Chappie’s Childhood Stories
Editor’s Note: Here we continue with the childhood stories of Marvin Chapman “Chappie” Morgan, and his memories of growing up in Central, in the 1940s.
The Hooper Road House
We were headed to town one day when Mama spotted a big house on Hooper Road sitting empty. She stopped to investigate, and sure enough, it was vacant. We were on the front porch and she said, “I think we’ll just move over here.”
Naomi thought that was exciting and started jumping up and down on the bottom concrete step saying, “oh, goody, goody.” And we did rent the house and moved from the Shaffett Place in September 1939. I do not remember leaving or moving from the other house, but I do remember cleaning the new house before moving in. Mama and the girls were scrubbing floors and doing the usual types of cleaning.
I got thirsty and asked Mama for a drink of water. She told me to take a drink from a fresh bucket sitting on the living room floor. So, I bent over and was sucking up water through my puckered lips when someone’s puppy came bounding into the house and jumped right up on me while I was drinking. I was so startled I didn’t know what to do! Mama had a good laugh out of it.
The Black Birds
Editor’s Note: This charming story creates the picture perfect description of Central during the early summer months. Here Chappie and his sister Janey decide to explore the wildlife outside their home on Hooper Road.
All the tall trees in our front yard provided sanctuary for many kinds of birds. Each spring, Blue Jays and Mocking Birds nested among their branches, and great flocks of other kinds would winter in our part of the South.
One winter day a large flock of Redwing Blackbirds lit in the Pen Oak, the Hackberry and the Tooth-Ache trees up close to the house. The chirpings of hundreds of birds so close to the house attracted Janey and me, so we went out on the front porch to see them.
So many pretty birds covering the leafless trees, and all their chatter was exhilarating. We stood in awe looking up at the stark trees suddenly turned black. Overwhelmed at the spectacle, Janey threw her arms into the air and yelled, “Hi blackieeeee….” With a great swoosh, they were gonna and all was silence. A fleeting moment of disbelief in her face quickly changed to embarrassment when she realized that her action had scared so many creatures. We both had a good laugh at her childish antic. Today, the sighting of a single Redwing Blackbird elicits a fond memory of that childhood moment.
Pitching Lumber
Editor’s Note: Many of Chappie’s childhood stories involve mischief and practical jokes with his brother John Mark. Here’s one of our favorites.
After we moved into the old house in Greenwell Springs in 1946, John Mark and I got the idea to finish sealing part of our room on the east side of the upstairs. We took all the scrap lumber left over from remodeling and started nailing them up. We didn’t get very far before something else captured our fancy. Consequently, the project never went a step further, but the lumber remained piled at one side of our room.
It must have been a couple of years later when I got industrious and began cleaning up the mess. I moved the furniture away from the front dormer window and started pitching planks and two-by-fours out into the front yard. As they began piling up down in the yard, they got louder and louder as they struck one another.
John Mark heard the racket and came around the house to see what in the world I was up to. He watched a few of the planks come sailing out the window and hitting the pile. He waited until a heavy length of two-by-six came thundering down and just as it hit the pile, he let out a bloodcurdling yell and started screaming and running around in circles holding his head.
I didn’t take time to look out the window, but jumped clear across our double bed which lay between me and the stairs. In two or three leaps down the stairs, I was out the front door. Expecting the worst, I found that devil standing there laughing at me, but if I could have gotten my hands on him, he would not have thought it a laughing matter! When I heard him yell that first time, I just knew I had killed him. If I could have caught him, I would have!
Deceptive Footsteps
Joe Chemin and I went out one night in his brother’s car. I must have had a blind date because I wound up with a girl two years older than me. We went to the VFW dance, but I wasn’t too happy being seen in public with this “older woman.”
I was in luck. Brother John came in with some of his friends, so I pawned her off on him with the excuse that I had to get home early. Joe brought me on back home eventually and the girl stayed at the dance with John. John’s parting words were, “Hit the stairs twice when you go up.”
Mama and Daddy didn’t keep too tight a rein on us, but they did expect us to come in at a decent hour. It was after twelve when I got home so I didn’t turn on the lights, but went straight up to bed and as I ascended the stairs, I stumbled around, bumped the walls and hit each step twice.
John slipped in later, shoes in hand. The next day Daddy let us know he knew what hour we came in, and casually remarked, “I heard you boys coming in around midnight last night.” John and I just looked at one another and grinned.