Theopholous Phifter

Courtesy of Johnny Miller's Grandfather. He was full of funny stories and quotes and tongue twisters. This one may not originally be his, but Johnny Miller had never heard it anywhere else before. So, as a young boy, after conquering the age-old Peter Piper, Johnny Miller learned to quote this one, as well:

Theopholous Phifter, the Thistle Sifter, sifted a sifterful of unsifted thistles in his thistle sifter.

But, if Theopholous Phifter, the Thistle Sifter, sifted a sifterful of unsifted thistles in his thistle sifter,

Where's the sifterful of sifted thistles, that Theopholous Phifter, the Thistle Sifter, sifted in his thistle sifter?

Pieces and Parts

When Johnny Miller was about three or four, he loved to go into the living room, which was paneled in an off-white paneling, a picture or two on the wall, the small black and white television set across the room, and climb up into his Daddy’s lap, over in Daddy’s chair.

His Daddy would ask him, "Do you know what this is?" And point to Johnny's elbow.

He'd say, "This is my elbow."

And Daddy would say, "That's your 'elbone'".

Daddy would ask, "What's this?" And he'd point to Johnny's eyes.

Johnny would answer, "Eyes," and Daddy would say, "These are your eyeballs, and your eyeballs are in your eyeball socket holes."

Next would be the ears, which were “earball socket holes”, then his head, which was his “noggin” with the “fuzz” on top.

Inside his mouth were his “tushes” or teeth. And you can guess what his “snot horn” was. And that “flapper” inside his mouth would someday get him in trouble, when he’d talk too much. Johnny’s stomach, according to his daddy, was his “punch,” and he knew it was so, because Daddy’d been in the hospital one time and told the nurse that he had an upset stomach, and the nurse wrote down, “nauseated paunch”.

Like his “elbones”, Johnny also had “kneebones”. And what he wore on his feet were, of course, his “horseshoes”.

Later on in life, Johnny Miller would look back at those conversations, and know that his Daddy was being silly, but also remember some of the happiest moments of his life. He’d not be able to recall exactly what all of his body parts were, other than the “ordinary” names, but he’d always remember the feeling of sitting in his father’s lap, laughing and loving and playing and learning about his pieces and parts.

There were some lessons that book learning could never teach a young boy.

Chocolate Gravy

Description:
Johnny Miller's family used to have "special occasion" breakfasts... times when family members from out of town came to stay, usually. But sometimes, just because. Usually, biscuits and gravy were served, along with, maybe, eggs and/or bacon. The "special" part sometimes came with the addition of Chocolate Gravy. This was something that some folks just don't get.

But, if you could take your biscuits, and add a little butter, and jelly... or sausage gravy, then why not chocolate gravy? It was quite a treat for the kids, and even the parents.

In young Johnny's mind, there was nothing quite like the magical taste, of a hot, fresh, homemade biscuit, with a little dab of butter melted, and then just the right amount of chocolate gravy poured on top. The melted butter would come up through the chocolate, a little stain of yellow in a brown puddle. Then he'd take his fork, and cut into the biscuit, and eat, and the taste was good enough to last a lifetime.

When done right, chocolate gravy has a consistency similar to white gravy, not too watery, not too thick. Different folks prefer to cook it different ways. This recipe is for Chocolate Gravy like Johnny's family used to eat. The amounts for the basic recipe are wide-open - you can cook for a crowd, or for just a couple of folks. His Momma didn't much go for measuring spoons, it was a little of this, a little of that. And, of course, the family would eat white gravy or sausage gravy, or even just jelly, with biscuits, too, but this was a treat that they could eat on those special occasions. Thanks to Momma Miller for the recipe.

Ingredients:
equal parts of:
cocoa
sugar

half that much or a little more of flour
a shake of salt

water

Or (for one/two persons)
2Tbs Heaped High Cocoa
2Tbs Heaped High Sugar
1Tbs Heaped High Flour
Shake of salt a time or two
Water

Some people add a little vanilla or cinnamon to "enhance" the flavor. Also, some folks substitute milk for all or part of the water, but Momma Miller doesn't. This simple, basic recipe has done the trick for years!

Directions:
Mix all the dry ingredients. Add enough water to make a paste and gradually add water till it's thin (but not watery). Heat it up slowly. Add more water as needed (a little bit at a time) until you get the desired consistency. Cook at a soft boil (medium high) at least ten minutes (depending on amount and consistency). It will thicken up a little bit after you remove it from the heat.

Hint: Add hot tap water to it to reduce cooking time.
You'll have to tweak the recipe a little bit to make it taste the way you want it to.

Preparation Time:
Approximately 20 minutes


Author's note: This has turned into one of my most "popular" stories. If any of you like this recipe or have memories of a "special" breakfast now and again with chocolate gravy, or have variations on this recipe, I'd like to invite comments on the article.

Yankee Dimes

When his Granny and Poppa used to come to Armadillo Creek and stay for a few days, Johnny Miller was always excited. They had an old blue and white VW bus that they used to drive everywhere in. When they’d pick up the boys, Johnny and his brother Tommy would go willingly, wherever they took them. Tommy would tend to doze off, as the quick chugchugchug of the engine got loud up long hills, then would wake up when they started downhill, and the sound faded.

They’d sometimes go over to the next county, where Poppa’s family had lived when he was young, to visit older relatives that couldn’t get out and about too well anymore. On the way there or back, they’d stop at Buttermilk Springs, not named for the buttermilk that flowed out of the ground – but almost. For when they’d drive up the old dirt road, and pull off, and walk up the trail to the springs, in those days, the water was so pure, and cold, that you could see down into it to the bottom, and the bottom of the hole was rock, or clay, or a mix, that was a pale, pale off-white color, almost exactly the shade of buttermilk. And, at a glance, it did look as if buttermilk were flowing out of the ground there.

When they were little, their Poppa would come and he’d tease all the little ones, so playfully and fun, he’d carry them on his shoulders, and play with them like no other adults anywhere did. He’d take his false teeth, and, with his tongue, force the uppers down, and the lowers up, and make them clack together in the most silly of ways. Or he’d walk up to them, and stick his finger in their ears, for no apparent reason at all. And, when they’d go back for a fork, often their plate would be missing when they’d return to the table. He’d play, and all the kids loved it.

Granny was different. She, too, played with the kids, but would scold Poppa when he got too ornery with them. She was as full of love and life as her man of many years was, but she had a Grandmother’s lap, where a skinned knee or bruised anything could go and get comfort. She’d bring blackberry jam, made from berries gathered during their trips up the road, in the wild bushes.

