Dothan High School Class of 1953 50Th Reunion Speech

DOTHAN HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1953 50TH REUNION SPEECH

by

C. Tolbert Goolsby, Jr.

Judge, South Carolina Court of Appeals

Two old friends greeted each other at a class reunion one evening. After playing the games of do-you-remember-that-time and whatever-happened-to, one said to the other, “Tell me about your mama.” The other man replied, “Mom’s gone to Jesus.” The other fella was at a loss of what to say. He couldn’t say, “I’m happy for her,” for that might be interpreted as his being pleased to hear she was dead; and he couldn’t say, “I’m sorry,” for that would imply he was sorry the man’s mother was with our Savior. So, he just said, “I’m surprised.”

That’s kinda how I felt when Patsy Powell called and asked me to speak to a reunion of our class for yet a third time. I’m surprised. You’re probably shocked.

I am glad, of course, to be here with you this evening. To quote George Burns, “At my age, I’m glad to be anywhere.”

Recently, I attended my wife’s 50th class reunion in Walterboro, South Carolina. I was standing there amongst some really, really old looking people - you know the type: they don’t buy green bananas or stand in long lines or do long-term financing. Well, this woman walked up to this old boy who was standing next to me, hugged his neck, and said, “Why, Henry Crosby! I haven’t seen you since the day we graduated. Why, you haven’t changed a bit!” I thought, “My word! You mean he looked like that 50 years ago?”

Come to think of it, though, I don’t think John Culver Rheay has changed all that much either in 50 years. He still looks pretty much the same, don’t you think? John Culver Rheay, the only person in the entire history of the First Baptist Church to flunk Sunday School. When asked why God drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, he answered, “They needed a ride somewhere?”

Most of you may not know that John Culver retired as Vice President of Zuck Pail and Can Company. When he was a sales representative for the company, his car happened to break down one day right in front of an insane asylum. As a tinkered with the car, a patient came to the fence and asked John what he did. John replied, “I sell cans.” The patient asked, “Have you ever been crazy?” John said, “No. Why?” The patient replied, “You oughta try it. It beats hell out of selling cans.”

When I spoke at our 40th Class Reunion, I asked, “Will somebody tell me whatever happened to Jack Box?” Well, no one could do so. Because I hadn’t heard anything more about him, I went looking for Jack Box the other day on the internet. You know what I found? Twenty-one references to men named “Jack Box,” a dozen references to boxes of Cracker Jacks, and a hundred references to Jack in the Box.

Ahhh, names. How does the old English proverb go? “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Oh really? Then try being named “Goolsby.”

When I practiced law in Walterboro, South Carolina, years ago with Isadore Bogoslow, we practiced under the partnership name of Bogoslow & Goolsby. Someone once told me that the name of Bogoslow & Goolsby sounded less like a law firm and more like a dancing bear act.

At our 40th reunion, I also mentioned Elsie, Jack, and Jim, these tent revivalists who came to Dothan and set up right across from Lokey’s Ice Plant there on the corner of East Main and Lena Street. But we had other revivalists to come as well and set up there. I remember one in particular.

The first night he held service, he looked out over the congregation and announced that each person there would have to make up his or her mind about whether the person wanted to live a righteous life or not. He told them that in order to live a righteous life, a person had to give up gambling, he had to give up drinking, and he had to give up sex. He wanted everyone who wanted to live a righteous life to form a group on his right and all those who did not want to live a righteous life to form a group on his left. The congregation began divided into two groups. But there was one young man who kept going from the group on the right to the group on the left and back again. After awhile, the young man caught the preacher’s eye. He said to Max Harper, “Young man, you seem to be having difficulty making up your mind. Maybe I can help you make a decision.” The young man looked up at the reverend and said, “Reverend, I really do want to live a righteous life. I really do. But at the same time I don’t want to give up gambling, I don’t want to give up drinking, and I don’t want to give up sex. What must I do?” The reverend looked down at him and said, “Come stand by me. I believe you’ve been called to preach.”

