FORTY-SIX YEARS IN THE MAKING

There was a very small reunion Thursday afternoon at the Cracker Barrel at the Sevierville, TN exit off I-40.  It was just three old high school chums that hadn’t seen each other since graduation in 1964! 

Morgan Alred and I have been in touch over the years and have many a good adventure even after school.  He and I met up in Lenoir City and drove the hour up to where we had coordinated with Barry Henderson to meet.  As Morgan and I traveled we went back over the years and the fun we have had, and we talked about our favorite subject – cameras.

I’ve been into cameras since Vietnam and changed brands and styles several times.  When I worked for the Roane County NEWS (1972-1976) I was into SLR work for advertising and football photography.  I began to do weddings for friends and finally it grew into a small business.  I ended up with a state-of-the-art Rapid Omega 200 (4X5) for great wedding shots. 

Morgan is into cameras too, and has even owned and operated a camera store.  Locally owned camera stores took a big hit with the digital era, so he’s doing other things now, but photography always comes up when we get together. 

Anyway, that was the basic topic all the way to the Kodak exit.

Once there we sat nervously, anxiously awaiting our old friend, on a bench outside facing the Smoky Mountains, and continued to reminisce.  We both halfway expected Barry to ride up on his Harley, which his is Facebook icon, but with the threat of rain in the area that didn’t happen.  Had I not known what Barry looked like from the recent contact I made on Facebook I would have walked right past him. 

Finally he rolled up in his car and I recognized him immediately.  The three of us walked quickly toward one another and before I knew it we were in a “group hug”!  It was a wonderful feeling to actually show our emotion and feeling for each other!  In high school we would have never dared hug another boy!  However, on Thursday, three men embraced each other like brothers.  It was as if 46 years of pent up feelings had finally broken the dam of American social mores.  We were men, but we were loving it up!

We stood outside a few more minutes and talked and let the nervousness of the meeting wear off.  Finally, we were ready to go inside and begin catching up! 

Catching up turned into picking up and we were off; telling the old stories and mixing in what, when, and where our lives had been over the past 46 years.

I’ve written several posts about the times Barry, Morgan, and I have had over the past few years, but hearing them confirm my memories was very satisfying somehow.  However, there were details that I didn’t remember and some I can’t believe ever happened without me remembering!  Some of those things will remain secrets just between us guys.

Barry was not that different in his emotions, because I knew him pretty well back in school days.  We used to talk about things in private, mostly on our backyard campouts, that we would never have shared with any of our other friends.  But that inner Barry was still there.  What had changed about Barry was his attitude and outward persona. 

Back in our junior and senior years, Barry was a mysterious fellow, especially to the younger boys in our neighborhood.  Barry had that “Fonzie” persona.  He was straight out of a 60’s teenage movie, with his black duck-tailed hair, pointed black loafers, tight jeans, and white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and one sometimes held a package of Pall Mall cigarettes.

Like Fonzie, he looked like he had hit someone at some point in his life, and younger boys imaginations played with that scene as he walked by their house on the way to mine.

Barry did have a couple of fights during school, but to me he was just Barry a good friend.  I mentioned how some of the neighborhood kids had felt about him and he seemed surprised and even a bit ashamed.  He confessed that he had been a mean and troubled young man, but life has mellowed him and showed him what is important in life.  One of those things is having good friends you can depend on.

I loved Barry back then...I just didn’t know it, would never have expressed it.  To get to hug my “best” friend and tell him I loved him as he left, settled so much that had been unresolved inside.  I’m whole again!  Truthfully, there was just something missing by not knowing what happened to Barry and not being able to share my life stories with him.  We’ve both seen and done so much...it will take a long, long time to really catch up.

I had thought of Barry many many times over the years, whenever I was in a strange, exciting, scary, or even erotic situation, and I always wished Barry had been there to see and feel it too.  Like in the old days.  Now, after our 46 year separation, we can resume being friends the way friends ought to be...honest, open, and caring.

What a difference 46 years make!

THE GULF STATION FIGHTS

If you have been following my remembrances, after this post you think me a hopeless “tush hog” who picks meaningless fistfights. You will not find this definition of “tush hog” anywhere on the web, but that is what we called “bullies,” or boys, who looked for fights during my high school days.

The simple fact was that I ran with Barry, who often seemed, as I have stated, to have a chip on his shoulder. If Barry got into a scrap, then I had his back and visa versa.

Barry was not a large fellow either, as a matter of fact, I out weighed him by a good twenty pounds and was at least a head taller then. However, Barry was like a Fox Terrier, he would take on anyone of any size regardless of the perceived consequences. Naturally, I was just as foolish, trying to save face.

Barry was not the physical guy I described in Cross+Hairs as Henry, but his prowess with his fists and his temper were. I used an actual fight in the book to show how mean my main character was. You have to substitute Barry where Henry appears and Mushy where Bill appears to get the real story!

Barry and I often hung out in the summer at the Gulf Station near our homes. Another friend and his much older brother worked there with their dad who operated the full service station.

Actually, we often helped out when things got hectic, pumping gas and cleaning windshields. But more often than not, we were just there to buy cigarettes, a coke, a pack of peanuts, and pester Morgan and his brother GT.

One day, their father had gone home for lunch and Barry and I began a campaign of irritating the guys to the breaking point. I think we would have broken off the pecking on the cash register and oil cans once we got tired, but GT got tired first and jumped up and threatened to whip Barry’s ass!

