Southern Raised in the Fifties

By Ralph Hood

Speaker/writer Ralph Hood, member of the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame, was called “a funny man” by Oprah Winfrey. A master storyteller, he writes of growing up in coastal Georgia, during which he exploded a self-made Molotov cocktail, robbed a prison and allegedly painted “Zorro” on a tall water tower. His stories touch on music, morals, poetry, young love, first dates, religion, being “raised right,” and a voyeuristic tale that he left unfinished. You figure it out.
Though the stories stray to later times and faraway places, they never escape the influence of the Deep South in the 1950s. Ralph has traveled to all fifty states and several other countries, but he is still a product of the basics he learned and the people he knew in Brunswick and Glynn County, Georgia. He includes many of the local folk in this book. Are the stories true? Ralph says they are, “to the extent possible while avoiding lawsuits.” That makes sense, as the stories were first published in the Brunswick News.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ralph Hood
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310213625

Ralph Hood

Ralph Hood, a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), has spoken for hire from Alaska to Puerto Rico and from Hawaii to Spain. After he was on her show, Oprah Winfrey said "Ralph, you are a funny man." Ralph, a commercial pilot, is a member of the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame and has written a regular column in every issue of Airport Business Magazine and its predecessor since 1986. He taught a college course in aviation management and has spoken for hundreds of aviation audiences including employees of Cessna, Lear, Boeing and Piper, plus hundreds more groups in other fields.

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Southern Raised in the Fifties

by

Ralph Hood, CSP

Copyright 2004 Ralph Hood

Smashwords Edition

Huntsville, Alabama

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to readers of The Brunswick News. Thanks to their input by e-mail, telephone—and yes, cards and letters—writing my weekly column therein has been more fun than chore.

Acknowledgements

Wife Gail has more hours invested in this book than I do. All I had to do was write the columns. She edited, compiled, corrected and amended. She also—once I started listening to her—talked me out of several columns that could have caused problems.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

January 1

Mothers miss nothing; Dirt roads; Flambeau wars; Greatest athlete left off list; Stealing my childhood; Ice fishing; Hank, Sr.; Eavesdropping

February 13

Young and foolish; Coastal confusions; First date revisited; Glynn distinctions; Lew Carter; You can't buy thin; Olympians get a ten

March 27

First flight; Deer hunting; New cell phone; Water fight; Cars remembered; Mississippi delta revisited; We're back in Kansas, Toto

April 45

Band memories; Dear to my childhood; Draft physical; Joys of reading; Romantic and exciting; Quilt that never was; Me and my big mouth

May 61

Childrens' stories; Ritz memories; Dream can come true; Taxes bring reaction; Southern progress; Scientific limits; Innocents abroad; Washboard Band memories; Simpler times; Twain's love story

June 81

Epworth memories; The 'old' bridge; Thirty-three years with Gail; 'Flies With Sharks'; The eyes of a child; Backwoods Alabama; Thirty-five years with Gail; Happy trails; Trestle and train; Coastal history and fiction; Granddaddy's church

July 99

What a night it was! Trick or treat; Youthful independence; Poncho Joe; Swimming to Jekyll; Mr. Chemistry; Molotov Cocktail; The 'Pink Bomb'; Daddy's war with dogs; My political career; Helen Hood is dead

August 117

Life before air conditioning; Philmont Scout Ranch; Hitchhiking; Partial confession; The road from Jesup; Dogs of my life; No more projects; Vive la difference; Germs, God and Mother; Life's little details; Antique truck dealer; Flying a bit of history; Water balloon fiasco; Free fall

September 139

The peashooter; Jail break (in); Legend of Lula Howard; Thoughts on 9/11; Vehicles of my past; Blast from past; Islands in the stream; Remembering Scamp; The hole story

October 161

Are we cool yet?; Chicken manure fiasco; Teen driver; Legend of Sam Lewis; Causeway tolls; Memories of Glynco; General Chuck Yeager; Forgotten history

November 181

Four girls and a boat; Mud and muck; More regrets from childhood; Marty Robbins; 'That ain't no bad thing'; The scholar; Model airplanes; The old days

December 205

Bobby Allison flies again; 'Rabbit running'; The lollipop kiss; Movies of yesteryear; New Year dreams; Farmers make hearts grow; Counting blessings; Strom Thurmond; Christmas past; Happy New Year

Foreword

I cannot remember a time when I didn't know Ralph Hood. In my memory he was always like a much-beloved family member. I remember him drinking coffee at the kitchen table with my mother, working for my daddy, acting as Sister Gail's advisor, providing a shoulder for me to cry on, swapping stories with my husband John and being a good and faithful friend to all of us.

