It was my first full time job, working in a woolen mill. As a new employee and only seventeen years old, I had to work the night shift. For some reason it was called the”graveyard shift”. As I remember, it was In the month of August. It gets pretty hot in South Carolina in the summer. I guess the temperature was about 100 degrees in midday. We lived in an old farm house without air conditioning. Course I didn't know anybody that had air conditioning then. ‘Bout the closest I had ever come to it was walking in front of Smith's Five & Dime on main street in McCormick when they had their doors open, and that cool air would come out. A passerby would feel that cool air and go inside. It always got me to go in. But then my first true love, Charlene, worked there. She'd flash those big brown eyes at me, and I'd be useless the rest of the day. Five days a week I did not see her, but this was Friday and I would see her when she got off work today. But first I had to get some sleep.
I got home about a quarter 'til nine. Mama had breakfast for me, and I was in bed by ten. About two o’clock I heard this terrible racket. It sounded like somebody was hammering on the house. I had every window open, of course, since the summer temperature was reaching 100 degrees. I was lying on the bed in my boxer shorts but still hot, sweating. I stuck my head under my pillow to cut out the noise. It didn’t work. I jumped out of bed. I had to find out what was making that noise. I didn’t stop to put on my pants. Hey, we lived in the country, the closest house was a mile away. The door to my room opened onto the back porch. I bounded out the door and down the back porch steps. Then I brought my body to a screeching halt!
Coming around the corner of the house were two women! One was my mother (That was alright, Mamma had seen me in my underwear many times.), and the other was Mrs. Crosby, Charlene’s mama. I turned, made it to the top of the steps in two giant steps, and was back in my room in a fraction of a second. I was starting to put my pants on when I realized the the hammering sound had stopped. I didn’t finish putting on my pants and instead dove back into bed. In minutes I was sound asleep again. But, it was for naught. The noise woke me
again. This time I put on my pants before investigating. I went around the house to where my room was. There, up above my window was a woodpecker. I don’t know why he decided to look for bugs there, and I didn’t care. I did know that he was keeping me awake. He saw me and quickly took refuge in a chinaberry tree close by. I turned to go back into the house, but I had just gone around the corner of the house when he started hammering again. I had to find a way to stop this bird. I turned around slowly, thinking. I felt something underfoot. Looking down, I saw a rock about the size of a baseball. If I could clobber that woodpecker with that rock I would no longer be sleep deprived. I crept along the side of the house getting closer to the bird. My granddaddy could drop a running rabbit at 100 feet, but I wasn’t granddaddy. I got as close as I could without spooking him. He stopped hammering for an instant, and I threw that rock with all I had. I didn’t hit him, but I did hit a window. The bird flew away. I’d tell Mama what happened and I would fix the window tomorrow, but now I needed sleep.
Back to bed I went and was soon sound asleep and dreaming of me and Charlene walking hand in hand down a country road. I was about to say something to her when...Rat-tat-tat-tat.. Yep, the woodpecker again! I slowly got out of the bed and realized this would require some extreme action. From the corner of the room I pulled out my old Iver-Johnson 16 gauge single shot shotgun I had gotten for my eighth birthday. From the top drawer of my chest of drawers I found a shotgun shell with #8 birdshot. I knew that would do the trick. I got back in my jeans and loaded the gun when I got into the backyard. (Never have a loaded gun in the house--Daddy’s rule.) Once again I slowly crept around the corner of the house. I was fairly close and had a bead on him. As I squeezed the trigger the family cat, Whiskers, ran between my legs. The cat caused me to jump and that spoiled my perfect shot. It also saved Mr. Woodpecker’s life, but I winged him. I was gonna finish him off when my little brother came at me screaming, “Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!”
I finally did get four hours of sleep that day. But had to put the woodpecker in a cage for rehab, and that’s another story.
