Early Years

Dad and Mother, Evelyn Calhoun Johnson, loved each other. Her wishes were his command. In those days, the 1930’s, money was very tight and everyone suffered. Southern States didn’t begin to recover from the War of Northern aggression/Civil War until the late 1960’s. There was no Marshall Plan for the defeated South; Just legions of Northern carpetbaggers looking to make a quick buck by hook or crook.

My Mother and father lived with her aging Mother and father as their caregivers. My grandparents enjoyed me and I loved them. Pawdee, grandfather, went to work for the Birmingham News as a proofreader in 1900 and retired, 40 yrs later (1940) as the Head Proofreader.

When Pawdee retired in 1940 and having lost most of his eyesight to cataracts I spent many happy hours listening to James Fennimore Cooper’s exciting Leatherstocking Tales, being read to him by mother or Aunt Missy. After WWII, Pawdee went to Atlanta for removal of his cataracts in a complex procedure, with much longer recovery than my (recent/cataract removal and quicker recovery).

As a child I remember an occasion when Mother, Aunt Missy, and grandmother were taking Pawdee to town. The women were dressed to the “nines.” You Know, Dressing to the nines meant: women wearing best dress, best hat, caring best purse, and wearing long gloves to the elbow. They were on a shopping mission to downtown Birmingham and might see friends.

Leaving home, Aunt Missy and grandmother were in the back seat; Mother was driving. Pawdee sat in the right front seat with me, sandwiched between them. Pawdee was in a suit, coat and tie wearing a new Panama straw hat. As we drove away. He took out his Dunhill pipe and reloaded it carefully with his favorite Granger pipe tobacco. I can almost smell that outdoor, woodsy aroma today.

He had some trouble getting his pipe lit. When he had it going, a hot ember popped out burning a hole in pants. Feeling the sting, he jumped back and up smashing his new Panama hats’ crown into the car’s roof.

I began laughing. He got furious and mad. Grabbing and pulling off his cap, he jammed it down over my head. I Looked over the broken top with the brim resting on my shoulders. He said, “There, young man (I was four years old) laugh at that.” I made less noise thereafter.

My mother, Evelyn Calhoun Johnson had five brothers: Rodwell, Tar, Emmett, Charlie and the twin brothers Forest and Stuart. Mother also had two living sisters (Aunts Missy who was childless and Aunt Sister who had 5 girls and 4 older boys) There was another sister who had died in childhood. All of Aunt Sister's younger children lived at home. Four of her grown sons were in the Army/Navy/Army Air Corp. These older cousins were somewhere at war overseas.

During the war years (1942—1946), I was eight to twelve years old. I noticed that most adults went around frowning looking worried. When I asked why, my mother suggested that they might be worried about a loved one in combat overseas or not being able to secure a home loan. We were in a hard economic depression and facing a two-ocean war in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Me, in my foolish immaturity, thought our servicemen might be having a grand time. I wanted to be with them, killing those damned Germans and Japs. My job at the time was much less dramatic. Just going around the neighborhood collecting scrap metal for the war effort. I received a few dollars for my scrap that I used to fill my twenty-five dollar War Bond coupon book.