(Last week I attended a reunion of former crew members of the U. S. S. SAUFLEY. The ship was commissioned and sent into action in 1943. I was an officer in her in the mid 1950s. She was in active service until 1964. This is about the Ship and about two men who served in her.)
He and I sat late into the night. Our common bond is the sea, and the link in our conversation is an old ship, now resting on the bottom in twenty fathoms of water a few miles east of Key West. Once a fighting ship with sixteen battle stars emblazoned on its bridge wings, stars won in arduous duty with the Pacific Fleet in World War II, she now is a diving and fishing destination. We are two different men, but somewhat alike. He is just over ninety years of age, nearly blind, and he depended on his daughter to bring him across country from California. He is a retired Navy Captain, one of the original complement of young officers and men who took the U. S. S. SAUFLEY from New York harbor through the Panama Canal into action in the fighting against a superior Japanese fleet. I am only eighty. My time in our ship was in the mid 1950s when she was serving her nation as a moving platform that evaluated yet-to-be accepted undersea weapons. Weapons that just might even the odds against our Cold War foe. The Captain’s experiences encompassed shore bombardments so that our Marine forces on small Pacific islands could defeat a tenacious force of jungle fighters. There were air attacks that the ship had to fend off: powerful dive bombers, fighter planes that strafed her decks and the most dreaded of all, the Kamikazes thrown at our fleet off Okinawa. The SAUFLEY took a direct hit from one of these, and even in the 1950s one could still see the hull plates that had been replaced where she was struck.
We compared notes on great storms that we had both encountered. SAUFLEY rode out “Halsey’s Typhoon”, a tragedy that sunk five similar ships. I told him of the time, on another ship, when I had seen the forces of nature in the “Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962”. Two decades separated the storms, but the recollection of them remains fresh in our minds. He had patrolled off the Aleutians in Arctic waters, and I had done the same in the Atlantic near Greenland. We spoke of the futility of rescue attempts when a man fell into such oceans, where he could only survive three or four minutes before succumbing to hydrothermal effects. Always we spoke of our ship with awe and respect, as a home should be, for it had been his home and my home, and we were as brothers because of her. Then the conversation shifted to our civilian careers. By this time the rest of our shipmates had drifted off to bed, but we continued. The Captain has a Jurist Doctor degree, and a graduate degree in psychology. My education was in business and economics, a poor comparison. I described my venture into writing columns for a newspaper. He was excited over the upcoming two hundred year celebration of the founding of his home town in California. He told me how much he loved his wife, and how he missed her, even on his short trips to our reunions. I expressed my regrets that I did not hold Theresa’s hand more often in her last days with me. We spoke of children and experiences that were sometimes similar and sometimes far apart. He told me that I should travel, and I should go to Paris in August, when the Parisians would likely be on vacation, but I should go only with a “lovely lady”, for Paris would not be the same without one. And I was to tell no one about her, for it was no one’s business. Then we poured one more small drink in this quiet room filled with pictures of our ship, and with our memories. We chatted for a few more minutes, and then he walked to the door, looking closely at the shadowed forms that his weakened vision revealed to him. His room was down the hall to the west. Mine was in the opposite direction. I stood quietly. I watched him check the room numbers and then fumble with the key card until it opened his door. I “covered his back”, unknown to him, until I was certain that he was safe.
After all, the Captain, and others like him, once covered our backs until we were safe from harm.
I could never do less.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Best Books I Have Ever Read
Last week I told my readers how I have moved into the twenty first century by my use of an I-Pod, filled with great music and plugged into my ears so that I can make better time when I walk. I admit that it is a great invention, and I am progressing so that I have reached four miles per day in my exercising.
Now my children tell me of another electronic device, handheld and compact, that allows one to read books on a small screen anywhere and at any time.
And there I draw the line.
Books must have covers, and pages, and print on each page, front and back. The pages must be made of paper, and be numbered sequentially, and have a title and chapters and good words that, when strung together in sentences, make profound sense.
Authors must not be too prolific. They should be required to sweat a lot in the production of the book. Shelby Foote signed a contract to write a Civil War history. He planned one volume, and he figured a year to do it in. He even accepted an advance based on this. Fifteen years and three volumes later he completed his great history and I proudly possess it in my library.
