These stories are in celebration of my brother-in-law Aaron (Big A) who turned 95 years old on Saturday. Please share with our email family.
My sister Alline says she cannot remember much about Aaron when he was very young because he didn’t attend the same school as she and Clarice. But Alline said she thought, and Donald agrees, that Aaron went to Knob Lick School on Bastin Creek. Old people in the community called it, the “Blue School.”
That name was short for “Blue Valley School,” which was how it was shown on the earliest Casey County maps. You might be surprised to know the old school house is still there. If you pass the place, you have to look closely, for the building is mostly a shack now. But still you can tell it was a school because it has a long row of windows on one side, typical of those buildings almost 90 years ago when Aaron was a little boy.
One of the earliest memories I have of Aaron happened when I was about four years old. He and Clarice lived with Uncle Rufus Emerson at that time. One fall morning they walked all the way, over two miles, to visit us on the farm. Mom must have told me they were coming, because I remember I kept looking up the ridge road toward the poplar tree. I saw Aaron coming over the hill first; then Clarice came into view. I noticed Aaron was carrying something. Mom just flew out of the house and ran over to the barn to meet them. When I found out what Aaron was carrying was a baby, I was shocked. I thought Mom had just gone plumb silly. She was so excited and making a big fuss over the baby. She didn’t act like herself at all. I remember it was a cool morning, and they just kept standing there in the cold, smiling and smiling. Everybody looked so happy, but I didn’t know what the big deal was. (Forgive me, Bob.) Little did I know that I was really going to like being a young aunt when that baby and another one that followed turned into playmates for David and me.
You can ask anybody in our family or even in the Mt. Olive community, and they will tell you that Aaron has always been a guy who likes to joke with people. In turn everybody loves to play tricks on him. The most famous trick happened one Christmas after Ronald, Donald, and Cleo found a young opossum somewhere and decided to wrap it up as a Christmas gift for their brother-in-law. Poor Aaron thought it was a real gift when he pulled that present out from under the Christmas tree. He started to put his hand in the shoe box to feel just what he had gotten, but David says he remembers that somebody told him to watch out because, I guess, even my rascal brothers did not want Aaron to get bitten. But they laughed and laughed at their joke on Aaron. He just laughed, too.
Another time that Donald remembers joking with Aaron was when he and Ronald were playing around with a bb gun. Now this story could have had a serious ending, but it didn’t. The twins were out under the big shade trees in front of the house, and Aaron was over near the front of the barn. One of them shot Aaron in the back with the bb gun. Of course, Aaron figured out real fast what had happened to him. He came over to the house, and he said, “Which one of you boys shot me?” Donald said, he told him that it was probably the same person still holding the bb gun, and Aaron said, “I know that. But I can’t tell which one you are.”
But one time Aaron surprised Donald. Donald proposed making a trade with Aaron. This game was based on a mutually agreed upon procedure where two guys would trade something, usually their pocket knives, by dropping them down on the ground to let both parties look over the other’s knife to decide if they really wanted to trade. Well, Donald challenged Aaron to trade their hats that way. Aaron agreed. Donald threw his cap down on the ground, and Aaron threw his hat down on the ground. To Donald’s surprise, Aaron immediately picked up Donald’s cap, got in his truck, and drove away. I can vaguely remember when this happened. The part I remember was Donald trying to explain to Mom how he lost his cap.
Now about Aaron’s truck, there’s a story about that, too. People in the community loved to talk about Aaron’s gray pick-up truck with a wooden floor in the back, a wooden floor full of huge holes. I think nearly everybody at Buster Hamilton’s store would tease Aaron about that. They would tell him that he was just too stingy to fix his truck bed. Aaron wouldn’t listen. Then one day he was coming home from the store. His “pop” (soft drinks) fell through a hole and on to the road. After that he fixed the truck.
Donald says he still likes to tease Aaron about money. Donald brings a newspaper each day to Aaron and Clarice, and each day, Aaron pays him $1.00 for the paper. Sometimes he just hands his wallet to Donald and tells him to take a dollar. This is when Donald teases him about how his wallet is full of bills, all in perfect order, newly “ironed”, in Donald’s description. But Aaron is still fast on the comeback. One day not long ago Donald told Aaron that the price of the newspaper had gone up, and Aaron instantly said, “How much is it — fifty cents?
Of course, there is another side to Aaron that other people have noticed, too, a quieter side that has nothing to do with playing jokes. Aaron may not even know that people have figured out that he can be generous. Alline told me a long time ago that certain persons– more than one– have said that if it had not been for Aaron’s help, they would have “gone under” (bankrupt).
For the past several years when I visit my sister Clarice and my brother-in-law Aaron, I am amazed anew how both of them have endured. It seems like eons ago that I reluctantly greeted them and their first born on that cool autumn morning when they walked all the way from Uncle Rufus’ farm. And it was even longer ago that Aaron was a youngster at the Blue School and Clarice was starting her long walks to Ragged Ridge School. And yet both Aaron and Clarice are still here. The awe I feel at their very presence can not be measured. It must not be easy to be 93 and 95. But as they struggle to do the simplest of tasks each day, they are loved. With the faithful attention of their wonderful sons and their families and Dannis, Clarice and Aaron continue, their bond even closer than ever before.
