By Lynna Clark
My daddy turns ninety this year. To say he’s been through some things is quite the understatement. I love it when he talks about growing up. Today when we visited by phone he mentioned that he had loved playing football in school. This was news to me and I could not imagine. As an adult he’s always been a short wiry fellow; strong as an ox and as smart as anyone I’ve ever met. But football? I guess he heard my doubts as he went on to explain. “I’m small now and was probably shorter then, but I could run. Everybody said I was fast. Of course all us Pittman boys were fast.” I laughed and said, “You were probably trying to stay two steps ahead of grandpaw.” He paused at the thought and added. ” Yep, some other people too.” I wondered what he meant. I know he and some of his brothers had been caught swimming in the old Cannon Mills cement pond at night on several occasions. I think they received a free escort home by the cops at some point. Since both his parents worked in the cotton mill, that probably ended those late night shenanigans. But who knows? I do know daddy has always loved to swim. However he did not get to play football because it fell to him to milk the family cow. With a family having twelve kids it was a necessity. Apparently the milking could not wait til after football practice. Daddy went on to say that growing up back then was not the same as how kids grow up today. I smiled at another giant understatement.
That lead me to mention the power outage and how hot it was in our house. “I guess I’m just spoiled. I can’t imaging how folks used to live without air conditioning.” He paused to think for a minute. “Yep, I slept with my head on the windowsill many a night, just begging for a breeze. And flies were awful. Nowadays if we get a fly in the house it’s unusual. Back in the day they were everywhere. Did you ever see those yellow strips of flypaper? Everybody had those hangin’ in the doorways. Flies were so much worse back then. They came in swarms. Of course everybody had an outhouse in their backyard.” I shuddered at the thought. “And a cow,” I added.
“Yep… that didn’t help much either.” He paused and thought for a while. I waited and hoped he’d tell me more. But I was careful not to ask because if daddy thinks you’re trying to get him to talk about the past he shuts down. Inside I knew this was a rare visit. I know the man won’t live forever. Eventually he began talking again. I listened as he recalled a time when he was around eight years old. As he walked down the dirt road past houses in his neighborhood, he kept hearing mournful crying. He had no idea what all the sadness was about. Later he found out Pearl Harbor had been bombed. My soul grieved at the thought of his little boy heart. How terribly sad to live through such a horrible time. I also knew he would grow up to join the Navy during the Korean war. In the past when we’ve asked about those years in uniform he’d just shrug and say, “Aw, I didn’t really do anything. Sailed around the world a couple times. Swam in a lot of places I weren’t supposed to. Married your mama one Labor Day weekend. The brass revoked my shore leave at the last minute and I had to go AWOL to meet up with her. Spent two weeks with your mama. Did hard time for ninety days once I got back. But it was worth it.”
I can’t imagine ninety days of hard labor in the confines of an aircraft carrier. I knew from stories past that his sentence started in September of 1953 while his ship was docked in Jacksonville, Florida. The first time he had shore leave was in January the next year. By then they were in the Philippines.
Ninety years. He and mama raised three daughters. Mama passed away at only 72; a very young 72. We miss her still. But daddy! Still here and sharp enough to talk about “back in the day.” When I start to worry about our current times it helps to recall just a few of the things my daddy lived through. In fact I feel spoiled completely rotten. Praise God my life does not include an outhouse or yellow fly paper.
