Memorial Day Weekend Incident--1969

In early 1969, my Uncle Bill, who lived in Lakeland, Florida, had a bad heart attack and moved back to Middle Georgia. I had to take a pickup and move all his household goods back up here. His wife and son were following in their car, pulling a boat. Around Valdosta, Georgia a woman spun out in the southbound lane, crossed the median, and collided with me in the pickup. I had actually slowed almost to a stop on the on-ramp in order to hook my seat belt after gassing up a few minutes before, or I would probably have been a goner. As it was, I saw everything in what seemed like slow motion. I saw the impact with the big Chrysler, then spun 3/4 around, and watched in my side mirror as my aunt crashed into me. I wound up with a scratched arm, and a small cut on my back.

This was on I-75, and troopers were soon at the scene. I helped get my aunt and cousin out of their car and into an ambulance.  Aunt Marlene was bleeding a little from a cut on her face, and the passenger in the other car was cut up pretty bad.  Steve was shaken up, but OK.   As I was standing with the trooper, a truck driver who had stopped for some reason came up to the trooper. "This man passed me twenty miles back, and he must have been going 90," he told the trooper. I called him a lying son-of-a-(gun) and started for him. The trooper grabbed my arm and told the trucker to get in his truck and go.

At the hospital, the trooper became very exasperated with the woman who was driving the car. Her tires were slick, and she had lost control and spun out when it started raining a little.  She was more concerned with a little lap dog than she was with her husband, who was beat up pretty badly and unconscious.  The trooper had some choice words for her. My aunt and cousin were bruised up a little, but they were released from the hospital. I had called home, and my Daddy had told me to get a motel room until some of them could get down there. The trooper took us to a motel, then offered to take me to the towing yard to get clothes for us out of our vehicles. At the yard, it dawned on me that I had a 1911A1 Colt Pistol under the seat. I was only 20 years old, and I'm not sure if the old Georgia "Pistol Toters License" was issued to 18 year olds and up. I think I had a license, because I remember telling the trooper that I had a .45, and did he want to see my license. "No," he replied. "Just don't shoot me."

I had been responsible for those folks (Aunt Marlene and Steve) for several hours, dealing with the trooper, the hospital, the motel, and the lying truck driver. My kinfolks were very upset in the motel room and I finally got them calmed down. I remember when Sandy and Jeri showed up at the door of the motel room a few hours later. To my surprise, I almost cried when I saw them. Somebody else could take charge now. I remember later, my aunt bragging on me and telling everyone how I had taken charge and how I took care of them. It was the first time in my life that I was faced with something like that. I was just ashamed of the way I had almost lost it when help finally arrived.

Whitewater Creek

I wasn't Baptized in Whitewater, but Bunny and Katie were.   Most recently,  my great niece, Anna, was Baptized  there last Sunday.   I have pumped a lot of water out of Whitewater on crops including but not limited to peanuts, collards, cabbage, turnips, squash, sweet potatoes, peas, and corn.    My Daddy was pumping water out of Whitewater in the late 1950s.  I have moved irrigation pipe through the middle of that swamp when it was 100-plus degrees, and a breath of air was precious.  I have jumped in that creek, been thrown in, and fallen in.  I bet my Daddy lost 50 pairs of dime-store reading glasses leaning over while working on an old Red Seal Continental in-line six-cylinder engine.  I have seen him pick up one of the large cylinders of propane, hoist it over his shoulder, and head down a path through the swamp to that engine.  It was just below the old bridge on Highway 19.   The people who lived down there initially complained about the noise from the old un-muffled engine.  Later, they admitted they couldn't go to sleep without the roar of the engine wafting through the swamp.

A hundred years ago, my Granddaddy made moonshine whiskey a mile or so up the creek from where the bridge is now.  He told me, with tears in his eyes, that he quit moonshining when he was headed to his still one day, across a plowed field, and he looked back and saw my Daddy, who was five or six years old, struggling to step in his (Granddaddy's) tracks to follow him.  That would have been about 1917 or 1918.   Various members of the Harris family have farmed those sandy fields on the banks of Whitewater for a while.   I caught my first fish in a little fishing hole on Whitewater about 55-56 years ago.  A few years later, in the early 60s, I decided I was going to wade Whitewater to fish.  I had been reading some outdoor magazines, and wading seemed to be the way that real, sho'nuff big time fishermen did it.   I was in a hole about 1/2 mile above the bridge, with my little short creek rod, when I looked down and a cotton-mouth moccasin swam by within a foot of my legs.  That was 50 years ago, and I can see that snake in my mind right now.  That ended my wading career.

