Tuff Times

In my many years on this earth, I’ve known a lot of people.  Some of them stand out for their amazing abilities, intelligence, or work ethic.  Others, while they may have had some of those same attributes, stand out in my memory because they were true characters.  Some would say they were one-of-a-kind.

Tuff was one of those.

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I don’t remember the first time I heard of Tuff, and I never heard how he got that nickname, but I do remember the first time I met him.

One of my favorite haunts as a kid in my early-to-mid-teens was Ashcraft’s Feed Store, on a corner in Malden, Missouri, where I grew up.  The manager, Willie Green, was a kindly gentleman who always had time to talk to me and never once acted like I was wasting his time.  The store itself was one of the last stores in town to have wooden floors.  It always smelled like animal feed, and, instead of canned music, the softly peeping baby chicks was music to my ears.

On that particular day, I was looking at traps, specifically rat traps.  Some of them looked like the kind of traps that mountain men had used and the feel of those steel creations stimulated my imagination.

As I stood there holding a number 0 longspring trap, I heard a voice behind me.

“You gonna do some trappin’?”

I turned to see Tuff.  I answered, “Yes, sir, I’d like to.”

“Whatcha gonna trap?”

“There are some rats in the barn…”

“Gonna eat ‘em?”

I may have had a tone of disgust when I replied, “No sir!”

“Why not?” Tuff asked.  “You eat squirrels, don’t you?”

I had been initiated into the world of .22-toting teenagers and had potted a few squirrels by that time.  Mom had fried them up. 

Not sure where he was going with his line of logic, I offered a tentative, “Yes sir, I eat squirrels.”

Tuff had a serious look on his wizened face, “Well squirrels is rode-ee-ents, ain’t they?  Rats is rode-ee-ents, ain’t they?”

I was caught unprepared for Tuff’s logic, but Willie came to my rescue with, “Tuff, I’m sure Scott would share his catch with you.  You can cook ‘em up and the two of you can have dinner.”

Tuff grinned wide and said, “I guess we could do that, couldn’t we?”

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One of Tuff’s life-long friends was an insurance agent, another local who was widely known by his nickname, Sodie.  I may be a little mixed up but I’ll stick with Sodie, since he was another local character about whom many stories circulated.

Sodie was visiting at our house one evening when, somehow, Tuff’s name…er, nickname, came up.  I obviously can’t remember his exact words, but I’ll credit him with these quotes since the stories flow so well that way.

“Me and Tuff grew up together,” Sodie explained.  “We was always in some kind of orneriness or other.  Still are I guess.”

He chuckled and went on, “A few years back, we were headed toward the Bluff (Poplar Bluff, Missouri).  I got in too big a hurry and saw a car comin’ up behind us.  As fast as I was going, I knew I’d be in big trouble if it was a cop…which it was.

“Thinkin’ fast, Tuff said, ‘I’ll hold my chest and lean against the door when he comes up.  You tell him I’m havin’ a heart attack and you’re tryin’ to get me to the hospital.  I bet he’ll let you go without a ticket.’

“Well, it sounded like a lot better idea than payin’ a big speedin’ ticket so I did it.  The cop believed me and it was lookin’ good for me to get out of a ticket, when the officer said, ‘I’ll drive ahead of you with lights and siren to clear the way.  You keep up with me and we’ll get your friend to the hospital as quick as we can.’”

Mom and Dad and I laughed at their predicament.  Sodie laughed even louder.  “He took us all the way to the hospital and said he’d stay there until we got registered. Well, Tuff, he grew up in the Depression like me, and was a little tight with his money.  When he realized that tryin’ to keep me from getting a ticket for speeding had become lyin’ some more to keep us both from goin’ to jail for lyin’ to an officer of the law.

“He registered and the nurses took him away.  He spent the night in the hospital and they ran a bunch of tests on him.

“I thought he was gonna have a heart attack for real when he got the bill.”

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My parents and I were just catching our breath when Sodie spoke again, “But that hospital bill wasn’t the worst trouble me ‘n’ Tuff ever got into.  One time we darn near got killed.

If he hadn’t had my full attention before, he sure did then.

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“One time, when we were young teenagers, one of the churches was havin’ a revival.  It was late in the year so it was in the church-house and not outside under a brush arbor. Everybody came from miles around, in their horse-drawn wagons, tied ‘em up outside and went inside for the service.

“The preacher was truly inspired.  He was goin’ at it hellbent-for-leather, preachin’ hellfire and damnation.  Now Baptist revivals were known for goin’ most of the day for a whole week back then, but this preacher must’ve really been filled with the spirit because he just kept on preachin’ as the sun was gettin’ low.  I guess he was determined to spark a revival, even if he had to beat us down and preach us into submission.

“As the night wore on, the younger kids got tired-er and tired-er and their parents would take them out, bundle ‘em up in quilts they had brought with ‘em, nestle ‘em down in straw they’d put in their wagon bed, and go back in for more beratin’.”

He paused for a moment, and continued, “I was gettin’ more bored and more bored, when I noticed Tuff tryin’ to get my attention.  I signaled that I got the message.

 “’Course, in those days we didn’t have indoor plumbin’, just an outhouse out back of the church house, so, every now and then, somebody in the congregation would get up and wander out back, do their business, then go back in.

“Tuff told his parents that he had to go to the backhouse and got up and went outside.  A little bit later, I did the same.

“Outside, I found Tuff and he said, ‘I’ve got an idea.’

“Knowin’ Tuff, I figured he was up to no good.  I figured he had some meanness in mind. I knew we’d probably get our hides tanned for it, but I wanted in on it anyway.

“We went from wagon to wagon.  Any wagon that had a kid sleepin’ in it, we’d take that kid and move ‘em to another wagon and put ‘em in place of that kid.  We didn’t just trade out the kids in two wagons.  Oh, no, we took every kid to somebody else’s wagon.  Then we went back into the church house and finished the rest of the sermon.

“It was bad-dark by the time the preacher gave up tryin’ to save everybody’s souls.  I think he did save a few people, but I wonder if it was as much findin’ the spirit as it was surrenderin’ to the pressure.

“Anyway, when the preacher finally turned everybody loose, they didn’t waste a lot of time visitin’.  Nope, they located their wagons and headed for home.

“Now, back then, it might take an hour or more to get from the church to home in a horse-drawn wagon, so you know everybody was past ready for bed when they got home, only to discover that they had somebody else’s kid in their wagon!

“No telephones and miles between houses.  There wasn’t much sleep in our part of Missouri that night, by the time everybody got all those young’uns sorted out to the right parents.  I’ll bet more folks lost the spirit after the sermon than found it during the preachin’!”

When I finally caught my breath, I had to ask a question.

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I quizzed Sodie, “I thought you said you almost got killed.”

Sodie chuckled, “When those parents had to spend hours tryin’ to find their children and takin’ other people’s kids home, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the Holy Spirit they were full of.  If they’d found out it was me and Tuff that done it, I bet there’d have been a couple hangin’s.”

Now, from the perspective of parenthood, I believe he was probably right. 

Yeah, probably.  At least you could be sure that those two boys would have had some tuff times.

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