Uncommon Life Of A Common Man (eBook)

Richard E. Lesh (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
116 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-3620-1 (ISBN)

Infos

This book 'The Uncommon Life of a Common Man.' was written not about the man, but the survival of the events he went through. At 17 in the navy he survived a Hurricane in the famed' Bermuda Triangle' nearly being swept out to sea. Then a fire aboard ship which exploded putting him on fire, skin grafts, infection isolation given last rites he was dying. Then a young police officer knifed, and in a high speed chase, nearly killing a 13 year old. Then a nuke disaster the famed Three mile island event in Penna. he was one of the first 'D' con teams in the reactor room. Along the way he was credited with saving two lives he also held a 12 year old girl in his arms as she died the last person to hold her a stranger. This is just the tip of the events in his storied life. Along the way he went through a 'Divine Intervention' It is written to give hope to those that may need it. If he could survive they too can.

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This book "e;The Uncommon Life of a Common Man."e; was written not about the man, but the survival of the events he went through. At 17 in the navy he survived a Hurricane in the famed"e; Bermuda Triangle"e; nearly being swept out to sea. Then a fire aboard ship which exploded putting him on fire, skin grafts, infection isolation given last rites he was dying. Then a young police officer knifed, and in a high speed chase, nearly killing a 13 year old. Then a nuke disaster the famed Three mile island event in Penna. he was one of the first "e;D"e; con teams in the reactor room. Along the way he was credited with saving two lives he also held a 12 year old girl in his arms as she died the last person to hold her a stranger. This is just the tip of the events in his storied life. Along the way he went through a "e;Divine Intervention"e;It is written to give hope to those that may need it. If he could survive they too can.

Textauszug

Chapter 1

The Young Child

It was cold, the snow was piled high as I tried to make a snowman. I was three years old. I was called into the shack where my aunt and uncle lived along with my mother. My pants were wet and cold. My aunt, my mother’s sister, lay in the room with no windows. On a huge, open lump of flesh behind her right ear, I could see white worms crawling in an open sore; I knew she was dying. It was my first encounter with death, but would not be my last.

My uncle, a mean man, took me by the neck and put me behind the potbelly stove as it glowed red-hot. The heat shocked me as he admonished me to stand there and dry my pants. I was scared but just stood there for a long time till the heat burned my legs. Then my aunt called for me, I came into the room beside her, she took my hand, caressed my face and said, “You be a good boy.” That night she died.

My mother was still married to my father, but she and my uncle moved into another house where she became pregnant by him. It would be the first of many illegitimate siblings by other men that in later years would call me telling me they were my brother or sister.

This was the beginning of my strange life. I was either blessed or cursed with a nearly photographic memory. Thus, I remember it all like it was yesterday. Although my parents were separated, they were still married. Yet in the early years, I never saw my dad. I was an only child. We lived on North Courtland Street in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania over a bakery named Gargon’s.

It was the war years. I remember the “air raid drills” warnings, the dark shades on the windows that had to be drawn down by dusk, the men walking up and down the street, making sure everyone complied. I also remember the line we waited on in the alley behind the bank waiting for the truck to hand out food.

We lived with my uncle for some time even after my mother gave birth to his child then gave the child away to one of his relatives. I started school up the street. I remember walking up to what was Lantz Book Store waiting for the man to stop traffic so I could cross. It would be one of the many schools I went to in Monroe County. In fact, I attended all the schools in my small community except for two—Morey and Ramsey in Stroudsburg, PA. I even went to school in Philadelphia for a time.

Across the street from the bakery was an ice cream shop called Mary Jane’s. One day, a boy had inherited money and he bought ice cream for the kids on the block all day. Trouble was it was banana ice cream and made me sick. Then there were be days I sat on the stone wall next door watching the East Stroudsburg High School band march down the street. So my life moved forward. As a young child, I had no idea what my elders did or why. You just go where they lead you. My mother and father were, by today’s standards, dysfunctional. But of course, at my age at the time, I didn’t know what was correct or incorrect. I was in school a very short time before my father and mother reunited. Then, they left me with my grandfather (my dad’s father).

I now lived in a shack on Route 447, a few miles down from Analomink, next to the old Sibum farm a few hundred yards up from the Schooner Inn. Now, I went to school in Analomink, where I had to walk up to the bridge to catch the bus. One day I missed the bus and walked all the way to school. I was just six-years old and had no idea what I was doing walking along the side of the road like that. I was late to school that day. My teacher Mrs. Bates chided me.

This was the start of my “doing for myself” in all things. It made me feel independent and resourceful which I used all my life. The three years I lived with my granddad laid the foundation of my future life. I saw my dad once in a while but rarely saw my mother. My granddad was, as he would always tell me, “a half breed”. I had no idea what that meant nor did I ever question him.

