One
of my earliest memories is taking a ride with my dad. To me this was a real
treat. Normally my trips with dad were only a short distance since
everything was within a mile or two of home. Most of my trips were to
Robinson elementary school where dad was the principal. When I was about
four or five, dad asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. Naturally I agreed.
We drove a much longer distance, all the way (7 miles) to downtown
Birmingham. I had never been there before. We went to a building and I rode
an elevator for the first time. This was really special. We went into an
office where everybody was very friendly. After a few minutes a nice lady,
dressed in white, took me to another room and asked me to stand up on a
chair. We are going to play some type of game I thought. Then everything
changed. She said, "Now take off you all of your clothes". Something is
wrong. She then said, "Now put on your pajamas". What was she doing with my
pajamas? It was not time for a nap. What is going on? I did not rebel but I
was quite confused. I was then taken into another room and asked to get in
this funny chair. It looked a little like a barber chair but I was not going
to get a haircut. The next thing I remember was when I awoke in a bed with a
very sore throat. Yes I had just had a tonsillectomy. My mother was there
with chipped ice which was just what I needed.
For weeks after this event I would not take rides with my father. He had
deceived me. He had tricked me. I had lost trust in my own father but this
feeling did not last too long. The good thing is that I never had any
negative feelings toward my father for the rest of his long life. He was the
best dad a child could have.
During
my early youth we had a fenced in back yard with chickens, There was a
detached garage that sat behind our house and there was a chicken roosting
house built on the back of the garage. In the chicken-roosting house there
were two rows of chicken nesting boxes mounted one above the other on the
wall. If you don’t know what a chicken box is, it is a box, filled with
straw where the chickens lay their eggs. I don’t know how old I was, but I
guess I was about four. I knew that from eggs came baby chicks. We had had
baby chicks before but not at that time. I knew the mother hen had to sit on
the eggs for some time to create baby chicks. If the mother hen could do it
why couldn’t I?
One day I climbed up on one of the chicken nesting boxes that had eggs.
Yes, I did, I sat down on the eggs so I could create some baby chicks. I
didn’t get any baby chicks but my mother had to change my clothes. After
that I did not spend much time in the chicken roosting house.
During
my youth kindergarten was unknown. You started first grade after your sixth
birthday. During those days, children as young as five could wander around
the neighborhood with no problem and no fear. With my mother’s permission,
I frequently went to visit my friend Jimmie. Jimmie was in the first grade
and I would go to his house and ride with his mother to the school to bring
Jimmie home. One day instead of picking Jimmie up, we went into the school.
That was where my father worked. He was the principal.
After we got inside we went into a room where a lot of the younger
children were lined up before a table with a lady dressed in white. I didn’t
know what was going on but I was asked to get into the line. As I got to the
head of the line, the lady in white washed the upper part of my left arm
with something cold. She then said that a little bird was going to peck in
my arm but it would not hurt. It did hurt a little bit but I have never
caught smallpox.
Sometime
during my eighth or ninth year, I built a tree house in the persimmon tree
in our back yard. My sister, Carolyn, has reminded me that I tore down her
play house to get the wood for the tree house. If you have not had a ripe
persimmon you have missed a treat. If you have eaten, or started to eat, a
persimmon that was not quite ripe, you will remember it forever. One of my
sickest days was after eating a green persimmon. I enjoyed my tree house. It
was mine alone. I could spend hours in the tree house reading some of my
favorite books. I thought it was time for me to spend the night in my tree
house. I equipped it with everything I thought I would need such flashlight,
books, blanket and a pillow. I was surprised when my dad said it was OK. My
mom was not quite as agreeable. As it began to get dark I went into the tree
house. Everything was great, just as I had imagined. With my flashlight I
could read and with my blanket and pillow I was quite comfortable.
After a while, I began to hear strange sounds. They sounded something
like a dog howling but it didn’t bother me. The sounds continued for quite
some time and got louder and more frequent. Finally I heard my father call
and ask me to come down. I was resistant but he prevailed. After I came down
I found out that the sounds I had heard were from my father. He thought that
they would scare me and I would come down. Of course he never intended that
I would spend the night in the tree house.
I never did spend a night in the tree house but I did eat a lot of ripe
persimmons.
