Steve and I go for a ride

Steve(in back) My sister, Kathy,
and me. This was taken a few years ago.

I'd only been in my hometown for a few hours. Since I'd arrived after hearing of my dad's death I'd already been to the hospital, the funeral home and the flower shop, helping take care of 'arrangements'.
We sat together and gave information about relatives and descendants, services, viewings and interment. We'd picked out a casket, a vault, and a flower arrangement. We delivered a suit to the funeral home.
All pretty grim stuff, but as my often-wise older brother said "At least it's keeping us busy."

More about Steve.
He's six years older than me. In our younger days that was a lot, that was a lifetime, it seemed. He was grown up and gone before I even got to high school. Since then we've never lived close enough for regular visits and only rarely ended up at our parent's home at the same time. We've always been amicable toward each other, but never really close.
He, like myself, has been married three times. He has two adult children and a small covey of grandchildren. Unlike me, he has been divorced three times, beating my own record by one.
The most recent divorce was about a year ago. I've only talked to him a few times since then. I never asked 'What happened?' because, like I said, we were never really close. I figure I'll take what he tells me and that anything else is none of my business. That's just the way we are.
He's moved into a nice apartment/condo (I don't recall which) and has set it up about like one might expect a single, middle aged man would. Big TV, excellent stereo, and probably a day's worth of molding food and a few condiments in the fridge.
He also has a new car. Well, new to him. He bought it from his son.
It's not what you think. He's always, especially since he came into some money then invested it very wisely, had a nice car. I recall  most recently the Volvo. I think his ex took that one. He also always had a 'work' car, a generic, high mileage commuter, a Taurus or something. He has to have something like that because of the neighborhoods he frequents, it's just prudent.
He's a Psychologist with a PHD. Thus the moniker I occasionally use for him, Dr. Steve.
He once told me that as a psychologist he never really wanted to sit around and, as he put it: "Listen to a bunch of blue haired women complain about their sex lives." He took another path. He set up an office to work with criminal children. Kids who have, in my understanding, already been convicted of rather serious offenses. Dr. Steve does followups and reports to the court system. This requires frequent home visits to some pretty ugly neighborhoods. Most of the kids are urban and live in gang, crime and/or drug traffic riddled areas of greater metropolitan Louisville. Living conditions are hardly splendorous, family situations are often damaged and volatile. Dr. Steve is one of the few PHD psychologists I've known that occasionally carried (legally) a gun (so I've heard). I don't blame him, he was often walking into a war zone with suspicious intentions.
So for that he had a commuter car.

Steve's Mercedes CLK 320, in front of his condo.

