Monday, December 25, 2017

Christmas Day 2017

Christmas truly is; "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year." But to realize that, you have to go beyond the hustle and bustle of gift giving, the awesome light displays, and the many social and church functions demanding your time. You even have to go beyond the spectrum of family - and to some, saying that is tantamount to blasphemy of the gods of tradition!

Rev. Dwain Galiher, our pastor at the Junction Hill Pentecostal Church, expressed it so well in our Christmas Eve service yesterday. This isn't exactly how he said it, but the jest of it...

The angel Gabriel said to Mary "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." It boggles the mind that the Holy Ghost could somehow "reduce" the greatness of the Son of God to the size of an human embryo and place him in a young Jewish virgin's womb. That moment of conception was when "The God of Heaven" became our "Emmanuel"

And THAT is what makes Christmas Wonderful!

Family traditions also make this time of the year special.

After our daughter, Tabitha, was born, we began a tradition with my Mom, Helen Riggs. We would spend the night with her on Christmas Eve. Tami and I would sleep in the queen size bed, and Tab and Mom would sleep in the full size bed in the "spare" room. Mom would get up on Christmas morning and fix a light breakfast and then later in the day, the rest of the Riggs' would arrive to open gifts, eat and celebrate. I really believe it was the highlight of Mom's Christmas season.

Mom passed away in 2006 and we had to discontinue the tradition... until last year.

Our grandson, Lucas Rey Miller, was born on December 23rd, 2014. If I remember correctly, the Christmas right after his first birthday, the Miller's didn't get to stay the night of Christmas Eve. But the tradition began again last year and continued last night.

We celebrated our Christmas yesterday with a meal and then opened our gifts. We played with Lucas, took naps, ate again, played some more and then around 11 o'clock, went to bed.

Please note that I said we went to bed. That statement does not necessarily equate to "We went to sleep!"

Lucas wasn't quite ready for that!

We played puzzles on my tablet and he watched "EIEIO" until I finally had to put the tablet up. When we turned out the lights, there was an immediate reaction. "Dark!" "Dark!" So.... we turned a lamp back on. This continued for a while with no sign of the "Sandman" showing up.

We finally turned out the lamp and I turned the "Sudoku" game on on my phone, which has a bright light and stays on. This seemed to satisfy Lucas, but still, no sleep.

I finally dimmed the screen on my phone and just started patting his back. It wasn't too long before I could hear his even breathing and his eyes were closed!

And so, we slept through the night. It was a little crowded in our queen size bed with the King and Queen and the little Jester, but I did manage a few hours of sleep!

As of right now, (7:51 AM) Lucas is still asleep and the tradition continues!

Merry Christmas from BigSurveyor and his family to the Blogdom Universe!

(Here a few pictures of our Christmas. And yes, we had homemade pizza for Christmas lunch!!)









Saturday, November 25, 2017

Riggs Thanksgiving 2017 - In Pictures

If you read my previous blog post, then you may appreciate the pictures I took of our (The Riggs') Traditional Thanksgiving feast today. I'll try to give commentary in the captions


I fixed up a makeshift table on my deck to cook the cashew chicken. Since our kitchen is small, I cook outside while Tami "Does Her Thang" inside!


The peanut oil is heated to around 300° to 350°


The battered up chicken pieces are...


Dropped into the hot oil...


I originally had the oil up to around 350° to 375°. It was a tad bit too hot! I had to fry them a little longer to get the inside done and the outside got darker than I wanted


After I reduced the oil temperature... Just Right!! 


Tami, "Doin' Her Thang" in the kitchen!


Tami tried a new dish this year. Sweet-n-Sour Casserole. It was very good!


The Thanksgiving table with "most" of the fixin's on it.


Lisa's delicious Fried Rice.
She fixed another dish of Fried Rice this year with cauliflower rice. Good, Good Good!!!


Tami's Chinese Salad. Ooolala!


