Life in Nicaragua

[Jim]

Great to have you back, JW.

I have voted in every election since 1968 [you had to be 21 back in the day].

In October 2007, six months away from retirement, I made a list of things I no longer had to worry about. [dating AW, finding a better job, AND US politics]. I agree. If little people don't vote, the fanatics with the biggest mouths and the deepest pockets will control everything.

[John Wayne]

Now I have had no internet for 2 months and had to keep myself busy doing something besides drinking and chasing Wild women.....

So although this has not a friggin' thing to do with Nicaragua other than sitting here on the edge of it's rain Forrest and reminiscing a bit and putting my thoughts in print.

I hope to take you down a pleasant memory lane or completely piss you off.....

Cousin Billy..... And my first beer...


I am a "Tea Party Type" so therefore a "Threat" to Liberals, specially Jim......Simply because I am an outspoken cornhole......Hey, it is my God given right insured by the blood of patriots...

Billy.......

Actually I have three cousin Billy's, two by blood and one by marriage, all a bit older than me, and I will tell a bit about what I know of them.

I have not seen any of them in years.


Billy Price, about 10 years my senior, I never knew him very well, he was brother to Barbra that married my Uncle Cecil well after WW 2....She was quite young at 16, but mature, but that is how it was in those days.....Cecil 20 something, more than likely in the late 20's I don't know, but Cecil joined the Navy at 17, when EVERYONE was doing their part to stop the Nazis and Japonese.....

Wish we were doing this today with Radical Islam......

I believe it will come to that, mark my word....

Barbras younger brother, Billy went to Viet Nam, and in the early stages of it, in the battle of Ia Trang I think it was, lost both of his legs from just above the knees.

Pock marked all over his body from the anti personel device that took his legs and the life of his buddy, was a hell of a man from the waist up......

In arm wresteling from his wheelchair, I never heard of many put him down....And he did not play at it......nor did they.

But now Billy Fordham.....He was closer to my age.....

My Uncle Edward Hale, the oldest brother of my mother, was Billy's father.

Billy, youngest of two begats for Uncle Ed,... Anne, and Billy, an only daughter and son of my Uncle Ed.

Uncle Ed was found physicaly unfit because of bad feet to be a foot solder in WW 2, so he volenteered to cook for the Boys on the front line, they needed to eat in WW 2, and completed his part....

Now Aint Ruby, Uncle Ed's wife could not boil water without burnin' it, so it was said.

Uncle Ed could cook, and he could eat, which made his stature a bit heavier than the average man, Not gross, as you see in the States today, but heavy, which was why he could only serve in a support unit in the Army, he did plow a mule, but not as much as his brothers Cecil and Victor did.......

One story told about him was when the old clapboard house caught fire, and in the excitement, he was the only one had the since to start throwing clothes and bedding out the windows.....Momma Nannie remembered that till the day she died.

Also at the eatin' table when the meal was winding down and everyone just about had their fill, and he saw a spoon full of this or that left in a bowl, he would ask, "Anybody want any more of this?"

But before anyone could answer, he would put it on his plate......Quicker than it takes to talk about it.....

Miss Nannie taught Sunday School from 16 years old, till the day final, she folded her wings, and went on the be with the Lord, she learned to read from the bible, it was her only book.

And, when she asked Uncle Ed to say grace over the food one Sunday with the Preacher there....

Now Momma Nannies table was always laid out, great big platter of fried Chicken, pulled BBQ pork, big 'ole bowls of collard greens, turnip greens, tater salad, lard biscuts, butter beans, string beans and arsh (Irish) taters boiled up with a piece of fat back, chittlins sometimes, and "Cow Butter" (as she refered to it) to go on 'em biscuts or Hush Puppies, sweet tater pie, and sometimes a nanner puddin', make anyone from the South drull, just lookin' at that table.......

I, my brothers and sisters, and cousins, had the distinct pleasure of seeing many of those tables and setting up to them, some more than others because of age.....

And 'em Yankees, perhaps still don't know what they missin'............

My ex mother in law from NYC could not, would not, eat sweet potatos in her life, she for some reason detested them.

One time on a visit to Momma Nannies home, nobody said anything, but she did eat a piece of sweet tater pie, ooooh, she raved about how good was that punkin' pie.....

To put it lightly, she was surprized to find out it was made out of sweet potatos, after she did eat it.......

Now NYC is perhaps the biggest group of "Mongrels" ever put together in one place in the world, Democrats, hidden industrialists, bankers, thiefs and other undesirables, and just plain racists from the mid 1600's till today, with a few good people mixed in, ....They just keep changing stragity and throwing smoke.....

The Irish were the lowest on the toteum pole of immigrants, "Irish need not apply", or just plain "No Irish" on the doors of their underpaid factories and sweat shops, even children were vectums, if it ain't a living wage, it is worse than slavery in a city.

Look at what happened in the NYC riots of the mid 1800's......I could get into a whole nother thing here, but this ain't the time......

So back to Uncle Ed and the Sunday dinner with the Preacher there....

The table got quiet, Men, women, and children, everyone bowed their heads ready for the oldest son in the family to say Grace.....

So Uncle Ed, about 12 or 14, say's....." Oh Lord, and father of us all,....Bless this meat, ...and Darn the skin.....Back yo ears, ....and cram it in, .... amen......

Right there in front of God and everybody, Momma Nannie snached him from the table, and he got a trip to the woodshed with a peach tree limb, right then....

Funny, Uncle Ed turned out to be a Baptist minister.

Billy, Ricky, my brothers Jimbo, and Joey, and I, on family get togethers on Momma Nannies farm, which was quite often, used to go and see what meaness we could get into "Back in the fields", we were all raual boy's full of mischeft.

On the back side of the old farm was a small live oak grove with a few civil war era graves and we used to camp out there and try and scare each other with ghost stories around the camp fire in the night, Ricky was full of them ghost stories, he did a lot of readin'.

8 to 12 year olds without a care in the world, armed with our Dasiy "POP" guns that just made a noise and would shoot dirt out of the end of it if you stuck it in the ground first, but Billy had a real BB gun.

We used some old left over WW2 era camping gear we had for the Cub and Boy Scouts....

We had raided Momma Nannies pantry for some homemade sliced smoked ham, lard biscutts, and the hen house for some eggs, and we had it made.

Next morning late on the way back up to the house where the grown ups and litteler children were, we had grown tired of shootin' bumble bees out of the air, and marsh wrens out of the hedge rows that protected the row crop fields, and minnows in the canal ditch runnin' thru the middle of the farm.

Billy turns to us and says, "Boys, we going to have some "Live Fire" practice now, on big game"

We didn't know what Billy meant at the time, but he was the oldest, and leader of our little group of troupers......

Now what it turned out to be, was the only "Live, big game" part of this,..... was Sally.......Momma Nannies Jersey milk cow.....

Momma Nannie would stake the cow out on a chain to graze here and there, for her not to get into any wild onions and taint the milk and cream she produced with that scent.

She also had a bell around her neck to find her in case she got loose.

Here again she sold the excess milk and butter she got from the cow.

We snuck up on Sally, and about 50 yards from her in a hedge row, Billy said, "Boy's, this is close enough, we don't want her to know where we are"

Now it was a long ways for that BB gun, you had to use a lot of windage and elevation to hit her in the side so she would flinch, when she did that, we knew we had scored a hit, you could see the BB's flyin' thru the air......

I am sure passing around Billy's gun we made her flinch 8 or 10 times, well, in all honesty, perhaps quite a bit more than that, all of us laughing when one of us made a hit until the gun was out of BB's, and it held a plenty.

Spookin' her like that made her go dry we found out later, but that was one we got away with, I guess now that 45 years have passed, I can tell on us now.

We each asked our parents for a nickel to go up to the cross roads store known as "Miss Casey's 66 station" to get a cold drink and a nab (cracker) about 1/2 mile up the paved road, 3 cents for a cold drink, 5 gallons of "Regular Gas" for a dollar.

This was on a Saturday, later that day, behind the barn, Billy shot one of Momma Nannies chickens right in the head.....close up

Oh no, what we gone do now? We were all together and part of it as Miss Nannie would see it.

That chicken was flopin' and bleedin' all over the place, it did die.....

Billy had a plan, made us all swear not to tell nobody.....

He took the chicken out in Momma Nannies garden and buryed it when nobody of the grownup's or other children was lookin'.......

Only us older boys knew about it, and we were sworn to secertcy.....

Be sure, your sins will find you out!...... that was one of Momma Nannies favorite sayings.........

The dogs dug up the chicken and carried it up to her back porch....

That chicken was still fresh killed and Momma Nannie started inspecting it to find out if one of the dogs had done it.

Of course, she found the BB in it's head....

She called Billy straight away, boy, go get me a peach tree limb, me and you goin' to the woodshed......

Billy pissed his self.......

After that she told him, bring me that gun.....

She took it and went to one of the pecan (pronounced properly, Pee Can, not, Peh Con) trees in the yard, and beat it all to pieces.....

Next mornin' was when my big mess up came.......

Every Sunday morning and Wednesday night, it was church at the Bethel Freewill Baptist Church, and the only way to get out of it was to die, so you went anyway, even if in a coffin.....

Breakfast had, and all the grownup's got all the childern ready first, all we had to do was wait for them to get ready.......

My girl cousins Kathy, Karen, Kay, and Kim, all dressed up in their Sunday best, and we boys too.

All we had to do really was wait out on the front porch where Momma Nannie had a swing.

But me, Oh NO, I had to go pilferin' thru the old Ford Station wagon, and find a can of beer my dad had stached under the front seat.

Now it won't one of them pop tops like they have now a days.....You had to use a can opener on them in those days.

Hey, lookie here what I found, all gathered around, I shook that beer real good, bent down to the ground with it and a screw driver, and stobbed it.

There wasn't a single one of us that did not get wet with hot Schlitz beer flyin' outta that can......What didn't get wet good, I chased 'em with that spewin' can, shakein' it as I ran behind them.....

And do you think that got us out of going to church?....Hell no.....

All it got me was a trip to the woodshed....We went to church anyway....But we did miss Sunday School.

I think some of my cousins won't remember this, but generaly a trip to the woodshed does not go unforgotten on the recieveing end.




Where were we.......OH, yes......

Now on the way back to the farm from church, our mother told us all, before you ride the mules, and them ponies, CHANGE your Sunday clothes.

Seems that went in one of my brother Jimbo's ears, and out the other......

While the grownup's was a settin' up Momma Nannies eatin' table for Sunday dinner, and all of us was changin' into play clothes, 'ole Jimbo went straight to the barn and saddled up one of the ponies.

Jimbo, with his Sunday clothes still on.....

Now ponies are smart, and horses and mules too.

Hell of a lot smarter than some of what I see comin' out of Washington, and the State Capitols these days.....

Am I calling some of them ass's? .....Yes, and some of them need to be REPLACED.....

We got some young one's comin' along that need to be up there, where some of the horses ass's need to be history, and someone with a head on their sholders need to be givin a chance at the steerin', dam, and not the river kind, they could not do any worse than the "Products" of Washington....

Thank God, the Senator from Chappiqudick got called home to where ever he will spend eternity, before he did any more damage to our country....

I fully beilive he was only in it for the money, and his ego......Bet he wants a "drink" of that water right now the girl swallowed......Long as it's got a little "Irish" in it.....

Enough Politics, now back to my story.....

I got kicked by a mule one time, and will get into that on the next post.

Now back to Jimbo.....

Now if you ain't careful, when you go to tie the cinch on the saddle, they will swell all up with air in their lungs and when the knot is tied, the saddle is loose on their back when they relax.

