Ghosts of Time

PROLOGUE

1972

No, No, No, Ed! Don’t shoot him! Don’t kill him! Ed! I want to kill him! I have to kill him, kill him…" The screams penetrated the night. The bed shook like a 3.0 earthquake.

A lean, stooped figure came running down the hall. Vance, Vance. What’s wrong? What’s wrong?"

A tall, balding man sat up in bed. Unseen sweat dripped from his forehead. His body trembled as it usually did when this nightmare attacked him. I’m okay, Ed!

Okay? Ed looked incredulously at his brother. I’ve been here almost two weeks and you wake up screaming almost every night. Doesn’t sound like you’re okay to me!

I’ll be okay. I just need to get some sleep.

How can you get sleep if you’re woken up by a nightmare every night? Darn it, Vance! Ed would have sworn but his brother didn’t like it when he did.

Just let me rest now. Vance sagged back onto his bed.

We need to talk about this, Vance. You’ve got a problem. A real problem! What is this nightmare about? What the devil is bothering you?

I’m not telling you about anything at 3:30 in the morning, Vance said as he glanced at his bedside clock. I’m not talking about it now. Maybe later. And, I don’t know when! I’ll think about it!Vance was infuriated that this dream had haunted him for almost 30 years.

Think about it? That’s all you do in your dreams and nightmares. Think about it. Ed left the room and slammed the door. Then he returned. Do you want me to leave your door open?

What am I, a kid? Shut that door! Vance grinned through his anxiety, through his frustration.

Vance Moran had never feared anything in his life. Not his father. Not the War. Not the desert. Not the violence. Not the fire. Not the danger. But now he feared going back to sleep. He feared the nightmares. He feared sleeping. Vance lay in bed, his eyes wide open. Just like he had done so many times. He had survived. What was bothering him? The beatings? The plane crashes? The fire? The murderous retribution? Vance yielded to the darkness. His mind whirled a windmill of thoughts. Through the haze he saw it all again.

Chapter One

None of us were born in a hospital. We were all born at home. Which meant none of the twelve of us ever had a birth certificate.

Mom told me I was born, LoVance Moran, January 24, 1924, on a much-too-warm winter day in Covington, Louisiana. I was the fifth of the twelve children named by my grandfather.

Covington is just north of Lake Pontchartrain, enough miles from New Orleans so I never got there until I was fifteen, just before graduating from high school. I did go to Baton Rouge, about 60 miles west of Covington, many times.

It’s usually too warm in the Bayou.

The house we were born in was situated in the middle of a farm. It was perched about three and a half feet in the air on columns of pine logs. You couldn’t see those columns because of the trestles on the giant front porch, painted in a faded whitewash, marking the entrance.

By any standard, we were the perfect poverty-stricken, dysfunctional family. That is how we would be described today. But in 1924, we were probably pretty much the norm for a family living in the Bayou, the lowlands, outside Covington. This is where the swamps’ collection of creatures hid from the rest of the world. Here is where the world tried to hide its creatures. I was a swamp kid. One of the many born to poverty and isolation.

I climbed the porch steps of that farmhouse almost every day for the first twelve years of my life. The stairs, perpetually worn down, creaked when you hit the right spots. I would try to avoid those creaks whenever I sneaked in late. Every porch in the Bayou was bedecked with the famous Southern rocking chair. The chair needed constant painting since it sweated in the intense humidity. A large, equally porous, bench sat on the opposite side of the porch and made up the sparse pieces of furniture.

My father made that bench from splitting a maple tree log. He used the flat surface for the seat and the remaining split piece into the backrest. Crude armrests finished the bench. If you wanted splinters in your elbows, you rested them on the armrests. Father was not a finished carpenter. As much as he tried, he could never get all the splinters off the log saving us from the fine, sharp wood fragments. After a while, we hardly felt the splinters. Maybe they just softened to the touch. My father was a really good handyman. On those rare occasions when he was sober and so inclined, he helped the neighbors out with their minor handiwork. However, he wasn’t sober often and so wasn’t much help to too many people.

In our area of Covington, heavy rains caused several floods each year but our house never flooded since it was built off the ground with wood log supports. The logs’ bark had been stripped, giving them a closer fit. We were always spared. We were lucky.

