The Browns were famous in Robbins. Frank, Cotton, Bobby, Charlie, and of course, the youngest Leon, were pretty damned formidable in 1952. There was another uncle and cousin I never met. They had then been gunned down earlier on the main street of Robbins. My future brother-in-law, Harold Ritter, gave me a firsthand eyewitness account of the event, having been in the general store where it occurred at the time.
Harold recounted the fact that the town policeman, a man named Moxley, tried to arrest the father-son combination within the store. They gunned Moxley down, and he fell behind the counter. As they drew a breath and relaxed, Moxley rose with two bullets in him, and put one each of his own in each Brown. The Browns never moved, one hit between the eyes. Moxley died in the street on the way to the doctor. The building later became the town’s water plant office. The front windowpane, shattered by one of their stray bullets, was bound and boarded and bolted back together. You were thus reminded of town lore as you walked past the water plant and Frye’s Store, one of the town hubs. Frye’s Store, at that time, was a simple shot-gun general store and shoe store. It endeared itself to me first for its outside sign: “Frye’s Shoes. Boys, we got’em.”
Author: ethomasparham
HEAT STROKE
The Ritters were the real deal for a boy. Their garage housed possums, shot guns, dead squirrels, a “telephone” for electrifying scale-less river critters, and boundless fire crackers (near dynamite).
And they were adventuresome. Both Harold and Paul joined the Marines and served in Korea. Pete and Otis were Navy.
Amazing all survived although Paul, later died of Agent Orange.
Wednesday night was a big night later at the Ritters. Gillette’s Cavalcade of Sports (Boxing on TV). Remember the big parrot carrying the round numbers?
Walt, the old man was a big burly, funny guy. And sober he was a treat. Sober didn’t happen with a lot of mill workers, but on Wednesday night we watched the fights. Walt pulled for whoever the white guy was. For me, Kid Gavilan, Jersey Joe Walcott, Joe Louis, and Rocky Marciano, were the gods.
Once the boys built a tree house nailing wooden refrigerator boxes stacked on one another, nailed only to the pine tree with a 10-penny nail or two.
To test the safety of the ascent, Otis, at 70 lbs. and 10 years, was comman- deered to climb the boxes. Things went well til the sixth and highest box, where the angle of Otis’ weight, such as it was, caved in the architecture.
The gash in Otis’ head caused concern only because Ruth was due in soon, and Mother Ruth was tough. Harold, who had always been able to fix anything, was nearly through sewing up the wound with Ruth’s needle and thread when she walked in on everyone’s observation of Harold’s needlework.
Hell to pay. Otis didn’t really care.
There was safety in being a Ritter boy. Plus I got first access to all the stories about Walt and his brother, Uncle Harvey.
Walt and Harvey bought some Moore County farmland and called their spread “The “Ponderosa”.
The Ponderosa provided a weekend respite from the grind of mill work. White liquor was the catalyst for brotherly love.
Once Harold and Paul were dispatched to retrieve Walt and Uncle Harvey. It was Tuesday and they’d “laid out” of work for two days. Enough Ruth decided. Go get ‘em.
It was a hot Sandhills day in northern Moore County. No Yankees at the end of the county. As the sons rounded the dirt road to the Ponderosa gate Uncle
Harvey was seen driving the John Deere tractor calmly dragging Walt, who was unconscious and tied to the tractor by a ten foot chain.
“Uncle Harvey, what are you doing to Dad?”
“Well boys, he’s been so drunk I couldn’t move him out of the sun, and damn, it’s hot. I was afraid he might have a heat stroke, so I’m moving him over into the shade.”
There were periods of sobriety. But there were times when one simply needed a drink. Once, Walt, the needy, arranged a deal with Uncle Harvey who was “on the wagon”.
Harvey needed a difficult bull loaded on to “Old Dodgey” his pick up truck. The deal was Walt would use an electric prod on the bull’s rear end as Harvey backed “Old Dodgey” to the bull. For his part Walt would be driven to the booze store and given a pint of WRL (Walk, Run and Lay Down) liquor. Otherwise, known as cheap stuff. Walt, already considerably tight, miscalculated and prodded the bull’s testicles. The bull leaped over the bed of the truck on to the top of the cab, crushing it down. Old Dodgey on Harvey.
The bull fell back into the bed, winning the argument for Walt over Harvey, contending the bull was in the truck, and that was the deal.
The boys recall seeing the bull tied in the back of Old Dodgey, both 300 pound Harvey and Walt squatted low in the crushed cab, on the way to deliver the bull with a brief stop at the ABC store.
