Broken Branches: Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

I was not given much time to contemplate what I had observed about my biological mother and her family before I again found myself in a familiar place, but it was quite different this time.  For instead of returning to a place from my genealogical journey, I found myself back home.  Although, it was a few years before it was actually home to me.

I was now attached to a fifteen year-old young man by the name of Simon Peter Newman.  The year was 1945, and in a little more than twelve years, that young man would adopt me as his son.

I had never heard my dad called anything other than Peter.  So, it came as a surprise to me that his first name was actually Simon, but I could certainly understand why he preferred to be called Peter.

It was no surprise why my dad’s nickname was Rabbit, which had nothing to do with Beatrix Potter’s character in her children’s books.  For Rabbit was my dad’s Osage Indian name, and he came upon it honestly by being very fast on his feet.

My dad’s first name was not the only thing surprising about him to me.  For as I mentioned before, I was rather afraid of my dad on account of his surly temperament.  Whereas, the young man I was now shadowing loved to have fun, and I did not see anyone he did not love being around.

There was one young lady my dad loved being around more than anyone else, but she had the art of playing hard to get down to a science.  Her name was Starla, and she took great delight in ignoring his advances while actually wanting him to keep trying to catch her eye.

My dad and his family lived in the western end of Rock Creek Holler, where they primarily lived off of the land in the traditional way.  Starla and her family lived in the eastern end, where they raised cattle and hogs.

Except during times of serious drought, my dad and his brothers would haul hay bales out of the field and put them in the barn for Starla’s family at least three times a year.  Starla and her sister’s job was to make sure there was enough fresh water for my dad and his brothers to drink while they were working, and Starla made sure of my dad never catching her staring at his rugged physique.

Darla was one of Starla’s older sisters, and she made no secret of being madly in love with one of my dad’s older brothers, whom you have already kinda met.  If you do not remember, he was the drunken uncle who started me to digging for my family roots.

No, my Uncle Walt was not such a drunk back then, but he was well on his way after coming home from World War II with several small pieces of Japanese shrapnel still lodged in his spinal column and both hips.  He had to have been constantly in a considerable amount of pain, and I am deeply ashamed of thinking of him as merely being another who let the bottle get the best of him.

According to Uncle Walt, what did get the best of him was Aunt Darla’s unrelenting assault on his bachelorhood.  He always insisted that if she was in command of Japan’s Imperial Forces, the war would have ended quite differently, and he submitted his unconditional surrender the first day of Spring the next year.

My dad tried everything he could think of to impress Starla, and she actually was.  Starla just would not let my dad know it.

Starla was having a great time tormenting my day until a vivacious redhead by the name of Molly decided that my dad was pretty cute.  My dad did not pay any attention to her flirtations at first, but when he caught Starla giving Molly the evil eye, he saw that it was his turn to torture her for a change.

My dad genuinely felt bad about using Molly to get Starla, but he was sure thrilled with the results.  For he and Starla attended Uncle Walt and Aunt Darla’s wedding as a couple.

I failed to see what my dad saw in Starla.  Granted, she was drop-dead gorgeous, but so was Molly.  Furthermore, Molly did not come so many issues.  Ah, but the heart wants what the heart wants, so they say.

My dad and Starla’s relationship was the quintessential high school romance.  For he was the star football player, and she was the head cheerleader.

Apart from all of the fussing and fighting, it could be said that their relationship was perfect, but there was one thing that Starla loved to do more than fighting, which was giving me a clue of why my dad picked her over Molly.  For Molly was a good girl in every respect of the term while Starla was at her best when she was bad, and she could be very bad when it served her purposes to make up with my dad, if you know what I mean.

No, there was no mistaking what was in Starla’s heart.  For she wanted to live a life as described in The Great Gatsby, and my d was going to be the horse she would ride out of Rock Creek Holler.

My dad did not share in Starla’s aspirations, but he did want to play professional football someday.  When my dad received several full-ride scholarship offers from major college football powers, it was looking like his dream just might come true, and Starla had been doing what she could so well to ensure not being left behind.

My dad had chosen to play running back for the Oklahoma Sooners because of the future looking so very bright for the team under Bud Wilkinson, and a couple of weeks before he was set to leave for preseason training camp, Starla informed him that he would become a father sometime around the first of the year.  Be assured that the news was as shocking to me as to my dad.

You see, my dad being so lovably fun-loving during his earlier years was not the only thing I discovering about him.  For I did not know he was such a star athlete, and I certainly did not know anything about Starla, nor him having a child of his own.

The shocks to my senses just kept coming.  For my dad’s daughter, Daisy, whom Starla named after one of the main characters in The Great Gatsby, just turned one when her mother informed her father that there would be another addition to their family in June, and Lana did indeed arrive during that month.

