~The Water Boy~
My other brother, Broward Franklin’s first job in the 1940’s was stacking chunks of coal outside Grandpa Green’s blacksmith shop. He was the youngest of three born to the youngest of Grandpa’s brood. He was barely out of diapers when he stopped the little train system dubbed ‘The Watertown Northern Railroad Moonshine Line’ with his slingshot and glass marble.
On its way from Okefenokee Swamp to East Coast Lumber Company the train screeched to a halt as it passed the sawmill pond a few seconds after Broward’s marble hit its mark. He ran home and hid under the bed when he discovered the train’s broken window. Thus began my brother’s lifelong respect for glass marbles and train whistles.
Our Uncle Lee lived and worked as a July/ November salt fish preserver and seasonal tobacco grower on grandmother Ada Lee’s farm east of the settlement of Wellborn. Sugar, flour, cigarettes, cornmeal, chewing tobacco, snuff and Sugar Daddys were a standing order when the rolling store made its scheduled stop. They were simple farm-folk cut from the same homespun cloth as rural America.
The four-room farmhouse was a tangible reminder of Columbia County’s economy decades after the Depression ended the reign of Grandfather Bryan’s lumber business. As far as I know the family never owned a moonshine still nor trafficked in bootleg whiskey. It must have been tempting though because the Watertown East Coast Moonshine Express railroad tracks were right across the road.
The modest, unpainted house faced north. Its front porch had a walled-off section whose primary purpose was ‘storing stuff’, including after tobacco season whiskey. Stuff like an iron bed headboard, railings, rusty springs and a blue-tick mattress loaded with bed bugs.
The house had two bedrooms, a living room and eat-in kitchen equipped with a wood burning stove for cooking and an ice box stocked with a five-pound block of ice. As if to compensate for the lack of sunlight and ventilation Lee’s bedroom sported a back door which opened to the west in the shadow of a huge sycamore tree.
Our Uncle Lee lived and worked as a July/ November salt fish preserver and seasonal tobacco grower on grandmother Ada Lee’s farm east of the settlement of Wellborn. Sugar, flour, cigarettes, cornmeal, chewing tobacco, snuff and Sugar Daddys were a standing order when the rolling store made its scheduled stop. They were simple farm-folk cut from the same homespun cloth as rural America.
The four-room farmhouse was a tangible reminder of Columbia County’s economy decades after the Depression ended the reign of Grandfather Bryan’s lumber business. As far as I know the family never owned a moonshine still nor trafficked in bootleg whiskey. It must have been tempting though because the Watertown East Coast Moonshine Express railroad tracks were right across the road.
The modest, unpainted house faced north. Its front porch had a walled-off section whose primary purpose was ‘storing stuff’, including after tobacco season whiskey. Stuff like an iron bed headboard, railings, rusty springs and a blue-tick mattress loaded with bed bugs.
The house had two bedrooms, a living room and eat-in kitchen equipped with a wood burning stove for cooking and an ice box stocked with a five-pound block of ice. As if to compensate for the lack of sunlight and ventilation Lee’s bedroom sported a back door which opened to the west in the shadow of a huge sycamore tree.
I remember a huge barn where Superman flew from the hay loft door, a pump and a two-hole outdoor privy (keep reading....the privy and chickens enters stage left again) on which few folks claim to have sat this day and time circled the outer perimeter of the back porch.
Uncle Lee was a kind but withdrawn, civil man who rolled his own smokes from Prince Albert in a can. He was utterly average but there was nothing louche about him. Drunk or sober the sycamore tree was his personal privy since it was within pissing distance of his back door. The tree eventually died from liver damage.
Having survived temptations of his youth and women with angry husbands, Uncle Lee was cruising peacefully through middle-age bachelor-hood when Broward Franklin, his mama, Robbie; sister, Geneva; brother, Buck and Fiddle moved in shortly after Broward I died.
Uncle Lee was a kind but withdrawn, civil man who rolled his own smokes from Prince Albert in a can. He was utterly average but there was nothing louche about him. Drunk or sober the sycamore tree was his personal privy since it was within pissing distance of his back door. The tree eventually died from liver damage.