Ralph was a close friend during my preteens, high school, college, and ever since. In the last 35 of those years his long-suffering wife, Gail, has also become a good friend. During all those decades Ralph was—and is—a funny person. But he is so much more.

Anyone who has read Ralph's columns or heard him speak knows that he is a half-time curmudgeon and cynic, but a full-time believer in God and the human race. He approaches, but never crosses, the limits of good taste. He touches people with the way things were, are, and should be, remembering the past with fondness while somehow grasping an enthusiastic faith in the future. He is motivational, inspiring and entertaining. What more can you ask?

Today Ralph is a well-known writer, speaker and aviator, but he couldn't have done it without my help. It is a little-known secret that his career stagnated until he appointed me as his southeastern publicity manager and agent several years ago. Since then he has thrived and grown.

You should read this book if for no other reason than to get to know my good friend, Ralph Hood. Besides, Ralph needs the money.

Anne Crews Tuten

Preface

Southern Raised in the Fifties

Nobody grows up in just one decade. I was born in the 1940s, a teen in the 1950s, graduated from college—finally, and by the skin of my teeth—in the mid-1960s. (Truth is, I never really grew up at all. Today, in my 60s, I have pretty much given up on that.)

Of the growing-up decades, the 1950s bring back the strongest memories. I don't know if that is because of the way things were during the 1950s, or just because those were the years during which so much changed in my own life. I entered the 1950s at age eight and left as a college freshman.

When I first started writing a weekly column for The Brunswick (Georgia) News, I can't say that I intended to write so many stories from the 1950s, but that's the way it happened. Even the stories from other decades seem to flow from, be influenced by, or be measured against, the way we were and the world was in the simpler 1950s. Growing up in the 1950s is somewhat like growing up in the South; both stay with you for the rest of your life.

Be warned that this is not a book about the 1950s themselves. For that, read David Halberstam's great book, The Fifties. This book is just memories of one person during the 1950s, a little before and long after.

This is a collection of favorites from The Brunswick News columns. Many such books have columns arranged in chapters by subject. I think columns should be read as written—different stories and observations in random order. Georgia's wonderful writer, Celestine Sibley, solved the problem forever by arranging a book of columns by the months in which they were first written. I stole that idea, so herein is a chapter for each month of the year, with columns written during that month over the years.

Hope you like it.

Ralph Hood, CSP

January

Mothers miss nothing (Jan. 7, 2000)

Mothers, it is said, have eyes in the back of their heads. My mother, Helen Hood, had eyes all over, and when she wasn't watching me herself, she put God on the job. I was—and still am—convinced that God reported directly to her.

How many times did Mother prove herself to be omniscient? Let's see—there was the time I broke in line at the PTA Halloween Carnival. Actually, I didn't break in, Jackie Flanchard let me up, but that was bad enough for Mother. I didn't even know she was anywhere around when she appeared out of nowhere, snatched me out of line and berated me soundly in front of the whole world. But, I sputtered, Jackie let me up. She wasn't having any of it. All those people behind you didn't let you up, she said, and I went to the back of the line. She even made Jackie go to the back.

Then there was the time I picked a flower in Windsor Park. Again, I thought she was far, far away until I heard the tires squeal on her 1951 Chevy as she slammed to a halt. Boy I caught it that day. Those flowers were for everyone to enjoy, she informed me and not for me to pick.

But the time I really remember was the day I stole the peanuts...

Mother shopped at the A&P (Was it on Bay Street? I can't remember.). It was a fascinating place with dark, wooden floors and the ever-present aroma of freshly ground Eight O'Clock Coffee mixed in with the smell of sweeping compound. They had great bins of many things, one of which was raw peanuts, still in the shell. It was those peanuts that got me in trouble, way back in the early 1940s, before I even got to first grade. Up 'til that fateful day I had been pretty much a law-abiding citizen, but right there in the A&P, faced with that bin full of peanuts, I decided to enter a life of crime.

