Hawkinsville, My Home Town, Another Look

In Hawkinsville, Saturdays were almost like school in a different location. Every store—grocery, furniture, hardware, clothing and drug store—had teens working on Saturdays to fill the void needed for clerks. All the country folks came to town that day, ready to spend their money or charge things until they could pay for them later.
Many stores had benches for the customers to sit and visit a spell. For grocery clerks, that could spell danger when they were carrying groceries out to the cars and trucks for the customers. Conversation and laughter outside on the benches was raucous and snuff and tobacco spit was flying, literally causing the clerks to tap dance their way through the maze.
Betty Jo Hadden worked at Ben Silver’s Clothing store. Little Ernie Mashburn and Tony Anderson were busy dipping ice cream cones at Goode’s Drugs. (On the left below is a picture of Goodes Drugs and Soda Fountain during the 1950s. On the right are four classmates from HHS, L-R, Jill Joiner, Billy Shepherd, Lottye Reynolds, and Sayde Fowler, regulars at the soda fountain.)

The Cabero boys were working at Hawkinsville Fruit & Candy Store, something to do with the fact their father was a working partner in the business. Bo or Hans Mayer could be seen walking around town with a cigar box which doubled as a temporary collection box. ( On a recent trip down memory lane, Bo Mayer, right, and her son, Ronnie, showing a striking resemblance to his late father, Hans Mayer enjoyed a visit at the Steak House Restaurant in Hawkinsville.)

In Massee’s Furniture, some of the outstanding athletes from the Red Devils were moving furniture and appliances from the store to customer’s homes. ( Members of the 1954 and 1953 State Champs at Hawkinsville all had to work on Saturdays in the fabulous fifties. L-R, Melvin Borum, Eddie Dunn and David Nelson.)

Near Massee’s Furniture was a very popular business owned by Eddie and Ruby Dunn. Their sons, Edward and Dennis were bussing the counter and keeping the hamburger-satisfied customers moving. The brothers told this writer that the secret to the delicious hamburgers was a mixture of beef and sausage. Coca Colas in the small bottles were good by themselves. The name of the restaurant was the Green Grill.
Every day, Mother would leave my three brothers and me 35 cents each to buy our lunch in town; there was no lunchroom in those days. A typical lunch hour for me would include a fast run to town when school let out for noon break. My first stop would be the aforementioned Green Grill with an order for two of those great hamburgers and a coke—total cost, two bits. After wolfing those down, I had just enough time to survey the counter in Jones Bakery where the PlantersFirst Bank now is located. My big decision was whether to buy 2 donuts or 2 cinnamon rolls, or one of each. Either of the two would set me back the other dime which Mother left me. My nourishing meal was taken care of, leaving me just enough time to trot at a fast pace back to school.
A couple more grocery stores occupied the other end of Commerce Street and Jackson—Sims and A & P, later to become Lancaster’s and Fowlers. Directly across the street was a clothing store operated by a Jewish man named Jack Robbins. Daddy always bought his felt hats in the United Department Store owned by Mister Robbins, a short, strange-looking man with eyes that were magnified by his need for glasses. He was one of several merchants in town who were Jewish, including Ben and Minnie Silver, Myer and Goldie Freed, Hans and Bo Mayer, Sam Sommers, the pecan man, and Sam Dobkins.
Two of the more enjoyable stores for me, as a child, were the ten cent store owned by Freed and his wife. The name of the business was Crests Five & Dime. Almost directly across the street was a competitor named Wynn’s Ten Cent Store. Oh, the things that a young boy could buy in one of those stores—toy cars and trucks, tops, Yo Yos, cap guns, and kites were among some of the things I have purchased for a nickel or a dime during those years. They must have done very well with the small change stores, because memory serves me that a third five and dime named McConnell’s Ten Cent Store opened later.
There were multiple numbers of stores for many things. Altogether, there were about eight or nine grocery stores, at least three furniture stores, several drug stores, and any kind of gasoline station one chose for a favorite.

(Shown below is Bill Goode one of the owners of the Chevy dealers in the city by the muddy riverduring the 1950s.)

The Chevy dealership was owned by Willie Pate and Bill Goode.

The Oldsmobile dealership was owned by Louie Blount, and the Buick dealership was Glenn and Thomas Herrington.

The Way Brothers had a dealership back then also. They were the Plymouth-Dodge dealers.

(An ardent salesman in nhis time, Sam Way ran a promotion giving away anew Plymouth amd it was won by Mrs. Virginia Cobb.

Today, in stark contrast to so many other bygone dealers, Way Brothers has Ford and Chevy dealerships, fierce competitors for a century.

