Hard Times in the Country: Ramblings of a Hayseed

By Timothy L. Wahl

Timothy Wahl grew up on a dairy farm in the town of Andover, New York. A restless youth who hangs out with other farm boys dreams big and is bound and determined to make his mark on the world.

But reality is a wet blanket. He not only feels out of place but IS out of place. He scores mediocre grades, plays sports clumsily, and contemplates without much success a future of fanfare and celebration.

One of the few places where he feels like he belongs is in Mr. MacCraes art class, which also serves as a dumping ground for miscreants and the troubled. No one knows just how troubled Timothy is until the summer of his senior year.

If Timothy has any chance of overcoming his troubles and finding his place in the world, hell have to find answers in uncommon places, and most importantly grow up. His life depends on it.

Join Timothy as he finds adventure in a world where girls love The Beatles, neighbors still know each other, and where roots run deep. The good life may be just around the bend, but for now, its Hard Times in the Country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 4, 2009
• ISBN: 9780595610280

Timothy L. Wahl

Timothy L. Wahl, born and raised on a dairy farm, teaches ESL at Evans Community Adult School in Los Angeles and distance learning with UCLA Extension. He lives in Glendale, California, with his Venezuelan-born wife Nelly and their two children, Alejandra and Alexander, and a contingent of rescued cats. He can be reached at www.timwahl.com

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Contents

Introduction

Why this Memoir? Why Now? Why should you read this?

Chapter I

It Happened One Night

Chapter II

Why don’t we do it in the Road?

Chapter III

Walking Tall

Chapter IV

The Seed that Broke the Plain

Chapter V

One-Stop Schooling

Chapter VI

The Village People

Chapter VII

The Village Voice

Chapter VIII

As the World Turns

Chapter IX

Our Town

Chapter X

All Creatures Great and Small

Chapter XI

Saturday Night Fever (c. mid sixties)

Chapter XII

Games People Play

Chapter XIII

Strangers and Friends in the Kingdom

Chapter XIV

Travels and Travails

Chapter XV

Aspirations

Chapter XVI

As ye Sow Shall ye Reap

Chapter XVII

Hed-oh-dare and Frank

Chapter XVIII

Moon Over Andover

Chapter XVIX

Summertime

Chapter XX

On Death and Dying

Chapter XXI

Appalachian Fall

Chapter XXII

C’est la Vie

Chapter XXIII

Beneath the Wheel

Chapter XXIV

Crime and Punishment

Chapter XXV

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Chapter XXVI

No Way Out

Chapter XXVII

Student 2.0

Chapter XXVIII

It’s a Wonderful Life

Introduction

Why this Memoir? Why Now? Why should you read this?

Besides reading my children fairy tales when they were small, I used to sing them lullabies until I fell asleep. As they got bigger, they pleaded for me to make up stories, and stories from my childhood seemed to fill the bill but with one major difference: these mostly quirky tales weren’t made up (with deference to Mark Twain who said he didn’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story). In a sense, my early life and times—so apart from theirs—was like a fairy tale to them. Only my tales replaced Once upon a time… with When I was young…

When I was young, I liked being read to, whoever did the honors. I liked it when Mom did. I liked it when teachers did. I liked it when the beloved Mr. Noble, the school custodian who put down broom and took up book, did. And how about the real tall ones Uncle Cliffy rattled off of his said gallivants with the outlaw Jesse James? And I liked to listen to old-timers go on about tough and tumble times as a Dough Boy or in the Great Depression.

Hard Times in the Country: Ramblings of a Hayseed is a retelling of some events in my life as a youth, from the 1950s to early 1970s. The subtitle, at the risk of coloring this as a story that, well, rambles, reflects what a hayseed does: It flies away, a free spirit crossing uncharted domains before taking root.

The characters and events presented in this book are factual or based on fact; however, at my discretion, where an occurrence would be embarrassing to anyone or to their families, or both, I’ve opted to doctor particular details to camouflage the identity of the people involved. There is no intention or reason on my part to want to hurt or embarrass anyone or their family or friends.