He's always liked good cars. One of the first he drove was our grandmother's '56 Chevy Bel Air. A pretty cool car even in the late 60's. It was plain-Jane, no frills, very low mileage. He of course, wrecked it. He ran off the road and into the front of the Good-Nite Motel in Cadiz. That meant I never got to drive it. By the time I was finally licensed I got to drive Grandma's newer car, a yellow, 1970 Maverick. Not quite the same thing.
Then later, he had a 2-door, second generation Chevy II or Nova. It's the car he took to college. After that he had a Cougar. I did drive that one around a parking lot once or twice.
Then I lost touch, or interest, and don't know what he drove up until I recall the Volvo. He also had a huge pickup truck with all the trimmings, to pull a camping trailer across this great land of ours, something he did often.
This time he pulled up in a shiny black Baby Benz Convertible. No mid-life crisis here, obviously an overpriced, overpowered, precision-tuned, pop-top is perfectly practical for a man of his esteem and standing. He parked it behind my  130,000 mile, road-rashed, 2004 Cavalier. (♫ One of these things is NOT like the other! ♫)
I'm not jealous, I'm just really not into cars and the upkeep that the fancy, expensive ones require. Besides, I commute eighty-plus miles per workday and would ruin a good car in that meat grinder that is I-270 in St. Louis. Better for me to have something with a little bit less emotional / financial investment.
Mom tasked us with urgency to go pick up dad's belongings at the nursing home. Dad had spent the last few weeks of his life there as he required 24/7 care. He couldn't do anything on his own, even if he remembered to do it.
Neither of us looked forward to this dreary task. I've been to nursing homes before. This one in particular houses extreme cases of dementia, etc. But mom was adamant that it needed to be done. So we went.
Of course, we took Steve's car.
He was proud of it, I could tell. He made a point to show me that it didn't have a key, per se, it was more like a USB thumb drive. He didn't even have to shove it into the ignition, he just needed to have the fob in the car. There was a 'start' button on the shifter.
A soft rumbling came from the back. Small doors opened, motors whirred, levers shifted. The roof unlatched itself and lifted up and back smoothly. I was about to get the full  topless experience.
The car leaped out of the driveway in the quiet, tiny town. There was no traffic, not even the ubiquitous Amish buggies that frequent the road. Steve gave me a demonstration of the power, handling and superiority of German engineering. Granted it was quieter, stronger, faster and infinitely more comfortable than my Cavalier, the extra money didn't exactly get you nothing.
I was at peace with the ride. I'd only found out about my father's death seven or eight hours earlier and could use a little quiet, cruising, think time. Steve had other ideas though, he plugged his digital music device into and turned on the stereo. All fifty seven (or whatever) speakers started bouncing out heavy rock. By heavy rock, specifically I mean Credence Clearwater Revival, which is heavy rock if you're a little older than me. I knew CCR as a kid, it flooded the A.M. stations, the only stations available in rural areas at the time.
"Born on the Bayou", I believe it was, most of their songs sound pretty much the same to me, not bad, just not special. I'm not a car guy, I'm not much of a rock music guy either. I most often prefer information, or quiet. I made a compilation CD once, all the songs I could ever recall liking enough to listen to frequently. I couldn't fill the disc. Now I've misplaced the CD, well, I misplaced it five years ago or more and just haven't bothered burning a new one. It's not like poetry, which I abhor, with music, I'm  merely apathetic about it. An MP3 player? No, I don't think so. My phone can hold and play hundreds of songs, it contains two or three, I don't recall what they are.
So there we were, two salt and pepper-haired middle aged men on a hot summer day, flying down a three digit highway in rural southwestern Kentucky, with CCR blasting out the open top of a sleek, expensive German sports convertible.
We were on the way to a nursing home, to pick up dad's razor, slippers, pajamas and his dentures.
Yeah, magic moments, good times.
The home was dreary and depressing. The cumulative age of the few dozen residents would take you back to the renaissance era. Most of those that were healthy and able enough to be out and about were scattered around in wheel chairs. They didn't talk much, they just sat there. Some of them watched us come and go, others did not even seem to be aware. One gentleman was sitting, facing a corner. There was nothing in that corner, but he faced it anyway, uncomplaining, unaware.
 Neither Steve nor I want to end up as helpless and doomed as these folks, those totally unaware of their own existence, much less that of anyone else. They can't control their bodies, their minds or their destinies. Most cannot even clean themselves or even come up with reason to do so. We three brothers know this about each other, we may not know much else, but this we do know. We'd talked about it even before dad, who also didn't want to be a burden on his loved ones, began to fail in exactly the same way as those poor souls around us at the home.
"Save one frag. . ." Steve said to me as we left the building with our trash bag filled with Dad's stuff.  I knew this to be a reference to Viet Nam era dark humor. In that context it meant to always save one grenade for yourself because being captured by the enemy there was about as slow and gruesome as could be imagined. Yeah, he's a psychologist, but I got it, and I agreed. Though suicide is not currently anywhere near my active playlist, in the face of the certain imminence of such an existence as is experienced by so many dementia-plagued geriatrics, which I find even more disturbing, cruel and unsettling, I can't say for sure that it never will be.
In the car Steve sighed. "You in a hurry to get back?"
"I've got nowhere to be."
So rather than turn north toward Cerulean, we turned south and headed to Cadiz. It only took a couple of minutes to tour that town. He stopped at Casey's General Store and bought himself a pop and a bottle of flavored water for me, even though I'd said I didn't need anything. We headed east from there, about halfway to Hopkinsville. We then turned off on a forgettable, roughly paved, back road. I couldn't recall the road exactly, but that didn't mean I'd never been on it. There's a lot of these roads there, leading from farm to farm, to the occasional small church, all eventually ending up on a state highway within ten or so miles.
As we roared down the macadam I lost myself in the noise of the wind rushing by and the fat tires biting tar-covered gravel. The view was green, very green, the whole county seemed to be about to burst from the intensity and volume of the green. The corn was plentiful and taller than in some years. Where there was no corn there were strong, ancient stands of oak. Even the sporadic yards were high green. The roar of those tires and the rush of the wind covered the repetitious noise from the stereo. I let myself get lost in the powerful sensory blast.
Will my own sons, age-diverse and geographically scattered, come together for such a pure moment when my clock runs out? It would be a waste if they did not, but I hold no such demands over them. By then I will be gone, so to me, it won't matter.
We didn't really bond, Steve and I, on that small road trip. We merely shared a quiet moment. It could have happened before, it could even happen again. There was nothing especially spiritual for me about it, I'm not really wired that way. It was just an overwhelming sense of peace and calm and the being of somewhere, some-when, else.
Our dad was gone forever. At rest, some say, no longer in pain, to be sure. There was some peace in that, no longer suffering, never to suffer again. It was just enough to quash the grief I'd been wrestling with all day.
I have happy places that I recall in troubling times, standing on a hilltop on a hot day catching a cooling breeze, arms raised, miles from anything and anyone. A dog on my lap, anytime, any where. Angel's subtle, yet complex smile filled at once with passion, glee and mischief.
I added a new one that week in Steve's car. Sailing down a narrow rough road in a fine German coupe, top down, CCR struggling to cut through the roar, surrounded by hundreds of acres of tall, dark green corn under a bright summer sky. Thinking about life, death and the meaning of everything and understanding all of it and none of it at the same time.
We talked off and on during the visit and the various funereal events, he even did that thing with the eulogy and the book. But what I really treasure is the quiet time we spent just riding along with no place to go, nowhere to be.
Near the end of our cruise we came upon a produce stand that I immediately recognized. He twisted the car, almost Tokyo-drift style, into the loose gravel, tossing up pebbles and clouds of dust. We were too late, the place had closed. We could see a bonnet-ed head inside bobbing busily about. But the door was closed.
Steve turned up the stereo and hit the gas, throwing another shower of gravel in his wake.
"You're just screwing with the Amish now, aren't you?"
He grinned, ear to ear.
____________________________

