I grew up on Back Street just a stones throw from the center of downtown Wallins. I remember dreading the long walk to school each morning. What a surprise, when I grew up and had more size perception, to see how far that walk really was from my house . Young boys by nature are born lazy. Not lazy in the sense of things that they choose to do such as when playing, but in things they are required to do such as walking to school each day. I never walked anywhere I could hitch a ride. I remember the football team practiced at the field at Number One. Please let me digress for a minute to explain. If you are reading this and are not from Wallins, you are probably wondering, "where is Number One." When I was growing up there were no street signs or even house numbers. Places were named for people who lived there, i.e. Newberry Saylor Hollow, or as we called it "Holler". Another way we named things was for coal mine operations, i.e. Number One, Number Two or Creeches. I am amazed now when I visit to see street signs and house numbers. These are required now for emergency response.
Back to the point I was making about the football team. We were required to get dressed then run to the field for practice. This was a distance of approximately one mile. We weren't allowed to hitch a ride with anyone. The run or walk to the football field was to be used for conditioning. I was always looking for a ride to take me to a safe spot where I could get out without being seen. I would then either walk or run the last few yards. It's funny the great lengths I would go to, to get out of work. To say I was lazy doesn't do justice to the word lazy. It would be more appropriate to say, I wasn't worth two dead flies.
My nickname was "Lightning." I'm not for sure, but I believe Bobby "Lassie" Lee, pinned that one on me. As he observed, I was not endowed with blinding footspeed. It's really funny, but some years later I became a better than average distance runner. I ran several thousand miles for fun over a span of fifteen years. I'm sure "Big Jim" Howard or Wendell Adkins, our coaches, would be amazed to hear this.
A favorite game among Wallins Creek kids was (and probably still is), "Kick the Can." This was a game played much like "Hide and Go Seek", with one minor deviation. Home base was a can. The person that was"It" would try to catch the hiders. When someone was caught they were caught until they were set free. They were set free by someone kicking the can. This reset the game. I can remember a large group of people playing this game on many occasions, mostly after dark. It usually ranged over a large area of town. What fun and exercise we had.
Another favorite pastime was climbing trees. One of the best trees for climbing that I remember was the large old gnarled pear tree that sat behind "Aldie's" house. Aldie's house was a vacant house that sat next to my house. More about this house in a later story. Back to the pear tree. This tree produced the large green hard pears. They were not too good for eating. Very good for throwing during fights that sometimes took place. Usually we restricted these fights to green apples, when available. Apples were much less lethal than these large and hard pears.
As a boy, you needed to be a pretty decent tree climber. This was one of the basic skills needed to pass the time in the spring and summer. It also helped to get at the apples for eating. We also knew all the best apple trees, starting with the first apples of the year. We called these "June apples." Some were soft and sweet. Others were hard and sour. These usually were the ones that your Mom said not to eat because the would cause you to have a belly ache. They were nice for throwing. Stung like the dickens when you got hit by one. We ate them anyway.
I have since learned as an adult, "That the power of sin is in the law." What this means is, the quickest way to get someone to do something is to tell them not to. This was especially true in my case as a boy growing up in Wallins.
We played baseball in the field behind Paul Blanton's house on Back Street. There was a ditch that separated two small fields. I played mostly with Jimmy Decker, Bruce and Bobby Wayne Howard and John Rhinehart. There were others that we played with also. But I especially remember that we would bat left handed so we wouldn't hit Paul's house. Still, we sometimes did. On the other side was Jesse Herrell's house. We were less likely to hit his house batting left because it sat farther to the right.
Many times the game had to be suspended while we searched for the ball in the high weeds. When I have used the expression, "Like a lost ball in high weeds", it took on a very clear meaning to me. I can also remember knocking the cover off the ball, and covering it with black tape. I can still see the ball after it was hit high in the air with a tape or string streamer waiving behind.
Bill Smith, who was a few years older and bigger than me, tied me to a tree one day. I guess he did it for amusement. He then proceeded to let Garrett Robbins cut a long switch and beat the heck out of me. I can't remember what this was about, except that I was bigger than Garrett, and Bill thought it would be fun to even the odds a bit by allowing him to beat me up. After Garrett beat me but good, Bill told him to take off and run home. Bill waited to give Garrett a pretty good head start, then he untied me. Well as I said before, they didn't call me "Lightning" for nothing. I was unable to catch Garrett before he got to the old white bridge near his house. So, as he beat me there, he commanded the high ground. He used this commanding position to lob rocks at me. As I recall, he was quite a rock thrower. Ernest T. Bass would have been proud to call him a friend. Needless to say, I received no satisfaction on this day.
I remember the first TV in town. We carried it up on the mountain and ran an antenna up a tree. I remember that it was Pearl Hensley and some others who did all the work. The reception was so snowy that you could see only shadows, but I was totally fascinated by the whole thing.
Here's what we used to do when it snowed. Us boys would catch a slow moving car after it stopped for the red light in town. We would hold on to the bumper and let it pull us down the road. Sometimes we would ride it all the way to Creech's. It was harder to catch a ride back because the cars were going too fast to hop a ride. When this happened we would slide and skate our way back all the way back to town.
One of the things that I enjoyed doing during the cold, wintery days was, hanging out in Sarah's Café. Sarah's, or "Surrey's" as we called it was the local hangout and one of only 2 restaurants in town. It was a good place to find a game of Hearts or a game of Chess. I liked having a hot steamy cup of hot chocolate while playing or watching. The person that taught me how to play chess was Winston Abraham. To me, he was the master. I don't think I ever came close to winning a match with him. But he did show me how to checkmate an opponent in 6 moves. I used this tactic many times to beat others who were not alert.
There will be more discussion of other games in future stories. To a small boy "Games" were the name of the game.
