More Fish Stories

     When I turned into a teenager at thirteen and went to work with Dad I didn't spend as much time at home. Mom was the woman in my life then, I now had an income and opted to spend some of it on Mom for Mother's Day. The thing Mom wanted was a one day fishing permit, two dozen minnows and me to take her to the creek to fish for crappie.
     The Saturday night before Mother's Day Dad would stop at a bait shop where I would buy a one day fishing permit and two dozen minnows. When we got home I would place the minnows under a dripping outside water faucet in hopes of keeping them alive till the next morning. Come the crack of dawn we would grab our gear and walk down to the creek about a quarter mile away and fish until the bait ran out. We usually caught some fish which I would clean when we got home and Mom and I would eat later.
     I kept up this practice for the next five years when I went into the Navy, when I returned I started back with Linda joining us but the family was getting bigger and life more hectic, the fishing trips just came to an end.



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     I was a shop supervisor for a company in 2005, Rick, the purchasing manager was an avid fisherman who had recently gotten into fishing for Redfish in Louisiana. He told anybody who would listen all about the great fishing in a little town called Jean Lafitte, La.. After a while he wanted to put together a trip and asked if I wanted to go along, Linda said I could so we made plans. The date we set was a weekend in late August 2005. Rick's boat was a 19 footer and could easily fish three people so Rick invited Russ who was a supplier, the trip was a go.
     The day arrived, we all met at Rick's house after work on a Wednesday night, we loaded up and hit the road by about 6:30 and for the next ten hours we were on the road. We arrived about four in the morning and met up with Chris a guy Rick had met on a previous trip, Chris lived in Baton Rouge and kept a fish camp of sorts in Jean Lafitte. Chris had a co-worker with him, they had been fishing for a couple of days. After rubbing the sleep from their eyes and downing a cup of coffee they were ready to go so we loaded up in their boat and headed for Grand Isle.
     We were going after the "Bull Reds" as they were called, Bull Reds were the mature Redfish who came in yearly to spawn in the shallow waters, they usually weighed in at twenty five to fifty plus pounds and took fifteen to twenty minutes to land one on the same rod we used for catching three pound bass in Georgia.
     Grand Isle was about forty miles by water, we started out in the dark but the sun was up when we got there and anchored down in twelve feet of water about a quarter mile from shore. Chris got Rick, Russ and I baited up and our lines in the water then he and his co-worker sat back and watched the fun. It didn't take long before the fish took the bait, I can't remember who hooked up first but it wasn't long till all three of us had a fish on at the same time. All of a sudden the 19 foot boat felt real small.
     I can't remember the name they had for it, Redfish Trot, Louisiana Two Step or whatever but we were doing it. All three of us had a Bull on the line at the same time and the fish went in all directions trying to get away. As we walked around the boat with our lines crossing and having to duck under each other Chris and his friend sat back and watched, laughing their butts off the whole time. The first half hour found us showing off our catch to the camera, it was determined that my fish was the biggest and weighed in about thirty pound. After catching one more each we headed back as Chris had to go home.
     Once Chris left we launched Rick's boat and headed out again to closer fishing grounds. Having been up since about 6:00 am the previous day we called it a day about 6:00 pm. Rick started cleaning the fish we caught as Russ and I watched and that's when it happened, Rick sliced his hand open with the knife and it definitely needed stitches.
     I loaded up Rick and took him into town to find a doctor, we found one but they said the cut was more than they could handle and sent us to the emergency room about ten miles down the road. To make a long story short, we were at the emergency room for about three hours, we had not eaten since the night before and had been awake since about 6:00 am the day before. We stopped off at Mc Donalds on the way back and picked up food for us and Russ, we ate and went to bed.
     The next day the talk was about a hurricane called Katrina wondering around the gulf. The locals seemed concerned about Katrina but we fished all day then headed to New Orleans for dinner. Rick and Russ decided to take in some of the sights after dinner. They took them in alright, having been to New Orleans before I waited in the truck, it was about four in the morning when they staggered back and I had to drive back to the camp.
     It is now Saturday morning, Rick and Russ are sleeping off the night before. I awoke about Nine and watched the news, the big story again was Hurricane Katrina still swirling around in the Gulf still a couple hundred miles away but definitely getting closer, the wind had picked up and was quite brisk. When Rick and Russ got up I pointed out that this storm was going to present a problem for us. Rick's answer to that was "oh no that storm is still a long way off and they don't know where it's going, let's go fishing".
     We went to the gas pumps and started filling the tank when the attendant came out to tell us a mandatory evacuation order had been issued, again Rick thought the people were crazy so we headed out for Grand Isle.
     When you come into Grand Isle you go under a wooden bridge, the marina is to the left and the pass is straight ahead and a little to the left is the Gulf of Mexico. As we came under the bridge I could see a white  line at the pass, I pointed it out to Rick and he wondered what it was I told him it was surf and it was not supposed to be there. When we got to the surf line there were rolling swells a good six feet tall and where we were fishing two days before was some of the meanest looking ocean I had ever seen.
     We did get the anchor to hold but the fish were probably running from Katrina like we should have, the people at the Grand Isle marina were packing up but fed us anyway then we headed back. The trip back was rough because the waves were running about three feet, there wasn't a dry spot in the boat. When we got back to the marina we loaded up for our trip back to Atlanta, Rick was still amazed that the people were in such a tizzy about the hurricane but the fish quit biting and businesses were closing, it was time to go.
     Leaving New Orleans we were rerouted through Jackson, Mississippi, it was a long drive and we didn't get home until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Katrina in the mean time made landfall in Grand Isle. Monday morning Katrina was all Rick could talk about, as he watched the news feed on the computer he would say how we were lucky to have left when we did.
     The devastation to the New Orleans area was enormous but we were back the next spring doing our bit for the area's economy.



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     Not long after returning from the Katrina trip, I purchased a boat, it was a 19 foot bay boat powered by a 150 hp Johnson engine. What at first started out to be an annual trip to Jean Lafitte soon turned into two trips per year, we pulled two boats down and fished three people per boat.
     The trips often were notable for some of the things that happened as much as for the fish we caught.
     To start the fishing waters around Jean Lafitte were some of the most bountiful I have ever seen but the most bountiful thing in Jean Lafitte was the "mosquitoes", there were probably ten billion per person. The night time was worse than the daytime, if you didn't have a strong breeze blowing then you walked around slapping at every part of your body, they could even bit through the clothing. When you were on the water it wasn't so bad as long as you stayed out from the shore line.
     Then there was the wild life, some of which you never saw and probably didn't want to. Every now and then we would run across an alligator, we new they were there but the only ones we saw were the young ones - four to five feet long. The gators stayed just out of reach but they were curious of us and would drift in closer, I always seemed to have someone on my boat that thought it was fun to antagonize the gator by casting his spinner bait at them. After awhile even gators will get testy and snap at the thing that bothers them, then you have a tug of war on your hands.
     One guy that was with me hooked a gator in his front foot and reeled him along side the boat then looked at me and said "now what do I do" , I handed him a knife to cut his line. The next guy who caught one actually hooked him in the mouth when the gator snapped at the lure, when he got the gator to the boat he asked the same question, when I told him to cut the line he complained because the gator had his lure so I told him that it was my boat and my rule was there would be no gators on board. I probably should have let him bring it aboard just to see what would happen.
     Then there was one trip where Russ and his son were on my boat, we followed Chris down to Grand Isle for the Bulls. It was a little rough that day as we had to sit down to fight the fish most of the time but we were having a good time and catching fish. At one point I was fighting a decent sized fish, Russ and his son were watching me when my fish made a pass along side the boat and we could see that he was being followed by another fish. Russ's son had his line out of the water with the bait hanging over the side of the boat, when he saw the second fish he dropped the bait in the water and the second fish attacked it, now we had two fish on.
    After Russ's son landed his fish he baited up and tossed his bait out, it wasn't long till he got a bite and the fight was on but it was very one sided. I think you should know that we fished with thirty pound test braided line that I swear couldn't be broken with fifty pounds of pull. Anyway Russ's son hooked his fish and it took off heading out to sea, the drag on his reel was singing and the fish wouldn't slow down, it just kept going till the knot tying the line to the spool snapped. Somewhere there was a fish of unknown size swimming around with 150 yards of braided line trailing behind him.
     About fifteen minutes later I hooked what I thought was the great grandfather of all Redfish, He put up a damn good fight , twice he headed out to sea but I turned him around, he stayed just about thirty yards out swimming back and forth, I slowly worked him in closer to the boat. After about fifteen minutes, as a wave moved in towards the boat I saw a flash of silver in the wave which was strange because redfish were a bronze color. The fish kept fighting, Russ and his son just sat there and watched wondering what I had, finally the fish went under the anchor line and got on the back side of the boat. The fish was tiring and so was I when he went under the boat, I pulled him back and was able to get his head up and there it was - a shark. This sucker was about five to six feet long, the only reason I was able to bring him in was that the hook was wedged in his teeth so he couldn't cut the line. Russ looked at me and asked what we were going to do, I handed him a knife and told him to take a picture and cut the line sharks were not allowed on my boat.


