I thought of the motto, “cave quid dicis, quando, et cul”, but I decided to tell you my story regardless. Okay I won’t make you search for a translation: “Beware what you say, when, and to whom.”
Not to worry. These scores of years will eventually arrive; however, everyone mentioned or referenced herein will either be dead, taken on new identification or long since been hidden away in something similar to a government 'black ops' program in a godforsaken place; for revelations such as this cannot be allowed to “go public.” In most stories, “The names have been changed to protect the innocent.” In this tale no names had to be changed because no one claimed to be innocent. I’m assuming those individuals in my saga do not care whether or not I reveal their identity - you’re not going to believe me anyway, calling this a fabrication. The government will not prosecute me for violating any Government Secrets Act; to do so they would be admitting to their part in the cover-up, so “Cave quid dicis, quando, et cul.”.
Over the years I have pondered whether this chronicle should be told. I have tried to balance my sanity between knowing I had this knowledge buried deep within the recesses of my brain against contemplating if my conscious would better served if I told the world my family’s secret. Finally I came to this conclusion: the attempt at the pursuit of knowledge, whether good or however sinister, should be at the discretion of the reader.
I leave this decision entirely up to you, if your interest is peaked sufficiently, read on, if not, close this composition now and go on with your life’s existence as if you had never discovered my compilations of the facts and story with the mysterious name:
THE P.H.O.T.O.
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WARNING...! WARNING...! WARNING...!
After this point your decision to continue to read on will be done so at your own peril - this information will remain imbedded in the innermost recesses of your mind forever! You, from this time forward will try to erase these images from your consciousness, but I’m afraid this exercise will be impossible for you to do. Next you will attempt to get our government to validate my statements, again fruitless…. I speak to you from experience!!!
CHAPTER FOUR
BABA SCARBURG’S SECRET
I remembered a large number of the details “Baba” told me through the years about Robert Scarburg Sr., my great-grandfather. Ah ha! You say, who was Baba you ask?
Well Baba was my grandmother – Barbara Scarburg.
However, to everyone who knew her she was simply Baba. Back in my days of playing travel basketball and baseball she was always Baba to my teammates too. To this day, so many years later, old fellow players will meet her and you can clearly here them say, “Hi Baba!”
She was a die-hard Alabama Crimson Tide fan; loved the ‘Bear’ (legendary Alabama football coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant) and I was on the opposite side - loving my Auburn Tigers, but one thing I did realize, I loved her more than the Auburn Tigers and I think she loved me more than Alabama too, in fact, I think she kind of idolized me.
I am going on and on about my Baba, but I’ll get to the point to all this rambling in a minute.
You have to understand she seemed normal in all respects, except she had one idiosyncrasy. I’ll explain this in a while but let me keep you in the dark for another moment or so.
As a young boy, even before I learned to walk, I would spend every Saturday night at Baba and Pa’s house. For the first five years of my early life I had them all to myself.
The year I turned five my little sister arrived and from the day of her birth forward I had to share my relationship with Baba and Pa with her; and from her first day in the hospital she became just ‘Sister” to us.
She hated her name, Olive Maria, so we simply called her Sister, Livie, Lulu or just Lu. From the age of five, until Sister’s birth, I was the only grandchild, she infringed on my territory so I felt extremely jealous. Of course with her being just a baby it gave me a couple of more years to spend with my Baba and Pa - all by myself.
I visited every chance I got and I constantly explored their home. I would ramble through dresser drawers, climb upon the highest closet shelf and pull cardboard boxes out from under the bed. These cardboard containers, I discovered, held hundreds of photographs. Images of all types of things sealed in strong plastic envelopes; bound so tight opening them seemed impossible for my little fingers.
When I discovered these treasure troves I asked Baba about them, she would only say someday she would explain, but not now. She said ‘explain’; she didn’t say she would ‘show’ them to me.
Even at my young age, my little brain asked: Why not now? Later as I got older I realized no photographs adorned the walls, or sat around on tables, they must be in those hidden cartons I thought.