I grew up in the East Lake section of Birmingham. Most of my friends
lived on a street one block away. This is where we played. On our street
there was sporadic traffic and on our play street even less traffic.
We played baseball in the street and seldom had to move because of
traffic. We also played hockey on skates. Now skates in those days were
quite different then they are today. They had four metal wheels and clamps
that would tighten on the sole of your shoes. There was a strap that went
across your ankle. We had to make our own hockey stick and the puck was a
tin can.
We all had a skate board. Now a skate board was different from those you
see today. We had to make our own. They were made with two pieces of 2"x4"
pine, each piece about two feet long. They were nailed together at right
angles. On the bottom we nailed a single skate. The skate was
disassembled and the front two wheels were placed in the front and the rear
two wheels were placed in the rear. On the vertical piece of 2"X4" we nailed
a short piece a broom handle for the handlebars.
At
the end of the play street there was a Mom and Pop grocery store run by Mr.
Thornton. The store was in the basement of his home. Behind the house were
some sheds where various items were stored. There were always a lot of live
chickens there. If you wanted a chicken you picked the one you wanted, took
it into the store and had it weighed. Soft drinks were in glass bottles and
stored in a large barrel with ice water. You had to hunt for the drink you
wanted for only one had a distinctive shape, Coke. Your hand would get quite
cold before you found what you wanted.
My father was the Elementary principal. He treated his children the same
as all of the other students. I had an older brother, HB that was a model
student. I was always called HB's little brother. I guess I did not want to
be like my brother. I was not the model student. I was not bad but I did do
some things that were not acceptable to the adults.
When
I was about 9 or 10 years old several of my neighborhood friends and I
experimented with smoking. We had acquired some cigarette papers for rolling
you own cigarettes. We would get cigarette butts and strip out the tobacco
to make our own cigarettes. No one in our family smoked.
One day I was hiding behind out garage smoking. My dad caught me and took
me into the basement where his belt came off and my seat was warmed. As I
was crying, dad said, you know why I whipped you?" I said, "Yes for
smoking." He said, "No, son, not for smoking, for hiding." He then said,
"Now come with me." He took me upstairs to the living room. He took me to
the mantle over the fireplace. On the mantle was an ashtray, which was
ornamental and had never seen a cigarette ash. He said, "See that ashtray?
If you ever want to smoke, take that ashtray, sit in my chair and smoke, but
never hide."
I learned a good lesson, I never smoked again.
One
day my father caught me running up the stairs at school. That was a no, no.
He said, "Do you like to go up and down the stairs?" I answered, "Yes sir".
He said, "That's fine. Now walk up and down the stairs until I tell you to
stop". He then went back into his office. I knew that I had to do what he
said for if I stopped that is when he would come back out of his office. A
10 year old has a lot of energy but it quickly dissipates after several
minutes going up and down stairs. I thought my legs would fall off. Finally
dad came out and said I could go to class and explain to the teacher why I
was late. To this date I have never run up or down stairs. I learned a good
lesson.
During the summer, when dad would go to the school to do some work, my
brother HB
and I would sometimes go with him. We would go to the roof of one section of
the building that had a flat gravel roof. We would play catch ball. To get
to the roof you had to climb a ladder that was accessible from the girl’s
bathroom. What we saw was quite revealing to us. In the boys bathroom there
was a lot of writing on the stall walls complete with graphics. In the girls
bathroom these writings and graphics were much more descriptive than in the
boy’s bathroom. You can get an education in many ways.
It
did not snow very often in Birmingham so when it did it was a treat. One
year it snowed but it quickly melted except in the shady areas. Our art
classroom had a fire escape outside of the very large windows. There was
still snow in the area outside our window in the shadow near the flag pole.
Our art teacher was not able to control her class very well. I may have
contributed to that. Three of us decided to go out the window, down the fire
escape, make a snow ball and return to class. We thought, or maybe we didn't
think, that we could get away with it. We did as planned and boldly came
back to class through the school front door directly past the principal’s
office. We then proceeded to place snow down some of the girls back and to
throw small bits of snow at other students
After all of this was done we were sure that we were in the clear until
the classroom door opened and there stood dad. He did not say a word for he
knew who the guilty parties were. He motioned for each of us to come with
him. We just knew that we were about to get some corporal punishment. We
went past his office, out the school front door and down to the flagpole
area where the snow was. Now, in a very pleasant voice he said, "You boys
like the snow?" We replied, "Yes sir." He then said, "OK, now make a very
large snowball." After we did as requested and he had inspected and approved
of each snowball he said, "Now come with me boys." He then led us back to
the classroom and said, "Now go to your seats and hold the snowball in both
hands until it melts. Then go to the cloakroom, get a mop and mop the
floor." Another lesson learned.
