UNCLE DAN Chapter 6 Chicken Winner

 

Fighting Rooster
courtesy photobucket.com



Things were going along somewhat better, we boys were now doing what we didn't always care for very much, but you did what you had to do.

We were busy milking cows, cooking potatoes for the hogs and feeding them but at times we could go horse back riding or hunting.  We were on a thousand acre ranch with thousands of acreage adjoining so there was room to stretch your legs.

Boredom was the thing you tried to fight off for we were miles from town and except for a few animal noises it was almost silent.

Uncle found a new diversion for himself which was raising some fighting roosters. He had met some other guys that did that and they got him interested. After awhile we had several game roosters that had to be separated from each other otherwise they would fight till one was dead.

Uncle had one or two he thought had some ability, and the time came to see what they could do.  He had been traveling to matches with his new friends and had got to know several new people.

At one of the matches the police raided them and they all took off running and hiding in the woods. The police didn't chase them because their cars were parked at the barn and they just waited for them to come back. The police took their license numbers and had conversations with the guys there and then let them go except for the sponsors which they took to jail. Another thing they did was to take all the roosters and kill them for they didn't have the facilities to board them till they died.

Uncle Dan went to Nevada to a big fight and took his favorite rooster. One of his friends rented a large van because he had a lot of roosters in large cages. He wanted his roosters to be comfortable so he put a swing, something like a trapeze in each cage. The roosters would get on that swing and try to crow. By the time they got to the match site and opened the van his roosters were so sore from trying to stay on the swings they couldn't hardly walk much less fight.

Sorry to say Uncle's favorite rooster lasted about ten seconds before he was done. Uncle brought him home in bad shape and only one eye. Finally his punctures healed but he didn't have good sense and just wandered around without the desire to fight.

I saw one fight because it was held at our ranch. Uncle had got talked into letting it occur there but he was very nervous about it for he could have gone to jail and lost his job also. I didn't like what I saw, chickens being bet on and half of them were killed. One last thing before I left was some of the Mexicans (they were great fans of chicken fights) wanted the heel them with long blades and finally they prevailed and the fight was on. The roosters went up in the air and one came down dead.

I left after that for I didn't like the crowd. I have killed several animals for food but doing it for pleasure wasn't my thing.    

 

To be continued - - -

This post is Linked with Charlotte’s Spiritual Sundays

 

 

UNCLE DAN Chapter 5

Working on the ranch
courtesy photobucket.com

  

While trying to find employment that would be a reliable source of income Uncle Dan got a job working for a rancher who owned several large ranches.

Each of these had barns, out buildings and usually a large ranch house. He raised cattle, sheep and farmed at the same time and Uncle worked in all phases of the operation. While Uncles salary was small he lived in a ten room house rent free. His brother-in -law who was about age sixteen moved in with him and his nephew also.  As it would happen the time came when I had no job and couldn't find one so I ended up with him also.

Seems his wife was very fertile and his family kept increasing. We boys did everything to get work but due to the fact we were under eighteen no one would hire us except on occasion we would get a day or two doing a farm job; cutting grapes, walnut harvesting, sheep shearing and working on the harvesters.  

Actually Uncle's brother-in-law was the only one who worked the harvester for it paid good money and a lot of people were hoping for that job.

Cows
courtesy photobucket.

The rancher realized that we needed to contribute something for our board so he told Uncle to round up some of the cattle that had calved and milk them. Let me just say that was an experience for those cattle had never been handled except by men on horses. Out of the whole herd there were only about eight that we could get settled down enough to milk. We would put their heads in stanchions and lock their legs together with kickers and still they could kick with both feet. It was only after some time had passed we were able feel safe while milking.

 

After the milking we had to extract the cream from the milk for that was what we were selling. We also had some raw milk to drink if we wanted it.

Then one day we were informed that the rancher who was the head of the Farm Association had managed to buy one hundred tons of potatoes from the government for fifty cents a ton. These large trucks came and filled the barn with potatoes. The next day a five hundred gallon pot was delivered and we boys were instructed on how to cook potatoes in it. The method was actually pretty easy but the doing of it was a little more complicated. First you had go out and cut the wood. Then you filled the pot about one third full of water, after which you dumped five hundred pounds of potatoes and cooked them to feed to the pigs.

