Take Me Out To The Ball Game

My Dad loved sports. College Football, Major League Baseball (the St. Louis Cardinals) and basketball... especially basketball. My fondest and most enduring memories are of him sitting in his recliner, a portable radio* in his lap, listening to the games. Occasionally, he would have to shift the antenna and adjust the tuning dial to pick up the AM stations that were broadcasting the games, KMOX St. Louis, "3 DoubleU E" (WWWE) Cleveland, WBAP Fort Worth-Dallas and the lowly KWPM West Plains, Missouri.

Every now and again, Dad would get a "hankering" to see an in-person sports game. Now, we didn't travel to a Cardinals game or to Columbia to see the "Mizzou Tigers" and certainly not to Kansas City to take in a Chief's game. Most of our "in person" attendance to sporting events were sitting in the truck, on the street outside of the West Plains "American Legion Baseball Field", watching the "Zizzers" in action! (There was usually a bottle of Pepsi involved and the occasional bag of peanuts to insert in said bottle of Pepsi!)

But there were those nights when Dad went all out. He'd say "Let's go down to the Central Gym and watch the city league games.

West Plains had (and I guess still does) city league basketball teams. These teams were made up of local men who had passed the High School age but still felt they had enough steam to be competitive on the hardwood court. The team was usually sponsored by a local business and consisted of six to seven members to allow some sort of rotation.

The games were played in the old Central School Gymnasium, which at one time was the West Plains High School Gym 

Looking at the picture above, it seems that by the time we attended these games, the front part of the gymnasium had been removed and the front was the tall, arched portion.

The games were, for the most part, a civil rivalry but there were those times when tempers would flair and contestants had to be separated. The referees were hometown guys and did the best they could to keep the game from becoming a free-for-all. Although this has been almost fifty years ago, I can remember a couple of the players for sure and some "maybes". Tim Cherry and "Big" Mike Forbes are two that really stick out in my mind. Perhaps the readers of this blog can help me with the "maybes"!

Overwhelmingly though, the best part of all of these outings was just spending time with my old Dad. We didn't have any deep personal talks, we didn't discuss the problems of the world; We just sat on the old wooden bleachers, occasionally making a comment about a play or a shot, and watching the back and forth of the game.

I have no memories of sitting with my Dad in a football stadium or basketball arena with thousands of screaming, fanatic fans. No recollections of the roar of the crowd when a homerun sailed into the outfield seats or when a player was thrown out at the plate. But I do have these pleasant, sentimental, heart-warming memories of a Father that just took time to do the little things...

*("Why the radio" you ask? We did not have a television growing up so our link to the outside world was the radio and a daily newspaper.)

Although I cannot relate entirely to the song "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", I love this rendition by Carly Simon.

Mom's Unique Shell Game

 A post on facebook, prompted this blog entry. It showed several opened plastic Country Crock butter containers, with the caption "Growing up, I never knew if I was opening the butter or leftovers"

This reminded me so much of my dear old Mother, that I just had to tell a story!

Mom was not a hoarder but she did save certain things that other people would just throw away. One of the things on this list was small plastic containers. When the food in the container was used (butter, cottage cheese, cake icing, etc. etc.) the container was washed and put in the cabinet, ready for those small portions of leftovers. Our refrigerator was usually occupied with an array of these containers, with only my mom knowing the contents of each and every one (or so I thought!). 

In the old slight of hand shell game, a pea is put under one of three walnut shells lined up on the table. The short-con operator (the swindler) then shuffles the shells, arranges them again in a row on the table and asked the mark (the one getting swindled) to choose the shell with the pea. Depending on the ability of the con man or the luck of the mark, the right shell is chosen (or not).

One cold winter day, mom had packed my lunch with something hot in my soup thermos, cornbread or crackers for the thermos contents, perhaps a banana; and a plastic cake icing container full of strawberry shortcake. With coffee from my Aladdin Thermos, I was all set for a great lunch and dessert, while warming up in the truck.

