I’ve just counted 393 classmates of mine in the East Wind, our annual, who graduated with me in 1964 (I’m the 394th) from East Mecklenburg High School on Monroe (where I practiced law from 1971 until I retired at 62 in 2008) Road in Charlotte, NC. My count could be off because I made it at 7:30AM this morning, July 25, 2022 while listening to Rep Adam Kinzinger, Rep-Illinois being interviewed on Morning Joe discussing whether the Jan 6 committee should subpoena Ginni Thomas (damn right, IMHO).
If you’re reading this (bless your little pea pickin’ heart [remember whose line that was?]) from my website, tomcaldwell.org, if you’ll read the intro to TOM’S RAMBLINGS, you’ll learn probably more than you need or want to know about me, but to save you that step, I’ll tell you that I started first grade, no kindergarten, at Oakhurst School, grades 1-12, also on Monroe Rd, in the Oakhurst community, 3-4 miles closer to downtown Charlotte than East Meck when we were living in an old frame house which the folks rented from Mr. Neal Craig on Sharon Amity Rd, only a couple of hundred yards beyond the RR tracks as you’re going from Monroe Rd toward Cotswold. I’ve written about the house and yard as our sports venue in MY SPORTING LIFE, where I’ve also told about my 4 year older bro Bill and the gang of his peers that he let me hang out with.
I don’t remember too much about life at 6, do you? I assume I was a normal kid, maybe a little shy around those I didn’t know, but, as this story will reveal, certainly not fearless. We moved to Sharon Amity (“SA”, hereinafter [see what I learned in law school?]) in 1948 or 9 from “down in the country” (see my story DOWN IN THE COUNTRY, WITH A FEW DETOURS). Bill started 1st grade at Matthews, also 1-12, where my dad, born in 1908, graduated as valedictorian a year before my mother, born in “09 (my wife Janet’s mother, a Mulliss from Idlewild Rd finished Matthews with one of Dad’s younger brothers, Irvin) but finished 1st at Oakhurst.
Oakhurst School was an old 2-story brick building with wooden floors that creaked and on which the janitorial staff poured oil of some kind and moped into the oak, or maybe it was pine flooring to keep the dust down. It had what seemed to me in the first grade a huge auditorium. I think the more modern than the main building cafeteria must have been added on. Ann Dulin, who otherwise would have gone to Hickory Grove or Bain in Mint Hill started first grade with me because her mother was the cafeteria manager. All of a sudden I can’t remember the principal’s name, but it will come to me. I don’t remember when or why but once I was sent to his office for a spanking, which he administered with a long handled paddle. I don’t remember how many licks he gave me or how hard, but not enough or with enough force to make me shed any tears, though I expect I gritted my teeth. RANDALL, his name was-told you it would come to me!
I guess maybe there was some kind of preschool orientation that Mom took me to because I knew where Bill’s 5th grade classroom was on the 2nd floor, just up the stairs from my 1st floor 1st grade classroom, where my teacher was Mrs. Jones, black-haired with glasses, if I remember correctly. Now, as I said above, I may have been a little timid, but I wasn’t, or at least I don’t think I thought of myself as a ‘fraidy-cat or a mama’s boy (geez, I was the tallest kid, not only in my class, but in all of the first grade classes, and in fact, as I wrote about in MY SPORTING LIFE, the tallest person in my class through the 12th grade), but for some reason, certainly not known to me now and probably not then, I cried my first day at school, and apparently wouldn’t stop, my blubbering driving Mrs. Jones to the office to call Mom (thank goodness we had a phone), who asked, “well, what’s he crying about?” Mrs. Jones told her that I said that I wanted to go see my brother Billy, so Mom, who would have made, I guess that actually she was a pretty good child psychologist (or, for that matter, psychiatrist, CEO, Indian chieftess, or whatever she, one of the most creative and energetic people I have ever known, wanted to be) told Mrs. Jones to tell me to go ahead and go see my brother Billy. I doubt that I actually remember the details of what I’m fixing to say, but maybe I remember more than I think because I’ve replayed it many, many times in my mind and told it quite a few. I got up from my desk (I guess I wasn’t thinking about what the other kids might have been thinking), opened the classroom door, went up the stairs and down the hall to the door to Bill(y)’s classroom. The door, with glass panes in the top half, all nontransparent except one in the center, just at my eye level, was closed. I put my hand on the knob as I looked in the center pane and saw Bill sitting near the back. Suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks, the question of the moment: what’s going to happen if I turn that knob and open that door and stick my head in? And the answer came more suddenly than the question: Billy’s gonna KILL me. I took my hand off the doorknob, retraced my steps, opened the door to my classroom and went in and took my seat. I never shed another tear and as far as I can remember, no one, Mrs. Jones, my classmates or even Mom ever mentioned it to me. Blessings (a word the comfortably religious agnostic me seldom, if ever uses because it implies that while some receive “blessings” from some force capable of bestowing them, many others don’t, and to me, that’s not right or fair and I don’t want to believe that we live in an evil and/or unfair world) sometimes come when least expected and even least deserved!
While I’m talking about pragmatic Mom, brother Harry’s probably 5th or 6th grade teacher called her to complain that he was talking in class. Mom x-examined her: Q; When is he talking? Is he getting his work done? A: Yes, he’s talking after he gets his work done. Solution: “Well, give him some more work!” Brilliant! Apparently, brother Billy was Lord Fauntleroy and caused no trouble!
I mentioned my height above. It’s another one of those bless…ops, lucky things that have come undeserved to me. I’m sure you’ve read studies of the advantages that tall people have. If two people with identical qualifications apply for the same job, usually the taller will get it. I expect the same applies to overweight v thin and attractive v less so. Mrs. Jones often appointed me class monitor when she had to leave the room. Once Vivian Couchell, whose family owned and operated a Greek diner in Oakhurst and whose older brother, George started and I guess still owns the Showmars Restaurant chain headquartered in Charlotte, called me over to her desk and said “Tommy, look what a fly did on my book” pointing to a small black spec, which I put my finger down on and eliminated with a swift stroke, probably with some fanfare, as David vanquished Goliath. (I wonder if there would have been millions and millions of guys named Goliath and no Davids if his rock had missed?) I can see the smile on her face now!
The first senior picture in the ’64 East Wind is Rusty Abernathy’s. I’m going to talk about all of my 5 years at Oakhurst, my 2 at Idlewild, 2 at McClintock and 3 at East and work some comments about many of my classmates into those years, and they all start with Russell Hiles Abernathy: “French Club 10, 11, Secretary; Bus Driver 10, 11, 12; Homeroom president 11, 12; Student council 11, 12; Beta Club 11, 12”. He and I were in Mrs. Jones class together and we quickly became friends. Heck, who wouldn’t want to be friends with a guy who had a real, live Navy Hellcat airplane in his backyard, and then a railroad cut and track to boot. We stayed friends through Oakhurst but while he continued there in 6-7th, I went to Idlewild when we moved from SA to the house my folks built on Rama Rd, around Christmas, 1955. Though I’m sure we saw each other at McClintock and East, I don’t remember having any classes with Rusty or his being in the Beta Club, which I was the worthless president of our senior year, and I don’t remember seeing him at any reunions.
I was telling Janet about Rusty a year, maybe more like two ago and she found him through the White Pages in Concord. After missing calls a few times, I finally got his wife, who told me that he’d had a stroke and was recovering in a nursing home paid for by the VA at, of all places, just off Craig Ave, near our old house on SA. She said that some days and times his speech and memory was better than others (me too) and she would call me from there on one of his good days and we could talk. Not long thereafter she called and gave me a number to call which would be at an attendant’s station, which I did, and asked for him. The attendant yelled for him and shortly I was talking to a guy that I hadn’t seen in 55 years like we’d seen each other every day of those years. Rusty got an electrical engineering degree from Clemson, joined the Air Force, or maybe it was the Navy, flew in Vietnam, stayed in service for some time and then flew commercially for the rest of his career.
I didn’t get quite all of the story but his father, who if I remember correctly worked for A&P in the meat dept, bought the Hellcat from someone somewhere in SC, rolled it up onto a truck, folded the wings up (the Hellcat flew off carriers and its wings were designed to fold up) and brought it to their home on Monroe Rd, just a block or so toward downtown Charlotte from Oakhurst School, across from a Methodist Church beside where the original Sonny’s “Real Pit” BBQ was later built. As I said hereinabove, another of those good legalese words, it was a real Hellcat and would even start. Bill had built a model Hellcat and we were used to seeing them on such military TV shows as Victory At Sea or in WWII movies. JUST IMAGINE!!! What more could a couple of kids, born the year (me, 7 months) after the war had ended. UNBELIEVABLE!!! I would often walk home with Rusty after school and we would soon be in the thick of a dog-fight with a Jap Zero. One of us would climb in the cockpit and pee in the funnel the pilot would hold in place with a strap around his waist to urinate into while flying and the other would watch it drip out of the tube in the bottom of the fuselage. We called it the pissaree. I’m sure we discussed what the pilot would do if he had to do a #2!
I never heard the plane cranked. Apparently Mr. Abernathy and the Methodist preacher didn’t always see eye to eye, and on occasion, between 11:00 and 12:00 AM on Sunday morning, usually in the summer when the church’s sanctuary windows were raised, Rusty’s dad would fire up the Hellcat. It was so loud the Methodists couldn’t hear the organ play! Rusty wasn’t supposed to crank it up, but did one day and the flaps were positioned such that the plane pivoted a bit and the prop wash blew down a neighbor’s chicken coop. Rusty also had a BB gun before we did. He even had two, a lever action and a pump. We of course hadn’t seen A Christmas Story on TV, but even so, we were old enough to know better than to shoot at each other, but that didn’t stop us from digging steps up on either side of the RR cut and carving out small caves and fire at each other till the BB’s ran out. I remember getting stung by BB’s even through my dungarees, which is what my dad, a Navy man called blue jeans and what we therefore called them, too.
Another 1st grade buddy was Jimmy Hinkle, a little dude who could tap dance like I imagine young Sammy Davis, Jr could, which I remember him doing in the talent show in the auditorium sometime after first grade. The only talent I displayed was on the tom-tom in the rhythm band. I think I could have been pretty good on sticks, too, or maybe those wooden blocks with sandpaper. It may have been Jimmy who sang Blue Seude Shoes and wiggled like Elvis, to the delight of us preadolescents and probably the dismay of Mr. Randall and the older teachers like Lucille Hood, Ms. Foil, Flossie Spray and Ms. Choate, who was old enough that if she’d been in KY could have provided Abe with the teacher he never had, but obviously never needed.
In MY SPORTING LIFE I wrote about running to Jimmy’s house, across the football field behind the gym where I was getting pounded just outside its front door by an intramural basketball teammate (some “teammate”) and his gang. Mom let me walk to Jimmy’s occasionally after school to play ball and she would pick me up about 5:00. One day Jimmy and I and a couple other guys were playing basketball at the Hinkle hacienda and I got pissed about something and apparently told them all to “go to Hell” and took off walking home down Monroe Rd. Halfway the several mile walk home, Mom pulls up beside me. I got in and she asked me what happened and I probably said that I’d gotten tired of playing ball and decided to walk home. She asked me what I said to my friends. I don’t remember what my response was but I’m sure the word “Hell” wasn’t included. She had asked Jimmy and the gang what happened and they told her exactly what happened and where I told them to go. (Mom would have been a great trial lawyer, particularly on x-exam, like Perry Mason, who never violated the x-examiners 1st rule: Don’t ask a question if you don’t already know the answer.) When we got home, she washed my mouth out with soap for the first and last time. I’m a pretty fast learner!
Jimmy Hinkle is in my 8th grade McClintock annual but not in the ’64 East Wind. I don’t remember being in a class with or even seeing him at Mc. I have no idea what happened to my good friend, Jimmy but would love to know, even to see him again before the sun finally sets on one of us, if, and of course, hopefully it hasn’t already gone down on him, which of course it can on me or any of us at any time. I sent MY SPORTING LIFE to my teammates on the Davidson College football team of 1965, who held a reunion in Charleston in 2015, hence my email list, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our 14-0 win over The Citadel, which followed our 35-0 opening win at home over Presbyterian and our 24-0 win away over Furman, setting us up, after an open date, to come home, undefeated and unscored on, to face William & Mary before the largest crowd ever to see a football game on Richardson Field. You’ll have to read MY SPORTING LIFE to see what happened! My email to Stu Perry, an offensive tackle 2 years my senior, originally from Maryland came back and after another teammate send me the last # he had for Stu, I called it and left a message. A day or so later, his wife called from NJ to say that Stu has CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, lives in a nursing home, is completely uncommunicative, probably doesn’t know her, but seems happy, watching TV with a smile on his face. A few days after passing that info to my teammates, one notified us that Jim Rollins, a 6’5” defensive end from Mississippi, one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known, a bankruptcy lawyer with a big Atlanta firm who retired a few years ago and moved with his wife to Maine where he volunteered his time and legal expertise in historic preservation and who I’ve messengered with several times on FB had just died unexpectedly. Big Jim, may you RIP, and Stu, may you keep smiling! All to say, none of us are promised tomorrow.
When I started writing this story, it was my intention to try to remember which of the kids I started 1st grade with at Oakhurst graduated with me 12 years later, and then maybe to pick out who joined me at Idlewild and then McClintock. I’m sure I’ll miss a lot, but I’m going to try, first by trying to remember the Oakhursters. As I said, I know Rusty was in 1st grade with me, but I’m not sure who else was, except, of course, Vivian Couchell. Some may have been in 2nd—5th.
Before embarking on that journey, I’ll tell what I remember about my teachers at Oakhurst and share some memories. Ms, because I didn’t know her marital status, Furr taught a 2nd and 3rd grade combination class, if I remember correctly (I’m going to quit using that phrase because it goes without saying) and I was in her class both years. Wonder why a combination class? There may have been but I don’t remember any others but hers. Ms. Furr was cool, probably the coolest teacher I ever had. She was relatively young and thin, wore glasses, flats and her hair in a ponytail, well maybe just on the playground. One of us boys favorite pastimes on the sandy dirt playground was shooting marbles. She would kneel right down there and shoot with us, and she was pretty good. I don’t remember whether we played for keeps, but if so, we probably didn’t let her know or if we did, we didn’t keep hers; in fact, I guess she didn’t have any, so we probably loaned her an aggie, or cat’s eye or steelie to shoot with. She also played dodge and kickball and softball with us. I remember her falling and skinning her knee. I told you she was COOL!
Miss Lucille Hood, who taught me in the 4th grade was anything but cool. She had pasty white skin, reddish brown hair and a mouthful of teeth and for some reason knew Mom. She and I think her brother lived in a 2 story whited clapboard sided house on Sardis Rd, just across from where Randolph deadends into Sardis. The front was on grade and had a front porch all the way across with square white wooden columns holding up its roof, around which were those then fashionable white low railings. I thought it was one of the most beautiful houses that I’d ever seen. Miss Lucille and her brother may have grown up in and inherited the house. There were old oaks in the front and back yards and it seems like I remember raking her leaves a time or two. We started every class with the pledge of allegiance and a short devotion (good thing there weren’t any Muslims or Buddhists. Some Jewish kids joined me at McClintock but there weren’t any at the Oak that I knew of). I memorized the 100th Psalm in her class, and I remember listening to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf either in her class or Ms. Furr’s
We caught the school bus at the corner of SA and Craig Ave. A Helms family lived across SA from the bus stop. There were several Helms brothers; Byron was about my age. We were waiting on the bus and Byron remembered that he had left something at home, and without looking, took off across SA, where he was struck by Miss Hood on her way to school. I don’t guess she was going very fast but it doesn’t take much speed to send a 60-75 lb’er flying. All that I remember was Byron skidding down the asphalt on his knees, which turned red instantly. I don’t remember an ambulance being called. I do remember that it scared the you know what out of me and I cringe now thinking about how much that must have hurt. While I’m at the bus stop, one other short bus story. When winter came in the 1st grade, Mom thought I needed to wear mittens, not gloves, mittens, and a hat that I remember resembling a Jap pilot’s head covering, leather (fake, of course), lined with fur (probably coon, skunk, or gopher), with flaps to pull own over your ears. So uncool! Nobody else was wearing winter gear resembling mine, so, wanting to be a cool first grader, I wore my stuff to the bus stop, then pulled it off and crammed it under my coat, then in my coat pockets when I hung it up at school. Those mittens and Jap cap must have slid out from under my coat somewhere along the line. I don’t know what kind of cock ‘n bull story I told Mom but it must have passed muster because I don’t remember her taking out her bolo paddle (remember the thin wooden paddles with a rubber ball attached with a long rubber band so you could hit the ball with the paddle and the rubber band would bring it back for continuous whacking; well, after the rubber band broke, Mom would keep the paddle for paddling. She was very frugal and, thankfully, didn’t hit very hard!
While I’m still at the bus stop, I’ve got to tell one more bus story. I’ve written some stories about the Kiser family. In fact, KISER MEMORIES is on my website. Aunt Verla Kiser, one of my dad’s older twin sisters lived in the Craig house on SA with her husband Wilkes and their 5 chlldren when he, an insurance salesman, committed suicide just after the suicide period in a $5,000 life insurance policy he’d taken out on himself expired, around 1947 and she used the $ to build a house a few blocks away. When Aunt Verla, Gene, Sid, Mickey, Mary Lou and Frankie moved into their new home, we moved into the Craig house. Frankie is, actually was since he and all of his siblings are deceased, 4 years older than my brother Bill and Mickey was 3-4 years older than Frankie. An aside, you East Meckers: Mary Lou and her good friend, Barbara Huntley, who lived near and whose family were members of the Methodist Church across Monroe Rd from Rusty Abernathy, wrote either East’s alma mater or fight song. Mickey was driving my school bus one year at Oakhurst and Frankie was riding in the seat right behind him and the two of them got into a squabble, yelling, I’m sure, profanities at each other while we elementary kids looked on, our eyes wide and mouths agape. Mickey put Frankie off the bus and told him to walk home. You could always count on the Kisers for some drama. Gene was something of a hot-rodder and Mom said every time we’d hear tires squeal, we’d yell “GENE KISER!”
While I certainly loved Ms.Furr, I was in love with my 5th grade teacher, Miss Annas, which meant that I couldn’t stand the tall, thin Mr. Hilton, the P.E. teacher who always hung around her and thus my competition. She was relatively tall herself and wore glasses, but not constantly. In October she let us bring our transistor radios to listen to a little of the World Series, probably the ’56 series when the hated, at least by me, Yankees redeemed themselves for losing to my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers in ’55 by whipping “Dem Bums”, as they were called by their detractors in 7 games, the hi-lite being Don Larsen’s perfect game (for you non fans, “perfect” means no hits, walks or hit batters, i.e., no Dodger reached first base. I just googled it. Larsen reached a 3 ball count only once, to Pee Wee Reese in the 1st inning. After the game, Yankee manager Casey Stengel was asked if it was Larsen’s best game. His reply: “So far!”) So, how could I not love Miss Annas, so much that I got a little too fresh. We took a restroom and water break. Her desk’s back and thus her chair and her back was to the door. When I came in, she was sitting in her straight back chair, tilted back a little, and I grabbed the top of its back and jerked the chair, and thus Miss Annas back a little, making her, of course, think that she was toppling over backwards. I don’t remember what happened thereafter, whether there were repercussions or not. There should have been and would have been if I had been the teacher and a kid did that to me! Glad I wasn’t my 5th grade teacher!
I think I mentioned above, but if not, we moved into our new house on Rama Rd over the Christmas break in 1955 and thus Harry and I would go to the being built new Idlewild 1-7th grade school that fall. Before I leave Oakhurst, I’m going to look through the ’64 East Wind first, and then maybe thru my 8th grade McClintock Scotsman to see if I can remember the Oakhursters. Here goes:
RUSSELL HILES ABERNATHY, Hellcat Rusty, of course. “Hiles?”
NANCY BERTHEL ALLABAUGH: Nancy was a sweet girl and I’m sure now a just as sweet lady. She may have had polio because she walked with a limp. Unfortunately, elementary kids weren’t always as kind as they should have been. I hope I wasn’t but in all probability probably wasn’t always as kind to Nancy, and I’m sure others, as I should have been. Nancy, it’s been a long time coming, but if I ever hurt your feelings, I am so sorry. Please accept this long belated apology.
BRENDA JOYCE ARANT: In MY SPORTING LIFE I mentioned that foot speed-wise, Joyce gave me a run for the money and I’ll bet she still can; in fact, Joyce, if you can still jog, you’ll win the money!
JAMES VANCE BAKER: I’m almost positive Jimmy was in 1st grade with me and we were friends through our Oakhurst years, but didn’t see much of each other the next 7 grades.
MARGARET JANETTE BAKER: I think Janette was also in 1st grade with me. Janette, I married a Janet!
JUDITH DIANE BAUCOM: I also think tall, thin, quiet and very sweet Judy was in Mrs. Jones 1st grade class, but like so many others, I didn’t see much of Judy after Oakhurst. My misfortune.
SHARON LYNNE BIMINGHAM: Lynne, you’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I remember that you were at Oakhurst, but maybe not in my 1st grade class.
