Back In The Day

 

     I keep seeing all these post about the cost of things back in the "good old days", back when I was a kid in the 1950's and 60's. So I thought I might let the reader know just what it cost to be a kid "way back then".

     Let me start off by saying that comparing any time periods against another you have to allow for inflation to get a good picture, at least that is the first thing that analyst say. I say that you had to have lived back then and now to realize the true comparison. Pay checks may be bigger now than then but from my experience the quality of life was better then than now but that's just my opinion.

     The average income in the 1950's was around $3500.00 and usually only the man of the house worked, in comparison, the average income in Georgia in 2023 is around $59,000 but usually both adults work so that number could double. The average home price in the 1950's was $12,000 compared to around $300,000 today and for that price you get about the same size home.

     Alot of little things that most of us never think too much about need to be considered. That $2.50 candy bar you buy today cost a nickel back then and it was bigger. Dad paid about 15 to 20 cents for a gallon of gas, today it's cost has settled down to about $3.60 per gallon and not long ago it was over $4.00 per gallon. Kay and I stopped at Burger King the other day and got two Whopper meals for $20.00, back then two could eat lunch for a dollar, coffee was a nickel a cup with free refills, big tippers paid out maybe twenty cents. Haircuts in the late 1950's were fifty cents, $20.00+ today. Movie tickets were 25 cents, today they can cost as much as $10.00+.

     I can go on and on comparing prices but, to me, the real comparison is the quality of life. I think life was better then although we didn't have all of the technology that you kids have today. We had three channels on our 18 inch black and white TV and they quit broadcasting at midnight and didn't come back on till around six the next morning, We occupied ourselves playing games with friends in the great outdoors, indoors if it rained or snowed. We road bikes, went fishing, laid on the grass and watched shooting stars at night. Our parents cared enough for us that we had to ask permission to do some things or go somewhere, they told us what to do, we never once thought of talking back to them. We weren't worried about being shot, beaten up or kidnapped. We went to sleep without locking our doors or cars. A lot of people lived their lives without going more than fifty miles from home, most employees worked twenty plus years at the same company and were proud of it.

     Today you can live your life without ever leaving the confines of home, all you need is a telephone (smart phone), I guess if you are a hermit this would be perfect for you.

     Crime is up, inflation is up, people are easily offended and ready to fight or even shoot you at the drop of a hat, it is said this is the new lifestyle, get used to it, well, maybe it is. 

     I remember my parents complaining about the world I was growing up in but I couldn't wait to get out in it, I hope you feel the same about your future. 

I'm Not A Sissy

 

     You would think that being older than dirt would mean that your end is near and you would die before anyone younger but I'm living proof this is a misnomer. In the last few years, I have felt the loss of several people that I cared for and there seems to be no end in sight. My senior class was small, only 63 or 64 students and that number has dwindled down to way less than half, those of us that are left are in a race to eighty, I wonder how many will make it.

     Linda passed away nine years ago, her sister Eileen died a year later. My youngest sibling, Ronnie, will be gone five years come January and Eileen's husband Ken died just a few years back. The one thing they all had in common was that they were all younger than me.

     Yesterday, Linda's sister Vicki called to say that her husband Rich died in his sleep Saturday night. Sis and Rich were divorced and it has been a few years since I had seen him but his memory is still fresh in my mind. I can't remember for sure how old he was but I do know that I had more than a few years on him.

      I remember when my aunt Addie passed away, Her father, my grandfather, cried because he believed that parents shouldn't outlive their children, I know how Grandpa felt. In my mind, I should have departed this life at least ten years back, instead I have had to grieve over the loss of people I have known most of my life and they were all younger than me.

     I guess this is one of the things people mean when they say "getting old ain't for sissies"

     

The Mixing Pot

 

     Up until about Twelve years ago, I didn't really care much about the ancestry of the family. I knew we were Irish and that was good enough for me but then my sister and cousin just had to know who was who, who did what to whom and why, ect, ect.  Sis and cousin Madelen Ruth have scoured archives and cemeteries in several states in their quest to know our ancestors and as much as they know they are still on the hunt. 

