Chapter Fourteen in “Decades with the Squad,” by my late father, William Palmer Jervey, Jr. Firemen frequently rescue cats from trees and dogs who have gotten their heads stuck somewhere. Rescue squads are not ordinarily involved with animal rescue. The major exception to this, in my experience, was when we rescued a herd of cattle. […]
Tag: Virginia
The Horse
Chapter Seven in “Decades with the Squad” by William Palmer Jervey, Jr. This occurred at dusk. That dangerous time when headlights do little good and all colors blend into an ever-deepening shade of gray. There were three horses being ridden and were clustered close together when a large truck plowed through. Two horses were killed […]
The one and only front-yard trolley
My father was always looking for ways to keep us kids active and entertained. He built a catapult out of a rat trap and a block of firewood so we could fire acorns and walnuts across the yard. He hung a long cable from a tree so we could swing back and forth across the […]
In which Gretel gets a makeover
One Christmas my sisters and I got Sound of Music dolls. As the youngest, I got Gretel. When Gretel came out of the box, her hair was braided and coiled around her ears (think Princess Leia). My first order of business was to take her hair down to brush it—and that was the end of […]
Here’s to you, Eddie Robinson
While we’re on the subject of things my father used to like to say, here’s another: he was, to his estimation, “the littlest human” to graduate with his high school class. Five-foot-nothing and 93 pounds wringing wet. I will point out that he was sixteen at the time, and that later he grew to be […]
Point it straight
As my sister Laura mentioned, “Point it straight” was another thing our dad liked to say. He would pull out this old saw when one of us was heading out behind the wheel of a car (to my mind, that car was usually the Warthog (see an earlier post), in which case he had reason […]
“Gimme them keys, boy!”
Some months ago, in Ketchikan, a 92-year-old driver struck and killed a woman in a crosswalk. The state’s consequences for the driver were to rescind his driver’s license. What, I wonder, have been the extent of the natural consequences for him and his family? Somewhere, somebody is thinking, if only I had taken Dad’s keys […]
Adventures in caving
Southwestern Virginia sits on top of a magnificent system of limestone caves, some of which span multiple states. When I was growing up, one of our family vacations was going to Luray Caverns for the guided tour. We saw formations called fried eggs, drapery, soda straws. . .Luray had boardwalks, spotlights, vending machines, and, way […]
In which I make peace with chickens
A lot of people living in small spaces have chickens these days. In Craig, Prince of Wales Island’s answer to a “big city,” you can have chickens in your back yard, as long as you don’t have any roosters. I grew up on a family farm in Virginia, and our main cash crop was eggs, […]