The Humorist Revealed;
Betty Walker Wilkinson
Don't it always seem to go?
Don't know what you got till it's gone...
Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell
When you are growing up, likely nothing your mom or dad said or did was funny. Unintentionally ridiculous perhaps. But the muscles that roll your eyeballs were hur by those attempts at humor - especially in the awful context of your mom as a substitute teacher. And those family stories - weird, yes. Funny, no.
Ah, the deafness of youth!
I didn’t recognize and appreciate my mom’s humor until far too late. When she died, I found letters she wrote to us in the 70s, sometimes faint 3rd level carbon copies, missives sent to us young men and one young woman eventually, mostly off on their own, scattered across the country.
Did she talk like this to us before I headed off to college? Probably, but did I hear it? Nope. And hmmm, I got very different inheritances from my mother and my father. I now reflect that of the family-related poems I’ve written, all but one come from the Walker side.
Who Was Betty?
Betty was born in Cabot, Vermont in 1924. Her birth was attended by the local doctor, whose granddaughter I studied with in Tokyo 50 years later. Her parents, L. Ruth Duke Walker and William C. Walker, Jr. were college-educated former teachers who by then had established Walkerway Farm on Whittier Hill in Cabot.
As genealogy is a genetic implant among this branch of the family we know that some ancestors walked back and forth from Connecticut to Peacham, Vermont to carve out a homestead over the course of several years in the 1770s. And others, according to Ruth, were Huguenots (French Jews, she said) who slipped across the Quebec-Vermont border dodging revenuers’ pitchforks as they hid in hay wagons. The LaDucs [later changed to Duke] were not Huguenots and Huguenots were not Jews. The pitchforks - who knows?
By the time she was conscious of much, Betty was living in the depths of the Great Depression and in some ways she lived in it the rest of her life. Hence 3 carbon copies of letters when photocopies were under a nickel each. She was a middle child and I learned from her youngest brother Roger that she was the toughest - the enforcer among the siblings. All of them had cases of polio - one sister went to a treatment facility for several years when a young child.
Walkerway Farm was a dairy farm and her parents were founders of the Cabot Farmers Cooperative Creamery in 1918. Ruth and Will and a few neighbors mortgaged their farms to save the Creamery in the 30s. Will traveled frequently by rail to Boston and New York in desperate searches for new markets for the milk, butter and cheese. The family ate potatoes 3 meals a day for ten years or more. Six kids and hired hands. Ruth’s long-estranged mother. And visiting relatives. And travelers, college students, hobos, and unemployed who trudged up the hill looking for work or help. They always got a meal. Ruth tracked the number of “extra” meals she served - four hundred in one year.
Susan Walker, Joan Middleton, Betty W., Bess and Ring, on way to creamery with cans and then to school 11-15-40. At Walkerway farmstead.. Shadow - Will W? Ruth W?
Will also served in the Legislature and on the Board Trustees of the University of Vermont (UVM). In the 1940 census he reported having worked 90 hours the previous week. He died when I was a little boy - like my other grandfather. But Ruth I got to know well enough to write poems about her.
Railroad trunk label, probably William C. Walker Sr.
Betty graduated from Cabot High School, and like 4 of her 5 siblings, went to college. She majored in Home Economics and was honored with a Phi Beta Kappa key: something we only found out about late in her life. After graduating she volunteered with the Women’s Army Corps and was sent to Camp Atterbury in Indiana to handle administrative tasks - mainly typing.
I knew her to be a terrible typist. A highlight of that time was a visit to the Bahai Temple in Evanston, Il.,commemorated by the needlepoint of the Temple that I well recall.
Betty Hoonan and Betty Walker at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, May 7, 1946
Betty was hired as a County Extension Agent for Orange County in the late 1940s. These were basically rural social workers who helped families however they could. There in Chelsea she met Jim Wilkinson; they married at her family home in Cabot and our family started growing.
Maple Av., Chelsea w/ Chester and the ‘47 Willys, in which my sister was born.