     Up until now the family tree was a collection of stories, inuendo, rumors and gossip with some truth thrown in for good measure but now we have names dates and places as far back as the 1600's. I can't say that all members of the family have been fine upstanding citizens but so far none of us have been hung as horse thieves although in my youth I was certain there were one or two of those in the past.

     One grandmother was publicly whipped for saying bad things about King George of England about the time of the American Revolution, her husband was found guilty of burning down an old cabin so he could get the nails. Then there was another woman who was drawn to men like a firefly, she had more husbands that Sis.

     For many years now Uncle Pual has told us that the Wade side of the family had Choctaw Indian blood and Cousin Gail claims that Grandpa Riggan was three quarters Cherokee Indian. Admittedly grandpa's facial features do have a roughhewn to them and his face was always tanned from being a farmer but that is about as far as it goes.

      A few years back Sis and brother Pat sent in blood samples to find out just where we did come from. Turns out we are not as much Irish as I had hoped although the Riggan's did come from the British Isles. The Wade side of the family are British. Then we have some Eastern European, a little Mediterranean and Scandinavian. The Irish part most likely has some Scottish blood blended in and one page I read on the internet says we may have come from the French Huguenots who fled France to avoid the inquisition, then avoided a similar fate by fleeing England to Ireland / Scotland.

     But nowhere is there any Native American blood found in our DNA. Speaking for myself, though I have had the desire to scalp a few people, the desire was usually squelched with a cold beer or two or more. 

     Our lineage has been mingled with so many other families over the centuries that we can't say that we are from any one country and by the time a few more centuries pass it will again mingle with more. So, like I said before rumors, gossip and a strong desire are not enough to make it so, we are what we are and I for one am quite proud of my heritage, we are the product of pioneers looking for a better life and willing brave a new world to get it. The fact that I am here is proof that our bloodline is strong and it will endure future generations even though their name may not Riggan or Wade.

     

The Gift of Sight

 

     I have written about so many memories that I have a problem remembering what I have written about. I have tried going back through the 140 + stories to see if a particular subject was somewhere in all of the words written so far but that doesn't help very much as they just seem to get jumbled up in my head. Every now and then a memory will pop into my thoughts that is so important to me that I have decided to blame senility if it turns out that I have already written about the subject rather than think I did but didn't. That last sentence is a little confusing but it is not important to the story but it was important enough that I wrote it, at least to me.

      Linda had the most beautiful blue eyes but blue eyes generally are the weaker color. When I first met Linda she wore hard contact lenses, they were the only kind available then. Prior to the contacts, she wore glasses that had the thickness of coke bottles and every year she would get new glasses with a stronger prescription, the contacts seemed to cure that process and I don't remember her getting stronger contacts for many years.

     She never said but over the years her sight would deteriorate and I would see her straining to see things. She did a lot of small, detailed work in her quilting and needle point, it was sad to see her lean in close to see that she did something that met her expectations but at the time there was no fix for her failing sight.

     As the story goes, back in the 1990's, a young child in Russia injured their eye, a piece of glass cut the pupil or maybe the iris. When the eye healed the doctors noticed the child's vision had improved by flattening the Lense. Over the next few years, doctors perfected the technic which improved the eye sight of millions of people around the world. They called it "radial keratotomy", they actually made cuts to the iris like the spokes of a wagon wheel allowing the iris to flatten. Linda found out about this process and studied it, she knew of it's successes and failures, she knew which doctors were the best. She waited until she was sure the process was safe and right for her.

     Just as the world was entering the new millennium Linda made plans for the operation. The doctor she chose would only operate on one eye at a time, the first eye had to be well into the healing process before he would operate on the second eye. It took about six or more months before the eyes were completely healed but each day seemed to bring new experiences into her life.