For the sake of story continuity (i.e. convenience of time and space), characters might be combined, and actions that transpired in many episodes or over a long time span may be condensed to a singular occurrence. Occasionally, a sequence is made up though its foundation is factual. Such instances, identifiable by a change of format resembling a play, are intended to establish or augment a mood or a context. Also, some events, like the chainsaw incident at Frank’s, a notorious bar, I was not on hand for but have related as told to me.

Chapters are thematically categorized rather than a linear progression form birth on up. The county fair, for instance, involves an encounter in my early childhood with a living figure from the Civil War to picaresque escapades years later on the fairgrounds. Another chapter delves into the plight of the four-legged critters and another on habits of teachers. All in some fashion manifest the characters, culture and mindsets that form the special world in this time capsule. All this leads up to the chapter Beneath the Wheel, about a life-altering event. Henceforth, the narrative is fairly sequential.

Hard Times presents a dreamy-eyed youth trying to figure out the conflicting and complex signals in the greater world around him and his place in it. Clearly, this is not vastly different than the youth of today. Youth at any period in time is youth, after all. It’s as if youth as an entity is static, and spiritual forces, dynamic and drifting through time, take hold and fuel the bodies. Lingo and material trapping may change, but the issues of growing up are essentially unchanged. In my case, my chief struggle was a strong need for recognition, ironically contrasted in the sign-off words of a local radio legend in my time: You don’t have to be important to be important.

No matter whose life it is, inherent in what we take for granted in the everyday is a story waiting to be told. It’s like the weed, to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose virtue is yet to be seen. Hard Times hails the ordinary of the everyday as extraordinary. Gathering hay and the threshing bee, school days in the cafeteria line and in art or music or math class may all seem steady and even, but just a scratch beneath the surface reveals an entirely different texture. Neither is there anything ordinary in the trip to the city nor downtown in my town on Saturday night. In the end, I hope readers will find both learning and entertainment value in these experiences—and find the value in keeping this reading handy by the mantel of the fireplace or by the bed, in the bathroom or on the plane.

As the title suggests, life was not an easy game. I had to learn things the hard way, epitomized by doings at my own hand that could have spelled the direst of circumstances if it weren’t for a little epiphany or a little luck, or both. The sum of these years in this memoir may illustrate a simple Dale Carnegie tenet that while we can learn by our mistakes (and grow by our successes), the past is immutable. All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put the past together again, said Carnegie. So let’s remember: Don’t try to saw sawdust.

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Western New York, USA, Planet Earth, the Milky Way, the Universe—my universe

Chapter I

It Happened One Night

My Song

People used to say I was the spitting image of Beaver Cleaver. But presently, in cap and gown over shirt and tie, I was the spitting image of one of Mom’s sayings: All dressed up with no place to go. On this momentous occasion of high school commencement, my motif—my song—what was it? Nowhere Man? Make the World Go Away? Eve of Destruction?

Perhaps akin to unplanned parenthood, the heat was on me—never mind the ninety-degree school gymnasium. Where would my next stop be after my lifetime run as a farm boy and thirteen years as a school boy all under one roof? Should I settle down and become a responsible everyday citizen? The thought bored me to tears. Or might I continue the trend of a free spirit? On the last Monday night in June of 1967, the drum sounded for one heckuva already deadbeat grad.

Graduation night was far from what I imagined as a little kid—when becoming a big kid couldn’t come fast enough. Then as I got big, I discovered being big wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Life was still pretty much same-o-same-o except that I was bigger. That’s the way it was, from my early years on. Looking ahead—always living in the future—life would be different someday. On this, my graduation night, I looked forward again to a new day, this time a rebirth. The slate would be clean and all sins forgiven. I would try and do my part to make this so.

The day would come, I still believed at seventeen, when I’d be a big guy, a giant of a big guy—just wait and see! I’d score the winning touchdown for the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Championship just as time expired; I’d hit the winning homerun for the Amazin’ Mets in the bottom of the ninth of Game Seven of the World Series; a star-studded general back from war, I’d bask in confetti along Fifth Avenue.

The swings on the school playground were my B-17s, which I crashed many times, just like Steve McQueen in War Lover. And I got to attend my own funeral and listen to praise about me—Such a brave, loyal boy, a true patriot who loved his country more than his own life. And with the snap of my fingers I could shift status to Pope—Pope Pius the Something or other—me blessing the masses at the Vatican and accepting their righteous adulation.

