"Caps And Kepis..."

Cough Cough...

Hack Hack...

Good Lord!!!

I just can't get over this lung crap...  and I've lost my voice again today.

We are out of class today so I had planned to go to Vicksburg today and look at the Confederate line positions...

The last time I went down, I spent so much time looking at specific places that I had never studied before that I only got through the Union lines before the park closed for the day...

... but I figured I would be better served staying at home and trying to get somewhat better so I can try to teach tomorrow.

I remember when Dad took us to Vicksburg back once upon a time... and he bought me a "soldier's cap"...

Being from Mississippi... 

I had to have one of these.

... but I don't know...

it didn't look right.

It didn't look like the ones on TV that Johnny  Yuma wore...

'Johnny Yuma...'

Nick Adams

... and it didn't look like the one that Mushy wore on 'Rawhide'...

'Mushy'

A couple of years ago... while working on my genealogy, I discovered that I had family members who served in the Civil War... on both sides... but then again, it was the war that was brother against brother, wasn't it?

During the time that I was researching battalions and campaigns, I became interested in the head wear that the soldiers of that war and time wore.

Of course, I knew that there was great interest in re-enactors who go to great troubles to attend various battle re-enactments... and they pay such detail to clothing, arms... shoes... even the stitching on the hats and clothing.

There are people who even have established themselves as sutlers, and they attend various re-enactments... and sell clothing and gear to the re-enactors just as the sutlers actually did in the Civil War.

I decided that I wanted a "real" Civil War cap... and since I had discovered that I had two great-great uncles who were at Vicksburg with the 87th Illinois infantry... I had one of these individuals make a cap for me...

1858 Forage Cap

This cap is SO cool!!!  These are the hats that the average Union soldier in the Western theater would have worn...  it was called a forage cap because the soldier could use the bill as a handle, and go out and collect berries and other things he may later want to eat.

James Garrison Coles

Great Great Uncle

This is the same kind of hat he is wearing in this photo... and although the photo isn't too clear, notice that he is wearing it with the bill bent upwards... like Mushy's above... and not like Johnny Yuma's... which is bent more like a baseball cap.

I just recently had this fellow HERE to make a Confederate kepi for me... he also crafted the Union Forage cap above!  The workmanship is incredible!

It is magnificent!

Incredible workmanship!!

He is in such demand for his work!  He has such a backlog of work that there is about a three-month waiting period.

I have learned of another relative from that time what was a captain in the 46th Virginia Infantry...  I am thinking that I need a cap for him as well...

This would have been the style of cap he would have worn... 

This is all way too cool to me...

Now if I can just get over this pulmonary issue...

ARGH!!!!

~Jim~

"Hooters..."

This is a journal post from December 20, 2013... the story is rather self-explanatory... anyway, I think I am going to purchase a really nice lens and start photographings... despite what you may think after seeing the first image in the post.

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Hooters

Now that I have your attention...

I heard quite a ruckus coming from my back porch this morning... I look out to see Blue Jays and Mockingbirds EVERYWHERE!!!

... and then I see this shape in one of my berry bushes...

HOLY COW!!!!

It seems that it is an Eastern Screech Owl...

You can read more about them HERE...   

Top to bottom, the owl can't be any more than 7 inches in length...

It seems that they are seldom seen during the day... 
so it makes me wonder if there is a pair nesting around here...

Also, most of the images that I can find of these birds have smaller tufts... 
so I am wondering if the erect tuft is due to agitation 
by the Jays or if it's designed to make the bird look bigger than it is...
which would also be a defensive stance.

How cool!!

~Jim~

"Momma Said..."

When I was a young guy, my brother had a 1964 Ford Galaxy 500 just like the one pictured above... only his  was a golden/brown color (of course, I am biased towards the color, red).  A BEAUTIFUL car... the damn thing had a 390 cu. in. engine... and was so fast that the from time to time, the car would have to slow down so its paint job could catch up with it.  That is one of the most amazing vehicles from my younger memories.  My brother was one those "IT" people, whereas I was always on the fringe of any of the cliques of kids in high school. More often than not, I was excluded instead of being included... but that was ok.

But I could go riding with my brother in that car, and we would get all kinds of attention.  I always imagined that the girls we would meet were talking to US, when in reality, they were talking to him and his nerdy, goofy brother was just there...

Still, when he would say, "let's go riding...", I was always game and ready to go.  Our journeys would take us all over the place around here.  Maybe it would be a late afternoon run over to Rosedale to go see the Mississippi River... or to Merigold...

From time to time, Mom would tell us about things we shouldn't do, and places we shouldn't go... if for no other reason than our own survival.  I suppose Mom did know best... she certainly wouldn't mislead us about things like that.

One of the places in town that was "off-limits" was 'Bob's Drive In.'

Not Bob's Drive In, but...

... it could have been. It had the long awning much like this one... and you could park underneath if it happened to be raining... but if you wanted to be cool, you would park just out from underneath it... you could be 'seen' better that way.

They had the BESTEST chili-cheese burgers, onion rings and cherry cokes...

AUGH!!!!!!

Sooo... this one Saturday afternoon, my brother finds me and says, "let go for a ride..."

I knew that probably meant we would go to "Bob's," get a couple of those burgers up there, and have a great deal of fun...

The car hop came... took our order... brought us our food... and we were in paradise... and I was sitting on the passenger's side of that cool looking Ford up there...

At some point, my brother started the engine... we weren't finished with our food yet... and I asked, 'where are we going?'

"We are going to back up some so we can watch 

that fight over there..."

That alone shows you what a geek I was... I was so busy eating that I didn't realize that  a fist fight was brewing just a few cars away from us... the kinds of things that Mom wanted us to avoid...

... so we back up a bit... and we have a front row seat... this fellow in blue jeans and a white T-shirt is cussing this guy inside a pick up truck up one side and down the other... waving his arms... yelling... stuff like that.  I couldn't hear what the fellow in the truck was saying, but at some point, the fellow on the outside grabs the door handle... jerks the door open... and reaches in to grab the occupant... and...

POW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... just that sudden, a little red dot suddenly appeared on this fellow's white T-shirt...

Have you ever been a witness to... or involved in anything like this?  In the movies, they tend to portray some of this stuff in slow-motion... and it was... it was moving so slow... maybe to give that fellow as long to live as it could...

After the sound of the shot, this fellow stumbled back and started a turn to his right... and was facing our vehicle...  and there was a little red dot on the front of his shirt... centered right in the middle of that fellow's chest.

... and I said to my brother...

"he's dead..."

I was in the ninth grade at the time... I didn't know shit about shit... but I knew this guy was dead.  He stumbled towards us... fell up against the car next to us... spun and staggered out into the gravel parking lot where he collapsed... and bled out what little Life he had left onto the ground.

The bullet must have severed the aorta... or hit one of the major chambers of the heart...  I didn't know that someone could have that much blood in them...  I didn't know that someone could bleed that much...  horror movies don't have the effect on me that this event did...

The next thing I know is that cars are screaming and rushing out of the parking lot... everyone wanting to get the Hell away from there...  We got home... I ran to my Mother and hugged her so tight and was crying... and she was asking John what had happened to me... when we really both lost as to what we had just witnessed...

I better understood then what Mom had tried to save us from... how she was trying to protect us...

I lost a great deal of innocence that day...

~Jim~