Dwarf Cyprus in Tate's Hell

I mentioned some about Tate's Hell in the last post in this blog. Dr. Rucker, who teaches Florida History and also a very popular Florida PANHANDLE History at Pensacola State and at University of West FL is our guide.

Back Roads with Rucker

We hit some backroads near TATES HELL off the Apalachicola bay!

Apalachicola and A Lucky Dog

Karen and I made overnight trip to Apalachicola with Dr. Brian Rucker and his wife, Amy.  Brian is a professor of Florida History at Pensacola State College and teaches adjunct courses at UWF.  We recently sat in on his Panhandle History Class and are now hopelessly curious about all the places and the history that happened there.

So -- On MONDAY we made our way from Milton, FL to Apalachicola. I like Brian's routing which took us to Crestview by I-10 and then down near Fort Walton and then EAST on Florida Hwy 20. THAT took out a LOT of the traffic issues or loss of "color" by using I-10 or by using the often crowded US Hwy 98 near the beaches.  We stopped for a few pictures at Econfina Creek and in or near Wewahichka. That is where the Dead Lakes are located. It is a popular fresh water fishing haven.  It is also a famous area for the production of Tupelo Honey ! A movie about a local character and his "Tupelo Gold" is told in the movie "Ulee's Gold" with Peter Fonda . It was filmed there in the late 1990's. the gold is Tupelo Honey.

About 1830, enterprising investors built a railroad across the swamp here - to Port St. Joe - where they hoped to use the deep water port to compete with Apalachicola - to transport cotton out of the lower Alabama farmland.

rail pilings in Chipola river

The advantage to the port of Apalachicola of course was the VAST watershed area of the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers that fed the port out of both Georgia and Alabama. The drawback to Apalachicola - which became one of the busiest ports in America was its shallow depth.

While good for oysters - it was not good for deep-water ships. "Lighter" ships (actually called "lighters") conveyed the cotton bales out of the bay to oceangoing ships anchored in the gulf, beyond St. George Island.



Alas, Port St. Joe had a Yellow Fever epidemic and nearly everybody died.  The railroad died. the port died. Port St. Joe, near Cape San Blas is in revival now. Even has a functioning port facility. It is a beautiful area to visit. Meanwhile, at the Chipola River bridge crossing the Dead Lakes - you can still see the remains of the pilings for the old railroad that failed.

It was a stress free route and soon we were wandering around Apalachicola - but not after checking into the GIBSON INN and taking a 30 minute nap.

We have been often to Apalachicola. It is one of our favorite "Old Florida" towns. It has become a little bit trendy of late and prices are geared to the beach condo crowd on St. George Island. Regardless, the average upland Cracker with worn shoes or bare feet can still find good prices.  The Gibson Inn was a new experience for us and it will not be the last. It is for sale just now for $3.5 Million Dollars, U.S.  I expect the new owners will keep the ambiance.

You will see some of the hotel in my included photo

album.

I missed the last "R" month for oysters but risked a few for an appetizer anyway. These were

sprinkled with caviar, shallots and lime or lemon juice and some other fancy orange colored garnish. Oh man. They were great. We all went with the special for the day - A grouper dish.

Brian and I left the ladies to rest after dinner and went for a brief tour of the waterfront again - at night - to observe some of their
"Forgotten Coast"  celebrations with Plein Air Music and Artists. Even so it was a quiet waterfront and zero activity in the town.

chrisklingartist.com

 Back on the hotel porch, I met a man who does web work for the region and who has a dog he found abandoned - named -   "Lucky" .  . We talked some about his passion for the region and also about the dog. ALUCKYDOGG (find on facebook)

A Lucky Dog

After a comfortable breakfast at the Hotel we began a tour route to include East Bay - where most of the Oyster boats work from -- and then up the EAST side of the Apalachicola River to  TATE's HELL.  You never want to get lost in Tate's Hell. It killed Tate.   His last words were, "I'm Cebe Tate, and I have been to Hell !"  

It was impressive. One part of Hell we saw was the Dwarf Cypress Forest.

Dwarf Cypress at Tate's Hell

Even trees over 300 years old will only grow to about 15 feet. Something to do with the limestone layer underneath. We stopped for an observation tower at Sand Beach. on the North side of the Bay.

Amy and Brian Rucker

The Next historical interlude on our return from hell, was FORT GADSDEN on the Apalachicola River. It was a fort with a lot of owners. Spain, Britain, USA, Confederates. The river was a gateway and it was at a strategic location to block transportation. At one point, In 1815 under weak Spanish ownership and recently abandoned by British administration, it became a way-point for escaped slaves out of the the United States.

