Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Philpotts of Virginia

Shortly after I moved to Richmond, Va. in 1993, I met a man there who asked me if I were related to "Jaybird" Philpott. I told him I wasn't and asked him who Jaybird was. He said, "The nicest thing that could be said about Jaybird is that he was a bootlegger.

Homer "Jaybird" Philpott ran hooch, and I think he was pretty good at it. Do a Google search for "Jaybird Philpott" and you'll find some interesting reading.

One story I'll bet you won't find was told to me by Dr. Harry Lee King, Jr. of Henry, Va. Dr. King was born in Henry County and was a retired professor of French and Spanish Literature at Wake Forest University. He told me that one year the culvert at the end of his driveway at the road had collapsed. When he came home in the afternoon, Jaybird and his boys had been there and had repaired it. And they never sent him a bill. So maybe this is the nicest thing ever said about Jaybird.

Philpott Dam & Lake in southern Virginia and Henry County have a lot of Philpott history.

Margaret Rea introduced me to a lot of the Philpotts in 1993-95, and I went to a couple of Philpott-Stone family reunions at Fairy Stone State Park, near Philpott Lake.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Sun shines on Clellie

The DeSoto Sun printed this about my favorite older sister on June 30, 2011. Of course, she is my only older sister...

  "Clel Shore: Inspirational artist      Someone as involved in the community as Clel Shore certainly doesn’t let a couple of oxygen tanks slow her down. Maneuvering her tanks like a scuba diver exploring the oceans’ coral reefs, Clel searches for new ways to help the community, to express herself creatively and to learn. She is a genuine inspiration.   The judge told me he was in a class all by himself.' She is currently writing a book about a house they owned.
   "I met Clel when she joined The Writers Group, and she started out by reading a personal essay on the spreading of her late husband Jack’s ashes, which was both touching and hilariously funny. She read another piece just as entertaining about when she entered Jack in the fair.
   “'You were supposed to put in the best thing you had. He won a ribbon.
   "I learned Clel was an oil painter when she was DeSoto Arts and Humanities’ Artist of the Month. Her life with Jack is expressed in many of her paintings."

Wasn't there a 4th of July parade, when Jack entered Clellie in the parade in Arcadia? That was back in the days of "Big C", when Clellie used to chat with everyone on the CB radio. As I heard the story (I never saw a picture), Clellie stood on a two-wheeled hand cart with her CB radio and antenna, to which Jack had fastened a battery, and Jack pushed Clellie in the parade. Anyone remember that?
I heard she even ordered a burger from Steak 'n Shake one night, when a trucker was passing through on his way to Sarasota and would be coming back.

Yummy... Steak 'n Shake... might just have to make a trip there today, after the rain stops.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Family pets

I remember two by name. And there was the rooster.... but first the dog and the cat...

When I was a kid on Warder Avenue, we had a dog named Cindy. Cindy was an English setter. She was a city dog and a farm dog. Who worried about papers? Did she have any?

Mostly, Cindy was in our backyard, but everyday she'd go over the picket fence and make a trip to Mrs. Durning's, just across the alley toward Delmar. Mrs. Durnning bought pasteurized milk from the milkman - the cream on top was just for Cindy! And Cindy would come back home with treats in paper bags. Not for us; for her. And so there were always paper bags all over the backyard.

Mom named our cat "Old Black Evil." She was a true "rescue", but no one called rescued animals that, way back when. As I heard the story, Mom heard mewing coming from across the alley and tracked the sound down to the small space between the Durning's garage and their trash pit. That's what we called them, and that's what it was. It was a concrete-sided enclosure where you threw your trash. Somehow, that small kitten had crawled into the small space, and there it was stuck.

Today I don't know whether it was Mom or Pop who got the cat out. Somewhere, over the years, I heard there was a broom handle involved. But we had a new cat. The name? Old Black Evil. The cat was solid black. Not a white spot on her, anywhere.

I don't remember having hens in our backyard on Warder Avenue, but maybe we did. Is that where our eggs came from? But I remember a rooster. Probably not so well as Betsy must remember that rooster.

That rooster did not like Betsy! She can fill in the rest of the story about that!

Cindy always went with us to the farm. And, when we were ready to leave and come back to town, Cindy always knew - about 30 minutes before leaving time. And Cindy would head for the hills. Literally. And then we'd be there an hour or two longer, waiting for the dog to come back. I don't remember anytime when we left her.

