Introduction by Paul Dyer:

          It seems that as we grow older, we finally come to the realization that there really is a limit to the number of days we have to exist upon this world.  And it seems that with that realization comes remembrances of things past, people and places that we once loved and were a part of.  Our thoughts turn ever increasingly toward home.

            Home is more than a place to lay your head.  Home exists in the here and the now:  this place where we live our lives day by day but home also exists in the past.  Those of us who are not native to our present “home” sometimes cannot understand the ambivalence of those around us who are “home”.

            Home to me is that certain someplace where I was raised: the little community of Cherry Tree, a place that, if suburbs existed at that time, would have been considered a suburb of Logan, West Virginia.  It’s a place where, during the summer, the sun does not peep over the eastern rim of “the mountain” until around nine o’clock.  It is a place where you never really see a sunset, the sun goes down behind the western ramparts of “the mountain” at four or five o’clock in the afternoon.

            But children never pay much attention to the rising or setting of the sun and during the summer vacation from school, time never meant a whole lot to us.  We arose when we wanted, we ate when we wanted and we went to bed when we wanted.  My parents expected certain attitudes and behavior from me in exchange for the latitude they granted me but it truly was a small price to pay for the total freedom that I experienced as a child.

            Cherry Tree was an ideal environment for boys to grow in.  Sometimes on the banks of Island Creek and sometimes under Island Creek,  Cherry Tree nevertheless provided myriad havens of opportunities for adventurous small boys.  There was always “the creek” and “the mountain”.  Can you imagine a place without fences?  Can you envision a place where there were no man-made obstacles, only those created by nature and we never considered those to be obstacles, only challenges.  If we could not go over it, we would to around it and if you could not go around it or over it, chances were that you were not supposed to be there anyway.

            On a visit back to Cherry Tree several years ago, I was staggered by the changes that had been wrought to the little community.  The creek that figured so prominently in my childhood, a stream that I recall was wide enough to float boats and car tops in was no more but had become a mere brook that a person could very nearly just step over.  I can remember actual creek banks that were sandy and a creek large enough to swim in and catch fish out of.

MAP OF CHERRY TREE SHOWING RESIDENTS

L click Map to enlarge

MEMORIES OF PAUL DYER FROM  THE 50'S AND 50'S

Name dropping

            Cherry Tree was an homogenous blend of folks from just about anywhere in the world.  Hungarians, Italians, Poles and some, such as my family, whose origins were suspect but believed to be descended from the mixture of the Scotch-Irish peoples who inhabited the Appalachian mountains from early on.

            There were black folk back then who lived in Cherry Tree right alongside the white folks and I don’t recall any racial hard feelings between them.  After all, we were just as poor as they; in some cases, even poorer. Daddy Fykes was a black carpenter.  We little white kids were always a mite skittish about going around Daddy Fykes although I can’t recall a single  instance of harm that he brought to anyone.  Vivid in my mind is the memory of him laying out a stair stringer, which, as I have learned since, is no mean feat.  I recall his wife but not her name;  my, what a good, good heart she had.  She often would pass apples to myself and my two sisters over the little ramshackle fence that separated our houses.  To this day for some reason, the smell of cinnamon evokes a strong image of her.

            There were the Lee brothers.  Parnell Lee was a fine young black boy.  Not so his brother James.  James, who we and others called “Bullet” seemed to have a natural affinity to running afoul of the law.  Sent to prison by the time he was eighteen, he later hung himself in his cell.  I can’t say that I was saddened by his passing: the large scar I have on my forehead was a result of one of the stones we exchanged frequently in the form of flying missiles. 

            In spite of racial harmony, at times animosity did creep up between children.  Not only were thrown rocks exchanged with some of the black children, it seemed like the boys who lived on the hillside in White’s Addition were also fond of throwing rocks at the boys who lived in Cherry Tree.  But there was a gross disparity in those exchanges since they had the higher ground.  It is truly amazing, as I look back now, that more serious injuries did not occur with these incidents.

