Tag Archives: no hill for a stepper

A Chipped Tooth of Honor

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Gene is teaching me how to play checkers. He lets me be red and I learn about jumping and kinging. I think about Grady’s checkerboard and think that next time I might just ask him for a game. We could sit outside at his checker table and watch the rich people go in and come out the Ghoston Hotel.

“Cono, there’s a new kid in town. He’s got two pairs’a boxing gloves.”

“Who is he?”

“We call him Oklahoma ‘cause that’s where he’s moved from.”

“Can I box with him?”

“He’s a little bigger’n you are.”

“Don’t matter.  Everybody’s bigger than me, ‘cept you.”  Being small doesn’t seem to bother Gene one iota.  He knows how to stand real tall in his shoes.

Gene gets us together at the open lot. Of course, I put on Oklahoma’s old pair, the ones with the black cracked leather and torn laces. It doesn’t matter.  They feel good on my hands, strong and powerful, like I could reach down and pick up the whole town.

“Ready to box?” he asks.

“Ready,” I say.  I try to remember the punches Aunt Nolie has taught me, the ones my Dad used to clobber the Tombstone.

Oklahoma and me start out in the center of the lot, without any ring this time, but with boxing gloves on our third grade hands. He comes at me full force. I swing my arms like windmills trying to get a hold of something. He circles around me, trying to get my attention.  He’s already done it. He’d gotten my attention alright, right on my mouth. A piece of my tooth is missing. The fight lasts a whole minute. He beat the tar outta me.

“Ya okay, Cono?” asks Oklahoma.

“Sure,” I say even though I got dog tired after one minute. “Jes’t lost a piece’a my tooth’s all,” I bend down to try to find it.

Gene looks in my mouth to see my broken tooth and says, “Cono, ye ain’t gonna find that  tiny piece of tooth, not in this dirt’n weeds.  Why’re’ ye lookin’ fer it anyhow?”

“Ya gonna try to glue it back on or somethin’?” laughs Oklahoma.  I just shrug my shoulders and stop looking. I don’t want to tell them that I wanted to save it for my box of specials.

When Oklahoma has his back turned, I tear off a piece of the worn lace from my borrowed glove and stick it in my pocket. That’ll have to do.

I’m not a good boxer yet, that’s for sure. But at least now I can say that I’ve worn real boxing gloves, felt the goodness in them and have a broken tooth to prove it.  Getting a beating in checkers in one thing, but getting a real beating is different.

I get home and show Mother my tooth.

“Don’t worry none ‘bout it, Cono.  When ye grow, yer tooth’ll grow right along with ye and that little chip won’t even show.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, by C. Dennis-Willingham

The “real” Cono (in the two pictures below) grew up to be a boxer in the Army. And later, he became the man I would lovingly call, “Daddy.”

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by C. Dennis-Willingham

via Broken

When the Bull Gets the Last Laugh

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Maybe it was a low point for Dad but for me, it was anything but.

We were living at the Dennis ranch, when Dad came home drunk and decided it was time to act like a real rodeo star. I was standing outside the corral, where we kept one of our two-year-old bulls. Dad saunters over to me and slurs, “ Cono, grab that bull o’r yonder. Hold’em still ‘til I get on. I’m gonna ride this son of a bitch”

“Sure I will, Dad.”

It was better than watching a picture show. While I was putting the rope around the bull’s neck Dad went over and fixed Ike’s spurs to his shoes! Not to his boots because he didn’t even own a pair of boots, but to his shoes! Then he slapped on Ike’s chaps. I helped him get on top of the bull and stood there holding his rope.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.

“I’z ready,” he slurred.

I let go.

Dad put one hand up in the air and said, “High, ho, silv……”

That bull didn’t even buck. He just turned around real slow, like he was trying to see what kind of idiot wanted to sit on his back. That slow turn-around was all it took. My Dad fell right off that lazy bull and straight into the dirt, Ike’s spurs dangling from Dad’s shoes.

I turned around and looked in the other direction, so Dad wouldn’t see the laugh in my face. If he was paying attention, he would have seen my shoulders quivering with the same laughter.

He got up and staggered back to the house, mumbling something about killing steak for dinner. Some things sure were funny back then, but other times? You couldn’t find “funny” anywhere you looked.

 

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham

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via Laughter

The Worry Wrestler

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Ike Dennis

Ike, my grandfather, ain’t mean like his son. Unless he’s breaking a horse or doing something else with purpose, he’s got a smile perched on his leathered face.

He stays cool as a cucumber even when times are hard. I hardly ever see that worry bubble dancing over his head like a cloud of Texas dust that most of us stand under.

He got rid of his worry a long time ago at the age of two when Great Grandpa Jim put him on top of a horse. If  T-R-O-U-B-L-E comes knocking on his door, he just wrestles it off until all that’s left is the T.

 

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham

via Bubble

Discouraging but Deserving

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I like looking at my teach, Mrs. Alexander, at her nice smile and her fancy dress. I keep picturing my mother getting to wear a dress like that someday.

