A Little Bit off the Main Road

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"I remember this well," I said as the tires made a crunching sound on the gravel of the rural road. We were driving in the piedmont area of South Carolina.  My family has lived there since the early 1700's, and I guess I still have roots there. On this day we had visited another family cemetery searching for information for Claudette's never ending quest for knowledge about our ancestors. The road was in deep shadow from the tall pines and assorted hardwoods. In early summer the weather was warm, and I could smell the scent of the pines through the open sunroof. The road seemed to be relatively untraveled.  I remembered a time when the tall pines were once fields of corn, oats, and some cotton. That seemed to have been a lifetime ago.

"Hey, let's stop!" I said somewhat excitedly as we passed a dilapidated country store, adding, "I remember this place."

"Doesn't look like much to me, " Claudette said.

"This was Papa J's* place," I answered with a fondness in my voice, "I spent a lot of time here."

"At a country store?"

"Yeah, but it was more than that."

"Oh, yeah?"she asked.

"Get  out. I'll show you around."

"It looks abandoned," she said with some reservation in her voice.

"I'm sure it is. Mama told me that old Joe Carter  died several years ago.  He didn't have any children.  He didn't even have a wife.  Some said he was too mean for any woman to put up with him. But he didn't seem that bad to me," I told her as I got out of the car.  "Bought many a dollar's worth of gas from that pump," I said motioning to the old gas pump near the "Pure" sign. "Do remember Pure Oil gas stations?"

"No, I don't think we had those in California," she said following me to the building.

It was a small cinder block building about thirty feet wide and maybe forty feet deep. The screen door advertising Colonial Bread hung on one hinge. I pulled back the screen and pushed on the wooden door. It made a screeching sound as it opened.

"I don't think we should be here," she said with a bit of trepidation adding, "It's trespassing!"

"Did you see a "No Trespassing" sign?" I asked.

'No...but..."

"Aw c'mon.  Where's you sense of adventure," (a bit of verbal prodding on my part).

"Okay, I'm right behind you," she said in resignation.

The room was full of dust and trash. Spider webs were everywhere, and I'm sure I heard a small rodent scurry away. There was enough light from the broken windows to make out the interior. To our right was the battered and rusty form of a Coca-Cola drink box, the kind they once had that you could serve yourself from. The pot belly stove was in the corner, but the stove pipe to the ceiling was missing. There were the remains of straight-backed chairs with ratty cane bottoms. This was the corner where the old-timers would while away their days smoking their pipes and playing checkers. There was a counter in front of the back wall extending almost the complete width of the room.  Behind it were some shelves that once held cans of pork 'n' beans, sardines, potted meat, and crackers. Fishermen would stop by and buy the these on their way to the lake.  I remembered that there was another drink box behind the counter where Papa J kept the cold beer, the coldest PBR's in the county, and under that counter he kept a sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun loaded with double ought buckshot.

"What a mess," Claudette said.

"I know.  Nobody's been in here in years," I added. "Now, let me show you this. Follow me."
I took her hand and led her through the door in the corner of the back wall into another room.
It was a lot like I remembered.  In the center of the room, hanging from the ceiling on a fabric covered electric cord, was a brass socket with a clear incandescent bulb. In the corner and against the wall were a few tables with straight-backed chairs. One of the tables was made of those huge wooden spools utility companies get underground cable on.  There was a Miller High Life neon sign on the wall near the back door. Opposite the Miller sign on the other side of the door was the jukebox.

"What a dump!" She said.

"It may be, but once upon a time on Friday and Saturday nights it rocked."

"You would hang out here?" she asked.

"Yeah.  I worked in the mill down the road. It's closed now but in those days two hudred people worked there.  After I worked second shift, that's four to twelve, I'd come by here to unwind on the way home."

"You must have been bad off."

I chose to ignore this comment.  "You gotta quarter?" I asked.

"What for?"