Pigs
courtesy photobucket

The rancher had us build several pens and then there was delivered a bunch of pigs to feed. We boys never received a penny for doing all this work but Uncle got a share of the profits which he needed badly. One more thing I'll relate about them taters. The agreement with the government was we couldn't eat any of them taters. With food in short supply we ignored that part of the agreement and enjoyed potatoes every way you could fix them and all we could eat. 

Let’s talk about chickens next  - - to be continued

 

This post is shared at: Stacy’s Heartprints Hallelujah

 

 

UNCLE DAN Chapter Four

image courtesy google search

 

WW2 was over and once the shouting quieted down the cold hard facts set in;
 
There were no jobs for the unemployed". It was up almost fifteen million by some estimates. Whatever the number - - my family members were all out of work except my dad.

Carpooling was a new concept where people rode to work each and every day with one another. The primary reason for this was because of gas rationing.  If you owned a car you had to have a gas rationing book. There had to be a sticker on the windshield, A,B,C,T and X were the different categories. See below for more information concerning applying for one;  http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/events/rationing.htm

The reason for mentioning this is in the carpool Uncle Dan was in was a man who had been working in the shipyard as well as a service station. He did this to be kept from being drafted into the army. Being drafted in those days consisted of being called up, given six weeks training and shipped overseas to shoot and be shot at so he was hesitant to go.

clip art courtesy google search

While working at the station (after being laid off from the shipyard) a salesman came in each day and filled his car up and over a period of time he talked about starting a roofing business.  He sold roofs for Sears Roebuck and thought he could get the contracts to install their roofs. He had a nephew who could shingle and they needed a little more capital to get started.

So the three of them started the A B C roofing company and immediately needed some roofers. The union wouldn't send them any experienced men so they tried to find men with some building experience.

Because of riding back and forth to the shipyard and being known to one of the owners, Uncle Dan, Uncle Ern and my step dad (mom had divorced my dad) all got a job roofing. At first it was on the job training but soon they were able to do a good job. Then the union came around and said all these guys would have to join the union so they did.

I was only fifteen at the time but I manage to work for them also, albeit it was on the sly for I wasn't old enough to join the union. Things went well for a few months until the slow season came and even though we had jobs there was no work. The economy was slowly picking up and there was now a few jobs available. Uncle Ern fell and hurt his back and couldn't roof anymore but was eventually hired by Lucky Markets in the produce department.  Uncle Dan went to work on a ranch and - - -

I will pick it up there next when I continue.

This post has been linked to Michelle’s Thought Provoking Thursday

 

Uncle Dan Chapter 3

image courtesy photobucket.com

 

The last segment covered in brief the war time era and a mistake Uncle made; the resolution of which was a new start with his wife.

Auntie was a strong principled woman tempered with practicality. She forgave Uncle and resumed married life without penalty. She certainly didn't forget what happened but buried it so it was never mentioned again.

Any significant wound will leave a scar and can be re-injured by hitting it again so it is necessary to protect it with some form of insulation. This is what she did about his mistake with the understanding there would be no reoccurrence.

 
Both Uncle and Auntie worked in the shipyards and because of the difficulty of finding a sitter for their boy she worked days and he worked nights but there was a period where neither was there due to the traveling to work and back. One was going to work and the other coming home. 

Someone volunteered me for the job of staying with the boy for about an hour and a half till Auntie came home. I wasn't very fond of this arrangement because I didn't get to bed until midnight. Somewhere during that time, another Aunt came to California and I was relieved of my duties and was glad of it for I was around eleven years old and didn't like the responsibility.

While things were rationed and not much was manufactured that wasn't directly associated with the war effort, everyone I knew spent every thing they made.  Houses were cheap due to the price freeze but nobody bought one (that is anyone I knew.)   It seemed they preferred to rent.

People had a little money in their pocket but nothing in the bank. With all the prosperity they spent it all. The famous statement was made "What good is money if you can't buy nothing."  Yet they were creative enough get rid of all they earned.

 

image courtesy photobucket.com

Then the day of doom came! The announcement came, "The War Is Over".

While the people cheered they found themselves unemployed the next day.

Work stopped on everything. Ships were left half built and had to be dismantled. A few favored ones were kept on to see to the process of changing over from wartime to peace time production.