Why did they remain in those dusty old packets, stored under the bed, and not on the walls like normal people?
Baba’s walls were decorated all right, but with inanimate objects. What-nots placed neatly on shelves, hand drawings, framed clips from newspaper articles mostly of my ball playing days but neither the walls nor the tables had any photos…hummm….! None showed her mother or father and there were none of Pa’s family either. No wedding remembrances, no vacations, no friend’s pictures, nothing indicated they ever had a life worthy of being immortalized in photographs.
CHAPTER FIVE
BIG 'S' AND LITTLE 'S'- WHAT?
Being young is a wonderful time in life – the world is a glorious place, no one is deceitful and whatever you are told you believe wholeheartedly, with no reservations. Baba’s photo idiosyncrasy - I never even gave it another thought. Baba had a reason for keeping the photos hidden and if she believed they should remain hidden that was good enough for me.
I must have been a teenager when I first asked Baba about Grandpa Scarburg.
I remember Grandpa when he died.
The family, with the exception of Baba, had not told me much about him. I remembered he had been sick and was unable to walk, Parkinson’s disease, they said. One of his Neurologists said his symptoms suggested ‘Agent Orange.’ At the time I had no idea what ‘Agent Orange’ was but now, yeah, they could have been right. Another thing I didn’t know back then - Agent Orange was a Vietnam want-to-forget item.
I still remember his jet-black hair. Always a G.I. flattop, with just a hint of grey around the temples and he was over eighty! I asked him once if he colored his hair, he nonchalantly reminded me that we descend from the Cherokee Nation – their hair never grayed, and his didn’t either! He said his great-grandmother; a Cherokee named Little Dove was born in Eastern Tennessee or North Carolina. I remember his face too, always clean-shaven as if still ready for morning roll call.
He was military through and through, his bearings gave him away; however, I had no knowledge of his life except the tidbits that Baba told me, well yes, there is one thing I was aware of about Grandpa Scarburg - the family and close friends, referred to him as Big ‘S’.
Pa, my grandfather, was called Little ‘S’.
My daddy Robert Edward Scarburg, III was ‘Trey’.
Everyone calls me, Forrest, for the play on my name: Robert Edward Scarburg IV - I know your asking how in the world could Robert Edward Scarburg IV become Forrest. Well you know Pa has to nickname everyone so when I was little I was called Little ‘S’ Four; this gradually got changed to just Four ‘S’ or Forr-est. Simple huh? I would just leave this one alone I did years ago!
I figured Big ‘S’ and Little ‘S’ because of their last name – Scarburg. Then again their ‘handles’ might also have been derived from their size. You see Grandpa Scarburg was muscular and a rugged 6’4” (big?) and Pa Scarburg was 6’2” (small compared to his Pop), or the unusual nicknames could have begun when Big ‘S’ was a grown man (big?) and Little ‘S’ was a (small?) little boy.
Man, was I ever wrong!!
Later I found out how they obtained their cool nicknames - you’ll really love the story. It will blow your mind, but whoa, I’m ge
tting ahead of myself - I’ll tell you about them in a little while but right now I’ve got a much bigger tale to lay out for you.
As I said, I remember Grandpa Scarburg with his short-cut military style black 'flat-top' haircut and his eyes – those piercing dark brown eyes. They say he loved to suck on a pipe when no one was around. He never lit the bowl and some of the family said they believed he didn’t even have tobacco for it. What he loved was cigars but he never smoked them in the house. At one time, in his earlier days, he smoked cigarettes – Winstons, but after being confined to his wheelchair, he never got to enjoy any of his smokes again.
As a teenager, when I visited, he would question me about things of which I had no knowledge – things like military stuff, radio waves, science things I had never heard about and what my future plans happened to be when I grew up. I believe this was his attempt to nudge me toward a military career. Obviously this army stuff bored me considerably and looking into his dark eyes as we talked I, even then, could sense he had, at one time, been way more than this aged, fragile person I was standing in front of.