Indeed, all the kids loved the pair of them. Johnny Miller was a thinker, and thought long and hard, about what was the biggest possible amount that there could ever be. He didn’t know too much, then, about pounds, and miles, and other units of measure, but he could think of what had to be the biggest anything there was….

And the next time his Granny came, the one who loved him so dearly when he needed a hug, who gave him “Yankee Dimes” for little jobs done – and how he loved those little kisses. The next time she came, he said, “Granny, I love you….. From the top of God’s head, to the bottom of the devil’s feet.” And, he gave her a big hug.

Then, he turned to his Poppa, who was always teasing him in such a loving and playful way, and whom he loved just as much, and told him, holding his thumb and forefinger just a little ways apart, “Poppa, I love you just about this much!”

Reading Crusoe at Age 4

Long before he went into kindergarten, which at Armadillo Creek elementary school has always been an all-day program, Johnny Miller would read. Like his mother, he would read just about any book he could get his hands on.

He used to go to the old bookshelf, just inside the hallway, and pick up one of his favorites, like Robinson Crusoe, and start to read. When he had been a toddler, his Mommy always read to him and his brother, often reading whatever it was that she'd be reading, whether a western or a sci-fi story, or whatever. The stories she told intrigued him - they were a window into another time and place - another life.

He developed a liking for all kinds of words. Books and stories called him somehow, and listening to the tales would liven up his imagination. The shipwrecked man, stranded on a desert island, somehow making do with the little that he had, and even making a nice life for himself, after he had been stranded with pretty much nothing but the shirt on his back and whatever had washed up on the shore.

And, although, at four, he couldn't read all the words in Robinson Crusoe, he could pick up the book, and starting in the early pages, he could read the numbers at the bottom, or tops, of each page. One, two, three, ... up to ten, then, "Mommy, what's this word?" "Eleven," she'd say. And then, "Eleven, twelve, ... Mommy, what's this word?" "Thirteen."

And, before long, he could count to a hundred, even more. And, so, long before kindergarten he was reading books like Robinson Crusoe, one page number at a time.

Family Stories

One time, years ago, when Johnny Miller's Daddy and Uncle Roger and Aunt Tabby were living out on the farm, long before the kids had come, a pig got loose, out of the pig pen. The old homestead was nestled in a valley between two mountains. Out the valley, past the farm, was nothing but deep, deep woods. The farmland itself was situated on rolling land, which had once been planted with cotton.

There was at no point on the property where you could see all of it, there being way too many dips and rises, and one good-sized creek ran along the back edge of the fields, and another, smaller one, up toward the front of the land.

This pig was nowhere to be seen. The family spread out, and were calling him. "Whoooieeee, whoooooiiieeeeeee!!" they'd call. Finally, out of sight of the others, Aunt Tabby caught a glimpse of the runaway pig, and yelled out, as loud as her lungs could carry, "Thar he is... He's a runnin' yonderways!"

Which did not help the others atall.

When Johnny Miller was born, he had a brother a year and a half old already, Tommy, and the next kid up the line was his sister Ann, who was ten. About a year up from her was Randy, and another year or so up was Robert, the oldest.

They were growing up in the hill country of a southern state, where there weren't too many people unlike themselves anywhere around. Armadillo Creek was not a particularly "racist" community, but, it had always been an area, settled prior to the civil war, with most of the original families still living there, where white folks lived.

Johnny Miller, and his brothers and sister, were brought up to respect folks that were different from them, but at the same time, when you only ever saw people who were "different" on television, or on trips to the city, well, it was hard to relate to them.

Long before Johnny was born, his Momma had taken the older kids into the city, shopping. As she carried little Randy in her arms, with Robert walking along beside, across a busy street, he saw a black couple walking the other way, pushing a baby carriage, in which a beautiful baby was laying, so innocently.

Randy saw that baby, and thought it was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. He asked his Momma, "Momma, can we get one of them chocolate babies and bring it home?"

Now, he didn't mean any harm by the question, but it did embarrass his mother to no end. For years and years, she'd tease him about it, but at the time, she had shushed him up rather quickly.

When Johnny was a baby, his Mother was Mommy, but his sister Ann, being older, was a second Mommy, and he developed the habit of calling her Mama Ann. This was fine and dandy around the house, and everyone accepted it as a normal thing.

Occasionally, out in public, however, it turned into a source of embarrassment for his poor sister. At a community fish fry, held at the Armadillo Creek Fairgrounds, sponsored by the Farm Bureau, Ann was assigned to watch little Johnny.

Of course, she was a young teenager, and he was a toddler, and as they sometimes do, he tended to say what needed to be said without thinking twice. As she stood there, talking to her friends from school, Johnny was dancing and prancing next to her. Finally, he blurted out, at the top of his lungs, his voice carrying over the rustle of the crowd, “Mama Ann, Mama Ann, I gotta go pee!!”

Mama Ann was not happy. There's no amount of talking that can erase the words spoken by a toddler.

Hound Dog

When Johnny Miller was little, his Daddy had a number of jobs - anything to keep food on the table. While he'd grow vegetables in the spring and summer, and cut wood in the fall and winter, he also had other jobs. For a time, he worked in the next county over, at a lumber mill. He and his cousin would ride up together, in the afternoon, and come back, in the early morning hours.

Country living was nothing new to Johnny's Momma, but, sometimes, even with the kids, two younger, and three older, around, things would happen that unsettled them. One evening, the old black and tan hound dog (whose name was Hound Dog), who usually laid around the yard doing nothing much at all, kept barking and barking. Obviously, something had him spooked. It was early evening, getting dark already, but Mom stuck her head out of the front door, and listened to the evening air.

In front of the house, the sidewalk ran out, though the gate, to the driveway next to the road. Along about where the fence was, was a tall post, with a light bulb attached to the top. It wasn't much, as far as streetlights go, but, it was what they had. Inside the yard, several feet from the post with the light bulb dangling off it, was a rosebush, all grown up thick and thorny, with a ton of leaves buried down next to the stems. And in this mess of leaves and thorns and such, an ominous rattling sound could be heard.

Johnny's Momma went inside, and got the old .22 rifle, which had a chamber that held sixteen bullets, and brought it outside. The kids were told to stay inside, and, shaking slightly in fear, and, probably, rage, at this invader, she walked across the yard, to within a few feet of the rosebush, and proceeded to empty the rifle into the darkness, at the source of the rattling sound, until all the bullets were gone, and all the rattling had stopped. She was shaken, no doubt, but had succeeded in quieting the beast which had disturbed the hound's sleep.

The next morning, when it was light enough to see by, Johnny's Daddy went out to investigate. What he found there, in the tangled, thorny stems of the rosebush, was the remains of a rather large rattlesnake. They were able to count at least fourteen separate wounds in the carcass of that snake, and that was one snake would never again invade their yard.

