Embellished True Stories of Lamar, NC: Spades, Preachers, and Spirits - Vol. 1

By Tom Byrd

Vol I. of a two volume collection of short stories reflecting the life, culture, and goings-on of the residents of Lamar, NC., home of the author, Tom Byrd.

 

Lamar is itself a fictional town in rural, central North Carolina. Tom Byrd was born and raised in this part of the state but left the farms for life in academia.&nbs

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scism Designs, LLC
• Release date: Jan 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736044735

Tom Byrd

Lamar is a fictional town in rural, central North Carolina. Tom Byrd was born and raised in this part of the state but left the farms for life in academia. He returned to his home place when his beloved wife passed too early in life and spent a considerable number of years writing stories depicting one slice of life in that region. Lamar, NC, a community by consensus of its residents, but is not large enough to warrant a road sign saying "Lamar." It is known legally as Lamar because it has a small post office, with a sign that reads 'Lamar' on the entrance door, and so "Lamar" can be defined geographically as being composed of the area where the Lamar post office delivers mail by rural routes. At the end of World War II, there were not many paved roads in the area; only the principal north-south highway was paved. Between 1949 and 1953, a North Carolina governor named Kerr Scott instituted a road paving program that helped to make Lamar a thriving community, so that over the next thirty years, the area grew large enough to support not only the small post office, but three or four country convenience stores, two of which also sold gasoline.

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Published by: ScismDesigns, LLC

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ISBN: 9781736044704

LCCN: 2020921344

Lamar, N.C. – A Garden of Eden

Lamar, NC, is a community by consensus of its residents, but is not large enough to warrant a road sign saying Lamar. It is known legally as Lamar because it has a small post office, with a sign that reads ‘Lamar’ on the entrance door, and so Lamar can be defined geographically as being composed of the area where the Lamar post office delivers mail by rural routes.

At the end of World War II, there were not many paved roads in the area; only the principal north-south highway was paved.

Between 1949 and 1953, a North Carolina governor named Kerr Scott instituted a road paving program that helped to make Lamar a thriving community, so that over the next thirty years, the area grew large enough to support not only the small post office, but three or four country convenience stores, two of which also sold gasoline.

Table of Contents

01. The Spades Game

02. Freedom Jihad: 15 Iraqi Dead Extend Freedom

03. Doonesbury and Spades

04. John DeHarmer and WWII

05. John DeHarmer and Westover Avenue

06. IHOP

07. Traina DeHarmer

08. Dan and Jewish Wine

09. Burly and Frank Double Dating (The Story of a Burnt Finger)

10. Driver and the English Teacher

11. Who’s Next (in War)

12. Granny’s Feed Sack Bloomers

13. Frank Coles’ Marriages

14. Church Hires Gantry

15. Spades and a Woman

16. Saul and Beulah at Spades

17. Burly and the Moving Van

18. Does God Play Golf

19. Eartha and the Mower

20. Eartha and Virginity

21. Stuffing Animals

22. Parable of Blackberry Cobbler

23. Elks and Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

24. Biblical Snits and Salvation (Glen, The Shouting Christian)

25. Sunday School and Cookouts – Part 2

26. Junior Dillon’s Death

27. Ken the Workhorse

28. The Reunion

29. The End Times

30. Candid Camera – Part I

31. Candid Camera – Part II

32. Why Burly and Beulah Left the Beach

33. Parable of Dippers

34. Burly and Beulah Quit Church (Preachers are Human Too)

35. Fleas in the Market

36. The Great Haircut Case (Peanut’s Haircuts)

37. Burly Hits a Deer

38. Neocons and Mexicans at Burly’s

39. Beulah and Mandy Connive

40. Bibles to Iraq

41. Potter for Sheriff (Fairy Land and the Law)

42. Wild is as Wild Does (An Introduction of Wildman)

43. Wildman Takes a Job

44. Jenkins for Preacher

45. The Story of Yarmulke – Part I

46. Wildman Yarmulke – Part II

47. Wildman Yarmulke – Part III

48. W ildman and Church Work

49. Methodists and Alcohol

50. Turkey Shoot

51. Parable of Butter and Honey

The Spades Game

In 1975 Burly Lewes drove from his home near Burlington NC to Lamar and rented a store building from my Mother, and after she passed away in 1982, he stayed on, renting from my brother, sister, and I.