     One day she came down to the living room wrapped in a wet towel and stopped in front of me. She said "Michel, I just took a shower" I said OK, she said "I looked down while showering and saw my toes". All of those years of wearing glasses and contacts and she had not seen her toes without them. She was so excited. A few days later she was washing dishes at the kitchen sink when she turned around and said "there are individual leaves on those trees", it was then that I realized just how bad her eyesight had been.

     The whole procedure cost five thousand dollars out of pocket but it was money well spent, I only wish the procedure had been available sooner. Even with poor eyesight she saw nothing but the beauty of life and now she saw it more clearly.

Fleeting Moments

 

     I need a place to write about things that just "pop" into my thoughts so I'm creating "Fleeting Moments" and from time to time will add stories that do just "pop" into my thoughts.

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     The cars available when I was a young boy were some of the neatest. Like many people of the time dad drove used cars as did his father, they may have been used and a little old but they were sound and fit the needs of the family.

     Automobiles of the 1940's and early 1950's generally had few amenities, there was no air conditioning, GPS, cruise control or sunroof. Few even had automatic transmissions or power steering but one thing many of the older ones had were "running boards".

     Running boards were an integral part of the main body connecting the front fender to the rear fender and wide enough to make a step for easy entrance to the vehicle, they had been a part of the car since the invention of the automobile. We kids (mostly boys) found a different use for them, considered dangerous by today's standards, we kids would take every opportunity to jump on the running boards and grab on to the window frame and ride the length of the driveway or across a field.

     It wasn't a long distance ride but for young boys it was a thrill, our mothers and grandmothers constantly berated us about the danger of falling off and being run over but it was one of those things they knew was going to happen regardless of the danger or their concerns. Sadly, the running board disappeared from cars sometime during the late 1940's, they are another thing that my kids and kids of today will never know about, one of the shortcomings of their youth.

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      I had my first job when I turned 13, I went to work in the grocery store where dad was the butcher. I worked weekends and summers until I went into the Navy at age 18.

     One of the things that comes to mind is that dad seldom filled his gas tank. We lived about ten or twelve miles from work and yet dad would pull into a gas station and tell the attendant to put in a $1 worth of gas. Gas at that time was about 20 to 25 cents per gallon or less. The average car could be filled up for $4 to $5 compared to today's prices it cost me $75 to fill the truck last week.

     Dad only putting a few gallons of gas in car at a time got me in trouble once. I was maybe 15 and had planned to go fishing with a friend. Dad had a wooden John boat chained to a tree in the nearby creek and I got his permission to use the car to carry the 12 horsepower boat motor to the creek some three hundred yards from the house. After getting the motor and gas tank to the boat I decided to drive to my friend's house, a few miles away, and bring him back to the boat. I might have been alright if I had taken the direct route but instead, I went the long way around. The gas gauge indicated there was a quarter tank of gas in the car but only dad knew that the gauge was broken. I ran out of gas and had to have my friends dad take me home and take dad back to the car. Needless to say dad was not happy, not only did I not get to go fishing but I had put that boat motor on my shoulder to get it back to the house ( that thing must have weighed fifty pounds).

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     At a family get together with Kay's family today, her brother, two cousins and I were swapping war stories about life, it's a guy thing that goes on whenever two or more men over the age of 50 get together. Kay's brother Doug and cousin Joe are retired from the Georgia State Patrol so all of us related our experiences with law enforcement. I have to admit that, since obtaining my drivers license at the age of 16, I have had more than my share of run ins with law enforcement. My right foot has cost me a lot of money over the years.

     My first duty in the Navy was as a duty driver, I drove naval officers from lowly Ensigns to three Star Admirals where ever they wanted to go while visiting the base in Florida. I also drove several US Senators and Congressmen and the Commandant of the Marine Corp.

     One day I was returning to the base from the airport in Orlando, I was driving a 1965 Ford Custom with a V-8 engine. The road was four lane divided highway in an unpopulated area. So, there I was driving along when a Florida State Trooper pulled up next to me, spoke into his radio then he put his pedal to the floor, within seconds he was a mile ahead of me. 

