From Dad … and Me Too

William David Penniman, William Leon Penniman

Description

Sequel to From Dad and Me completing the collection of William Leon Penniman’s stories found at his death with some of his son’s stories added.
This is the final volume of a two-volume collection of stories by (and sometimes about) two generations of Penniman males. The stories in this volume cover many topics including “horse trading”, house selling, leather tanning, learning life lessons, running, flying, dating and much more.

Sujets

• Short story
• Leon
• William
• Fiction
• David

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 06 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663241672
• Langue: English

Extrait

FROM DAD … AND ME TOO
More Stories by a Father and Son
 
 
 
WILLIAM LEON PENNIMAN AND WILLIAM DAVID PENNIMAN
 
 
 
 
 

 
FROM DAD … AND ME TOO
MORE STORIES BY A FATHER AND SON
 
Copyright © 2022 William Leon Penniman and William David Penniman.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4166-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4167-2 (e)
 
 
 
 
iUniverse rev. date:  07/05/2022
CONTENTS
Introduction
Grandma And The Mules
After Three Years of It
We Buy One House and Sell Two
The Spy and The Cold Woman
Connecting Rooms
Away with All Flesh
Hide in a Cave
Learning to Walk the Line and Other Lessons
The Test
Woman Running
A Project to Die For
Ode To Jim’s Solos
Hiking with Uncertainty
Flashback Times Seven
About the Authors
For my children and his grand-chil dren
INTRODUCTION
It has been twenty years since our first book of short stories was published titled from Dad and Me. In that collection I meshed stories I found in my father’s files with stories I had written. Both authors wrote about things that were happening in their own lives, so it is not surprising that many of them were similar. Therefore I was able to arrange them in some sort of compatible order. Not so this time! The stories by my father appear up front in this compilation. These include some longer pieces that he wrote while taking a correspondence fiction- writing course and the original manuscripts had comments from his instructor. I chose to leave those comments out as I think the stories deserve to be evaluated by you without bias.
As for my short stories included here, they are not the result of any course assignment, but rather a form of therapy I have practiced for most of my life. Writing stories, for me, is a form of release. It also helps me to think through events or emotions that have filled my life. My only regret is that my father and I did not undertake this compilation and publication together as a team. It was only after his death that the full collection of his stories surfaced. I did not want that to be the case when I am gone, so I am publishing my work as a living author. I hope my children will find the same joy in these as I found in my father’s sto ries.
And one final note about the settings for three of the stories. Two of my father’s stories and one of mine take place around shoe tanneries. For those who are squeamish the depiction of how cowhides become leather may be a bit off-putting, but I hope the stories, themselves, make any discomfort worthw hile.
William David Penn iman

GRANDMA AND THE MULES
by
WLP
Grandpa retired from the practice of medicine when he was 70. The first thing he did was to buy a small farm. The second thing he did was to buy a horse and a spring wagon. He drove that horse and wagon over the wooded hills of the farm the way a soldier would handle a Jeep, for he had been away from horses too long and was hungry to hold reins once more. The last thirty years of his work as a doctor had required him to drive a car but before that he had owned and driven many teams. Making country calls through rain and mud was a hard life and probably the teams were glad he had what grandma considered a weakness. He liked to trade.
His office was on the main street of a small country town and when there were no calls he sometimes carried a chair out on the grass beside the office and sat there. It gave him a chance to watch the horse drawn traffic and occasional automobile and to wave at the drivers. He was sitting there one day when Joe Duncan, a friend of his, drove by with a load of sand pulled by a Husky span of mules.
Joe stopped in front of the office. “Hi, doc. How will you trade your team of blacks for these mules?”
Grandpa knew he was kidding so he said, “Even.”
“OK, Doc. Wait until I unload this sand.”
On his way to unload the sand, Joe passed the word to the group at the blacksmith shop that he had Doc in a corner.
Grandpa looked around a little later to see Joe pull up at the barn lock where the black team was stabled. Joe started to unhitch slowly to give Grandpa plenty of time to come back and laugh off the deal as a good joke. A half hour later, Joe drove by the office again, this time with the black team hitched to his wagon.
He stopped in front of the office. “Doc, I put halters on the mules and tied them in the stable.”
“All right, Joe. Thanks”
Each man opened his mouth as though to say something or start the laugh that would end the joke, but some pride or streak of horse-trader stubbornness compelled each to wait for the other. Finally, Joe could do nothing except slap his new team with the reins and drive on.
The office phone rang and Grandpa received a call from a family five miles out in the hilly country along the Mackinaw River. He hitched up the mules and started out.
Three hours later, he returned to find Grandma waiting for him. “Will! Have you lost your mind? What in the name of common sense are you thinking of to let that Joe Duncan play such a trick on you? You better forget your foolish pride and call him to say he has the best of you on the joke.”
“No, I can’t do that, and anyway, that’s a pretty good team of mules.” But his arm still ached from trying to get them out of a walk, even on the downhill part of the trip.
“What will your patients think of you driving around with that ungainly team of mules?”
“If they are sick enough, they won’t care.”
“Oh, Will, I can’t understand you.” Then Grandma began to think. If she couldn’t talk him out of this stubbornness maybe she could maneuver him out of it with woman-type strategy. An auto salesman had been trying to interest Grampa in all the advantages of making his calls with this new, faster means of transportation. He was not interested. Grandma let him drive the mules for a few more days, then she made a call to the auto salesman.
He arrived promptly and found Grandpa in the office. The salesman offered to take the mules as part payment on a Flanders runabout. Since it was a new type of trading, Grandpa was interested and made a deal. He couldn’t let grandma be too self satisfied about her accomplishment, though. He told her he would rent a rig from the livery stable for the rest of the summer whenever roads were bad.
“But,” said Grandpa, “when winter comes, I may buy another team of mules. They are good bad-weather animals.”

AFTER THREE YEARS OF IT
by
WLP
Three years ago with our backs to the wall my wife and I went back to the land. Three months ago we left that little place that with our labor and the owner’s savings has been transformed from a wilderness of weeds into a farm. The owner is richer especially so because the bank from which he drew the money has since been converted into a cabaret. We are richer; not in money, but in having an understanding that can substitute for that surplus of money or property we may never acquire.
If it should ever again be necessary, we know how to make a piece of ground and a few chickens contribute generously toward our living. We know the type of home and the homely comforts that displace amusement palaces; we know the satisfying pleasure of working outdoors in soil to help a plant fight its way to maturity and productiveness -- a pleasure that makes us willing to live miles from my work in order to have a clean-aired patch of ground.
Our farm experience has strengthened our ability to see beyond our own small sphere of activity. In addition, we probably understand fundamental human nature better; at least we have seen it without the concealing urban veneer. Farmers to us are no longer a class of semi civilized oddities who chew on straw butts and drawl, “Wal, I swan.” We know them as hardworking individuals who have skill and intellect ranging from that of a high-grade laborer to a top notch professional man.
If ever we go on a small place again, it will be without the illusions of the farm-hungry beginner. We know how callouses are earned; how much backache it takes to pick a crate of strawberries or a bushel of beans. It will not surprise us to hear that scientists have discovered a new chicken disease. Surely those industrious fowls pick up more ailments than a neurotic old lady. We would no longer believe that nothing but a rifle bullet or a butchers knife can kill a hog or that all the piggies in animal heaven got there because it was necessary for someone to have something to fry with the morning eggs. In our minds there would be no idea of taking an old mule and home made cultivator and making things fly -- unless those things were nothing more than good old fashioned cuss words. The fifty acres we were on had weeds that traced their ancestry in an unbroken lin