My dad told me that when he got a chance, he would help me mount it my bike, but after several days of holding it in my hand and turning it over and over, I became a little impatient because we hadn’t even gotten a battery for it yet and I really wanted to see it shine. I thought it would probably shine like a spot light and I knew that when I rode my bike at night, it would surely light my way. I didn’t really stop to think about the fact that I was required by law to be inside by the time the streetlights came on, but that didn’t matter to me then. The light took one of those big, square six volt batteries and you installed it by opening the front cover and inserting the battery inside the chrome case.

After a few days, my curiosity and impatience got the better of me and so after my parents went to work, I began to wonder if I could make this light work without a battery. After all, a battery was just a source of electricity, electricity was electricity and we had electricty available all around our house. I noticed that on the bottom of the light was a big threaded rod that extended about 2 inches and there were two nuts already on the rod. I rummaged around the house and found an old lamp that we didn’t use any more so I took a steak knife and cut the cord, split the cord into the two separate wires and skinned the ends back to unveil the bare wires.

Now, I’d seen how these electrical connections were made before and knew all I needed to do was to wrap one of the wires around the threaded post and tighten the first nut down on it to hold it in place. Next, I could wrap the second wire around the threaded post the other way and tighten the second nut down to hold it in place. That would provide good electrical contact with the light and should provide more than enough electricity to the lightbulb!

I found an empty electrical socket just to the left of the television in our combination living room, dining room, kitchen and without further ado or thought, while holding the chrome bike light in my right hand and the electrical plug in my left hand, I inserted tabs A & B into electrical socket C.

I was instantly bathed in a bright blue light, the sort I’d never seen before from regular light bulbs and it seemed to me in the brief time it existed to be brighter than the sun! My bike light was sooooo cool! About the time I saw the flash, there was the sound of a what I can only describe as the very loud crack of a giant baseball bat striking a concrete wall. It was almost as loud thunder and unbeknownst to me in the moment, it was deafening.

Unfortunately, the light issuing forth from the underside of my bike light was so bright and short-lived that as soon as it went out every other light in the house suddenly went out at the same time, though it took a little bit before I could see well enough to realize it. I was still standing in our darkened combination living room, dining room, kitchen holding my chrome bike light in my right hand when I began to smell what I later learned was the smell of ozone and I wondered what could have possibly gone wrong. Did I put the wires on the light in the wrong order? Was my light too cool for our electrical system? Was it perhaps, just a coincidence that the lights went off at exactly the same time?

In the semi-dark, I turned my bike light over in my hand and examined the connection points I’d configured and found that the nuts would no long turn as they had been more or less welded to the rod and a significant portion of the plastic wire covering had simply melted away.

I don’t know how long I stood there dumbfounded, staring at my scorched chrome bike light, but somewhere in the back of my head, I began to hear a ringing sound growing louder and louder until I suddenly realized it was the telephone.

I answered the phone with a shakey voice and my mom’s first words were: “Paul, what are you up to?”

“Nothing,” I said, “but something funny is going on here at the house. I wasn’t doing anything and lights went out.” I don’t think she bought the story of my innocence for a second, but she remained calm enough to tell me to unplug whatever I had plugged in and then how to go check the breaker box. She also said she would deal with me when she got home.

I followed her instructions, flipped the breaker and got the lights to come back on. I tried to get rid of the ozone smell in the house to no avail and it was as strong as ever when my parents got home and forced me to tell them the truth about the chrome bike light and my failed experiment. I got grounded (no pun intended) from all electrical experiments for the rest of my life and my dad never helped me mount my chrome bike light on my bike. To this day, I’m convinced that their reaction to is what prevented me from becoming an electrician. They yelled and yelled about how I could have burned the house down, killed myself or worse yet I might have caused massive blackouts across the city.

In the end, being older now I realize that they were probably right and that had I wired that light just a little bit different, the results might have been far different.

Speculation aside, all I really know is that  for one brief shining moment, my chrome bike light lit up like the sun!

Just like the rest of my home, my “living room” is dry, comfortable and safe just as is Magee, my favorite dog, who is currently sacked out on the couch next to my chair. She raises her head as my wife passes through. She is curious to know if Pam is headed to the treat cabinet that holds her favorite treat, meat-stuffed rawhide. Her ears perk up as Pam opens the fridge but when the familiar crinkle of plastic that might indicate other potential “treats” isn’t heard, she turns to look out into the yard pretending that she really doesn’t care. But she waits until Pam returns and sits in her own recliner before giving up hope and lays her head back down and with a sigh dozes back off to dream the dreams that dogs dream. Later, Magee will give me even less attention as I rise to take advantage of one of the multiple in-door plumbing facilities scattered through-out my home. Apparently, she is acutely aware that there are no treats stored in those places and her feined interest wanes even faster with me than it did with Pam.

It is in this safe and comfortable place on Memorial Day that the reality of our “insulated lives” strikes me hard. For several weeks while preparing for a Memorial Day Special radio show, I have been thinking along the lines of how insulated everyone is from the harsh and cold realities of the world.  It is not for me to wonder about the fairness or unfairness of life, because it is simply true that there is no inherent fairness in life and to wonder about it would serve no purpose. It is not pessimism that makes me say that, but rather realism. Our founding fathers acknowledged that “all men are created equal” and left it at that, because they knew that after a person is created, his or her perception of the fairness or unfairness of life is often determined by that individual.

This is not to say that there isn’t some inherent unfairness in life. There are some things individuals simply cannot overcome. A crippling disability, a tragic event, a devastating illness, a sudden death, or an economic catastrophy are all unfair situations that anyone may face. And while some people survive and some even thrive afterward, sadly, some do not.

Part of my preparation for the radio show was the publication of my great-uncle’s story of being a prisoner of war on Bataan and in doing so, I spent a lot of time reading his words. I noted when I originally wrote the story in 1985 that he often said, “I was lucky.” That comment struck me back then when I was 20 years old, but I failed to grasp the significance then. It would take 24 years, surviving a life-threatening illness and the loss of my step-daughter before I could read those words again and understand what he was really saying.

We live our lives insulated from the realities of life. We go to the store and buy our steaks and pork chops and chicken nuggets separated from much of the work that it takes to get the food to our tables. We click a button and bring the world into our homes instantly, and never think about our lives before the time when we could do such a thing. We decide to take a vacation and get into our cars, a train or a plane and go basically where ever we wish without a lot of thought about the days when such travel was beyond the realm of possibility. We are able to read books of our choosing, listen to music we like and watch movies we want to see. We are all lucky.

We are lucky that certain men and women woke up one day and decided to give more than their fair share. They stepped up to the plate and swung hard and hit a home run for all of us. They acknowledged the risks, took up their arms and marched into the gaping maw to fill the gap so the rest of us wouldn’t have to do it. The freedoms that I enjoy on this rainy Monday sitting in my comfortable, air-conditioned home, were paid for by the blood of thousands who were willing to do the hard things. It was a sobering moment when I heard my uncle say he was lucky, a moment that took many years to come back to me. For in his words I find the humility of a true military hero unwilling to take any credit for surviving one of the most difficult events anyone can survive. In his words, I realize that the ones who did not survive are still with him each and every day. In his words, I hear his acknowledgement of the unfairness of it all. And finally, in his words, I hear his thankfulness that God protected him and allowed him to return to the relative comfort of his life and the lives of all those he was prepared to die for.

The lives we live are insulated by the blood of men and women who did not return. And more than anything else, when he said, “I was lucky” I was really hearing him say “Thank you.” We believe in our comfort that we can change the world that somehow we can make it more fair when in reality all we can change is our reaction to the unfairness. Today, on this Memorial Day, we should react by remembering how unfair we are to only set aside one day to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our comfort.

I am lucky and so are you. No matter the situation, no matter how unfair life has been, we are all lucky. To the men and women of the United States Military, I say, “Thank You!” For without your courage, your strength, your committement, your dedication, and yes, your lives, how much more unfair would our lives be.

Powell Magee - 1941

Editor’s Note:
The following is a copy of a paper I wrote in college for a World War II History class. I interviewed my great-uncle, Powell Magee about his experiences as a POW of Japan in the Pacific Theater. With the exception of a few grammar corrections, it is presented here exactly as it was written. I have added multiple photos and maps to help readers understand the story more thoroughly.

