My Friend Jessie

36 My Friend Jessie by William D. Epling Many people said Jessie was strange. Some said he was weird. Others used even stronger language, and I who knew him better than anyone on this earth, would have to agree mat Jessie was at least different. There in die end I don't believe there was any doubt. His guilt had driven him insane. Both Jessie's parents died when he was seven. He had no close kin. My family took him in and he lived with us until he was seventeen. We roomed together in our unfinished attic. Those were happy days for both Jessie and me. We grew to be as close as brodiers and did all tiiose tilings that rural Appalachian boys did in die diirties. We helped my parents eke out a living on their nillside farm. We hunted die cows if diey failed to come to die milking gap. We slopped the hogs and garnered eggs. We split kindling, kept die coal buckets full, took out ashes, rekindled fires and carried water. We had fun too. We teased die girls and even terrorized diem with our pet black snake. We played boyish pranks. Once we dyed a neighbor's white cat red with homemade polk berry dye. We laughed about mat for days. The neighbor was not so amused. We possumhunted at night-sat around the fire playing hully-gul with hickory nuts until tne dogs treed. When school was out we roamed die dark hollows hunting ginseng and yellow root We played marbles, roily-poll, stickball, and mumbly -peg. Kick-tiie-can and chalk mark also were favorites. We searched die fence rows for die most perfect Ushaped box alder forks for our sling shots. We made pawpaw and willow whistles and peashooters out of elderberry stems. We knew where to look for huckleberries, buck berries, raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, elderberries, and mountain tea berries. We could locate die best diick skinned pawpaws, fox grapes, muscadines, persimmons, hazel nuts, walnuts, butternuts, and paper -shelled hickory nuts. On week-nights we listened to hum and Abner spout tiieir unique brand of nonsense such as selling three-cent stamps for a nickel in an attempt to run die U.S. Post Office out of business. On Saturday nights it was Roy Acuff, me Duke of Paducah, and Uncle Dave Macon, on die Grand Ole Opry. In 1939 when Jessie was seventeen he joined die U.S. Navy. He liked die Navy and planned to make a career of it. By December 7, 1941, he was a carpenter's mate on die U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor . That day of infamy changed Jessie's life and future drastically. He was on deck watch that Sunday Morning. The O.D. was in die officer's wardroom drinking coffee. He was me only man above decks. Two tiiousand men lay sleeping below. He heard die high pitch whine and raised his binoculars toward die distant specks just materializing on the horizon. Instantly he knew a large number of planes were approaching over the sea. He lowered his binoculars to give this strange occurrence some diought. He stood diere for 37 perhaps three minutes, while distant whine grew into a roar. Now he could distinctly make out die rising sun insignia on the fuselage of die leading planes. Still he stood mere welded to the deck for another critical two or three minutes looking at die planes as tiiey grew closer and closer. The first planes flew past the Arizona, their pilots with white headbands clearly visible. His amazement was just turning to a puzzled bewilderment when the first explosions knocked him off his feet. In rapid succession the Arizona was hit by several torpedoes and aerial bombs. One of the aerial bombs went down a smokestack, exploding deep below decks in die engine room. In minutes the Arizona rolled over and sunk to die bottom of the shallow harbor. More man a thousand men were killed or trapped below decks. The lucky died instantly but many suffered a lingering horrible death. They were trapped in underwater compartments and slowly suffocated as then· oxygen was used up. All attempts to...