A Hundred Year Story, Part 39

By Elton Camp

My brief criminal career and other incidents during college

My only experience with housebreaking occurred while I was a student at

Jacksonville. A columned mansion stood in the woods across from the college. It’d
been abandoned for years. The grounds were overgrown and the shrubbery out of
control. It was too tempting to resist. The owners, the Martin heirs, attempted to keep
the place secure. It had electricity, but no phones. They’d double locked the doors and
boarded up the windows to keep out intruders. Their efforts were in vain. Groups of
students often broke into the place, although no vandalism or stealing took place. It was
a big adventure. I was along on at least three occasions. We explored the various rooms
on two levels, sat around a while, and left. We could’ve been arrested if caught. To take
such a chance was foolish.

The Martin Mansion

The college learned about the break-ins and announced that they must stop. That
ended our excursions. Nobody wanted to take a chance on getting into real trouble.

At that time, all science courses were taught in Ayers Hall that was to the side of
Bibb Graves Hall. While I was a student, the college added a large new section to the
science building. A small auditorium was located at each end of the structure. It
incorporated classrooms and laboratories, not only for biology, but the other sciences.
On the third level was a greenhouse. Faculty had their offices there.

Thirty years later, when I made a campus visit I was disappointed to find the
building standing empty and scheduled for renovation. A splendid multistory science
building, Martin Hall, had been built across Pelham Road at the location of the old
Martin mansion.

I had satisfactory experiences in nearly all of my biology classes, especially two

taught by Dr. E.W. Price who was listed in Who’s Who of American Men of Science,
quite an honor for a scientist in that day. The college was able to employ him only
because he was retired and looking for something to do in his field.
 None of them were truly outstanding teachers, however. Paul Snow at Snead had
been far better. I patterned my teaching after him much more than after the senior
professors.

The worst one, by far, was a man I won’t name since he might have relatives who
could possibly read this. I had two courses in botany for biology majors with him. He sat
for hours and laboriously copied the textbook into notebooks from which he read word
for word for his “lectures.” It was horribly boring and utterly useless. He read in a
monotone. To make it worse, he included any jokes or other side material in the
textbook. We always wondered why he didn’t save himself trouble and read directly from
the book. Sometimes we yawned loudly and moaned in boredom, but he never seemed
to notice.

Although an older man, he was still at the instructor level principally, it was
rumored, because he couldn’t manage to keep his hands off girls. It never rose to the
point where he got fired, but chronic complaints kept him from being promoted.
Incredibly, his wife taught English at the same college. He was the stereotypical “dirty
old man.” This was a concept that, unfortunately, I learned much more about in the
decades ahead.

The best Jacksonville instructor was Dr. Reuben Boozer whom I had for human
anatomy and physiology. Yet, he was only ordinary. I believe the standard for college
instruction has risen since those times. Human anatomy and physiology proved to play a
huge part in my working life. In my classes, I took the best from Boozer’s procedures
and make a major effort to avoid his mistakes.

The other subjects I preferred were English and economics. I ended up taking a
minor in English although I had considered a double minor in English and economics. I
backed away from the economics because I was concerned that I might not graduate on
time. The main economics teacher was Professor Snoddy. Apparently, he had just three
shirts that differed only in the color of stripes on the sleeves.

“It’s really only one shirt and he changes the stripes,” a student joked.

Snoddy talked through his nose, but was an excellent instructor. He had a short
fuse which made it was folly to anger him. In one case he gave an “F” to a boy who had
done satisfactory work in the course.

“Why did you give me an “F,” the student asked. “I did well on every test.”

His nasal reply was, “Did it ever occur to you that I just don’t like you?”

No appeal was possible–the boy failed. Students had yet to gain many rights.
Each instructor was the despot of his little domain.
 A course that stood out dealt with the tragedies of Shakespeare. The instructor
was a visiting professor, Dr. Mounts, who did an outstanding job of instruction. I still
prefer the tragedies to the comedies because of that class. A student in that course was
Mary from Marshall County whom I’d known at Snead. Mary wasn’t a good student.
She either failed the course or made a “D.” She got really mad to the point that she went
to the dean to bring charges of poor performance against Dr. Mounts.

When she didn’t get a favorable reception, she proceeded to attempt to recruit
other students to support her baseless charges. I was standing in line in the hallway of
Bibb Graves Hall to enroll for the next semester when she approached me. “I want you
to bring charges against Dr. Mounts,” she demanded.

