Where I got my good looks

Doyle and Lula Pruitt

Take a look at the photo. If I look like anyone, it is this guy. It's not an exact match, but it's pretty close. His name’s Doyle Ivan Pruitt, and he was my Grandpa. I only ever called one man Grandpa, and this is him! 

I don’t remember him much before 1966, not specifically anyway. We moved to Arizona before I was born and I saw him once or twice when I was too little to remember, but in 1966 we went to Indiana for a summer visit.  I was 13. I know I saw Grandpa in 1961, and in 1959, and 1957, but I have no memories of those visits, at least concerning him. I always knew what he looked like – I have that much memory at least.

I think that may be because he didn’t have much use for little kids. At least that is the way it seemed to me. He was a little gruff, and I think he probably just went about his business as if we weren’t there. He was still working in those days and he didn't have a lot of free time I don't think. I don’t know, maybe.

But in ’66, I was big enough that he could deal with me. I remember sitting on the front porch with him – there were chairs out there. The highway (Indiana 28) came right up the hill from town and out to the east – right past the house. So we’d watch for the cars and trucks as they roared up the hill, and we'd name them as they came by… there’s a Chevy, there’s a Ford… there probably weren’t any that we couldn’t name. It was a good game to see who could recognize and call them out first.

He worked on cars – and bought and sold them on the side when he could. He was also a farm-hand. My grandparents weren’t ever well-to-do; Grandpa worked and saved, and Grandma worked too. They grew a lot of their own food. My Grandpa grew the best tomatoes I’ve ever had – tomatoes that were bright, deep red, and yellow. He grew enough, at least some years, that he could sell them to passers-by out by the road. The way I remember those tomatoes, I’ll bet those folks felt like they’d really found something. I’d kill for one of my Grandpa’s tomatoes today. I grew great tomatoes on Ruthie’s mulch patch one year (1996); my Grandpa grew them every year.

Doyle Pruitt

He “let” me mow his lawn. Probably the first time was in 1966 – and each visit thereafter as long as I was a kid. Of course, he would supervise. But he’d fire up the lawnmower and keep an eye on things as I mowed that soft green Indiana grass. This must have been something like Tom Sawyer and that whitewashed fence – remember how he made the job sound so desirable that pretty soon all the boys in town wanted a piece of the action?  Well, that’s about how it was with my Grandpa’s lawn.

Later on, in 1968 or 1970, he gave me a lawn mower. We took the wheels off of it, and packed it into the trunk of the car for the long road-trip home, with newspapers to protect the other things packed around it from whatever grease was on it. Nothing was visible except the Briggs and Stratton motor, sticking up from its base into the trunk. We’d pull into a gas station – this was before gas stations were self-serve – when you stopped for gas, a clerk came over and pumped it for you and checked the oil, etc. I’d open the trunk and point at that 3 hp motor and ask them to fill it up and check the oil. Most of them had never seen a Toyota before so it was a good joke.

Dinnertime was another great time at Grandpa’s house. They’d have a little bit of everything set out – vegetables from the garden, some kind of a main dish, maybe some cream gravy and toast, country dishes, nothing extravagant. But I still remember it as being some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. Grandpa would sit there, giving Grandma a hard time about how she cooked the taters, or how she’d dropped something, anything where he could get something started. After supper, we’d watch TV. He’d always go to bed fairly early – maybe 9:00 or so. But I can remember watching Hee-Haw with my Grandpa -- and I still love that show.

I am a little introverted, and a little anti-social. Maybe more than a little. I do not like parties – or crowds – or even medium-sized groups of people. Not even when it is just family. You don’t have to look far to see where that came from; like they say, “the apple don’t fall too far from the tree.” There’s more than one of us in this family that inherited these traits. My Grandpa stayed home so much he didn’t even go out to eat, not that I ever saw. He never came to visit in Arizona. If you wanted to see him, you had to go where he was.

About once a year he’d take Grandma down to Brown County in the fall – he and Grandma were born there, grew up there and started their life together there and he loved it and so did she. When they got married, they rode to Nashville, Indiana in a wagon drawn by a mule, or a horse. They got married there at the courthouse -- which is still the Brown County Courthouse today as far as I know. That was probably about 1919.

