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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

A SMALL WORLD

When I was approximately 14 years old, or somewhere within a year or two of that age, Golde and
Emerald had rented a place over in Jacksonville Beach to spend a week vacation, and as they often did
when they went places, they took me with them.

At the end of the week, on a Sunday about noon, I was out on the beach just south of the Jettys. The
Jettys are two rows of huge, huge granite blocks, which the army corp of engineers installed years and
years ago in order to have a trouble free place for the St. Johns River to enter the Ocean. The Jettys were
the proper place, because people going fishing in that area invariable had good luck.

I was walking along the beach that Sunday when a small single engine plane came in and landed right
on the sand down near to the water, where the sand was hard packed, and it was not unusual to have a
small plane land on the beach near the water.

The two men in the plane got out and walked to a nearby place where 1 assume they went in and ate
lunch, and they came back out and cranked up the plane and took off.

When the plane got up no more than 100 feet high, or so I would judge, it suddenly plummeted straight
back down toward where I was walking, and for a moment or two I thought the plane was going to fall
right on me. However, it struck the sand about 100 feet from where 1 was standing, and I was surprised
somewhat at the sound of the crash. It was not a boom, nor a bam, nor anything that sounded like a car
wreck, for those who have heard a car wreck, but instead it sounded about like two dish pans being
banged together, the sound when they hit the sand just went “Plang”.

I was horrified at what had happened, and immediately ran over to where the plane was sitting on the
sand with the tail up in the air. There was an extremely strong smell of gasoline but I went on up to the
cabin of the airplane and looked inside to see if I could be of any help to the two men inside.

It did not take more than a glance to determine they were beyond help, as the whole inside of the plane,
including their bodies, was just a bloody mess. It was not but a few minutes before Law Enforcement
showed up and after looking at the condition of those two men in that plane, 1 was not of a mind to hang
around and see anymore.

The reason I have entitled this section of my book, “Small World”, is that about 50 years later, which
would have made me about 62 or 63 years old, I was operating my Real Estate Brokerage Office, and I
had a gentleman real estate salesman by the name of Ed Driscoll. One day, when Ed and 1 were just
sitting having an idle conversation with each other, I happened to relate this story to him. He looked
flabbergasted, and begin to ask me specific questions about it, as to when it was and just how it was, and
exactly where it was in relation to the Jettys, and when I finished telling him everything I could
remember about it, he said “one of the men in that plane was my brother”.

Now isn’t it strange that in a happening that unusual and after 50 more years, that fate would dictate that
I was the Employer and a good friend to a brother of one of the men who were killed that day. I am still
a little flabbergasted when I think about it, and I am very thankful that something led me to relate that
story to Ed Driscoll.

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