STORYS  ABOUT MY LIFE AS I REMENBER THEM

Storys About My Life As I Remember Them. Truth or fiction I'll do the best I can.

The year was about 1948 we were pulling cotton near the town of Chillicothe TX then one day as we were working I saw a group working on some kind of machine it looked like they were trying to pull cotton with that machine but it didn't work very well so when they would get through with the machine the farmer would have us go over and pick up the cotton off the ground we do this for two or three days and we kept laughing how stupid can they be that they are trying to make a machine to do our job they'll never make a machine to pull cotton like a human can they just can't do it machine can't do what a man can do well boy was I wrong they developed that machine. Years later when I heard about it again It took over our jobs they didn't need us pulling cotton anymore which seemed to me like a good thing now.

In the late 60s I didn't have a lot of work going on and I put ads in the newspapers that would say anything legal for money and I'd have people call me on the phone and ask me to do little odd jobs and it helped me pay the bills one day I got a call and this guy said that he was an art model and he was gonna have to go out of town for fee days and he wants somebody to take his place and would I be interested I said sure I'll be glad to so he gave me the address and person name that I was to see and when I was to go there over in northeast Dallas and when I showed up I talk to the man I can't remember his name but he said you stay inside this room take off all your clothes and there'll be somebody come and get you and tell you what room to go to a little while later I heard some bells ringing" Oh and I did take off my clothes" I didn't know what was going on when this guy came in and told me to go to room 8 and there would be somebody there tell me what to do. The teacher give me instructions to stand in the corner of the room if I got in any kind of trouble to just stop my pose and change directions so that I would be embarrassed so I did. I didn't have any problem but then they had their first break I was at ease I went around to all the artist tables and looked at the artwork that they have done and I'm standing right next to him or her and said that was a good job and all this kind of stuff and that was my first art model work I did it.  I got paid and I went home.  Good Job.  P.S. Believe it or not I was so dumb I didn't know that art modeling was done nude. Who knew!

When I was a kid about 10 or 11 years of age worked for my girlfriends daddy and his name was Shorty Crenshaw I work as his helper he was a vegetable peddler during the summer time and also we have a ice route where we sold Ice  house to house we had five cents , 10 cent, 15 cents and $0.25 blocks of ice it was my job to take the ice into the house and put it into the number three wash tubs or whatever box they had available well he was gonna go pick cotton east of Waxahachie TX. so I went along with him and his family there was his wife and his older son and Barber his daughter who was I was madly in love with, first night we were out in an old cottonfield house and we sat outside the house in a circle and for our meals each one of us was given a can of pork and beans I have to say that I was not used to eating pork and beans and nothing else for my meal and as we slept that knight I had lots of gas then the next morning we got up and we got in a circle and we was each handed a can already opened pork and beans with a spoon and so that was our breakfast and then come noontime here again we sit in a circle to have lunch and we had a can of pork and beans by this time I had gas so bad my stomach was just gas, gas, gas but I didn't want to let everybody know that it was me giving the gas so I would let the gas sneak out kind of ease out but then everyone knew that it was me but they were all used to eating the the beans and I was not  by the second day there I was still eating pork and beans at each meal and I was so embarrassed I couldn't handle it anymore so I just got up and told them I was gonna go home so I left hitchhiked my way back home to West Dallas. That was the end of that but I had many adventures with Mr. Crenshaw because he was a great guy also I used to go to the farmers market to buy our vegetables and it was my job to go knock on the doors and then take the vegetables into the house and take them into the kitchen or whatever but I had a great time I love these people very much I guess it's a dumb story but it's part of my life. P.S. Shorty's daughter Barbara Mary brownie Bradshaw and they lived together for many many years until she passed away just a few years ago. I understand they had a great life.