Born March 2, 1920, Powell Magee died as a Child of God, Loving Husband, Beloved Father,  Air Force Veteran and  United States Hero on July 7, 1995.

This is his story.

A Prisoner of Japan:
A POW’s own story

By: Powell Magee
As told to Paul H. Tarver.

Foreword

The following is the story of Powell Magee’s imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese during World War II. It was taken from a taped interview with Mr. Magee and edited into its present form. I have tried to keep as much of his own words as possible, but to make it more readable and put it into chronological order, some changes were made. The content is still the same. During our interview, it was obvious that even after forty years, some parts of that period were painful to remember; however, one thing that I especially noticed during the interview was Mr. Magee’s repeated use of the phrase, “I was lucky.” Many of his friends were not.

I wish to thank Mr. Magee for allowing me to get his story on paper. I only hope that he feels as good about finally telling it as I did by being honored to hear it. This paper is for him.

Paul H. Tarver

S.S. President Cleveland (USS Tasker H. Bliss)

I joined the Air Force in May of 1940 and I left the United States on November 1, 1941, on the ship, S.S. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND. I arrived in Manila on November 18, 1941. That year, Roosevelt had set Thanksgiving up a week, so I got there on Thanksgiving Day. We disembarked from the ship and went to Fort McKinley, just outside of Manila where we were quarantined for fourteen days. We had to stay in tents for the duration of the quarantine, but afterward, we were allowed to do just about anything.., at least until the war broke out. I think I got to go into Manila sometime between the end of the quarantine and the seventh of December. Once the war began, well, that just broke up everything and we began loading ammunition. 

I was a Corporal when the war actually began, but sometime during our fighting I was promoted to Private First Class Specialist. They [the government] knew I was married, the new position paid more money. I held that until sometime during my imprisonment, when they gave me a Staff Sergeant rating. Somehow, they got wireless messages out of Corregidor to give us promotions.

Inez Magee (Powell's young wife)

I was in the ordnance attached to the 27th Bombardment Group. We handled all the bombs and ammunition for most of the forces on Bataan. The different company trucks would come to our ammo dump, where we would load them up and send them back out. We had six P-.40s that we loaded bombs on, and gradually as the war went on they shipped out to Australia. Once they were all gone, we had less to do, so, we occasionally delivered some of the ammo to the front ourselves. 

Most of our work was done out of Cabcaben, but we moved back and forth between there and Manila, that is, until Christmas Eve of ’41. We were at San Marcelino the night of Christmas Eve when we got the word to retreat back down on Bataan. We moved back below to Orion, and stayed there until the Abucay Line fell. Once the line fell, we moved into the Mariveles Mountains where we stayed until we surrendered. 

We fought for four months against 300,000 Japanese with about 60,000 men. Our forces consisted of between 17,000 and 20,000 Americans; the rest being Filipino scouts, Filipino army, and Filipino irregulars. Really, we had just about anybody who could shoot a gun. 

Generals Wainwright (left) and MacArthur (right)

McArthur left in March, and put Wainwright in charge. At first, it was a real morale boost. We thought that McArthur had gone for help and would be coming back soon with planes, ships, and convoys, it took a while before we began to realize that it would be a long time before he returned. We didn’t think he had just left us there. We thought that sooner or later, he’d come back for us. It was about two weeks before we surrendered when reality began to set in and we understood that it would be a long time before McArthur returned.

We didn’t have anything to defend ourselves with except our rifles, and the Japanese were dropping everything they had on us. They were even dropping old stovepipes with nuts, bolts and pieces of scrap metal inside. The pipes would explode above the ground and scatter the stuff all around and on top of us. 

By this time we had been demobilized as an air force unit and absorbed into the infantry. When the second line broke, we retreated into the Mariveles Mountains. This must have been about April 7, because on April 8, we destroyed all of our weapons and shot holes in all the trucks we had. We had been on half rations for about three months and had all of our food was stashed in a cave up in the Mariveles. We blew up the rest of our rations to prevent the Japs from getting and using them. Some of the guys left Bataan and crossed over to Corregidor. I don’t know if it helped them, though. Most of them died later fighting. 

On April 9, we marched down out of the mountains and surrendered. We now knew that McArthur wasn’t coming back, because he had told Wainwright to fight to the last man. However, Wainwright said he wasn’t going to do that because he thought that would be inhuman. Wainwright had visited us a few times during the four months we fought to encourage us to hold out. But, once he saw that it was hopeless to fight anymore, he decided to let us take our chances as prisoners.

As soon as we came down out of the mountains with our white flags, the Japanese began hitting and beating us. I was lucky. i didn’t get hit at that time, but a lot of other guys did. They called us all kinds of names…called us Crazy. The Japanese didn’t believe in surrendering. They thought we were dirt. I was really surprised that they even took us as prisoners. The troops we had surrendered to were hardened men. Later on the march, you’d see them pull a man out of the line and never see him again.

Bataan Death March Path

We began marching the same day we surrendered. We marched during the daytime, and they would pen us up at night. They had a barbed wire fence (It looked like a cattle lock) that they would pen us up in each night. We marched in columns of four, but you were more or less marching at your own pace. We didn’t have to keep step or anything like that.

There were Artesian wells all along the road, and guys would try to break rank and go get themselves a canteen of water. Sometimes the Japs would shoot and sometime they wouldn’t. If you could catch the right time when a well was close enough to the road, you could run, get a little water, and get back into the same spot. If the guards were spaced a fairly good distance apart, they usually wouldn’t say anything. They couldn’t recognize you anyway so they couldn’t punish you.

Prisoners Rest on Death March

Every so often, I don’t remember just how far, or how regularly, they would stop and let us sit down and rest for about five minutes. One particular time we were stopped, a truck came up and a bunch of Japanese officers got out and began jabbering away there among themselves. Finally, they came over to another group of Americans and wanted to know where a particular person was. They finally found him in a gang of us who were marching together. Those officers pulled him out of the line, took a bayonet, cut right around his face, and peeled his face off with him still alive. Then, they stabbed him with the bayonet and killed him. It seems that he had commanded the 31st Infantry (pdf) when the Japanese 10th Marines tried to land behind us on Bataan. He had taken his men and run most of the Japs back into the sea. I don’t know how they found out who he was, but they did and they got rid of him.

I saw them cut a Japanese woman’s breast off because she was trying to give us some food. Other people who gave us food had their tongues cut out. We just wanted to take and get a hold of them jokers and really tear them up. But we knew, it wasn’t any use to do that because we just get killed ourselves.

Bataan Collapses!

Some of the guys broke from the ranks and tried to get away. A few of them made it, but most of them didn’t. Early in the morning or late in the afternoon, they would break ranks and head for the woods. Most would wait until we came to a really thick part of the woods and then break. The ones that got away usually joined up with guerilla groups and helped fight their way back down Bataan. I never did try it, I just, I was afraid to try it. Afraid they’d catch me and kill me. I figured I’d stand a better chance by going on and at least I might get a little bit of food. We had no idea that it would be as bad as it was. I guess deep inside we still figured that McArthur was coming back for us, but the further we marched, the less hope we had.

Death March Map

It took us seven days to reach San Fernando and the further we marched up the island the better the treatment got. It still wasn’t good but it was better. See, the further north we marched, the more Japanese Air Force guards we ran into. They still had air supremacy, so they were not too worried about proving themselves as being better than us. In fact, just before we reached San Fernando, they let us go out into a sugar cane field and cut ourselves some stalks. We tied the stalks onto our backs and nibbled on them as we walked. Other than the sugar cane, I only got five tablespoons full of rice on the whole march.

Well, we marched on into San Fernando where we spent the night. This was the only time I remember getting hit on the march. It was the morning after we got there, and somehow, I slept late. I guess I was so exhausted. A Japanese guard came by and hit me with a stick across the leg and woke me up. Then he started jabbering at me, telling me to get up and let’s go, which I did, hurriedly.

They loaded us onto a train that day, and headed for Capas. They stacked us in those railcars like cattle. We couldn’t even sit down. Once we reached Capas, we began marching again, until we reached Camp O’Donnell.

Camp O’Donnell was to be a training base for the Filipino army, before the war. It had barracks and a mess hall. The Japs put us in there any way they could. They didn’t try to keep companies separated or anything, we just were all thrown in there together. Inside our barracks were beds that must have been about three feet high. The mattress was nothing more than bamboo slats laid across the bed. We had no cover, but then we were not in danger of getting cold, because of the hot weather.