"I want to see if that old jukebox works," I said.

"Are you crazy?  That thing hasn't played in years.  But, if it will help get us back on the road, I'll give you a quarter," she said with resignation in her voice, a tone I rarely heard.

She put the quarter in my hand and I moved to the ancient jukebox. It was a Seeburg with chrome glass tubes on the front and mirrors inside. It had the buttons on the front and held a hundred songs. It was great and had provided most of the illumination in the room.  There was dust and spider webs all over it, and one of the glass tubes in the from was broken. But I could still read the names of the songs, though most were yellowed with age.  There was Runaway, Twist and Shout, My Girl, Ring of Fire, Louie Louie, Crazy, Only The Lonely, Runaround Sue, I Fall to Pieces, and many more.  "What do you want to hear?" I asked.

"Anything. Let's just get out of here.  I still think we're trespassing."

I dropped the quarter in the slot and banged on the side of the jukebox until I heard the quarter fall, then made my choices. As if by magic the old machine came to life. I watched in amazement as the mechanical arm selected the record and placed it on the turntable before the tone arm dropped on it, and it began to play. I turned to Claudette and said, "Let's dance."

She came into my arms as the Platters began to sing, "Heavenly shades of night are falling, it's twilight time...." I held her close and closed my eyes as we began to move with the music, "Out of the mist a voice is calling, it's twilight time..." In my mind's eye I could see the place as it once was. Over next to the juke box was that  woman in her late forties all painted up.  She only looked good at closing time. I don't even remember her name.  In the corner was Frankie Willingham and Sonny Pratt with their girl friends.  They were arguing as usual about who had the fastest car.  Before the night was over they'd decide who was faster on that straight stretch of Highway 11 called Fairlane Flats.  No doubt money would exchange hands.

Sitting alone was Virginia Grimesley, the building contractor's wife. She was once a high school beauty queen, and some twenty years later she still turned heads. Her husband Billy spent a lot of time out of town working. Everybody knew that Deputy Armstrong kept her company in her husband's absence.

That was Freddie Fisher by himself.  He was a pretty big guy with a beer gut, but there was a lot of muscle there too. He wore his hair long and combed back in a duck tail. With pointed nose and black rimmed glasses he usually had a sour look on his face.  Freddie was known to carry a pistol, a snub-nosed thirty-eight. I never saw him use it and didn't want to.

There were a few more folks there too, mostly men and women who'd just finished their shift at the mill and had a little lint stuck to their clothes. It was going to be a good night at Papa J's, I could tell. But then..."Together at last a twilight time." the record was over.  I opened my eyes.

I followed the lead of my best girl out the door.

Twenty minutes later we were going through a small town.  "Think we could stop at a 7 Eleven for a Pabst Blue Ribbon?"

She did not answer.

*The characters in this post are real but their names have been changed.

Body Slammed

Dear Tony,
You ain't gonna believe what I seen the other day! I was walkin' out the door and on my way across the front porch for another day at the shop. It was a purty sprang day and the dew was still on the first flowers.  But I was kinda draggin' a bit 'cause I'd stayed up late watching WWF wrestlin'.  I mean, those pro wrestling dudes are really bad.  I love that stuff! Had to fix my own breakfast though.  Darlene was kinda ticked off at me 'cause I stayed up late rather than goin' to bed when she did. You know how women are 'bout stuff like that. I don mind eatin' my own cookin' every now and agin.  I was almost to the end of the porch when I seen this ole bluejay leisurely

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flying 'cross the driveway maybe ten feet off the ground.  Prob'bly lookin' for breakfast.  All of a sudden POW! He was hit in mid-air.  Body slammed to the ground.  Just like ole Nature Boy woulda done it in the ring back in the old days. He didn't know what hit him. It happened so fast. That jaybird landed on his side. I could see that big black "V" on his chest. That "V" didn't stand for victory that day. He looks up over his shoulder at the sparrow hawk that had him pinned down. That  little bitty hawk wasn't even as big as that jaybird.  But he had 'im down allright! I guess America's littlest hawk hadn't read that he was only 'sposed to eat bugs and such. Now he couldn't dive at 150 mph like his cousins the peregrine falcons but he had the same moves. He dived right down outa the sky and nailed that ole bluejay.
And you know what he did then?
He just sat on that old jaybird like he was sho nuff somebody. I believe he leaned back a stuck his chest out. Then he just flew away. Mr. Bluejay righted himself, shook hisself off and casually flew away to, but in a different direction.