Cindy had her special riding place in the car. No sitting on a seat with her head out the window, and certainly not on anyone's lap. That dog's place was on the front passenger-side floor. That was "her" spot, and that's where she already rode. It was a good spot for her, and she was safe there, in event of any sudden stops.

I took a picture one day a couple of years ago of a car in the lane next to me at a traffic light. There were two little "yappers" leaning out the driver's window. Couldn't even see the driver. Maybe there wasn't any driver!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It's hot, hot, hot

It's hot in Woodstock, Illinois today. The forecast is 99° F., with the Heat Index reaching 105-107° F. Kind of reminds me of U. City, when I was a kid. What was it that Pop said? Typical St. Louis summer weather was "100° temperature and 100° humidity - and not a cloud in sight!"

I remember mowing the grass at Clellie's one day. Where was that house, Clellie? You know the one. Tried to find it on Google today - even the little city or town. I don't even recognize half of those towns now.

Anyway, I must have been 10-11-12, and it was a day like today. I mowed the lawn, worked up a sweat, and headed for the kitchen for a cold drink. I got the "polio jar" from the refrigerator and drank down a quart of ice-cold water.

Clellie came into the kitchen and warned me, "Don't drink all that cold water; don't you know that's dangerous?"

So I filled the jar with tap water and drank that down!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Gus looks back from Age 72

It's hard to believe that 72 years have passed so quickly. Where did they go?

I was born at an early age. (OK, so I stole that line from a friend in Seattle, who probably stole it from someone else.) Let's take a walk - the long way - from U. City to Woodstock, Ill. (home of the movie, Groundhog Day.)

My very first, and perhaps only, truancy was when I walked out of nursery school in the U. City Loop and walked home. I just walked right out Delmar. The folks, as I later learned, were somewhat frantic as they drove up and down Delmar, looking for me. They couldn't see me, because I was shorter than the cars parked along the curb. I must have been four years old then - maybe about 1943. I just didn't like that school!

Then Flynn Park Grade School to June 1951; then Hanley Junior High School until 1954; then U. City High School until graduation in June 1957. Then I started at Washington University, where I majored in chasing my girlfriend, keeping my car clean, part-time job, pledging, and mechanical engineering - in that order. Somewhere in the second semester of my freshman year (1958), the Dean and I had a little conversation about how it might be better for me to withdraw before he threw me out. And so I did, before he did.

Then a year of working at a "nothing" job, and then I enlisted in the USAF. In August 1960 I got out early after Mom died. Then I started back to college part-time and then full-time at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. I majored in Russian language and graduated after attending a Russian language institute at Windham College in Putney, Vermont, in the summer of 1964. In the fall I started grad school at the University of Chicago on a Ford Fellowship, but my heart wasn't in it and I resigned the fellowship soon after starting.

Thanks to my life insurance agent, I ended up in the business and worked in Chicago for five years and then moved to Denver in December 1970. I stayed in the business for ten more years and then bailed out. In 1986 I moved to Kansas City for a Chamber of Commerce job, but it lasted only 10 months. Then I moved to Denver and on to Fort Collins, Colo., where I had a great job with NFIB for a year (1989). I spoiled that by accepting a promotion and transfer to L.A. - big mistake. I hated L.A. and bailed after four months, going first to Albuquerque and then to Phoenix.

In the fall of 1989 I found a great job with a dental practice-management consulting firm in Phoenix, but they ran out of money six months later. After brief sojourns to Corpus Christi, Santa Fe and Denver, I ended up in Kirksville, Mo., where I studied regression hypnotherapy and worked with Irene Hickman, D.O.

After traveling and trading hypnotherapy for room-and-board (somewhat like an itinerant preacher), I settled in Richmond, Va. for three years. While I was there, I learned a lot about Philpott family history and visited Philpott, Va. and Philpott Dam & Lake. Met Judy Philpott (daughter of the late Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates) and heard about "Jaybird" Philpott.

Then I moved to Woodstock, Ill. in March 1996, and I've been here since then. This is getting close to being the place where I have lived the longest.

Gus - on patrol at Flynn Park

The following is posted by Gus.

