Category Archives: Monroe County

An Imperfect Expression of Memory

03/24/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

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It’s strange that jadeite glass and kitchenware was created to brighten people’s day in the early part of the 20th century. The idea that the glassware was made without any real focus toward consistency of color and defects makes it more interesting to me. If I were in charge of the world, every cup, plate, spoon, and fork would be distinct, both in style and color. Consistency for appearance is one of the biggest constrictive forces in our lives.

When I was young, my grandpa often drank from a jadeite coffee mug. There’s so much I don’t remember or remembered wrong. A few years ago, I thought I had it figured out but as if often the case, my certainty evaporated into 100% confusion. I find it hard to reconcile that I remember so many distinct moments so vividly, but yet somehow have lost 99% of the memories around them. My grandparents were magical to me, in part to their living at the edge of a cotton field, and in part to my youth, one punctuated by upheaval and anger. If I had to define an anchor point of my young childhood, it would be the simple house along highway 39, where I learned to love salt pork, mustard sandwiches, and coffee. I once tried to enumerate the number of places I had lived in my youth and it exceeds 20 and almost certainly reaches 30. I would consider the place in City View to be another defining place for me, one completely dissimilar in geography and content than the one in Monroe County, but one which shared the connection of people.

I had my first cup of coffee when I was very young. I remember my grandpa shushing my grandma Nellie. He was a big proponent of letting people try things, even if they shouted in surprise or pain as they did so. It’s part of the reason I learned to wince when I hit my fingers with a hammer, instead of screaming in pain. I sat at the table, trying not to burn my fingers on the hot glass of the coffee cup. Grandpa made me that cup of coffee in a green jadeite coffee cup. He put a dollop of evaporated milk in mine, mainly because he thought I’d like it better that way. Given that I once loved eating ashes and cinders, he should have assumed that I would prefer it black and bitter. (I still prefer coffee to be black – and I still can’t resist the taste of a burned match tip and the much-maligned flavor of a lot of burned foods.)

It’s very likely that grandma and grandpa got their jadeite with promotional items. It was included in sacks of flour, at giveaways at grocery stores and with ‘green stamp’ promotions. Grandma always had several glasses that were, in reality, empty snuff jars. Most were W.E. Garrett snuff jars. Like most people of her time, she also had an extensive collection of butter bowls and other assorted kitchen items which served other purposes in their previous lives. Grandma also saved anything interesting so that I could bury it in my ongoing excavation project next to highway 39. Both grandparents lived through the Great Depression and it molded much of their attitudes about things. Because of nostalgia, mason jars for drinking are in vogue. I’m waiting for snuff jars to get their turn in the sun again. Jadeite made a resurgence a few years ago thanks to Martha Stewart and a few ardent aficionados. It’s also weird to think that jadeite was widely used in diners and cafeterias, an almost valueless item back then.

I also know that my grandparent’s glassware was by Fire-King because grandpa would often set his coffee cup directly on the wood stove in the living room. I learned to read a few words ahead of my time, as life was slower in that part of Monroe County. Sitting on the floor, idly tracing words and letters was a great way to pass the simmering days, or poking myself with a sewing needle as grandma patiently showed me to sew without a thimble. I’ve never used one, despite discovering that I could stick one into my finger fairly deeply when distracted.

It turns out that cups made from original jadeite glass aren’t supposed to go in a microwave. (I also find it incredible to think that residential countertop microwaves first appeared in 1967, the year I was born.) One of the things I learned is that a couple of the companies making jadeite glass used glass that contained uranium. They did so up until WWII. Like all things, jadeite has a wider history than I would initially believe. To learn one thing without learning a spider web of interconnected details is impossible.

Even though I’m a minimalist, I ordered a green jadeite coffee mug from a collector on Etsy. The one I ordered is similar than the one I recall. As a nostalgia item, it serves its purpose despite not being quite right. If my grandpa could see that I had not only figured out what type of cup it was but also buy one online, he would shake his head in wonder at the crazy things that people do, especially for dishes. Like me, he would think anyone wanting matching plates and cups had lost his or her mind.

