 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Although my father was free enough with profanity, the kind of profane language that referred to sexual and body functions I very, very
rarely heard from him. He’d “goddamn this” and “goddamn that” or especially when he was angry with me he’d “Goddamn, boy,
goddamn, you need to straighten up and fly right,” meantime thumping me a good one on the chest with the back of his hand. Hell noes
or hell yeses were frequent enough, and there was even the occasional, “That bastard.”
I only heard him say the word shit once or twice, and that was late in his life in the 80s when everyone began saying the word.
As for the infamous f word, I only heard him use that one time.
This was in the 1940s. We lived on the farm then, and had a couple of milk cows. Dad milked them, with some more or less semi-
competent help from my brother and me (my brother, four years older, was probably pretty good help) in the morning and at night after
he came home from a hard day at the office and seeing hospital patients. Occasionally one of the cows, the obstreperous one, named
Ethyl--she was a Guernsey, I think, to judge from her big dark brown and light brown spots--well, Ethyl wouldn’t be there in the coral
waiting to be milked but would be down in the pasture, God only knew where. So Dad would have to go seeking her. This could take a
few minutes or it could take and an hour more. With two hundred acres of hillside and woods, there were a lot of places for even a cow
to hide. And Ethyl did, almost, seem to hide. She seemed to take a kind of perverse pleasure in not being found.
But this night, Dad finally found her, and brought her up to the milking barn on a long tether of heavy sisal rope. It was growing dark, but
he had her, and he must have grinned a little as he started into the barn.
At that moment, however, Ethyl dug in her heels. This brought Dad to a sudden and startled stop. Ethyl then mooed angrily and with
surprisingly agility for a thousand plus pound animal, turned and in so doing yanked Dad to the ground. She then began to run back the
way they had came, really kicking up her heels. Dad held on and she dragged him as readily as if he were simply a small knot on the
end of the rope. I watched him bouncing along for fifty or more feet. I didn’t know what I could do but watch in horror. There was my
father being towed summarily down the lane back to the pasture. For awhile Dad would succeed in righting himself and then he’d run
instead of being dragged, but at some point it was just too much. Filthy and dusty from being dragged through a manurey feedlot and
lane, he let go and watched Ethyl galloping back to the hills. He shouted after her something about you Goddamn fucking beast! Maybe
he even repeated it louder, in case she hadn’t heard him the first time, until she more or less reached the vanishing point in the picture
and was gone. Dad walked wearily back up to the milk house where I stood. He was panting, rubbing his face with his arm, but by the
time he got there I guess he saw the humor of it all was laughing and shaking his head. ###
rarely heard from him. He’d “goddamn this” and “goddamn that” or especially when he was angry with me he’d “Goddamn, boy,
goddamn, you need to straighten up and fly right,” meantime thumping me a good one on the chest with the back of his hand. Hell noes
or hell yeses were frequent enough, and there was even the occasional, “That bastard.”
I only heard him say the word shit once or twice, and that was late in his life in the 80s when everyone began saying the word.
As for the infamous f word, I only heard him use that one time.
This was in the 1940s. We lived on the farm then, and had a couple of milk cows. Dad milked them, with some more or less semi-
competent help from my brother and me (my brother, four years older, was probably pretty good help) in the morning and at night after
he came home from a hard day at the office and seeing hospital patients. Occasionally one of the cows, the obstreperous one, named
Ethyl--she was a Guernsey, I think, to judge from her big dark brown and light brown spots--well, Ethyl wouldn’t be there in the coral
waiting to be milked but would be down in the pasture, God only knew where. So Dad would have to go seeking her. This could take a
few minutes or it could take and an hour more. With two hundred acres of hillside and woods, there were a lot of places for even a cow
to hide. And Ethyl did, almost, seem to hide. She seemed to take a kind of perverse pleasure in not being found.
But this night, Dad finally found her, and brought her up to the milking barn on a long tether of heavy sisal rope. It was growing dark, but
he had her, and he must have grinned a little as he started into the barn.