Having survived temptations of his youth and women with angry husbands, Uncle Lee was cruising peacefully through middle-age bachelor-hood when Broward Franklin, his mama, Robbie; sister, Geneva; brother, Buck and Fiddle moved in shortly after Broward I died.
Fiddle was Buck’s instrument which caused friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of an agitated cat to damage our eardrums.
Broward Franklin’s days were soon filled with adventure and daring escapades. With a bath towel cape draped over his shoulders he greeted back yard strutter chickens with, ‘Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!!!’He could leap tall chicken yard ….errrrr… ‘buildings’ in a single bound!
The boy was accustomed to a house without electricity which was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It was the fireplace for heat, spitting and shelling seed peanuts; back yard washtub rainwater baths with tadpoles and Geneva; tobacco fields, a Delta Force squad of privy patrol chickens; hog and beef killing day, soap-in-a-cauldron, a mule and panthers that stirred his interest. He had not yet seen Uncle Lee up close.
Broward Franklin’s days were soon filled with adventure and daring escapades. With a bath towel cape draped over his shoulders he greeted back yard strutter chickens with, ‘Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!!!’He could leap tall chicken yard ….errrrr… ‘buildings’ in a single bound!
The boy was accustomed to a house without electricity which was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It was the fireplace for heat, spitting and shelling seed peanuts; back yard washtub rainwater baths with tadpoles and Geneva; tobacco fields, a Delta Force squad of privy patrol chickens; hog and beef killing day, soap-in-a-cauldron, a mule and panthers that stirred his interest. He had not yet seen Uncle Lee up close.
For Broward Franklin the farm proved to be shallow underpinnings for Dick Tracy’s radio wristwatch, man on the moon and Walkie-Talkies. When what one day would be described as ‘Break Dancing’ and ‘Hip Hopping’ exploded in the pastures the boy of steel asked, “What are those animals doing, Uncle Lee?” Lee patiently explained farm animal reproduction in man-to-going on-seven year-old terms. Stunned, the boy thought, ‘I AM A CALF OR A PIG????MAMA’S STORK STORY IS A FIB!!!’
Uncle Lee’s Cracker acceptance and optimism rose before dawn during tobacco season. He battled adverse weather conditions, irrigation water supply failures, fire, insects, tobacco worms, plant diseases and wild life. Day labor was a challenge but he made do with a variety of relatives regardless of their age. They were paid in accordance with their output…i.e. how fast can you work???
After tobacco season Uncle Lee took command of the front porch, storage room, a bucket of water, a long handle dipper and his wooden rocking chair. Tobacco money purchased a whole case of whiskey much to the chagrin of the front porch storage unit. The bucket and dipper stood within reach of his rocking chair.
Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence Uncle Lee sat day after day, night after night lost in rapturous contemplation and remorse of what he was and overlooked what he ought to be. He drank whiskey straight from the bottle one swallow at a time. He chased it with water from the dipper one swallow at a time. He stayed pickled, hung-one-on drunk – not to be confused with tipsy - as long as his case of whiskey lasted.
Broward Franklin loitered on the front porch watching his uncle morph into two dimensions. The drunker uncle Lee got the more he should have resigned from the brotherhood of awful examples he was setting. While in a state of ongoing diminished physical and mental control by means of whiskey Uncle Lee hired Broward to fill and dip water for him on an as need basis. There was no minimum wage discussion but money changed hands when Uncle Lee was served. And that was every time he took a drink of whiskey, one swallow at a time.
Then came the morning from Hell rousing Uncle Lee with a killer hangover. When he saw Broward Franklin pulling wads of paper money from the pockets of his overalls he was shocked into a hangover-free state of mind. I mean there were WADS of PAPER money!!! Mostly $5’s with a few $1’s and very little change!!
Lee looked as if he’d just heard the song, “American Pie” but you know it was not written in the 40’s, don’t you? Feeling completely defenseless, Broward labored to describe his job with what sounded like a kid’s excuse for stealing. Uncle Lee, still in the stress of a hangover-induced conspiracy between speech and wisdom, wanted his money back. Then he made a fatal mistake. He accused Broward of taking HIS cash.
Uncle Lee’s Cracker acceptance and optimism rose before dawn during tobacco season. He battled adverse weather conditions, irrigation water supply failures, fire, insects, tobacco worms, plant diseases and wild life. Day labor was a challenge but he made do with a variety of relatives regardless of their age. They were paid in accordance with their output…i.e. how fast can you work???