Steve and I are different. He has quirks and standards and a lifestyle that I do not share. I've been told that I also fit that very description. None of this essay was intended to show my brother to be  damaged or abnormal. Yes, I have used him as a springboard for my humor in places, but it is intended only in the nicest, most respectful way. I love my brother even if I don't know him all that well. I'm perfectly comfortable with our differences. I see him as neither a fool or an idiot. He is a very smart man with a good heart, he's just a little different from me, his life, his wants and needs, dreams and passions are just different from mine. No need to measure, grade, weigh or even dwell on those differences, they're just differences, not flaws.

Three grandmothers, Part II

‘Grandma’, when not qualified any further in my immediate family, means my maternal grandmother Mattie Rufus Dyer Adams.

My earliest memories of my life on this particular planet are living in a slightly expanded pepper-box house just outside of Cadiz. This was grandma’s house. She occupied one side, split  into a living room fitted with a fold-out couch as her bed, and a small kitchen which also held her big, heavy wardrobe cabinet. We occupied the other side of the house, two bedrooms, a converted attic, a living room, a dining room and a kitchen. At the back of the house was a shared bathroom and laundry room. When my mother started going to college, grandma would take care of us. Being by then a retired school teacher, she taught us to read before we started school. She sewed a lot as well, making us clothes until we got to be too old and started being embarrassed wearing homemade clothing.

She raised chickens for eggs and meat and would butcher them herself with an axe.  Yes I recall the headless poultry flopping around in the snow.

She also took us fishing, cane poles and earthworms, catching mostly catfish and carp. She cleaned those as well.

Living that close did cause the occasional friction between her and my parents. Her only child, my mother, had married my father without her mother’s blessings. My parents had eloped, married in December of 1949. A few years later when times got tough, they had little choice but to move in with her. She never remarried, and rarely, if ever spoke of her late husband. The only family photo I recall that she had on her wall was of her parents.

Hilda (mom), Mattie and D.C. Adams

Grandma married D.C. Adams (I have been told that my initials, D.C. were inspired by his) in 1931 when she was 34 and he was 63. My mother was born one year later.  Grandma was D.C’s second wife. His first wife, Mollie, died at the age of 30 in 1904. Mollie bore him two sons Ben and Jagoe, and one daughter, Mary Lou.  As a point of tangential interest, Mary Lou, my mother’s half-sister, married one of my father’s adopted brothers, Robert (Uncle Bob) Bentley, creating an interesting though not incestuous double relationship. Grandma was close to the Adams boys, D.C’s sons from his previous marriage, they came and went frequently in our lives.

Even closer to us were grandma's brothers, O.C., O.B., E.K., and I.J. Dyer. These men were rarely referred to by anything other than their initials, for good reason. Even back then Elope King, Omega Brandon, Ithiel J. and Ovit Crawley were pretty heavy names to lift. Even the brothers that died very young, Cyrus William and Prince Alfred might have preferred initials as well. The brothers all referred to my elderly grandmother as 'Sis', which as a kid, I found amusing.

D.C. died at the age of 79 in 1948 when my mother was a mere fifteen.  According to mom, he had been old and ill for several years. He is buried alongside his first wife in a cemetery just a mile or so from where where grandma was interred.

Rufus King Dyer (1847 - 1924)
Martha Penelope Brandon Dyer (1865 - 1920)

Grandma was an integral part of our immediate family when I was growing up. We lived with her until I was a sophomore in high school. She was not in favor of us moving out, but my parents had eventually crawled out of near poverty and could finally afford a place of their own.
Poor grandma lived out the last ten to fifteen years of her life in nursing homes. The last time I saw her in the early-mid eighties she didn't recognize me, her mind had left her all but completely. The tragedy was that the rest of her body was perfectly healthy and strong, right up until her death in 1995, at the age of ninety eight.
Grandma could be stubborn, to say the least. She had a personal philosophy that every one else was foolish to not agree to. A strong willed woman of her time indeed.
Her birth family, the Dyers had been in Trigg county for a very long time. I've located some archives that eloquently describe her ancestors.