JANE HELEN CONNELL: Jane passed away some years ago. I feel sure she was at Oakhurst. A Connell, who Jane may have been kin to, maybe even her father, whose name I think was Butch, coached me in Babe Ruth baseball. He either owned or hung around a service station on Monroe Rd not far toward Monroe from Oakhurst School which we call “Blinkies” because of its blue neon blinking lights at night. Jane was a terrific musician, a singer and I think even a songwriter, and as terrific a person. I hope she had children who inherited her talent and personality. I hope you have been and will continue to RIP, Songbird Jane!
MARGARET ANNE DULIN: I think I mentioned Anne earlier as the daughter of the cafeteria manager at Oakhurst (BTW, I ate my first spaghetti there, which I loved, but I couldn’t stand the slaw). If I remember correctly, the Dulins lived out Lawyers Rd. Anne, I don’t remember if we were in 1st grade together but I’m sure we were in some of the same classes at Oakhurst. What I do remember is what a sweet, smart girl you were and that somewhere, sometime, somehow, maybe on FB or maybe you emailed me, and maybe after Martin Brackett died that you told me that your dad, who apparently worked at the Mecklenburg Co courthouse would tell you about seeing Martin, who practiced law in Charlotte, frequently, and me, who practiced in Monroe, much less frequently come in the courthouse. It was great seeing you at our 50th reunion, and, as I think I mentioned above or maybe it was in the email blast I sent to all of our classmates whose addresses I have a few weeks ago, I hope we can reun (that’s probably not a word but it could, even should be) again in the not too distant future. I look forward to seeing you.
I’ve taken an hour bike ride since my fingers last touched the keys and now, I’m not sure whether my memory is better or worse for it. I should have admitted the obvious above when I started through us seniors in the East Wind trying to pick out Oakhursters (when we started Oakhurst in ‘52 there were 12 grades. I remember seeing the green and white, or was it green and gold clad football team play on the field, which doubled as a baseball diamond, below the gym, but I don’t remember the sports teams nickname [I just googled and couldn’t find anything about the school in the 50’s], but I don’t think it was Eagles, but whatever it was, I would have used it here instead of Oakhursters), that I was not going to remember every one and said to those that I miss, please forgive me, but I guess it’s natural because obviously we had classes with and/or played sports with and consequently were closer to and therefore remember some names and faces more than others. Having said that, let’s continue:
DONNA DIANNE GANTT: Help me here, Donna; weren’t you at Oakhurst?
JOAN MERLYN GARMON: Of course Joan was at Oakhurst and in my 1st grade class. Joan, hopefully you will read this at some point. Do you remember what you wrote in my annual? “Tommy, It’s been great knowing you for twelve years. Of course, there was a long space in between that and first grade. I’ve enjoyed working with you in Beta Club this year…” One question, are you a magician, is Merlyn a family name, or is it the country version of “Marilyn”? Actually, I guess that was three questions, but who’s counting? Obviously I’m not!
NORMA ANN HAMRICK: I’m pretty sure that quiet, sweet and polite Norma was at Oakhurst; in Mrs. Jones’ 1st grade, I don’t remember.
MARGARET KAY HARRIS: Kay, weren’t you an Oaky? And BETTY JO HATLEY and MERAB WISTEENA HELMS, weren’t y’all, too. BTW, Wisteena, my wife Janet’s mother’s name was Mary Belle. Is Merab a shortened version of Mery Belle? Now I’m almost sure TRINA LYNETTE HELMS was at Oakhurst, right Trina?
BRENDA JOYCE HILLIARD: Brenda was a tall, sweet, serious minded girl if I remember correctly and if I remember correctly, she went to Oakhurst.
HARVEY ELLISON HONEYCUTT: Of course Elilison went to Oakhurst. Eli, what instrument did you play in the rhythm band?
MEREDITH ASHLEY HOWIE: I’ve known Mimi forever, so, Mimi, you must have gone to Oakhurst! Mrs. Jones’ 1st grade?
BARRY GENE HUGHES: I’m not sure but it seems like I remember you at Oakhurst, Barry.
BARBARA SUE JAMES: The James family lived only a block or so from us when we lived on SA, so Barbara must have gone to Oakhurst, though I don’t remember being in class with her. I think she was a good artist and had a couple of years younger sister, Patti, who was quite an athlete. Greg Cox, East ’65, told me he challenged her to 9 holes of golf and I don’t remember what he said the final score was, but she may have beaten him, but in any event, it was close.***While editing, I called Greg and he, without any hesitation said that Patti shot a 41 and bear him by a stroke or two!***
ALTON COX JETTON: I think Tony was an Oakhurst boy and I think HORACE DEE LEDFORD was, too.
JOHNNY ELMORE MATTHEWS lived down below Elders Grocery, which was just across the street from Oakhurst School. I have no idea how they met, but his year older sister Cheryl was married to a guy named Ken Parsons who I was in law school with at Carolina and who was hired along with me by Frank Griffin and Bob Clark to begin practicing law in Monroe in September, 1971. I probably shouldn’t say it but theirs was a marriage from hell and just as an outside observer, I think she had the longer horns and bigger pitchfork.
JAMES EDWARD McDANIEL: Jimmy, I’m sure you were an Okie, right? Did you ever see Oakhurst Hi play football? I’m writing this as part of my editing. When typing the original, at this point I hadn’t begun to comment on activities at East, but now I’m looking at those and see that you were another, as I mention about others later, 3 sports guys: “Basketball 10; Football 11, 12; Track 11, 12”.
WANDA ELOISE PHILEMON: Surely we first met at Oakhurst, didn’t we, Eloise?
KENNETH EARL PROCTOR: If Kenny wasn’t from Oakhurst, then I’m from Pluto. Kenny changed many a tire at my cousin, Gene Kiser’s Exxon, or was it still Esso station at the corner of Monroe Rd and Sharon Amity before going to work at the school bus garage on Craig Ave, right Kenny?
PHYLLIS ANNE REVELS: Phyllis, I’m not sure whether you were an Oakhurst or Matthews girl, but I’m betting, and I’m not a gambling man, Oakhurst! Am I right?
CHARLES DONALD ROGERS: Oakhurst through and through! Donny was the original cool dude, with his blond hair combed back on the sides, Elvisish. Donny, I’m sure you still have more hair than me!
JANET LYNN SINCLAIR: Lynn, weren’t you an Oakhurst girl? My wife’s maiden name was JANET LYNN Tweed. Her father, McDonald (“Mac”) Douglas Tweed was from Madison Co, NC but his mother was a Flowe from Clear Creek, beyond Mint Hill, almost in Cabarrus Co, who rode the train with her sister to the mountains around 1915 to teach school (apparently, if you read and write you could teach, and they had been teaching in Clear Creek, but Mecklenburg Co raised their standards, so off to the mountains they went) and married an older Douglas Tweed after he had lost his wife bearing their 7th child. Mac, born in 1920, after finishing 2 years at Mars Hill Junior College, came down to live with an uncle and aunt (you can read about Uncle Olin and Aunt Mamie, along with all the rest of Mac’s family and about his life in the 75 page memoir I wrote about Mac in 2016, the year after he died, which with all of my stories are on my website [have I mentioned it?], tomcaldwell.org) in Mint Hill and went to work at Cannon Mills in Kannapolis at 19. He met Mary Belle Mullis, the aunt of our classmate, Mike Mullis, and eloped with her to York, SC in 1942, while training as a Marine pilot. Janet, the older of their two children, and I eloped to York and were married, GET THIS, by the same JP who had married them 25+ years earlier, which we discovered when comparing our marriage licenses. Bill Carr was not just, and still is not just my but OUR best man, as I was his when he married Joyce Ketchie, East ’66 in Sardis Presby Church after he returned from Vietnam where, as a 2nd Lt, he served in the medical corps, before becoming a Presby preacher (Bill and I met in the 4th grade when his dad became our minister at Matthews Bap Ch, of course graduated from East together, graduated from and were frat bros together at Davidson to which he transferred after 2 years at Mars Hill, and went 1 year to UNC law school with me till he figured out the law wasn’t his calling. The Right Reverend Dr and Col Carr retired as a bird colonel from the US Army reserves chaplaincy corps and is my longest and closest friend for lo these many years. He’s still my spiritual adviser. I probably shouldn’t say this, but given the condition my soul (what and where the heck is that body part located?) is in, I probably shouldn’t appear in his ads as an example of his successes, and I occasionally give him a little legal nugget, which are worth less than what I charge him for them! BTW, Mac Tweed was a pilot in the Marines for 33 years, flying a B-25 in the Pacific in WWII, the mail to troops in the Mediterranean during the Berlin airlift, troop transports during Korea, and when Janet and I met at the end of my sophomore year in college and the end of her freshman year at UNC-G, he had just left for Nam where, as a Lt Col helicopter squadron leader, he PERSONALLY flew over 600 helicopter missions, mostly putting troops in and picking up the dead and wounded, and helping relocate the women, children and old folks from their villages which we destroyed on the pretext that they harbored the Viet Cong (I didn’t intend to get into politics, but even Mac said Vietnam was a horrible mistake-he hated war), sent to the Naval War College in Newport, RI as a bird colonel after returning from Nam, and finishing his 33 year career as commander of Naval ROTC at Vanderbilt, after which he served for 10 years as Vandy’s director of security . As I said in the intro to my website, the first story I wrote was about Col Mac Tweed, the best father-in-law a guy could have. His story is the first one on the website. For my military career, see the story also on my website, BONE SPURS & BUM KNEES. WELL, Lynn, whether you were an Oaky or not, you have graciously served as a springboard into one of my rabbit chasing rambles, which if you read some more of my stories, you will see that I’m certainly prone to!
SANDRA LEE SMITH: There are 7 Smiths in our class and at least one must have been at Oakhurst, and Sandy, I’m thinking it was you. Am I thinking right?
ANN LORRAINE SUTTON: Ann, I’m not sure you went to Oakhurst but I know we go back a long way together, and I’ve enjoyed knowing you for however long it’s been.
DONALD FRED THOMAS and RICHARD ROGER THOMAS. Donnie, I’m almost positive that you’re an Oakhurst boy and AM positive that Dickie is, having grown up on the street which turns off Monroe Rd beside Oakhurst Baptist Church, where my brother Bill was a Royal Ambassador and where it seems like a Preacher Moore held sway for many years. Dickie, do I remember correctly that your older sister (Nancy?) married John Garland, whose sister LaMarr married my 2nd, maybe 3rd cousin Shannon Forbis, and who had 4 boys who all graduated from East, the oldest, Jimmy, circa ’67, starring in football and having played for and graduated from Duke?
VIRGINIA ANN TINGEN: Ann, I feel sure that you were an Oakhurster. Am I feeling right?
ROBERT ALVIN WADDELL: Al, you must have gone to Oakhurst. Didn’t you live on McAlway Rd before y’all moved to the back of Stonehaven? Wasn’t it your sister’s boyfriend who drove a ‘Vette?
ROBERT LEE WELSH: Bobby, if you didn’t go to Oakhurst then and not sitting here at 7:00AM on Friday, July 29, 2022 in my easy chair typing this!
OK, Bobby, you’re the last of my East ’64 classmates who I hope that I remember correctly went to Oakhurst, not elementary, but School with me when I was there in grades 1-5. As I said above, we moved to Rama Rd during my 5th grade year, but I finished the year at Oakhurst before beginning the 6th grade in Idlewild’s inaugural year. East opened in 1953 or 4 and grades 10-12 moved from Oakhurst to East. I don’t know when McClintock opened but I think it started as just the 8th and 9th grades, adding the 7th when I started there in the 8th. If I remember correctly, the main 2 story building at Oakhurst burned when I was at Idlewild. I don’t know where its students went until it was rebuilt.
Now, to see if I can remember who joined me in the 6th and/or 7th at Idlewild, but before beginning that, my favorite Idlewild memory, its annual $ raising BBQ, which I think was the first pork Cue I’d ever eaten, and boy was it good! I can taste it now! That reminds me of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons. The doctor is talking to his patient, a cute little pig sitting on the examination table with his legs crossed at his knees, and the doc says: “Mr. Pig, I think we’ve found your problem. It’s your ribs. They’re delicious!” And they are, along with the rest of him, my indulgence in which I’m sure contributed to my heart attack in ’02 and double bypass surgery in ’10, but thanks to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals, I’m still helping to keep the swine population under control. YUM!
My 6th grade teacher was an extremely nice, soft spoken lady of some years whose name I don’t remember. My 7th grade teacher was Mrs. Shriner. I don’t remember much about the 6th grade, but I remember no-nonsense Mrs. Shriner being an excellent teacher, and for the first time, my beginning to mature into a reasonably serious student. For history, she taped up large sheets on which she wrote timelines, by year’s end, encircling the entire classroom, which helped me develop my first real sense of the march of history. I guess we began diagramming sentences earlier, probably the 6th grade, but Mrs. Shriner had us at the board, drawing a straight line on which to put the subject and predicate, and angled lines off of it for the adjectives that described the subject, and for the adverbs placed them in time and space and usually ended in “ly”, the conjunctions that connected other words and phrases, the pronouns that took the place of names and the interjections, to show how excited the subject was to be in the sentence, and, how to say what prepositions do (OK, OK, I googled to get all the “parts of speech”. I remembered what interjections are but couldn’t think of their name, but didn’t remember prepositions until I saw their name and examples thereof on the screen). Whatever grammar I have, I can thank Mrs. Shriner for. It’s funny what we remember; for example, we were discussing the body and particularly the heart and Greg Powers, who didn’t graduate with us but whose picture I found in the 8th grade, said that he was going to slip into his parents’ bedroom after they were asleep and put his hand on their chest and count their heart beats. Without missing a beat, Mrs. Shriner said that he would probably get slapped if he put his hand on his mother’s chest! Why aren’t emoji’s on computer keyboards?
DOUGLAS EARL BROADWAY, weren’t you Idling at the Wild, or am I mistaken?
JERRY STEVEN COLLINS, didn’t we first connect at the Idle?
DAVID JOSEPH DuMONTIER, who lived off Albemarle Rd must have been at Idlewild. David’s dad, Joe was in management at Pelton & Crane, a large company located off S Boulevard which made dental equipment, such as the bright light the masochist pulls down to blind you with before probing your mouth with an instrument which has been sterilized in a P&C autoclave. Mr. DuMontier got David and me jobs in the shipping department, where we turned flat cardboard, with the box to be’s edges pre-folded to score the edges before flattening them, and the company logo, name of the piece of equipment to be packed therein, etc printed thereon into boxes, stapling the bottoms with a machine which had something like a fence post on which we would position the bottom of the box and then, if I remember correctly, would press a foot pedal and an arm would slam down and staple the cardboard. Then we would pack the piece of equipment in the box with Styrofoam pieces cut in the shape necessary to support that particular piece, then tape the top shut and put a shipping label on it.
Our boss was a slightly portly, black hair and mustached, genial guy named Ross. Lady readers, you might want to skip the next few sentences, while you guys will immediately know why this little story of Ross’s would appeal to the male adolescent mind and still be in it 60+years later. He said that when he was in the Army, to conserve toilet paper, only one square/wipe was permitted. SOP (standard operating procedure), they were taught to first poke your first, your pointing finger through the square’s center, clean your derriere the best you could, then remove the square from the finger, fold over a clean, or as clean as you could find little piece, and with it, clean out from under your fingernail. GEEZ! I don’t think, or at least I hope David and I weren’t gullible enough to fall for that, I started to say “tall”, but I think a number of other adjectives, such as “gross” “nasty”, “stinky”, or probably best, “shitty”, tale would be more appropriate, certainly more descriptive. See, I told you ladies to skip this!
Another story or two before I leave Pelton & Crane. Once I was sent looking for spots for the spot welder and I did walk through the plant and ask several workers, whose grins finally clued me in that my search for the non-existent spots would be futile, walking back to the shipping dept to a chorus of laughter. David and I brought our lunches but soon learned to leave the pb&j’s at home on Fridays and splurge, with most others for a trout dinner take-out from the South 21 on South Blvd. I can taste it now-best fish I’ve ever eaten! Working at P&C was a great first job, which we started before we were 16. We may have worked there for 2 summers, and get this, Mr. DuMontier and David would stop and pick me up at our house on Rama Rd (I don’t think it was out of his way) and drop me off after work. Thank-you, Mr. Dumontier, for the job and transportation, and thank-you, David for including me. I still owe you, big time!
SAMMY JOE FUNDERBURK: Sammy, weren’t you at Idlewild?
RAYMOND GLENN HAIRE: I can see Glenn now sitting in Mrs. Shriner’s room, right Mr. Haire?
NANCY JANE HELMS: I remember Janie well at Idlewild. I don’t remember whether the first “kissing” party was in the 6th or 7th grade, but I well remember the first time the spinning bottle stopped, pointing at me. I don’t remember the girl it stopped on nor anything about my first lip kiss with anyone or thing, other than our dog. I’m sure I wasn’t good at it, never having practiced, as my wife says she had with a girlfriend. She says I’m still not very good at it! I must have kissed Janie; otherwise, why would she have given me a friendship ring? Remember those? I don’t remember where she gave it to me, I guess at school, so I wore it at school but took it off and put it in my pocket the minute I got on the bus home, and hid it under my socks in my chest of drawers, putting it back in my pocket the next morning and on my finger when I got to school. I sure didn’t want brothers Bill or Harry, nor my mom and dad to see it. How would I explain it? That might lead to my being interrogated further, which could result in them finding out that I had engaged in premarital kissing! We didn’t get an allowance so I don’t know where I got the money, but I bought, I don’t remember where, a friendship ring and gave it to Janie. I guess we were “ringed” friends. I’m not sure whether we were friends with or without benefits, and if the former, I don’t remember what the benefits were.
JUDY ANN HOBBS: I think Judy lived on or near Lawyers Rd. The last time I saw her was when I went to the funeral of her husband Bill Calvert’s mother, probably over 10 years ago, for which they came from California, where I think they had moved with his job with the phone company, and where, if I remember correctly, Bill’s mother moved after his dad died.
STEPHEN HOWARD HOBBS: Steve, weren’t you a Wilder, and Steve, like others pre-McClintock, I’m just now, as I am editing, see your, what I’ve seen before, long list of activities in the Wind. Of course I remember you as a sprinter in track and that you wrestled, but until I just now read that you also ran cross-country, I hadn’t put you in the 3 sports category. Welcome aboard. Didn’t you go to Stetson? How’d you get way down there? Were you a runner in college?
BOYCE GLENN MAUNEY: Glenn, you were a Wilder, too, weren’t you>
CARROLL DALE MERRELL. Of course Dale was at Idlewild since his father was our principal. When we lived in Monroe, I had a practice, which my wife considered morbid, of scanning the obituaries in the Charlotte Observer, where I would occasionally see one of our classmates’ parents. I saw Dale’s father’s and went to his visitation one early Sunday evening at a new funeral home on Albemarle Rd, where, get this, Joe Coulter, my JV basketball, football and track coach at McClintock was working as a dark suited greeter. We remembered and greeted each other relatively warmly, given that I don’t think that I’d seen him since the 9th grade and wasn’t much of a fan of his (see MY SPORTNG LIFE); in fact, I was surprised that he remembered me.
SIX MULLIS’S graduated from East with me, according to the Wind: ATHA ELAINE, DANIEL LAWRENCE, DONALD WILLIAM, JOHNNY MICHAEL, PATRICIA, RONALD RAY and STANLEY ALVA. In all honesty, the only one I remember is Johnny Michael or Mike or the Dude, as I’ve heard as his nickname. For those of you who’ve read any of the stuff that I’ve written, you’ve probably noted several of my writing foibles: 1) I don’t write fast. In this story, at this moment, I’m at 8,060 words on Monday, August 1. I don’t write, actually, type, on my old HP keyboard every day, and then usually no more than an hour, two at most; 2) I hate scrolling up and trying to find something I may or may not have said before; 3) I try to proof as I go and hate editing. THUS, at this moment I have no idea whether I’ve mentioned that my wife Janet’s mother was a Mullis who grew up on Idlewild Rd, less than a mile from the school, or that Mike and his two year younger sister Gail arehe children of one of Janet’s mother Mary’s brother, Herbert or that they lived across the street and one house down from us when we moved into our new house on Rama Rd around Christmas, 1955. They lived there for several more years until Herbert built a house on “Mullis Hill”. He was killed when his tractor turned over on him. The last time I saw Mike was at his Aunt Mary’s funeral in Kingsport TN, close to 20 year ago, and the last I knew, he owned and barbered at a shop in Oakhurst, called, I think, The Head Hut. Obviously, Janet and the Dude aren’t the closest of cousins, and just as obvious is the irony, or is coincidence a better word in this context, of me growing up across the street from the cousin of the girl, who lived most of her growing up years miles, as far as 5,000 or however far Hawaii is away from Rama Rd, that I would marry!
JANICE VIRGINIA PENICK: You were at Idlewild, weren’t you, Janice?
CAROL ANNE PEARCE: I’m sure that Anne, who lived in a very nice, long brick ranch on Lawyers Rd was an Idler because I remember going to a “kissing” party at her house. I may have even been lucky enough to have kissed her, but if I had, I’m an Eagle and Eagles, if they are gentleeagles don’t kiss and tell, usually!
