I have always loved fishing and many times Becky went along with me. When the girls we young they went along, too. Sometimes when Heather was really small we even packed up her playpen and took it along with us.
One of my favorite pond fishing spots was on Marcia and Dale Commack’s farm. I got to know Marcia because she taught special education in the classroom next to mine at Saunders. Marcia and I were pioneers in a sense because we started mainstreaming special education to my regular education classroom in 1971. It is now quite common and is called inclusion.
Dale and Marcia lived on a farm east of Salem. I had an open invitation from them to fish there anytime I wanted. I took my Dad out there several times and also a few friends. The Cammacks actually had two ponds. One was nearer the house and the other, a catfish pond, was out a ways across a field and a small rise.
One day we took Angie and Heather and went fishing there. Ron and Marcia Marshall went along with us. Angie was about 5 years old and Heather was just an infant. We put Heather in the playpen and Becky, Angie, and I along with the Marshalls, started fishing. The front pond was a great bluegill pond and we caught several very nice ones.
Angie was set up with a pole and bobber and caught several bluegills. All of a sudden she had another fish and started yelling at me to come and help her. I told her to just reel it in like she had done with the others but she said it was pulling too hard. I encouraged her to pull harder and she said she couldn’t do it. At last I realized she did have a big fish and went to help her. I held on to the pole with one hand while she reeled in a huge bass. We were all thrilled!
I fished at that pond many times. I made the mistake of taking a few friends out there. The pattern was to always stop at the house on the way in and on the way out to show the Cammacks what we had caught. I always introduced the friends to the Cammacks.
After taking two guys out there one evening they went back three evenings in a row without telling me and their boldness irritated the Cammacks and me. They said I could continue to fish but didn’t want anyone going out there if they weren’t with me. My unscrupulous friends almost ruined the whole thing for me.
I continued to fish at that pond for several years but never took anyone else but my father or my immediate family along with me.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Coon huntin'
“You never been coon huntin’? Anybody born in Iowa aught to go coon huntin’ at least once!” Those were old Jim’s comments one afternoon when we were butchering deer in a shed. Jim was a hunter and fisherman. He ran two or three trap lines every winter and spent countless hours out in the woods. He was a big strong guy who was well known for his fondness for the bottle.
I had never been coon hunting, but had heard a lot about it. I mostly stuck to rabbits, pheasant, and deer once a year. I have always loved to be out of doors and it doesn’t take much of an excuse to get me there. In the summer, my spare time was spent fishing. It still is. More recently I have lost the desire to kill something but still long to be outside.
Jim was adamant that he was going to take me coon hunting! He started pressing me for a time that I could go. Now you have to understand that coon hunting is done at night with dogs with names like Ole’ Blue, Boomer, Red, and Marley.
Generally, you take the dogs to some location in the woods and turn them loose and sit down and wait. Eventually, you’ll hear them bark. Well, it’s not a bark but a combination of a howl, a bark and a scream. That means one of the dogs is on the trail of a coon. The others rush to that dog and join in the racket. The hunters get up and wander off into the woods following the sounds of the dogs.
As you can imagine this is fraught with dangers. Who knows what hole you are going to step in or stream you are going to have to wade to find the dogs. When the dogs actually tree the coon, the sounds change pitch and an experienced hunter knows they have cornered the animal.
So, I made a date with Jim. It was a Friday night in October. He picked me up about 10:00 and we headed out into the country. Now, I am a person who likes to know where I am and I was hoping we would be hunting in some spot I was familiar with. That didn’t turn out to be the case.
We went north of town to some of Jim’s old stomping grounds. We parked along a gravel road and that is when I asked Jim if we had permission to hunt here. He said, “Nope.” But not to worry. If we were stopped by anyone I should let him do the talking.
He hoisted his two dogs over the fence and we climbed over after them. The dogs were long gone by the time my feet touched the ground on the other side. The sky was overcast and dark. I followed Jim into the woods feeling my way with my feet. He had a flashlight but didn’t want to turn it on. After stumbling and falling a few times we finally reached a spot where he said we could sit down and wait. I looked around as best I could in the dim light but saw nothing but weeds and bare ground to sit on. That was it. We sprawled there on the ground to wait for the chorus to start up.
