I had
survived my first year at the University.
Survived is the key word here. I
came very close to flunking out before I finally learned how to study. In the spring semester, I had changed my
grades from “D's” and a “C” I had seen in the fall, to “A's” and a “B”. But I was way behind where I should be to
graduate in four years, so it was back to summer school.
I was a
sophomore and all sophomores know they are the coolest people in the world, but
I was even more cool than that! I had a
Pontiac Grand Prix, red and white with white leather upholstery. I had an apartment for the first time, no
more dorm life for me. To use one of my mother’s
expressions, I was so cool my shit didn't stink.
My best
friend at the time was a guy from Tuscaloosa named John Hewitt. John and I had met the summer of my freshman
year in a drafting class that started at 7:00 in the morning. You just have to ask yourself, “What were
they thinking?” A 7:00 class on a
University campus. No one on a college campus has 7:00 on their clocks. It just
doesn't exist. The instructor was a monotone.
The only saving grace was we didn't have nice drafting stools with
backs. We had wooden four leg square seat, god awful uncomfortable, drafting
stools. You couldn't really sit on them;
you just sort of stood up and propped up on them. Well to a sleep deprived freshman, with a
monotone professor, uncomfortable stools wasn't enough. John fell asleep and fell in the floor. The professor didn't see the humor! My work and John's work were about equal, he
got a grade lower than mine.
John lived
at home and worked in his families' business on the edge of campus. It was
located in what is now "The Strip".
At that time the strip was a collection of small business but mostly smoky
pool halls with some creepy characters.
The family business was "Dixie Cream Donuts". That probably isn't a politically correct
name now, but that is the subject of another blog. John worked every night rolling out dough by
hand and cutting the donuts by hand. I don't know how long he had been doing it,
but his little brother could also do the same job, so I assume he had years of
experience at this time. For some reason,
I can vividly remember him doing it. A
big ball of dough, flower the board dough, knead it out with his hands, more flower, roll it
to the correct thickness and then cut out the donuts. I am sure all the donut places today have
some big ass machine that does it today, but it was an art form when John did
it. The fun part to watch was the
cutting of the donuts. It was a single motion where he made the cut and with
the flick of his wrist, the dough would fly up, centering his thumb, knocking
the hole out. He would do four cuts and
then put the donuts on a rack, where they would be fried and glazed. Believe me there was absolutely nothing
better than a hot Dixie Cream Donut.
When his dad wasn't around John would push the limits and go for five on
the thumb which was about a fifty percent success rate. Six was virtually unattainable. It didn't appear to be much of an issue if he
missed, the dough just got recycled into the next rolling. John's dad didn't truly appreciate his
abilities and thought he was wasting time.
Sometimes when his dad was there he would pop the fifth one and give a
little grin and go back to cutting four.
John was automatic with it, so there was no problem with carrying on a
conversation. This was probably a long
way to say I was hanging out at the donut shop and John and I were talking
about the things eighteen year old boys talk about. Girls, cars, girls, football, girls, classes,
girls, professors, girls! Then we hit on
the subject of boats and water skiing. I
was on my second summer at the University and was really missing my time on
Guntersville Lake, where my family had a trailer and a boat. I really wanted to go skiing bad. John said he knew a girl whose family had a
cabin and boat on Yellow Creek and maybe if we went up there we might be able
to bum a ride. So the next day we head
out in my cool car up thirty miles of bad roads. Then the pavement ended and the really bad
roads started. We finally make it to Yellow Creek, the car is covered in dust
and I have some new rattles in my cool car.
Now Rufus
Deal wasn't a stupid man. With three daughters to protect, he built his cabin
on the opposite side of the creek from the road. If you wanted to get to the
cabin you needed a boat (which we didn't have) or you had to swim about a half
mile.
You are
never going to get noticed by girls by swimming at the boat ramp, so we head
out on a half mile swim. I wouldn't
think about doing something like that today but I had spent most of the
previous year running up and down 72 flights of stairs trying to make Alabama's
Basketball Team. We took off swimming
and made it about half way before a boat came by with a high school girl
driving pulling a skier. At least we
knew then that the girls were at the cabin and they were skiing. John waves,
she waves back and smiles. Sally goes
and drops the skier and heads back to talk to John. They talk for a few minutes and she tells us
to get in the boat. We crawl in and there is the most beautiful thing in the
world; an 80 horse power Mercury. This
is going to be a great day! We had a 35
Johnson, the only way I could ski on one ski was to get up on two skis and drop
one once we got going. With an 80 horse engine I might be able to get up on one
ski. She takes off back to the dock and
the power that boat had was not to be believed.
