Bob Shelman - Nez

 Bob Shelman

Saturday – Wash Day - Nez

 “Boys, this is the last time I’m telling for you to get up and get dressed. Bring your sheets and I need help with the washing. If you’re not here in five minutes I’m coming in there with a switch,” Mom yelled from the kitchen. It was Saturday, it was sunny, and it was late. No watches or  clocks in our room, but the sun had been up for a while. We slowly rolled out of bed, put our clothes on, stripped the bed and drug the sheets and pillow-cases to the kitchen. I pushed my brother Alan onto the pile of dirty laundry and threw our sheets on top of him. He squealed. Mom and I both laughed.

Saturdays were laundry and grocery shopping days in post-WWII Lyman. If the weather was good it seemed the whole town’s wet laundry was hung out on clotheslines by mid-morning to dry in the fresh air. On rainy Saturdays, the process was very different and women hung their wet laundry inside on drying racks, usually near a stove. I think it was the busiest work day of the week for most moms. At our house everyone was expected to pitch in, and Mom was busy from daylight ‘til dark. As kids we got little reprieves, and this is kind of how it went.

Mom already had our wooden kitchen table pushed against the wall and had rolled the washing machine in from the back porch. A small hose was attached to the faucet, filling the washer tub with hot water. She added Tide, or maybe it was Oxydol, laundry soap powder to the hot water in the Speed Queen wringer/washing machine as the water rose to her desired level. She’d tell us to bring in the tub, and we’d get the big tub from the back porch and set it up on two wooden apple crates beside the washing machine and use the hose to fill the tub halfway with cold water for rinsing the soap out of the freshly washed laundry items.

The tub was a round galvanized steel tub and was used for a variety of things besides rinsing the wash. It was also our bathtub and it was used for canning, for dying fabrics, covering chickens with their heads cut off in the backyard to keep them from running around, covering undead catfish to keep them from flopping all around the backyard, and it was used for ”bobbing for apples” at Halloween, among other things. The tub was heavy and took both of us to carry it into the kitchen and set it up. In our teens, either of us could handle it alone.

After setting the tub up we helped ourselves to a bowl of Wheaties or Corn Flakes and ate breakfast at our ugly chartreuse kitchen table while Mom washed the laundry only a couple of feet away.

Mom, following directions from the soap box, always washed the white things in hot water first, then as the water cooled, the colored stuff got washed. After each load, she’d swing the wringer arm over the wash water and run each washed item through the wringer then put it in the rinse water. When we finished our cereal one of us, me, would take the wash plunger and repeatedly dunk the washed items in the cold rinse water to remove the soap. After several dunks Alan ran each item through the wringer to squeeze out as much water as possible and dropped the washed and rinsed items into a basket sitting on a wooden chair. Mom usually made us switch places because wet things were heavy and I was bigger and stronger. He was smaller and weaker.

After a few basket-loads we siphoned the soapy rinse water out through a hole in the floor onto the ground under the house, emptying the rinse tub. Then we filled it halfway again with cold water for the rest of the rinsing.

Kay, our older sister, took each basket of cold wet laundry out to the backyard and hung it all on clotheslines, using clothespins to keep everything in place. The four wire clotheslines stretched between two T-posts about twenty feet apart, with six-foot cedar beanpoles propping up each line about midway to keep them from sagging too much. Sometimes, just for fun, Alan and I would sneak out there and knock the beanpoles down and run away giggling while we got yelled at by Kay and Mom. Most laundry was dry in two to four hours, depending on the weather.

After the work in the kitchen was done, the washing machine tub and the rinse tub were both siphoned down through the hole in the floor and we carried the rinse tub and rolled the washing machine to the back porch. While our laundry was drying on the clotheslines, Mom walked to the store to do her weekly grocery shopping and pick up mail at the post office. When we were younger one or both of us boys went with her and helped bring the groceries home in our wagon. After the groceries were home we usually hightailed it out of there and showed back up around suppertime, unless we were invited to eat at a buddy’s house, which was fairly common. The buddy’s Mom let our Mom know that we were eating at their place.

