Life in Nicaragua

[John Wayne]

Now friends, and I do consider all on GT my friends, I am filling in the blanks of my life for my two lost children, and if you want to read go ahead, if you consider it a loss of time, and how I wound up in Nicaragua, go on about your business.....

Where was I, Oh yes, Capt. Ed and Wild Bill always fighting, Canaveral was "Tombstone" in them days.......

Fukc, you could go into K Mart and buy a pistol right over the counter with a Fla. drivers lincense.....

Which I still think is nice and good.... Nobody fukcs with and armed man.....(More or less)......

So here we go, with the barge and tugboat operation, that Capt Ed dreamed up only for the porpuse to screw Wild Bill and his operation with it, over the Parisite cluster fukc....

Nether one of them were dummies, but yet they were, and I did so loved to watch them fight, I had no control over it, and my family didn't have to worry about the next plate of food or a roof over their heads because I was a conservitive in those days at a young age.....

The pissers of their money and renters of a place to stay.... who didn't watch their money really suffered, and I could give a $hit.....

BWTF.... They had the same opertunity I did......So fukc 'em..... You want to live in a cave with your begats...Go Ahead....

Have you ever been to a real good, knock down, drag out, fight?.....

I mean besides listening to a couple of ex jarheads like El D and HC bellied up to a couple of 2X10's streched over a coupla barrels, a generation apart, and a rum bottle between them, and agruing in endless conversacions, both proclaiming to be winners, and they are, in their own minds,

The rest of us just have to draw our own conclusions, and I know some swing this way, and some swing that way at times, because mine does too.......

By this time, it won't no more ***** slapping, it was a close, serious fist fight, useing the Government as their fists, each of them, Capt.Ed, and Wild Bill, that eventually, shut the whole mess down in Canaveral over their fighting over the shell stocking of Calicos and the processing of them in Canaveral, jelious of each other.....

Now this is how I know it, I might be wrong, but I don't think so.

It was the late 1930's they were born, like my father the He Coon.....

Wild Bill started his working career, after school, as a shoe salesman in a local Sears and Roebuck store in the Pedmont of North Carolina......

Capt. Ed grew up on the Indian River on Merritt Island crabbing with his father, on Crab Point at the South end of the Island, could hardly read and write, didn't finish school......

They each were leaders of men and evolved into the above mentioned businesses in the early 1960's thru the 1980's......

Capt. Ed wanting to be EcoFriendly, useing that as an excuse, when it didn't need to be, it already was, started up that Tug and barge operation just to ***** slap Wild Bill in the face.......

Wild Bill's operation and Southern Seafood, was got on top of by both the EPA of Florida and the Fed's, who even in them days totaly ignored the mullet fishery that had evolved from it, and they had to do something, Wild Bill, and Southern Seafood, faceing thousands of dollars in fines per day doing it....

Capt. Ed was laughing, boy, had he fukced both of his competorters in one shot....... and them young boy's and old men that fished the mullet in the basin.....

Rather than do the tug and barge thing, Wild Bill, his son in law, and Southern Seafood, decided to go a step further, and be more Ecofrendly different than Capt. Ed, and to ***** slap him in the face with a taste of his own medicine......

They built huge, multi million dollar seperation of solids and decompisition septic systems to handle the waste water coming from their plants with high dollar engeneers in the field, supervising the construction of them......

When they were put into service......

It was the biginning of the End of a good thing, the Sporties were not complaining much.

The "Miss Cape Canaveral" a Head boat, that took out some 50 people fishing, was reporting record catches of snapper and grouper just about 8 or 10 miles offshore where Capt. Ed's barge operation dumped it's load.....

But it did not matter......

The mullet fishery in the basin disapeared, no food for the fish, and all of Port Canaveral began to stink like $hit from them septic tanks dumping their rotted efulent into the basin that the mullet could not eat......

But it was EPA approved........ Civil servants Fukced it all up, with the instagation of Capt. Ed.....

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

All of the Calico Scallop industry there, including Capt. Ed's, he was in the same pot, was turned into being like a skunk to a garden party......

Under State and Federal guidelines it turned us all, into being rapers and exploiters of a renewable natural resource, offending the public, which consumed the product thereof, and needed to be stopped....

Everybody *****ed, the customers that used to frequinte Capt. Ed's waterfront resturant, that went down hill with customer particapation because of the smell....

Even to us that worked the shell stock boats, it was nasty......

The Captains of the shell stockers, trying to take a 2 hour rest during unloading operations at the plant, and used to fresh air on the open sea....

It would wake you up, by burning the nose hairs out of your nose, and searing your lungs with stink.....

The Cruse ships with their toursts, and a growing industry in Canaveral at the time, and even the US Coast Guard that was up wind of 'em tanks *****ed about it......

You just as well say, that. and that alone, more or less ended the Shore based Calico Scallop shucking operations in Canaveral......

I walked away from the ONA.... She owed me nothing, I had got mine from her, it wasn't much by a rich man's standards, but what I had, it was mine......

Although it did continue for several years, it was the end of an era...

[John Wayne]

And then I lost it... Lost it all, in Costa Rica, my family, and then in Nicaragua all my saved money, gambling on fishing, and on a spitefull personal mission to make a million dollars with what little I had, and my skills, betting on 'ole John the Baptist......

An honerable profession, commerical fishing is,..... the only thing older, is Deer hunting with a club, and Whoreing......

And as in the bible, in the tales of Job, I got it back, working on the land of all things, for me, the son, of a son, of a Sailor......

In Nicaragua, after I had lost it all, everything, in one of the poorest countries of the world, and not knowing where my next plate of food would come from.

If you haven't been there, you have been nowhere, I must admit, I did it to myself, and no one is to blame but me......

Too Proud to go home and call it quits, and not a man to get involved in illegal activity.....

Again nothing by a "Rich" mans standards, but what I have now is mine, and I owe no banking house, or have ever been on the dole......

Back to Canaveral.....

I took the job as master of the vessle Allison Crisitine, and what a monster she was.....

Biggest thing (boat) ever floated in the Calico Scallop industry.........

Built by Rodney Tompson of Tompson Trawlers inc......

Only three he built to my knowlage, she was oringaly named the Sea Quest or the Sea Quest II, I dont remember......

6 inches thick of fiber glass on her bow tapering back to hull thickness of 3 inches and again 6 inches on her stern and chimes.

All hand laid....

Well over 110 feet from anchor to stern, and if I remember right 26 feet, or 23 feet, from bumper to bumper on her sides....

The biggest Tupperware Tub in the world ever been built in those days.... She was a big one....

1000 HP of ballard pull with a Kort Nozzle, giving her almost enough power to pull all of Caneveral out to sea, with that 12 cylinder K38 CUMMINS engine in her belly, if you could have schackled the towing cables to it....

Other than Wild Bill taking an old Gulf of Mexico steel mud boat used in the offshore oil drilling industry, and painting her up, about 150 feet Length Over All and installing his wore out shucking equeptment on it to make a catcher/processor of her, to make another shoe sale, to some cornhole, to finance his hunting trips to Africa.....

Wild Bill was slick, but produced too, he didn't get the name Calico King for nothing...

The Allison was the biggest thing to ever shell stock Calicos....

To give you and Idea of her immenisence, the ONA burned 200 gallons of fuel a clock.....

The BIG FOOT 400 a clock.....

The Allison... 600 gallons of fuel a clock....

But boy, would she tote a big load.....

The ONA would tote 400 gallons of shucked Calico meats in shell stock (in the rough) of what we refered to as clean clear corn, one legal truck and a piece....

The Allison and I swam ashore one time with 1200 gallons of the meats, took 3 or 4 tractor trailers to truck them to NC for processing....

