Tag: My Little Town

Author’s note:  this piece was originally posted Wednesday past.  Tonight Jace is settling in well.  He stays at my house most of the time because The Girl’s parents really do not want a cat inside and it has been in excess of 100 degrees F the past four days.  I take him over often so that she and The Little Girl can play with him.  He sleeps with me every night.

I normally do not write about current events in this series, but this is actually related to experiences that I had when I was little.  Many of you who read this regular series are familiar with the people to whom I refer to as The Girl and The Little Girl, two people extremely dear to me.

The Girl is 19, and her beautiful daughter is three.  Their family had two cats, Bella (whom I call Lal after the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Offspring” where Data named the android that he created that from the Hindi word for “beloved”), and Jace.  Jace was a tom Tabby (actually more likely a Maine Coon Cat) who both girls lived dearly.

The girls were out of town Friday when I got a call from The Girl’s mum asking me to come and pick up Jace’s body from the street in front of their house.  He had been run over by a car, and by the looks of things died instantly because of massive head trauma.  I do not think that he was even aware that his demise was in progress.

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.

Since the summer solstice just occurred a couple of hours ago, I thought it might be interesting to see how we kept cool(ish) in the summer all those years ago.  At that time, residential central air conditioning was just about unknown in my part of the country, with only the very newest homes sometimes having it.

It gets brutally hot in the summer in west central Arkansas.  As the summer progresses, pay attention to the national weather maps on the news and note that very often the temperatures there are comparable with (and connected to) those in the very hot areas of the desert southwest part of the country.

As a matter of fact, there are several flora and fauna characteristic of the desert southwest that are native to the Hackett area.  Roadrunners are quite common, and I have found many a tarantula.  Prickly pear cactus is also abundant.

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.

One advantage of living in a little town is that I could set off fireworks.  Arkansas has a quirky law that allows sale of fireworks only a few days per year, a week or so around New Year’s Day and a week or so around Independence Day.  I would get my parents, when I was little, to stock up.  Later I would stock up myself.

I have seen lots of folks who have been injured by fireworks (when I was little, many of the consumer protection rules had not been put in place).  Until adulthood I was never injured by any kind of firework (I DID come close a few times).

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.

Please do not get me wrong.  Dad was a sharp guy.  He did not have any college, but that was because of circumstances.  Besides, in 1939, when he was graduated from high school there were lots of really good jobs that could support families well.  He did make it a personal goal to be graduated on time, and he was.

Dad got his higher education from being a keen observer of human nature and also being able to do just about anything.  He was a jeweler, a welder, a gunsmith, an excellent shot with pistols, rifles, and particularly with shotguns, along with many other skills.

His understanding of human nature is what made him such an outstanding salesman.  He knew how to connect with what made people tick, and used those observations to sell things, whether it was selling gum to Sam Walton, working in sales for a major OEM and aftermarket automotive supplier, or buying and selling cars and firearms from and to individuals.

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.

I have mentioned my grandfather Smith before, and in passing said that he had bought a tractor since at 88 he was too old to pass a driver’s test.  In Arkansas there is a specific exemption from having to have a driver’s license when one is operating “implements of husbandry” on public roadways, mostly to let underage kids help their families run the farm.

The loophole worked very well for him, because the mile and a half one way walk to town was getting to be too much for him, especially in the heat of the summer and the dead of winter.  He always needed to go to town for something or other like Prince Albert or other things, and he liked to hang out with the guys who would sit in front of John Mackey’s little store and chew the fat.

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.

Dad was a born salesman.  He could sell anything to anyone just about.  It took him some time to find that calling.  Before sales he pumped gasoline, worked odd jobs, trained as a jewellery designer and maker, and even tried farming.  He hated farming.

But it was sales that Dad was the very best.  Different people have different talents for different things.  I did some direct sales at summer jobs at a paint store and at a small engine repair shop and lawnmower store, but in those jobs the customers came to you.  Dad went to the customers.

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.

Hackett schools were horrible when I was going there, so after the seventh grade my parents decided to look for alternatives.  My friend’s parents actually bought a house in a good Fort Smith school district, but there were some domestic issues involved as well and his mum and dad actually preferred living apart.

The only other legal alternative was for me to attend Saint Anne’s High School, the only Catholic high school in town.  Arkansas is only about 3% Catholic, so even to have a Catholic high school was sort of amazing.  The problem was that Saint Anne’s started at ninth grade.  We went for an interview and the principal decided that I had sufficient background to bypass the seventh grade.

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.

C. W., Mr. Clark to me, was a very nice man.  He worked at a TeeVee repair shop in Fort Smith (yes, people actually had TeeVees fixed back then when they broke) and moonlighted some as well.  At the time, a TeeVee was relatively much more expensive that they are now, so repairing them was the norm.

We had the same TeeVee from since I could remember until my father finally upgraded to a color unit around 1968 or so.  Actually, that is not quite true.  I remember a very old console unit with a round picture tube and watching it, but that must have been before I was three.

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.

The bulk of the story is concerned with the little town of Gull Lake, Alberta, Canada.  There is some background first, so please bear with me.  First of all, this is a rare post in this series that contains a considerable amount of profanity.  There was no way to tell the story properly without it.

Second, I did not know this man.  I saw him only once at a restaurant in Gull Lake.  He certainly made an impression, though!

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.

Tonight I am going to cover something a little different.  Rather than recollections as a very small child, I shall fast forward to when the former Mrs. Translator were married and living in Fayetteville, Arkansas.  When time permitted, we were quite the outdoor types, backpacking, rafting, spelunking, and just all around outdoor and nature enthusiasts.

Our mutual love of the out of doors was a real bonding element in our relationship, and even after the boys were born we did not stop going out of doors, but obviously we could not backpack with infants.  We just modified how we enjoyed going until they got old enough to carry their own backpacks.