At that moment, however, Ethyl dug in her heels. This brought Dad to a sudden and startled stop. Ethyl then mooed angrily and with
surprisingly agility for a thousand plus pound animal, turned and in so doing yanked Dad to the ground. She then began to run back the
way they had came, really kicking up her heels. Dad held on and she dragged him as readily as if he were simply a small knot on the
end of the rope. I watched him bouncing along for fifty or more feet. I didn’t know what I could do but watch in horror. There was my
father being towed summarily down the lane back to the pasture. For awhile Dad would succeed in righting himself and then he’d run
instead of being dragged, but at some point it was just too much. Filthy and dusty from being dragged through a manurey feedlot and
lane, he let go and watched Ethyl galloping back to the hills. He shouted after her something about you Goddamn fucking beast! Maybe
he even repeated it louder, in case she hadn’t heard him the first time, until she more or less reached the vanishing point in the picture
and was gone. Dad walked wearily back up to the milk house where I stood. He was panting, rubbing his face with his arm, but by the
time he got there I guess he saw the humor of it all was laughing and shaking his head. ###
| April 2, 2010 My Profane Father! |
Sat., April 3, 2010
This is my life and you’re welcome to it…ca. 1943
“Hats off in the house!” we used to shout at one another in grade school. A picture of George Washington looked down at us
disapprovingly. Along the border of the room was the alphabet all written out in capitals and lower case, or, as we called them then, little
letters. The blackboards were really black and they were made of slate. Chalk was doled out carefully. The wastebasket was green or
gray and a steel cylinder big enough to hold five gallons or so of something. There was a wood stove at the side of the room, this was in
Indiana, or maybe it was out in the main hallway, I’m not sure. This was, after all, a two-room school. We had electricity, a few single
bulbs hanging down, but we had no indoor plumbing. To get permission to go pee, we held up one finger. Two, and we were given
permission to go…what did we call it then? I guess we called it taking a number two.
The outdoor toilet was a little building painted white, one for the boys and another for the girls, or maybe there was just one building with
two sides, BOYS and GIRLS. The urinal was an old half-round eaves trough, and it was installed at a slope and it emptied through a
hole in the wall. For number twos, there may have been two or three or even four holes cut in a wooden bench seat over the pit. If you
looked down in you could see a cone of shit. Life was pretty elemental then. ###
This is my life and you’re welcome to it…ca. 1943
“Hats off in the house!” we used to shout at one another in grade school. A picture of George Washington looked down at us
disapprovingly. Along the border of the room was the alphabet all written out in capitals and lower case, or, as we called them then, little
letters. The blackboards were really black and they were made of slate. Chalk was doled out carefully. The wastebasket was green or
gray and a steel cylinder big enough to hold five gallons or so of something. There was a wood stove at the side of the room, this was in
Indiana, or maybe it was out in the main hallway, I’m not sure. This was, after all, a two-room school. We had electricity, a few single
bulbs hanging down, but we had no indoor plumbing. To get permission to go pee, we held up one finger. Two, and we were given
permission to go…what did we call it then? I guess we called it taking a number two.
The outdoor toilet was a little building painted white, one for the boys and another for the girls, or maybe there was just one building with
two sides, BOYS and GIRLS. The urinal was an old half-round eaves trough, and it was installed at a slope and it emptied through a
hole in the wall. For number twos, there may have been two or three or even four holes cut in a wooden bench seat over the pit. If you
looked down in you could see a cone of shit. Life was pretty elemental then. ###
Sunday, April 4, 2010 Cats
We always have ten or so cats around our place. So in the spring we always have kittens. Or used to always. This year we have one
little kitty, a tiny gray tortoise-shell tom, eyes not yet open--and he is all that is left of two litters. We think the first litter, out of Motley Crue,
our big momma of many years, as tomcats will kill kittens that they are not the parent of, was killed by a big tom we have around the
place too. Mother Lode, a black with a white spot on her chest (so that June calls her Ibex, after the first cat she brought here when she
came in 1973), had a smaller litter of just three kittens but two have died from starvation, we think, because the mother's have been so
addled and nervous that their milk has dried up. We don't know why, really.
