Between Detroit, Michigan and Bremen, Georgia....

I must share a story that is Southern to the core, as told by an elderly Black Gentleman, and passed to me by my Father in Law. This is told from the perspective of a man named Buck, a Chaffuer for Warren Sewell, owner of the largest suit manufacturer in the known world located in Bremen, Georgia., and quite possibly one of the richest men in the world at the time.

Back in the forties, the automotive industry was taking off after WWII, along with housing and other textile manufacturers, and most folks with an ethic for hard work headed to Detroit for the chance to get factory work assembling automobiles in the numerous auto assembly plants that had been converted back to such after the war effort and the boom that followed. The South was still a hard place for a black man to find a good job as all the decent factory jobs went to the white men who had just ended their stint in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Most Southern Blacks had jobs cleaning houses, as maids, cooks and wait staff in numerous restaurants. There was still a generous amount of cotton still being harvested in the USA and North Florida kept a generous crop to be picked, still jobs relegated to the black population as Hispanics were migratory workers and mostly in the western states like California, Arizona, Nevada and parts of Southern Texas. Transportation was scarce, and most Hispanics kept to the states bordering Mexico, I assume to be able to “escape” back if necessary. Buck, a black man in his early twenties and the subject of the short story you are reading, decided he’d give the factory work a try.

Buck was a hard worker and was also in the Army during WWII, but as a cook and general laborer, not seeing much action in battle. He was overseas for a short while but his company was afforded little opportunity to distinguish themselves in battle, other than fighting pots and pans. He received a small stipend when the war ended and a free ride back home, so he returned to Bremen, Georgia, and after returning he gave a generous percentage of his “dismiss pay” to his mother. Buck made a decision to find a way to make a good living and attempt to settle down, maybe find a wife and have children, then hopefully fulfill the American dream of home ownership. Buck knew that he was not going to be able to make much money in Bremen Georgia, and he had enough “seed” money to carefully plan what his next step might be. He thought on it for a weeks time and finally decided he’d head to the city of Detroit, Michigan. He had heard that the boom meant that every man would own a new car, and spending his remaining savings purchased a train ticket and took that train to Detroit to find his way.

Buck had never been away from home for very long, save for the time he was in the Army serving his country. He’d even promised himself that when the war ended, he would never leave the south again. It was where he was born and where he’d planned on being planted when it was all said and done. He was about to break his own promise to make a way for himself. Buck was scared and excited at the same time, and he thought “it musta benn like a sho nuff  well-trained American troop puttin the cross hairs on a Nazi for the first time.” He said his goodbyes to his momma and his brothers and sisters, and then found his way the “Blacks only” train car reserved for black men and women of means. Truth was, this was still the South, and folks just didn’t allow it. When he found his seat, he remembered the whistle blowing meant he was on his way, He waved to his family and watched Bremen disappear out of sight. He was headed North to prosperity, and hopefully a new job in the automotive industry. Surely there would be a job there for a veteran, surely. Buck arrived on schedule in Detroit, and it was indeed a boom town, and bigger and louder than any city he had seen in his whole life. He went and found a small hotel in the part of town a traveling black man might be able to find a room. He gave the man at the hotel desk his ten dollars, good for five nights in the hotel, and made his way to his room. The bathrooms were down the hall, and the bed was comfortable enough, he thought. It had a small radiator heater in the room, and for Buck, this was a sight to behold as only white affluent “in-towners” had radiant heat in their houses. He had always relied on the big black pot-bellied stove located right in the middle of the four room house he and his six brothers and sister grew up in. He was as excited as the first day he got to go to the County Fair. Just seeing the radiator in his room made him feel he was in the right place. He prayed: “Oh Lawd, woucha please have mercy on ole Buck? Would you please help ole Buck finds a decent job hea up Nawth, and wouldcha pleas look afta my fambly while I is away?” Then Buck laid down on the bed, thinking he might be a guest of the President of these United States, what him having his own bed to sleep in.

He remembered having to share one bed with his three brothers growing up, and how cold the wall was when he slept against it, the wind howling and cold coming right through in the wintertime. Buck slept right slap in the middle of the hotel bed, like he’d done in the Army, remembering how the other men in his company thought him stupid when he asked how many men had to sleep in all those beds. When he was told that the bed was just for him, he quietly thought to himself it was going to be a bad joke. He said he laid awake in his bunk for three days, waiting for someone to show up and tell him they had to share a bed, but that day never came. Buck was equally excited when he was issued a pair of boots that was just his. He also struggled with the notion that one pair of shoes, any kind of shoes, might be just for him and him alone. The only thing he had to do was polish them from rough leather to shiny black, using the shoe polish issued to him by the Army, for him to keep the boots for himself. This was according to his drill instructor, a man who Buck had grown to trust, although the man hollered alot and about everything. Buck figured that the faster he’d get them shoes polished, the better chance he had of keeping them all for himself. In one week his boots were so shiny, a man could field shave in the finish. Buck even said how his drill instructor told him to quit saying “thank you” for all the free clothes, meals, and a rifle all for just marching around and saying “Yessuh Drill Sargent and Noosuh Drill Sargent!”

Buck started out early the next day and set out for the large auto plants located near the rail lines. He guessed it was good sense to put the plants near to where the materials to build them might come in (he learned that in the Army) and then be able to load the finished cars onto the trains taking them back to all points in the USA, and his hometown of Bremen. He was a happy man, feeling like he had arrived in the big city, and he anxiously hoped he might find a job in a hurry. He walked the two miles to the plants and the long line of men waiting to apply for the jobs there. Ole Buck applied to every plant from GM to Chrysler to Ford to American Motors, but none would be hiring a black man any time soon. At all of the places he applied, the folks hiring were as nice to him as he had been treated in his whole life, but as he sat, he noticed that the white men were getting jobs almost immediately. The black men, however, were placed on a waiting list and told that jobs were tight and hard to come by. Buck got down right mad about the entire situation, even told one person in charge of hiring that he had served his country just like all the white men that were getting jobs handed to them. He said it was almost like a dark curtain had dropped on him. He spent the duration of his days looking for any kind of work, even cooking or washing dishes, but no one seemed to want to hire a southern black man, even to sweep a floor for a meal.

Buck decided he was going to go home.

Back to Bremen Georgia, where he at least knew what the rules of the game were. Where he had grown up, worked all his life, and left to go into the service. It was a hard decision to finally come to as he had spent the last of his money surviving while he looked for work, so when he left Detroit, he was flat broke. He didn’t have enough money to buy a bus or a train ticket and he thought about jumping on a train car, but Buck knew he couldn’t “Hobo” on the trains, as they were populated predominantly by whites and he would be a most unwelcomed guest. After much soul-searching, Buck decided he’d just walk back to Georgia, his home, and all thing familiar. He spent the last of his money buying beef jerky, a poor mans meal when traveling. He had on his Army issued boots that fit him like a glove and were still shiny from the months and months of polishing. He decided he’d better dirty up his boots in case he ran into some disagreeable folk who might think he stole them from a man of means. It upset him to do it, but he knew he’d be more upset if he had to walk back to Georgia barefooted. He had no maps of the area or a compass, so setting out he relied only on the position of the sun as his guide. Before he left he asked the hotel clerk how far away he thought he might be from Georgia and the man behind the desk only told him “Further than I’d care to walk”. Buck took this to mean that it must have been thousands of miles. Buck said one last prayer before he left. It was “Lawd, guide my steps“. He then set out back South with just the clothes on his back and some beef jerky.