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     The above trip proved to be the most exciting one yet. Come Sunday morning we loaded up and headed out of town on the long trip back to Atlanta. Russ and his son were in my truck, Rick and two other guys were in his truck behind us. Rick had traded boats, he now had a small shallow water boat with an aluminum trailer.
     So here we were leaving town, I was in the lead  when we came upon a two lane bridge over a small canal. Just as I was about to go over the top a truck just like mine came at me so close that his mirror hit mine and banged it into my window, he kept going. When I got out I saw my boat was riding high on the trailer and both axles were bent. Rick on the other hand had been hit on the side of the truck bed and his boat, he ran off the road but not before his boat was knocked into someones yard and pieces of his trailer were scattered all over the place.
     The driver of the other truck lost his left front wheel complete with ball joints but that didn't stop him, his truck was balanced on three wheels as he drove home without stopping. The police found him trying to figure out how he was going to put his spare tire on. Turns out the guy had left church high on painkillers.
     Yep, that was one hell of a fishing trip.


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     I am not big on technology, only over the last few years have I gotten my feet wet with a computer, I am still confronted daily with things that boggle my mind. It never ceases to amaze me how much people have come to depend on the constantly changing technology that the world seems to depend on.
     Rick had a depth / fish finder on his boat that was equipped with GPS, the location of every fish he had caught since he had bought the boat was marked on the system and cataloged with a name for each location - one even bears my name. Rick is one of those people highly dependent on technology, he had the latest cell phone and computer and a GPS in his vehicles as well as his boat.
     When we were on the Katrina trip Chris had given Rick the coordinates for Grand Isle so we could find our way back there later on. I had watched when we went to Grand Isle early that morning, it seemed pretty simple to me, go down the channel to the green marker number 34 then turn south west, after a while you will see a water tower on the horizon, Grand Isle is to the left but this just makes me old school.
     That Saturday afternoon when we left Grand Isle heading back to Jean Lafitte was rough, the waves were running a good two to three feet and bouncing us around real good. Katrina was still some ways off but she was already raising hell. All of a sudden Rick stopped the boat and started fiddling with the GPS, seems it had gone out  from the rough ride. Rick was frantic as he tried to bring the system back on line, he said if he didn't bring the GPS back up then we were lost. I told him all we had to do was keep going in a northwesterly direction until we hit the marked channel then turn north. He finally fixed the problem and we took off, once we hit the channel and turned north he said it was lucky he got the GPS working, he said he didn't know how people found their way around before GPS.
     I told Rick that not too long ago mariners used compasses and charts, worse case they paid attention to landmarks such as trees on the shore line, rocks sticking out of the water or  shapes on the horizon and at night they traveled by the stars. Did us old school folks get lost from time to time, well yes but when we did but we didn't tell anyone we just called it exploring new territories



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    When my boat was repaired and ready to pick up I got a guy I worked with, named Terry, to go with me to get it. Of course as long as we were going to be in the area it would be ashamed to not wet a line so after picking up the boat and settling in to our room we launched the boat and went looking for redfish. Well we didn't find any fish so we went back to our room and met up with a guide who told us the wind had been blowing from the north for several weeks and blew a foot of water back into the gulf along with all of the redfish but we could follow them to a good trout hole the next morning if we wanted.
     The next morning we got up and slowly cruised down the channel as we pondered our problem. My thought was, if the wind blew the fish and water south the we needed to go south to find the fish so off we went. About fifteen miles down the channel we found a grass island that looked good so we checked it out. At first the fishing was slow but then it picked up as we went farther into the group of grass islands. There were redfish every where, they were feeding against the banks with half their backs out of the water, there were groups of three, four, or five and they were hungry.
     By lunch time we had caught somewhere around thirty fish between us, each of them were at least six plus pounds. Terry was fishing from the back of the boat when I heard the drag on his reel going crazy, I looked back and saw him holding his rod up high and reeling like crazy. I watched Terry as he fought what he said was the biggie. The water in the grass islands was at most about eighteen inches deep so the fish could not go deep he had to go out and he was big enough that you could follow his path by the disturbed water. Twice the fish pulled out all but a few feet of line from his reel forcing me to chase the fish down with the trolling motor. When Terry finally got the fish to the boat we saw it was a Bull Red about thirty pounds.
     We had two and a half good days of fishing and we spent them at the same group of grass islands. We lost count but figured we caught over one hundred redfish  but by the time we got to work on Monday morning the total rose somewhat due to "fisherman's prerogative".







 




























   


   

