Nancy Miller Heald

Remembering Carl Knights – Part One

By Nancy Miller Heald

Note: Grover and Cora Drinkwater raised their family on the farm now known as Elderflower Farm, 283 Vancycle Road. Later they moved to a farm on Prescott Hill Road in Northport. Their daughter, Margaret and her husband, Ray Miller raised their girls – Nancy and Patty – at Ray’s family farm, 2994 Belfast Road.

Carl Knights’ smoke-stained, toothy grim was as welcoming as his hair and brows were unruly. Comb it though he may, he never succeeded in overwhelming the twists, whirls, peaks and valleys of numerous cowlicks. He walked and danced with a stiff-legged gait. His rummage sale wardrobe never quite fit properly, so the too-big pants were gathered round his gaunt body by a tightly-cinched belt embellished with extra holes. His speech announced his “backwoods downeast” origins. Most days found him pushing a wheelbarrow full of garden produce, children, or the occasional cat; lugging firewood for the black iron Home Comfort kitchen range or wood furnace in winter; pitching hay, raking blueberries, or weeding the garden in summer. Saturday was the day he shaved the constant stubble from his face in anticipation of attending the dance.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s Grover Cleveland Drinkwater (my maternal grandfather) took on Carl Knights, a distant relative, as his hired man. Gramp needed a man to help with the farm work now that his sons, Harold, Clarence, and Lloyd, were grown and on their own. Besides, Carl needed a home. Today Carl would have lived in a group home and worked in a sheltered workshop. Fifty years ago, shelter and meaningful work was provided within the family or village.

When Carl joined the Drinkwater household, he still had a lot to learn, even though he was a man grown. Such things as “visiting” with family when they were doing their “chores” in the three-holer were frowned upon. Just because there was more than one hole didn’t mean they were to be occupied all at once.

Eventually, he developed the ability to tell time, to sort the mail, although he couldn’t read, to play sixty-three, rummy, cribbage and solitaire. Some might have thought his highest achievement was mastering the difficult pattern of the “Lady of the Lake” contra dance. The skill needed to plant a garden with straight rows eluded him, but the vegetables and flowers did not seem to be adversely affected and grew anyway.

The Saturday night dances at Breezemere in Lincolnville Center and later, the Blue Goose dance hall in Northport, were the high point of every week. The entire extended family went. Harold Drinkwater owned the dance halls. Brother Clarence sold tickets to non-family members, while brother Lloyd and wife, Grace [Phelps], sister Margaret and husband, Ray Miller ran the concession stand at the Goose. They sold hot dogs, soda and chips.

In those days before indoor plumbing, automatic washer or electric hair dryers, getting everyone ready for the dance was an all day project. In each household the women folk washed their hair and set or braided it early in the day so they wouldn’t be forced to venture out in the “dangerous” night air with a wet head. If the house well was dry or low on water, then Cora [Gray], Grover’s wife, would call on Carl to carry water from the hand pump in the front yard. Once the copper wash boilers were filled and heated on the kitchen range, then hair, clothes and bodies could be cleaned. If you drove in on a Saturday and found newspapers hanging over the kitchen curtain rods, you knew you wouldn’t be invited in until bath time was over.

Sometime after dinner, in early afternoon and long before bath time, Gramp and Carl would strop their straight edge razors and shave. Whoever was to shave first would drop suspenders and shirt so that they hung from the waist. Once the man was stripped to Army issue olive drab muscle shirts, the razor would get a little extra stropping on the leather strap that hung behind the wood stove by the cellar door. Shaving mug, towel, toilet paper and round shaving mirror would be carefully arranged on the oil-cloth covered kitchen table at whatever spot would afford the best natural light to shave in. Whoever was first would pull up a chair, lather up his brush with shaving soap and “paint” his face. Each man had his own style. Carl and Gramp usually started by shaving the neck first.

I would sit watching, wide-eyed and silent, as the gleaming blade slid ever nearer the protruding Adam’s apple. Surely this would be the fateful day that one of them would cut his own throat! At this point, Gramp always got the hiccups, thereby adding greatly to the drama. Carl was much more prone to nicking his jaw and ending up festooned with toilet paper bits. Children were allowed to watch this ritual as long as non-negotiable rules were observed. Silence. No wiggling the table – ever . Sit absolutely still.

Gramp, Gram Cora, Carl and any “weekending” grandchildren were usually among the first to arrive at the dance, thereby ensuring being able to use their favorite parking spot, as well as be on hand to greet all their family and friends. Gram always sat on the short bench to the left of the entrance. All the family, and many others, kept their purses under Gram’s seat. She could no longer dance, so she sat with the purses and kept an eye on all of us, even when the lights were lowered – no small feat for someone who wore coke bottle-thick glasses.

Carl and Gramp danced most every dance. Every daughter, granddaughter, sister-in-law, aunt, niece, and cousin could count on being asked to dance at least twice. Gramp, with his easy gentle rhythm, could waltz and fox trot with the best of them. Carl knew the steps and the time, but he never found the rhythm. He walked stiffly through every set, mechanically pumping his left hand. We did not relish dancing with Carl, but obeyed some long-forgotten decree that “one dance won’t kill you”. We girls felt dying of embarrassment was a distinct possibility.