Buck walked for two days straight taking the back roads and avoiding the highways as often as he could. He had no money, and no self-respecting white man, or woman, was going to give a black man a ride regardless of if it were the South or not. When you added fact that Buck slept outdoors or in barns, and he smelled like the livestock he slept with, it made for a picture that was most unpleasant.  Buck knew the livestock he slept near was eating better than he did, and it made him recollect the “proddiggal son, eating wiff de hogs, till he got up the currage to go back to his daddy and ax him to please make him his slave“. This thought made Buck as sad as a man could be, and he was sure that no man, not even the prodigal son, was as discouraged as Buck might be. He had been walking for a good ten days and he was tired and starving. He would go to the front doors of the houses asking for food, and sometimes he’d get a biscuit or a cookie, sometimes maybe even a sandwich and something to drink and be sent on his way. This went on for weeks, according to Buck, as the walk was long and arduous. He often feared for his safety, being raised in the South and taught by his father to be on the lookout for “rapscallions” – mean folk that would take pleasure in tormenting a black man. Buck kept to the back roads and depended on the food he would get from the front doors of strangers… he longed for a hot meal, and home. Buck thought at one point, he’d ask God to just kill him dead, thinking he might not ever see his beloved Georgia again this side of Heaven. He walked one stretch for almost three days with nothing to eat and barely seeing a car. Buck thought he might even be dead already, and walking was how he was going to spend eternity. He knew he was a good man and he believed in Jesus, going down to get saved at church and getting dunked in the river, his sins washed as white  as snow. Buck thought he was a new man when he was “baptized” but he said when he got home and looked in the mirror, it was the same old Buck staring back at him. He thought he might have upset God in some strange way, and Hell for him at least, was going to be spending eternity walking, tired and hungry.

When he finally saw a house off in the distance, he was so happy he thought “he might bust open”. He decided he was going to ask the folks living there for just a little something to eat. When he opened the gate and headed up the path to the front door he was met with: “Hey, you God Damned Nigger, what in the hell do you want?” Buck heard coming from inside the screened door, but no face to go along with the voice. Buck replied “I’m hungry sir, and I’m trying to get back home to Georgia” The same voice said “Well, Hell, son, don’t you know you need to come around back?” Buck said he cut and split wood, then stacked it neatly. He was using the very last of his energy, thinking he might go ahead and die before the job was done. After the wood splitting was done and stacked, the man and woman living there fed him like a king, and even let him take a bath in the house. They gave him clothes to wear and washed his traveling clothes. He slept in the barn like a man that had never gotten to sleep before. When he woke up the next morning, he ate breakfast with the kind people there and they sent him off with provisions for the rest of his trip. He bade them farewell and didn’t ask where he might be. He thanked the man and woman one last time for their hospitality as he headed out the back door and around the house to the road. He didn’t know for sure how close he was to Georgia, and home, when he started to walk again.

Buck said he cried when he left. He knew that someone calling him ”a God Damned Nigger” meant he was close to home. He said it was like music to his ears.

When Hippies become Baseball Coaches. Part 3

At first, a lot of the parents complained about our two hippie coaches saying they were a bad influence on us as players. Their was even a quiet, mumbled petition of sorts to get them removed but it fell far short of getting ratified when we started winning games in far greater numbers than the years prior. I’ve heard many a pastor say “Be warned of the middle school years, it’s where the Devil can plant a bad seed an eventually produce bad fruit in your child”. I’m not so sure about the middle school being the devil’s supermarket, it seemed to me that Beelzebub was busy enough using gossiping parents and folks calling themselves “Christian” to satisfy his cravings to even have a spare second to go for the unripe fruit. When he had as many seasoned fruits and nuts as he wanted in the older crowd I figured he could get a full belly on those folk and leave us kids be. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Regardless of what the blow hards and gossipers said and thought, It seemed to me that giving a young ball player a say in how his team were to be run was a reasonable thing . It may have been dumb luck or just the proper alignment of the planets but it worked. The agents of our coaches doom all were silenced when we took our lions share of wins that year.

My good friend Mike and I were the team jokers. We’d wear our baseball caps “Rally” style when we played. We figured out how to bend the cap so it resembled a driving hat perfectly, much to the displeasure of Coach Dude, the head coaches brother. He considered it a game infraction and added laps to our lap bank, even though Mike was probably the best center fielder I had ever played with or watched play the game. I, on the other hand, was cursed with the dreaded side-arm style of throwing meaning every time a ball was hit my way I threw it back straight but it would curve like a race car at full throttle hitting the high banks at Talladega. It used to really piss off both Coach Man and Coach Dude, but it was for me, what it was. I did get to where I could calculate the correct vector and when I would throw to third, I’d aim for the pitcher and it would curve off towards the third baseman like a charm. Coach Dude, rather than trying to change my style helped me with the geometry rather than the mechanics, something no coach had ever done before. I said before I was a decent football player and usually made the team at Beulah because they knew I might take the rejection of not making the team with my friends as a reason to take my tackling skills to one of the numerous other parks when that particular season rolled around. What they didn’t know was Beulah park was five minutes from my house, close enough to walk or ride my bike to and from so they had me if they liked it or not.

I will confess we all were a little rough on Coach Dude at first. He’d hit fly balls to us as outfielder catching practice and we’d throw the balls back to him over his head and generally over the fence. Every time we’d do it, he’d say ”Oh Man, Dude, duuude, aww mannn…dude” like a record had been dropped in the same spot over and over. I got to where I’d eventually feel bad about it as the weeks passed and I began to realize how patient he was with us all. He was the kind of guy that would argue a call with an Umpire on our behalf and when he finished he offer the Ump a breath mint or recommend a better tooth brushing regimen. He was a cool guy and it took us a few weeks to break him in, but his patience made us all like him like I’d never liked a coach before or since. On a rare occasion Coach Dude would miss practice and I also noticed his brother’s face when he did, painted with the worry of a brother in pain. We’d use our discussion time to ask Coach Man where his brother and our coach was that day, and he’d just say “He’s sick”. We all assumed he was doped up or drunk but never knew that for sure. His absence always made the rumor mill crank up but we’d practice hard on those days and made sure no one gave Coach Man a hard time. We could tell he was a troubled soul and his brother’s well-being was his biggest concern.

At the end of our season we stacked up more wins than losses for the first time in a whole lot of years. Our Coaches gave us a cookout and invited our parents to be there. What he told us at our cookout still crosses my mind on occasion and is inspirational about a brothers love. Coach Dude was indeed a Vietnam Veteran and practically a hero fighting at the siege at Ke-San a remote base in an area named the same that ended up being a battle that lasted four months and amounted to a battle of 6,000 US troops versus 25-30,000 North Vietnamese troops in the most remote part of Vietnam. Apparently Coach Dude was a certified hero and Marine and on the brink of madness from all that he saw and endured while he was there. His brother, Coach Man, was just trying to help his brother hold it all together. He told us young men that the days his brother couldn’t attend practice was when his injuries received in battle crippled him to the point of not being able to walk. He had shrapnel in his legs and back and his body would try to push the foreign objects out, like any body would, but it produced pain that only smoking marijuana could ease. I instantly felt like a heel for throwing the balls over the fence on purpose all those times. It made me keenly aware to not pass judgement on anyone regardless of how they might dress or talk.

