A Football Coach

As a boy growing up in the Southern West Virginia town of Oak Hill I dreamed of the day that I could  play football for the Collins High School Red Devils.

The first opportunity that a boy had to play interscholastic football back then was the ninth grade.
Even though it was the junior high team you got to wear the Red and Black colors, although rather than being called Red Devils as the high school team, the team was known by the much less truculent nickname, the Collins Junior High Imps.

I was fortunate enough to be the Co Captain, with the late Kenny Spann, of the 1965 version of this team. The team was coached Bill Baker who had been an outstanding quarterback at Concord College, with Coach Baker's able guidance and an unusual amount of size, speed and toughness for a ninth grade team we were able to defeat the team from Beckley, West Virginia which was tantamount to taking out Darth Vader. At that time most people around town could not recall the last time an Oak Hill team in any sport had beaten a team from Beckley, especially in football, in which the varsity team had suffered a long stretch of losing seasons.

                    

The Varsity was coached by Nelson Bragg. Bragg was a native, and former coach at Beckley, West Virginia. His hiring was with the understanding that he would bring the Oak Hill Program to the level of the Woodrow Wilson team in Beckley. Bragg had been Captain of the 1938 Marshall College team, that was coached by the Legendary Cam Henderson.

Coach Bragg idolized Henderson and one of his two sons was named for the Coach that is memorialized in Huntington with his name on their basketball arena. He often made reference to him and how tough and brilliant he had been. This was the era when the epitome of football coaching was Paul "Bear" Bryant in college ball and Vince Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers in the Pros. Both known for their sour temperaments, training practices that were grueling at best and sadistic at worst.

Coach Bragg played this role with perfection. Mean, unlikable and proud of it, the problem was Bryant and Lombardi won championships, Bragg could not muster even a winning record.

                                                                              
 He did look and dress the part though, His face was tanned crusty and his disposition was gnarled. He seemed to take great pleasure to make his players rankle. The rare times he would smile you noticed his diastema  and sizable gaps between most teeth. He looked like he could eat a cob of corn through a picket fence. He chain smoked Camel Regular cigarettes. He would squint meanly at you and get nose to nose with you to chew you out; close enough to smell his bad breath which he proudly called his "houseatosis"

When our class became sophomores and members of the Varsity team which the previous year had not won a game 0-10. We thought we were going to be the saviours of the long struggling losing streak and that Coach Bragg would welcome us as his bright stars of the future. We would repair the school's tarnished football reputation.
                                                                  
We were wrong, Coach Bragg was determined that we were some how a fluke that had been coddled by the younger Coach Baker and his modern more humane and cerebral ways of coaching.

Oak Hill was not a rich school, but yet a Triple A Class, the largest class in West Virginia. The uniforms that Coach Bragg had us wearing during the era of Joe Namath breaking in white shoes on the gridiron, while we  had to wear high top, boot like black shoes. The cleats on the shoes in that era were just that, hard plastic spikes with steel tips. The tips could be filed sharper, and though illegal, it was done on occasion allowing you to "cleat" someone.

The game and practice jerseys had long sleeves, which were far from the on field fashion at the time, by any other team but ours. Being a rather dapper high school sophomore in pressed khakis and button down madras shirts, I felt the the team that dressed well, played well. This was just one of the almost everything Coach Bragg and I disagreed on.

My soft attitude and sissy ways did not conform to the Coach's ideals of a football player. He liked the little tough guys. The hard scrabble guys from the surrounding old coal camps. He loved the saying" it isn't the size of the dog but the size of the fight in the dog." The proudest I ever saw him was when one of his tough little guys was able to fill his starting defensive back position the following Friday after being stabbed by a knife the previous weekend. That was the kind of grit Bragg wanted in his players and those of us coming from this soft, but winning background were not worthy of his team. Yet two or three of us had been listed on the second team. I was never quite sure because he wanted us there, or that he wanted us a scrimmage fodder for his much larger, stronger and experienced Seniors.

I remember lining up as a defensive player against the first team tackle a very big and strong black man, "Big Ben" Johnson. "Big Ben" was worthy of his name and took great joy in intimidating the newbies. As Ben came to the line and begin to bend down into his blocking position he pulled up the left long sleeve of his jersey to expose his extremely large black forearm, which he had written on with white chalk the word "BLACK" as he shifted down to his position he pulled up his other sleeve where he had chalk written the word "POWER" bringing both fists together to show me the completed phrase while glaring at me in the eyes and smiling big exposing his white mouthpiece. In the 90 degree August heat I begin to question my love of the sport and my mortality.

The summer preseason didn't become cooler or easier as realized as a sophomore and second team I was not going to be much more than a blocking dummy and a backup receiver.

Second only to Junkyard Dog toughness, Coach Bragg loved to see you bleed. During one practice that summer I was victim of a "cleating" on my left hand which was bleeding profusely. It didn't really hurt but the blood was coming pretty fast, so I asked a trainer for assistance which infuriated Bragg he came over to look at it and I could see the joy of a vampire in his eyes, he gave me a rare smile and said "hell son that little scratch is three feet from your heart you ain't gonna die, you can let your momma put a band aid on it when you get home tonight" I obviously didn't die and did get it taped after practice.

As the regular season began the team continued to lose, but that was actually kind of good for playing time for a second team sophomore in that when the game was out of hand you would get a quarter of playing time.

