THE HAPPY DAYS - CHAPTER 7

  My dream was to build a tree house but first we had a lot of work to do. That summer daddy and I spent most days clearing the thick underbrush with axes and burning it in a big pile. At that time our property was surrounded by woods and I spent many hours playing in them. I was continually scrounging around new home construction sites looking for scrap wood to build my tree house. I had many new friends like Tony Matlock and others but my best friend was Frankie Marerro. He was about my age but he was a lot smaller than me. He lived two doors down in a white split level house that was built after we moved in. Frankie had a good looking older sister that I had a crush on. He also had a step-father whose name was Lester Moore. He would always quote the epitaph of a man of the same name buried on Boot Hill. Here lies Lester Moore, four shots from a .44. No Les, no Moore. Frankie would introduce me to my first Playboy magazines. He would break into his step-father's hidden stash and we would sneak off somewhere to look at them. Unlike most nine or ten year old's today I had no idea what sex was. Playboy was tame by today's standards. The models only exposed their breasts but that was more than enough for a couple of young and naive boys.

We were constantly exploring the neighborhood and surrounding terrain on our bikes. Interstate 40 West was under construction and we rode for miles along the road bed. Construction workers would use dynamite to break up rock and we watched the explosions from a safe distance. After the workers moved on to a different site we would collect the dynamite wire and weave it through our bicycle spokes. Occasionally we would find a dynamite cap. I knew to leave them alone because of seeing in the news where a boy had been blinded when one blew up in his hands. Where the road bed was cut through hills we sometimes climbed the limestone bluffs until one day I came face to face with a snake. I almost fell trying get down off of that bluff. There were natural springs opened up by the construction and we would build dams. We found rocks everywhere with all sorts of fossilized sea life on them. The Cumberland River bordered our subdivision and we would explore the river bluffs.

  Frankie built a tree house in a huge tree in his back yard and it was very high. One day we were up in his tree house and I decided to climb out on a limb. I was hanging with my legs over the limb when the limb broke. Luckily I landed flat on my back and not on my head. I landed across a big root and was luckily I didn't break my back. The fall knocked the wind out of me and this is another example of how blessed I have been in my life. Not to have been seriously injured or killed. One day daddy, Frankie and myself went possum hunting in the woods near our back yard. There were nests of them in the trees and Frankie would climb to the top and make noise and shake the limbs. The possums would run out and crawl down the tree trunk. Daddy would be waiting at the bottom with a forked stick. He would trap them by holding their head to the ground with the stick and then put them in a cage. I built a pen where the entrance to our crawl space was. On this particular day Frankie climbed to the top of a tree as usual and the possums came running out of their nests. Instead of climbing down the tree, however; they climbed up toward Frankie. He panicked and started screaming and crying hysterically. I was scared of possums myself because they were ugly animals. They looked like big rats the size of a small dog. Possums would growl like a dog and bare their sharp teeth. Daddy was able to calm Frankie, however; and talk him down out of the tree.

We would do crazy things like swing as high as we could on a neighbor's swing and jump off. Mark wanted to do everything I did and when he tried to do it he landed awkwardly with his arm underneath his body. Frankie and I walked him down to the house and mother put him in the bathtub so he would be clean when she took him to the emergency room. Frankie and I stood in the bathroom and laughed at him the whole time while he sat there crying. Although that was a rotten thing to do we really didn't realize that he had broken his arm. After he was fitted with a cast Mark couldn't stay out of the water when we went swimming. As a result his arm is still curved to this day. 

On another occasion some boys were firing firecrackers and shooting at each other with BB guns near a creek. Mark walked out on a very large tree that had fallen over the creek and was standing in the middle of it. Just then I heard the sound of a BB hitting soft flesh. Holding his stomach Mark screamed out in pain and fell face first into the creek. A Hollywood stunt man couldn't have done it better. Oh what I would have given for a video camera at that moment. Luckily he was okay except for a red welt where the BB struck him in the belly.

 In the late 1950's and early 1960's go karts were the rage. Go kart tracks were springing up everywhere. One track was built down on Charlotte avenue near the entrance of our subdivision. Daddy would take us on a fairly regular basis. On one weekend we were riding go karts and daddy let Mark take one out by himself. Earlier I had watched as a man took a curve too fast and the go kart skidded upside down in a shower of sparks across the asphalt crashing into the hay bales and the man slid across the track on his butt. Luckily, he was not seriously hurt. Mark did okay driving the go kart until it came time to stop. Everyone had stopped in a line across the track and the riders were dismounting. Mark was the last go kart and either he didn't know how to brake or he panicked. Either way he didn't stop. I stood there frozen in terror as I realized he wasn't going to stop. At the last minute before hitting the parked go karts he swerved left into the open doorway of a small ticket office. A girl was standing in the doorway and she was knocked off of her feet as Mark disappeared into the building. She looked like a rag doll as she was catapulted into the air. Everyone, including daddy, ran over to check on the girl and Mark. I believe the girl was knocked out but luckily she was not seriously injured. Mark was not hurt at all.

