Chapter 76

Classes, classes, classes. We were put on the schedule full time. The school was getting their moneys worth ... money worths ... bang for their buck? Something. If it weren't our money in the first place ... Complain ... go ahead ... nobody cares and fewer listen. The ones who do listen usually call the local law enforcement.

The weather turned to January and The Thaw. There's always a thaw in January ... happens every year and every year EVERYBODY runs outside ... sure it's eighty degrees warmer than it was ... but it WAS 35 below and that makes the the forty-five of the thaw warm, And that's the beginning of the flu season. Sick State ... the whole damn thing. Everybody gets it ... it happens every year. Old folks die ... their property goes up for sale and one old woman just north of Saint Johns had an old hangar full of airplanes that were, "My husband's Pride and Joy," she claimed while he was alive but he's not ... alive ... now.

"Sell them?" she said, "Sonny, I'll GIVE the damn shit to you ... and the motorcycles but you have to take it all and I need the shed next to the barn gone too."

"Yes'm, Mrs. Parker. I'll be back," I said. "How long?"

"Gone by the end of summer ... hangar too if you want it," she spoke up again. "You wouldn't know anybody who would like all these old guns?" She swung an arm. In the dim light of an oil lamp I could see the glitter of well cared for metal and the glow of hand rubbed wood.

"Could I take a closer look, Mrs. Parker?" I gave her a winning grin.

"Trying to get in my knickers?"

"No, ma'am."

"Damn." She cackled, "Come in, if you're of a mind to."

I was of a mind to. The late Colonel Parker, USAC, that's United States Armed Calvary, Retired, was a collector, hoarder, and purchaser of anything cheap or unwanted. He had passed away at the age of one hundred and eight during The Thaw.

When Algernon Parker was 13 he ran away and joined the Grand Army of the Republic as a drummer boy. That would have been in 18 and 60 ... as he said it.

"Sonny," and EVERYBODY was sonny to Col. Parker, "I ran away from my mean old father when I was 13 and joined up ... drummer boy. That wasn't as easy as it sounds, I walked all the way to Detroit, working my across the state ... eating when I worked and stealing when I couldn't.

"I was the first boy who signed up for the First Michigan. The 1st Michigan Infantry was organized at Detroit and mustered into Federal service for three months on May 1, 1861.

"We trained for a month and were ready for battle, that was a joke, sonny."

The 1st Michigan was the state's only three-month regiment, raised in response to President's initial call for 75,000 troops in April 1861.

"We disbanded in August and I hunted around until I found another unit. I snuck into the Fifth Michigan on August 28, 1861, fourteen days we entrained for the Capitol ... two days by rail. They hooked us to Richardson's Brigade, Heintzelman's Division, Army of the Potomac and duty in the Defenses of Washington, D.C ... We swanned around, Reconnaissance to Occoquan ... didn't make a fart. Sent us to Virginia, scrubbed a bit at Pohick Run.

"In March they put us with Berry's 3rd Brigade, Kearny's 3rd Division, 3rd Army Corps, Army of the Potomac and off we went to Manassas. March 17 we moved to the Virginia Peninsula and fought there until August. They called that the Peninsula Campaign.

"We bivouacked and learned how to march and stand where the boys in Grey could shoot us whilst they hid and covered up. By the time it was said and done I had my own drum, a musket, a blanket roll, canteen. I could hit someone with the musket if he stood still long enough and I could dig a hole as fast as anybody.