You can hardly turn on a talk show without a guest announcing breathlessly that he or she has just completed a know-all book on politics or diet or sex or training cats (that last is definitely in the fiction category) and it is predicted to be a best seller and it was written in just three months, and you really should run right out and stand in line and buy a copy. This, of course, follows closely on the heels of the one that the “author” published last month. If you succumb to this sales pitch, be prepared to use the book for a door stop. That will be its best use.
I must admit that I have been writing a book myself. I finished the last chapter six months ago, and it is about the War Between the States (the “Waw”, as we call it). I used part of it in my column about Marianna Day, and it was praised. My problem is that I wrote the last chapter first, and I now have what is known as “writers’ block” and nothing will send me back to do the first chapters.
I have been reading for most of my life. I learned when I was four years old and my mother would read the “comics” to me. She hated doing it. Finally she gave me an ultimatum: “read by Christmas or do without the comic pages”. After she explained it to me that way, it came easily. This was fortunate. A couple of years later I contracted polio, or “infantile paralysis”, as it was known in those days. I was quarantined and, when the pain left and the inability to move continued for a while, I read. I read newspapers and books. I recall reading one of my mother’s books named “Anthony Adverse”. It was about as long as “War and Peace” and I suspect that it was a romance novel, maybe even a “bodice ripper”, but at the age of six how was I to recognize that?
I soon graduated to sea stories and adventures. I sailed the oceans with Count Von Luckner, the “Sea Devil”, and experienced “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Captain Bligh of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I found the writings of Joseph Conrad, and went to Africa in his “Heart of Darkness” and rode out a “Typhoon” with that master of the English language.
Strange folks have written books, and one of the most unusual authors was a lady named Gypsy Rose Lee. That was her stage name, and some of my older readers will recognize her, but not if their wives are around. She was a “stripper” on stage and very classy. H. L. Mencken, a writer for the Baltimore Sun Herald, coined a word to describe her: “ecdaisist”. He took the Greek word for “shedding” and stretched it out to take in the stripping to music that Gypsy Rose did, She not only was good, but she wrote an autobiography that was made into the musical “Gypsy”. On occasion you may be on an elevator and hear the song “Has Any Body Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose”. It was written for the show by Jule Stine. A movie followed and she wrote more books and acted in several flicks.
Before you ask, no, I never saw Gypsy perform. I did see Janeen the Tassel Dancer at a night club in one of the west coast ports. Janeen had several tassels strategically placed, and she could twirl them and stop them in mid air and cause them to reverse course. She was well endowed on the upper decks, which is a nautical term. I suspect that she never had to have a face lift. She would only have to take her bra off and the weight would take care of the wrinkles.
And there was Blaze Starr, made famous for being the girlfriend of one of the Longs of Louisiana and also famous for……..
Wait, how did I get off the subject of books?
Last year a young man from Tallahassee who on occasion was published in a newspaper there wrote a column on great books. I E-mailed him, and posed this question: “if you were leaving home and could only take four books with you and would not know where you would be for the next two years, which ones would you select?”. I asked that question of him because I had faced it once. When I enlisted in the Navy, all of my possessions had to fit in a sea bag, and I had room for three or four books and had to make a choice. My mother had given me a Bible, so that went in, but did not get read often. I chose ones that I could read and re-read, and they served me well through my time at sea.
I hope that I will never have to do without books, books that you can pick up and feel, not “texted” books. Theresa and I had over four hundred books about the War Between the States, some fiction, most actual happenings. Stories of battles that were factual in that war surpassed any that have been tried in the fictional sense.
Theresa and I still communicate through these volumes. A couple of months ago I was doing research on my book. During her last years she had also prepared to write a book. I casually picked up a first person account, opened it and found tucked between some pages a Florida Lottery ticket. I never bought lottery tickets, but she often did. She felt that she was doing her part to help education. Well, that’s what she gave as her reason for traveling down once a week to the local convenience store and putting her dollar on the counter. So I know that this is a ticket that she had purchased. It is dated July 8, 1989, and obviously did not win, so it became her bookmark.
