The Haynes Family

I had to get Sue to tell me who this was. She looks nothing like I remember. Sue says its Dot Haynes. Dot was Dorothy. She was married to an ugly man whose name escapes me at the moment. His friends called him Pokey.

 

They lived down under the hill from us on the Farley Road. We lived on the corner of the Bentley and Farley Roads. Bentley was an offshoot of the Vaughn Road.

Sue thinks that must be Pokey under the tree. I can't tell but I have no memory of his face anyway.

We think the kids are either theirs or one of theirs and Peanut or Gary Swan.

This family had a lot of kids. For some reason all the Girls names ended in an "A" and all the boys’ names ended in a "D". Why they named them that way I don't remember.

Edmund was the oldest and had a crush on Millie. I think he gave her a yellow rose one day. She didn't like him at all. None of us did. Edmund was tall and skinny I think. They were mostly dark haired kids. Edmund was just plain weird. He would say he was having a "sugar fit" and needed sugar. Sue thought now that meant he was diabetic but he wasn't. He just wanted sugar and if he didn't get it he would have a tantrum. I think he was about 17. There was a girl named Dora. I think she was after Edmund. Maybe Dora was older. I don't remember her at all. Just the name. Maybe she didn't live at home?

I remember Wilma and Richard and Linda because they were about our ages. Wilma was a good friend back then. Richard was too but Linda was younger and a bit bratty.

There were three more boys, one whose name I don't recall right now.  He was kind of blondish I think and he had some anger problem. He bit me once. The baby boys were Howard and, God I don't know but Sue will. They called Howard, Howie. I suspected even then that Pokey might not be the father. Maybe some conversation I overheard?

Dot would often stop at the top of the hill and ask Ma if she wanted to go with her to town. She'd also have her son Edmund. I think he did some kind of work somewhere because he did have a few bucks to spend at these times. At first Ma would think she was offering her a free trip in and back but usually what happened is that Dot would pull in to the gas station or maybe not even out of the parking lot of the store and say, "Well, you know this car ain't gonna get home without some gas in it." Then she'd sit there and look innocent. Mom would check to see if she had any money left and usually fork over some. Some years later Dot told her she said that so the jerk in the back seat, her oldest son would feel guilty and give her some gas money. I doubt that he ever did.

Mom was still into buying slightly damaged or bruised fruit and vegetables. She'd trim off the good stuff and if there was a lot, out would come the canner and she'd can it for winter. One day she took two packages of quick sell pears and put them in her cart. She turned her back for a second to look to see what else there was. When she looked back at her cart the pears were gone. She couldn't figure that out. When she got to the cashier she discovered why. Dot was ahead of her and pulled the two packages of pears out of her cart and paid for them to go home with her. Mom learned early to never trust Dot or to trust she was getting a free ride. Nothing in life is free. It was a lesson most of us learned at the same time from watching those around us.

There were two little boys in the Haynes family. One day on a trip into town or rather on the way back they were driving around the bend by Clarks home.  They were on the Vaughn Road side and I think the other side road was called the Carriage Road until it meets up with the Vaughn Road here. I don't remember or if I even knew all the details of how it happened. I think we were also returning from a trip to town but we got stopped and had to wait.

There was an accident up ahead of us. Dot was driving as no one else in the family had a license. Pokey and the boys were with them. (The reason that Pokey didn't have a license was because when he and Dot were first married he'd been driving home drunk one night in the rain. He'd stuck and killed a little boy. Why the kid was out there I don't know. I think it was night because Dot told us it was but it could have been wrong. So I think he had to go to jail for a year but that could be wrong too. He did lose his license and was never allowed or had the gumption to even try for one again. He always swore he was innocent and that the kid ran out in front of him.)

I don't know now if any of the others were with them. I think they were hit head on by another vehicle. Who was to blame I don't know. I don't remember a trial or hearing of anyone getting arrested. There was a sizable pay out to the Haynes family but it had stipulations. Not that many of course because there wasn't so much suing going on back then. One of the boys almost lost his eye. I don't think he did. Sue can correct me If I'm wrong. The money was for the boys for the most part and that one in particular but somehow Dot was named as the one in charge. I don't recall if she or Pokey were even injured or if they got anything for themselves. The car would have been totaled but as I can recall, most of the cars she drove were close to that even when she got them.

Before he died and he did eventually, he managed to coerce out of her most of the money. Apparently, they would drive into town and suddenly he would yell, "Pokey (or whatever his real name was) needs tools." Dot knew if he didn't get his way it would be tantrum time. It seems tantrums ran in that family as well as ours. So out would come the checkbook and Pokey would get his tools, even if there wasn't a remotest chance in Hell he'd ever need them or even use them.

Pokey had a real nasty habit. I don't know why he did it but its true that he did. He spent a lot of time in his cellar. I don't know what he did down there but I do know one thing. He kept a lot of gallon glass jugs on shelves with yellowish brown liquid in them. I asked one of the boys what that was. He told me his father urinated in them and saved it. I didn't get it then and I still don't know why today. I don't really want to know either.

