Summers Run: An American Boyhooddepicts a former child film star returning to his boyhood home and the family farm. The film career of Nathean Summers began at age eight playing the son of a pioneer couple trekking west in the 1850s. His filmography includes two Western-themed television series where he became strongly identified as "that cowboy kid,” a peculiar turn for a farm boy from Pennsylvania.
Hollywood largely dismissed him as typecast and Nathe's life and work plateaued into a checkered affair. He became a magazine publisher after trying his hand as a sports broadcaster. Summers Run: An American Boyhood is narrated by Nathe's second cousin, Claude, an eleven-year-old fatherless boy who is relocating to the Summers Run area as well. This is a story of how their lives entwined within a fabric woven by dear hearts and gentle people.
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CHAPTER 1
A Farm in Pennsylvania
Back then, I took notice of how families were called to dinner. It became a curious matter to me and remains so to this very day. Thus far, I’ve collected: “It’s ready. . . . We’re eating, you guys. . . . Dinner’s (or supper’s) on. . . . Come an’ eat. . . . Let’s eat. . . . Wash up. . . . Are we eating here or in front of the TV? . . . It’s on. . . . It’s getting cold. . . . Let’s go, family. . . . Hurry an’ eat or we’ll be late.” My maternal grandmother Ronnie would call out–“Sgt. Cee Jay! Front and center or I’ll throw it to the dogs and then to the hogs.” Uncle Albert Summers’ favorite seemed “take it or leave it, like it or lump it.” Occasionally, he’d announce, “it’s road kill garnished with a few leftovers. So grab it and growl.” He was a fine cook, though a widower, who lived alone until his son moved back home. Albert and I became kindred spirits, for when I first placed my feet under his table, I was alone as well. I’d become an orphan of sorts, beginning a journey of my own on my own. More or less. In truth, I had a mother but she’d recently fallen for a club and casino owner from Nevada. She was hitching her “wagon to a star,” she told me. Apparently such was a one-horse cart without room for me. The arrangement began just fine. Of my two options available, downtown Las Vegas where my mother would park her wagon held little interest for me. Instead, I ended up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, and there began a life most boys age eleven would envy with all the considerable yearning we eleven year olds could muster.
*
The year was 1992, the month of early March, and it had been decided. “Claude.” My mother had me sit beside her, snapping off her little bedside TV, and taking both my hands in hers. This meant, please pay close attention, son.“You remember how much fun we had visiting the farm up in ‘P.A.’ and your Aunt Marguerite? When our daddy Blake went off to war? Well, we’re going back to visit for a spell while I seal my mind ‘bout Mister Vic. Just ‘for a spell’, as Blake used to say.” “Mister Vic” was my mother’s new boyfriend. Mom had been widowed in February of The Gulf War, 1991. Officially, my father had been listed as missing in action until it seemed final and hopeless. He would never return to us from the sands of Iraq. I became fatherless and she became free. Mom and Vic met in Atlantic City at an audition fair and talent search. My mother was a vocalist and sang some on air force bases, army posts, and such. A big band song stylist, she called herself. From what little I knew about it, she sounded pretty good. Folks applauded warmly and some whistled. She drew a lot of attention at the fair, including that of Mister Vic. After Atlantic City and meeting Mr. Ignatius “Vic” Delveccio, my mother’s life had taken one crazy turn upon another it seemed to me. I hung on while she plowed into the curves, her foot to the floor, her head in the clouds, her gaze on the prize. “The Prize” was a suave businessman whose family had made it big in Nevada decades ago. He held interests in several “establishments,” as my mother described them. “And do you know, hon, like I said, Vic’s definitely going to help me get my musical career back on track. I’ll be singing every night in one of his clubs if I want to. Isn’t that exciting–your mom becoming a professional songbird! I’m gonna take some vocal lessons out there or in Los Angeles. Get the training I’ve never really had. “Oh, and sweetheart, you’ll be visiting when school lets out and then one day, you’ll move out to Las Vegas and we’ll all be back together again.” “What’s Vic think about me hangin’ around?” I asked. “Oh, hon, he wants you with us soon too, but right now, he’s got to get things set up so they’ll be right for me, for us. “He doesn’t want us–you, me, and him–to take on too much too soon, and I can see his point. Y’see, he’s never been a father before and he wants to do it right an’ ease his way into it.” She turned from the mirror and let the hairbrush fall slack to her lap. “I think that’s best. And very wise.” I nodded my understanding if not my approval, left the bedroom, found my ball and glove, and began fielding grounders in what little backyard the army provided its married personnel. My father had served in airborne units, mainly, and at the time of his disappearance was up for promotion and if he opted, retirement. Now, as I look back, it seemed so cruel–the proverbial one last mission syndrome that claimed him and took our hopes away. The hopes I heard him voice: farm, family, the old home place. The army of course had to move on, regrets. It would, of