Frankie in Mentone, Alabama: "Welcome Home, Dad"
TEENAGE DIARIES
Produced by: Joe Richman All Things Considered (NPR)
4/7/97

Robert Siegel, host: From NPR news this is ATC. Iím Robert Siegel. .
As part of our ongoing series, "Teenage Diaries", producer Joe Richman has been giving tape recorders to young people around the country to document their lives. Today we meet Frankie Lewchuk.
Frankie is 17. He lives with his family in Mentone, Alabama. Mentone is a small town on Lookout Mountain, part of the southern Appalachians. This is Frankie's story.



FRANKIE LEWCHUK: Hi, my name is Frankie. And I'm going to give you a little tour of the outside of my house, what it's like. See, where I live you gotta come off the main road about a mile back on a dirt road. Then here's my house right here. This is a pretty old house. It's been here a while. When we first moved here, we had to move out of our other house because of the situation that happened with my father. We had to move here. And we didn't think this house was going to be worth living in because it was so messed up. The walls were all rotted out. The living room had a big hole in the wall. And there was no bathroom. And it took me and my mom about a month to fix it up. But now we're in it. And it looks like a brand new house and we're glad to be in it.

[footsteps, children talking in background]

FRANKIE: OK, now I'm going down the stairs. My sisters are back here talking on the phone. So if you hear a little noise, excuse me. And I'm going to show you a little bit on my Cadillac here. OK? That's out here in my front yard right now. My Dad, he had it when I was a baby. And he fixed it up and everything. And he kept it for me until I got 16, old enough to drive it. Now it's my car. I'm gonna open the door and let you see what I got in here.

[sound of door, engine starting]

FRANKIE: It's all red inside. The dash is all in pretty red carpet, and the seats are all carpeted and everything. We got a topper on here, a leather topper. And if you put mink oil on it, it shines it. So I got me some mink oil and I shined it up. Looks pretty good. I'm gonna get it painted this summer. It's black now. I'm getting it painted metallic purple or candy apple red.

[music from car stereo]

FRANKIE: You know, I got a big system in my car. And I like hearing bass. When I turn country on it sounds good. But whenever -- it seems like whenever I put rap in, people say they can hear me coming down the road...

[Frankie making "boom boom" sounds]

FRANKIE: You know, and I think that's pretty cool. Kind of makes me feel proud and big and bad and macho, kinda like. You know, getting to drive around in a big long nice Cadillac.

Well, I'll tell you a little bit about my personality and stuff. I wear nice -- nice jeans, nice shorts, you know. I wear Levi's. I will not wear anything if they're not Levi's to school. At home, sure, I'll wear Wrangler's and old raggedy ol' pants. But you know, I just like to look decent for school. And I like combing my hair decent and looking good. I used to be a wimp in school in the seventh and eighth grade. Nobody liked me. And they used to call me -- my name's Frankie -- and they used to call me Francis, a girl's name. They thought I was a real big wimp. But since I started playing football in the ninth and tenth grade, and all I did was get a haircut, start wearing decent clothes and play sports, and now I'm a popular person. You know, and I got good popularity in school. And I wanna keep it going that way.

[music fades under]


FRANKIE'S FATHER: What's up, bro?

FRANKIE: Nothin'.

[father strumming on guitar]

FATHER: I'm jammin', brother.

FRANKIE: My Dad used to play music, you know. And he's still got his original guitar. And every now and then he'll get it out and play 'em some songs or something. (to father) What song you fixin' to sing? About dreamin' or something?

FATHER: Hey listen to this. [begins singing] Dreamin', I'm always dreamin'. Dreamin' love will be mine. Do-dah-do-dah-do-dah-do-dah

[singing continues underneath]

FRANKIE: Well, my Dad, he's one of the guys back from the old days with his beard and holey jeans. He'll wear the same pants and shirt all the time. You know, he'll wash them. He just wears the same clothes. He buys all these junk cars -- old antique cars -- and drives old cars. Always playin' old music. Acts like it's the old days still.

FATHER (singing): Keep right on dreamin'. Keep right on dreamin', dreamin', dreamin'.

[guitar and house sounds fade to black]

[music from radio in fades into background]

FRANKIE: Me and my Dad, we go to Chattanooga every weekend up there. We get up every Saturday morning around 6:00 and get down there around 7:00. We set up our tables. They call it 23rd Street Flea Market. It's right on the street. I mean, everybody that drives by can see it.

[Frankie talking to customer in background]

FRANKIE: We have cordless telephones, answering machines, batteries, plungers, tv antennas, cassette tapes. We have pictures of Jesus, Jesus clocks, flower clocks, touch lamps. And then we have our 8 inch speakers all here in the back. So we have a lot of different things.
Working at the flea market's a good living for us 'cause if you got the right merchandise at a flea market, you can make good money. And we make enough every weekend to pay our bills, put food on the table.

