James Barnes-American Hero.

In 1944, James Barnes volunteered for the Military service. He was sworn into the U.S. Marines and sent to Paris Island for basic training. He went from there to Camp LeJuine and from there was taken to San Diego, CA where he was shipped to Pearl Harbor.

He was trained to be a flamethrower and had been trained in jungle warfare. But when he arrived at Pearl Harbor the Japanese had surrendered. He was sent to an island to guard the Japanese prisoners some of who where patients at a military facility. One who was a Japanese banker, another who was a Kamikaze and missed his target, among many others. He made Staff Sergeant rank and was Honorably discharged in 1946.

(Mr. Barnes said that the canine training was something he got into after he was out of the military.)

Above information written and provided by Gloria Barnes. Thanks Gloria.

James Barnes-What a character! Well, after all he grew up in the Rockport Area and there has been a long list of characters that came from that small town. At this writing, James is doing well and he is still a character. He now lives near Hartford, but still tries to visit Rockport on a regular basis and I have seen him at all of the "Rockport Days" events.

Where do I start on putting in my three-cents worth about James Barnes? Guess that a good place to start would be when I was a young boy of about ten years of age and "Barnes" was about twenty. We moved back to Rockport in 1945. James was in service at this time, but a year later, he would be back home. At ten years of age, most of the young lads in Rockport were out of the house and roaming Rockport. It may have been the river, the woods, open fields, in town trading comic books, or other places to roam, but we roamed. In those days, if you were out, you saw others and one of those others was James Barnes. I guess that I have know him for most of my life and very proud of the fact that we are true friends.

After returning to Rockport in 1946, when his military duty was over, James married Margaret Helen Singleton and they proceeded to raise a family. The children were all boys and unless I have left out one or two, there was five boys. All of the sons married and raised their families in the Rockport area. I have lost count of all of James' grandchildren, but there are more than can be counted using fingers on each hand.

James wore several "Work Hats" until he finally decided on becoming a "Brick Layer". Being a construction brick layer, like all other jobs, has it's advantages and disadvantages. He had to travel, out of town, more than he desired, but a construction worker has to report, "On Site" for his work and the construction site could be many miles from home. Some jobs would only last a week or two, while other big jobs, like the Appliance Park project in Louisville, lasted for years. A big advantages of the construction trade is the "Off Time". A construction worker could report to a site and the work hours could be for twelve hours a day and seven days a week. After each job was complete, the off times would be the times between the completion of one job or site and the start of another work site. Thus, these breaks between jobs could last from a few days to several months. In this period of time, a construction worker could hunt, fish, and play or they could work at other local jobs. Unemployment Compensation helped and many of the Rockport residents became "Construction Workers". This was mainly in the time frame before coal became "King".

In between jobs and in the early fifties, James bought a house in Madisonville that was scheduled to be destroyed. I have since forgotten many of the details, but this house was in the way of a highway project and had been bought by the road project. James made a bid on the demolition project and got the contract. I think the details, in general,were for James to remove the house and contents and leave a cleaned up and vacant lot. His compensation was the material of the house and the contents. For some reason, James asked me if I wanted a summer job helping him raze the house. I jumped at the idea. I am not sure of the pay, maybe a dollar an hour, if that much. James would pick up other adults to help, if and when he could find anyone. Every weekday morning, for most of the summer, James would pick me up and we would head out to Madisonville. Sometimes he would have another person with him and at other times, it would just be him and me. The project lasted for most of the summer and it was a fun job and fun being with James, although it was hard work. Guess that was my first real job other than mowing grass, delivering papers and such. Thus, being taught by James, must have been beneficial.

My first day on the job was a look/see and get acquainted type of a day. We went all through the house and made notes, both mental and on paper. We inspected and planned on about every detail. The first time that I saw the house, I saw one very large, two story house that was an expensive house in that day and time. I can remember the fixtures in the two bathrooms and an image of the expensive porcelain tubs, commodes and lavatories are still etched in my old brain cells. The first part of the demolition, after a little training on how to salvage wood and material, was to take up the contents of the bathroom. Probably at the end of the first week, we had the two bathroom fixtures and other contents sitting on the street with a "For Sale" sign posted on them. Eventually, we had everything that was of value, either on the street or taken back to Rockport to be sold at a later date. The bathroom fixtures did not stay on the street for long. We would be working and a customer would show. James would haggle over the price and soon, the bathroom contents were sold. I should have known then that this guy should have a job where he dealt with the public. What was not sold on any particular day was taken back into the house and placed out on the street the next day. The kitchen was next with the removal of the cabinets and appliances and from there, outlets, lights, fans, furnace and anything of value was removed and either sold or taken back to Rockport. The beautiful tile and some of the flooring was not salvageable as most of it was broken upon removal. The roofing, of course was taken to the dump, but all of the floor jousts, wall studs and rafters were removed in good shape and sold. After several weeks, all that was left was a pile of bricks and that is another story.