I guess I knew that JIMMY RILEY didn’t graduate from East with us but I hadn’t thought about him in some time until just now, getting to the place in the Wind here he would be, so I went to my 8th grade Scotsman, and there’s Jimmy with his usual grin. I don’t remember whether Jimmy and I became the closest of buddies in the 6th or 7th grade, but close we became. OK, ladies, again, maybe you’ve better skip over the rest of this paragraph. In Mrs. Shriner’s 7th grade class, somehow Jimmy noticed that a girl sitting in a desk behind him, with her dress pulled up above her knees, wasn’t wearing any underpants. I was in a desk beside him and wondered why he kept letting his pencil roll off his desk and had to lower his head, eyes to the rear, so low and long in order to retrieve it. Somehow he got word to me. Mrs. Shriner was asking volunteers to go to the blackboard to diagram sentences and Jimmy suggested that we volunteer so that when we turned around from the board to discuss our diagram, we would have a perfect view. It sounded like a perfect plan, but we overlooked one thing. The view was perfect, so perfect that it caused a certain part of a boy’s anatomy to do exactly what it’s designed to do under those circumstances (actually, just thinking about what we were able to view was more than enough to cause what occurred). There we were, standing in front of the class, unable to camouflage the obvious, to all with eyeballs, evidence of our spying caper, with nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. It only got worse. Mrs. Springer told us to take our seats. OMG! What now? I think I turned back to the board, telling Mrs. Springer that I needed to make some adjustments to my perfectly good sentence diagram. But a young man, having allowed his body to betray the fact that neither his mind nor his eyes are where they should have been, can change where his eyes are looking but can’t simply, by nothing more than mind control, change the condition that all his body parts are in. I don’t know how long I or Jimmy stood at the board, but I suspect that eventually, I crammed both fists in my pants pockets and waddled back to my desk! WHEW! Jimmy and stayed friends but not as close at McClintock, but as I think about it, I don’t remember him at all at East. Jimmy, where did you go after Mc?
OK, ladies, you can open your eyes now! Oh, one other thing I remember about Mr. Riley. He became something of a distance runner at McClintock and friends with a guy a year ahead of us named Tim Belk, whose name I wouldn’t have remembered until I turned to the 9th graders in my 8th grade Scotsman, and there he was on the second page. As soon as I saw his name and face I knew Tim was the distance runner who Jimmy said had discovered a secret to success as a runner. The magic was to touch your thumb and the tips of your fingers together and hold them together as you sped around lap after lap on the track. It may have worked for Tim and even Jimmy but it never worked for me, for which the 220 yd dash was a middle distance race, the 440 or quarter mile was a long distance race and anything longer was a mini-marathon. Sprinting, you don’t have time to think about your thumbs and fingers.
WARREN EUGENE STEELE: Gene, I feel sure you and I met at the Wild, didn’t we, or were you a Grove boy? In Mrs. Shriner’s 7th grade class, in literature or history, we read some stories and I think maybe a play about WWII, which of course was fairly recent history. It’s funny what you remember. One story was written by a GI about his band of brothers coming into a Polynesian village in the Pacific where the villagers wore little clothing and hearing a native playing a sublime rendition of either a classic piece or a popular song like Stardust on a clarinet. The play, or maybe it too was just a story about combat in which the hero carried a severely wounded comrade slung over his shoulder some distance to safety. I don’t know whether Mrs. Shriner suggested or we guys requested to act it out on the playground. I guess because I was the tallest and maybe the loudest or maybe a little of the teacher’s pet, I played the hero and slung the wounded GI, and I’m thinking it was you, Gene over my shoulder and carried you to safety all the way to the other end of the playground. I felt like a hero! Did you recover from your wounds?
I’m sure I missed some of you Idlewilders and I apologize for not making my connection with you there, but On to McClintock! But, before heading just the quarter mile or so down Rama Rd from our house, I’ll share 3 personal memories of riding or getting off the bus from Idlewild.
1) Soon after we moved into our house on Rama Rd, Mom and Dad bought a small house beside our new house from the Warners. In fact, the well we got water from was on the Warner property so I guess they had already gotten an easement and well-use agreement from them. My maternal grandparents, who had been living in a small house adjacent to my Mom’s twin brother’s dairy farm outside Chester, SC, moved into the Warner house because they had gotten to the point where Uncle Leighton and Aunt Eva Dell, him busy farming and she as a school cafeteria manager, couldn’t properly look after them. My grandmother, Nancy Ann Dunn Beaty was the kindest, sweetest, most soft spoken person I’ve ever known. I have a booklet of some simple poems she wrote, mostly about her family and everyday things. I’m not going to stop now to try to find it but I remember one about my mother, Louise, something about her perking up when Joe Caldwell (my Dad, who she would marry on Thanksgiving Day, 1938) was around. Grandma had a heart condition, and Mom moved her into a hospital bed in brother Harry’s room and Harry slept on a roll-away cot in my and brother Bill’s bedroom for a year or more. One day when Harry and I got off the bus from Idlewild, there was a large vase of flowers on the front porch. I’m not sure whether we picked up on it immediately but when we got in the house we learned that Grandma Beaty had died. Granny had been ailing for so long, we weren’t grief stricken and probably didn’t shed many, maybe not any tears, though I don’t remember for sure. I am sure that Harry was glad to get his room back and that Bill and I were too.
(2) My maternal grandfather was William Badger Beaty. He went by Badger (I wish that I’d asked Grandpa Badger why in the heck he was named after a cousin of the weasel, but then again, there are thousands, tens of thousands of questions that I wish I’d have asked of folks who it’s no longer possible to ask), and he’s the subject of a story that I’ve written, called, MY MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER (it’s on my website). Grandpa was as or shorter than Grandma, legally blind, loved baseball, which he played in his younger days. Of the 3 Caldwell boys, I was probably his favorite, I guess because I played baseball and was a huge fan. I’ve listened to many a major league game with him on his radio. Willie Mays was his favorite player. I don’t know if Grandpa knew that the “Say Hey Kid” was black or if that would have made any difference, though honestly, to an old southern farmer, it probably would have. Dad bought an English setter pup which we named “Ike”. We were crazy about him and he us. Harry and I got off the bus one day to learn, to our huge dismay and grief, which morphed quickly into anger, that Grandpa had shot and killed Ike, one shot through his heart with a pistol fired by a legally blind man! I guess our pissed-offedness toward Grandpa subsided somewhat when we learned that Ike appeared, at least to Grandpa to be foaming at the mouth, a sign of a dog being mad and that he knew that Ike would run out to greet us when we got off the bus and might bite us. He shot Ike to spare us the painful treatment and even possible death from rabies. They tested him for rabies. It didn’t help our sadness that he tested negative, the vet saying that he probably had worms, not unusual for a young dog. We didn’t even get a chance to bury Ike and erect a headstone to the Caldwell boys’ best friend!
(3) Though he was legally blind and at least in his mid-80’s, Grandpa loved to get out and walk with his cane down Rama Rd, all the way to the RR tracks and “Lightsy” Wallaces’s store in downtown Rama. Nature’s call wasn’t a problem; he just peed along side the road. Coming home on the bus, we passed Grandpa peeing in the ditch, and the kids, or, most likely, the boys yelled “Look at that old man peeing!” When we got off the bus, I went straight to Mama, which is what we called Mom at that age, and said that she had to stop Grandpa from relieving his kidneys (that’s what Janet’s dad used to call it, a phrase he must have learned in basic Naval training) in the ditch. Mom’s pragmatic response: “Don’t tell them he’s your Grandpa.” BRILLIANT!
OK, so we’re finally at McClintock. In my story ENTREPRENEURSHIP, which, as are all my stories, is on my website, I told about Harry and me pulling our little red wagon carrying the tin tub full of ice and cold sodas twice a day in the summer down to the workmen adding the gym at McClintock and I may have told about Ralph Leete, the principal catching us throwing mud clods at the portable john after the workers had left, so my relationship with Mc went way back (I learned the jump shot on the outdoor courts nearest our house and we played bicycle polo on the furtherest).
I’m pretty sure McClintock was built and functioning by the time we moved to Rama Rd, circa 1/1/56, which means it opened not long after East. I don’t know when the Mecklenburg Co and Charlotte city schools merged but before they did and before North, East, West and lastly, South were built, each community in the county had a 12 grade school, just like Oakhurst. There was Matthews, Bain in Mint Hill, Hickory Grove, Newell, Paw Creek, Steele Creek, Derita, Huntersville, Sharon, Pineville and I’m sure some others I missed; another, Berryhill, just occurred to me. I suppose that when the county high schools were built, they began building feeder junior highs, though some of the earlier community schools kept grades through the 9th, such as Matthews and Bain. McClintock was the main junior high funneling kids to East. Many schools were named for former school superintendents and other school leaders, so there must have been a Mr (notice I didn’t speculate a Miss or Mrs since most Miss and Mrs in the schools were teachers, few in those days even rising to principalships, and, of course, many more female than male teachers because of the difficulty in raising a family on teachers’ pay, still is) or a Dr McClintock. I guess all names that start with Mc are Scottish. We were the McClintock SCOTS, coming from a number of elementaries: Idlewild, Oakhurst, Hickory Grove and Cotswold, and some may have come all the way from Sharon, or even from some elementaries which may have been in the Charlotte City system if the families lived near the border between the systems, closer to McClintock than, say Eastway or Alexander Graham. OK, OK, enough about schools, I’m finally opening my 8th grade Scotsman.
I’m going to list the new faces and maybe the school or area they came from if I know, and maybe a comment or two:
SHERRY ALEXANDER, SHERRY ALLEN, TERRY ANTOON, LINDA ARNETTE (on reflection, Linda, did you go to Oakhurst?), MARY ARBOGAST, RICKY AUTRY, ALICIA BABENCO (Cotswold, right, Alicia?), NANCY BAIRD, MARTH BAKER, PATRICIA BARBER, EDWARD BARNETTE, PAT BASS, REBECCA BASS, MALETA BAUCOM (If I remember correctly, Maleta was a Grove girl who became a Methodist minister who I had the privilege of hearing preach at the church she served in a community off South Tryon, and who I thereafter developed a fairly close relationship with, even seeking her advice with respect to my son who was considering the ministry, before she died several years ago: Rev Maleta, I and I’m sure we all who knew you miss you. May you RIP!), SUSIE BEAVER, TOMMY BELK, SAMMIE BERRY, LYNN BIRMINGHAM (Lynn, I thought that I had said above that I thought you were at Oakhurst, so I just did something that I’m loathe to do, I scrolled back up and I was right, but I’m leaving you in), BRENDA BLACKWELL, MALCOLM BLANKENSHIP (Hi, Mac, who’s retired from practicing law in Salisbury and who owns a cabin his mother built within the shadow of Roan Mtn, 7-8 miles from where Janet and I had a cabin in the Ledger community, between Spruce Pine and Bakersville. We visited Mac and Ann at their small, rustic cabin and hiked the Doe River Gorge abandoned RR near Hampton, TN with them on a gorgeous fall Sunday afternoon several years ago.), STEPHEN BLANKENSHIP (Mac’s cousin, right?), HILL BLANTON, WARE BOTSFORD (Cotswold, who’s prime residence is in Minneapolis but who still owns the cool contemporary home that her father designed, and who hosted several of us there prior to our 50th reunion to discuss a potential service project in conjunction therewith, which didn’t get airborne, and who joined Janet and me to hear Carter Heyward preach what I think was her last sermon, at her home church, St. Martin’s Episcopal on 7th street. NEWS BULLETIN, just in. I’m editing and thus typing this on Friday afternoon, August 19 and Ware just emailed that she and husband Jack, Harding, ‘64, NC State, ‘68, US Navy, ‘70-71 (?), Purdue, where he and Ware got graduate degrees in computer science (?), are driving from their home in Minneapolis to Charlotte this weekend and will be coming through Louisville. They’re going to have lunch at our house! Ware and Jack, Janet and I are looking forward to seeing y’all. I hope I remember to ask Ware for whom she’s named.), MARTIN BRACKETT (a Hickory Grover who I played football and ran track with through our freshman year when we roomed together at Davidson, Martin hurting his knee as a freshman, thus ending his sports career. As many of you know, Martin died within the last 6 months. Martin, may you RIP!)
BETTY BRAWLEY, JUNE BRIDGEFORD, MARJORIE BROWN, MELISSA BROWN, RICHARD BROWN, SHARYN BROWN, DIANE BURNETTE (who, correct me if I’m wrong, Diane, lived in Burtonwood, just below East), MOI, then KENNY CAMERON, CALVIN CAMPO, HOWARD CARRIKER (a tough as they come baseball catcher and football guard from the Grove. I was president of the Beta club and thus responsible for enlisting speakers on the qualities of Betas prior to the spring tap-in our senior year, and the always procrastinating me, who, at that point, in the words of Seinfeld’s C(K?)osmo Kramer, “ in my mind was already gone”, hadn’t enlisted any speakers so I just discussed the Beta qualities myself. On Character, I said “Most of y’all probably think that Howard Carriker is a character, and he is, but that’s not the kind of character we’re talking about.” I think it got a laugh from everyone except Beta Club sponsor, Janie Woods, my 11th grade US history teacher, who, after meeting a great guy, Bill Durland in, if I recall correctly, a singles Sunday School class at Myers Park Presbyterian Church married him and moved to Monroe where he worked as an engineer. I have been good friends with Janie and Bill for over 50 years, having had their son, Dr. Bill, an ear, nose and throat Doc in Cary in BSA Troop 109, of which I was Scoutmaster for 7-8 years. I hope she’s forgiven me. I heard that Howard died some years ago. May you RIP, character Carriker!)
JUDY CHAUNDY (Judy lived in Sherwood Forest, the large subdivision that extended from Sharon Amity to Rama, where it may have been called Forest Oaks, or something similar, and on reflection, she may have gone to Idlewild. Judy wasn’t a girl, she was a W-O-M-A-N, in all the ways that I thought of a woman, very mature, personality wise and physically, in addition to being very artistic (Judy was the superlative Most Talented in the 9th grade, along with Mark Porter, who I don’t remember but who must have been a trumpeter since he’s holding a trumpet in their picture in the annual) and last, but certainly, by far not least, beautiful. To the extent that I ever had anything going with a female at that age, I had a little something, as such things go, a VERY little something going with her. By 8th grade, kissing parties had progressed a little, bordering on make-out-fests. I know that she didn’t graduate from East with us, so I just checked my annuals, and she was in our 9th grade Scotsman but not our 10th grade East Wind. Her father probably got transferred. Hope you’ve had a good life, Judy!)
I probably shouldn’t chase this rabbit now, but he may not poke his head out of the briar patch again, or if he does, I may not see him or may be too tired to chase him, so I’m going after him now, slowly so as not to scare him or you, the reader from reading further, picking up speed if and as I get more confident in the chase. As I just said, making out was progressing, and at some point during our McClintock years, it moved into an entirely new realm when a female tongue penetrated my lips. SHAZAAM!!! Life hasn’t been the same since. Beauty has millions of connotations, as it should. Rating girls as beautiful or less so at this stage of my life (BTW, I have 3 granddaughters, two 16 and one 14, and they are all different but beautiful, in the sense I’m talking about) seems, what, crude, unfair or meaningless, but we all know, particularly my female classmates, that it’s a fact of life. In our 8th grade Scotsman, Robbie Miller and Delores Lingerfelt were the superlative, Best Looking and the next year, the Best Lookers were Danny Epps and Sydney Rose. Superlatives weren’t pictured in our senior annual but in the listing of our activities and accomplishments beside our senior photos, superlatives were included. Wayne Ross and Barbara Huitt were Best Looking. Pictured as Barbara’s Sweetheart court are Dianne Holt, Sandy Swartz and Jan Hitchcock. Barbara was also Senior Beauty along with Sandy Lawrence. Runner-ups were Dianne and Sandy. I had to thumb through the annual a couple of times to find on page 16 the photo of Marilyn Lowery as homecoming queen, flanked by Suzanne Powell, Linda Ingram and Dianne.
For some reason, which I’ll never understand, I was always able to date beautiful girls, and not just beautiful in the way I just discussed, but who also had beautiful smiles and personalities. I’ll mention them as I come to them in the annuals. I’m going to take a step further, maybe one I shouldn’t, but at this age, as I recently told one of our classmates, my life’s an open book-I don’t have anything to hide. Have I made some bad decisions and missteps along the way? Sure? There are certainly things that I’ve said and done I wish I hadn’t, nothing, IMHO of any real significance, and if they came to light, I would readily admit them, but would probably try to cast them in something of a positive light, though for some things, that would smell like dirty socks. (One thing I’m pretty sure that I would have lied about and still would be lying about if I was Bill Clinton, and that is that not only didn’t I have sex with but didn’t even think about having sex with “that woman, I don’t care what’s on her dress !”). I left East a virgin. Truthfully, though, I, as most teenage males, certainly fantasized about having sex, and I probably would have if the invitation had been given. I never mentioned, hinted at or even remotely tried to have sex with any girl I dated, other than kissing. Maybe I should stop here, and I will by saying that I never touched or tried to touch a girl’s breasts or anywhere south of them. I’ve never regretted it. And I almost got out of East as an alcohol virgin, the only libation ever passing my lips being a small taste of champagne at a prom after-party my senior year, remaining, except for that sip, alcoholically celibate until late my sophomore year in college, and sexually celibate until a month or so later. Until now, I’ve never considered that maybe those two firsts were related!
I hope that these revelations haven’t embarrassed anyone or reminded anyone of the old joke wherein at a revival, the preacher is entreating his audience to stand up and confess their sins to the assembled congregation, and as one by one they stood and confessed their sins, he yelled “Tell it all, brother, tell it all”, till one inspired fellow stood and confessed to having sex with his sheep, whereupon the preacher said in a softer voice, “I don’t think I’d a told that!” Look, we’re septuagenarians; maybe a little confession is good for the soul, a word this very contented religious agnostic seldom uses since I don’t know what the soul is or where it’s located. Maybe some of you can enlighten me, though you’ll have a struggle, since, as I said, I’m very contented with my views about life and about what happens to our mortal bodies when we join the many Eagles who’ve plummeted to earth before us, returning again, and this of course, only IMHO, but based on all the evidence that I know anything about, to dust. THUS endeth the lesson for the day, which I sincerely hope didn’t offend anyone.
Continuing in the 8th grade Scotsman (remember, I’m only naming those not previously mentioned as Oakhursters or Idlewilders); DIANE CHRISTENSEN; ROBERT CHRISTIAN; TED CLEM; SANDRA COCHRANE; PETE COLEY; JERRY COLLINS (the Grove, Jerry?); TERRY COOK; JIMMY COPELAND; JOHN CORNE (John and I became close friends and football teammates thru East and basketball teammates thru the 10th grade. Read more about John in MY SPORTING LIFE. John was a Cotswolder, having lived just a block from where brother Bill and wife Sylvia have lived for over 50 years. Bill&Syl knew John’s folks from Providence Baptist Church, where they were all members.); BILLY COVINGTON; MICKEY CROASMAN; POLLY DAVENPORT (I talked to Clyde Luther, ’65 last week and he said that a year or so ago Marshall Steward and Polly tried to gather support for another reunion for our class but could only get 17 yeses [I would have been 18 if I had been polled, but never heard from them-did you?]); BETH DAVIS; CHARLES DAVIS; JAMIE DEAN; MICKEY DEESE; KATHY DEVITA; TYLER DIXON; DENNIS DOHERTY; WALTER DUDLEY (Cotswold, Doc?); ALVIN and ARNOLD EDWARDS (I think it was Arnold who was the A player in the golf foursome of Jack Campbell, JC Murphy and me, the D player at our 50th. Arnold hit one good shot after another, to which we B-D’s responded virtually in unison, “Good shot, Arnold”, until after a few holes, to break up the monotony, I suggested that we not say anything unless be hit a bad shot, to which we would exclaim, “Shitty shot, Arnold.” I don’t know how you took it but I hope OK, Arnie[were you named for THE Arnie, Arnie? Guess not since he was probably only 10-12 when you were born, but you did go to Wake, right?] ?); ANN ELLERBE (whose mother was the girls’ PE teacher, maybe thus encouraging Ann to become an avid hiker who loves(d) hiking in the mountains as she’s told me on FB-Hi, Ann); DANNY “Best Looking” EPPS, my football, basketball and baseball teammate at Mc and basketball teammate and should have had a shot at the pros shortstop at East, still a superb golfer, who I was going to play golf with along with Bill Wylie, ’65 and John Lagana at the beach at the end of June until Danny’s son, father of 3 youngsters, who lives on the same golf course that Danny and his wife live on in Greenville, SC, came home from a business trip with Covid, and Danny decided he and his wife should stay home and help their daughter-n-law with the kids. Good call, Danny. Maybe when it’s cooler. Danny, and, of course Big John are in MY SPORTING LIFE.); DONNA EVANS; JEANNE EVANS; DAVID EWING; JAMIE FARQUHARSON (Cotswold. Bill&Syl lived just across Ansley Ct. from Jamie’s folks when they were living. Jamie went to Wofford. I spent the night with him my freshman year at Davidson when I went to see our varsity play Wofford in a night game, to which I took a Converse girl who (or is it whom, you English majors?) I met when a gaggle of her freshman classmates were bussed up to Davidson for a mixer. She invited me to have lunch at Converse the next day. A larger gaggle of girls were sitting at round tables seating 6 or 8 each in the dining hall. I guess there must have been but I don’t recall any other guys there. They stood and sang grace, after which, platters of grub were brought to each table. The plates were stacked in front of one girl who dished out small, no, minute portions on each plate and passed them around. I ate mine in 3 or 4 bites. I guess they felt sorry for me because one by one, they all said they weren’t very hungry and passed their plates to me, which I, unapologetically, scarfed up. I probably embarrassed my date. I tucked my tail and headed to DC, where all of us were hungry. When I started typing this a few moments ago, I had no idea of the name of my Converse date. It just came to me along with where she was from: Leslie from Florida. I never saw her again. I understand that Jamie was a very successful restauranteur, I think also in Florida and died several years ago. RIP, Jamie, you McClintock Scot, East Eagle and Wofford Terrier! I wish I had been privileged to have eaten some of your, I’m sure delicious fare!).
