“Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.”  Ayn Rand 

Did any of you ever hear of Charlie Weeks as we were growing up in West Palm Beach?

The answer, for all but a few of us, is a resounding NO! Unless you were raised near the west end of Allendale Rd., down the street from Belvedere Elementary, his name will mean nothing. Sandra Peacock will and the late Nick Coppola would have remembered him only as the old man down at the end of the road that farmed papayas and raised worms.

There is, however, one member of the PBHS Class of “58” that, not only very vividly remembers Mr. Weeks but strives to emulate him on a daily basis.

Charles Julius Becker

Charlie Becker is, by virtue of his upbringing and abiding faith, without a doubt the most demonstrably Christian individual I’ve ever known, but when he reminisces about his youth, any comment or reference he makes on or to Charles Weeks fringes of pagan idolatry.

Charlie Weeks was already 59 years old when he moved to West Palm Beach in 1932. His international recognition in raising poultry and communal agricultural concepts in California had already established him as both a socialistic visionary and an entrepreneurial genius. *(An OVIATT LIBRARY reprint on Charles Weeks is attached below. It will prove a very interesting read for serious scholars and California residents…….there may even be an overlap?)

But hey, let’s get off this “did you know that old man” kick and tell us a story!

Charlie Becker (hereafter referred to only as Becker) ‘s mother taught piano (to, among others, classmate Linda Tyner) while Charles Becker, Sr., (not to be confused with Becker), enjoyed strumming the guitar. The venerable Mr. Weeks played the violin and was also a very religious man … paving the way for a Becker/Weeks weekly get together for prayers and instrumental and vocal renditions of all the old favorite Hymns.

Becker, as a grade-schooler, remembers the Old Rugged Cross and Just a Closer Walk with Thee but what he recalls most vividly about Charlie Weeks were the sunny days spent spear fishing with the old man and his Dad at the Jupiter and Palm Beach Inlets. Even old time Florida crackers knew very little about spear fishing in the 1940s. Charlie Weeks had brought his know-how with him from California and even fashioned a long wooden spear rifle as a gift to Becker’s father. The divers, with Becker tagging along, would not only spear the fish (mostly snook), but go on to build a fire and fry’em up right there on the beach.

Time passes and …”Not far from the oak does the acorn fall” … 1958 and the night of our Junior – Senior Prom. Becker is with the one person whose company he is most familiar and doing what he has learned to enjoy more than anything else … he’s all alone on the brightly lit up little wooden dock at the Palm Beach Inlet on the south side almost where it empties into Lake Worth. He has his 12 volt spot light lowered into the water. They’re all schooled up and he can see them, only 8 or 10 feet down in the clear brine, but they won’t bite. He tries everything–jigs, trolled plugs, feathers, spoons, even live shrimp … dangles them right in front of them but nothing … they just stay there; suspended, facing up into the incoming tide, with their mouths rhythmically opening and closing. But Becker will not be denied. He has learned from his Dad and Charlie Weeks that there’s always a way! He reaches into his tackle box and takes out his secret weapon … a large weighted treble snag hook.

I choose not to quote him verbatim but according to Becker, “you don’t know what a fish fight is until you snatch hook a 15 lb. snook in the ass h…!”

After graduation Becker found the best of all worlds; he hired on at top dollar with RCA Services to track missiles fired from Cape Canaveral and, get this, had to commit to a full year stationed at the ETR Range Tracking Station on Great Sale Cay in the Bahamas … poor Becker, he had become a “Range Rat” with nothing to fill his idle hours but diving and fishing!

I think he liked it so well he re-upped for another year before deciding to, in his words, become a “college boy”. After and uninspiring year at the JC on Congress Ave., Becker became disenchanted (one can only assume this was because of the campus’s lack of proximity to salt water) and got back in touch with RCA.

H.H. ARNOLD at sea off Baja California

The years that followed found Becker shipboard on the H.H. ARNOLD in both the South Atlantic and the Pacific. He was still following missiles but now he was tracking, not their flight path, but where they came down. There was no GPS in those days and guidance systems were still a work in progress. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were pitted against each other in an arms race and RCA Services was contracted to help make sure Uncle Sam won it. What this all boiled down to was Becker, along with the rest of the crew, spent 24/7 figuring out “where they were?”. The equipment on the Arnold enabled these, now floating, Range Rats to determine the location of their ship on the Ocean’s surface to within 15 feet and, thus, be able to confirm that any designated earth-bound warhead splashed down within 75 feet of its pre-programmed target. Oh!, … did I forget to mention … the rocket had probably left the ground some 12,000 miles away.

A couple more years and Becker, like many of the rest of us, soon found his way back to WJNO, Clematis St., and Russo’s Subs. He settled into his bachelor pad on Avon Rd., reunited with his fishing “chums” on the Juno Pier, converted an old beer joint on Lake Ave. into a body-building emporium resulting in the collection of membership fees from a cadre of meathead iron pumpers, and eventually returned to his father’s profession as a dental technician. Somewhere in this time frame Charles Weeks quietly passed away but few took note. He had, once again, become only the old man down at the end of Allendale. His home and papaya farm would soon be cleared away and paved over to make way for I-95 and …

For much of the next half century Becker dedicated his working hours to crafting perfect gold and porcelain bridges and crowns and this quest for perfection overflowed into his personal life.

Carola & Charlie Becker

Becker, now living in Vero Beach, has never been satisfied with “good enough”. He has a wonderful wife that always seems to do what needs to be accomplished and strives to make her marriage, her animals, her home, and especially her husband happy and content. Carola is an actively employed dental assistant that loves to travel and doesn’t mind making the sacrifices and preparations that come with doing so. When it comes to Becker, she gives him the freedom to pursue the ideas for the sometimes questionable, and always time consuming, “projects” that seem to effervesce from his pillow into his brain every night.