This morning I was just thinking about my days at Flynn Park Grade School, in University City, Mo. In particular, about 5th Grade (the best three years of my life! (No, just kidding)). This would have been 1950-51.

I was one of the "patrols". You know the kind - crosswalks and all that. One of the better posts was at noontime at the drug store at Pershing and Hanley. I think that was the corner. Anyone remember the name of the drug store? There was an ice cream counter and they sold hot dogs at noon. Maybe at other times, too.

Anyway, my "post" at noon time was at the drug store - to keep kids from having lunch there and buying hot dogs. No offense to anyone who likes hot dogs.

I must have figured that the best way to man my post was right at the counter, and I was munching down a hot dog when the principal walked in. Ooops! That ended my days on patrol. In disgrace!

But it didn't deter my interest in law enforcement. Later, when I was about 20, I was a reserve cop with the University City P.D.; then a part-time cop in a small Iowa town while I was a college senior; then as a reserve deputy sheriff in Colorado.

Never made into law enforcement full-time, which is probably a pretty good thing. The first day I would have been telling them everything wrong with the police department, and then I would have been washing squad cars, not driving them!

And what did I do at age 71? Ran for County Sheriff in Illinois. As I told someone at the last debate when he asked how I thought I'd do in the election, I was guaranteed to come in "no worse than third." (There were only three in the race.) And that's exactly where I wound up - with 4,644 votes (5% of the vote).

Monday, July 4, 2011

The Mailman

Clellie remembers Hughes, the mailman. Mail was delivered two times a day, the morning and the afternoon. It cost 3 cents to send a first class letter, 2 cents for local letter if you folded the flap in and did not seal it and of course, we had the penny postcard. This was the 40s. Gus was about four and he would get his tricycle and hook his wagon to it and Hughes would put his mailbag in the wagon , so Gus could help deliver the mail. Gus was many times a half a block ahead of Hughes. One day as Hughes was walking down the steps from our house, I called out of my bedroom window and asked if I had any mail. Hughes said, "Yes, you have a post card from Margie and she will be home next week". I asked Hughes to ask Nell if she wanted to go swimming when he got to her house up the street a couple of blocks. About thirty minutes later, Nell called and said she wanted to go.  One day when I was older, probably in college, I asked Hughes if he wanted to come in and watch an inning or so of the world series. We did not get a television until I was in college and it was a black and white little one that sat on the grand piano. He came in. Mother had her friends for lunch and had three tables of bridge going so I turned the TV down low so we would not disturb them. The ladies all thought it was funny that the mailman came in to watch TV.

Gus loves horses - still

I've always loved horses. Probably the first one I rode was at Missouri Stables, in St. Louis and right across from Forest Park. There was an underpass, so that riders could cross under the highway and get to the riding path in the Park.

Mom's horse was a big one that was 16-2 hands. How I ever scrambled up on Itsy Bitsy's (that was the name!) back, I have no idea. Itsy Bitsy was a five-gaited horse, and I loved all five gaits - walk, trot, canter, slow gait and rack. Rack was the best!!!

Other horses were Sonny Peavine and old Billy. Billy had been a St. Louis Police horse. We didn't own Billy, but dad boarded him at the farm in Chesterfield. You could do anything around Billy - sit under him; crawl under him; pull on him. Nothing phased Billy.

One time Billy stuck his leg through a barbed wire fence. When the other horses came in for feed late in the afternoon, Billy didn't come with them. The next morning we went looking for him. He had not pulled at all; he had just stood there and had eaten all the grass and leaves he could reach. He didn't have a cut on him. And he was very patient and still, while we got his foot out of the fence, too. What a horse!

Denver, a quarterhorse, had a reputation of dumping riders in Forest Park. One renter always took bus fare with her, so she could get back to the stable. One day we came out of the underpass, and I kicked him into a gallop. As we passed a large Quonset hut, he suddenly planted his front feet and whirled around to go back. For some reason, I was hanging on and stayed on him. He never tried that again with me.

I only came off a horse one time, and that was at the farm. Dad and I were fixing fence, and I was riding back to pick up another fencepost. I had left the stirrups long and was cantering along the top of the hill, when the horse got the bit in his teeth and took off. I stuck on when he turned left and started down the hill to the house. I knew there was a fork in the trail, and I felt the horse change leads, so I was prepared to go left with him, but I knew there was a low-hanging branch along that part of the trail.