My first Job

     Like any young kid I wanted things that cost money but money was not easy to come by in the 1950's . Unlike some kids I did not get an allowance although sometimes an Uncle or Grandparent would slip me a nickle or dime to buy candy. Brother Pat and I tried mowing lawns , we would get $5.00 for a lawn but Dad stopped us when it cost him money replacing blades and other repairs to the mower. We sometimes collected coke bottles and turn them in for their deposit of three cents each.
     My big chance came when Dad got me a job as a sack boy at C&S Food Store where he worked. Everything was new to me and as Dad's son I had to be on my P's & Q's. Basically I worked weekends, holidays, and school vacations, I was paid fifty cents an hour. I rode to work with Dad, worked till he was done then rode home with him except for occasional side trips to Grady's place on the river.
     My primary job was to bag groceries at the checkout counter, back then we had only paper bags and customers were picky about how the groceries were put into the bag. Don't make the bags to heavy for the women, be sure the bread is on top, and double bag all items that might generate moisture and fall through the bag.
     When things were slow I was taught to stock the shelves, put out fresh produce, restock the dairy case with eggs and milk, I also unloaded and checked in new stock then learned to run the cash register - the old kind with all of the buttons that had to be individually punched. I had to know how to do math ( in my head ), how much one can of peas cost when the price was three cans for sixty six cents and when the customer handed me thirty dollars to pay their bill of twenty three dollars and forty eight cents and the machine didn't tell me how much change to give, I had to figure that myself.
     This was my first real exposure to the adult world and working side by side with adults and dealing with the general public. I worked with some great people, met and even got to know some real characters of the general public.
     The owner of the store was a guy named Pat Sanford, he was the "S" in C&S, I never met the "C". Everybody called him Pat, he was a veteran of WWII, I understood that he was in B-17 bombers in Europe and had to bail out at one point. He broke both of his arms in the bail out and they never set right so he walked around unable straighten his arms.
     Charlie was in charge of the stock, he made up the stock orders each week then restocked the shelves, he was also the assistant manager. Charlie wood come to work every day wearing a suit with bow tie and fedora hat, he would go into the back room and remove his jacket and hat put on a white apron and a paper hat which was supplied by Colonial Bread and had their name on it, the hat was shaped like the ones soldiers wore. Charlie was very mild mannered and had a beautiful wife named Mamie.
     Wayne and Dickie were two guys in their early twenties, Wayne started in produce and Dickie started in stock. These two guys were best buddies, when work was over for the day they left together and went on double dates together, got drunk together and came in the next morning hung over together. Dad took a liking to both of them, they became his fishing and drinking buddies, the three of them seemed to get into some sort of mischief  on a daily basis. Dad trained both of them to be butchers and they were quite good.
     As with any business there were employees who would start work but wouldn't last too long. One of these was a butcher who was Dad's assistant, his name was John. John was quite the character, in addition to being a good butcher he would spend his off time fishing for turtles, actually fishing is really not the correct term, he didn't use a rod and reel he used his bare hands.
     When the streams and creeks were swollen and overflowing with muddy rain water the turtles would crawl head first into holes in the banks and wait for calmer waters. John would come along and stick his hand in the hole and grab the turtle by the tail, pull it out and throw it on the bank. Most of the turtles were snapping turtles that could easily chew a boat paddle in half  but there were some soft shell turtles also. John would butcher the turtles and eat the meat which everybody says taste like chicken .
     John gained notoriety when the local newspaper ran a story about him complete with pictures. There was John standing in front of his fireplace with eight to ten highly polished shells hanging above the mantel, they ranged in size from six to eight inches in diameter with the largest being at least two feet in diameter.
     I never knew why but John didn't last too long, he was fired, rumor was he stole steaks and other meat products.
     Then there were the customers, they came in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life, some were steady customers while others just happened to stop by on their way to wherever.
     Elmer Craig was a Major in the Tennessee State Patrol, was the only Major in the Tennessee State Patrol, he was also the Governors body guard and went everywhere with him. Back then Governors could hold the office for one term then step down and wait for the next Governor to finish his term so they could run again. There were two Governors who held the office in that manor for some years, when Elmer's Governor got into office Elmer would take over the bodyguard position as a Major, when the other governor was in office Elmer would be sent back to patrol duty as a Captain.
     When the Governor was in town Elmer would stop in and have Dad cut several T-Bone steaks two inches thick for a barbecue at the Governor's mansion. Elmer retired as a Major a few years later and went to work at a bank where I went to work, a few years after that he committed suicide, we never knew why. An intersection at Lebanon Rd. and Stewarts Ferry Pike is now called the Elmer Craig Memorial Intersection.
     There was this Lady who was one of Dad's customers, she had been doing business with him for years, nobody could cut meat for her but Dad. She was a caterer and would fill two grocery carts with food for her catering jobs. Every year for as long as Dad worked for C&S she would bake him the most delicious coconut cake, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without one. Linda developed her taste for coconut cake when she lived with my parents while I was in Vietnam, her taste for coconut cake continued til her passing.
     There was this one customer who would come into the store every now and then even though he had been told to never come back. The guy was a little strange, sorta nerdy looking. He would walk into the store, pull a grocery bag from a checkout stand and start walking around filling the bag with groceries he would then walk out the front door without paying. He was caught several times and even turned over to the police but he kept coming back. Ya gotta admire his perseverance.
     Late Friday and Saturday nights brought out all kinds of strange people, people we would see during the week as ordinary often became extraordinary on Saturday night. The store had posted hours of operation but Pat wasn't one to pass up a dollar so as long as there were customers in the store we were open. It was strange to see men and women stagger in about three sheets in the wind smelling like a brewery on Saturday night then see these same people dressed in all their finery on their way to Mass at the Catholic Church behind the store on Sunday morning. No need to worry though, after confession, three Hail Mary's and four Our Father's they were ready for a new week. This not to say that such behavior on Friday and Saturday nights was solely a Catholic thing, there were some Baptist, Methodist and Church of Christ mixed in also.
     There was a young boy of about eight or nine who came in several times one summer and bought ice cream for himself and a friend, he paid for them with Indian Head Pennies which were rare and collectible. Who ever was on the register recognized the pennies and quickly swapped them for the Wheat Pennies of the day. One day a man came in to talk to Pat about his son who was buying ice cream with Indian Head Pennies, He begged Pat to please get the pennies and hold them, turns out the boy was his son and had been into Dad's coin collection.
     People would come into the store and gather up several items in their hands then discover they didn't have enough hands or Moms found out that one of their little ones had placed something in the cart that was not needed so they would stick  these unwanted items wherever they could find a spot. We were always finding things out of place. One night a man and his wife or girlfriend came in, the man was not in a good mood and at some point the lady had picked up a half gallon of milk. When the man saw the milk he was for some reason upset, instead of taking the milk back to the dairy case he just grabbed it and threw the carton in the air, it landed in the meat case and burst. Dad's assistant John was manning the meat dept that night and got so ticked off he started yelling and the couple ran out of the store. Milk in the meat case made a hell of a mess.
     My first time in the adult world was quite an experience , I learned a lot which I feel helped me later. I guess the first job was sorta like the big fish, first date, first kiss - some things you just don't forget.




   



