Earl Smith’s Hound Dog

 

Earl Smith was a 6 foot 230 pound man. He contracted stucco construction work. He traveled mostly in a jeep car and a frequent companion was his faithful large hound dog. 

 

The bench seat in the jeep would have Earl seated in the driver’s seat, and the hound dog seated next to him facing the windshield with long ears flying in the wind.

 

From behind, or a side view, it was hard to distinguish “who was who.” You hoped Earl was doing the driving. The “hound dog” looked as though it belonged there. They made quite a sight as they drove about through Ebenezer.

 

Earl’s “Wild Man”

 

The Earl Smith home consisted of Earl “Lefty,” he played a few seasons of minor league professional baseball as a pitcher, wife Dorothy; children Lilburn, Coleen, and Marlene. It was the only house on the corner crossroads of W.W. and Grant Street roads. Across the road from the Smith home was a 20 or 30 acre field of large timberland and at the edge of the timber was 100 yards or more of 10 to 12 foot high sprouts filled with leaves.

 

One day Earl looked across the road and saw an alarmingly strange sight. He immediately phoned the sheriff’s Department. They quickly dispatched deputies to investigate and make arrests if needed.

 

What they found was Ed Dillard, one of Earl Smith’s closest neighbors, chasing a cow that had gotten in the wrong field. As Ed chased the cow he lost his hat, and his long disheveled full head of solid white hair was filled with leaves and was flowing in the wind. 

 

To Earl, Ed did look like a “wild man.” To Ed, Earl’s next door neighbor already “put out” by the errant cow, he wasn’t much amused.

 

Joe Louis/Max Schmeling By Radio

 

During the 1930’s electricity began coming to the homes in and around Ebenezer. It was also the time of the Great Depression. Money was scarce. Farm labor was $1.00 per day plus the noon meal, when you could find it. Gradually, although very slowly, one at a time, houses would be wired for electricity. Finally, a 40 or 60 watt electric light bulb began replacing the old kerosene burning wicker lamps. 

 

Little by little other electric “new fangled” things would be added; refrigerators to replace the old ice boxes; toasters, victrolas to play the old 78 speed large hard records, electric stoves, or at least hot plates, to replace the wood or coal burning cook stoves. There would be a multitude of new things “when” they could be afforded. The complete transition would take a number of years.

 

During most of this time, radios remained battery powered, and batteries were short lived and expensive. So, on the nights of the great fights, there were two involving Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, and the German Max Schmeling; the men of Ebenezer would gather at Fernando Anderson’s Ebenezer Country Store to “hear the fight together.” Fernando had a good radio in the store, and it was certain he would have it tuned to the fight broadcast. This was a good business night for the Country Store.

 

The Ebenezer men would gather early, drink soda pop, munch crackers and maybe some cheese, tell yarns, chew or smoke tobacco, and thoroughly enjoy “socializing.” It was at one such fight night that Earl Smith was telling a tale and enthusiastically demonstrated some point by slapping Mr. Adkins on the back and knocking him to the floor. Mr. Adkins was a rather frail man, maybe 130 pounds, while Earl would scale 230 pounds or more. Mr. Adkins got up off the floor, dusted himself off, and headed for the door saying, “I believe I’ll go home before I get knocked down again.” He was grinning, and all others were laughing and enjoying the happening; everything was in good fun.

 

The second Joe Louis/Max Scheming fight, June 22, 1938, was of special interest. It was not because of the color of Joe Louis’ skin. Joe’s father was predominately African American with some white ancestry; his mother was half Cherokee. It was because Max Schmeling was a German, and it was in the days of Hitler and Nazism.

 

All of the men at Ebenezer were strong supporters of Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber. After all, he was the 7th of 8 children, born near La Fayette, Alabama. Max Schmeling, on the other hand, was born in Germany and was heralded by Hitler as part of the “Superior” race of people that could not be defeated. 

 

That night the men of Ebenezer were very proud of Joe Louis for knocking out Max Schmeling in the first round of a scheduled 15 round fight. The fight actually lasted two minutes and four seconds…Max Schmeling ended up in the hospital, and the Nazi Political Party took a beating that night because of that fight.