The old hound dog was almost like a burglar alarm. Burglars were not known there, in those days, but if anything was amiss, Hound would tell them about it. Living at the last house on a country road, that continued on into the forest, well, it was good for the soul to be so near nature, but at times, when someone had cut through the forest road, and almost run out of gas, the Miller place was the first place they’d come to.

Once in a while, gas would be gone from the gas tank, Hound or not. On one particular evening, Hound kept acting up, like something was going on. Gas had disappeared a couple of times, recently, and Mr. Miller was getting tired of it. He’d have gladly given some gas to anyone who was stranded, but to have them come up in the middle of the night and just help themselves wasn’t right. He went outside, and listened for a few minutes. And, in the field opposite the house, behind the wild roses that climbed the fence there, he thought he could almost hear rustling, in the grass.

He went back inside, and not knowing if it was somebody, or a wild creature, or his imagination, he got the old 12 gauge shotgun, and stood out on the front porch, and unloaded that gun into the air, once, and then twice, over the heads of whoever might be there. He called out and said, “Whoever you are, if you need something, come on in, otherwise, go back where you came from…” No one ever answered, although, a little while later, a car could be heard, firing up, a half mile or so up the road, and it drove past in the blackness of the night.

A few days later, in Armadillo Creek, Johnny’s Dad was told that someone had heard the rumor that nobody had better be found out that way, at night, sneaking around, because they were liable to get shot at. Somehow, that struck everyone’s funny bone, because the last thing the Millers would do is hurt someone over something so small, but, at the same time, it was nice to know that nobody would be around, stealing gas in the middle of the night. And, never again was it a problem.

Challenges

Armadillo Creek Public Schools consisted of an elementary, which ran from kindergarten up through sixth grade, and a high school, which was seventh on up to twelfth grade. Junior High was seventh through ninth grades, and Senior High was the upper three grades. The high school, Junior and Senior, was all housed in the same building, with the exception of any agriculture and shop classes, which had their own building.

Johnny Miller was in his ninth grade English class on the morning of January, 28^th, 1986. Pencils were scraping, stories being told, lessons being taught. The teacher told a story of being at home, alone, just out in the pool, playing with herself, (and at this point, the classroom erupted into fits of giggling as dirty-minded ninth graders purposely misinterpreted her memories). The rest of the story was unremarkable, and at a few minutes till eleven, there was a soft tap on the door, and the English teacher was called out, into the hallway, by the high school principal.

When she came back in, she was pale, trembling, and had to find a seat to steady herself, before she addressed the class. “The space shuttle…. is gone.” Although Johnny’s class had not watched the liftoff, they all knew it was time for a historic flight, and the first school teacher ever was being taken into space, as part of the "Teacher in Space" program, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Christa McAuliffe’s name would be forever etched into Johnny Miller’s memory.

In the hours and days following, Johnny would hear many hours of continuing coverage, watch the footage as the space shuttle lifted up, almost out of sight, and then, two, then three plumes of smoke drifted apart in the sky. At first, there was hope that survivors would be located in the Atlantic, somehow, but soon, that hope was given up.

Johnny Miller was happy, living in a small town. He had never really dreamed of being an astronaut, although the notion was a good one, and he rather thought he’d enjoy it. This event had a sobering impact upon his classmates, for a day or two. The hallways were abuzz with talk of the explosion, and what it might mean to them, someday.

But, following so closely upon his own father’s death, by only about two and a half months, it must have had a lasting impact upon his future personality, making the older Johnny Miller a more sober one, less eager to laugh at nonsense, or to play silly video games. He was at a point in his life, where the odd jobs he had always somehow found – well, they were putting some food on the table, now. He would still spend some, here and there, upon himself.

But the events of the past few months, along with the fact that he was growing physically, would transform Johnny Miller from the innocent youngster of his childhood, into a more sober person, who identified much more quickly with older people, instead of those his own age.

By the time he was in the eleventh or twelfth grades, he was working after school, and on weekends, and didn’t stop too often to just “have fun”. He would miss his high school prom, not having a girl friend and not really feeling like going “stag”. He would continue to do well, academically, in school, although probably not up to his potential, and when his high school class eventually graduated, he was fifth out of forty-three students.

Springtime

Johnny Miller was once a toddler. As a toddler, stumbling around the farm, there were lots of times where the family worked out of doors, and he loved gardening, and letting his little toes wiggle in the fresh-turned dirt, after his Daddy finished plowing, when the seeds were being planted.

They had a strawberry patch, and he'd go pick nice, big, juicy strawberries and eat them, there, no thoughts of washing them ever crossing his mind. Other fruits and vegetables were abundant, too, and he'd watch his Dad cut up a big, red, onion, and eat it as a side with a bowl of pinto beans. Johnny couldn't handle the spiciness, too well, but he'd try his best to eat them, too.

In the warm spring and summer evenings, along about the time that Rockford Files was coming on, Little Johnny would go grab his Mommy's hand, and tell her, it's time to go for a walk. Later, he would grow to like the Rockford Files, but for now, the thoughts of people shooting people and stuff like that, just didn't much agree with him. He’d much rather go walking.

They'd walk up the road, he barefooted, helping his Mom look for "flat tires", which would be pieces of baling wire, or nails, or old rusty horseshoe-halves, anything that could puncture a tire. If they left the house and went one way, there was an old "house-place" where some long-ago relative had once lived, but which was now just a rock foundation, and across the fence, the peak of the roof of an old barn, barely sticking up out of the leaf-covered patch of woods.

The house-place was one of Johnny's favorite places. As the first sign of spring, there'd be tons of daffodils, which had once lined someone's yard. There were also bushes of different sorts, and a small pond, where there was nothing but small, Punkinseed Perch, which were fun to catch with a fishing pole, once he was a little older, but which weren't big enough to keep.

On past the house-place, where the woods started getting thicker, wild huckleberry bushes grew, right next to the road, and they'd spent quite a bit of time picking them. These, like the strawberries at home, were delightful, the blue juice dribbling down his chin and staining his fingers, as he picked them and ate them by the handfuls.

Going the other direction, from the house, where the road was at a low spot, there was a broad, shallow ditch, and in the springtime, he could go down, day by day, and watch as the strands of jelly-like frog eggs turned suddenly into tadpoles, which, later, started growing legs, and losing their tales, and magically, became little, tiny frogs.

The frogs would liven up as darkness grew near, and for a few hours each evening, they, in conjunction with the locusts, which he would later learn are called cicadas in some parts of the world, would create a musical symphony that'd drown out all other sounds. And, as they quieted down, the whippoorwills in the treetops nearby would call out in the still night air. And if you sat outside, when there was a breeze, it'd rustle through the treetops, a constant, roaring sound which grew deeper as the breeze grew stronger. It sounded for all the world like cars on the highway, but there were none of those, anywhere near.