But, of course, Max did not become a preacher. Instead, he became an accountant. You know what an accountant is, don’t you? That’s someone who solves a problem you didn’t know you had in a way you don’t understand. Max didn’t come easily to the decision to become an accountant. He became one only after he realized he didn’t have the charisma it takes to make it as an undertaker.

I’ve mentioned two of the COBS, John Culver and Max. I should say something about Billy Walling. He retired several years ago as an executive with Delta Airlines, having started there, believe it or not, as a baggage handler in the mid-nineteen fifties. His title when he retired? Chief baggage handler.

Billy also attended Auburn, you know. What is it that they say? All dirt roads lead to Auburn? Anyway, Billy went there hoping to learn to speak cow. Poor Auburn, I understand a tornado tore through its campus the other day and hit the president’s mansion. The only thing left were its wheels.

Speaking of Auburn, I’m reminded of this young man who wanted to attend that institution after he finished high school. So he goes to the registrar’s office and fills out an application. The registrar looks at it and then asks the young man, “Tell me, was any member of your family a farmer?” The young man says, “No, sir.” The registrar says, “Well, I’m sorry we can’t admit you.” The young fella then goes over to Marion Military Institute and fills out an application. The registrar asks him, “Any member of your family in the military?” He says “No, sir.” The registrar says, “I’m sorry; but we can’t admit you.” The boy then goes to Huntingdon in Montgomery and fills out an application. The registrar asks, “Any member of your family a Methodist?” The boy replies, “No, sir.” The registrar tells him, “We can’t admit you.” He goes next to Birmingham to Samford University and applies. The registrar asks him if he’s a Baptist. “No, I’m not,” the boy says. “Sorry, we can’t admit you.” Finally, he winds up at Spring Hill College in Mobile. He hands his application to the registrar who asks him if he was a Catholic. “No,” the boy says. “I’m sorry,” says the registrar, “but we can’t admit you.” “Well, I’m a son-of-a-bitch,” the boy says. “Well,” says the registrar, “why didn’t you say so? Have you tried Alabama?”

In coming back to Dothan this weekend, a place I left for good 50 years ago, I am made to wonder whether I agree with Thomas Wolfe or with Arthur Powell. Wolfe, you will recall, wrote You Can’t Go Home Again. Powell, a native of Blakely, Georgia, and a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals, wrote a book entitled I Can Go Home Again.

Can one go home again? Can one really?

But what is “home”? Lois McMaster Bujold, the author of the science-fiction novel Barrayar, wrote “[H]ome is not a place, it is people.” Others, however, would say that home is more than people – that it includes places and things.

In riding and walking around the City of Dothan and Dothan High School, there are many reminders that one cannot go home again and then there are reminders that, perhaps, one can do so. Dothan High School still exists. It still occupies the same building you and I once knew and loved; but then, there are additions to the building, additions that alter its character.

When I attended grammar school, I went, like many of you, to Southside Elementary on South Saint Andrews. While the building is still there, it is no longer used as a school but as a fine arts center. Highland School now serves as the home for the Head Start Program and Young Junior High School, at whose beautiful courtyards we all marveled, is now a family service center. Minnie T. Heard occupies a new building across town while its former quarters serve as the county library.

Frazier-Ellis, the hospital that stood across the street from Southside and where some of you were born or hospitalized, is now completely gone. So too, the nursing school that sat next door. Both have been replaced by an extended care facility.

The state liquor store on South Saint Andrews with its green-front and long lines is no longer; nor is the Montgomery Wards store on North Foster Street.

Nip and Ernie’s sold its last hotdog decades ago as did Oscar’s and Pete and Troy’s.

Where is Charlie Murphy? Where is the Baby Buggy Man, the mirror image of unconditional love? Where is Homer Hart, the hard-working manager of the A&P, who gave me work as a produce clerk notwithstanding I thought a Delicious apple was merely one that tasted good? Where is the A&P for that matter? Or its chief competitor, the Colonial Store?

Where is the Houston Theater, where it was said they gave you two sticks with your ticket: one to prop up the seat with and the other to beat off the rats.

And what about Rainer’s Portrait Studio that advertized it was “Not the Cheapest But the Best?” When did it take its last picture? Who broke the camera?

What happened to all the fish camps where for one dollar they would serve you all the fish you could eat? Did someone eat all the fish?