Someone owned a Hudson dealership, and the last Studebaker I recall was a black, sharp-looking one driven by Judge Sloan. (Below is a picture of Billy Judge Sloan a NASCAR fan still. He owned the last Studebaker after they ceased manufacturing them in America.)

There was no shortage of liquor stores in the city by the muddy river either. It was kind of strange that Hawkinsville was the only town that seemed to be “wet.” Little did it matter though because “bootleggers,” a nickname given to those who sold bonded liquor without a license, could still be found. Some even made moonshine and sold it by the fruit jar.
I had a brother seven years older than me who was “bad to drink” as they said in those days. I took it upon myself to keep tabs on him by following his car on my bicycle and watching where he went.

(Looking very much like my old bike, "Paint," it freed me up to travel many miles with very little restriction.)

Mother didn’t want him to drink, and I loved playing spy for my mother. It almost got me killed once. A local saloon named Marchman’s Beer Joint or something like that was a place he went into on one occasion. Sitting astride my trusty bike, “Paint,” I took up a position where I could peek inside without him seeing me. After seeing him swigging on a bottle of beer, I took off for our house to report in to my mother. The problem happened when Mother challenged him about his whereabouts after he got home. In full denial, my brother said she was mistaken. My mother revealed her source quicker than you can shake a stick. I was ratted out! Immediately, I made a dead run for the front door with him in hot pursuit. I was saved that day by another brother, a non-drinking one, just younger that the one I had spied on. He jumped out of a chair and threatened to ‘bust his head open if he touched me. Whew! I was almost a goner. I decided maybe it wasn’t the best idea to spy on my beer-swizzling brother again.

Batts Drugs had a championship soda fountain in those days, and a would-be Miss America dipping ice cream and making shakes. Although Pansy Lollis was several years older than my buddies and me, we loved to go in and flirt with her. She just laughed at us and tried to keep us away from the comic book section too long.

(bove picture is current owner of Batts Drugstore, Ben Cravey sitting on Santa's lap seeking an early Christmas present. There is no soda fountain today.)

Hawkinsville, Georgia, My Hometown

Hawkinsville is small by many standards, but the heart that beats beneath the surface of the city by the muddy river is huge.
Most of my life has been spent in or near Hawkinsville. As a matter of fact, when the old Taylor Memorial Hospital was completed in 1938, this writer was born shortly afterwards on the last day of the year—not in the hospital—in our home which was the norm for most babies born during that time period.
This will be the first of a series of articles about our fair city and county.
Around 1830, the larger of the two settlements separated by the Ocmulgee River was the more prosperous, that is, until a plague hit Hartford, a community that lost by one vote in becoming the capital of Georgia. People began to move west across the river into smaller Hawkinsville to escape the illness that had infected the would-be capital of the Peach State.
At that time, travel across the river was by ferry. Almost unbelievable, the Taylor mansion was torn down in Hartford and transported by ferry to Hawkinsville where it was re-built.
The first bridge across the river was a small wooden structure.


The second bridge is the one which is most remembered by people born between 1920 and 1958. (The above picture is leading into Hawkinsville from Hartford. In my lifetime, I witnessed the river lapping te underneath part of the bridge seen here above the river.) It is remembered as the crooked bridge, with the highway from Hartford joining the high structure leading to the scary part over the river before connecting with Hawkinsville. For those of us who walked the bridge on a regular basis—or rode across it on our bicycles—there was a great respect and fear of possible dangerous consequences. First of all, it was narrow, barely enough room for oncoming cars to pass. Meeting large trucks insured that the frightening factor was at a maximum.
There were frequent wrecks on the bridge, and several deadly ones come to mind. On one occasion a car-hauling truck crashed through the concrete barrier and was suspended precariously from the bridge. Far below, a pickup truck which broke free from its chains at the top of the trailer, lay in a crumpled state on the ground. The driver managed to crawl to safety from his cab back onto the bridge.


As people came across the bridge, one of the first structures to come into view was the old cotton mill which sat high up on the banks of the river. The mill was one of the largest sources of employment in its heyday, much the same as it was in most southern towns.


My father and mother worked in the factory when it was known as Superba Mills, and my father continued after it was purchased and renamed Opelika Manufacturing. As was the case with many people who were employed in the hot, dusty conditions of textile work, my mother became ill with chronic asthma brought on by the stifling conditions of cotton mill work. She was forced to quit working in the extreme conditions.


