Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

A .22 caliber bullet can produce a devastating injury to the human brain. I have heard that this is the preferred weapon of mafia hit men because the bullet is of such small caliber and low velocity that it penetrates the head but doesn't create an exit wound. It simply bounces around inside the skull, ravaging the brain in the process. On top of that, daddy was using hollow point bullets. For those who don't know a hollow point makes a small entrance wound and a large exit wound. As a security officer I am supposed to use hollow points because the bullets disintegrate inside the body. Ball ammunition will pass through the body and can hit an innocent person in the line of fire. Police officers also use hollow point ammunition for this reason. So you can imagine what the death scene looked like. Didi told me that the bullets blew my mothers eyeballs out. I am being graphic in order to illustrate the horror that my grandmother encountered when she walked into that bedroom and fo...

   Wednesday January 16, 1963 is a day that will forever be etched into my memory. There have not been too many days since that I have not thought about that day and it's consequences in some form or another. We woke up as usual that morning and dressed for school. Daddy was sitting in the back room facing the kitchen in a rocking chair. He was dressed in his work clothes which were dark pants, a long sleeved white shirt and bow tie. I will never forget the look on his face because he sat there lifeless, expressionless, with eyes staring straight ahead. Much like you might describe a thousand yard stare. The look on his face stopped me in my tracks. As I was walked through the kitchen I paused for just a moment to gaze at him.  I was irritated at mother that morning over something very minor. So minor that I can't remember today what I was mad about. Mother was lying in my bed next to the dining room door. She looked up and told me goodbye as I walked by the foot of the b...

 After daddy tried to kill my mother in late November 1962 she decided to have him committed to the state mental hospital in Nashville. Mother needed the signatures of at least two doctors to commit him. Didi told me that she walked the streets of Nashville looking for doctors willing to sign the papers. I don't know if she was successful. People have asked me over the years why my father decided to kill my mother and no one but daddy could really answer that question. Relatives tried to console me by saying that he was a sick man and wasn't in his right mind. I can accept that. Anyone who would kill their wife and the mother of their children can't be in their right mind. Some have told me that daddy loved mother so much that he couldn't bear going by himself. This is twisted logic to me. That is a heck of a way to show your love for someone. Apparently he didn't love his children that much. He left us orphaned and here to fend for ourselves. Maybe I am being too h...

  After moving to East Nashville I missed my mother terribly. I hardly ever got to see her because she was working so much. I saw her in the morning when I got up for school but I was usually in bed when she came home from work. One Saturday night I was really lonely and I felt an overwhelming need to be with her. I walked to Daniel-Hoppe Rexall drugstore on Gallatin road and used a pay phone to call a taxi. When the taxi arrived I told the driver to take me to our drugstore on Charlotte Avenue. I was very stubborn, some would say hardheaded and I still am. Once I make up my mind to do something I am hell bound to go through with it. Mother relished telling me the story about when she took me to see Dr. Koenig about my hearing. After the examination he told her "He's not hard of hearing he's hard headed".  When I arrived at our store mother was shocked to see me. After I told her how I got there she was angry and told me that she was going to send me right back. She w...

  My grandparents lived at 1300 McKennie Avenue in East Nashville. Granddaddy, mama, Aunt Arda, Didi and her two children Roy and Alton also lived there. Aunt Arda was granddaddy's invalid sister who besides being old, was suffering from a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. We pronounced her name as Aunt Oddy. Now there were four more people living there. Daddy, mother, Mark and myself. Didi was primarily responsible for watching us when mother wasn't there and mama took care of us until Didi got off of work. The house was built probably in the late 1800's or early 1900's and had twelve foot ceilings. Mother, daddy, and Mark were sleeping in the living room. Didi, Roy and Alton were in the front bedroom. Granddaddy and mama slept in a bed in the corner of the dining room and I had a twin bed in the opposite corner. Aunt Arda slept in the only other bedroom on the side of the house that fronted 12th Street.  Our life was chaotic during this phase of our life. Mother wo...

