The Summer After Graduation

During the summer following graduation I had a couple of short term jobs.  The first one was on a construction project.  I made mortar and carried blocks for my uncle who was building a house with walls of concrete tile construction.  Later I had a much more pleasant job working in a grocery store.  I sacked and carried groceries to the cars.  Our store handled chicken and cow feed and I sometimes had to carry hundred pound bags of feed to the customer’s vehicle.  Sure did a lot to harden me up.

In between Wayne Berryman, the preacher’s son, and I attended a singing school in McLean, Texas.  We had some fairly well-known instructors.  One was Tillit S. Teddlie, whose songs still appear in our hymnbooks.  The other was Palmer Wheeler.  Palmer once sang with the Stamps Quartet.  He was their tenor, and sang on the recording of “Give the World a Smile,” which sold over a million copies.   I asked Palmer if he got a gold record.  He said, “No it went to the Stamps family.”  

I pretty much learned shape note sight singing while I was at the school. Teddlie was going to teach us how to write music.  I never knew how complicated it can be to write four part harmony.  I’m afraid it went over my head.  He had written the first verse of a song, and promised to give a student credit for the lyrics if someone would write the remaining verse.  A girl named Sharon Cummings did just that and the song was later published under her name.

As it turned out Sharon was the first girl with whom I ever had a bona fide date.  It really wasn’t much of a date.  It was a triple date as I recall, but it was a date nevertheless.  Like Maryleen, I had hoped to correspond with her after the singing school, and we did write a few times before both of us went on to other things.   She enrolled at ACC sometime later, and I was always friendly to her, but that was about it.

Wayne and I had quite an experience on the way home.  Palmer was living in Memphis, Texas (Yes, there is a Memphis in Texas).   He put us on the train and we rode to Childress. We got into Childress about one o’clock in the morning, and headed for the bus station so we could get back to Abilene.  Our parents would then pick us up and take us to Clyde.  Shortly after we got off the train, the police caught up with us and wanted to know what we were doing there.   They told us where the bus station was, and I went to sleep on the steps of the bus station.   The next morning as soon as it got daylight, Wayne and I decided to take a tour of the town.  Again the same two policemen talked to us.  They said “If you boys ever do this again, you can just lie down on the court house lawn and get some sleep.”  I’ve been through Childress one other time since then, but I did not sleep on the courthouse lawn.