That Fightin’ Instinct

Posted on March 15, 2017 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

My Dad

I yelled, “fall out!” But, there’s one in every crowd. His name was “Johnson,” an ex-merchant marine with big old biceps who thought he could fight a circular saw and come out ahead. He pulled the cover over his head as if that was gonna protect him from someone who knew better.

Everyone was watching me, so I knew I had an impression to make. I walked over, and said, “Well, aren’t you smart?” Then I took that cot and flipped it right in the middle of him.

He stood up, towering over me like a big gorilla, stared down at me and drew back. Now, the thing about big ole boys like Johnson is that they might have a lot of muscle and power, but for a lightweight class like me, they move like molasses. So that’s the last he saw. When he drew his big arm back, my fist landed square on his chin before his pea brain could register what hit him. He dropped like a loose button, out cold as a cucumber.

When Johnson started to stir a bit, he looked at me with surprise and reached up to feel his mouth, like he was making sure all his teeth were still there.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I know a couple of folks without any teeth and they can still eat almost anything.”

He sat there glaring at me and I kept talking.

“And if you keep puckerin’ like that, pretty soon you’re your face is gonna match your asshole. Now get up!”

Everybody laughed except for Johnson. I guess he didn’t think it was funny. But he did stand up and, so far, Johnson and the rest of the cooks barracks have been looking at me in a different light. I don’t count on Johnson looking down on me ever again. Besides, he couldn’t fight the gnats off his butt.

I suppose the fighting Instinct was born in me, like red is born into a beet. Maybe because I started fighting in first grade when I had to stick that pocketknife into the thigh of Tommy Burns so he wouldn’t take my marbles.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story

Missing you

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

The Nuances to which we differed was minimal compared to how we were alike.

Love you, Daddy

A Boxing Tradition-Thanks, Daddy

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

So recently, my one-year-old granddaughter came to watch me box (see picture below). As many of you know, I love boxing. Not competitively, of course. I do it for fitness. We hit pads and bags, practice defensive, etc. We kick, too, but being a good kicker is not in my DNA. Let me explain.

My paternal grandfather was a carnival boxer in the early 1930’s. That meant he would seek out the carnivals and would box the “main” contender. If he won, which he usually did, he earned 5 buckeroos.

In the later 1940’s, my Dad boxed for the Army as Kid Dennis. I still have his boxing bag, gloves, and trunks that read “Kid.” (The story of Dad’s boxing retaliation against my grandfather is a major plot thread in my novel, No Hill for a Stepper.)

Dad quit boxing when he married my mother but continued the sport by becoming a referee. When my sister was born, he gave her little blue boxing glove rattles. After my parents died, and when my sister and I had to sort through the house, I found them! I told my sister, “I’m keeping these!” (she didn’t fight me for them). Now, I keep the little rattles in my boxing bag for inspiration.

Here’s my granddaughter holding one of the little rattles.

Baby and Me

Do I think my granddaughter should continue the tradition? It matters not. What does matter is that she learns to defend and stand up for herself. And, as Dad often reminded me, “pay attention to your surroundings at all times.” Sound advice.

Thanks, Daddy.

Not always “home” on the range

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

Right before it’s time to go home, Mrs. Alexander starts to teach us a new song called Home on the Range. “Oh give me a home, where the antelope roam and the deer and the antelope play. Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day. How often at night, where the heavens are bright with the light of the Glittering stars, have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed if their glory exceeds that of ours. Home, home on the range….”

I like those words. They make me feel almost as good as when I’m riding on ol’ Polo, free and easy like deer and antelope playing together without any bickering. I like that she tells us what the words mean, words like “discouraging.” She says that “discouraging” means that you don’t like something much, like something makes you feel uncomfortable, something that spoils your spirit. So now I can say, that “Home on the Range” is my new favorite song. I can also say that recess today sure was discouraging.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

photo credit

The Good Seats Aren’t Reserved for Me

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

Cono Dennis

My ears focus on the Sound of the train’s idling, but eager-to-go engines. Where the hell would I be today if I didn’t have those railroad memories chugging along with me, some good and some anything but?

Just as I’m feeling comfortable that I won’t be crowded, I feel something settling into that worn seat next to me, making itself comfortable but making me anything but. It nudges me. I ignore it and then tell it to go away. It doesn’t listen. The memories want me to pay them a little attention. I know this train is about to pull out. I know this train is taking me to Temple. But my mind and my uninvited seat companion start to take me somewhere else, somewhere I’ve already been before, somewhere I don’t care to go back to. It starts speeding me down the track a lot faster than this train is accustomed and a whole lot faster than I can put a stop to.

