Mr. Schroeder, who sold my dad our first house when I was two years old, had a store at the corner of Roswell Street and South Avenue, just across and east of the National cemetery in Marietta. His house was behind the store on South Avenue, and our house was next to his. He kept a Smith and Wesson .32 topbreak revolver on the marble topped table next to his bed. He would unload it and let me handle it from time to time. He had an old black man named Sam who worked in the store. When I was a little older the other kids in the neighborhood and I would trap possums with rabbit trap boxes in Nell Jackson's pasture, across Roswell Street from the cemetery. Sam would buy them for a dollar apiece, a lot of money in the late forties.

Sam was hunting somewhere and almost blew his right big toe off with his twelve gauge single barrel shotgun. He went around for several weeks with it wrapped in a large white bandage, the toe cut out of his shoe. When Mr. Schroeder passed away, Pete Prather took over the store. Sam stayed, as part of the deal, I guess. When Mr. Prather closed this store and moved to a larger one at Fairground and Page Streets, Sam went along. I lost track after that of his whereabouts. Many years later, two guys tried to hold up Mr. Prather at the new store; he shot and killed both of them. Whatever happened, the killings were ruled as self defense and good riddance. Ah, the good old days. Stan