Jim reached into his coat and pulled out a rather large flask of Blackberry Brandy and took a long pull on the bottle, wiped his lips and handed it to me. Not being much of a hard liquor drinker I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was at first sweet and pleasing but then I swallowed. My throat burned and it hit my stomach like water hitting a hot frying pan! I was speechless and my eyes were watering.
Of course, not wanting to look like a novice, I hid my discomfort the best I could. We sat there in the dark on the ground speaking in soft voices and waited for hours. Jim didn’t put his flask away but drank from it and handed it to me many times. Thinking back on it now I don’t know why I just didn’t fake drinking it.
Finally, in the far distance we heard a dog bark, then another. Jim jumped up. I tried to get up but staggered and fell back. I made it on my second try and we headed off through the brush. Now, not only was it dark, unfamiliar terrain, but we were drunk. We staggered through woods arguing about which way the sounds were coming from.
I gave into Jim and he was right. We found the dogs not under a tree but barking at a hole in the ground on a hillside. Jim quickly surmised the coon had been forced by the dogs to take refuge in the hole. He said, “We got to dig ‘em out!” I, dizzy from the alcohol and long walk, thought we should just give up and go home.
Jim had a big old knife and he started chopping at the hole. Suddenly, he stopped and reached up to his shoulder into the hole. Laying flat on the hillside he said the coon was in there sure enough because he could feel him but not get a hold of him. He said, “You try it.” “Not a chance! I said, your arms are longer.”
He dug away at the hole furiously now. Stopping every once in awhile and reaching in to touch the critter. I kept expecting him to bring back a bloody hand from some bite or scratch. He seemed unconcerned. Finally, he said, “We’re going to have to shoot him!” Jim had carried a single shot rifle with him all evening. Let’s see now…a gun, alcohol, dark unfamiliar woods…what’s wrong with this picture?
He loaded the gun, stuck it in the hole and fired. Then he reached and pulled at the critter. After a little bit he said, “I must have missed.” He said here, you hold the gun and pull the trigger when I tell you. He slid his arm and the gun in at the same time. When he was ready he told me to pull the trigger. I did and he said, “Oh shit! You shot me!” He saw the shock on my face and then laughed and said, “Just kidding.” He tugged and pulled on the critter and out came an opossum. More swearing! An opossum hide was worthless but he decided to take the carcass home, cut it up, and put it in the freezer. He would use it for coyote bait in his traps later that winter.
I don’t remember much of going home. Probably because we had a couple more pulls on that bottle before we staggered back to the car. I never went coon hunting or even had the urge to go again.
I had never been coon hunting, but had heard a lot about it. I mostly stuck to rabbits, pheasant, and deer once a year. I have always loved to be out of doors and it doesn’t take much of an excuse to get me there. In the summer, my spare time was spent fishing. It still is. More recently I have lost the desire to kill something but still long to be outside.
Jim was adamant that he was going to take me coon hunting! He started pressing me for a time that I could go. Now you have to understand that coon hunting is done at night with dogs with names like Ole’ Blue, Boomer, Red, and Marley.
Generally, you take the dogs to some location in the woods and turn them loose and sit down and wait. Eventually, you’ll hear them bark. Well, it’s not a bark but a combination of a howl, a bark and a scream. That means one of the dogs is on the trail of a coon. The others rush to that dog and join in the racket. The hunters get up and wander off into the woods following the sounds of the dogs.
As you can imagine this is fraught with dangers. Who knows what hole you are going to step in or stream you are going to have to wade to find the dogs. When the dogs actually tree the coon, the sounds change pitch and an experienced hunter knows they have cornered the animal.
So, I made a date with Jim. It was a Friday night in October. He picked me up about 10:00 and we headed out into the country. Now, I am a person who likes to know where I am and I was hoping we would be hunting in some spot I was familiar with. That didn’t turn out to be the case.
