Born in the U.S.A.

Stevie Rhodes with Santa, 1962

September 30, 2014

Dear Constant Readers,

This is the third installment in a new series of posts which I hope will form the first draft of a book.  The working title for this book is, "Confessions of a Second Grade Failure."  It is a coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Kingsport, Tennessee during the 1960s and early 1970s.

And don't forget - if you subscribe to receive my blog posts by email before October 15, you will automatically be registered in a contest to win a new Kindle reader from Amazon.  For more details about the contest and how to subscribe, please read this post.

Cheers,

Steve

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Confessions of a Second Grade Failure

Born in the U.S.A.

Kingsport, my home town, was built in the river valley of the Holston in Northeastern Tennessee. It is surrounded on all sides with green mountains and rolling hills - some of the most beautiful country God ever made. It was a planned industrial city that was both in, but not always of, Appalachia. Our small city’s skyline is filled with smokestacks and church steeples, symbolizing both the progressive business and civic spirit of the community, as well as the conservative religious pillars upon which it was first conceived.

I had the good fortune of growing up there in the 1960s and early 1970s as a child. That period of time was a turbulent era for our nation, and many of the social, political and cultural issues were also experienced in my town as well. We were not isolated from the many changes that were occurring in the rest of the country.

I remember cousins who worried about their draft status and whether they would be called up to serve in Vietnam. I also remember watching the evening news with my parents and Walter Cronkite announcing the numbers of war casualties each day.

I remember when some of the mothers and women in our neighbor chose to work outside the home,

while others chose a more traditional role, and the tensions these decisions caused within families and between neighbors.

I remember our nearly all-white town, beginning the process of racial integration in the school system in 1965, and how it took until 1972 for my own elementary school to admit the first black students.

I remember hearing about the growing national awareness of income disparity and the high poverty rate in the region where I lived - Appalachia. And watching TV shows like “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and thinking that, while funny, they didn't look or sound like anyone I knew from Tennessee or Virginia.

And during this period, I remember that as concerns about the environment rose to national consciousness, we had our own debates and discussions about the polluted air and water of our own fair city. In addition to our skyline of smokestacks and steeples, there was the ever-present smog which hung over Kingsport. Our town even had it’s own distinctive odor. The running joke in our town was this smell was “the smell of money being made.”

So, no, Kingsport was not isolated from the cultural shifts of our nation. Many of these issues would directly impact my own life and the lives of family and friends in those years and the years to come. As important as these issues were, I must confess that in the first thirteen years of my life, I tended to focus on other things.

When I think about growing up in Kingsport during the decade of the 1960s, I imagine living in a town not unlike Andy Griffith's Mayberry, filled with small businesses that like it’s main street and was a place where everyone knew their neighbors and other townsfolk. Or I would think it was like living in the endearing town of Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” As a little kid, I could think of nowhere better to grow up. In so many ways, my early life seemed idyllic.

My memories of childhood are filled with images like my dad holding me on his shoulders so that I could see the Christmas parade as it came down Broad Street, and watching especially for Santa who arrived in town riding in his very own train car on the Clinchfield Railroad.

I remember our annual family trip to the Christmas tree lot run by the Kingsport Optimist Club. My best

Judy Huddleston and Stevie Rhodes

friend and neighbor during childhood was Judy Huddleston.  Her father, Ward, was an Optimist and worked the lot, always helping us pick out the perfect tree.

I remember standing with my parents on Memorial Boulevard watching our city's other annual parade which was held on the Fourth of July. I loved to watch the Shriners wearing their Pez hats, riding around in their tiny automobiles and their clown car. I loved listening to the local high school band as they passed by. And you could always count on seeing our congressman, Jimmy Quillen, riding in an open convertible, waving to his constituents, who kept sending back to Congress, session after session, for over 30 years.

I remember going to the carnival which was held about the same time of year as the Fourth of July

parade. It was sponsored and organized by the local American Legion. My uncle, who was both a veteran and a member of the Legion, always worked the carnival, selling tickets to the many rides. Often my friend, Judy, would go with me to the carnival so that I would have someone my own age to ride with on the amusement attractions.

I remember how summers in Kingsport were filled with fun things to do. David Merrill, another close friend and neighbor, and I would hike down to the creek that ran by our subdivision. There we would spend afternoons looking for and trying to catch crawdads, tadpoles, and box turtles. My friends and I would spend time at our neighborhood pool swimming, or else go to the American Legion pool, which was operated by the city. My friends and I also would go to see the latest Disney movie which would be showing at one of the two downtown theaters, the State and the Strand. We would go to the children’s matinee, which also featured cartoon shorts before the actual movie. And in the summer evenings, my pals and I would spend our time either playing flashlight tag or catching fireflies, putting them in canning jars with the tops poked full of holes for air.

I also remember how much I loved going downtown with my parents. My mom would frequently take me to Freel's Drugstore on the corner of Broad and Center streets. They had a lunch counter where we would eat. My favorite order was a grilled pimento cheese sandwich with crispy lettuce. I would wash my sandwich down with a cold glass of cherry Coke. It was different than the Cherry Coke which is sold now. The waitress would first pour the Coke into the glass from the soda fountain and then she would squirt cherry-flavored syrup into it and stir. Boy howdy, did that ever taste good. This lunch at Freels was often a bribe from my mother so that I wouldn't make a fuss when she shopped at Nettie Lee, a woman's clothing store, just down the street. Trips to town with my dad always meant stopping at Wallace Newsstand on the corner of Broad and Market streets. From a block away you could smell the freshly popped popcorn that they sold. Dad would peruse the latest papers and magazines. While he thumbed through the latest issue of Popular Mechanics, I would rush to the back of the store where the comic books were kept, picking out two or three that my dad would buy for me.

For me, memories like these define the years of my childhood. I was not alone in this experience of Kingsport. In fact, this sense of community and civic-mindedness was first touted by J. Fred Johnson, one of our town’s founders, as the “Kingsport Spirit.” From the city fathers’ perspectives, Kingsport was created to be a special place.

(More about the history of Kingsport tomorrow!)