My first memories are of living in our old cinder block farmhouse in rural southeastern Illinois. There was no such thing as the World Wide Web. Our television was a black and white that only picked up two stations, one in Evansville, and another in Terre Haute, Indiana – both huge and grand cities that I vowed to some day visit. If you didn’t like what the Evansville station was airing, you had to get up and walk to the television to change the channel in order to see what Terre Haute was offering. If Mom or Dad wanted the channel changed, I or my brother Jim were the remote controls.
In our small cinder block home there were two bedrooms, and a very small living room that adjoined the kitchen. We had a hand pump at the kitchen sink, and if you needed to answer the call of nature, you had to walk to the outhouse. I had no idea that even the Rockefellers had it any different.
As a youngster, my dad would play with me, giving me “horse” rides on the floor, playing hide and seek – never finding me even though I always hid in the same closet. He never seemed to learn!
In my eyes, Dad was Superman!. There was no one on Planet Earth who was nearly so strong and capable. He was my hero.
Then there was the Christmas Eve when I was too excited to sleep. My mother was rocking me, soothing me. I was just about to nod off when I thought that I heard someone walking up the sidewalk, scuffing his boot on the pavement. SANTA! Of course it was not Santa. He wasn’t going to come until I fell asleep. Which – thankfully – I eventually did.
One day, Mom came to me and set me down. “Wayne,” she said, “I want to ask you something. How would you like to have a baby brother or sister?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Nope.” I liked things just the way they were. No sense in messing up a sweet deal.
Mom worked on me for a while, making sure to mention all the benefits of being a big brother. She was pretty good. I have to give her credit. She would hold my teddy bear, and ask him questions, to which Teddy would nod yes, or shake his head no. Teddy seemed to think that having a baby in the house was a good idea.
In time I came around. “Okay,” I said, “but it hasta be a boy!”
Mom came through. She did deliver a boy. James Neil Baker, my baby brother, came into the world June 30, 1958. I was excited to see him for the first time when Dad and I went to fetch them home from the hospital. I was proud of my baby brother. Still am. And I loved him. Still do. It wasn’t until sometime later that I figured out that Mom was manipulating Teddy’s head with her hand in order to get him to answer the way she wanted him to.
It was about that time in my life when my mother’s father, my Grandpa Cliff, took me fishing at a small pond on the hill overlooking our farm. I was excited, and had a lot of things to tell my grandpa that day. After a while, Grandpa passed along to me something that every fisherman must know. “You’re talking too much,” he said. “You’re scaring the fish away.” Imagine my surprise! I had no idea that I was scaring away the fish! I was somewhat confused, though, because something had been nibbling, and taking my worms off the hook. Maybe it was a deaf fish!
Grandpa was spending more time baiting my hook than fishing. At one point, he laid his rod and reel down on the ground to fetch a worm for my hook. As he replaced my bait, he got a bite. We both watched in amazement as his rod and reel were drug into the water. Grandpa put down my cane pole and picked up another rod and reel. He stripped down to his underwear and waded in, casting out to snag the other rod as it floated away. His efforts were successful, and before I knew it, he had retrieved the other rod and was hauling in the biggest fish I had ever seen in my young life! Mom cooked it up for lunch, and it was delicious!
By contrast, my paternal grandfather, Burnis, showed little interest in me. He wasn’t mean to me, or anything like that. He was just cut from a different cloth than Grandpa Cliff. He was an old, no-nonsense farmer who struggled to get through the depression, and didn’t seem to have a lot of time for leisure activities. In fact, I can’t remember him ever doing anything for fun. My memory may not be completely accurate, considering how young I was back then, and how many years have passed. I only can recall sitting on his lap one specific time, and the only thing that I remember ever doing with him was going with him in his farm truck to buy a load of pigs. When you’re a kid, even that can be an adventure!
My grandmothers were likewise of contrasting personalities. My maternal grandmother, Ruth, was always an adventuresome sort. Right up until the end, when Alzhiemer’s hijacked her life and she had to go to the nursing home, you could say, “Come on, Grandma, we’re going to the Moon,” and she’d be ready and waiting in the car before you could find your keys.
Grandma Dessie, my father’s mother, was a funny old lady who loved to eavesdrop on the party telephone line, and then gossip about what she had heard. She was feisty, a character. Although she didn’t do much with me for fun, she did take care of me a lot while my mother worked at the bank. It was her conviction that I was half monkey, such was my fondness for climbing. Trees, television antennas, up drainpipes and onto the roofs of houses and barns, anything. You name it, I would climb it. Now that I am older – excuse me, chronologically challenged – before attempting anything I tend to consider the consequences, the effort required, the risks, and the pain involved. When I was young I only thought of the thrill. I miss that part of me.