We moved to Proctor in 1956 where we remained until a move to Barre in 1968. In Proctor she was busy practicing home economics with seven kids (though Paul did not live more than a day or so) born over a space of eight or nine years. When Ginnie and Wendell Button, from the family of their best Chelsea friends, moved to the area and Ginnie took a job at Proctor High School, Betty took care of their two boys, Clint and Ted, five days a week. I don’t think they had the term “day care” at the time.
I spent just three years in Barre, so was personally spared the awful embarrassment of having my mom as a substitute teacher because she started off in elementary and junior high schools. I did hear about her planned “eye openers” or “tidbits” for the students - items from the paper or a magazine that she thought would be a good thing to start the school day with. (CBS Morning News has a similar bit.) Eyes rolled. Eventually she was close to full time as she’d almost never say “no” when called the night before or the morning of the teacher’s absence. At least one year, she spent the whole year teaching a single high school "industrial" class for which she had minimal academic preparation. She was one of Spaulding High School soccer’s biggest fans and was the team timekeeper for years. She’ll tell you more about this teaching life in due course. I think she did this often thankless work for fifteen years - maybe more.
So what follows is the cream of the crop I copied from the letters from 1975-78. I’ll go back and dig deeper for more one day. Wish I had more of them.
The Letters
My comments and such are italicized, jw. I summarized a few items when transcribing fifteen years ago.
Nov. 1975
(A happy time at thanksgiving because of cousinLinda and Trish Wilkinson’s visit – despite all having the flu.) But: “Phil hardly said grr or grunt and not even a “what” all the time he was here. I never saw Colonel (shepherd mix dog from Uncle Roger, our first) so crazy, he jumped into his lap and nosed his face and barked and lapped like a mad one.
We’ve had no letters – you must have misplaced it – we evidently get about ¼ of the letters Jo-Ann writes us. She never mails them.
July 5 1976
(Reporting on her trip to Columbus, Ohio to take a car and things for Jo-Ann. She had graduated from American University and was starting a job at Battelle Labs.)
Jo-Ann at Battelle
At her apartment “….absolutely not a shelf or cupboard of any type. We looked at 2nd hand places – nothing. Knew she couldn’t find anything new she could afford & Dad hates places like that. (Mom and I love them!) Finally after lunch he and Jon went off & saw a historic village - they drove way out of town to find it then found it within walking distance of Jo-Ann’s place.
Jo-Ann and I found exactly what she wanted – it’s like a baking center, cabinets below, pull out metal shelf in the ctr, cupboard above. ( Hoover cabinet) Just what she needed at a junk type shop and at a price she could well afford. Also she found 3 plank bottomed painted old chairs – very very old – needs a bit of repair but all are strong. She paid $1.50 a piece. If she refinishes them they’ll be beautiful – and worth at least $100 even $200 a piece. I’ll bet they were made in New England and taken west. (Mom was a collector and restorer of antique and old furniture - we all have some pieces.)
Chair at far end is likely 200+ years old from Walker line
They’ll go with a table I took her – it's beautiful. I got a toaster for $3 for us at a 2nd hand store here. It didn’t work, took it back and gave them one more dollar for a table. 5 coats of paint, plus contact paper on it. Drop leave – 40” by 54” with drop leaves up. Legs bolted on so I could take them off to put it in the trunk of her car. Refinished beautifully in an old antique maple finish. $4.00 for her birthday present.
(Sad story of David’s troubled employment situation followed.)
July 24, 1976
David and Jon biked to Aunt Ethel’s (her mother’s sister in East Calais) the next day, had lunch there (Ethel, Bunnie (Ethel’s daughter) , Tom (grandson), etc.) ; helped fix a CB radio and visited Uncle Hod. (They’d never seen him before.) Saw the musket, dueling pistol, etc. that he has made recently. He’s retired 3-4 years ago. Now just builds houses and such things. (Her mother’s youngest brother, Hod aka Horace Hollister Duke, then 71 years old, lived across the mill pond from Ethel).
