Lots to see and eat on Georgia’s Highway 15

   

 From the backseat window of a 1964 Buick, I got my first glimpse of Georgia’s Highway 15.  I can remember the route’s landmarks as well as the brocade seat covers in Mrs. Ruth Oglesby’s blue and white LeSabre.  The Jesup High School teacher was pursuing an advanced degree at The University of Georgia.  She invited me to tag along with John, her youngest son, on those weekend trips.

     Mrs. Oglesby got her 6th-year certificate, and I got attached to Athens. When John and I left for college, he stayed straight on Highway 341 on his way to Atlanta and Georgia Tech.  In downtown Baxley, I turned right onto Highway 15 toward Athens and UGA.  And for 51 years, I’ve been rolling up and down that stretch of two-lane blacktop.

     I still chuckle when I pass through Greensboro.  In 1966, I stayed–with my parents—in the Nathaniel Greene Motel.  They thought the 210 miles were too much for one day.  We motored the last 35 miles the next morning.  Now, I can’t count the times that I’ve driven the 420-mile round trip in the same day.

     During their growing-up years, our children—Alan, Emily and Eric—made plenty of those up-and-back trips. We cheered for the Wayne County Yellow Jackets on Friday night.  And then before the rooster crowed on Saturday, we’d beeline for Athens.

     One morning, I kept hearing beep-beep, over and over.  Emily and her friend, Laura Peel, who were sitting backwards in our Oldsmobile station wagon’s third seat, were holding up a hand-lettered sign: “Honk, if you love the Dawgs.” 

      After tailgating under the big oaks on the campus, we’d soak up sunshine in Sanford Stadium’s Section 106, cheering for the Bulldogs.  Our kids can still mimic Larry Munson’s “There goes Herschel.  There goes Herschel!”

Bill Simpson still has that voice and that laugh

     The sun was hellishly hot for an autumn afternoon.  My rump was roasting on the aluminum bleacher, but I wasn’t complaining on Oct. 8, 1966.  

     As a UGA freshman, that was my first Sanford Stadium experience. The Bulldogs beat Ole Miss,

9-3, before 45,200 fans. And I was one of them. When the final whistle blew, my red-striped necktie was loosened and my starched, white oxford-cloth shirt was stuck to my back. As I walked out of the stadium, both hands were busy.  One was guiding a pretty brunette through the barking mob, and the other held a sweat-soaked navy wool blazer, slung across my shoulder.

     When you are 17, you think you are going to live forever.  But on that Saturday, it was as if I had died and gone to Heaven.  And this heaven even had a rich, god-like voice booming from the stadium’s loudspeakers. I vowed to do my homework.  Who was the man behind the Bulldogs’ microphone?  When I found out, I wrote his name down and saved it for another day.

     Four years later, I startled Bill Simpson.  He was in his spartan office on Clayton Street, sorting cardboard boxes.  I knew he had just left the university to launch his public relations and advertising firm.  Well, I had just earned a UGA public relations degree. The best way to find a job is to go look for one and ask.  And that’s what I did a few days after my 1970 spring graduation.

     I can still hear Bill laughing.  He wasn’t being rude, just honest.  Waving his hand around the tiny office, he said, in his Sanford Stadium voice, “I don’t even know how I’m going to pay myself.”  Since he didn’t have a chair to offer, we stood and chatted.  As I learned, a conversation with Bill is punctuated with laughter.

     As the years rocked by, I discovered how the dots between our lives connected.  Bill’s stepsons, Ed and David Allen, are my friends.  One of Bill’s best friends is Hubert Howard.  As Sigma Chis at Georgia, the pair bonded, and they have stayed in touch for 65 years. Until he retired, Hubert was my Jesup attorney. Bill calls his buddy “Bear,” and Hubert calls his fraternity brother “The Mouth of the South.”

     Hubert and Bill still get tickled about the 1950-era “Ugliest Man on Campus Contest.”  Bill was determined to nominate his fraternity brother, but Hubert flipped the trick and got Bill on the ballot.  Time has faded memories of who won, but both men still laugh about that stunt.

     One thing Hubert hasn’t forgotten is Bill’s gifts in comedy, songwriting and music.  Bill was a celebrity on sorority row. Genius-like, he could craft lyrics, almost on the spot.  He would play the piano and belt out his originals—like “Peachtree Street”—and young ladies would swoon.  Starting in 1956, he put that voice into action in Sanford Stadium’s press box for about two decades. And just the other day, the 85-year-old had a crowd rollicking to jokes like this: