Crimson Tide vs Auburn War Eagles
To say that football was King in the Billingsley community was a vast understatement. In our household, time and the seasons were measured by the Crimson Tide’s football schedule for example: Three months, sixteen days till Alabama kicks off, ten days till spring training, two weeks before the Tide rolls over and drowns that no-good-cow-college Auburn.
I remember a special Saturday afternoon in the mid to later ’40′s. My two older sisters, youngest brother and I were gathered around our dining room table and our portable radio. Our attention was riveted to the Alabama Crimson Tide football game.
Coffee, a must for all family celebratory events, and homegrown popcorn handy, but forgotten, we leaned, as if pulled by magic, toward the radio. That magic was named Harry Gilmer jump passer extraordinare.
The game almost over, the Tide needing a touchdown to win, the ball being snapped, Harry Gilmer going back to pass, he jumped way up, just hanging there and rocketed that ball into the end zone and into history. God above! We managed to take a breath and went nuts, screaming, pounding on the table and throwing popcorn into the air.
***
Time past. I reached junior high and my siblings were either away in college or married and gone, but the devotion to the Crimson Tide they had instilled within me had been nurtured and grown.
More students at Billingsley High were Auburn fans, and, to me, Auburn fans verged on the fanatical. I, of course, never stooped to being fanatical. Soon, I discovered that riling them, was easy and fun.
My favorite provocation was throwing epithets. I called Auburn fans cow herders and their War Eagle a featherless chicken; they called Alabama fans stuck-ups and the Crimson Tide – shoreline scum. In a good volley, epithets could be slung back and forth for ten or more minutes before the long suffering teacher put a stop to it.
In seventh grade our exchanges ratcheted to new heights – poetry and essay. I wrote a two page poem about the travails of Auburn’s hapless quarterback trying to play against Alabama’s heroes of the field.
Smart and quick witted, Wilfred and his group countered with essays equating Auburn’s quarterback’s triumphs on the field to those of Hercules.
Our teachers were so astounded and pleased by our sudden plunge into literary endeavors that they let us read our compositions to the class.
Well, it didn’t take long for us to realise that our writing and reciting was getting us out of class.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the teachers to reach that same conclusion.
Oh, well, we de-escalated our football battles back to the mere slinging of insults, but it continued to be great fun.
POST SCRIPT:
Harry Gilmer’s name and his technique of jumping to pass came from my memories at five and six years of age. I went to ask.com to fact check these memories before posting the story. Imagine my pleasure when a picture of Harry, jumping up to pass, came on screen. Making it even sweeter was finding that he is still alive. Turns out that Mr. Gilmer was quite the athlete, and some of his records still stand.
Below are two links to read of his career and see the picture of his famous jump passing.
St. Louis Today on Harry Gilmer
March 12, 2010
· 
Carolyn · 
2 Comments
Tags: billingsley, Crimson Tide, gilmer, harry · Posted in: Crimson Tide
FAST FOOD COMES TO BILLINGSLEY HIGH
Do you remember the first time you saw or ate a hamburger? I do. Billingsley High.
In the ’40′s, coming out of the Great Depression, my parents still produced what we ate, augmented by hunting and fishing.
Sandwiches around our table were unseen. Mom cooked three meals a day, consisting of a meat, lots of vegetables, with biscuits and cornbread – the cornmeal ground from corn we grew – slathered with butter from our own cows.
Desert? Nah, only on special Sundays did Mom waste the resources and spend the time to make her famous chocolate fudge cake.
On the grounds of Billingsley High stood a cannery, where surrounding families brought their produce and preserved it in gallon cans.
The lunch room benefited from the counties share of these canned goods, so for many years we were served delicious vegetables at school also.
It was as I neared junior high age, that a buzz went through my class, concerning the coming Friday lunch room menu They were going to serve hamburgers and potato chips! My only excitement came from knowing, I’d find out what those food items were.