During the days of my youth, trains still included Hawkinsville on some of their routes. Hawkinsville eventually fell victim, deemed to be no longer necessary by the railroad.
One of my childhood memories was a train ride from Hawkinsville to Cochran which included the train trestle, a twin to the crooked bridge of terror. (My first train ride was with my Mother to Cochran and included a scary ride across the trestle scanning the ocmulgee River.)Both the bridge and the trestle met their fate when they were dynamited into oblivion in the late 1950s—changed in a heartbeat, left only in our memories and old photographs.
Many businesses in the next block played a large role in my life. The Hawkinsville Grocery Store where I worked for four years as a grocery clerk during my high school years would lead out in memories. Alton Woodard owned the store when I was a small boy. My mother would send me to the store several times a week to buy necessary items for our meals. In those days, it wasn’t viewed as a threat to the safety of a young child to go to town alone. When I entered the ninth-grade I was hired by new owner, Joe Berryhill, father of Patsy Berryhill Tripp.


(Picture above is the first automobile and gas company. In later years, this building was located near the C & W Hardware Company and just beyond the Hawkinsville Grocery Store, one of which were seven in the two block area.)
Only a couple of doors down was the C & W Hardware Store which was owned by Fussell and Robert Culpepper, brothers, and their partner, Mister Weddington. That store set the pattern for what I would always think a hardware store should be like—employees who knew where all of the thousands of screws and nuts and bolts were located. In addition, they could instruct anyone how to repair anything from plumbing, to building, to electrical repairs. I remember thinking they were the smartest men in the world.
Across the street was the B. C. Moore Store and the manager was a man named Bud Freeney. What a merchant he was! I knew what clothes I needed and he allowed me to pay a dollar a week for them until they were paid in full. What a deal! Only when a giant of a man, with a cigar firmly planted in his mouth, offered me enough reasons to purchase my shoes from his place, called Bohans Shoe Store, did I start to diversify my purchases of foot wear.
Next to Dobkins Store was a drugstore (Second store on left) where I enjoyed an occasional ice cream at a nickel a pop or ten cents for a double dip.



Along that same side of the street was a small restaurant named Shepherd’s Café (Fourth sign on left) which was owned and operated by Billy Shepherd’s parents. It was obvious to me that Mister Shepherd had some sort of crippling disease because he limped badly and his arm was crooked. My mother and father did not go out to eat often because money was very scarce, however on one very vivid occasion, they took me with them to the small café. After they ordered, they turned to me to see what I wanted. I had always had a passion for Oyster Stew, and when I saw the word oysters on the menu, I promptly told them that was what I wanted. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when the waiter came back with a strange-looking dish of fried oysters. I recall being heartbroken that it wasn’t in a bowl of milk with crackers like Mother made. As I recall, Daddy ate the fried oysters and I must have eaten whatever he had ordered.
Journeying on down the sidewalk was Silver’s Clothing Store, Nick’s Grocery Store with more stuff displayed on the sidewalk than most of the other merchants. I vividly recall the great candy counter with all of the great chocolates.
We’ve only made it part way down the sidewalk and have yet to get to Crest’s Five & Dime Store. My home town had so much to offer. Please continue to read as I travel further into my past life.

M & T Meats Third Generation

Hawkinsville's M & T Meats
Business Still Growing

The old shack still stands at the water’s edge, a lot more worse for the wear than in the 1950s when a few locals would show up on Fred Thompson’s back lot about once a week to play poker. How did they know there would be a poker game? If they smelled chicken and dumplings from Mrs. Alma’s kitchen, they knew it was poker night.
Sure! Playing poker in those days was illegal, but who really cared. The scene was huge moss-laden oak trees, and it was a men’s only night out in the little thatched roofed shack. My guess is that it was table stakes.
Mister Fred as he was known to most everyone was a little bit entrepreneur and a little bit gambler, but he came by both honestly. As a young boy, around fourteen-years-old, his mother kicked him out of the house. Quickly, he found out it was sink or swim. He followed the railroad tracks from Cochran walking toward a new existence in nearby—if ten miles walking could be considered nearby—Hawkinsville. Along the way, he ran into some men rolling dice. When he left home that day, he had a quarter in his pocket. He jumped into the game and when he quit, he had over two dollars. Still no fortune, however it was enough to get him a place to stay, something he couldn’t have done with the quarter.
During his growing up years, his life was hardscrabble, but he didn’t quit. By the time the 1950s rolled around he had been married to Alma Beeland for over a decade. In Mrs. Alma, he found a lifetime mate who would do anything he wanted to do. They were true lifetime soul mates. He built a small business on the Eastman Highway and named it Fred’s Drive-in, a barbecue specialty restaurant with dancing and private dining rooms. No alcohol beverages were sold on the premises, but like other businesses, they let their customers who came to dance, “brown-bag” their own spirits and the diner sold setups for the customers. Again, that’s just the way things were done back then. The location of Fred’s Drive-in was just east of WCEH Radio Station. After ten years, Thompson sold the business lock, stock and barrel. Always the entrepreneur, Mister Fred had a fish market in Hawkinsville which Mrs. Alma ran for him. He also had a Dollarama Store in Eastman for a couple of years, but again like most entrepreneurs, some businesses fail. That was the case with the Dollar store. Probably a good thing for Sam Walton that it did fail. In 1963, he and his son-in-law, Alvin Mathis, Jr. decided to begin making sausage for public consumption. They purchased a meat grinder and a casing packer for selling link sausage.
His son-in-law, and his daughter, Judy were both employed at Robins AFB and Junior delivered and sold the fresh sausage to his co-workers.
“When they started,” Judy Mathis said, “they were killing one hog a week, and the reputation for the pork began to spread and it jumped to two, then three, then four a week. They named the business M & T Meats.”


