Surprise Surprise Surprise

 Surprise Surprise Surprise
While putting in my 4 hours of volunteer work at the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society, I was surprised at some of the facts that I uncovered as I sorted through some of the paper material that was still stored and barely accessible. It looked like a major undertaking and it was at first. Almost an entire box filled with notes, copies of deeds, wills, and service records had been gathered by one woman and her family donated them to the Society. The sad part was there is so much information buried there that wasn’t available to the public, but I’ve started to make a dent in sorting it and filingg them away.
I placed the deeds in one folder, the wills in another, and so on. When it came to the service records, many of which were from wives and children who were filing for benefits for their disabled or deceased loved one. With several sheets of information on each veteran from the War Between the States, the Civil War, I separated them into family names for easier access. That emptied one file. It was set in order.
Reading and deciphering the handwriting was absolutely necessary to ascertain their content. Some were requests from widows, some were from amputees, and some were from disabled men because of respiratory problems caused by untreated pneumonias. It was interesting, but the tales pulled at my heartstrings as I read the difficulties of those soldiers.
Perusing more deeds, I read about a man on his piece of property that he claimed saw an Indian (his term) crawl into an unheated outside oven for the purpose of attacking the unsuspecting family. The settler had no gun, but used a rail to beat the Indian to death. This was the frontier at that time.
I found one interesting note from the Revolutionary War. It wasn’t written at that time, but the information was written in the briefest form to preserve the information. What do the names Timothy Thayer, Deborah Sampson Gannett and Robert Shurtliff have in common? They are the same person. Deborah enlisted as Timothy Thayer, but failed to meet up with her company. Later, she donned man’s clothing, enlisting in Massachusetts under her Brother Robert’s name. She was wounded in the thigh in Tarrytown New York and treated it herself. It became infected and a doctor examined it, but kept her secret and wrote a medical discharge for her. The notes at the Society says that she enlisted twice to escape marrying the man her mother decided for her, but in a later search of other records I gleaned the date she joined was after the time she was married.

Reality and Cartoons Colide

 Reality and Cartoons Collide
When I tried to think of a topic to write about, two thoughts meshed. I decided to integrate them and make them my insight on life today. I was reminded of the black and white television cartoons of my youth and the reality of my aging body. The pain in my lower back from the shoveling of moving heavy rocks made me feel as though I had gone several rounds with Joe Palooka, the comic pages of the newspaper boxer. Putting aside my aches and pains, I began to recall other cartoons from my youth and the Sunday paper and on the elevision.
Dagwood and Blondie, Sad Sack, Beetle Bailey were old standbys. Dick Tracy, Prince Valiant, Felix the Cat, Lil Abner, Katzenjammer Kids captured the excitement and humor over a wide range of topics for us kids. Mutt and Jeff, Nancy and Sluggo, Heckle and Jeckle were couples that amused me. Their antics didn’t just entertain me they also taught me to read, although many of the actions on the page often didn’t need words.
The television introduced me to the animated characters of Tom Terrific, Mickey Mouse, Popeye the Sailor Man. All of the cartoons started in black and white. Adventure Time made the names Rodney and Knish, the Little Rascals, the Three Stooges famous to me. Kookla, Fran, and Ollie as well as Sherrie Lewis and Lamb Chop were puppets as well as Howdy Doody.
Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Pepe Le Pew, Porky Pig and Petunia, Foghorn Leghorn, Road Runner, Wylie Coyote, Sylvester and Tweety were all late comers. Caspar the Ghost and Spooky, Wendy the Witch introduced me to a gentle enchanted and supernatural world. These were the cartoons that captured my interest every Saturday morning and caused me to fight for the Sunday Pittsburgh Post Gazette funnies.
Today my writer’s creativity allowed my aging and abused body to be free and wander through the youthful, fruitful hallways of my brain. I hope that by sharing my memories, I have stirred a few of yours.