As the losing continued it was evident that the Seniors on the team had basically given up. The next to the last game of the season was against the reigning AAA State Champion Bluefield Beavers in Mitchell Stadium on the Bluefield West Virginia Bluefield ,Virginia  stateline. Mitchell Stadium is an impressive and large, for West Virginia high school standards stadium built during the CCC Great Depression era. West Virginia University had once played Virginia Tech there. The Beavers were undefeated, nobody had even come close to them. Rumor was they had not even broken a sweat, therefore and for luck had not washed there highly fashionable and short sleeved maroon uniforms.

The game, though their last regular season game was their Homecoming and it was to be played at 1:00 pm in the afternoon on Saturday November 5, 1966.  We traveled to the game early Saturday morning in our usual school bus manner though  during the day across the West Virginia Turnpike and south to Mercer County. Lambs on the way to slaughter.
                                        
In one of the more bizarre moves, even for Coach Bragg; as we topped the hill on the Turnpike at Flat Top which is one of the highest points in the State, he asked the bus driver to pull over on the shoulder. He then ordered us all off of the bus and pointed out the panoramic view of the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains that you can see at that elevation. He made some analogy that this is why we needed to win this game and that we would need to be strong like the mountains. This meant little to a bus full of teenage boys, but confirmed to us that the man was not sane.
    
The home stands of Mitchell Stadium were packed with loyal Homecoming Bluefield fans there to Wayne Davis, my friend who was also a sophomore and second team is excellent at math and after their second score turned to me on the bench and said " I just calculated the time and at this rate they may score over two hundred." Fortunately they were just leading at the halftime 36-0.

The locker room at halftime was bizarre. Even this team that was used to and accepted losing were shell shocked. It was freezing cold in early November and we were physically being beat up too. Bragg came into the dressing room late and was outraged and berserk. He screamed and cussed like never before and said none of the Seniors or starters would play in the second half. That the second team and sophomores would finish the game, that we couldn't do worse. At least he was correct about that, the final score was 56-7.

On the bus on the way home Bragg's tantrum continued. He threw several the Seniors off the team, There was only one game left in the season.

That night after we returned to our gym I had stayed late to have some attention paid to my aches and pains and I was the last one in the locker room. Not knowing anyone was there Coach Bragg came in through another door and laid down on a bench face down and began crying. Up to that point in my life I had wanted to be a Coach, after that experience I changed my mind completely.

Coach Bragg was fired as the Coach after one more losing season and finished his teaching career at another school in the County doing nothing but seven periods of study halls.

Shortly after his retirement he and his wife Jewel, who was also a retired school teacher, together died in a fiery car crash.

The first year under a new coach the team went 5-5, the first time in many years there wasn't a losing record at Oak Hill.

I liked Coach Bragg, though most could not figure out why; maybe it is a football thing or maybe something else. But there is not a time that I am driving south on I-77 on the West Virginia Turnpike that I don't admire that view. I think of him, and it seems the older I get the more I appreciate it. I still have the scar on my left hand as a remembrance too, it didn't kill me.

Lubbock in the Lone Star State

In 1985 fueled by my own careless ambition and the ease of raising money from Savings and Loans that were soon to fail. I considered buying a small chain of radio stations in the Mid and Southwest United States.

                                                                        
                                                                        


The stations were owned by a family newspaper company. The Seaton family of Kansas owned newspapers and radio stations in Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas. The Patriarch of the family Fred Andrew Seaton had been the United States Secretary of Interior under fellow Kansan Dwight Eisenhower Presidency. Alaska became a State under Secretary Seaton. He had also been a US Senator representing Nebraska

                                                            
Communications Equity, primarily a cable television investment banking firm, was expanding over into radio and represented the Family in the selling.  Due diligence which is a term used in mergers and acquisitions which mean going and looking at what you may be buying. Communications Equity which was flush with money from the heydays of cable television deals had their own private jet which they allowed one of their guys and me to use with their two pilots to check out the stations.

The plane picked me up in Pittsburgh, PA from there we flew to Coffeyville, Kansas, a town about 90 minutes from Tulsa, to visit the two stations there and spend the evening visiting at the home of R.M. Seaton who published the Coffeyville Journal and oversaw the operation of the AM and FM radio stations. The next morning we made the short flight to Manhattan, KS to meet with Edward Seaton who was R.M.'s son and the Publisher of the Manhattan Mercury. Edward like his father was a great and personable gentleman and businessman. He was a Harvard graduate and was friends with West Virginia's the Governor Jay Rockefeller who had been his classmate while in Cambridge.

After lunch we took off for Hastings, Nebraska where the family owned the Hastings Tribune and KHAS am radio station. This was my first, and to this date, my only visit to Nebraska. The Hastings airport was very small and had minimal commercial service. The arrival of the Citation jet was a pretty big event for them. The few people that were at the small terminal looked rather disappointed when we walked off and were not recognizable as celebrities.

It was very cold in Nebraska and we were told when we checked into the Holiday Inn, which at the time was the only recognizable lodging brand in town, that the best steak in town was available just across the street. After refreshing in our separate rooms we walked across the street to the recommended place, where we ordered a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine. Our waitress was somewhat embarrassed in that she did not know how to use a corkscrew. I was able to talk her through the process in a manner that she felt comfortable.

Early the next morning after visiting with the General Manager of the radio station we headed to the airport where the pilots had fresh fruit, bagels, juice, coffee and the Wall Street Journal in the plane waiting for us, we were wheels up and headed to our last stations that were in Lubbock, Texas.