“Mary, I don’t have anything to say against him. I thought he did a good job,” I
replied instantly.

To my surprise, Dr. Mounts was in the crowd in the hallway, and overheard the
conversation. He walked over right in front of Mary and shook my hand.

“You were an excellent student and I enjoyed having you in class,” he said
warmly with a big smile.

I was pleased that I’d backed him up. That also seemed to end Mary’s tirade
against the professor. She had nobody to blame but herself. Dr. Mounts had even
allowed extra credit that was most unusual in an upper level course. I hadn’t done any of
the extra credit work since I didn’t need it. Mary had, but her performance on tests had
been so poor that even that didn’t bring her grade up enough.

It was in psychology that I encountered the twisted concepts of Sigmund Freud

for the first time. I didn’t, at first, catch on to the desires of the instructor. He was an
ardent disciple of Freud. As a result, I made low on the first couple of tests.

“What’s with that guy?” I asked a student whom I knew had previous courses
with him.

He laughed. “You have to fill everything you write full of Sigmund Freud’s ideas
on sex if you want to make good grades. He’s crazy on the subject.”

The light dawned. After that I loaded each test with perverted sexual concepts
and saw my grades rise to “A.” Sometimes it’s necessary to learn what a teacher wants
and give it to him despite any personal views. I did what I had to in order to get my
degree.

Jacksonville State had its share of “crazy” psychology teachers, including Earl
Clayton McCool with whom I had juvenile psychology. He was a former FBI agent who
came to class armed with a pistol.
 “I have a permit to carry this,” he boasted as he patted the bulge of his weapon
under his suit coat.

McCool was eager to be viewed as a righteous person. He made clear his disdain
for the tenets of psychoanalysis based on the influence of Freud.

“It’s true that lots of psychology teachers are sex maniacs,” he conceded.
“Inevitably, somebody’s going to say McCool is a sex maniac, but it isn’t true.”

A female psychology instructor, whom I managed to avoid, made it a practice to

come to class the first day and just stand the entire period at the lectern. She said not a
word. She claimed to be testing the class for psychological reaction. She got what she
wanted.

“Why are you standing there? Why don’t you say something?” one student
demanded angrily.

Most simply got up and left after about twenty minutes. They money they’d paid
for the class was wasted, at least for that day. Those who weren’t residential students
might’ve driven miles for the class for absolutely nothing. Her actions seemed, to me, to
be highly unprofessional.

Another in that department, whom I steered clear of, would sometimes crawl into
the classroom on hands and knees.

“I’m getting down on the level of the class,” the Professor declared.

At other times, he walked around on the tables during his lectures. Tenure
protected him for years despite his erratic behavior. The man eventually was confined to
a mental institution.

Since I planned to teach at the secondary level for a short time, it was essential to
have a certificate. This required taking a series of education courses. They were largely
a waste of time. I had more of them with R. Eugene Jones than any other instructor.

Strangely, locations where education courses were taught were two filthy rooms
in the gym. They obviously hadn’t been painted in years. Such paint as remained scaled
from the walls in huge flakes. No other room on the entire campus look bad like that.

I did practice teaching at Jacksonville High School that was owned by the college
for that purpose. For biology, my supervising teacher was Harris Mynatt, one of the most
unpleasant persons I’ve encountered. He held the rank of assistant professor of education
along with all the high school supervisors. He was, in my opinion, extremely rude and as
poor a teacher as I’ve known at any time.
 Practice teaching in English was with Mrs. Sally Ford Arnold as supervisor. She
had taught my parents in French back in the 1930s when they first enrolled. I really liked
Mrs. Arnold. She did an outstanding job of instruction and of supervision.

I’ve often wondered why the college required graduates to do practice teaching in
their minors. Possession of a minor in a subject didn’t qualify one to teach it in the real
world of the schools. Practice teaching was done in the final semester of the senior year,
along with whatever courses the student still needed for graduation.
I had no car at Jacksonville, but that was true of most students. It presented no
real problem. I walked everywhere I went, rain or shine. It wasn’t that far to downtown
Jacksonville so I went there almost every day.

The Square in Downtown Jacksonville

About once a week, I carried a cloth bag of laundry to wash, fold and bring back.
I could’ve got by with what was available on campus. The dorm laundry room in the
basement had two washers and two dryers for the entire building. They were usually
available since most of the boys took their laundry home to be washed.