OFF TO COLLEGE
Mom lent me the family Chevrolet to drive my gear to college, a suitcase and a lamp.
I drove to Wilson on Friday, moved in, rode back to Robbins to deliver the car. Then I rode the bus back Sunday night.
Coach McComas roomed me with fellow basketballer, John Eskew, aforementioned very white young man. The new dorm for men was not yet completed yet, and, being recruited late, there were no rooms in the “old” dorm. We moved into the Alpha Sigma Phi house on Friday. About the time I found out John smoked too, I had to leave for Robbins.
Sunday night at 10:00 pm I rolled back into the Wilson bus station. I walked the mile to the college and fraternity house. No Eskew, someone else in our room.
“You now live on Nash St.” our room’s present resident stated: “The other guy took your gear.”
Given the directions to the Nash Street address, I lugged my Samsonite to the street once called “one of the top ten prettiest streets in America” by National Geographic.
The house was a mansion. I knocked on the door and Eskew descended the antibellum stair well. I was told secretly he’d explain in a minute, as I was shuttled upstairs where he and I shared a room.
Once inside he stated “Don’t blame me, they moved us here.” We were housed across from Jack Boyd. There were three bedrooms upstairs. One was empty.
Jack was Yankee to the core, and while Eskew seemed okay, Jack was strange. Jack, I found out later was one helluva player. Smith and Street’s basketball issue had predicted Jack to be the next Dick Groat when he enrolled at Duke University. He’d been offered a signing baseball bonus with the Philadelphia Phillies Baseballers, and at that point, held the all time scoring record for high school football in Pennsylvania. Quite a resume. He also was my “most unusual character” (of Saturday Evening Post fame).
I never knew why he was kicked out of Duke, but there he was in Wilson, NC with me, Eskew and land lady, Mattie Dildy.
I met Mattie moments after Jack had come over to our room. She rarely came upstairs, being 70 plus years old, fat and staggeringly drunk a lot of the time.
On this evening Jack succeeded. “Mattie, get the hell up here and I mean now”, Jack shouted. John and I were stunned when she waddled in, disheveled, tight, and ready to party as much as any fraternity man. I had stripped to my shorts, and was lying in my new found bed when Jack said. “Mattie, get in the bed with him!” She laughed and headed my way. Obviously Jack saw how appalled I was, and called her off. “Mattie, he’s got athlete’s foot, don’t get in there!”
I was eighteen years old, out of rural Robbins, not sure of myself two hours ago, and now this weird scene. And it was continually a scene.
Mattie bought a brand new ’59 Pontiac that year. Lying in my bed, or wan- dering around the house, I heard her hit the brick columns on her house gate 23 times that year.
Later she moved her middle-aged son into the front bedroom. Another mis- placed student just sort of moved in. Her son rarely came out of his room.
She wouldn’t turn the heat on so we’d burn a fire in our bedroom fireplace. There was a back room full of old furniture, much of which went up in flames that year. We found a crow housed in the same room. Also Jack had found a small snake, which fascinated him. Being a Philly resident, snakes were a rarity to him. He’d put the snake in the bathtub and watch him for hours. The highlight of many raucous nights was when Mattie, pissed at us for the late night noise, came upstairs. With some beer thrown in, the scene looked like this:
Jack turned the snake out, we opened the door to the back room, and Jack started undressing Mattie and rolling her in the floor. The other college boy was panic-stricken over the snake, particularly after Eskew turned out the lights in the entire house. The cops had been called by the neighbors and when the lights came back on there we were, Mattie rolling on the floor giggling, the snake, the crow loosed, one kid crying and the son from the back room standing in his door scratching his head with one hand, his testicles with the other.
The cop was Ray Hayes. He wore knee high motorcycle boots to go with his motorcycle. What a strange look on his face. Years later Ray would still corner me trying to figure all that out.
One of Mattie’s neighborhood drinking buddies was Georgia Stark. They’d be in the gin pretty good by the mid afternoon. Georgia’s son, Lucien wrote an interesting book about Wilson during this time period entitled “The Noise Upstairs.” Wilsonians are trying to figure who’s who in this 2006 first novel by Lucien. If he wants any verification that that part of Nash Street was strange in 1959 he can call me, Eskew, or Ray Hayes.
A SENSE OF HUMOUR
There were some great games, funny things and tremendous performances. We felt good about 1960-61 but lost our first two games. Our third, at home against Elon was a must. From the bench I watched “Jughead” Irwin of Elon flip in a bomb at the buzzer, over Eskew, to beat us 62-61.
