by Roy Exum
posted July 29, 2009
 Roy Exum |
I had a guidance counselor once tell me, "Son, there are some who attend here that don't know what's going on, but you are the only one who doesn't even 'suspect' anything else might be happening." That said, I can say the last place I ended up - Chattanooga City High - was the most wonderful school that ever was and some of my happiest days were spent with "The Oldest and the Best."
In my blanket of emails the other day came a notice that my beloved CHS would soon be having a big reunion which in itself creates a problem because, to this day, I don't know what year I graduated from City High.
I know I took my last class right before Christmas in 1967, but didn't get my diploma until after the New Year in 1968. It doesn’t really matter. The very next day I gave it up in order to attend an 8 a.m. class at the University of Mississippi and I haven't seen that diploma since.
Really, what difference does it make?
Thank goodness the new trend is to have reunions in 10-year increments and, when they have this year's big bash Oct. 16-17, I am eager to be in the crowd for two reasons. First are the people who I went to school with.
Listen, I can safely say that down through the years, this since becoming a noted alumnus of every other school I ever attended, I have more former classmates than any man in the United States. But those kids at City – in particular - will never, ever, be forgotten by me.
Maybe bigger in the second reason - the people who taught me lessons either “the easy way” or “the hard way” made me who I am. So when I heard the Reunion Committee was beginning a City High Hall of Fame, my tears came easy as I read down this list - Col. Creed Bates, Dr. Jim Henry, Coach Jim Phifer (to whom I owe my soul), Dr. Mary Barker, the unsinkable Catherine Pryor, Clara Carpenter, Coach Ray Bussard and the beloved Jimmy Duke. My goodness!
The students who will be enshrined include Michael Adams (1966), who is now president of the University of Georgia, Air Force Major General Jeff Grime (1965), Congressional Medal of Honor winner Charles Coolidge (1939), nuclear sub "driver" Admiral Skip Bowman (1962), Dr. Wayne Clough (1959) who was the president of Georgia Tech before becoming Secretary to the Smithsonian, Mississippi State basketball coach Sharon Fanning (1971), and the great industrialist and philanthropist Garrison Siskin (1920).
Other students in the inaugural class are U.S. Senator Bob Corker (1970) who “pound for pound” was quite an athlete, NBC national news announcer Russ Ward (1944), former UCLA All-American and Seattle Seahawk Tommy Taylor (1981), Parade Magazine All-American basketball star Orlando Lightfoot (1988), Rhodes Scholar and former Provident CEO Carey Hanlin (1942), University of Chattanooga famed coach "Scrappy" Moore (1920) who is in the College Hall of Fame, Army Lt. General John Ryan (1921), Tennessee Supreme Court Justice "Mickey" Barker (1959), former Chattanooga Mayor Gene Roberts (1951) and industrialist-philanthropist Lewie Card (1971).
To be blunt, City's Hall of Fame is as fine a testament to a school's brilliance I ever saw and, remember, I represented "the dark side" – “suspect” anything ? - even I can see that.
Now, what is going to make the thing so heady is that each will be introduced by a former classmate or student who has been carefully picked to “tell it all, brother." So you go ahead and mark this down right now - you can go to Broadway or Hollywood, or anywhere else there is high comedy, and not hear anything to equal when Richard Floyd, now in the state House of Representatives, tells about the day Coach Bussard decided to make him a pole-vaulter.
I’ve been a lot of places, seen and heard many things, but the tale is undoubtedly the most hysterical story I have ever heard in my life. And what’s more, every single word is the truth.
You see, poor Richard had never even seen a pole until one fateful day when Coach Bussard, snatching him bewilderedly out of class, drove him from the "old City," that is now the School for Arts and Sciences, down Third Street past Erlanger Hospital, Engel Stadium and over the viaduct to the Warner Park Field House where there was an indoor vaulting pit.
Coach Bussard, who back in his college days actually qualified for the U.S. Olympic team in track before a freak accident broke his ankle, would vault and then Richard would try, time and time again in a marathon of a lesson that began that morning around 9 a.m. and lasted all day, seriously, until way after dark.
Finally Coach Bussard, who would go on to lead UT to the national swimming championship and the U.S. Olympic swim team to a gold, got so frustrated with Richard, who by then absolutely couldn't lift his weary arms higher than his belt buckle, that he screamed one last time and roared away in disgust, leaving Richard with no other choice but to walk all the way back – not just to school but all the way home in North Chattanooga, this in the cold and pitch-black darkness.
Now this was in the early '60s and a new product that was being advertised all over radio and television was called "Mr. Clean." The commercials of the day featured this bald, beaming genie kind of a guy and he had a magic wand of sorts where he could grant your wish for "whiter whites."
Well, here goes a kid in baggy maroon shorts who would one day ascend to the state legislature, walking down Third Street with this long aluminum pole, and all the black guys up and down the street had an uproarious time, begging "Mr. Clean" not to zap them. It’s the truth!
Trust me, when you hear Richard tell it, don't dare take a sip of anything because you are certain to spew it all over the person sitting beside you. The whole reunion weekend will be like that, I promise, so help me I do, and if you miss it then you ain’t no kind of “Dynamo” at all. (For further information go to www.chsdecadereunion1964-1974.com)
royexum@aol.com
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