Judy and Junior helped him with the business as much as possible, but finally he hired some help and they continued working at the base.
By 1970, Thompson was ready to retire from the meat business and Judy left her job at RAFB and began to ease into the M & T Meats business. She and Junior finally agreed to buy her father out and become the sole owners. They moved into the building on the back of the lot and began to re-model it. They added another room and soon were doing all of the meat smoking and curing in that location. They fixed up the front of the building for their customers to come into and the business continued to prosper.


Nearly twenty years later, 1992, their son, Phil Mathis left Georgia Southern College in Statesboro, one subject shy of a diploma. He began working in the business and they soon saw that he was made for it. His aplomb with customers was noticed immediately. Judy and Junior Mathis who had never let their children work in the business soon agreed that he was a limb off his grandfather’s tree.
“Phil was a natural in this business,” his mother said. “Within a year, he had a change in his life. A young woman from Apopka, Florida came up to Pulaski County with her father to go deer hunting. He bagged one and someone told his daughter that Phil would process it for her. It was an incredible meeting for the two young people and before long, Tammy and Phil decided to get married.”
As Phil eased into the business, it became evident that he had a vision to bring other products to his customers which would include beef, cheese, vegetables, Irish and Sweet potatoes, syrup, frozen biscuits and barbecue sauce—the original recipe of Mrs. Alma.


It seems that Phil and Tammy knew by instinct what their customers wanted, and they were constantly looking at a full house of customers, clamoring for a spot nearer the meat counter display. Once near the meat counter, the customers eyes reminded this writer of a child with sparkly eyes at Christmas time. Sausage—fresh and smoked, ground or in links—along with pork chops, ham, red links, souse meat and bacon all glistened with freshness in their appearance. Ask for a pound of sausage, and one scoop would place it on the scales at a few ounces over a pound. Informed that it was a little more than a pound, customers always say, “That’s okay. Just leave it on there.” Incredible how much extra sausage can be sold that way over the course of a year. However, if it didn’t meet the expectations of superb and fresh taste, the customers would not return. But return they do, from our community, and others as well.
Just a week ago, the third move of the M & T business was completed, a few months later than expected, but moved it was. M & T Meats in a nice new building.
You won’t believe it until you come in and take a look for yourself.
“I can’t say enough for our employees,” Phil Mathis said. “A business is only as good as its employees. Throughout this huge process of moving, I have seen their dedication. They have been absolutely superb. We could not have done it without their great effort.”
In looking at the new edifice either from the outside or the inside is almost beyond belief. Mathis, with his visionary skills has designed a state of the arts business with all new equipment from the front to the back and side to side which will sell wholesale, retail and e-Commerce (Internet.)


Customers will be standing by the all new beef-only counter drooling at the wonderful cuts of fresh beef. Exit that and go to the right and take a look at their deli counter featuring top sandwich meats and Tammy’s special chicken salad recipe. From there to the far right is a huge rotisserie which will have all kinds of meats prepared for take-home. Oh yes, and there is a fresh seafood counter with scrumptious shrimp, salmon and crab legs. Did I forget? They also have the signature sausage and pork counter—bigger and better than ever. Add to these delicacies, a contingent of fresh and frozen vegetables in the middle of the store’s display.



Reminiscent of a newly christened ship, the all-new, gleaming M & T Meats stands proudly on the southern side of the Lower River Road full of treats. Phil, Tammy and all of their employees are ready for a new chapter and stand ready to welcome all their old customers and the new ones as well.
To place an order for shipment in the continental United States, call (478) 892-9810 and they will ship it to you. Ummm good! Sausage and biscuits for breakfast.