After the groceries were put away and the laundry was dry Kay and Mom took each item off the clotheslines, folded it and placed each item in a basket, then brought each basket inside and put everything away, then went back out and did it again until all the laundry had been folded, brought inside and put away. Then they remade all the beds.

After supper it was time for Saturday night baths. We brought the big tub back into the kitchen, set it on the floor in front of the sink and Mom filled it with hot water. Wearing her bathrobe, her towel and wash cloth in hand, she closed all the curtains and doors in and out of the kitchen and took her bath first. Sister was next, then me, and little brother was last. The water was fairly cool and sometimes even cold by the time it was our turn. After we all were bathed for the week, and in our pajamas, we again siphoned the tub water down through the floor and took it to the back porch.

That was our Saturday. The next morning, we put on clean clothes and probably got them dirty on our half-mile walk to church.

Chapter 13 - Marc

 Chapter 13

Vacant Lot - Ralph

Vacant Lot - Ralph

Fallen Myrtle - Nez

As kids in Lyman, we knew the town had “outcasts,” people or families who somehow didn’t fit in. That “somehow” being mostly arbitrary. Several were not so deserving of that label and yet were treated as such. Several outcasts were treated horribly, and yet others were not. And since most non-outcasts were “church people” imagine how the outcasts were selected. Chatting with my sister recently, she asked if I had written an “outcast” story yet. Here is one.

Myrtle Daves

In Lyman Tavern with a brown paper sack, cradled like a baby in her arms, Myrtle Daves should have already headed home. Bundled up in her black winter coat and gloves, she’s not wearing a hat or boots or galoshes. Myrtle doesn’t drive. It’s cold, windy and snowing outside and she has about three-fourths of a mile to walk in heels and stockings. Now hours past noon she’s drunk and wobbly. Declining an offer of coffee, she steadies herself, tucks the paper bag under her arm, and shuffles toward the exit.

Myrtle dresses her best whenever she goes uptown, which for her is really, really rare. In her younger days, with her short slender build and cold black hair Myrtle had been quite attractive. You wouldn’t know it now. Years of booze and abuse have robbed her of many things, as well as her looks. Now at middle-aged she is haggard looking with a permanent scowl, though her hair is still black. Myrtle is a recluse, who only leaves home when she is out of liquor (her medicine) and there’s no one else home to get it for her. Her husband, or one of her two sons, usually keeps her supplied, but they’ve gone to work and she ran out of “medicine” at breakfast. So, she got herself dressed up and made her way to town. It wasn’t snowing when she arrived at the tavern’s front door before it opened at ten. It’s almost three as she finally leaves the notorious establishment. She wants to be home before dark, which is a little after four.

Through snow, wind and cold Myrtle makes her way down across the tracks, crosses over to the sidewalk and trudges up past the Mobil station where the terrain levels and on past the Baptist Church. Nearing the intersection with her dead-end gravel street, of which she lives at the very end, she approaches the end of the sidewalk. At the drop off from the sidewalk down to the gravel street, she gingerly steps onto the short slippery embankment, loses her footing, slips and falls backward. She lies there with her upper body on the sidewalk and her legs splayed out on the sloped ground. The fall must have been painful as Myrtle doesn’t seem to move. Finally rising up on one elbow she realizes her bottle broke during her fall when it hit the sidewalk. The contents of her brown paper bag are soaking the inside of her coat and dress. She sobs and swears, and vomits, and realizes that she might have hurt her back during her fall. Crying she hoarsely calls out for help.

The Dietz kids in their yard up ahead are watching her. She sees them and cries out to them for help, but the they ignore her cry. Instead, they ridicule her. They point and laugh while singing, “Myrtle the turtle, Myrtle the turtle, fell and broke her bottle.” “Myrtle the turtle, Myrtle the turtle, fell and broke her bottle.” This brings Mrs. Dietz, a “devout Baptist” lady out onto her porch to see what the commotion is about. She spies the fallen drunk. Myrtle, sobbing, again cries out for help, but Mrs. Dietz simply ushers her kids inside, steps in and closes her door.

