4-H Clubs

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My first ever "club" was the 4-H Beef Growers Club. There were about 10 of us in the county who grew our own show calf and fattened it up for the Fat Calf Show that occurred every year in the spring at Warners Sale Barn. We spent the winter feeding, grooming and training the calves to be led by a halter and to take a "show stance." Our club didn't meet but once per year and that was at the show. We all kept our calves and methods very secret and really didn't know each other's names very well.

The second year that I showed a calf, I had the Grand Champion of Greenwood County. Boy was I proud. I had named him Phillip and he and I had spent hours and hours together for almost six months. The problem was that I was going home and Phillip wasn't. Winn-Dixie food stores paid $1.00 per pound for him and he weighed almost 900 pounds. Hmmm. Let me see, Winn-Dixie food stores. It took me about a minute to figure that one out. I wasn't a happy camper, but I took the money. I hope Phillip pleased a bunch of steak eaters. I showed again for the next two or three years and had a Reserve Champion (second place) but never again won. The money that I saved from those calves went a long way towards paying tuition once I started college.

In the 9th or 10th grade Daddy wanted me to join the 4-H Tractor Club. I had skirted the periphery of 4-H and really didn't want to play, but we talked about it and I agreed. My friend Thomas went with us every Wednesday night to the George Davis Buick place where we met. There was a workbook and actual hands-on tractor work. We learned how to grease all the 29 points on the tractor that we were using for the club, how to change the oil, how to do everything with a tractor. One thing that I managed to miss was the excercise where we backed a 4 wheel wagon with a tractor. I had tried it several times at home and never had much luck. Heck, I couldn't even back a two wheel wagon!

Being in these activities qualified me to attend the one-week 4-H camp that was held every year at Camp Long in Aiken County. As I remember, 4-H camp was something that I enjoyed very much and always looked forward to in the Summer. We did crafts, sang a bunch of songs, took safety classes, swam, played ball and went to dances every night. I wonder if they still have 4-H camp there? I wonder if they still have 4-H camp anywhere?
　

Swift Strike II

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At some point during junior high school the United States Army, in an effort to change it's way of fighting from a "front lines, head-to-head" type to one of dealing with insurgents decided to bring tens of thousands of soldiers to North and South Carolina for the most humongous excercise ever conducted. The exercise, dubbed "Swift Strike II" was not limited to military reservations, but was conducted on the streets, roads and highways of both states. Troops parachuted into our fields, road marched along our highways, trespassed in our gardens and orchards and suffered the ills of the south that they probably thought would be the worst they ever saw. There were thousands of soldiers bivouaced at the Greenwood County Airport and thousands more in the woods and fields all across the state.

These were the "blue forces" or the "good guys." Acting as red forces were the Green Beret's and other Special Ops folks who already had a taste of Viet Nam and irregular fighting methods. The red forces were assigned to recruit civilians and win our hearts and minds so that we could be used against the blue guys. I and my friends Steve, Jimmy, Jokie and Richard fell right in with them and provided them with water, food and gasoline. We all spied on the blue forces - riding our bikes up and down the rows of tents, counting, pacing, making drawings; but Steve and Jimmy actually rode their bicycles through the camp one night with firecrackers blazing. I'll bet that was a sight!

Anyway, even though we didn't know it at the time, we had been hooked and landed and would forever be in uniform. Steve went to the Air Force Academy, Jimmy and I went to OCS - to be followed a couple of years later by Jokie - and Richard enlisted in the Air Force. Steve went on to become a full Colonel, Jokie became a Lt/Colonel and a back seater in F-4 Phantoms, and I ended up as a Captain before leaving the Air Force and moving to the Army Guard. Richard got out as soon as he could and Jimmy was separated for a problem with his leg before being commissioned.

We termed ourselves the 601st Infantry and kept up the tradition for years and years after the Army left us to our own devices. Someday, maybe after I'm sure about the Statute of Limitations I'll tell some of the daring deeds that we did, but for right now you'll just have to imagine.