This was going to be a great day!
At the boat
dock I got introduced to the prettiest red head freckled face girl I had ever
seen. She had a two piece swim suit and
had more curves than the road we had just driven on.
I have
always loved the water but all of the girls I had dated never wanted swim with
me because it would mess up their hair or make up. Not this girl, she jumped
in, she swam, she skied, she splashed, she had a good time and was perfectly
comfortable in the water. This was the
greatest day of my life! This was the
coolest girl I had ever met! I was in
love! This is the girl I am going to
marry and spend the rest of my life with.
It didn't
take me long to figure out this girl was way out of my league. I was a country
boy who didn't pronounce words correctly; she was a city girl with
culture. I did get up enough nerve to
ask her out for a date. She may not have
been in my league but if I could just have one date with her I could die happy.
When I picked her up at home that was my first time to meet Rufus Deal. John had warned me he was a big guy and all
the guys were afraid of him. I think he
was a National Guard Camp the day we were at Yellow Creek which may have been
the reason we weren't run off immediately.
When I went in to the house she told me her father would like to meet me
before we went out. She call him in to
the house, he had been out working in the yard with his shirt off. He was just a little shorter than me his
shoulder looked to be about three feet wider than mine and his waist smaller.
He grabbed my hand and crunched it (he could still do that up to the time he died). When he did the muscles just rippled up has
arm and across his back and chest. If
intimidation was the name of the game, he was a professional. A lesser person would have run away, me I was
just too stupid to know how much trouble I was in. A few weeks later we had a
date one afternoon which I figured would go on into the evening with a movie.
When I asked about the movie she apologized and said she couldn't because she
had another date that night. Yea I was
way out of my league trying to date the most popular girl in Tuscaloosa and she
hadn't even started to college yet.
There wasn't a need to try to figure out the best time to propose.
Shortly
after that I got into some trouble on campus (that is the subject for another
blog) and dropped out of summer school after the first term and went back home
to work.
Fall of the
sophomore year started, I was walking and living in the dorm again. No cool car, no apartment, Dad had explained
how my shit did stink. John hadn't done
well with his classes and was off to a junior college in Mississippi. I have always felt that he spent too much
time cutting donuts and not being able to study.
I would see
Carole from time to time while walking across campus. It would make my day. She was always smiling and looking better
every time I saw her. I didn't think I
would have much success in asking her out if I had to walk 5 miles to her house
and then us walking 5 miles to the movie. So I didn't ask.
Football
season came and went with Alabama in the Orange Bowl. Four of us guys get tickets to the bowl game
and do a road trip to Miami. The
semester ends and I have my first "D" in English. I am so happy! I have finally made it out of remedial
English.
Spring semester
I am sharing an apartment with John Colvard and Andy Bryant and have a 56 Chevy
4 door sedan. Not cool but wheels. The
apartment is a dump. I figure out that
living in an apartment in Tuscaloosa is a lot cooler than living at home and
working greasing truck, so I start looking for a summer job. I didn't find a summer job; I found a job
starting the next day if I wanted it working with McGuire Engineering. If I
didn't want it, it probably wouldn't be available in the summer so I took
it. With a job and a full load of
engineering courses I didn't have much spare time. Carole and I had a few dates. They were lots of fun but I wasn't ready for
any form of relationship and she certainly wasn't. To quote one of her expressions "you
have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince". I think there were a lot of lucky frogs in
Tuscaloosa that year. Besides the
apartment was such a dump you wouldn't want to invite a nice girl over. It would just give the wrong impression.
That summer
I am working full time doing engineering work and move into a really cool
apartment with Jody Butler. Most of the
time I work in the field cutting bushes on a surveying crew. It is long days of hard work but I learn a
lot and have a blast working. I am so
envious of the guys who got a summer job with the highway department. They had eight people in a crew and would run
about a quarter of mile of line a day.
We had three people and would run a mile of line a day. Carole and I have a couple of dates early in
the summer but no invitations to go skiing.
By the end of the summer she is dating one of my good friends Tommy
Farmer. There is a written rule you
don't ask your best friends girl friend out.
Fall of my
junior year. Jody and I are sharing a
cool apartment; he is 21 and can buy whiskey.
It is fall, it is football season, and it is party time. The apartment is one block from the stadium;
it is party central for us and our friends.