Camp O`Donnell

I got really bad sick at this camp. I was so weak I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I crawled to the mess hall, and a cook saw me coming. I hadn’t eaten in about ten days, so he took a board he had, it must have been about two feet square, and piled it up with rice and handed it out the door to me. I ate every last bit of it. Sure enough, it stopped my diarrhea and I began to feel better. Two or three days later, the guards asked for a detail to go back down on Bataan. I volunteered for the job because I knew I could get more food if I worked.

Several of us got on a truck and headed back down on Bataan to work in the mechanic’s shop the Japs had set up. They wanted our detail to go out and pull in the trucks that we had shot up before we surrendered on April 9. There were four of us in our particular group and a guard. We had an old van-type truck, and I did most of the driving. We lucked up and got a good guard. A lot of times after we had hooked up to a vehicle and headed out, he would lay his gun down in the back and go to sleep. We could have killed him, I guess, but what good would it have done to kill just one. But, he turned out to be a pretty good Joe.

The Filipinos had little fruit-stands along the roads on Bataan. Usually, on the way back the guard would get us to stop at one of these stands, where he’d buy us candy and bananas. However, I only had this “good” life for about three weeks before I caught malaria.

Cabanatuan Prison Hut

I couldn’t work anymore, so they sent me to Cabanatuan. It was just outside of San Fernando. It was split into a hospital area and a work area. I stayed in the hospital part for five months. There were different sections in the hospital area itself and as a person got gradually worse and worse, he moved to the next section until he finally died. I don’t remember the total number of men who died at this camp, but I do know that I saw them bury 165 men in one day.

After five months on the hospital side, I finally was able to volunteer for the work side again. I went back to hauling trucks, but shortly thereafter, I got sick again and had to go back to the hospital side.

It was around the middle of ’43 when I finally got a little better. By this time, we all had begun to pick up on a few Japanese terms, but I got lucky. I met up with a guy from Shabuta, MS, named McKee. He had gotten to where he could speak pretty good Japanese. We worked together for a while at Lipa City in the Batangas Province.

We were building an airfield there at Lipa, and the trains would come in bringing the large base rocks for the runway. Well, we had one particular guard that nobody liked. So we did everything we could to get at him. Sometimes we would call him over to show off his muscles and make him lift the rocks until he figured out what was going on. A couple of times we would be up on the train car handing down rocks, and we would do our level best to drop a rock on him. We never hit him, but we made him mad pretty often. One time he got so mad-he picked up a board that was about one inch by ten inches by ten feet long and swung it at us. He wound up hitting a railcar, which only made him madder. He started cursing in Japanese, and finally got so mad that he just turned ‘and walked away. While we worked on the airfield at Lipa City we got all of our information from the Filipino farmers who worked their farms beside the airstrips. We didn’t talk to any of them, but we had ways of getting information. One of the best worked like this:

We had helmets that were made out of halved cocoanut shells. They had a band on the inside. At the end of the day, when all of the men loaded up on the trucks and began to drive off, we made it a point to drop our helmet. We would then beg the driver to go back so we could get it. He usually would and we would continue our journey back to camp. That night we would feel along the inside of that band until we found a small piece of paper. On the paper might be written, “Yankees win 7 to 2.” By that, we knew that the Americans were winning. That kept our morale up pretty good and kept us in touch with the outside world.

Another way to boost morale was to sabotage any and every thing we could. We were building a runway with rocks and dirt. Now if we left holes in the rock base and simply filled it in with dirt, the packer machine would come by and get stuck. It would take them two or three days to get him out of those holes.

The Chocolated Laxative

One of the best sabotages that I pulled off involved getting the best of a guard. The Red Cross got some packages in to us in 1943. Now, for some unknown reason they sent each one of us a small box of Ex-Lax. The last thing we needed in the Philippines was a box of Ex-lax. However, for some reason, that morning, I had put my box of Ex-lax in my pocket and headed out to work. Well, this Jap guard saw me and wanted to know what the box was. I told him it was candy and asked him if he wanted it. He looked at it, and I told him to stick it his pocket and to take it home. He did, and I didn’t see him for about three weeks. So, whether that was what caused his absence, I don’t know, but it did give us something to talk about.

After we finished working at that camp, they moved us to the Randolf Field of the Philippines. We named it that because it was sort of like the Randolf Field in San Antonio where they trained all of the pilots. Well, they had a good solid runway, which was built out of a layer of big rocks covered with pea gravel, which was then covered with three to four inches of dirt. But since the Japanese didn’t have anything for us to do, they made us use picks and tear up the runway, clear off the area, and then build the runway back. But, we’d loosen those rocks and then not pack it right. Sabotage. Sure enough, shortly thereafter, late one afternoon, we were in the middle of roll call when we heard the biggest explosion you’ve ever heard. A Japanese fighter plane carrying ammunition had cracked up out there. It had hit a soft spot. Although morale went up drastically, we were punished, too. They lined all of us up and began to hit each of us on the back with a pick handle. I think that’s what’s wrong with my back today. I was lucky; some of the guys got their backs broken.

We stayed at this camp until sometime in 1944 when the Americans began coming back into the area. I remember one day in particular, we were out building revetments for the Japanese airplanes. Revetments were U-shaped embankments 12 to 15 feet high. Planes were backed into them, which protected the planes from shrapnel from bombs dropped by the American planes. Anyway, we were out there working when somebody looked toward Manila, and the sky was just, well, it looked it was full of gnats. It was black; there were so many planes. You could hear bombs bursting and everybody was yelling. We were telling the Japanese that the planes were American Skokies, and they were saying “NO! Japanese Skokie!” Then the planes began to get closer.

In the camp, we had 6 buildings. The Japanese guards lived in the first two and the next three were the prisoners’ barracks and the last one was the mess hail. Across from our barracks was an old plane. But, those American planes came over in droves. They bombed the guards’ barracks and dropped a bomb through the cockpit of that old plane, but never once did they come close to our barracks not the mess hail. Somehow, they knew which barracks were ours, but we still don’t know how they knew. There was only one American casualty that day. One of the bombs kicked up a rock that hit one of our guys in the head. All he got was a scratch.

That night Japanese officers came and told us to pack up. They were moving us to Bilibid prison. They loaded us onto trucks and headed for Manila. Then they took us into Luzon to Bilibid where we stayed for nine days.

Bilibid Prison

At Bilibid we were fed twice a day. For breakfast, they gave us cracked corn, just like the corn you’d feed to chickens. They gave us about half a can that corn, boiled. Then that night, they gave us about 3/4 of a cup of dry, cooked rice. On the ninth day, they loaded us onto a ship headed for Japan.

They took us to Manila Bay and loaded on the ship and put us in the holds. There was a front and back hold, and they stuffed 1,122 of us down into those two holds, we couldn’t sit down. There were about 500 of us in one hold and 600 in the other. We stayed on that boat for thirty-nine days.

We set sail from Manila Bay and moved up the coast of China. Everybody got to working together and finally maneuvered ourselves into sitting positions. On the inside of the ship there were ribs running up and down the sides of the holds. They were fairly wide and they had boards going crossways. Some of us climbed up onto those boards and rode there for most of the trip.

According to Japanese figures, of the 50,000 POWs they shipped, 10,800 died at sea. Going by Allied figures, more Americans died in the sinking of the Arisan Maru than died in the weeks of the death march out of Bataan, or in the months at Camp O’Donnell, which were the two worst sustained atrocities committed by the Japanese against Americans. More Dutchmen died in the sinking of the Jun’yo Maru than in a year on the Burma-Siam railroad. The total deaths of all nationalities on the railroad added up to the war’s biggest sustained Japanese atrocity against Allied POWs. Total deaths of all nationalities at sea were second in number only to total deaths on the railroad. Of all POWs who died in the Pacific war, one in every three was killed on the water by friendly fire.

— Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese

POW's Transferred via Hell Ships

I had been down in the hold for maybe, 12 or 15 days when I finally decided to get up onto the wall. It was just getting so bad down on the bottom. It was terrible. Guys began drinking their own urine or seawater because there was nothing else to drink. I got lucky and got sick so the guards let me come up on the deck. While I was up on deck, I helped some of the other sick guys, and quickly gained my strength back. I guess I got well too fast, because it wasn’t long before the Japs realized I was feeling better and put me back into the hold.

