We’re back across the Wabash River into Illinois and once again we’ve slipped back into Central time and this is where I had to get a little creative with the image gallery to try to present the pictures in the order in which they were actually taken because I can’t rely on the timestamps as I usually do!
This is the home stretch as it were to follow Illinois Highway 33 through Palestine IL and then on to Hutsonville itself.
Along the way, we’d see the ingenuity of the farmer that repurposed an old worn out school bus to haul pumpkins harvested from the field.
This routing was chosen so that we could pass by a farm that Mom would be very familiar with about halfway between Palestine and Hutsonville. The Captain’s Homeplace may well be in rather rough shape and the service buildings for the farm have changed a bit but I certainly remember visiting there many years ago with Mom.
Occasionally those visits would include an ill-behaved arch-nemesis in the form of a cousin of sorts named Jamie.
To say we didn’t exactly get along was quite the understatement and there were a few times Mamaw Colliflower would have the two of us completely controlled by fingers that were exceptionally strong thanks to years of shelling snap beans firmly attached to the very sensitive bits of our ears as she was handing us off to our various mothers for a bit of discipline.
I can *STILL* feel that steel pinch to this day and the mere mention of her name is enough to get me to cover my ears just in case she’d come back from her eternal rest to mete out her particular flavour of getting someone’s attention.
To be fair, I didn’t feel much remorse at the time for dumping a pitcher of water over Jamie at the time when he was throwing a temper tantrum and pointing out how much of a baby he was being. I don’t really feel much remorse for it now even though my ears are safe now. Probably. 🙂
Dad and I found out years later that Jamie was already in the air and en route to Port Orange FL from Indianapolis as he was going to be staying over for a bit with us. I really don’t remember us getting any warning this was happening but I have to figure that at least Dad knew something even though he was acting as surprised as I was.
At the time, I think Jamie had some idea that he was going to join the military and that perhaps my father could give him some pointers whilst he was with us.
Frankly, I think it far more likely he was told by someone in black robes that it was either the military or jail and for some reason he felt the military was the better choice. My near sixteen years of serving as an Army brat which included billets as Dad’s “Radar O’Reilly” company clerk knew that jail couldn’t possibly be a harder gig than being a single parent in the Army or his aide de camp! 🙂
From what I observed during those few days from hell, his behaviour not only hadn’t improved with about fifteen more years on him but came quickly to the conclusion that he’d actually devolved into the most lecherous and disrespectful creature I’d encountered up to that point in life.
One thing you learn quickly when you’re a son of a veteran is that whilst they’re generally OK with the concept of fighting to preserve democracy, they often don’t have any desire to practise it at home. That’s kind of a harsh lesson as is the one about being on the lower end of the ranks is often not the joy it may seem.
Unfortunately for Jamie during this visit…whilst I was a low-rank nobody in Dad’s army, I still outranked *HIM* in our household and I was no more fond of being democratic or diplomatic about it!
My marching orders on this particular day was to take Jamie out to the movies (or anywhere other than the house as he’d already gotten on Dad’s last nerve for the day) and the operational concept laid down from upon high was that I was in charge during this expedition.
One of the things I’d made very clear was that I was not only not a fan of Jamie’s smoking habit, he needed to make sure that he didn’t smoke anywhere near me because I was really not interested in spending several minutes coughing up a lung due to acrid clouds of burnt nicotine.
So wouldn’t you know it but I’d no sooner made the right turn onto I-95 to head toward the movie theatre in South Daytona via Beville Road and there he is lighting up one of those wretched cigarettes. I tried a couple of times to gently remind him that the smoking was verboten in my presence to no avail so I pulled off onto the shoulder and told him in no uncertain terms to hit the pavement.
He told me I couldn’t do that and I suggested to him that he’d find it a heck of a lot less painful to voluntarily get out than it would be for me to yank him out of that seat. He finally took the hint and I let the momentum of me flooring the accelerator do the trick of closing the door as I pull back onto I-95.
My plan was to make a full loop back to him via Beville Rd, Clyde Morris Blvd, Dunlawton Ave, and a wee bit of Taylor Rd and catch back up to him on I-95 and see if reasoning would work on him this time round. Apparently something clicked between those ears of his because he didn’t try smoking anywhere near me for the rest of his stay in Port Orange.
The movie turned out to be a disaster as well thanks to his wolf whistles toward anything of the feminine persuasion, even the ones who clearly had a companion. There aren’t many times I can say I was truly humiliated but this one was one of the top-ranked candidates. It was a wonder we didn’t get into an altercation if not get done for disorderly conduct.
As it was, Jamie figured he’d get back at me for dumping him out on I-95 by ratting me out to Dad who pretty much shot his arguments in the face with a bazooka (Dad always did rather favour overwhelming force when dealing with the enemy as there are no points for second place in his line of work) by pointing out that in that car, I was in command and my word was law and he’d hear nothing more of it.
Those were the “highlights” of my last encounter with Jamie. We couldn’t get him to the airport quickly enough and funny enough, that was when he finally asked for any tips for surviving in the military. Dad’s reply was simple: “keep your head down and your *MOUTH COMPLETELY SHUT* and you just might have a chance of making it through Basic” as I’m dumping his luggage on the sidewalk near the terminal and jumping past him into the co-pilot’s seat and we didn’t wait for an answer as Dad floored the truck as if he was taking the green flag at that famous speedway just across the street from the airport!
I’ve no idea if he ever actually did enlist…somehow I suspect based on some of his other “adventures” that he didn’t or if he did, he didn’t last long and was lucky to avoid Article 32 proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
I know that seems like a heck of a lot of memories flooding out but you’d probably be surprised that all it took was seeing the house to relieve them all in the space of a few seconds!
Fortunately, happier memories were ahead once we got past the gravel pit Mom used to work at and turned toward downtown Hutsonville where a lovely lunch awaited us at the amazing cafe Meghann had been telling me about for the past five years since she made the last reunion trip with Mom!
After a wonderful chicken salad sandwich, we did a couple of laps downtown where we saw the church Mom and Dad got married in, Bam-Bam’s house near the confluence of High and Rose Streets, and then passing Grandma and Grandpa’s little farmhouse on Illinois Highway 1 on our way to the reunion near a little village called Annapolis.
I’d actually come looking for their house the last time I’d come through about three years prior and was reasonably sure I’d actually found it but the scene looked all wrong to me for some reason.
Mom has a theory on that which neatly fulfills Occam’s Razor. Apparently I’m not all that swift at remembering that trees can actually grow and that the trees in front of the house were saplings the last time I’d come round to visit.
Dad’s side of the family may well have been farmers but I think that conclusively proves that when it comes to agriculture and knowing how plants work, I’m kind of hopeless! 🙂