TIM FLOYD; LYNN FORD; BARBARA FOSTER; GRAY FOSTER; MARGARET FREEMAN; JERRY FRUCHT (I doubt that few of us have ever met anyone smarter than Jerry, and I’m not sure that I had ever met a Jewish person until the 8th grade. My dad knew a good many Jews, mostly from NY, who sold him merchandise for the small wholesale household goods business that he started and ran, with and without a partner, until his late 60’s, early 70’s, about a 3 iron (a golf club for you non-linksters , which I may be able to hit 180 yds, if I hit it good, and the pros hit probably 250 yds) from where Panthers Stadium is now. One that I remember was Ben Guggenheim, who always sent Dad a thin wooden box containing a variety of cheeses, each individually wrapped, cushioned in crinkly narrow paper strips, sort of like Christmas tree tinsel, only white paper instead of tin foil, for Christmas. We loved the cheese, the box and the wrappings, and Mr. Guggenheim, though we never met him. Brother Harry may have been named for one of those NY salesmen, or maybe even for Harry Golden, publisher of the Carolina Israelite. Amity Country Club was on Sharon Amity Rd, about a half mile toward Cotswold from where we lived on SA, and less than a quarter mile from the Cotswold Square, the intersection of SA and Randolph. It was a Jewish club, which I guess is why so many Jewish families lived in the Cotswold area. I had never thought about it until Allyn Strauss, East,’65 said at one of Clyde Luther’s monthly breakfasts at a restaurant in Matthews that DK Pittman, Duke grad and principal at East since, I think, its beginning, was anti-Semitic, pointing out that neither Jerry nor any other Jewish kids were in the National Honor Society, though Jerry was a Marshall, which was based solely on grade point average. Jerry went to Princeton, which then I think was and may still be a pretty WASPY school, Jerry being, as far as I know, the only one of us who went to an Ivy League college. On page 85 of the ‘64 East Wind, both pages 84 and 5 being devoted to the Student Council, is a photo of its 18 member [I just counted them] Executive Council of which Jerry was a member and another, showing only Jerry’s back as he stands before what looks like 100+ seated in the cafeteria, with the caption “Jerry Frucht addresses one of the Student Council Workshops on parliamentary procedure.” Jerry, does a motion to rip up SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS require a second?)
MURIEL FULTON; SAMMY FUNDERBURK; KENNY FURR; DICKY GARMON; WARREN GEDDINGS; JOHN GIBBS; MICHELLE GREENBAUM; ALAN GREENBERG; AMY GRISCOM (Amy was one of those beautiful girls that I mentioned earlier that I was fortunate enough to date, which we did most of our junior year. The Griscoms lived off Sardis Rd, back behind where Miss Lucille Hood lived. Have I mentioned earlier that I drove brother Bill’s 1931 Ford A-model coupe to school after he went off to State. Page 164 of our senior annual shows the cheerleaders, one of whom was Amy, standing on the running board and bumpers and sitting on the hood and fenders of the A, with this caption: “Cheerleaders are shown with the old car to be given away during the band uniform drive”. HOLY MOSES! Two things: 1) I don’t remember giving them permission to stand and sit on the A; 2) “…to be given away…”. Double HOLY MOSES! Amy asked me to pick her up the first day of our junior year, so I drove down Rama, across the RR tracks toward Sardis. A-models have two small, virtually ineffectual shock absorbers, so my SOP was to stop at the tracks, put it in 1st gear and ease over them. After I picked Amy up and was headed back up Rama, just for the heck of it, rather than stopping at the RR crossing, I threw it up into 2nd gear and hit the tracks at probably 25 or 30 mph. Amy’s head bounced off the, thankfully for Amy, padded and upholstered ceiling a couple times. She never asked to ride in the A again. It’s been sitting in Bill’s garage on Ansley Ct in Cotswold and hasn’t moved in 50 years. He’s a little slow getting started on projects. I wonder if you’ll need jumper cables to start it, Bill? [Maybe I’ll write a story one of these days {I know, I know, y’all can’t wait} about the 2-door A-model sedan that I spent my youth as Bill’s assistant doing a body-off restoration of in our one car garage on Rama]. I have a cousin, our age, named (really) Ben(jamin) Franklin who graduated from South. He and his family, Ben’s mother was one of my father’s 11 siblings, lived in White Plains, NY until he was in the 3-4th grade and he was in school there with Amy. He mentioned this to me in a phone conversation just a few weeks ago, and if I remember correctly, he must have been good friends with her because after the Griscoms moved, they were pen pals for a while. Ben’s family moved to Charlotte where, after East Carolina and in addition to teaching school he owned a Hallmark card store. Soon after Amy’s death, her mother came in his store and mentioned her last name, and within moments, Ben realized who she was and told her about White Plains and asked how Amy was. Mrs. Griscom broke down in tears. I shed a few myself when I heard that she had died. I don’t remember ever seeing Amy after graduation. I don’t know where she went to college, if she married, had children, what she did for a living, or where, when and from what she died. Maybe some of you readers can tell me what you know. Amy was not only beautiful, she was very bright and had as bright a personality. Sweet Amy, I hope you have been and will continue to RIP!)
RALPH GROSSWALD (Another Cotswalder and tennis player. I just looked at the photo of the tennis team at East our senior year, and of the 8 players, Ralph and 5 others are Jewish. I assume there were courts at Amity CC and there must have been a strong tennis program, from which tennis playing Eagles were hatched. A month (I’m typing this on Saturday morning, August 6) or so ago I emailed my story MY SPORTING LIFE to 35-40 of you East senior classmates of mine whose email addresses were on a list someone prepared in connection with our 50th reunion and I had a nice response from several, including Ralph, who has been and may still be a very successful businessman and world traveler. Thanks, Ralph, good to hear from you. Still playing tennis?)
WAYNE GURLEY; MARTY HAIGLER; BRENDA HALL; WILLIAM HANLINE; STEVE HARRINGTON (Steve, we got to be pretty good friends at Mc, didn’t we?); KAY HARRIS; GAY HATCHER; BETSY HATLEY; GLENNA HATLEY; JAY HATTERSLEY (As I think about it, Jay probably went to Idlewild because he lived on a short dead-end street-oops, I’m thinking about a guy named Paul Dover, who I smoked my first Winston with from his dad’s pack. Jay lived on another street off Monroe Rd near Rama before his family moved to Tilley-Morris Rd, off Matthews-Weddington Rd, near where my Dad and Mom were raised on cotton farms, and Jay graduated from South.); PAMELA HECHT; BEVERLY HELMS; CARL HELMS (Somehow Carl got 2 tickets to the Shrine Bowl football game which John Lagana played in our senior year and he invited me to go see Big John play); RICHARD HELMS (Richard lives in Union Co. I began practicing law in Monroe in 1971 with Frank Griffin, 20 years my senior, Mr. Democrat, who had been in the State House and Senate and probably could have been elected to Congress if he had run. I don’t remember but one guy, a guy named Oscar Harward, a name “that will live in infamy” in my mind, who openly admitted to being a Republican in those days. But when it flipped, it really flipped. Richard was part of the flip and has been and may still be the Republican chairman of the county commission. If I was still in Monroe, I would be part of only a handful of admitted Democrats, me a very liberal Dem who voted for Independent Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 20. OOPS, I didn’t mean to stray into the forbidden waters of politics and I’ll stay out of the other taboo, religion, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, other than to say that this former Southern Baptist, whose 54 year old son is a charismatic evangelical Assemblies of God ordained minister, who has just completed and can retire, but isn’t right away, 20 years as one of three chaplains at the federal medical prison and woman’s “camp” in Lexington, KY, is a very contented religious agnostic. Hope I haven’t offended or ticked anyone off! Haven’t I strayed down this road somewhere hereinabove?)
TERRY HELMS; TRINA HELMS (Trina, have I already mentioned you from Oakhurst? As I may have said before, I hate scrolling up to see what I may have already said, but if I’m mentioning you twice, you are certainly worth it!); BRENDA HENDERSON; PHILLIP HENDERSON; VERNIE HICKS; CHUCK HILL (Chuck, didn’t I close you and your wife’s purchase of a house in Weddington or Waxhaw?); BONNIE HINSON; JEAN HINSON; MICKEY HIXSON (Mickey was smart as could be but that didn’t help him when Betty Smith in 10th grade world history read him the riot act for not turning in a homework assignment, Mickey’s (our class treasurer as seniors) excuse being that he had to go to church the night before. The class got a brilliant, both as to content and tone, off-the-cuff lecture on the separation of church and state and the importance of education, even to church goers (and I’ll throw in, especially to church goers).
REBECCA HOLLADAY; LINDA HOLLAND, BOBBY HOLMES; ELLISON HONEYCUTT (Eli grew up on SA, a couple of blocks from where we lived and makes an appearance in MY SPORTING LIFE. As the superlative Best School Spirit in the 9th and Friendliest in the 12th, after being “Mr. Howdy” in the 11th (all gleaned from the honors and activities listed beside his senior photo), as well as a rocker, MC at our 50th, and the Eagle we other 393 from 1964 look to for social leadership, Eli is known by all of us.) MILLIE HOOD (A cheerleader at Mc and East and 9th grade Best School Spirit with Ellison, Millie was a Coldwolder, right Millie?); BETTY HORTON (Betty, I hope you won’t mind me sharing what you wrote in my 8th grade Scotsman: “To the ‘cutest’ boy at ‘Mac’, Lots of luck, always”. Your wish for me was priceless then and my cup has been overflowing with luck ever since; in fact, on August 3 I put a posting on FB that begins, “When was the last time you had a perfect or darn near perfect day? I did yesterday”, and ends “I am a very fortunate man, have been for 76 years”. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, Betty, the cutest girl at Mac!)
DICKIE HOWIE; BUTCH HUGHES (Butch, weren’t you from the Grove?); BARBARA HUITT (I’ve already given Barbara a little ink, or have I, but in any event, as one of the sweetest people I know, she deserves much more. She lives, or did a few years ago in Kingsport, TN, where my in-laws did until passing and where my brother-in-law still does. I called her for advice for a storage unit in Kingsport to put our overflow of stuff when we moved from Monroe to a log cabin we owned for 15 years in the Ledger Community, between Spruce Pine and Bakersville [I may have mentioned it when talking about Mac Blankenship], where, at 3,200’, from the front porch we could see Celo Knob, over 6,000’, part of the Black Mtn range where Mt Mitchell, not visible from the cabin, at almost 6,700’, the highest point east of the Mississippi River, anchors the range, and where, from the back porch we could see Roan Mtn, almost 6,300’, when the leaves were off the trees.); PAMELA HUNTER; CATHIE HUTCHINS; GAYLE HYDE; JIMMY IRBY (Jimmy, how did we get to know each other? Do you still always have a smile on your face?); JOHN JAMES; PATRICIA JAMES; LINDA JENKINS; RICKY JENKINS; STEVE JOHNSON; BETTY JOLLY; EDDIE JONES; KAREN JONES; LANIER JONES; ROBIE JONES; STEVE JONES; BRENDA JORDAN; DAVID JORDAN; MELVIN JUSTICE; SHIRLEY JUSTICE; BEVERLY KENNEDY; BILL KEETER.
KENNY KIKER (Once again, I hate scrolling up. I’m saving this story on a thumb drive and took it to the library yesterday to print out the 20+ pages that it’s up to, but Noah, a guy in his mid-20’s, a tech wizard and one of the nicest guys I know, who works there while working toward his masters from somewhere in PA, maybe the UofPittsburg in library science in order to pursue his goal of becoming an archivist, wasn’t there and Debbie couldn’t help me find this story on the thumb drive, so consequently, no paper copy to see if I mentioned Kenny at Oakhurst. But see my story, HOOK IT, KIKER about Kenny K.) ; CHARRON KIRKLAND; JANE KNIGHT (Most Athletic, with John Corne in the 9th and Most Dependable, with Bill Carr in the 12th , and who wrote in my senior annual, “Tommy, I haven’t enjoyed knowing you because everytime I see you, you want me to do something for Beta”. As Most Dependable, I could always depend on you, Jane. Thanks!); JUDY KOPECKNE ( I’m re-re-re-editing this, I’m promising myself for the last time on this Friday morning, August 26 and just have to add that yesterday Ware posted on FB a photo of her and me in our front yard last Sunday with caption “Delightful stop on trip from MN to NC–lunch in Louisville, Kentucky with high school friend, Tom Caldwell”, to which Judy commented, “I suppose he grew up long ago, but he’ll be Tommy in high school to me forever.” Great to hear from you, Judy); JOHN LAGANA (Big John makes several appearances in MY SPORTING LIFE, because he played a significant role in my life in sports. I think I’ve written in one of my stories of my disdain for UNC and the Morehead Scholarship because of their trying to lure John to play football at Carolina with the Morehead, even after he had told them he was going to Ga Tech. John is retired and living in Seabrook Island, SC. Janet and I had lunch with him and his wife Liz in Charleston in the spring and was going to play golf with him, Best Looking Danny Epps and Bill Wylie, East ’65 at the beach in June until Danny had to cancel because his son and father of 3 came home to his house on a golf course in Greenville, SC, where Danny and his wife live a few holes away, from a business trip with Covid and Danny wisely decided to stay and lend a hand with his grandkids. What I just said sounds familiar. If it’s a repeat, please forgive and chalk it up to my 76 year dotage, not that any of you resemble this remark!)
ANN MARIE LAPP; SANDY LAWRENCE (Senior beauty; Sandy, if I had been the judge, I would have voted for you too!); DIANA LEDFORD; BUDDY LEETE (Ralph Shipman Leete, son of principal Ralph S. Leete. Buddy, are you a junior? I think the Leetes lived in Mint Hill where Buddy would have gone to Bain but for his dad, because his mother, still living at over 100, taught my wife Janet in the 6th grade at Bain when her father built a house on NC Highway 51 in Mint Hill beside his brother, Dan, with whom their mother Dora lived, where Janet, her mother and brother lived while her dad Mac was stationed in Japan for a year. Janet just found and showed me her little Bain “School Memories” booklet with the entire 1st-9th grade classes and teachers. WOW, were they all young! Buddy and I became best friends in the 8th grade. In our 9th grade Scotsman, on a page with baby and kid and other funny photos, there is one of Buddy’s body with my head on it and one of my body with Buddy’s head on it. He emailed me a nice message a couple of days ago in response to a story about my “perfect” day, which I had just posted on FB. In fact, I think I’ll repost it here and now-don’t y’all need a break from US?)
Let me preface this with a couple of remarks. I have little idea of how I was friendliness-wise during my 12 years with y’all in school. Janet and I had lunch with Ware Botsford and Gay Slesinger after Ware, Janet and I heard Carter Heyward preach and Janet asked them about me in my high school years. I think they both used the word “reserved”, which I’m sure that I was, probably stemming primarily from my insecurity, which was probably contributed to by the fact that neither of my parents had a college education, my dad didn’t have a white collar job, our social life revolved around Matthews Baptist Church, where I learned that alcohol and pre-marital sex would send me straight to Hell, and the fact that I wasn’t particularly erudite because most of my time was spent playing sports, not reading. Heaven only knows how I remember this but probably long about the 6-7th grades, the word “conceited” began being used by and about our classmates. I didn’t even know what the word meant! (I hope the statute of limitations has run on the school board being able to revoke my diploma!) My story STRANGERS begins with a short discussion of this part of me. The other thing I’d like to say, or rather ask you before “reposting” my “post” is, please don’t judge me as too self-righteous for sharing it. Janet says I’ve got more than my share!
I’m typing this on Monday morning, August 8. I posted the following last Wednesday, the 3rd: “When was the last time you had a perfect or darn near perfect day? I took my ’04 Toyota Tundra pickup to Oxmoor Toyota in Louisville at 9 yesterday to see why my AC wasn’t cooling as it should and took plenty of reading material for what I knew could be a long wait. I sat down to read and a gentleman with a book in his hand took a seat nearby, and when I asked what he was reading, he held it up, the biography of the leader of the Oak Ridge Boys. Born on Dutchman’s Creek in Spencer Co, KY 84 years ago in an old house without electricity, running water or a driveway on a hard scrabble farm, he went on to become a gospel and country music producer and has met them all, from Carl Perkins and Elvis to Minnie Pearl and Dolly, and nearly everyone in between. He rode on Bill Monroe’s bus many times and has been to Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and other big names’ homes on Old Hickory Lake outside Nashville. He declined my request to interview him on my cellphone. He gave me his name but no contact info as he prefers to remain under the radar.
“A young Asian woman took a seat nearby and looked close to tears with a cost estimate for repairs to her ’08 car in her hand. She had brought it in because light kept coming on regarding tire air pressure and they recommended that she have the oil changed, the coolant system flushed out, spark plugs replaced ($500+ for plugs sounded awfully high to me) and replacing the front axle for $800+. She didn’t and doesn’t have the money to pay for all that. I went with her to talk to the service rep and we decided that she needed to let them diagnose issue with tire pressure and a couple of other minor things and fix the axle. They had to order it. Kim is from Vietnam. Her father worked for US forces during the war.” (I forgot to mention that he was imprisoned for 5 years by the Vietcong after we pulled out of Nam.) “She and they came here 20 years ago. She does nails when she can. She had breast cancer and has had surgery and is taking a chemo pill, and is often unable to work. She is taking off Tuesday to bring her car in to have the axle fixed. I told her that I would meet her there and for her not to worry about the cost. We exchanged phone numbers.
“Also sitting nearby was Mary. She asked about the book I had: The Guns at Last Light, The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945, Volume Three of the Liberation Trilogy, by Rick Atkinson. She made a picture of the cover. Her father crossed the Remagen Bridge into Germany in 1945. Mary is a realtor, a horse person who owns a horse farm in Goshen and a golfer. We exchanged contact info and as she got up to pay her bill, asked when we could play golf, and I replied, as soon as it cools off a bit.
“A couple of other good things of a personal nature happened to me yesterday, but they only added to what already had been my perfect day, compacted into only 4.5 hours at Toyota! I am a fortunate man, have been for 76 years!”
56 people have seen my post on FB and a number have commented. I’d like to share some of them as, I assume, the comments are available for viewing by anyone on FB. Dr. Bill Holmes, around 80, is a retired MD, a child neurologist, I think, also retired as a hospital chaplain, who used to write an occasional column in the Sunday Louisville Courier-Journal on quasi-religious/moral/ethics matters and who I only know online, commented: “Tom, two things: 1. I had a 2004 Tundra with the flair fenders on the back. Greatest truck ever. Has a Lexus engine. Gave it to my son-in-law a few years ago. Only a little over 100,000 miles on it. 2. As for recognizing the humanity around you and listening to them and even responding, I say ‘yes!’ There was this man who did such things in various places like a well, a fountain, a fishing dock, and…you get the picture. A former pastor of mine often said: ‘See a hurt and heal it; see a need and fill it.’” I replied: “Doc, I guess some folks might think they’re imposing on strangers by talking with them, but 9 times out of 10, strangers I ‘impose’ on enjoy or at least seem to enjoy our conversation, and often open up like we’ve been friends for years. I can even discuss the two forbidden areas, religion and politics if I go about it the right way. For example, Kim from my posting is Buddhist and loved showing me photos of her at her temple. And the best thing about talking with strangers is that I’m the one who benefits from it-it’s one of my favorite things in life!” His response: “no argument here”.
From the 60 something son of a minister I knew over 50 years ago in Monroe who, the son, that is, after marriage and kids, came out as gay and is/was a newspaper reporter and author of a very interesting book about two old maids in Union Co, NC who, in the early 1920’s left their farm to a black man who had worked for them most of his life, whose book, Inherit the Land is now or maybe already has been made into a movie, commented: “People are starving for human contact, perhaps more than ever. After 40 years as a reporter, I can’t help trying to open a conversation, and it is almost always eagerly welcome.” And from a former fellow church member: “We do treasure precious moments when we’re waiting at the car dealership. You had a great day”, and then a smiley face emoji. From a 1st cousin: “Tom, I love your stories. Like you I enjoy meeting people, sharing stories of interest…Makes life better. Do we all need this today!!!” (then a sad face emoji) “Revelation 19:7,8.” (Maybe you have this memorized, but I don’t, so to save you from having to look it up, or maybe even from having to look for a Bible, I’ve looked it up and here it is: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the fine linen is the righteousness of saints,” KJV. Me: sounds almost pornographic!) This same cousin, 82-3 y/o, an East grad and a retired nurse anesthetist, when I posted a disparaging comment about tRump and CPAC in Dallas this weekend, commented “Tom, you and I strongly disagree”, to which I replied, “Cuz, surely you’re not a tRumper. I’m sure Uncle Dwight” (her long deceased father) “wouldn’t have been”, to which, thankfully, she hasn’t replied. When will I ever learn to quit arguing about politics and religion, especially in public view? That’s really a rhetorical question which I’ll answer myself: I hope never, because maybe they or I will learn something from the argument, or, a better word for it, debate.