Realizing this was the last day we were going to have use of the jet and no more stations to visit we decided that we should celebrate when we got to Lubbock by having barbecue and Lone Star Beer.

Though I had been to Texas before, I had never been to Lubbock, which is best know for being the Hometown of Buddy Holly and Texas Tech University, a school where WVU Old Grads will recall that football coach Jim Carlen left Morgantown to coach. Then allowing his top assistant Bobby Bowden to take over the head coaching duties in 1970.

                                                                  

We rented a car at the airport and went to explore the town seeing the Buddy Holly statue and the impressive Texas Tech Stadium, then to check into the hotel, before our pursuit of barbecue and Lone Star Beer.

After checking into our rooms we agreed to meet in the bar in 30 minutes for our first Lone Star.

While waiting in the lobby for my traveling companion I was reading an article in the Lubbock Avalanche newspaper about a bizarre murder that had happened at a ranch outside of town. The mother of the family, which sounded a lot like the Ewings of South Fork , had been murdered by her son. In interviewing one of the neighbors on their thoughts, the neighbor was in disbelief because the accused "seemed like a nice young man and always had a good crease in his jeans" which I made a mental note of should I decide to get into business in West Texas.

Also while waiting in the lobby the University of Houston basketball team checked in for a game they had that evening with the Texas Tech Red Raiders. After their coach, Pat Foster distributed the players their keys he went to the desk and told the clerk to completely turn off all of the phones in their rooms. This in the days before cell phones was a prudent thing to do with his student athletes.

Finally we went to the bar and ordered two Lone Stars to be told by the bartender that they did not carry Lone Star Beer, which we found inconceivable, so we immediately left to find a real Texas bar that would have the beer of the Lone Star State. After striking out at two more watering holes to find out brand we were directed to a barbecue restaurant that we felt would surely have the brand.

After being seated, our waitress came and took our drink order and of course we ordered two long neck Lone Stars. She can back in short time to announce that they also did not stock Lone Star. So now I know there is something terribly wrong. perhaps a labor stoppage or product shortage. So doing my best J.R. Ewing impression I order a bourbon and branch and asked the waitress to please go to her manager and find out why nobody had Lone Star.

Upon coming back to deliver the cocktails and take our dinner order she made no mention of the answer to the ongoing lack of Lone Star. I said to her,"well did you find out the answer to my question?" and she said, "yes, but I can't tell you" Looking both surprised and displeased I said "why not?" she said "I just can't" I went on to tell her our quandary and suggested that her tip would be more liberal if I could find the answer. So she begrudgingly whispered that the manager said they didn't carry Lone Star, "because Lone Star tasted like piss." This was not the news we had been waiting to hear. As we were finishing up our dinner, the manager came to our table to apologize and also to give us directions to a bar near the Texas Tech campus that sold Lone Star, which was cheap and therefore a favorite of the students. After our first bottle we were pretty well convinced that the manager's assessment of the beer had been correct.

                                                                      
Shortly after this is when the huge savings and loan crisis developed and the S&Ls in Texas that had agreed to the financing of the deal reneged.

It was a deal that obviously was not intended to happen, but Lubbock taught me a lesson about beer and blue jeans. Perhaps now I know why Buddy Holly felt so blue about Peggy Sue.

A Festival of Memories

I have taken a hiatus from writing this blog, realizing that very few of the subjects which I have written has happened in this Century.

So this gives me the opportunity to write about something current that in fact is more about the Twentieth Century.

This weekend my first born son, Derek and I took a trip back to New Martinsville, West Virginia a town that we moved from in 1990. I had been back once briefly, Derek had not been back to this town of about 7,000 people on the banks of the Ohio River.

Coincidentally the Community was presenting, what has now become annual, Festival of Memories.
I made the drive west from Fairmont , West Virginia over US 250 and West Virginia Route 7 from Hundred, West Virginia on into New Martinsville. It is about a 55 mile drive that takes 90 minutes to make and longer on the return after dark.

When you finally reach New Martinsville it is such a relief to get on WV Route 2 after a drive that truly takes all the romanticism out of John Denver's Country Roads.

The Festival is all held on Main Street, so parking was at a premium after finding a place on the River.
I walked over to Witschey's Supermarket, which is a New Martinsville landmark, to check out the place that I was in at least once everyday that I had lived in the Town. With three growing boys, I was told after we had moved from the town that Bill Witschy the Proprietor and friend, had said not only was he sorry to see us move, but the family had been one of his best customers. Which was confirmed when Derek later said that he may go back there to see if they still had Garbage Pail Kids. 

After leaving the much changed and larger Store I walked south on Main Street to a side street where classic cars were being displayed there I ran into Derek and his friend Kate. We continued our walk down Main Street running into Santina Vigliotti, who while in high school had been a part time employee at my radio station,

Santina and me on Main Street New Martinsville

 After being a teacher she is now a Main Street merchant with her Presto Lunch and very active in several community improvements in town, she was joy as a teenager and is now a great asset to the Community as an adult. As I had written before I have been very fortunate in having good young people working with me.

Kate, Derek and I continued our trek down Main Street with Derek surveying the building that we had owned that his mother's fabric shop had been located and then on to the Court Restaurant which is the landmark eatery across from the Wetzel County Court House. The Rotary, the Chamber of Commerce, all of the latest gossip and really good home cooked food can always be found at the Court. Derek had memories of the place, which had expanded and changed. Breakfast with he and his brother Wes was a tradition for the three of us on Saturday mornings.

