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FOREWORD
For sixty-nine years it has been my good fortune to enjoy a happy and wonderful life. Therefore, in this, my seventieth year, I have resolved to set down in writing the story of how I lived it. I have not been motivated by a wish to record any great personal accomplishments. I have been blessed with a desire to see right prevail, good fortune, and a goodly portion of plain old common sense - the proper weapons necessary to fight the age-old battle of survival. Moreover, I have chanced to pick the right mother, the right wife, and the right genetic influence! No, I write this autobiography for the sheer satisfaction of knowing that my descendants and others who happen upon a copy will have access to a truthful account of the experiences of one who lived through an era during which occurred the greatest scientific advances known since man was given the ability to think - from the advent of a voice traveling through space to the conquest of space. How wonderful it is to have lived in this great age!
I was born on South Dupre Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, December 20, 1905. My mother, Florence Bernos True, was the daughter of George H. Bernos and Ernestine Nores, both of whom were natives of New Orleans. My father, James True, Jr., was the son of James B. True, Sr., and Sarah Crump, formerly of Saint Louis, Missouri.
Our family moved to Long Beach, Mississippi, in 1911 when my father, a writer and reporter on the New Orleans - Item, was threatened with a possible breakdown from overwork. He wrote a number of short stories while recuperating, all of which sold very readily and provided us with a comfortable living. At the time of our move, I had a sister, Florence, aged four, and a one-year-old brother, Cedric (Jack).
I found life a pleasure in Long Beach - it was here where I learned to row a skiff, swim, fish, crab, sail a boat, and milk a cow - thanks to my first pal Douglas Taquino, the son of our neighbor, Frank Taquino. Doug was older than I, but the age difference did not interfere with our friendship. Mr. Taquino was a commercial fisherman, and when I was nine he allowed me to help him and his two boys Doug and George, build fish traps in the Mississippi Sound. We built two fences of galvanized chicken wire. One extended straight out from shore, beginning in two feet of water and ending in a circle of posts in about six feet of water where a gill or trammel net was placed. The other fence began in the six foot water depth and ended out in the channel in about fourteen feet. When fish traveled with the tide in search of food they would encounter these fences and head for deeper water where they would gill themselves in the nets.
What an experience it was for a small boy to accompany his idol on that great adventure of running those traps! In the shallow water trap we took smaller fish - trout, reds, flounder, and mullet. In the deep water we caught mackerel, bull reds, ling, big flounder, tarpon, and an occasional shark. We carried a shotgun to kill the dangerous fish. The traps were run once a day and the fish were brought ashore in big skiffs, then dressed, iced down in large barrels, and shipped to the wholesalers. Doug taught me how to open oysters and sometimes I would go out on the wharf shed and help him and his dad open them for the market. There
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