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I nearly had something happen to me in the Summer of 1969.

I was taking my date to an Asheville Tourists baseball game. It was a cheap date. It cost 75cents admission and if you bought a program you had about a 50% chance of winning a door prize.

To get to McCormick Field you drove through a section called “Little Africa”.

As we were parked at a 5 way intersection, a white Pontiac convertible pulled in front of me blocking me as there was a car in back. Someone yelled an obscenity and they all began to pile out of the car. I am pretty sure there were 8 of them.

I immediately reached under the seat for a Browning Hi-Power filled with 14 rounds of Super-Vel 90 grain HPs. As soon as I reached, one of them yelled that I had a gun and they all jumped back in the Pontiac and drove off fast.

I learned a lot from that. I had my window down and the door unlocked. If they had been determined to get me they would have succeeded. I think I should have locked the door and rolled up the window then gone for the gun which was being carried illegally at the time.

I later worked with a Black Federal agent who I became good friends with. I told him about it and he said if I had not had the gun, I would have gotten at least a beating. He guessed that they had, had a run-in with some other guy and were looking for a White guy to take it out on.