course, return us to civilian life, wherever we wanted it to be. My grandfather, Senior Master Sergeant Claude Joseph “C. J.” Jarrett, USAF (Retired) had gifted me with one of those bouncy, netted things that deliver the ball back to the thrower. I’d practiced to where it would no longer return a baseball with vigor but preferred tennis balls instead. Perhaps I’d take it with me. To Pennsylvania. Like my granddad, I loved baseball and would genuinely miss my team on the fort, The Kaintucks. Pennsylvania. We were leaving the army for “P. A.”, as Aunt Marguerite called it. I bounced the tennis balls off the net as fast as I could fire them, catching some in my glove, others in my bare hand. It would seem strange to be a civilian. I’d never been anything but an army kid. Aunt Marguerite’s farm, then it is. Guess I’m going to be a farm boy. For a spell. *
The US Army bade us a both a formal and yet a touching farewell. My father was decorated, yes, but also highly admired and well liked in the officers’ club or enlisted barracks. The honors, funeral, and memorial service had been conducted months ago, and we’d lived out our benevolent residency on Fort Campbell. Official bereavement seemed over and with our goods crated and secured on the moving van and Mom and me on a flight to Pittsburgh, we were out of the military’s hair. We wouldn’t look back, I was assured. My mother bid it good riddance. She snapped her seatbelt and gave it the strongest tug her tiny hands and thin little arms could manage. It seemed a gesture of finality. “And I declare, good bye army. The feeling is mutual, don’t we think, sweetheart? I hope you’ll never want to go off to war. It’s the pits for those you leave at home. Thanks for some of the memories, Uncle Sam, but so long.” I had to respect her sentiments, though following my dad into the army or some branch of the service had become one of my many aspirations at age eleven. Flying jets for example; my Grandfather Jarrett championed the US Air Force. No mention of the moving about nor the day-to-day life on a crowded military base, drawbacks my mom described at length as the “downside.” Mother wrinkled her little nose when she called herself a “service brat,” and I didn’t want to be tagged thus, by myself or others. Though I was going on twelve years of age, I knew my perceptions of some things were flawed. Yet I was not such a boy I didn’t know about labels and being dismissed. Nor was I such a boy I didn’t know of losing and the persistence of loss. Nor was I a stranger to those wakeful hours of the night wondering if he ever thought of me now. Does he know of my sorrows? Does he share such?Or was he in a place where regrets and tears are purged from thought? A place where the views of loved ones left behind are as memories and veiled? In 1992, I’d be twelve come August. Though I’d been told I was now the “man of the family,” my father’s adulthood seemed well over the horizon and his son’s loneliness just around the corner. Our flight climbed above the haze below, nosing its way into a blue and golden afternoon where we floated over the woolly overcast now beneath us. We’d been holding hands and when the sun’s ray splashed across the cabin, my mother uttered a little cry, a sob, and squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt. “Oh, hon, it’s over.”
*
Anne Doolittle emerged from the sea of folks swimming around as we entered the terminal. She fanned herself, breathless. “Claude, you remember Annie, Aunt Marguerite’s friend from the farm?” “Yes, ma’am. Hello, again.” I offered my hand and she pulled me into a little hug. “Oh, you two look so good after what you’ve been through. Goodness, welcome home!” she choked and began to cry. The two women embraced once more. “Oh, Annie, we’re moving on, me an’ Claude. We’ve got to.” “Yes,” Anne sniffed into her dainty little handkerchief. “Yes, of course you must.” She dabbed at her eyes and told us, oh, look at me. “I dug this out of what’s left of my hope chest,” she laughed. She meant the handkerchief. “I knew I’d blubber–that’s my role. Let’s get down to baggage claim.” “Marguerite couldn’t come?” my mother asked. Anne stopped in mid-stride and we all dodged a cart streaming by and beeping for us to make way for its load of senior citizens. Anne touched Mom’s arm again. “Grandma Bea took a spill this morning–” “Oh, poor Granny Kinkade!” “Nothing serious–she jiggered her back, though. So, she’s in bed with ice packs and the heating pad. But she is farm girl strong, I’ll tell the world. She stumbled off the back steps, going out to scatter scratch to her chicks. Nothing to worry about but Marguerite thought she’d better stay close by today.” At baggage claim, all pleasantries underscored by the airport’s elevator music were drowned under. The sea of travelers had boiled over into a turbulent wave crashing on a shore of sinuous conveyors, foaming outcrops of luggage threatening to topple, families shuffling together like penguins, and frowning businessmen plucking suit bags and cases from the backwash, survivors rescuing flotsam. Suddenly, all were unlovely humans bent on getting this over with. “Holy crow, get me back to the farm and gentle folk,” said Ann over the tumult. “Anyways, Daisy, Granny’s mishap allowed us to cook up something special for your homecoming.” “Oh, my. A surprise?” Mom relished surprises. “You’ll see shortly.” Anne patted my mother’s arm and smiled like the schoolgirl with a secret she’d been decades ago. Apparently, Anne was an arm-patter. I liked her for that.