After years of wondering and searching for the green coffee cup I remembered so well, a friend of mine on social media unexpectedly posted a link to the exact brand I was looking for. I can’t completely explain why figuring out the origin of the green coffee cup was so satisfying for me, but it was. A few years ago, I asked my mom about the green coffee cup. She remembered a couple of them but since her memory wasn’t tied to anything personal, it didn’t have the same power of imagination and recollection attached to it. Grandma had some blue cups made by the same company, too.

Holding this touchstone from decades ago, I can imagine my grandpa, sitting in his chair, watching me as I sat on the wooden floor in front of the stove. He gave me the gift of coffee and the effervescent joy of running carelessly in the mud which inevitably curves its way around the fields.

Brinkley, Monroe County, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Social Rules

A Personal Story About Guns

06/15/2016 X Teri Leave a comment

This story is intensely personal, one involving guns, domestic abuse, and biography. It’s not what I started to write and it certainly isn’t perfect, but it’s honest and reflects much of who I am. Apologies for any errors and I tried to avoid the mention of real people; however, it is just as much my story to tell as theirs.

In 1970, I lived near Rich, Arkansas, near the nexus of Highways 39 and 49. It was a swampy place, surrounded by farms and mosquitoes. My family lived for a brief time slightly up the hill to the East, on the south side of the road. It’s easy to remember, because in March of that year, my dad killed a cousin of mine while drunk driving. Growing up, I thought my cousin Donald Wayne Morris was an uncle, as we called his wife Aunt Elizabeth. Like most family lore, it wasn’t accurate and caused confused conversations. After my dad was released from prison for, among other things, armed robbery, he came back to Monroe County, Arkansas to continue his wild ways. One of the ways he chose to do this was to have an affair with my “Aunt Elizabeth,” the widow of the cousin he had killed in a drunken driving episode. I was at home in the little white house near Rich the day my dad killed Donald Wayne. As I remember it, his wife was with us at the house, too.

But this story isn’t about Aunt Elizabeth, drunk driving, or armed robbery.

Despite having an extensive criminal record, my dad always had firearms around the house. Being a quintessential redneck, he believed that all guns should always be loaded. He would brag, “You’ll be careful if you know that all guns are always loaded.” Had Bill Engvall been around back then, he would have paid for a “Here’s your sign” tattoo to be emblazoned on my dad’s forehead. My dad also didn’t believe in keeping guns hidden or under lock and key, even if toddlers or small children were around. After extensive research, the word that best describes him in this regard is “moron.”

Growing up, there were a couple of notable deaths resulting from children getting their hands on guns and shooting themselves or each other. Some family members wanted to scream and get angry about such easy access to guns – but were silenced by the withering collective stare of the culture that considered any questions about gun access to be a treasonous breach of their rights. There were angry shouts about it sometimes, but they were rare and quickly subdued. In pockets of society all around this country, men will grow angry at any mention of responsible gun ownership. They are not likely to understand nuance and the greater collective good. The words evoke a threatening aura of loss, or make them feel like they are quite wrong about the idea that not all guns and gun owners are created equal. It is an ‘all or nothing,’ scenario, without regard to a safer middle ground.

I’m not certain how old I was, but somewhere before my fifth birthday. One early Saturday afternoon, my mom and dad were screaming at one another, planning to escalate to blows at any moment. It was a familiar and constant ritual – and they knew the steps as well as any dance. I went into their bedroom and the longest rifle I had ever seen lay across the bed. It was sleekly black, with a surprisingly long silver barrel. There were others guns in the room; there were a couple of shotguns and pistols under the bed, a few in the closet, and one leaning in the corner for quick access. It was the black one on the bed calling my name, though. Without hesitation, I went up to it, put my hand across the trigger guard, and squeezed the trigger. The gun leaped from the bed, thundering like an exploding gas tank in the bedroom. I felt my ears pop inward.

I’m sure I started crying – and not just because of the painful gunshot inside the room. I knew my enraged dad would be coming in to exact his revenge. I wasn’t disappointed. I suppose he forgot his mission to scream at my mom in the kitchen when the gun fired, because he backhanded me so hard I thought the back of my head was going to touch my shoulder blades. Although mom denied it, dad kicked me more than once as I curled against the dresser near the bedroom door. Mom would find it hard to believe I could recall an event from such an early age. I used to point out that it was more traumatic than a typical memory, as it involved firearms in closed spaces and being kicked like a coffee can along the sidewalk.