Deadly Events Impacted Our Lives

Editors Note: In many of our lives, stories that happened in our youth are factors for the rest of our lives. The following stories hppened and remain frozen in the depths of my memories.

At a recent luncheon with former classmates of mine—all of us, now seventy plus—the subject drifted to things which impacted our lives when we were young.
A young mind is very vulnerable. Perhaps the reasons can be debated, however I choose to think it is because the mind of the young is void of shocking experiences. Early in my youth, I was shocked when a policeman came through the mill village looking for dogs without collars. In those early days on the tail-end of the Great Depression, that was not like looking for a needle in a haystack. Most of us had dogs and most of us could not afford the extra money necessary for rabies shots.



The word spread quickly that a policeman was shooting dogs in the street. We had two dogs at the time. One was Spot and the other was Snowball. Like many others we tied our dogs in the hopes they wouldn’t become victims of the exorcism. In the case of Spot and Snowball, my brother tied them under the front porch of our rented small, frame, mill house.
It didn’t work. The policeman looked underneath our porch and shot both dogs. I don’t recall how young I was—probably under five—but suffice it to say that the horrible event impacted my mind for the rest of my life.
On another occasion when I was riding my bike on the village, I spotted a car driven by some Black men which had been pulled over. The policeman yanked the back door of the sedan open and yelled at one of the men. When he didn’t move, he was jerked from his seat and immediately hit on the head with a night stick. He crumbled beneath the force of the blow, and blood ran from his wound. I turned my bike around and sped away from the scary event.
To say these two episodes affected me in a negative way would be right on the money.
Not all of the things that happened in our youth had to do with police cruelty. Early one Sunday morning the news spread quickly as the Hamm family was preparing to go to Sunday School.


A young boy named Gene Hamm, brother of Mae Bennett was fatally killed when it was discovered that he had accidently pulled an electric heater into the tub of water where he was bathing. Death was by electrocution. He was so young, and the accident was so terrible, it left most of us who knew him shaken and with a feeling of vulnerability.
In the exciting days of outdoor theaters, better known to us as the Drive-in Movie, one night ended in tragedy. To say that most people attended the old M&T Drive-in in an automobile would be correct, however some of us rode our bikes from town all the way out to the drive-in, and sometimes it could get a little frightening. On one occasion, I recall a Greyhound bus moving over to go around me on my bike and when he “goosed” the big engine, something hit me in the eye. It wasn’t a rock. I still think it was engine residue from the big diesel. For certain, it caused a burning sensation. To remember that incident is to realize the danger in riding a bike on a dark highway, something I am sure is not done today.
Strange as it may seem, two teenaged boys who resided near each other on the north side of Hartford met accidental deaths. Both were students at Central High School and their deaths were unrelated.


One of the boys, Perry Babb, a son of Preacher Babb, a well-known minister and textile worker in Hawkinsville was walking toward the family’s rented home near the intersection of the Cochran Highway and Chicken Road after the drive-in closed. On the side of the dark, shadowy road, Perry met his death. Someone ran over him and his body wasn’t discovered until the following day. No one was ever arrested and no one to my knowledge was ever charged for the deadly incident.



The other boy named Billy Mullis whose family was living in the house across the road was helping to do some work on a shallow well behind their home when he was touched by the pipe of the well which had an electric wire touching it. Immediately hit with the full force of the electric charge, Billy was electrocuted. Both deaths touched the young people of Hawkinsville and impacted our minds.
There was a classmate, a country boy named Johnny Holder, who very much filled the role of being from the rural area. Johnny walked with long strides—no doubt gained from plowing a mule—and seemed to walk flat-footed. In playground football, he ran with that same stride. He was easily the fastest boy on the playground. Johnny was a humble boy and I really liked him a lot. Then one day, he was hunting in the woods and his shotgun fell discharging into his body killing him. All of the above seemed to take place within the first ten or twelve years of my life. It was a lot for a youngster to digest.
There were two deaths, very similar to each other that occurred near the Ocmulgee River, and both went unsolved. It seems that a group of men were drinking and playing poker somewhere near the old crooked bridge, and one of them, Wesley Bell was murdered and his body was
dragged later from the river. Several men were questioned, but no official charges were made in
the incident.
On another occasion, a group of men were involved in a drinking and a poker game and a tall lanky man named B. A. “Crook” Moore was killed and his body later was also dragged from the muddy waters of the river.