July 31, 1976
I read in the News Notes (Times Argus) he’s now the Commissioner of Forests and Parks instead of Deputy and Acting as he’s been for 3 years. (Dad of course.) I’d asked him July 1st - he said he didn’t know then, said nothing since. Dad said he’d had no formal notice. I wonder if his salary changed?
(David’s) rehab counselor called Thursday. He had arranged a job interview at Norwich Univ. dining kitchen for David. Apprentice meat cutter. 7 til 3, 5 days a week. $2.40 an hour to start, 2 weeks vacation, sick leave, Blue Cross etc. I told them Dave is not retarded but slow motioned etc. Seems a wonderful chance for him to learn while he earns…. Everyone there will help him I feel. … He’s so afraid of another failure.
(David has multiple disabilities, congenitally something like cerebral palsy but then soon to be totally blasted by schizophrenia. He did well at Norwich for several years, bought a yellow VW bug to drive there and back but the then-unrecognized mental illness led his to quitting and a move to St. Paul to job hunt and live with us. Another sad story. I’ve written a poem on his struggle.)
August 7 1976
Jeepers these boys are noisy. Restless they are too tired to want to do anything Friday night and are sitting and yapping how bad off they are.
The Vietnamese family came to visit. He bought a car from Peanut (Kennedy in Chelsea, legislator and Republican candidate for Governor who said, among other things, that black people would not come to Vermont because it was too cold and on the House floor: “I believe in honesty,even if I am a politician and used car dealer.) & now has a job at IBM in Essex Jct. and goes to a computer type course at UVM. The girls are 20 mo. and 6 now & talk English, no Vietnamese which is interesting as the wife’s English is still difficult for her. (I think this was a church-sponsored connection. Twenty years later it was Croatian refugees they helped.)
I’m trying to get Dad to start looking for a woodlot – My biggest concern is that he have something of interest to do when he retires or he’ll give up and die like his father. I don’t feel that he’s old – or nearly old enough to retire. (58 ½. He lived to age 90 without a woodlot.)
Dad went to see a grown up (with trees) old farm in Washington. Dave and Colonel and I went with him and it rained and rained. We tramped and saw a grown up old farm and got stuck and pushed, and got stuck and pushed and got stuck in the mud and pushed and after looking in the rain he looked at his map and directions and decided it wasn’t the right place after all. (this news written on a torn off scrap of paper along with the main letter. Waste not, want not.)
Sept 2, 1976
( Ned Krouskop’s (Aunt Ethel’s son-in-law) brain tumor. Roger and Grandma arguing.)
Two of my high school students are on the plane returning from Paris after being hijacked to Canada , London & Paris . One is a real mischief maker and probably could easily have been a hijacker as the one hijacked – He was a streaker during class day in the auditorium. Wonder how he likes being on the other end of the stick.
Sept. ’76
(After a trip to Minnesota incl. a stop at Michigan Tech for Michael to check it out)
I was so glad to see you – but felt you are not eating enough or something. Just a skeleton, muscles & no flesh on you. I was glad to meet Karen but do not feel I got more than a passing glimpse of either of you – or anyone else.
Got Mike a haircut at The Masters Edge for a birthday present. He didn’t want to go. Very horribly expensive. Senior pictures coming up.
Well if Jon’s first day is any indication of his soph. yr. I’d better move him right out of the college courses. Went to school w/ 1 sheet of folded paper. He played soccer last night most of the game. Evidently is a better player now he has glasses to see the ball.
Sept. 1976
Not a good letter, but I didn’t do anything interesting; finished an afghan and took out two years work on another.
Sept. 18, 1976
Started a class on Women and History at community college. One of the young teachers is 25 yrs or so, is an attractive red head on several state committees for women, She had 2 children with her, couldn’t get a sitter. She did well. Was the one who was escorted out of a meeting by the police for nursing her baby;;; a meeting on women’s rights no less she representing the Gov’s Comm. on Rape – she is very quiet, low keyed sort of person and to know that she was nursing the baby, one would have to stick his head in her lap…. I thought it was the limit when I read it in the paper.