I never had coaches as cool as Coach Man and Coach Dude ever again.

When Hippies become Baseball Coaches. Part 2

Our coach finally waved his hand in the direction of the gravel parking lot beside the practice field where we played baseball. They both emerged from a smoking 72 El Camino running like it needed a valve job, chrome side pipes trying the best they could to keep that thing from sounding like a logging truck and slotted mag wheels with miss match white-lettered tires. It sported a paint job that had all the earmarks of a blind guy applying it in a hurricane, more than likely an "Earl  Sheib" fifty dollar special, 'cept they'd roll down the windows before they sprayed so the painters wouldn't get any on them. A giant crack in the middle of the windshield rounded out the short list of high performance options. The two dudes slowly exited the half truck/ half car looking like they had been dropped in Siberia rather than a rural baseball park. I noticed they both carefully made their way to the field, looking in the trees like they might be spotting a sniper, heads low and approaching in a criss cross pattern. It was 1973 so it was totally possible they were both Vietnam Veterans or just left over hippies fresh out of stuff to protest with nothing else to do but smoke dope and eat Cheetos. The crunchy kind though, not the cheese fart puffs that only gave you half a belly full.

They both wore Army Issue coats that hung just below the waist and baseball hats, pulled low over the hair that hung nearly to the middle of each’s backs. They were in white bread baseball land, far from Piedmont Park, The Mellow Mushroom and “The Great Speckled Bird” handed out by topless women doing blotter acid in the enormous park in the center of Atlanta. It's important to know, the first real pair of boobs I had ever seen, besides walking in on my Aunt at a family reunion, was a doped up hippie woman outside Piedmont Park handing out newspapers when my Mom and Dad took a wrong turn and stopped near a group of blitzed out hippie chicks with a semi nude paper route. I told that story a few thousand times to all my elementary school buddies after it happened. You’da thought I was James Bond or Captain James Tiberius Kirk and scored with some foreign lady spy or some green Klingon woman with a giant set of hooters and a Cro-magnon forehead big enough to scare even the horniest Space Captain into retirement. 

It was great.

When our coach introduced us to his replacements, we all sat staring at the two men, speechless. I immediately thought the phrase “Stay away from the brown acid” shouted at Woodstock, was intended for these two. Heck, as far as I knew, one of  em probably did the shouting himself. The “head” coach introduced himself and was actually quite articulate, forming compound sentences and walking upright. His brother, on the other hand, was a total doper, smelling like he’d smoked a lid of pot on his way to practice. We called the head coach “Cheech” and his brother “Chong”, names neither one them appreciated…well, at least Coach Cheech didn’t, but his brother, well, I guess he just didn’t get it or care much. 

It took a little time, but we all eventually settled on calling them” Coach Man and Coach Dude”. They got those names based on the way they protested when one of us screwed up. If an infielder would miss a grounder, the head coach always said “Man!”. If one of our outfielders dropped a ball or over threw a runner, the assistant coach said “Dude!!”

It was going to be an interesting year for us all on and off the diamond.

After a few of the parents got wind of the last-minute coaching change, most came to check out the new additions and when the conservative Christian crowd got a glimpse of the two Easy Rider brothers with their long hair and Army jackets, baseball caps pulled down low so you couldn’t see their eyes, was when the whispering began and the rumors cranked up among the parents who had nothing better to do. All my buddies, Max, Mike, Kirk, Kent, Bobby and numerous other Anglo-Saxon named young men actually got to like and even appreciate the brothers for their laid back style of coaching. If you did something wrong or screwed up and were told to run a lap, you could store them up like a credit. If you did something good on the field in a game, you offset the practice screw ups and laps were eliminated. The downside was you “made good” on your laps at the end of every week, so the system had a way of working itself out to where you’d get better at the game and practice, or you spent a whole practice running to repay your debts. If you were running, someone else had your position and that was also a screw up at practice adding more laps to you account. This method was decided by vote among players, after we sorted out the two new coaches and vice-versa, a first for us as far as democracy went. We had all grown accustomed to blatant dictatorships as far as coaches were concerned so this was indeed a breath of fresh air and one we all thought we’d take advantage of initially, but grew to appreciate as it was all on us. 

At 13 years old, we wanted independence and these two offered it to us and the majority benefited from the experience. We always had time set aside to talk for a few minutes at practice time between our two unorthodox type coaches and ourselves. It was a new concept for us all, seeing this was now “Our Team”. It became more than that just our coach’s way of busting the chops of a bunch of punk kids passing through to puberty and more complicated lives. 

This was different.

I'll wrap Friday, but you knew that.

When Hippies become baseball coaches. Part 1

Football was my game.

It's been a while, but regardless, I played every sport offered at the Beulah Ruritan Park in my early teenage years, which amounted to baseball and football. It was getting close to time for us all to move on to the more serious middle and high school level game and this was all of our last year to “enjoy” intramural sports. Some of us were twelve and  some were thirteen and all of us smelled due to puberty hitting us all within a few weeks of each other, save for the few guys who had been shaving since the third grade. We were all in a moment of change, all of us with cracking voices, stinky arm-pits and excessive bad breath due to the introduction of testosterone into our soon-to-be not so innocent selves.

It was baseball season and all of my friends and I were playing for the Beulah Cardinals. We endured the same coaches coached every year and we all expected the same tyranny that year as in the years past. Our regular baseball coach had assisted in football and was head coach in baseball, but this year he decided he’d take a break from the action, us all certain it was at the insistence of his wife. We would take bets on who, given the right circumstances, would prevail in a fist fight between our baseball coach and his bride. She looked like a Russian weight lifter and my hard-earned grass cutting money was on her, first round, by a knock out. She was a teacher at the high school we’d all eventually attend and not one of us would dare even look at her in fear of her catching us. She taught English Composition and we all knew we’d get our collective asses kicked by her come grade time. If not for us she speculated, there wouldn’t be a need for a baseball coach and her problems were solved. I guessed that he’d sold us out to her in some strange way unbenounced to my tribe. I prayed I’d never have to have her for a class knowing she could indeed make my life miserable someday. When I’d engage her, I’d always hedge my bets by using my best Eddie Haskell style manners, a staple with the twelve to thirteen year old's I called friends. I was sure she’d a seen through my brand of pubescent BS faster than June Cleaver could latch a set of pearls around her neck one-handed. Unfortunately for me, she overheard me speculate she’d have made a better man, seeing she was shaving her whiskers more often than her husband and our coach. That was a joke told while we were sitting in the dugout at practice, us not knowing she was around. It was my turn to cast a dispersion and as soon as I did, she walked into the dugout as if on cue. I was screwed.

When “tryouts” were complete and our coach had decided who might play where, he sat us all in the bleachers to give us some “bad news” as he put it. That news included him not coaching us our final screw off-year before high school sports made every thing we did serious. We'd soon be using the testosterone pumping through our veins to do numerous things, one of which included impressing girls and exercising as much false bravado as humanity could stand. We were passing through the “I need to really act like I don’t give a rat’s ass” phase, a strange ritual giving adults the right to kill all teenagers in most third world countries and a few states in the USA. We had all been together for a number of years, some for a few years and some since kindergarten, but sports was an integral part of our lives. This would be the year we’d all get the surprise of our lives, coaching wise, when our regular coach introduced us to “Coach Man” and his brother “Coach Dude”.

