My Story

This post is a bit different.  I came across this story on the web...had forgotten about it.  The author was a really nice guy from Purdue University, where I finally received a degree after previous enrollment at Marshal University and West Virginia University.  He wrote this in 2004 about a year before I retired.

The author's a better writer than me by a mile, and I think he captured some of my life story pretty well.  So, I am hoping to still be modest, and include it as a blog.  :-)

Hank Queen

Vice President, Engineering and Manufacturing

Commercial Airplanes Group

The Boeing Company

BSAE ’74

For his outstanding engineering leadership within the world’s largest commercial airplane manufacturer, and for his service to Purdue University, the College of Engineering is proud to present the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award to Hank Queen.

His Eyes on the Sky

“I’m one of those people that whenever an airplane flies over I stop and look up,” Hank Queen says. “It’s just in my blood. All my life I’ve been challenged and interested in all things mechanical, and I particularly loved airplanes. I can remember even being three years old and looking up at an airplane and wondering how it does that.”

As Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes—a global organization of over 40,000 engineering personnel, with an annual multi-billion-dollar budget—Queen has plenty of opportunity to stop and watch the giants of the skies.

Both Queen’s father and grandfather were miners, and Queen grew up in a West Virginia coal mining town called Lando Mines. When the mine closed, the town was bulldozed to one end and burned by the company, and the Queen family moved to Huntington, West Virginia.

Queen studied engineering at the West Virginia University but chose not to finish his degree there. “I quit school the last semester of my senior year,” he says, “and I decided I would never be an engineer.” He followed his family to Indiana “because it seemed like an interesting thing to do,” Queen says. “I had never been that far west.” He then transferred to Purdue to finish his education.

A Passion for People

Queen began his career as a tool designer in Columbus, Indiana, before taking a job as an engineer for Boeing. At that time he had no desire to work in a management position.
“I had a stint in management about five years into my work at Boeing,” Queen says, “and I found I just didn’t like it.” So he returned to engineering, but it was the interaction with another employee that changed the direction of his career. “I worked with a guy that, for the first time, helped me understand that you can do engineering and make a significant contribution,” Queen says, “but you can do that with other people, not just on your own.”

This gentleman’s name was Mac Kiyono, a first-level manager at Boeing. “He was just such a neat leader,” Queen says. “He had a terrific perspective on life, and people and leadership. And he inspired me to want to be more like him.”  And there was some quality that Kiyono noticed in Queen.
“He told me, and remember, I was just an engineer at this time, ‘You’re going to be vice president of engineering someday.’ And I said, ‘Mac, you are out of your mind.’”

But when Queen returned to management in 1987, he found that his friend and mentor had been right after all.  “I didn’t really know that I had it,” Queen says, “but I have a real passion for people. I really felt good about watching other people be successful, which is at the heart of being a good manager, because your success is when other people are successful.”

A Tale of Two Feelings

Queen flew through the company ranks. He has worked as a service engineering manager for the 767 fleet, as a chief project engineer on the extended-range version of the 767, and as the director of the Twin-Aisle Airplane Program, which oversaw the technical integration of the 747, 767, and 777 family of airplanes. In 2000 he was named vice president in the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group.

“A lot of my job is coaching and mentoring and developing and understanding human dynamics,” Queen says, “because people in a way are a large-scale systems problem. It has such a personal deep meaning when things go well.

“But things don’t always go well.”

The years since the 9/11 tragedy have been hard on the air travel industry; over the last three years, Queen’s organization has dropped from 22,000 people to 15,000 people. “And it’s just been a heartbreaking thing to have people come into your office and cry, knowing that you can still have respect for people and treat them with dignity and value their contribution. So it’s been the best of times and the worst of times—it’s been a tale of two feelings.”

Throughout his career, Queen credits his training as an engineer as a keystone to his success.

“That same rigor and understanding how to go about identifying what’s important and what’s not important: people, process, products, and performance—not to blow Purdue’s horn, but the quality of the staff, of the professors, of the people, I felt so fortunate that life led me to graduate from Purdue, because they taught us how to solve problems. And that was much more valuable than just learning a lot of technical things.”

Career Summary

2005 Retired

2004 Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing, Boeing

2001 Outstanding Aerospace Engineering Award, Purdue

2000-04 Vice President, Engineering and Product Integrity, Boeing

1999-2000 Director of Engineering for Twin-Aisle Airplane Programs, Boeing

1997-99 Chief Project Engineer, 767-400ER Program, Boeing

1995-97 Chief Project Engineer, 767 Program, Boeing

1990-95 Service Engineer Manager, Boeing

1982-90 Electrical and Avionics, Service Engineering, Boeing

1975 Engineer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group

BS Aeronautical Engineering  ’74, Purdue University

Falling into Massage Therapy

The year when I was 12 was challenging in many ways.  I've already described my head sawing accident, but that wasn't the only one.  The scars from that one are almost invisible now, but with this next incident, I ended up with some lifelong issues and an amazing gift.

We were living in Huntington, West Virgina.  Our next door neighbors were the Kings.  Yes, they really were.  I know it's crazy, but we were the Queens, they were the Kings, and the Princes lived across the street.  The mailman used to say that they should have named our street Royality Row instead of Waverly Road.

The Kings had two kids...Rick and Paula.  Paula was about the same age as Ingrid, and Rick exactly the same age as my middle brother Ed.  Rick, Ed and me used to play together endlessly during the summer.  One of our favorite games had no specific name I can recall but was pretty simple.  One person was "it" and had a ball.  The object of the game was to be the only survivor, and the way you survived was to hit other people with the ball.  That was pretty straighforward except for one additional rule.  If someone threw the ball at you and you caught it, the thrower was out, and you became "it".  So you had to weigh your odds of catching the ball, or running and ducking to get away.  There were no limits on where you could run or hide, and that made it interesting.

In the Kings backyard, they had a very tall, broad maple tree.  Rick's dad was in the military and so was gone alot.  Mrs. King was busy in the house a lot and we hardly ever saw her.  So Rick got away with a lot of things we wouldn't dare to try...but we'd do them at his house because we never got into any trouble there.

One day we decided to build a tree house.  Lot's of boys and girls do this in their childhood, and we were no exception.  We did do something a bit unusual though.  Rick had a nice crosscut saw, and we climbed up near the top of the big tree - maybe 25 feet up.  We cut the entire top of the tree off, and it came down with a crash.  The trunk left behind was still at least 18 inches across, and flat now.  We took a half sheet of plywood left over from when we had built "The Building" in our back yard, and we cut a two foot diameter hole off center.  We hauled to plywood up to the top, and maneuvered it on top of the flat trunk.  I stood on a limb and moved up through the hole, and was able to nail the plywood horizontally onto the top of the tree.

We could climb the tree, get through the hole, and then stand on the platform on the very top of the tree.  We had an amazing view from up there, and it was taller than Rick's house which was a one story home.  We could play all kinds of pretend games there, and my favorite was to be in the crows nest of a big sailing ship looking for pirates, whales, and island paradises.

So...back to the ball game.  I decided to hide on the top of the platform, when Rick was it.  He had a good arm and was using a football that day for ammo.  He could throw plenty hard enough to make it hurt, and that's what his real goal was.  He had a bit of a mean streak and liked to hurt other people when he got a chance.  I was laying low up there, but somehow he figured out I was there and yelled at me to stop being a chicken and come down.

Now I knew he couldn't hit me up there from the ground, even though there were a couple of angles where he could get a pretty clear shot.  I also knew that if I came down through the hole and started climbing down that he would be able to nail me good...maybe even knocking me out of the tree.  I for sure didn't want that because at the base of the tree was a big pile of broken bricks and broken window glass.  They had been remodeling their house, and piled up all the broken stuff there for some reason.  Falling on that pile would have meant serious injury and cuts.

So, I just yelled back that if only he could throw better than a sissy he wouln't need me to come down to hit me.  Rick hated it when I called him a sissy, and invariably would do something dumb, or mean.  I was taking my chances this time, but thought it might be worth it.  He did just what I hoped he would do.  His face got all red, and his eyes all squinty.  He yelled something unintelligible and threw the ball hard up at me.

I jumped to my feet and moved quickly to make a perfect catch of the ball.  I crowed with triumph that he was out...which didn't happen very often.  My delight didn't last long as I quickly realized that all was not well.  In order to catch the ball, I'd moved to my right and back.  I now found myself standing with the football tucked in with my right hand, my left toes on the back edge of the board, and my right foot coming down behind me on nothing...nothing but air anyway.  There was no way to stay on the board, and I started to fall backwards, still holding the football, and wondering how I could be so stupid.

Everything went into super slow motion.  By now I was horizontal, and my body was rotating so I would be falling head first down to the ground 25 feet away.  The first of the limbs and leaves brushed the back of my head and now my feet were directly above me as I picked up speed.  I remembered the pile of broken bricks and glass, and knew I was going to do a head plant right into that pile.

