05-16-2021, 08:42 PM
(05-16-2021, 06:00 AM)727Sky Wrote: I had been in country for about three months as was still a new guy right seater. I was flying with Captain Vance who was the aircraft commander. Vance's call sign was Possum as everyone in the unit had their own nick name call sign. Vance was from West Virginia with an accent that would put a west Texas accent to shame. I flew several times with Possum and we always made it back alive.
I'll bet you dollars against donuts that I'm kin to Captain Vance. Many, many moons ago, when the Earth was still young, Abner Vance shot Lewis Horton out of the saddle while Horton was crossing Clinch River. Vance shot Horton for "debauching" Vance's daughter, as the story goes. Anyhow, old man Vance pulled up stakes out of Russell County, VA, and moved his whole family farther into the interior, up to Levisa Fork in Buchanan County in order to evade the varmint sheriff seeking to arrest him for what he considered a justifiable homicide.
Abner was hung in Abingdon, VA, in around 1816 I believe, after the sheriff caught up with him and a trial was held. It was a pretty famous case back in the day. There is still a song, "the Ballad of Abner Vance", about it. Several versions of the song, as a matter of fact.
Anyhow, from Levisa Fork, the Vance tribe fanned out in all directions - back closer to civilization in VA, further down Levisa into KY, and across the ridge into what is now WV, but was still VA back then. They were a part of the Hatfield clan of "Hatfield and McCoy feud" fame. That feud was fought back and forth across Tug Fork of Levisa. Devil Anse Hatfield's mother was a Vance, and her brother, Uncle Jim Vance, was a primary player in the feud, and probably the instigator of it when he killed Asa Harmon just after the Civil War.
Abner Vance was my a-few-greats-back grand daddy... and I bet he was Captain Vance's, too. That also puts both of us as kin to the Hatfields...
... but he's at least one up on me. I ain't never shot an elephant with a .38!
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Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’