 

courtesy photobucket

Thousands went to the union hiring halls only to be told there were no jobs. It wasn't as bad as the 1929 crash but it was a scary time. People used to making big money were now existing on unemployment checks.

Over the next months, millions of the military personal came home looking to receive their jobs back for they had been guaranteed that they could resume their life upon their return. This meant many who now held positions were fired so the military could have their jobs again.

It was reminiscent of the present day circumstances but without the bailouts.

I will continue next with Chapter 4 - -  Uncle tries to find work.”

 

This post is linked with Jennifer at:  God-Bumps and God-Incidences

 

UNCLE DAN Chapter 2

Ship Yards
Courtesy photobucket.com

 

We left North Carolina and came down to Tennessee to visit the home folks before we headed to California. After a couple of days we journeyed west and were on a time schedule for my dad had to report to work in a week. I had traveled all around the South with my mom and dad because of the nature of his employment.  He worked for a company that sold and installed textile machines and he did trouble shooting should there be a problem. Now at last he had a job in a mill where we could stay in one place.

Time passed, and then came WW2 and everything changed. Thousands of people from the South came west to work in the shipyards and aircraft factories.  Several of my relatives arrived in California a couple of years before the war and my father got them jobs in the cotton mill where he was employed.

Uncle Dan came after the war started and gained employment in the ship yard. I can't say people went completely crazy but they were on a money high.

They went from almost no pay to making sixty dollars or more a week. You could work as many hours and days as you wanted.

I don't know exactly how to say this but there were many single women working that had never worked before, and a good man was hard to find in those days due to so many men sent overseas.  Morals were loose and it was like a smorgasbord for adultery and fornication.

Uncle Dan had come to California alone leaving his wife in Tennessee promising to send for her when he got settled.  After several months she began to suspect that he had been caught up in the debauchery and finally gave him an ultimatum either send for her and her son or she was going to get a divorce.  He had been promising to send her money to come to be with him but he kept putting it off.

 

Someone may have clued her in about what was going on, but I never was sure about that. The fact was he had taken up with a woman who worked in the shipyard and by this time she was pregnant.

This was the dilemma he found himself in and finally he decided to stay with his wife and told the girlfriend they were done. She was quite broken up about that and pretty well felt betrayed for she didn't even know about his wife at first.  

 

There was another man who was crazy about her and wanted to marry her and after some time she consented even though she didn't love him.  He took the child as his own and helped raise her. I always thought she was a nice woman even though she got caught up in a bad situation. Years later I saw the daughter she bore and the girl was almost the spitting image of one of uncle Dan's other daughters.

When his wife arrived and all the truth came out she laid out a whole list of; "Thou shalt nots" to which he agreed. Some fifteen years later the girlfriend divorced her husband and contacted my uncle.  I didn't want to know anything about that so I never asked any questions about it.  I don't think anything came of it or I would have heard without asking.    

 

To be Continued - - Next; after the war was over - -

This post is linked with Jennifer at:  God-Bumps and God-Incidences

 

 

 

UNCLE DAN

family grave yard
courtesy photobucket.com

         

Of the eleven siblings Dan was number six.  Three of which had died so doing the math eight lived to adulthood.

In 1935 I was living in Cliffside North Carolina in a cotton mill town. The mill owned most of the homes in the area and rented them out to the employees.

It was a nice place to live compared to what we were used to. It had an electric socket in the center of each room to which a light bulb and electric cords were attached to. From there they were cords plugged into all the appliances such as toasters, radios and when they were all turned on they blew a fuse. (It was common for people to place a penny into the fuse box when the fuse blew and was cause of several homes to be burned because they overrode the fuse protection.)

There were cords running everywhere overhead from the light sockets to appliances.

The bathroom facilities amounted to an outhouse which was only about forty feet away. Our bathtub was a galvanized wash tub that had many functions from bathing, washing clothes and soaking your feet.

Getting back to Uncle Dan; he came to visit my family along with some of the other members of our clan.   As a young child I must have seen him at the old home place but I didn't remember him.  I was about five years old and though Uncle Dan was only 15 he looked like a big man. I thought to myself; “He has a big head and curly hair, and he just didn't seem to fit in as a Davidson for no one in our family has curly hair."

