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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781490712598 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 08/23/2013 |
| Pages: | 120 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.28(d) |
Read an Excerpt
MOST of ALL
With a Collection of Other Stories
By SCOTT BRADLEY
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Scott BradleyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-1259-8
CHAPTER 1
The main interstate winds its way south between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. As you head south from Chicago, you drive through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Throughout the mountains and plains along this route are many large and small coal mines.
While you traveled along parts of the interstate in the early day, the sun welcomed you with a magnificent blast of gold and orange rising over the mountain crests. Traveling south through Tennessee from Knoxville at the north to Chattanooga, there are ninety miles between two large cities, Dexter to the north and Hastings to the south. You traveled along in a stoic silence, listening to the sound of the motor and the wind coming through the windows. Without realizing it, you traveled many miles with few thoughts. Even as the traffic was moving along, it did not seem to distract your thoughts—or the lack of them. Your mind did not focus on specifics. You just drove on past small communities, and unless you had business with them, you would drive right past the small towns nestled off in the distance. Occasionally there would be signs indicating that there were towns close by, but mostly you just drove on and never ventured off the highway. You shared the space with the supply trucks, the ever-present salesmen, the commercial travelers, farm vehicles, and all the others who often use our highways. The only things that made an impression on you as you traveled along the highway were the road signs announcing fuel service or fast-food restaurants.
Stillcreek is located off Highway 17, just north of Hastings. Stillcreek is one of those company towns that has never allowed the outside influences of fast-food diners or the highway-type truck stops. There is only Mary's Café, and should you find yourself stopping at Mary's Café, you would feel awkward and out of place. There are large farms and dust rising above a combine working the soil. There is no place to stop after Stillcreek until you enter Hastings. Hastings is a major center, which has a large slaughterhouse, train station, and rail yard. There is a large shunting yard to on—and offload the livestock. For those living in Stillcreek, it is Hastings where you purchase all your groceries, clothes, new or used cars or furniture, and most of life's needs.
Stillcreek folk often enjoyed the trek over to Hastings and would include dinner in a restaurant or a stop at Plowman's, a British-style pub where they served the best steak-and-kidney pie, liver and onions, or fish and chips. Here you could get a large variety of beers like the strong ales from England or the German dark ales. There was the famous HAMMERHEAD whiskey, but it was kept quiet. They always had live music on Friday nights, and everyone would mix and dance.
Jeremy Wiggins would catch the afternoon train and would walk the streets. The owner of the pub would let him in, but he was not allowed to consume any liquor. Jeremy would listen to the chatter and watch the interaction of some of the young friends he knew. He would listen to the chatter among the parents. He did not join in. He wished his mom and dad would be like them.
Some people might feel the need to escape from a compelling sense of failure in their lives or the pull to withdraw from the storms of some personal tragedies. They would wander into one of these towns and end up staying. Stillcreek was one such place. Just the sound of the name would perk up your interest. When you turned off the main interstate at Exit 132, you entered onto Highway 17. There was a large weather-beaten sign announcing the town's coal mine. This added to the interest for those who might be withdrawing from some major center, as it might indicate work could be available. There were those who had been sent here from some other mining town and took up residence. If you stopped at Mary's Café and inquired about work, you would be directed to the mine office over in Hastings.
Rarely was there any tourist traffic that ventured off the interstate.
The adventure tourist or those with a motor home might turn off the interstate and head south on 17. However, it would be easy to miss the little town of Stillcreek. As you continued on south, you would eventually enter into Hastings.
Stillcreek is eighteen miles off the main interstate. As you drove along, you spied the occasional places on the side of the mountain where you could see that the trees had been removed. You would see what appeared to be holes scarred in the side of the hill. There didn't appear to be roads or obvious paths up to these scars.
The local fellows who tried their hands at prospecting could tell you where every one of those scars could be located and whether they were good for future prospecting or there might be an abandoned mine.
As you approached Stillcreek, you had a sense of serenity when you saw the fullness of the foliage and the sun shining on the many colors of green.
It all started in 1947 when the mining company had found a large deposit of coal while it was drilling in this area. The mining company purchased the property from the state and built a mine. They moved in equipment and built some warehouses and accommodation for workers.
Entering the town of Stillcreek, one had a sense that these people lived simple but hard lives. Most of the roads were paved, but there were many potholes. There were no curbs, only soft gravel or sand shoulders with no sidewalks. The stop signs were faded and had old wooden posts. Often they were ignored. There were no controlled intersections with traffic lights. As you drove the streets and saw the homes, you would see no fences. The homes would be neat, but the siding would be faded and would have a general appearance of needing some attention. Often there would be tractors or large pieces of farm equipment parked near the houses, and there would be large barns behind the houses. The driveways would be filled with dirt or stones. The trees would be large and mature.