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Parenting 101

     Being the oldest child in a family of five kids turned out to be an education in parenting skills. I was often told that being the oldest it was my responsibility to make sure that my siblings didn't get into any trouble and that they made it to the dinner table alive and in one piece. This was at times a monumental task bordering on impossible but I did learn a few things that came in handy when my own kids came along. Linda had similar experiences as her youngest sister was fifteen years younger than her, I know she did such things as changing diapers, bathing and taking little sister Vickie on outings. All of these things would eventually come into play when we FINALLY started having kids of our own.
     Linda and I wanted children from the start but try as much as we did it just didn't happen within the time frame we had hoped for. I was told, at one point, that my chances of fathering children was extremely low so we gave up and decided that we would direct our affections towards children belonging to friends and relatives. We tried taking in a young boy from a Catholic agency, we thought  there was a possibility for an adoption but it turns out we were sharing this boy with his father and siblings. Adoptions in those days were more difficult than they are today but the reality of it all was that I had a problem taking on someone else's child.
     We moved on with our life, I accepted my fate but Linda persevered, her clock was ticking and she had a lot of love to give to a child. We moved to Florida in 1978, in a way we started over again, new home, new jobs, new friends - new life. It wasn't long till Linda was looking into adoption and we kept trying to get one of those seventy five million sperm cells to take hold. Maybe it was the bright sunshine, the fresh orange juice, the ocean breezes or whatever, I don't know but what ever it was it worked. Linda got pregnant and Danny was born in July 10, 1980 followed two years later by Clay born August 24, 1982, we were a family and I was scared to death.
     Now we had to raise these two little bundles of joy without the help of family. What we did have was memories of growing up - what was good and what was not so good, we had been watching friends and even family for thirteen years  so we got to pick what we thought were the best things for raising kids.
     When Clay was born I was already in the process of transferring cross country and was about to get busy for the next few years. I did what I could but the bulk of the credit for how the boys turned out goes to Linda, this is not to say that either of us did everything right all the time.
     Not long after Danny was born Linda was holding a full time job as well as being a full time mother and full time wife. One day Linda got in the car to go grocery shopping, she made it about a mile down the road when she realized she had a baby and he was still in his bed at home. I on the other hand had a hard time keeping him alive when left alone with him, Linda was afraid to leave the house without taking Danny with her. I tried and I guess I got an "A" for effort but until the boys were old enough to understand that Dad was only good for bringing home a paycheck  Mom had the final say. This is not to say that Linda didn't screw up.
     There was the time in California when she had taken the boys on an outing, Danny got to be pretty rowdy and by the time they were on the way home he was on her last nerve, she stopped the car on the interstate and told Danny to get out and walk home. I can't remember what exactly happened but Linda either drove off and left him standing there or she made him walk in front of her for a ways until one of them calmed down. Either way she did bring him home in one piece and he learned that when Mom says to stop  irritating her you better stop.
     Then there was the time that Linda thought we should spend the day at the zoo in San Francisco, I had been traveling for a couple of weeks and we needed some quality time as a family - great idea. The boys were excited, Saturday morning came, we loaded up the car and headed for the "City By The Sea". The boys were in the back seat and as young kids will often do, an argument ensued about who was encroaching on whose side, Linda told them to calm down then I told them to just shut up. Next it was Clay who started fidgeting by swinging his feet, this resulted in his kicking the back of my seat, the first time I told him to quit, the second time I told him to quit. The third time I told him if he didn't quit I would turn around and go home, the next exit was for Davis, Ca. about fifteen miles from home, I took it. Clay promised to be good but it was too late he needed to know that Dad meant what he said. Once we got home I told them that maybe we would try again next week, when next Saturday came I reminded the boys of last weeks problems, there were no issues this time.
     When Danny was turning thirteen it was even money who was going to do him in first, his teachers or his mother, the boy was a hand full. His teacher told Linda he was a social butterfly and often ignored his studies which drove Linda up a wall, he would do his work but then forget to turn it in. He was playing ball at school and Linda told him if his grades didn't improve he would have to quit the team. Danny told her that the school rules would allow him to play  ball even though he was flunking a couple of subjects, Linda told him her rules were he would not be playing ball if he flunked any subject.
     The boys learned from an early age that Mom was the ruling factor and when she said "no" there was no need to ask again. Linda had a favorite saying "because I'm the Mom", it meant that she had the final say and the responsibility.
     She loved her sons and was as protective as an old "she bear". She took her job seriously, when counselors at school thought they were doing a good thing shooting for Clay to get an "I was there diploma" she refused to let him settle for second place. She worked with Clay and the teachers, it wasn't easy for either of them but the outcome made her proud.
     There were things that we told ourselves we would or wouldn't do. We would never use belts, switches or shouting as punishment. We allowed the boys to try anything and never force them into something they didn't want to do. We vowed that as they got older they would be allowed to make their own decisions, we would be glad to offer advice only if they asked. We tried to raise the boys to be independent, we would be there for them if they needed us.
     Overall I think we did a good job raising the boys, they made good grades and didn't get into any trouble, they both had and still have good friends who will be with them for life. We must have made the right choices but as I keep telling people it was Linda who went above and beyond, it wasn't easy and at times she worked harder at her job as a mother than I did at bringing home the paycheck.
   
























   

The Character

     Linda's Dad was a man of many, let's say, moods, just about the time you have had enough of one mood he ups and changes direction, he was quite the character and all about family - when he wasn't thinking about himself.


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    Once back in the 70's he and Mom were visiting us in Nashville, we had been out somewhere and were returning home, it was a beautiful day and because we didn't have air conditioning in our car the windows were down. Dad was riding shotgun as we passed a golf course loaded with golfers. There was a guy on the tee, next to the road, getting ready to swing when Dad slaps the side of the car and yells out  "FORE", for those who don't know, this is a warning that a ball may be headed your way so you should quickly duck out of the way. The golfer who was teeing off was starting his swing when Dad yelled, he missed the ball and everybody with him ducked. Dad was in one of his juvenile moods as he heartily laughed his head off - to him it was a great joke.


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     Another visit took place the week of Christmas about 1975 or 1976. The weather in Tennessee during December is often unpredictable, that year it  was very nice with highs in the low sixties and lows in the forties - light jacket weather for the natives.
    We lived out by the lake then, Mom Dad and Vickie came up from Florida to spend the holidays with us. We were all over the place that week even went for a boat ride. Dad was dressed in layers and constantly wore a football jacket, everywhere he went he complained about how cold it was to anybody who would listen. I had just installed a fireplace and had about two  cords of firewood, Dad kept a fire burning all of the time and even wore his jacket in the house. By the end of the week he had gone through a cord. Ironically, the day we took them to the airport the temperature dropped and it was spitting snow. The temperature continued to drop and New Years Eve it went below zero and stayed there, for two months Linda and I drove to work on a sheet of ice.



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     When we lived in Inglewood Dad came into town for a short visit, Linda and I worked for banks in downtown Nashville and had to dress the part. We lived in a section of town serviced by the metropolitan bus line which Linda used when I wasn't in town.
     Dad liked to brag about all kinds of things, how many fish he caught, how much money he made or about the joke he played on his brother Raymond by writing him a bad check. One of the things he liked to brag about was how cheaply he could outfit himself at flea markets in Florida, white T-shirts for .25 cents, sport shirts for .50 cents and slacks for a couple of dollars, even shoes and coats, he could buy an entire trousseau for twenty dollars.
     Dad took notice that neither of us owned an overcoat, never mind that we didn't want one. He told us about all of the bargains at the flea markets in West Palm Beach, the northerners or Yankees as we called them retired to Florida and brought with them all of their worldly possessions which they soon discovered they either didn't need, want or have room for so they sold these items in the local flea markets.
     Not long after Dad returned home we received a box  from him - it contained a full length overcoat for Linda and one for me. The coats were made of wool and very good quality  at least when they were made in the 1940's. Not long after the coats arrived Dad called to asked if they had arrived, he bragged that he bought them for $3.00 apiece. The coats were way out of style, heavy and itchy so we wound up donating them to a homeless shelter. It was easy to keep the donation a secrete from Dad as he didn't often visit during the winter.



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     Dad's brother Raymond owned a bottled gas company that was once owned by their father. In the mid 1970's Dad bought the Interlochen, Fla location, sold the house in Cocoa and moved Mom and Vickie in to run it while he stayed in West Palm. The operation barely made money if ever and then Mom pulled ten to fifteen percent off the top to give to the church every week. There was a very large gas tank that held a supply of gas to operate with, when it ran low it had to be refilled but Mom seldom had the money to pay. Dad would call Raymond to refill the tank, Raymond would require the money for the gas on delivery and Dad would tell him the check was in the mail or send him a check that was no good, for both of them it was a matter of cash flow. He would eventually make good on the money but in the mean time he thought it was funny that he stiffed his brother.


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     Danny was Dad's first grandchild and one would think that he would be proud and want to see his grandson as much as possible, well Danny was several months old before Dad showed up at the house. It wasn't that he couldn't come up to North Florida, on the contrary Dad drove with in a mile of the house every week on his way to Jacksonville and two days later he drove the same route back to West Palm. He would even call our house on the handheld radio he kept in his truck but he was always too busy to stop.
     Years later the boys wanted to spend time with their Grandfather so Linda let them go. They each had similar experiences, Dad would take them to visit Eileen and leave them for a day or two or pawn them off on his girlfriend overnight or with some other relative or friend. The boys wanted to spend time with him but he had time for every thing but them. After Clay spent a week  Dad asked him, in front of Linda, if he had a good time with his Grandpa - Clay answered in true Clay form "I don't know, you  kept taking me to visit people and left me with them". When Linda found out that Dad left Clay with her cousin Wayne who was usually high on drugs she never again trusted Dad alone with the boys.