Years later I read about how your brain operates under stress.  There are three levels of operation: normal, alpha state, and beta state.  We're all in the normal state right now (most likely).  When something serious happens where your life may be in danger, your brain goes into alpha state.  The world slows down as your brain speeds up.  You can think much faster and something figure out things that will save you.  Many people have this experience during auto accidents.  However, if things get extremely serious, your brain can go into beta state.  This state is reserved for only the most life threatening events.  When this happens you lose all connection to the outside world.  Your concious mind is cut off from everything.  Your brain does this because it knows your best chance is pure instinct at this point, and that if your concious mind is engaged it might not do the right thing to optimize your chances for survival.  For example, you might not run through a fire to get out because your concious mind would stop you from getting burned.  But if that's the only way to save yourself, then you would die.  Kind of makes sense.

So...my brain went from normal (at least as normal as my brain every gets), to alpha state, to beta state.  I can remember when it all went black....I was now falling head first and branches were slapping me hard on the head and shoulders as I fell towards certain death.  My sight closed like a tunnel and the last things I saw were my own sneakers against the sky and branches above.

The next thing I knew I was hanging from the last branch above the broken pile with my right arm, and had the football tucked into my left arm and side.  I was bouncing up and down wildly as the branch absorbed my considerable kinetic engergy.  I looked to the side that there stood Rick and my brother Ed.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone more astonished than the two of them.  Eyes wide, mouths hanging open, and both let out a huge gasp of air.  They'd had been holding their breaths as I fell, and it was clear that whatever I'd done to save myself was remarkable.

Well, it wasn't that remarkable I guess.  I'd just gone into a tuck, transfered the ball to my other hand, and then shot my right hand out at just the right time and place to snag that last branch.  Maybe it was a miracle, but I'm pretty sure most monkeys would have yawned and been underwhelmed.

For about 5 seconds, I got a huge smile on my face as I realized two things.  First, I was still alive, and second, and almost as important, Rick was out.  I swung side to side so that I could drop and miss the pile, and that was when the pain hit me.  My right shoulder suddenly felt like someone had shoved a hot poker into my armpit and out the top of my shoulder.  I couldn't stop sudden tears, and gasps of pain as I hit the ground.  Now I did drop the ball, and grabbed my shoulder.  It didn't help and I doubled over with the pain, and thought I was going to pass out for a bit.

Of course, I'd dislocated my shoulder by grabbing that branch.  It was a good trade compared to smashing my head on bricks and glass, but probably one I wouldn't have made if my mind had stayed in alpha state.  Now though I had a serious problem, and so started to run for home.  I gave up on that idea quickly though, as the running jarred my shoulder and sent even more pain shooting everywhere.  So, I walked very carefully, but quickly towards the house bent over in pain and holding my right arm against my chest.

When I got inside, I found my mom.  She asked me what was wrong, and I gasped that I'd hurt my shoulder.  I didn't tell her the whole story because I knew that would lead to more trouble.  She put her hand on my shoulder and I cringed in pain and pulled away.  Mom said "So, it hurts to touch it?".  I nodded and stepped further away, afraid that she would want confirm her statement by touching me again.  But she didn't move, and just said "Well, then don't touch it.".  I said "Ok"...and the diagnosis and treatment were over.

Even though I couldn't use my arm all week, couldn't sleep with the pain, mom stuck to her usual routine of avoiding doctors, and never asked me about it again.  I didn't know anything about shoulders or dislocating them back then, but at least it had popped back in when I let go of that branch.  I wasn't so lucky later that year with another dislocation, but of another joint (perhaps I'll tell that some othe time).  As the days went by, my shoulder gradually stopped throbbing and hurting so much.  I eventually could raise my arm over my head again, but never could throw a ball very good again after that. 

After many years, I popped that shoulder out of joint a second time, and it hurt just as bad all over again.  That time I did see a doctor, and then finally a wonderful massage therapist, Sara, who fixed it without surgery.  She was so good at her work and loved helping people so much, that I became a massage therapist too.  Who would have thought that a tag ball game combined with my monkey brain would result in me becoming a massage therapist one day?

Lessons learned:  Gravity works, and I'm glad my brain is smarter than I am.

Head Cheese

When I started writing these posts, I just figured I'd begin at the beginning.  So...that's what I've done, but I've written 13 stories, and am still only up to when I was four years old.  I'll never get done at that rate, and besides, my mind wanders.  From now on, I'm going to just jump around in time and space for no particular reason..and see how that goes. :-)

One disadvantage of growing up in rural West Virginia was the absence of medical care.  There was no doctor anywhere in our area, and it was a two and a half hour drive over mountain roads to get to one.  As a result, you had to be pretty darn bad off before you made the journey to see a real doctor. However, I am probably one of the most accident prone, most injured people on planet earth.  By now most people like me are long ago dead for one reason or another, and I know that surviving to my advanced age is only a result of balancing my stupidity with extraordinary luck, and toughness.  I'll describe some of my misadventures in other postings, but would like to jump a bit into the future for this one. 

This lack of local medical care worked fine for my mom anyway because she held a very dim view of modern medicine and doctors in general.  She said that you should only see a doctor two times: once to sign your birth certificate, and once again to sign your death certificate.  This perspective worked most of the time, except for having me as her son.

Since she didn't like doctors, she preferred to handle medical matters on her own.  She always used the same protocol no matter what.  She'd start her analysis by asking "Does it hurt?".  If you said no, then that was the end of the conversation.  If you said yes, then her next question was "Does it hurt when you touch it?".  She asked me this one a lot because most of my pain events were caused by obvious injuries, and not illness or other problems.  If you answered this one yes, then her analysis again ended when she'd declare "Then leave it alone!".  If you answered "No - it just hurts all the time", then her analysis ended with "Well...let's just wait and see what happens!".  In some rare cases we'd get an aspirin, or a band aid to staunch the flow of blood.  But mostly we'd just go our way, try to forget about it, and it would eventually stop hurting and heal.

Here's a simple example of what I mean.  I used to have a little hole in the bottom of my lower back where fluid would leak out.  I don't remember just how I found it, but when I did...I was curious.  It wasn't exactly like water...clear and slippery to the touch. So, I asked my mom...."Mom why does water come out of my back?" Her response "Where does it come from?".  I showed her by pointing, but she didn't take a look.  She started her diagnosis.  "Does it hurt when you touch it?"  Me - "No".  Her - "Then leave it alone.".  Me -"OK".

Quick, simple and often effective.  I found many years later that I was born with a condition known as spina bifuda.  It is a birth defect related to the mother not having sufficient folic acid in her diet. The severity of impact varies, but it can be fatal to babies.  The defect causes a problem because the spine doesn't completely form before birth.  In my case, only the bottom disc in my spine (L5) is affected.  It's like a "C" with the open part to the rear, instead of like an "O".  So, my spinal column is exposed there and any sharp blow could cause permanent paralysis.  Also in my case the casing surround my spinal nerve column didn't close fully, nor did the muscle/skin over it...so I had a small hole that leaked spinal fluid.  It eventually sealed up...and although my spinal column there is still unprotected, and my spine only partially supported...I no longer leak...which makes me ever so much more socially acceptable.

So, I got hurt a lot, and never saw a doctor.  However, I do recall a time when we were living in Huntington, West Virginia, and were no longer such a long way from doctors.  My mom's attitude about doctors was strongly fixed in all our minds.  So even with a family doctor only half a mile away, and a hospital about 5 miles away, visiting either was not really an option.

I was about 12 years old and my cousins were visiting.  We were running all over the place playing tag, and I ran into my dad's workshop - also known as "The Building".  It had a concrete floor covered with loose sawdust, and so I managed to slip and fall while running.  Now there's nothing much unusual in me doing this, except that this time I ran my head into my dad's table saw.  Not just anyplace on my head, but directly into my right temple.  I don't remember much except hearing a noise very much like a loud Chinese gong, and then doing a face plant on the concrete floor before I blacked out.

I've never taken wood working shop, but my daughter did.  In fact, I still have a wooden paper towel holder that Abbey crafted for me.  I do know that they warned her a lot about minding her fingers and even arms when operating a saw.  They didn't 't have much to say about keeping your head out of a table saw, probably because they never imagined anyone sticking their head into one.  But, then again they don't know me.

Back to me slicing my head. By the way, I called this story head cheese because that's what came to mind...cutting it just like cheese.  Heads may be tough, but a table saw just goes right through them like cheese.  You may have thought I was referring to the "food" called head cheese.  My dad used to bring it home once in a blue moon.  I ate some, and actually kind of liked it.  It had pepper in it, and a bunch of bits of stuff embedded in what looked like brown jello.  I thought it had a funny name, but figured that "head" was like a brand name.  When I learned to read well enough, I made the mistake of looking at the ingredients label one day.  Need I say more?

