Nick Swyka fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a major confrontation of the Second World War

Nick Swyka displays his World War II medals: The Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star, the Sharp-Shooter Anti-Tank, and others.

Nick Swyka fought in the Battle of the Bulge

       Nick Swyka fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a major confrontation of the Second World War. Nick tells his story with a tremor in his voice that indicates how lucky he is to be alive to tell it. Yes, luck played a part in his survival, but his intelligence played the leading role. This is his story:

       “We went overseas on a converted ship called the U.S.S. Marine Devil. They made it a troop ship. They converted a gang of them into troop ships, including the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary. We left Boston—‘Watertown’ we called it—on the 29^th of September, 1944, and we arrived in Plymouth, England, on the 9^th of October, 1944. We then traveled by train to a couple of English towns. Then we boarded an LST in the Port of South Hampton and landed in Le Havre, France. Then, by truck convoy we went through France and bivouacked in the woods outside of Aubel, Belgium. I was in the Battle of the Bulge, in Elsenborn, Belgium.

“I remember crossing the Rhine River many times, and I know that my life was up many a time. One time I went in a house there and asked the woman who lived there if there were any German soldiers around. And she said, nein, or no, and then I walked out into the barnyard, and since the house and the barn were joined, they could have plugged me easily; there were twelve of them in there. The Germans knew they were losing the war so they didn't bother. Another time, at the Bulge, our lieutenant said, ‘We have a good view of fire. Maybe I can sleep tonight.’ Well, about that time a railroad shell hit and raised us both off the ground. It was frozen ground, too. If it had been a real shell it would have killed us both. It was a 16-incher and we both wondered if it was timed. But it was a dud. We were hit by a few other duds that night, so we didn't get much sleep.

“Another time, while we were making a run on Cologne at 2 o'clock in the morning, the Germans were hurting us, too. As we advanced on them, a jeep came along the blacktop road and a shell hit right in front of it. The impact of the stones from the road went right through the metal and through the gas tanks, and didn't hit one person. We lucked out again; it was a dud. If we were moved from one area to another they'd haul us in a truck, but a lot of the movement was on foot. I was loaded … I had a rifle, a pistol, grenades, and bullets. At that time we were short of ammo so I had to take it off soldiers who had died. Many of my friends were killed. Eleven of us from Cecil County went in but we were all broken up.

“I didn't get seasick going over on the troop ship, but a lot of guys did. And I would have been sick if I'd have been down below. Let me tell you, most of the guys got sick down there, and much of the time the vomit was on the floor sloshing back and forth. One time I was on night watch, and I was going through the walkway into the kitchen when a great big food mixer upset. I watched a guy with a coal shovel scooping up the eggs and putting them back in the pot. I said, ‘What are you going to do with all of it?’ He said, ‘We can't waste anything; we don't know how long we're going to be out here.’ We were in a bad storm at the time. People don't know what it was like. The next morning I told my friend: ‘You can eat anything but … don’t eat those eggs!’ ”

Chesapeake City veteran, John Luzetsky, remembers his service to our country during World War ll.

John displays his Silver Star for Valor

John Luzetsky: “I was in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy.”

John Luzetsky, a life-long resident of Chesapeake City (deceased at 90), was one of 100,000 troops to land on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. In his quiet, thoughtful way, John told me his story, as if his bravery was the most natural thing in the world. In our talk, John didn’t emphasis the ferocity of that landing, but, reluctantly, he did reveal that several of his buddies were killed as they trudged next to him towards the shore. He said that he never expected to make it back alive. John’s story:

 “I was in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy. I was in the 29^th Division and the guys from Elkton were in it also. They were in the 115^th Infantry and I was in the 175^th from Baltimore, the Fifth Regiment Army. We landed at Omaha Beach. The first wave of troops went ashore at about 6:00 a.m. We went in at about 9:00 a.m. There was great confusion; things didn't work the way they were supposed to. You were just trying to save your life and get to shore. We jumped overboard into waist-high water and tried frantically to get to shore as the navy fired over our heads. So many crafts were there that you couldn’t see the water.

“It was sandy underfoot, and once we got to shore we started firing our weapons. We must have fought for five or six weeks before we hit a pretty good town called Saint Lo. We had to capture Saint Lo, of course, and I got hit by shrapnel in the leg. It wasn't a bad wound; I was lucky.

“I went oversees on the Queen Elizabeth. I remember that she had really thick rugs with lots of space on her, but by the time the carpenters finished building bunks there was just enough room for us to squeeze through in order to get down to the galley for food. There were 3,000 of us on board. It took us six days to reach Scotland. The Queen Mary, also loaded with troops, was ahead of us, and when British cruisers came out to protect her, the Queen Mary hit one of them and cut it in two. The Queen Mary kept right on going because of all the German subs out there. They weren't allowed to stop to pick up survivors because they didn't want to risk the lives of those 3,000 men on board.

