O, WHEN I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD!

O, when I was eight
    I remember
How I dreaded getting old!
    I had heard of teen-age
kids, visiting the dentist
    or the doctor, and
getting wisdom teeth pulled
    or shots...

(I didn't like the clinky chrome
    devices lying around on
slinky trays--then-- in doctors'
    offices--and I still don't.)

When I was eight, I wanted a
    birthday party, like
Joe, Bob, Charles, and Mary---
    One where you drop clothespins
into a milk bottle, like a bombing plane!
    But my parents worked, and
there was no time for parties.

Now it is seventy-two years later
    and I'm ten-times-eight old.
I have lived 26.280 days since
    that eighth birthday.
Yes, the earth has rotated countless
    times since then.

Since then I have---
    worked many days, driven many
miles, met a lot of good people,
    met some strange ones, too---
I have mowed many lawns, I have
    cooked many eggs, eaten a lot
of hamburgers, directed children's
    choirs, directed adult choirs,
sung solos...
    I have watched many movies,
read scores of books...I have tried
    to do good deeds and set
an example.

Now tomorrow is my eightieth birthday---
    Ten times when I was eight...
I no longer ride a bicycle, roller skate,
    read comic books, see double
features at the Lyceum on Saturday
    afternoons, or get a 20 cent ham
salad sandwich at Woolworth afterward---

I don't play cowboys and Indians anymore,
    in that neat alley behind our Reid house...
or play Sergeant York with my Daisy
    Red Ryder BB gun...
I don't hunt for "translers" or shoot basketball
    goals with Country Boy Bob...

I don't, when I'm sick, stay home from school,
    dump my Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs
in the floor, drink a Delaware Punch and
    listen to "Queen For A Day" on KICA Radio.

I don't read "Dave Dawson In the R.A.F."
    anymore, and tho' I have the complete
set of Zane Gray, I mostly only pick up
    "Riders of the Purple Sage"---
now and then.

Yes, I'll be eighty tomorrow and I'll admit,
    I do a right smart of remembering
old days, old times, old friends.
    After all, wasn't it in that wise and
pithy show, "Downton Abbey," that
    Carson, in his deep bass voice
said: "The business of life is the
    acquisition of memories. In the end
that's all there is."

I write about those things and find that
    others write back about them.

We wonder: Why We here? After all,
    in the great cosmic scheme of
time with no beginning and no end,
    we're certainly the late-comers on
the scene...and ever since we got here,
    we have been considerable
trouble for the Creator.
   He must have really loved and
wanted us.

Anyway, eighty tomorrow and the
    Beloved Editor said: "Well, for
sure, you're a gonna have ONE
    birthday party in your life. I'm
gonna see to it!"

"No, No," I said. "I wanted one when
     I was eight...but not now...
It's too late."

But maybe...could we make up a big
    pot of chili tomorrow...
and have some good old Oscar Meyer
    HOT DOGS!" (with onion)

*********30*******
BY MIL
01/30/14

THE PLEASANT INN

There was once a little place in Clovis
   called "The Pleasant Inn."
It was right across from Clovis Memorial
   Hospital, on the east side of Thornton...
Up there toward Todd's house.

It is  an important, likely-overlooked piece
   of Clovis history, as well as
Americana.

Its main efficacy to us kids was---that it
   was close to our homes---
(There were far more places with better
   selections of candy!)
But Pleasant Inn was quick and handy!

If you scrounged a dime from your mama
   on a hot summer day,
Or found a nickel in the alley---
   (It happened...there was money on the
ground in the forties)
   You could be over to the Pleasant Inn
in nothing flat!

I found more money (in life) in that two
   block area
than anywhere else---even walking the
   hospital's low rock fence...
or at that corner at 12th and Reid
   where the asphalt was badly patched---
and bumpy, there seemed to always be
   coins there.
I don't know who all lost 'em,
   but I know who found 'em.

