I delivered newspapers starting around 1960 when I helped my cousin Roy from time to time when I would spend the night some weekends at my grandparents house. After my parents died I had my own paper routes. I delivered papers all up and down Gallatin road from Cahal avenue down to Sharpe and Grenada. For a short while I had a route around Eastland Avenue. I would get up around two or three in the morning to deliver the Nashville Tennessean, which was the morning paper. In the afternoon I delivered the Nashville Banner. The Tennessean was generally considered a mouthpiece of the Democrat Party and the Banner was considered to be a Republican paper. I carried a large cloth bag with a wide strap that I slung over my shoulder. If I needed, depending on the size of the paper, I would carry two bags evenly balanced across each shoulder. On Sunday morning the papers were so big we would have to spot bundles at various points along the route before we started delivery. There was no evening paper on Sunday.
Our papers were dropped off at Company 18 fire hall on Gallatin Road. If I had time I would roll my papers while I talked to the firemen and watch television with them. At other times I would roll my papers as I walked. I came to know the firemen pretty well. They were some of the most foul mouthed men I ever knew. Being a fireman could be a pretty boring job. The men would sit around playing checkers, or be sleeping, cooking, eating, and watching television until the alarm sounded and everything went into high gear. In a matter of minutes they were off on a fire call. It was fun to watch. Later, when I was in the Air Force, when I watched our priority alert flight crews scramble fighters it reminded me of those fire calls at Company 18. One of the men that I came to know was Earl Brown. My wife Debbie's grandmother had been married to him and her name was Grace Brown. When I met Grace she was single but had been married three times. I didn't know that she had been married to Earl until he started seeing Grace again in 1969. Earl was a great guy but would die a few years later of a heart attack.
One weekend I was really wanting to camp out with Gus in his backyard but Didi had grounded me over something I had done. No matter how much I begged, Didi would not change her mind. I was bound and determined to get my way. After going to bed that night I waited until the house was totally quiet and pretty confident that everyone was asleep. I had gone to bed fully dressed and very stealthily I got up and slowly eased my way to the back door. The house was very old and we kept an old fashioned key in the lock. I held my breath as I slowly turned the key waiting for the sound of the lock to disengage. When it opened it I paused to see if anyone had been awakened by the noise. Satisfied that they hadn't, I eased the door open and quietly shut it behind me. I then tiptoed down the steps of our wooden back porch and ran through our backyard to the alley. Thinking I was home free I ran up the alley behind our barn, which was illuminated by a street light on the corner. Just as I reached the corner of our barn near 12th street a cop stepped out from behind the barn and blocked my path.
Many times police officers would park in the shadows of the church parking lot across the street and apparently this officer had watched me leaving the house. I was big for my age and nearly as tall as I am now but I was looking up at this guy and he demanded to know what I was doing. I tried several times to answer him but nothing was coming out of my mouth. My lips were moving but there was no sound because I was so frightened. When I was finally able to talk but I sounded like Mickey Mouse. I told him the truth and didn't try to lie my way out of it. Although I have lied on occasion, which is wrong, I have found that telling the truth causes less pain in the end. If you lie you have to keep lying in order to uphold the first lie. It has been my experience that most police officers appreciate the truth and are more willing to cut you some slack if you level with them. Besides, I have found out that am not a good liar. The officer sternly told me to go back home and if he caught me out again he would not only tell my aunt he would take me to juvenile detention. Somehow I managed to get back in bed without waking anyone up. Didi never knew about this until I told her many years later when I was safe from retribution.
On July 31, 1964 we took a trip to St. Petersburg Florida's Treasure Island. Until then the farthest I had ever been from home was Ft. Knox Kentucky, Memphis, and Florence Alabama. On our way out of Nashville a news bulletin flashed over the radio that country music star Jim Reeves had been killed in a plane crash near Radnor lake. I came to love the music of Jim Reeves before I even started liking country music in 1967. He had a golden voice and it was very smooth. I copied much of my singing style from him. The interstates were under construction then and I-24 ended just past downtown Nashville so we traveled for much of the way on highway 41. We would be on two lane highways for miles and then we would be on interstate for a while and then back on to two lane roads again. You would pass through town after town and many small towns had rest centers set up near the town squares with people volunteering to pass out coffee and snacks to weary travelers. This was also a safety program to help prevent people falling asleep at the wheel. Even a fairly short trip seemed to take forever back then but a long trip to south Florida was very tiring.
Didi's boyfriend Allen Smith, also known as Gig's by the kids and Frog by the adults, drove us down in his car. That was the only way we could go on a trip like that. Didi was a couple of days away from her 37th birthday but she didn't have a license. If she went anywhere by car someone had to drive her there. Nashville had a good bus system so it wasn't hard to get around and she was in walking distance of work. She and Gigs had been dating for years on weekends and sometimes he would come over during the week. He drove her anywhere she wanted to go. Didi wouldn't learn to drive until she was about forty and that was because they were no longer seeing each other. Until that trip I always liked Gigs. I couldn't remember a time that he wasn't in the picture. I had never been around Gigs, however; for more than a few hours. He was always nice to me and generous. Being around him for a whole week was a horse of a different color. Gigs was a lifelong bachelor in his forties and very set in his ways. If there was ever a person afraid to commit it was Gigs. He was not used to being around children for any length of time. We began to butt heads and by the end of the week we were barely speaking to each other.
Comments
Post a Comment