A Hundred Year Story, Part 35

By Elton Camp

The Senior year

I also belonged to Quill and Scroll, a journalism club, but the way it was handled
made it almost meaningless. Members were picked from the senior class, mainly from the
paper and annual staff. The choices were made near the end of the year so it came down
to getting another lapel pin and membership card. The group never had a meeting.

As a member of the annual staff, I was picture editor although the job title was
Staff Photographer. I took no pictures and didn’t have a camera. My responsibility was to
work with Robert O. Johnson, a professional photographer, to arrange for him to take
pictures.

An examination of the annual the year I graduated will show that, in most group
pictures, a number of the boys were making an obscene finger gesture, the infamous
phallic sign. None of us noticed that until it was too late so they went into the annual like
they were. I can imagine that they’ve had to hide their annuals from their children and
grandchildren, so perhaps their misconduct didn’t go unpunished. What they thought to
be cute ended up cheap and sleazy.

Tryouts for the senior play were announced, but very few came. The next day,
Miss Boone was angry. She collared Jerry DeSpain and me. “I want both of you to be in
the play. I’m so disappointed that you didn’t come to tryouts. Be there this afternoon.”
We knew we had no choice. To defy her could’ve had disastrous consequences. She was
a senior sponsor as well as the English teacher. As a result, was in the senior play as Mr.
Brinkworth in a version of Father Knows Best. Mine was a major supporting role rather
than one of the main stars.

Miss Boone picked the play without allowance for any student input. This
assured that it would be sappy, along the lines of Leave It To Beaver. We practiced the
production in the auditorium most afternoons after school for weeks.

While waiting in the wings to go on stage we had a lot of fun with bawdy chat and
placement of obscene drawings on the walls. Cast members with dates also in the play
used the area as a “lover’s lane.” Nobody ratted out anybody else. That just wasn’t done.

This was where I had my only experience with smoking cigarettes. All the others
smoked, so I tried it also in an attempt to fit in. At that time, little was known about the
dangers of tobacco, but filter cigarettes had come onto the market in response the
preliminary reports about possible risks. I was unaccustomed to cigarettes and one time
lit the filter end. That gave the others a laugh at my expense, but I certainly had it
coming. I didn’t inhale and so didn’t become addicted and soon decided it wasn’t for me.
 Miss Boone never came backstage. The old hypocrite would’ve worn her knees
out praying if she’d known what went on. Overall, it was a valuable experience that I’m
glad to have had.

Senior year, I was selected, along with Sylvia Cochran, as “Most Likely to
Succeed.” This was a part of the annual’s Who’s Who section. The editor of that section
had us meet at the depot. The instructions were to dress shabbily.

“Get up there and hang off the end of that boxcar” she instructed.

As planned, we looked like two hoboes. Whether Sylvia “succeeded” or, for that
matter, whether I did, is for others to judge. She’s been dead for years.

During my senior year I enjoyed being one of a group who worked in the school
supply store that was located underneath the central staircase. Those steps have now been
removed. The money went into the operating budget of the school, but we didn’t mind
helping out free. It was an honor to be one of the ones allowed to operate it and to write
our names on the walls inside the enclosure. I wrote my name there along with Marie
Riddle. I’d hoped to go back in later years and see our names still there, but didn’t get
the chance.

The junior class put on the prom for the senior class. I helped with the
preparations during my junior year. We worked on it late into the night for several days.
The prom theme was “Moonglow.” The elaborate decorations featured a large
illuminated moon along with the obligatory balloons and crepe paper decorations.

One night some students in cars repeatedly circled the gym and threw eggs.
“Everybody come look what’s happening,” a member of our group exclaimed. It was
an incredible sight. The eggs, discards from a local hatchery, contained living chicks,
many of them with obvious abnormalities. The school grounds were littered with living
and dead baby chicks. It was a horrible episode. I expected trouble from the principal the
next day, but as far as I know, nothing was ever said. He surely must’ve seen the baby
chicks.

With our hard work, the gym was transformed from ordinary into a dream-like
place of beauty. It was hard to believe how well it turned out. The following year when
we were seniors, it didn’t look nearly as nice.

My date for the junior year was Peggy Kennedy. She was short with brown hair.
Peggy wore an attractive green prom dress. I brought her an orchid for a wrist corsage.
It’s fortunate that I asked her about it in advance. No sensible place was available to pin
the regular type corsage.

Of course, I wore the standard garb of the day: a white sport coat, bow tie, and
black pants. Tuxes hadn’t come into fashion at that time. Limousines for prom couples
hadn’t been dreamed of at that time. I doubt any limousines existed anywhere in north
Alabama in the later fifties, especially not rental ones.

