IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE - CHAPTER 1

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 daddy started drinking a lot and acting weird. Some drunks are more tolerable than others. You know, the ones who drink themselves into a stupor and pass out in a corner somewhere or they just act silly or happy. Then there are the more obnoxious ones who drown themselves in self pity or they just transform into a monster. Daddy could be the latter. He would feel sorry for himself and he could be mean sometimes. We walked on egg shells around him and stayed out of his way when he was mean. Daddy could also drink so much that he would pass out and be semi comatose for days. He drank so much sometimes that mother was having to fill in for him at the store. Mother would leave us with Donna when she could. Other times we had to stay home with daddy. When daddy bought his booze he would stop at a liquor store on Charlotte Avenue called Wendell Smiths. Or a bootlegger that was on Charlotte Pike near White Bridge Road. If we were with him he would tell us to wait in the car. Usually within a few minutes he would walk out carrying a fifth of whiskey in a brown paper bag. If we asked what it was his standard reply was apple cider. I believe that his choice of booze was Seagrams 7.

People have asked me what caused daddy's behavior and personality to change. I don't know for sure but this is what I believe and what I have been told. He was not only drinking but taking pills and I didn't know this until years later. I have learned over the years that drug addiction is a common problem among pharmacists. This is because of the easy access to drugs. It is also a dangerous combination when you drink and take drugs which helps to explain his erratic behavior. I also learned that daddy never had a license to fill prescriptions. How this happened is a mystery to me. I have heard that during the 1940's it wasn't necessary for a druggist to attend a pharmaceutical school and you could go before a state licensing board to prove your competency. A formal education was not required, but at some point the law was changed and if a person wanted to be a pharmacist he had to go to school. This is what I was told by family members and if it was true daddy was breaking the law. Or it could be that he never had any intention of legally becoming a pharmacist. I am just speculating but this was the South in the 1940's, 50's and early 60's and both of daddy's stores were in black neighborhoods. Maybe he thought he could get away with not having a license to fill prescriptions in black neighborhoods. Who knows? Carolyn told me that he paid a thousand dollars for a fake license and it hung on the wall in the prescription department.

 My sister Donna told me a few years ago that Daddy was also heavily in debt to the IRS. I can see why he felt overwhelmed by it all. He was pushing the envelope. His assistant pharmacist, Dr. Nall, was licensed and I had always heard that he had worked on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge during WW2 building the uranium atomic bomb named "Little Boy" that was dropped on Hiroshima. I remember Dr. Nall as a very distinguished black man and very intelligent with gray hair. It came as as a shock to me in the early 2000's when I found out Dr. Nall had recently passed away. I figured that he had long since died because he had to be in his 50's or early 60's when I knew him. Dr. Nall had to be very old when he died. At least in his 90's. He was the only licensed pharmacist at our store. Daddy was not only unlicensed but he was allowing mother, Aunt Freddie, and Aunt Lillian to fill prescriptions. Mother filled prescriptions regularly. while Freddie and Aunt Lillian helped out from time to time. Aunt Lillian was helping daddy until she had a massive stroke at the age of 43. They could have all gone to prison for this. For years now I have believed that the police knew that he was breaking the law. He was friends with a lot of police officers. One plainclothes detective in particular came into the store on a regular basis. I can't remember his name but after a short conversation daddy and this officer would walk back to the prescription department where I believe Daddy was paying him hush money. I have heard that the Nashville police department was very corrupt in those days and this was a common. 

 I hated the fact that mother had to be away so much. As long as I could remember she had been a stay at home mom but was now having to work at the store all the time. You could definitely call me a mama's boy because I worshiped the ground that she walked on. Between this and daddy's weird behavior I just wanted everything back to normal. One night daddy had been drinking but he wasn't drunk. Just a little buzzed I guess. I laid down beside him on the couch and we began to talk. He was feeling sorry for himself and I took this opportunity to encourage him to get help. I told him that I wanted my old daddy back. Mother and others had asked him to get help but he just kept refusing. I guess when your child comes to you and asks it is different matter. Daddy told me that he would try to change and he tried to live up to his promise for a while. A few days after our conversation he checked himself in to City View sanitarium and was there for about a week drying out. Upon being discharged Daddy seemed to be okay and even went back to work. This lasted for about a month or two until he eventually reverted back to his old habits. A pattern developed because he would fall off of the wagon and after a while he would check into City View to dry out again. 

 One day daddy was very drunk and standing in the kitchen next to our refrigerator. The door to the garage was open and he was standing in the doorway with his back to the garage. He suddenly fell backwards with a loud thud as his head hit the concrete. It was at least a two foot drop from the kitchen to the floor of the garage. The fall would have killed anyone else. I called mother and told her what had happened. She told me to check on him and if he was still breathing just let him sleep it off. Another time I was in my tree house in the backyard while my friend Frankie looked up at me from the ground. I did a really dumb thing and walked out on some long boards that I had nailed to the floor. Without any support I felt them give way as I tried to walk back into my tree house. My body along with the boards came crashing down and I landed flat on my back looking up just in time to see the boards falling over on top of me before I could get out of the way. Frankie said that I was knocked out for a few minutes but if I was I don't remember. When I woke up I had blood running down into my eyes from a small but deep gash in my eyebrow. Daddy was plastered when I reached the house and I can still remember him slumped over in a kitchen chair barely able to hold his head up. 

 Donna was fifteen and only had a learners permit. I needed to go to the hospital but daddy was incoherent when we tried to rouse him. Donna called mother and she told her to drive me to the store so she could take me to the emergency room. She put the car in neutral and let it roll backward out of our driveway and into the street. From there she started the car and drove us to drugstore. Mother was then able to drive me to the emergency room at Baptist Hospital. On another weekend daddy was driving drunk near 17th and Church. He was driving east on Church Street and I was in the passenger seat. Up ahead was a city bus picking up passengers at a bus stop next to an intersection. It was a warm day and I had my arm hanging out of the window. As we neared the bus I realized that daddy was veering to the right. Just in the nick of time I jerked my arm inside the car as he sideswiped the bus. I looked over at him and it was obvious that he had no clue that he had just had an accident. He made a hard turn to the right at the next intersection and sped away. Cars were not equipped with seat belts back then. I guess the Lord was looking out for us.