Coupla "Ep Bridges Stories"

[herb]

One of the things that I enjoy about the Waltons, especially now that I'm rediscovering them, are the memories some of the stories, and the characters stir up.

I'm not from the same time period as the Waltons was set, although I feel it some mornings, but I did grow up in a small town in the 60s and 70s. I knew people who were very much like many of the characters.

When I was 16 and 17, I spent two summers working in an apple orchard owned by a man named George, who was very much like Ep Bridges. George was slightly shy, softspoken, never moved all that quickly, and I never heard him raise his voice the whole time I knew him. In place of Bridges' shy smile, George generally wore a grin. I thought at first George was about 60, but found out later that summer he was 75 years old when I first worked for him.

George was a widower, they'd had no children. Being alone like that, the orchard became his whole life. You could take tourists through his trees, his barns, his sorting sheds, just to show them what an orchard is suposed to look like.

Like Ep, George was very calm and deliberate. But, he also had a bit of a Doctor Frankenstein aspect. His pride and joy were his five 'Experiment Trees', around his sorting barn. Anytime he read about a new fertilizer, or grafting technique, or way to repair broken branches, he'd try it out on those 5 trees before trying it on the rest of the orchard. His favourite tree had 5 varieties of apples growing on it, all ready at different times of the year.


Apart from the orchard, George kind of let everything else slide. He was clean, so was his house, except for books and papers piled around, but he wore old clothes, and although he was quite well to do, he drove an old rusted out clunker.

Even before the apples are ready for picking, there's a lot of work to be done in an orchard. Trees have to be pruned, the budding apples have to be thinned, branches have to be propped, all sorts of things.

When I first started at the job, I wasn't very good at it. But I was trying my best, and that was enough for George and his foreman.

One day, the foreman and I were picking Quince apples. They're very early apples, grown for pies and such. Like I said, I wasn't very good, and the foreman could pick apples 3 times as fast as I could. When the van was full of baskets of apples, the foreman told me to drive it to the sorting shed, where George was waiting, so the foreman could keep picking apples.

I didn't want to, as I had only just gotten my license, and the only vehicle I'd ever driven had been my mom's car, a '73 Mercury (the same model John Candy drives in the movie 'Uncle Buck', wonderful car to drive), and had never drvien a van. But, the foreman is the foreman, so off I went, slowly and nervously.

Once I got to the sorting shed, which was on a raised patch of ground, I stopped it at the barn door. George was waiting, and we both started unloading from the back door.

I had just gotten back to the rear of the van when I suddenly realized it was moving. On its Own. I did the first thing that came to mind, which was to grab the back door and hang on to try to stop it.

Didn't work. The van rolled about 30 feet down the incline, with me hanging on to it. The only thing that stopped it was George's experiment tree. The one with 5 varieties of apples growing on it. I still remember the sound of the branches breaking, the apples hitting the ground. When the van stopped, quite suddenly, the back door slammed shut, and I slammed into the back door face first.

All I could think was "I must have left it in gear, and I'm gonna have to buy him a new van, a new tree, and I'm 16 years old, and I'm only making 2 dollars an hour". I was horrified by what had happened, and so cartain it was my fault. I slowly got up enough nerve to look up to where George was - if he had even frowned, I would have burst into tears.

Instead he was laughing so hard he couldn't talk. When he finally could talk, all he said, in the exact same way Ep Bridges would have said it, was "Well, I've been meaning to get the transmission on that van fixed for a long time. I guess now I better do it."

From then on, I would have taken a bullet for George...

The other Ep story is more of an opinion, really.

Yesterday I watched the episode 'The Hero' from season five. It's the one where Ep is reluctant to have anything to do with a memorial for WW1, and John Boy has found out Ep was awarded a whole bunch of medals.

That scene where Ep talks and John Boy listens is to me, one of the highpoints of the entire show.

Without going off on another tangent as this is getting too long, I knew a very old man who had been at Vimy Ridge in WW1. For Canadians, Vimy Ridge was a very important battle on several levels. Old Reg once told my mother and I a story fairly similar to Ep's story to John Boy about 'taking out a machine gun nest'


John Crawford's delivery of that scene hopefully got him some sort of award. He did something that was very difficult for an actor to do. He delivered that whole scene with a minimum of fuss. almost as if he sort of shut himself down as an actor and just let the words, and the writer, take over.

I've done a fair bit of amateur theatre. If I'd been handed that scene on paper and been told to play Ep, I would have done it far differently. I would have gone for the histrionics, and done the scene for me, rather than done it calmly, and for the words and the story.

I didn't remember that episode from when it was on, yesterday was basically the forst time I'd seen it. But I sure hope Crawford, writer Kathleen Hite, and director Tony Brand got the credit they deserved for that scene.


Herb

[del]

Thanks for sharing those great stories and experiences, Herb. I really enjoyed reading them.

[wetherwacky]

I just love reading stories like this. I'm sure everybody has stories like it. Great to here one of em'. An interesting character, George and Marmaduke (cough*EP).

[Ryan James]

LOL! Those are some really good stories. It brings back memories of when I first started working for my neighbor down the road. Only I ran his 4-wheeler into the back of his truck 3 times! He did the same thing Ep did, just laughed. ;D Thanks again for sharing those.

RYAN J.

[kayen78]

Those were wonderful stories. I enjoy reading stories like that. Thank you for sharing them. I hope you post more of your life stories in the future.
-Kristi

[stldan]

Characters lke Ep really help make the show for me. Despite their limited appearances, they seem genuine, like people you'd really know in your own life.

[lorijean]

Loved the stories, Herb!! Ep is one of my favorites and I agree 110% with your opinion of "The Hero" John Crawford was excellent in this Scene.

I have a very clear picture in my mind of you trying to stop that van. LOL I think it will be a good thing to remember tomorrow when I need a pick-me-up at work! ;D ;D

I remember once, my sister-in-law and I were coming back from the store and the car shut off just as we got to our driveway. The driveway had a bit of a hill at the entrance and we had the bright idea that we could just push it up the driveway!!!! Needless to say --- it didn't work. It rolled right back on us and we laughed so hard at our stupidity!!!