Around 1980 Waylon Jennings recorded a song about a  “Good Timin’ Man.” who “liked the bright lights and good timin’ friends” and a woman who “through teardrops and laughter” passed through this world “hand in hand” with him.   A little over a hundred year’s earlier a boy-child named Arthur Benton Carriker was born.  “Bent,” as he was known, didn’t have “bright lights” to tempt him but that didn’t keep him from being a “good timin’ man” and it sure didn’t keep attractive, wasp-waisted Leva Mae Lacer from falling in love and “passing through this world hand in hand” with him.   In that “passing” they gave the world eleven children.  Their first-born son was “Willard S. “Jack” Carriker,” which of course makes “Good Timin’ Bent” my Grandpa.   And, it created a gene pool from which God drew heavily when He formed me.  There’s an old comedic song called “I’m My Own Grandpa.”  I can’t claim that but Grandpa Bent surely lives on in me.   

He was born near Bucklin, Missouri and was what folks used to call a “Black German;” meaning that he was exactly the opposite of what Adolph Hitler called an “Aryan.”  He was slight of stature and dark-haired.  His roots were eventually traced back to a part of Germany called “The Palatinate.”  Grandpa never knew that “Carriker” was a bastardized “Anglo” rendition of the German surname “Kaercher,” nor did he know that the first Kaercher to arrive in America served in The Revolutionary War and received a “Veteran’s Benefit in the form of a parcel of land in Cabarrus County North Carolina.  It wouldn’t have meant much to him anyway.  Grandpa was a “live in the moment” fellow who would much rather play his fiddle for a dance and chase “The Golden Fleece” than deal with practical matters.

Ten years after Grandpa was born John Henry Lacer and Louiza Frances Brumfield-Lacer, also of Bucklin MO, brought Leva Mae Lacer into the world. who grew into a very fetching young lady who looked considerably more “Aryan” than Grandpa.  She preferred to be called “Lib.”  The Lacers apparently disapproved of the Carriker family or maybe they didn’t think the young Carriker boy who delighted in playing his fiddle for dances was the best “Lib” could do.  But as in most “Romeo and Juliet” cases the young lovers ignored their elders’ wishes and got married.


Arthur Benton Carriker and Leva Mae (Lib) Lacer's Wedding Photo

It soon became apparent that among other aspects of Grandpa’s “good timin’ “ ways was a well-developed libido.  Barely past nine months following their “I do’s” Grandma Carriker gave birth to a little girl.  After that she gave birth to ten more little Carrikers almost as frequently as biology allows.




Grandma "Lib" Carriker with first-born child: a Daughter named Blanche.

While being prolific at home Grandpa also found time to enjoy playing his fiddle for dances around the Bucklin area.  There is no record of what he did to earn a living for his growing family until around 1907.  Then, taking advantage of “The Free Homes Act of 1900” which provided free land to anyone who would stake a claim and stay on it for five years, he took his ever-growing family to the desolate “Panhandle” of Oklahoma.  They settled into a sod house in the general vicinity of Ft. Supply.  Grandpa’s dream had glimmered brightly enough to get him there, but once there the “Good Timin’ Man” took over.  There simply weren’t enough “good times” involved in homesteading such a desolate claim. After several months his wanderlust kicked in.  Grandma was just as ready to leave the trials of housekeeping in a sod house.  Among her many trials were the scorpions and other creepy-crawlies that occasionally dropped from the sod roof onto their beds.  She learned how to suspend sheets from the ceiling to catch them as they fell.  They stuck it out for two or three years while Grandma bore three more children.  But it was too much to bear. Grandpa traded his homestead for a much smaller parcel of land near Carrolton Arkansas.  The trade was made “sight unseen.”  Neither man seeing what he was getting.  As for what Grandpa got in the trade; my Dad said, “Pap traded a lot of nice land for a pile of rocks.

With the trade done Grandpa loaded up the wagon and headed towards the sunrise – both literally and figuratively.  He was sure that good things were waiting for him in Carrolton AR.  Grandpa knew that while Oklahoma had recently become a state it was still a place where most “law and order” was dictated by whoever was holding the gun.  Grandpa made most of the 400-plus mile trip in Kansas.  Nothing was ever written about that trip.

Once they arrived Grandpa provided for his family like any other Ozark Mountain husband and father; that is by growing what few vegetables he could in the rocky ground, raising a hog or two for butchering, keeping a cow for milk, shooting wild game and occasionally working for pay.   But happily there were dances to play for and fun-loving people to socialize with.  

A few years later Grandpa saw the “end of the rainbow” hovering over the oil fields around Ranger, Texas.  By now he was a little bored with Ozark farming and his oldest son, my Dad, was old enough (barely) and strong enough (undoubtedly) to put in a good day’s work.  The two of them packed their belongings and boarded the train for Texas.  The oil fields in that part of Texas were already “playing out” but there was lots of work for strong men who could swing a 16 pound sledge hammer all day long cutting the steel rivets that held the massive oil storage tanks together.   

Cutting those rivets was a two-man job.  One held a special kind of chisel mounted on a short handle called a “side-set” while the other drew the sledge hammer back over his shoulder and swung it down onto the face of the chisel as hard as he could.   Should the “swinger” miss his target there was a good chance that the side-set holder’s hand would be seriously injured.  The idea was that they would trade places throughout the day since swinging the sledgehammer was lots more tiring than holding the side-set.  But Grandpa was relegated to the job of holding the side-set as soon as Dad discovered that the odds were not in his favor when his dad swung that heavy sledgehammer.  Being a “holder” fit Grandpa’s talents and personality much better than swinging a heavy hammer.  For a few years they shuttled a couple of times a year between the oil fields and the “Rock Pile” in Arkansas. During one of the Texas trips Dad met and ultimately married my Mother.  A real Texas Ranger married them in Ranger, Texas.  

When the tank destruction work came to an end father and son returned to Arkansas.  The railroads were now buying ties to lay their rails upon and the woods around Carrolton were filled with trees.  Grandpa and Dad “went into the business” of making ties.   As a side-note he fathered a few more children until there were eleven Carrikers claiming “Lib” and “Bent” as their parents.  Many years later Grandpa and three of his now-grown children and their families moved to the State of Washington.  Their reason for making that move they kept to themselves.  I suspect the same siren that called him most of his life sang her song to entice him to that faraway state.

I saw Grandpa a few times in the early 1940’s when he came to Kansas to visit.  He was an old man then but he had lost none of his joy of living.  He walked several blocks to our local pool hall three or four times a week where he enjoyed his beer and undoubtedly made friends with some of the old crones who hung out there.  He took me fishing a few times.  He was a man of few words.  I don’t believe he ever lost his temper.  He was not lazy.  He always supported his family and was never abusive.   He was simply a “Good Timin’ Man” who always saw and believed in what was just over the horizon and in the value of friends.  I didn't get to know him as much as I would have liked to - but to the extent I knew him, I loved him.   He was a good man who “walked through this world hand-in-hand” with the love of his life, “Lib,” until she died suddenly in 1945.  But in many ways he would recognize himself in at least one of his grandsons.