     I can't explain why but I decided to follow him to find out where he was going in such a hurry so I sped up keeping him in sight. My speedometer went past 100 mph when the road went down to two lanes and turned into a Cypress grove. The other side of the grove opened up on a small bridge that crossed the St. Johns River, which was maybe 75 feet across at that point, and there was the trooper making a u-turn in the parking of a small store. I won't say the words that came out of my mouth as I started braking and down shifting trying to get down to the speed limit, I don't know how fast I was going when I passed the trooper but it must have been slow enough that he didn't come after me, as I looked in the rearview mirror he was headed back towards Orlando.

     I don't remember getting my first speeding ticket until I was out of the Navy and then I started a nice collection of them, so many in fact that I had to pay risk insurance for about four years. I did a lot of driving for work and most of my tickets were in company vehicles, I even got two tickets in two different states on the same day some four hundred miles apart. 

     It has been many years now since I was stopped for speeding although I do continue to push the envelope just not as far as I once did but now days it seems speed limit signs are just a suggestion. It's as if it is not considered speeding unless you're doing twenty mph over the limit and I'm getting to old for those speeds.

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     When Grandpa Riggan died, I was 13 and he was 79. He had retired and sold the farm shortly before he died, up till that time he was used to rising before dawn, milking the cows by hand and feeding the other animals and having breakfast as the sun rose. After eating he would harness his two mules and walk them out to the field he would work that day then proceed to walk behind a plow for the rest of the day often arriving back at the barn around sunset.

     You would think that a man who had lived such a hard life would be worn out at his age and maybe he was old and tired. He did look old, his skin had wrinkles, he moved a little slower and had grey hair in his beard but the hair on his head was black as coal and it was thick. 

     I remember my mother saying, after the funeral, that he looked very natural as he lay in his casket but there was one thing that was out of place. Grandpa had what I call nice wavy hair, there was a curl or wave that normally hung down on his forehead but the person who prepped him for burial perfectly combed his hair. The one curl looked so out of place that mom wanted to flick it so it would lay on his forehead as usual but she didn't because it might upset someone. 

     I always thought I got my hair from him, if you could see pictures of us you might think so also but the one difference. As I aged grandpa Wade's hair started showing up, he was in his mid 40's when I was born and already grey. Grey hair started showing up on me by my mid thirties, I'm not as light as grandpa Wade but I'm all grey now and that curl / wave that grandpa Riggan had will show up if my hair gets too long.

     It's funny how some people can look at you and see features of one family member or another and quite often they are right. I guess if I'm going to look like one of my ancestors I couldn't pick a better ancestor than grandpa Riggan. I loved that man, knowing what I know now I would like to be able to spend some more time with.

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     I spent a lot of time on the farm with granny and grandpa Riggan. From before I can remember till about 11, I spent my summers with them. Not to say they had a favorite grandchild but none of the others were allowed to spend the night, of course it may have been that my cousin's parents didn't want them staying over, it wasn't the Waldorf but I loved it.

    Grandpa was 66 when I was born, he had worked hard all of his life and continued to work for another 10 or 12 years when he sold the place. By the time I came along, he had slowed down some, he never got in a hurry with anything he did, I never saw him get excited about anything, he never raised his voice. All his movements were slow and deliberate, this held true with everything he did.

     When I was maybe five years old, grandpa decided to take a trip to Carthage to see Aunt Rose and my cousin Charlie, so granny, grandpa and I loaded up in the car and headed out to Carthage. This was in the early 1950's, before interstates or four lane highways of any kind. The road was curvy, hilly and two lane. Once we got out of La Guardo the road was even paved.

     So, there I was sitting between them in the front seat, no seat belt, airbags or any or safety features. I don't remember the car very well but I can be pretty confident that it was a late 1930's vintage. It was stick shift with a pedal on the floor that had to be pushed to start the car.

