Dr. GENE

I was sitting around enjoying my upgraded audio/video system last night listening to our Macon County High School Band CD from 1967 and the TPI, Raphael Mendez concert at the Ryman in 1960. It crossed my mind that maybe the professors from TTU who stuck with us in those trying days may still be alive and kicking. I was listening to "Tulsa; Portrait in Oils" when I found the phone number for Dr. Eugene Steinquest. So I did what I always do, I called him.

It was a real treat to get reacquainted with Dr. Gene. He was our woodwind and string instructor back in the early '60's. He was only eleven years older than we were. I thought he must have been older. Dr. Gene was the music theory and the woodwinds instructor. The flute and piccolo were is fortes, and he played bassoon as needed. Dr. Gene was a master of the brief pun, and was genuinely supportive of our success. I was honored to attend a "Gator Bowl" college basketball game with him as we were in Florida on our way to the Tangerine Bowl.

It was tough at TTU (then TPI) after Jay Julian left to take the band job at UT Knoxville. They became the "Pride of the Southland Band" though they were so mis-named prior to Dr. Jay’s move.

A large contingent of ‘students’ followed Dr. Jay. These guys had been professional musicians in the US Air Force. They had come to TPI (later TTU) on the GI Bill that paid for their college instruction. We who stayed were faced with providing student leadership and fulfilling our commitment to 'TECH.'

I was not a serious student during my early years at TPI. But I finally started to wise-up during my late Sophomore, and Junior year. I started opening the textbooks, and I was helped greatly by studying with my two best friends, Bill Moore and Carl Ballinger: classmates from Smith Co High School. Dr. Steinquest and James Marks, out brass instructor, were plunged into the positions of carrying the program forward with a "B-Team" of students.

I decided that I had a lot to learn and a short time to get it done. So when the most rigorous opportunities arose my hand always went up. I filled in for the band director at the local high school when he went out of town. Then in my senior year Dr. Gene occasionally asked me to take his Music Appreciation classes when he went to conferences. That was the most fun: no preparation was involved. I just went in and asked what questions they might have. The whole hour was filled with answering very easy questions.

Dr. Gene was supportive beyond the call, and he proved it by bringing his wife to our spring concert in Macon County TN after graduating as a full fledged band director. The concert was my first and was unremarkable except for the first year students (5th grade band). Dr. Gene's comment was that he saw some promise there.

We lost contact with our professors and fellow students over the years. Most of the guys who entered TPI (now TTU) either went to UT-Knoxville, or dropped out of music all together. A few fellow grads became band directors: Carl Ballinger went to White Co., Bill Moore went to Wilson Co. and then to Franklin High School and finally back to good old Smith County High School. Jay Flint and Lynn Morelock went into the Metro-Nashville system and each taught 30 years there.

Our entry into the milieu of higher education in the late '50's was on the cusp of an era of drastic change. Thereafter followed integration of the public schools, the first Earth Day, the opposition to the conflict in Viet Nam, the trial of the Chicago Seven and The Age Aquarius. I was minimally involved with the ' anti-war movement' (demonstrations) and enjoyed the Age of Aquarius while at Indiana University.

I am constantly amazed that the guys who most influenced my life were in the process of arranging their own stabs a maturity. I am much better off having been in their/our world.

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For the blog reader: TPI (Tennessee Polytechnic Institute) was the name for the college in Cookeville, TN. It started out as Dixie College in the early 1900’s, and the name became Tennessee Technological University (TTU) after my undergraduate days there. ‘Tech’ has always been a bright spot in the Tennessee Higher Education System: never the biggest but always one of the best in the state.

TTU is currently the premier engineering and music performance/education program in the South.

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Uncle Miltie

Mr. Milton Dickerson passed this week. He was a teacher at Smith County TN High School in Carthage during my teen years there. He was an all round great guy and coach, but not so much a great teacher, but that was the way of life back in the day.

