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Hank Williams died New Year’s Day 1953. It was a sad time for the music world and to millions of his fans. Years later, when I had my own band, a man asked if I knew “I Saw the Light” by Hank Williams. I sang it for him. Another reason that Hank’s songs and legacy will live on for a long, long time. Pro wrestling was a big thing on TV in 1953. Grandma Ellen even watched it.

At a scout meeting one night, they asked for volunteers to be at the gym at two o’clock Saturday. The mill was going to sponsor a wrestling event. Around two o’clock, there came two station wagons, a man and woman in each one, and in the back, there was all kinds of equipment. We helped carry all that stuff up to the gym’s basketball court. When we were finished, there sat a wrestling ring. The event was to start at seven. By six-thirty, the gym was packed. I think they expected to see someone famous, like Mr. Moto or Gorgeous George. However, in the first match were the two men that drove the station wagons. In the second match were the two women. In the main event were all four, in a tag team match. Afterward, we helped them load up, then they left. That night, I learned an important lesson. “Wrestling is fake.”

In December, we celebrated Christmas in our new house on Stevenson Drive.

In 1955, I acquired a valid South Carolina driver’s license at the age of fourteen. The last week of November every year, Aunt Frances and Uncle Lefty would come down on a two-week combination of thanksgiving and Christmas vacation. Lefty liked to go quail hunting down here.

One day, Aunt Frances took me to the city hall, in their new 1955 Plymouth, to try for my driver’s license. After I passed the written test, Highway Patrolman Broadwell took me out for the driving test. Just as I pulled away from the curb, a car passed us real fast.

Broadwell said, “Catch that car!”

I caught it.

He said, “Pull up beside it.”

I did.

He told the driver to pull over. He did.

Broadwell got out and gave him a ticket. Broadwell got back in the car and said, “Go back to city hall, you got your license.”

I went from “scared” to “relaxed.”

As Barney Fife would say, “It’s a jungle out there, help to catch criminals and lawbreakers.” The summer of 1956, I went to Camp Old Indian with the scouts for a week, earning more merit and badges toward “eagle scout.” Later, of course, we went to Myrtle Beach. That summer was also the first time I heard Elvis. He changed music as I knew it. I began to learn rock ’n’ roll.

After my sixteenth birthday in February 1957, I got my social security card and a part-time job at the Big Mill, working on Saturdays from 6:00 a.m. ’til 12:00 noon. My take-home pay was $6.33.

I worked there for over a year. Two years later (I was in the Air Force), I received a vacation check from the mill for .63 cents. I still have the letter in a frame. Also, in February, I was very proud to achieve my goal of becoming an eagle scout. All of my pins, badges, and awards are now on display in the Ruth Drake Museum. That summer would also be the last time I went to Myrtle Beach with the scouts. That fall, I started school in the eleventh grade.

One day, a school mate invited everyone to her birthday party at her house on Saturday night. So I borrowed June’s car, picked up my cousin, Tommy, and drove five miles out Blue Ridge Ave. Ext. to Jenny’s house. Her parents greeted us at the door. We played some games, had a couple of dances, ate cake and ice cream, then jenny opened her presents. The party was over at nine o’clock, so Tommy and I headed home.

I had not gone two miles, when I noticed a light. I looked in the rearview mirror; nothing behind me. But I kept seeing a light. I said, “Tommy, where’s that light coming from?” Finally, he put his head out the window and looked up. “G——dam there it is, pull over!” First time ever heard him cuss.