Oct. 76
Susan (her youngest sister) came and I made her a birthday cake, she has told her girls to do nothing as she was 50 and after 50 it was downhill all the way, she felt awful until she got up here with older people. I don’t feel that way.
Jon is finally up. He has 15 minutes before he is down there ready to play. Sound like him?
Oct. 76
Preach – preach forever. I’m sick of being told how evil we all are.
Some drinkers from Orange (former Spaulding kids) tried to go up East St. that isn’t & plowed up a lot of earth. Popped out their windshield, ruined their front end. Scattered their beer and eyeglasses. (East Street ends at a very steep T junction at the Tremont St. and East corner my family lived at.)
Oct 23 1976
NO word from anyone, a conspiracy no doubt, maybe I’ll join it.
Went over the hill to Aunt Ethel’s, had a nice visit with her and then went to Uncle Hod’s and got a supply of potatoes from him that he raises to sell. Uncle Hod makes muzzle loading guns in his spare time, just has completed a new sawmill and is about to build himself another new house and sell his present one. He has done this before. The surprising thing is that he is either 74 or 75 years old (71 according to my records), had hundreds of bushels of potatoes in the cellar he had raised. He was hurrying to send out the delinquent tax notices for the town, most ever, he said ($30,000) He is also town constable and looks about 40 years old. Aunt Ethel is real good, though looks older now some of her own hair has grown, after 60 years without any and she does not always wear her wig.
October 1976
Mike’s class pictures are in and Dad got them last night. They are beautiful, the photography, not Mike….
(While with Jon at DMV for driver’s permit) A young man came in wanting a Vt Driver’s license, was told her couldn’t get one without his birth certificate, he was mad and said he couldn’t get it, was born out in middle west somewhere, told the lady they could call up the police, state police - they had records on him.
Nov. 8 1976
Saw grandma on Wed. A moving van was bringing the furniture of the new owners to Ellie’s house. Spud (Ellie’s husband) tried to buffalo Roger into giving him a new deed to the land. Said he wanted a deed to 27 acres, Roger said he had given him the right deed years ago to the 20 acres he had paid for and that was it, after much threatening Spud gave up and did not get the 7 unpaid for acres. Roger had given and given them things and built most of the house himself. Spud sold it for $60,000 and thought Roger should continue giving, but after Spud got ahold of all of Bessie’s money, real estate, etc. when Ralph died a year ago Roger had enough. Bessie is Ilene’s (Roger’s wife’s) mother, Ralph is a cousin of ours also.
Ruth Walker in 1975
Feb. 12 1977
First day above freezing in 52 days.
March 1977
Some excitement down East St. - Kevin Hurley’s father, - his mother had just come home from the hospital and he hit her over the head and someone called the police and he met them with a shotgun, They surrounded the place at six or so and they were still there after ten when I went to bed. Finally, Bruce Judd (undertaker) talked him into surrendering….
April 1977
(story about newspaper and county atty blaming Dad for teardown of historic building on Grand Isle)
Spring 77
Soon Michael will get (college) acceptances or non acceptances then he should feel better. Can’t get near Jon without punching him –whether it's because Jon is now taller or what – he’s got to do it and Jon doesn’t stand by and take it – he does his share. Of well, Michael’ll get over it, if I survive.
Went to school board meeting as (Superintendent) Lyons etc suggested they cut the subs pay - pay $5 a day less if you’re not in your field. I finally stood up and said I’d been in my field only 2x this year and enjoyed it enough so I’d take $5 less to go there! Instead I go where I’m needed. Lots of good backing from the administrators and teachers, which was nice.
May 1977
Yesterday one of those big guys came up behind my desk (at school) where I was standing and hugged me. Good thing it was because he liked me – not hated me. I couldn’t move he was so strong and huge. Never know what is going to happen I guess when you deal with kids. 1st time for anything.
