When Willie Hamberlin was a lad, he could run as fast as a deer, so fast that his family and friends called him Buck.

Buck, who was born 82 years ago April 9 on the Marx place near Port Gibson, said he could outrun a rabbit, which he caught for the family to eat. Had to do that to survive, he said, “Yes, sir, I could outrun a rabbit.”

The family moved to Warren County when Buck was 5 and lived on the Kimball Ferguson place and then on the Herbert Hawkins farm. The nearest school was about 10 miles away, he said, “but my daddy didn’t care. All he was interested in was us working, picking cotton and doing some work for the white folks, so I really didn’t get no schooling.”

When he went to work at the Vicksburg Country Club in 1940, he didn’t know about job security — but he’s been there for 72 years.

“I started in 1940,” he said, “pulling weeds and that old foreign grass” from the greens. After four years E.C. Neal and Dr. George Street saw to it that he had steady work. He made 40 cents a day.

That was wartime, Buck said, and most of the young men had gone off to war. He remembers the government taking over part of the grounds of the Country Club. He recalls that “they had tanks out here, shooting them big old cannons, training men to shoot.” Rumors were rampant, and he said everybody was scared when word got out that some Japanese had been seen across the river.

Buck said he used to cut the rough with a swing blade, up and down all those hills and hollows. “It was hard work,” but when the club acquired two mules, Mo and Emma, who pulled a mowing machine, it was a lot easier. In later years a small tractor made it even simpler.

People claim playing golf is fun, he said, and they play in all kinds of weather. About the only thing that will stop them, he said, is a flood. He remembers when it snowed years ago that Street and some other golfers painted the balls black so they could see them in the blanket of winter white.

Before the days of golf carts when everybody had to walk and some could afford caddies to carry their clubs, Buck’s responsibilities included “having to tote big old blocks of ice up the hills” so that the golfers could refresh themselves. He remembers some who carried their own refreshments, tucked away in half pints in the golf bags.

When they were short of caddies Buck worked twice for one man, and twice he lost balls. “I wasn’t used to that,” he said.

Not much later, the man asked him one day if he wanted a ride, and Buck said he did. The man was going to Tallulah and about two miles this side of the Louisiana town the driver said he thought he had a flat tire and told Buck to get out and see.

“He had turned the car around,” Buck said. “I got out, he slammed the door and he took off and left me over there, He did it because I lost his golf balls. I had to walk home, and it was pouring rain.”

Most people are nice, Buck said, and the man was the only one in all those years he had trouble with. When club members heard about the event many wanted to kick the man out, he said.

Only once has Buck played golf with some of the other workers “when I was real young.” It was against the rules, and after a tongue-lashing from his boss, “I ain’t never picked up a golf club since.”

There have been many memorable events, but Buck said he has forgotten most of them. One episode he does remember very clearly was the day when Kayo Dottley got into an argument with Johnny Stahl and picked up Stahl and threw him into the pool.

A job that began with his pulling weeds has included many other responsibilities. “Good gracious alive,” he said, “I haul dirt when it rains, put sand on the greens, used to place crossties so that hills wouldn’t wash. I’ve done just about everything.”

He never learned to drive a car, but Buck can drive a tractor, run a lawn mower and a golf cart “because there are just two gears, backward and forward. It’s easy to do. I just got in it and drove.”

He used to walk several miles to work, but that was before he had a heart attack. Now a fellow employee gives him a lift. They arrive long before daylight and work until early afternoon. Buck would work longer if they’d let him — from “can to can’t.”

There’s no such thing as spare time for Buck. When he’s not at the Country Club he’s cutting grass for others, keeping house or gardening. He’s been single for many years, so he does his own cooking.

At work, he mostly cuts greens, “I can’t do too much. I pick up paper. I stay busy.”

Life is much better now than it was years ago, he said. He can remember his mother cooking cornbread for the dogs when a family came by begging for just anything to eat. They literally devoured the cornbread and buttermilk she gave them, he said.

“I was so hungry one time, when I was a little boy,” he said, “that when I found a dime I went to a store and the man cut off about 2 pounds of cheese. They used to have crackers in a barrel, and he picked up a whole handful of crackers and give me. You talk about eating!”

At one time he cut wood for the fireplaces in the old Country Club, using an ax and a crosscut saw and the mules to pull the logs out of the woods. That wasn’t easy, he said, but it was better than when he cut wood as a child. He had no shoes, and he wrapped old clothing around his feet.

The “good old days” weren’t all that good for Buck, but he commented, “I’ll tell you one thing. You could go away and leave the house. All Mama did was put a chair up against the door to keep the dogs out. Nobody bothered anything. We never had to lock the door.”

The Country Club job, Buck said, is the only one he has ever had and he’s seen a lot of people come and go.

Has he thought of retiring?

“Well, I had four brothers,” he said. “They all retired, said they wanted to enjoy life. All died within a year after they retired.”

“Uh oh,” I said. “I’m going to go on as long as I can.”