We proceeded back north on Main Street recalling times while there, where Derek as a little boy was just  in a class by himself in all the big wheel races on Main Street and recollections of his fifth and sixth grade basketball skills where he almost always won all the games in which he played, but also usually individually scored more points than the entire team of his opponents.

Not only had I operated both radio stations in town, but had been involved in almost every civic activity there was. Chairing the Hospital Board, President of the Chamber of Commerce, was President of their Regatta, on the Rotary Board, and for a period the State Senator. We were dug into the community.

The three of us took a pleasant respite from the walk at the lovely riverfront home of Sherron Winer, whose husband Sam was downtown promoting his speedboat races which is his and her passion.
Kate, who is skilled at fixing things, wanted to visit the Ace Hardware, this is a very good thing in that no Thomas men are handy, it also allowed us to walk east on North Street passing several other memorable landmarks including the old radio station building and the site of the old train station, which was unmercifully torn down while we had lived there.

Kate and Derek left to do some independent exploration and I went back to Main Street in that the activities were not scheduled to begin until later.

I was able to chat with the regionally famous and recent inductee into the West Virginia Broadcasters Hall of Fame "Uncle Dougger" who had done afternoon shifts at the radio stations there in the Eighties

                                    

Uncle Dougger and I catching up

He and I always had great fun working together and he truly is a legend in the Northern part of West Virginia where thousands grew up listening to him and going to his dances.

A day well spent getting to spend time with good people I had not seen in well over twenty years
No apologies for reliving fond memories, in fact it was rather festive,
Thank you for the memories, New Martinsville.

A Night in Dogpatch USA

After football season was over during my senior year in high school I was prepared  to continue to slide on through to my graduation without much fanfare. My ACT and SAT scores along with my less than impressive GPA were enough to get a football player in college. I had elected not to play basketball that year because of several differences of opinion with the basketball coach, mostly attributable to some unfortunate anger issues I had with a few opponent players in the past. Amazingly to me the basketball team made it to the AAA State Championship game that year without me.

Each year the school performed three plays, a junior class, a senior class, and a play for the entire school. I had the lead part in the Junior Class Play, the previous year. The play was entitled The Heavenly Quarterback. I was the Heavenly Quarterback. The two act play was very similar in plot to a film starring Warren Beatty in my role. There any comparison with Beatty and me ends.

There were numerous problems with the play, most attributable to the teacher that was the Producer and Director. Primarily the play wasn't very good and none of the cast knew their lines very well, including myself. It was performed on a stage at the old high school in town, which at that time was a grade school, fortunately ticket sales had also been done poorly so there were few there for the one performance and most were students who were not shy about booing or throwing objects at the stage, including tomatoes.

During intermission my co star and I walked over to a little beer joint nearby and had a beer where I debated to actually return for Act Two. Between the beer and better judgement I decided to return for more humiliation, but promised myself I would never allow myself to get in that precarious situation ever again.

Appassionata Von Climax- Patti Hamilton , Lil Abner, Daisey Mae- Libby Berry, Earthquake McGoon-Chuck Painter, Mammy Yokum-Jenny Lou May 1969

                                                  
The play chosen for the all school production my senior year was Lil Abner, a play from a famous comic strip by Al Capp. The play is set in the hillbilly town of Dogpatch that has been declared the "most unnecessary town" in the U.S. and is set to be turned into a nuclear testing site. At the same time, the baby tonic (Yokumberry Tonic) that Li'l Abner has been fed all his life by his mother, Mammy Yokum, is discovered to be a potion that makes men strong and handsome, but also utterly uninterested in romance.

The town is ultimately saved when Pappy Yokum finds a plaque, declaring that its local hero and Town Founder, the Confederate General Jubilation T. Cornpone was, by virtue of his incompetence, so instrumental in the defeat of his own army as to be a hero of the Republic. The race commences, with surprising results. Although Earthquake McGoon captures Daisy Mae, she and Li'l Abner wind up getting married.

The play was being produced and directed by a math teacher named Alberta Toles.  Ms. Toles was a tall no nonsense woman, who favored physically Aunt Esther from the old Sanford and Son television series. I did not really know Ms. Toles in that I had never had her as a teacher. My only experience was passing her in the hallways and being the recipient of her icy no non sense glare, because if nothing else, I singularly represented nonsense as a high school student.


The production of this play was causing an unusual buzz around school in that it was a musical with a very large cast . It seemed that every kid that had any singing or dancing talent wanted a part in the play.


Word was sent to me that Ms.Toles wanted me to play Lil Abner. I sent word back that this was not going to happen. One because I had sworn off acting after the trauma of the previous play and two, I cannot sing.


Ms. Toles was holding tryouts in the Band Room behind the school one evening that week and she had asked that I at least come there and talk to her about it, which after some heavy lobbying by quite a few of the girls that wanted to be in the play, I agreed to.


I walked into the Band Room to a very crowded room of kids singing "Daisy, Daisy" lyrics from a Bicycle Built for Two. I was summoned back to the office to have a face to face with the woman prior to that time had only given me cold stairs. Tonight there was a kinder, gentler Ms. Toles who welcomed me to sit down and talk. 


Ms. Toles told me that this was going to be the biggest and the best play in the history of the school and that I had to be her Lil Abner. I told her I was not interested and went on to tell her the reason based on the previous year's play and even more importantly I could not sing. 


She said there was no play without me, that I was Lil Abner. Wikipedia describes Lil Abner as, a naïve, simple-minded and sweet-natured hillbilly boy, so obviously it was type casting.