            Donald Pack who was the son of Ernest and Rosie Pack, grandson to Granny Shepherd.  It seemed as though Donald always had a large cud of tobacco ensconced in his cheek and was forever spitting amber. His aunt, Martha Shepard; first woman I ever saw drive a truck.  Trucks in those days were possessed for only one purpose: to haul things with.  You didn’t see very many trucks on the highway, and to see a truck driven by a woman was rare indeed. There was a time when traffic of any sort was scant on the paved road that gave access to down town Logan and to other parts unknown.

              Vivid in my memory are the late summer days in Cherry Trees little two-room schoolhouse when, just every now and then, through the drowsy summer sound, came the hum of the tires of a passing automobile.  Sounds that made it increasingly difficult for a small boy to concentrate on the lessons so ably given by Miss Dingess and Mrs. Von Péchy.  They were the only teachers I recall at Cherry Tree school.  It was after all, a school containing the first three grades of grammar school.  The first and second grades were combined in one room and the third grade, taught by Mrs. Von Pechy was in the adjoining room.

            How well I recall walking down the alleys of Cherry Tree with my sister Elsie, on our way to the little schoolhouse.  I recall the spelling bees, the recesses spent outdoors, where, for lack of playground equipment, we piled sandstone into “castles”, the pot of water on the big Warm Morning heater and Mrs. Von Péchy telling us we should always sleep with the window just slightly open for fresh air.

The Dingess Boys

            How old was I when Lanny and Ronnie Dingess entered my life? Twelve, thirteen?  I cannot recall with certainty but I am certain that Lanny and Ronnie, as boyhood friends, did exert a tremendous influence in my life.

            Ronnie Dingess was about a year older than his brother Lanny and myself, small for his age but somehow wiser than his years.  He had a sharp mind in that he was able to figure out mechanical things and an innate sense of what a problem was and what it would take to eliminate it. A consummate cigarette smoker, just about any time you saw him, Ronnie would have a cigarette dangling from his lips.  As children, we’d all been told that smoking would stunt our growth.  I always thought that Ronnie felt that his growth was already stunted so what would one more cigarette hurt?  

            And the Dingess family was much like my own.  There was five or six children as I recall.  Lanny and Ronnie had two brothers, one was named Ernest and the other I can’t recall.  They also had three or four sisters.  Jill was the oldest.  Then there was Cathy and the others whose names I cannot recall.  I do recall their mother’s name, Pauline and their father’s name, Charles or Charlie.

            My closest childhood friend was Ronnie’s brother Lanny.  Although I had natural brothers in abundance, Lanny was more brother than friend. We shared everything together--all our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams.  If it could be thought of and done, I could always count on Lanny’s help to get it accomplished.

            Lanny embodied all things well and good.  He could never tell a lie and theft was foreign to his nature.  He was faithful and trustworthy to a fault.  In short, Lanny Dingess was all and everything a friend could and should be.  I, like most, left a lot of things behind when I left Cherry Tree, but the thing that I miss the most, even today, is his friendship.  I never considered a life where Lanny was not around but Viet Nam got into full swing in the early sixties and a lot of things changed because of it.

            Life is like that.  Our pathways diverge and disappear into other places.  Other places far away from home; other places devoid of the familiar but nonetheless, through time and relationships, become home to us.

            Hot summertime and cold watermelons just seem to go together and Fortuna’s Produce Market always seemed to have the coldest, sweetest melons.  As I recall, they were 50 cents a piece and, when the fifty cents was available, a small troupe of kids would make the trek across the two single-lane, concrete bridges that separated Mount Gay from Cherry Tree and return with that prized melon.  It would be cut outside by my mother and distributed all around to the kids who could then spit watermelon seeds with wild abandon.

            Also in the summertime, a horse or mule drawn wagon would enter the little community and the driver would hawk the canvas-covered frozen water to the neighborhood mothers who needed the ice for the ice-boxes of the day. The chips of ice that he would hand out to the eager children who clustered around the wagon was sweeter and better than any candy bar.

            Folks were friendly in the fifties and folks would sometimes make sacrifices for you and do for you what you could not do for yourself.  These were the days before television.  These were the days of front porches and neighbors who knew each other by name.