I think there is a moral in this story but I'm not sure what.  Maybe, it means don't bite off more than you can chew.  But if you do just stick you chest out and look around at everybody just like you meant to do it!

See Ya'll Later,
Bubba

Red Dirt and Tombstones

"It says the cemetary is off Hwy 21," I mused.

"This isn't 21,"  she said adamantly.

"I know, I know, we're still on Hwy 10." I said defensively.

 "Got the mobile data on?" she asked.

"No. Can't afford it. Right?" I responded.

 "Yes, using mobile data excessively drives the cell phone bill outta sight," she added.
(We had discussed my over indulgence in using mobile data before.)

"It's information I downloaded at home, thank-you very much," I said with a smile.

We were traveling down a country road in Wilcox county, Alabama which was is little southwest of Montgomery. It was a beautiful day in May, and we had just left our  friends in Mobile after a Mother's Day feast of boiled shrimp, corn, potatoes, and sausage piled high on a table surrounded by good friends. But now we were searching for my great-great-great-grandfather's grave. So, there we were, in one of the poorest counties in Alabama looking for a cemetery on a red dirt road.

It was a rural road, a faded strip of asphalt meandering through forests of tall pines and a few open fields, that we followed. Usually, I can find something interesting almost anywhere.  I mean, I find the desert interesting and the empty sea interesting, but nothing caught my interest there. I was looking for tombstones on a ridge, but I was having trouble finding a ridge. We slowed as I thought I saw something behind a double-wide mobile home. But, it was nothing. No ridge. No cemetery.  My imagination, encouraged by anticipation, was affecting my vision. I found a boogie and blues radio station from Montgomery to help stave off the monotony of our quest.

Claudette braked the car abruptly, and I almost dropped my bottle of water.
"Whadaya see?" I asked.

"There were tombstones back there," she said emphatically as she shifted the car into reverse.

"You're not turning around?" I queried.

"No, it's not far," she said.

I cringed slightly. She is not extremely skilled at guiding an automobile in reverse. After a few yards the car stopped.  "See, I said I saw tombstones," she said excitedly.
  

"You're right, but there's a church and there's not supposed to be a church," I added, bursting her bubble.

"At least I found some tombstones," she said, shifting the car into a forward gear. The tires made that chirping sound as we accelerated.

We continued to search Highway 21 south until we saw a sign indicating Monroe County, then retraced our trail to Oak Hill at the intersection of Highways 21 and 10. Claudette pulled the car up close to the fairly modern brick post office.  I thought a rural postmaster would know where the cemetery was.  But, alas, an absentee postmaster could tell me nothing.  I quickly crossed the highway to the store.  It was the other building at the intersection. It  looked as if it could have been a refugee from the war, and I mean the Confederate War. It had those screened doors advertising Merita Bread and tufts  of cotton stuck in the holes in the screens to keep out the flies. As I entered I noticed the sun streaming through the windows making the dust particles in the air sparkle like diamonds.  The display racks were ancient. The interior was like a movie set out of a period film or maybe "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou"

As I walked over the uneven heart pine floor I was met by a young woman. She was rather tall and slim and was dressed in tattered jeans, flip-flops, and a 'Bama t-shirt.  A spider tattoo on summer-tanned skin peeked out from under her left shirt sleeve. Rings adorned almost every finger, including thumbs, and she wore bracelets. Her brown hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail, and hoop earrings hung from her earlobes.  The pixie-like face was a bit over made up, and there were crow's feet at the corners of her big brown eyes.  "What canna do fer ya?" she said in that slow honey dripping voice only cultivated by females below the Mason-Dixon Line.