Fall 1977
Aunt Ethel and (my 2nd cousin) Tom were here for supper and a nice but short visit. She was not pleased with the proposals for Dental care for the elderly by the Governor. She said she does not consider herself elderly ….. at 81 or 82, that is wonderful. She has been very busy caning chairs. (See my blog for a prose poem on this subject. Ethel lived more than 100 years but missed her goal of living in 3 centuries by a couple of years.)
Oct. 1977
The other night someone threatened the young state prosecutor and the police here in Barre went to his house to protect him and they set fire to his porch and threw a knife into the bedroom and cut his wife’s hand. – all when the police were there protecting them. They have been having trouble with a group that call themselves Morning Star or something – they deal with and grow pot, etc at Highgate. Really a mess of bad lazy ones…even stormed the police station last Sunday night demanding the release of one of them in jail there.
Mike it takes a week to get a letter here from you. After you write it. I don’t know about you other ones as you so seldom write. It isn’t fair! Love, Mother
April 16 1978
Mike and Phil probably remember that typing teacher – well anyhow in the middle of the night she called up waking me out of a sound sleep, wanting to know when he (her boyfriend) was getting home and carrying on - saying he was going to Barnet to see a girl friend and it was all my fault, I was cross, I hadn’t even thought of her since the day she was discharged for being drunk at school… Well I feel sorry for her, but….
I complained enough and it looks as though maybe Jon will be able to get advanced Chemistry after all. Will mean an extra effort on the part of the teachers though.
June 20, 1978
Re: her mom:
She’s had the washer in the middle of the floor for weeks. Said her stove pipe has to be cleaned before she can heat water on the (wood) stove for washing. I asked her why she couldn’t sue hot water from the faucet (electric water heater) but she can’t – always did it the other way. Well its hard to be old.
Oct. 3 1978
(Report of brother-in-law Donald Hay’s death at 61 years old from heart attack and the funeral.)
He worked right up to an hour before he died, which is as he would have wished it.
It stopped raining today the first time in a month and the church was overflowing, every business was closed in Hardwick and it looked as if school was out as there were kids about. He was always helping someone. There is a cemetery past Cathirene’s way out in the country about three miles that I never knew was there a big one that was surrounded by new mowed hay for the farmers – that smelled sweet, the sun shown and the surrounding maple trees were gorgeous. (Elsewhere, I’ve modified this elegy to give it a different poetry.)
Roger (her brother) is a reporting station for deer shot during the bow and arrow season which pleases him and is much more interesting then getting his corn in. (He inherited the family farm and responsibility for Grandma. Mom was forever critical of Roger’s failure to be the perfect farmer her father was.) Virginia (his daughter) is really running the farm but of course she is in school during the day and can’t get anything done then.
Poor Dad as usual household fixings, he fixed the front door with so much weather stripping it is impossible to shut and latch but he worked all day on it. So I don’t say anything, don’t tell him I am gradually removing an inch or two where it sticks because the door needs to be shut.
Oct. 1978
Dad is in the kitchen, I have to mop the floor soon; Dad says I just want to get rid of him, I told him he was welcome to stay and mop the floor.
Oct. 1978
”(Dad) told me the other day: ‘We Presbyterians have about given up on you.’ About killed the boys and I…. afraid they might just as well … though I do like the new minister, he is warm, energetic and enjoys what he does. Sorry Father…. I’m so bad…. They may have given up on me but they don’t hesitate to have me do things that require work….
(Not sure, but I bet this was John Paterson, husband of novelist Katherine Patterson [Bridge to Terebithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, etc.] with whom my parents became great friends.)
(While dad traveled on business she went to several craft and antique shows and took (my cousin) Jim and his wife Nancy to a very old church in So. Woodbury)
Fall 78
(Tales of crime, murder and burglary in neighborhood….)
(Gov.) Snelling is trying to get rid of Dad, probably will accomplish it before too long, should very much like to have him resign will politically look bad when he fires him, a man with his knowledge that has worked up through all positions and knows the works. Snelling is doing his best to hamstring him, so he can’t accomplish what he should,….. a hard time for Dad. (A forced resignation in 1979 sent Dad back to the woods as a forester and a much happier life.)