I fixed the white rice in our steamer. Claire prefers it!


The cashew sauce.
I didn't get any pictures but we had regular Lipton sweet tea AND Lipton with a bag of Earl Grey throwed in (also sweet). There were three kinds of pies; Lisa made (real) pumpkin pie, chocolate pie and Tami made pecan pie. We had coffee (Seattle's Best #5) with our dessert and it rounded out an excellent meal.
Here are all of us, ready to chow down!
L-R  Bella, Tami, Claire, Ray, Stephanie, Ryan, Shayla, Regan, Lisa, Ralph
We sure missed Anson, Tabitha and Lucas but they had to be in Indiana because of Anson's Grandmother's illness.

Stay tuned for Christmas cause you never know what's cookin' at the Riggs' Hacienda!!!

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The Riggs' "Traditional" Thanksgiving Meal

Have you ever wondered "What would the Thanksgiving meal look like if somebody else besides the English had landed at Plymouth Rock?"

Greeks... Moussaka and Gyros?

Russians... Pirozhki and Borscht?

Feijoada and Coxinha? It would have been folks from Brazil!

I know Turkey and Dressing with all the trimmings are the traditional Thanksgiving meal. But after two or three meals of this at various kinfolk's tables, have you ever wanted to say "Enough!!!! Give me a Beefy 5-Layer Burrito from Taco Bell!!!" (Now, I would never personally say this because most everyone knows my opinion of Taco Bell...)

Many years ago, the Riggs' family had reached this place. My Mom was to the point that she didn't have the energy or confidence to fix a large traditional meal, so we decided to "shake things up a little bit."

Everyone loved "Tami's Cashew Chicken" so the vote was unanimous to have it for our Thanksgiving meal.

And a Tradition was born...

The first "Cashew Thanksgiving" was 2005. We didn't know it at the time, but it would be the last one we would spend with my Mom.

The main course, of course, is Cashew Chicken. Tami hand breads the chunks of breast meat and I fry them in peanut oil 'til they're light brown and crispy.

Tami shortcuts on the cashew sauce. Instead of boiling chicken bones for broth, she just uses chicken bullion cubes. Soy sauce is added to the broth and then it is thickened with corn starch.

A few years ago, someone bought us a rice steamer so we make up a big batch of white rice for the "Truly Chinese" among us!

Lisa, Ralph's wife, always cooks a HUGE pot of fried rice, loaded with corn, carrots, peas, green beans,. And Boy Howdy!, is it ever good!

Tami also makes a Chinese salad. It is a cole slaw - green onion veggie mix,  mixed with a vinegar-sugar-oil-soy sauce concoction. This is then mixed in with crushed Ramen noodles and cashews that have been fried in butter. My Mercy!!!

We usually buy "Pagoda Cafe" pork and shrimp egg rolls and buy crab rangoons from one of the Chinese Restaurants in town, and this rounds out our meal.

I don't know how to type "Happy Thanksgiving" in Chinese but I hope you and yours have a wonderful day of giving thanks to the Heavenly Father for all of the blessings He has bestowed!

Happy Thanksgiving from the "BigSurveyor"!!


One of our Thanksgiving meals

Tami's (well-used) recipe for Cashew Chicken

Sunday, November 19, 2017

OH DEER DEER DEER DEER!!!!

It began as a typical opening morning of the Missouri deer season. Dad, Ralph and I, on our stands, at the "Old Bob Thompson Place".

I think the year was 1982 because... I had just bought Edwin Earls' 1967 Chevy Chevelle. This is a very important piece of information and very germane to this story.

We had hunted the Old Bob Thompson Place for many years and all three of us had our "stands" or special places that we hunted year to year. On the west end, if you walked north from the county road, you immediately dropped down into a big hollow. My stand was at the west end of this hollow, near the east fence line of Droop Harris' Place. Ralph's stand was at the east end of the hollow where it emptied out into another big hollow that led north, down to Gunters Valley.

