There were thousands of people of all ages in the park and always something going on. Mick and I would hit the shooting booths and as many rides as we could. There were the Scooters, the Rocket, the Whip and the double Josephine Slide that undulated wildly as it dropped three stories. You could watch a whole lineup of professional boxing matches for fifty cents. My favorite ride was the wooden roller coaster, the Velvet Racer. The Racer had a three quarter mile track and a puckering nine-story drop!
There was a bandstand, a swimming pool and a monstrous stage that must have stood ten, twelve feet above the ground. It was on that stage, on Saturday nights, that they held the bathing beauty contests. It was all done at the peril of the contestants because there was no railing of any kind around the stage. The eyeball festival would start with about fifty girls in bathing suits walking, posing, and shying away from the edge.
The audience sat at ground level under lights and loud speakers on top of telephone poles. Mick and I would blow in from the Penny Arcade and search for two empty wooden folding chairs in the sea of schooners and white straw hats, or, we were just as glad to stand for an hour or two. We were happy. Each girl wore a sash with a number and the name of her sponsor, such as ‘McDougal’s Bakery’. A panel of six judges would eliminate the girls down to the three or four winners who would share a hundred dollar prize.
One Saturday night, Mickey and I got up the nerve to ask two of the contestants, who hadn’t made the cut as finalists, if they wanted to walk over to the outdoor dance floor called the ‘Gypsey Village’. It was as close to Heaven as I could imagine with my 18 years of experience. Late that evening, in a nearby grove, both my experience and my imagination were greatly enhanced thanks to ‘Miss Gaseteria, Number 31’. She was a stenographer from East Louisville over visiting her cousins for the weekend.
CHAPTER SIX
In the summer of ’49, it looked like Mama was going to be all right. Daddy’s insurance had paid off the house and Pop Gilliam had left her the fruit of his life’s work and meager investments. I loved life on the river, but you’ve got to really love it as an art and science or it can drag you down into a seedy existence. I had run from the hopelessness of having my family torn apart during my teen years; I saw I was running towards something worse. The darkness was gaining a foothold in my head again.
During my second year onboard the Avalon, I started to recognize that all the compulsive beer drinking and carousing ashore was setting me up for failure or, at best, bald-faced mediocrity. They say if you wear out a pair of boots on the river, the river has got you; I’d had mine resoled once and wasn’t waiting around to find out. I felt the impending doom in my bones; I had to do better.
***
I enrolled in the University of Tennessee Junior College that fall. The campus was in Martin, Tennessee, about 140 miles northeast of Memphis. I majored in math and accounting; I had a mind for numbers not words. Mama thought that was swell. What I didn’t tell her was, I had read that the FBI was looking for accountants and lawyers. Whatever it was that lawyers did, I knew it involved words. I was still working wherever I could. Some classes I had to take at night. Since I couldn’t guarantee my attendance at a job, I ended up working construction, lots of concrete work.
Mama had never learned to drive, so she let me take Daddy’s 1941 Ford V-8 Super DeLuxe wood-paneled station wagon to school. I was 11 when he bought it. I remember how happy Ronnie and I were. The wood panels were the snazziest things we’d ever seen or could even imagine. The advertising firm where Daddy worked had gotten the ‘STP’ Account, and Daddy had gotten a promotion. Studebaker would be retooling for war the following year, but in ‘41, they were hawking their gasoline additive brand worldwide.
Daddy would brag that the Super Deluxe station wagon was the first factory-built Ford of any kind to break the $1,000 base price. One night at supper, he let slip that he could have bought the Super Deluxe Fordor for $850.00. Ronnie and I made bets on how bad Mama was gonna hurt him, but she loved Daddy and seemed to take a liking to the wagon quick enough.
The biggest joy of my scholastic career at UTJC, Martin was Miss Virginia Wilson from Huntsville, Alabama. We met on campus in 1949. The afternoon I first laid eyes on her, she was huddled with two other girls in front of the giant white columns of the Hall-Moody Administration Building. She was as cute as a speckled puppy in a wagon. I saw the sunshine dancing on her long red curls. She turned slightly. She was smoking a cigarette - right out in the open.