I ate all of what mom had packed, saving the container of strawberry shortcake until last; a grand finale of sorts.

When I opened the cake icing container, with my spoon poised in the air, ready to dig into the succulent, sweet, delicious dessert... I saw brown... oblong things... in a brownish gravyish stuff...

It was cold PINTO BEANS!!!

Yep! I had been duped! cheated! played! Hornswoggled! By my own Mother!! Egads!

We all had a good laugh and mom was super embarrassed; when I got home and told her and the family about the "The Brown Bean Swindle!"

We Remember... All

Memorial Day - The day traditionally set aside to mourn our American Soldiers who have fallen in the line of duty. Through the years, this remembrance has expanded to include all those who have passed away.

Every Saturday before Memorial Day, my family, my brother Ralph Riggs and his family, all meet at various cemeteries and decorate the graves of our loved ones (And there is the traditional stop at the CrossRoads Store at Crider to get a candy bar and a Sodee Pop!) We have done this for at least thirty-five years.

There is also another tradition that is observed.

In the southwest corner of Ledbetter Cemetery at Crider, Missouri, there is a little red granite gravestone. In my childhood, there was just a rough stone marking the gravesite and I was told that a black lady was buried there. Through the years, by visiting with my Mom and others, and doing some history research, I have pieced together the story.

Aunt Mime and another un-named black lady were slaves, owned by Turpin Good Scoggin, who lived in the Crider area. Evidently, Aunt Mime became unruly and to punish her, Scoggin set her free. Although this sounds like the best thing that could have happened to her, it was a severe punishment. As a freed slave in the pre-Civil War era, she had to depend on the support of neighbors in the Crider community, to give her support and shelter. There were kind-hearted people that took her in and she was a fixture in the Crider area until she died in 1921.

Although the community took her in, it seems they weren't quite ready to let her be buried among "the white folks". So her grave was relegated to a lonely corner of the Ledbetter Cemetery.

On our yearly visits, we would recount this story and one year, a new red granite stone was found marking Aunt Mime's gravesite. When she was old enough to understand, Claire, Ralph's oldest grandchild heard the stories of the former slave and her heart was touched. The next year when we went to Ledbetter,  Claire and her "Papa" placed some flowers at Aunt Mime's stone.

This tradition continued on Saturday when new flowers (and a couple of cacti) were placed by Claire and Ralph to decorate the stone. In a world that seems to be increasingly dangerous, angry and hostile, it is gestures like this that give me hope and brighten my day.

A Place Called Pucky Huddle

Back in the early 1990's, we contracted with the U.S. Forest Service to do a bevy of road surveys. These were basically compass/chain/clinometer surveys, down existing log roads, in preparation to widen/cut/fill/ditch them into public access roads. 

Some of these roads were in the Salem-Potosi district of the Mark Twain, and it was there, we ran on to the most unique store I'd ever seen.

We were about 30 miles northeast of Salem Missouri (or 30 miles southeast of Cuba - not Castro's) at a wide spot in the road called Davisville. An old store stood at the busy "downtown" area, which reminded me of the old fashioned country stores from my youth.

Pucky Huddle store as I remember it in the early 1990's 

We walked into the store, and at first glance, its appearance and smell was like the other stores I had visited. At second glance (actually a bug-eyed stare), something was definitely different.

Down the middle of the open area of the store, there were two long tables with 3"-4" "sides", setting end to end. And on those tables...

There was heaped every kind of new merchandise you can imagine. Pairs of new blue jeans, new skillets and pans, cans of pork-n-beans, corn and tomato juice, boxes of candy bars that were just ripped open and thrown up on the pile, shoes in the box, boxes of corn flakes, sacks of dog food... If you wanted a particular item, you just had to root through the pile to get what you needed! It gave a whole new meaning to the term "Rummage Sale"!!

With stunned looks on our faces, we wandered to the back of the store. And got another surprise...

There was a post office area in the back-left part of the store and a sign above it that read "Post Office - Pucky Huddle, Missouri"!

