Protecting Momma after Daddy's Death.

When your big brother tells you that you have to learn how to protect your mother, there's something weird about that kind of advice. I had all kinds of thoughts from that. Protect her from what?

It didn't take long for the answer to unfold because, almost immediately after Daddy's death and the funeral, a grown man in a suit, carrying a bunch of papers, showed up at the front door and demanded to see my mother. I don't know what they were talking about but I remembered that my momma started crying and that's all it took to put me in "the attack mode" again.

I think that Leland, who was 15 at the time and a good 200 pounds, ran him out of the house. That didn't stop me from doing my part and I went around the side of our house and put a well placed shot from a BB gun in the back of the bad man. I felt real good about it and I'm quite certain that he never bothered her again.

Leland said it was a paper work thing and nothing to worry about except the fact that he wasn't exhibiting the proper respect to a woman who had just lost her husband. From that day forth, I always had the BB gun close by and made sure that I had plenty of ammo. I didn't realize what a smart move was until a few months later when another episode erupted.

Some kid came over one night when Leland was changing a flat tire on his 55 Ford. There were a few threatening words from the kid but before he was able to hit Leland from behind, Leland turned around and hit him with the tire tool he was using to change the flat. BAM, right in the head. That ended the fight, a one round knock out, but it was just the beginning of more trouble.

The next day, the kid's father showed up raising hell about Leland hitting his kid in the forehead with a tire tool. I didn't catch any part of the conversation that covered the part where his kid was   trespassing or assaulting Leland with a baseball bat but I did catch the part about momma crying.

Well, guess what! I ran to the bedroom closet, grabbed ole Daisy and managed to catch him while he was till walking down the drive way. BAM, another well placed shot in the back. More than anything, I guess you might say that shot was the "signature shot" that sent me to ............let's call it CAMP.

As it turned out, Subiaco was a neat place. It was hot but it was close to the mountains in Arkansas and an easy walk to the Arkansas River. There was a group of kids left over from high school that stayed there during the summer to act as counselors. There weren't any nuns there at all. The Priests played baseball and taught us all kinds of new games we'd never seen before. There were kids there from South America and we played a game in a box that was roughly 5' x 5' where we hit a ball with hockey sticks until it went into a hole. I don't know what it was called but I liked it a lot.

One night, the senior counselors, under the supervision of the men, told us Indian Stories and since there was a museum there, full of artifacts like arrow heads and spears, we took it in, hook, line and sinker. They told us that we would go looking for them early the next morning and that we should get plenty of rest in case there was any trouble.

The following morning, they brought an old 50 something bullet nose Studebaker to the front of the school. It had been made into a flat bed truck and typically carried kids around the farm. On this day, we went a short distance from the school and parked in the woods. We were told to be very quiet and hid in the bushes next to a mountain. In a short period of time, we heard a huge explosion that was so big, it actually shook the earth we were sitting on. The counselors yelled: "Let's get out of here" and one of the men told us to load up on the flat bed and we went back to the school convinced that the Indians were shooting at us.

As it turned out, we were on the other side of the ridge from a rock quarry and they were using explosives to blast away the rock. The owners knew about the kids and were kind enough to play the game for the benefit of all. Little did I know, that 26 years later, I would push the button that set off the explosives in the mine located next to the one that was used to scare the BeJesus out of all the kids a the school.

In any event it was great fun and a year or two later, I returned to play football there as Subiaco was the sister school of Morris School for Boys where I would go for 3 years. It just so happened that Uncle Charles and Uncle Joe both went there when they were kids. Uncle Charles had a son named Greg, my first cousin. I don't know what he did but he ended up at Morris with me, too. It wasn't a cake walk but we both had so much fun hiking in the mountains, catching and raising baby squirrels and camping over night at Letona Bluffs and exploring the caves there, we asked to stay there during the summer months.

That will have to do for now. It's time for a little brain swelling and some skin work. More later. Thanks for reading. Tim