CHAPTER 1 - THE TRANSITION

In 1964 I got the mumps. I have only been very sick about three times in my life with such things as the mumps, tick fever, and a bad case of the flu. Tick fever was probably the sickest I have ever been but the mumps was a close second. I was affected on both jaws and I could barely lift my head or get out of bed. My jaws felt like they weighed a ton and when I stood up I felt like I was going to pass out. The adults told me that I needed to stay in a dark room and I should rest because mumps could go down on me. I didn't know what that meant but I took it easy anyway. What they meant was that I could end up sterile if the mumps went down on me. Apparently I was fortunate in that department because I fathered five children. That is if you count the one we lost just before Jon. Life wasn't happy for me after the death of my parents until I met my future wife Debbie in February 1966. It was all a kind of a blur for me in many ways because my life was pretty aimless.

In chapter three I mentioned that my sister Donna and James Larry Sircy were married on November 26, 1962. Larry, as he preferred to be called was from a large family. They lived just a few doors down on the same side of the street on Mckennie avenue. He was a very handsome guy and was always well dressed, clean and neat. At least that is what the women said about him that knew him. He was one of those people that no matter what kind of work he was doing he never seemed to get dirty. His hair was jet black and always slicked back. Larry was no good in my view because he was a philanderer and abusive to Donna. Donna told me that he cheated on her on their wedding night. He was also a con man and could charm the bark off of a tree. I have heard from anonymous sources that he may have been bi-sexual. Larry would leave home for days, weeks, and months sometimes. During these times Donna would ask me to stay with her, which was okay with me because I didn't want to be at home anyway. 

 At one time or another Donna lived in every section of Nashville and the surrounding counties. From the time she married Larry in 1962 until her second marriage to Richard Bass in 1978 she was moving constantly. She moved to various apartments, duplexes, and trailers. While Larry was away Donna would bad mouth him and say that she was fed up with his behavior and going to leave him. Then one day he would magically show up and she would be upset with him for all of about fifteen minutes, if that long. After a while they would be all lovey dovey. and slobbering all over each other and I wanted to throw up. He had her wrapped around his finger. A few years ago Donna and I were talking about that period of her life and I told her that if Larry was still alive she would still be with him and she agreed with me.

One morning in the winter of 1964 Larry's shenanigans almost did him in. He and two of his drinking buddies pulled up at the Miller's Clinic Emergency Room, on Gallatin Road, with a dead girl in his back seat. At first the police treated it as a potential homicide but Larry told the police that the three of them had met the woman the previous night, along with her sister, at a bar on lower Broadway. It was near where the Bridgestone Arena is today. The girls left the bar and the three men also left, but not together according to Larry. Later that night the men and women met again at a popular barbecue joint called Charlie Nicken's which was at the foot of the Jefferson Street bridge. They were famous for their barbecue and curb service where black men wearing white jackets would walk out to your car to take your order and when it was ready they would bring the food out to you. When I was a child this was one of my favorite places to eat and it was a local landmark for Nashvillians.

Larry told the police that the sister of the dead woman had to leave so she could pick up her husband from work. The girl that later died got into Larry's car and he supposedly took the other two men home. Larry and the girl then went looking for her apartment on Wimpole Drive in Donelson. He said that they drove all over Donelson that night looking for her apartment until he became sleepy and couldn't drive any longer so they parked on a dead-end street and went to sleep. The girl had been drinking and taking pills so she climbed into the backseat and passed out while Larry slept in the front seat. The next morning he tried to wake the girl up but he soon realized that she was dead. Not knowing what to do he went by and picked up his two friends at their homes. Putting their heads together they decided that the best thing to do was to take her to the hospital. An autopsy revealed that the woman died of acute alcohol poisoning. Donna told me a few years ago that she believes that Larry lied to the police. She believes that the three men left the bar with the girl and all three partied with her all night. Donna was at his parents house on Mckennie when Larry came home that day and told her what had happened. She called him a "son of a bitch" and he tried to hit her but his mother stopped him. This was just one in the many episodes of the life of James Larry Sircy but this was by far the worst.