During the last quarter of the 20th century, Burly ran the business as a convenience store and a flea market; he held auctions every Friday and Saturday nights; he had a mini-nursery outside, and provided the community with its under-the-counter July 4 fireworks; he sold a little moonshine liquor clandestinely, or as clandestinely as it could be when everyone knew he sold it, although not everyone knew his wholesale source.

The true heartbeat of Burly’s store was the continuous spades game that went on in the back of the store in the large display room, attended by players, hang-a-bouts waiting to play, kibitzers, and even on-duty state and county policemen who would play occasionally if they were certain no one likely to report them for dereliction of duty was in the vicinity.

One visitor who showed up every day was a retired man named Frank Coles, who never played but watched and talked, and who was a very witty, friendly, talkative, small man, always in a good humor, well self-educated, short by comparison to men’s average height, maybe 110 in weight, very pale skin, always carried a cane that he twirled, and who had for a girlfriend a local grammar school teacher named Fran.

I will take the time to recount one late morning gathering which I believe will capture the atmosphere of the spades game, a morning when my brother Jason and I were in Lamar tending to our inherited estate, and for recreation we went by Burly’s store to play spades.

When we arrived, Len Jolley and Burly were partners against John DeHarmer and Hal Smithson, and were winning when Frank walked in. Come here Frank and tell me about that woman I saw you with last night, Philip Driver, an onlooker, called out. Philip wasn’t there for spades, but came in regularly for the conversation that accompanied the game because he could always find an opening to talk about how his day went and his 1965 Ford Mustang.

That was just one of the women I try to show a good time, Frank said, then he struck the concrete floor with his cane, took two steps, and, in a deliberate effort to capture the moment, said, And I usually wind up getting to service them.

Len Jolley and Burly bid eight (out of a possible 13), and John and Hal bid seven. Clearly, someone was going to be set. Len and Burly who went down, to expressions of shock and laughter from the rest of us. The next hand, Lee and Burly bid six, John and Hal bid six, and they set Len and Burly again when John, on three of the last six tricks, overtrumped Len. Len gave John a hard look, then said damn.

While Len was dealing the next hand, Frank described the glories of his home-cooked meal at Fran’s house the previous night, with red wine - Her favorite kind but I like muscadine or Thunderbird myself - then a drive over to Reidsville for a cup of coffee at the House of Java, then back to Fran’s for the finale of a pleasant and quiet evening.

I don’t know what any of you done last night, but I expect you would have had a better time than you did if you could have been with me, Frank concluded. You would have got something out of just lookin’ on.

We all laughed, and even the sullen Len Jolley, nettled at John DeHarmer’s seemingly unconscious ability to destroy Len’s every play in the spades game, was moved to comment that in addition to the fact that he had a wife at home, wild horses couldn’t get him into the kind of compromising positions that Frank deliberately developed every night, but he might be interested in driving for Frank some night just to see what Frank really did.

Burly asked, Why don’t you bring Fran in here sometime Frank? I’d like to talk to her a little bit about you.

Hal added I want to be here to hear that. Maybe add a sentence or two.

Len Jolley interrupted, showing some impatience, Burly you want to watch the game? We’re gettin’ set again. That John just overtrumped you. Burly looked surprised, looked at John, looked at his own hand, and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him.

Frank said, Burly I wouldn’t even bring her picture in this store around this crowd.

As the last trick was played in the hand, John produced the high trump, again outmanning Len, and thereby taking the trick to set Len and Burly for the fourth consecutive hand. Len slumped down in his chair, grabbed the cards and said, John, you done got on my last damn nerve.

Burly added up the score and said, OK, they went out. Somebody get in here for me and Len. The game procedure was that losers get up and two new players take their place.

My brother Jason and I slid into the vacant seats at the spades table and Jason began to shuffle. As he vacated his seat, Burly looked at Hal, saying, Hal, this game won’t just be easy, it’ll be quick.

Philip, Frank, Len, in fact all the onlookers laughed and offered comments that ranged from Jason’s OK but Tom’s mind is fried from livin’ in Yankee land (for the Lewes’ General Store denizens, any state north of North Carolina is Yankee land), and Len you wanna sit behind Hal and try to pick up a few pointers on the game? and Burly how come you play good just every other hand? Can’t get the business off your mind or what? We laughed.

Over time, the spades game became institutionalized, and settled into a daily event that ran from around 9 AM or 10 AM (depending on when Burly arrived to unlock the store) until mid-afternoon. Saturdays were usually so full of players that there were two spades games going at the same time. Burly would not open the store on Sunday.

Freedom Jihad:

15 Iraqi Dead Extend Freedom

At Burly’s house on a Thursday evening, Glen the Shouting Christian said Preacher Gantry had delivered a Wednesday night prayer meeting commentary on the topic of Iraq, explaining how every person -- private contractor, military personnel, UN volunteers, any non-Arab, in fact -- who died as a result of hostile action, had extended the freedom of Americans a little bit. 

His explanation, as absorbed by Glen’s mind, then repeated by Glen (interrupted sporadically by spades game bids, complaints, taunts to lead your ace, and if you expect to get that trick you better trump it else it’s mine, and when someone would drop the cards during a shuffle, someone else would say Get him a basket, and someone else would say If he can’t shuffle in a room this big why get him a basket?), runs to the effect that Bush’s conduct of the war (and here according to Glen, Preacher Gantry made a point to say Bush and not America because a lot of so-called Americans were more in support of Saddam and dictatorship than our boys on the front line of freedom) guaranteed that every day that passes moves the Iraqis one day closer to a democracy, and when they get a democracy, other Arab states will be awed by the freedom and liberty that characterize the US, and will be falling all over themselves to adopt our Constitution or something close to it.

Brother Gantry apparently did concede that it may take a generation for all this to come about, but since we are living in the Last Days, it will not be any longer than that.

I say Brother Gantry ‘apparently’ said that because it sounded a lot like an afterthought, added after a brief pause when Glen had concluded his recitation of the vital parts of Gantry’s remarks.

Preacher Daniel Harvell doesn’t hold much with Preacher Gantry owing to the fact that a few years ago Daniel preached several sermons at one of Gantry’s revivals and Gantry only paid him $50 for the entire week’s work, where normally Daniel and any itinerant evangelist gets a portion of the collection every day, ranging from 20% and even up to 50% if the evangelist is well known and can draw a crowd, which I am told Daniel can. Daniel is a hellfire and damnation preacher who saves souls by scaring the wits out of his listeners. Ever since that woefully inadequate payment, Daniel occasionally picks holes in Preacher Gantry’s examinations of Christianity.

Anyway, Dan – I will use the familiar form of Daniel’s name, because Daniel prefers it - opined that he didn’t think that the deaths of ordinary civilian personnel added much to his freedom, inasmuch as, contrary to Gantry’s logic, we are losing our freedoms in this country which was predicted by the Bible as we head into the last of the Last Days. Thus, Preacher Gantry was patently incorrect in claiming that non-military deaths in Iraq were extending our freedom. They were, at best, acting as a finger in the dam (Dan’s metaphor), staying the course of our loss of freedoms for a brief, maybe shining, moment, but this was a transitory and mirage-like matter because when they took the finger out of the hole, it would be Katy bar the door.