It was a very happy time for my dad and his first family.  For they were living quite comfortably in a house just off campus in Norman, and my dad was looking forward to having his best season yet for a Sooners’ football team that looked poised to be voted national champions.

Even Starla could not help but go around with a big smile on her face much of the time.  Granted, she was nowhere close to living The Great Gatsby life, both their girls were very healthy and happy.  Furthermore, Starla had established herself as being a very good accounts manager on a limited basis for Fanchier Farms.  Yeah, there are times when it really does seem like this is a small world, after all.

If you do not remember, Fanchier Farms is the company that my Great-Grandfather Tomas, founded with my Great-Grandmother Sarah in southwestern Arkansas a few years before World War I.  After he did not come back and my great-grandmother fell apart, Fanchier Farms was taken over by Fred Fogg of Fred’s Fryers fame and fortune.

Fred’s Fryers were headquartered near Fred’s home between Eagle Rock and Golden on the Missouri side of the border just north of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and what started out as strictly a business affiliation between Fred and Tomas quickly grew into a fast friendship.  This resulted in Fred’s eggs being marketed under the Fanchier Farms label and Tomas’s fryers being marketed under the Fred’s Fryer’s label.

In honor of my great-grandparent’s efforts, Fred Fogg gradually dropped his label in favor of marketing all products under Fanchier Farms.  After Fred’s death, his oldest son, Frank, inherited control and started to work on making Fanchier Farms into a national brand.

Frank had a sound plan in mind to gradually expand in stages, and he was grooming his sons to be regional managers.  Frank’s two oldest sons were already in place and two younger ones were just about ready when the military draft took effect, and none of them made it back from World War II alive.

Jonathan was the only son that Frank had left, and he just happened to be my dad’s best friend at the time.  He also knew Starla very well, of course, but Johnathan still wanted to do whatever he could to help my dad and his daughters.  So, he talked his father into hiring Starla as an accounts manager for Fanchier Farms in the central Oklahoma region under his direct supervision, and Starla was surprising everyone by proving to be very good at her job.

Well, Starla’s performance was not necessarily surprising to everyone.  That is, unless I do not count.  For from the first time I laid eyes on her, I could clearly see that Starla was a genuine stone-cold fox.

You may not be familiar with the term, but even if you are, the correct definition has been confused over the years.  For when I first heard of a stone-cold fox, it was meant as a description of an incredibly sensual woman, which does not make any sense, I know.  Well, at least I have come to know that a stone-cold fox is actually an extremely attractive woman with a heart as cold as a stone—molten lava notwithstanding, of course.

Hence, stone-cold fox is a perfect description of Starla.  For her physical beauty was mesmerizing, and her heart was as cold as a stone.

Oh yes, Starla could certainly turn on the charm when it suited her purposes, with my dad being such a glutton for punishment serving as ample evidence of this being true.  So does Starla being such a good salesperson for Fanchier Farms.

The 1950 Sooners were indeed voted national champions, and my dad had another splendid season.  Just two more seasons like it would surely have Starla that much closer to her Great Gatsby lifestyle, but a little matter called the Korean War derailed her plans.

No, not even Starla’s alluring charms could dissuade my dad from answering the patriotic call to take up arms against an enemy to freedom.  Starla swore that she would not be waiting for his return, and it was not an idle threat.

Unbeknownst to my dad, Starla and Jonathan had been working very closely together—very closely, indeed.  For Jonathan was Starla’s fallback position, and my dad’s boots were barely on the ground in Korea before his wife and best friend fell into bed together in every sense of the expression.

As if what I had already discovered about my dad’s past was not shocking enough for my system, his Korean War experience was no less so.  For it was in homage to the Navy corpsman that kept Uncle Walt from dying on the black sands of Iwo Jima that my dad volunteered for duty as a Navy corpsman attached to a frontline Marine unit, and the speed and agility that made him a star running back surely bound for NFL glory also suited him well helping to keep Marines alive under very heavy enemy fire.

By the time the armistice was signed, my dad had been awarded two Navy Crosses and five Purple Hearts.  A week before the ceasefire, a mortar round exploded around fifty feet from my dad’s exposed position tending to a previously wounded Marine, and a chunk of shrapnel ended his dream of playing professional football and left him sterile.  His days of fighting were not yet over, though.

It really was not much of a fight.  For Starla and Jonathan had over two years to prepare for a quick and decisive victory in court, and with Jonathan’s father calling in favors from the legal community in both Oklahoma and Missouri, my dad did not stand a chance.

Starla filed for divorce and full custody of their children on the grounds of abandonment due to my dad volunteering to join the Navy for the express purpose of serving as a corpsman in a war zone without regard to the continuing welfare of his wife and children.  Under normal circumstances, such a claim would have been summarily dismissed by the court, but with the judge being solidly in Starla’s corner, not only was Starla granted her divorce and full custody of their children, my dad was forbidden to have any contact with his daughters without prior written authorization.

