There Be Dragons

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As a very young child, I read a book called Lost Horizon that captured my attention and introduced me to India, China and Tibet. Reading that book lead me to another book written about a Medical Doctor serving in Indonesia. He was fighting some kind of fever and the only cure was something called PG. Late in the book it became apparent that PG was simply "pure gin." I read more and more books about that area of the world: some Kipling (The Jungle Book, "Riki-Tiki-Tavi", Kim; Lowell Thomas (With Lawrence in Arabia, Book of the High Mountain); and many more. Some World War II books about the area were on my list also. I heard about Sumatra, Tibet, New Delhi, Bangkok and on and on.

I've never been to any of those places though I have lived in a number of places in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere. I think though that a lot of my sense of adventure or "adventure quotient" came from those readings. I once read that people like me love to look at old maps and in particular those maps which have the caption "There be Dragons" on the very edge of the world. I've done some interesting jobs too and will talk about them later when I get this period of my youth completed.

Few have placed their hand on the key used to release megatons of nuclear weapons. Fewer still have programmed the delivery vehicles for them. And I'm willing to be serious money that I am the only one who having done this was also a foot soldier in Iraq! Life with the dragons has helped me feel significant and shown me the world, but now, with those days complete I still seek the lost horizon...

Magnolia Playground

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Before moving too much into the future of my past I'd like to talk about the playground at Magnolia Elementary School. I remember it as being all covered with white sand, large oaks all around and fairly large. There was a "jungle gym" made all of 1/2 inch galvanized pipe where we climbed and hung by our legs, a set of swings that were quite tall and used heavy duty chains for support, see-saws and a sliding board. That sliding board was the main attraction. I would say that it was at least ten feet high and made of some really slick metal which took a polishing every day by little behinds. That slide was terrific! The first time I went down it - at the "suggestion" of my "friends" was breath taking. I literally knocked my breath out when I landed. I couldn't talk or move or breathe for what seemed forever. Then my breath started coming back and I got better. It was weeks at least before I tried it again.

In the middle of the yard, we could play football though I was seldom involved because I didn't have a clue how to play. I do have a clear memory of when Walt Latham broke his leg at recess. There was a huge pileup and an audible "snap". That was the first time I'd heard a human bone break.

One part of the playground was in a corner next to the school where we could go if we didn't want the teachers to see what we were up to. That's where I had my first kiss. WOW! I was impressed and of course embarrased and all jittery. It was a long time before something like that happened again. As I think about it now, there should be a stone marker there with a brass plate on it with the date and time.

The farm was my other playground and that's one that will take a posting of its own. Imagine a playground of almost 500 acres of fields and woods and added to that another couple of thousand acres that belonged to neighbors.

De La Howe's Tomb

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In the early 1800's Jean De La Howe a Huguenot Minister and physician left money and acreage in his will for the purpose of building and supporting a school for children who lost their parents. The pupils attended in residence and were taught how to do everything that they would need to know to live in the backwoods - blacksmithing, farming, veterinary medicine, cooking, spinning, weaving, sewing, etc. Dr. De La Howe left instructions that he be buried inside an open roofed building made of brick and with a steel door. He also left 3,000 acres of virgin pine forest with instructions that at least one thousand acres always be planted in pines.

The pine trees that I remember seeing as a youngster towered well over 100 feet in the air and there were thousands and thousands of them. I guess they have been cut now, but they really were something to see in those days. I remember the family visiting the tomb and Mamma telling everyone that De La Howe's Wife and Mistress were both buried in the enclosure. The story now is that he and "several members of his family" are buried there.

The virgin pine forest was a great place for bootleggers in the 1920's and 30's and probably hides many patches of hemp weed today. Daddy said that the bootleggers would have spotters in the tops of the tall trees all the way around the site. The spotters would signal the people at the still with a mirror if they saw revenuers coming. He also said that if they walked the trail to the still in the morning, they would check for cobwebs stretched across. If there were no cobwebs, they wouldn't go to the still because someone else had gone down the trail since the day before.

He told a tale that a certain Mr. Mariney owned a farm near the Savanna river. One day a revenuer came to his house and asked if he could look around the farm for stills. Mr. Mariney reportedly said, Mr. Fed, you can walk down that creek to the river, you can walk back into that big holler over there and you can go most anywhere you want except that little holler over there. There's probably a big bear in that holler!

Daddy's Sawmill Job

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Daddy started out his career as a fifteen year-old working with a gang of sawmill hands. They camped in the woods and every day would go out and cut trees with manual two man crosscut saws, haul them back with mules and then saw them up for lumber with a steam powered sawmill. Each day they ate a hearty breakfast and a huge dinner but had no lunch. Members of the gang took turns cooking unless there was someone hurt and then the invalid would stay in camp and cook until he was ready to go back out on the job. The job paid a dollar a day for everyone that worked. There were no weekends or holidays - you just worked until all the trees were cut and sawed into lumber. Then you helped haul the lumber to town. He said that each day he would start out by drinking half a quart jar of moonshine and giving the rest to one of his buddies. Daddy had connections and each week would leave money in a tree stump which would be replaced by a number of quarts of white liquor. One of Daddy's favorite stories was that he had his foot "mashed" by a tree and had to stay in camp and cook. He was asked if he knew how to cook and he said yes. As soon as everyone headed out for work, he cleaned up the site and washed dishes in the creek beside their camp. Then he poured about 20 pounds of navy beans in the cook pot, covered them in water and sat back to take it easy all day. Within an hour, the beans were out of water and he got more from the creek. He kept adding water until the beans started overflowing the pot and then he started taking beans from the pot and hiding them. When supper finally came, he served the scorched, crunchy mess to the crew. They didn't string him up, but they did find someone else to cook!

