The kid had been peering out of the living room window most of the day.  His nose pressed upon the glass making little smudges that his Mom would not appreciate.  Patience wasn’t one of his virtues, but he could do nothing but wait.  And time passed very slowly when a kid is waiting for something.

Yesterday, his Dad had come home and announced they were getting a television set.  Imagine!  A television set would soon be right here in the living room.  Our very own television set.  The kid had seen them in stores and magazines.  He never thought they would actually have a real television set in this very living room.

By and by, a white truck pulled into the driveway.  It said Sorrell’s & Martin Radio & TV on the door.  It was here!  Hot dang.  Men got out and met his Dad in the front lawn and they pulled this really long pole of of the truck.  They headed around the side of the house and the kid heard hammering and banging and before long this weird contraption towned over the roof.  Dad said it was what you called an antenna.  One of the men took a long wire and crawled under the house.  He heard a drilling sound and then two men grabbed a big box from the truck and stuggled to get it into the house.  They opened the box and there it was.  My God!  A television set.  This is the real deal, Lucille.  They hooked up the antenna thingy and plugged it into the wall.  With a flourish one of the men turned a knob on the set.  Nothing!  Nothing happed!  What was going on here?  Then slowly, very slowly the screen began to light up.  Some ghostly figures appeared through a bunch of stuff the men called “snow.”  One man went outside and turned the antenna thingy and the picture clearup up.  Kinda.  He said the picture would be better at night.  They got back in their truck and left.

My Dad, Mom and Sister all sat around the television set.  Watching.  Waitinf for some kind of something to happen.  Not much did.  Seems there were only three stations in the area and the one we could get the best was all the way in Jacksonville, Florida.

After supper we all trooped into the living room and Dad did the honors of turning on the television.  I was not allowed to touch it.  When a picture finally sorta came on, a man was stnding in front of a map moving little cutouts of clouds and lightning bolts.  Dad said this was the weather.  How boring can it get.  Where is Tarzan.  Roy Rogers.  Hopalong and Gene and Rex and Tex and all those guys.

Over the months to follow the picture got a little clearer and more stations came online.  I watched Howdy Doody every afternoon.  Dad watched the 15 minute newscjast.  At eleven o’clock suddenly the National Anthem played and this strnge picture popped up with a super annoying tone.  Dad said this was a Test Pattern.

I thought at the time that we were rich.  We had a television set in our own house.  Now that I look back on it I can see my Dad, Mom and Sister sitting staring intently at that big ol’ Philco.  We had each other.  We were rich indeed.

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About 1952 Larry Ring and I went trick or treating.  I didn’t want to go but Larry twisted my arm.  I didn’t like to ask people for stuff.  Still don’t.  I know that’s a character flaw in this day of entitlements.  But, I swallowed my pride and we went trick or treating.  We went down North Court Stree in Quitman.  That’s where the rich folks lived.  Larry said we could clean up.

Older kids were out and about and they were throwing toilet paper all over people’s yards.  Larry said that was a terrible waste of good toilet paper.  He said one day they might need some toilet paper and regret wasting it like that.  Larry has always been a philosopher.

Well, we’d go up to a house and knock on the door and we’d take turns saying “Trick or Treat.”  Larry said it more forefully than me.  A nice lady would come to the door and give us a handful of Tootsie Rolls.  I hate Tootsie Rolls.  Cancy with no nuts in them are not really candy.  Give me a Baby Ruth, Payday or Snickers thank you very much.  I told Larry he could have all the Tootsie Rolls.  Larry wound up with a sackful and I think I got three green Jolly Pops.  That was the end of my trick or treating.

But, a thought occurred to me.  I think we can start something new and exciting.  What if we had Halloween for us old folks.  We could go out in our wheel chairs and use our canes and knock on doors.  They could give us stuff like cans of creamed corn, bags of dry lima beans and boxes of grits.  Stuff us old folks really need.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  Maybe I could get Larry to go with me.  I would even holler “Trick or Treat” really loud for a bag of dry lima beans.

But, with my luck all I’d get would be some Tootsie Rolls.

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A Holwell & Holwell Story

Today I had contact with Buddy Holwell.  Strange how just a few words from an old hometown friend can set your memory cells firing on all cylinders.

Buddy allowed as how Holwell & Holwell was closing in on a century of service to the folks of Quitman and Brooks County, Geoprgia.  My folks had insurance with tyhe Holwells forever.

Anyway, in the 1930′s my Daddy, the one and only original Bill Shiver, worked for Patrick Furniture Company.  They didn’t have a radio station in Quitman at that time but there was one over in Thomasville.  Patrick bought a 15-minute block of airtime on Saturday mornings.  Every Saturday my Dad would drive one of Patrick’s delivery trucks to Thomasville.  Along with his old and rather beatup Kamico guitar Daddy would play and sing a few songs and advertise the specials for the week at Patrick’s.  It’s where I got my love for radio and music.