Armadillo Creek

Armadillo Creek is located in a mountainous region, abundant with trees and creeks and rivers and lakes. Many, many miles of National Forest surround the town. The population of Armadillo Creek, in the 1980 census, was right around a thousand, give or take, which was slightly less than the decade before.

Armadillo is the county seat, and its largest town, at the heart of a county full of some eight thousand residents. There are three school districts in the county, and the largest is the one in Armadillo, whose graduating class often boasts forty or more students, and the smallest is in Donner, and usually has less than a dozen.

Every May, the three schools have a May Day competition, where sixth graders from each school meet at the boy's camp, along Silver Creek, between Armadillo and Donner. The kids go and play and have a grand time. When it came Johnny Miller's time to go, his class loaded up in a school bus, and drove the fifteen miles or so to the camp. After they got there, there were activities planned, things to do for all day long. Some of the highlights were a sack race and an egg toss. Luckily, the egg toss came at the end of the day, and although Johnny was never too athletically inclined, he and his partner did well that day. That is, until the kid next to his partner got off-target, and the egg landed smack-dab on the top of Johnny's head. Once that happened, as the egg dripped down his forehead, well, the egg toss was over. Johnny's next toss just went straight up into the air, and ended up nowhere near his partner.

Armadillo Creek, it's said, once had its own movie theater, where kids could go for a nickel, and buy a popcorn and a giant candy bar and a coke, and watch John Wayne or others. It once had its own Ford dealer, so they say. Back then, logging was still going strong, and there was a glove factory in addition to the shoe factory of today. Now, many jobs had been lost over the years, and many of the businesses of the past had gone by the wayside.

When Johnny was little, he could still buy a coke, or more often, a Pepsi, out of the coke machine for a quarter, and the kids'd often go around to the neighbors and gather bottles, and take them back to the store for a refund of the deposits. At a nickel each, they could make a dollar or two in a short amount of time.

The elementary school in Armadillo Creek had been built in the thirties. Johnny's Dad had gone there, as a child, and told him stories of things done, long ago, on that same playground where Johnny played. His first grade teacher was an icon in the area. Miss Marilyn had been teaching for as long as anyone could remember, and she still taught well. She taught lessons that went beyond the Dick and Jane storybooks, and "Electric Company" on the television set.

Her husband owned the town drug store, which his family had founded years and years ago. You could still walk in and buy a fresh-squeezed lemonade (with a little cherry flavor), or a strawberry shake, at the soda fountain, which had been there forever. Across the street, in the "square", the old courthouse stood, a building as old as the elementary school, housing all the county offices.

The post office was a couple of streets over, housed in an old, small church-house that had been outgrown by the church, years ago. Between the post office and the school, a block or two away, stood the First United Methodist Church, and for years, its bells had been tolling tunes every hour, and half hour, and even longer at noon.

Over behind the library, there, in town, on a dead end street, lived the Junk Man. No one seemed to know his name - at least, not the kids Johnny knew, and it didn't really matter - he was just, the Junk Man. The Junk Man had tables and tables full of interesting goodies, and if you were on a budget of a nickel or a dime, you could often find something interesting, and the kind old man would usually give you something extra, just for coming there.

On the edge of town, off toward the lake, and the city beyond, was the county fairgrounds. Each year, a "fair parade" started in the heart of town, by the old abandoned glove factory, and would wind it's way past the courthouse square, down past the Dairycream, out to the fairgrounds, where there'd be some small carnival company that would come in and set up for a week or so. At the fair itself, there were buildings full of displays, and all the kids, sooner or later, were bound to win a ribbon for their artwork, done in the classroom and proudly displayed by the teachers. The judges would get to taste cookies, and apple pies, and salsa, and everything between. On Friday night would be the rodeo, followed on Saturday by a crash-up derby, where folks would smash their way to victory in old cars, pieced together from parts out of the junk yard.

Winters in Armadillo Creek were generally mild, but sometimes, brutal. There'd be winters where only a couple of dustings of snow fell, all winter, and others where an icestorm or a snowstorm would come through and stay for days. Spring and fall were always nice. There'd usually be plenty of rain, but not too much, although there were years where all the rivers and creeks flooded their banks, and it was impossible to even get into town because the one-lane bridges would be feet under water. Summertime was hot, but not too humid, and usually mild, although some years there'd be weeks without rain, and others, a little too much.

If it can be said, truly, that “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy…”, then this description would fit little Johnny Miller well. Although he would travel, in his childhood, going to see relatives, and later, as an adult, far away, he would always keep within him the memories of a simple time, a simple place, a simple life, in Armadillo Creek.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

When Johnny Miller was small, he lived on the old family homestead, several miles out of Armadillo Creek and down a winding dirt road. They'd often come into town, and stop at his Great-Aunty Tabby and Uncle Roger's house on Elm Street. Aunt Tabby and Uncle Roger were actually brother and sister, and had raised Johnny's Dad as if they were his parents.

Visiting them was always fun. They had air conditioning - a window unit in the living room, and a television set where Johnny could watch cool shows like The Price is Right. At home, the television did not come on until the five o'clock news, with the exception that often, on Saturdays, it came on at 4pm for Hee Haw.

Aunty Tabby would have dinners at her house, and would cook for a crowd. There was nothing at all like the wonderful aromas, as she served the platters of pot roast, gravy boats full of brown gravy, the mashed potatoes, with little pieces of skin still in them, sweet potatoes, baked in the oven, covered in butter, wrapped in foil, and home-canned green beans, and rolls. And if all this were not enough, there'd be fried pies for desert.

The annual Miller family reunion would usually be hosted at their house, and family would gather around from several states. A lot of the closer family would come out to stay at the farm where Johnny called home, and they'd line the kids up, wall to wall, on the floor, and the extra adults would sleep on the sofabed, or on a pallet on the floor like the kids.

Johnny, and his brother Tommy, who was a year and a half older than him, would run around with all the cousins, playing with kids their own age, for a change. They'd go into the old shed, sided and topped with rusty old tin sheets, which had a peaked roof, but was open just under the peak, and climb up, and lean out of the opening, pretending to hold guns and shoot at the brothers and cousins that were running wild, outside. They shot many a cowboy or Indian, or shot at Japs (who knew what they were... just somebody you were supposed to shoot at!)

By the time he was nine or ten, Johnny Miller had moved to town, and life was, well, different. He still went to the same school, even still rode the same old school bus, Number 3, driven by Mr. Jones. The house that they had moved into was inherited by his Dad, when Aunt Tabby and Uncle Roger got into a car accident, and were hurt bad enough that they'd spend most of the rest of their days in a nursing home.