     The standard speed limit back then was usually 55 - 60 mph but grandpa paid little attention to the  limit, he seldom went that fast. I remember at one point wondering if we were ever going to get to Charlie's house. I looked up to granny and asked if this was as fast as the car would go. She laughed then yelled at grandpa (he was very hard of hearing) "Howard, the boy wants to know if you can go any faster". Without looking at either of us, grandpa pressed down on the gas pedal, the car sped up to the speed limit for about a quarter mile then he eases off the gas and slows back down. Surprisingly we made it to Carthage and after a short visit we made it back to La Guardo.

     Life in general was much slower than today, people were more laid back. Most farmers were in no more of a hurry than grandpa, the crops grew at their own pace and they cows always came home every night. We had everything we needed, what we didn't have we probably didn't need anyway. I miss those days.

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     When I was discharged from the Navy, Linda and I went to Tennessee to live. Not long after returning home, Linda took a job with a bank in Nashville, I don't even know the name anymore because it has since changed hands and names a few times. She worked in the Trust department where she issued monthly checks to recipients of various trust accounts. Some of the recipients she dealt with were quite comical and apparently out of touch with the real world everyone else had to live in.

     There were these two sisters, what we then called "old maids". Their father had left them a sizable amount of money that the bank invested for them and paid out a monthly stipend as prescribed by the wishes of those who set up the account. 

     The account called for a specific amount of money be deposited into their checking accounts each month. There was a problem in that the amount of money didn't evenly divide between the two sisters - there was an odd penny. Now, you wouldn't think that one penny would amount to a hill of beans to someone who was being given money that they had never earned but it did.

     Linda became aware of the importance of this penny when she paid it to the wrong sister and that sister called the head of the trust department and raised a ruckus. Seems somebody forgot to tell Linda that sister "A" was to get the penny one month ad sister "B" was to get it the next. Linda had to make a note to remind her of who got the odd penny the previous month. Personally, I don't think the penny was the odd thing about these two sisters.

     Another recipient was the widow of a very rich man in Nashville, he owned a new car dealership among other things and lived in the swankiest part of the city. When the husband passed away, the dealership went to the son and mom got a trust account  that paid all of her bills (utilities, food, clothing, ect.) and gave her a handsome amount to frivolously spend on whatever she wanted.

     One day she came into the bank and told the head of the department that she couldn't live off what she was getting and needed an increase. Consider that I have already told you that the bank already paid her bills, her monthly check from the trust amounted to somewhere around $8000.00 per month, this was in the early 1970's. Linda and I together made about $14,000 a year.

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     I'm 76 now, at this age, my life is a collection of fleeting memories that haunt me in moments of melancholy. Fear of the unknown and hope for the future battle each other. Sleepless nights find me rethinking the "what ifs" and "should haves" of the past while wondering about the "maybes" of tomorrow.

     It can be difficult to get old, age has stolen the firm muscles, taunt skin and clear eyes of my youth. I want to do so much more with life but wonder if I will have time to fit it all in, I'm lucky that I still have good mobility but it doesn't keep me from wondering how much longer it will be with me. 

     I have things that get me up and get me going, I can sit and do nothing at times but even then I'm thinking about things I need or want to do. The getting up and going comes with an increased effort accompanied by the creaking, moaning , popping and groaning sounds of age but I refuse to let them keep me down. My doctor says that I have reached the age where I am akin to an old 1955 Chevy, with a lot of the miles on me, some of my parts are wearing out and may have to be replaced or repaired.

     Well, I don't know how much longer I will be around or how much longer I can even get around but I will push myself to get the most of every day though I may have to take a few more breaks. I refuse to let age get me down.

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     Granny and grandpa Riggan had siblings and seem to remember meeting some of them "once" when I was maybe seven years old. I don't remember them talking about their families or the times of their youth, it was like they were born old and there was no youth to talk about. Grandpa never really talked much about anything, he was 66 when I was born and his hearing was already going downhill and got worse over the years.

