The Pine Belt News from Brewton, Alabama • 5

HubCitySPOKES.com THE PINE BELT NEWS: LAMAR TIMES HATTIESBURG POST PETAL NEWS Thursday, September 5, 2019 crimes more out of passion than greed, hate, and racism. While no such thing as a some crimes and some criminals, particularly in the South, tend to get romanticized. Let me give you some examples, first from literature, and then from history. In my college English class this week, been studying William short story, Rose for (1930). a classic Southern Gothic story with flawed characters, in decayed settings, acting out the grotesque circumstances of their lives.

In this case, Miss Emily, a once rich but now poor and aged spinster living in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, poisoned the suitor who rejected her when she was around 40, and then slept with his dead and decaying body for many years. Although his body discovered until her death when the local townswomen wait to inside her my students seemed to think that she would have been forgiven because of the demands of Although broke, she would have had enough political to remain free. I can remember, when I was a child, my mama singing along with the radio when it played the of Kenny a murderer from Sunflower County whose first crime was stealing a watch in Lucedale, but who robbed banks as far away as Mexico during the 1920s. He murdered five people, was released from jail by a female sheriff who fell in love with him and escaped from Parchman Penitentiary by teaching the bloodhounds to ignore his scent while serving as a trusty. Yet, he somehow gained something of a persona in the process, and folklore, song, and legend painted a picture of him as chivalrous to women, generous to the poor, and the stereotype of an Southern outlaw.

When I was about ten years old, some entrepreneur brought the genuine, guaranteed to be the Bonnie and Clyde Death Car to Lumberton and parked it on Main Street. It was roped off, but for 25 cents, you could put your fingers in the bullet holes and wonder at the many blood stains still visible in the car. Although I knew that Bonnie and Clyde were stone cold killers, and that this refugee from a carnival show had bought an old car and shot it full of holes himself, and then poured catsup all over the seats, I was impressed. Many of the public had earlier thought of them as the Maid Marion and Robin Hood of the Great Depression years. Much later, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty perpetuated this romantic myth.

Growing up, we all heard the story of poor Will Purvis, the innocent man who was hanged in Columbia in 1894 for a murder out around Oloh that he commit. Fortunately for him, the rope broke, and he fell to the ground unhurt. The sheriff was going to hang him again, but a preacher in the crowd of onlookers proclaimed that it was act of the hanging was cancelled, and he ended up sentenced to life in Parchman instead. Eventually pardoned, he returned to Purvis, which had been named after his uncle, and nineteen years later, another man confessed to the crime on his death bed. When Purvis died a natural death in 1935, he was one of the most well- known men in Mississippi.

I had a cousin who served as the Police Chief of Lumberton, back long before the job was a revolving door, and he spent his spare time down on Red Creek with his metal detector, searching for the lost gold of the notorious James Copeland gang. Born in Jackson County, and described variously as an hog thief, horse thief, slave-stealer, smuggler, pirate, counterfeiter, burglar, looter, arsonist, murderer, and criminal gang Copeland got himself hung at Old Augusta (now New Augusta, east of Hattiesburg) in 1847. However, before he died, he allegedly buried a large amount of gold in what is now Pearl River County. Generations of determined treasure hunters have dug holes all over south Mississippi seeking what probably there. And, of course, you can go see Al house, in Ocean Springs.

It was for sale, unless Katrina got it. Capone reportedly lived there while his henchmen lived at the nearby Gulf Hills Ranch, which was later a favorite of such stars as Judy Garland, Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe. Back in 2005, a fisherman pulled a billfold from an Ocean Springs bayou that had Al name on it. It only contained five coins dated from 1899 to 1917. Contrary to popular belief, Capone die of syphilis at Alcatraz; he died in Florida of heart failure, which was probably brought on by venereal disease.

If you are ever in San Francisco, take the tour out to Alcatraz. The boat ride through the fog is worth the price of admission. I was once on a ship stationed at Mare Island, across the bay. When Alcatraz closed in 1963, the government moved the maximum security prisoners to Marion, Illinois, and then to the Colorado ADX prison in Florence, Colorado, which todays holds such characters as Theodore Kaczynski, the Terry Nichols, Timothy co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing; the Boston Marathon bomber, who is awaiting execution; the principle designer of the B-2 stealth bomber who unpatriotically sold the plans to the Chinese; the Shoe bomber, a terrorist who was going to blow up an airplane with a bomb in his tennis shoe; and, most recently, Joaquin Guzman, aka the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. All of these thugs register pretty high on the Likert Scale for Meanness.

They are probably holding a cell for D. B. Cooper, but personally, I hope they never catch him. I offer his action up as a no harm, no foul; just a sum of money changing hands. like to think his parachute opened when he went out the back of that hijacked Boeing 727-100 back in 1971, and that living on a mountain top, with his honey, somewhere between Seattle and Portland, enjoying the $200,000 ransom money.

be about 88 years old now. When fact and legend conflict, print the legend. I guess he picked that airplane to hijack because the third engine sits on top the fuselage as part of the tail, and perhaps the turbulence affect his parachute as bad. I remember when we jumped the four-engine C-141 Starlifters, they warned us not to bounce out past the wind baffles on the side of the door or the jet engine blast would melt our parachutes. As for me, trying to make sense of it all, last night I totally gave up, forever and ever, the unhealthy and unsavory things that have held me back for so long.

It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. Who knows, in another time and place, I might have been just another desperado, waiting for a train. Light a candle for me. Benny Hornsby, a native of Lumberton, is a retired Navy captain. Send him a note at: ville- Read previous columns online at bennyhornsby.com.

When I was about 10 years old, some entrepreneur brought the Bonnie and Clyde Death Car to Lumberton. until, not too long ago, there was nobody else available to do the actual work of remodeling the houses. I was faced with the fact that if I go out and do it myself, it going to get done. God bless my wonderful wife who, aside from raising the kids with me away at work for weeks at a time, also has had to listen to me complain about my my and my arthritic or how I gonna able to do anything around the house when I get the real hero of this story. But true.

I was hurting. I really know if my frail 36- year-old body could handle it much longer. Then, without me really noticing, things changed. My brain still wanted to tell me that I was aching, or make me contemplate if I could pull off riding in an electric scooter at Walmart, but my body felt better. I noticed it a couple days ago when I leaned over to tie my shoe and groan.

incredible! I feel like a brand new man. Now, not saying results are typical or that anybody at their par- ticular station in life should drop what they are doing and start working construction, but I am saying this: do something. Anything. If you are like me, you will hurt. You will be miserable for a while, but you will feel better than you have in years.

I certainly want to jinx myself, but I think I want to get out there and do some of the things I did when I was younger. In fact, officially challenging all you sixth graders to a foot race. Any takers? Martin grew up in Yazoo County and has lived in Oak Grove since 2006. Married to Lorna, he is the proud father of two daughters, Molly, and Quinn. In his spare time, he enjoys and with his musical cohorts, the Pine Belt Pickers.

MARTIN Continued from Page 4A HORNSBY Continued from Page 4A A group of young members of The Almighty Vice Lord Nation photographed on the streets of Chicago in the 1950s. Best known as they were one of the oldest and second largest street gang in the city of Chicago. by Ted Williams.