A boy named Teddy Barton, from Smyrna, Tennessee, said he knew her, said he would introduce me. When she first looked up at me, her sparkling green eyes said, ‘How do you do?’. Her wondrous smile said, ‘Aren’t you a strapper!’ Then her pretty face turned slightly sideways and said, “Why, sir, I do believe the cat has got your tongue...” Ah, the melodic tones, the morning glories, the sweet honeysuckles of that superior creature’s existence.
“H-howdy, Miss Virginia”, I said.
The next evening, we walked across campus to Pacer Pond. We sat on the bank and watched the same six ducks for two hours. Then we sat on the bleachers at the Pacers Baseball Field for another hour. It was dark and way too late when I walked Miss Virginia back to the dorm. She said, “You should call me Ginger, and you should call me again.” She kissed me.
Sometimes we’d drive the station wagon into the town of Martin for a picture show. Most times, we’d walk the mile. We liked to walk along Main Street looking in shop windows. There was an ice cream parlor on South Lindell Street. We could enjoy a root beer float and watch the trains pass on the other side of Central Street, thanks to a vacant lot.
Each table sported one of those little jukeboxes. Ginger loved the Andrews Sisters. So did I because their fun and frisky music really was the perfect halo for that pretty, full of life angel of mine. She would always play ‘Rum and Coca-Cola’. We’d hold hands and tap toes to the Calypso beat. We’d smile at what struck us as slightly naughty words. If an older person happened by and frowned at ‘making tropic love’, we were further transported to sunny Trinidad.
Every Saturday night, at seven o’clock, the owner of the Lindell Hardware turned on the television set in his storefront window. He had rigged a speaker above the store’s front door. By 7:30, the sidewalk audience would start growing. At eight o’clock, sharp, Hopalong Cassidy rode to another adventure in the Old West. Watching that five by seven inch Viewtone screen, it looked to me like he was riding inside the porthole of a Mississippi riverboat. Hoppy was four inches tall, but it was a thrill. I can’t recall doing anything fun during those two years of school that didn't involve my girl, Ginger.
***
My big brother, Ronnie, graduated from high school in 1944 and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps that fall. While Mama didn’t want him to enlist, I could see how proud Daddy was of his first-born son. After Boot Camp at Parris Island in South Carolina, he spent a couple of months in North Carolina, some time on the West Coast, and then shipped overseas. Ronnie was killed in the Battle of Okinawa on May the 15th, 1945. He had joined the First Marine Division just before the April 1st invasion. Daddy never was right, I mean really right, after Ronnie’s death.
The big black sedan showed up at our house in early June. The handsome young Marine with the silver bars and chest full of ribbons talked quietly with Mama and Daddy in the parlor. I stared right at his mouth as he spoke, “It’s my unfortunate duty to inform you of the combat related death of your son, Private First Class Ronald BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Please accept this Purple Heart Medal BLAH, BLAH, BLAH... grateful nation BLAH, BLAH...”
He handed Ronnie’s personal effects to Mama. Then he was gone. Daddy stood straight up, blank-faced, turned and walked toward the back of the house. Mama picked up Daddy’s Camels from the side table and lit one with shaking fingers. She had never smoked.
I went back to the bedroom I had shared with Ronnie my whole life. I lay on my bed, reached under and pulled out the shoebox where I kept the few letters I’d g
otten from him. Right on top, the last one, short, mud-stained and dated ‘Tues, 8 May, 1945’, one week before he died.
‘Hi Squirt. We’re in some deep shit over here. I’m not supposed to write where we are, but check the newspaper. You can figure it out (well, maybe not you!!!!!). The Japs are dug into the cliffs. They got mutually supporting positions and all the artillery in the world. It’s pretty much like a nightmare. The monsoon rain has flooded all the roads and turned the slopes into a stew of garbage and dead Japs rotting in the mud. The ground is covered with maggots. No, not maggots like you. Real maggots. We can’t get the wounded to the rear. Can’t move. It just drags on. Most everyday, another guy will go off the deep end, drop his rifle and just lay down. Don’t show this to Mama. Tell Daddy I’m kicking some Jap you know what. I love you, Butthead’. It was signed, ‘Ron the Great’.