"I'm looking for this cemetery, the Old Hamburg Cemetery," I said.

"Er...I donno,  we better ask Charlie," she said, turning around and walking toward the rear of the store.

A man in an apron appeared from behind a meat counter. The blood smeared apron covered jeans and a blue chambray shirt. His head was round and reminded me of an eight ball as the sun bounced off it. His eyes twinkled behind wire-rimed bifocals as he smiled and said, "Afternoon."

"This is Charlie.  He's been 'round here a long time," Miss Make-up Queen of Highway 21 said.

"I'm trying to find the old Hamburg Cemetery," I said.

"It's right down da road dare," he said, wiping his hand on his apron and then gesturing to his left.

"Not far?" I asked.

"Oh, no. Jus' a coupla miles.  Atta you pass da Allentown road, you'll be dare.  Day say you can see it from da road."

"Just a couple of miles, after the Allentown road and we'll see it?" I repeated his directions.

"Dat's right.  Day say you can see it from da road," he added.

"'Preciate it!" I said, and returned to Claudette waiting in front of the post office.
"We are good to go," I exclaimed. "We have directions!"

We traveled north on Highway 21 looking for landmarks.  Soon we passed a road marked with a sign saying "Allentown Road".  "Slow down, " I said, "We're getting close!"  We continued moving along at a snail's pace, thirty miles per hour. "Look carefully," I advised the driver.

"There is nothing to see, but trees," she retorted.

"I know we've gone more than a couple of miles," I said with some reservation.

"Yes, and seen nothing," she said with a sigh.

"Looks like this road is joining a major highway. We missed it.  Let's turn around and give it another look," I said.

"Okay," she said with resignation in her voice. Her enthusiasm was waning.

"This gives me a chance to look where you looked before," I said, thinking maybe I'd find it.

"What about that dirt road ahead?" she asked, slowing the Acura.

"Why not. Let's check it out.  There was something about a dirt road in the internet description of the place," I said, thinking maybe things were getting better.

"And there was something about a plywood sign saying Hamburg Cemetery too, but I haven't seen it," Claudette answered, as she maneuvered car onto the red dirt road. (Just like in the Brooks and Dunn song.) She slowed as we crossed over a cattle guard. "Wasn't it supposed to be in a pasture?" she asked.

"I don't remember," I said, as we began a climb up a small ridge. "Could this be the ridge?" I thought.  From the top of the ridge we could see the crooked red dirt road leading into a grove of cottonwoods. A herd of about twenty-five Charolais cattle were fairly close by.
"I think we should turn around and get out of this pasture," I said.

"Maybe we should go a little further," she persisted.

"That big Charolais bull seems to have taken an interest in us," I spoke with a sense of urgency.

"But the cemetery could be close by..." she said in an almost inaudible voice.

"Remember how hard that bull hit the fence at the bullfight in Madrid? We felt the splinters in our faces!" I reminded her.

"Okay, okay! I'll turn around," she relented.

"I know how much you like this car," was her sharp retort.

Soon we were back on the main road and looking for that ridge with the tombstones on it. There were no more dirt roads or angry Charolais bulls. No plywood signs. Our search for the Old Hamburg Cemetery and the final resting place of John Young was an exercise in futility. The disc jockey on the radio played: The Rough Side of the Mountain  by the Reverend F. C. Barnes. Later that day we had better success finding the graves of a  number of Claudette's ancestors in Cullman, AL, so all was not lost.

