Lessons From A Box Of Shorts

COPYWRIGHT: Oct. 1, 2020 all rights reserved by:

Dave Whitaker – October 2020

A story given faculty by the Second Amendment.

Growing up in the developing suburbs of St. Louis I thought nothing of the fact that the “Mother Road” went right by our house. Route 66. Who knew it would become famous? My Grampa Ray Davis, a building contractor, and I would frequently flee the encroaching din of progress, gather up our tackle and head west in his shoebox Ford, on Route 66 of course. Our fishing partnership started when I was seven. We fished the Big Piney or the Little Piney River. Sometimes the new Weldon Springs reservoir, if we wanted just a day outing.

Grampa Ray was from a small town in south-central Missouri. Licking, where Highway 32 crosses 63. The town is near the Big and the Little Piney Rivers. His parents lived there. He called them Ma and Pa, so I gave them the names Gramma Ma and Grampa Pa. It was a natural thing, really, and it sounded right to the adults in town who knew the Davis’s. At least no one thought to correct me. Great Grandfather Davis, Grampa Pa, possessed the local distinction of having six toes on both feet. I’m sure he was teased a lot, growing up, for the ability to count to twenty-two.

Licking was one of those one block, one stop light towns dominated by the feed store. It had everything you needed to live in the midst of farm and field. But there was something behind one of the store-fronts in the middle of that one block that made a trip to Licking kind of exciting… a genuine country hardware store. On one visit to Licking Grampa Ray made this store our first stop and invited me to come in with him. I’m going to guess I was about 7 or 8. I was immediately spellbound. And, since I was “the grand son”, I had cart blanch to wander about, mouth gaping.

I had never seen anything like it. And it was more than I could fathom. Disney World and Camelot put together. No, it was way better than that. Knives of every kind. Things a rugged outdoor man would need to use. Rifles and shotguns locked on display. A veritable wall of amo. Kerosene lamps of various designs for different uses and budgets. Animal live traps. (Just think what you could do back in Rock Hill with a pet skunk!) Dusty heads of large game and whole bodies of smaller stuffed critters. Things for canning. Things for the garden. For fixing a car or a tractor. Things that I couldn’t guess what they were. Some must have been more important as they were pinned to the walls. Others overflowing the display cases. It was too much for a human mind to grasp. There had to have been alien influence. I still feel some of the disappointment that we had to leave.

I had other folk in Licking, but special to me was my Great Grandfather, Henry Driesel. Grampa Ray had married Henry’s daughter who I named Tootsie. A wonderful woman. My mother’s mother. The Driesel farm was seven miles south of Licking on the Houston highway. Although only in-laws, Henry and Ray had hit it off years earlier and were good friends with each other by the time I came along. The two enjoyed sitting in the unlit parlor room at Henry’s house on nights when St. Louis’s KMOX radio carried the baseball Cardinals’ games from the old Sportsman’s Park stadium. They would mutter observations about the game and life to each other. I probably started staying at night during visits with Grampa Henry when I was seven.

Henry was an old widower, something of a quiet charmer, he’d been around, and was quite robust for an octogenarian. Piercing blue eyes and a classic wide-set German jaw topped with a ready and flawless smile. A breeder of mules, he had learned the trade while serving an apprenticeship with a twenty mule team wagon master about the turn of the century. They hauled supplies into the Rockies to build railroads. He told me adrenalin inducing stories about renegade bands of “wild Indians” and killing grizzly bears. Had the sure-enough paw off one which he kept in the top drawer of his bureau. The “bureau” was a fitting place to keep the dried and stiff paw taken from a griz because of the piece’s massive presence. It dwelled like a monarch amongst all the other furniture in the old house.

The house itself became an important landmark. I sorely loved the place. Exactly a mile down the lane from the highway and built on the Texas layout, so I was told. The foundation was shaped like a big “X”. All the rooms had cross-flow ventilation. Built to last and grand it featured a large kitchen with a manual water pump which sat on the right side of the sink and was supplied by a cool spring cistern, in effect an under-water refrigerator located a few steps outside the back door. It was in the ground, of all places, with a wooden door which laid flat on the ground. It featured flag-rock shelves upon which rested the butter and whatever else was perishable. It was plenty large enough to keep milk from spoiling alongside, perhaps, a promising watermelon.