During the normal rains the nearby creek would overflow and drain right onto our farm. Well, it wasn’t really our farm. We merely rented the house and the land from Mr. ‘Grandpa’ Lacroix. He wasn’t really our grandpa, but that’s what he wanted to be called. Grandpa owned a lot of the land in the area. Since he liked my father and mother, he let them live in the house and work on the farm for $5 a year. I never really learned why he charged them such a paltry sum. He had only a few requirements. The most important one was that he be allowed to come and visit the farm anytime he wanted so he could rest under the large oak tree that spread itself just a few yards east of the house. He would lay under that tree, close his eyes, and snooze. Maybe Grandpa Lacroix needed to get away from his family and this was his trade-off. His family usually didn’t have anything to do with us. We were just another of the area’s poor folks.

I remember one incident with Grandpa Lacroix. He had come into the yard, unannounced, like he usually did, slid to the ground under the giant oak tree and had fallen asleep in his favorite spot. He had on oversized overalls held up by suspenders, thick-soled work boots, and a plaid checkered shirt that never seemed to fade in color or have an odor. He had a pipe clenched in his teeth that he miraculously always kept lit. Suddenly, we saw him loping down the street, white hair flying. He never said good-bye, which he always did. The next day, my mother related the reason for his unceremonious departure.

It seems, while he was snoozing, a cottonmouth snake found its way into his oversized trousers by way of the large pant leg. Grandpa Lacroix awoke not knowing what the thing was which was creeping up his leg, but he wasn’t taking any chances by making a sudden move. With his body rigid from fear, he felt the creature make its way up through the vested portion of his work clothes and onto his upper chest. The snake continued slithering, wriggling and hissing past his face and onto the ground. The sweat poured from Grandpa and a pool of liquid saturated his groin. When my mother had seen him running down the road, he had been holding his crotch. Grandpa Lacroix continued to come and sleep under that tree as long as I can remember. No snake was going to keep him from his favorite place. It just wouldn’t.

The front door of our house was father’s pride. Even though he hadn’t made it, the door was the best looking entranceway in the whole community. It was a massive pine door full of knots that gave it a regal bearing. When you knocked on the door, your knuckles would ring for minutes sending the suggestion to your hand that you were overmatched. It was the only exterior part of the house that didn’t look worn and tired. When you slammed it, the house would shake and creak and then lay back quietly in deference to the mighty pine.

The house had three bedrooms, a living room with a fireplace, and hearth you could actually cook on but seldom did. The kitchen was my home and respite from the confusion and oftentimes terror I had to live with.

My brothers and I shared one bedroom. We slept in bunks with old mattresses that had lots of cotton spilling from the tears in the sides. We had many pillow and mattress fights that spewed mounds of cotton and feathers all around the room.

This mess was always cleaned up quickly lest my mother find the debris and administer her infamous corporal punishment.

The house itself was made of logs. The roof was made from tin. Under the roof tin were oak beams that didn’t quite hide flashes of gray tin and dust. Rain on the roof was like music dancing to an eerie rhythm of melodies not yet heard or imagined. The songs of rain set my imagination swirling. The beat of the rain pounded against my brain and sent me into patterns of thought that took me away from the family and its problems. The wind would blow freely through the cracks in the old logs, causing ghost-like sounds, which frightened my younger brothers and sisters. I used to listen to the whistling, moaning, and creaking with great wonder. The sounds still haunt me in ways that are hard to describe. Perhaps those noises represented the call of frustration and hopelessness that my parents felt in their time of despair. For me, they were a calling to the future and all the hope I held for it. I learned early to be an optimist. I believed things would work out if you planned and worked hard for them. This was the antithesis of my parents who were swallowed in a life of desperation.

The house beams were alive with animal life. Spiders and a cluster of insects made their home inside ours. Mice scurried along the beams looking for a day’s meal. They would bomb us with their droppings from far above like a bombardier setting his sights on a moving target. In this case, the bombing was indiscriminate, random, and demeaning. We lived indoors and yet, sometimes it felt like we were outside.

Snakes seeking a meal followed the mice. I was never afraid of snakes. We used to watch them from down below as they slithered along the beams in pursuit of the mice or any other living creature that lived above. The snakes were usually the garden variety, not poisonous. Garter snakes were the most common. They were multi-colored with bright hues that were accented against the drab silver ceiling and colorless beams we called a roof. Sometimes when one would drop to the floor, we would grab it and chase my sisters around the house holding the snake as close as we could to their faces. They hated snakes. Only my brother, Ed, and I loved them. We loved all animals.

