Life at 9

I have to apologize for my first breakage of our implied contract, reader-o-mine. The events I am about to describe happened in June, one month before I turned 9, but they were such vivid and detailed memories that I wanted to maintain some sort of symmetry with the length of the preceding chapters (Symmetry has always been a major esthetic influence in my life and writing; it is sort of an OCD manifestation but harmless enough. Makes me a GREAT editor, something most of my fellow writers detest and avoid at all costs). 
At the end of my 3^rd grade school year, I was told that we were going to take a trip to Northern California to visit my Uncle Harry and his daughter, my cousin Jeri. She had been diagnosed with leukemia some time before, and I later inferred that Harry had called saying we should maybe come say our goodbyes. A few weeks later, Dad bought a 1960 Chevy Impala. it was loaded up, and the Miller clan, plus one – Lorena also came with us - began what was to be a singular and calamity-filled trip.

My Dad did almost all of the driving (crucial detail for later), my Mom and Liz sat beside him in front, Lorena, Maw-Maw and I occupied the back. No A/C. Sweltering heat. We took off sometime in the afternoon, not because that was optimal, but because of the adult’s inability to organize themselves to get going earlier. That Keystone Kops epic finally settled, we headed west out of Fort Smith across the Arkansas River Bridge. I suppose the plan was to drive through the night, with my Dad and his Mom Lorena sharing the driving. It should be noted at this point that my Mom Janet, had never, did not, and was to never, learn to drive, so she was unable to give breaks. Maw Maw at this point in her life with deteriorating vision was just downright scary. In all, a disaster waiting to happen. Which it did, minus any great bodily injury. The Impala, seemingly a good reliable vehicle, began to rebel almost immediately, belching black smoke. Dad pulled over in one of the small towns on Route 66 (hard to imagine, but the

Interstate 40 highway was not even close to being complete in 1967, so most of the trip was on the now decommissioned auxiliary highway) and got the bad news – the car was burning oil at a rapid rate. In those days, gas stations sold what was known as “bulk oil” which I’m sure was code for “you sure you want to put THIS into your engine?” and thrifty Toby scooped up a case after refilling the reservoir. This began a herky, jerky process wherein every 30-40 miles he would have to stop, put 2-3 quarts in, and then repeat the process until the next station and the next case of bulk. 

The next crossroad came when the generator, that balky precrsor to the much-more reliable alternator, began to fritz out. In the dark of night, somewhere between Flagstaff AZ and God-Knows-Where, it went out completely. No lights of any kind, no emergency flashers. Dad of course pulled over to the shoulder, but it was narrow and as 18-wheelers came rushing up they were just inches away from our stalled car. This scary situation went on for what seemed like hours before he was able to flag someone down who took pity on us and went out of their way to take us in two shifts back to the outskirts of Flagstaff, where we spent the night and most of the next day in a hotel waiting for the car, which had presumably been towed in, to be repaired.

This accomplished, we started again late that next afternoon, but by the time we reached Barstow, California the same problem began to exert itself again. Dad alternated between silence and rage, though of course there was no one to blame but himself for buying a lemon used car (I was to learn much later that the major American car manufacturers of that era engaged in deliberate planned obsolescence, using inferior parts to build cars that were destined to fail prematurely, in the hope of driving consumers to keep the new car buying pump primed). Somehow, with fitful stops and starts, late that night we limped into Uncle Harry’s home in Lodi just north of Fresno.

Uncle Harry had an interesting back story, as do many of the people who inhabit my history, and this would be an appropriate time to expound. He was just reaching adulthood when America entered World War 2, and unlike his older brother James who joined the Army he attached to the Navy. He was in Japan as part of the occupation force for a year before leaving the service, but instead of returning to Alma stayed in California. Within a few years, he had joined the California Highway Patrol as an officer (the famous CHIP’s) sometimes on motorcycle, at others in patrol cars. It was during one such shift in the latter that his story became compelling.

Officer Harry Miller, C.H.I.P.

What I am about to relate was told to me by my father, initially sometime in the early 80’s, and was rehashed during subsequent conversations over the years. The information was given to my Dad by Harry during phone conversations that began over 20 years after the original event. So, you the reader can decide on your own what to make of it, what to believe and what not, I am just the messenger. But if you ask me, I have no reason to doubt it. Except for the fact that it violates reason and all known laws of physics.

One night in 1959, my Uncle and his partner were patrolling a state highway in Northern California. They came up on a dark car parked on the side of the road, no lights to be seen in an area where the road could be seen for miles each direction. They parked behind it and approached as per protocol one on each side. When Harry reached the rolled-up passenger window, shining his flashlight into it, the light did not penetrate (this was a decade before dark window tinting was produced). The window began to roll down and Harry’s beam illuminated the passengers. 4 men, two in back two in front dressed in identical black suits, gazing forward and, improbably, all wearing sunglasses.

(OK, I know YOU know where this might be going, but please indulge me and continue)

By now Harry’s partner is agitated, starting to yell at the passenger side occupant to “ROLL THE FUCKING WINDOW DOWN!” Harry is frozen at the unreal sight in front of him. The driver turns his head and looks Harry in the eyes through his dark tinted glasses as Harry’s flashlight scans over all four men. The man’s neutral expression changes and he smiles at my Uncle.

And then the men, and their car disappear. All that’s left on the dark deserted highway are two cops, one flashlight beam. It wasn’t long before their screaming began to fill up the otherwise silent landscape.

After coming back from the shock of seeing their world disintegrate in front of their eyes, they agreed that there would be no way to explain it, and indeed they themselves would be targets of mental health evaluations. So they tried to forget, and for Harry it worked, but not so much for his partner, who ended up being committed to the state mental hospital, from which he never was released.

