Contents |
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| Introduction |
| TheBomb |
| Landing on the Feet |
| Talking To The Dead |
| Working With The German Prisoners |
| Where I Was Born |
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. We lived in Arkansas on the edge of the Grand Prairie. Persimmon trees out lined the small dirt
road that passed our house Beside the Persimmon, trees there were two large Cottonwoods. It was under
the largest of these I set up my playhouse. The leaves of the Cottonwood marked the walls. My stove and
sink was a flat board stretched out between two buckets. The dishes were flat jar seals that my mother
had used in her canning. I also had two large tin cans that had been washed out these were my Mixing
bowls. I was well known for my persimmon and mud cakes although I never was able to convince any one
to taste one. They were perfect to throw at a brother who came wadding through the walls of my playhouse. Growing up on the edge of the prairie was a happy time for my two brothers and me. In another world a war was being fought and neighbors were leaving to go, but my Daddy was a farmer and was better able to help the cause by staying home and raise the food that help feed the armies. We often seen large groups of airplanes flying across the sky and I remember my older brother pointing out the large star on the wing and assuring everyone that they were ours. We did not live to far from the Stuttgart Airfield and there was always a little fear that maybe the enemy would have a sneak attack like they had done to Pearl Harbor. We knew the world was changing but each day offered more hope than the day before and it wouldn't be long that all of our troops would be coming home (so my Daddy said) BACK TO CONTENTS |
The Bomb
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I remember the first pressurized spray can. Melvin (my older brother) had retrieved
it after Daddy had used it to spray the barn for flies. He showed it to me and told me it was a bomb.
I had never seen anything like it before! When I question his claim, he showed me the word BOMB written right on the can! He did not show me the word Bug that he had covered with his thumb. "Where did you get a Bomb?" I ask knowing that Mother or Daddy would not give him enough money to buy one.(Not that I knew what one would cost) "They won't let you have a bee bee gun so I don't believe they would get you a Bomb"! "Shush!! They don't know I got one" Melvin said, "Uncle Howard, brought it home from the Army", he said as he held up the red odd shape canister, with a button on top! I had never seen a real bomb (or a spray can) before. It did sort of look like the ones I had seen in movies (like the one that the Three Stooges seem to always be finding and passing to each other trying to get rid of it!) Uncle Howard was always bring things that he had bought for a bargain, or that had been given to him for daddy to use on the farm. Some of the things daddy was glad to get and others got stuck in a box and set out in the shop to be used if the need ever arose. (We called it junk) It was possible the army just had these old bombs lying around and Uncle Sam had let Uncle Howard have then so he brought them to daddy. Of course, daddy didn't have a use for them so he sent them out to shop and Melvin had got himself one! "What you going to do with it?" I ask."Well I think I will climb that Persimmon tree and throw the bomb as far as I can. If we are lucky it will make a big hole in the ground then we can fill it with water and have our own swimming pool!" I liked the thought of having a swimming pool and was willing to go along with his plan, until I found out the part I would have to play to make it work. Melvin wanted me to hold the bomb while he climbed the tree then I was to toss it to him up in the tree. I didn't want to even touch any thing as dangerous as a bomb and I didn't know if I could throw it high enough for him to catch. Melvin said that I would have to be sure that he could catch it because if it hit the ground it would explode and with me standing so close, it wouldn't be good. Maybe I should be the one to climb the tree? Melvin asked me if I could climb real high and if I thought I could catch the bomb when he threw it to me? After rethinking the situation, I decided to go with the first plan. Carefully Melvin placed the spray can (bomb) in my hand the label was painted on the other side, all I could see was the word CAUTION and a skull and cross bone sign that was printed on the back. My hands were locked covering the words Bug Bomb on the other side. Now hold the bomb as still as you can until I get to the top of the tree and when it is time to throw it to me do it quickly and smoothly don't turn or shake the bomb at all if you can help it. My hands begin to cramp as he climbed the tree. I was scared and I was trying to keep them from shaking but I didn't want Melvin to think I was just a baby or a dumb girl I had to do this right. I looked up and he was in the top of the tree! I knew I could never throw the bomb that high. "I think you need to come down a little the wind is blowing pretty hard and when you turn lose to catch the bomb your going to fall!" Melvin moved down to about the middle of the tree. The toss was going to be hard but I remembered the words from my book The Little Train That Could. and began to say them under my breath I think I can I Think I can and quickly with ease as hard as I could I released the Bomb, Up it went almost hitting Melvin on the head but he made no effort to catch it. As it started back down my feet began to run and I heard myself screaming I heard the Bomb hit the ground but loudest of all I heard Melvin laughing from the top of the tree. The spray can lay on the ground with the Bug Spray Bomb label showing in large black letters and I knew I had been had! I picked up as many Green hard Persimmons as I could find and chunked them at the big monkey of a brother in the tree BACK TO CONTENTS |