  On another occasion Frankie and I were playing in the creek that ran behind the houses across the street from us. On this day the creek was nearly dry. After a lot of rain, however; the creek would be very dangerous. It would overflow it's banks and the current could easily sweep you away if you fell into it. I was chasing Frankie in the creek bed and there were large rocks and boulders everywhere. We were playing tag and I accidentally pushed Frankie too hard. He fell face forward on to a huge rock smashing his mouth. Frankie jumped straight up screaming in pain. When he turned around blood was gushing from his mouth and he was spitting out his front teeth. He ran home screaming and I really thought that I had hurt him bad. When I got home I was crying because I thought I was in serious trouble. Other than knocking his teeth out he was okay. The teeth he knocked out were his permanent teeth and he had to have two false teeth made to replace them.

 

  In the early 1960's the Cold War was in high gear. In school we would regularly have duck and cover drills where we would get under our desks and duck our heads between our legs. Or we would duck and cover in the hallway. If we were out on the playground we would lay flat on the ground. I was terrified at the thought of dying in a nuclear war. If I could I would walk out of the room when the adults started talking about it. That was quite a lot because nuclear war was on everyone's mind.. Tensions were high in the late 1950's between the Soviet Union and the United States. Suddenly everyone was building fallout shelters. Frankie's parents built one in their basement. I used to wonder if they would turn us away in the event of a nuclear war. Daddy wanted to build one but he didn't want to pay a contractor. One day we got some shovels and picks and started digging a big hole in our backyard. Over time we dug down about two or three feet but that was as far as we got. Daddy never followed through and that hole was there for the rest of the time that we were there. I will never forget the Cuban Missile crisis in October 1962 when the world held it's breath. During those tense days we didn't know from one day until the next if we would be alive the next day. We were all very relieved when we saw those Soviet ships taking the missiles out of Cuba.

 

   In 1960 daddy decided that he wanted to start a fireworks stand. One rainy Saturday we all jumped in the car and drove down highway 41 to South Pittsburgh Tennessee. This was before the interstates were built and it seemed like it took forever. Daddy bought enough fireworks of every kind to start his stand. When we got home we piled everything in the den. There was barely room to walk. Storing them in our house was not the safest thing to do in retrospect. We had roman candles, rockets of every kind, whistlers, sparklers, and tons of firecrackers. Daddy procrastinated and never got a license for a fireworks stand. After a while he told us that they were ours and we could fire them off.. Over time he took some of the fireworks to work and would sell them under the counter. For the most part, however; we used them up. We were still finding these fireworks years later. There were more fireworks than I had ever seen in my life. We had so many firecrackers that we fired them off a pack at a time. After a while we organized battles among the neighborhood kids. I would pass out fireworks and we would divide up into armies. Then like a bunch of idiots we would shoot them at each other. Luckily nobody was seriously hurt. The woods would be saturated with smoke. 

 One night I found a large skyrocket at the store. Daddy couldn't sell it because the stick was broken off. Myself and one of the kids in the neighborhood laid it on the sidewalk next to the store. We lit it and the rocket was bouncing as it flew up 17th Avenue. It chased a lady carrying her groceries. She dropped them on the ground and took off running. We ran and hid but the lady came into the store and chewed my mother out. The funniest situation was the night that we spent a New Years Eve at daddy's cousin Brooks Johnson's house. It was over on Elkins Avenue in West Nashville. Most of my childhood the few times that I saw my daddy drunk was around Christmas or New Years. On this night daddy and Brooks were wasted as the midnight hour approached. As we watched from the porch they set stuck about ten or fifteen skyrockets in the ground with the intent of firing them all off at 12 A.M. The only problem was that they were so drunk they left a grocery bag full of fireworks too close to the rockets and the sparks set the bag on fire. It looked like a war zone as everyone ducked for cover on the front porch. Rockets, roman candles, whistlers, and chasers were bouncing off the side of the house.

  Daddy and mother were the best parents that a boy could have. I started playing Knothole baseball when I was about nine or ten. I played for Martha Vaught Men's Club, Bryant Cleaners, and Brown and Duke Hauling Company. Daddy taught me the fundamentals of baseball and constantly practiced with me. As hard as I tried I was a mediocre player at best and could not overcome my clumsiness.. I was the guy who spent a lot of time on the bench. If I did get to play it was an inning or two in right field. It was not like today when everyone gets to play and everyone gets a trophy. If I got to play, even if it was only for an inning, I was okay. If I sat the bench the whole game, however; I usually got my feelings hurt. Daddy taught me how to pitch and I got more playing time as a relief pitcher. Mother and daddy never missed a game and at least one of them were at every practice. My coach of the Martha Vaught Men's Club was Larry Schmittou. He would be my football coach in 1964 at Bailey Jr. High. Larry would be very successful. He went on to be the Vanderbilt baseball coach in 1968, eventually winning four SEC Eastern division titles. He also won two SEC championships from the years 1968 until 1978. Schmitto also was the head football recruiter at Vanderbilt. In 1978 he organized a group of investors made up of the Oak Ridge Boys and other country music stars to build Greer stadium and found the Nashville Sounds. He also went on to own other minor league franchises. Larry served as Vice President of Marketing for the Texas Rangers from 1983 until 1986 and now owns a chain of bowling alleys. In 2006 he was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.