My name was Johnny

It is getting late here.Sun is setting on whats been a pretty good day.Bit cold to me.Yesterday was warm in the 70's.Sure was glad someone turned the heat on when they got up this morning.Ok this is what is on my mind.My name is John.But forever people who knew me when I was a kid called me Johnny.But that was the name I used for the first part of my life.Even my social security card is signed Johnny.But now I am just John.I am old,sorta mature,well sometimes I am.But to all my friends and family who knew me from way back then you don't have to call me John,Johnny will work just fine.

The cowboys

I was and still am a fan of Cowboys.Movie cowboys.TV cowboys.The Lone Ranger who was sponsored by Colonial bread on TV where I lived.Sugar Foot.The Virginian.Gunsmoke.Never did out draw Matt on those Saturday Nights.Hop Along Cassidy,Gene Autry,Roy Rogers the list could go on.I seen where True Grit has been remade with Jeff Bridges playing John Wayne's part.I would like to see that movie.310 to Yuma the old version and the newer one where excellent.There are so many good cowboy movies and TV programs no room here to mention them all.See the picture above?That is The Cisco Kid.Setting up the story here so bear with me.The Central Georgia State fair is held or was at that time in Macon.Luck be it while visting my Daddy's sisters we always went to the fair.The Cisco Kid was to be there.Oh boy I was excited.I waited and waited but Cisco never showed up.A devastated kid I was.But I got over it and no hard feelings are held against him.But as Pancho said at the end of each program.Ohhhhh Cisco!

The swinging bridge and fat man's squeeze

Vacation at Rock City.I was a boy,just a kid my folks and the Calwells and their kids went to Chattanooga,Tennessee.Riding around the mountain was scary for me.Glad my Daddy was driving.One little slip over the edge you go.Off to Lookout Mountain we went.Rock City.You can travel the country side in the South and see painted on peoples barns See Rock City.Still to this very day you can see it.There was the swinging bridge.Momma forgive me and bless your soul she crawled across the swinging bridge.She was terrified.It was a swinging,high above the tree tops.Even after I had grown up I teased her about that swinging bridge.Now,.there was a cave.It had what was called fat man's squeeze.Me in my young thinking just knew Daddy would not make it through fat man's squeeze.Much to my relief he did.Fat man's squeeze by the way was an opening between 2 walls of the cave.There was Ruby Falls,another cave.But what got my attention was the bears.They had bears and never had I seen real live bears.I remember seeing the Chattanooga Battlefield being a civil war history buff even at that young age it was sacred and amazing ground for me.So this a quick roundup of my trip to Rock City.See seven states form Lookout Mountain they say.

Don't mess with country folk

It was a scene out of the old west.

Daddy was working for a mobile home place delivering and setting up mobile homes.This was in the 1970's.He was going to Sand Mountain,Alabama to pick up a mobile home at the factory.I went along for the ride.What a ride it was it that sawed off truck.It was like a regular 18 wheeler but shorter.

It was a long round trip but that is not the story.

We had barely got out of LaGrange,on US 27 just before Franklin,Georgia when on the right hand side of the road we seen for lack of a better word a posse.There where hundreds of people standing on side of the road facing the woods.

They had rifles,shotguns,pistols any type of weapon they could tote I guess.One lone Georgia State Patrol car was parked on the shoulder of the road.What is wrong?Daddy asked a man.Seems 2 desperadoes had robbed a store near by in Hogansville,Ga and they had been chased into the woods where everyone was waiting.

Waiting with their weapons ready for action.The Trouper was in the woods.Dogs where in the woods also.I never knew if the dogs where to track down the robbers for capture or to drive them out of the woods to face that angry mob of  all ages waiting with their guns.

I think it would have been smarter to surrender to the Trouper and dogs rather then face those people ready to enforce some Southern country justice.

Today is not the day

There are some things I won't write about.Just to personal for the world knowing.Only a very few people have heard my true story and that shall be the way it remains.Maybe someday I will put into words what I am thinking of.It is nothing dark and sinister.I have not murdered any of my wives and buried them under the house.Nothing like that.What I am thinking about was no great sin on my part.Nope I am not a spy for the CIA  Nothing that exciting.Knock on wood it's not about being in prison.I would never make it there.That has always been one of my fears.Prison.The big house.The poky.Slammer.What ever you want to call it has been a life long fear of mine.Oh and I have many fears.Another story for another time.Nope what I am thinking about is really not about any of those things.One of these days when subject matter is short,maybe I will write about what is on my mind.But today is not the day.