Debbie,
My column
Jim
Dave Gannon and I spent a
couple of hours together a few days before the recent bout of cold, snow, sleet
and rain. I was on my way west on Rte. 52 one day to have lunch and visit
my friend, Jack Lewis at the Shawnee Dairy Bar, one-mile east of Buena Vista.
Dave lives on Burt's Lane, in a house he recently bought and re-modeled,
and which he rented at an earlier time, back when we both resided on Burt's
Lane. Dave gave me a tour of his new digs, which are really nice. I
asked Dave to accompany me, and we headed off to Jack's place.
I have
mentioned my friends the Earl Minch family of Portsmouth, and specifically, Val
Minch, who lives in Hickory, NC., and is in the international hardwood lumber
brokerage business. He sells all over the world, from his
above-the-garage office adjacent to his home. Dave told me that his
family had ties to the Minch family, because, Dave's father's sister, Mary was
married to Adolph "Tommy" Thomas, who was a long-time refrigeration
repairman for the Earl Minch Refrigeration repair company. I was
interested because I considered the Thomas' to be personal friends of my
family, and my Dad, Forest, was also a refrigeration repairman, when he was not
"on the road" working as a brakeman/conductor for the N &
W. Tommy and Mary lived just up the street from us, on McConnell Avenue,
Portsmouth.
Tommy
Thomas was a great story teller, and loved to tease us with his fantastic
stories, which usually centered around guns. Tommy was a well-known
amateur gunsmith. Val tells this story about Tommy: "We were in my
Dad's old blue service-truck, Dad was driving, and I was in my pre-teen years,
sitting between the two in the front seat. Tommy noticed me looking at
the rock out-cropping which is just across from the old Chabot's truck stop on
Damron Hill, on Gallia Street, and he said, 'Did you ever hear the story about
the indian who jumped off that cliff with a pair of gum-soled boots on?
Well, when he landed he bounced and bounced, for as long as two days, and we
finally had to shoot him to get him to stop!' Tommy told Val.
Val, was
an impressionable kid, and he said, "It was a long-time before I realized
the truth!"
Tommy,
used nicknames for everybody, and he started calling me Boom Boom, or Boomer,
so I just started calling Tommy, Boom Boom Thomas. I think he may have
called my Dad that because one day, my Dad, and Val's Dad, Earl, drove Val
and me over to my uncle Jim Kegley's house, "up on Kinney"
outside of Vanceburg, Kentucky. Uncle Jim wanted them to use a stick of
TNT to fish a hole on Kinniconick Creek, which ran through his property.
I can still see those fish floating belly-up on the surface of the creek.
Fishing
with dynamite is illegal in Kentucky, and Ohio.
That story
is why I attribute Tommy calling my Dad and me, "Boomer".
Dave
remembers that one time, when Tommy and Mary lived on Cole Avenue between
Vinton and Robinson Streets, Tommy accidentally shot a hole in the wall of
their apartment
Oh,
my Dad's sister, Jesse Kegley, was Earl Minch's first wife, and died in the
early thirties, before Val's Mother, Virginia, was in the family.