And, suddenly one day I pick up the same book, a rather obscure one, and find Theresa’s ticket. This could be nothing except her guiding me from the Beyond and saying: “Holmes, play these numbers”. So I will, soon. I will play them at the appropriate time and I will win. The amount will be in the millions of dollars. I will take a lump sum settlement which, with the standard tax deduction, will still be, say, about nine million dollars, give or take some. I will spend it properly on wine, women and song. And perhaps buy a book.
Theresa would want it that way.
Now my children tell me of another electronic device, handheld and compact, that allows one to read books on a small screen anywhere and at any time.
And there I draw the line.
Books must have covers, and pages, and print on each page, front and back. The pages must be made of paper, and be numbered sequentially, and have a title and chapters and good words that, when strung together in sentences, make profound sense.
Authors must not be too prolific. They should be required to sweat a lot in the production of the book. Shelby Foote signed a contract to write a Civil War history. He planned one volume, and he figured a year to do it in. He even accepted an advance based on this. Fifteen years and three volumes later he completed his great history and I proudly possess it in my library.
You can hardly turn on a talk show without a guest announcing breathlessly that he or she has just completed a know-all book on politics or diet or sex or training cats (that last is definitely in the fiction category) and it is predicted to be a best seller and it was written in just three months, and you really should run right out and stand in line and buy a copy. This, of course, follows closely on the heels of the one that the “author” published last month. If you succumb to this sales pitch, be prepared to use the book for a door stop. That will be its best use.
I must admit that I have been writing a book myself. I finished the last chapter six months ago, and it is about the War Between the States (the “Waw”, as we call it). I used part of it in my column about Marianna Day, and it was praised. My problem is that I wrote the last chapter first, and I now have what is known as “writers’ block” and nothing will send me back to do the first chapters.
I have been reading for most of my life. I learned when I was four years old and my mother would read the “comics” to me. She hated doing it. Finally she gave me an ultimatum: “read by Christmas or do without the comic pages”. After she explained it to me that way, it came easily. This was fortunate. A couple of years later I contracted polio, or “infantile paralysis”, as it was known in those days. I was quarantined and, when the pain left and the inability to move continued for a while, I read. I read newspapers and books. I recall reading one of my mother’s books named “Anthony Adverse”. It was about as long as “War and Peace” and I suspect that it was a romance novel, maybe even a “bodice ripper”, but at the age of six how was I to recognize that?
I soon graduated to sea stories and adventures. I sailed the oceans with Count Von Luckner, the “Sea Devil”, and experienced “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Captain Bligh of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I found the writings of Joseph Conrad, and went to Africa in his “Heart of Darkness” and rode out a “Typhoon” with that master of the English language.
Strange folks have written books, and one of the most unusual authors was a lady named Gypsy Rose Lee. That was her stage name, and some of my older readers will recognize her, but not if their wives are around. She was a “stripper” on stage and very classy. H. L. Mencken, a writer for the Baltimore Sun Herald, coined a word to describe her: “ecdaisist”. He took the Greek word for “shedding” and stretched it out to take in the stripping to music that Gypsy Rose did, She not only was good, but she wrote an autobiography that was made into the musical “Gypsy”. On occasion you may be on an elevator and hear the song “Has Any Body Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose”. It was written for the show by Jule Stine. A movie followed and she wrote more books and acted in several flicks.
Before you ask, no, I never saw Gypsy perform. I did see Janeen the Tassel Dancer at a night club in one of the west coast ports. Janeen had several tassels strategically placed, and she could twirl them and stop them in mid air and cause them to reverse course. She was well endowed on the upper decks, which is a nautical term. I suspect that she never had to have a face lift. She would only have to take her bra off and the weight would take care of the wrinkles.
And there was Blaze Starr, made famous for being the girlfriend of one of the Longs of Louisiana and also famous for……..
Wait, how did I get off the subject of books?
Last year a young man from Tallahassee who on occasion was published in a newspaper there wrote a column on great books. I E-mailed him, and posed this question: “if you were leaving home and could only take four books with you and would not know where you would be for the next two years, which ones would you select?”. I asked that question of him because I had faced it once. When I enlisted in the Navy, all of my possessions had to fit in a sea bag, and I had room for three or four books and had to make a choice. My mother had given me a Bible, so that went in, but did not get read often. I chose ones that I could read and re-read, and they served me well through my time at sea.