The first memory is safe. It makes me wish, “If only it could have all been this easy.” But past wishes were reserved for the other folks with good seats.

Not for me.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

Bonnie and Clyde and Amelia Earhart?

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

I don’t know why, but it makes me kinda proud that Clyde’s best weapon came from the town where I was born. Bonnie and Clyde entered my life several times one way or the other before the Texas Rangers finally gunned them down.

In February 1934, right after we moved to Rotan, Bonnie and Clyde robbed the National Guard Armory in Ranger. The armory was where Clyde got his favorite weapon, an Automatic rifle. He cut off part of the barrel, got three ammo clips and welded them together so it would shoot fifty-six times without reloading. That’s why Clyde called it his scatter-gun.

Amelia Earhart was another celebrity who came through Ranger. She landed her Autogyro at the Ranger airfield in 1931. It’s a shame that she went missing just six years later and that we still can’t find her.

But for me, the real celebrities from Ranger are Ma and Pa.

I close my eyes again but it’s no use. My seat companion says, “You ain’t done yet, Cono.” Again, I give in to the nudge and open up that old cigar box of things I don’t care to see. I picture that tiny little girl sock, the one that used to be in the box of specials, the one that belonged to my kidnapped little sister.

Ranger, Texas in 1930’s

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, a story about my father

Renewal or Regret?

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

Cono, age eighteen, travels back home to confront his father.

screen-shot-2016-12-29-at-1-41-22-pm

Getting on the train, I’m thankful it’s not crowded. Too many people too close to me is something I’ll never get used to. I find a seat toward the back like I always do. A back up against the wall is a back protected. I need to see what’s going on around me at all times. And like always, when I hop on a train, I hope that my head is still attached when I get to where I’m going; not like our friend, Wort Reynolds who hopped on that train to Clyde Texas, the train that grabbed his head and kept right on going.

“Ticket please.”

I turn my eyes from the curved tracks outside my window to the ticket taker. Handing it over, I watch him punch the hole without even looking into my eyes. How many years has he done this, I wonder, and does he like the shoes he’s wearing?

Home, a place that’s sometimes as hard as cement that you can’t pull your shoes out of. Nevertheless, that’s where I’m heading.

My ears focus on the sound of the train’s idling, but eager-to-go engines. Where the hell would I be today if I didn’t have those railroad memories chugging along with me, some good and some anything but?

The first memory is safe. It makes me wish, “If only it could have all been this easy.”

But past wishes were reserved for the other folks with good seats.

Not for me.

Renewal – Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

You Would be 87 today

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

I wrote this shortly after my father died in 2009. (Happy Birthday, Daddy)

Dear Dad,

I write. My eyes blur. I see a cowboy hat with a cowboy underneath it. You’d say, “This hat’s worth a lot more than what’s underneath it” . We knew better each time you said it. You are worth more to me than you’ll ever know.

When I was in the Brownies, we went to a father/daughter banquet at the middle school and your job was to identify my feet under the stage curtain. I sat behind that curtain for only a short time when I heard you say, “is that you Carolyn?”. “That’s me Daddy” I said. You found my feet before I knew where they were going to take me.

In Girl Scouts, you told me I had made a fabulous speech in front of a large audience when in fact, I had stood there, a frightened girl in uniform, with all my words stuck in my throat. I was silent and scared, staring into the crowd of strangers. You were the only one who heard my silent words, like they were loud and clear and perfect. You said I did just fine. You made me not hate myself that night.

You threw that football with me in the front yard and always encouraged me. You taught me how to drive. You said to never forget where my break was.

You taught me how to love my dogs, how they held our hearts and souls within them, in case we forgot where and who we were. Thru them and other things, you taught me that your heart was sensitive and kind.

You told me bedtime stories, like the three little bears. “AND THERE SHE IS”, you’d say and I’d laugh like it was the first time I’d ever heard it.

And you were the one who taught me how to pray.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at your house putting on my hands wraps for my boxing class. You wanted to know how fast I was so you speed-drilled me by putting your hand up. Your past boxing memories were still alive. You were always in my corner, pulling for me, taking care of me when I was hurt. My Dad, my cornerman.

On Father’s Day while you laid in bed, I brought you the painting I had done of a cowboy silhouette. You looked at it and said, “that’s me riding off on my last sunset.” We all knew you were ready for that ride.

I believed you when you told me you would always look after Pat and I after you had gone. You said, “I always take care of my babies”. And now I hear you say, like you’ve said a thousand times before, “if I tell you a rooster wears a pistol, look under it’s wing.”