I reiterated to her I could not sing. She said "you have a wonderful voice" I said "maybe speaking, but I can not sing" 


She asked if I was familiar with Rex Harrison, which I affirmed; she suggested I might be able to speak/sing like he does. I shrugged my shoulders.


I told her I absolutely did not want to be humiliated as I had been in the past experience with kids not knowing their lines. She assured me that would not be an issue and if I would take the role a female student had already volunteered to be a prompter just for me and that she would make sure that I had no problems with mine or anybody's lines with whom I acted.


I told her I would think about it and get back to her but if there were any issues with my singing I would resign on the spot.


The cast was chosen and the scripts were distributed. The first rehearsal came and I was well prepared with my lines. Ms Toles had put together a little ensemble to provide the live accompany music to this fun filled extravaganza, it was time for Abner's first song. As the music began I begin to sing in my best Rex Harrison imitation, before I was halfway through the first verse Mrs. Toles stands up from her piano and raises her hands saying stop the music. She says to me "Wayne? Can you like here the music?"  I say, "yes Ms. Toles and I told you I cannot sing, so if we have a problem here I guess you probably should find someone who can sing" After some quiet thought and the familiar no nonsense stare toward me, she said "okay we will just finish tonight and you won't have to sing any of your songs, just recite you lines"


The next rehearsal her solution was anytime Abner had a song she would turn down the house lights and put a spotlight on me while someone else would came out behind and sing the song, while I just stood there and smiled a dumb Lil Abner smile. 


There was one scene at the fishing hole with Abner's cronies where there was a song called "If I had My Druthers" Ms. Toles had cast four of my black football teammates as the cronies. So we were able to sing that number like a rap, long before rap had come on the scene. If I had my druthers I'd rather have my druthers than anything else I know why you'd rather hustle accumulatin' muscle, I'd rather watch the daises grow...
I still know the lines.


The play was before a packed gymnasium, but unfortunately only was performed once, after many weeks of work. Everyone knew their lines. The reviews were good, all of the large cast had a good time and a great high school experience. 


I still refuse to sing, except in a low volume in church, where I suppose God is wondering if I can hear the music.





Thank you to Cathy Grabosky Manis who played Stupefying Jones, and furnished the photo and encouraged me to reach back for another old story.

123... ABC, Hypocrisy?

Budweiser Beer annually offers forth memorable Super Bowl ads, this year's was an expensive and elaborate production dramatizing the end of Prohibition.

Prohibition began in 1920 and lasted for 13 years. During that time the Anheuser Busch Company survived by manufacturing soft drinks and selling yeast. When Prohibition ended August Busch's son's gifted him with a red wagon and a team of Clydesdales which Busch loaded with kegs of beer and the horses drove the load of beer to the White House for FDR who had been instrumental in the repeal of Prohibition with the adoption of the Twenty First Amendment.

                                                                  


To this day, some 80 years later, several States have still not ratified the Amendment including both Carolinas and Oklahoma.

All one has to do is to travel from State to State today in the 21st Century and there still are some pretty archaic ways of handling the control of the sale of alcohol.

In 1969 when I entered college in Oklahoma, one of the State's that still has not ratified, a woman could buy beer at 18 years old, but a man had to be 21. which meant men in the Freshman class had extra incentive to make friends with a co ed. Also cold beer could only be purchased in a tavern, yet warm beer was displayed and sold at all gas stations displayed between the pumps. The Sooner State at the time also was not liquor by the drink, which meant at the nicer restaurants you could bring your own bottle of liquor and pay a hefty price for ice and mixers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this was responsible for a much higher level of alcohol consumption. Oklahoma has now overturned those strange restrictions.

All States still continue to control liquor sales which was the provision of the Amendment.  The level of control and the manner in which liquor is sold in each State, some are more progressive than others.

While growing up in West Virginia and my father being a frequent consumer of controlled beverages, I was aware that many towns had "State Stores" which were always understated storefronts that featured clerks standing behind steel grates, similar to what bank tellers used to stand behind. There was no liquor visible. A customer would write on a slip of paper the liquor he wanted to purchase, slide the paper under the grate, the clerk would then return with a bottle in a brown paper bag. The purchaser would pay and leave with the brown bag. Even as a young boy in the 1950s waiting in the car for these deals to go down, it seemed like a silly charade to me.

Over the years West Virginia progressed to a somewhat friendlier self service format, where the customer could come in and make their selection from the shelf openly take the the bottle to a cashier, all while praying that they didn't run into anyone they knew from church. The system worked well enough but in order to keep costs down the variety of brands offered were very limited.

                                                                      
My drink of choice at this time was Gentleman Jack, which is a high end sour mash whiskey produced by the same wonderful people who produce Jack Daniels in Lynchburg, Tennessee. A town that I have had the pleasure of visiting and attending a catfish fry hosted by the Distillery. The function featured unlimited pouring of their product, bluegrass music and free cigars. At that time I was a very loyal consumer of their product so I can only think that the experience would be tantamount to a child receiving an all access pass at Disneyland.

In order for me to buy Gentleman Jack in West Virginia I had to special order it by the case and have it delivered to my local State Store.

When Gaston Caperton became Governor of West Virginia, and having come from a business background, he had several initiatives that he offered to modernize and streamline government. One of the most controversial was partially privatizing the State's liquor stores.

