Hard Times - The True Story - Part 12

He had three paths to choose for his life: his own, Satan’s plan, or God’s. The day he walked back into his wife's and son's lives, he chose the High Road - but took many detours down Compromise Alley. His first-born son, who Momma named “Earl”, was a thorn in Daddy’s ego. The boy looked just like him - but talked “funny”.  Daddy was ashamed of his namesake - and despised the child‘s handicap. Big Earl stuttered - on occasion - but didn’t sound “stupid” like his son did…

Shortly after he came home to his wife and child, Earl tried to do the “right” things - like get a “normal” job. He worked at a gas station, and carried a lunch pail. He hated it - but he did it anyway. He would even take his son to the park to push him on the swings - but would forbid Little Earl to talk. It was at the park where Daddy’s heart was changed…

Big Earl was pushing his son on a swing, and the child cried out: “Da-ee. Come ‘ere.” Daddy stopped pushing the swing, and confronted his son. “I told you, ’don’t talk’. What? Are you stupid?”

The child continued, “Clo-er, Da-ee”, and gestured to his little mouth. Angry, but relenting, Daddy leaned in close to the child’s lips - and Little Earl spat right in his face. All of Big Earl’s rage, bitterness, and resentment toward his namesake erupted. He took the swing by its chain links and launched it high into the air. Little Earl was hurled upward so forcefully that his hands slipped from the swing. His little body was thrown as high as the tall trees behind him. He fell from the air to the hard ground, breaking his leg. After it healed, Little Earl had a permanent and noticeable limp which never let him - or his daddy - forget that day…

The doctor who treated Little Earl’s leg, observed that he did not have a speech impediment - the boy was “tongue-tied”. (Momma didn’t have money to take her son to doctors, so this had not been diagnosed.) After Little Earl’s tongue was “clipped”, he refused to talk at all…for nearly two years.

Big Earl rued that day at the park all of his life and carried the pain of his son’s hatred as his just punishment. But he loved the boy - not with “guilt” love - but with a broken heart determined to love his son at all costs…

In 1952, when Little Earl was a young teen, he contracted polio. The same leg with the limp became paralyzed and began to atrophy. Amputation was the medical solution. Daddy walked into the hospital the morning of the surgery and rescued his son from “the knife”. Before anybody could stop him, he lifted Little Earl up from his bed, and carried him in his arms out of the hospital. He walked over a mile carrying his son home. Little Earl battled the polio - with his daddy beside him every “step“ of the way. He survived and landed on two feet. The limp survived, too…

There is a song Daddy would sing that always made him cry…

“You always hurt the one you love - the one you shouldn’t hurt at all…

You always pick the sweetest rose, and crush it ‘til the petals fall.”

Big Earl had a limp in his heart…

Hard Times - the Story - Part 11

A few months before I left Momma and Daddy to move to California, there was a hurricane that flooded mass areas of the city. I remember the big ones - like Betsy - but I only remember one thing about this one: the dog that washed into my townhouse living room. I opened the door to investigate the storm damage, and a 25 pound terrier mix male floated in with one of my shoes which had been on the porch. The other shoe was in his mouth…

He paid no attention to me. He planted his four paws on the soaked carpet, shook his short hair with a vengeance, then lifted his leg on my coffee table. He turned and - I swear this is true - winked at me! The arrogance of this little criminal! I couldn’t turn him back out into the flooded city - so I lured him into the kitchen with some left-overs - and set up his “prison cell”. I planned to release him in the morning…

He left without complaining. He didn’t look back. He didn’t wag a “thank you”. But he was back that night. I shut the door in his face. He let out a high, mournful yodel. I took a shower to drown him out - hoping he would leave. But when I turned the water off, I could hear his sad song. That dog was pissing me off…I opened the door to confront him, and he put his paw onto the threshhold, so I couldn’t close it - like the proverbial annoying salesman - and belted another howl.

I let him in…and the next morning, I put him out…and the next night he was back again. I put up signs; I advertised for a “found dog”…nobody claimed him.

It was never official - I planned to leave him behind when I moved. He was not my dog. And he made it perfectly clear that I was not his master. Every morning, he left the house, and every evening when it was dark, he returned. I began to wonder what he did during the day…

I was taking a walk one evening, and spotted him sitting at a red traffic signal. When it turned green, he strolled across the street. He had a cocky gait, a fast pace, and an arrogant, (there is that word again), tilt to his head. He came home that night - and many nights thereafter - bleeding, chewed on -but satisfied. He was a fighter…I imagined that if he could sing, he would croon "I Did It My Way"...

I named him “Oliver”, after my Daddy…and in the spring of 1972, I loaded him in a green VW van for the move to San Francisco. I don’t know if Daddy was flattered that I named this scoundrel after him, but when he’d make long-distance calls to me, he’d always ask how Oliver was doing. We had a script…

”Oliver is a bad dog, Daddy”.
“But he has never left you, little girl.”

Earl’s daddy left him when he was eight years old. Antoine Manuel Vince packed his clothes and never returned to his four children or his wife. He “shacked” up with a woman for a few years…then became a preacher.

Although God intervened in the car crash to convince Earl to marry Eva, he refused to compromise all of his freedoms. He made a deal with Momma that he would marry her - but he would still travel with the horses. He also told her that he didn’t want any kids. “Not cut out to be a father…”. She got pregnant, and he left her. He returned on his son’s third birthday.