In addition, there were other buildings. On this one hundred and fifty acre farm there was a barn, and a large smoke-house with a tornado shelter below it. Somewhat convenient to the back door was a double-holed out house. One of those holes could have easily misplaced a seven-year-old. I was very careful. There was a rather large chicken house and an ample dog lot, mostly for whelping beagle pups. Then there was the piney woods.

Ah, the piney woods. My good friend, the piney woods.

First I must mention the fact that Grampa Henry was the owner of a 22 caliber carbine. A small rifle. Commonly called a squirrel gun. It was arguably built just for an eight-year-old boy. And it was extremely accurate. A single shot breach loader with a rolling breach block actuated by a beautiful serpentine lever. The wooden stock and forearm evidenced regular use, and it would receive .22 shells in all denominations; shorts, longs and long rifle. Just to hold it, un-loaded, and cycle that lever made me feel like John Wayne cocking his .30-.30 Winchester, fending off the hostiles. It, in short, was the coolest thing my hands had ever held.

No words adequately express the excitement and joy that little rifle gave me. But read on. This is where the story blends with important relationships.

When at the farm I believe Grampa Henry observed that I truly did love being there. During the day, when visiting, Grampa Ray stayed in town and made repairs to his parents’ house, furniture and appliances. That left me with Grampa Henry for long days of being a “farm boy”. There was no one to play with, and Henry was too old and arthritic to keep up all day with an eight-year-old. But he tried. Some things that kept me busy were:

• When the bull frogs in the two ponds became weary of me throwing clods of dirt and small stones, and they being the targets. There’s a reason they call them amphibians. They could hold their breath longer than I could pay attention.

• Tormenting fire ants in their mounds. Especially if I had any firecrackers.

• Removing ticks from the two beagles, Rainbow and Joe Bob.

• Accompanying Grampa Henry afoot on the four mile round trip to the old-time general store, which was actually a pretty neat place. It was a real old-time cracker barrel store. He didn’t own a car and I don’t think he ever learned to drive.

• Hanging around the kitchen to be available to pump needed water from the cistern to prepare lunch or wash dishes. Water could not be wasted.

• Stocking up firewood for the little pot-bellied stove in the parlor and the glamorous cast iron cooking stove in the kitchen. And keeping full the hot water reservoir on the stove.

• Watching a muscular and bare-chested Henry lather up his face, braces straps hanging from his waist, then stropping his straight razor and shaving.

Observing me thus I think he must have calculated I was ready for the rifle. This is where I believe I began to develop a deeper relationship with my great grandfather.

Few words were spoken, nor explanation given, as Henry announced, “Come with me.” He stood in the mud room, .22 carbine in hand. That was all he need say. He handed me an old jelly jar full of miscellaneous .22 shells and said, motioning to a box full of empty tin cans, “Bring some of those.” We headed for the southwest corner of the large open acreage lot surrounding the house. On the other side of the barbed wire fence was the most densely planted and grown “piney woods”, as Henry called it. It was a 40 acre plot of young pine trees. It was so tightly planted that you could not see more than thirty feet in there. It made a terrific barrier for stopping a .22 bullet. Henry must have thought this out as there was a large square fence post lying horizontal on the ground in line with the fence.

Arriving at our make-shift firing range, he said, “Go set up your targets on that post.” When I returned to his side he made a contract available to me. “See that farm house? That’s a mile away and these bullets can hurt a man up to a mile.” Turning hard to his right and leaving the piney woods in the middle he said, “And that farm over there? That’s about a mile. If I see you even pointing this rifle anywhere but these piney woods, I’ll take it from you and you won’t be able to use it for a long time. Do you understand me?”

I felt a slight twinge of aggravation at his admonishing, but I wasted no time in producing a “yes”. “Now,” he directed. “I’ll be watching you from the kitchen window and I only want to see that rifle pointed at those woods. Alright?” Again I must have uttered a respectful “yes”.