“Before I was sent overseas I was a soldier guarding the Chesapeake City Bridge for a while. I trained at Fort Meade and then I guarded a number of bridges in the Baltimore area. We would move from one bridge to another during the early part of the war. When I guarded our lift bridge we bunked in a small brick building located just as you got off the bridge on the North Side. They fixed it up for us. They brought carpenters in to build the bunks. They're similar to the kind that was built on troop ships.

       “We were in England preparing for the Normandy Invasion when our Chesapeake City lift bridge was destroyed. I received a letter from home telling me about it. And I have to laugh when I think about the time I spent guarding it, because as soon as I went oversees it was hit by a ship and destroyed. The company commander at Fort Meade assigned me and five other men to guard the bridge. That happened after the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. Everybody was scared, just like now after September 11^th. We had to walk back and forth over the bridge with a rifle. We couldn't have stopped a ship from hitting it or anything. We just had to report anything suspicious.”

Memories of WWII Veterans - First of the series

20-year old John Trush with his Company A tank buddies in 1945. Note tank and rockets at top of photo.

Chesapeake City veteran, John Trush, remembers his service to our country during World War ll. John has vivid memories of his experience in a tank during the Battle of Herrlisheim.

          I was drafted into the army in late 1942. George Beaston, another Chesapeake City boy, and I caught a train from Elkton to Baltimore for testing. From Fort Meade we traveled by train to Camp Hood, Texas for basic training with the tank units. We were scheduled to go to North Africa, and we were all loaded up on trains ready to go—with our tanks on flatbeds—when some officer came by and yelled, “Company A, 43^rd Tank Battalion: fall out!” So they took us back and told us that we would be training officers. It was good duty but it didn’t last long. We were sent to the Colorado Mountains, where they worked the daylights out of us. Three months later they sent us to Fort Jackson, South Carolina and made officers out of us, so to speak. I was in charge of a company of recruits. Later we took our recruits to Fort Miles Standish in Massachusetts, where we waited for a ship to go overseas. When it came it was huge, about the size of the Queen Mary, which was docked next to it.

          On the trip over we had to stay below deck most of the time. They told us, “If you fall overboard, we’re not stopping for you.” It took five or six days to get to Liverpool, England. We unloaded and went by rail straight to our barracks in Tidworth, just outside of London. We were only there about three days when they took us to the coast of the English Channel. Then we crossed on what appeared to be an old cattle boat, and the English fed us stuff that looked like dark, soggy fat. Well, it turned out to be mutton, terrible looking junk. So somebody said, “Throw it the hail overboard.” So we did—pots and all! And when an English guy asked us where the pots were we said, “Overboard, and if you bring that kind of crap down here again we’ll throw you overboard.”

          Well, we crossed the channel and they dumped us out somewhere north of Normandy, where we slept on the ground. Then trucks came along and took us to an old castle and just left us there. In a couple of days somebody came along and hollered out my service number and took me to Tank Company A. We had a few skirmishes and then came right in on the end of the Maginot Line. I recall coming into that area and seeing a German tank parked next to a bunker, and our whole company started firing on it. I could see the shells hitting it but flying right off it, just slipping right off it. Those tanks had a lot of steel in them.

Five men manned each tank, and I remember the first man who was shot in a tank I drove. He was an army colonel and he stuck his head out of the tank turret and an 88 millimeter round took his head right off. He fell down into the tank and we had to keep his body there for two hours till a jeep came up with a stretcher strapped on the back and took him away.

          As I mentioned, I was in A Company, which consisted of 15 tanks. In the battle of Herrlisheim, all of the tanks in my company were wiped out except for the one I was driving. I had assumed that all the men in the tanks were killed, but after the war was over I was told that some of them became prisoners of war. The reason why my tank wasn’t destroyed was that it was the last one in the group of charging tanks. I had been transferred to that tank although I had had no rocket experience, and it was placed at the end of the company because it had rockets loaded on top of it. There were sixty rockets on a carriage right above us. And that was dangerous because if a shell had hit them they all would have exploded … and that would have been the end of us. When the rockets were fired, all sixty at once—there was no stopping them, one right after the other—it seemed to take the air away from you in there; you could feel the concussion deep in your chest.

          That battle, near the German town of Herrlisheim, was really a trap set by the Germans. It occurred not long before the war ended, right after the Battle of the Bulge. I remember that because my company was sent north to cut the Germans off in that battle, but the Germans pulled out before we got there.

          I remember the scene of the Herrlisheim ambush well. It was early morning and very foggy. At one point our officer, Lieutenant Woods, and I looked out and saw part of the sun trying to break through the fog, and I said, “That sun looks awfully bloody up there.”