I don’t recall a snake ever dropping onto my bed, but I’m sure it must’ve happened. Ed was quite fascinated by them. He’s seven years younger than I am.

When Ed was about three, he approached my bed one night. I always slept lightly. He poked me with his finger. I woke up and cleared my vision. He was standing there holding a snake by the back of its head. The snake was wiggling to get free but Ed held tight. The head of the snake was just inches from my head. Its fangs gleamed with what looked like poisonous sap. Its eyes, without lids, bulged out. Staring at me, only inches away from my face, was a cottonmouth water moccasin, the deadliest snake in the South. Its bite could kill a young person. Ed looked at me puzzled. His expression was one of pride that he could catch such a large creature.

Vance, what kind of snake is this?

Ed, you take that snake outside right now! Put it down and run back in here! I ordered softly, but firmly.

He wasn’t too happy about my command, but he did it. I had never hit any of my brothers or sisters. That moment was the closest I had ever come to smashing one of them. To this day, Ed swears he really didn’t know what kind of snake it was. I didn’t fear snakes, just when they were poisonous and held by a small boy inches from my face.

One of my daily chores was to go outside early every morning and look around the house and yard to make sure there were no poisonous snakes in the area. If I found one, I would shoo it away. Some of the snakes would just pick themselves up and move. They would slither across the grass or the barren ground and disappear into a dense clump of bushes or a snake hole. If the snake decided it wasn’t going to move, I would just take it with my hands and move it. The moccasins and cottonmouths were the only two poisonous snakes in the region. It was fairly easy to capture them. Since I had no fear, I’d take my left hand and place it, outstretched, in front of the snake. It would gaze at that hand while my right hand would come around and grab it by the back of its head. I guess by diverting its attention it was easier to capture; but I don’t recommend this method for everyone. I’d then take the snake back to the forest that bordered the property. I always figured a snake wouldn’t attack unless it was cornered.

So when I saw one, I gave it its space. Snakes are great assets to a farm since they eat mice and other rodents that destroy crops.

As I experienced other snakes in different parts of the world, I gained a healthier respect for those at home and the rattlers and black mambo I encountered later.

Surrounding the farm was a far-reaching swamp inhabited by alligators as well as the snakes. The alligators were also frequent visitors to our yard. I also had a fondness for these supposedly fearsome creatures.

My brother Fred is three years my senior. One time, Fred and I captured an alligator. We put a harness around his neck and tried to ride him. He snapped at us a few times but never bit us. We used to pull him around the yard. We fed him mice. After we were finished playing, we’d put the alligator in a pen so we could play with him the next day. We kept this up for about a week. We wanted him to be our pet; but he didn’t want to be our pet. He wanted his freedom. When we came out one morning, he was gone. Returned to the swamps. I guess I’ve always felt badly that he must have spent the rest of his life wearing a harness. It must have made hunting for food especially hard. I never kept another pet. It just didn’t seem fair to cage a creature. No one—nothing—should be kept against its will.

Looking for any creature in the swamps was a task done with great care. The swamp itself was a thick pinning of underbrush combined with magnolia trees, blackberry bushes, vines and thick groves of briar. No one went into the swamp at night. Even in broad daylight there was an eerie darkness in this dense forest. Over the years, we had carefully made a path that led far into the interior of this desolate but active place. Many a wondrous afternoon was spent among the living embers of this almost prehistoric relic area.

Our yard held many natural riches. We had a well that was fed from underground reservoirs beneath the swamps and was cleansed by a natural filtration of rocks and minerals that processed the water to make it palatable for our use. The well went deep into the ground and produced a constant source of water for washing, drinking, boiling, and cooling off. We always had a large wooden bucket handy and ready to be filled.

A good portion of the world survives quite well without plumbing, indoors or outdoors. We were one of those families.

We had no toilets in the house. We had two outhouses in the backyard. They were side by side on a platform. By being raised above the ground, the outhouses were easier to clean out. Another one of my jobs was to clean them. I poured lye down the toilets once a week to keep them from smelling too badly. That treatment lasted barely the week. After seven days, Fred and I would clean up the weekly mess. We brought our shovels, wheelbarrow, and a sense of smell. We would shovel out the refuse, load it on the wheelbarrow, take it out onto the field, and then use it as fertilizer for our garden.

