JAKE FISHER

Jake Fisher, an old man that lived just outside of Bell City with his brother George. Just two old batchlors.
I first met Jake when I was in grade school, he had a little building you could not walk into that he called a store. He had cigaretts, some old canned goods, candy and the bread truck would stop at his place everyday as he would get a loaf of bread for some of the people around his store. His store was about 100 feet from my grandpa's house and he would get him a loaf of bread when he needed one. I must have been in the 5th-6th grade of school at the time I met him. We still lived out on the farm.
I remember that Jake was very superstitious and if a black cat crossed his path he would walk a mile around his normal route or would turn his cap around backwards. Now this would ward off all evil, he believed. So if he saw a black cat he would stop and ponder what to do. Then he would choose his route.
We moved to Bell City in 1958 and Mom and Dad bought a house across the street from my grandpa which made us about 100 feet from his store. As kids we would buy candy from Jake when we could muster up a nickel. As time went on us boys started to buy tobacco from him and go up in the rocks and smoke. Now some of this tobacco was years old and very strong and would make us light headed and sick but it didn't stop us. About this time we started to agrivate Jake. We would smoke and then we would start to throw rocks down on top of his building. We were mean little bastards.
Jake would also skin coons for some of the coon hunters in the area. I can remember walking by Jakes and seeing 20 or more coons laid out on the ground for him to skin. One of the hunters was a guy by the name of Charles Drew. Him and Jake really became good friends. One time Charles told Jake to get him a loaf of bread off the truck that day and he would come by and pick it up that afternoon. Well this made Jake happy for he knew he would make a nickel that day. So when Charles came to pick up his loaf of bread he thought he would have some fun with Jake so he handed him a $20.00 bill for the 10 cent loaf of bread. Jake looked at him and said SHI? yu ain't pulling that crap on me. He told Charles to go over in town and get some change and bring him his 10 cents. Charles said I'll take the bread and bring you your money back, well Jake said Hell No you go get the change then come back. Finally they agreed on something and Jake got his 10 cents and Charles got his bread.
Jake would ease over into town some days for a cup of coffee. He would always order the coffee black and tell whoever was waiting on him to fill the cup up because he didn't use cream.
In the 50's and 60's before they took out the railroad depot Jake would stay downtown on Saturday night and sometimes he would have a beer. On some occasions he would walk up to the depot and lay down on the bench they had for the passengers to sit on while waiting on the next train. Now Jake always carried his money in a tobacco sack in his bib overalls. Jake knew if he laid down on the bench on his back someone would rob him so he laid down on his stomach and went to sleep. Enter another young thug-a-bout by the name of Bill Bollinger. Bill knew Jake was at the depot sleeping and went to check him out, sure enough there was Jake all stretched out on the depot bench only face down in a deep sleep. So Bill went and got some razor blades and eased back up to the depot and crawled under the bench where Jake was sleeping. He took a razor blade and very gently sliced Jakes overall pocket and got all of Jakes money and went to Crowder partying. When Jake woke up and realized what had happened he knew exactly who got his money and a few days later him and Bill met face to face and Jake let him know he knew what had happened. So a little later Bill got up in the rocks and was throwing rocks down on Jakes store and snorting at him, which he hated. So Jake reached in the old store building and out came his 12 gauge shotgun. He peppered the hell out of Bill. After that Bill pretty much left Jake alone.
Jake died when I was in the Army. We as kids really aggraviated him but as we grew older we got to see a side of Jake that made us regret the things we did to him.
Now Jake was a very poor man, he didn't have any money other than a few coins to his name. I have been told that after Jake died his old friend Charles Drew knowing Jake was more or less a pauper went and bought a real nice grave monument for Jakes grave.
Yes Jake was one of a kind and one of Bell City's best old timers. There aren't any of those old timers left. Just memories of a day gone by.

