The captain is docking his boat for the last time.

Jack Curtis, known to his friends, customers and many people in Vicksburg as “Captain Jack,” says the time has come to slow down and reflect on a multi-faceted life which has included careers as a professional wrestler, businessman and entrepreneur, and a teacher.

“I’m almost 79 years old,” he said. “I’ve been on this hill for 36 years. I’m ready to shut it down.”

Curtis owns Captain Jack’s This & That, a salvage grocery store he first opened in 1995 that sells dented cans and food items considered surplus by other stores. The store is located on North Frontage Road west of the Wisconsin Avenue overpass and next door to Heads Up Salon & Spa.

He owns the property on which his store, the salon and other businesses sit. Once the sales of the store’s inventory and equipment and his property, which includes both buildings, are completed, he said, “I’m going to retire.”

“I’ve owned this property since 1977,” he said. “I built the building next door (where the salon is). This property was the old Presley’s Truck Stop.

“There was nothing here but an old concrete block building over there (pointing toward the building containing the salon). I built over the top of that, and I opened this (the store site) up in 1978 or ’79. This building was the old Sun Koon Restaurant.”

Curtis’ multiple career paths began after he left the U.S. Air Force in 1957, joined his father, Jack Sr., who was a professional wrestler, and enrolled in Mississippi College in Clinton.

“We wrestled as father and son,” he said. “We were the only father-son tag team in the United States. Nobody else wrestled as father and son. My father retired in 1958. When my brother got out of the Air Force in 1959, he came out of retirement and helped him.”

“I graduated from MC in 1963. I wrestled my way through college. I’d run out of money and I’d go wrestle. I dropped out (of college) twice,” he said.

Curtis also served as the event coordinator for Mid South Wrestling, and later was a deputy commissioner for the Mississippi State Athletic Commission.

He said he got the nickname “Captain Jack” because of the Greek fisherman’s cap he wears, and because he named two of his businesses “Captain Jack’s.”

“My first fireworks stand, I opened in the late ’70s and called it ‘Captain Jack’s.’ I opened a military surplus store and called it ‘Captain Jack’s.’”

He left Vicksburg in the late 1980s, moving to Port Barre, La., where he was a teacher at Port Barre High School. He returned to Vicksburg in 1989 after his father was killed in an automobile collision on U.S. 61 South, near the present site of Walmart. “I’ve been here since,” he said.

Curtis said the idea for the military surplus store came soon after he returned home.

“I needed something to do, and my brother, who lives in North Carolina, owns a military surplus store,” he said. “He suggested, ‘why don’t you open one there.’ There wasn’t one here, so I went to North Carolina and bought a bunch of stuff, brought it here and opened a surplus store.”

He opened the store in 1989 in the building that now houses the salon, moving it in 1995 to the building that now houses Captain Jack’s This & That.

“About that time, (President Bill) Clinton didn’t want us to have any surplus,” he said. “He started selling it to Europe, and we had to buy foreign military gear. It wasn’t near as good as ours and more complicated. I decided to get out.”

About the same time, one of his military surplus suppliers said he had a salvage grocery business he wanted to close.

“I bought his salvage groceries and brought them over here, and made a salvage grocery store, Captain Jack’s Salvage Grocery Store,” he said. “At one time, we had six employees here trying to keep it up. It was really a great little store. It helped a lot of people, prices were good. We had all kinds of stuff.”

And for holidays like New Year’s and the Fourth of July, fireworks were added to the inventory.

“Fireworks sales have been fantastic,” he said. “I wish I knew how much I’ve done over 30 years. There’s a big kid inside of me that likes old-time fireworks.”

His fireworks customers, he said, have been faithful through the years, adding, “we always try to find the best fireworks.”

In 2005, Curtis stopped selling groceries and opened a salvage drug store that was open three days a week.

“I hit 70 years old then, and it was time to slow down,” he said.

He reopened the salvage grocery business this year. He said local resident Will Halpin, who is buying the business, approached him about reopening the salvage grocery business “and I agreed to help him. When it’s paid off, I’m gone.”

Curtis said the key to his success in the past is based on researching the field he wanted to enter and hard work.

“Knowledge and dedicating yourself to getting it done,” he said. “It’s not just saying, ‘I’m going to do this and get it done.’ You have to work at it. If you become a student of the business you’re going to do, you’re going to be all right.”