One thing led to another and eventually the "Negro Fort" was under siege by Jackson's troops who attacked the hostile Fort, fired , a lucky "hot shot" into the fort's magazine.  It subsequently blew up

We sneaked in

and killed most of the defenders.  This was a time of continued sensitivities toward the slaves and Indians (at this fort) who had been allied with the British in the war 1812 -( recently concluded at New Orleans). The Indians shot the Freedman black leader and the other free blacks were sent back to plantations in the USA -- North of Spanish Florida.

The "White Stick" Creek alliance with the Americans in this battle increased tensions with the Seminoles and led to the " First Seminole War".  Bear in mind, the Seminoles were largely composed of disaffected and hostile Creeks known as the "Red Sticks" who had sided with the British in the war of 1812.  This brings to mind an old saying-- "You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose -- but you can't pick your friend's nose".  They were messy times. It is much nicer now --- well, around here anyway.

While the greater part of my heritage comes from European stock, it turns out that tracing my grandma's family tree back, brings us to a Creek Indian woman, my 4th Great Grandma - Winnie Muscogee. Winnie and Thomas homesteaded near Marianna, Nancy Muscogee Gay is the daughter in my lineage. But one or more of Nancy's brothers were "Creek Indian Troops" in some of the Seminole Wars. They enlisted in groups and their units were separate fighting units. William Gay - a 4th Great Uncle was in the Florida Militia Indians. Some names in the regiment include "Spanish John" and "Big Davy".

We were unable to get close to the fort because we did not want to be captured and sent to jail since the sign said "CLOSED - DO NOT ENTER".  Dr. Rucker showed me a recent Laser based space photograph of the fort area that clearly shows the older fort and the newer one and the modifications that took place over time.  This cannot be seen by casual observation.

Karen can count

Our return trip took us BACK THROUGH Blountstown, FL on the West side of the Apalachicola River and back into the Central Time Zone.  We visited the  Pioneer Museum there.  Sometimes I feel really old when I go to places like that becuase in some of the houses, I can say --- My grandma had that ! Or -- I visited friends whose houses were just like that. OF course, by the 1950's those features from homes in the late 1800's were already rare but .... still.... we were living that history then!

While in Blountstown we learned Amy Rucker's great grandfather was the architect for the

Amy's GGrandpa was the Archetect

courthouse there. We took her picture in front of it. They don't make them like that anymore!  We ate lunch at the Parramore Too Restaurant - where the locals eat.

I do not know what happened after that. I fell asleep and by some magic I was home and asleep by 9pm.





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The entire ALBUM OF PHOTOS is HERE (enjoy)

Some Perdido River Reflections

Just "chill" a bit and enjoy the river. I shot this one day in the winter on the Perdido with the "Riverlogger"

Dad goes to Iceland

J. Lee Campbell -- A World War II Tale …………… (Vic Campbell - vic@buzzcreek.com )

PBY - 5A

Dad joined the navy almost a year before the USA entered the conflict. He was assigned to VP84 when the war broke out and remained with them until sent back to CONUS for more training in 1944.  VP84 was a submarine patrol squadron based mostly on the East Coast, Newfoundland and Iceland and was the top scoring U-Boat sinking squadron of the war.

A pilot from this squadron made a now famous quote, " Sighted Sub -- Sank Same".

His remembrance of Dec 7, 1941 was he and (I think Wiley Diamond, from Jay) were strolling around Norfolk on Sunday afternoon and at some point there became very few people on the streets and very little activity. When they passed by some people they would look at them and say “those poor sailors”.  They arrived back at the base soon thereafter and were immediately handed rifles at the gate and sent to a beach to begin patrols along the water.

Dad was enlisted. He was a junior Petty Officer.  He was a machinist mate and a plane captain for one fo the PBY’s used for rescue and escort of other PBY’s and ships in trouble.  He described the nose art on his plane as a polar bear in a liferaft and the bear had a medical kit in its hands with a red cross on it.  I have never seen a picture of it.  A restored version of the PBY5A (with wheels) is in the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola.

One day - in ICELAND, at their base in Reykjavik, his plane was called on to make a mercy mission flight to get a young girl to a hospital. The pilot was Joe Higbee, of New Jersey.  They called for volunteers and dad went. He was about age 23 at the time (He was born in 1920).  Higbee and the few volunteers cranked up in very bad weather and taxied out take off into a storm.

Arriving over the fishing village - there was NOWHERE to safely set the plane down on water. A Cliff left a small patch of water with leeward protection but the beach where the people for the ride were standing was on the wrong side of the wind and waves were high.   Higbee found a way to land in the leeward soft water and taxi over nearer to the people. They came out to the plane through very rough water and were taken on board with great difficulty.  The Sick Girl and maybe one or two relatives.

J. Lee Campbell of Chumuckla

Then Higbee had to get out of there.  He aimed into the wind (against the waves) and tried a couple of times but the waves beat back the PBY boat hull and nearly swamped the engines.  He was having no luck getting up INTO the wind. Dad and the rest of the crew were all buckled down with the passengers.  HIgbee decided to make a run for it going WITH the wind … but it meant he had to go now TOWARD another cliff.  Engines roared. HIgbee piled on the speed and those big PBY wings lifted the bird up just ahead of the cliff and they swung over the cliff by mere feet as the plane climbed.