This is what happened to 'ole Jimbo that Sunday on his famous pony express ride.

He mounted that rascal, sittin' high in the saddle again, only lacked a campaine hat, and a brace of pistols attached to the saddle and another brace on his belt, with a sabre.....

Ahhh, the ghost of Brig. General Pickett makin' his famous charge at Gettysburg.....

White coat tails floppin' in the breeze, comin' up to Momma Nannies house on the dirt path from the barn at a dead run.

Head down near the mane of the beast, cluckin' him on, feet in the sturrups touchin' it's belly with the heels of his shoes for added emphasis to the animal.

Reins not to tight, lettin' the horse have his head.

And a big 'ole shallow mudhole right in the path......

Yes, you guessed it, that horse did a stiff two front legged stop, head and rump down, and 'ole Jimbo and the saddle, went right over the horses head and into the mud hole......

I know the darn horse stood there laughin' cause I saw it.

Now that was some purdy,.... white coat, pants, shirt, blue tie, and white Buster Brown "Snap Shoes" all in that mud hole.......

Jimbo got his trip to the woodshed over that, and of course the rest of us laughed, we always did when only one got it...

I cannot remember any of the girls goin' to the woodshed, and I am sure once in a great while it did happen, but nothin' stands out in my mind, but we boy's did for about half of the things we did, maybe not even that, and that was only because we didn't get caught in some of our other "Misadventures".

Now I don't mean to slander my brother Jimbo bringin' up Pickett's charge at Gettysburg in relation to his misadventure with the horse and his Sunday clothes, but it did come to mind.

Pickett was not very popular around the town of my birth....Google, ... Kinston 22

In letters exchanged between Pickett and Grant, over what happened, I had to side with Grant on that one, even though what Sherman did in the South was far worse than that, on his march to Atlanta.

I had seven of my direct anscestors serve honorably in the Confederate Calvery from Jones County and for Pickett to slander us like he did, I would like to put a "Charge" up his.........Well, .....where the sun don't shine...and light it....

It was over States Rights, NOT over slavery, at that time, slavery was progressing into tennent farming practices all over the South anyway, which is mostly what we have today.

I will send to all of you my friends in an attachment to this post how Slavery got started in the United States, it is going to knock some of your socks off.

The industrialized North could not do without the raw materials the South provided to their factories and mills for international trade, and the taxes on them became unreasonable to the South,.....Sound fimilar in todays situation?....Hahaha, How you like this health care thing so far?......

The road to Hell is paved with "Good Intentions"......

WTF, the South started dealin' internationaly direct, (A house divided against itself cannot stand).......THAT is when, and why, the bullets started flyin'.

Like Mamma Nannie said many times...."The Truth will stand, when the world is on Fire".....

My fathers grandfather, John Lewis, was a tennent farmer and of which I am not ashamed to say, it was and is an honorable profession, he was a member of "Woodmen of the World" till the day he went on to be with the Lord....

His grave stone bears that in Trenton Cemetary.....

My dad told me one time, there was not enough water on earth to wash the mud off of his boots...

But yet he was another "Black Irishman" made and drank enough whiskey to float the "Queen Mary", and it won't all "Tax Paid".

I only knew him for the first 12 days of my life when he died of a busted bladder or something like that, so my memory is a bit thin and am going on hearsay about him.

I was given his and his son Wayne's names, and because of Marion Morrison later, I had to take a lot of S*** in my life, perhaps that is why I am such an outspoken cornhole.

I did know his wife and widow, Pearlie Evans till I turned 13 and she went on home to be with the Lord.

Her last wish in life, was to see me married, her first born great grandchild, but that didn't come about, it came about 10 years later, and me to a NYC Yankee Woman.

Ma Pearl kept 5 or 6 milk cows and had a route with a mule drawn cart, in the town of Trenton NC, the Jones County seat, (Pop. 10k today for the county) for her product, Milk and butter.

Ma Pearl was an older distant cousin to Momma Nannie, which makes me a genuine "Inbred Rednek" also of which I am not ashamed, quite proud of it really.

Ain't many can make that claim and prove it....

Ma Pearl raised my dad and his brother Edward, from when my dad was four years old and "Uncle Jack" (Edward) was still in diapers, she was the only mother they ever knew in early life....

Thirty some miles up the road on highway 58 on the edge of Jones and Lenior County, my Mother was born, the last of Momma Nannies brood.

Now one story about Ma Pearl, was in her younger days, Louis Pastuer in France had found out that raw milk, carried bacteria that was detrimental to human health and by a simple "Boiling" of it, eliminaded this risk.

Hence "Pasturized" milk.

Jones County was perhaps one of the last places on earth to conform.....

Is that why my brain is burned out? Or is it John Lewis' Whiskey........

The health dept of the county visited her and asked her if the milk she was sellin' was "Pasturized"......

Why yes, of course it is, she said....

I put my cows out in the Pasture every single day........ If you don't believe this, I could care less.....

Next, gettin' kicked by a mule...

[John Wayne]

Fellers, women, and children, I think I am caught up in another revolution Don't want it to be but here it is....

White Flag
Used to mean, lets talk, parley, smoke the peace pipe and discuss grievances......

Wihsa Tara, appointed King of the Miskito Indian Nation wanted this redress of greavences today, and with thousands of the Miskito Indian Public, marched, filled the streets with people unhappy with the current Sandinista regime.

Everyone carrying White Flags, from the communities to the local barrios, my 15 year old son, two brother in laws, a sister in law and just about all of the city particapating ...... or town if you wish.....

Nobody armed under his (Wihsa Tara) orders, just a peaceful demonstration to meet with Sandinista leaders over greavencas.....

The streets filled with supporters, and when they got up to the entrance Governors house, this is what was told to me what happened by eye witness' my son and other family.

I have video interviews with them and the DVD's in a safe place should anything bad befall them or me ....

The Sandinistas had many vagos, and Malientes all hipped up on Rum and they attacked the Wihsa Tara and his group with rocks, then came an assault from the Nicaraguan Riot Police, my son gained a John Kerry, "Purple Band Aid" by getting hit on the hand by a teargas granade.....

He brought it home as a sovoneer

One old man, now there were men, old men, Women and CHILDREN in this group of people not satisfied with the present regime in a peaceful demonstration....

The old man fell out with the tear gas, and fell out in the street.....

50 went to the hospitol hurt...

One drunkin Sandinista Malienta picked the old man up and the Riot police rifle butted him to death right in front of my son and brother in law....Blood all over him, Beat the old man to death......

Now no more white flags according to Wihsa tara...... Any one want to call my son and Brother's in laws Liars.....Have at it.....

Others have video's too.....

Sig Hiel.....
__________________
What disease did cured ham actually have?

[John Wayne]

Next, Mule Kicked.....

OK here again I intend to entertain you or piss you off completely....

Ok, please excuse my mistake on the last post confusing Grant with Sherman, but lets face it....All those Yankees look alike to me.

A friend and History Major brought it to my attention....I am so embarrassed.....

Yes, I got kicked by a mule one time, I have already stated I been cut, shot, bitten, and beat, in my life, and lived to hunt again, course sometimes I did come out the winner, I am still here, and some others of my generation are not.......But that was God's doins' not mine.

I never killed another human in my life, but I know I could if I had too.....

'Ole Dan, and Sarge my internet friends will relate to this story, and perhaps a few of you still living that are over 50....

Now 'ole Dan knows about Morrisuri Mules, will work till they quit on their own, but still have that "Washington' Horses ass in them, and need to be pushed a bit....

Listen at me insultin' mules with the likes of those "Products" of Washington....

Forget it, I am going to take a verbal stab at those Asses' in Washington that piss me off whenever I think, or am reminded of them..........

Deep Creek Virginia.......

Just about on the Carolina line, a hop, skip, and a jump, from " Elizibeth City, and Little Washington" NC (no pun intended)

Right on the edge of the Dismal Swamp....That is where I grew up from 6 years old, before that, Jones County NC....

Rattle Snakes, Copperheads, and Water Moccocins were the norm around the creeks and swamps, swimmin' holes, and canals, And catfish, muskrats, Striped Bass, and Blue Channel hard crabs to be caught....

Westonia road was just a loop off of Old Mill road which was a loop off of highway 17 runnin' thru Norfolk down to Elizibeth City NC and beyond.

They changed county names so many times I learned in primary school to spel both Chesapeake County, and Portsmouth County......

Three hours to Momma Nannies farm south of Kinston by car.....

And another 40 minutes on 58 to "Glory Land" Trenton, the Jones County seat.......

Ma Pearl (my fathers grandmother) considered Trenton to be "Glory Land" and told my mother many times when her and my father were first married.......

"Trenton is the garden spot", she would say, and my rebelious young mother would chime in sayin'....

"The only place that God Forgot".......

Now my future father was shippin' out of Norfolk as a Merchant Marine and on a quite crazy turn of events, accepted a blind date thru another fellow Merchant Marine from Jones County......

My future mother had finished high school, and at 19 went to the big city of Norfolk to stay a while with her older married sister Beatrice....

They did not know each other from the Counties...but on this blind date, they did meet.....

My father was drafted in the army and was put in the calvery, and made Sgt. and commander of a tank, and sent to Germany as part of, I guess the ladder day occupational forceses of WW2, I rode over there with him, and came back with my mother.......

So yes, I was concieved in Germany, but born near "Glory Land"....because there wasn't a hospitol there, and my mother was not into that home birth thing......with any of her 6 children for that matter.....And we all have Certifacates of "Live" birth......

Now everybody from North Carolina has a Aint Bea.....Even Andy Taylor.....

Aint Bea had married a "Yoponner", now that is a fightin' word if you use it in the right way.....

Yoponners are those from the Outer Banks of NC, they got that name from drinkin' the Yopon bush tea that grows all over 'em sand dunes......

And they refer to us as "Woodsers"

How Aint Bea met him I don't know, perhaps Aint Bea or his begats, Kathy, Karen, Kay, or Kim can fill me in on this......

Aint Bea's husband, was Uncle Jim, To my knowlage he was born, named Uncle Jim.

Jim's father tended the light house at Hatteras for thousands of years and educated his son, who went on to Norfolk and became a CPA (Certifyed Public Accountant)

Being Uncle Jim's father worked for the Dept. of Transportation in the area tendin' the lighthouse, he was also the country's first,... Air Traffic Controler, he was the one that issued aviation permits to the Gore Brothers when they invented flight over there at Kitty Hawk NC with their flyin' machine.

I better get back to being Mule Kicked for now, sorry for goin' off into outer space..... I do that sometimes...

My dad went back to sea, and was gone quite a bit, and that is kinda how I wound up gettin' an Aint Mary.

At about 14 or 15 years old, she had an extreamly bad thing happen in her life that left her and a younger brother and sister orphans.....

How all this came about I don't know, Jesus, when you are 6 years old plenty goes in one ear and out the other.....

Now Aint Mary came to live with us, and her younger brother and sister, with another raual family, but in all honesty, I thought of her as a dominering older sister......

And did we boy's need dominatin', full of mischief we were, I'll tell some about it now, but I wouldn't a told it then....

One time she sent me out to the "Shed" to bring back a "Few" potatoes because she had "James River Stew" on the menu for that evening....

Now for those of you that are not fimilar with fine Southern Quisene......"James River Stew" is corned beef hash, very popular in SE Virginia.... Hahaha, makin' some of ya'll's mouth water right now ain't I .....