We overnighted in Anniston, AL, where my father had been an M.P. at Ft. McClellan during WWII, and a city to which my mother had hitchhiked over four hundred miles to be with him.  We missed rush hour traffic in Atlanta, as we continued to our home on the Carolina coast where Sophie the Norwegian Forest cat awaited our return.

Porky's is Still There

We all have our favorite eateries, and I'm no exception. Why are they favorites?  I suppose that the reason an eatery is a favorite really depends on the eater. I like a place overlooking water, and I've seen some nice ones around the world. But my favorite is where the Overseas Highway  touches down on Marathon Key on its was to Key West.  I had camped at Bahai Hondo State Park on Bahai Honda Key at the end of the Seven Mile Bridge in 1996 where the raccoons raided my foodstuffs. Last week we stopped by Porky's for lunch.  It's a bit more civilized now, or rather there are more modern buildings around it. The even have sidewalks and lots of places to pull your car over and fish.  (I fear civilization is ruining the keys.) But it still has that charm of sitting right by the beautiful blue water just a few feet from the highway.

Porky's has no walls, the sea breezes just flow right through. There is the constant squawk of sea birds and the low rumble of the fishing boats moving in and out of the tiny harbor. Sport fishing, crab, and lobster boats are tied up all around. The locals and tourists pull their barstools up to the tiny bar together. Cold beer flows. Old rock and country music can be heard, but I can tell by the small stage, guitar, and microphone that live music sometimes happens.  I am confident that when it rains the roof at Porky's never leaks because there is so much stuff attached to the ceiling. The most common thing are those portraits of George Washington. Apparently it is the custom to write your name and date on a one dollar bill and attach it to the ceiling, not unlike the Indian Valley Campground store near Downieville, California. The restaurant has been at mile marker 47.5 bayside since the 1950's, and such notables as Ernest Hemingway,  Jimmy Hoffa, and Elizabeth Taylor have eaten there.


Porky's is a barbecue joint, but when I'm so close to big water, I have to have seafood. Since we were in the former Conch Republic, conch fritters seemed the logical choice.  To accompany them I chose black beans, rice, and fried plantains.  As you may know, a conch is a sea snail, and according to a friend of mine, they are quite difficult to get out of the shell.  But persistant digging with a fork will pay off and...not all of the meat is edible. According to the menu these were Bahamian Conch Fritters, and sure enough, they were tough and chewy just like the ones I had in Nassau. However, the black beans were well seasoned and the rice was spot on. There is something about fried plantains that says, "Hey, you're below the frostline." I believe that it is a culinary law that any food prepared in Miami and points south must have a Cuban flavor.

We enjoyed the brief respite at Porky's, but we needed to get to Miami by nightfall.  If you are ever on Marathon Key on the road that takes forever to get within ninety miles of Havana, stop by Porky's Bayside BBQ Restaurant.  Don't order the conch fritters, and don't look for a one dollar bill with my name on it.

Aeroplanes and Boats

I have always loved airplanes.  In fact the third word I learned to say was "airplane'.  As a toddler I would sit in my high chair while my mom hung out laundry and at the sound of those round motors point my stubby finger skyward and say, "airpwane".Yesterday, I visited the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. I especially enjoyed this because I once served aboard an  aircraft carrier, USS Intrepid. A favorite time of my work day was when I would steal away from my job and watch airplanes take off and land on our flight deck. In naval aviation speak it was to watch launch and recovery of aircraft. In the Naval Aviation Museum they have representatives of all naval aircraft from the very beginning in the early part of the 20th century to some of the latest aircraft that fly today. As you enter this ultra modern facility you'll see an F-14 Tomcat on a pilon. Aviation buffs and movie fans will remember this is the plane that Maverick and Goose flew in the film, Top Gun.  Inside the museum to the right you will find the information counter where you can get free tickets for the tour of the flight line. These are the aircraft awaiting restoration and aren't inside the museum. We opted to do this first because rain threatened. However, when we looked at our tickets we realized that it was an hour before he tour. (We were still getting acclimated to a different time zone.) So we took this opportunity to get some food at the Cubi Point Cafe. Cubi Point was the Naval Air Station in the Philippine Islands. The aircraft carriers I had served on had always tied up at Cubi. Once when the Bon Homme Richard was there the crew consumed 1,100 cases of San Migeul beer. I think our record still stands. For lunch I had a turkey sandwich with bean soup while Claudette had the Subic Bay sandwich. The food was great and the price was quite reasonable unlike many museums.  The decor was all memorabilia of squadrons that had been stationed at Cubi.

