Haven`t been here in a very long time. Sort of lost my way  due to failing health and old age. Turns out that there's  not anything I can do about either.

Finally after a long absence I've returned to oldduggy.com. I'm grateful to everyone that took time to read oldduggy and leave a comment. I've decided to add a few more farm boy tales before continuing about my life in Michigan.

I guess that most of us today are pretty much still influenced by lessons we learned as a kid. We've all heard the phrase "rights of passage". I reckon some of my experiences as a youngster could fit into that category.
Almost every kid needs a mentor to help him or her through life's mysteries. For me it was my cousin Hubert. Hubert was five years my senior. A real man of the world, at least in my minds eye. It was Hubert that first introduced the birds and bee's into my young innocent life. Although there weren't no bee's and it was chickens instead of little birds.
It all started on a Saturday. It was spring time as I recall. My mom and my aunt Nell, Hubert's mom, were working on a quilt. Us kids were sent outside to play. The house we lived in was rented from my uncle Jim. His grand paw had built it in 1897. The old house was so big that we used only three of the large rooms. The rest we kept sealed off during the winter in an effort to keep the heat in our living area. Now with arrival of spring and warm weather my mom was using  yet another room for quilting and sewing.
My family had moved into the place during the winter of 1945. Now here we were in the spring of 1946. What little grass we had was all green and pretty. There was hundreds of what we called butter cups. Pretty yellow flowers that grew in bunches all over the yard. Uncle Jim's chickens were scattered out around the old house just scratching and looking for food. Every so often the old red rooster would jump one of the hens. After a certain amount of scuffling and carrying on, the old rooster would turn the hen loose and she'd run off and hide. That damned old rooster would jump another hen and it would be the same carrying on all over again. I didn't know or for that matter care what them chickens was up to. The whole thing was sort of nerve racking. They'd been carrying on like that for as long as I could remember.
And so it was on this pretty spring day that I'd be introduced into far reaching new phase of human understanding. Sounds pretty scary don't it?
I grabbed me a rock and beaned that old rooster. What did you do that for Hubert asked? I'm making that old rooster leave them hens alone was my reply.
You need to understand that this conversation was taking place between fourth grader Hubert and  me a  six year old preschooler.
Hubert kind of gives me a know it all smile while looking down his nose at me. Old know it all Hubie says don't you know that rooster and them hens are making baby chicks. It was about at that point that Hubie introduced me to the "F" word. A new and interesting addition to my vocabulary. His explanation was a heck of lot more graphic than I'm using here. However, our rooster and hen exchange was short lived and we were soon talking about something else.
Fast forward to the following Monday. Me and my little brother Lowell were playing in the yard. It was a perfect spring day. As always that damned rooster started jumping the hens. Little brother had been watching the rooster and hens as they went through their noisy ritual.
Being a big brother kind of dictates that you pass on knowledge to your younger siblings. The rooster and hen thing was in my mind a "perfect" example. I launched right into as good an explanation as I could. I was trying to remember all that Hubert had told me including frequent use of the "F" word. Little brother seemed satisfied and impressed with my explanation. I thought I'd done a good job of telling him what was going on with the chickens. It was about this time that my mom came out to check on me and Lowell. As fate would have it that damned rooster picked that exact moment to jump another hen. Lowell with his recently acquired knowledge assured our mother that the rooster wasn't hurting the hen, he was just (F word) her. Well, everything just stopped right then and there. It got so quite I could hear my own hair growing. Ma ask little brother in her best southern baptist voice, what did you just say? Like any good son, he answered by repeating his earlier assurance about the nature of that damned roosters business with the young hen. Me? I was gettin ready to head for the creek. Never made it. Ma reached out and grabbed me in a grip that put an end to any notion of running. Boy was you the cause of all this filthy talk? I owned up to it all. It wouldn't of been fair to Lowell to have done otherwise. Ms. Irene picked up a near by brush broom and set my butt on fire. Irene was an avid believer in Biblical warning about sparing the rod.
Needless to say, I survived the confrontation with the brush broom. It's also needless to say that the "F" word remains in my vocabulary but never used if Irene is within earshot.   

Life on Osmun street was great. Lowell and I managed to fit in and get accepted. This was a time free from drugs and  other social problems faced by kids today.  A kid was pretty much safe to go and do anything within reason. We walked to Murphy Park or hung out at summer school during the day and played around the neighborhood  until about nine o'clock at night.
Michigan had and still has a soft drink bottle law which meant every bottle had a return deposit value of ten cents. Going through the trash barrels at Murphy Park was usually good for a couple of dollars. Just like anywhere else, the more you hustle the better you do.
 