I didn't take many, you understand, just a few. Mother caught me with them before we even got home. You woulda thought I had robbed Fort Knox or, worse yet, stolen from the collection plate at First Presbyterian Church. Mother stopped the car, counted the peanuts and read me the riot act, starting with those deadly words, "Ralph, Junior! You know better than that!"

When confronted with sin, Mother believed in correcting it immediately, and there was no arguing with her. Nothing would do but that I take the peanuts back immediately and confess to the store manager.

Y'all, I was sore afraid. Mother drove straight back to the A&P. I cried like a baby and Mother cried with me, but there was no way out. I had to march into that store and confess. I will never forget asking her tearfully, But what if they put me in jail? She, just as tearfully, answered, I'll come visit you.

I swear it must have taken me a half-hour to get into that store, find the manager and confess. He made me sweep up a small corner of the store. Tears streamed down my face as I swept, but sweep I did.

That was well over a half century ago, but to this day I don't break in line, I don't pick flowers in parks and I certainly don't steal peanuts. Mother always was a good teacher.

~ ~ ~

Dirt roads (Jan. 14, 2000)

I grew up on a dirt road. Well, actually, it was a dirt street rather than a road. Many of us lived on dirt streets in the 1950s and enjoyed it.

A kid could make a fort on the edge of a dirt street and play marbles or territory, a game in which a circle was divided up by kids throwing knives into the ground. I wasn't, as I remember it, very good at that game.

They finally paved my street when I was about 12 or 13 and we kids resented it. First, they dumped truckloads of dirt every few feet on the street. The dirt made hills as it came off the trucks, and we immediately invented a recreational activity utilizing those hills. (A hill of any size was, after all, a rare commodity in Glynn County and not to be wasted.)

If we got a running start and rode our bikes rapidly up the hill, we went airborne as we came off of the top. Boy and bicycle launched into the air, the seat of the boy rose up from the seat of the bicycle, and in midair the only connection between boy and bicycle was the boy's firm grip on the handlebars. The flight terminated when the bike slammed down onto the ground and the boy slammed down onto the bicycle. It was quite spectacular, particularly if a girl, younger boy or adult was on hand to be impressed.

I had made my last jump of the day when Michael Friedman showed up. He qualified as a younger boy, he had never seen a bicycle jump a hill, and he was eager to be impressed. I rose—pun intended—to the occasion.

I made a mad dash for the hill, rose into the air and something went terribly wrong. When my seat left that of the bicycle, for some reason the bike seat tilted backward. That meant the front, pointed, narrow part of the bike seat was pointed straight up at the blunt, well-rounded seat of my pants. When bike hit ground and I hit bike, there was a scream not unlike that of a panther in a territorial dispute with a Tazmanian Devil. I hollered. I ran. I rolled on the ground. I never, ever, left the ground on a bicycle again.

Later, a group of us—including, but not limited to, Raymond West, Richard Lyons and SC (a currently solid citizen who prefers I not mention his name)—developed a sport called dirt sledding. We made a rough sled of plywood with two-by-four runners, tied it to the back of an early 1950s Ford belonging to SC's daddy, put two boys on it and commenced cruising the dirt streets of Brunswick at a rapid pace. The dust was unbelievable as sled slid sideways around corners. Little children were amazed and we created quite a stir. Entire neighborhoods turned out to watch.

We were, quite literally, cutting a wide swath until the Ford stopped abruptly in the middle of a particularly fast corner. The sled skidded to a stop right beside a city police car, and as the dust settled, the two riders—faces blackened by dust—came face to face with two policemen who had been summoned by the populace and who were, as Queen Victoria once put it, not amused.

Thus ended our hopes that dirt sledding would some day be included in the Olympics.

~ ~ ~

Flambeau wars (Jan. 21, 2000)

The flambeau is a thing of the past. It was a little round, black pot with a flaming wick at the top. It looked like one of those little bombs Wily Coyote uses in the Roadrunner cartoons. When filled with kerosene, it would burn almost forever. In the 1950s, flambeaus were placed around road construction sites. Today they use battery-operated lights for that.

