After graduation, I tried going to U.T. but that didn’t work out so well. So, my uncle Bob got me a job at Burlington Mills, in Burlington, N.C. I was to be a sample inspector. Didn’t work there very long, but long enough to buy me a Bridgestone 90 motorcycle.
That sad little thing wouldn’t go over 55 miles an hour, but I drove it all the way back home to Tennessee. If I’d get behind a tractor trailer truck doing 60 or 65 M.P.H., and get right on his tail gate, and I mean right on his tail, the vacuum from the truck would pull me and that bike would scream.
In 1969, my buddy Fuzz that had worked for the F.B.I. Ole’ Fuzz walked me through one day and helped get me a job right there at the J Edgar Hoover Building working for the F.B.I. After getting my secret clearance I moved there to work in Washington D.C.
We got us an apartment outside the Beltway in Silver Springs MD. This was in 1969, and four other coworkers and I got to share this apartment, which cost $495.00 a month total. We all made entry level money at $4200.00 a year. That’s only $350 dollars a month.
Hey, we couldn’t even afford to pay attention much less pay the rent and still have money to eat on. A whole lot of times we lived on nothing but noodles and Kool-Aid.
We lived in the Eldorado Apts., which was a mix of three, twenty story buildings on a two acre lot. Every one of those buildings had sixteen apartments on each floor.
You know, the youngest person that lived in that building was 18, and the oldest was maybe only about 28. That made for a lot of parties; I’m talking a lot of PARTIES. When we weren’t at worked we were having fun. Even on work nights, I mean seven nights a week someone was throwing a party. Those were the years that I didn’t get much sleep.
The company that owned our buildings also owned the Ballantine Brewery. And, consequently we had lots of beer. I’m talking every bath-tub filled to the top with the sudsy stuff. Can after can, and what we couldn’t get in the tub, we’d stack in the closet. Anyway, we drank a lot.
Right down the road was Georgetown University. The hippie-hang of the East. Black lights, posters, long hair, Jimmy Hendrix groupies and wanna-be’s, the whole nine yards. We didn’t have any idea how to act, so we faked it. We acted like we were in the groove. We didn’t walk down the stairs, we strutted. Since the F.B.I, had a strict dress code I’m sure we stood out with our short hair, and our sideburns clipped off at the top of or ears, but at that time we didn’t have enough sense to know it. Man were we having fun. Back then Be-Bops shoes were in style. All of us wore our black & whites everywhere we went.
Was we cool or what!?
Back on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the F.B.I. building, we were all business. I started in the mail routing room, but soon I got moved to the receiving room.
My job was to receive the mail coming into the bureau. This was an OK job. They’d put me in this concrete block room and left me alone while I opened packages to find out where they belonged and then send them there.
All kinds of stuff would come through there. I’d seen piles of money, mostly stolen or counterfeited, some of it was even blood stained. Once in a while I’d open a box and there would be a head or a hand, or maybe just a finger. It sure was always interesting. Besides that, nobody ever bothered me. I was alone, and I liked being alone after the nights we had.
They made me sign a form that said I could sign J. Edgar Hoovers’ name to anything that was to come into our building. I was a man, a big man. How many people could say they had the right to sign a name like that and not go to jail?
You know, Years later, I looked back to that job, and would reminisce about those days. I think I finally figured it out. I WAS A BOMB CATCHER!
After a while they moved me to document restoration, and then to the finger print department.
It was a good job and I enjoyed working there. The best part though, was having that F.B.I. badge. I could cash a check anywhere in the world. I guess they’d think I was special. It was fun showing people my badge. And if we gave blood we got off half a day on a Friday. And believe me, I gave blood every Friday.
One day a buddy of mine and me thought we’d do the manly thing and join the Army. So at lunchtime we went to the recruiter, but he was out to lunch. So, being that we meant business, we went next door to the Marine recruiter instead.
A few weeks later, after our physicals, we were standing on the parade deck of Parris Island. We were full-fledged Marines, funny though, they just called us maggots. (Really, they called us a lot worse than that. Hey! I heard cuss words that I didn’t know even existed.)
We were taught to salute an officer, and hold that salute until he saluted back or passed by. Makes sense to me, I thought.
Well, one day after our daily 8 mile run, and our 200 push-ups, and our 200 bends-&-thrusts, and our 300 set-ups, and our 300 toe touches, and holding our 76 pound gun (I mean weapon) over our head for 2 hours, a dog came up to where we were. He had one of these dog shirts on. But this dog had a patch that indicated he was a colonel. A Colonel! This could not be happening to me.
But there was nothing left to do, but, well we saluted. You know that dog didn’t salute back and he didn’t leave. We stood there for 4 hours, I mean right through chow break, and that S.O.B. never did do his military duty. We were too tired to even know how we got out of it.
I received my honorable discharge on Christmas Eve, and somehow managed to step off the Greyhound bus just as day was breaking.
It was snowing. Hey! This is nice. I like snow. Anyway, got home just in time to spend the morning with my family, which I missed very much.
It had snowed about 6 or 8 inches, so us kids (I mean neighborhood men) got together to go sledding.
I must have been a pretty good boy that year, because I was going down this real steep hill setting on top of the trusty sled and hit a bump. After wiping all the snow from my face, I saw something black sticking up out of the snow. Pushing the snow away, it was a motor cycle, a black and silver Honda 450. It was a nice Christmas in so many ways.
Now since I was a man, a man of morals and had served my country, I did the right thing and turned the new bike into the Police Department. Well, you know what? Ninty days later they had given it back to me cause no one came and claimed it. The Honda was mine.
I went back to work for the F.B.I., but didn’t work there for very long after that. I had to have my thyroid removed. I only weighed 130 pounds. I was eating 6 or 7 times a day, so the Doctor figured out it was an over active thyroid. You know, I almost died during the operation, the Doctor said that I had lost my will to live while under the anesthesia.
About this time in our lives, us kids would get together and play music. We would play music in different peoples’ basements. We could only play 2 or 3 times before who ever lived there would run us off.
After weeks of just a couple of us getting together, more and more of us would meet until we had a pretty good sized, and sounding band. We called ourselves ‘The Swank’.
I didn’t play anything; I just put it together and organized everyone. I also worked at getting the band places to play. I reckon’ I was the manager.
We got pretty good at it too. There were 7 or 8 of us and as time went on we had gotten better and better. Joe the lead vocalist, Ronnie the bass guitar player, J.T. the man on the Hammond organ, Ricky on the drums, Steve played a horn, I can’t remember who played the lead guitar, or the rhythm guitar, and some of the time Oko sang with us. Hey, I’m no pro, but we really did have a good sound, and Joe sure could sing. Boy-o-boy could he sing.
We played most every week in the Rec. Hall to a crowd that really liked us. Maybe we wasn’t the best band, (that honor belonged to the Embers, Joes’ brother Jack sang in that band). We were definitely a close 2nd, not just in my opinion but many others thought so too.
We did get an offer to play in Louisiana, and the also on the pan handle of Florida. Couldn’t go because some of the boys’ parents wouldn’t let them. We did though, go to Ashville N.C., and played at the Highlander lounge.
Ronnie’s’ mom gave us use of a van, She owned a car dealership, and we painted it up with our name and a few musical notes, and it looked good. We all thought it looked really, really good. Since we used water based paint, we could rub it all off when we got back.
PLEASE……………… Don’t let it rain.
The band lasted for a couple of years, and we all enjoyed these days in our lives.