The Millers still maintained a small garden there, and Johnny learned he could sell Christmas cards, to the neighbors, or indeed, around Armadillo, for extra money. He saw an advertisement for Grit Magazine, and started selling those, door to door. He did this for quite some time, and would spend time out in front of the grocery stores, as well. He had a hard time keeping the money there, though, as those Nestle Crunch candy bars inside were an awful temptation.

It seemed that every five weeks, the folks at Grit would send him four weeks worth of cards to account for the magazines with, and after a while, finally Mom declared an end to it. It had been a nice business venture for Johnny, and he earned a little money, and won a prize of a pocket knife through his sales, which, unfortunately, was soon lost in a tromp through the woods, never to be seen again.

In Armadillo Creek, even when he wasn't selling cards, or papers, he could mow grass for the neighbors. Aunt Florence, who wasn't his aunt, if she was related at all, but an elderly neighbor who was always close to the family, would let him come over and while away the days with her. They'd putter around the yard, pulling weeds out of the flower beds, or he'd mow her grass, or trim some bushes. He'd often, during the right time of year, eat handfuls of plump, juicy mulberries off her tree in the back yard. When she could, she'd give him a dollar or two for his "work", which he promptly spent on something or other, probably a coke and a candy bar, or a book.

Even if she hadn't paid him for his troubles, he'd have come anyway. He loved hearing her stories of a time gone by. Her husband, and others, used to go grade the streets and roads, long before the county took over. They might use mules, and heavy bars, to do what the road graders of today did, but they got it done as a community, not just somebody coming out once or twice a year from the county. And he learned that even Armadillo Creek had once had a movie house, although it had been closed now for many years.

Becoming a teenager changed Johnny. Not only was he in a new world, where there were other kids his age running around town with him, building snow forts in the winter, and riding bikes in the summer, but there were new "things" to be had as well. Johnny's family still didn't have a lot of money, and he'd have given almost anything to own one of those new, fancy gaming systems - the Atari.

Eventually, when the new wore off, and the better off kids were getting new gaming systems, Johnny got ahold of an old Atari at a yard sale, and spent many an hour playing Pitfall, and Pac Man, and lots of other games. Although this took up a little more of his time, Johnny never gave up on books, and reading. His mother taught him a love of westerns, and science fiction, and anything in between that was worth reading.

Some of his favorites ranged from the stories of the Sackett family by Louis L'amour, to Star Trek novels by various writers. Both worlds intrigued him. One, the voice of the past, told of a family that through generations stayed close and together and fought for goodness and freedom. The other, the voice of the future, told of a world where all of mankind stood together in peaceful brotherhood, along with their pointy-eared friends. The first told him of a past that was similar to his own background, where family and love of nature were so important, and the other whispered to him of what the future could be, beyond the troubles of the cold war and the world he was living in.

Armadillo Creek was a place where all of the good in life was there to be had, for anyone willing to accept it. And in a few short years, Johnny grew into a different person than the child from the farm. When he was fourteen, almost fifteen, someone knocked at the door of his classroom, calling him out.

His sister Ann's husband, Donald, was there, and told him, as gently as possible, that his Dad was gone. Just like that, out of the blue. As they rode, in silence, back to Johnny's house, thoughts kept whizzing through Johnny's head. Like, "I wonder how bad the truck was wrecked?" He couldn't imagine what else could have taken his Daddy away... but as they pulled into the driveway, the truck sat there, unscratched.

It seems that many years of smoking, and occasionally, drinking, and working long, long days, had taken their toll on his Daddy's heart, and it just up and quit, out of the blue. Johnny would be haunted for years by dreams of his Dad coming back in the middle of the night... of it being a 'hoax' or something, like the stories he had heard of Hank Williams or Elvis Presley not really being dead, after all.

Although the carefree days of his early teen years were gone, life did go on. Johnny's uncle came to stay with them for a time, and they worked on the old home out in the country, and moved back there, to his roots, selling the house in Armadillo Creek. Johnny would spend the remainder of his days as a teenager in that house, listening to the call of the wild, the whippoorwills singing in the evening air, and occasionally the distant sound of yipping from coyotes. Being back in the home of his childhood brought peace back into his heart, even though he never could quite find that part of him that was missing with his father's absence.

Working and Playing

Johnny Miller spent the first eight years of his life "on the farm". The Miller family had homesteaded several plots of land back in the last half of the eighteen hundreds. Over the years, as the family grew up and grew apart, the original homesteads were sold to other folks. Johnny's parent's land was the last of the original homesteads still owned by Millers.

When he was very young, the Millers had a milk cow and a few other cows and calves. Once in a while, one of the Momma cows would go off and hide in the thicket with her newborn calf, and the family would have to search, sometimes for hours, to find where she was hidden, and make sure the calf was all right.

Of course, over the years they also raised a few pigs and chickens. Back behind the old house, inside the fence, they had built a chicken coop. It was divided into two sections. An old sheet-metal nesting box out of a chicken house somewhere had been placed there for the chickens.

At one point, they got some ducks, and placed them in the other side of the pen. Johnny's favorite was a small, gray duck, with twin yellow stripes. He named this one "Super Duck" for the cape running down its back. The ducks spent most of their time nesting in the old chicken coops, and one morning Johnny had gone into the coop to feed them, and found that his little Super Duck had gotten caught under a bent up piece of the sheet metal, and his back was torn open and bleeding. It was pretty bad!

Johnny was very upset, and kept asking his Momma if Super Duck was going to be all right. She'd not say that he was, she just said that they'd do what they could and let God do the rest. She cleaned the cut as best she could and Super Duck made a complete recovery and life on the farm was good.

The Miller family used to grow lots of crops in their gardens. Johnny's Dad dug an area down a few feet in the corner of the garden, and built a greenhouse of sorts out of rough cut 2x4 lumber and plastic sheeting. He could start growing tomatoes here and they'd be ready to sell early in the season. One late spring night, after the tomatoes had been planted, a late frost came in. The whole family got into high gear, looking for old tin cans and such to cover the young plants with. They'd take a large tin can, and tap a single hole in the center of the top, and place it on one of the young plants. Most of them survived the late frost, and one more source of income was preserved.

Johnny's Daddy also grew watermelons. He'd plow up the end of the field over by the old sweetgum tree, plowing first one direction, then across it, making large squares of fresh-cut earth. Johnny and his brothers and his sister would walk barefooted through this fresh-turned dirt and poke holes in the tops of the mounds, and plop a seed in, several to a mound. It was always fun to go out and watch for the first sign of the plants coming through the dirt, and even more fun when the watermelons were ripe and ready to pick! Dad would tap on the outside of the melons, listening to the hollow-sounding thump, and say, this one's ripe, or, not yet.