And so we advanced, with Steinwald Woods on the left of us and the Zorn River on the right. We were supposed to cross that river to take Herrlisheim, but before we crossed tremendous fire came from that wooded area. One of the tanks was riding on the top of a levee along the river and slipped down and turned completely over into the marsh. As I drove by it I didn’t see anyone jump out of it; the escape hatch was closed.

          The firing kept coming from the woods, and it was lighting up our tanks like match sticks. They were full of gas and would explode and burn for hours; I’ve seen them burn all night long. They were firing 88 millimeter canons. Being under heavy fire, Lieutenant Woods called through the intercom for us to back up. He kept hollering, “Back it up; pour it on her!”

We were able to retreat far enough so that the shells began to fall before they got to us. I could see the shells flying by us, quite a few of them. They were almost three feet long and I could see the waves of heat created by them coming towards us—the shape of the shell shimmering inside. As the fog lifted I could see German soldiers coming from the woods. And right away our air force fire-bombed that whole area with white phosphorous, which destroyed the trees and all the German infantry. Those bodies lay there for quite a while—frozen to the ground.

          We fought battles before and after Herrlisheim, but nothing as disastrous. It was truly a nightmare. You know, for a long time I couldn’t talk about the horror of that terribly bloody battle. For a long, long while the memories kept me awake—all those men slaughtered … and I came out of it, came home, and I … oh well!

Anyhow, right after Germany surrendered, my tank commander and I, because we had rocket experience, were picked to catch a ship to fight in Japan. Well, we got as far as the entrance to the Panama Canal when we heard that Japan had surrendered. So the ship turned and went to New York. But that wasn't the end of my army career; I was sent to Camp Shelburne in New Jersey, given a ten-day pass, and when I returned they sent me to Camp Carson, Colorado. I was discharged from there, rode the train to Washington, DC where somebody picked me up and brought me home.

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 4 – Last Chapter

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 4 – Last Chapter

“Buck up, Moose,” Uncle Ernest said, as he returned and ruffled my hair as usual, as I sat hunched over with my head down. Hearing Uncle Ernest swirl the cubes in his freshened glass, I remembered where he had left off and thought of what I wanted to ask him.

“Say, Unk, you must have done a lot more things on that island with Bud and Babs. For crap sake, you were there for ten years.”

“But there really wasn’t much of anything to do, because everything was perfect. In fact, I got bored long before Bud messed up. I had nobody to gamble with, nobody to fight with, no challenge … you know? I had loads of fine grapes and made gallons of wine, but I could never get drunk. Oh, I helped name a few animals and taught Babs a lot of stuff, but after a few weeks I was itching to leave, to get back to the real world, if you know what I mean, Moose.”

“Nope. I don’t know what you mean at all, Unk,” I said, flashing him a weird look.

“Let me put it another way. Say your life is an automobile tire. It’s shiny-new, with full, deep treads and sturdy side walls. Over the years it spins down the road humming its soft tune all the while. Its purpose is clear, directed. During the journeys, though, bad things happen unexpectedly, such as loss of air from a pothole jolt, a nail puncture to be repaired, and—if its side walls are not badly damaged by some mortal impact—its tread, over time, will wear down completely, leaving a thin, weak, rubber husk, to be discarded.

“That, Moose, is the end we all want—old age after a useful life—and for most of us, like most tires, that is what we get. Now, suppose the tire never gets to roll down the road, but sits on a rack in the garage, inactive and unused, to be rolled to new spots now and then and admired perhaps. It will be protected and preserved, to be sure, but never feel the jostling of the road’s pressure, the caress of solid earth bearing firmly upon its treads, or the unexpected occurrence—positive or negative—around the next corner.

“The tire can exist almost forever, but eventually dry rot will rob it of what makes it an individual tire, its essential elements, its essence, its being. This was my life with Babs, Moose, and this is why I would have left soon anyway, even if the island’s landlord hadn’t pulled the plug on perfection.”

“I reckon I get what you’re saying, Unk. You’re sure like a tire today; somebody must have inflated you with about 200 pounds of air and your valve is leaking it out at me pretty fast. Yeah, and hey, you’re getting balder all the time, too,” I laughed, reaching over to rub his ample forehead, which he withdrew from my reach pretty fast, for sure. After another hearty laugh, I said, “But, Unk, there are good tires and bad tires, aren’t there?”

“Oh sure, just as there are good and bad people. You have your Michelins, which are the best, and then there are others, such as Goodrich, General, Dunlop, Goodyear, and so on down the line. But the worst are probably the crappy ones that you buy from those discount auto stores.”

“Well then, Unk, tell me something: if you were a tire, which one would you be?”

“A Michelin, of course, what else?”

“And if I were a tire, which one would I be?”

“Why, that’s easy, Moose; you’d be a retread,” he said, as he laughed and reached over and got me in a headlock, which I squirmed out of pretty quickly, believe me, Nina.

