1928 - Alderson High School - 1968

 

Sam Meads
John McCurdy Aug. 19, 2009

My friend Sam Meads was what you would call a “Oner”, referring to the likelihood that he was one of a kind. A Special Agent for the C&O Railroad, a former city policemen, a pilot and a member of ‘The Mile High Club”, something I can well believe, somehow had came into possession of several dozen loaded 120mm artillery shells. Having seen Ashtrays that had been made in the orient from fired casings such as these, Sam decided he wanted to use the shell for the same purpose.  Now Sam at the time was a full grown man and an experienced hunter and target shooter and reloaded, but he was also one of those delightful fellows that never really grew up, he was an inveterate tinkered and rarely left anything well enough alone.

I recall once I was going down the Hinton side of Big Bend tunnel in my 57 Ford convertible when I heard the unmistakable sound of Machine Gun fire. Investigating at the mouth of the tunnel, I discovered Sam Meads, his face displaying pure joy as he shot a 45. caliber Grease Gun into the bank  at the end of the tunnel. He did not hear me drive up, but when he did become aware of my presence, he said, “@#$% Johnny where did you come from, I’ve been loading ammo all winter so I could shoot this @#$%  thing!” Since possession of a fully automatic weapon such as this was completely illegal, I didn’t ask questions about the history of the gun or how Sam came to have it in his possession. After he had, to my great joy, allowed me to fire a couple of magazines, I left a happy fellow and went back to Alderson, having completely forgotten whatever reason I had been going to Hinton!

Back to the 120mm shells, Sam had managed to work the bullets out of the casings, pour the powder, which I think was tubular grain if I recall my Radford Arsenal days correctly, into a bucket, saturate the inside of the shell casing with light oil to deactivate the primer and proceeded to forget the whole project, Some months later he discovered the bucket of powder sitting in his basement and realized he had a disposal problem!

Knowing that Double-Base Smokeless powder does not explode but does burn very rapidly generating a LOT of smoke and vapor and pressure. Sam proceeded to lay a small trickle of powder for a fuse trail, from a spot behind his 22 foot cabin cruiser on a trailer, to what he considered a safe distance down his driveway.

Taking refuge, just in case, behind the boat, he tossed a lit match into the trail of powder.. The powder did not, of course, explode, but whatever it did do, it burned so fast and generated enough heat and shock wave pressure to knock his boat nearly off the trailer, almost deafen Sam in the process, and singe his hair and eyebrows he swore he could feel the heat of Satan in that moment!

Comments by Bobby Black

Nice article, John, one of your best. I truly liked Sam Meads. You are right, John, Sam never quite became a man say like a banker. But colorful... and tough, he was that...

One day at "Recess" Sam and some guy whose name I don't recall got into a fight on the football field. They decided that if they fought on the field some teacher would stop it so it was decided they would go to the boys "john" in the basement of our old grade school. Remember the old gray cement floor that was always wet?

Well, I tell you that was one of the bloodiest fights I have ever seen. Sam was up one side and down the other as he wiped his man (boy) until he could no longer get up. I don't really know what made Sam such a good fighter but he could start one or stop one fast.

Several years ago Dee and I drove down the river road as the 4th of July parade was about to start. Sam was out in the street directing traffic and there was a car in front of us trying to go straight down the road and Sam as trying to get him to get off the main road and... well things were not doing well at all...

Sam saw our car trying was trying to go straight also and he became red faced and quite angry. Sam then came up to the drivers side of my car are was about to blast me when he saw who I was.

"Well, for God's sake it's Bobby Black and probably his wife," Sam yelled. Then he turned back to the first car whose driver by this time didn't know what to do.

Sam garbed the mans door.. opened it and slammed it as hard as he could.

"Can't you see that Bobby Black had the right of way and wants to go straight. Now you get this car of yours out of here... up that road I told you about a few minuets ago!"

Then Sam stepped back, bowed, and with a big smile waved his arm in the direction of our bridge.....My wife, half frightened, asked, "Who was that man?" I replied, "just a friend I hadn't seen in years."

There were some other Alderson guys in the mold of Sam Meads. Bobby Keadle, comes to mind... with his snakes. "Lard" Nash and his buddy "Choodie" Reid. Jimmy Keadle. "Topsy" Willliams. Bud Ballard... probably a guy I would select as Alderson's most outstanding citizen. I believe he loved Alderson more than any Aldersonian I ever knew.

They should name our bridge The "Bud" Ballard Bridge of Alderson. Yes, he would get my vote. "Not so fast there Bobby, how about Sam Meads?" Well, perhaps so. Then there is Billy Simmons. Heck, we just don't have enough bridges, do we?
 

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