“Do you know how to load and aim it?” A third “yes” found its way out. “Let me see you hit one of the tin cans,” he ordered. My dad, a World War II Marine, had taught me the three main firing positions of a rifleman; prone, sitting and standing. I chose prone, the most stable. Crack/Ping. The larger of the selected cans fell off the post. “Now, keep that up and you’ll become a marksman.”, he mused as he turned for the house.

I waited till my grampa got into the house. I looked around. I was alone with a real rifle and live ammunition. This was the neatest, most wonderful thing that had happened to me in my life to that point. “Is this what heaven is like?”, swirled in my brain. I remember feeling so stunned that, for a short while, I did nothing.

Please stay with me while I explain why this little rifle was so cool. It was all in the way it worked. Starting with no bullet in the chamber you would hold the rifle with one hand and half cock the serpentine lever. This caused a steel block ,about the size of a man’s thumb (the breach block), to roll rearward, exposing the back end of the barrel. It also caused the firing hammer to cock. Now the rifle is ready to be loaded so select a .22 shell and slide it into the back end of the barrel. Finish cocking the lever to its original position, aim and fire. The rifle is then ready to be re-loaded so you half cock the lever again. But now the stage is set for something very special. When the lever is half cocked this time a little bar catches the rimmed part of the spent shell and pulls it out of the back end of the barrel, ejecting it in a quick tumbling motion, just past your ear and over your shoulder making the open barrel ready for the manual insertion of another round of live ammo.

Understand why this sort of operation is attractive to most males of our species, and you will understand how he thinks about so many other things.

Over the years the little rifle and I became better and better friends. I earned the trust of Grampa Henry and was allowed to roam the farm with my friend, the carbine. I felt invincible and totally at ease with the world as we explored confidently together.

The years passed. They gave me a desire to help more than be entertained. Henry felt comfortable giving me miscellaneous jobs, including the two mile round trip to the mail box. One winter night we trudged through a deep fall of snow out to the barn to put down more feed for his cows. Henry, opening the barn doors, said, “Make it quick over to the hay loft ladder and climb up there. The bull may not like you down here if he can’t see you.”

He was a massive, all-black Angus. Sometimes, in warmer weather, Henry would allow him to graze the tall grass in the house lot. He had a habit of running speedy circles in the pitch dark around the house as we enjoyed a cold melon on the front porch. He looked forward to those juicy rinds and he made the ground tremble as he passed, but I could not see him at all. Henry had named the animal “Ike” after president Eisenhower. But on that cold, snowy night I just enjoyed the relative warmth of the barn loft and observed Henry going about caring for his small Angus herd. The kerosene lamp burned with a yellow-ish cast, lending to the sensation that Norman Rockwell must be somewhere close by painting the scene. It’s one of my favorite memories of being with my Grampa.

I turned twelve or thirteen. Every trip to “the farm” was something to be savored. However, any story about going there would be incomplete without mentioning the suitcase FULL of manure, and the one about the duck. Both adventures orchestrated by Tootsie.

My dad, P.D., liked to make the occasional trip to the farm and on one such trip he drove a beautiful 1957 two door Cadillac. It wasn’t new, but he was so proud of it, he kept it looking new. Well, Tootsie had a green thumb that went up to her elbow. She must have had a new rose bush or something and she was bent on getting some manure from the farm back to help plant it somewhere around their home back in Rock Hill. She asked my dad if he could help by transporting the stuff. I’m sure Tootsie had visions of a Cadillac’s trunk full of manure, but my dad said “no”, and that was that. You might have thought.

Now, P.D. sincerely loved Tootsie, his mother-in-law, but he had been firm with her about the manure in his car. But like a Rube Goldberg Machine, those gears in her brain went to work. First she would have to downsize. But, what could she use that would not draw P.D.’s attention? Aha! She had given me an old suitcase, medium sized, and well used. She knew me to be an easy mark for anything she needed help with and requisitioned the old grip. All my personals ended up in her case, facilitating the subterfuge. She instructed me to lift the now heavy case into the open trunk when dad wasn’t looking. Thus we headed toward Rock Hill. Until… until the summer sun made the pavement hot, and the hot pavement made the trunk of the car into something approaching an oven. The odor of fresh, warm cow droppings… Well, you get the picture. This is when P.D. looked at Tootsie and asked, “You didn’t really? Did you?” The stink never did go away. He sold the car. (pictured: the actual case)