The girl got to the hospital. It saved her life. Iceland to this day has a day of remembrance for that event in the little village where the girl (now a grandmother with many children and grandchildren) lives.  Dad told me the story on tape about 1974 - soon after I came out of the Navy and we sat by a river and just talked. But the recorder batteries died right after he and Wiley Diamond learned about Pearl Harbor. Dad came to NJ to visit us about 1991 after our son was born. We tried to find Joe HIgbee but we did not succeed. Later I heard he had retired in a small town near the coast ( Maybe Red Bank?) where he had run a school bus company for many years.  Some years later, after Dad died in 2003, my brother made a Navy trip to Reykjavik with his reserve duties. He took Dad’s flight logs with him and while there discovered Icelandic researchers who knew all about that flight. They verified it with the logbook Jim showed them.  HIgbee had been brought to Iceland sometime in the 1990’s and was awarded a medal from that country.  I vaguely recall that the medal was donated to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola after HIgbee died. I suppose it is cataloged somewhere in the archives there.  

http://www.worldcat.org/title/six-hits-and-a-miss/oclc/733547220

WWW.INCOUNTRY.BLOGSPOT.COM  (Vic’s Blog)

ADDENDUM NOTES FROM QUINN ELLIOTT 
of Allentown FL (near Chumucka, FL- Home of J. L. Campbell ....

I find your article about your Father and the Navy fascinating. Being somewhat aware of both events described I would like to add some additional information. The famous laconic phrase sent 18 January 1943 "sighted sub sank same" entered the lexicon of famous American military statements. Most folks aren't aware that it was sent by a Naval Aviation Pilot (not to be confused one whit with a Naval Aviator, an Officer.) Yes indeed Donald Mason, pilot in command was at that time an Aviation Machinist Mate First Class (Naval Aviation Pilot/NAP for short). He earned those gold wings in 1938. Furthermore, there wasn't an Officer anywhere near, nary a one on the land based Lockheed PBO-1,the crew consisted entirely of Enlisted men. 

This aircraft and crew was from VP-82 out of Argentia, Newfoundland. The PBO flown by NAP Mason was one of a small batch of Lockheed Hudson's diverted from the Royal Air Force (RAF) to the Navy. After the war, when all concerned were counting up their losses, it was determined that the submarine thought destroyed had actually survived the attack. However, on 15 March 1943 NAP Mason and crew were confirmed as sinking a different submarine, U-503. Under the command of Captain Otto Gericke, U-503 was on its first operational tour out of Bergen, Norway. Apparently U-503 was sunk with the loss of all hands! For that accomplishment NAP Mason was hauled into the officer ranks, and was awarded his second Distinguished Flying Cross, first was for the earlier affair.

 ..............................

Joseph Higbee, born January 13, 1914 in East Chicago, Indiana. Placed in an orphanage, adopted by Charles Higbee raised on a 300 acre farm, mules and horses, no tractors. Completed high school at age 20, joined the Navy 20 July 1934, doing "boot camp" in Norfolk, Virginia. He earned his "wings of gold" as a Naval Aviation Pilot in 1939. During the war NAP Higbee was Commissioned temporarily, reverting back to enlisted after the hostilities to CAP (Chief Aviation Pilot). Thus he became a Naval Aviator as an officer, reverting back to Naval aviation Pilot at the end of the war. He advanced or was promoted from "boot" through Lieutenant Commander during his 20 year career, retiring at Naval Air station Lakehurst, New Jersey 22 October 1954 as an Aviation Machinist's Mate Chief Petty Officer (AP) or ADC(AP)-AP being Aviation Pilot. 

The 11 year old girl (Halla Cusmundsdotir) was flown from Patreksfjord, Iceland to hospital in Reykjavik near death from measles complications. It was a life and death situation for Halla, she was accompanied by her father, who held her in his arms during the flight. In the 1980's Halla, a grandmother made contact with Joe thanking him for saving her life. Mercy flights weren't new for Higbee, he had previously provided emergency transportation for a woman who had suffered a heart attack. For placing himself, his crew and aircraft, at risk in quite foul weather and succeeding in saving the girl's life, Iceland awarded Joe Higbee the Icelandic Service Medal some 42 years later. During the hectic times of the war years, this feat was considered part of the job. One of his wartime achievements that most surely saved many lives and equipment was when he and his crew were patrolling a 58 ship convoy and its escorts. They sighted a submarine and attacked it. 