Now the Pleasant Inn was not conceived
   nor established as a candy store
for little kids...
   It had only a small wire rack for holding
kids' stuff...with Tom's peanuts, Tom's
   peanut butter crackers (4), a few
candy bars, and I remember Bit 'O Honeys,
  and there was a five cent
potato chip rack.

But they had a coke box, and with an empty
   bottle, and five cents, you could
walk out with a big twelve ounce Pepsi Cola!
   ("Rubi-da-dot-ta...rubi-da-dot-ta...
Pepsi Cola hits the spot...twelve full ounces
   that's a lot...") Remember that jingle?

The Pleasant inn had two or three  dining
   tables, and a little grill, for cooking---
I once saw a guy eating a hamburger
   in there...but it never occurred to us kids:
that place (it had a second story) was there
   for people to stay, who had sick family
members, across the street
   in the hospital.

(The Clovis Memorial Hospital, two blocks
   from our house, was built about '39.
With its nice white brick, it was
   an imposing building of
four or five stories.)

A lot of small things---people, buildings,
   places, events go into making up
history, and I judge that more of
   them are lost...than ever recorded.

So this all happened to little kids, in
   a small town, in the forties---
A favorite place of ours,, in a quiet
    neighborhood... a place even
today, fondly remembered...by us,
    The Pleasant Inn, on Thornton,
up there toward Todd's house.

*******30******
BY MIL
01/26/14

WYLIE DROPPED BY AGAIN

Wylie came by again,

  yesterday.

We were glad!

He had coffee and pecan-

swirl toast (buttered),

with me, and the

    Beloved Editor.

We talked about 

  everything.

Wylie reads. He knows

  a lot of stuff.

He's down-to-earth,

  a non-pretentious

    fellow...

Told us about that

  massive candy/gum

    drop, on tiny

       parachutes 

to hungry little German

  kids

during the Berlin

  Airlift, 1948.

They're making a 

  movie about it.

We talked about

  old Clovis times...

and all the farm kids

  out north of

   town.

the Taylors, the Collinses,

  Jennings, Goars,

   and others,

who lived along the Frio

  and Running Water

    Draws...

And yes, the Frio did

  "run backward" 

    once

when debris stacked up

  for two miles during

   a heavy rain and 

     hailstorm---

trees, limbs, bushes, weeds

  against the highway 

   bridge...damming water...

      hail was two feet deep

       in spots..

The subject of long-lost

  schools came up---

    Pleasant Hill

      and Claud...

   "Country Boy" once sold

      a photo of the school

        at Pleasant Hill...for

          quite a bit.

We discussed F-80 jets

  and rabbit-hunting

   in an F-100.

There was patriotic talk

  about our men

   during Viet Nam

who were imprisoned

  in the Hanoi

    Hilton...

How  each one was

  a "professor" of

   something, and

    taught it...

Logarithm tables were 

  compiled using 

   splinters of wood

     for pens

and ground up pills

  and water for ink,

   and TP for writing...

One used the tap code

  to write a whole

   book of poems...

remembered by many

  and compiled after

    release. We have it.

A former captive told Wylie: 

  "In that situation,

    all you have

      is time."

Fitting, I think, to

  remember our heroes

    and talk about them

      often.

Along that line, the 

  Beloved Editor just

   read

"A Higher Call," a B-17

   story and we discussed

     that wonderful book,

       and those men.

We talked about 

  so many things...

You want to have a good

  talk...about things 

    American---

Invite Wylie over.

Alas, the time flew,

  the coffee was 

   all gone...

and so was Wylie...

  until the next time.

(Wylie writes for

  MIL'S PLACE.)

********30******

BY MIL

01/25/14

AH...WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL ME?

These past months I've been reading

    POETS...

Robert Hass, Mary Oliver, T.S. Eliot,

    Marianne Moore, Emily Dickenson,

Robert Burns, William Wordsworth,

    John Donne, William Blake, and

taking a course in Shakespeare!

Have I understood all I've read?

    No, not all...

But that's not the point, is it?

I must tell you…
    There are some poets
that I simply cannot fathom.

Had a whole course in
     Robert Browning once-
In college.  He himself
     once confessed--
"When I wrote it, only God and I
     knew what it meant….
Now only God knows."