Burly asked what freedoms we had lost and Dan mentioned the 10 Commandments in Alabama case, OJ Simpson getting away with murder, the slander of Billy Graham because he told the truth about a handful of powerful Jews in the US (But that was a long time ago and those conditions don’t apply any more, but the forces of the antiChrist have led Americans to believe that is what Billy believes today).

I cannot describe more of this discussion on the Iraq mess because Beulah walked in from her art class and asked Burly to fix dinner for them before she had to go to work. Burly instantly headed to the kitchen.

That short piece of interplay between the two lovers was enough to cause the rest of us to get up, stretch, and excuse ourselves. As we walked to our cars, Dan said to me, Tom, I think there’s two possibilities here: Burly is either really in love with Beulah or she has him henpecked, and I lean toward the latter possibility. 

Glen stayed on in Burly’s house because he is Beulah’s son. I know Burly was nettled about Glen staying on because he would have to fix food for Glen also, and then clean up behind him. Glen isn’t in the habit of picking up his table remains and putting them in the garbage, or picking up his utensils and carrying them to the kitchen, preferring to let his wife do it when he’s at home, and either Burly or Beulah or both do it when he’s eating at Burly’s.

Doonesbury and Spades

While we were setting up for the spades game last night, Glen the shouting Christian stopped by to see Daniel Harvell. Daniel was there because he had come to play spades with me, Burly, and Burly’s son Biron.

Dan was out and about because his wife Gladys is a Registered Nurse, works at a prison facility on the night shift. She prefers it because, as she pointed out, most prisoners sleep at night, so her workload lightens up considerably after inmates go to bed, and she makes the same pay as day nurses plus some extra for night duty.

Glen was concerned because at the insistence of his mother Beulah, he had read a Doonesbury comic strip that named some of Bush’s stalwarts as having dodged the Viet Nam war.

Glen said, That strip said that a bunch of ‘em slickered deferments and didn’t have to go overseas. You can see it right here.  And he opened the newspaper to the Doonesbury strip, and read out the names:   Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Bill O’Reilly, Tom DeLay, and Rush Limbaugh. (Here I confess I do not remember all the names, but I am certain about those I list above.)

Preacher Dan said, There are several explanations for that, Glen. First of all, it may be a lie by that writer. If you’re drawin’ cartoons you’re tellin’ a story, and sometimes the truth don’t make the best story (Dan pronounces story as STO-ree, the O sound ringing like Canadians pronounce the ou in house). Second of all it might be that some of them failed the physical and had to settle for second best, serving their country in other ways.

Burly groaned, You can’t fight the Viet Nam War all over and who did and who didn’t fight, and you shouldn’t get into talking about some man that draws a cartoon strip. Somebody’s gonna hafta deal if we’re gonna play spades.  He picked up the deck of cards, put in the two jokers, and handed them to his son Biron. Shuffle and deal, Biron.

Dan’s next remarks made it clear he was not happy with his rebuttals of Doonesbury, because, he told me later, he was pretty certain that the names in Doonesbury were accurate. Moreover, we all knew that a lot of young men had dodged the VN war.

I tell you another likely possibility, Dan said as Biron shuffled then dealt. Biron is 40 years old, and is the fastest shuffler and dealer I’ve ever seen. He can literally have three cards in the air at one time as he deals.

Dan continued. It could be that the Lord had plans for those men like Cheney and Wolfowitz to support the President in the war in Iraq, so during the Viet Nam war it was the hand of the Lord that got deferments for the men He knew they were going to be sources of strength for Bush in fighting terrorism after 911.

I was completely unprepared for that possibility, and briefly thought of asking Dan why God planned 911 during the Viet Nam conflict, but another thought came to mind that I believed would be more effective and less disrespectful of Dan’s comment. As I sorted my 13 cards by suits, I remarked, If that’s the case, I’d say God got Bush into the national guard, got him into Alabama to work in a political campaign, thus seeing to it that Bush got the political experience necessary to win the governor’s race in Texas and get enough executive experience to handle the presidency and thus be in place to do the Great Work God had in store for him following the 911 attacks.