Youthful reveries served the purpose of getting recognition, the more recognition the merrier. The extraordinary thirst for esteem probably had something to do with something that wasn’t in abundance in my childhood: praise. And it may have had something to do with something that was: ridicule.

The Andover Central School concert band under the baton of Mr. McClure struck up Schubert’s Pomp and Circumstance, the cue to get marching. This was it, the last charge of the Class of 1967. The sentimental nature of the song cued wet eyes for some seniors. Some members in the audience got their hankies out. This could be catching. I had to be stoic. Crying wasn’t something that boys did.

The girls in white caps and gowns with purple sashes paraded slowly down one side with a lit candle, foot ahead-feet together-foot ahead-feet together again. The boys in purple caps and gowns with white sashes did the same on the other side. I was the next to the last in the column, my last name beginning with WA just ahead of the WH grad. The lines met up center of the stage, each graduate arranging the candles, the symbols of lamps of learning, in tiers on a table. My seat of honor was in the back row, next to the last chair. Wh got the last, on the outside. The proud seniors who made National Honor Society, identified by gold medallions on their sashes, took up the front row.

Mr. Tuttle, school board president, Mr. Kessler and two pastors from the village of Andover, Reverend Stover for the Protestants and Father Shay for the Catholics, joined the Class of 1967 on the stage. There were no Jews in Andover—none that were known. If there were any, they probably wouldn’t admit it. And neither was there any other religion. After benedictions, Mr. Kessler led off with his annual spiel about how lucky all of us were to have been born not only in America, but in the Andover Central School District. Camilla Wallace, Salutatorian, remarked in her address on what it took to succeed; Whether we succeed or not depends on us alone, she said. Mary Deremer’s valedictorian address cautioned to not be fooled by numbers; everyone has intelligence whether it’s on an academic record or not.

The word record was on my mind this night.

After the Andover Central School Glee Club performed You’ll Never Walk Alone, by the Righteous Brothers, Mr. Tuttle handed out the diplomas in purple cases with white ribbons, Andover Central’s colors. Mr. Kessler turned the tassel on the caps. How about that? You made it, Wahl, he murmured and even grinned, uncustomary for him, and he squeezed my hand. My cap slipped over my eyes from the brisk handshake.

Aunt Hattie was first out to the receiving line on the front lawn. It was Aunt Hattie’s way to be joyous and loving, and she embraced me and put a peck on my cheek. Not used to outbursts of affection, I checked to see who saw.

Uncle Don, Hattie’s husband, offered me a tip in finding work. Foster Wheeler over to Dansville’s hirin’. The last thing I wanted was to work in a factory. I felt I had just gotten out of one.

Get your fanny over first thing in the morning, he continued. Tell ‘em you’ll do anything. Sweep floors. Be a go-fer. Stand on your head. Empty the boss’s bed pan.

Uncle Gerald handed me an envelope with money. In all, I received forty-five dollars for graduation, which I counted over and over. It was the most cash I had ever held at one time.

Good luck in college said Aunt Sis, presuming I, like her children, was an academic success and headed to one of the best universities in the land. Part of me told me she must have known the truth about me and that I was headed practically nowhere. She and Mom talked on the phone every night.

My higher education was to come from my first job, three-in-the-morning runs on a garbage truck with two characters going by Goofy and Psycho.

Don’t go and think you’re too smart for your britches, hear? said Goofy, the driver, who got to third grade. Just ‘cause you gat a high school diploma.

"And don’t you ever call me Goofy to my face—have you arrested," he said, setting down first-day-on-the-job protocol.

Psycho took pride in his name. Scares people, he bragged.

Dad would often say, Gotta start somewheres, Timmy, which got more frequent as graduation day neared. And Mom, who had a platitude for any occasion, would come up with Beggars can’t be choosers.

Thus was my mental bearing on the cusp of the real world: a job is a job is a job and only a lazy bone said no when opportunity knocked. And thus the stage was set for a string of jobs—not the envy-of-the-world kinds of jobs—which taught the meaning of oh, my aching back—at a tree farm, a potato farm, a dairy plant and on pipeline construction.

