Calvin Dirickson was born in 1938 and spent his early childhood in stark poverty. During his four year hitch in the navy he took writing courses. This is his second book to be published. He has completed writing his third and has begun on his forth.

PURPLE ROBIN

By CALVIN DIRICKSON

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2012 Calvin Dirickson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-5625-4

Chapter One

It was August 1938 and the boot heel of Missouri was in its usual August weather pattern: hot and humid. In a three-room sharecropper's shack, near Charleston, Missouri, Doctor James Moore, a roving country doctor, was trying to save a woman in childbirth. Several times he tried unsuccessfully to pull the child out by using forceps, but the child had turned blue from lack of oxygen and Dr. Moore was quite sure it was already dead. This was the woman's fifth child and the good doctor feared that he was about to lose both of them.

Sweat drenched his shirt and ran down his face. After more than eight hours he was beginning to lose his strength from this long process. He couldn't keep this up much longer, so he had little choice but to make a final drastic decision to cut the child into pieces to get it out, in a last ditch attempt to save the mother. As cruel as this may seem he was without any medical equipment and this was the only thing left for him to do. Reluctantly, he picked up a scalpel, took a long, deep, troublesome breath, exhaled loudly then slowly turned back to the sweat-drenched and exhausted mother to start the cutting. At that moment the mother gathered her last ounce of strength and with an ear-splitting scream of excruciating pain made a desperate final push and her huge twelve pound son was finally born. Immediately she began hemorrhaging. Moving quickly, Dr. Moore cut the birth cord then grabbed the blue lifeless child by the arm and slung it across the room out of the way so he could get to the enormous task of trying to save the mother.

The force of the child landing on his back, on another bed, expelled the fluid from his lungs and he was able to suck in air for his first breath of life. He let out a loud scream of protest from being taken from a warm comfortable womb and tossed across a cold dark room. Dr. Moore froze with horror when the child cried out; he had been seconds away from cutting the child into pieces. He became sick to his stomach at the thought and was so upset he was having a hard time concentrating on trying to save the mother. Finally,—even with his strength gone, he managed to save this amazingly strong and resilient woman.

I know all this to be true because my mother told me this was how I was born.

Thus began my long journey down life's road. Like the rare Purple Robin, I am a rare species of man. My road has had many ups, downs, twists, turns and detours. Not really surprising, I guess, considering my extraordinary entrance into this world. To give you an idea of my unusually existence, early in life, I began having visions of disasters, death and financial gains. Arriving at midpoint a particular disaster caused me to completely change my life style. I know God has stayed with me all the way through my life no matter which forks in the road I have taken.

I am the youngest of four living children, my mother named me Calvin. When I was born my brother John was two, sister JoAnne four and oldest brother, Bill was six. Bill had a twin named Will who had been stillborn. It took Bill several days after my birth before he would come near my crib, but when he finally approached he asked Mother, "What is that thing anyway?" It was not long until he accepted me as part of the family and was carrying me around everywhere. Bill was always the man of the house when Dad was away.

My only playmate was my brother John.

As mentioned, the house I was born in was a three-room sharecropper's shack with a small front porch and a screened in back porch. There was no electricity, so we used kerosene lamps for light. The bathroom was an outhouse in the backyard. Any water we used for washing, cleaning, drinking or any other purpose, had to be pumped from a hand pump located in the far corner of the backyard and carried into the house. We didn't have much of a yard. The landowner needed all his land for growing crops. His cornfield came up within twenty feet of the house. But we did have a garden spot and a place for raising hogs and chickens to sell and/or butcher. With these bare necessities of life, Mother would still feed anyone that knocked on our door asking for food. Men still traveled the roads hitchhiking and riding the rails going anywhere they thought they could find work. I can vaguely remember playing with my nickel toy tractor that I had got for my second Christmas and helping mother gather eggs. For some reason I also remember the sweet aroma of hay in our small barn.

In the early 1930s, during the Depression, Dad worked on a farm for twenty five cents an hour. I remember many times Mother saying, "We were better off living on the farm at least we could raise our own food." Living through the Depression, they knew nothing but the hardest of times. Our house was several miles from town and a mile from the closest neighbor. Dad had an old rickety truck, but gas was in short supply he would only go to town when it was really necessary. About the only food purchased from town were sugar, coffee and flour. We butchered our own meat, which consisted of pork and chicken. We couldn't afford beef. Chickens were raised for eggs and meat, milk was bought from a neighbor. Mother always had a large garden and canned all our vegetables.

