Things Are Not Always As They Appear

I don’t know if you grew up close to a rival town. But if you did, I have a story for you today.

I hated Huntingdon, Tennessee, with, as Aunt May White used to say, “a deep, abiding, anger only fit for Union soldiers.” I didn’t like nobody over there. It was only eleven miles. But I wished everyday it was ten hundred thousand. I remember thinking in one of my lucid moments, “Why can’t we trade the whole town for Izmir, Turkey.”

Just let them swap places! The Turks can have E. W. James Grocery, Pug Vickers Motor Company, the Oasis Club, and the skating rink. We’ll take…uh…er…uh…whatever they have in Izmir.

My dislike started with the County Fair. When I was very young, it was the only reason to go to Huntingdon. I’d eat two hot dogs, some cotton candy, a couple of caramel popcorn balls, and the rest of David Mark’s funnel cake, and end up throwing up over behind the two-headed calf’s tent.

It had to be the Huntingdon people. The same thing happened every year! Of course, in all honesty, some of the sickness could have been attributed to the loud music, the swirling bright lights….and back-to-back rides on the Tilt-A-Whirl and one extended trip on the Scrambler.

I ’bout disowned Daddy because he bought cars from Pug Vickers; he liked the manager, Bill Moody. Miss Lou Owens wanted to interview me once for “their” newspaper, I politely, but firmly, declined. Dr. Jerry Atkins made me mad by opening his practice in Huntingdon.

I wouldn’t go see a movie at the Court Theatre if Elvis and Carl Mann were signing autographs in the lobby.

As the years passed my dislike moved from the carnival to Coach Paul Ward.

“And therein,” as Aunt May White would say, “is the rub.” The Huntingdon High Mustangs beat us in football something like nine out of ten years in a stretch from the mid 1950’s to after I graduated. They out coached, outplayed, outran and overpowered us….and, to add insult to injury, it seemed “mother-luck-found-their-nesting-hole” (Aunt May again) every time we suited up against each other.

The only win we managed was 1963; Wesley Beal threw the winning pass to Scotty McCullar late in the game. ’Course, we were not alone in losing to Huntingdon. That win was one of only seven loses they had in that ten, or eleven, year stretch.

Coach Ward, for good reason, wasn’t on my favorite list. But I admired and respected him from afar. He could flat out coach football. They named the stadium after him for goodness sakes!

Listen, they had a running back slightly ahead of my playing time, Bobby Hayes, who I don’t think could be tackled. Roy Dill was tough. Tim Priest was a year or two behind me, but he was as good as I ever saw. Mud Brown hit me so hard one night he knocked me into the middle of the next week.

1963 was also a watershed year for my relationship with the town. Larry Ridinger came to me at Frank’s Dairy Bar, “Kes, take me to Huntingdon, there’s a girl I want to see.” This was a week and a half after I’d gotten my driver’s license. I’d never taken a road trip.

And I didn’t even know they had girls in Huntingdon. The party was at Brenda Anderson’s house on Highway 22, south of town. Billie Jean Barham was there. She was nice and attractive, and she talked to me. And handed me her telephone number before I left.

Remember my earlier statement about the Court Theatre. Well, a week later I went to the place I’d sworn never to enter. The movie on that first date was “Cleopatra.” And if Elvis and Carl Mann were in the lobby, I didn’t notice them.

I got to making that eleven-mile drive so often Betty Ann Portis said they had voted me an honorary Mustang.

In that same summer Huntingdon High standout Bobby Hayes joined our town baseball team. He was big, strong, and could, in the vernacular of the day, “throw a ripe strawberry through a battleship.” He was a great pitcher. And even better person. He was quiet, but so nice and friendly. It was a joy to be around him. I did not try to tackle him one time the entire summer….

A few years later Dale Kelley invited me to play with a baseball team IN HUNTINGDON! Joel Collins, Jimmy Redden, Glendon Rich, Gene Wilson, James and Early Neely rolled out the red carpet for me. It’s hard to hate folks that treat you like family. You talk about a special group!

Billie Jean and I went to the County Fair three years in a row. And I did not get sick one time. It was a miracle! And I believe it showed how much the people in Huntingdon had changed since I was a little boy. Of course, I wore sunglasses and ear plugs each time we went, and I didn’t eat a thing or get on one single ride….

Respectfully,
Kes