That action and the subsequent action of the convoy escorts kept the submarines at bay until the convoy was clear. As a Chief Aviation Pilot, Joe became one of the early helicopter pilots in the United State Navy, number 39 in December 1947. He retired from the Navy in October 1954. He worked for a number of years in the school systems in New Jersey. In 1970 he relocated to sturgis, Michigan. He is listed in the 1991 Silver Eagles roster as living in Portage, Michigan. Joe joined the Great Majority 1 April 1993 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He had been a resident of Bronson, Sturgis and Portage Michigan for the past 22 years.

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I find it amazing history that your father, from Chumuckla was a crewman on that life saving flight . This added later --- " Purported to be 08095.  Back of a Silver Eagles issue.  Supplied by NAP Higbee I would think.  No bureau number visible.  I have looked considerable in an attempt to find a photo showing the bureau number.  This one however is the only one I know of ." (Quinn Elliott) 

It is possible our dad, J. Lee Campbell  (Aviation machinist 3rd or 2nd) is in this photo. He was "Plane Captain" ... that is ... he was in charge of making sure the plane was properly serviced and ready to fly and often flew with the crew. (Vic Campbell). Dad mentioned a logo on this plane indicated its status as a rescue craft for the squadron. It has an insignia on it of a polar bear in a liferaft holding a red cross kit. That MAY be the art on the side - below and a few feet back of the "star" markings. Too fuzzy to be sure of that though.

The Author and Collector - Raymond Johns

Raymond Johns - Author

All I wanted was a boat.

But you know the story about a boat and what happens next. So I had to sell the boat or face the wrath of Karen Campbell.

Sold it to a man who is dragging logs out of the river but he needed a truck. I helped him find a truck which promptly broke six times in two months. So I found him another truck for trade by way of a man named Freeman Simpson.  Freeman has a buddy named Raymond Johns who is a budding author with few resources to reach his market.

A letter from President G.W. Bush

THIS means the boat purchase from the recommendation of the daughter of the man who told me about the glass tektite meteorite from Barnetts Crossroads in 1967 has led to this moment of helping Mr. Johns get his books into print or electronic media without any cost to himself.  My suggestion is to use Createspace.com (Amazon) or Lulu.com (independent).


These places on the web make book publishing easy and actually NO cost to the author until the books start to sell --- at which time a percentage goes to those companies.

A Beginner Reading Book

Some of his books are targeted toward children - including a coloring book and an early reader. Other books are geared toward philosophical or religious insight. I am going to try to set up a place for him using free - Gospaces.com. Some of these books should be electronic downloads anyway.

Among the Mr. John's hobbies is the practice of writing to Presidents of the United States or to other government leaders to offer them encouragement.  He has letters in return from George W. Bush and Barack Obama among other government leaders.  I have suggested he can create a book from his correspondence to and from those leaders and probably find an interested audience.

We are going to look into that. I may help him scan the material.  And I am going to show him how to set up a blog like this one -  or my ME3TV Blog where he can write to his heart's content and get the word out about his various projects.

Coloring Book with Nutrition

The man is multi-talented. Other hobbies include the making of metal sculptures from scrap material and he collects a wide variety of art - some of it originals - some of it that might find interested buyers on the internet.

So --- for want of a boat --- I am now involved in ONE MORE project.  I'll be back over at the Perdido River today to see how the RIVER LOGGER is doing.

A Brief Seasonal Message

Merry Christmas to you all and Goodwill toward all Peoples.

Our Christmas Update for 2016 is HERE

The Off the Record Combat Vet

Army Records Request

UPDATE -- A combat veteran with PTSD and crippling injuries - slipped through the cracks. It has been SIX MONTHS since we sent his request for records to the US ARMY in St. Louis.  THERE HAS BEEN NO REPLY -- no contact.  Next step -- Congressman....

Danny Rowell's  story ... He remains lost to the system 46 years later.

Roy Allen (who is blind) has a disabled cousin living with him now. Danny is a big help even though he can hardly talk to be understood. Danny is a Vietnam Vet but he blew off the army after half his tour under fire in Vietnam an in '69 and went AWOL back home with his HOT young bride. His time in Vietnam was intense with combat and the loss of close friends.  His foot was rotted by jungle rot and he was hospitalized in Vietnam and then shipped to Hawaii for treatment.The foot was never corrected. He boarded a plane with is young wife and returned to Florida. He was contacted once by the army but his temper and youth got the better of him (read PTSD) and he went AWOL again after a brief time in an army brig.  He remains a cripple. He intended to come back but it kept sounding like worse and worse punishment so he delayed for years.  His life could have been much different if he had the care he deserved for both PTSD and the foot rot. Eventually the marriage failed - rather quickly.

So his discharge reads administrative (not honorable). This costs him VA help for PTSD - for illness - for injuries of foot rot and malaria plus more recent injuries like about 30 years ago ... two bullets in his head from a 9mm by his old girlfriend (after the divorce - different girl). An earlier story posted in my pages informs the reader that a 9mm held against the skull when fired may not blow off the top of  the victim's head --- and instead weaken the force of the bullet so it only lodges in the brain. I learn so many things hanging out with my blind friend, Roy Allen and his associates.  I could write a book.

