College Mentors (1)

"Old Dry Johnson"

 

As I look back on it, I think my classroom instructors made the strongest impression on me.  In the next few post I want to remember some of them.

During my first semester at ACC, I took an Old Testament survey class.  After I had been in class a few days, a young man with a flat top haircut walked up to me and said, “Are you Bales?”  I pleaded guilty.  His name was Bennie Paul Ener.   He was from Pineland, Texas and was a friend of the Berrymans in Clyde.   That was the beginning of a friendship that would last until Bennie’s death about ten years ago.

Our teacher was Dr. Robert Johnson.  He was a Michigander, who had been transplanted to Texas.  He was a World War II veteran, and I remember him as a man with dark brown hair always combed neatly straight back.  He wore sharp looking dark suits, and spoke softly in a deep baritone voice.   Maybe that’s why Bennie and I called him, “Old Dry Johnson.”  He was really anything but “dry.”  His tone might have been soft, but he had a tremendous enthusiasm for the Old Testament.   I love the Old Testament, and I’m greatly indebted to him for that love.  I can still remember things like his description of Jehu, the world’s first fast driver, the guy whom the Old Testament describes as one who “drove furiously along.”

Most of the time he was soft spoken, and avoided all forms of radicalism, but he had one subject that really got under his skin.  He didn’t believe in “luck.” In his mind nothing ever happened because of luck.  It either happened because of a person’s activity or lack thereof, or because of God’s guidance.  For him there is no such thing as “the luck of the draw.”   Bennie and I took it upon ourselves to bait him, knowing we could get him going on that subject.  One day Bennie said something like this.  “What about the breaks in a football game?”   We knew he watched football.  We had seen him at the games.   Bennie said, “Wouldn’t you call that luck?”   Dr. Johnson stood his ground. He said, “You make your breaks.”  I don’t think Bennie took it any farther than that, but if he had gone on to ask, “How about the ball that takes a crazy bounce and favors one team or the other at the end of a punt?” I know how Dr. Johnson would have responded.  He would have said that the ball bounced the way it did because of the way the punter’s toe struck the ball, not because of luck.

To tell you the truth, I don’t much believe in luck myself, and Dr. Johnson is one of the reasons why.  He was a humble man, who loved his students and I’m glad to spent some time in his presence.  I never had him after my Freshman year, but I’ll always remember him kindly.  As an added bonus, there were times when he had to be absent from the classroom.  He always brought in the same substitute – R. C. Bell.   R. C. Bell was a man who was rare for his time.  He strongly defended the premise that we are saved by God’s grace, and not by human effort.  I’ve profited from his instruction, primarily through his writings.  I’m glad I had the opportunity to be exposed to the teaching of this great man.

Academic Life

It Wasn't Greek to Me

Although college life can be a fun life, you soon find out that you are supposed to attend class.  As a matter of fact that’s what you pay for, and if you cut class, you’re cheating yourself.   If you know anything at all about today’s education costs, you will be shocked when you find out what I actually paid.   The tuition was $160 a semester.  No, I’m not talking about a semester hour – I’m talking about 18 semester hours.

During our first semester were required to take a class that introduced us to the college experience.   It was basically a psychology class, taught by Max Leach.   He was a remarkable person, and an incredible communicator. However some of his advice proved to be poor advice in my case.   I don’t blame him for it.  I blame my own immaturity.

He was trying to help “high school hotshots” accept some of the realities of college studies.  He said, “I know that many of you made straight A’s in high school.   You probably expect to do the same thing here, but this is a different discipline and it may not happen.  The average student makes a C.   For a long time I was content just to be a C student.   I didn’t apply myself as well as I might have.   I was really too immature to either understand the demands of a college education or to put forth the necessary discipline to reach excellence.   It was not until my senior year that I began to realize I could do better.  I made my first A that year.   I finished with a 2.4 GPA. I went into graduate school on academic probation and managed to earn a 3.7 GPA.

I think I could have done better than that, had I been willing to study Greek as an undergraduate.   A deacon in the church at Clyde urged me not to enroll in Greek.  The school had a ministry preparation track that did not require Greek.  He thought Greek would be too demanding for me, and that I would not do well in the classroom.   I think he must have thought that dumb and poor are the same thing.  I was not dumb.  I would never have become a Rhodes scholar no matter how well I applied myself, but I was certainly capable of better performance.  Besides that I’ve always risen to a challenge.  I’ve made good grades in “hard” classes, and my poorest grades have been in the ones that  were supposed to be easy. I have taught myself a certain amount of Greek since then, and I came to realize that the secret to the study of Greek is learning the grammatical rules and the vocabulary.   I’ve always excelled in grammar.  When I reached grad school, I was asked to do scripture exegesis and I always felt my lack of Greek skill knocked me down to a B in the exegetical courses.  I don’t want to leave the impression that I’ve mastered Greek through independent study.  I know enough to know how much I don’t know.  A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing when it comes to the study of Greek.

