History:

A Thing of the Past

(Alcohol, Prostitution , Drugs and Guns)

 History has been a subject taught in schools for many years. Whether the kids in high school now get much in history education, I really don’t know.

We do know that history textbooks have always been subject to great censorship before being approved by certain people associated with them. I know, we don’t call it censorship and have fancy names for our book selections, approvals and disapprovals but by whatever name it’s called it amounts to allowing only the information that suits the approval body to be taught. Therefore, history has become suspect by some as to its reliability as some facts have been intentionally left out that do not suit our views, prejudices or preferences.

The reality is that real history is a great measuring tool of the past and a marvelous predictor of the future. All courses have some basis in the historical past using lessons learned and passed down in every field of human endeavor. Math, chemistry, geology, etc. all have their foundations in their discovery and development through history.

These past few years, we have seen an increasing movement to erase history. It seems to this writer that the recent generations pay little attention to days gone by unless they can point to them with some amount of disdain because of the events included or excluded therein and blame those past occurrences for whatever situation they are in today.

It has even been discovered that some of our old heroes had flaws, unlike the current flawless generation who stands in judgement of the old failings. The new and perfect inhabitants may well take heed from their own tendencies to wonder how the next two or three generations may view their perceived accomplishments, or lack thereof.

Recycling old ideas, prejudices, hatreds, false narratives, and omitting those that we are not comfortable with may result in continued reoccurrences of tripping over them if we do not have a way to recognize them. Like the road signs that show a dangerous curve ahead, a dip in the pavement or rough concrete coming up.

In his book, Reason in Common Sense, (Available from Amazon) the Spanish born philosopher and writer George Santayana made what has become an often quoted and misquoted statement: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That was in 1905. In 1948, Winston Churchill made a similar paraphrase in a speech to the house of commons with “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Mr. Churchill also had some things to say about socialism but we are more and more choosing to ignore those as well.

History does make us uncomfortable at times because it puts a spotlight on failures, shortcomings, and lack of foresight that was exhibited by the then thought-to-be heroes and statesmen and forefathers. It puts in glaring perspective many harsh, evil and ill-conceived practices and notions and actions. Far too many to note here but such things as the treatment of native Americans, slavery, women’s rights are certainly at the top of the list.

This historical neglect is not necessarily a new problem but is magnified today with the world wide web and twenty-four-hour news channels. This is made worse because by the fact that we have had a sense of entitlement and instant gratification on the part of a couple of generations now that have come to believe that anything they want should be theirs no matter who has to pay for it or what price has already been paid by someone else. This may not be their fault.

As one grandfather who was in line with his grandson told me at Chick-Fil-A one morning, “The children today have parents and grandparents clearing the path for them of all obstacles as if they are on bulldozers. They have not had to work to climb up and over like I did.” I observe some that have come to believe their dog has more rights than their neighbor.

One child in college asked their father how they could go about setting up an IRA savings plan with the money she was going to be earning on a part time job while at the same time asking her father for money to be put in her account to pay for her $160 hair appointment she had coming up. Save her money, spend his. She has already learned about OPM. (Other People’s Money) He did not say if he gave her the $160. I would guess he did.

With history, it is not only about the looking back that is a problem. History also poses a problem in that it can intensely illuminate the plans, programs, changes and ideas that someone wants to sell us on. Like dust on the dining room table: not easily seen with the drapes drawn. But, if held up to the light of history, many of the ideas can be seen as the same ones that failed before. Often, more than once. Like an egg that looks like it might hatch a good chick until held up to the light and is then seen to be infertile. Like the idea that habits and desires that multitudes hold fondly will not likely be legislated away as there will be those who will strive to continue them and those that will take great risks to provide them.

We are embarking on some governmental programs now and they obviously have torn the pages out of the history book that reflected badly on the ideas, if they even looked at all. Only use history if it supports your ideas, maybe. History: a thing of the past?

 Alcohol

 In 1917 the Congress of the US proposed a Constitutional Amendment to ban the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol. I wonder how many young people even know about this as they enjoy a Lite Beer with friends today.

Many people applauded this move as alcohol was considered the cause of a multitude of the problems in the country. Health, moral and social issues. Matters of public safety. There again, another big list and someone with well-intended ideas. Many someone’s. The Temperance Movement being a prime mover. The idea to many seemed a logical solution. Remove the evil thing that people liked, craved and engaged in and the problems would go away. Removing the desire for the item and the urge to have it proves a little more difficult.

The proposal would eventually be ratified by the states and went into law in 1919 as the 18^th Amendment followed by the Volstead Act which spelled out the actual things that were banned.

The https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/ website lists the could’s and could not’s:

What Could People Legally Do?

The newspaper reported that it was legal to

• Drink ‘intoxicating liquor’ at home or in a friend’s home.
• Store such liquor alcohol at home.
• Buy liquor with a medical prescription.
• Make, transport and sell sacramental liquor with a government permit.
• Transport liquor from an old residence to a new residence with a government permit

What Could People Not Legally Do?

• Carry a hip flask.
• Give or receive a bottle of liquor as a gift.
• Take liquor into hotels or restaurants and drink it in the public dining room.
• Buy or sell recipes for homemade liquors.
• Ship beverage liquor.
• Store liquor in anywhere except at home.
• Make any liquor at home.
• Display liquor signs or advertisements.

Certain state laws did prohibit drinking. To no avail.

The results were that many everyday people: moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, church members, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends and just about every other group now had law violators and criminals in their midst’s.

Millions of gallons of illegal beer ( 700,000,000 Gals EST.) were made at home. Speak Easy clubs sprang up all over the country illegally selling alcohol and politicians and law enforcement people were frequenters. Caverns in Tennessee and houses in the country.