Grandma Adam's great-grandfather, the General.

http://www.westernkyhistory.org/trigg/Pioneers.txt
"It is now my pleasure to speak of General John J. Dyer, who in
early times, was long a conspicuous citizen of Trigg county. He held a
commission from the Governor of Kentucky as a brigadier general. From
my earliest recollection, till I left Kentucky, he was commander of the
Trigg county militia, and maintained well the dignity of his position. I
think he was a native of South Carolina, and probably settled upon a farm
seven or eight miles below Cadiz, on Little River, soon after the
organization of Trigg county. He was a man of prepossessing appearance, of slight build,

weighed about one hundred and fifty pounds, of a nervous temperament,
was about five feet eight inches in height, possessed a fair education,
though considered rather opinionated. He had a polished manner, good
address, good principles, and good social qualities, but did not mix a great deal in society, and consequently was not widely known except in his
official capacity. A prominent characteristic was his personal pride. He
was a commanding figure at the annual and semi-annual militia reviews in
Cadiz, when mounted upon a fine horse and clothed in a splendid uniform,
and surrounded by his [ . . . ] in uniform, mounted upon their prancing
steeds. Those were great days in Cadiz in early times. Those subject to
military duty came from all parts of the county."
(I bolded that part myself, it seemed a bit familiar)
The article continues:
General Dyer, I learn, died many years ago, leaving a highly
respected family. Of them, however, I know but little except two sons,
Alfred B. and John J. Dyer, Jr.  
(*John is my grandmother's grandfather)
Continuing: 
Alfred B. Dyer I knew best and well. He was a very clever and
polished young gentleman, beloved by all and had a promising future
before him, as his after life proved. I learn that he was a very useful man
in his day. He began life as a school master, was elected sheriff several
terms, making an excellent official, and besides other honorable positions
which he filled, he long held the office of County Judge, and died while
serving in that capacity, only a few years ago, leaving a family who are
among the best and most highly esteemed citizens of Cadiz and Trigg
county.
John J. Dyer, Jr., I also learn became a useful and deservedly
popular man, having served his county as sheriff two terms. He too, I
learn, died a few years since, leaving a good and unblemished reputation.


Another Article:
http://www.westernkyhistory.org/christian/obit/d/dyer.html

RUFUS K DYER (*My grandmother's father)(Cadiz Record July 1924)
Rufus K. Dyer Found Dead At His Home
Lived In Wallonia Precinct And Had Been Dead Several Days When Found
One of Trigg County's Most Splendid Citizens And Member of Prominent Family
Mr. Rufus K. Dyer, one of Trigg county's splendid old citizens, was found dead at his home in Wallonia precinct, near Bethesda Methodist church, eight miles north of Cadiz Tuesday between twelve and one o'clock.
Just when he died is a matter of speculation but the condition of the body showed he had been dead several days and he was alone at the home when the end came.
Mr. Dyer resided at the home where he had lived for a number of years and the daughter and two sons resided with him, although the sons had been away at school during the winter and spring. The sons came home some weeks ago, and they had been with the father until perhaps last Thursday, when the daughter, Miss Mattie, and O. B. Dyer left for Livingston county, where they are teaching in the schools of the county.
We are not advised if the deceased had been seen by any of the neighbors since that time until found dead in the house Tuesday.
The body was found by Jesse Lester and Ovid P'Pool, neighbors, and when found was lying across a chair in the kitchen.
Mr. Dyer was dressed just in his night clothes, and the bed in his room showed clearly that it had been occupied.
Mr. Dyer suffered occasional attack of cramps or acute indigestion and it may be that an attack in the night might have caused his death.
From the appearance of the room, it is thought that he got up from bed and went out through the dining room, which adjoined his room, and into the kitchen, where he was found. Whether he fell across the chair or had kneeled down by it when suffering from one of these attacks is matter of speculation.
Two neighbors were first attracted to the scene by seeing the mules on the farm in the corn. They remembered that Mr. Dyer had not been seen for several days and went over to get the mules out of the corn and upon investigation the man was found dead.
The eldest son, Ithiel J. Dyer, who owns and resides on the R. V. Parrent place two miles north of Cadiz, was at once notified, and the son came on to Cadiz to notify other members of the family and to arrange for the burial.
Burial took place yesterday at the family grave yard on the place where the deceased had long lived.
Mr. Dyerr was born in February 1846, and was a son of John Dyer, one of Trigg county's most prominent citizens and a Sheriff of the county. Judge Alfred B. Dyer, long deceased, was an uncle. When reaching young manhood, he engaged in teaching in the county schools for a number of years. Later he was for a number of years a merchant of Wallonia, but most of his life had been spent as a farmer.
In 1832 he was united in marriage to Miss Mattie Brandon, and the wife died in 1920. the following are the names of the surviving children: Ithiel J. Dyer, Miss Mattie B. Dyer, O. B. Dyer and O. C. Dyer, of Trigg county, and Elope K. Dyer, of Akron Ohio.
Mrs. Eliza Blane of Cadiz is an only living sister, but there are two half sisters in Graves county - Mrs. Scott Halbrook and Mrs. Brack Sullivan.
It can be said with truth that Trigg county never had a better man for a citizen than Rufus Dyer. With an individuality as all men have, he was a men of unusual intelligence, read a great deal and kept in touch with the developments of the times.
In the dealings he was scrupulously honest, believed in and practiced the Golden Rule, and wanted to do right with everybody. Before his children and the world he set an example that all could follow and believed in the idea that each day should be lived as though it was the last.
Mr. Dyer was a very quiet man and of few words, but when engaged in conversation was both instructive and interesting and those who knew him best appreciated him most.
He joined the Methodist church many years ago and lived in the faith of the denomination.
Truly a good man has gone to his eternal reward in the passing of Rufus Dyer to the life beyond the grave.
One of my favorite ancestor stories, was this one. I 'd hear about it when I was a kid and thought it quite intriguing:
"John (Dyer) served as sheriff from 1859 to 1862, during the Civil War. He also served
as County Assessor. John Dyer was loyal to the Confederacy. he supposedly
collected the County taxes as sheriff and gave it to the Confederate
Government. After the War the Federal Government demanded that he repay this
amount. It ruined him financially."
Oops, a possibly treasonous tax collector. 
Not as interesting or exciting as a train robber or corrupt industrialist, but hey, a black sheep is a black sheep.  The Dyers were by all accounts readers and academics, tax reallocation is that ilks' version of hard crime.