The issue was controversial, not just based on the always sensitive liberalization of alcohol, but as there most often is, the hidden political impact. In this case the opposition in the Legislature was based in that almost all of the State Stores were in buildings being rented from political supporters and cronies. Also the stores employees were on the State payroll. They were good jobs that required no heavy lifting and provided excellent positions for Legislators to provide secure jobs for their constituents. Under the proposal both of these political perks were in jeopardy.

I was a State Senator at the time having been appointed by Caperton. The primary reasons I was a Senator for such a short period of time was that I was naive enough to support measures that I thought was for the betterment of the whole State and  not to what was the best political position. My best friend and often counselor on issues in the Senate was Joe Manchin. Joe was adamantly against the change and actually did a rare filibuster on the Senate floor against the measure. He had collected telephone books from every town in the State and would read names out of the phonebooks, occasionally stopping and saying that the passage of the legislation would be harmful to the names he just read.

Capitol of West Virginia

                                                                      
I was a member of the Senate Finance Committee. In order for this legislation to succeed it was essential that it receive approval of the majority of the members of Finance. I was summoned to the Governor's Office for a one on one meeting with Caperton with the topic of discussion being this issue that was such a high priority to him.

When I arrived downstairs in the Capitol at the Governor's Office, I was escorted back to his conference room, where I was seated at one end of a conference table. Seated at the other end was The Governor, to his right his Chief of Staff and to his left the State Liquor Commissioner.

Governor Gaston Caperton 

          
   Caperton said, "Senator you probably know why I have asked you here", I said "well Governor I am assuming you are going to brow beat me and twist my arm to vote for your damned liquor store bill" He assured me this was not the case, that they only wanted to share all the facts with me and answer any questions I might have knowing once I had all the facts that I would indeed vote to move his measure through the Finance Committee and the Senate.

In this era Ross Perot had popularized charts and graphs to emphasize the finer points of an issue. Caperton began his presentation holding up chart with a bar graph showing a downward line that looked like an upside down hockey stick. "Senator, unlike your own personal situation, liquor consumption in America is decreasing" he said while using his finger to follow the downward direction on the chart.

I said laughing "Gaston, I could stay upstairs if I wanted to be insulted, and besides that comment definitely falls into the pot calling the kettle black category, do you want my vote or not?" he smiled back and nodded in agreement.

He went on to explain that the plan would not relinquish any of the control of liquor by the State in that they would still be the only supplier of booze to retail outlets and could dictate their price to the retailer while tremendously reducing the States costs and liabilities. Meaning higher income to the taxpayers, free market profit to entrepreneurs in the State it was a classic win/win in his view.

I interrupted his presentation by telling them that I was in favor of the initiative as I understood it; but I had a couple of questions. The first being that I had noticed a few years earlier when the state had enabled wine to be sold in supermarkets that there was very little variety of wine available and what was available was of low quality, was this going to happen to liquor? The ABC Commissioner quickly shot back,"you are worried about your Gentleman Jack aren't you?" I responded, "well yeah but, it did seem in order for private enterprise and therefore the state to succeed a broad choice would need to be available" I was assured that the competition created would allow for a broad selection. My other concern was the job security of the existing employees and they agreed that no one would be displaced nor would any existing employee have to sacrifice any benefits that they had accrued.

The Bill passed and the system has worked very well for over twenty years now for the people of West Virginia. Though many States such as North Carolina still have State operated ABC Stores that are overseen and managed by Boards in each individual county an inefficient system that is prone to corruption, yet the suggestion of modernizing the archaic marketing is still politically unacceptable which I suppose is understandable from the only State that actually passed a referendum not to ratify Prohibition.

At this stage I rarely drink alcohol of any type. And have some horrible experiences and some wonderful experiences in my life that can be directly attributed to alcohol.

I can't help but wonder what the United States would be like had Prohibition continued and yet somehow I find it somewhat lugubrious that the end of Prohibition was portrayed as such salvation for our Nation.

George Dickel meets Mean Joe Greene

On a warm Oklahoma Friday afternoon in mid November 1969 my roommate and I stood outside our dormitory in Tulsa waiting for our ride to pick us up for an overnight trip to Texas. The purpose of our trip was to watch the Varsity football team  play North Texas State University the next afternoon.

Our host and driver was the team Chaplin and the campus Catholic Priest, Father Robert Schlitt, who was affectionately known to all as Father Bob.

Father Bob seemed to spend the majority of his waking hours at the jock dorm, ever ready to counsel or take confession. There was some speculation by my more cynical Catholic teammates that Father Bob got a rush out of some of the more graphic repentance of the student athletes. We all took great pleasure  when seeing him on campus to always shout  to ask how the wife and kids were, then watching him turn scarlet red.

This weekend though Father Bob, had invited my roommate, one of those more cynical Catholics and this West Virginia Baptist boy to join him in attending the away game with him. We would be following the Twentieth Century route that followed the Chisholm Trail. We kept the conversation interesting in quizzing the Priest on the prurient history of Jesse Chisholm as we drove toward our Friday night destination Bowie, Texas, named for Jim Bowie of the knife fame.

We would be staying at the home of the sister of Father Bob, which was not to be confused with a Nun/sister but his real sister. She was a gracious hostess and had prepared a Texas dinner for us, my first barbecue beef brisket. I have had a love affair for that cut of meat since, but only if cooked properly Texas style with the pink ring.

She and her husband also were excited to take us to our first Friday Night Lights Texas High School football game, and to see their star football player, a guy by the name of Tim Welch who had been just recently recruited by the University of Oklahoma.

