Page 24 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

one, I needed another one to build. Upon returning home on one showery afternoon, I
was told a small tornado knocked a chimney off a nearby house. I couldn't understand
how a wind could do that when I didn't observe any other debris in the neighborhood.
Years later as a meteorologist, I learned that many of our Florida tornadoes are often so
small and isolated, they sometimes just rip through a few tree branches and touch down
only briefly.

CHAPTER 04 - Settling in Jacksonville
The year was 1941. Having learned carpentry from his father in Pine Beach, my father
got a Civil Service job in the Maintenance Building at Benjamin Lee Auxiliary Field in
Green Cove Springs. He and Edgar Clancy, an electrician, became good friends. When
World War II started, much more gasoline was needed for the war and gasoline had to
be rationed in the U.S. He had a bigger allotment than others because he had a sticker
on his windshield with a large “A” displayed.

My family bought a new house off Timuquana Road, a little over a mile from the new
Jacksonville Naval Air Station. With only a dozen new homes finished, the builder dug
a large eighteen-inch deep hole, built a fire in it, and placed the carcass of a large pig on
a metal grate above the fire. It was there that I was introduced to the mouth-watering
southern tradition of eating barbeque.

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