Some Happenings In 1941


The Watermelon

During the Summer of 1941 there came to the cemetery a man whose occupation was the cleaning of tombstones.  He was very conscientious about his work, and would not leave a tombstone until it looked "just right".  Sometimes this required a considerable period of scrubbing with a steel brush and a special cleaning compound that he prepared himself.

One day, right after lunch (we called it dinner), he announced that we should have a watermelon, and inquired of my stepfather, Holly, as to where we could get one.  Holly said that they usually kept some on ice downtown at the ice plant.  The gentleman said that he would buy one if someone would go and get it.

Holly asked if I thought I could fetch the melon.  I said that I could, so the man gave me some money and off I went to the ice plant.  Today, that would be about a two‑minute trip by auto, but at the time I was seven years old, and on foot it was a long way to the ice plant - about a mile and a half.

The man had said to get a big watermelon, which I did, and I had an awful time getting it up the hill to the cemetery.  The effort was worth it, though, for the man gave me a DIME for fetching the melon.  My recollection is that the melon cost a quarter.

Cotton  Bales

Sometime during the Summer of 1941 Holly took Mama and we children one Sunday over to Cottondale for what must have been a visit to some of his kinfolk.  I don't recall who they were, don't recall ever having seen any of them before the visit, and never saw any of them afterwards.

Cottondale is a small town located about nine miles east of Chipley, at the intersection of US 90 and US 231.  In those days that part of US 90 between Chipley and Cottondale was paved with concrete.  It was probably one of the oldest stretches of concrete road in the country when it was finally topped over with asphalt around 1991.

The L & N Railroad ran east and west through Cottondale, being located on the north side of US 90.  From the north another railroad ran through the town and continued southward toward Panama City.  As it went through Cottondale, that railroad was on the west side of US 231.  Going from Chipley, US 90 dips under the north‑south railroad overpass just as it enters Cottondale.

The reason that I remember the trip to Cottondale is that I spent all afternoon playing on top of the hundreds of bales of cotton which were stacked next to the railroads and awaited shipment.  They were stacked on the east side of the north‑south railroad, on the south side of US 90, and were stacked about three bales high, so closely together that one could walk around all over the top of them.  They completely covered a site about five acres in size.

 

A Special Christmas

During the several weeks leading up to Christmas of 1941 I had, whenever we were downtown, spent much time gazing at a drugstore window display of a large toy Army truck.  It was the convoy type, with a canvass‑covered body.

Those toy Army trucks were very popular at the time.  The preparations for war saw several Army convoys move through town each week, and thousands of such trucks came through on railroad flat cars.

On Christmas morning we opened our presents.  Mine was a large Army convoy truck.  Our family had very little money, but Mama had somehow made arrangements to get it for me.

                                                          The Jukebox

One Saturday morning early in 1942 Mama, my stepfather Holly, my sister Betty and myself all walked downtown to catch the bus to Lynn Haven, a little community about forty miles to the south, near Panama City.  My sister Louise was still a baby, and had to be carried.  I recall that it was a beautiful, brisk morning, and the freshness of spring was in the air.

We were going to visit Holly's older brother, Henry, whom we children had never seen.

On arriving in Lynn Haven we got off the bus and went inside a juke joint, a restaurant that served beer and had a Wurlitzer juke box, where we children and Mama waited while Holly went to find where his brother lived.

By that time it around twelve or one o'clock in the afternoon, and a slow, drizzling rain had set in.

We waited there for most of the afternoon, during which time two new country songs were played, first one and then the other, over and over, on the juke box.  They were by the new country music star Ernest Tubb.

 

One side of the record was  Walking The Floor Over You.  The flip side was  Be Honest With Me.

In those days it cost a nickel to play a tune on the jukebox, or three for a dime.

Eventually Holly returned, and we took a taxi to Uncle Henry's house.

Happenings At The Park

As the year 1941 began we were still living in the little house on the edge of the cemetery, about a mile and a half northwest of downtown Chipley

I was in the first grade, and sometime after school started back for the second semester Mama told me that if I made good grades she would get me a present. I do not recall what my grades were, or whether I tried very hard to make any good ones.

School had been out for a week or two when one day she took me with her to rake leaves in the city park while my stepfather Holly stayed to work in the cemetery.

The park was located then, as it is now, near the south end of Fifth Street. It was a beautiful little park, occupying a one block by two block area, and included tennis courts, a covered bandstand, and large grassed areas dotted with huge oaks and tall pine trees.

We normally skirted the edge of town to get over to the park, but on this day we went through town, by T. L. Wells Bros. store. As we approached the store Mama told me to wait outside, that she had a matter to discuss with Mr. Wells. After some time she came out with a bag in her hand, and we went on over to the park.

Before she started work, though, she opened the bag and took out a cap. It was of the style that English school boys sported in those days, with the front part of the top snapped down on top of the visor. She handed it to me and said, "Here's that present I promised you."

At about that time Germany was preparing to invade Russia during WWII.


Some nine years later the bandstand would serve a very special purpose.




The Bandstand, in a picture taken when I visited the park in October, 2010. It looked the same then as it did in 1941. Note the stairs up to the top floor. The door mentioned below is on the right side of this view, on the east side of the bandstand.



During the summer of 1950 my friend Wallace Berry and I had started mowing yards around town to earn money for attending Boy Scout camp at Camp Big Heart, over near Pensacola. Along with our brooms, rakes, and other lawn tools, we were using the power lawn mower loaned to us by Wallace's father.  My recollection is that it was the first power lawn mower in Chipley.

We both lived a little ways from town, and on unpaved streets. From the park, however, the yards of all our customers could be accessed by paved streets and sidewalks.  In the basement of the bandstand were two or three small rooms, and in one of those rooms Wallace and I kept all our lawn tools, including the mower. We accessed the basement through the door shown in the picture, on the east side of the bandstand. The park caretaker kept his tools in an adjacent room. During my visit to the park in 2010 I noticed that the basement access door was locked. Back when Wallace and I stored our tools there none of the doors were ever locked.

We kept our tools there through the summers of 1950 and 1951. Each time we returned for them they were just as we had left them the last time. We often noticed that the park caretaker had retrieved some of his tools, or had brought in new supplies, but in all that time we never ran into him.

We had decided in the beginning to keep our earnings in some sort of savings account until time to go to Scout camp. Then we would withdraw it and divide it evenly. At that time the most practical means of saving small sums was through Savings Stamps at the Post Office. A depositor was issued a savings stamp in the amount of the deposit, and the stamp was pasted into a little savings book. We established one of these accounts, and deposited each week as much as we could. The Postmaster, Mr. Ed Dunn, kept our books in a drawer under the teller counter.

US Postal Savings Certificate. Our denominations were larger, from $5 upward, with stamps used for amounts less than a dollar.



Toward the end of summer, 1951, it was time to make ready for departure to Camp Big Heart so Wallace and I went to the post office and cashed in our savings certificates and stamps. I don’t recall how much we had saved, but it was enough to pay all camp expenses, with a fair amount left over for spending money.


At this time the Korean War was being fought, President Truman had removed General MacArthur from command, and it would be two years before an armistice was declared.