From a daughter of Frank Griffin, my 20 yr older than me now deceased law partner who you can read about, along with his cousin, Jim in the last story, FRANK & JIM that I put on my website: “Classic Tom! Love it and your share friend!” From a college classmate, who I knew but wasn’t particularly close with during college, who lives in Puerto Rico and who, in answer to the question “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” on a questionnaire sent to us before our 50th reunion 4 years ago, answered “Raising a child with downs syndrome” (or it may have been autism): “Bravo Tom. You’re my hero!”, to which I replied, “And you’re mine, Rick!” And from the wife of a Doc friend from Monroe before they moved to Cody, Wyoming about 40 years ago: “The people you met had a perfect encounter & all because of you, Tom. You are still a great guy. Hope you have another perfect day!”, to which I replied with a heart emoji (don’t you just love emojis?). And finally, from the, he must be at least 65 year old oldest of 4 kids of a radiologist and one of the dearest women I’ve ever known, fellow church members, to which, the son that is, I taught Sunday School when he was an 11th and 12th grader; actually I taught his 3 younger siblings as well: “This is an inspiring share, Tom. What a difference we can all make.” I just noticed that I haven’t replied but am right now, with 3 emojis, a thumbs-up, a hands together in thanks and a heart!
I’m looking forward to seeing Kim at Oxmoor Toyota tomorrow!!!
Well, back to business: LINDA LEMMOND; PATSY LITTLE; BARRY LONG; EDDIE LONG; BETH LOWE (Beth is one of the three who responded to MY SPORTING LIFE, and she was quite complimentary. Thanks Beth, you’re too kind. BTW, weren’t you at Ware’s house for the gathering of the National Honor Society members I could round up before our 50th to discuss a potential service project?); JOEL LOWERY (Joel, didn’t you play football?); MARILYN LOWRY (Greg Cox, ‘65, who, if he’d had my height, and who I, if I’d had the frog muscles he had in his legs and his fearlessness could both have been All-Americans, called to tell me of Marilyn’s death while I was writing MY SPORTING LIFE, so I wrote about her therein. If you haven’t or don’t want to have to scroll through to find what I wrote about Marilyn there, suffice it here to say that she and I were the Mc and East superlatives Best All Around, and after reading of her activities and achievements in her obit, I think I closed with, “RIP, Mrs. Best All Around!”); ROBERT LOWRY (Marilyn’s 1st cousin and my bro, Harry’s frat bro at Carolina); ROBERT LUM; JANICE LUTHER and FRANCES LYNCH (I put Janice and Frances together because they are two of the brightest girls, actually students of either sex that I was in school with. Frances and Jerry Frucht were Most Intellectual at Mc and she and Eddie Tucker were Best Students at East. Frances and Janice were both in the National Honor Society and Marshals at East, Frances the Chief. Frances’ one year older sister Jane played the piano when we entered and exited the auditorium at East for assemblies. Once the assembly was about the terrible, catastrophic, cataclysmic consequences of premarital sex, the only time I remember that three letter, taboo word being mentioned at old East Meck, except in an inquiry as to gender. As we exited, Jane played the Wedding March from Wagner’s “Lohengrin”. DK wasn’t pleased. Frances went to DK’s alma mater, Duke and I think for a period Jane was the assistant organist at Duke Chapel. Ms Chief Marshal Frances, please correct me if I’m wrong about the foregoing, or anything else in SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS!)
I’m sure that my classmates, and any others who may stumble on to this story, surely want me to keep you abreast of the trevails that I’ve endured in bringing it to you. For years I typed on a large HP, not much smaller than the Duke Chapel organ. It died, or I guess more appropriately suffered a severe stroke on Monday, 8/8/22 so this morning, 8/10, I’m continuing the story on a Chromebook which a Best Buy patron sold me a year ago when I was in there browsing for a new ‘puter, and she was trying to return one of three she had bought for Christmas presents because her mother didn’t like hers, but BB wouldn’t take it back because she didn’t have the receipt, so she gave me a good deal on it. Son, Tim has tried to show me how to use Google Docs on it but my HP got a new lease on life, and so I continued until I typed it into a massive, unto probable death stroke Monday. Grandson Sam, 20, came over yesterday afternoon and gave me a crash course, so here I am, typing away at 7:00 this morning on my Chromebook, much, much smaller than any keyboard Jane Lynch has played!
GARY MCCRACKEN; BRENDA MCDONALD; MARSHA MCFARLAND (Marsha, weren’t you at Idlewild? It seems like I remember riding the bus with you, and didn’t you live in the part of Sherwood Forest, which name I mentioned earlier but don’t want to scroll back to find, near Rama Rd?); DIANE MCGEE; DENISE MCKIERNAM; DANA MCLEAN; KELLY MCMANUS; MICKEY MCMANUS; SHARON MANY; WAYNE MARSHBANKS; BUDDY MAUNEY (Buddy was a buddy, maybe an Idlewilder, Buddy?); ELAINE MAYFIELD; BOBBY MAYNOR; LYNN MERRICK; JUDY MILLS; RUTH MISENHEIMER; LEE MITCHELL; ERNIE MOORE (a Grover, Ernie?); JIMMY MOORE (Jimmy, a Cotswolder? Did we get to be friends at Mc or at East? I hope you won’t mind my rewriting what you wrote in my senior annual: “Tommy. You’re really a great guy but I guess you know that already. It has been great knowing you. Keep your same personality and you will go far (away, I hope)…God bless you, (you need it)”. JOE MORALEDA; JOHN MORRIS; CHESTER MULLIS (Chester, you were a hoss of a center in football at Mc and on the JV’s at East, where I found you in our 10th grade annual. I don’t have my junior year annual. You’re not in the ‘64 East Wind. Where did you disappear to?)
PAT MULLIS; JIMMIE NEWELL (Jimmie, were you from Newell?); JENNY LAURA NEWTON; GRADY ROSS NICHOLS (Grady grew up on his family’s farm on Sam Newell Rd and the Nichols family were members of Matthews Baptist and thus Grady and I were friends as far back as I can remember. I thought Bill Carr was along but he doesn’t remember it, so maybe it was Grady, me and his two year older brother Robert who loaded a big sow in their old farm pickup with wood planks for side planks, and one summer Friday or Saturday night backed it in between two cars with probably Myhus Pahk students in them at Shoneys on Morehead, and it wasn’t long before cars were peeling out. We thought everybody liked the smell of ham, bacon and sausage, not to mention spare ribs! Grady’s older brother Bruce was postmaster in a small town near Raleigh and died of a heart attack at work at a fairly young age. On the morning he died, their mother, by then a widow, without knowing that Bruce had died, pulled out in front of a truck on NC 51 and was killed instantly. Grady died, what 8-10 years ago after a stroke, possibly contributed to by his terrible bout with diabetes. Great, long time friend, Grady, may you, Bruce and your mother RIP!); ANDREA NOLES; MELVIN NORWOOD; GROVER NUNNERY (Grover, were you a Hickory Grover? I remember Janet and I talking with you at some length at our 50th, and think I remember that you worked for Microsoft, or was it Apple, right? Janet was impressed that you had held onto your stock.); LINDA ODELL; KENNY OSBORNE; SANDRA OVERTON; SKIP PALMER; FRANCES PATTERSON; HOWARD PEARRE; KEN PITTMAN (I could write pages about DK’s son, DK (Ken), Jr. Of course what I’ll say is in the past tense because, unfortunately, Ken died some years ago, of what, I don’t know. He was president and I was VP of the student council at Mc, where he and Ware Botsford were the superlatives Most Likely to Succeed, which they also were at East, where Ken was also president of the student council. Ware, didn’t you tell me that you and Ken, though dating each other, ran against each other for president of the student council at East and that Ken said that y’all should break off dating each other? Did you date each other any at Duke? If not, Ken’s loss. He wrote in my senior annual: “Fish” [a nickname Lagana gave me at Mc, short, I guess for Codfish {does that sound like Caldwell to you-it didn’t to me, either}], “You’re a real fine tennis player” [the courts were right behind their house] “but I’ll beat you someday-someday. I have enjoyed these past seven years;” [he must have gone to Idlewild, too, but I don’t remember him as a Wilder] “it won’t be the same without you next year.” And it wasn’t. I don’t remember ever seeing Ken again after graduation, but I owe him a lot. He was fearless in class, asking the questions that I, and I’m sure others were afraid to ask, afraid of exposing our ignorance. President Ken, I hope you have been and will continue to RIP! PS: there are mustaches drawn on faces and other defacements in my senior annual with notations on several, “Pittman did this”.)
MARK PORTER; JERRY POWELL; SUZANNE POWELL (Suzanne, didn’t you, your husband and I have a nice conversation at the Friday night of our 50th football game?); ANGELA PRATHER; CAROL PRESLEY; DUANE PRESSLEY; JANET PRICE; JUNE PRICE; LARRY PRICE; BOB PROVENCE; ERROL (Pug) PUCKETT (a Mc footballer but who’s not in my soph or senior annual. Whence did you go, Errol?); JIMMY RAPE; MAXIE ANN RAYFORD; JOHNNY REIMLER and ROBERT (Rocket) RENNE, together because I remember being friends with both of you, and running track with you, Rocket!); PHYLLIS REVELS; JOYCE RIEMENSCHNEIDER (another one of the brightest people in my class, and very cute to boot! Joyce, would you have gone out with me if I had asked you? I hope that you would have, that the jock that I was wouldn’t have been too boring for you); ROBIN RIGGSBEE; DONNIE ROBINSON; SYDNEY ROSE (Best Looking, with, wasn’t he your boyfriend, Danny Epps at Mc. Sydney, you’re in our soph annual but not my senior. Where did you bloom [Rose, get it?]?); PAT RUSSELL; TONY RUSSELL; DONNY SALEM; MIKE SANDERS.
SUZANNE SCHUSTER (Suzanne, I hope you won’t mind me sharing what you wrote in my ‘64 Wind: “Dear Tom-Tom. Well, here’s to McClintock, and Doris Allen, & Watson & Swofford, etc-Rather foul, but still- Remember when you were dating Nancy?- I had a crush on you-but I recovered–Mit Grussen und Kussen, Suzanne von Schuster”. Suzanne, you should be extremely happy that your crush didn’t develop into anything more-you might have ended up Suzanne von Caldwell!!!); SANDY SCHWARTZ (Sandy, were you an Idlewilder and didn’t you live near Marsha McFarland? Seems like I remember you on the bus, too. Miss Cheerleader! There’s not a picture of the JV cheerleaders in our 8th grade Scotsman, but there you are as a varsity cheerleader in the 9th. There’s also not a picture of the JV cheerleaders in our 10th grade East Wind but there’s a fairly close up of part of the crowd watching a basketball game, and there you are, sitting beside Sharon Rose, who’s sitting beside Larry Monteith, a space between him and Steve Jones, with Roger Dawson sitting behind him, who’s sitting beside Robbie Miller, who’s sitting beside his squeeze, Nancy Wait. Golly what a lot of young faces! While thumbing through that annual, I came across the Most Dependable superlatives, Gloria Hutchison, who married Charles “Sonny” Baker, who graduated from South, and moved to Union Co when we lived in Monroe, where we became good friends of theirs, and tall, thin Ted Edwards, as far as I know the only Eagle killed in Vietnam. He was a terrific guy. Ted I hope you’ve been and will continue to RIP! Back to you, Sandy. I don’t have our 11th grade Wind and so don’t know if you were a cheerleader in the 11th, but there you are, cheerleading in the 12th and standing on my A-model with your fellow cheersters. Do I remember correctly your sitting at our table at the 50th and telling of several tragedies that you had recently suffered, one, if I remember correctly, that your husband had recently had a stroke and that your grandson had just been killed in a traffic accident? I hope that your husband has recovered and that you have recovered, to the extent one can from the loss of a grandchild.) SAM SCOTT; BEVERLY SEGAL; RONNIE SHOUSE; ERIC SILVERSTEIN (Have I mentioned hereinabove that I have a list of most, maybe all of my classmates who graduated from East with me which someone prepared in preparation for our 50th reunion, most with contact info of some kind, including 57 email addresses.***Of course, in reading back through as I’m editing, I can answer this question and others; yes, I have mentioned it, but I ain’t going back to correct, and I’ll tell you why at the very end of the story*** Without scrolling back, I may have mentioned in mentioning Ralph Grosswald and/or Beth Lowe that I emailed a copy of MY SPORTING LIFE to all 57 and had responses from Ralph, Eric. Beth and Larry Wertz, and though I, of course enjoyed hearing from those 4, I was happy, very happy, might I say jubilant to hear from Eric, the retired in Denver ob-gynist, primarily because he mentioned my “perfect jump shot”! Well, it was by no means perfect, but in our 9th grade Scotsman, Coach Cloer wrote a note over the individual varsity team members photo of me at the top of my jumpshot, just before shooting, and there is a photo of a game in action with me in the same position, and I will say, with obviously little modesty, that I did have a pretty good jump shot, but will also say, with obviously no braggadociousness that I peaked as a bballer in the 9th grade, though I kept playing through the 12th. If I ever need a hysterectomy,Doc, you’re my man! Can you do anything for my colitis or bone on bone shoulders?)
ROBERT SLEET (Almost as tall as me, Bobby did you play both ways in football, as a tight end on offense and defensive end on, obviously, defense? While in Monroe, I saw Bobby’s mother’s obituary and surprised him and his wife Barbara Mitchell (I just looked and Barbara doesn’t appear in the Eastern sky until the 12th grade, where the Wind said she didn’t blow in until 1962. Bobby’s a fast worker. A year was long enough for him to catch, as a tight end or tackle, as a defender, pretty Barbara. I talked with them briefly after the service at Providence Methodist Church and learned that Bobby went to Presbyterian but I don’t think I asked him if he played football (if so, I would have played against him) and that they live in Texas. We promised each other that we would stay in touch but unfortunately, we haven’t. Bob, was your hair completely white then or just a light shade of gray? Hope you still have some, at least more than me!); SANDY SMITH; SHEILA SMITH; JACKIE STACK (Jackie, did you go to Idlewild. I remember that you lived on the Rama Rd end of Sherwood Forest and rode the bus, that you were [actually, I didn’t remember until, while editing I saw the photo on page 154 of the ‘64 East Wind of our senior class officers, you as secretary, Mickey Hixon as treasurer, me as vp, Bill Carr as president and Mrs Carol East as adviser] secretary of our senior class [did you keep your notes?] and that you married Dickie Thomas, but that y’all didn’t last. I’m sorry, for both of you!); TOMMY STAFFORD (Tommy, a Grover?); LYNN STENNETT; ROBERT STORCK (Robert, Bobby, I’m afraid I don’t remember you but I have to ask, did the Scotsman misspell your last name?); RICHARD STYPMANN (Richard, Dickie, Dick, I’m afraid I don’t remember you, either, but I’ll ask you the same question I asked your alphabetic neighbor, Mr. Storck. I don’t remember ever running across another Storck or Stypmann anywhere, in any place, at any time. I just checked and neither of you graduated from East with me/us. Where did y’all depart to?); ANN SUTTON (Ann, it seems like we’ve met before but I’m too lazy to scroll back to see.); PETE THEVAOS (Pete, I remember pronouncing your last name “Thevus”. Have I mispronounced it all these years?); EDDIE THROWER (Eddie, why weren’t you a pitcher or QB?); JIMMY TILLOTSON (Jimmy, we lost you way too young. I’m sorry I let Pete Batte almost kill you [see MY SPORTING LIFE], and thanks for helping me sell tickets to our senior sweetheart dance [pg 95, ‘64 Wind-more about it, the dance, that is, later]. Clyde Luther told me that you were a Cotswolder. Hope that you’ve been, lo these many years and will forever RIP!)
ANN TINGEN; STEVE TOWNSEND (Steve, where did you hail from? From wherever, I’m sure you came in a cloud of dust, or maybe just the track cinders still clinging to your shoes. Remember your message to me in the Wind? “Tommy, I really did enjoy getting beat by you in track. [It’s fun; try it sometime!] Best of luck next year at college.” Are you still in Penrose, NC? Transylvania Co? Still running? About all I can do now is hobble!); SCOTT TREDWELL; CHERYL TRIPP; EDDIE TUCKER (Ed, do you still have a big smile and are you still one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known? Rhetorical questions, of course; of course you do and are! And I know darn well you’re still as bright as the sun, or at least as one of the stars. I remember that you grew up beside or a house or two from Sardis Presbyterian Church. Didn’t you live for a time around the corner from my bro, Bill & sis-in-law Syl in Cotswold?); JOHNNY TYER; LINDA VAN BUREN; NANCY WAIT (Nancy, wait, where to begin? Nancy and 9th grade BEST LOOKING, Robbie Miller, East ‘63 both went to Sardis Rd Presbyterian and were each others’ main squeeze when Nancy and we were in the 8th and he the 9th. When the Rob moved on to East, I moved in. If I remember correctly, I took Nancy to the Christmas and Sweetheart dances and some sock hops. She must have been very tolerant, understanding or you name whatever it was that would cause a girl to accept an invitation to a dance from a rube who couldn’t dance. My first date other than school dances was dad dropping us off at the Charlotte Coliseum to see the Harlem Globetrotters. Was I cool, or what? I gave her a Johnny Mathis album, or maybe it was just a 45 for Christmas [what was your favorite? It’s Not For Me To Say, Wonderful, Wonderful, The Twelfth of Never, or everyone’s favorite, Misty?]. Nancy wrote the longest note of anyone in my 9th grade Scotsman. When we got to East, Robbie was back in and I was out. Since Nancy has been Nancy Miller for many years, theirs’ is evidence that Sunday School romances which blossom into marriage, at least in Nancy and Robbie’s case, is, as it should be, until death. Again with my morbid habit, I saw Robbie’s mother’s obituary and attended her funeral at Sardis. Robbie wasn’t standing with Nancy when I offered him my condolences and he said, “I know why you’re here-to see Nancy”, and, of course I was. I hadn’t seen her since her family moved from Charlotte, sometime between our sophomore, since she’s in the ‘62 but before our senior year, since she’s not in the ‘64 Wind. Nancy was as pretty and vivacious as ever. You probably remember that she and Robbie came to our 50th.)
ROBERT WALKER; SUE WALTERS; DONNA WATERS (Donna, I remember you as very pretty and friendly but, and I could be wrong, it seems like I was a little miffed because you, like others usually dated older guys.); FRANK WATSON (Frank, don’t I remember that you, maybe your family was in the moving business and do I also remember that you built a large house on some wooded acreage between Weddington and Waxhaw in Union Co?); CANDY WELCHMAN; FAYE WEST; JANICE WHITE; LINDA WHITE; DARLENE WIGGINS; JUDY WILLIAMS (Judy was Nancy Wait’s close, maybe closest friend in the 9th grade, and when Coach Tom Ligon and the other coaches and female PE teachers took all the McClintock monogram club members, cheerleaders, and pom-pom girls to the YMCA camp at the beach for the weekend, Judy, alone with me on the end of the pier, did a good job helping to console my loss of Nancy as my girlfriend when it became apparent that she was looking forward to again become Robbie Miller’s main squeeze at East the next year. Thanks, Judy, much then and still now appreciated just as much. You were so sweet to end your note in my 9th grade annual, “Remember, the best man always ends up on top. Love always, Judy”.)
ROBERT WILLIAMS (Robert must have been a Cotswolder. According to my 8th and 9th grade Scotsmen, Robert, not Bob or Bobby, played football both years and was on the track team, though I don’t remember him on either, but I definitely remember that he alternated with John Corne and me as tailback on the football team in the 12th grade. I think I said in MY SPORTING LIFE that I was the only guy who played 3 sports at East, but I was wrong.***As you will note, my editing hereof has revealed other 3 sports guys, but I don’t think any of them played 3 sports all 3 years as I did. What can I say, a jock to the strap, oops, end!***According to the ‘64 Wind, Robert played football 10, 11, 12, wrestled 11, 12, and was on the track team 10, 11 and 12. Robert, I don’t remember you as a sprinter-what did you do in track? We missed you at the 50th, where I heard that you were a very successful barrister in Fla. What a coincidence, you, John and me, all at, not behind the Bar!); BUCKY WILLIS (Though I don’t remember you, Bucky, I’ve always liked the name Bucky, as well as Buck. Are there certain names for which Bucky is the natural nick (as in nickname, get it?) for, like, say, Buchanan, though I’ve never heard of Buchanan as a first name?); LARRY WILSON (Larry, if you remember much about me you’ll probably remember that I was, and still am lazy, too lazy to scroll back to see if you were an Idlewilder, though it seems you were, but if not, surely a Grover.); PHYLLIS WILSON; SHIRLEY WILSON; MADELON WOLLER; CAROLYN WORRELL; JOE WORTSMAM; BUDDY WRIGHT; SUZANNE WRIGHT; CORNEL YATES (Cornel, did we ever call you Corny?); RONNIE YORK; MARSHA YOUNG; ZAN YOUNG (Zan, I remember you as a cheerleader at Mc and East so we must have ridden the bus to a lot of away games together, but I don’t remember you and I being close friends. I don’t know why but I’m sure that it was to my detriment!); SUSAN ZARO (Susan, how did we get to be good friends? Didn’t you live on a street that turned off Randolph, in downtown Cotswold? Short but sweet Sue!)