Bell City"s Herb Hoover

I guess I met Herb when I was about 13 years old. At this young age we lived in the hills west of Bell City on an old hill farm. My cousin Gerald Whittley a neighbor's boys, the Flannigans of which one later became my brother in law would all get togather and usually walk to Bell City. The old Bell City pool hall/cafe is where I met Herbie. Now Herb was a dandy, at this time he had I think 6 kids below the age of 10. Herb had an old 2 ton truck that he would hall grain, move furniture, hall wood and in the summer he would round up a crew of hay haulers. Most days on the hay truck you could make around 10 bucks. Now this was a lot more than you could make chopping cotton or beans for they only paid 5 dollars for 10 hours work.
I remember one time we were in the hay field and a boy by the name of Dale McCulley caught a big black snake after lifting a bale of hay. He was chasing everyone in the hay field with this dam snake. Now Herb didn't think this was funny because he wanted to get the hay hauled, so he got onto Dale/wine his nickname. Now Dale had already been in trouble with the law and wasn't too shook up over Herbs fatherly ways, so he caught Herb not really paying attention and threw the snake in the cab with Herb. Ths caused real havoc because the truck was about half loaded and Herb jumped out of the truck and the truck hit a small ditch and dumped all the hay. This really pissed Herb off and he fired Dale and made him walk back to town. But the next day he was back out on the truck.
Another time we were hauling for the Jennings boys, three batchlors that had cattle and raised hogs. Now around their barn was a lot of wet corn cobs so naturally when we went to the barn to unload, a corn cob fight would start. Well Herb got mad again and started raising hell about this. So one of my classmates at the time Virgil Hampton was on one side of the truck and Herb was on the other. Virgil said watch this, he pitched a good wet and cow manured corn cob up over the load of hay and then yelled for Herb. Now Herb thought Virgil was on the top of the load of hay so he looked up just in time to get the full load of cow manure and vet cob. Now this started a hell of a round and Virgil got fired that day and had to walk back to town but was back out in the hay field the next.
I also remember the summer nights in Bell city. We would all gather down town for a few hours and it would usually end up in a giant water fight. It was always a great time in the early 60's in the old town of Bell City. I went into the Army in 1967 and while I was gone I was told that Herb had got hit in the leg by one of his hogs which caused a bad spot to develop and it turned out to be cancer. He didn't last to long after that. As I stated Herbie was a DANDY.

Thanksgiving 1955

I was 11 years old in 1955, Mom and dad had bought an old hill farm about 4 miles northwest of Bell City. It wasn't much of a farm, mostly run down. The old house had seen better days many years before they bought it. There was an old water well by the house where rain water was caught and guttered into the well for drinking and cooking and other uses. Now the old house didn't have a good wall in it. When it snowed we would wake up with snow on the bed, the floors had big cracks in between the boards and if you looked down through the cracks you could see the chickens walking around under the house. We had a few head of cattle and most days as we would come home from school we would have to get off the school bus and drive the cows home for they would get out of the pasture. They, like us I guess was looking for a better life and more to eat. I had one old Jersey cow to milk as my job everyday. One day in the cold winter the old cow had been in some water and cockle-burs. The burs had stuck to her tail and the water had frozen to the end of her tail. Now you ain't never been assualted until you have been hit up side the head with a frozen cocklebured cow tail. This really hurt as I was already cold and mad at the cow for having to milked.
In the fall of 1955 around Thanksgiving my dad had purchased 2 fields of cotton from another farmer that didn't want to mess with getting it out. The two patches were not much, both would not have made one good patch. I don't know what kind of deal they made but I am sure My dad was probably drinking at the time and got the raw end of the deal. He could make some pretty bad deals sometime.
On Thanksgiving day of 1955, I am sure the year is right. It was so cold and the wind blowing, it was miserable. So, my dad deceided we needed to pull bowles on this day. Now if anyone don't know what pulling bowles is. After most of the cotton has been picked some of the bowles will crack open and there is a lot of cotton still in the field. Being poor and winter comming on strong this was a way to make a little grocery and Christmas money.
As I stated this was the coldest day of the year so far. I remember mom stayed home that day and had to take care of a little sister that when born my brother wanted to get rid of. He wanted to throw her in a pond we had on the farm. Anyway, the wind was so sharp and at the time we did not have the clothes they have now days. We liked to have froze. Fingers and toes were beet red when finally about 3 oclock dad finally said lets go to the house. Mom had fixed the biggest pot of chicken and dumplings, pies, dressing and all the other trimmings. It wasn't turkey but it is the most memorable Thanksgiving of all. To all that read this have a very blessed Thanksgiving and enjoy family.