Other Sources:
http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.kentucky.sellers/6592/mb.ashx

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:1042457&id=I69716202

http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.kentucky.sellers/5262/mb.ashx

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=48636467
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GScid=2343030&GRid=62040798&
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=kyseeker&id=I02975

Three Grandmothers, Part 1

The ‘Bentley’ problem.

Ivy Bentley, Inez Alexander, Mattie Adams, Era Blick.
Steve Bentley. Photo circa 1953.

Daniel  Efford Bentley was married three times. I say this only to point out an eery coincidence, in that myself and both my male siblings have also been married three times. Daniel's third marriage was to Ivy (or Iva) Cypress Burnam, whom I knew as Grandma Bentley.

She was already pretty old by the time I knew her. In fact when she died at the age of eighty six, I was only seven years old. But I do remember her. She watched over me from time to time while mom and dad worked right across the street from where she lived in Cadiz. Dad had a store called Bentley’s Maytag. Yeah, my dear dad was, for a while at least, a Maytag repairman.

Grandma’s place was half a house as I recall. I clearly remember the fireplace, roaring with burning coal chunks. Grandma, a wisp of an old woman always seemed frail and small, poking at the embers with an iron rod then leaning back and heaving forth a dirty brown and smelly spit of tobacco juice into a coffee can by the fireplace. Her voice was high, and a little raspy. I knew enough even then to know that she was from a very different time. I don’t recall a TV in her place at all, there might have been a radio, I just remember the fireplace. She once handed me a couple of D cell batteries, she called them ‘play-pretties’ and left me alone to amuse myself with them. I did. I stuck them to my tongue to feel that tiny ionizing tickle of a shock. This was of course a bad idea. In a few short years I’d graduated from D cells and was hooked on self-shocking with the vastly faster and more amp’ed up nine volt batteries. To this day, the mere sight of a battery, AA, D, or even the big one in my car makes me drool with anticipation.

We took her on a road trip to Evansville Indiana once, where one of her sons lived, ‘Uncle Tobe’ as he was known to us, ‘William Efford Bentley’ as he was known on paper. I don’t know exactly the story or origins of the ‘Tobe’ part.

We had a red, 1960 Ford Falcon station wagon. My sister and I were in the very back (long before such a thing was declared illegal), Grandma Bentley sat behind the driver’s seat. At some point she got uncomfortable and rolled down her window, stuck her head out and puked. I can in my mind, still see the streaking splatter on the back windows, it stayed there the whole trip.

Frankly that’s about all I recall about her. The memories are very vivid, though admittedly few. The next and last thing I recall about her was her funeral in 1964.

As I said she was the third wife of Daniel Efford Bentley. She bore him three sons, Uncle Tobe I mentioned, I also knew Uncle Bob in Russelville, Ky. There was one other, John, who died in 1944,  I do not recall at all. My own father was not one of the three boys.

You see the problem with Grandpa Bentley is that he died in 1918, nearly ten years before my father was born.

Grandma Bentley was born in 1878. She married Daniel while in her very early twenties, around 1901. Daniel was already in his late fifties by then, he was born in 1844, thus, thirty four years her senior. It was a different time.

