I am reading a book from Amazon.com on Rip Kirby a comics strip from Alex Raymond's artist pen in the beginning from King Features of an early detective. I have a special place inside for this strip because as a young boy when my Papaw went to Manitou from the farm, he would rock away reading me that strip aloud when I visited him, tobacco pipe from Prince Albert tobacco cascading over the Madisonville Messenger, and its one of my early favorite memories of my Papaw. I get my first name from Albert Loily Parkest. Papaw would wear flannel shirts, read time off a pocket watch with a screw off glass front you used to set the hands, use a Case XX pocket knife, and loved to hunt. His farm was on Happy Lane and it was to me, and now the only thing remaining is the well that used to be on the porch, and a tree out front. The rest of the farm is different and now sits not across from a quiet sorghum patch where mules would circle a mill to create molasses, but a speedway that roars and can be heard for miles. When I dream of what you might call my happy place, I dream of Happy Lane days visiting where mules Mike and Sam at 17 hands high were used for farming, and water would freeze at Christmas over night when the grates burned down. When you are a city kid it was an adventure, but they were hardy folks of that generation. Papaw left the farm as an old man to be a nurse to his wife after she was crippled with arthritis in a home Uncle Vance built for them with LP gas heat with lights and that was were he was found two weeks after we buried Daddy, lying in the kitchen with his match in one hand and his pipe in the other and I hope he went so fast he did not know it. Today is my Mom's 93rd birthday and the first without her and I have had them on my mind a lot today. I saved Rip Kirby to read special out of that book to remind me of those memories. The stories hold up well. Oddly enough I was trained in Bioterrorism, homeland security, and such for being on the Environmental Response Team for Kentucky and one of the first articles in 1940's was about bio-warfare agent being stolen by a crook wanting to use it to force his way. He was called the Mangler as a villain, but even so it was ahead of his time. The artist who was a Marine in WWII, prior to service was the developer of Flash Gordon, Ming the Merciless, and Jungle Jim. I actually have mp3's I listen to of the radio programs based on those characters. I am going to put a rose on Mom's grave monument in her memory today even in the snow. Have a safe day out there.
Friday, February 12, 2010
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