We lived off of the land in an old shack. My grandmother was there but not that friendly to me. She looked like the Wicked Witch of the North and scared me. My granddad took extremely good care of me. He was a big man with big hands very talented in creating things, although he could not read or write. He couldn’t even sign his name. Despite this he was—as I found out later on in life—the wisest man I ever knew. He carved toys for me. He once showed me a piece of wood and said, “Son, there is a bird inside here. I need to let him out to fly.” Days later, he handed me a beautiful carved bird. I only wish I had that today. He made fiddles, banjos, and guitars, all by hand.

Granddad took me everywhere he went. He showed me how to take care of the land and how to treat people. Life was hard, but I never knew just how hard. It just seemed natural to me. He would set snare traps for rabbits, hunt groundhogs with an old rusted .22 with a nail and a rubber band used to fire the bullet. We would hunt in farmer Sibum’s cornfield and property. One day he whistled and a groundhog stood up. He shot it and it began to run to its hole I ran after it trying to grab it. Before I could grab it my Granddad had pushed me down and scolded me, saying that the hog could bite off my hand if I tried putting my hand in the hole. Days later, we had that groundhog for supper.

One day when I threw a tantrum, he took me into the woods and told me to lay on my belly and dig a hole with my hands. Crying, I scooped out the dirt. Then he said, “Boy put your face in it get all that nonsense out of your system, then bury it as we are leaving it here.” I never forgot that lesson.

Once a month we used to walk to town to get supplies at the grocery store, the old A&P on South Courtland Street in East Stroudsburg. Granddad always bought a box of plain doughnuts. It was a luxury. On the way home, we cut behind the old Penn Dell dairy. It was all woods back then. The path led to the old chapel, we would stop at a fallen tree and eat a doughnut. Then on our way back up the road home, many times I would be tired and Granddad would hoist me up on his shoulders; sometimes a car would come by and stop for us. I loved to ride in the rumble seat. Granddad took me all over.

We would walk to the old Percy Crawford Bible camp then down a dirt road through the woods to an old dump. He would find broken toys (like a rocking horse), clothes, and shoes to cart back home. They were my treasures. Many of our days in the summer were spent watching the big steam engines come up from the round house on Stokes Mill Road. At “Gravel Place” they stopped across from us waiting for what Granddad called a “Pusher”; a device they needed to help push the long empty coal cars up the mountain according to Granddad. His friend Harold Larison was a railroad cop. Little did I know that one day I would be working with Larison’s son on the police force. Larison would turn his head when Granddad climbed up on the flat car to throw the wooden skids off the cars to haul them home. Sometimes Larison would open a coal hopper to let some coal fall on the ground. When the train left Granddad and I would fill buckets to haul home.

We also spent many hours walking the tracks to the roadhouse to pick fallen coal. Granddad would talk to the crossing guard, who only had one arm, as I watched the big black steam engines and the men moving them around. One fall, Granddad got an old wagon with two old mules that he must have borrowed from his friend Sibum. We would go up to the old Bates sawmill in Analomink with it, bringing back a load of slab wood that he used a double bit ax to split. My job was to stack it in the bin until it was full to bring back to the house.

I remember one day as I sat next to him on the wagon one mule kept nipping at the other’s ear. I asked Granddad why the mule was doing that. Granddad laughed said, “Son, one is a Republican the other is a Democrat and they don’t like each other.” I never understood the context of that until many years later.

He taught me the way of the Native American Indian. He told me that the great spirit—the earth—was the mother of mankind; therefore, we humans needed to take care of it.

When we were in Sibum’s cornfield picking corn, which Sibum allowed, Granddad told me, “Never take more than you need, leave some behind for the others. Never leave your footprints behind to soil the earth, keep it natural and clean.”

One day, an old car pulled up by the house, Granddad just talked to the man driving then grabbed me by the hand to put me in the car. The next thing I knew, we were down on a street called Barnum, it was down on the flats. It was a dirt road that led back to the woods and the creek. At the end of the road, was a field with a stone house, a big barn and lots of horses.

My Granddad took my hand and walked me to a big white horse tied to a tree whose legs were “hobbled”. This bothered my Granddad he yelled at the man that had brought us there. Later in life, I knew the man to be Bert Barnum, a horse dealer. Granddad put me up on the back of that horse and it scared me to death. The horse turned his head to nip at me.

Granddad grabbed his ear, put his face to the horse’s and held his hand at the horse’s nose at the same time. I was clinging to the mane. The horse tried to shake his head as he pawed at the ground while I was hanging on. This went on for a bit as granddad kept talking in his ear, then Granddad reached in his pocket to give a white cube to the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.3.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-3620-X / 166783620X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-3620-1 / 9781667836201