***
CHAPTER 2
The Stranger
We stood guard over our luggage and watched the mob swirl out the doors to taxis and rental car vans like schools of fish following each other and plunging forward, either panicked or purposeful.
“Holy crow,” said Anne. “I’ve never seen it so jammed up and this crazy before. Not used to all this noise.” She turned to Mom. “I hope you’ll find it so quiet on the farm, you can get things nice and settled.” Mom simply nodded yes. Anne–not being family–didn’t have much say in the matter. But she and my Aunt Marguerite might not approve of Mom’s choice in husbands or the move to Las Vegas and leaving me behind.
Such would be my guess. They were older, seasoned in the ways of wives and husbands. Life.
The baggage conveyors continued their ebb and flow, carrying only forlorn and unclaimed stragglers. Then a man emerged through the last of the crowd, striding toward us and smiling. Something in his manner or the walk looked familiar. So very familiar.
“What a madhouse,” he laughed. “Bad weather over east so they diverted a bunch of flights this way.” His voice held a timbre developed from confidence, practice, and being at ease with himself. This stranger seemed not a stranger at all. Rather, someone I ought to recognize or remember. But, who should I know outside my young and sheltered life?
“Well, here’s our chauffeur.” Anne took Stranger by the sleeve of his linen safari jacket and blushed as if she might pop.
“Daisy, Claude–I don’t think you’ve ever met Nathe . . . but this is Nathean Summers, your cousin Nathe–”
Mom gasped and began a goofy litany of “Oh my . . . this is just wonderful to meet–what a–this is so unexpected, such a treat–Anne if I can’t find a tissue, I might need to borrow your hanky–I’m so touched to see, that you came down–”
Nathe Summers took Mom’s hands in both of his and told her, “Welcome to Pennsylvania. For a spell, at least.” Then he turned to me and we shook hands while Mom fluttered her way through an introduction. Summers nodded.
“That’s right. Your father and I were cousins so I think that makes us second cousins. Anne, you might not know this but Claude and I are connected through the Forsythes as well as the Kinkades.”
“Oh, one of those once or twice removed things, maybe?”
“I’d guess.” Nathe stuck one hand in the pocket of that jacket I admired. The other adjusted his tie. He wore what I learned later was an ascot. “Let’s see, my father’s uncle Grant Summers married a cousin of Opal Forsythe who was Claude’s great grandmother, and the mother of his Grandmother Beatrice Kinkade. Of course, my dad married Margaret Kinkade–“Peg”–Grandma Bea’s sister.”
“Sounds like we’re climbing the family tree,” my mother blurted.
“Oh, indeed.” Nathe seemed to smile and laugh easily, putting us at ease. “Taking a couple turns around the trunk and up the branches. Need to draw it out on paper perhaps.” He pulled his hand from the jacket pocket and offered us each a mint. “Ready to roll?”
*
So . . . here he was. He seemed tall enough, not towering as I pictured. But here he stood in the flesh. Within spitting distance–the family’s Golden Boy. The stuff of our legends and my speculations. At last we met. Secretly, I nursed the hope we would within the new life where Mom and I found ourselves. Such seemed possible. And now here, today, sooner than later.
We gathered up our goods and swam into the crowds outside, Nathe telling us we’ve a walk.
Mom became so silly with all this, as giddy as I’d ever witnessed. She asked if we might be hounded by autograph seekers. To my relief, Nathe laughed, genuinely amused, I decided.
“Those days are over, Daisy.” He popped the trunk lid of his car. “No paparazzi tagging after me anymore.”
He wedged our biggest cases in and found to his relief they barely fit. “Looks like the smaller things will have to ride up front. I debated leaving the spare at home and then I thought that’s sure gonna look foolish if we have a flat.” He closed and locked the lid.
“Oh, now and then someone comes up and says, ‘Pardon me, but aren’t you . . .’ and sometimes they mix the name or face, confusing me with that other guy. It’s all right.”
Nathe held the door open for the ladies and Mom said, “Oh my,” as she climbed in the back.
I marveled. This car was made of wood.
At least some of it. The hood and fenders were painted a forest green so deep and rich it looked as if I could plunge my arm down clear to my shoulder.
The rest was fashioned of maple and mahogany, said Nathe. “I’d been looking for one of these in decent shape for years. And as luck would have it, about the time I quit, up popped two for sale the same week.
“One in excellent condition. All original. A little leather work, a new top, refinished the wood and I sold it to a guy who wanted it worse’n me. Got a nice price and went to work on this one.
“She’s nowhere near original, Claude. Totally modern power train. Power steering, disc brakes, windows and locks and so on. Just the shell is restored. All the mechanicals are bogus, imports, nothing factory about it. So that cuts its value to the collectors.” He acted apologetic. “But . . . today we can’t do without automatic tranny, turn signals, or cassette players, can we?”
I nodded. “What kind is it?”
“A Chrysler Town and Country.”