The family hasn’t attended the dance en masse in over 30 years, because we lost our favorite partner, Gramp. Carl continued to go alone for another twenty years. When he married his brothers’ widow, a number of the family attended the Blue Goose ceremony.

Remembering Carl Knights – Part Two

By Nancy Miller Heald

When we were small, sister Patty, cousin Jimmy, and I delighted in Carl Knights bone-jarring wheelbarrow rides. Children who were unkind to or teased Carl did not get to ride. The ride usually began at the garden, across the lawn with its bumpy maple roots, and down the driveway to the barn. Occasionally we could cajole Carl into giving us each a ride all the way from the barn to the tarred road and back, just for the ride.

At night, while parents and grandparents visited, Carl was usually agreeable to a game of Old Maids, checkers, rummy, double solitaire, Uncle Wiggly, or Chinese checkers with us children. The cards and game boards were old and worn, but no one minded. On a winter’s evening, Carl often popped corn on the black iron cook stove using a long-handled wire mesh popping box. Constant shaking ensured the desired results.

There was a lot more to popping corn than pouring the right amount of corn in the popper and shaking. The fire had to be brought up to temperature first. “Biscuit wood” would do the trick – small dry sticks that burn hot and fast, such as choke cherry.

While the stove was heating up, Carl would bring in several ears of popcorn to be hulled. One did this by holding the ear stationary with one hand while twisting or wringing with the other. The rock hard kernels would stab and tear at your hands. We children were seldom very successful at separating many kernels from the cob. Carl, on the other hand, with his work-hardened, callused hands made short work of it. Before popping, our job was to check for and remove bits of cob or husk.

At last Carl would choose one of us to pour the corn into the basket and set the basket on the stovetop. Soon Carl was shaking with practiced vigor. He would allow us to try our skill – manual dexterity or not. During the final moment of frenzied detonation, Carl would resume control. He wasn’t having any young upstart ruin a batch of corn that he had tended and hoed in the scorching August sun!

Many evenings we would find Carl busily replenishing his cigarette supply. He would set up his paraphernalia on the oil cloth cabbage roses covering the kitchen table beside the tented condiments. Amid the cigarette papaers, tobacco cans and assorted containers, Carl would roll a dissimilar assortment of cigarettes by means of a metal contraption, about three by six inches, called a cigarette roller.

I regarded this as a fascinating toy. Place a paper lengthwise in the designated trough, mound with a pinch or three of tobacco, close the cover down, and presto! A finished cigarette popped out. At some point in this operation you were to wet one long edge of the paper with your tongue to the proper degree of wetness. The tobacco had to be placed evenly in the trough or your product would be lumpy or lopsided, bearing little resemblance to the store-bought variety. It took some skill to achieve the store bought look. Any child could do it.

When television came to the Drinkwaters, Carl seldom popped corn or rolled his own cigarettes when we came by. In order to visit, my mother would usually shut the TV off as soon as the show ended. It was a good thing that most shows were only half an hour back then. This impolite behavior really was necessary as no one could ignore the flickering black and white picture, and Gramp was hard of hearing and soft of voice. His stories were better than any TV drama ever written , short of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Gramp, Pa (or Puppa) would launch forth for Patty and me with: “When I was a little girl…” We would be standing on either side of his rocker on the rockers or hanging onto the arms of the chair and leaning in. Of course, we denied that he was ever a little girl, but he persisted and pressed on to adventures in the woods with the horses on ice snow or mud. He often encountered Swamp Wauggelers that were larger than a moose with feet so big they could walk on top of the water and mire. Other times he might see a Side Hill Guldger. They were quite common and had bamboo legs on one side and webfeet on the other. One set of legs was longer than the other so they could comfortably graze on the numerous hills in Maine. The different legs and feet were to deal with water and keep from sliding off a hill. Sometimes in mid-story a Filly-loo-loo bird might fly by, which only he ever saw.

Besides the woods stories there were some that dealt with gardening. One story was how to grow macaroni the easiest way. All you had to do was to plant it between the corn rows, and the corn borers would make the holes up the center and cut it off before it got too tall. Adults got versions of these tales woven into his more traditional hunting and working in the woods stories.

Card parties and family reunions were a common event. Mother would take us girls and her cleaning supplies, home perm curlers, or wallpapering equipment and head for Gramp and Gram’s. Patty and I would dust table and chair legs after washing the ever-present black sink, full of dishes. The iron rich hard water made few suds and no fun – ask cousins Ramona and Jean.

Carl would fill the stove and mop the floors after Mother swept them. Gramp could be found down cellar adding more posts so the house wouldn’t fall down full of family and friends. There was a post about every food or so under every carrying timber. Millie McCormick, Gram’s friend, would take on windows and door casings, having already changed all the beds. Gram would be tending multiple pots of baked beans, making filled “Surprise” cookies and directing all activities large and small.

As long as Great Gram Lena [Hart] Gray lived, family reunions were annual and very large for a Cape style house in winter. Her children Cora, Clyde, George, Justin, and Hazel produced about ten grandchildren who had twenty something great grands in her 90+ years, as well as the extended family members, friends and neighbors who never missed a reunion.