Because of where she’s fallen Myrtle is having difficulty getting her legs under her so she can rise up onto her feet. The house that she has fallen in front of, ironically, is the Baptist Church Parsonage. Even though some of the preacher’s kids are watching her from a window they don’t intend to come to her aid, nor do they make any attempt to get the pastor or his wife to help. They only see Myrtle as a fallen-down drunk. To be pitied, yes. To be helped, no.

Myrtle time and again struggles as she attempts to get to her feet. Finally, she manages to wriggle her way from the sidewalk into the yard of the Parsonage where she eventually rises to her feet after losing her balance three more times and vomiting again. Sobbing, cold and wet and now without her medicine she musters up the little pride she has left, straightens herself up, smooths her dress and coat as best she can, and painfully hobbles out to her gravel road and hobbles on toward home in her high heels, torn stockings and bruises. Muttering to herself, she curses those kids and Mrs. Dietz.

Epilogue

Myrtle Daves and her family were among the “outcasts” in the Lyman area. As far as anybody knew they didn’t have friends or relatives nearby, yet they had been in Lyman several years. And since arriving in Lyman none of the family had ever participated or contributed to the community. They didn’t attend church and were not known to help others. In addition, both Myrtle and her husband, Berle, were heavy drinkers. And Berle was often seen beating Myrtle or one of their sons in their front yard. Thus, the Daves were deemed “outcasts” by most of the town. We all avoided them.

Yet, there were others in town who were as bad as the Daves, maybe worse, but if they were community participants and/or contributors with friends or relatives they were deemed “acceptable”. The difference being who they were, who they knew, and in whose closet their skeletons resided.

Reece Coggins, Musician, Fisherman, Storyteller - Nez

The Lyman area became well acquainted with the Coggins Clan in the 1930’s and 40’s. There was the stern patriarch, Make Coggins (real name), his wife Sarah, his daughter Roxie, and sons Carl, Mike, Glen, and Reece. Every member of this clan was born in East Tennessee (Appalachia). That they ended up in Skagit County, Washington before WWII is the same story that’s been told time and again. Make was a logger in Tennessee, and logging shut down in Appalachia during the Great Depression, so he hoboed his way to the Pacific Northwest where they were still logging. Then, as many others from Appalachia did, he brought his family to Lyman and Skagit County. Make and his older boys logged, the younger ones finished school, and Sarah kept house.

By the 1950’s our family was close friends with neighbors Roxie and her husband Fred, as well as Glen and his wife Eileen, who was mom’s best friend, and their kids, and Reece and his wife Bernice, and their kids. We knew the whole Coggins Clan. And, of all the Coggins men Reece, to me, was the most interesting, and certainly the most fun.

Reece and Bernice had four kids, Terry, Calvin, Lillian and Donny. I was close to Terry and Calvin, so we were at each other’s houses frequently. Bernice did most of their household parenting unless she really needed Reece to get involved. He was more of a big kid than a parent except he could drink and the kids, of course, could not. The kids liked having their friends over as their dad did less drinking when there was company, especially kids.

At their house we pretty much expected to be entertained if Reece was home, unless he was already slumbering in a drunken stupor. Reece drank a six-pack of beer every day, more on weekends. He was a big garrulous guy who had fun with everybody. He always smiled and laughed, except when he was drunk. If you got to their house before he consumed or got too far into the six-pack he would play his guitar and sing. He would go to the kitchen and sing and dance with Bernice. He was good and often performed at dances. And he loved telling stories, and swore they were true, though we knew they were not. He was hilarious. He told jokes and always howled at his own punchlines.

Reece was fun to be around, even when he was fishing. In salmon season, usually the winter months after New Years, Reece would take the boys fishing at the Skagit on Saturday or Sunday mornings. He had a boat, but preferred fishing from the bank. If he found a place with really good footing Reece could cast out to the deepest part of the river channel, which was where salmon, steelhead and trout were.

Early one Saturday morning, a bunch of fishermen from Lyman were on the riverbank as the sun rose. King Salmon were running so real fishermen found their way to the river. There must have been ten or fifteen guys fishing from the bank that morning, and a bunch of kids, me included, were there watching. It was always fun when a bunch of fishermen showed up. Stories and lies and lots of laughs. Reece was there fishing with his boys and so were Ed Fore, Jim Price, Cecil Hittson, Merrit Melton, Onny Jackson, June Parker, and Eula Aiken. Guys were spread about five or six yards apart so they had room for casting. Those of us just watching knew there was a good chance at least one of those guys would hook a big fish. They usually did.