Near the outhouses we kept a soot-covered, large black kettle where my mother did the family laundry. The kettle was filled from the well but always remained black despite our constant scrubbing. The area around it was carefully lined with rocks used as the fire base. Lit kindling wood heated the kettle and provided warm water for washing. Most of us helped with the laundry. Saturday was wash day. The girls hated the lye soap we used to clean the clothes because it burned. But they did the work anyway. Open cuts and sores stung so badly that the neighbors could hear brief howls of pain. The soap would eat at the skin on the hands, wrists, and forearms if it wasn’t washed off quickly after use. Those parts of the body became red and swollen. The discoloration lasted until the beginning of the following week. Red blotches stood, well pronounced, on the exposed skin. The girls hated the thought of others seeing them disfigured even temporarily.

Poverty treated all of us in its own distinctive way. My brothers and I only had one pair of pants, one shirt, and one piece of underwear each. We had no socks or shoes. We had nothing to change into while our clothes were being washed. On Saturdays, my brothers and I dressed in our sisters’ dresses. No matter the size, we wore those dresses until our clothes were washed and dried. All twelve of us children were dressed in girls’ clothes every Saturday. We must have appeared quite a sight to anybody who went by not knowing the family. They must have thought how awful it was for a family to have twelve girls and no boys. I don’t recall anyone poking fun at us probably because we didn’t leave the house much on Saturdays.

My mother was a nice-looking lady, somewhat frail, with a beautiful singing voice. She had long hair that reached the back of her knees. My father didn’t like her hair hanging down like that, so she almost always wore it up in a bun. Mom made our clothes out of anything that could be sewn and mended. She, herself, was dressed mostly in burlap. She never owned a store-bought dress until after the War. We hung the clothes to dry on a rope stretched between two oak trees. If our clothes ripped, we mended them or they stayed ripped. When my clothes were complete rags, I wore my brothers’ hand-me-downs. Mom altered them to fit me. Sometimes my Aunt Agnes would bring over clothes. We were a very proud family who didn’t take charity well.

My mother cooked the evening meals. Often we had the same thing everyday. Rice and beans or beans and rice. Or a variation thereof. They were the staples of our diet. We would buy the rice and beans in large burlap sacks. Then we’d load them into our car, which was our only luxury, and head back home from town. Mom would soak the beans in a vat until the outside covering was soft. Then she’d cook them along with the rice. On the days of a good harvest we would have corn or we’d mix it in with the rice and beans. If peppers were ripe, she’d add them to the mixture. When I got a little older, I helped her cook. We had our own vegetable garden on the farm. We grew our own corn, onions, squash, peanuts, and a large variety of foods including fresh spices. The spices would later become an ingredient that helped shape my life.

I would add some of the spices we grew to a mixture of foods including sausage I prepared, seasoned, and rolled myself. Sometimes my brothers and I would go down to the creek and catch crawfish, crabs, and catfish. The succulent morsels were a welcome addition to the usual monotonous menu my mother served. Even though I was a little kid, I had an instinct with food and food preparation. I noticed that when I seasoned the mixture, the family enjoyed it very much. Even my father, who seldom ever said any kind words to me, grunted his approval. It was in my mother’s kitchen that I learned how to season food and cook. It was to be an art that would bring me later success and adventures that I could never have imagined possible.

My father was a big man, punctuated with a large flowing belly that hung grotesquely over his thick belt. His hands were massive and callused from years as a worker on the roads of the State of Louisiana. They were hard as the concrete and asphalt he laid on the public highways. He stood a little over six feet tall. A shock of curly black hair sat disorganized on his large head. His red face was illuminated by catlike eyes that seemed to take in everything and then nothing. His face would redden to an even darker hue when he got mad, which was often. He had terrible mood swings caused by years of drinking. All the kids but Fred and me lived in fear of how he would react to a given situation.

My father dealt out punishment on an as-needed basis, and he thought we usually needed it. I was the one he felt needed it the most. I was his favorite whipping boy. And I do mean whipping. When my father whipped you, it was with his thick, heavily buckled belt, which caused tremendous physical pain when applied. He just held that belt above his head and thudded down. Wherever it landed, it landed. When he swung that belt, it hit you indiscriminately. He didn’t try to hit you in any one particular place. I soon learned to cover up my head and face. He didn’t hit us as often as my mother did, but he swung far more ferociously and with undetermined force. The wails of the recipient often could be heard mingled with the cries of the coyotes when the whippings came at night. If you ran from him during a beating, it only got worse when he caught you. You had to gamble that his anger would subside into some sense of normalcy before your skin peeled. You didn’t have to strip down; you were just walloped without notice. I never cried when I was beaten. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Fred never cried either. The girls bawled. The only other one who never cried was Talmadge. He never got whipped.