Now I know good and well, she wanted 2 or 3 pounds...... I brought back 2 arsh taters as our neighbor Granny Lockamy called them.......on purpose....Just to get her rilled.....and played dumb, it was extra work because I had to make another trip, but I did love aggravatin' her.... Jimbo did too, I am goin' to tell about the "Baseball bat" on the next post.....

She and my mother have been life long friends, and they each thank God for each other and not ashamed to say so, I don't know what would have happened to all of us if things had not worked out this way...

My mother worked, and Aint Mary was there for us like a solid woman till she married a good 'ole boy from Great Bridge on the other side of the County, and they became a United States Air Force family.....Thank you,... and "Uncle Buddy" for your service to our Country.....

And while I'm at it, THANKS all you others that give your time to keepin' us safe, plenty gave it all......The liberals....Be damned....

Ok I am gettin' to the mule kicked part.....

Gwynndemere Farms....Deep Creek Virgina.....

Along about the time I was in the 3rd or 4th grade at school, I had a 16' flat Iron row skiff that we boys went crabbin' and Striped Bass fishin' in on "Long Creek".

And one of us boys named Robbie Gwynn, son of Robert Whaley, and grandson of 'ole man Percy Gwynn, the same age as us used to pal around together.......


Now Robbies father and grand father was big farmers in the area at the time, 100 acres of snap beans in the summer months with a winter cover crop of wheat or rye grass, 500 to 1000 head of Black Angus beef cattle, a great big pick your own strawberry farm, and raised Apaloosa horses, and God only knows how many acres of corn they did tend for the cattle's winter salage.

It was there, we boy's learned to drive rubber tired tractors and Combines in the fields with a corn, or a grain header on it, and "Farm Use Only" single axel trucks on, and off, the paved roads even though we could not see over the steerin' wheel, and to excersize them horses, and the Boy Scouts.....

Hell, I did my fair share of settin' on a transplantin' one row farm implement, pulled by a Ford tractor settin' out them strawberry plants in the spring, same thing my Uncle Cecil did with Tobacco plants on farms he did tend for others, and the 'ole family farm in NC.

Now in the Snap bean fields is where I got my A$$ kicked by a mule.........

But first the horses.....

A mile run, back in the fields of "Gwynndemere Farms" and back, on the back of an Appolusa is something everyone needs to experiance.....

75 pounds of 12 year old boy, 30 or so of western saddle and bridle, the wind and mane hairs in your face and nothing but unleashed pure mussele under you, and thunderin' shod hooves......

I swear to God Almighty, and all that is Holy, if you ain't been there, you have not lived......

John B....I know you been there....You too DSB, and Puerto George.... and I think DDT been there and done that too....

Now these four men I just mentioned were Genuwine real Cowboys in their youth, then they got smart and got a real job that paid, I went fishin' like Bikingo......

Robert Whaley had an absolutely beautiful, golden colored, with white bangs, mane, tail, and spotted rump, stud horse, I cannot remember his name, but me and him got along fine on the workouts....

That son of a gun thrilled me on a run....

And big deal, I did fall off one time and broke the two bones in my right fore arm, hurt like hell, Dr. said it was only green stick fractures.

But inside of two weeks we were playin "Ryder Pickup" left handed, and me with a cast on my right fore arm.

Casts and stitches in them days was a badge of honor.

And then that damned 'ole Mosurri mule......

All was not roses on that farm, sometimes we had work to do, which some of it was pretty ****ty work, like muckin' out the horse stalls.....Been there, done that....

We boy's didn't do it because we had too, or for the money because it wasn't much, a quarter now an then from Robert Whaley, we did it because we loved it......

We actually made more money fishin', an crabbin', in the spring summer and fall, and catchin Muskrats and rabbits in the winter months.

And that damned mule.......Paitencence I am getting there........

I am gone tell this on my own sweet time, if you get bored, go on with somethin' else in your life, don't waste your time on me.

There was 12 rows about 3 feet between the centers, between the irrigation lines of the snap bean fields, these lines of galvanized pipe were pipe mounted about knee high and had orifaces every so often to spray the plants with water from a pond during drought or plantin' time to make the seeds go on and sprout.

A two row or four row rollin' cultivator behind a small Ford or a big 'ole John Deere 720 three wheeled diesel tractor on a 3 point hitch was used on the fields to keep the weeds down and the strength of the land to go to the bean plants.

Ya know, we can "Weed out" Washington, and State Capitols, easier than them bean fields at the ballot box, but you have to get involved to do it......

Now 'ole Sarge, in Honduras, a retired Jar Head (smilein' as I say this) from the States, is perhaps a more outspoken cornhole than me, the only thing will shut either one of us up, is to die.........

BTW Sarge, I liked that comeback about kickin' the slats in the cradle with laughter......

Now on this farm lived and worked two "Colored" families, Elick, son of "Jack" was our age and pal ed around with us, he was one of us, bare footed in the summer and shoes or boots in the winter, all of us the same, though he went to a nicer newer school because of his race.

I am not bothered I took some of my primary school classes in a hot a$$ some of the year and cold thru the winter months, in a left over WW 2 quantset hut....

Hey, the truth will stand when the world is on fire......

Everyone has a station in life, and if you cannot accept that.....Go Pee up a Gum Stump.....Some are destined to be intelicutsales and Professionals, and other's bean pickers,....... and career criminals and violent criminals need to be soundly dealt with and done.....Pure and simple....

On a teamwork, bein' hay balein', puttin' up the salage, or snap bean pickin' time, pork n bean sandwiches, seafood platers, (crackers and sardines out of the can) and round steak sandwiches, (vienna sausages on Wonder Bread) was the norm for a snack....

From before day till dark thirty......

God I miss 'em Pork n Bean sandwiches, can't get the makin's here in Nicaragua......

I need to jump to Snap Bean pickin' time here and then get back to cultivateing them and when I got my A$$ kicked by a mule.

Now bush snap beans come off (ready for harvest) in 35 to 45 days from plantin' time, and so the different fields were sowed every two weeks apart from when danger of a killin' frost was gone, so they did not all get ready at once and could not be handled by the local help, sprayin' with water made the seeds go on and sprout, didn't need to wait on a rain.

And if they was a light frost on the plants in the night, a little water spray before the sun came up saved 'em, early and late in the year.....

A hundred or more, men, women, and children were bussed there from the community of Craddock to do the pickin' on piece work, paid by the bushel, it was a labor intensive operation at harvest time.

I never really did like Snap Beans till I stuck my feet under my ex mother in laws eatin table in NYC, well actually, Long Island, she and my wife had made "Shepards Pie".

I guess it was a Yankee dish, because I hadn't never seen it before, but this 'ole Rebel loved it from the first platefull, and her daughter too in them days, which was how I wound up with a Half Yankee female Begat.....

Thick with them Snap Beans, onions, ground beef, spices and seaonings, a toppin' of mashed arsh taters, shoved in the oven in a bakin' pan to make beautiful brown curley tails on top where it had been touched all over with the back of a spoon, make Betty Crocker jelious to be sure......Dam, and not the river kind.....I gettin' hungry now, just thinkin' bout it.....

And still, that freakin' mule is botherin' me in this story till I go on and spit it out.... He/she was an A$$....

But those Horses asses in Washington been botherin' me all my adult life, lately the ass from Indonisia, Islam, or wherever he is from.

Only he, and God aint got a birth certificate......The One, which in my mind is ZERO because if you ain't got a birth certificate you a nobody in this world, lookie here, God don't have one and many now a days think HE is a nobody as well..........

OK Just plain John Wayne, you have insulted enough, just go on with your mule kickin' story.

The mule was greyish white not a "Brown Mule" like the Famous plug of chewin' Tobacco sold all over the South at the time.

Google "Mule Day's, Benson North Carolina" Eat your heart out Jhon and Dan......

Me and "Jack", him, a forever 40 ish farm worker, and me about 12, was killin' the weeds under the "Skinner" lines, (Irrigation pipes) durin' a dry time, this is when you want to get the weeds, and throw their roots out into the sun for 'em to die.......

Now Jack could not only drive a tractor, but could "Plow a Mule" too....

And this killin' of the weeds under the pipes took two people and a mule, Jack workin' the "Turnin' Plow" constantly in and out of the pipe supports and me doin' the drivin' walkin' along side Jack even though the mule had no steerin' wheel, just a coupla ropes hooked to the bridle on his head, runnin' thru steel rings on his collar....

Pretty simple really, pull one rope for a left turn and pull the other one for a right turn, and when you pulled on both and sayin' "Whoa mule", that was the brakes, slappin the rump with the ropes and a loud "Getty Up mule" was the accelerator pedal, it has a automatic transmission, and generaly very little reverse, varing from mule to mule....

And I am not ashamed to say my mother rode and plowed mules in her youth.....My Dad went huntin' and fishin'......

Now contrary to some peoples thinkin', a mule does NOT pull a plow.......No more than those famous Clydesdales pull around that bright red beer wagon.......(and it ain't even a "Radio Flyer")

In "Harness" they push things around, even though it is behind them, it is pushed, and that is the way I feel about Washington and its "Public Servants", Friends, we need to do more "Pushin'" of their ethics and work quality......

Now near the end of one irrigation line, we did take a breather, Jack, the mule, and I......

Jack and I had a drink of water, and the mule had a 5 gallon bucket full, provided by 'ole man Percy Gwynn....

Wet with sweat we were in the hot sun, the mule drippin sweat, and Jack sat down on the irigation line near the handles of the plow, and I sat down near the mules ass with the steerin' ropes, my back to the mule, up close, things had been goin' good.....

Up close to a mule with calmin' words and touchin' it like I was, is safest, 4 to 6 feet away, is the "Danger" zone.

One of them rascals can knock your head slam off your sholders and think nothin' of it....

Just like some of the two legged "Animals" we have in the human race......

So anyway....

I guess that mule was a workahaulic and decided it was time to go back to work and started moving forward before Jack and I was ready....

I pulled both steerin' ropes layin' across my sholder, and said, "Whoa Mule".........

That son of a gun, launched me into outer space with his/her, left hind hoove, right ka-dab, on my right side Glutinious Maximus, right
off of that irrigation line........four rows of 'em snap beans I tumbled across before the kinitic energy expended itself and I came to a stop.......

Jack and 'ole man Percy checked me out to insure nothin' was broken' and we went back to work, me limpin' a bit.

Because I was so close, it was more of a "Shove" than a kick, but it left me with a "Badge of Honor" of a blue brused horse shoe imprint on my posterior that for the next few days, once in a while, I had to drop my pants and "Moon" some of my friends that didn't belive it.....

[John Wayne]

Now from time to time, I get a little mixed up as to where I have posted what. Must be the rum and Wild women......

If my posts offend, Sorry, I don't apologize, just X it out and go on with your life....

The only thing this has to do with Nicaragua at this time is I am sitting down here on my sorry ass on the edge of one of the last intact Tropical rain forests, writing my Memoirs.....

I have a beautiful young Miskito Indian Wife and four begats from her ranging in age from 15 to soon to be 8years old the youngest....

The "Baseball Bat".........

Deep Creek Virginia.

Dixie Lockamy, I never knew her maiden name, or cannot remember, but she was from around the area.

A close neighbor and all the children of the world loved "Gramp" or "Granny" Lockamy......

When her husband was living he was "Uncle Roy" to all of us.

Now her and 'ole Uncle Roy in their youth eloped on down to Elizibeth City NC to be married by a Justice of the Peace down there.

So they got back and everyone in his and her family were happy about it, but 'ole Roy passed out when he found out that Dixie was only 14 years old and he about 25.....

Granny said, "I was full grown" and gigglin' about it, tellin' to my mother and Aint Mary, "I was so well endowed up top, Roy never even thought about it, he figgured I was of age".....