Shortly after this we moved to California, the year was 1936   (We returned from California a couple of times to the home place for a visit and I met Uncle Dan again along with many of the other family members.)

A little later while visiting his sister Uncle Dan met a girl in a really small town named Old Berlin which was about 20 miles away, and they were married after a short courtship.

One year later he was working for a farmer for one dollar a day, and they were living in a shack down in a holler which was owned by the farmer for rent free. Their first child was born there and three months later he, a little boy, died.

About this time we had a lot of heavy rain and as they say "The River was up and it was a day or two before Dan was able to get to the home place where the family graveyard was. The elders hitched up a wagon and went the three miles to his home and got the dead child and his distraught wife.

While they were gone some others had built a small coffin out of some poplar boards and lined it with cotton batting and some white outing material (total cost of the funeral was about twenty five cents) The coffin was placed in the front room and being curious I put my hand in there and felt the lining. I thought this isn't so bad it is very soft. I was about six at the time but some of the details still linger in my mind.

When the elders returned with the baby, they dressed it and placed it in the coffin. Then they put the lid on that was secured with nails. I was trying to sort out my feelings for they seemed so mixed up, this being the first time I had seen a dead person.

Meanwhile the small grave had been dug. The ground was soft and sticky from the rains and it was easy to dig except there were many roots they had to cut.

The graveyard was a cool place with several trees around it and as a child, sometimes on a hot day I would go there and sit.

Because poor people couldn't afford an undertaker the burials occurred as soon as possible after the demise of the person so there wasn't much time to mourn the individual. There was company coming and food to be prepared besides the funeral itself.

There wasn't a minister at the grave site and there wasn't much said; but sadness wasn't in short supply. Through the weeping we sang "Shall we gather at the river" and the casket was lowered with ropes into the grave. It just took a few minutes to fill the small hole and a mound of dirt was placed upon top of it.

This was the first time I experienced the foreboding Spirit of darkness that always accompanies this type of event, and for a young child it was almost unbearable.

The next day Uncle Dan and his wife returned home and he went back to work in the fields while his wife was left to the loneliness of the dark, drab existence that was their lot.

I will continue this story of Uncle Dan when my brain rests for awhile; "On to California and December seventh 1941"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8EIjGXtCLk

This post is shared at:  “Tell Me a True Story” http://letmetelluastory.blogspot.com/

Also linked to: Sharing His Beauty Monday   http://www.thebeautyinhisgrip.com/

 

ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

Are You a Christian?
courtesy photobucket.com

 

At one time it was said like Heinz there are 57 varieties of Christians.

That seems like it is far too few professors but perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say there are as many as the grains of sand on the sea shore.

"A cultural Christian is a secular or irreligious individual who still significantly identifies with Christian culture. He may give intellectual assent to basic Christian doctrines and claim to be a Christian. He may be faithful in attending liturgical rites and worship services, and be an active member involved in church affairs. Deists of the 18th and early 19th centuries, such as Napoleon and various Founding Fathers of the United States, similarly considered themselves part of Christian culture, despite their doubts about the divinity of Jesus." Wikipedia

From time to time someone will claim that some of the founding fathers fit into that category. One could wonder about many of the present day politicians. They certainly want to wrap themselves in the robe of Christianity in order to get votes. They may even go to church but GOD is looking at their heart.

The saying; "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time." Abraham Lincoln

He should have added; "You can't fool GOD at anytime."

The largest group that are being fooled are those who fool themselves. A sad example of these people is found in; Matthew 7:21-23 Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will go into the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the pleasure of my Father in heaven. A great number will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, were we not prophets in your name, and did we not by your name send out evil spirits, and by your name do works of power? And then will I say to them, I never had knowledge of you: go from me, you workers of evil.

 
Paul in his epistle to the Philippians said; Philippians 2:12-13 My dear friends, you always obeyed what you were taught. Just as you obeyed when I was with you, it is even more important for you to obey now that I am not there. So you must continue to live in a way that gives meaning to your salvation. Do this with fear and respect for God. Yes, it is God who is working in you. He helps you want to do what pleases him, and he gives you the power to do it.

Those who please HIM are those who have experienced a personal faith, with true repentance, and trust in the finished work of Christ.

Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to the cross I cling; Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7gt_cSxjw

This post is shared at: Stacy’s Heartprints Hallelujah