Don't encourage me, Marina--the flow is endless.
But, Thank You!
the man who hung the moon .
(a story from my family's history).
she never spoke about her parents, except to say they had been murdered.
Don't encourage me, Marina--the flow is endless.
But, Thank You!
the man who hung the moon .
(a story from my family's history).
she never spoke about her parents, except to say they had been murdered.
My Aunt Shirley was very much into ancestry and traced everything, sending me a portfolio of names, places and dates. I either still have it stored someplace or I tossed it away in an effort to exorcise family past from Terry present.
I have failed in my exorcism. The bubbles work their way out of the primordial ooze ever after.
If I recollect correctly, Hybarger was from High Berger, as in the Burgermeister of a village. He was some kind of Chairman of Town council. Or not--I simply don't remember.
As to the year of entry to America, that would be in the Ancestry register my Aunt compiled. But, as I mentioned--I have been erratically ambivalent about family history. So, I'm not reliable in these matters for specific details.
I do appreciate your interest however. It humbles me.
the man who hung the moon .
(a story from my family's history).
she never spoke about her parents, except to say they had been murdered.
In the last years of her life, Groogie had invited her son, Jack Avery Hybarger (my granddad) to move his wife and four children to live with her in the house built by Matthew Hybarger.
My grand dad's wife Lillian became instant enemies with Groogie. A doorway between one side of the house and the other was walled off and an iron curtain of seething cold set in.
I was Groogie's only visitor, every day--all day. Why? I was an only and lonely child. Groogie would play with me. We played everything outside together; cowboys and indians, hide and seek--you name it.
She never left the house. She had packed away all her treasures with little notes attached, who each should belong to.
I guess I asked about her early life so many times, Groogie thought I would best know and appreciate what that gold watch represented in her emotional world.
I was too young and had no practical use for a ladies watch. My mother "kept it" for me.
Or so I thought.
happily never after.
(remembrance from my childhood).
hers was a primal scream, cutting me with an icy blade of accusation..
I can't tell you how empowering it is to feel I've connected with my reader on an emotional level. That is how I write--in a state of emotional 'alive-ness'.
Much obliged!
terry, point your finger at who you love the most..
who do you love?
i love you both..
the man who hung the moon .
(a story from my family's history).
she never spoke about her parents, except to say they had been murdered.
The watch was taken away from me by my mother. She undoubtedly sold it at a flea market. When I was away at prison my mother sold or threw away everything connected to my childhood.
When I confronted her, she shrugged and said, "Well, I needed the money--what do you expect?"
I think the word best describing my childhood is "Dysfunction."
What I remember about the watch was how fine the tiny gold mesh was. It seemed to be almost like you'd expect woven items to look.
The face of the watch was a thin rectangle and there were stones (precious stones?) against the black face background.
There were no personal boundaries in my household. If somebody wanted or needed what was yours--good luck!
happily never after.
(remembrance from my childhood).
hers was a primal scream, cutting me with an icy blade of accusation..
HAPPILY never AFTER
(Remembrance from my childhood)
__________________
Hers was a primal scream, cutting me with an icy blade of accusation.
"Why don't you do something to help me?"
Lily-May cried out, struggling with two bulky-shouldered men from the State Hospital who'd come to fetch her while her uncle Wallace pretended everything was okay.
Wallace Roberts ignored his sister's panicked cries, setting about the business of hefting furniture out of his daddy's house, stacking it in a long haul trailer attached to his Packard automobile.
Jesse Roberts, the family patriarch, died the day before, tossing Lily-May's world upside down. Her father and her protector--the one person counted on, suddenly snatched away into a dark forever.
_____
I'd grown up in the house next door, seeing Lily-May every day smiling in her homespun dress and apron; the same dress as yesterday and the day before. I accepted things as a 'given' back then in a time when life was simple.
Menfolk set off to work early and returned in the evening. Womenfolk busied with domestic chores as children were sent outside to 'play.' The world spun endlessly carefree--eternal seasons of the heart on a ball of dirt hanging in the middle of nothing.
