Category Archives: Family histories

Ain’t she sweet?

Posted on by

Leah and I got married in 2005, but I’ve known her for a long time. Leah’s brother Dan was my best friend in high school, and I can remember having my mother drive me over to his house when I was 15. I probably caught a glimpse of her then, when she would have been 11.

Over the years I caught more glimpses. In the summer when I drove over to Dan’s, if Leah was sunbathing in her two-piece swimsuit, she would jump up and run for the house when I pulled up. I always thought she was cute. And she had great legs.

Here she is with that great new Beatles album, Abbey Road. She’s probably telling her cousin about it.

Leah and the Beatles

Leah and the Beatles

Abbey Road was released in 1969, when I was 19 and Leah was 15. Isn’t she cute? Darn right she is!

Although I always liked Leah, we never connected. It turned out that when I went to graduate school at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, she was working there. This is what she drove.

Sharp car! Nice girl!

Sharp car! Nice girl!

That’s a Fiat 124 roadster. A lot of people think old Fiats were unreliable, but I disagree. I got a 1971 Fiat 124 Sport Coupe just before I graduated from Georgia State University in 1973 and drove it for a long time with no problems. It had nearly 100,000 miles on it when I sold it, including a cross-country trip to California and back.

Leah did have some problems with hers, and her mother suggested that she call me and see if I could help. I wonder, was there an ulterior motive there? I regret that I couldn’t really fix the problem.

Leah offered to make dinner for me, but that just never seemed to happen.

Not long after, the poor Fiat met its doom in a close encounter with a telephone pole.

And I went on at Tech, and then later in Huntsville. Sometime in 1998 or 1999, Leah and I got in touch with each other again. And the rest is history

But boy would I like to have that car.

On the trail with BD and Jesse

Posted on by

I got Jesse from the pound in Atlanta in 1979 when I was bumming around after quitting work at the Augusta newspaper (That was the second time; that time it took, and I never went back.) Her cage had a sign identifying her as a Dalmatian named Sugar who was not good with children. She wasn’t a Dalmatian. I think she was mostly some kind of birddog. She was too smart to be a Dalmatian. She was not “Sugar”. There was no way I was going to step outside and scream, “SUGAR!!!” So she became Jesse. And I suspect that it was kids who were not good with her.

She went everywhere with me. When I brought her home to my parents’, she came inside with me, the first dog ever allowed to stay inside my mother’s house. When I decided to go to graduate school at Georgia Tech, a requirement for finding a place to stay was that dogs be allowed.

She was good company, much better, in fact, than any roommate I had while at Tech. Every day when I came home I changed clothes and walked her a couple of blocks to a vacant area where I could let her run free for an hour or so.

I ran too, but it didn’t relieve all the stress.

Graduate school is stressful. My brother, who also got his PhD from Georgia Tech, said several times he thought he just couldn’t take any more, so he went home and started packing. Me, too. Graduate school is like working full time and going to school full time. Coursework means you always take your work home with you, or, most likely, don’t go home until all the work is done.

School was not the only source of stress. I lived about three blocks from I-75. There was a railroad line just behind the houses across the street from where I lived. Jets flew over all the time to Hartsfield or to one of the local airports. The noise was constant: cars, trucks, trains, airplanes. Sometimes I would stand in the driveway and listen, and think, if I don’t get away from this noise I am going to go freaking crazy.

So on some weekends I would drive up to northeast Georgia where there were several places to access the Appalachian Trail. Saturday mornings I would pack my stuff, load Jesse into the car and drive a couple of hours to a trail crossing. I would walk into the woods at a leisurely pace, stop somewhere for lunch, walk on a bit and find a nice, level campsite not too far off the trail. We spent the night and then walked back to the car on Sunday morning. A lot of people consider backpacking a competitive sport. Their goal is miles. My goal was to get away from things for a while, so I almost never went more than six miles or so along the trail.

Jesse probably ran two or three miles for every mile I walked. She was kind of like our current dog Zeke, who runs wild when he’s off the leash. But Jesse was reliable; she always came back. She kept track of me. She would run off ahead of me, and then after a while, come running back to me and take off in the opposite direction. Sometimes she would disappear ahead of me and then show up behind me. She was always orbiting me.

I loved those hikes.

It took me five and a half years to finish at Tech. I went to work in Huntsville, Alabama, in June 1986. I still occasionally went backpacking in Georgia, but it was a considerably longer drive. I don’t think my father ever went hiking with me when I was at Tech, but he did after I graduated. These pictures are from a hike we made in the fall of 1987. My father was 70 years old then. He looked damned good, and he managed the hikes at least as well as I did. All of these pictures are scanned from my old 35 mm slides.

BD at an overlook. Look at the old Army canteen.

BD at an overlook. Look at the old Army canteen.

