Call Ripley, page 1
Table of Contents
Call Ripley
SOME SOUTHERN EXPRESSIONS AND WORDS:
Places I’ve traveled during my 80 years:
Doris and her dad on the way to the school bus.
Grandpa Bruce’s Farm | Grandpa Bruce’s Bill of Sale for purchase of Farm.
Things that came out of the 40s were:
I am adding things that come to mind as I go through my life.
PICTURE OF POP
Some personal stories from the 50’s
I could go on forever but you get the point. | WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND, WELCOME BACK!!
We had a few from my class that made a name for themselves:
Other significant things the 50s gave us:
Some stories that might interest.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN A LAND FAR AWAY
Google says that the $5000 is $25,000 in today’s money.
Other 70s milestones included:
Now why I do not like Eldrick Tont Woods.
PARROT CAY- DONNA KARAN, BRUCE WILLIS, KEITH RICHARDS
Now to a summary of the what the future might bring:
Which Generation are You?
CALL RIPLEY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Lewis Grizzard – A Georgia Bulldog and as he would have said it:
I admit openly and without shame that his humor is southern and like Lewis I am by the grace of God also a southerner and likewise I am Bulldog born, Bulldog bred and when I die, I will be Bulldog dead.
I have borrowed without permission some of Lewis’ humor and sprinkled it throughout this pitiful attempt to entertain and educate Southerners and Yankees alike. Lewis proved that you can be funny without being crude. It is told that Lewis’s ashes were sprinkled on the 50-yard line at Sanford stadium (Georgia’s football field). If I owe Lewis anything for borrowing from him, let me know and I will cremate it and sprinkle it with Lewis.
Google Lewis Grizzard and you will be surprised and entertained.
This narrative could contain some double negatives and words that AIN’T in the dictionary and are an essential part of the southern language. These examples of not-correct English have caused the early retirement of a few southern English teachers. One I know of specifically is my sister Connie Clifford who was the Teacher of the Year at least twice for Richmond County (Augusta, Georgia). Example: You ain’t got no learning.
SOME SOUTHERN EXPRESSIONS AND WORDS:
Shonuf – sure enough
Y’all - most know it is short for you all. What many don’t know is that it can be singular or plural. When spoken to a single person it means you come back and bring friends and/or family. Y’all come back, you hear. “you hear” is added for emphasis.
Musta – must have – He musta already left for school
Sefit’s – See if it is – Sefit’s still in the sock drawer
Sump’um - Something
Fixing to - Will do it shorty or eventually
Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise. – It will happen unless there is a disaster
Yes, Ma’am and Yes Sir or No Ma’am and No Sir – Much better than yeah and no.
High Falutin – as in – That’s a high falutin restaurant, they cook the tomatoes and don’t cook the green beans. If you have ever had southern cooking, you will understand.
Do What? When the doctor tells you that he going to cut you open and remove one of your vital organs, your response is – DO WHAT?
Throw me in the briar patch. – Have some fun and look it up. It comes from one of the first Disney animated films – Song of the South.
There are many others, but I am sure you have heard them all.
FOREWORD TO CALL RIPLEY
Tom Brokaw wrote the book “The Greatest Generation” which was about people who were born between 1910 and 1924. That generation was 17 to 40 years old when World War II started. Tom is correct. They put us in a position where we are today otherwise, we'd be under the control of Japan and Germany. Not a pleasant thought. The silent generation from 1925 to 1945 took the baton from the greatest generation and in my opinion the two generations made the decades of the 40’s and 50s the greatest in history. I hope after reading this book and seeing the opportunities it offered individuals like myself and Mr. Brokaw, you will agree. Those two decades laid the foundation for the next 6 decades. Tom and I both were born in 1940 and we were part of the silent generation. I don’t think we were that silent, but labels are just that. I have included a list of the generations at the end of this book for those like me who tend to be confused by the labels we apply to the generations.
Tommy boy, this book is a follow-up to “The Greatest Generation", with some insight from someone like you, born as the greatest generation was winding down. It outlines the experiences that I have been lucky enough to have. Luck plays a part in all of our lives. I have two quotes on luck, "I would rather be lucky than good. I don't have to work half as hard" on the other side of that "The harder I work the luckier I get". I'm going to track my experiences as I track the changes and happenings by the decades up to 2020 when I turn 80. Wow what a ride it’s been.
As we say in the deep South, “sorry Bubba”. You missed the GREATEST opportunity to write a sequel to outline the next few generations and the greatest advances in the history of man and woman (to be politically correct).
Naming the book, CALL RIPLEY might not make sense at first but as you read on, I hope it will resonate with you. I have lived a charmed life from the farm of the 40s to my 80th birthday in 2020 with all my facilities intact and as they say, “healthy as a horse”. There are a lot of “BELIEVE IT OR NOT” experiences where I could have called Ripley but will let this book take care of all those missed call opportunities.
By the way Tom, you started off the greatest generation with Congressman Sam Gibbons from Tampa. I moved to Tampa 54 years ago and Sam was a neighbor. GREAT PERSON!!