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 it 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. But damn, sticking that pocketknife in Tommy Burn’s bully thigh sure felt good. He’s deserved it for a coon’s age.

Maybe there are a few clouds today after all.

 

Excerpt of No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham

 

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Dumbest Teacher

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The first day of school, I’m sitting in the back hoping she won’t see me. But she does.

“Cono,” she says, “Sit on up here in front, where I can keep’n eye on you-uh.”

I hate it when she says “you-uh,” like it’s two words instead of one.

Mrs. Berry doesn’t like anything I do. She doesn’t like the way I look, the way I walk, the way I smell, the way I put on my shoes. Well, I don’t like her neither. She stares at me with the corner of her crinkled up eyes, just to find something else she doesn’t like.

“Cono, you’re pressin‘ down too hard with that pencil, you’re gonna break it.” “Cono, I can barely read what you’re writing, it looks invisible.” “Cono, you-uh got something to say or don’t ya?”

She thinks that she’s higher and mightier than God Jesus himself. She walks with her nose so far up in the air that, if she were a turkey, she’d drown. Turkey’s do that. They’re so stupid that if it starts raining, they look up to see what’s dropping on them and sniff!. That’s all it takes. They’ve plumb drown in a drop of rain. You’d think they would have caught on after a while. Like they would have seen their loved ones plop down dead after looking up, that they’d be onto something. No way. They ever look up just to see the pretty stars? Nah. They only look up when it’s raining. Sniff!

The only thing dumber than a turkey is the man that owns them and he’s dumber than a box’a hammers. Just like Mrs. Berry and Principal Pall.

 

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham

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via Invisible

When You’re Hit Between the Eyes

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I grabbed my little sister’s button nose and held out my hand to show her my thumb tucked between my two fingers.

“Cono, I’ve done told ya I was too big fer that!” Delma yelled and stomped her little feet in the dirt.

Instead of kicking me in the shins as usual, she picked up a stave from the ground and hit me right square between the eyes. She could tell by the look on my red face that I was madder than a hornet.

“Ya better start runnin’, Delma Jean, ’cause I’m comin’ after ya, and I’m gonna whoop ya!”

She ran those deer legs of hers right straight to the outhouse and got there just in time to lock herself in.

“I’m gonna push this outhouse right over on ya, Delma Jean!” I said, banging on the old cedar door.

I stood outside that smelly outhouse, listening for what she was gonna say next. Then I listened some more. When I didn’t hear anything, I said, “OK. Well, when ya come out, I’ll be right here waitin’. Then ya can see this knot between my eyes that’s growin’ into a real-life unicorn horn.”

I thought for sure she’d come out right then to see for herself. But she didn’t. I tiptoed away and went on about my business. I pretended that my new horn was a badge of courage, which I guess it was if you had yourself a little sister like Delma.

I can’t say for sure how long she stayed in there, but she knew that I wouldn’t spank her. And, of course, I’d never push a stinky old outhouse over with her in it.

Delma showed up for our quiet suppertime more clammed up than usual. I put an elbow on the table and used my left hand to hide the goose egg on my forehead. I didn’t want Delma to see it any more than I wanted Mother and Dad to. Then with my righthand, I ate my supper in silence like everybody else. Several times I caught Delma staring between my fingers trying to get a peek at my bump.

Later that night, Delma told me she didn’t mean to put a horn between my eyes. I told her it didn’t matter, that it didn’t really hurt anyhow.

By the next morning, my badge of courage was almost completely sucked back into my skull. Even though nobody else could see it, I reckoned it was still in there somewhere. And that’s where I decided I’d keep it from then on, next to the other ones I got elsewhere.

— Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, a novel about my father growing up in west Texas during the Great Depression.

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If I Tell You a Rooster Wears a Pistol …

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To know him means you “got” his colloquialisms, his dry, sometimes sarcastic wit (I was a quick study). To know him means you understood what it was like to run away towards something good. And if it wasn’t “up to snuff,” you’d take advantage of the situation to make it so. He used to say, “If I tell you a rooster wears a pistol, look under it’s wing.” It meant, just like his grandfather intended, that he was truth-telling.

It’s 1946 and he’s telling you a piece of his story:

I was standing in my flight section of fifty-four men. All the ranking men had gone except for the second lieutenant, who was greener than a gourd. He was the squadron commander over everything, and he walked straight over to me and asked, “Soldier, you’ve done previous service, haven’t you?”

“No sir,” I said, standing in rigid attention and trying to figure out why he asked me that question.

“But you’ve had previous training, haven’t you?”

I thought real quick. Hell, I’d had previous training alright—previous training in ranching and sandwich making, not to mention in bank robbing conversations, fighting, and escaping. So I said, “Yes sir, I’ve had previous trainin’.”

“Where at?”

I knew what he was thinking, so again I lied through my teeth and said, “ROTC, sir.” Every officer likes to hear that.