“Well, that still sounds loony to me, Unk; me, I’d give anything to live in a place like that—no school, no doctors, no dentists, no pain. Wow!”

“That’s right, but no real life either,” Uncle Ernest said wearily, as he slid off the swing and stretched before heading in the house to freshen up for a full night of partying.

“Unk,” I asked, jumping off of the swing to follow him in, “I know you wouldn’t fib to your only nephew, but did you sort of expand some of the things that happened to you in those stories?”

“Why, you should know facts when you hear them. I’ll tell you what, Moose; some time when you get a chance, catch a guinea pig, hold him up by the tail, and watch his eyes fall out. When they do, think about your only uncle and all his adventures.”

Geez, Nina, what the heck kind of an answer was that, anyway? What do you think? Did Uncle Ernest, maybe, slip a few in past me when I wasn’t looking? At any rate, I shrugged and ran out to ride my airplane swing, smashing into the wall and post as usual, and then I heard the slam of our screen door and saw Uncle Ernest heading down our long lane. “See you later, Moose-the-Goose,” he called with a wave, as I sat there swinging slowly—idling—watching the dust rise as he walked.

I eyed him until he got about half-way down, but then noticed the barn swallows swoop in graceful arcs up and down and across the sky, almost touching the ground at times. And when I looked down the lane again, Uncle Ernest was gone, so I bounded after him as far as the last telephone pole. But he was gone, Nina, down the hill and out of sight.

I hung my head and sketched my initials in the dirt of our lane with my big toe. It was then that I saw them: Uncle Ernest’s footprints. I walked—lunged—in them, step for step. And to me they were the long, light strides of a guy in a hurry, a guy on the move, a guy who stayed for a while … and then was gone.

[End of Days of Uncle Ernest -  A New Story begins Friday, 11/23/12]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 3

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 3

With one of his goofy grins, Uncle Ernest continued his story: “I was a very lucky man, and I knew it, so I got the baboons to marry us and throw us a reception. The baboons were sort of like preachers there, Moose, so they knew how to perform the ceremony. Since Bud was nearly a man, he had to be best man. Babs chose Lucy, an engaging orangutan, to be her bridesmaid.

“And so, when that monkey preacher asked, ‘And who giveth this woman to this man?’ a loud, booming voice came from nowhere—out of the sky, I guess—and declared, ‘I do!’ We sure had a memorable wedding, and we had a terrific married life, too, without a single problem, in that bountiful land. We had fourteen kids (four sets of twins) in ten years. But, as always, I’m sorry to say, all hail broke loose again.”

“Yep!” I shouted. “Your luck ran out again, Unk; it always does.”

“That’s right, Moose. Crazy Bud got the island’s owner teed off by conspiring with a snake to dig up all the apple trees and trade them to the jackals for five bundles of pot. Boy, did everything go sour in a hurry. The weather got too hot or too cold, the rain and sleet pelted our bodies (causing us to go into caves), the bobcats ate the birds, mosquitoes bit the crap out of us (causing us to wear clothes), and the whole island started getting larger because of the receding ocean.

“So many bad things happened that it would take me till Christmas to tell you about all of them. Bud overdosed on pot and citrus, my two favorite sons—my first-born and second-born—got into a vicious fight that left the younger one dead, and worst of all, Babs lost interest in me, started wearing heavy makeup, and began flirting with a huge, mean-tempered gorilla.

“Naturally, Moose, I had to get out of there, so I found my balloon, ascended into the night, and, after a long sleep, found myself beside that same huge pile of oak leaves in my park in Wilmington. I hid the vehicle in the pile again, walked on down Union Street, bellied up to my favorite bar, and belted down a few drafties to drown my sorrows.”

So then, Nina, Uncle Ernest rose and left again for the house, leaving me there to watch the last bit of the sun descend and disappear to the right of the great oak tree across the road. I started feeling that sort of nagging disappointment that I always felt when I was alone on the farm after the sun went down.

When I looked north, towards town, at old man Scriver’s line of trees, I noticed that the sun’s light was still halfway down the trees. It was such a magical sight: the sun had set yet still asserted its power on the land. As time passed, the shadowy bottom part rose imperceptibly, gradually squeezing the light skyward, greedily dominating until it controlled the area entirely. It was an eerie feeling, Nina, for sure.

[To be continued Tuesday, 11/20/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 2

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 2

When Uncle Ernest trudged on towards the house, I climbed high up into the top of our maple tree. I lay back in the crook on a broad limb and watched the endless drove of starlings flow as one amorphous being across the sky, headed east to roost in the deep woods. Nina, they came from the west, above the line of trees, first in the dozens, then in the hundreds, and then in the thousands.