We have pre game and post game parties.
The main reason is if you moved your car on game day you lost your
parking place and would have to park miles away. We would pick up dates early and party until
the game started. After the game the
party would continue until it was safe to move the cars again.
One of the
games early in the season Carole was there with Tommy and my mother and dad had
come to the game. The pre-game drinking was greatly curtailed. I had a date with a knockout looking girl
named Georgia. Bless her heart, looks
was the only thing she had going for her, but she was outstanding in that
department. Carole spent most of her
time talking with my parents. It may
have been because she and Tommy were fighting about something. Georgia limited
her conversation to hello, nice to meet you.
Carole was witty and charming; mom and dad fell in love with her. At the end of the dad told me, if he was me,
"that girl’s mother would throwing dishwater in my face". I didn't understand it either. It was a Sycamore expression that meant that
you would be standing by the door of her house every time the door opened. That was great dad but she is dating one of my
best friends. He told me that shouldn't
matter.
Carole and
Tommy were having relationship problems.
Carole would talk to me about it since I was one of Tommy's
friends. I was more than willing to give
her advice. Probably wasn't the kind that Tommy wanted me to give but it was
good enough they broke up. It wasn't
long until we were dating at least once a week.
She was my date to most of the ball games but not all. Not only were we dating but we had become
really good friends.
Alabama was
having a great season and was headed to New Orleans to the Sugar Bowl to play
for the National Championship. Jody and
I had to go. Carole wanted to go
also. She had an aunt that lived there
and she could stay with her. Jody's girl
friend could also stay there. So a plan
was devised. Mother and Dad were also
going with their boss and some other business people. So the girls were chaperoned and Carole's
parents grants approval.
Just before
time to go Carole's aunt decides she is going to be out of town for the
holidays and the girls can't stay there.
We scramble and get an extra hotel room where my parents, Jody and I are
staying. Carole's parents aren't happy but since my parents are there, they are
ok with her going. But now I have to pay
for a hotel room that wasn't in my budget.
I head home for the holidays and dad puts me to work at F&B. I work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to get
enough money to make the trip.
It is off we
go. We take my mother's Duce and a
quarter (Buick Electra 225). I pick up Jody and his date in Anniston and Carole
in Tuscaloosa. Mom and dad are supposed
to drive his boss to the game the next day.
Mr. Floyd is suffering with cancer and it is beginning to look doubtful
if he can make the trip.
We arrive at
the St Charles Hotel and head to Bourbon Street. For a boy raised in a very church going small
town this is a different world. I can't
believe all I am seeing walking down the street.
The big deal
on campus is to have bar glasses from some famous bar, so Pat O'Bryan is our
stop. They have a $10.00 per person
minimum. We pay our money, get the drink tokens and wait in line to get
in. While we are in line, a group of
people leave and yell Roll Tide. We Roll
Tide them back with handshakes and pats on the back. "Are you Alabama students?" "Oh, yea Roll Tide Roll." "Hear take these." They give us a double hand full of
tokens. It is like giving an alcoholic a
credit card in a whiskey store. We drink
all the drinks we can handle and then buy drinks and pour them out to get the
glasses. No we weren't stealing them
they were souvenir glasses that were included in the cost of the drink. Did I say we had all the drinks we could handle;
well I actually had two more after that.
I am lead by our merry crew back to the hotel and put to bed in my
clothes. I vaguely remember Carole
kissing me and saying she had to go out to the drug store and get something. I
knew I shouldn't let her go alone but I am in no shape to think about moving. I
need to lie real still with a foot on the floor so the room won't turn upside
down.
She will
have to give you her version of that night because apparently she had to leave
before went nuts and fell into the throws of passion.
Mom and dad
arrived the next day. They didn't hardly
get there before they got the call Mr. Floyd has passed away and they had to
head back the next day. Apparently he
was living to get to go to the game.
When he couldn't make it he just gave up and passed on from the
earth.
They did
stay long enough to take us to the Playboy Club. That was a real treat for a college boy. I will never forget one moment. It was noisy
and the bunny was trying to get orders. She was standing beside me and I was
trying to relay orders. I turned around
to tell her what I heard, at the same time she bent over to listen better. When I turned, my nose landed between her
boobs. What a moment. We both jumped
back but that wonderful memory is implanted forever.
I don't
remember anything about the game; do remember the trip back home. Carole snuggled in the seat next to me. I could feel her warm body for the next six
hours. It drove me nuts.