Lily-May wasn't young. I don't know her age at the time. There was just something odd about her. I didn't know how to put my finger on it. Just was. One day she watched me for an hour, standing with those peculiar eyes, fixated on my movements as I practiced tossing a throwing knife into a block of wood. She was never without a long yellow ribbon her mother had given to her on a disremembered birthday. The ribbon was her treasure, it seemed.
"You're right skilled, ain't ya?"
"Huh?"
"You don't miss."
"Oh, uh--I try not to miss."
An uneasiness settled in on me and I grew self-conscious. I stopped and turned to see if she was still standing behind the hedges separating the two properties, ours and hers. Of course she was.
"Ya wanna know a secret?"
"Um, I guess so."
"I was kicked in the head by a mule when I was just a baby."
"What did you say?"
"Daddy says that's why I'm slow."
I didn't know how to continue the conversation. I made an excuse and ran off into my house and left her standing there under the shadow of the overstretched sycamores in a world no longer there.
My grandmother spoke to me about Lily-May.
"That's just what families say to explain things."
"What things?"
"Some people are superstitious and cruel when a child isn't quite right in the head. Religious folks say it's God's punishment for sins. So, the parents will make something up to explain it away."
"Oh."
I understood on some level though not completely. I grew awfully sad for her.
I was much younger the day her Mom died. The old woman went to fetch her mail from the mailbox just outside the front door when she suddenly stopped and put her hand to her head and shouted, "Damn blackbird!" She fell where she stood.
Often I had walked next door with my great-grandmother, Groogie, as I called her. I was the "Little Pal" and Groogie's 'shadow' whereever she went. We knocked on the Robert's screen door and the Mom would shout, "Come in."
In the 1950's, nobody had air-conditioning. The best you could do to avoid heat was live as we did, in houses surrounded by a copse of overspreading trees. The rustle and chatter of wind in Sycamore leaves sung ever to our ears in songs without words.
I can't remember Mrs. Robert's first name. What I do recall is the Folger's coffee can she clutched in her lap. She spat into it from time to time. This action left a slime trail of viscous brown spit trailing from her whiskered chin. I couldn't help but stare.
"Why don't ye snap a picture--it'll last longer, Young'un?"
I'd hide behind my Groogie's apron red-faced and feeling guilty.
The other daughter showed up twice each day, a source of whispered fascination among neighbors. Lucille Roberts wore men's pants and a man's hat and she drove a taxi-cab. My mouth dropped open each time I saw her. The slight brown moustache above her lip was the sight I never tired seeing.
The Mom would catch me out, too.
"Why don't ye snap a picture--it'll last longer, Young'un?"
Groogie pulled me aside one day and chastened me not to be so rude as to stare at Lucille's mustache.
"Why not?"
"You'll embarrass her."
"Is that possible?"
Lucille could probably have whooped any man in the city in a fair fight--I reckoned the very idea of embarrassment was nigh on impossible.
Before his wife died so suddenly, Jesse Roberts worked as a Truant Officer (badge and all) in a black uniform like a policeman, for the Carol Peak Elementary School. He was efficiently hostile and tireless in pursuit of little 'hooligans' captured like a dog-catcher and hauled in to the Principal's office for a good paddling. The day his wife dropped at their front door, he miraculously softened into the warmest man I'd ever known.
Jesse Roberts retired as Truant Officer, planted an amazing rose garden all around his home's exterior, and laid the foundation of a large patio facing East with a full view of the new South Freeway in Ft.Worth. There he invited neighbors for sweet ice tea with lemon. We'd gather for hours rocking, sipping and chattering like ravens. This must have been 1957. The reason I know is because I had memorized every car printed in LIFE magazine that year. I entertained the adults by identifying all the new cars that zoomed by on the freeway. The most popular, of course, was the 57' Chevy with those futuristic fins at the rear.
_________
I sprung from my bed that fateful Saturday morning only minutes before 6 a.m. I'd begged my grandmother to awaken me for a reason. Saturday mornings, the Channel 5 NBC TV station broadcast began with special music which thrilled my ears, leaving me feeling a frisson of excitement. I had no idea what it was or what made that special feeling surge through me like electricity. (As an adult I heard it again, the announcer saying it was Petrouchka by Igor Stravinsky, but only the very last 6 notes.)