This story is about my younger sister Rayann. In about 1948 my mother and I,  Rayann, my younger brother LG were in Abilene to find a place to stay.  We just got into town we were hungry so we stopped in this little cafe and ordered each of us a hamburger, hamburgers were $0.10 a piece that was the going price for hamburgers in those days but when we got our hamburgers we started eating our food, Rayann all of a sudden started crying and we did not understand so we asked what's wrong with you and she was just crying and she said there's no meat in my hamburger we were the only customers in the cafe and he heard what Rayann said he rushed over and said honey don't cry, don't cry, I'll get you a new hamburger you just stop crying now and so he did and she quit crying. That was a sad and funny story but it was true and Rayann got her hamburger with meat and she was happy.

One time before I was old enough to go to school we living in Mason County Texas and my older sister Maureen went off to school and she had forgotten her lunch my mother told me to take her lunch to school which is about 2 miles from our house well I took my sister's her lunch and the teacher wouldn't let me leave she made me sat at the back of the room, it was one of those schools were all 12 graders in the same room after a little while I need to go pee so I raised my hand to ask the teacher if I could go pee but she kept ignoring me, after a while, I had to go so bad I peed in my pants while I was sitting down the school building was so old and the floor was unlevel my pee run across the floor to the wall and outside nobody said anything nobody did anything when lunchtime came I went home. Boy was I was glad to get out of there!

This story is about Junior Johnson it was 1950 I was 14 years old I had an apartment on Fitzhugh Ave, in east Dallas Tx, my roommate was Gene Martin he was from Hope Arkansas he had a good job and I had a good job. There was four of us boy that was kind of running together after work at nights and weekends. It was my cousin Glenn Butcher, Junior Johnson, Gene Martin, and myself Lucky Mosley,  Junior was a big boy he was probably the biggest boy of the bunch like I said I was 14 but I told everybody that I was 17 because we all had to work and the only way you could work was to lie about your age,  Junior told everybody he was 18 and there no problem believing that because he was just big, anyway junior said he was going to join the army and he went down to the recruiting office and signed up and they took him right in after he was gone three full days his mother came by crying and talking about how her baby was gone off to the Army she was so worried about him I said miss Johnson he is 18 years old he's big enough to go in the army she said no he's not he's only 12 years old, that was a big shock to all of us but many years later I heard Junior spent many years in the army and I don't know for sure because I've never seen him again, but junior must have been one hell of a man. I think about him pretty often. P.S. This was during the Korean War. Maybe more about Junior later.

 I was 10 years old and lived in the town of Eagle Ford  Texas,  known today as West Dallas, Texas I worked in two different Barbershops shining shoes. I charged $0.10 for shoes,$0.15 for boots.

This little story is about the first time I took a drink of alcohol it was two weeks before my 25th birthday and I was working on a roof putting on shingles it was an extremely hot day my first wife Ella Mae showed up and brought me some Ice Tea "she said" it was ice cold tea, I took a drink it was sweet, I said this tastes good but it's not ice Tea, I don't know what it is but it sure ain't Ice Tea, she said no it's homemade bruh, I couldn't believe what I was hearing I thought beer supposed to taste terrible and I was sure that when I took my first drink GOD was just gonna open up the ground and send me right into hell. Well, he didn't and that wasn't my last drink. 