Laughin' more, she continued, "We got a bit of ammonia on a rag and waved it around his nose and got him up off the floor......

Now Roy and Dixie's marriage stood the test of time, they raised several sons and daughters and were together till Roy died an old man.

I remember......

Granny up on her back porch sometimes with that 'ole Wringer Washing machine, we youngin's would play with some of her grand youngin's in her back yard and kinda waitin' around to see if the old joke was true about gettin' part of her anatomy hung in the wringer....

It never did happen, so that old joke didn't hold water...

Huge vegitable gardens, chicken pens, and hound dogs, and here and there an "Outhouse" or two, not everyone had "Indoor plumbin"

Chest food freezers just coming on the market so all that hot "Cannin" of the food for the winter was reduced.

Nobody's yard was fenced in, nor Iron bars on the windows and doors, we slept with the screened windows open in the nights and the doors unlocked.......There was "Capitol Punshment" in our judical system..... I cannot even remember seein' a Police car....Just the State Troupers up on the "Big" two lane highway 17 sometimes....

It was also the time of "Hoola Hoops","Pogo Sticks", "Wiffle Ball", and "Rabbit ear antenned Black and White TV's, that often had some kind of a frozen picture on it most of the time sayin' "Techenical Difficulity", in place of Howdy Dudey, the Lone Ranger, Superman, or, Leave it to Beaver, and "Tarzan"......

But we older ones played "hog lot baseball", (I will explain that on another post) some of us even had gloves...

Wiffle Ball was brand new out, a plastic baseball bat and a baseball with holes in it, I don't care how hard and solid of a lick you gave it, that ball went nowhere so even the youngest of us could partcipate without gettin' killed. (hit hard enough to hurt)

Now I cannot stress enough we boy's were very mischievious, and liked to provoke Aint Mary, how many times did she tell us...."Boy, wait till your mother gets home"..... "She gone skin you alive".....

Most of the time if it was minor she forgot about it, but if it was serious like gettin caught smokin' cigarettes, it got reported.....

I am addicted to the *******s today.....It was a "Manly thing" in them days, even Camel commericals said more Doctors said they prefered that brand....

Women didn't smoke or chew gum in public....It was considered "Trashy"

Granny's son "Sonny" I cannot remember his "Christian" name, But I remember well the name Aint Mary put on him, I will get into that later, he used to send us boy's up to the the Deep Creek Merciantile store, up to the big highway, for "Pall Mall" cigarettes occasionaly.

Pall Mall, long unfiltered things, just tobacco and paper, "Where Particualar People Congrigate", was their motto.....

We boy's would put together some money and buy a pack for ourselves as if Sonny had sent us, and go back in the woods and smoke them...

Early one afternoon after smokin' 3 of them right in a row, I got sick as a dog.....

I went home green around the gills, brushed my teeth good with Colgate tooth paste till I spit a bit of blood, and went to bed......

Momma always told us if you don't brush 'em teeth till you spit blood, you ain't doing nothing....

Perhaps that, and bein' breast fed as an infant, is why I still got all mine......Only three lowers with root canals and caps, ain't bad for an old man in his late 50's...

Quittin' smokin' is easy, I have done it at least 200 times in my life..... one time for 2 years......Friends, Like drugs, if you don't take it up to start, you won't have to worry about throwin' it down later....

Now in them days, if they was one sick in the house, everybody came visitin, bringing a bit of advise or perhaps chicken soup or other Southern dishes, for my part, just don't bring no Chitterlings.......

In them 'ole clapboard houses, there wern't many conversations had, that was not heard thruout the house......

Granny told my mother that evening, and hit the nail on the head...."Doris, I think that boy been out in the woods smokin' Cigarettes, I raised a passle of boy's and grandboy's, he been smokin' cigarettes......

Some mothers you just cannot fool......

Now I have gone on off in outer space again, and need to get back on the "Baseball Bat" story of this post....

We were playin' Wiffle Ball in the side yard, bases loaded, bottom of the nineth, and Aint Mary was at bat, and 'ole Jimbo, my younger brother was a pitchin'.....

He was 11 years old and full of mischief......

Aint Mary was bigger, stronger, and able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, bend steel with her bare hands.....Stop a steamin' locomotive, and make Jimmy Olsen gush with admaration......

Only thing she didn't have, was that Xray vision..... I guess that comes in time, but she was young yet....But seemed she did have eyes in the back of her head, like my Mother and Father did....

Jimbo decides he gone throw the game, and in the face of this formitable opponent, decides to haul ass with the ball to get the job done.....

Thru the 'mater patch, cross the arsh tater patch, round the China ball trees, Peach, and Silver leaf maple trees, he did run, and Aint Mary right behind him, he with the ball and she with the plastic bat still in her hand, tryin' to catch him to get the ball back......

Now Granny Lockamy, workin' out in her garden saw this, and thought Aint Mary was gonna whack 'ole Jimbo with that bat, She thought it was a real wooden bat, it looked just like one....

Aint Mary would have never in a thousand years have done that, she never once raised her hand to us although we did ask for it, she always passed that on to our mother.....

Which was worse, my mother would not spare the rod (a peach tree limb) and spoil the child, when it was a serious offence..... I Thank God for that today.....

Granny Lockamy, a bit on the heavy side of the late 40's or early 50's, like the "Lone Ranger", dropped what she was doin' in her garden and headed Aint Mary off at the pass......

Now, it was the three of them runnin' around like somethin' crazy in the yard......

Granny caught Aint Mary to disarm her.... And when she snached that lite hollow plastic bat out of her hand and looked at it, weighed it in her hand, and started laughin', girl, you only gonna make that boy mad with this.......

Told Aint Mary, next time, get a peach tree limb, and everybody knows whats goin' on....

Aint Mary said, I was not tryin' to whack him.....I just wanted the ball back that he stole from the game......

You ever laugh till you cried?......At's what them two women did at that moment......

Next.....Screw Ball.....You hear me here Aint Mary? ....... folks, get involved in politics.....VOTE.....and write to your representitves with heart felt letters....



Friends, I cannot get on the net as before, so I am doing things this way......

If any receive these "Stories" of mine unsolicited or they happen to offend, let me know and I will take your name off my mailing list, if others forward these to you, you have to notify them, I have NO control of where my writings go at this point.

bamboojohn2001@yahoo.com

Screw Ball....

Screw Ball, Crazy, Two or three Bricks shy of a load, Not playin' with a full deck of cards.........

What? you think I am talkin' about "Washington" again?......Perhaps....., but not SARGE in Honduras, he still has his head screwed on straight....as did "Sonny" sometimes....

Sonny Lockamy........one of Granny Lockamys sons I am talkin' about, but Sonny was a hell of a lot smarter than "Some" of those in "DC" (and I ain't talkin' about Duplin County NC here) and the State Capitols which are also a "Thorn in my side" (Down East NC talk) , in my humble opinion.......

Sonny was born normal, (SARGE still is, me, I am not so sure about, (this is not a speed readin' contest, take your time with my writing or go on to something else in your life, I hope to take you on a pleasant trip down memory Lane, or piss you off big time)

But later on in life in his teens, Sonny got to drinkin and palin around with the wrong crowd, called themselves, the "Midnight Ramblers" and nearly lost his life in an inebriated car crash when young, up in the big city of Norfolk....

Which left him with a steel plate in his head and the mind of a grown up adolescent, quite a bit more mind, than a complete "Retard" like some of those in Washington....You hear me here Speaker of the house Pelosi?..... You want to ignore the "Tea Parties"? and continue to refer to them as "Subversive".....

Now I do not want to seem as to stoop myself to childish name callin.....But Lord Have Mercy.....The very Backbone of the country,Those are the workin' tax payin', your bread and butter people, that provide what you want to squander, ooops Share.

"Wealth", only the goods produced, or services rendered give money any value at all, and plenty of those present day "Services", we can do without..... How many have forgotten that?...

I just wonder how long people like Sarge and myself will even be permitted by the likes of "Pelosi" to express "Freedom of Speech?" or defend your family in ones own home....'Don't Tread on me"..... because ..."I See a Bad Moon a Risin".....

Sonny was a Siencetest, Ecologest, Inventor, Fisherman, Farmer, Philosifer, and friend to all of us, a few years younger than my father.....

He fell in love with my Aint Mary, a skinny, but good lookin' young thing, and proposed marriage to her.........

OK Aint Mary, at the next Family reunion, don't you Kill me for this.......

If I turn Liberal at a ripe old age, (which would be worse than turnin' Queer) OK, I can except death for that, but tellin the truth?.....

I remember my Aint Mary tellin' my mother about the Proposal, and all of us couldn't help but hearin'........

"I wouldn't marry that "Screw Ball" if he was the last man on earth" she said.........

My mother was not for it either, It was a joke really, Sonny was not a complete idiot, but half way there, though he was a fishin' buddy of we boy's.....

The name stuck....He was "Screw Ball" from then on to all of us....

I know he is dead and gone now, but the truth will stand when the world is on fire........

Sonny was a good 'ole soul, but a simpleton because of what happened in his younger years with his drinkin' and carryin' on....

I spent many a day out in the salt water creek with him and some of my buddies, fishin' and crabbin' on a "Flat Iron" row skiff....

We got a dollar a bushel for hard crabs, two bushels for the day usein' hand lines with old beef bones and dip nets was a big day, most of the time it was only one bushel......

Which is how I know about him being a member of the "Midnight Ramblers" and how he got messed up in his head....thru an alcohol induced auto crash.

I think he was a livin' example to we boy's of what gettin' out in the "Wicked World" could do to you, if you won't carefull......

Sonny had turned Christian and preached to we boy's on occasion about fallin' in with the wrong crowd......went to Church every Sunday, where, I don't remember, but I still see him in my minds eye in his suit with his bible in his hand, walkin' down the road to catch the bus to Church.....

Sonny, the inventor.......

He had a project he was workin' on to mount a bicycle in a Flat Iron row skiff that he could peddle, and thru a series of sprockets and chains, which turned a paddle wheel on the stern of the craft, and in his mind would, "do 20 mile' an hour" in the creek, get her up on a "Plane".....almost enough to "Water Ski".....

I don't think that one ever floated.....

He built me and my brother Jimbo a three wheeled bicycle built for two, guaranteed to out run anything our buddies had, so he said....

And it did....

But only for about 2 miles.

He took the front wheel off Jimbos bicycle and put the front forks of it on the back wheel of mine after removin' both mud fenders......

One lap around the State loop road we lived on was about a mile, it wasn't nothing but a tarred gravel road, more gravel than tar....

Many of the other County roads won't nothing but dirt Hog Paths.....

Now you don't think for a minute that "Smithfield Virginia Hams" the most famous in the world for smoked hams, could a done it without somebody raisin' a hog or two?.......

UuuuWeee, me an 'ole Jimbo was a flyin', if Sonny had a put wings on that land craft, we would have had to take out aviation permits.....

About half way or so on that second lap, that thing came apart........Me and 'ole Jimbo had a one and a half, single viechle, flyin' thru the air, scoopin' up gravel in our mouths, malfunction........

Aint Mary had to get out the cotton balls and Iodine on that one, when we came limpin' back home, me and Jimbo, with half a bicycle in each of our hands.....

"Sonny" where ever you at right now, I am laughin now tellin' this on you, and I salute you, you were a good influence on those that could have gone bad........

Stilts.....That is them sticks with foot pedals on 'em to make you taller.....

Far as I know, Sonny invented 'em, and to this day holds the "Patent" on them....He never had no begats, so who is gonna argue with me? some "Retard" in Washington"?