     Granny and grandpa Wade also had siblings who I met several times through the years, they each stood out from the others due to some memory I have of them.  The Wades had a couple of reunions that were held at Shelby park along the Cumberland River in Nashville. Outside all of the people and food the biggest memory of the reunions was that Grandpa's sisters were as overweight as he was, when they sat in chairs with straight legs they would sink down into the earth by several inches and they usually needed help to stand up.

     Granny Wade had a sister, named Sahara, who would come down from Kentucky on several occasions. Aunt Sahara was a petite woman like granny, I doubt either of then weighed more than 110 pounds or stood more than 5' 2".She and her husband Tommy ran a grocery store, they had two daughters, Madeline Ruth and Tommie Navare, their daughter Madeline Ruth is about three months younger than me which makes us the oldest of the grandkids. 

      Grandpa Wade had several sisters and at one time or another I met them all. Aunt May was living with them when they came down from Missouri to take me and Madeline Ruth back home with them. Aunt May taught me how to play Rummy as I recovered from a bout with Chickenpox. 

     Another sister  lived in the Woodbine section of Nashville, I can't remember her name but do remember that she had a daughter. Mom took us to visit her once and the daughter took me to a movie to see Elvis Presley's movie Jailhouse Rock, I didn't care for the movie.

     Then there was Aunt Cathrine, she and her husband Henry lived near granny and grandpa Wade in Gallatin, Tn. so I saw them often. I was recently reminded of them by my cousins David and Tim who remember going to see Aunt Catherine and Uncle Henry, they remember that their house always smelled of boiled cabbage which is a very distinguished aroma. I remember them for other reason.

     Uncle Henry was always a happy person and he always had a story to tell, The one I remember the most was about a duck hunting trip he went on somewhere up north. He was dressed up in chest waders and taken out in a boat. when the boat reached a certain point he was told to get out. He was left to stand in water up to his chest, whenever a duck would fly over he would shoot at it and watch it fall into the water, later the guide would come back to pick him up and collect his birds. he said the water was cold and there was only one way to go to the bathroom.

     Aunt Catherine was severely overweight. At one point she needed an operation for gallstones, normally this was a 45 minute operation that turned into a couple of hours, the doctors said that every time he would cut into and remove enough fat to get his hand in her more fat would cave in around his hand causing him to have to cutout more fat. The operation left a large depression in her side and I remember her showing us how she could stick her hand in it.

                                                    

The Sleigh Ride

 

     I went to work with my dad when I was thirteen and stayed with the job until I went in the Navy when I turned eighteen. I had no idea of the life experiences I would have and the memories I would hold forever. 

     When school was in session I would work on the weekends and usually every Saturday dad would want to go see his bootlegger (Grady) before going home. Regardless of the weather dad couldn't pass up an opportunity to have a few drinks with friends and pick up a to go bag. 

     Grady's place was located on the banks of the Cumberland River close to the mouth of the Stones River. It wasn't much of place, a couple of shacks to house Grady and his wife and another to house their daughter and grandson. The driveway was a long downhill curvy and at one time paved, one side  was an embankment dense with brush while the other side steeply dropped off into a wooded area with a sharp right turn at the bottom. If you missed the turn there were a few sapling trees that might stop your plunge into the river some fifty feet below. Rather sit around inside watching people drinking, I would find something of interest to occupy me.

     One night drove to Grady's place, it was cold and snowing. I didn't think going to Grady's was a good idea as we might get trapped at the bottom of the hill but we went anyway. When we got there we met a friend of dad's by the name of Ben, he was a likable character and a barrel of laughs. Ben had already had a few drinks.

     I hooked up with Grady's grandson Junior, we through a few snowballs and then Ben came out and joined the fracas. The next thing I know, Junior came up with a couple of sleds which we drug up the driveway and then the fun started. For the next hour or more we drug our sleds up the drive and rode them down the hill at what seemed like a breakneck speed. Miraculously we managed to not break through the curve at the bottom, all of our laughter and yelling got Grady and most of his customers outside to watch us.

