Bill's Stories About Growing Up
in Pistol Ridge, Mississippi
Written and Compiled by Bill Bounds
A WINNING SMILE
(~1973)
By Bill Bounds
A south Alabama politician, whose son was a member of my Saraland Boxing team, accompanied me and my team to Hattiesburg, MS for a boxing tournament. The Carnes, MS boxing team was there. Porter was a heavyweight boxer for Henry`s Carnes team.
The Alabama politician met Porter, talked to him several times and was impressed by Porter`s winning , smiling personality.
After the tournament was over, the politician said to me. “ Your nephew Porter ought to be a politician”. I thought about that for a moment and told the politician; “ Porter would not make it as a politician because he talks very straight forward, and would not know how to speak out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.”
The politician laughed and said; “Porter would not have to say a thing. All he would have to do to be a winner is stand there, shake everybody`s hand and keep that big winning smile on his face.”
Grandkids Stories
GRANDCHILDREN VISIT THE SEA LAB
(~2002)
by Bill Bounds
FAMILY FUNNIES
Mary, Carmen, and I took our grandchildren, Ryan and Jasmine, to visit the marine lab on Dauphin Island.
There were many live marine creatures on display. There were some large live jellyfish in one glass tank. Ryan and Jasmine were fascinated by the jellyfish.
Ryan asked, “What are those long, stringy things (tentacles) hanging below each jellyfish?” Jasmine answered “ Ryan, those are jellyfish testicles!”
When Carmen finally recovered , she told her dad that Jasmine was going to have to stop watching “Animal Planet” on t.v. with him.
DID THE HORSE REAR-UP OR RARE-UP)
(~1968)
FUNNIES
By Bill Bounds
John Pilot was telling Porter, Randall, and Kemper about horseback riding. They were discussing riding bucking horses.
Randall asked John Pilot what the difference was when it was said that a horse “rared-up” or it was said that a horse “reared-up”.
John Pilot thought about that for a while and then said. “Rared-up means the bucking horse has front legs up in the air. Reared -up means the bucking horse has kicked his rear legs up into the air.”
TWICE A` HANGING
(~1950)
by Bill Bounds
NUMBER ONE
A favorite past time at mothers house by Millard, Bill, Henry, Ira and probably Gus, was sliding from the top of the old barn tin roof to the bottom edge and then sliding off to the ground feet first . The favorite place to slide had become very slippery and polished form so many buttocks sliding over it for many years.
This fun game was naturally passed down to Mother’s grandsons. The tin roofing was nailed down to the barn by lead headed nails. Time had worn the lead cover off one nail head and the nail had backed out of the wood about 1/4 inch right at the bottom edge of the tin slide.
John Pilot came to spend a day at Mothers house. He was wearing brand new pair of blue jeans that Penny had just bought for him. John Pilot headed for the barn, climbed to the top to slide down to the bottom edge and drop off to the ground. Down he went gathering speed all the way, until the seat of his new jeans snagged on the nail head at the bottom edge of the roof. This left him hanging by the seat of his pants, upside down, about 6 feet above the ground.
I don`t know how John Pilot got out of that situation.
NUMBER TWO
John Pilot was spending another day at his Grandmother Bounds house. Henry was there. John Pilot`s game today was “aggravate” Henry as much as he could by pulling his hair, thumping his ears, splashing water on him, etc. Henry decided he could play that “aggravate” game too.
Henry found a piece of rope, chased John Pilot down, set him astraddle a low limb of a walnut tree, and tied his feet together. Henry went around the corner of the house and waited for John Pilot to get out of that situation.
John Pilot leaned forward, bent his knees and reached around the sides of the limb to untie the rope. He lost his balance and fell to the side of the limb. This of course left him hanging upside down from the limb.
I know how John Pilot got out of this situation.