And, the biggest disaster of all was the creation of what we now call Organized Crime. Fueled by the tremendous profits of rum running and bootlegging, what had been a group of local thugs doing gambling, protection, and prostitution now were well financed liquor barons. They now had the money to pay off police, judges, and politicians and the brute force to enforce their influence of their entire enterprises with nationwide reach. They bought and shoved their way into major industries and unions and dealt harshly with anyone who stood in their way.

Unintended consequences. The failed attempt to legislate behavior lasted until the repeal in 1933 with the 21^st Amendment. Too late to undo the harm it had caused to many and the undo the growth of the crime syndicates. No doubt, many of our otherwise wonderful ancestors were part of the criminal enterprise at some level. Illegal, yes. Stopped, no.

Prostitution

We also have laws against prostitution in forty nine of the fifty states, including Georgia. Some estimates put the prostitution business in Atlanta at $290,000,000 and I would bet that is understated. Miami about $140,000,000.

Illegal, yes. Stopped, No.

There are said to be 1,000,000 prostitutes in the US. Again, how anyone would have a full count on these is hard to believe. Some 42,000,000 are believed to exist around the globe. Some historians say the earliest references to the trade were about 2400 BC.

Some countries have legalized prostitution knowing that they will not ever eliminate it. Germany, Thailand, Australia, and Mexico are among them. It is widely estimated that there are between 700,000 and 1,200,000 prostitutes in the European Union of 28 countries. Some say the business is $100,000,000 but, again, who could really know?

But we continue in the US, with the best of intentions, to put a stop to the business on many grounds, moral, religious, health and safety among them. Prostitution is considered one of the most dangerous professions on the planet.

A friend recently loaned me a book written by H. Gordon Frost entitled The Gentlemen’s Club, The Story of Prostitution in El Paso. In his book, Frost traces the history from the time that El Paso was a wide spot in the trail with about 175 residents through its growth as an important Texas border city.

All through that history, prostitution was a part of the local scene in El Paso. At times, with little oversight. In fact, the city turned a blind eye to the trade. And other times, when there was enough focus by the local clergy and activists’ groups, the city exercised heavy handed enforcement of prostitution laws. The buyers seldom were punished. That is still true in most places today. The sellers? They get arrested, fined, and put through quite a dehumanizing experience while their client goes home to dinner with the wife and kids.

Courts were full, arrests were made, and fines were paid. More ordinances were passed. Campaigns were won or lost on the issue. But prostitution was never run out of town but only relocated from designated red-light districts to local neighborhoods and back again. Over and over.

The games of politics and law enforcement were played and those in the business learned to roll with the punches. Illegal, yes. Stopped, no.

If we learn anything from the history of just these two failed efforts it is that when something that is in demand and popular is made illegal, it becomes more profitable and usually there are those that feel it’s worth the risks, law or no law.

The Mann Act was passed in 1910 primarily to prevent carrying any woman or girl across state lines for prostitution or any immoral purpose. A felony under Federal law. This has not prevented thousands of young women from being transported, many against their will in human trafficking, for just those reason.

Since 2007, more than 49,000 cases of human trafficking in the US have been reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which receives an average of 150 calls per day. These are the reported cases.

Those involved in the prostitution business come to it from many places in life. Some, of course, are victims of groups that force their participation in one manner or another. Others come to it for the financial aspect that exceeds any other means they have of earning a living, despite the risks.

The money many of these practitioners earn is used for what most of us would consider honorable reasons. Buying food for the family, as an example. Others support addiction habits. People who start out looking at this part of society often start out with disdain toward the women (and men) and end up with empathy for their plights.

So, try as we might. Legislate as we might. Punish as we might. There is no end in sight and not likely to be. Too much demand, too much money, too many buyers and too many sellers. The code names change, the facilities used change and means of promoting and selling the change but the more they change, to coin a phrase, the more they remain the same.

Many politicians, big time evangelists, business executives, entertainment celebrities, and laborers have been caught up in the life at one time or another. The conclusion is that it is here to stay at least another 5000 years or so.

Drugs

This brings us to the subject of drugs. You may have heard somewhere that drugs are basically illegal in the US and many foreign countries. This illegal status has not stopped the US drug industry (According to Rand Corporation research) in becoming an industry that does an estimated $100 Billion annually! And, again, no one really knows the true numbers.

Four illicit drugs: cocaine (including crack), heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine (meth) make up the bulk. This does not include illegal sales of prescription drugs. Once again, when something that is in demand and popular is made illegal, it becomes more profitable and usually there are those that feel it’s worth the risks, law or no law.

We declared a war on drugs, as some will recall, in about 1970. We created a new department that is now referred to as the DEA which has close to 5000 agents and several hundred people using all kinds of surveillance and intense undercover methods to put an end to the sale of illegal drugs in the US.

We have succeeded in arresting thousands of small time users and sellers and putting lots of people in jail. According to the FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, the estimated number of arrests for drug abuse violations has been increasing. Arrests of adults increased in recent years, while arrests of juveniles decreased slightly. Juveniles are defined as persons under age 18. Adults are defined as persons age 18 or older. In 1987 drug arrests were 7.4% of the total of all arrests reported to the FBI; by 2007, drug arrests had risen to 13.0% of all arrests.

(Sourced from:

Bureau of Justice Statistics Websitettps://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/enforce.cf)

So, we may be winning the war on arrests, but it appears the war on drug use is all but lost if the $100,000,000 (?) dollar sales are any indication. In fact, many cities and states have started abandoning the practice of arresting people for use of drugs. Some states now have actually legalized the sales despite the Federal laws.

The abandonment of such enforcement results in less cases being filed and may give the appearance that the drug enforcement has reduced the huge usage problem. In fact the reduction comes from less cases and not from reduced drug use. The statistics are very nice for the law enforcement folks when they are requesting more money and more people and testifying before a Congressional Committee, however.

