Sneads' Ferry Tales

By Marvis Parch

A book of short stories. Started out at Sneeds' Ferry, North Carolina and ending in Punta Gorda Florida. A Marine Brat recollects his childhood

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marvis Parch
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310088438

Marvis Parch

Marvis Parch is my pen name.I have three children through my first wife who died in 1993. I got enough courage to marry again in 1997. Both of these women are angels. I got a Bonus Daughter in my 2nd marriage.I have been a practicing lawyer in Florida since 1971. Punta Gorda, a Florida Municipal Corporation used to have me as their sole & part-time Municipal Attorney for 15 years. I currently am a sole practitioner.I have three e-books available as follows:1. The Pennsylvania Rangers. During the American Revolutionary War an ancestor of mine fought in Captain Philips' Pennsylvania Rangers. This screenplay/novella provides a lifelike insight via a fictional history of their combat with the Iroquois, complete with British advisors. Author: Marvis Parch, my pen name.2. Snead's Ferry Tales. This is a volume of short stories. Author: Marvis Parch, my pen name.3. Foxy Chives. Removed from Smashwords, but available at Amazon: A war diary by J.M. Rooney, from the Vietnamese War, which the Vietnamese call the American War. In college, I had changed my major and got a draft notice in 1966, after being out of sequence in the eyes of the administration.The United States Marine Corps took me in. As you will see below, I had no choice.In late 1967 my Regimental Commander in Camp Pendleton, California, slapped me on my back and said "Lance-Corporal Rooney, you are a great instructor in artillery, you will never go to the war."Never say never.About three months later the Tet Offensive was launched on the South Vietnamese and their foreign allies.Three days later I was in Vietnam with the artillery battalion sent over with Regimental Landing Team 27.I found a battery training notebook in my pocket and started a war diary on the plane ride over.The cover of this book says that a college drop-out documents the 95% of the time that a combat Marine is not engaged in the terror of combat. If you want a description of combat I refer you to other authors.A year or two before completing this book, more than a handful of draft dodgers from the 1960's during a vacation in Vancouver, Canada, did conversations with me. They still regretted the options available to young men in America, during those days. For those who stayed in Canada, their option was to go into the military or go to Canada. Getting a 4-F classification from the Draft Board was not an option to them, obviously. Me too.Draft dodgers who came back to America have never crossed my path.At cocktail parties those males my age who contrived a 4-F status or got a bona fide rating were shunned by me.I was born on the Marine base, at Quantico, Virginia. My military dependent's card had not expired at the time I enlisted in 1966 and after my war experience, I became a civilian when my ready reserve time was over. Honorably Discharged. No longer was I a Government Mule, but still remain a military brat in America.Save any criticism unless you read this book, or have walked in our shoes. My Dad, a career Marine, would have killed me.We call the U.S.A., America. America is larger than the states. It is larger than the world. America is a place where you can dream and reach it by keeping your focus, and ignoring distractions and obstacles in your path.

Book preview

Snead’s Ferry Tales

Marvis Parch

Copyright 2015 by Marvis Parch

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

The Eyebrow Fight

The Gumball Machine

The Camel

Monday Morning Docket

Dog Fennell Flim-Flam

Jailhouse Blues

County Bar Meeting

Fixing Homework

He’s My Friend

The Eyebrow Fight

In the middle 1950’s my Father often took the family out to eat at a restaurant in Snead’s Ferry, North Carolina. The restaurant is no longer there.

As you came out of Camp LeJeune’s south gate, after crossing the bridge, a left turn was taken and there you were. Right in the middle of Snead’s Ferry village.

Our family lived on that United States Marine Corps base and our Father was billeted at the engineering battalion. Occasionally my brother Ike and I would spend the day at the battalion headquarters. Previously our Father would take the boat to his battalion at Camp Geiger, but an argument with a general on one of the boat trips made driving the family car less nerve wracking traveling across the New River to his office.

Ike and I were allowed to play with the toy electrically powered bulldozer kept in a large room in the headquarters. We both became proficient at operating a bulldozer at an early age.

My older brother Pat, was always able to stay home alone.

Our Mother had three boys. I am the middle one.

There is a special place in Heaven for all mothers of three boys.

Early on, Ike who is perfectly normal otherwise, was told by his body and senses that he would eat only certain things. Normal? He is exceptionally intelligent and intuitive.

Nevertheless, taking our family out to eat on a Friday or Saturday evening, always became an episode of three or four tactical confrontations.

Usually Ike was asked to eat something. His preferred fare was peanut butter and jelly on white bread. But often a dish with two or three peas was brought and placed in front of him. The theory was that one-half of a pea the first day and double the food each day, would lead to the general consumption of peas like everyone else. The theory couldn’t work because Ike wouldn’t start peas.

The base psychiatrist, when Ike was learning to talk, told our parents that there was nothing wrong with him,