Grandma always had some homemade grape Kool-Aid popsicles in her ice trays. Any time I was at her house I headed right for the freezer to help myself. She was, as I said, feisty. She and Grandpa would squabble. Whenever I would sit at the dinner table (farmers eat dinner at noon, and the evening meal is supper) he would say something to get her started. Usually it would pertain to something that he thought she should do. “I hain’ta gonna do no sucha thing!” she would announce, then sniff twice. When she would turn her back to the old man, he would look over toward me conspiratorially, and begin to laugh, bouncing in his chair. I suppose in his own way, Grandpa was spending time with me – tormenting Grandma.
I loved watching Roy Rogers, Zorro, My Friend Flicka, Fury, The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Have Gun, Will Travel, Bonanza, The Virginian, and The Guns of Will Sonnett on television. Anything western. I wanted to be a cowboy. And any self-respecting cowboy worth his grub had a horse. My first was named Apache. I called him “Patchy.” I loved that Shetland pony, and we had many an adventure together, ridding the old west of bad guys.
Depending upon whom I chose to be on a given day, I would dress accordingly. If I was Zorro, I would don a bed sheet for a cape, a mask to cover my eyes, and I had a stick that served as my sword. Other days, when I was Roy Rogers, or some drifting saddle tramp, I strapped on my holster and toy six-shooter. If I say so myself, I was pretty handy with that toy gun. I dispatched many an imaginary outlaw to boot hill. I’m proud to say that they were all fair gunfights. The other guys always drew first, and I always beat them without suffering so much as a flesh wound. No brag, just fact, as Will Sonnet would say.
Every boy needs a dog, and my first one was named Trixie. She was a mixed breed, and a loyal friend. We grew up together, and I remember her fondly to this day. She later had a puppy, Dixie, that would belong to my brother Jimmy.
Just a couple of months prior to my 6th birthday, I began my scholastic career as a first grader at Petty Elementary School. Mom took a picture of Jimmy crying when I got on the school bus. Once the initial thrill and excitement of going to school so that I could “learn to figger ‘n’ write” wore off, I decided that I didn’t care all that much for the confinement. I learned the basics, but my mind was not in the classroom. I was thinking about riding Patchy, playing with Trixie, playing baseball, what I was going to do at recess, anything but my lessons. My teachers tried to tell me that I would never be able to make a living by staring out a window. Years later, flying over the Grand Canyon at sunrise in the Captain’s seat of a Boeing 767, I thought of that. I guess I proved them wrong.
A lot of things happened in my life during my first year of school. My Grandpa Cliff died. My pony died. Dad found me another horse, a mare that I named Flicka.
For the most part I don’t remember much about what happened in classrooms nearly so much as what happened between classes. Such as the first time I ever kissed a girl.
She was pretty, with sandy blondish hair pulled back in a ponytail. One day, Artie Akers dared me to kiss her. I was reluctant, and suggested that Artie kiss her instead. One thing led to another, and finally I agreed to do it if Artie would do it first. I watched as Artie confidently strode toward the unsuspecting young girl, took her hand, bowed and kissed it. He then turned to look at me. An unspoken Triple Dog Dare.
The challenge had been issued and honor demanded that I fulfill my obligation. I marched forward, and duplicating Artie’s example, grabbed the poor girl’s hand and kissed it. She just stood there, blinking, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Minutes later, after the bell had rung, we were filing back into the classroom. The room was abuzz with the news that “Wayne kissed Dee!” Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz. “Wayne kissed Dee!” Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz.“ “Wayne kissed Dee!” This was my first clue that perhaps my decision to accept Artie Akers’ challenge had not been a wise one.
I suppose it is possible that at one time – perhaps many years before the Civil War – our teacher, Mrs. Gosnell, might have been an attractive woman. But those days were long gone. She resembled a prune. Mrs. Gosnell asked the class what had happened during recess. To which everyone but me responded “WAYNE KISSED DEE!!!”
My only defense consisted of me blurting out “So did Artie!” I was convinced that nothing more need be said.
I looked to Artie, fully expecting him to admit his guilt, thereby absolving me of any wrongdoing. Artie’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widened in total shock, as if he could not bring himself to believe that I had betrayed him with such a bald-faced lie. “No, I never!” he gasped, barely audible. As if to say, ‘How could Wayne say such a terrible thing about me?’ He was perfect. Mrs. Gosnell swallowed his lie hook, line, and sinker.
