Nature Songs ~~~~
MARCH, 2002
March 1, 2002 - More Memories ~ While Mother and Dad were working for Civil Defense Services in Norfolk, Virginia, My brother and I lived in the North Carolina. The two-story wooden house was painted brown. A long swing which Grandpa made in his workshop hung across one side of the porch. It was my favorite place to spend an afternoon, weather permitting. From that location much could be taken in of any activity. Our house was built in a secluded spot compared to all the other houses up the steep driveway and along the narrow, unpaved, busy street. One other house was just past ours. Facing the porch was an even steeper bank. Atop that bank was a pair of railroad tracks; one for the regular passing of freight and passenger trains and the other one was a sidetrack for parking those packed with different goodies to be unloaded. Grandpa had made steps going up the bank to the tracks using stones. Many times I climbed those steps and took a right turn heading toward town or the library. Generally walking along the tracks or on the rails was easier than dodging pot holes, or enduring the heavy red dust stirred up by passing cars. Yes, cars were becoming a part of our environment, but creating nothing like the traffic of today.
With time, more rocks were collected and a sidewalk was made using the rocks and cement making it easier to walk between our house and the main road. Even larger rocks were brought home and used for an even wider rock and grass walk from our little road to the steps of the front porch. With the maple tree, willow and pear tree and a row of daylillies along the side of the yard, it made for a very pretty yard.
School was only a short distance’s walk. There was a choice of three ways going and coming. The closest way to walk was across the railroad tracks and up the bank going to the left. A short walk brought my brother and me to the huge black water tower which furnished water for our community. It was at the corner of the school playground area which was across the road in front of the schoolhouse. Going straight in front of the house took us by the tiny grocery store with its array of food displayed in bushel baskets instead of shelves. This was the place we loved to stop and buy candy if we happened to have the pennies to buy a poke full of favorite sweets.
The third way to walk to school was taking the dirt road at the top of our driveway which ran beside the tracks. On the next street a tiny little building perched right beside the railroad. It was only large enough for one person to stand or sit on a stool. Its use? A watchman was hired to be a guard at that crossing twice a day. My great-uncle Will, married to the sister of my other grandmother. was that man. Rain or shine, hot or cold he walked about two miles back and forth from his home to ensure all the children were safely escorted across the tracks when trains were near. My favorite task was to pester him until he would reach into his pocket, pulling our a black worn change purse and twist open the closure giving me some pennies and on occasion, a nickel!
Also located at that corner was a brick building where candy was made. The waft of sweetness still lingers in my nostrils remembering some of the flavors made. Their specialty was making ribbon candy for Christmas. Thin lengths of the red, white and green candy ribbons were quickly formed in perfect curves back and forth to fill a box while it was still warm and soft. My favorite was when the coconut strips were made. These were often in about ten inch strips of the chocolate brown, vanilla and strawberry pink, I love finding them even yet, but wrapped as candy bars.
A Shoelace Factory was on the opposite corner from the school. It was a huge white wooden building with tall windows all along the side facing the road. I could see the women sitting at monstrous looking machines as they worked. The clickity-clacking of the machines could be heard outdoors during warm weather and the bottom half of the windows were propped up with sticks. That was the first building to disappear from the scene. The grocery store was turned into a parking lot for a church. The candy factory building still stands, but it has housed many different types of businesses since the last aroma of sweets escaped into the community from the vats of candy cooking.
