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    Kukamunga Junction
    Kukamunga Junction
    Kukamunga Junction
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    Kukamunga Junction

    By Ashley B Jones

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    About this ebook

    Kukamuga Junction was not officially the name of where I grew up. But that is what the people in the community called It. The people who lived there leased quarries from the forest service. All the people who lived there had to haul drinking water in fifty five gallon barrels. The wash water was gotten out of rain barrel caught off of roofs. Or out of rock quarries . My brothers and the other families boys had to gather wood every day so the mothers could cook make coffee or heat water for washing dishes etc. What the men did for a living was dig flag stone out of rock quarries with picks and shovels big bars and iron wedges. The forest service finally tore all the shacks down and mowed the roads into the Shanty shacks closed and ran all the people out of there. now they still dig flag stone but Stone companies are the only ones allowed, they use equipment and forklifs. When you read my book you will see that we lived a pretty harsh life but It was all we knew. My brothers both grew up and owned and operated there own construction companies. I ran kitchens with my husband who was a chef. I owned a thrift store I had a bed and breakfast for six years I was a C.N.A. for the last years of my employment. My baby sister. Worked in a hospital. So although we had adversity in our growing up years I hope this book inspires hope.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris US
    Release dateNov 10, 2022
    ISBN9781669854531
    Kukamunga Junction

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      Book preview

      Kukamunga Junction - Ashley B Jones

      CHAPTER ONE

      My Daddy was the eighth child in the family. He was the only boy and the youngest sibling. He said his sisters would beat the crap out of him. They resented him because he had special status as the only boy. Ha!

      From what Daddy said, when he was only four years old his Dad would have him sit on a buggy, with a horse pulling the buggy. It would be loaded with a barrell of sorhgum. He would have to take it down to a barn to be stored until it got picked up. Then whoever unloaded it would put an empty barrell on it to bring back to their farm. His parents owned a syrup orchard and farm. I believe this was somewhere in Texas. I,m sketchy on some of the logistics because I don,t remember some of the exact places only what our Dad told us.

      My Dad said people didn’t coddle their kids back then. I don’t think he would have coddled them now either Ha! Believe me, we never felt coddled, whatever that meant. Ha!

      My Daddy left when he was only seven years old. Our Dad never told us this story, but our Mama did. Mama had met Daddys parents, but we never met either one of our grandparents on the paternal or maternal side. It doesn’t seem to me they ever really wanted to know us.

      Our Mama said that Daddys Mom told her that when Dad was seven years old, the horse drawn buggy got stuck in a ditch. When Dads Mom couldn’t get it out of the ditch by pushing on it, our Grandfather, took a horse whip and started hitting our Grandmother with the whip. My Daddy was just a little boy. He started hollering, so his dad got out of the buggy and literally flayed skin off of my Dad. My Grandmother said she picked my Dad up and ran with him to a neighboring farm. The neighbor put him in his shed and put salve on him. He was in pretty bad shape for around three months. My Dad and his dad did not speak to each other again until my Dad was around twenty-two years old. I’m unsure who iniated the visit, Dad or his Dad. I can’t really say my Grandpa, because we never met either one of our grandparents.

      I don’t remember what my Dad said the farmer that took care of our dad what his name was. I know that he grew some kind of crops. After my Dad got better, this farmer had my Dad haul a water bucket and dipper out to the field workers.

      Daddys Mother would come see my dad if she got a chance to slip away from their farm. She had to be careful because my Grandad would have beat her for it. That was the way it was back in the early nineteen hundreds. Women couldn’t vote but, there was no rule against abusing your wife or children. They were more or less the property of the husband.

      Thank goodness for the Suffrage Movement. Women gained the right to vote in 1918. Child abuse laws were not put into place until nineteen seventy four. That law is called Capta. It requires states to establish child abuse and the reporting of it. Can you even believe it took that many years?. Kukamunga must have never heard of that law. Ha! I,m making a not so funny joke because for the most part Kukamunga was already almost cleared out by nineteen seventy four.

      The Violence Against Womens Act, was not signed into law until 1994. Can you even believe it? Bill Clinton signed it into law. It was not officially signed into law until January 5, 2006. Unbelivable! Not even twenty years ago, George W Bush signed it into Law. Kukamunga Junction definitely never heard of that law. Because Kukamunga and all it’s residents were no longer there. Ha!

