Bar Stool Fiction
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About a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor pushed the United States into World War II, my mother, stepfather and I moved to a farm about one mile north of Carbondale, Illinois. Up until this move, I had always lived just a few houses from my cousin, Jim, who was two years younger than I. Jim and I did almost everything together: sleeping and eating at each others homes, acting out all sorts of fantasies based on cowboy and war movies, fighting with kids from other neighborhoods, and doing home work. Being blind, I was not attending school at the time; so Jim helped me convince the fourth grade teacher at Lincoln School that I could participate in her class with some reading by him and other students. On the afternoon of December seventh, 1941, Jim and I were studying our spelling lesson at a friend's house when an official sounding voice on the radio informed us of the Japanese attack. It all sounded very much like the war movies we had been acting out, and we were excited about being in a real war. When we ran home to tell my mother of the exciting news and how we were willing and ready to become war heroes, her response was extremely discouraging. She said that we were thoughtless kids to be happy about a war in which many people, including our own family members, might be killed. She, forthwith, chased us out of her kitchen with a broom, and told us not to show our faces again until dinner, by which time we would be expected to act like sensible children.
My stepfather did not become a war hero, but he did perform a valuable service in support of our troops. After a few months working in a defense plant, he decided to use his considerable knowledge of horses and farming to supply draft animals to local farmers, who were substituting work horses for tractors in order to conserve fuel which was needed at the battle front. To engage in this enterprise, we moved to the farm north of town, which had a barn large enough to accommodate at least fifteen horses and mules. This barn was so large that three abandon box cars had been detached from their wheels and built in for use as corn cribs and tack rooms. My stepfather would buy young horses and train them to pull plows, farm wagons and other machinery, after which he would sell them to local farmers. A portion of this training was the plowing of Victory Gardens tended by store owners, bankers, college professors, house wives and other patriotic citizens. In this way, he was able to make a double contribution to the war effort while earning a comfortable income for our little family. At one dollar for plowing a small plot in a victory gardener's back yard, he was able to earn about fifteen dollars a day, approximately three times the average wage. During the summer, he often allowed Jim and me to assist him by feeding and watering the horses, helping with the loading and unloading of utensils as we moved from one garden plot to another, and circulating among the neighbors while he was plowing a particular plot to solicit jobs from other patriotic gardeners. It was only natural that we would incorporate the knowledge gained from this experience into our recreational pursuits. Our experience in riding a variety of plow horses led to speculation about our abilities to participate in various wild west adventures, such as taming wild horses and riding long horn bulls in rodeos. At first, we pretended the work horses in our charge were wild mustangs which we were breaking for the U. S. Cavalry, but the most action we could get from these critters after a day's plowing was a slow gallop; so, we began to cast about for a more
challenging beast to tame.
One rainy day when we had exhausted our resources for acting out various wild west scenarios, Jim looked at a yearling calf peaceably munching hay from a manger in a corridor which ran the length of the barn. "That looks like the wild bull we seen a cowboy riding in the rodeo held at the carnival grounds last month," observed Jim. When I protested that this was a scrawny calf with no horns, Jim said the coloring was right, and, besides, good acting depended on a little imagination, which I was not using. I finally agreed to work at adopting the right frame of mind for creating a rodeo ring out of a long barn entry way, but I knew it was going to stretch my imagination to its fullest in order to make this pet calf into a raging, long-horn bull. This friendly creature would eat corn out of my hand and was willing to be led by a rope looped around its neck. Jim enhanced the feeling of a closed rodeo ring by closing the gates at each end of the corridor, but there was not much he could do about changing the personality of the calf.
We had no difficulty in leading our newly created longhorn into a narrow passageway between the corncrib and an opened door at the east end of the barn. This narrow space was to be the shoot out of which would emerge the brave rodeo rider on the bucking bull. It was decided that I would take the first turn since I was acquainted with the animal. Using the heels of my boots to locate the rungs of the ladder leading to the hayloft, I backed two steps up the wall and swung my left leg over the calf. Expecting the calf to come out of the shoot like a bullet, I locked my legs around its ribs as tight as possible and locked my hands on its neck. The only action was the calf turning its head around to sniff at my foot. "What's wrong with him?" shouted Jim from the ladder some where above me. I bounced a couple of times to encourage some action, but my steed did not even take a step. Jim came down the ladder, grasped the calf by the ears and tried to lead it from its secure space behind the barn door. When this strategy failed, he brought a leather strap from the tack room, climbed a few steps up the ladder, and smacked the animal sharply across the rump, yelling, "Ride'em, cow boy!" The yearling shot forward, spraying manure and gas. To my astonishment, I stayed on, probably because the frightened beast was running instead of bucking. After about ten steps, my hat was whisked off, the calf came to a quick stop, and I continued in a straight projectory until my progress was blocked by the closed gate at the west end of the barn.
Picking myself up very slowly, I determined that I had sustained no real injuries, with the exception of a small scratch on the top of my head. It was so quiet in the barn that I thought Jim had run outside to escape the manure spewed by the calf. After a long silence, Jim said, "I don't think this rodeo game is very safe. We better quit before your step dad gets back and tans our hides." I reminded him that my stepfather never punished me and suggested that we would find another activity after he had one turn on the "bull". Jim said that he had lost all interest in bull riding. When I protested that fairness required that he not be denied a turn, Jim took me to the west end of the barn and had me reach up to where a two by six inch brace protruded from the wall. My hat was hanging on a spike which had removed it from my head as the calf passed under it.
"If you hadn't had your head down trying to hold on to the calf's neck, that nail would have went right through your eye. I could see everything from the ladder," Jim informed me. My knees got weak when I imagined that spike piercing my head. It had been close enough to part my hair, and that was too close. We decided to release our pet calf, which resumed its munching, and went to the house for some lemonade. There after we confined our interest in bull riding to the Saturday afternoon movies.
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About the Book
This book consists of twelve short stories reflecting life in the rural culture of Southern Illinois during the last half of the twentieth century. The narrations occur in local bars, where local characters gathered to entertain one another by swapping yarns. Part one contains stories in which the author had personal involvement, while part two consists of stories related to the author by drinking companions.
Mr. Roberts, the author, who is a well-known author in the field of Blindness Rehabilitation, turns his attention to the spinning of entertaining yarns based on local history, culture, and personal experience. His blindness is factually presented in some of the stories but does not overshadow the narrative flow.
About the Author
Born in 1930 in the depth of "The Great Depression", Alvin Roberts came in this world face to face with the dual challenges of poverty and blindness. Growing up in an era when story telling and performing country music were major pastimes in the succession of taverns and lunchrooms operated by his parents, he quickly learned to play the guitar and remember yarns. When blindness necessitated the learning of typewriting in order to prepare homework assignments, Alvin logically began using the stories he’d learned from adults to practice his typing. His first publishing success was a "tall tale", submitted at the suggestion of his sixth-grade teacher, which won second place in a liar’s contest.
With assistance from the Illinois Division of Rehabilitation and earning from performing country music in local nightclubs, Mr. Roberts completed a Master’s Degree in Education from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He has completed forty-six years of civil service, working in a succession of six different Illinois governmental departments. Prior professional publications include twenty-five articles in professional journals of rehabilitation and two books, Psycho-social Rehabilitation of the Blind (Charles C. Thomas, 1973) and Coping With Blindness (SIU Press, 1998).
Mr. Roberts is currently employed as a Quality Assurance Administrator of the Illinois Bureau of Blind services and resides in Carbondale, Illinois. His two daughters, Hope Silkwood and Lydia Hazel, together with their six children, reside in the Carbondale area as well.