These guys were former hippies. I assumed they had shown up at the park as a part of some parolee program, a requirement to avoid jail or long-term incarceration implemented by the one and only Sheriff Earl Lee, the baddest sheriff this side of Buford T. Pusser AKA Sheriff “Walking Tall”. He was the baddest mutha in the valley and no one whispered a negative word about him, ever. I would get the opportunity to get to know him better in my last year of High School when my best friend at the time and I made a habit of backfiring our engines around everyone from old ladies to small children. He knew we’d done the deed, but he made sure we knew who was in charge in Douglas County by presenting us with numerous photos of blown up mail boxes and eye witnesses that would say they’d seen our hot rods in the general vicinity of the feloniously disemboweled mail boxes and ensuing explosions that had rendered them such. He said he could get us on seventeen felonies but insisted he didn’t want to ruin the lives of two young men with so much promise over backfiring mufflers. I agreed with his assessment and never exceeded the speed limit from that day forward. He was a great sheriff and had national notoriety due to his need to keep the citizens of our county safe. I will finish by saying if a person wants to make biscuits, he’s gotta get some flour on his hands. Sheriff Lee made great biscuits, but unfortunately he got more than his fair share of flour on his hands, shoes, floor, walls and any other person outside of the boundaries of his hedge of law and justice delivered southern style. I will finish by saying every child molester and wife abuser in our county he got a hold of resisted arrest, as it should be. He was quite unpopular with the left leaning liberal media and the ACLU. I had no argument with him. He could have cast me and my buddy down with the “sodomites” over the mailbox incident, but let us off with a warning knowing we’d not blown up any mailboxes but did indeed need to stop scaring the elderly and small children. It was a great lesson for me. My buddy at the time…not so much.

More Wednesday! I hope you enjoy!

"One round trip bus ticket from Murphy, North Carolina to Parris Island, South Carolina, please." Part 3.

My dad and his best friend at the time, Elmer Taylor, both decided to join the Marine Corps at the same time to get out of the small town they both called home, Murphy North Carolina. When they had both completed high school, they both decided to go down to the recruiting office and sign up. This would be their opportunity to get out of the small town and expand their collective horizons, seeing the world on the USA’s nickel. When they entered the small recruiting office, they were met by a Marine in his full dress blues, a no-nonsense type saddled with the job of finding “the few and the proud” first and seeing if the Marines could use them if they survived boot camp. My dad tells the story as him entering the office first, signing the paperwork first and passing the initial physical exam consisting of having all your teeth and not being flat-footed. He said he squished his toes up so he wouldn’t be found out as a flat-foot, an insult according to the way the recruiter said it, and one way he’d miss the opportunity to make it out of his small town he called home. He passed the test and to his surprise, his buddy Elmer didn’t squish his toes up and failed the test miserably being called a wash out and a flat foot. My dad’s friend didn’t even try to fake it like he did, meaning my Dad was on his way to Parris Island, South Carolina very soon, and without his best friend at his side like they had planned. His friend confessed to him he got cold feet and decided not to join and his only way out was to be flat-footed. I think my dad and him had a genuine fist fight over that incident, but remained best friends until Elmer’s death twenty years later, long after the whole incident was a distant memory for them both.

My dad told me that when he arrived at boot camp, he stepped off the bus and heard in three minutes more cussing than he had heard in his entire life’s days combined. He said his drill instructor got in his face after he snickered at some insult hurled at some other new recruit a few rows over, a huge mistake. The recruits had been handed a bucket with all of their shaving and cleaning gear in it and this particular fellow commented about the brand of tooth paste not being his own, much to the displeasure of the drill instructor. My dad said as soon as he made a peep, he looked up and the bill of the instructor’s hat was poking him in the eyebrow portion of his forehead, his breath smelling of some long ago spent chewing tobacco. When the instructor questioned him about where he was originally from, he mistakenly made eye contact with the man in a manner the instructor found offensive based on the drill instructor’s fist being buried up to my dad’s esophagus. My dad said he dropped to the ground with all the wind knocked out of him, not catching his breath for a few days. He said he wondered, while on his knees in the Parris Island sand, what in the hell his friend Elmer was doing right then, vowing to kill him soon.

After the new recruits were divided up into squads and assigned bunks and separate drill instructors did he find out how the Marine Corps treated those who didn’t follow every order to the fullest extend. One of the many tasks the new recruits were required to do was to write “either your whore or your Mother” whichever you left back home, and loved most when you decided to infect the drill instructor’s beloved Corps (pronounced CORE just in case you are not familiar with the pronunciation) with “the maggot shit filled presence that was each recruits worthless life.” It is important to know that I am not making any of this up . Making Marines bad enough to go charging into battle with little more than a dull butter knife was a difficult task and one not to be taken lightly. One of the most important parts of the training was teaching loyalty to each other and building a team, but not forgetting the importance of family and especially one’s mother. Each recruit was to write one letter each day and forward that letter to his mother on that same day. My dad was the oldest of six brothers and sisters still back at home with his widowed mother, her depending on his $66.00 dollars a month stipend as a replacement for his absence while he was busy becoming a man. My dad had never been away from home this long in his life and this was a way of meeting others from all over the country. It amounted to quite an eye-opening experience for a young man from the Hanging Dog community of Western North Carolina. Then he made the big mistake.

It was approximately the end of the second month beginning of the third and last month of basic training and my dad’s battalion and all the other recruits, numbering in the thousands, and all split into separate batallions were all engaged in an exercise where live rounds were being fired. It was a sort of practice war giving the soon to be Marines the real feel of a battle, meaning one thing:  if they didn’t keep their heads down they were liable to get shot or blown up. The drill was about half done when all of a sudden all the shooting stopped, mortar shells ceased exploding and a Jeep came careening through the middle of the whole shebang, the driver and the passenger bouncing like they might fly out of they weren’t careful. They drove straight to the command center and from my dad’s vantage point, he could see the men pointing to a paper they pulled out of an envelope then the commander pointing in the general direction of where my dad was located. My dad and his soon to be Marine buddies all were looking at each other when one of the gents lifted a bullhorn and shouted (and I quote); “Is there a God Damned Private George W. Hall in the second batallion!!??”

My dad said his vocal chords froze at the sound of his name. He thought he might not have heard his name correctly but was snapped out of his trance by his squad leader screaming in my his ear “George, god dammit, George! They are calling your fucking name you maggot dick piece of shit, get your worthless ass up and make your legs carry your carcass to the command tent before I shoot your ass myself!” He then got up and trudged his way through what seemed like a mile of mud and sweat, the two men in the Jeep walking towards him through the mud in clean dress greens. These guys reached him and grabbed his arms dragging him toward the Jeep they had driven so vicariously a few minutes before. Simultaneously, they both looked at my Dad and said “Get your sorry, worthless, no good, shit sucking soon to be dead ass in this God damned Jeep right now and don’t ask a single question, you stinking pile of maggot shit”

If you are reading this, it is important to know that I have cleaned up the language a considerable amount. The actual language used during the entire length of my dad’s stay on Paris Island was considerably stronger and included insulting your sister’s virginity or lack thereof, your girlfriend’s willingness to spread herself around while you were away serving your country and God help you if you were from Texas. The many uses of “Maggot”, AKA fly larvae, was a name assigned to all recruits and its fecal matter associated with your name was an important part of insulting the man you thought your were before entering the Marines. Let’s get back to the story now, shall we?