Do we understand everything

    there is to know---that is 

somewhere hidden in a great

    painting?

Do we understand all the chords

    and skill involved in the

great symphonies?

Maybe poetry is more important

    than we've ever thought.

It is for smoothing out the wrinkles

    in one's mind.

So that tomorrow...the thinking field

    is level...

Then we can think better, work better,

    write better...do everything better.

Poems will do it. Not only do they

    pluck heart-strings long silent...

oft-times...

    But because we are dealing with

unused, unthought of, unheard of

    word patterns...

as well as unthought-of thoughts..

    I say: poems will smooth

the wrinkles from our minds.

AH! Why didn't they tell me?!

Sooner.

********30*******

BY MIL

01/17/14

"AULD LANG SYNE" FROM THE ATTIC

"SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

    AND NEVER BROUGHT TO MIND....

SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

    AND DAYS OF AULD LANG SYNE.."

******************************************************

On New Year's Day, just three days ago, I was

sitting up there, in my cozy attic---a fire was 

burning merrily in the little barrel wood stove,

threatening to drive me out. Two small logs 

work wonders in that stove!

I had just finished the final touches on my first

story of the new year--- "Our Stuff," and had

the old B@W TV tuned to the Rose Bowl 

Parade. The parade, with all those 

beautiful-colored roses was not much good in 

B@W, so my mind had strayed.

I was thinking, after my "stuff" story that 

maybe I, myself, should do a little New 

Year's clean-up, and was digging around in 

some old apple boxes, containing various 

kinds of junk. This one was full of high school

stuff.

Alas, there was no blizzard, rain, snow, fog

or mist to really "cozy up" my stay in the

attic that day---but good news: a cold thirty-

five mph wind was blowing---as usual in our

city. 

I always open the window a half inch at the

bottom and the wind was gusting around the 

corner of the house, and making those

marvelous wind sounds...which only the wind

can make...

The old beat up apple box had held my CHS

annuals, photos, clippings, and BDC paddle

longer than it had ever held apples. The old

BDC paddle which I made for initiation, still

held its varnish job after 65 years. It was not

a happy paddle, like most of my stuff being

"happy." It had beaten me black and blue!

I went through stacks of old high school

pictures. many made with my Clix-O-Flex

$5.95 camera, purchased at Thrifty Drug,

next-door to the Sunshine Theater. (Oh,

those were two great businesses and will

ever be a part of old Clovis in our memories!)

The wind was getting up more--moaning,

whispering, and telling me, in my mind, of

old days, old times. old friends...from long

ago...it was an "Auld Lang Syne" wind...

bringing to mind good times. Simpler times--

of our home town, and the good old

USA! You know the feeling those memories

bring, and I had it in the pit of my gut.

I got my last NEHI grape out of the little

fridge--one I'd been saving for a special

occasion--pried the lid off with a rusty

old "church key" hanging there on a nail,

and went and sat by the window...musing,

and sipping on my big grape drink...the

wind moaning through the window...into

my face...and I mused...

The next thing I knew, I was walking down

the sidewalk on Clovis Main Street, marveling

at those red bricks paving the street...I was

in front of Penney's and headed south by

the Lyceum, a 5@10 store, Barry Hardware.

Woolworth's, Clovis Printing Co., and good

old Montgomery Ward.

I had passed up, in my reverie-walk, going

into Woolworth's for a 20 cent ham salad

sandwich; now I crossed Main street at Grand

and going south, passed Janeway Drug and

stifled my urge for a Coney Island hot dog,

a door or two south.

Passing Mesa Theater (a pretty nice theater

once, with a fine concession room), I looked

up at Hotel Clovis--the defining building of

Clovis' skyline.

Seeing good old Busy Bee Cafe, there on the

corner of Second and Main, was the last

straw---how many times did a bunch of us kids

go in there after a cold football game and get 

hamburgers and coffee! Once after a Rattler

game--- so Busy Bee must have stayed open

on Armistice Days.