Well, now on to East Meck Tech where we should be joined primarily by kids from Matthews and Mint Hill (Bain), with a few slipping in from elsewhere. It’s 6:00 AM on Saturday, August 13 and I’m hoping to finish this story this weekend because I’m expecting a call any day from Carl Powell, circa 75, not class but y/o, a glass artist, not blower but who makes glass blocks by gluing together thin sheets of glass on which he has etched various interesting images, who lives in Asheville but whose significant other has a cabin near the cabin that we had in the hills, to meet him in Macon, GA at Scott Walker’s, a retired Southern Baptist minister who came to First Baptist Monroe with a newly minted PhD in some form of adult education from the UofGA when he was 31, discovered by a pulpit committee chaired by 35 y/o me, who is going with Carl to the Mercer University press to hopefully get published Carl’s father Felix’s book, 531 pages which Felix typed himself shortly after coming home from WWII where he was a Japanese POW from spring, 1942 until the war ended, which found him mining coal underground in Japan. (Sorry about that long sentence, but when the ball’s rolling downhill, it’s hard and maybe even foolish to stop it.)
Given my reluctance to scroll back up, which I’ve told you about more than once, I’m sure, and I’m also sure that I’ll leave someone out or put them in a second, maybe even third time, which I may or may not correct with editing, which is anathema to me***but which I’m now holding my nose and doing [just a joke about holding my nose since I can type with two fingers, thanks to 8th, or was it 9th grade typing]***but here goes: CAROLYN SUE ALLEN; JOHN MARSHALL ALLEN; JOYCE DALE ANDERSON; KAREN JEAN ANDERSON; RICHARD WORTH AUTRY (Ricky, weren’t you married to Patsy Dutton, now the wife of my frat bro, Ray Ledford, South Meck Tech, ‘63? Oops, Ricky I just checked back in the Scotsman and see where you were at Mac, so I may have included you twice, but am only asking you once about Patsy); JAMES HARLEY BAILEY; JUDITH MADELINE BAIR (Judy,no wonder you haven’t appeared before since you only entered East in ‘63.); JANIE LUE BALDWIN; JAMES RICHARD BALENTINE; BARON LYNN BARTLETT; VAN WESLEY BELL; JOHN RICHARD BENNETT (Dickie, do you remember writing in my senior annual, “…Have a great time next year at Davidson but don’t raise too awful much.” Awful is underlined with an arrow pointing from it to “Pittman did this”.) ; BARBARA ANN BENTON; KENNETH WILLIAMSON BIGHAM; SUZANNE CAROL BINGHAM; BEVERLY DEAN BLANCHARD; LILLIER REBECCA BLAND (Lillier?); FRANCES YVONNE BONE
FRANCINE CLAUDE BOUGEON (Claude? Francine was a foreign exchange student from France who lived with Becky Love and her family); SYLVIA ANITA BRACKETT; REBECCA HOLLADAY BRASSARD; RICHARD LAWRENCE BRASWELL; MARTHA FRANCES BRYANT; BETTY LOU BURNETTE; MARY MAGDALINE BURNETTE (It must have been Pittman who drew the mustache on Mary Magdaline!); WALTER RALEIGH BURRIS, JR (Walt, did that lady ever pay you for the dry cleaning bill for having your cloak cleaned after you put down to keep her from getting her dainty feet wet?) HAROLD WAYNE BYRUM; WILLIAM HENDERSON CALVERT (Bill, hope you and Judy and yours are well and happy on the left coast. I hope the readers hereof will remember what a great guy soft spoken Bill is, not to mention him being a great basketball and baseball player. Bill and I go back to being in Sunday School and RA’s (for you heathens, i.e. non-Southern Baptists, that stands for Royal Ambassadors, to be a member of which we pledged to be “Ambassadors for Christ”, so take that, you outcasts, you who’ve never been an Ambassador with a capital A with “Royal” marching on before, just as Onward Christian Soldiers march on before, who, well someone important, or who has convinced those soldiers of his importance. I’m pretty sure I told Bill, after his mother’s funeral (didn’t I mention seeing Bill and Judy Hobbs Calvert there?) about the time Bill Carr, Chris Pappas, Bill’s good friend from his Mars Hill days, where two year older Chris was student body president, and I were going to the beach in Pappas’s new (wasn’t it Duke blue?) VW bug and he pulled in the little grill on the right going east on US 74 just before hitting the Union Co line, after which it was dry probably all the way to the beach, to get us a 6 pack of PBR’s. When I went in, there sat Mr. Calvert, wearing his mailman’s clothes, at the counter having a cup of coffee, Coke, or maybe something a little stronger, as it was late afternoon and his work day was probably over. “Hello, Tommy. What brings you down this way?” “Hi, Mr. Calvert, Bill Carr and a friend of ours are headed to the beach and I came in for some gum.” To the counterman. “Sir, can I have a pack of Dentyne?” “You boys have fun.” “Thanks, Mr. Calvert. See ya!” “Dentyne??? Where’s the beer???” I can’t repeat the names I was called by a future preacher and then already employee of the NC Dept of Revenue. I still can’t figure out how Pappas talked beautiful Cheryl, a former chairperson of the Mars Hill Col–oops, University board of trustees to marry him; it must have been his blue Bug!
MOI (flanked by, oops, a slight error, as I’m the first in a row, flanked by Bill Calvert, who is beside JACK MARSHALL CAMPBELL (Peanut or Weenut, haven’t I already talked about my “playing” (Ha-more like “hacking”) golf with you, Arnold Edwards and JC Murphy at our 50th?); PATRICIA ANN CAMPBELL; BETTY ANN CARDINAL; WILLIAM BRYANT CARR, JR, (Rev, Colonel, haven’t I already given you some ink? I may not have said that our class president has now retired from preaching, chaplaining, fire-fighting and cattle farming and has become a recent resident at a swanky “go to die”, my cynical name for retirement facilities in Gainesville, GA, where I plan on spending the night with Willie and Jan, his wife for what, Willie, over 20 years, on my way to Macon in the next few days or weeks. Still my BEST MAN!***Bill and Jan, plans have changed so I won’t see you Monday, but please leave the light on for me***)
MARY RENFROW SAVANNA CASE (Mary, if Renfrow is part of your name, you have to have been from Matthews, and if memory serves, you were, but isn’t NY home now?); JULIE ANN CHALMERS (“Entered in 1963”, and lived on Old Bell Rd, off Sardis, who dated Ken Pittman once on a double date with me and Julie’s down the street neighbor, Dianne Holt. Julie married a year older than us frat bro of mine, Don Gillespie, who’s still practicing law in Charlotte, long after he and Julie split up. I think he said they met when Julie was at UNCG and another frat bro was dating someone who knew her. Julie and Don have a daughter and lived near Janet and me in Odum Village, the apts for married students at UNC-CH); VIRGINIA LEE CHANDLER; JAMES MACK COCHRAN; JANE CORNELIA COCHRAN
ROBERT FRANKLIN COOK (Bob and his brother, Tommy played JV football [in the team photo, Bob is in street clothes with a cast on his arm.] They drove or at least had access to a Plymouth Valiant, which if I remember correctly had a slant 6 engine and transmission gear selection push buttons on the dash [don’t know why I threw that, like the kitchen sink in, probably just because I remembered it] Tommy and Bob, with me and maybe another or two as passengers, backed that Valiant into the exit at Albemarle Rd drive-in more than once. Unfortunately and unhappily, there were no girls in the car. Bill Carr, brother, Harry, ‘66, Bob and I sang “The prettiest girl, that ever I saw, was sipping cider through a straw” and “The Bullfrog on the bank, and the bullfrog in the pond”, as a barbershop quartet in the talent show our senior year. Harry, shown the night of the show, in full regalia is on pg 135 of the ‘64 Wind, has a great tenor voice, Bill a good baritone/bass and me a chair or two below Bill in the same range. Cook, what did you sing? I can hear Bill, Harry and my voices now, but I can’t hear yours, but I guess we wouldn’t have been a quartet without you, and whoever’s ever heard of a Barbershop Trio! I don’t remember ever seeing Tommy or you, Bob after East. Ware Botsford said you literally married the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi at Duke and I heard that you became a lawyer and practiced in Atlanta. I hope you and your Sweetheart are still sweethearts!)
SAMUEL ROBERT COOKIE (Cookie, I hear about you occasionally from Clyde Luther. Is he, a preacher’s son, reliable?); PATRICIA DIANE COOPER; ALICE LEE COVINGTON; MITCHELL PHILLIP COX, JR.; THOMAS EDWARD COX, JR. (Skeeter, your brother Greg calls y’all’s father “Tommy”, which you and I were both called, me until Thomas James Caldwell, Jr was born on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1967, in the early evening, missing being a Christmas baby by only a few hours, after which he became Tommy or little Tommy and me Tom, Big Tom by my father-in-law. You Eastway Coxes became Eagles when you flew over to just off Sardis Rd, where, didn’t you meet your wife, Millie, Tom in the nearby woods? Tom and I both stayed on the basketball team through our senior year, though juniors like Bill Adams, Lea Clower, Johnny Willard and Jimmy Winfield joined Danny Epps and Bill Calvert, demoting Tommy and me to practice players. Tom had the distinction of dating Marilyn Lowry our senior year and even asked her over from Salem to homecoming our freshman year at Davidson, where Tommy was in my and roommate Martin Brackett’s room more than his. His has been a hugely successful life, as a loving husband and father, businessman and politician, and in recent years, with Millie, a string player and [country, bluegrass, rockabilly?] crooner. If we reuine [I was afraid this wasn’t a real word; googling “verb for reunioning” yields reunited, but I think “reuine” should be added to the lexicon, and I hereby make a motion, which I will forward to Funk & Wagnalls to include it in its next edition; can I get a 2nd?], Tommy, will you and Millie sing? I promise that Carr, Cook, Harry and I won’t, no matter how many requests there are for us!)
MARCIA LEE COYLE; PHYLLIS LUCILLE CRAYTON (“Entered 1962”. Phyllis, you entered with 4 L’s in your first two names. That’s got to be a record, though I’m not going to research it.); WILLIAM FISHER CRUTCHFIELD (I thought I remembered and just checked the annual to verify that Billy, you stayed on the basketball team with Cox, Calvert, Epps and me, according to the group photo through senior year. Individual shots of senior players included Lagana and Chris Proctor, but they didn’t hang on till the end like we did. Are you kin to Ed Cruthchfield from Albemarle, former CEO of First Union?); JEFFERSON CLEVELAND CRUMP (Candidly, Jeff, if that’s the name you go by, I don’t remember knowing you. Were you named for presidents or city/towns/counties?); THOMAS MICHAEL CUNNING; JUDY DARLYNE DAVIS; JOHN KNOX DAY, JR; BARBARA ANN DEESE; ROBERT DALE DEESE; BEVERLY HELMS DELLINGER; BARBARA DALE DuBROFF (Barbara, I left you off Mc because I was using the 8th grade Scotsman, which you weren’t in, but just ran across you in the 9th. Didn’t you live in Stonehaven and didn’t you date Kenny Thornton. I had a little crush on you but I guess big Kenny scared me off, and with good reason as well as a good reason for you breaking up with him, given what he did to his first wife and reportedly tried to do to her father. I probably shouldn’t go here, but you can read about him in MY SPORTING LIFE, or just by googling his name, attorney, SC and reading the SC Supreme Court’s excoriation of him for what he did, more importantly didn’t do for his former wife and multiple children. According to the ‘62 Wind (I don’t have the ‘63), Thornton was VP of his junior class, good evidence that you can’t read a book by looking at its cover. Sure would make life simpler and, arguably, happier if we could!)
HAMILTON ODUS DULIN (Young man, I’m afraid I don’t remember you. The annual shows you as a Future Farmer of America all 3 years at East. Did you farm for a living? What crops? Where? Still[?], since farmers rarely retire. Thank you, is it Hamilton or Ham or Odus, for helping feed America and the world!); DELMAR GUY DUNN; CHARLES WALKER DUSENBURY; PATRICIA ELLEN DUTTON (Patsy, aren’t you now a Ledford, and if so, you have my sympathy!!! Kidding, of course! Hey to Ray.); GEORGE KIMMONS EVANS, JR (I mentioned before that Frances Lynch was chief marshal but she couldn’t have been .001 of a GP ahead of George, a Sewanee [George, I’m sure I must have told you about my winning the Sewanne award my junior year, supposedly given to the outstanding male in the junior class, I’m sure a ploy to lure students. They sent me some propaganda, and all I had to read was that students wore coats and ties to class and that crap went in the can. Didn’t you tell me that a lot of alcohol was consumed on “The Mountain”, but what else would you expect from a bunch of Whiskepalians?] and UVa law grad, Navy officer, who practiced with a prominent law firm in Charlotte, ending his legal career with a firm in Greensboro, before retiring, I read in a brochure the NC Bar Ass’n sent me, who didn’t attend the luncheon they gave this spring recognizing those of us who passed the Bar 50 years ago, to the beach. George’s brother, Brian was a Phi Gam at Davidson, as I was, a few years after I graduated and practiced law with KennedyCovington, one of the original large firms in Charlotte, who I recommended to one of our developer clients to prepare the restrictive covenants, actually more like the constitution of virtually a new town, Bonterra, near Indian Trail. If I remember correctly, Brian retired before George, Brian to Edisto Beach. In my ‘64 Wind, George wrote: “Tom” [I liked that George because everybody else wrote “Tommy”], “I’ve really enjoyed Physics and Algebra” [who else besides George and Frances could have ‘enjoyed’ physics and college algebra]. “The Honor Society couldn’t have survived without you as such a terrific treasurer” [I may still have the $14. 96 that was in the treasury]. “Raise Hell at Davidson and good luck.” Thanks, George. I’ve never raised much Hell but I have been luckier than Hades my entire 76 years, with just a few minor exceptions.)
ROBERT BARRETT FAIRLEY (Bob, WOW, until looking at your activities in the Wind, I didn’t realize you were a 3 sportster, too: Track 10, 11, 12 [were you a runner? Distance? Field guy? Shot, discus?]; Football 11, 12 [your individual photo says you were a guard, but I don’t remember you being very heavy. Thanks for the blocks!]; Wrestling 11, 12. So far, you, Robert Williams and me are the only 3 3’s. ***Remember my editing corrections on 3 sporters***I don’t know where you matriculated after East and I don’t think that I’ve seen you since graduation. A couple of lines from what you wrote in my annual: “…Best of luck at Davidson. I want to see those headlines…’Fish swamps…’ It’ll be great to read that. Best of luck, Bob Fairley…’Lookin for more anytime’”. Hope you’ve found plenty more of what you were looking for!); ROBERT EDWIN FRANKS; FREDERICK ALLISON FRIEND, JR; RICHARD ALAN GADDIS (Wait just a minute; Football 10, 11, 12, Captain 12; [Richard, were there any Co’s?]; Wrestling 11, 12; Track 10. Welcome to the 3 sports club! From the football team write-up in the Wind: “Defensive workhorses were seniors John Lagana, Richard Gaddis, Martin Brackett and Howard Carriker. …John Lagana and Richard Gaddis were named to the Charlotte Observer all Mecklenburg team.” Richard, weren’t you also the center? Thanks for your blocks, and for your tackles before the ball carrier broke into the secondary, where I would had to have gotten bruised stopping those bruisers!); BETTY JEAN GIBSON; JOHNNIE GERALDINE GLADDEN; JANN CAROLYN GORDON; JAMES WILSON GROUT (Jimmy, you ran track in the 12th? What were you, a miler?); GRADY WADE HAGER; LINDA CAROL HAIGLER (Linda was a Matthews girl, married a dentist who is a friend of Frank Angus, also a dentist in Richmond and who lived across the hall from Martin Brackett and me our freshman year on 2nd floor East [what a coincidence]at Davidson); PEGGY ELAINE HAIGLER; WILLIAM CLARENCE HAIGLER; HARRIETTE ELAINE HALL; ELIZABETH ANN HELMS; JUDY FAYE HELMS; TINA LUETTA HELMS; SANDRA KAYE HENSON; JANICE BUEL HITCHCOCK (Jan, I didn’t list you at Mc because I was using my 8th grade annual, which you weren’t in, but I just checked and you are in our 9th. Though you were a senior year cheerleader, for some reason I didn’t get to know you very well, but there’s still time!)
THOMAS JOSEPH HIXSON; CONRAD HOHING III (Conrad didn’t enter until 1963); WANDA GAYLE HOLMES; DIANNE JULENE HOLT (Dianne didn’t enter until 1963, but unlike Conrad, I noticed her right away, and what male Eagle didn’t! She lived on Old Bell, the same street Julie Chalmers did and she must have entered 2nd semester, 1963 because I remember her friendly one year older brother, Rick, mainly because of his greeting, new to rubes like me, “How’s it going?” I must have met Dianne before that summer because I sponsored her for homecoming queen. I don’t know where the Holts moved from but I can easily speculate that they moved from California. Had Dianne been a little older and had Brian Wilson spotted her on the beach, she might have been his inspiration for “Wish They All Could Be California Girls!” I also sponsored her for Sweetheart Queen. I guess now is as good a time as any to confess to a screw-up caused by my procrastination, worse, much worse than my failing to get speakers for the spring Beta Club tap-out. The Beta club was in charge of the Sweetheart Dance around Valentine’s Day. There were so many Betas that they were divided into three clubs, under one umbrella. Junior year I was president of one and senior year, I held up, or was supposed to have held up the umbrella over all three, and as the holder thereof, was responsible for the Dance. Not only was I a procrastinator, I wasn’t much of a delegator either, on reflection, not because I wanted to hold onto the reins but simply as a corollary to my procrastination! As February approached, someone asked me what band was going to play for the Dance. Band? GEEZ! So, I asked around and found out that I needed to get up with a booking agency. Booking agency, what’s that? Finally I got hold of one. I don’t remember the details but I remember being told that with such short notice, there weren’t many available. Knowing me, I probably didn’t consult with Ellison Honeycutt or anyone else who knew something about what music teens like. Even though I, of course, was a teen, I wasn’t young at heart-I’ve always been OLD. And knowing me, I probably got the cheapest. If I remember correctly, the band was a band of, if not geezers, geezers-in-waiting. There may have been an accordion in the band. I don’t know how many times I was asked at the dance, questions like “who are these guys/geezers”, “ where in heck did they come from”, “who the Hell got them?” I’ve never been a dancer, especially a fast dancer, but I expect I was hot steppin’ that night!
I didn’t mean to leave you standing alone on the dance floor, Dianne. We went to the prom together and, didn’t I mention earlier about losing my alcoholic virginity, but just a little of it in high school, well Dianne is the one who got me to let my hair down enough to have a little taste of champagne at an after-prom party. Also, have I hereinabove talked about me and Bible class senior year. Assuming I haven’t, but even if I have, it’s a pretty good story, so maybe you won’t mind hearing it again. Church and state weren’t as separate in those days as now, despite the attempts of some to blur the line in these troubling times; remember morning devotions and prayers, often, as I recall, the “Lord’s” prayer. Some say that our troubles began when the SCOTUS held school prayer to be unconstitutional. The best quip about that that I’ve ever heard was from a Congressman from the eastern part of the state who said that as long as there are math tests in school, there will be prayer in school. Well, in any event, the school system allowed the Gideons to pay for a Bible teacher, I guess in each high school. I think Bible was just for one period at East, at 9:00, taught by a nice, quiet, dignified lady whose name I think was Ms. Lela Johnson. I only needed English and another elective or two to graduate, but we had to take a class every period, so I took Bible, a small class consisting largely of bus drivers who were just getting to school at that time. If you want to know something of my Bible knowledge, here’s an ad for my website: tomcaldwell.org. I think I lay out my religious pedigree fairly extensively in a story thereon entitled “Some thoughts on religion”, or some such. At awards day in the spring of ‘64 in the gym, before god and mammon, I had to work my way out of the stands so Ms. Johnson could present me with the Bible Award. Dianne started calling me Moses! Well, I won’t go on much longer about Dianne, though I could. She went to High Point College and came down to Davidson freshman year for homecoming, where at the football game (freshman couldn’t play varsity), Dianne and I sat with Marilyn Lowry and Tommy Cox. The last time I had the fortune to see her was at the beach, maybe the next summer when Bill Carr and I stumbled onto her and her High Point cheerleadermates on the sand. Dianne and her husband Rob live in southern California. We’ve emailed each other several times the last couple of years. “Wish they all could be California girls”!!!
I typed the above yesterday morning, August 13 and couldn’t wait until this morning to correct something I said yesterday. While it’s true that Dianne now lives in the Golden State, I don’t know where she hailed from originally, maybe Iowa, who knows, and while she was/is beautiful, she is on pg 49 of the Wind as a “Beauty Runner-Up” while Senior Beauty Sandy Lawrence is on pg 46 and Senior Beauty Barbara Hewitt is on pg 47, both, though I don’t know where they were born, for as long as I knew them, both beautiful North Carolinians. I wonder how the talented songwriter of ours, Jane Connell would have written that Beach Boys song, maybe “Wish they all could be Carolina boys”!