When I was in the eighth grade, our last class of the day was manual
training. We had a section for concrete, a section for woodworking and a
section for sheet metal. The teacher announced that a tool was missing from
the concrete section and everybody had to stay until the tool was found. Two
of my friends and I, who had been working in the wood working section,
decided that we did not need to stay since we were not working in the
concrete section. We left.
The next day, about mid morning, we three were summoned to the
principal’s office. As we arrived dad's secretary walked to the office door
and pulled down the shade. This was our first clue of what was coming next.
Dad then came over and locked the door. We now knew that we were in big
trouble. Dad, in his normal soft tone explained to us the error of our ways.
He then warmed up our bottoms, with me leading the parade. As I remember the
pain was less than the embarrassment. I knew that it would not be long
before the entire school would know that the principal's son got a whipping.
That evening, after supper, I was lying in the floor in our living room.
Dad said, "What happened at school today?" I replied, "Nothing.". He then
made me tell him in detail all of the events of the day. When I had finished
he said, "Don't you think that deserves some punishment?" Trying to laugh it
off, I replied, "That would be double jeopardy" Dad looked me straight in
the eyes and said, "No son, that was the principal, I am your father." I got
it again.
From that day forward I never had a problem with my father. Another
lesson learned.
My
dad was raised as a Methodist while my mom was raised as a Baptist. The
family always went to East Lake Methodist Church while mom stayed home and
had dinner ready when we returned from church. We were very active in
church. During my high school days most of my close friends where those I
knew from church and church activities. I sang in the choir for several
years. Our choir director was Dr. Turner, an architect and he designed the
new sanctuary that was started in 1940, interrupted by the war and completed
in 1946.
Dr. Kirby was our family doctor. In those days you didn't go to the
doctor, the doctor came to you. I can remember being ill in my early school
days and Dr. Kirby came to see me. He had a habit of addressing all young
children in the following manner. "Your daddy is no good." This would get an
immediate response from the child defending their father. On this occasion
he said the same thing but before I had a chance to answer he said, "I have
to quit saying that. Last week I visited a sick lady and her young son was
there. and I told him his father was no good." He replied, "I know, he is in
the back room drunk."
Dr. Kirby had to terminate his medical practice at a relative young age
due to his health. He began to write short stories for a local newspaper.
After many years of writing these stories he was encouraged to publish them.
He published three books, "Cotton Pickin, Coon Huntin, Country Boys".
Corncobs, Cockleburs and Country Boys" and How Me and Amos Won WW1" Amos was
his brother.
One article was written about our family and is quoted from "Cotton
Pickin, Coon Huntin, Country Boys".
The public is not alone in missing the old family
doctor relationship. The young doctor who has not made house calls has
missed some rich experiences, some humorous and some heartbreaking. The
family doctor knew the names, the age and the habits of every member of the
family. He knew the names of the children's playmates and of their pets.
I like to recall many unusual incidents; especially
the humorous ones. The family of the late Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Norton
especially the three boys and their sister were unpredictable. I guess I was
to blame; I admit I joshed them a lot?
I remember an incident one evening as I was leaving
the Norton home, the slow soft spoken Mr. Norton asked me, "How much do I
owe you, Doc?" I said, "This makes 5 calls, counting the three calls I made
last month, at $3.00 per call, $15.00 I believe is correct."
H. B. Jr., just a small lad said, "Wait a minute." He
left the room and returned with four cigar butts. "You are wrong Uncle Doc,"
he said. We have kept account of the calls by the cigar butts you have left
on the porch. "Four calls, that would be only $12.00!" Mr. Norton said,
looking at the boys with a grin on his face.
"Oh"I said, "I could be wrong. I probably wasn't
smoking one day."
We settled on that basis after quite a good laugh. All
the way back to my office I planned some way to get even with that smarty H.
B. Jr. Sure enough, I was called back in a few days to see someone. I had
been saving all my cigar butts and having Dr. J.S. Jordan save his, too.
