Where Have All My Heroes Gone?

When James Garner, aka Brett Maverick and Jim Rockford, died over the weekend, something inside of me died. I think it was another chunk of my childhood.

Never mind that I haven’t been a child for more than 55 years. My past is still inside of me, and every now and then, episodes run through my mind like a Super 8 movie.

 I used to write to movie and television stars to get autographed photos. Garner was the first guy I wrote to, back in 1959. I still have all those photos in a vertical file. 

“Maverick,” his long-running western TV series about a roving gambler with a sense of humor, introduced me to the man. I swooned over him every week, and rarely missed an episode. Once I disobeyed my parents and they refused to let me watch it that week. The episode was one I had really looked forward to, entitled, “The Day They Hanged Brett Maverick.” They didn’t, of course, and I got to watch most of it with the folks next door while mom and dad were away.

The sense of humor his characters displayed must have been more than a stage persona. I recall seeing him on a late night variety show when the host asked him how his marriage had lasted so long (58 years at time of death at 86). He didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, dear,” was his quick-witted reply. 

With an increasing pace, my childhood heros are disappearing from this earthly scene. All of them are either six feet under, or have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. In 2011, James Arness, the tall, lanky sheriff on “Gunsmoke” for 20 years, died at 88. In 2010, we lost Fess Parker, 85, TV’s  “Davy Crockett” and “Daniel Boone.” Leslie Nielsen,  84, also died in 2010.  I interviewed him at a Cerebral Palsy telethon in Birmingham when his early-Sixties TV series, “The New Breed,” was popular.  When I wrote to him afterward, he replied with a hand-written note on the back of a photo card. I got the autograph of Steve McQueen (“Wanted: Dead or Alive”)  at another CP telethon.

        My photo collection includes Eric Fleming (“Rawhide”), Richard Boone (“Have Gun, Will Travel”), Michael Landon (“Bonanza”) and Guy Williams (“Zorro”). I saw Williams at the Melba Theater in Birmingham. I lived across the street from the theater manager, who got me an autographed photo.

Clockwise, from top left: Richard Boone, Leslie Nielsen,
  Eric Fleming and Steve McQueen.

Remember Duncan Renaldo, aka “The Cisco Kid?” I met him at a Birmingham shopping mall in the 1950s. For many years, whenever I’d be in a group playing, “Guess Who Said This,” I’d write down, “I was once kissed by the Cisco Kid.” I credit his series with starting my lifelong interest in the Spanish language and culture.

Can anybody besides me recall Scott Brady of “Shotgun Slade,” Don Durant and Mark Goddard on “Johnny Ringo,” Allen Case of “The Deputy,” Rory Calhoun of “The Texan,” Hugh O’Brien as “Wyatt Earp,” or Clint Walker, the hunky  “Cheyenne?”

         David Hedison from “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” George Nader of “The Man and the Challenge,” Robert Reed from “The Defenders” and “The Brady Bunch,” John Bromfield of “U.S. Marshall,”  Craig Hill of “Whirlybirds,” David Frost of “That Was The Week That Was” and movie actors Laurence Harvey and Audie Murphy also have slots in my files.
         All are dead except Goddard, 77, Hedison and Walker, 87, and O’Brien, 89.
         My childhood is slipping away, one hero at a time.

Best Friends

I spend a lot of time with my two grandsons. We’re building memories.

Ever since seven-year-old Gabe was born, I’ve spent a night and the next day at his house. Usually, it’s Tuesday night and Wednesday. Sometimes the day varies, but I always see him at least once a week, unless I’m traveling.

Gabe started school two years ago, but I continue the practice. I play with his two-year-old brother, Matias, during the day and pick G. up from school. 

Amanda & Daniel, and the boys live about an hour’s drive from Ashville.  I have thought about moving closer to them. I know my daughter would love that. But I couldn’t live in a suburb again, and both boys love to visit my farm and my critters.  They enjoy helping me trim tree branches from my trails and playing with their riding toys in the driveway that circles my house. I’m 920 feet and hundreds of trees from any road, so I don’t worry about them accidentally playing in traffic.

First week of this month, Gabe finally got his wish to spend a whole week with me. We never stopped moving, often flopping into bed at midnight. I took him and his pony to Calera for his first riding lesson, took him to Chattanooga for three days of sightseeing, and came back through the lovely north Alabama town of Mentone on July 5th.

I had planned to pick up Mati that Sunday evening, but no sooner had we arrived home than his mom called saying he was driving her crazy wanting to see Gabe and Nana (pronounced NahNah). So we picked him up Saturday at our central meeting place, about a half hour drive for each of us. We headed to the Ashville square for my and Gabe's third fireworks display in two days. I had to watch from my car with windows rolled up and my hands over Mati's ears. He loves the bursts of color but he’s frightened by the loud bangs. We went to church Sunday morning, then Gabe’s Ashville friend came over Sunday evening and spent the night with us. We went to Spring Valley Water Park Monday, and all of us came home exhausted. Chalk up two more days of burning the midnight oil.

