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- 1951
Cigar Smoking Lad Doesn't Like Bullets
AP Newsfeature, Knoxville,Tenn.
William Glenn Greene, is a man of the world who, at the age of 3, cantake in stride a black cigar, a chew of tobacco or a bullet in thehead. "Scrap Iron" is his nickname around Brushy Mountain State Prisonat nearby Petros, where his father, ReubReuben Greene, is commissarymanager. The healthy-looking, tow-headed boy said he smokes two orthree cigars a day and takes a chew when he can get one, but he's nottoo keen about bullets. He lit up a cigar, inhaled deepy and turnedhis attention to a toy truck as his father told of the shootingincident which took place on the eve of his third birthday last July:"We went to a little store, and 'Scrap Iron' walked behind the counterand picked up a gun we didn't even know was there. "He couldn't pullthe trigger with his finger, but he did manage to pull it with histhumb and the bullet grazed him almost in the center of the forehead.
"The bullet punctured a can of tomato juice on the counter and thejuice dripped down on his head. We thought he was badly woundedbecause of the blood but at the hospital it turned out to be just aflesh wound. "At that, it took four stitches to sew it up." Greenesaid his son picked up his smoking and chewing from convicts at thestate prison about the time he was learning to walk. ''Scrap Iron"looked up from his toys as questioning turned his way again. Yes, headmitted, his mother did seem to sort of object to his cigars andchewing tobacco but she hadn't made him quit yet. He has a sister,Carolyn, who is nine. Carolyn says she doesn't smoke, but she doesn'tmind a
bit if the menfolks do.
Source: Ironwood Daily Globe, Ironwood, Michigan, December 22, 1951
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