She showed up on the radars on the target screen of other boats like a ship, a dog gone BIG blip.......

Yes you guessed it...

I went to work with Wild Bill's group...

Lambert International Fisheries.......

When I first went into Wild Bill's office, I got a kick out of it......

He had hunting trophy's from all over the world on display in it.....

Elephant leg stools with zebra skin tops, all kind of stuffed heads hanging on the walls, and a big Cape Buffalo head over his desk, and under it, on an old Boy Scout made rifle rack made from his youth, hung a rusty old Remmington model 700 bolt action, in 7mm Remington Magnum...

Kicked like a mule, and bit worse than any crockadial......

At his fuel dock, he had trophys all around, and even a whole stuffed lion standing on the floor.....

To his home in Florida on the main land west of Caneveral, it was a manscion, with a huge cement pond the shape of a Calico Scallop. and TWO walkin vaults for his preicious things.... He was into Kugerands as well.....

He toted all the time a .38 derringer in his pocket.....

Anybody messed with Wild Bill was going to get hurt....

He was not like Capt. Ed, dressed up nice like a bank President had too, to see Wild Bill around his operations, you would not know him from one of his workers.....

You could see him driving a 920 I think it was, CAT front end loader, or walking across the yard with a piece of pipe over his shoulder...

Wild Bill told me straight, John the Baptist, he said.....

I am trucking all my shell stock of Calicos back to North Carolina, it has gotten to be a pain in the A$$ in Canaveral.....

People *****ing about the smell, the land fill over on the mainland where he and Capt. Ed put the cleaned out shells left over from the operations, and they did make some beautiful driveways and patio adornment, and even to the potable water comsumption to process a gallon of meats....

Home, nobody *****es he said, just glad to have the jobs, I am very sorry I cannot get important information back to you about your yealds of them immideatly, so you can know to go back into the area last fished or look another bed of Calicos, but Son, that is how it is.....

I had found beds of them that stank, I mean coming right fresh up off the open ocean floor, from dieing of old age, big for the sipces, but because of their aged condition, not worthwhile to load them on the boat and take ashore.......

What I learned to watch for was a medium to large shell, slick and clean, with no barknickles or marine growth on them, because they had been swimming and feeding, and like PAC MAN with their shells wide open laying on the deck of my boat, if I stuck my finger in them and they cut it and hurt my finger good, they were in excellent health.....

That is what got put on the boat.... and me and my crew could put a trailer truck on in less than 2 hours......

And three or four truck loads in 6 or 8 hours in cold weather.....

Homer Smith.... in Green Cove Springs Fla. near St. Augustine, was busting tires on the owner operator trucks due to overloads because there were no weight stations between the dock and his plant, perhaps a 20 mile trip to the most, loading the trailers to the top, at the dock at St. Augustine Trawlers of cleaned Calicos, just the "Corn" going in them......

In the 40 foot trailers, 4 foot deep from the front end to the closeing doors of the shell stock, was a legal load of shell stock, 50,000 pounds, that would normaly yieald 300 to 400 gallons of meats...

Backed up to the unloading docks at the plants a "Bobcat" front end loader was used to take the shell stock out for processing...

I guess for prosperities sake, I should get into this.......

All the equptiement used from catching, handeling them and even processing them, was an adaption of other industrial machines......

Nobody reinvented the wheel, just made an adaption of it to fit the need.......

And Wild Bill took out his "Method" patentes which was a crock of $hit in my book.....

All of us were a bit "Inventive" in those days......

Big strong Shrimp boats were adapted to fulfill the need for the catching and transport part of the Calico Scallops from the beds located 20 to 70 miles offshore, to the land....

And I did my fair share of inventiveness when it came to being "Bird Dogged" Followed by other Captains that heard another one had made an exceptional trip... I hated that $hit, the basturds ain't got the balls to go and look their own....

I screwed them a time or two, well, in all honesty maybe 10 or 12 times, I don't know........

If one got on my tail.... Oh, I am laughing right now telling this....

I would take him to a rock pile, and if he was so stupid, to not know it was there, and could not use the electronic things on the bridge to see it coming....

I would make a faked set out of the gear just under the surface good........

And that idiot on my A$$ would throw his gear right in the rocks..... 12,000 dollars shot to $hit......

I nearly peed my pants with joy sometimes, seeing the cables and rigs on the bottom in my mind, Oh yes, I made sure it was going With the tide, to do the most damage, and in my eyes, seeing the boat jerking around as their gear was destroyed on the rocks trying to to catch something, and cheat on me....

I never, not one single time, set out on a piece of bottom, I did not look at from North to South and East to West, or knew it.......

I got the reputation, of, don't follow John the Baptist, he will fukc you up.......

Only one, Dumb Dicky, from Core Sound North Carolina got one over on me......

Dicky was't an exceptually bright boat Captain, knew the work, but was a follow the leader, he strained hisself one time, and before going to a Dr. told his wife.....

Well sweetheart, looks like I done caught the clap......

When he went to a Dr. he found out it won't so, but he had done told on himself and his conduct away from home......

I had gone on a looking trip, and laid too about 21 miles off the beach, East of Ponce de Leon Inlet, I think, going on memory here, and no charts to verify, but it was the next little 'ole split in the sand up to the North of Canaveral......

That far inshore and something like 65- 70 feet of water, all the rest of the Calico boats working much further off to the East, mistook me as a shrimp boat, if they even saw me at all......

I shut everything down, main engine, generator and all, and on battery power for lights in the galley, we laid there nice and quiet, the pond (Atlantic Ocean) was without hardly a ripple on it........

It was early night, and the only sound, was of a faint creaking of the rigging, the Sail Boaters would have considered it being "Becalmed" no wind.....

The crew and I cooked a nice Steak dinner, (Yes, you guessed it, they were Ribeyes) salad, taters, the whole ball of wax, complete with sweet Iced Tea, and we did enjoy it in peace, we were alone, nobody within 10 or 20 miles..NOBODY....

And very near an Unexploded Ordernance dumping site from WW ll, clearly marked on the charts, but in those days it was still "More or Less"............

[roulette]

Originally Posted by John Wayne

Saturday nights in one of the last frontier Towns


The Atlantic Coast people love their loud disco music and to toss down some of the local Flor de Caña rum or cold beer.

There were two disco’s in town, one the Jumbo, and the other, called the Blue Beach, and it was always a toss up which one the crowd would favor on any particular Saturday night.

They were within 3 blocks of each other.

When I’d go, I always did enjoy going to the one that had the most people in it because I did not know how to really dance, and I could get on the crowded floor and just act like it, and swing my arms in the air and they all thought I knew what I was doing.

I really liked to dance with all the women, and they did too, most danced with each other because of lack of a partner, and I could go from one to the next just like square dancing and everybody enjoyed it.

When you are dancing with ‘em you are not passing much time drinking.

Most all of the women drank cokes or orange drinks; very few drank the liquor or beer.

Inevitably three or four times in the night, all the lights would come on inside the disco, and sometimes two men would have to be escorted outside.

No fighting, weapons or knives were allowed inside.

This was strict.

When the guy’s were outside, the police took over, they were checked well for weapons, and the crowd made to leave them alone.

They were allowed to go one on one, and the loser would “Drop jail”.

I kinda liked that, I had never seen it done that way before.

By midnight what few men were there, can hardly stand up, are going home, or else where, and there I am with all these pretty women almost alone, and most of ‘em not married or in an arrangement.

On the way home one Saturday night, in about 1993, Sunday morning actually, 2 am, I was escorting a woman to her home from the disco.

We were walking along one of the main streets in town going north, which had an occasional light.

As we walked and talked, I once in a while stopped and looked all around us, I am a careful, observant man.

I had gotten into a dangerous situation as a younger man in the States, and you don’t forget those things.

