[00:00:07]
>> The in. This is a living history interview with Chester Skinner class of 1943 conducted by Marilyn Somers on February the 10th the year 2005 we are at his office in Jacksonville Florida and the subject of the interview today his life in general his experiences at Georgia Tech Mr Skinner thank you so much for making time for us to come and visit you this morning as well appreciate job and I want to know all about all of the scanners but let's start with when Chester Skinner was born and where speaking to me you I was born right what we all know in 1922 Jacksonville Fla Actually 922 all right now.

[00:00:59]
Your family had come to Jacksonville very early in their history and their history is really quite interesting so do you mind just kind of going over that with me like when Where did the skinners come from originally Well originally all the skill of family was around the area Georgetown South Carolina which is just north of Charleston where had they immigrated from what country well that I can if you don't even know what I know of is Scotland is what I've been told Ok but they had been in this country for quite a but they had been in this country a long time and.

[00:01:33]
Because I go back to the Revolutionary War in the towns on the paranormal flank but. They were principally in agriculture at that time Georgetown was a son of the rice industry in America and they shipped Rice I think it was only 2nd to China and they shipped Rice all the while it was known as a very fine strain of rice and what they did in those rivers it was all lowland up around goes down they clean this won't and they use the tidal river have to grow the rice because they could flood and then dry the fields as necessary.

[00:02:17]
And it at the time it was slave labor and that was about them withing a good work you know swamps and survive because of the malaria and the mosquitoes and so full. My. Grandfather great grandfather did and then my grandfather and his family had a brother up there that was a very successful Rice grow he had.

[00:02:41]
7 very large rice plantations up there and and he did it all he had to schooners it shipped it to England around the world and the railroad tracks have brought it to the to the show or to the poor and so forth and so on and at the time this was right after the Civil War none of them had any education they had not gone to school with all form of like a cable militia case of pot self told anybody was writing all that stuff.

[00:03:11]
So Mike my grandfather which was this man's brother was working for this brother and he decided early in life that is rather when you're reading it but his voice he wanted to go so he was what they call riding Woods for his brother he would stay all of all day long ride and throughout the countryside check.

[00:03:33]
You know I'm in labor because I'm the yields and the fertilization and all that stuff but they went through sort of middle man to man you know I'm in a very middle management so he had neither side of it that he would they would and it was a very poor existence they lived in in rural homes that had been built just out of the woods and so forth and zone and them main source of leisure was hunting and fishing and that type thing and he was as his children came along he had 4 children 4 sons and you know it's dad and his wife was very set on the fact that her all her children be well educated she was a Jew Katie she was pretty well educated so they all went through high school or a finishing school was a cult not college and about that time they decided that he got this opportunity with well known throughout the South as a great producer of gum turpentine which is you know what turpentine is I do well that comes from the gum of the pine tree aren't tree pine tree and that was that was his business getting it from the pine tree and getting it to the to die and still stealing the spirits as they call it and get it to market.

[00:04:56]
You know going South Carolina still in South Carolina but at that time there were people call turpentine factors which was. People that had money that own these vast tracts of land that wanted people to. Extract disgruntlement market form because it was a highly profitable business at that time and this was right before the 1900 so I think the 95 he had this opportunity to come to a little place called Fargo Georgia which is just north of Lake City Florida and he moved his whole family and he.

[00:05:36]
And his crews people that experienced in this business down built a built a settlement day on the shoulders of this want to rebel and stayed them worked this land that was his land so he took a big risk low interest of a great moved moving with not an easy thing to do and well when he when he moved he his oldest son he put him in a buggy with a servant and they drove from sudden dose down South Carolina the way this campsite was on the show this warning and he was gone from home for a month his mother didn't know whether he was dead or alive to she saw him when he arrived communication no communication would have been a pretty wild area and no roads bandits all along the road people that would take advantage of a young person like that he was only 16 years old So you know Let's venture it was a great adventure follow him and he as he tells the story when his mother saw him she just.

[00:06:38]
Broke down to she didn't know where he was there all I am again the family and I sat down on the train I got as close as I could get the Valdosta but train and went on the horse and wagon and so they were you stab us there like the whole life was right there on the hunt for show that river and they stayed there for 2 years and again he had worked those woods and made good money for these people back then the wages were nothing and so he he was not making much but he hadn't managed to accumulate $600.00 in those years that he had those 5 years the had been over the.

[00:07:14]
So him. In December of $899.00 and he came over to Jacksonville and got some of the so-called turpentine fact disease loaned the money loaned us to loan him enough money to start putting acreage together in the section where we sit now now with this was totally world totally ruined nothing but pine woods how had Jacksonville been stablished Jackson Hole was Jackson will not as it was a little settlement settlement down on the banks of the river and I wouldn't call it a city at that Ok what I knew about it.

[00:07:53]
Honey he managed to accumulate. Over these 45 years that he was in you know about 50000 acres of land wiring which stretch from where we sit now which is a St John's River was right away close to us all the way to the ocean and. It went that all Piney all pine I'll just fine woods for him it was his crap it was his crop and all virgin pine never had been cut never had been Warks of just like the Indians left it and he established a home out in the geographical Sunnah this property which was a way out about halfway between here and Jacksonville Beach which is now I guess the fastest growing part of Jacksonville about a moment and he stood that he stayed there and he built.

[00:08:47]
He built 2 turpentine stills or 2 saw males he ran a build a railroad it was about 15 miles long to take this gum to the creeks and then into creeks he had the boat towed boats and barges and they would load it on that and take it across the St John's River and load it on the scooters and boat over there to take it to divest and more with the low wife and his children his wife and children while out into the woods Well that didn't sit well with his wife think it was a thing like that wanted when they couldn't get to **** up quite so he hot a schoolteacher to live with them and this cutie to live with them for 2 years and she said did we get to do better than this because the suppressed a school teaches knowledge so he built a nice beautiful home down on the creek a large creek which is not very far from me and and put them all in the well this was this all happened.

[00:09:46]
In a pianist band of 5 years and she got sick his wife got sick and decided that she would like to go back to Georgetown and see all of the relatives and people and that type thing by this time it was 7 sons 2 to mobilize had been born when they were in Fargo Georgia twins and they were just babies so she got on a train and went to Georgetown and while she was up they should get feeling bad so they contacted her husband and he got on the train and went up there and within a week both of them what they had they contacted a yellow fever that was a rampage and up that well.

[00:10:28]
7 children had left 7 children 2 of them all over just in their early twenties and all rest of them went to teach my father was 14 years old and the twins were about 10 years old with the timing on their. So they determine that there was a very great man hand Jack from a judge that that they had known through their father that he had accumulated all his stuff so.

[00:10:59]
My father's oldest brother went to the judge and asked for his failed. To administer this estate Well the judge made him to administrative because he was the only man it knew what they had where it was so full with Lucy goosey record of a so where am I so but they were you know they had at that time they leased convicts from the state of Florida walk all these woods and they were they had cattle and they will work in the woods it was all in Tim one doing all these different things and the man was 24 years old he was going to take on all everything took it all on including his younger brothers doing all the younger brothers and they had a he had a housekeeper and they stayed in the house and here as fast as he could he sent them to approach to write down so he took that you'd educate to give it to 2 brothers he and he's the next oldest brother do you remember their name yes of the oldest brother the name Brightman and the next one was Ben Ben and bright ran right when said that they would run the business put all the children to **** take care of them and then as a became adults would give them a share of the estate but what they did was they got a 7th of what my grandfather they were together at their word their good all the way and he said the greatest accomplishment of his life and he lived to be 90 same years wow he never had a brother come back to him and say I in any way will show it changes isn't that amazing that's what that kind of couple said and there was a little bit of it is because human beings well than what they are long was going to go astray some way you know and all of this happened all of them serve them all on.