As the final note held, I heard Lily-May's screams outside the window and I dashed quickly through our hallway and out the screen door and jumped over the front porch onto the driveway adjacent to the Robert's house.
"Daddy's dead! Daddy's dead! Daddy's dead!" She screamed repeatedly while in the background inside the house her brother Wallace cursed at her to "Shut up, Dammit!"
The neighborhood soon aroused, folks stood in their night clothes, pajamas, long-johns and skivvies calling out to each other, "What's goin' on over there?"
The wail of the ambulence caught up with the cries of Lily-May in an almost feral horror of hair-raising dissonance.
By Three O'Clock that afternoon the next wave of distress rose like wildfire with the arrival of the attendants from State Hospital.
Wallace Roberts had seized hold of his sister's sleeve, jerking, tugging, and heaving with all his might. as the bulky-shouldered attendants arrived lifting Lily-May off the ground, legs fluttering without traction above the perfect green lawn so beloved by her dead father.
Hers was a primal scream, cutting me with an icy blade of accusation.
"Why don't you do something to help me?"
I was beside myself with frustration and anxiety! What could a boy eleven years old do to stop this from happening?
I bolted toward the back of my house and found my grandfather just as he exited the back door, clad in khaki pants and shirtless.
I frantically explained what the commotions were and urged him forward to stop those awful men from kidnapping Lily-May.
It was too late!
I caught my final glimpse of her pathetic face and haunting eyes. She cried out for salvation--swallowed whole in horrifying betrayal and extradition to God knows where.
I begged my grandfather for help.
He calmed me, shaking his head and repeating, "It's none of our business. It's none of our business."
And the world fell silent.
I collapsed in a heap next to Lily-May's yellow ribbon lying on the grass, wrested from her hands in that final struggle of upheaval.
Why had they taken her away from the only home she'd ever known?
Why did she think I could possibly help her? Why did nobody care about this except me?
The day crept into evening and the sound of the Packard car doors slammed out a final haul, as Wallace looked around one last time. He turned and waved at me. I just stood with red eyes, ignoring him and feeling an awful hatred rising like lava in the pit of my soul.
That was the last time anybody lived in the old house on the corner of Baltimore Street. Inside of a month, the roses died and scattered leaves hid the shaggy brown grass of the Robert's front lawn.
Something happened to me that afternoon. A fragile promise had broken, a bond of some kind that I had betrayed came again and again to haunt me, taunt me and embed inside my spirit.
I should have paid attention to Lily-May, befriended her, and offered a measure of warmth or comraderie to the humanity inside of her. I hadn't done that. I was so shy--so painfully shy--I couldn't befriend anybody.
I was her last and only chance and I had failed her and myself as well.
I still think about her and the yellow ribbon left behind on the grass. Did she end up crying herself to sleep without it?
How long did she live and where did she rest her head at night? Did any part of her life make sense? Is there anything fair in this wide world?
I think perhaps not, but I will never betray a friend again. No sir--I'll never betray a friend again.
_______________
Terry Walstrom
" the girl was from a snobby family, and her last name actually was"rich," terry rich.
it was terry rich and only terry rich.why?
you know what a straw poll is?".
Knowing my readers have gone to the trouble of really getting inside to understand is quite humbling for me.
Thank you so much.
I just uploaded another story of family history called, THE MAN WHO HUNG THE MOON.
the man who hung the moon .
(a story from my family's history).
she never spoke about her parents, except to say they had been murdered.
THE MAN WHO HUNG THE MOON
(A story from my family's history)
____________
She never spoke about her parents, except to say they had been murdered. That was enough to shut me up as a kid eight years old. Her given name was Florence Avery. For some reason, I called her Groogie.
Florence Avery hailed from Tennessee. She was short, spunky and no nonsense. I never saw her smile—except to catch sight of me walking into her room. She referred to me as her “Little Pal.”
