enough to register what was going on around him, he realized that his father( Papaw) was a drinker and could be violent when drunk. He described Mamaw as an equally violent non-drunk with a mouth that would make a sailor proud. The children learned to fend for themselves, but no matter how things continued to deteriorate at home, the family stayed together and presented a united front on their frequent trips back home to Jackson. Jimmy and Bev finished high school in Middletown and although precarious, their lives seemed good to the outside observer.
J. D. and Mamaw in 2004
J. D. learned that his mom was a good student in school. She was salutatorian of her high school graduating class but college was out of the question because she was already pregnant before graduation and insisted on marrying her boyfriend.( All we learn of him is that his last name was Lewis. He was Lindsay’ s father.) After a year of turbulent marriage which included physical abuse, Bev filed for divorce. At 19, she was a single mom. Determined to do right for her child, she planned her future as a nurse. She acquired an associate degree in nursing and seemed to be on track for some degree of success in life. In 1983 she married Don Bowman, and in 1984 J. D. was born. The Bowman family lived just up the block from Mamaw and Papaw, in Middletown. Whether this was by luck or by design we don’ t know, but it was a safety valve for Lindsay and J. D. Also, for reasons no one was able to explain to J. D., Papaw stopped drinking in 1983. He was still earning good money at Armco. He seemed determined to make up for all his shortcomings as a father and young husband, and Lindsay and J. D. would be the beneficiaries of this for as long as he remained alive.
One of the fondest memories J. D. recounts of his mother was her devotion to education.“ Nothing brought her greater joy than when I finished a book or asked for another.” He recalls her starting to work fulltime as a nurse when he was seven or eight. He recalls letting her practice drawing blood on his“ youthful veins.” According to the cultural code in southwest Ohio and the even more deeply entrenched code of the Kentucky Hillbillies, mother jokes and insults were not allowed to go unchallenged. It was Mamaw who taught J. D. how and when to fight and, as he recounts in somewhat gleeful detail, Mamaw, who had grown up in Jackson with five brothers, knew exactly what her grandson needed to know. He won his first bloody nose at five, defending his mom’ s honor. Mamaw remained his guide and counselor in all things pugilistic until he left for Marine Boot Camp at the age of 18.
Bev and Don Bowman divorced in 1985, and Bev married for the third time a couple of years later. The new husband was Bob Hamel. Around this time, J. D.’ s father Don gave him up for adoption to Bob. This included a name change. J. D. was now James David Hamel. All memory of Don needed to be erased in Bev’ s mind. The David was arbitrary but J. D. was J. D.( pronounced“ Jay-dot-Dee-dot” by
some of his great uncles) and the D had to stand for something. Bob and Bev moved their family a few blocks farther away from Mamaw and Papaw, but daily visits to his grandparents were still part of the ritual of J. D.’ s young life. Papaw became a math coach for his grandson. Life was OK until J. D. was about nine-years-old. Then came“ The Move.” Bev and Bob wanted to get away from Mamaw and Papaw. They bought a place in Preble County- Ohio farm country- approximately 35 miles from Middletown. J. D. and Lindsay were devastated and life started to unravel quickly.
To say that the Hamels were having marital difficulties was to put it mildly. Despite having substantial income, with Bob a hard-working well-paid trucker and Bev working fulltime at the local hospital, they squandered their money on expensive items they didn’ t need. Their fights turned violent, not unlike the fights that Bev herself had witnessed between her parents when she was growing up. Not only was Bev capable of the same kind of violence as Mamaw, she was drinking like Papaw. And even when sober her behavior was often erratic. She became involved with a firefighter she met at the hospital emergency room. Eventually Bob found out and confronted her. Her response was to take her new minivan and crash it in an attempt to commit suicide. No one really bought the story, especially Mamaw who, when she arrived at the hospital to find out what was going on, was apparently heard to say that it was all show. According to Mamaw, if Bev had really wanted to kill herself she just had to come over to Mamaw’ s place and take any one of her dozen or so guns.
Bob Hamel left. Steve the firefighter moved in and J. D. and Lindsay were supposed to welcome their new father figure. School became an afterthought, all semblance of family life disappeared and during one argument between the young J. D. and his mother, she forced him into her car, threatening to kill them both. Fortunately the troopers
( continued on page 22)
JANUARY 2017 21