Yes he should have gone back to the army - taken his punishment and gone back to die in Vietnam with a rotted foot. But he did not. It would have been hard to make that decision given the HOT young wife and being a teenager still ... and having just made some friends in Vietnam who died early - in front of his own eyes.

 An illegal immigrant now has more status in America than this combat veteran. SO I am trying to get some records out of archives to move him forward toward real VA help. Trust me - this will be an interesting case study to follow.  I am busy trying to find records to support a claim. He was in combat from January 2 to about August 15, 1969 with the 198th Light Infantry BN - a part of the Americal Division. So we are making paperwork applications for ALL his unit and personal records that apply.  We will see how that goes. (so far six months and no reply from the army)

Meanwhile, I have suggested if he would just apply for gender re-assignment - through the VA he will probably be accepted because the VA just set up a new clinic for just that procedure. Another option, I think -- is to apply for immigration to Vietnam where he may be readily accepted for veteran care in their own government program to care for veterans of the Vietnam  War. The initial responses from Danny regarding these options indicate they will be solutions of LAST resort.

Here is a LINK TO SOME 198th Light Infantry BN Web Sources
UPDATE: We have his request in to the ARMY archives for a complete  personnel record. We also had a connection to his old 1/52 Unit - with a combat log for the unit in 1969. Danny was in Co. B and was in a mortar platoon.  The indications are he was in heavy combat.  Roy tells us  that Danny's bad limp is largely a result of a deformed foot from "foot rot" which along with malaria is what got him hospital evacuated to an in country hospital and then shipped to Hawaii for more care. It was, of course, in Hawaii that his young wife came to visit and youthful anxieties overcame them and they returned to the USA without reporting through channels.  His life story began to sour badly at that point in time (well - it already sucked).  (see above).  It is now JUNE 2016, five/six months later and no response from the army.

Mary Jo Trenkler: SOUTHERN SPEAK AND DIRTY WORDS

MJ has roots in my home town.  Mary Jo Trenkler: SOUTHERN SPEAK AND DIRTY WORDS: When I first started writing in college, I was writing radio commercials. I was scared to death. It was so important to me that I not...

Today's Davis Report

100 years old in 2015

It was a slow day so I decided to speed up things a bit and drop by to visit The Davis's. Stepped in the door and Willard's caregiver, Patsy McBride Steadham was there.  I had a bag of boiled peanuts that Gordon Howell had given me for  Roy Allen, my blind buddy over in Allentown and was on the way give them to Roy but Roy is such a sport, I decided it was OK to give the boiled peanuts to Willard, who can't eat them because of the salt content anyway and then, Doug  will just pig out on them and ruin his supper. So I had them in my hand, fresh hot and boiled by Frank Lowry, up the road -  and bought by Gordon and passed to me by his wife, Lana for Roy  -- who would miss out regardless. Handed them to Patsy. She ate them while Doug and I and Willard got onto more pressing matters.

"So, Doug, have you found out anymore about that 1928 Colt automatic pistol that shoots ,25 caliber bullets? " Turns out he had -- and a whole lot more of the Doug Encyclopedia of random information began to spill out. All over the floor -

Doug Davis

So,  it seems the pistol is a miniature exact replica of the famous 45 cal. 1911 model which to this day can be bought brand new from several manufacturers. I then explained to Doug how this was the model I trained on in the Navy back in 1971. Had watched a film of a marine in Vietnam using one in a firefight in the jungle.  The pajama clad enemy jumped out of the jungle set on a movie lot somewhere and began to swing his rifle off his shoulder to the marine. The marine took his time to carefully draw his 1911 and carefully aim his pistol just like they teach you in the school ... controlled breathing (in-out) ... as if an instructor was on the movie set with him - calling the shots (so to speak).  And with the narration going on about careful aim and slow squeeze of the trigger - the marine got off ONE solid, very noisy and accurate movie shot at the enemy actor who dropped immediately into the flowing movie set stream and died (efficient inventory control of Navy bullets "One shot, one dead communist").  So ... yes, I know about the famous 1911. And at the time - I qualified "expert" with it.

But I digress.

Doug went on to explain that those Colt pistols were actually invented by Browning who had contracted to Colt.  He said Browning also contracted to Remington.  He designed tremendous shotguns and had Remington make them for him. Doug explained that he has a Browning shotgun direct from the Browning factory in Belgium - where his aunt got it in 1953.  It seems Remington made Browning shotguns for them until the President of Remington died and the new president did not like Mr. Browning. So Browning ended up getting a factory together over in Belgium back in the twenties (I think).  That factory fell into Nazi hands in WWII but after the war it went back to Browning and began making shotguns again and THAT is how Doug's aunt wound up with one for her husband.

