I said earlier that Georgia was an open range state until 1953 I believe. I'm not certain about the year that "the fence law" was enacted but I think it was 1953. At any rate I would have been 10 years old in 53 and if I had been allowed as well as encouraged to shoot Mrs Rahn's cows to drive them out onto the highway ditches before the repeal of "open range" I must have gotten my first BB gun when I was about seven years old because some later year I got a more powerful BB gun a Daisy Pump. I know I received the 410 for Christmas in the sixth grade for a Christmas present from Santa. I was six when I started first grade and I would have turned twelve in the spring of my sixth year of school.
     When I was in sixth grade there was a nice family boarding with Grandma in the Greenhouse. The Walkers had come from Sanford, Fla and they had two little boys who were about two and three years younger than me. Johnny Walker and his wife Billie with her two sons Butch and Bubba Mills had come to live with Grandma the year before sixth grade and they lived here for about two years. Their presence  next door would bring a whole new world to a young Jimmy Smith. As it turned out Johnny had been a young associate of Billie and her husband who owned a pawn shop in Sanford and they also owned a nice country home on the out skirts of town. They moved to McIntosh to rent half of Grandma's house while Johnny fulfilled his two year enlistment in the Army. It seems that Mr Mills had died at a young age and left Billie and two little boys without a father. Johnny had been from a very poor family (simply a Florida cracker) and had worked for Mr Mills in his business interest before his death. When Mr Mills died Johnny married Billie and they came to Camp Stewart for a two year enlistment.
     They brought with them a 1951 Oldsmobile and a 1951 Studebaker pick up truck as well as Johnny's Harley Davidson motorcycle. They made frequent trips to Florida for brief visits. Butch and Bubba instantly became much of my after school entertainment. The Walkers would go to the drive in theatre every time the movie changed and before very long I came to be invited to go along.
     It would come to pass that I would take my first motorcycle ride with Johnny as well as my first flight in an airplane.  An old Hinesville legend Richard Helms (a non college educated but licensed attorney because he passed the bar exam) owned a two seat er airplane and it was kept at what was jokingly referred to as Gibbs international airport across the road from the Hinesville cemetery. The airplane was an Ercoupe with an unusual design. I think it might have had dual tail uprights. Maybe Jamey can dig up a picture of one. Anyway it was a small single engine with the cockpit above the front wings. The top of the cockpit was merely a front and rear windshield with an overhead sliding door entrance into the seat. You entered by stepping up onto the right hand front wing and over into the two seats. Once seated you simply pulled the sliding plastic panel over to the edge if you wanted to close the top. You could slide the two plastic panels to the center of overhead and  the cockpit was open air with each side open but the passengers had the two plastic panels above them. As I said it was a unique design and it was a thrill just to sit in it at my young age.
     Richard Helms was an eccentric local legend in old Liberty county. He and I became acquainted when I was a little boy. Johnny Walker was a licensed pilot before he and the family moved to Liberty county. The Gibbs family owned a large farm on highway 82 between Hinesville and Allenhurst. They mostly raised cattle and their herd roamed the woods between highway 82 (now 84) and the Atlantic Coastline railroad. I'm speaking of the area just east of the Cherokee Rose golf course. Back in the forties some of the Gibbs family became interested in flying and owned at least one airplane. Not long after we got our first automobile Daddy took me to Gibbs field one day to watch people get into the plane and take short flights. I'm not sure if it was a special occasion or something that occur ed on a regular basis. I think I accompanied Daddy to the airstrip more than once but I'm positive that I visited at least one time. At any rate the airstrip was dirt and grass and the runway was at a right angle from the highway. The strip backed up to the road just across from the turnoff to go to the Hinesville cemetery.
     The Walker family came into our midst when I was in the fifth grade and went back to Florida when I was in the seventh grade. It was during this time that Richard Helms owned his airplane and most of the time it was kept at a small airstrip on highway 80 just out of Savannah on the way to Tybee. That is where he took it for service and maintenance.
     In years past the family of Mr John Gibbs became aviators shortly after the end of the war. I've been told that the government created a program to pay former veterans to learn how to fly airplanes. Allegedly  Mr Gibbs and his two sons learned how to fly and might have all owned airplanes as I remember seeing more than one airplane there when Daddy took me to see the place one day in the late forties. The Gibbs farm was probably almost equal to Cherokee Rose country club and it encompassed a long highway frontage from the eastern edge of the country club to a large drainage
ditch on the western edge just across the road from the American Legion.
     The place was known as Gibbs field and before the fence law was enacted in 1953 I guess the airplanes were kept in a fenced compound so as to keep the cows away. I recall a huge barn type building with shed roof structures on either side of the front of the structure so that an Airplane could be enclosed within the building. In her later days the widow of Mr Gibbs continued to have a heard of cows and cultivated some of the land as well as renting some spaces for the revolutionary new house trailers, which would later be called mobile homes. The original airstrip had become a pasture for the grazing cattle.
     I guess at some point Richard Helms made arrangements with Mrs. Gibbs to land and keep his airplane at Gibbs field. One afternoon Johnny Walker asked Mama if he could take me with him to do some sort of work on the airplane. He and Richard both frequently would tinker with things on the plane and then take it up for a quick test. Before too long I begged Mama and Daddy to let me go up with Johnny. Permission was given and at the ripe old age of ten years old I took my first airplane ride. I sat in the right hand seat and off we went. As I recall the cockpit was just slightly forward of the forward edge of the main wing. Seated in the plane you could look down at the front edge and have a clear view below. When we arrived at the airstrip the plane was parked near the highway and there was a ramp from the road where we parked the 1951 Studebaker pickup and simply climbed the fence to enter the airstrip.
     That tiny little airplane was the most marvelous thing I had ever seen at the time. I was in fifth grade I think and until that time I had only known and experienced a world between Claxton, Metter and Savannah. Daddy's sister Aunt Dell at one time lived in Metter where Uncle Brunell Burkhalter ran a hardware store. Several Aunts and Uncles lived in Claxton and some in Bulloch and Bryan counties. Thus at ten years old my world had less than a one hundred mile radius of McIntosh. Gibbs field was probably about five or six miles from home located on the same highway. As the crow flies it would have been much closer. Highway 84 although considered to be an east-west road has a direct virtual ninety degree turn in the center of Flemington at what would come to be known as McLarry's curve.
     The airplane was backed up to the fence and positioned headed straight toward the airstrip which was positioned at a nearly right angel to the highway. The far end of the airstrip would approach the lowlands near the Atlantic Coastline railroad which stretched from Savannah to Waycross passing through McIntosh and Allenhurst with stations located at McIntosh and Walthourville. With much excitement and absolutely no fear I eagerly climbed up onto the right wing behind Johnny and we both stepped into the cockpit and I think we had seat belts but I have no memories of them. I do recall being fascinated by the clear plastic bubble which covered the cockpit.