They filled the air, overpowering all other sounds and even thoughts with their incessant, rasping chatter. I clapped my cupped hands together hard, making a loud, popping report that made them split apart, leaving a hole above me, and for a second or two there was silence, till they regrouped and continued just as loud and massive as before. I clapped a few more times and each time their response lessened, until my clapping didn’t faze them at all.

Then, when the starlings let up after a while, I heard, coming out of the northeast, a sort of bugling hoot, and, looking up, saw a line of swans moving swiftly southwestward, towards Swyka’s blacksmith shop. I tried to imitate their call but, not suffering fools, they didn’t even slow down, but kept bugling occasionally just the same, as they diminished into an illegible scribble on the horizon. When they had been directly overhead I had counted thirteen of them and remembered that it was Friday the thirteenth. What do you suppose that meant, Nina?

I then looked south across our ten-acre field, at Junior’s grandmother’s house and thought about what we did a few days earlier. We punched a hole in the bottom of two Campbell’s soup cans and attached each end of a twenty-foot string to each can. It made a pretty good telephone, Nina, because when we pulled the string taut we could hear each other clearly. This gave us the idea that if we stretched a string across the field (about 400 yards), and if we both climbed a tree, we could talk to each other through the cans.

We went to a lot of trouble for nothing, of course, so I went over and we played in his grandmother’s lane. Soon we were arguing like mad over who could imitate Bill Herman’s voice better. I think I must have picked on him or wrestled him down, because he got his grandmother’s clothesline pole and chased me halfway across the field towards home. Talk about a bad day; that was sure one for me. Hearing the swing creak, I scrambled down and again joined a revived Uncle Ernest, ready to resume his story.

“Anyhow, Moose, that gal and I hit it off really well from the start. She gave me a bit of her apple and pretty soon we were holding hands. I whispered in her ear that she was the only girl in the world for me. She was barely believable, and when I kissed her she shivered all over and said that she had never felt like that ever before.

“When I asked her about Bud she told me that all he ever did was play with the animals once in a while, eat fruit, and write numbers in the dirt. When I asked why in the world he did that, she said that the island’s owner, whom she had never met, told Bud that all he had to do to earn his keep was to be fruitful and multiply.”

“Give me a break, Unk,” I laughed. “They were both pretty stupid it seems to me.”

“Right you are, Moose, but Babs (as I decided to call her) and I became boyfriend and girlfriend just the same. After dark that day, we walked hand-in-hand down to a large pond. It was an enchanting sight, for it lay before us sort of quaking in the gentle breeze, barely visible, yet vibrant with a dark shimmer under the stars.

“At the shore’s edge was a pair of blue herons, who, seeing us standing there, walked towards us with their peculiar gait, like small clowns on stilts. They came up and nuzzled us, so we stroked their wing feathers and heads with affection. Then they gave us a parting squawk of friendship and flew off across the pond, showing in flight a superb grace that on land they lacked.

“Babs and I then walked closer to the pond’s edge, where we sat down in the lush grass. It was really comfortable, so dense and thick, five times thicker than any fancy rug you’ve ever walked on. We sat facing the pond, with Babs between my legs, leaning her back against my chest, so that I needed only lean forward to feel the texture of her hair with my lips and smell its freshness. I mean to tell you, Moose-the-Goose, I never felt so relaxed in my whole life, so contented with my life.

“I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and she intertwined her hands with mine. Occasionally we’d rock back and forth, feeling our bodies respond as one—one creature satiated, pleasure jointly personified. Sometimes she’d tilt her head far back, so that I could lean far forward and down to kiss her upside down, so that lips not meshing, not aligned, made the kiss even more delightful. And then it happened, Moose.”

“Holy crap, Unk,” I said, disgusted. “I hope something happened besides this lovey-dovey, modern romance garbage you’ve been dishing out. What happened? Did an elephant come stomping along and blow cold water on the two of you?”

“Whoaaa, hold your horses for a minute,” Uncle Ernest said in that calm, expressive voice that I knew so well. “As we gazed across the pond to where it met the dark horizon, we could see a speck, a glimmer of light. It was blood-red at first, hardly visible, and then, as it enlarged and rose above the pond—slowly, slowly, inexorably—it became lighter and brighter, so that its beams played upon the pond’s surface in a distorted mirror image of itself. Babs could see the colors better than I, so she described the varying shades of red.

“We then sat speechless, watching it rise in the sky, projecting its contorted twin towards us on the water. After a few minutes I began to hum a favorite tune softly in her ear. She turned around, softened, and laid her cheek on my chest.

“Then I added the words to the tune and, honestly Moose, her tender face cuddled so lightly against me that I could feel her warm breath soothing my whole body. I sang the song twice, after which she joined in, blending her sweet soprano with my shaky baritone. We sang it several times before drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms.”

Now, Nina, do you know what? That simple Uncle Ernest sang the song to me as we swung slowly back and forth on that dreamy, late-summer afternoon. This is what he sang:

♫ Oh, you are the only girl in the world

And I am the only boy.