[00:12:48]
And then they came back and after they got their degree went back into the business so each of them gradually developed their own life got married and had got married in a neck and they got section of the bed but the amazing thing was to me and I'm not I never understood how my grandfather did it he put all this together.

[00:13:09]
And had a good amount of money in the bank in 5 years he came over here with $700.00 and didn't know and when he died he was with money in the bank and he was solvent always when good shape they're going to do what they had to where they had to go through and losing their parents knowing that up front only really managed they were pretty sturdy stock They were they were strong people every one of where did your dad go to school where they said they found one university went deferment and and what kind of a degree would he have gotten from there he was in the liberal arts grade they just wanted to get a business and that was again Terry down from the grandmother's wishes and then when he when he came back to Jacksonville he got a degree and he's continued to go to school and got degrees in accounting and thus and so is a very much very learned man who has the right way to meet your mother.

[00:14:05]
My mother was from also from Georgetown but they had brought. Her mother and father down here to be part of the business and they built them a home right away on University both of them and she was the she knew each other from all the law and she was 11 years younger than he was really that's interesting so some they had married before were you the 1st of their children I was I'm assuming because you're a junior It might have been so they got married and had a home and they were in the family business your father my mother my father built this home right and I still Ok and that's where I was born right there and I don't know why you know you're not sorry that's why you couldn't get it all hospital with the fall in the woods was there even a hospital Yes I went on Jacksonville and I have it so I had your way out we went way down 95 but no in fact this old sun always seen road that you came out that used to be us one that's the only paved road that existed at that also in south.

[00:15:11]
Dakota and you aren't 120 to that right it so you came into a well established Jacksonville family at that time I mean you know long time in time did you have brothers and sisters yes I have one brother on one system so after you are the old right my brother was next to the months with about 4 years a policy now when as you were growing up with your Mom and Daddy where did you book go Well I 1st went to public school which is down in Jacksonville and they had a bus I was because it's hard to get well I had a bus at random Now there's always an old brick road.

[00:15:50]
And I my mother when she went to skew she went with a horse and wagon I had to drive all of them like get them at all the way 5 miles every day and but I went there through the 7th grade then I went to both school which was at that time was a military academy what kind of student were you most when I was pretty good you like going to school now Ok well I'm not going to get out of a different any other young fella but like in the other **** but I was interested I was and I was about.

[00:16:22]
Did your parents raise you to believe you would go to college someday. And it would be given you were going to have a given month and going off to elementary school with your 1st I'm this was pretty remote so was that a good socialization thing for you very good that I know about because I'm and there were no friends around and there were no one's around I cannot I'm not a little worn out so you had to learn how to act or pat yourself and then when you had younger siblings come along you probably spent time with them but not the plus we also had about 20 families live in mine is in that ward fall I said you're Ok and I played but then also you did get to have some right away right going to school must have been fun in the says that it was there where your home experience you know the experience for me and by the time you went to the 7th grade they decide it was time for you to go to a different school and we talked about all of the how long had that minute stablished by that bone was damaged in 1933 so I was there the year after it was that I was a brand new right and I got in school well both school as the outcropping of.

[00:17:28]
You see this was just after the depression the Great Depression Well just before the Depression they had built a big community and he called son of a and they had built a huge result hotel on a river beautiful place biggest one in Prague that done. And it went bankrupt and they made a **** out of it and then we went from the so that school bills school was originally the resort hotel right well that was a very good use for it was a privately owned private No Ok And there was more along the lines of military it was military or there was no longer lines relied on military and uniforms Whoa I was in uniform for the 7th grade and I got out of the World War and I was in uniform.

[00:18:16]
You know what it was all about have discipline that's right I was in it and you were getting probably a better education than people who were not able to go to private Well we felt so you know I think you get it anyway you want to if you want to end up but it's right to have that option.

[00:18:34]
Did you board at that snow I did not call your parents a lot it was back once a little boarding school but I only lived well actually the way I happened to go to that school with my father was in the day but. And it was time to turn up with us right in the middle of the depression not to call any now I did mean things were better for a long time you know that's right and and it was hand amounts and I mean I went hungry but we never had any money and they they let my father so milk for the school in lieu of me going to **** up that's all right because there was a party system which got a lot of people by that's way we got loans you grew food you didn't go hungry no we had there wasn't luxury at all at that time no but at that time all the people coming from the north trying to get out of coal well off walked this highway out front and I've seen my gosh so you would see people going back and I walk in and my mother must've made 10000 sandwiches because a you know we were all one out on the road when we got this far from Jacksonville and they'd come up and down were people that were just good languages that were full little children grow up crying and hungry and barefooted and I guess it was bad not that in Florida I know that's what happened with people that went you know toward the west in the Midwest but that was happening down here to see they were trying to get the call well for one thing also they were coming down here because it was either live down yeah he said there were none for them to do nobody could paint the one much that is true and your dear mamma said the speech yes she did you see we had a coup and and for lunch say maybe 20 people at the on the back steps but the one thing about all those people is that they demanded that when after we fed them that we gave them something to do pay for them but it was a lot of pride.

[00:20:30]
And that we could get some chores done or think he'd find some some with a little some involvement do that did you walk over to both well Ok. Finally my dad gave me a model a forward and then I drove Well Walt and then I rode a bicycle and you graduate went up the line went up to the west in a 12 year program so you were senior in your tell us the year with that 11 year whatever it is Ok now where along the line you knew you were going to college where did you choose how did you choose well I really didn't know what to do I'd always been mechanically inclined and enjoyed working on a truck in the machinery and the wagons you know like if I protect these I dearly love playing football and it.

[00:21:18]
Was known for the small people that let play college football sure so I wrote after the Rose Bowl game so I wrote the. Coach Airlink and told him how badly I wanted to play him and he wrote me back and he said well he said we'd be glad to let you walk on if you if you want to come up here early for practice so it would come show me what you can what you can do and I will never forget it I was walking down to the west the stands where they had that the dressing room and the 1st person I met with Coach Alexander the head coach.

[00:21:58]
And I told him that I was and he welcomed me and I went on saying you know Coach I'm a little fella but I think I can do something and he looked me in the eye said limitation he said I don't get out a little you know he said I just want you to be big and all and that's right from his mount right from the now how did you know about coach Alex had you follow them in the newspaper and then yeah always so you knew about the role I know but I knew about that in geology.

[00:22:28]
And this would have been never seen George it never may have been good Lana so when I got ready to go they packed a little Foot Locker for me and I got on the bus and they put me out on North Avenue and I was all by yourself most powerful they were you 171818 again this would have been 144 a year you got out of got out of the high school situation and when it that summer up detect and if you're going for summer practice right Wow I mean there's a big deal to God and I think you'll forgive me.

[00:23:07]
Even Know what you're getting into I had no idea now he didn't ask you academically how you were doing or anything he said if you want to come walk I know I had they'd sent me. To the school I was acceptable I think cept almost anybody to start with and well I think I might have.