Becker’s latest quest involves going back in his memory bank to construct a submersible hand-held catapult from years gone by. He has a nephew in Newbery, FL that frequently fishes for black grouper over 50 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Recently the nephew has encountered fishing lines with only shredded heads when they are brought up from the deep. The culprit(s) is/are Goliath grouper and, according to Becker, the best way to get rid of them is to scuba dive down (only 50 or 60 ft.) and follow the same prescription for the giant predators that his dentist clients routinely prescribe for a patient’s bad wisdom tooth … “cold steel and sunshine!”

Weeks “Model 1942” California spear rifle

To accomplish this feat Becker is, painstakingly and by hand, applying the finishing touches to an exact replica, as he remembers it, of the spear rifle Charlie Weeks made for his father in the 1940s. It is truly a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. He intends to make it a Christmas present for his nephew and Becker is hopeful he’ll be invited out for the required overnight anchorage to witness his handy work in action.

Becker is also blessed with a gift that only an aging father can ever adequately describe …. the pride of having a grown son that he can be proud of! Just “proud of“… that’s all, no other qualification, no other measurement, … nothing else need ever be said!

Shane Becker attending a Palm Beach fundraiser

Shane Becker has been cultivating an expansive list of loyal discerning customers of fine men’s clothing on Worth Ave. in Palm Beach for over 11 years. First with Giorgio Armani and currently at Brioni, Shane has built an international following of “clients” that will do business with no other haberdasher. He has recently returned from a weeklong meeting in Penne, Italy where he received a corporate award for excellence (and gained 5 lbs on the pasta).

Why don’t you drop by and browse around before the holidays–the Single-Breasted Cashmere two-button Blazer Jacket at $7,750 may be a bit pricey but the $425 three-button Jersey Polo Shirt might be just the stocking stuffer you’re looking for?

* Charles Weeks was a visionary in the world of poultry and communal farming. Born on an Indiana farm in 1873, Mr. Weeks grew up with a thorough understanding of farming and farm life. In 1904, Mr. Weeks moved to Los Altos, California with a plan to raise poultry on a ten-acre farm he had purchased there. Unfortunately, due to inadequate water supply, Mr. Weeks’ Los Altos farm was doomed to failure. In 1909, Mr. Weeks moved to a five-acre farm on the outskirts of Palo Alto, California. It was here that he established new methods of raising poultry, concentrating birds into coops. Previous to this time, it was a commonly accepted farming practice to raise chickens in large, space consuming, chicken runs. The “Weeks Poultry Method” of raising poultry in compact houses became so successful that visitors from all over the world began arriving at Mr. Weeks’ farm to study and learn his method. William E. Smythe, a socialist utopian, promoted his vision of independently owned farming communities after visiting. Weeks in turn adopted these ideals and established his own version of a utopian farming community.

In 1916, Mr. Weeks established the “Weeks Poultry Colony,” also known as Runnymead, on land near his Palo Alto farm. With a heavily promoted motto of “one acre and independence,” Mr. Week’s experimental utopian community grew quickly, housing 400 families by 1922. Adding to the success of the colony was his monthly magazine publication called Intensive Little Farm which attracted new buyers to the area and kept the area thriving for years, peaking at over 1,000 citizens by the mid-1920s.

In 1923, Weeks moved out of Northern California and engaged himself in actively promoting a new colony in Owensmouth. He had been invited to the San Fernando Valley by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in 1920 to establish a series of one-acre farms in the area that would emulate the success of his Los Altos “poultry colony.” The colony Mr. Weeks created eventually developed into a small farming community, which actively engaged in uplifting the spirit of its members, and aided in the social, intellectual and artistic enlightenment of the region.

Unfortunately, the Great Depression and the dramatic downturn of the Los Angeles economy drastically affected both the Owensmouth and Runnymead communities. By 1932, many of the farms faced bankruptcy and Mr. Weeks himself lost almost everything. With the failure of the poultry colonies, Mr. Weeks relocated to Florida, where he lived out the remainder of his life growing papayas, raising fishing worms and skin diving. Charles Weeks died in Florida in 1964 but the impact of his communal experiment can still be seen in some areas of both Palo Alto and Winnetka.

    

Charles Weeks (1927 in California)

The Miller Lite can was not moving now but it soon would and when it did the life or death struggle that had occupied my attention for the past few hours would start up again.

The spider had hitched a ride by hiding in the lazy jack halyards and, after a couple of days at sea, had decided to come out. He was a frail “daddy long legs” type no bigger than a quarter with no apparent markings–just a spider. The insect’s worthy opponent was now a slowly sun warming unopened can of beer. But then it hadn’t always been this way. I had just increased the odds against my delicate friend by creating a Lilliputian aluminum juggernaut.

Sailing in light air is never much fun and today was no exception. Single handed and off South Beach, the wind had died as always happens near noon this time of year. What had been a perfect morning on a southbound beam reach with the rail almost in the water had turned into total boredom. The sun was bearing down and the east wind had all but died. With nothing to bend them, the tan bark sails on my old cutter began to look and act like drying laundry. The jib and footed staysail just draped off their wires and the boom and main helplessly flopped back and forth from port to starboard as the onshore ocean swells came under the keel, rocked the boat, and headed for the beach.

Might as well get some music on the radio … I was your hero and you were my leading lady, We had it all, Just like Bogie and Bacall … Popping open a beer and dragging out my binoculars, I zoomed in on the shoreline. No topless women or even bikinis, hardly anyone–only sand, palm trees, small abandoned graffiti spattered art deco hotels, and the occasional police car. Then I remembered the last time I had visited the area I was looking at.

The conference I was attending had been at the Doral but what was a visit to Miami without dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab? The restaurant’s location was somewhere on South Beach and the food was exceptional but what I remember most was having to slip the twenty dollar bill to the guy in the tux to even get seated and the bazaar security personnel in the parking lot across the street. Crime had gotten so bad on Miami Beach that a detachment of red bereted Guardian Angels had recently taken leave from the New York subways to protect unsuspecting tourist in Florida. “If they weren’t here, neither would your car be after dinner,” I was warned.