Although I was very careful in spending, it had to have been a financial burden on
my parents to send me to college. My father had gotten a job at Boaz Junior High after he
completed his degree in June. I enrolled a few weeks later. They surely had used up any
financial reserves. Yet, I’m virtually certain they got by without borrowing.

Occasionally, I wrote a check for twenty dollars on their bank account and cashed
it in the college business office. That gave me pocket change that lasted for weeks.
Costs were far lower in the mid sixties. My father never complained that I did it too
often, but then, he couldn’t have rightly said that. I was conservative in my use of
money.

In that time, few people attended college unless the parents paid. The concept of
working one’s way through college hadn’t caught on, nor had student loans. Pell Grants
were still many years in the future. A few boys worked cleanup in the cafeteria for full-
tuition. It was hard, dirty work and they seemed embarrassed to have to do it. Some
looked down on them because of it. There were isolated incidents when students seemed
intentionally to spill their trays so the workers would have to deal with an extra mess. A
fight erupted one evening between two boys over that very issue.

“You dropped that deliberately so I’ll have to clean it up,” a worker accused.

He reached through the tray return window and grabbed the culprit by his shirt
and jerked him roughly. Others of the other workers quickly broke up the altercation
before any real harm was done.

The food at the cafeteria was outstanding. Throughout the week, there was always
food left over at supper from that day’s lunch so if students didn’t like the fresh offerings,
or wanted more, that was freely available. I had a prepaid meal ticket and couldn’t justify
buying food when I had food already paid for. No meal was served Sunday evening.

If I could get a ride, we sometimes ate at the Gamecock Café on Sunday evening,
but, being some miles outside Jacksonville, that was too far to walk. A couple of times, I
got a ride with a group to a nice café directly across the road from the WAC center on the
way toward Anniston. Zuma’s café was open Sunday night on the square at Jacksonville
so I occasionally ate there. It was a dump with revolting food. Part of the time, I got by
for that one meal from what was available in vending machines.

I used another source of supper Sunday evenings for a while. The dean of
students was a big man in the local Episcopalian Church. They set up a program to feed
students at the church and cordially invited anyone to attend. I associated with a group
that took advantage of the opportunity for a free meal. After a few times, when none of
the visitors would agree to attend religious services afterward, the church changed its
policy and started to charge for the meal. I, along with most of the others, never returned.

During meal times in the cafeteria, when a football game was coming up, a single
student made the loud cry of “Hide-hay, hide-hoo. The group response: “ Hiddley,
widdley, wadley wo.Lift your heads up to the sky. Jacksonville State is passing by.” The
final line was “March on Gamecocks!”

At the game the students often chanted “Give them hell Jax State, give them hell.”
That was vulgar talk by the standards of the time. The college didn’t like it, but couldn’t
do much about it but complain since so many were involved. There’s power in numbers.

During my junior year, a tornado went across the center of the campus. It did a
fair amount of damage plus giving everybody a scare. Fortunately, it came at night when
few classes were in session. I was in my dorm, Logan Hall, when a terrific storm broke.
Rain poured, lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and the wind blew fiercely. There had
been no notice of the possibility of tornadoes that had been transmitted to students. The
college hadn’t set up mechanisms to accomplish anything like that. Safety standards
were far lower on college campuses in those days. Campus security consisted of a single
night watchman who walked over the campus when he wasn’t glued to a television set in
one of the dorms.
 Weather forecasting was able to give no more than a few minutes notice of a
tornado on the ground. Typically, no warning was issued. Authorities were dependent
upon reports from the public of a twister. That night, the tornado appeared with sudden
fury.

It was only after the disastrous “night of the tornadoes” a dozen years later, that
more effective radar and warning procedures were instituted. The horrendous loss of
lives on that night made the weather service ashamed. They determined that they could
do better and did.

My room was at one end of the residence hall. When I heard rain pouring in the
hallway window, I jumped up to investigate. It required all the strength I had to open my
room door, due to a strong pressure differential created by the passing tornado. When I
got into the hallway, water was flooding through the open window and forming an
expanding pool that moved rapidly toward my room. Nothing like that had happened
before. I managed to shut the window with considerable effort. Still, it never occurred
to me that a tornado was on campus. I should’ve sought cover rather than struggle with a
window that might’ve blown out at any second. The lights flashed off, but power
returned within less than a minute. Shortly, shouting broke out in the dormitory.

“A tornado’s hit the campus! It’s done a lot of damage.”

