Hey, I Wrote That

In the last few months before I left the army, my commander, Col. Archie S. Cannon got me a position with the San Pedro News-Pilot, because he knew I wanted to be a writer. I wrote mostly obituaries but was sent out on a few assignments. One was to interview Guy Pullen, a hairdresser turned artist who created sculptures out of the wire and junk he found in landfills.  I drove to his house in Palos Verdes and conducted a very nice interview. As I was leaving he gave me a wire house he was working on.

I’ve carried that house with me for over 40 years, sometimes hanging it in my own homes, including my current one in Virginia Beach and sometimes simply storing it away in the attic or closet. Recently I gave it to my daughter, Danielle, who always liked it. And that was that until...

Until the other day when I told her I would have to look the artist up on the web to see what became of him. What I discovered is he lives in Las Vegas and now collects large umbrellas and just about anything else, in addition to still creating his own unique works of art. In the words of someone who has known him for over 20 years, “This is a man who started with trash cans and door knobs and made them into things that Rod Serling bought for ‘Twilight Zone.’”

As my google search brought up more and more sites I discovered something else. One was an article about Mr. Pullen in The View, a newspaper serving the Las Vegas community of Summerlin, from which the above quote was taken. I also found another article in the Reading, Pennsylvania newspaper, Reading Eagle. I read the article and couldn’t help thinking it was strangely familiar. I went back to the beginning and noticed the article was pulled from the Copley News Service, which just happened to own the San Pedro News-Pilot. This is when it dawned on me. That was the article I wrote.

Now this isn’t a big deal. Articles fly all over the place all the time. On the other hand I wrote the piece forty years ago and wasn’t really expecting to ever come across it again—and certainly not by accident. After all, 1972 was a long time ago but not that long it turns out. Another article in the same issue (Witnesses Gave Details of Fight, page 3) involved an interview with a man who was doing in 1913 pretty much did what I was doing in 1972—essentially pretending to be a civilian while still in the military. It seems this man; Harry Hollenbach was with the U.S. 12^th Cavalry in 1913 when the unit was assigned to take part in a movie about the Battle of Wounded Knee being produced by Buffalo Bill Cody, who was a scout with Custer’s unit. He was being interviewed about his first-hand information of that movie and his time spent with Buffalo Bill.

There is a community college in town with the slogan, “From here, you can go anywhere.” Everyday, I find this to be true about the Internet. Look up something and before you’re done you’ve traveled around the world, back in time and back again.

Which brings me to Colonel Cannon, who went on to become Major General Cannon. He was born in Ashland Virginia in 1929—sixteen years after Mr. Hollenbach filmed his movie with Buffalo Bill and 42 years before I met him for the first time in 1971 when I returned from Vietnam and was assigned to the 19^th Artillery Defense Group in San Pedro, California. He died two years ago in Williamsburg, just up the road from Virginia Beach.

Well I've got to go now. It's time to eat and I think I've tied up enough loose ends for today.