My Dad was riding in the back of the Jeep, wondering what ever in the world might he have done to deserve the fate that was currently befalling him at this particular moment. He knew the two guys up front were cussing like two drunken sailors on leave and unhappy as to the condition of the dress uniforms they wore daily. They were doing between eighty and ninety miles per hour over some purdy rough terrain and my dad said he nearly flew out a time or two during the trip to where ever the two front drivers were taking him. He asked, at one point, what in the hell might be going on and how did it involve him. He remembered one of the guys looking back and calling him every name in the official Marine Corps book of cuss words. He was called names he said he’d not heard in his entire life and figured when, and now if, he made it out of the Corps he’d get a copy of the combination guide to conjugating cuss words and connecting worthless humans to fly larvae. He still had no idea what in the world might be going on and the reason for the hurried trip he found himself involved in.

The Jeep pulled up to my Dad’s barracks and skidded to a stop. In one motion the two reached around and pulled my dad, in his full fake war gear, out of the front of the Jeep. They then ran him into the showers, stripping his uniform off and cussing him like he was a government mule. The two men had what my Dad thought were Brillo pads, used to scrub pots and pans in the kitchens of the massive island training facility he was stationed at during his basic training. The two scrubbed until my dad said his skin burned from the cleaning he received that afternoon. One of the men then instructed him to go and shave his face again, even though he had done it that same morning, and accompanied him by his arm when my dad balked. The other officer was busy ironing Dad’s dress greens, creases perfect, with the speed and efficiency of a robot. When he finished his three “S”s ( shit, shower and shave) for the second time that day, he inquired as to what in the world was going on and how did he fit into the situation at hand. One of the men bent over to his face while he was lacing his recently polished boots and told him ” You son of a bitch, you’ve got business with the base commander, he said to shoot you if for any reason you balked at our request. Now get your maggot-assed frame up off that bench and follow us to the Commander’s office. Boy, you have fucked up now, you dumb-assed pile of maggot shit”.

He followed the two men to the Commander’s office, wondering what fate might await him inside the giant doors he stood in front of. When the two men grabbed him under his arms and basically carried him into the office, every eye he met was void of sympathy, all looking like he had declared himself a communist and every one knew it. When he reached the Commander’s office, the two secretaries looked at him like he had stepped in dog shit and had tracked it onto the new carpet in their homes. He had just about had his fill of it all when the older lady looked at him one last time and sarcastically said “You can go in now”. One of the soldiers that had picked him up, cleaned and delivered him whispered as he passed ”You are a worthless pile of shit for what you have done, you sorry maggot”. When my Dad cleared the commander’s door, he said his knees began to shake. He told me if he had one wish and God was merciful, could he please allow him to retroactively fill an infants grave, him being better off dead than what he faced right then.

There sat his mother. She was drinking tea with the commander. He said the commander said “See, Mrs. Hall, your son is not dead, he is alive and well. Son, come over here and give your mother a hug”. He followed the commander’s every order and hung on his every word, sensing his Commander’s eye’s burning holes through his entire being. My dad said he knew right then what he had done and why all the fuss aimed in his direction. He had indeed written but not mailed any letters to his Mom for the past two weeks and she thought he was dead. Like any good mother would do, she went to the Murphy Greyhound Bus station and asked the man at the window:

“How much for one round trip bus ticket to Parris Island and back to Murphy, North Carolina please?”, her showing up at the front gate of the giant island to inquire on the status of her oldest son. Needless to say, my Dad wrote her two letters every day for the rest of his stay on Paris Island, with two men standing over him with sidearms drawn and safety’s off.

Commander’s orders.

One round trip bus ticket from Murphy, North Carolina to Parris Island, South Carolina, please." Part 2.

I can’t go any further than to tell you that one of my greatest influences, besides Jesus and my Dad (also a Marine-but I’ll get to him in just a minute or two) was my College football coach, Charlie Bradshaw. He was also a Marine, a drill instructor and psychology major. I’ll describe him the same way some of his players from “The Thin Thirty” a book written by one Shannon Ragland recalling his days at Kentucky. He was insane. One of his former players said and I quote: ” pre-season practices were a daily version of the Bataan Death March” Bradshaw trimming a down a  roster of willing players from 88 to 30 and brutalizing young men beyond most human’s physical and mental ability to endure. When I read of the brutality the Kentucky players endured, I was swept back to my five years of playing under the man. It was five of the most formative years of my life and for good reason. I guess the funniest thing I can recall out of the five years of playing and practicing under Coach Bradshaw, was him making me and two other players run for five hours straight, in full gear, for “smiling in a practice”. He stood up on a high hill and watched over practice like a shepherd might watch his flock, except the shepherd liked his sheep and knew their value. Myself and a few players were commenting on Bradshaw insulting one player concerning the weight of his girlfriend and why the same player’s mother had not killed him at childbirth he was so useless. His dislike for all things human was amazing, but his influence was great. He and I didn’t see eye to eye on anything including the sun being the center of our solar system, but he respected the player I was and we both understood the game of football. I loved the game until I played it under my former head coach, surviving the effort with a college diploma, a fitting reminder that I was through with the game before it was through with me.  I had after all, played a kid’s game and walked out the other end with an education that went beyond the “Finance/Marketing” clearly printed across the top of my Troy University issued Sheepskin. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t consider Coach Bradshaw’s influence on my life and not dwelling on it as a negative thing. I choose to focus on the positive aspects any growth experience can bring if a man is mature enough and has his head screwed on straight.

Lastly there is my dad, my personal hero, and Marine. He was a Marine of the same generation as Chap Chandler and Charlie Bradshaw.  He excelled in every aspect of his life, a dual scholarship recipient in both academics and sports, eventually becoming a Postal Executive in his long career and an M.I.T. Graduate of the exclusive Sloan school of management, attending with many CEO’s of fortune fifty companies. Not “Fortune 500″ but “Fortune 50″ meaning the top fifty companies in the USA and the world. He is and has been my greatest friend and confidante I have had in my life. His wisdom and kindness distilled in unselfish batches all my life have made me a better man, father, husband and friend to those who love me and call me the same in return. I do recall one incident when I decided my dad was an idiot and I might challenge his authority and Marine training and it bares sharing.

This is from my book “The Train Ride” :

Let me share with you that I was not one of the smart fellows that passed on challenging my dad to his rightful throne. It happened one Saturday morning after a long lengthy night out with my hometown buddies. I had come home from Troy in my sophomore year (the term sophisticated moron comes to mind) and was in the best shape of my life. I was benching over 400 pounds and could squat 700 pounds easily. I could also run like a deer and all day if necessary. On one memorable Friday, my Dad gave me the order to be “high and tight, 6:00 am cutting grass.” My Dad was not a military junkie as far as his dealings with me or our family. He was never a Great Santini dad, ever. The Marine Corps had such a strong effect on him, as it does most men who have been in the Corps. He never let go of the military way and its influence on his personal and business life. I recognized it as a very positive thing for him.

After my long day’s night that ultimately led to an early morning arrival to my bed, I was awakened by the sound of the lawn mower running. This was not good. I had a great relationship with my dad, but he had his rules and I lived in his home. I had dang well intended to cut that grass and I flew into my shorts, shoes and shirt in seconds and down the steps I went out into the yard where my father was making quick work of the task at hand. I waited at the edge of the driveway for my father to make a pass at the end of the neat straight rows he was painting with the lawn mower. It was a beautiful day and I remember it so vividly because of the lesson I learned that day. Don’t mess with Marines regardless of their age, height, weight or perceived intelligence. I stood a good foot taller than my Dad and outweighed him by a better 75 pounds. I asked him to hand the lawn mower over to me and I would finish the grass cutting duties. He glanced up, did a perfect military style 180 degree turn and headed back in the direction he had just come from, ignoring my request with a curt smile and a passing glance. Not a mutinous glance mind you, but a glance that said,

“Go back to bed you dingle berry.”

