Part - 14e - Pond & Camp

RAISIN'

14e - POND AND CAMP

In about 1942, Daddy participated in a U.S. Conservation Department program that allowed the County to build farm ponds. They built one, about three acres in size, and stocked it with Bream and Largemouth Bass.

The pond gave many days of pleasure for swimming, (all of us learned to swim there using two syrup buckets with a cloth strap tied to them for water wings) fishing, parties, and just good ole gatherings with the Greens (the principal at Millry School) and the Ezells (Pastor of Millry Baptist Church).

Later, due to erosion from hillside farming and two dirt roads, the pond had filled in about half way with sand. So, Daddy drained it, and we got Pee Wee Andrews from Mobile to bring in a dragline and dozer to rework it. I ran the dozer and together we widened the dam, put in a new spillway and built an island in the middle to keep from having to move so much dirt.

The island soon became a showplace, especially at Christmas time with a large, lighted tree reflecting in the water about seventy five yards from the road. Now, Azalea bushes, a couple of pine trees and Wisteria vines planted by Mother and Woodie turn it into a floral garden in the springtime.

Daddy built the camp house on the tractor wagon from left over scrap materials from a couple of jobs he had been on. It was 7 feet by seventeen feet with two single bed bunks in one end and two double bed bunks in the other. It had two by six foot long "flaps" on each side that could be propped open to let cool breezes blow through.

We first set the camp up just south of Bobby Dahlberg's fish camp at Bladon Landing, on the Tombigbee River. We built a three-sided lean-to for a kitchen and ate from a picnic table on the bank of the river. After a large flood almost destroying the camp, we took it home, cleaned it up and returned it to the river.

We jacked the house up about ten feet high between two gum trees, set cypress posts under it, built a kitchen on the end and an eight foot wide screen porch all the way across the front. Boy! Was that nice to sit on the porch with a cool breeze blowing, watching the tugs pushing coal, timber or fuel barges up and down the river.

We would keep two or three "Trot" (trout) lines all the way across the river most of the time to catch Catfish. It surely was good eating to clean and fry the catfish fresh, right out of the river!

Due to the fact that none of us had time to go to the River to use the camp, we moved the camp house from Bladon Landing on the Tombigbee back to the pond where it became the family gathering place on numerous occasions for Family Reunions where us younguns and the grand younguns would pick and grin, and all ate too much barbecue and homemade ice cream.

When we moved the camp house back to the pond, I took the tractor down the 25 mile trip to the river. We jacked the house up by rigging a come-a-long in a gum tree on one end and Daddy had the tractor pulling a cable on the other hooked to a roller in another gum tree. When they got it clear of the posts and beams, I took the chain saw and cut off the posts, then pushed the tractor wagon under the house. They let it down on the wagon.

I put a battery on the back top bunk and ran a wire to a flashing light on top of the roof. Then I headed for home right across US highway 84. While going down the old Henry Williams hill I let it coast for a little bit and it got a little “squirrely” and I really had to hold on to the steering wheel. Then when I got to the smaller hill just above Dunbar Creek, I let it go again and almost turned the house and tractor over. I really was sweating that one! I thought that it would be easier to hold it on that hill than the other one.

In June 1998, tornadic winds blew several trees across the camp house, causing irreparable damage to it. Maybe, someday, we can do something about getting another place down there.

Part - 14d - Farming

RAISIN'

FARMING

14d. FARMING

Soon after the first of the year, Daddy, Dennis and Tommy would start breaking land for crop planting. Each had their mule that they plowed with, their particular plows and the mule's gear. Most times, when Daddy came out, before daylight, his mule would be geared up and Dennis and Tommy would be ready to go to the field. A few times, they'd have to wait for enough daylight to see where they were plowing so as not to plow up plants that were growing.

They'd "take-out" for dinner for an hour or so, then go back and plow 'til sundown. Lucy would have dinner ready for the family and we'd eat, then the field hands would come in. (More on "Sonny, tell 'em dinner ready later.)

Daddy never wore socks when he plowed. So, he would get tiny rocks into the bottoms of his feet that we used to pick out with a needle.

Over the years that Daddy was working away from home, the farm "went to pot!" The mule barn (the one by the house) had deteriorated and wasn't the type needed before, as there were no more mules, horses or milk cows to stable. The fields and pecan orchard were grown up with large cedar, pine, sweet gum and oak trees with vines, vines, and vines. ALL the fences were in terrible condition.

Just before he retired, Daddy bought a new, 1964 Ford, Model 2000 Tractor with a bush hog and a new Chain Saw. He, Tommy and Leatha Land went to work! They cleared all the over-grown fields and pastures, built new fences and a new barn properly suited to feed the cattle hay, etc., and planted bahai grass in all the pastures.