We hopped in the front and I sank into a cushiony couch of sumptuous leather. I looked back at Mom who was flushed and glistening. “Smells good,” I told her.
She nodded and we exchanged our can-you-believe-this glance.
“Hon, we’re riding in style.”
“And . . .” Nathe ushered the big hood toward an exit. “We should beat the rush hour if I don’t get us lost,” he laughed.
I decided I might like this Nathe Summers, my illustrious cousin.
*
His film career began in 1954 at the age of eight. A studio publicist wrote glowingly: “Audiences find the earnest and convincing performance of newcomer Nathean Summers so engaging, young and old alike are demanding more appearances of this talented youngster.” A critic blessed the casting agency, calling Nathe “a brilliant choice. Young Summers might become filmdom’s quintessential farm kid or everyone’s favorite young prairie pioneer.”
As it happened, the writer proved prescient. First impressions stick in Hollywood and Nathe went on to play the plucky son of Russian émigrés trapped by avalanches and a ravenous pack of movie dogs in The Wolves of Wind River. Then, he helped turn the tables on gun runners as the son of a Scottish freighter in The Remington Rifles. In Where the Sun Now Stands, he tagged along with the Nez Perce in their desperate flight to Canada, his blond mop backlit against the somber evergreens on location and contrasting with his swarthy companions. He became the tribe’s good luck symbol and the envy of every young boy in 1950s America.
Wrote one reviewer: “The shocking death of the film’s narrator and lead character, Daniel–played to perfection by 12-year-old Nathe Summers–at the Bear Paw Mountain Surrender is a performance worthy of the Academy’s attention. I’d wager there wasn’t a dry eye in my theater, at least, when Daniel dropped to his knees and pled for the life of his red-skinned friend. A Juvenile Oscar, perhaps?”
In all, he played in more than a dozen full-length features, paired with the likes of Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Robert Taylor, Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Richard Farnsworth, Richard Widmark, Gloria Grahame, Myrna Dell, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, Greer Garson, Colleen Dewhurst, Lillian Gish, Marjorie Main, and Jane Darwell. His drawing power was sufficient to earn him a spot on lobby cards and posters and his name in the second tier of billing.
A fan club started up and after Where the Sun Now Stands was released, Nathe was tapped to play Jacob Hogan on Children of the Oregon Trail, a Saturday morning television series that aspired to be a cut above the usual kid fare, airing for 90 minutes and biweekly. It became highly anticipated and showcased Nathe’s horsemanship. The schedule allowed him to continue his feature film work, and he grew into a well-respected supporting player approaching stardom. He was now barely fourteen years of age.
I knew all this. Steeped myself in it. When my mother married and joined the family in the late 1970s, she began collecting every scrap, jot, and tittle she could find about her husband’s famous cousin. By then, though, Nathe’s career had grown stagnant. He’d been in front of the cameras only once in ten years. Westerns had fallen from favor. And he became perceived as hard to cast, passed over for the more hip, young performers moviegoers paid to see in car chases and glamorous surroundings. Still, the industry cherished him as an icon of that era, the golden-haired symbol of the wholesome good it brought to the screen and into American homes back in the Fifties and Sixties.
It wanted him to remain . . . the cowboy kid who could drive a six-up hitch and yet wring a tear from the toughest curmudgeon around. Whether Lionel Barrymore on celluloid or your crusty uncle, the truck driver who hadn’t cried since his dog died.
The quintessential rustic and utterly endearing boy of the frontier faded quietly. Like the prairie breezes that spawned his beginning, he slipped over the dusky horizon and was gone. He started as Lars, the little Swedish guy who found the Indian babe left behind in the wheatgrass. Lars, the darling of the pioneer band, Lars who lay mortally ill in the covered wagon, touching the cheek of his father, both smiling through their tears:
“Papa . . . I know . . . I shan’t see the ocean. Will you skip a stone across the water for me?”
***
CHAPTER 3
Off to See The Rooster “First, I blew the top off the blender and that slopped over into the salad fixin’s. Right about then, Bethany called . . . with her tale of woe–”
“Things are no better?” Anne asked. Marguerite shook her head. “She’s been talking to her father and the kids are in a state. Looks like she’s going to move out for a spell. Back here. “So, I got wrapped up in all that and forgot to set the timer on the cornbread,” she laughed “So welcome back you two, back home to chaos and crisis!” she cried and hugged Mom and me together. She smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg, I guessed. “My chili supper’s a wreck and I so wanted it nice for Daisy and Claude and wouldn’t y’ know, it’s a calamity instead of a homecoming.” Aunt Marguerite thanked Nathe for meeting us at the airport, and he suggested we rescue dinner by going for pizza. “Let’s order and Claude and I’ll drive up to The Shack and get a couple. Maybe the cornbread’s all right–I like a crispy edge to it.” “Oh, cousin, I don’t think so. I’m throwing it out. Even the birds will bend their beaks, it’s so tough and charred.
