An Ax Man

There is on TV these days a show called "Ax Men", about guys in the logging industry. It is on rather a grand scale, with operations enhanced by the evolution in machinery and equipment. Watching it brought back memories of my own brief career as an "ax man".

When school let out at the end of May, 1948, I got a summer job with Bob Hicks, our neighbor across the street. I was coming up on my fourteenth birthday.

Bob was around forty-five or fifty years old, and was self-employed in the logging business. Once or twice I had ridden with him down to the sand hills of the Florida panhandle, between Wausau and Lynn Haven and west of the Panama City highway, to get a load of logs. During those trips I gained some knowledge of his operations.

I often went across to Bob’s house on Saturday night to listen to the Grand Ole' Opry, and had got to be on quite friendly terms with him. One night I asked if he might be able to use me during the summer. In an oblique reference to my slight stature he asked what task did I think I might be able to perform. I replied that I knew that I could take care of the work horse that was used to pull the logs out to the high ground. He asked if I could drive a truck. I could not, but I said that I could, except that I was not old enough to get a driver's license.

After pondering over it for a while he said that he thought he could use me, and that I could start the next day if the two dollars per day that he could pay was satisfactory. I thought that quite satisfactory, because in the logging business back then many grown men with experience made only three dollars a day.

By the time the sun came up the next morning we were in the woods at the site of Bob’s current operations, about thirty miles south of Chipley and six or eight miles east of the Panama City highway.

As soon as we arrived at the site Bob went to check on the horse. This animal was considerably larger than the average farm horse, its height being such that I, standing straight, could not see across its back. It was a deep reddish brown in color, with a large black mane and tail. It was a gentle horse, and when called would follow one about until patted on the neck and told to stay. It was corraled at night and on weekends in a large circular pen made by nailing pine sapling poles to trees. Bob told me to watch while he harnessed it for work, so that thereafter I could do that in the mornings while he and the men attended to other preparations for the day's work. It would also be my job to water and feed the horse at the end of the day.

* * *

In converting a standing tree into logs, the first operation is to notch it at the bottom on the side facing the direction in which it is to be felled. Notching is generally done with the ax, although occasionally, on a very large tree, the notch is cut with the saw. Once the notch is properly cut the tree is saw-cut from the opposite side, at the level of the notch. As the cut reaches the notch the tree will begin to fall in the direction for which the notch was cut. A skilled person can notch a tree so that the top of its trunk will hit a mark made on the ground.

Bob had not yet acquired any of the chain saws such as are used today for cutting timber. All cutting was done with the ax and a cross-cut saw. A cross-cut saw is a large saw about six feet long, with an upright handle on each end. After a tree is felled, and all the limbs are trimmed off, the trunk is notch lightly at intervals such that the logs will be of a length suitable for hauling. Then the cross-cut saw is placed across the trunk at the first notch, and, with a man at each end, is pulled back and forth, alternately by one and then the other, until the trunk is cut through.

As the sawing continues the saw begins to get hot, from friction, and gradually begins to bind as the metal expands. When this occurs it is necessary to apply a lubricant of some sort. In those days kerosene was the universal remedy. In application, a large coke bottle is filled about three- quarters full, and the opening plugged with green pine needles, the kerosene being applied as needed by shaking the bottle over the saw.

After the tree is cut into logs the men select another tree some distance away, fell it in the opposite direction, and repeat the process while the logs just cut are pulled out to the loading ramp by whatever means is used, in our case the horse.

The truck will already have been parked at the loading ramp in the approximate position for loading. As the logs are brought up they are placed side by side so that all the big ends are at one end, lined up evenly, with the small ends pointed toward the rear of the truck body. The truck is then eased into the exact loading position, and two timber skid poles are placed, one end on the ground and the other end on the truck body.