That was a few years ago but it looks like things haven’t changed. There still was no wind and the boat just rocked from side to side as the seas rolled in. Couldn’t let myself drift too close to the beach.

Finishing the beer, I thoughtlessly tossed the empty can over onto the cockpit seat just under the pin rail. The rail is where the ropes that work the sails are coiled and hung to keep the aft section of boat from looking like a bowl of spaghetti. One of the lines had dropped a loose end down and just as I was reaching to put it back on the pin, I saw him. There was my passenger, on the fiberglass surface of the seat but hiding in the shadow of the rope. Just then another wave passed under the boat and she began a gentle roll and so did the empty beer can–right toward the tailing of the rope and my unsuspecting miniature stowaway.

The song on the radio was ending but the saga of the rolling can and the spider was showing potential for short-term boredom relief so I just sat back down, propped my feet up, hung my arm over the tiller and waited … Starring in our old late, late show, Sailing away to Key Largo…

As I watched, the spider began to move out from the shadow and toward the end of the rope lying on seat. He paused at the end and then made a quick move into the open. His target was a tiny black ant and to reach his quarry required a dash of 6 or 8 inches and then a return to gain the perceived safety of the underside of the rope. On his first attempt he seemed hesitant and scurried back before even reaching the ant. His second run looked promising but just as he seemed ready to close in for the kill; the empty can began to move with the rolling deck and soon was racing toward him. The spider, we can only assume, sensing the danger–rushed back to the protection of the backside of the rope. The can, being empty and so light, careened off the rope as it jumped right over the hunter and rolled to the other side.

The lighthouse on Key Biscayne was getting closer. When the wind picks back up this afternoon, I’ll have no trouble getting into the Bay and setting the hook off Elliot or maybe even Arsenicker Key.

A short-lived zephyr of wind took my mind off the spider and the beer can for a half hour or so but soon the breeze died again and when I glanced down the hunt was back on. This time the roll of the boat to port made the empty can reverse its course and roll back in the opposite direction just as “Hairy” (I had named him for the situation he was in) was making another run. The same result: spider tip-toes out, can begins to roll, spider runs back, can rolls over or misses rope end, spider waits a little while and then tries again. I don’t think the ant was still there but no one told Hairy.

Then the unexpected happened. Whether he got careless or just didn’t care, I’ll never know, but the can began to roll from starboard and the spider made no effort to hide. Hairy was in the open and the cylinder rolled right over him. My first thought was back to grade school and the old rhyme about ooey gooey, the worm on the railroad tracks, but before I could plan for a burial at sea, Hairy was lifting himself up and ambling on back to the rope. The empty can was too light and no challenge for my new crew.

Now the rules of the game had changed. This time I took two cool ones out of the ice chest and, hearing my new favorite lyrics once again on the radio, turned up the sound, popped one, laid the other can unopened on the seat, reclined against the transom and waited for the next roll of the sea … Here’s lookin’ at you kid, Missing all the things we did, We can find it once again, I know, Just like they did in Key …

Maybe it was the brutal coldness of the new challenger or the vibrations and its heavier rolling noise but the difference in Hairy was evident immediately. The air had picked back up a little making the side-to-side roll of the deck less regular. The, now warming, gravity bound sinister container was temporarily motionless and hanging out near the starboard rail. The first few times the swells resumed, and the saga continued, the roll of the can was slow and measured. Often the moving stalker never reached the dangling rope or, if it did, it would abruptly halt when it came to rest against it. When the path of the rolling menace missed the woven obstacle and the insect, now mostly hiding, it would travel on over to port and then immediately return.

Just when I was starting to think that Hairy had acquired some innate wisdom, a gust of wind came from the east, the fluid filled metallic assassin bounced off the port side and the spider decided to leave his sanctuary. The now full mainsail and rapid heel of the boat virtually hurled the heavy can back toward the leeward rail and a fully exposed eight legged pedestrian.

My next beer foamed a lot, was not as cold as I like, and the outside of the can was a little slipperier than usual.

If you don’t mind, I would like to be included in the nerds grouping for purposes of mention in the up-coming chronicle on the Class of “58”. To qualify for this assembly I offer a rambling of seemingly unrelated instances and observations that have convinced me to make this request.

Nothing can prove more detrimental to the long term financial success and overall happiness of a young man than to be “popular” at an early age. This is especially true if this popularity results from achievement in athletics.

In the United States today few people are held up as male role models more often than NFL, NBA, or Major League professional athletes. As early as middle school you hear coaches and spectators refer to a promising player’s chances “at the next level”. It is particularly disturbing when you read in the newspaper that a star high school running back has signed with a certain university because “Coach Smith promised me I wouldn’t be switched to defensive back and the team would be on nationwide TV three times my freshman year”! Presumably, this would aid in his chances to get to the “next level”.

With this mindset and without regard to such campus distractions as English Lit or Calculus, the next level will almost always be outside of professional sports and very disappointing. In 1996 the Florida Gators won the National College Football Championship. In 2006 a researcher tracked down all but a few of the team members to document a “Where are they and what are they doing now?” magazine article. Not to disparage anyone’s occupation but if you eliminated sanitary workers, prison guards, used car salesmen and the temporarily unemployed from the list you would not be able to field a team for the “old timers game”.

Things were different when I went off to college in 1958 but not that much different. As a scholarship football player at Georgia Tech I had achieved, in my estimation, the pinnacle of success by being given the opportunity to gain a degree in engineering without having to pay for it. There was no “next level”. The NFL was a shadow of what it is today and when I graduated in 1963 my pay for my first job at Lockheed was almost as much as my junior year roommate, Joe Auer, earned in his rookie season with the Buffalo Bills.