I wondered if he ever heard that Nazi Germany surrendered the same day he wrote that letter to me.
I gripped the letter and said, “I love you, too, Buttface.” I lay there and cried until I couldn’t breathe.
Mama also received a letter from Ronnie in May. It was dated 18 April, 1945. She read it to Daddy and me in that same parlor.
‘Mama, if you read about the First Marine Division making an amphibious landing, don’t worry. There was hardly a Jap in sight. We’re moving across the island like a hot knife through butter. This war might be over soon. Mama, we couldn't believe when we heard President Roosevelt died last week. We were all sad. Take care. See you soon. All my love to you and Daddy and what’s his name. Ronnie’.
As a family, we never again spoke of anything Ronnie did after he graduated from high school. Doesn’t mean I don’t still love you, Buttface.
***
Daddy died in January of 1947. We had just celebrated his birthday - 46 years old. As I look back, I think he was a victim of stress, fried food and emphysema. At the time, Mama said he died of a broken heart. When you’re young, years are big thick juicy slices of life that a person scrambles to collect. Later, years become thin and metallic and accumulate by themselves. They hang, invisible but heavy, around your neck, relentlessly pulling everything down - your eyelids, shoulders, paunch, spirit, and sometimes, your will to live.
We laid Daddy to rest in the Elmwood Cemetery on South Dudley Street over toward the river. Stones had been buried there since my Great Granddaddy after the Civil War. It surprised me that I never saw Mama shed a tear during that ordeal. I was in high school, thinking I was grown up. I somehow thought her not crying denied permission for me to cry. It was during those days when I first learned to live inside myself. If you don’t admit it, it can’t hurt you. It broke my heart when Daddy died.
It might have broken more than my heart. I was in a fog, just going through the motions. Mama had always been quiet; without Daddy, she was the Sphinx. I loved her fiercely, but I resented her for not putting her loss into words, not helping me understand my loss. Of course, I couldn’t put any of that into words myself. I tried to talk to her, but eventually accepted my insular existence.
After that, I spent a lot of weekends at Pop Gilliam’s house. We puttered in the daytime and listened to Glenn Miller in the evening. Although his warmth was an old man’s ember, it was constant. I still liked my friends, but, more and more, I liked being alone. It would’ve sounded absurd to say out loud; I felt years older than them. I found it difficult to sit through an entire picture show; I wanted, no, needed to go see what was going on outside the theater. In my head, I lived with impending doom.
I was a pretty good baseball player. I made the high school varsity as a sophomore. I could never describe to anybody how the excitement slowed down the action for me. I could put wood on the ball no matter where the pitcher flung it. I loved the game, the smell of the leather glove, the grass and the mud on my skin when red clay mixed with sweat. The spring of my senior year, I cussed at the coach during practice and got booted off the team. Coach Burke told me he didn’t go through Hell on the beaches of Anzio to take disrespect from a snot-nosed kid. My fault; I deserved what I got.
***
Ginger and I graduated from the University of Tennessee Junior College, Martin in 1951. My plans were to return in September. The school was about to be designated as the University of Tennessee Martin Branch. UTMB would offer four-year fields of study and degrees.
Ginger hinted that she had come to Tennessee to widen the possibility of finding a husband. As far as I was concerned, she had found one. I met her parents at graduation, and she spent the weekend with them. Come Monday morning, Ginger and I left campus and drove to Memphis to spend some time with Mama. One afternoon, we gathered up Mama and drove across the spanking new ‘Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge’. It was really something. It crossed the Mississippi with a pedestrian and bicycle lane built right on to the south side of the bridge. We went to Freeman’s Smoke House in West Memphis and ate ribs until we hurt.