Too ashamed to tell Aunt Sis that I had no idea what came next or that I was not good enough for college, I fibbed: Notre Dame or St. Bonaventure—haven’t decided.

I spotted my erstwhile art teacher, Mr. MacCrea. Abundantly proud of his Scottish heritage, Mr. MacCrea also played bagpipes and over the years braved catcalls by coming to school on special days in a kilt. This night he was dressed normally.

Yo. Scotty, watch me on TV someday, first man on the moon, a fellow grad in the receiving line called out to Mr. MacCrea.

Fellow teachers called him Scotty. Students could do so, he said, after they graduated. Therefore, this was a big moment for a few members of the Class of 1967.

The moon? I thought you were going to study agronomy—not astronomy, Mr. MacCrea joked back.

You told me to reach for the stars, Scotty, the graduate laughed.

I stuck to conventional nomenclature for him—Mr. MacCrea.

Mr. McCrea clasped my hand with his two. He looked strongly, serenely into my eyes. I felt guilty, quite unworthy. His former student—this fresh high school graduate—had to be some place and art was a dumping ground. Certainly he and I knew I wasn’t in his class for talent. I was a waste of his time and mine. Yet Mr. MacCrea, whose dark hair was gently wavy like the hills of his beloved Scotland, showed respect to me as if I had been a star pupil. His voice was soft and it resonated, his words as poetic as a Dylan Thomas poem. Whatever you want in life, Tim Wahl, set your sights on it and don’t give up. The future begins now in the present. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. Give it your all and live life one day at a time, my young man. And remember this Scottish proverb—‘Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead’.

By the time Mr. MacCrea had finished and turned to the next student, there were tears in my eyes. His words were hard for me to digest. I didn’t think that I deserved this kindness.

Chapter II

Why don’t we do it in the Road?

Records are meant to be broken—and destroyed

Post commencement revelry was the last chance to make a last lasting memory. After a free screening of Hitchcock’s The Birds at Oliver Kemp’s theatre, there was an all-night bash in the school cafeteria with a local band, the Rogues.

Before this, I had a job to do, the perfect murder of my past. The record of my ineptitude and the errors of my ways were inside the diploma case. The transcript held the ugly truth of my triumphs but mostly failings in school. Deep down, I knew I was the only one responsible for it. How many times Mom told me that I sleep in the bed I make.

Without looking inside, I knew my rank. Better to finish last than not to finish at all, I could about hear Mom.

Off with the ceremonial accoutrements and on with my sneaks, I dashed out to the truck, which my father had let me take for the night, the old Dodge with a cattle rack Uncle Gerald and Grandpa built. Be damned awful careful, Timmy, my father had begged. I’m damn awful poor. It’s all I got.

The back way out of the village, up Pingrey Hill and down the Jones Road, was as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I knew where the ruts in the dirt road were, what turns were treacherous and where deer were apt to pop out and cause an accident. Light on back without a load, the truck bobbled on the gravel and fishtailed precariously. My speed was about as fast as could be to be safe: 25 miles per hour. This was the same road I had taken that eventful day the year before, a day I should have died. This night, the mission was stealth and it probably wouldn’t do me harm like before. I still felt jittery thinking about what I was to do. In my convoluted way of thinking, my past would not haunt me once the task was completed. No one would ever know that I finished dead last in my senior class of thirty-six students.

Near the bottom of the Jones Road across from Burdicks’ I turned off the lights and engine. The night air was still, save for peepers and lightening bugs. It was ideal for a clandestine operation. It was as if I were Patrick McNee, Secret Agent Man: Here’s a tale of a man who leads the life of danger/to everyone he meets he stays a stranger/in every move he makes, another chance he takes/odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow.

I stayed put inside the cab, surveying the blackness. The truck was my safe haven from the evils in the immediate dark world outside. I looked for unusual contours and movements and determined what I saw were round bales of hay, not panthers or other critters that might leap out and gobble me up. From the time I was knee high to a grasshopper, as Mrs. Robb used to say, my mind played games in a macabre way.

I had visions of that awful first report card in seventh grade with all red marks and a U for effort and a U for neatness. I thought I’d fool everyone by drenching it. The red marks, smudged, of course were illegible.