Fellow benchwarmer, Terry Harris and I hit for the dressing room. Alone, first in and changing clothes, we watched as our steaming coach cried “son of a bitch” at the same time he kicked his dressing room door. The door had a rubber stopper which trampolined the door flush into the 140 lb. coach. It flattened him. Terry and I peeked sideways from our sitting position, as we turned purple trying not to laugh. McComas said, from an almost blind stagger, “Don’t you bastards laugh at me.” He sat down, thought a minute holding his head, and changed his mind. “No you can laugh quick before the others get here, but you don’t ever tell anybody about this.” Sorry Coach!
DEPARTMENT CHAIRPERSON
Once Dr. Sanford and I shared a classroom to give different exams. I watched as people cheated on his test unabashedly. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t look at the blatant collaborating.
As I exited I pointed out boldly: “Doc” those four guys at that table are cheating right now, and they’ve been cheating all period.” I walked out indignantly.
Overnight I pondered that I had just showed up my chairman in front of students. I was certainly concerned about my action.
As I approached “Doc” in the hall the next morning the conversation went like this. (Doc called me “Pie Ram”.)
“Pie Ram. Do you know what the little tree asked the big tree?
“Am I a son-of-a-beech? Or a son-of-a-birch?”
The big tree said, “Oh, I remember your mother, what a lovely piece of Ash.” He then added, “Those boys cheat all the time, don’t worry about it.”
DOC AND “PEAHEAD”
Small college teachers often have colleagues’ children in their classes. They are often the brightest is the class or’ “the others”. Love for colleagues, or the realization that one of your own may be one of “the others” breeds special attention to the “not yets”.
Recently I talked to John Sanford, son of legendary “Doc” Sanford, our baseball coach and my department chairperson. Doc and I changed schools. He came from Elon to Atlantic Christian College, now Barton College, and later I moved to Elon. One day at Elon Doc called saying he was bringing 12 year old son, John, to visit Elon. I made preparations.
Doc came to Atlantic Christian because of a bitter turf battle with the Elon basketball coach, the irascible Bill Miller. Vying over services of Richard Such, future baseball Hall of Famer caused the tift.
Elon’s gym housed a hosting room, the Huey Room, where they displayed Elon’s athletic greats, or Hall of Fame members. Large pictures of members were hung on the wall in no order. Before Doc’s impending tour I crept into the Huey Room and rearranged the pictures, putting Doc right beside Coach Miller.
After greeting Doc and John I escorted them down to the the shrine, all the way extolling the athletic prowess of his father to young John. As we entered and squared away at the pictures I interrupted my praise.: “Oh my god , Doc! They’ve got you up there by Miller!”
Doc said: “… yeah- move me down there by” Peahead” Walker!”
I asked John if he remembered that visit some thirty years ago? “Like it was yesterday”. he added, “..Coach, thanks for helping all us faculty kids.”
HANDWRITING
One cheating case I sat in on involved “Doctor” Kelly. Billy Kelly was not overly intellectual. And he was called “Doctor” for a reason. It was well known that Billy would tell his date anything to make progress. “I love you”, was blurted out within moments. He was a self-proclaimed doctor, movie star, Olympic ath- lete, widow, or whatever he perceived to get the job done.
A handwriting expert had proven Billy and two others had turned in exams, done by the same person.
Billy was the first to be told that fact. I was Billy’s advisor and listened, as the next defendant, unaware of the evidence, threatened vehemently to “sue the school out of existence for this travesty.”
As he drew his first breath, “Doctor Kelly” interjected, “Ah hell, George, I done told ‘em we done it.”
Case closed.
HOMER CLOCK
My freshman basketball teams played at a now defunct, E.M.I., or Edwards Military Institute. Pete Maravich had prepped at E.M.I.
The gym was cold and the clock wouldn’t start properly. That was okay because we were way ahead. Then E.M.I. rallied, and the lead dwindled. And the clock wouldn’t run. A twenty-minute half must have turned into forty-five basketball minutes. I went to the scorer’s table repeatedly. They decided to run a hand held clock.
E.M.I. led one time by one point. The moment they scored that goal the hand held horn blared. “You’re shitting me!”
I was livid. I knew enough about sports to know the “Chicago Cubs” dictum: “The situation hopeless but not serious.”
Or, “300 million Chinese don’t give a shit.”
All the sayings coaches try to calm themselves with, “Just another pothole in the road of coaching.” Still I was pissed at this blatant robbery. Reason set in. I’d hide so as to not let my temper overload my ass.