John Pilot, at this age, had the loudest, highest pitched, shrillest voice ever heard in South Mississippi. He turned it up to full volume, even while hanging upside down. Grandmother Bounds came running out to see what the trouble was. Henry had returned to the scene. They untied the rope and got John Pilot safely down from the tree.
Now it was Henry who was in trouble.
I don`t know how Henry got out of trouble for tying John Pilot upside down in the tree.
A - A O - AH - WHAT?
(~1998)
By Bill Bounds
FAMILY FUNNIES
Ryan was about four years old and was asking the blessing before our meal. This was the blessing he asked. “God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for the food. Ah-men, O-dear, A-man?? Ah- s....t!”
It took about an hour for all the adults to regain their composure and begin to eat and to tell Ryan the proper word to end his prayer is “Amen”.
HAIR??
(~1957)
by Bill Bounds
I went with Mother, Gus, Wilna, Ben and Steve to a revival meeting at one of the Baptist Churches in Wiggins, MS. The revival preacher was preaching a very animated, “fire and brimstone” sermon. He would sometimes pause to catch his breath.
In the meantime, Wilna was having a time of it, keeping restless, hyperactive, about 3 year old Steve still and quiet. She finally let him stand beside her on the church pew, this calmed him down a bit. Steve was standing on the pew looking toward the back of the church.
A completely bald headed man, sitting in the pew directly behind Steve is what had gotten Steve`s attention. Meanwhile the “Fire and Brimstone” preacher paused to get his breath. During this pause, Steve said in a loud clear voice to the baldheaded man; “Did your hair fall out?” Wilna sat steve down in a hurry after that and Steve mostly calmed down, except for trying to turn around and look at the baldheaded man again.
After Steve`s exclamation, it took awhile for the most of the congregation to regain their composure and, continue to listen to the preacher.
WHITE WEASEL ???
(~1970)
by Bill Bounds
I think John Pilot, like his Uncle Henry, was born with with a bag of tricks in his brain.
One night while his Dad Joe was working overtime, overhauling an auto transmission, Joe noticed that autos coming down Hwy 13 by his shop were braking to stops about 200 yard away from his repair shop. Joe kept working. All of a sudden a guy driving a pickup truck braked to a halt and then speeded up and then came screeching to a stop in front of Joe`s shop.
What Joe did not know was that John Pilot and a friend planned some mischief for the evening, by snitching one of Penny`s nylon stockings, packing it with white cotton, tying it to a fishing line on a rod and reel. The plan was to cast this white weasel shaped object across the road and reel it back in a lively way across the highway to startle any unsuspecting person traveling the road.
The guy driving the pickup slid it to a stop and hollered to Joe to get his headlight and gun as he had just seen rare white weasel run across the road just down the road from Joe`s shop. The guy told Joe that a white weasel hide could be worth lots of money. Joe sent the puzzled man on his way .
Joe had never seen or heard of a white weasel (mink) in south Mississippi. He got his light and went walking down the road to see what he could see. Joe found John Pilot and his friend laughing and giggling, hiding in a gall berry patch, with their improvised weasel, beside the road, waiting for another unsuspecting person to drive down the road.
Joe rapped both boys over the head with the cotton weasel, chased them all the way back to the shop , whipping them both across the buttocks with it as they ran.
Joe sat them down and told them how lots of people traveled with lights and loaded guns in their vehicle and that a white weasel would be a considered a trophy by some people. Joe explained that bullets meant for a weasel might the hit them instead of the weasel. John Pilot`s fun for the night had come to and end.
CORN COB WARS
(~1957-1967)
Vernon, Ben, Roy, Darrell and John Pilot were playing the old game of Corn Cob War. I, being older, decided to challenge the whole bunch of them by getting myself a bucket of corn cobs and mounting a surprise attack on the lot of them.
I launched my attack, moving in, throwing corn cobs at any of them I saw. They scattered but then launched their own counter attack on me with Ben circling around behind me with the biggest, wettest, nastiest corn cob ever.
