How Tommy found himself in the Army

A few days ago, while I was alluding to one of my historic adventures at Choir Practice, a friend and former student looked at me excitedly and declared, “I want to write your biography!” Then I realized I need to add more stories to this site.

As I drew near the end of my college years, all the talk was about Viet Nam. Some time back in my freshman year I had dutifully gone with some friends to an obscure office in downtown Carrollton to register for the draft. It did not seem strange to us to do this; memories of WW II and the Korean conflict were all around us, in the form of relatives, neighbors, and friends who had been involved. No one we knew - going back to grandparents and great-grandparents - had lived in a time when there was not a war.

The draft was conducted through a lottery at that time, and those with low numbers were vulnerable for call-up. I was incurious about what my number was, even though it was a hot topic of discussion among my peers, because I had already signed up for two years of mission work with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission board long before graduating. There was some paperwork to fill out at the draft board office (this time in Marietta, instead of Carrollton) to be “reclassified” as 4-D – a ministerial exemption. Some skeptics in the dorm assumed I was only doing this to “dodge the draft,” but my motivation was deeper, and real. I was actually surprised when I arrived at mission training to hear some of the other males admit that avoiding military service had been a factor in their “call.” My naivete shows again.

As soon as I returned from the two year mission, I landed a job in Dallas, Georgia, teaching high school English at Paulding County High School. Having never checked on my lottery number (“If I ignore it, it will go away”), I was pretty shocked when the letter came from Selective Service in November commanding me to report for induction right away. I went immediately to tell my principal, Dave Hardin, who happened to know that he could appeal for a “deferment” until my contract with the school system was completed in June. I knew that deferment only postponed the inevitable, but it gave me a few more months to enjoy teaching, and to consider mentally and emotionally what might be ahead in the military.

By this stage in life, I had friends in both the “hawk” and “dove” camps. The dove friends, exemplified by Mary Fran Hughes (Hong Kong colleague), thought that I should escape to Canada, where some American men were fleeing to avoid military service. My “hawk” friends included guys like high school friend Don Russell, who had already survived a tour in Viet Nam himself. The hawks were not as passionate as the doves. This was not a popular war, and even those who were patriotic had a hard time working up much enthusiasm for it.

The only reason I would have even considered avoiding the draft was because I instinctively knew that I would not be “good” at being a soldier. Of course, I was not unaware of the dangers involved, but could be a bit philosophical about that. Even at that stage in my Christian journey, I knew that my times were in God’s hands, and I would not lose my life in Viet Nam unless that was part of His grand design. But I dreaded an environment in which I could not feel useful or worthy. In the end, I recalled other “uncomfortable” situations when God had enabled (or delivered), and I suspected this would be no different.

Having lived in Hong Kong for a couple of years, I had come to grips with accepting my identity as an American. If being loyal to the country of my birth meant serving in the military, then that was not something I would avoid, even if I didn’t completely understand the reason for this war. I simply had no alternative that I could think of - not with a clear conscience, anyway.

As the day for induction drew near, I remember praying – not for safety – but for Christian fellowship. “Lord, there probably aren’t any Christians in the army, but if there are, please lead me to them for encouragement and growth.” I little imagined how effectively He would answer this prayer!

And so it was that in mid-June, 1971, I found myself on a bus leaving Atlanta for Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Among the 45 other inductees were a dozen or so others who, like me, had just completed a year of teaching. Dread and excitement filled me with anticipation for the next great adventure!

Walking the tracks

This one isn't a long story, but it encapsulates several good memories. 

When I was about eight we moved "into town." I don't remember if I was told any reason for this, but it changed my landscape tremendously. Prior to this we had rented a house on someone else's farm, and play centered around the swing set my dad built underneath the largest oak tree in the world, or going down to the creek to catch crawdads with the black children from the other side of the fields, or just running through the cotton fields themselves.

Moving into town put me around some kids my own age, and there were plenty of good places to play, especially the enticing treehouse in Tony Roberts' back yard. We were only about a hundred yards from a railroad track that went straight to and through the center of town, Cartersville, Georgia. For reasons I don't completely remember, my parents (who seemed to have many fears) warned me never to "walk the tracks." Since there was a perfectly good sidewalk parallel to it only half a block away, I never gave it much thought.      

