Author Archives: CharlieClaywell

About CharlieClaywell

I have been a writer for years, mainly as a reporter, but I have always enjoyed history, especially non-mainstream stories buried inside old documents. My blog mostly centers around those stories. On occasion, though, I deviate and talk about my dog, vintage toys and what it's like to be middle-aged.

Gomer Pyle board game (Photo)

Posted on February 18, 2014 by CharlieClaywell

1964 Gomer Pyle board game.

I became interested in vintage board games when I stumbled across an unplayed version of Class Struggle (you can read about it and a few other rare finds in this article I wrote for Yahoo). Now, whenever I go to a garage sale or a thrift store, I head for the toy rack and see what I can find.

Description: This 1964 game is obviously connected to the Gomer Pyle TV show. The game is played by rolling the dice and each player tries to finish first so they can salute Sergeant Carter. The game was sold by Transogram. The company’s most famous game was probably Tiddledy Winks.

Notes: Although Mint in the Box versions of the game are listed for as much as $200, mine is not complete and is in played with condition. Part of the value of the game, I think, besides its connection to a TV show is the graphics are colorful and a very high quality for that era.

Categories: board games, Vintage Toys | Tags: collectible games, TV shows, vintage games

Books I’ve Read: First You Have to Row a Little Boat

Posted on February 16, 2014 by CharlieClaywell

For some reason, I have recently started reading ‘meaning of life’ type of books and came across this one in a thrift store. The book landed on the best sellers list and once you read it you can easily see why.

First You Have to Row a Little Boat, by Richard Bode

The book starts off in a peaceful place — Bode’s youth and his overwhelming desire to own a sailboat. You quickly learn that Bode, who does not try to evoke self-pity, has lost both of his parents. After their death he first lives with his grandparents, but he is eventually raised by an aunt and uncle when his grandmother becomes too ill to care for him.

You, the reader, follow along this quick trip through his childhood and beyond, by meeting the characters that teach Bode how to live. They do not sermonize or preach, instead offer small bits of wisdom along the way that Bode eventually latches onto as life lessons. The boat, although real, is a metaphor for his life, as he learns how to navigate through good and bad weather, how to control the wind and and figures out his destination.

Regardless of where you are in your life, at least one of the chapters will resonate with you. After his first boating accident on his sloop (he hit a log puncturing a hole in the vessel), he is relunctant to go sailing again.

I stood on the shore, looking at my sloop thinking about all the terrible things that might happen to me, and for a while I did not want to leave the harbor. For the truth is to sail, to even contemplate sailing, calls for a fundamental faith in one’s self, at that moment I was only aware of the barriers between myself and my destination..

Of course, he will go back out. He will learn and he will master seamanship. Eventually he win even place in a sailing race.

Even though I know little (nothing) about boating or sailing, Bode writes in a way I didn’t need to, giving just enough information about boating to explain what I needed to know. Although, he handles some pretty ‘heavy’ stuff for such a short book, you walk away with an appreciation that life does not have to be perfect, it just has to be lived.

And just like Bode as a young boy, you realize have to stop worrying about what might be and sail.

Categories: Books I have read, Middle age | Tags: best sellers, book review

Am I related to someone famous?

Posted on February 12, 2014 by CharlieClaywell

When people learned I was tracing my family tree, many let me know they were related to someone famous — like Daniel Boone or Ben Franklin.

For the most part, I’ve found, that although I am connected to interesting regions of the country and intriguing eras of history — I’m not really related to the famous.

Both of my family lines were early American pioneers. The Claywells forged out an existence in Cumberland County, Kentucky in the early 1800s laying claim to land earned for Shadrach Claywell’s Revolutionary War service. My maternal line, who also served in the War, ended up in the same region possibily because the land resembled the homeland of their Scottish-Irish youth.

On the maternal side, the Beatys lived in the same region as a few famous people, like the Clemens — as in Mark Twain’s family. His father, John practiced law in Fentress County, TN and served in various official capacities like: Country Commissioner, Court Clerk, acting Attorney General and Postmaster of Pall Mall. The Clemens moved onto Missouri before Mark was born.
In, History of Fentress County, Tennessee: The Old Home of Mark Twain’s Ancestors, by Albert Ross Hogue, Hogue tells a story about Jim Crockett — Davy Crockett’s first cousin. When Hogue relays the story, he casually mentions that Jim’s father, William Crockett (Davy’s uncle), lived ‘in the pioneer days’ on what is now (early 1900s) the Jerry Beaty farm. Hogue adds, (without explaining how he verified this fact):
- The Beaty’s, who are related to Crockett, also moved into this very neighborhood.
Probably the most famous man in the modern era from the Fentress County region is Alvin C. York. His WWI exploits were immortalized in a film starring Gary Cooper, which won two Oscars. York’s name is still very prominent in the region a century after his actions. My mother picked beans on York’s farm in her youth.
Jamestown, Tennessee — the county seat for Fentress County — is birthplace of the World’s Longest Yard Sale — which every August passes through my hometown in southwest Ohio.

So am I related to anyone famous?

The closest I have found so far is: I am second-cousin once-removed from 2006 Miss USA Tara Conner. Tara’s great-grandmother Minnie Conner is my grandfather Charlie L. Claywell’s youngest sister — our common ancestor is Joe Lee Claywell (he is my great-grandfather, Tara’s great-great-grandfather).

Joe Lee had three children with his first wife Sallie Guinn (Charlie, Ruby and Jim). Sallie Guinn died due to complications of childbirth with their fourth child (Sallie L. who also died).

Joe later remarried (SallieWells) and they had five children: (Paul, Docia, Lucille, Glendon, Minnie).

Minnie is Tara’s great-grandmother.