I had the good fortune to go to Brown County with my Grandma in the mid-1980s, after Grandpa had died. I think it was probably the last time she was able to go. Both their families had lived in Brown County, Indiana since about 1815-1820, and had at one time owned land there. I've always felt that I was honored in going there with her -- I think it was a great day for all of us. We went to Spurgeon's Corner where Grandma grew up, visited the McKinney family cemetery there, and also drove past Beck's Grove where they lived when my Mom was little. Ruth was along on that trip as well. It was a special day, I think more so because we lived 1,750 miles away; we didn't grow up where she and Grandpa lived and so we don't have too many of those memories with them. The ones we do have are very special to us.

Grandpa was pretty tight with a dollar… maybe even with a penny. He worked as hard as he could and he saved money all his life when he could. They were never rich – but he left my Grandmother without anything to worry about, barring any unusual disasters. That’s saying something, given that he lived and worked through the Great Depression. Sometimes he wasn’t very nice about it, but I do not hold that against him. He was a hard case and the Pruitt’s and the McKinney’s were tough people; tough, poor people. In his times, in his place, people in similar circumstances did starve to death. He did everything he could to keep that from happening to his family, and the work ethic that he instilled in his children meant that, along with a certain amount of good luck, I never went hungry when I was growing up. 

One of the ways he made ends meet during Prohibition times was making bootleg liquor. I don’t know the whole story, but I know he still made wine occasionally when I was a kid – and he probably made beer. I don’t know how much – but I’ve heard that some rather prominent local people were customers of his.

He always wore an undershirt with no sleeves and denim coveralls when he was working around the house. I have a photo somewhere of me and him washing my Mom’s Toyota – a bright yellow 1968 Corona. Toyota was new in the United States at that time – most people east of New Mexico had never seen one or even heard of Toyota. When we pulled up in the driveway, he took one look at that loud, bright, shiny yellow car and said “why didn’t you get a yellow one?” It was vacation and I didn’t have “work clothes.” So he loaned me a t-shirt and some coveralls – we were about the same height but I was a skinny little kid. But there’s that photo with me and him and that yellow Toyota – out there with the hose and the bucket, Grandpa pointing out where the bugs were, and me scrubbing them off with good old-fashioned elbow grease. Lately, I’ve started wearing those same sleeveless t-shirts (what some call a "muscle" shirt). I’ve got one on right now. I don’t wear coveralls yet though.

One time, on one of our visits, Grandpa was sitting on the porch in the afternoon. Right inside the door of the house, he left a little .22 caliber rifle – maybe a single-shot carbine, I’m not sure. Grandpa loved martens, but hated starlings… He’d see a starling in the tree, reach in, grab the rifle, take a shot at it, and then put the rifle back inside the door, out of sight. The neighbors would hear the shot and call the Law. Pretty soon a patrol car would slowly cruise by. Grandpa would wave… they’d wave back… and they’d slowly cruise away. Pretty soon, Grandpa would see another starling… and he’d grab the rifle and take another shot...

I went to visit several times in the 1970s, and later in that decade I bought a tractor and started driving for North American Van Lines. I was back and forth through Indiana frequently and I always tried to make a stop at Attica when I could – it seems all highways lead through Indiana. So I saw quite a bit of him and Grandma for a time, the only time in my whole life when my grandparents were ever familiar to me, in an everyday sense.

He lived to be about 78 or 79 years old. In early 1981, he developed a cancer that was too strong to beat. He died that year, the day before Thanksgiving if I remember correctly and he was buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Attica. My Grandmother joined him there in 1991.

When I was very small, it was almost as if he didn’t exist, and Pampaw Mills, who loved kids, was first in my affections. But Ernie Mills died in 1965; he was my favorite but he was the first of my grandparents to go. After he died, and as I got older, I learned to appreciate Grandpa Pruitt's mischievous humor, his sense of responsibility, his hard work; he became my favorite, the only one I called Grandpa. He always made me feel like he liked me, that I was important to him. He never said the words – he never said much; but I knew, because I could sense it in the way he treated me. This plainly-evident affection, from a non-demonstrative, terribly taciturn and restrained old man, was absolutely enough.

I think he lives on in me – I can feel him in my attitudes, my beliefs, even in my quirks; some of those came from him too. I can see some of the same traits in my sisters and our cousins as well. Take a look at my photo and his… I am my Grandpa’s son.