The reason we were there in the first place, was we were really enjoying the dancing, and there were no taxis to be had when we came out of the disco.

Three young men were walking behind us about 30 yards back.

Each time we stopped and I glanced their way, they stopped too.

They carried no rifles or machetes that I could see, so I did not alarm her, because it could have been nothing.

She was paying attention to me and I kinda liked that.

But something was nagging my mind about this, and we were going to have to cut thru a dark side street to get to where we were going.

Remembering the old Boy Scout motto about being prepared, I got ready for what I suspected might happen.

When we started into the side street that runs between the two principal north south running streets.

I changed the side of me she had been walking on putting her on my left side, and we walked on the left side of the street.

This was right in front of Melvin Warmans Bakery, that he named “Next Bar”.

I reached behind me with my right hand and took the Baby Beretta that I still legally carry, out of its pouch.

I had had a leather pouch made so it all fit in my back pocket and resembled a wallet.

I stopped us right on the edge of the limits of the wash of light from the street lamp, and they did to stop, right under the light still about 30 yards from us.

The reason I stopped there, was if there was a problem, I wanted it on my terms, and not theirs.

These boys were stupid; I guess they were drawing straws under the light to see who made the assault.

One of them took off his shirt and tied it around his face and pulled a knife and came running toward us.

Good, I thought, one on one, I did not have to deal with all three at one time, that made me feel better.

By the time he got to within 6 feet of me demanding my wallet, I had the pistol cocked and pointed between his eyes. The woman was fricking out, but thank God she did not hold on to me, or get in my way.

This pistol has an accurate and effective design range of 7 yards or 21 feet.

It might look like a toy, but it is not, it will penetrate the human skull or the ribcage in a center of mass shot, with full metal jacketed bullets.

I had promised myself years ago, if anyone wanted to take anything from me, all they would get is a fight, even if it killed me.

Now I could have easily killed the stupid F*** at this time, and perhaps only had to pay his family a little money for his life, but instead I just scared the **** out of him, by moving it just to the side, and firing close to
his head.

He dropped the knife and ran, his buddies did to.

Funny how in the quite of the morning, that little gun sounded like much more than it is.

The woman was still freaked out crying, “let’s go, let’s go,” so we went.

It’s strange how a brush with real danger, can cause people to become excited………….

The night had a wonderful ending.

And my adventure in Nicaragua continues

John Wayne

Sounds like the makings of a bestselling set of memoirs, my man. Give us more.....

[John Wayne]

That is what I am working on.....

I have not really arranged it all yet and these are drafts.....

But true stories...

Thanks for the shot in the arm, I needed it....

Oh and Welcome to the site....

[John Wayne]

Originally Posted by John Wayne

And then I lost it... Lost it all, in Costa Rica, my family, and then in Nicaragua all my saved money, gambling on fishing, and on a spitefull personal mission to make a million dollars with what little I had, and my skills, betting on 'ole John the Baptist......

An honerable profession, commerical fishing is,..... the only thing older, is Deer hunting with a club, and Whoreing......

And as in the bible, in the tales of Job, I got it back, working on the land of all things, for me, the son, of a son, of a Sailor......

In Nicaragua, after I had lost it all, everything, in one of the poorest countries of the world, and not knowing where my next plate of food would come from.

If you haven't been there, you have been nowhere, I must admit, I did it to myself, and no one is to blame but me......

Too Proud to go home and call it quits, and not a man to get involved in illegal activity.....

Again nothing by a "Rich" mans standards, but what I have now is mine, and I owe no banking house, or have ever been on the dole......

Back to Canaveral.....

I took the job as master of the vessle Allison Crisitine, and what a monster she was.....

Biggest thing (boat) ever floated in the Calico Scallop industry.........

Built by Rodney Tompson of Tompson Trawlers inc......

Only three he built to my knowlage, she was oringaly named the Sea Quest or the Sea Quest II, I dont remember......

6 inches thick of fiber glass on her bow tapering back to hull thickness of 3 inches and again 6 inches on her stern and chimes.

All hand laid....

Well over 110 feet from anchor to stern, and if I remember right 26 feet, or 23 feet, from bumper to bumper on her sides....

The biggest Tupperware Tub in the world ever been built in those days.... She was a big one....

1000 HP of ballard pull with a Kort Nozzle, giving her almost enough power to pull all of Caneveral out to sea, with that 12 cylinder K38 CUMMINS engine in her belly, if you could have schackled the towing cables to it....

Other than Wild Bill taking an old Gulf of Mexico steel mud boat used in the offshore oil drilling industry, and painting her up, about 150 feet Length Over All and installing his wore out shucking equeptment on it to make a catcher/processor of her, to make another shoe sale, to some cornhole, to finance his hunting trips to Africa.....

Wild Bill was slick, but produced too, he didn't get the name Calico King for nothing...

The Allison was the biggest thing to ever shell stock Calicos....

To give you and Idea of her immenisence, the ONA burned 200 gallons of fuel a clock.....

The BIG FOOT 400 a clock.....

The Allison... 600 gallons of fuel a clock....

But boy, would she tote a big load.....

The ONA would tote 400 gallons of shucked Calico meats in shell stock (in the rough) of what we refered to as clean clear corn, one legal truck and a piece....

The Allison and I swam ashore one time with 1200 gallons of the meats, took 3 or 4 tractor trailers to truck them to NC for processing....

She showed up on the radars on the target screen of other boats like a ship, a dog gone BIG blip.......

Yes you guessed it...

I went to work with Wild Bill's group...

Lambert International Fisheries.......

When I first went into Wild Bill's office, I got a kick out of it......

He had hunting trophy's from all over the world on display in it.....

Elephant leg stools with zebra skin tops, all kind of stuffed heads hanging on the walls, and a big Cape Buffalo head over his desk, and under it, on an old Boy Scout made rifle rack made from his youth, hung a rusty old Remmington model 700 bolt action, in 7mm Remington Magnum...

Kicked like a mule, and bit worse than any crockadial......

At his fuel dock, he had trophys all around, and even a whole stuffed lion standing on the floor.....

To his home in Florida on the main land west of Caneveral, it was a manscion, with a huge cement pond the shape of a Calico Scallop. and TWO walkin vaults for his preicious things.... He was into Kugerands as well.....

He toted all the time a .38 derringer in his pocket.....

Anybody messed with Wild Bill was going to get hurt....

He was not like Capt. Ed, dressed up nice like a bank President had too, to see Wild Bill around his operations, you would not know him from one of his workers.....

You could see him driving a 920 I think it was, CAT front end loader, or walking across the yard with a piece of pipe over his shoulder...

Wild Bill told me straight, John the Baptist, he said.....

I am trucking all my shell stock of Calicos back to North Carolina, it has gotten to be a pain in the A$$ in Canaveral.....

People *****ing about the smell, the land fill over on the mainland where he and Capt. Ed put the cleaned out shells left over from the operations, and they did make some beautiful driveways and patio adornment, and even to the potable water comsumption to process a gallon of meats....

Home, nobody *****es he said, just glad to have the jobs, I am very sorry I cannot get important information back to you about your yealds of them immideatly, so you can know to go back into the area last fished or look another bed of Calicos, but Son, that is how it is.....

I had found beds of them that stank, I mean coming right fresh up off the open ocean floor, from dieing of old age, big for the sipces, but because of their aged condition, not worthwhile to load them on the boat and take ashore.......

What I learned to watch for was a medium to large shell, slick and clean, with no barknickles or marine growth on them, because they had been swimming and feeding, and like PAC MAN with their shells wide open laying on the deck of my boat, if I stuck my finger in them and they cut it and hurt my finger good, they were in excellent health.....