Crossing the railroad tracks just before you entered the town, there is the cemetery with an angled cedar fence and crooked stone markers. Nature herself took over keeping a balance in the graveyard. The weeds and foxtails and long grass grew season to season. The stones that marked the burial plots, crooked as they were, somehow seemed to always show through. Other than the occasional funeral, the local people seldom came out to the graveyard. It was just an accepted fact that life was hard here, and dads and sons died often before their time because of the mine. Father and sons would be buried side by side. If you walked along and read the markers you would notice that their burial dates were the same. Other markers gave indication of past family, grandparents, wives, cousins, and so on. A number of Stillcreek family members are buried here—mostly from the hard life of the mine and from the occasional accident in the mine shafts.
Mr. Ho—Henry was his name, but everyone called him Mr. Ho—was born in Stillcreek. His father and his uncle, along with his nephew, had also worked in the mine. They were lost in a mine accident and were all buried in the cemetery. Two generations of his family had been buried there. He had found his studies easy, and after he had completed twelfth grade and won a scholarship sponsored by the mining company, he had gone over to Hastings to study to be a pharmacist. He returned to Stillcreek and took over the general store. While he was walking through the cemetery one day to view his family markers, Mr. Ho was overtaken by the condition of the property. He decided to take on the maintenance of the cemetery to keep up the condition of every burial site. It was easy for him to care for the whole place while he tended to his relatives' plots.
After the passing of his wife he became overcome with grief. In his mind there was no longer a reason to stay in Stillcreek. He had never felt this way before, but he realized the idea had been growing in his mind for some time. He had no relatives left and felt deeply lonely. Without telling anyone, he started to pack up his personal things and planned to move away. He packed up his camper and left one morning early without telling anyone. The next day the general store did not open. There was quite a buzz at Mary's Café, and fearing the worst, a few folk went over to his place. They found his belongings gone but not his furniture. No one seemed to know why or where he had gone. Mr. Ho left a note explaining he would not be returning and there would be no further claim to the property. There had been no further contact with him.
This often happened here in the valley. Everyone seemed not too bothered by those who just up and left. Sometimes people just moved away without too much notice or follow-up.
As the general store was much needed, the mining company hired a pharmacist from Hastings who moved into Stillcreek and took over the home and store.
Because of the mine, Stillcreek was populated with many single young males. Hastings was where most of the young miners would hang out on weekends and day-off shifts. Their accommodations were an assortment of bunkhouses built around a half circle and an unfinished road that wound its way around in front. As time went by and the community of workers grew, there came a need to make it more of a town, and so the mine owners opened a café, garage, post office, and general store.
Max's garage was opened to keep the equipment from the mine operating.
A religious group had been invited to come and build a church. There was a railway that ran through the area, and a large estate home had been built for the stationmaster. A train station had been put in place. This was a company town. All the residents worked for the mining company.
If you met the families that lived here in Stillcreek, you would feel a peace and contentment about them that was hard to explain. They were mostly conservative people, and although not well educated, they had a solid confidence about them. Some families had settled here many years ago from other communities when the mine opened. As the little town grew, the sons and daughters of the families had stayed on. There were two groups of townsfolk that divided the area—those who left quietly and were never heard from again and those who stayed and lived on with the difficulties of mine life in small towns.
No one could remember anyone who had left ever coming back. And no one ever asked about those who just up and left—sometimes without notice. This did concern the mining company, which would from time to time have to send in workers from one of their other operations to fill a vacancy left by a worker who just up and left or who had been lost in mining accidents. As there were few families to draw from, the people of Stillcreek accepted these folk without much question or bother.
As long as the mine continued to produce and cause few problems, no one from the head office came to visit or to interfere. There were small individual homes—more like cabins that anyone with a family could live in. There were three large bunkhouses that had been built in rainbow style, and in the center was a common building where they could play pool or just hang out. On the other side there were a number of warehouses. The mine owners required that the property be kept neat, and they did not charge for living in these facilities. There was a fourth smaller building that the mining company stocked with beer, wine, and hard liquor. The men could buy supplies every day from three to five o'clock at reduced prices. Rolland, the security officer of the mine, would open up and close. When the men were not working, they would sit on the stairs out front of their homes. Occasionally there would be a group of them playing cards or repairing a car or truck. Near this area was a large overhead wash system where the mining trucks and equipment could drive through, and the vehicles would be sprayed with high-power nozzles. Most of the roads up to the mine were filled with gravel, and most of the folk drove pickup trucks and 4x4s and often went off-roading or hunting. It was a continual necessity to wash off the road and coal dust. The coal dust permeated everything. Beside the rail tracks was a large pile of open coal with large water sprayers. This, however, did not seem to keep the dust from blowing over everything. The coal was loaded manually onto the railcars with large front-end loaders. On hot summer days you could see the dust rising over the rail yard.