Anyway, when I came to, my cousins were standing around me and yelling to high heaven about something.  I was pretty confused, and it took me awhile to understand that they were alternating between yelling at me, and then about me.  Finally my mom and dad showed up, and the blood drained from their faces.  Like I said, I'd decided to lead with my right temple.  It had a very nice sharp groove cut into it along the side of my head - maybe 4 inches long.  It had started to swell rapidly, and the skin was parting as a shape looking for all the world like a shelled, boiled egg started pushing out.  The most amazing thing was that there was hardly any blood.  I've cut my head many times, and in many ways, and there's always a flood of blood to contend with.  But this time it was different.

I put my hand on my temple, and felt the open wound, and the egg swelling rapidly.  I pulled my hand away, and it had only a little spot of blood on it.  So, I thought "Great...I hardly hurt myself this time".  But the reaction from my mom and dad was not reassuring.  Dad bent down to get a closer look, but my mom was holding her hand over her mouth, and taking big breaths.  Mom was not good at triage and wound treatment, and dad wasn't a whole lot better.

So, my mom finally dropped her hand and started down her usual path.  "Does it hurt?".  My dad's head whipped around to stare at her with an open mouth.  He looked at her, then at me, and it was like I could read his mind for a little bit there.  I could tell he thought her question lacked a bit of insight on her part.  He said of course it does...but I just answered "No".  It actually didn't hurt, but I was in shock and already beginning to feel thankful that I hadn't put other parts of my face or head into the saw.  Like my eyes, or an ear, or my nose.  I was already ugly enough, and that would have probably caused babies to cry when they saw me.

Dad just said, "He's not feeling it yet Lou".  My mom's name was Louella, and dad called her "Lou".  They made a nice couple - Lou and Kell.  Mom said, "Well it can't be too serious then if it doesn't even hurt."  Again my dad gave her a very odd look, and said "Look how big that lump has gotten just while we are talking."  He then said the dreaded words..."I think he needs to see the doctor".  I felt like it was a death sentence.  Mom had always been so negative about doctors, and often said that people would go see them for a cold, and the next thing you know, they were dead because the doctor made a big mistake.

Besides, my head really was beginning to hurt now, and I felt like I'd had all the punishment I deserved for running near a table saw.  But dad insisted, and my now got mad.  She said something like "He's always hurting himself, and never needed a doctor before."  I think somehow that she felt that dad was making her look bad by wanting to take me the doctor.   Dad took another look at my head and gave me a wet wash cloth to hold over the wound.  I think it was more so they wouldn't have to see it, than it was to help me feel better.  He said without looking, "I think he needs to go this time"

I looked at my mom hopefully, just knowing that she'd be able to carry the day, and keep me away from a death sentence visit to a doctor.  She screwed up her eyes, and open and closed her mouth a couple of times.  I could see the gears turning, and waited for her sage arguments to flow forth.  However, she just said "Uh........OK."  I was in shock all over again.  How could this happen!?  Mom was supposed to save me, not toss me to the wolves.  With that "OK", my dad pulled me to my feet, and started walking with me to the car.  I know it was the last time my dad ever held my hand as he walked with me.

We drove the long drive, and I was feeling pretty darn bad by the time we got there.  I suspect I'd done more than just sawed a slot in my skull, because I'd also slammed my head hard enough on the metal table to knock myself out.  Not that I hadn't done that before, but it felt different this time.  My eyes kept not wanting to see just one of things, and I'd have to try really hard to not see double.  And I was getting very nauseated too.

We finally got to the doctor, and I stumbled inside.  I don't remember much of what all they did.  I do remember them telling me that it would hurt when they started sticking needles in my head to numb the wound.  But it didn't hurt...just made a crunching sound each time the needle went into the bone.  Then the pain stopped, and I just kept my eyes closed.  The doctor came in to look, and the nurse made clucking sounds.  The doctor said to her "This is odd, how did he get hurt".  She said "The dad told me that he ran his head into the table saw.". The doctor laughed before he could stop himself...and then said something about how dumb can you be?  I felt some anger and tears at this comment, but realized that he was right.  It was pretty dumb, and I was lucky it wasn't worse.

So, he got out his curved needle and thread, and started sewing.  Or at least tried.  He was soon cussing under his breath, because the "egg" had swelled so much that the edges of the wound were almost an inch and a half apart at the center.  He put the thread through one edge, but then couldn't get the other edge to close.  He finally yelled for the nurse again to get him some pliers.  Between them, they used the pliers to pull the skin back together enough so that he could sew the edges together.  I don't remember how many stitches, but I could hear every single one of them going in as the thread would feed through the hole.  Made a really funny sound, and kind of tickled too.

Finally it was over, and they were done.  I realized that my hands were like claws and every muscle in my body was fully tensioned.  I relaxed and fell back onto the bed.  As the doctor walked away, I was totally amazed and happy that I was still alive and hadn't been accidentally killed somehow - despite everything my mom had told me.   As we drove home late in the evening, I reflected on what had happened.  My mom had been wrong about the doctor, but I thought maybe I'd just gotten very lucky.  So, I swore that I'd be more careful in the future, and so wouldn't have to take a chance on seeing a doctor ever again.

Lessons learned:  Don't eat head cheese (or at least if you do - don't read the label), and keep your fingers and head out of table saws.

Hard Choices

I'm pretty sure that most of you have seen or heard of the 1957 movie "Old Yeller" staring Fess Parker of Daniel Boone fame.  I think I was around 11 when I first saw it, but when I did, it was like a painful reliving of what happened one summer in Lando Mines.

Now with that introduction, you know this can't have a good ending...and you're right.  But it did teach me something very important about life, and my dad.

When I was about two, I got a brand new suit to wear to church.  My mom called it a suit, but it was really shorts, a jacket, and a nice bow tie. I thought I was pretty hot stuff, and you can see from my picture that I was looking sharp.  I don't remember much about church at that age, except that when everyone stood up to sing a hymn, I suddenly felt like I was in a forest of towering, singing, giant trees.  For some reason, it scared me, and even though my mom let me stand up in the seat of my pew, it didn't help much.  I can remember wanting her to hold me, but knowing that would be acting like a baby.  And I knew that babies didn't get to wear grown-up suits to church like me.  So, I'd just look at the floor until they were done, and then I would heave a sigh of relief and sit down again too.

Hank in his Sunday best at Lando Mines

But this story isn't so much about church as about our dog.  We had a mongrel, brownish yellow dog that I loved dearly.  Her name was Missy, and she was our first dog...or at least the first dog we had that I could remember.  Dad got her from a neighbor who was moving away, and she came with her name.  She was big, compared to me, and yet gentle enough.  She loved to play fetch, and I'd throw sticks and an old rubber ball for her and she'd always bring it back and drop it at my feet.  She seemed to understand that I was just a little kid, and so had great patience for the throws that sometimes went flying in an entirely different direction than either of us had hoped.  Once I hauled off and threw the ball really hard, only to have it hit her in the rear end as she waited for me.  She looked back at me with an odd expression - a mix of patience, pity and love.  She turned and picked up the ball and dropped it at my feet so I could throw it again.

We played a lot together, but she was an outside dog and never allowed in our house.  Dad really liked her too, and clearly had a very soft spot in his heart for her.  She'd greet him happily every day when he'd come home from working down at the mines, and wag her tail like crazy.  I learned quickly to move aside, and also never be directly behind her when she got happy, because that big wagging tail of hers dumped me onto my own behind a couple of times.

I remember clearly the first time I realized something was wrong.  Missy had a water bowl outside by our little shed, and when it was empty, I'd ask mom to get her some more water.  She was always thirsty, and drank lot's of water.  It was warm weather, and even I was hot outside.  I checked her water bowl and it was full.  Not that unusual, but a bit odd.  I looked again later, and it was still full.  Missy was sitting over in the shade of a tree, and panting....looking hot and uncomfortable.  As I approached her she gave me a strange look, but didn't move.  Something stopped me...just a funny feeling.  I went to her water bowl, and thinking to get her to take a drink and cool off, I lifted it up, and walked unsteadily towards her.  As I got near, I slopped some water on the ground, and she jumped up and moved away from quickly.  As I moved towards her again, she moved away again too.  I couldn't figure it out, so just put the bowl back where it belonged and forgot about it.

Over the next couple of days, Missy also pretty much stopped playing with me, and mostly just lay in the shade panting.  She also stopped greeting my dad in the evenings, and so when he came home I could see him talking to her and looking concerned.  She was clearly uneasy with him petting her, but she let him do it anyway.  The next day was the first time I saw her with the gray foam around her lips.  She had a funny look in her eyes too, like she didn't know me anymore.  I just didn't see my good old Missy in her eyes anymore, and I started to get a bit scared of her, and kept away.

