Merrill Carnes

Young Life in Marrtown / Parkersburg, WV

Written by Merrill about his childhood

My name is Merrill Carnes and I was born in Marrtown WV in the summer of 1933. My Mother and Father owned the Marrtown grocery store for 21 years. A gasoline pump sat out front of the store… There was no electric involved with the gas pump. A customer would hand crank gasoline to the large jar sitting on top of the pump. The gas then could drain from the top jar thru a hose into your vehicle. Considered costly at the price of 18 cents per gallon. The store had big salty fish in open top barrels packed in salt. Nothing ever spoiled.

Mom and Dad, being busy in the store, allowed me to run free throughout the town and country.

The church and a one room school was just across the street from the store. One day I was in the 4th grade, after playing outside my shoes were full of sand. With permission, I left class and went outside to the out-house. I took off my shoes to empty the sand. My shoes were sitting by the hole next to the hole I was sitting on. Somehow one of my shoes fell down the hole. It looked like a long way down, but I could see my shoe. I went home, which was just across the road, a part of the store. With different shoes on, I went back to school and told the teacher my problem. The teacher sent 2 boys from the 6th grade (4-5-6th grades in same room) out to fetch my shoe. They had no success. My shoe was gone forever.

The 1-2-3rd grades were in one room with one teacher on the 1st floor. The 4-5-6th grades were upstairs in one room with 1 teacher. The room was a fire-trap with the wood burning pot belly stove glowing red hot. The desks had fancy iron legs. My favorite disturbance in class was to roll a handful of marbles up the floor toward the teacher’s desk. The marbles would clank on the iron legs as they rolled up the floor. One day the teacher gave a 6th grader a paddling for doing the marble thing. A few days later in class I got my handful of marbles from my pocket. As my arm went down toward the floor to roll the marbles, I noticed the paddle with holes in it, hanging by the blackboard. I put the marbles back in my pocket for perhaps another day.

Several boys my age and myself would walk to Parkersburg (we were really too young to go to the big town of Parkersburg by ourselves, being about 9-10-11-12 years old, but we did it). We went to the movies. The Virginia theatre, the Strand, the Parker, and the Heilie theatres. The cowboy movies with Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix, Wild Bill Hieckot, and Buffalo Bill. Full length movies, some done as series, which had the hero about to be killed at the end, and we had to go back next week to see how he escaped.

A small box of sticky gum-drops cost 5 cents from the machine. Pio’s was the name of a bar on the edge of town toward Marrtown. We would all stop at ‘Pio’s’ on the way back home. We knew that Pio’s had two huge racks of comic books. Superman, Donald Duck, Batman, Green Lantern and many more. We had spent all our money at the movie and had no money to buy a comic book, but we looked through all the comic books and usually made a mess. The bartender was glad to see us go.

The famous Fort Boreman Hill was some protection for Parkersburg with cannon guns watching the Ohio and Kanawa rivers during the war. Both North and South troops passed thru Parkersburg. I don’t think any battles were fought here.

Fort Boreman was always our playground, a grand sight as it over-looked Parkersburg, Belpre, Ohio, and surrounding area. It sat on top of a large cliff looking down on the rivers. The cliff was a fun obstacle on our way to the movies from Marrtown. Standing on the edge of the cliff, we could reach out to the top limbs of the trees growing up from the base of the cliff. Pulling the limb, we could grab the tree itself and with a little jump, we were in the tree-top. We would then climb down the tree to the bottom of the cliff then slide on down to the bottom of the hill and the bridge. Then we were off to the movies!

Today a 4 lane highway takes visitors to the top of Fort Boreman. The view is the same, the rivers are the same, but it’s not the same. Too much concrete, too many large cut stones, too many signs, too many shelters. I loved it better the way it was in the ‘ole’ days.

No one knows about the old road to the Fort, which is still there, if you know where to look…

Young Life in Marrtown: his typed pages. Tap to open.

Grandpa’s Farm Campout

July 30, 1992 · Under the stars, sleeping bags only

It is Thursday, July 30, 1992. Joel, Dustin, Matt, Gabe and Grandpa are staying at Grandma’s house. All 4 boys are finally in bed at 12:50 AM [actually Friday AM].

Friday morning, breakfast at 8 am for Joel and Matt [cereal], at 9 am for Dustin and Gabe [cereal]. Emotions and feelings are high for the campout trip. Knives and saws are admired and tried out on Grandpa’s woodpile. By noon only Gabe has cut himself as his knife continued through his apple. A lot of blood and he didn’t cry. Everyone seems happy, even Gabe whom Grandpa has corrected twice, once Thurs eve and once Friday eve. Although the boys are 10 years old and younger, I can see them changing and growing. Motorcycle riding around the house by Joel, Matt and Dustin. Animal and bird calls [crow, owl, squirrel, deer and fox] were practiced and exclaimed over. Ham and turkey sandwiches, baked beans were eagerly consumed at noon. An afternoon rainstorm failed to dampen spirits. Games and hollers continued all afternoon. Grandma arrived home in the eve and prepared a good meal that was welcomed by all. Everyone is in bed at 10 pm but me. They went to bed early, anticipating an early start in the morning, but I can hear a lot of talking upstairs from my chair by the fireplace.

Sat. morning, and we are loading the old red truck for the trip to the woods. 2 motorcycles, 5 sleeping bags, lots of food and drink and lots of anticipated events yet to happen. Our day started exploring an old house. This was a dangerous venture as we found by looking through the rotting floorboards we discovered a huge cistern half full of water. The house was actually built over a huge cistern or well. One slide down through the floor and we would have been swimming for our lives. The main room of the haunted house had a large colony of honey bees busy making honeycomb. It was difficult to step across the holes in the floor over the cistern and look over at the bees at the same time.

We finally arrived at the farm, picked out a campsite and started clearing and preparing the camp. Each person had a job to do and we began our work talking and wondering about things to come. The sleeping sites were selected and three fires were built. Each group wanted their own fire. Nighttime came and the fires burned bright with firewood in abundance. The wood creatures began making funny noises, sometimes strange noises were heard and eyes became larger. Imaginations grew as mother nature turned everything into darkness. We slept in a row, sort of in one sleeping bag and after 1½ hours of wriggling and telling stories we fell asleep before midnight.

Sunday morning we were up at daylight building fires again. We let one fire burn low for cooking breakfast. 48 eggs grilled over the fire for breakfast. The boys ate 46 and Grandpa, eating last, got the last 2. Our daylight hours were spent swinging from grapevines, climbing trees, cutting trees down, hunting and catching frogs, snakes and lizards. Grandpa kept wondering about being bitten by something besides chiggers. The food we took along was sufficient, except 2 fresh chickens spoiled. Our 2 motorcycles served us well as the boys disappeared on them. Sooner or later they found their way back.

Our campout went very well as there were no rules to obey or go by, except one. The only rule we had was everyone had to be good to everyone. We came home late Sunday and headed for the shower. We all had a wide band of chigger bites around our waist. Although we paid them no attention, they did itch, and scratching made them worse. We never did figure out what some of the noises were we heard at night and were glad nothing appeared.

Grandpa’s Farm Campout: his typed pages. Tap to open.