From the look on his face, accompanied by a sort of scoffing sound, I’m pretty certain Glen did not think much of Dan’s argument, and even less of mine, even going to the extreme of laughing at me, and saying to me Are you serious or being silly?

Burly echoed those sentiments, noting that He ain’t never been serious so it must be silly.

Biron laughed a halfhearted laugh, which I attributed to a sense of discomfiture at laughing at men 30 years his senior.

But Dan more or less defended me, saying that he had never thought of it that way, but it made sense. The Lord’s hand moves in all things, he said. "Sometimes the Lord lets nature take its course, but the Bible proves that if He wants a certain outcome, He causes certain actions to take place.

But you mentioned Rush Limbaugh in there. I think Rush has gone a long way to losing eternal life. I like him, he talks a lot of truth you can’t get anywhere else, but he also become a drug addict, and that wasn’t the Lord’s work. That was sin after salvation, as Revelation proves.  (Here Dan cited the appropriate scripture, but I do not recall the precise chapter and verse - and, truth be told, I may have cited the wrong Book) The phrase sin after salvation apparently comes from somewhere in the Bible, and refers to a piece of behavior that leads to certain damnation.

Glen protested, albeit mildly. I don’t believe God got them deferments. If He wanted to, He could have just as easy let them go to Viet Nam and see to it they would get home OK.

Dan conceded the point, and added, I didn’t say it was a miracle, just that it was possible. We can’t really say what is a miracle, and won’t know for sure until we get into His presence when all things will be made clear to us.

Burly looked at me and said It’s your bid. I said I think I can make three. Dan, my partner for the game, studied his hand for a minute or so, and said, I can make three at least. Want to bid six or seven?  I said Seven.  Burly wrote it down. He and Biron bid five. We both made our bids. Then it was Dan’s deal.

While he was collecting the cards and straightening them, then shuffling, Dan returned to the miraculous possibilities springing from Viet Nam deferments. I’ll think about that some more, Tom. You’ve raised a serious matter here, and I think there may be a biblical answer.

Glen suggested he would bring it up with Preacher Gantry. Incidentally, Glen does not play spades with us, possibly because Burly will not invite him to play, and Glen is aware of that slight, and is polite enough that he never insists. In fact, though, Glen may not play at all. He’s never shown any interest in who is winning or losing or the fall of the cards, or when someone makes a shrewd play, or pulls off an upset.

Glen talked on a bit about some furniture he’s making, including a table for my brother using some 103-year-old pine boards we salvaged from an old cabin on the farms, and about his Mother Beulah’s sputtering career as an artist. (We were able to date the boards because some old newspapers had been stuck in the planks to serve as insulation, and they were dated 1901).

The discussion of miracles was over for the night. Glen left after finishing a cup of coffee, and Dan only occasionally mentioned God thereafter, and I completely forgot about Him. The first game ran a long time, and before we started the second one, Burly brought out country ham biscuits for each of us as a snack, and I provided deviled eggs I had made earlier in the day. Dan took off his baseball cap that reads WWJD on the front, held it over his heart, lowered his head, mumbled a brief Grace (Thank You, Lord, for what I am about to receive), then ate.

And that was the last time any of us mentioned God or Doonesbury until we broke up and went home.

John DeHarmer and WWII

John DeHarmer told me a few good stories. One that I remember is the story of his WWII exploits.

What happened is, in the second half of the 1990s John was living in a small mobile home I later used as an office. I noticed on several occasions over the course of a year or so that when I would drive by in the morning he would be standing by the highway at the end of his driveway, leaning on his mailbox, dressed very neatly, wearing a fedora, with a small brown bag sitting beside him. We’d wave at each other.