Some of those "Retards" got there by talkin' a better ball game than they can play, to those that WILL vote.

And those of us that don't give a dam, that took the attitude that votein' would not do any good, let 'em take it.....

Don't Gauld me again this next up commin elections, get off your sorry butts, and get involved.....As Teddy Roosevelt said around 100 years ago......It is a "Duty" to get involved..... I know...I was there.....

Now 'ole Sonny had several different models, styles and heights off the ground of stilts, that he custom built for the different children that came around wantin' a "Next to Free", pair of stilts.....

The "Next to Free" meant you had to help grub up the materials for the construction....

Me and 'ole Jimbo, wanted some of those stilts that made us 10 feet tall and with no hands like we saw of "Uncle Sam" on the TV in 'em Parades, strapped to our feet and legs...

Sonny made 'em for us, we even tied a home made "Tarzan" rope, hand braided, made of many used pieces of hay balin' twine up a tree where we could sit on the ground and strap 'em on and pull ourselves up to walk with 'em on.....

One of our buddies father, Robert Whaley Gwynn, raised Appaloosa horses and bordered others for people, had special trash barrels for the used hay twine around the horse stalls, so as not to get tangled up in the horses feet and cause them damage, let us get all we wanted for our use.

I will tell about the "Tarzan" swing, and my next to youngest brother Joe-Joe, or Joey, on the next post, that one required a Hospitol visit.....

Aint Mary used to get out the cotton balls and Iodine to clean up the skinned knees, elbows, and hands on that one too, goin' thru the learnin' process with them strap on stilts......

Sonny the philosopher.....

Told me in those days, "I don't care about big money, or dieing' a rich man, because they ain't no way I can get thru the eye of a needle, or take it with me.....And because I work and sweat by my brow, nobody in our house goin' hungry, or naked.....

If you don't understand this, you ain't had no learnin' from the "Good Book" at all........

Pretty strong simple statement ain't it?.....

Sonny the Farmer......

Granny, Uncle Roy and Sonny had perhaps the biggest garden on the loop road, they had one of them "Wheel Horse" two wheeled, walk behind, one row Tractor with a big 'ole Cast Iron Wisconsin one cylinder gasoline engine that would last forever on it.......

Breakin' plow, middle bustin' plow, disc harrow, and cultivator attachments to go with it, put gas and oil in it, start it up with a rope pull cord, a knot on one end and a stick on the pullin' end, and then throw a lever on the handle bars, and it would pull more than a Team of mules, and didn't eat nowhere near the corn thru the winter......

Sonny did work for us and others, on the loop road with the machine in the gardens for heavy work, and he accepted Confederate Dollars, as well as Visa and MasterCard.....

You know I am pullin' your leg here? (makin' a joke, in Southern English) Visa and MasterCard won't even thought of back then.....

Do you have any idea, what a Genuwine Confederate Dollar is worth now a days?

Hell of a lot more than that new Obama dollar coin that does not bear "In God We Trust" on it, Just one more slap in my face.

The "Good Book" says turn the other cheek, but after that, we on our own, and That, is when comes the "Fight"..... I want the jawbone of an Ass......

Sarge, myself, and many, many others are fighting verbaly and with the written word right now....We do not want to take the gloves off and get real "Nasty" but it can happen....."Don't Tread on Me"..... Could very well be a replay of history.....

Arsh Taters (Irish Potatoes) sweet potatoes, collard greens, 'maters, (tomatoes) turnip greens, butter beans, onions, sweet corn, water melons, cantaloupes, cucumbers, and them nasty Kentucky Wonder string beans, (I did not like them at all) was among other things grown....

Peach trees, plum trees, apple trees, and wild cheery trees..... All that, was grown by full time and part time farmers in the area and a lot went even to as far away as NYC markets......

It was called "Truck Farming"

Sonny the Sicentest........

Water Melons, and fried chicken, I have no idea how those things got turned into an ethnic joke, I don't know who did it, when, where, or why, nor do I really care....

But ALL Southerners, eat water melon and fried chicken, there are NO exceptions to this rule, period, and with their fingers......

Colonel Sanders made a million dollars with that "Finger Lickin' Good" sayin'.

One morning early, while the dew was still on the plants, (coolest part of the day in the summer months when there was no school, for the purpose of the children to help out with putting away food for the winter months, How many of you knew that? That got started Generations ago and it was NOT known as summer vacation.)

Sonny say's to me, "Johnny, lets go out there in the water melon patch and see if one ain't ready, I know they gettin' close".

As we walked along lookin' at 'em, I pointed to one, "This one looks good".....

He grabbed my hand and put it down..... Johnny he said, it is a Scientific fact, that if you point your finger at a watermelon and it ain't ready yet, it will fall off the vine and wither away, don't be doin' that no more, here look......

This is how you check, takin' his finger and thumpin' the watermelon, if it sounds hollow, it's ready....

So now, I want to thump many heads in Washington, and point the finger at others......If they sound receptive and doers of what the wealth producing public want,....'em is keepers.

But if they sound solidly full of BS and retoric and just want to get in your wallet for those that don't work, or have an entittled, extravagant life style, (talkin' about Pelosi, and Obama's big jumbo Jet's right now, How bout that NYC photo op?) ......Vote 'em out people...That is what Sonny would do....

One question here while I am at it, how many of you disatstifyed cornholes (customers of Washington), I mean after all, which way does the money go?) are even registered to vote?....Ha, not as many as the llegal aliens, parasites, and undesirables, who is sappin' the system and part of runnin' that dog and pony show...


Sonny the Ecologist.....

ACORN, we ought to turn a bunch of Jones County swamp squrrells loose on that one,...... .ORG......or is it in actuality, .GOV....?......

Out on the salt water creek in a "Flat Iron" row skiff, anchored up with a cinder block and a "Tarzan" rope made of used hay balin' twine, fishin' and crabbin', a gallon jug of drinkin' water we all shared without glasses.......

Cane poles with a string, float, and split shot sinker on it with a baited hook, our old nasty beef bones on strings on the bottom, the nastyer the better, and we were loaded for bear......

Each one of us worked two cane poles and two crab strings off that "Flat Iron".

The cane poles were pretty simple, when the cork went down and the cane pole bent with the load, ya had a fish, and when the cork vibrated many times and then quit, small fish had taken your bait, and you needed to refresh it....

Sonny and my daddy showed we boy's, big hook, big bait, BIG Fish, don't want to be catchin' those little ones, they for next year, but pickin' on your baited hook, those little ones will cause a scandle in the water and the big ones to hear it and come around......

Live minnows worked but we had to set a trap or two for them on the edge of the marsh grass baited with old bread and wait.

The crab lines, that was where we made some pocket change, what with one or two dollars to be divided up between 3 or 4 of us at the end of a day...

Remember now, Regular gas was .20 cents a gallon, if you wanted "Ethel" (High Test) it cost a bit more, (and when a car pulled in, you got asked "Regular", Or "Ethel" ) and a small Coca Cola was .03 cents with the bottle, Ice Cold, up to the "SINCLAIR" station on the big two lane highway, next to the County volunteer fire department, a penny for a bag of "Planters Salted Peanuts" to go either with the Coke, or in it, as many did, take a coupla swigs out of it and dump the Peanuts in it..

On the bottom of the Coca Cola bottles was a molded in name of a city, of where the bottle was put into the system of distribution and recycling for the company and it's affiliates....

Who ever lucked up and got a bottle from the furthest away, the rest had to chip in and pay for it.....

Hard for the younger ones to believe we had recycling in those days.....

At the drink box of cold circulated water, we also had what WAS known as the "Honor System", which was a 'King Edward" cigar box near it with coins in it to pay for your cold drink open to the world, you put your money in and took your change out.......

There was also "RC Cola, NEIHI grape and orange soda, PEPSI, and of coarse Dr. Pepper, the only Dr. in the area with a "Glass Neck" instead of a "Black Bag"....

I only have 56 years people.......What in the world has happened to us?......Dishonesty so rampant, can't even leave a drink box open.....that is the pits.

Life jackets? in them days we didn't even think about it, those that could not swim would just have go to the bottom and walk to the creek bank if there was a "Man Overboard" even though it was "Over our Heads"......

And yes, I won a "Merit Badge" in the Boy Scouts for "Rowing" in the James River, even though it was "Fresh Water", there is a difference in swimmin' in salt and fresh water, I learned to swim in fresh water in the George Washington Canal, part of the intracoastal waterway that was near, but salt water is more buoyant.

Catfish 4 foot long in that James River, one would feed a bunch of people.....

I still remember the "Stroke, Feather, Recover" of putting your back into the oars and keep some kind of a mark in the distance across the stern to go on a straight coarse.

I had to take out a skiff alone, about 1/2 mile from shore, dressed in clothes, capsize it, (turn it completely over) swim around it fully clothed, take my pants off, and tie one leg of them to an oar lock or gunnel, and flip it back over to up right it, standing on the bottom of it, using leverage with the pants, swim to the bow of it and shove it down and away for enough of the water to leave the inside of it, how ever many times it took, to get inside of it at the stern to get the rest of the water out of it with my hands, and go back to the shore with it, without a life jacket, although escorted by older Eagle Scout's, to witness it, in another skiff, come to think of it, they didn't have life jackets either, but did have a "Seat Coushin" that would float like the wooden skiff.......

More of a Butt protector on the wooden thwarts....

That and other things, gave me the rank of "First Class" Boy Scout..... Jesus, they didn't give you nothin', you had to EARN it......

Anybody that can make the claim to being an "Eagle Scout" has my most respect, even if they are 100 years old, it is an INTERNATIONAL Brotherhood, and not for girls, or Girlie Men.....Do NOT try and shove that down MY throut.....

As Merle Haggard sang....."You walkin' on the Fightin' side of me"

My daddy being a sailor in the Merchant Marines at that time, had taught we boy's to swim, and to take our pants off and tie knots in the legs, zipped 'em and buttoned 'em back up, get them behind us by the belt loops and throw 'em over our heads and make a flotation device out of the air filled legs of the pants.....

Hambone......

Hambone Lockamy, his Christian name on paper, we just called him Ham, for short.....

No, it was NOT one of Granny Lockamy's sons.....

That was Sonny's Chesapeake Bay Retriever dog.

In the dead of winter, cold as all get out, in the early morning at daylight, he would pile overboard in the remotest areas into the water to get a duck or a goose that was taken with an 'ole single barrel long tom shotgun out of that "Flat Iron" in the marshes, all camouflaged up with brush, even if there was a thin skin of ice on the salt water........

That is what he was born and bred for.

And he loved to chase chickens too.....

Nearly got himself killed one morning because of it as well.

Momma was mopin' the kitchen floor, hair all up in curlers, house coat and house shoes on......

Glanced out the back window and 'ole Hambone was in her chicken pen havin' a blast, gettin' after 'em chickens of ours.

Now my mother, when I was a snot nosed youngin', on a huntin' trip down in the Jones County NC Swamps with my father, killed 17 squirrel's with her shotgun in one day.

So she won't afraid of nothin', not a rattle snake, copperhead or a Liberal Socialist......

She went out there in the pen, locked the gate, armed with the mop, and started to kill that dog with it.......

Hambone decided he did not want any part of that crazy white woman in hair curlers, house coat, and house shoes with the mop, tryin' to kill him, and started lookin' a way out, and momma right behind him every way he turned.

Boy, did she take the fun out of chasein' chickens that morning for 'ole Hambone.

I guess in the excitement, he forgot his way, how he got in the chicken pen to start with, or even why.....

By that time all he wanted was Out.....