That is what got put on the boat.... and me and my crew could put a trailer truck on in less than 2 hours......

And three or four truck loads in 6 or 8 hours in cold weather.....

Homer Smith.... in Green Cove Springs Fla. near St. Augustine, was busting tires on the owner operator trucks due to overloads because there were no weight stations between the dock and his plant, perhaps a 20 mile trip to the most, loading the trailers to the top, at the dock at St. Augustine Trawlers of cleaned Calicos, just the "Corn" going in them......

In the 40 foot trailers, 4 foot deep from the front end to the closeing doors of the shell stock, was a legal load of shell stock, 50,000 pounds, that would normaly yieald 300 to 400 gallons of meats...

Backed up to the unloading docks at the plants a "Bobcat" front end loader was used to take the shell stock out for processing...

I guess for prosperities sake, I should get into this.......

All the equptiement used from catching, handeling them and even processing them, was an adaption of other industrial machines......

Nobody reinvented the wheel, just made an adaption of it to fit the need.......

And Wild Bill took out his "Method" patentes which was a crock of $hit in my book.....

All of us were a bit "Inventive" in those days......

Big strong Shrimp boats were adapted to fulfill the need for the catching and transport part of the Calico Scallops from the beds located 20 to 70 miles offshore, to the land....

And I did my fair share of inventiveness when it came to being "Bird Dogged" Followed by other Captains that heard another one had made an exceptional trip... I hated that $hit, the basturds ain't got the balls to go and look their own....

I screwed them a time or two, well, in all honesty maybe 10 or 12 times, I don't know........

If one got on my tail.... Oh, I am laughing right now telling this....

I would take him to a rock pile, and if he was so stupid, to not know it was there, and could not use the electronic things on the bridge to see it coming....

I would make a faked set out of the gear just under the surface good........

And that idiot on my A$$ would throw his gear right in the rocks..... 12,000 dollars shot to $hit......

I nearly peed my pants with joy sometimes, seeing the cables and rigs on the bottom in my mind, Oh yes, I made sure it was going With the tide, to do the most damage, and in my eyes, seeing the boat jerking around as their gear was destroyed on the rocks trying to to catch something, and cheat on me....

I never, not one single time, set out on a piece of bottom, I did not look at from North to South and East to West, or knew it.......

I got the reputation, of, don't follow John the Baptist, he will fukc you up.......

Only one, Dumb Dicky, from Core Sound North Carolina got one over on me......

Dicky was't an exceptually bright boat Captain, knew the work, but was a follow the leader, he strained hisself one time, and before going to a Dr. told his wife.....

Well sweetheart, looks like I done caught the clap......

When he went to a Dr. he found out it won't so, but he had done told on himself and his conduct away from home......

I had gone on a looking trip, and laid too about 21 miles off the beach, East of Ponce de Leon Inlet, I think, going on memory here, and no charts to verify, but it was the next little 'ole split in the sand up to the North of Canaveral......

That far inshore and something like 65- 70 feet of water, all the rest of the Calico boats working much further off to the East, mistook me as a shrimp boat, if they even saw me at all......

I shut everything down, main engine, generator and all, and on battery power for lights in the galley, we laid there nice and quiet, the pond (Atlantic Ocean) was without hardly a ripple on it........

It was early night, and the only sound, was of a faint creaking of the rigging, the Sail Boaters would have considered it being "Becalmed" no wind.....

The crew and I cooked a nice Steak dinner, (Yes, you guessed it, they were Ribeyes) salad, taters, the whole ball of wax, complete with sweet Iced Tea, and we did enjoy it in peace, we were alone, nobody within 10 or 20 miles..NOBODY....

And very near an Unexploded Ordernance dumping site from WW ll, clearly marked on the charts, but in those days it was still "More or Less"............

In my fathers days, in one of those Unexploded Ordernance dump sites, the Vessle "Snoopy" dragging the bottom offshore of New Jersey, got blown all to smitherines, and the only surviver was the cook who was near the bow of the boat at the time.

According to him, it blew his body way out into the water, and he clung to floating debris till rescued.

The Capt., Mate, and all the deck hands, about 12, who were working on the back deck, went to Davy Jones Locker.

Evidentlty from the maginitude of the damage the Snoopy suffered, it had been one of them round things loaded with TNT with the spikes all around it that in striking a ships hull, busted (exploded) it all to pieces, being the Snoopy was a wooden boat, it went to match sticks.....

Back to 21 miles off Ponce Inlet about 10:00 night.....

Ahhh, it was deathly quite, not a ripple on the water in the "Pond", my crew and I had enjoyed a good meal, were rested, and ready to go to work.

I gave the order, "Saddle up Boy's".....

It is a Southern expression for many generations that means.. Time to do it....

I had plenty of time to look around on that trip to meet my schedual to the plant/dock in Canaveral, even if I had to run offshore and work the shell pile for a load, which sometimes was way more dead shells than live Calicos.......

And now a brief discription at what went on at the plants, if you want to skip over this fine, I will get back to the meat of this story after this...

When a boat tied to the dock at the plant with a deck load of Calicos, it was unloaded with a Knuckle Boom, this was nothing but a Timber Jack or other brand of a portable log loader utilized in the Logging industry.

Over its curved jaws was built out of curved steel plate two half shells to form a bucket that would open and close and hold 2 or 3 cubic yards of the shell stock.

It was lifted and slowly dumped into an 8x8 tapered vat that had a 3 inch spaced grate over it angled inboard on the dock, so that big items like rocks would slide to a place where the "Bobcat" front end loaders could put it on the land fill trucks, and the still yet uncleaned shell stock would pass.....

The land fill trucks were dump bodied 18 wheelers....

At the bottom of this vat, the shell stock was by adjustable speed convayered up about 12 feet high, to a final cleaning thrasher.

On the convayer going up, was stationed 2 to 4 persons to pick out things that would hinder the next stage of the operation.....

When the simi cleaned shell stock went into the center of the final cleaning thrasher, it was a round turning cylinder slightly angled that was only another grated device about four feet in diameter and eight feet long, spaceing of the steel rebar it was made out of, was about an inch, so that commerical size whole Calico Scallops would not fall thru.

It was sprayed with water and designed to allow the dead half shells and sand to fall into a catcher that emptied into an area that the Bobcat could again load onto the land fill trucks.

From this point on, only potable water was used on them, including this operation, it took a lot of water to process them...

No water from the basin was used on them, only ocean water on the boats to keep them cool in the summer months during catching and transport ashore, which was stopped at the sea bouy, and kept in the shade, in the winter it didn't matter....

After coming out of the final cleaning thrasher, one of two things was done, a cnovayer caught them up close to reduce physical damage to them, and loaded them on a truck, capped with ice, and transported to another final processing plant, or they went right into the final process right there.....

The final process didn't vary wheather trucked or on the spot shucking of them, so I will go into this on the spot shucking....

They were allowed to fall about 8 or 10 feet onto a thick steel plate, to hurt the hell out of them, to stun them, as if they were not stunned already....

They were then convayed up into the plant to a steam tunnel, about a 20 feet long tube 18" in diameter, mounted high overhead, with an auger in it to move the shell stock thru it powered by a 60 HP boiler.

It was all stainless steel and food grade plastic from this point on and inclosed.....

Everything was speed adjustable and run by a "Shucker" that was a key employee, paid a basic salery, plus an incentive on the gallons of meats shucked......

He had to run around constantly like a chicken with his head cut off on his 8 hour watch, to not let the Calicos spend to much time in the tunnel, or run them thru to fast......

This was 24/7, day in and day out, weather permiting, for the shell stock boats to supply the plants...

The blast of steam on the Calicos was to make both sides of the meats turn loose of the shells, and then be run thru a stainless steel tumbler to seperate the meats with their guts attached, from the shells....