[00:23:24]
Called it a good reading process so how did you do in the football field if you had to well well I only could play for the 3 years because the Army got me when I was a junior and you couldn't play and I never did start but I got to play and went on all the trail you had the experience so I had a great in fact the great friend of my great friend what with coach Alex like on a personal basis what did you think of when he was a nice very fail man I never did I must say to coach Alec you know I get out of office I mean not.

[00:23:58]
And he was a ball of snow you know what I mean man you know whether you know he won the bidding when he was in the bush coach dog was it the same time he was assistant and he was tall lanky guy that Calyx from what I can see of pictures didn't look like a very big man when he won them and when you play for Heisman you know but there weren't any really big people like we think I don't think you're likely I think the largest I think that biggest man on my team probably wait to be as well I don't prize it was even some of the them because I know there were a lot of 165 football player and I want to suggest Yeah Ok you're right on the other money so you were out on the field tried out and he offer you a scholarship I never did get a scholarship as such but he offered me everything that went with the scholarship so you got to during.

[00:24:50]
You know when you know palms and all that. With them and all that they have an athlete stable at that time so you always know that Britain all they had a table. And that's where we are and you had a car or a pass that got a lot of.

[00:25:07]
Us in taking a ticket Ok so here you are Georgia Tech you have a little bit of fun you're not so scared you know a few people you've got to find your dorm and school starts. And how prepared were you for Georgia Tech I never trouble you know I was well prepared I was and most of them already of people came in from what hit them so you would already had some calculus and well no I had calculus but I knew I was well grounded in all of this the only thing I had that was chemistry Ok and I was always caught up with good tech I had to memorize it to get through but I but you did managed and now this was a time 940 when you came to school that summer you were already aware that the war was heating up in Europe it was a war talk.

[00:25:56]
But you came hoping that you were just going to be able to go to school and so did it have a very much effect amid on us or did you enjoy that 1st year just to have a good time as a college boy wood or were you worried about the no on one of the.

[00:26:12]
Not a good time that we were all in our o.t.c. and they kept us up with it you know back then we all had to be an answer a body did yes and which I think is a great way. But not what I was most fortunate in a roommate I got when the lawn it fell and name him hard on he was a fallen baller from Kentucky and very nice person and we hit it off just immediately and you know you are him to different parts of the world it enables you to get to know about a different part of the world map it surely did and you got along fine you both had good study habits he was an excellent student he went in the Navy are o.t.c. I was in Army or o.t.c. and.

[00:26:59]
He was little I don't went to the Pacific and say Do you know it was lucky that you both had good study habits because that can always happen else no. Well even when I went when the movement attack would have a for people in a suite over there and all my roommates were good that's good starting from one abolish the other boys went to West Point and now the ball is a good story was from Jacksonville and so here you are back to your freshman year at Georgia Tech and you're playing freshman football and you're going to school you and you probably carried a pretty heavy load of classes.

[00:27:37]
I just had what they gave me here but it was in the sissy schedule I want to tell much you and I went to the lab every afternoon till 330 when I went to go to football brightness went just to every side of it until the people that was 6 days a week that were all rule I mean that was it 140 there was.

[00:27:58]
A lot of interesting people on the campus you had already met Bobby died and you had met coach Alex who were 2 legendary figures had you had an opportunity to meet George Griffin yet though I knew George so George was there actually Iran right and at that enjoyed Biffen It was a cross country trike but yes Iran that did you run and they take great ran in the Cape and I but to that's where George said I guess up and I think that I want to k. was my 1st thing I wanted.

[00:28:28]
Was the Cape in the Cape Race and where did you win where did you run at that time was it up to the waterworks or where did they have the run I think I think probably you went up I think that's where we want you all remember Messick is already running their own.

[00:28:43]
Good and probably at that time the cake was baked by faculty wife or I don't know I don't remember a year to recruit the cakes from that was the faculty so that the young men could get there take a good time it was fun time all you've got and you took the tech part pretty well you were happy to be l.o.l. if I always had you to remember any of the professors you might have had at that time they're all long gone now but we'd like well you mentioned d.m. Smith Did you ever have a lot happening there in fact he was also a tutor for the football team he was doing great great.

[00:29:20]
Support of coach Alex in the football team he was indeed. And I'm told he was a great teacher he was a good teacher yeah very good teacher. Well of course he like you say I knew Mr Griffin. Did you get when you did he teach of calculus by any chance know d.m. Smith didn't know he what you had for college algebra Aha And then we went in the can but you just had him for the one class that Jody had quite a sense of humor to did you see the character get to you you see you were exposed to these amazing people and they were amazing they want mazing people everyone you know I had all of them.

[00:30:07]
Jim luck which later became a football and baseball coach he was in my class and he was from seated Nazi that. He was from America's But anyway Jimmy luck he got wounded in in World War 2 And when he came back. Even though he wasn't a football player used to be the coach died let him finish his scholarship I saw used to see Jim because my son when he went to take played for Jim I was the i.c. baseball bat to that.

[00:30:46]
You're a pretty. Gallant bunch a fellow is I mean you had so many great role models after Britain was still the president then vice president was in is waning years he was well here's I had the fortune I got to talk to him several times and visit with him you know always call his tech boys young gentlemen you know where you really have no memory of him that yeah he awarded me you know he used towards some of us a goatee and you know he wanted me to go to you for what what did your do to do that just what you had it was a combination of things academic in others and then making activities and.

[00:31:27]
So you were pretty busy fellow you had a full schedule you were running track playing football so I stayed busy Did you have any social life not a whole lot I used to date some girls that Agnes got you know I did well I got to be in later years well the ball is you know new girls over there and they you know when hard what.

[00:31:49]
They were looking for boys. And also we had sponsors for the our o.t.c. companies in the units and well there were things going on all of the day I am not sure Did they have the big dance is still before them were at it again are there used to have the dances in what was known then as it may well home or it was you know Jim you know what at I think it in your mouth do you remember going to those fans yes I did a big band Big Band.

[00:32:19]
And I was in a fraternity so I know what I had to be so it just got out that they are Ok that was always a good source for that of a conventional right to making friends and know when the all over Turnitin life was very limited in my time because we were all in the barracks and under the wartime room we were in that was this is by 1942 you were inducted into the service he was no more playing outlive me it was a real McCoy we were in uniform you know so you wore uniform all the time and you lived in barracks Well I call it the back it was just a dull majority Ok I still lived in like in tech when you were in tech would but nothing really changed except now you belong to the government and you got a little more money because they would have paid you when you got one if I don't You were one of the lucky ones that could stay in school because they wanted you know we were the last less advantaged and they said we're going to let you finish up and would take us commissioned officer right well I had to go to o.c.s. because I didn't have time to go to camp and the so yeah there is that was enough Yeah it used to be that you would go I was shipped off to o.c.s. and Fort Monroe Virginia which is up on the Chesapeake.

[00:33:31]
Now let's go back to Georgia Tech again the varsity Did you ever go up there with that that every day I have been across time every day and you say well we get stuck we get to study in about midnight we'd always go up and you know the same way that I'm not going to go on the run yeah you had it all at night that's right that's really when you had it right I mean it was so close to right there and then with the right of way or anything so right up there or whatever other hot spots are well I think what did it was right there on the corner by the tape would know him so you could go see no good you know they'd let football they give tickets to the football players you have to pay them that but I didn't know that and I think that's what they are I know they did that the fox and later years well we always go to the fox to that was a good date I was I was a beautiful movie had best not it was the Yeah Yeah it was a good place to take a girl it was you know a lawyer in the theater.