Jimmy's gone now to a cancer. Richard and Jokie live in Alabama and Steve lives in California. Guys if you read this, I still go on midnight missions along the roads and conceal myself in the bushes when a car is coming. I sometimes yell "CAR !!!!" to myself and remember our scrambling around. No raids though - I've had enough of the real stuff to satisfy my need to play. Review, friends - troops long past review.

Band - Mr. Putman

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Band was the one redeeming feature of Junior High School. In the band room I was one of the better trumpet (cornet) players and moved back and forth between 1st Chair 1st and 1st Chair 2nd. Once Mr. Putman made me play 3rd Chair 3rd just so I could learn to play the part. I thought I was pretty good. I don't even remember what we played - except it was usually some English march that sounded like it was played by a junior high school band. We tootled and honked and had a big ol' time at ball games and in parades.

Mr Putman - Bud Putman was the only reason that any of us really had fun. He was a funny man and had some really weird (weird but good) ideas about music, band and life in general. I remember one day that he stopped us from playing and talked for a while as our lips recovered. The subject that day was from the novel War and Peace. He said that somewhere around halfway through the book there was a statment that said something like, "If you want a life where you don't have to think, where your meals and clothes are furnished and where you simply have to do what you're told; then join the army. Now that I think about it, that was Mr. Putman's way of snickering at organized mayhem, but I took it as something that made a lot of sense. Not that I didn't want to think, but the whole idea sounded like something that I should maybe pursue.

After I returned from Iraq I had dinner with Bud and his wife Mary. They - like some other of us - are getting a little age on them, but they are fine people and we enjoyed reminiscing about those golden years so long ago.

The Duck

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Another junior high school teacher who influenced my life quite a bit was Mrs. T____. Our code name for her was "Duck." Not because she would swing at you and cause you to duck, but because she waddled like a fat duck when she walked. She taught us all about first aid and then all about "social relations." Well, she taught us at least "some" of each. They didn't call it Sex Education in those days, but that's what it amounted to. That was one semester. The next semester I had a study hall in Mrs. Duck's classroom.

Duck didn't do "understanding." When she perceived something then that is what happened. I clearly remember sitting at my desk, calmly doing whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing and the kid behind me (one of the "country club" set named Barry Rayborn) kept sticking me with a pencil. I was already bleeding in several places and I had asked her to make him stop. She had ignored my request much to my embarrassment and to the delight of the class who were enjoying this particular torture. I once again settled down and was jabbed in the hand with a very sharp # 2 Eagle when I snapped. Rising from the desk I turned towards and jumped on Barry and began pummeling him with all my might. Somehow she got me off him and we all three headed to Mr. Mablebutt's office. I of course was wrong and no manner of explaining, demonstrating or telling had any effect at all on the old man.

Barry and I were put outside and told to run around the parking lot until he told us to stop. Barry was really mad and tried several times to knock me down but I managed to outdistance him. After several quarter mile laps, we began to tire and Ol' Marblebutt came out on the track with his paddle made of a rocker from an oaken chair and commenced to beat us until we weren't tired anymore. We did this every fifth period for a week.

I still bear the marks made by the pencil on my right forearm and my right palm. However, Barry never again tried terrorizing me. It was worth something. Later in life I met Mrs. T____ on the street in Greenwood and without realizing what I had done, addressed her as Mrs. Duck. It was embarrassing for me, but she apparently didn't care.

Seventh Grade

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The three years that I spent in Junior High were pretty much the most miserable of my life. It's a pity that they coincided with me being 13 - 15 years old. There was so much misery. I won't use teacher's real names here because I'm going to be pretty negative about them. In fact with few exceptions I don't remember the names of many at all. I will use some of the derogatory names that we dreamed up or inherited from those before us.
Anyway I did three years in the hell of Northside Junior High School and seldom had anything to smile about.