Nov 1978
Jim just accused me of serving him used tooth picks, now no one has used any for years, and why would I keep a used toothpick around, I’m still laughing, gotter either laugh or cry and he is serious…. (One should not underestimate her ability and inclination to economize, however.)
Fall 1978
(Grandma) said she was going to die before the winter was over, I said, “How do you know?” She, “I feel it…” Me: “How do you know how it feels, you’ve never died.” (She lived three more years.) Sounds like Roger as he has threatened to die for years, but she just might. (He lived until June 2020.) He was off on a five mile hike along the old Hazen Bailey Revolutionary Rd. that goes straight over by Smith’s.
Jon to Battle of the Bands contest at the Auditorium. Which ended up in a battle with the police trying to stop some fights and the new police chief getting punched and floored.
I think all this rain has gotten to people – there is either fists flying or older people or not so old giving up and dying.
I went to Air Cooled (car repair) to get Dad’s car after school Tuesday and one of the men was just getting up from the floor – the other had decked him, asked me what I did when this happened at school…..
1998?
For a parallel collection, see my: Out of the Shadows. From the Datebooks of James E. Wilkinson, Jr.
First day above freezing in 52 days.
March 1977
Some excitement down East St. - Kevin Hurley’s father, - his mother had just come home from the hospital and he hit her over the head and someone called the police and he met them with a shotgun, They surrounded the place at six or so and they were still there after ten when I went to bed. Finally, Bruce Judd (undertaker) talked him into surrendering….
April 1977
(story about newspaper and county atty blaming Dad for teardown of historic building on Grand Isle)
Spring 77
Soon Michael will get (college) acceptances or non acceptances then he should feel better. Can’t get near Jon without punching him –whether it's because Jon is now taller or what – he’s got to do it and Jon doesn’t stand by and take it – he does his share. Of well, Michael’ll get over it, if I survive.
Went to school board meeting as (Superintendent) Lyons etc suggested they cut the subs pay - pay $5 a day less if you’re not in your field. I finally stood up and said I’d been in my field only 2x this year and enjoyed it enough so I’d take $5 less to go there! Instead I go where I’m needed. Lots of good backing from the administrators and teachers, which was nice.
May 1977
Yesterday one of those big guys came up behind my desk (at school) where I was standing and hugged me. Good thing it was because he liked me – not hated me. I couldn’t move he was so strong and huge. Never know what is going to happen I guess when you deal with kids. 1st time for anything.
Fall 1977
Aunt Ethel and (my 2nd cousin) Tom were here for supper and a nice but short visit. She was not pleased with the proposals for Dental care for the elderly by the Governor. She said she does not consider herself elderly ….. at 81 or 82, that is wonderful. She has been very busy caning chairs. (See my blog for a prose poem on this subject. Ethel lived more than 100 years but missed her goal of living in 3 centuries by a couple of years.)
Oct. 1977
The other night someone threatened the young state prosecutor and the police here in Barre went to his house to protect him and they set fire to his porch and threw a knife into the bedroom and cut his wife’s hand. – all when the police were there protecting them. They have been having trouble with a group that call themselves Morning Star or something – they deal with and grow pot, etc at Highgate. Really a mess of bad lazy ones…even stormed the police station last Sunday night demanding the release of one of them in jail there.
Mike it takes a week to get a letter here from you. After you write it. I don’t know about you other ones as you so seldom write. It isn’t fair! Love, Mother
April 16 1978
Mike and Phil probably remember that typing teacher – well anyhow in the middle of the night she called up waking me out of a sound sleep, wanting to know when he (her boyfriend) was getting home and carrying on - saying he was going to Barnet to see a girl friend and it was all my fault, I was cross, I hadn’t even thought of her since the day she was discharged for being drunk at school… Well I feel sorry for her, but….