CAL HOOVER-An old friend of the 50's-60's

Cal was an old man that hung around town, mostly the old pool hall where we would all gather for hours at a time. As I mentioned in one of my other stories Cal loved to play pool with MIllie Tropf. You could hear him for a block yelling for Millie (creepy) to shoot. Then he would laugh and holler when she missed the shot. Now Cal didn't have any teeth, so we all called him smooth mouth or Colgate. Cal didt't like this or he acted like he didn't. On another occasion a chain saw was stolen I think from the Pike township. Someone, just kidding said that Cal was the one that took the saw. He really got mad about that statement. So naturally all of us regulars that hung around the pool hall started calling him chain-saw. We would make him so mad he would jump in his old car and speed out of town over the old Bell City hill. Now he wouldn't stay mad long and before you knew it he would be back for more. One day I had been agraviting him and he got to chasing me. He could really run for an old man, but I could out run him. On this day he stopped just before I started across the railroad tracks that ran behind the pool hall and picked up a big rock that must have weighed a good 1/2 pound. He whizzed that damn thing at me and barely missed my head. If it had hit me it would probably killed me. But this didn't stop the aggraviting. I just stopped and yelled back at him to go get his chain saw and go cut a spear and see if he could do any better with it than a rock. Now if cal came to town and no one started on him he would start on someone. Cal and Sadie had good hearts because an old man by the name of Archie Stroud would come to Bell City and without a place to stay Cal and Sadie would put him up for days at a time. A story about Archie will be in the future.
These were days when not many dollars were floating around and this is how we amussed ourselves. It was all good fun for us at the time.
A few years later Cal died and I was honored to be asked to be one of his paul bearers along with 5 others that were all a part of the old pool hall crowd.
Cal had a son named Herb. Herb had a whole house full of kids and lived in a house that didn't have running water as a lot of us didn't have at the time. Now Herb was a dandy to say the least. Which calls for another story.

What Has Happened to The America I Fought For

To all the people of the good old USA. What has happened to America, What has happened to the politicians, what has happened to the morality of the churches, have they forgot to read their Bibles. We are sitting back and letting the America we knew just a few decades ago slip from our kids' future. They will be in a few short decades wearing a towel around their heads. They will be bowing to a false savior. A lot of so-called christians put on their Sunday best and go to the churches and tell each other how damn good they are, yet will not stand up for the one that gives us everything. The politicians will not step in and stop the ACLU from stopping people that want to pray from doing so. They take Abdul's side. Stop whatever is going on so he can bend down and smell the guys ass in front of him in the name of some religon. They let the liberals teach kindergarteners that it is ok to have two Bob's or two Betty's {no offense with the names} as parents and hug and kiss in front of them, do the same things a real mom and dad do. All in the name of equality and not offending anyone. Well folks it is not right, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. So wake up before it is to late. If you go to church let it be known that America as we know it is worth more than a tax exemption. I get so tired seeing on TV this gay rights Bu-lS--t. And what about the black panthers. If a white person got out in the middle of the street and said go kill some N's kill some N's babies it would be hate speach as it should. Why is it not the same on the other hand. Why is this idiot not being prosecuted, because of the grease head Al Sharpton, or the blackmailing Jesse Jackson or the fruitcake Louis Farakan,also a towelhead. Wakeup America it is almost to late. We must start protecting our own way of life or live as the others will make us.