Seventh Grade English - Ms. R___ was of the old school. She ran her classroom with an iron gauntleted fist and she and I knocked heads from the beginning. Do you recall parsing (or diagramming) sentences? This word underlined, these words written on downward sloping lines; nouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, participles, adjectives, etc.,etc!! So much garbage. It is like having to remember the name of the firing pin retaining pin in the M-16 bolt carrier group. You just know what it is, you know where it goes and you know that your weapon won't work right without it. I hated parsing sentences. I hated having to identify the different nomenclatures of words. I hated seventh grade English and I definitely hated Ms. R___. One particular day in the spring I remember her gripping and squeezing my upper arm to the point that I almost cried. As I left the room for my next class I said loudly, "I hope she has a heart attack and dies!!" During the next class some 9th graders were playing outside and they began to pester Ms. R___ through the open windows. She yelled at them for a while and when that didn't work, she went outside to chase them down. The heart attack wasn't fatal, but we never saw the old biddy again. Of course I gained some notoriety because my wish came true - and I have always been VERY careful about what I wish for since - but that was one of the best days in 7th grade.


Of course there are more vignettes where this one came from and you'll be seeing some of them soon. Did I mention that junior high was the nadir of my whole life?

Back Home Again

Image by Jeff McCrory ( © jdm_photo) via Flickr

Well, we are back from Alaska and doing well. The jet lag is almost gone and our sleeping hours are getting normalized. We had a great trip. And I think K-Kate and Jane had a good one too. We saw all kinds of stuff in Alaska that I didn't even know existed and some stuff that I did but had forgotten about. One place that I had forgotten was the Air Force's site named Clear. Clear was a place one used to scare little airmen. The roads in Clear end at the fence and the only access is by helicopter or plane. The Alaskan Railroad does have trains that go by, but they don't stop!


The sights were a little masked by a giant tundra or taiga fire burning between Denali and Fairbanks. We went near it on the Alaskan Railway and for a couple of hours it was completely dark as we passed through and under the smoke. That's the only nighttime that we experience for the whole 12 days. We did manage to get some pretty good pictures and will share them as time goes by.

I'll get back to the "life and times" again as soon as some inspiration strikes me.

Entr'acte

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Pat and I will be on our trip to Alaska for the next two weeks! Have a good July. - Skybird

A Special Day

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This is a very special day in my life. So, I will depart from the distant, distant past and relate a story from the mere distant past when Richard Milhouse Nixon was president, Viet Nam was raging and I was 20 years old. On this day, forty years ago, Pat and I got in my little dark blue Plymouth Valiant at 4 o'clock in the morning and drove to Charlotte North Carolina to the Military Induction Center. Pat had to leave me at the door and go somewhere and do something - I have no idea what - while I was being injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. She was about 4 months pregnant at the time.

Sometime in the afternoon we were allowed to go outside to our families. Pat and I spent our last hour together before I left, sitting on the curb outside the building. About dark, we were herded onto a bus and thence to an airport and onto an airplane (my first ride) and shipped off to San Antonio Texas. We arrived at about 11 o'clock at night and were bussed to a sheltered area on base (Lackland AFB) where we waited until about one in the morning for everyone to arrive. Then it was off to the barracks where we were told to sleep. Fifteen minutes later we were told to get up and get outside - someone had forgotten that all incoming servicemen had to be fed within a couple of hours of arrival. We walked to a chow hall where I had my first military meal, found out what SOS looked and tasted like and then got back to bed by 3 or so. At 5:30 we got back up and went back to the chow hall for more food and then we were bussed to Medina Air Force Station. (Medina was the site of the first sizable nuclear accident in the Air Force. In 1959 a "nuke" was being disassembled there and yeilded with approximately the force of 60 tons of TNT. According to locals, it was "pretty loud". According to the Air Force it was "non-nuclear." One very large concrete bunker disappeared.

At Medina we were ushered into a huge blue auditorium where we started finding out just what the hell was going to happen to us. I was still numb and relatively dumb at that point and decided to wait and see. Around 1000 hours (note that I was now on 24 hour time and "o'clocks" were a thing of the past) we were herded into groups and marched down to our barracks, assigned to our rooms and informed that since it was now the Fourth of July we had the rest of the day off. At some point I had a couple of minutes to myself without the luxury of being yelled at and I took that time to ask, "What have you gotten yourself into this time????"

The ride had been a mere "didibop" until that day!