They came out of the steam tunnel and into the tumbler, it wasn't nothing but a horizontal clothes dryer going round and around, 4 foot in diameter 8 foot long with baffels in it and 1 1/8" inch holes preferated all about it for the meats with their guts to fall thru on a slight angle to let the empty shells fall out the other end on another convayer to go outside onto a land fill truck.....

The meats with the guts attached fell thru the holes to a washer to remove risudual sand and shell fragments, and then slide into a chill tank of ice water on fine stainless grates, all by gravity....

It wasn't 5 minutes from being alive the Calico Scallops, to the meats and guts out of the shells to being chilled, hell, less than that......

The chilled meats with the guts attached, were convayed to a machine into another room, that was a plain 'ole Marshiano Cherry stemmer adapted for the puropse....

It was 4 foot wide and about 6 foot long consisting of rubber coated rollers that rocked back and forth against each other and the machine could be elevated on one end to speed up or lowered to slow down the time for it to pull the gut off the meat.....

Ahhh, it was a beautiful sight to see those from miniture to marshmellow size meats cleaned come rolling down it onto a wide Stainless table and the women picking thru them to make sure they were clean......

They went from there into another chill vat and convayered out and placed into gallon plastic buckets, 6 buckets to a master carton, iced and put on a refergereted trailer truck......

Most all the plants were processing 200 gallons of meats an hour....

Richard (Dick) McGuire, an Irishman from Ohio, had built it all, from his mind, for both, Wild Bill first, and then Capt. Ed, hireing him away from Wild Bill, who turned it into a legal battle, back in forth, because Wild Bill had taken out method patentes, and left Dick out in the cold with only a high paying salery and no stake in it.....

Million dollar civil suits over violations of patent rights.....

"Saddle up Boy's"..... 21 miles off Ponce Inlet and alone..... Not another boat in sight....

My pilot/mate went to his rack, (Bed in Nautical terms) and the boy's and I started to work, my wench man Herbie told me, Capt, lets run all this cable off before we start work, I don't like the way it is getting bunched and loose in places on the wench drums.......

I was still well to the North of that dump site, I ran over the bottom looking at it with the echo sounder, flat as a pancake, no rocks that I could see, while the boy's got the rigs ready......

Over the loud hailer Herbie said, we ready Capt.

I jambed the throttle "In the Corner", "All Ahead" you had to set out the Calico rigs as fast as the boat would go, about 8 or 10 knots, stager them about 50 feet apart and just a very little tension on the cables flying off the drums of the wench with the friction brakes, it was an art....

The main towing cables were marked every 25 fathoms clearly to make sure everything was staggered well and how much to use for the depth of the water could be judged from that.....

Woah, hollered Herbie, I backed the main engine to an idle and he stopped the rigs with the brakes and put the wench in gear, and I ran her back up to about 2/3 throttle to wind the rigs back in and keep the cables taught.....

It was quick, it was fast to do it, just running them off and bringing them back, didn't take 6 or 8 minutes from start to finish, but when the rigs got to the surface; They struck me funny......

Herbie, I said, lets hook up and dump them cod ends, there is something in there and I want to see it.....

When we dumped them on the deck, it was 1/4 bags about 20 or 30 bushels to the side of the prettiest Calico Scallops ever been, pure clean corn, and not any red 5 finger starfish that fed on them, or sea urchens that lived among the beds, or dead shells......

My two deck apes and I, jumped up and down for joy like 3 kids, Boy's lets load the boat, I said......

That is the way it was done, we loaded on the decks, all the boats would carry at times, some of the boats that were a little "Squrelly"....

Top heavy with a deck load, balast was put in the vessel down below, be it bags of salt, or bags of sand and decked them over so they wouldn't shift, so she would not turn over....

Loading the boat with clean clear "Corn" Calicos, with no sand or mud mixed in was not a problem, if the boat took a heavy deep roll, they would just go back into the sea all that was loaded above the gunnels, no problem, we put them well over 10 feet high in the center of the boat on deck......

Now on the bridge I had a II Morrow LORAN interconected to a same brand paper plotter that used typewriter paper sheets......

I made my own charts that I guarded like a hawk....... in all honesty I shared information with very few, and then, only face to face...... The He Coon didn't raise no fool when it came to working offshore.....

I would lie on the radio......

I sent many a "Bird Dogger" into a mud pit, knowing dam well there was nothing there with lies they believed.......

Yes, I did it to them, and on purpose over the public air waves too.......

When it comes to dog eat dog on a bed of Calico Scallops and a group of them start hitting a bed.....

Those Scurvy dog boat captains were NOT gentlemen.....

I told my friends straight, face to face, if you hear me talking on the radio, I swear, I am going to lie, DO NOT listen to me, I will mix in a bit of truth sometimes just to confuse the $hit out of them, but do not trust me on the radio......

If any got in destress I would drop what I was doing and go help if I was closer than the next one, But fishing, after you throw the lines off the dock, you on your own far as I am conserned.....

Hot dam I got off on lieing on the radio to those basturds that were just followers, and not adventuresome enough to look their own beds....

John the Baptist, where you at? What you doing? God I hated that, somebody asking where I am, and what I am doing over the radio..

I would say, look, I am on the way in, I got a "Jagg" on the boat (All she would swim with) I got 'em so-in-so place, it took a while, only 1/2 bagging it, (100 bushels a tow) but I got the meat....

And in their code I would say it.... It was a BS code worked out for generations.... Everyone knew it, including the Taco Fleet, Tex/Mexs that worked for Southern Seafood......

And they would go there and there be little or nothing... Laughing about it now, sometimes I even put 'em on rock piles to destroy their gear.....

I am not going to be bashfull about it, the He Coon taught me well......

Ok back to 21 miles off Ponce Inlet and alone..... Not another boat in sight....

I don't know, hell, 5 or 6 miles North of the Unexploded Odranance Dump site from WW2.....

We set back out on the same spot and made a tow, and came up with nothing to speak of, just a few bushels, but boy was it nice stuff...

We had a set ground speed on the rigs of 3.2 knots that they were designed for, which all of us used as a rule of thumb....

Now don't get ahead of me here, that dump site does come up later again in my story......

Well we messed around and messed around trying to see what worked, I pulled the rigs faster than normal, and wound up with even less, but still the Calicos what came up, if you stuck your finger in them were in exelent health and what to look for, but we were not catching enough to feed a sick cat.....

So all of a sudden I said Fu*ket.....

I don't care if these rigs go to China and they sand and mud up and I have to beat the cod ends on the bottom for hours to get them back, clearing the mud and sand out of them....

I pulled them across the bottom real slow..... At an unheard of speed of 1.8 knots....

And it worked.... in 10 minutes on the bottom the nets came up spilling out the mouth of the nets, clean clear corn, Calico Scallops, no sand or mud......

I had to shorten the bottom time down to 6 minutes..... 150 bushel tows... That was easier to handle than the spilling out the mouth what we called Cut Offs, or "Tumors" and you have to go thru the process of putting 2 one and a half inch nylon whip or lifting lines on the cod ends....

Hey that stuff is heavy, I have seen a cod end stop the wench, and the belts on the front of the main engine Power TakeOff smoke and holler.....

We loaded the boat in about 45 minutes after getting things figgered out and went on back to Canaveral....

Shucked out dam and not the river kind good....

Half way thru the shucking I saw we were going to exceed 500 gallons of meats, and I told the shucker...

DO NOT put my final yeald on the radio, the rest of the fleet were only doing 150 to 250 gallons to the trip at that time, once in a while 400 gallons....

So with a low profile I worked off Ponce Inlet for a good while till the rest of 'em fu*kers caught on I was consistantly putting it on their asses....