We proceeded to Hong Kong Harbor and got trapped by some U.S. submarines. We had to go up the Canton River at night to keep submarines from slipping in and sinking us. American planes constantly bombed, but it always seemed that they hit on each side of us and miss. After being trapped for 11 days in the Harbor, we pulled out and headed for Formosa.

We stayed at a camp at Taipei for about 2 months. We had to work there too, but it was fairly easy. We had to go out between 8 and 9 in the morning and hoe in some gardens they had around the camp. We had an interpreter there who had graduated from UCLA, so we didn’t have too much language problem. The Japanese treated us pretty good there on Formosa. In fact, for the Christmas of ’44, they kill 600 rabbits and stewed them up for us. That’s about the only good thing they did for us. After staying at Taipei for two months we got on another boat and left Formosa for Kyushu Island. It took fourteen days to get there.

We landed on Kyushu in January of 1945 and got on a train to cross the island. We crossed over from Kyushu to Honshu Island [Japan's main island] on ferryboat. Then we got on yet another train and began the trip up the coast of Japan. The further north we moved the more snow we saw, and by the time we got to Sendai, it was strictly snow. It was or must have been five or six feet deep up there. We got off the train at Sendai and walked about five or six miles into the mountains to the camp we stayed at until the war ended.

During the spring of 1945, we worked at the camp in Sendai. We could do very little work because of the snow, but since trucks could not get up the mountain, it was our duty to go into town and unload the supply train whenever it came in. We ate better because we were able to steal food from the bags as we brought them up the mountain.

We wore old World War One uniform pants, the kind with the leg wrappings. We would make a hole in a bag of rice and let the rice fall into our pants. The rice would work its way down to the legs of our pants, and since we were never searched, we could get past the guards. Our guard knew we were taking the food, but he told us if we got caught he’d say he didn’t know us.

The food they gave us was a little better, too. It had to be since the work we were doing then was harder. We had more fish and dog while we were at Sendai. The fish was a frozen fish that the cooks cleaned for us. We also ate a lot of dog while we were in Japan. If I had been a rat, I would have stayed as far away as possible from any of the camps. I didn’t eat any rats, but many people did.

Around May of ’45, the work began to get harder. We worked in the lead and zinc mines gathering ore for the Japanese war machine. We had ten men details to go into the mines and load the ore onto small railcars. The cars were much smaller, because of the weight of the ore.

Anyway, I didn’t have to work in the mines much because of a particular incident. I had to go into the mine and work one day, and as the ore was broken loose from the walls, I was loading it onto the small railcars. The rails the cars rode on were built on a small incline that made it easy to roll them out of the mines. After loading a car, I was going to ride the car out of the mine. As I rode, the car went faster and faster. Finally, I decided that it was going too fast for me and tried to jump off. However, by this time, I was moving entirely too fast and was afraid to jump. I started yelling, “Get Out of the Way!” I must have been making 45 or 50 miles per hour when I came out of the end of that mine. When it finally stopped, the guards were furious. One of them took a big hand rod that the men used to drill holes in the rocks, and swung it at me. I ducked and he hit the edge of the tunnel with the rod. It almost shook his teeth out. They really raised Cain about it, but after they cooled down and found out what happened, they didn’t say too much. But, that was the only time I had to work in the mine from then on.

I was lucky. It was cold and damp down in there. And, it was easy to get lead poisoning in those mines. One guy got lead poisoning and they had to amputate his leg at his knee. He said in normal times his weight usually was 218 to 220. He weighed 98 pounds before he died. The lead poisoning just finally went all over his body.

Hiroshima Is Bombed

Finally, it was all over. Well, at least the imprisonment. They [the US] had dropped The Bomb. The old Jap commander at the camp came out the day after they dropped the bomb around 2:00 pm, to tell us that the war was over. There was some kind of yelling and crying going on.

The guards got scared that we would take our revenge on them, so they ran off shortly after the commander came out. Only three Japanese stayed that night; the commander, his interpreter, and one other guy. We went looking that night for the guards that had run of f, but we didn’t find any of them.

The next day, two fighter pilots flew over and dropped leaflets telling us that supplies were on the way. However, those fighters missed our camp and all of the leaflets fell in the city down below us. Later that afternoon, two big bombers flew over our camp real low, made a big circle, and then the bomb-doors began to open. The first thing we’ thought was, “Oh, my God, don’t tell me that the Americans are gonna bomb us, since the war has ended. Since we didn’t know that they were dropping food and clothing, we began to run to get away. Two guys, who were running, were killed by big tubes of clothes. I guess that was about the worst thing I saw over there. These two guys had made it through all the torture and were killed accidentally by their own side.

We gathered all the food up and took it to the mess hall and had a feast that night. At midnight, we had a feast. Then, we got word that there was to be another drop in about two days. Well, we did this one right. We went outside the camp and made big targets out of a bunch of sheets. This time, it felt really good to see them planes coming over, even with the bomb bay doors open.

We were told to stay at the camp until officers came and got us. Once they came, we went to Tokyo Harbor, where we spent the night on the Battleship Missouri. Within a few days, we were on our way back home.

Japan Surrenders!

We left San Francisco on November 1, 1941, and returned on October 26, 1945. We lacked just a few days being overseas four years. I was discharged on May 31, 1946. I had enlisted on May 23, 1940. Out of the six years, I had spent three and one half years as a prisoner of Japan.

I called my wife, Inez, from San Francisco and talked to her for the first time in five years. In fact, she had not heard from me that whole time. She didn’t even know if I was alive, until I got back. I cried over the phone with her. It felt good to be back home.

I suppose that during my stay the worst part had to be the not knowing whether I’d be alive tomorrow. Whether your own planes would drop the bomb that would kill you. We didn’t know whether those Japs would go berserk tomorrow and kill the whole lot of us like cattle. We just couldn’t envision a small country like Japan taking over America, but since we didn’t know if they had or not all we could do was hope that they hadn’t. You didn’t know what was going to become of you next.

You just didn’t know.

Inez & Powell Magee

Anne Matilda Farrar McCaleb

We all called her “Grandmother.” In reality, she was my father’s grandmother and my great-grandmother. Anne Matilda McCaleb (née Farrar) was born on May 8, 1887 and died February 3, 1983 at the age of 95, just a little over four years shy of her 100th birthday. There was never any confusion among the family when speaking of Grandmother because both of my parents’ mothers were called “Grandma” and only Anne McCaleb was afforded the full-blown honorific, “Grandmother.” I’m not sure how that happened and I’m not really sure it matters.

What I am sure of is that I was a lucky young man because until I reached the age of 18, I was fortunate to have both my maternal and paternal grandparents and a great-grandmother still alive. More fortunate still, I was able to grow up with ample opportunies to get to know and enjoy all of these wonderful people. In light of the fact that tomorrow is Mother’s Day, I thought it would be appropriate to share a funny story about my Grandmother that happened when I was about 11 years old.

I encourage you to click on the picture to the right and take a closer look at this regal lady of the South. The straight line of her lips that might make her look stern is softened by the openness of her face and the warmth of her eyes. If you were fortunate enough to know her as I did, you would perceive the spark of mischief behind that face and you would know that this was how she looked just before a smile.  I looked closely at this photograph while preparing it to be published on the Internet and I have to believe that she would have been amused by the Internet and would enjoy reading this story almost as much as I am enjoying writing it.

Grandmother was married to Sidney Brisco McCaleb, Sr. and spent much of her life on Smithland Plantation in Kingston, MS south of Natchez. I never got to know my great-Grandfather since he died just a couple of years after I was born in 1965. To my knowledge there is only one photograph of me with both of my great-grandparents and I was just a baby at the time. Grandmother suffered from hip problems which apparently is a family problem that several of her children and grandchildren have inherited. Grandmother was in her 70′s when Grandfather died and because of her hip problems she was pretty much relegated to being in a wheelchair most of the time. She faced her disability and her loss with the equanimity and steadfastness of a grand dame of the South but by the early 1970′s she decided to close her home in Kingston, MS and live with her daughter Ella and her son-in-law Calvin in their home outside of Houston.

My parents now live on the land that is known as Smithland along with several of my aunts and uncles. Interestingly enough, Grandmother’s son, Sidney McCaleb, Jr and her daughter, Ella now also live on this land. The old home that Grandmother kept for so many years before she “broke-up housekeeping” is still standing, though it has fallen into disrepair and is only the shell of what it once was. 