You entered Stillcreek on the corner of Highway 17 and Miller Road. As you came around the corner and crossed the railroad tracks, you came upon an old building with faded white paint on old siding. It was out front of the building where the police chief, Rolland Chapman, always parked his police cruiser. The building was empty except for a few offices where Rolland worked and kept some files. Leaving the cruiser parked out front, he thought, would slow the speeders down or give a warning that there was local police here.
Some years ago the people of Stillcreek had accepted Rolland as their police chief. Rolland had no formal training, and his position had come about in a rather relaxed way. The mine owner had been having lunch with the state officials, which he did regularly so as to keep his relationship on a friendly basis, to protect his interest in the mine, and to keep up with all the government regulations. This was common practice for these parts. The state officials wanted to keep as many people working as they could. So very seldom did they ruffle too many feathers, as Rolland had put it many times.
The state officials had remarked that there were two state trooper cars that had been retired from highway service and were just sitting around. At the time Rolland was working for the mine as the warehouse and security manager, and it was his responsibility to keep track of supplies and equipment for the mine.
They suggested that they give one of the cruisers to Rolland and that he could become the town's appointed police chief. So it was worked out where Rolland would still do his job, the state would give the town one of the police cars, and Rolland would have it to drive around, which he did rather proudly. However, there never seemed to be much official business to attend to. He had never issued any tickets to his friends in Stillcreek. Nor would he. People speculated that he couldn't anyway. He had never chased anyone or had any major crime to solve. The car became a symbol of law and order, and Rolland was accepted as the town's police chief. He operated rather like a justice of the peace or a notary public but never wrote any exams and had no diplomas to show.
Parked near this same building were pieces of old mining equipment all in a state of aging. The mining company thought that one day they might clean up the machines and make a museum area, but this had not happened. There was little tourist traffic that came here, and to encourage tourists would, it was thought, annoy the townspeople. The townsfolk liked the solitude of Stillcreek and were happy that the mining company had not allowed the fast-food companies or the large fuel companies to locate here.
Besides, the size of the population was never enough to encourage outside stores. The townspeople could drive over to Hastings. Unless you had business with the mine, there was nothing to interest you in visiting this quiet little community. Over the years the mining company and the railroad had built the single-family homes that were here, and the mining company had financed them too.
When a home became empty, the mining company would send in a cleaning company from over at Hastings and a moving company to remove any furniture or items that had been left, which they then stored in an old warehouse belonging to the mine. The home would then be given to an incoming worker's family, and they would be allowed to pick out their furniture from the warehouse. You developed a sense that the company owned you, as they took care of your whole livelihood. They paid your wages, looked after your housing, and took care of any medical concerns. If you had any life concerns, you would go to the shop steward at the mine, and he would intervene for you. As life was hard and the working conditions were not so great, it was in the best interest of the mining company to see that most issues were resolved.
CHAPTER 2
Between Stillcreek and Hastings there were cattle and grain farms. Most of the farmers did their buying and selling in Hastings. Some of the townspeople in Stillcreek would travel down Highway 17 to the farms and purchase chickens, fresh vegetables, and eggs. The men were sport hunters and would hunt for deer, grouse, and ducks. Some of the cattle ranchers would skin and prepare the meat for the hunters' freezers. They drove large pickup trucks with gun racks in the back window. They would barter with one another for services and share their front-end loaders or backhoes, and they had good feelings with one another.
Every year in October there would be an Oktoberfest celebration held at the home of the mayor of Hastings. He had a large spread just a few miles out of Hastings on the way to Stillcreek. This had become a major event that no one would miss. Vehicles parked anywhere they liked on the roadside and the empty fields. The teen boys liked this, as they did most of the shuttle driving using the mayor's tractors with large flatbed trailers, which they used to haul the grain bails into town and would let the locals and visitors sit on them and get driven to the festivities and back to their cars. There would be corn roasts, barbecued everything, and far too much beer. But because it was not far between properties, it was mostly handled well. There were shooting contests and horseshoe matches. Some of the ranchers would put on a cattle-roping show, and there were riding competitions. The farm equipment suppliers from Hastings would put on exhibits of their latest bailers or tractors. The mining company would sponsor pie-eating contests, and people would take home the pies that were left over. It was here that new friendships and relationships were made, as it was the largest local event where new people could meet one another.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from MOST of ALL by SCOTT BRADLEY. Copyright © 2013 Scott Bradley. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface.................... ix
Most of All....................
Prologue.................... xiii
Chapter 1.................... 1
Chapter 2.................... 9
Chapter 3.................... 17
Chapter 4.................... 23
Chapter 5.................... 28
Chapter 6.................... 32
Chapter 7.................... 37
Chapter 8.................... 42
Chapter 9.................... 45
Chapter 10.................... 49
Chapter 11.................... 61
Chapter 12.................... 67
A Collection of Short Stories....................
B Company.................... 76
Love Lost.................... 80
The Broadcaster.................... 86
The Hikers.................... 88
The Hug.................... 97
The Lunch.................... 103
The Unicorn.................... 112