Doug then told on his dad, Willard, who when he was a teenager, got hold of his dad's prized 12 gauge and was told by his dad to NEVER fire that thing -- "it will knock you down".  It was a single barrel, made by an obscure company called J.S. Arms - using heavy "armory steel" in 1915. The gun is this very year, ONE HUNDRED years old (and actually has cobwebs in the barrel). How it came into the possession of Willard is a story.  His dad, "S.S." (Sling Shot) Davis was 21 in 1915 and he spent $20 to buy this shotgun, an arsenal of shells for it and shells for a new .22 caliber squirrel gun he got the same day, his birthday present to himself.   These two guns were in the family as prized possessions even years after he married, except at some point the .22 was lost in an unforgivable

Willard Davis

exchange of property.

It seems the little .22 rifle did well until a spring broke and it needed to be replaced.  "Sling Shot" had mentioned publicly the hammer had to be manually set and released and was irritated about it.  He had an order in to Sears in Dothan for a ten cent spring to fix it but none of THIS information was transferred to the family conversation.  The very day "Sling Shot" went to Dothan to get the spring, a rolling store came by the house -- which I think at that time may have been near the towns of Esto and Noma - North of Bonifay Florida.

I know this because Doug once told me that "Sling Shot" (his grandpa) and migrated over to this county 100 miles distant back in the 1930's. It was the same time my mom's family - the Carswells made that migration. They all did that because they had word from a fellow neighbor - Mr. Marvin Lee who came "out West" earlier and found superb farmland.  Marvin Lee settled on Jessie Allen Road near Allentown.  The Carswells found a place to buy near the current UF Agricultural Experiment Station on Hwy 182 - and "Sling Shot" was coaxed into a nice spread closer to Chumuckla on Hwy 182.  So the point is a lot of these people knew each other for years but migrated almost simultaneously to a bit more easterly location, away from where the soil had about "played out".  They were thrilled to find good farmland in our County.

The Rolling Store had some things in it that Mrs. Davis was eager to have. The "broken .22 rifle" was something she could trade. So for a sack of flour, the .22 was given in trade  .... just as "Sling Shot" was finding the ten cent spring cure in Dothan (the nearest large town to Noma).

Willard said every time the .22 rifle was mentioned in his lifetime again - his face would glow with anger over the loss of his precious gift to himself on his twenty first birthday. When Willard was a teenager, he allowed curiosity to get the best of him and when the family was absent -  he took the 12 gauge single barrel J.S. Arms shotgun down from the wall and took it out to fire it.  Afterwards, he picked himself up and dusted off and carefully replaced the shotgun on the wall and never told them about it until long after he was married himself.  It's a family legend.

Find Chumuckla  (39)

"Sling Shot" died about 1987. He was 21 in 1915. So he lived to about 93 years old ... which Willard explains,led to another failed investment.  After moving to Chumuckla in the thirties, "Sling Shot" felt he needed life insurance to cover his fledgling farm mortgage and life needs for his young family in case he was to die. A  Fellow named Amos from Jay had moved to Milton and opened up a dime store there.  "Sling Shot" got a $1000 policy there for $33/year.  As it turns out, because of his very long life, he never got the full return on the policy.  Over time he spent over $1700 for his $1000 policy -which AFLAC paid out to Donnie Sowell's funeral home when "Sling Shot" died.   It seems Amos' insurance business in Milton was the seed for an institution that sprouted to great success over in Columbus, Georgia.  American Family Life of Columbus has an annoying duck -- (AFLAC) probably purchased with the honest profits from providing Life Insurance for "Sling Shot" who lived too long to get all his money back.

But he couldn't take it with him anyway. Right?

It turns out I saved back some peanuts for Roy. They were in a bag in the truck. I left WIllard and Doug, with Patsy. Miriam is back in the hospital  ( in Jay ) today with an infection that makes her hallucinate and talk in delirium. I hope she gets some relief.  She and Willard and Doug and Doug's sisters, Brenda and Sandra are among my favorite people in the world.

NOV 3 2015 - Vic Campbell  vic@buzzcreek.com

Your Peanut at Work

It is time to pick the peanuts. Tiger Godwin gives a little insight.

PEANUT HARVEST 2015

Here is the peanut harvest in 2015 in Santa Rosa County, Florida.  The process is to invert the plant so the peanuts can dry out. Then run them through the combine picker and transfer them to a basket and eventually a wagon to take to the buyer.  People around here enjoy the activity in the season and the special air of peanuts.  In the same general time frame, cotton is coming into season for harvest.  Its a busy time. In this video you might see footage that includes farms or famers -- Godwin, Campbell, Griswold, Enfinger, Cotton --- and more.  Chumuckla.com is full of interesting life. Enjoy more at me3tv.org (the youtube channel)

Peanut Harvest at Sunset

Sometimes you get to see the Amazing World of Agriculture in a whole new light. Here is the Peanut Harvest season in Santa Rosa County, Florida. I'll add a playlist of more scenes later.