He threw the cob as hard as he could, hitting me upside the head, knocking me to my knees. I finally picked up the big, wet cob and went looking for Ben. It was pay-back time!
I couldn’t find him. I don’t know whether he found a secure hiding place or ran away. I made a mental note to pay Ben back the next time I saw him.
About ten years passed before I saw Ben again. I was in my yard showing a couple of guys a boat I had for sale. Mark was with me.
Suddenly, I saw Ben walking around the corner of my house with a big grin on his face. I started walking toward him, grinning, and stuck my hand out to shake his hand.
All of a sudden that payback note that I had tucked away in my brain began to surface. It was a perfect time to execute the “hip throw” on Ben.
The hip throw worked perfectly, flipping Ben over on his back. He got up grinning and I grinned right back. We shook hands.
The two guys and Mark looked astonished and frightened at what they had just witnessed. I told them not to worry, that it was just a normal South Mississippi Bounds Boys way of greeting each other.
DAVID’S FIRST DEER HUNTING TRIP
By Bill Bounds
David was about ten years old. Porter told David to go to the Old Mill site and he might find a Fox squirrel to shoot. David took a shotgun, went to the Old Mill site and, sure enough, he found and killed a large Fox squirrel for Grandmother Ida to cook.
The next day he wanted to try his luck at hunting deer. It was late afternoon. I showed David a place to stand and wait for a buck deer to come by. I circled around about one half mile with a plan that would flush any deer from the brush.
I whooped and hollered and beat on the bushes with a stick to flush any deer out of the thickets to pass by David’s deer stand.
As I began my deer flushing mission, I thought I heard somebody holler “Daddy”. I listened closely again and heard somebody holler “Daddy”. It sounded like David calling. I decided I had better go back the way I had come and see what was happening with David.
He kept calling “Daddy, Daddy”. I hollered back, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I got to his deer stand. David was leaning back against a big oak tree with the shotgun pointed at something on the ground. It was a Cottonmouth Moccasin, all coiled up with his big white mouth open in a threatening manner, about four feet in front of him.
I said, “David, when you find a big, bad snake and you have a gun in your hand, you take the safety off, aim it at the snake and kill him and then go about your business.”
David did as he was told and shot the snake dead. We decided to postpone the deer hunt to a another day.
DAVID KNEW
(~1975)
By Bill Bounds
FAMILY FUNNIES
Mark and Carmen had watched the intensive TV coverage of the Olympics in the 1970's. David was about 5 years old and had not paid much attention to these Olympic games.
Later Mark and Carmen were talking about the games. They could not recall the name of the game (Polo) where men were riding horses and striking a ball with clubs. They discussed and described the game, but still couldn’t recall the name for it.
David was sitting on the floor listening to them. All of a sudden David exclaimed, “I know what it’s called!”
Mark asked, “What?”
David said “It’s called Horse Hockey!”
JACOB’S CALCULATOR
(~2004)
By Bill Bounds
When Jacob was about twelve years old, he went with Mary and me on a trip to California. We visited the Redwoods National Park to look at the giant Redwood trees. The trees are unbelievably big.
After admiring these over 300 feet tall trees, we visited a museum in the park. There was a display of the Redwood trees showing their cones and their many seeds within a cone.
At the bottom of the display was this question. If a Redwood tree has 1700 cones and there are 350 seeds in each cone, how many seeds would be on the tree?
Mary and I were leaving. We called to Jacob to come get in the car. He wasn’t listening. Jacob walked over to the lady in charge of the museum and said to her. “There would be 595,000 seeds on the tree.”
The lady looked sort of puzzled. She pulled a card from a desk drawer and looked at it. She said, “Young man, you’ve got the correct answer. Do you have a calculator in your pocket?”
Jacob said “No ma’am. My calculator is in my brain.”
JASMINE “FUNNIES”
By Bill Bounds
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
(~2000)
When Jasmine was about 5 years old, she came home from Sunday School one week and told Carmen that they were learning the names of the Books in the New
Testament.
