Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

 Over the years our government has designated certain groups as terrorist groups. Al Qaeda, Isis, Hamas, and Hezbollah just to name a few. Since president Trump's inauguration the Mexican cartels, and Tren de Aragua has been added to that list. In my view the worst domestic terrorist group of them all has been the Democrat party. It will never be officially designated as a terrorist group but the evidence is overwhelming that it should be classified as such. It has for the most part been a dark part of our history dating back to it's founding in 1828. It was the party of slavery. The party of Indian removal better known as The Trail Of Tears. It was responsible for starting the Civil War in which there were over 750, 000 American's killed and thousands of men permanently scarred for the rest of their lives. Lincoln's assassin was Democrat John Wilkes Booth. It was the party of the KKK, voter suppression, segregation, and lynching.   The Democrats were the party that int...

My brother Mark in the front with his usual look of confusion. I appear to be having a seizure of some kind. Then there is my sister Donna posing for Vogue magazine I guess. My cousin Alton Anderson with the rabbit ears and next to him on the right is my cousin Jenny Brown. Behind Alton is my cousin Judy Brown and next to her is my cousin Roy Anderson. These were happy times at our grandparents house at 1300 Mckennie Avenue. Sadly only four of us in the picture are still alive. My sister Donna has been dead for a couple of years now. Alton died a few years ago of complications caused by a drinking problem. Jenny was murdered in 1980 by her live in boyfriend who strangled her to death dumping her body on the side of the road in Mt. Juliet. She was discovered by a mail carrier. Her body lay unclaimed in the morgue for several days. Jenny's daughter recognized a necklace she was wearing from a composite drawing made of the body which was published in the Tennessean newspaper. Although...

I was stationed at Erhac Turkey from May 1970 until May 1971. This was before the convenience of cellphones or laptops. The only way I had to communicate with my wife Debbie was by mail. She wrote me every day and I wrote her every day. The mail was sporadic. We would go days without mail and when it did come I would usually got a stack of letters. We had a radar station that was connected to Norad at Diyarbakir Turkey. it was down near the Syrian and Iraqi border. This was the only place where we could place a phone call back to the states. I was able to talk to Debbie about 4 times while I was there. We worked 9 day cycles and on our 72 hour breaks we could take a trip to Diyarbakir. It was a dangerous trip so we always traveled in groups. When we were close to Diyarbakir we would see a lot of camels. A Turkish friend of mine recently told me that it is rare now to see a camel in Turkey today.

The biggest fish I ever caught was this 5 pound large mouth bass on a cane pole. We were at Camp Boxwell Boy Scout camp. The fish fell off the hook as I pulled him in over the bank and slid back into the water. I was fishing with my friend Gus Fowler and his father. Mr. Fowler jumped into the water and caught the fish barehanded before it was able to swim away and he threw it up on the bank. I was 15 years old.

 Our flight line in Nashville on March 13, 1993. Our Security Police unit was deploying to Hickam Field Hawaii and we were boarding our C-130 when I took this picture. There was 12 inches of snow on the ground in Nashville and 26 inches on the ground in Atlanta. I almost had to miss this trip because I was told a week prior to leaving that I was 14 pounds over my maximum weight of 220 pounds. I was determined to go to Hawaii and through fasting, exercise and saunas I lost 14 pounds in 6 days. When I walked into the orderly room and weighed I weighed exactly 220 pounds. You should have seen the looks on their faces. They didn't think I could do it. I was told that I could go but if I gained any weight on the trip over I would be placed on a plane and flown back to the US. When I weighed again upon landing at Hickam I had gained 2 pounds somehow. I don't know how because I was starving. Luckily they did a body mass test and I passed. Needless to say I ate like a pig when I finall...

 Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. At that time America was also being invaded, especially on our southern border. Millions of people from all over the world were pouring into this country and being encouraged to do it by the Democrat party. The Nazi war criminal George Soros was financing much of this migration. Criminals and terrorists were mixed in with this migration and they were terrorizing American citizens. People were being brutally murdered, women were raped and murdered. Children were molested. American's were robbed and carjacked by migrants. Stores suffered the loss of millions of dollars through theft and  American's were killed and injured by migrant drunk drivers. Our medical system, schools, prisons, welfare system, justice system and cities were overwhelmed by illegal migrants. Not only was the government doing nothing to stop this invasion but they were actually flying illegals into this country and putting them up in fancy hotels supplying their ...