In 1903, my Great-Grandaddy, J. R. Harris was one of the Charter Members who established Lebanon Baptist Church on the banks of the creek.  As we walked down to the creek for the Baptismal  Service after Church last Sunday,  I thought of all these memories I have of Whitewater.  I thought of all the Harrises and other Church members that had been immersed in that cold water.  I thought how, in the middle of this drought, Whitewater is still running a good flow, and the water is still cold.   I had two seemingly disparate and unrelated thoughts.  What a wonderful place for a Baptizing.  Granddaddy told me once he didn't like to walk through that swamp without a pistol.

Marx Brothers

Eric Holder and Barack Obama are the modern version of The Marx Brothers.   Obama said earlier this year in an interview that he knew absolutely nothing about Operation Fast and Furious, that he did not authorize it, that AG Eric Holder knew nothing about it beforehand, and that Holder did not authorize it.

We are supposed to feel good because we have a couple of buffoons in charge of our Federal Enforcement agencies?   Remember, these are the people who want to shut down gun shows because terrorists buy guns there, and because the drug cartel gets their guns there.   Seems like the Federal Government is the group seeing to it that the cartel gets guns.   Do you reckon Groucho's and Harpo's underlings are also supplying guns to Al Qaeda?   Without Groucho's and Harpo's knowledge, of course.  So far, I don't think anyone has been disciplined, fired, indicted, or even publicly chastised.   I think I read where a couple of people were re-assigned.

I wonder if Obama realizes that his statements, if one takes them at face value, might prove that he and Harp-I mean Eric Holder are not co-conspirators in a Federal crime, but also proves that they are a couple of incompetents who shouldn't be in charge of a middle school bathroom break, much less Federal Law Enforcement agencies?

I believe there were five Marx Brothers.  I guess Biden could pass for Chico, although I don't believe he possesses the necessary intellect.   I will figure out who Zeppo and Gummo are.  Probably Reid and Pelosi, although she's a sister.

Peanut Boy

Every Summer from the time I was about six years old until I was about 15, my brother Sandy (who is five years older) and I got up early and pulled up and picked off by hand a bushel of peanuts every day. We washed them, picked out the pops and stems we missed while handpicking them, and boiled them in the big iron washpot. Until Sandy got old enough to drive, one of our parents took us to town (Butler) where we sold our peanuts. We used a jelly glass and brown paper bags, and we got about 105-110 bags from a bushel. We sold them for a dime a bag, so that means we grossed about $11.00 per bushel. We did that five days a week, and on Saturdays, we sold at least two bushels. That means we grossed around $75.00-$80.00 per week. That doesn't sound like much now, but I'm talking about from about 1955 until about 1963. That was pretty good money for a couple of country kids back then. We bought salt by the 50 lb bag and bags by the bale.

We bought all our school clothes every year with peanut money. Sandy and I would send an order to Sears Roebuck for blue jeans, tee shirts, a couple of flannel shirts, PF Flyers, and a new pair of brogans each. Each year, we would get something like a new baseball glove, or a football and helmets, etc. Sandy bought his first shotgun, a Remington Sportsman 48, at the Western Auto in Butler when he was 13. One of my most prized possessions is a Marlin Golden 39A .22 rifle I bought in 1961 just before I turned 13. 

After Sandy got old enough that he did not really want to walk around with a bucket selling peanuts, he handled the transportation and a lot of the pulling and picking. He would take me to town to sell the peanuts, and he would return home to get a head start on the next day's work. That way, we could have two bushels to sell on Saturday. He never took a job in town until the Summer after he graduated, because he could still make more money in the peanut business. The most I ever sold in one day was almost four bushels, 420 bags of peanuts at a dime a bag. Sandy was hauling them to me as fast as he could get them done, boiling a bushel at the time.

From the time I was about six, I knew every businessman and elected official in Butler. I would go in every store, bank, lawyers office, Courthouse office, and grocery store in town. The thing is, everyone craved the peanuts so much, they would get mad if I was late coming by, or if I happened to run out of peanuts before making it by their place. To this day, I still remember who my best customers were. I remember how about 99% of the people treated a chubby little kid with the basket of peanuts very good. There were only two people I remember who were just hateful. 

I don't ever remember anyone trying to cheat me. There were those who tried to talk me into giving them peanuts, but most of them were kids my own age. Looking back, probably the reason no one tried to take advantage was that besides my Daddy, who was a big, powerful, well respected man, there were probably a half-dozen other men in town who would have looked very unfavorably on anyone who tried to cheat the "peanut boy." (I recently ran into a girl who is my age, and who I haven't seen in 30 years or so. When she saw me, she said, "There's my peanut boy!")

I look back on those days, in another lifetime, and I thank God and my parents that I had that experience. I guess it is one reason I have never met a stranger. It instilled in me the knowledge that if I worked, I would have some things I wanted, and would almost always have a "jingle in my pocket." It taught me that a quality product at a fair price will always be in demand. It helped teach me that a smile and a pleasant word will do as much to make people like and respect you as being rich. Every kid should have the opportunity to go in business for himself when he is six years old.

