Finally, I decided to go the University of Tennessee at Knoxville on the GI Bill and probably take engineering to get some credit for my Air Corps experience. The aptitude test said I could take engineering but showed a very high aptitude for business. I had a host of aptitude tests in the Air Corps and respected the results. Consequently, I signed up in business and started in June 1946 with 18 hours beginning at 7:30am six days a week. I had no labs and no gaps in my schedule so, except for homework, I was free all afternoon and evening.

We found a rooming house behind UT’s library. One of my roommates was Earl Bland, a Central classmate who was under public law #16 as a wounded Marine. Apparently this was less demanding because he was totally laid back. He would take whatever I took and sit by me. Yes, he copied, but we had to write a lot of essays for English and you can’t copy essays. Mine would come back with red corrections galore and a “B”. Earl’s would have no corrections and get a “D”. This frustrated him but he wrote all simple sentences like a third grader. He went to college for a long time but I don’t know if he ever graduated. He died young.

Temptations were pretty strong at UT and I got wilder than I ever had in the Army

(but not very wild). After summer school, I enrolled for another quarter and enjoyed the fall football games, etc. However, it dawned on me that I went to UT to take engineering. For a degree in business, why not go home and enroll at the University of Chattanooga. I liked UT but the change made sense.

The University of Chattanooga was a smaller, more intimate venue but provided a good education. In 1947, we had a little over 1,000 students, almost all local. Scrappy Moore was athletic director with a tiny budget but he did a fantastic job. He played a tough football schedule, sometimes upsetting power houses like Tennessee, Auburn, Mississippi and Vanderbilt. The student body was much more supportive then than today, although they are coming back to life in 2009.

After I had taken a little psychology, I tried to counsel my sister, Mary Evelyn after her divorce. She was miserable but my psychology didn’t help. When taking child psychology, I had a Sunday School Class at Central Presbyterian participate to rate intelligence by their drawings. The results were surprisingly reasonable.

“Whispering” Paul Vesper was the nick name for the statistics professor. He was a New Jersey Yankee and very loud but let us do special projects. For example, I took a poll of the presidential primary election in 1948. President Truman only got 58 out of 1,003 votes cast (5th place). Harold Stasson finished way out in front. He was the fair-haired boy then, but kept running for president every four years and became a joke. Obviously, I didn’t have the knack for political polls. Today politicians live by polls. Some are legitimate, many are not.

Sonny Straker and I co-managed our soft ball team and had a lot of trouble with umpires and vice versa. Half the team had been suspended but we didn’t think it was all our hot tempers (although Joyce and Wink Bowman could get under any ump’s skin). I decided to do a statistics project to rate the umpires. I prepared a comprehensive and perfectly fair questionnaire for all the softball team managers. It revealed that the umpires we had trouble with were the worst. The umpires who resisted peer pressure and supported me in a meeting with the Umpires Association came out on top. Coincidence? No. Bias questionaire? No. Crooked? Maybe. Let me confess, most managers didn’t know a lot of the umpires’ names. I would help them, “O’Rear, you know, he is that little cocky guy”, or “Link, he’s that big jolly fellow.” The questionnaire was fine, but I led my witness.

Wirt Gammon, Sports Editor of the Chattanooga Times, rated Southern League Umpires. I gave him the results of my poll and he published it. I had my fun, but now every umpire knew me. In retrospect, umpiring is a tough job; we were too aggressive; and I would make a terrible umpire.

I was still dating Mary Jane some, but also a redhead, a teacher, etc. Later I went steady with Peggy Nabors. When I was late getting home, Mom would worry about her baby boy. She would stay up and wait for me. I asked what she did when I was younger and overseas. She said, “That was different”.

I planned to graduate in the summer of 1948 (two years); however, confusion in my UT credits (quarter hours to semester hours) made me six hours short. Therefore I enrolled for the fall semester taking all electives, mostly crip classes, but enough to be a full time student.

Some of these sophomore subjects taken in my senior year turned out to be very helpful. Political Science was helpful in most of my occupations and in my civic work too. Logic also helped my work and my politics. Business English taught me to avoid flowery business letters of the time---to write like you talk. Every job I’ve had required a lot of correspondence. I learned to write clear, concise, and brief letters.

