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

AFTER MY ARMY DAYS

When I was discharged from the Army in early March of 1948,1 was about 19 'A years old, and I needed
some means of making a living until 1 could get back to the Tobacco Warehouse when the tobacco sales
season opened. As soon as I got out of the Service, 1 talked Mr. Robley Bruce, who owned a store which
sold only men’s clothing, (but also sold ladies shoes,) into hiring me to go through his entire store and
clean it from top to bottom.

He had shelves and shelves of merchandise which had never been dusted, and it was quite an
undertaking to get that store spic and span clean, and it took me about 2 weeks. After that I resumed
being a part time salesman in his store, since that was a follow up to my having worked some for him in
the store after school and on Saturdays when I was in high school.

Incidentally, Mr. Bruce’s wife, Mattie McColsky Bruce, had started out being my second grade teacher,
but she stopped teaching when I was in to about my third month in the second grade, and Mrs. Nettie
McColsky took over and was my second grade teacher for the rest of the year. I later found out that the
reason Mrs. Bruce stopped being my second grade teacher that she was beginning to be in an advanced
state of pregnancy with her first child, Patti Bruce, who for many many years has been the wife of
Bobby George, whose dad owned one of the drug stores in Lake City.

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