If you continued to walk north from this hollow, you would cross a big ridge and then dip down into another hollow that was not as steep and much wider than the south one. This is where Dad had his stand.

It was good daylight, the squirrels were scampering and barking, the woodpeckers were pecking, the chipmunks were "clicking", there had been several shots in the distance, when a loud KA-BLOOM! interrupted nature's sounds.

The sound of the shot came from the area where Dad was hunting, so I said to myself, "Well, sounds like Dad got him one!"

This thought had not fully escaped my mind when there was another KA-BLOOM!... KA-BLOOM! from the same direction

My thought then? "That can't be Dad. He would never shoot that many times." While I cogitated on this perplexing situation...and after a short pause...

KA-BLOOM! KA-BLOOM! KA-BLOOM! KA-BLOOM!

My thoughts then turned really serious... Was Dad trying to get our attention? The old "Three shots in the air" signal??

I got up and gathered my stuff and started making my way down the hollow toward Ralph. When I got within his range of hearing, I whistled our special whistle and then I saw him working his way up the hollow toward me.

His first question... "Was that Dad?"
Me: I don't think so. He wouldn't shoot THAT many times.
Ralph: You reckon he's in trouble?
Me: Could be. We might need to check it out.

We started climbing up the ridge to the north and about the time we made it to the top, Dad met us walking south. We asked if it was him that shot and he confirmed that it was. So it just followed that we jokingly asked;

"How many did you get??"

Dad's answer was classic... "Well... I don't really know, Maybe we need to go see."

I know if you could have seen our faces at that moment, our jaws would have been very close to touching the ground!

With Dad leading... And Ralph and I following in a stupefied, barely cognizant state, We started back down into the north hollow. After we had taken a few steps, the "conversation" went somewhat like this:

Dad: There's one over there!
R&R: Silence
Several more steps...
Dad: There's another one over there!
R&R: Silence - Utter Silence
A few more steps...
Dad: Well, there's another one over there!
R&R: Silence ( by this time we are in shock)
Another hundred feet or so...
Dad: There's one right over there!
R&R: Silence....Stunned Silence....

In case you haven't been counting, that's four. Count'em... FOUR DEER!

If you knew my Dad at all, this would shock you. He was one of the most deliberate, careful, calculating persons that I ever knew. The word "impulsive" was not in his vocabulary (I thought!) This was COMPLETELY out of character for my Dad.

When Ralph and I came out of our shock and found our voices, our first question was short and to the point...

"WHY?!?"

It seems that, early that morning, he had found a big, limby post oak tree to climb up in for his stand. A little while before his first shot, a herd of eight to ten deer moved into the hollow by his stand. He watched them for a little bit, picked out the one he wanted, and KA-BLOOM, he dropped it.

At this point, things kinda went south (for the deer at least!) and temporary insanity descended upon my Dad.

Dad said when he shot the first deer, the rest of the herd just milled around and acted like they didn't know what to do or where to run. He related his next thought; "I'm just gonna keep shooting and see how many I can kill."

Whooboy!!!

After the next KA-BLOOM - KA-BLOOM, the deer ran off

But evidently, they didn't catch sight of the temporarily insane hunter in the post oak tree because they CAME BACK!!!

Dad shot four more times until he had emptied the magazine in his Marlin 30-30. (Two thoughts: Thank goodness he didn't have a rifle with a high capacity clip and... As good a marksman as he was, How did he miss with three shots???)

Dad began to field dress the deer (with Ralph and I helping in a dazed, glassy-eyed stupor). The deer were very small, actually just yearlings or slightly older, and none of them had antlers. But it was still quite a chore to drag them up on the ridge, down into the big hollow and back up the hill to the county road.  After we had them all up to the road, but out of sight, we faced another problem.

This was before the day of limitless any-deer tags.