Sometimes Pokey would go to the Kennedy Auctions that Dad and Ma went to as well. He liked to outbid them on things. He was a collector of "ruby glassware". It was pretty stuff but it just didn't fit with my idea of who and what that man was. Sometimes Dad would bid against him just to bring the price up and anger Pokey. On one occasion when Pokey wasn't there Dad bought a piece of the ruby glassware, not because he wanted it for himself but because he wanted to tease Pokey. I think, but I'm not sure that he eventually sold it to him for a large mark up.

When the boys were about seven I think, maybe younger, maybe older the house caught on fire that they lived in. They owned that house and a lot of the fields around it. He'd inherited it years before. What I think happened, and this is pretty sure in my mind, is that he had stuffed the wood stove with old newspapers and cardboard and set them on fire. Then he went either out to his garage or down in the cellar.

One of the kids told him the house was on fire. It wasn't the whole house yet but it was the chimney but Pokey didn't know that. He grabbed the two young boys and parked their butts on the couch beside the stove and told them to sit there. They didn't move. He ran into the kitchen and grabbed the toaster and then out in the yard while he waited for the firemen, leaving the kids inside.

Luckily the firemen got there fast which is unusual in itself as they were so far out in the country. One of them went inside first to see where the fire was and found the young boys sitting beside the stove with red faces. They were terrified. The fireman finally just grabbed them up and took them outside where the emergency squad was giving old Pokey oxygen even though he hadn't even been in any smoke. After a while the fire was put out but it was a total loss. Gone was Pokey's collection of "ruby glassware" and hopefully, so too were his gallon jugs of wee.

Another day a bit before this or maybe a bit afterwards. I've read somewhere that time is a circle that bends back on itself in several places. I don't know if this is true or not but memories can not only circle around but bend themselves up in knots till you don't know where you are. Of course my memories are always clear and concise.

On this particular day I had been down there to see Wilma about something or to borrow something, maybe a memory pill?

They were all in the dining room around the table eating spaghetti and meatballs. One of the kids wanted bread but Pokey said he couldn't eat bread with spaghetti. About that time a cat jumped up on the table and he took that cat and hurled it across the room. I left without what I came for and ran all the way home. I heard later that he had ripped the cats head off but I don't know if that part was true or not.

Linda who was younger than Wilma who was about my age went to church with us at one time. We  went to two or three different churches in the time we lived there. Mom like the Wesleyan Methodist because of Mimi and the other Hayes.

At first or maybe later we would go to the small white church in Hudson Falls that latter became the Cornerstone Soup kitchen. I don't know what the church was called when we went to it. One of those knotted memories, I guess.

The minister was young but not too young. He was married to a nice lady and they had little kids. He was also dark haired and looked good or nice or I don't know, maybe attractive to young women. I wasn't interested even if were single, however, Linda thought he was God's gift to women. She really had a super crush on him and would stay after church to offer to help out to put things away. If Dot was the one who drove us to church that day we would all have to help out. Sometimes though, if we didn't have a ride in there the minister would come out and get us and we'd stay till it was all done.  Linda would make excuses to drag it out as long as she could. Then she'd moon about him later telling us all he was looking straight at her and someday he was going to leave his wife for her. Even Wilma used to get pissed and tell her to grow up and realize the minister had no interest whatever in her.

One Sunday they talked old Pokey into going to church. He'd never come before but this day he was there. They were sitting about three rows ahead of us. All of a sudden the minister was yelling something about sinners and Hell and pointing his finger directly at Pokey.  I had to duck down quick in the seat because I was laughing my head off. His face went white and then red and he just sat there in shock.

I've never cared for that kind of preaching but that day, I didn't care at all. It was stupendous! We laughed about it for years afterwards. I just realized Pokey's real name was Harland.

One day while Dot was out some where doing something, I seem to think working and yet I never remember her having a job, I was down there having been out in the field picking wild strawberries. Richard was there and he said he had to make dinner. I never thought it was strange at the time that he would be the one. I don't know where the girls were. Richard had made a cake but when he took it out of the oven it had fallen in the middle of it. He didn't know what to do and he asked me. First I suggested making Jell-O instead. He mixed up that and stuck it in the fridge but we both knew it would never be set in time. I suggested that he just pile the hole up with frosting. Between us we made a batch of homemade frosting with peanut butter and confection's sugar. We made a lot and he frosted it filling the hole with the excess. I left to go back up the hill before they came home for dinner but he told me afterwards that the kids loved it. Nobody ever said anything bad about it.

While I was there I saw a container of black shoe polish on the window sill by the sink. I asked him why it was there by the sink. He said, "Don't tell anyone but Ma uses that to color her hair." I was amazed and of course I told everyone when I got home and Mom especially loved to hear that because Dot was always bragging that she didn't have any white hairs so she didn't have to cover hers.

One afternoon I was down there with Wilma and she'd gone upstairs to get something. I heard her yell to "stop him". I was standing in the hall when Richard came running from upstairs. I stuck out my arm quick not thinking about what could happen and the brat got to me and bit my arm. I was shocked.

Sue and I just talked and she made me remember the boys names. There was Edmund the oldest and then Richard and Raymond who were twins but not identical and then Boyd and Lloyd who were also twins and looked a lot alike and then the two youngest. I think Howard was first and then Ronald. They both had different fathers even though they still all lived with Harland. Sue will probably remember the father of one of them, at least. Maybe it was Huestis? Sue told me recently that Dot had been married about five times and one of them was a Huestis.

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