King Salmon are big, one could weigh over seventy pounds and they’re fighters. It takes a while to land one. Yet it didn’t take too long for Ed Fore to land a big one that morning, which he brought close to the bank so someone could gaff it for him. It weighed a little over forty-two pounds. Pretty soon our man Reece hooked a big one, which he declared was the “grand-daddy” of King Salmon. He fought it and worked to land it for well over an hour, talking the whole time. Others fishing nearby put their poles aside ready to help. Reece didn’t take a break or let anyone else work the fish either. He was going to  wear this big “daddy” out so he could land it. He grinned, “take my picture”, but nobody had a camera. He yelled, “get me a beer,” but nobody did. He couldn’t have drank it anyway, he was too busy. He was really working, give and take, making sure the fish didn’t break his line, with sweat running down his face, and a couple of times the fish seemed to be pulling him into the river, but Reece didn’t give in. He kept working.

By the time Reece landed that huge fish there must have been thirty to forty people on the riverbank watching the show. His brother Glen had shown up and it took both he and another guy to hook gaffs into both gills and haul that fish out of the river. When it was landed everybody applauded and Reece took a big bow and grinned from ear to ear, and laughed saying, “wait ‘til you hear this story.” And by that time someone had shown up with a camera, but Reece was too tired and the fish too big to hold up by himself, so he and his two boys and Glen held it across their chests for the picture. Then someone handed Reece a beer and he raised it to the fish, made a joke and downed the whole thing. Everyone applauded again and soon the men, without us kids, adjourned to the tavern, but not before Reece had cleaned his fish and his boys lugged it home to Bernice.

That fish officially weighed seventy-eight pounds, the biggest that I ever actually saw being caught in the Skagit River. Pictures of Reece and his catch appeared in the Courier Times, the weekly newspaper. Before long Reece’s version of catching the world’s biggest King Salmon, took on a life of its own. Reece was a good storyteller, and those of us who were there had us a big fishing tale to tell, too.

Johnny Jacobean - Nez

 Johnny Jacobean, by Nez

A Close Call - Michael

Winning the lottery is typically considered a good thing. Unless that lottery is for a draft number and ticket to the Vietnam War. No more escape hatches or deferments to avoid the war. Unless, of course, your daddy was rich and influential. Or unless you were able to cook up an injury and wiggle off the hook. Nope. John Fogarty said it best, ‘I ain’t no fortunate son.” If your number came up, you were screwed. To put it politely.

My number came up. Number 21 out of 365 might as well have been #1. I was a sophomore at Arizona State University. I knew guys who had gone to Vietnam. I knew guys who came back messed up. I knew guys who never came back. The war was winding down, and long gone was the idealistic and naïve perspective that it was a noble act to fight communism. It was meatgrinder, fought by the middle and lower class of America. Eisenhower warned us about the insatiable appetite of the miliary industrial complex. It was front and center, gobbling up anyone in its way. It needed grist for the mill. Old Ike was right.

Everyone knew that the military draft was slowly grinding to a halt. We just didn’t know when. My clock started ticking with a request to report for my pre-induction physical at an army location in Phoenix. Aside from missing one eye, one leg, or having a yellow streak up your back, you passed with flying colors. Stand in line, drop your shorts and cough! Congratulations.

Now I waited. And I wondered. What to do when Uncle Sam’s letter arrived. While I didn’t have connections to dodge the draft, I was smart enough to know that an army grunt in a rice paddy was a very bad idea. I spoke to the Air Force recruiters. Four years there seemed a better option that two years on a front line with the army. That was my plan. When the letter arrived, I’d take it to the Air Force and enlist. This would put college on hold for the foreseeable future and send my life in an entirely new direction. In fact, some other guy would be sitting here now, reading to this esteemed writers’ group.

I waited some more. And then it happened. Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird announced the end of the draft in January 1973. It was over. Done. Kaput.

For those of you who like irony, four years later I enlisted in the United States Army.