Part of my academic shortcomings can be laid on to immaturity, which in turn led to poor study habits.   Another part of it involved my social life.  I loved being in college, and hanging around college students.  I enjoyed sharing lunch with my fellow students in the Grill and solving the world’s problem.  I also stayed socially connected at Clyde.  From an academic standpoint, I would have been much better off had I gone away to school.  However, I eventually found out where the library was located, and I began spending a lot more time in it.

Remembering a Man We Called Tommy

Blessed are Those Who Encourage Us

My decision to attend Abilene Christian College was due, in part, to a man who had already graduated from that institution by the time I started.  As I thought about him recently I reflected on a text from scripture. 

I can do all this through him who gives me strength. – Philippians 4:13. 

This text came to my mind following Hunter Bales’ graduation from Basic Training.  Hunter is my grandson.  A part of the ceremony included the recital of the Soldier’s Creed, which includes the Warrior Ethos.  It reads as follows.

“I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit

I will never leave a fallen comrade.”

They recited it with enough volume to drown out the noise of a freight train if one had passed twenty feet away.  Of course, they weren’t talking about Philippians 4:13, but Hunter seemed to take it that way.  He views his entry into the military as a ministry – or as he put it – “Something I’m doing for God.”

It was thrilling to be in the presence of my grandson and share his enthusiasm, his optimism, his sense of purpose, and dedication to a noble cause.

For some reason, it started me to thinking about that person who played a part in my eventual decision to attend ACC.  His name was Tommy Smith.  Tommy was actually a nickname.  He was really Charles Smith, but nobody ever called him anything but Tommy.  To me Tommy epitomized determination, never quitting, never accepting defeat.  

I first got to know Tommy when I was a small boy.  He was about five or six years older than me.  And I watched him at church every Sunday morning. I looked up to him.  I liked everything about him, even the way he combed his hair. Tommy was athletic.  He quarterbacked the football team when he was in high school.  He was headed for a college football career – a “can’t miss” superstar.  Then there was a tragic accident in which Tommy lost his right arm.

But Tommy Smith wasn’t a quitter.  I remember watching him on the school ground just days after the accident.  He was throwing a baseball to friend as hard as he could throw it with his left hand.  He had lost his throwing arm.   Later, I participated in touch football games with him.  I’ve seen him throw an accurate sixty yard pass with his remaining hand.  I’ve seen him tie his shoes with one hand.

But he didn’t stop there.  He went to college, and graduated with honors.  He became a doctor.  Until he was well in his sixties he ran in long distance events, and usually won the competition for his age group.   During all these years, he took time to encourage me.  He would spend time with me, especially when others were putting me down.  He worked hard to instill the “can do” spirit in me.   I had a chance to talk with him, not too long before he died.  I told him what a great influence he had exerted in my life.  He was flabbergasted.  He said he had no idea that I viewed him that way. 

I was just thinking that what a great blessing it was to have Tommy Smith in my life.  He left us too soon. There aren’t enough people like him.  I hope there’s a Tommy somewhere in Hunter’s life.  Come to think of it, I hope there’s a Tommy in your life too.

LEARNING TO APPRECIATE SERIOUS MUSIC

I don’t think I ever really goT the hang of how to do social life on a college campus.   It didn’t take me long to realize that I was at a considerable social disadvantage.   I commuted to school.  Most of the other students either lived on campus, in the barracks or in a nearby apartment.   My social opportunities were limited.

I did have one experience during my Freshman year that put me in a different environment.   My degree plan called for me to enroll in a class called “Church Music.”   I thought I would breeze through it.   I had been to several singing schools and I knew how to read shape notes fairly well.   Richard Palm, our instructor hated shape notes.   He wanted us to learn how to read round notes because that’s what the rest of the world did.  I learned his system, but not very well.  I could have done better with a different attitude.

That particular year he directed the school opera.   I knew very little about classical music and didn’t care to know much.  However they were always pushing it on campus.  Leonard Burford was the head of the music department and he was devoted to improving musical tastes.   He was a great man.  Even though he was blind, he had a master’s degree in music from Columbia.  He founded the famous “Acapella Chorus.”  I did not appreciate him the way I should have.   He probably went to an extreme.  He wanted every student to understand and appreciate great music.  That went beyond vocal music.   The band and the orchestra were expected to conform to his vision.  