By 1966 I had been back in WPB working in the family produce business for over two years and Joe Auer was traded to the newly created Miami Dolphins. One night, during the first week or two of two-a-day practices at St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, I visited Joe in one of the dorms and had my first “what do you do?” questionings by guys at the next level. By this time pro football player’s pay had increased but so had the insecurity that came with the nightly visits from the “Turk” (the coach designated to notify individual players when they had been cut from the team). When Joe introduced me as his friend in the fruit and vegetable business I was surrounded by his teammates wanting to know what I did and if it might be something they could do after……………you know……….the “Turk”……….

               

Against the Oakland Raiders, Joe Auer ran the opening kick-off of the Miami Dolphin’s first ever game back for a 95 yard touchdown and was the team MVP in 1966. He retired from football a few years later and after two ill-fated investments in the NASCAR arena he disappeared; I guess he’s at the next level?

Over the next 27 years I pretty much lost contact with my teammates from Tech but I had learned that of the 28 guys on my freshman squad, 2 had killed themselves and one had been committed to a mental institution.

It was with this backdrop that I went to the Georgia Tech Homecoming in 1993. I had been much closer to my fraternity (Phi Delta Theta) brothers than to the other jocks at Tech. The “T Club” was an elaborate Greek like social club set up by the Athletic Director for athletes. Membership had only two requirements: 1) be the recipient of a varsity letter and 2) pay a one time $5 initiation fee. I could never justify the expenditure.

I have forgotten most of those three or four days in Atlanta but on Saturday morning before the Homecoming football game I was in the fraternity house with a group of brothers including Senator Sam Nunn. It was while I was talking with Sam and a Federal Reserve banker friend of his that someone tapped me on the shoulder to tell me that a bunch of my teammates were down in the basement level of the parking garage across the street and that I “should come on down”. The Phi-Delt house is on a small hill above the parking garage and to get to where my beer drinking gridiron comrades were tail-gating required me to go down a series of stairs to the “next level”. One of the first question I was asked was….you guessed it……what do you do? Tech was primarily an engineering school but there was a School of Industrial Management and, since this was the discipline of least resistance, most jocks gravitated to it. When I returned their queries and asked about their current employment, I seem to remember the “between jobs” position mentioned frequently.

Every one of the men in that parking garage, myself included, had been one of the most popular boys in their high school class. Every one of those men, me included, had been coddled and pampered by an adoring society that emphasized only what seemed important at the moment; the ability to break a tackle or catch a forward pass. As teenagers we were extremely popular and continually assured that this ability would always enable us to get to life’s next level.

I don’t want to come off as an elitist, but a walk of a few yards and a decent of 40 or 50 feet had taken me from a world of men who had been, and continued to be, achievers to a group of guys that had, for the most part, reached the zenith of their lives in their early twenties.

At the risk of alienating some of my old Wildcat and Yellow Jacket teammates, I would like to make this seemingly selfish request. On the hunch that I’ll be much happier at a 2013 reunion banquet table with a group of fellow nerds please allow me to rise to             ………………..THE NEXT LEVEL.

Jim Powell

Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary. It was not very elaborate and certainly not exciting. We met with two of our grown grandsons, the only family currently in town, for a quiet dinner at a local steak house and talked mostly about them and their plans going forward. At my age, “quiet and not exciting” is just the way things are.

The upside of life as I approach 80 years of age is that I have a lot of time to “reflect”. To help me in this endeavor I have begun to read more and to look back at points in my life that have led me to where, and with whom, I am today.

Bare with me…….I’ll get there.

In mid-December of 1957 there was a high school basketball game between Palm Beach High and St. Ann’s. Both student bodies knew the others and there was little doubt as to who would win the competition so after the game many of the players and fans hung around in the little walled patio just outside the entrance to the old gym on Iris St. After showering I gravitated with the other Wildcats to the group and ended up striking up a conversation with a cute sophomore Crusader co-ed with world class dimples. Within a few days I had called her and we had our first date.

I had known Dee Conklin from seeing her at the Lido Beach over the summers but had it not been for that chance encounter…….

We’ve all  heard phrases and references regarding “the road not taken”. They usually revolve around various regrets and another pair of words; “what if ?” But let’s accentuate the positive………had it not been for that one decision a 15 year old girl made to hang around after the game………

I’m back……..

I take a lot of naps these days. I find that it’s easier to justify laying down in the middle of the day if I tell my wife that I’m just going upstairs to read. My current literary pursuit is the Classics I’ve never read. I’m midway through Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and I have stumbled on a passage that should be remembered and quoted even more than “It was the best of times, it was the worst……….”

Along the lines of important turning points in our lives and the importance of a single day and happening; Mr. Dickens reflects in the closing paragraph of Chapter 9…..

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

I generally keep my eyes open for only a few minutes before dozing off and sometimes I’m even rewarded with a pleasant dream of years gone by. Maybe there’ll be a pair of dimples in the one this afternoon…..

Jim Powell

newly weds (Atlanta – 1962)

We all know better than to discuss politics with anyone other than those that, you feel assured, are of exactly the same persuasion as yourself. We all know this but some of us do it anyway.

Over the years I have found that my most stimulating and substantive conversational exchanges have been those that center around an upcoming national election. These were not “you betcha, me toos” with a can of Budweiser in my hand in front of the 7-Eleven with my foot on the front bumper of my gun-racked Ford 150. They were not quiet chats with a group of ivy league academics in a hotel lobby during some scholarly symposium. No, what they were and what they continue to be, was/is that rare instance in life when you encounter someone with above average intelligence that just happens to agree with few, if any, of your strongly held political beliefs and has no qualms about challenging them.

The most memorable of these individuals was a gentleman named Ray Birdsong. Ray was the husband of Roni Burkhardt, a Conniston Jr. High classmate until the 9th grade and my wife’s first cousin. The Birdsongs lived in Virginia Beach, VA where Ray was a professor of ichthyology (fish science) at Old Dominion. Ray was a dyed in the wool liberal that could match every well founded, undeniable, bullet proof right-wing truism I might come up with with an even better one out of left field. On one occasion, in frustration, I pulled from my wallet and handed to Ray a small laminated card that was inscribed with a single sentence that, for years, I considered my “political mantra”.

