 |
| George Buster Singleton |
(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator
George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere
in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Putting the junk in the junk yard
where it belongs” was originally published in the Aug. 22, 1991 edition of The
Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)
I look at teenagers today and wonder how they would perform
under the circumstances in which I grew up. I mean no disrespect to anyone, but
there were times when things got pretty rough during my upbringing.
The year was 1943; World War II was underway throughout the
known world. Everything was rationed, such as items like shoes, sugar, gasoline
and many other things needed to help keep the machines of war and the soldiers
of our armies on the fields of battle.
The countryside had been turned upside down in the search
for the old pieces of scrap metal that had been discarded by the local
population prior to the great war. There were people throughout the area who
would buy the scrap metal brought to them. And they, in turn, would ship this
scrap to various points where it was either loaded on a train or on ocean-going
ships to be carried and made into weapons of war.
Capp, a junk dealer, was one of the tightest men with his
money there was around anywhere. As the old saying goes, he would squeeze a
nickel until the buffalo bellowed. Since he was a junk dealer, he was allowed a
greater amount of gasoline by the ration board than the average person so he
could operate his ragged old truck that he hauled the junk iron in.
Ragged piece of machinery
There is no doubt; anyone who knew Capp would tell you that
they didn’t know who this vehicle could run; it was the most ragged piece of
machinery in the country. He never went anywhere that he didn’t get two or
three flat tires. He never carried a spare; always the flat tires would have to
be repaired beside the road, wherever they occurred.
He would always try to hire teenage boys to assist him in
his junk hauling. His reason was that he didn’t have to pay these unskilled
young men as much as he would have to pay an older man who knew the value of a
day’s work.
The going price for a day’s work was a dollar. The work day
started before sunrise and ended when you got back home, sometimes around
midnight, depending on how many flat tires he had on that old ragged piece of
junk he called a truck. Sometimes, if he was feeling generous, he might buy his
hired help a 10-cent hotdog and a soft drink. For this, he felt that you had
obligated yourself to him for the day.
Everyone gets caught
But I suppose that everyone, regardless of how smart they
profess to be, gets caught at one time or another. Capp let it be known that on
a certain Saturday real soon, he was going to carry a load of scrap metal to
the port of Mobile to be sold. He also stated that he would buy the lunches for
two helpers and would pay $1.50 for the day’s work. Furthermore, there would
not be any unloading the truck when the destination was reached; this was to be
done with a huge magnet. This, in itself, was almost reason enough to work
without pay, just to see this modern day miracle performed.
Finally, with the consent of our parents, my friend and I
asked Capp if we could make the trip to Mobile with him and his load of scrap
metal. The following Saturday was to be the day; we would leave at the break of
day, and if all went well, we would return before dark that evening. I had been
to Mobile one time before; my friend had not had the chance to visit the port
city, and for this reason he was quite excited.
We were hardly out of the town of Sweet Water before we had
our first flat tire. After a long and tiresome ritual of flat fixing, we once
again got underway. Near the small community of McIntosh, the flat fixing
ritual took place again. If you have never tried to pump a large truck tire
full of air with a hand pump, take it from me, it’s no fun and games.
No breakfast
Finally at 1:30 p.m., we reached the port of Mobile. We had
had nothing to eat since the night before. We left so early that morning that
we did not get any breakfast. We were told that it would be about a half hour
before the unloading magnet would be ready to pick up the scrap metal that we
had brought.
Hearing this, we proceeded across the street to a small
lunch bar for our lunch of one hot dog and a small soft drink. This hardly was
one bite for two hungry teenage boys. But we were told that this was all we were
going to get unless we wanted to buy more ourselves. Neither of us had a nickel
between us.
Very angry with our employer, we went back over to where the
ragged old truck was to be unloaded. Our bitterness must have been noticed; a
very nice and well-dressed man walked up and handed us a sack that contained
two large hamburgers and two large soft drinks. Capp continued to sit over at
the lunch bar and stuff his face with food and drink.
The well-dressed man who had been so gracious to two hungry
boys appeared to be in charge of the whole working area around us. He
instructed us to stand at a safe distance so we could watch the unloading.
The huge magnet swung over Capp’s ragged old truck and with
one sweep, picked up almost all the junk on the old truck. A second pass and
the remaining scrap metal was dropped on the top of a huge pile about 40 feet
high.
40-foot pile of junk
Capp was still feeding his face at the snack bar. Almost
unnoticed, a chain had been attached to the front axle of the ragged truck by a
man who appeared from nowhere. The huge crane swung around for the third time;
the chain was fastened to the hook that held the magnet. Within two seconds,
Capp’s ragged junk truck was perched on the top of the 40-foot pile of junk.
It took almost an hour of begging and persuading by Capp
before the old truck was lowered to the ground. The well-dressed man stated
that he thought the truck was junk also; he had instructed that it be put on the
pile.
A sly wink of the eye by the well-dressed man told two
teenage boys everything they wanted to know. The long and tiresome trip with a
cranky old man and a now more ragged and beat up truck had been worth it all.
Two happy and contented boys laughed and winked at each other all the way home.
(Singleton, the author
of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of
79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born on Dec.
14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School, served in
the Korean War, moved to Monroe County in 1961 and served as the administrator
of the Monroeville National Guard unit from 1964 to 1987. For years,
Singleton’s column “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he
wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama
Life magazine. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column
above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through
the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville.
Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship
purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)
No comments:
Post a Comment