Talmadge, two years younger than me, was the image of my father not only when he was growing up but also as an adult. My father adored him. Talmadge could do no wrong. When he was bad, which was often, my mother wouldn’t hit him either. She was afraid of what my father might do to her. My father often warned, If anyone lays a hand on Talmadge, he will have to answer to me. Talmadge never got abused.

When we went to school, the teachers engaged in corporal punishment as well. They used a switch, a tree branch, which they carried with them. If you were late for school, they would keep hitting you until you entered your classroom. Being hit by an adult was fairly common where I grew up. That didn’t make it right. It was just the way it was. Our parents didn’t know any better. They were raised that way so they followed the pattern set by their parents.

When I was about seven years old, Father gave me a note to take Talmadge to the movies. Mother gave me the 25 cents. She gave it to me rather than Talmadge, knowing I could be trusted to spend it on the movies and nothing else. The movie was only ten cents each. I was instructed to bring the change back to Mother. When we got to the movies, Talmadge wanted popcorn. Mother had said nothing about spending any money on Talmadge; neither did my father’s note. So I refused him the five cents he needed for the popcorn.

Father said I could have some popcorn, he blurted out as we entered the theater.

His note didn’t say anything about popcorn. He was mad when I refused, so he didn’t sit with me. I left the theater after the double bill. Talmadge sat through the entire double bill a second time to punish me for refusing to give him the popcorn money. I couldn’t walk home alone since Mother had made us promise we would come home together. I sat on the curb and waited for Talmadge.

When he finally came out of the theater, he acted as if nothing had happened. We joked, sang, talked about the movie, and had a really good time ambling home. It was near dusk. We were very late. Talmadge showed no sign of being angry with me. He was friendlier than I had seen him in a long time.

As we entered the house, Talmadge suddenly doubled over and screamed in mock pain. He shouted as loud as he could, Vance hit me in the stomach. He hit me as hard as he could. My stomach hurts real bad!

My father stood in the doorway staring at the two of us. Lightning struck. He had a piece of stonewood in his hand and belted me with it. I was given a fierce beating. Before I fell unconscious, I heard Talmadge cry out, He really hit me hard, it hurts. Talmadge laughed at me. He had certainly gotten his revenge for my not buying him the popcorn. But it made no sense for me to beat him up because he would have simply told father and I would have gotten another beating. Talmadge had won. Mentally, I marked the beating.

Mother got her five cents change.

My mother hit us more often than Dad did. Her whippings stung. She used to make us go outside, pick a switch, and beat us with it. If the switch wasn’t big or thick enough, you could be sure my mother would cut a bigger and thicker one. She was methodical when she beat you. If the offense was slight, she hit you on the back of your legs. If the offense was major, she hit you any place on the back, butt, and legs. After an assumed major offense, she would hit us so hard she would grow weary. The blows would eventually become weaker. Her arm would tire and would lag at her side. I felt many of the beatings were due to the frustrations she faced every day, especially when she had all the work to do when we didn’t do our chores. On many occasions the pressure became too much for her. It seemed she needed to lash out and physically hit somebody to relieve this frustration. I was young when I recognized this. I tried not to let my sisters get beaten too often. I would encourage Mother to hit me so it would relieve the pressure she felt. The whippings tired her for a short time and, as a result, allowed her to feel relief from this overwhelming sense of hopelessness. At times, she didn’t seem to be able to cope at all.

Dad seldom brought any money home. His pay, as an employee of the State, was meager. He spent his paycheck at the local bar. He drank excessively and was seldom sober. He barely kept us clothed and fed. Because he drank so much, he rarely helped with any of the chores. They were left to my mother with twelve young children. She worked all day doing the most mundane things just so we could survive. Life was difficult for our family and got more difficult with each passing year. The children would be the ones who would pay the price. It was on all our minds without knowing what to call it. Our chores diverted our attention from life’s realities and helped us get from one day to the next.

Chapter Two

I remember one time when the whole family was sitting at the dinner table having our usual rice and beans. The rule in our house was, ‘no talking at the dinner table.’ It had to be a quiet meal. You could only speak when you wanted food passed to you. You had to ask in a polite manner or the food wasn’t passed and you would be reprimanded or worse. At one particular meal we were having a rare treat, bacon. My mother had traded some corn for this delicacy.