By Saturday, things were much worse.  She lay on her side a lot now, and the foam and heavy breathing was worse.  Whenever we'd move in her direction, she would lift her head and growl at us.  She even growled at dad, and when he kept coming she got up, and snarled at him in a very wild and scary way.  The ridge of fur down the middle of her back was up, and her lips pulled back away from her teeth.  Dad yelled at me to get in the house, and so I ran up the steps and waited on the porch.   Dad went to our little shed, and opened the door.  He pulled out the yard rake, and turned back to Missy.  She was still on guard, and looked ready to attack anyone or anything.  Dad eased around to her side, and she turned to face him.  He slowly moved towards her holding the rake in front of him.  She darted forward, snapped at it and then backed up.

Dad kept moving in and backing her up, until it was obvious what he was doing.  He was trying to get her into the shed.   At one point, she just turned and ran inside the shed by herself...then turned at the door to defend her territory. Dad moved quickly now...holding the rake with one hand, and then grabbing the door and slamming it closed with the other hand.  Misty immediately went berserk, and I could hear her snarling and throwing herself against the door.  Dad's hand shook as he latched the door hook, and then he jammed the rake against the door as added protection.  He turned to look at me, and his face was white.  He said "I thought I told you to get in the house!", but I could tell he wasn't angry...just really upset.

That night after dinner, I could hear mom and dad talking quietly.  Dad's voice was sad, and mom's was too.  I heard her ask at one point "What are you going to do Kell?"  My dad's name was Henry, but he didn't like it much either.  We both have the middle name of Caleb, and the short version is Cal.  If you say that with a West Virginia drawl, you'll get something very much like Kell.  I couldn't hear clearly what dad said back to her, but when she asked again, he just said "I don't know." in a very forlorn voice.

So, the next morning we got up early and I got dressed in my new suit.  My mom was acting all funny.  Pretending like she was excited and happy to be going to church, but somehow we knew she wasn't.  We all  knew something was really wrong, and so did our best to behave and not be any trouble.  Mom got me dressed up first, and I wandered back to my mom and dad's bedroom while mom set about getting Ingrid ready.  I didn't make much noise, and so caught my dad by surprise.  He was sitting on their bed and had his hunting rifle out.  He was wiping down the barrel, and deep in thought.  He realized that I was there, and his head whipped up.  I could see the misery in his eyes, before he turned away again, and told me to go back to mom.

As we went down the steps and into the yard on our way out, I looked at the shed.  The rake was still jammed against the door, but there was no sound from inside.  I was so worried about Missy, and so started to walk in that direction.  As I got close to the door, all hell broke lose.  I've never heard a dog go so crazy wild as she did.  She was growling, snarling and barking in a total frenzy.  She was slamming herself against the door again, and this time the whole shed shook.  My mom yelled at me to get away, and grabbed my arm and snatched me back.  She looked back at dad standing up on the porch, and he just shook his head slowly.  We left in a hurry after that, and dad stayed on the porch watching us go.

After the usual boring and hot session in church, we came home.  I noticed right away that the shed door was partially open...and the rake was on the ground.  Nobody was in sight...neither dad or Missy.  I started to run to look in the shed, but mom told me to get in the house and change my clothes.  It was silent and dark in the house.

After I changed, I went outside looking for dad and Missy.  I didn't find either one, so went around back.  As I came around the side of the house, I could see my dad coming towards our back fence across the field.  There as a bit of an open area there, then a small stream and all trees on the other side.  Dad was carrying a shovel, and walking like he was as old as my grandfather.  He was dusty and dirty, and I could see white lines running down his face.  As he got closer, I could see that he'd been crying and that the tears had washed little tracks down his cheeks.  He didn't see me yet, and I was totally confused.  I'd never seen my dad cry, and it had never occurred to me that grownups even knew how to cry.

My heart jumped, and I knew something really bad had happened.  Now dad saw me, and swiped his sleeve across his face.  He tried to put on a smile, but just couldn't do it.  As he came up to me, he picked me up in his free arm and carried me back to the house.  I didn't know anything about death then, and don't think I'd ever even heard the word.  But somehow I knew that Missy was gone...where I didn't know...but gone for sure and gone for good.  I asked dad quietly "Where's our dog?".  Dad looked at me and then away again.  He didn't say anything for a bit, and then still looking away...said "She's gone to heaven son" in a tight, strained voice.

I hadn't paid much attention to what went on in church, but I knew they had talked about a place called heaven.  From what I could understand, it sounded like it was a nice place...maybe even as nice as Lando Mines.  So, I asked dad..."What's she doing there?".  And this time he spoke easier.  He said "Shes doing everything she loves best son."  I knew he believed what he said, and also knew he didn't want me to ask any more questions.  So, I gave him a hug around his neck, and he hugged me back and then put me on the back porch and patted me on the head.  He disappeared around the house to put the shovel back in the shed, and we never talked about Missy again for a very long time.  However, I put the whole memory into that "mystery unsolved" storage box kids keep in their brain.

After I saw the movie "Old Yeller" I finally put two and two together, and realized that Missy had gotten rabies.  All the memories of the week, and that awful Sunday came flooding back, and I cried hard.  I finally understood just what my dad had done that day, and why he cried too.  Dad was faced with an awful situation, and he could have made a lot of different choices.  He did what he did out of love for us and for Missy too.

So, dad...this one is for you.  For all the times you did the hard things, but right things in your life...I thank you with all my heart.  I don't know if I believe in heaven, but I do know you are in a much better place.  I sure do miss you dad, and love you too.  Here's to you and Missy doing everything you love best wherever you are.

Lesson Learned:  The measure of a good person is having the sense to know what's right, and the strength and courage to do it....even when it can be the hardest thing in the world.

Feuds and Fishing

I've talked a bit about our house in East Kermit before, and there were several events there that stuck in my mind.  The houses were brick, and all identical to each other.  We had the first house in the row of four, and our next door neighbors were the Web family.  They had two boys, but they were both a bunch older than all of us. The youngest of the two was Butch, and he had one brown eye and one yellow eye.  The yellow eye was almost identical in color to the eyes of their pet cat.

We moved to East Kermit from Lando Mines when I was still three - almost four, and my sister Margaret was born.  The house at Lando wasn't big enough for us all any more.  Me and Ed shared one bedroom, and Ingrid and Margaret another.  We had a huge garden out back, plus a chicken coop with about 10 hens and one rooster.  I loved gathering the eggs from the nests everyday...sometimes they were still warm from the hens sitting on them.  The coop had an nice earthy, straw smell that I can still remember today.

Down the hill from our house was the Tug river.  Actually it was officially the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, which was way too many words.  On the other side of the river was Kentucky.  The river was kind of famous in those parts because it separated the Hatfields from the McCoys...the families that had one of the most notorious family feuds in US history.  Our family was on the side of the Hatfields, and our great uncle Willis Hatfield was the last surviving person from the feud.  He'd been a boy of six when his dad, Devil Anse Hatfield had led his family in the shooting war with the McCoys.  You can see Willis in the picture below...he's standing on the far right, with a .45 revolver in his hand and his dad Devil Anse is to the left with the rifle.   He loved to tell us stories about the feud, and as he got older, the stories got wilder and wilder.  When he was in his 80s, National Geographic featured him in a story about the famous feud.  The feud began in 1863 and ended in 1891.

The Hatfield Family

Sometimes when I'd go down by the river, I'd pretend I was shooting at McCoys on the other side.  In reality, at least one McCoy had actually been killed there on the banks of the Tug.  I was only allowed to go down to river with my dad, and that wasn't very often.  Usually we'd fish and talk quietly, catching the occasional catfish or two.  Catfish don't have scales like other fish, and my dad showed me how to skin them.  We would make a cut in a circle all the way around the base of the head and then use pliers to pull the skin off.  You had to be very careful of the sharp barbells that stuck out of their face like whiskers.  I got stuck once, and it stung like a bee, and took a long time to heal.

I loved fishing there, and just never got to go often enough.  So, I decided to solve that problem.  Me and Ed's bedroom had a window that opened to the rear of the house.  I made a plan to sneak out after bedtime and go fishing on my own.  I figured that now that I was four, I was all grown up and could do my own fishing.  So, I put all my fishing gear at the base of the window outside one evening, and then went back in the house.  We all went to bed soon after it got dark, and I just acted like usual that evening.  When Ed was sound asleep, I got up and went to the window.  It slid up easily, and I swung my leg up on the sill, and pulled myself up.  Next I held on the sill with both hands, and hung down as far as I could outside the house.  My feet didn't reach the ground, and I got scared that maybe I'd have to fall a long way.

It was too late to change my mind, because I wasn't able to pull myself back up....so I finally just let go.  I didn't think things through very well, and I landed on top of all my fishing gear, making quite a racket.  I held my breath, and waited for someone to come running out of the house...but nothing happened.  I got up, and dusted myself off.  Now another poor bit of planning became evident...it was so dark I could barely see.  I felt around on the ground, found my pole, and then the little tackle box that dad had given me.  Picking up both, I started moving slowly down the way toward the river.