But we have this one little kitten left, and we are hand feeding it, and both mothers are trying to nurse and nurture the little thing.
We have no grandchildren here near us. So this is what we have, one single and over-parented kitten. ###
We always have ten or so cats around our place. So in the spring we always have kittens. Or used to always. This year we have one
little kitty, a tiny gray tortoise-shell tom, eyes not yet open--and he is all that is left of two litters. We think the first litter, out of Motley Crue,
our big momma of many years, as tomcats will kill kittens that they are not the parent of, was killed by a big tom we have around the
place too. Mother Lode, a black with a white spot on her chest (so that June calls her Ibex, after the first cat she brought here when she
came in 1973), had a smaller litter of just three kittens but two have died from starvation, we think, because the mother's have been so
addled and nervous that their milk has dried up. We don't know why, really.
But we have this one little kitten left, and we are hand feeding it, and both mothers are trying to nurse and nurture the little thing.
We have no grandchildren here near us. So this is what we have, one single and over-parented kitten. ###
FROM THE ANCIENT JOURNAL: Jan. 2, 1979
It was 4 degrees below zero. The snow had drifted in places to several feet deep. Slowly they dressed by the stove. Three pairs of
socks, long underwear, pants and shirts, sweatshirts, then coveralls, then shoes and rubber boots. It took 15 minutes, or more. They
said nothing. The woman finished first, and went wordlessly outside, carrying a bucket of water. The man gasped and struggled to put
his boots on and buckle them.
When he was outdoors too he noticed the wind. Putting his head down, he followed his wife’s deep tracks to the barn. He took the
bucket of water she had put down in the snow. “All for Fred?” he said to his wife, who was breaking open a bale of hay. She nodded.
“Give him this hay, too.” She broke off a book and handed it to the man.
He trudged through the snow to the ram’s pen. The ram reared up on the fence, his black muzzle bearded with snow. “Hungry,
Freddie?” He tossed the book of hay over the fence, and the ram immediately went for it. Then he poured the bucket of warm water into
the ram’s water bucket. The ice already in the bucket crackled and broke. The man went back to the main barn. His wife had placed
books of hay all around and was now pouring grain into the scattered feed pans--old wash tubs and square wooden boxes.
“Shall I let them out?”
“Go ahead.”
He lifted the slide gate and the ewes began pushing out of the old boxcar that served as a barn. Now and then a young lamb would
squeeze through the legs of the taller ewes. They ran through the deep snow to the grain bunks.
When they were all out, the man and woman went inside the barn. “Everybody looks okay,” the man said. The woman took from under a
coat a beerbottle with a nipple on it and began feeding milk to a mewling lamb, who ate very vigorously. ###
It was 4 degrees below zero. The snow had drifted in places to several feet deep. Slowly they dressed by the stove. Three pairs of
socks, long underwear, pants and shirts, sweatshirts, then coveralls, then shoes and rubber boots. It took 15 minutes, or more. They
said nothing. The woman finished first, and went wordlessly outside, carrying a bucket of water. The man gasped and struggled to put
his boots on and buckle them.
When he was outdoors too he noticed the wind. Putting his head down, he followed his wife’s deep tracks to the barn. He took the
bucket of water she had put down in the snow. “All for Fred?” he said to his wife, who was breaking open a bale of hay. She nodded.
“Give him this hay, too.” She broke off a book and handed it to the man.
He trudged through the snow to the ram’s pen. The ram reared up on the fence, his black muzzle bearded with snow. “Hungry,
Freddie?” He tossed the book of hay over the fence, and the ram immediately went for it. Then he poured the bucket of warm water into
the ram’s water bucket. The ice already in the bucket crackled and broke. The man went back to the main barn. His wife had placed
books of hay all around and was now pouring grain into the scattered feed pans--old wash tubs and square wooden boxes.