Windsor Park was—still is—a round circle of a park with a street around it. At one point—right in front of the Altman's house if I remember correctly—the street was unusually narrow. The combination of that narrow street and readily available flambeaus was more than we teenage boys could resist.

First we would gather (I much prefer the word gather to the word steal) a few flambeaus. It was impossible to blow them out. You had to put them out with sand or an old towel. They were sooty as the inside of a chimney and reeked of kerosene. It was hard to gather them without messing up car and hands and that proved to be important. By the way—let it be noted that we did have principles. We never stole all of the flambeaus from any construction site. We always left enough to adequately warn any approaching motorist.

Once the flambeaus were gathered, off we flew to that narrow street at Windsor Park where the flambeaus were placed across the street and relit. We thought it fascinating that nobody would pass or drive around those flambeaus. They would stop, back up and drive all the way around Windsor Park. We must have been easily entertained because we found that hilarious.

Well, an interesting thing happened. The city police got a little tired of removing those flambeaus, and they set out to catch us. Thus started the great flambeau war of the 1950s.

We were vulnerable because the police could catch us gathering flambeaus, transporting them or setting them out. Even if they caught us afterwards, in those days before kids had rights, the mere presence of kerosene odor or soot on our hands was sufficient evidence.

Looking back on it, it is absolutely amazing the extent to which the police tried to catch us, and we tried to set out the flambeaus. One night they parked in the Altman's driveway, lights out, awaiting our dirty deed. One carload of us drove into the driveway then backed out and left. The police car followed and pulled us over, only to find us clean as a whistle. While they were inspecting our hands and car, our cohorts set out the flambeaus from another car.

As I remember it, they never did catch us, but they did end the game. They simply called us into the police station where the chief looked us over carefully and said, Boys, we're getting kinda tired of this. Then he used his biggest weapon. He asked that dreaded question. Y'all ready to quit this? Or you reckon I ought to talk to your daddies?

And thus ended the great flambeau war of the 1950s.

Names have been omitted to protect the writer. I will say that today's reader would recognize the names immediately.

~ ~ ~

Greatest athlete left off list (Jan. 28, 2000)

Well, shoot!

I just got around to reading in The Brunswick News about the 25 greatest Glynn County athletes of the century. I was appalled to learn that I was not included.

Greek George is in there, as is George Rose and Mel Lattany whose mother, Catherine, is so important to our family. But somehow my name was omitted. Surely, this is an egregious error.

After all, I did have many astounding athletic accomplishments while growing up in Glynn County and later in my long athletic career. I distinctly remember...

...Losing a foot race at a Cub Scout athletic event in the front yard of Leland Moore (whose sister, Feche, was voted Most Athletic in my class). That might not sound outstanding to you, but it was a mother/son foot race, and I lost to my mother! It was, as Churchill said of Dunkirk, an ignominious defeat.

...Coming in second swimming the back stroke at the state DeMolay convention in Atlanta. (I might have won had not a few of us carried out an early scientific experiment on the effects of beer on teenagers the previous night.)

...Running into the wrong huddle at a B team football game in Savannah. I really did. That was before contact lenses and facemasks, and I was blind as a bat without my glasses. By noon the next day, everyone at Glynn Academy was calling me Wrong-Way Hood.

...Coming in 13th in the state water skiing tournament in Augusta, GA. There were 15 contenders in the men's division, and I came in 13th. You should have seen the two guys I beat. Pitiful!

...Playing the position of catcher in a Cub Scout baseball game. Daddy had told me never to play catcher. The mask was too small for me—as was everything that fit normal boys—and a tipped ball knocked me out cold. The first thing I remember when I woke up was Daddy's face—complete with his ever-present unlit King Edward cigar—as he growled, I told you never to catch. (Robert Sapp, by the way, was playing baseball in the same league. They put him on the greatest list, but not me.)

...Being a master squirrel hunter in the swamps and woods of Glynn County. I was hunting squirrels long before I could drive. Daddy took me. I walked for hours and usually returned with one squirrel. Daddy took a nap beside the car. He slept until a squirrel woke him up, then he shot the squirrel and went back to sleep. His squirrel was usually bigger than mine.