I oughta blister your ass, my father had fumed.

No matches, no Zippo, the only light was from the dashboard. The radio was broken but not the cigarette lighter. I creaked open the door and put the lighter to the transcript. But execution didn’t come lightly. The paper smoldered and finally caught on, blazing to ashes on the dirt road. Before the document was entirely consumed, a flicker from the flame illuminated some surprising news. Wahl, Timothy L. wasn’t last. He was next to the last in the Class of 1967, thirty-fifth out of thirty-six.

Who done it?

Like a murder mystery, the culprit was at large. Who done it? Who held up the rear? Was it that transfer, that Williams kid from Wellsville? He could do calculus and was quite eager to share his expertise with a pretty girl, so it wasn’t that he was academically challenged.

He defied school and authority at every turn.

Wanna see trouble? That’s my middle name, he bragged.

Mr. Kessler had it in for Williams from the get-go. The first black mark was that he was from Wellsville, a nearby village. Mr. Kessler constantly reminded Andover students how lucky we were to not be from Wellsville—or Hornell, another nearby municipality said to teem with ruffians and hooligans. The high schools in those towns couldn’t play a football game against each other without a fight breaking out. Second, Williams was a transfer to Andover, a polite way of saying he was kicked out of Wellsville High School. On the bright side, if anyone could straighten out an alleged hood, our principal, Mr. Kessler, said to be a former Headmaster at the Elmira Reformatory, was the right person for a tough job.

Williams entered Andover Central about mid-year, as a senior. On St. Patrick’s Day he dyed his hair. Dyeing in itself was bad enough. Students got kicked out of Andover Central for less, like a girl wearing jeans instead of a skirt. But Williams’ choice to dye his hair orange showed either contempt or lack of forethought. Andover was blessed with Catholic families of Irish origin—the Lynches, the Dougherties, The Caseys, the McCormick’s, the Gavins, and the Joyces.

It was hard to imagine anyone more antisocial than Williams. But there was. Williams, meet Greaseball, a nineteen-year-old fellow Wellsville reject presently in the sophomore class at Andover Central School. Greaseball’s name originated from his days as halfback for Wellsville High. Tacklers fell to the wayside unable to grip him, as if he had been Vasolined. Andover just had soccer, but Greaseball just the same out-slicked defenses with relative ease. He might have been a star if he didn’t smoke, get drunk and brawl so much, not to mention a trap that didn’t stop spewing thoughtlessness.

I hear your old man kicked the bucket, he offered condolences to a girl who lost her father to a heart attack.

To Andover’s vestal virgins, he held up a ruler: Hey, Sweetheart, how’d you like about this much? he queried, putting his thumb on the ten-inch line.

Why don’t you quit school and enlist? a student inquired of Greaseball, sarcastically. The army takes ex-cons, don’t they?"

Up your ass with a piece of glass, the insulted Greaseball shot back.

The only body who stood up to Greaseball was Williams and the only body to stand up to Williams was Greaseball. This was a match made in heaven.

Oliver kicked the two of them off the school bus for scrapping.

Not on my bus, you don’t, Oliver ordered, pointing to the side of Route 17, down by the overpass. Finish your lovers’ spat there.

Greaseball did quit school and did enlist in the Army, about the only place for him—that or jail. "Good-bye cruel world, hello Uncle Sam. This stud’s off to Nam. Look out, Chinks." Greaseball would become an infantry sharpshooter.

Williams stayed put in Andover. On the day of commencement, Mr. Kessler supervised rehearsals in the gymnasium. Williams struts in, tardy, as was his custom. He did what no other student ever did or dared to do. He showed up in a Mohawk. This time the hair was dyed green.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Williams said with a big smirk.

Think you’re a clown, do you? thundered Mr. Kessler, whose strong voice moved rafters and made the most Herculean tremble. All you need is a circus.

The cocksure Williams took on an uncharacteristic appearance of silence. As pride cometh before the fall, the would-be graduate lifted up two fingers, still the symbol for victory in Andover. Peace, he said, his voice mustering a last vestige of bravado.

Without fanfare or ceremony, Mr. Kessler, whose prominent nose had earned him the moniker Eagle Beak, locked his talons on Williams. Mr. Kessler’s eyes conveyed the verve that took no prisoners alive.