The school I knew is now gone. A gymnasium built years later is used for community ballgames and practice. A row of three more modern classrooms constructed behind the school are used today for activities like Senior Citizen classes of art, knitting or quilting. The high ceiling, oiled wooden floor, two-story building my parents, brother and I attended is gone. My uncle has the cornerstone from the original building because one of the names on it is Mother’s father who helped plan and have that building constructed. The central focus was a two-story auditorium a balcony and stage area for students. The classrooms were to the back of the auditorium and trips were often made to the auditorium for all sorts of programs shared by the student body. Each class was required to perform during the year and people would travel from school to school performing plays, puppet shows, music and science magic
My parents and most of their brothers and sisters graduated eleventh grade from that site. Only the very youngest of each family made the walk to the new high school a few blocks on the opposite side of downtown and an extra year was added to the school agenda. My brother and I made another stop at Greenpark Junior High School for a year when we completed seventh grade at Westmont Elementary School. Then we were off to Hickory High to complete our schooling. Interestingly enough, I was a senior at Hickory High when I learned from the English Teacher that the real name of our high school was Claremont Central High School. In the three years I attended not once did I look up at the name neatly chiseled over the center front of the building. Claremont Central High School is engraved on my High School Degree.
The following Fall, I was only a few blocks from high school attending Lenoir Rhyne College. Much more was waiting to be learned and this was the next stepping stone.
March 2, 2002 - What Now? ~ The mind is overflowing with memories, but things recalled cannot be written now. The time isn’t right. Too many pains are intertwined with those good thoughts of youth. I do recollect some events in such vivid detail that it is unimaginable that I was so young.
That first summer my aunt took Brother and me to Virginia to spend part of the summer with Mother and Dad, the train was overflowing with young boys in army uniforms. Many of them were quite sad and all were willing to talk to anyone that would listen. One surrendered his sit to us when we boarded the steam engine pulled passenger train. I had ridden the train in the past from Hickory to Morganton to visit relatives, but that trip was nothing compared to the all night bobbing up and down as well as swaying with the curves on that trip. Being summertime, the windows were all open with hopes of catching a cross breeze, but much of the air entering through the windows was filled with coal smoke forced back over us as the engine accelerated ahead.
Leaving Virginia, my aunt took us on an overnight ride on an ocean liner across the bay to Baltimore, Maryland. The furnishings of the liner were unlike anything I had ever imagined. Everything was either draped or upholstered with a deep red velvet throughout. Such elegance I had not known. Much gold was displayed along with the red velvet. The servers were dressed proper in suits with long tails on the coats. One of them came into our quarters to prepared our beds for the night’s sleep. This night’s ride was not as smooth as I would have expected it to be as I look back. The vessel was hard to walk around on and all during the night we moved side to side at times as the boat churned through the water.
A week later, we left my uncle’s apartment where his wife spent most of her time while he was doing his part in the navy. Often, he only was allowed to leave the base on weekends. We saw little of him during our stay. From there, we boarded a bus to head home. Again, it was filled with mostly soldiers. Strange, but I don’t remember seeing many of the white bellbottoms of the navy going or coming back. Given a pillow and blanket for the night’s ride home, sleep came more easily riding the bus. There was less movement throughout the bus and most of the lights were off as we raced along the road.
Homecoming was not what you would expect. As we departed the bus, we were given strange looks by mostly men that happened to be there. This was the summer of the big polio epidemic! All children in our area were quarantined and not allowed out of their yards. The mothers were all home with their children and even the men about were fewer than usual. Needless to add, that everyone acted as if we would infect them with the terrible disease and kept their distance.
Hickory became the City of Miracles that summer. People came together, most of them volunteering their time, and constructed a hospital of wood and canvas. Time was of the essence and therefore the tents were erected. Many of the nurses gave of their time and energies to provide care for all the stricken patients. Polio brought a change to the lives of many that summer. Some didn’t survive. Others were destined to spend their lives with crutches and braces. Some lived out their lives in iron lungs that breathed for them. Few were fortunate enough to recover completely. Even without the need for crutches or a brace, they had the lifelong burden of a hand and arm or foot and leg being shriveled. Some of these people living around here today are feeling repercussions of the polio contracted that summer.
Maybe one day the words will come more easily of my life during those times.
March 3, 2002 - A neighbor died. He was not someone I knew all that well, indeed we spoke off and on through the years. His son and daughter-in-law are better know to me. His son has been in the rescue squad with Allan. When Allan stepped down after nine years as the captain of the squad, he became captain.
