My Life: My Fault: A Personal History

By Joseph E. Bennett

My Life: My Fault relates memories about the life and times of the author and includes experiences shared with others who helped shape
his life over the years. His story traces an effort to enjoy life, improve his relations with others, and conquer numerous challenges encountered in his work as he wrestles cronic health problems and advancing age. Additionally the book recalls memories of special friends and to a degree explains his feelings about himself and others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465324375

Joseph E. Bennett

Joseph Emmett Bennett was born April 3, 1935, in Corpus Christi, Texas. His father was a member of the United States Coast Guard and his mother proudly identified herself as a housewife and mother of five children. He lived in Galveston, Texas and Pascagoula, Mississippi during World War II, and attended school in these locations, graduating from High School in Pascagoula and attending two years at Perkinston Junior College, Mississippi. After Junior College, he served in the United States Air Force for seven years in the Administrative Career Field and was discharged as a Staff Sergeant Administrative Supervisor. Upon returning to civilian life, he became an employee at Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation, located in his home town of Pascagoula and through the years worked in several Administrative and Design disciplines in Engineering. After 31 plus years of shipbuilding service he retired. Within two months he became employed by CDI Marine, an Engineering Design and Services subcontractor that serviced Ingalls Shipbuilding. He retired as a Project Engineer ten years later. His education, life experiences and extensive travels in addition to many unusual employment opportunities have caused this 73 year old to look back on his life and readily proclaim that the numerous unique experiences, loving family members, special friends, and loved ones most definitely made the trip worthwhile.

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Copyright © 2009 by Joseph E. Bennett.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work based on personal recollections of the author with most of the family history and genealogy being provided by his mother, now deceased. The names, places and incidents recorded herein are personal memories of the author and represent his best effort of accurate recall.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Preface

The purpose of this writing is to provide for my family and friends an accounting of memories and thoughts about my life. Hopefully this effort will provide a better understanding of the quiet, withdrawn and guarded; yet sometimes kind, thoughtful and caring; but much too often frustrated, angry and explosive individual that I am.

I retired on April 1, 1994 and again on August 20, 2004. Since my final retirement, I have been somewhat lost and have experienced difficulty adjusting to a life without being employed. Many of the things I’ve learned to love seem to have been misplaced because of my less than great health and my slowness to become familiar with the area in which my new home is located.

Some may think my home is not so great, but to me it’s the castle I’ve dreamed of owning and a little more than I thought I would ever manage. In all honesty, my wife and I fell in love with the place so we figured a way to make it ours. After living in Pascagoula, Mississippi for 34 years we moved to Daphne, Alabama during the week of Thanksgiving, 2002.

As a part of my effort to adjust and enjoy some of the unique benefits of the area, I’ve attended a few educational courses. I truly enjoyed a course in Photographic Techniques and will soon begin courses in Digital Photography, Windows XP, and Short Story Writing. So far, the class that proved to be one of the most enjoyable courses I have ever attended was Personal History Writing taught by Fran Morely of Fairhope.

The class was attended by about ten people—all legitimately classified as seniors. Each week we recorded thoughts about our personal histories which we read to the group. The degree of intimacy experienced by the students was evident and was very rewarding. There were memories shared that had not been recalled for many years and it was not unusual to shed or share an occasional tear or discuss the content of one’s writing after class was dismissed.

To make the experience even more enjoyable—I discovered a soul mate in the group. She also lived in Galveston, Texas during WWII, was raised in Mississippi, has been divorced and remarried, and among other common interests, she loves to travel.

To my thinking, she possessed a most delightful imagination, a high degree of creativity, and was most definitely advanced in her communication skills. On one occasion, she had to be out of town during the time she would have normally written a story to read to the class. Instead of coming in unprepared, Sarah brought the Wedding Dress worn when she married as a young woman. From the story verbally related, it was evident to everyone that the beautiful dress, lovingly hand-made by family and friends, was a precious and very important part of her life.

Another uniquely special occasion was the visit by retired Doctor Reilly Maginn, who related stories about life as a pioneer organ transplant surgeon and as a dedicated servant to the peoples in both; stateside locales and in needy or underprivileged Pacific and Caribbean island communities. The class especially appreciated his story about his first operation and of a most unusual Christmas dinner on an island where one would think it impossible to have such a memorable dinner.