Next thing I knew we were squared off in the wash rack, next to a car to be washed. I was standing in front of Morgan, and Barry was at the rear of the car exchanging insults with GT. I do not think Morgan and I were even mad at each other, but we each had a back to protect, so it did not matter – we would fight if the first blow fell.

GT grabbed Barry and held him up off the floor in the corner near the roll-up doors, and Morgan took that as his queue to swing. I ducked and he smashed his fist hard against the driver’s side window and folded in pain!

Barry yelled for assistance so I flew upon GT’s back, and together we pounded him to the wet wash rack floor.

We walked, puffing from exertion and pride, away from the station and did not come back for a couple of weeks.

However, when we did, GT started in about us having had an unfair advantage in the fight and that he wanted a re-match on firm dry ground.

Okay, so be it! Feeling cocky from our previous win, we marched up a small bank into the backyard of a church on the adjacent property. The other difference was that I had squared off with the older GT and Barry was on Morgan.

Barry began insulting Morgan and GT and I stood nose-to-nose waiting and listening. I think I really did not want to fight GT, but it was left to me to try or lose face, turn tail and run. I stood my ground hoping things would blow over.

Suddenly Barry popped Morgan in the cheek and there was an audible “Uoof!” from Morgan. I looked toward the two, now locked in a wrestling match to see who could through the other to the ground, and then back a GT, who had already begun bringing both arms up and quickly smashed both my ears! If you have ever been hit hard on an ear, you know that first you cannot hear, and second it hurts like a sombitch! Plus, with two hands hitting you at once, you feel as though your head will split open! I fell to my knees and listened to the bells ringing in some distant place in my head.

GT sprinted to Morgan’s aid and they now had Barry on the ground and he was yelling for my help!

I stood up and dizzily staggered in their direction and launched my body into the air. Any other time, this may have dislodged GT or Morgan from Barry and we would have been back on equal ground. However, I misjudged, in my state, and flew over the pile up and right into a huge rose bush!

Once the other three realized what I had done, they broke apart and rolled on the ground laughing, leaving me to scream for them to pull the thorns off me so I could stand up.

We had been friends before the fights and we remained friend afterwards. We recounted the story for years, the last time at GT’s funeral.

THE TENT REVIVAL

Between my house and Woody’s was a vacant lot that sat empty for years, but this area served the community and the boys of Pine Hills well for years. In the fall, until the ground was perceived too hard, we played sandlot football until we could not see the ball in its spiraling flight on pass routes. I often joke about some of my aches and pains I now have coming from having played football in the SFLA (Sandlot Football League of America). I cannot count the dislocated thumbs and pinkies, twisted knees, rock contusions, and crack-back blocks I endured during my membership!

This field also provided local churches with space for great tent-revivals in early to mid-summer. Upon this holy ground I committed an act toward women that still haunts me to this day.

Now, as life would have it, Betty Anne’s church held this particular annual event, and signs were posted all over the county. Betty Anne and several of her girlfriends planned to attend, and naturally asked us guys to accompany them to the services. Naturally, we declined, setting off a two-week long “we’re not speaking to you” campaign.

Standing within a rock throw of the field was a Gulf Service Station operated by another friend’s dad. Morgan was the same age as Woody and me and had many of the same interests, especially in girls. We discussed our own strategy for the five nightlong revival, and it boiled down to spying on the girls from high atop the service station.

The first two nights we lay on the roof in the twilight and watched for the girls to file in and find seats. Each night, up until this time, they had taken the same four or five metal folding chairs with their backs to the station, and facing the podium and minister’s lectern.

Through the entire service we peppered them with the small roof gravel, and generally made a nuisance of ourselves. The girls would turn around and look in our direction, having figured out whom and where we were, and then nonchalantly flipped us “the bird” behind their heads.

Then came the third or fourth night and a new “grand” scheme was hatched. We would stand on the brace between the back legs of the usual chairs, making deep holes down into the soft ground, pull the chairs back up out of the holes, and wait for the fun to begin later! What a great plan, and everything worked as expected, we might see a flash of panties as the chairs rocked back into the holes and dumping the girls over the backs in our direction!

The music began softly as people filed in and took their seats, but for some unknown reason (could have been the rocks, I do not know!) the girls took seats on the opposite side of the tent facing us! Oh, my God - how could this be?

We watched puzzled and waited to see who took the designated chairs. It appeared the chairs would go unused as the first song began with everyone standing and flipping to the correct page in the hymnal. However, just then four little old ladies, the youngest about seventy-five came parading down the aisle in the “Sunday Best” looking for seats close to the front.

We held our breath as they moved down the row and stood reverently in front of the “booby-trapped” chairs!

As the song ended, and the minister began to welcome everyone, the little old ladies began their slow and deliberate decent to the chairs. As fate would have it, their little scrawny bottoms touched down in perfect formation. As they leaned back, the chair legs sank as calculated, and over they tipped, to a reclining position, eight legs in the air, with their backs still against the chair backs!

All I remember, as we hunkered down behind the roof wall, trying to stifle our belly laughs, was the sight of the eight opaque stocking legs, with the roll just below each knee!

If it had not scared me some much, I too would have been rolling in the roof gravel trying to catch my breath! However, I only thought about someone being hurt and the beating my mother would give me for embarrassing her so.

As I remember it, the girls got such a kick out of it that they only held out for “not talking” to us for a week.

No old ladies were harmed in execution of this transgression, but the preacher got an eye full, and like me, probably has trouble getting those spread old stocking legs out of his head!