There were probably 30 or more in the paper bag. All of them I dumped on the
front porch as I went into the house.
Evidently the boys had examined the pile and told
their daddy. Anyway, as I prepared to go, nothing was said about cigar
butts. Mr. Norton handed me $3.00 and said, "I will just pay cash each time;
that will save bookkeeping for you."
We are not going to settle by cigar stubs anymore?" I
asked.
"No," he replied and handed me $3.00 more. "There was
probably a miscount of those cigar butts" he said with a sly grin
So I came out all right. I got paid for all five
calls. The boys tried to finish smoking the cigar butts I left, which
resulted in several more calls for me. The Norton’s benefited too, in the
long run; none of the boys took up the smoking habit after smoking my cigar
butts.
P.S. Every Alabamian-should read the late Mrs. Bertha
Bendall Norton's book---“Birmingham's First Magic
Century, Were You There”. Mrs. Norton spent 12 years in research on
the history of Birmingham. Read it! She has one chapter on the medical
history of Birmingham.
For three summers during my early youth I stayed in my Dad's home town
with my Grandmother, my Uncle Adrian, my Aunt Jennie and my cousin, Benny
Louisville. Alabama has never had more than 800 residences. Dad owned a 100
acre farm that his brother ran. The farm contained about 30 acres of pecan
trees that my father had planted as a youth. Part was farmed and part was
used for cattle grazing.
On the farm there were three farm houses. One was my father’s boyhood
home. It had no running water but had a well on the side of the front porch.
During my time in Louisville all three were rented.
The
new home was at the beginning of the two block business district. It was
built in the late 1890's and initially had no running water. It had a porch
that went along the entire front, around the left side of the house and
across most of the back of the house. There was an arbor about 20 feet by 20
foot along the right side of the house that supported scuppernong vines. If
you don't know what a scuppernong is, it is a grape like fruit that grows in
clusters rather than in bunches. Along the entire right side of the house
there was a grape vine that was supported along the porch at just over head
height. Out back was a very complete garden, a large chicken area, a pen
that housed several pigs, about six cows and two mules.
There were two farm hands that worked the farm. Each day they would ride
the mules with the six cows trailing behind, to the farm which was only
about a mile away.
We always had milk and butter. My Aunt Jennie could churn all day and she
sold butter to neighbors. Our meals were absolutely out of this world. She
cooked on a wood stove and never let anyone in her kitchen, even my Uncle
Adrian. She was the Queen of the kitchen and there was no King.
The highlight of the day was to go to the post office with Uncle Adrian
and await the mail delivery. Each evening at about 6:30 pm, many towns’
people would congregate in front of the post office. This was a time when
there was great conversation and fellowship. I still remember that their box
number was 67.
I built my first model airplane in my grandmother's bedroom.
I had a lot of good friends in Louisville and the pleasant memories of
those days will be with me forever.
When I was about 10 or 11 years old I was invited to join a boy’s choir
at the Church of the Advent, the largest Episcopal church in Birmingham. I
have always claimed that I was a professional singer for we were paid. We
were paid enough to pay for our streetcar fare two days a week
Our choir director was Herbert Grebe, a man that I will never forget. He
was the choir director and the church organist. I learned a lot from him.
Our choir was exceptional. One of the members, a close school friend of
nine, went on to become soloist with the Air Force Singing Sergeants, then
in Opera and finally a professor in a western college.
In
church we sat at right angles to the congregation and directly across from
the adult choir. The congregation could look down our rows. In an Episcopal
service there is a lot of kneeling and we were always told to kneel with our
backs straight and not lean back on our sears. Mr. Grebe sat at the organ
directly behind us. He had a mirror mounted so he could look down on us. If
any of us slouched during the service we heard about it after the service
was over.
I remained in the choir until my voice began to crack at about the age of
13. This was good training for me
My
brother HB had a paper route and when I became old enough I was able to get
one. I was 12 and had a route of approximately 100 customers. This was an
afternoon paper that we could deliver after school. We rolled our papers and
secured them with a rubber band. When the war came, WWII, we could not get
rubber bands and we had to use string. Using sting was easier than you might
imagine. You simply wrapped the string around the paper, rolled the string
down the paper and broke the string.