And do they still sell Mo-La-Jac milk?

Do you remember when those folks came to Young Junior High School to teach us a lesson? They took nicotine from a smoking machine and used it to kill a chicken. Well, that taught me a lesson. I haven’t touched chicken since.

Can you still buy White Tulip Flour, Sanitary Dairy Ice Cream, or Sinclair Gasoline? Can you still fly Eastern Airlines? When did the airport take a 180-degree turn and become a water world?

Do homes built in Dothan still begin with lumber purchased from J.E. Hatchock Lumber Company?

What happened to home milk deliveries, to dimmer switches on the floor board, and to five-digit telephone numbers?

What happened to five-cent Cokes and eight-ounce Pepsis? And what about Picayune Cigarettes, the brand touted as the “Pride of New Orleans”? What happened to them?

What happened to the U.S.S.R. and to Yugoslavia, to the Atlantic Coast Line and to the Central of Georgia, to Trailway Buses and to Red Top Cabs?

Don’t you miss Gabby Hayes and Veronica Lake? “The Mysterious Traveler” and the “Inner Sanctum”? And how about the music of Ralph Flanagan and Vaughan Monroe?

Wouldn’t you love to hear the Dothan High band play “Boogie Woogie Band” just one more time?

Where are all the places, the people, the things that made Dothan, Alabama, our home in 1953?

The dark, swift tides of time have swept these places, these things, and these people away. These same tides have rolled in new buildings, new things, and new faces.

Instead of De Sotos, we now have Toyotas. Nissans and not Hudsons. Instead of a downtown, there are now two Wal-Marts, where you can buy anything from the latest best-selling novel to a guided tour of the Peoples Republic of China against whom our country fought in 1953, the year we graduated.

Thomas Wolfe, I’m afraid, is right and Judge Powell is wrong, as judges can be – well, sometimes. You can’t go home again irrespective of how you would define what “home” is; but then, who’s to say you shouldn’t attempt to do so. By our coming together this weekend, we have at least tried to come home again.

In J.B.F. Wright’s gospel hymn Precious Memories, one stanza goes like this:

In the stillness of the midnight

Echoes from the past I hear

Old time singing, gladness ringing

From that lovely land somewhere.

Standing before you tonight and seeing familiar faces, I too hear “echoes from the past,” echoes that come “from that lovely land somewhere” – that home to which we can no longer go.

Another stanza goes:

Precious memories, unseen angels

Sent from somewhere to my soul.

How they linger ever near me

And the sacred scenes unfold.

I am aware too that there are a number of faces that are missing, those whom John Bryan talked about. Yet, I am sure that you, like me, feel the presence with us tonight of these “unseen angels” who have gone to another “lovely land somewhere” – a new home.

One of our classmates, Elaine Jones Herrin, wrote about what she calls “the pilgrimages of nevers” in her autobiographical book entitled When We Say Never. One pilgrimage concerned the death of her husband Manget with whom she served as a Christian missionary in Guyana and with whom she raised a son. In writing about the healing process that followed her husband’s death, Elaine quoted a poem written by Henry Scott Holland entitled Perspective. The poem is a powerful reminder that we are not alone at the moment of death.

I am standing on the seashore

A ship spreads her sails to the

Morning breeze.

And starts for the ocean.

I stand watching her until she

Fades on the horizon.

And someone at my sides says,

“She is gone!”

Gone where? The loss of sight is

in me, not in her.

At that moment when someone says,

“She is gone,”

There are others who are watching

Her coming. Other voices take up the

Glad shout . . . . “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

We will not be alone either at the hour of our death. When the time comes for each of us to set sail across Death’s ocean, I am sure that when we reach the other shore each of us will hear happy voices call out, “Here he comes! Or, here she comes!” Those voices will belong to our classmates and they will be welcoming us to our new home – to that “lovely land somewhere.”

During these days of lengthening shadows, our attempt to go home again has not been wasted. By having lived these twilight hours with joy and passion, you and I have added to those days of long ago when we all made our home in a different Dothan; and in so doing, we have unfolded sacred scenes of our youth and have made them live again.