My Family, My Friends, and Me

Mother and Dad didn’t think it was safe to ride my bike at night.  The Horse Opera, a small wooden building with imitation brick siding, was a little movie theater in Kenton next to old Dr. Capps’ house.  We liked to sit on the front row despite the fact that half the people who came in crossed over in front of us.  The theater goers came into the building on the end where the screen was located, and to get to the north aisle you had to walk bending over so that the crowd could see the screen.  We sweltered in the summer (no air conditioning, of course) and froze in the winter depending on how close we sat to the big pot-bellied stove that sat in the front south corner.  Many Saturday nights found me listening to Mr. Dan Schwab, the owner, standing in front of the screen and describing coming attractions.  Cowboy movies were my favorites, and Bob Steele was my favorite cowboy despite the fact that Gene Autry and Roy Rogers were more famous.  All famous cowboy stars had sidekicks.  Gene Autry’s was Smiley Burnett.  Two other popular sidekicks were Andy Devine and Gabby Hays.  Another sidekick was a Mexican man whose favorite saying was “me too also.”  The Horse Opera was an important part of my young life.  We usually started Saturday night off at the John Deere place which was almost next door to the theater. Dad would give me a quarter.  My ticket was a dime and my bag of popcorn was a nickel, and I always brought the dime change back to Dad.  The men hanging around (everybody hung around somewhere in town on Saturday nights but that’s another story) often teased me about giving Dad his change, but that made perfect sense to me.  Dad would always be there when money – or anything else – was needed.  I had a good Daddy. 

One crowded Saturday night at the Horse Opera I was sitting about six or seven rows back from the front when wind was unexpectedly but quietly broken by yours truly.  The resulting flatulence was considerably less than what one might call “odoriferous.”  My internal situation got worse and worse, and people in my vicinity were obviously becoming a little uneasy.  A couple, apparently dating, sitting directly in front of me looked at each other a time or two, then laughed, then moved.  Another person excused himself and moved.  As time went on others

game every year.  One year a Pike alumnus drove several of us Pike undergrads, Jerry Robinson from Nashville being one of them, to Birmingham.  We had reservations as we usually did at the Tutwiler Hotel downtown.  As we pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel there were some press folks there and I remarked to the others, “The press is here to interview ME.”  They laughed, of course.  Well, I got out of the car first and sure enough the reporter and photographer came right up to me and started asking me questions about tomorrow’s game.  The previous year Auburn had beaten Tennessee badly, and when I predicted a Tennessee win they wondered what in the world caused me to make such a rash prediction.  “Because of a sophomore tailback named Johnny Majors,” I said.   In those days freshmen could not play varsity sports, and this was to be Johnny’s first game as a Volunteer.  After my little interview they asked me to go into the hotel and get Tennessee and Auburn couples for a photograph.  I agreed and went into a bar that opened out to the sidewalk as well as into the lobby of the Tutwiler and immediately saw and enlisted an Auburn couple but saw no Vol couples.  I did see a popular and pretty little blond from UT, Smut Smith, and asked her if she would join me for the photo.  She agreed and the four of us went out onto the sidewalk where the photographer took a picture of us.  Well, believe it or not, the next morning The Birmingham News had a very large full color picture right on the top of the front page of the four of us waving our pennants and shakers.  By George, the press was there to interview ME!

                The next day at Birmingham’s Legion Field the Majors-led Volunteers annihilated Auburn by four touchdowns or so.  Many years later I was to go to New York for Johnny’s induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.

                The most memorable football game of my college career was the 1956 Georgia Tech game in Atlanta.  Both teams were undefeated, Tech was ranked second, and we were only a spot or two below them.  Tickets were non-existent.  A Buick dealer traded a new car for four on the fifty.  Fraternity brother Dave McSween dressed as a janitor with a mop and bucket and simply walked in.  Fraternity brother Leroy Smith was with a group of 100 or so who pushed down a fence and stampeded in.  Other brothers were equally as resourceful.  I actually had a ticket – a