His Dad would load them up in the truck, and head to the farmers market, or make rounds, door to door. He'd sell many tomatoes and watermelons in those years. Whatever was spoiled, the boys or Dad would toss over the fence and let the cows, or the pigs, eat their fill.

There was a lot of work for the whole family in those days, but as hard as the family worked, they'd also take time to play. On rainy days, the marble board would come out. It was an eight-sided piece of painted plywood, with patterns of holes cut around the sides, and, of course, home rows to get your marbles to. The first one to get his marbles home would win.

Hours and hours of dominoes were played in the evenings. The kids would build towers in the living room with an old set, while the parents and other family members who happened to be there would play the real game in the dining room.

When weather was nicer, and the work all caught up, the family would take sandwiches up the old forest road and over the mountain to an old CCC project area that was now a forest service picnic area. The Springs had a pavilion, with a concrete floor and wooden roof and a couple of old picnic tables, set in the middle of the forest alongside a creek.

The best thing about this site was the blast of water which would come out of the ground just below the picnic table but above the creek. The water was pure and cold, and had been coming out of that hole for many, many years, and, no doubt, will continue to do so for many more.

Even when the family owned no television, there was little time for boredom. Whether the family was working together, playing together, or he was just reading a book, alone, Johnny had plenty to keep him busy.

Away From Home

Somewhere along about his tenth year, Johnny Miller got to spend a couple of weeks with some of his family, around a hundred miles from home. Whereas Armadillo Creek had a population of around a thousand, give or take, in the 1980 census, the border city near where his Grandparents lived was more like forty or fifty thousand, maybe.

His grandparents were actually living across the state line, on a few acres of land they owned over there. He learned a bit about using a riding mower that summer. Pop would always let the youngsters help take care of the place, as long as they'd take care of his stuff. Up till then, he'd only ever used a push mower, and use it he had! And fixed it on occasion.

When you didn't have a lot of money, you made do. Sometimes that meant taking a carburetor apart, cleaning it, and if you had to, replacing the gasket with some thin pieces of cardboard, cut off a box or a notebook cover. It probably wouldn’t be the best repair possible, but it cost nothing, and the mower would run fine till the next time it broke.

But Pop and Granny had a real riding mower. Parked it in the shed, and everything! He'd get to do circles around their ten or twelve acres of land. Pop'd say, now, make sure you "overlap" your last circle. Of course, this really wasn't any different than using the push mower, just faster, and you got to steer it, just like a car!

One night, Pop and Gran's church had a nice dinner. It was a fairly big church, over in the city, and they had dining tables set up with all kinds of fixings. It was almost like a family reunion, only more so. He did pretty good, and didn't embarrass himself too much, till desert came. He had noticed folks putting whipped topping from the dishes on the center of the table on their potatoes, and thought, there's some strange folks around here. But when dessert came, he had his big slice of pie, and decided, now's my time! He got him a big spoonful of the whipped topping and started to put it on his pie, when his grandparents stopped him.

He couldn't understand that. Till they explained that it wasn't whipped topping at all, but sour cream. Now, THAT was a new one on him! He'd never heard of such a thing. He never did grow to like sour cream all that much - something just wasn't right about something that looked like whipped topping being put on taters and all.

After a week with his grandparents, Johnny went and spent a couple of days across the state line in the city with his aunt and cousins. They lived in apartment and had a pool and everything! Johnny had never been in a real pool before. Of course, he'd been "swimming" many times, but that was going down to the creek, or to the river, and wading around awhile. Or as a treat, he'd get to go to the swimming area over on the lake. But never a pool!

He wasn't too tall, yet, but found he could just keep his nose above water, even if he pushed away from the wall on the deep end. It wasn't really that deep. What he learned, the hard way, though, was that out in the middle of the deep end, by where the drain was, it was just a little, teeny bit deeper. Just enough to cause him to suck in some water in his nose, which he had managed, to that point, to keep above the water.

When that happened, Johnny, who didn't really know how to swim, panicked. He fought to stay up, but it was no good. If he'd remained calm, he could probably have made it back to the edge by walking, but, well, that's ifs for ya. As it was, his older brother Randy, who was living in the city now, too, happened to walk over to the pool about that time and saw him. He was dressed, blue jeans and all, but jumped right in there and pulled him to safety.

That summer, Johnny also got to spend a few days with his sister Ann. She was the youngest of the older three kids, but about ten years older than Johnny. She was young and single and a Mom, and was working and going to school here. By the time he went to her apartment, he'd been gone from home for almost two weeks. He had a blast playing with all the kids there in the neighborhood, but homesickness was about to overcome him.

He felt plumb sick, and went to bed for a while. When the neighbor kids came over to play, he couldn't go out. They decided to do him a favor though. One of them rode his bicycle down the street to the Long John Silvers, or maybe his parents had gone there. Anyhow, he brought Johnny back a basket of "crispy critters".

Now, Johnny'd had plenty of fried food before, so this wasn't that new. He had never eaten someplace like Long Johns, but, chunks of batter, fried in all that grease, well, it was crispy and crunchy and not all that bad. He didn't get to finish the basket though. All that grease hit the already upset stomach, and the two didn't mix at all.

On the good side, the sickness that came and went cleared out the homesick for the last day or two of his stay. He played and ran and had a good time. When all was said and done, Johnny'd had a fine time in the city, and at Pop and Grans. But, boy, was he ever glad to get back home to Armadillo Creek, and Mom and Dad.

Good Neighbor Day

Johnny Miller's family lived a few miles outside of Armadillo Creek, about halfway between there and Newport, off state highway 45, and down an old dirt road about three or four miles. They had an Armadillo phone number, but a Newport address.

Just past the turnoff down Johnny's road, on toward Newport, was Armadillo Creek Mountain. At least, that's what he'd heard it called all his life. He found out later that the folks over in Newport called it Newport Mountain.

That landmark was the dividing line between school districts. His school bus would go to the foot of the mountain, to the last house there, then turn back until it got to his road, and go to his house, and the driver was done.

Newport was an old town, like Armadillo Creek. It had started out more than a century ago as a logging town, and had never quite quit. The old school there was shut down now. The schools in the next town over covered that whole part of the county.

When he was little, his Dad used to tell him the story of what Newport schools were called a long time ago - "Poor Horse Schools". Johnny never learned if that was an "official" name, or just one of those "Pick on Newport" things.