Fast forward to the early 70’s. Harry has long since quit the force, divorced, then remarried and is living in a newer house than the one we visited in 1967. This house, which I was to stay at for several days in 1977, had a den at the front. On this night in question, Uncle Harry was sitting in a recliner after dinner, reading a newspaper. His wife Mary was washing dishes in the kitchen. Without any warning, the man in black last seen in the driver's seat of the disappearing car a decade prior came into his den – through the closed door as if it didn’t exist - saying “Hello Harry, we need to talk”.

And that’s where the information that Harry gave my Dad ended. He would only further say that “I’m not scared anymore” and that there was a reason and plan that made his encounter with the MIB’s not an accident. Dad kept trying over the years to get him to divulge more, which he would not. In a conversation with Mary at some point, he did get an indirect epilogue to the incredible story. From the early 70’s on, Harry, who had never angled before, started making trips to Northern Canada to ostensibly go fishing, trips that lasted two weeks. Mary herself was perplexed by this, but she could get no more info out of her husband than my Dad did. After Harry retired, he spent a great deal of time and money helping the homeless and alcohol addicts in his town, and was the driving force behind the creation of a day center for these less fortunate, later managing the charitable enterprise. Though my curiosity was insanely piqued by learning of all this, I had not spoken with Harry since the late 70’s and regrettably before I mustered the resolve to reestablish contact with him, he passed away in 2008.

My 9 year old mind could not have comprehended the paranormalities that my Uncle was already holding within himself, nor the mind-boggling events to come. Harry was simply to me the fulfillment of what our family COULD be: a stable, successful non-emotional and kind person. So that week in Northern California was an enjoyable one and, as it turned out, was to be the last family vacation that these Millers ever took. This drove me when I became a father to make trips a priority, and though money was at times tight when my children were younger, we always took one substantial vacation every year.

Poor Jeri was bed-ridden, I felt great sympathy for her plight and did my best to cheer her up, but there was little spark of life left even then. I say this because amazingly Jeri would live almost 7 years more before mercifully passing. The Impala was in the shop the entire week, and from my understanding the mechanic finally gave up trying to fix the problem and dictated that it needed a new engine. Whoosh – several hundred unexpected dollars flew out the window. Loaded up once again, we began the return trip, which didn’t last more than a few hundred miles before the water pump failed. Another highway stranding, more kind Samaritans rescuing us, another night in a motel. The journey was nearing its end a few days later when Dad, who had been driving forever, was exhausted and turned the wheel over to Lorena before passing out. I remember clearly being in Oklahoma City around midnight, which was 3 hours away from home and Lorena asked me which way she should go. I was flattered and totally unprepared for the request which I answered by telling her to go left. Then I went to sleep, not knowing that “left” took us north to Kansas, but when Dad awoke hours later his cursing let us know that the cherry had been placed on top of the messed-up sundae that our trip had become, and it would be yet another 5 hours after that before we finally limped across the finish line.

August 17^th brought the newest member of our clan, James Henry, into the world. He was named first for the afore-mentioned eldest son of Ida’s James, and middle for her brother Henry, whom had died the year prior and of whom my Mom was very fond of. The tragedy of James’ death was one that had hung over the family for as long as I could remember. Tracking back to 1958, I was two weeks old, and was ensconced in a small frame house in Alma with Dad, Mom, and Maw-Maw, along with James, his wife Ellen and their children Patsy and Robert.

James and Ellen 1958

Sardine-like it apparently was, I never had the full explanation as to why so many were sharing the same living space, but can guess that money woes were the prime reason. On this summer afternoon, James and Ellen with some friends had gone to a creek to swim (this was in the age where in impoverished Arkansas public or private swimming pools were virtually non-existent). Ellen became distressed, was pulled under by a current, and my Uncle James dove in to save her. He pulled her to the bank, and while the others attended to her, they didn’t see him collapse and fall back into the water. He drowned before they could reach him.

My uncle was such a respected and well-known man in Alma the town stopped business during the afternoon of the funeral to pay respects. Ida never recovered from the death of her eldest, and apparently favorite child. His picture from the war in uniform always adorned a central place on our wall, and she spoke with great emotion whenever he was the subject. From the time of James Henry’s birth, Dad insisted that he was the reincarnation of his brother. 50 years later, my brother has earned similar respect in his community, has raised a son and daughter, served in the Army, and lived all his other years in Arkansas. Symmetry over multiple lifetimes?

This was my 4^th grade year, and though school remained quite easy for me to excel at, the social game was still problematic. What saved me from feeling more outcast than I otherwise would have was that at Belle Point, softball was a quasi-religion, as every good weather day saw us playing at recess in the morning, during the remainder of lunch break, and in the afternoon. The game only required competence, not social skills – unlike the girls who were confined to the see-saw and monkey bar quarter of the yard -and since I was capable of hitting and catching adequately, I was always chosen somewhere in the middle of the pack and was relieved from the pressure of finding my place in the schoolyard pecking order.

It was not more than a few months forward from James Henry’s birth that another bulge appeared in Mom’s midsection – she was pregnant again! Though the money from her inheritance had made hunger just a bad memory, the job situation had not improved for Dad and so things began to get tight again. The fights continued, even escalated, and I have to give credit to Ida for her steadiness in keeping Liz and me from feeling that the world was crumbling beneath our feet. One particularly bad event saw Mom lock herself into the bathroom, and Dad ripping the door off its hinges. In retrospect, it was 2 people equally incapable of bearing the responsibility for what they had, and were continuing to, create. At 9 however, there was no understanding, only pain. It became a relief when Dad would disappear for days though the payback Mom had ready for him when he finally did come back just poured gasoline onto smoldering flames.