As some point the clouds parted and some moonlight came through, making navigating the path a whole lot easier.  When I got to the muddy bank, I was feeling the excitement of the night air, and the anticipation of maybe catching my first fish on my own.  I baited up and threw my line out into the slow current.  Then I squatted down to wait.  No bites for a long time, so I reeled in and saw my bait was gone.  So, I repeated the cycle, and this time dragged up a piece of drift wood to sit on.  I had just sat down when I got a nice bite, and I yanked the rod hard.  I had a fish on!  I got really excited and started laughing as I reeled that fish in.  It was a small carp...not a fish you could eat, but it was the very first fish I had ever caught alone.  I shook it off the hook, and started to bait up again.

I heard the rain coming before I felt it.  It was blowing in up the river towards me...not a downpour, but raining plenty hard enough to get me wet.  I decided that it was time to head for home, and picked up everything and started up the bank.  With the fresh rain, it was slick and I fell - smearing mud all over my hands and pants.  Ugh!  I wiped my hands on the grass and got going again.  As the rain came down even harder, I picked up my pace to almost a run.  With the clouds back over the moon, I couldn't see much, but knew the way by memory.

As I got near the house I slowed down, and looked.  No lights on, and dead silence.  I walked over to the open window, and my heart dropped into my stomach.  I looked way up at the window sill, and realized that there was no way in the world that I could climb back up there.  I looked around for something to drag over and climb up on, and saw an old bucket.  I turned it over, and stepped on top of it.  I could just barely reach the window's edge with both hands.  I jumped up a bit, and grabbed on hard.  I tried to pull myself up, and used my feet against the wall to help.  But they were slick with mud, and kept sliding off.  I finally got tired and let go - dropping back to the ground.

Now I knew I was in real trouble.  It was still raining, and my warm, safe bed was a world away from me.  I thought about going to my mom and dad's window and yelling for help, but knew that would lead to even more trouble if I got caught outside alone.  So, I walked to the back porch and sat down with my head in my hands to think.  Nothing brilliant came to me, so eventually I got up and tried the handle on the back door.  To my surprise the handle turned and the door opened.  I was saved!  I stepped into the kitchen quietly, and paused to listen.  Not a sound from anywhere.  I sneaked down the hall, opened the door to my room, and slipped inside.  I'd never been so happy to be in my room in my life.  I pulled off the wet clothes and shoes, and climbed into bed.  It was only a matter of seconds before I fell into a deep sleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I looked down at the muddy mess of clothes and shoes on the floor, and tried to think of what to do.  I scrambled out of bed, and scooped them up and put them in the clothes hamper.  That would have to do for now.  I got back in bed, and waited until I heard my mom up and moving around in the kitchen.  Then I got up again and rubbing my sleepy eyes walked out of the room.  I was trying hard to look innocent and calm, but when I got to the kitchen my mom had both hands on her hips and was giving me "the look".  You know that look that only mom's have when their eyes are like x-ray machines, and they can look directly into you heart and mind, and see every little thing you've ever done wrong.

Mom started tapping her foot, and said "Henry?  Is there something you'd like to tell me?".  I thought hard about what to say, and tried to figure out if my mom knew about my midnight fishing trip, or was it something else.  I for sure didn't want to start explaining how I sneaked out, if that wasn't what she was wound up about.  When I didn't say anything right away, she pointed with the spatula in her hand at the floor.  There on the floor, clear as could be, were a set of muddy footprints coming in from the back door.  I knew it was useless to pretend ignorance, and said I'm sorry mom.  She looked at me closely, and asked "When did you go outside?"  I gulped and didn't say anything.  She asked me the same thing again a little louder.  I was really scared by now, and so stammered a bit, and then told my mom "Last night".  She looked surprised at first, and then narrowed her eyes, and said "Ok...tell me everything".

So, I did.  The whole story from beginning to end.  At first, she seemed to doubt what I was saying, and so took me outside to look at my window, and the side of the house had a bunch of mud smeared under the window, and the bucket lay there on it's side.  Mom's face got pale as she realized that I really had sneaked out and gone down to the river in the middle of the night all alone.  She said I could have drowned, and as she talked her face went from pale to red.  Now her voice got loud, and she "You know better than do a fool thing like that!  You could have drowned, and we'd have never known what happened to you!".

She was still holding the spatula in her right hand, and now she grabbed me with her left hand, and I knew I was going to get spanked with the "egg turner".  My mom would always say "Do I have to get my egg turner?" when we were getting rowdy...and we'd all settle down right away.  But she'd never actually used it on us before.  I knew I deserved what was coming, but wasn't going to go down easy.  As she pulled it back to whack my bum, I ran forward.  Her swing missed me, and so I kept running.  I was running in a circle around and around her as she kept swinging and kept missing me.  At first she was mad, but the whole thing was so darn silly, that her anger turned to laughter.  She stopped trying to hit me, and just let my arm go.  She stood there laughing a little more, and then got tears in her eyes.  She bent down and pulled me to her, and held me really tight.  She was crying now, and so was I.  She said "Please don't ever do anything like that again....you scared me so much.".  I think I finally understood just how much of a risk I had taken, and how lucky I was that nothing bad had happened.  I felt so bad that I'd made my mom cry.  So, I hugged her back as hard as I could and promised that I'd never do it again.

Lessons Learned:  If you are going to do something stupid and dangerous, then at least plan ahead well.  There really is no place like home, and a loving hug from mom.

Wheaties and Injustice

When I was about 18 months old, I had two favorite foods.  Coal, which was strictly forbidden, and Wheaties.  Later on in life I also came to love peanut and jelly sandwiches, and Bit O Honey candy bars.  But at that age, Wheaties were at the top of the food chain for me.  It wasn't because they were "The Breakfast of Champions"...I couldn't read and we didn't get our first television until 2 years later.  I just loved the taste, and the crunch when I ate them.

Like most kids, I never knew I was hungry until about 10 minutes after it happened.  So, I'd play for hours, and then suddenly be struck by overpowering hunger pangs.  I couldn't talk much, but was very mobile and played hard in our yard.

One day the usual happened...I got run over the hungry truck, and went in search of mom to feed me.  Mom stayed really busy with two kids...doing laundry, cooking, cleaning and such.  But she also loved to just sit with our neighbor Mrs. Bentley from up the street.  They'd smoke and drink coffee and talk and talk.  I had no idea what they found so interesting in all those words, but I did know that mom did not like to be interrupted when she and Mrs. Bentley was visiting.  But, I really had the hunger pangs, and I knew that I just had to have a bowl of Wheaties to make the world right again.

I went up to where mom was sitting at the kitchen table, and pulled her dress.  That was my usual way to get her attention, and of course she towered over me like a giant.  She looked down at me and said "Not now honey."  I thought about waiting, and dismissed that idea, so I yanked on her dress harder this time, and did my best to say Wheaties or Eaties or something close to it.  Mom stopped in mid-sentence, and looked down at me again.  She said "I told you....not now honey".   I was a loss for what to do now.  I considered pulling Mrs. Bentley's dress too, but wasn't sure if that would work.  I liked her well enough, but she was not familiar with my lingo or dietary needs.

I toddled off into the living room for a bit, and hoped the hunger would subside...but it was getting worse and worse.  So, knowing my mom would not be happy about it, I headed for the kitchen again.  I yanked my mom's dress yet again...and this time she got a bit angry.  "What is that you want, that you can't wait just a little bit for?"...in a frustrated tone.  I felt the tears coming to my eyes, and I mumbled again my need for "eaties".  This time my mom actually listened.  She put down her cup of coffee, and her cigarette and got up from the table.  She said "I guess he won't leave us alone until he gets what he wants." and then sighed.

She picked me up and put me in my highchair.  It was the same one that Ingrid had used, and was pretty beat up already.  She pulled the tray over my head, and went about getting my cereal.  I could hardly wait, and my stomach started rumbling in anticipation of getting fed.  Mom first put a bowl and spoon down in front of me, setting it down maybe a bit hard since she was a bit put out that I wouldn't leave her alone.  Next she went to the kitchen cabinet, took out the box of Wheaties, and poured some in my bowl.  Last of all, she got the glass bottle of milk out of the Frigidaire (that's what they called all refrigerators in those days - no matter who made them), and splashed some in my bowl.  Then she put the milk away, and rejoined Mrs. Bentley at the table.

I took a big breath, and stuck my spoon in the Wheaties.  To be honest I wasn't much good with a spoon, but knew better than to use my hands to fish out the flakes.  For one thing it made mom mad, and for another I liked to get both flakes and milk in the spoon and then in my mouth at the same time...it just tasted better.  As I stirred the cereal though, something surprising happened.  Little red dots started popping up on the surface.  Hmmmm? Looking closer, I could see that they weren't just dots, they were alive and wiggling like crazy.

