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Off the Cuff Page 4
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A LETTER HOME
From a farm kid now in the Marine Corps.
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell brothers George and Eddie the Marine Corps ain’t too bad. Tell them to join up quick before all the jobs are filled.
I was a little restless at first because they get you up at about 6 a.m. But I am getting used to sleeping late. Tell George and Eddie all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No cows to milk. No hogs to slop, wood to split, fire to start. Practically nothing.
Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell George and Eddie you can always sit by two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.
We go on marches which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. These marches are about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. Maybe he’s going to work up to the real marches when them city boys toughen up a little.
The sergeant is like a schoolteacher. He nags a lot. I don’t see much of the captains and colonels.
This next will kill George and Eddie with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges they come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though; they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. Old Walt Harrison is the only one that can whup me. He took me two out of three. But Walt weighs nigh onto 300 pounds. I’m still about 125.
Be sure to tell George and Eddie to hurry and join before other fellers catch on to this easy gig and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Alice
-END-
The Town With No Children”
On March 18, 1937, the day started quite normally in the small East Texas town of New London. Students and faculty went about their daily activities in the new, state-of-the-art school facility.
A mother brought her daughter to school a little late that afternoon. She watched indulgently as the young girl broke free and dashed ahead of her mother into the school building. Then, to her horror, the school building disappeared in a ball of fire and smoke. She saw her daughter splayed out like a rag doll against the clear sky.
A leak in a gas pipe had filled the school basement with highly flammable gas. When someone flipped a switch to turn on a sander in the shop it triggered a spark, and a building teeming with children, teachers and parents was turned into a vast pile of bricks, cement and broken beams. More than 430 children were killed— an enormous percentage of the tiny population.
The blast was so powerful it blew a huge concrete slab weighing over two tons across the parking lot demolishing a parked auto.
School buses took surviving children to their homes. The buses arrived at neighborhoods where fearful parents waited hopefully to see if their child would emerge from the bus. Many didn’t.
Virtually the entire community rushed to the scene to try and help. Volunteers and workmen from the East Texas oil fields desperately dug through the rubble hoping to find survivors. Sadly many of them found only the broken bodies of their children.
There weren’t enough hearses available for all the funerals that were scheduled, so trucks were pressed into service— some holding as many as four coffins. Doctors and nurses poured into the town from Fort Worth, Little Rock, Houston, Shreveport and Dallas. A new medical facility in nearby Tyler, scheduled to open a week later, was opened early and more than 100 children with serious head injuries were brought to the new facility even though it only had 60 beds.
A shocked humanity reacted with messages of condolences from around the world. Among them was a telegram expressing grief and best wishes from the German government signed by Adolph Hitler.
Although I was in a West Texas school, hundreds of miles from the disaster, I remember feeling deeply affected by the tragedy. Two classmates had just moved to our school district from New London. These boys were saved by their parents’ decision to take them out of school that day to get new shoes. Their lives were abruptly and without warning drastically altered by the loss of most of their friends and classmates over the course of one day.
Some superficial similarities between our situation and that of New London caused some uneasiness. We were in the first year of a new consolidated school built to the most modern and advanced standards. Unlike the old coal powered stoves and furnaces, we were heated by steam radiators powered by natural gas.
Then, one day, our class was interrupted by a loud pop, sizzling and a thunderous rumbling. All the meticulous planning and days of practice went flying as students and faculty joined in a mad dash for the exits. The entire school was emptied in nothing flat.
We stood expectantly in a perimeter around the school grounds waiting for the building to erupt in the massive explosion we expected to follow shortly. It never came.
Instead, the custodian told us that the loud pop was the sound of the relief valve doing what it was supposed to do when the pressure built too high. It let off steam. The sizzling was the steam actually coming out of the radiator. The loudest noise— the rumbling— was the sound of hundreds of panic-stricken students as they bolted for the doorways (and some out the windows) to evacuate the building.
We were properly embarrassed by our reaction to this normal functioning of our modern gas heating system. However, I have a sneaky feeling that we evacuated the building much quicker than could have been done by our well-planned and organized procedures. But, since it never happened again, we’ll never know for sure.
-END-
In An Unmarked Grave
In a scene similar to hundreds acted out in Texas right after the Civil War, Ann McNeil said goodbye to her son, Geoffrey. He was 17 years old and was leaving his Central Texas home place to seek his fortune in a larger, less restrictive, world. She fought to hold back the tears as she extracted his promise that he would stay in touch and would return frequently to visit.