The class became a bit of a challenge and after its conclusion I continued to record memories of my personal history following a very precarious timeline. My thanks to Fran Morley. I sincerely appreciate and acknowledge her unique interest, guidance, and encouragement, without which I would have never managed the courage to attempt writing a book about my life as it has been thus far.

How does one go about writing a book anyway? For me, I fear the undertaking will be quite difficult because my memory isn’t anything like it used to be. I’m more than seventy years of age; my writing background has been primarily related to my employment in administrative or technical pursuits; my life is sorted with many private and personal things involving both myself and others; and although I tend to withhold my thoughts and spend a considerable portion of my time alone, those who truly know me will likely concede that I am better described as an individual who doesn’t know when to shut up—once I get started. Guess the thing to do is just close my eyes for a moment, cross my fingers, and get started. My memory of late seems to fade. I’m sure there will be names that won’t come to me, but I’ll do my best and go on with the story.

My grateful thanks go out to the many people who have had a part in positively shaping my life. As best I can, I shall endeavor to include memories of these friends in the text of my writings, but will otherwise include thoughts about some of these good folks in Chapter 19.

I fervently hope the accounting of my history will be acceptable to all who read it, that it offends no one, and that it might in some way be beneficial to my family members and loved ones in years to come.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my father and mother, my brother James and my sister Gladys whom I love dearly and have missed so very much…

Chapter One

Before My Time

It seems my parents seldom spoke of their childhood, and shared very little information about their parents and grandparents. (I’m sure they did their best to inform their children concerning our predecessors.) This child however, did not seek out family historical information because I was either too young to understand its value or was just too dumb to care. Sadly, even now I find myself at a loss for answers to many questions due to my desire to mind my own business, my distain for prying in the affairs of others, and my lack of asking sufficient questions to insure that I am adequately informed.

The things I know of my ancestors are few. My primary source of information was my mother and notes she made when she talked to family members through the years. In Appendix 1, I’ve compiled family data and provide it as a part of this writing for those who might want to take a closer look at the Bennett and Harris genealogies.

To the best of my knowledge, the paternal genealogy went something like this: Great, Great Grandfather was a Scottish Missionary to the Creek Indians of Georgia. His wife was a Creek Indian. Great Grandfather was named Green Berry Bennett and his wife’s given name was Emma. My paternal grandfather was Green Berry Bennett Junior and my paternal grandmother was Ada Barber, whose father was named Ephram. My father, Emmett James Bennett, had four brothers and one sister. His sister, Gladys, died at the age of four. After my grandmother died, my grandfather married Arelia and lived in Savannah, Georgia.

My maternal great grandfather was James Abbott Harris, the son of Henry and Agnes Harris. His wife was Clara Ann Palmes, the daughter of Joseph Palmes and Josephine McGuire. My maternal grandfather was Joseph Palmes Harris and my maternal grandmother was Lenna Mae Deese. Several years after my grandmother died, Grand paw married Della Slone. My mother, Ella Palmes Harris, had one brother who died at age nine, three half-sisters and two half-brothers, one of whom died at six years of age. Mother’s family nickname was Sister.

I was told that my father’s family was deserted by his father, leaving my grandmother with the burden of working a farm and raising six children by herself. This situation required the children to help work the crops and care for the livestock and affected the children’s education efforts.

(I’m disturbed by this information provided by my mother, because I recently obtained a picture of my father, his mother and dad, and his paternal grandmother which was taken when my father was apparently in his late teens. The father deserting the family and the picture of him, his mother, wife, and a mature son seems at best to be a clash.)

In any case, Dad quit school after completing the sixth grade at the age of sixteen. He ran away from home, lied about his age, and enlisted in the Navy. One had to have a parent’s permission to join the military if he was less than twenty-one, so Dad’s mother went to the authorities and secured his release.

My father returned to the farm in Waycross, Georgia, and in the next few years learned to be a carpenter. During this period he worked on the East Coast from Norfolk, Virginia to Miami, Florida for a construction company that was headquartered in Savannah.

Not only did he become a very good carpenter, he cultivated a love for the water and for all practical purposes spent the remainder of his life near the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. When he reached twenty-one, Dad joined the Coast Guard and was trained as a Cook, Commissary Stewart, and Small Arms Maintenance Specialist.