A long steel "loading" chain, each end fastened to the truck body at appropriate points, is placed on the ground, and a log is rolled over it far enough so that the chain can be thrown back over the log and the truck body to the opposite side of the truck. In the meantime the horse will have been placed in position, and now the loading chain is connected to his harness and he is led away from the truck body, pulling the chain up and over the body, with the result that the log is rolled up the skids and onto the far side of the truck body. The process is repeated until the truck is loaded with as many logs as can be safely hauled. My job during loading operations was to mind the horse, and lead him foward when all was in readiness for the log to be rolled up onto the body of the truck.

When the truck is fully loaded, the logs are secured to the truck body with steel chains and a lock-down apparatus. The load is then ready for transport to its destination, in our case the J. T. Prine sawmill in Chipley.

* * *

Bob had realized, of course, that I could not really drive a truck, and, as time permitted, would take me out to a straight section of the logging road and let me practice, giving me useful pointers as to how and when I should do this or that. This was valuable and free instruction, and I paid close attention for I was anxious to demonstrate that I could be entrusted with the vehicles.

Bob used two trucks in his logging operation. One was a 1935 single-axle, one-and-a-half-ton Ford with the gear shift lever on the floor. The motor was started by turning the ignition key and pressing a starter button. It could also be started by engaging the front end of the crankshaft, through an opening below the hood, with a long crank, by which the motor was turned manually until it fired off. I could crank the truck by this method, and did so a couple of times. On one try, however, I did not follow through properly and the motor kicked back. This effort almost cost me a broken arm, and I did not try it again.

The other truck was a large Army suplus Dodge truck with a trailer unit, most likely used during World War II to pull heavy artillery pieces. It stood high off the ground, and could negotiate the roughest terrain. It was a 4-wheel drive vehicle, and both the front and rear wheels carried large "Jeep" type tires. It was thus ideal for hauling logs out of Florida’s sand hills. The rear wheels of the truck, and the wheels on the trailer unit, were dual wheels, so the truck was a ten wheeler. It was surprisingly easy to drive, after Bob had put me through some paces with it, and I could never decide whether I liked it or the Ford better.

After Bob was satisfied that I could be trusted with the vehicles he would let me take them around through the trees and pull into position at the loading ramp, and after a while this became another one of my regular jobs.

At the time I joined the crew the practice was to get a truck loaded as quickly as possible, and Bob would then deliver the load to the sawmill. I had been observing operations, and a little while after being entrusted with the vehicles I began to think about how we might increase the delivery rate to the sawmill. I could not drive on the public roads, because I was too young to obtain a driver’s license. However, I came up with a scheme that would put my driving capabilities to good use:
　

Everyone would work first to produce as many logs as could be hauled out in    two days, Then the first truck would be loaded, and Bob would depart on the delivery.

The rest of us would load the second truck as quickly as possible, and I would take that load out so as to have it at the highway by the time Bob returned to meet me there. We would then exchange vehicles, he returning to the sawmill with the loaded truck, and I returning to the work site with the empty truck.

This would shorten by one-third the distance, and by one-half the time, required for him to make a delivery.

　

To my surprise Bob readily agreed to try the idea. It worked out so well that the practice was adopted as standard procedure.

* * *

As I said earlier, it was my job at the end of the day to put the horse up for the night. This consisted of removing his harness, taking him for water at a large pond some distance away, then filling his box with feed, and finally, rubbing him down with a "curry" comb while he ate. Bob was particular about the horse, and I and it were always relieved of duty early enough that it could be attended to properly before sundown.

It was my habit to remove from the horse all the harness except the bridle, then hop up and ride him to the pond for water. One afternoon we had started for the pond when the horse, for some reason, became spooked and began to gallop down the trail that led out of the woods. In the process I dropped the bridle reins and they landed up behind the horse's ears, far out of my reach. The farther we went the faster he galloped, mane and tail flying in the breeze.

I was riding bare back, of course, and, as the horse was so large, my legs were not long enough for my feet to get any hold under the his belly. I was thus in a precarious position that was getting worse by the minute. On and on we went, the horse now completely out of control, and traveling so fast that I could barely duck in time to escape overhanging tree limbs.