*
We put the top down on the Town and Country for the drive over the back roads up to US 98, what the locals called “The Highway.” I knew from watching old movies on television that woody convertibles or flare-fendered roadsters were driven like this: with casual elegance and deference to the dignity of both the car and the country it passed through. One should loll one’s way around the gentle curves of the lane, go slowly enough to count the posts of the white fences passing by, follow the contours of the rolling green pastures where the mares and their foals watched as we drew abreast. Nathe pressed the horn ring and the Chrysler trumpeted our presence. The horses looked up and the young ones either gave chase or bolted away, bucking or crow-hopping. “Starting to look like the hunt country of Maryland or Virginia hereabouts. Changed a mite since I grew up on this road. That place over there . . . used to be an old house that never knew a coat of paint, a herd of bony dairy cows, and every field and ditch bank full of Canadian thistles. Now it’s a showplace. Still have some eyesores here and there, though.” I felt like some country gentleman sporting a moustache, smoking one of those elegant Meerschaums and wearing a shooting jacket, whisking along in my elegant motorcar, mildly praising my responsible tenants, and quite assured of my position as squire of the village, swelling into my destiny. The girl at The Shack brought me back to earth. She leveled a skeptical appraisal on us both, more curious than annoyed. Nathe blessed her with that magnetic smile, and she blinked, perplexed why she couldn’t quite connect a name and face. I followed him out but not before she asked me, “You’uns visiting hereabouts?” I nodded. “Sort of. For a spell.” “Thought so. From California, maybe. Enjoy your pizzas.” I said thanks and considered correcting her but was too shy. I noted her and her co-workers, a guy and another girl, discussing us–or the car–as we climbed in, placing the boxes between us. “We’ll stop by the place and pick up Dad. He wants to check on your Gram . . . and he loves pizza.” The Summers Farm was not as imposing as Aunt Marguerite’s Shadeland. Yes, both homes shared the tree-lined drive but the Summers place was smaller and painted white, typical of its day and age. The lawns surrounding it looked freshly clipped, though the trees were graced by tall grassy collars that had escaped the mower. “Dad sticks to the old gang reel mowers. Won’t change to a rotary–claims they’re hard on the grass. Some things never change. You’ve never been here, I suspect.” We pulled up to a brick walk that looked freshly placed. “Umm, yes, I have actually. We came over for a birthday party . . . just before Dad left for overseas. Mr. Summers told m’ dad just old men should go to war. He said, ‘both sides will see we’re too pitiful to fight, so let’s play pinochle instead.’” When I stumbled through this account, Nathe laughed to my relief. “Sounds like my pop, all right. He always had a quip for the location crews–they loved him. Pretty good sense of humor, not the stodgy . . . miserly accountant they expected.” Before we could dislodge ourselves from the car, a white-haired gentleman with silver mutton shops shining in the sun came weaving his way down the walk toward us. He paused at the gate and surveyed us. “Well, there’s a pair to draw to. What a gorgeous night for the top down. Let’s go to town, what say, Claude? Cruise Main.” He shook my hand as I opened the door and stood next to him. Then he gripped me on the shoulder and tilted his head back to look me over. Another appraisal but more benevolent than the girl’s at The Shack. “One day soon, we’ll have to start looking you in the eye. You’re shining fine. Welcome back to P.A.” “Yes sir. Good to be back.” “Glad you’re here. Perhaps this time you can stay with us for a spell.” I took to the back seat while Mr. Albert Summers settled himself up front. “Gots to get over and give that gram of yours a scolding for such imprudence. She doesn’t let herself go down very often–might be a sight worth seein’.” “Marguerite’s says the phone’s been on the ring all day long,” Nathe said. “News speeds along on the church and the garden group grapevines, you can guess. Plus her book club gal pals are all a-twitter.” “And the gossip,” Mr. Summers added. “Worse when we had party lines,” he laughed. “Claude here’s too young to remember when we dialed Central and later, we got party lines with different rings for each family. We had six on our line at first, then down to four. “My mother loved what she called, ‘the Bell’. She’d listen in and when we’d chide her for eavesdropping, she’d say, ‘Well, it’s a good way to keep up with who’s who and what’s what around here.’ Never did correct her of that habit.” “When I moved back here to go to school, Claude, Gram Summers used to monitor the girls phoning or being phoned,” said Nathe. “Then she’d hold an inquest later, and I’d get the lowdown on the young lady’s family. Used to annoy me at first. Then I’d get amused and cook up some devilish yarn about us getting engaged or eloping. Gram caught on and quit snooping about.” “Yup, she was just enough Forsythe that blood will tell. Forsythes could be busybodies. Guess you know the clan’s stirring up new trouble for Marguerite?” “Heard tell.” “Can’t let the old wounds heal.” Mr. Summers shifted around to look back at me. “There’s always been a little bad blood, Claude, between the Kinkades and the Forsythes. Stems from back when Shadeland passed out of Forsythe hands into Kinkade’s.” “Oh?” I asked. “A family feud then?” “Y’ could say. Worse’n the Hatfields and McCoys down in West Virginia. Even to this day, folks keep their .30-30s loaded an’ behind the door where they can get to ‘em, quick-like.” “Balderdash–Claude, don’t swallow too much of what y’ hear about this. Everyone’s on terms for the most part.” “Umm, ‘fraid not with Eugene, son. He’s mounting a charge, says they found a codicil to the old will written by Old Billy himself reinstating the original Forsythe heir, Young Billy. And that the will was supposed to be changed, that it can be contested and the like. Marguerite’s worried.”
