WE MOVE TO TOWN, PORUM

We moved to a little house a block west of Spradlin's Station, on the north edge of Porum. It was on the southeast corner facing a vacant lot behind Spradlin's Filling Station, which was on the highway. We had a living room, kitchen, and two small bedrooms. There was electricity, gas and running water, although the outhouse was at the far southwestern corner of the fenced in back yard which contained our chickens. The doors were low and when Uncle Jap came to visit from California he had to duck to allow his 6'4" height to enter. There was a Catalpa tree with the big leaves in the corner of the yard next to the street running west. The school was two blocks west of our house.

Robin, me, Jack, Jimmy

Dad was hired as a foreman at the newly equipped coal mine operating east and north of town. They had built a big shop with all sorts of equipment including a metal lathe to make parts that were expensive or difficult to obtain. The operations superintendent was the main boss and Uncle Raleigh was the business manager. His office was in Tulsa where he also managed Col. Leavell's other affairs. The new superintendent was named Fuzzy and he was hard of hearing. This was probably due to years of working in noisy mining environments. He spoke very loudly to everyone to compensate. Dad was not happy to be working under Fuzzy's supervision and they had frequent disagreements over how things ought to be done. There were times when Dad had to save the day by resolving some mess that Fuzzy had gotten them into. He had previously worked in a mining operation near Collinsville. One of the Steam Shovel operators was named Stanley and was also from Collinsville. After several years, Fuzzy retired and returned to his native Collinsville. Dad was then appointed to be the new superintendent of operations with an accompanying raise in pay which made him a very highly paid man and we felt we were quite well to do, if not down right wealthy.

Going to the toilet was not a simple operation. There was a rooster in the chicken yard which regarded the place as his and anyone entering his domain was subject to attack. One day, I even saw him attack Dad in a flurry of wings, squawks, and spurs. I got a lot of satisfaction when Dad kicked him several times until he beat a retreat to the other end of the yard. You can be sure I only went to the toilet when the need had become desperate. I would stand just inside the back door screen and watch until he had gone to the opposite end of the yard in his meanderings and then make a mad headlong dash to the outhouse. Sometime during that period we began using regular toilet paper instead of the normal pages out of last year's Montgomery Ward catalog for wiping. I felt we had really arrived then! My return trip to the house was with all the intensity of the trip out. I was really happy the day the old rooster wound up in the pot.

Mother would get really exasperated at Jimmy's efforts in the outhouse. He, not wanting to soil his clothing by some mishap, would remove every stitch of his clothing before climbing up onto the hole in the high wooden seat. Little kids had to exercise great care not to fall in because the hole was sized for larger adults. I have known this to happen on occasion. The poor miscreant who suffered this misfortune had to bear the brunt of much laughter and teasing for a long time afterward. Mother's concern for Jimmy increased when in the bitterest cold of winter, he maintained this habit of removing all his clothing before mounting the throne.

Mother with Jimmy in tow, on the streets
of Muskogee. I'm behind.

I don't know how this dilemma was resolved, but I doubt that he still does it to this day.

One time in the fall, Dad raked up a bunch of sticks and leaves into a pile next to the road and burned them. Jimmy and I found the resulting fire very exciting and played around it. After the fire died down, Dad went into the house and I, hateful big brother that I was, began to tease him about something. Jimmy had a pretty good defense against me. He was able to fly into fits of blind rage. He did so at this time. He picked up a stick out of the fire and began chasing me with it. I had every confidence that he intended to do me serious harm. Eventually, I got careless in my dancing around taunting and he got me with a blow to the eye with the end of the stick that had a burning coal on it. It was my turn to run crying to the house in outrage at my mistreatment. After ascertaining that I was not seriously injured, once again, I got no sympathy. Sometimes I just couldn't understand my parents' seemingly faulty sense of justice.

In the fall, although Mother knew that I was the smartest child in Porum, with the possible exception of Jimmy, I was not allowed to begin school at the age of five. It was finally decided that I could begin after I completed the first reader in first grade. Mother and I fell to the task and it was soon completed. A week or so after school had begun, I proudly marched, with my Mom, up to school where I was enrolled. The first grade teacher was a beautiful dark haired young lady named Faye Futrell. Her voice was like that of Snow White in the Walt Disney movie which I had recently seen, along with Mother, Dad, and Jimmy. I remember Jimmy being terrified at the wicked step mother-witch. She even sang like her and used the same inflections when she spoke to us. All the boys were in love with her and the girls were sickened by all this, especially Patty Vinzant. Patty used to horrify me by making fun of her voice.

She taught us phonics and I soon picked it up and could read anything then. She used to show me off whenever a stranger would visit by picking up the Bible or Shakespeare and having me read aloud from the tome. I was her golden boy and was sublimely pleased with myself.

My feeling that all was right with the world was to be short lived. Each time we were issued a new reader, expected to last several weeks, I would take it home and finish it that night, although Dick and Jane, the principle characters, seemed to be rather stupid creatures to me. Some times there was a Bob who came to play with them and of course, Mother and Father were ever present, they never seemed to do anything interesting. How I would have enjoyed a Dr. Seuss book, not to come along until my children were around.

