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

boy and 1 became very good friends and that friendship lasted for a lifetime until he passed away about 3
years ago.

The only other scrap I can remember getting involved in was during the football season in the fall of
1966, which was the first football season after I had resigned from being Columbia High School Band
Director. Doyle Cason, Merrill Williams, and I went to a high school football game which was out of
town at Fernandina Beach, as the Columbia High Tigers were playing the Fernandina Beach team.

Little did 1 dream that 45 years later I would play Taps at both of their funerals, and stood under the
same tree to do it.

As all of the local people are aware, when the Columbia High Tigers go out of town to play, the whole
town goes with them, and when we got to Fernandina there was not a seat available anywhere except
where the Fernandina fans were sitting, and that is where we managed to find a seat.

Each lime the Tigers would do something outstanding, naturally we would cheer them on and holler it
up, and a man sitting right behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Listen. You can’t sit over
here in the Fernandina crowd and cheer for the Tigers”. I told him we had paid for our tickets the same
way that he had paid for his, and that we would much rather be sitting with the lake City crowd, but
since we were here and had paid for our tickets, we would cheer for whom ever we wished.

It was not long after that the Tigers did something outstanding again and Merrill and Doyle and I all
stood up and cheered them on. As soon as we had resumed our seats, the guy behind me reached
forward and tried to grab me, and since he was seated higher than 1 was, I was able to get my arms
behind his head and just pull him forward and sling him down the stands. I then grabbed his neck in the
crook of my left arm, and got a hammer lock on him and beat the literal hell out of him with my right
hand, because by that time he had done got me mad.

When 1 released him he took off at a trot and in a couple of minutes a couple of policemen came to
investigate the situation. Fortunately the other people who were Fernandina Beach fans told the police
that it was not my fault that the man had brought it on himself and that I should not be blamed for
having to protect myself when he attacked me. The cops then left and we heard no more about it.

Il was not long after that half time occurred, and I decided to go over to the concession stand and get a
drink and some popcorn, and when I approached the concession stand, the same man I had whipped saw
me coming and took off at a dead run back somewhere into the crowd. He did not want anymore of me
that night.

I have never considered myself to be much of a fighter, but I am aware that I have always had a temper
that should not be triggered by someone who did not have an adequate reason for doing so.

th
That is the only three fights 1 can remember getting into in my life, except when I had just started the 6
grade, I did get my butt whipped.

There was a girl in the class who was quite a tomboy, and her name was Jean Cooper. Because she was
such a tomboy all of us boys more of less treated her like another boy, and one day she took issue with
something I had done or said, and she reared back and gave me a full body blow to the pit of my
stomach. That blow knocked every ounce of air I had inside me out, and it seemed like an eternity
before I could get my breath again. By this time I did not want anymore of Jean Cooper, so I guess the
only time I ever really got whipped was by a girl. Somehow I am not ashamed of that fact.

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