 

Joe Louis was the Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1937 to 1949. He held the title for 140 consecutive months, and successfully defended the world heavyweight title 25 times, both records to this day.(Dec 2009)

 

What isn’t so widely known is that Joe Louis and Max Schmeling became life long friends. Schmeling spoke out against Nazism, and at Joe Louis’ funeral, April 12, 1961, Max Schmeling was one of the pallbearers.

 

Charlie Rable

 

Charlie Rable lived alone in a modest well maintained house two doors east of the Ebenezer Country Store. His parents migrated legally to this country from Germany. Charlie, and I think he had one sister, but I’m not at all sure about that, were born in this country. However, German was the language spoken regularly in the home. There are three things I will note about Charlie Rable:

 

         (1) He was always trying to find someone, anyone, to talk to in the German language. When a young couple, Garrett and Tina Boerma, came to this country from Holland to work on the McConnell Dairy Farm in Ebenezer, Charlie thought he had it made; Charlie thought he and the young couple from Holland could converse in German. What a disappointment when Charlie couldn’t understand a word of their Dutch language and they couldn't understand his German.

 

         (2) Charlie grew his own tobacco in his garden, processed it, and rolled it into cigarettes. The young boys used to go to Charlie, thinking he wouldn’t go to their Dads about what they were doing, and beg Charlie into letting them smoke some of his cigarettes. Charlie would let them smoke some of his “strongest” tobacco. He would laugh as they coughed, choked, got dizzy, and turned pale green. Charlie hoped to dissuade the young boys from their desire of using tobacco.

         

         (3) The young boys like to play tricks on Charlie, especially at Halloween time. The chief trick was turning Charlie’s outhouse over. One Halloween, Charlie decided to go set in the outhouse and “catch the boys” when they came to turn his outhouse over. All went well except Charlie fell asleep in the outhouse. The young boys wanted to do their thing quietly and quickly.

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They came, not knowing Charlie was asleep inside, and turned the outhouse over on the outside door. Now Charlie was trapped inside. He was awake, but couldn't get out. So he yelled!

 

When the young boys saw what they had done, they came back and righted the outhouse, and let Charlie out. In the end everyone got a big laugh out of that Halloween caper, and it was “not” repeated.

 

Outhouse Memories

 

Speaking of “Outhouses” and “Memories,” how many of you can actually remember the “feeling” of waking up about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, temperature in the bedroom 32 degrees (freezing); temperature outside the house and all the 300 yards to the outhouse “zero;” and, you “have to make the trip,” alone. The feeling is “AWESOME!” And, in the summertime, think of spiders, wasps, snakes. “Something in that outhouse is “going to get to you!” These are “not” memories of “the good old days.”

 

The Whipsnake

 

Arthur Corbin had a small cabin on the “lost ten acres” on the outskirts of Ebenezer. It was a “lost ten acres” meaning you couldn’t get to it without crossing someone else’s property.

 

Arthur raised his family there. I’m not sure how many children Arthur and Mrs. Corbin had; two or three, I think. Arthur never owned a car. He never rode a horse, or mule, or donkey to go places. Whenever Arthur wanted to go anywhere, he walked. Arthur was a good walker.

 

However, he would sometimes walk from his cabin to the Ebenezer Country Store for a loaf of bread, or a pound of coffee, and he might be gone a day, or maybe two days, or even three. Arthur liked to socialize; to visit. Arthur was likable. He was most always in a good mood; upbeat, positive in attitude. He could talk on most any subject, and always had time to visit. If night approached and he needed a place to sleep, Arthur would just “borrow” a place to sleep in someone’s barn-loft.

 

It was on one such “grocery journey” that Arthur told of the “whip-snake” he faced on his ten acre spread. He was walking one day through tall shoulder high grass when a whip-snake raised up out of the grass head high and looked him right in the eye. Now I have never seen a whip-snake, or at least not to my knowledge. I used to hear about whip-snakes when I grew up. Sometimes they were called “coach-whip snakes.” I saw lots of other kinds of snakes, but no “whip-snakes.”

 

However, Arthur was sure this was a “whip-snake” that looked him in the eyes that day; mid-day, sun shining. No doubt about it!