Perhaps one of the most infamous killings in the history of Hawkinsville involved then Chief of Police Tom Bragg on May 11, 1951.


A young Army paratrooper, Leon Passmore, just 27 years old, who was raised on the mill village, had gone AWOL from his base along with another buddy. Chief Bragg was informed that the young troops were AWOL and sought them out for arrest. According to the newspaper accounts, Bragg had the two men handcuffed in the front seat of his police car. In those days, there was no shortcut to Robins AFB, therefore Bragg and his two prisoners headed out on Highway 341 toward Perry where a road to Warner Robins intersected with 341 that would take them on to the Air Force Base. According to the law officer, he slowed down to make the turn and claimed the two men attempted to wrestle his gun from him. There was a struggle for the weapon with Bragg maintaining control of it. He discharged the firearm until it was empty and critically wounded the two soldiers. Someone pulled in behind him to offer assistance to the policeman, after which Bragg continued on to Robins AFB where he turned the men over to the military. Both died or were dead on arrival. Bragg was questioned in an inquisition about the incident and finally was cleared of any charges.
To this day, long after the killings, many believe it was cold-bloodied murder and many others felt it was justified.
The final results will have to be worked out somewhere else. All the people involved including Bragg’s son, Tommy, who lay sleeping in the rear seat are deceased. Dead men tell no tales.
The preceding incidents impacted our lives greatly during our youth.

Silver Screen Cowboys

Saturday mornings in the 1940’s and the 1950’s were special in the lives of Hawkinsville children, girls as well as boys. Excitement raced throughout every fiber of a young person’s body as preparations were made to attend “Picture Show” Thompson’s theater. Typical of the line-up of what would be showing was a great cowboy movie, a good “regular” movie, a cartoon, The Movietone News, previews and the much anticipated serial which was one chapter each Saturday for 15 consecutive weeks.
The serial might be Rocketman, Jack Armstrong, All American Boy, Batman and Robin, or the Lone Ranger and his side-kick, Tonto. Movietone News was how they did the news prior to television and the likes of Walter Cronkite. The cartoon might be a Disney production with Pluto, Mickey or Donald, or it might be everyone’s favorite, Tom and Jerry. The least favorite of all would be the ones where we had to follow the bouncing ball while singing along with a song we were not familiar with in the first place. Listen, this was serious business because it cost nine cents to get into the movies back then. When there was a price increase to twelve cents, boys and girls were going all over town whining and gnashing their teeth about the unfairness of the increase. After all, that was a jump of twenty-five percent in ticket prices. It was no wonder “Picture Show” Thompson could afford to place a wooden likeness of all those cartoon characters on his rolling lawn each Christmas. No one else in town could afford to be so lavish in their decorations. Of course, we all enjoyed the fantasy equivalent of what surely was the Walt Disney Park of the 1940’s.
The Saturday “regular” movie was sometimes Bud Abbot and Lou Costello, sometimes Frankenstein or Dracula, or my favorite Wolfman, and sometimes it might be, the Bowery Boys with Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, who was a dead ringer for Wendell Greer. We felt a little cheated if it was a “suit” bad guy movie, one where the bad guys all wore coats and ties, like preachers on Sunday. The favorite of all was the cowboy show, which in recent years have come to be called the Silver Screen Cowboys. They were all heroes and some were just more so than others. Roy Rogers was great, but Gene Autry, another singing cowboy was a little on the chubby side, and on more than one occasion, his famous horse Champion groaned a little bit when Gene suddenly mounted his saddle. Mister Autry, who later became the owner of the California Angels baseball team, did not suffer from “missed meal colic.” Another chubby cowboy named Whip Wilson was a cheap imitation of Lash LaRue, the greatest man to ever hold a bull-whip in his hands. In the first place, I could never figure out why anyone would be satisfied with oleo margarine when they could get real cow butter. (That was an analogy, folks!) We did not need another cowboy with a whip! On one occasion, “Picture Show” Thompson arranged for Lash to appear on the stage of the old Thompson Theater. My heart would not quit pounding at the thought of seeing one of my all-time cowboy heroes in person. After all, I, myself, had become Lash on many Saturday afternoons after returning home from the picture show.
Almost like it was yesterday, I still remember making my own whip which would actually crack when whipped with the right motion. It mattered not to me that my whip, unlike Lash’s all leather whip, was made with a short stick from a chinaberry limb and an old scrap of cotton mill rope with a small piece of leather attached to the end of it to insure that it would pop.
Appearing at the Thompson Theater with Lash was one of the “heavies” of the day in cowboy movies. A bad dude named Jack O’Shea. Thinking back on it now, O’Shea was built more like a lineman for our beloved Dawgs in Athens. I can remember wondering how Lash wound up traveling with the likes of such as O’Shea, a notorious crook, who obviously came from very bad parents in the wrong part of Texas. Nevertheless, I got to see what I wanted to see. Lash popped a cigarette from his lips with his whip without so much as touching his mouth. In addition to that, some words led to a shoot-out on the stage and my hero, Lash, won the duel.
The silver screen cowboys always had a sidekick who rode with them.