At three years of age, while living in Pascagoula, Mom lost her mother in a flu epidemic and shortly before her eighth birthday, lost her older brother Henry, due to an unknown illness accompanied by an uncontrollable high fever.

To make ends meet, Grand paw worked numerous jobs which kept him on the move and caused mother to be raised by her grandmother with the help of her uncles and aunts. Mother lived in Lucedale, Pascagoula, and Moss Point, Mississippi; Daytona Beach and Panama City, Florida; and Bayou La Batre, Alabama. She graduated from Moss Point High School in 1933.

My maternal grandfather was a hard worker. I’ve known no one more dedicated to hard work. One of my earliest recollections of Grand paw was going with him and Uncle Norman to gather barrels of pine sap in the forests of Baldwin County, Alabama. When the barrels were filled and the lids properly secured, he rolled the heavy barrels up a log ramp onto the truck and transported them to a turpentine still. Grand paw was not a big man, but having the strength of a mule and the tenacity of a bulldog, he was able to perform that task without the use of a helper. Norman and I tried to help him but he made us stay in the cab of the truck because the loading of the barrels was a dirty, sticky, and dangerous job.

Grand paw worked as a stevedore for a time and during the war he worked at the shipyard in Mobile. He eventually worked from sunrise to sunset on his 22 acre farm in Stapleton, Alabama. I remember that he wore his hard hat long after leaving the shipyard.

Years after my maternal grandmother died in 1918, my grandfather remarried and had five children. The oldest of these children, a son, died at the age of nine. My grandfather, step-grandmother, three half-aunts, and surviving half-uncle were always very special to me and as a youngster I spent a part of my childhood summers visiting them.

When she was eighteen, Mother and a friend went to a dance in Pascagoula where she and my father met. As often as he could arrange it, Dad would visit my mother, but the trip from Pascagoula to Bayou La Batre wasn’t easy. Mom always thought it very special that Dad would usually walk from Irvington to Bayou La Batre when he came to see her.

On April 3, 1934, about a year after they met they were married in Pascagoula by Justice of the Peace, Kate Denny, just before Dad was transferred to Corpus Christi, Texas. Dad was thirty and Mother was nineteen. They shared March 21 as their birthday.

Many were the times I heard my mother say: Your daddy and I were born on the 21st of March—the first day of spring—eleven years apart. He has always called me his Spring Chicken. She would repeat that little bit of treasured historical information several times each March and would continue to recite it more than thirty years after his passing—even in the clutches of severe dementia. (In recent years, the first day of spring has moved forward to the 20th of March, but Mother never changed her sweet memory of their birthdays.)

Chapter Two

Early Childhood Days

I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas April 3, 1935 on the first anniversary of my parent’s marriage. My father was a member of the United States Coast Guard and was stationed in Corpus Christi. I remember nothing of our time there and have never revisited the city.

My family moved to Galveston where my brother James was born. He lived less than a year—dying of a blood related disorder—and was buried in Pascagoula, Mississippi. I have a print of the only picture ever made of Jimmy. It’s a picture of him and me on the deck of either the Coast Guard Cutter Woodbury or Yamacraw, on which my father served.

Dad was transferred back to Pascagoula and was assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter Nike when I was two and a half. We lived on DeJean Lane where my brother Gordon and my sister Gladys were born.

Dad built a small house on Bayou Street, which is located on the north side of town. (The street was subsequently renamed Walnut Street.) At the time, the area was densely wooded and we had only a few neighbors. To help pay for the land and the house, Dad sold the pine trees. He also rented a portion of the property to a family who lived in a small trailer. They were the Curtis family—a father, mother and a daughter, Nelda.

I don’t remember the time frame but when the Nike relocated, Dad was reassigned to the Coast Guard Air/Sea Rescue Station at Cadet Pointe in Biloxi, Mississippi. Again, Mother provided a story about Dad’s response when asked by a personnel officer if he wanted to become a member of an Air/Sea Rescue Crew. His answer: Sir, if the good Lord wanted me to fly he would have decorated me with feathers instead of hair. The officer caused Dad to loose a stripe and corresponding pay for six months. (Actually, my dad’s response was a little more colorful than I related.)