One Thursday on the way to some farm chore, I stopped by Burly’s store to get a cup of coffee, arrived about 10 AM, and walked in. The spades game was already up and running. Burly was behind the counter handling papers. I exchanged greetings with the four people in the spades game, and was surprised that there were no kibitzers.

Burly said, Glad you’re here Tom. You can be my partner when one of them loses. And he pointed to the spades game.

I said, I can’t stay, Burly. Got to pick up my wife. Why don’t you call John DeHarmer to come in so you can have a partner?

Nail whooped, Yeah, Burly. He’s not any better at the game than you are so he won’t embarrass you with good plays.

Burly ignored Nail, and said to me, John’s in Durham by now. He usually goes down on Thursdays to the VA (Veteran’s Administration) hospital for psychiatric help. I don’t know how often he has to go, but today’s one of ‘em. He gets counseling because in the war he went crazy.

I echoed his last words. Went crazy?

Yeah. His daughter come by here once to visit John and said that they worried about him because he had a bad case of nerves from what happened to him in Africa.

 What happened in Africa? I asked.

 I don’t know. She was probably gonna tell me about it but I had some customers, so I won’t concentrating on her, I was trying to get that extra dollar.

I walked toward the back of the room to the spades game to shake hands, and realized as I walked that the times I saw John standing dressed up at his drive must have been Thursday mornings.

How does he get to Durham? I asked.

Johnny Mores, partnered with Fred Kelley, answered, The same way I do when I go down there. He rides that special bus that comes by and picks him up.

And here I’ll pass over the rest of my brief stop at Burly’s on that day, and move on to the meat of the story. I stopped by John’s trailer one day the next week and brought up the topic of the VA visits. I asked him why he had to go every week.

John said, Well it ain’t every Thursday; it’s some Thursdays. That VA-hired bus comes by here on the Thursday morning and it’s a free trip, and I get to see several boys who was hurt in the War and we can talk to each other about it.

 How long have you been doing that; I mean regularly?

Oh, some time. His brow wrinkled up, and he said, I can tell you exactly. I started first week in March in 1995, about a year after my wife and I split up. They sent me a letter saying they was getting up a bus to come up here and pick up veterans so I decided I could just ride along with them. I liked it, so I’ve just kept it up. What it is, we get down there and we have to all sit in a room and talk to each other, then after we have lunch we go in to see a head doctor and he tells us we’re doing really well he thinks and he’s looking forward to seeing us next time.

John kept on. Now, in this conversation I frequently nodded my head in understanding, and occasionally asked questions to move the story along. But I’m going to write it from start to finish as if it were one long John DeHarmer story. Remember that John, like nearly everyone who patronized Burly’s store, invariably dropped the G sound off all gerunds. I find it easier to write with the gerunds intact, but if you’re reading out loud, remember to drop the G.

"I don’t have no psychiatry problems, but I used to when I got out of the service, then when me and my wife split up I had some nights where I couldn’t sleep because I was trying to figure out how to keep her from stealing everything I had so I drove down to the VA in Durham one day because I had been in there some before, and I asked them for some sleeping pills and nerve pills so I could sleep. Well, they sent me to see a counselor - see, he’s the only one that can prescribe those nerve pills -- and he said come back next week, so I did, and he decided I couldn’t sleep because I was still having nightmares about the war. I mean he asked me all kinds of questions about the Kasserine Pass and how I got wounded and all.

He’s smart, you can tell it from his questions. He learned stuff about me I didn’t even know about me til he told me. But he had my records so he already knew I’d had nerve problems after I got wounded. But I mean I was just a kid then. I won’t but 18. Any boy’d be nervous if he went thru what I did. He must of asked me a hundred questions about that battle.

Well, after a few trips to Durham on the VA bus and talkin’ to all those boys that come down there and swappin’ stories with them, and gettin’ that good lunch -- they took us to a cafeteria and served us whatever we wanted -- there was about 10 of us usually showed up, sometimes seven or eight, the most I ever saw was 12.  Here John reflected, silently ticked off his fingers, and said, Yes, there was 12 once, but I think the one that was a paraplegic, he died. That’s what one of the other fellas said.