   In the Spring of 1962 mother picked me up from school early one day and as we walked into the front door of our house we noticed pills strewn all over the floor. It looked like someone had taken pills by the handful and had thrown them everywhere. We could hear the sound of moaning coming from the bathroom. Daddy was naked except for a white wife beater tee shirt and he was slumped forward on the toilet. He had attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. Mother asked him several times what kind of pills he had taken. She called an ambulance and they rushed him to the hospital. The pills had affected his brain and at the hospital he was hallucinating. Mother told me that he kept talking about a family of cats living behind a heater in his hospital room. This probably sounds bad what I am going to say but I have always wished that he had died.   When daddy was out of danger he was committed to Madison Sanitarium. It was operated by the Seventh Day Adventists. He was s...

There is something about the month of January. Sometimes I believe that the month of January is a curse on my family. My parents died in January along with my grandmother. I nearly lost my daughter Misty 0n January 7, 2007 and my brother Mark lost his wife Paulette in January. I lost my wife Debbie this January 5th. I haven't experienced this kind of loneliness since my parents died when I was twelve. In January 1963 I had my whole life ahead of me and Debbie would eventually be my salvation. Now looking at the end of my life the family that we created together and our Creator and Lord Jesus Christ, who made it all possible, will be my salvation. The following is an account from my book 1963 - Reflections Of An Uncommon Common Man. It is an account of the events in the months and years prior to my parents death on January 16, 1963 when in the blink of an eye my life changed forever. Our happy world began to crumble around 1960. I can't point to a specific event but ...

It was good to be home even if it was just for a few weeks. I love Tennessee in the late Spring and Oregon can't compare in my book. All too soon my leave was over and my departure date of May 31, 1970 arrived. Orders called for me to fly from Nashville to New York on American Airlines, From there I would fly Pan American to Istanbul with layovers in London and Frankfort. At Istanbul I would change to Turkish Airlines and fly into Adana Turkey, with a layover in Ankara. Adana is the home of Incirlik AFB. There I would process into Tuslog Detachment 93, which would be my duty station for the next year. After processing in at Incirlik I would fly military aircraft to Erhac AFB near Malatya Turkey. This all sounded simple enough to me. My heart was heavy as I packed to leave that morning. Debbie drove me to the airport where I kissed her and Robbie goodbye. I boarded the plane and through my tears I could see Debbie waving from the observation deck while Robbie played near her feet, t...

We spent our first Christmas together as a family that December of 1969. I can't remember much but it was a much happier Christmas than the year before. Robbie was getting older and was doing a lot more. We had two bedrooms but I can't remember a time that his bed wasn't in our room. Many mornings I would wake up with him looking down on us as we slept. He looked so cute standing there with a big smile on his face. Robbie was a good baby and he very seldom cried. He was a big baby and would get very heavy when we were carrying him anywhere. Debbie and I would fight over who was going hold him when we would go shopping but I would usually lose out. In December 1969 I won an award for Security Policeman of the month and was presented with a trophy. About this time our unit transitioned from the F-101 Voodoo to the F-106 Delta Dart. The F-106, unlike the F-101 had a single afterburner. One morning I got off of a midnight shift and had just arrived at our apartment when we had...

  I was promoted to Airmen 1st Class and we were finally able to move to a better apartment. This was in the late Spring and early summer of 1969. Ceronie Robinson told me about the new apartment. He was a Security Policeman on my Flight from Atlanta and we became good friends. Ceronie, his wife Paulette, and their little girl lived a few doors down from us. He gave me rides to and from work when my car wasn't running, which was most of the time. When I first met Ceronie he was driving a Nash Rambler and we were driving near the Base one day when we were pulled over by two Oregon State Troopers. He wasn't doing anything wrong and he wasn't speeding. The troopers made him get out of the car and it was like they were looking for something to ticket him for. They told him to blow his horn but it wasn't working and they gave him a ticket for that. I can't say for sure that these cops pulled him over because he was black but I have never had anything like that happen to ...