We went north of town to some of Jim’s old stomping grounds. We parked along a gravel road and that is when I asked Jim if we had permission to hunt here. He said, “Nope.” But not to worry. If we were stopped by anyone I should let him do the talking.
He hoisted his two dogs over the fence and we climbed over after them. The dogs were long gone by the time my feet touched the ground on the other side. The sky was overcast and dark. I followed Jim into the woods feeling my way with my feet. He had a flashlight but didn’t want to turn it on. After stumbling and falling a few times we finally reached a spot where he said we could sit down and wait. I looked around as best I could in the dim light but saw nothing but weeds and bare ground to sit on. That was it. We sprawled there on the ground to wait for the chorus to start up.
Jim reached into his coat and pulled out a rather large flask of Blackberry Brandy and took a long pull on the bottle, wiped his lips and handed it to me. Not being much of a hard liquor drinker I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was at first sweet and pleasing but then I swallowed. My throat burned and it hit my stomach like water hitting a hot frying pan! I was speechless and my eyes were watering.
Of course, not wanting to look like a novice, I hid my discomfort the best I could. We sat there in the dark on the ground speaking in soft voices and waited for hours. Jim didn’t put his flask away but drank from it and handed it to me many times. Thinking back on it now I don’t know why I just didn’t fake drinking it.
Finally, in the far distance we heard a dog bark, then another. Jim jumped up. I tried to get up but staggered and fell back. I made it on my second try and we headed off through the brush. Now, not only was it dark, unfamiliar terrain, but we were drunk. We staggered through woods arguing about which way the sounds were coming from.
I gave into Jim and he was right. We found the dogs not under a tree but barking at a hole in the ground on a hillside. Jim quickly surmised the coon had been forced by the dogs to take refuge in the hole. He said, “We got to dig ‘em out!” I, dizzy from the alcohol and long walk, thought we should just give up and go home.
Jim had a big old knife and he started chopping at the hole. Suddenly, he stopped and reached up to his shoulder into the hole. Laying flat on the hillside he said the coon was in there sure enough because he could feel him but not get a hold of him. He said, “You try it.” “Not a chance! I said, your arms are longer.”
He dug away at the hole furiously now. Stopping every once in awhile and reaching in to touch the critter. I kept expecting him to bring back a bloody hand from some bite or scratch. He seemed unconcerned. Finally, he said, “We’re going to have to shoot him!” Jim had carried a single shot rifle with him all evening. Let’s see now…a gun, alcohol, dark unfamiliar woods…what’s wrong with this picture?
He loaded the gun, stuck it in the hole and fired. Then he reached and pulled at the critter. After a little bit he said, “I must have missed.” He said here, you hold the gun and pull the trigger when I tell you. He slid his arm and the gun in at the same time. When he was ready he told me to pull the trigger. I did and he said, “Oh shit! You shot me!” He saw the shock on my face and then laughed and said, “Just kidding.” He tugged and pulled on the critter and out came an opossum. More swearing! An opossum hide was worthless but he decided to take the carcass home, cut it up, and put it in the freezer. He would use it for coyote bait in his traps later that winter.
I don’t remember much of going home. Probably because we had a couple more pulls on that bottle before we staggered back to the car. I never went coon hunting or even had the urge to go again.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
505 West Clay
After a year and 8 months of living in a rented farmhouse we moved to a house on West Clay in Mt. Pleasant. Although Becky was not thrilled with the house or its size it was ours. Well, not quite ours but we were buying it.
Our house in the country was sold when the Garners moved away, so we had to find a new place. I didn’t think we had much of a chance of buying a house and thought we would have to rent. We were heavily in dept from my college and living experiences during that time. On a teacher’s salary it was going to be hard for us to find something.
My Dad talked with Stan Macbeth and said we should see him about a house. He was a local realtor and the former mayor of Mt. Pleasant. He was a gregarious sort of follow who always acted like he was glad to see you.