Soon it was time for our tour of the flight line.  The bus was one of those busses that look like a trolley car  and we climbed aboard. The driver/tour guide's name was Mac. He was a retired naval aviator who whose squadron was once assigned to the Intrepid. After chatting a few minutes I found out that Mac was on the "Fighting I" the same time I was. He had flown "Queer Spads".   The A-1 "Skyraider" was a single engine propeller driven airplane commonly referred to as a "Spad".  A "Queer Spad" was the ECM or Electronic Countermeasures version which was a four place plane rather than one. During our forty-five minute tour we saw quite a few airplanes and helicopters. Some were WWII vintage but most were newer. There were two planes from the Navy Blue Angels exhibition team, a F/A-18 Hornet and a C-130 Hercules. The support teams C-130 is fondly referred to as "Fat Albert". Our guide was extremely knowledgable and offered great commentary spiced with occasional humor.

Inside the museum the airplanes are displayed according to age, beginning with the early flying boats. Before the advent of the aircraft carriers all Navy planes were flying boats, seaplanes. The WWI life-size dioramas were awesome. There was a design aspect of the carrier based planes that was  to the Museum's advantage.   Carrier planes have folding wings and don't take up as much space. The museum collection is over 150 aircraft but my favorites are those from the so called "Golden Age of Aviation" those years between WWI and WWII. These planes were usually fairly small with one radial engine and one pilot. Biplanes, planes with two wings, are my favorites.  Biplanes such as the 1933 FF-1 which had retractable landing gear and a "greenhouse" canopy.    It was also good to see the planes I had watched take off and land when I should have been working.  The Crusaders, Skyhawks, Willy Fudds, and Skyraiders here were all pristine and clean. There were no exhaust soot, no dirty hand prints, and no duct tape. They were beautiful.  There are also  famous planes as well. The NC4 flying boats that first flew across the Atlantic in 1919.  The F-8 Crusader which was the first Navy fighter to fly twice the speed of sound in level flight. The first Navy fighter to be able to fly straight up was  the F-4 Phantom II.  Other interesting planes were the DC-3 which was the first airplane to land on the South Pole.  There is a Marine helicopter, Marine One, which carried the first American president to resign from the White House. There is also a S3C Viking that a sitting U.S. president landed aboard the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln. Many airplanes hang from the ceiling to better mimic flight and there is a great lighter-than-air exhibit.

I found the aircraft engines, reciprocating and jet, very interesting particularly the cutaway displays. I like to know how things work.  One airplane that isn't mentioned on the website is the Me-262 .  This plane was the first operational jet fighter and the pride of the Luftwaffe. I had seen three of these before but never  a version built with dual controls as a trainer.  There are several representatives of adversary aircraft in the collection even a F-16 with a big red star on the side. The "Fighting Falcon" was used in the Navy's Top Gun school for fighter pilot training as an enemy aircraft. There are a lot of things for kids to do such as climbing into the cockpits of famous fighters, simulators and an IMAX theater. A few sculptures and other artwork are scattered throughout the displays.

It was a great place for a family outing. Normally the Navy's aerobatic team, "The Blue Angels", are practicing at the airstrip behind the museum but no longer, due to budgetary constraints. But there are lots of things for kids do do inside.  There are cockpits to crawl into, simulators to fly and movies to watch.  This kid had a great time.  And... I would visit again.