  Many bloody wars have been started over what I think were stupid reasons. For example WW1, which was one of the bloodiest wars in history was started because of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sofia. With the right diplomacy that war could have been easily avoided. As a result over 10 million soldiers died before it was over and it changed the political landscape of Europe. It would also be the catalyst for the creation of the first Marxist-Leninist state called the Soviet Union. Communism has been responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people in the Twentieth Century alone and that is a conservative estimate. In my view the war in Ukraine could have been easily avoided. Putin is a tyrant but America has to be held accountable for it's part in bringing on the war.  In August 1939 Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed a non-aggression pact. Hitler had blamed the defeat of Germany in WW1 on the fact that the country had involved itself in...

 When my wife Debbie and I were dating for meanness she would sic her Chihuahua on me and she would draw blood. My wife thought it was funny. Of course I was in love so I put up with it. After we were married I came home from basic training and we were staying in her parents house until I left for my first duty assignment in Oregon. One morning I woke up and when I leaned over to kiss her I kissed that dog right in the mouth. So kind of like Katy Perry I can say that I kissed a dog but I didn't like it.

  For years now I have seen many attacks on our inalienable right to free speech in America by the Communist/Fascist political left. They have sought to redefine what free speech even means. They have  invented the term "hate speech" and it is is very popular with the left. They would like to see anyone guilty of hate speech go to jail. The only problem is that their definition of hate speech is subjective. What is hate speech to the left may not be hate speech to the right. One man's garbage is another man's treasure. In England and Europe people are going to jail for their social media posts. If people say anything against illegal migrants or if they question the government on the transgender issue among other things. In England they are arresting people for silently praying outside of abortion clinics. In Scotland they are warning people not to be caught praying in their homes. We have seen censorship in this country against conservatives voicing their opinions on ...

 When I was working mall security in Murfreesboro a woman stopped me near the entrance doors of the food court. Pointing outside she said that a man was wearing a television set on his head. Thinking that maybe she meant he was carrying it on his shoulder like a boom box I stepped outside to investigate and nearly ran into a man who was literally wearing a TV on his head. Mall policy before Covid was that you couldn't wear a mask or cover your face on mall property. After I got over the shock of confronting a man with a TV set on his head I asked him to uncover his face while on mall property. He politely refused so I politely asked him to leave which he promptly did. I snapped this picture as he walked toward his car.

   I never sang in public until Christmas Eve 1970 when I was stationed at Erhac Detachment 93 in Turkey. We were in a remote assignment and our unit had 200 Americans if that many. One of our Security Policemen was a guy named Garland Atkins who was from North Carolina and to the left of me. He was such a good guitarist we nicknamed him Chet Atkins. We put together a Christmas show which included several acts. We were the first to perform and we sang mainly country. There was also a beauty contest. Since there were no women around we had a few brave men dressed as very ugly women. Our stage was two pool tables pushed together. Most everyone was drinking and it is not hard to entertain a bunch of drunks. A fight broke out while we were performing and it reminded me of the old western movies where everyone is fighting and the piano player just keeps on playing. We never stopped singing. Beer cans and chairs were flying everywhere. I was never able to work up the courage to sing...

 My great Uncle Jacob "Jake" Mayfield in his uniform and with his wife later in life. Jacob was a Union soldier in the 13th Kentucky Infantry. He served with his father Isaac Mayfield and older brother William. All three fought at Shiloh on April 7, 1862 as part of the Army of the Ohio which was later renamed the Army of the Cumberland. Union armies were named after the rivers that they operated close to. They also served during the siege of Corinth Mississippi where Isaac would come down with pneumonia and die in a Louisville military hospital on December 13, 1862. Both Jake and William survived the war. Jake would eventually move to Ardmore Oklahoma where he is buried.

 I was a mall cop for 13 years. We handled theft probably more than anything. If I was called to a store because someone was acting suspicious or in the process of stealing there was actually little that we could do. We couldn't physically stop them from stealing or chase them down to retrieve stolen merchandise. That is unless we actually saw them stealing. By law we were allowed to make a citizens arrest but I told my officers not to do that because we were not armed. I don't believe in going to a gun fight or a knife fight armed with nothing but a smile. We couldn't even talk to them or question them. One thing that I have found out over the years is that if a thief sees a uniform they will usually not steal. We were a deterrent to theft. If a thief walked into a store and the store staff didn't call us until they left the store with the product then I couldn't do a whole lot for them except follow the suspect and hope I could get a license plate number and descr...

 The Brown family circa 1900. My grandfather Marcellus is the third from the left in the 2nd row holding a child. He is seated next to his mom Donie Brown and his dad Henry Brown The only person other than my grandfather in this picture that I can remember was my Aunt Arda. She is the 2nd adult from the left in the top row. In her youth she was kind of heavyset but when I knew her she was very skinny and crippled by rheumatoid arthritis. She lived with us and she didn't like my brother Mark, my cousin Roy and myself but loved my cousin Alton. I don't remember being hateful to her but she never had children and I don't think she cared much for them. We were pretty rambunctious but I can't remember being mean to her. Aunt Arda died in September 1963. The main standing on the porch might be my Uncle Elmore Hughes. He was a railroad engineer and married to one of granddaddy's sisters and I think her name was Beaula. I remember him but she died before I was born. His fam...