In the case of Lash LaRue, his sidekick was invariably a man of slight build named Al “Fuzzy” St. John. His face bordered with whiskers, and a hat that had the bill turned upwards, Fuzzy always seemed to be chewing something in the same fashion as a cow chews its cud. His pants hung low, giving him an overall comedic appearance that made it easy to determine who was the cowboy hero and who was the sidekick. Picture John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted television show, with a black western outfit, a black cowboy hat and a black leather whip talking out of the side of his mouth. That was what Lash LaRue looked like, and he was just as fearsome as the man who tracks down killers and the like today.
Saturdays will forever live as wonderful times in the life of my friends and myself. For as little as a quarter, we could be entertained from ten o’clock in the morning until two o’clock in the afternoon including a cold drink and an ice cream on a stick commonly called a “nugget” or perhaps Milk Duds, raisinettes and pop corn. Afterwards, upon arriving home, we became the cowboys we had watched during the time spent at the movies. Once the argument was settled as to who would be Lash LaRue, and who would be the bad guy or the “boss of the crooks,” the game would begin. The word for “play like” would become a shortened and very southern pronunciation that sounded similar to “plack,” as in, “Plack I’m Lash and plack you’re the boss of the crooks!” Sometimes we had to improvise by allowing two heroes in our game such as Lash LaRue and the Durango Kid. Now I know they never rode together on the silver screen, but they did, on occasion, in my back yard.

The bad guys or crooks as we referred to them in the days of the silver screen cowboys seemed to rotate around with the cowboy heroes in those days, but one man, Roy Barcroft, big in stature with a pencil-thin mustache, and mean as a snake was usually the “Boss.” It mattered not whether he was playing opposite Roy Rogers, Sunset Carson or Wild Bill Elliott, who always said, “I’m a peaceable man,” just as he was delivering his final knock-out punch to the bad guy he was fighting. Barcroft was the “Brains of the Crooks” against Alan “Rocky” Lane or a Lane look-alike,

Monte Hale, who went by the name of the “Prince of the Prairie.”

Wintertime Beach Walking

Long before I fell in love with Sheila, I had another love affair—one which has endured through the years. She was alive with energy and excitement. I gained an inner strength from being in her presence, yet I never knew what she would be like—sometimes wild and uncontrollable, and at other times, peaceful and serene. That love affair began at the same place where I would later meet Sheila for the first time—Jacksonville Beach, Florida.


I truly fell in love with the ocean and its sandy beach when I was a young boy, and it has maintained a magical, enchanting hold on me ever since my early youth.
There is something that is wonderful about being near the ocean, listening as its waves come in an endless pattern, time after time—sometimes rough and harsh, other times quiet and peaceful—licking and leaving its special treasures while taking sand with it as it flows outward. Two guys in college in the 1960s, made a record of an old tune that became a smash hit. The name of it was Ebb Tide, and it captured my love for the ocean in both lyrics and melody. I know many of you remember it, and like me, probably remember that it was first recorded by Al Hibbler, during the 1950s. The recording by Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, or as they were known, the Righteous Brothers, started like this: In the background was the intriguing sounds of sea gulls and a wonderful, melodic crash of waves. Next, Hatfield, who sang tenor, begins with the beautiful and descriptive words, “First the tide rushes in, plants a kiss on the shore, then rolls out to sea once again.” The song eventually builds to a heart-shaking climax toward the end that makes this beach lover tremble with pure ecstasy each time I listen to it.
Now, I must tell you if you don’t love that, you must be from North Dakota or Iowa or some other forsaken place. Sheila and I still enjoy going to the beach to charge our batteries, something that the ocean can do for both of us during short or long visits.
As a youth, I must admit that hot weather and the beach was pure heaven to me, but as I have grown longer in the tooth, winter is the favorite time of the year for us. We enjoy ambling endlessly along the beach, wrapped snugly in our winter coats, jeans and a woolly stretch hat to combat the sting of the wind and cold. Despite the cold, it is a delirious thrill seeing the endless onslaught of waves coming in and rolling out, leaving foam from the water rushing hurriedly along the white sand.

