Sherman Hansford was one of those people that just sort of came and went without making any major headlines. He affected a lot of people in my community, and a lot of people outside of my community, but isn’t mentioned anywhere on the ‘net that I can find. It’s a shame too, he was a great personality. I knew him through all my childhood and a good part of my adult life until his death a few years ago.
Although he served in various capacities, his exploits as a US Marshall are what I remember best. I don’t know really know what his career dates are, he could have been a Marshall my entire life for all I know, but I do know he was the sheriff at one point as well.
He was particularly fond of my mom. He was like a big protective brother to her. If there was any question of our safety, we didn’t feel the least bit concerned, Sherman would do whatever it took, and we knew it. After my mom’s death, the house I grew up in burned a few years ago. While the house was still ablaze, I was called and rushed to help my dad with the fire. The fire department was there and kept hearing a popping sound. They asked my dad if he had any guns, he assured them he didn’t. I had to butt in and tell dad that he did indeed have several guns, and that popping was indeed bullets going off. We just had to wait them out. It didn’t really matter. After the fire dad wanted to know where all the guns came from. Sherman had given my mom several guns to protect herself when dad was away. He had given her shooting lessons as well. My dad was totally unaware of any of this. I enjoyed informing dad he was married to a gunslinger.
When I was a SMALL kid, my dad and I used to go out to Sherman’s farm. When he confiscated artillery, he had to hang on to them until they knew where to send them. So, needless to say, Sherman’s collection of guns varied every trip, and were always interesting. Sherman didn’t really have a natural fear of death, so he would let me shoot them. One particular time he handed me this rifle ( don’t ask me, I don’t remember ). I aimed, pulled the trigger, and it shot, and kept shooting. By the time it finished I had shot the river bank, the trees behind it, the leaves above, and quite a few straight into the air. The recoil knocked me flat on my back and I naturally gripped tightly when flying to the ground. Bullets went everywhere. When everyone got off the ground, no one was hurt. He never let me shoot a fully automatic rifle again. For that matter, I don’t think I ever wanted to. I also got to shoot sawed-off shotguns, gats, wooden pistols, about everything.
Another time I was in the courthouse and Sherman was escorting a couple of deputies carrying this fairly small man who had obviously been beat to a pulp. I asked another guy who knew the police force very well what had happened. It went like this: the guy was witness to a murder, but was in fear that the guy who did the killing would kill him too if he ratted on him. So, Sherman "beat it out of him". The reality of the situation was the guy calmly told Sherman what he needed to know. While they were sitting there having drinks, Sherman punched him a couple of times. Now, you have to understand, Sherman was a BIG man. I couldn’t imagine suffering a shot to the face from Sherman. According to the tale, it only took a couple of punches between drinks to get the little guy looking like he had been roughed up pretty bad. They then proceeded to carry him around the courthouse in a public display of how badly Sherman "had to beat him" in order to get the truth out of him. We had a seperate detention center, there was no reason for the guy to be at the courthouse. By bruising him up and displaying him in public, Sherman was saving his life.
Sherman was the man who taught me how to ride a dirt bike. Just to give an example of how he thought, he taught me how to start it, how to accelerate it, and how to shift gears up. What he didn’t teach me was how to slow it down other than by brakes, or how to stop it. His instructions resulted in me hitting our family car head-on at a pretty rapid speed. It flung me over the hood of the car. As I lay in gravel worried about the car and the bike, these two hands appeared from the heavens and lifted me up. It was Sherman, he was smiling the biggest grin I ever saw on that man. Even though I had done probably $2,000 worth of damage to the bike and car, and nearly run my baby brother over in the process, he had another motorcycle ready for me to get on. My mom didn’t like the idea, my dad hated the idea. So, he suggested they move their cars. This time I hit the house. It was brick, no harm was done. I never really got the hang of dirtbiking. I like having four wheels on the ground. However, the only story I have of dirtbiking is a pleasant one because of him.
A few years ago Sherman finally fully retired. Within a few months he died in a car accident. I never really felt it was an accident. In a lot of ways, because of my memories of Sherman, I plan to never fully retire.
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