Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Hill

Long ago, after the Earth had cooled and the seas had formed, the first life crawled upon the land. We kids all had summer jobs to support our habits of drive-in movies and Col. Dixie chicken. Without our summer jobs, all we could afford were the submarine races at Mr. Miller's pond and whatever we could swipe from mom's kitchen.

Summer jobs, lord were there plenty! From painting fences and house-trim to baby-sitting, mowing, washing cars, tutoring, fixing radios & TVs, the list goes on and on!

One summer Saturday morning in 1967, I stopped before work to talk with Mark, of Bauer & Hudson, to plan the night's festivities. His summer job was policing the grounds of the Bama Drive-In where we would probably both wind up that night, he with one of the gals that was listed by the Public Health Service (he never listened, used to shake the hell out of the urinal plumbing while screaming), me with Connie who was my squeeze since we were twelve.

Well, back to our talk. We had been discussing the festivities and whether the penicillin was working or not when Mark became very sad. Seems the speaker post he had just put his hand on was presently occupied. The occupant had previously been in a foil package labeled “for the prevention of disease only”. This one was, one might say, rather heavily used before becoming a hand-trap. I found it expedient to leave before Mark's sadness faded as I was feeling much mirth! Undoubtedly, Mark would do something I would regret.

My summer job that year was at Claude's Radio & TV Repair. Most of my work was in the shop as a 5' 2”, 17 year old that could pass for 14 kinda shook up field customers. Claude did have a contract with the Archdiocese so the Catholic hospital had him regularly service their huge, old EKG machine and elected to send me. The head nurse/Mother Superior gave me the hairy eyeball when this 14 year old kid took the back off of HER machine and crawled inside with his toolbox. Soon, a couple of parts were tossed out, then the kid came out and promptly unscrewed the safety cover to check the machine's calibration. Poor gal, thought she was going to need the machine! Subsequent visits were not nearly as much fun as she greeted me warmly and asked sensible questions. And yes, Claude & I planned it.

Next was a trip to the Archdiocese itself. Just a small B & W set belonging to the head man himself. Now Claude didn't warn me the abbot, bishop, whatever, was “friendly”. The TV just had two loose screws on the antenna connector. His bishopness didn't want me to leave a whole bunch. I felt it wise to leave a whole bunch. I got back to the shop to find Claude with a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. Oh yes, he had one coming and he didn't see that one coming either.

The last Catholic related service call (interesting term, considering) was to a rather out of the way address. Knowing Claude, I figured another B & W portable did not bode well at all. I had been lifting weights with my dad since the age of eight, running track at school, and was not too concerned about another fat old queer. Oh how wrong I was!

The rather large, Edwardian abode was full of girls! Lots of girls! I liked girls! It took a looong time to repair that little TV with all the wonderful help, however the girls in the Home for Unwed Mothers were off limits. ...sigh... Thanks Claude, that WAS a nice service call!

Remember Mr. Miller's pond? He also had a daughter, Anne, about six years older than me that used to baby-sit my sister and self when our folks would vanish for a weekend now and then. Since dad was a pilot and we had our own airplane, it was hard to tell where they went.

Anne was a typical 12 year old girl, knobby knees and elbows, growing like a weed, and properly school-marmish with her almost six (me) and almost four (Gracie) year-old charges. Since my sister and self were rather small, Anne used to put one on each knee and read to us (I've still got the book!). Of course I'm curious about most every thing and had to gently pull her blouse out a bit to have a look. She gave me a lesson on propriety. I didn't do that to her again.

For fun, I ran into her 19 years later! My oh my! We had a heck of a visit ,however I wasn't invited to sit on her knee anymore. Darnit.

This thing was to be about The Hill.


The Hill was located between one of the prettiest meadows east of the Rocky Mountain meadows, and a failed, post World War 2 subdivision. The meadows were gently sloped toward the climax forested upper waters of Rabbit Creek which became a large river of the same name emptying into Mobile Bay. Sunrise services were held every Easter.

The subdivision was kinda sad. All there was of it were a grid of streets, well done since they were nearly 20 years old and still in good shape. Wonder what happened?

The Hill itself had quite a few live oaks open to the west (meadows) and closed to the north and east by a fairly dense, young forest. A perfect Lovers' Lane! Sitting in one's buggy or outside on a moon-lit night with a lot of hormones and very little sense tends to make a bunch of full-term babies the mom only carried six months!

We kids kept "our Hill" clean and mowed. No one knew who owned it so we just followed the last generation. I always wondered how many of us were conceived there!

You might ask if I ever went back. I did. Once. Twelve years later. Wish I hadn't.

The miles and miles of climax forest around the creek were nearly clear-cut. The creek itself was filled in by erosion run-off making a yellow, sandy bottom for a wide, six-inch deep, barren drainage ditch. So ugly. The old subdivision had a few "Jim Walter" type houses (cracker-boxes) and mobile homes, The live oaks on The Hill were gone and for the life of me, I couldn't imagine why. In twelve short years, the beauty that would not come back even if man's "works" were removed for hundreds of years.

The original purpose of this essay was to explore the various names of The Hill. Kinda lost now. Got too serious. One variance had to do with us kids policing it on Saturday morning and Sunday evening, finding the occasional used device which had packaging stating "for the prevention of disease only". This made for a rather ribald name ;o)

Oh well...

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