I continued my puzzled inspection of my meal, and finally realized that I'd seen these red things before - outside in the yard and on the sidewalk.  I didn't know what they were called, but I was pretty sure that they had no right being in my Wheaties, and that they were not on my list of approved foods or spices.  Of course they were ants, but I wouldn't learn their name for quite awhile.

I looked down at the bowl one last time to be sure, and decided that I was not going to be able to eat the cereal in that condition.  So, I raised my gaze to my mom as she was sitting and talking.  She was totally focused on her friend, so I banged my spoon down on the tray.  No response.  I banged it again, still with no response.  So, the next time I pounded it pretty hard for three or four times.  This time it worked, and my looked up at me startled at my behavior.  I had never done that before.  She said "What are you doing?".  I made a sad face and tried to say something.  Mom said..."Settle down and eat your Wheaties"...but I shook my head and said "No".

I was trying my best to figure out to explain to mom about the little critters who were drowning in my bowl, but when I said "No" her eyes flashed with anger.  She told me again to eat and be quiet, and I tried and failed to say something other than "No" again.  This time she really got cranked, and stood up quickly.  She walked over to my chair and snatched away the bowl of cereal...and then dumped it into the sink in one quick movement.  She turned back to me, and lifted the tray, took the spoon away from me, and set me down on the floor.  She bent over and gave me a firm pat on the rear and said "Henry Queen Junior you get yourself out of here and go play.  And you won't get a thing to eat from me until dinner time now.".  Then she turned back to Mrs. Bentley saying something about how we just about drove her crazy sometimes.

I got tears again...but only from frustration.  I knew I did the right thing by not eating the little ants, but just could not explain my contrary behavior to mom.  Mom waved the back of her hand at me again to shoo me out of the kitchen.  So, I walked out slowly and went outside.  I cried a little, and then just squatted down on the sidewalk.  There were those little things moving happily along, without a clue that some of their kin had pretty much ruined my day.

I was thinking about what happened, and knew that the outcome just wasn't right.  I learned a new feeling that day, but not the word that went with it.  Years later when I came across the word "injustice" in school, I really understood it when our teacher explained it to us.  And my mind went back to that day in Lando when I first experienced injustice in this world.

Lesson Learned:  Always try to do the right thing, but accept that things don't always work out the way you'd hope.

Walking Tall

This is a story about my brother Ed.  He was the third child in our family, and was born while we were living in Lando Mines.

When he was born, Ingrid was a little more than two, and I was about 15 months old.  Ingrid and I both learned to walk when we were nine months old....long before our brains were ready for such a risky skill.  I'm sure we kept our mom constantly busy trying to keep an eye on us, and keep us out of danger.

Ed was different.  He was quieter, and more patient than either of us.  His curious eyes often just studied those around him, and you could tell he was thinking deep thoughts and reflecting on life - even at a very early age.  He was different too in that he wasn't walking yet when he hit nine months old.  That was no big deal, but when he still wasn't walking at 12 months, mom became a little concerned.  But not enough worried yet to seek out help.

He continued to show little interest in walking, and as he approached 18 months without a step, mom got increasingly worried.  She finally took him into the doctor to find out what was wrong with him.  The doctor talked to mom, and about what she did at home.  With two small kids already running all over, she said that she spent the day chasing after us and doing her chores.  When the doctor asked what she did with Ed, she said she carried him everywhere on her hip.

Well....the doctor said...how do you expect him to learn to walk when he's almost never on the floor where he can learn?  Mom admitted that maybe she was contributing to his delayed development, and committed to putting him down a lot more.  So she did.  The only problem was that since Ed was used to getting carried everywhere, he got bored and started fussing and crying to be picked up again.  Mom was inventive if nothing else and so she wracked her brain to find a way to keep Ed both on the floor, out of trouble, and happy too.

Her solution was actually kind of crazy, especially considering that Ed was just a baby.  Somehow mom stumbled across the best distraction she could invent for Ed.  She'd put him down on the front porch, start a nail into the floor boards, and then give Ed the hammer.  Small as he was, he was still strong and coordinated for his age.   With the nail sticking up between his splayed legs, he'd stare hard at the nail, then slowly and methodically lift the hammer and "bang!" drive it a little further into the floor.  It would take him forever, but eventually he'd drive the nail completely flush with the boards.  Then he'd look around to see who had witnessed his triumph and start fussing for another fresh nail to pound on. I remember dad saying that some day Ed would work in construction.

He did this day after day, week after week, and soon that area of the porch was carpeted by shiny nail heads.  Remember that we lived in cheap, rental house and so there wasn't much you could do to damage it.  So, Ed enjoyed himself very much.  Maybe too much, because he was perfectly happy to sit there for hours pounding away.  Totally satisfied, he lost his desire to even try and move, and so continued to show no interest or skill in walking, or even crawling.

That all changed in one day.  It was pretty much like every other day, with me and Ingrid running here and there, playing our imagination games.  Ed was parked in his usual spot, slowly and methodically driving yet another nail into the porch.  Mom was sitting on the far end of the porch, taking a smoke break and gazing out at the trees.

There were a lot of dogs in our neighborhood, and we even got one of our own later.  But by and large they didn't get in our yard because we had a fence and a gate our front.  The gate must have been left open that day though, because a large black friendly dog who conveniently went by the name of Blackie wandered into the front yard.  He sniffed his way around, and raised his leg periodically to claim his new territory.  He was drawn to the porch by the periodic bangs of Ed driving nails.  As he started up the steps, Ed saw him coming.

Ed was no stranger to dogs, but Blackie was three times the size of Ed...and from Ed's seated perspective, towered over him.  Over the next few seconds a remarkable event transpired.  Ed's eyes got really big, and he dropped the hammer with a clatter.  He put his hands down together in between his legs, and pushed down hard swinging his feet underneath him.  He took another look at the approaching Blackie, and then down the long porch at mom.  He made his decision, turned to his left and ran the entire length of the porch at high speed - no stumbles, no wobbles - just pure life saving speed.

Mom had turned to look when Ed dropped the hammer, and her jaw dropped when she saw him sprinting to her.  She reached down and scooped him into her lap, and laughed out loud.  Blackie lost interest at that point and trotted down the steps and back out through the gate.

So...Ed bypassed all the usual parts of learning to scoot, crawl, stand, totter, walk and then run.  He'd watched everyone else do it for a long time, but never really felt the need to do it himself before.  But now that he'd done it, he never went back.  From that day on, he walked or ran everywhere he wanted to go.  But he still loved pounding nails, and continued decorating the porch with his handy work until we moved a couple of years later.

Lesson Learned:  Never underestimate the power of motivation to motivate, or my brother Ed when he decides to do something.

Lando Mines

I've talked in my posts about Lando Mines, and it might help to share a bit more about the place. I was born in a bigger town about 80 miles away called Williamson, and we lived in Lando Mines until I was about four and them moved on to East Kermit (see the Bit O Honey story).

In the those days, mining companies provided housing for the miners and their families.  They'd build a small town, along with a company store, and they'd name it after their company.  When the deep mine they were working would run out, they would bulldoze all the houses down, burn the rubble, and them rebuild the town at the next mine location.  So, there was more than one Lando Mines town location, and the one I grew up in doesn't exist anymore.  All that's left is a bridge across Pigeon Creek and a road to nowhere.

The houses were crude and unpainted.  The yards were packed dirt, some were fenced with wire fencing, and all of them faced onto roads paved with crushed coal.  Some of the houses had indoor plumbing ($25/month), and others ($15/month) just used outhouses.  If you're not familiar with outhouses...they are just a little shack with a swinging door, set down over a big, deep hole in the ground.  They're cold in the winter, and smelly and fly infested in warmer weather.  All the houses were heated by fireplaces that burned coal.  So, they all had quite a pile of coal outside to use as fuel.  The coal burned with an acrid smoke, and a pungent sulfur smell.  I thought it was amazing that black rocks could burn, and can still see the red glow of the coal in my mind.  With coal on the roads, and burning in the houses, the air was always dusty and smelled bad.

The mining companies printed their own money and made their own coins too, and they called it "script".  My dad and grandfather were paid half in cash and half in script.  Script wasn't worth as much as regular money because you could only spend it at the company store and the company gas station.  To get to the company store, we'd walk down to Pigeon Creek, and go across a swaying, hanging bridge to the other side.  These bridges were commonly referred to as monkey bridges, because you had to hang on like a monkey when you went across.  They were easy to get swinging pretty violently, and it made for treacherous walking - especially when other people on the bridge wanted to give you a scare.  The federal government finally stopped the companies from printing script, when the federal courts ruled it was minting money, and only the government has the right to do that.

The company store wasn't much to look at, but to me as a kid was a wonderland filled with all kinds of things to admire and long after.  The floors were the same as in the houses, oiled unfinished wood and sawdust.  This kept the dust down I guess.  They had glass displays of all kinds of goods, and high shelves on the other side also filled with canned food and dry goods.  They even had some racks of hanging clothes and some shoes...but these tended towards working gear.  If you wanted to buy anything, you had to ask a clerk to help you.  They would take it out of the display case, or off the high shelves and ring it up for you.  If you didn't have any money, they would put it on your bill, and some people got way behind in payments.