Daniel and his younger brother had served in the war together, the Civil War. He was rostered with Company B, 13^th Virginia Light Artillery Battalion, CSA. As best as we can tell, he was with his unit at the battle of, and subsequent Confederate surrender at, Appomattox. Daniel’s own grandfather, Peter Efford Bentley, had served three tours of duty during the Revolutionary war and his ancestry can be dated back in the U.S. to the 1600’s with an apparent direct line of kinship to Pocahontas. This connection is interesting, though hardly rare. Pocahontas’s descendants were quite prolific.
After the war of northern aggression ended, Daniel became an ordained minister. He served several rural churches in Trigg County. Because of the huge offset in their ages, Grandma Bentley was one of the last widows in Kentucky still receiving a Civil War pension when she died, ninety nine years after that war was over.

So, about my father and his relationship to the Bentley’s.

My dad was born in 1927. His birth parents were Henry Ray and Era Crabtree. By the time I was a kid Era had married another man and I always knew her as Grandma Blick. Yes, I knew her as well.  Grandma Blick’s birth name was Era Dennis.

That’s right, the source of my own first name was my grandmother’s maiden name. What, you thought it was something else?

Henry Crabtree was not by any account or measure I can come up with, an upstanding citizen. Put more plainly, he was a mean, violent drunk. I never met him. Being poor and nearly illiterate in Alabama in the late 1920’s is a pretty tough way to raise a family. Made even more desperate if the breadwinner drinks all the very few bread winnings that occasionally occurred. A couple of years into the great depression, Grandma put my dad and one of his sisters out for adoption. They ended up in the Kentucky Children’s Home in Lyndon (Louisville) Ky. Dad has only ever had scant memories of this period. He recalls looking through a fence at his sister, behind another fence. The children's home segregated kids by gender.

 KCH took part in a system that became known as ‘orphan trains’. They would put some of their ‘destitute’ kids on trains, or in my dad’s case, the rumble seat of a car, and take them to various county courthouses to try to find them new homes. Not at all unlike what my wife does with dogs now.

The Bentley boys, then adults with their own growing families and farms, were in the market for a young boy to live with their aging mother and help her out. At the Trigg County courthouse they came across my dad, around ten years old at the time.

Kentucky Children's Home

They paid the fee and signed the papers, adopting him into the family. Young, destitute Samuel Ray Crabtree became Sam Bentley and started a new life just outside Cadiz.

By every recollection I have heard from him, my dad never had a problem with this. In fact Grandma Bentley and her sons always treated him very well, even into adulthood. By the time I was a young kid I was closer to and more familiar with my Bentley cousins and aunts and uncles than my blood-relatives on my father’s side. That had a lot to do with geography though.

Grandma Blick with a couple
of my real cousins.

So I was raised with three grandmothers and for all practical purposes, no grandfather. Mr. Blick was, to put it mildly, not very ‘nurturing’. He barely tolerated our once per year or so visits to the small, state line-straddling, Adairville Ky. farm. Grandma Blick lived until 1985. I recall many visits to her home. The original house on the farm had no running water and only enough electricity to power a couple of light bulbs and the big TV, which was as I recall only capable of picking up professional wrestling.

Grandma Blick's mother
 Inez Alexander 1880-1961

Grandma Blick was easy to laugh, very kind and above all, quite chatty. A stereotypical barely-literate, hardscrabble woman. She made fresh eggs and biscuits (with lard) and sausage every morning and poured warm, fresh, whole milk for us. There was anything but animosity between her and the Bentley’s.

In my mind and heart it is hard to separate exactly who I am related to by blood and who I am related to in name only. This is not only true for my father’s situation, but for my own as well. My own daughter Leslye is adopted. Her oldest child is Ashton Bentley. I am not related by blood to my daughter or Ashton, but that’s only DNA. The topic of this series of essays is ‘family’, not bloodline, since family is much, much more than biology. If the goal of genealogy is the same as the role of ‘pedigree’ in dog breeds, then I simply have no use for it. Everybody knows we mutts are the best.

Sources:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=danielbsr&id=I11687

http://ranger95.com/civil_war/virginia/artillery/rosters/13th_bn_lite_arty_rost_b.html

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vapittsy/MR1.htm

http://www.danvilleartillery.org/historical.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=f9gpAAAAYAAJ&dq=Daniel+Efford+Bentley&source=gbs_navlinks_s

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=danielbsr&id=I2529

Dr. Steve's Change of Life

As an introduction to what will likely become an ongoing series, I should say something about my relationship with my big brother. Frankly there’s not that much to say. He’s a few years older than me, so growing up we were not close at all. I never shared a room with him nor did I hang around with him and his buds. By the time I finished middle school he’d already gone off for his first year of college. After that we saw each other maybe once per year, if that often. Even those were short and shallow affairs. Holidays at the parents’ house, jocular insults being hurled across the room, a few words about work, families and home, and that was pretty much it. We’ve never seriously corresponded and only phoned each other once a decade or so. All I really know about him is what he infrequently tells me, or what my other siblings say about him, all of which may be a steamy, stinky pile of lies for all I really know.