At the fork I was leaning left, when he suddenly went to the right, and I went straight ahead. I guess it was good that the stirrups were long, because my feet didn't get caught in them. I walked down the hill and found the horse in the front yard - with Mom, all in a panic about no rider! I just got back on, got another fencepost and rode back to finish helping Dad.

Hop on the bus, Gus

When I was a kid (that was in the 1940s), I used to ride the Delmar bus downtown after school and go to swim lessons at the Missouri Athletic Club (M.A.C.). (Click on the picture to enlarge it; then click on the Back button on your browser to come back here.)

Mr. Thomas was the swim coach, and he was one hard taskmaster. I remember many links of the pool with the paddle board, kicking only. And others with arm strokes (only). Never did learn the flip turn and always wished that I had.

I'd catch the bus at Delmar and Warder, and I sat in the front seat, right behind the driver. I'd guess now that I was 6-7-8 years old. Can you imagine parents' letting their kids ride ten miles on a city bus these days???

I learned the names of all the streets between Warder Ave. and 4th & Washington, in downtown St. Louis, and the drivers would let me call out the names.

After swimming, Dad would pick me up at the M.A.C., and we'd ride home together.

On other days, I'd take my Baby Brownie Special, hop on the bus, and go downtown to the railroad yards, where I photographed engines, freight cars and cabooses. That would, of course, never be allowed today. Today you get a $250 ticket in my town for crossing the tracks if the lights are flashing and the gates are down, even if the train isn't close.

Friday, July 1, 2011

550 Warder Ave. and the Neighborhood

Frank and Ruth will be referred to as Dad and Mother from now on. The house was a 2 story brick with 3 bedrooms and one bath on the second floor. A large bedroom for the little people, all 3, a medium size for Mother and Dad and a small room for Clellie. The first floor had a living room with a fireplace, nice size dining room, large kitchen with a pocelain sink with the radiator under it. There was a half bath and closet in a little hall by the front door. Basement door was in the kitchen and the one car garage was in the basement and opened into the alley next to the house.
(Edit by Gus 7/4/11 - here's a photo of 550 Warder Ave. from Google Maps. It's the house on the left (as we Philpotts know). To enlarge it, click on the picture; then click on the Back button on your browser to come back here.)
The folks added 2 screen porches, one off the dining room and the other above it off of the little people's room. Mother and Dad had a small fan in their bedroom, there was no air-conditioning so in the summer, Dad would sleep on the downstairs porch and I, Clellie, would sleep on the upstairs porch. If it stormed, Mother would make everyone go sit in the livingroom because her house had been struck by lightning when she was a child.
Delmar Blvd. was about 200 ft from our house. It was a 4 lane road and the bus ran on that road. It went all the way to downtown St. Louis and to the river, about 10 miles. That is how  the maid got to work. We had one car so Mother would take the bus, all dressed up in her hat and white gloves, to go to the symphony downtown and then take it a little farther to go to the Missouri Athletic Club to meet Dad for drinks and maybe dinner and then she would ride home with him.
 Demar had nice large 2 family apartments on each side. The ones on our side had their garages behind them and  they opened onto our alley. The alley was only used  by the residents and the milkman who came everyday and put the milk in the refrigerator in the kitchen. Oh yes, the groceryman came  to deliver the grocerys . Mother did not go to the store, she called and ordered her grocerys every day.
Gagy and Dan lived on the other side of Delmar so when I was little, I would walk down and  holler and one of  them would walk across and help me across the street. I loved to go to their apartment. They had a nice tea cart with big wheels and I would climb in it and push it around the apartment.
There was a lady that lived down the alley and she had beautiful roses, Mother called her Mrs. Vigaro. After Betsy grew up,got married and moved to Atlanta and her husband, Pat, bought Vigaro to fertilize his roses did Betsy realize that was not the lady's real name.
After we got older, Mother would come out in the alley and jump rope with us. She also had chalk so we could draw the lines and play hopscotch.
Our house was at the bottom of a hill so we would go to the next street and walk up and cut through the Birks and the Steingrabers yards and roller skate down the hill and into the alley. That was wild.
This was the 40s. We did not have TV,Ipods,Cell Phones. We just had fun. Dark brought us home.