About “BD”. My brother and I called our father Daddy. Apparently as very small boys we started calling him Pop, but he objected, so he became Daddy from then on. Our mother was Mother, but our father was Daddy. At some time many years ago, we started calling him Big Daddy. I don’t know where it came from, or even exactly when it started. I must have been pretty young. “Big Daddy” became “BD”. Long after we had grown up, if we ever had to write a note to him to leave on the kitchen counter, we addressed it to BD. My brother got him a black baseball cap with BD embroidered in yellow. We still have that cap somewhere.

On the trail

On the trail

Setting up camp

Setting up camp. Jesse is thirsty.

On this particular hike, we lost Jesse for a while. We had been walking when we realized that we hadn’t seen her for a long time. It was odd, because she usually checked in with us every 20 or 30 minutes. So we stopped to wait for her. We called some, but mainly just waited. I was pretty confident that she would find us if she was able to move, because I had already had some experience with her scenting ability.

So we sat and waited. I don’t remember how long it took, but she eventually showed up. She was very tired. I think she might have come back to the trail and somehow decided to go back towards the car. I think she ran all the way back to the car, saw we weren’t there, and then turned around and ran back to us. I don’t know that for sure, but that’s always been what I thought.

Another thing I have thought all these years is that Jesse had caught and killed something. I saw the blood on the side of her face and assumed it was from another animal. It was only recently that I had reason to rethink that. As I posted before, on one of Zeke’s unauthorized, wild romps through the woods, he snagged one of his ears on something and the flopping ear left blood all over the side of his face within the radius of his ear. If you look at Jesse’s face, you can see a similar pattern. Her ears were longer than Zeke’s, so it left a bigger trace. So, after all these years, I finally know that Jesse didn’t kill something, she just snagged her ear. Not that she never killed anything; she was pure hell on possums. But not this time.

Jesse, recovering, with blood from her ear

Jesse, recovering, with blood from her ear

I guess it was not long after this that I took another hike with Jesse. She did her usual wild running, but this time it was different. We were about a mile from the car on our way back on Sunday when she ran up behind me, came around ahead of me and laid down across the trail. The message couldn’t have been clearer: she needed to rest. I sat down and gave her a while to recover. Then I said, “Come on, Jesse, let’s go.” She got up, walked about 20 feet, then laid down again. This time I had to make her get up. We had to get back to the car, and I knew she could rest as long as she wanted once she got into the back seat.

Jesse, at rest

Jesse, at rest

I thought she was tired because she had not been getting as much exercise as she used to, and she was at least eight years old. Now I think she must have already had the cancer that killed her the next year.

When I look at these pictures of Jesse I feel a strong urge to reach out and stroke her knotty head. I would always put my hand on her head and scratch it. Sometimes she closed her eyes when I did that.

I could physically feel her head under my hand for years after she died.

I can still feel it if I try.

Birthday thoughts

Posted on by

The most important event of August 2, 1917, at least in my view, was when my father, Grady V. Paris Jr., was born in the little town of Cave Spring, Georgia. I was thinking about my father and his birthday, so I looked back at some of old pictures I scanned a while ago.  Here are a few of them.

I think this is a high school picture. He was probably a senior, which in those days meant his was in the 11th grade, since high school went only as far as that.

Grady V. Paris -- the teen years

Grady V. Paris — the teen years

My father was a happy man. He maintained a child-like enthusiasm for almost everything for his entire life. He loved kids, but most of all he loved his kids.

My father, Henry and me

My father, Henry and me

He spent a lot of time working around the house, so he ended up in worn, paint-stained clothes a lot of the time. When my brother and I were old enough, my father started taking us to the same places he had gone when he was a kid. I think he enjoyed those outings as much as we did, and as much as he had when he was young.

I like this picture. I’m not sure what his expression means here, but it was unusual for him. The car in the background is a 1949 Buick that I remember pretty well, considering that I was only one model year newer.

Bow ties were in

Bow ties were in

This picture was made around Christmas, probably in the early ‘70s. That’s me and my brother Henry flanking our parents. Everyone was a lot younger then, but for some reason when I think of my father, I tend to picture him at about this age.

The Paris family

The Paris family

My father’s health declined fairly rapidly over the last year or so of his life. He suffered from pulmonary fibrosis as a result of gastroesophageal reflux. It was not diagnosed early enough to really do anything about it. Between the low blood oxygen levels and the bone-destroying effects of long-term steroids to help with the lung inflammation, he became an old, stooped man. He said that one day he saw his reflection in a store window on Broad Street and couldn’t believe that man was him. When he died early in 2000, the only way I could see him in my mind was as a much younger man.

And that’s the way I remember him today, not as a near invalid but as an active, vigorous, happy man of late middle age. I miss him a lot.

This would have been his 96th birthday.