...Being the only person on a large deep-sea fishing boat who did not—repeat not—catch a single fish in six hours of fishing. This was in the 1960s, and I had long since graduated from high school and college. Unfortunately, one of my high-school classmates, John Here Harrison, was onboard to witness this sad event. I also got seasick.

Given the above facts, it is obvious that my omission from the list was a grave oversight which will no doubt be corrected posthaste.

~ ~ ~

Stealing my childhood (Jan. 26, 2001)

So, they're going to move the flagpole at Howard Coffin Park. Lord, that seems a shame.

I learned to swim close by that flagpole, long before dredges made a big stretch of water out of what was a small creek. Like most Glynn natives, I don't really remember when I couldn't swim, but I do remember learning. Years later, someone declared that water to be polluted. I said I didn't see how it could be, since I had been swimming in it all of my life and wasn't dead yet. Daddy, who could be as sarcastic as the best when tempted by a good opportunity, said, Yes, but look what it did to your face.

We lived on Talmadge Avenue in the 1940s, and Daddy was both a walker and a lover of history. I remember walking with him long before I was of school age, and that flagpole was often our destination. Daddy, for some reason, walked with a walking stick. I think he just enjoyed swinging it and gesticulating with it. I, of course, had to have a walking stick too, so I picked up a stick and marched along beside Daddy, swinging my stick jauntily just as he did.

We often stopped at Lanier's Oak to read the historic marker. Now when Daddy read a historic marker, he didn't just read it. He told the whole story and even—I suspect—added a little to it. Boy, he would say, Sidney Lanier sat right here under this tree, looked across that marsh and wrote one of the greatest poems ever written. He was sick and dying, but he could still write. Then Daddy would recite a few verses, his cane sweeping in broad gestures back and forth across the length and the breadth and the sweep of the glorious marshes of Glynn. Later, when I was older, Daddy told me that the tree probably wasn't old enough to have been sat under by Lanier, but, he said, it was somewhere near there, and, heck, boy, one oak tree's as good as another when you're gonna write a poem.

(Daddy was a bear on historic markers. Later, on vacation trips when we children were older, we tried to spot historic markers before Daddy did so we could divert his attention. He wanted to stop at each one and read it, then he wanted to learn more about it. We never would have gotten anywhere if Daddy had seen the markers first.)

At the flagpole, Daddy told me all about Howard Coffin. I got a little confused and kinda thought Coffin helped Sidney Lanier write the poem. I grew up thinking that Daddy knew both of them very well.

After the flagpole, we walked to Howard Coffin Park and I could swing while Daddy discussed the national scene with anyone who happened to be there, whether he knew them or not. About sundown one day, Daddy kept telling me it was time to go. I guess I ignored him. Eventually I noticed it was growing dark. Then I looked around and found that Daddy was nowhere in sight. Decidedly concerned, I jumped from the swing, grabbed up my walking stick, and headed for home at a dead run. As I passed a huge oleander bush, Daddy leaped from behind it and yelled, Boo! I instantly, and without thinking, bashed him over the head with my walking stick. Daddy laughed, but I found out later he soon tired of explaining to everyone in town that his four-year-old son had given him the gash on his forehead.

Cunningham's filling station—filling station is what we called a service station back then—was across the street from the flagpole, and Mr. Cunningham was the first person I ever asked for a job. I must have been all of five at the time. He didn't hire me, of course, but he always said he'd call me when he needed some help.

How can they move that flagpole? I grew up there.

~ ~ ~

Ice fishing (Jan. 25, 2002)

Here's a true story from my favorite redneck aircraft mechanic, Claudie Drake, of Cullman, AL.

Claudie had never been far from Alabama when he joined the Air Force. Almost immediately he was shipped out to northern Alaska where they desperately needed aircraft mechanics.

As Claudie tells it, "After a few weeks we got to thinking we were experts on this cold weather stuff. Uh-huh. Then somebody come up with the idea that we should go ice fishing.

"Three of us decided we'd try it. There was me, another boy from Alabama and a boy from Georgia. You can tell we didn't have no business ice fishing. The boy from Georgia was our expert 'cause he was from about 40 miles north of Atlanta. He