Now Hambone was a smart dog, and he had enough sence to know he had to get away from that mop.....Or he was gone die....

Belive me, it was a good fight, I laughed till I cried watchin' it....

Hambone climbed that head high fence to get away, ran right straight, to under Granny and Sonny's back porch to lick his wounds.....

I would like to see my mother clean house in Washington with her mop like that.........It needs doin'.....

John Wayne......

[John Wayne]

The "Tarzan" Swing...

Disclaimer.....

If any of you receive these "Stories" of mine unsolicited or they happen to offend, let me know and I will take your name off my mailing list, if others forward these to you, you have to notify them, I have NO control of where my writings go at this point, nor do I really care, I am easy to find and if some cornhole in the world wishes to send a death squad after me for expressing a God given right to freedom of speech...... Bring it on...., but do not leave me alive and pick on any of my kin, and I find out about it......

"Old Joe" and the "He Coon"

My next to youngest brother, "Old Joe", Joe-Joe, or Joey, as friends and family knew him.

As the "He Coon", Wayne NMN* Gooding jr. called him "Old Joe", from the day he was born, (our father always refered to himself as the "He Coon" and he always walked before daylight)

*NMN (No Middle Name) and was "Black Irish"

We shared many a coffee and conversations in the mornings way before day and cold Budwisers as young men, in the ladder part of the day with the "He Coon", out to sea on his 70 foot Commerical fishin' boat (named "Little Joe").....That means after 10 AM for the cold ones......

The "He Coon" even sang the song in our younger days, "Jimbo cracked corn, and Johnny don't care, and "Old Joe" gets his way".....

That is how I will refer to my next to youngest brother in this story...... "Old Joe" Joseph Allen Gooding.....

This is a difficult one to write as both of them, the "He Coon, and Old Joe" are gone now, they both went early in life, but I will try my best, even though I cannot see the keyboard right now thinkin' bout them.

Out of all of Momas brood of 6 children "Old Joe" was the calm and laid back one of us, the rest a bit on the "Roudy" side.

Me and Jimbo, Buddy, and Diane, still around to be a Thorn in somebody's side, Cindy Robin disappeard at 15 and God only knows where she is.....

Daddy crossed the bar when I was 28, and Old Joe crossed it when I was 50......

And when I cross it.....

Throw me in a pine box, bury it on boot hill in an unmarked grave, or wrap me up in a piece of sail cloth with a cannonball lashed to my feet for the fish to finish with this earthly body.....But I do not want to be creameated.......

And let me be right straight here, the way I write here is the same way I talk, I inherited it and am not ashamed, though lately I am toneing down my use of "Sunday School" words....

The "He Coon" taught us amongst other things, we boy's to swim, hang fish nets, tie square and sheet bend knots, shuck oysters and clams, pick crab meat, and make Tarzan ropes out of the old hay balin' twine, took us fishin' and huntin' and campin' and was more than a father, he was one of our older "Buddies".....

But I know if he had been in the "Boy Scouts" he would have been an "Eagle", but he was a man of the sea, and not at home much.....

Chief Pumpman on oil tankers, till he turned Commerical Fisherman..... and had that special multi colored baseball cap to prove it, it didn't have scrambled eggs on it, but was special never the less for the trade.

Highest paid non licensed man on the boat.....

He even invented voice mail.....

Two tin cans with a 50 foot piece of moma's "Coats and Clark" "Mercinized" whatever that means, sewin' thread between 'em with holes in the center of the bottom attached to sticks and we could talk back and forth.

Al Gore, eat your heart out.....

And belive it or not, those old wooden thread spools was used for "Door Knobs" inside those 'ole wooden clapboard houses, a nail thru the center and it was done.....

The "He Coon" was a member of the "National Mariners Union".

NMU, the "He Coon" came home one day wareing a hat with those letters on it and when I asked him what it stood for, he called it, Nigroes, Mexicans and Undesireables, including himself in that group.

In them days, he packed a .32 auto pistol in his sea bag he bought in Italy, taught we boy's to shoot it too, I wonder how these modern day "Boy" pirates would react with him on the lookin' end and them on the business end of that pea shooter in an illegal boarding at sea.....

Toted a .45 Automatic Colt Pistol as a U S Army Tank Sgt. in Europe, and a long barreled shotgun, squrrell huntin' in the swamps of Jones County NC where he was born and raised..... POP 10K today.....

And I know he would have squeezed one or two off.....Idiot International Laws..... I want the hell out of the UN.....

Me, Jimbo, and "Old Joe", got a big kick out of goin' thru his "Sea Bag" on his return, he had in it gifts for everyone from all over the world.

I am going to get back on the "Tarzan Swing" with " Old Joe" in a minute, but right now I am talkin' about the "He Coon" ....

If my stories bore you, go on, ain't nobody got your hands tied.......

The "He Coon" was a "Reagan Democrat" which meant he voted for the "Man" and not the party, a Jesse Helms (R), and Walter B. Jones (D) supporter....

I honestly think he would spit on Pelosi, Obama, and that new dollar coin.....All three of them, a "Thorn in my side".......

Hell, George Washington would spit on 'em thru his wooden teeth.....And join the "Tea Parties" and be what? no, don't tell me, not another "Subversive".....

Abraham Lincoln would have them thrown in a Yankee prison till they took the same "Oath of Allegence" the rest of us did.....

Sittin' up to the "He Coons" eatin' table.....

The "Sugar Beets" and "Sour Krout" that the "He Coon" put on the eatin' table, and made us all partake there of, oooh I did not like either, the sour krout was nasty, he ruined a perfectly good pork roast with his home made "Krout".

It won't nothing in them day's but shreded cabbage pickled in a "Brine of salt water" and left long enough in that clay urn with a piece of cheese cloth over the top of it to keep the bugs out if it, to rot, the brine you could "Float a hen's egg" in it, I know, I helped load it......

The suger beets had the flavor of sweet dirt, but without the gritty texture, (You ever try to eat a mud pie as a kid?) and made me deficate red, and in the toilet. I thought I was dieyn'.........

I don't mean to be gross, but lookin' back, in more ways than one, I thought I had lost my lites, liver and guts in that porcelin bowl....

We on the Loop road had indoor plumbin' built by the "He Coon" with his own hands, although he only had a 3rd grade education, went to the public library and got the information on how to do it, and did it...

Didn't have to use no "Outhouse" or keep a "Collard Pot" inside the house under the beds.... Am I talkin' above your head here?

He could read and comprehend, and do arithmatic but he could not write worth a dam, but tell a hell of a Sea Story....

I remember goin' somewhere with him and when doin' somekind of a paperwork, when the gentleman behind the desk asked him of his education, the He Coon responded, "Complete".....That was enough in 'em days....

And ain't it funny how things turn out, now, I love sourkrout on an all beef hotdog, or pork roast, and pieces of beets in a veggie salad......

Now "Old Joe" did not like Blackeyed peas, in no shape, form or fashion, even with smoked hog jowels which was a New Years tradition....Ring a bell here friends?, it you haven't tasted real smoked pork, be it ham or hamhocks or whatever, you ain't never eaten "Real Food"......

Old Joe Blew Grits in his plate, (vomited) when the "He Coon" insisted on he eatin' 'em at the eatin' table.

Old Joe said that the "Blackeyed Peas" was lookin' at him, and for that, would not, could not, eat them and keep 'em down.

The He Coon when home would fix up that 'ole porclin speckled roastin' pan with snappin' turtle, ducks, geese, squreells, deer meat, or a Striped sea bass with arsh taters and care roots, ('em ole long tapered orange things) onions and garlick, and make a feed that poor folks never had.....

That was his sayin, Boy's, poor folks ain't eatin' this good, he grew up with no Lektricity in the house, and had to split "Stove wood" for the kitchen, hunted the whole winter with one box of 25, 12 gague shotgun shells, and a box or two of 50 .22 Long rifle bullets.

And when he pulled the trigger, meat went in the kitchen.....Seven ducks out his grandfathers Remmington side by side 12 gague scatter gun with one shot out the "Full Ckoke" side of it one time on the Trent River....

Best I ever did was two squrells with one shot, I snuck up on 'em and waited till they was close together and aimed the shotgun at 'em, closed my eyes and fired, knowing the shotgun gone knock the hell out of me, one died of a heart attack, and the other one laughed hiself to death, but I got both in the cook pot......

The "He Coon's" grandfather John Lewis Gooding, who was a tennent farmer, bought the gun new for $5.50 in the Trenton (Pronounced Trennon) hardware store, and the propriotor couldn't make change of a $20.00 dollar "Greenback" at the time.

Momma did a pot roast or fried chicken on Sundays with a pan of biscuts and gravy, this was way before "Bisquick" or 'em cans of biscuts that you whop on the counter top.......

Aint Mary, after I tell about Jimbos duck on the next post, I am goin' to talk about you and the "Pressure Cooker"......

OK Aint Mary if you insist, Jimbos Duck can wait, so I will go ahead with the pressure cooker now while I am at it, before gettin' back to Old Joe and the "Tarzan" swing.....

The He Coon bein' a very romantic individual, bought for my mother on his birthday one of them new fangled "Pressure Cookers"

I mean really, you could put old beef bones in it we used for crabbin' and in half an hour could eat the bones, soften 'em right up in no time....

My first wife Janet, got me to get one for her, and gettin' to know it, cooked some pork ribs a tat to long in it, bless her yankee heart...

As I was eating them, I noticed they had a bit of a different flavor, 'em bones was just as soft as the meat.....

Now the He Coon was also a "Deer Hunter" and some of them old White tailed Stags he drug home from deep in the Swamps, was tough as whit leather, you couldn't even stick a fork in the gravy of some of 'em, better to eat the hide and throw the rest of the deer away....

Which was why he bought the pressure cooker....

The Pressure Cooker was invented by a man, for use by a man, some women at first during the rapid industrialazation of the United States, that came about in the previous century, like Diesel tractors replacing "Mules" for cultivation, just didn't know how to deal with it till they learned a bit about it......

Arsh Taters didn't take 5 minutes in it.....

One day, Aint Mary loaded that thing up with a "James River Stew" , taters and onions, and corned beef...... Real corned beef in them day's instead of that "Dog Food" that comes out of the can now a days with the "smell" of Corned Beef, "Artifical Flavor".......

After the alotted time, she took it over to the the kitchen sink, that thing still a hissin' and the weight on the top of the middle of it just a dancin', she waited till the weight quit dancin' and opened it.......

Actually she didn't open it, it blew up when she got so far with twistin' the lock top of it off by the handles.....

James River Stew all over the curtians, window and ceiling of that kitchen.....

After I found out she was alright....I laughed, so did everyone else, her included.....

I guess the Lord was a watchin' over Aint Mary that day and had his hand 'tween that pressure pot and her so she didn't get all burned up and scared for life with that Super heated food.....

And in my travels I found out that very same thing happened to others, so Aint Mary, don't feel alone, one distant cousin told her husband.....Take that "Thing" back, and get yo money back, I don't want to ever see that "Thing" in my house again, after one busted open with her, thinkin she could check it like your regular everyday cook pot on the stove....

I have one, and NOBODY touches it but me.....It makes this Central American beef and Deer meat where I can eat it, works good on an old tough Squrrell too.......

Baptists and Methodists and Prodanstants, Hell Fire and brimstone, and prim and proper English.....

Why this came to mind I have no Idea but here it is anyway...

I am fixin' to splain the difference between the three for those of you not cultured enough to know......

Now they all three from the South far as I know, the Methodists and Prodastants a bit higher up on the social ladder than us Baptists......

