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Always and Forever
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Always and Forever |
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Martie
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Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California 
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Always and Forever He was skinny as a rail, barefoot all the time, with a lock of hair that always hung in his eyes. He wore coveralls and a caradeem shirt most of the time, except when he and the other boys would run around with nothing on at all. Caradeem was a burlap and cotton combination that all the kids wore around Smith Camp. Smith Camp was tucked back in the woods of Oklahoma, six miles or so from the nearest modern convenience. Daniel Dee Tibbett lived in a world where there were no stores and no cars. Smith camp was the beginning of his memories about life. He was four. Smith Camp in l946 was in the sticks near the Arkansas River. There were no houses. All the places were just shacks with two rooms. There were about five of them, occupied by families similar to theirs, people who had basically nothing but each other. Dan had six brothers and sisters at the time. His dad made an extra space with a partition made of canvas and linen for the grownups and the baby. Dan never wore shoes or had electricity or plumbing. His toilet was a hole in the ground dug every couple of days. He didn’t think of life as being hard or unfair. He didn’t know any other kind of life and his family and the other families and the woods and critters that lived there were the world, as far as he knew Dan’s mom was a Cherokee Indian. Maybe she didn’t use her Indian name because the white folks looked down on her people. She was proud of her Indian heritage, but the rest of the family on her husband’s side wasn’t. Now, her Indian name is lost to memory and buried with her ancestors. Her white name was Lorene Marie Tibbett. That is the name that marks her grave today. Dan’s grandfather was a chief in the Cherokee Nation and sheriff of Branson County, Missouri. Dan’s great grandfather fought in the confederate war. They were strong men, men who would fight for what was right. Dan grew up a fighter. His grampa told him, “a real man doesn’t lay down for anybody. If you’re right, you’re right. Don’t you say you’re wrong. If you think your right, it doesn’t matter if a thousand people are telling you you’re wrong, you stand up for what you believe is right.” This tenacity was passed from Dan’s great-grandfather to his grandfather, then to Dan. That was the way he lived his life. But, there was another side of the fighter, a spirit sense that was also passed down from his mother’s family. Dan would remember it in a prayer of passing written by his great grandfather who was a tribal leader and an elder. “Kiss her softly for me and whisper my name to her in the wind. Moisten it with Gods’ breath and imprint it in the memory of time and space so that it is never forgotten. For I am the ‘Cloud Walker’ and have no place to plant a foot. You cannot touch me, but you can feel me. I am here and there. I reach where light goes and am in the shadows of all things. I am me, always and forever.” Dan and his brothers and sisters went to school in a one-room schoolhouse about three miles from Smith Camp. Lunch was usually picked along the way to school from the vegetation that grew around. They always made sure to leave enough for the animals to feed on, maybe that’s why they called it “Possum food.” Things like sheepsower, pokesalet, wild berries, grapes, apples and plums were what fed their bellies when it was available. At school Dan loved books about other places and books about animals. He didn’t have pets. Chickens were for laying eggs and other animals had a similar purpose in his life, either for helping with work or with eating. Dan worked hard as a child. There wasn’t much time for play because there were always chores to be done. He plowed, picked wild veggies and fruits, helped make soap, milk cows, skin animals, and catch fish. When he did play it was cowboys and Indians in the woods or tussling with the neighborhood kids. Dan was the youngest boy. Every day the older boys would stay home and help their mom, but because Dan needed watching, he went with his dad. His dad would put him on his shoulders as he plowed the field with a jinny mule. When he grew some, his dad would put him down in front of the plowshare and say, “can you see over the bars, boy?” Dan would say, “no.” “Okay, go sit down in the shade and let me get some plowing done,” his dad would say. One day he said, “Can you see over the plow share, son?” and Dan said, “Yup, I can.” “Okay,” his dad said. “Climb up there on that rock and get on down that row. I’ll see you ‘round sundown.” His dad went and got the other mule and hooked it up and plowed right along by him. The fields they plowed and planted were rangeland. Anybody could farm or graze it. They grew corn, barley, wheat and tomatoes. The family lived off the land and their own no-how; grew their own produce, made their own cheese, jerky and smoked their own meats. Dan’s father was Albert Tibbetts. He was born in Branson, Missouri. He never did finish high school. He was a woodcarver and a rail-splitter and he trained jinny mules for the plow. He also sold pelts and meat from