Babbling Brook - Marc

 BABBLING BROOK

Babbling brook forever running

Like the music always streaming through my brain

Most days gently whispering

A sweet love song, a concerto

Against the whistling wind

And the sighing leaves

Other days angrily racing

Frothing against the its banks

A screaming guitar solo, full of feedback

A drum solo pounding

A beat that threatens my safety

And sanity

Choked in winter

By the cold ice

Roasted in summer

By an unforgiving sun

Straggling along

Struggling with the effort

But the day arrives

And suddenly you break free

Triumphant in casting away

Chains that tried to bind you

As your music returns

Streaming through my brain

Opening Day 1967 - Nez

 People who know me know that I love baseball. Growing up my favorite major league players included Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Whitey Ford, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks, Bob Feller, Stan Musial, Don Newcombe, Roberto Clemente, and Roy Campanella plus several more. Of course, my Lyman neighbor, Niles Jordan was my childhood sports hero. He was a lefty and pitched a little for the Phillies and Indians.

I have seen a lot of baseball games, on tv and in person, but I have only been fortunate enough to attend one, just one, Major League Opening Day game. That was on Monday, April 10, 1967, at D.C. Stadium (renamed RFK Stadium). My day was made. The Washington Senators were hosting the New York Yankees. The marquee players for the visiting Yankees were Mickey Mantle, Mel Stottlemyre and Joe Pepitone. The marquee players for the hometown Senators were Frank Howard and uh… that’s pretty much it. Well, Eddie Brinkman …maybe. Nah. Just Frank Howard. The starting pitchers were Mel Stottlemyre for the Yankees and Darold Knowles for the Senators.

I remember several things about that day, but not much about the game. Two days before Opening Day I won two tickets to the game in a drawing at the NCO club. I called my sergeant and got Monday off. I went to the game by myself. Everybody else had to work. But I didn’t care. I was going to see my all-time favorite major leaguer, Mickey Mantle play, even if it was at first base, not in center field. Mickey and Frank Howard chatted and shook hands near home plate during warm-ups before the game. That was thrilling. And then every single player and manager for both teams was introduced.

I was in a mezzanine level box with twelve seats just above first base. Twelve box seats and I was the only occupant. The game finally started. The box to the left of me was empty. Then a tall man in an overcoat suddenly appeared behind me and stated that he was Secret Service and was with the Vice President. I thought, “What!” and I asked if I needed to move. He said, “No you stay where you are Nesmith. Please don’t bother him though.” Huh? “I do possess an Unlimited Security Clearance, that must have been how he knows who I am”. Moments later, while the Yankees were batting, VP Hubert H. Humphrey entered the box next to me. I stood. He made eye contact, smiled and reached out and we shook hands. He sat down just four seats from me, about six feet away and said, “enjoying the game young man?” “Yes, sir,” I smiled and sat down. There was only a metal railing between us. I wondered if he knew who I was. Probably not.

I noticed the VP and his six-man detail all wore dark heavy overcoats. It was a warm, sunny day. I wondered how hot they were and how fast they could draw their weapons in those heavy coats. I thought to myself I would help if they needed me. They didn’t. And I wasn’t armed anyway.

I never spoke another word. In the fourth inning the VP got up and shook my hand again and said, “I have meetings” and wished me “all the best.” Then as he was leaving an announcement was finally made over the PA system that he was there. The game stopped momentarily as the crowd stood and applauded and he waved. Then he was gone. I turned to find that my own Secret Service agent was gone also. So surreal.

Hey, I was a nobody in the Army and the Vice President of the U.S. was sitting with me watching a baseball game. How crazy is that?! This sort of thing just does not happen. It was so, so, so surreal.

Anyhow, back to the game. Stottlemyre pitched a complete game two-hitter. Yankees won 8-0. Mickey got a hit, a walk, scored a run, and didn’t play after the fourth inning. Frank Howard grounded out, flied out and struck out.

It was actually a pretty great day. When they get the chance every baseball fan should attend at least one Opening Day in their life. I hear they’re quite the spectacle. I need to go to Opening Day again. Perhaps a less daunting one.

Talk about surreal!