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The Unforgettable
Lightening Bolt
by N. Ray Maxie
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Around
January of each year, I am told that Capricorns are usually born.
I am not any different. It was very near my birthday in 1947; my dad
and I were on our way to the post office in Bivins, Texas. We needed
to pick up one hundred live mail-order baby chicks. If you look at
a Texas road map you will find Bivins in northeast Texas on SH-43
about 7 miles south of Atlanta in Cass County. It is located on what
was at one time the Texas & Pacific, later the Missouri
Pacific and is now the Union Pacific Railroad. That area
is known as the Ark-La-Tex
region. Some people call it the Tri-States area.
For the first twenty-one years of my life I lived with my parents
on a rural mail route. Our mail was delivered out of the little country
post office at Bivins. Most every day, if the roads were passable,
the rural "mailman" delivered our mail. That is what we called him
back then. But, the mailman would not deliver live baby chicks. We
had to drive about ten miles to the Bivins post office to pickup anything
that the mailman wouldn't deliver. Today that postal job is known
simply as a letter carrier.
I can remember along about 1949, my mother's greatest desire was to
get a rural route mail job at the Bivins post office. Her elderly
father, long since deceased, had been the postmaster at Starks, Louisiana,
during the early 1900's. I think it was the only job outside our home
that mother ever showed a great amount of interest in. And that was
long, long before anyone had ever heard of NOW, "women's lib" or equal
rights for women. She wanted very much to be employed and she was
a very capable person. Except for one requirement, she couldn't drive.
During that time period, driving requirements in the rural backcountry
of Cass County weren't very strict or even enforced. Mother had passed
all of the USPO application requirements for the job except the driving
test. So, she wanted my dad to teach her how to drive a car. As a
youth, she had grown up in a family that didn't have a car and hardly
had a need for one. Then later, my dad did all the driving in our
family. Although he seemed less than a suited driving instructor and
might have been too impatient with a beginner, he tried. Mother was
determined and tried hard to learn. Our family car at that time was
an old 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline two door. It had the often contrary;
vacuum operated gearshift on the column. The windshield wipers were
vacuum operated, too. If the driver happened to try to operate both
at the same time, it just wouldn't work. Shifting became impossible.
It was not automatic drive; no power steering; no power brakes; no
air conditioning; no turn signals; no nothing! Driving that old car
was pretty difficult. Mother made it jump and jerk a lot while popping
the clutch, hitting the brake and stalling. She never learned how
to shift those gears. The carburetor would flood out occasionally
and dad would pop the hood open and work on it. So, as he often got
angry and overly impatient, mother often got overly frustrated. It
didn't work out and before very long all driving lessons were abruptly
discontinued. They stopped long before mother got the hang of it.
I remember her crying with a great sadness in her heart. She was very
disappointed, to say the least; no drive, no job. I think we all cried
a little bit.
On
that particular day in 1947, my dad and I were about three miles from
the Bivins post office. The previous night had seen a big cold front
pass through the area and there had been severe thunderstorms with
gigantic displays of lightening... next
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©
N. Ray Maxie
piddlinacres@consolidated.net
"Ramblin' Ray"
September 15, 2005 |
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