One
of my customers was Mrs. Thomas. She lived with her two grown daughters. The
Thomas' family was good friends of our family. I now have to jump forward
many years.
Mrs. Thomas daughters planned a 100th birthday party for Mrs. Thomas. At
the time my brother and I lived in the Washington, DC area and we planned to
attend. When we arrived there was a receiving line. Mrs. Thomas was seated.
I had not seen Mrs. Thomas in at least 20 years. When I reached down to
shake her hand, I said, "Mrs. Thomas, you still owe me two weeks for the
Birmingham News." Without any hesitation she looked up at me and said,
"Mervin, I paid you last Saturday." She was just as sharp at 100 as she was
when I was delivering her paper.
As
a young man reaches the age of 13 or 14 he begins to really notice that
girls are different from boys. This was true of me as I got to know a young
girl on my paper route. She was about 13 or 14 and very personable and
attractive. She lived only three houses from the end of my paper route and
about a block and a half from my home, After delivering all of my papers I
would go back to her house and we would chat while I still sat on my bike.
One crispy winter Sunday I rode down to Marion's house for a visit. Her
younger brother, Bobby, was outside throwing a football to a friend. I ask
Bobby where Marion was. He said that she was in the house listing to the
radio. This was somewhat strange for this was a beautiful day. Bobby went
into the house and brought Marion out. Her first words were, "Where is Pearl
Harbor?" Yes, this was December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy.
I almost forgot, young Bobby went on to make a name for himself, Bobby
Bowden, the winning coach of Florida State University
During my high school days I enjoyed music, math, physics, chemistry and
literature. I did not like history and Latin. I even had to repeat a Latin
class. I was in several of the school musicals as a member of the chorus. In
contrast my older brother was a speech major, was in oratorical contests and
had the romantic lead in several plays. It is no wonder that he went into a
career in radio and television. I was not involved in sports or any other
major school activity.
The small planes I built could be flown in the street. We lived on a
corner and I had enough room to fly. I could even fly at night under the
light of a street light.
For the larger planes I had to go to a small private airport that was
reserved for model flying every Sunday. To get there I had to take one or
two models along with a tool kit, on a one hour streetcar ride. Roberts
Field was an ideal place to fly and I had many friends there.
Many times I took my younger brother, Don, with me. His job was to chase
the model and bring it back to me. Here it is more than 50 years later and
he is still complaining about what I made him do.
The object of free flight was endurance. On the rubber powered planes you
had to stretch the rubber out and wind it up with a winder made out of a
hand drill. For gas powered planes you had a timer that would cut power
after 20 seconds. The object was to get the plane as high as possible and
then it would glide down.
I spent most all of my spare time building model planes. My best friend
Joe and I wanted to be pilots when we were grown. This was our dream.
The
picture shows me at 17 holding two rubber powered planes with a gas powered
plane on the ground.
My model plane activity ceased shortly after this picture was taken
because I entered the Army. When I finished high school, Joe and I tried to
enlist in the Army Air Corps as Cadets. We both failed the physical.
Three years later, when I returned home, I again began to build model
planes. I was fortunate to win a contest to the First International Model
Airplane Contest in Detroit. This was a real thrill for me for I saw my
heroes, the model builders that were known to the entire model community. I
was especially thrilled to watch Walt and Bill Good fly the first radio
controlled model plane called the Gulf
For
many years three of my flying model planes hung on the wall of my childhood
home. During a trip home in 1953, my mother insisted that I take them to our
new home in New Jersey. I told her that they would not survive the trip. She
insisted and the planes were destroyed during the trip to New Jersey. Only
one plane survived. This was a 5/34 inch scale model of the P-51 Mustang
from World War II. This plane was built in 1942 and still exists. It is a
marvel that this plane has survived the 23 moves of our entire household
during the interning years. As you can see the landing gear is gone and half
of the tail surface is gone. Not too bad for a 63 year old plane built by a
15 year old...
One byproduct of my modeling days was my short career as a broadcaster.
One of my close high school friends, Al Brooks, worked as a weekend
announcer at WSGN, a local radio station. He worked on weekends. I arranged
to get a 15 minute spot on Saturday mornings for a program on flying model
airplanes. I usually had one of the modelers to interview and we would
discuss what we would be doing on Sunday. I ran these broadcasts for the
summer months for two years.