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Hank

by Jeff Lyon

179 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1775; ISBN 1-4120-1397-6; US$18.50, C$20.95, EUR15.00, £10.50

A tribute to the adventures and simple wisdom of Hank Marvin, a self-educated hillbilly from the Missouri Ozarks. As told by the grandson of Hank's twin sister.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book Set in the impossibly rocky hills and dense forests of southern Missouri, HANK is a book about a man that embraced the beauty of The Ozarks and lived in tune with the land. Stanley "Hank" Marvin enjoyed life's simple pleasures, loved his family and highly prized the time he could spend fishing from a canoe in the area's spring fed creeks. HANK begins as a city boy's account of adventures spent with his great uncle and their relationship that grows through the years. Hank's lessons on life, fishing, family, religion and politics are laced with country wisdom and humor. HANK will make you think, get teary-eyed and laugh out loud.

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About the Author The son of a preacher's daughter and truck driver, Jeff Lyon was born in the Ozarks and raised in Irving, Texas. Upon earning a degree in Communications from the University of North Texas, Jeff headed for Winter Park, Colorado to spend a season as a ski bum and stayed four years. Jeff returned to Texas to thaw out and start a career. Seven years as a Health Inspector and three years as a Fire Marshall for a booming north Texas town ensued. Moving with his wife to Florida, Jeff earned his captain's license and began driving other people's boats for a living. Now residing in Chicago, Jeff divides his time between driving boats and writing. Jeff Lyon is a voracious raconteur with a colorful past and a devilish wit.

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Sample Excerpt

CHAPTER 1 - HANK

In my earliest recollections of Hank, he is an older man. He had short cropped grey hair with a very large nose and a predilection for wearing overalls and sturdy shoes. Hank was my Grandmother's twin brother. He lived just outside the same small town of Willow Springs, Missouri, where they were born. Hank was deaf in one ear and highly opinionated. To a small boy he was bigger and louder than life.

Our family of six made all the usual visits from Irving, Texas, where I grew up to see my father's parents on holidays and special occasions, but it was the two-week stays during our summer breaks from school that the bond between me and Hank grew strongest. My parents would meet Grandpa and Grandma at a resort in Arkansas and pass off their four kids for a much needed break from child rearing. Two weeks later, Grandpa would deliver us back to mom and dad and it would be my Grandparent's turn for a break from dealing with four kids.

Hank drove an old Ford pickup that like me was born in the late 1950s. It was sort of a cross between drab green and a weathered gun barrel blue color. The original wooden bed was long gone, and a thick sheet of steel had been welded in its place. The truck's cab leaked when it rained, and the vacuum operated windshield wipers labored to make slow sweeps across the glass. He seldom traveled fast enough to worry about not being able to see well on rainy days.

Hank's old Ford had a granny-gear in its manual transmission that was perfect for creeping up the rocky hills and down the hollers of the Ozarks. It was also ideal for hauling firewood or transporting a canoe to and from the pristine local creeks. Inside the drafty truck was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. That Ford looked as if it had escaped from a wrecking yard, but Hank was still driving it when his time came.

Hank never graduated from high school, but was a voracious reader and frequented the local library for books. Hank was sent to Europe during World War II, but never talked about the war to me. I took that as a sign not to ask. Unconsciously I absorbed more life lessons and had my opinions shaped by Hank's stories and ideals than I realized, until I reached college age. Hank was a good man and the only time he ever disappointed me was when he died of old age.

I have always harbored a love for writing, but until now have never really pursued the formal forms of the art. However, I have always been fond of penning letters. Anyone that took the time to write a letter to me always got an answer. At some time during my high school years, Hank and I began to trade letters on a regular basis. Eventually it evolved into a weekly exchange of missives.

When he wasn't busy sending letters to the editor of the local newspaper with directions for correcting whatever wrong he envisioned at the moment, Hank found time to write to me. Hundreds of Hank's letters arrived in my mail over the years. It did not dawn on me until my 30s that Hank would not be around forever. I began to save his letters, but regret the loss of every note that I threw away.

CHAPTER 11- SPRINGS

Easily qualifying as natural wonders, the proliferation of springs flowing throughout The Ozarks has attracted visitors from their first discovery. The Indians considered them to be sacred. Later, settlers looked at them as sources of year round fresh water and power. Grist and sawmills popped up near most of the larger springs and even a few early hydroelectric generators were run by their rushing waters.