Bob Bradshaw was an unusual and dedicated student at UC and later a strong civic leader and college professor. He and I organized Zeta Eta Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega; sometimes called the Boy Scout Fraternity because one of the requirements was that you had to be a former Boy Scout. Our service projects at UC trained me and set the stage for my business career and especially future civic work.

UC had a Comprehensive Exam that you had to pass to graduate. Dr Robert Barr, head of the Economics Department, was leaving to go to Marquette. Even though I had two more Senior Economic Courses to take, he invited me to try the Comprehensive. I took it and passed; what a relief. My classmates worried all through their senior year and my worries were over. I favor the Comprehensive; it helps you tie all your major subjects together. In grade school, I could study for a spelling test and make 100% but couldn’t spell some of the words the next day. Similarly, you could study classes in your major subjects but could you tie them together? Could you COMPREHEND?

Alpha Phi Omega had many service projects but the biggest fund raiser was the “Used Book Store”. This helped both the buyer and the seller and yielded a profit for APhiO. Today, unbelievably expensive text books are seldom re-cycleable due to an unholy alliance between the authors, publishers and educators.

APhiO provided ushers for all the football games, even when the Chicago Bears played the Detroit Lions in Chattanooga. Not so incidentally, I didn’t miss a home game for UC football games for 12 years. My senior year APhiO took over the sponsorship of the Sea Scouts and drafted me as Skipper. Both of my brothers had been Skipper before me so it was hard to say no.

We sent a large delegation to the National Convention in Chicago; my first convention. We had a delightful train trip. As we walked into a large assembly at our hotel, there was a chant, “Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Chattanooga”. We thought, “What a nice gesture for our new chapter”. It wasn’t to honor us; the chant was for Dr Roe Bartle, APhiO’s National Chairman and Mayor of Kansas City. He had played football at UC years before.

For publicity, Bradshaw asked me to call on the City Editor of the News Free Press, Bill Hagan, who had a tough reputation. Bill gave me a warm welcome and was very helpful. Later I worked with him in the Chattanooga Jaycees and he became State President. This simple call on behalf of APhiO paved the way for future civic work and employment.

In college, I worked part time in the Globe Clothing Store, where you were really buying credit. A Black man came in and asked for a hat. I said, “What size?” He replied, “I don’t care”. I asked what color-it didn’t matter. He got a three dollar hat for ten dollars and put it on his bill. When I asked the boss what was going on, he said, “The customer would swap the hat for a shot of splo.” All credit stores had a pay window in the very back of the store. When a customer’s balance was getting low, the clerk would sound a buzzer, so the salesman could sell him something before he escaped, to keep them indebted. Most of their money was spent on credit, not clothing.

In 1948, I called on Frank Trotter, Superintendent of Education, to encourage him to lead an effort to teach everyday economics in public schools. Many kids drop out of school early and even those who graduate frequently aren’t prepared for everyday economics-how to open a bank account, the difference in a bank and a loan shark or a department store and a credit clothing store. I stressed the need to teach not only how to make money, but how to spend it wisely.

The Superintendent gave me a friendly ear and I promoted this concept off and on for years; however, I believe today’s children are still woefully unprepared for the real world. This little episode of my life is probably evidence that I am a naturally born “do-gooder”. I hate this term, but I encountered it frequently later when I got heavily involved in volunteer work.

Another of my senior crip courses was part of the requirement to be a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU). It was a night course and all except me were already in the insurance business. Several were interested in recruiting me to be an insurance agent. No way! The instructor was John Meyers with Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company.

John was Jaycee President and invited me to join. He also invited me to interview with Provident. I did both. Joining the Jaycees had a profound affect on my life. More about this later. John Saint, office manager of the Accident Department, hired me as an auditor for the fabulous sum of $195 a month. He gave me some good advice, he said, “I have a college degree, you have a college degree, those people out there don’t have a college degree. If you do a good job, they won’t know the difference.” It was good advice because back when only five percent had degrees, some graduates were inclined to brag. By the way, did I tell you, I have a BBA Degree? Evidently, I disguised my degree pretty well, two years later, my secretary asked with surprised gusto, “You have a college degree?”

(This is an excerpt from Bob Elmore's new book, "A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the National Cemetery." The book is $10 in softback, $20 in hardback. Copies are available at the Bicentennial Library downtown, Wally's (on McCallie), Senior Neighbors, The Racket Club and the Brainerd Trophy Shop. All proceeds, not just profits, go to the Chattanooga Area Historical Association. For more information, call 629-1366.)