Mud Pies

There are several variations as to where the Jeep got its name.  I know not which is correct, but I do know I’ve had an affinity for the small four-wheel-drive vehicles ever since I owned my first one in 1967.  My brother Dell, through a brother transfer, had came to the Meridian, Mississippi Naval Air Station, where I had been located for several months.  When he arrived he had several beagles, as well as several kids, along as baggage.

Dell loved to hunt rabbits with the aid of the small hounds, and during the fall and winter of 1967-’68 we went together nearly every Saturday and Sunday morning.  At the time hunting was not only allowed on base, it was encouraged.  There was a Sportsmen’s Club on base, and game (mostly birds) was propagated for hunting purposes.  We were the only dyed-in-the-wool honest-to-goodness rabbit hunters, although fairly often others (Bartosik, where are you?) would accompany us for a morning’s hunt.

In order to enable us to reach places we otherwise could not have, I bought a 1948 CJ-2A Jeep.  Even that far into the deep south it sometimes got a little cold so I bought plywood and boxed in the former open Jeep body.  A friend of mine that worked in the parachute loft was able to requisition some heavy canvas, and made me a set of doors for it sewing them on Navy heavy duty machines.

Dell and I found a mutual attraction to playing in the mud with that thing.  I bought tire chains for all four wheels and hung them on the exterior of the wooden sides.  On occasion we would spot a waterhole of unknown depth.  I would look over at Dell riding along side of me, he would nod assent, and into the water we would fly, cascades of water spraying to the sides like a landing craft at Omaha Beach.  Sometimes we made it through to the other side, often not.

Dell carried several chain dog leashes in his pockets so he could capture the dogs and leash them when we were ready to quit hunting.  If we got stuck in the middle of a mud hole, he would bail out into the mud, sometimes up to his waist.  First he would attach a dog leash to both sides of one end of a tire chain.  Then he would drape the chain over the top of a wheel.  I would put the Jeep in gear and ever so slowly allow the wheels to turn.  Dell would use the leashes to slowly pull the chain around the wheel, and then as I stopped the wheel he would fasten the chain.  After all four were installed in this manner, there never was a time I was unable to extricate the Jeep.

Today there are clubs with members driving all sorts of monster trucks engaging in this sport, but we were doing it when it wasn’t even thought of yet.