The 77 essays in this book have been written by a man who has lived 84 years and an old cat that has shared his painting studio for a long time. There are no earth shaking events in them. Also, there are no murders, abusive husbands or wives, drunken drivers, blood spatters, cutup body parts, galloping horses, town tamers, or crooked sheriffs. Rather, they are descriptions of small segments of daily happenings. They are about living and loving and good relationships with all kinds of people. And about buying groceries, riding buses, walking in deep snow, military service, teaching students, sports, walking the road, making paintings, and the joy of putting words together to form thoughts. Above all, it is a book for a quiet evening of thoughtful reading.
A Lumpy Bed and Other Places to Not Sleep
By Howard HullAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2016 Howard Hull
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5246-2031-8Contents
Title Page, v,
Acknowledgements, xi,
Preface, xvii,
Where I Slept — or Didn't, 1,
West Virginia Paintings, 10,
Sex Education, 12,
Tug River, 14,
The Well, 16,
Party Times, 19,
Marjorie Elmore, 21,
Riding the Bus, 23,
The Table, 27,
Sports, 29,
The New Yorkers, 33,
Aunts, 34,
A. J. Wade, 39,
Shelly Jarrett, 41,
Basic Training, 45,
David LeDoux, 50,
Dr. Greever, 52,
Mitchell Neilson, 54,
Bendel Wilson, 56,
The Position at the University of Tennessee, 58,
The Beginning, 62,
Lakemont, 64,
Teaching, 66,
Lunch, 69,
Painting Claxton, 71,
Fog, 73,
Strawberries, 79,
Smoke, 81,
The Street Girl, 83,
Jack Jamison, 84,
Ice Cream, 87,
Painting at Fisk, 89,
Stuff in the Gallery, 90,
Sculpture, 93,
Studio Assistant (Cat writes), 97,
The Fall, 103,
30 Day Rehab (Cat writes), 109,
Leaving Rehab, 111,
A Rare Day, 113,
Table Talk, 115,
The Tree Cutting, 117,
Studio (Cat writes), 121,
Paintings (Cat writes), 124,
Composition (Cat Writes), 126,
$1000 Painting (Cat writes), 127,
Visiting John Warrior, 131,
The Show, 134,
Sport Coat, 135,
Chevette, 138,
Are we there yet?, 143,
Emily, 147,
Please Take My Pulse, 149,
Buckshot and Annie, 152,
Polecat, 155,
What Do I See?, 157,
Casablanca, 160,
Down to Chumley's House, 162,
The Road, 166,
Buying Groceries, 170,
Old Movies, 175,
Big Buddy (Cat writes), 177,
Reunions, 179,
Alaska Couple, 182,
Waiting Room Number 22, 184,
Vonore, 186,
Mail, 188,
Mall Traffic, 191,
Big Dump, 194,
Cleaning the Bathroom, 199,
Lizard, 200,
How to Wash A Cat, 202,
Newly Obrien, 204,
Horse Teeth (Cat writes), 206,
The Yard (Cat writes), 208,
Painting and Process, 210,
Zaccagnini (Cat writes), 213,
Thoughts about Natchitoches, 215,
CHAPTER 1
Where I Slept — or Didn't
At the age of 84 the bed I sleep on is king size. The mattress has a hump in the middle so that I sleep going downhill on one side of the hump while Lana sleeps going downhill on the other side. It isn't very comfortable, and I don't sleep well — but maybe at 84 I wouldn't sleep well anywhere. A long time ago when we had a flat mattress we used to sleep with our bodies touching. I enjoyed that very much. Now that we have a mattress with a hump in it, we just reach across the hump and shake hands before we go to sleep. I don't say anything to her because she couldn't hear me anyhow. She has already removed her processor that attaches to her head and facilitates hearing by her cochlear implant. If a burglar came into the house she wouldn't hear that either — but I would. I have ears like a fox. She bought a pistol so she could shoot the burglar if I woke her up. I hope I don't have to do that. The blood would get on our highly polished wood floor and I would have to clean it up. I'd probably have a hard time getting back to sleep.
A few years ago a couple of yellow jackets came up through the bricks and got in the bed and stung Lana. She thought it was a spider bite but it wasn't. The yellow jackets had built a nest in the ground outside of the house. It took a while for us to figure that out and destroy it. Since our mattress was several years old she decided to buy a new one for our king size bed. So, we went to Pease Furniture Company on old Maryville Highway and told Greg, the salesperson, we wanted a good mattress for a king size bed. He sold me one that did not have a hump in it. Now it does. Greg is a nice man. He did not know that our mattress would eventually have a lumpy hump in it. He could not forecast future lumps or humps. He is married to the daughter of Willie Pease, who is now deceased. We liked Willie a lot. We always got good deals from him. I don't think we ever did need a king size bed. The regular mattress worked just as well for whatever were going to do — which we did a lot of when we were younger.
When I was very small my family lived at Indian Creek below Coalwood Road and adjacent to the mines where my father worked. He once told me I slept in a bed with iron bedsteads when I was a small boy. When I was 12 and we had moved to a new house on Premier Mountain I slept in a cot in a tiny room at the back of our house. My four sisters slept somewhere else in the house. I don't know where. At other times during my teenage years I slept in my Grandpa's bed with him while Uncle Homer was in Europe fighting the Nazis. My grandmother had died before I was born. Grandpa and I would lie in bed and listen to Gang Busters and the Green Hornet on the radio. In the morning he'd cook us breakfast on the potbelly stove with two eyes on the top. Once he took me to Hillsville, Virginia on a Greyhound Bus to visit his brother Edward. They lived on a farm and grew cabbage for a living. Large flatbed trucks would move through the patch while farm workers would load baskets of cabbages onto them. My time there was very boring. They had no electricity and lit the house with kerosene lamps. Everyone went to bed shortly after dark. I slept on a cornshuck mattress with grandpa. On Sunday morning we walked miles and miles to a biblical foot washing. I think they were Baptists. I'm not sure. I was very tired of being there by the time we left to go back home. I never had my feet washed.
At the age of 18 I had my first train ride. I traveled from Welch, West Virginia to Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas. The train left Welch in the morning and went by way of Cincinnati, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri. That night I slept in a Pullman car. I went to sleep in Texas, and when I woke up I was still riding through Texas. We wouldn't get to Lackland until that afternoon. I suppose I slept well. At that age I could sleep anywhere. That evening, I saw my first open bay sleeping arrangement. I had never thought about sleeping in a large space with a lot of people that I did not know before. It was the first time that I encountered double decker military bunk beds. Since I was six foot three, I naturally inherited the top bunk. If I stretched out, my feet stuck over the end. Before the week was out, I had learned to make up the bunk properly. That included how to fold hospital corners, how to make the olive drab blanket so tight it would make a quarter bounce if the Flight Chief dropped one on it. Throughout the next eight years of military service I would spend a large amount of time sleeping on bunks too short for me. I was lucky. I knew that it was a great deal better than lying on a piece of frozen ground in Korea with someone shooting at me.
Many times I slept sitting up on buses as I rode through the night going from one base to another. If I had a seat by myself, that was easy, but sometimes I'd be asleep and someone would slip into the seat beside me. Once, I woke up to find a black lady sitting next me. That was okay, but when she woke up and moved there was a greasy spot on the shoulder of my khaki uniform shirt where her hair had been. I had to have it dry-cleaned. At Chanute Air Force Base at Rantoul, Illinois I slept in an open bay. When I arrived for weather school in September it was still warm and pleasant. I went to a...