By the time their dad picked up the boys Monday night, I was worn slap-dab out. It took me two days to recover. But it was worth all the time and energy, especially when I think about something Amanda said a couple of months ago.

“I loved my grandmother, and enjoyed being with her,” she told me, referring to my own mother. “But I didn’t have the kind of relationship with her that you and Gabe share. Mom, you’re his best friend.”

I think my tractor's sexy!

     I spent several hours on my Kubota tractor last week, mowing grass in my pasture and down by my pond. I loved every sweaty minute of it.

My tractor is about 12 years old. It’s beginning to show its age, having sustained several scrapes and dents due to my driving. Sometimes I’m hell on wheels when I get on that thing. The first couple of times I tried to mow the weeds on my trails, I got off the trails trying to maneuver the cutter and became trapped in a tight space. I had to have someone come get me out. I’ve knocked the pier loose from its moorings at the pond, scraped trees, pulled up fence posts, torn fences and put a hole in the back wall of the shed where I park the tractor. 

Matias likes my tractor, too.

My most recent escapade was last week. I had the tractor down by the pond when the mail carrier came by. So I put my mail in my bucket and drove back up the hill, intending to put the mail on my porch. I’m easily distracted, though. So along the way I decided to push some dead tree branches off the trail through my front “yard,” the latter being  a euphemism for the scruffy area in front of my house. I noticed something whitish in the pile. 

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. “Maybe I’ve discovered where Maggie buried my butter dish.” It wasn’t until I got off the tractor and reached into the bucket to retrieve my mail that I realized I had dumped it out and pushed it into the pile of dead branches.      The “whitish” item was the box containing two copies of the photo book of my trip to Spain. I spent 26 hours and $40 each (plus shipping) making those darned books.  Now the back of each one is broken.

When I was shopping for a tractor, the late Charles Fouts of Fouts Tractor here in Ashville came out and looked at my property. He recommended a package that included a 32-hp tractor with hydrostatic transmission, rotary cutter, box blade and front-end loader or bucket, as I call it. I told him I didn’t think I needed the bucket. He replied, “Elaine, you’ll use that more than any other implement.” And he was so right. 

It comes in handy for mucking horse stalls, unloading heavy stuff from my pickup and cleaning out gutters, if the person helping me clean doesn’t mind being hoisted eight feet into the air. I sold the box blade last week, and we used the bucket to lift it out of the barn and onto the buyer’s flatbed trailer. It’s great for pushing dead limbs into a pile or carrying them to another part of the woods. Ditto for rocks I pick up in the pasture.

But the best use so far was getting my left front wheel out of a hole I encountered in my pasture a couple of years ago. I simply pushed down with the bucket, which lifted the tractor enough for me to roll out of the hole. When I got off the tractor and examined the spot that had trapped me, I discovered it was a sink hole several feet and two levels deep. I  filled it with rocks, an old tire, bent wire that was lying around, and a bucket full of loose gravel leftover from a previous project.

“Sexy” may not be the best word to describe my tractor, but it sure gives me lots of cheap thrills.

Snakes Alive!

Phillip displays velvet-tip rattlesnake.

Living in the middle of the woods, you’re bound to encounter a few snakes. Yet I’ve seen surprisingly few in the 13 years I’ve been here. When I do come across one, my inclination is to leave it alone. Live and let live, so to speak. 

However, when Phillip B., a former tenant, and I discovered a velvet tail rattler under a tarp near my shed a couple of years ago, I decided he was too close to where the grandsons would be playing. So I asked Phillip to put him out of my (sic) misery.  Same thing with the nest of copperheads he found in my pond last year while cleaning out the cattails. 

The other morning as I was headed to the barn to feed my critters, I encountered what a first glance told me was a harmless black racer stretched out on a step in my retaining wall. He was as long as the step was wide, but not particularly large or menacing. “Hello there, fella,” I  addressed him, hoping he was the friendly sort. He didn’t answer back, at least not at first.

Poppa and Momma Copperheads found in my pond.
They had five babies in their cattail nest.

Then I noticed he wasn’t black all over, but had a yellow and black underbelly. The next thing that caught my attention was his tail, because he began to shake it at me.  Later, I discovered that many snakes try to mimic the sound of a rattlesnake to scare their enemies. At the time, all I could think of was a rattlesnake. I calmly turned around and walked back to the house for my camera and my George stick, which is what my former tenant, a Cherokee Indian, called the walking stick he used to traverse my trails. “George” was his euphemism for “snake.” But by the time I got back to my steps, George was gone. 

I guess he just didn’t feel like having his photo blasted all over the internet.

I'm My Own Grandpa

In 1947, a hillbilly duo named Lonzo & Oscar recorded a whimsical song entitled, "I'm My Own Grandpa." The convoluted story, which was later recorded by Ray Stevens and Willie Nelson, began when a man of 23 married a widow with a grown daughter. The daughter married the man's father. They had a child, who would be both the man's grandson and brother at the same time. You have to drop the “step” before most of the relationships, but the song does demonstrate how it is humanly possible to become one's own grandfather.