I complained enough and it looks as though maybe Jon will be able to get advanced Chemistry after all. Will mean an extra effort on the part of the teachers though.
June 20, 1978
Re: her mom:
She’s had the washer in the middle of the floor for weeks. Said her stove pipe has to be cleaned before she can heat water on the (wood) stove for washing. I asked her why she couldn’t sue hot water from the faucet (electric water heater) but she can’t – always did it the other way. Well its hard to be old.
Oct. 3 1978
(Report of brother-in-law Donald Hay’s death at 61 years old from heart attack and the funeral.)
He worked right up to an hour before he died, which is as he would have wished it.
It stopped raining today the first time in a month and the church was overflowing, every business was closed in Hardwick and it looked as if school was out as there were kids about. He was always helping someone. There is a cemetery past Cathirene’s way out in the country about three miles that I never knew was there a big one that was surrounded by new mowed hay for the farmers – that smelled sweet, the sun shown and the surrounding maple trees were gorgeous. (Elsewhere, I’ve modified this elegy to give it a different poetry.)
Roger (her brother) is a reporting station for deer shot during the bow and arrow season which pleases him and is much more interesting then getting his corn in. (He inherited the family farm and responsibility for Grandma. Mom was forever critical of Roger’s failure to be the perfect farmer her father was.) Virginia (his daughter) is really running the farm but of course she is in school during the day and can’t get anything done then.
Poor Dad as usual household fixings, he fixed the front door with so much weather stripping it is impossible to shut and latch but he worked all day on it. So I don’t say anything, don’t tell him I am gradually removing an inch or two where it sticks because the door needs to be shut.
Oct. 1978
Dad is in the kitchen, I have to mop the floor soon; Dad says I just want to get rid of him, I told him he was welcome to stay and mop the floor.
Oct. 1978
”(Dad) told me the other day: ‘We Presbyterians have about given up on you.’ About killed the boys and I…. afraid they might just as well … though I do like the new minister, he is warm, energetic and enjoys what he does. Sorry Father…. I’m so bad…. They may have given up on me but they don’t hesitate to have me do things that require work….
(Not sure, but I bet this was John Paterson, husband of novelist Katherine Patterson [Bridge to Terebithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, etc.] with whom my parents became great friends.)
(While dad traveled on business she went to several craft and antique shows and took (my cousin) Jim and his wife Nancy to a very old church in So. Woodbury)
Fall 78
(Tales of crime, murder and burglary in neighborhood….)
(Gov.) Snelling is trying to get rid of Dad, probably will accomplish it before too long, should very much like to have him resign will politically look bad when he fires him, a man with his knowledge that has worked up through all positions and knows the works. Snelling is doing his best to hamstring him, so he can’t accomplish what he should,….. a hard time for Dad. (A forced resignation in 1979 sent Dad back to the woods as a forester and a much happier life.)
Nov 1978
Jim just accused me of serving him used tooth picks, now no one has used any for years, and why would I keep a used toothpick around, I’m still laughing, gotter either laugh or cry and he is serious…. (One should not underestimate her ability and inclination to economize, however.)
Fall 1978
(Grandma) said she was going to die before the winter was over, I said, “How do you know?” She, “I feel it…” Me: “How do you know how it feels, you’ve never died.” (She lived three more years.) Sounds like Roger as he has threatened to die for years, but she just might. (He lived until June 2020.) He was off on a five mile hike along the old Hazen Bailey Revolutionary Rd. that goes straight over by Smith’s.
Jon to Battle of the Bands contest at the Auditorium. Which ended up in a battle with the police trying to stop some fights and the new police chief getting punched and floored.
I think all this rain has gotten to people – there is either fists flying or older people or not so old giving up and dying.
I went to Air Cooled (car repair) to get Dad’s car after school Tuesday and one of the men was just getting up from the floor – the other had decked him, asked me what I did when this happened at school…..
1998?
For a parallel collection, see my: Out of the Shadows. From the Datebooks of James E. Wilkinson, Jr.
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