Back for the
start of the next semester I was still dating another girl, Carole says she
never dated anyone else after that trip.
A few weeks later I called the other girl Carole one night. I guess it showed where my mind was. That was the last date I had with anyone
except for Carole.
Spring
semester was good. We had some great
time together. The summer was even
better. I stayed in Tuscaloosa and
worked. I was a party chief on a survey
crew. I got to go skiing every few
weeks. Most of the time I was invited to
spend the night. Her mom was a great
cook. I probably ate too much but her
mom just seemed to accept the fact that boys that age ate a lot.
The fall of
my senior year I got a different car. It
was a 54 Oldsmobile. I was going down in
years but it had a heater and you couldn't see the ground thru the floor board.
We spent
most of our free time together. When I
went home for weekend visits she went with me.
I stayed in Tuscaloosa for the Christmas holidays to work and she got me
a little Christmas tree for my apartment.
We had talked about everything and the "M" word had come up
several times. All this time I was
trying to scrape enough money to buy a ring.
I knew the ring size. She had a ring she wore on that finger I had
figured out it would fit on my left pinkie finger but not my right. So off to Goldsboro Jewelers I went with $225
hard earned dollars. By today's
standards that isn't much but when you are making $1.35 and hour it was a lot
of money.
On Valentine
Day with her family watching I gave her the ring. We went to see every relative and friend she
had in Tuscaloosa that night. We started
planning the rest of our lives together.
I was going to work for Harbert Construction Company as an assistant
project manager on the I20/I59/I65 interchange.
She would do her practice teaching in Birmingham to finish up her
degree. You know she is much smarter
than I am; she finished her degree in three and a half years I finished mine in
four and a half years including three summer schools.
I have never
felt like you can plan your life, you just walk down the path and see what
happens when you take the fork in the road.
You can have goals you work on but you never can plan your future. There were only 16 of us that graduated in
Civil Engineering that year so you knew all of the professors as friends,
mentors and role models. I was hanging
out in the Civil Engineering Building one Friday afternoon, Ed Segner, the
meanest, bad ass, no nonsense; best professor I ever had saw me and told me to
come in his office. I didn't even have a
class with him that semester but I was scared to death. There were a lot of professors that would
call in to their office and tell you a joke or kid you about some stupid thing
you had done in class. Ed was not one of
those professors. He told me he had just
got a call about an AISC fellowship to pay for graduate school and he want me
to apply. He worked with me over the
weekend and I meet the Monday deadline.
I didn't think I had much of a chance to get it but I didn't want to get
on Dr. Segner's bad side. A few weeks
later I got a telegram (you actually got them back in those days) saying thanks
for your application but... You know the rest.
Well what the hell at least I had tried and Dr. Segner wouldn't be mad
at me. I have never figured out if he
saw possibilities in me or I was just a warm body hanging out in the fall. Then low and behold several days later I got
another telegram. The person who was
awarded the fellowship did not accept it and I was now the recipient of the
fellowship. I have often wondered if
they had more than two applicants.
"Sudden Change". I had
never even considered graduate school. I
have to take the GRE and apply to graduate school. You had to make a 1000 on the GRE to get into
graduate school, I made 1020. You had to
have a 1.5 (on a 3 point system) to get in on probation, I had a 1.48. Ed and several other professors wrote letters
of recommendations pointing out my grades in engineering courses exceed
2.5. I had a lot of people told me I was
one lucky person and I had better not let those professors who wrote the
letters down.
This caused
a lot of scrambling. Carole had to get her practice teaching changed to Tuscaloosa;
they really didn't want to accommodate her.
We had to find a place to live in student housing which wasn't easy to
get. We both were working, me still with
McGuire and her at the Arts and Science Dean's Office.
In August
all in one week, I had a birthday, graduate from college and find myself on the
25th standing in the front of the Forest Lake Baptist Church. Recently the church was damage in the
tornados that went thru Tuscaloosa. I
spent several months making repairs to the church and strengthening the church
to make it meet today's codes. (One day
while at the church I almost fell thru the ceiling to the floor below. I am not sure I would have survived the fall.
Luckily I had enough strength to catch myself and with the help of Lance and
Tim I was able to crawl back up.) After an inspection of the sanctuary I was in
the front of the church talking with the preacher, the building committee
chairman and the contractor and I looked up at the back of the church. There she was! It was Déjà vu all over again. The prettiest girl in the world walking down
the aisle. That day in August was the best
day of my life.