 

How big was the snake? Well, Arthur couldn’t be sure, but there were wagon tracks, and the snake laid out flat crossed both tracks and disappeared into the tall gras on either side. It was a “big snake;” a “big whip-snake.”

 

The grocery man asked, “Arthur, what did you do when that snake raised up out of the tall grass and looked you in the eye?” Arthur said, “I just took my hand and slapped it real hard right along side of its head. I just knocked the daylights out of that snake, and it got out of my way and I never saw it again.”

 

That was the tale of the “whip-snake.”

 

Ebenezer Baseball

 

I have a picture of an earlier Ebenezer Baseball team, amateur of course, but I can’t find it to put in this writing. The team I remember during my growing up days was in the early 1940’s and our home games were played on the diamond we made in the pasture land behind Gord Mullins’ home. The land was pretty flat. Left field ran up-hill a little bit, but not too bad. There was plenty of parking space for the spectators; they brought their own chairs.

 

“Little Paul” Stokes was our pitcher. He was good. He was called “Little Paul,” not because of his size, but because his Dad was named “Paul” and they didn’t want him called “Junior,” so they called hime “Little Paul.”

 

Junior Hinds was the catcher. He was smaller in size, and some of “Little Paul’s” fast balls would almost lift Junior Hinds off his feet. But, he was a good catcher.

 

Jim Mullins was the first baseman. He was left-handed, which made him a natural to play first base, and a good hitter. However, he was also the first young man from Ebenezer to be drafted into the Armed Forces when the United States entered World War 2 in 1941.

 

When Jim had to leave to go into the Army, I took his place at first base on the Ebenezer Baseball team. It was a great experience. I won’t bore you with lots of tales, just one.

 

We played one game on a professional baseball diamond. It was played at night, professionally lighted, at White City Baseball Park in Springfield. I don’t remember who we played, amateur of course, but they had a tall lank hard throwing left-handed pitcher. I always threw a ball right-handed, but batted left-handed; and I hated batting against left-handed hard throwers. It always seemed they were throwing from behind my back.

 

When I came to bat the first time, left-handed, the outfielders on the other team moved way around to the right, expecting me to be a right field pull hitter. Well, I was real nervous, and scared, of the hard throwing left-handed pitcher, and I swung late. The batted ball went right down the left field line all the way to the wall. I was not a fast runner, but I got a triple out of that time at bat. I think it was the only triple I had all season.

 

Remembering a Pie Supper

 

The year was 1929 or maybe 1930. Earl Noble was dating my Aunt Lydia, my Dad’s sister. Earl and Aunt Lydia took me to a pie supper at the Ebenezer School. Earl drove a Model A Ford car. It was winter time and the weather was cold. There was snow and ice on the ground. Cars didn’t have heaters then. 

 

I was bundled up with a heavy coat, and sat between Earl and Aunt Lydia. The cold outside wind whistled up through the cracks in the floorboard of the Model A. It was good there was only one mile to travel on the gravel road to the Ebenezer School. The school building was filled with people, and it was nice and warm.

 

Pie suppers were “special events” when I grew up. The ladies would bake a pie, and bring it to the school wrapped so it could not be seen, and turn it in to the school to be auctioned.

 

Supposedly no one knew whose pie was being auctioned, but in reality “all” of the men, and especially the teen age boys, “always knew” exactly which girl’s pie was being auctioned. Then, the highest bidder got to sit and eat the pie with the girl that baked it. That was “big stuff,” and the bidding was highly competitive. Of course Earl Noble was high bidder for my Aunt Lydia’s pie, and the three of us got to enjoy eating it. I don’t remember how much Earl had to bid, probably two or three dollars. And, I don’t remember what kind of pie Aunt Lydia brought, but it was an enjoyable evening.

 

All the proceeds of the “pie supper" went for the benefit of the school.

 

In the years that followed, I attended many “pie suppers.” In later years, instead of just attending, I joined Jesse Craig, Ralph and Clay Leeson in entertaining with music. At one pie supper I actually did the auctioning.

 

It was at a “pie supper” that my young brother, James “Jimmy” Gateley, first played his violin, or “fiddle.” He was five years old at the time, I believe. He went on to become a professional musician, traveled many places in the world, had many recordings, and he, with his son, Robert, wrote and recorded a very special Gospel record.