While raising hemp was outlawed (part of the cannabis family) growers are now making billions selling cannabis oil grown in their nurseries for medical use. This serves to make the product very profitable and highly expensive to those needing it medically. Sorry to sound repetitive, but, when something that is in demand and popular is made illegal, it becomes more profitable and usually there are those that feel it’s worth the risks, law or no law.

The total statistics are too extensive to include here but in the United States in 2012, the DEA arrested 30,476 suspects for federal drug offenses while state and local law enforcement arrested 1,328,457 suspects for drug offenses. Over the last 25 years the majority of DEA’s arrests have been for cocaine-related offenses.

What the war on drugs has succeeded in doing has been to criminalize many everyday folks, just like the Prohibition Laws, so that moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, church members, brothers, sisters, neighbors, teachers, professors, friends and just about every strata of society have violated some of these laws.

For a certainty, the laws did what the Prohibition laws did but now the scale is much larger. Some of the planet’s wealthiest are leaders of a modern-day version of the twenties Organized Crime families that we have come to call Cartels. Some estimates put the sales of illegal drugs worldwide at between $426 Billion and $652 Billion making it near the top of illegal business.

The ruthlessness and ingenuity of these groups is astounding. Using the various simplest methods with some person carrying drugs to deliver in a body cavity or back pack to custom built submarines, under the border tunnels, airplanes, jungle high tech production factories, and basement growing labs, the drug industry has flourished during this war.

Interestingly, during the past twenty years, the US has provided military protection to the world’s largest growers of drug producing plants in Afghanistan.  Drones, satellites, helicopters, feet on the ground, and informants would likely know where every poppy plant is in that country but there are probably really good reasons the military and the CIA and others have not put a stop to it if we are truly at war on drugs.

Could it be? When something that is in demand and popular is made illegal, it becomes more profitable and usually there are those that feel it’s worth the risks, law or no law.

Will we, as with alcohol, throw in the towel on drugs? May be a while yet. But we see increasing pressure to decimalize some or all. But it is good fodder for political elections and rhetoric .

We will likely see a million and a half more arrests every year for some years to come to justify the existence of another bureaucratic department and employees. While they privately recognize that even the great Sherlock Holmes occasionally visited the opium dens in London. Like it or not, this problem is not likely going anywhere.

Guns

Full Disclosure:

I should point out that I have never been directly affected by laws regarding alcohol, prostitution or drugs. (Might not admit it if I had, you know) So as a matter of fact, the severity and absurdity that comes with these laws have not impacted me directly. But who’s to say that people I know, my neighbors, family members and others have not. But I say put ‘em in jail, fine ‘em, or whatever and it wouldn’t bother me, I guess.

Maybe we need more severe laws on cocaine, for example. Rights, The Bill of Rights, and the Constitution be hanged!

I grew up around guns and in homes with guns. My father and mother never owned guns until they moved back to the country and my dad bought an over and under .22/410 and later a .22 semi auto rifle. These became keepsakes and have probably not been fired in years.

My grandparents had single and double-barrel shotguns standing in the corner of the bedrooms. There were usually two boxes of shells: one box of bird shot and one of buck shot. The buckshot were used as part of the home security system. I never knew of them being used. But everyone knew that every rural house had this same system thereby discouraging the home invasion and burglary attempts as someone was usually home and grandma knew had to use the security system.

Kids never bothered the guns and I never knew of anyone who was injured by them. The kids were told to leave them alone and they usually did.

The next big business opportunity for huge illegal gains will likely be guns. With this topic being one that becomes a hot topic every time some idiot or mad man decides to make some statement by shooting people for no sane reason.

By some estimates, 42% of US homes have guns. If this is accurate, nearly half the folks you meet have some form of firearm at home. My uninformed guess is the number is actually unknown. For many years guns were made with no serial numbers and no record of their sales. And, these were often handed down from one generation to another. Some are, of course, merely keepsakes and have been out of sight and out of mind for years.

But I have been amazed in conversations over the past few years as to how many people I would have never dreamed had a firearm in their home actually have them in the handbag or car center console. Some have them in both places. Talking to one lady I was startled to learn she had three handguns.

Around the world and in the US the number of firearms is a matter of whose estimate you chose to use. There are well over a billion in the world by many estimates. Although many socialist and communist countries have tried to disarm their citizens, many of those same countries actually manufacture and distribute guns for financial gain.

Just a note, in Sweden, a Swede may be given a license to own up to six hunting rifles, ten pistols or a combination of eight rifles and pistols. There would need to be a valid reason for ownership of more firearms. It is stipulated that all firearms are to be stored/kept in an approved gun safe. With Ten million people, Sweden had 124 murders last year. Guns don’t seem to be a problem there.

The most widely used and most recognizable firearm in the world is not made in the US and is not the AR15 which is so talked about. Not even close.

The AK-47 rifle was put in to production in 1947 (hence, the 47 designation) in Russia and was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov (the K in AK-47. The A was for Avtomat or machine). Some 100,000,000 have been produced in Russia and other Communist block countries since that time. Arguably the most destructive weapon of all time.

Featuring selective firing options from single to fully automatic, this is the choice of weapons for drug cartels and bad guys around the world. There are stories of US service men throwing down their M16’s in Vietnam and picking up AK’s from enemy troops and their ammo. US troops were discouraged from using their M-16’s in the fully auto mode as they would seize up when they got hot. The AK’s are known for their reliability. This gun is still produced in some countries and there are new improved versions entering service in Russia.

I bought my first gun when I was about thirteen or fourteen. It was a 16 Gauge single shot that I bought at Bankston’s Hardware for $25. I never fired the gun in anger and, so far as I know, no one else has either. I disposed of the gun, to my sorrow now, years ago. I’d pay a lot more to get it back.