One profound event I remember in March 1968 was a fierce violent storm that turned the day into pitch

black darkness. I had stayed home sick from school and was playing on the porch with Liz when insanely huge lightning bolts began to strike around us, and I heard what sounded like a howling train above us. That mass was indeed a tornado that, while missing us, struck a few miles south in the town of Greenwood, making a shambles of it and killing 13 people. It was another of my early glimpses of our fragile mortality and while dramatic had none of the personal sting that was to occur a few months later in June. It was Lorena’s birthday, and Dad had picked her up to go with us to a buffet restaurant. What I wasn’t able to understand until later was that Lorena was malnourished, being in the days before plentiful food stamps and other public support, and her pride kept her from calling her mother Ida or her biological son Toby for help. So like any starving person, she ate far more than her system could handle. She was later taken from her apartment to the hospital with nausea, which strained her already-weak heart, and she died of cardiac arrest. I still have the image burnt into my mind of Dad getting the call from the hospital, and turning into a heaving wreck when told the news.

A few weeks later, I was told that once again we were relocating, and the usual whirlwind of insanity ensued before we ended up just 8 blocks away at 618 S. 20^th. But this was a positive move for two reasons – it had a fenced yard and 3 bedrooms, which allowed me for the first time my own space. The house had been freshly painted, and from all respects this seemed like a new beginning. Baby James Henry (or, the Beaver as we called him for his propensity to gnaw on the slats upon his crib while teething) in my parent’s bedroom, Liz and Maw-Maw in the middle bedroom, and me in my own bed in the back. It was my first taste of perspective away from the ever-present pressure of conversation and bickering that hallmarked daily Miller life, and it was no coincidence that my love affair with reading dovetailed with having the separate leisure time to do it. As a bonus, the change of scenery seemed to have placed a cap on the tensions between Dad and Mom so daily life, at least for that moment in time, was free of flying dishes or holes punched in walls

The two tragic assassinations of MLK and RFK in April and June respectively dominated the emotional landscape in this latter part of Life at 9. I had begun to get a political sense of the world, and to understand the symbolic significance of their lives and deaths.I recall the profound sense of sadness I felt while watching the story unfold on television. I can point to this period of time as being the end of my innocence. If I couldn't trust adults to keep the world sane, either in my micro life or in the macro world, thn I only had myself to rely upon, and that was a scary realization indeed.

This picture of Ida, Liz and me was taken in the backyard of this rental house. You can see how my body had continued to swell under the barrage of cheap carbohydrates that I had by now become addicted to. You can also see the rapid aging of Ida in her face. Though only 65 then, she looked in her 80’s. The physical demands of life growing up in the badlands of eastern Oklahoma territory is inconceivable to us in 2013, but they were profound and real. But as her life ebbed, mine began to swell, both literally and figuratively. As my 10^th birthday neared I was perhaps, except for that magical 5^th year in California, the most content with the world I had ever been. And Yin would turn to Yang.

Life at 8

1966 to 1967 was the year that gravity exerted it’s full force on me and I became aware that the idylls of my childhood would not last forever and that there was a VERY SERIOUS world out there that I being trained, whether actively or passively, to be a part of. And along with that realization, it began to dawn on me that those who were preparing me for said mission themselves had significant deficits in their understandings of life and that I would have to seek the missing pieces elsewhere. Despite it’s indubitable charms and history, Fort Smith, Arkansas was NOT a place to find the needed mentorship to fill in those gaps during one’s formative years. And so caught between the yin-and-yang

of a family life that I was increasingly becoming cognizant was tilted far to the right on the gauge between normal and fucking insane, and the abysmal lack of any but the most pidgin awareness in the world around me, I began to retreat, as only a Cancer can, deep into my shell.

This picture of Liz and I was taken in the summer of ’66. You might notice, dear reader, the formerly svelte redhead of ’63 had ballooned up to a considerable degree. To explain this, I will insert a brief astrological primer. To those of you who may be unlearned or skeptical about the science that gave birth to modern-day astronomy, why are you reading this in the first place? Look in the mirror, and repeat to yourself “I am a tool”. Ok, that’s dealt with, now having lost over half my audience I will continue. Those born under the sign of Cancer tend to be quite sensitive to the emotions of those around them, and experience tension in the midsection/stomach area. At the same time, the Achilles heel of Cancer (every sign has one, for instance Capricorns have problematic knees) is the stomach. So double-whammy, emotional tensions arise, Cancerian’s stomachs go awry, and the first logical thing is to stuff the problem with food to calm it down. Since my parents didn’t ask if I needed Maalox or Rolaids, I went to my personal medicine chest called the refrigerator, and found my Rx – Wurtz Crackers and Foremost milk - both produced locally, and perhaps the best of both substances that I was to ever find to this day.

This worked like a charm, but the payback was fat which accumulated, a problem which would remain and cause me to be an object of ridicule for the next decade.

As I noted at the end of the last chapter, my birthday was lost in the wash, since we moved again, this time across town to the northern side on Kinkead Avenue where we would once again have our own standalone house. I remember the smell of fresh paint when I first came through the doors, a scent that I have ever since associated with uncertainty, a state which accompanied our many moves of household. It was a 2 bedroom frame painted white on the outside with a true backyard, and I was generally ecstatic about the change, though I did feel the separation pangs for the first time in leaving my first friend Anthony behind. But the consolations were many – in addition to more room, play space outside, and a Boy’s Club only a block away, there was a convenience store a few blocks away that had on of the early ICEE machines, and in that era

the syrup was formulated with real cane sugar instead of the vile high-fructose corn syrup crap. My first encounter with this heavenly delight came just a few days after we had moved in, since the store was now going to be my Dad’s source of beer given that there were no bars in the residential area. I may be fooling myself, but I believe I can still remember the first thrill as the slurry made its way into my mouth. There’d been no way to express it this way then, but with the perspective of time it was clear what had happened – I had experienced my first esophageal orgasm! Every chance I got to tag along, badger, or find loose change to take with me to buy the small cup, which I believe was only 15 cents, I did. My repertoire gradually grew over the years to expand my treats to include a Milky Way bar and bag of Bar-B-Que Frito corn chips, a triad of awesomeness that I was proud to share with my children 30 years later when they were roughly the same age.