animals to wholesalers. When he met Lorene, her father didn’t like him because of his illegal activities. He was a sheriff, booze was illegal and Albert was a bootlegger who picked at the local speakeasy. But Lorene knew he was more then what her father saw—she loved him and married him anyway. On one of those early mornings of Dan’s first memories in Smith Camp, something happened to one of the neighborhood kids, Ruby Lee. It was one of those hot summer mornings when you’d sweat when you breathed. Ruby Lee was the little Patrick girl who lived in the canyon just a short way down the trail from where he lived. Dan heard words like, “come up missing” and “kidnapped” and “find someone to watch the kids.” The men all gathered at his place. They all had guns and dogs. Dan didn’t want to be left behind with so much excitement going on. He could smell fear in the woman and determination and something like anger in the men. He managed to tag along as they trudged through the woods searching. The search lasted way into the night and he stayed with the men and was ignored, except to be asked if he was tired or thirsty. Sometime during that long night, Dan did get tired and sleepy. He wandered off to the far edge of where the men were hunting. The moon lit the woods. He could hear the sound of the men’s voices and the dog’s barking and the rustle of feet in the underbrush as he curled up between two boulders in a patch of grass. He slept until the early light woke him. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to remember where he was and then he remembered Ruby Lee. He looked around and saw something white on one of the boulders further down the canyon. He didn’t hear the sounds of people or animals but he knew the woods enough not to be afraid. He was familiar with the blue jays and red birds. Their songs were part of his world. Ants were marching in a trail past his foot as he stood up and then went looking for someone to tell about what he had seen. He found a man named Raymond. He showed Raymond the place where he had seen the white object and watched as Raymond climbed down to it. He had discovered Ruby Lee’s play apron. He would always remember the sick feeling he felt when he saw the blood on it. He didn’t want to think about what could have happened to her. They continued searching that day and just before dark, found Ruby Lee’s body, stuffed into a log at the fork of the creek. There was blood on her face and hands and she had no panties on. Dan felt sad. He wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right, but he knew that it wouldn’t. The men held him back as he tried to follow as they carried her away. “It’s best if you go on home now, son,” they said. “Thanks for your help.” Dan knew that Ruby Lee was dead and that he would never see her again. He took his time, not wanting the men to see the tears in his eyes. When Dan was about six the revenuers caught his dad transporting moonshine and sent him to prison in Mcallister, Oklahoma for six years. The state decided that Lorene couldn’t take care of so many kids by herself. First, they went to stay with aunt Ruby. Dan says she might not have been a real aunt just a friend of the family with kids of her own who were meaner then snakes. For whatever reason, it didn’t work out there and the children were sent to an orphanages. Dan and his brothers to the one in Tulsa. “I remember walking along the old dirt road when this big, black car came driving up to me. Scared the crap out of me,” he said. Dan had never seen a car before. He was not going to get in, but his older sister was inside and talked him into it. He never did get to say goodby to his mother. He never forgot the first days at the orphanage. He had never seen the modern conveniences that were there. Conveniences like running water, electricity, flushing toilets, a television, radio, soda pop were new to him. The feeling he had was wondrous and frightening at the same time. It was hard to take it all in. In the office when he first arrived was the strangest looking man he had ever seen. He was tall and skinny and his face was ugly. Dan didn’t like the way he smelled. Dan always depended on his sense of smell for survival in the woods. He could tell that there was something about this guy that just wasn’t right, by the way he smelled. Dan still remembers his voice that first day, “it was cold and mean and, and it had no life or understanding in it at all.” The man said, “you will call me Pop Singleton.” That was all he said. Dan was introduced to more “grown up” people then he had ever seen. There were secretaries, matrons, cooks, housekeepers and maids. The boys were taken over to a tall building. To get there they crossed over a field of grass and Dan looked around in amazement. The field was full of boys of all sizes and colors. There were more children then he believed could exist. He had moved from his little world of Smith Camp to the Tulsa Boy’s Home. This new world was where he lived for the next three years. Dan was a tough kid. He was used to hardship and hunger. He had known how to take care of himself in the woods where he had lived. He could tell what wild growing things were safe to eat and where to find them. He could do the work that most men would groan about doing today, but at the Tulsa Boy’s Home, he felt lost and alone. The children were housed in different buildings according to their