FROM HERMAN JUNCTION TO iPOD:POST #52

My niece had a little thing in her hand while we were sitting at the funeral home with some friends and family. She kept punching around on it and finally I asked her what in the world she had in her hand. She said, "It's an iPod!" I asked her "What does the thing do?" She said that it has a lot of information on it and that she had 15,000 songs recorded on it. I couldn't believe it. I know all the songs in the song books that we have used at church nearly all my life and I thought that I was doing good, but 15,000 songs on that little hand held thing was just hard for me to believe.

You see, it was not long ago at Herman Junction that I was listening to the Grand Ole Opry on a radio sitting up in the window of the house on Saturday night. I moved from that into having a little tiny record player that would play one record at a time and then to a stereo where I could play albums with six songs on one side. Then I got eight track and cassette tapes and moved on to the CD's but that is as far as I ever intended to go in the electronic world.

Why does someone need 15,000 songs on a little hand-held gizmo? How many songs can one listen to at a time? Are all of those songs desirable songs? How long would it take me to listen to 15,000 songs and by the time that I listened to all of them some new ones would have been recorded and I would need to add them to the list. This electronic gadget age is driving me nuts. I like simple things. I mean, I know every song in the song book, "Songs of the church" and I thought that was pretty good but it is far short of 15,000 songs. My Pod was doing alright I thought and then comes this iPOD thing and confuses the daylights out of me. I used to get after the teenagers for passing notes during my sermons because I could see them doing it. Now, they text message and they can do it while looking me straight in the eye and causing me to think that they are listening. I just can't stand it.

I have no idea what else there is in the gadget world that I don't know even exists. I know that we bought our two Great-Granddaughters a little plastic computer each and they like them. They call them thier 'pooters' and don't want anyone touching them. Well, they and the rest of the world may be learning a lot of new things but back at Herman Junction we learned a lot of things in much more simple fashion. We listened to one song at a time, added up our figures in our head, wrote letters and sent them in the U.S. mail, and some folk even had a party line telephone. It was a pretty good system and I liked it. I say, "If it was good enough for Herman Junction it is good enough for me."

It seems to me that the more electronic stuff we find the more complicated life gets. Some folks know all about it and some don't know diddly about it and that makes it hard to deal with. At Herman Junction everybody could turn on the radio and listen to a song or Young Dr. Malone, write a letter, etc. It was simple! Now, I've go to learn how to compute on a 'pooter', work an iPOD, work up a sermon on Power Point so I can show pictures in the church house, and all of that stuff and it's hard for a Herman Junction guy to do that. And, while I am pointing at stuff on the Power Point the kids are having a field day text messaging. I wonder what is coming next? None of this stuff is going on at Herman Junction today and that makes everything well at Herman Junction.

'57 YELLOWJACKETS: POST #51

One of the great blessings of my life in being raised at Herman Junction was getting to go school at Bay, Arkansas. At one time there was a school at Herman Junction housed in one building across the railroad tracks from our house. When we moved there the school had already closed and we rode the bus as little folk to the school in the big city of Bay. To me it was a HUGE school and I may as well have been in New York City even though at that time I didn't know that there was a New York City.

Miss Una Pounds was my first teacher and it was called the 'Primer' class. I guess it was similar to a kindergarten class today. Miss Una taught that class from the beginning of time I guess. I know that she taught Noah's grandchildren after they got off the Ark. She was known and loved by everybody in the country. I moved from that class to the Second grade after the first year, skipping the First grade. I don't know why that was but it was OK to me. That is why I graduated from High School at barely Seventeen years old and several of my classmates did too.

Most of my early classmates and I went all the way through High School together. Our society was not as mobile as it is today and moving around was only from one to another share-cropping place but we stayed in the same school. Not too many moved away and not too many moved in it seemed to me. It was such a blessing to go to school with children and young people who would be dear friends to this very day.

Every year now there is a reunion at Bay of the '57 Yellow Jackets. There are only about three or four of our classmates that we cannot find and about Seven who have passed away. There were 46 graduates in 1957 and we usually have about 32-36 at our reunion and we really enjoy it. You know, when you get our age you need to have your reunions often because you don't know when you might be called for a funeral instead of a reunion!