Stan took us to a few houses that I don’t really remember much about and then took us to 505 West Clay. It was a small bungalow on a lot with some great shade trees. It was a stones throw from Saunders Park and the swimming pool. I thought it had huge potential. We couldn’t get the money from the bank and our parents didn’t have any money to loan us so Stan suggested we try the Farmers Home Administration (FHA) for a government subsidized loan for low income people in rural areas.
We had resisted food stamps or any government help in our lives as a matter of principle but this time I didn’t think we could afford to pass it up. The house qualified. The next question would be do we? We filled out all of the forms and met with officials. We were on a tight timeline and needed to get out of our other house.
It wasn’t going to be a “slam dunk”! The local board of the FHA didn’t think we were a good risk and the local administrator said our only chance would be to meet with them and convince them we could handle this. We did and they did. It was one of those painful experiences when someone you hardly know goes through your finances and it is plain that you have not done so well. Somehow by the grace of God, we convinced them.
We settled into our home in the fall of 1973. We didn’t have much but it was going to be ours. The house had a kitchen and dinning room attached to a living room and two bedrooms and, of course, the bath. The Bath was not the greatest. It had an old claw foot tub and there were ugly brown arrows painted on the wall. I don’t know what the point of the arrows was.
Our neighbors on the west were Eunice and Charlie Shappell and their children, Susan, Marion and Rick. One the east, across the alley was Winifred Van Allen. Behind our property on the north side was a big empty lot. My Dad said he remember a few times when a circus came to town and set up on that lot. Long before that my plat book showed that there was a school on the northwest corner of that lot. The Van Allen family owned it and the other half of the block.
Originally, our lot and the Shappell lot were one and had a large house on it. About half of the large house was torn down and the bricks and materials were used to build our house. Shappell’s house was part of the original house. Our house was a fortress! The walls were about three feet thick and solid brick. It heated easily in the winter and stayed cool in the summer. I’ll tell more about our time there and the changes we made in the house in future pieces.
Our house in the country was sold when the Garners moved away, so we had to find a new place. I didn’t think we had much of a chance of buying a house and thought we would have to rent. We were heavily in dept from my college and living experiences during that time. On a teacher’s salary it was going to be hard for us to find something.
My Dad talked with Stan Macbeth and said we should see him about a house. He was a local realtor and the former mayor of Mt. Pleasant. He was a gregarious sort of follow who always acted like he was glad to see you.
Stan took us to a few houses that I don’t really remember much about and then took us to 505 West Clay. It was a small bungalow on a lot with some great shade trees. It was a stones throw from Saunders Park and the swimming pool. I thought it had huge potential. We couldn’t get the money from the bank and our parents didn’t have any money to loan us so Stan suggested we try the Farmers Home Administration (FHA) for a government subsidized loan for low income people in rural areas.
We had resisted food stamps or any government help in our lives as a matter of principle but this time I didn’t think we could afford to pass it up. The house qualified. The next question would be do we? We filled out all of the forms and met with officials. We were on a tight timeline and needed to get out of our other house.
It wasn’t going to be a “slam dunk”! The local board of the FHA didn’t think we were a good risk and the local administrator said our only chance would be to meet with them and convince them we could handle this. We did and they did. It was one of those painful experiences when someone you hardly know goes through your finances and it is plain that you have not done so well. Somehow by the grace of God, we convinced them.
We settled into our home in the fall of 1973. We didn’t have much but it was going to be ours. The house had a kitchen and dinning room attached to a living room and two bedrooms and, of course, the bath. The Bath was not the greatest. It had an old claw foot tub and there were ugly brown arrows painted on the wall. I don’t know what the point of the arrows was.
Our neighbors on the west were Eunice and Charlie Shappell and their children, Susan, Marion and Rick. One the east, across the alley was Winifred Van Allen. Behind our property on the north side was a big empty lot. My Dad said he remember a few times when a circus came to town and set up on that lot. Long before that my plat book showed that there was a school on the northwest corner of that lot. The Van Allen family owned it and the other half of the block.