The post-mistress was a short, feisty, older lady and when we questioned her about the name, she replied "Well, it IS officially Davisville, but we can trace Pucky Huddle back farther."

I worked on a project near Davisville recently and detoured over to show my crew the Pucky Huddle store. I didn't know that the old store had burnt down in 2013. A new store has been built on the old foundation site but alas, it was no longer in business.

I found a few pictures on Facebook of the store building which show it in the different stages of its "life". (I searched for the owner(s) of these pictures to request permission to publish but was unable to locate them.)

A Very Fowl Comet

 

This is Merriam-Webster's definition of a Comet: "A celestial body that appears as a fuzzy head usually surrounding a bright nucleus, that has a usually highly eccentric orbit, that consists primarily of ice and dust and that often develops one or more long tails when near the sun."

However, if you want to hear Ray-Ray's definition, you'll hafta keep reading!

A few days ago, I decided to burn a big brush/trash pile behind our house. Over the course of a month or so, we had accumulated several large limbs, cardboard boxes, sacks of old clothes, boards and other trash.

Unbeknownst to me, we had also collected something else in the big mound of refuse...

We had several "free range" chickens that had been roaming around our property that I guess belonged to our neighbors to the west. And... it appears that one of these chickens was sitting on a nest, somewhere up in the middle of the BRUSH PILE!

I grabbed my lighter fluid and proceeded to soak three or four places around the pile, then touched it off with my trusty lighter.

For a minute or so, nothing happened except the flames went higher and higher. When the inferno reached fifteen to twenty feet in the air, something spectacular happened.

Out of the scorching, blazing, pile of fire and brimstone - A Very Fowl Comet appeared!!!

It was a flapping, squawking, smouldering, smoking white comet that came shooting out of the flames, headed for Arkansas or other parts south!!!

This was all pretty hilarious!... Until I realized that this flaming terrestrial comet was flying right into the neighbors dry hayfield!! Yikes!!!

Ole Leghorn must have burnt out before hitting the ground and I haven't seen nary a chicken around the place for a few days now!

Shawnee Creek Cottages

 

My wife Tami and I just returned from a wonderful vacation week at Shawnee Creek Cottages, east of Eminence, Missouri. I have worked in this area for many years, and always wanted to stay at one of these cabins. It was absolutely, one of the best vacation weeks we have ever spent!

Our #5 cabin was the one as far from civilization as we could get! It had a queen size bed, small kitchenette with apartment size stove and fridge, small table with fold-down leaves and a small couch. There was a smaller size television with Dish network and no WiFi. I have Verizon service and could get spotty 1g service. We had internet withdrawals but we found out, you do not have to have WWW to live!

There are five cabins on the property; three are two person and the other two cabins are larger and will sleep at least four.

Shawnee Creek ran about thirty yards from the cabin over a stretch of rocks and riffles so we left a window open at night and were lulled to sleep by its "grumbling and rumbling and tumbling"! And even the coyotes sang us a lullaby!

We were close enough to Eminence to pick up any supplies we needed and there were lots of neat sights to see, within reasonable driving distance.

If you are interested in staying at this nice getaway place, leave a comment or message me through Facebook for contact information. I don't believe they have a website or Facebook page.

Otis - A Church Dog's Tale

Otis - "The Original Church Dog"

I have been a member of the Junction Hill Pentecostal Church since before I was born. We had our first service on December 7th, 1963 and my Mom was in attendance. And on December 19th, 1963, I was born. We have been blessed with six good pastors over the course of 57 years... And two church dogs!

Otis was the first "church dog" and was owned by Pastor Mike Blue and his family. When the Blues resigned the pastorate, Otis stayed and became a part of Pastor Dwain Galiher's family. When Otis went to that "Big Rabbit Hunt in the Sky", Hank arrived to take his place. Hank reigned supreme for a few years until he also "Moved to the shady side of the barn".