Nothing else will matter in this world today.

We will go on loving in the same old way.

A beautiful garden just meant for two,

With nothing to mar our joy.

I will say such wonderful things to you.

There will be such wonderful things to do.

Oh, you are the only girl in the world

And I am the only boy. ♫

[To be continued Friday, 11/16/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 1

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – Babs, Chapter 1

You know something, Nina? I thought I’d never get Uncle Ernest to tell me what happened next with his hot air balloon. But, finally, one afternoon the next week, we got together on the double chair under the maple tree in the side yard. “Where in the world did that contraption land you next, Unk?” I asked.

       “Believe me, Moose, I was so tired after my all-nighter with Maggie that I must have slept for a long while. When I awakened the balloon was descending and I could see nothing but clear blue sky all around and above and below. ‘Geez,’ I thought, ‘I must be in outer space.’ There was so much oxygen that I could breathe effortlessly. I literally felt twenty years younger. As the balloon descended I kept looking below to see where it was taking me this time. What do you think I saw?”

“Beats me, Unk. Did it set you down with a bunch of dinosaurs? What did you see?”

“Nothing! I couldn’t see a blamed thing in all directions but clear, baby-blue sky. After a while, though, I noticed that there was an ocean down there. Then I could see a speck of green, which got larger as I descended. Moose, I was going to land on a vast, beautiful island, with meandering streams and flowered trees of many different colors.

“When I got closer I could smell the fragrant blossoms. It was amazing. I was sure that I had ventured, somehow, onto another planet, but then I could see many familiar animals moving around in different areas below, so I knew I was still on good old Mother Earth.

“After I landed and hid my balloon and basket, I could tell that there was no place like it on earth. I started walking along the river banks and discovered that the living conditions were delightful—perfect temperature, plenty of fruit, nuts, vegetables, and refreshing spring water.

“Even all of the animals were friendly; they didn’t run from each other or from me. I continued walking, checking things out, until I came upon a guy sitting under a tree scribbling numbers in the dirt with a stick, and do you know what, Moose? He was stark naked.”

“Crap, Unk, you landed in a nudist camp!”

“Not really, this guy was just strange. He had an adult body but the mind of a three year old. He was definitely a goofy-looking bird. He had a small head, thin arms and legs, and a gigantic distended belly. The belly was startling, bigger and rounder than the largest pregnant woman’s I’ve ever seen. He was sitting in the dirt with his legs crossed, and surrounding him in small piles was every kind of fruit imaginable: plums, pears, apricots, peaches, bananas, grapes, oranges, and so forth.

“I’ll tell you what now; it was bizarre, for he was stuffing himself with the fruit, going from pile to pile, eating with his left hand as the juice ran down his chin and dripped onto his gut, giving it a chartreuse-tinted sheen. With his right hand he was writing numbers in the dirt with a stick, drawing lines under them, and writing more numbers. Then he’d erase it all with a piece of bark and start all over again. The creature was entirely covered with thick hair. His head was slightly pointed and his face was covered with so much black fuzz that I could see only his eyes and flattened nose.

“I'd say he looked to me like a cross between a large chimpanzee and Yogi Berra. He may have been the missing link or something, but he was definitely not completely human. He looked up at me and said, ‘Me workin’,’ and gestured towards a field of fruit trees—cherry, plum, apple, peach and others—that he had planted and numbered. 'Me plant’m,' he grunted. Geez, Moose, he was beyond belief. I've never, ever talked to anybody that dense in my life, not even in Cecil County.

“I said to him, ‘Hey, you’re a whiz; what’s your name?’ When he gave me a blank stare I shrugged and said, ‘Well, I’ll just call you Bud.’ I sat with him for a while and then, bored, walked on towards a large orchard in the distance. I walked into the orchard and saw magnificent wild flowers everywhere. Many species of songbirds were flitting about and perched on the limbs of the fruit trees. A black panther was stretching under one of the trees and, believe it or not, a blue jay was perched on his back, just as unconcerned as could be.

“It was about this time that I saw her, Moose. She was sitting on a log behind a large apple tree, eating a red apple about the size of a grapefruit. She was dark complexioned and had long black hair. But, you know, that’s not the first thing I noticed about her.”

“She was naked, too, like Bud. Right Unk?” I asked, trying not to seem too excited.

“You bet your life, and she was beautiful, and not at all ashamed that she was totally bare. In fact, when I said ‘Hi’ and sat next to her on the log, she wanted to know why I had those funny things hanging from my body. ‘Those coverings must be abrasive,’ she told me, and made me take all of them off so I’d be comfortable. Well, I felt pretty strange for a while, but after a few minutes it felt as natural as could be.

“ ‘My name’s Ernie. What’s yours?’