I’ve never disliked or argued with him, once again because we so seldom interact. However we do come together in times of familial drama, so after I received a short email from him announcing the latest development, I felt it a moral imperative to give him a ring and check on his state of mind.

Steve (standing), My lovely sister
and me.

My older brother, Steve, said he wanted me to write a blog about him. Actually he wanted me to write about his recent change in life and the day to day challenges it presents.

He’s divorcing his wife of twenty plus years. His third wife, by the way. All three of the male siblings in our parents’ flock have been married three times. Steve, the eldest, is the first to chuck away the third. (Why did I say 'first' instead of 'only'? If only I knew someone with Freudian insight to help me understand this. . . ) The why’s and wherefores will not be covered here, suffice it to say there were no known felonious behaviors leading to or involved in the breakup and for what it is worth, it was about as mutual as these things can get. They shared a single lawyer and amicably divided the property. When using the word ‘amicably’ when discussing divorce, it only means ‘no overt physical violence ensued.’

Which means Steve lost (bartered away) the house, the furniture, the electronics...

So now, homeless yet again, he had his staff of overeducated and underpaid lackeys find him an apartment. Steve’s a psychologist, a real one, PHD and everything. His staff are mostly graduate level psychics, er, psychologists (I've never been able to comprehend the real difference) and those poor mopes probably make less than minimum wage as a result of choosing to work for my ‘thrifty’, business savvy, brother. I don’t know this first hand, but I seriously imagine threadbare, sweat-shop like working conditions. Dutiful yet frightened scribes churning out grant proposals by hand beneath a stingily filled, flickering oil lamp. (This would closely resemble my dear, sweet sister's management style, except for her it wasn't about pinching pennies, it was about power, power, power!)

As is common when suffering from Stockholm syndrome, those in his captivity readily work to please their tyrannical captor. So they found him a nice apartment, eight hundred square feet with covered parking, swimming pool and gym for a very reasonable rate, just ten minutes from his office. The kind of place his poor minions could only ever dream about.

When I talked to him over the weekend he told me that he’d gone furniture shopping but that the delivery was still a few days out. He was making do with a small bed, and a folding table he stole from his own workplace. (don't worry, he'll find a way to deduct this theft from both his personal and business taxes.)

From what he described, the furniture he picked out will look quite nice on a bright orange shag carpet, assuming of course that the disco ball is twirling. His swinging bachelor plans include a sixty inch TV and a Bose sound system. I asked him about a sporty red convertible and a white leisure suit to complete the stereotype. He said he’d think about it.

Steve is not exactly a young man. He’s pocket change over sixty, though in pretty good health with a full head of hair. He bears a family resemblance, sort of, which means I can call him nothing less than ruggedly handsome. ‘Dreamboat’ however, simply does not apply. He has lost some weight recently, a certain result of the divorce process that goes largely unreported in the mainstream media. Fortunately he’s in good financial shape so the possibility of dating, should he actually want to, is not completely out of the question. He’d make some nice girl a great and grateful sugar daddy.

As we spoke he told me he’d just returned from Kroger, which is a chain of big grocery stores. Having not been to a grocery store by himself in a few years this was wildly exciting for him. He boasted about his new Kroger discount card. You’d think he was in on a big secret, part of an exclusive club.

Aside from food, most of which will likely go bad long before he figures out how to prepare it, he also bragged about his new coffee maker. A Black and Decker model, “. . .with a built in timer!”

It’s not that Steve doesn’t know how to go shopping, he just hasn’t had to in quite a while. This experience for him was like revisiting childhood. I can identify with that, I used to go to the store with Angel every payday, but hardly at all in the past ten years. Not that I won’t go, or even don’t want to participate, it’s just that our schedules are a little screwy and the only time I would have time would be on a weekend, which tend to be very busy days for Angel. But this isn’t about me.

Steve stopped me as I was telling him something deeply personal about my own life challenges. “Do lemons go in the refrigerator?” was his dilemma.

“You bought more than one lemon?” I asked. I’ve been single myself.

“Yeah, I’ve been juicing.” He answered, I immediately understood this to mean he mixes fruit and vegetables to drink, not that he injects himself with steroids and human growth hormones. He’s a lot like me in that one respect, not at all athletically inclined.

“I got one of those things that lets me make lemonade from fresh lemons.”

“A lemon juicer?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Lemons do not go into the refrigerator, just keep them out of direct sunlight.” I added.

“Thanks, I’ve been wondering about that.”

He’s going to need a lot of help. There’s a ton of things he hasn’t had to do, at least without substantial help, in quite a while. I'd suggest to his staff that they check daily to see if his socks match and that his shirt is properly buttoned, if only for their own good.