“Can you drill men?”

Shoot, I’d seen enough picture shows to know how to drill men. Any idiot can drill men. I’d been drilled all my life—told what to do, what not to do, when to do it to boot.

“Yes sir!” I said.

He called over the little corporal, pointed to me, and said, “This is your new assistant.”

I had no inkling of an idea of what it meant to be an assistant to a corporal, but I learned quickly enough. An “assistant” meant wearing a piss pot, a little blue helmet that identified you as an assistant just like a piece of tape with your name on it identified you as the newcomer at a Baptist revival.

Little Corporal put that piss pot on my head, and I marched those soldiers straight to the classroom. Then I went to the PX to drink some more coffee.

Cono Dennis (12-18-1928 – 6-24-2009)

My father. I knew him well.

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(new logo for my children’s books)

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham

via Inkling

He Can Run But He Can’t Hide

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Narrated by Cono Dennis:

I listened to those summer bugs, the cicadas, the ones that sound like sandpaper being rubbed together. Aunt Nolie’s radio started to crackle. We knew we were getting close.

Finally, we heard the announcer, Clem McCarthy, saying that the fight was about to start right there in New York’s Yankee Stadium. I tried to picture Yankee Stadium, but I hadno reference for it. Instead, I pictured a crowd a whole lot bigger than the carnival tent in Ranger.

“In the red corner, Max Schmelling weighing in at one hundred and ninety-three pounds. In the black corner, Joe, the Brown Bomber, Louis, weighing in at one hundred ninety-eight and three-quarter pounds.”

The crowd on the radio roared. We sat real quiet, listening to every sound that came through Aunt Nolie’s brown box. Even Dad sat there with us, leaning forward with his hands folded under his chin like he was really there.

Joe had Max up against the ropes and then knocked him down three times. In two minutes and four seconds, Schmelling got in only two punches. The fight was over.

Joe Louis, the man that says, “He can run but he can’t hide” and “Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit,” had marched right into that ring in front of thousands of people—heard by a million more—and showed us a thing or two about how to get things done.

Boxing’s not my career; it’s more like a survival skill that keeps me alive. I’ll use those skills when I need to, like when I arrive in Temple in a couple of hours, stare into my dad’s eyes and say, “Ding, ding, round one.”

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via Finally

excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

Proceed with Caution

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“Always pay attention to your surroundings,” Dad always told my sister and I.

Perhaps he said this because he grew up in West Texas during the Depression  – a place and time with caution at every turn of a dirt road.

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(Dad on right)

And, perhaps he remembered this piece of advice from his stint as one of the original deputies for the county Sheriff’s Department.

(I do remember, though, that toward the end of his life, he stopped needing the advantage point of sitting with his back up against a wall.)

Perhaps Dad was covering his ass – literally.

His maternal grandfather, my great- grandfather, used to tell him”

“Always pay attention ta what’s around ya. ‘Cuz if ya don’t, something’ll come up and bite ya on the butt.” 

And perhaps, my great-grandfather said this because he himself didn’t have any teeth.

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via Bite

Toothless in a Fur Coat

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Hardly Saddler’s rolled up his wagon, pitched a tent and started up his Medicine Show. He told us about his elixirs and about how, if we bought them, they could treat most of our ailments. If he had an elixir for meanness, I would have bought a bottle right then and there, mixed it into a Pearl beer and taken it straight home to Dad.

Hardley Saddler had all kinds of shows to see and games to play. One of them was a contest to see who could hammer their one big nail the fastest into the wooden board. This contest was only open to girls, since there were other contests open for boys.

“Hey, look who’s enterin’ the contest,” Dorothy says , spitting a watermelon seed at my face. I spit one back and see Aunt Nolie and Genevieve, Dorothy’s sister, step up to the boards.

Besides Aunt Nolie and Genevieve, there were five other ladies lined up at the board. The whistle blew and there they were, those gals pounding their nails in such a hurry you would have thought they were putting up a church roof to keep Jesus dry before a storm. We were all cheering and a hollering for our favorite girl and wouldn’t you know it? I was still picturing Freezer’s eyeballs twitching and Aunt Nolie hammering something else.

Aunt Nolie got real close to winning, her face just dripping with girl sweat. But Genevieve slammed that nail in quicker than a racehorse coming out the gate.

After Genevieve was declared the winner, I couldn’t believe what the first prize was. Genevieve had won herself a brand new, over-the-knee fur coat. Even the folks who had rooted for someone else to win were hooting and clapping that at least one person in Rotan owned a new fur coat.

The next morning  peeked out the window and saw Lottie, Genevieve’s mother, standing outside her cabin, a cigarette dangling from her bottom lip, her bare feet in the snow. She looked over and waved to me like she does every morning. But on this particular day, she waved like she was the Queen of England except she was wearing nothing but a toothless grin and a brand new over-the-knee fur coat.

Ain’t that a pisser?

 

A true story from No Hill for a Stepper.

 

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