In the middle 60s, I was living in Houston with my first wife Ella May my first two kids working as a roofer putting on wood shingles, I saw an ad in the newspaper, knight club with dance floor, for rent on West Washington street I called and made an appointment to see the building I like it right off and I figured I could afford it, so I rented me a dance hall in a nightclub. I had never owned anything like this before, but I said what the hey. With the old doctors help that owned the place I went down and I got My license to sell beer an operator the dance floor and then I opened right up just within a few days ordering all the beer and things that are needed in the bar, I got a lot of new customers right away because The Cajon club was an old club it's been there for many, many, years right on Washington street where all the clubs were I made a lot of new friends and was doing fairly well, then I became aware of the fact that there was dope being sold around me and there was a hotel right above me on top of my club with the stairs right next door, they were running prostitutes believe it or not I was not in for any of this kind of things and I didn't approve but I was trying my best to get along where's the clientele, one evening there was a Spanish guy came in he was trying to pick a fight with  Jack one of my regular customers at the pool table, after I literally throwing him out in about 10 minutes later two policeman came to my front door he was asking me if I has seen this Spanish guy I said yes he was trying to pick a fight with with Jack and I threw him out and the policeman turned  pale and he said that man just killed somebody three doors down from here just a few minutes ago. Not long after that I started having quite a few problems I was being threatened they were people pulling into my driveway at my home and saying think that would sound like throw that bomb out right here or we're gonna kill you people and I was being followed in my car to and from work every day so I thought that I'd go talk to the Houston police and see if I can get some help so I called the Houston Police Department in that area I ask to speak with the highest person I could it was some Lieutenant he don't want to talk to me in his office but he wanted to meet me out in the parking lot he came out to my car, I told him my story what was happening to me and he told me that he thought there have been some double dealing where I made some kind of deal with the drug people and the prostitute people and then I had backed out which was absolutely untrue and he had no reason to say such a thing and it just wasn't my nature at all, I became more concerned about the my family and me getting hurt, so I rented a house right close to the bar and told everybody that I was moving over there to that new house,  then one evening picked up my wife and kids put everything we owned in the car and started driving to the club area and like usual there was somebody following us when I got to a red light in downtown Houston this car got caught behind me that blocked the another car I turned left and took off and I left my bar, dance hall, my business and everything else and left town and didn't go back for many years. That's pretty much the end of that story.

In the early part of the year 1952, I left Abilene TX with $0.05 in my pocket I was going to Wichita KS to visit with my aunt I caught a ride with this guy who owns a trucking outfit he was working in the wheat harvest of that year asked what I was doing and I told I was just looking for work ask me to can I drive a truck I said yes I've got a commercial drivers license he put me to work driving a Mack truck, and I never miss a meal. I worked for him till we got through Leoti Kansas and I met this guy that worked on a ranch he was telling me how much fun it was to work on the ranch and that he could get me on so he did and I worked on that ranch for a couple of months and then I went back home to Abilene that was it for that trip. P.S. I never got to visit my aunt.

When I was in the 4th grade I was going to the Thomas Edison school in West Dallas, On Singleton Street,  I was a flag monitor I went out by myself to lower the flag because there was a storm coming up I  lowered the flag about halfway down the pole when a gust of wind got hold of me and blew me up into the air I don't know how high but pretty high and the gust of wind when it let me down against the pole and bumped my head it knocked me out and when I came to I was on the ground but I had held onto the rope and not let the flag hit the ground for that they gave me a citizenship award from the city of Dallas signed by the mayor at that time I was really proud of this.

Well this is a strange story but it is true, the year was 1988 I had a roofing company name home roofing, work was real slow I got a call from a contractor named Jack who told me he used to live in Wynwood Oklahoma and they had a hail storm and that he had sold a lot of roofing jobs up there and he wanted me to come up and bring my crew up there and roof all the jobs he sold, I said I'd be glad to do that but it would be a little while before I could dig up enough money to bring my crew up there he said that's fine, and lo and behold I got a call on the phone from a man who lived on the 88th block of Wynnewood St in Dallas TX. near the Wynnewood shopping center I gave him a bid for a new roof for the new rooms added on to his house, the bid turned out to be $888 and he took the bid and I did the job and I took that money and I took my crew to Wynnewood Oklahoma we all stayed in one motel, I started doing one house a day five days a week I did 87 houses and one big church 97 square so I did 88 jobs in all. This is a weird story but it is true.

This story is about uncle Walt Williams who was the oldest living soldier of the civil war, he lived to be 114 years old he lived in Mason County Texas where I lived when I was younger, one day when I was visiting back in the area I drove by uncle Walt, he was 97 years old at that time I didn't stop and talk to him but I saw him out behind his house plowing behind his mule, now I know he didn't do that all the time but he was known for still working at 97. You have to have a lot of respect for a man like that, and I did.

