Back in ’61

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

I had a good summer during a great year — 1961.

By June of that year, the good people of Wilkes had gotten over Richard Nixon losing the presidency to John Kennedy, who was not only a Democrat, but a Yankee Democrat and, on top of everything else, was also a C - A - T - H - O - L - I -C.

Bob Kite used to say that the real reason people around here didn't like Kennedy was because his family, like so many of our own Wilkes County families, was in the liquor business — and they didn't like the competition.

Speaking of Bob Kite, when I was a little kid he ran the Roses Store on Main Street in North Wilkesboro. He would keep a stern eye on the ladies who worked there when they dumped mounds of candy on the scales, as I also watched, smiling, holding tightly to my last two pennies.

In '61, I was 12 years old and had just completed the seventh grade at North Wilkesboro Elementary School. I don't remember getting into a lot of trouble, and it was the school year in which I met two of my all-time favorite teachers. The first, I have mentioned often — Freida Matthews. She was our Health and Physical Education teacher who, as you are bound to know by now, is so pretty it hurts your eyes to look at her. The other was one Roy M. Furr, a history teacher at North Wilkesboro and later a Business teacher at Wilkes Central, who I am proud to number among my friends to this day.

The year before, I had taken a morning paper route with the Greensboro Daily News and, for the first time in my young life, I had a little money in my pocket. I was amazed at the measure of independence that having my own money brought me. If all went well, I made around six dollars a week and, each Saturday, I went to the aforementioned Roses store and used some of my newspaper profits to stock up on school supplies. Then, between classes all the following week at school, I had a thriving business reselling pens, pencils, erasers and, of course, notebook paper.

School was fine, but it was summer I enjoyed most.

Every morning, after I returned from my paper route, I would eat breakfast with my mother, Cary, and go back to bed. After a short nap, I would head outside to play with the Cashion sisters (Marie, Kay, and Carol), Patsy Church, Mark Goodman, Little Joe Johnson, James Walker, J. D. Berrong, Kurt Johnson, or any one of a host of other nearby kids. One of my favorite pastimes was making guns from two spring-loaded clothespins. When properly constructed, these guns would light and shoot stick matches over twenty feet. Of course, that's nothing compared to the cannons Daniel Wyatt was telling me he made with green bean cans, duct tape, and lighter fluid, but for 1961 our clothes pin guns seemed high tech.

1961 was also to be the summer I finally realized I would never get a tan. I had bought a $12 individual membership to the Wilkes YMCA with the aim of swimming and getting a tan all summer. Every day, when the YMCA pool opened at one o'clock, I was the first in line to be buzzed into the locker room by Wendell Smith, the older man who worked at the Y. Mr. Smith was quite a character in his own right — a retired ornithologist (specializing in the study of birds), who could sometimes be persuaded to do bird calls for us which were truly amazing.

At any rate, all summer long I stayed at the Y pool every day till the lifeguard hollered "Everybody out except Day Camp." All summer long, I burned and I peeled, and when fall arrived, I was still the whitest kid on Hinshaw Street.

I still am.

Being completely unable to tan notwithstanding, the summer continued to be fun. The best part was my other part-time job. I was in Scout Troop 90 at the Hinshaw Street Baptist Church. One of my scout leaders, and I'm sorry but his name escapes me, worked for the Wilson Pest Control Company. He drove a green Wilson station wagon to scout meetings, and we often talked about his job.

"Why don't you come with me some Saturday?" he asked one evening. "You might enjoy it." I asked my mom and dad if it was okay, and they gave me permission. Believe me, if they knew then what I know now, they would never have allowed it.

When Saturday came, he picked me up at our apartment and we rode into the country. "What are we going to do?" I asked. "We're going to work in some chicken houses." he replied. I was puzzled. "But, what kind of bugs are in chicken houses?" I continued. "Just wait and see" is all he would say.

After what seemed like forever, we arrived. He carried a wooden box inside and motioned for me to follow. When he opened it, I was so let down.

The only thing I could see was an old-timey Flit bug sprayer and a container on which I saw a skull and crossbones. He saw the look on my face and assured me that I should be patient, as he then removed a smaller box and motioned for me to come into the chicken house. Once inside, he opened the other box and my eyes widened, for there were a pair of .22-caliber pistols inside. He then set the stage for the mornings activities — we weren't exterminating bugs this day, it was rats. Yes, big, beady-eyed, shoulderless rats! He explained that the Flit sprayer was full of powdered cyanide that he would pump into the rat holes.

My job was to shoot the rats as they ran out.

No kidding.

I stood there with those two pistols like Doc Holliday in High Noon before the shootout at the OK Corral. I blasted one rat after another, until both nine shot pistols were empty. We repeated this scenario over and over through several chicken houses. By lunchtime, we had two barrels full of rats, and untold chickens had been scared half to death.

It's almost embarrassing to say so, but it was pure fun — and he paid me for helping, too.

I have always loved telling the story about the part-time job with my scoutmaster. As a matter of fact, when the movie Tombstone was released a few years ago, the minute I saw Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, I couldn't help but think back.

Yes, back to the days when I, too, carried a long-barreled pistol, and shot it out with a bunch of rats.