In just a few years, the place (Claire called it "Clover Hill Farm." I now call my portion of it "Lonesome Pine Farm") had fully recovered from neglect and became one of the prettiest places in the area. Joe once rode with Fred Hoffman in his single engine plane and flew over here. He said that this was the prettiest place in this area of the country.

Part - 14c - Syrup Making

RAISIN'

14c. SYRUP MAKING TIME

Syrup making time was a time when some extra hands were needed to strip, cut and haul in cane for making syrup, while some were working with Daddy finding and hauling in "lightered" to fire the pan with, feeding the cane mill, skimming the syrup while it was cooking, etc. "

Lightered "is the heart part of pine stumps or trees that is rich in pine tar and burns very hot.

There were two mills set up for "grinding" the sugar cane. This was done by squeezing the stalks as they were fed in between the mill's two rollers that turned in opposite directions to get the juice out of the stalks. One mill was set up about 50 feet above the cooking vat, or pan, with a wooden barrel placed by the mill that had a "croaker sack" (burlap) stretched over the barrel to strain out the larger particles that would run out of the mill with the juice. There was a piece of tin ridge cap, about four feet long that funneled the juice from the mill to the barrel.

The mills were turned by placing a wooden pole about 15 to 18 feet long, preferably slightly curved, atop the mill where a mule or horse would pull one end round and round, in a circle. I have most if not all the parts of one of the old mills that are laying around the old base of the back steps that I intend to reassemble "one of these days" whether it will actually turn or not. I'd like to get it to where I could grind a little cane juice just for old times sake.

There was a pipe that ran from the juice barrel to the vat that had a valve on the vat end. When Daddy was ready to load a new batch of juice for cooking, he'd just open the valve to let in as much juice as he wanted for that batch.

The second mill was used at times when there was a very large amount of cane to be ground for cooking. The juice from that mill was dipped out of the barrel and taken to the other barrel for sending to the vat.

The vat was set up on limestone blocks to a level of about two to three feet high, under a tin shed to protect it from rain, and a chimney at one end. The end that the juice started in was to the West, by the chimney, and the end that the syrup was finished in, and where the lightered was fed into for the fire was to the East.

The vat, or pan, was made of copper, except for the sides that were made of wood. Every six inches along the pan bottom, there was a divider that was about 3 inches high to allow the juice to spread evenly the length of the pan. At about each 4th space for a divider, there would be a divider about 5 inches high that had a rod through it with threads on each end that extended through the wooden sides. These rods held the sides to the pan. There was an opening about 3 X 3 inches in one end of the high dividers that allowed the juice to flow through. When Daddy needed to separate different folks' juice, he had a big rag that he would put in that opening to keep them separate. There were about four sections to the vat.

The skimmers were made about 6 inches wide by 8 inches long, with turned up sides about 2 inches high. The bottom would have many nail holes in it to allow the juice, then syrup to seep out while the skimmings (impurities) to stay in the skimmer. The skimmers were emptied into an old barrel at each side of the chimney at the West end of the vat.

When the juice had been cooked at just the right temperature, for just the right time, and the juice became syrup at just the right dark amber color, Daddy would "let it off" into a big lard can (about 5 gallons) that had a double layer of flour sack stretched over the top for the final straining.

After letting in a new batch of juice, Daddy would dip up the syrup into either one-gallon or half-gallon buckets especially made for syrup. A gallon of syrup would not be as big as a gallon of water. Water is a liquid. Syrup is a fluid.

I never knew what happened to the old vat after Daddy quit making syrup. The sides had begun to rot and would not hold liquids, so whoever got the pan would have had to replace the sides.

Another thing that we had lots of fun at was tumbling off the large pile of "cane chews", the crushed cane stalks that had been taken by pitch forks away from the mills and piled up high out of the way of the mules turning the mill.

After the syrup making was finished, the hands would take the skimmings from the syrup making down in the woods and make "home brew" that would make them "Higher than Cooter Brown" when they drank it.

We would all like to go out in the cold mornings and drink a little cane juice before heading to school.

Also, all of us kids had fun tumbling off the big piles of “cane chews,” the squeezed out cane stalks that were toted away from the mill to make a big pile several feet high. We’d play what is now known as “king of the hill” to keep anyone else from climbing up the pile.

Part - 14b - Back to the Farm

(Me at about 4 with Pigeon Pen,
Water tank and power pole)

(Me and the '55 Pontiac)

RAISIN'

14b. GROWING UP

BACK TO THE FARM

14b. Red Wagon, Singing, Chores

I would build dams in the little stream that ran from the spring, across the road; Had wagon roads for my "Red" wagon, that I would either "semi-ride" while having one knee in the wagon and the other pushing, or hauling wood, dirt, etc.; Graded roads in the back yard with a hoe for a road grader, complete with ditches and bridges for my trucks; Rode "stick" horses that Joe would help me make; and I enjoyed pitching horse shoes.