OUR WELCOME HOME

After a year of surviving in the jungles of Viet Nam, living with the rats the size of possums, leaches sticking on you and the constant use of malaria pills and salt pills to survive trying to keep from being one more sent home in a body bag and becoming another target for "charlie", I was getting ready to go back to the world. I got all my stuff ready to DEROS, done all the out-processing, de-brefings, got all paperwork and my new orders for home. I just had one final most important thing to do, I had to go say good-by to Bitch. One of the hardest things I have ever done. I finally got through it and started the long journey home. First to Hue then a C-130 to Cam Rahn Bay for three days, then the freedom bird for the world. We had a pretty good flight home and finally landed in Seattle-Tacoma Washington. I dont know how the pilot landed the plane with all the cheering and yelling. We got off the pland and on a bus for Ft Lewis for our in-processing so we could get home. What a rude awakening on the bus ride to the Ft. Some hippies were lined up just outside the fence and we thought they were welcoming us home, but we had a rude awakening, they started yelling baby killers, spitting toward the bus, giving us the middle finger. Our spirits just sort of dropped. We went on into the Ft for our processing and a big steak, our first in a year. Then for our lecture from one of the in-processing personnel. Troops for your own safety and the Military's, we are advising you to not wear your Military Uniform in public as you are now back in a different world than you left. What the hell did this mean, we just spent a year, some more, living everday facing death and destruction and now we are not welcome back in the country we had just fought for. Some of us thought he was just blowing it out of what it really was. So some of us wore our uniforms, we were proud, it didn't take long for reality to hit us like an incomming mortar. We weren't welcome home. And it wasn't just the hippies. The American public rejected us as some kinda monsters. The people didnt really know how to treat us MONSTERS. So most didn't even try. It took years for the American public to finally start accepting us as anything but damaged. But the truth is we were all damaged by the War and our WELCOME HOME. It took years for some of us to sober up and become good citizens. Never again do I wish our government to send our troops in combat and then turn their back on them when they return. Some of us are scared for life. Some have already died not ever feeling WELCOME HOME. Some are so messed up even today they cannot bring themselves to ask for help. It has been 40 years for me and I still have very vivid memories. For those that have never been there in any kind of combat it is very scary but it is also something that gets the adrenlien pumping so high you just do things you never thought you could do or would do. You will never get that kind of feeling anywhere else but on the battlefield, or while under an attack. To all those Viet Nam Veterans that read this I say from my inner soul. WELCOME HOME AND MAY GOD BLESS

The Old Bell City Pool Hall

My first visit to the Old pool hall was in 1949 where I ate my first hamburger that I remember. Dad and mom had bought an old hill farm just out of Bell City and we were moving to it from Commerce Mo. I was with dad and we stopped for a burger. Little did I know that this would be a big part of my life, for later as I was gorwing up I would go to the pool hall every chance I got, I learned to shoot pool and snooker and got to be fairly good at it. Harl Tropf owned it for the first few years I went there. He added a garage on the side of it for his new Mercury car. I thought this car was really neat. His son Leamond and wife Millie later took over. But before doing so he turned the garage part of the building into a tee-town, dance hall for the kids where I learned to do the jitter-bug. I can still remember hitting the floor to the sound of Rockin Robin. I was about 12-13 years old at this time. The back room was the pool hall where there was 2 regular pool tables and one snooker table. We had some great times in this old building. As a young juvinile with many others we were all looking for ways to kill time and get into meaness. There was a couple old fellows thatlived just outside of town in an old house with a tin roof on it. Now these tow brothers were Jake and George Fisher. Sometimes at night in the summer after the pool hall closed and nothing was happening some of us guys would go up over the hill to Jake and Georges house they lived on a road that had lots of gravel on it with good sized rocks. Around 10 or 11 oclock after they went to bed we would rock their house. When the first big rock hit that tin all hell would bread loose. Out would come one of the brothers with a shotgun yelling I'll kill you bastards. Lucky for us no one ever got hurt but as I look back I sure dont blame them. Now George had an old team and wagon that he came to town in. We would see him comming and get ready for some fun. Now George had to cross the rail road tracks to get to the grocery store of post office. When he got on top of the tracks one of us in the pool hall would yell wooooa and te old mules would stop right on the railroad. George would start cussing and raising hell. We would finally keep quiet and he would come on int town where he tied up his mules. He would pull up to his parking spot and get down from the wagon at this time someone from our gang would yell getup and the old mules would start to walking off and George would start cussing and yelling for the mules to stop. We would wait for him to start to get back up into the wagon and someone would yell getup, this just made him madder but as young bucks we didn't care we were just having fun. Now Jake his brother had a small store on the wrong side of town, but this is another story. Hope you enjoy