In the later 1930s when I was born the population of the United States was 129,824,939. The federal budget was $6.84 billion. The Depression was supposed to be over, but there were still eight million people out of work and unemployment was at 9 percent. The minimum wages was forty cents an hour but the wage and hourly laws did not include men working as farm hands.

My Dad came from a family of six children with Irish and German ancestors. The Irish was more dominant in Dad, Bill and me, we are redheaded, and light skinned and freckled. The German blood showed up in John and JoAnne their complexion and blond hair are typical German. Mother came from a family of twelve children and her jet black hair and high cheekbone came from her Cherokee ancestors. Her strong built and personality from her German bloodline. Both my parents had inherited the hardworking ethics passed down from their immigrant ancestors, which is certainly what they needed to raise a family during the Depression. My grandmother, on my Mother's side was married three times and had children from all of her husbands. Most of my relatives on both sides lived in the boot heal of Missouri (South East Missouri). We all lived close enough to each other that on Sunday after church there would be a large family gathering. I can remember many a Sunday visiting with all my cousins. There was so many of us, there was always the inevitable arguments or fights.

The most memorable Sunday visit was when a gang of us cousins were visiting my grandparents on my Mother's side, where they lived on a farm. Us kids were playing in the cow pasture and decided we would taste the salt block that was for the cattle. We all took a few licks off the block of salt. Our parents found out about it and were furious with us because grandfather had a sick cow that had died a few days before. Cattle need salt and surely this sick cow had been licking on this same block of salt that we had sampled. We all got our mouths washed out with soap and our backsides got a good switching

On my third birthday Mother made a chocolate cake for me. I was so excited I dived into it with both hands. There was no birthday present that year but I still had my tractor from my second Christmas.

We kids had to make our own toys to play with. I remember smashing a Prince Albert tobacco can, nailing it on a short stick, getting a small iron wheel off the hub of a wagon wheel, and pushing it around with a stick to make it roll. There was an art to guiding the wheel and keeping it up and rolling, it was a couple years before I mastered the art.

Grandfather surprised John and me a few days after my third birthday with toy army tanks. They were made of metal and had a wind up key. We had loads of fun playing with them. We would aim them at each other and see which tank could push the other backwards. There was a small dirt mound at the edge of the yard and we had great fun playing with them and watch the tanks climb up and over the hill. There was one particular August day when there was a hard summer shower. After an hour it stopped and the sun came out. As soon as the rain quit John and I went outside to play with our tanks. A mud hole had filled with water from the rain. We played all afternoon running our tanks thought the water which was deep enough that the tanks would go completely under water. We were having such a blast at the mud hole. A few days later when we went out to play with our new tanks, we could not wind them up. They had rusted inside; I was heartsick over the loss of my best and only toy. John tried squirting oil through small holes in the tanks to get them to work again, we let the oil soak over night and the next morning as soon as we got up we ran out to the back porch where our tanks were stored and tried to wind them up. No luck they still would not work.

I was three when Dad landed a job in construction building bridges. We moved to a small house a few miles out of Campbell, Missouri and at the foot of Crowley's Ridge. This small house didn't have a drivable road up to it. Only a set of wagon tracks led up from a dirt road. We had to walk a quarter of a mile from the house to the road where Dad parked his truck. Since we only lived there a few months there wasn't much I remember about that place. I do vaguely remember that a neighbor lady fell dead in her chicken house. Mother took me up to the house where the body was laid out. I sat in the kitchen and did not go in where the body was. At that age I didn't know what dying was all about.

In the early spring of 1942, I was a few months from being four and now had a good memory of events of my life. We were moving to Colorado Springs where Dad was hired as a construction laborer where a military base was being built. The move was cross-country in an old truck and the trip took several very long days. Not having the money for a motel room, we camped out every night. Camping out was a little boy's dream and I loved sleeping in the tent with the whole family. Watching Dad build a campfire and Mother cooking over the open flame is a treasure that I will never forget. Most of the time there were other families traveling the same way and we camp together for protection. This was great as it meant there were plenty of kids for us to play with.

Dad rented a house for us at the foot of Pike Peak. It was a large five-room house and had spring water piped into the kitchen. This was great for us kids, no more pumping and carrying water to the house. The piping system was just two boards nailed together to make a "V" shaped trough and the water would run through the kitchen and out back to the creek. However the kitchen was the only place with the running water; the bathroom was still an outhouse at the edge of the backyard. We had a large yard, I could lie down, look straight up and see the snow on top of Pikes Peak. There were three bedrooms in the house, which was a luxury; we three boys had our own room. There was little furniture just the bed but we thought it was wonderful. What a giant step our family had made from living in the three-room sharecroppers shack.

