Memories

MEMORIES

BY

C.C. WILLS

Author’s Website:

www.ccwills-author.com

Grape Creek Publishing

Danville, Illinois

Memories

By C.C. Wills

Published by C.C. Wills at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 C.C. Wills

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN

978-1-3119536-7-4 (Smashwords version)

All rights reserved.

Photo used for the cover was taken by the author’s family. Photos used for the back cover taken by the author and his family.

This is a work of fiction. The author’s intent is to share stories that have been shared with him by friends and family members. Names will be altered as well as portions of the story lines. However, most of what you are reading will be actual true shared memories.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information browsing, storage, or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Forward by the author

Chapter 1 – Memories from "L

Chapter 2 – Memories from "B

Chapter 3 – Memories from G

Chapter 4 – R Encounter with a Doe

Chapter 5 – R Buck in the Garden

Chapter 6 – R Fishing Stories

Chapter 7 – R Trip Out West

Chapter 8 – R A Visit with Pop

Chapter 9 – R Draw

Chapter 10 – R Memories of Canada

Chapter 11 – R Ice Sparkles in the Sun

Chapter 12 – R A Shot of Whiskey

Chapter 13 – R Death of a Fawn

Chapter 14 – R Celebrity Connections

Chapter 15 – R The Mob: It’s Who You Know

My Reflections -

Biography -

Dedication Page

I’m dedicating this book:

In Memory of

My dad Donald H. Bud Wilson (Pop)

October 18, 1925 to July 6, 2012

To My Father-in-law,

Lowell D. Garner Garnie

&

His brother & my uncle by marriage,

Lloyd Eugene Garner LEG

nicknames

Listening to all three of these men tell their stories, childhood adventures and pranks, hunting and fishing tales, job related moments, and more led me to want to create a compilation of these Memories!

Forward

Before I start you on this journey into the past, talking about family memories, childhood episodes, stranger than life events, vacation experiences, and an assortment of other clips into our families I would just like to say that all of this is based on true family experiences. I will classify this book as a fiction writing only because I may not have some of stories 100% accurate in details. The basic stories will be factual but memory – either theirs or mine could have left details out or I may choose to embellish a bit on my own.

My intent here is simply to entertain the reader with stories and events that they themselves may not have had the pleasure to experience. I will say this, the stories referred to as having come from R are my shared experiences and are TRUE. Hope you can enjoy the humor in the stories meant to be funny. Open yourselves up to those stories that are unusual and you may find that you also may experience some similar happenings in your own lives.

Chapter 15 I am sharing more as a bit of family history rather than a memory. Because of the historic part this plays on our hometown and also the history of our country I am using the actual names in this account. What I am sharing has already been put into print by a fellow author.

~ Chapter 1 ~

L

I guess you find it strange that an old man like me would reflect back on my past like I do but you see it is normal for us to want to remember our roots. It’s our roots that make us who we are today. If you have had a bad past then it may be unpleasant to bring these memories up, sometimes even painful. But you see mine are good memories, the kind that can even bring you closer to your family. I am an old man now, soon to be 80 years old. I have had a good, full life and have been fortunate enough to have done a lot of different things through my years.

Now I just like to sit on my porch and drink my cup of coffee and have a puff or two since my wife Betsy doesn’t like me smelling up the house with the aroma of burning tobacco. We live in Augusta, Georgia now, bought our house in a subdivision that was built in an old pecan orchard. In the fall, when I am not sitting on my porch relaxing, I walk back and forth through the yard picking up the pecans that drop from our three Pecan trees. You have to be careful though because sometimes they come down with so much force that they can do some damage. We had a neighbor that was killed by one, hit him right on top of his head…who could have guessed a thing like that would happen. Look out, here comes another one!

I’ve had a number of jobs through my life, liked them all and don’t regret a single opportunity I have been given to learn something new. That probably goes back to my childhood helping my Dad with odd jobs to keep our family fed. Like everyone else who lived and grew up through the depression we were poor folks although we didn’t know it because we didn’t know what it was like to have anything.

I was going to make a career in the military, or so I thought. I joined the Navy when I came of age and was in there for a stay of sixteen years. Then my last four years I was going to put in with the Air Force working with the aircraft but my first wife got sick so I left after just two years. After she passed I went to work for Boeing. There I was caught up in a strange freaky aircraft explosion caused by a grounding error of some kind. It burnt me something terrible, messed up my lungs and stomach…ended up retiring on a Boeing disability. That’s water under the bridge now, we can’t do anything to change that.

We come from Arkansas originally, mainly in the rural parts because Dad always looked for places on the edge of town for us to settle into. That gave us room to put in a vegetable garden and raise some cows and chickens. We always had fresh milk and eggs and occasionally we had fried chicken for supper. As we got older Dad showed me and my brother Dean how to hunt and fish so we would have fresh meat to eat when we got lucky. It took awhile for us boys to get as good at getting the game as our Dad was but the hungrier we got the better shots we got to be with our single shots. The fishing was yet another story, we not only had to learn where the best holes were for catching our fish but also the patience Dad had for sitting on the river bank and waiting for them to bite. Sometimes we lost that battle and went in skinny dipping, it was more fun but then we didn’t eat as punishment for not bringing home supper. After a few times of not eating we learned which was more important.

Times were tough for all back then and jobs were hard to find. Our Dad went around finding odd jobs where ever he could, cutting wood for folks for their cooking stoves and fireplaces if they had one. It really didn’t matter what jobs he could find cause he could do just about anything he put his mind to. Folks were more than happy to find things for him to do if they could cause they knew he had seven mouths to feed. We had a fair sized family with Mom, Dad, and the five of us kids. There was me and my younger brother Dean and our three sisters Ellen, Faith and Janet.

There were several times in my growing up when there just was no work to be had and we had to move. Dad said, We have to go where the work is at and for now that looks like Washington. It was a long trip and we made it three times but there was work to be had. Washington State had a lot of fruit orchards and there was picking to be done. We went from orchard to orchard because harvest time was different depending on what needed to be picked. The work at times was hard but