CHAPTER 8 - A GROWING FAMILY IN THE AGE OF MALAISE

In May 1979 Debbie's grandmother Grace Brown wanted to sell her 1970 Nash Rambler. It was clean and in great shape since she only drove it on short errands like going to the store or to church. I bought it from her for 500 dollars. A rain storm was moving in about the same time that I bought the car. There was a heavy downpour that lasted for several days. One night after I got off at Colonial I started driving toward our house near Smyrna. In January 1979 we moved from our house in South Nashville since we only had 1,100 square foot house and we moved into our present house that had 1,400 square feet at the time. Over the years we have expanded twice and now have 2000 square feet. As I was driving toward I-24 I learned on the radio that there was flooding near the Bell Road exit and Hickory Hollow mall. This was an understatement because it was raining so hard when I approached the Bell road exit that I could barely see to drive. As you approach Bell road in the east bound lane there is a hill that overlooks a valley. Mill Creek flows through the valley just before the Bell Road exit.

 

 As I topped the hill I saw traffic at a standstill on both sides of the interstate. It was raining so hard I didn't have a clue why traffic was stopped. I thought that there had been a wreck or something. It never occurred to me that Mill Creek had flooded and the water was over the interstate. If I had known this I would have pulled over while I was on the high ground. Instead I drove right into the valley and became stuck in the traffic jam. The rain was so loud that I could barely hear my radio. I jumped out of my car so I could get a better view of what was holding up traffic. To my horror I was completely surrounded by rushing water. The loud noise I was hearing was the rushing water combined with the deluge of rain. It sounded like I was standing next to Niagra Falls. The only thing above water was the asphalt of the interstate that I was standing on. In a panic I jumped back into the car and tried to figure out what I was going to do next. After a couple minutes I stepped out of the car and water was swirling around my feet. If I had been thinking clearly I might have been able to steer on to the shoulder of the road and back all the way up to higher ground. The water was rising so fast I didn't want to take a chance on being swept away. Tarzan couldn't have swam in that water.

I took off running for higher ground and as I was running along the interstate I was looking down on a scene that was surreal. There was a subdivision below me and the houses were half submerged in flood water. It was obvious that people had left in a hurry because the lights were still on in the houses. I could see furniture floating around inside. When I got to the top of the hill I was waving my arms trying to warn people not to go any farther but they ignored me and whizzed right on by. Finally a man pulled over and asked me if I needed help. I told him about the interstate being under water and he asked me if I wanted a ride. After I got in the car he carefully made a u-turn and drove against the traffic down the shoulder of the interstate. Luckily he was also from the Smyrna area. Flooding was everywhere that night and it took us about two hours to get home.

The next morning Debbie and I set out to try to locate my car. The rain finally stopped and the water level had dropped enough that we could safely drive around the Antioch and Hickory Hollow area. The whole area was devastated and cars were lying on their side, upside down, and in every possible position. I looked down Mill creek and it was full of cars that had been swept away. A police officer told me to check a towing company that the city used to remove the flooded cars. He said that my car was probably there. Sure enough I found my car and it was a total loss. It had been under 10 feet of water and was swept into the median. My Rambler was found upside down and I had only owned it for three days. I paid 500 dollars for the car but my insurance company gave me 750 dollars to replace it. The car I bought to replace the car I lost with the insurance money was a piece of junk.

That summer our Security Police unit was sent to Savannah Georgia to pull a joint medivac exercise with our air evacuation medical unit. Our job was to serve as patients. I was excited about going to Savannah because it was such a historic city and I planned to take Debbie and Melanie with me. Melanie was two and Debbie could not bear the thought of leaving her at home. We left the older kids with her sister Judy in Nashville. The motel we found was in a bad part of Savannah. While I was training one day Debbie said that she was propositioned and someone also tried to sell her drugs on the way to breakfast in a nearby restaurant. Otherwise we had a fun time in Savannah. We went to Tybee Island, the riverfront and Ft. Pulaski. One day we drove up to Charleston and went out to Ft. Sumter and drove around Meeting street, King street and the battery. Overall that summer camp was more like a family vacation.

Our primary responsibility, however; was to support our air evacuation squadron. I worked second shift guarding their medical tent and supplies. The day came when our Security Police unit posed as patients in a simulated combat zone. Some of our guys were picked to have head, stomach, chest, arm and leg wounds. They were made out of rubber and looked pretty realistic. I was strapped to a stretcher and waited for the nurses to carry me on to the plane. We had the old C-130 A models and they were sitting on the flight line with their ramps down and the engines running. I hadn't been on a plane since I left the Air Force and I was pretty nervous. The planes were configured to carry stretchers and they were taking off and flying once around the air field. When my time came two flight nurses picked me up and ran in the direction of the plane. About halfway there the nurse behind me screamed in pain and dropped me on my head. Luckily the wooden handles took the brunt of the impact when the stretcher hit the pavement. The nurse that dropped me dislocated her shoulder and had to have surgery after returning to Nashville. I was totally helpless and almost became a real patient. After they determined that I was okay I was again picked up by nurses and hot loaded on to the C-130. My stretcher was placed up high on a rack and locked into place. It was a weird feeling flying flat on my back and unable to move.

As the 1970's came to a close gas prices were high and inflation was on the rise. Because of rising interest rates the real estate business was virtually dead and we were facing economic stagnation. Unemployment was rising because our heavy industries like the steel industry, and the car industry was not prepared for the rise in gas prices and the onset of foreign competition, especially from the Japanese. Then there was the humiliation of our embassy personnel being taken hostage in Iran. It seemed that America was in decline. America was still in a funk over our defeat in Vietnam and the state of our national defense was in a sad shape.

Jimmy Carter gave his famous "Malaise Speech" during the summer of 1979 that seemed to blame the nations problems on the American people rather than his lack of leadership. Thus the title of this chapter (A Growing Family In The Age Of Malaise). According to author Kevin Mattson "Jimmy Carter had grown increasingly convinced that Americans had to face up to the energy crisis, but they only could do this if they faced up to the crisis in their own values." Although I was a Democrat at the time and voted for Carter twice I never wanted to hear my president talk like this. The American Dream was still real to me and I was living it. Little did we know at the time that the 1980's would be a more prosperous decade and we would have a president that would restore faith in America.