Uncle Frank and Aunt Pauline

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Aunt Pauline and Uncle Frank were probably my favorite relatives. They didn't have kids of their own, and they were always trying to spoil me. Uncle Frank pronounced apple as "Opple" and would always bring me one whenever I was around. Frank's mother - Mrs. White - lived with and took care of Big Mamma (Eugene McKinney. who was my dad's mom.) Mrs. White always kept her hair done up on top of her head and I was really surprised once to see her hair when it wasn't tied up. It actually reached her ankles.

Uncle Frank ran liquor stores and played poker. He was pretty good at it and I assume accumulated a lot of money. He also, from time to time, sold bonded liquor from his home on Sundays and after sundown. He was arrested several times, but was never convicted. Uncle Frank also drank a lot of brown liquor. His brand was Jim Beam. He used to say that a lot of doctors told him that if he didn't quit drinking, he would die. He always laughed after telling that and said, "And I outlived every damn one of them." When he was in his eighties, he had problems with blackouts and Aunt Pauline always kept a half-pint bottle of Jim Beam in her purse. When he started having one of his blackout fits, she would feed him a tablespoon of Beam and he would straighten right out.

Aunt Pauline ran a combination pool hall and beer joint near Matthews Millhill. She had four pinball machines too. Her machines would "pay off" even though it was against the law and lots of people would spend their paychecks at those machines. Sometimes she would let well known people in on Sunday and let them play pool, pinball and drink beer. Once, she was raided by the local police. As the story goes, she hit Ramey Underwood (a deputy sheriff) with her fist and broke his jaw. Then she decided to run out the back door of her bar. Unfortunately she forgot that the steps had been torn down and she broke both ankles. I know she didn't go to jail or "do time" for this, so she must have had to pay a fine.

Aunt Pauline and Uncle Frank were good people who made their living in a different way. They didn't "prey on" their customers, but they did take the money that others wanted to give up. Uncle Frank died in the 1990's and Aunt Pauline died while I was in Iraq in 2005. She left me $5,000.00 which I thought was very nice of her.

My Great Great Great Grandfather - Blackbeard the Pirate

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Susie just reminded me that one of my Mom's claims to fame is that she was descended from a pirate - not just any pirate, but Blackbeard the famous pirate. I really can't tell you how she arrived at this conclusion, but I can tell you that Blackbeard did spend a lot of time in Eastern North Carolina where my mother was born. Blackbeard appeared to be friends with the then governor of North Carolina, Charles Eden. Mom was born in a town called Edenton which was named after the governor. Conceivably Mamma could have had a great-great grandmother who was the consort of Edward Teach which was Blackbeard's real name. I don't know...

Mamma, Mac and I visited her hometown after she got sick. It was a good trip, just us three driving from little town to little town talking about the past. We found some people who were named "Everest", which was her mom's maiden name and actually visited one family that said that they remembered Mamma's family. They left North Carolina a long long time ago. Mamma was about five or six years old when they moved and that would have been around 1916. They moved to the swamps of South Carolina where my grandfather held several jobs over the years. He was a trapper, a trestle watcher and a farm hand supervisor.

In 1919, the whole family became ill with the "Spanish Flu" and as a result, Mamma's dad and her little sister died. That's when Mamma and her brothers and sisters had to go to an orphanage in Franklin Springs Georgia. They lived there for several years until their mom remarried. Her new husband was named "Dad Walton" and he welcomed George, Geneva and Mamma into his home. Later, her other siblings, Pearl, Edna, Enza and Bill were born.

My Grandparents

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I visited my Dad's parent's graves today. There was a funeral in Edgewood Cemetary that I was attending and thought I would try to find their plot. I found out that my grandfather's name was William Rufus McKinney (aka Big Papa) and that my grandmother's name was McGrath instead of Tolbert. McGrath, by the way, in this part of the country is pronounced McGraw (as in "queeksdraw mcgraw".) When I saw that I remembered a story that I had heard a long, long time ago. It seems that my grandmother was a Tolbert, but both her parents passed away when she was very young - leaving her as the heiress to a lot of land. As the story goes, her Dad's brother paid the McGrath's to adopt her so that he could take control of the properties. I also recall that the McGraths were not kind to her and that she married at a very early age in order to get away from them. My Dad said that her sister (and I can't remember her name) was married when she was 9 years old. He showed me the tree under which she played with her dolls after the wedding.

Another interesting note is that I also found my wife Pat's grandparent's graves are located adjacent to my grandparents! That's fairly odd, since they didn't know each other and grew up/ lived in different worlds - go figure.

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