Somebody told me that John Lee Hooker was going to be back in town Saturday night. Ginger and I went to see him at the New Daisy Theater on Beale Street. Delta blues. She made it clear that she was not all together comfortable about going to a Negro club. When John Lee cranked up ‘Boogie Chillin’, her toe started tapping. Hell, every thing started tapping! We had the time of our lives. Monday morning Ginger caught a train home to Huntsville. She carried my promise to visit over the 4th of July holiday.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Weakly County Press was a weekly newspaper printed in Martin, Tennessee. At school, I had read about the war in Korea. I followed General MacArthur's progress driving the Godless commies back north where they came from the previous year. I saw U.S. Marine Corps everywhere in the thick of it. In early 1951, the commie bastards, while pretending to negotiate a truce, bulldozed their way south again. Back at home, I read in the Memphis Commercial Appeal how our boys continue to be killed in defensive positions while the commies stalled the peace talks. I wanted to do my part.
“Mama, if I enlist for just two years, I’m eligible for the GI Bill. That’ll take care of my other two years of school. There’s even something about helping me buy a house when I’m ready”.
She reached into her apron pocket, lit up a Camel, crossed her arms and looked away. “You have a house,” she said.
As much as I had dreaded revealing my plans to Mama, I knew that my real challenge lay ahead, down Alabama way. That challenge had long red curls and sparkling green eyes. I figured she was probably already water-skiing on Wheeler Lake thinking about wedding bells.
The next morning I drove over to the US Marine Corps Recruiting Office at the Germantown Post Office. I talked with Gunnery Sergeant Babb who had red stripes running the full length of his blue pant legs. He said to call him ‘Gunny’. Gunny said we could get me signed up and on my way to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina in four or five days. I told him I’d get back to him the next day.
I called Virginia and we talked for a good two hours. She took it surprisingly well when I told her I wanted to be a part of the war in Korea - that I felt like it was my duty. I asked her if she would marry me when I got back. She said she would. Since we had spent so much time together, we decided it would be best if I just went on to recruit training. I could stop in Huntsville for a visit on my way to my first duty station.
***
The following Monday, my train pulled into the Yemassee, South Carolina Station about five in the evening. I jumped off to the waiting arms of two Marine Sergeants who were announcing loudly that they were troop handlers. They instructed anybody with orders to Parris Island to assemble around them until they finally collected six of us worried looking passengers.
They marched us a few hundred yards from the train platform to a clapboard building that looked like it had once been someone’s house. The Receiving Station had an Eagle, Globe and Anchor painted on the front and a 20-foot flagpole with Old Glory flying. A Private First Class clerk collected our orders and took them ins
ide to endorse them with the time of arrival.
There were eighteen recruits total. We were parked on a set of bleachers behind the Receiving Station while the troop handlers took turns marching us, nine at a time, across the tracks and tarred road to a restaurant that sat facing the train station. We all got two cheeseburgers and applesauce. We were told we could talk quietly while we sat and waited, but if we weren’t quiet, there’d be NO Goddamn talking at all and we’d find ourselves standing at attention.
One of the troop handlers pointed out a contraband barrel against the building. If anyone was dumbass enough to bring contraband, and he rattled off a dozen examples - knives, guns, ammunition, brass knuckles, girly magazines, now was the time to get rid of it. I doubted seriously that anyone would be stupid enough to bring anything like that. I got a glimpse in the barrel on the way out and it was surprisingly full.
I struck up a quiet conversation with Gary Painter from Cocoa Beach, Florida. It turned out that’s big horse country down there and Gary was a bronc and bull rider in the local rodeos. He had the ghost of a broken nose and a silver belt buckle big as a grapefruit to prove it. Some of the northern boys were grousing about the heat and humidity. Painter and I just looked at each other and shrugged. We remained friends.
***
I ran into him again in 1952 at the 2nd Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. He was being evacuated to Japan. A mortar round had driven shrapnel into his back and neck and exploded a flamethrower; he seared both arms pretty good throwing dirt on burning napalm in the dark. I just happened to be at the M.A.S.H. scrounging supplies when I heard he’d been wounded. I did get to see Lieutenant Colonel Newell, Commanding Officer of the 2nd MASH, pin a Purple Heart on Painter.
The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1) Page 5