Glimpses of Father

Hello, operator?

I won’t there to hear this myself, but I heard it told several times by members of my family so here goes.

Back in the old days there was such a thing as a telephone operator, a real person you could talk to, who would help you find other people you wanted to talk to.  Dial O and she would answer –it was always a “she” — and she would try to find the number you wanted.

A really good honey-flavored syrup.
A really good honey-flavored syrup.

Dad wanted the operator to find a honey man.

One of his businesses was making the finest honey flavored syrup known to man – that’s my considered opinion of “Dixie Dew.”   Dad said he thought up the motto himself: “Gives a Biscuit a College Education.”

The recipe was simple: corn syrup, sugar, water, and honey, lots of honey.  He bought it by the barrel and was always searching for more.

When we lived on a farm near Gadsden, Alabama, he got a lead on some honey in Georgia. So he dialed zero, got the operator on the phone, and he said: 

“This is John Stith.”

[As if she cared.]

I want to talk to a man with a white beard who sells honey. He lives in Georgia.”

[Pause.]

“No, I don’t know his number. That’s why I called you.”

She found him.

Checkmate

chessI wasn’t a good chess player but my father was worse, really lousy, and a glutton for punishment. One Saturday when I was 12 or 13 years old he asked me if I knew how to play. I said I did and he told me to go get his chess set.

I beat him 13 times in a row before he called it quits.  And, believe me, I enjoyed every minute.

When we played he rarely won but when he did he would always ask me, “You’re not pulling your punches, are you boy?”

I’d answer, “No sir.”

But I wanted to say, “Hell no! I’d beat you 100 times in a row if I could.”

Mike and Pat

Pop
Pop, Jane, Marge, Mike, Tom, Mother, Pat, Dad, Squeak

My father, John F. Stith Sr., and mother Alice May Cameron, had seven children and they nicknamed all of them except one, Jane.

Marjorie May, the oldest, was “Marge.”

John Franklin Jr. was called “Mike.”

Then Jane Cameron.

Alene Claire was called “Tom” when she was a girl, and for good reason. She was a daredevil.

Pop, Pat and Squeakie
Pop, Pat and Squeak

Charles Talcott was named after one of his Dad’s brothers [who was named after a Southern officer who fought in the Civil War] but he was called “Pop,” a nickname that stuck.

David Howell was “Squeak” until he was almost grown.

William Foster [after his paternal great grandfather and maternal grandfather] was nicknamed Pat.

Why Pat?

My father said any family with a “Mike” had to have a “Pat.”

Coming Friday: THE GAFFNEY STRANGLER, Part 1

 

A Navy Game

When the USS Los Angeles (CA-135) played war games about a dozen men stood watch on the bridge, including the  Officer and Junior Officer of the Deck,  the Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch, and a Quartermaster. Most of the others were phone talkers, each of them a  “conn” –meaning the man in charge — of a network of phone talkers.

USS Los Angeles (CA-135)
USS Los Angeles (CA-135)

The bridge was wrapped around what amounts to a bunker to protect the helm and helmsman.  In combat the phone talkers and some of the others would have crowded in there with him. 

Although the helmsman worked in a bunker-like compartment there were slits in the bulkhead so he could hear when an officer ordered him to change course.

On the midwatch, midnight to 4 a.m., the bridge was usually warm and quiet, except for muffled hum of the engines and the soothing noise made by wind and waves against our ship.  It was hard not to go to sleep.  Did you know that if you are tired enough you can go to sleep standing up?  It was those times that one of the officers would sometimes test the helmsman.

In a whisper, so the helmsman couldn’t hear, he would order me, “Tell after steering to take control of the ship.”

Normally the helmsman steered the ship but if the helm was knocked out in combat, or knocked out by an electrical failure that could happen any time, the ship could be controlled by “after steering,” men stationed in a compartment in the aft of the ship, close to the rudder.

I would press the button on my phone and whisper, “After steering, conn. Take control of the ship, steering course…” and I would repeat the order the officer had given me.

The officer would then look at this watch, timing the helmsman to see how long it took him realize what had happened and sing out:  “Sir, I’ve lost control of the ship.”

And it had better not be long.

Coming Monday: Glimpses of Father