“ ‘What would you like it to be?’ she asked, showing me that she was a good bit smarter than Bud. When I asked her what the other people in the area called her, she said that the only other person was the guy playing in the dirt, the goof I had just met, Bud. She said that he didn’t talk to her much unless he wanted her to cook him some rhubarb or something, and then he’d call out: ‘Hey You!’

“Then I noticed something really strange about her. She was a real knockout to be sure, but she had no trace of any belly button and, later, when I was able to get a good look at Bud, I saw that he didn’t have one either.”

“Geez,” I said, gulping and wide-eyed, “maybe some aliens from another planet hatched them from eggs and placed them there as an experiment.”

“Beats me, Moose. That idea’s as good as any, but I wonder about it to this day.” [To be continued Tuesday, 11/13/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 9

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 9

Regaining his cheerful disposition, Uncle Ernest continued his story. “After a few minutes I went outside to get some air and I saw Mamie, José’s Mom, coming towards me down the path. As she waved to me she almost fell from tripping over some camel dung, so when she approached I said, ‘Hail, Mamie, you’re certainly full of grace this afternoon. Lordy, but you’re lucky; you must be a blessed woman to have kept your balance like that.’ ”

“ ‘Ernie, you’re still as nuts as ever,’ she smiled, not really meaning to hurt my feelings. ‘And I’ll be sure to pray for you to change before you die.’ And do you know, Moose, I knew that she meant well, because she took my cheeks in her hands and gave them a couple of pats before she continued on down the path to order her favorite lunch, a nice pepperoni pizza, loaded with extra goat cheese.

“After a couple of weeks I got awfully bored, so I decided to head on back to Wilmington to see how the ponies were faring. I called an urgent club meeting, and the night before we met I broke the news to Maggie. Naturally, she was heart-broken and pleaded for me to take her with me. But I made it clear that partying and gambling with me in Wilmington would not be the life for her. She finally agreed and that night we had a nice intimate party. We sipped some mighty fine wine and enjoyed some mighty nice snuggling all night.

“At the next club meeting I told everybody goodbye and asked them what they planned for the future. The original charter members were all there (minus José and Jud of course), along with Mamie, Maggie, and a roomful of prospective members. We elected Pete, president; Matt, vice president; Jimmy, secretary; and Tom, treasurer.”

“Then everybody talked about their plans. Mamie said that she was going to devote her life to Josanity, in honor of her son. Maggie, with bloodshot eyes and sobs, said that she was going to fight for women’s rights and become a Josain nun in order to further the cause of Josanity.

“Pete gave a powerful speech, saying that he planned to take a course in masonry at the famous Daveston Vocational School so he could build a big church for the ever-expanding club. He said that he hoped to get big contributions from some rich members so he could construct a beauty, which he planned to call Sir Pete’s Cathedral. You know, Moose, it’s sad, because I’ll bet that, after I left, the club must have folded. I’ve never, ever, heard of Josanity or Sir Pete’s Cathedral. Have you?”

“Heck no, Unk, but I don’t know didly about fancy clubs or religions. I only go to Sunday School one Sunday a year, in July, so I can go to the church picnic at Port Herman.”

“Well, as I said, it’s a shame, because José and the others worked their butts off to get something started only to have it all go down the tubes. Anyway, after saying our goodbyes—amidst sighs, kisses, and hugs—I hopped a camel caravan back to that lake where I had first landed. I found my balloon right where I had hidden it in the cattails, inflated it, and ascended high into the heavens over that great walled city of Daveston, which got smaller and smaller until it became just a speck in the vast desert below.”

“Did it take you on home then, Unk?”

“Shoot no, Moose, it took ten more long years to get home. You won’t believe where it set me down. But you’ll have to wait a while to hear what happened. I have some important business with Dolph tonight.”

Yeah, well, that meant that he would be partying in Dolph Wharton’s Tavern all night, chewing the fat with the local yokels and doing who knows what else. He might make it back by morning, but I had my doubts.

        And so, Nina, when Uncle Ernest left I zipped around on my bike for a while, threw a bunch of stones at the clothesline pole and, retreating from the approaching darkness (and the mosquitoes it would bring), went into the house to see if Pop would read me the funnies before it was time to climb the stairs for bed.  [To be continued Friday, 11/09/2012]

Days of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 8

Days of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and the World – José, Chapter 8

“Then,” Uncle Ernest explained, “poor José hobbled on down the road away from the city, while I jogged on back to Maggie’s, where I slept like a baby until ten the next morning. For the time being I didn’t tell anybody about what had happened, so they all thought that José had gone on to his heavenly rewards. The authorities would probably wonder where Jud disappeared to, but they wouldn’t bother trying to find him; nobody likes a rat.”