The railroad used to wind its way along a spur line into Newport, but never did make it all the way to Armadillo Creek. Somewhere in the late seventies or early eighties, logging had gotten down to the point where the lumber mill in Newport pretty much died when the river flooded out the railroad tracks, and it cost too much to fix it to make it worthwhile to keep it alive. So trains were heard no longer in the county.

Although the economy wasn't booming here, the people were friendly. Each Labor Day, they'd celebrate with "Good Neighbor Day". Now, that had to be one of the highlights of the year for young Johnny. Over in the Newport City Park, they'd have a couple of bandstands set up. On one end, it'd be a stage with an old, country-gospel band, and on the other end, usually a bluegrass or a country act. Nobody famous - just local groups that were surprisingly good. Maybe one year or another, somebody like the one-man traveling band would come into town.

The organizers would set up a day or two in advance. A local farm family donated calves, and a big barbeque lunch was served. It was free for all, and grew year by year. The community came together and everyone seemed to have a great time. There was a carnival atmosphere, and while the parents visited and caught up and enjoyed the music, the kids ran down to the creek next to the park, and skipped rocks, or waded, or hunted for crawdads.

Jon boats would be set up on sawhorses, with tons of ice and canned cokes, from Pepsi to Coca Cola and Mountain Dew to Sprite and 7Up. Of course, donations were accepted, and when they could, people would give.

Politicians in the state liked to stop by here, and Johnny can remember shaking the hand of Frank White. He was not the governor, but had been. Politics here being what they were, Frank White had become governor by beating the old one, then lost to the same man, second time around. Now he was trying to become governor again, and was out pumping hands, even in this small town. Frank White was to never become governor again, but the one who beat him one day ended up in the White House.

Next to family reunions and Christmas, Good Neighbor Day was one of the highlights of Johnny's life. Poor Horse wasn't such a bad town, no matter what the folks on his side of the mountain said!

Food and Family

It seemed like, when he was young, Johnny Miller didn't remember ever going hungry. It's true they ate a lot of pinto beans and cornbread, but Mom always managed to fix it so it was a treat. He'd often get to help sort the beans, removing bits of stone and shriveled up beans, and once the bag of dry beans had been gone through, Mom would rinse the beans, then let them sit overnight, in a pot, on the stove.

The next day, the cooking would begin, and by afternoon the smell of beans simmering would fill the house and escape to the yard beyond. And even if she had added only a slice of bacon or a bit of ground beef to the beans for flavor, there was nothing like having a slice of cornbread in the bowl, with a little butter on top, and then pour the beans and bean juice over on top of that - the corn bread soaking up the bean juice till it'd almost dissolve in his mouth.

His Grandpa, having lived through the depression, and having learned to make the most of what you had, wouldn't stop there. If he had beans, but no corn bread or corn cakes, he'd take anything of the sort - leftover biscuits from breakfast, chocolate cake from a birthday party - anything, and pour the beans over and eat it up. Johnny never quite could get a taste for chocolate cake and pinto beans, though.

Food wasn't always plentiful. You ate what you had. Oftentimes it was what you grew. Watermelons grew well there, as did tomatoes, potatoes, well - pretty much anything you cared for would grow as long as you took care of it. Then, of course, there was hunting, and fishing.

Johnny never had "seafood", in the sense of food from the sea. He ate plenty of perch and bass and crappie and catfish of various types, all of which were generally caught in the farm pond, or maybe the neighbor's pond, or even the river, over near town. Fishing was always a great outing.

One time they got to go on a fishing trip. It was just a mile or so from the house, but that neighbor had three ponds. The big one, just inside the gate between the road and the house, off to the side - that was where the fish were biting that day. They could do no wrong. They had started out with a can of worms, and caught crickets and grasshoppers.

Johnny's Dad, his brother just a year older, and Robert, his oldest brother - they were all fishing, and pulling in fish as quick as they'd cast the line out. They must have caught over a hundred fish that day - everything from good sized crappie (what a fun fight), to little punkin-seed perch, too small to keep, to big ones, and the bass and catfish. Their stringers, all three or four were full, and they ran out of bait. Robert took a couple of forked tree limbs, trimmed the branches off, and they started stringing fish up on them. When the bait ran out, they casted with bare hooks, and even then, the fish kept on biting.

Finally, they quit. It just didn't seem sporting anymore, with the fish just throwing themselves on the hooks that way. Besides, what a man catches must be cleaned. That was the bad side of fishing. Luckily, Johnny was a little tike, and although he had to help, that was mostly carrying the buckets of fish guts and scales and fins off into the woods and dumping them out. Hours later, when all the work was done, and the freezer packed to full with fish, they started planning a fish fry.

When the day came, uncles and aunts and cousins were all there. A couple of home-made deep fryers were set up in the yard, with big pots of oil. Momma and the other aunts dipped the fish in corn meal and spices, and brought them out to the men to cook. Boy, that was the best fish he ever tasted, before or since. Everybody kept saying, "Not sure if I like it or not, better have another piece." But, they all knew that it was just an excuse to keep on eating. As for Johnny, it helped that he'd been there when the harvest occurred. There was nothing like the feeling he had eating what he had helped to catch!

Later on in his life, Johnny would think back to that time, and wonder what in the heck was up with them fish. He hasn't ever had that kind of luck since... but that's all right, he never did quite learn to enjoy the cleaning of the fish. It was more fun to go out to the creek and drop in your hook and rest and ponder life's little problems and think about things, and if a nibble happened, then good, and if not, at least you got away for a while.

Dirt Roads

When Johnny Miller was little, he lived on a family homestead out of town a ways. Life there was quiet. The forest stopped next to the farmland that he called home. In the springtime air, whippoorwills could be heard in the trees, seemingly only a few feet away.

When weather was nice, he and his Momma, and sometimes another brother or sister, would go for long walks down the quiet, dusty road. Farther down past the old homeplace, the road dipped through a creek. It was always fun running around barefooted - the rocks and gravel were just a part of life. A natural thing. He thought nothing of them pressing into his feet.

Oftentimes they'd walk down to the creek, and go wading, looking here and there for a crawdad. He'd pick up rocks, and quickly the crawdads would dart over to another rock, but if he was really fast, he could reach down and grab one and he'd have his prize. Sometimes, all he could find were little tiny ones - but sometimes, there were those scary giants that were all of four or five inches long! The pinchers would almost draw blood. You could take a twig or a long blade of grass, and they'd snap at it, and you could pick them up with it and they'd dangle them there, above the water.

They really were ugly little critters. He would have never thought that in some places people were crazy enough to eat those things! For him, they were more like toys, provided by God, for his entertainment and amusement. He'd heard of lobsters, but didn't really know what they were. Something rich folks ate once in a while, maybe. If he'd seen a picture of a lobster, he'd have been struck with awe!