[00:34:27]
In fact we when we were in they all me that we had these drill units that will fall into different branches and we performed at the Fox The truth is that I would tell me about that you know who came to see you anybody that wanted to come.

[00:34:46]
You mean at the Fox Yeah yeah we're they used us as a introduction to a movie that come out called This is the army Mr Jones I heard of that movie and we we performed about 30 minutes before the movie on the stage my. God that's a great story well I appeared at the 50 absolutely great in your uniforms off anywhere right on the rifles in the whole like you know we put on a little red drill a little drill routine right most music did you have music I mean was there a military band that accompanied you know I mean and it depends if he and then we did do we.

[00:35:27]
Both sound the wooden floor right you were traveling on the boards that so many famous people know so. That tester Skinner appeared at the ball chatted and then that's just gotten about that and he brought up that about I think this great and more than once yeah we did it moment we did well I guess the movie was there for the week as well when you would go do it go they let us out to because at the same time you know they were selling war bonds and all that so their part of that ice was part of their chess or do you remember where you were on December the 7th of the new 41 while I was at them but they asked him to take with Moment on about when I heard announcement that other students tell you or where you live no I don't listen to radio in they don't know it was Sunday it was a family afternoon and it came all the radio did you realize then what an impact it was going to have on your well we knew that was the real thing then because I had been there and you know I'm writing this book in full on they knew it was probably coming so it didn't take very long before they had you in the uniform and there you were well I've already and you know many of you were even before Pearl Harbor almost you know I let you write I would have all of one yeah 42 Yeah right so I mean it really did impact everybody did you feel.

[00:36:51]
That your fellow students resented that I was everybody pretty eager to let me go let me say those those kids that well that had physical impairments they cheated to get in they felt bad to be cut out of it all you know the national mentality then was a totally totally different you never heard anything against the wall I did yeah everybody realized have I don't know right.

[00:37:20]
When we think about the early forty's there was a an amazing football player by the name of quick Castleberry to Clint where what he was of out of a thing to tell me about him he's a legendary attack although he was always there for short time where he made all American as a freshman which is incredible incredible you know now I had been in a losing football game and we played geology that year to see who was going to the Rose Bowl both of us won defeated and Georgia beat us and we went to the Cotton Bowl which was in Dallas Texas and Clint played in the Cotton Bowl but he was a fantastic football player a little fellow about him 60 feet there we go again but very very skilled played ball is hard to in Atlanta and generally didn't play but about one quarter because again me make 34 thirds down just in that little blister not a little bit of time ago to pull him out he didn't get another.

[00:38:22]
Always that why trying to protect their own yeah they get ahead a certain way and then when I got a hippo's attack the play defense is what I was offered because in those days too it was the easier way yeah and easy I remember someone telling me from those days that they went up to the Navy game when Clint Castleberry played we played I was about where you had been a game to these guys told me that everybody would say Who is that guy who is that.

[00:38:52]
And that was him so you got to go to some of the question we're going to go there because you were I want all weekend of I was travel with the you know I was on the team and got to play and most of the ones that we you know what I had of and drove all.

[00:39:07]
So I'm going what I ate the whole thing to have been could catch the berries on my mind because somebody just recently gave us his Red Hat already had been stolen from somebody at u.g.a. of course and in in an act of conscience they turned it over to a tech alarm for goodness and then they gave it to Dr class who passed it on to us and said Can you put this on splay and we just put it in the mezzanine level of the alumni house there well I think the letters are still on display in the athletic Olivia and it is but it's red hat with his name on and he's only hand we never had and now we do we have it was a great.

[00:39:47]
Write well as well and then he left because he went to the military now did it was he in a program that just took him right up quick keep well he really like you did mostly he was in the army and then he got in the Air Force he was lost on a plane off the coast of Africa Yeah and I'm told it was a devastating piece of news from home that what everybody I think about him as everybody expected him to come back and enjoy him they had a big you know continue was thought of me which he was I mean he was he had my I want to Heisman Trophy you know if you've been around but we coulda had a Heisman guy we haven't had one of those yet so Mr Skinner Let's talk about some of the professors you had at that time tell me who comes.

[00:40:34]
Well one that comes to mind is mechanical and drawing teacher. Had a bit of stick with his name in the news a new bright new round of the young man when I was there and he stated take for many years I went back years later and he was pretty well there how did you like mechanical drawing Well it was all blue to me I never had anything like that and I'm out like did you manage it all right yeah it used to I've heard stories where people got very upset because a professor would come by and draw a line of the day labor and all that and reading would do much with but you did Ok I mean I don't I mean I had to do in Physics Physics was a hard call was what I did all right you know who was your teacher you know I was short a vote.

[00:41:21]
And he was also the tennis coach he was and my roommate was on the tennis team. So not only did I have him in physics class I heard all the stories told about him I want to attend a school and you can imagine some of them with I when I get women roommate now always he still felt about that we had a big laugh about that he was a character.

[00:41:45]
He really was a good care was he a good teacher yeah he's a good teacher a hard teacher I mean it was either right or wrong and I was that little kind of the motto of her like you either know the answer or you don't curse no room for a month time Physics was a great divide and that's why you decided whether you were going to stay it or go going to go is Ok.

[00:42:09]
So if you survive down why I said yes and you moved along and one of the things that made tech so unique in those days with the fact that you had woodshop foundry that you called them labs and they were all taught by the uncles That's right do you have any memories of the Uncle Ho I have great memories on behind here and I'm sure you've heard a story many times by the people if you don't do it the 1st time when you walked in a over his office Dole was a lobster in a frame and he would always get all the freshman up and when they all look up at a lobster he had you not a lobster he said I Well you can cut his hand off and he'll grow another one reed you could feel as though you'd use out of the way.

[00:42:57]
So that was putting the fear right so let's move we saw it and he actually taught hands on would work all he was right there were Yeah absolutely and there was one other fellow I was given I don't remember his name what did what did you smell what did you make and which kept Well Yvonne number right we made a little mite a box and we made a bookshelf I dast Ok And did you save them.

[00:43:24]
I hope that I probably have still got that little book here I don't think I'd say the might about it. But and we not only did that they told us how to frame the roofs on buildings and things like that really well that was a lot of written work to do it was just being in this job so it was but it was a very practical all the information you were ever going to use every day use it all my life you have now by the time you got to know local Heinie he was getting up there was a way that he had a beard and long white beard looked like say a slow wave I've seen pictures of this long white beard did he have a pretty good Southie humor way of buying fellows Yeah I did you know if he lived a few years at Tech years and years old you know and he was there he died 151 but he was always an old man when he came in the very 1st place you know so he was a good experience for you whether any other uncles Well we had we had.

[00:44:26]
The metal shop the machine shop where the ladies and all of that up from a teaching that was called was named the major We called him a g. case and he was a very he was a fine man and he later went. Let me go back to this when I was in our o.t.c. one of the officers with me was a fellow named Raleigh Richards and Roy Richards.

[00:44:51]
This from Captain Joe if I were I know what you're talking about he went and formed his royal Richard's electric cable company home itself wire south while yet had major case and a lot of the take he has to walk for him and because he made maybe until then what he did was in your in your group well he was also in our o.t. he was already an officer and he was they had he had been relisted and he was it was teaching us the basics of Army life you know that very nice fella but when you were in the machine shop did you learn to make an engine or I don't and I thought when we made all kinds of things we made we made electric motors grinding machines and then we.