Tommy Voore was indeed the kid to know. Very wise for his years. There was an immediate bonding between him and my brother. I think for Lowell's part, Tommy took the place of friend Jimmy in California.

One of the first things brother and me learned was where all the neighborhood kids went during the day. Summer School!! It was a program set up by the parks and recreation department. Every elementary school in town was open and had softball teams and other things for the kids. This was a good deal for everyone but especially for kids that came from families where both parents worked or single parent families.  
The nearest school to us was McConnell elementary about five blocks away. Built in nineteen twenty one, it was a friendly old building that smelled like old books and sweeping compound.  

Pontiac was a true to form "factory town". Everything revolved around the G.M. plants in the city. Rightly so when you consider that  most of the G.M. workers lived in the immediate area and spent their wages at local businesses. These families and their off springs would account for nearly all of the workers at the local G.M. facilities. These people paid taxes to support the Federal government and all its social and infra-structure programs as well. Its sad to see these same people "demonized by the present day media and blamed for the failure of the Detroit auto makers. It was a kind and gentle place to live . 

Well so here we are , strangers in a strange land.
Lowell and I stayed in our own backyard. The Michigan weather was great. Of course early summer is always nicer than the hot humid weather that follows. Me and brother hung out in the yard or watched television. Detroit had four stations plus CKLW in Windsor Ontario. Be that as it may, Lowell and I wanted to fit in a little better. Truth of the matter was that there didn't seem like there was that many kids around. Summer vacation had started with the closing of the schools but the neighborhood was pretty much deserted. We had nearly new Shwinn bicycles but we were forbidden to leave the yard. I mention these bikes because they would play a part in my future. There is a pretty neat story about these Schwinn's that happened before our move north.

One nice morning brother and me are in the backyard making at mowing the almost non-existent grass. We heard a voice that said, "That's so dumb". I looked around but failed to find the source of the comment. Went back to cutting the grass. This time a really worn soft ball comes bouncing across the yard. Little brother grabbed the ball and pitched to me. "I'll tell my big brother if you don't give my ball back" yelled the mystery voice. Lowell tells the faceless voice that maybe he will get the ball back if we can see him.

Our back yard had a fence separating it from the yard behind our house. I guess the desire for more privacy had caused the neighbor behind us to allow natural barrier of brush to grow up between our fence and his yard. Our mystery kid had been hiding in this green maze of scrub brush and Dutch Elm saplings along with the ever present wild Rhubarb. His first appearance was when he came crawling through a hole under the fence and into our backyard.  

He was a small kid, probably Lowell's age if not younger. Dressed in old over sized clothes, he put me in mind of Emmitt Kelly the clown. A heavy winter toboggan cap, dirty sweat shirt and old denim pants with a belt that was far and away to big. The unused part hung limply to his knee's. I suppose it would have been an almost vulgar appearance except for the overall comical appearance of this kid. The "Crowning Touch" was his shoes. They were old worn out U.S. Keds high top "Tenny Shoes" as they were known back then. All together to many clothes for a warm June day. 

In my most "Yankee" sounding voice I said my name is Kenny and this is my brother Lowell. I thought using my first name might be more impressive. The stranger offered back that he had a older brother named Kenny and he had just got married cause his girl friend was "Knocked Up". That revelation sort of rattled me seeing as how I was still learning about such things. He then offered up that his name was Tommy Voore with two "O"s. He asked  if we were "Hillbillies", before either of us could answer, he said he was in the fourth grade. So me and Lowell had broke the ice with a new neighborhood kid. Things were starting to look up for us. Tommy for what ever reason took to calling my brother Low instead of Lowell. It was a nick name and a friendship that would last for the next several years. 

Our apartment was on Osmun street. I'd venture to say that Osmun was one of the longest streets in the whole city. It ran from Woodward Avenue going east until it ended up as a dirt road at a small lake known unofficially as Bare Ass Beach. Just south of B.A.B was a city park known as Murphy Park. The park was mainly a hang-out for drunks and kids skipping school. The city had several nice parks but Murphy was I guess what you'd call a "Stepchild" because of it's location. 

Pontiac, society wise, was divided up along invisible boundaries according to  income and profession. Blue collar factory workers occupied the east and south side. The west side was mostly professional people. North side was where the Pontiac Motors complex was located .This was a big place covering many acres, There was a large residential area that butted right up against the Pontiac plant. This part of town was growing and spreading further north toward Lapeer county. Mainly caused by people that were moving from the south and east sides of town as their financial fortunes improved.

The Osmun street area intermixed with several industrial sites, the biggest was the GMC Truck Plant.  In fact there was three small factories near our home. One place was owned by the Webb Coal and Lumber Company. Webb made cement blocks at a site on the corner of Osmun and Paddock streets. They also had a coal yard at the same location. Berry Garage Door Company had a plant on Allen street just off the intersection of Osmun and Jessie. The demand for garage doors and cement blocks must have been pretty high because both places ran twenty four hours a day and six days a week. I would learn to tune the Barry plant noise out because it was pretty bad during warm weather with all the plant doors open.

If I'd be asked what plant I liked considering the negative impact of the noise and smoke not to mention the extra traffic in the neighborhood, it would be the Whizzer plant. Whizzer built a varity of motor bikes. Little two and three horsepower jewell's that set your imagination and day dreaming machinery to running at a terrific pace. A mental state that would get me in a bit of trouble before my first summer in Pontiac was over.

The move to Michigan was nothing like the cross country trek to California. The Ford truck was replaced by a nineteen thirty nine Chevy Deluxe. Like all of Bert's cars it was spotless and like new. The little in-line six cylinder engine ran like a fine watch. We made the trip at night so I didn't see much of the country.

We arrived at our new home early Monday morning. Everyone just got out of the car and went inside, laid down on the living room floor and went to sleep.

My dad had rented half of a duplex that had originally been a store front for an outfit called the American News Company. The place was located in a "Blue collar" residential neighborhood. A bunch of well kept older houses on one hundred by fifty foot lots.

Lowell and I had finished out the school year in Alabama but Michigan schools were still in session so the neighborhood was deserted during most of the day. Of course being new kids on the block kind of put us at a disadvantage any how.

I don't know why but every "Hillbilly"seemed to think Detroit was the only city in the state of Michigan. Trying to tell them otherwise was just a waste of time. Anyway, we had moved to a town called Pontiac and it was about as nice a place as you could ask for. Actually Pontiac was a pretty good sized city of about eighty thousand people. Strictly a General Motors town. The home of the Pontiac car and the G.M.C Truck and Bus Division. My dad worked at the latter. He earned forty five dollars a week. A pretty decent wage at that time. 

The first thing I noticed about Pontiac was that the air had a smell unlike anything I'd ever smelled before.  It was awful. As time passed you got to where you didn't notice the odor. At times there would be a smokey haze that just hung low to the ground especially on cold sunny winter days. all this of course was the price you paid for having all the factories in the area. Bear in mind that this was the early nineteen fifties. There wasn't much concern about what the pollution was doing to the air or the people that had to breath it.

So once again my family and I were having to learn how to fit into a different society and culture. There was at the time an open prejudice against southern whites. Something I learned to live with but never except. 

Well, I've been "tied up" with bad health not to mention some other problems that have prevented me from being able to really apply myself to writing anything meaningful. Lately I've been able to spent some time planing my next move.
Before stepping back to the past I want to comment on our present political dilemma. We have a woman that is so consumed by herself and the desire for greatness that she has become a laughing stock. We have a black man that has come from "nowhere" but has risen to a position of great power all of which is based on skin color more than actual experience. I wont vote for him or his female adversary. Then there is the offering of the other party. A demented old man. A hero that scares me to death. I wont be voting for him either. Why have we the people allowed this to happen. Even more important is how do we stop it?

Anyway, My dad was working in Michigan. The rest of us were still in Alabama. Eisenhower was running for president. I watched both party conventions on our seventeen inch black and white Philco television. Actually there wasn't much of a choice because we only got one channel out of Birmingham. That channel was number four, an NBC affiliate, call letters WBRC. Television was pretty good on the weekends. Lots of good shows such as Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. The list is pretty long so I can't really list them all but if you were around back then you can recall your favorites I'm sure.

My dad found us a place  to live in Michigan and moved us up north in the spring of 1953. Nothing at all like the California move. Didn't take long to see that Michigan was totally different than either California or Alabama. 

Been a hell of a year past. Hoping this new one opens up a little and brings better things. I'm amazed when I realize that I may see history made in the coming presidential election. Its possible that we may elect our first woman president or we may elect our first Black president. I'm not really impressed by any of the front runners on either side. Seems like we have got to the point that our political leaders are not all that special.

I note that this is entry one hundred. My story is at the point where My family leaves Alabama behind once again. I've been "dogged " by indecision as to whether or not to continue on any farther.

My last year in Alabama was one of the best times in my life. As much as I had loved California there was something about my home state that seemed so "at ease". I have never been able to find that feeling again. I don't know if I can convey the feeling and sights of that time or not.