I hope that I will never have to do without books, books that you can pick up and feel, not “texted” books. Theresa and I had over four hundred books about the War Between the States, some fiction, most actual happenings. Stories of battles that were factual in that war surpassed any that have been tried in the fictional sense.
Theresa and I still communicate through these volumes. A couple of months ago I was doing research on my book. During her last years she had also prepared to write a book. I casually picked up a first person account, opened it and found tucked between some pages a Florida Lottery ticket. I never bought lottery tickets, but she often did. She felt that she was doing her part to help education. Well, that’s what she gave as her reason for traveling down once a week to the local convenience store and putting her dollar on the counter. So I know that this is a ticket that she had purchased. It is dated July 8, 1989, and obviously did not win, so it became her bookmark.
And, suddenly one day I pick up the same book, a rather obscure one, and find Theresa’s ticket. This could be nothing except her guiding me from the Beyond and saying: “Holmes, play these numbers”. So I will, soon. I will play them at the appropriate time and I will win. The amount will be in the millions of dollars. I will take a lump sum settlement which, with the standard tax deduction, will still be, say, about nine million dollars, give or take some. I will spend it properly on wine, women and song. And perhaps buy a book.
Theresa would want it that way.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tempus Fugit…..and I Fidget
I had been writing columns for Sid Riley’s newspaper for only a short time and was chiefly concerned with the first charge that he gave me: “Tell the folks about the three rivers”. So I told about boats and barges, about river pilots that I knew and of life on the banks of the flowing streams that came out of Georgia and formed the Apalachicola River between Chattahoochee and Sneads.
Then I branched out and related vignettes of my life, both as a civilian and as a Navy man. My fame seemed to grow. At least it grew enough that Sid became somewhat ashamed that he was placing my column farther into the morass of articles, sometimes behind the “Partners for Pets”. I urged that he put me closer to the front page, because I don’t believe even William Faulkner, that famous Southern writer of another century (no, not my century), could compete with a couple of cute kittens.
Then Stephanie, the REAL EDITOR, took me by the hand, figuratively, and found a decent photograph of me, and set up a “Follower” attachment. I do not understand much about this, but I have slowly built up a small list of groupies, and I appreciate it. I intend to take her and the rest of the staff at the “Times” to lunch at Madison’s one day. Maybe not Sid, though. We can bring back some takeout for him.
Soon I was being recognized throughout the county. The first “biggie” was my piece “I’m Not Obese, I am Just Big-Boned”. I basked in the glory of it all. I took my own advice and I lost weight, and got faster on the walking trails. And, as an aside to that, my son and my grandson visited me this last weekend and programmed my I-Pod, which I had been using for a bookmark because I could not turn it on, and today I walked with it hanging from my ears. It was tuned to the Beach Boys and I paced myself and I actually did a mile in 15 minutes! I now have no doubt that I will reach the eight minute mile level, IF I live to be eighty five!
But back to being recognized. Along with recognition here in Jackson County came the “Why don’t you write one about…..” Fill in the blanks: religion; politics; religion and politics; sex; sex, religion and politics. You get the idea. Up until now I would merely nod my head after listening to the question, thank them and walk off.
You will note that I said: “up till now”.
A few days ago I was having breakfast with a very attractive lady and she said: “Why don’t you write a column about Daylight Savings Time?” We had agreed in our conversation that this idea, foisted off on us a couple of times a year, was an abomination. My internal wake up alarm is out of kilter because of it and my breakfast companion has to do her running on a different route since her usual one is not lit by the city. Because I enjoy our breakfasts together, I figured that I had better take this topic on.