The football field looked more like a college stadium and was packed with rabid fans. I was disappointed to find the nickname of the team was the Fightin' Jackrabbits, The Bowie Jackrabbits? Knives seemed like a more natural and intimidating moniker. My displeasure fell on deaf ears with all eyes focused on the Welch kid who was setup every play alone in the backfield in a shotgun formation and he had the option to do whatever he wanted, He was all he had been advertised and well worth the Cadillac convertible that he had started driving a couple of weeks earlier purely coincidentally near the time he had signed his letter of intent with the Sooners.

The next morning we packed up the Bobmobile and headed further down the trail to the town of Denton, Texas to see the Tulsa Golden Hurricane take the field against the North Texas Mean Green and their star lineman Joe Greene. Charles Edward "Mean Joe" Greene. Greene was the premiere lineman in college football. In the days before anabolic steroids, Green was only 6'4" and 269 pounds. But he was fast and possessed the three most important traits of a defensive football player . He was mobile, agile and hostile. To see Greene was the primary reason for us going to the game. He did not let us down. He looked like a man playing with boys and completely dominated the game. He was the real deal. They beat Tulsa that day 42-16, handing the Hurricane their seventh loss of the season. Thankfully for the Tulsa faithful, in that era there were only 10 games in a season.

Greene went onto be the keystone of the famous Pittsburgh Steelers Steel Curtain and made one of the most famous Super Bowl commercials of all time for the 1980 Super Bowl. The spot was for Coca Cola, called "Hey Kid".  

                                                          

                

On the first day of November in 1981 the Pittsburgh Steelers played the San Francisco 49ers at Three Rivers Stadium. The 49ers were quarterbacked by the great Joe Montana and had a running back from West Virginia University and Charleston, West Virginia's Stonewall Jackson High School; Walter Easley.

My best friend had not been to a Steeler game, so I invited him to join me for this game. For those that do not recall Three Rivers Stadium was home to both the Steelers and the Pirates. With the dual utilization there were separate press boxes for each sport.

 In that one of my radio stations carried the broadcasts of both teams I could get a couple of non working press passes. These passes allowed me to watch Steeler games from the vantage point of the baseball press box and vice versa for the Pirates. Great seats, free food, and all the beer one could consume. You make very little if any money in the radio business so perks like this make it worthwhile.

With a 1:00pm kickoff, my friend and I had agreed to meet at 10:00 am at the Marriott in Greentree ,outside of Pittsburgh, to tailgate prior to the game. We had forgotten that there would be a problem buying cocktails on a Sunday morning. Fortunately or unfortunately my friend at the time was a salesman selling to coal mines and had a requisite case of Bourbon in his trunk that he used as gifts for his customers. It wasn't Bloody Marys but as any alcohol abuser knows, any port in a storm. So we timed the consumption of the entire bottle of Dickel until we could get to the press box and the free Iron City beer at noon. Which seemed like an excellent plan at the time.  

            


                

As we sat in our padded arm chairs on this bright November Sunday watching a tremendous back and forth game and enjoying our free beer. My friend mentioned that we had a problem in that he had promised his young son that he would bring him an autograph from the Steelers All Pro Receiver Lynn Swann. He pointed out to me that Swann was down on the field and we were some five or six stories above him and this chasm was going to create a serious obstacle in acquiring Swann's signature. Being the host and feeling responsibly irresponsible I assured him that this would not be a problem. The pointed down to my belt where we were wearing those press passes that hang from your belt.

The game ended with San Francisco winning 17-14 on a touchdown score by none other than West Virginia's own, Walt Easley. We then realized that not only would we visit with Lynn Swann, but would go congratulate Walt Easley on his performance and knew how much he would appreciate it coming from a couple of guys from his home State.

                                                                  



We left the press box and headed to the hall to the elevator marked for press only, following my direction we just didn't flinch and acted as we belonged there. We first went into the Visitors dressing room and after giving an approving nod and thumbs up to Joe Montana and a few other 49ers we found Easley at his locker. We introduced ourselves and congratulated him on his outstanding day. He was cordial and appreciative and seemed somewhat surprised by the effort we had made to congratulate him.

That done we went in search of the Steeler's dressing room, once we found it and opened the door I was amazed at the luxury of it there was an unbelievably thick and plush silver carpet  and the lockers were all crafted from fine wood. It was remarkably quiet and we were the only non players in there.

The first player I recognized was Joe Greene, who was sitting in front of his locker in a state of undress. I immediately went up to him stuck out my hand, introduced myself, gave him condolence on the loss and shared with him seeing him play in college. I explained to him our purpose in being there in pursuit of Lynn Swann's autograph for my friends son. But I would like one of his , and one for my sons too. He provided me with both exhibiting the same gentle giant character he had in the Coke commercial. While I was doing this my friend had approached Legendary Steeler Quarterback Terry Bradshaw to offer condolence and compliment while asking for assistance in locating Swann.

Bradshaw did not show the same hospitality that Mean Joe had and we found ourselves being rather unceremoniously and literally been shown the door and demanding the return of our passes. As we stepped out into the hall there was a large crowd of sportswriters waiting to get in, at the head of the line was Pittsburgh sportscaster Bill Curry, who I recognized and I told him how much I enjoyed his work. He ask what had happened. After telling him what had happened he told me that there was a 30 minute cooling off rule in the NFL and press was not allowed in the losing teams dressing room for a half hour. He also pointed out a member of the press was never allowed to ask for an autograph.

 Who knew?  They unfortunately do not teach these things in Journalism School. I am sure George Dickel was more responsible for this faux pas than Journalism School. Fortunately both are history in my life now.