Then there was the city slicker duck that had taken up residence in the yard of a good friend in Rock Hill, Frieda. Tootsie could not get the poor bird off her mind. It was a duck and as such it needed a home with a pond. Tootsie had grown up on the farm and just knew the duck would be happy there. With visions of a duck loose in his car, batting us all about our heads, and in the excitement relieving itself, Grampa Ray had nixed the idea of transporting the creature in his car, so the question here became, “How does one get a quacking duck three hours down Route 66 without it quacking?” Simple. You just sit In the back seat with be boxed duck between your feet and perjure yourself; “That was me quacking.” Grampa Ray knew better, but remained silent. I think he was about to bust out laughing each time I made like a duck. I don’t recall ever having to quack on another Licking trip.

In these years the road building extensions of government in Missouri became very active at laying down a replacement for Route 66. I remember asking Grampa Ray why there was a road beside a road separated by a fence, and both roads going to the same place. It occurred to me that many of those fascinating and graphically themed motel and gas station buildings, shaped like Indian tee-pees or dinosaurs or in imitation of Dr. Seuss’s “Who-ville”-- that these would no longer be accessible from the new highway. Because of the fence. It made me sort of sad. Still does.

About 1960 I asked Grampa Henry a question that was very important to me. When I became older, could I have the little squirrel rifle? It was a risky question, because he might say, “No.” His reply was, however, an easily spoken “yes”. There it was. Henry and I had made another contract with the carbine its object. A few more years passed, bringing us to 1964, fateful in our memories. Our branch of the Whitakers moved to Jacksonville, Florida. I would be 16 in October. In some ways I was heartbroken. In some, definitely ready for the changes presented by the move. We had only been there since early July, but in October we had the very eye of a hurricane come across our house. Mother forbid me to leave the house, but when was this going to happen again? The answer??? The next year. I just had to walk around in the eyes of both Dora and Cleo. Florida was becoming an even more stimulating place as in ’65 I met Bonnie.

We left Missouri with some strings attached. One of them was our former home. The house at 1015 N. Rock Hill Road. Rather than sell the house dad kept it as a rental, and our first tenant was sort of famous. He, his wife and young son, were the first family to rent, and he was the first quarterback for the new football team, the Cardinals. One Charlie Johnson. It seems like they rented from us for two or three years.

It must have been about the time for Spring Break of 1965. Dad had gotten a call from Mr. Johnson asking if dad could do some general maintenance and painting to the rental house. Dad made a list of needs on the phone and we rounded up just about everything we had that could help us paint, plus a few regular tools. It was an exercise in courage because we were about to set out on a journey in a two seat sports car for which we had just finished major repairs and had not road tested. It was a ’59 MG and did the round trip handily.

Tangent to this trip was a stop in Licking in the sporty MG, mostly to see Henry. The farm had changed little. Henry was a little more stooped over, walking with his arms cast back. I would learn later in life that this posture was evidence of pain in the lower back. There are better things to have in common with your great grandfather. But, I was alone with him long enough to ask if I could collect on the .22 carbine. Henry simply hung his head and apologized that he had given the rifle to someone else. He obviously felt exceptionally bad about the rifle going away to whomever it was. But… there was no point in making Henry feel worse about it, so I dropped the issue.

That was the last time I saw my Grampa Henry. I would see him once more… at his funeral at Boone’s Creek Baptist Church there on the Houston Highway south of Licking. My parents remained at the familiar house on Glynlea Road in Jacksonville.

The years passed. Bonnie and I married in ’72 and eventually settled in southeast Tennessee. The only reason to return to Licking for even brief visits was for family funerals.

However, for some reason, in early 2010, I told my dad about the loss of the squirrel rifle. When I finished with the story, dad said, “I borrowed that rifle from Henry for a hunt some years ago. I fell down a steep hill in the woods and broke that rifle beyond being repaired.” I explained to dad how this revelation allowed me to put the issue of the carbine to bed. Any questionable feelings I might have had for Grampa Henry dissolved to dust and blew away. That revelation was truly healing for me.

Dad died later that year.