One of my friends asked me at the dock, where you catching them GD Calicos?

So I told him, we were on opposite schedules and I said... Don't take nobody up there, go on and get your meat and done.....

When I next saw him he said.... You are a GD Liar, right here to my face on the dock, I looked all over that place and came up with nothing..... You SOB I ought to kick your ass right here and now....

Now he was a pretty big Georga Boy and I would have had to look my gun for him if he started in on me.....

Gary, I told him, it looks like I am going to have to take you by the hand like a school child and show you where to catch those Calicos.....

Well by God you gone have to do it, because right now to me you lied to my face.....

I said, go talk to the scheduleing man and get him to put us on schedule together and I will take you there by the hand and show you....

So he did and we went...... Right to where I told him fromm before.....

I set out, and he right behind me..... Talking on the CB he said.... Hey if you don't speed that boat up I am going to run right over you....

Slow it down to 1.8 I told him........

What? and my rigs go to China?

You want the meat or what? I said to him.....

So we both loaded the boats, got put on different schedules again so not to stick out like a sore thumb......

But it didn't work, the rest of the dumb bunnies soon caught on, but they still didn't know where........

And Ahhh, that That WW2 Unexploded Odrnance site.... Was laying there waiting........

I will get to it on the next part of this story...

[John Wayne]

So where was I?

Oh yes, Gary, the Big Georga Boy from somewhere in the coastal swamps thereof......

Working off Ponce Inlet, and trying to keep it a secret......

Boy did we work at keeping that bed a private matter....

Way inshore for the species and yealding like crazy with the meats.....

If anyone got on our tail, we would go offshore, way out, 40 or 50 miles, lay too, and go to bed waiting for the "Bird Dogger" to get bored and go on to something else......

One or two hours and they would give up....

Turn off all the lights, and run inshore 20 or 30 miles and go to work....

We had them jugg Fu*kers going, they did not know where we dissapered too....

The FURUNO 24 mile radars in them days after six miles wasn't worth a $hit most of the time, and when a rain came up, worthless...

Fog didn't bother them, but rain killed them, the whole screen would turn to cludder.....

And when you had it on the 6 mile range anything inside of 1/4 mile you could not see, it was in the cludder.....

On the half mile range inbound during good conditions, it would pick up a banded Pelican....

That is just how "Dumb Dicky" got me.......

Now Dumb Dicky got his nick name from getting strained on his boat one time, and went home to North Carolina and told his wife he thought he had caught the clap, before he ever went to a Doctor.....

Dicky was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was not stupid at fishing, and escape and evasion, or bird dogging.....

One dark night as I came out the jetty and passed the green can bouy at Canaveral, I noticed two targets there, but paid no attention to the second one.......

It was not in my way and perhaps just a Ding Batter (sport fisherman) there near the bouy, no lights on it, so I figgured it was anchored up out of the way, fishing with poles or hand lines....

That was the demarkation line from inland to ocean.....

The boy's had the aft deck squared away by that time, and we turned the deck lights out, and I was looking forward to a four or five hours in my rack, and turned the boat over to the Pilot/mate for the run to the fishing grounds.

I was in the sea now, the 'ole Catterpillar Engine humming along at a bit more than half throttle to conserve fuel, and for me and the boy's rest time traveling.....

Little did I know that Dumb Dicky was on my ass less than 1/4 mile behind me with all his lights out, it was him hid out by the green can bouy.....

Ilegal as $hit, (as if I had never done anything illigal) if the Coast Guard would have caught him, there would have been a fine, or he would have had to bull $hit his way out of it.....

When I turned the bridge over to the mate, I saw nothing around us on the radar, and with my eyes, ( I will be quite honest here, I have had bad night vision all my life) and went to take a rest.....

In the galley I had the blue speckled baking pan loaded up, and in the oven, and all the Mate had to do was turn the fire down and put it on warm at a certian time, till we got to our destination.....

The mate called us when we got there, and we laid too and had a meal.....

When I turned on the deck lights to get ready.... another boat turned on theirs as well, close up....

Fu*k.... I had been followed...... What am I going to do now?

I got on the radio, chatted a bit to draw attention, and acted pissed with my mate for over shooting my hot spot, accused him of falling asleep at the wheel, which is a BIG No No, a very serious thing.......

I reversed course and ran back, right kadab to the middle of that Unexploded Odenance dump site from the WW 2 era South of me, with Dumb Dicky still on my tail, and made a pretend set out...

And he dropped his rigs to the bottom.......

Came up with a nice tow and talked $hit on the radio....

Three fleets of 20 or 30 boats in total converged on the area within hours......

Like I said before, it was Dog eat Dog fishing......

Dumb Dicky had succsfully Bird Dogged me, and I had to do something to get him off my ass....

With that many boats milling about, it was easy to just go silent, turn the lights off, and slip away....

I left them there to their own resources, they knowing full and well it was a dangerious place, well shown on the charts of that era....

I will be a monkeys uncle, they caught Calico Scallops there, and just as many old rusted out steel bullet caseings about 4 inches in diameter or so and 18 or 24 inches long...

They drug it to mud....

Their asses puckering every time they dumped the cod ends on deck.......

I heard them over the radio, talking about 'em big bullets they were catching......

You could have not drove a 16d nail up their asses with a 3 pound sledge hammer....

But they did it anyway, thinking that was where I had been working with Georga Boy....

And so help me God, I laughed at them.....

WTF... they were profissionals like myself, I never claimed I wasn't a basturd in my younger days..........
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ...................................

So the Calico Scallop industry was winding down in Florida......

People complaining about the smell, the use of 200 and some gallons of potable water to process a gallon of the meats on shore in the plants.....

BTW nobody died digging in that old ordenance dump site, they just caught a bunch of old bullets......

The Vonna Shrimp company out of Jacksonville Fla. was doing reserch and devolopment with the Royal Red shrimp in 1200 feet of water off the coast, well out into the Gulf Stream......

When the shuttle blew up and help from around the world helped, and the pussy eating French that had one of them deep water submarines could not see for the Red Shrimp there.....

So I had about decided to go to deeper water and further away from all those assholes (Snow Birds and Ding Batters) in Florida that think they own the open Ocean.....

BTW Archie Bunker did NOT invent the word "Ding Bat"....

We Carolinamen did talking about Sport Fishermen.......

Meat Head yes, but Ding Bat, NO.......

So a Bloody Irishman talked me into taking/applying for a position for a 50K a year in Costa Rica job cash.....

One of the owners, a powerfull Tico, came to Canaveral and interviewed me and hired me on the spot.....

They were working 500 fathoms of water for shrimp, stealing from Nicaragua on the Pacific side......

An unheard of depth for trawlers......

Needless to say, this got my attention.......

The Vonnas were only working 200 fathoms at best.....

My son Wayne Lawarnce hadn't long been born, and Dorothy was not very old at the time......

I moved my family to Costa Rica, set them up in a nice home up on a hillside, coffee plants, pineapples, bannanas, and hired 2 "Domesticas" to care for them and went to work cureing machinacal problems for TALMANA SA......

92 men I had under me and I spoke not a word of Spanish......

Try that on for size......

They did give me a young man for a translator from Bluefields Nicaragua to start till I put him to doing something else.....

And two complete idiot assholes, one the GM, Jacinto Gonzales, and the other one "Pin Pin" (I cannot remember his name that I replaced)........

Them two Fu*kers made war with me from day one.....

My translator told me, Why don't I fight back?

Nobody wins in a dog fight, I let them kill themselves, and it worked.........

My wife Judy fell into a rum bottle from her past and could not crawl back out, God, for Dorothy and Wayne, I wanted help for the mother....

And I found none from her father, as a matter of fact, he threatened me with all the weight of his legal friends in the US.....