You didn’t plan the first part of your life but you lived it, felt it, analyzed it and learned where you were going next. You wanted a life with stability, you met my mother and you lived the next 6o years on a level ground. And then? When it was time for you to die? Somehow you figured out how to put all your ducks in a row and be buried on your anniversary. So Dad, when I get sad I will know where you are, together again with my mother, exactly where you are supposed to be.

And as your grandpa, Ike, always said with his sarcastic grin, “ well, aren’t you smart.”

Dad on right with his grandfather

And <to my son and daughter>: Grandpa would want me to remind you of a few things.

1. trust yourself and learn first to be your own best friend.

2. whatever you choose to do in life, make sure you love it.

3. take care of your money

4. <Son>, it’s not time to go, it’s time to dance.

5. <Daughter>, stay away from hairy legged boys.

And as I was laying in the front room of your house, the night before you died, I realized that the times you hugged me from the outside to the in had ended. From this point on, your hugs will be from the inside to the out. And I will feel them always.

You put the “spirit” into my soul, Dad. You were my greatest teacher.

And as you always said, “the cream in the pitcher always rises to the top.”

And there, you are.

With a love that never ends,

Carolyn.

(No Hill for a Stepper is my father’s story about growing up in the Great Depression with an abusive father. My dad broke that chain of abuse)

When Words Kill

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

Cono Dennis, after realizing his father read his private letters.

37-119-19_pt_instr-verticalcrop_quote_2-jpg

Cono Dennis, my father, age 18

I might not have sparred with him but I stopped him cold and I don’t just mean by showing off my defense skills and putting him in a head lock. As sure as a sharp axe can cut through and splinter a log and slice a thin piece of paper, a sharpened pencil can do the same thing. Words are powerful; they can be weapons as sharp as an axe. “Gene, I want to kill my Dad,” words that must have reverberated and Echoed in Dad’s ears just as loud as a sawed off shotgun, or blue lightening bouncing off a cow’s head. And just as loud as his slap across my face. I don’t think I meant for him to find all those letters, but he did.

From No Hill for a Stepper, the novel based upon my father’s life from age two till age eighteen.

The Shape of Cono’s Being.

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

In a previous post titled, The Shape of our Being, I mentioned how experiences shape our humanness. Here’s another example of the “shape” of Carolyn’s Being that shows up in my novels.

Disclaimer: I’m betting on my ‘underdog-ness’ again–that part of me who feels uncomfortable with self-promotion. But try, we must. Right?

NOTE: No Hill for a Stepper, is about Cono, my father (and a huge piece of my heart) who died in 2009 before its publication. Don’t worry, he read and loved the first draft.

In 1942, victimized his entire life by his own father, fourteen-year-old Cono must stand up against him an protect his mother and little sister.

Excerpt:

I hear Mother scream. I snap back into the present, out of my daydream. Maybe she’s woken up, has seen blood on her sheets reflected in moonlight, seen the blood on Dad’s face. I start to get up, but the quiet has taken over; but only for a moment.

I hear a voice I know is Dad’s but different somehow, guttural like a wolf’s growl. I hear Mother say, “Stop it Wayne!”

My feet touch the floor before the rest of me knows what it’s doing. I open my door. Mother is backing towards me, but away from the bloodied-face man holding a butcher knife, glistening from moonlight, shiny like a raccoon’s mirror. He’s stumbling towards her. My mind freezes. It’s a scene from a scary picture show. No, Cono, I tell myself, this is real. Real life, real time.

Dad’s stopped walking. He’s swaying back and forth like an old porch swing. No, more like the swing of a hanged man’s noose. His eyes are glazed like a film of anger is laying on top that he can’t wipe away. He glances once over to the couch where Pooch is sleeping.

“Mother, keep backing up towards me,” I tell her.

She stares at my father but listens to my words. Dad stops at the kitchen table, he puts his empty palm on the table for balance, the butcher knife in the other hand swaying by his side.

“C’mon, Mother, keep coming to me,” I say softly, feeling a surge of calm and determination at the same time.

Mother has backed all the way up me. I pull her behind my door into the bedroom where Delma is still sleeping. Mother is shaking. My hands are doing the same now. I see our .22 sitting on the open shelf just a few feet away. It’s so close I can almost feel it. It’s like the .22 Hoover found, the one I felt in my hands, the cold steel of it. Now, I want to feel the warm safety of it.

A fear invades my body like a sickness. I’m drowning, but not in water. I’m drowning in the fear of what to do next, what I need to do to protect my family from a madman.

Here’s Cono, my dad. My sister had the novel photoshopped into his hands and gave me this awesome framed photo.

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham

author perfectly flawed

Tag Archives: fathers