When I was a Freshman, the school hired a popular band director from Brady Texas named Doug Fry.   He later became known as “Fessor Fry.”   Quite often we would hear musical selections from the various performing groups right after the chapel devotional.   In that first fall, Fessor Fry decided the band would play a program of Glenn Miller favorites.   It created quite a havoc for awhile.   I’m sure he must have had some rather difficult sessions in Burford’s office.    Even when he did classical music, he created problems.   Once he decided to perform the “1812 Overture” in a Sewell Auditorium Concert.    There is a place the overture that calls for cannon fire.   Normally it’s done with drums, but Fessor got the idea that it would really be impressive to fire some really artillery at that point in the program.  Somehow he arranged to have the National Guard bring in their artillery.   When it went off, the noise was so loud it actually broke windows in the neighborhood.

However, I will give Leonard Burford credit for this.  By the time I graduated from ACC, I knew a thing or two about classical music.  I have never forsaken my country music roots, but I still enjoy a good symphony performance and I think it’s sad that many of today’s young people simply don’t want to hear the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach.   I hate to see it fall into disuse.

But back to the opera experience.   One day Richard Palm came into my church music class and said that he needed some volunteers for a non-singing part in Aida, so I volunteered to become an Egyptian solider.   It was a fun thing.  It also helped me to develop cordial relationships with people who didn’t have farm backgrounds.

Freshman Orientation

I was a West Texas country boy lacking in culture, with poor manners, and totally unprepared for the sophistication of college life.   Of course I really didn’t know that, so I blindly proceeded onward as if I knew what I was doing.   I think I probably thought Abilene Christian College was just a bigger and more advanced version of Clyde High School.  It wasn’t.

When I drove from Clyde to Abilene on that September day in 1953,  I later came to feel like I had crossed a culture barrier somewhere between those two places which are separated by only 15 miles on the map.

I had received a letter instructing me to report to Sewell Auditorium.   When I got there, several others were sitting on the steps waiting for the building to open.  Eventually about 500 of us showed up, and we went inside for a worship service.  Clyde High School probably didn’t have more than 125 students from Grades 9-12.   We had more than 500 in the freshman class.   At that time is was the largest freshman class in the history of the school.  The Korean War was ending, and veterans were returning to attend school.  Many of my fellow classmates were three or four years older than me.

At that time the campus looked much different from the way it looks today.   Chapel was held in Sewall Auditorium.   There were three women’s dorms – Zellner, McDonald, and Mckenzie.  The present administration building was there, but the two wings on the north and south were added later.   The science building was just east of the ad building.    The Zona Luce building housed the “demonstration school” – a private elementary and high school.  Athletic events were held in Bennett Gymnasium.   Mabee Dormitory for Men opened that fall.   Many of the male students were still living in World War II army barracks off campus.  Another World War II surplus wooden building stood just north of Mabee Dorm, about where the library is now.   It was called the “Annex.”  Classes were held in the Annex.   The “Grill” was just south of the science building.  It was the heart of social life on the campus.   It housed the book store, the post office, and a short order restaurant.  To the east of the Grill was the library.  It was a three story building, but the cafeteria was in the basement.   That’s about how it was laid out.  Most of the brick buildings had been constructed in 1929 when the college moved from North First Street to “The Hill.”

After our worship service at Sewell, we were given instructions.   The next two or three days we went through a battery of testing.  There was no ACT or SAT testing in those days, so they put you through a battery of IQ and aptitude tests, mainly to find out if you were college material.

Today, they do a week of it, interspersed with a lot of fun activities.  Our only fun activity came when we went to the “Freshman Jamboree.”  The upper class had the boys stand in one line and the girls stand in another.  Whoever they happened to meet became their date for that night.   Mine was a bummer.   I got a girl named Peggy.  I’m surprised I still remember her name.   We were treated to some entertainment – a couple of comedy monologues and a performance by the “Flying Cats” an acrobatic team.   We were supposed to gather on the ad building steps for a devotional after that.  Then you could walk your date to her dorm.   I guess it wasn’t really big date, but I was looking forward to it.   Just as we reached the ad building, Peggy said, “Oh, there’s my steady.  I’ve got leave.”  She turned loose of my hand and disappeared.  I may have been a dumb farm boy from Clyde, but I never believed there was a “steady.”   I didn’t see her leave with anybody.   I felt rather stupid.   Every boy at that devotional had a girl friend for the night except me.   I couldn’t wait to get back in my car and drive home to Clyde.

That signaled the end of our “freshman orientation.”