Crockett on the Escambia River -by Dr. Rucker

Davy Crockett was a scout for part of Jackson's army in the Creek Indian War of 1814.  Here is Dr. Brian Rucker  to tell us about at least one incident on our local river at the time.

LIVE OAK LIFE

James Doyle Moore of Jay, Florida writes with depth. His writing and other talent in our area are being featured as local podcasts in this blog. Enjoy. AND when you are visiting your elders at home or in nursing homes, take out your smart phone and spool up some of these short and heartfelt memories for all to enjoy. The older folks often enjoy a little bit of AUDIO - especially when eyesight begins to fade away. You can sign up for email notice when a new post is made here. Please feel free to bookmark the page and to share by social media and email.

Peanut time in Santa Rosa - Sunset

Gucci Day and Oysters in Mobile !

The Legendary Goat Man, Ches McCartney

The Legendary Goat Man, Ches McCartney
This is quite a tale for those who remember his travels through our region.

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Here is another link full of information about THE HUMAN BODY

In Memory of Ivo Duvall

Farewell, Ivo W. Duvall. You are a legend. Following seas ! Your spirit remains as a legend of American Native Spirit. Sailor. Alaskan pioneer. And master storyteller ! I hope ALL YOUR BOOKS continue to be reading material for those who want the feel of a rugged generation that made the best of a challenging world.  FOR MORE OF HIS BOOKS CHECK HERE (and explore his titles HERE)

County Heritage includes Turkey

Our speaker at the Genealogical Society for September 19, 2015 was Kelly Schwarz who is married to a lady with deep roots in our county - the Theresa Steadham Schwarz. We won't go much into the Steadham family in this talk- but it is a well known and storied history that includes some of the rare survivors from the massacre at Fort Mims in 1813. Kelly will be talking about his Great grandfather's trek to find his brothers. Among intrigue and wars in Turkey, a young man sought a way out - to America -where his brothers were already living in Detroit. Alas the ship to "AMERICA" was destined to SOUTH AMERICA and Argentina. The young man traveled and worked along the way for FOUR YEARS to reach his family in the OTHER America. This is a fascinating story and as time evolved, a descendant of this epic legacy is now here among us in Santa Rosa County.  The story is now available on a DVD file collection at the museum. Copies are available for a small donation.

A Young Man I Knew One Time

Stuart Pooley gives a reading of his recollections about a chance encounter with one soul at one moment in time in Nashville - years ago. A haunting and human passing of souls. Buzzcreek and ME3tV.org will be presenting Stuart's poems and the writings and talents of other regional talent in a podcast from Chumuckla.com - and www.incountry.blogspot.com

Stories from the Old Timers

Excellent writing and reminiscing shows up on the Jay Historical Society FACEBOOK Pages. I will try to transfer most of these to THIS BLOG or the JAY HISTORY blog for easy sharing and access outside of Facebook users.  This is tremendous reading. Enjoy it !

gradea - Yahoo Mail

From Today's Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-flawed-missing-men-theory-1439159236

The Flawed ‘Missing Men’ Theory

Mandatory-sentencing laws need an overhaul, but the dissolution of black families in the U.S. predates them.

By

Kay Hymowitz

Aug. 9, 2015 6:27 p.m. ET

245 COMMENTS

As riots tore through Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore this winter and spring, so did denunciations of a criminal-justice system that has placed a disproportionate number of black men behind bars. One widely aired theory holds that not only are racial disparities and mass incarceration patently unjust on their own terms, but they also result in, to quote Hillary Clinton in the first policy speech of her campaign, “missing husbands, missing fathers, missing brothers.”

The missing-men theory of family breakdown has the virtue of being easy to grasp: Men who are locked up are obviously not going to be desirable husbands or engaged fathers. It also bypasses thorny and deadlocked debates about economics and culture. Still, the theory has a big problem: It’s at odds with the facts.

What extensive data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and National Vital Statistics Reports show is that the black family was in deep disarray well before America’s prison-population increase. As the 1960s began, 20% of all black births were to single mothers. By 1965 black “illegitimacy”—in the parlance of the time—had reached 24% and become the subject of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prophetic but ill-fated report “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.”

Yet the figure that so worried future Sen. Moynihan turned out to be the ground floor of a steep 30-year climb. By 1980 more than half of black children were born to unmarried mothers. The number peaked at 72.5% in 2010 and is now just below 72%.

In the 1960s and early ’70s, as nonmarital births raced upward, the number of black men admitted to state and federal prisons annually hovered between 20,000 and 27,000, showing no significant trend up or down. The later 1970s showed a notable increase, so that in 1980 alone there were 53,063 black males admitted to prison. Throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, black prison admissions grew to historic highs and peaked at 257,000 in 2009. They have since declined slightly.

