On September 17, 1955 my father Eugene Bradford Powell took me to a Ga. Tech vs. Miami football game at Grant Field in Atlanta. He had picked me up earlier that Saturday morning at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Ga. It was just six days since he had first dropped me off on that hilly North Georgia campus where I had anxiously anticipated spending my sophomore year in high school as a “cadet”.
During the intervening week Daddy had driven alone up to North Carolina to spend some time with family and was on his way back to West Palm Beach. During those few days in uniform my excitement had morphed into a hopelessly desperate case of homesickness.
Arriving at the stadium on the Tech campus, I was crest-fallen when Daddy and I walked up to the ticket window only to be greeted with a small sign: “SOLD OUT, NO TICKETS FOR TODAY’S GAME” What turned out to be the first ever college football game nationally televised in color would, it appeared, also be one that I would never see.
“Don’t worry boy, I’ll be right back.”
Daddy disappeared into a crowd of old gold beanied freshmen in front of a dorm across the street. Soon reappearing in their midst, I saw him nod his head and pull out his wallet……….we only sat in the goal line student section for part of the 1st quarter ……… after Daddy got back from “the men’s room” for the second time, it wasn’t long before an elderly uniformed usher was leading us to two empty seats 8 or 10 rows up on the 40 yard line!
It was a magical day! I think Tech won the game but, at that time and under the circumstances, it made no difference………I was happy, I was with my father, and the world was right.
Late that afternoon we drove back up to Riverside and my father dropped me off again. I don’t believe I cried but it was obvious that I wanted to go back to Nottingham Blvd. and be with my friends from Conniston and Southboro.
My father died 24 years ago today (3/19/94). Every day until that day came, if I had asked him what was the hardest decision he ever had to make in life, his answer would have always been the same …….. “leaving you that night on that north Georgia hill”. But, he was always quick to add that “if I hadn’t it would have ruined you for life!”
This mindset of stick-to-itiveness is what set our parents generation apart and he was so right. Looking back, he always was. … I was 15 years old.
In March of 1986 I packed up my son Robert Eugene Powell and headed off to the Southeast Regional NCAA basketball tournament. The venue for event was the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta.
Bobby was an up-and-coming high school round-baller at Martin County High School and one of the favored teams in the NCAA Regional was my alma mater Ga. Tech. Over the next few days father and son watched Tech be eliminated by LSU, visited my old dorm and fraternity house, cased out the largest city in the South, and even drove up to visit Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville.
The high point of the trip for my son, and what he remembers most to this day, was not the basketball games or site seeing but what he learned from his old man about ticket scalping, bartering, and up-grades. We started out the first day with some of the worst seats in the house and ended up watching LSU defeat Kentucky in the finals from almost courtside. The Alabama fans that chose not to hang around after their team bit the weenie the first day were only too willing to part with tickets for the best seats in the house and an LSU team that, unexpectedly, had made it to the finals had brought half of New Orleans over at the last minute. Those Cajuns certainly knew how to party but they all hit town right before game time and none of them had tickets. “Such a deal I’ve got for you…..!!!”
When it was all said and done, the important thing was all the time that Bobby and I had to spend together. It was truly a magical 3 or 4 days!
Oh! and I almost forgot to tell you……….. Bobby was 15 years old.
Last night I got a call from my son. He lives in Greenville, SC now and he was all excited. Later this week he is taking his oldest son Elias Bradford Powell to the NCAA South Regional basketball tournament at Philips Arena in Atlanta. They have tickets that were purchased on line and my son told me “they aren’t very good but I’m not worried, they’ll get better after the first day”. It sounds like he has a plan.
I’m sure Bobby and my grandson will have a few magical days and, by the way,
profile: definition ....
meaning: 1. a short description of someone's life, work, character, and information about the person's interests and beliefs.
meaning: 2. an outline of that same person's face as it is seen when someone is looking at them from the side. If you see someone in profile, you only see them from one side.