One thing they sold that I really liked was carbide and carbide lamps.  The miners worked in the darkness, and wore carbide lamps on their heads.  These consisted of a can with the headlamp screwed on top.  There was a headstrap on the can, and you could adjust it to fit your head or miner's helmet.  The headlamp was a polished metal reflector with a small hole in the center.  To make the lamp work, you loaded the can with fresh carbide, added some water, screwed the headlamp back onto the can top, and lit the flame at the reflector hole.  Carbide resembled a soft, gray gravel...and when you got it wet it would fizz like Alka Seltzer, and release carbide gas.  It came in big cans like paint cans with a sealed lid to keep it dry.  The lamps didn't make much light, but enough to work by in the total blackout in the mines.  Besides having to reload them all the time, their biggest downside was the open flame.  Not a good thing to have in a mine when methane or natural gas leaked into the shafts, or fine coal dust accumulated in the air.  So they were the most common cause of mine explosions.

Lando Mines was a step ahead of other mining towns because they also had their own gas station.  It was called Red Head gas, and it had a big red woodpecker sign out front.  My dad was the co-owner and operator of the station, trying to make some extra money for a growing family.  He also had managed to get out of direct mining, because of his business studies - and did payroll and assaying the coal.  I think gas was about 18 cents a gallon, and you could buy it with either script or cash.  People always used script though, because it was worth less than cash except at the company store or the station.  People would sometimes trade script for money, and there was a loose exchange rate,  Three dollars of script would get you two dollars of cash.

Miners were very well paid compared to other work in the area, but they ended up having to give a lot of the money back to the mining company for rent, food and gas.  So, they often just barely got by from paycheck to paycheck.  When they'd run out of money before the next check, they'd trade something in if they could.  I remember my dad showing me a veritable armory of weapons at the gas station.  I think he had something like 50 rifles and shotguns in the back that people had traded for a tank of gas.  Sometimes they'd buy their guns back when they got paid, but often as not dad would get stuck with them.  He'd sell the ones he could, and kept a few of the better ones.  A lot of them were souvenirs from the recent war...from Japan, Italy, or Germany.  I later learned to shoot one of the rifles to help get us food...but that's another story.  Dad always used to grumble about the station, and I heard him tell mom more than once that they'd lost money that month on it.  He eventually gave up on it, and with no one else interested in taking if over, it was closed for good.

One of my favorite things was to stand out by our fence in the mornings and greet the miners as they walked down the hill going to work.  They'd say "Mornin' Henry!", and I'd lower my voice as low as possible, and growl back at them "Mornin' boys".  That made them laugh every time.  I'd do the same thing again that evening as they came home from their shift.  The crew coming home was much different than going in.  Now they were filthy black with the coal dust, and their faces were a black and smudged. Their shoulders were rounded from stooping all day, and their gait was slow and their feet dragging.  Still they'd say "Evenin' Henry", and I say "Evenin' Boys" and they'd all smile like it was the first time, with their teeth startlingly white against their black, exhausted faces.

Their work in the mines was hard and dangerous.  The coal ran in seams or layers and was sometimes only 3 feet thick.  So, they rarely had room to stand while they used their picks to break to coal loose from the face, and load it into their bushel baskets.  They put timbers in to keep the slate rock ceilings from collapsing...but sometimes that didn't work.  Depending on the company, they got paid per bushel, or by the hour.  Many of my relatives were hurt in explosions, or slate falls.

The coal was brought out of the mines in low slung, coal cars running on narrow tracks.  It was crushed, washed and then graded.  The water was mostly kept in holding ponds, but sometimes ran back into Pigeon Creek, and it was often totally black.  Big steam engines that also burned coal would load up their cars at the mine steeple, and then haul it away several times a day.  Coal was selling for about $2 a ton in those days, depending on the quality of the coal.  The quality was determined by doing an assay on samples to measure how much rock content vs pure coal there was in that day's mining.  The higher the rock content, the lower the price...and when it got too much rock in it, they would declare that the mine had run out, and they'd close the mine and move on.

Mining was a very hard life, and most would say that Lando Mines was not a very nice place - but I loved it there, and saw only beauty in the hills, trees, and in the hearts of the people who worked their lives away there.

Monkey business

My older sister, Ingrid, is a real angel.  I can't begin to tell you how many times she has saved my bacon over the years.  We are not quite a year apart in age...so we are the same age for 14 days each year.  Some people call that "Irish Twins".  Ingrid and I think that's pretty cool, but I know that my mom sure wasn't very happy about it.  My mom spent a lot of time pregnant.  She had six kids in seven years, which ought to earn her several halos in heaven.  There are three boys, and three girls in our family...and despite our now advanced ages - I still refer to us as boys and girls.

                                      Hank at 18 months - Ingrid at 2 1/2 years
                                        Sitting on the front stoop at Lando Mines

Ingrid was always so loving and caring for all of us, but we two share a special bond.  Perhaps it's because we were the first two, and so had only each other to play with, and to be best friends with for awhile.  Regardless of the reason, there was nobody I looked up to like Ingrid.  I believed everything she told me, and knew that she always had my best interests at heart.  So, that made my little episode with her monkey all the more painful for me, and even now I cringe when I think about it.

My dad was going to a business school in Roanoke, Virginia part time, and so was gone a fair bit of the time.  He was trying to get his two year degree, so that he could get a job outside of the mining industry.  He didn't want to end up like my grandfather, who also worked at Lando Mines, and who also eventually died of black lung.

Dad came home one Saturday with a very special surprise for Ingrid's fourth birthday present.  He showed it to me while Ingrid was out, and I was totally fascinated.  It was a toy wind-up monkey that played a drum and cymbal set.  I'd never even imagined something as wonderful as that monkey.  He'd played his instruments like a total maniac, and made a lot of noise in the process.  I knew Ingrid would love it too.  After showing it to me, dad put it into the bottom drawer of the hutch...and cautioned me to keep the secret.  I promised I would.

All the rest of the day, my mind kept going back to that monkey.  I could see him clearly - his red velvet uniform, embellished with gold trim; his little red fez hat with a gold braid on top.  When he played the gold braid whipped to and fro, and added to the frenzied appeal of the toy.

I realized at one point that I was alone in the house, and I felt compelled to take just one more look at that monkey.  I pulled open the drawer, and eased him out.  I didn't dare turn him on because of the noise, so I just turned him around and inspected him from every angle.  How did he work?  I couldn't see anything obvious.  I knew that winding the key was important, but how did he move, and hit the drums?

I decided that if I could peek under his jacket maybe I'd see something important.  So, I pulled on the lapels, and they didn't budge.  I pulled harder and the jacket started to peel off slowly.  Underneath the monkey's jacket was shiny metal.  Hmmm.....maybe if I pulled some more away I could understand better.  After all, I'd just put it all back the way it was when I was done.

I continued the process of peeling the poor monkey until everything except his hat was gone...jacket, pants, and fur - all in a pile at my feet.  All I could see now was a metal monkey, with obvious joints in various places...but still no clue as to how it worked.  I sighed, and considered my next step.  But just then I heard voices outside, and knew my time was up.  I picked up the little jacket and tried to put it back on.  It went on sort of, but didn't stick to the metal like it did before.  It had gotten all stretched out of shape as I peeled it off, and so it just hung there in a very ill fitting way.  I got the same result with the fur and other clothes.

I was getting desperate now, and my hands were beginning to shake.  It finally came clear to me that I had permanently made a mess out of the monkey, and that it was obvious to the most casual observer that he had been totally trashed.  I felt terrible, and didn't know what to do.  Now the voices outside sounded closer, and my mom and dad were coming up the stairs on the porch.  I scooped up all the pieces and looked around in panic.  I kicked the drawer shut, and rushed over the fireplace.  We heated our house with coal, but there was no fire in it at the moment, only a deep bed of ashes.  I plunged the monkey and his clothes and fur parts deep into the ashes.

When they all came inside, I just knew I would be found out...and I did get some strange looks from my mom.  But she didn't ask me anything, and I stayed out of her way as best I could.  I spent the rest of that day, and evening in suppressed terror.  I couldn't stop thinking about what I had done, and then how I'd made it even worse by hiding my ill deed.  I thought many times about just telling mom or dad, but couldn't bring myself to do it.

When bed time finally came, I was exhausted with worry...but sleep didn't come easy.  I finally drifted away with images of an angry metal monkey playing over and over in my mind.  The next morning, the memories of the day before filled my mind as soon as I awoke.  I was hoping by some miracle that I had just dreamed the whole thing up, but of course I had not.

