Preface

As many did, mine told stories about his life to his children, grandchildren, and even a few great-grand children.

Dark coal mines, trains slow enough to jump aboard (but fast enough to give you three weeks bed ridden healing time), bootlegging, the other side of the planet with Down Under boys and headhunters during a world war, still enough in the forest to have birds and squirrels eat from your hand, early retirement and making toys to sell at craft shows and more came alive for us. 

I gave him a notebook and asked him to write them down. I didn't realize how seriously he took this request until I found him with a map open across the kitchen table trying to plot the cross-country train-jumping journey he took with his friend Angelo DeLucca when they were sixteen. 

He lived to see the end of century, the beginning of a millennia, and fill two notebooks.

These are his memories in his one room school eighth grade education words. 

This little blog will tell his life and name when he is long forgotten.

Nathan King Magill

February 2, 1917 ~ April 28, 2000

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The Name ~

When I began speaking I had trouble pronouncing any variation of Grandfather. I must have been trying to say "Grampy" and it came out "Cappy" and Cappy liked it.

"Cappy's Toys" was the name my grandparents did craft shows under. We even made a vanity plate with that moniker for them.