When nobody was looking, my sister, Thelma, sneaked a piece of bacon off my plate. I guess I was the only one who saw her. I stared at her and carefully forked the bacon back onto my plate. Thelma didn’t say anything, but my father saw me. He thrust his chair aside, leapt to his feet, and with one step reached over and swatted me across the face. I tumbled over backwards. He bellowed, I saw you steal that bacon from Thelma’s plate! Don’t you ever do that. He continued to beat me and then pummeled me across the room.

Thelma apologized, later, as she bathed my cut face. I couldn’t say nuthin, Vance. He woulda hit me, too. I’m sorry you got beat up!

I understand, Thelma. But let’s not take each other’s food again. I tried to smile. It hurt.

Although I was only a young child, I always sensed my mother’s needs to relieve her anxieties. I helped her as much as I could. I cleaned the outhouses with my brother, Fred. I checked for snakes each morning. I tended to the fields. I planted and cultivated the vegetables, cleaned the pine needles from the outskirts of the property, helped with the wash, and cooked the meals. My brothers and sisters helped some but not to the extent I did. I had a bent to help. I had fun like other kids did, but I learned early that working hard and long brought positive results. The beatings I got toughened my soul and my mind. They made me resolve never to do the things I saw my parents do wrong. I hated my father’s behavior and his condition. I swore I would never drink. I felt a deep compassion for my mother. She was in a circumstance not of her making. She was trapped and drowning in the wretched life that surrounded her.

When I was just a toddler, my mother gathered us all around to announce our upcoming visit to see my grandfather. Listen to me and don’t forget this. Don’t bother your grandpa. He doesn’t have the patience for children.

I’m not sure she said patience because my mother, although a schoolteacher, was not well educated and had a very poor vocabulary. But she was smart. At least she was always one step ahead of her twelve children. She had to be in order to survive. When we get there, just don’t bother ‘im. He’s old and don’t like no nonsense. Just go out and play. She stared at my younger brother. Talmadge, you leave Grandpa’s horse alone. Don’t tease ‘im with any switch or I’ll use one on you! You hear me? Talmadge shuffled his feet as he did when he got in trouble. He knew Mom’s threat was an idle one; but nevertheless, he didn’t like to be threatened. He actually listened. He didn’t bother Grandpa or Grandpa’s horse.

We piled into our old car and Uncle Ezra’s car, which we had borrowed for our journey. It took about two hours to get to Grandpa’s.

His house was on a large farm, which spread out across a swamp and back into a blind where the wild animals of the area were fenced off by barbed wire. Grandma and Grandpa had been married for about 60 years. He had fought in the Civil War. He always sat on his front porch with his musket within reach because he suspected the Union forces would come swooping down on him and steal his horses and other animals like they did during the War.

My first encounter with this gruff spoken Frenchman was when I was about two years old. I remember him sitting on his front porch smoking a pipe of dubious origin and wondrous odors, rocking unevenly in a sturdy-looking rocking chair. My brothers and sisters offered a reluctant Hi, and scampered into the house to see Grandma and get a piece of her pecan pie. I scooted up on the porch and looked up at this white-bearded, deeply lined, surly-looking, slender old man and decided I wanted to sit on his lap. I must have had a feeling that’s what rocking chair people liked for you to do. I pulled myself up and snuggled in his lap only to be put down with a slight bump. He grumbled in English with a heavy French accent, which sounded like a combination of clearing one’s throat and gargling. This noise happened with even greater emphasis on each subsequent attempt to get onto his lap. I repeated this maneuver a few more times and the bump became more severe each time. Finally, he just brushed me off and I fell to the floor with a thud. Rather than cry, like I’m sure he expected me to do, I picked myself up and climbed up one more time. Surprisingly, this did not meet with any rebuff but just a gentle petting and stroking of my head.

The game of sitting on his lap became our routine whenever I visited him. Sometimes he took me horseback riding and he would tell me things, probably not realizing I understood much of what he was saying. The stories he told me, my Grandma later said, he had never told anybody before or after.