Originally, our lot and the Shappell lot were one and had a large house on it. About half of the large house was torn down and the bricks and materials were used to build our house. Shappell’s house was part of the original house. Our house was a fortress! The walls were about three feet thick and solid brick. It heated easily in the winter and stayed cool in the summer. I’ll tell more about our time there and the changes we made in the house in future pieces.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Hope Haven
As I have said previously, I worked as an associate in the summer program at Hope Haven. It was a position created for me to give me something to do in-between bus trips. I transported people to the center and arrived there about 8:00 AM daily. I took them home at 3:00 PM. To make the job viable, because I couldn’t earn enough just driving the bus, they gave me this position to fill out the day.
The unfortunate thing was that by doing that I displaced someone who had worked there for several summers. The other summer workers loved the person and that made me the bad guy. They didn’t want to like me and they were determined not to let me win them over.
I got the dirtiest jobs and the duties no one else wanted to do. The two teachers and the other three associates loved to order me around and remind me that I didn’t know anything about special needs people. They were right, of course, but I was eager to learn and wanted to do the right thing. I had experience working with behavior disorder kids and felt confident I could learn the nuances of working with physically and mentally challenged kids.
The kids in this program ranged from severe autistic to wheelchair bound to severe mental disabilities. There was one adult person for every two or three kids. The adults were busy all the time tending to the needs of the kids. There was barely time to go to the restroom. Lunch was out of the question because I had to sit between two kids to help them eat. By the time it was over each day they had food all over themselves and me, too. I wasn’t usually too hungry after all that anyway.
We did take the kids on field trips from time to time and it worked well that I could drive the bus. On some trips the kids would get very excited and we didn’t seem to have enough hands to keep them out of danger. I always had this terrible fear that one of them would get away from us somehow and get lost or worse, get injured in some way. Fortunately, that never happened.
Over time the staff softened and actually begin to like me a little. The whole thing was a lesson for me in how to treat others with dignity and respect. I was able to earn it but it took a few weeks.
I earned respect from the management as well. They were very pleased with my work. A couple years later they asked me to serve on the board of directors. I did serve two terms and during that time was offered the Assistant Director position at Hope Haven. Although it was tempting, it was a direction I really didn’t want to go at that time. I have fond memories of my time at Hope Haven as an employee and then a board member. I think of the kids and the families from time to time and wonder how they are doing.
The unfortunate thing was that by doing that I displaced someone who had worked there for several summers. The other summer workers loved the person and that made me the bad guy. They didn’t want to like me and they were determined not to let me win them over.
I got the dirtiest jobs and the duties no one else wanted to do. The two teachers and the other three associates loved to order me around and remind me that I didn’t know anything about special needs people. They were right, of course, but I was eager to learn and wanted to do the right thing. I had experience working with behavior disorder kids and felt confident I could learn the nuances of working with physically and mentally challenged kids.
The kids in this program ranged from severe autistic to wheelchair bound to severe mental disabilities. There was one adult person for every two or three kids. The adults were busy all the time tending to the needs of the kids. There was barely time to go to the restroom. Lunch was out of the question because I had to sit between two kids to help them eat. By the time it was over each day they had food all over themselves and me, too. I wasn’t usually too hungry after all that anyway.
We did take the kids on field trips from time to time and it worked well that I could drive the bus. On some trips the kids would get very excited and we didn’t seem to have enough hands to keep them out of danger. I always had this terrible fear that one of them would get away from us somehow and get lost or worse, get injured in some way. Fortunately, that never happened.
Over time the staff softened and actually begin to like me a little. The whole thing was a lesson for me in how to treat others with dignity and respect. I was able to earn it but it took a few weeks.
I earned respect from the management as well. They were very pleased with my work. A couple years later they asked me to serve on the board of directors. I did serve two terms and during that time was offered the Assistant Director position at Hope Haven. Although it was tempting, it was a direction I really didn’t want to go at that time. I have fond memories of my time at Hope Haven as an employee and then a board member. I think of the kids and the families from time to time and wonder how they are doing.
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