Our class was made up of some really good people. Oh, we had our differences but that was OK. Gladys Jean Hines asked me in October 2008 if I was still spreading that church of Christ stuff around. She wasn't being mean, just showing her hard-shelled Baptist feelings. We talked about church quite often and argued about dancing, etc. but we loved each other in spite of our differences. Shirley and Peggy Ashlock were neighbors and both of them in my class. I told the church where Shirley attends that when we were youngsters we fought nearly every day and she started every one of them! We don't fight any more though. One classmate told me recently that the two of us had a fight once because I was trying to keep him from fighting with Jimmy Isbell. I don't remember that but he shouldn't have been picking on Jimmy anyway. I remember one time we were at a basketball game at Marked Tree and we were outside the gym during the girls game. Some guys wanted to fight us and one of the Marked Tree guys said, "I have a brother in High School." Dalton Weaver said, "I have a brother in the PEN!" That was the end of the fight and I sure was glad. I don't remember when Walton got out of the pen but he has been preaching now for about 50 years. (Now, he wasn't really in the pen...Dalton was just joshing.) I could tell a thousand stories but some of them would accuse me of not telling the truth on them so I will just hush before I get in more trouble than I am already in.

Yes, I am really proud to be a part of the '57 Yellow Jackets and look forward to seeing them time and again. In fact, I hope that I am the last one to leave this earth because I would not want to think what some of them might say if I go before them. May God bless you dear friends and may we have many more good times together.

DUST, MUD, GUMBO: POST #50

Every road in the Herman Junction area was dirt except old highway 63 that ran right in front of our house. No, I did NOT say GRAVEL road, I said DIRT road. The roads in every direction from our house were just dirt roads and that made life interesting at times.

Herman Junction was the only place that I knew of where one could stand in mud up to his butt and have sand blowing in his eyes! Things could change that quickly it seemed. I hated DUST! It was awful to be walking down the road and a car or truck meet you or pass you and the dust would be so thick that you could not see and you could just feel it filling your lungs in spite of any effort that you made to keep it out. Dust was everywhere and covered everything. It could even get in the house around the windows and you could write your name on the end tables and other pieces of furniture. One would anxiously await a little rain and then it would come. When it came, we had......

MUD! I mentioned earlier that when I was very young I enjoyed riding in the wagon with the family and leaning over the side boards and watch the mud squshing up on the wheels and leaving a trail behind us. Even as I got older I enjoyed riding the tractor or a bicycle through the mud. It was kind of fun to make mud balls and fight with them unless you got hit square in the face with one and I have had that experience many times. Mud doesn't taste too good. A lot of time could be used taking a stick and making all kinds of designs in the mud only to have your little sister come along and mess it all up. But, I didn't really like the mud all that much and I was happy to see it dry up some. But then that dad gummed dust would come back and mess everything up again.

GUMBO! Do you think that I am talking about Louisiana Gumbo that one eats? Well, I am not! I am talking about the dirt out of Ben and Pete Harpers farms. It would be dry and dusty, then the rain would come and there would be mud and gumbo. We often wore shoes that were called, "Gumbo Boots or Shoes." I can hardly describe the feeling of trying to walk in a pair of boots or shoes through gumbo. I mean that stuff was like some kind of plaster or cement. You would get stuck and the only way out was to pull your feet out of the boots and then try to pull the boots out of the gumbo and carry them to dryer ground. When you pulled those boots out of the gumbo it made a sound kind of like we make when we put a big sucker in our mouth and remove it quickly. We would go to chop cotton and that gumbo would stick to your hoe and about every third strike you would have to stop and clean the gumbo off your hoe. When you were picking cotton because the cotton was dry but the gumbo was still a bit wet, when you got to the end of the row you would have about sixty pounds of cotton in the sack and twenty pounds of gumbo on your sack and feet. Barbara and I slid off a road one time and there was no way to control the car in the gumbo. We were going very slow and just gently slid off in a ditch. We had to walk a few hundred yards in the gumbo and you never saw such a mess in your life. We had it all over us by the time we got to a nearby house. It is cold black and as sticky as glue.

There are still come dirt roads at Herman Junction just exactly like those in days gone by. And, they are still dusty and muddy and that gumbo remains on those farms where we once chopped and picked cotton. Ain't it good to have nice paved roads?