He talked about the Civil War and what happened at the end of the War. The Northern troops offered a horse and some provisions to each Confederate soldier who turned in his rifle and uniform. My grandfather, of course, refused. He never acknowledged the War had ended. Since he was in Pennsylvania when the fighting terminated, he had to make his way back home to Louisiana on his own. It took him over a year to get to his house. He wore his Confederate uniform the whole time. He slept during the day. He stole horses and rode at night. He headed back home through Illinois and made his way south. He never gave up his arms or his uniform. When he finally reached home, he just sat rocking on his porch with his rifle resting across his lap waiting for those hated Yankees. He was ready to fight to the end. They would never take him alive. And they never did. His words to me were always the same: Never trust those damn Yankees.

He told me about the Yankees being outnumbered and then they would run. He called them ‘cowards.’ In telling this story he always used the word ‘run.’ Because of his broken English and rambling utterances, it wasn’t until much later that I figured out he had been referring to The Battle of Bull Run. I was the only one of my brothers and sisters who got along with him and talked to him, and I was the only one he talked to. We had a great bond, a great friendship. I was six when he died, and it was the first loss of a friend I would suffer. But not the last.

We always went to Grandpa’s house in our car. How could a family with no money, owners of practically nothing, have a car? We shared it with my uncle. My father and my uncle shared a love for cars. They could fix them as well as anybody. Somehow they would get parts for their cars, whatever the make or model, and keep them running. The streets around our house were very narrow. There was barely enough room for one car let alone two cars to pass at the same time. Fortunately, there were very few cars on the road at the time.

My father decided my mother should know how to drive and he would teach her. He taught her the intricacies of shifting and braking, cranking the car to start, and steering. My mother proved very adept at starting and cranking. She could even shift with some ability, meaning she would not grind the gears too much. It was the steering and the braking she had a hard time mastering. Finally, my father took her out onto a back road near the swamp. With my mother at the wheel, the car hit the dirt tarmac and catapulted right into the brine. My mother had steered the car right into the swamp of mud and alligators. One of my father’s friends had a big truck. He pulled the car from the shallow swamp. My mother never drove after that.

I, on the other hand, taught myself how to drive by the age of eight. As soon as I was big enough to reach the gas pedal, my father ordered me to drive whenever we went any place that didn’t require going into town. Sometimes I would see another car coming from the other direction. We couldn’t pass at the same time. That’s when my driving skills came into play. I would see the best spot for both of us to turn off and signal what we were going to do. Driving came as easy to me as most other things would later in my life.

My father was a smart man but was halted in making any progress by his overriding love and need for alcohol. He lived each day for the next drink. He seldom brought money home since he spent it all on liquor. Things became worse when my father was drunk and talked about how much he hated Huey Long. Huey Long was the Governor of Louisiana. Not only was he the Governor but he was one of the most influential and powerful men in the country. He was into every criminal activity possible. He stashed his money, gained through these criminal interests, so he could keep getting reelected by buying votes. He was very smart. He could and did rig the polling places. He bribed the vote counters. He bought votes by direct payment to the voters. He wanted to be loved. He developed public work projects. He spent money in local communities as a way to pay off political debts. Local politicians loved him since they were on his payroll. No one dared to speak ill of Huey Long, except for my father.

Drunk or not, my father was a man of great moral character. He never stole or cheated. He worked when he could and drank the other times. He didn’t like what Huey Long did to make himself popular. He usually spoke out against the Governor to anyone who would listen, especially loyal Huey Long favorites who made their living working for him. My father was warned on more than one occasion to stop complaining about the Governor and just do his work. But he complained once too often. One day, without just cause, he was fired. This happened right after the Depression began and there were not many jobs to be had.

My Aunt Agnes liked me a lot. When I was about three years old she began bringing me books. I would listen to her read. Then I would ‘read’ the book back to her. She spent many hours a week reading to me. I caught on quickly. She was my only source of books since my older brothers and sisters couldn’t bring books home from school. I found reading easy and fun.

I remember one particular book about Roland the Noble Knight. Roland was in a battle and was wounded. I read that passage over and over and kept pronouncing the word ‘wounded,’ the same as when string is wound into a ball. It was at this point, very early in my reading life, I discovered that words had more than one meaning and that pronunciation could vary according to a word’s usage.

A few months before my fourth birthday my mother and Aunt Agnes stopped talking to each other. Neither of them ever discussed the problem. They never talked again even though they lived in the same town for the next fifty years. I still visited my Aunt frequently to continue my lessons. She taught me how to read by age four.

Fred, almost three years older, couldn’t read at all.

My mother decided since I could read I should start school with Fred. You had to be at least six years old to enroll. Mom knew she would need a little help convincing the school I was old enough to attend.