I went in there and got a booth toward

the back, where we kids always sat, and in my 

mind, spent a nice time...eating a burger 

and drinking my coffee...

Now my mind was quickly brought back to 

the present, as I had uncovered in my 

memory box some recent photos. I was 

holding one of Levi Brake, Art Snipes, and

me, made in August of 2011, when Levi

came to Albuquerque for a visit.

Here were two of my closest friends in life.

I met Art (and his little brother Bob) when

we were in La Casita. We soon moved a

block from them. We played all kinds of ball;

played army, built mud forts, played marbles,

fished for "translers," made model airplanes,

traded comic books, and eventually were 

Boy Scouts together. We moved up on Axtell

about high school time, close to Levi's house.

Levi and I became fast friends. We went to the

same church, sang bass in the choir, worked

in the summers at church camp; in CHS we 

were in BDC, boys' chorus, boys' quartet and 

octet. We both drove  tractors and wheat trucks 

in the summers. He began driving a bit before any

of us and we drove all over town, dragging Main

and jumping the Santa Fe Dip west of town.

We often took in movies in Portales and Melrose

and played pool in Texico. We frequented that

little greasy spoon cafe a half block south of 

Gateway Auto, drinking coffee, playing the 

pinball machine, and listening to the jukebox.

These two friends and I graduated from old CHS

in the late spring of 1951. It seemed that, as soon

as school was out, we each went our own ways.

I was off at church camp several weeks and 

driving a tractor and wheat truck ...and it seemed 

like the next thing I knew, both of my friends had

married!

I saw both of them in later years from time to time at

class reunions or I'd drop by OK Rubber WELDERS

for a visit with Art. Levi became a world citizen,

working at various locales around the globe--China,

India, and Brazil. He'd write once in awhile, in 

Spanish; it reminded me of our days in Dora Russell's

Spanish Three class.

Of all the unexpected things, Art who lived one block

from me in the forties in Clovis, in 2000 moved into

a house three blocks away from us in Albuquerque.

It was in this house that the photo above was taken

when Levi visited us in 2011. I'm glad I found this 

picture! Brought back old times!

As I sat there three days ago, on New Year's ,

looking out my attic window, and thinking about

"auld acquaintances," I remembered a lot of other

fine friends from CHS---some no longer with us.

There were a lot of them---Noel, Engle, Whatley,

and so many more---I can't even begin to name.  

them all...

Oops. my NEHI grape is empty...and my, I'm not

through remembering. This search through the old

apple box has been fun!

But it's getting colder and I'm kinda hungry. I think 

I'll open a can of tomato soup, put it in my heavy

mug, heat it in my little microwave oven over there,

and sit and think some more---maybe about some
of the great girls we had in our class of 1951,

and then---who knows---maybe our fine teachers,

if my hot soup holds out!

Yes, that's what I'll do. Sip my hot tomato soup...

and then maybe watch some football. My, what a

great New Year's!

Levi, Art and Mil

*******30******

BY MIL

01/04/14

"I HAVE NEVER BEEN MUCH FOND OF ANTS"

I have never 
  been much fond
     of ants.

Yet they are
  much extolled
     and touted...

by people, 
  by cognoscenti 
     who know stuff
       and have studied
          ants.

"Ants are industrious."
  "Ants are busy."
      "Ants are strong."

Those little miraculous 
  tiny bodies
     and skinny legs

are much stronger
  ounce for ounce
     than any human,

and what kind of skilled
    Creator could devise
       little brains, eyes,
         digestive systems
           and likely... noses!

(And let's not forget
   their stingers!)

"You should not
    carelessly step on an
      ant," it's been said.

Mea culpa, for when
    I was five...
       back then

there were ants everywhere
    in the forties
        (things were wilder),

I'm talkin' about big beds
    of ants, hundreds...
        big red ones!

Yes, when I was five
    in Clovis, on that hot
        sidewalk on West Grand,
          all summer long,
           I squashed them...

with the big round front wheel
   of my jumbo 
        lime-green tricycle!