            Gone forever are those days of unlocked front doors and the sense of trust you had in your neighbors. And, when mentioning kindness to one another, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the name of Joe Chirico.  Joe Chirico was like that.  I’m sure that all the groceries that left his store to feed some of the neighborhood children were never sold at a profit.  My mother at that time had a silver dollar that she would often “pawn” to Joe Chirico for a loan.  Although times were hard and resources were scarce, Mom always managed somehow to redeem that silver dollar from Joe.

            There were three grocery stores in Cherry Tree at that time.  Ross Adkins, Joe Chirico’s and Alex Nagy’s. Mr. Nagy’s store seemed to be better stocked than Joe’s but I never felt as comfortable there and there was very little trade that my family did with Mr. Nagy.  I don’t recall buying anything from Mr. Nagy’s store despite the fact that Mr. Nagy’s boys were around my age.  I always felt out of place for some reason in that small area of Cherry Tree.

            Had it not been for the friendship of Robert “Bob” Piros, I guess I wouldn’t have frequented that section of Cherry Tree at all.  Bob was a tall lanky kid, not given to much conversation.  Bob was true blue; never got into trouble, minded his own affairs, noble in his thoughts.

            I remember Bob owning a ’53 (?) Chevy.  A quiet, clean car, dignified, as was Bob himself.  Sometimes we’d ride home together after school, rather than ride the school bus.

            There was a set of twins in the neighborhood,  David and Dale Scott.  Brothers and twins at that but completely different in their personalities.

            Adjoining Joe Chirico’s grocery was a small beer joint owned at that time by Wilson Gallion.  His son Gordon and I were friends during the time that the family lived there in Cherry Tree.  Gordon was a fun-loving sort of fellow who played drums in the junior high school band.

            Sheila Dingess lived across the street from Joe Chirico’s store.  Although she was called a tomboy by the neighborhood children, I can’t remember Sheila being much involved in our activities.  Perhaps she was tagged with that reputation because of the bluejeans she wore with the rolled-up cuff.  In my mind’s eye I see her peddling her bicycle down the street with her long pony tail streaming out behind her.  There were a lot of Dingess families in the Logan area but Sheila was not related to Lanny Dingess that I am aware of.

            Carolyn Brewer lived with her mom in the apartment above Mr. Adkins store.  I recall Carolyn as being a quiet, chubby little girl who kept her nose out of other folks’ business.  As I recall though, Carolyn had a sister named Janet who you could never call quiet.  I remember that Janet had a baby, with or without benefit of marriage I don’t recall.  But I do recall Janet’s lessons to the neighborhood about how to properly breast feed a baby.

            Lana Gore, who later became a good friend of my sister Elsie, lived across the first swinging bridge that connected Cherry Tree to White’s Addition.  Lana was a pretty girl and every time she crossed that bridge, whether coming or going, my friend Kenneth Johnson would whistle at her.  I can still recall her face flushing from embarrassment.

            Kenneth Johnson was just about the same age as myself.  He had some older brothers and sisters.  Jack, the oldest, suffered from a nervous breakdown and only occasionally visited his mother.  Neal Johnson, another brother to Kenneth, was a little older than us. 

            I recall Neal climbing a big buckeye tree back on ‘the mountain’  and I also recall the sharp crack as the top of the tree broke off and the wild ride Neal had with it down to the ground.  He hit with such a terrible thud, I just knew he had killed himself, but after several moments of grave concern on my part, he sat up and dusted himself off and asked me if he could borrow my comb.  He and Kenneth were much alike.  Both were always neat and clean with their hair always combed just so.

            I have forgotten Kenneth’s oldest sister’s name but Linda was his other sister’s name.  Linda was a good friend of my sister, Phyllis.

            There were the Blair children.  Jimmy, Nancy, Ricky and the youngest sister whose name I cannot remember.  Their father’s name was Elmer but I don’t recall their mother’s name.

            I recall the sand lot games of touch football and how quick and agile Jimmy was.  Usually if you saw Neal Johnson, you would also see Jimmy Blair.  And with Neal and Jimmy would be one of the most memorable characters of my life, David Cline.