So why the buzz? To me, hamburgers proved to be nothing more than a lot of bread with a piece of dry ground beef. I was so unimpressed, I gave mine to Earl, but kept the pickles and potato chips.
March 3, 2010
· Carolyn · 3 Comments
Tags: billingsley high, country fast food · Posted in: country life
DASH + FLASH = TRASH
Home economics, a two hour course that every ninth grade girl had to take at Billingsley High, was taught by Mrs. Thompson, one of the best teachers I ever had whether in high school or college.
Unfortunately for me at the time, she had a red headed temper and I seemed to reciprocate, although, I was blonde, and I ran afoul of that woman most everyday.
I had been allowed to take chemistry in the ninth grade and went around spouting formulas and equations everywhere, becoming an arrogant little bore. Also, being one of those teenagers, who had firmly held opinions about lots of things, most of which I knew nothing about, Mrs. Thompson loved telling me just how deep and wide my inaccuracies were.
For example let’s take sewing. Martha was the dream student for every teacher, including Mrs. Thompson, and why not? Martha was quiet, sat still, did what she was told without voicing strongly held opinions and made A’s.
She also sewed beautifully. Her seams were straight, pleats lay flat, zippers remained unseen, and her button holes were works of art. Mrs. Thompson would look at my attempts and refer me to Martha for help.
There was one problem – Martha made dresses for the current period, the late fifties. I wanted mine to have a look somewhere between Gone With the Wind and Amazon Women from Venus, and I wanted them yesterday.
Mrs. Thompson would pickup my creation between two fingers, like it had traveled inside on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and loudly explain to the class her equation, Dash + Flash = Trash.
March 1, 2010
· Carolyn · One Comment
Tags: home economics, sewing, thompson · Posted in: Humor
MOTHER KNOWS BEST – Boy Was My Face Red
One family lived close enough to be considered a neighbor, when I was a child, and consisted of a middle-aged man and his elderly mother, there were no children to play with. Consequently, I eagerly awaited my first year in school.
At six years old that much anticipated event occurred and I experienced my first day of school at Billingsley High, which consisted of all twelve grades and sported an attendance of about 300 students. That day, the whole school gathered in the auditorium. I had never seen so many people at once before, nor so many children my own age – about twenty-eight.
School immediately became the social center of my life. I experienced some of my greatest joys (plays and operettas) there and one of the most embarrassing events in my life.
In Grammar School, most of my clothing was cotton and made by my Mom. In the second grade she bought me a pair of silk, what the English call, knickers. Oh my, they were splendid with lace and ribbons around the waist and leg openings! Unfortunately, Mom pronounced their waist elastic untrustworthy and forbade me to wear them until fixed.
Being a very busy woman, repairing those knickers wasn’t high on Mom’s list. It was taking her much too long to-get-around-to-it, so I decided to wear them to school, anyway.
I had got about twenty feet down the hall, when I felt silk slither down my legs and pool around my ankles. I think I stopped breathing. There were upper classman behind me, who were in various degrees of laughter induced paroxysm.
I slung them off my feet and ran for the classroom. One conscientious sixth grade girl opened my class room door holding the silky things out to me and said, “I think you left these in the hall.”
February 26, 2010
· Carolyn · 2 Comments
Tags: billingsley high, uhoh · Posted in: Humor
REA – Electricity Comes to the Country
Did you ever live so far into the country that the power company wouldn’t furnish you with electricity?
We did. Although, we lived only three miles outside of Billingsley, AL, I was four years old before the REA came through the country side.
I still remember that day. The family gathered round the drop-cord in our sitting room, and someone held me up to the light switch, for it had been decided, that since I was the youngest, I’d get to be the first one to turn on a light.
One of my brothers humorously declaimed, “Let there be light.” And I turned it on.
Wow! To a child raised around kerosene lamps, that light was miraculous. So much so, that I will always carry that scene with me.
Learn about the TVA and how it brought electricity to the country!
February 25, 2010
· Carolyn · 3 Comments
Tags: electricity, light, REA, TVA · Posted in: country life