“Shall I let them out?”
“Go ahead.”
He lifted the slide gate and the ewes began pushing out of the old boxcar that served as a barn. Now and then a young lamb would
squeeze through the legs of the taller ewes. They ran through the deep snow to the grain bunks.
When they were all out, the man and woman went inside the barn. “Everybody looks okay,” the man said. The woman took from under a
coat a beerbottle with a nipple on it and began feeding milk to a mewling lamb, who ate very vigorously. ###
Good morning! It's Thursday, April 8, 2010, and this is the day that the Lord hath made!
Actually, it's just another day, another part of me says. That's the same part of me that appreciates so very much
the late great George Carlin's remark about positive thinking. "I've heard of this 'positive thinking' stuff. But I
don't think it'd work for me. And if it did, it would probably be real hard."
The first time I ever read the sentence about this being "the day the Lord hath made" wasn't in the Bible--not a
book I read much--but no, it was in John Cheever's Autobiography, and that is the sentence that he wrote with
irony in his journal after he and his wife had started the day with a shouting match and door slamming fight in
the kitchen.
Luckily my wife and I began the morning--with our son, Ben, who is staying with us for a few days--a reading
from a daily reflection book, and all three of us read it and talked about it--"shared" from it, as they say. Then we
had a breakfast of oatmeal and bananas and coffee.
And so I'm here this morning, and I'm willing to do my part to make the world a better place for us all. What
shall I do?
Actually, it's just another day, another part of me says. That's the same part of me that appreciates so very much
the late great George Carlin's remark about positive thinking. "I've heard of this 'positive thinking' stuff. But I
don't think it'd work for me. And if it did, it would probably be real hard."
The first time I ever read the sentence about this being "the day the Lord hath made" wasn't in the Bible--not a
book I read much--but no, it was in John Cheever's Autobiography, and that is the sentence that he wrote with
irony in his journal after he and his wife had started the day with a shouting match and door slamming fight in
the kitchen.
Luckily my wife and I began the morning--with our son, Ben, who is staying with us for a few days--a reading
from a daily reflection book, and all three of us read it and talked about it--"shared" from it, as they say. Then we
had a breakfast of oatmeal and bananas and coffee.
And so I'm here this morning, and I'm willing to do my part to make the world a better place for us all. What
shall I do?
| The Journal of Charley Kempthorne Published 1500 071110 |
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) , one of America’s greatest novelists if not the greatest, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. So was his
brother, a famous songwriter and musician, who because of the anti-German feeling around World War I, changed his name from
Dreiser to Dresser.
And so he was Paul Dresser, bandleader and author of the famous song, “Wabash Cannonball.”
Terre Haute sits on the banks of the Wabash River. My wife June and I drove through Terre Haute a few years ago and, knowing it was
Dreiser’s hometown, I went to the public library downtown to find out where his house was and all that. We were directed to a
neighborhood where there was a small frame house with a sign in front. The sign said that this was the birthplace and boyhood home
of Paul Dresser, the musician, and at the end of the words about Paul was one single sentence: He had a brother, Theodore Dreiser,
who was a novelist.
The house was closed to visitors except by appointment. Incensed at the slight to Theodore,this great American author--Sister Carrie,
An American Tragedy, Jenny Gerhardt, and the three great novels about Frank Cowperwood, and other books, I went back to the
library. The librarian, a thin young lady, listened without a word to my oration about how great Theodore Dreiser was. She looked at me
and smiled icily, “Well,” she said, “he didn’t say very nice things about Terra Haute.”
What could I say? We withdrew and drove on to Indianapolis.
Last night I got home at 9. June was sitting on her deck, reading. I was tired. My bones ached. I was ready.
June came in and we looked at the kittens on the west deck and said how cute they were, tottering around,
falling into the cracks and pulling themselves back up. There were two black ones, two orange ones, a
tortoise shell and a motley.