You had to put in your name to the Conservation Department to be put in a drawing for a limited number of any-deer permits. It so happened that that year, Ralph and I had both drawn a permit. But that was only two tags and we had four antler-less deer. The math didn't add up!

So... We loaded up two of the deer, left two hid beside the road, and drove home... With me sitting in the back with both any-deer tags in hand, ready to tag the deer, just in case we were stopped by the Game Warden.

When we made it home, we realized we needed a safe hiding place for the purloined deer until we could skin and process them later that night.

Remember the 1967 Chevy Chevelle???

Yep... We loaded the two deer into the trunk of my Chevelle, which was in our shop building, while I was getting it back in running condition.

After checking to make sure the coast was clear, we headed back to the Old Bob Thompson place to retrieve the other two deer. We repeated the process of me riding in the back with the tags and got them safely stored in the trunk of the old Chevelle! This should give you a clue to the size of the deer, if all four of them would fit in a car trunk - even one as big as an old muscle car trunk!

Later that night we skinned and cut up deer.... and skinned and cut up deer... and skinned and cut up deer... And then we skinned and cut up deer... Until we didn't care if we EVER saw another deer!

I think Dad did put the "hex" on us though. If I remember correctly, we didn't even see another deer the rest of the season. Our any-deer tags were wasted!

It wouldn't happen again though...

The next year, when we all went out deer hunting, we presented Dad with ONE SHELL And informed him that it would have to last him through the entire season!!!!!

Sunday, October 29, 2017

The Ghost Of Halloween Past

One morning a few years ago, just before Halloween, the front door of our office clanged open (we had a bell on the handle instead of the fancy electric thingamajiggy we have now.) There was a pause as we waited for footsteps to start down the steps to the reception area. Then... In a very scary voice, we heard "I... Am The Ghost... Of Halloween Past...." The door clanged open again and the "Ghost" was gone! Whoa!

We knew who the "Ghost" was and it still gives us all a chuckle at Riggs & Associates when we bring it up.

Heman Judd was playing "Ghost" that day!!!

Heman Judd was an eccentric older man, that lived in Crestwood Circle. He always wore a big cowboy hat and pulled a little red wagon around town. He attended our church at Junction Hill for many years and there are a couple of stories I could tell about his antics there! But all in good time...

Let me just say right here that I do not agree with the way most of the country celebrates Halloween. The Ghosts, Goblins, Witches, Warlocks,  Zombies, blood, guts, horrible scary masks are completely inappropriate, especially for children. I like to celebrate it as a fall festival, with the children dressed accordingly; as cowboys, princesses, policemen, firemen or some gentle, friendly Disney character.

However, arguments about whether to "Ween" or not to "Ween" are not the subject of this post.

My Grandma, Alma "Momo" Riggs, absolutely loved Halloween. Their house, at 1310 West Main Street, was the happening place on "Trick or Treat" night. I think it was because of her special treat which was Popcorn Balls.

A day or so before Halloween, she would make up the awfullest mess of popcorn balls that you ever did see!! Each one wrapped in plastic wrap with a generous amount of "Momo's Love" included. I would try to tell you about it but it would be best to hear it in her own words.

They are from a cookbook that she prepared for everyone in the family, and gave them out at our Christmas Eve get-together in 1982. Tami and I still use many of the recipes in this book.

Here's the recipe for popcorn balls and Momo's comments about them...
Popo and Momo Riggs (Elmer and Alma)

I hope there are some people reading this that remember Momo, and the kind, Godly, generous person that she was. If there are, why don't you just share it with me and all the readers of this blog in the comments! I would love it!

And as an added benefit, I have added a mystery photograph for your viewing pleasure. It shouldn't take you too long to figure out who the yahoo's are in the picture below!

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Electrocuted! - A Story About My Dad

As you look at this front page of the Daily Quill, what catches your eye first? What do you immediately scan for? Do you lock onto the pictures? The headlines?