One thing Mother and I would do after all the others left and Daddy was working out of town was to sing as she played the piano. We'd sing gospel or church songs and I'd whistle when she played "Red Wing" and other songs. I liked it when she would pinch and release her nose to sound like a Hawaiian guitar while she played Hawaiian music.

My "chores" were to get in stove wood (later house wood after Joe left.), feed chickens, water the hogs, and gather eggs. (CB would say that I'd look up to see if it might rain so I wouldn't have to tote water to the hogs!)

Later, as Claire, then Sylvia, then Joe left home, all the chores that remained became mine. I milked one or two cows, fed them, fed Red, the horse (all the mules and hogs were gone by then), and fed the chickens.

The jobs I hated most were hoeing (anything), gathering cucumbers, picking up potatoes and cleaning out rotten Irish potatoes out of the potato house.

The Potato house was about 8 feet wide by, 20 feet long and about 5 feet high. It was made of peeled pine poles and the logs "chinked" with clay.

As I stated above, I played in the band in school. I first began playing trumpet in the 7th grade, later E-flat horn in Millry's band, French horn in the Richmond Academy band in Augusta and the National Future Farmers of America Band in Kansas City, then tuba at Millry, Livingston State Teachers College (now University of West Alabama) and Howard College (now Samford University).

Part 14a - Growing Up - 1

(Me & Bing)

RAISIN'

14a. GROWING UP – Part 1

As I was growing up, during warm weather, my most frequent dress code consisted of a pair of short pants and a baseball cap that was set slightly to the right side of my head, bill-forward. I would usually sunburn and peel a few times during the summer, but I didn't seem to know it was bad for me. I had freckles on my nose and back.

I usually made a game out of most any thing I did. I would precisely load my wagon with up to about fifty sticks of stove wood, then try to follow a certain "road" from the wood shed to the back steps and try not to turn it over while crossing the roots of the huge oak tree by the woodshed, or by the wheels digging in too deep in the sand as I passed between the umbrella chinaberry tree and the water tank.

I would walk certain routes, containing so many steps while feeding the hogs, or chickens, or gathering eggs from various places in the barn or chicken house. See how many eggs I could get into the outside and inside pockets of the old "Ike" jacket without breaking them or dropping and breaking any. Ugh! What a mess when I'd break one or more in a coat pocket!

I would ride the bicycle over certain routes from back to side yards, across the cattle gap, through the driveway sand bed, by the persimmon tree to the top to "the hill", then turn around and run a different route back.

Before I was big enough to ride the girls' model, 26-inch bicycle, I would push it for miles at a time, around the yard and up the top of the hill.

When I was about 10-years-old, Daddy bought me a basketball goal from a store in Selma. We put it up on a 4-foot by 6-foot backboard at the south end of the croquet court. That section of the back yard never had any grass on it, and it was kept perfectly level.

The level ground made for a great basketball court. I practiced shooting goals of all types, from all angles and distances. Again, I would play games between "Me" and "Myself", or "Jim" and "I". There were games like "Mule," where a person would shoot a certain style shot from a specific place. If he made the goal, the next player would have to make a similar shot from the same place. If the second player missed, he got a "M" or "U", etc. When a player had gotten a M, U, L, and E, he had one shot from the half-court line to erase his MULE.

Playing in the back yard allowed me to shoot very high shots. The Fruitdale High School’s gym was their auditorium, as was Millry's, and Chatom's, but it was so small, the free throw line was the back court centerline. Also, the ceiling was lower than others were. Once, while shooting a free shot, I hit the ceiling with the ball.

Chatom's gym had open steel trusses all the way across the top, forming sort of an arch shaped roof. Once, I shot from the left side of the court, near the centerline. My ball went over the bottom truss without touching the truss and was "all net!" That would have been a good 3-pointer now a day.

I went out for football in the eighth and ninth grades, but only weighed about 75 pounds. While in the tenth grade, in Augusta, GA, I played in the band and did so through high school and two years at college.

I played baseball in my Junior and Senior years in high school. I pitched and played first base. I guess I liked those positions because that's the ones Joe had played. He also played second base at times.

I have played golf on an "Off and on" basis. For a few years, I played most every Saturday morning with Uncle Will, Uncle George, and three other fellows. (I was the sixth man.) Our tee time was at 7:07 AM each Saturday, year round.

Later, I was involved in so many other things; I didn't have time for golf. Then, I got back into playing in Tennessee as Rust had a 9-hole, weekly league.

I played quite a bit while working in Lake Charles, LA. While I was there, I irritated my left shoulder while swimming. I had an impingement in my shoulder joint, which would not allow me to swing freely.

Later, I developed Tarsal tunnel syndrome in my right foot, which would not allow me to pivot on that foot when I swung the clubs. About the time I learned to hit the ball without pivoting, I developed a bad case of bursitis in my right shoulder.