*
My Grandmother Beatrice Kinkade took her pizza in bed and complained about it. “Doctor Strickland was indeed very ‘strict’ indeed. I’m to stay off my feet. So I’ll be a meek little lamb and do as I’m told for a change. How are you, Claude? You’ve grown, of course.” I approached her bedside and bestowed a little peck on her forehead. “I’m fine, Grandma. But, how you doing?” “Well, I’m embarrassed and a little peevish with myself. I was thinking about Nathe and Blake after my fall. The ‘twins’ we called them, since they could pass for brothers. Don’t expect you knew that. Twins they were, even though they were two years apart. They usually came as a pair, almost inseparable. Find one and there’d be the other. “Anyway, we were re-roofing the barn . . .summer of 1951 after that bad storm we had. Nathe, being the oldest, was allowed to help a little. Your Grandfather David told him he could run one of the bucket pulleys–wasn’t a big job–but that he was to stay on the bottom planks of the first scaffold, no higher. “Well, Blake–so like your father–decided he could help too and that little pill not only climbed up to the first scaffolding, but he went on up the next one, and then he climbed the ladder to the very peak behind the maw where we had the weathervane situated. “Fortunately, we had this courageous neighbor boy helping us. He was daring and he crawled out there and brought him down to me. I became so frightened–shaking to my bones and while I didn’t believe in spanking my children, I felt sorely tempted that day. I hugged his little body and cried my eyes out and he pushed away from me, and said, rather petulantly, ‘Mahter, no be sad. God see me.’ “Oh, my stars,” she now laughed through her tears. “Here, I take a two-foot tumble and your daddy could have plunged 30 feet. He wasn’t three years old at the time.” “I never heard this story.” I hadn’t. It supported my perception of Dad, the Airborne instructor, so self-assured, the warrior leading by example, bravery personified. “Here I am blubbering into this nice pizza you brought me. No . . .” she dabbed at her eyes. “I suspect you hadn’t heard about the fright of my life. It’s a story I don’t tell easily. But,” she smiled, “I wish he were sitting beside us here tonight so he could hear it too.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Of course, he’d heard it a dozen times but wouldn’t it be special? He told us back then he was ‘going up to see the rooster.’ You know, the big copper one that swings in the wind up there. It became the family slogan. “So . . . if you ever hear any of us say, ‘I’m going to see the rooster,’ it means we’re off on an adventure, taking a journey, going out to see the world . . . . Or, leaving to do a hard job of some kind. Like going to war.” We looked at each other and exchanged our understanding. Nothing more needed to be voiced. My father Blake David Kinkade, Major, US Army, had gone to see his rooster.
* * *
CHAPTER 4
The Sow’s Ear My new friends and I staggered over the grass, stumbled into each other, and giddy with the joy of seeing baseballs in flight, we laughed and fell into a three-boy heap on the damp ground. I could smell them: the musk of young boy sweat and laundry soap, fresh from one’s re-entry into spring, basking in its first warm morning. The day was filling its promise. Easter would soon be celebrated but we were experiencing a resurrection of our own known only to boys. Boys for whom the coziness of winter’s cocoon had become tiresome. Boys who longed to burst from the earth and savor the signature aromas of fresh dirt and fecundity. Boys who wanted baseballs: in their hands, swelling their hopes, sailing above their infinite horizons. We had no words for the process. We couldn’t declare our sentiments in well-turned musical phrases other than an absent-minded whistle floating over a daydream. It had to be, simply, spring. Or baseball. Or both. We hadn’t decades of springs within our instincts to tell us so. Just an ancestral bonding we could still share with the creatures that pursued chores more serious than chasing baseballs in the sky. Birds build nests while boys build dreams from grass and sand. I watched Nathe, obviously enjoying himself. I could only imagine him speaking with the dark-skinned man standing next to him. I could only guess, but I suspect Nathe was telling him, I haven’t hit flies in years. And he seemed to attack this diversion, this renewal of spring’s promise with a boyish aggression that quite stunned me to behold. For my friends and I had no sooner returned one ball for him to hit again when another fly came arcing our way. Then another, even higher than the rest. We shagged one after the other until we were on the verge of breathless. My companion, a black boy named Jules, said: “Man, don’ he slow down? I’m about to cook out here.” “You gots to get your wind back,” said his twin brother. “Been cooped up inside too long. This one’s mine,” he called at the ping of the bat and the ball drifted to our left, his side of our impromptu outfield on the Summers lawn. His name was August “. . . but don’t call him Auggie. He’s Gus.” Nathe twirled the bat around his wrist and I watched him offer it to Mr. Alphonse, the boys’ father, who declined. Then, he waved us in. “Whew, that was fun. For me anyways.” “Man, Mr. Nathe, you hit like a big leaguer.” “Well, thanks, Jules. But I