If anything, the timing of the two problems points to the opposite causation from the one assumed by “missing men” theorists: As the family unraveled, crime increased—the homicide rate doubled between the early 1960s and late ’70s, with more than half of the convicted being black—leading to calls for tougher sentencing to place more bad guys behind bars. In other words, family breakdown was followed by increased crime and more-crowded prisons.

We shouldn’t take this alternative theory too far. Crime and prison rates are unlikely to have a single cause: Demographics, policing and sentencing policies, environmental toxins, and who knows what else may all play some role. Perhaps the most controversial of those policies was the “war on drugs,” first declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971. There’s little question that the government’s hard line on drugs eventually put large numbers of black men behind bars.

However, if the war on drugs played any role in shaping the contemporary black family, it is almost impossible to decipher from the data. As of 1979, only 5.7% of U.S. prisoners were incarcerated for drug offenses. Yet by that time nearly half of black births were already to single mothers. The number of men imprisoned for drug crimes rose only modestly until 1990, four years after Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, legislating harsher sentences for crack cocaine, a move often cited as a cause of the disproportionately black prison population.

Far from leading to more fatherless children, the growing number of black men imprisoned for drugs coincided with a flattening of the percentage of black single mothers, after a 30-plus-year upward climb.

Whatever its errors, the war on drugs doesn’t take us far in explaining racial disparities in prisons, despite claims from many pundits. “More than half of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes in 2010,” goes a typical formulation, from the Huffington Post. It’s true, as far as it goes—but “federal prisoners” make up only about 14% of all incarcerated men. In the far larger state system, the majority of black men are doing time for violent crimes. Between the federal and state system, almost 2½ times the number of black men are serving sentences for murder, assault and the like than they are for using and selling drugs.

The preponderance of violent prisoners splinters another plank of the missing-men theory: that mass incarceration of black adults has harmed black children. Researchers have made a compelling case that when fathers go to prison, their absence takes a toll on their children. Boys, especially, have more behavioral problems, including aggressive acting out, and lower educational achievement.

You can construct a reasonable argument that the children of men sentenced for drug offenses—and the communities they live in—would be better off if fewer fathers were behind bars. But when it comes to men prone to violence, that supposition is dubious. The difficult truth avoided by most missing-men adherents is that men doing prison time are part of a larger population that doesn’t provide much in the way of paternal care, even if they never are locked up.

None of this means that incarceration policies aren’t ready for an overhaul. The country needs a vigorous examination of mandatory-sentencing laws, the war on drugs, and racial disparities in arrests and sentencing. But that debate shouldn’t be used to evade the realities of family life in neighborhoods like Ferguson and Baltimore’s Sandtown. Evasion has been the preferred modus vivendi over the past 50 years, ever since Moynihan’s warning of rising fatherlessness drew sharp condemnation. Look where it has gotten us.

Ms. Hymowitz is a contributing editor to City Journal, from whose summer issue this article is adapted.

Living off the Land

http://musingswithkimmee.blogspot.com/2015_08_01_archive.html?m=1

IN COUNTRY PODCAST in development

Calling all Writers, Storytellers, Photographers, Musicians with original work and local to our region.  A new venue to present works by Authors, musicians and storytellers will debut in the coming weeks.

Your works will be critical to build an audience, creating good will for your work and for the community at large. Tentative name is "IN COUNTRY" . The blog - www.incountry.blogspot.com will likely be the host. Facebook pages for me3tv, Jernigan Landing, Chumuckla group, Jay Historical, Santa Rosa Genealogical Society -- and more will have access.

One of our expected STORY tellers !

Imagine - something like "A Prarie Home Companion" - a mix of talents from the area - produced about every two weeks. Initially the "podcasts" will probably be about 10 minutes long with some short 90 second versions designed for radio and other means of distribution. Youtube is the likely cloud host.  The shorter versions may help promote local historical groups as well.

Please comment on the me3tv Facebook page with this post if you are interested.  (or by email to vic@buzzcreek.com) There are logistics to work out (how do we get a storyteller on tape and then on the web?)  Perhaps some of our talent will pitch in with the production effort.  But most of these things can be managed ONLINE without having to GO TO many locations.   "www.chumuckla.com" will also soon become a regular stopover for a lot of viewers. A link will be there too. "Podcast" (think of a simple youtube presentation with only a few pictures and mainly depending on the quality audio presentation).

Here is an example (maybe a bit long) of an author interview. Probably most podcasts will have an author introduction and a short "reading".
https://plus.google.com/+VicCampbell/posts/A2kr7MWYUDs

A hoped for result is that eventually there will be advertisers for the "podcast" and the talent that contributes will eventually find compensation from participation or from improved exposure to their own works.

Coming SOON to a BARN near YOU !

From this web site and others, links will quickly take the audience to the most recent podcast and a list of past programs.