It is always necessary to do research unless you have become the authority on a subject or have outlived enough people that knew more about it than you do. Fortunately I recall a great deal about why Daylight Savings Time was thrust upon the United States of America during World War II by Congress. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had pushed through a Declaration of War on December 8, 1941 against Japan and Germany and maybe Italy. (I believe that there was some dispute over who would have Italy. We had them in the first World War, and Churchill felt it was only fair that Germany should have to put up with them this time). The congressmen were peeved that they did not think of this first, so they decided to do something, and came up with Daylight Savings Time. It was meant to give the farmers another hour of sunlight, but this didn’t work, so they decided that it would give war plant workers another hour of day time, but the buildings where those folks built planes and tanks were well lighted, so it didn’t really matter to them. Since Congress works something like the town council of a small municipality, the law has hung in like a cocklebur, and has lasted through WWII, Korea, Vietnam and, for me, the Battle of Oceanview, Virginia. It will probably be with us as we move toward intergalactic space wars between universes and run head on into the Klingons.
So it is obvious that no one should mess with time. I have written several articles about time. Once I used the idea “Make use of scraps of time”. No one will ever know how glad I am that I did not find that motto while my wife Theresa was living. She would have waved it in front of my nose every day, along with her “work” list. She has been gone a little over four years and I am only half through the tasks she had given me.
Time is neither constant nor sure. It is elastic. Read this carefully and I believe you will agree. I get a call to come over to Marianna for breakfast, a distance of sixteen miles. If I am on time, I can drive within the speed limit and make the run in 18 minutes. If I am late, I can drive seventy five miles an hour and my Explorer will ease into a parking space in front of the Gazebo twenty five minutes after I left Sneads. Explain that, Mr. Congressman! We both know that U. S. 90 does not stretch nor contract that much, so it must be time that is so flexible.
When my companion and I sit down to eat, we talk and sometimes we spend two hours together, but it only seems like ten minutes to me. Then the next Sunday I go to church, and the preacher speaks for fifteen minutes, and I catch myself not only looking at my watch often, but wishing I had a calendar.
You have to realize now that it is Congress’ fault. I have not narrowed it down to either House, but I suspect that it is the fault of our Representatives, since they are all running for re-election this year.
The Florida House has it right. They only mess with time as it concerns them. There is a requirement that the body adjourn sine die. This means “within the day” and for years the sergeant-at-arms would, at a nod from the presiding officer, manually stop the movement of hands on the official clock until important business was transacted. The House did this for something over a hundred years, until they figured that unfinished business would mean a special session with more expense money and possibly lots of flowers and strong drink from the lobbyists. I personally liked the old way better. At least they did not push sine die off on the farmers.
I hope that you have learned something about time from my writings. Consider this: Horus was an Egyptian god who was signified by both a circle and by time. Our Congress has angered Horus by inflicting Daylight Savings Time on our country. This is the real reason that the health care bill passed. Do not anger the gods.
And remember what H. L. Mencken said: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong”.
Then I branched out and related vignettes of my life, both as a civilian and as a Navy man. My fame seemed to grow. At least it grew enough that Sid became somewhat ashamed that he was placing my column farther into the morass of articles, sometimes behind the “Partners for Pets”. I urged that he put me closer to the front page, because I don’t believe even William Faulkner, that famous Southern writer of another century (no, not my century), could compete with a couple of cute kittens.
Then Stephanie, the REAL EDITOR, took me by the hand, figuratively, and found a decent photograph of me, and set up a “Follower” attachment. I do not understand much about this, but I have slowly built up a small list of groupies, and I appreciate it. I intend to take her and the rest of the staff at the “Times” to lunch at Madison’s one day. Maybe not Sid, though. We can bring back some takeout for him.
Soon I was being recognized throughout the county. The first “biggie” was my piece “I’m Not Obese, I am Just Big-Boned”. I basked in the glory of it all. I took my own advice and I lost weight, and got faster on the walking trails. And, as an aside to that, my son and my grandson visited me this last weekend and programmed my I-Pod, which I had been using for a bookmark because I could not turn it on, and today I walked with it hanging from my ears. It was tuned to the Beach Boys and I paced myself and I actually did a mile in 15 minutes! I now have no doubt that I will reach the eight minute mile level, IF I live to be eighty five!
But back to being recognized. Along with recognition here in Jackson County came the “Why don’t you write one about…..” Fill in the blanks: religion; politics; religion and politics; sex; sex, religion and politics. You get the idea. Up until now I would merely nod my head after listening to the question, thank them and walk off.