[00:45:42]
Made patterns that we used in the foundry so we made the patterns in auto Hi Michelle. We went to the foundry and and made the use of patents to make the parts to the machines then brought the parts back up to the machine job in machine them and I actually made that unit so when an amazing thing I didn't realize that there was any continuity and I was caught no there was nothing random about it there was a plan there and those young men like yourself were learning practical skills and one of the one of the more difficult things for me was a metallurgy shop where they where they talk about all the different metals and mixtures Malou is because it's more chemistry kind of again and we'd have to polish them and put them under a microscope and name among that type thing and you also there was a foundry where they actually found or done in the basement of the old mechanical engineering building and I think you know the building it was a dungeon.

[00:46:47]
Yes very and full of smoke and. And the welding shot was that into the top was to weld them into all of these really useful practical and yeah as I say I'll use the Moma life I am on shot back they built them and that also. That's a wonderful it was interest it's always interesting to people today to know that these were not professors that had degrees these were people who had life experiences and that's why they were called the young girls and set up you know.

[00:47:21]
And they were comfortable with you calling them Uncle Heinie that was an honorary title that they were happy to have are so very very different and you would see them you had so many people that were role models for you you know well my fine gentleman to look up when you know one of the football coaches a fellow I don't know anybody's ever mentioned the you name Ron my call to you know I don't know I have it wrong my Also because it was a long time coach and he coached football and basketball and he was the head guy at tech would be he was what he called a dorm Guy Yes Yes Ok And he was a United kept in himself.

[00:48:04]
You just were exposed to so many Well I was wonderful people I mean for role models there was no guessing you really looked around the knew how to behave ourselves you know yes right there in Montana you know the way you really. Did it was different everybody wasn't quite so sensitive I don't know that there was no political correct about it and you what they thought of you know what you know did you enjoy being in the city of Atlanta yes a little.

[00:48:32]
Job that I really didn't do a whole lot of traveling around Atlanta but if you wanted to go out to eat somewhere there was a place to go or a movie there with America that we go out the most I guess I money was so tight yeah at that time by one of those well I had to think on football but when I wanted extra stuff I had to buy.

[00:48:54]
A coupon book and we did it right in Britain the whole you know when did they call it Britain hall that I know it was formally Britain but did you ever hear the name daisies half house because I know some years sometimes people would cut because well my rival knew when I was in it and I know there's plenty of those it's 26 Yeah I guess it was dedicated to him yeah yeah it was it was designed all by Tech students and all the interior was Tech students architecture design and everything so it really in it's a beautiful it's all been restored now it's about actually lights but over the years they called it Ptomaine palace and it always had house and you know Mag Well you know that's really only it's the way it's supposed to be and I think you always rag on the food it's just the way it is that's just the way it is we ate sandwiches what we used to call a robbery which.

[00:49:44]
All right you know that meant that it opened on the hill there and we we had a lot of between plays you just run in and you know you know they would call it the college and it was your kids that called it the right up right. It felt like they were taking a wee bit too much money.

[00:50:00]
Cut a good cheap coffee and what tomato cheese sandwiches I was a little bit of a lot of cheese right member. You were there at such a colorful time it seems that because it was a cohesiveness of the country crisis and everybody being in the military by the time you got out of there it was a pretty different time all everybody everybody had the same concern putting money on it does it does make for a unique time in history.

[00:50:30]
And wonderful memories for you I just can't get over the confluence of that many really powerful influential people all being in one place at one time Bobby God coming into his own and coach Alex still being there yeah as elect as athletic director I'm just wow you had it great but all good things had to come to an end and you knew you were going to be going right into the military once you got out of school graduation was what in the spring the final spring of 43 is did they have a commencement ceremony for us and everybody in uniform and everybody you know where did they have it had it in the gym they had welded you the old gym the Heisman gym Ok And did you get it you didn't get your commission or you got the commission and then had to go you didn't know when you have a commission now what do you see when I left Ok so they were going to send you off to get your experience right they say your boot camp and you already told us it was at Fort Monrovia Monro Monroe Fort Monroe in Virginia it's an old fort that was built by Robert e. Lee on the past just of the like a really old force that's where Jefferson Davis was jail that was there well and there you were.

[00:51:42]
And how many weeks did they make you spend I think we were there for 13 weeks of leave because that was officer training school and well Ok so you went through that program and then you got commissioned right and what did the military have planned for you well when I got out I was in the seacoast artillery because that's what I had a.

[00:52:03]
Well by the time I got through with that seacoast artillery was coming on the downgrade it was an obsolete branch of the force so then they put us in 80 aircraft artillery and we went down to Fort Stewart and spent some time down there and then I came back right always a hot issue at that very secret and.

[00:52:28]
So they had looked at my tech resume and even though I was a mechanical engineer I didn't know a name about electronics particularly they put me in a raid on and as I can when I graduated from being a radar also then they put me in charge of training Caderousse of enlisted men to send them to the South Pacific because and what happened was I got my shots 3 or 4 times and was sent to the port of him built by occasion to leave and bought a time I'd get to the ship they'd come out with a new radar unit because they would Vance in it so fast and said that in the back that's what I did I kept going back and forth there trying to keep you current had to keep me current and then.

[00:53:14]
Finally they. After that After that they had a Department of Engineering and my roommate 2 of us went from tech to Fort Monroe and the other fella who was my roommate and they owe me. He was in the automotive end of the all me teaching all these people how to take a long element vehicles are no well a had put me in underground fortifications which meant these big 16 inch disappearing rifles that they had along the coast of America and around the Chesapeake no.

[00:53:53]
So I stood I stayed into that and then they then they made me and put me in charge of the Polynesian a and that's where I wound up my career in the Alps interesting because you bring this up about the armaments on the shoreline in Chesapeake and that was not a common known thing maybe they did not know what I had never heard of again nobody really thought and now just now some of these stories are beginning to come out where we actually felt we needed a defense because they thought the Germans would become more Gravel Well I have submarines you know the Chesapeake was a great staging area for convoys going to Europe right and the Germans had submarines off the coast and some of them actually got into the mouth but before they did any damage they stretched a huge net across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay just to keep this I'm sorry I can't decide if we even knew that that was a very clever idea wasn't it had was another they could have made havoc for us at all like you know man I waked up in the morning and look I mean at night is one day I'd look across at you know chest big data huge body of war and it looked like you could walk across that bay on the decks of the ship play that spy out and just cargo ships that came in there waiting on the convoys to take them across to take them across and I'd get up the next morning it wouldn't be a ship in sight and I'll be gone and slip out at night you know and and somebody was really paying attention and watching otherwise it would have been I went after it's interesting because we were that close and yet the general public was very unaware I mean you go back and look at the newspapers account nobody ever talked about stuff like that see all these big guns that were around the coast the United States well so well camouflaged was right in Chesapeake Bay Well under the same do and they were huge one of the cation and nobody even knew that I mean you know that as opposed to today where everybody always operated.

[00:55:53]
It's kind of interesting that that was all there and you were part and parcel of that defense of the coastline which is just as important as any of the other aggress when I was but at the time same yoyo I was very disappointed in. That I tried to get out of what I was in and and listed in another branch but then it would let me know where you date are you invested so much money in your training.

