The Storyteller
As I gazed upon the bent old storyteller standing in front of his shop, looking every bit as antiquated as the items lining the dusty, cobwebbed shelves inside, it was hard to imagine the handsome young rogue he had once been, charming the ladies and intimidating the men. Actually, it was rather curious that of all the places his life had taken him, all the excitement he had known, he should wind up here--small-town Wisconsin, where nothing exciting ever seemed to happen. This is the story of the storyteller himself--the story of my father.
Somehow, he made even the ordinary seem extraordinary the way he told it. The most mundane occurrences came to life when he spoke, and like E. F. Hutton, when he spoke, everybody listened.
I can remember, how as a teenager, my dates arriving to pick me up would stop first in his shop, then get so caught up in his tales that I either had to go and drag them away, or content myself with waiting until they had heard enough. The cars filled the large driveway in the evenings, his friends stopping to visit, although I am not certain "visit" is the correct word. Visit indicates a give-and-take forum and this was more like a king holding court with the townsfolk at raptured attention to every word.
His name was Lawrence, although his entire life he would be known as "Jack," a nickname bestowed upon him by a beloved aunt, much to the chagrin of his mother who would have preferred her firstborn use his proper given name. His life started in 1909, in rural Pennsylvania, among the mountains he would always love and consider his "true" home. He was born in a woodshed, attached to a home his parents were to rent in the near future, but which they could not yet occupy. He shared this rather strange birthing facility with others--the family dogs. When asked about his birth he would smile and say, "Yep, I was born in a woodshed with the dogs. For the first three days they didn't know if I would bawl or bark." Such was his humor.
His father owned a sawmill, which was family operated. While Jack was always glad to lend a hand, both at home and helping others, he always had a bit of wanderlust, and as soon as he had finished high school, he wasted no time venturing out into the big world.
But even before that time, his life was much more than interesting. From playing poker with schoolmates, on the top of the bell tower, with little to hold on to except your toes dug into the tiles, to marching over to a neighbor's with a shotgun loaded with rock salt to pepper the "bottom" of the lady who called his mother a less-than-becoming name, his life was full. He helped tip over outhouses (of course with people in them), back a wagon load of manure up to a front porch and dump it, and other "practical jokes" too numerous to mention. One thing you could be sure of, when something was happening, Jack was part of it--usually the ringleader.
When he finally did set off into the world, he spent a fair amount of time hopping freight trains with a friend, it being the cheapest way to travel. Their exploits took them all over, until the friend lost his life under the wheels of one of those trains. So, at age 20, Jack decided to head for "home" and try to settle down.
He took a job at a Bedford service station, married the prettiest girl in town (which by the way, left a trail of broken-hearted ladies), and started a family. Within five years he had three beautiful daughters but had found that married life was not for himñthe wanderlust still called. And so he moved on, leaving his family behind.
From this point, with no direction in his life, he soon felt "lost' and decided to "find himself" by joining the Air Force. Shortly after, in Wheeling, WV, he met the lady who would become his second and last wife, and with whom he would spend the next 50-some years, raising another five children and fondly recalling the "good ol' days of his youth."
What happened in the interim? Nothing and everything!
Jack rubbed shoulders with a diverse group of people in his lifetime, from the famous to the infamous.
As for the famous, Jimmy Stewart, the actor, was his commanding officer while stationed in England during WWII. In fact, he was the one who gave Jimmy hair cuts during that time, as well as lending the famous actor $10 once when Mr. Stewart had left his wallet on base and the guys were "out on the town." Jack even ended up on the cover of an issue of Life magazine, along with Jimmy Stewart and the rest of his airborne unit.
He spent time with John Wayne on the actor's ranch in Arizona. The "Duke" even gave one of his own Stetson hats to Jack, who wore it for years before packing it away.
And the infamous? During his years as a garage owner in WI, he knew Ed Gein, the ghoulish and psychotic murderer and grave robber that Ray Bloch based his "Psycho" story on. More than once Ed stopped by to pick up spare auto parts from Jack and just visit.
Jack had the knack of always seeming to be in the right place at the right time to have it lead to a fabulous story. One such anecdote took place about 1985, when after an absence of 30 or 40 years, Jack decided to go to church. He was actually attending a special Christmas program that several of his grandchildren were taking part in. Of course everyone teased him that evening about "the roof falling in on him" because of the unbeliever attending church. Well, it did! In the middle of the program, the section of ceiling tile, under which he was sitting, let loose and came down. No one was injured, but everyone had a good laugh. It was the only time, before or since, that this has happened in that church. And in keeping with the storyteller's life, it could happen only to Jack!
There were moments in his life that branded themselves so deeply upon him that in the telling and the retelling of the story, you felt you were actually there. One was the night his eldest daughter was born. The birth was so difficult and the doctor so incompetent, that the child was near death by the time the delivery was complete. Her right eye was damaged from the forceps used and she was not breathing. The doctor cut the cord and literally threw her across the room at him and said, "Here Whetstone, here's your dead baby." Either the jarring act of catching the baby or the subsequent squeezing her tightly to his chest and rocking her, caused her to gasp and breathe for him, and she lived and always gave thanks to him for giving her life--twice.