Later, I looked through the round hole in the bedroom wall to see that the line of fire went straight to the next house along the road. It turned out that the bullet had pierced through the siding on that house, too, although no one was hurt. I often wonder if anyone from the other house still tells this story.

At the time, I couldn’t understand how stupid my dad sounded, screaming at me that I could have shot someone – and that I should never touch guns. Part of it was that he was constantly handing them to me or doing ridiculously stupid things with them as he drank. Often, he pointed them in anger at other people, including his own family. He shot at several people when I was growing up. He fired guns from inside moving vehicles, shot propane tanks, poured ammunition into both open campfires and fireplaces, and did just about every idiotic and unreasonable thing possible with a gun.

But this story isn’t about how I could have killed someone when I was very young.

All through my youth, my dad had guns everywhere. Guns, knives, crossbows – of all kinds. He had a violent temper and a lengthy history of domestic violence and criminal behavior. Anyone who knows me also knows that while I came to terms with my dad before he died, the truth is that he had no business being allowed to touch guns or own them. Police in Northwest Arkansas and in Monroe County knew dad’s criminal history and love of hitting people in anger. They also knew he had an arsenal pretty much his entire adult life. Dad had more than one gun given to him by members of law enforcement. Is it hard to see that he felt somehow empowered to continue the same wayward behavior?

Part of the reason I’m telling this story is to shake my head that people seem surprised that just about anyone can get guns and commit horrible acts of violence. I acknowledge that it was a different time even a couple of decades ago. The truth, though? People haven’t changed. Right now, in places that might surprise you, there are people are thinking of doing crazy things. Many of them are surrounded by people that don’t think their friend or family member is going to be the one who loses it and goes on a rampage. The gun buffet is at their disposal, if they want it. It’s true that a person so motivated isn’t going to be limited by a lack of easy access to guns. Don’t try to weaken my story by implying otherwise. If the guns are military grade automatic weapons, though, we are treading into the less reasonable realm of gun ownership. As I might have mentioned, my dad had access to explosives, too, despite his criminal record.

On more than one occasion, I fantasized about taking one of the guns and killing my dad. He deserved it on several different nights. For those unfamiliar with anger and alcohol, the nightfall has always brought with it a greater likelihood of violence. For all of you who’ve never been put in the position of wishing you could kill your own father to protect yourself, I can only say “you’re lucky.” People around us and certainly some family members knew how likely it would be to get a call informing them that my dad had killed one or all of us, finally. There would have been tears and the usual, “We could have done something”nonsense. Yes, they could have done something – they could have knocked my dad silly and taken all of his guns. There were a couple of times I regretted not killing my dad because the lesson of not doing so was followed by him beating my mom so violently that it was difficult to get the sound of her head bouncing off the metal bed support frame from my mind. It would not have been the gun’s fault had I grabbed a pistol from under the table and shot my dad. It would have been his fault.

It is true that it’s not the gun’s fault. People commit crimes.

It’s also true that the gun crowd is a little too zealous; playing the role of society that surrounded me while I was growing up. We can all be reasonable without resorting to exaggeration. Our collective future society is not going to look like it does today. It’s inevitable, because the problems we are dealing with are complicated.

It might be an easy thing to say that my dad was an aberration from the normal; he was aberrant, that is true. He also was representative of many in our society, those who secretly know that having access to any gun they want is probably a bad thing for most of the rest of us. We blithely wander through our lives, hoping that anger or mental illness doesn’t propel someone to kill us or someone we love, all the while uneasily thinking of the millions of complex firearms sitting in closets, under beds, in attics, within reach.

As I walk the streets, I don’t worry about getting shot or protecting myself. It’s a fools errand. There is no guarantee of safety, no matter how many guns I carry or how many take up space in my home. From my experience, if everyone is carrying around sticks, the likelihood of someone getting clobbered is 100%.