By the way, I have never bought any boiled peanuts that were of the quality of what we sold. There were absolutely no stems, pops, or trash in our peanuts. I bought some green boiled peanuts last Saturday. I paid six dollars for about the amount of peanuts I would have sold for forty to fifty cents. When I finished them that night, fully thirty to forty percent were inedible pops.


My Marlin Golden 39A .22 rifle. I think my uncle bought it at Davis Sporting Goods in Phenix City in 1959 or 1960 and I bought it from him in 1960 or 1961.

1911----2011

Nineteen-eleven saw the invention of one of the world's great firearms, the 1911 Colt Government Model. Legend has it, and some of the legend is indeed factual, that the .45 Automatic Colt Pistol cartridge and the Government Model pistol came about as a result of the failure of the .38 Colt cartridge carried by US troops in the Philippines in the first decade of the 20th Century (actually 1899-1913) to stop the Moro tribesmen who fought against US forces so fiercely in the Moro Uprising.  (This is a story in itself, and a very interesting one, worthy of a little reading.  The Moros, of course, were Muslim tribes who refused to accept US control.)

In order to adequately arm the US Troops, the old Colt Single Action Army of 1873 was called back into service.   The old Peacemaker, with its black powder and 255 grain bullet at about 850 feet per second, performed admirably.    The US Government held a competition for development of a new self-loading pistol chambered for a .45 caliber bullet.   Making a long story short, the 1911 Colt Government Model, designed by John M. Browning, won the competition.

The 1911 actually got to the Philippines at the tail-end of that conflict.   The Government Model was used in the Punitive Expedition against Mexico in 1916-1917.  One of the most famous individual acts of bravery in the history of warfare was when Sgt. Alvin York captured some 130 Germans and killed around 22 others.  He used a Lee-Enfield rifle and a 1911 pistol.  At one point, York killed six Germans with as many shots from his 1911.   He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.    Find some very interesting info here:
http://www.sgtyorkdiscovery.com/The_York_Gallery.php

There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of stories similar to York's illustrating how US servicemen in a bunch of wars and conflicts used the old slab-sided warrior to good effect.   By the beginning of WWII the gun had become the 1911A1, because of improvements in the design.   The pistols were manufactured by several different companies during the war, including Remington-Rand, Singer Sewing Machine Co., Ithaca, and others.

The US adopted a Beretta 9mm service pistol in the middle 80s.   Colt continued to manufacture the Government Model as a commercial offering.   At least a dozen other companies make 1911 style pistols, notably Kimber, Springfield, and Para-Ordinance.   I currently own two 1911A1 style pistols, made in China of all places.  Ironically, they have turned out to be some of the better Govt. Model "clones" because, unlike any of the other manufacturers (including Colt),  they are still made from forged steel rather than the castings and metal injecting processes used to cut costs in firearms manufacturing today.

Cutting to the chase, because of sentimentality (maybe senility?) I am wanting a gen-u-wine Colt 1911A1 Government Model Pistol.  Problem is, those manufactured since about 1980 aren't made in the old, traditional way.  There are the afore-mentioned cast and injection-molded parts, and horror of horrors, even plastic in some of the new ones.    Those manufactured from about 1970 to 1980 are way over-priced.   They are also, according to some sources, not really high quality, at least as not as good as those commercial guns made in the 50s and 60s.   I saw a 1980 manufactured 1911A1 on a website sell for $925 last week.  I am afraid I am not going to be willing to pay quite that much for a Colt.  I mostly collect (accumulate is more like it)  Smith&Wesson revolvers, and that kind of money will buy an early post-war .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum revolver of unquestioned quality.

We'll see.

Edited to add, September 16, 2011----Well, I found a Colt Series 70 MK IV  Government Model.  No great bargain, but a fair price.  A very nice pistol, and a great shooter.  I bought it on Sunday, 9-11-2011.  So far I have fired about 100 rounds of 230 grain Ball ammo, using the magazine that came with the gun and magazines from my two Norincos, without any issues.  The sights are dead on for windage and elevation at 20 yards.  Good trigger, and a real joy to shoot.  I love it!
Couple of pictures of my S-70

My Chinese 1911s.  They have the inscription "Model Of The 1911A1"  on the slide.

June 6, 1944

D-Day . . . . . . Allied invasion of the European Continent.     We take it for granted today.  It happened, it was successful, so it must have been a no-brainer.  Not quite.  There were plenty of things that could have gone wrong.   A lot of things did go wrong, but not enough things, and not so wrong that it caused the failure of the operation.    DDE put his career, the war, his reputation, and the lives of a bunch of Americans, English,  Canadian, and other Allied troops at risk.  The landing scene from Saving Private Ryan is one of the most emotional things I have ever seen on a screen.  I have only seen it once, because it isn't any fun to watch.   The scene where the German machine-gunner kills every soldier who disembarks from the landing craft is one of many that sticks in my mind.

