Bridges of Orange County - He Said, She Said

The "new" old general store.

The old general store has been buried in a watery grave for about forty years now.  Swimming with the fishies, not too far away is the ancient rickety bridge that we would cross slowly in our car, eyeing every broken board always wondering if today was going to be the day it would finally give way.

Crossing that bridge was not just crossing a small creek into the small southern Indiana town formerly known as Newton Stewart.  The bridge was actually a time machine transporting us back into a world that time forgot. 

Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go.  And so it was on the roads that took us from grandma to grandma in our southern Indiana roots.  From one small town known in the 70's for it's high school basketball fame (before class basketball ruined the sport forever for Indiana) through French Lick, the hometown of Larry Bird and back into the past.

Sometimes our advancement of progress towards getting from one place to another completely destroys the simple beauty of extremely winding roads and those quick hills where my dad would press on the gas just at the top to give us kids the "tickle-belly hills" we loved so much. 

Indiana is for the most part, just some flat piece of land where people travel from a state out east to a state out west.  But southern Indiana breaks away just a bit with a little vertical diversity that to this day tugs at my heart strings. 

The 15 miles from Loogootee Indiana to French Lick consists of ever so slightly elevating hills and winding turns reminicient of the old movie Duel, without the wide open spaces.  No one wants to get stuck behind some slowpoke, likewise no one appreciates the idiots that think they should take the wet-your-pants turns at break-neck speeds slightly pushing you with their front bumper.

Getting there is half the fun.  That's what we used to experience on the drive from French Lick to Newton Stewart.  The 12 miles from French Lick to Newton Stewart was even more adventurous.  Sure, nothing like scaling a mountainside, but it was certainly a thrill to four rugrats packed into the back seat of a 1958 push button transmission Chrysler wagon.   (OK, I'm making up the year and make of the car.  I know we had a push button transmission wagon, but I don't know the year or make,  I googled that part, but I'm sure CnC or my brother Mike can straighten that part out quickly).  I do remember it looked something like this, so you guys can figure it out.

This was back in the days where no parent thought anything wrong with letting a three year old ride the whole trek standing up in the front seat.  Of  course no one would consider that today, but back in the early sixties, this was  the equivalent of taking your kid to King's Island.  I never became a bullet out the windshield nor did I ever get thrown out of the back of a pick-up truck.   It was just routine travel back in those days.  I can relish that freedom while still never considering doing that with my grandkids today.  Sure, they are safer, but they'll also never know that feeling of having the wind whip around you like you could fly. 

Beam me back, Scotty.

So once transported across the time travel machine bridge, we would experience life as it had been since the 30's. 

My grandparent's owned the old general store just past the bridge.   The old store (pictured above is the "new" one) made Floyd's barber shop on the Andy Griffith show look like a modern-day hack.  It was a decaying building, housing the post office, the cabinet type refrigerators full of Choc Ola, Double Cola, Grape NeHi and Orange Crush, 

Remembering the store now, it seems as though it had everything that one would imagine out of an old time Hollywood movie, right down to the wood burning stove and the old men sitting around smoking cigars and cigarettes and telling old men stories. One of the old guys was asked once why he always wore the same pair of pants. He replied, "Well, I figured the new dirt just knocks out the old dirt, so it just really doesn't matter much."

Up the big hill stood my grandparent's home.

My grandmother gave birth to 15 children, 11 of them lived to be adults.  She lost her youngest (my uncle Kenny's twin) and her oldest within a week of each other due to the flu epidemic sometime in the 1920's.  She also lost a set of twins, all before my father was born on Christmas Day 1931. 

Up until the time my grandmother was forced to give up her home in the early 70's to make way to what is now Patoka Lake, there was no running water in her home and only an outhouse for a bathroom facility.   I can remember pumping water from the pump that sat on her porch onto my hand to slurp the fresh cool water.  I will also never forget the smell and general yuckiness of having to use the outhouse.

If you trekked out along the small stream that ran through the town you would come upon a clearing that was filled with arrowheads and Indian beads left there from a century or more before.

When the state of Indiana came knocking on my grandmother's door wanting her land, she asked to be allowed to stay on her property and maintain the general store and post office as that area sat atop a hill and was the only area of the former Newton Stewart that was not flooded for the lake.   Her request was denied and she and my uncle were forced to give up the home and move to nearby French Lick.

Of course the move was hard for her, but it did allow her to live her remaining few years in a house that had all of the conveniences that nearly all homes had long ago possessed.  Running water and an indoor bathroom.

