In the old days....

Craigie 1942

His name was David C. Craigmile
Son of my Aunt Frances and a man called Chick
Chick Craigmile, I didn’t know much about him
But I think like my maternal grandfather
Herman Elies, a miller by trade,
Chick and Herman were rogues

So my boyhood friend and brother in arms,
Craigie and I
Were related to rogues, we had roguery
In our blood, and we were often naughty together
Naturally;
One time Aunt Frances, local beauty, was spotted in town by
Uncle Lee, long after Chick and Herman blew the home scene
And Uncle Lee tracked Frances to the Methodist Church
Where she sang in the choir, good Welsh chorister
That she was


And Uncle Lee became a Methodist in his method to meet her
Starting off a romance with Frances and the church
That lasted Uncle Lee – not a rogue, ever –
A lifetime
Faith and faithfulness came to us spawn of rogues
But we were boys, sons of rogues
And I don’t think it took fully

Uncle Lee became Craigie’s father
And tried to instill Christian values
But it was too late;
By that time we were picking pockets,
Stealing cookies and fresh-baked pies
And later, planning bank jobs

At the Avon movies we sided with the bad guys
And went to the Salvation Army retail shop
For black hats
Craigie taught me to spit between my teeth and cuss
And get almost as much distance and vehemence as he got
And at night on sleep-overs we took flashlights
Under the blankets and read our favorite stories,
Including Seven Keys to Baldpate
Which we then alternated telling by rote in the dark;

It was World War II and at the Avon
We watched the RKO newsreels
And saw how the Nazis and the Japs were treating
Our American forces in the French woods
And at Bataan;
For a while I honored Craigie with an heroic
Battlefield name: Corregidor

Craigie was interested in drums so
Uncle Lee got him a set of used Slingerlands
And lessons
And through Craig I learned about Gene Krupa
And took to revering a paradiddling pothead;
We didn’t care if he had a bad habit or two
Because he could wail on the skins;
Craigie helped me practice tolerance;

Later Craigie served a hitch in the Navy
The branch Uncle Lee had been in
And did well until while on board a ship
He dove into the pool and cracked his head bad
And they gave him a medical discharge

He returned to the states and wasn’t quite
The same
But he married a nice girl, worked hard and had two kids;
One day when I was in the Army in 1958
They pulled me out of formation at Fort Holabird
To tell me Craigie had died;
He blacked-out, it was thought,
And plowed into the rear of a truck
On the way to work;

Thus ended the life of my brother
The end of a beautiful friendship
The beginning of a life without him
But his picture and his spirit are nearby,
The boy who fought for me when bullies threatened
Who traded a thousand tales with me
Who when we walked together
Threw his arm around my shoulders
Because we were buddies

Now he has Uncle Lee to put his arm around
Along with his mother
That’s the way we think in this family
And that’s the way it is



[David Dix 1-9-2003]