My regular date during the senior year was Marie Riddle. She was new to our
school and sat directly in front of me in Miss Boone’s senior English. I thought her long
hair was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. We went various places, including the senior
prom, but I was careful not to lead her on under false pretenses. It seemed clear to me that
she wanted to find a husband but nothing could’ve been further from my mind at that
point. I had years of college ahead of me and had zero interest in a serious relationship.

Marie had old parents. Her father, a religious zealot, was extremely strict with
her. I was afraid of him. She lived way out in the country close to Geraldine. The drive
from the road to her house was long, curved steep and grown up on the sides. We were
friends, never sweethearts, but I thought she was a very nice girl and would make
somebody a terrific wife, but not me at that point in my life.

The example of marriage I grew up with was a dysfunctional one and I didn’t see
much to recommend it. It took me a long time to get over aversion to the thought of
marriage.

Marie and I enjoyed the Senior Prom. I wore the same costume as the year before.
She had a red dress that was quite attractive. Her corsage was white carnation since an
orchid wouldn’t go well with her red dress. We discussed it in advance and I bought what
she suggested.

Since the juniors did the decorations, I don’t remember much about them, but do
recall grabbing Marie a balloon when they came pouring down. In the 1958 annual, my
hand’s clearly visible as I reached up to grab it. A few days later I brought her to our
house at Mountain View where we took a series of pictures that are still in existence.

While still in high school, Marie got an interview with a recruiter from the FBI
that resulted in a job offer in the Washington D.C. area. I wrote her once and got one
letter back from her wherein she said that she’d met a boy she liked. I think his last name
was Mayfield. I was glad to hear it as I was moving on to other things and wanted her to
be happy. I didn’t write her back and assumed that she’d married him. Actually she
married a man with the last name Seibel. I didn’t hear from her for decades until it
became possible to get in touch over the Internet. Marie had worked only a short time for
the FBI, before she moved to support staff at a college where she had a successful career.

After our 50th class reunion, Delorise and I visited her house in West Virginia. I’d
seen pictures of her farm. It looked like a postcard. Her second husband owns a small
cabin in sight of the main house. Behind it is a tall waterfall that sometimes goes dry, but
after a rain has a copious flow. It’s a striking feature.

During my senior year, Mother had a hysterectomy due to a fibroid tumor that had
grown too large to leave alone. Such tumors are noncancerous and typically go away
after menopause, but that wasn’t a realistic option in her case. To prepare me
psychologically for what was at the time major surgery, she said, “What do you do if a
car gets something wrong with it?” I’m sure she expected me to respond that it needed to
go to a mechanic to be fixed.

My reply was, “Trade it in on a newer model.” I meant it as a joke and she took it
that way. But it really wasn’t a proper matter for levity.

The operation was preformed at Highland Baptist Hospital in Birmingham by a

leading surgeon, Dr. Kahn. A nurse massaged her after the surgery, a foolish thing to do
as it caused a blood clot that was life threatening. As a result she missed the rest of that
year at work.

Old Highland Baptist Hospital

“I have enough sick leave to take off the rest of the time without losing pay, so
I’m going to do it,” she decided.

She recovered sufficiently to attend my high school graduation. “I always hoped

I’d live long enough to see you graduate from high school,” she said.

In the following years, she watched me receive the Bachelor of Science degree
and then the Master of Arts degree. Over fifty years after the operation, she was present
when Maria received the Bachelor of Arts.

Juanita Green finished that year for her. Mother made short visits to her
classroom during that period to stay in touch with the children. By the start of school in
the fall, she had fully recovered. She continued to work up to her retirement at age 62.

Unfortunately Juanita later developed Huntington’s disease, a brain-wasting

disorder, due to a dominant gene. As is typical in those cases, she, confined to a nursing
home, died horribly after suffering for several years. For a time, she’d explain to visitors,
“I have Huntington’s.” Her father had died with the condition so she was familiar with it.
The last time Mother saw her, she was drawn up in a fetal position and inclined to kick,
spit on, or slap anyone coming around her. It’d become unsafe to get around her. She
was doomed to an early death and had been since birth.
 Juanita was a distant relative of ours, but that gene hasn’t moved into our branch
of the family. It always shows up before fifty years of age. Persons older than that are
free of it. Such a gene never skips generations unless it disappears completely from that
line of descent. Juanita’s daughter, the mother of two children of her own, said, “The
minute I start having symptoms, I’m going to kill myself.” It couldn’t be dismissed as an
idle thought. In fact, a high percentage of people in her condition do commit suicide.
They’re determined not to suffer as their parent did. There are now screening tests for
that gene, but none existed in the 1950s.