Looking back now I think they all knew she had been in and out of rehab there many times before we got together.....

If I had it to do all over again, it would be a completely different story, I have more balls now......

I chickened out, I was intimadated by him, I am crying now writeing this......

I sent them all back to Florida, money was not a problem......

Later Judy took a 10 inch butcher knife and tried to finish her life, I mean cut her aorta and spent a year in the hospitol, I was told she was not expected to live......

And Dorothy and Wayne were adopted out........

To a nice Woman named Patricia in Jaxonville.......

And I love her, sight unseen, for raising my/Her children....

I have left a lot of blanks in here and I will try and fill them in later.....

I never saw any of them again in life....

JW

[roulette]

Originally Posted by John Wayne

That is what I am working on.....

I have not really arranged it all yet and these are drafts.....

But true stories...

Thanks for the shot in the arm, I needed it....

Oh and Welcome to the site....

Thanks for the welcome. And from one writer to another, have me down for a set of your memoirs.

[John Wayne]

My next story, is about being shipwrecked off BlackBeards ole haunt......

Okracoke Island, where he was beheaded.....

What I write is true.....

Ahhh Silver Lake, in the leaward of the the Island....

And the beach side, where I washed ashore with the Captain and crew of a fishing boat that went down.....

In the graveyard of the Atlantic.....

[John Wayne]

Now 'ole Bud Gene was a cousin of mine, I thought of him as an uncle, but actually he was my cousin....

He was the He Coons (my father, Wayne Jr.) first cousin, a bit younger, but they grew up together in Trenton NC as brothers.....

A back woods little town at the head waters of the Trent river, that the local hardware store couldn't change a 20 dollar bill to purchase a 5 dollar Remmington shotgun...

He had a younger sister named Sandra, and an older brother named Bill Jr. Or just plain Billy as we all knew him....

Who later gained the name "Wild Bill" because of his rather wild conduct in his younger days, especially if he was drinking.....

Bud Gene's mother Eunice May, was sister to my grandfather Wayne Sr, the only 2 begats Pearlie Evans had by John Lewis Gooding....

Sandra was one of the most beautiful of women ever been in the county when she got grown....

When she was young, because of baby fat, she was called Battleship by her peers, but later they all took notice of this pretty girl.....

And even I have to admit, she was the Marylin Monroe of her youth...

Bud Gene hunted the swamps and fished the river with his brothers, my dad and his brother Edward and his older brother "Wild Bill"

Wild Bill got attacked one time by a bear and chocked the basturd to death with his legs around the bears neck, it wasn't a big bear but big enough to nearly kill him, he only armed with a squrrel gun......

Wild Bill and my father and Edward went on to Commerical fishing, but Bud Gene joined the US Coast Guard, he made the rank of
Chief Warrent Officer and got 'em fancy salutes from the armed guard at the gates when entering the facilities.......

My dad being gone much of the time, Bud Gene took me dove hunting, shad fishing, and to ball games......

Bud Gene.... You were the greatest.... and I hope your son remembers you fondly....



Now William Thomas Lewis known to all later as "Daddy Bill" who married Eunice May Gooding, Wayne Sr's only sister, and they had married for life.....

When ever I hear the word "Howdy" or read it, I think fondly of my Aint Eunice, she used it all the time.....

Daddy Bill and my grandfather, brothers in law, went into business together one time....

They bought an old truck, fixed it up because they both were gifted with mechanical skills, to haul produce from Spiveys Corner NC to New York City....

Now Spiveys Corner is famious for not only growing cucumbers and tomatoes,and stringbeans, but still has and anual Hog calling contest that particapants from all over the States come to enjoy....

It ain't far from Benson NC where they have an anual "Mule Days" celibration till today....

Now I ain't talking bout no pickup truck here, it was a big'un in them days what they bought.....

They worked under the shade of a Pecan tree (pronounced Pee Can) there in Trenton NC (pronounced Trennon) on it, to get her ready for the trips back and forth to New York....

Their 4 boys grew up together as brothers, Wayne Jr, and Edward Pavel (Jack), Billy Jr. , and Bud Gene.....

Now they grew up a bit wild, being the apple of their grandmothers eye, Maw Pearl....

Maw Pearl died when I was 15 so I knew her well, her husband for life was John Lewis Gooding Whom I was named after and his son Wayne Sr...

John Lewis died when I was 12 days old so I never knew him, both, John Lewis, and Pearlie Evans, are baryed side by side in Trenton....

But getting back to my story.....

Rather than go to school, the surounding creeks, swamps and river became their play ground for the 4 boy's Wayne Jr, Jack, Billy and Bud Gene.....

Sometimes Jones County school had a graduating class of 1, sometimes none for the year....

They hunted, trapped, and fished, to their hearts content....

Hell the first pair of real shoes Billy ever had, my grandfather bought for him, and tears now at 80, comes to his eyes when he talks about it, bought for all of them as a matter of fact, on one of their trips to New York.....

On their first trip to New York City, getting back to Daddy Bill and Wayne Sr, and their business adventure....

They took their truck to Spiveys Corner, bought a load of fresh produce and proceded on up to New York City with it, just two 'ole country boy's that hadn't hardly been out ot the county, let alone gone to New York City, neither one had ever been there before.......

Well, before they even got to the City proper, they got in trouble with the law.....

This I got from both of the horses mouth's....

A police officer stopped them.... Sirs he said, don't you know this road is for cars only? there was an exit sign back there a ways for trucks?

Wayne Sr. who was driving at the time said, Officer, I didn't see it paying attention to traffic.....

Then he asked Daddy Bill, sir, what were you doing?....

Daddy Bill's responce was, Officer, I was looking at all the lights......

Their first trip does not end here, I will tell about the rest of thier misadventure.....



Well the police officer got tickled at Daddy Bills response, and got 'em straightened out, didn't fine them for anything, they making an innocent mistake and showing much respect for the law by two country bumpkins bringing food to his fair City.....

I wonder how that would go over in this day and time? Probably get a ticket a mile long.....

I don't know if they in turn gave the officer a gift to take home to his kitchen, but putting myself in their place, I would have, they had plenty on the truck, and we Southerners are prone to sharing with not only those in need, but those that help us as well......

So they got over there in Manhatten somewhere, where the vegiatable buyers that buy bulk, dealed with producers and teamsters, and made a deal to sell the fresh produce....

Now this business venture between Daddy Bill and my grandfather, took place in the 1930's, the roads wasn't so good and they had to, in 'em days, to get to the city, go all the way around their hand to get to their thumbs....

And they put the time in driving that truck day and night, periodicly changeing and the other resting, or trying to rest on the other side of the cab of the truck to get their perishables to market in good shape with minum loss....

Sleeper cabbed trucks were long from even being thought of in them days, where one could streach out, while the other is driving....

They were both born in the early years of 1900, their parents from the 1875- 1885 era of which I did know one, out of the four of them, so they were young strong men at the time.....

In those days North Carolina was also like Texas in 1880, they have the old Cowboy law there, you tote a gun, you tote it right out in plain sight or under lock and key....

This story was related to me personally over a meal at my Aint Eunice's kitchen table by both Daddy Bill and Wayne Sr.

Some families, had Dining Rooms in those days, that were often not used or used very little, it was the kitchen that was the family gathering places, heart warming meals and the place for stories, a few totys (drinks) of Whskey in coffee after a fine meal, and a place that created not only memories, but the morals of the children were learned there as well....

Daddy Bill never carried a gun, but he had an old double barreled shotgun, a Stevens 12 gauge from his father's time, with rabbit ear hammers, boy did I like that gun, I had an 'ole .410 single shot, but Daddy Bill's gun would throw a lot heavier charge of shot WAY up 'em Cyprus and Oak trees and even thru the silver grey Spanish Moss that covered nearly all the limbs they would hide in, thinkin' they were hid if you were sharp eyed enough to see 'em stop.....