Carmen said, “ Good, name them for me.”
Jasmine started, “Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Saw...”
Carmen said, “Wait a minute...did you say ‘Saw”?
Jasmine nodded. Carmen said, “It’s not ‘Saw’, it’s Acts.”
Jasmine thought a minute and said, “Oh, that’s right, I knew it was the name of a tool!”
HISTORY LESSON
(~2002)
Jasmine came home from school in about the second grade telling her Mother about the “Underground Railroad”.
Surprised, Carmen asked her what she knew about it. Jasmine just knew the basic facts that slaves had used the route to escape to the north. Then Jasmine asked her mother, “What is a slave anyway?”
Carmen told her a slave was a person who had been bought by a slave-owner and had to do anything the owner wanted them to do.
Jasmine thought about this a few minutes and said, “I want one, I want one!”
MARK AND GREG’S HUNTING EXPERIENCE
By Bill Bounds
(~1978)
Millard and I had given Mark and Greg instructions for the safe use of firearms. John Pilot had told them about a covey of quail that fed along the fence rows at Grandmother’s place.
We decided to let the boys walk about five yards abreast of each other with shotguns on safe but otherwise ready to fire at the quail if they flushed them into the air.
We watched them head down the fence row just as we had instructed them. We were satisfied that they could safely hunt the quail. Millard and I went inside to get something to drink.
We were sitting there, proud of ourselves for training our son’s to use firearms safely. All of a sudden, it was “Boom! Bam! Boom”. I rushed outside to see what was happening. What I saw was Mark and Greg running full speed across the field with shotguns blazing. “Boom! Bam! Boom!” The gunfire continued.
They were chasing and shooting at an armadillo running across the field at full speed in front of them. The gunfire continued until the armadillo escaped into the brush at the edge of the field.
We decided to call the boys back in for further instruction on handling firearms safely.
Roy, Randall, Darrell, Vernon, and Lynn
Mary Soley
Front- David , Charlotte , Carmen Middle- Denise, Ida Bounds, Lynn
Back- Greg and Mark on Sunlight
Porter and Brenda Soley, Jennifer, Lacey, Jason, and John
Mary Louise and Nancy Beth - Henry's daughters
Mark, Greg and the Horse
(~1975)
by Bill Bounds
Mark and Greg were doing their first bit of horseback riding at their Grandmother Bounds house. They were about 12 years old. Greg was riding in the saddle and Mark was riding behind the saddle.
They were supposed to keep within sight of me and Millard in front of the house. They kept getting braver and braver and finally rode the horse ,out of sight, all the way to the Double Branch bridge about a mile away.
Millard and I were getting worried about them. All of a sudden we heard the horse coming at full gallop down the road. The reins were hanging and bouncing on the horses neck. Mark was still riding behind the saddle, hanging on for dear life. No one was guiding the horse. There was no sign of Greg.
The run-a-way horse stopped. We asked; “Where is Greg?” Mark said that when they got to Double Branch bridge they both got off the horse to look at something. Mark remounted the horse from the left side behind the saddle Greg attempted to remount the horse from the right side (wrong side) by putting his left foot into the right side stirrup to mount the horse, then swung his right leg over the horses neck and head. He wound up sitting backwards in the saddle.
This spooked the horse and Greg fell off the horse as the horse headed home at full speed. Mark had no control of this run-a-away horse. The horse came home at full speed, but stopped in front of grandmothers house. Fortunately Greg was not hurt by falling off the horse, and Mark managed to hold on to the saddle as the horse galloped home.
Mary Louise and Nancy Elizabeth Bounds- daughters of Henry
Rebekah and Anna Thornburg- daughters of Lynn, grandaughters of Millard
Benjamin Lee Thornburg- son of Lynn, grandson of Millard
Getting ready for football! Daniel Soley- son of Porter, grandson of Nancy.
How Old is Clyde?