Banned From the County Courthouse

 Banned From the County Courthouse
Quite a few years back I answered a call for jury duty at the Fayette County Courthouse. As a citizen of the United States, I felt it was my responsibility to go. I was retired and didn’t have anything else exciting to do. I was blessed when I found the gate to the parking garage was open and was able to park for free. I made my way to the courthouse and entered a courtroom for roll call. I was amazed at the inefficiency of the officials. Instead of someone checking people as they entered, marking them on the roster, and assigning a juror badge number, the juror pool sat and waited until the room was full. One by one the names were called and given badges. It was more than an hour wasted while I sat on those hard oak benches irritating my patience and sciatic nerve.
Our group was assigned to report to another courtroom. Again we sat on hard oak seats for another hour. The ache in my back worsened and my foot began to go numb. After the judge sat on his dais and lawyers made one plea deal after another, we were excused to wait in the hall. By then it was lunchtime and we were dismissed to find food nearby. When I returned my pain had worsened. I hunted the office of the woman in charge of the jurors and told her about my problem with the progressive numbness in my foot. She said if I stayed until three PM, she would excuse me from jury duty.
While I was talking with her, I mentioned, “The last time I was here, the prosecutor didn’t do his job.” She looked startled. So I shared, “The accused stole an air conditioner for the aluminum but the prosecutor failed to say whether it was commercial or home model and whether it was even functioning. We could only judge the accused with scrap metal prices for the aluminum.”
At three I left AND would you believe it, the very next week, I received another jury duty summons. I sent back a scathing letter telling the courthouse that they could send the sheriff and all his deputies, but I wasn’t coming back. I explained that I’d already been there and my sciatica problem. They sent a return letter saying it was no longer necessary for me to serve as a juror. I’d been banned.
Because my address is Acme, I also get jury summons from Westmoreland County. When I received one from Westmoreland, I returned it saying I lived in Fayette. When they responded I needed a doctor’s excuse, I phoned them. The reason for the continuing snafu is the list is generated in Harrisburg. Enough said.

Visiting a Widow

 Visiting a Widow
When my wife Cindy Morrison Beck was alive and we went shopping together at Pechin’s in Dunbat, Pennsylvania we would buy some extra fruit for a friend who lived along our driving route home. We knew the woman before she lost her husband and would sometimes we would stop to visit for about half an hour.
I knew the couple as a child from the old clapboard, one room church in Clinton Pennsylvania. Ahe and her husband were good friends with my dad and mom. As I mayured from childhood, they became my friends as well. He was a thin man with a ready smile and she was a sweet woman who laughed easily.
Because they lived along the Springfield Pike, it became natural for us to stop when my wife and I saw them on their porch. From those visits my wife and our children grew to know them as well. We were always welcome and they seemed to enjoy our children. Our children became comfortable with them almost as much as with their grandparents.
It was hard to explain to our kids when her husband died. We didn’t take them to the funeral home. We didn’t think it was appropriate for them and would have been a distraction to other mourners. It was difficult to stop at her home, but we needed for her to believe we hadn’t abandoned her. It was more awkward for my wife and me, but our children continued where they were before her husband’s death, climbing onto her lap and playing.
It slowly evolved for us to buy some extra fruit: a bunch of bananas and a container or two of whatever fruit that looked good. That might be a bag of apples, a tray of oranges or a container of pears or tangerines.
She never said that she needed the fruit, but was always thankful. Cindy and I knew that she could use it, because after her husband’s demise, she took on jobs cleaning other people’s homes and became a sitter for sick clients at night.
When we moved fro Normalville, we didn’t drive by her home nearly as often, but we would occasionally make the detour so we could visit. She slowly aged and her family moved her into the same nursing home as my dad. We could visit more often. She remembered us and still called me Tommy when we would stop and talk with her. She and my father are gone now, but the pleasant memories linger.

A Memorial on Memorial Day

 A Memorial on Memorial Day
The United States of America set aside an entire day to honor those brave men and women who marched off to war knowing full well what might be asked of them and they still left home to protect their home, family, and country. There might have been a person with stray thoughts of glory, but I’m sure that all of those thoughts evaporated at the first taste of battle, of seeing the carnage of war, or of watching fellow soldiers falling dead around them. As the sounds of bombs falling, guns being fired and the screams of pain from the wonded, and moans of dying assaulted thir ears. Thoughts of home and hearth became more intense and more important to them and yet they continued to advance through the jungles, onto the beaches, and travel in ships and planes to stop the tide of oppression.
I would like to honor the brave men and women who sacrificed all to allow America to remain free and to break the grasp of despots of the past.  I was going to write about a close friend and honor him, but expanded it to include all the military men and women who gave their lives to preserve freedom in the Unuted States.
My friend and I were playmates as children and grew up together. We spent summers together at is grandmother’s home. He was canscripted to fight the war in Vietnam, the war that wasn’t a war. He was killed in action. When I heard the news I felt crushed and heartbroken. I was the same age. I was a corpsman in the Inited States Navy. But by the hand of God, I was spared the Hell that was Vietnam. I was relegated to care for those who sacrificed body parts, who were maimed and wounded when they returned home. I was responsible to help mend their broken bodies.
I searched for him on Google to be sure to spell in correctly. I knew his name, but I had never actually seen it written. As the screen popped up, I felt my chest tighten as I scrolled down through the names. Fifty-eight thousand men and women died in just that war. The weight of that number pressed down on me as names flitted by. Not too far down that list I found what I was searching for: Earl Duane Barkley, Sgt. Army, Indian Head, PA.
Since then, the bridge in his nearby hometown now is honored by being named in honor of him. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.

