So an introduction of myself to my audience is in order, since I hope that people other than my friends will read this. The whole of my life won't be set before the reader at one time, but I will start with my birth and youth and move on from there at other occasions. A friend of mine, Michael Steele, once suggested I should write an autobiography because of the places I have been, people I met and things I have done. I told him I would have to call it an "Unfocused Life"-because I have done so many different things.
I was born in Nashville, TN to Bettie Jo and Grady Everett Revells. Mom was from Nashville, Dad was from Early County Georgia. They met on a blind date while Dad was stationed at the Military Police Barracks in Nashville. That used to be on the downtown side of the Woodland Street bridge that crossed the Cumberland River. That whole area has changed since I lived there; the bridge has been replaced and the building Dad worked in is gone it looks like from the satellite map. I grew up in the "Historic Edgefield" neighborhood. Except it wasn't so historic when I lived there, it was fairly run down, a lower middle class working men's part of town. We used to live in a big old rambling Victorian style house at 711 Boscabal Street. My world, except when I got on the bus to down town, was limited by Shelby Avenue to the west, Woodland Street to the east, South Fifth Street to the north and South Tenth Street to the south. I went to Mrs. Kovetts Kindergarten on Russell Street and attended her summer day camp at East Park. I got religion and was baptized in the Edgefield Baptist Church (http://www.edgefieldbaptist.org/Building%20%26%20History.htm) by Brother Roy Babb. I went to Warner Elementary School off and on until seventh grade (http://www.warneres.mnps.org/site101.aspx). See that's the thing about being a Brat, you never stay anyplace very long. When Dad was stationed overseas we would go home to stay with Granny Edwards in Nashville, when Dad was in the States we would go to where he was at. Most of that time was in Fort Benning Georgia. We only had one accompanied tour overseas and that was to Kaiserslautern Germany.
However back to my life in Edgefield. It was fairly good for the most part, allowing that Dad wasn't with us. We lived with Granny Edwards and Uncle Bobby who usually was doing some work with Uncle Jack, at one point a dinner and most of the time doing building construction and maintenance. Uncle Claude and Aunt Reva were over often bringing my cousin Eddie or I was over at their house out in Hendersonville, Eddie and I were of the same age. Uncle Jack's real name was Willard and he picked up the nickname Jack from the French solders he worked with in WWII. Uncle Claude was a See Bee in the Pacific at that time. Uncle Jack was married to Aunt Mary and they had three daughters, all about a year after I and my brothers were born. So Tracy and I are a year apart; Larry my middle brother was a year older than Sherrie and Bobby, who is called "Bones" in the family, is a year older than Lorie. Uncle Bobby didn't marry until later in life. He also worked at a fiberglass plant which might have been a contributing factor to his death.
Granddad and Granny were "estranged" as they said back then, he was an alcoholic and Granny didn't hold with that. The only time she let booze in the house was just before Thanksgiving. She always used Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine to soak her dried apple spice cake in and Old Crow Bourbon Whiskey for her fruit cakes. Occasionally she would allow some brandy in when she made hot eggnog. Granddad was an electrician and worked for my Uncle Jack most of the time. Granddad was also legally blind. He used to take me to the movies at one of the several grand theaters in Nashville every couple of months and we would have to stand in the door of the theater until he could see well enough to find a seat. We used to go to a chocolate and ice cream shop down on Commerce Street afterwards.
When I was around three or four Mom and Uncle Bobby worked at the Knickerbocker Theater in downtown Nashville. It was a grand old palace of a place with a formal balcony and ushers, which is what Uncle Bobby did, Mom was at the concession stand. Whenever they couldn't get someone to babysit me I would wind up sitting at the back of the theater watching the same movie for eight hours. I have been hooked on movies ever since.
Once I hit school a problem arose because I had a sever speech problem. A couple of the teachers even thought I was "mentally retarded" because I had a serious brain injury around the age of three- I got hit in the face with a hammer by a playmate. So I wound up going to speech therapy at Vanderbilt University. It was a blast for me. They used me to teach students how to give IQ test to kids with speech problems. It did cause some changes at the school though. I wound up going up to a fourth grade class for science enrichment classes when I was in first and second grade Because of this I have always had a fascination with rocks, fossils and geology. Turned out my IQ is slightly above the average. I was frequently bored at school reading "Dick and Jane" books while I was reading about Rikki Tikki Tavi at home as well as other stories in books besides The Jungle Books.
I lived a good life in Nashville, the best memories I have are in the living room of the house on Boscabal at Christmas time. The ceiling in the living room was about eleven foot high and at Christmas we would need a ladder to put the star or angel on top. The kitchen was huge with room for two tables and was always full of great smelling food. Mom was a great cook and she learned it from Granny. We lived on Boscabal until the city condemned the place to put up project for the elderly in a spasm of ill conceived urban renewal. We moved over to a duplex on Fatherland Street right next to Mrs Kovett's home, which was behind her school.
I used to collect soda bottles and sell them to the store on the corner of Fatherland and South Seventh Street. I can't remember the name, but it was a small place with a limited stock however it had it's own meat counter. Next door was a drug store with a ice cream counter and the old kind of pin ball machines without flippers. Behind that was a two seat barbershop that I used to get my head buzz cut at. I used the money from soda bottles to buy comic books from the wire rack in the store or if they didn't have what I wanted I would make the trek over to the drug store next to the A&P Supermarket on Shelby Av. If I couldn't find the one I wanted I would really take a hike to the drug store on South Tenth Street and Fatherland! I learned to skate board on the hill at South Eighth Street and Fatherland. I also sold card selections door to door out of the back of the comic books to get the prizes that were offered.
When I was older, around nine or ten, I would go down to downtown on my own to learn how to swim and tumble at the YMCA. I visited museums and shopped for Christmas gifts at Caster Knott's, which had a pair of talking Mina Birds in the stairwell and a carousel in the basement. At Christmas time downtown was like stepping into "Miracle on 34th Street" with the windows all done up with anaimatronic decorations, silver bells ringing in the winds and the Salvation Army bell ringers out on most every corner. Other times of year I would walk through the Arcade and get some fresh roasted nuts at the Mr. Planter's store with the giant nut figure out front or stop and have the best chocolate malted shake in the world at this little hole in the wall. Mom had set up a bank account for me just around the corner from the Arcade and I would make deposits in it. I always stopped and listened to the old, blind, black man who played the guitar and sang the delta blues. I would usually drop a dime in the old canteen cup he had stuck through the strings at the pegs. My interest in living history probably started with visits to Fort Nashborough and the TV show "Davy Crockett".
I've rambled enough for tonight, I hope it wasn't too boring.
No comments:
Post a Comment