Maybe I’m just in a “tell it all, brother” mood this Sunday morning waiting for Willie Geist to come on or maybe it’s just that I ate too late last night and stayed up till 11:30 watching “Grease” which that station was showing continuously because of Olivia Newton-John’s, who looks a little like but isn’t as pretty as Dianne, recent death, with your permission, which means that you can skip this paragraph if you want, I want to say a few words about the conventionally taboo subjects of politics and religion. IMHO, and please, please understand that this is just my opinion, not only should church and state be subjects of discussion in polite company, I think that they should be the primary topics for civilized folks to discuss. What’s more important than the core values which we personally possess to guide our personal lives, which, for the purposes hereof I’ll call religion, and the values which we hold as citizens corporately to guide our country, which I’ll call politics. Please don’t think that I think that I have all or actually any answers to the thousands of questions raised and dilemmas presented by religion and politics, but since SCHOOL DAYS, SCHOOL DAYS is my story, I’m going to throw out a couple of my observations and thoughts, which like most of yours, continue to evolve in this last quarter century of my life. Hopefully, as a result hereof, I will hear some of your thoughts and opinions. You may have gathered from hints that I’ve dropped herein or maybe in some other things that you’ve read from my website, that I would probably be considered liberal, maybe even very liberal, politically. I voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 20. Why? Because no other politician, or for that matter, very few people in any walk of life have spoken up and worked harder his/her whole career for the working men and women, the average people of this country, and for those who can’t work or are below average in ability or in the availability of the opportunities that I and most of you have had. And please don’t think I’m speaking hyperbolically! If you disagree with what I’ve said about Bernie being the leading champion for the average or below average guy like me, and most of you, name one. And you might say, as many others have said when I say this, but he’s, horror of horrors a SOCIALIST, to which I usually say that socialism comes from social, which we all are, or should be creatures of, and means simply for the common good. And then I usually pose a few simple rhetorical questions like “Do you receive Social Security? Do your kids go to public schools? Do you drive on public streets?” And then I usually add, particularly if they are religious, remember that the book of Acts says the early Christian church was not socialist but communist and that “God” struck dead Ananias and his wife Sapphira who sold some land and didn’t put all of the money they sold it for in the communal pot and then, when questioned by Peter, lied about it. GEEZ!
And should religion enter into politics? Absolutely, that is, if your religion tells you how to treat your neighbor, and certainly Christianity, the only religion I know much about, does. And so does Judaism, without which there would be no Chrisitianity, and Islam, which wouldn’t exist if not for Christianity. Didn’t I mention hereinabove the story on my website, “Thoughts on religion”, which, if I recall, and I haven’t read it in a while, tells about my journey through Christianity. From what the New Testament tells us that Jesus supposedly said, he talked a lot more about helping the “least of these” than he did about pie in the sky bye and bye. For what it’s worth, here’s my take on what most “Christians” call the “Bible”, the books which went into it being voted on in the 300’s AD by “Councils”, who knows who “elected” them in places like Trent and Nicea (anyone know if those towns still exist or where they are?). I’ll end this screed with my admittedly simplistic view of the Bible. Remember “God”’s question to Cain about Abel’s whereabouts and Cain’s response, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer in the Old Testament is yes, if your brother is a Jew. The answer in the New Testament is just plain yes you are, regardless of your brother, and, of course it goes without saying, your sister’s or even transgender’s race, color, ethnicity, sexual preference, and regardless of whether you agree or disagree with them about anything, including especially religion and/or politics The song that I learned in Sunbeams, Southern Baptists’ version of kids’ church nails it for me: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in his sight, Jesus loves all the children of the world.” And I’ll end, really end this time by adding, “And so should we, and so should we all”!
Actually, it’s a new day and I feel the need to add a postscript to the foregoing. The song about children has nothing to do with my thoughts on abortion; it’s about children who are living and breathing on their own, who have already passed through their mother’s birth canal. With respect to a female who is pregnant with her egg, fertilized by some guy’s spermatozoa, both of which were living tissue before they met and would have met their own death naturally if they had not, and which she does not want, for whatever reason (I just discovered how to underline on my Chromebook) to be allowed to develop into a human being, would pro-lifers rather she be forced to have a child that she does not want to be added to the millions of unwanted children, the evidence of their unwantedness being child neglect, child abuse, child trafficing and all the other ways children suffer and even die in the US and around the world. REALLY? Pro-lifers, if you will agree to cover all of the pregnant woman/girl’s costs, including lost income and educational opportunities and agree to adopt her baby, then maybe I’ll listen a little closer to what you have to say. I find it interesting that many, probably most pro-lifers are in favor of the death penalty, many of them charismatic evangelical Christians who claim to believe in redemption. BTW, this interlude, some will say rant (but remember, as I said above, you can skip over it) came to mind from one of my email exchanges with Dianne Holt Stidham wherein she said that she and her husband voted for Donald Trump and were strong pro-lifers [Dianne, I hope that you are not offended by my telling this {actually, I just decided that I’m going to sent it to you for review before anyone else reads it and will delete it if you ask me to}] and wondered whether that would keep us from being friends, saying that their political positions had cost them friendships in the past. After some thought, I said that no, we could and should stay friends, but that as their friend, I would, and would feel it my obligation as their friend and as a citizen to try to convince them that Trump is not the answer to our problems, but rather is a symptom and promulgator of our already wide divisions, which, of course the pro-life/pro/choice is one of the widest. Even in my family, one of my sons will never vote for a pro-choice political candidate, regardless of her/his position on any other matters.
Back to you, my classmates, the reason for this story. LINDA CAROL HONEYCUTT (Linda, are you and Eli kin?); BRYAN DAVID HOUSTON; ANNE MARIE HUNTLEY (Ann, you must have been from Mint Hill. There were a number of Huntleys beyond Mint Hill in Union Co who were/are Truelights.); JANICE SUE HURST (Janice, I don’t have your contact info or I would let you, like Dianne read this before others, but since I don’t, I hope that you will forgive me for quoting every word you wrote in my annual, one of, if not the nicest thing that’s ever been said to or about me: “Dear Tommy, Amidst all the noise and confusion of this ‘party’, I’m trying to keep my mind and hand going at the same time-I don’t guarantee the best results, but I’ll try.
“I realize that the things written in annuals often seem trite and insincere. I hope the things I say don’t seem so because I certainly don’t mean them to be.
“Tommy, I didn’t know you except by name before this year, but during the space of nine months in Miss Ullman’s h.r., I have gotten to know you well and consider you a very dear friend. There are very few people I know who have the sincerity that you have-don’t ever lose it.
“I know that your good nature and wonderful personality will make you a success wherever you go and whatever you do. They have certainly impressed me deeply.
“If you make it to Indianapolis this summer, do look me up! 6248 Joyce Lane, Cincinnati, Ohio.
“See you at Davidson next year!
“May God bless you, Love Janice Hurst, Class of ‘64”
Janice, I love you, too. The reference to Indianapolis was because my Aunt Jeanette and cousins Mike and Pat had just moved there and I probably said something about maybe going up to visit them. I’m not sure what she meant about seeing me at Davidson next year, but if she had read the sports section of the Charlotte Observer the year after, she could have read about me and seen pictures of me [see MY SPORTING LIFE]. As I said, Janice’s note may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to or about me, except possibly two times: 1)Mike Coltrane, may he RIP, who inherited controlling interest in the telephone company in Concord, a classmate of mine in college but who I probably never even spoke to there, after being involved in an alumni service project with me 8-10 years ago, made a donation to Davidson College in my honor. My Goodness! I liked to have had a stroke when I opened the embossed envelope from the college telling me about Mike’s gift. I attended his mother’s funeral at 1st Presbyterian Church in Concord but was unable to attend his a few years ago; 2)I can’t find it now on my phone but an 84 y/o friend left a nice comment about my “perfect” day posting on FB almost 2 weeks ago, which has been reacted to by over 50 “friends”, and when I sent him some requested additional info, I closed with “John, I’ve only become comfortable saying this to men in recent years, but you have been an inspiration to me and I love you”, to which he responded by saying that what I said in my message to him and especially how I ended it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. Double My Goodness! I haven’t seen Janice since graduation. Maybe some of you have stayed in touch and will send this story to her.
ALICE ANN ICARD; LINDA LEE INGRAM (Beautiful Linda Ingram Gilley, Tommy “Creedy” Gilley’s wife. Linda, didn’t someone tell me that Tom passed away recently? If not, I’m sure sorry to have asked, and if so, you sure have my sympathy and may he RIP!); BENJAMIN ARNOLD JAMISON (Ben, I’m sorry that I don’t remember you but I’m sure you’re glad that your first name, after BEN is JAMIN and not EDICT); JACK ARNOLD JAMISON (Jack are you and Ben kin? How ironic that you share middle and last names); BETH TWINING JOHNSON (Beth Lowe, in some email correspondence after she read MY SPORTING LIFE, informed me that the quiet, smart, sweet Beth Johnson, which is how I remembered her, died a number of years ago in Maine, married with no children. Who can tell us more about Beth, such as where she went to college, did for a living, died of and when? Beth, I hope you have been and will continue to RIP!); ERVIN TIMOTHY JOHNSON; MARY CAROL JONES; GAIL JORDAN; RACHEL ELIZABETH KEITH; SHARON ANN KEMPER; MARY ANN KEZIAH; MARGARET LUCILLE KILNER; LEONARD BOYD KINDLEY; KAREN SUE KING.
Breaking News, this just in: I forwarded the foregoing, that is, through what I said about her to Dianne Holt Stidham for comment and, hopefully approval and I just received it, her approval, that is, though she didn’t “recall calling you Moses but it certainly is a compliment and I hope you were happy with being called him”, to which I responded “No, I didn’t mind you calling me Mo, actually I was probably flattered by it. Much better than Jephoshaphat or one of those other dudes.” Dianne, thanks for getting back to me and your approval of what I wrote about you, and especially “Keep on writing, it is fun”. I hope you meant that it’s fun to read, cause it’s a pain to write! Wait, wait, I take that back-it’s 5:15 AM on Tuesday, August 16 and I couldn’t wait to get up and start clicking away, particularly about receiving the go ahead from Dianne!
RICHARD ARTHUR KLEIN (Richard and his family were the hosts for Swedish foreign exchange student Arne Os. Thank-you, Kleins!); ROSEMARY JOYCE LANDS; PATSY GAYLE LANFORD; DOROTHY ALLISON LEMMOND (Dorothy, you must have been from Matthews where lemons and Lemmonds were plentiful!); TERRY DeLANE LEMMOND (Terry, another Stumptowner, as Matthews was called in the real old days?); JEANNE MARIE LINDLEY; CATHERINE HUTCHINS LITTLE; KAREN ANNE LITTLE; MARTHA LILLIAN LITTLE; PATSY ANN LITTLE; WILLIAM HARRISON LOCKHART III (William, Will, Bill, I can’t help but ask about your two listed activities, “Latin Club, 10; Bowling League, 10”. Did Mrs. Purvis bowl you over in Latin your sophomore year? If so, apparently you didn’t recover! Latin would have bowled me over, too, especially wearing those togas during Latin Week!); DONNA REA LOGAN; ARNOLD LEON LONG; LINDA DIANE LONG (Linda, didn’t you marry Grady Nichols?); MAREL EUNICE LONG (Marel or Eunice?); MEARLYN REBECCA LOVE (I’ve previously mentioned that Becky’s family hosted foreign exchange student Francine Bougeon, but I haven’t mentioned that my wife Janet, from Virginia Beach somehow knew Becky at UNCG and when Becky found out that Janet was dating me, Becky told her that she had had a crush on me at East. I can’t ask Becky now why she didn’t pour some of that (was it Orange or Grape Crush?) on me because she has passed away. Sweet Becky, may you RIP!).
ELIZABETH LOUISE LOWE (I think that I’ve previously mentioned that Beth and I have “talked” as a result of her reading (at least part of; I doubt that anyone’s read all 84 pages of) MY SPORTING LIFE. Beth, BTW, my Mom’s name was Louise. More than anything or one, your kind comments have inspired me to write this story. THANK-YOU, THANK- You, Thank-You. I hope you and our classmates will enjoy it!); LAWRENCE McKINLEY LUDKA (Lawrence, as in Seaway, McKinley, as in Mt., Ludka, Larry, you aren’t a Luddite are you? What did you run in track? Are you still a runner or just a limper like me?); ANN BLEVINS LUKE; BRENDA MAY MANESS; EDITH ANN MARTIN; MARY CAROLE MASSEY; MELISSA MARCELLE MAYNARD; EARL PATRICK McATEER (Pat is All-Matthews. Those approaching the town on Monroe Rd from the west were greeted by his family’s “Do Drop In”, a convenience store before there were convenience stores. Pat, who’s married to Judy Funderburk, East ‘62 is a bass master, par excellence [if I still have the strength and gumption {one of my mother’s words} when I finish writing about you, my classmates, I may say a few words about my teachers, and what brought this to mind just now was my use of the French term three lines above, which language I learned from the eastern Tennessee accented French of Mrs. Shinn, a good hearted soul if there ever was one [this remembrance of her may be occasioned by the special relationship I had with her, i.e., teacher’s pet]. BTW, I just turned to Madame Shinn’s photo and under her name is “Spanish I, II”. I know darn good and well that I had her for at least one year of French. I can’t speak a word of Spanish! Please someone, tell me that I’m not dreaming about Mrs. Shinn teaching French!
WILLIAM SCOTT McCURDY; DONALD EDWARD McGINN (Donald, there was a McGinn family that was in the trash pick-up and disposal business and it seems like there was a landfill of some kind off Monroe Rd before you got to the train trestle that crossed it going toward Matthews. Were you one of the McGinns that helped keep America clean?); JAMES DAVID McGRAW; LINDA JAMES McKAY; PAULA LOUISE McKITTRICK; GLORIA JEAN McNAMARA; WILLIAM ALEXANDER McWHIRTER, JR.; BARBARA ANN MITCHELL (The Wind says that you blew in in ‘62, at East long enough to catch Bobby Sleet’s eye, and I can understand why!); JANICE DIANNE MITCHELL; ROBERT SCOTT MOORE; WILLIAM RAY MOORE; KAREN EILEEN MORRIS; JUDY MILLS MORROW; JUDY KAY MOSER; ATHA ELAINE MULLIS (I’m betting Elaine, not Atha (am I right?), do you reckon you’re kin to my wife, whose mother was a Mullis from Idlewild Rd?); DANIEL LAWRENCE MULLIS; DONALD WILLIAM MULLIS. The next Mullis is my wife Janet’s cousin Mike, fully, JOHNNY MICHAEL MULLIS, and I thought that I’d mentioned him at Idlewild and flipped (did I tell you earlier that I went to the library Sunday afternoon and printed the pages hereof to that point?) through to see that I did, and in conjunction with Mike, I see where I had gone to the Wind and named all of you Mullises, so if this paragraph evokes deja vu, it should. RONALD RAY MULLIS; STANLEY ALVA MULLIS (Dang, any more Mullises and y’all should have had a high school of your own, Mullis High, or at least a Mullis wing at East! Stanley, are you kin to Edison? Wasn’t his middle name Alva?)
JACK CLAUDE MURPHY, JR. (JC, didn’t I talk a little about you playing golf with Jack Campbell, Arnie Edwards and me at the 50th golf wingding? If i didn’t, I should have. Did I tell about you driving our cart into quicksand and having to walk back to the clubhouse to get another? If I didn’t, I should have! Did I tell about my always knowing you as JC at East, but you said that you answered to JC, Jack or Claude? If I didn’t, I should have. Did I tell about you inventing a garbage can bag or some such and being on the verge of peddling it to Home Depo [I like to spell words, especially names, and extraspecially of a company founded by a Trumper, as they sound]? If I didn’t, I should have. What else didn’t I tell about you that I should have?)
SPENCER WAKEFIELD O’MEARA (Spencer, did you know my wife, who lived her high school years on WAKEFIELD Dr in Virginia Beach?); ARNE OS (Arne, are you Swedish or Norwegian? Whew! I see that you were the Most Talented senior superlative. I was afraid that I have mistakenly thought all these years that I was Best All Around with Marilyn Lowry, may she RIP, because you certainly could have been. But then again, you were/are superbly talented; a concert potential pianist [your photo at the piano with, as the caption says, your American brother Richard Klein looking on is on pg 158 of the ‘64 Wind]; discus thrower; tall and handsome; super friendly with a terrific personality, and smart to boot. You should have been both, Most Talented and Best All Around. I wonder if I would have been more talented if I had been Scandinavian? Maybe, but I guess only if I would have practiced as hard as I’m sure you must have, Arne. Thanks for enriching our East Meck provinciality. If we ever have another reunion, I hope you can come. Maybe you can swing by France and pick up Francine!); MARTHA MARY OSBORNE (Martha or Mary, which of you was it that wasted that expensive perfume on Jesus’s feet?); LANA JILL OWENS (Lana, or Jill, was your mother a Lana Turner or Jill St. John (oops, I just googled that Jill and she isn’t old enough and I don’t know any other famous Jills; wait a sec, how about Jack’s friend who went up the hill with him?); BRENDA GAIL PANGLE (Brenda, weren’t we in a home room together, maybe as juniors. What I remember best about you were and I’m sure still are your gorgeous eyes, which probably distracted me from, I’m also sure, many other beautiful aspects of your Pangleness [I don’t think I’ve ever encountered another Pangle], like your friendly personality.)
ELROY DEBS PEDIGO (Elroy, Roy, I’ll bet not Debs. Eugene V Debs is one of my heroes, who ran 5 times for POTUS as the candidate of the Socialist Party in America, the last time from a prison cell after he was convicted for sedition after speaking out against US participation in WWI.); CAROLYN JANE PENCE; ANNE PORTER PERRY (Ann, I’m not sure that I knew you, probably because the Wind says you didn’t enter until ‘62. From whence did you come?); KAREN LEE PETERSON; BRENDA ELAINE PLYLER; LUCY ADELE POPE; MARGARET GAIL PRESSON (Margaret, or Gail, the Wind says you were in “Choir 11, 12”. You must not have sung bass because I sang bass in the choir as a junior, but my senior year because I had a class conflict. I loved singing in the choir and loved Charlie Starnes, its director. At some point, brother Harry got Charlie to direct the Matthews Baptist choir for what I assume must have been a short period when the church was between ministers of music. My favorite memory of singing in the East choir was Roger Dawson, ‘63, singing the solo in Sanctus from Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass (confession; I remembered it was the Sanctus and I remembered it was written by Gounod, but I had to google to find out it was from St. Cecilia), especially, “Ple ni sunt coeli et terra, gloria tua”, and obviously I googled that, too. I can still hear Roger singing it to perfection, the high, what, bro Harry, G’s or A’s, still gives me chills. Does anyone know what happened to Roger? It seems like I heard that he had the opportunity to audition for Lawrence Welk. I wonder if he did? He would have made a good champagne bubble guy! Oh, one other, though there are many choir memories. We sang “Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite” from Handel’s “Samson”. I was going to say that so did Kiri Te Kanawa at Charles and Diana’s wedding, but googling, I found that she sang “Let the Bright Seraphim”, and the choir followed with “Celestial Concerts”, both of which I just listened to on Utube. Absolutely majestic! I don’t know what you and/or your family have planned for you, but my family doesn’t need to have a funeral service for me. They can if they want, or they can, like the wife of one of my favorite, not just theologians but people said when someone inquired of her as to the burial site of her husband, Clarence Jordan, pronounced Jerden like his nephew, Hamilton, Jimmy Carter’s chief-of-staff, “we just threw his ashes out in the backyard”. But I would like some music. I hope I have enough $ left to bring in one, or more of the following to sing: Kiri, only 2 years older than we, singing as she did for Charles and Diana; Rene Fleming singing “O Danny Boy”; Kris Kristofferson singing “Sunday Morning Coming Down”; a recording of George Jones singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today”; Willie, there’s not but one, singing in a duet with Ray Charles, so it will have to be a recording, “Seven Spanish Angels”; Vince Gill and Patti Loveless singing “Go Rest High Up On the Mountain”, just like they did at George Jones’ funeral; Simon & Garfunkel, what else, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”; by recording, of course, Patsy Cline singing “Crazy” and Roy Orbison singing “Crying”, “Pretty Woman”, or any other or all of his greatest hits, or, in lieu of all the others, Johnny Mathis singing anything, anything at all!
