Back to the day I was born..... My grandparents live about a mile and a half out of town up on a hill. The road that went up to the house wound by a one room school about half way up the hill. There wasn't anything special about the house, a standard old 3 room house, living room, bedroom and kitchen. There was a front porch. I don't know if it had a back porch or not. While my mother and Dr. (Stanley E. Davis D.O.) and grandmother and great grandmother (Granny Frazee...another story in its own right) were busy trying to deliver me, my grandfather held my brother on his lap in the living room in a rocking chair (probably close to the pot bellied stove. My grandfather smoked a pipe. He would take a puff and then let my brother Butch take a puff (more or less Butch only slobbered on it) then he would puff it again. Chuck                     Roger                                 Butch  ca.1952-3



I don't know where my dad was while all this was going on, I would guess out with "the men" pacing the floor, heating water or doing some other make work project to keep them out of the women's hair. I got delivered ok. I just thought about my calling my older brother Butch. His given name was William Thomas Pierson, Jr.. When he was little, he used to pinch people with his fingernails, even if they were short. He did it to our Great grandmother and she called him a little butcher (I think he drew blood)... from that time on he went by Butch.

I always went by Chuck, but I never heard any story at all about how it came about...I guess because Chuck is a routine nickname for Charles. The only other time I remember being at that house was when I was about 3. We went out to visit with Wes and Hallie and Grannie Frazee and Wes took me from one of my parents and sat me on the front edge of the roof of the coal shed...It scared the bejeebers outta me. I squalled like a stomped on cat. I can remember him laughing as I cried, stuck up there on that roof. Sure made an impression on me. It had to be when I was two or three, because he died when I was 3.