Mom read The Hobbit to us!

I have a special association and feeling for J.R.R. Tolkien's, The Hobbit. My mother read it to Craig, Evan, dad, and me incrementally almost every night before bed, I believe in the summer of 1968, our second summer at the Sun Valley Music Camp. I don't remember the exact summer, but it was probably 1968 because the revised version of the book was published in 1966 (the book was originally published in 1937) and we spent four summers in Sun Valley from 1967 to 1971. (Mom was a guest teacher and performer there. Dad was the chauffeur (mom didn't drive yet!), supportive husband and father, and used the time to compose and enjoy the beauty of the surroundings. We were faculty brats and ran around the grounds of Sun Valley during the day playing and getting into mischief!)

This is one of the most enjoyable memories I have of being read to. I was nine years old and I remember being mesmerized and riveted by the story. From the opening sentence and first exchanges between Bilbo and Gandalf ("Good morning!" from Bilbo...and "What do you mean?" from Gandalf.), to the chapter "Riddles in the Dark," to the end sentence, I was captivated. It helped immensely that my mother also had a particular fondness for the book because she read it well. She brought the characters and the narrative to life. She was particularly good with the dialogue.

My favorite chapter is still "Riddles in the Dark." I find it so interesting that the horror Bilbo feels at being alone deep down in mountain, having no idea whether he'll ever see his friends again, and then encountering the erie and slithery Gollum, is offset by the almost humorous game as they exchange riddles to determine whether Bilbo gets eaten by Gollum if Bilbo loses, or whether Gollum shows Bilbo the way out of the mountain if Gollum loses. The ingeniousness of the writing juxtaposes playfulness and extreme horror splendidly. This chapter is of course also the introduction and turning point simultaneously of the entire plot of the one ring of power and how its power affects its bearer over time. As Bilbo discovers, (because Gollum has actually lost the ring and Bilbo finds it quite by accident and puts it in his pocket before he ever meets Gollum), the ring, when worn, gives the power of instant invisibility. Over time, however, the ring, also when worn, slowly decays and decimates its wearer. Gollum has become a vile wretch from wearing it, and now lives in a decrepit dwelling on a small island in the middle of a dark underground lake deep beneath the Misty Mountains. The chapter is brilliant in every way: in narrative, ambience, dialogue, and action.

I reread The Hobbit recently and was pleased to find myself remembering how I felt lying on the couch in our sweet little cottage in Ketchum, Idaho listening to my mom read it aloud. My mother later told me that though she enjoyed reading it to us as much as we enjoyed listening, she always felt a bit of frustration too. Even though we looked forward to it every night, we also almost always fell asleep while she was reading. She never knew quite where to start again the next night since Craig and Evan and I probably all fell asleep at different times! Regardless, I must not have fallen asleep too soon into her reading because I still remember the details of the book and the sound of her voice vividly!!

Dad and mom played us our lullaby...

One of the most wonderful memories I have of my parents is when, to coax Craig and Evan and me to bed at night, they would leave the door to our bedroom open and play sonatas together in our dining room where the old Everett baby grand piano was and the matching dining room table. Both our parents were superb musicians and performers separately, but when they played together there was a special magic. I didn't fully realize it as a child, but this "bedtime music" was not just the ordinary song on the radio or the phonograph (yes, we only had the record player back then for amplified music; cassette players could not amplify sound well enough yet...but it also meant that we were more dependent on live music which is highly preferable to any musician), these were two professional and seasoned artists, and husband and wife making the music. They were our parents too of course, but we were given the treat of a live professional performance as we drifted off to sleep. How marvelous that always was!

My first experience on a farm

This is a pretty funny story. I was probably about four or five years old and my dad was driving Craig and me home from Charlotte one afternoon before the Interstate 77 was built, so we were on a country road as were most all of the non-residential roads at that time.

Unfortunately, our car either ran out of gas or had some other problem, because suddenly we had to pull over. We were out in the middle of nowhere. I remember my dad taking us to the closest place he could see which was a farm. In looking for someone to ask to use their phone, we walked into a barn. Whether I asked my dad if I could explore or my dad simply relaxed his hold on my hand I don't know, but I remember being suddenly free so I excitedly ran out of the barn.

Well, my exploration did not get me very far. I got only just outside the barn door when my feet encountered something extremely slippery and I became airborne. Next thing I knew I was sitting in fresh cow manure!

All I remember next was being held by my dad while he walked along the road we had been on (evidently the farm did not have a phone or we had found no one to ask) hitchhiking with Craig in tow; I don't think Evan was with us or was not yet born. My dad later recalled that the amusing, and slightly embarrassing thing was that, since I had soiled my pants in the cow manure, and he had had no other pants to change me into, I was exposed to the world from the waist down. An interesting sight for any prospective hitchhiker!