There is a fundamental difference between taxing an individual to pay for the legitimate expenses of government and taxing an individual to redistribute his income to others in exchange for votes!

Ray read the card, smiled, and grinning at me replied: “That depends on who determines the legitimate expenses of government.”

I don’t carry the card anymore and Ray passed away at an early age. My political thinking has moderated somewhat over the years but I’ll never forget Ray Birdsong and something he told me over a glass of wine and after we had both expressed our misgivings about the poor choices being offered on election day by both Democrats and Republicans. According to Ray……….

“The mere fact that an individual would subject themselves to the personal ridicule that accompanies the pursuit of public office should indicate such a character flaw as to make them totally unqualified for the job!”

Looking ahead to November; I may be getting a new card for my wallet ………….

Jim Powell

No Bobby, I didn’t fly up here to be entertained. Like I told you when you picked me up yesterday at the airport; I just want to tag along with you and the boys the entire time I’m here in Greenville. Just pretend I’m not here………we’ve already dropped off Eli, Luke, and Jesse at school and it’s my first full day in town…….what’s next?”

Sitting behind the wheel, at a red light, my son just looked at me and smiled.

“You may want to re-think that plan Daddy. It’s a nice day, not a cloud in the sky, but it’s also the first Wednesday of the month and that means that it’s one of my route days. You said something about maybe driving up to Horse Shoe to visit your cousin and go by the old cemetery…….this morning might be a good time because that or anything else you could come up with would be more exciting than spending the next few hours with me. You can take Karyn’s SUV and we can hook back up around lunch time after I’ve finished making my rounds.”

“What do you mean ….rounds?”

Grinning; Bobby said: “I’ve gotta go to work this morning”.

What did he mean? Unless my son had picked up some new part-time job; I was confused. Bobby earns his living working with me in tax liens and the only schedule we have is seasonal, conducted virtually entirely on-line, and dictated by State statutes. Nothing is going on during the month of October.

“Meals on wheels….. I’ve got a Meals-on-Wheels route and today is one of my delivery days.”

        “out front and in the kitchen at Meals-on-Wheels”

    Bobby didn’t mention Tom Sawyer, he didn’t ask me to pay him for the privilege, I never picked up a paint brush, and Aunt Polly’s fence never came into play (don’t you just hate would be writers that insert seemingly totally unrelated classical literary blurbs into the mix!) ……… but here I was begging to help with his work and hoping it could last all day

“We just call her “Tiki”. You have to call her on the phone and tell her you’re parked out front; she never answers the door bell. She probably can’t get through to the front door…..I’ve heard she’s a real pack-rat but it doesn’t make any difference, she’ll come out the back door and meet us at the fence along the side of the house. She’s a real sweetheart but won’t talk much…. come on, I’ll introduce you.”

An elderly lady in bedroom slippers and a rather tattered house coat materialized from behind a pile of black plastic bags and cardboard boxes near the back corner of the house. I’m not real good at describing female appearances….. so let’s fall back on that old Southern standby and just say she looked like she “wasn’t expecting company”.

“Bobby tells me everyone calls you Tiki. If you don’t mind me asking ……..what’s your real name?”

“Martha”

I can’t describe the beam on her face when I told her that my girlfriend when I was 10 years old had the same name and was almost as beautiful as she was ….. I even asked her if she had “ever gone roller skating” (a private question on my part that will make only one person smile).

Afraid that his Daddy was trying to strike up some sort of December/December romance; Bobby soon had me back in the car and dropping off more meals. I questioned my son about each stop as we made our way along the streets of Greenville. He told me that, at many of the addresses on his route, the only person he even had any contact with was a caregiver because some of the people were bedridden and many were in wheelchairs.

Approaching our next-to-last stop, Bobby looks at me and says……..

“You spend a lot of time writing stories about people you meet. Our next stop is an old guy that has plenty of them to tell. They’re interesting enough but I’ve heard most of them two or three times and have to cut him short and literally run to get away. Why don’t you take his spaghetti, and I think he gets a milk, up to the door. Remember, he’ll talk all day if you give him half a chance.”

   Mr. Austin came out his front door to meet me in the yard. I introduced myself and told him right up front: “I understand you have some very interesting stories to tell and I wish I had more time to hear them but we’ve got hungry people waiting and we don’t want the food to get cold. I tell you what…….what’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to you? Or, maybe, what’s your favorite story, true or false but true would be better, that you love to tell a stranger? Without hesitation, Mr. Austin began telling me that, as a young man, he had been stationed in England working in Military Intelligence and had been involved in, using his words, ‘let’s just call it liaison with the Royal Family’.”

No! No!……., thinking to myself, Mr. Austin must have taken my comment about “True or False” seriously and I wasn’t going to get suckered into even pretending to listen to this tall tale……..”I tell you what Mr. Austin; Bobby and I have to get on down the road but I’ll get back in touch with you. I’ve got some high school classmates that really get into stories like yours so I’ll …………”

Bobby and I finished his deliveries ……… the next few days were wonderful …… watching my grandsons’ baseball and football games, driving back over to Charlotte in a rental car, spending the night with Bob Thurbon and his lovely wife Ellen; then flying back to WPB.

Yesterday I got an e-mail forwarded to me by my son………..

——– Forwarded Message ——–

Subject:	GVL:2507 Meals on Wheels volunteers
Date:	Wed, 17 Oct 2018 17:02:58 +0000
From:	Taffy Odom <todom@mowgvl.org>
To:	bobpowell33@gmail.com

Good afternoon. We wanted to let you know that a client on your Meals on Wheels route passed away. His name is Mr. Carl Austin and he lives on Henderson Road. Mr. Austin has been a client since March 2017. Thank you for serving Mr. Austin and all of the clients on your route. We couldn’t do it without you!

If you are the corporate coordinator for this route please pass this to all who may have delivered it.