There is an oilwell on Smithland Plantation and the money earned from the oil along with her social security gave Grandmother a comfortable life with her daughter and she was able to begin a habit that stuck with her until the end. Each year around the beginning of summer, she would board a plane headed for California where she would visit for a couple of weeks with her son, Sidney, Jr. and his wife and children. At the end of her stay, she would board another plane headed for Washington, D.C. where she would stay for a couple of weeks with her daughter, Anna Belle and her husband Johnny. When that visit was concluded, she would fly to Birmingham to spend some time with her daughter, Jo and her husband, Pete, and their children. And then, when the time was right and because Natchez, MS didn’t have an airport, Grandmother would board yet another plane and fly to Jackson, MS where my parents and I would pick her up and she would spend a couple of weeks in our home prior to having us drive her to Natchez to stay with my Grandma, Mary Louise Tarver and my grandpa, Roy Howard Tarver. At the end of her time with them, we would return to Natchez, pick her up and take her back to the airport in Jackson to fly the final leg of her journey back to her home in Houston. She used to say, “As long as the oilwell keeps pumping, I’m gonna keep flying!” The well kept pumping and she kept flying until she died in 1983.

Most of my memories of Grandmother start around the year 1975 after I was 10 years old. I barely remember her in a wheelchair, because sometime around the age of 85 she had her first hip-replacement surgery. As soon as she was recovered from that, she had the other hip replaced and went from being wheelchair-bound to being able to walk across the floor with two cups of coffee and not spill any. With her renewed mobility, and her spirits high, I believe she began to enjoy life a lot more and old age became a badge of honor for her. At the time of her death she was already planning her 100th birthday party!

I mentioned earlier that Grandmother’s face concealed a mischief that made her delightful to be around. One particular pleasure that she enjoyed after getting “ball-bearing hip-joints” as we used to call them occurred at the airports. During the mid to late 1970′s airport security began to tighten a bit after some hi-jackings and now people were having to go through metal detectors prior to boarding their planes. Grandmother loved to go through the detector and not tell anyone she had metal hip-joints just to make the alarm go off. She said it was because then they would have to “frisk” her. Apparently from the stories I heard, she like to do this alot.

One of the things I remember most about Grandmother other than her spunk and high-spirits was her addiction to reading. She was a voracious reader and constantly had a book that she was half-way through. It must have been a trait that she passed on because all of her children were heavy readers and I have also been blessed with that gift as well as an interest in writing. Her trips to visit all of her children were made for the obvious reasons: she loved to spend time with them, she loved to visit, and she loved to travel. But one less obvious reason that she made all those trips was she was out of books. She always left Houston with a bunch of books packed in her bags and she traded with everyone along the way. By the time she returned to Houston she had a whole bunch of new but slightly used books to read in the coming year.

It could be argued that Grandmother was reading to improve her mind, for science has shown that you must continue to use your brain as you grow older or brain function will diminish, but I reget to inform you that I don’t believe that was why Grandmother read books. You see, my Grandmother was addicted to romance novels. All kinds of romance novels. The stuff women take to the beach with them with pictures of hunky guys on the cover with torn shirts holding a damsel in distress in his arms in the middle of a rain storm. I remember sneaking peeks at those books and they were pretty intense. Today, those books would probably not get a PG rating if they were turned into movies, but at the time they were my Grandmother’s favorite entertainment. Perhaps, just perhaps, they were also a form of travelling for her. A chance to visit places she’d never been or to do things she’d never done. Whatever the reason, I do remember the book trading process was pretty well complete by the time she reached our house and she never was more than an arm’s length away from her book.

I also remember her black creepers. Grandmother never left her bedroom without being dressed, having her hair in place, wearing her “grandma stockings” and black creeper shoes. I can’t remember if they were laced up or not, but I suspect they were not. I remember the soles were flat and made of soft rubber and being black they went with everything she wore. I called her stockings “grandma stockings” because they were what you would expect and sometimes they were a little loose. But because she always wore a dress, she always had her stockings on. There may be family members who can shed more light on this particular subject, but for now I’m writing about my memories and my memory of Grandmother always included her stockings and her black creepers. I know you are probably wondering why I’m fixated on this particular subject, but hang with me on this because they play a big part in this story.

I suppose that I was given a great gift by growing up in Jackson and Pearl, Mississippi; for living in those places put us directly in Grandmother’s flight path on her annual journey and it made it possible for me to get to spend a great deal of time with Grandmother. She was as regular as the seasons and as soon as school was out, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we would get the call from Aunt Jo in Birmingham that she had put Grandmother on the plane there and she’d be landing at Jackson’s airport about 1 hour later. I can’t remember how I felt about it at the time, I suspect that I was like most kids at that age who dreaded older people staying in their home, I hope that if I was like that, I didn’t say too much about it to my parents. Once she arrived at our house though I know I enjoyed her company and now that I’m older I know that I miss her often.

Grandmother was a great story teller, didn’t mind having a conversation with a child and she was a pretty good cook too. She was especially good at making something good out of not much at all. I remember her taking all the leftovers out of our refridgerator one year and making a soup that I remember not so much for how it tasted, but for the fact that she threw in some macaroni and cheese left from a previous meal and the elbow macaroni bloated up and became huge in the soup and that was the first time I ever had noodles in a soup that wasn’t chicken soup! One year she came to our house and noticed there were wild blackberries growing on the fence behind our house and she told me to go out and pick the blackberries and bring them to her. I did so and soon I smelled the wonderful odor of a blackberry cake baking in the oven. All of the blackberries sank to the bottom so when she turned out the cake the blackberries became the topping. I will never eat a blackberry tart or pastry without thinking of the cake my great-grandmother made for me that day!

As I said, most of my memories of Grandmother seem to start around 1975 after I turned 10 years old. I believe this particular incident occurred in 1976 when I was eleven and though I’ve talked to my mother about the timing, I can’t seem to narrow it down any closer than that. Based on where we lived at the time, it seems about right. We were living on a street named Ramada Circle in the Forest Hill area of South Jackson, MS and I believe this was the summer between my 6th and 7th grades. We were living in one of the nicest homes I remember us living in at the time and it was a light brown brick home on the top of small hill because we had a steep driveway. Inside was a big fireplace and what I though was plenty of room to be a kid. My father and mother were both working hard to build their fledging auto-repair business in Pearl, MS some 20-30 minutes away from our home and in truth I was a latch-key kid. After school each day, I’d ride the bus home arriving around 3:30pm where I would do my chores (most days) and watch “The Gong Show” and “Dark Shadows” repeats and wait for my parents to get home usually by 5:30pm. It was a different time back then and it was much safer for a 10 year old kid to be left alone. I was an only child and didn’t have any brothers or sisters to argue with or fight over the television and I was pretty happy with the arrangement. At least from what my mother tells me, I was a fairly responsible kid excluding the time I tried to wire up my bikelight to 120 volts with a cord off an old lamp. Or the time I “accidentally” shot my best friend in the butt with my bb gun. Or the time I tried to jump a ditch with a 10-speed and crash landed and bent the rims on my relatively new bike. Or the time I…….but I digress.

We had decent furniture, but there was one chair that we owned that was kind of a trick chair. It was covered in naugahyde that was supposed to look like real leather, but the older the chair got, the more orange it got. I don’t really know that color it was when it was new, but I definitely remember that it had an orange tint to it. The chair was deep and wide and very comfortable. It wasn’t a recliner, but rather it was mounted on a base with five feet that stuck out in a star pattern. Over the years the springs had worn out and unless you were careful and made sure that the back of the chair was resting on against one of the feet, it was possible to get too comfortable and the chair would turn over backwards leaving you on your back.

When Grandmother arrived that year, Mom and Dad both explained to Grandmother about the pecularities of the chair and warned her off telling her that she should not sit in the chair for any reason and that she should stick with the other chairs or the couch. While Mom and Dad and even me were around and in the room with her, Grandmother complied with our instructions and she didn’t try to sit in the chair. However, as I said earlier, Grandmother had a mischievious and rebellious streak in her and I believe that it began to eat at the 88 year old woman that there was any chair anywhere that she should be forbidden to sit in. Several days into her visit, she began to plot her chance to try out the naugahyde chair. It was too inviting, it looked too comfortable, and by God it was off-limits which just incited her even further.