FUNERALS: POST #49

There were some sad times at Herman Junction just like there are sad times everywhere else. I remember them vividly. We came home from school one day and there were several people at the house on the other side of the track from us between Herman Junction and Davis Spur. The wife and mother of the family that lived there had died some time before. On this day when we got home and saw all the people there we learned that the father/husband of the family had just died. I believe that there were four children in the family and now they were without father or mother and I remember how painful the thought of that was to me. I don't know what happened to the children but I hope that they have each had a very good life as adults.

I hated funerals. I only went to two funerals and left both times before I began preaching and had to preach one. I went to the funeral of My Lady's brother, Pete and I had to leave because I could not stand the pain that completely filled that building. Pete was 18 years old and died of kidney disease. My Grandmother died and I went to her funeral but again I had to leave because I simply thought that I would burst with pain when I saw my Dad and so many, many, others who hearts were broken. I am an extremely emotional person and to this day I cry every time they open a new Wal-Mart store or something like that. Funerals are especially tough for me. I have come a long way though and was able to speak at both Dad's and Mom's funeral although later I crashed.

There were some things about Herman Junction funerals that I didn't understand and I thought were quite odd. Most of the time the body of the deceased was taken home for a day or so before the funeral and people in the community would come to the house and 'sit up' with the family. I remember a lady who lived there and when someone died she would just move in with the family for a couple of days. Sometimes she didn't even know the family but she would always go and just sit there and eat. You know, there was always a ton of food for the family when someone died and this lady would go there and just graze for a couple of days and I remember Mom and some others talking about that. I thought that I could surely find a better place to eat myself. When the funeral occurred this same lady would just wail and carry on like she had lost her best friend but after the funeral she was just fine and ready to eat again.

One of my Aunts had always heard that the body of the deceased was put in a casket with clothes that had a front in them but no back and she had always wondered about that. One time she decided that she would sit with the corpse and when everyone else was gone she would take a peek and see if that was true. But, there was one other lady who sat there too and didn't budge to leave. They sat there together all night long although they really didn't know each other very well. Later, my Aunt learned that the other lady was there for the same reason that she was but neither of them knew what the other was thinking.

One of my preacher friends preached an entire funeral calling the deceased by the wrong name. She had a twin sister and the living sister sat there and heard her own funeral preached! Her corrected it at the cemetery.

The people in the community in those days honored the deceased and the family in every way that they could. Work almost stopped. Traffic on the highway stopped as the procession made it's way to the church building and cemetery. If there was a crop in the field that needed to be tended, neighbors banded together and took care of those needs. If help was needed financially there was always someone to lead the way to gather funds and help. There was a bond in the community that is seen very seldom these days and everyone was willing to do whatever he or she could do to relieve the needs of their neighbors.

In Romania a funeral is so different and I was shocked one day when I saw one taking place. I was sitting in a big bus that was stopped and I was just looking out the window. My Lady and some other Americans were with me. Suddenly there was a three quarter ton truck passing by and up on the bed of that truck was a casket with a body in it and the top of the casket was turned across the front of the bed and the body was lying there all clothed but exposed to the elements. There was a rail across the rear of the truck and family members were holding on to the rail and behind them were other family members and friends. The truck was moving very slowly so the people could keep up with it and they were very, very, respectful as they made their journey to the cemetery. There was a lot of loud wailing and crying as they walked down the street. But, I was amazed at the body just lying there and I told My Lady and the others that if I die in Romania to please put the lid down on my casket because it is unusually cold over there.

I didn't like the funerals at Herman Junction but there were some funny things that happened sometimes and I guess that was alright because it helped to lighten the load a bit. I hope there isn't a funeral at Herman Junction today because it would have to be James or Ann Ritchie or my sister, Mayor Linda and I wouldn't like that.

CHRISTMAS AT HERMAN JUNCTION: POST #48

My memories of Christmas at Herman Junction will live with me forever I hope. I honestly do not remember having a bad Christmas or one that failed my expectations except once when I was disappointed that I did not get a bicycle and instead got a scooter. Do you know what a scooter is? It was certainly not a motorized vehicle. It was a little deal where you put one foot on it and used the other foot to push yourself and you had a handle bar sticking up to guide yourself. We don't see them much anymore.