An event occurred in August that still resonates for me, since it is circumscribed within one of my passions in life, my pursuit of paranormal experiences. One night that month, we experienced in Fort Smith (later, I was to find that it included as well most of the entire Western Arkansas/Eastern

Oklahoma area, and for weeks later the entire Southern United States) what was termed a “UFO flap”. My interest in lights in the sky that did not fit the parameters of normal airplanes had been whetted on the steps of 418 N. 6^th, where some of the boarders would tell stories from their World War 2 days about “foo fighters”, the code used in that time for unexplained flying objects. My dad was fascinated by these talks as well, and occasionally on clear nights all of us would see lights moving across the sky too fast to be even the swiftest human jet plane, and some even would veer at angles impossible for normal banking turns. To this end, he began to scour the secondhand book stores searching for books on the topic, and before long 20-30 of these volumes were scattered about the house, and after he was done I put my precocious reading talents to work devouring titles such as “Flying Saucers – Serious Business” and “Incident at Exeter."

So I was not an uninformed 8 year old about UFO’s, but was equally as shocked that hot summer night when the local TV station broke into programming with a live shot of a reporter in front of a crowd who was looking into the sky and pointing. Traffic in that area had simply stopped in place and people were exiting their cars because of the amazing spectacle going on above. There were innumerable lights transversing the night sky, some of them stopping on a dime and hovering some hundreds to thousands of feet up. I turned the transistor radio on and the same thing was happening – live reports were coming in from Van Buren across the river, from Arkoma just across the Oklahoma border and from all over Fort Smith proper. Despite my Mom and grandmother’s warning me not to (my dad was out of town delivering furniture), I ran outside and saw a neighbor boy Larry who was a few years older than me shining a flashlight up into the sky. There was a blob of light there that was still, but which would pulse seemingly in response to Larry’s flickering his light. I watched this happen in amazement until the blob of light suddenly moved at incalculable speed and was gone. Our eyes met with excitement at what we had just seen, and we palled together for the next few hours watching a light show of epic proportions above us.

Finally Mom insisted I come in at nearly midnight, and I unwillingly went back in. My grandmother, who slept on one side of the bedroom we shared (finally had my own bed) was asleep in her bed which was directly under a large picture window. I was still quivering with excitement, wishing I could tell Dad about it, when I saw a circle of kaleidoscope lights start to move across the wall. As they got brighter, Maw-Maw woke up and I could see her eyes transfixed on what was shining in the window. The swirling lights became brighter and Maw-Maw’s mouth gaped wide open in shock. For my part, I was frozen with fear (still get chills writing about it to this day) until the lights receded just as quickly as they had appeared. The entire incident had taken maybe 20 seconds

“Maw-maw what was that?” I asked.

“It was big, had lights around it, was shaped like a big dish upside down” she finally answered, and I could see her shaking.

It took a long time that night to go to sleep. The next morning it was as though no one wanted to talk about it, but the paper’s headlines could not ignore the obvious other-worldly event that had happened. I don’t recall anything that dramatic popping up in the days that followed, and I often wonder how adults of that time processed it and found rationalizations to get back into a state of normalcy. For my part, I would never need any convincing about the existence of UFO’s, and I have had several other Close Encounters of First Kind over the years, some of which I will write about in future chapters.

A seriocomic chain of events happened in August before school started, all connected with my Dad driving the

furniture delivery truck. He took me with him on a short run to Russellville about 70 miles away, and we returned with a stowaway – a stray German Shepard. The dog must have snuck up the ramp and buried in the blankets while he closed the door leaving town. We heard the dog yelping when we returned and when it ran out I begged for me being able to keep him since we had a fenced backyard. Dad was understandable dubious, while I decided to name the poor stray "Lightning". It was an apropos tag, because a few minutes later the dog took care of the dilemma by running out into traffic and being flattened by a car, dying instantly. Even though technically he had never been in our yard yet, I bawled inconsolably. My parents felt bad for me so they took me to the animal shelter and adopted a small beagle pup. I was happy again, but that was to be foreshortened as well. Liz, who to this point had never exhibited any irrational fear, became terrified of the pint-sized pup and whenever it would come near her she would beat it with a broom. The pup took one too many shots, crawled under the house, and despite coaxing from all of us, was too brain-damaged to understand the need to drink water and eat and so it also died. 0 for 2 on dogs, and even when I was a young adult and tried again I struck out twice again, making it 0 for 4, which is probably why it was decades later and after some extreme cajoling from wife and kids before I tried it again.

The week before school started Dad took me with him on a delivery trip to North and West Texas. It was my first lengthy trip that I have memories of other than the California-Arkansas odyssey through the snow in ’63. I remember nasty old gas station bathrooms in Oklahoma, Dad listening to Buck Owens on the AM radio, and a once-luxurious hotel in Wichita Falls that had became borderline decrepit. I remember running with excitement to the outdoor heated pool of a motel in Big Spring, jumping in the deep end… and remembering I couldn’t swim. My dad dove in a few seconds later to avert a possible tragedy. “Fools rush in …” and all that. But most of all I remember later that night Dad told me a long and complicated story, one that changed my outlook on our family history and my father forever.