Taffy Odom,   Delivery Coordinator

15 Oregon Street,   Greenville, SC 29605

Phone: 864.233.6565,   Fax: 864.235.1264

 

Going on-line, there was a big surprise in the fine print of an Obituary in The Greenville News!
Greenville – Homer Carl Austin, 83, widower of Daisy Frances Galloway Austin, passed away October 13, 2018.
A native of Pelzer, he was a son of the late Homer Frederick and Ella Mae Crome Austin, a retired employee of Her Majesty……….

Funeral service

Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018,   2:00 PM,   The Wood Mortuary, Inc.

300 West Poinsett Street,   Greer, SC 29650

I wish I had told Bobby to go on, finish up his route and come back for me later. It might have been your typical “old man reminiscence” story but, then again, it might not have been? Just thinking about it…….if your father could come back from the grave and be standing around in the front yard; would you hang around for a few more minutes to hear ……… or, more importantly,…… to ask?

Jim Powell

Cross Bars                 girls didn’t have’em

T.t..s                            some girls did            have’em

Project Kids                C.L. Crider and Nevin Compton were two I remember. They got to come to school (Southboro) barefoot, bring their lunch in a brown paper bag, and liked to eat guavas. They were also the best athletes and all the girls loved them. None of the above applied to me.

Punch Boards            The 1940’s equivalent of a game boy (on the bars in local beer joints). Later on; girls that hung out at the Cat Cave.

Play Period                 before we had Recess, PE, phys-ed etc. My second best subject in elementary school.

Keeps to Right when passing                      my best subject in elementary school.

40 cents a week            amount my customers paid me to deliver the Miami Herald every day of the week plus a visit on Friday or Saturday to “collect”!

Rubber Machines            For years I thought they held up the walls in truck stop men’s rooms.

Mysterious ring on your leather wallet            what you got when you stopped believing the previous. (but might just as well have)

I love you. Do you love me?                 words on the little heart shaped Valentines Day cards….it was a multiple choice question   Yes (   )          No (   )     Maybe (   )

Silver ID Bracelet            A gift from my mother I wore for only one week after Christmas in 1955…fell in love, gave it to a girl. Susie Kennedy have you still got it? If so maybe …

Board Up            what we did before a hurricane because we didn’t have TV or store bought bottled water and we didn’t know how to “Hunker Down”

Dirty Words               painted under the bridges and overpasses……….you knew they were dirty, you just didn’t know why?

Savings Stamps            At the post office or even in the classroom: purchase over time, then lick and paste 188 ten cent or 75 twenty-five cent individual stamps in a little book then exchange your book for a $25, 10 year Savings Bond.

Christmas Clubs            Always a bank favorite; you get in your car and drive downtown, deposit 5 dollars each week for 50 weeks, then in December the bank gives you your $250 back to go shopping (or buy a bridge – your choice).

Nowalayme            first word every night at bedtime

Test Pattern            it had an Indian in the center circle and seemed to last forever

Mi-am-a            the big town down US 1

Ra-vear-a          the not so big a town (especially when the bluefish were running) up US 1

The Range Line            State Road 7

Shelby Road               now Forrest Hill Blvd west of the Seaboard RR

Judge Chillingsworth             we were sure he was buried under the Jai-Alai fronton front wall?

Shuey’s            the restaurant on the north side of the old US 1 Bridge at Jupiter

Brylcreem            a little dab never did me

The Glades            the whole world west of Sandy Campbell’s father’s church

Miami,… Daily,… News,… Paper……………Daily,… News,… Paper              The timeless and immortal words the old crippled gentleman would beseech us with beside his wife outside Morrison’s Cafeteria on Sunday after church.

Gotta go now! Coffee is perking and my wife just told me to “go get the newspapers”. But I do have an announcement to make:

Tell all of my old football coaches, here and in Heaven, that I am finally a better player than all of those guys on all of the other teams that I ever played against. I can never forget that no matter who my coach was or whether it was Jr. High, PBHS, or college – we always got the same “pep-talk” before facing a particularly fierce opponent. At Conniston it was before the Palm Bowl when we would face the All Stars. As a Wildcat it came before we got walloped by Miami High or Edison, and at Georgia Tech I got the same advice from Bobby Dodd before facing Bear Bryant’s boys at Alabama …

“Just remember; they put their pants on one leg at a time just like you do!”  

Here lately I find it all but impossible to balance on one leg, so I just sit down on the toilet, fit my feet into both legs of my trousers, then stand before pulling them up. Coach, I have finally arrived! Now if I could only still remember how to pee standing up, I could be “ALL AMERICAN”.

 

What do Shirley Reasoner, Bob & Theresa Halliday, Duane West, Billy Wilkinson, and Bob Thurbon all have in common other than being members of greatest High School graduating class of all time?

They seldom, if ever, come in contact with each other. Their educational, military, geographical, political, religious and professional histories, opinions and circumstances lack any discernible similarities. If all five parties were put into a social setting together, say a large cocktail party or church gathering, they would probably leave the event without ever realizing that some of those other old farts used to hang out “on the hill”.

This is definitely not the case. Unbeknownst to them, these classmates and their spouses share a very intimate, unforgettable, and probably somewhat unsavory life experience. This happening was not from years ago and there will be no hint of its ever occurring found in the scribblings in our 1958 Year Book. No … the shared experience these Wildcats have is that each of them has been imposed upon by the Master Parasitus.

Once entry into your home is achieved, either by subterfuge or pleading poverty, Jim Powell makes himself right “at home”. He will, invariably, seek out your favorite easy chair and, as he reclines to relax, kick off his low-budget shoes and flex his bare feet. He always arrives around 5:00 PM just in time to be offered free libations and assurances that a good restaurant is nearby. After he begins to quench his thirst, he proceeds to pontificate. This man can really talk. He can talk and talk and talk and talk some more. Any comments or topics presented by Jim’s host or hostess most often are limited by–what’s the old saying? … can’t get one in edgewise.

