BrainSlap!

I was almost a Christmas baby. I pretty much ruined the holiday for Mom that year because I kept her up all Christmas eve and Christmas day and then wasn't born until 7:30 the next morning on the 26th. I was born an Army brat in 1963 at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA. I was the last of six children (3 boys, 3 girls). Dad retired from the Army and we moved to Manchester, Georgia in October 1966. The only thing I remember about living in Manchester was a huge set of stairs in our house which constantly beckoned me to tumble down them.

We moved to Woodland, Georgia in May 1967 and that was where I grew up. It was a small town of about 800. We had a yellow flashing caution light, railroad tracks, a grocery store, and many acres of land behind our house in which to explore. Woodland's city limits were a half-mile radius around a covered well in the middle of the town. The well was originally used to fill steam railroad engines in the "old days" (back when things were like they used to be).

Woodland was a decent place to grow up. I never lacked something to do, whether it was chores, work, play, or just relaxing. Dad used to give us chores by the wheelbarrow load. If we weren't mowing the grass, we were cutting brush, a dense growth of bushes and shrubs... and man, there was a lot of that stuff to chop. To do this we were given a huge, long-handled axe called a "bush axe." Many bushes, shrubs, vines, small trees, snakes, and even a small rodent or two died by the blade of that bush axe. Many blisters were born by that axe also. I'm pretty sure that axe is still there today, and probably just as sharp as it never was.

Playing in Woodland usually involved riding a bicycle to a friend's house. We had a lot of friends back then. Around town, our group was known as "The Bicycle Gang" and consisted of about 10 kids (half girls, half guys) who roamed around and mostly stayed out of trouble. We were good kids; if we hadn't been, our parents would have certainly, and swiftly, taken care of any problems we caused.

Believe it or not, work in Woodland was plentiful, as long as you were a middle-class, white-boy like I was. I started my career by selling things. I sold pecans first, I think. I'd sit by the road at a picnic table for hours with pounds and pounds of self-picked bags of pecans. People driving by would buy them quicker than you'd think. I graduated from pecan selling pretty quickly though. Dad, my next older brother Dan, and I invested wisely in the Red Wiggler market. Fishermen (a.k.a, "worm drounders") bought those red, wiggly worms like gangbusters.

Next, I ventured into government work. Dan and Iwere "contracted" to mow the yards of Woodland's project homes. It was really, really bad work and not worth the $20 or so we received for it. The people who lived in the projects always left coat hangers lying in the grass in their lawns. They loved to watch us attempt to remove them from the mower blades. I guess it was their way of getting even with us for mowing their lawns, rather than the city letting one of their kids do it. One summer of that was more than enough. I was 11 years old and already "bucking the system."

The next year, I moved into the retail world. I was hired by John Goolsby. "Mr. John" was a man I will never forget for the rest of my life. His grasp on life and people amazes me even today. I became a butcher's apprentice at age 12 for Mr. John at Goolsby's Grocery store. Never once during the five and a half years of working for Mr. John did I seriously cut an appendage. I attribute that to Mr. John's and my brother's (who also worked there as a butcher) thorough training and patience.