Well, I got to like it. You get a nice trip down and we all bring a sandwich and a drink while we’re on the road. It takes over an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. And I really come to enjoy talking to those boys in my counseling group. They was all in the war, and we have a good time talking about it. Now I thought at first I had to make that counselor think I was a little off or he wouldn’t have let me keep coming, but he told me he thought the sessions were helping me and we’d try it for a while. I asked him what a while was and he said, we’ll see. Well, it’s going on several years ain’t it and I’m still going on a lot of Thursdays. I really enjoy it.

 I think what made the counselor think it was the Kasserine Pass that caused me to lay awake is that I went to see him that first time in early March, and it was about that time of the year in 1943 when I come to myself after I got hurt there at the Kasserine Pass.

I was impressed. My impression of John was that he was not crazy, nor even the slightest bit over anxious. But I believe his sort of rambling discourses probably convinced the counselor that John was about one brick short of a load, an analogy used frequently by a Chapel Hill newspaper man of my acquaintance.

I asked John about what happened to him at the Kasserine Pass. His story was confused, because he wasn’t terribly clear about what happened. What he said was, "I got off the ship there at Bizerte, and we didn’t see nothing except some old people staring at us, and we went on in and didn’t do nothing for several days, but we heard they was fighting on up in the mountains. Then they put us on trucks and rode us inland from the ocean and the closer we got the more we could hear guns going off. Not many airplanes.

"What happened is they said the Germans had took Kasserine and we meant to take it back. Well, I was behind a tank when this German run out from behind me and shot and hit me right square in my right arm. I run around the tank and I guess I fell because it durn near run right over my legs. But we was on really soft ground and my legs just kinda got buried. But I was scared and I saw that German walk up over me and held his gun and shot but he missed me and he won’t more than three feet from me.

He shot me again I guess this time he hit me in the stomach or somewhere close to it. Next thing I saw a buddy was standing over me and he said he shot the SOB and could I get up and I saw the German laying right there at my feet. I was still buried from my waist down. I was scared to get up, thinking you know maybe I couldn’t walk or I was dying. The tank was gone and right then that German got up and shot my buddy and killed him, then that German just limped off. I don’t know what ever happened to him.

"I don’t know what happened much after that. I laid there a long time, I think maybe a couple days. It was the coldest I’ve ever been in my whole life. That’s about all I remember about it is how cold it was. I know some GIs put me on a stretcher and hauled me some then they loaded me in a truck and took off. Next thing I remember clear is after they operated on me and took me off that morphine enough that I could think.

"I didn’t get out of the army though. I stayed on in ‘til the end of the war, and I was in North Africa a long time recuperating then they sent me back to the States on a ship with a big cross on it and I thought that’s a real invitation to the Germans to torpedo it because it can’t shoot back, and I was at Camp Polk for a long time, training some of the new recruits, then they sent me to California on a train and I was there when they told me I was getting out.

They thought I was crazy, I’m pretty sure, because my wounds had healed up and I didn’t have no limp and I could use my arm just like new. I got a little pension out of it. I thought about going to college on that GI bill, but I had to get my high school diploma first so I come back to school and got that then I met that woman I married and college went right out the window.

Did you marry a girl from around here, John?

No. She was from near Richmond…. country girl. She was visiting her sister who was working in the cotton mill. I met her and her sister up at that Southtown Diner one day and was trying to pick up the sister but she was married so I wound up with leftovers.

John DeHarmer and Westover Avenue

John DeHarmer, the then 75-year-old man to whom Len Jolley said at a spades game after John had overtrumped him three times in the same hand, John, you done got on my last nerve, had a very interesting life. He talked about it in spasms, never chronologically, but by the episode. When something would happen that