There were only two boots. They each took one and gave me the laces.
“It was only then that I realized I didn’t know her name.”
OLD SCHOOL
[PHILCO]
THREE ROUNDS OF COLD BEER and rye whiskey…maybe more. Oh yeah, and one branch water back.
I wake up with a Wild West hangover and the echo of Levi’s gritty voice ringing in my ear. The mind fog lifts and I discover that I am lying on dead grass in the middle of an abandoned high school playing field. How I got here from The Sundance is a mystery, especially if I did, in fact, travel any appreciable distance from that watering hole wearing a scuffed shoe on one foot and part of a sticker encrusted sock on the other. I feel something in my hair and reach up to find something dead that looks like a cross between a lizard and a frog. As I look around I can see that the main school building is still intact though badly neglected and boarded up. It also appears that there are other structures in the surrounding empty fields. Irregular bumps in the ground and the way some of the weeds are growing lets me know that they have been torn down, fallen away, or buried by the dust and wind over the years. I try to sit up but find that everything hurts except my belt buckle, so I lie back down on the ground and look up into the big country sky. After a while I roll over to my side and notice a washed out sign leaning against a large post. I surmise that it was probably an old entrance sign to their football field or baseball diamond.
I reckon (rye whiskey talkin’?) this must be Hurricane Hills High because the letters on the sign are designed to represent a branding iron font and feature a creative arrangement of “HHH.” Beneath the letters is part of a painting that was probably the back of some animal mascot—a horse, a donkey, or maybe even a dog—the head is broken off, but who knows what animal they found dominating and worth fighting for in this lonely place? I wondered if there was a town located high up in those faraway mountains that surrounded this flat place named something as unlikely as Hurricane Hills—maybe something like Venetian Valley. I can see the scoreboard in my mind:
Hurricane Hills Horses – 12
Venetian Valley Vultures – 3
I’ll bet the victory dance after the big game was a hoot.
If I ignore my head, my entire backside, and maybe a disjointed finger or two, I find this daydreaming almost relaxing. Too bad I can’t just go comatose and wait out the discomfort until everything physical returns to its proper place. It is the burgeoning number of bugs that are discovering and exploring the fermented sweetness of my booze-stained chest that eventually drive me away from this untidy reverie. I am reluctantly forced to sit up and flick the mounting menagerie of tiny creatures from my body.
I rise up and look toward the schoolhouse in the near distance and spot a young lad sitting on the steps staring across the field at me. I brush off pieces of the ground and clinging bits from my wrinkled clothes—souvenirs from the final moments of my lost nighter. Pieces of recollection from my vague past mix into this moment and I have the sense it was not a good part of me. I believe if I try to explore this further it will not be a good thing, so I leave it alone. At the same time, I know there were lessons learned and I had moved on to better things. I shrug it all off and that is when I notice my other shoe lying nearby. On the ground next to it, staring up at me is a pair of worn laces.
After a few minor adjustments, I make my way to the entrance of the school and the waiting boy. As I draw nearer and can see what he looks like, I wonder if this is where Norman Rockwell grew up. Maybe he had a gallery in town. The boy before me looks to have stepped right out of one of Rockwell’s creations—knickers with high argyle socks, the old style baseball cap pulled down covering clear hazel eyes and a freckled face. A woolen vest and uncombed shock of reddish hair complete the image. He is unmoved by my appearance or the fact that I’m approaching him. My joining him on the steps is a given, being true to my wind-blown mission. He is slouched forward propping himself up with smooth hands, the right one loosely placed on top of the other on his left knee as he watches me take my place beside him.
There is innocence in the timbre of his voice, and the boyish manner in the way he moves in his expressions matches his delivery. At the same time there is an unusual maturity to his speaking, something familiar in his tone, that speaks of an older soul occupying that young body. “My name is Robbie, and what you are seeing, mister, is the way I used to look.” He told me if I could see him later on in life the name would be Robbert, (with two b’s), and I would be looking into a craggy face with white whiskers—you know the rest. Time is bouncing all over the place, and at this point I am not sure what dimension I am in. The only constant I can cling to is a pesky headache that will not go away. But now here’s this kid sitting next to me, a child of straightforward country upbringing, filling me in on some of the cracks and crevices of the story the old man on the bench outside the hotel began upon my arrival to this c
urious place. As he begins talking I do a body and head check and find I don’t hurt anymore. His timeless words soothe me like sweet balm. Boy, he sounds a lot like Robbert…and then I see the buck knife and whittling stick I didn’t notice when I first sat down. This is the second time I have seen someone hold a knife this way, and there is also a familiar sound to the way the knife hits the stick.
He continues talking and…I do recognize the voice. I like the way my arms and legs feel as I become the story. The steps beneath us are no longer old, worn, splintered wood. Instead I find smooth red bricks with brightly painted black rails on each side that lead down to a sidewalk, a patch of grass, and a nice tree-lined street. Something inside lets me know that this is a northern clime and a time of green—a Spring, getting-out-of-school time of year. Robbie’s mellow voice fills the air—it’s more like melody than narration.
It was 1955 and…
TOBY HARLEY
[ROBBIE]
“I WAS A QUIET KID, the studious type most would say. Because of my fascination with literature, music, and the arts, I spent my younger years on the sidelines. School activities and sports seemed almost childish to me, even though I was a child at the time. I saw things differently, and it didn’t bother me not being popular or in the middle of the action. I was going to be a teacher someday, maybe even a professor at a big city college. Books were my favorite companions, and on those rare occasions I went on a date, we always attended something related to legitimate theatre or movies based on epic history. There were a couple of popular guys in high school who, for some odd reason, understood me and took it upon themselves to cover me when I got picked on. Strangely enough, they were as opposite from each other as they were from me. Not only did they let me know that I was okay with them, but they also included me in their circle of friends, providing me an escape from my mundane existence. (Although, I do remember spending most of my one-on-one time helping them with their homework.) But, regardless of their motives for our relationship, I felt I was an integral part of their existence and was able to experience high school craziness without having to suffer the consequences of their sometimes ill-conceived adventures.
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