Then, as suddenly as when he had bolted, the horse began to slow down, and gradually came to a halt. After a minute or so he snorted in his familiar fashion, and swished his tale a time or two. I decided that the adventure was over, and very gently slid forward until I could snare the reins, then eased back to my position and turned the horse toward the job site. The better part of an hour passed before the site came into view.

That experience makes a good little story, but at the time I was very scared, more so than on any occasion before or since.

Except for that incident I had a most enjoyabe summer as a young Ax Man.

*** End

The Turpentine Still

In the late spring of 1942 our family moved from the house in the cemetery to an old house by a turpentine still, about two miles northeast of Chipley and a half mile or so north of the road that goes east from Chipley to Campbellton. We moved there because Holly, my stepfather, had taken a job chipping boxes for a Mr. Cook, who was either the owner or manager of the turpentine operations.  The house went with the job.

The turpentine operations involved the still and considerable timber acreage -  land heavily forested with pine trees, which at the time was given over to the production of the pine sap from which turpentine and its derivative products were made.  The turpentine was produced by the boiling and distillation of the pine sap, hence the term "still".

At some distance from the still was a group of simple frame houses that had been erected years before to house the timber workers and their families. These houses were quite small, were constructed of rough, unfinished lumber, and sat on wooden blocks cut from large trees. In place of normal windows the houses had rectangular openings in the walls. The "windows" were closed by pulling in wooden shutters which hung on hinges. There were no screens. It was to one of those houses that we moved.

Worker's house near the turpentine still.

Not long after we moved to this place a neighbor from across the street came over one Saturday night and got Holly to go over to his place to hear the new song that Roy Acuff was singing on the radio. The song was "WABASH CANNON BALL".

 

That man had a big Indian motorcycle which he kept parked on the front porch. That was the first motorcycle that I ever saw, and I was always fascinated by it. I can picture it now exactly as it appeared then.

 

Chipping boxes consisted of cutting slanted gashes on the face of pine trees so that their sap would run down the tree and into a retangular tin cup or "box" at the base of the tree. The proper name for the sap from pine trees is resin, but country folk called it "rosin".

The slanted gashes were made with a curved cutting tool designed for the purpose.  The first gashes on a tree would be made by chipping, using a short staff which had the cutting tool on one end, and a rounded solid steel weight on the other end, which helped to carry the chipping action through. Thus the term "chipping".   After the gashes had been made to a height almost to one's shoulder, it was necessary to use a long slender pole with the cutting tool attached to the end. This was called "pulling" boxes. Still, one in this line of work was said to be "chipping boxes".

Chipping Boxes
 

A worker engaged to chip boxes would be given a territory containing an estimated number of "boxes", and would be paid a certain salary per month to properly work the boxes. "Working the boxes" included placement of the boxes, chipping the gashes, collecting the rosin and depositing it in barrels, and assisting with the loading of the barrels onto flatbed trucks.  The worker operated alone and set his own schedule, but was subject to random inspection by the timber owner or his superintendent.   The average pay for such workers was around seven to ten dollars per week.

The first chipping of a tree began with single left and right slanted cuts about a foot above the ground.  Additional cuts would be made later, directly above the first ones. I don't recall how many cuts might be made in a particular season, but it took several years to obtain the full yield from a tree.

The worker would go through all of his territory chipping the gashes, then return to his starting point to begin emptying any boxes that may have filled from previous cuts, using a small paddle to scoop the rosin from the box into a large bucket which was flat on one side so as to be carried easily. When the bucket was filled it would be emptied into a huge barrel made of wood staves. When a barrel was filled it would be sealed with a wooden lid and a plug, a large flatbed truck would be driven around, two wooden pole runners would be laid from the ground to the truck body, and the barrels would be rolled up onto the bed of the truck.

When the truck was fully loaded the barrels would be taken to town and placed on a platform at the L & N railroad station for shipment to to a turpentine still, where the rosin (resin) would be boiled and distilled into the liquid called turpentine, a liquid spirits similar to kerosene. The distillation process yielded other products known as "naval stores", so called because in earlier times they were used as preservative and maintenance agents on wooden ships.



