FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) – part 36

“Cheyenne,” I said, “I might as well go ahead and tell you about another unexpected conflict. It had to do with a certain big corn-fed Alabama peck-of-wood popping into the story, a young fella who thought he had laid some kind of claim on the dark-haired girl.”

“Peck of wood?” Cheyenne responded, surprising me a little that that was his first response.

“Oh yes,” I said, “that was Pee Wee’s word. I just went along with it for years before discoverin’ it was a word from the nineteenth century people used to talk about a rough, rustic white person. When I heard that, I knew Pee Wee had pegged it just right. He was a big boy, a corn-fed peckerwood, for sure, and in his defense, I couldn’t exactly blame him for being smitten with Corrina. What he didn’t know was that he was in for a showdown.”

“Be careful, Cheyenne,” I added, “sometimes in life if you bite just a lil’ more than your pearly-whites can chew, don’t be surprised if you come away with a broken tooth.”

Cheyenne smiled. He had learned long ago that his Popman was, as he would sometimes say, “a Professor of Colloquialisms.” I didn’t tell him then, but the ‘broken tooth’ reference was a tad more than just metaphor, too. Oh yes, unfortunately, it was all going to come down to fisticuffs in time. But it’s the summer of ’73, we wouldn’t expect anything less.

“I thought I might as well tell you about him,” I said, continuing on but leaving out the ‘fisticuffs’ part, “although the showdown didn’t come for a while. It wasn’t as if we needed another conflict to make the tale interestin’. I would’ve just as soon told the story without the plot twist, but, as you know, conflicts don’t ask permission to trespass onto your property and start tamperin’.

You understand.

“All of this would be accelerating as we got into July. I didn’t even know the boy existed, not until I did. It was that sudden.” I had a sudden thought and smiled, “Funny thing, I don’t think I ever asked the fella his name. He was kind of like the Lone Ranger,” I said with a laugh, “until somebody tore his mask off.”

I shook my head with a slight grimace and my mind transported all the way back to the hot Roanoke afternoon when the twain would meet, the incongruous pair, speaking of me and the peckerwood.

My mind just kept scrolling back, too, like one of our old homemade go-cart would do rolling down a hill beside our house on Juniper. Mama had just moved to Grandma’s house, so change was all in the air. There was a clear upswing in the romance, too. We were not as nervous when we saw each other, and the boys on the job weren’t either. Doocy would burst out in a verse of “Corrina, Corrina” every time the black Studebaker came rolling up the red-dirt drive, and Pee Wee would interrupt him with Tom Jones’ “I can’t stop lovin’ you,” and Corrina and I just took it all in stride. We’d just exchange glances and laugh.

“It was kind of like what you’re doin’,” I said. “The way that you move the plot along with all of your questions, makin’ me dig down into the nitty-gritty of this tale, even pickin’ up details that I had forgotten. Pee Wee and Doocy helped move the plot along, too, and they did it thinkin’ they were as smooth as Mohammed Ali, but they weren’t. Not even close. They certainly didn’t float like a butterfly, but they could sting like a bee, for sure.

“Their unsolicited involvement, as annoyin’ as it was, though, kind of spoke for the two of us. I guess when Pee Wee sprung out in melodious tune with ‘I can’t stop lovin’ you,” sangin’ it better than Tom Jones himself, that he was verbalizin’ the little tinglin’ feelings down in a couple of young hearts out on that rugged job.”

“That job really was kind of an unusual place for a romance to spring up,” Cheyenne said, analytically.

“Oh, definitely,” I snapped back. “But in a way it was the perfect place, because it was real life. That fact is just another of the great ironies that followed us around all summer. The last thing you’d want to do would be to bring a new girl out on the job with you where she could see you gettin’ hollered at or see you dump a whole wheelbarrow of mud in the middle of the yard and hear all the commotion that followed from the perkerwoods I had the ‘undaunted pleasure’  to work with. But in this case, it was a rare case of a sweet rose growin’ in the desert. But perfect storms – ah, yes, there is no doubt here – they do pop up in life, big as Christmas.

“But who knows,” I added, “maybe roses grow better in dark stormy weather.”

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.

In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 6:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.