Next thing I knew, I was standing before the class, next to Mrs. Gosnell’s desk. My punishment, she decreed, would be that I must kiss her right there in front of the class. I made a face similar to that of an unsuspecting person biting into a green persimmon for the first time. Still, there was no getting out of it, so I pecked her on the cheek.
That was not enough. She made me do it again, and again, and again. Now, more than sixty years later, I can still hear the roar of the other children’s laughter ringing in my ears. I was totally humiliated.
Another time I was the victim of humiliation among my peers came a few years later. The television show, Green Acres, featuring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple of city slickers who had moved to the country, was enormously popular at the time. Coincidentally, my dad had purchased a mailbox that said, “Baker’s Green Acres”. No one gave much thought to it until the day when my dad, dressed to go to work at his sales job in his suit coat, hat and tie, decided to move the tractor just as the school bus pulled into our driveway to take Jim and me to school. I will never forget the roar of laughter that exploded from the bus when the doors opened to swallow me. Funny now. Devastating then.
About the time that I was in second grade, Dad and Mom decided that it was time to build a new house. Dad nervously borrowed $11,000 dollars for the project. It was going to be exciting to move into a brand new, three bedroom, one and one half bath Bedford Stone ranch style house with a full basement. For me, the most exciting part came when they dug out the basement and left not only a huge hole in the ground, but a rather large mound of dirt in the front yard. I was in Heaven! Whether playing cowboys or army, we had a perfect playground. There is nothing better than a huge pile of dirt when you are a kid looking for fun.
It wasn’t long before the hole in the ground was transformed into a concrete floor, cinder block walled basement that served as the foundation for the rest of the house. I played in it during the construction phase after the workers left for the day and before my dad came home for the night. The dirt pile was still in the yard and available any time. The last time I did anything on the dirt pile, as I recall, was one Sunday afternoon when our neighbor, Georgia Karcher, came over to see how the new house was coming along. She brought along her sons, Chuck and Kent.
At that stage, the basic frame was up, but there were no windows yet installed. So, you can imagine my surprise when I got in trouble for lobbing a clod from the dirt pile through the opening that would one day soon be our living room picture window! The dirt clod landed in front of my parents and their guest’s feet, skidding across the yet-to-be-carpeted living room floor and hitting the wall. I did it for the sole purpose of impressing my friends with my throwing ability, there was never any intent to do any harm. There was no broken glass. There was no carpet dirtied. Why my dad failed to understand that remains a mystery to this day. Not long after that the dirt was hauled away, and I had to find other ways to amuse myself.
I was still into pretending to be a cowboy in those days. One day at recess, I taught myself how to make a slipknot on one of the longer jump ropes. It made for a perfect lariat, in my way of thinking. Every cowboy knows how to throw a rope, and I determined that I would try my hand at it. Conveniently, there was a merry-go-round on our playground, with no fewer than eight or ten kids on it. A couple would hold on, running alongside gathering up speed and then jump on and enjoy the ride with the others. Not one of them suspected what was going to happen next. To tell the truth, neither did I.
Without giving a thought to the obvious danger involved or any consequences that might occur, I let the lariat fly. It settled around the neck of Marlene Gray, a nice girl who was a year younger than myself. As the merry-go-round turned, it took out the slack in the rope and tightened the slipknot around her neck. She came flying off the merry-go-round and landed with a thud in the dirt. My triumph in having successfully lassoed someone was short-lived as I realized that I had in fact hurt her. Someone I had no intent or desire to harm.
The reality of seeing her with the mark of the rope imbedded in her neck haunts and shames me to this day. I can only thank God that I didn’t kill her or cause serious, permanent damage. Marlene’s older brother Mike threatened to skin me alive. I took him literally, and honestly would not blame him if he had done it.
I have since contacted Marlene and apologized. She graciously forgave me, and even acted as if she thought the whole thing was funny.
It is of course no defense for my action, but it is no less a fact that as the previous story shows, our recesses were completely unsupervised. We would choose up teams and line up against one another in the driveway and throw rocks. It was like a rougher form of dodgeball, except that you weren’t out if you got hit. You just kept throwing and dodging rocks. I can’t believe it now, but back then it was fun. No teachers were anywhere to be found. They were inside the schoolhouse, doing I know not what.
This was also of course the time when we would settle our differences in the manly way. With no teachers observing, I got into my share of fights all the way through grade school. Some I won, others – only when going up against older, bigger kids, I lost. Usually even then I held my own. I’d start out by taking the bigger kid down, but then would get overconfident and go for a choke, which more often than not allowed them to get out from under me with their now-free hands and execute a reversal. If a teacher did happen to come out, someone would alert us, and we would get up, shake hands, and act like it had all been in fun.