[flea market sounds fade to black]

[back home on the porch, sound of crickets etc]

FRANKIE: OK, I'm gonna tell you a story about my Dad now a little bit because he wasn't here a while back. He -- my Dad, uh, I don't know how to put this to you here. I'm gonna come back up steps and sit down and talk a little bit here. OK. About 16 years ago my Dad was a professional singer. And after he got done singing one night, when he was leaving there was this guy there. My Dad was friendly to everybody, so my Dad gave him a ride. And they left and pulled out of the bar going down the street. And that guy was, you know, drunk. And he jumped over in the seat and grabbed my Dad, threw him in the floor and the car went over in the ditch, flipped over, and the guy was on top of my Dad. And he was choking the breath out of him. My Dad said the last thing he remembers is seeing the street lights down the street getting dimmer and dimmer. My Dad was a hunter. And he always carried a little buck knife with him for hunting. And he started swinging it, you know, to try to get the guy off him before he lost his life. And he started swinging it. And he cut the guy, and the guy fell out of the car door. And he told the police at the hospital that my Dad just jumped him all of a sudden and started cutting him. And they believed that guy over my Dad. And they made the sentence and they found my Dad guilty. So he was gonna get 10 to 20 years in prison. And my Dad came home and told my Mom. So they decided to pack their bags and leave. And they headed down south.



FATHER: I knew I had to go somewheres where I had no relatives where anybody would look for us. And you were a baby, you were six months old. So I took an old station wagon and a trailer and we headed south and never looked back.

FRANKIE: Me and my Mom and Dad, we were all on the run. I didn't -- I didn't have a clue. I didn't know. I just thought we were just traveling, you know.

FATHER: We stayed at campgrounds and camped. We lived in a tent when you were a baby in the middle of the winter.

FRANKIE'S MOTHER: I mean, when I think back on it now, it seems crazy. But for food, we knew a guy that owned the grocery store. And he would tell us when the meat, you know, that was out of the date into the dumpster. And after hours, I would be sticking with my feet up in the air and my head down in the big dumpster digging out hamburger meat and pork chops and anything that we could find, take it home and clean it.

FRANKIE: My Mom and Dad was on the run for 15 years. And I didn't know anything about it for 15 years. See I really didn't think it was strange because I didn't know nothin' about it.
Until one day we -- I was coming home from school. I got off the school bus. My Dad and Mom were in the kitchen fixing a waffle iron. And about 10 minutes after I got off the bus, all these cops pulled in our yard. And my Dad looked out the window and he looked at our family in the kitchen. And he said he loves us and he'll never forget us.



FATHER (on tape): Hi Mom, Frankie, Jenny, Johnny, Angel. You know I'd give everything if I could be with you tonight...
FRANKIE: This here's a tape my Dad sent from prison. On here it says: to Mommy and all my kids. I love you very much. Love, Daddy.
FATHER (on tape): Guess what, I got the guitar. And I'm sitting here back over here in my corner. It's kind of quiet except for the wind blowing. Well, this goes out to my little family.

[father playing "Unchained Melody" on the guitar]

FRANKIE: He'd play on his guitar and sing to us. And I listen to those every now and then.

[father singing: "Oh, my love, my darlin', I've hungered for your touch alone..."]

FRANKIE: When he first left, that was like him dying. I mean I was the worst out of anybody in our family. I -- I couldn't quit crying. I thought I was going to have a breakdown. You know, that's just -- after he was gone, me and my Mom would get in arguments and I'd want to run away and leave. When he left I didn't know how to crank a chainsaw. I didn't know how to use an ax or drive a straight-shift truck or run a business. I had to learn how to do that while my Dad was gone and be the man of the house because I thought I was going to have to be the man of the house, you know, for years to come.

FATHER (on tape, singing): "My love, my love." [song ends] I love you everybody.

FRANKIE: Everything's OK though now. My Dad's home to stay. He won the appeal. He came up the driveway honking the horn. Come up the driveway with our preacher. And we were all out in the yard waiting to see him. And that was the first time I'd seen him for two years. And it's just never gonna be a day I'll never forget.

[in kitchen, family talking in background]

FRANKIE (to mother): When Dad first left, did you think he'd ever come back? Or did you think he'd be in jail forever?
MOTHER: I always try to think positive all the time that Daddy would come home. And he did. I always say, you know, 16 years of our life that we lived in hell of the worries and the pressures all the time. But that dark cloud was lifted off of us. And it all -- it all has turned out for the best.

[father strumming on guitar]

FATHER: I'm free again. Don't care who hears me play or sing anymore.
[guitar picking] I'll just play a little bit of this song that I wrote about the Lincoln, Nebraska State Prison. Goes like this.

[father playing guitar]

FATHER (singing): "When man is set free from a prison that made him cold..."

[song continues underneath]

FRANKIE: It was our postmaster, I believe, that turned him in. Goes to our church. My Dad hated him for turning him in. But now, well, now it's all over. My Dad went in and shook his hand and told him thank you for turning him in 'cause now my Dad's got a driver's license. He got his GED in prison, got a diploma. There it is right there, right here on this door. It just shows him standing there in the hallway holding up his diploma in the prison there.

And people take, you know, their families for granted every day. Like tonight was the first time in a long time we've ate together at the kitchen table. Made me feel kind of good just to sit there. And looked over at my Dad and seen him sitting there, knowing that he could still be laying in a prison cell right now, me sitting there looking at that empty chair. Every night when he was gone, I'd sit over and look at that empty chair where he'd sit and just think. And now that he's there, I can look over there. And he'll sit over there and he'll smile at me, you know. I know that he's back home.

FATHER (singing): ... may make us creatures, the stone with seven eyes.

[song ends]

FATHER: Well, at least I don't have to look at no stone with seven eyes anymore. That right, Frankie?
FRANKIE: Huh? Yeah.


ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: Our story was written and recorded by 17-year-old Frankie Lewchuk, and produced by Joe Richman for the series "Teenage Diaries."

[family singing as Frankie's father plays guitar]



© 1997, Joe Richman