Preparing for Christmas was a joy. We went to the woods and found a cedar tree that looked just right, cut it down and pulled it to the house. Our tree was always decorated beautifully. We had popcorn that we had strung, red berries that we found in the woods and strung them, painted gum balls that were all over the place and we painted them different colors, a few icicles, and other home made decorations. We may have had a few other things and an angel on top but I really do not remember electric lights and many other decorations that we have today. It was always a joy to behold. Dad always provided for us more than I can now believe that he could have done. We had nuts, apples, oranges, candy, etc. all over the place. The one time that I remember being so sick that I could hardly move was when I ate about five pounds of that old hard Christmas candy. They had to hold a dish pan under me when I threw up because a normal bowl would not hold it. I can't stand that stuff to this day and haven't had it in our house for years.

Christmas morning was the time for opening presents. We would not have considered giving out gifts before that at all. Well, maybe I would have thought it but I knew better than to ask. It sure was fun anticipating the coming of Christmas morning, gathered around that tree and a good fire going in the old king heater, and Mom preparing a feast for breakfast. As soon as we finished we had acres and acres of places to go outside and play with the things that we got. I couldn't imagine how many times we got roller skates and we eagerly waited for them each time.

Later there was the Christmas dinner. I don't know how Mom did it. She had already fixed that huge breakfast and then must have just washed the dishes and started over for preparing dinner. There was always that chicken and dressing, her specialty and everything that went with it. She had pecan pies and several others, and a Jam cake. Mom made Jam cakes for other people too. They would pay her enough for the stuff to make it and then a little extra and they were really good. There wasn't anyone in the country that had a better Christmas than we had at Herman Junction.

I loved to sing Christmas carols and I still do today. I remember walking all over Bay with the other young people at church and singing Christmas carols. One time we went to Nettleton and met with other young people from around the area and we walked all over town singing Christmas carols and then came back to the building where the ladies had hot chocolate and cookies for us. I would love to do that today!

I do not believe that Jesus was born on December 25. I do not celebrate this day as a religious holiday. However, it is a great time at our house even now and part of the reason is because of the Christmases that we enjoyed at Herman Junction.

YELLOWJACKET#27: POST #47

I don't remember when I did not like basketball. My older brothers liked basketball and we played it a lot at Herman Junction. Before we had a real basketball we had a home made goal with a rim from a barrel or keg nailed up on the end of the little barn and later made a goal out of an old Texaco sign. Our basketball was a toe sack or two rolled up in a ball and held together with twine and we would bounce it on our hand instead of dribbling. You know, a toe sack ball won't dribble too good. If you ever stopped bouncing that thing in your hand you had to shoot or you would walk and you would lose the ball.

I played on the Junior High team in the 9th grade and would have played before that but there was no way to get me into Bay for games. I was not very good I guess in the 9th grade because I have never forgotten that I was the only player on the team that never took my warm up off the entire year. I never played one second in a game and I think that I certainly would have remembered it if I had. I think that if I had been the coach every player would have played at least a few minutes in a full year but I didn't. I never missed a game though and practiced as diligently as every other player.

In the 10th and 11th grades I got to play some and just loved it. There were certainly too many good players on the team for me to get in very often but I did get to play some. In the closing part of the 11th grade year I got to play a bit more and then in my Senior year I played a lot. I did not start many games but I normally was at the scorers table when the game started ready to come in at the first opportunity or the coach would call time and put me in. Winston (Truck) Holmes started every game because he was taller than the rest of us and he jumped center at the beginning of nearly every game. I loved playing basketball and stayed after school and practiced and then walked home. While the baseball team was playing a few of us who didn't play baseball were in the gym playing basketball in the spring. In the summer time I spent as much time as I could playing basketball.

The best one half of a game that I ever played was against Jonesboro in the NEA Tournament at Arkansas State in my Senior year. I was wide open a lot and made 18 points the first half. Coach Bob Pierce told the other guys to get me the ball and screen for me and let me shoot the second half too. But, that didn't happen! The Jonesboro coach put Ralph Buhrmiester on me and told him to see that I didn't score any more and he did it except for TWO points! The whole half Ralph was in my face and do you know what else he did? He would play right up close to me so the Referee could not see him, and grab my jersey and hold me. He never got caught and I never scored but two points. I tried that same thing with Jimmy Mote from Monette one night. Jimmy was a lot faster than me, as nearly everyone was, and one time he was getting away from me and I grabbed his jersey and we stretched it nearly from one end of the court to the other and of course I got caught.