In those days my family had a 1938 Buick LaSalle in which Dad traveled to and from work between Pascagoula and Biloxi. Mother and Dad loved that old car and we visited relatives as often as we could.

Because of the increasing German U-boat threat in the American waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, and the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Dad was reassigned to Galveston. He left so suddenly that it was necessary for the family to follow later. Mr. Curtis transported the LaSalle, the family and the family dog (Skippy) to Galveston and returned to Pascagoula by train. Dad paid Mr. Curtis the price of his rent to keep our house rented and in good repair during our stay in Galveston.

My family lived on Avenue P½ in Galveston and Dad was stationed at the Coast Guard Lifeboat Station near the East End of the Island. There was also an Army Post and a Blimp Base on the Island.

Air Raid Sirens were located throughout the city and were routinely tested each day. When the sirens sounded three times, an air raid drill was in progress. A single sounding of the sirens gave the all clear and was also used as the daily signal test. A continuous wavering sounding signaled an Attack Warning. Thank goodness, we never heard that sound!

Air Raid tests were conducted frequently in the day and at night. If at night, the drills were conducted in blackout conditions where blackout window shades or extinguished lights were required. The city went totally dark and only Air Raid Wardens were allowed outside. The kids would locate themselves at a window in a darkened room and watch the spectacle. My family looked out a front window of our garage apartment, over the two blocks to the beach and the dark waters beyond, while the ground batteries fired at plane-drawn targets. The oscillating beams of the searchlights and the exploding shell-bursts brightened the night sky. Even during daylight drills the shell-bursts were visible, leaving a small cloud of smoke. Other wartime memories include seeing many men in uniform, the occasional parades involving large numbers of the military, the whirring motors of Coast-Watch Blimps flying offshore, the top half of automobile headlights being blackened, and gasoline, tire and food products rationing.

Galveston had a huge roller coaster and other rides in an amusement park near our home. You could hear the constant clicking and clacking of the roller coaster cars as they moved along the tracks and the screams of the passengers as they topped a rise and began a descending plunge. The park had many rides—my favorites were the bumper cars, the huge merry-go-round, and the sky-high Ferris wheel. Free Ride Passes were provided in the newspaper. Even those who did not have children saved the passes for their neighborhood kids.

The Island was isolated so kids were able to move about on the buses using tokens. On Saturdays, the theaters often had stage shows for children followed by a matinee movie. The whole Island turned out for these events.

Charlie Earl Robinson was a special friend in Galveston. He was a Boy Scout who lived a block from me. Charlie was the oldest kid in the neighborhood and looked out for the younger kids. He often organized all sorts of games and contests for the younger kids. On Saturdays, he usually dressed out in his uniform and took a bunch of us to the movie—especially if there was a stage show involved. Charlie liked Gene Autry nearly as much as I did.

In season, the beaches were crowded with swimmers and sunbathers. The Galves Hotel was used as a Military Rehab Hospital and the young men from the hospital spent a lot of time on the adjacent beach. On weekends, children could watch the convalescing men playing all sorts of games. They always had plenty of refreshments and the fellows seemed to enjoy the kids as much as we enjoyed them.

Fishing piers ran far out into the Gulf. My father enjoyed fishing, so I was able to go out on the piers with him and watch all sorts of fish in the crystal clear water. In addition to the other fun at the beach, Easter Egg Hunts and other events were held for the kids. I only went into the water a couple times with my dad, because I could not swim and the water was treacherous. In many places the surf crashed over the large boulders and against the seawall that protected the Island from the gulf waters. For some reason, I don’t remember seeing surfers.

I enjoyed school at Galveston and attended Sam Houston School—an all-grades school, housed in a multistory building with wooden floors. I especially remember saying The Pledge to the Flag, buying Saving Stamps for War Bonds, collecting news papers and tinfoil scraps, and marching around the room with the flag, while singing: Soldier Boy, Soldier Boy, where are you going, waving so proudly the red, white, and blue? I’m going to a country where duty is calling. If you’ll be a Soldier Boy, then you may come too. Not only do I remember most of the words—I also remember the melody and the pride I felt when it was my time to carry the flag.

My brother Steve