Otis' pedigree was "Heinz 57" but he was primarily beagle. Otis was special and he knew it. My mother brought "doggie treats" to Otis so often, that he came to recognize her car and would meet her in the parking lot for his snacks! He lived a long and fulfilled life, but there was that one night, when his grip on life was down to a single paw...

On that particular night (actually around 2AM in the morning), I received a call from my pastor, Rev. Mike Blue. In my sleep dazed state, I heard "Brother Ray, I need some help! I think Otis has rabies!!" Well... That brought me out of my sleep and when I could coherently converse, I asked for some details. It appeared that Otis was howling as if in pain, foaming at the mouth and was snapping and biting at anyone who came near him!

Brother Mike was prepared to shoot Otis but the entire Blue family, Ladonna, Jessica and Brandon, pled for Otis' life with tears and lamentations! Brother Mike then told me, "I just can't bring myself to shoot him. Could you come and put Otis out of his misery??"

Being the hard-hearted executioner that I am, I got dressed, loaded up my trusty Remington 22 and headed out to the parsonage.

When I arrived, the whole family was on the back porch, crying and watching Otis in the throes of rabies. And it was just as Brother Mike had described and perhaps worse. Otis was foaming at the mouth, howling, moaning, snapping at himself and anyone that came near him.

However, as I looked at him, it seemed that he was snapping at one of his hind legs. When I got close enough, I could see that the coated cable that he was tied up with, had gotten tightly wound around one hind leg! It was cutting off blood circulation and causing Otis extreme pain!

I then informed the whole family that Otis didn't have rabies, but we would need to get the cable un-wound from his leg. There was great joy and rejoicing at this announcement... but the problem still remained - How in the cat hair were we going to get the cable off of Otis' leg?!?!

Well, I found some old gloves in my truck and when I had them on, proceeded to calmly talk to Otis and get near to him. I finally got close enough to pin him down and grab his muzzle with one hand and hold his body down with my knee and the other hand. Then I instructed Pastor Blue to see if he could get the cable un-wound.

Oh Wow! That was a sight to behold and a ruckus to hear! Otis went into second gear with his (muffled) howling, writhing, kicking and thrashing around!

The cable would not come off. I told Brother Mike to get some side-cutters and see if he could cut the cable. But the tempered steel strands resisted the jaws of the pliers. After we had tried and tried to remove the cable with as much ease and comfort to Otis as we thought possible, I finally said "OK, there's one final thing we can do."

It wasn't pretty...

I had Brother Mike to help me and we held Otis down, I straddled his body and then sat down on his head! I was facing the hind leg so I just told everyone to stay back and plug their ears!

I went to work on the cable and Otis went into over-drive gear!

With his mouth partly free, he began howling, moaning, snapping, whining and even screaming! He couldn't get up with my two-hundred plus pounds on him but it didn't prevent him from trying!

After I had worked on the cable for a few minutes, it came loose and the leg was free. I continued to sit on Otis and the sound reduced to whining, then whimpering and finally... Silence.

Having had some experience with dogs, I knew that when I let Otis up, he might try to attack anyone that was near. So... I instructed the entire Blue family to go back to the porch.

I carefully got up off of Otis while I held him down with my hands. Then I released him and ran like a scared squirrel!

Otis just laid there... Nothing... No sound, no whining, no tail wag, no movement at all...

"Is he dead?", was asked by the Blue family. I answered "I didn't think so" but I knew Otis might need some encouragement. I asked Pastor Blue to whistle to him.

When Otis heard the whistle, he jumped up, shook himself all over, started wagging his tail and trotted over to the family waiting on the porch!

There was great joy and rejoicing from Sister Ladonna and the children, but I will never forget Pastor Blue's parting remark...

"You know, Brother Ray, I'm gonna kill that dog!"

Hank - "The 2nd Church Dog"

This story re-told with permission from the participants and the events as recorded, are strictly from the story-tellers recollection

Special Thanks To:

Pastor Mike Blue and his family for the story

Pastor Dwain Galiher for the picture of Otis

Evangelist Davy Boggs for the picture of Hank