Memorial Day +1

Posted on by

I emailed Leah’s brother to ask him about their father’s service in World War II. This is what he sent:

My father and his brother Billy served together in the 1st Army in the ordnance division. They drove trucks from Normandy all the way to Belgium hauling ammunition, guns, etc. He and his brother arrived in Normandy on either D-Day 1 or 2. He told me about seeing all the damaged/destroyed equipment as well as seeing one vehicle in which a dead, burned American still remained. They were billeted in the home of a Belgian family at the end of the war. They were told they would be going to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan and they weren’t keen on hearing that news. He was placed on guard duty one snowy night during the Battle of the Bulge and was very afraid because they had been told of the Germans who were dressing as Americans. He managed to acquire a .45 cal pistol and carried it that night in addition to the .30 cal carbine he had been issued.

 

That’s about all I know. Wish I had asked a lot more about his experiences.

Leah and Dan’s Uncle Billy still lives in Rome. He’s 91, and is a lot slower than he used to be. He lives alone and continues to drive.

 

Memorial Day

Posted on by

Today is a good day for us to remember our fathers. Both Leah’s father and my father served in the Army in Europe during World War II. As you might expect, as a boy, I was more interested in the details of my father’s military service than Leah (who is a girl) was in hers, so I can remember more than she can.

Here is the only picture we have of Daniel D. Primm Sr taken in Europe during the war. It was during a visit by Eisenhower. Leah’s father is second to Eisenhower’s right, with the dark coat.

Dan Primm Sr with Gen. Eisenhower

Dan Primm Sr with Gen. Eisenhower

This is my father, Grady V. Paris, taken somewhere in Europe. He didn’t wear a mustache after the war.

Lt. Grady Paris, Europe, WW II

Lt. Grady Paris, Europe, WW II

He was wearing his crossed musket infantry insignia on his left collar. The division patch on his left arm is not really visible. He was in the 104th Infantry, the Timberwolf Division. This is the Timberwolf patch.

Timberwolf Division patch

Timberwolf Division patch

He was also wearing his Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB).

Combat Infantryman Badge

Combat Infantryman Badge

The only way you get this is by being in the infantry and serving in actual combat.

When my father was drafted, he went into the artillery. He wore the crossed cannons insignia.

Crossed Cannons

Crossed Cannons

Later, during training, he was transferred to the infantry. He was in an infantry cannon company, but, even though he was still involved with artillery, he had to wear the crossed musket infantry insignia.

Crossed Muskets

Crossed Muskets

Here is a picture of my father during training. You can see the Timberwolf patch. When this picture was taken he was still wearing the crossed cannons. I think this was probably taken in Arizona, where he spent some time in training.

My father during training

My father during training

I’m pretty sure the cannons his infantry cannon company used were 105-mm howitzers.

105-mm howitzer being fired

105-mm howitzer being fired

He kept the crossed cannon insignia for as long as he could, until finally an officer told him to put on the infantry insignia. If he had served in the artillery, he wouldn’t have had the CIB.

Later, after the war, Leah’s father left the Army, but my father stayed in the reserves. This time he was actually in the artillery. He ended up as the battalion commander for the artillery unit stationed in Rome. As the technology changed, the artillery began using rockets, and their insignia changed to crossed cannons with a missile superimposed.

Crossed Cannons and Missile

Crossed Cannons and Missile

When I Google this, I find it referred to as the air defense artillery insignia, but this was not what it was when my father was in the reserves. Their battalion was trained with 8-inch howitzers and Honest John missiles. Neither of those is used for air defense.

This is an image of an Honest John I found on the Web.

Honest John

Honest John

Here is an image of the 8-inch howitzer.This is a display that was apparently held sometime in the 1950’s, judging by the cars in the background.

8-inch howitzer

8-inch howitzer

Here is an image I found online of an 8-inch howitzer being fired.

8-inch howitzer being fired

8-inch howitzer being fired

Notice the soldier on the left holding his hands over his ears.

Both the 8-inch howitzer and the Honest John could carry nuclear weapons, and my father’s unit was trained to use them.

In those days, the US was preparing to use tactical nuclear weapons to fight the USSR. Take a moment to imagine that.

After my father retired from the reserves, the US started changing the structure of the reserves. After that, the reserves didn’t have combat units. They all became supply and service units. My father would not have liked that.

I think my father actually enjoyed many parts of his military service, even including combat. He was a forward observer. The life expectancy of a forward observer in combat was short.

He told us quite a few stories about the war. I urged him for a long time to write a memoir, and finally, when he was around 81 or so, he started. My father was not one to rush into anything, so he spent a long time preparing. He put up a WW II-vintage map on the wall downstairs where he had his computer, and he started writing. It seemed like he wrote for a long time. He died in 2000 before his 83rd birthday. A while after he died, I went down and started reading his memoirs. He gave a lot of details about his training, and he told about going to England. He talked about getting ready to land in Belgium, not too long after D-Day.

And then the story ended. He died before he finished writing the most important part of the whole story.

When I think about the monumental events of those days and the part my father played in them, however small it might have been, it makes me sad to think that those experiences are lost. Forever. There will be no first-had account, and when my brother and I are gone, there will no longer be even second-hand accounts.

We emailed Leah’s brother to see what he knows about their father’s service. If he can tell us anything, we’ll post that later.