If you were real quiet, and ready, stop they would, then they were your meat on the table....

I used to sneak it out and go squrrel hunting with it, when I got up enough money to buy 8 or 10 shells for it at the hardware store, where also a county huntin' license wont but a dollar, and I cannot remember ever in my life home, being checked by the law for it....

It was easy enough to sneek the shotgun out, and put it back, Daddy Bill kept it up in the attic hung across two of the rafters. he wasn't a hunter, but he kept it because it was his fathers who was a hunter, and Bud Gene, Daddy Bills youngest son had bagged game with the same gun too in his youth.....

One day I got a nice Raccoon with it and I skinned it, Aint Eunice cooked that thing up nice and good, complete with biscutts and gravy and sweet potatoes, and you know there was always some kind of greens to go with it, be it turnip, musturd or collards....

Aint Eunice, like her mother Maw Pearl, never measured any of the ingredients when cooking....

It was done by eyesight and feel with the hands, tasteing with a spoon, and adjusting the cookin', and it always turned out good.....

Wooden spoons for sturing the cast Iron pots and skillets....

Hog Lard used in the biscuits, bacon grease or chicken fat in the gravy's, and a piece of salted pork streak o' lean in the greens.....

Only difference between Maw Pearl and Aint Eunice's cookin' was Ain't Eunice used LP gas, and Maw Pearl used stove wood....

After Maw Pearl had gone on to be with the Lord, and I had joined the work force of the country commerical fishing, on visits back home after big 'ole hugs around the neck with everyone, Aint Eunice would ask me, "Johnny, you notice anything different about me?"

I would back up a bit, and look at her, cock my haid to one side then the other, smile and tell her....

You have lost weight havent you?

She would smile and blush and say, why yes I have, she then take me by the arm leading me into her kitchen to fix me up a plate of food, telling me what new diet she was on, etc....., she was not fat, but stout, like an older woman should be....

Bear with me a bit, I am going too get back to the family famous teamsters joint business adventure to New York City with the fresh Produce, they are still up there in Manhatten for right now, I will continue, and get 'em back home soon....

But I have stirred in my own mind about my Aint Eunice, in my writings.......

When everybody was gone, and the big ole house they had in Beaufort NC was just for her, and Daddy Bill.

I have a habit of jumping in time frames but the song remains the same.....

She bought herself a miniture poodle dog so the house wouldn't seem so empty to Aint Eunice and Daddy Bill....

Now as legind has it, her father John Lewis Gooding, had made, sold, and drank enough illigal whiskey, and corn wine, to float the Queen Mary.....

Well now Daddy Bill would take a drink with his father in law once in a while, and got to like it.....

But he could handle it, and I never saw him comode hugging drunk, or out of the way, not in my life time.....

But in them days I am talking about, they had just invented canned dog food, we had tinned corned beef, but the dog food was new on the market for there....

Dash for dogs, Kennel Ration and I don't remember what other "Brands" of meat scraps with corn meal cooked up in a can was on the market...

Aint Eunice had started buying this for her poodle dog, it reacted good with the dog, when let out in the yard, it would make a pile, and after 2 or 3 days it would turn white and quit stinking, you just had to avoid steeping in it when it was fresh.....

Well Daddy Bill comes in from work, has his supper, three or four stiff drinks, takes a bath, and looks his bed......

Now when you use whiskey as a relaxant to fall asleep, after about 4 or 5 hours, you sometimes wake up hungry.....

Daddy Bill woke up hungry, went to the biscutt box and got him out one of 'em big 'ole lard biscutts and started looking thru the "FrigidAire" for something to go with it.......

When a bit later Aint Eunice came in the ketchin, she said, Bill, what are you doing?

I am eating a biscuit and the rest of this cold corned beef, he replied....

Aint Eunice laughed, and told him, that was dog food....

When he looked at it good he laughed too, and said, it ain't all that bad....

Now Daddy Bill was a Bear of a man, he learned to box bare knuckles in his youth, and later, with only leather to protect the knuckles....

He alway's said to me, "Lead with your left and cross with your right".....

No man in the county could kick his ass.....

He grew up when men were honorable, business deals were done on a handshake, and a mans word was his honor......

Wayne Sr. my grandfather, was not a big man, he was about my stature, 5'10" 160 pounds but would fight only if cornered.....

He told me one time, son, if you have to fight and they ain't no getting around it, you fight to win.....

Now he kept rather handy an oldtimey Smith and Wesson .32 Long revolver pistol, for just in case it was ever needed, never was, but he had it...

The last I left these two country boy's in this story, Daddy Bill and his brother in law Wayne Sr., they had taken a load of fresh produce to Manhatten to sell and return home for another....

Uuuu boy, a deal had been struck to sell the produce, they needed only to wait till that afternoon for their cash money.....

They were professional Truckers and business men now, and had made a Country Boy killin on their efforts.....

They were dealing with reputable people, they went to a Diner, had what to eat while they waited for their money.....

They decided to take a rest that night in the truck parked there on the buyers yard, and before day leave out for home and the second trip......

Well that afternoon, they got their money, not everyone in New York City is crooks, plenty good people there, but boy have they got some piecies of $hit mixed in 'em.....

So instead of taking out enough for traveling expenses and what ever emergency might arise and wiring the bulk home, they just split the pile of cash between them, put it in their pockets and left the office.....

Went to the diner, had a heavy meal and back to the truck to take a rest before leaving out.....

Now they was pretty Tarred (tired) left 'em wing winders open for air, locked the doors, and nodded out for a spel.....

Now as the good book says, Thieves, muggers, the Poor and beggars will be with us always....

But these two 'ole Boy's hadn't never seen much of that down in the County home, the poor yea, everybody knew who was in need.....

But thieves and muggers, they didn't exist at all, everybody home knew there was a hanging rope for that crap....

When you are a professional, or "Simi" professional, you study your work to come out on top right?......

Well looks like a coupla New York City boys got one over on these two bumpkins from the back woods of North Carolina.....

But in order to do it they had to knock 'em out.....

Now to physicaly knock Daddy Bill down would have been a feat any man could brag about the rest of his life.....

And to assault Wayne Sr. would have only resulted in a touch of "Lead Poisoning".....

So what did them New York City cornholes do?

They got 'em a half a litro of either, the hospitol kind to put somebody under for an operation, soaked it in two rags, and chuncked 'em in the wing winders on both sides after they see that the rednecks had drifted off a bit......

Now 'em ole swamp boy's did drift away with that......

I guess after about 30 minutes of breathing in that either, a doctor could have gelded them or done anything they wanted and they wouldn;t have woke up....

Next morning way after daylight, groggy as hell and with a big headache, ;em ole country boy's did come too....

Their pants pockets split open with knives, and no money to even get back home....

But they were very lucky, they lived to Hunt again, sent home for money, and started all over, they didn't give up.....



Now to contineue this story, these two 'ole home boy's stayed with this business until along came Hitler and his crowd, and the Japonese bombed Pearl Harbour, and sturred up a hornets nest....

It beat the hell out of fishing or farming....

The sentiment in the USA in 'em days were wanting to stay the hell out of that mess, we had done been over there in 1917-1918 and bailed their asses out from under the Kiaser and his crowd....

Them ignorant asses in western Europe still counted on mounted calvery troops on horseback, which is why it took Hitlers mechanized army less than a month to be at the shores of the, What is it, the Brittish Canal? I can't remember, it seperates the Brittish Isle from France.....

Ahhh, I knew it would come to me.. The English Channel....

[Benjio]

Classic JW....absolutely classic.