She once explained to me how her husband had cut down enough trees to build the house they lived in. According to my Grandpa, his mom saw first light of day the year the Civil War ended. Years later, I learned that was the year Lincoln was shot, 1865.
Funny thing about being a small child, you don’t ask about things you’d really want to know later on when you’re an adult. For instance, I would ask Groogie about being chased on her way from Tennessee by Apaches with stone axes and a rusted rifle swung by one of the braves like a sledge hammer at the skull of their wagon master.
I did ask her, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did the Apaches want to hurt you?”
I expected a curt reply. I was wrong.
Groogie was the most definite person I’ve ever met; not one to flinch or shrug. Her opinion was at the ready. That particular question seemed to come at her unexpected like. She just shook her head side to side and raised one eyebrow.
“Nobody I knew hesitated to kill them, so why not?”
_________
Groogie’s husband was a lawman in Tennessee. He read a notice hanging in the local Post Office offering a job as a sheriff’s deputy in Fort Worth, Texas. He responded by gathering everything he owned into a Conestoga wagon won in an epic poker game. Along with his wife they set out for Tarrant County in Texas along with three other travelers as part of a small wagon train. That was probably 1880 when they arrived in Cowtown.
Groogie’s husband, Matt Avery, loved to gamble. No sooner did she start talking about him and her pale blue eyes turned glassy with tears. She’d gaze off nowhere in particular and her voice took on a weird softness of tone.
I heard the words, “Feast or famine” a lot explaining his losing streaks throughout their brief marriage. Sometimes he’d be gone for days at a time.
He chased after lost money or pursued trying to double his winnings the few times Lady Luck showed up. Groogie made sure that was the only Lady at the gambling house, too. She carried a pearl-handle pistol and made no bones about it—“If I’d ever caught him cheatin’ on me, I’d have drilled him.”
That shut me up. I hoped she was bluffing.
Grandpa told me Matt Avery had a habit of bring home jewelry when he won big money. There was once a beautiful gold watch, hand-crafted by a French artisan, he brought home and placed on her wrist. She described the day with a writer’s attention to detail. He held her tight and made promises.
She sometimes spoke about her husband with the words, “That man hung the moon, as far as I was concerned.”
Instead of telling him, she’d pretend to be cross.
“You damn sure better bring something home after being gone three days!”
That’s all she’d own up to telling him. According to my grandpa, she treasured that gift more than anything else. She chose to see it as proof he really loved her. It was the first gift she’d ever received in her life till then.
Months later, he’d come into the house and begged her to let him sell the watch to pay off gambling debts. She refused by grabbing a broom and beating him over the head with it. Two nights later, Avery was shot in the back in downtown Ft. Worth. The killer was never identified. Grandpa told me friends were convinced the man he’d owed the money to had collected in blood. Groogie was never the same woman after that. She carried a heavy burden on her conscience.
She once referred to his killer as, “The Man who stole the moon.”
______
Groogie remarried to a blacksmith who labored as a boiler maker. He was named Hybarger and he was a tough German fellow with a handlebar mustache. This was my grandpa’s dad.
Matthew Hybarger could build anything with his hands. It was dirty work too, but he remained spotless.
“I’d look at his hands expecting to see rough, raw, bulky paws considering the kind of work he did. Instead, I saw hands more beautiful than any lady’s—delicate and well-groomed; nails clipped and buffed to perfection. He had bare feet to match, too.”
I’d never heard a conversation like that directed at a man. I shrugged and felt slightly uncomfortable.
_________
Matthew Hybarger built a real house for Groogie on the Southside of Fort Worth. Around the house he planted every kind of useful tree: pecan tree, peach tree, apricot tree, blackberry vines, and such. He planted a garden with wisteria, four o’clock, and honeysuckle—then constructed elaborate trellis arboretum platforms around which the vines could twist. “Where the woodbine twineth and the vine dieth not.” she quoted. From where, I know not.
When their only child was born, a real battle broke out in the Hybarger household concerning what the son would be named. Matthew had come up with Jack Hybarger. His wife wanted a middle name added. Everything was agreed until Hybarger learned the name Avery was the dead husband’s name.
