the Inauguration
When I was in high school, semester exams were given during a time when other classes were suspended. There was a 3-hour block in the morning from 9 a.m. to noon and a 3-hour block in the afternoon from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. On January 20, 1961, at the midpoint of my junior year, I had a rather easy exam on a Friday morning. I finished early, and rather than hang around school I walked home to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before returning for the rest of the day. The distance from Decatur High School to the Gladding house was a little over a mile, and even at a leisurely pace I made it home in about 20 minutes.
Rather than eat in the breakfast room, I took my sandwich and a glass of milk to the dining room and turned on the television. It was slightly after noon, and to my surprise all the stations were carrying the same program: the inauguration of John F. Kennedy as the 35th President of the United States. I liked Kennedy, so I sat down and watched. Before he made his speech and was sworn in, other dignitaries and invited guests either prayed or said a few words. The one I remember most was Robert Frost. He had written a poem for the occasion but had a hard time reading it because of the sun and the wind. It was a bitterly cold day in DC. I felt sorry for him but applauded Kennedy’s taste in having him as a part of the ceremony. Frost visited Decatur’s Agnes Scott College every year, so I knew all the “Scotties” were tuned in. He was a local hero as well as a famous poet.
When the inauguration ended, I had just enough time to walk back to the high school. That was the first time I witnessed an important historical event. Although high school examinations were important, what I learned that day did not come from a book.
Chapter 25 Junior ROTC and Me: The M1 Thumb and Chemistry
Decatur High School was among a handful of high schools in the Atlanta area that had an Army Junior ROTC program. Military science was not a required subject, but most of my friends took it, and my parents encouraged my brother and me to do it too.
I got off to a rocky start in the program. I liked the “Ike” jackets, but drill days were a different story. On these days we had rifles— M1s left over from World War II. We marched with them and had to master their nomenclature, such as their being “semiautomatic, gas-operated, air-cooled weapons that hold a clip of eight rounds.” We were required to know how to insert a clip into the rifle chamber and close it. Closing was tough. If you did not remove your thumb from the chamber quickly enough, the bolt would spring forward rapidly with something like 40,000 pounds of pressure per square inch and you would get an “M1 thumb.”
I am writing these words to reveal that I know what an M1 thumb feels like. My first attempt at removing my thumb from what I now call “the chamber jaws” of the rifle was unsuccessful. The result was that my thumb quickly filled up with blood and throbbed like the beat of a rogue rock band. Today this type of accident would send someone to the emergency room, but not then. My medical attention came from Sergeant Hacker, who was always smiling, had a beard like Richard Nixon, and had seen many M1 thumbs. After my company commander brought me into the ROTC office from the field behind the football stadium where we had drill, Sergeant Hacker immediately took over.
The remedy was to open the thumb and get the blood out. Proper equipment was required to do this, so the good sergeant took me to the chemistry lab, which was not in use that period. Next he lit a Bunsen burner and found a thin piece of copper wire. He heated the wire and instructed me to give him my thumb. I did, and as I looked on, he pushed the tip of the hot wire through my thumbnail. Blood came spurting out as if he had struck the mother lode of a newly drilled well. Somehow the blood did not get on the sergeant or me, but it rained down on several glass beakers. Relief came as the blood flowed forth. After the rush of the gush, it was simply a matter of covering the hole in my thumbnail by wrapping the thumb with adhesive tape. Next the surgical sergeant and I cleaned up the mess we had made and waited for the bell to ring, and I went to my next class.
It took a few weeks for the hole in my thumbnail to heal. Looking back, I am amazed at what Sergeant Hacker did, that my parents never questioned what went on, that school personnel never got involved, and that I did not miss my next class. After the “operation,” I learned to quickly remove my thumb when closing the chamber of my rifle. Fortunately, I never developed an excessive fear of Bunsen burners, cooper wire, or the unfamiliar!
Chapter 26 Cool Breeze: A Lesson in the Tragedy of Racism
In high school I was a football manager. That basically meant taking care of the team’s equipment, taping ankles before games, and cleaning up after the players went home. On Saturday mornings during the season, it meant straightening up the locker room as well as doing some of the team laundry. While we waited for the dryers to finish, my fellow managers and I would play games of touch football out on the field that had been the center of attention the night before. Sometimes we played among ourselves, all White boys from the Atlanta suburb of Decatur. At other times African American kids would join us, and prior to the integration of our high school we would have a spirited interracial game.
My favorite player on either side of the ball was a 15-year-old African American kid about my age known as “Cool Breeze.” He earned the name because of his speed. He was faster than anyone else. Whether going up the middle or around the end, we were seldom able to catch him, let alone stop him. Instead, he would dart past, and afterward we would feel the cool breeze of the air he had stirred up. In a word, he was awesome!
As great as Cool Breeze was on the field, his life and success were later not as terrific. The reason why is that he did not have choices educationally, socially, or vocationally. He was relegated to a lifestyle that restricted his movement and ambition because of segregation. What could have been never was. The mindset of the day kept people down and prevented possibilities. Whenever I think of the time, it makes me sad and mad. Life is too valuable to waste, and individuals are too important to treat like chattel. If there is one thing counseling can do and one reason I am a counselor, it is to open up possibilities for those who, because of background or circumstances, have not had opportunities. Although openings do not guarantee success, without options people almost always fail.
Chapter 27 Mount Up-Some-More and Beyond: The Appalachian Trail
At the end of two summers in my late teens, I hiked the Appalachian Trail with three of my good friends. Our hikes were in Georgia and North Carolina. We took enough food for a week and enjoyed the trail and one another’s company. The type of backpacks available now were not sold then. We had to jerry-rig knapsacks to meet our needs. I remember my mother giving me sponges to put underneath the straps of my knapsack so they would not dig into my shoulders.
Our group, both times, was harmonious. We each took a turn leading. The rotation was smooth. We spent the nights in lean-tos built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s. Hiking the trail was not nearly as popular in the 1960s as it is today. Every night we built a fire and cooked over it. The meals were edible but forgettable. We brought a variety of foods, including dried fruit and Gouda cheese for snacks. Nothing we brought needed refrigeration.
I kept a diary on these trips and invented “Mount Up-Some-More” for a mountain that had another name but seemed to go up in a steep incline forever. Highlights of the trips included field mice making a nest of toilet paper in my pants, playing football using sand in a baggie for a ball, and enjoying nature and one another’s company. When we finished the last hike, we had only a week or two before college. My peers on the trail taught me a lot about groups, traveling on foot, and life. From the wild I became more civilized.
Chapter 28 How the Past Came Into the Present
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