...Until Bob Butler tempted me one Saturday. My parents had given me permission to go downtown to the "picture show" with him. I was not expecting a moral conflict to arise from so innocent an enterprise, until he ran through the hedge, yelling, "Let's walk the tracks!"  

Later in life I became very stubborn about not yielding to peer pressure, but at this age, I gave in easily. What nine-year-old boy could not see or hear a train coming, and jump off to the side in time?

Although there were no trains that day, I discovered it was slightly more thrilling to walk the tracks than to take the sidewalk. 

There are two unrelated but great memories associated with the subsequent Saturdays we spent "walking the tracks" to town (which was only about half a mile away). The first was the treat of a Saturday double feature at the Grand Theater in downtown Cartersville. For a mere fifteen cents, we "owned" a seat for a whole afternoon of delights - a double feature, plus a newsreel, serial, and a cartoon in between. Sometimes there was also a "short subject" of the sort that Mystery Science Theater 3000 would make so much fun of years later.

The highlight for me was the serial, which always ended in a cliffhanger - thrillingly designed to bring us back down the tracks the next Saturday to find out how Batman or Zorro or Tarzan would escape from destruction in the explosion/ambush/waterfall in which he was doomed to die in at the end of the previous episode. Imagine my joy years later as a adult when those old treasures became available on VHS. I now own two complete Batman serials, and have enjoyed them over and over again.

I should mention that the day of delights cost more than the fifteen cents admission.  For an additional ten cents, we got popcorn and a coke (five cents each). You can understand how much today's concession stand prices horrify me!

On one of those Saturdays we saw a big crowd at Shellhorse Appliance, so of course we went in to see what the attraction could be. A demonstrator was putting little cupcake papers of dough into a box and then opening it just thirty seconds later to a warm, fully baked cupcake. Adults were crowding around asking questions I didn't understand about why this was possible, but all Bob and I were interested in at the time was the free cupcake! It was more than twenty years later that microwave ovens became available for home use, and we had owned one for about ten years before it dawned on me - it was the same technology I had seen that afternoon in 1955!

Reading and wandering

By the time I was ten years old, and in fifth grade, there were a number of new things I was allowed to do. Owing to their status as Great Depression survivors, my parents were extraordinarily hard-working and thrifty. And they were determined that I should be the same. So it was that I was allowed (in truth, urged) to go with my neighbor, Gary Smith, down to the office of the Cartersville Tribune and sign up for a paper route. Its office was in the back of an old building near Railroad and Main at that time, not the present, newer building pictured above.

The hardest part of the job was waiting at the back of the newspaper office every afternoon for the papers to be counted out to us. The other paperboys were...well...not nerdy, like me. Waiting around with them might have been intimidating, had not my neighbor Gary been with me. He was a few years older, and pretty streetwise in an innocent 1950's sort of way. I managed to keep a pretty low profile, avoiding the verbal (and sometimes physical) conflicts which took place.

Once set free from the waiting area with my cloth bag imprinted with the Tribune logo, I headed north past Lay's 5 and 10 and the First Presbyterian Church to Etowah Avenue where my route actually began. It was an uncomplicated job, compared to my later stint with the Atlanta Journal, after we moved to Marietta. I estimate I only had about thirty or forty papers to deliver, on four or five streets, with no collections to make. I assume subscribers mailed in their payments; I don't remember those details. Also unlike the paper route in Marietta, I don't remember ever getting any complaints from subscribers, no matter how late I was in getting their paper to them. So I never hurried.

I didn't hurry because I discovered that I enjoyed reading the newspaper! I would devour sports, comics and then local news, in that order. I remember seeing my first baseball box score on one of those afternoons; the power of this statistic captured and transported me. Reading exotic names like Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh Pirates fed a thirst for travel, which later took me around the world (but never to Cleveland or Pittsburgh).

As an aside, I later discovered that most small towns in Georgia did not have daily newspapers at that time. Weeklies were much more common. For some reason, it did not seem strange to me that my little town of 7,500 could support such a paper. After all, it was only about six to eight pages a day (making my paper bag very light and easy to carry).

