After all these years of the
same routine, I don’t even have to look in the mirror to shave. Monday morning, I was thinking rather than
looking, as I scraped the razor across my face.
This weekend is homecoming for Wayne County High School, and it’s a redo
for the Class of 1966’s 50-year reunion.
“Nooooo, it can’t have been 50 years,” I
mumbled to myself. And then I glanced
into the mirror. Staring back at me was
evidence: “Yep, it’s been that long.” Sure enough, if you see an extra sprinkling
of gray-haired fans in Jaycee Stadium Friday night, that’ll be us. We’re the last class before Odum, Screven and
Wayne County Training School consolidated with the Orange Street campus. Even though the sign on the brick wall said
Wayne County High School, we thought of ourselves as graduates of Jesup High.
A
half-century can erase some memories, but some just get chiseled deeper. I’ll never forget:
*The
staccato click of Peachy Aspinwall’s high heels on the tile floors or the day
she promoted me to an IBM electric typewriter.
*Dissecting
frogs in Delores Roberson’s 10th-grade biology class.
*The
good humor C.W. Collins used as he tried
to teach me algebra.
*The
laughter coming from the connecting homerooms of Johnnie Hayes and Kathleen
Hires.
*Principal
C.E. Bacon’s booming voice on the intercom: “I
know who you are. You might as well turn
yourself in. You will be dealt with
accordingly.”
*The
stunned silence in the football locker room when we learned our teammate, Cary
Bennett, had been killed in an auto accident the night before.
*The
hasty auditorium assembly, as we watched—on TV--the drama of the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
*The
moment and the place where we were on campus when we learned: “JFK has been assassinated.”
*Football
camp at Parker’s Paradise in Long County, and the fried-chicken eating contest
between Frog Woods and A.T. Hires … and the fistfight that followed.
*The
growl of Coach Clint Madray, as he chewed Beech Nut tobacco, “I don’t want to
see anything but elbows and bleep-holes
… go ’til you hear glass!” Decades later, his words still
ring in my ears, as Wayne County stands up to protect its environment from
toxic coal-ash dumping.
*Coach
Madray’s warning to the football team about reported “mooning” at the Dairy
Queen. With a thunderous whack of the
paddle on his palm, he roared, “If I hear any more about redeyes, I’ll give you
some redeyes!”
*Ahhhh, the Dairy Queen. A.B. and Myrtle Morgan blessed our youth with
a social Mecca on the corner of Pine and Macon streets. There’s no way to tally the courtships which
started and ended at the DQ.
*The
gift Jackie Egan gave her senior English Composition class. She challenged our teenage minds to think and
express ourselves. We found words in our
brains—words we didn’t know were hiding in there.
*And
going to a pre-Christmas Yellow Jacket basketball game with my official
UGA-acceptance letter poked in my back pocket.
I still stare at that letter and say, “Goodness, I’m glad I don’t have
to apply today.”
Most
of all, I will never forget the friendships and bonds which have stretched over
all this time. I can’t believe it’s been
50 years. Well, it hasn’t been. It’s
really 51 years. Hurricane Matthew
disrupted last year’s event. Thanks to a
loyal core of planners, we’re back—full of memories and love for our alma
mater.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