I gathered up the newspapers from the coffee table in the living room and went into the bedroom. I
undressed and stretched out. June came in and got into bed. We lay there staring at the ceiling. I picked up
the New York Times and stared at the front page. “I’m too tired to read,” I said, dropping the paper to the floor.
“Me too,” June said. “Will you turn out the light?”
I turned out the light. We lay there in the dark. June slowly reached out and took my hand and squeezed it. “I
love you,” June said. “Me too,” I said, laughing a little. “Yourself, or me?” June said, laughing back. This was
an old routine. “Both,” I said. Then I kissed the back of her hand and let go. I rolled carefully onto my right
side. “I love you, Babe,” I said. “You’re something else.” June made a little kiss-kiss smacking sound with
her lips and I dropped deep into a dark place and slept.
Last night I got home at 9. June was sitting on her deck, reading. I was tired. My bones ached. I was ready.
June came in and we looked at the kittens on the west deck and said how cute they were, tottering around,
falling into the cracks and pulling themselves back up. There were two black ones, two orange ones, a
tortoise shell and a motley.
I gathered up the newspapers from the coffee table in the living room and went into the bedroom. I
undressed and stretched out. June came in and got into bed. We lay there staring at the ceiling. I picked up
the New York Times and stared at the front page. “I’m too tired to read,” I said, dropping the paper to the floor.
“Me too,” June said. “Will you turn out the light?”
I turned out the light. We lay there in the dark. June slowly reached out and took my hand and squeezed it. “I
love you,” June said. “Me too,” I said, laughing a little. “Yourself, or me?” June said, laughing back. This was
an old routine. “Both,” I said. Then I kissed the back of her hand and let go. I rolled carefully onto my right
side. “I love you, Babe,” I said. “You’re something else.” June made a little kiss-kiss smacking sound with
her lips and I dropped deep into a dark place and slept.
June came in and we looked at the kittens on the west deck and said how cute they were, tottering around,
falling into the cracks and pulling themselves back up. There were two black ones, two orange ones, a
tortoise shell and a motley.
I gathered up the newspapers from the coffee table in the living room and went into the bedroom. I
undressed and stretched out. June came in and got into bed. We lay there staring at the ceiling. I picked up
the New York Times and stared at the front page. “I’m too tired to read,” I said, dropping the paper to the floor.
“Me too,” June said. “Will you turn out the light?”
I turned out the light. We lay there in the dark. June slowly reached out and took my hand and squeezed it. “I
love you,” June said. “Me too,” I said, laughing a little. “Yourself, or me?” June said, laughing back. This was
an old routine. “Both,” I said. Then I kissed the back of her hand and let go. I rolled carefully onto my right
side. “I love you, Babe,” I said. “You’re something else.” June made a little kiss-kiss smacking sound with
her lips and I dropped deep into a dark place and slept.
Last night I got home at 9. June was sitting on her deck, reading. I was tired. My bones ached. I was ready.
June came in and we looked at the kittens on the west deck and said how cute they were, tottering around,
falling into the cracks and pulling themselves back up. There were two black ones, two orange ones, a
tortoise shell and a motley.
I gathered up the newspapers from the coffee table in the living room and went into the bedroom. I
undressed and stretched out. June came in and got into bed. We lay there staring at the ceiling. I picked up
the New York Times and stared at the front page. “I’m too tired to read,” I said, dropping the paper to the floor.
“Me too,” June said. “Will you turn out the light?”
I turned out the light. We lay there in the dark. June slowly reached out and took my hand and squeezed it. “I
love you,” June said. “Me too,” I said, laughing a little. “Yourself, or me?” June said, laughing back. This was
an old routine. “Both,” I said. Then I kissed the back of her hand and let go. I rolled carefully onto my right
side. “I love you, Babe,” I said. “You’re something else.” June made a little kiss-kiss smacking sound with
her lips and I dropped deep into a dark place and slept.