Enjoy the Super Bowl and if you chose to drink, drink responsibly.

Intro to Political Science

On the Monday morning of May 4, 1970 I was entering a classroom on the campus of the University of Tulsa, as I  had just settled into a desk in the Public Speech 101 class, the Instructor stood up and addressed the class in a manner of disappointment and disgust; questioning why any of us had bothered to show up this morning. I had no idea what he was getting at, but I liked the tone of where it seemed he might be going and thinking it might give me an opportunity to go back to LaFortune Hall, the School's jock dorm where I would be able to crawl back into my bed and further nurse my bruised and battered body from spring football practice.

The Instructor sensing I was not the only one in the class who had no idea what he was talking about told us that four of our brethren college students had been shot and killed during a protest of the Vietnam War on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. Explaining the only thing these victims had done were exercise their right to free speech and protest and were shot by American soldiers on American soil. Guardsmen had fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds It was therefore our duty to not be in the classroom, but to join in the protest or at least commemorate the memory of these martyrs. Class was dismissed till further notice and he would encourage us to not attend any other classes that day. Which was a sweet protest song to my ears, but somehow I knew that the staff of Golden Hurricane football coaches would not be as sympathetic to the fallen students memory. But at least I had a few hour window of recovery time before 2:30 in the afternoon when it would be time to be in the training room to have my ankles taped in order to prevent a sprain in the battle of something greater than communist aggression in the rice patties of southeast Asia. That being the pursuit of Lombardi type excellence for the University's beleaguered football program.

These days were before cable news and the 24 hour news cycle but the three major networks gave a huge amount of time to the killings in an almost continuous loop effect. Four students dead in Ohio. Killed by National Guardsmen of their own generation. Richard Nixon was the President and essentially defended the action. We were young adults who had seen a young President killed, his brother slain, Martin Luther King murdered, and now thousands of our peers in a war that we, nor really anyone was quite sure what we were fighting for. Neil Young recorded a song that was played in a heavy rotation that summer, Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own, this summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio...

Having been raised in West Virginia where young men freely volunteer more than any other State to fight wars for their Country and along with possessing a jock mentality, I was acculturated to having a hawkish attitude. I really was not sure how to feel about the Nation I had been born and lived, during these troubling times.  Nixon and his cronies were certainly not to be trusted, but those of my age that were raising hell rioting, and burning college Administration buildings didn't seem like the correct action either. Though I had been invited I had not joined a group of student athletes that went to disrupt a group of war protesters that had wanted to join hands and encircle the United States Federal Building in Downtown Tulsa and pledged not to leave until the building levitated or the War ended. The protesters did not garner enough participants to actually encircle the building, which nullified the need for the football players to beat them up. The building never rose from its foundation and the War went on for several more years, so I am not sure who was wrong or right in that particular situation.

The next Spring after transferring to West Virginia University I was having  lunch by my myself by a window at the pizza place that was on the southwest corner of High Street and Willey in Downtown Morgantown. Later that afternoon there was a large Anti War Rally planned  in front of the Mountainlair, the student union. The most militant of the National movement was a group named the Students for a Democratic Society, the SDS. The SDS was responsible for this rally and it was promised to be potentially violent.

Looking out the window as I ate I saw three charter buses full of West Virginia National Guardsman and West Virginia State Troopers in full riot gear in the buses. Each one had rifles standing in front of them, the rifles all had bayonets on them. Bayonets to control college kids in West Virginia. West Virginia a State that gave the lives of 1182 of its young people in this War. That moment finally really brought it home to me what a atrocity we were living in America at that time.

It was clear to my thinking that the protesters had made some impact on the mood of the Nation, but it wasn't in my nature to protest and I literally wasn't going to a knife and gun fight, without a gun or a knife.

1972 was to be a Presidential Election year perhaps we could actually channel this energy to elect a President that would stop this senseless War. Hubert Humphery was the odds on favorite to be the Democratic Nominee. Humphery had been Vice President under Lyndon Johnson. Johnson had escalated the War and it had ruined him politically forcing him to not stand for reelection. Humphery was known has the "Happy Warrior" though he pledged to get us out of the War. Alabama Governor George Wallace, who at the time was a Populist among those that were advocates of States Rights for his history of supporting segregation. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine,  and Senator George McGovern from South Dakota seemed like the two to have the strongest feelings against the "conflict"

Muskie ended up dropping out of the race after breaking down and crying about a nasty editorial. This left only one true anti war candidate George McGovern who was clear about his intentions.

The 26th Amendment to the Constitution had been ratified in 1971. This Amendment allowed, for the first time, 18 year olds to vote. The principal rationale for this change was that if 18 year olds could be drafted to war to fight and die for their country they should be able to vote.

It occurred to me that if I were able to vote, that I might be able to run for something. I researched it, and though most all offices had age requirements in West Virginia, no one had realized that there was no age requirement to run as a delegate to the National Convention. So on my way back to Morgantown from a visit home in Oak Hill, I stopped in Charleston at the Secretary of State"s Office and filed to run as a Delegate to support McGovern and becoming the youngest person ever to be on the ballot in West Virginia.

Humphery won the West Virginia Primary and Wallace finished a strong second. McGovern was the Democratic Nominee but was soundly beaten by Nixon in every State but Massachusetts.

This was my outlet of protest that was probably no more effective than chanting and carrying a sign. Though I did not win I didn't have to look at the barrel of a gun and the point of a bayonet.