age. On that first days at the home he met a red haired, bow-legged boy named Nick Carter. Nick and Dan became inseparable friends and allies. The matron of the cottage where Dan lived, the boys called, Maw Sutter. She had a voice like a knife and absolutely no patience. She was mean spirited and never gave any loving attention or kindness to the boys in her care. She always wore red dresses and had long painted nails. Maw Hicks was the opposite of Maw Sutter. She was the one that did most of the cooking. She was a heavyset woman who laughed a lot. She always had a twinkle in her eye and was kind and gentle. She would bake a big batch of cookies every couple of days for her boys. When Dan first arrived, it was Maw Hicks that brought all the boys cokes and sandwiches. Dan had never tasted a coke before and when he took his first big drink he spit it straight up in the air. He started screaming at his brothers not to drink it “cause it was poisoned.” Maw Hicks didn’t laugh at him or put him down, she put her arms around Dan and hugged him until he was calm. Maw Hicks also introduced Dan to the wonder of running water. Dan couldn’t believe it when she turned a handle and water came from a pipe, not just cold water, but hot water too. He walked to the sink and turned the handle off and on, off and on. Back in Smith Camp, Dan had seen running water. But that pipe was connected to a big cement tank that got full from the rain or when the creek was full. This hot water, though, was magic. Maw Bell was the woman that Dan loved the most. She reminded him of his mother with her gentle and caring ways. She loved the boys just like they were her own children. Tall and slender, with wonderfully long beautiful gray hair, she was an island of tenderness in a place where Dan felt so lonely for his own mother. Later that first day, Dan’s new friend Nick took him down stairs to show him the toy room. There were boxes and shelves of toys everywhere. More toys then Dan had ever seen. What caught his eye more then anything, was a beautiful bicycle. He had only seen pictures of bicycles and he really wanted to try riding it. It belonged to one of the others boys though, and he couldn’t. His new friend, Nick had a bike out by the barn, he told him, that he could ride anytime. Dan was smiling when he went back upstairs. He was glad for a chance to ride a bicycle and glad that he had a good friend like Nick. Nick took him upstairs and showed him where they slept. Dan was overwhelmed again. There was room after room with doors and windows and everything. “This is our room,” Nick said as they passed through a doorway. “This is my bed and that one there is yours.” “You mean I get a bed all to myself?” Dan asked “Did you think you was gonna sleep with me?” Nick replied. “I dunno,” Dan said. “I never had a place all my own to sleep in before.” Nick showed him how to hang up his clothes in the closet every night so you didn’t get into trouble. “If you don’t,” he said. “You’ll get in real dutch with ‘the witch’.” “I only got these here clothes I got on,” Dan said. “Boy, are you dumb.” Nick said to this as he went over to the wall and turned a switch that dumped the whole room into darkness. Dan screamed and carried on until Nick explained to him about electricity. “I turned off the lights, you dumb hick”, he said, not unkindly. Dan spent along time turning the light on and off in amazement as his friend stood there and shook his head. Later the night matron came in and tucked him in, kissed his forehead and turned off the light for good. Dan lay awake for along time wondering where his mother was and what she was doing before he fell asleep. [This message has been edited by Martie (01-27-2002 05:50 PM).] |
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| © Copyright 2002 Martie Odell Ingebretsen - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Always and Forever...and the first chapter so where is the second, please? Martie, how this brought me back to so many memories for even though I did not live during that period, you transported me there and I was the wide-eyed boy looking at all the marvels of hot water and light switches... More! More! |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
Martie posted a long one!!!!   I'll be back when I have time to inhale this deep  |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
Kiss her softly for me and whisper my name to her in the wind. Moisten it with Gods' breath and imprint it in the memory of time and space so that it is never forgotten. For I am the Cloud Walker and have no place to plant a foot. You cannot touch me, but you can feel me. I am here and there. I reach where light goes and am in the shadows of all things. I am me, always and forever ====================================== Well I am sweetly sated and saturated in your words.. this is wonderfully written....the images, the detail, the wisdom handed down,the heritage of so many people mixed together. The world as it once was--seen thru the eyes of a child transported us back to that time. yes ... I, like Sun, hope there is more to come. And I am curious to know where this inspire comes from, did you have to do a lot of research for this to create the setting and story line to be accurate on timeline, and location etc? ( you dont have to tell your "authors secrets" if you dont want to)  |
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