It was a sunny day when Grandmother put her plan into action. I remember the sky was blue with white billowy clouds. It was hot outside and I spent much of the day inside with Grandmother in case she needed anything and because frankly I didn’t like hot weather. Besides, I had been given the responsibility to look after Grandmother and it just wouldn’t do for me to be outside riding my bike somewhere when I had to take care of her. It was getting up towards lunch time and I told Grandmother that I was going to the kitchen to fix us some sandwiches for lunch. She was sitting comfortably on the couch reading her latest romance novel when I walked the 20 steps from the living room to the kitchen on the other side of the wall. I had gotten most of the fixings out and was starting to make our sandwiches when I heard this “WHUMPPPFFFF!” sound from the living room and then silence. My first thought was, “Oh my God! Grandmother has fallen!” and I immediately rushed toward the living room.

As I entered the living room through the doorway that joined the breakfast nook with the living room, I was confronted by a sight that brings a smile to my face everytime I think of it now, but at the time it was all I could do not to panic. I saw the bottom of the orange naugahyde chair with the five footed base looking like a star and rising just behind were my Grandmother’s legs covered with wrinkled and loose “grandma stockings” topped off by rubber-soled black creepers pointed directly at the ceiling.

I rushed to her side and fell to my knees beside her and touched her arm thinking she was dead because her eyes were looking straight up and said, “Grandmother? Are you ok?”

She blinked and turned to focus on my face and asked, “Can you help me up?” Relieved that Grandmother was still alive and that I wouldn’t be blamed for killing my great-grandmother, I struggled to lift the chair back up to it’s upright position, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t lift her and the chair. She was not a small woman, but I knew she was old and frail and I needed to get her back up as soon as possible. I considered calling the fire department or the police, but since she seemed ok, I thought that might be overkill. All I really needed was a little bit of help to lift the chair and then everything would be ok. My heart was still pounding and I tried hard to think of what to do. It was the middle of the day and all of our neighbors were at work so no one was at home.

Then suddenly, I remembered my friend’s dad worked nights and they lived across the street, so I told Grandmother to be still and I would go and get help. I got to my feet and ran to the front door and opened it to a blast of hot air and saw the blue sky with white clouds when from behind me low and soft I heard my Grandmother call my name.

“Paul?” she called faintly and then again, “Paul?”

I froze for a second thinking that now she really was going to die. Perhaps it was a heart attack. I’d heard of family members who had passed away from heart attacks and now my own heart was racing again. I turned around and rushed back to where she lay on her back with her feet still sticking straight up in the air and fell to my knees once again and bent low so I could hear her words clearly in case she was giving me her last request. Oh, I just knew this was it. “88 Year Old Grandmother Dies While In The Care Of Her Great-Grandson Of A Heart Attack After Falling Backwards In A Chair,” which was a long headline I know, but it would probably make the front page. Worse yet, how would I tell my parents?

“Yes, Grandmother, I’m here, are you ok? Is there something you need? What can I do?” I told her hoarsely.

“Could you turn down the corner of the page I’m on in this book? It’s a good book and I don’t want to lose my place” she replied.

Stunned by her simple request and relieved that she didn’t appear to actually be dying, not that I would recognize that anyway, I turned the page down, got up and went across the street to get help. Our neighbor was home and after I explained the situation, he put on some shoes and followed me back across the street to my Grandmother with her legs still up in the air. I don’t know if he smiled or not when he saw her, but between the two of us, we got the chair upright and pulled Grandmother out of the chair and got her back to the couch. After he was satisfied that she was ok, he went back home and I finished fixing her lunch.

Not much was said about Grandmother And The Chair that night. I don’t know if Mom and Dad had a talk with her afterwards about doing what they told her not to do. I know that I would have probably gotten a lecture or a spanking if I had done something they told me not to do. But then again, perhaps they chose to let the experience be the teacher. What I can tell you is that we never had to worry about Grandmother sitting in the orange naugahyde chair anymore and in the end she outlasted the chair for she continued to visit long after the chair was gone.

There are many things I wish I could remember about Grandmother. The older I get the more precious the memories of that time with her become to me. Grandmother was a great wit and storyteller, a good cook, a loving great-grandparent, and my summertime friend. I believe there is a Heaven and somewhere in it is my Grandmother’s mansion. I also believe that in at least one of the rooms in that mansion, Grandmother has an orange naugahyde chair that she can sit in any time she wants.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Hudson’s Treasure Hunt is a delightful store that frankly is sort of difficult to describe to anyone who has never been inside of one. Over sixty years ago, the concept of Hudson’s came about as the result of a fire. H. C. Hudson was the owner of a grocery store in Palmer’s Crossing, MS and after a fire severly damaged his story, he asked the insurance agent what would become of the remaining inventory. After some negotiation, the insurance agent sold the goods back to H. C. Hudson who in true entrepreneurial fashion, immediately held a “fire sale” for his “Smoky Groceries” at 50% off. The success of the sale convinced H. C. Hudson that he was on to something and he began to scour the country-side looking for similar opportunities and along the way The Hudson Salvage Company  was born.

Checking out their website in preparation for this story, I found the company’s creed displayed prominently and I think it bears reprinting here. It is a creed worthy for any business to including my own to aspire to. I also think that it is telling that they call it their creed and not their mission. A creed is a system of beliefs or principles whereas a mission is more of a goal or destination. Hopefully Hudson’s won’t mind if I quote their creed since frankly I believe it bears repeating. Change a few words and I think you’ll find that the same words can apply to your business or your life as well.

Hudson’s is a family of diverse individuals who believe in keeping our word, working hard, having fun and treating others as we want to be treated. We believe in helping each other grow and develop to our potential. We also believe that we are destined to become the ultimate extreme value retail company by the grace of God. It is our mission to always provide our customers desirable merchandise at prices less than any competitor while making the profit needed to fulfill our destiny.

Hudson stores are often located in large, older buildings previously occupied by other retail stores that have moved on to greener pastures. Curiously, no matter what part of town Hudson’s Treasre Hunt stores are located, the parking lots are always full. It’s a different kind of retailing they do at Hudson’s. What would be a negative at other stores becomes a positive at Hudson’s. The air conditioning is usually at the upper range of comfortable, the signage on the walls is simple and cartoony. The fixtures and shelving are all second-hand purchases at going out of business sales, product is often placed haphazardly on the shelves because much of it doesn’t have a box or packaging or if it does it may be dented, water damaged, or torn. The shopping carts are mis-matched and sometimes merchandise is stacked in the middle of the aisles.

Whole sections of the store may be roped off with yellow tape as new merchandise is cataloged, priced and organized. On one visit the goods might be from a grocery store and the next might be from an arts and crafts store. One time we went and there were 5 separate aisles with nothing but shoes. Another time almost everything in the store was yard tools, garden hoses, shovels, and picks. While attempts are made to clean most of the merchandise, the fact is occasionally you’ll get your hands or clothes dirty by handling some of the goods because after all they may have been in a fire, or sitting in a warehouse for a long time.

Products may be moved from store to store until the right customers are found, prices may be lowered to find the right buyers. Which is a philosopy which reminds me of sign that used to hang on the back of the bathroom door at Fred’s Discount Store where I spent most of my time working after school. It said that Fred’s would be successful as long as we had the “Right Products in the Right Place at the Right Time at the Right Price with the Right Customer Service.” Hudson’s is so committed to selling everything they can that if it can’t be sold through Hudson’s Treasure Hunt, they’ll slash the price again and move it to their auxillary store, Dirt Cheap.

As I stood beside our cart while my wife looked through the hanging clothes, I began to look around me and easily identified all of the married guys in the store because they were also standing next to their carts while their wives looked at clothes, quietly looking forward to getting to the aisles with tools or electronics. Which brings up a point that I need to make which is why I call our trips to these stores, “Hudson Crawlin’.”  My wife and I do not go to Hudson’s looking for anything, but we look at everything to find stuff we might want. I should also warn you that you have to have a pretty good idea of what things cost in order to make good purchase decisions. I’m not saying that deals can’t be found, but it’s like a dance; you have to pick and choose carefully to make sure you get the best deal.

