Excerpts from The Life Story of Jeffa P. Hill, Jr. - Fireworks on the Fourth of July

This story made me laugh. I can just hear Grandaddy telling it! I've been thinking my whole life that Grandaddy had led a calm, quiet life, when in fact, his life was more adventurous than just about anyone I know. I sure am glad Grandaddy left us his story. I find such joy in reading it, and it brings laughter and smiles and makes me miss him and Gran just a little bit less!
 
     After school was out in June, we piled in the Buick and went to Tonapah for supplies. Dad got a big box of fireworks at the store. "Junior," he said, "we'll show Silver Peak what a real 4th of July celebration looks like." I could hardly wait, but finally the 4th got there and then I didn't think it was ever going to get dark. When it got dusky dark, Dad got the box of fireworks and we climbed the hill between our house and the school. When them balls of fire shot out of the ends of them sticks, we could see a bunch of folks down at the bottom of the hill. Mom said all the people in town must be there.
     Dad got a pack of fire crackers out, lit them and threw them down the hill. They were a poppin and a banging all the way to the bottom. Then he got what he called a fountain, set it on the ground and lit it up. That thing spewed sparks all over the place. About that time, a little breeze sprang up and blew some of them sparks into the box where the fireworks were. “KER-PLOOY!!” Little balls of fire were shooting everywhere. Fire crackers were popping, little pin-wheels were spinning off over the side of the hill and roman candles were bouncing off the rocks. I had never seen such a sight. Neither had Mom or Dad or them people down below, I guess. 
     It was over in no time. I was bawling, Dad was asking Mom if she was alright, and a bunch of people were scrambling up the hill to see if we was all dead. Dad picked me up and carried me down the hill slipping and sliding and banging his shins on the rocks with me bawling all the time. When we got to the house, Mom stuck her head out the door and yelled at the people that had followed us that we were O.K. and slammed the door. Then she sat in a chair and held me real close, saying everything was all right and that we would get some more fireworks and really have a show, but I think all them people had already seen one.

Excerpts from The Life Story of Jeffa P. Hill, Jr. - The Adventures of Huey & Junior

I have a feeling this is only a glimpse of the adventures of Huey and Junior. This made me laugh, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Huey and me really had a time after school started. The back side of the mountain where the ole mill was, was really steep and we got some pieces of tin roof, bent one end up and slid down the side of the mountain. We sure did have fun until one day Mom saw us and made us quit. She said if we fell off, those pieces of tin would cut our heads off. Since we didn’t want to go around without heads, we didn’t do that no more. Dad made Huey and me skooters out of some two by fours and some wheels he got from some where, and we skooted them things up and down the roads around town. It was rough goin over the holes and the rocks in the road but it was lots of fun.

          One day Huey said, “Let’s don’t go to school today. We can go down to the spring and go fishin.” That sounded good to me, so we pulled up some bushes and crawled across the road with them bushes in front of us. Huey said that’s the way the Indians did when they was creepin up on the wagon trains. Mrs. Sullivan musta seen them bushes movin cross the road cause she came tarin down the road hollering, “Huey you and Junior get right up there to school.” So that ended our fishin for that day. I sure was glad she didn’t tell Mom cause I’da had to sleep on my belly again.

Excerpts from The Life Story of Jeffa P. Hill, Jr. - Junior's First Earthquake

As you know, I'm working on typing my Grandaddy's life story so I can publish it. It's a long process, but I hope to be finished by the end of this year. I intend to find the appropriate places in the story and insert the text of letters that we have found in various boxes that belonged to my grandparents. I hope to collaborate with my cousin, Emily Hill Hanner, who is also a writer, to separate the story into chapters and make it flow. I'm super excited about this project, and I have wanted to start on it for almost 8 years. Now is the time! Carpe diem! 

Since I can't wait to share this story with you, I'm going to put a few excerpts here on my blog as I type the story. You'll be entertained, especially if you knew my Grandaddy! This first excerpt is from near the beginning of "Junior's" story. His family had moved to Pasadena, California when he was five years old and they had been living with Miles and Marie Bell, who Junior's mother had known when she lived in California before. They stayed with the Bells for a couple of months until Junior's Dad found a job selling real estate.

          When Dad got his job, we moved to a house closer to town and school. I started to school in the first grade at Lincoln Grammer School. It was in this house that Mom became very ill with an extremely high temperature. She lost all of her hair due to the illness but recovered after several weeks. I was never told just what it was that she had.

          It was also in this house that we experienced our first earthquake. Dad was on a ladder painting the house next door, I was playing on the front porch and Mom was doing something in the house. Suddenly the tall Royal Palm trees lining both sides of the street started to sway like Hula dancers and the pavement looked like waves on the ocean. The ladder Dad was on swung away from the house and just before it got to the point where Dad would have falledn backward, it tipped the other way and slammed him into the house. The doors in the house were banging shut and Mom thought sure it was me playing pranks again. She knew something was wrong though when she came out on the porch and saw Dad pullig himself off the ground and me hanging on to the porch railing yelling. About that time there was another jolt and the houses shook and the trees thrashed back and forth and then it was all over. Many times after that we experienced earthquakes of various intensities but always with apprehension and fear.