GROWING UP

As I blogged about my parents yesterday, it brought back a lot of childhood memories. A wonderful gift my parents gave their children was a stable and secure environment to grow up. My father lived in Hickory, North Carolina his whole life. My mother moved there as a child, and lived in the same house for over 75 years.

My mother was a stay-at-home mom who raised four kids. When we got home from school she was always there to greet us. She was involved in our school activities like PTA and band boosters. At the same time she lived an active social life. She was involved in garden club, book club, and bridge club. Both my mother and father were involved in the development of community theater in our town.

My mother was very particular about how things should be arranged and look, whether it be home decorations or personal dress. She gave me a sense of taste for appearance. Even through high school she would take me shopping for clothes. It had to be Gant shirts, alpaca sweaters, Haggar slacks, genuine alligator belt, Bass Weejun shoes, Gold Cup socks, and a London Fog raincoat over a Harris Tweed sportscoat.

She was a wonderful cook. She prepared basic food like fried chicken, meatloaf, and spaghetti in a way that can never be equaled by anyone. Her cakes were awesome … chocolate, caramel, coconut, banana, and brown stone front. Her pies were delicious as well … pecan, pumpkin, lemon chess, and my favorite - hypocrite (custard topping over dried apples). At Christmas time there was all kinds of cookies and pecan rolls.

I never ate a single meal in the high school cafeteria. For several years our school had open lunch where we could drive to nearby hamburger joints or go to the pool hall downtown. My senior year I came home for lunch every single day. The daily menu my mother served me was two hamburgers and a baked potato and the best sweet iced tea with lemon in the world. Some things about the “old days” weren’t so bad!

My father was an industrial engineer at General Electric by vocation, but his avocation was music. He was a featured soloist around area counties for programs featuring classical and popular music and sacred chorales. He frequently sang at funerals and weddings (I still have many of the cufflink sets he received as gifts). I grew up going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and alot of other times in-between.

Most of my youth he was a choir director at several local churches. He took his choirs to state festivals at Wake Forest College. It was while wandering around the campus as the choirs sang that my desire to go to Wake Forest was born.

In his twenties my father used his voice as a radio announcer. I was exposed to all things radio as a kid. I learned about the simplicity of crystal radios that you could make and attach with an alligator clip to a radiator for a good antennae. With a short wave radio we listened to broadcasts from around the world. I heard the beeps from space of Sputnik (first satellite launched by Russia). I learned how to read electronic schematics, and watched my father build a Citizens Band radio transmitter. We usually had the latest electronic gadgets whether it be a transistor radio, stereo record player, or tape recorder. My father liked photography and we had a simple darkroom to process our own film.

I can remember as a small child that we did not have a car. If I wanted to go to the Woolworth’s dime store, or see a 15 cent movie at the Center or Carolina movie theaters, or play at the community center, I walked. Groceries were delivered from the store by Mr. Hoskins who drove a black van. The Wagner sisters, three old maids who lived down the street, had a car and gave us a ride to church. I walked to school the whole time growing up from kindergarten through high school. For a few years in elementary school it was “cool” to ride a bicycle.

I remember when my father got a motor bike and then upgraded to a motor scooter. Once he and I made a 40 mile one-way trip on the scooter to Blowing Rock. When we got to the steep mountain grades, my father would jump off the scooter and run alongside of me until we regained enough speed that he could hop back on.

Then came a ’49 black Plymouth coupe, followed by a ‘52 green Plymouth station wagon, a ’58 white Plymouth station wagon (with a push button transmission and crank roll down rear window) and a ’62 gold Chevy station wagon with a 327 cubic inch engine and a 4 barrel carburetor. I found in high school that if you took off the air cleaner, and replaced it with the metal lid of a coffee can, it sounded like a mean machine when you wound up the engine as you roared down the road.

Many Sunday afternoon my parents would pile all of us kids in the car and go for a ride in the country. There were frequent Saturday trips to the mountains for picnics and hiking. I remember our first family trip to the beach was to Caswell Baptist Assembly at Southport, NC. In the morning there were age-graded classes for the children and seminars for my father. My mother stayed home with my baby brother.

One day on the beach my mother found a huge hunk of driftwood that was a few feet tall and several feet in circumference. She vowed to bring it home, even if she had to leave one of us kids behind. That piece of driftwood remained in our backyard for almost 50 years until my sister claimed it after my parents passed away.

Below are some photos of me from a few months old up to age 18 as a freshman in college.