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     Dad had a nephew named Wayne. Wayne's father had died about the time Linda and I were dating, Dad had a strange sense of family loyalty and felt that he needed to take care of  Wayne. Wayne on the other hand took advantage of Dad every chance he got  - Wayne was a drug addict.
     Dad took Wayne and his wife to West Palm and put them to work, the wife was an excellent employee an asset to the company. Wayne spent more time in search of drugs or the funds to buy them. Dad complained about Wayne constantly so I asked why he put up with him and Dad said because Wayne was his dead brothers son and his responsibility. Wayne never changed, he died in a drug deal gone bad several years later.


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      Memories come from many different places, I was just watching an old John Wayne movie that had a scene from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Linda would tell the story about how she fell in a hole in Jackson Hole.
     Back in the late fifties and early sixties Linda's Dad worked for one of the companies that supported the construction of the missile silos that were a part of the nations defense system. Dad was in the supply department and they traveled all over the western states from one state or town to another, Dad used these moves to see the sights one of which was Jackson Hole. While they were touring Jackson Hole Linda stepped into or fell into an open manhole and skinned her leg. She was too young to remember the circumstances but she knew her Dad was pissed at the city and threatened them somehow, he settled when the city paid for the medical bill plus fifty dollars, she was ticked because it was her leg that was injured but Dad kept the money.
     This ties into another story along these lines.  The night we got engaged Dad was not too enthusiastic about gaining a son - in - law and tried to talk us out of it - he lost that battle. I was hitchhiking back and forth to the base and Linda's house so this night Mom decided Dad should drive me back to the base, Linda went along. The next day Linda told me Dad kept up his opposition of our engagement on the way back home, he had hopes that when Linda graduated from high school she would get a job and help support the family.
     Yep Dad was all about the family !


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     Dad and I seemed to rub each other the wrong way at times, we had different views towards life that often clashed. His views on family often ran contrary to my own and we had words to that effect several times, I think we tolerated each other because of Linda and in many ways we were a disappointment to each other. I was never quite good enough for his daughter and he, in my opinion, missed the mark as a father.
     All of this came to an end when he lay in bed in a VA hospice facility, every weekend Linda and I drove to Florida to see him. Linda hovered over him like the dutiful daughter she was, I generally stayed out of the way and was often sitting in a chair reading a book. He was a character to the end, the African American nurses and orderlies he held in such disdain because of their race were now the sweetest and best people he ever met.
     The biggest surprise came the last time we saw him, I was sitting in a chair in his room reading a book as Linda stood by his bed and talked to him, I heard him say " Mike has really turned out to be a good husband for you and I'm happy for you".
     Dad was sometimes hard to figure out alright.
   

The Mouse That Ate The Cake

     Linda had a sweet tooth especially for cakes and cookies, even when it was just the two of us she would make a cake for the weekend and the cookie jar was always full. Back in those days we were in our twenties and our calorie intake was much higher than when we hit our fifties and sixties and Linda was not diabetic then either.
     She made chocolate chip cookies, two layer carrot cake, pan carrot cake and at Christmas time she made an assortment of sugar cookies decorated with colored sprinkles or jellies. We ate these delicacies for desert with ice cream, we ate them with ice cream late at night, the cookies we just grabbed by the handful every time we passed the cookie jar. Two dozen cookies lasted a couple of days and a cake would go for three to four if we didn't share with friends.
     After the kids came along there was even more reason for cookies and cakes, the boys soon learned all about the contents of a cookie jar, as they got older their friends knew where the cookie jar was and two dozen cookies wouldn't make it through the day. They were limited to two or three cookies at a time but they took it to mean per hand.
     About the time Linda turned fifty she developed diabetes and had to watch her sugar intake, giving up the chocolate chip cookies didn't pose that big of a problem but giving up cake was another thing. She had developed a taste for peanut butter chocolate chip cake cooked in a pan. The pan had a top on it, I would cut a two or three inch square as a serving portion, Linda on the other hand had to eat smaller portions if any at all. I would look into the pan and there would be a small piece maybe three quarters to one inch square missing, a little while later I would look again and another small square was missing. When I asked Linda what was going on she would tell me that a mouse must have ate the cake.
     When MJ came along one of the first things I taught her was what was in the cookie jar, she was a two fisted cookie eater.
     I never did catch that mouse but then he didn't eat that much so I didn't mind.
 

Big Ideas

     Linda's Dad was quite a character, he didn't think like everybody else, in many ways he never grew up but most of the time he was just self centered and egotistical, at least that is my opinion. The man was different from anybody I ever knew and it took me a while to get used to him. He was civic minded  and belonged to every civic organization in the county. His head was full of ideas that would make us all millionaires, life in general better but many of his ventures into money making deals didn't always pan out.
     To start with, Dad was very civic minded and was instrumental in organizing many of the civic clubs in Cocoa and Merritt Island, Fla. One of the clubs he helped to organize was a Ham Radio Club. Dad was a radio operator in the Navy during the war and became an Amateur Ham Radio Operator when he got out. He had a tall antenna erected in his back yard and two large radios set up in his garage, he would spend hours in his garage talking to people around the world about things as important as the weather in New Zealand.
     One of the civic responsibilities the club had was to help out with communications in case of disasters like  hurricanes. Needing to stay sharp with their radios they would spend a couple of Saturdays a month playing a game called "A Rabbit Hunt". The object of this game was that one car load of guys would go out somewhere in town and hide, they would broadcast a short signal every few minutes, they were the rabbit. The hunters, another car load of guys, would ride around town listening for short signals which would help them triangulate the rabbit's position and ultimately it's hiding spot. This is where Dad's strange sense of humor showed up, the rule was that the rabbit had to sit still until the hunters found it but Dad cheated by moving around every now and then thus preventing the hunters from getting a good fix on his position. When Dad told stories about the rabbit hunts he would damn near fall over laughing.

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     Dad was a fisherman and went whenever he could find the time. One weekend when Linda and I were dating he took the family to Crystal River on Florida's Gulf Coast to visit his brother Billy. We went out in Billy's boat to some grass flats to fish for trout. Once on the flats we started fishing for bait fish to cut up for bait, this is when Dad gave me one of his rods and reel to fish with. The first thing I noticed was the bail on the spinning reel was missing, I thought it was broken and commented about it. Turns out the reel was not broken, Dad had one of his great ideas to improve on something that didn't need improving so he removed the bails on all of his reels. Now instead of the turning  bail  picking up the line you had to use your finger as a hook to pick up the line and guide it to the spool. Dad was so pleased with his latest invention he couldn't wait to find out what I thought about it. I could tell that Billy didn't think much of Dad's idea he would shake his head and smile, he even offered me one of his rods. Dad kept after me to tell him what I thought  so I looked at Billy who was smiling, he told me to go ahead and tell Dad what I thought so I turned to Dad and said that I thought he screwed up a good reel, my language was a little more colorful and Billy nearly busted a gut laughing.
     Fishermen the world over are thankful this idea flopped. It was some time before Dad took me fishing again.


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     Dad was always thinking, he was full of ways to make money or enrich someones life. Back in the 70's Eileen was in one of her wandering phases, her life was not heading in the direction she wanted so she went back to Florida (she was living with Linda and I). She had not graduated from high school and was realizing that to get a good job she needed that diploma so she went back home to get it.
     This is when Dad had another of his brainstorms, Eileen needed something that would take care of her for the rest of her life and he knew what that should be - a helicopter pilot. Yep that's right Dad wanted Eileen to take flying lessons and become a helicopter pilot eventually owning her own helicopter. The best I can remember this idea went by the wayside when Eileen looked into the cost of flying lessons. Dad had great ideas but pulling money from his pocket was not one of them so after a couple of lessons that idea fizzled out.