Nobody in the family knew how old Penny’s new husband Clyde was. Sylvia’s young daughter Ava had heard some discussions about his age. Ava, after hearing some remarks as to how old Clyde might be, said to Clyde at one of our family get togethers, “My daddy says you’re probably the oldest man in the world. Is he right?”
That was the only known time that Clyde was rocked back on his heels with nothing to say.
Clyde and Penny Holloman, Mary Ida and Byron Ellis
Jasmine, Johnny, Carmen (Bill's daughter), and Ryan Owens
Bonnie Bounds, Brittany Bounds, Ryan Owens, and Jasmine Owens - Bill's grandchildren
Ben (Gus' son), Linda,
Eric, and Brian Bounds -
Ida Bounds, Sylvia Gunn,
Austin, and Kaylee Gunn
Denise, Scott, Tiffany, Paige, Philip, and Bryan Ehrenfried 1995
Millard Bounds' daughter, son-in- law and grandchildren.
David and Ashley Cain
Anna Thornburg 1998
Millard Bounds' granddaughter.
Rebekah Thornburg
1998
Millard Bounds' granddaughter.
Chris Carraway
3rd grade
Mike, Carlene, Nick, and Chris Carraway. Carlene is Nina's daughter and Nancy's grandaughter.
Nick Carraway 1st grade
Above - Bounds' boys have such hard heads they don't need helmets! Ryan Owens, Bill Bounds grandson. 12th grade
Below - What kind of tackle attempt is that?
Nancy's daughters - Nera Davis, Mary McAlister,
Hulaine Stewart, and Linda Cain
Tony (Sylvia's son). Kris, Austin, and Kaylee Gunn
Camp Stewart- Nancy's grandson, Hulaine's son
Kami Soley - Nancy's grandaughter, Vernon's daughter
Mary (Blakeney) Bounds holding Sammy Gunn (Sylvia's son) with Mark Bounds and Carmen is on the way.
Ben, Rebekah, and Anna Thornburg 1993 (Millard's grandkids, Lynn's kids)
John Pilot Lee - Penny's son
Greg Bounds - Millard's son
Tiffany, Bryan, Paige, and Phillip Ehrenfried 1995 Millard's grandkids, Denese's kids
Khristina Davis - Nancy's grandaughter, Nera's daughter
Vernon Soley - Nancy's son
Denese Bounds - Millard's daughter
Joel Stewart- Nancy's grandson, Hulaine's son
Sam Riley Bounds - Bill's grandson,
David's son
Laura Davis - Nancy's grandaughter, Nera's daughter
Bill Bounds with David's sons
Jacob and Sam Riley
Randy Fore- Cleo's grandson, Randall's son
Daniel Soley - Nancy's grandson, Porter's son
John Pilot and Athelda Lee (Penny's son)
flower girl - Carmen Bounds (Bill's daughter)
The Ben Bounds Family
Marcia Fore (Cleo's daughter)
Carmen and Mark Bounds (Bill's kids)
Porter (Nancy's son) and
Brenda Soley
Darryl (Cleo's son) and
Sandy Fore
David Bounds (Bill's son), April Lyons (Cleo's grandaughter. Marcia's daughter), April Lee (Penny's grandaughter. John Piolt's daughter), and Ava Gunn (Gus' grandaughter. Sylvia's daughter)
Tony, Ava, and Sammy Gunn - Gus' grandchildren,
Sylvia's children
Carlene and Jonathan Rawls (Nancy's grandchildren, Nina's children) and Ava Gunn (Gus' grandaughter, Sylvia's daughter)
Some of Cleo's grandkids - Clint and Jeremy Fore (Darryl's sons) and Beverly Lyons (Marcia's daughter)
Rebecca Davis - Nancy's grandaughter, Nera's daughter
Jennifer Soley (Nancy's grandaughter, Porter's daughter) and Ava Gunn
(Gus' grandaughter, Sylvia's daughter)
Porter Soley - Nancy's son