The following people will be included in my personal stories and the personal adventures I have experienced as I compare the changes that have transpired from my birth in 1940 until 2020:
Elvis
James Brown
Nelson Mandela
Pele
Art Linkletter
Johnny Unitas
Santo Trafficante
Tiger Woods
George Bush (43)
Charles Barkley
Michael Jordan
David Robertson (The Admiral)
Steve Young
Herschel Walker
Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, etc. I worked in the Members and Player’s lounge and locker room during the Masters for three years.
The following are examples of what has transpired over the last 80 years:
Memorizing the multiplication tables to smart phones and devices and cloud storage.
One-piece cover all bathing suits to two-piece bikinis which cover 10% or less.
Single engine puddle jumpers to rockets to the moon and beyond our solar system.
Mostly high school educations to doctorates and beyond.
Dirt roads to interstate highways.
Heavy cotton and wool to no iron quick dry, easy to wear clothing.
From “frankly my dear I don't give a damn’ to frequent use of the word "fuck" and on-screen sex and “porn” at your fingertips (pardon the expression) on the internet.
Sitting around waiting for news on the radio and newspapers to the World Wide Web. A British study and survey call it the number one game changer in the last 80 years.
“In the closet” homosexuality to gay pride LBGTQ.
Vinyl records to music on your phone, watch and back to vinyl records.
Dick Tracy watch to the real thing available to everybody.
Look-the-other-way to “me-too”.
Women were primarily housewives to taking over the world.
Stick shift Cars to driving themselves.
Conventional wars to 9/11 and world-wide terrorism.
Beautiful starry nights to unlocking the universe.
High school state championships in sports to Super Bowl, World Cup, etc.
Rural Electric Authority (REA) to solar, wind, nuclear power for the world.
No digital devices to digital everything including home computers to GPS remote control of all our needs
“Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” to Penicillin, polio vaccine, organ transplants, etc.
I have also included some predictions on where we will be in 80 more years which will be the start of the 22nd Century
Places I’ve traveled during my 80 years:
Australia, Tasmania, Japan, Mexico, Scotland, Canada, England, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Bahamas, Sweden, Turks and Caicos’ Islands, Poland, Cayman Islands, India, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, China, Republic of South Africa, and its surrounding countries.
Table of Contents
40’s: How ya gonna keep’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?
50’s: The Shotgun House, The Trick and The Day the Music Died!
60’s: Learning to STFU!
70’s: “A Fool and His Money are Soon Parted.”
80’s: Walk Softly or Taste the Big Stick!
90’S: Mandela! Charles, Michael, and Tiger. Bill and Monica! Oh, My!
21st Century: What’s a News Paper, Payphone or Newsstand?
MISCELLANEOUS
Mass extinctions
The Future
Generations D efined
Rules for Success
THE 40’s
It was "A dark and stormy night" on August 11, 1940 in Aiken, South Carolina. I know, I get it. “Dark and Stormy Night” is such a cliché. My mama is at fault. She told me it stormed so hard that thunder could be heard in Savannah, Georgia a hundred and fifty miles away. It was a stormy night when I was born, and it was soon to be a very stormy world.
Since dark and stormy night is such a literary joke, I decided to do a little research. The phrase was first written by an English novelist named Edward Bulwer-Lytton as a start to his 1830 novel “Paul Clifford”. I know, same last name as mine. You can't make this stuff up. Charles Schulz put the icing on the cake when he had Snoopy emBARK on a career as a world-famous novelist. I have attached a picture of the cover of Snoopy and It Was a Dark and Stormy Night.
Mr. Bulwer-Lytton was a good friend of Charles Dickens. Mr. Dickens was an actor in one of his plays and Mr. Dickens named one of his children after him.
Just so you know, I tend to veer off occasionally and I will do so throughout this tiptoe through the tulips.
I obviously don't remember much during the first five years of my life. I do remember a little bit about rationing and things like crushing cans and turning them in for the war effort. During that time, as we all know, we ended up at war with Germany, Italy and Japan (The Axis Powers). It seems that the axis powers planned to gang up on the United States of America. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th and four days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Their plan was of course to divide and conquer. Without going through the history that we all know and put into simple terms, we kicked their ass!
The difference between us and them was we were a democratic country pulling together all of our resources technical, human, and industrial to kicking the hell out of countries managed by tyrannical dictators who would not allow a voice from anyone. Hitler was a crazy egomaniac. Japan was an egotistical culture who worshiped an Emperor who was out of touch with the world. Italy was controlled by an idiot who did whatever Hitler told him to do. I hope I haven't offended anyone but if I did, so be it.
I learned later that my daddy was not qualified to serve due to his high blood pressure. He signed up to work at Camp Gordon (later to become Fort Gordon) in Augusta to make up for not serving. He was a good athlete having been a football star on the Aiken, South Carolina High School football team and later a State Champion tennis player, yet disqualified to serve.
