Growing up in Louisa – Hodgepodge!
Weekly feature . . . by Mike Coburn
When I shut my eyes and try to focus on times from my early childhood, I often will see mere patches of things more in the nature of snapshots rather than events recorded as mental videos. For example, when visiting the F.T.D. Wallace home on Main Street as a preschooler I remember looking into a big wooden rain barrel on the northwest corner of the house next to the porch. It had a hinged lid to keep mosquitoes from occupying the deep waters that were dark and cold. I remember mom mentioning that she liked to wash her hair with this water. It was because the water was either ‘hard’ or ‘soft.’ I wasn’t sure which, especially since it felt like any other water and was soft enough for me to penetrate. I don’t remember her putting her hair in the barrel, or her taking any home with her, either. I was maybe three or four years old at the time and lived in the Louisa Inn just across the street.
I also remember that somewhere in the immediate area I played underneath an arbor of grapes. The arbor seemed to be a mile long, but it was really likely to have been fifty feet or so. Measures change as you grow older. It may have been at the same house, or maybe across the tracks where the Moore’s lived. I remember that Jim Moore was county agent and his wife Beulah taught chemistry at the high school. Their sons had built a tree house in an overgrown area of the yard near the back of Ed Land’s Sundry Store. I always thought it was a drug store although I never got drugs from there. I got medicine mostly from Doc Skaggs, but did get some from the store out near Louisa General Hospital on Lock Avenue.
I remember climbing up onto the treehouse, but when I looked down I was afraid to come down. They nearly had to push me onto the makeshift ladder, but once I had my footing I carefully dismounted the hateful thing. I had learned to fear falling from a slightly earlier experience.
Bill Elkins, Sr. was on the volunteer fire department and rescued me from one of the conifer trees near our apartment at the Louisa Inn. I had willfully climbed high because it had so many branches that made it great for climbing. When mom saw me so high (no more than 10-15 feet) she screamed and taught me how I should fear heights. In the excitement I got my foot caught between two branches so that I was held tight. Mean old tree! Big Bill (that’s what I called him) put up a ladder and let me down to my mother’s arms. She was relieved and hugged me, but I didn’t see the danger I apparently was in.
My playmate, Billy Elkins, Jr. later moved to live in a rented home across Lock Avenue from the Moore home. I remember the day when Billy broke his leg while playing baseball at the Moore’s. I heard it crack when he fell. I went to Louisa General with him and was right there in the basement when the doctor set his leg and put on the cast. I felt so bad for him. I knew his summer was shot with just that one errant slide into first base. I remember putting together some plastic army tank models we used to play in the dust. I also played catch with him, (he was left-handed then and still is.) and once bringing him what I thought was some exciting reading. It turned out that his mother thought the reading I had picked out was a little too exciting. She drilled me as to where I got them and if me or my family had a habit of buying such books. I didn’t and the family didn’t, but I still didn’t understand. They were just detective books. Turns out the they were deemed adult magazines. Whoops, sorry.
On that same block I remember that a few years later I went into the Big Sandy News office and saw Mrs. Sparks. I had known her all my life and thought she was very kind. I bought a pen that was the old fashioned kind that required you to dip into an ink well. Even though some of the school desks had a place to hold an ink well, they didn’t have any. Neither did I, but she told me it was okay to dip directly into the ink bottle. I picked out some reddish colored ink because it looked more like some on a bunch of old, faded documents I had seen. I wanted to draw a treasure map and figured it should look old. I thought a long time about how to draw in features from times past that still remained in town and at the same time I was careful not to include any new buildings, or streets. I decided to show the treasure was hidden on Town Hill, but I’d have to be smart about where. I avoided any land up there that appeared to have been used either as Fort Bishop, or for a town water tank. I remembered the little cave that was just up behind the Grade School and was always full of water. That would be a good spot so I put the ‘X’ right there on the map. I hid it at school where it could be found, I think in an old book, but no one ever did find it as far as I know. The cave was dug up and paved over when the first bypass was added and Madison extended. I guess the fake treasure is safe.
While I remember all the store fronts of the many buildings downtown, I don’t remember anything about an alley or any way to get to the stores from the rear. I guess Carter’s, the Garden Theater, Brunswick Hotel or Corner Store, had a way outback to dispose of trash, but I have no picture in my brain of that. I do remember once being in an apartment above the Frozen Food Locker over by the railroad and above the barber shop. When I was there that one time I looked out of a rear window and saw a flat, tar-paper roof. Just in reach there was a beer bottle someone had thrown out there. I raised the window and pulled that bottle in. I saw that there was a little left in the bottom, so I turned it up and got my first 
taste of the stuff. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t see what was all that wonderful. I saw a jar of water setting on a window sill so decided to wash away the beer taste by gulping down the water. Oh My Gosh! It wasn’t water! It burned like I imagined that finger nail polish remover might taste. I mean like kerosene and many times worse than Castor Oil mom made me take. I think Jim Bob Hatcher may have been with me because I seem to remember him laughing. He liked to laugh. He told me what I had swallowed was ‘moonshine.’ I knew what that was by reputation. Whiskey was in a lot of movies, and stories on the subject were whispered so we kids wouldn’t hear. That was two bad alcoholic experiences in one day! Years later I learned that the building burned along with the reset of the block after the train-tanker truck wreck. I’m betting it burned good.