There were four houses in the area where Dad had rented ours. They were in a row with a creek running behind them on it way down Pikes Peak. All the kids were told to stay away from the creek. When the snow was melting, the creek became a dangerous swift moving river. I was afraid of the creek; I had a deep weird feeling that something bad was going to happen. I would keep some distance away, but would catch myself being strangely drawn to it as I staring deep in the crystal-clear water.

It was early spring and I was laying in the yard looking up at Pikes Peak and listing to the roar from the swollen creek. In my mind I could see a little boy swimming very fast down the swift moving creek. It's like a movie in my head the scene would last several seconds then I would sit up for a few moments and when I laid back down the picture in my mind would repeat it's self. I ran in the house and exclaimed to Mother, "I just had a dream with my eyes open."

Mother picked me up, hugged and kissed me then dismissed it by saying, "Oh son you must have been sleeping in the grass again."

I went back out to play, but could not understand what caused that image to flash through my mind. Like most small children my age it was soon forgotten and I went back to playing. Less than a week later I had the same dream with my eyes open again, this time it was more vivid. It looked like the little boy was swimming very fast, his mouth open wide as if calling for help and his arms were moving rapidly up and down. I did not tell Mother about this vision since she did not believe me the first time, but this one really bothered me and stayed on my mind the rest of the day.

There was a neighbor boy the same age as John. They looked so much alike they could pass as twins. Even their names were similar his name was Johnny. To tell little rowdy boys like John and Johnny not to go near a creek was an open invitation for them to check it out.

"Come on let have a look at the creek." Johnny said.

After the visions, I was scared to go near the creek so I stayed a little ways behind them. It was swollen with snowmelt and was roaring loudly and moving really fast. John and Johnny eased up close to the edge of the bank and peeked over. I was stretching my neck to see what they were looking at from my safe distance. There were small trees and branches that the creek had torn loose from the banks and they were swiftly moving downstream. As Johnny took a step closer to the edge to get a better look the bank gave way and he slid down the bank into the roaring river. John ran back to where I was and we started screaming for help and running along the riverbank. The water was quickly taking Johnny down-stream. We watched him go under and come up flapping his arms trying to swim. His attempt at swimming was no help at all; the river sucked him under and he disappeared.

Everybody had poured out of the houses as soon as they heard our cry for help. Soon the yards were full of cars bringing volunteers to look for Johnny. People searched all night with flashlight and lanterns, but came back in the early morning empty handed. Mrs. Blakely, Johnny's mother was having a hard time accepting the fact that Johnny had drowned and she kept repeating, "He just can be gone. He just can be gone." She was in such a state they finally had to take her to the hospital.

Eventually, Johnny's body was found a half mile downstream. John and I had a hard time accepting his death; he was a good playmate and we had helplessly watched him drown.

Johnny was an only child and his mother was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. From her hospital bed, she kept saying that John and I were responsible because we had taken him to the creek. In fact, Johnny was the one that suggested we go to the creek. We told the story like it was but Johnny's mother would not believe us. When she kept accusing us for being the instigators Mother finally had enough and they had some words about it. Our family and Johnny's family never spoke again.

The drowning was exactly like the visions I had when laying in the yard. This coincidence really bothered me; this was the first hint in my mind that I was different from other boys.

Besides the drowning tragedy, the most memorable thing that I remember about Colorado was on a warm spring day when we kids decided to walk down the road to meet Dad returning from work, which we did from time to time. We walked down a good quarter mile and around a curve, Bill was leading me by one hand and JoAnne the other. I looked up on a cliff directly

"Look! See the pretty kitty," I said. It looked like a large kitty cat to me, but it was large Cougar. Bill and JoAnne dragged me all the way back home. That ended our road trips to meet Dad.

A couple of our neighbors were two old maid sisters. They had never had any kids and they thought I was the cutest they had ever seen. One day they made me a tall hat out of a grocery sack and I would parade around in it and act a fool just to get them to laugh at me. They were always mothering me and I took advantage of this and would con them out of candy. However, when they started dressing me in little girl's clothes I decided that I could do with out the candy. If they were sitting out in the yard I would still go visit them to try and get some candy, but would run like the devil back home if they suggested that I come in there house with them. They liked to tease me by holding up a stick of candy to get me to come over to their house and then begging me to come inside their house with them. They did that just to see the frightened expression on my face as I ran home.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from PURPLE ROBINby CALVIN DIRICKSON Copyright © 2012 by Calvin Dirickson. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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