The $25 was my pay for working on my grandfather’s farm for the summer. Really, all year. I helped him for about 12 years during school and that was the only money I was ever paid.

Guns are considered intrinsically evil by some. Just as alcohol, drugs and prostitution are/were to some others. No amount of conversation or persuasion will convince them otherwise even though far more people are killed by alcohol. The moment the alcohol, drugs and prostitution were banned were great moments in history to some. Briefly. Today, people will have a cocktail while discussing gun control.

Many came to realize that a few thousand dying from drugs and alcohol were worth it if it meant the rest did not have to give them up or be criminals. Actually, we decided that people dying from alcohol related issues wasn’t such a big deal, apparently. There are some 95,000 alcohol related deaths a year in the US. Over 14 million have alcohol related disorders. Over 400,000 young people between 12 and 17 have alcohol problems. 28 people a day in alcohol related auto accidents, 10,142 drunk driving deaths a year.

Maybe we should ban alcohol. Wait. We did that already. Let’s all drink to that!

And there are 70,630 Drug Related deaths a year. (2019). Over 2,000,000 abuse prescription drugs. Maybe we should ban drugs.

Oops. We did that and now some are saying, “Back off!”

Some might say, “Even my best friends do some cocaine once in a while. What’s the big deal?”

The biggest home-grown terrorist attack was perpetrated using a rental truck and a combined mixture of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel. Bombs and suicide vests are popular in many countries around the world. The biggest foreign attack by terrorist in the US, of course, used commercial air liners and box cutters. We didn’t see either of those coming. We probably won’t see the next one either. Evil people are not limited by laws, just maybe inconvenienced.

There is a huge supply of guns in the world for those of evil intent. There are people ready to supply them for the same reasons they supplied alcohol in the 1920’s, drugs in the 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, and today. And for the same reasons they kidnap and enslave young women and sell sex today: There are plenty of buyers. It’s a profitable enterprise. And, there are plenty of sellers who can find people willing to take most of the risks for them, do the dirty work. These  are expendable allowing the kingpins, godfathers, and cartel rulers to make billions with less personal risk.

The same ships, submarines, airplanes, under border tunnels and freight containers can haul them that haul thousands of tons of marijuana and cocaine. The same ships that hauled rum and liquor in bygone days.

Many honest, every day people will be criminalized. Some people will give up their guns of every description because they are law abiding citizens even if they are opposed to the law itself. But none of the bad guys will.

CNC machines will turn out guns in the same basements that were making meth and for the same reasons: When something that is in demand and popular is made illegal, it becomes more profitable and usually there are those that feel it’s worth the risks, law or no law.

With almost half of our population having and owning firearms and seeing them as a right assured them in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, many will feel it is their right as an American and will not be quick to give them up.

We continue to think that punishing good people with laws and rules is a way to stop the bad people. This approach makes many feel like much has been accomplished and a lot of times whole nations have been destroyed by the over reach of power.

But history is not too popular these days. In fact, history may just be a thing of the past. Will freedom become a thing of the past, too?

We have always believed freedom was the most important thing and a large percentage of our population has not witnessed firsthand how freedom has been removed from various millions and the results were unimaginable. Many philosophical questions arise about all of the afore-mentioned problems.

We have just been through a dark time in the US with Covid. Maybe we’re still in it. The threat and fear generated showed the government of the US what can be done when these methods are used. Businesses closed, schools shut, freedom of movement restricted, freedoms diminished and maybe, the stage has been set to use these methods to further any agenda.

Maybe, if anyone is still studying history in years to come, there may be lessons to learn. Maybe, no one will remember a “land of the free and home of the brave.” And, worse, maybe no one will care because they don’t realize what was lost. Six million Jews were killed because they were Jews. Some five million others because they were targeted racial and political or behavioral reasons. Freedom was lost to them all.

Some won’t remember that being born in the US with all of its faults and flawed leaders was better than most any alternative. That the places that criticize and admonish us would all be speaking German, Russian, Chinese, or Japanese if it weren’t for the US and the sacrifices made by millions here. Maybe even Farsi.

In a song by Kris Christopherson , Me and Bobby McGee, he says these words: freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. I like the song but not that line. Freedom was worth everything for those that helped buy it. Too many today have had no part in that cost. Like a free shirt you get for Christmas from Aunt Sara: put it in the drawer and forget it.

Maybe you’ll can give up your freedoms and let me keep mine? More likely, it’s probably the other way around for a lot of folks. What has history shown us?

History: a thing of the past? We may lose sight of history and not even know it.

JC2021

The Days Before UPS, FedEx, Amazon and I-75

(And, Bradberry’s and Dyas are Long Gone)

 I could be wrong on this, as likely as that would seem to everyone. But, I suspect that most people under 50 years have not stopped to realize that there has not always been a UPS, a FedEx and certainly no Amazon.com. Yet, people all over the country relied heavily on goods being shipped to them that they ordered from various catalogs like Sears and Montgomery Ward. Maybe you ordered some chrome parts for your ’50 Ford Flathead V/8 from the J.C. Whitney catalog.  People routinely ordered clothes, live chickens, machinery parts and furniture and just about everything, literally, under the sun without so much as a telephone. Yes, you could even buy live chickens from radio station WCKY in Cincinnati, Ohio and WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee. There were probably other stations as well, that I did not ever hear, on the radio doing the same thing.

While today we are hearing talk of drones delivering merchandise to you the same day that you order it, maybe within hours, back in Sandy Point Times that was not the case. In fact the process for ordering could take two to three weeks and even more, depending on where the shipper was located and where the recipient lived.

