The stranger set himself up in Circleville’s bar district, acted with great belligerence toward those he encountered, and “beat the daylights” (my grandfather’s words) out of anyone who challenged him. Word of these doings quickly got back to John Gregg, along with the stranger’s claim that there was a certain storekeeper in town who was afraid of him.
My great-grandfather had his lunch at a hotel near the family store, normally sitting alone at a table reserved for him. One hot summer day, the stranger with his fearsome reputation fully established, barged into the hotel dining room, and, uninvited, sat down with John Gregg.
The two men stared at each other, and the stranger sneeringly said “You’re a lily-livered son of a bitch.” (Each time my grandfather told me this story, the high moment for him was the repetition of that powerful epithet. Otherwise, swearing was strictly discouraged in the Gregg family home.)
John Gregg leapt to his feet, flipped the heavy dining table over on the stranger, pulled him out from under it, threw him through a window onto the street, jumped out the window, and beat him unconscious. He then picked up the stranger and carried him over his shoulder to a nearby doctor’s office. He told the doctor that he would pay all medical bills, and asked that he be notified when the stranger planned to leave town.
When word came of the stranger’s departure, John Gregg went to see him off. The stranger held out his hand, and said “Well, I came looking for it, and I got it.” He then climbed into the waiting stagecoach, and departed. Such was life in Ohio in the 1850s.
My mother, Lucy Corliss Phinney, had a beautiful contralto voice and was offered a chance to study for an operatic career. Her conservative father was against this, and so she went to Radcliffe, graduating in 1913, and going into a life infinitely more dangerous than she or her father would ever have imagined.
My mother had studied “social work” at Radcliffe and began work at the Boston Society of the Care of Girls (referring largely to unwed mothers). Mother’s work attracted the attention of a group in Montreal called the Women’s Directory, which had been formed to fight what was then often referred to as “white slavery,” the entrapment of poor, uneducated young women into prostitution.
In 1916, she moved to Montreal to begin this new phase of her work. Within three years she had become head of the Directory, and had been successful in focusing press attention on what she referred to as “commercialized vice interests,” which could be more accurately described as vicious criminal gangs. Two attempts were made to kidnap and kill her, and she was urged to leave Montreal to protect her life. So she went to Colorado College, as dean of women, where she met my father when he returned home from France after World War I.
Dad graduated from Colorado College in 1913, and joined the YMCA. In 1916, as a member of the Colorado National Guard, he was sent to the Mexican border to pursue the Mexican border bandit Pancho Villa. In 1918, he joined the Army, and as a 28-year-old college-educated buck private, was sent to France.
In his last letter before shipping out, he wrote these words: “I am looking forward to my trip with a mighty anticipation. A Western boy sailing overseas to have a hand in the biggest event the world has ever seen. I am quite happy to go so that I can hold my head up during the years ahead.”
I worshipped my father. When I was a sickly child, feeling deeply inferior to both my youthful, healthy contemporaries and my powerful forebears, Dad always encouraged me to feel that one day I “would make a difference” in the world. The unhappiest period of my life started in the fall of 1942, when Dad became ill, suffering internal infection from an abscess on his duodenum. Just as my health improved, Dad’s worsened. Radical surgery was attempted, but failed. Dad died in April 1944, when I was 16.
World War II was raging, my lungs had cleared from any evidence of TB, and I had been given clearance to play all high school sports. I decided to enlist in the Army as soon as I was 17, to “have a hand” in World War II, thus emulating my father. My mother wisely insisted that I graduate from high school before entering the Army, and so I doubled up on enough courses to graduate in 1945, at 17. I “toughened up” that summer at a canoe trip camp in Canada, and was on a remote lake in Ontario when travelers from another camp shouted the news of war’s end. I enlisted in the Army in September 1945.
2
Texas Talk and a Takeshita Takedown
The war had just ended, and an eighteen-month enlistment had been created to fill anticipated personnel shortages at a time when those who had seen long, tough service were anxious to be discharged.
I was assigned to the Signal Corps, for reasons unknown to me. This meant that I went through basic training at Camp Crowder, Missouri, near Joplin and Neosho. I was a member of Company E, 26th Training Battalion, ASFTC. I think that meant Army Signal Forces Training Center, but we trainees knew those letters really meant: “All Shit Flows Through Crowder.”
Company E was made up largely of draftees, several years older than I was. My platoon was a pretty compatible bunch, whose last names began with the letters “E” through “K.” “Evans, Fanning, Faw, Fiegel, Finochio…” were the first names shouted out at roll call every morning. Through basic training, I carried a Springfield ‘03 bolt-action rifle, serial number 3587548. I have no idea why that serial number has stuck in my head—but it has.
One of the other platoons in Company E contained a number of tough Texans, widely disliked by our platoon. One cold day in November, a snowball fight broke out between our platoons, and I scored a direct hit on the head of one of the Texans. He immediately retaliated by shattering one of my front teeth with a solid right hand, enhanced by a large ring well suited for inflicting facial mayhem.
I was hors de combat for a day or two. Upon my return to full duty I wondered what I would do when I next encountered the Texan who had hit me. I was told not to worry about it, as he “had been taken care of” by one of the hard cases in my platoon who felt that what had happened demanded a response. That particular Texan was not returned to duty in our company.
(That missing tooth plagued me for years. The Army replacement was rather crude, and the plastic brittle, so the false tooth broke periodically, usually at a bad time, leaving me with a “Hannibal Lecter” look. Even worse was that the substance used for false teeth in those days did not show up under the ultraviolet light used in dance halls and discos of the time. My daughter Lucy belatedly pointed this out to me one night as I danced with her, telling me to dance with my mouth closed so as not to scare young children. It’s finally properly fixed, but I fear my disco days are over.)
The Texans also suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of a diminutive Japanese-American named Takeshita. He was in the rear rank of the platoon that marched in front of ours. I had a good view of him, as I was in the front rank of our platoon. Takeshita was so slender that his heavy cartridge belt slipped down over his hips unless he held it up with one hand. When we had to march or run at port arms, with both hands on our rifles, Takeshita was doomed, as his belt crept down from his waist toward his knees, forcing him to drop out of formation, pull up his belt, and run to catch up with his platoon.
Most of us felt sorry about this, but the Texans thought it was hilarious, and constantly teased Takeshita, tormenting him by deliberately mispronouncing his name, which in Japanese means “Under the Bamboo.”
One payday as we were standing around waiting to be paid, one of the Texans went up to Takeshita, yelled “Hey ‘Take a Shita,’ I hear you’re good at ju-jitsu—let’s see you get out of this,” and clamped the small man’s head under his arm in a severe headlock.
Takeshita was choking, but we heard him say: “Stop, I don’t want to hurt you,” which evoked a guffaw from his assailant.
With that, Takeshita clamped his hands under the Texan’s buttocks, lifted him off the ground and fell backwards, using his back as a fulcrum. The Texan’s face smashed into the frozen ground with a thud