He also recalled with clarity, how, as a young boy, he watched an uninvited drunken uncle crash the family Sunday dinner and upset his mother and siblings with foul language. When his father asked the man to leave, the man got angry and threatened his father with a gun, whereupon his father hit the man, just once, with his fist. His uncle collapsed and subsequently died from his head wound. Jack remembers sitting in the courtroom and testifying before the judge at the inquest. His father was found innocent of any wrongdoing, and not bound over for trial, but that didn't change the impact of the entire episode on the child.
Like all good storytellers, he not only had a way with words, he had words that were all his own, which I have termed "Jackanese" for lack of a better word. "Dippysop" was any type of gravy or sauce, hot or cold, that went over some other food. "Slumgullion" was a casserole, or stew type dish, where everything was thrown in together. For the most part Jack didn't care for either of these, being a meat-and-potatoes man. "Jemsus Pats!" was saved for use in front of us children when swearing wouldn't do but he needed some sort of expletive. "Epizoodic" (which I found out in later life was a form of the word "epizootic") was used as a term for any and all health related ills, as in, "He's got the epizoodic." The only medical condition which did not fall under this category was the "moon fits" he claimed to have. These were short blackouts he got in later life. My own personal favorite as far as Jackanese went was "high-pokety-stab." This term was used to indicate something illegal, no good or trouble, as in "He was up to some sort of high-pokety-stab!"
Jack also had some unusual ways of expressing the most common of things. For instance, when he wanted you to stop bothering him, he would say, "Go lay down with your pups in the corner." When watching television and someone would kiss, he would say, "Oh, oh -- up jumped the devil!" If someone were not attractive, they looked like a "box of asafetida." If they were a general no-good, they were termed a "slab-sided heathen." If a person was a braggart, Jack would say he was "full of nine kinds of monkey guts." If someone was arrested for something and Jack was not quite sure what, it was always for "mopery and bopery with intent to gawk." This is just a sampling of the special words that colored his conversations and stories.
Jack has now lived to see generations pass. The eldest of his eight children will be 67 this year, the youngest is 40. All of his peers are long since dead and gone. And although he was the eldest in his family, he has outlived three other siblings.
Time passes. Things change. The thriving Standard service station he so proudly opened in 1950 has long since closed its large overhead doors to automobiles. The shelves once lined with auto parts gave way in the early 70's to antiques and then, a year ago, began to collect more than the usual dust, when no longer able physically or mentally, he gave up the business world for good.
Some would say, at age 87 he deserved to retire. The smudged and fingerprinted showcases lining the office held a few of the last collectibles he still had for sale, although his rocker sat empty, as he moved into his daughter's group home next door temporarily.
We all thought when he got his strength back he would be glad to go back to the "shop" that had been his home away from home for many years, but he showed no interest. Unable to drive any longer, and requiring help for some of his personal care, he resigned himself to just sitting. The birds and squirrels he always fed would have to depend on someone else for their daily sustenance.
Thankfully, he takes no medications and his general physical health is fair, although he does have some problems. His hearing is poor and his vision has failed. He can no longer read like he used to, and has no real interest in television anymore. His hands are not as strong as they used to be, and he fumbles things a lot. His mind is not always clear about the day to day happenings. He forgets who has just visited or whom he spoke with on the phone. He doesn't remember when his children stop to visit. Sometimes he even forgets which child is which.
But he still worries about his wife of 56 years whose mind is totally ravaged by the effects of Alzheimer's disease. Every morning he gets up in the house he shared with her for all those years, the house which has now been turned into a group home for the elderly, appropriately named "The Homestead." He sits in his Pennsylvania hickory rocker and rocks while humming a tune with words long since forgotten. And he waits.
He waits for the housekeeper to fix his meals. He waits for his children to stop by and visit for a few minutes. He waits for the occasional grandchild to drop in. He waits for someone, anyone, to come who might want to listen to a story from long ago, told by an old man who lives with his memories, like comforting old friends. The storyteller waits, wondering from time to time what the end of his story will be. Like we all wait.
© Rhonda Whetstone Neibauer/1985
Epilogue: Lawrence died at The Homestead, at age 89 on February 12, 1998, of a ruptured aneurysm. He died quickly and peacefully. In the end, Lawrence was still waiting. I spent his last afternoon with him, visiting and talking about days gone by, his home in Pennsylvania and his family there. We laughed and talked and shared stories and thoughts. It was my grandson's birthday and I left to have dinner with their family. I kissed Daddy goodbye and told him I loved him and that I would see him after dinner. He replied, "I love you too Honey Girl. I will be right here, waiting." He died within 20 minutes of my leaving him ~ Rhonda