Loading platform at railroad station in Chipley, FL.

   
I often accompanied Holly on his rounds chipping boxes. He always took time as he went along to explain this or that to me, but I often had to run to catch up with him because he kept a lively pace except for a few minutes' rest every hour or so. In the early mornings we would now and then see a 'possum still hanging by its tail from a tree limb.

A Terpentine Still

 


Boiling down the sap.
(The Cook still vat was much larger)
 

Mr. Cook's operation differed from the usual in that his barrels of rosin were hauled drectly to his own still. One by-product of the operations at his still was much sought after by the families living in the company houses. That was the pine chips that fell into the cups during the chipping operation. It was not deemed economical to remove the chips during the collection of the rosin, so at the still they were "boiled down" along with the rosin and became impregnated with the hot liquid resin. Then they were dipped from the vat with a long-handled wire basket and dropped into neat little piles on a concrete slab where they were allowed to cool. A small handfull of such chips was an instant fire starter.

 

Mr. Cook paid his workers in company "scrip", which was paper money printed in various denominations under the company name. It resembled the play money used in the game of Monopoly. He also maintained a "commissary", which was a company-owned store stocked with a variety of groceries, staple goods, clothing and miscellaneous items. Whenever a new worker was hired, an account in his name was opened at the commissary, and groceries, clothing and other items purchased there by the worker were charged to his account which was payble in scrip. The worker could also exchange his scrip for cash.

I recall visiting the commissary once. It was housed in a rough frame building that was nestled in among the other buildings in the operations yard. The whole scene rather resembled the little village in the TV program "Border Town".

Once a week Mr. Cook would load a pickup truck with flour, meal, whiteside meat, potatoes, and one or two other staples, and drive around among the houses where the workers lived, dispensing the week's groceries to their wives. He would make a note of whatever the wives purchased, and add the amount to the worker's account back at the commissary. I recall his stopping at our house once. He ask Mama, "How much meat do you need?" Mama said, "Five pounds". He pulled out a big slab of whiteside, marked off a measure of it with a long knife and said, "That's about five pounds". Flour and meal were measured in similar eyeball fashion.

It was generally thought that Mr. Cook made those grocery runs through the workers' quarters as a courtesy to the wives, but I always felt that his reason for doing so was to insure that a worker's family at least had groceries before the balance of his pay was lost to liquor and other vices.

Our house, like the others, was nestled among tall pine trees. As warm weather approached, the scent of pine needles filled the air, and the smell of resin from the "still" permeated the area. The hoot owls began to make their peculiar calls in the evening toward sundown. As the wives began to prepare "supper", the tantalizing aroma of hoecakes, hashbrowns and whiteside meat would drift lazily through the quarters on the light evening breeze. It was an authentic 'down South' setting.

After the sun went down behind the tall pine trees it would get dark quickly, and in early summer the forest fairly sparkled with the pinpoint lights of "June bugs". On a moonlit night the tall pines would cast long shadows, and it was great fun to imagine Indians darting among the trees.

We lived near the turpentine still only a few months, but it was one of the most memorable periods of my childhood. I enjoyed almost total freedom, since my only chore was to keep plenty of wood on hand for the cook stove and fireplace.  I enjoyed wandering around the "still" area and observing operations, but I was always under the watchful eye of the workers, who saw to it that I did not get too close to the huge open vat that contained the boiling resin. As an added measure of insurance I had already meditated at length on the consequences of such carelesness.

The dynamo.

It was here that I first became aware of machinery, because of a small electric motor, called a "dynamo", that was used to start a large diesel engine. The dynamo was connected to the crank of the large engine, and turned the engine over until its cylinders compressed injected diesel fuel to the point that it was ignited by the heat generated by the compression.

Very interesting to one aged seven and a half.

 

 

 

 



James V. Lewis
 ca 1941-42
 

















What The South Is

Early in the spring of 1946, sometime before Easter, our family moved to an old house five or six miles south of Chipley, about a mile west of the road from Chipley to Panama City, and east across the swamp from the little community of Duncan where lived Uncle John and Aunt Nellie at the time, and where was located the Duncan elementary school to which I transferred, again in the fourth grade. Mama had separated from my stepfather the previous year, so the family now consisted of Mama and we kids.