To give and example.....the Methodist and Prodantanstsns would say in Ould English......

By Jove, (Sniff Sniff) Who stepped in the doggie pooh? Oh please everyone, check your shoes and the guilty one slip on out the back and take care of the problem, and nobody watches.

Now the Baptists teach and preach that the Good Book talks more about Hell than Heaven, so the word Hell ain't a nasty word, it is a threat....

Who steped in dog $hit?

(It has a rather unique odor you know.... Cows, Mules and horses, are not offinsive, but dogs and hogs.... and cats, the worst of them all, the cats know it's bad and dig a hole and bury it......)

Johnny, was that you,? (sniff sniff, everybody lookin' and snickerin') you get outside right this minute, and clean off your shoes, and then come back in here and clean up the floor where you tracked it or you goin' to burn forever in the lake of fire.....

Now goin' to sea with the "He Coon" when he turned Commerical Fisherman, we read a lot on the boat and had discuscions, I read the Bible, the John D McDonald's Travis Mcgee series, Taylor Caldwells, Of Captians and Kings, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, and even Mien Komph, and the Nazi Primer aimed at the children of Germany to mould their minds.

Even though none of us could spel very well, the "He Coon" wanted we boy's to be rather well read and informed about history for us not to fall into a trap.......

Jimbo wrote a fictional book, "Colonizing Orion" Old Joe edited it, and wrote and played music, and me, I write my "Rednek" stories......

Hitler and his Brown Shirts and SS took over a country of only 52 million people who were relivitaly smart industrious people, with only a few thousand followers.

Yes, he was voted in with a promise of "Change", because of fluctuateing economic conditions that have plagued man and his different forms of government since time began, and Boy, did they "Change things", for the whole World in them days.....

Multi Millions of people suffered and died...... This is doccumented.....

Hitler was a very chrasimatic speaker in the German Languague, although a smart man, he was not the hollerin Nut to start, portraid in the news reels, later on he turned crazy, and the "War Machine" he and his cronies had built over time fought till the end, when suicide was the only way out, or the end of a public hangmans noose.

Hollywood, why can't you tell the truth, Hell, the truth is bad enough, it will stand when the world is on fire.

He and his government thugs took over every aspect of human life, trade unions, medicine, industry, schools, churches, disarmed the public, and filled the graveyards with those who did not conform thru murder and intimidation.

Look around you real good friends, Sound Familar?

There are several things in life that are certain.......Change, and Change again are two of them.

And Ole Sarge and John Wayne, and others, not bowin' down to any man, or rediculas Government........ Sig Hiel Obama, will never be uttered by these last in seriousness, only pokin' fun at those stupid enough to go along with his programs that history shows does not work.....

I and many others have seen lately the Department of Justice being used to "Intimadate" opponates of his agenda......

Right now Obama, is "The One" with the fuzzy nuts, (Southern English Slang) so I point the "Finger" at him, for being responsable for this "Change" in direction that I do not agree with......(interprate this any way you like)

So anyway, gittin' back on topic, I know I go off in outter space sometimes.

The three of us, me, Jimbo and Old Joe, and several buddies built us a "Tarzan" swing back in the woods in a great big 'ole oak tree a mile or so from the house in the swamp.

All we boy's, wanted our privicy and a special place the "Girls" wouldn't bother us, where sometimes we did smoke cigarettes and talk about the Girls, and sometimes our topics wasn't so nice.....

I learned there that a woman with a "Big" belly and going to have a baby, did not just swallow a "Watermelon" seed...as was the childish rumor.

And the "Stork" was only a drunkin' fictucias mailman, that sometimes delivered babies, a few straight haired, a few kinky haired, dark skined or light skined to the wrong house.....

And everyone blamed it on a "Nigro in the Wood Pile"

Ahhh Ha.... And if you wanted "Twins".....You had to "do it" twice, right in a row.....

Three strands of hay balin' twine braded like a girls hair, knots all along where we joined the short pieces of hay twine together with "Square Knots" to make a 50 foot piece, then three of them braded together, and three of them braded together so the He Coon taught us, that rope having about 40 feet when finished would pull a frieght Train, big around as our arms.....

Now that Tarzan swing had to be stratigicly located in a big fine tree for it to work right like Johnny Wiesmeller did in em black and white movies.

Are you with me here? I know some of you are....Others that ain't, ain't never lived.....

A chicken ladder of 1x4's with 16 penny nails got installed going up the side of that great old oak tree for ease of access to that first big limb.

Sapling's and reeds around got cleared to not get in the way, and knobed off at ground level.

The Computers in our minds it those days chose a place on one of the lower limbs to lash the "Tarzan" rope around it about 35 to 30 feet off the ground, a clove hitch and then a tripple half hitch with the bitter end around the the rope itself to the limb to assure it didn't come loose.

A figure 8 knot on the end of it near the ground to catch between your legs, or feet on, to pass the ground in a 2 foot safety margin.

Far enough from the trunk of the tree on a thrilling jump of about a 60 to 70 feet forth and back pendulam swing, to not come back on the return and hit the trunk of the tree with your body and knock the wind out of you.

Now that is a bad one, gettin' the wind knocked out of you, I belive I would rather have a tooth pulled with no anistieasia....

There wasn't a lot of control once you jumped out of the tree with it, but you did need to hang on to the rope.......

And when you jumped, you had to give it a "Tarzan" yell.... AAAAAAH AAAAH .......

Continued.

[John Wayne]

One morning quite early, at the crack of dawn, as was always the case, 8.30, 9.00 in the night was bed time in those days, hardly dark in the summer.

Cornflakes and real milk to get the day started with, and a bit of grandulated sugar for energy, in a Jethro Boden size eatin' bowl.....

We all got together, Boy's what we gone do today?

Robbie said Hey, lets go to Cow's Lake and go swimmin', Elick seconded the motion.

Now Cows Lake wasn't nothin' but a waterin' hole, a pond a farmer dug back in the swamp for his live stock, maybe 50 yards across, surounded by trees, honeysuckle vines and the sweetest swamp smells you ever had in life, some, might call them putrid, but they from the cities, and don't know about many natural things........

It was three or four miles from home...

I cannot remember seein' a "Posted No Tresspassin' sign in my youth....... Because they won't there..... Fences were for animals, not for people.....

A steel pipe bridge over the access road that the cows were afraid of and wouldn't cross, and down a double lane hog path for about 1/4 mile and we were there.

But the prettiest blue green fresh water in Cows Lake, you ever seen, you could see the bottom all over it when it wasn't stured up.

Course in them days just about everything fun, was against our mothers wishes, if they even knew half the stuff we did, we boy's would have had to camp out in the woodshed and wait in line.

Now for those of you that don't know what is a trip to the "Woodshed", and I know there are people today that don't know what a trip to the woodshed is because their parents didn't love them enough to do it.

Now I ain't talkin' about abuse here, I am talkin' about "This is going to hurt me, more than this belt or peach tree limb is going to hurt you", and it was only for serious things......

Lieing, was a serious thing, anybody that will lie will steal....... That holds true today friends....Just look at some of the products of Washington....

If we went to Cows Lake and spent the morning or most of the day in that fresh water and got "Dish Pan" hands, you know, when your finger tips get all wrinkly from to much fresh water exposure..... BTW Salt water doesn't do that...

Missin' lunch time wasn't a No, No, in them days because we often had, at one of our buddies homes, or them at ours, or cooked out in the woods, but bein' late for supper, or comin' home after dark, you better have a "Certifyed Reason".....

On the way back home from Cows Lake, we had to roll in the dirt in one of the fields, and go home dirty so Aint Mary or Moma wouldn't have reason to ask if we had been swimmin', it was a "White Lie" or "Sin of omission" on our part, but it worked....

Tater rows on your neck with dirt was OK, but to come home sparkling clean was a problem....

Even though the He Coon had taught us boy's to swim, the womenfolk worried about us playin' in the water unsupervised....

Women are that way.....

Old Joe says, hey boy's, I sniched a pack of "Marlboro" Cigarettes from the He Coon, lets go to the Tarzan Swing and smoke some of them......

A whole pack? of filtered cigarettes not just one or two to share?......Cow's Lake got put on hold....

Robbies father, Robert Whaley smoked Lucky Strike, LSMFT, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco....

They were not popular with us, but the filtered Marlboro's?...BTW, LSMFT to us meant, Loose Strap Means Flopin Titties...

Now the Tarzan Swing had been in use for several months or more, it was low maintenence, none of the "Girls" had been back there to bother us, but had a well worn path to it by that time.

Make a visual check of the knot on the tree limb, take up the slack on the knot that you caught between your legs or your feet on due to the streching and settling in of the hay bailing fibres, and here we go again.......

Now my next to youngest brother, Old Joe, was an experianced Tarzan Swinger like the rest of us, could do a backward flip out of the tree, stand on the knot, catch it in mid air tween his leggs and even an upside downer.... With no safety nets....

We won't nothing but a bunch of monkey's in them days...Just walked a bit more erect, and the Dr.'s had pinched off all of us's tails when we were born so it wouldn't show...

The back one, not the front side.....

Cindy, am I makin' you nervious now? I know you got two young boys.....

After two or three swipes on a swing it was time to come in for a runnin' Tarzan landin' like you was going to kick the ass of a Lion or a chargeing rhino, and let the next one have a go at it...

That first jump out of the tree was the thriller, 25 feet off the ground, after that you wanted to do it again, the winding down swipes were nothing....

Well one time Old Joe made a bad landin' on his right foot, fell all down and squalled....Its broken, I've broken my foot...

We all checked him out, no bones stickin' out the skin, and all of us being Medical Doctors at the time agreed, it was only a sprained ankle, it was unanimous, a sprained ankle.......

All of us took a cigarette break to get Old Joe calmed down a bit from his bad landin'.....

Cut him a saplin' for a crutch, told him to go on home, take 2 BAYER asprins and go to bed, and drink plenty of fluids.....

What the hell, that was what most of the Doctors in them days prescribed anyway on the black and white TV with rabbit ear antennes...

As Old Joe was hobblin' away up the path, we hollered out, Hey, you gone make it?

Yea, it hurts like hell, but I gone make it..... Old Joe won't no pus*y.... But more of a Diplomat in his nature....

So Old Joe hobbled on home, and the rest of us swung out of the tree and enjoyed the Marlboro cigerettes he had pilfered from the He Coon.......

Now we wern't worried about Old Joe, he had the same training as us, a rattle snake along the path will make a noise if getting his "Hackles up", Coil up and start shakin' that tail....But 'em Copperheads, they silent basturds....

If they know you comin' they will get out of the way, all animals have a fear of man, be it from the bible, or they learned that the erect Neandrothaul would cook and eat their a**.......

Exception to the rule....Crazy Animals... And "Dog Days"

Got to get into this right now, "Dog Days" That is when in the phase of the Moon and is the warmer months, Snakes is a shedin' their old skins growin' and go blind....

Will strike at anything in this mode of growth .... The He Coon taught us to take a limb and strike the ground ahead of us before we walked that ground.

They will make you sick with a strike, the weak children, and Old folks, it can kill.....

Yes I have eaten Snake.....Fishy tasting Chicken meat is all it is, and a bit thin like a Squreell's belly meat...

So Jimbo and I went on back home to a empty house.....

Moma had taken Old Joe to the hospitol, he got X Rayed found his foot, ankle, or something or other was broke, and came home with a cast, and a badge of honor.....We all signed it....and felt a little bad really for a mis diagnosis....

BTW none of us turned out to be REAL Doctors.....