Attending the receiving for the family at the funeral home was also a time for meeting people I hadn’t seen for years. Allan and his wife came by and picked me up at home so I could go with them. One of his friends was talking with him and there I am thinking, “Is he not going to recognize me?” He spent much of his high school years in and out of my home. Finally, he turned to me, giving me a big hug, saying, “Mom, how are you doing?” Seems most of the teens who knew me back then only knew me by the name, Mom. After all, that’s all they heard me called when we were away from school.
As the line of visitors moved along and my turn came to speak with the widow, she stepped forward giving me a big hug. “You know how I feel, because you have been there. You’ve had to go through what I am now.” It seemed to comfort her that she could associate the feeling of losing a husband with someone. Yes, it is difficult, but as years pass, the edge is taken away from the pain ... and too, children were in the home to fill much of my thoughts and time in the weeks, months and years to follow. She will be at home alone. That part is different. Friends from church will be there for her.
That night was one of those times I forgot to do something. Getting dressed earlier, when Allan called to say he would be by in twenty minutes, I thought I was ready. Combing and spraying my hair had been saved till the last minute so the dogs would not catch on to my leaving. Knowing that my leaving is eminent, they bark at each other in anticipation ... I put on some lipstick, grabbed my handbag and was out the door. We were nearing the funeral home and I remembered! I had not changed my shoes! There I was meeting all these people - strangers and friends - wearing my old everyday rundown white walking shoes to compliment my dress clothes.
March 5, 2002 - 15ºF., and WHAT? Yes, of course! What better time would it be? A few days ago the temperature was up in the low seventies with jonquils lifting yellow heads toward the sun cheerfully. This morning, the jonquils were drooped with heavy heads propped on the ground because of the chilly weather. That seems to be the best time for my heat pump to decide to stop. Earlier in the wee hours of morning I saw the blue light glowing as it signaled that the auxiliary heat was hard at work. The red alert did not come on to let me know that anything was amiss.
Around nine a.m., I mentioned to DynoKid that someone must have turned back the control without letting me know. He had been brought over to spend the day with me since he felt puny and was running a low grade fever. As his day with me progressed, he never once took off his outer jacket while in the house. He did cover up in bed and sleep all afternoon until Dad came to awaken him to go home.
As the day unfolded, the house became colder. The only bright spot with any heat was my bedroom. Each afternoon the sun shines through the windows, heating up spots on my bed which the puppies love to curl up and bask in the radiating warmth. They will stretch and roll over getting all sides sunned before moving out of the sun’s rays to cool off and then return for another go-round of sun basking. Today I wished I was small enough to curl up in one of the spots. Instead I settled for my blanket to cuddle under for warmth.
My mind was made up that if no call came by six p.m., I was leaving to visit with Mother and the heat would just have to wait. It’s not that I don’t have heat at home. There is a separate unit in the basement rooms, but that’s the hitch .. the basement. I don’t do steps well enough to be running up and down to combine the regular routine of life with the heat in the basement. The door was left open and some of the heat escaped upward to help take the edge off the cold. Guess I could have put a chair at the top of the steps and positioned myself there for the day, but I didn’t.
The repairman came before six - barely - and checked out the unit inside and the other end of it outside. As it turns out all that was needed was one small fuse. The same small fuse that was needed the last trip out to the house. He said it wasn’t fixed really, and that the fuse would keep kicking out until whatever was wrong would mess up enough that it could be found with his equipment. Right now he could not locate the real culprit to repair. No doubt it goes back to when the unit was left to back up and leak out all that water that ruined so much of my house. I’m sure the two parts replaced last time that was rusted was due to the leak ... which they claim no responsibility to. It was their man that left the line propped up that backed up the water that leaked out - but they accept no part in being a part of the problem.
Now to see how much I am billed this time and how long the fuse will last. Guess we need to get a supply of fuses, a Phillips screwdriver and open up the unit to replace burned out fuses ourselves. It would save a bunch of money.
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Lenoir,NC 28645
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©2002 by Stormy Jeanne