“You bet, Unk,” I agreed, as Uncle Ernest made his usual trip to refill his glass. I walked over to the north edge of the porch, pulled off a Seckel pear from the small tree Pop had planted there, and sank my teeth into it. I peered towards town and saw that our steel drawbridge was raised to its full height to let a ship pass through. I thought about how often we had to sit in our old 1941 Ford, waiting impatiently for the bridge span to lower so we could head to Elkton or Wilmington.

As we approached the bridge in that worn-out Ford, Pop would always say, “Look, are the weights at the top? If they are it means the bridge is down and we don’t have to wait.” Many times the weights were down, however, and we’d sit and watch the ship coast through. When it passed we’d hear the steel-on-steel grinding that the cables made as they raised the weights to the top and lowered the bridge surface so we could labor across.

On our left, between the bridge tender’s shack and the Rio movie theater, sat the small white barber shop, where I got my first haircut and watched the screwy antics of Jumpin’ Jim, the barber. The white building was square, with just enough room for Jim’s barber chair, his counter lined with barber implements, a washbasin, and chairs lined up along the wall facing the canal. Jim always had the radio on, usually tuned in to comedy shows such as Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee & Molly, or The Great Gildersleeve.

I remember Jumpin’ Jim and his customers laughing at the jokes as he pranced around his victim in the barber's chair, snipping rhythmically with his scissors or waving his straight razor with a shaky hand and talking, always chattering small talk as he bounded around the chair, lunged to the washbasin or to the counter, and skipped back again to the chair.

Every so often he would swoop to a back closet, reach in and lift up a bottle in a brown paper bag, and take a quick swig. I never found out what the heck was in that bottle, and I don’t know anybody else who ever did either. Then he’d prance on back to the barber's chair. Whoever named him ‘Jumpin’ Jim’ got it right. He took a long time cutting a head of hair, and when he finished with the combs and scissors, he’d always mix up hot lather with his brush and bowl, and brush lavish amounts onto the back of your neck and around your ears.

He would then spend half a minute sharpening his razor, with rapid, snapping strokes, on a leather strop that was attached at one end of the barber's chair. Then he’d say to his helpless captive, “Now don’t you move; sit still now. I’ve never cut anybody yet.” And with a shaky hand he’d brandish his straight razor, come in and shave a small area, bounce back out and wave the razor in the air, come in and shave another small area, and in this manner finally get the job done. And all the while he’d be gabbing away or laughing at the radio jokes.

Then he’d put a hot, damp towel on your neck, scrub off all of the extra lather, rub sweet-smelling lotion in your hair (kneading it into your scalp vigorously), part it and comb it, and set you free by flinging off the big apron with a deft flourish that comes only with much experience. After some more small talk, Pop would pay him the fifty cents and we would head on back to the farm and return in a couple of weeks to go through it all again.

“Hey, Moose,” Uncle Ernest yelled from the swing. So I ran on over and slid in beside him, still gnawing on the pear.

“Something bothers me. You know, Unk, I can’t figure out why all the priests wanted to save you instead of José?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know at first either, but I figured it out lying in bed the next morning at Maggie’s. They yelled to save me because I had won so much money from them in all the poker games we had played since I had been there. If they kept me alive they at least had a chance to win their money back. I really had to lie low for a while though, so Maggie and I cooled our heels in our little love nest for about three days, and just as we were going stir crazy with each other in that confined area, who should sneak in, disguised as a homeless guy, but our José.

“He said he was feeling fine under the circumstances, but we checked out his wounds just the same and found that they were healing pretty well. He said that he had to see all the club members one more time, and asked me to organize a brief club meeting so he could conduct a decent farewell. So, I got the gang together for that afternoon, and when they came in and saw José they just about crapped themselves. I never did tell them about how I had saved him; I just let them draw their own conclusion. But do you know something? If I hadn’t had the sense to give him that penicillin, he would have been off to his heavenly rewards after three days instead of meeting with us.

“When José showed them his scars they were shocked and didn’t know what to say. Then José shook hands with each of us and said, ‘Take care of yourselves, brothers.’ He asked us to say hello to all of the good townspeople for him. Then he made us all join hands for a song. He started the singing and then made us join in. We sang it about five times, and it was quite touching, Moose, even for me, so much so that I remembered it.” And, Nina, incredible as it seems, Uncle Ernest sang it to me. This is what he sang: “♫A farewell to you Brother, and to my friends and to our long friendship/As it was in the beginning, is now and always will be, friends till the end, great friends, great friends.♫”

“Whoa! That’s enough of that, Unk,” I begged. “What happened next?”

“Too bad you don't appreciate good music, Moose; that's all I can say. Anyhow, before José left for good he pleaded for us to keep the club going. ‘Expand Josanity; make it a success for me, guys,’ he declared seriously, and then he limped on out and ambled down that dusty road as we all sat around feeling pretty low.”  [To be continued Tuesday, 11/06/2012]