Let’s say you needed a new tractor tire and Sears had the size you needed in their catalog. We could talk a lot about just the Sears Catalog but just remember you could buy clothes, a house, a new shotgun, or an automobile from the Sears Catalog! You name it and they had it! They had really cool motor scooters and motorbikes that you could dream about while sitting in front of the fireplace looking at page after page. Your grandmother had her pages marked. So did you and your grandfather. It was called the “wish book”.

So you get the order form out of the Sears catalog and you fill out the blanks with all the details and who you are and where you live. You might get a money order from the postman because you had no checks. (People even sent cash in the mail). You fold that all up and put it in an envelope and the postman would pick it up the next day. The order was on its way to Chicago.

In about a week Sears would have your order and process it and now they had to decide how it was to be shipped based on size and weight. Items that were too big for the post office would be shipped by one of about four companies, but in our world that company was The Railway Express Agency. The Post Office eventually got into the Parcel Post business.

The Railway Express was started by the government around the First World War after all the railroads were taken over by them to insure that goods could get from one place to another reliably. It was owned by a consortium of the railroads. The REA served as the connection between the business, the railroad and the customer. Nearly everything was moved across the country by rail as trucking was unreliable and almost non-existent on any national scale except on a local level. You could even get stuff shipped to you COD.

Once the item was shipped, it might take two to three weeks to make all the connections to get to your local REA location. Not every town had one. They were in business until about 1975 but should have been closed sooner.

The people in Sandy Point could get their shipment at the Roberta train depot where the item would be unloaded. They would send you a post card in the mail telling you your package or crate was there for pick up and that you had a certain number of days to come get it or it was going back! I do not believe they had a delivery service at that location but they did in larger cities like Macon and then, they only delivered in certain areas from that location. And, the railroads served most areas in those days.

They also had the “rolling stores” that came by every so often with sewing thread, liniment, cold cream and treats. The Watkins man came by with all kinds of products, too. And, doctors made house calls!

There again, it is amazing how much the country depended on the railroads in days past. Over the years, I have traveled up and down Hwy 42 from Roberta to Forsyth and on to Indian Springs, Jackson, Locust Grove and Stockbridge areas many, many times. I would always notice this sign at the Monroe County/Crawford County line area near Tobesofkee Creek on what I thought was an old store. The faded sign said “Dyas”. I often wondered about it until one day I decided to look up the history.

I was amazed to learn that there was a railroad depot there for the Macon-Birmingham Railroad (also referred to as the Macon-LaGrange Railroad) and that in its heyday they shipped 25,000 bales of cotton annually from there! Courting couples would ride their buggies down to see the train come in. The boll weevil put it out of business and it was closed and grew over with weeds. The rails were taken up and now the old building with the sign has fallen down. No one passing by would ever guess that such commerce went on in that remote location where the cotton fields are now all oaks and pines.

Now, the rails are gone in Roberta, too. The depot was closed but rescued for other use and stands today as a reminder to a bygone time when railroads “ruled the road” and people would actually wait three weeks or more for a package and think that was just fine! I would guess many pass by it without a clue to why it is there. Funny how other countries embrace railroads and high speed trains that run over 200 miles per hour.

In my area, bicycles now occupy the rail beds where the Silver Comet once ran. The last train ran on January 18^th, 1969.  The Nancy Hanks made its last trip from Macon to Atlanta in 1971. A trip to Atlanta on the Nancy Hanks to shop at Rich’s: now that was about as good as it got back when.

There is a great story about the lady from Macon who took the Nancy Hanks to Atlanta and when she and a friend got there, they went into the men’s bathroom at the train station by mistake. The story made the Atlanta Journal. But, we’ll let that wait for another day.

To add insult to injury, they built that interstate highway and politics put it through Macon. The bumper to bumper lines of cars passing through town from Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana are gone. The six or so thriving motels and three or four restaurants, like The Pine Lawn, Hortman’s and Bradberry’s that sat along US 341 and were full all summer long are nearly all gone, too. Only traces remain of them now. A lot of local people worked in the restaurants including my mother-in-law and my wife on occasion when she was a teenager.

No swimmers are in the Bradberry pool and there’s no good warm pie on Sunday night after church there, either. Ms. Annie Braswell is not playing the piano at the Baptist Church, where my wife and I were married and Bob Hill drew funny pictures, anymore. And, there are no movies up in the theater on the town square.

And, do you know what? Maybe that suits everyone just fine. “Let ‘em have the traffic, the noise, the crime and pollution somewhere else and just leave us the peace and quiet!”

But it was exciting when you went to the mailbox and there was your REA postcard stating that the new tractor tire or the plow parts had arrived, or the new Icebox. Let’s get in the truck and go! And there it sat on the dock!

After it was loaded, you could get an ice cream or cherry Coke from the soda shop at Dr. Johnson’s drug store where my future sister-in-law worked at times. You might stop in Bankston’s for a few things where I bought my first shotgun for $26.50 , window shop the new dresses at Seagler’s and pick up any grocery items over at John Hicks’ store while you were there. W.F Andrews and Sons was there for your farm supply needs.

Who knows? There may be a day when a train goes through Roberta again on overhead rails that make no noise and the train does not even touch and people will pass through from Miami going to Atlanta and Chattanooga and New York in a few hours at 160 miles per hour using Magnetic Levitation. Who knows? They do it all over the world, except here. And when they pass by Dyas, they won’t even know it because there isn’t a sign left standing. And, maybe things are the way God intended.

 © 2015 H Jerome Chapman

 

Obsessed with Hand Sanitizer

Now, let me start out by saying that I have had some of the hand sanitizers around for years. This didn’t start with the Covid 19 thing with me.