One of the teachers Mother worked with put out a lie about the hysterectomy.
“When the doctor opened Eloise, he saw that she was eaten up with cancer. He just
sewed her up to die.” Word of it reached Mother. She became concerned that perhaps it
was the truth and was being hidden from her.

“If that’s true I have a right to know it. I want you to tell me,” she demanded.
She trusted me to tell the facts.

“If it were true, I’d tell you.” I was happy to be able to let her know that it wasn’t
the case.

The vicious woman took a fiendish delight in doing vicious things like that. Seven
years after the operation, she phoned mother to ask if her “cancer” had returned. “They
usually do within seven years,” she asserted with mock concern.

It was a long-standing practice at Albertville High School to take a senior trip to

Washington D.C. as a supervised group. To raise money for the trip, we sold magazine
subscriptions. “You shouldn’t let anybody go who doesn’t sell enough to pay his
expenses,” the magazine representative suggested in a group meeting with the senior
class. We wouldn’t agree to that. The agent’s pay was a percentage of total sales, so he
was concerned for himself, not for us. I sold $47 worth, barely over the suggested $45
minimum. Being stuck in the country, I was at a great disadvantage. Besides, I didn’t
like to ask people for money.

Classmates who sold the most and won prizes started months in advance.
“Promise to get your magazine subscriptions from me,” they urged everyone with whom
they came into contact. It worked.

We left in a caravan of cars driven by the parents to catch the train at Gadsden. To
help us stay together, we had our headlights turned on and were led by a police escort.
We got a chuckle when an old man working on the road, upon seeing us, mistook it for a
funeral procession. He respectfully put his hat over his heart and bowed his head while
we passed.

The train trip was overnight but we had the cheapest tickets and so had no choice
but to sleep in our seats. Instead of eating in the dining car, we brought brown sack meals
from home. We reached Washington before we needed to eat again.
 The ride was rough and the car swayed from side-to-side. To walk was difficult. I
was concerned that I might experience motion sickness, but it didn’t happen. For some
reason, the train backed for many miles on the final approach to the capital.

I can’t recall the name of the hotel where we stayed, but it wasn’t a particularly
nice one by the standards of today and probably not of that day either. It had an elevator
operated by an actual person, the first time I’d seen that. I stayed on the 4th floor, but
can’t remember the room number. The school rented two Trailways buses to transport us
to the various attractions in the Washington area.

We went to the usual tourist magnets: the Smithsonian Institution, the White
House, the Washington Monument, the National Zoo, the National Cathedral, the Lincoln
Memorial, the Capitol, and the Jefferson Memorial. Concern about terrorism hadn’t yet
arisen, so we entered those places unchecked for weapons or explosives. Things like that
occurred only in foreign countries.

At the National Cathedral, we had an amusing experience. Two men overheard

us talking and began to snigger at our Southern accents. We played along with it and
even added exaggerated southern drawl and expressions. We didn’t talk any different
from anybody else, we thought.

One day we rode to Mt. Vernon to see George Washington’s house. I thought that
was quite interesting, especially being able to see the room and bed where he’d died.
Signs forbade the taking of pictures. The temptation to get one of Washington’s bed was
too great for me to resist. My camera had no flash, so I figured I could get away with it.
A guard heard the faint click when I activated the shutter. “No picture taking in the
mansion,” he ordered snappishly. He was too late. I had already taken it and still retain
that picture in one of our photograph albums.

The front lawn and view of the Potomac were impressive. I was of the impression
that George and Martha were at that time buried in a small brick building toward the
river, but have later learned that I had the wrong idea. The old tomb is still there. The
new one is closer to the mansion.

Original Washington Burial Place

Outside, for some reason, I decided that I really wanted to walk across the grass
from near the river to the front of the house. When I got part way, a guard near the house
started motioning and shouting at me. I was fairly sure he didn’t want me to walk that
way, but I decided to have some fun with him. I put my hands behind my ears and
cupped them to signify that I couldn’t understand him, but was trying to. I kept walking
toward him.
 “You’re not supposed to walk on the grass,” he said when I got almost to him.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll go back,” I said. I faked being sincere and contrite.

“Well, you’re already almost here. Just come on.”

“Yes, Sir, I’m sorry,” I said, but didn’t mean a word of it. I got to do what I
wanted and no consequences came from it. I had to struggle not to laugh at how easily
he’d been deceived.

One evening we went as a group to a nightclub where we ate and enjoyed both the
food and the entertainment. The group was a well-known one. I think it was something
like the Four Lettermen, but that may not have been it. The school had made all the
arrangements in advance.

Nothing particularly out of the ordinary occurred on the senior trip. Only two
things were the least bit unusual.

First, one of the girls got so sick that Mrs. Weathers had to stay at the hotel with
her most of the time. Second, one couple were already married before the trip. On one
occasion, they got together in the hotel to have sex. It created something of a stir since it
was done so openly. Jacqueline Morgan stood in hallway outside the room to physically
bar the door. I thought that the same thing could’ve been accomplished without making a
big deal of it.

Upon departure, we had a fairly long wait at the train station. Somebody hit up on
the idea of a group singing of the “Lord’s Prayer.” It echoed impressively in the huge
lobby with its high ceiling. It attracted a lot of attention from the other patrons of the
station.

We bought class rings during our senior year. The design had been used for a
long time so we were given no choice in its selection. The red stone partly covered with
a shield with a representation of the high school, along with the other features seemed
satisfactory to me. I got a size 11 ½ out of concern that my fingers might still grow since
I was only seventeen. An eleven would have been a better choice. Superficially, it
looked like a college ring, so I wore it for decades rather than getting a ring at the two
subsequent college graduations. At times I’d thought of still buying a Peabody ring, but I
have, as of 2009, two rings and don’t want it. The AHS ring is still in my jewelry
collection, but I wear it only on the occasion of the infrequent high school reunions.
I was, along with Kytha McNeil, selected as class salutatorian. Brenda Medlock
who was valedictorian had, with the goal of becoming valedictorian, selected easy classes
all the way through and came out on top.

My selection meant a speech at graduation. “As Salutatorian I too salute you and
welcome you to this, our graduation,” was the introductory statement. I went on to
deliver a short speech. It expresses views that, in many important aspects, differ
drastically from my later beliefs. The speech, “warts and all,” was as follows.

Our Schools Have Kept Us Free

By Elton Camp, Salutatorian

One of the greatest tasks of our schools is to provide an enlightened citizenry in order that
self-government might work. In the words of Benjamin Rush, “To be long lived, republics must
invest in education. It is their first and last line of defense.” No one can doubt that our
investment has succeeded. The simple truth is evident: Americans have made democracy work.
They established a nation, held it together, and expanded it while steadily pursuing the
objectives of the Constitution. They elected some mediocre presidents, but never a wicked or
dangerous one; they never yielded to a dictator; they revealed in every crisis an ability to select
able leaders. Only a people taught self government could achieve all these things.

Education must created national unity. In the beginning, there was little basis for an
American nation. It was too large; it was thinly inhabited; the historical basis was almost
nonexistent. Unity was created, to a large degree, by the poets, novelists, editors, and
historians. The medium through which they worked was the school.

Another task of the public schools was Americanization. No other people had ever absorbed
such large or varied a group of immigrants so rapidly. There is no doubt why American is
called “the melting pot.”

At the present time, our schools are as important as they were in the past. Our nation can
hold its world status only as long as youth is instructed in its past, is led to know and understand
the work of its government, is encouraged to assume the responsibility of taking part in society,
and is taught the basic principles of democracy and life in the complicated world of today.

Recent scientific developments of a non-democratic power and of our own nation make
absolutely necessary the development of American brain power in all of the basic fields of
human knowledge. At no previous time in our nation’s history has the need been so urgent for
adequate training of the youth.

Our schools have proven themselves, over the years, to be the best insurance for a
continuation of our present way of life. Truly, our schools have kept us free.

Rather as Muhammed Ali said, “If you have the same beliefs at fifty that you did
at twenty, then you have wasted thirty years of your life.”

Instead of the traditional black, the class wore white graduation robes, which
made us look somewhat like a gathering of KKK members with flat boards on our heads
instead of hoods. The class motto was, “We’re the ones who really rate. Senior class of
’58.”
 The graduation ceremony was at the auditorium of the College Avenue
Elementary School because the high school auditorium was of questionable safety. The
back of is campus joins the back of the high school grounds. My grandparents attended
the ceremony.

My graduation year, 1958, was in the early stages of the civil rights movement. At
the beginning of the senior year, a rumor circulated to the effect that blacks were going to
attempt to enroll at Albertville High. This resulted in a large mob appearing in cars
around the school to keep the “niggers” away. It was a false story, but we heard that some
of the men came armed with rifles. Those were dangerous times. Racial strife increased
in the years ahead.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)