My father was born in 1935 near Alma, Arkansas which is a small former railroad stop town 15 miles East of Fort Smith.

Dad, James Robert in early 1940's

His mother Ida Belle (Maw-Maw) was born in 1903, which would have made her not quite 32 when he arrived.

Her first child, Lorena was born in 1919, which would have made her 16. She was married already, not at all unusual for those times. This child was quickly followed by James and Harry. So, Dad was not really even a late-in-life child even for the 1930’s, and he grew up having much older brothers and sisters. That is what he thought until he was 11, when he discovered adoption papers transferring custody to Ida from Lorena. The woman he had thought was his sister was actually his biologic mother, having gotten pregnant out-of-wedlock at 15.

This knowledge blew my Dad’s mind. He ran away and spent the night in an old barn, devastated that who he thought was, was not. Back then, no cell phones, no GPS, no Amber Alerts, so I can imagine the consternation felt by all and the relief when he finally returned. This aspect of my Dad’s personality, wanting to run away when things got psychologically intense, is unfortunately something I’ve inherited, whether by genetics or observation I don’t know. Eventually things settled down. Lorena had moved out of the house and

Lorena and Pauline late 1940's

married a man named Overstreet, and they had a girl who became Dad’s biologic half-sister, named Pauline (She was an interesting person, though not in the expected sense perhaps; she passed away in 2006 and memories of her will surface in later chapters). Dad grew to accept that he had 2 mothers, though it was Ida that had the more-intense psychological grip on him, demonstrated by his blowing up our good life in So Cal to return to Arkansas at her demands.

All of this was part of my coming-of-age: 8 is the age that I can again point to as a division between carefree childhood and responsibilities (if I had only knew HOW MANY to come) of young adulthood. 3^rd grade began at my new school, Albert Pike Elementary, which was different from Belle Grove in that it was much newer and had children from many differing economic levels; Belle Grove only had one – poor (though I suppose it cold have been subdivided into ordinary poor, terribly poor, and “forget it you’re life is screwed” poor). I enjoyed it at first, but I increasingly was singled out for abuse on the playground for three reasons – my hair (obvious), my weight (same), and oddly enough, a speech impediment that I had never been aware of before being taunted for it – I pronounced the word “three” as “free”. Not a playground session went by that I was not reminded of my deficiencies in those categories. My grades were fine; my affect was poor. Compounding this was the fact that at the Boy’s Club, where I often went after school, one of the teenage workers took a disliking to me and would bully me verbally and intimate that he wanted to do physical harm as well. I finally told my parents what was happening, and Dad went there to confront the bully, who like their entire ilk was on their best behavior, acting innocent and claiming I was misunderstanding him. He never did anything overtly again, but I would get daggers sent my way when he THOUGHT I wasn’t looking.

One thing the Boy’s Club did provide was an opportunity for me to play contact football for the first time. But instead of my dreams of being a QB or running back, because of my size I was relegated to line duty. I didn’t want to engage – I wanted to roam freely. But it was better than not doing it, and the Saturday mornings our games were played were exciting ones for me. After football season, basketball season began, but I was a spectator instead of a player. Westark Junior College (now the University of Arkansas Fort Smith) adjoined the Boys Club property and shared the gym. I would sidle in from my usual activities when a game was beginning and thus began my love affair with the organized team sport that I both love to watch the most and played the best. Small colleges from the area and neighboring states would come in as opponents, and to me it might as well have been UCLA because I was enthralled with these giant men. It’s hard to have perspective when you’re young that the 10 years difference that seems like a vast gulf when you are young melts away so quickly in time. An ecology check on life for me as of this writing would be that all of those 18 and 19 years olds that played the games I watched that year are all eligible for full Social Security Retirement.

Impossibly, one day in December I saw Mom packing boxes, and I knew that another move was upon us. Probably had something to do with money, as all of our moves tended to, since landlords can be flexible but when you don’t pay the rent at all something has to give. The amazing thing was that Dad with his seductive sales-pitch persona would talk yet another new owner into giving us a chance, and it was off to the races. This move took us just to the south side of downtown, into an old house that had been subdivided into apartments at 1501 South H. The place was notable for many reasons, both the things that would happen there, and its across-the-street proximity to a graveyard. Many a night I stared out the front window hoping to see a ghost that never materialized for me.

The rooms we were let was in essence the old formal living room, formal dining room (turned into a bedroom with no doors open to both sides), second bedroom that appeared to have been built as a den, then an impossibly small kitchen and bathroom. I have wondered exactly how my parents had sex there with no privacy, though I certainly am not in need of details. But somehow they did, because I began seeing that developing bump on Mom’s belly, and was told that we were about to have a new brother or sister (hard to imagine a world without ultrasound, right?)

Once moved in, it was time to transfer to yet another school. Belle Point would thankfully become the last stop of my elementary years and so retains a prominent position in my memories. School began after the Christmas break, and I felt as though I fit in fairly well. I don’t remember any fights that year, though they would dominate much of my later years there and on into my junior high days. Paradoxically, the freedom I had enjoyed at the house on Kinkead was taken away and I wasn’t allowed to leave the yard except to walk back-and-forth to school two blocks away. I suppose this was because of the traffic on the busy Lexington Avenue that intersected our house at the corner. With my growing awareness of the world around me had grown a sense that t could also be a dangerous place. None of the “stranger danger” rhetoric was used, just a general waning not to talk to them. Or take candy (why I wondered, were grownups driving around offering kids candy). So a few times I did have people ask me to come over to their parked cars but I dutifully ignored them and ran home.