She clutched her husband’s arm for support as they watched him ride away with a jaunty wave of his hat. Geoffrey had already made plans to look up his older brother, Lyndon, who had left home earlier. Lyndon had returned to visit a couple of times during which he dazzled his younger brother with exciting tales of places he’d been and things he’d seen.
More than 100 years later, Ed Bartholomew, a noted western historian was making one of his many field trips in the Davis Mountains of West Texas when he found two sunken depressions in the valley. A search of the area turned up two markers which had been broken off by vandals. Although the names were misspelled, it was plain that these were the graves of Geoffrey and Lyndon McNeil. The experienced researcher began a long and tedious backtrack.
He found that the friends Geoffrey and Lyndon made after leaving home had one thing in common. They always managed to keep at least one foot firmly planted on the shadowy side of the law.
The boys eventually fell in with a band of hardcases who involved them in a plan to steal a remuda of horses. It must have seemed like easy money to the thieves. A ready market for stolen Texas livestock flourished in New Mexico. However, as fortune would have it, a Texas Ranger was passing through the area at the time and took up their trail.
Early next morning, Geoffrey and Lyndon awakened to find themselves surrounded by a band of irate ranchers led by the Ranger. Their older companions had slipped away during the night leaving the youngsters alone to face the wrath of the posse. Probably thinking he could shoot his way out, Lyndon drew his pistol and both boys were promptly riddled with bullets. They were buried where they fell and quickly forgotten.
Bartholomew was able to trace the boys back to their original home and actually found descendants of the McNeil family. He learned that Ann McNeil never knew what happened to her boys. She waited and prayed for their return until the day that she died.
No doubt the boys never expected to lose their lives on that mountainside. However, they were just being unrealistic. Their freely chosen activities pointed the way to just such an ending. Sadly, such examples never seem to keep others from making the same mistakes. It was true then -- it’s true today.
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
Compulsion:
by
Don Johnson
Just a short time ago, Coker Spence was an ordinary college student with good grades...a best friend...a wonderful girl...promising future. All gone now. He waits to confront a dangerous and determined enemy. He doesn't expect to survive — but still — he's no longer the easy-going West Texas boy he once was. He is now a killing machine. He may die, but they'll not find easy prey here tonight.
From a farm kid now in the Marine Corps.
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell brothers George and Eddie the Marine Corps ain’t too bad. Tell them to join up quick before all the jobs are filled.
I was a little restless at first because they get you up at about 6 a.m. But I am getting used to sleeping late. Tell George and Eddie all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No cows to milk. No hogs to slop, wood to split, fire to start. Practically nothing.
Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell George and Eddie you can always sit by two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.
We go on marches which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. These marches are about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. Maybe he’s going to work up to the real marches when them city boys toughen up a little.
The sergeant is like a schoolteacher. He nags a lot. I don’t see much of the captains and colonels.
This next will kill George and Eddie with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges they come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though; they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. Old Walt Harrison is the only one that can whup me. He took me two out of three. But Walt weighs nigh onto 300 pounds. I’m still about 125.
Be sure to tell George and Eddie to hurry and join before other fellers catch on to this easy gig and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Alice
-END-
The Town With No Children”
On March 18, 1937, the day started quite normally in the small East Texas town of New London. Students and faculty went about their daily activities in the new, state-of-the-art school facility.
A mother brought her daughter to school a little late that afternoon. She watched indulgently as the young girl broke free and dashed ahead of her mother into the school building. Then, to her horror, the school building disappeared in a ball of fire and smoke. She saw her daughter splayed out like a rag doll against the clear sky.
A leak in a gas pipe had filled the school basement with highly flammable gas. When someone flipped a switch to turn on a sander in the shop it triggered a spark, and a building teeming with children, teachers and parents was turned into a vast pile of bricks, cement and broken beams. More than 430 children were killed— an enormous percentage of the tiny population.
The blast was so powerful it blew a huge concrete slab weighing over two tons across the parking lot demolishing a parked auto.
School buses took surviving children to their homes. The buses arrived at neighborhoods where fearful parents waited hopefully to see if their child would emerge from the bus. Many didn’t.
Virtually the entire community rushed to the scene to try and help. Volunteers and workmen from the East Texas oil fields desperately dug through the rubble hoping to find survivors. Sadly many of them found only the broken bodies of their children.