I knew he had been a career Army man, now retired, - a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam and the lines and creases on his bronzed skin indicated he had been an outside person one not accustomed to sitting behind a desk.
I had heard from someone, I do not remember whom, Grandpa Scarburg, sorry Big ‘S’, had been a cook in the Army during one of his wars. Which one, I did not know at the time, and did not care enough to find out. I thought army guys got hungry, Grandpa Scarburg fixed them food, the soldiers ate the food, the food tasted terrible, end of army life, right - how naive could I have been? Something wasn’t right!
I had my future life already planned out: I was going to get a scholarship to some big college to play baseball, and on to instant stardom. So whatever Big ‘S’ would say didn’t interest me in the least; therefore, I would take my leave whenever I got a chance.
Another thing I remember about him, he attended all our annual family Christmas get-togethers. Well, not just Christmas but Thanksgivings, birthdays or anything else. It didn’t take much encouragement for my family to get together and eat, and, although we loved the food we always had fun too.
I noticed one important thing: these events did not involve the taking of pictures.
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These gatherings always took place at Robbie’s house. Robbie, Pa’s sister, had the reputation for being a good cook and we knew how good anything she cooked tasted. I don’t mean just a good cook. I will re-phrase and emphasis, a SUPERB cook.
Our noses already had our stomach hungry even as we pulled up into her yard and proceeded to get out of our car. The air would be heavy with the sweet smell of hot cinnamon rolls or the whiff of smoked ham, cooked long and slow over hickory wood by Robbie’s husband Earl James (everyone in the South has two names you know). He had previously owned a barbeque restaurant, before retiring, and he now had his own BBQ contraption in his back yard. This thing was so large it could cook enough delicious chicken and ham to feed all of Grandpa Scarburg’s army buddies.
We always had fun at these events and everyone had a good time but the fact remains: I never personally witnessed a picture being taken at any of these family events. Maybe none of my family wanted to spend money for a camera, or maybe they thought them to expensive. Well there must be some other reason since Baba and Pa owned two business enterprises, both of which seem to be doing fine, and Robbie and Earl James had good incomes too. So money for cameras wasn’t the problem. I surely would have loved to get my hands on some of those early photos though. Every Christmas Grandpa Scarburg would give his children, and all the grandchildren, great - grandchildren and the in-laws a crisp new $50 bill. I believe I still have some of those $50s socked away somewhere.
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Baba and Pa owned a bustling fast-food restaurant they had owned for many years. Baba ran it and Pa, a gun dealer, had his business right next door to the restaurant. His gun business, which he also had owned for many years, specialized in selling, trading or repairing old Army guns. I use the term ‘gun’ loosely. These were not just guns; they were weapons, weapons of war.
Let me explain further, these weapons were not your run-of-the-mill gun store variety .22s and hunting rifles. That type gun business belonged at Wal-Mart, Dicks or the Gander Mountain type sporting goods store.
Pa’s store concerned itself with real guns – real guns such as machine guns, the 1919A4 machine gun that fired a belt of 30-06 ammunition at the rate of about 600 rounds per minute; other machine guns like the 1919A6 which fired the NATO .308 (7.64mm x 54mm) round at the same rate of 600 rounds per minute; 30-06 cal BAR (Browning Automatic Rifles); automatic .308 M14s; M-60 fully automatic machine guns; the big brother of all machine guns the M2HB (referred to as the Ma Deuce Heavy Barrel); .50 cal; M-1 carbines; fully automatic unmodified M-2s; dozens of M-1 Garands; M-1 Garand (MIC & M1D); Sniper rifles including the .50 cal Barrett M82; British .303s; fully auto M-16s and AR 15s; 9mm, .40 mm and .45 cal automatic handguns of ever description; A4 Rocket Launchers; LAWs (light anti tank weapons); Russian RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) launchers; night vision goggles; gas masks; Thompson 45 cal sub-machine guns with rotary drums and stick magazines; body armor and cases and cases of ammo for each and every weapon. He had grenades, fighting knives and bayonets for all the weapons and other stuff that I don’t even know what their names are. In fact his place of business took on the appearance of a National Guard armory.