I was instantly pissed off by his calm nature. My body language went from friendly and inviting to an “I can take you old man” stance. I was twenty and knew better. I had considered it a time or two when I was 14 and maybe once when I was 18 but thought the better of it.

When my dad passed by me again I was standing kinda-sorta in the yard as to get him to have to decide where to maneuver the mower around me and not foul up his neat pattern. I am sure he learned the technique and many others as punishment in the Marines. When he got close enough and hesitated, I grabbed the mower by one hand and sternly told dad to let me finish the damn yard. He looked at me and calmly told me it was OK, he’d finish the task and I could go back to bed and sleep it off, which further pissed me off. He had both hands on the mower handle. I took my right hand and placed it on the outside of his right hand and with my left hand I slid his hand so I had full grip on the mower. I gave him the one and only mutinous glance I have ever given him saying:

“I am up, I am pissed, and you are gonna let me finish cutting the frigging yard!”

And then it happened. In a blur, I was down on my back in a pretzel hold with my legs bent over myself with my knees basically on my ears and what appeared to a be a nut sack hanging in my face. I was going to bite them out of anger but I realized quickly they were mine. My 190 pound Marine father had just felled a 270 pound freight train, dropped him like a used prophylactic, and humbled him to the point of hollering for mercy. He never let go of the lawn mower.  Oh, and he could twist my pinky finger and every part of my dumb-assed body racked in pain. I had been introduced to what the inside of a can of whoop ass must have looked like. He smiled and let me up. I was sore as the underdog in a prize-fight after that particular lesson, never forgetting to ever mess with a Marine again.

You have just read a true account of the greatest learning experience in my life complements of  The United States Marine Corps and my dad. These boys don’t play, as a matter of fact, they all quit school because of recess. And my dad was one of the few, the proud, The baddest Hombre’s to ever walk a watch with a gun. I’m convinced they can all recognize each other somehow. My dad, my brother and I went to see one of the greatest war movies ever made, “Full Metal Jacket” by Stanley Kubrick of “2001: A Space Oddesy” fame. This particular movie was as much about the Tet Offensive as it was the boot camp training each Marine must endure before becoming a certified bad ass in the service of the United States of America. It’s a movie that is funny and tragic at the same time, describing in full visual detail how each man handled the same tyranny doled out in spades and the resulting outcome. When we watched the boot camp portion of the movie, basically the first hour, I noticed how my dad never took his eyes off the man playing the drill instructor, Gunnery Sargent Hartman, played by the one and only R. Lee Ermey to perfection. This was before the internet existed so information was found out the old-fashioned way, you either read it in a book or a Magazine. My point here is this; my Dad told me and my brother after the movie: “I bet if you check out the guy who played the drill instructor, you’d find he was actually a real drill instructor. The cadence he used and the lacing together of profanity was like the poetry my drill instructor used on me and my fellow Marines. You just can’t fake that and it would take years to learn that skill even if you were the best actor on the planet”. Sure enough, he was right. Stanley Kubrick hired Mr. Ermey to consult with the actor who was to play the driven and partially insane drill instructor. When the actor just couldn’t get it right, Kubrick brilliantly asked R.Lee to take the part and a great actor was born and a movie career was launched. R.Lee Ermey was indeed a drill instructor with the Marine Corps and the movie gives you a realistic view as to the tough standards the Marines set forth for its recruits. 

Which leads me to the very best part of this particular short story.

C'mon back Friday!

"One round trip bus ticket from Murphy, North Carolina to Parris Island, South Carolina, please." Part 1.

A poem, by John Wayne.

“The Sky is Blue,

The Grass is green.

So get off your butt,

and join the Marines”

I love the Marine Corps. I’m not a Marine and at my age, 53, I’ll never be one but I was raised by one and influenced by many. If a man is once a Marine he is always a Marine, never a former Marine. I can’t go any further in my writing without sharing a few true tales of the many Marines I have crossed paths with, both in real life and on the big screen, and these are the jewels in the crown of my influences.

According to Wikipedia:

The United States Marine Corps traces its institutional roots to the Continental Marines of the American Revolutionary war, formed by Captain Samuel Nicholas at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on 10 November 1775, to raise 2 batallions of Marines. That date is regarded and celebrated as the date of the Marine Corps’ “birthday”. At the end of the American Revolution, both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded in April 1783. The institution itself would not be resurrected until 1798. In that year, in preparation for the Quasi-War with France, Congress created the United States Marine Corps.

So, the way I read it, the Marines were thought up in a bar a whole lot of years ago, and they have been the ass-kickers of the known world ever since. It’s fitting that they were re-grouped in a war with France and I guess that maybe twenty or so Marines were sent to fight the entire French Army. Shortly thereafter, the French decided to stick to art and cooking after the tremendous ass kicking those twenty must have thrown on them. I’m reaching here, of course, when I say that there were only twenty Marines sent to kick the butts of the Souffle’ crowd, it was probably more like twelve or thirteen. I mean somebody had to carry the gear and load the rifles, cook, and wash blood out of the uniforms. Over the years, I’ve seen numerous ad’s in Craigslist for antique French Army rifles, never shot and only dropped once. They never seem to sell for much, seeings there are so many in perfect condition for sale at any given time. I’ll get off the French, they do hate us but at least they gave us the French Fry and we did let De Gaulle step up and declare victory for the French’s “participation” in WWII after the USA kicked every ass that advanced towards France looking for anything other than a date with a skinny girl with hairy armpits or sautéed snails floating in garlic butter.

Their have been many movies made with Marines in them and about them. John Wayne was a famous Marine Corps lover and depending on who you ask, was credited with “saving” the Corp by agreeing to star as Sargent Stryker in “The Sands of Iwo Jima” when a threat of disbanding the Marines was proposed by the Dolittle Board after WWII. The film was seen by millions and was the top movie as far as Oscar Nominations were concerned. I’m not at all saying the Marine Corps was saved by a movie, but prefer to think if you can pin the “saving” of the Corps on any one event, it would have to be Gen MacArthur’s amphibious assault on Inchon. That event validated that assault from the sea was in fact still a viable military option in the nuclear age, and that no-one was better equipped than the Marine Corps. I still have to give Mr. Wayne a tip of my hat for his love of the Corps, I understand what it means to love a division of the armed service and have never been an official member.

In the film, “A few Good Men” starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, there are numerous exchanges between Cruise and Nicholson and should be seen for the tour-de-force (uh-oh, thanks again you French folk) that was Mr. Nicholson’s portraying a an Old school Marine having to conform to today’s liberalized bed wetting political correctness as it pertains to war and handling troops. The most famous line being “You can’t handle the truth!” and hundred of others. Unless you’ve been asleep for the past ten years, you’ll know that “A Few Good Men” is a movie about two grunt Marines stationed on Guantanamo Bay, arrested for the death of a fellow soldier. In one exchange between Cruises’ Lt. Daniel Kaffe (Lawyer) and Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson (the black Marine on trial for code red-ing a fellow soldier) concerning Corp. Dawson’s apparent dislike for the Navy. Dawson’s answer was a classic and went something like this;

Kaffe: “Lance Corporal Dawson, why do you hate the Navy so much?“

Dawson: “”I don’t hate the Navy, Lieutenant, everytime we gotta go kick somebody’s ass, ya’ll are nice enough to give us a ride.“

For those of you that don’t know, the Marines are a division of the Navy and used to ride on ships as a means of getting somewhere to kick ass, like Lance Corporal Dawson said.