History:

Traveling every day for years in my car across Middle and South Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and later some in Florida, I found myself coming into contact with many situations that caused one too question the survivability of anyone coming in close contact. When you add traveling with a wife that has walked out of more than one motel, hotel, restaurant and B&B, having a means of self-defense was always necessary. Concealed carry had a different meaning.
Without painting too vivid a picture, let’s just say there have been public restrooms that would gag a buzzard. The State rest areas are great but are not to be found on the backroads and secondary highways. A sign saying Clean Restrooms means different things to different people. So, a bottle of Purell, Germ-X or Publix Sanitizer was always present in our vehicles.

Also, you’d find a roll of paper towels and a roll of toilet paper. I was admonished a few times by people for having the audacity to have a roll of toilet paper rolling around visible in the back of my SUV. But there were times I might have paid twenty bucks or more for a roll.

Some bathrooms required a lot of paper towels and hand sanitizer before I was willing to touch any part of them with my hands, not to mention any other body parts. Gasoline and a match would probably be the only way to completely cleanse some of them.

You would wonder why the location would have their bathroom key attached to a large and sometimes creative item to avoid you driving off with it. Things like oil cans, Ping Pong paddles, small baseball bats, and, in one case, a brick. You have probably seen others. That brick was a good idea in case you got locked in, maybe.

Pandemic

Then, the pandemic hit. I had a supply of all the above-mentioned items, so I did not panic when I went into Publix the first time and found all the shelves cleaned off. But I suddenly found myself pumping, spraying, pouring and wiping more than ever before.

The hand sanitizer, Clorox cleaner spray bottles and paper towels started being used up and I found myself going to Publix at 7:00 AM to be first in line and I’d make a Bee line to the hand sanitizer section: EMPTY! Then to the paper products: Empty! Clorox wipes: GONE! Panic has started to set in!

I still wasn’t out of anything, you understand. But it was the mere thought of not having these life saving items that caused me to wonder how I would cope.

A friend in need is, well you know. One of these friends told me he was saving his Wall Street Journals and he would set aside half of them for me! Half! Now that is a friend!

Then, I was in one day and they have some strange looking hand sanitizer. Kills 99.9%of Bacteria it said. Limit Two. I grabbed my two and hid them in the buggy to keep anyone from reaching in and getting them when I wasn’t looking. I almost felt like a shoplifter.

In the Sanitizing wipes area, they were still out of Clorox and Lysol wipes and I saw people looking at some off-brand wipes and putting them back. One lady said, “I don’t believe they are the germ killers.”I picked up one and looked very closely. In very small print it said Kills 99.9% of most common germs. I grabbed two before anyone had a chance at them. These were mine!

I was slowly being overtaken by the sanitizer obsession!

Then the odd paper towels showed up. Bounty was out so my loyalty ended. Any paper towel was now fair game! Toilet paper in a cardboard box showed up! Buy it!

I was there yesterday. The only Bounty they had was a 12 packs and the Charmin was a 12= 48 package. Jumbo rolls So big they won’t fit on my holders. As big as a small tree trunk! So I settled for another brand of more suitable sizes.

But now, Home Depot is in the sanitizer business. They must have two or three truck loads at the store across from Publix. No limits on theirs. So, I bought some. Then I was at Lowes. They had some. So, I bought some.

Then some showed up at Publix. Limit Two. I bought one. “Don’t be greedy,” I said to myself.

Now, I am stocked up with about 10 different hand sanitizers. Now I have to decide which one I want to use. Some smell like whiskey! More stress. Now I have guilt feelings.

I have five or six brands of toilet paper. More choices. More guilt feelings. No. I am not a hoarder!

If the Clorox No Bleach spray bottles shows up, I gotta have some! I’ll even take Lysol.

And Hand wipes!? Well they better look out when they get some of those in. I may go through the line twice! Home Depot. Lowes. WalMart.

Conclusion

I may need help!

Jerome Chapman
©July 2020

Sawmills and Slabs

You don’t hear people talking about sawmills much, these days. I guess most would know what one is. But, nobody talks about and few know about the slabs we use to get from the sawmills. Sawmills and slabs were important to my grandparents.

People today might recognize a sawmill if they saw one but if you type in wood slab in Google you won’t see what we got as slabs back in Sandy Point.

One of my neighbors stopped in the street yesterday and we were discussing the abrupt change in the weather as the first cold snap of the winter was moving in. We started talking about fireplaces and wood and then we started talking about wood stoves. This particular neighbor is one of the few in the neighborhood that is actually older than me and has actually been around wood stoves: not those newfangled ones but the old Home Comfort ones that Grandmother used to cook those delicious biscuits and apple pies. And, there were sawmills and slabs involved.

One of our sons lived in Spokane, Washington for a while and the house they bought had a pellet stove in the bottom level. Man! That thing put out some heat and used those pellets you buy in a bag.

The closest thing to that in Sandy Point would have been sawdust or shavings and 90% of it was burned in big sawdust burners at the end of the sawmill yard. Some was used on the floors of restaurant kitchens, butcher shops, chicken houses, and around muddy areas at the Georgia State Fair and horse stalls.

Here is an old sawdust burner. Imagine hot coals inside, flames coming out of the top and the sheet metal sides glowing red hot as you drove past in the dark of night! That was a common sight as the demand for dimensional lumber to build houses grew after WWII. The EPA would go berserk today!

The Open Air barbeque in Jackson, some of the best Barbeque in the State, had sawdust floors until the health departments started making those type places put in concrete or wood, etc. No more spitting on the floor! Sawdust and chips today go into particle board, pressed wood products, and charcoal for the barbeque grill and paper.

My neighbor said all of his aunts and grandmothers cooked on the wood stoves and mine did too and most I ever saw were the Home Comfort Stoves. I’m sure there were others used. But they all required fuel and were designed to burn wood which was more readily available than other fuels and coal, if used, was usually used in an iron coal heater that could take more heat.

