It’s time in my story to tell the story of “The Doctor.” He isn’t around to tell his story anymore and
so it is up to me to tell it for him.
One afternoon I got a call from one of the Hollywood gang of
friends named John asking me if I could help a man named Eric get back into the
music scene. He had been the lead
guitarist and band leader for the Mama’s and the Papa’s in the late sixties but
had been up in Portland for quite awhile since the famous group had broken up.
I had heard about Eric from a friend who had referred to him
as an “old salt.” I said that I would help
and arranged for Eric (otherwise known professionally as “the Doctor” or Doc)
to perform at the Hollywood Canteen and I invited many people that I thought
would like to know he is back in town.
On the night of the concert the venue was filled to
capacity. I was wearing a long
southwestern type of hippy dress with long hair and put burning incense here
and there. The concert was well received
and Eric decided he should move in with me.
I was not sure about that but he showed up with a mattress
and what could I do?
He continued to play at the Hollywood Canteen weekly. The usual following act was Charlie Daniels.
Eric was born a little before his time being that there was
no internet and there are very little Youtube videos to remember him by.
We eventually got married and raised a wonderful son, Alan, together. Eric switched between hard labor types of
jobs and the music business, back and forth but did not make any major
breakthroughs. Much later, a song he
co-wrote did make the charts in Europe and initially earned him some money
before the song was downloaded for free on the internet. He
was extremely talented. He entertained
thousands of people, making them so happy.
But let’s go back to the beginning as he told me about his
life.
Eric Glen Hord had been born in 1935 at Mercy Hospital in
San Diego. His father was in the Navy
and his mother was a one-time teacher, but now a stay-at-home mother. Eric was the third child with an older
brother, Ned, and older sister, Mary Jane.
He went to Catholic school until he reached high school. Then he went to San Diego High.
Eric loved San Diego.
He loved to fish, he loved the mild climate and how it was next to the
Mexican border. The zoo was world
famous. There were cliffs and coves and
beaches. You could watch trains, planes
and boats.
Back then there weren’t so many freeways. Pacific Coast Highway was a four lane road …
two lanes on each side. Mission Valley
was a large river bed with cows and the Town and Country gold course. Driving south and catching “the strand” up or
a ferryboat took you to Coronado Island.
“BB” … before the bridge. The
Cabrillo Highway went through Balboa Park and there was no Padre Stadium, which
is now called Petco Park.
Eric was a skilled tennis player who was just this short of
going professional for lack of a sponsor.
He had an extreme intensity that he applied to whatever he was doing,
even ping-pong, and including guitar and banjo playing. He learned the banjo from his father, who was
brought up in the South.
Eric was close to his mother as his father had been deployed
quite a bit. He was also close with a
neighbor lady who was half English and half Mesquite Indian, Mrs.
Harbottle. She told him of her affairs
with Billy the Kid and Black Jack Pershing.
She would name chiefs and show him pictures of her in Silver City, New
Mexico on a military outpost. She knew
every dance for that period and could sing in Indian dialect.
She went with his mother to Saint John’s Catholic church at
five o’clock every morning. Eric had
been an altar boy there. He liked the
mysticism of Mrs. Harbottle’s stories and the Catholic ceremonies with incense
and robes.
Eric was seven years old when his father got off a gray
colored ship coming home from World War II, which ended in 1945. His dad, Cliff, was dressed in Navy blue with
medals and stripes and it seemed like he was seeing a God.
Eric remembers his father screaming in his sleep for awhile
after the war. He had been transferred
to San Diego from Guantanamo where he was serving on the Rueben James
destroyer. Three months later the
destroyer was sunk by a torpedo and it sank with almost all on board. He also had good friends on the Arizona ship
that was destroyed in Pearl Harbor.
Eric’s dad only had a sixth grade education. He went to work at the Lee Cotton Mill and
Pencil Factory. He sang country songs
and played real good harp. Sometimes he
would start talking about cotton mill girls being raped or murdered by company
bosses then putting the blame on some poor black laborers. His dad would start singing a ballad about an
incident but his mom didn’t want him telling the kids these stories. She had been a school teacher from Vermont
and was very strict about his dad’s drinking and storytelling.
There were many parties at Eric’s house. Anybody with a fiddle, banjo or guitar was
there. His father’s buddies from the
Navy sang and played old time music.
There was liquor and cigars and stories about buddies they would never
see again. The men let out lots of
emotions.