My refuge was a storage room that housed gymnastic equipment. Parallel bars, side horses, mats, etc. There I stewed until I felt I could keep my mouth shut. Next problem:
The door wouldn’t open. I was locked in. I hollered and banged on the door. No one. Minutes passed before I noticed a big piece of ply board nailed on the oposite wall. In anger, again, I went over and banged it as hard as I could.
The plyboard, held only by four ten penny nails, fell backwards where it hit the old lady running the concession stand in the head.
We were both angry now, but I was also embarrassed.
THE SCAR OF RUSSIA AND TIP O’NEIL
Country was afraid of Gerald Wallace. That’s saying a lot, but he was justified. Gerald could get a lot drunker that we could, liked guns too much, and invariably got us kicked out of wherever.
Gerald convinced me to buy a gun. I’ve never shot it. Then he said I needed more guns and ammunition.
I did laugh at him.
“Parham,” Scope said, “you college people think you’re smarter than people like me, but I know that the Scar of Russia took all the guns up.” We called him “Scar” in Wilson.
People in Greensboro, his home, called him “Scope.” Why? I asked.
“Well, when we went skinny dipping, the rest of ‘em had to hide in the water. I’ve got a “bankwalker.” Up scope!
Gerald was high up in the Greensboro Elk’s Club. His buddy “Gooch” Lane start- ed the first topless bar in Greensboro, and the rest of them went down hill after that.
Pal “Percy” was home bound later on because he wouldn’t try to get his re- voked driver’s license back. “Percy, I get just as drunk as you do. I feel just as bad as you do the next day. To hell with you, I’m not driving you around anymore.”
Percy stayed at home. Drank all day, and ate pecans.
Gerald called me late at night, often, and often drunk. One night he told me
he’d talked to Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil. “Horse shit, Gerald.”
“Parham, we were at the Elks Club and we decided we wanted some tickets to the Redskins-Cowboys football game in Washington. The “Professor” (one of the Elk’s Rat Pack) has a son named John who works in Tip’s office. It was Sunday, so
we called John’s office. Tip answered.”
“Oh, Mr. O’Neil, we were trying to talk with John” Gerald’s entrée.
“I’m sorry, but he’s not here,” politely Mr. O’Neil replied. “Can I help you?” “Well,” Scope revealed, “we’re trying to get four tickets to the Washington-
Dallas game next Sunday.”
“Hmmm,” the Speaker replied, “that’s mighty tough to do!”
Gerald swore he came back with “…well, goddamn Tip, if it was easy we’d do
it ourselves.”
See why we got kicked out a lot? When Gerald told me this I didn’t believe
him. “Call Percy, he was there.” He gave me Percy’s number.
“By golly yes, I’ll call Percy tomorrow!”
I didn’t want to give Gerald an advantage so I asked Percy if Gerald had re-
cently talked with any “politicians.” It was noon, a little early for Percy. After a moments silence a voice asks “oh yeah, you mean when he called Skip O’Neil?”
Gerald’s housing centered around a place he could walk home from the Elk’s Club. He’d had two D.U.I.’s. Someone told me he’d bought a moped. This ought to be good. I called him.
“Scar, how is it driving around Greensboro on that moped,” was my question.
“Well, Parham, it’s a lot like screwing a fat woman. It ain’t bad till your friends see you.”
I asked Gerald how his daughter was doing once. “Her mother and I flipped a coin to see who’d get to shoot her.”
GEOMETRY
Another summer failure was a college foray with an East Carolina student. I was hired by Virginia Beach Photo Service, located on 15th St., Virginia Beach. The trick was to sell pictures on the beach, which were developed, and placed in a key chain “plastic viewer.” $2.50 charges netted a commission of 50 cents per sale. Strictly commission.
The summer job gods got me good this time. It rained for 17 straight days. I mean no one was at the beach. I almost starved. Finally the sun shown.
I was an apprentice without sale #1. My mentor advised me to leap when I felt froggy. I watched several sales pitches and began to think I could do it.
As we approached two seated teenaged girls my employer went into high gear. He: “Let me take your picture.”
She: “No”
Through several “pitches” she remained firm, where upon he reached down and yanked her up by the arm and took her down to the shoreline and snapped her picture.
My turn!
Me: “Let’s join your friend.”
She: “No way.”
After three similar rebukes I employed similar tactics as my teacher.
As I grabbed her arm and started to lift her she began to shout “I’ve got an
artificial leg! I’ve got an artificial leg!”
As I watched the towel that had covered her prosthesis, I observed in compass
fashion, her leg draw a half circle in the Va. Beach sand.
Bus back to Robbins. Borrowed the fare.
The Little Green Book of Tennis 