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 during the 1940s.

 

The Corduroy Knickers

 

Sometime about 1942 or ’43, Mama really set John and me apart from our peers by buying us each a pair of knickers!

 

Boy, how I hated to wear those ugly things. (If you don’t know what knickers are, you’re better off not knowing). We must have been the only two youngans in Central School who had to wear them. Mine were dark brown corduroy, and being so baggy from the knee to the crotch, they were really noisy when I walked. Wheek-whok-wheek-whok-wheek-whok! Never in tune! Just having to wear them to school was humiliating enough.

 

During November 1942, Miss Ethel Diron, my second grade teacher, had me stand on top of her desk in front of the whole class just because she thought my brown corduroy knickers were a good example of clothing worn by the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims be damned! They probably didn’t ever have to stand up on top of their teacher’s desk with the whole world looking while some old bitty carried on about their britches. The old turkey…..

 

By spring rains, they were every day wear (not just for school). Hooper Road was dirt and gravel through the forties and subject to flooding at the slightest hint of rain. We used to say that on a real cloudy day, Comite River would rise a foot! Hooper Road made a dip right at Mickens Lane, and would be underwater all the way to the rise in the front of Joe Johnson’s house. I was wearing my brown corduroy, (we called them cor-ju-roy), knickers one day when the road was under water. All the neighborhood kids would wade up and down the road during these fun times; fun because the road was closed and the school buses couldn’t run!

 

We walked all the way to Hog Creek beside Edward Johnson’s house. When evening finally ran us home, I was miserable in my soaked and heavy knickers. I waddled into the house, my attire weighing a ton, and also getting quite cold from the evening chill. I was surely anxious to shed the monsters, but I had a problem. Here I was in a unheated house, wet from head to toe, my teeth chattering to beat the band, and I couldn’t get my wet knickers off!

 

During 1942, and particularly 1943, there was a critical shortage of metals and other materials because of the war…so the buttons on my knickers were made of hard cardboard i.e., paper, and had swelled so in the water that, try as I might, I could not get them unbuttoned. The harder I tried, the madder I got, (and the colder, too). Losing all patience, I grabbed each side of my fly and ripped every last wad of paper buttons off the pants. And, I’m happy to say, I never had to wear those ugly britches again.

 

Daddy’s Chewing Tobacco

 

Daddy chewed tobacco from as far back as I could remember, up until a few years before he passed on. His favorite brands were Days Work and Brown Mule. When I was about seven or eight, I decided it was time for me to try some of his tobacco. Surely, he wouldn’t miss one of his plugs of Days Work, and apparently, he didn’t. From a stolen plug I cut myself a chew….

 

Of course, by and by John and Warren found out what I was chewing. I quickly offered them a chew. I knew if they took a chew, they couldn’t rat on me. But the little angels refused.

 

My little mind was whirling, trying to find a crack to slip through. Surely, I thought, my big brother would shield his little baby brother from the law. No way! He made a bee-line for the law (our mother) and squealed on me. Now Mama did not eschew, (pun intended) vice of any kind, and presently the dreaded call came; ”Chap-mooooon.”

 

Answering her summons, I withstood a severe cross examination remarkably well. She…made me a promise, I’m sure she would have kept, that if I ever got caught chewing tobacco again, she would make me chew the whole plug at one time! She never had to keep her promise. And I never again trusted my brother John.