You will note that I said: “up till now”.
A few days ago I was having breakfast with a very attractive lady and she said: “Why don’t you write a column about Daylight Savings Time?” We had agreed in our conversation that this idea, foisted off on us a couple of times a year, was an abomination. My internal wake up alarm is out of kilter because of it and my breakfast companion has to do her running on a different route since her usual one is not lit by the city. Because I enjoy our breakfasts together, I figured that I had better take this topic on.
It is always necessary to do research unless you have become the authority on a subject or have outlived enough people that knew more about it than you do. Fortunately I recall a great deal about why Daylight Savings Time was thrust upon the United States of America during World War II by Congress. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had pushed through a Declaration of War on December 8, 1941 against Japan and Germany and maybe Italy. (I believe that there was some dispute over who would have Italy. We had them in the first World War, and Churchill felt it was only fair that Germany should have to put up with them this time). The congressmen were peeved that they did not think of this first, so they decided to do something, and came up with Daylight Savings Time. It was meant to give the farmers another hour of sunlight, but this didn’t work, so they decided that it would give war plant workers another hour of day time, but the buildings where those folks built planes and tanks were well lighted, so it didn’t really matter to them. Since Congress works something like the town council of a small municipality, the law has hung in like a cocklebur, and has lasted through WWII, Korea, Vietnam and, for me, the Battle of Oceanview, Virginia. It will probably be with us as we move toward intergalactic space wars between universes and run head on into the Klingons.
So it is obvious that no one should mess with time. I have written several articles about time. Once I used the idea “Make use of scraps of time”. No one will ever know how glad I am that I did not find that motto while my wife Theresa was living. She would have waved it in front of my nose every day, along with her “work” list. She has been gone a little over four years and I am only half through the tasks she had given me.
Time is neither constant nor sure. It is elastic. Read this carefully and I believe you will agree. I get a call to come over to Marianna for breakfast, a distance of sixteen miles. If I am on time, I can drive within the speed limit and make the run in 18 minutes. If I am late, I can drive seventy five miles an hour and my Explorer will ease into a parking space in front of the Gazebo twenty five minutes after I left Sneads. Explain that, Mr. Congressman! We both know that U. S. 90 does not stretch nor contract that much, so it must be time that is so flexible.
When my companion and I sit down to eat, we talk and sometimes we spend two hours together, but it only seems like ten minutes to me. Then the next Sunday I go to church, and the preacher speaks for fifteen minutes, and I catch myself not only looking at my watch often, but wishing I had a calendar.
You have to realize now that it is Congress’ fault. I have not narrowed it down to either House, but I suspect that it is the fault of our Representatives, since they are all running for re-election this year.
The Florida House has it right. They only mess with time as it concerns them. There is a requirement that the body adjourn sine die. This means “within the day” and for years the sergeant-at-arms would, at a nod from the presiding officer, manually stop the movement of hands on the official clock until important business was transacted. The House did this for something over a hundred years, until they figured that unfinished business would mean a special session with more expense money and possibly lots of flowers and strong drink from the lobbyists. I personally liked the old way better. At least they did not push sine die off on the farmers.
I hope that you have learned something about time from my writings. Consider this: Horus was an Egyptian god who was signified by both a circle and by time. Our Congress has angered Horus by inflicting Daylight Savings Time on our country. This is the real reason that the health care bill passed. Do not anger the gods.
And remember what H. L. Mencken said: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong”.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
It’s Not Like it Once Was, and Thanks for That!
When I was growing up in Chattahoochee, Sneads was like a different land. The economy of my home town depended on the Florida State Hospital and on the large rail terminal at River Junction. Sneads, at the eastern limits of the largely agricultural Jackson County, was a smaller town, and many of its citizens also worked at the Hospital and drove home each evening across the Apalachicola River Bridge. Their trading center was Marianna, and their Saturday morning trips were in that direction. Chattahoochee was a trading center in itself. A strong bank, several hotels and restaurants catered to traveling salesmen, visitors to the Hospital and the train crews and passengers. In addition a Ford and a Chevrolet dealership, general and specialty stores and at one time two movie theaters served its citizens.
