A HUNGRY MAN

My father and I were standing in the orchard overlooking the valley below. You could see the outline of my fathers brown fields surrounding by the beautiful green fields of our neighbors. I asked him why he didn’t sign up for the free fertilizer the government was giving away?

"Nothing is free son, especially from the government. Until now we were the government and you should give to your government. Once you start to take they will own you lock, stock and barrel!" he replied, wiping tears from his eyes. "Always look a gift horse in the mouth!"

My father knew this! He knew deep down in his soul that once the liberal policies of the Roosevelt administration were enacted into law by a frightened nation they could and probably would become the seeds of our destruction and demise.

"Son, how poor is poor?" My father asked and added. "I wonder if history will record the tears on your mothers face as we stripped the bead wood leaves while our hands were red with blood just to earn a few dollars to keep you kids from starving!"

My father was recalling the last two years and their struggle to keep us off welfare. We had poor people way back then! I mean the bottom of the barrel, no place to go, dirt poor! People my age and older are the only ones left with the memories of a young mother and father crying as they stripped bead wood leaves with the blood dripping off their hands in order to buy the barest of staples to feed their starving children! We dried the leaves slowly in the shade of our bedrooms as the direct sun would turn them brown and render them useless! I would wade through these leaves up to my knees to get into my bed at night! A whole weeks work for the entire family would net approximately two dollars at the most and we never got paid in cash; there was hardly any money anywhere, we got a due bill and traded it in for groceries!

We were fortunate. We had a house and a few acres of land where we could scratch out a few morsels of food. Many people were much more destitute, especially those in the larger metropolitan areas!

A few days later a brand new pickup truck parked beside my tobacco patch.

"Dad, there’s a government man out there behind the barn and he says they have to dig up our tobacco!" I yelled and headed back toward the barn!

I looked back and saw my father coming down the road with his single barreled shotgun under his arm. I jumped up on the top rail of the fence and sat down. The government man was getting his hoe from the back of his pick up truck when my father arrived.

"Young man, what do you plan to do with that hoe?" said my father as moved his shotgun from under his arm.

"I got orders from the county agent to dig up this patch of tobacco." The young man said.

"I will say this just one time. Put down your hoe and get back into your truck and high tail it down the road. If you chop on hill of my son’s tobacco I will blow your damned head clean off your shoulders. You got that?" father said as he cocked that old poke stalk shotgun.

Until the day my father died the county agent wouldn’t come near our place but I used that hoe for many years and it was still there when I left home for parts unknown.

I become prouder of my father as the years roll by! He was much of a man!

******

My father had been on edge for quite a spell and I knew something was on his mind when he got the milk bucket from my mother and went to calling his old pet cow, Old Jerse.

"Son, would you like to go over to Elkin this morning? Your Uncle Smith is going by there with a load of lumber and I sure would like to talk to ‘RL’ for awhile. I haven’t seen him in a coon’s age!" my father yelled to me as he finished milking Old Jerse! "Here comes Smith’s truck now. Take this milk and give it to your mama and let’s flag him down!"

RL was a real good friend of my father’s and, as a matter of fact, they had gone to college at ASTC in Boone together. They would spend an entire day talking about fox hunting or politics. He, RL was the Honorable R. L Doughton, Congressman of the U. S. House of Representative and head of the Ways and Means Committee! My father had something else in his mind today besides fox hunting!

"You fellows come on in here and sit a spell." RL said extending his paw across the top of my head toward my father. He just sort of rubbed my head, messing up my hair, and wiped his hand on his breeches leg. Brilliantine was pretty messy stuff!

RL and my father got into a political discussion that was pretty hot and heavy. RL was a Democrat and my father was a Republican. Meantime, I was fascinated with RL’s world globe. That was the first one I had ever seen!

"Shep, you and the boy there come outside with me for a spell. I want to show you all something." the congressman ambled toward the front door.

The silo was way in the back end of the pasture and it appeared to be of recent construction. There were several large piles of old silage on the floor. When we entered RL locked the door and cleared a pile of silage over a round trapdoor in the floor.

"Come on, follow me!" RL yelled as he disappeared down the hole. We followed!

We lowered ourselves into a square cave like cellar about twenty by forty feet and looked around. Setting in the middle of the floor was most beautiful gas fired copper still a person could imagine!

"Have a drink, Shep!" RL said as he uncorked a gallon jug of musty crock ware and laughed. "Now this was made by your neighbor Smith. He can make the best sugar head whiskey you ever tasked. I’ll bet it’d been a spell since you’ve had any of that. He quit bootlegging a few years after we got out of school!"