My great great grandfather Goodman Seagraves and my great great grandmother Margaret Sessions - His son John is in the top middle. One of the women is his daughter Indiana and the young boy is her son. Goodman fought in the Confederate 4th Tennessee cavalry. The 4th Tennessee Cavalry saw action at the battles of Parkers Crossroads, Franklin, Chickamauga and the Atlanta campaign. One regiment fought under General Nathan Bedford Forrest and the other under General "Fighting" Joe Wheeler.

 James McKinley Frogge, was my great great grandfather and was born on April 9, 1832 in Jamestown, Fentress County Tennessee. He would die on December 1, 1920 in Edmonton Kentucky, which is the county seat for Metcalf county. He married my great great grandmother Elizabeth Jane " Eliza" Scroggins. She was born in 1832 and would die in 1909. They had 15 children before she died. He would have two more with a 2nd wife totaling 17 children. James McKinley Frogge would serve as a Union soldier in the 13th Kentucky Cavalry as a farrier. A farrier was responsible for shoeing horses and taking care of their hooves. James would raise 17 children, one of which was my great grandfather John Clayton Breckinridge Frogge. His brother Tom pictured below had 19 children by the same woman. Tom Frogge

 My great grandmother Mattie or "Mammy" Mayfield Frogge is in these pictures with her identical twin sister Elizabeth. They were the youngest of 10 children and were only 2 when their father Isaac Mayfield died in the Civil War as a Union soldier on December 13, 1862. Isaac was serving in the 13th Kentucky Infantry with his 2 oldest children William and Jacob who both survived the war. Their father Isaac was an identical twin and he and his brother married the Martin sisters who were also identical twins on the same day. My great great grandmother was Susanna Martin Mayfield. Mattie and Elizabeth Mattie and Elizabeth and an unknown woman in the middle Elizabeth top left - Bottom left my grandmother Ella Frogge Brown with her mom Mattie Top row Mattie, Elizabeth and my grandmother Ella shading her eyes

 My great great grandmother Susanna Martin Mayfield. She received a pension of 8 dollars a month for the rest of her life due to the death of her husband Isaac Mayfield in the Civil War. She also received a pension of 6 dollars a month for each of her minor children. I have the original pension in my possession.

 This old Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis steam engine sat in Centennial Park from 1953 until 2019 when it was donated to the Tennessee Central Railroad museum for restoration which should be completed this year at a cost of 2.5 million dollars. It should soon be fully operational. It was a favorite spot for family pictures when we were growing up.

   My brother Mark and I got our singing voices from our parents. Both had beautiful voices and my mom also played the guitar. She loved gospel music and she joined her cousins the Hughes family regularly on Cahal Avenue in East Nashville for jam sessions on warm summer nights in their backyards. The Hughes were also talented musicians and singers. My mom is the lady with the blonde hair and guitar. My mother with her best friend and singing partner Dorothy McMillan

Granddaddy with my cousin Alton  My grandfather Marcellus Fain Brown was born in 1889 and died in 1968 when I was 18. For many years we were not that close because he was nearly deaf from his years of working in the Tennessee Central blacksmith shop. Being deaf you are socially cut off from people. He was one of the hardest working men I ever knew. Granddaddy was a carpenter, plumber and iron worker. He had hands of steel. He built my mother a mailbox out of channel iron and chain that he welded together. One story about him was that he once had a piece of hot iron fly into his ear and he spit it out of his mouth after it burned through his eardrum. My grandfather was a binge drinker in his younger days. I never saw him drunk but family told me that after getting paid sometimes he would go on a binge and they would find him passed out somewhere downtown and bring him home. On one occasion he was passed out on his bed when the house caught on fire. Family tried to rouse him but he j...

 Very early on the morning of September 10, 1957 pro segregationists dynamited Hattie Cotton elementary school on Greenwood Avenue in East Nashville. I was just starting first grade at Martha Vaught elementary in West Nashville. My grandparents, however only liveda few hundred yards across Gallatin road from the school on Mckennie Avenue. I remember my parents telling me that they were blown out of bed by the explosion. The explosion caused 71,000 dollars damage or 588,953 dollars in today's currency. A witness stated that it knocked out every window and caused damage to the library, classrooms and interior walls and lockers. Despite an investigation no one was charged. John Kasper, one of six suspects had secured a cache of dynamite two days before the bombing. Kasper was convicted in November 1958 of inciting a riot on the first day of that school year. Kasper predicted "blood will run in the streets of Nashville before Negro children go to school with whites".  Nashvil...