When I see a newspaper or a clipping from a newspaper, my first thought or question is; "What's the date?" "What era is this from?" This grounds me and I can relate it to the span of my life or a history timeline.

Then I look at the pictures to see if, by a quick scan, I can recognize any of the faces. Then I scan the names associated with the pictures for a name I recognize to put with a face.

The headlines are last. I scan them for a word or phrase that I can relate to events in my life.

There are several articles on this page that gave a brief glance into events that impacted many lives. Some in a good way. Some in a bad way. There is a celebration of a fifty year marriage with all the family getting together. A date is set for a murder trial. The Zizzer "B" team wins a grudge football game. Jefferson Avenue gets new blacktopping.

However, it is one of the smaller articles on this page that made the biggest impact on my life.

The date is September 21st, 1960; Fifty-seven years, one month and five days ago. (I wasn't even born yet!)

The headline: "Leahmon Riggs Suffers Severe Burns Here Today" (And first of all, let's make a correction. My Dad's name was spelled "Leamon".)

Here is the article enlarged for ease of reading:
Down through the years, the statement of facts in this article have been repeated and confirmed by my Dad and Mom, and others in the family. Ralph was only nine months old at the time so his memory of the events is like mine, from the telling of the tragedy and from seeing the effects on my Dad's body.

Let me just start with where the accident took place. From my understanding, the Kilkenny Limestone Co. was east of the old depot building in West Plains, on the north side of the tracks. I think the shell of the building is still there but I haven't been able to confirm this. If you are on St. Louis Street going south, just before you cross the railroad tracks, look to your right and you will see the old Kilkenny Limestone Co. building (I think).


Then, there was the 30,000 volt Ark-Mo electric line that he contacted. I talked with my Grandpa, Elmer Riggs (Popo), about this. From my recollection, he said that the line ran directly over the building and was (obviously) low enough to touch when you were standing on the building. Popo said that he had tried from the beginning of the job to get Ark-Mo (Arkansas-Missouri Power Company) to move the electric line away from the building. Ark-Mo delayed, lollygagged and drug their feet about moving the line. The building had to go up so the construction crew, including my Dad, was trying to "work around" the line to finish construction. I'll say more about Ark-Mo's delay later.

The metal decking they were putting on the roof was just long, narrow sheets of corrugated steel, probably 4' wide and anywhere from 10'-16' feet long. As Dad was carrying a piece of the metal over his shoulder, and using both hands to balance it; the end behind him tipped up and made contact with the high voltage line.

When contact was made with the 30,000 volt line, the electricity traveled through the metal roofing to Dad's hands, through his hands, arms, torso, legs, and finally out the bottoms of his feet to the metal he was standing on. When the electricity left his feet, it created a arc or a weld to the roof and when this happened, it burnt holes in the bottoms of both feet. Basically, he was welded to the roof by his feet. Also (and I'm not sure if or how this would have happened) but the electricity also blew out the soft parts of his armpits. I do know that to his dying day, one of his arms, (probably his right arm) had a dark brown ring just right above his bicep that was caused by this accident.

The shock knocked my Dad unconscious and he almost fell off of the roof. I assume by reading this article that he regained consciousness by the time he was transported to the hospital.

The recovery process was nothing more than one long drawn out nightmare for my Dad. They were going to graft skin onto the bottoms of his feet and that skin had to come from someplace on his body that the bottoms of his feet could touch.

Just try to touch the bottom of one of your feet to some area on your body where you would like to lose some skin! It ain't easy! They started by cutting a square of skin on the calf of one leg and leaving it attached by the lower side so it would flap down.
Then they sewed the flap to the bottom of his other foot where the electricity had burnt and blown out the skin, but leaving it attached to the calf.
After Dad's foot was sewn to the graft on his calf, they put a stick across from one bend of his leg to the other, to keep from putting too much pressure on the graft.
After the stick was in place, the entire area of Dad's right and left legs were encased in plaster of paris, up his thigh, close to the groin, down to the ankle on one leg and below the knee, just above the graft on the other. Both ends of the stick were encased in the plaster so his legs were immobile.