The "Old Boss" had about a week to remove the bricks from the demolition site and he asked if I would work on what was called "Piece Work". This was new to me and he explained that I would be paid, not by the hour, but by the number of bricks that I cleaned. Remember, this was a brick house and the external walls were pulled or shoved to the ground and the bricks, upon falling, would break apart in different ways. The bricks would sell only if they were cleaned and separated from the other bricks and from the mortar. Well, this "Piece Work" sounded fine to me and I have forgotten the price that I was paid for each clean brick. I think the price was set at two cents a brick for each brick that was cleaned. An average brick may take a minute to clean and that added up to a total of about $1.20 an hour. Good money for a teen in those times. The project was approaching a deadline and I think that James thought that if I was paid on the work output, then I may work harder. I doubt that I did, but did manage to make more money per day that I had been making. James also picked up another helper so that he could meet his deadline. "Slick" Chapman joined us and we finished the project in the time allotted. I had a mental picture of the fine house that stood in the way of a road being built and my last look at the job site was a clean and vacant piece of ground. To this day, I always pause at the end of a project and look back at the site or subject, sort of reflecting back on what the project looked like when I started and how it looked when I left. Thanks, Barnes for the opportunity to work with you and get to know you.

I would be remiss if I did not explain Gloria's last statement, about "Canine Training". Her last paragraph stated that the "Canine Training" that her father-in-law was involved with was after he got out of the service. If you are still reading this section, thanks for staying with me and I will close out this page after this last paragraph explaining what she was talking about.

James was always good with dogs and the training thereof. He would feed, take care of, and sometimes adopt about any dog that would wander onto his property. After about thirty years or so of construction work, James saw a chance of opening a service station and he jumped at the opportunity. He was just the right person for a business, and he was successful in the operation of "Barnes Service Station", in Rockport, until he was ready for retirement. Seems as if he always had some sort of a dog at the station and most of them were not much of a watch dog, but a "would-be" crook just did not know what to expect. Anyway, one such dog, a stray at the time, liked to chase coal trucks and eventually got hit by one. James took the dog in and nursed him back to health. The lucky dog was named "Coal Truck". I am not sure of his demise, but do remember that the dog was very entertaining, when James had time to show him off.

The smartest and best trained dog to inhabit the service station, that I can remember, was a black dog that Barnes named "Whitey". I think that people would travel to the service station just to see Whitey perform. One of my favorite acts that Whitey was trained to do, was to ignore food unless Barnes told Whitey that it was good food and okay to eat. I don't know the number of times that a customer, local person or a complete stranger, would be coerced into giving Whitey a treat. The morsel of food would be thrown to the floor and Whitey would start for the food, but would be looking at Barnes all of the time. Barnes would tell Whitey that the food was dirty and Whitey would just back off. He would tell Whitey to ease up a little closer just to look at the dirty food and Whitey would obey. This could go on for minutes and Barnes would have Whitey near the food and then back him away until Barnes would tell Whitey that the food was clean and okay to eat. Whitey would then get his deserved treat. I have taken several people to the service station, including my wife, just to let them watch the "Barnes and Whitey" show. Years later I was told that Barnes got his experience in training dogs while he was in the service, as he was a dog handler. It made sense to me until I asked Gloria and she came back with the paragraph in the section above.

Pictured to the right is James Barnes with two of the Durbin Sisters. The picture was taken at the Rockport Days Event of 2008. A jrd photo.

I could go on and on with stories about Barnes and would not have to stretch the truth. He was just some kind of a character. His jokes and puzzles, especially his math puzzles, would just boggle my mind. What great times! Thanks James for the life time of knowing you and for your service to our country.

Thanks for looking and reading.

See you......
jrd

;~)