Eric’s Dad had taken the family to North Carolina to visit
his kin where he grew up. They went to
Kings Mountain, Gastonia Junction, just outside Charlotte. Cliff was the fourteenth child born to
Richard M. Hord and by his third wife, Mary Jane Towery Wilson. The other wives had died. It was customary for families to have a lot
of children begot by different mothers.
A man needed a woman to raise the children and a woman needed a man to
have a place to live.
On the trip, Eric and his family first stayed with Aunt
Mary. Eric helped her be a lookout for
whoever was stealing her hogs. He saw
here take out her shotgun and yell at two figures in the moonlit distance, “get
out of my field!” and then she shot two big blasts toward them. But it was her brother, Uncle Leroy. She told them not to use the field anymore
and to warn everybody else. Aunt Mary
had a black cook named Sarah who would sing while she cooked. Eric was very impressed with the music he
heard there.
After they left Aunt Mary’s they went through Rock Hill to Carpenter’s
Knob. When they arrived at the cabin
where his dad was born, he saw lots of multi-colored children running
around. There were grave markers
nearby. Some of them had dates going
back a long time ago.
Uncle Luther and Aunt Kathy lived at the cabin. Uncle Luther was out in the hills when the
family arrived so Aunt Kathy fired off a couple of shots from a gun saying, “he’s
on his way now.”
There were four small rooms with no lights. A banjo was on the wall and a bible on the
desk. Uncle Luther was everything on
Carpenter Knob; minister, policeman, and moonshiner. He was a big family man.
Aunt Sarah lived there also.
All the people there had on worn down handmade clothes. The men wore old boots and the women and
children didn’t seem to wear any shoes at all.
The children were a blend of white, Indian and Black, being a result of
intermingling since early times when the white man came from Europe a came to
the Piney Wood Mountains.
Later on Eric’s dad and uncle climbed up the knob to the
still. Luther took his shotgun and big
knife saying, “You get fifty cents a piece for a good cottonmouth and you’ve
picked the right time of year to come for that.”
Uncle Luther would be in the stream below the rocks where
the snakes were sunning themselves and Cliff would scare them into the
water. Luther would slice their heads
off as they glided by. Eric saw about
twenty skins frying in the sun in the back of the shack.
Uncle Luther told Eric about a young boy who jumped into a
pond that had a whole family of cottonmouth moccasin snakes and when the boy
came out he had snakes sticking all over him.
He’s up in the cemetery behind the shack now.
When the group got to the still, Eric saw barrels and tubes
and a small stream of smoke coming from on the stacks. Luther came out of the lean to and offered
Dad and him a sip of his finest whiskey corn liquor. Luther told Eric, “Boy, don’t drink it like
pop. Just a little bitty sip.” After he sipped it, a burning sensation
happened in his throat. After a few sips
Eric began to watch the world go round.
His dad had to get him up off the ground. The men thought it was pretty funny.
Luther decided they could go coon hunting later that
night. On the way down the hill there
were two crosses off in the trees about fifty feet from where they were
at. Luther says, “Them’s the police,
son. They said they were going to take
my still and land away. Ain’t right for
the government to take away a man’s lively hood and land just because they ain’t
getting rich off us folks.” Dad said, “Ain’t
gonna change none. Never has, never
will.”
The dogs were kept behind the shack. Coon dogs waited for the night when they
would be off with their masters in search of possum or coons. On the night Eric went hunting the moon was
full and hanging high up over the Knob, illuminating the forest. Eric carried the sacks and they lit out with
the dogs leading the way. You could hear
their barking far off in the misty moonlight.
Luther said, “Ole Saul’s got something over in Indian Gully.” Everyone spotted their flashlight up into the
trees and caught a glimpse of something moving up there. Before dawn they had gotten six possums but
two of the dogs had gotten hurt, but not too bad. Uncle Luther asked Eric if he wanted to come
live with him and go coon hunting all the time. Eric said, “I don’t know,” and Luther
laughed.
Back at Aunt Mary’s again, the evening was filled with
gospel singing and instrument playing including a song by Blind Willy
Johnson. Aunt Mary, cook Sarah and Eric’s
dad must have sung “over a thousand” soulful songs.
The next day Aunt Mary sent the family on their way back
home with three cooked chickens, potato salad, corn, biscuits and gravy,
watermelon and pickles.
Eric got to see the richness of the poor and the beauty of
the country on his trip to see where some of his roots came from.