This story is about big Jim Tarver "James Grover Tarver" who was known as the world's tallest man for quite a few years he was 8 foot 6 inches tall and weight 450 pounds, When I was a little boy my mother showed us, kids, an advertisement picture of big Jim Tarver who was with the Ringling Brothers are Barnum and Bailey circus for many years the picture was an advertisement type of things he had done. Mother thought that he was some distant cousin of hers. I don't know for sure my mother's maiden name was Tarver, my, mother's father's name was James, and my mother's name was James Esther, and my name is James Lloyd, she was very proud of big Jim Tarver that's all I know. You can look up big Jim Tarver or any search engine. You can also look me up" Lucky Mosley" on any search engine.

This is a story about my wife Doris and I went to Warriors Mexico she was about eight months pregnant with Charlie, we went over into Warriors walking up and down the street shopping and this guy came up and started talking to me, he said you want a woman, I said, no, he said, you wanted to gamble, I said, no, he said, you want some dope, I said, no, he said you wanna go buy something cheap, I said, no, he stops talking to me and turn the Doris and said you wanna man, she laughed and said no, you want some dope, she said, no, you wanna gamble, she said, no, he asked her every question he asks me, and every time she said, no. We laughed about that all the way home, and every time we thought about it, over the years.

 I took a trip north of Abilene Tx. in 1952 hitchhiking as always, on the side of the road I saw a sign that said, all you can eat for $1.25, I started thinking, I could make up a story about stopping at a cafe with a sign, all you can eat for a 1.25  and order a meal all, I could eat for a dollar and a quarter, I told everybody the story many times had a lot of fun doing it, but that very same year I  was in Houston TX and I went into a Winegarden Drugstore their sign on their wall, it said all you can eat for a dollar and a quarter, I had for got the story I had been telling, so I order a all you can eat for a dollar and a quarter, well I was steel hungry, so I ordered another all you can eat plate, and when I got ready to leave, I went to pay my bill the man behind the counter said that'll be $2.50 I said, but sir the sign on the wall says all you can eat for a dollar and a quarter, he, said, the first order was all you could eat for a dollar a quarter, well  then I remember the story then I had been telling everybody, it was funny then but not so funny now. but it did happen.

When I was five years old and lived on the farm about 3 miles southwest of North Zulch, Texas my Grandfather Mosley tell me he would give me his horse if I could make it run, there was a hill out in the back of our house and I walk his horse up to the top of the hill, turn it around I got on the horse, I started kicking that horse with my heels and I started hollering, get up, It starting running very slow down that hill, not very fast but it did run and granddaddy was watching and granddaddy did give me that horse, what can I say, I had my horse after that. 

One time on that same farm just outside of North Zulch, Texas I saw it running fish out back behind our house, the fish were not very big, and it didn't last very long, but it really happened.

In the late 1950s, my dad Everett Mosley his wife Jesse, my stepmother, and I panned for gold in almost every river in Northern California including the Folsom River at the bridge by Folsom prison the water was so cold and so clear that you could actually see the gold at the bottom of the river it would just shine like brand new money I had a great time.

               One time I was driving along on Hwy 101 in Northern California and I decided to pull over off the road at a river and rest a while, after I'd been there about 20-30 minutes I decided I would go back on the highway but I couldn't because my car was stuck in the sand by the river, I did everything I could do, I put boards, tree limbs, under the tires, I was just stuck, I didn't know what to do, I just sit there, about 30 minutes went by and a man stopped, ask if he could help, I said I hope you can help me because I got stuck in the sand and can't get out, he said that's really easy to do and it's really easy to get out of of the sand, all you half to do is take a bucket over- to the river, get some water, then pour it on the sand around your tires, and drive right out, It worked just fine, I said thank you, he just laughed and said as hen drove away you "Texans will never learn". but I did learn a lesson, about water in the sand,