Month: June 2018

My Rules

On this trip to Snowbird, our hideaway in the mountains of North Carolina, Brother Pop and I were alone, headed for the cabin in his Ford Ranger pickup.

He had tried several times to get his truck to go into four-wheel drive but it just wouldn’t go. That was OK at first.  But when we got to Big Rock, a little over half a mile from the cabin, he should have just parked it. It had been raining some and when that hill got the least bit wet it was so slick you had to have a four-wheel drive.  That’s all there was to it.

But Pop was determined to drive his truck to the cabin, so he tried again and again to get up the hill.  And the more he tried, the madder he got.  His tires were smoking, and so was he.  I got out, away from his truck, away from him.

Pop kept on trying.  He floor-boarded it.  His tires were screaming.  I just about couldn’t see his truck anymore,  hidden in a  puff of blue smoke coming off his rear tires.

Chuck, top, and Mike Stith
Chuck, top, and Mike Stith

Finally, finally, he gave up and we went on the cabin riding double on an ATV.   Pop didn’t like leaving his truck at Big Rock, not one bit.  He took it personally . He said when his boys, Chuck and Mike, got there that truck was coming up the hill. He made it sound like they were going to beat his truck senseless with a tire tool and drag it up the hill if they had to.

His sons and a couple friends got there the next day and ran into one of my sons, Mark, on the way up.  Mark is the one who got in the Pop’s truck and drove it up the hill to the dam, just below the cabin. Not taking anything away from Mark, but the road had pretty much dried out.  

Lucky for Mark he stopped at the dam and got out to check out the pond and Mike got behind the wheel, only about 50 yards and one enormous mud hole from the cabin. 

He didn’t make it.

Back and forth Mike drove that truck through that mud hole. He would drive it up the hill, guys pushing, tires spinning, slinging mud everywhere, almost there but not quite.  And when the truck could go no further it would slide backwards, back into that mud hole.

On one of those slides back down Mike opened the driver’s door so he could stick his head out and see better. But he was too close to a tree and when the truck slid by the tree it caught the driver’s door and bent it backwards.

Bummer!

Anyway, they finally got the truck out of the mud and up that last little hill and Mike parked it at the cabin. A couple of them pushed on driver’s door, bent it back around, until they finally got it to shut.  While they worked to close to door Chuck told me one of their family rules, a rule that he said applied to situations like that.

What’s the rule? I asked.

“If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough,” Chuck said.

The Rules
The Rules

Here are my Top Ten.

  1. Never lie to yourself.
  2. Half measures avail nothing.
  3. It’s an ill wind that blows no good.
  4. Sooner or later you get to be known for what you are.
  5. The harder you work the luckier you get.*
  6. If you’re gonna be dumb, you’ve got to be tough.
  7. Never bet another man’s game.*
  8. You never get paid for more than you do until you get caught doing more than you get paid for.*
  9. Get an “est” after your name.*
  10. Pee on problems before you have to call the fire department.* 

*These were Dad’s rules

Postscript:  Was Pop mad about that door? Not at all. He wanted his truck on top of the hill, Mike put it there, and that’s all that mattered.

Coming Monday: Payback

A Minor Miracle

Brother John told me he witnessed a minor miracle one evening in Charlotte, as he and our father walked back to their boarding house after a long day making syrup.

If you’ve read earlier stories about my father maybe I should explain something before I go on.

Yes, in the late 1940’s, when the minor miracle happened, we lived on a farm outside Gadsden, AL, and, yes, Dad owned a strip mine near Altoona, AL.  He was a coal miner, as his father had been.  But at one time or another Dad also owned a lot of other businesses, some of which actually made money.  He had a lot of ideas, and he was not afraid of work: he built roads for the state; he had a dairy farm and a chicken farm; he raised cotton. He manufactured cloth.  He manufactured clothes hangers. He was cabinet maker. He owned and operated a grocery store.  He wrecked houses. That’s not everything –I’m going to save his best business for a later story — but you get the idea.

He had a syrup “factory” at the farm in Alabama where he manufactured Dixie Dew, an excellent honey-flavored syrup, if I do say so myself, and he had a syrup “plant” in Charlotte.  [Why we called one the “factory” and the other the “plant,” I do not know.]  He would drive to Charlotte every so often, work like a Trojan building up inventory, and then hustle back to Alabama, back to his coal mine and other ventures.

John F. Stith Sr, age 48 or 49
John F. Stith Sr., age 48 or 49

Anyway, John said he and Dad had put in a 12-hour day, eaten supper, and were walking back to their boarding house when they encountered a soldier walking toward them.

Dad didn’t give way; he expected the soldier to give way. But the soldier didn’t move over either. As they passed, their shoulders brushed each other. John knew that meant trouble.  Our father, who liked to fight, took offense easily.

John said he was tired and he hoped Dad would let it go — Just let it go! — but he didn’t.  He took a couple more steps and then he stopped, and he turned around.  John knew exactly what that meant.

[Dad was in his early 50’s. That the soldier was a lot younger made no difference at all. On another occasion Dad taunted a younger man who wouldn’t get off a bus and fight him: “Don’t let this gray hair make a coward out of you.”]

The soldier turned around too, and the two men stood there, staring at each other. And then Dad tipped the felt hat he always wore, said “Good evening,” turned around, and walked away.

That was the first time, John said, that he had ever seen our father pass up a fight.

Coming Friday: My Rules