I remember the rumor at the time that the caskets of the soon-to-be flooded cemetary would also go under a watery grave and that they would only take a shovel of dirt from each grave and place that dirt to a new location.  I doubt the story is true as I've unfortunately had to return to the cemetary where most of my dad's family is buried, including those children that died before my dad was even born. 

Several years ago, I returned to the area where my grandparent's house stood.  The house is long gone and the "new" general store was being used as a supply shed of some type.  The road that led us to her house now only remains a vague clearing between the old trees and I narrowed my eyes to remember that hill that led down to the old store and the rickety bridge.  I mourned the loss of the time travel bridge and the generations that will never know that under all that water lay many never to be discovered arrow heads. 

The path to get to the town f/k/a Newton Stewart still passes over the great Tillrey Hill.  The road has been smoothed out to a pristine boring flat straight path.  It's been graded into just a tall incline and I feel sad that there is now a whole generation of kids that are driven over the hill and have no concept of thrill of topping that hill, which used to feel you were on the front car of a roller coaster when you crested at the top, unable to see the road beneath you.  Where a dad can gun the gas pedal of the car right at the top and send their little tummies into a quick trip up and spread the giggles throughout the car like a roar.  They will never hear their fathers tell the story about being a little kid growing up in the 30's whose older brothers would scare them with made-up stories of the crazy lady that rode a pig sidesaddle while she stalked young boys along the stream. 

Are there any roads and bridges that still exist today that allow a youngster to go back in time?  Something tells me they have all been paved over or flooded away forever in the name of progress.   Yes I can get there faster, but now the generic lake that flooded the time travel bridge has no magical properties, so why would I want to waste my time?  Getting to Nowhere, Indiana faster seems to be a pointless journey. 

My dad trailing some of the Newton Stewart kids

What He Said

Barefootin' - He Said, She Said.

Yes I know this episode of He Said, She Said is long overdue.  But here it is.  Don't forget to check out what  He Said.



As I cornered around the garage, running as fast as my grubby little 8-year-old bare feet would take me, I was trying to catch one of the other kids in our late night game of Tag.

It was early September slightly past dusk. Since I was younger than everyone else, of course I was “IT” more often than not.

As I sped across the front of our garage apron, I felt a fast tug on my left foot. No pain, but I instantly knew something was wrong, bad wrong. I belted out one of those nightmarish kid’s screams that pierced the neighborhood and everyone’s eardrums. Although there still wasn’t any pain, I could just “feel” something very wrong with the bottom of my toe. I hobbled as fast as possible to the inside of the house to find solace.

As I went running into the kitchen leaving a trail of blood from my Dad’s metal tool drawer that he had absently left on the garage apron, I saw Mom come flying around the corner clearly understanding those types of screams do not come with just some kiddy type drama.

My brother Mark also came running in. Which I found odd since he despised me since I had taken his “baby of the family” moniker away from him when he was four. It had only been one week since Mark’s own foot had been cut pretty severely under the bridge when he stepped on a piece of glass.

I sat down at one of the chairs and pulled my left foot up to see what the damage actually was. Mark knelt down just about the time I brought up my foot. That’s when all three of us noticed that the entire bottom half of my big toe was…gone. Where the meatiest portion of the bottom of the big toe should have been was only a gaping open wound exposed all the way to the bone of my toe. The blood was quickly forming a nice puddle on the floor when Mark gasped out an “Oh My God” before Mom shushed him back into silence.

The flurry of activity next gets a little blurred with a fading memory. My parents wrapped my foot as tightly as possible, but the blood just kept soaking through. Mom held me in her lap while Dad floored the car to drive to the nearest doctor’s office.

Unfortunately the car was nearly empty on gas and neither Mom nor Dad had any cash. This was long before the days of ATM’s and debit cards. The local gas station was a couple miles down the road. Although Harold, the owner was our neighbor, we didn’t know him well. Dad had Harold fill the tank up “just enough” and THEN told him that he had no money and was rushing me to the doctor. Harold waved him along knowing Dad would pay him as soon as possible. I think about that decision now and then. My parents both were afraid that I was bleeding to death and Dad was caught in a place of telling Harold first and risk not being able to get gas or wait until the car was filled and fess up and tell Harold he would pay him as soon as he could. He chose the latter, probably just too afraid that Harold would say no and he would have no way to get me help as soon as possible. Now and again I think about what must have been running through his mind. I don’t like to think that he was scared for me, but yet I know he was, they both were.

I remember my parents rushing me through a crowded doctor’s office. As best as I can recall, the doctor must have gotten the bleeding under control and then told my parents to take me to the hospital. Since I was still grubby and dirty and the crisis was somewhat calmed, they took me home first to clean me up a bit. I seem to remember Mom putting a nice orange dress on me before we went to the hospital.

