booga bottom or crop dustin' delta fools

[4dawgma]

can you shed some light on this "business card" for me

[torch]

I had the pleasure of knowing him. He flew an airplane under the Hushpuckena Bridge and the 8mm film looks like he had only inches of clearance on each side. He used to have a sign on 61 that read T-bones .75 with meat 6.95.

[lowbar]

Sure


Illegitima Non Carborundum
Ode to Booga Bottom

by Will Long


Separating fact from fiction in musing about a Delta icon like Dave Harris is impossible and may well be sacrilege. It is certainly pedantic and therefore we will leave the task to agnostics—from Arkansas

Did he really adopt the pseudonym “Booga Bottom” himself from some “lost forty” they owned, or did the labor on the place threaten to exile the little boy to the “Booga Bottom?” And did he drop ammunition down the smokestack of a Japanese destroyer in WWII while flying a helldiver, or did he fly his Ag plane under the Hushpuckena Bridge near Highway 61 with one foot to spare on either side? And, does the “Illegitima Non Carborundum” on his business card mean, “Don’t let the bastards get you down?”



In later life he made his living by representing wine companies after the state went wet, although he never took a drink. But I knew him before that when he made his living flying Ag planes. Agriculture in those days was just awakening from a two thousand year sameness and we were just beginning to use chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. Mules had just been universally replaced by the ubiquitous tractor. Rice was a new cash crop in Mississippi, and most important, thanks to Hitler, we had new poisons that actually killed the boll weevil, and anything else that got a sufficient dose. The Ag plane was the delivery medium and Booga was an officer in the “Delta Escadrille.” His air base was on Highway 61 a little north of Shelby. There were pumps, poisons, measuring and mixing apparati, ground support, a chase vehicle and in the middle of all this grandness was a one room shack that didn’t grow, it metastasized into a bedroom he called his dog house, then a kitchen, then a restaurant that became known as the “Dog House.” Chief of the ground crew was Big James who shared Booga’s flair for the dramatic and undoubtedly had a constitution like a rhinoceros since he had been sprayed with more lethalities than an EPA rat. In the middle of all of this, people flocked to eat at the famous Dog House. When anyone had a notable visitor, they would be taken with pride to his landmark. I think I am correct that each and every one of the pesticides then in use have been taken off the market and drummed out of the corps of human inventions as inimical to mammalian existence. Those who ate at the Dog House may have died of something, but it wasn’t parasites.

Around 1956, Booga started taking his Ag plane to Nicaragua in our off-season to become an “Aerofimigadora.” In those days the political situation in all of Central America was balanced between dictators and the CIA. Rumors abounded about which group Booga was affiliated with. I personally thought probably both. The only thing that we can be absolutely certain of is that he made friends with somebody. Booga’s mother-in-law was the postmistress in Shelby and she and Booga never saw eye-to-eye. He would send her post cards from Nicaragua addressed:

The Barracuda
Shelby, MS, USA
At some point, Booga got a passenger plane, a Mooney Mark 21. One day he and Bert Hays flew to Memphis on some mission and got a late start home. Shortly, it dawned on Bert that it would be dark when they reached the strip, and it wasn’t lighted. He asked Booga, “How we going to land this thing in the dark?” Booga replied, “Oh don’t worry about it. There’s a light at the edge of town and a pine tree in Sacco’s yard. It’s that pine tree plus a minute, then we go down.” Bert got right with God. In actuality, Booga had arranged to have his wife’s brother drive up and shine his headlights down the strip.

Booga was not what would be called a good financial manager, but he compensated for that by keeping a few good friends who were. He said he survived 17 forced landings while flying, but several more financially. One of his good friends and co-owner of the Mooney was Governor John Bell Williams, who Booga flew around the state in the first primary of the 1967 election. He became friends with Williams when he was chairman of a congressional aviation committee. He credited Williams with saving his pilots license after an incident with an Illinois Central Train heading toward Memphis late one night. He sprayed blackbirds on their roost at night for rice farmers and his wife would park her car at the end of the runway with the headlights shining down the runway. Booga would fly over the car and use the headlights to help him see the runway. The Alligator strip was between Highway 61 and the Illinois Central Train Track. He decided he could make less hazardous night landing if he installed a DC3 landing light under the wing of his AgCat. This worked out well until one night when he could not resist flying low over the train track and flipping on the giant light as an Illinois Central Train headed north. The train engineer mistook him for an approaching train and slammed on the train brakes. Booga described the train as looking like a giant sparkler as the brakes heated up. The FAA and the railroad were not amused. His success with the congressional committee led to a congressional lobbying job with United States Overseas Airlines (USOA) during the winter months when he wasn’t crop dusting.

Later on in the campaign for governor, when it looked like he might win, they got a larger plane and a new pilot, and started filing flight plans. John Bell had lost an arm in a bomber crash in WWII and his opponents unaffectionately referred to him by that old slot machine appellation, “The One Armed Bandit.” But he won and as the spoils go to the victor, Booga wound up as a wine and spirits broker. His standard introduction ran something like, “Booga Bottom, born six miles off the hard road between Alligator and Hushpuckena, Mississippi.” Sometimes he signed his name “S. Booga Bottom” which was from what he said his mother called him, “Sweet” Booga Bottom. With his business card and this introduction, some of the more sophisticated wineries disdained to be represented by Booga, which is probably the reason we don’t have rare vintages in Mississippi today.

I have a friend from North Carolina who moved to the Delta and was advised upon arrival that the Delta was full of characters. He said what they didn’t tell him was that they bubbled up on every corner. Booga was one of them. But it should also be said, when duty called, Booga, like most of them, risked their lives and all they had to defend this country and our way of life. They will forever be noble to me. DM

[bpinson1]

Classic

[TODO]

[teul2]

Good read.
Thanks Lowbar

[goosebruce]

Dat's a kick booty read. travis

[2dogs]

Cool!!! You gotta love the Delta.

[tombstone]

I have eaten with Teddy bear and rode those roads many days. I spent alot of time around these airports and ag strips and know/knew some of those upstart ag pilots, but I knew none of this.

Great read!! thanks for posting!!!!

[dliggett]

That was truly AWESOME!!!!
Proud to a MISSISSIPPIAN

[landscaper]

Cool story!

[Taint]

definitely interesting.....i sent on to others that would like that! cool

[jacksbuddy]

[Deltamud77]

I felt like this post, which popped into my head today for some unknown reason, needed to be bumped to enjoy. Quite a story and quite a man.

[mudsucker]

Glad ya bumped it as I did not read it first go round! Hat's off to Mr. B.B. as he was one of the greatest generation!