Tales of the Strange and Wonderful

When I was a kid, I didn’t like vegetables. Candy was my thing. Snickers, jaw breakers, M & M’s, licorice (red or black didn’t matter), Cab Drake’s little one-room country store had almost anything a kid could want. I remember the candy counter was about 3 ½ feet tall and three foot square. It was all glass except for the narrow dark wooden frame around the outside, so you could look at the candy from all sides. The back of the candy counter had two sliding glass doors. I’ve seen Old Cab hover over the back of the counter and slide those doors open a thousand times. He had a kind of Walter Brennan quality to his voice, and a kind of a chuckle, as he would ask and make sure that you got the candy you wanted. Cab was also my bus driver in elementary school. Huntsville Grade School. I’m always proud to tell people that I graduated in the top 5 of my class, but then there is usually someone around to ruin it by adding that there were only 5 in my class. Terry, Richard, Sandy, Romel, and me. We had first, second, and third grade in the same room with the same teacher. That was actually a wonderful educational system. When you were in first grade, you got to preview what was being taught to second and third graders, and when you were in third grade, you got to review what you missed in first and second grades. And the teacher not only knew you, but she also knew your parents and your grandparents. There weren’t many discipline problems in our little school. Rarely the ping pong paddle was used. The usual correction was administered immediately by the teacher. It consisted of the teacher grabbing the student who needed correction; one hand on his upper arm and the other hand around his wrist, and then a series of about 10 good shakes, as the student’s head bounced back and forth like a rag doll. About one good shaking a month kept everyone in line. I never did get a shaking, but once in third grade I saw two classmates quietly roll back their shirt-sleeves and compare how big their arm muscles were. Well, I was not about to be outdone, so I made a big muscle myself (as big as a third grader can) to show that I was strong too. Well, the teacher saw this little exhibition and we were in trouble. Our punishment was that all three of us had to stand in front of all of the first, second, and third graders, roll up our sleeves, and show off our muscles. That was a really bad thing. I went home and told my dad that night, half expecting a whipping, but he said that when he was a kid he had to stand in front of the class and pull his ears and stick out his tongue. I guess that he sympathized with me a little bit and let me off the hook. One boy that moved away before eighth grade had a problem of wetting his pants at school. He was the one who usually got the shaking, but when that didn’t work, I remember him having to wear a big white diaper over his overalls. Boy was I glad that I never peed my pants. Let’s see, I was talking about Cab. When I got older, I got up the nerve to ask Cab how he got his name. Apparently at Halloween time, the kids in the neighborhood would trick-or-treat, and usually tricked even if they got a treat. A popular trick for Cab was to take old rotten cabbages left over in the gardens from the previous summer and stuff them in the two-hole outhouses in town. I don’t suppose many people reading this have ever cleaned out an out house, but if you haven’t, you can’t really appreciate it. An outhouse doesn’t just flush automatically. The addition of stinking old cabbage stuffed down the old two-holer would make it necessary to clean more often. . Obviously, that’s a pretty funny trick. The only trouble was, while Cab was inside doing the stuffing, the other boys trick was to tip over the outhouse. Well, it’s hard to open the door of an outhouse when the structure is lying on the door. I’m not exactly sure how it all happened, and it could get pretty graphic, but the name Cab is short for Cabbage. Cooked cabbage. Yuck!!!! That brings me back to not liking vegetables. My mom said that she was not going to have a picky kid. Well, that’s exactly what she got. She would shove peas down my throat, and I’d puke them right back up. She knew what was good for me, but I was too bull headed to try what I thought I wasn’t going to like. But Mom was right, because I became overweight and now have type 2 diabetes from eating too much candy and not a good balance of nutritious foods (peas, carrots, spinach, broccoli, yuck!!!!!). David Kerr has a wholesome, mischievous humor with a creative insight reminiscent of those early homemade philosophers who have endeared themselves to American readers for over one-hundred-fifty years. I’m sure that Will Rogers, Mark Twain, and other names are familiar to you still. In these stories you will find some long-familiar themes viewed from a different perspective, which sometimes embellishes, sometimes disturbs, but will bring a smile, if not a laugh, and that you find will come back to you in your thoughts. DuWayne Furman