Now, I’m not suggesting any thing illegal, nothing could be farther from the truth, Pa had official gun licenses from the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) people in Washington. He maintained State, County and City licenses and permits also. Everything Pa did he did in strict accordance with local and federal law. One day as I got older I asked Pa if he had ever been in the military? He answer (or non-answer) was something to the effect that Big ‘S’ was the military man of the family.
“How come you understand so much about guns?” I asked, and followed this stupid question with, “Why do you have so many?”
His answered quietly, never raising his head from the weapon he had been working on, “Your great-grandpa-Big ‘S’, my Daddy, taught me some of it and I just picked up the rest… here and there and, who can tell, we might need them someday. We need to be just like the Boy Scouts: ‘Be Prepared’,” he softly said with a slight wry chuckle under his breath. I took him at face value, but my mind kept thinking how a person, like Pa, got to be so knowledgeable in military weapons, including their history, calibers, rate of fire, disassembly and re-assemble, and above all – how to clean and maintain them. And lastly he was a good shot and he used the rifles like an expert.
* * * * *
I remember one summer Pa and I wanted to get in a little shooting at our shooting range. Our ‘shooting range’ consisted of a bale of hay out in his hayfield with our target mounted against the hay’s side. He lived out in the country so we had plenty of room to shoot (“fire” is what Pa called shooting) with no close neighbors to complain.
One-day we were shooting an M-16 rifle or M something. (Why does the Army always have an M in front of everything they name?) We mounted our targets on a 4’x4’x1/2” piece of steel which Pa had situated at a slight angle and leaned it against the hay bale; when the bullets hit the targets they would ricochet into the dirt. Pa had taught me how to handle a weapon, never to call it a ‘gun’, always assume the weapon to be loaded, always keep the weapon pointed down range (down range would be toward the target), always keep the safety ‘on’ until ready to fire.
I still remember Pa teaching me the word B.R.A.S.S as I got ready to fire the weapon (notice I didn’t say gun). B stood for Breath, R meant Relax, A meant to Aim, S to take up the Slack in trigger and the last S make sure to slowly Squeeze the trigger, not jerk it. Pa said if done correctly the round would be fired before you realize that you had squeezed the trigger.
&
nbsp; Where did he learn all this? I thought he needed to get himself something to do which didn’t require having his head stuck in a gun book all the time. I figured gun books had a lot of information but I didn’t know they taught this sort of stuff?
After we fired one bunch of bullets (sorry, Pa said that are called rounds not bullets) we would walk down to the target, locate where the rounds hit, put tape over the holes, then we would go back to the shooting position and shoot again. Pa had a spotting scope, but he preferred to go observe our target, “up close and personal," as he would say.
This particular day as we walked down to the target a big black bird flew directly overhead. Without a second’s hesitation Pa raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired, the bird instantly dropped from the sky. We walked down into the hay field and I picked up the bird. Yep! Dead as a doornail! A rifle! How did he hit this black bird with a rifle! I was totally amazed, but Pa acted nonchalant as if shooting the bird out of air with a rifle required no great shooting prowess. We walked back up to the shooting position without speaking another word. Even as a kid I was asking myself - how was it possible for a non-military person to get this expert shooting knowledge? Something just didn't feel right!!
CHAPTER SIX
THE RESTAURANT JOB
One summer between my 8th and 9th grade I asked Baba for a part-time job at her restaurant to earn a little spending money. I had attained the age of 15 and my 16th birthday would be coming up next year. I do not believe there is a 15-year-old boy alive in the U. S. of A. who is not looking forward to his magical 16th birthday.
Look out America; make sure your auto insurance is paid up another teenage boy is about to make the rubber meet the road. Baba gave me the job, as I knew she would. Taking orders, sweeping, helping unload supplies or doing whatever needed to be done. She also put me right to work as a cashier, which I enjoyed.
My first day on the job I was nervous, but everyone working in the restaurant helped me, they pitched in and showed me the ropes.