Landing On The Feet |
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One of my favorite places to play was in the barn loft. This is also where daddy stored the bails
of hay. He always put his hay up in small square bales. He would stack it to the ceiling some times completely
filling the loft only leaving a small space close to the ladder. This would leave me no place to play
but soon he would feed it out. The space would grow, as it got empty I would have more room to climb
around on the bales or build a fort. The bales were heavy and my fort would just be four bales that I would pull in a square. There was no way I could lift one to stack it and build it taller. Some times, I would discover a nest of eggs that an old hen was trying to hatch hidden in a dark corner. It was not unusual to find the barn cat and her kittens scampering around playing and hiding among the bails. When the loft was empty there was plenty of room to play tag or bounce a ball (most any thing that you liked to do inside the house that your mother wouldn't allow.) It was a wonderful place to be on a rainy day. It was just such a day when Melvin, Jerry and my self put on our boots and waded through the deep mud that was in front of the barn to get to the loft. The cows and horses had walked and stomped around the barn door making quite a mud loll of the soft wet prairie ground. We climb the ladder to the loft and were greeted by the barn cat. Jerry (my youngest brother) picked the cat up and started petting it as it started to purr Jerry held the cat up to Melvin " Listen I got it's motor running," he said. Melvin laugh at him, "cats don't have motors" he said. "Well this one dose I hear it!" was Jerry's reply. "Any way what do you know about cats!" " I know all about cats I bet you didn't know that you coudn't drop a cat on its back?" Now I don't know much about cats but I know a lot about brothers especially my brothers. Jerry is not one to just to take your word that something is so and Melvin don't like to be told that he don't know what he is talking about if he can prove it he will. I also know if I had been the cat I would of run then! Melvin told Jerry " Let me see you drop the cat on her back." Jerry being interested in seeing if Melvin was right grabbed the cat held it with its feet sticking up, raised it above his head, and turned lose! The cat did a flip landing as Melvin said it would on its feet. Melvin started to say "I told you so!" When Jerry yelled "Help me catch the cat we are going to try this again!" The cat not being as quick as she should have been was retrieved and this time Jerry dropped her while standing on a bail of hay. The results were the same as the first time but again Jerry proclaimed he needed to try it once more, the cat needed to fall a longer distance. Catching the cat took a little longer this time but it was accomplished when the boys threw a feed sack over her. On either end of the barn loft there was a large double door that open out over the barn yard with about a six foot drop to the muddy ground. To Jerry this would be just the distance needed to prove Melvin wrong. The doors were open. Melvin warned Jerry, this was his last chance.(There would be no way to catch the cat again) Jerry was sure that he wasn't going to need another chance. Jerry all eighty pounds of him stepped to the door. Holding the cat tightly so it wouldn't get away. Turning the cat on its back feet in the air leans away out the door and releases his grip. The cat had been through this before, this time as it was released she jumps sticking her claws into Jerry's shirt pulling Jerry out the door too! Melvin and I stood looking down at Jerry laying on his stomach covered with mud and other barn yard stuff. The cat was under him with its claws still in his shirt lying on its back. Jerry had proven Melvin wrong! We hurried down the ladder and helped Jerry get up out of the mud. The mud had cushioned his fall. Had the ground been dry he surely would have been hurt. Melvin and I both were glad Jerry was all right as we took him to the house to be clean up. It wasn't just the mud but the barn yard smell was pretty strong too. We told mother the cat had made him fall but we didn't go into details just how it had happen. Back To Contents |
Talking To The Dead
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Being six years older, I have always thought Melvin to be of a greater knowledge of the world than
my self. It took little persuasion on his part to get me to help or participate in any of his pranks.