If you think this would be as bad as it could get... Think again.

Because the doctors could only do one foot at a time, the hole in his other foot had to be kept open and not allowed to scar or heal. Every day, the medical staff would have to scrape, scrub, and cut out the dead and dying flesh from the wound. I have to admit, even as I'm typing this, I get tears in my eyes thinking about the pain and suffering that my old Dad went through.

After the skin graft began to grow onto Dad's foot, the piece of skin that attached the graft to his calf was cut off and the process was began all over again on his other foot. I'm not real sure of the time span between the accident and when he was dismissed from the hospital but I do know he was home for Christmas in 1960. Mom told me that they had the Riggs' Christmas at their house and they had bought Dad a new recliner so he could be somewhat comfortable while he was recovering.

This ordeal brought a lot of changes to the Riggs household. Again, I was not there for many of them but I saw and experienced the effects; and actually am STILL feeling the effects from this accident. Some of the effects were bad. But there was at least one effect that was good.

When this accident happened, my Dad was not a Christian. He went to church with Mom and Ralph, but he had not surrendered his heart and life to God. When he was able to walk and then sit for an extended period of time, Dad went back to church at the Victoria Mission Pentecostal Church near Cull, Missouri. I have heard Brother Harold Essary, the pastor at the church at that time, repeat the story of Dad's conversion many, many times.

"When Leamon came up to the altar that Sunday morning, he couldn't kneel down to pray. So he just sat on the altar and prayed through to old time salvation!"

Like he was in everything in life, Dad was a quietly spiritual person. He couldn't kneel to pray so he sat at his seat at prayer time with his head bent into his hand. The few times that I remember when he was asked to pray publicly, was obviously uncomfortable for him. And I never remember seeing him participate in our Pentecostal style of worship.

But... We went to church. We did not miss regular services on Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Saturday night youth service, revival meetings (sometime two or three weeks long... or longer), youth rallys, fellowship meetings and revivals at neighboring churches. We went to church!

My Dad LOVED sports. Basketball, college football, baseball... He would sit for hours with his old radio (they got rid of the television when he got saved) and listen to the games. He allowed Ralph and I to play some sports in grade school. But nothing that would interfere with our church going. Since high school sports would require us to miss some of the regularly scheduled church services, the Riggs boys didn't play (and besides, he kept us too busy working to worry about football or basketball!!).

There were some bad effects. Looking back from a fifty-plus-year perspective, I really think my Dad had or came close to having, a nervous breakdown while he was in the hospital. I say this because of one of his peculiar irritations. 

He could not bear to hear anyone chewing on potato chips, ice, popcorn, anything that had a crunch.

Many is the time when he would say to us (as we were crunching away...) "If you're going to eat them, you go outside or to another room." Dad said that to him, the crunching was like someone scratching their fingernails down a chalk board.

Dad said (or my Mom told me), that it stemmed from when he was in the hospital and had the casts on his legs. He was basically immobile and could only move with assistance and a traction bar over his bed. One night when my Grandpa, Popo, was sitting with Dad, he brought in a big bag of potato chips. Popo sat and crunched his way through the bag and Dad was never the same. Popo never knew about this and it would have caused him a lot of grief if he would have known about it.

The strange thing about this whole "crunching/munching" thing is, I seem to have inherited the same irritation that my Dad had. My family thinks I am crazy but I cannot stand to hear loud crunching of potato chips, celery, carrots, etc... I have to leave the room or turn the music up!

Another thing that was never allowed in our home was small toys: marbles, hotwheels cars and such like, to be left in the floor where they could be stepped on.

On the calves of my Dad's legs, there was a rectangular, sunken-in scar, where the graft had been taken out.