[00:56:20]
I mean they can't give everybody a new way except me and the whole it was with me from Ted to see you and your mother was very happy yeah. But not the only one wall and he kept telling me that you better stay where you know I said you know you know there was no glory where you know glory he knew that but on the other hand it would feel bad or the only way everybody you knew was out everybody right new levels about all it would do it of all I so from we talk in the same Well yes but thank God In hindsight you can say you were well cared Well I was I was in the boat with you know after me and I guess that's a great thing but just get are we are talking about your experience with the military your frustration at being stateside but you were learning a critical skill and then eventually by the time the war ended in $45.00 in and $46.00 you got the word that you were going to be just charged Well really what happened was I had accumulated a good many points but I don't know if I had enough points as I had been overseas.

[00:57:27]
But my father was sick at the time and both of my brother and I were in the service and he didn't have anybody to run a farming operation he was doing so he asked to let one of us out to come home because the wall was all to let us come home rather than senators to Japan of some ways occupation last Wed a man yeah and i.q. face after all for years it was time for you to go well it was time but anyhow they did they know what would he ask what the right is congressman or senator something like that and they would intervene for you so you got the word you were going to be discharged and right and that would have been 1946 we had disembarked 19 on most all phases and yeah and you mustered out where were you stationed at that time when wrong you were still up there so you came on back down to Jacksonville and the idea was to lend a hand with your dad right and you know what tell me about men over farms What was well known both long it was kind of a combination agricultural in that what we had day and beef cattle and also when the timber still in turpentine operation and sawmill operation so this was your father's one 7th of the original acreage and this is what he was doing with work when I was that my father had it today cause he did Ok he continued to buy land that was contiguous to the land that he had gotten from his father's estate and by this time he was getting older and and not well right in good money and he was looking for some help to run things said a man well at that time because of the war it was very hard to find somebody labor where there was nobody around the body around and it was tough Rosie the Riveter wasn't working on the farm I'm so glad to get off.

[00:59:21]
But you know what happened about that so you came back to this very area right back to the same location that bow. On the corner right right and started taking over some of the responsibility for that but you stay with it just for a little while and then you decided to try your hand engineering Well my brother came back Aha and he had a degree and I know he did where had he acquired while he had gone to Clemson and then they had gotten him and put him in the army water when he was about a junior when he got out on me went to university fought and got his degree and then came home so so you were allowed to go pursue engineering so I just did I decided.

[01:00:01]
And did you apply at a firm in Jacko What was that a Reynolds Smith and Hills it was a lot of consulting. Done a lot a lot of government wartime work in fact they're the people that. Designed and built the Cape Canaveral then you know with the with the astronauts taiko did you feel was a big concern and did you get to work on some projects Yes back then I was in.

[01:00:33]
Lek trick steam generator steam electric generation we're building large power plants to generate electricity for cities and that's what I was doing I was in that part of the organisation and then laid on industrial heating and air conditioning when they started building some some of these larger buildings that have somebody to do that this was at the time of our country where post-war everything was very vigorous I mean it was a very robust.

[01:01:04]
Getting back in gear build the country out the place all the law says good bye to go in everywhere so it was a pretty energizing time for you to be in the workplace when I was it was I enjoyed my water which but I never did most of my work in engineering with design.

[01:01:22]
And I am just not an inside person and after 23 years of that I felt like you were a lot of the public I think I need to get by have side so that's what I mean is that you came back here and again went to work at Meadow Brook Farm why with my brother and I went in business together and that meant that in the team at all but farms had served you well got you through your finishing school or your military skyride say and kept your family glued together kept a lot of people fed more than just the need well really in a depression is that was the only cash crop and I said Yeah because when we delivered milk to the money was left on the mat I was a little mad you know and literally West Point like when I was a mill post that you know and so you came back to work and I'm sure you were much happier to be actually out on the property and doing what you were giving yourself yeah and you did that until you decided to to start your own business no I did that until we had a launch day or an operation between here and beach.

[01:02:28]
And a government program came along that was too much milk in the United States here Kitty really knows I've started by now day or age and my brother and I get in today's And we felt like it was better for us to let somebody else more about their business see if we could get the money and put it in the bank Now here's what we did hedge your father passed by that time yes Ok so he had to pay for yeah I mean I don't quite know why Ok but your mom was still going on from still living and she was living in the house and you so she knew you sold the dairy farms Yeah so yeah and it was time he was happy we just we didn't sell you the land just we just sold the business to the business of being I dare you business what did the government do with it what I took to keep they took to Cal slaughter of the cattle and I did away with it so they were trying to eliminate lemonade.

[01:03:22]
That's something that is raising Well it is kind of crazy I guess it must to work though but when it worked but farmers that wanted to be in it they just migrated up into Georgia somewhere Bill palms over twice a day and went right on up right all the way up to I know because I have an aunt and uncle who are in the dairy business and her mots so just everywhere people have to because I mean people always need those things milk and cheese and butter Well that's so it's a hard business I tell you the reason that what made it so hard we 1st went in we ran many retail routes we delivered to the home know that part of it's real and then when the supermarkets came they took over the market because a use of milk is a loss leader right and everybody said it you know much cheaper than we could set it so that a limb and they did the retail business and 90 percent of all their profit moved through the supermarkets so it became a wholesale business instead wholesale and it was very hard to get space in this Super Bowl and by that time you were they were all kind of payoffs and everything and I just what you'll get in the.

[01:04:29]
End you focused on the timber and then we focused on timber and cattle and. Then land sales and land purchases were you in a partnership with your brother or were you each separate and well we went a partnership in matter but father but we really sold a farm here with us really and when I sent that way you know did you ever give a name for this business you just a C.-Span a company and Ok that's good enough and you still dabble as we say in cattle and the timber of it well we find them so I asked cattle a couple of years ago you didn't Ok there again help was hard to come by and we got into the age we didn't want to wrestle with them anymore that so we were like you know why that for a while know it we've been a little everything so we had read all the cattle and.

[01:05:22]
Just growing pine trees like just a temporary tent and now you're going to explain to me what naval stores are well may will Stoller's war at the turn of the century and well before naval stores one of the largest industries in the south whole file in fact in a war because all these products they had to have on.

[01:05:45]
You got tar out of a pine tree you get turpentine which you isn't a distro thing pink nose and all that and then you got Roz and which was a. Another ingredient that was used in medicines and things and all of the old sailing ships had to have this tarp and these products to cocktail wouldn't vessels and to coat the ropes with and all of that and it was very vital when it when English when these the English colonists were here before the Revolutionary War.

[01:06:21]
That's what they used as landfall as a timber and they had and the end of timber was so such a virgin standard Temba that he used it to believe ships from the mast and all of the stuff and shipped back to Europe and well when when that started then these people started getting in to the turpentine business and building the stills over him so that's why they cut me will start because all the products are related to the Navy to need no transportation that's right what if you do cut the trees down to get this things out of my own hands the impression you tap the tray taps a tree well it's not like maple subway you really know I take the face of a tree and you scar it with a to pull the bark off of it Ok they call it streak in that tree they just pull a string and then it bleed to go on.