After I retired, Edd Williams and I played fairly regularly at the Chatom and Citronelle courses, but since Edd moved to Georgia a couple of years ago I haven’t played but a couple of times. One of the problems now-a-day is that I have Neuropathy in my legs and feet that gives me problems when I walk too much.

Part 13c - Joe & Family - Children

RAISIN'

Joe and Family

13c Children

Pam attended Auburn University for one year, then married Robert Lehrmann (Bob) from the DC area. They had one son, Robert Wood (Bobby). Pam worked, for years, for a legal firm. They lived in Reston, VA until Bob's untimely death, at age 39, on Bobby's first day of Kindergarten. Bob had tried a number of fields of study and work and never found his niche until he decided to start making gourmet salad dressings from their home kitchen. This allowed him to stay home and tend to Bobby. Later, he expanded his venture to prepare "Quick Meals," frozen dinners, made to order for working people who had only to thaw, heat, and add bread and drink. On the day Bobby began kindergarten, Bob had gotten him ready and on the bus that morning. When Pam got in, she met the bus. They saw Bob on the couch. Thinking he was taking a nap, because earlier in the day he had said that he wasn't feeling well, Pam and Bobby took a walk. When they returned, they tried to wake him, but could not. He had died as the result of an apparent heart attack. Upon his request, he was cremated and buried in the Providence Cemetery in Millry. Pam's job was the victim of "downsizing" not long after Bob's death. She moved to another place south of Alexandria, VA, and is working for another law firm. She met a guy named Joe Masella, in what she called "Widows 101", who had lost his wife. After a couple of years, they were married and now live in Manassas, VA. Joe has a son named Joseph. Alison Michelle graduated from Florida State with a degree in Finance. She married Steve Robinson, Kathy Knight's brother. She ran a clothing specialty store, called "Australia Design" with stores in DC and Baltimore, MD for several years. Apparently the "fad" played out and they closed down. Steve worked as a food manager for a hotel chain in the DC area. Later, he was transferred to Huntsville, AL to the University of Alabama at Huntsville as food manager. Things didn't work out too well in Huntsville, so he started Sumner Catering, with Sumner (TN) Regional Hospital. One thing that did work out pretty well was "Chillun Production!" They became the proud parents of a daughter, Kendyll Sage, and a son, Kyle Christian. Alison was district manager with Tupperware while in Huntsville, and transferred when they moved to Gallatin. She gave up on the sales career and changed to full time Mommy for Kendyll and Kyle for a while. Later, she returned to college and completed her education and is now teaching full time.

Part - 13b - Joe & Family - Work

(Joe & Eleanor on one of their wonderful worldwide trips)

RAISIN'

Joe & Family

13b Work

As with all Military Personnel, he was, typically, transferred from place to place, all over the world. Places such as Ft. Rucker at Enterprise, AL (where Alison was born.), Ft. Leavenworth, KS, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Ft. Belvoir, VA and finally, the Pentagon, in Washington, DC.

The Army also sent him to finish his Engineering degree at the Missouri School of Mines, in Rolla, MO, and later to get his Masters in Engineering from Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ.

On December 31, 1978, after twenty-six years of Army life, he retired with the rank of Colonel. (Never did figure why that's not spelled "Kernal!") Since he had no hair left, his CB Radio "Handle" was "The Bald Eagle!"

He took a job in Saudi Arabia for about two years. Then, moved to Atlanta where he began to work toward more (as Daddy said) "Far Fetched Things!"


He returned to Saudi for a four-and-a-half year stay as Project Manager to construct the Saudi Army Engineers Center and school, a very large project at, "King Kahlid Military City."

Upon his return to the United States, he and Bea "agreed to disagree!" Later, he married Eleanor Scheib. They married later and now live in St. Augustine Beach, FL on the Atlantic, where he is still working on his "far fetched" projects that's gonna make us all super rich "One Day!"

He has been active as President of their Condo Association. Also, he had pulled out his golf clubs and is using them occasionally. Hope he doesn't have to use his as much as I did when I played!!!

Bea, died a couple of years ago while in a nursing home in Gallatin, TN from Alzheimer’s disease


Joe did another assignment back in Saudi to run a job, by remote control to build several thousand tents for the Muslim people to stay in during Muslim high holy days at Jedda each year. He couldn't go to the site, as he's not a Muslim. So this presented another challenge for him in managing the project. This was to be about a three-year job, but the company was not awarded the contract to finish the project past the design and initial start-up portion of the job. So, Joe is back in St. Augustine, working on other "far fetched things!"

I helped them get a safety program and a number of ASTM and ANSI Standards for the development of the tent project. Since I don't have much luck with the "Far Fetches", I only got paid for about half of my work on that one.