The house into which we moved was an old wooden clapboard house, typical of the sort provided to tenant farmers. Mama rented the house for five dollars per month.

Soon after we moved there Mama acquired a milk cow. The cow was generally black in color, but with splotches of white. She gave a considerable amount of milk daily, and continued to do so for as long as we had her. There must be a knack to milking a cow. Mama could extract a pail of milk rather quickly, but I could never get anything to come out. I was hindered, perhaps, by not being on friendly terms with the cow's heels.

Rather than confining her to a fenced area, we generally let the cow roam the woods freely so that she might feed on the good grass available in the swamps and meadows. Mama tied a bell around her neck so that we could locate her. In the evening at milking time we could hear the bell tinkling and would usually find the cow not too far away from the house. One evening, however, we could not find her, though we searched and called until far into the night.

The next morning Mama roused me very early and sent me off to search for our missing cow. I was to go back down the lane and over to the Panama City highway, and look along the highway going south until I came to the first dirt road. If I hadn't found her by then I was to go down that road searching for her.

I started out that way but didn't find the old cow anywhere along the Panama City highway, so I turned down the first dirt road, which ran eastward from the highway and on around by the Peel place. I remember that because Mr. Peel had a pretty daughter.

After about a half mile, though, another dirt road butted into the one I was on. Mama hadn't said anything about that road, so I had to decide which way to go. The new road that I had run into ran to the south, and was borderd on both sides with a thick growth of tall pine trees, such that the limbs almost met each other over the road.

There is something about such a road in the South. It looked so inviting that I figured the cow probably went that way if she had got over this far, so I turned down it, not knowing where it led to but figuring that I could always come back if I didn't find her after a while. It was still early in the morning, for not more than an hour or two had passed since I started out. So I was in no particular hurry, but just ambled along, taking in everything as I went, because this was new territory to me. I had gone perhaps a mile down this road when I noticed an old shanty set back a little off the road. I made a mental note to check it out if I came back that way.

I continued on down the road, and after another mile or so came to a clearing on the east side. I stopped and looked out across it, and could see, at quite some distance, what appeared to be an expansive wooded area of different character than the pine woods along the road. So I went that way. When I reached the wooded area I could see that it was actually a very large meadow with an abundance of grass. The odds were pretty good that our cow was somewhere in that meadow.

Woods and meadows are a great place for contemplation, and daydreaming as well, for one is entirely alone and the mind can wander freely in all directions. So I roamed about here and there, fancying this or that circumstance according to how the mood hit me, and continued to be in no particular hurry. I passed a good many hours in this fashion.

After a while I began to get hungry, and could tell by the shadows made by the tree trunks that it was noon or later. That brought me back to reality and I decided that it might be best to look for the cow with a little more purpose. So I began to swing back and forth in a wide zigzag pattern, moving ever more deeply into the woods. I never had any doubt that the cow was somewhere in that meadow.

From time to time I would stop for a moment to listen for her bell. By and by I heard a faint tinkle. I went on, stopping more often now to listen. After a while the tinkling got loud enough that I could discern the direction from which it came. There was no doubt that it was the bell on our cow. Almost every cow bell has its own distinctive sound, and if you listen to one with a little application you come to recognize it when you hear it.

After about ten minutes or so of homing in on the bell I spotted the cow in a low grassy bottom. I had brought a halter with me, and after petting her for a few minutes I put it on her and began to pull her along. I wanted to get back home, now, and get something to eat.

I had more or less lost track of how I had got to where I was, but remembering which way the shadows fell when I was coming in, and making allowance for the sun being where it now was, I was able to backtrack generally in the proper direction. Within an hour or so I came back out to the road not too far from where I had left it. I could tell from the sun which way to turn down the road toward home. The idea come to me later on that if the sun had not been shining that day my odyssey might have been a bit more extended.