Back in the 60’s hospitals weren’t exactly patient or family friendly. They wheeled me away from my parents into a cold examination room, where a young intern unwrapped my toe and began to “numb” it all around with about five shots on what was quickly becoming a very painful toe. He cleaned the wound as much as possible and then he wrapped it up with cotton, and no ointment to prevent the cotton from binding directly into the wound.

The next morning, before my scheduled surgery, you could have heard my screams throughout the all of Indianapolis as they kept trying to soak my toe to extract the cotton the should-have-worked-flipping-burgers-intern had stupidly wrapped tightly the night before. I can vividly remember every detail.

When they finished, they put me on a gurney to head to surgery to graft some skin from my stomach to cover the open toe. Mom and Dad tried to keep up, but hospital staff back in those days didn’t much care if a parent had the time to comfort a scared little girl still crying in pain. I remember the mask over my face and the instant out of consciousness.

Back in 1967, children under 14 were not allowed in the patient rooms and visiting hours, even for parents were very limited. The room I shared the next 10 days with two to three other little girls was the only place I was allowed. There was Mary, who was in a full body cast after she had been hit by a car. There was Jill, a red-headed little girl. I remember asking my mom what was wrong with her and she told me she had leukemia. I knew that Jill was not going to live. Nancy was a girl in another room that would come visit. Her hair was a mess because she had a broken neck and a trac tube. Nancy and her family had been in a horrible car accident. At the accident scene, the medics had moved Nancy away from her parents as they announced that she was dead. A few minutes later one of them heard her gurgling.

So I could do nothing but lay in the bed the entire time. They only time I was even allowed to sit in a chair was when they would change the bed sheet. Twice a day, they would give me an antibiotic shot in my scrawny little legs which felt like they were driving the needle into the bone. Then they would remove the needle from the syringe and give me the empty container to play with. You sure don’t see that happening today.

School had just started before the accident, so my third grade teacher had all the kids create get well cards for me. To this day we laugh about the one that had a big toe drawn on the front along with the words, “Oh Dear Toe”.

On the 10th day, the surgeon came in to remove the stitches. He was not gentle as he cut and yanked the threads from my sore toe and stomach. He complained to my mom that I was being a baby. He was lucky he made it out of the room with all his teeth. After the stitches were gone, the doc took off down the hallway. I can still remember my mom running after him and her yelling, “When can she go home?” He casually said, “I guess today.” If she hadn’t asked, I wonder if I would still be there.

Mom was so excited as she was helping me get dressed and as I slipped out of bed for the first time in 10 days, I stood on my good leg and I promptly hit the floor feeling my weakened leg muscle give out. I can remember how scared I was because I didn’t understand that not using or exercising those tiny little girl calf muscles meant my good leg was just not strong enough to support my weight.

I still can’t believe how ridiculously stupid the medical profession was back then. Not only was it completely unnecessary to keep me in the hospital that long, but to not even have me stand or use my right leg for 10 days???

Today, the scar on my toe still looks pretty nasty and you can feel the bone of my toe hiding just beneath a thin layer of skin.

On a positive note, I continue to use my “ugly toe” as we call it as a method to irritate my nieces and nephews. Our family gatherings are fairly large and someone is always lying on the floor. I wait till they least suspect it and take my bare toe and walk past them casually and then quick as a wink I move my toe to their lips and scream, “Ugly Toe Kiss”. The victim tries to wipe away the leftover toe feeling while the rest of us get a good laugh.

RIP Marshall Dillon [He Said, She Said] Part 3

This week one of America's most infamous cowboys passed away.  For those of us lucky "oldsters" we remember fondly James Arness' character of the gun slinging Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke.

Interestingly enough, "He Said" and I decided we would tell our own story of the Wild Wild West days before our beloved Marshall Dillon passed away this week.

Well it wasn't EXACTLY like the Wild Wild West, but it did involve two drunk idiots flinging themselves through the bar's swinging doors and an even wilder tale.  All I can tell you was at least there wasn't a duel at the end of the night.

I was twenty years old, so I was too young in the state of Indiana to even enter a bar.  For reasons I don't remember, my sister, her husband, my brother Rumbles and his not-quite-yet first wife decided to go to his favorite place to hang out.  It was called the Benchmark Inn, a local bar.  Back in those days, Rumbles never let a bar seat get lonely at the Benchmark.  Four of us stayed in the family area, while Rumbles went through the swinging bar doors (YES, they really were swinging bar doors) and sat down next one of his favorite drinking buddies we called Wormy.  Rumbles and Wormy were already "well oiled" you might say, a state of intoxication (or something worse) was never far away. 