In the grip of terror, Williams, the chutzpah kid, buckled. Judgment Day was upon him.

Mr. Kessler transported his quarry in a hammer hold to the threshold of the great outdoors. See if Barnum and Bailey needs tumblers, Mr. Kessler said. A grunt and a heave-ho, Mr. Kessler did the cannon act, shooting Williams out the double doors to the gym.

There! said Mr. Kessler with the stamp of finality, hitching up his suspendered-britches with two quick tugs.

Always someone worse off than you, Mom used to say. I was glad I wasn’t Williams.

Chapter III

Walking Tall

I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see Alice in Wonderland

My school years comprised a chain of ego-smashing events. I didn’t make elementary chorus when about everyone who tried out did. I was chosen last for what was the worst junior high intramural basketball team in school history, for a team called the Serpents. I never got in a game until the last minutes of yet another blowout.

So skinny, my collar bone and rib cage poked out—light as a feather, Mom described me. How I hated the view that I was probably unable to fight my way out of a wet paper bag. I was determined to prove her and everyone else who thought that about me wrong.

I signed up for the sixth grade intramural wrestling tournament, and in short order I proceeded to forget all the moves I had been taught by Mr. Wilcox, the wrestling coach and a sixth grade teacher. Wrestling, in my mind, was Wrestling from the Aud on Channel Four with Chuck Healy. Fritz von Erich had perfected The Claw, and Bobo Brazil The Coco Butt. I was neither acrobatic nor strong enough to conduct the Flying Drop Kick or the Body Slam. And here on the mat on the gym floor there was no corner turnbuckle to whip my opponent headlong into. I did try a hammer hold, but the referee threatened to disqualify me. My version of razzle-dazzle fizzled, and though I managed a take down and even got out from under an attempt to pin me, I lost the match on points.

I didn’t want to hurt him, I explained my defeat to Mr. Wilcox. Honest.

I was the one who hurt, actually. My upper arm muscle got pulled and I wasn’t able to lift the arm of my writing hand. A good thing for Grandpa’s heating liniment.

The coach moved among us grapplers for a post-tournament shake of hands, and he handed out praise. He invited fellow wrestlers to join the junior high team the next year.

Mr. Wilcox looked me in the eye for an instant and moved on without a word. Silence may be golden, but it wasn’t here. I would have preferred to hear something—good or bad—than nothing at all. Otherwise, this translated to an old wisdom that if you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say it.

I actually considered myself fairly decent at athletics, at least at heart. Let me explain: At home I played games with neighbor kids—baseball, basketball, soccer and football—even cops and robbers on bicycle. We played in the barnyard or in barn or on the hayfield, under the hot sun in summer or in the rain or sleet and snow. I hit line drives, fielded pop ups, ran the base paths and threw runners out. In basketball in the cleared off hay mow, my jump shots were accurate most of the time. I enjoyed my share as champion in H-O-R-S-E. Football was my favorite game. Like my idol Jim Brown, I shed would-be tacklers on my way to pay dirt on the hay field. Just other farm kids up and down my older brother Billy Joe and me, after night milking and on Sunday afternoons, this was the life. And the fun was in the game. Half the time no one knew the score.

At school it was quite another story. Outplaying, outmaneuvering and outscoring the other guy were important. This was one path to gain respect. Keeping records, statistics and track of points mattered. I was not my barnyard self but a clumsy and uncoordinated oaf, most often picked last—everybody had to be on a team.

Just don’t touch the ball, Wahl, a teammate warned. Stay out of the way.

So mostly I stood around and ran up and down the court with my arms spread waiting for the basketball which seldom came my way, and if it did, it was not the intention.

Wake up, Wahl! Coach roared, seeing me not hustle after a loose basketball. Don’t stand there like a bump on a log!

This ex-marine drill instructor, dubbed Stone Face, smacked my nose with the ball. Worse than a girl, he said. That smarted, the words worse than the ball.

The intensity in athletics got the adrenalin going which seemed to set the table for a dizzy spell, which started when I was about eleven, and occurred on average of one every two weeks. Especially once I got warmed up, I