During the summer of 1964 I played on the Eastland Baptist Church softball team. We also played a lot of sandlot softball. Our field was the front yards of three houses that then belonged to the church. These houses were used for Sunday School and Royal Ambassadors but were empty during the week. Except when they were being used for Sunday and Wednesday night services. The front yards of these houses were our infield and the intersection of McKennie and 12th Avenue was our left field. Twelfth Ave. and our front yard was center and right field. The only problem was that a huge tree blocked center and right. Most balls hit to center would get lost in the branches for a few moments and you had to guess the direction that the ball would drop from. The tree was an automatic double. Most of us usually aimed for left field. If a car came down McKennie, or 12th, we called time until the cars passed. It was a wonder that nobody ever got run over.

We had some pretty good ball players. David Love, Bob Lawrence, Gus Fowler, just to name a few. Then there were those who were not so good like Billy Sircy. He was Larry's brother and the smallest kid in the neighborhood. Billy was always the last to be picked and he was a sure out. He was a liability to any team that he was on but we tried to let everyone play. He never got discouraged because he was always ready to play. Then there was Tommy Franklin who we called baldy. Tommy was a good kid and lived diagonally across the street from our house on the corner of 12th and McKennie. His dad was bald and Tommy always wore a burr haircut and had a round head. That is why we called him baldy. One of my fondest memories of Christmas during my childhood was the music that his parents played from outdoor loudspeakers that could be heard throughout the neighborhood. My favorite song was The Little Drummer Boy. I saw Tommy in 2012 at my Aunt Didi's funeral. Another colorful character, who stood out in my mind, was a guy that we called Gaylord Perry after the famous pitcher. I started calling him that and the name caught on. The main thing that I remember about him was that he had huge lips.

In the warmer months we would play ball under the lights at Hattie Cotton elementary school. The park service would turn on the lights and we would play until late at night. These games were for people of all ages. Adults and teenagers would choose up sides and we never had any major problems or fights. I loved those games. The park service also sponsored a youth horseshoe tournament. David Love and myself won second place that year in the 17 year old age division, which was a city wide tournament. He lived in a run-down house on Greenwood Avenue with his parents. David had a younger brother and sister. David's grandmother, grandfather, and two aunts also lived there. I always felt a little sorry for David. His grandfather had hardening of the arteries and he would frequently look like he was having a seizure. His eyes would roll back in his head and he would chew on his tongue. Gus Fowler was always making fun of him.

Davids grandmother was a character. She was skinny and feisty but I liked her a lot. Davids aunts were not that much older than he was. Their names were Linda and Wanda Love. They were attractive and seemed pretty wild to me. One night I walked in the front door at David's house and Wanda, or Linda, I can't remember which one, ran up and surprised me with a big wet open mouth kiss. I believe they were drinking but I would have to count this as my first kiss. You have heard of fifty shades of gray, well I turned fifty shades of red. David's mom was a character also. Gus told me to call her on the phone one day and not say anything. I did and after saying hello several times she said "speak ass, your mouth wont". We thought that was hilarious. The next time I called I recorded her. David was a great friend and an all around good guy. He would join the Marine Corps Reserve and he became a Nashville Metropolitan police officer, retiring after a long career with the police department.

I became close friends with Gus Fowler who lived a street over on Greenwood in a big two story white house. He lived there with his parents, grandmother and older sister. I spent a lot of time at his house and Gus and his family was a source of comfort to me. Mr. Fowler was an ATF or an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agent. He was also a Marine combat veteran of the Pacific theater in World War II. He had actual combat photos from where he had fought on Peleliu, one of the most brutal battles that the Marines fought in the Pacific Islands campaign. When he wore shorts you could see the scars of three bullet holes that ran in a line down his leg where he was shot by a Japanese machine gun. There was always a car or a van in the driveway with out of state tags. These were the days before the explosion of drug use in this country and there was still a lot of moon shine stills. He was what was popularly known as a revenuer in those days and was constantly searching for stills to bust up. Almost every weekend I was at Gus's house. Gus had a room upstairs and I spent many nights at his house during the summer and weekends. There was no bathroom up there and his mother kept a chamber pot as they were called by upper class Southerners. Country people just called them slop jars. We camped out in his backyard nearly year round on weekends and many times during the week in the summer. Gus's daddy had several government issue sleeping bags and this is why we were able to camp out even in the dead of winter.