So we went on back toward home, but not making any great time. I didn't want to walk the cow too fast, so I let her set the pace and stop whenever she wanted to.

It was nearing sundown when we approached the shanty that I had passed in the morning. White wisps of smoke floated up from its chimney, which meant that the preparation of supper was in progress. As we got a little closer I could hear an old blues tune being played on what sounded like a steel guitar. We came up even with the shanty, and I could see an old colored man sitting on the floor of the porch, with his feet resting on the ground and a small flat top guitar laying on his lap.

I never could pass on by any performance on a guitar, so I swung off the road toward the porch and said "Howdy, Uncle." In those days one called an old colored man "Uncle", and he answered to it as though it were a title that he had spent his whole life working up to. He let off on his playing and said, "Yassuh, Cap'n."

I said to him that he sure was making good music, just like blue steel, and asked if I could listen to him play a little. He said "Yassuh, it sho' be pleas'n to me when white folks like my kind o' playin, and yo' sho' is welkum," and he started back playing again.

By that time I was in a position to examine his guitar more closely. The frets had been removed from the neck, and the strings raised by the placement of pennies under the bridge. The old darkey was using the broken off neck of a soda pop bottle, slipped over the middle finger of his left hand, to slide up and down the strings.

That was what gave the instrument the tonal characteristic that we around Chipley referred to in those days as a 'steel guitar' sound. Actually, it was the sound of a dobro guitar. The steel guitar is a similar but more sophisticated instrument, and produces a more elegant sound.

The old 'Uncle' was singing now, in a loose, rambling style, and was getting into some downright mean blues stuff. Every now and then he would twist the bottle neck slightly one way or the other, producing a somewhat minor chord sound, and press it downward a little now and then to warp the ends of the notes up higher. At the end of every verse or so he would slide the bottle neck slightly back and forth over its home position, producing a wavy, mournful sound. Taken all together, he was pulling a lot of real music out of that old guitar.

He played a good many different tunes, all of them being what we called 'blues'. Every once in a while he would look off into the woods across the road, and it was as though his mind was not with us then but had gone back to some Saturday night shindig a hundred years ago. At those times my mind sort of went along with him.

After a while he closed the session on a long, fade out note, and said "Lawd, Cap'n, dis ol' man done played out, but I'se sho enjoyed yo' comp'ny." That was his way of telling me that I had best be getting on home. I had no idea as to what the time might be, but I could tell by the feel of the night that it was getting very late.

I knew that I had dilly-dallied around too much, and Mama would be worrying about where I was. So I wrapped the cow's halter rope around my wrist and set off down the road, considerably more in earnest now. The cow seemed to be in a more objective mood as well, because she wasn't too interested in munching along the way any more. I kept us moving steadily forward, but not too fast for the cow.

It was quite some distance back to the dirt road from which I had turned off to the present one, and from there I still had to get over to the Panama highway and back up it to the road that cut over to the lane that went in to the house. It was almost pitch black, and no cars passed us except one or two after we had turned up on the Panama highway.

Finally, after what seemed like about forty miles of hoofing it, we turned up the lane to the house. When we got to the top of the rise I could hear Mama calling, "Co o o o ah Cow". I knew that she was putting out a sounder for me, and doing it that way because the sound carried farther. So I answered her back in the same manner. She stopped then, because she knew that I was on my way in.

She came outside when I got to the house, and we put the cow in her stall. Mama said that she had better milk her, because she had gone a day and night without it and it wasn't good to let a cow that was giving milk go like that. I stayed with her until she finished the milking, and then we went in and she warmed up some supper for me. That was about the best supper I ever ate.

Though I was tired, and very glad to be back home with my feet under the table, something from that little adventure has remained with me over the years:



If anyone wants to know what is the South, just take them down a dirt road through tall pine trees one evening about sundown, with the pine scent floating lightly upon soft breezes, to where an old colored Uncle sits playing the blues on a five-dollar guitar.

That is the South.