I guess it was due to this that I often found my self at the wrong end of his experiments. Melvin sat in the door of daddy's shop holding a strange gismo with a crank on one side, "What's that you got", I ask, "It's an Army telephone that Uncle Lesley brought daddy."(It was another object brought to the farm in hopes that it would be put to use in some way.) I had seen a telephone in town, at the place where mother went to make a call to Grandma in Little Rock, but this telephone was different." Let's call Grandma!" I said. "You can't call Grandma on this telephone." Melvin explained "This is an Army telephone!"" Well lets call the Army," I suggested. "Yea, and then they would want to know where we got their telephone. We might get Uncle Lesley in trouble for giving daddy this phone." Melvin said. " I don't see any place to talk into! I do not think, You can talk to any one on this telephone " I challenged. "Yes, you can too!" Melvin was quick to reply. "Just who can we call?" I wanted to know. "Well Melvin said in a soft low voice we can talk to the dead!" "WHAT"! I was sure I misunderstood. Melvin repeated "We could talk to the dead on this telephone" he said "Oh! Come on now! There is no way to talk to the dead!" Melvin insisted that he was telling me the truth. "Okay! I said prove it to me." "I will but you will have to help me." I asked him what he needed me to do? He explained that he would have to add two antennas so we needed to find some wire. I looked into the junk box and found a roll that mother had used part of to hang a picture. There was enough to make both antennas. As Melvin was attaching them, he suggested I go find Jerry and Deloise ( a neighbor hood friend of ours) because he was sure they would want to talk to the dead also He was just going to make the one call. (He didn't want the Army to find out we had one of their Telephones!) When I returned with Jerry and Deloise, Melvin was ready to make the call. He handed me the end of one of the Antennas and Deloise took hold of the other. Jerry was to take either my hand or Deloise's so he took Deloise's hand. Melvin explained that he was going to turn the crank. When he got it going, I was to take Jerry's hand. Melvin assured us that we would then be able to talk to the dead and they would be able to talk to us. We followed his instructions to the word! I will say that when I took Jerry's hand if the dead didn't hear me they were the only ones who didn't! It was a very Shocking! Experience. This was the only call ever made on this telephone (The Army didn't find out about the telephone call but daddy and mother did and the telephone was confiscated. BACK TO CONTENTS |
Working with the German Prisoners
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The big army truck was pulling into the yard and I could see the guards with their guns hanging on
their backs going to the back of the truck and the men began to climbing out. The Prisoners were here
to help daddy on the farm. I stood watching from my bedroom window. My dad was a part of a war program that used the German prisoners imprisoned at Stuttgart Arkansas Prisoner Encampment Base as farm labor. This was in 1944 and 1945 most of the able body males were serving their country some where over seas. This made it hard to find farm help needed with rice harvest and the hay season. Daddy had sign up so he could get the needed help. A few of the prisoners spoke English, but the guards really didn't want any one talking to them. They would rather that they are in complete charge ,and they insisted they give all orders. This would cause problems, as most of the guards did not know a thing about farming. They resented daddy when he would tell them how to do the job he wanted done and the prisoners would understand before the guards could tell them. My dad was not a military man. He was a farmer. He had work to do. These prisoners were his help to get the job done. If he wanted someone go get something he had no time to ask a guard that was sitting in the shade of a tree a quarter of a mile away. He would tell the man working beside of him please go get it. Yes these were German prisoners but they were in a country where they were the enemy and most people were scared and untrusting of them. To escape was not an answer to their problem it would of put them in great danger. Our country was feeding them well. They had a clean place to sleep, and outside of a guard or two with a You will only answer to me attitude they weren't being mistreated . They were safer and treated better than they would be if they were to escape with no where to go. They seem to enjoy the chance to work. Except for having families and children so far, away that they missed they would have been more than happy to stay in the U.S.A. until the war was over. Daddy needed the help so he tried to work with the guards. The guards soon learned to do the job they were there to do by always being present and in site and not so demanding to be only ones in charge. The Prisoners would arrive about 5:00 A.M. o'clock in the morning and leave at 5:00 P.M. in the afternoon. Their farm day didn't always start as soon as they arrivied. You can't cut rice until the sun has had time to dry up the dew which was about 8:30 or 900. Daddy worked until the sun went down ( in the summer around 8:30 P.M.) long after the prisoners had left.. A lot of time was spent just waiting for the grass to dry it was during this time I would make my presents known. Daddy would tell Mother to watch and not let me get out around the prisoners by my self .Try as she would, I would get around her . The big Truck they came in was fascinating and I always wanted to get a close up look. One of the Prisoners that could speak English would talk to me and he would tell the rest of them what I would say."I was quite a talker and never met a stranger" they would laugh and he would talk to me but it was usually short because Mother would miss me. She would know where I was .She would call and I would have to go. Some times they would have candy in their lunch and would give me a piece . They all ways brought a lunch I guess it was given to them before they left the base. Once Mother found me talking to one of the prisoners. He was filling the water keg from the pump. He could tell she was unhappy about my being there. She proceeded to get on to me .The prisoner offered her a picture of a little girl about the same age as myself, who resembled me with the white hair. This is my little Girl she makes me think of her. We all enjoy watching and talking