I barely remember some farmers out in the country making sorghum by leading a horse or mule in circles around a grinder. Cane was fed into the middle and the resulting liquid was drained off and cooked down. I remember Granny serving some up with melted butter on hot biscuits. I watched her ‘sop up’ the mixture to share a mouthful with me. It was so good.
I’m afraid that I remember that corporal punishment was the order of the day back then. I managed to get paddled in all the grades up until the fifth. I think I wised up and skirted by getting a whipping in the sixth. Sometimes it was a teacher that wacked me and sometimes the principal got the honors. In every case I suffered even more when I got home. The story preceded me every time, so my walk home was slow and anxious. Mom often used a belt but Granny preferred a switch. In fact, she’d make me go cut the switch. She’d take the leaves off and measure whether this one would work or if I needed to go back and get a bigger one. I finally learned to do it right the first trip. My only comfort was to know that others in my class were getting theirs, too.
I remember the Chiclets gum machine in the old train depot. That cost mom several pennies over the years every time we stopped to buy a ticket. My problem was a universal one that nearly all kids had. What to do with the gum once the flavor had gone? The answer was that school desks were plastered underneath with gum wads, as were many public benches. Some kids just spit it out in the grass or on the sidewalks. Nothing would make me madder than to step on one of those. You could feel it at once. The old gum would stick to your shoes like glue and was nearly impossible to get rid of. Getting it off with a stick would end up with me covered with sticky residue that would collect dirt and be very hard to wash off. Yuck!
What do you remember about your grade school years? In my case I recall only a few of the lessons. Learning to make letters in cursive was a favorite. I loved ‘story time’ when the teacher would read from a book. One of them did a chapter a day, kind of like the serials at the Saturday matinee at the Garden Theater. I always looked forward to the next adventure. I learned that books could take you out of your environment into a whole new world. I learned about other counties and customs, and a fair bit of geography, as well. Those lessons later helped me in history or understanding cultural backgrounds of the people I’d later meet, or come to know.
I most liked geography, history, sports, music, art, and writing. Apparently I didn’t learn a lot even about these favorite subjects because I continue to struggle to the point that I am often frustrated. I liked science, too, but hated math in any form, so my growth was limited in that area. I remember fun days like parties, birthday celebrations, Valentine’s Day, cake walks, and recess. I remember walking to the theater to see Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to the Duke of Edenborough, and the Ten Commandants, and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. I remember scout days when I could wear a uniform and present the scout salute when we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Once or twice a year we had ‘field days,’ when we all went outside to run, jump, and race each other. Teachers dutifully recorded the records, perhaps because ‘Frankfort’ required it as a part of a state wide program. I remember it being regimented to the point some of the fun was lost. The ‘tug of war’ with the long rope was fun, but other events, or games, were difficult for clumsy and slow little me. That’s okay because I accepted my goofs and turned to cheer on my friends. I knew I couldn’t be good at everything, but I’ve spent a long time trying to find something I might be good at. Oh, well. I’ve been truly blessed in many ways in spite of myself.
I once saw a black and white home movie of several men and women my mother’s age skating on ice down at the locks. Everyone was bundled up in big heavy coats, gloves and hats. It was clearly cold since you could see everyone’s breath. During my growing up I never saw the Big Sandy frozen over, but apparently it happened in earlier times. I think the surprising thing was that everyone seemed to have a pair of ice skates. It must have frozen over regularly if everyone had those available. Everyone was having great fun, but the movie only lasted a few minutes. I think I saw mom setting to the side, perhaps too scared to get out on the ice, or maybe she lacked having the skates.
Other old pictures showed the LHS band long before I was even born. It’s funny that the old base drum with the picture of a bulldog breaking through the skin-head was in those pictures. In one photograph my own mother was a little girl holding a trumpet with that very drum in the background. In my day the drum was played by Fred Jones and maybe others in the percussion section. I don’t know if the school kept ordering new drums with the same picture, or if it really lasted through all those generations. For all I know it is still around, maybe in a storage room, attic, or maybe even still being used.
When I was little the men of the church put on a show called a shadow show. It was appropriately named because strong light was set up at one end of the church basement and a number of bed sheets were strung up between the audience and the ‘actors.’ Their figures cast shadows on the sheet with left us to interpret what was happening. I remember how hilarious it was when they pretended to be surgeons operating on a lady. We could make out the shadow of the gurney, a person being operated on, and some doctors and nurses. I don’t recall if there was audio, but apparently the victim was a mannequin. They used saws, big hypodermic syringes, and even hammers. After working on the lady they broke out a crosscut saw and lifted the detached female leg up in the air to fuel our wild imaginations. People screamed in laughter. Later they removed the sheets so we might see the props and actors during a ‘curtain call.’ I’ve never heard of anyone doing this kind of thing since.
When kids think about their parents they do so with a prejudice colored by an image formed over a restricted time period. Parents are often seen as mature, totally ethical if not even a bit strict. It is a foreign idea to think of them having ‘fun.’ It is even more ‘impossible’ to think of them living through the same kinds of temptations or wild behavior that is common with youth. After all, in our minds we think these adults were always serious, pure, and on best behaviors. NOT! Thinking otherwise is disquieting and more than a little weird. The idea then that if you had been of the same generation as they, you might have even been friends. Scary, eh?
When writing these articles I sometimes probe deep into little short memories, always trying to find common ground that readers might remember as well. I have several pages drafted out, and think if I try to better organize them, there might be more that would pop into mind. Meanwhile, if any of these spark memories in your mind, please write and tell me. It could stir up even more, who knows?