Initially, we sat in a little circle at the front of the room, each taking turn reading a paragraph, keeping place whilst waiting our turn. I, as has been my downfall most of my life, found my attention wandering. Mrs. Futrell would thoughtfully remind me of the place with a mild rebuke when my turn came and I would then read my paragraph exhibiting my usual sophisticated skill and technique. The time came, however, when she lost her patience with me and gave me a stinging slap across the face. I was astounded and horrified to receive such treatment from my beloved Mrs. Futrell. (At that time she was a Miss as Ed Futrell had not yet returned from the war and married her but I cannot remember her maiden name.) Well, I had learned my lesson from that, but my nature could not keep my attention from wandering. I soon discovered that, whatever world I was exploring, I could store in my memory the last two or three words spoken by the previous reader. When I was called upon to read, I would just look for the paragraph ending with the words I remembered and begin there. In later years, Mrs. Futrell was to confess to me that she was sure from my demeanor that I was drifting in some private obsession and she could never understand how I was able, after that slap, to begin at the right place when she called upon me. She said she had tried to trip me up without success and now, she wanted to know how I did it. She laughed with delight when I told her.

My first day at school was not exactly the wonderful experience I had been given to expect. Class was great, but recess was another matter. I had not played with a group of kids before, having lived all my life in the country and it was a strange new experience for me. One guy named Ray Shandy had gotten ahold of one of the sharp pointy things used for drawing circles. He said he was going to stick me with it. I'm sure he was only teasing but I had never been teased in this manner so I took him seriously. In defense of my life, without giving the matter any further thought, I resorted to the only defense I knew. I leaped upon him and began biting him with all my might. He began to howl then, which brought a teacher over to resolve the matter. I got a whipping on my first day at school, right out on the school yard in full view of my peers. How humiliating, not to mention painful!! There was no mother there to console me! Later, Ray and I became friends and spent many happy hours playing together.

My first friend in Porum was Don Spradlin, from the filling station. He came over to play and I would visit him at the station, where they also lived. Our friendship was seriously damaged when he came to play one day and Robin was out in the yard. He nervously asked, "Does that dog bite?" when Robin, still just a nearly grown pup, sensed his unease. Robin chased him all the way home, nipping at his heels despite my protestations that Robin didn't bite, evidence to the contrary. I went into the house, explaining in my outrage, about Robin's misdeeds but Mother refused to punish him as I had seen her do on occasion, explaining that too much time had elapsed and he wouldn't under stand why he was being punished. Relations between Don and I were rather strained after that, although I still regarded him as a friend.

There was a family named Holt who lived in a little shack just to the west of our house. They had two sons, an older one named Leo, I think and a younger one about my age named Willie. They also had a girl about Jimmy's age named Melba, whom they called Melbey. Poor Melbey was definitely not a pretty child, with a perpetually runny nose. I teased Jimmy about Melbey being his girl friend as he used to play with her some times. For a short time, he actually came to regard her as his enamored. When he became aware of my charade, he became outraged at my accusations and refused to have any further dealings with her. I should have been ashamed of myself as Melba probably had no one to play with after that.

The Holts were exceedingly poor as the father was unable to keep a job because of his drinking and generally rotten attitude about the world. Mother would often take food over to them so they would have something to eat. The mother and kids were doomed to wear ragged clothes and when winter came, had no coats or shoes until donors remedied the situation. Upon discovering that Mrs. Holt was with child again, sympathetic businessmen took up a collection and gave the money to Mr. Holt with encouragement that Mrs. Holt receive some medical attention and their living circumstances be upgraded. The next day, Mr. Holt showed up wearing a new Stetson hat and a new suit of clothes and unbelievably drunk. He had evidently squandered the entire sum on himself. When it came time for the child to be born, Mother and another lady were at their home, administering to her. The old man was sitting drunk in the corner of the shack saying "Let the --- rot!" Mother assisted in the delivery, but insisted that the other lady cut the umbilical cord. At that time, Mother was expecting Jack. Subsequently, whenever Mother would leave the house to go somewhere in the car, Mrs. Holt would come out holding up the baby for Mother to see.

As Leo and Willie followed the same route home as I, we would often talk on the way. One day, Leo speculated as to how Willie could "whup" me and began urging Willie to fight me over some real or imagined insult, I can't remember which. Willie came at me clumsily with both fists flailing the air so I hit him and shoved him down. He began to cry whereupon Leo jumped on me and beat on me until I escaped by running home. Thereafter, it was a daily occurrence for them to chase me home. I guess eventually all was forgotten. I can't remember how it was resolved but some time or other it stopped.

After a time, we got a new home. The building was not new but it was new to us and was the nicest place we had lived yet. There was a lot more room to accommodate our soon to be enlarged family. It was located two blocks west of the center of town, the post office and Pratchard's drug store. On the other end of the building housing Pratchard's Drugstore, was the west entrance to Futrell's General Store, which made an "L" around Pratchard's Drug and fronted facing east on the highway passing through town. I don't remember the streets having names but this would have been Main Street if they did. I suppose there were names for the purpose of mail delivery but I never heard anyone use a street name. Come to think of it, we picked up our mail two blocks up the street at the post office. The only thing delivered was the paper.

During the opening of the new coal mine, Uncle Raleigh would often come to stay all night with us. On one such trip, he got up in the morning and was yawning really big and his mouth stuck in the open position. Of course, this was a great concern to him. Mother told him about an Osteopathic doctor we had in town, our only doctor, who was hooked on drugs. My family continued to see Dr. Oldham, an M.D. in Muskogee because they felt that the M.D. had better training in those days. Uncle Raleigh went down to the doctor's office which was in a house a block west of the post office. The doctor felt around on it for a moment then gave him a solid blow to the chin, knocking the jutting jaw back into place. In years to come, Mother would relate this incident with a slightly guilty sound to her laughter, as if she really shouldn't be enjoying it.

..........More about Porum to come........