I retreated into even more of a shell, and as my parents fighting grew more heated and hands-on (yes, this is I sad but it must be reported, there were physical confrontations even when she was visibly pregnant). I sought refuge in whatever fantasy presented itself. Enter professional wrestling. I had first been introduced to it by Maw-Maw who had made the trip from Alma to Fort Smith to see the weekly matches held in a renovated car dealership on Towson Avenue many times with her son James until he died (an event which I will cover next chapter). I believe the first time I saw the theatrical satire of faux combat both on television and in person was in 1965. Maw-Maw’s favorite wrestler was “Irish” Mike Clancy,

Irish Mike Clancy

a fireplug of a man whose head bore a veritable roadmap of battle scars from having been “cut” (back then I of course did not know it, but would later be wised to the fact that the wrestlers themselves would use bits of razor blades on their own foreheads to produce these effects) so many times. Good-guy Clancy’s shtick was to cut himself at the heat of being beaten during the “fight”, then act amazed when he saw his own blood tricking down his face, which would turn him into a Tasmanian Devil who would quickly dispatch of the villain he was matched against. So, she took me with her to the live matches but it just didn’t click for me at the time.

But at 8, in need of escapism, the never-ending pseudo-drama of rasslin’ was just what I needed. Clancy no longer wrestled in 1967, and with this my grandmother had lost interest, so without an adult advocate on my side, I began pestering my wrestling-hating Dad until he finally relented to drop me off while he went across the street to a bar to have a few hours quality drinking time. It was 2 hours of nirvana for my young mind. Conflict, pathos, adrenalin were the fare that was presented, the actors had names like Danny Hodge, Jack

Danny Hodge

Brisco, the Masked Assassins and Crazy Chuck Karbo, and the theater smelled of popcorn and testosterone. What helped the drama in that era was the fact that adults were still largely un-wised to the predetermined outcomes and faked punches, so it was easy to lose oneself in the orgy of verbal hatred ventilated on a heel like Dandy Jack Donavan as he cheated his way to victory over a popular babyface. If 45 year old men in overalls with tobacco spittle oozing down the side of their mouth thought it was real, who was I to argue?

This interest would ebb and surge during most of my younger life, though I certainly recall being completely smartened up to the produced nature of pro wrestling by 10.

Other entertainment began to grab my attention this year, chiefly the comic booky and/or sci-fi based shows “Batman” and “Lost in Space”. I developed what I believe was my first crush on an actress who played “Penny” on the latter series, real name Angela Cartwright.

Angela Cartwright

Somehow I found an address to write to her, and a few weeks later I received a response to my fan mail – a signed picture of her. I would stare t it incessantly, feeling the first sinking feelings in the pit of my stomach that at that stage had not crossed the Mason-Dixon Line yet. Perhaps my favorite of all was the afternoon soap opera that was Gothic and horror genre based, “Dark Shadows”. My only conflict was, it showed at 3 PM every day, and the last bell didn’t ring till 3:05. I would

Johnathan Frid "Barnabas" on "Dark Shadows

run at breakneck speed from the school to my house and would at least get to see the last 20 minutes of the half-hour show. Vampires, witches, and werewolves – what more could an 8-year old ask for? To this day, I still love vampire-based shows, like “True Blood”, though no “Twilight” for me please. And, there is a part of me that still wouldn’t entirely mind being sexy and immortal.

The most significant event of the first part of 1967 could be entitled “The Year We Had Money (After We Almost Starved)”. Sometime early in the year, my Dad had lost his job and in an era without food stamps, ADC, or Section 8, a family could literally fall off the map. We came close. Only Maw-Maw’s paltry SS check kept the rent paid, but then there was nothing left for food. I have thankfully been spared most of these memories, but two do survive, and #2 was a direct result of #1. Hearing the cries of two children crying, a pregnant wife lost in another dimension, and an older mother/grandmother in poor health, Dad tried to come up with a creative solution – making dumplings, since all we had on the shelves was flour, and the only liquid was the water coming out of the taps. He boiled the paste, and the result was like - eating glue. Seeing my mortality flashing in front of my eyes, I decided to dramatize our plight. I took every belt I had, linked them together and used them as restraints to tie myself to the iron railings of my bed. I began to scream “I’M BEING HELD PRISONER…I’M GOING TO STARVE”. My Dad of course was boiling angry, and I’m sure removing one of the belts and giving me a beating was his first reaction, but them a chilling emotion came over him and something that must have been shame emerged, because he grabbed the tabletop radio and headed out the door, returning later with $5 of groceries he had bought with money borrowed from the pawn shop using the radio as collateral. I may have been overly-dramatic, but we ate that night because of it, and over time life often has seen fit to offer me the role of the one who will speak up or argue when an unjust situation occurs. May not make others comfortable, but the situation always seems to be resolved in a more equitable manner than if I had remained silent.

The unexpected inflow of money came via an inheritance Mom received after the death of an Aunt that she had been close to during her younger years. I believe the amount was $15,000, which for 1967 was the equivalent of over $100,000 today. Rags-to-riches? Ehh, not quite, in fact the money would be largely spent within a year. Without a house bought. Or a new car. Or even a good used car. My parents really could have used a financial planner, but they were unheard of in that day. But at least we had food in our bellies, the electricity was not to be cut off again for a long time, and we were living in the same house without a landlord coming by every day to collect back rent. Could stability finally decide to stay awhile with the Millers?