I think I recall that we ordered dinner while sitting out in the family room.  Suddenly there was some loud ruckus coming from the bar area.  It wasn't difficult back then to do simple math.  Just as 1 + 1 always equaled 2, Rumbles + Bar always equaled Ruckus. 

Of course the four of us knew immediately that Rumbles was getting himself into a big bar fight.  I'm sure it certainly wasn't his first, but it was the first where I was ever in close proximity.  All of us went running toward the bar doors when they flung open and in true Wild West fashion, out came two drunks fighting.  To be honest, I wouldn't EXACTLY say it was a fight, since that would imply fists.  They were more accurately performing very aggressive "hugging".  (Who wants to bet Rumbles takes more offense to THAT term than any other in the story?)  Cue the sound of crickets here Mark.

As the two idiots swung through the doors, they were followed by the other bar sitters, all just standing by as the dingbats hugged there way to the floor.  No one, NO ONE was even attempting to break up the fight. 

Our group was yelling for them to stop.  As was custom for her, my sister decided to act.  She acted like she always did in a family emergency.  She PANICKED.  Screaming like a banshee.

In the meantime, I was po'd the other drunk bar men did not even attempt to break up the fight, which by then had become a lovefest of two straight men rolling around on the floor together. 

Since no one was accomplishing anything, I grabbed my brother's pant leg and began to PULL.   Trying to get them separated.  I probably weighed all of 95 pounds back then, but I wasn't going to sit back and do nothing.

After a few good yanks on his pants, I had pulled them hard enough.  NO, I did not manage to pull his pants OFF although that would have probably made for a better story.  I had pulled them hard enough to dislodge a freakin' GUN he had stuffed in his waistband. 

Sorry Mom, but there can just be no way that this idiot brother and I share a common set of biological parents.   OH WAIT, that's right.  I forgot about Dad's propensity to behave this way when he was young.  Nevermind.

With seeing the gun bouncing along the floor, I suddenly decided I would let my brother explore his sexual preferences with the man on the floor.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I let go of his pant leg, grabbed up the gun and moved away from the lover's quarrel. 

I was hiding the gun  in my purse so I didn't see how the lovefest finally broke up.  While my back was turned, the fighting stopped.  It could have stopped because my screaming panicked sister started screaming, "I'll call the cops, I'll call the cops, I'LL CALL THE COPS". 

The next thing I remember is that Miss Calm continues to scream and starts to hyperventilate.  She collapses in the middle of the family dining area floor while everyone now stands around her.  Rumbles was standing next to me and I remember grabbing his arm and pointing at our now-feral sister still screaming away and I said to him, " THIS is what you are doing to your family."  For some strange reason I don't think he liked that too much.

He went storming off and I knelt down by my sister.  Some strange guy was kneeling next to me and I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to find me a paper bag. 

In the meantime, my brother-in-law is doing what he does in a family crisis.  He was pretty much ignoring the whole event.  Although he did manage to inject a bit of humor.  While his wife lay screaming on the floor, he stands there, draws back his fist and says, "Get up and I'll hit you again." as if he had slugged her a good one. 

Yes, I AM the only normal one in the family.  Thanks for asking.

When everything had calmed down, we left the Benchmark as they were closing the doors.  I left with my sister and brother-in-law and we agreed that we would keep this entire story to ourselves, not tell Mom or Dad so they would not worry.   I hid the gun far far back in my bedroom closet.

Rumbles, not realizing we had NOT ratted him out answered a simple, innocent question from our Mom a few days later and ratted himself out, telling her the whole story because he thought she already knew.  I figure THAT was the best revenge for his stupidity.

Whenever we talked about the incident with the gun, Rumbles stupidly claims, "I would have never used it."  And I add, "I believe you, BUT you did not know if the other guy would have!!!!"

Thank Sweet Jesus that Rumbles had a religious conversion on that same bar stool a few short years later when he had just pulled another stupid stunt which he thought for sure was going to land him in jail.  He said of that incident that when he sat on that bar stool he prayed, "Jesus, if you get me out of this situation, you'll never have to ever get me out of another one."  I watched my brother that next day outside after the second incident, working on his bike and listening to GOSPEL music.   He didn't touch a drop for years after that.

And there have been no swinging bar doors with my brother in the middle of a bar fight since. 

Well, none that I'm aware of anyway.

And the Smell of Sunday Supper on the Table

I heard it before I saw it. It sounded just like a blow torch and not a sound you would expect to hear at the dinner table.