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      Just to show that Dad was concerned about all of his daughters he came up with another idea this time for Linda. In the late 70's Linda and I were ready to make a change, grass was tickling my toes so it was time to move.
     Dad had a contract with Southern Bell in West Palm Beach, Fla. which he was always talking about, he was making money hand over fist. During one of his visits with us he really laid it on thick and got Linda and I to thinking there might be something for us. To hear him talk I could make $20,000 plus per year in the phone booth business, this was a good deal more than I was making at the time so we jumped at the opportunity. This was my first big mistake in a long time but that's another story. I quit my job and went to Florida, Linda stayed behind to sell the house.
     One day when Dad was in town he took me for a ride, as he was driving he told me that when Linda got down to Florida she was going to have to take a general contractors exam. He explained that he was required to have a contractors license for his business, at present he was having to pay a contractor for the use of his license and pay quite handsomely. If Linda was to get a license then he wouldn't have to pay.
     I could see where this was going and knew Linda would too so I told him Linda did not know anything about general contracting so she was not going to take the exam. He came back and said " she doesn't need to know anything because I have the answers for the test".  My come back to that was "if you have the answers why don't you take the test ?" His come back to me was that  "he and I were too stupid"  it had to be Linda. I told him Linda would not take the test and that was the end of it, when I told Linda she laughed and said thanks.
     This put the brakes on another great idea, as far as I know he never took the test and paid someone else until he got out of the business.


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     Another requirement for Dad's contract was that he have an electrical license, which he didn't , so he was having to pay someone for using theirs. For whatever reason that arrangement was not working out so he went on the hunt.
     Dad was proud to be a veteran, so proud that he was a member in good standing of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), he was elected Post Commander to the American Legion twice. He also hired Vets to work for him, he claimed they were some of the best workers, they were dependable and would never let you down.
     One day when I made a delivery to West Palm he wanted me to stick around and help him out with an installation the next day. That night we went to an American Legion post as Dad wanted to meet a guy that was an electrician who wanted to talk to Dad about doing some work. We met this guy and had a few drinks, the guy agreed to meet us the next day so Dad could show him the work he needed performed then Dad started telling me the virtues of hiring veterans, the electrician agreed  with him and they were slapping each other on the back. Finally the bourbon got the best of them, the electrician went home Dad and I went to a cheap motel.
     The next day we went to breakfast and another of Dad's workers joined us with the equipment to install  then we headed to the job sight. The electrician never showed up but we got to work installing the phone booth. The other worker and I had problems performing to Dad's standards and several times he pushed us aside and called us "stupid". Finally the day was over and I headed back home, the electrician never called or showed up for work, so much for hiring vets, it's a shame because not all vets are in the same category as that man.
     As for me I never worked with or for Dad again, I'm too stupid.



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     By the time Linda and I moved back to Florida Dad and Mom lived separate lives, they still talked and Dad even slept over when he was in town. I don't know the story but divorce was out of the question. Dad's brother Raymond owned a bottled gas company their father once owned and there were several satellite locations from Jacksonville to Ocala. Dad bought the operation located in Interlachen, Fla. They sold the house in Cocoa and Mom and Vickie moved to Interlachen to run the place.
     Mom and Vickie lived there for several years, Vickie grew up and moved away and Mom died in the mid eighties, she lost money every week. Dad eventually moved to Interlachen and ran the gas company until he sold it back to Raymond, the place never made money.


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      Dad also had other great business opportunities from time to time. He bought a half interest in a shrimp boat because he liked to eat shrimp. He bought an interest in a service station so he would have someone to work on his vehicles and he bought into or out right bought a "Rent A Wreck" car rental agency. All of these ventures failed for one reason or another, I heard but can't say for sure that the shrimp boat sank, I don't know about the service station but I think it closed. He told me that one day the U.S.Secret Service contacted him about a guy who rented one of his cars, drove it to Washington D.C. and threatened to kill the President - they had impounded the car.



     Turns out the contract he had with Southern Bell was the most lucrative of his ideas and afforded him the funds to dabble in his other ventures. Sadly the man with big ideas and a desire to leave something for his family died in a VA hospice facility, Linda and I would visit on the weekends till his death, his brother Raymond and his sisters visited every now and then. At the time of his death he was for all practical purposes broke, along with a few dollars in the bank his left his daughters a lot with a one bedroom trailer on it.
     His daughters all loved him and when they got together they would reminisce about some of his escapades, Linda and Eileen would get to talking and break out with laughter, yep Dad was quite a character.


   






   

Little GTO

     Growing up in the fifties and sixties was great, one of the reasons was all of the new and exciting things that came down the pike.
     I think the first thing on every young boys mind was cars, we couldn't wait to get our hands on one even if it was only the family car available only on Saturday night. The car we wanted wasn't just a car it had to be a hot rod with a souped up big block engine, wide slick racing tires mounted on Micky Thompson mag wheels and brightly painted flames from the head lights past the front door. We didn't even care if it was new or old or even if it would run.
     Most of us dreamed about the day we would drive to school in our own car and until that day came we bought and read every hot rod magazine that came out and wasted notebook paper drawing pictures of hot cars we would one day own. We were envious of the kids whose parents gave them a car and let them drive where ever they wanted or at the least the kids who got to use Mom's car a couple of days a week.
     I was a dreamer, we had only one car and Dad was not to interested in giving it up. I was seventeen when I finally got my license, I was working and offered to pay for the insurance but that too didn't go over well. I didn't get to drive the family car until I came home from boot camp and Dad had checked with the insurance agent that it would not cost him any more on his premiums.
     Because I had no wheels I didn't go on dates, I had girlfriends that was not a problem as long as they understand it was a school day romance. My first real date was for the Senior Banquet ( community standards wouldn't allow dancing ). I had been going with this girl for a couple of months and at the last minute she broke it off but we agreed to go to the banquet together, she even let me hold her hand. My second date was when I came home from boot camp, my mother fixed me up with a nice girl she knew. Turns out she was a preachers daughter, she was beautiful, she was the first girl I ever kissed and she stuck her tongue in my ear while I was driving, I sure hated to take her home.
     Months later I met Linda, she lived about twenty miles from the base so I learned all about the art of hitchhiking. Dad  called to tell me I could take over the payments on Pat's 1960 Ford and I jumped at it. The car was about as plain and dumpy looking as it could be but I had to start somewhere. It was a beginning for Linda and I even though I only had the car for eighteen days before Linda wrecked it, a car was a small price to pay to have her beside me for the next forty seven years.
     Two years later we got out of the Navy and came home, we were driving a 1962 Chevy Impala hardtop we had traded for so we wouldn't have to make a payment for one month. The Chevy was a great car and is a sought after model even today but it was still not the hot rod of my dreams.  We hooked up with a school buddy and his wife and started hanging out with them, they had a 1967 GTO one of the hottest cars on the road. It wasn't long til I got the bug.
     I was envious, here I had spent four years in the Navy and had little to show for it while my friend was not drafted and he was driving a Goat, as they were called. My envy got the better of me, I had to have a "Bad -ss car" so against Linda's better judgement I took over the bills and got us out of debt. We damn near starved but in the end we were debt free and I was on the hunt.
     I found a 1969 GTO  for $2000 I got it for $1800. It was Canary yellow with black interior a 400 cubic inch engine and a four barrel Holly carburetor, there were bucket seats and a Hurst four speed stick shift in the console, there was a decal on the dash that read "Caution this car is equipped with a Hurst shifter, shift as hard as you like just don't break your arm".This was a car of my dreams if not the car and because Linda did not like driving it, it was all mine.
     We kept the car for for a little over a year, GTO stood for gas, tires and oil, I never had any problem with the oil but gas and tires was a different story, I couldn't take off with burning rubber and with gas prices on the rise we had to trade. One of the big issues was that Linda never really liked it, she had a hard time getting it into reverse to the point of asking strangers to put it in reverse for her. Maybe she was even a little scared of the power and speed, I don't know because she always put her feelings aside in favor of mine, it was my dream.
     Through the years we had some nice cars but they were generally "Family" cars, they were nice, comfortable cars that favored the needs of Linda and the boys. Years later when the boys were gone and I was nearing retirement our needs changed we went from cars to pickup trucks. They were functional in many ways so we bought the last vehicle we would ever need - a 2007 Ford F 150 truck, it is about to turn 12 years old and has almost 150,000 miles, maybe it will be the last one I own.
     When Kay and I married she drove a 2011  F 150 truck with somewhere around 30,000 miles, we recently turned 100,000 miles. Now we are a two truck family and are forever hauling something around, they won't go as fast as a GTO or drink as much gas but they will get us to where we need to go.
     At my age a GTO is an old mans fantasy, a refusal to let go of a lost youth. I miss my GTO but my dreams have changed, practicality trumps fantasy, instead of a muscle car I dream of hitting the lottery so I can buy a new boat and a new truck to pull it.