In the 1930s the Town Council members had the foresight to begin generating Chattahoochee’s own electrical power instead of purchasing it from the State. When Woodruff Dam went in, Chattahoochee was able to buy cheap hydroelectric power from the federal government. This, and the addition of natural gas later, gave a strong economic base to the local government. Fire and police protection was good and probably as up-to-date as any small town in the area.
Sneads had none of the moneymaking utilities except a potable water system. However, its citizens demanded police protection, and the city fathers provided it. At first a constable and then a marshal and finally a town police force, sometimes only one man, gave them what they wanted. Of course, along with a police force came ordinances that spelled out misdemeanors and felonies that were to be covered and tried in its own court, where the mayor was usually the presiding officer. As with most laws, these were added to as needed, and seldom erased. Abraham Lincoln once said that the best way to get rid of an unpopular law was to enforce it to the maximum extent. Perhaps some of the earlier laws were done away with by that method.
Several years ago Sneads celebrated its Centennial; one hundred years of being a municipality. We had a good time, and many of the older inhabitants were interviewed. These were the inhabitants that had blood lines in Jackson County. I moved over to Sneads in 1967 and a few years later was elected mayor and judge, but I still occasionally hear someone put me down as being “that new man from Chattahoochee”. Perhaps that person does not realize that by moving across the Apalachicola River I raised the average IQ of both places. At least that is what my friends from back home claimed.
Someone found in the files a list of offences that our police got folks for back in the “good old days”, along with the fines to be imposed if one were found guilty, and you were usually guilty because the policeman would not have brought you in unless you were. Here are some of them, along with a comment or two from me:
Fighting…. $1.00. Since it does not state how many people had to be involved, then one would assume that the total fine would be $1.00, so if you wished to save money, get a few friends together and go at it.
Cruel treatment of hogs…..$1.00. This is not described in detail, so it is best left to the reader’s imagination. If you have ever been to a “hog killing” you would be hard put to figure out what could be considered cruelty to an animal that ends up sausage.
Disorderly Conduct on Street….$2.50. Sidewalks are not mentioned, so I suppose this was meant to protect horses that were passing by or to keep gawkers from impeding traffic.
Drunk disorderly conduct….$5.00. There is no delineation of where this can happen: street, sidewalks, front lawns, but it does cost more than just disorderly conduct. However, consider this:
Plain drunk…..$1.00 or 5 days. If you add “Plain drunk” to “Disorderly conduct” and plead to both charges as opposed to “drunk disorderly conduct” you could save yourself 1.50, a princely sum in those days. Or you could save yourself even more money by moving on down to one of the many churches, getting disorderly there and paying only $1.00. But don’t cuss while in the church house, for that would cost you an extra $1.00.
Drunk and indecent would net you a fine of $1.00 or five days, but if it were in public the costs jumped tenfold. The moral was to keep your indecency well concealed from the public and your fellow citizen. So this begs the question: If no one saw the offender, how did he get arrested for indecency? That is easy: his conscience bothered him, so he turned himself in! I certainly hope that this is not still on the books. If you are a man in your eighties, and being unzipped is considered indecent, well………
This was beginning to approach the fine line between lawbreaking and morality, so the law crossed over to:
Keeping a house of ill fame, with a fine of $5.00, stealing at $5.00 or larceny. That entailed doubling your debt to society and to the Town to $10.
Speeding horse……$2.50 or five days was just the beginning of the stress that was placed on moving violations. Reckless riding was the same, but getting on a moving team would diminish your estate by $250.00, which probably approached the yearly income of a man in those days. If you simply felt the “need for speed”, then it was cheaper by $249.00 to ride a train in motion. I think I would opt for the latter, and keep going out of town.
In 2004 Billy Blackman, a columnist for the Havana Herald and, if I recall correctly, a fine musician, covered some of these same laws in his article of April 22. Billy also quoted this:
Running horse rapidly through streets on night of November 5, 1926.…..$2.00 or 10 days.
And his last line says: “The only one I don’t understand is the significance of November 5, 1926. Maybe someone from Sneads will let me know”. Billy, I am from Sneads, and I cannot tell you. But, on second thought, I am not the one to ask.
I am the “new man from Chattahoochee”.
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