Right now, I want you to look at the calf of your leg... and then take your fingers and push on it. Pretty soft and tender isn't it?? Think about that skin being on the bottom of your foot, right where the arch is at. That area of your foot is tender anyway but it was made extra sensitive on Dad's feet because of the graft. When he did step on something in his sock feet (I never saw him walk bare-footed) he would almost go into orbit! He didn't cuss or get loud, but he let us know, in no uncertain terms, that we need to PICK UP THE STUFF OUT OF THE FLOOR!!

Because of the nature of a graft like Dad had, scar tissue would form around the edge of the graft, where it met the natural skin of his feet. I would guess that now-a-days, you go to the doctor to get this scar tissue cut back in a sanitary room, with a local anesthetic and a hefty bill to boot.

Not my Dad! In my mind I can see him right now, sitting down in a kitchen chair, pulling his foot up into his lap, and going to work on the scar tissue... with his razor-sharp, Case pocket knife! Every couple of months or so, this ritual was performed.

If I haven't grossed you out by now... As Columbo would say "Just One More Thing."

When you looked at your calf a few minutes ago (men and hopefully not women), what did you see? Hair? Uh-huh... My Dad had HAIR on the bottom of his feet!! Yep! The hair on the graft continued to grow, even though it was on the bottom of his feet.


There was a somewhat positive development or you might say, outcome to Dad's accident.

When he was recovering, Dad was obviously not working. I'm really not sure if he had some kind of worker's compensation insurance or if it was unemployment pay but the family survived. His family and community turned out to help in so many ways. I do remember one  person that Mom mentioned many, many times.

James Bales ran the little store and gas station at County Line near our farm house. When James found out about Dad's accident, he said to Mom, "Helen, you come get anything you need from my store and gas when you need it. Don't worry about paying for it 'til you're able." You don't forget people like that.

The medical bills were piling up though.

After Dad was recovered to the point of being able to function somewhat normally, he contacted an attorney. An up and coming younger man in his mid-thirties, Harold L. Henry, Esq. Popo always claimed that the Henry's were some kind of shirt-tail relation. And they might be... Popo's mother's maiden name was Sally Parthena Henry, daughter of George Mumphry Henry.

Mr. Henry took the case and sued Ark-Mo Power for negligence, in not moving the electric line from across the Kilkenny Limestone Company building, in a timely fashion. I don't know a lot of the details about the Circuit Court trial but in the end, the jury found in favor of Dad and awarded an $80,000 settlement. My brother, Ralph, was visiting with Judge Don Henry a few months ago and Judge Henry (Harold Henry's son) gave this little tidbit of information about the case.

It seems that when the jury found in favor of Dad, they asked the judge if they, as the jury, could increase the amount of the settlement. They felt that it was not enough for the suffering that Dad endured. The judge informed them that that was not possible but it goes to show the amount of evidence that was presented in Dad's favor.

Ark-Mo appealed the jury's decision and the case was sent to the U.S. Court of Appeals 8th District in Springfield, Missouri. An additional attorney was retained for the appeal, Mr. B.H. Clampett, Esq of Springfield.

After the evidence from the circuit court was presented, the Appeals court upheld the decision and dismissed Ark-Mo's appeal.

Although this accident affected my Dad in so many ways, he did not wallow in pity and allow the injury to control his life. He continued in the construction business until the early 70's and then in roughly this order, he was: a real estate salesman, real estate broker, ran a tax preparation service, was an auction clerk, ran a moving and storage business, ran a used furniture store, repaired tractors and various other farm equipment, and built tandem axle trailers.

My Dad and the way he handled adversity, has kept me grounded in the few little problems I have faced in my lifetime... And, I hope you have enjoyed this small glimpse into the history of my family.

(If you have questions about anything that is unclear or can clarify something in this story, PLEASE comment.)
This is a picture of my Dad and Mom, taken in February of 1985. Dad was 52 and Mom was 53. Dad passed away in December of 1985, when he was 53. As of this month, I have out-lived my Dad by two months.