Building A Trailer

In 1964 three civil rights workers, one of which resided in Meridian, were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi.  In 1966 my Navy duty station became Meridian Naval Air Station, about forty miles from the crime scene.  During the next year my brother Dell became stationed with me.  For about three years we remained stationed together at NAS Meridian, Mississippi.

Sometime during that three year period Dell decided he wanted to build a trailer to tow behind his car.  Dell was always building on something.  Anyway he talked to a colored man about buying a wheel and axle assembly off of a junk car as a base for his new project.  He stopped by my home on a Saturday morning and asked if I would accompany him to get the wheels and axle.  Dell stated he wasn’t too trustworthy of the fellow he was dealing with.  I carried my loaded double-barrel shotgun with me, and laid it on the floor, as I climbed into the rear seat of his car.  He drove to one rickety place and picked up the seller of the automobile parts who climbed into the front seat with Dell.  We then drove to another place where the man guided him.

Dell asked which car he was to remove the parts from, and the man told him to take his pick.  There must have been at least twenty-five junk automobiles there.  After looking over four or five Dell selected one, and asked the fellow how he was supposed to get at the front wheels and axle.  The man let out a holler and four or five more men came out of a really ramshackle building.  It hardly classified as a home, but they all lived in it.  They lined up on one side of the car, and turned it up on its side with manpower.  Using acetylene torches from the trunk of the car, Dell cut out what he wanted.  The men then helped load the parts into the trunk of the car.

Dell then started to pay the fellow the agreed upon twenty dollars, but there began a great argument as to who owned the car in the first place.  These men began a real battle amongst themselves.  I mean to tell you people were getting hurt, all over a twenty dollar bill.  Then a slatternly colored lady came out of the dilapidated shack, and began screaming at all of them to stop.  One of them ran over to the shack, pried a porch roof pole loose, and struck her with it solid enough to knock her to the ground.

I had never left the rear seat of the car in all of this time.  Dell leaned back against the car to see who was going to win the battle and collect the money.  When the man knocked the woman down, I’d seen enough and stepped from the car with my shotgun.  This was way out of hand for this amount of money.  One of them hollered out, “He got a gun.”  Almost instantly Dell and I were alone with the groggy woman who was picking herself up from the ground, as the men all ran off into a nearby woods.

Dell gave her the money.  We refused to give her an immediate ride to a nearby liquor store, so she started walking in that direction, as we left the place.

I don’t remember that Dell ever did build that trailer, but at least he had the beginnings of one if he ever wanted to.