It is in fact a treasure hunt just as the name implies. And when you find that awesomely great deal, it feels just like you’ve hit the jackpot. The feeling of getting a good item at a great price is desired by everyone and it is achievable at Hudson’s Treasure Hunt. Give it a try the next time you get the chance. Oh, and if you are lucky, you’ll get a check-out clerk like we did that will offer you hand-sanitizer. It was a really nice touch!

I didn’t know Louie well, but after yesterday, I feel comfortable calling him that. Louie died on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at the age of 84. He served a tour of duty with the Third Infantry Division in Germany during World War II. He graduated with a Master’s degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 28 years. He was married to his wife, Betty, for 58 years and together with his wife, they raised a son and a daughter. He was the grandfather of three grandsons and two granddaughters. If statistics were all there were to Louie’s life, these surely would have been enough. But if that’s all there was, I wouldn’t be writing this.

Louie had a large extended family and he had a lot of friends as was evidenced by the number of people who came the funeral. One of his friends gave one of the most unique eulogies I’ve ever heard and it pains me that I can’t remember the speaker’s name. I know he is a minister and I know that he was Louie’s friend for over 60 years and was a groomsman 58 years ago when Louie married Betty. Hopefully, he’ll forgive me for not rembering his name, but I suspect that he would still be pleased that people are reading this. He told of his friendship with Louie and said he was sure that Louie was happy and well satisfied at the end of his journey being with God. But what he said next caught my imagination and spoke to my spirit.

Louie’s life reminds me of a young boy of about 10 years of age walking through a pasture on a clear sunny day under the bluest of blue skies. As the boy walks aimlessly through the wild grass he comes upon a cow pond. He looks at the glassy, smooth surface of the water and the bright sunshine reflected off the water and he can’t resist. Being like most young boys, he looks around for a rock. When he has found one, he stretches back as far as he can and throws it as high and as hard as he can. He watches the rock as it rises into the sky and then in a graceful arc begins to fall back to earth. He watches the rock as it hits the surface of the pond and makes a terrific splash leaving behind a series of ever-widening ripples spreading out to touch all the edges of the pond.

Louie’s life was like that rock. Rising up against the bluest sky and in a graceful arc his life touched the sky. On Tuesday there was a splash and Louie died leaving behind only ripples. Ripples reflected in the lives of his wife, his children, his grandchildren, his extended family, his friends, his associates and even people who didn’t know him personally. Given a chance those ripples will go on forever.

I was captivated by the story as I visualized the boy, the rock and the pond. I was reminded of the fact that we will never know the impact we have on the people around us, including people we may never get to know very well. On the day of his funeral, Louie’s friend gave a eulogy from his heart based on his 60 year friendship with Louie and through his friend, Louie touched our souls and the ripples began again.

I was reminded by Louie’s friend that life is not about the journey we take in our lives and it’s not about the splash we make. Life is about the ripples we leave behind. It is good for us to be mindful of the ripples we leave and strive to be like Louie. Even at his funeral, the ripples of Louie’s life rolled over me and filled me with optimism and encouraged my soul. 

Thanks, Louie. Job well done.

UPDATE 02/23/2009: I have learned since posting this article that the speaker’s name was Carlos Evans. I to apologize again to him again for not remembering his name while writing this, but I wanted to make sure I gave him credit for a wonderful story.

We both hope you enjoy the show!

• Valentines Day Show Part 1
• Valentines Day Show Part 2
• Valentines Day Show Part 3

Part 4 was supposed to be the story of our wedding, but unfortunately, a caller got the listeners going with a random discussion about racial issues. Therefore, I have chosen to eliminate that portion of the show because it wasn’t worth repeating. We’ll have to tell the wedding story next time! Sorry!

Well, far be it from me to miss the number one watched video on GodTube! The title of the video was ‘Team Hoyt’ and once the video started, I remembered the story because of a previous video that went around the Internet a few years ago. In fact, their website describes their situation better than I could:

Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they’re not in a marathon they are in a triathlon – that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It’s a remarkable record of exertion – all the more so when you consider that Rick can’t walk or talk.

For the full story of this amazing father and son team, you can read about them here.

I believe there are heroes who live among us. Many of them are parents who help their children achieve extraordinary things. In this case, both the father and the son encourage the other to reach for and achieve goals that most of us would find daunting. Sometime children are raised to be heroes (see this example I offered in a previous post), and sometimes it is the parent who achieves heroic status. Either way, I want to point out this type of hero where ever I find it, because not only does this encourage my belief in heroes, I want it to encourage that belief in others. When we discover that what was thought to be impossible really isn’t, then we can dream impossible dreams and make them happen.

And just for the record, I believe their are angels among us too. Just listen to the voice on this video and you’ll believe it too.

Enjoy.

We stayed at a great hotel called the Millennium Resort (and just for the record, the promotional pictures on their website are exactly how it looked while we were there!) The resort is a condo/hotel combination with a patio dining area where you can sit in the open air and overlook the McCormick Ranch Golf Course. Our room was a little better than an average hotel room, and we had a balcony that looked out over Camel Back Mountain. All in all, it was a very comfortable hotel and the staff was great. We asked a lot of questions about what to see and do and everyone including all of the waiters were extremely helpful and willing to assist us any way they could.

The trip began for us around 3:30am as we got up and got ready to be at the Meridian, MS airport before the crack of dawn. I’ve been told all my life that whether you are going to Heaven or Hell, you’ll have to change planes in Atlanta, and it’s true! In order to head west to Phoenix, we had to start by heading east to Atlanta. Once in Atlanta, we changed planes and moved up from a small plane to a 757 but while the plane is much larger, I think the seats got smaller. Look, I’m no lightweight and I know it, but if they continue to design airplanes to seat skinny people less than 5 feet tall, the number of long distance flights I’ll be on will be limited. I’m old enough to remember when you got bad food on airplanes and their solution to the problem was to cut out the food. Now the best you can hope for is a couple of bags of nuts or cookies (the cookies are really good but you only get two unless you ask!) and free sodas. You can buy additional snackfoods such as Pringles or M & M’s but I think that defeats the purpose of having really small seats. With all the snackfoods available and the changes in air pressure, I think people were expanding in flight. I know I felt that way.

The one positive change that I found on the plane was the in-flight entertainment. Back in the day, there was one movie and everyone on the flight watched the same thing. This plane had miniture flat screen tv’s built into the back of every seat. Headphones cost just $2.00 (which I think is to encourage people to buy them and forget that there is no real food.) but since I have my own headphones, all I had to do was plug and go. On the flight out to Phoenix, I listened to music. There was a pretty good selection of audio CD’s that you could pick and choose from. On the flight back, I watched satellite tv and surfed as much as I wanted without upsetting Pam by constantly changing the channel (Kudos to the airlines for this feature!).

Finally, we arrived in Phoenix which has a beautiful airport and after gathering up our luggage which arrived on the same plane as we did and we headed to the car rental building. Since we live in a small town it was surprising to learn that the car rental places were in a separate building about 5 miles away from the airport itself. Constantly running bus shuttles get you to the building fairly quickly and when you enter the building all of the possible rental agencies are all lined up in a semi-circle about a mile long. I checked with two places and ended up going with the guy at the first company that offered me a candy-apple red H3 Hummer for a great price. Pam smilled and rolled her eyes, but I couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel and check this cool ride out! Here’s one of my favorite pictures from the trip: 

PT & H3 In AZ!

After the educational conference, we embarked on our tourist activities and called a company that rented ATV’s for rides in the desert. A guy met us at the end of a dirt road that ran along the edge of the Sedona National Forest where we were set up with a Rhino two-seater ATV, a map with handwritten notes, some bottles of water and then we were told that he would be back in 3 hours and if we were not back within 4 hours they would send out a search party. I tried to put that part out of my mind and we fired up the Rhino and headed into the National Forest. We found the natural wash and followed it down to a river that ran year round. I gotta tell you: Nothing beats running at full speed through the desert with the wind in our hair, sun in our eyes and grit in our teeth! What a rush! Below are some pictures we took along the way.