For when I was three years old
    living down there in 
      sandy Dawson County.
        south of Lubbock

I blundered into a big ant bed,
    "working alive" with 
        big red 'uns...and
          they ate me up!

My little body was all swelled up,
    I had red "cure-chrome" 
       spots all over, like I
          had measles, 
           and I was sick.

So I got even, with my tricycle...
   many times over! Though
     they were different ants

it didn't matter to me. After all,
   don't they say: "Revenge is
       best served...as a 
             cold dish."

You see, I hadn't yet learned
    the big lesson of life...
       and the hardest----

Forgiveness.

********30******
BY MIL
01/11/14

OUR "STUFF"

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US;
LATE AND SOON, GETTING AND
SPENDING WE LAY WASTE OUR POWER."
                -----William Wordsworth

Little folks arrive here on this planet

    with absolutely no stuff.

People who love them in their

    infancy and helplessness,

          awed by their cuteness,

help them along by

    providing them

         stuff....

like Pampers and Pablum

     Gerber's and pacifiers

          and little pajamas

               with feet, called

                     "onesies."

          and little cribs to sleep in,

                        cozily.

At age six we visit  Woolworth's

    and see stuff that

         we want

      and at school,

          stuff the other 

         kids have...

It's the beginning of our life-long

    desire and drive

          to acquire

             "stuff!"

And it's not just that we

    want it---it's that

        we need it...

like it always is in life...

    we must have it!

        (We think)

             

                 As a boy...

I needed a football, a ball glove...

    and al least one baseball

        not wrapped in black

             friction tape.

I needed a little pair of lace-up

         hunting boots...with

         the cool knife pouch

           on the right boot!

I needed some "Dave Dawson

    In the R.A.F." books---

         some model airplanes:

         P-40's, P-38's, and

              the new P-51.

I needed some new skates

    so I could skate by

  Priscilla Lane's house,

       the movie star,

              who lived

          four doors

             north!

One learns at an early age,

    To get stuff, you must

          have a "cash flow..."

flowing toward you....

    a major thing

     you find out

          in life.

I'd push my push-mower all

    over the neighborhood

         hoping to mow

              a lawn

and earn a Walking Liberty

    half dollar! My reader---

         did you also keep

             your eyes open

                  for jobs...

       ...when you were a kid?

        

As we get older, and have families

         our need for stuff only

         increases! We have to

             work all the time.

We have learned: nothing is free.

    "There is no free lunch."

         No work---no stuff!

The comedian joked about it:

    He said: "You have to have

         a house with a roof---

              just to cover

               your stuff!"

One wonders---about Thoreau

    at Walden Pond...and

         Whitman, the poet,

          and Edward Abbey...

           did they have much

                     stuff?

As one gets older, he begins to

    think: what would it be like

         not to have any stuff?

Maybe for a man: couple pair of

    Levi pants....two shirts...

        a denim jacket, with an

           old blanket lining---

             a big pile of books,

                your leather notebook,

              your Churchill pen

                 and your iPad?

                Would you miss

                       your "stuff?"

     There is a character in literature---

       Jack Reacher---who has no stuff!

          No home, no car, no payments,

           No insurance, no bills, 

           No bank account, no fridge,

            No washer and dryer; he

              has no credit card, no

            change of clothes...

                 and no suitcase!

    He changes his clothes every three days---

         Buys new ones at surplus stores,

           Tosses the dirty ones...into the

                 nearest trash bin...lives

                   in cheap motels, and

                    has only one bit of

                         "luggage..."

                       a toothbrush.

Can we assume: The more stuff we

     acquire, the happier we'll be?

Where does all the stuff on earth come

    from? "Oh, from China," you say.

         No...isn't it from out of the

                 Earth, itself?

At the beginning of 2014 may be a good

    time to inventory our stuff and

          see what new stuff

                     we need...

              or maybe give away some...

                    

and to think of values which may be

    more important, like Love,

         Duty, Service, Charity,

             Unselfishness,

              and Sacrifice, 

                    

*******30*******

BY MIL

01/03/14