Life at 7

Technical explanation before I proceed with my recollections – terming each chapter “Life at 5” etc. does not mean this is the fifth year, it is the sixth year of life that is fulfilled at the next birthday when the age of 6 is reached which then signals the start of the seventh year and so on. So on July 20th 1965, I had my 7^th birthday which kicked off my 8^th year on Planet Earth. I don’t recall any specifics of it, though I’m sure there was cake to eat after candles were blown out, as would be the ritual for the years to come that I did have memories of. This was also the first time that I could remember spending a calendar year at one location without moving.

A vivid memory from that summer was seeing on TV the great Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown play a game in what was to be his last season. Even as unschooled as I was in the intricacies of football, I could see his

greatness in the way he could both shed tacklers with his powerful body while being also too fast to catch. Now that I had caught the football bug, watching the Sunday games on TV gave a chance for my dad and me to bond as we watched either the St. Louis Cardinals or the Dallas Cowboys play. There was something intriguing about how the helmet hid the players faces yet the single protective bar of the skilled position

players at quarterback and wide receiver allowed you to see expressions that the modern cages never reveal, albeit that it is much safer for said players.

Another sport I inexplicably became attracted to, and still play in my present life, was golf. Even though the TV was black-and-white, I became entranced with the tiny white spheroid being controlled by swings of the clubs. My cajoling that summer resulted in my dad taking me to the only public golf course in Fort Smith, named incoherently “Fort Smith Country Club” (sadly, things have seemingly deteriorated there, it closed in 2014 and is now a field overgrown by weeds). It was on Midland Boulevard near the river, a nine-hole course built next to the Sky-Vue movie drive in, To me, it might as well been Augusta or Pebble Beach. We rented clubs that day, and I have two specific memories.

One was that we ran out of balls and had to borrow some from our playing partner, an older gentleman. The other was on the 9^th hole, a par 3. The older man was trying to show me what he thought was a proper grip and stance but they just seemed too awkward to me. I used my normal approach and was rewarded with my best shot of the day that flew in a straight line to the pin and stopped 3 feet away. Our playing partner turned to my dad and said, “I guess he doesn’t need lessons after all”. A quick putt and I was rewarded with the first birdie of my golfing life. There weren’t more than a few other chances to play during my younger years, but in my early 30’s my game finally blossomed.

2^nd grade year was memorable for a variety of reasons. I encountered bullying for the first time A ruffian at 7 named Mark Biggers for some reason that I either don’t remember (or most likely he had none) began following me home after school threatening to beat me up. Since I hadn’t encountered hostility before, I was unsure how to respond. Then one day it escalated to me being pushed face down by a thrust from the bully who stood over me taunting, while a group of his acolytes jeered. My response to it was to burst into tears, not from fear but from the feeling of injustice that would color each one of the many physical conflicts I had growing up. In short, I never picked on anyone or started any fight, but my red hair apparently made me a target for badasses-in-training. This time, any further action was halted by Anthony’s mother coming out and screaming at my attacker, who retreated. In a curious synchronicity, the paths of Mark Biggers and me would cross one more time, in an event I will describe in Life at 9. 

1965 was the year I discovered horror movies, and this fascination would continue into my adult years. The local TV station Channel 5 – as in the ONLY TV station we could pick up in Ft. Smith with rabbit ear antennas – began showing a feature at 11 PM on Fridays, called “Horrorama”, which began with a deformed hand poking under a curtain backed by eerie music, as a prelude to the movie of the week. It was the classic fare – “Frankenstein”, “Dracula”, “Wolfman” interspersed with 1950’s sci-fi flicks like “It Came from Outer Space” and “Godzilla”. 

I was glued every week and was entertained by subsequent dreams later those nights with monsters chasing me all over the dreamscape du jour.

This was the year that I developed a sense of place, when Fort Smith became part of my psyche and, though many of the experiences to come were not of the positive variety, it would remain to the present a wistful presence. Garrison

Avenue, our version of Main Street, was an endless source of fascination for me. I loved to tag along with my grandmother Ida Belle Miller, AKA Maw-Maw as she went to the First National Bank at the corner of 6^th and Garrison on the 3rd day of every month to deposit her Social Security Check. Afterward, I would be treated to a meal across the street at the Broadway Grill, one of those fine examples of classy downtown diners that rarely exist anymore. Their open-faced roast beef sandwich, with mashed potatoes and gravy was my crack cocaine and to this day I would drive a great distance and pay a pretty penny for just one more plate of that awesomeness. After eating we would stroll up and down Garrison, first eastward on the North side of the street, then after the five blocks to 11^th Street, we’d cross the wide avenue to the South side and go back to 6^th, then just a few blocks to the house. We’d pass FW Woolworth’s. Kress and McCrory’s, stores that

were called the “5 and dimes” and would most closely correlate to our modern Dollar General or perhaps a slimmed down Wal-Mart. Rarely, she’d consent to going in and let me buy a rubber ball or maybe some marbles, which would thrill me to no end.

Another bit of my innocence was lost that year when I began to get the first notions that my dad, alcohol, and gambling were a very bad ménage-a-trois. I had seen him drink for awhile, even have fragments of memories now as far back as 4 watching him drink the stuff that made his breath so yucky to my young nostrils. By 7, he had started to take me with him when he went to his favorite haunt, Angelo’s at the corner of 6^th and B. I know, the idea of a man taking his young son to a bar in 2013 is inconceivable, but in 1965 apparently it was allowed and tolerated, since I went there over a dozen times. My dad would, between drinks, be obsessed with cards that had print on them, and I would hear talk of “parleys” and “over/unders” which to me might as well have been exotic animals. I cared little about the gambling lingo as Angelo took a shine to me and, as he was to do for many years to come both in his bar there and his future location in the Goldman Hotel

at the crest of Garrison, kept me slogged with orange soda and cheese crackers. On the way home, Dad stumbled, often leaning on me for support and I felt important as I guided us up the steps to our rooms.