Dad Stories

     Dad was a butcher, a trade he learned when Mom said she wanted him to come home from sailing around the Great Lakes six months out of the year. By the time I was in the fourth or fifth grade he was a meat manager in a privately owned grocery store. As with any job there were things to happen that made a good story to tell when sitting around downing a cold beer with the guys. Here are some that I personally know about.


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     Take the time when he was working for Pat Sanford who owned C & S Food Market. In the old store the butcher shop was in the basement, most of the buildings at that location had businesses located in the basement, there was a print shop in the building next door and Dad knew the guys who worked there. One day the FBI raided the print shop and closed it down for printing counterfeit twenty dollar bills. I remember Dad talking to his boss about the raid, he said "what gets me is that I was next door working my butt off for a twenty and those guys would turn the crank a couple of times and have a few hundred without breaking a sweat".
   

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     Before Dad became a full fledged butcher he was an assistant butcher with a local chain called Logans in West Nashville. Back in the 1950's the Health Department didn't have any problem with grocery stores processing meats not inspected by the USDA.
     There were two guys who owned a farm, they would haul off the trash and vegetables that were rotting. They would feed the vegetables to their hogs then in the fall they would kill the hogs, cure their own hams and make their own sausage. One day these two guys were picking up the trash and started talking to Dad, they asked him how much it would cost them to get two country hams sliced. Dad told them he wanted the center cut from each ham, they thought that was fair.The next day the two guys came in with their hams, one ham weighed about 75 lbs the other weighed just over 80 lbs, the average ham weighs in about 18 - 22 lbs.
     Dad cut the hams but he only kept one of the center cuts which he took to a restaurant next door and told the owner, whom he knew, to fry the ham, a dozen eggs, hash browns and biscuits and call him when it was ready. There was enough ham that eight people had their fill.
     By my calculations those hogs had to weigh in around 400 lbs each.



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     Every now and then hunters would bring a deer they had shot and Dad would cut it up for them for a price, again the Health Department didn't mind. It was not unusual to find a deer carcass or two hanging in the cooler.
     Dad was now the Meat Manager for C&S. One day this customer comes driving in from a hunting trip up north, he had a moose tied to the roof of his car. He was quite proud of his moose as it dressed out at about 1000 lbs. This was a Wednesday and the moose had to hang in the cooler for a couple of days so Dad helped the customer get the moose in the cooler.
     Dad worked the next few days and was off on Sunday, when he came back to work Monday morning he went into the cooler and the stench nearly floored him. Seems the area where the bullet went in created a large bruise which went undetected and it rotted over the weekend. The smell was so bad it permeated into the beef that was hanging in the cooler and was owned by the store, they had to throw out everything in the cooler. This was the last time wild game was processed.


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     Everything was not all work and no play at C&S, to the contrary there were all kinds of shenanigans going on. There were two guys in their early twenties who worked at the store, Wayne and Dickie. Dad took a liking to them, they became his drinking buddies and he taught both of them the butchering trade. The three of them were full of practical jokes and adept at finding ways to have fun in the work place.
     On of the things they liked to do was gamble, one of the ways they gambled was to pull coke bottles. Coke bottles in the 1950's and 1960's were glass, every bottler made or had  made their own bottles and to distinguish theirs from other bottlers the city and state of the bottler was embossed on the bottom of the bottle. There were bottlers in every major city in the country. C&S had an area set aside for wooden cases of coke products and their competitors, during the holidays we would have several stacks of coke cases fifteen high.
     The guys would pick a case and pull it from the stack, each player would put up a quarter then randomly pull a bottle from the case, the one who had the city farthest away from Nashville won, in case of any doubt a quick call to AAA would settle the dispute.



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     When Dad was still learning his trade we lived in Lagardo, it was a farming community and Grandpa Riggan lived about a mile down the road. We lived in an old wood framed house, no indoor plumbing, no running water. We did have a wood burning stove and electricity for lights, maybe we had a radio but definitely no TV. In other words we were living in the country.
     On Sunday Dad's coworker, or maybe even his boss, came for a visit with his wife and a daughter who was about my age , that would be six years old. They came dressed in their Sunday finest as if they had just left church. We on the other hand were dressed as if we were going to help Grandpa with his spring planting.
     While the adults stayed inside and talked, Pat the girl and I went outside to play. There wasn't a lot to do as we didn't have a lot of toys especially for girls so we did boy things like climbing trees. We shared our yard with the landlords cows, they were pretty calm cows and didn't bother us but we did have to learn to dodge cow paddies.
     In the mean time the grown ups continued their conversation, at some point the bosses wife needed to use the bathroom and asked Mom where it was. Mom took the lady to the back porch and pointed to the outhouse some 20 - 25 yards from the house. As outhouses go it was a good one although it was several years old, there was no waiting as it was a two seater. The lady changed her mind she felt they would be leaving soon so she could hold it for awhile.
     In the mean time us kids were having a ball running around in the yard until me or Pat decided to climb a tree. The girl was dressed in a very nice dress and a very nice coat with a fur collar, she even had a bow in her hair and white stockings. Well the way she was dressed didn't seem to bother her, when we climbed that tree she was right there with us until she fell out and landed on her back on a fairly fresh cow paddy, This girl must have been a tomboy because she got up shed the coat and climbed back up in the tree.
      In the mean time the girls mother was starting to fidget as her bladder continued to fill up. Her husband knew what was going on and thought she was being rude and disrespectful so he continued talking guy talk with Dad even though his wife was urging him to leave. Finally they got up to go and came outside, the mother saw the girl and asked where her coat was. The girl retrieved the coat and took it to her mother who saw the remains of a cow paddy smeared on the back. The mother got a funny look on her face as she held the coat by two fingers, she said something like "oh no now we will have to by another one" and then dropped the coat on the ground.
     The husband, already ticked with his wife about the outhouse ordeal, picked up the coat and tossed it in the back seat saying the dry cleaners could get it clean. They loaded up and drove away.
     The next night Dad came home and told Mom that his boss sent his apologies. Turns out the boss was so upset with his wife that he made his wife ride all the way home with out stopping for a bathroom. Needless to say they never came back.