Jim Powell has a memory that transcends the ages–everything you wished you could forget, he remembers and drags out of the woodwork. He laughingly tells your husband, in graphic detail, why a boyfriend, he never knew you dated, was nick-named “Stud” … then, still addressing the man of the house but winking at you, asks him if he ever got “rid of that itchy, penicillin resistant, reoccurring rash?” It doesn’t take you long to start telling Jim how early you and your spouse retire for the evening and that the best restaurants “fill up fast this time of year.”–anything to get him to put his shoes back on, change the topics of conversation, and out of the house. Maybe public surroundings will temper his recollections …

Naturally, after entertaining and feeding him, it would be rather rude not to offer Jim a place to lay his head for the night. Realizing that this would be a significant imposition on a person he hasn’t seen in, perhaps, years … he surely wouldn’t accept the invitation.

Wrong again!

I want to thank Shirley, Bob & Theresa, Duane, Billy, Bob Thurbon and any of my other classmates, including Connie Berry & Truman that I have targeted for my home invasion tactics over the past few years. I want to especially express my appreciation to those individuals in each household that have been exposed to, and had to contend with, the only truly memorable and symbolic last impression Jim Powell has ever left behind when he departs, sometimes before dawn, the next morning.

What do you think? … You think he just forgot? … You think he even knows how?

Maybe he’ll send flowers or at least a “Thank You” card … Nah–never happen.

Like many of you, I am having a hard time reconciling what I am reading in the newspapers about the crusade sweeping the Nation to tear down statues throughout the South. I am writing this letter primarily out of frustration and directing it more to my children and grandchildren than to the PBHS Class of “58”. These words are not a political statement but a humble attempt to illustrate what a white boy raised in the 40’s and 50’s in a State in the old Confederacy is faced with today.

I didn’t pay any attention to the hardships placed on “colored people” when I was growing up. “Colored Seat from Rear” signs on public buses and separate water fountains and rest rooms were all I ever knew. I was taught by my parents to never use the “N word” but, let’s face it, as children we all made at least one verbal arbitrary selection starting with the words… eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a …

Segregation supposedly ended in the 1960’s even in the deep South but we all know it didn’t happen overnight. It took time to make adjustments and come to certain realizations, some of them very personal in nature. My “moment of truth” came in the fall of 1964 at the Palmview Elementary School in West Palm Beach.

I had returned with my wife from Atlanta to work in the family wholesale produce business and public school cafeterias were a key part of our customer base. Palmview was on 11th Street near Sapodilla and all of its students were destined to move on to Roosevelt Jr. and Sr. High Schools. While making a sales call on the lunch room manager I was asked if I would mind helping out in the school book room. The request was unusual but seemed urgent and genuine so I agreed to pitch in. The room was where text books for the upcoming school year were sorted and staged for the incoming students. Classes were scheduled to start the next day and there was still a lot of work to be done. As things turned out, if this had been the “book room” at Northboro, Southboro, Palmetto, West Gate, or Central Elementary there would have been little or no work required at all. At these all white schools many of the text books would be brand new and would be placed in their unopened boxes in each classroom for the teachers to hand out on opening day. The ones that were not new would all be in excellent condition and only defaced by the previous years student’s name inside the front cover.

I learned that day that Palmview and all the other “Colored Schools” in Palm Beach County received virtually all of their text books as used “selected hand-me-downs from other schools.” These texts were in a variety of conditions ranging from marginal to worthless. They were scribbled in, scratched out, food stained, and many had missing pages.

I spent the better part of the day whiting-out, erasing, replacing and sorting this collection of printed cast-offs. When I left the building I realized that, not only, had I probably secured the Palmview produce account for years to come but that the concept of “separate but equal” was a bunch of hog wash and I would do everything I could for the rest of my life to change it!

I have lived up to this aspiration but I will not turn my back on my heritage or my ancestry. I am a 21st Century son of the South. I am a Christian that respects the beliefs of Jews, Muslims, and people of all other faiths or no faith at all. Along these lines I want to share with all of you a little of my family history. The first consist of two letters written by a young man named Eli Setser to his family in Caldwell County (Lenoir), NC in 1862. I ask you to pay particular attention to his reference to James Bradford in his second letter. James Bradford was my father’s great grandfather. Both I and my deceased brother Brad are/were named after him. After his death from an infected thumb his father Hosea Bradford (then 58 years old) traveled from North Carolina to Petersburg, VA and enlisted in the same North Carolina 26th Infantry to replace his dead son.

To my knowledge, none of the Bradfords owned any slaves and why they were so committed to the cause of the Confederacy I have no idea. I have no idea but they were not alone in their dedication to their home State. North Carolina furnished roughly one-sixth of the entire Confederate Army and at the surrender at Appomattox, one-half of the muskets stacked were from North Carolina. The Old North State sent at least 125,000 soldiers into combat and more than 40,000 perished, which was roughly one-third of North Carolina’s army. North Carolina deaths were more than twice the percentage sustained by the soldiers from any other state.

To memorialize the sacrifice made by its native sons, the State of North Carolina erected a monument in front of the Capital Building in Raleigh. The statue is not to the lost cause of the Confederacy. It is not to honor some politician or general. It makes no attempt to justify any aspect of succession or the War between the States. The only words inscribed on the memorial ………..TO OUR CONFEDERATE DEAD.

On Sunday afternoon, August 6, 2017 I visited this monument with my grandson Jesse Powell. My only words to him were “I want you to remember what you have seen here in Raleigh today because it probably won’t be here much longer.”

I hope I’m wrong. I hope one of those children that opened a cleaned up and whited-out text book at Palmview Elementary years ago will realize as an old man or women that tolerance should be a two way street. I am grateful for the patience the average African-American has shown in giving white Southerners the years needed to change the ways of the world we were born into. Thank you for cleaning up my life’s text book but please don’t ask me to tear out the pages. Some of them are very dear to me.