We must have been offered a ride, made it home safely, and successfully retrieved our car because the rest of that memory for me is incomplete and now just a laughable story; hitchhiking in those days was not the danger it is today, especially in a pretty country area. But like some people can say they know what soap tastes like (I can't), I know what cow manure feels like!!

The man who killed the copperhead snakes!

I don't remember how old I was exactly, but I had to have been at least five. I was sitting on our back porch with my dad. Craig was about three years old and was playing in our back yard next to our sandpile (enclosed by four old logs). Suddenly, Craig let out a loud scream and began hobbling toward us. I, somewhat foolishly, think I  said to dad that he had stepped on a pinecone. But when Craig got to where dad and I were sitting on the carport steps, he held out his foot for us to see. There on his foot, about a quarter of an inch apart, were two small red dots.

The rest was all a blur, but I later found out that Craig had been bitten by a copperhead snake. I also learned later that he had been bitten by a baby copperhead. Baby copperheads are more venomous than the adult copperheads; greater chance of survival for the babies. Very fortunately, even though the copperhead's mouth had widened all the way around Craig's foot (evidenced by the two red dots) only one fang had penetrated. Even that amount of venom had made Craig quite literally "deathly" sick because, as our mother told us, all the way to the Mooresville doctor she could see the blue color advancing up Craig's leg. Scared her to death, needless-to-say. Mom said that when they finally found someone who could get them a doctor that person said, "Well...sumpm' sure bit 'im!" Craig recovered from the bite and even, mom told us, leaned up and kissed the doctor on the cheek in relief and happiness. Though he wasn't consciously thinking it, he probably subconsciously knew that this doctor had saved his life. We also later learned that if both of the baby copperhead's fangs had penetrated Craig's foot, the remaining half of the snake's venom would have likely killed him.

Just before my parents had moved to Davidson in 1960, Lake Norman had been created to furnish power to the area (Duke Power) and provide beauty and recreation. When the lake water filled the lower land, which had been the natural habitat of many forms of wildlife, that wildlife moved upland to escape the water. The copperhead snakes were among that wildlife. Some of them escaped to the woods behind our back yard.

We experienced two more incidents with copperheads after Craig's encounter, but no one was bitten. My mom killed two on our backyard patio. She killed them with an old scythe. Nervously recalling, but with some slight humor, she said while she was chopping one up, the other was striking at the blade!! Another incident also involved Craig when he mistook a copperhead for a bird that the snake was preparing to strike. He ran right past the copperhead pointing to the bird, narrowly missing a second bite! My mom said the copperhead was probably too focused on the bird to turn its attention to Craig as he ran past. Whew!! (But who knows, even if Craig had been bitten again, perhaps he would have been immune to second bite!)

I don't remember how much more time passed, but suddenly I was aware that my dad had hired someone to hunt down and clean out our back woods of any more copperhead snakes. The man's name was Kaiser Brawley and he was African-American (we said "black" * in those days; the phrase African-American had not yet been adopted) and probably in his late seventies or early eighties. He was a tall, thin man and "drove" an old wooden cart pulled by a off-whitish mule named "Jeff." He was nearly toothless and what teeth he did have were unevenly spaced in his mouth. He was very focused, even stern-looking when he held the reins to steer the cart, but he was quite friendly and had a hearty laugh. I remember hearing him come up our gravel road, Dogwood lane, from the nearest paved road, Grey Road, urging his mule ahead with a soft jerk on the reins and two clicks of his tongue, "Tsch, tsch," and then with the gentle exhortation, "Git on Jeff!" He always brought at least one or two small black boys with him in the cart to help with the work.

I speculate that my dad hired Kaiser Brawley because he was famous in the area for being able to kill copperheads (and maybe other kinds of snakes as well) with his bare hands; he may have also been the relative of one of our baby-sitters and they recommended him. I never saw him do it, but according to what my mom had heard (or actually saw for herself) he would grab the copperhead by the tail and swiftly slap its head against a rock! That takes quite some nerve, but I guess if you kill enough of them that way, you get good at it. I learned from my parents that he killed 13 copperheads in our back yard. I don't know how many copperheads escaped this fate, but we never had another incident with copperhead snakes after Kaiser Brawley was finished.


*Incidentally, though I pointed out our use of the term "black" for "African-American" in the 1960s and '70s, I would also like to remind the reader that "black" was considered the politically correct term at that time (even though the phrase "politically correct" had not yet been coined). Out of respect, and because I find the "N" word among the most repugnant of the slang words, I will not write the "N" word in full. But it is curious to note that "black" was the accepted and preferred term then. I definitely heard some people use the "N" word, but no one who was educated and sensitive to anyone's feelings. "African-American" is now, of course, the politically correct term instead of "black." For the purposes of the nuance of the culture of the time in recounting the story, I continued to use the term "black" in place of "African-American" in describing the boys who worked with Kaiser. I was raised by parents who treated African-Americans with love and respect. The term "black" or even "negro" would have been terms they both used out of respect as with any other interesting aspect about the person, personally or culturally.