[01:07:15]
The gum run right out of that wound and you put a good on a cup system under it and they go from those into the cup then you empty cup and take it to the still and still the gum so you get this tar and peach and so it all comes out of the gum then it all comes out we go so well it was out of the trade it's different stages of the distillery process but there were different things just like yesterday Whoever thought that all up well that was it's an old process it came from an old countries in Europe how big are you know so at some point in the game it's turpentine and then you go a little nother Well you know time is of is the final problem a product that's it's the most pure product so the rest of it is just kind of a residue but they found a use for every ball every day think of it every stage of it you like the piece use everything but it's clear that they can find a life or a payment but each one of these then was a cash crop and went through all this and all of that and in vast quantities which would require shipping it to industry to be used now as boats stop or I'm using the wrong word forgive me but as the naval me let's say depended less on wood did that mean there was less of a need for much in terms of less there is no to.

[01:08:37]
And research in this area anymore is a little bit left up in geology but it's a lot because they not only the uses less of so much but they have. A lot of fission products I was going to ask is there an alternative somebody created an alternative bright guy like mineral spirits or used it then paid what it used to be turbulence and then they but.

[01:09:02]
What about the other 2 things well no they're good to the rosin well in the pitches it's still used with a little but if somebody Rosin. Because the rod and I still use them on the bows with the violins and about how much of that could I swear there was that put out ropes in that use for pitchers on the mound so they talk about the rosin that's right in your later Rosin when it comes out as a solid it's a it's a solid really you know so you can you cut it out grind integrated to whatever consistent it had all different needs so there still is a market for rides and there is but it's such a little market that if it doesn't pay to stay in it it's not a it's not a major industry anymore so we grow the trees now for the trees and sell Well you grow the trees now Prince of little pup would love the pup would make paper would make Ben we all know what Amber does now and it's still pine still.

[01:10:00]
Now if you slashed a tree if that's what you were doing did that destroy the trail No it started its growth but see these trees Well most of them already. Barging trees have been there for hundreds of years so there were huge here it's trees and you would streak it you could use a tree as far as you could reach up in one the tree streaked the tree left it get 6810 feet up there it was too hard to do it so it had to get up on a ladder to do it and they didn't bother with that so then what they did we just cut the tree use it for long so we had got to get the products out of it and then got to the last one the other products and I don't think that we have them treat you know how long does it take to grow a tree to be useful for lumber.

[01:10:52]
For point well let me start with Polk wood for the paper Ok 15 to 20 years who has a long term crop isn't enough for long though it's 50 years you know so you've got to have a broad vision if you're going to be a temper grow or be a young person.

[01:11:10]
Because your crowd I was lead to trees I'm glad you know but you still have the vision to know where you need to plan I don't know we plan we always plan so you've got it there's just a crop like cone you know and well you know it unless you're a tree hugger that it breaks your heart to think of cutting a tree but these are the kinds of trees Well I'm not the versions raised no but I'm still the same kind of tree and but I mean even I don't know how big a straw to try to keep it from them but but wouldn't we be in fine shape with no paper no I don't know would well probably more pine trees on this continent and it was the history that God really has because growers are growing them well plus so many farmers have gone out of Venice and they've converted their land growing crops they go on pine trees in Christmas trees to escape from the trailer on the mountains is a good thing.

[01:12:04]
Is there such a thing as Virgine forest anymore and you in this matter the country yes there's a been a few patches that have been saved if you somebody put a fence around him and saved don't save them on national farce Ok you know right and then places where the law goes couldn't get to them you know maybe in the middle of a big swamp somewhere inaccessible and then it cost too much to.

[01:12:30]
What was this area of Florida the Jacksonville area ever inhabited by Native Americans yeah yeah tim a croissant. Tim a Quantive. Preserve and I know it was gold with the Indians. All of that in a coastal waterway that Indian tribe. And I they still here and some you know everybody's gone but you know and the timber industry still trees go faster down here the neighbor other places right and you know it's really got so you have to not it is a still pretty good sized business so you have to have a lot of land to be able to grow some trees and then farm some of the trees and then replant some of the trees so it's a continual process but the key ingredient is to have the land in order to be able to do that to run my other bases of it all because land mass become so expensive in Florida hold that you better already have it but you can't do it you can go buy land I grow up and you can pay taxes also this is going to be a dying in weather and there will be yes you mentioned when.

[01:13:39]
We go so it's still a lot of land but. But like I say the prices just. Like everything else like everything else and we would just blessed with the fact that we had fallen all out so we have never sold any land we can't buy into it. And that we sold we sold along the way and then your father would be so surprised to.

[01:14:05]
Say in the middle of the middle of Joshua right in the middle of well this was when he would be so surprised for he able to come back and see that when he paid I think my grandfather paid an average of $0.50 a naked my $10.00 to $0.50 a naked and you know some of these busy corners of the shop as well and you can get a $1000000.00 and they can just like down in Atlanta and like who knew that that was a goal that was pure gold to buy the land and nobody knew he was a risk taker your grandfather was a risk taker and your father followed in that and he was you know he hit the turpentine industry right and it's the right and he just made a lot of money I was a career I don't know I did it I still don't know I'm a grandpa that when such a short time I saw it done me and you know yeah I've yeah that's not as hard to get started and by you know your father saw both sides of it he saw good times and bad and I saw him bad and see that's what I guess that's what the war is a lot of us old people around these young people don't think anything can go down everything goes up right I'm saying I'm hungry I know what it was for when my mother was feeding them and I see it pitiful sight it is a pitiful sight and you're right if you don't if you that's where the saying comes if you don't study your history you're doomed to repeat it the market can fall because a little taste of it when the bubble of the dot com burst right but they bounce back real fast from that now that you know it's a more divided world they keep you view see in paper now whether economy is slowing down Well I think to myself I'm talking about locally you know never see that much build in my life I mean a building that fast as a land find somebody to build them you know you know it's really it's just amazing thing.

[01:15:56]
Just get Tell me about your family well my older son want to tell and his name is our in our name is he's the 3rd he's the 3rd what we call him calling card I know he's a 2nd I'll get because you were Jr Yeah Ok I guess that's what it would be would he be the baby the 3rd one Yeah yeah and but but he didn't go by Chester he went by Arthur you know he went by Chip By Chip Ok he was a chip off the old line so Chip went to tech and.

[01:16:28]
When he got out he he didn't take engineering he took industrial management and. He was always generous and around the state selling and buying and. So he wanted us to floor and got his masters in finance and real estate and that's what he does today and he handles all our sales in real estate but he's great in fact he built an office right across the street and he's right across the street from us who lives in your mother's house nobody nobody you just keep it you know I didn't want anybody to live in them when I was on the can all my children don't know I said and they like where they live but this is not a good neighborhood to see what it looks like it well I know it is that when I where you are if you go around it I don't bother me because I've been in all my life you've got a bunch of low grade apartments and all these people coming in from Europe and Bosnians and Haitians and everything we got to do makes you know Ok So Chip is married has children chip is mine and has 4 children Ok And he just is oldest son he had twins a daughter in the Son He graduated from Swanny.

[01:17:46]
University asylum so the family really is still keen on education and so we get it now you know more than ever now his sister graduated from Vanderbilt. Great thanks she was involved in the putting on the Super Bowl the others. And then his next daughters of the university jogging she stands because his younger son just graduated from Boulder and he's going to Wake Forest great so they're all got there like all they got their money somebody different everybody someplace you know to that's interesting Ok the next child was like shot with Kathy my daughter and she met a local bowling.

[01:18:28]
And she has 3 children 2 to go in the mall and always child just graduating bowls and she's going to Wake Forest Ok And then next go to cause of the be there and then time and the 2nd one he still a 2nd thought it was still about so the family also.