to the child. No one is going harm her. She brings us much happiness and reminds us of our little ones back home. He sure saved me . My mother backed off and took me by the hand and led me back into the house. He was a friend . I never knew his name but he was able to return home after the war. One of my memories of the prisoners was a day they were hauling hay. The day was hot as it always is in the Summer in Arkansas Daddy and the Prisoners were putting up Hay. Mother had a fresh baked Cake and had fixed a large jug of lemon aid she waited until she saw the men pull the truck up to the barn to unload the hay. She then took the cake and cold lemon aid out to the barn and set it down on the fender of the truck. Daddy invited the prisoners to help them self's to the refreshments but no one excepted. What's a matter don't anyone like cake and lemon aid but no one made a move the prisoners just looked at each other. Daddy knew this just wasn't normal so he demanded Ok what's wrong. One of the prisoners spoke up," Mr. Raborn we have been told not to eat anything that we were offered, because some Americans would poison us if they got the chance. Daddy picked up the jug of lemon aid and put it to his lips and drank from the jug . .As he sat it down he picked up the cake knife and cut himself a large slice of cake and ate it all, with them watching .He laid the knife down and didn't say a word. One by one each one poured a glass of lemon aid and cut a piece of cake. They were no longer afraid of being poison.. BACK TO CONTENTS The House Where I Was Born
The house in which I was born was supposed to be haunted. The truth is we moved from that house be fore I was six months old. We moved but not far just about a half mile up the road. I guess my parents changed houses because the other house was on a gravel road (which is now a paved highway). The house in which I was born was on a prairie dirt road. It was covered with two inches of dust in the summer and two foot of mud after a rain, at times was impassable due to the deep ruts, and washed out spots I remember the house from which we moved as being referred to as the Youngblood place and we moved to the Pender farm. I assume that they were named for the families that had lived there in the pass. I was always told that the Youngblood place was haunted. If you can judge if a place is haunted or not by its presents or the way it makes you feel, to me it was haunted although never pronounce so officially. The Youngblood place was a square two-story old farmhouse painted white with black trim down each corner and around the windows and doors. The roof reaches a point at the top. The house looked much like the simple drawing of a child’s enturpition of a house. The rooms inside were large. There were four rooms down stairs. In the back room on the east side of the house there was a platform with steps that led to what looked like a closet. When you open the door it open to a staircase going up thirteen steps to another landing, The stairs turned going up another thirteen steps and you were on the top floor. The stairs emptied into a hallway with doors that lead to the rooms. A wood stove heated the down stairs. I don’t recall how the upstairs was heated. I do remember the upstairs always seem cold to me. It was not only, the kind of cold you feel from the lack of heat. None of my memories is from the time I lived there, as I was much to young to remember any thing during that time. As an older child I often visited the different families living there. Very few of the families ever used the upstairs other than to store stuff. The stair closet used for storing things they canned and potatoes that had been dug. The back room often used as a place to keep baby chicks warm until they were old enough to fend for themselves. My mother and daddy never thought of the place as haunted because they refused to except the possibility of ghosts (at least the haunting kind). I was not their only child born there. My older brother was also born there six years earlier. To them, it was an old farmhouse they once called home. I guess it was when I heard the story of what had once happen there that I became aware of the cold rooms and the creepy feeling I would get climbing the stairs so the story goes--- It was in the early twenties when a black prisoner escaped from Tucker and made his getaway across country crossing the bijou with the dogs and men on his heels. Being over come with fatigue and fright he took refuge in a empty farm house that was off of the main road but close to the creek he was using to hide his tracks. He entered the house found the stairs and went to the top floor to hide and rest but the prison guards was able to locate the house and surrounded it and ordered him to come down. The prisoner refused to answer and the guards being impatient and knowing he was unarmed went in after him. As the Guards climbed the stairs the prisoner who had fallen asleep was awaken He jumped up to run back down the stairs to flee, running into the guards coming up the stairs. It was dark and things happen fast in the end the unarmed black prisoner laid dead at the top of the stairs. The guard knowing that having shot an unarmed black man was going to cause them a lot of trouble. They felt that was unnecessary. They decided to take the body out to the back of the barn and bury it and tell everyone that the prisoner had made his escape. They drug the dead prisoner down the stairs leaving blood on the steps from his wound. They dug the grave buried the body and clean up the blood and returned to the prison empty-handed. Sometime after some one moved into the house. The lady kept complaining of the sticky spots that appeared on the stairs that she could not clean up or paint over. It was not until she met the ghost coming down the stairs and watched it go threw the closed door, float out to the barn yard that she began to realize that her house was haunted. How did anyone find out what had happen to tell the story? I do not know but the truth always has a way of coming out with time. Have I ever seen the ghost? No, not with my eyes but I have felt him but not with my hands. Did I ever see the spots on the stairs. Yes I have seen the sticky spots. Was it blood? I do not know. It could have been but it could have also been rosin running from a board or something else spilled that would only rise to the top of the stair board during certain kinds of weather. The house and barn are gone both have been tore down. Do you think the house was haunted? BACK TO CONTENTS |