From these two definitions I can only conclude one thing: profiles as such and offered by job seekers, politicians, and aspiring writers, risk falling into very obvious categorical traps ..... they will be hopelessly self-edifying and boldly "two faced"!
To avoid these pitfalls I intend to state an illusion and immediately counter it with the fact. If the latter is too candid or disturbing, just disregard it! This will allow me to come off (in your estimation) as the fine upstanding, clean cut, like-minded, and adventurous elderly gentleman you were hoping for.
Illusion: I'm an accomplished "sailor" and have spent over 50 years routinely putting out to sea, first under canvas and in my latter years with only the diesel iron wind at my back.
Fact: In all of my voyages I've never spent more than eight or nine full nights underway and that was only because, over open water, Walker's Cay was too far from Palm City or Havana from Key West. In reality, as the sun begins to set I'm usually tucked into some snug little cove, the hook set, and an icy drink in my hand. I'm not an accomplished sailor, I'm a fantastic "anchorer"!
Illusion: I'm a semi-talented "writer" that creates interesting characters in situations and settings that, sometimes, move a story along.
Fact: In most cases, I am the "character" and I've already lived the story. Then all I need to do is figure out how to just pretend I'm sitting in some sleazy dive in the Keys after a few beers and start to tell my story to ........ (only problem is: .......... is it “i” before “e” except at sea?)
Illusion: Because I am openly conservative and speak with a Southern drawl, I'm looked upon as a right-wing good-ole-boy that picnics under Confederate monuments, lives and breathes Fox News, drives a gun-racked Ford 150, and wears his "Make America Great Again" hat to bed every night.
Fact: I'm very discouraged with what is going on in Washington in general and at the White House in particular. I supported its current occupant and, seeing what options are shaping up on the horizon, I may be forced to continue doing so but he(and we) could do so much better. Do I have to surrender my judgment and intellect to remain a Republican?
I won't dwell on the President's Smoot-Hawley like policies on trade and tariffs ... time and the markets will be the final arbiters and greed on my part forces me to hope for the best. Needless to say, I endorse his impact on the Judicial Branch of Government and I could care less what next week's "horndog rumor" and accompanying hush-money payoff have in store .... I'll leave that to his poor wife and "Morning Joe"! But I do have one pet peeve: we don't need a $5,000,000,000.00 wall to keep out Guatemalans and their Central American neighbors. They only constitute the latest installment in 4 centuries of migration to our shores and may be the hardest working bunch yet assembled. The hardships they are fleeing are not unlike the pogroms against Jews in the Middle East or the 19th century Irish potato famine. The seemingly demeaning statement of: "how would the roof ever get patched or the grass cut without them?" or a variation thereof has been directed at virtually every American's fore-bearers. Unless you stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock or the swampy landing at Jamestown, there was always somebody "better than you" waiting to curse your arrival ……… or put you in chains.
On the flip side of all of this, and without inserting its own Illusion, we don't need porn starlets and their attorneys being featured on Sunday morning talk shows answering pointed questions from wax haired "contributors" about our Presidents libido! What we do desperately need is a media culture that will demand the resurrection and employment of an old concept ...... news REPORTING! On my home cable TV hookup; Fox News is on channel 44 and MSNBC resides on 42. The Guide tells me that the channel between them ...43 ... is dedicated to financial news but that can't be true. The call letters may be CNBC but, judging from the disparity in the adjacent editorializing, it must be Star Wars! ..... the distance between the adjoining galaxies is so "far, far, away"?
Over the past few months I've become a reluctant, almost incarcerated, soccer fan. The game is played, not with a pitch .... but on one, lasts an hour and a half, and often ends with a score of nil-nil. I endure all this because my sole source of, even remotely, unbiased television news and happenings in the good old USA can be found only on the British Broadcasting Corp ..... go Cardiff City!
Jim Powell
View all posts by atthecampusshop
Jim Powell along with his family, friends, and classmates 