Tag: John F. Stith Sr.

Get Out And Stay Out

I don’t remember what I had done to tick him off –maybe he had discovered I was stealing jars of syrup and selling them to buy cigarettes– but my oldest brother, John, told me to get out of the syrup factory he ran at the farm and stay out.

John F. Stith Jr.
John F. Stith Jr., AKA “Mike”

John, Dad called him “Mike,” was a grown man. He had been in the Navy during WWII and was 16 years older. I just a kid, eight or nine.

My first mother died when I was five and my second mother didn’t have much control over Brother Dave or me. I didn’t figure anybody could tell me what to do except Dad so I didn’t think John could make his order stick.

Dad's strip mine, Altoona, AL, late 1940s or early 1950s.
Dad’s strip mine, Altoona, AL, late 1940’s or early 1950’s.

Dad had a strip mine near Altoona, AL, and he was there most days, digging coal, but not every day. So I waited. And when Dad stayed home one morning to take care of some business and he went out to the syrup factory, I followed him. He walked in and I walked in right behind him.

That was a mistake.

John grabbed me by the back of my belt and the collar of my shirt and threw me through an opening in the wall of the factory onto a coal pile outside.

John F. Stith Jr. AKA "Mike"
John F. Stith Jr. He was 17 when he joined, in 1944.

NOTE: During World War II John gave up a deferment, joined the U.S. Navy, and then volunteered to serve on a submarine. He washed out of submarine school when one of his eardrum burst during a pressure test and ended up on USS Pocomoke (AV-9), a seaplane tender, in the Pacific.

Coming Monday: Making Boys Into Men

Here, Take My Blackjack

Dad did not help the seven kids he had by my mother with their homework, or show them how build a go-cart, or take them fishing. He was not that kind of father. However, he did try to be helpful when he could.

One of my older brothers, Pop, told me that when he was a teenager he got the daylights beaten out of him by a guy who was 20 or 21 years old — they were fighting over a young lady.

Blackjack
Blackjack

Like any good Dad should, Pop said our father offered to whip the guy himself, since he considered him old enough to be a grown man.

But Pop said he would take care of it.

Dad offered Pop his blackjack, just to even things up a little.

But Pop said, “No.”

Well at least take my brass knuckles, our father said.

Postscript: Pop told me he won the rematch, fair and square, with just his fists.

Dad’s Fighting Rules

  • If the boy is smaller than you are, try to get out of fighting him if you can do it gracefully.
  • If he’s your size, fight fair.
  • If he’s bigger than you are, anything goes: get behind him and hit him in the head with a 2 x 4 if you can.
  • But you must not hit a girl under any circumstance. Hitting a girl is unmanly.

NOTE: One day before we got married, out of the clear blue sky, Donna Joy Hyland told me, “You’re not going to hit me but one time.”  I’d given her no reason to say anything like that. I guess she just wanted no misunderstanding on that point.

Coming Monday: Oh, No! Broke Down in Hog Country