Most of the time, there will be only a few other brave souls trolling along in cold solitude of winter on the beach, totally unlike the invasion of hordes of people during the hotter time of the year. We have long since stopped swimming in the ocean, but our romance with it continues into the autumn of our lives.

The Dark Ride Home

The football game ended around ten o’clock that night and like most boys eleven or twelve years old, I ran out to the center of the field to play a quick game of “tag” football where there was more tackling than tagging going on. The home team varsity boys were teaming up with the cheerleaders or some of the other girls who were streaming around the gridiron looking to get a ride with someone who was lucky enough to be driving the family car or truck as the case may have been. At any rate they were the older people in school and boys my age were much more interested in running with the ball, tackling someone or in general just laughing with all the gusto of a pre-teen male.
Suddenly, pouring out toward the parking lot to head home, all the adults had abandoned the field. The bright lights that had given enough illumination to play a football game were turned off, leaving the stadium in a darkened state except for a small bevy of lights surrounding the hot dog stand. Some volunteers were there counting the night’s concession money and hauling out the trash.
I was never one to necessarily enjoy darkness because it meant the end of the day and the end of the play. Yelling loudly, all of the boys that had bicycles broke into a dead run, while others who were riding with their parents headed to the parking lot. Their dads were re-playing the game with each other. They were telling how much they enjoyed seeing the star back take off around the end streaking down the sidelines for the game winning score.


Waving our final goodbye to each other we mounted our best means of transportation around the small town. I named my bike “Paint” after a steed belonging to a Saturday cowboy matinee idol. Leaping on the bike, which only had one pedal and a stump of the remnant of what once was the second pedal, I would let out a yell, “Come on ‘Paint’, let’s git where we ain’t.” Pedaling as hard as I could with the one good pedal and deftly lifting the stub into an upward position to push down again, I headed toward town away from the football field. Until recently, we had always lived in town either on the mill village or later in the housing projects, but my father had found a dwelling in the country large enough to house our family and the family of one of my married sisters.
The dirt road that led out to the country where our house was located was nearly seven miles from town. That night the moon was out but, but hiding. It seemed to race from one cloud to another all the way home, rotating bright to dark, hiding and peeking behind the fast moving clouds. The trees on either side of the old rutted dirt road cast an eerie set of shadows. There were lots of strange sounds such as crickets and frogs from the swamps, and an old owl hooting from a dead tree somewhere in the distance. Up ahead, I could hear an alternating sound of a coyote howling the unhappy news of his hunger, and that of a disturbed dog returning his answer with his incessant barking. The more sounds I heard the faster I was able to pedal even with the encumbering stump of what once was a pedal. I found myself looking forward to coasting the long hill downward to the bottom that ran near the branch of water. At the same time I dreaded the uphill battle back to the top. Nevertheless, I pedaled with all my might and asked silently for “Paint” to do his part to get us home to the warm and safe confines that were to be found inside the old house in the country. Finally, huffing and puffing I managed to get home, only to discover the house and all the surroundings were dark. “Whoa, Paint!” I commanded my bike as I coasted up near the front doorsteps. “Daddy? Mother?” I called out in a semi-quiet tone hoping for an answer. None came. There was not even a glimmer of light coming from the house. I cautiously dismounted and eased myself up onto the dark porch, walked with padded feet to where I knew the front door was, and felt through the thickness of the black night. Feeling my way around the door, I was able to locate the cold, ceramic doorknob which, to my disappointment, I found to be locked. Once more I called out, this time louder and perhaps with a touch of desperation in my voice, “Daddy! Mother!” Again there was only the sound of the jungle, er, forest animals and my quiet but labored breathing.


Dashing from the porch and leaping completely over the steps, I crashed to the ground. Rising to my feet immediately, I located the one ally I had …. that being “Paint”. Quickly, I slung my leg over the crossbar and yelled out once more, “Come on Paint let’s git where we aint!”
Back on the old red clay road with ruts, my feet were pedaling, and my legs were pumping as hard as they could until the seven miles were covered in reverse order of a few moments earlier. Finally crossing the old crooked bridge across the muddy river, I turned toward the safety of the mill village anxiously looking for the old 1941 green Ford sedan. After only a short time, I located it in front of the home of friends of my parents. Breathing hard, I knocked sharply on the door and when answered, I asked if my daddy was there. “Yes, he’s here and they are just getting ready to leave.”
“Hey Daddy,” I choked the words out, “I’m gonna ride home with y’all and put “Paint” in the trunk.”