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Tired from the ride and frankly getting a little cool since the sun was going down pretty quickly, we headed back to the rendezvous point and waited for the guy to come back and pick us up. Sure enough, he came back as he said and loaded up the Rhino and we headed back into town to find some dinner. We needed to turn in a little early because the next morning, we had scheduled a hot air balloon ride. Pam has always had this on her “bucket list” and I was pretty jazzed about it as well since I’ve never been up in a balloon and I wanted to video tape the trip for our memories. We got up before the sun and headed out from the hotel to Deer Field Airport to meet up with the guys from Hot Air Expeditions. I would recommend this company to anyone! They were extremely well organized, lots of fun and highly professional. If you are ever in Phoenix or Scottsdale and want to take a ride yourself, give them a call. Here are some still pics from the trip and below the gallery is the video of our flight.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

After landing back on terra firma and returning to the Deer Field Airport, we fired up the H3 and headed out to Sedona. It’s about a 1.5 to 2 hour trip from Scottsdale and there is some great scenery along the way. One weird thing that I noticed about halfway there was that all of the saquaro cactus that surrounded us in Scottsdale vanished. Pam and I assumed it was because we were going up in elevation since Sedona is about 5,000 feet higher than Scottsdale, but we have no real knowledge to confirm this. I’m hoping that maybe someone who knows will email me and let me know why if they find this post. Anyway, about 20 miles before we reached the turn for Sedona, we stopped in a little place called Camp Verde, AZ for a snack and a soda. Leaving the store, we saw a sign for Montezuma’s Castle and working hard to be tourists, we decided to check it out.

Turns out to be a pretty cool tourist attraction. The Castle is a well preserved cliff dwelling built by the Sinaqua Indians who lived in the area about 1,000 years ago. After developing ot a thriving community, the Sinaqua vanished leaving behind this high-rise mountain cliff apartment house. It will take you about 30 minutes to see everything if you are in a hurry, but you can linger as long as you like. We got some good pictures that you’ll find below:

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Once again, we climbed into the H3 and headed toward Sedona. Interestingly, up to this point, while the scenery was beautiful, everything was basically one of three colors: tan, green, and black. After finding the turn to Sedona and traveling about 15 miles through another National Forest (which I have to point out is not like any National Forest I’ve been in since none of the trees were over 20 feet tall and most were much less than that!), we started up a rise that took us between two large hills/mountains and as we came out on the other side, the world changed and opened up in front of us in colors that I simply cannot describe. There are no photographs that can capture the view adequately or give you the same feeling we had as the landscape turned from monochromatic to a lightstorm of color. I’ll let the pictures below try to give you a sense of it all, but if you’ve never been to Sedona take a trip and go see it!

I love the Great Smokey Mountains, but these mountains blew me away! Plus, the sky was bluer than I have ever seen before. The contrast was dramatic and it only got better as the sun started to go down.

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As the sun sunk low and lit the sky on fire, we headed back to Scottsdale for one more night and then headed home to Meridian the next day. There are other stories to tell and one day I’ll tell you about the Moonbat Sisters who accompanied us on the balloon ride and the Crystal Chicks we met just outside of Sedona, but those stories will keep for now. Enjoy the pictures and the video, comment if you’d like and better yet plan a trip to Arizona. You’ll have a great time and see things you’ve never seen before. How cool is that!

Once per week, the Downtown Optimist Club members gather to eat lunch and socialize. After everyone gets their lunch and the volume of chatter drops due to the chewing, the meeting is called to order. Grace is asked over the food, we pledge allegiance to the U.S. Flag, guests are introduced and if we have a speaker they are given the floor.

This day our speaker was a man by the name of Gary Turbville. Gary’s not a flashy guy. He’s not a polished speaker. In fact, most of the time he was talking, he was looking at the floor. He spoke quietly yet confidently about his pet project and only checked his notes (written in pencil on the back of a folded peace of paper) a couple of times to make sure he quoted certain figures correctly. If you saw Gary walking down the street and you didn’t know him, he probably wouldn’t stand out. He’s just a regular working man probably in his mid to late 50′s. Gary’s hands are the rough hands of a man who has worked hard most of his life. He is thin, wears blue jeans and if you put him in boots and a cowboy hat, he’d look just like a rancher from out West. His face bears the lines and weathered marks of a man who has worked outdoors for many years.

I tell you all this to help you understand the stunning effect this simple working man had on me. You see back in 1995, Gary took notice of two families that had fallen on hard times and were having trouble making ends meet. He decided he could do something to help out, so he started collecting aluminum soda cans, selling them and then he gave the money to these two families. From this humble beginning, CANS for Kids was born.

Fast forward to yesterday.

Gary explained to us that CANS for Kids is his passion, his mission in life. He didn’t say it that way, you just knew after a few minutes that this man lives his life with purpose. This year Gary and other people who have volunteered to help him in this purpose have collected enough soda cans to raise over $20,000. Just in case you wondered how many cans this actually is, think about this: aluminum sells for between .40 and .65 cents per pound. That means that Gary picked up between 30,000 and 50,000 pounds of aluminum cans, delivered them to the scrap yard, sold them and has used the money for one purpose: to help kids in need. To drive the point home, understand that it takes about 28 soda cans to make a pound of aluminum. Therefore, in one year Gary collected between 840,000 and 1.4 million soda cans.

Gary and every volunteer that works with CANS for Kids pays for their own gas to go anywhere and pick up soda cans. No one gets a salary or payment of any kind from CANS for Kids. All expenses with the exception of purchasing plastic bags to collect the cans are paid out of the pockets of the volunteers. Gary builds collection bins himself and has set several of them up as drop-offs in different locations around Meridian. Gary and other volunteers work seven days per week to pick up collected cans. Anyone who calls Gary and tells him they have cans for him, he goes and gets them, no matter how far he has to go and no matter how few cans they have. Gary often travels to motorcycle rallies and spends up to four days gathering enough cans to make about $500 off each rally.

This year, CANS for Kids will provide Christmas presents to 90 children who otherwise would not have any Christmas at all. But CANS for Kids doesn’t help everyone who asks, a volunteer goes to the home of each person in need and meets with the whole family to determine the true extent of need before they help. They work with other local charities to prevent “double-dipping” which is their term for people who visit one charity after another accumulating assistance from multiple sources.

CANS for Kids is about helping as many children as possible and they don’t limit their help to Christmas time. Gary believes that a child who comes home to a house without electricity because mom or dad couldn’t pay the light bill, or a home with no heat because the family car broke down and choices had to be made, is not an environment that children can flourish in. Nor can a child study well if they are cold or have no light. So when necessary, CANS for Kids pays electric and gas bills throughout the year. If food is needed, CANS for Kids buys groceries. In the end, Gary believes that each of these small measures of assistance go a long way to changing a child’s life for the better in the long run.

As I sat there listening to this unassuming man speak about the challenges of dropping aluminum prices and yet expressing how blessed he is to be able to help people and their kids, I realized something about Gary Turbville. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand how special he and CANS for Kids really are. He came to The Downtown Optimist Club not to ask for money or assistance or volunteers. He came to ask for our soda cans. Gary is single-minded about his purpose in life. Gary is going to keep on asking for and collecting cans and helping kids simply because it is what he is supposed to do. For Gary, it’s not about raising money, although all money raised goes to help him help kids. It’s not about ego, because I’m convinced that he doesn’t have any ego when it comes to CANS for Kids. It’s not about marketing this charity, because Gary is not a marketing kind of guy. It’s about Gary living out his purpose. And all I wanted to do while listening to him was help him live that purpose.

During his time at the podium, I had a V-8 moment. You know the moment when you slap your forehead? I remember thinking to myself, “Could it really be as simple as a guy picking up cans? Can something that simple change lives?” Gary never asked that question of himself, he just went ahead and changed lives with soda cans while the rest of us sat around and wondered why we didn’t think of that.

As soon as I got back to my office, I looked up the CANS for Kids website and something else struck me. Gary didn’t mention this nor is it referred to on the site. However, I found the name, CANS for Kids, slightly ironic for with every soda can Gary collects, he is helping children say ‘I can’ instead of “I can’t”. From where I’m sitting, that is powerful stuff!

So, I’m writing this, hoping you’ll read it and consider giving Gary some cans, or money, or manpower. I do not do this very often. I usually write stuff on this site just to be writing and perhaps to make someone smile. I generally don’t ask readers to act on anything I write or challenge them to do anything with the information I provide. But today, I’m going to ask you to act. A hero is a person who recognizes a need and sets out to meet that need just because they believe they can make a difference. Gary could use a few heroes to step forward and help him continue to make a difference.

CANS for Kids
“Save a can, help a child”

Attn: Gary Turbville
10898 Gilbert Joyner Road
Meridian, MS 39305

(601) 513-0805