didn’t usually hit like that in any game I ever played. Well . . . we must let Mr. Alphonse and you boys get on with your work.” At that moment, another bright teal blue dump truck arrived with its five yards of gravel. A young man set its brakes, jumped out, and hooking his thumbs in the bib of his overalls, came strolling toward us, obviously enjoying spring’s brightest day thus far. “This is my eldest son, Lawrence. Lawrence, Mr. Summers and his son Claude.” “A pleasure, sir,” said Lawrence. We shook hands and Nathe explained we were cousins. Later, in my mind’s eye, I pictured what must have been a striking contrast to any onlooker passing by or pulling into the yard. Four black folks, skin burnished bronze by good health and working out-of-doors and two white guys, as pale as milk. For I was blond and Nathe retained much of his original flaxen hue though it was muted or enhanced, depending on the light, by streaks of platinum or spots of gray. “You guys are good with a glove.” Nathe gathered up the baseballs and wiped any dew from each one vigorously in his bare hands. “Do you have a team?” “Nossir,” the twins chorused. “That’s too bad.” “We thought about signin’ ‘em up for a team in town,” said their father. “But, it’s a ways to drive and I got a busy business to take care of. And their mother doesn’t like for them to be out there on ‘The Highway’ all that much.” Nathe nodded. “Nothing local, I guess?” “Not really,” said Mr. Alphonse. “You know, there’s a few diamonds here and there but they’re set up for th’ big guys. No Little League ‘cept in town. I don’t know why, because there’s some talent in these little places. Take th’ Catalino boys, who got th’ vineyards, they have always been good ball players.” “Oh, yes, I remember them. My dad tells about the older Catalinos playing for the Blooming Valley Bunch, and I believe Joe Catalino went on to play Triple A somewhere. So . . .we need a team hereabouts.” “Well, I feel th’ boys around here–and not just mine–are being denied an opportunity they should have. There are boys that would come out if there were a league and some supervision, I’m sure. They need to learn th’ game.” “The high school boys have a Legion league,” Jules said. “But they get a game going and pretty soon everyone gets in a big fight about somethin’.” “Don’t have any umpires is one reason,” said his brother. “Yes, indeed . . . that is a problem. Have to have order at the plate, out in the field.” “Say, Nathean, didn’t your daddy have a ball field somewhere here on the place?” “Yes, James, he did for sure,” Nathe said, pointing the bat towards the barn. “It’s still out there. Just a cut or two above a cow pasture but he did put up a good backstop and an outfield fence. Our family would get up a game and what neighbors we could round up to fill out as best we could. Girls played, even my mother once.” “Sounds like your father’s ‘Field of Dreams’.” Lawrence smiled, clearly in awe. “Oh, indeed. Dad was ahead of his time.” Nathe drew a circle in the dirt with the knob of a bat handle. “I’m thinking . . . I’m a-thinkin’ maybe we make that into our Little League field. . . if there’s enough interest. Could you manage a ball team, Lawrence?” “Oh, I dunno about that. I’ve got no experience and let me emphasize, I surely do not have near enough experience . . . or the courage to be an umpire, that’s for certain.” Mr. Alphonse nodded his approval. “Now, that’s being sensible, son. On the surface. ‘Course, you might like th’ challenge.” “My experience with baseball is pretty scattered, just fragments here and there,” said Nathe. “My folks tried to get me into Little League when we were in California, but I’d be at the studio until late, going off somewhere on locations, and missing practices and such. Some of us on location or in the lot would get a pickup game together between scenes and that was fun.” “With some of your fellow actors, then?” “Right,” Nathe laughed. “One time, Billy Whipple–I think it was he–hit this really long drive into another set where they were filming a sword fight. So, here are these two guys slashing away at each other and in hops this baseball bouncing across the castle floor. We all got a scolding for that little trick.” “They didn’t see the humor in it, then?” “No, no indeed. The motion picture business is pretty humorless when it comes to time and money. No time for kid stuff in the movies. Nor kids for that matter. Unless you were making money for the studio.” “Do you miss it, sir? I mean–man alive–being a movie star an’ all. Seems like it must have been mighty fine at times.” “Oh, it was fine, Lawrence. I tried to keep my career going behind the cameras but I was young and no one wanted my kind of films. Even for television. Bullitt became the rage when I was struggling and after it came out, everyone wanted cops and car chases.” Our conversation lulled to an awkward close and the Alphonse father and son started their trucks and moved into place. “Got to have this gravel ready for Banks McIntyre to spread and roll.” The first load was laid down, then the second. Lawrence drove out for another and Mr. Alphonse followed with the boys in his matching truck. I wondered what my new friends thought of my famous cousin. I’ll bet they’re asking their dad about Nathe and his films right now: “Was he really a movie star? Have you seen any of his pictures? Have we, poppa?”