He was unaware that Smith still made a run every now and then. My father winked at me, apparently for my silence. He gave me a sip from his glass and I explored RL’s secret cache.

As we were going home my father said with a definite fear in his voice "If those nuts in Washington got to RL things will never be the same again.

When we got home, fortunately after dark, my father went by the woodshed to hide a jug of his neighbor Smith’s best run of sugar head whiskey before we went into the house and greeted my mother!

Sometime later RL came by to see my father and tried to buy Old Lead, his prize fox hound, but things were never the same between them. A bond or a trust seemed like it had been broken!

******

"One of you younguns answer the door!" my father yelled from the kitchen just as I was putting my hand on the doorknob.

"Upton!" Come on in here and warm a spell, it got a little chilly last night." my father greeted his old friend. "Throw your things in the bedroom off the porch there and where in the tarnation did you get those boots?

Upton done like dad suggested but he came back in with the high top boots still laced together around his neck. "Thought you might want to trade me something for these boots. They’re too tight for me and I figured they would fit you like a glove."

Dad sat down and started to untie his shoes. I high tailed it to the dining room! His feet and a hot stove just didn’t go together!

"Shep, did you sign up for the We Piddle Around bunch that’s rocking the road down below White Oak. Old Stansberry is the foreman and he is in an almighty big hurry; they are doing it one pebble at a time!" Upton laughed as dad slipped the last boot on and started to lace them up. I figured it would be safe enough to go back in the living room. At least I wouldn’t loose the bait of squirrel I had had for breakfast!

"Do you know what those WPA highfalutin people from down in Raleigh are asking those fellows before they can sign up, Upton?" my father said as he stomped his feet, checking to see how the boots fit. " They have to list their wife, children, dogs, cats, sheep, hogs and chickens. They are even asking for one of those new social security numbers and if you don’t have one they will get one for you."

"You got one yet?" Upton inquired.

"Got what? Oh, you mean one of those old age pension numbers? You and I agree that when we got out of the army nobody would ever again try to give us a damn number again." my father was getting up steam. "You didn’t get one of those things did you? From here on in if my name is not good enough, to hell with them!"

"No way!" Upton replied. "But I really did a job on Old Stransberry as I came up the creek this morning! Last night I made this here big sign out of cardboard and some black paint. So this morning I eased on by him and his crew and rounded the curve just below Clark’s place and waited. It didn’t take long ‘til he came around the curve with his crew and was staring at this sign that said "NO DANGER OF MEN WORKING!" I betcha I pissed off half of the Democrats in the county!"

"What did Old Stansberry do?" Dad was anxious.

"I near ‘bout had to fight him." Upton went on. "I’ve been itching to get back at him for what he said to be about my overalls!"

I couldn’t help but speak up! "What did he say Mr. Blevins?"

"On election day a bunch of us was standing around talking. I had on an old pair of overalls with patches in both knees and the entire rear end. Old Stansberry asked me where I got the overalls with all the Hoover badges on them? He got me real good, I’ll have to say!" Upton chuckled. "He’ll get over his mad spell in a few days and then he’ll think of something to really get me next time!"

"They fit fine." Dad said walking around the heater in Uptons boots and kicking a pile of wood.

They took off toward the woodshed as my father said "You’re going to stay around for a while this time; aren’t you? Thirsty?"

Our hungriest days were in the past! However, change would forever be a constant factor in lives. My father later changed his minds and got a social security card in order to work for the war effort. Upton never did!

A HUNGRY MAN

On my way to work one day, I met a hungry man.
I gave him coins for some food and I dropped them his can.
He smiled and thanked me kindly for my helpful generous deed.
I felt real good, as I should; I had helped someone in need!

This went one for many moons – the man, the can, the dole.
The smiles and thanks began to wane and the can looks a hole.
He took no action on his own to correct his meager plight;
Somehow, in the scheme of things, the dole became his right!

Then one day I stopped the dole, but I gave the man a tool
With instruction for its proper use, this man was not a fool.
I’d stop by to see this man every now and then
I encouraged him to use the tool and the man became my friend!

The man leaned how to use the tool, taking pride in his new skill
And the fruits of my friend’s labor, is in his mansion on the hill!
I do not regret the daily dole, let’s face it I’m no fool,
But I’ve wished a hundred times my first gift had been a tool.