Casualty figures are all over the place, depending upon what source one uses.  A recently published figure, revised sharply upward from the old "official" numbers,  is about 4400 Allied dead, of which about 2500 of those were Americans.   The exact number isn't so important, I guess.

What is important is that the free nations of this world were willing to put it all on the line to preserve that freedom. Would we/they do it today?  Then, the enemy was well defined and easy to identify.   Fascism was the ideology, and Germany represented that ideology.  The Japanese were not like us, and anyhow, they attacked us first.   It was an easy thing to see,  the "enemy."  Things are much more nebulous today.    The enemy isn't nearly as easy to identify.  Is it a religion, an ideology, a race, a country, or a region?    I think I know, but it seems that it isn't nearly so easy to convince enough Americans and other Western nations, "people like us," so to speak,  who the enemy is.  We have to be tolerant as well as politically correct, don't you know.

Anyhow, here is a salute to that generation of Americans and our Allies who knew the enemy, searched them out on their own soil, and defeated them.

Six Day War

June 5, 1967 . . . . . . . .

I had just graduated from TCHS the week before.  I was still running my paper route, up at about 5:00 every morning, listening to the news as I drove my VW all over Butler, and reading the headlines as I put the papers together.  The Israelis, in a preemptive strike, wiped out the Egyptian air force while it was on the ground, and Israeli troops and tanks attacked Egyptian troops and tanks that were massed on the Israeli border.  I believe that I read where the Jews only left a dozen fighter aircraft to defend their homeland while the rest of their AF attacked the Egyptians.   The Israelis refueled and rearmed their jets (mostly F-4 Phantoms, if I remember correctly)  and destroyed most of the Jordanian and Syrian aircraft.

Rather than giving a complete summary of the events, I will provide this link:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/67_War.html

No matter what the rhetoric is today, the Israelis were not the aggressors in 1967.   The leaders of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan had sworn to eradicate Israel, and had ringed Israel with troops, armor, and aircraft.   Israel just beat the crap out of them before they could figure out what was happening.  When B. Obama calls for Israel to return to its "pre-1967 borders,"  he is demanding that they return to what was then, and what would be today, an untenable defensive position.

I have stopped wondering just whose side Obama is on.  I think I know now.

Thrown Out By My Wife After 31 Good Years

Absolutely no sentiment or nostalgic feelings shown by her. Just a chuckle and a muttered "worn out."


Not me, but the ironing board she got at some kind of shower before our wedding. She said it finally fell apart. I asked if she didn't perhaps want to just retire it to a place of honor in an out of the way corner instead of just tossing it. After all, it has served faithfully, and seems to deserve some kind of sentiment or appreciation for years of good service. I told her I wouldn't just toss out an old hunting coat that was worn. I would give it a place of honor in the closet, and remember pleasurable trips afield each time I saw it while grabbing a clean pair of khakis. Even a worn out farm implement gets a place of honor along a fence row. As I drive by it on the tractor, I remember the day I was plowing the 20 acre field behind the pine lot and saw the 10 point buck, or when I plowed up a perfect arrow point with it back in '78. I wouldn't just sell it for scrap. Too many memories.

Women just don't make much sense sometimes. Why get all sentimental about an anniversary, or something like that, and then just ignore an old ironing board that has rendered faithful service?

She gave me sort of a funny look, scary in a way. She has thrown out some of my old hunting coats, too.

Intro to Red Level

My name is Mark Harris and I am a retired teacher in Taylor County, Georgia.   You can see my interests in my profile.  Those are the things I'll be writing about mostly.   My most dear Earthly interest is my family.  I didn't list them, but I'll be writing about them a whole lot.

I was born in a farm house South of Butler, GA in Taylor County.  There is a large, flat area of relatively rich red and black soil surrounded by a sea of Upper and Middle Coastal Plain sand.  As long as I can remember, that area has been called The Butler Level, or more often, The Red Level.  That's where my screen name on various fora as well as this blog comes from.   When I was growing up in the 50s and early 60s, it was a matter of pride with me that my family owned land on The Red Level.  Still is.

Today I am retired from teaching in the public schools in TC.    I still farmed up until 2006, when spinal fusion surgery, then shoulder joint replacement surgery a year later ended my serious farming.  Now I piddle with a garden at the farm my wife (Bunny) inherited from her parents.   I spend a lot of time surfing the net, and stirring the pot on the various gun, hunting, and political fora I frequent.

In my profile picture, I am trying to sight-in a Ruger Vaquero with a 3.5 inch barrel I bought before Christmas.   I load my own ammo for the various .45 Colt and .38 special pistols I shoot.

More later.