The day before the game with Jonesboro I sprained my ankle pretty bad in practice. The day of the game Coach Pierce took me to Jonesboro to put me in a whirlpool to try to help that ankle. I had never heard of a whirlpool because we never had many of them in a Number 3 wash tub at Herman Junction. I sat with my leg over the edge of that whirlpool for I don't know how long and then they taped my ankle real tight before the game and I played the entire game. It was one of the few times that I started the game and it was real nice to hear my name called and get to run out there with the other starters. Barbara heard the game on the radio at home and got to hear my name called quite a bit for the first half of the game and then she must have thought that I died because she didn't hear it the last half thanks to Ralph.

One game that I especially remember was a game against Green County Tech. I was a Junior and the coach put me in after we were so far behind that we couldn't have won anyway. I was over between the basket and the left corner and someone threw me the ball. Here I was with the ball and the biggest man in the nation guarding me! I think that his name was Pigg and he was a BIG PIGG! I didn't see any of my teammates open and I couldn't dribble. I simply turned to my left and let go a hook shot with my left hand and it hit nothing but net! It wasn't because I meant for it to go in but it was just a lucky throw. But, everyone gave me a big hand just like I meant to make that basket.

I love basketball. I played with some great guys and we remain close friends to this day. Every year our high school class has a reunion and every time we talk about those games in high school I get better and better! When I preached in North Little Rock, Arkansas for seven years, I was invited to go to Barton Coliseum and give the invocation three times every day at the State Tournament when the entire thing was conducted in Little Rock. I watched a lot of basketball. I really enjoyed it when Bay came to the tournament. I watched the McMaster boys, Butch Isbell, Eddie Morrison, and others play Rector in the tournament and it really brought back memories. The tournament lasted for three weeks and I watched a lot of it and really did enjoy it.

We've come a long way from a balled up toe sack at Herman Junction but I loved it even then. I may go back there and challenge Mayor Linda to a game but she will have to play barefooted and promise not to hit me in the head with her shoe if I beat her. Oh, yes everything is good at Herman Junction today.

ICE STORM: POST #46

I am sitting at this computer right now looking outside at ice everywhere! The streets are covered and we are being advised to not get out at all because it would be too dangerous. Offices and businesses are closed. We were just about ready to leave for a doctor's appointment in Little Rock but the office called and said that they would not be open.

This reminds me of the first BIG ice storm that I remember. It was in the very early part of 1957 and I had never seen anything like it at Herman Junction. Ice covered the trees and the limbs looked like pure crystal. The roads were completely covered and we could get outside for short periods of time and skate on that ice as long as we could stand the cold. While we kids enjoyed the time off from school our parents had problems to deal with. Public worked almost stopped. It was wonderful that we used wood to heat our house because we had plenty of wood stored up for the winter.

I suppose the biggest problem that people had was trying to keep the food in the deep freezers from being ruined. The electricity was off for several weeks after the ice had melted because the REA couldn't get all the power lines back up and power restored as quickly as they can do it now. Barbara's family had a freezer full of food and cooked on a gas stove. They had a water pump that could be thawed out and a good water supply. They invited people who could get out on a tractor or just walk to their house to come and eat with them because the food in the freezer was going to ruin anyway. The electricity at their house was off for exactly two weeks and in some areas it was off longer than that.

My Mom cooked on a stove heated with Kerosene all the time that I was at home. So, we had plenty of food, water, and other necessities. We did not have indoor facilities and maybe you have heard the old saying, "Colder than a well diggers hind end". Well, you didn't have to be a well digger to have a cold hind end during that time. We just made sure that there was plenty of kindling and wood carried in the house and we made it fine. We had lamps to read by or to play rook or some other game. We would play games like, "I Spy" and "I see something that you don't see" and we kept busy. After dark I would often get to pop the corn and I hated it when someone would come and start grabbing a handful before the dish pan was full. While I popped they grabbed and I wanted an equal opportunity at that dish pan.

I was fortunate that someone would pick me up and get me to town because we were playing in the Northeast Arkansas Invitational Basketball Tournament in Jonesoboro at Arkansas State College. They managed somehow to get us to town and the bus managed to get us to the game. My Lady had an old battery radio and she listened to the game at home.

We were happy when things cleared up at Herman Junction and we could get back to school to see our friends and basketball games could resume. Even at Herman Junction a feller could get cabin fever after so much time. As I said, ice is everywhere today as I look out my window so I think that I'll just pop up some corn after while and if you are not too busy, come on over and we'll pretend that we are at Herman Junction again where everything is alright.