One night Dad went without me, and by the time I went to sleep he still wasn’t back. I fretted over his absence but finally passed out. When I woke up next in the middle of the night, I looked out the picture window that was butted against the side of the bed that I slept in with Maw-Maw. The moonlight shone on the grass, but I could see a figure laying on the edge of the sloped yard. A bad feeling went through me, and I woke up Maw-Maw saying “Daddy’s out there and he’s hurt”. She took a glance and said “go back to sleep he’ll be OK”. That advice proved to be true as when I woke up at the dawn the figure was gone and Dad was asleep in his bed, dealing with a doozy of a hangover no doubt. It was not a week later that I heard animated talking between my Mom and Maw-Maw. My dad had been arrested for writing a “Hot check” (I was to wonder for a long while why it was bad to put checks in the oven) to pay off gambling debts. Maw-Maw went to the jail to bail him out, and tensions ran rampart in the apartment for a long while after that. He never quit either vice almost until his death just this past October 2013 – he just became more creative about hiding them.

Despite her advancing age Maw-Maw was all about keeping her hair looking good, so she visited a small beauty shop just a stone’s throw away from our place. I would often join her and would be placated by sitting in the hair dryer chair, drinking icy-cold 8 oz. bottles of Coca-Cola and reading the Hollywood gossip magazines that were the forerunner of today’s “National Enquirer” and “People”. I absorbed the exploits of Dick and Liz and Eddie and Debbie that year every bit as much as cursive writing and arithmetic. Sometimes we’d get on the bus line that still served Fort Smith then, discontinued a few years hence, and we’d go to Rogers Avenue where her doctor’s office was. Maw-Maw was a regular customer of the doc back then, something I took for granted along with the inevitable shot she would get. Now I realize that she was in a great deal of pain during her last decade and the pain-killing injections were her only way to deal with it.

There was little about school specifically that stood out that year. My teacher’s name was Mrs. Schneider, a tall, silver haired lady. I remember having contests on the swings with classmates to see how high we could get before we bailed out and flew through the air. My first paddling came that year, though I have no memory of what prompted it or if it hurt, but I’m sure my tender psyche was affronted and there were tears aplenty. It seems archaic to speak of being spanked with a board drilled with holes for maximal stinging, but that was the primary classroom control technique both those early years, and on into junior high school. We often would be drilled as to how to respond to severe weather, and the training worked well as in the spring of ’66 a terrible storm blew through, changing the skies to pitch blackness. I remember huddling with the other kids in the expansive hallway, heads tucked between our knees as the wind howled outside, and I felt exhilarated, as I still do to this day while recognizing the monstrous impact of these forces of nature.

I don’t know whether it was coincidence or if their presence was what lead us to rent on North 6^th, but my grandmother’s younger sister Bethel and her husband Tom French lived catty-corner across the street in the ground floor of a boarding house that they managed. We would often go there, and I was always treated warmly by them. Bethel had an interesting back story that I would not be privy to until much later in life. She had previously been an itinerant tent evangelist, a sort of Oklahoma version of Aimee Semple McPherson . All I knew then was she was a sweet loving woman who would give me candy. Bethel had been diagnosed with breast cancer (the same affliction that would eventually end Maw-Maw’s life 9 years later) and I went with my family to visit her in the hospital. When told just days later that she had died, I was at first unconcerned as I had been told she would be in Heaven. But at the funeral, it was apparent to me that she wasn’t in Heaven – she was sleeping in a box in front of us. And when they went to close the box and take her away, for the first time in my life I completely lost it, becoming hysterical. I was to never again lose my composure in that way at funerals again. I suppose that the reality of death hitting home for the first time is that sort of divide crossing for most of us.

My dad began driving a truck for United Van Lines, and our fiscal situation improved considerably. For a time, we would make the several block trip to Yutterman’s market, an old-school store with wooden floors and sawdust, at least every other day since we only had a few dollars at a time to buy groceries with. By the summer of 1966 things were better and it would be me along with the female members of the Miller clan – Mom Janet, Maw-Maw Ida, and little Liz walking there and back to claim a weeks worth of goods, everyone except Liz carrying multiple paper sacks and enduring the arm fatigue on the return trip. Yutterman’s gave out Bingo cards

for a game that was played weekly on the radio. The numbers were called on the broadcast and we would use pinto beans to cover the squares since there were multiple games played. The prizes couldn’t have been more than $10 a game, but all of us poured over our respective cards as it were access to Fort Knox itself that was in the balance. Once, one of us bingoed, but by the time we dialed the number it was busy with others calling in to verify their win, and it was a “first call” basis for deciding who got the money. My nearly 8 year old tech savant self decided that the time dialing the number of the station was the killer, so when one of us would be “on” – needing just one number for Bingo – I would go to the phone (still remember our number – SU-32464,

a vestige of the days when the first two numbers were alpha to indicate the exchange, which in our case was “Sunset”) and predial the rotary numbers omitting only the last, a technique that I had discovered by trial-and-error bought me a 30-40 second window before the call would disconnect. Alas, when one of us finally Bingoed again, in my excitement I dialed the wrong last digit, and called a grumpy old man who let me know in no uncertain terms that he “didn’t give a good goddamn if I had Bingo or not."

We prepared to move near my birthday, and I have no recollection of the event itself. Now that I was no longer the youngest, the attention was mostly spent on Liz and 7 year old Bobby was an afterthought. A day that stays in my memory though is a time when my Mom was gone for most of the day and for some reason I was terribly anxious about her return. When she finally came back late, she brought me unprompted a book. That small gesture, in the face of my norm of feeling neglected, meant so much to me that it is still one of the best memories I have of Mom.