After tobacco season Uncle Lee took command of the front porch, storage room, a bucket of water, a long handle dipper and his wooden rocking chair. Tobacco money purchased a whole case of whiskey much to the chagrin of the front porch storage unit. The bucket and dipper stood within reach of his rocking chair.
Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence Uncle Lee sat day after day, night after night lost in rapturous contemplation and remorse of what he was and overlooked what he ought to be. He drank whiskey straight from the bottle one swallow at a time. He chased it with water from the dipper one swallow at a time. He stayed pickled, hung-one-on drunk – not to be confused with tipsy - as long as his case of whiskey lasted.
Broward Franklin loitered on the front porch watching his uncle morph into two dimensions. The drunker uncle Lee got the more he should have resigned from the brotherhood of awful examples he was setting. While in a state of ongoing diminished physical and mental control by means of whiskey Uncle Lee hired Broward to fill and dip water for him on an as need basis. There was no minimum wage discussion but money changed hands when Uncle Lee was served. And that was every time he took a drink of whiskey, one swallow at a time.
Then came the morning from Hell rousing Uncle Lee with a killer hangover. When he saw Broward Franklin pulling wads of paper money from the pockets of his overalls he was shocked into a hangover-free state of mind. I mean there were WADS of PAPER money!!! Mostly $5’s with a few $1’s and very little change!!
Lee looked as if he’d just heard the song, “American Pie” but you know it was not written in the 40’s, don’t you? Feeling completely defenseless, Broward labored to describe his job with what sounded like a kid’s excuse for stealing. Uncle Lee, still in the stress of a hangover-induced conspiracy between speech and wisdom, wanted his money back. Then he made a fatal mistake. He accused Broward of taking HIS cash.
Definition: Stealing.
An argument erupted of gigantic proportion when Uncle Lee just as good as called Broward a liar. Not a dispute between employer and employee – it was between employer and his sister, Robbie Marie, the Water Boy’s mother. She was an undisciplined Southern Belle with a cigarette in her mouth, eyes in the back of her head a 38 pistol within reach…. she read minds. Hers was a vast vocabulary of words like ‘Sons-Uh-BI***’, “SH**”, GOD***, and BAST***.
“Don’t you defame my youngun’. He hired on as Water Boy and BYGAWD he’s gonna’ keep the GAWD** money!” she yelled. And then she called Uncle Lee by his proper name, ‘BAST***’.
I don’t know if Broward Franklin was terminated for just cause, resigned without notice or if his job was eliminated.
I do know he kept his money.
An argument erupted of gigantic proportion when Uncle Lee just as good as called Broward a liar. Not a dispute between employer and employee – it was between employer and his sister, Robbie Marie, the Water Boy’s mother. She was an undisciplined Southern Belle with a cigarette in her mouth, eyes in the back of her head a 38 pistol within reach…. she read minds. Hers was a vast vocabulary of words like ‘Sons-Uh-BI***’, “SH**”, GOD***, and BAST***.
“Don’t you defame my youngun’. He hired on as Water Boy and BYGAWD he’s gonna’ keep the GAWD** money!” she yelled. And then she called Uncle Lee by his proper name, ‘BAST***’.
I don’t know if Broward Franklin was terminated for just cause, resigned without notice or if his job was eliminated.
I do know he kept his money.
Update 2009: Three score and three years later on a mountain road somewhere in Deep South, USA, Broward was still faster than a speeding bullet. With his faithful companion, Muthculs(sp) the dog by his side he disarmed a pack of wild dogs and their Nazi Commandant with Mama’s vocabulary.
His wife Binky said, “Well done!”
Author’s Note:The events portrayed in this story are mostly true - mostly - any similarities to anyone you know is purely intentional. A little editing and tweaking was done to enhance the story. You’ll just have to ask Broward where.
G.G.Goodson, Copyright@July 2009
His wife Binky said, “Well done!”
Author’s Note:The events portrayed in this story are mostly true - mostly - any similarities to anyone you know is purely intentional. A little editing and tweaking was done to enhance the story. You’ll just have to ask Broward where.
G.G.Goodson, Copyright@July 2009