      Dad met Geronimo when he was a small boy. Geronimo was a famous Apache Chief. My Dad probably just saw him. Geronimo used to sit at the entrance to Fort Sill Army Base in Lawton, Oklahoma. He was quite a celebrity. He was born in 1829 and died in 1909. Geronimo was in Pawnee Bills; a wild west show. Geronomo was depicted as the ‘Worst Indian That Ever Lived’. When he was born his parents called him Ggoyahkia; He Who Yawns, because he was always sleepy as a small child. Geronimo was a Prisoner of War from the time of his capture in 1886 until his death in 1909. He was seventy-nine years of age at the time of his death.

      The farmer that took care of Dad, and nursed him back to health was the one who took my Dad to see Geronimo. My Dad was quite impressed with Geronimo. Dad stayed with the farmer until he was 13 years old. Our Dad never talked about going back to see the farmer who cared for him. I,ve often wondered if they had a falling out. But we never asked my Dad that question.

      My daddy met a couple of hobos that ‘road the rails’. He did that for a few years. He said it was exciting to find an empty boxcar and watch the land go by. The guys would jump off while the train was still moving when they got close to a town. He said if one of the ‘Bulls’ caught you on the boxcar, they would take their batons and beat you almost to death. Sometimes it was death.

      My dad learned how to gamble and carouse with women when he was young and hoboing around. He liked to tell the stories of his hobo days. He said it was a unique sort of buddies. They would build a big fire in a barrell and they all would contribute something to a meal. He bragged about hobo stew.

      Dad was taught to drive a Model T Ford car by whoever had him delivering moonshine. He did that until he was 17 years old. Daddy said they had quite a few car races trying to flee from the Feds.

      Dad finally got enough of that so he decided to try something else. He ventured out and tried doing mechanic work which, he was pretty good at and he also learned some carpentry skills. At 17, dad met a fight promoter who trained him to box. My Dad said he would have to carry a heavy rock and run up the hill with it. He had to do chinups and pushups, till he thought he would die. The promoter or trainer, would hit him in the stomach to teach my dad to tighten it up. He would eat raw beef; even us kids saw him eat raw hamburger, when we were growing up. He said it gave him extra strength and stamina.

      When my Dad was 18 he started boxing. He boxed for three years until the promotor thought my Dad might do better as a wrestler. Dad was 21 years old when he started wrestling. He was known as Kid Coulston. He boxed and wrestled in Oklahoma, Tennesee and Texas. He wrestled for 10 years until he got poisened in the ring. The opponent dad was wrestling with had put poisen on his shoes and kicked my Dad in the legs. That was the end of my Dads fighting career. He walked with a pretty pronounced limp for the rest of his life.

      My Dad lived through the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Prohibition Era from 1920 to 1933. Prohibition was when it was illegal to buy or distribute liquor.

      Things were pretty bleak as far as employment at that time. So after my Dads wrestling career ended, he went back to bootlegging, which was during the prohibition years. He said it was exciting but scary at times. One town in Oklahoma had a sign at the entrance to a negro section that read white boy don’t let the sun set on you here. They liked moonshine too, but blacks and whites hated each other. I know my dad was a racist. He was from the deep south and he had been brainwashed into that philosophy! None of us kids had that kind of hatred, he said it ran both ways the blacks didn,t like the white people either, as I,ve gotten older I realize they went through a really rough life at the hands of a lot of whites.

      My Dad met a well known gangster by the name of Pretty Boy Floyd. I don’t know that my Dad ever worked for him. Pretty Boy Floyd was born in Georgia in 1904. His family moved to Akins, Oklahoma in 1911. Floyd was born under the name Charles Arthur Floyd. They penned the name Pretty Boy because he was quite handsome. He was shot to death by the Feds and local police in 1934. He only lived to be thirty years old. I’m pretty sure that is why Daddy and Mama named their first born son Floyd. My Dad idolized him. Pretty Boy Floyd was also as known as a ‘Robin Hood’ to a lot of the local people, so they would not report seeing him.

      At 32 years old, my Dad got his teeth beat out of his head, and was left over a whirlpool to die by Federal Agents. My dad lived, but that was the end of his

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