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     Back in the 1950's and 60's it was difficult to buy alcohol or buy a mixed drink in many communities around Nashville, the local communities voted whether or not to allow bars or liquor stores. The Donelson area said no to booze so Dad had to go out of his way to get what he wanted. He could drive almost into Nashville to a liquor store or just short of that was a bar called the "Shady Lawn", there was a liquor store in Old Hickory and a restaurant on Lebanon Rd that had a  little known bar downstairs. The closest place was a bootlegger down by the river off  Mc Gavock Pike.
     Legally Grady Campbell was a commercial fisherman by trade but by night, weekends and holidays he was a bootlegger. He had a somewhat run down couple of shacks down a long winding driveway on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland River, once you carefully maneuvered your way down the drive there was a large parking area. Grady ran his business with wife Mrs Campbell, his daughter Sadie and young grandson Junior lived on the property. Grady sold pint and half pint bottles of "Old Crow"bourbon.
     Grady had a large customer base, some of the best people in town could be found there at anytime of the day or night. I went to work with Dad when I was thirteen, that first Saturday night when we got off work Dad said we needed to make a stop before going home, I had no idea where we were going and was quite surprised to pull into Grady's parking lot which had half dozen Metro Police cars there. I didn't know what was going on but I dreaded the thought of having to call Mom to come bail me out of Jail. When I went inside with Dad there were the police sitting around a table with a glass of bourbon in their hand and a bottle of Old Crow on the table in front of them.
     Over the next five years I was in and out of all of Dad's hang outs, the place that was the most fun was Grady's place, I got to know Junior and even spent several hours one cold night riding sleds down the snow covered drive. Grady and his family even went camping with us on Dad's vacation two years in a row. I guess this qualifies as part of my misspent youth.


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     This next story started when I came home on leave on my way to Vietnam. It was November 1967 and I had thirty days leave, Linda was going to stay with Mom and Dad so we moved her lock stock and barrel to Tennessee, everything we owned fit in the back seat. Dad took time to do some things with us I think because he had no idea when he would see me again or if ever, I was after all going off to war.
     November was turkey shoot month, actually so was December, Dad had taken up going to turkey shoots on the weekends at the American Legion on Donelson Pike. The turkey shoots consisted of a bunch targets stapled to 2 x 4 s  and guys who would bring their favorite shotgun and pay a $1.00 per shot, you had to use their shells. The prizes consisted of  $10.00 cash, a certificate for a frozen turkey or a fifth of Henry Mc Kenna bourbon.
     Dad had a 12 gauge shotgun but he didn't like the pattern it held so he swapped with a friend of his who had a similar gun that held a nice tight pattern. I went with Dad one Saturday afternoon. We were doing pretty good until Dad got a few drinks in him so he turned over the shooting to me. I was doing so good that Dad would walk up to the guy next to me and offer him a side bet for a few dollars that I would come closer to the bulls eye.
     We finished the day with with a couple of frozen turkeys, about four bottles of Henry Mc Kenna, and somewhere around $125.00 in cash which he split with me. Except for the booze Mom and Linda were tickled pink.
     After I got out of the Navy Dad and I got back to going to the turkey shoots but it was hard to beat that day in November 1967.

   

     Dad was a good butcher and was widely know, if he lost his job in the morning he would have another by dark. He had a following of customers who didn't mind going out of their way to have Dad cut their meat for them. Like any job it had it's ups and downs and characters, I'm sure if Dad were here he could come up with more stories, who knows maybe I will remember more later.
     



   














   





   

The Day I Almost Lost A Brother

     Twice in my young life I almost lost a brother, I didn't misplace them, they were involved in situations that could have resulted in their demise.
     The first time involved my brother Pat. When I was six years old and Pat was working on five, we lived in Lagardo, Tn. a small community on highway 109. It may not have been called highway 109 back then as there was no highway like the one of today. It was just a winding two lane road from highway 70 to the ferry crossing on the Cumberland river, a strong emphasis should be on "winding".
     Anyway, we lived about a mile from Grandpa Riggan and I attended school at the Lagardo school. Old Hickory Lake had not come into being at that time but was in the works. This goes back to when Dad fished with cane poles and drove to most of his fishing spots with the cane poles hanging out the back window of his forty something model four door car.
     Dad loaded up Pat and I one day and headed out past the school to where the Spencer Creek boat ramp is today and turned down a dirt road that had been carved into a field by fishermen seeking their favorite fishing spots. The road or rather path followed the original Spencer Creek and there were many places where people just pulled off the side of the road and started fishing from the creek bank.
     So, as Dad was driving down the dirt road, which was somewhat bumpy, Pat and I were in the back seat. Pat was leaning out the window, the wind was blowing in his face, when all of a sudden the door flew open and there was Pat hanging on to the window sill with his feet flopping in the breeze as he was dragged through dry weeds. It took a minute for me to get Dad's attention and for him to stop the car.
     Pat turned out to be alright just scarred. Things could have been worse had Pat lost his grip he could have been thrown under the rear wheel. Although I can't remember, Dad probably swore us to silence but being young kids we probably spilled the beans at the first opportunity which in turn probably got him in trouble with Mom.
     Many years later in a far away land called Vietnam, I almost lost my brother again. Pat was a U.S. Navy corpsman serving with  a group of  U.S. Marines at an outpost in the jungles of Vietnam. One night the enemy attacked the outpost, I don't know the details but during the battle Pat was wounded as he attended his brothers in arms. He was awarded the Purple Heart for his wounds and a Bronze Star for his bravery.


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     The second time I almost lost a brother was years later, I was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old at the time, we lived in Mt. Juliet, Tn. We lived in a small subdivision that was to hold about two hundred homes but never got off the ground, after five years there were no more than eighteen homes.
     Clint was the brother who almost bit the dust this time. Clint was eight or nine years old and could be a pain in the butt and very headstrong ( Mom called it stubborn ). He was at that age where he was too old to play with his younger siblings and not old enough to play with Pat and I, he was old enough to tag along with us whether or not he was supposed to or we wanted him to. When  I wanted to do something by myself  I had to sneak away.
     One day I hopped on my bike and took off down to the creek, guess who tagged along ? Now Clint didn't have a bike so he had to run and for a little kid he could run pretty good. I wound up riding the paths along the creek bank and wound up at the boat launch area, after a short while I decided to head for the house and started up the hill to the road, this is where Clint almost bought the farm.
     There was a new house being built for a guy named Bob Wilson. The house was being built on the side of the hill and being as this was Tennessee they were having to use dynamite to blast away the rock to make a place for the house.
     I was riding my bicycle up the hill using the road from the boat launch and I was quickly pulling away from Clint but then he saw a short cut across the area where workmen were building the house. Dynamite charges had been placed in the ground and heavy netting had been placed over the area to contain any shrapnel. I had stopped on the road to watch the workmen as they got ready to blast when I saw Clint running up the hill oblivious to the workmen. The man controlling the detonator was poised to push the plunger as he was counting down, when me and all of the other workman started shouting for Clint to stop where he was but he stubbornly pushed on and didn't stop till he got to the road. The guy with the plunger cussed and shouted at both of us. I don't think Clint realized how close he came to being blown to kingdom come.
     Growing up in a large family always had it's issues, sibling rivalry was one of those issues, there seemed to be arguments between one or more of us on a daily basis but we did love each other. As the oldest I was expected to keep my siblings out of trouble, it was a difficult job at best, impossible as a rule, when they had their mind set on doing something I might as well get out of the way. I'm glad Pat and Clint made it through to adulthood growing up would not have been the same without them.
     Recently I lost my youngest sibling Ronnie to a heart attack, he was eleven years younger than me. His passing hit me hard, being the oldest doesn't necessarily mean I will be the first to die but neither did it keep me from mourning his absence.