Paw-Paw (B.E. Edwards) 1984

I didn't have to go through all of that to realize that I'm becoming my grandfather. All I had to do was open a drawer in my kitchen and discover a trove of twisty ties.

Paw-Paw was my mother's daddy, and he lived to be 90. When he died in 1987, mom and I had to go through his possessions and clean out his house. It was in a kitchen drawer that I discovered his collection of twisty ties. Most folks are familiar with these little plastic, bendable "strings" that often come on bread wrappers. You can also buy them in rolls, although the only places I've ever found them are at garage sales and flea markets. They come in handy to close potato chip bags and bind lengthy cords on electric appliances, such as hand mixers, too. I rarely throw one away, but recycle it for another use. 

My grandfather had a drawer full of those little plastic ties. It looked like there were hundreds of them. He must have saved every one he had ever found. Why, I don't know. Perhaps he thought there was going to be another world war and twisty ties would be rationed along with flour and sugar.

Recently, I lifted the plastic cutlery organizer out of a kitchen drawer to discover my own collection of twisty ties. Although it wasn't nearly as extensive in size or color as his, it  made me think of Paw-Paw, whom I adored, and it gave me a laugh. 

Some women lament that they are becoming their mothers. Leave it to me to turn into my grandfather.

Scary Tales

Gabe the Zombie at Halloween

When my seven-year-old grandson was about two years old, I started making up bedtime stories. At first, they were tales about Super Gabe, who had all the powers of a superhero. When he tied his blankie around his neck, it turned into a magic cape that enabled him to fly. I made up a couple of “lessons” stories about saying “yes, ma’m” and other Southern politenesses. I made up a story about a gentle, helpful Bigfoot creature who lived in the woods next to my property.

Soon, he tired of those stories and wanted some scary tales.  There's an old, abandoned house down the road from me that was standing upright when I moved here 13 years ago, but has gradually fallen in on itself. That became our haunted house, where all sorts of ghosties and goblins dwelled, including vampires in the cellar. Down the road from that house is a boarded-up building that used to be a general store. It became the haunted store used by all the night stalkers who bunked at the shack. A rusted-out, windowless and tireless pickup truck in a neighbor’s yard became their vehicle of choice. Each time we drove by it, Gabe would whisper, “NaNa, it’s in a different spot now. They used it last night.”

Gradually, the stories got scarier and scarier. I was warned more than once by his mom, my daughter Amanda, that some were too much for his tender years, but Gabe kept insisting they were fine. I knew I had crossed the line, however, the day I told a story about the Chuck E. Cheese balloon in his room turning into a Chucky doll that ate little boys after they had gone to bed. That scared him so bad he couldn’t sleep in his room that night. His mom had another talk with me. I backed off, but gradually fell back into the “scary” mode. I think she has finally admitted defeat, because she told my brother last summer that Gabe was just like him and his sister, who love being scared by spooky tales and horror movies. Amanda can’t stand either.

When Gabe was three or four years old, one of the children’s librarians where we attend a weekly story time pulled me aside to tell me about a humorous incident at his daycare center. She had gone there to read a book to the children. It was about owls. When she asked the children, “What sleeps during the day and comes out at night,” little Gabe threw his hand in the air and yelled, “Vampires!”

That’s my boy!

There's no place like home, even for a goat

It looks like Betsy is here to stay.

Betsy is the goat that used to belong to my next-door-neighbor, Cathy. My neighbor died last summer, and when winter came and there was no more grass in her pasture, I took in Betsy, J.J. the donkey, and Molly the aged horse. The deal was that I would look after them until Cathy’s daughter, Misty, could get a bigger place to live. Then I would send donkey and horse to Misty and keep Betsy.

J.J., Betsy and Molly 

An attempt at adopting Betsy last November failed because she wouldn’t stay here without Molly. She kept jumping the fence and going home. So for several months I kept the gates open between my pasture and Cathy’s, and all of her animals and mine roamed freely between the two. All six of them were at my barn every morning at feeding time, of course. 

It was with great relief that I took Molly and J.J. to their new home over the weekend. Misty and her husband, Phillip, have a lovely house on top of a hill about a quarter of a mile from my place. They have 30 acres that are fenced and cross-fenced. They’re working on a lean-to shelter for the animals.

When I unloaded the pair, they didn’t waste any time before sampling the lush grass in their pasture. Every now and then, though, Molly would look out over the fence and whinny. I suspect she was calling for Betsy. Donkey acted liked he had always lived on that hill.

A friend feeds for me on Sunday mornings, but after lunch Sunday I made a beeline for the barn. What a relief to find Betsy there. She has been there every day since then. I guess she considers this home now. She seems to be at loose ends, though, as if she can’t decide which horse to attach herself to. I’m sure she’ll figure it out soon enough.

Late that afternoon I got the sweetest text message from Misty. After thanking me for taking care of the animals until her family got settled in their new home, she added: “It warms my heart this first Mother’s Day without momma knowing I have her horse here, and I bet she’s smiling about it, too!”

I don’t know about Cathy, but I’m grinning from ear to ear.