All hell broke loose until the child was born at home in 1890. The drunken German boiler maker staggered in and tipped his hat to the midwife and gave apology with grand gestures and flowery speechifying. He then held his child, kissed him on the cheek and handed him back to his mother.
“Avery it is!”
It was all he said before staggering back out in the street and falling asleep under a chinaberry tree. After that, the marriage came together without discord.
___________
Jack Avery Hybarger reached the age of 12. The elder Hybarger accompanied his son downtown to rubberneck in the crowd. Buffalo Bill Cody clip-clopped down Main Street doffing his hat in a parade accompanying the Wild West Show. The little boy ran up to the old buffalo hunter and grabbed his stirrup and shouted at him how happy he was to see the parade and all the horses. Cody, notoriously mean-spirited around children, kicked the boy with his boot and cantered away in a shower of gravel and mud. This story became oft-repeated in the household when the great grandson came along. That would be me, your storyteller.
_______________
It was a freak accident. As he was inside smoothing the pitted edges off fastening rivets, a can of Naptha spilled inside and he was overcome by fumes. Matthew Hybarger died unexpectedly inside one of the eight foot long boilers his shop constructed. His comatose body was recovered by workmen returning from lunch. He never regained consciousness. He was returned to his wife in that condition where he remained under her care for ten days before he passed.
As a lifetime member of the Odd Fellows Lodge, the widow was annually accorded a gift of a large basket of fruit and nuts. As a small child, I marveled at the size of the basket and I never failed to ask her to tell me the story of her husband’s death. She told the tale matter-of-factly and without emotion. Only when I asked about her first husband did things change inside of her.
“You wouldn’t understand.” That’s as much as I could get. I’m much older now. I think I finally do understand. Let me explain. . .
_____
My Uncle Jack picked me up from Morningside Elementary School that afternoon in his red convertible Corvette. The year was 1958 and I was 11 years old. I was always thrilled when Jack suddenly showed up. I hoped the other students would see him with me and jump to the conclusion he was probably my father. I didn’t have a dad. I was deeply embarrassed by it.
As I scooted across the seat and looked up at my Uncle, he turned to me and said these chilling words.
“Groogie died today. I’m supposed to take you the shoe store to buy you some shoes for her funeral.”
With that, off we drove and I choked back the tears my Uncle Jack hated seeing. I swallowed hard and tried to stifle the overwhelming sense of loss and sorrow.
How I got through that afternoon I cannot say. In my household, only one emotion ever found its way to the surface and that was rage. Tears were for sissies and people weak and without character.
At the funeral parlor, I lined up to view the body. The corpse of my great-grandmother looked unreal, like a department store manikin.
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and it was like ice. I couldn’t understand why.
The Pastor came over to me after services and handed me a small, thin box wrapped in plain brown paper.
“This is something Florence—I mean, your Groogie, wanted you to have. Your name was on it.”
__________
I opened it up.
There was inside, wrapped in a thin piece of delicate red velvet, the most beautiful gold watch I’d ever seen.
On the back, tiny engraved letters spelled out some message. I squinted in the semi-darkness of the funeral home.
"From the man who hung the moon to the girl with the blue eyes. Love always."
_______________
Terry Walstrom
____a true story___.
shortly after the incident, i drove back along the pacific coast in a euphoric daze of confusion, tears, and exhilaration; there was no place for it to go inside my head.
i pulled over on the shoulder of the road and sat in stunned silence.
I had never dreamed of standing next to a whale.
The fact that it is ALIVE overwhelms!
What if the house you live in suddenly became alive?
The vastness of the ocean frightened me the first time I saw it for real. I felt myself shrinking in significance.
Standing with others, ministering to a distressed living god had an inexplicable resonance with the scene of Jesus' family and faithful followers standing under the crucifixion helpless.
Are you saying, Terry, the whale was like Jesus?
Yes, in a way, I am.
It was infinitely unimaginable, and yet so commonplace and fragile.
Miraculous.