Jim Powell

Letters from the front around Richmond back to North Carolina:

June the 28th 1862

Dear father and mother, brothers and Sisters, i now take the pleasure of Riting you a few lines to let you now that i am well at this time, and hope thees few lines may find you ingoying the Same State of health.

i have no nuse to Rite to you. we have moved since i Rote to you before. we ar staying in about four miles from Richmond. our Brigade is on Picket now. we have had Some very hard Skermish fights Sinch we have been heer. their was severl kild and wonded in our Regment, but non in our compney. We was on picket yesterday. we wer in one hunderd yards of the yankes all day yesterday. i am perty surtain that i kild a yankey. they ar skermish fighting a going on now. i will haft to stop Riting now for the want of time. i want you to Rite to me as Soon as you git this leter, and Direct your leter to Richmond va in the care of Colonel Vance, Comp F 26 Reg NC troops.

i think their will Bee a larg fight hear in a day ar too. their is Something about two hunderd thousand men heer and more a coming evry day.

1. E. Setser

[editor] Three days after Eli wrote the letter above the 26th N.C. participated in Lee’s ill conceived attack at Malvern Hill, suffering about 80 casualties. The Regiment moved to Drewry’s Bluff on July 7.

Camp Near Drury Bluff

July the 16th 1862

Dear father and Mother. Brothers and Sisters, i now take the pleasure of Riting you a few lines to let you now that i am well at this time, and hope thees few lines may find you ingoying the Same Blesing.

i have nothing of much importance to Rite to you at this time. we have bad a very hard time Since we come to virginia till now. we have got our tents. we ar camped in half a mile of Drufes Bluff sevn miles from Richmond.

we have had some very hard fiting to do Since we come heer . las tuesday was a weak a go we was in a very hard fite. their was lots of our men kild. i think the yankey los was greater than ours. they faut a long time. horses any a mount was kild. i went over the Battle field the next day, it was a terable Sight to see, mens arms and legs and head shot of. they we a lying on won another. Some was Shot all to peases with canon Balls. the horses was ling thick.

their was forty five in our Reg kild and wonded. James Bradford (1) was Shot through the thumb, wade fileps (2) was Shot through the thigh. Mat Crump (3) was Shot a little. But it is well long a go. their was seven others in the compares said they was wonded by a Spent. Shell, they havent got me yet, But they come mity near it, i think i put an end to Some of the Scoundrels.

we had to March about five days through the heat and dust. the dirt in the roads was from four to five inches deep, and but little to eat. i think we will stay hear a while, we have lots of work to do in making Brest works.

tom and J A Tuttle and George Powell is well, the Soldiers in our Regment is generaly well. we hav Routed the yankes from about Richmond. the opinion of our offisers is that Mac Clellan will come up the River and attack us, and land scater and come into Richmond as the { illegible.

i Saw L M Copening yesterday, he was well and harty. i see some of the Ruff an Ready Bois evr day, lawson seys he wood like to be at home to fly round the girls. i wood like to be be their my self a while. give all the girls and neighbors all my bes Respects. tell them i am as harty and healthy es i ever was. lawson Sends his Respects to you, and would be glad to get a leter from yon.

�you art to a saw the old twenty six Stand up to the yanke Scoundels. i wante you to Rite to me as Soon as you get this leter and give me all the nuse, for i am ancious to heer from you and how the folk is a giting a long. So no more But Remain your affectionate Son until Death.

i will Send you five Dollars in this leter. Bill Gather paid me ten Dollars the other Day.

procterCreek

W E Setser to W A S

Direct your leter to procter Creek Near Richmond in the care of Col Vance 26 Reg NC troops. Rite Soon.

1. Private James Bradford resided is Caldwell and enlisted in Company F at age 29 on March 20, 1862. Althrough shot through the thumb, be would die of the wound on August 6.

2. W. E. Phillips and his twin brother Joseph enlisted in Caldwell on March 20, 1862. Although be recovered from his wound at Malvern Hill, both he and his brother would be killed at Gettysburg exactly one year later, July 1,1863

Did any of you know Beckham Walling?

In some grade at either Southboro or Conniston I met Beckham. He was not a physically impressive boy and my first contact with him came in the schoolyard as I was pulling some big guy off him. “Bullying” was not a common term in our era but it would have applied to what I interrupted.

Beckham and I did not become bosom buddies as a result of my playground rescue. We seldom spoke or even saw each other but the other boys knew we were friends and he seemed to be a much happier kid from that day forward.

How many years passed before I saw Beckham again, I’m not sure. I was visiting a friend or relative at Good Samaritan Hospital for some reason in the early 60’s and as I was walking down the hall to leave the building, a nurse approached me.

“A friend of yours ask; if you would stop by in his room?”

“A friend, who?” I responded.

“Mr. Walling”

Beckham was in his early twenties but he looked much older and he had lost too much weight. He had that yellowish pallor that we associate with a liver disorder and his voice was weak. He was in a semi-private room but I don’t remember any other patient.

It would have been difficult talking to him if I had been the best friend he had on earth but with only one long-ago experience in common, it was painful. We made the expected small talk and Beckham soon began to tell me what had brought him to where he was.

Whenever he left school he went to work for Tylander Lumber Co. His work involved the soaking of sheets of plywood in a woodlife like solution to provide weather proofing. In the process of doing this he routinely spent hours each day with his naked hands and arms submerged in the liquid and handling the soaked product. He wasn’t sure, nor at that time was anyone else, but he thought his work may, in his words, have “made me sick”.

The feeling I had, standing there looking into his sad eyes, was the same I had had years before on the playground but this time I was helpless. There was no bully I could pull off of Beckham. I cried and so did he. The bottom line was that because few people had ever even heard of a carcinogen, my friend was dying and he didn’t know why.

When I left I told him I would “stop back by in a day or two”. I never did.

Can anyone tell me more about Beckham Walling? I believe it might offer me a bit of closure if you can.

Jim Powell

Beckham Walling

12 years old at Southboro Elem. School