*
Nathe and I watched the refreshed driveway take shape under the expert and gentle-handed guidance of Mr. Alphonse. “Folks say his materials are the best around. Everyone wondered, ‘Well, why’d he buy that worn-out farm? Nothing there but rocks and sand.’ “But, James knew a gravel pit could become a gold mine. Building a good family business for his boys someday–look at those trucks. You’d think they were brand new but James said they’re from the 70’s.” He folded his hands over the fence rail and studied the ground. “I admire such.” Nathe resumed the same wistfulness of a few minutes earlier, reflecting on the end of his career. “I envy such. ‘J. A. Alphonse & Sons . . . Sand & Gravel.’ “Fathers and sons. Working together. Might be nice. On the other hand, perhaps nothing but a migraine, as some families go. ‘The waters of a father and son run deep, boy’–an old movie line,” he looked up and my way. “From One Hundred Horses. A character actor by the name of Glen Esterline said it to me and my line back was: ‘Deep water’s right, Amos. So deep it’s pulling me down and under.’ I think of that scene ever now and then. “Claude . . . let’s you and I . . . take a look at Dad’s old baseball park.”
*
I’d been on the Summers farm before but I hadn’t explored it as I might Aunt Marguerite’s. I had no limits on her place but this was the neighbor’s. And though we all were family, a country boy, like the farm’s collie, had to know his boundaries. Not everything was public. And I was about to become a country boy. So I needed to know these things. That I’d only been in “P. A.” and on the family’s farms one full day seemed to open a new life and its wonders for me and my future. I wondered if I might feel a sense of something here. Perhaps the faintest stirrings of . . . home. Plus, building Nathe’s new project might open more doors yet and install me as the family’s official Farm-Kid-in-Residence of both Shadeland and Summers Run Farm. Nathe and I climbed the fence surrounding Albert’s baseball diamond. Yes, it would take some labor but not a miracle. “Dad keeps it mowed. Grass took over the infield. Those blue spruce will soon crowd the outfield fence, I’m a-thinking.” Nathe pointed out. “‘Course we’ll move the fence in for Little League. Two hundred feet and some, as I recollect. Yup. Trees grow when you’re not watching them every day. “We dragged the infield with an old bedspring,” Nathe laughed. “Had a lot of fun building Dad’s Diamond–that’s what we called it. Mother called it Dad’s Disaster. I got into my first real fight . . . right about there between first base and the mound. Guy called me a sissy for crying in a movie.” “Did you win the fight?” “Yup. What do you think, Claude? Can we make this sow’s ear into a silk purse?” I told him I thought so. I told him I knew so.
** *
Summers Run: An American Boyhood is available atBarnes & Noble.comandAmazon.com in hardcover, paperback, or as an eBook on their Nook and Kindle readers. Other eBook publishers are Smashwords.com, offering a wide variety of readers and formats, and Kobobooks.com. Or one can order it from the publisher at bookorders@iuniverse.com. B & N and Amazon frequently offer free shipping so be sure to inquire. Books can also be ordered through your local bookstores.
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If you enjoy Jan Karon's work, The Mitford Series, set in South Carolina, you'll like Summers Run: An American Boyhood.
Here are some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) you might find of interest about Summers Run . . . .
Is the setting an actual community? Drawn from the northwestern corner of rural Pennsylvania. Pymatuning County is as close as it gets.
Are the characters taken from real life? They're imaginary but pieced together from uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, and personalities met later in life. The character of Nathean Summers is very loosely based on a number of real-life child actors who either had a lengthy career in film or who faded, as did many, as they reached adulthood.
There's quite a bit about the film industry and child actors. Is this an interest of yours?Most everyone finds motion pictures and some movies in particular to be of interest. Nathean draws on his film experience to guide Claude into the teenage years ahead.
Are any of the events or descriptions based on your actual experience? Very little. Almost entirely fictitious.
What is the main theme? Children learn best from modeling and example.
Now that it's published, is there anything you would like to change? No, other than to catch those few printing and proofing gremlins that seem to sneak in despite one's vigilance. I'm certain my high school English teachers would have circled such in red. Commas and periods give my aging eyesight fits.
The ending leaves us wondering: will there will be a sequel?Yes, in the works presently. Summers Run 2 begins with bittersweet end of the Panthers' Little League season and takes us on toward the decision Claude and his families must work out concerning his future.
Will the sequel develop any romantic interest between Nathean and Daisy, Claude's mother?Hmmmm.
What about sample chapters?Yes, indeed. Sample chapters are available on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com through their “Look Inside” or “See Inside” features.
B&N allows you to preview five chapters. Smashwords.com offers as much as 50 percent of the book free before buying. The price there is now $4.80 and can be downloaded as an ebook or read online in many different formats.