[01:18:47]
Still has generations in the bowl following a lot of generated laughter and go to college she want to miss so she picked a different school I'd rather while I was in the that was in the hippy area that's when Peachtree Street you couldn't drive then it falls if it's you know a member of that but it was a mess so you had her go so I took a college to.

[01:19:10]
A lot of college there where went you know to Bolivar walking around with shorts on no shirts barefooted to go of the Gleick they just come out of this wall and we finally got the whole mess and rather That was the way I remember to come out as a women will Purdy dressed birdied that men were very neat now as if this is a place.

[01:19:33]
That I watch where you have a very eclectic group of goals to be faithful to the family Ok the 3rd one was the son again. Your 3rd child one was a son he worked in that's his office my name is David Ok David went to Vanderbilt he played football Vanderbilt and got a civil engineering degree and does he have children he has tyranny has 5 children Wow he made a big contribution so I want to Ms and how would you know of us I mean a sample of the university and by doing it and that's a 1st for all Rustam in bulk so he's the 1st one to go to college yeah she was so easy to say Ok and then another school another and I was bringing up well you have to have a whole lot of logo while all these and then you're the admin Sunday manager for you know your son is Chris 3 s 3.

[01:20:22]
And when should I know he went and had a little mellower running Vanderbeek he played very well this is his brother penny like the National and all that much and he got a baseball scholarship about it so he played baseball and then a bit we had a good time up there and a good career and he got his degree in civil engineering and then when he got out he worked a couple years and then went to university in North Carolina and got his masters in finance so he's a gotta try to take care what money we got was a little bit and then he has his own practice of financial management and does he have children he has 3 daughters 3 little girls Nell Minow So now we've got grandchildren do we count those empty 17 grandchildren and they range in age from out of college to 3 so not even in school yet and not even preschool yet you must have some colorful family get together well we do every Thanksgiving and not only my family but to skim a tribe around and we get together then in the woods a little cabin we have that in a really we have about 175 for Thanksgiving and a little cabin for a 100 well outside you if you get in when can you be.

[01:21:41]
Leave that 175 never had it we've been doing this for them 50 years i guess i never a normal to want to argue whether it had about a little luck Yeah but if it doesn't live with you. It is amazing that there would be that many people that have to be your cousins and their children in addition to your particular crowd yes even my father had 6 brothers yet all did and all of them live here except one it went to Tampa they had logs landowning and heels like and so when it came his time to get his 70 was the last one when he gave away the last seventy's brothers he chose you know like catechise he had married a lady from the darn So that's why you still are in touch with a lot of those people the skin is hard to tell if it here and the only available at the end all of your children have come back to live in this area all of you in that amazing so I know it I don't know I'm so lucky very very fortunate and an extraordinary unusual in today's world I tell you another new thing that I think all of my father's brothers and himself when well one I'm overseas 7 brothers in World War one that's got to be and all the pain by all the men I mean it but they all came back that's really and then we must ahead in my generation we must have had 25 1st because of that word and everyone I was with in World War 2 I was only want to didn't go but it all came back then that some I made your mama was a good prayer I'm sure my name on you know they won't he would dream of and just imagine imagine all that stuff and France and Germany and you name it all there all Africa they were everywhere I had 11 was a major in 101st Airborne and he landed on D.-Day and went all the way into to the end of the war going to the battle of the Bulge and that was all that I hear and saw that never got never got seriously whatever gets you got wounded but never spirit went right back.

[01:23:49]
So I think that's a that's another I think this family has really paid to process a staff and I mean a lot of miracles in d.c. someone wrote a book that's called this the miracle of the Skinner family or the Skinner miracle or whatever and that there's a lot of miracles there when you say they named it that because somebody just happened the miracle came from an idea that those all are fond of always stayed together and we're always close and always and grew that assets to mean something yeah it really is and I think that Ari what they called it and you continued in that same tradition in that your children are all here and everybody's going to be buddies here and everybody seems to be happy and getting along all right still got bread on the table that's the main thing and you tell me about Conny I met her just a little bit ago to well I lost my wife about 7 years ago to cancer and she had cancer for about 4 years now that was a terror and I was she was very fortunate she felt good and had a good quality life up until about 3 or 4 months before she died and we brought him home and she died right here at that I was but Conny was a she was the daughter of a family that we all went to the same church all our lives so you've known her all your on life and in her husband she lost her husband about the same time I lost my wife to cancer so you're very fortunate that you were able to and I'm like gather my I mean think about it reminded for 6 years and and when it finally got awful lonesome I mean all the color and went that way and I didn't want to.

[01:25:34]
You know all this bagel place by your mouth right so. And then worked out the she seemed to be another lucky day yeah nother lucky thing though it was my dad to be almost 3 years now we have been I have to time that's just and she has she has 2 children and they've done very well and have a local to no one's in Madison Florida from what the little town where she came from which is also up close to Lake City where we had Mal here.

[01:26:07]
And then. Other son is in. And then she has a c 4 grandchildren all about us and they'll all doing very well so this is really very fortunate everybody I mean every life has a you know a time down and it's very sad when we lose somebody we're glad it is you are fortunate to have your mother for a very long only you know mother the mother I love mother my wife the same year really you know she lived to be 9696 years old you know I mean wow we've been my cats and then my.

[01:26:45]
45 you remember well so you had a blessed life with her time came before you were ready but you managed to get there and you have to my mom would go 1st alone and Funny how it all went well what was the boy. Only the Lord there and it's up to us to just go with the flow and go with it that's right but sometimes when lemonade come around of lemons come around we make lemonade out of it's alright that's what you've done something there will sell.

[01:27:13]
Well you have been very faithful and loyal to Georgia Tech all the years and you told me that was because she just didn't feel you could ever really pay back what you've got I well I couldn't and I told our Chris who was the lady that you know she listed our money.

[01:27:29]
As I say we've never had a lot of money because we've always put it in like that right back and you know and I told her you know. I hope some day that that will not be the case if I'm just a little longer and I can have a glass from all that I love it all but you've been a steady faithful giver well.

[01:27:48]
It's more than 50 years and that it even said. It doesn't matter although it might go you know it's all gone through the loyalty that you know that really makes a difference in that sense of that tech alarms have not all of them when I had a 3 realizes that the skills of the talents that were developed were unique Well I was very fortunate in my room mate still lives in Atlanta and he was an articulate and you know.

[01:28:18]
In fact he was a skipper of a p.t. boat which was one of those things that had the Pacific. But then Mr Hunter Yeah we've got we still get together and we have a good meal isn't that wonders why we all grew up together and know what we're talking about the same times as his his family was a long long.

[01:28:38]
Family in Kentucky and then he mad and lady that was a long long. Rest of Alabama and they were in the plantation been this all that so we all kind of had gotten basically the same back you know things in common and stayed friends all these years your college friends are people that you do hold near and dear to you because they were the best times of your life that all years were tempered by the fact that it was in a war but still even despite all of the best it went on a better time run your life that's a great thing and you well you didn't think you had very much story to tell me well but it turns out you got a lot a lot of story about a little bit you know how it was when I was a lot of my patient anybody that has 175 people what Thanksgiving dinner is a lot of stuff you did out that's just amazing thank you so much for taking time for us today and what a pleasure you wondered what I do you way to do this and I'm pretty sure I did well much we really enjoyed it thank you so much You're welcome.