CRESTVIEW — After 92 years, Holt native Marlin Bass says the two biggest changes he’s witnessed are advances in communications and transportation.
“Growing up, there was only one radio in the whole community,” Bass said. “My brother and our daddy and I would walk over there — it was about 2 miles — and listen to the ‘Grand Ole Opry’ on Saturdays.”
To supplement the family’s income, his father got a contract to drive a school bus. In those days, school bus contractors had to supply their own bus, so his dad scraped together $640 and bought a new 1936 truck.
“It had a hood and a motor and a windshield. The rest was just a chassis,” Bass said.
Luckily, a relative in Georgiana, Ala., built school bus bodies. Not only did Bass learn to drive in that bus, by his junior and senior year, he was driving his classmates to and from high school in it.
MUSIC LOVER
Bass, who loves music, learned to play a Sears Roebuck guitar his mother bought for him as a young teen.
Today he enjoys plucking out tunes on his dulcimer, an instrument he and his wife of 72 years, Charlotte, built themselves.
Members of the Crestview Community Chorders, based at the Bass’ First Baptist Church, periodically meet at their home to jam.
Until shingles made it uncomfortable to hold properly, Bass was an avid fiddle player as well.
“You know the difference between a violin and a fiddle?” he asked some visitors. “The violin has strings. The fiddle has ‘strangs.’”
WORLD WAR II
Bass first served as an Army Air Corps aircraft recognition instructor in Salt Lake, Utah.
Upon the Battle of the Bulge, Adolf Hitler’s last-ditch 1944 effort to route the imminent Allied invasion of Germany, Bass was thrust into action.
“They were taking band members, instructors, cooks — whoever they could get their hands on” to replace killed, wounded or captured infantrymen, Bass said.
While patrolling for snipers in a small, mostly destroyed German village, Bass and a comrade came upon a damaged house with a small section still standing.
There they found a closet and realized it’d be a perfect hiding spot for a sniper to shoot them as they walked by.
“I told my partner, ‘I’m going to snatch this door open. You be ready,’” Bass said. “There wasn’t anything in that closet but a brand new tuxedo, a top hat on the shelf, and a cloth bag.”
After poking the bag to make sure it wasn’t a booby trap, Bass unearthed a beautiful mandolin with pearl inlay.
“My buddy said, ‘I want the tuxedo,’” Bass said. “Being a country boy, I had no use for a tuxedo, so I said, ‘I want the mandolin.’”
That souvenir of World War II is still in the Bass’ Crestview home.
BAPTISM IN THE RHEIN
During the war, Bass attended church services wherever his unit’s chaplain could hold them.
“I was baptized in the Rhein River,” Bass said. “There must’ve been 25 of us in that group. Of course, I was baptized again in a church when I got back home.”
Bass said most of his time was spent guarding German prisoners of war and patrolling for snipers. Once, he came just one man away from being shot by a sniper hiding in the woods.
“We were out in the woods eating dinner,” Bass said. “The fellow next to me started to stand up to go back for seconds and a sniper shot him right in the rear. The bullet went through one side and out the other. It didn’t even hit any bone.”
HOSPICE CARE
Bass prepared for his birthday celebration Thursday with the help of his wife and his Covenant Hospice caregivers.
“I told her, ‘Make sure my hair’s parted straight,’” he said to chuckles as he removed a baseball cap to reveal a mostly bald head.
His caregivers love his jovial personality, lively conversation and sense of humor, Covenant’s senior development and communications manager Jenni Perkins said.
“He is a perfect example of someone under Covenant’s care who is making the most of every moment, enjoying the people and the activities he loves most, like playing the dulcimer and sharing his life experiences,” Perkins said. “He’s such a fascinating and sweet man!”
For Thanksgiving, the Bass' three children, eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren gathered at their Pearl Street home.
“We’ve been very blessed,” Charlotte Bass said. “We have a good family.”
“We enjoy life,” Marlin Bass said. “It’s always good to have family and friends come by.”
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Holt resident celebrates 92 years with music, memories (VIDEO)