Getting Out

Getting Out
Saturday I went hunting wheen my brother Ken called and asked if I wanted to try hunting for a deer. Saturday, old people could hunt with a rifle for antlerless deer. I accepted. I have been much too sedentary lately. My dad Edson Carl Beck would say, “You need to get outside and get the stink blown off you.” I really needed the time away from my computer and television. I have been spendingg too much time inside.
My brother has a small mobile hunting blind. It is handbuilt on a trailer with a door on one wall and three windows on the remaining three others, allowing an unrestricted view of the terrain. An office chair on wheels make the perch comfortable and the hunter is able to scoot around inside to have access to shoot out any window when a deer should wander into view.
I’d hunted from the hunting blind before and was comfortable once I had been dropped off and settled with my rifle at my side. It was still dark outside and I loaded my gun in the dark. Once done, I sat in the darkness waiting for the sun to rise. The weather was chill. It was silent with no breeze, no bird sounds, and no movement at all.
Slowly the morning sun crept over the distant horizen to my left to cover the valley below me. The dark terrain evolved into shapes before gaining any color at all. Gradually I could see the pale vapor cloud that came out of my nose as I exhaled. Eventually birds began to stir around me wakened from their sleep and their small cheeps and peeps greeted my ears. The air was still otherwise. There was no wind, not even the sligtest puff of a breeze. As I rearranged myself in the chair, it would groan under my weight.
The sun climbed higher and the golden aspen trees began to glow in the diffuse light enhanced by a crystal robe of frost. They looked bright among some dark evergreen trees. It was a beautiful sight. Brown weed carpet and occasional thorn trees covered the field that spread from the building to disappear at the feet of the woods and I began my watch for a deer. The minutes passed into hours and nothing appeared other than the birds I was once graced by the arrival of a brilliantly fearthered cardinal. Its bright red plumage was intense against the green leaves that remained on the bush.
Empty handed I returned to my car and drove back home, but it wasn’t wasted time. It was a needed vacation from myself. 

It's Remarkable

 Remarkable

It has been fascinating to watch the skies at sunrise, sunset, and the hours in between. I have been drawn upward by the sun, clouds, moon and stars. I can be enticed even on the days when the sun refuses to shine and a vast panorama of clouds seethe and churn darkly. Occasionally the clouds are charged with twists of lightning, stirred by the deep rumbles of thunder. Sometimes the ground vibrates beneath my feet as the lightning flashes dance close causing the earth to quiver in response to the roar of thunder.

Sometimes the clouds are only a misty veil. It stirs, just thick enough to play a game of hide-n-seek with distant mountain tops. Sometimes the clouds sag low wrapping the trees and bushes with a damp blanket of fog to cover the ground with its thick blanket of cotton. When the cloud rolls away, the grass is covered with dew that sparkles as the sun or the moon rises.

The moon appears as a celestial orb, full faced and bright or as thin slices. The calendar shaves away the moon in slivers to make sickles of light. The moon evolves into the smile of a Cheshire cat or into fishhooks that snag stars in the dark night sky. Slowly stars fade as night ends and the sun begins its rise. This is where another remarkable fantasy begins. The sun’s rays pierce the darkness and dance on the passing clouds. Pale yellow light cuddles with the surface of the clouds. The light intensifies, turning the rosy glow into colors of glorious orange-gold or into a blazing hot red hue. Then the sun itself rises. It shows its brilliant face above the horizon then the clouds reclaim their virginity, white and pure.

The clouds scurry across the sky pushed by prevailing breezes. The sky’s color may vary from a pale milky hue to a deep azure blue. The wind swirls the clouds like creamer in a cup of coffee. The sun continues its journey overhead. Its path marked by shadows that the light paints on the earth beneath. Hour by hour shadows lengthen as it nears the end of the day and the time for the sun to put on its pajamas and go to sleep. The sun leaves goodbye kisses on the clouds to create fantastic scenes of light and as it settles in for the night. The sunset colors rival the morning’s sunrise, but in reverse. As the light lessens and the sun finally slips below the horizon, I sometimes think that we are looking at the underside of heaven, what will our actual view of heaven be like? It’s too grand for me to imagine.