I have a dear and close friend, Cary Chandler, whose Dad was a devoted Marine up until his death in 2006. He had accepted Christ as his Lord and savior, but maintained his greatest influence this side of heaven was the United States Marine Corps. That man loved the Corps and every time I’d enter his office I knew that fact evidenced by the numerous pictures, commendations and medals he received. Colonel John Chapple “Chap” Chandler, Jr. was quite an accomplished and amazing man. He was an Eagle Scout, a three-sport athlete and a single wing quarterback of the Class C State Championship Football team at Millen High School in Millen, Georgia. He graduated as salutatorian of his class in 1946 and entered Georgia Tech holding a degree in Electrical engineering post graduation. Chap joined Roy Richards, Sr. in his fledgling, regional wire production company and helped lead sales from $12 million to over $512 million.  Southwire stands today as a global leader in wire and cable with our $5 billion in sales. As an outside observer, I can truthfully say that Chap’s greatest joy, besides his faith in God was his family. His devoted wife of fifty-one plus years Mary, two sons Cary and Chip, his numerous grandkids and daughters in law were his true pride and joy, was his 37 years in the US Marine Corps. He earned the rank of Colonel and at the end of his career served as the executive officer of the 6th Motor Transport Division in Atlanta. He was awarded the Korean Service Medal, the UN Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal and he received the Navy Commendation Medal in 1975.

I want you to know all about Colonel Chandler’s accomplishments first. It should also be known that he also was a somewhat diminutive man. At six-foot four inches tall and a former college football defensive lineman, I might have had a good eight to ten inch advantage over him, but it is more important to know that I would not have tangled with him on his worst and my best day. He had a confidence about him that spelled success in every thing he set out to do, and that also included kicking ass when necessary. He was one of the old school Marines like Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup, except he was the genuine article. He had been there, done that, and he was “tougher than a two dollar steak”, and that is in todays weakened dollar. That’s the lead in to this particular true story about the Marine that was my good friend Cary’s father.

On one of his thousands of trips he took on the corporate jet to any of  thousands of locations he frequented to get Southwire’s presence felt in the world, he would prove his mettle. On this particular trip, Mr. Chandler was on his weekly trip to Kentucky, where he was President of National-Southwire Aluminum Company and found himself with a plane full of his co-workers, all executive types, on approach for landing during the famous Blizzard of Feb. ‘78. The conditions were exceptionally poor, snow was falling and from the follow-up reports from the F.A.A., the wings had enough ice on them to chill a year’s worth of cold beer produced by Budweiser. Visibility was extremely poor and the pilots couldn’t locate the airstrip at the plant so they made a low pass to catch a glimpse of it, not wanting to lose sight by going back up the pilot made a critical error and banked sharply to land. The weight of the ice on the wings made them drop like and anvil and they hit the ground nose first at nearly 200 mph.

The Mitsubishi MU-2 did indeed crash, broke off both wings, fuselage tumbling down the runway like a roll of fifty cent pieces, breaking up into two parts and injuring most of the passengers. The fuselage containing the passengers came to rest upside down in a snow bank, it’s occupants covered in jet fuel.  The massive snow drifts kept the group from become a fireball from a spark during the wreck. Chap Chandler, however, basically walked away from the crash, soaked in jet fuel and bruised from asshole to appetite, but basically unharmed. I’d say in Chaps case, it was a 100/100 proposition, one-hundred percent God and one-hundred percent Marine Corps training. He calmly refused an ambulance ride to the hospital so he could take photos of the crash scene, worked several hours then flew home later that evening.

Chap was as cool a customer as they came.  When Cary came home from college that night after hearing his dad had been in a plane crash, he asked Chap what he had been thinking as the plane went down.  Chap replied, “Oh I knew I was going to walk away from it, I was just worried about those other poor SOB’s and if they were going to make it.”

“They weren’t Marines.”

Colonel John Chapple “Chap” Chandler, Jr. passed away on February 6, 2006 in Carrollton, Ga. from a long illness. He was buried under a full Marine Color Guard and given a 21 gun salute, fitting for a man so devoted to the Corps. He was like most Marines I have encountered, all with a broken mold laying somewhere in heaven, God knowing he had a created a “one-off” never to be duplicated again.

Come on now, it's a goods story. Wednesday it gets better.

The Annual Church Bar-B-Que, Bazaar, and forest fire. Part Three

We had finished the "Lull", as Elmer called it, and was entering the “Man-Lull” a time when we’d all go inside the church and sleep, play cards and drink coffee. It was about six-thirty in the morning when we heard alarms from fire trucks and someone beating on our front door. I jumped up to see what all the fuss was about and when I opened the door, there was a fellow, wide-eyed and looking like he’d seen a ghost. 

He looked at me and said: ”Do you guys know that there is a fire going on out here?” I told him yes, we were cooking BBQ and was aware that a fire was going. “No, you don’t understand...” he said nervously and out of breath, “The trees are on fire along with your pit and the logs around it”. I looked back at the sleeping throng of men laid out on the church pews and shouted “FIRE!” loud enough to wake the dead men up from their sleep plus  a few from the cemetery that bordered the church and the BBQ pit. When we ran outside, I saw what must have made the door knocker guy so frightened. The trees were indeed on fire, limbs were burning and dropping hot coals on the numerous pick-up trucks our men drove to the festivities. All the trees including the Pik-nik tables were fully engulfed, where our patrons would come to pick up the food they so anxiously anticipated for the entire year prior. I noticed that the BBQ pit was also fully engulfed and the meat that had been so lovingly attended to was surely ruined. We all stood in shock at the sight we all beheld.

Then it occurred to us. Bryce never ever stayed over night to hang out with all the men, but there was his Lincoln Continental, parked in the lone handicapped spot in the entire parking lot. That dude was here and we all knew that somehow he was involved. When the three fire departments showed up along with the police was about the time Bryce came walking out the front door, looking as surprised as we were just to see him there. Elmer asked which one of us had stoked the fire last, not upset, but needing to find some order in the chaos. There were three shifts of men that followed Elmer’s every order to a ”T”, and the author was on the last shift before the police came. We walked over to the smoldering pit and burnt down plywood chute, and I noticed that all the stacked up wood was missing. I asked Elmer if he had moved the wood away from the chute just in case and he said no. Elmer then looked at Bryce and said “what are you doing here and what have you done?”

Bryce calmly stated that he rode by to check on things and when he pulled in, he noticed that the coals had nearly burnt out and he just decided to add more wood to help speed up the process. He had thrown every single log into the chute. It took about thirty minutes for the logs to catch fire and a few more for the plywood chute to catch fire also. The trees? Well, we figured they must have taken a good hour to fully catch ablaze. Old Bryce even tried to blame me and whomever else he didn’t like for the debacle. We dug the charred meat out of the fire, hosed it off and carried it down stairs hoping their might be a salvage mission to save the meat. We lost 60% of our meat, but all was not lost, said Elmer. In fifty-five years of BBQ-ing, this had happened a time or two. We’d give more slaw, bigger portion of stew and two slices of bread instead of one.