Yes, what I had overheard years before about my dad coming home from the Korean War was indeed true, but the assumption I made was not.  For the carnage he experienced overseas was not nearly as devastating to my dad as what happened to him in that Oklahoma courtroom.

In honor of his distinguished military service and contributions to the glory of the Sooner football program, the University of Oklahoma offered to keep my dad on full scholarship until he graduated.  Furthermore, they offered to hire him as an assistant football coach, but my dad just wanted to head home to Rock Creek Holler and away from any reminders of what had been stolen from him.

Yeah, with Starla’s family still living just down the road a few miles at the other end of the holler, going back home was not ideal, but my dad knew that all of those bad memories would haunt him regardless of where he may roam.  Spending time at what my dad considered to be his sanctuary was helpful, though.

My dad’s sanctuary looked like what could have been the mouth of a cave way back when on the northern hillside of Rock Creek Holler around a half of a mile east of the Newman place.  For it was a ledge ten feet wide and thirty feet long under a solid rock overhang, with a mostly dirt floor no more than four feet under the ceiling.

My dad had done some digging in the dirt to see what might be buried on the ledge, but the only thing fairly interesting he found was a layer of flint chips almost two feet deep three feet beneath the surface.  This indicated that some major tool or weapon-making had taken place there in the past, but he did not find anything larger than his thumbnail.

My dad was actually more glad than disappointed to not find anything of any historical significance on the ledge.  For he would have felt obligated to tell others, which would have surely dispelled the peace he felt while sitting watching life go slowly by.

As he had clearly demonstrated during his time in Korea, my dad was not afraid to die, but much had changed since.  For he was now terrified of having to remain alive like he was, and he strongly resented not having the freedom to let go of the only thing he felt like he had to lose, which was his life.

Some of that had to do with what my dad had been taught in church regarding suicide being the only unpardonable sin.  The rest had to do with being unwilling to give Starla and Jonathan the ultimate victory over him.  This was not really living, though.

The epic struggle between life and death, both physically and spiritually, raged for ninety days.  My dad weighed just 103 pounds when Uncle Walt quite literally talked him down off of the ledge and all that implies.  According to his discharge physical, my dad had weighed 210 pounds when he left the Navy.

No, my dad’s vigil was not meant to be a true fast, nor did he consider what he had been doing as starving himself to death.  For he had resolved to just eat the food brought to him that had been left untouched by insects overnight.

With my dad being much more comfortable with seeing is believing than true faith, it made perfect sense to him that if God wanted him to continue to live, He would provide enough nourishment to sustain him.  Alas, my dad came off of the ledge alive while still not wanting to live another second like he was.

My dad’s first attempt to see his daughters again did nothing to help ease his torment.  For in response to his very humble request, Jonathan and Starla swore out a complaint with the Oklahoma City police and received an order of protection from a magistrate judge that would have my dad arrested if he entered the city limits without notifying the chief of police a week in advance.

Month after month, my dad repeated his humble request to see his daughters again.  To no avail were his efforts, but a ray of hope was soon to shine forth in the midst of his darkness.

Up until the latest development, Jonathan and Starla had employed a flawless strategy against my dad, but the order of protection took it too far.  For with my dad being a recipient of the second higher honor bestowed on Naval personnel, the Navy Cross, the protection order caught the attention of the Department of the Navy, and an investigator was dispatched to determine whether or not my dad had done something that might reflect badly on the service.

The investigator’s name was Ann Thompson, and she arrived with blood in her eyes.  For she and her mother had suffered a great amount of abuse from her father when he came home from deployment, but her attitude toward my dad quickly changed after taking a close look at all of the facts.

Ann recognized that my dad was actually the victim of egregious legal manipulation by a vindictive ex-wife and her very wealthy new husband.  There was not a whole lot she could do about it, but she persuaded her supervisors to intercede on my dad’s behalf with the people who could do something about it.

It took a year, but my dad was finally granted permission to see his daughters again without court supervision.  Alas, not all dreams come true, though.

No, the first visit did not go well at all.  Neither did the second.  For Starla and Jonathan had so poisoned their minds against my dad, Daisy and Lana did not want anything to do with him.

The last thing my dad wanted to do was force himself on his daughters.  So, he backed off in the hope that the day would come when they were mature enough to understand what had really happened.  He is still waiting.

It has been said that multiple heartbreaks are actually a good thing.  For scar tissue forms after each break, and scar tissue is incapable of feeling pain.  Subsequently, there comes a time when a heart is devoid of feeling anything, but just how good can it be to have an unfeeling heart?

My dad was at that point after his heart had been shattered into a million pieces time and time again, but something truly miraculous happened.  For my dad finally found the love of a truly good woman, and it was on account of Ann wanting to become a mom so badly that they found me.