He’d been struggling with the installation of his new stereo speakers and had considered calling his ex to get her help. I advised against that course of action. It’s never a good idea to let your ex see your fancy new bachelor pad.

“Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you found yourself single again?” He asked.

“Sure, a small trailer in the woods surrounded by razor wire and bullet-riddled ‘No Trespassing!’ signs, it’s a dream. Chicks love that sort of thing.”

“I’d like to live in the country, but it’s too far from work.” Is all he could find fault with in my contrived plan. He doesn't have a very high opinion of me.

“Yeah, the commute, that’s what’s stopping me too.” I answered.

We chatted a bit about furnishings, he ‘tried on’ all the furniture he bought. “It’s harder than I thought it would be, I never really gave furniture that much thought.” He sighed.

“I’d need a recliner, and maybe something to set stuff on.” I replied. I really hadn’t given being single again much thought either.

“I got a sleigh bed.” He added proudly. My mind wandered to that racing car bed I used to want as a kid. “We don’t even have a headboard.” I told him. Our philosophy on furniture leans heavily towards utilitarianism. We couldn’t decide on the actual function of a headboard, so we just never bothered. He went on to describe the new double-wide living room chair, the bistro-style dining table with eight chairs and the comfortable sofa he’d picked out. I stumbled over the need for eight dining room chairs. Our table has three or maybe four chairs, I don’t even recall exactly. A couple of our dining room chairs are in the bedroom holding up the window fans we use to provide white noise for sleeping. We don’t really ‘dine’ at home and we certainly would never come up with a reason for eight chairs. But Steve’s different, maybe he actually likes seven other people well enough to have them over for a meal at the same time.

I then tried to talk him into a large tattoo to commemorate his new relationship status. He declined. I also tried to talk him into a pet to help him through this difficult time. I suggested a python or boa constrictor since they don’t need a lot of hands-on care. That’s when I discovered that Steve’s a bit of an ophidiophobiac. I could sense him quivering over the phone. "I HATE snakes!" he shouted. 
"It’s always good to know your brothers’ weaknesses." Sun Tzu said that, I think.

He then started joking about dating nineteen-year-olds named Trixie, Bambi and the like, which prompted him to also openly consider installing a stripper pole. He asked me if nineteen year old girls liked that sort of thing. "How do I know? I haven't been out with a nineteen year old girl in, in, well, never.” I had to tell him. In hindsight, I should have told him to call our sister, she was an exotic dancer once, or maybe that's someone else I'm thinking of, she'd probably just deny it anyhow.

I’m pretty sure he was joking about this dating children stuff, he kept assuring me it was all in jest. Sure it is, sure it is… I wasn’t born in a turnip truck you know.

So the new life continues for him. He promises to update me as he faces new frontiers, new tasks and new challenges. I’ve been divorced before, I remember a little about the process and readjustment, but it’s been twenty five or so years, maybe it is different now. I have no plans to even consider divorce as an option in my life at this point, so I’ll just live vicariously through Steve’s.

___________________

Obligatory disclaimer:

I don’t mean to make light of divorce. It’s a very serious path to tread down and is never, amongst normal people, a rosy path. But I’m not a therapist or counselor. I’ve been through divorce(s) and know a lot of other people that have as well. We tend to make light of it primarily as a catharsis. There will be tough, painful times for Steve as well as with any not-completely-sociopathic person that goes through the process. The process of divorce often uses the same terminology as a death in the family or the loss of a long-held job. There are those who say that the processes are nearly identical. Grief varies from one person to another, so it’s hard to quantify which is worse, divorce or the death of a loved one, but this much I can tell you, it is not pleasant. There are sleepless nights, constant self-evaluation and tortuous questioning and moments of stark regret. To be able to grab on to a piece of it and find humor in at least a crumb of the experience is necessary, vital. So that is the role I’ll take with Steve, as a sidekick/foil for the few but important funny bits. I don’t know him well enough to wag my finger at him or share a hug and a tear. He’s got friends (I think) and fellow therapists for that sort of thing, far more qualified than I.

Though I mourn the breakup, I trust and know my oldest brother well enough to know he is not a man who makes rash decisions, especially when it comes to matters of this magnitude. He’s a good man and a caring man.

Besides, he knows I took a crack at psychology, a couple of semesters in grad school, and I ran, not walked, away from it. I’m not cut out for helping people with their personal problems seriously. I simply lack the specific brain nuggets that enable a person like Steve to do what he does professionally, to console and counsel the emotionally damaged. I admire him for this, I once thought I’d like to do what he does. But no, that simply wasn’t my path. However, he knows that if he needs someone to help cheer him up, to find a chuckle in the chasms of darkness, I’m the man. I can find humor in the deepest dark. That’s my coping mechanism anyhow. If I laugh at sad things, it's only because I'd rather not cry.