My route took me from the heart of downtown all the way to what was pretty much the edge of town in those days - the WBHF radio station near Old Mill Road. Then I had to turn around and walk all the way back to the downtown area, before heading home up North Erwin Street, in the opposite direction from my route. The wonderful thing is that my parents never worried about me wandering all over town by myself at age ten, nor should they have done so. The world was (mostly) a safe and friendly place in 1956.

Night of Small Wonder

George Gray e-mailed yesterday. Even though I hadn't heard from him for a couple of years, it's always easy for us to talk - as though we were still in Cub Scouts or high school band together.

One of the things George often recalls when we're reminiscing was "the strange 'prom party'." Some events seem strange in a child's world, but make more sense later from the vantage point of adulthood. As we look back on this one, it just gets stranger.

I'm thinking it took place some time shortly after (or perhaps just before the end of) fifth grade. It seems likely to have been in the summer, because of the bloom illustrated above - but that comes into the story later.

I expect it was someone's birthday. We were told in advance that it was to be a "prom party," but no one could tell me what that meant. In our isolated semi-rural community, none of us (as ten-year-olds) had ever heard of the kind of "prom" which I was later introduced to as an end-of-year high school dance in formal attire.

I vaguely remember that the song "Wayward Wind" was playing in the background as we were herded into somebody's living room. There we were given little pads and pencils for the purpose, we were told, of signing up a member of the opposite sex for a "prom" in each of the slots on the card. Being dutiful achievers (mostly Cub Scouts and Brownies, as I recall), we busily set about filling up our cards. Clearly we were pre-pubescent, and much more naive than today's ten-year-olds, but we had a vague notion that we were supposed to be fond of the person we signed up for.

I later realized (from movies, I think) that in an earlier period these would have been "dance cards." But these adults seemed very confident in their designation of the individual slots as "a prom" instead of "a dance." We ten-year-olds were certainly clueless (and struggling to appear interested).

As I recall, the "prom" periods were about ten minutes each, and when my first girl had been secured, we watched to take our cues from everyone else. Apparently the thing to do was to wander around the neighborhood (and talk?) until some responsible adult sounded a car horn at the host house to call us back to busily locate the next name on our card. Thenceforth to head out "on a prom" (perhaps promenade?) with that name, and so on down the list. Alternating patches of boredom and (silly) frenzy, over and over.

What did the adults imagine we should be gaining from this experience? And why was the word "prom" imported to mean something that was nothing like its original meaning (promenade) or its future meaning (a ball for dancing)? Maybe they thought we couldn't (or wouldn't) dance, but I distinctly remember that sometime within the previous year we had had a great time dancing to "B-I-N-G-O was his name-O" in some square-dance-like format at Jane Holland's birthday party. So who knows? Just rushing us to "grow up," I expect.

Fortunately, the evening was saved from utter and complete boredom when one alert "prom" couple walked by a home where the elderly owners were sitting in lawn chairs just outside their carport. With acceptable small-town curiosity, the prommers walked up the driveway to see what might be the occasion. They discovered that the couple were staying out to enjoy the once-a-year blooming of a member of the cactus family - the "night blooming cereus." This gave the "prom" couple wonderful social capital, as they excitedly ran back to the host house offering to lead guided tours to view "the amazing night-blooming flower" for the rest of the evening. I remember that the elderly couple wanted to convince us that the stamen and pistils of the flower represent Mary in the grotto at Jesus' birth. So we examined the bloom closely and carefully, and then sagely nodded when we could "see it."

I don't remember if the elderly couple ever tried to explain how they came by such a plant. I do remember describing the event to my parents, who seemed to know all about the night-blooming cereus already. Only in my adult life, after many years of living here in Arizona, did I discover I live in the only part of the U.S. to which this cactus is "native." In my own inner world, it remains an object of childhood wonder. It almost redeemed what was otherwise an uncomfortable and ill-conceived evening.

And as I look back on it, I wonder if the "prom" moms who organized this event were distraught when we abandoned the whole "prom card" farce halfway through the evening, in order to enjoy our own (somewhat more age-appropriate) excitement?