While not always the most creative in coming up with names for these magical emanations, local folks found the lure of the springs to be irresistible. Flowing at a rate of 286 million gallons per day, Big Spring can draw a crowd. Even at only 26 million gallons a day, the beauty of Round Spring can not be denied. Cave Spring, Blue Spring and a host of others pour forth to keep the creeks and rivers of the region cool and running clear.

Without straying off into a geological lecture, suffice it to say that much of the rain water in The Ozarks flows directly into the groundwater, instead of running off on the land's surface. Highly fractured limestone and dolomite, known as, karst topography, makes this possible. In other words, the ground leaks like a sieve. The water carves out underground caves and streams until it flows out in a spring.

During the dog days of August, Grandma and Grandpa would load us kids up, pack a picnic basket and head for the coolness and soothing surroundings of one of the large springs. Many springs had state park facilities, like outdoor privies and covered pavilions, where we would set up a base and then we kids could run wild.

Alley Springs had a big, red mill that had been reconditioned to look as it did in its glory days. In the 1800s people brought grain to be ground at the mill from miles around.

Not far downstream from the mill, a National Park worker made moonshine for the Federal Government, like the hillbillies of old. He was careful to point out that we could only look at and smell the stuff, as he had to account for every drop to Uncle Sam at the end of each distilling day.

Grandpa would locate a little notch in the creek bank and put a watermelon in it to cool. The spring water the melon rested in remained fifty-six to fifty-nine degrees due to running over miles of cold rocks as it flowed deep underground. I would go with Grandpa to find a spot for our melon and he'd say to me, "Now you keep an eye on this melon from time to time. I'd hate for someone to happen up on it and think they'd discovered a prize or see it get loose and run down the creek." I liked cold watermelon on a hot day, so there was no problem watching out for its well being.

Sometimes Grandpa would walk with us. There were always trails that meandered next to the streams that flowed out of the spring basins for us to explore. Grandpa's method of teaching us about nature was much more subtle than Hank's.

We had all stopped to look through an open break in the trees, from a low bluff above the water, when Grandpa asked me, "Jeff, do you know what poison ivy looks like?"

I said, "Well, Grandpa, I know that it has three leaves on one stem and looks like a bush."

Grandpa nodded approval and asked, "Have you ever seen any that you know of?"

I shook my head no and confessed, "I don't guess so, Grandpa. Why?"

Grandpa pointed toward Becky and calmly said, "Because that's poison ivy your sister is a pullin' the leaves off of over there."

Becky looked up at Grandpa with big eyes and stammered, "You mean me, Grandpa?"

Grandpa nodded matter-of-factly and said, "Yup. Now Becky, you go back and tell Stell what you been doing' and have her wash your hands real good with soapy water."

Becky lit out on a dead run, for where Grandma was sitting in a chair under a big oak tree by all our food. Grandpa turned casually and we continued our little stroll.

Carved into the bluffs above the creek's banks were lots of shallow caves for my little brother and me to investigate. They would be dark and full of daddy longlegs spiders which made them unappealing to out sisters. Jon and I could pretend to be outlaws, Indians in hiding or miners searching for gold in the dank hollows.

I fished the still spots behind big rocks and in eddies along the swift moving waters in sight of Alley's big mill, but I don't remember ever catching anything. I could see the trout lazing below the surface in their crystalline environment and imagined they were laughing at me.

Hank had told me that, "If the fish see ya, they'll get spooked and not bite." I could never figure out how to sneak up on these fish.

If we set up day camp further downstream from the main spring, where the water got deeper and spread out a bit, there would be lots of swimming to enjoy. I could swim for hours in the clear, cold wonderfulness of it all.

A favorite pastime of mine was catching crawdads to be used for fishing bait. If I turned a rock over, ever so slowly, the crawdad that was almost always underneath it would hesitate before darting away backwards with a flip of its tail. My other hand would be positioned behind the tiny crustacean. If it didn't back into my hand, I'd make a mad stabbing grab to nab it. On a good day I could capture a couple of dozen crawdads in an hour.

Lunch was always a marvelous spread and a sight to behold for hungry kids. No one had to hunt the children down when it was time to eat. The grown-ups got their food first and then we were set loose on the bounty. More than one paper plate bent out of shape from too much weight, after being overloaded by a child with eyes bigger than his stomach. The result was spilled food and the ants eating better than usual. Seldom did tears bring much compassion for this mistake and the same kid rarely repeated it. A reloading was in order and a lesson was learned.

At dusk the bugs would begin to swarm in mass. Everyone helped in packing up the gear and carrying it all back to the car. The day would end with tired kids that could cause no trouble.

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Catalogue Information

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