The kitchen stove was fired up early. My grandfather would get up early and go “light the stove” to let it start warming up the kitchen and getting hot enough to melt lard and cook eggs and bacon and fat back. There was an oven for those biscuits and warmers at the top where my grandmother put two cups of coffee and bread for me and her youngest son, my uncle, who was only three years older than me. That was our breakfast when we got up. I still say Starbucks or Chic Fil A could sell them but they would need my grandmother’s biscuits!

But, that brings us back to the saw mills and slabs.

The fireplace wood, usually oak, was identified as “fire wood” and was cut and split, hopefully from last year’s wood or wood that had dried out. Sometimes it might be sweetgum or hickory but that darn sweetgum popped out hot coals everywhere. The trees were sawed down on the farm usually with hand saws until the Swedish guy invented the chain saw and people who could afford one got one. Those firewood pieces had to be the right size for the particular fireplace and might be twenty inches to thirty inches. Today, it’s a good Stihl chain saw and a log splitter. Or buy it off a wood lot. The log splitter back in Sandy Point was an ax.
Wood for the Home Comfort stove in the kitchen was “stove wood” and was usually pine. And the source of that stove wood at my grandparents’ was the local saw mill and most towns had a saw mill somewhere close. There were portable mills that were set up on large timber tracts and all of the waste was left behind and sawdust piles dotted the landscape in woods of the South. These were often referred to as “peckerwood” mills.

Sawmills in the Old Days of Sandy Point were terribly inefficient as far as yield of saw lumber from the tree. Not only did they generate mountains of sawdust that was mostly burned, they generated slabs. Modern mills use lasers and get a much higher yield and all of the tree gets used in one way or another. But in the old days a lot of the tree went to waste.

The sawdust eventually came to be used for fuel to kiln dry the lumber but most lumber was stacked outside and air dried back then. It would be rough sewn and then “dressed” when someone needed to build a house or construct anything needing finished lumber. The old barn on my son’s farm in Tennessee has all undressed oak lumber and it is still very stout after all these years.

There were two big sawmills near Sandy Point and the sawdust burners would glow at night as the sawdust burned and there were heavy screens over the top to reduce sparks from drifting and setting everything on fire. It was part of the only industry for miles around in farming country.

When a pine tree was cut up for lumber, it had to be prepared and after it was cut to the length, the log was trimmed on all four sides by various methods to square it up using large saw blades depending on the size and sophistication of the mill. This process created “slabs” of wood from the four sides of the tree with the bark still on them.

To the mill, this was waste but to many people it was cheap lumber to build a pig pen, a cow pen, or to put a roof on the chicken coop. To others It was “stove wood”! Almost!

My grandfather would take the truck and go get a load of the slabs which the mill sold for a cheap price to get rid them. You had to load them yourself.

Once home, there was a big wood saw, often referred to as a buzz saw, with a 30” blade that was hooked up to the PTO on the tractor with a belt and when running the whine of the saw could be heard for a long distance and the danger of losing a hand, a finger, or an arm was very high! I think they should have been named “whine” saws not buzz saws. They still make these saws in a slightly safer version, today.

The slabs were fed into the saw and cut into pieces about twelve inches long to fit into the wood stove after being split a couple of times with an ax. Then you had stove wood. A big pile in the yard and a chop block and an ax stood ready and there was a stove wood box on the back porch and a small box by the stove so grandmamma did not have to go out in the cold to get more as needed. The kids had to keep the stove wood box full. There was kindling too.

Was it worth all that work? There was no choice if you wanted a hot meal, a warm kitchen and the best biscuits in the world. Even after my grandmother got an electric range she still did her serious cooking on the wood stove.

But I believe wood stoves got too much credit on the pies and biscuits. I believe it had more to do with that wooden bowl/tray/platter thing my grandmother used to make up that dough and the way she would have it up to her elbows and maybe it was that wooden spoon and the wooden rolling pin. Or, perhaps, that hog lard from the bacon grease that sat on the warmer of the stove. No wonder my cholesterol is 300!

JC©2016

Memorial Day : They Never Said A Word

They Never Said a Word

An Old Message For This Memorial Day

Tom Brokaw wrote a book about the “Greatest Generation” and it received high acclaim and attention. He talked about it on a number of shows and there was a special reverence toward those who came through the days of the depression, hard times, and World War II. Those were a special time in history. A time when about 55,000,000 were killed in one form or another. Tom Brokaw never served in the military although his father was in the Army.

These service men came home and help build America’s industry and economy. They got married, had children, built businesses, and today are slowly passing from the scene leaving their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with little information. I have known a few of these and know of others. They all, with a few exceptions, never talked about their experiences. My father went into the military in 1944 but the war ended before he went overseas and he never saw combat. He was in France and Germany during his stay.

My father was passed over by the draft board for a time because his twin brother was already in and my father had a dependent child. Fortunately, they both made it back safely. My Uncle James and Uncle Jimmy were in service and Uncle James was wounded in action. He told me, the only time I ever heard him mention it, that he was “lucky” because he was only wounded and not killed like a lot of his comrades. He received a Purple Heart.

My Dad’s twin was in the signal corps traveling with Patton. He mentioned two things about his service to me: On one occasion they set up a radio base in an abandoned farm. The soldiers found the stash of wine and he laughed at how they had a lot of trouble with some of the guys indulging in it too much. The other situation was not a laughing matter as he was involved with the follow up on The Massacre at the Ardeatine Caves, 24 March 1944. I looked up some information on the events for him some years back that took place in Italy when the Germans killed 335 civilians and left their bodies piled in the man-made caves.

The District manager for our largest supplier for many years served in the Army as a captain. He was the only person whom I ever heard making any “bragging” type comments. When asked about his military service, he would reply that “I was hired to kill Germans and I was good at it”. But, most veterans of combat that I have known rarely spoke of it, if at all.