Well, enough about dying; back to the living! MICHAEL EDWIN PRICE; CHRISTOPHER BLAND PROCTOR (I didn’t mention Chris at Mc because he wasn’t in the 8th grade Scotsman, but I just checked, and he was in the 9th. I’m not sure that I ever saw Chris, who, I just checked, wasn’t on the basketball team in the 9th but was all 3 years at East, after graduation. I know that he passed away some years ago. I hope someone can tell me about my friend and teammate, like college?; career? married? kids? when and what did he die from? Chris, I hope that you’ve been and may you continue to RIP!); LYDIA JANE QUERY (Jane, I know you’re a Stumptown girl); SUSAN JANE REICHARD; WILLIAM EDWARD RHODES (I know Eddie’s a Matthews guy since we went to church with his family at Matthews Baptist for years. I thought there was a picture in the Wind of me and his beautiful sister Jean in or going into Barclay’s Cafeteria for some function, but I can’t find it. Jean was pretty enough to get Lea Clower, president of their junior class, which I just noticed as I was flipping through looking for the photo, to propose, to marry and have kids with and keep the grandkids quiet while he proof reads his sermons as a Presbyterian promulgator of the (W)ord, which he should have done before he delivered them. Eddie and Jean’s father, Glenn worked his way up to president of Lance Packing Co, if I remember correctly. I probably haven’t seen Eddie since graduation and only realized, some time before December, ‘89, when my dad died that Mr. Rhodes grew up down the Matthews-Weddington Rd near the Caldwells. Dad, like Glenn, became president of a company, Imperial Mfg & Sales, a small wholesale households goods business that he started and worked at 5.5 days/week, till noon on Saturdays, until he hung it up in his late 60’s, early 70’s.); OVIDE EDGAR RICARD-TESSIER (Mr. R-T, I guess I didn’t get to know you since the Wind says you entered in 1962, but I wish I had; maybe you could have helped me with my French. I’ll bet yours wasn’t with an east Tenn accent!).
WILLIAM BARRY RIPPY (Barry was, and may still be a member of Matthews Baptist); JAMES HEATH ROBERTS (Jimmy, didn’t we know each other pretty well. I would have thought that you would have been at Mc. Where did you wing in from?); WILLIAM HICKS ROBERTSON; CAROLYN DIANNE ROBINSON; KENNETH STEVENS ROGERS; SHARON LEE ROSE (Sharon, I don’t know why I don’t remember knowing you very well. I checked our sophomore annual and there you are, beside Sydney Rose, so you flew in to East without landing at McClintock and before our senior year, Sydney flew the East coop. Glad that you came but our loss to see Sydney go. I would have liked to have graduated with 2 Roses!); SANDRA OWEN ROSS (Sandy, is it, I guess I didn’t get to know you since the Wind said you came in ‘62.); WILLIAM WAYNE ROSS (Superlative Best Looking, Ross, is that a misprint in the Wind? I’m bound to be better looking than you now [I’ve aged well-HA! DOUBLE HA/HA!] but, but, but, well, maybe not then!); DONALD GENE SANSBURY (Donnie, I remember you playing football, as the Wind says in 10 and 11; why not 12? Had you gotten enough of Don Hipps? If so, I can understand why.); HELEN LESLIE SELF; DONALD COFFIN SHEAROUSE (Don, was your dad in the undertaking business, or maybe your maternal grandfather, whose last name is often the grandson’s middle. Ha!); STELLA EDITH SHOLIN (STELLA, STELLA, are you who Brando was yelling at? Yes, yes, I remember, we all knew you as Edie and a good Edie you were and I’m sure are even better with a little seasoning, like 58 years worth!); ROBYN LYNN SILVERSTEIN (1st question, Robyn: how many times has your name, your first, of course; Silverstein is a cinch, been misspelled? 2nd, you’re not related to Eric, Dr. OB/gyn, are you? For your sake, I hope not; but, on the other hand, he must know something about women!).
DONALD REID SIMPSON; RALPH ALLEN SIMPSON (I had lunch with Ralph in Asheville after picking him up at his beautiful home, with its antiques and other Architectural Digest, or at least Better Homes & Garden, certainly no less than Southern Living quality furnishings, amongst other beautiful homes on Town Mtn, not far from the western Governor’s mansion, a year or two after our 50th reunion. I don’t remember his complete career path but he was a journalist and I guess you could say, something of a publicist. For a while he was with one of the large NC charitable foundations, maybe the Z. Smith Reynolds and there had met Monroe Gilmour, a Myhus Pahker [in the ‘62 Wind, but I can’t give the page # since that Wind was unpaginated {who the heck was in charge}, but on a page of our sophomore photos, the page beginning with the photo of Vivian Couchell, there’s a picture of head cheerleader Bobbie Ann Poole, our backdoor neighbor, 1948-55, at the blackboard in French class where she has just written in bold letters, “BATTEZ”, and then our hated rival’s name, below which the caption reads: “Sophomores, juniors, and seniors get tickled (and a little disgusted) as Miss Choate asks Bobbie Ann Pool to change the ‘Myhus Pahk’ to Myers Park”. [I realize that the preceding sentence is a bit long, but punctuated, parenthesized and bracketed properly, I hope, often emblematic of my prose, but much to the consternation of my editor, though she would deny filling that role, and with good reason since I reject much of her efforts, and sternest critic, which she would gleefully admit to, my wife of 55 years, Janet Lynn Tweed Caldwell]; dang, where am I? Oh yeah, Myers Parker Monroe and I were friends and classmates in college and have remained so, with a long hiatus when he went in the Peace Corps to India right out of school, met and married his wife in Africa when and where she was fulfilling a Mormon-like Mennonite student missionary year and where Monroe had gone with another non-profit after India, both now living in Black Mtn, NC, where, in 2009 he founded and operates, basically single-handedly, though supported by an enthusiastic board, on an annual budget of around $25K/yr, WNCCEIB [Western North Carolina Citizens for an End to Institutional Bigotry], which he formed when a black kid, an invitee to a birthday party at Biltmore Country Club was kicked out of the swimming pool and club at the insistence of some members. OK, OK, back to Ralph. At lunch I remember him telling me about his research, writing about and meeting Monroe in connection with his getting the Reynolds Foundation award. I got Ralph to find and send me what he had written about Monroe, some of which I used in nominating Monroe for the Distinguished Alumni award at our 50th Davidson College reunion, which he probably wouldn’t have attended but for receiving it, bestowed upon him by Dr. John Kuykendall, former College president, who our East classmate, Beth Lowe Lee remembers looking up to when she was a youngster and John a teen leader at Covenant Presbyterian in Charlotte [I guess he went to Myhus Pahk]).
(I’m still on Ralph but the foregoing paragraph admittedly got a little long and he might have gotten lost in the weeds. Bill Carr and I drove my mother’s white Mercury Meteor to the beach after school ended our junior and senior years. After junior year, Bill invited just graduated Mike Byrum, ‘63, of course, who Bill knew better than I to go with us. The next morning on the beach, Byrum lubricated himself with 30 wt motor oil as sunscreen. He smelled like Darlington on Labor Day, which BTW, Bill, bro, Harry and Billy Stilwell, a Matthews Baptist guy, East circa ‘68, dead for some years now after falling off a ladder, if I remember correctly at his home in Atlanta [RIP, Billy], came through Darlington on their way home from the beach the day before Labor Day, 1965 [I wasn’t along because of preseason football practice my sophomore year as a Wildcat], with just enough money to buy a big can of pork’n beans and an infield ticket to drive Mom’s Meteor into the infield the night before the Southern 500. That night and the next day is Legendary in the Caldwell/Carr annals! Senior class president, Carr, you’ll have to tell it; can it wait till our 60th, or I can give you the email list of US that I have and you can tell about it the same way our fellow classmates are getting this story, i. e., email! As a teaser, how many cases of Schlitz did those guys driving the Woody parked beside y’all, who had already been there two days for the time trials have in the back of their classic wagon, and what was it that they were chasing it with?
Ralph, Ralph, hope you’ve been holding on. I’m back to you and you telling me that Ken Pittman’s mother wouldn’t allow Ken to drive or ride with a student, graduated or otherwise to the beach, so you and he rode the bus. Somehow y’all got up with Bill and me and didn’t we become your Uber, of sorts? We got up with some other Eagles who had just spread their wings and lifted off from Ovens Auditorium. I don’t remember who, but someone had come up with a highly sophisticated, high school grad-type game, wherein the prankster talked his victim into rolling a sheet of heavy duty paper, maybe even some pages of newspaper into a funnel and sticking the small end a few inches down the front of his, the victim’s, if clarification is needed, pants and then leaning his, again, the victim’s head back until his forehead was parallel with the floor, and when thus positioned, Mr. Prankster placed a coin of the realm thereon while telling his victim that the object of this test of skill is to see if he can bring his head back into its naturally intended position and thus drop the coin in the funnel. Mr. Prankster, before hand had either poured ice cold water in a nearby cup or had enlisted a co-prankster to have done so, and before the victim could begin attempting to win the prize with a successful coin drop, said cup of ice cold water suddenly rushed down the funnel and to surprise his manhood. Shrinkage, George Constanza style, I’m sure. Ralph, did you and DK, Jr ride Trailways back home, or did some sympathetic, newly minted Eagles give y’all a lift back home, which, on reflection, probably wouldn’t have worked because Mrs. DK would probably have wanted you to advise of your intended arrival time at the bus station so that she could pick you up without your having to hang around the riff-raff, excluding y’all, of course, arriving and departing or waiting on those arriving and departing from the Greyhound station on West Trade [was there a Trailways station, too?]).
BETTY GAY SLESINGER (Betty Gay, until just now, I thought that you and I first crossed paths in the 8th grade but I didn’t remember mentioning you at Mc, and I just discovered why; you didn’t become a Scot until the 9th! AH SO! Did we get to know each other very well at East? I don’t remember us having any classes together. I guess I was too busy being a jock while you were honing your skills as a journalist: “Eagle Editorial Staff 10, 11, 12, Assistant Editor 11, Editor 12….” I’ll bet you still have ink on your fingers! One of the hi-lites of my association with Eagles the last decade was when I met you at one of Clyde Luther’s breakfasts at the restaurant in Matthews shortly after you returned to Charlotte and you telling me later that you were surprised that I just came right out and talked about my liberal politics and religious agnosticism among that group of probably mainly Republican pew sitters. You were looking for a new car and I recommended a Prius, which you and your art teacher friend drove up the steep gravel road to visit us in the log cabin we then owned near the Penland School of Crafts, between Spruce Pine and Bakersville. Gay, I certainly appreciate your friendship the last 8-10 years and your editorial advice with respect to my rambling stories. God, or whoever, bless, or whatever!
HUGH FRANKLIN SLOAN; CAROL ANN SMITH (Carol, do you remember talking with me at the 50th about our choir memories and I mentioned, as I did a few pages back about Roger Dawson singing Sanctus, and didn’t we sing or maybe just hummed a few bars? Didn’t both you and Steve go to Wake and didn’t y’all build a mostly underground house in what was then a gravel streeted subdivision with several “weird” houses off Providence Rd in Weddington? If so, do y’all still live underground?***Wait, wait, hold the presses! I wrote this before Ware and Jack’s visit last Sunday and she reminded me, which of course I knew, that though you and Steve dated through East and maybe at Wake, you married Jack Walker, a PIKA a year or two ahead of me at Davidson, and Jack was in fact at our 50th. I’m telling it this way rather than going back and deleting the mistake to show that though I’ve heard the adage, “don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”, I try to refrain from fabrication, prevarication, exaggeration, obfuscation, mendaciousness, perfidiousness, duplicitousness, disingenuousness, or other aspects of the current GOP’s SOP, for Goodness Sakes*** JACQUELINE DOLORES SMITH; MARY ANN SMITH; NANCY ANN LOUISE SMITH; STEPHEN LEE SMITH (Steve, when did you and Carol begin dating? Didn’t you practice optometry and didn’t/don’t you wear glasses?); ROGER SOISET (Roger, you were from Matthews, weren’t you. I had several dealings with your brother, the surveyor, whose name I can’t recall during my 37 years practicing law in Union Co. Did you ever hold his surveying poles or cut brush from property lines he was surveying, or did you get to sit in the AC and draw the maps?)
FRANCES EVA STANCIL; VICKIE LOU STANSELL; ROBERT LOY STANLEY; MARY MARGARET STEEDLY (Mary or Margaret, I’m afraid I don’t remember you, probably because the Wind says you didn’t become an Eagle till ‘62. Did you own any horses (steeds), get it?); FRANCES JEAN STEPHENS (Jean lived just a few houses from the square in Matthews, but I didn’t know her until Bill Carr introduced us at the beginning of the summer of ‘66 and we dated that whole summer. I had gotten my first set of wheels when Dad bought me a ‘65 Volvo from a friend of brother Bill’s from the Army who was getting ready to deploy overseas, maybe to Nam, where Bill served for a year as the executive officer of a Company that repaired heavy equipment in Cam Ranh Bay [thank-you bro Bill, and semi-bro, Bill Carr and John Corne and all you others who served in “that crazy Asian war”[“Ruby, don’t take your love to town], while bad knee me was 4-F when I tried out as a punter with the Cowboys {see my story, I think it’s called BUM KNEES and BONE SPURS on tomcaldwell.org}]. Jean got a little upset when I went back to college in the fall and picked up dating Janet, who I had started dating just before 2nd semester my sophomore and her freshman year ended. The next and only other time I ever remember seeing Jean was when Janet and I were pushing Tommy in his baby stroller near Christmas, it must have been my first year in law school and we were visiting my folks for the holidays, in the Charlottetown Mall. Our eyes made contact but we didn’t stop or speak. Jean, I’m sure your life has been much better off without me!); JOHN MORRISON STEPHENS III (Jean’s brother, who I didn’t know at all.)
SUSAN AUDREY STERN (who, according to the Wind, didn’t fly in till ‘62); THOMAS MARSHALL STEWART, JR (Hey, fullback and one time punter, Marshall. Did you and Tom and Greg Cox move into Eagle country from jr high at Eastway because you would rather soar like an Eagle than have to claw like a Garinger Wildcat? Marshall plays a rather large role in MY SPORTING LIFE. I don’t remember if I told this therein, but even if I did, it’s a good story, worth repeating. I was hurt or something and Coach Hipps sent Marshall in to punt. He shanked it up into the stands. Hipps told him that that was the last punt that he would ever punt as an Eagle. Marshall, I know how you felt. I only remember shanking one, against Wittenburg, the last game my junior year, and if it didn’t make it to the stands, it sailed completely across the cinder track that encircled the Richardson Stadium football field at Davidson. OUCH-it hurts just remembering and talking about it!); MARY DELORES STILLWELL; SYLVIA KAY STILWELL (Lots of L’s in Sti__well, regardless of how you spell it); MICHAEL SANDERS SULLIVAN (Mike, I thought I remembered you from McClintock, but as I’ve said before, I was using the 8th grade annual to identify Scots and just checked the 9th, and there you are. Weren’t we pretty good friends?)
EDWIN PERNAY SWICEGOOD; DORIS LOUISE THOMAS; BILLY FRANKLIN TOMPKINS; TERRY GLOSSON TUCKER; TOMMY RAY TURNER; GEORGE CLARK VAUGHN (George, I remember you on the football team but you weren’t at McClintock. From whence did you come?); MARC STEPHEN VOGEL (Marc, or do you go by Steve, how many times has your name been misspelled?); JULIE GERTRUDE WALL (Julie, you arrived in ‘63, just in time to sing, alto or soprano, in the choir your/our senior year); JUDY LEE WARD; DONNA MARIE WATERS (Donna, haven’t I already mentioned you? Just checked, you weren’t in the 8th but were the 9th grade Scotsman, so I must have picked you up there. In proofing, if I missed you at Mc I’ll for sure pick you up at East); EDGAR STEPHEN WATSON (Steve, your mother was my biology and one of my favorite teachers at McClintock, but you weren’t there. Where did you do junior hi?); JOHN HUNTLEY WATSON (Big John, “Track 11, Football 11, 12, Wrestling 11”, another 3 sportser hiding in plain view!)
ROBERT FINLEY WATSON; CHARLES LEE WEBB (Lee is a popular middle name in our class of Eagles. Wonder why? A relic of the Old South, maybe? “Motor Club 11”? The Motor Club isn’t pictured in our senior Wind. Did y’all drive so fast as to be unphotographable?); RONALD DELBERT WEGER; LARRY JEAN WERTZ (Larry, how did you hold up that barbell with one finger pictured on p 111 with the Hi-Y Club? Thanks for sending me that very nice email after you read MY SPORTING LIFE!); THOMAS AUGUSTUS WHITE III; STEPHANIE LYNN WHITLOCK (Stephanie, a Bainster and I had Mr. Cheek for chemistry our sophomore year. He usually lectured from behind a permanent lab table on top of a cabinet, on which he kept a Bunsun Burner burning. Stephanie sat on the front row. I don’t know if she appeared to be sleeping or why Mr Cheek did it, but he picked up the burner by its base and pointed it toward Stephanie. I’m sure it must not have come as close as it seemed, but it looked like the flame came within a few inches of her face. Stephanie, didn’t it singe your eyebrows? It scared me; I can only imagine what it did to you. These days, such would not only get a teacher fired but maybe jailed. Instead, Bill Cheek went on to teach at Central Piedmont!); JUNE DIANA WILLARD; ANGELA SUSAN WILLIAMS; RUTH JANET WILLIAMS; MERLIN CONRAD WILSON (Merlin, you really didn’t have time to work your magic since you didn’t appear from behind the curtain until ‘63!)
PHYLLIS CLEO WILSON; ROWENA GABRIELLE WINSTEAD (I’m not sure why I didn’t get to know Gay, the recipient of the Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizenship Award [p 52] winner very well. I wish that I had.); MADELON SHEILA WOLLER; EUGENE ROBINSON YANDELL (Stumptown through and through!); RONALD CALVIN YORK!!!
THE END, Whoopee…I feel like singing, As Eagles make their flight, across the blue and gold, Oh sons and daughters of East High, May we be brave and bold…
Whoop, not ee, but s, I almost forgot to include a couple of notes y’all wrote in my annual. The writer of 1) is still a mystery to me: “Thomas, Not having been around you this year hurt…I’m serious! (I still have a rain check on a date you asked me for-you hoped I forgot, didn’t ya?? I’m not going to lie, babes, in your annual because I think much too much of you. You are one of the genuinely wonderful people I’ve ever known or probably ever will. We’ve had some fun times and I’ll never forget them or you-know matter how hard I’ve tried. So I guess it’s proper about now to sum up and pass this on to the throng waiting to sign it-you’re Super. Best of everything good because it couldn’t go to a more fabulous person-Love, Jane, UNC-G!” I’ve flipped through our senior photos dozens of times and have no idea who Jane is, but flipping through one more time just now, I noticed that Amy Griscom’s middle name was Jane, but it couldn’t have been her since she mentioned a rain check for a date, and Amy and I dated most of our junior years. If the real Jane ever reads this, please accept my apology for not remembering who you are who wrote this, one of the nicest things anyone has ever written to or about me. On or off the record, please help me remember you. Thanks! (I had Ware read this and she couldn’t figure out who you are either, and suggested I let it rest and think of you as Mystery Jane, but I would sure like to turn “Mystery Jane into “OMG, It’s You, Jane”!)
2)From Ginny Thpmpkins, ‘65: “Dear Tommy, It’s really been a blast knowing you this year. Wasn’t that French class a drag! Oh, best of luck next year at good ole Davidson. Send me a couple of those basketball players, OK? Love ya, Ginny”. Ginny, how about a football player, like moi, pourquoi?
3) “Tommy, Although Miss Johnson looks a little worse for wear after a year with us, we had one hell of a time. We had a great time in her class with Clark and his friends. Best wishes in college next year and wherever you go. Reeves (Flash 1.5)”. This was Reeves McGlohon, ‘65. I don’t remember Reeves in Bible and I have no idea who “Clark and his friends” were.
THE END!!!
PS: One of our classmates has read some of my previous stories and thinks I go a little too far in telling stuff about other folks, to the extent that he/she thinks I’ve invaded or been too close to the edge of invading their privacy. It is my sincerest hope and desire that I have not crossed that line in writing about any of you hereinabove and that I have not embarrassed any of you or our deceased classmates. To that end, in addition to Dianne Holt Stidham, I have let two of our brightest classmates read this and am only distributing it with the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
I am going to email it to the 45 or so whose emails I have from the 50th reunion list and to whom I sent MY SPORTING LIFE and if I hear no objections by Oct 1, I’m going to put it on my website: tomcaldwell.org.
Unlike our “privacy” classmate who suggests that when emailing a group that each addressee be sent as a blind copy, I’m going to show each of you as a primary addressee since all of your addresses are on the 50th list. I hope each of you get a chuckle or two out of my remembrances and that reading them will spark some of your own, and hopefully inspire some, no many, no all of you to share some of yours. Please forward this to any of our classmates who aren’t on my email list and ask them to do likewise. I don’t know when or if I’ll see any of you or if anyone is planning a reunion of any kind, but in effect we can have a virtual reunion of sorts, and this suggestion is coming from the least technological graduate from East Mecklenburg High School in 1964!
PSS: Walter Dudley, are you still in Hawaii? If so, Marshall Stewart, Polly Davenport, Eli and other reunion minded classmates, why don’t y’all see if Walt can help us reune (love that word) in the Aloha State!!!
Tom- Good talking to you at lunch today at the PIT. Keep doing what you are doing!
Impressive. Cort and Hamilton Calk
tom, i spent much of tonight reading your school stories and am now way past my bedtime. it s incredible how much you recalled. shall i again say i was captivated? like i was at all the reunions i missed!
maybe tomorrow i’ll relive your sports tales. i m still amazed at your near miss with the Cownboys
good to see you recently
hey, i’m still inclined to put something in writing something, maybe limited to vietnam and my second career with the railroad
we ve all got some crazy tales and you do a great job
best
mac
Hi Tom! Such a pleasure meeting you over the new year! Love your ‘ramblings!’
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