Mom asked Ed Lacroix, no relation to Grandpa Lacroix, who was the sheriff in town, to meet us at school one morning. He had known my parents for many years. He was the most feared man in town; so when he went to school with my mother to enroll Fred and me, the school took his word that I was six. But I was only four.

Mrs. Raines was the school principal. She was a tall, spindle-shaped woman of indeterminable age. Her booming voice seemed to make the school walls reverberate like the front door did to our house.

Hello, Mrs. Moran. Are these two children to be enrolled in first grade? They did-n’t have kindergarten in those days.

Yes, this is Fred and this is Vance. I would like to enroll both boys.

Would you please fill out these forms. Do you have birth certificates for the boys? Mrs. Raines knew my mother didn’t. She knew we were all born at home.

I asked Sheriff Lacroix to come along here and tell ya’ the boys’ ages. He knows when they was born.

Ed Lacroix was the ugliest and meanest man anybody would ever want to meet. He was over six feet tall, had wide flaring nostrils, broad protruding lips, and narrow-looking eyes that emanated hate and caused fear at the same time. His rounded figure belied his physical strength. He looked like an overgrown Shar Pei. His pork chop hands easily handled both his guns at the same time. He was the sheriff because he was the most feared person in the area. He reveled in this knowledge. It gave him the power he loved. He administered justice in a way that capsulated the old South. I didn’t fear him. I stood in awe that he wielded such power.

Mrs. Raines smiled at her former student. Well, if Ed says they are of age, I guess they are! That was the most docile I would ever see Mrs. Raines.

She didn’t question how Fred and I could be the same age. She just enrolled us.

I loved school. I loved everything about it. I never missed a day from the first day until the day I graduated high school. Most kids at that time didn’t like going to school. They would ditch as often as they could. My teachers sensed and appreciated my desire to learn. None of my family members had that same desire. I believe it is part of my innate character to want to know as much as possible. Throughout our school days, Talmadge was never a good student. He used to taunt me. He called me teacher’s pet and led all the others to pick on me. Talmadge, although a few years younger, tormented me for years. Those were lessons that made me tough, and toughness is what I would need many times throughout my life. Between the physical abuse I took at home and the mental torment inflicted upon me by my schoolmates and brother, I became tougher.

Most parents didn’t care if their children went to school or not. Staying at home meant the children could help them on their farms or with household chores. There was always a lot of work to be done. I did my work before and after school. Talmadge would try to get away with doing as little as possible. He knew if we complained to Dad about him, Talmadge would win anyway. Dad always took his side without ever listening to any of us. The rest of us helped Mom as much as we could. Her tasks were never-ending. She always looked tired.

During a particularly fierce and heavy rain, massive flooding erupted in the swamps around our house. The surrounding area was also flooded. The creek, a mile away, turned into a river. I was about ten. I was the only one who dressed for school that day. My wardrobe consisted of ragged pants and a torn shirt. I didn’t own any shoes during my elementary school years. The rain had stopped as the morning sun rose. The flooding hadn’t.

Mom stood at the door to my bedroom.I was dressed and ready for school. Where ya goin’, Vance?

I looked up at the slender woman with the lined face. To school, Mom!

Bridge is prob’ly out. Ya can’t go!

Sure I can, Mom. I stared at her and spoke quietly but with determination. No rain is going to stop me.

Vance, I’ve always preached goin’ to school. Today there’d be no school. Nobody would expect ya to go! She seemed proud of me wanting to go. Mom’s voice didn’t have that sense of urgency.

Mom, I promise if there’s any danger, I won’t try to cross the creek! I figured that was her worry.

She nodded her head. Talmadge, get dressed! Go with Vance!

If that big jerk wants to go to school, let ‘im go. I don’t care. Maybe he’ll drown and then we’ll be rid of ‘im. I’m not goin’. My mother reached across ready to bash Talmadge in the mouth, but she stopped. She wanted to hit him not because he refused to go but because he had called me a ‘jerk.’ Talmadge never got hit, but neither of my parents allowed name calling in the house. Outside the house, maybe, but not inside. Talmadge spun across the room away from Mom. Even though he knew she wouldn’t hit him, he was still afraid of her. He cried as he shot back to his room.

I left by myself. The creek was probably flooded and the bridge washed away, but there was no other way to go. I was ten years old and had never missed a day of school. I was going no