When I think of the Panama Canal I always remember when in 1929 my father, mother and myself had tickets to go on vacation to Coco Solo Canal Zone.

It was a vacation, but my father a telegraph operator for the Rock Island Railroad was scheduled for an interview as a telegraph operator in Coco Solo Canal Zone.

We had a city farmer's farm in the edge of De Valls Bluff, Arkansas. With a large orchard, a large vegetable garden, a large row crop garden, and around 200 white leghorn chickens, which enabled us to sell eggs, for cash to purchase things at the grocery store that we did not produce.

We had three automobiles. The Essex Sports Roadster that you featured on your Web site, and a Ford Model "T" touring car, and a Model "T" Ford flat bed truck. Well, when the banks closed dad cancelled the vacation. A few of months later he was laid off, and shortly thereafter we moved into a Railroad Company House that the railroad section foreman would not live in, and had no automobile at all.

Dad was pretty low on the railroad seniority list, and he worked the extra board, relieving railroad agents and operators for vacation, and sick leave.

This continued until the spring of 1937 when he finally got enough seniority to bid in a third trick operator job at Hulbert, Arkansas. It was a "Hot" job that few people wanted, since it involved handling traffic from three railroads, that used the single track across the Mississippi River at Memphis, TN.

The Hulbert West Memphis High School was probably the second best in the state. Second to famed Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.. I attribute this to the prosperous cotton plantation people who supported the school. I did very well in the school, and one day when I was in the eleventh grade, I was called to the Superintendent's office. I was scared stiff, as a call to the super's office usually meant some kind of disciplinary action. I wondered what could I be in trouble for.

The Superintendent told me he had good news. He had secured a appointment to the U. S. Naval Academy for me. I turned him down flat, and he was very upset. (I read my mother's copy of the Good Housekeeping Magazine), which as filled with ads for military academies for problem children, and did not really know what I was turning down). needless to say the Super. was very upset, and "dumb ass me", I did not know what I was turning down. I have often wondered what would have been my fate has I accepted the appointment.

Dad finally got enough seniority to bid in the Agent's job at Belleville, Ark. in Western Arkansas. I attended there my senior year, and Belleville is my home as far as I am concerned. I made lifelong friends in Belleville, and of course as you know the annual homecoming at Belleville is the highlight of my year, so don't expect any Email from me on September 20.

After all I will be consorting with all those hot 80 year old babes I went to school with. (grin)

The Belleville/Danville area is quite different now. First, about 70 Laotians moved there to pluck chickens; then came a big influx of Mexicans, and now the town of Danville where the poultry processing plant is has been invaded by a large group of people from El Salvador, who also work at the chicken plucking plant.