When Gary Francis Powers was shot down by the Russians in his U2 Spy Plane, most Americans had never heard of a U2 and certainly never seen one. When I got home from school that was all over the front page of the paper and I could not wait to show this “secret” airplane to my dad when he came home from work. When I showed him the article his reply was, “I’ve been working on the U2 project for 8 years.” He had never mentioned it before and never mentioned it again.

A young man came to Atlanta to work for our main supplier. He had just come from serving in the Marine Corps.  While serving at Guantanamo Cuba, he often served on sentry duty. One evening a man cut his way through the fence and was making his way across the field. The young Marine called his CO and reported the infiltration and asked for instructions.

“Fire a warning shot over his head and see if he stops,” was the reply. So that is what he did but the man kept coming toward the base. He reported that to his CO. “Shoot him,” was the order.

So, that is what he did. He killed a man that he had never seen before. He was still struggling with that when he started calling on me. I don’t know if he ever got over it.

The pastor at our old church flew fighter-bombers in Vietnam and flew over 300+ missions. Not the usual resume for a preacher. One of my former customers never mentioned the fact that he flew F4’s in Vietnam. I learned it from his obituary. My neighbor across the street flew cargo and refueling planes. You would never think of him as a pilot today. Another fellow that I came in contact with, who raised peaches and dabbled in politics a lot over the years, flew with the Flying Tigers. Again, I learned that from his obituary. A lumber company and building supply owner flew B17’s and crash landed after his plane was all shot up. You would never know but you might question why he walked with a limp. Most just never said a word.  Why?

I think that most did not feel that blowing people up, killing the enemy, and watching their comrades die was anything to brag about. There was a reverence toward it all and they felt that their families would be better off not knowing some of the things they had seen and done. It was something they had been called on to do, they did it, and they wrestled with their demons for the rest of their lives while trying to put it behind them. There were a lot of men who suffered “shell shock”, as it was called then, and people shook their heads at how sad it was to see them that way. Today, we call it Post Traumatic Stress and still seem to do little about it. Maybe we really don’t know how, even today. That brings me to Willie.

I first met Willie when introduced to him by my friend Bob at Bob’s office one day. I don’t really know how Bob knew Willie except that Willie sold insurance for Life of Virginia. It turned out that Willie liked to shoot doves and do some hunting in general and that led us to have some meals together, laugh at some jokes, and pop a few caps on the dove field. I did not realize that Willie was the same age as my Mother. His wife worked at Sears and was a sweet lady and we went over there for dinner and had lunch with them a few times. Willie and Bertie had three sons and one retired later as a major from the US Army.

As people go, they were the “salt of the earth” type people. They never seemed to accumulate a lot in the way of worldly possessions but they enjoyed life. Willie was not a macho type guy and would not appear to have a “mean bone in his body”, as my Grandmother would say. He was one that you could not picture with an M1 Rifle and a battle helmet on, for sure.

One day, some time back, Willie called my friend Bob and asked if he was going to be around his office for a while, he wanted to come by. When he arrived, he had something wrapped up in a cloth. He told Bob that he wanted to give it to him.

Bob unwrapped the cloth and found it to be a German Luger pistol. Not a commercial copy but a “real McCoy” German Luger from World War II. Willie said that he wanted Bob to have it because if he left it for one of his sons the others would be upset. This way, they would never know about it or where it went. Willie had brought it home from the War. Bob promised to keep it in trust for the present time.

Now, Bob had never had any real conversation with Willie about being in the War and I am not sure that he even realized that Willie had been in service. So Bob asked how he came by the Luger. Willie replied in a matter of fact way that he had taken it off of a German officer that he had killed! Willie had killed somebody!? Are you kidding? This man sold life insurance for a living, for Goodness Sakes!

It seems that Willie’s outfit captured some Germans and the officer was not searched very well. While the Americans were giving the Germans some food and hot coffee, the German officer pulled out his Luger and shot one of the Americans. Willie, in turn, shot the German and kept the Luger pistol.

So, Willie had killed a German officer. Under the circumstances, you could see how that would happen.  Bob commented to Willie that he had never thought about him actually shooting anyone and that having to take a life, even in combat, had to be tough. Willie’s reply was somewhat startling.

He, in fact, had shot many Germans. One night, he was on guard duty watching a rock wall fence downhill from where his company was dug in. There was an opening in the fence and the Germans were trying to get through to flank his camp. One after another, one of the enemy troops would come through the opening trying to reach the other side of the clearing. One after another Willie shot them. Between 20 and 25 that night alone. Shooting one German officer was not actually that big of a deal! It was all in a day’s work for Willie. The officer was not the first and would not be the last. And, no one would have ever guessed it. He had never said a word. In another occasion, he and a comrade were sent to check out a town occupied by Germans in France. Before that night was over he shot 28 Germans. He said his comrade wasn’t too good and only got about 20. They picked them off going and coming between a headquarters building and a self-styled bar.

How did these men do these tasks? How did they get to a point that they could shoot one enemy soldier after another. Were they driven by the fear that if they did not kill the other guy they would get killed? Were the driven by their concern for their buddies? Were they doing it for their Country? Did it actually get to be fun? Did they get a rush pulling the trigger?

Most of the men that Willie shot, he probably did not get “up close and personal” with. They were several yards away and you could not see the look in their eyes or hear the last breath leave them. But, the German officer was different. He was right there. Up close. And, many would say, he asked for it! He had done the unthinkable….shooting at a group who were now befriending him and treating him humanely. But Willie kept his Luger all those years. Why?

That event touched Willie in some deep human way. Probably in ways he did not acknowledge or understand. Maybe, parting with that gun was the last of the demons that Willie had lived with all those years. Now, in the waning days of his life, he may can sleep a little better! The last ghost was now gone from his closet. He never said.

Memorial Day 2019

© HJC 2017