This memoir follows my life on farms in Arkansas in the 1950s and 1960s, to
joining the Gary Job Corps Center, in San Marcos, Texas, to a career in the military, to
being a small business owner with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service on Fort Sam
Houston, Texas after retirement, to a second career with the Texas Child Protective
Services. Having dropped out of high school at the end of my 10th-grade year, learning
to speak English properly was never a priority. I associated with the people who shared
my lot in life, the poorly educated. It was while stationed in Korea in 1971, I learned the
brutal, truth that those of us who spoke Ebonics were deemed unintelligent. I was a
member of the Company C, 728th MP Battalion basketball team playing in the Post
championship game. It was the first game the Armed Forces Radio Network had ever
broadcast live in the command. I was the best player on the team, so I was the one the
8th U.S. Army post newspaper reporter/radio announcer interviewed live pregame. I was
so naïve I thought the interview went well. A member of my unit recorded the interview
and ask if I wanted to listen to it upon my return to the unit. I had never been so
embarrassed in my life. The interview by members of my basketball team, who listened
to it, dubbed it the Ebonics (Hillbilly) interview of the century. After this interview, I made
a pledge that even if I never learned to speak English properly, I would never embarrass
myself like that again. Dedication and leadership assignments throughout my
military career enabled me to keep that promise I made to myself all those years ago.
Although I have published several books since my children still say I sound
country sometimes. They ask me why I have never written my memoir so the
grandchildren can read for themselves what grandpa's life was like growing up in the
south, and about the trials and tribulations I faced while in the Army and since my
retirement. This appealed to me because who can tell my story better than I can, and at
the same time preserve the history of my experiences to pass along to my family and
future generations? This is my legacy, enjoy the read.