It was Ingrid's birthday and she was so excited.  She could hardly wait to open her presents, and so my dad went to get the monkey out of the drawer and give it to her.  He opened the drawer, and stood there stunned to find that it was missing.  He looked at my mom, and she shook her head silently side to side...she hadn't moved it.  Then they both turned to look at me at the same time.  I felt like the end of the world was upon me, and my eyes darted from one to the other...again in panic, but then I was filled with the conviction that I was the most awful person who had ever lived.  The enormity of what I done to Ingrid, who was my best friend in the whole world, struck me in the heart.  I couldn't bear it anymore, and started crying like an air raid siren.  I literally wailed, and shook, and gasped for air...while tears flooded down.  I've never felt so miserable in all my life.

Mom and dad came and stood over me...just staring down at my display.  Dad finally asked me in a harsh voice "What have you done son?".  I couldn't talk, and still sobbing I pointed at the fireplace...and moved in that direction.  Dad looked there and then back at me in disbelief.  What???  He went to the ashes and raked his fingers through them - immediately finding the poor monkey.  He shook it off and blew away some of the ash, and then looked at me again.  He didn't have to say a word...his look of disappointment was totally devastating, and I cried even harder to know that I'd let him down so badly.

I finally had the courage to look at Ingrid, and she was puzzled by all that was going on.  Dad told her that he'd gotten her the monkey as a special present, and then said "Now look at it....it's ruined."   Ingrid took it slowly, and looked at it, and then at me.  It's hard to describe her expression, but she didn't look mad or even angry.  Still just puzzled.  Dad then showed her how the monkey could play, and at least that part still worked.  Ingrid laughed as she watched it.  Then she looked at me again, and I could see the forgiveness in her eyes.  Now I really cried!  Ingrid never said a single bad or angry thing to me about it, and just carried on like having a naked, metal monkey was absolutely the best thing she could have hoped for.

Now that is what I mean about Ingrid when I say she was an angel to me.  Of course I still got punished, but I actually looked forward to it in an odd way...hoping to repay my sins sort of.  But I couldn't help but feel the joy in my heart to know that my best friend was still my best friend, and I swore I'd never, ever let her down again.  I can't say that I haven't let her down, but I can say that I've never forgotten what she did for me that day and always done my best to keep my promise, and still do.

Lessons learned:  I understand the true meaning and danger of monkeying around with stuff that doesn't belong to me.  The love of my big sister knows no bounds.

Bit O Honey Buffet

When I was living in East Kermit, my dad did an amazing thing.  Of course he did lot's of things, some great, some strange, and a few amazing.  He had a thing for never throwing anything away.  Even stranger, he had problems with other people throwing away "perfectly good" things.  I can remember many times when we'd be driving somewhere, and he'd see something lying in, or beside the road.  He'd slam on the brakes, and bingo - we'd suddenly have another rusty screwdriver, or dead motor, or broken knife.  We ran out of room for all this stuff later on, and built a separate shed just to store it in.  We called it The Building.

Anyway, he came home one day when I was between three and four, carrying a big cardboard box of Bit O Honey candy bars.  (I couldn't read then, but I asked what they were).  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, because there was nothing in the world I loved better than one of those candy bars.  Chewy, but nutty...the nectar of the Gods!  However, my dad warned me that these were not to eat.  My mom said - What in the Sam Hill are you talking about?

Turns out that dad had stopped at the little store on the corner, and saw the box piled up with the trash.  He'd taken it back into the store where they told him they'd thrown it out because it was infested with maggots.  Any normal person would have made a disgusting face, and dropped it...but not my dad.  He just couldn't stand throwing them away, and so had brought them home.  When my mom asked why, he said - I don't know..just seemed like a terrible waste.  So, she said get them out of the house and he took them out to our garage.

I'm still not sure what he thought he'd do with them, but I knew exactly what I was going to do.  I didn't know what a maggot was, but surely it wasn't anything that could keep me from getting my teeth into a Bit O Honey.  So, the next morning after dad left for work, I quietly sneaked into the garage in search of the box.  It wasn't hard to find, and it wasn't long until I opened it like a pirate's treasure chest.  My eyes were as big as dinner plates as I looked upon 40 or 50 of those amazing treats!

I picked one up, and tore it open quickly.  As I popped the first piece out of the waxed wrapping paper, something caught my eye.  The candy was wriggling in my hand, or at least some of it was.  I looked closer, and got my first close up view of a maggot.  They didn't look too appetizing I'll admit, but not very dangerous either.  I flicked one with my finger, and it didn't bite or do much of anything but wriggle some more.

So, I just flicked off all the maggots I could see and chowed down.  Mmmm...incredible and wonderful to be sure.  I ate the whole bar the same way, and left a scattered pile of squirming maggots on the floor.  I did have enough sense to put the box back where I found it, and hide the wrapping paper.

Every day I went to garage, and engaged in the same ritual.  Some bars actually had no maggots, and others quite a herd.  But I ate them one by one, at least one a day.  I was living large.

It never occurred to me that I'd get caught.  My mom noticed right away that I had almost no appetite at meal times.  I remember her putting her palm on my forehead to see if I had a fever, and then just shaking her head.  She asked me if I was ok, and of course I was - I was getting to eat my favorite food on earth every single day.  As the week went by, she got more and more worried about me not eating.

The end came quickly.  One day I went to the garage as usual, and was getting pretty lax on being secretive.  I pulled the box out, and opened the lid...all set to savor yet another treasure.  I pulled out a bar, and unwrapped it, but dropped it when my mom started screaming.  She was yelling things like  - disgusting, and sickening, and also saying some unpleasant things about dad.  She took the bar, and the box, and put them into the metal trash can and slammed down the lid.  I knew my dad was in for it when he got home.

When he did get home, it was one of the rare times when there was actual yelling in our house...all from my mom.  She kept asking my dad was he crazy, and what did he think he was going to do with those maggot infested bars?  Of course, he didn't have much to say.  I just looked at him, and he looked at me.  We both had sad, hound dog eyes, but for very different reasons.

And so ended my Bit O Honey buffet.  I still eat one now and again, but somehow they just don't taste quite the same as that special batch from the East Kermit quick stop grocery.

Lesson Learned:   Don't let a little obstacle, keep you from a big reward.

Coal can be good for the soul

It was just a normal day in Lando Mines.  I was three years old and out in the yard, which had no grass...just hard pan dirt.  Made it easy to mow I guess.  I often was out there since I loved being outdoors in the sun whenever I could.  I was on a mission, or more like a hunt.  I had a condition known as Rickets.  It's just a vitamin D deficiency, but caused soft bones in kids like me.  Somehow my little brain knew I was missing something in my diet, and I made a very bad assumption that eating coal was the magic cure.

Not just any coal mind you, but only some very particular coal.  I learned from experience the difference between bituminous coal and anthracite coal.  Bituminous coal is an ideal snack food.  Soft enough to have a nice crunch to it, but not so soft that it would smear and leave a telltale trace on your fingers or lips.  And it is essentially a zero fat, zero calorie snack - but very filling.  Anthracite is a very different story.  It was hard, and shiny and nearly impossible to break up by chewing.  It was mostly only good for serving as a poor imitation for a jaw breaker, or for throwing at birds.

So, I ate soft coal whenever I could find it.  My mom was not a big fan of that habit, and I'd get in trouble whenever she caught me doing it, but I felt compelled to eat it.  I got really good at casually sneaking up on a small piece of coal on the ground, taking a good look around to be sure that I wasn't being watched, and then quickly popping it into my mouth.  I'd savor it for a moment, and then set to work grinding it into a black slurry that I could swallow.

I didn't understand Mother Nature's Law of Inedibles back then.  When something inedible goes in, it must back come out - eventually. Coal doesn't digest well.  In fact, it seemed to transform into some kind of black concrete as it wove it's merry way through my stomach and intestines.  The end product strongly resembled charcoal briquettes.  You can imagine how difficult it would be to pass that...you get the general idea? So, I was one of the most constipated creatures on mother earth. 

My mom's idea of potty training was a bit off the norm.  She spread newspapers on the back porch, and when I needed to go, that's where I'd go.  Me and my dog were very familiar with that place.  Actually, it worked pretty well until winter time, and then I got very motivated to figure out the whole bathroom thing.

So, whenever the urge hit me, I'd go to back porch and wait for what seemed an eternity for something to happen.  As I whiled away the time waiting for my own little coal mine to finish it's business, I would look at the newspapers.  At first I would just look at the pictures, but then I started to notice all the squiggly stuff that surrounded the pictures.  Since my mom was a teacher, she showed me a couple of words like "the" and "a", so I'd spend my time trying to find them on the papers as I squatted there.  The more words I learned, the more I wanted to know, and so my interest in reading was born.  I'm not saying I wouldn't have been an avid reader anyway, but for sure eating coal got me interested at a very early age.

Lessons learned:  You are what you eat, especially when you can't get it out no matter how hard you try.  Sometimes good habits are born out of bad ones.