[John Wayne]

Jimbos Duck

Cold as all get out, a damp penitrateing, windless, humid cold, way back in the salt marshes, on the Virginia, North Carolina line, the He Coon (our father) had a duck blind built.

It was called Back Bay and it was very remote, took a good while to get there with a four wheel drive pickup truck.

Many miles down the beach right next to the Ocean, from Sandbridge where the pavement ended, over the sandunes for a spel, and a long, long, walk, where the truck wouldn't go, a beautiful place if God ever made one, Back Bay was it in the flesh.

Wild goats and pigs running about the scrub oaks, wool rushes, and yopon bushes, wild grapes in the late summer months that the He Coon made wine out of, we boy's ate 'em and picked 'em with him and one time, me and ole Jimbo got into one of his fermantation jug's and got a little wasted on it.....

The He Coon loved 'em wild, out of the way places and sought 'em out, and I guess I got it from him, which is how I wound up in the asshole of the world, Puerto Cabezas Nicaragua.....

Way before day, we truged thru the dark grasslands in hip boots, long barreled shotguns unloaded, with the shells for them in our pockets, three each, that was enough.

The He Coon walking ahead of Jimbo and myself with two duck decoys

Jimbo was a totin' momas .410 bolt action squreell gun, and I had one of the He Coons 16 gauge shotguns, called it his "Sweet Sixteen" Way before "Browning Arms" pateneted the name....

The He Coon taught us boy's from young about gun safety and the responsibilities of ownership.

Quack, quack, quack.....

The He Coon sounded off at daylight with his home made call after he placed the decoys, Home made I might add, in front of the "Blind" 10 or 15 yards offshore....

Now 'em 'ole Ducks was a bit hungry first thing in the morning, just like we git from time to time, saw 'em decoy's and lit right in....

Watch this Boy's said the He Coon, this is how it's done......

He waited till they was grouped up and blasted three of them into the bakin' pan with one load of # 4 shot......

Please do not underestimate a "Rednek" the SOB's will kill your ass.......

Frezzin, cold bitter calm, you been there?

The He Coon had done put meat in the pot, and now it was mine and Jimbos turn....

One lit in, sittin' there in that blind, the He Coon asked me, you see him John?

I did not see it.... And I ain't gone shoot at nothin' I don't see....

Jimbo says, and we were whisperin', I see him Daddy.....

Get him, said the He Coon......

Jimbo blasted the Hell out of one of his Decoys......

The He Coon stood up and got the duck on the "Wing" with his .12 guage.....

We have the decoy in the family today........

Next, My first wife's squrrell hunt on our Honeymoon in the Swamps......

[John Wayne]

Jones County, swamps so thick, why a man, could wander out his days there, if he had no since of direction.

Beautiful tall Cypress and Oak trees, Spanish Moss hanging from the limbs, A Juniper once in a while and Merkul bushes the deer ate the leaves off of.....

And the deer would go on raiding parties to destroy the crops of the local farmers in the surounding areas.

Sometimes drastic measures for population control of them had to be done.....

As in legaly bustin' some of them's A** in the night time,and giving the meat to the poor folks...

Shinin' a spot lite over a corn or bean field, they looked like a bunch of cows out there.....

And down in there in the Swamps, lives "The Hertford" Biggest White Tail deer ever been, with a grey collar around his neck from age...

The He Coon saw him one time, but was so shocked, could only admire him, as he rose from the ground after a sleep, streched, and took a dump........

When you see 'em little balls in the woods, it ain't always Goat Feces....

They "Smart Pills" you eat one of them, and it will smarten' you right up quick.....

The Military go down in there to give 'em city boy's a bit of jungle style training, and they do it in the summer months, when it abounds with CopperHeads and RattleSnake eggs.....Jones County is famious for these.....

Big around as a full grown man's fore arm 'em snakes are...

They(the military) didn't go down in there much durin' Huntin' Season, because 'em local Redneks that been keepin the woods clean of "Critters" for Generations would disarm them and take thier guns.....

Everybody knew the Marines were only shootin' blanks in the swamps, they were not issued "Live" ammo, some of 'em couldn't even kill a Squreel with a limb...

Hey what can I say, it did happen a time or two....

Now me and my first wife had known each other from when I was 17 and she 18 years of age, dove the reefs of the Florida Keys, Even took her mother on a trip diving to Sombrero Reef diving off the 'old Bahama Moma Lobster boat offshore of Marathon Florida....

Bet it is still in her mind today.... Both New York City girls.....

We fished in the Gulf of Mexico, camped out on the Snow in up State New York and deer hunted there, and spent one of the coldest nights ever been in the humid cold damp near Wilmington NC in a tent after eating a rabbit I killed and she cooked it on a wood fire.....

Boy were we in love, with each other, and the Wild out of the way places we could find....

We were married at 23 and 24 years old in Virginia, and Honeymooned in the Swamps of Jones County NC, camping at a place called Wilcox's bridge.

My Grandmother on my mothers side, Born Nannie May Wilcox, her Grandfather Steve Wilcox, built the origanal bridge before the Civil War over the Trent river runnin' from Goshen Swamp to the Neuse river at New Bern into the Pamilico Sound and on to the sea.......

The He Coon is buried in Pamlico County from 1985, spittin distance from Broad Creek that fed into the Neuse, where he Hard Crabbed for a livin' the last 10 years of his life.......

I was quite the romantic in those days and she too, gave each other new shotguns for Christmas the previous year, she got a Genuine Belguim Browning, and gave me a Deluxe single shot Itallian shotgun with one of them new fangled vinted rib line of sights, full choke barrel, a dime wouldn't go out the end of it dropped down the barrel of it, really held the charge of squreell shot together for a long ways...

Her brother Jorge, an Artist in the City, (NYC) confined to a wheel chair with a dibilitating desease that left him without the use of his legs, on a trip to Carolina, fired it one time and thought he had been in a car accident.

But it would get a squeerll way up in 'em trees in the swamp....I killed 23 one day fireing it 24 times, brused me black and blue, till I made a few modifactions...

I hunted that river from 2 years old with the He Coon as my guide and mentor.

I stepped out of the boat one time, thinkin' to just walk ashore. and he got me by the hair of the head and drug me ashore, on a rather cool fall day, built a fire, dryed my clothes off over it, and moma would have killed him if he came home without me.

Ahhh, the Boat and drifting down that river on a huntin' honeymoon trip....

It was one of 'em square ended Jon boats, that my wife had started down the river on with myself, an approved "Ted Williams" special sold by Sears and Robucke, she in the bow with her shotgun lookin' squrells, and perhaps a wood duck, me in the back handeling the paddle drifting along, no motor of any kind.

I had a string tied to the paddle to just slip it into the river soundlessy to pick up my shotgun in case of any "Action" as the He Coon, and my mother before me had done when they were young......

In their days is was a heavy wide board wooden batau they used.....

That "Ted Williams" special was Fibre Glas, Quartz rock and plastic, not an aluminimun beer can that if you bumped the side of it with your paddle, could be heard up and down the river for 2 miles.....

The river 20 to 50 feet wide and 4 inches to 4 foot deep in places when there wasn't a flood, fallen trees to cross, tree tops with branches on them to go around layin' down in the river......

We killed us a few squrrells that morning and so had what to eat for that evening.

I wasn't really interested in doin' any thing more for the day, just being with her, and her excitement of being somewhere she had never been before in life, till that night after a cook out back at camp.

So just layin' back I got ready, unless a stupid 'ole deer, or Hog Bear came along, I put a charge of Buckshot in my gun...

Now I ain't no Crockidile Dundee, but I am a Country Boy, and react to dangers without even thinking about it...

And in all honestly it happened so fast, I had to think about it a bit afterwards...

Now a 12 gauge shotgun is a "Basturd" close up, don't matter if you got birdshot in it or buckshot in it...

We had come up close to a fallen tree top in the river......

And there, streched out on a limb in the middle of the nice fall day, because it had warmed up a bit, was a Copperhead Snake sunnin' his self, a pit viper, deadly to a weak, or young person in a mussle strike on the leg, but to the head or neck?

Death.... He was big, big around as my arm, and about 5 feet long...

And my wifes head was two feet from his head and he recoiling on the limb back to strike with his head up...

I don't know what had happened to me letting my guard down in the swamp, but the next thing I knew, was my wife, shouting at me for shooting so close to her head with the gun....

Being a City Girl, she never even saw him comoflaged in the fallin down tree top like he was, and me, day dreamin' about "Night Things" till it was almost too late....

I back paddled and got his headless body out of the river and threw in in the bottom of the boat and that calmed her down.....

The skin was 7 inches wide tacked up on the wall...

That evening back at the tent camp at the bridge was what got me so tickled I couldn't stand it.....

Now the He Coon had taught we boy's to skin a squreell and pick the shot out from the flesh, from his tail to the tip of his nose.

Moma and Moma Nannie and Ma Pearl would stew 'em down to a low gravy, heads and all......

We boys would fight over the heads, the jaw meat, toungues, and the bit larger than a marble brain, that was the best part....

Uuuu Weeee, my City girl wife wanted no part of cookin' and eatin' Squrrell heads, but the rest of the animal she didn't have a problem with...

Over a camp fire, she cooked 'em critters up in a Dutch oven loaded up with Adle Davis' "Brown Rice" with a "Rose Hip" thrown in for vitamans, a little salt and black pepper and onions , and it was a feast to be sure, with some store bought lite bread.....

But I had taken the heads, sauted 'em up a bit with catail roots, and a few other secret Swamp spices that Coronel Sanders don't know about, wrapped em up in tin foil real good, and placed them under the coals to the campfire for a slow roast.....

She saw me do it, but said nothing......

A good 'ole boy from the County came down in there lookin' "Hard Rock" one of his best deer hounds that evening.

I think it was just to see who was camped out down there, he was nice about it, "Hey you folks seen a tan and white with a collar on runnin' around down here?"

And when I opened my Jones County mouth, being nice also, and eventually tellin' him who my family was, and told him we were a honeymoonin', he wished us all the best, and left us alone to go I guess, look his dog in another neck of the Swamp.

In the conversation that transpired, my wife wanted to know why he had named the dog "Hard Rock"......

Well mam.... I had to name him something...

Down in there if a dog was runnin around without a collar on he got shot to not be a burden on the wild life.....They will take many baby deer, possums and squreells in the sprIng and summer....

Coupla logs rolled up by the camp fire, we sittin there a talkin about any and everything, the night sounds and the cool of the season startin' to kick in, and I get a bit hungry, for more food and then my wife, in that order.....

In 'em days I could eat a whole chicken, stuffin, vegatables and half gallon of sweet Iced tea, not to mention a few buscutts and hush puppies to go with it....I only weighed 160 pounds soackin' wet, and could throw a 100 pound sack of lobster bait well over my head....

I scratched around the edge of the fire and got my "Cookin" out, dusted it off and got ready to have another feast.....

My wife bless her heart, turned around on the log she was sittin' on to not watch me, and that is how we continued our conversation as I ate those Squrell heads.....

When finished, I washed up, and she turned around and gave me her full attentiion, as I did her, and 9 months later just about to the day, she gave me a daughter...

Born on the most beautiful sunny day in Queens County New York City in July ever been, in the home of my wifes childhood...

Next my father in law, Lief, the Square Head.... (spelling doubtfull)

[Micky10]

JW -

You broke dick piece of ****. Last few days I been writing a couple of long things, and you know how hard it is for me to write. Also a couple of very long emails to some of our kin. Dora wants to start the Christmas **** TODAY. As soon as the smoke clears - you can bet your sorry younger, no good for nothing, jackass, ugly self I will GIVE you some quality time, dick!

Love - Micky