Funny story - My daddy was prematurely bald and self-conscious about it. Prior to WWII, he worked at the School for the Deaf in Cave Springs, GA. They enlisted him to play on the basketball team even though that was not legal. Opposing fans would heckle him with insults like “Baldy and Chrome Dome” and he couldn't even smile, much less react, since he was supposed to be deaf.
I have a few memories from my childhood that are a sign of those times.
Milk and dairy products were delivered by the Milkman and left on the front porch next to the door. The Milkman was also famous for other things, but I will skip that part of history. Our Cocker Spaniel, Patience, didn’t have much. She knocked over the milk bottles and then lapped up milk glass and all. Patience didn’t make it through that ordeal.
I had a bad habit of interrupting my mama when she was talking to someone. She was talking to a friend and after my third or fourth interruption I got a real backhand. Lesson learned; I am always very careful who I interrupt. No, she did not hear from the child welfare agency regarding physical abuse. In fact, I think she got a citation for being a great disciplinarian, just kidding. No question times were different.
My mama worked during that time and had a black lady come in once a week to do the heavy cleaning. I would address the black lady as “yes ma'am” and “no ma'am”. Mama pulled me aside and told me that we did not say ma'am or sir to those people. I was very confused. I asked her why, but she could never really give me a logical explanation. Along those same lines. I asked about the “back of the bus” routine. Same result. Interestingly enough, mama was not a bigot or racist, she was just a product of her environment. Her environment was completely wrong but that was not her fault. I just didn't get it and never have. If she had been born earlier she would have been a sharecropper not a slave owner. They both answered to the master. I get the difference but each of them lived a pretty dismal life.
In her late 70s, mama decided to be an artist. I have attached a picture of a watercolor she did at 82 years old.
As you read this, you will understand my views on race. I believe that I am closer to the norm than the minority of white trash that present themselves as representative of the deep South.
The following is a description of the rural South immediately following World War II. Even though I was 5 to 10 years old, I remember it vividly.
My grandfather died when my mama was very young and she and my grandma lived with “grandad”. When mom married my father, Connie Clifford, they lived in Augusta. My grandma lived in Augusta also and married Tillman Bruce. When mama was pregnant with me, grandma was pregnant with my Aunt Doris. Are you with me? My aunt and I were born within five months of each other.
As I understand it, mama was none too happy that her mother was having a baby at the same time she was having her first child, me. Mama was 26 years old at the time. In those times that was a late time for having your first child. Doris and I went in High School together and I would mess with her in front of her friends by calling her aunt Doris. As you might imagine she would be furious with me.
Later in life, Doris and grandma moved to Midland, Texas. Doris was a music major in college and became the music director at the First Baptist Church of Midland. As you might remember, President George Bush (43) lived in Midland when he was in the oil business. In fact, he met Laura his wife, in Midland. Laura Bush's mother was a member of the First Baptist Church of Midland. Doris was asked to fly with Laura's mother as a companion to Washington when Doris was going to visit my sister, Kathy, who lives in the D.C. Area. When they got ready to land, Laura’s mother started to worry if someone was going to meet her when she arrived. REALLY!! Mother-in-law of the president of United States of America NO ONE is going to meet her.
At 55-years-old, my old maid aunt Doris married Don McSparran. Don was a church member whose wife had died a few years earlier. Guess who gave the bride away? Yup, it was me. Don is an outdoorsman. Hunts, fishes, etc. aunt Doris does it all to the shock of all of us in the family. The painting of the rural Georgia farmhouse attached was painted by Don. He is definitely a Renaissance man.
In case you haven't picked up on it, Doris is more sister than aunt.
I've jumped way ahead of myself!
The following is a description of the rural South immediately following World War II and was one of the greatest experiences that I have had. Even though I was 5 to 10 years old, I remember it vividly.
Clear memories of my early years start around 1945 when my grandma and her husband Tillman Bruce bought a 330-acre farm in Burke County, Georgia about 20 miles from Augusta. The farmhouse that is pictured here that was painted by Don from Doris and my memories. It is definitely as I remember it. This farm was prior to REA. Some of you may not know what that is but the Rural Electric Authority brought power to rural America particularly in the deep South. The farm had no electricity, no running water, no tractor, no transportation but a horse and two mules and a flatbed truck that served more than just transportation purposes.
Doris rode with her dad on the horse to the main road where she would be picked up by the school bus. The main road was a mile away. School was in Waynesboro Georgia 15 miles away. (Insert photo) Waynesboro currently advertises itself as the bird-dog capital of the world.
Doris and her dad on the way to the school bus.
When the cotton was right, we would help pick cotton. That’s correct a white boy picking cotton can you imagine that. The farm had a white sharecropper family. Tillie was their daughter who was our age and hung out with us while all the grown folks were tending to the fields. We stacked the cotton at the barn so we could jump from the upper window of the barn into the cotton, as shown in the painting.
The flatbed truck had removable sides which were used when it was filled with cotton and taken to the cotton gin in Waynesboro. Us kids would ride in the back of the truck on the cotton. Cotton would be ginned, bailed, weighed, and paid for on the spot. If you owed anybody money generally, they would be standing around the cotton gin hoping to be paid.
