Just a southern boy, trapped in Petersburg. Just doing a job. Just wanting to be left alone. And then with a thunderous crash, he fell to the floor. Taken off his feet by a .58 caliber minie ball, from some poor yankee doing his job.
Why is it a tale worth telling,,, because the southern boy was cut down today, by a Yankee who did his job, over 100 years ago.
As I walked through a warehouse/manufacturing plant being gutted for new apartments, I was looking the aged timbers with their wooden peg fasteners, and marveling at the construction, and how it stood the test of time. No Chinaman could ever do this, and ship it over on a boat. This is an example of the Amercian craftsmanship that the bean counters and efficency experts have long since killed.
The walls themselves, were hand made bricks. Each a slightly different shape and color, but they made the 24" thick walls, that muffeled the sounds from the inside and outside. Trapped with the morter, were the hopes, dreams, aspirations and struggles of nearly 6 generations of people who had toiled there.
I could feel the history, and was wanting the smell the smells and hear the sounds of a busy plant, full of people, full of hope,,,,, caught in the tease of an old building, that makes you say to yourself,,,, "if only the walls could talk."
Some of walls were under demolitioin, and the bricks, mortor and just plain dirt and dust coverd the oak floors from corner to corner. A rats maze of debris.
My foot moved through the pile as I walked, and rather than finding the floor, or a piece of morter, it came to rest on a deformed minie ball. As it rolled and slid under my foot, I lost my balance and fell,,,, flat on my back.
As one of the guys doing the demolition roared with laughter, another came over and extended a hand, which I gladly took to regain my feet. He reached down and picked up a dusty gray roundish cylinder, and proclaimed in his natural draw,,, it's a Yankee bullet. Lots of them in these old buildings.
Loudly, the laughing man was quick to point out, that even a hundred years later, the bullets of his ancestors had at last found thier mark, and put a rebel on his a**.
His thick Boston accent gave him away more than his comments. The other guys were waiting on my response. Wanting to see if I would let this pass. I didn't, Southern Pride demanding that some retort was in order. Besides, in the south we all understand, that you don't laugh at a guy who falls, until he says he is OK.
"Well, yes it did. It knocked me right down, and damn near stole the breath right out of me. But just like south, I have risen again."
With that, I proclaimed the work area hazardous. Instructed the Bostonian to clean up the bricks and mortor and sweep the floor. I told the other guys that the work area was too dangerous for them to continue working, and they could either go start on the other side of the building, or go home. I would write them out at five, no matter if they stayed or not, and they were to come back tommorow at their regular time.
As the guys hooted about getting an afternoon off with pay, on one of most beutiful days of the year, I made my way to the parking lot to go home.
I climbed in the car, tossed the minie ball in the ashtray, and wondered if the young man who fired it, ever knew where it ended up. He must have been scared to death. To have the ball end up as high in the building as it did, he must have been laying down and firing wild. I've seen guys do it before, torn between the urge to not let your buddies down, and the survial instinct planted inside each of us that says, don't put your head up.
I wondered if I was the only person in the world who would think of the guy on the other side of that minie ball.
As I pointed the car south, I saw some of the guys passing fishing pools and tackle boxes around in the trucks. They obviously had already formed a plan to spend thier unexpected holiday at the river. I could just picture in my mind, a couple of plastic buckets for chairs, a cooler, and at least an hour of yarning about the big guy who fell flat on his a**.
My smile disappered as a crash of bricks hit the dumpster under the debris chute. My yankee was hard at work.
I'll call the foreman tomorrow, and give him a half day too,,,,,, but only if the floor is clean.
Copy & paste to friend: (Click inside box; Ctrl + C to copy; Ctrl + V to paste)
|
|
read more blogs!
Blogs by bardnsage:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| FELLED BY A YANKEE MINIE BALL |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GraceUnderFire747
|
Oct 22 @ 1:35AM
|
|
My father, much to my displeasure, planted us firmly in Yankee territory -- Boston area, in fact -- when I was in elementary school. By the time I turned 8, I had lived in NY, CA, FL, NC, VA, and enjoyed each of them. And then we moved to MA.
I sucked it up, figuring I could last until next year's move. I was truly horrified when I found out that we were STAYING there.
I hated it. The area was lovely, and the weather didn't bother me, but I thought the kids were hostile and arrogant. They made fun of my accent. They thought Southerners were stupid. They believed that all people who lived South of the Mason-Dixon line were racist...and History class always found me defending "my" side of the Civil War.
Here in the South, we have a word that describes their attitude -- "hateful".
I'm not a very vengeful person, but I'm delighted that a good ole boy got a chance to one-up a Yankee, especially a BOSTON Yankee. I'm sure he cussed you out as each load of bricks hit the dumpster that afternoon.
Oh, one more thing -- I don't think you'll need to give him a half day off. First of all, Yankees don't like fishing as much as we do. And second I'm betting he'll call in sick the next day! 
|
|
Etowah
|
Oct 22 @ 7:36AM
|
|
When we were restoring our farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley and running a power line underground to the building, we discovered the skeleton of a Confederate lad about 15 feet from the house. He had a bullet hole in his hip bone that had started to heal, but I guess he died of infection.
Later after the floors of the 1770 house were sanded, we found blood stains in the shape of human bodies around the walls of the house. We also found the date October 10, 1864 carved on the floor of the Dining Room. Later that year we were contacted by historians with the National Park Service and informed that our new farm was the site of the Battle of Toms Brook - the third largest cavalry battle of the Civil War - between Gen. George Custer and his former room mate at West Point, Tom Rosser. The house had been used as a Confederate hospital for much of the Civil War, and then was converted to a Union hospital after the battle.
I didn't believe in ghosts until our herd dogs saw them there repeatedly wandering around the pastures at night.
|
|
daisy315
|
Oct 22 @ 6:13PM
|
|
Fantastic Blog Bard.. just the kind of stories I love to hear. I too, love the old buildings here in Thomasville.. the old stores along East Main that have had the upper floors turned into condos.. Wondering what "stories" those walls would hold to themselves through the decades
I would give my right arm to be living in one of thos buildings
Kudos
|
|
|