     After a while it was time to go, we hopped into Dad's '58 chevy and headed up the hill, I don't know how he did it but we made it to the top.

     I grew up a lot in those years, between Dad's friends and the people I ran across with the job, I got a good education in life's lesson of interacting with people. In a way that I didn't realize at the time I became closer to dad, I didn't understand him any better but it was good to hear him introduce me to his friends, there was a sense of pride in his voice when he told people I was his number one (firstborn) son. 

     

     

The Sounds of Silence

 

     I'm sitting on my back deck reminiscing about the "Good Ol' Days", reminiscing has become a common occurrence for me. Seems that the older I get the less I like the changes I have lived through, embracing the world of today is difficult for me with all of the rampant technology, the woke generation, the me generation, the left, the right, so on and so on. So I often wind up looking backwards to a time long ago that only people my age can relate to.

     I live in a small town that is steadily getting larger and becoming more fast paced, more crowded with traffic and people. The noise, at times can be overwhelming with firetrucks, ambulances and police cars racing buy, then there are the loud mufflers. Peace and tranquility are hard to find in todays world.

     One of the things I like is to look out at what Kay and I have created for ourselves, her flowers are everywhere and their colors are beautiful. Birds are attracted to our yard, mainly because Kay feeds them but also because there are quite a few trees and places to build nest, in this I have helped by building at least a dozen birdhouses. Sitting here watching the birds and listening to their calls made me remember two birds I have not heard in many years. 

     When I was a young boy, I spent a lot of time on my grandfather's farm. He was a farmer of the old school, he plowed his fields walking behind a pair of mules, named Kit and Doc. He had cows, pigs and chickens all of which were tended to by hand. I followed him around just about everywhere he went.

     I remember, back in the 1950's, the distractions were a lot less than they are now, you were more in tune with the surroundings, in particular, the birds. There were the loud Blue Jays, Mocking birds, Wrens, Cat birds and others, they all had a song to sing and all you had to do was listen but there was one that really stands out in my memory - the Bob White Quail.

     The Bob White Quail is a small bird found only in the forest of the south, they had a very distinctive call, it was more of a whistling sound like no other. They were ground feeders and nested in the deep underbrush of the forest and raised a brood of six or more chicks. Once the chicks hatched mom and dad started their training and wherever mom and dad went so did the chicks. One of my best memories was walking down a shaded dirt lane with my grandpa. I looked up and not far ahead two adult Quails came out of the brush, one following the other, they in turn were quickly followed by six or eight freshly hatched chicks in a single file line behind the mom and dad.

     Unfortunately, the little bird was considered a prized target by hunters, they were nearly hunted to extinction. Their savior turned out to be the hunters, their hunger for the bird caused them to create brooders who would raise the birds to be turned loose on large hunting clubs where they would be hunted. But the hardy little bird turned out to be quite the survivor, the speed with which they flew when they were flushed made them hard targets. Today there are many birds running wild in south Georgia having escaped the aim of the hunter, conservationist in most southern states are reintroducing the Bob White Quail in their states.

     The other bird that I used to hear quite often is the Whippoorwill. When Linda and I moved closer to the lake in Mt. Juliet I could often hear the Whippoorwill late in the evening. I never saw one but they had a distinctive call that made them different from the other song birds. As far as I know they too were fond of the solitude afforded by the forest but the encroachment of people has destroyed much of their habitat.

     The last time I can say that I heard the call of the Bob White Quail was the late 1950's or early 1960's. The last I heard of the Whippoorwill was in the mid 1970's. I'm not against progress, I'm not a tree hugger, I leave that up to someone else and hope that someday mankind will learn from his prior mistakes. The sound of their silence is yet another reason so many of us elderly people often look back on the "Good Ol' Days".