I stepped outside through the main entrance. The rain had stopped, an eerie
silence prevailed, the air felt oppressive and muggy. Boys dashed out of the dormitory.
All of us excitedly ran over to the academic buildings to see what happened. The tornado
had gone directly across Bibb Graves Hall and the new cafeteria. There wasn’t a lot of
visible damage except for a brick wall blown out in Hammond Hall alongside Bibb
Graves Hall.

The tornado had scattered the cars in a faculty parking lot. A few were
overturned. We thought that was funny. Students generally regarded faculty as “the
enemy.” Some of the professors were out there trying to see about their damaged
vehicles. One was cursing loudly.

It was the next morning before we realized the extent of the damage to the fine,
new cafeteria. The roof had been destroyed and water damage to the interior was
extensive. We got only cold pastry for breakfast instead of the usual hot meal. It was the
best the staff could do under the circumstances.

After the tornado passed that night, the phones were out on campus as were the
lights in some of the buildings. I realized that word was sure to spread to Marshall
County, so I walked to town and checked pay phones until I located one that was in
operation. My parents were already following the news when I called. As they’d
suggested, I called collect.
 “Will you accept a collect call from Elton Camp?” the operator asked.

“I sure will. I was sitting here shaking,” Mother replied.

“A tornado’s hit the campus,” I blurted out, “But I’m all right.”

I filled her in on the situation. By that time a long line had developed behind me
as other students prepared to contact their own parents. Even under normal
circumstances, a chronic shortage of public telephones prevailed. Cell phones wouldn’t
come into use for decades.

“I wanted to drive down there as soon as I heard what happened,” my mother

exclaimed. “But the roads are closed. I knew you’d call as soon as you could.”

That has, so far, been my closest encounter with a tornado. Even in that case, I
didn’t see the funnel since it came at night. It’ll be fine for it to stay that way. That’s an
adventure I don’t need.

Before I contacted my parents, Mrs. Coffee had already called them. “The
tornado blew the roof off the dormitory where your son lives,” she claimed. Coffee was
like that. It gave her a thrill to worry people. If it took lies to do it, so much the better.
She had no idea which of the several dormitories was mine. She enjoyed stirring things
up and upsetting people.

A group of us who came from Snead loosely stuck together at Jacksonville. Class
meetings were called at night. Few attended other than our small group. That allowed us
to dominate as we saw fit. “We’ll fill everything that comes up with former Snead
students,” we agreed. That came to include class officers and class beauties. Nobody
ever caught on to our scheme. Careless arrangement by the dean of students set up the
opportunity and we took advantage of it.

My best friend, Delilah Ann Ellis, was in that group. She and I hung out and went
places on foot during my junior year and half of the senior year. We walked all over
Jacksonville and once even to the top of Chimney Peak. Many times we’d share a bag of
red hots. To this day I always think about her whenever see that candy. If it rained, we
really enjoyed walking with umbrellas. We were in no way sweethearts, just friends who
had a lot in common. She was dating Ray Woody that whole time. He regularly came to
Pannell Hall, her dorm to pick her up for a date on weekends.

“Let’s go in right when he’s supposed to come for you,” I always suggested with
a mischievous grin.

Delilah enjoyed that ruse as much as I did. Most times, there he stood in the
lobby, looking at his watch. He glared angrily at me, but never said a word.
 “Goodnight. See you later,” I usually said loud enough for him to hear as she
walked in his direction.

I’d like to know how things turned out for her and if she’s still alive, but it
wouldn’t be a good idea even if I knew how to get in touch with her. She grew up at
Walnut Grove that we pass by on the way to Gadsden. The Internet lists a Ray Woody,
but I’m not about to call.

I’d told her to let me know before she got married but she didn’t until afterward.
Although I did like her a lot, I wouldn’t have married her even if she’d contacted me
earlier. I only wanted to know before it happened. The joke between us was that I
wanted to know when to think of her as “Strumpet Ellis” rather than “Virgin Ellis.” The
“Strumpet” idea came from a course we’d taken together in Shakespeare’s tragedies.

My graduation ceremony was held in the college football stadium where my

father had received his degree two years earlier. No building on campus could handle a
crowd that size. I can’t recall the speaker or a single thing he said, but distinctly
remember seeing the faculty lining up with their caps, gowns and hoods. The color of the
border of the hood indicated the person’s graduate degree and the interior of the hood the
graduate school that awarded it. I thought that was particularly elegant. At the time, I
didn’t realize how many times I’d do the same thing at graduations of the colleges where
I was employed.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)