On this particular Saturday it was raing bullfrogs and on the way back to Quitman the old truck stopped running between Thomasville and Boston.  Lightning was zapping and thunder rolled.  There was only one road between Quitman and Thomasville and that one wound through Dixie and Boston.  Not much traffic in the 30′s.  No cell phones either, so Dad knew the folks at Patricks would be worried.  But all he could do was sit there and flinch each time a bolt would scream through the monsoon.

Then, a big black car pulled over in front of the old truck and a hand stuck out of the driver’s window and motioned for Dad to come get in.  He did, and lo and behold it was none other than W.B. Holwell on his way back to Quitman.  Dad said he’d never been so happy to se a sould in his life.  And, Mr. Holwell gave Daddy a lift to town and deposited him at Patrick’s.  Safe and sound if not so dry.

Oh yes, Daddy said on the way to Quitman Mr. Holwell sold him a life insurance policy.  True stories are the best kind.

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A Shadow on the Grass

By Bill Shiver

            I was rummaging through some old boxes the other day.  We still have boxes we haven’t checked since we moved.  I was looking for something that must have seemed vitally important at the time, but it escapes me now.  What I did find was an old, fading, black & white photograph.  It was obviously made in the early 1950’s.  It’s of me and my boyhood buddy, Derry Crosby.  Derry and his family lived next door to us and we were forever playing cowboys and Indians, marbles, football, etc.  Dennis Plymale and his brother Stevie, Charles Chitwood, Jimmy Taylor and others were also in our little gang.

This photo shows me and Derry, both wearing worn dungarees, with holes in the knees from our marbles escapades.  We were barefoot and shirtless so I assume it was summer.  We both were wielding cap pistols.  Mine was probably my treasured Roy Rogers Signature model which held the black hats a bay in my backyard for several years.  Don’t know what kind of cap gun Derry had, but he was pointing it with a vengeance.

The photo was made by my Daddy.  I know this because there is a very distinct shadow on the grass behind us that is unmistakably my Pop.  He was quite the amateur photographer and later turned semi-pro and had a little studio downtown with Verner Ray as his partner.

Photographs are but frozen moments in time.  This particular one started me to thinking.  What happened just before the picture was made, and what did Derry and I do after the shutter snapped?  With every photograph there has to be a before and after.  All you see is that split second in time when the shutter snapped and light hit the film and a picture was born.  I can’t help wondering about the rest of the story.

We had no video cameras in those days.  We had small film cameras but they were expensive to buy, plus you had to buy the film and the processing wasn’t cheap.  Then, you needed a special projector and screen.  We didn’t have any of that, but we did make tons of photos and later some color slides.  One cold winter evening I’d like to rent or borrow a slide projector and pull out our boxes of slides.  Haven’t done that in many years.

I sat for a very long time looking at this photograph.  I have to use a lighted magnifier these days due to my eye problems.  With the magnification I could clearly see the ever-present smirk on Derry’s face.  Even though the picture is black & white you can tell his hair was red and his face was filled with freckles.

Old photographs amaze me.  I love to look at them.  To wonder what happened before and after.  Who took the picture?  When was it taken?  In this instance I know who took it.  The shadow tells me.

From time to time people will ask where I get ideas for my columns.  Many times they come hard, with lots of thinking and planning.  Other times, like today, all it takes is a fading photograph of me and Derry…and Daddy’s shadow on the grass.  I wish they were all this easy.

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A Dollar’s Worth?

By Bill Shiver

            Time was when as a teenager I would drive into Hugh Shiver’s Service Station and get myself $5.00 worth of gas.  Pretty much filled her up.  Hugh and the gang would also check the oil, battery, water, tires and clean the windows.  No extra charge.  That’s why they called it a “service” station.

We get around up here in the mountains with our little 1988 Honda Civic.  Doesn’t look real great but it runs good and those four cylinders are easy on the petrol.  The other day we filled it up.  It automatically doubled the value of the car.  Can you believe $3.40 for a gallon of gas?  When I was filling up at Cousin Hugh’s the price was like 27 cents.

Seems to me that a country that can put men on the moon could figure out how to build vehicles that would run on something beside dinosaur residue.  Of course, my mother always said that story about men going to the moon was a giant hoax and Walter Cronkite was in on it.  She said they filmed it in Holly wood.  Never could convince her otherwise.

I’m just tickled purple that I grew up in a time when a soda water was a nickel.  You could spend a whole Saturday afternoon at the Ilex Theatre with Roy and Dale and Gene and Rex for just a dime.  There were lots of things you could buy with a nickel and you could buy some things with just a penny.

Wonder if anyone these days pulls into a convenience store and asks for a dollar’s worth o’ gas?  That would get you about a coffee cup full.

Well, we may as well look on the bright side.  If we bought Listerine by the gallon it would cost $27.  Things could be worse.

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