I was born August 29, 1930 at 2:40 pm weighing 5.9 lbs and our president was Herbert Hoover. He was a republican. You could not buy a legal drink and movie stars were Clark Gable and many others that escapes my mind.

We were living in Baltimore, Maryland on Ellwood Avenue. The great depression drove us back to the country at Laneview, Virginia where we eeked out a living eating produce grown on my grandfathers farm. His name was George Franklin Elliott and my paternal grandmothers name was Lena Guess Elliott.

I had three uncles and two aunts on my fathers side. Their names were George Oscar, Grover B and William C, Nettie Mae and Lilly.

On my mothers side I had one uncle and four aunts, their names were Bernard, Susie, Lucy
Beaulah and Esther.

I'm not sure how far back I remember but probably one of the first things I remember was the northern lights being so clear and beautiful. The nights back then were so clear, free from strong city lights, smog, etc.

The next things I recall was the derigible..the first of any thing flying through the air, very little noise and tree tops low. The model-T made by Henry Ford and cranking it could break your arm. I saw that almost happen when my Uncle George Oscar would try and start it.

I remember my grandfather George Franklin having week-end dances and I'm sure lots of drinking went on too.

My father was a good and hard working man. My mother who took care of us siblings needs as best as she was able., caster oil, sulfer and molasses, three sixes and plaster molds for whooping cough, sugar and a few drops of kerosene to stop us from coughing.

We had all the the things that was caught back then measles, boils and in 1940 I had thyphoid fever.

We moved many times never staying any place long. moving from farm to farm as sharecroppers. Every move was done with horse and wagon.

I have a beautiful bowl that I got from my mother, it was given to her by who she called grandma Schefflien in Baltimore in 1930. why that bowl didn't get broke I'll never understand. Granda Schefflien (german) helped mama take care of me until we were forced back to Laneview,Virginia because of the depression.

I remember other instance when a bull ran me up a tree, boarhog running me out of the pig pen. Fishing in the Rappahannock river with a string tied around a piece of wood and one hook., but we caught fish!

Before I was able work anywhere else I worked with my dad cultivating corn, plowing with a 13 oliver plough with a set of horses, sometimes you'd plow up a snake but I never was afraid of them. Don't know why I was never afraid I just wasn't.
Don't think I'd want to do that now.

Setting out tomato plants, picking them in 5/8 baskets and carrying them to end of row and boy they did get heavy.

Cutting and shocking corn, later shucking it by fires built at night us children enjoyed that. All this was at age 10 or before.

Kids today don't do any work, if they did they would not get fat and lazy. We didn't have TV or not even anything electrical.

Home lights or indoor plumbing didn't come to out home until I was 15, in 1945.

As far back as I can remember the first job I had was working on a Noldes bread truck on saturdays., probably made three or four dollars. That was at lot of money for a kid back in 1942

Other jobs included working for my father pulling a huge fish net 1000 yards long and standing on anchors to keep net securely tied down while my dad pulled net around (against the tide) to circle what fish might be there that evening. Many times we didn't catch any fish that was eatible., and worst of all NO PAY!

I also tonged oysters with 12 foot shafts, some times iced formed on the wooden shafts but I was happy because I was paid $5.00 for about five hours work. I was about sixteen then and muscled up and could take it.

Most of what I did was culled good oysters and threw old shells and trash back overboard.

In high school I skipped school with some of my other class mates to work for contractors hauling wheelbarrows of heavy cement.

My first monthly job was driving a school bus that paid $30.00 a month and I really thought I had hit utopia. that check came monthly and it sure was a pretty thing!

I graduated fron Tappahannock High School in 1949. After quitting in my junior year,

Lindy Brooks and I went to Richmond, Virginia and got a job and nearly starved. That's when I decided to come home and finish school.

We think we are so bright at that age, wouldn't listen to my parents or as a matter of I did't listen to anybody. I barely studied enough to pass my tests. I know now that I was more intelligent than I showed. We all look back and see mistakes we made and could kick ourselves for these errors in judgement but it's to late now. I was motivated just enough to graduate and barely did that.

Mama and Daddy helped me buy my first car a 1940 Chevrolet convertable painted baby blue, red wheels and wide white wall tires. You know what? I had a wreck and totaled it months later. That's when I started my lifes wild ride. I'm telling it but not proud at all. In fact, don;'t know where I got this wild streak but it sure poisened my blood and I didn't have a cure for it.

I do know that it didn't

After graduating I went to work for Robert Covington for $29.00 a week at his Esso service station until I went in to service in Feburary, 1952

Like I said my wild side controlled much of my life and I am not proud of that at all.

Partying was a way of life for me beginning in my early high school years from partying

after playing another schools baseball team. Week-ends was all about having a good time

even though I paid for it on mondays. I have tried very hard to understand myself...to blame

anyone or anything would not be fair. I have brother and two sisters who never went

astray like I did. Settling down was never in my thoughts and marriage should not have

happened when it did.

Not that during these episodes I didn't accomplish having jobs that I liked and made

a good living doing so.

My first worthwhile job was working as a clerk at the Tappahannock Post Office with Mr.

Archie Sutton postmaster, Eugene Hilton, Mrs. Taliferro and others. President Kennedy

was asasinated during the time I worked there.