Snuffy’s Army
Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional. Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories. Other stories are completely true. Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
First a very special shout out to Mr. SpazBubbles. He is a fellow YouTuber and is a subscriber to this channel. Stop over at his place and tell him we said hello.
I had been away at college for nearly four years. While in college, I was sometimes home on the weekends, but most of my weekends were taken up visiting with friends. I did work at the store on Saturdays, but some people had not seen me in years.
Suzanne and I had just gotten married. We had a break-in at the store soon after Suzanne and I got married and we were trying to find a way to stop them. We had a new, ultra high-tech alarm installed at the store. I had a C. B. radio in the Galaxy and I also had a C. B. walkie-talkie that I left at the house with Suzanne.
The Western Auto was just outside of the city limits of Iva. This meant that the Iva Police Department had no jurisdiction to respond. We had to rely on the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, which was not much more than useless.
There was an old joke that was more truth than joke that a Sheriff’s Department investigation ended when the deputy taking the report said, “Call us if you hear anything.”
In their defense, the sheriff’s deputies were spread very thin. We had a county that was approximately 1,000 square miles with only a small handful of deputies to cover it all. We knew that if anyone was going to catch anyone breaking into the store, we would have to be the ones to do it.
My father and I had decided that when the alarm company called us, I would go around the back of the store (a road ran behind the store) and he would go around front of the store. This way maybe we would catch them in between. Or, so we hoped.
One night the alarm went off and I went to the back of the store and started looking with the flashlight to see if I saw any obvious points of entry. I did not, so I started to go around front. To do this, I had to cross an old railroad right-of-way, which still had some ballast and ties. There were steep hills on either side of this right-of-way.
There is a bar across the street from the Western Auto called Snuffy’s Tavern. Now, this is about as rough a bar as you can imagine. If you read my story about the pool cue, you will get a little glimpse at what I am talking about.
One of the bar patrons yelled to my father “You ain’t going in there by yourself, are you, Bruce?” It appears that the good old boy patrol was going to provide back up for my father. Weapons of all kinds, from nunchucks to AK-47s, were quickly produced. The Secret Service assault wagon had nothing on these guys. In fact, if there was a standoff between a highly armed and trained SWAT team and these guys, the SWAT team better just go home.
About that time, I rounded the corner of the store and I heard the unmistakable sound of shotgun slides being racked. The sound was deafening. I heard what seemed like a hundred or so pump shotguns each racking a shell.
Then, it happened. Rusty was a Vietnam veteran and had been attached to the 82nd Airborne and, I think, was also a Green Beret. Rusty had about a million and five jumps to his credit.
I don’t know where he came from or how he managed to do it but, I was Rusty’s one million and sixth jump.
As I laid there with Rusty’s knee in my back and a face full of gravel, I yelled, “I am David. I am Junior. I am Bird. I am supposed to be here.”
My father yelled to the crowd, “That is David!” We had a posse go in the store and walk with my father around the back of the store.
While Doc, a former army medic, tended to my wounds, the posse searched the building from top to bottom and found nothing. They were all hoping to find someone they could beat up. Each one said, “He better hope I ain’t the one to find him”.
When Doc was done with me, I resembled someone who was an extra for Michael Jackson's Thriller video.
The alarm company automatically called the sheriff’s office so, once they were called, someone had to be there to fill out a report. I called Suzanne, and Papa and I waited for over an hour before the deputy arrived to take the report.
By the time the deputy arrived, all the guns were out of sight but very close by.
The deputy looked at me and noticed my wounds. Doc had bandaged me up pretty good, but I still had some blood on me. He asked if I had anything further to add to the report. I said, “No.”
The deputy asked how I got the injuries I had. Rusty looked at me with anticipation. He was wondering if I was going to rat him out or not. I told the deputy I fell into the railroad right-of-way. This seemed logical and he accepted it.
As the deputy left, he said, “Call us if you hear anything.”
