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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with James W. (Jim) Connor, December 19, 1999. Interview K-0818. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Saving livestock from a flood

Connor describes rescuing five cows and a horse from floodwaters, floating them to safety as jet-skiers raced by.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with James W. (Jim) Connor, December 19, 1999. Interview K-0818. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

JAMES (JIM) CONNOR:
There were five cows and a horse.
CHARLES THOMPSON:
Were youߞI've got the tape running. Will you tell the story of what happened?
JAMES (JIM) CONNOR:
Well, when the water got up so high back in this pasture area, he brought them up here and got them on his porch. You see, the water still got up about six or eight inches in there. It kept on coming on up and so he had a floating dock over by Holland's Restaurant. We cut it loose and backed it up against the porch and the first trip we took the horse and three cows out. Took two johnboats and put them like a tug and pushed them right up to Highway Fifty-Three to the forestry station and put them off. We came back and got the rest of them and took them up the same way.
CHARLES THOMPSON:
They just stood on this dock.
JAMES (JIM) CONNOR:
Yeah. It was Jimmy and his wife. They road on the barge and kept the animals calm. We put some feed on there for them so they'd be munching. They rode pretty good. The only time you'd have a problem if another boat tried to get around you and caused a wake and make it rock. Then they'd get kind of nervous. So we had one guy hanging off the backߞyou know Randy Wells that had the bulldog down there the other day. He stayed about three hundred yards behind us and kept people from coming past us. We had another guy three hundred yards in front of us making everybody stop.
CHARLES THOMPSON:
In boats.
JAMES (JIM) CONNOR:
Yeah.
CHARLES THOMPSON:
There were people zooming around in their boats?
JAMES (JIM) CONNOR:
Yeah. Jet skis. They were havingߞ.
CHARLES THOMPSON:
Just for fun.
JAMES (JIM) CONNOR:
Oh yeah.