I was pretty young, probably under 7 and it was a Sunday afternoon. Mom was fixing dinner and I was in the kitchen with her. I don’t know where the rest of the kids were, but I’d make a bet they were off stirring up trouble somewhere.

Dad came rushing in from the garage where he had been working on a car. Having grown up in the 30’s with 10 other kids, he wasn’t exactly raised to be one of those “touchy-feely” fathers. Pretty much after the age of four, you didn’t get hugs and the first time I remember my father telling me he loved me (back) was on his death bed when I was 32 years old. He had finally started returning hugs only a month or two before that, knowing that the liver cancer was going to do him in.

So, Dad was the kind of man you would describe as being a strict parent. He believed in lectures and strong discipline when raising kids. That can be misinterpreted when you’re growing up and so it was with Dad. He wielded a strong hand or belt when he felt someone needed it. Or a lecture, if you were lucky. Mark was usually the “lucky participant” of the majority of the lessons, mainly because he was not smart enough to keep out of trouble or his mouth shut.

But I digress.

So Dad comes running into the kitchen and turns on the faucet and begins to vigorously wash his mouth with the well water. When he could finally speak he told Mom what had happened. Apparently while working on our car, he had siphoned some of the gas out into a BEER BOTTLE. Then forgetting that the beer bottle next to him wasn’t beer, he swigged a big gulp of the gasoline. I remember being a little afraid. I wasn’t quite old enough to know how serious it might be, but I could sense his bit of panic when washing his mouth out.

An hour or so later, the six of us sat down for Sunday dinner. Only mom and I knew what had happened with the gas/beer chugging. Dad didn’t like tomatoes or spaghetti, so I don’t really remember what he was eating, but the all of us grubby kids were slurping our spaghetti. Dad always finished eating before the rest of us and that day he did what he always did when he was done eating.

He grabbed a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it and then proceeded to blow out the match, breathing a three foot flame of gasoline fumes across the table.

Yep, THAT was the flame thrower sound. Mom and I knew why it happened, but the other kids thought it was that nightmare we all probably had after one of Dad’s discipline exercises. To them, I’m sure it seemed like he really WAS that fire breathing dragon. It was instant chaos. I think I started crying; Mark sat there in sheer terror, probably thinking Dad had figured out something Mark had done wrong (again) and he was about to catch holy hell. Helen stood up in panic, putting both hands down on the table, one in Michael’s plate of spaghetti, neatly cutting it all in bite-sized pieces for him. I don’t remember what Michael did, probably because Michael never seemed to do anything.

It was a Sunday dinner none of us will ever forget. You could say it has been “burned into our memory.”

He Said - She Said - Of course SHE's RIGHT.

Thinking back, all I can tell you was that I was a precious child, full of love and sweetness, always willing to do anything for my brothers and sister. When I came along, my sister was six, one brother five, and the other four.

The only thing I did wrong my entire life was ruining their Three Stooges routine.

And they never let me forget it. They were abusive siblings, always picking on me, but I endured their torture graciously and never held their meanness against them. My parents tried to protect me, mainly from my brother Mark. Their method of protection was telling Helen (who was one mean girl) that if Mark hit me she could hit him. How did she handle her newfound authority? By saying (when my parents weren’t around), “Hit her Mark. Hit her.” If he even came close she could beat the hell out of him.

See? They all conspired against me. It’s sad really. Such a sweet child being so abused.

But I forgave them and ultimately won them over with my saintly demeanor.

Well, at least this is how I remember those years. I’m sure someone else might have a different opinion, but they would be wrong, of course.

Since there might actually be a differing account of the events in our lives, my brother (the meanest one) and I have decided to start a “He Said, She Said” series. We’ll post about events in our lives and see how different or alike our versions are.

So look for our series of He Said, She Said. But remember, that my recollection will be factual and Mark’s (Rumbles) might be skewed. 

But to set the final record straight, my memory of the abuse I suffered might be just a bit exaggerated to gain the sympathetic vote. If I remember right, I was pretty good at using that when we were little.

Rumbles and I are blessed with a wonderful family. I rarely find others are so lucky. Sure we fought like other kids did, but every year all of us became closer and closer. We spend wonderful times together. But more importantly, we are there for each other, we stick together and we face hard times together and celebrate good times with gusto. No one has my back as much as the people in my family. And I have theirs.

I wish everyone else could be so lucky. So check out what “He Said” over at Rumbles from the Vent.

Just look at the love I have for my big brother.  Even if he can't remember to keep his pants zipped.