            David Cline was a natural comedian.   Any time David was around, you were guaranteed a good time.  He could keep you in stitches.  If the jokes didn’t do it, his impersonation of Donald Duck could.

            David had a younger brother, Billy, but I don’t recall any other brothers or sisters.  Neither do I recall where David’s family originated.

            Penny Rice and her sister Hattie I believe came from Chicago.  Both of them were very pretty girls and, for a while anyway, I could claim Penny as my girlfriend.  Alas, Penny and Hattie’s family moved back to Chicago as I recall.

            No doubt there were other children in that small neighborhood whom I have forgotten to mention.  And also, this was only a part of Cherry Tree.  The other section that was situated to the south of the bakery has not been mentioned with the same frequency because, with the exception of Robert Piros, I never really knew those children well.

            However, I do recall the Nagy boys, David and Shawn.  I also recall Mike Ratz whose Dad owned a bearing and alignment shop where my uncle “Dude” worked.

            There was a younger boy named Billy Booth (?)  There was Carolyn Tiller, whose father, Dink, was the local sheriff’s deputy. 

            Although not a youngster by any means, one of the more colorful characters in that end of Cherry Tree, was Roscoe Long.  If anything at all was happening in the neighborhood, Roscoe could tell you.  Most of Roscoe’s time was spent out on his porch where he could watch the comings and goings of his neighbors.  Roscoe’s daughter’s name was Barbara who married a man name Opie.

            Jerry Johnson (no kin to Kenneth) was a good friend of mine.  Jerry and I joined the Navy together in 1964.  Jerry’s mother and father, from overseas somewhere, Czechoslovakia I believe, kept a tight reign on Jerry although not tight enough to keep him from sustaining a broken arm when he yelled “Geronimo!!) and lost his grip on the cable swing back in “the mountain”.

            There was Jerry Greene and his brother Danny.  Tragically, Danny was one of the first Viet Nam casualties from our small part of the world.

            Sid Tomblin and his son,  Darrel.  Sid died before his time, a victim of moonshine poisoning.  If any of the moonshiners took a short cut by using a automobile’s radiator to cool and condense their product, all too often, lead would leach out of the radiator’s cooling coils and into the moonshine.

My Family

            I suppose that my family was the largest family in Cherry Tree.  My mother bore eight children and, with the exception of the oldest, Phyllis, all were born in Logan, West Virginia.

            My daddy’s name was Ples Dyer, Jr. and Mom’s name was Mae.  There were several aunts and uncles spread out around the Logan area.  My uncles Anthony (Doc) and Ernest Dyer.  Cousin Barbara, daughter to Doc, still resides there.  My mother’s brothers, Robert (Bob) and Dude Jenkins.  Dude had no children but Bob had a son, Robert Jr. who still lives in Logan.

         Mom and Dad  must have been quite young when they settled in Logan or, more specifically, Cherry Tree.  The oldest child, Phyllis was born in Freeburn, Kentucky.  Phyllis, or Sis, is four years older than I and I, myself, was born in Logan General Hospital in April of ’46.

            Next came my sister Elsie and then Roger, David, Danny, Sharon and Eddie. Sis, myself and Elsie spent all of our childhood in Cherry Tree and graduated from Logan High School.

            Mom and Dad relocated to Toledo, Ohio when the youngest child, Eddie, was still a toddler.  After spending several years in Toledo, they once again moved to Abilene, Texas.

            Mom and Dad passed away while in Abilene and are buried there.  My younger brother Danny Joe (named for Joe Chirico) also succumbed in Abilene and is buried there.  My younger sister Sharon passed away this year, 2003 and her husband, John, acceded to her wishes and scattered her ashes in Oregon.

            The recollections that I have noted here are memories that time is sometimes not kind to.  There are other lives I am sure that have touched mine, but I have forgotten them after forty-five years.

            When I left Cherry Tree to join the U.S. Navy, it had already changed  much due to the road construction in the area; my last visit revealed a Cherry Tree that was alien to me, a place that I could no longer call “home”.