There weren’t enough hearses available for all the funerals that were scheduled, so trucks were pressed into service— some holding as many as four coffins. Doctors and nurses poured into the town from Fort Worth, Little Rock, Houston, Shreveport and Dallas. A new medical facility in nearby Tyler, scheduled to open a week later, was opened early and more than 100 children with serious head injuries were brought to the new facility even though it only had 60 beds.
A shocked humanity reacted with messages of condolences from around the world. Among them was a telegram expressing grief and best wishes from the German government signed by Adolph Hitler.
Although I was in a West Texas school, hundreds of miles from the disaster, I remember feeling deeply affected by the tragedy. Two classmates had just moved to our school district from New London. These boys were saved by their parents’ decision to take them out of school that day to get new shoes. Their lives were abruptly and without warning drastically altered by the loss of most of their friends and classmates over the course of one day.
Some superficial similarities between our situation and that of New London caused some uneasiness. We were in the first year of a new consolidated school built to the most modern and advanced standards. Unlike the old coal powered stoves and furnaces, we were heated by steam radiators powered by natural gas.
Then, one day, our class was interrupted by a loud pop, sizzling and a thunderous rumbling. All the meticulous planning and days of practice went flying as students and faculty joined in a mad dash for the exits. The entire school was emptied in nothing flat.
We stood expectantly in a perimeter around the school grounds waiting for the building to erupt in the massive explosion we expected to follow shortly. It never came.
Instead, the custodian told us that the loud pop was the sound of the relief valve doing what it was supposed to do when the pressure built too high. It let off steam. The sizzling was the steam actually coming out of the radiator. The loudest noise— the rumbling— was the sound of hundreds of panic-stricken students as they bolted for the doorways (and some out the windows) to evacuate the building.
We were properly embarrassed by our reaction to this normal functioning of our modern gas heating system. However, I have a sneaky feeling that we evacuated the building much quicker than could have been done by our well-planned and organized procedures. But, since it never happened again, we’ll never know for sure.
-END-
In An Unmarked Grave
In a scene similar to hundreds acted out in Texas right after the Civil War, Ann McNeil said goodbye to her son, Geoffrey. He was 17 years old and was leaving his Central Texas home place to seek his fortune in a larger, less restrictive, world. She fought to hold back the tears as she extracted his promise that he would stay in touch and would return frequently to visit.
She clutched her husband’s arm for support as they watched him ride away with a jaunty wave of his hat. Geoffrey had already made plans to look up his older brother, Lyndon, who had left home earlier. Lyndon had returned to visit a couple of times during which he dazzled his younger brother with exciting tales of places he’d been and things he’d seen.
More than 100 years later, Ed Bartholomew, a noted western historian was making one of his many field trips in the Davis Mountains of West Texas when he found two sunken depressions in the valley. A search of the area turned up two markers which had been broken off by vandals. Although the names were misspelled, it was plain that these were the graves of Geoffrey and Lyndon McNeil. The experienced researcher began a long and tedious backtrack.
He found that the friends Geoffrey and Lyndon made after leaving home had one thing in common. They always managed to keep at least one foot firmly planted on the shadowy side of the law.
The boys eventually fell in with a band of hardcases who involved them in a plan to steal a remuda of horses. It must have seemed like easy money to the thieves. A ready market for stolen Texas livestock flourished in New Mexico. However, as fortune would have it, a Texas Ranger was passing through the area at the time and took up their trail.
Early next morning, Geoffrey and Lyndon awakened to find themselves surrounded by a band of irate ranchers led by the Ranger. Their older companions had slipped away during the night leaving the youngsters alone to face the wrath of the posse. Probably thinking he could shoot his way out, Lyndon drew his pistol and both boys were promptly riddled with bullets. They were buried where they fell and quickly forgotten.
Bartholomew was able to trace the boys back to their original home and actually found descendants of the McNeil family. He learned that Ann McNeil never knew what happened to her boys. She waited and prayed for their return until the day that she died.
No doubt the boys never expected to lose their lives on that mountainside. However, they were just being unrealistic. Their freely chosen activities pointed the way to just such an ending. Sadly, such examples never seem to keep others from making the same mistakes. It was true then -- it’s true today.
-END-
A Book I Think You'll Enjoy
Compulsion:
by
Don Johnson
Just a short time ago, Coker Spence was an ordinary college student with good grades...a best friend...a wonderful girl...promising future. All gone now. He waits to confront a dangerous and determined enemy. He doesn't expect to survive — but still — he's no longer the easy-going West Texas boy he once was. He is now a killing machine. He may die, but they'll not find easy prey here tonight.
The Tale of Billy the Bit