　

　

　

A Barn Raising

Yesterday (the 14th of April, 2012) was a beautiful Spring day.  I set in place the last stringer (joist) on my daughter's pool deck.  This construction work in the outdoors, and at this particular time of year, reminded me of a similar situation some sixty-eight years ago

At the time my family lived about twenty-five miles southwest of Chipley, Florida, on Mr. Dempsey Brock's sharecropper place.  It was located three or four miles south of Hinson's Cross Roads, on the road to Millers Ferry over Holmes Creek.  Our house was at the north end of a large, elliptical-shaped lake known, appropriately, as Brock Pond, and was accessed by a lane up from the main road

Over across the main road, and about a quarter of a mile eastward from where the lane from our house met the road, lived the Ben Body family.  Ben and his wife were about the same age as Mama, and had four children,  three girls and a boy, the boy being the youngest.  The oldest girl was a few years older than me, while the next oldest was about my age, and the three of us chummed around a lot, particularly down around the big pond where we had our own private hiding places.

Ben's daddy was dead.  His mother was a very old woman, but preferred to live by herself in the old family house across the road from Ben.  I remember it because it really was an old farm house, and there were lots of old things in it.

Ben had built with his own hands the house in which he and his family lived, and in the spring of the year that we moved to the Brock place he set about to build a barn.  He had already had all the lumber cut from some of his own timber.

So one Saturday morning in early April my stepfather Holly took Mama and we children, and went over to help Ben put up the framing for his barn.

As we approached his place the aroma of freshly brewed coffee floated out toward the road to meet us.  Beyond their house, and over to the right, we could see Ben and his family seated at a long table near the site where the barn was to be erected, so we went on over and joined them, taking seats at the table while Ben's wife set out large tin mugs of the hot, black coffee which had been brewed from freshly roasted beans.

The sun was just then rising above the trees, and cast long shafts of light through the lingering morning haze.  The air tingled with the brisk freshnesss of spring, and the trees rustled softly under the caress of a light breeze faintly scented with the fragrant bouquet of a dozen different aromas.  In this atmosphere an hour or so was spent in casual conversation between the grownups, while the children concocted certain adventures to be pursued during the day.

At length, after the social amenities had been sufficiently observed, Holly and Ben set to work, the first objective being to lay out the corners so that the building would be square.  We kids all watched with keen interest but could not fathom the intricacies of the method, and were greatly relieved when Holly and Ben announced the completion of the task to their mutual satisfaction.

Next, they commenced to set the blocks upon which would rest the heavy sills that would support the floor joists.  These blocks were about two feet in diameter, and had been cut from large oak trees.  One was placed at each corner, with three or four being placed between each corner block along the sill lines, and another three or four along a line down the middle for the sill upon which the floor joists would be joined.

Then they began placing the heavy sills upon the blocks, which was time consuming because each one had to be notched at each end so that all could be securely joined together.  And so they continued, taking a short break now and then, until the sills were placed and all the floor joists had been joined.

By this time Mama and Ben's wife had prepared a sumptuous dinner, so work was put aside for an hour or two while we feasted, and Holly and Ben enjoyed an extended rest while they discussed the finer points of getting a successful crop to harvest.  In due time the subject was exhausted and they returned to the task at hand.

We kids, our interest in the project having waned somewhat, turned to our little adventures, taking time now and then to run down to the road to see whether an automobile might come by.  And so we passed a pleasant and carefree afternoon while Holly and Ben labored diligently on the barn.
By sundown all the framing and bracing had been joined, and the little structure was declared sufficiently secure in its standing to await the continuance of the work on the morrow.

So ended a beautiful day, and after a final serving of hot, black coffee, the children having the option of lighter refreshments, we said good night to Ben and his family, and in the dusky twilight ambled leisurely down the road and back up the lane to our house.

Over the years I have often recalled the occasion just described, for it was an experience reminiscent of pioneer days, and for me it was the very last opportunity for such.

 The event described above took place in April, 1944, about three months before my tenth birthday, and about two months before the Allied landing on Normandy (D-Day).

            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.