Milton, better known as Monk Dickerson did some auctioneering and real estate marketing, a little coaching and occasionally ‘called’ a basketball game. He was ‘available.’ When someone needed to be away, Monk was available to fill in until the person in charge returned.

As if ‘Monk’ wasn’t a bad enough nickname we students in the Chemistry course at SCHS in 1957 renamed Monk, ‘Uncle Miltie’. Those were days when the Milton Bearle Show was the most popular show on TV, so it was just going to happen that Monk became Uncle Miltie.

We were going through the motions and following the adopted text through the Chem. course. It wasn’t particularly difficult and I did my ‘best’ to participate on a serious level for a change. But I was lazy and easily distracted: not to mention having a history of being the class clown for the past ten grades.

I was having a terrible time grasping the concept of chemical equations. It was not clicking in my head. Johnny Capalenor spent a full fifty minute period in study hall repeating, “it has to be the same on each side.” Over and over and over, Johnny just said the same phrase until all at once I got the concept. The hard parts were the atomic weights and valences.

We were drilling for a big test on the chemical symbols, atomic numbers and valences. I spent several nights and study halls memorizing all the chemical symbols and other stuff on the periodic table. I had it down pat on the day of the test.

Uncle Miltie gave the test by calling out the element and we were to put the symbol, the atomic number and the valence in rows going down the page. I was clicking along without a bit of uncertainty. When the test was finished we were to pass our papers to the person behind us. Uncle Miltie proceeded to call out all the correct information so that our classmates could check our data.

It was going well and I was feeling really good. Finally the girl who checked my work was to report my score. Her answer was …………………… “all correct” ……………………”except” ………………………………………”all the chemical symbols are left out!” I got a ZERO on the test! I had worked hard, and I was devastated!

I was given a chance to bring up my grade by making a graphic of the “tree of coal.” The tree of coal is a big tree with little labels of all the stuff that is made from coal. There were hundreds, and since I am compulsive about this type of project I made a tree of coal that was suitable for framing!

I was employed at Fred Cleveland’s Pharmacy after school and on weekends when Uncle Miltie’s birthday came along. Fred Cleveland’s Pharmacy had been existence since the beginning of the Twentieth Century. We had stuff in our cabinets and display cases that most folks never heard of.

Did you know that Paregoric that is used to stop vomiting is opium and camphor? Citrate of magnesium was sold as Pluto Water. Condoms were kept out of sight in a very special drawer, and there were hair products in quart sized cans.

Glossy Pomade was a heavily scented concoction designed to straighten curly hair. The primary consumers were assumed to be our citizens of color, though I never sold any Glossy Pomade to anyone.

Uncle Miltie was well along in the process of losing his hair. We often gave him a hard time about it. On his birthday there appeared a nicely wrapped present on his desk as a token of our regard and best wishes for many more to come.

Uncle Miltie opened the package and was having fun showing Glossy Pomade all around the class when he called Runt Poynter to the front of the class. He turned Runt toward the class and proceeded to massage a whole hand full of Glossy Pomade into his hair. What a mess; what a site and what fun. Runt knew who brought the pomade, but he kept quiet and endured the event.

I’ll bet Uncle Miltie used that can of Glossy Pomade for many years afterward: probably on hinges and axles.

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Christmas in the Country

Did you ever stand close to the fireplace to warm your blanket then wrap it around your shoulders and run, run, run upstairs to an ice-cold bed? That's what we used to do at my grandparents house at our Christmas eve family gathering.

You'd snuggle down with a cousin and grand ma would come and tuck us in the feather tick. Then we would wait for sleep to overtake us. We'd lie there and hear the "house sounds": the wind blowing that loose roof shilgle, Grandpapa's yawn, "Ho, Ho, Hummy" resounding throughout the old house and in a very few minutes the sound of a steady stream hitting the bottom of Grandpapa's "slop jar."