While we were all upstairs tending to the blaze that was our meat, Bryce had been downstairs, "tending" to the Brunswick Stew. Elmer’s recipe was laid out to perfection. You’d add so much mustard and so much vinegar when the chicken and pork had rendered, then so much tomato paste and corn, cook for a while then on to the next step. Bryce, in his infinite wisdom, looked inside the pot and when the fellows that were tending to the stew went running upstairs to see about all the commotion, they left Bryce to be the master chef. The gentlemen who were in charge of adding the ingredients had just added the right amounts of Mustard and Vinegar, but Bryce thought that if this much Mustard and Vinegar would make it good, then twice as much would make it better. And he'd be wrong. It didn't work for medicine and it sure as hell didn't work on Brunswick stew.

Of course, we only found this out when we were serving the stew on plates,"eat it there" style, the next day to our loyal annual following. I remember one lady saying, "this stew would skin the paint off a car" as she dumped hers in the trash.  When Elmer took a taste, he bolted for the kitchen in the basement of our church and when I and a few others arrived shortly thereafter, Elmer had Bryce backed up against the wall with a large butcher knife in his left hand and his other around Bryce’s throat. He told Bryce that if he didn’t want to go meet with either God or the Devil within the next five minutes, he’s better fess up to what he had done to the stew. When he told him he only added Mustard and Vinegar, Elmer looked like he might go temporarily insane. Someone shouted for the pastor to please come quick and when he did, I swear I saw a grin on his face when he saw Bryce in such a Pickle. He even waited a few minutes just for the fun of it, enjoying the show. Then he finally asked Elmer to let Bryce go and Elmer did, but only under the condition that Bryce write a check for the entire amount lost including profit, so we could refund all the money back, so the loyal following we enjoyed might get some satisfaction. And, just maybe, come back next year.

Bryce began to protest at that request, but the pastor laid into him like a hungry man-eating a Christmas Ham. Seeing Bryce all wide-eyed and up on his tip-toes made all the hardship worth it for us bystanders. Things were never the same around the church after Bryce’s BBQ debacle. He had indeed gotten his revenge about not being in charge, but he paid for it in spades. He wouldn't be allowed to lead Friday night BINGO or a Hymn after that.

I didn’t see Elmer around church much after that, but he bequeathed his sacred recipes to me, to be used next year and every year after that. It was a few years later when Elmer died and I  heard the story told, at his funeral, about the BBQ fiasco for the first time and it was funny.  I laugh every time I think about that Bar-B-Que now and seeing the trees and woods on fire outside.

When I close my eyes I can still smell the smoke. I guess it’s true, time is the murderer of Memory. But I remember.

The Annual Church Bar-B-Que, Bazaar, and forest fire. Part Two

Every year when the annual BBQ would start getting close, Ole Bryce would start making noises about his BBQ recipes and his Brunswick Stew and cole-slaw months in advance, him thinking he was laying the groundwork for some ill-conceived coup to covertly take over the huge project. He’d even get a few men to agree with him until time got short and they realized Bryce was an idiot, never having smoked anything more than a cheap cigar, much less 350 pounds of Pork Butts. Our man, Elmer, constructed a temporary BBQ pit that was an exact duplicate of the one he used for fifty-five years and big enough to hold enough Butts to serve our expected 1200 plus visitors, twice over. It was a large grill area with a chute made of  plywood, lean-to style that was approximately forty feet long, where he could get his hickory logs burnt down to coals. Slowly working them into the pit underneath the meat that rested patiently there until pork butt perfection was achieved. Elmer was as country as a dead possum "runt over" by a pickup truck, but an Albert Einstein in the art of smoked meats. 

He also had a huge black cauldron, big enough to boil a small calf or an unruly church member in if necessary, a leftover pot he kept from his BBQ restaurant days and one that would make a witch covetous. He said he could look inside the pot and know exactly how much ingredients to put in and when, the years of use staining the sides of the interior of the pot as a marker. Elmer also said that when a fellow did the same recipe every day for over fifty years, that same fellow didn’t need to measure anymore, and I for one believed him. Elmer could measure by handfuls and "eyeballing", a genius behind the wheel of our BBQ project when it rolled around every year in the fall. And old Bryce just couldn't stand it.

Bryce kicked up a lot of dust that particular year and it really pissed ole Elmer off, but good. We even had to talk Elmer into doing the cooking that year he was so upset. He told a few of us that he did a lot of fighting when he was in the service and didn’t like to fight, but he’d make an exception for Bryce. He felt like he had one last ass whuppin’ left in him and he’d be glad to use it on his adversary. I knew it wasn’t good church talk and I shouldn’t have egged him on, but I was itchin’ to see Bryce get his butt kicked in and I was just to young to do it. I’d a laid my money on Elmer, former Army Ranger and decorated war hero. Elmer and Bryce had a shouting match after one of our designated meetings and Bryce even said he’d show all of us who might be in charge around there. We had no idea what he meant but we’d find out soon enough. Bryce was as crazy as a rat in a tin shit-house by my estimation, and probably prime breed stock for medication and a padded room.

We had made our investment of our 350 pounds of pork butts, chicken and all the ingredients for the stew and slaw. We laid out the chute, also called the draw, where smoke would draw from the business end of the pit where the meat sat from the other end where the logs were slowly becoming coals, working their way down the cute producing a perfect temperature heat and smoke that would eventually make the pork literally melt in your mouth. We usually pre-sold around 700 plates to fund the project and this year was no exception. On the night before the big day, all the men would come to the church on Friday night and be ready to stay all night long. It was a way for the men of the church to get to know each other better and this project was a sure winner every year, making our men’s group upwards of $5000.00 dollars profit. For a small congregation, that was huge. It meant we’d make it through when times got tough. Our pre-sales paid for all of the supplies meaning every penny we made on BBQ day was profit.

We had the pit constructed per Elmer’s direction, same as every year. We’d cut Oak, cherry and Maple wood into logs and chips per his careful instruction, soaking the chips in water for smoke later on. He was the master of ceremonies and we followed his every rule, him doling out orders like the friendly General he was at that time of the year. He was the kind of fellow you’d gladly follow into battle, especially one that involved a breakfast of cheese grits, eggs and biscuits, all made by him the following morning after the meat and stew cooking task was complete. The meat we had with our breakfast was the first finished pork butt to come off the grill and let me tell you, it was just amazing. We all looked forward to the breakfast every year and just that alone made all the late night work worth the effort. As a group, we’d prepare the logs by splitting them and stacking them in the order by which they’d burn, either faster or slower, depending on the wood. We'd toss the wet wood chips on intermittently, them making a smoke bank 007 would have been envious of, and adding the most amazing flavor to the meat. 

There would be a “lull”, as Elmer put it, between 3:00 in the morning and 5:30 in the morning where we’d leave the meat to cook by itself. We wouldn’t touch the fire, stoke the logs or coals, or touch the meat as it slowly worked it way to perfection. The pork had cooked for a good five to six hours and this part was as important as any part, “the lull”, as Elmer put it, allowed the meat to seal in the smokey flavor and cool off a bit. Then after that time and breakfast, we’d pour on the heat at the far end of the chute just to get the outside of the meat good and smokey, with a light dark crust on the outside.

Come on back Friday, you'll enjoy the ending!