On one such trip down to the creek, when he was a toddler, after wading around knee-deep in the water for a while, it was time to head back home. He decided to get stubborn; he was tired, and it was Momma's turn to carry him! But she merely smiled and started walking.

His oldest brother was along and went back to carry him, but Mom told him to leave the boy alone. His two legs carried him there, they'd carry him home. He sat down in the middle of the road and cried. But, eventually, he got lonely, and started walking behind the others.

That long, dusty road. Traffic was light. During the week and Saturday's, there'd always be at least one car go by. The mailman came, rain or shine. During school years, the bus would come, turn around in the driveway, and head back to town. Once in a while, a neighbor would drive by - probably heading into the woods hoping for a potshot at a deer or a turkey.

One time the red hill, almost a mile away from the house, was muddy as could be. The hill got its name because of the red clay which was there many, many years ago when the road was pushed out of the woods. During dry spells, the clay would get so hard and packed Johnny could leave black marks on it with his bicycle. But this day, it had been raining, and raining, and raining some more. The clay had turned slick. It was getting late in the day, and the school bus was bringing the kids home.

Mr. Jones, the driver of old Bus Number 3, eased across the one-lane bridge at the bottom of the hill, and started slowly up. As he did so, the wheels began to spin, just a bit. Although he'd been driving a bus for years, there was nothing he could do. As he started into the turn up the hill, the bus started slipping sideways, and a moment later was buried in the mud in the ditch.

Back in those days, the buses had no radios. The nearest house was over the hill. The road was pretty much impassable, but Johnny's older brothers and sister, and the two neighbor boys that lived on the other side of the hill, started walking them through the pouring rain, over the hill to the neighbor's house. Once they got past the red hill, the neighbors drove them all on home. They were covered in mud and muck hip deep, but they made it. It was an adventure to remember!

Growing up in the Eighties

Growing up in small town America has its ups and downs. In Armadillo Creek, in the 1980's, there was no movie theatre. There was no "fast food" restaurant, unless you count the Dairycream, but there were a couple of "family" restaurants. There were two grocery stores, the Piggly Wiggly and the IGA. These changed names, over time, and eventually one shut down.

There weren't too many jobs, either. The old shoe factory seems to have pre-dated the Constitution, but somehow has managed to survive even into today. The glove factory had shut down by then. Livestock had once played a big part in local life, and weekly auctions were held - until the sale barn burned down. Farming and agriculture are still fairly big there, but there's no large local market and so farmers found it tough to hold on.

Logging and lumberyards once kept many people busy, but over time, people became aware that logging was destroying natural habitat, so the Forest Service started reducing the amount allowed, until the only logging allowed were small tracts, and often it became so expensive to get to an area for the amount that was allowed to be cut, that it wasn't worth the trouble anymore. And so the forests grew more wild and beautiful than they had been in years, but sawmills began to close.

Tourism was the last hope of keeping the economy alive. With a large lake and forest all around, tourism is the one industry that prospered. Kids didn't have a lot to do with their time, and took advantage of every opportunity to "get out" that they could find.

Youth groups at local churches used to take trips into the city for their outings. On one such trip, Johnny Miller and his friends rode in the church bus all the way to a bowling alley some forty miles away. Johnny had never been bowling before, and did not do so well... but, as did the rest of the kids, he had a lot of fun.

On the way back through the city, the group stopped at a McDonalds. This was a rare treat. Johnny could count on both hands the number of times that he had eaten at such a nice restaurant. One thing memorable about the nineteen-eighties was the "Where's the beef?" ad campaign from Wendys. Being as how this group of kids had just come in from bowling and were pretty wound up, one of the kids, Jim, went to the counter, yelling at the wait staff, "Where's the beef?" Then he got a funny look on his face and said, "Wait, this isn't Wendy's!" and ran out the door.... Jim just wasn't right in the head.

On another outing, this one a school trip upstate, some of the local kids were allowed to participate in a state-wide "quiz bowl". The questions were not memorable, and the Armadillo Creek kids won a round or two, and then lost, and went home satisfied that they did ... well - that they had tried. The only thing that Johnny took home from that trip was the memory of a conversation:

Another kid, a "transplant", as it were, from somewhere up north, Timothy, was sitting there, explaining the world to all these small town kids. Somebody piped up, "Tim, why is it that people from up north, they ride their brakes when driving up a hill?" Tim did not bat an eye... "Well, they don't want to roll back down the hill." Johnny guessed that Timothy was pulling their leg, but.... maybe Yankees really were that dumb!

Kindergarten

Johnny Miller had a tough time of it, there, in kindergarten. He was the baby of the family - the youngest of several kids. And he got picked on, sometimes, but as the youngest, learned to fight back, too.

In Armadillo Creek, back then, the schools were small. The teachers were great, but the facilities were old. Kindergarten sat across the street from the rest of the school, within view of the elementary and the high school, in a house with its own fenced in yard.

Being a small town, all the kids rode the same set of school buses, kindergarten all the way up to twelfth grade, and Johnny's was no exception. So, each day he'd load up into Bus Number 3. He lived far from town, and was often the first aboard the bus, and the last off. The ride was about an hour, altogether. And, being a youngster, he endured some good-natured, and some mean, teasing.

The favorite seemed to be, from his teenage brothers and their friends, "What's your name?" and he'd answer, "Johnny Millo"... they'd say, "No, what's your full name?" and he'd answer, "Johnny Awful Millo" and they'd roar with laughter. It never grew old...

Johnny Arthur Miller was born in the early 1970s. He started Kindergarten in August of 1976... by the middle of the school year, he was loving school - although he'd come home and his Daddy would good naturedly ask him, "Did you ask any girls for sugars today?", to which he'd inevitably answer, "No". But, he did know what sugars were... "kisses"... Boy, was he terrified of girls!

One day, he steeled himself and faced the bitter truth. There was only one way to get beyond this "sugars" thing. He walked up to the cute girl that lived a couple of miles away and rode the same bus into town. The girl whose older brother joined his in teasing him. They were on the playground, near the teeter-totter. He screwed up his courage, and blurted out, "GeeGee, can I have some salt?"

He got slugged. Now... sugar and salt look the same, don't they? He never did quite find out for sure if she knew what it was that he was asking for or not - although he heard rumors, from his uncle, years later, that she still remembered the incident. As for him, he was totally mortified, and more terrified than ever before about girls.

And so he sank into the welcome world of school books. His Big Chief writing tablet would get plenty of workouts in the months and years ahead.

And, his Dad quit teasing him about 'sugars'... Eventually, as his speech improved, the teasing about "Awful" stopped, too. And so the school life of Johnny Miller began.