My Little Town 20120314: The Halls

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

When I was a lad there were two general stores in town, the one that Gene and Katy Pittman ran and the one up the street that Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge owned.  Gene and Katy had the smaller one, and it was literally a mom and pop outfit.  The Rutledge’s store was quite a bit larger and had a greater variety of things, like clothes, than the other one.

The Rutledges employed Mr. Hall as a butcher.  Mr. Hall was at the time around 60 or so.  They lived only a few blocks from my grandmum, and Mrs. Hall was the classic stay at home spouse, but she did teach piano lessons in her home.  They were really nice people, and Mr. Hall was into radio in a big way.  I was also interested in radio, so we would sit in his shop and he would show me how to repair them.  He did that as a sideline business and he also collected antique radios.

He actually gave my father what is thought to the be first radio in Hackett, an Atwater Kent, probably a Model 7.  Here is a picture of a similar radio and the speaker that sat on top of it.

As I said, the Halls were really nice folks, always having a smile and a kind word for everyone.  Anytime you needed meat cut, Mr. Hall was there to help.  This was back in the day when small stores had butchers and large cuts of meat.  At the other store, Gene was the butcher but I have already written about them here.  In both stores there was a large walk in cooler where the meat hung.  It was an amazing sight for a child to see pieces of meat larger than he was hanging there.

In both stores it was literally a cut to order operation.  My mum would send me to get, for example, three pounds of round steak 5/8 inch thick and that is what I would bring home.  In those days purchases were made by the “ticket”, or on other words store credit and my mum would settle with both stores once a month.  Of course, some customers were cash only because they had shown themselves to be deadbeats, but most folks in town were on the ticket system.

Mr. and Mrs. Hall has a son named Billy (I do not remember their first names, because they were always just Mr. and Mrs. Hall).  Billy was around 35 or so and serious mental problems.  In those days emotional problems were not talked about very much, as the social stigma was pretty negative.  Society has advanced in this area, but stigmas still exist but nearly as bad now as they were then.

Billy was in and out of institutions for years.  I am not sure what his condition was, but his behavior is consistent was either schizophrenia or severe bipolar disorder.  He was also a pretty big guy, so people were sort of afraid of him when he was at home.  I never had any problem with him, and to my knowledge he never injured anyone.  However, he could become violent when he was off of his medication, such as it was in the early 1960s.

I remember one occasion when Mr. Hall and Billy were driving somewhere and Billy had Mr. Hall stop and told him, “Get out of the car, old man!”  Mr. Hall did, and they found Billy and the car later.  He was hospitalized after that incident, and got better for a while.

He came back home, and for some reason took a disliking to Mrs. Hall’s piano.  After chasing her away from it with an axe, Billy proceeded to take said axe to the piano, essentially reducing it to splinters.  The reason for him holding the piano in disfavor was never known, or at least I never heard about why he did that.  Needless to say, that pretty put an end to the piano lessons, but when Billy was home there were not very many students anyway.

They took Billy away again after chopping up the piano, and I do not remember him returning, at least whilst I was going to school at Hackett (I had to walk by their house, so my grandmum kept up with those things).  I am unsure of whatever happened to Billy after being institutionalized that time, and really did not hear about him after that.  In those days mental illness was treated much differently than it is now, particularly schizophrenia.  Back in those days only a few drugs with some extremely serious side effects were available, and now there are many choices.  Unfortunately, many patients do not respond well to the drugs and others just refuse them even if they are effective.

Interestingly, the prime drug to treat bipolar disorder is the same in 2012 as it was in 1964 and that is lithium.  There are some more modern drugs for this condition, but lithium is still the first line drug to suppress the manic phase of this condition and to prevent recurrence.  It is effective but sort of tricky to use because dosage is critical, the distance betwixt a therapeutic and a toxic dose being closer than would be preferred.  However, it effective and relatively inexpensive.

Mr. and Mrs. Hall lived in the same house until they got old and finally passed away.  There were really nice people, and although I did not know them really well, they were kind to everyone in spite of having to deal with Billy essentially his entire adult life.  I often think about them when I start to feel sorry for myself, because my petty troubles pale in comparison to having a chronically ill child, and as a father I can assure you that your children are always children to you, regardless of their age.

That does it from My Little Town tonight.  If you would like to share early memories, regardless whether or not you are from a little town, please feel free to do so in the comments.  I know that I enjoy reading them, and so do many of the other readers here.

Since I am a scientist, it would be amiss of me to fail to acknowledge this date.  Thus, I wish everyone a very happy pi day!

Warmest regards,

Doc, aka Dr. David W. Smith

Crossposted at Daily Kos,

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