I don’t own any guns but shooting at a firing range is entertaining. If you’ve never done it, you might be surprised how enjoyable it is. I don’t hunt, though, mainly because I would be a vegetarian if I weren’t so damned lazy. The idea of shooting animals for sport or food is strangely exotic to me. While I would do it to survive, it would be a lesser choice for me. (You’d find me eating stale prairie grass before you’d catch me skinning a hog as an appetizer.) For our own sake, we have to figure out a way to separate the exaggerated claims of gun ownership for hunting and basic personal protection from the one the fringe continues to impose on us all – the one which commands us to pretend that all guns and gun owners are the same.

Most gun owners are responsible, reasonable people. Contrary to what the NRA would try to tell us, most people don’t want automatic weapons or the ability to buy literally any firearm they want. They think gun locks and safes are reasonable. Most want responsible controls in place for everyone. It’s the way society works when it works well.

The shadow in the back of my mind, though, is the one created by people such as my father.

Ancestry, Biographical, Brinkley, Minimalism, Monroe County, Personal

A Rusty Nail Is All I Need

08/03/2014 X Teri 2 Comments

As strange as it sounds, one of my most prized possessions is most of a rusty nail. Seriously.

Years ago, before it was torn down, I visited the last house my maternal grandparents lived in together. I went on the property at great risk, as it looked like it had been abandoned and infiltrated by wasps, weeds, and rain through the old metal roof and tar paper siding. Before moving to this house, they lived to the south, still off highway 39, on the opposite side, near White Cemetery. They had an outhouse at the previous house.

I have an incredible number of memories about that old “house on the hill” as I call it. It was in Rich, Arkansas; not much of a place, really, even its heyday if it ever truly had one. It was on Highway 39, on the west side of the road. Cook Road was slightly to the south of the old house. Most of the time, cotton seemed to be the crop surrounding it in every direction.

I remember when grandma and grandpa moved in. One of the first things done was to hang a porch swing on the south end of the full-length wooden slat board porch. In that day, one didn’t use complicated screw hooks – a long nail would be hammered in and bent around to hold the chain linked through it. This isn’t the safest of ways to do it, not by today’s standards. Yet I can’t remember seeing one fall when I was young. (The second thing done was to build Grandma Nellie a storm shelter. She was deathly afraid of any weather, having survived the stories of the tornado in 1909 that leveled the town of Brinkley.)

Either Uncle Raymond or Uncle Harold picked me up and held me up high toward the roof of the porch. I held the nail more or less straight while grandpa hammered it in. Once we nailed the two nails, we hung the swing and sat in it, enjoying the simple fun and relaxation of it. I spent a lot of hours on that swing with grandpa. On some level, it is partially to blame for my extreme views on simplicity and comfort. Adding 44 uses and extras to things mostly ruins them.

To this day, when it rains sometimes, I can smell the dirt and cotton blowing across the porch toward grandpa and me sitting on the porch. If weather was coming, we’d usually be listening to grandma cajole grandpa into coming into the house or getting to the storm shelter.

The only thing I was really interested in salvaging that day in the 90s was the swing nail closest to the house, the one I remember “helping” put in. Honestly, I can’t say with 100% certainty that it’s the same nail, although I believe that it is. I’m humbled to think that the first swing installed at that house was balanced there almost 1/2 a century ago. I managed to extract some of the long bent nail from the upper wooden beam above the porch. Everything was caving in as I struggled to use it for footing.

Sidenote: one branch of the Pledger family was the last to live in the house. Their stuff, including pictures, were scattered all around inside. I learned later in life that my grandpa Willie supposedly had an illegitimate child with one of the Pledgers. At the time, he was working for the original Pledger patriarch at a sawmill in Clarendon. My mom didn’t know anything about her half-sister until after the half-sister died. The story is that she and mom looked a lot alike. Although I have delved fairly extensively into the Pledgers, I have avoided any direct linking to their trees or stories

This picture is of the old house on the hill. (The aforementioned porch swing is on the left in the background.) Grandpa Willie is seated center. They are sitting on the porch steps, a series of piled railroad logs. I nailed at least 1,000 nails into those logs. These logs were one of the many reasons that I still love the smell of creosote of all kinds.