My grand father and grand mother had eight children: four boys and four girls. When they all gathered with their offspring at the home place next door to the school in Gordonsville it was an experience to be remembered and treasured.

The ceilings were about ten feet high, but invariably the tree, always a cedar, was always too tall. There was never an angel adorning the top so we thought it only natural that the tree bent over at the top.

On Christmas eve everyone gathered around the piano and my Grandpapa snatched up his fiddle: carols and hymns were robustly sung. Aunt Daisy always sang the soprano along with aunt Linnie and my mother Anna and aunt Nellie took the alto along with Grandma. The men just sort of sang the melody or chimed in a base line.

I never saw my Grandpapa play the fiddle except at Christmas, but when he played I sat so near his feet, he was trapped. I was charmed! I still have his fiddle and played it in college: I got an A!

After all the carols were sung all the kids would warm their blankets by the fireplace and race upstairs to snuggle within our feather beds. The sheets were always cold but the blanket made us warm until our warm bodies began to warm the feather tick.

The tick rose high above our faces and bodies, and with the weight of three or four quilts on top we were "snug as a bug in a rug."

Then on Christmas morning we were coaxed downstairs from our warm beds to see what the "Jolly Old Gentleman" had brought. The socks (we didn't know anything about stockings) were filled with an assortment; usually an orange, an apple and two or three small toys. Of course, there was always something special under the tree.

I thank God for those rare times and for the wonderful family I was lucky enough to be nurtured within.

There is something about getting older, your yawns get louder and more expressive. I've noticed lately that mine are much like my Grandpapa's. When a yawn comes upon me I find that Ho, Ho, Hummy feels just right. After all, I’m a grandpa now!

Lewis Butler's Stuff: GETTING EVEN

Lewis Butler's Stuff: GETTING EVEN

GETTING EVEN

You know your children will interact with their classmates, their neighbors of nearby age groups and with adults in their world. Some of those interactions will be positive and others….well some will be less than hoped-for.

Most of my personal interactions were positive, thanks to the good will of folks who were acquainted with my family: father, mother and older brother. I was one who tended to believe and to act, as if everyone had my best interests at heart. But as the Indian chief in the movie, “Little Big Man” said, as he went out of his tepee and stretched out a hide on which he would lie down to pass on to the happy hunting ground. Just as he got settled the heavens started pelting him with big wet drops of rain. He arose after a few drops and proclaimed, “Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

I barely remember an interaction with a family who were related with the Chambers who lived in the old Cullum Mansion at the apex of Fisher Hill. That family consisted of a father, mother and little girl who was my age peer: five years old. I was visiting with the father and daughter on the back porch of the mansion and evidently holding my own with in repartee with the father. He gave me a coke – the old eight ounce bottle -- and continued engaging me in conversation. Every few minutes he would want me to shake his hand. I did so and continued to visit and enjoy my Coca Cola that I did not have to share with anyone.

I was always pretty naïve and have never gotten over it. So I was always “up” for whatever idea an acquaintance had. Two neighborhood peers thought up a really fun thing to do. They were out front, on Fisher Ave. as I came around the house. They called and mostly beckoned me over to our neighbor’s front yard. I sallied forth and when I approached they each spat a mouthful of saliva they had been saving up right in my face. I was at a total loss as to what to do, so I ran home and tearfully told my mother what had just happened.

Mom patiently cleaned me up and was internally fuming at my circumstance. When I was calmed and cleaned sufficiently, mom handed me a sturdy wooden rod much like those used by teachers to point to items on the ever-present maps on the rolls in the front of all elementary classrooms: she was a substitute teacher when needed. She suggested that I conceal the rod and approach the ruffians with purpose and stealth and whale the crap out them with as much verve as I could muster: in other words, of course.

I approached them and evidently they thought I was going to be cowed and whiny when I laid into them with my rod of vengeance and sent them home wailing and crying with good reason. I never had another run in with them from that day on. They, no doubt, have forgotten about our altercation, but I never forget anything!