Living history interview with Dr. GBS be class of 1957, conducted by Maryland's summers on June the fifth, the year 2007. We are at his home in Atlanta, Georgia. And the subject of our interview today, his life in general and his experiences at Georgia Tech. Your SB, It's a pleasure to meet you and visit with you. And I'm looking forward to hearing the whole story, so thank you. Let's talk about when you were born anywhere. 

Well, I was born and I'm a brat. My father was in the military at the time. 

He have in Graduate University, Alabama was commissioned in the military or in some six years AFT left Alabama. Actually, fab years after he married my mother and almost a year to the day afterwards, hours born. And were you born in Alabama? 

I was born in Jackson, Alabama, which shows the home of my mother. My mother was a school teacher. 

They IN my paw, they had been sent there by the arm it to as command of as CCC camp the CCC pro room, who was a survivor. 

They built projects and built cut fire aligns to the 4s, did so much that we can appreciate today, even very much. 

So he was in-charge of a particular area of, of a group of civilians that together, but hard because the economics of the country at that time or such, I guess unemployment was quite it was FDR project, take a caret, I treat it work. Civilian Conservation Corps, Right? 

Exactly. I will give the whole thing right out. 

So your dad was doing it in the auspices of under the auspices of the military or by this time he was seen as a lieutenant in the middle. 

So he did this. I didn't even know hereditary anything to do with her. 

I'd actually I think they in great broad false did then perhaps had the most hands-on approach with the CCC's. It makes good sense. 

So it would be traditional for the time. You didn't tell us what year you were born in 191935. Okay. 

It would've been traditional for when your mama was ready to deliver that should be home with her mom, right. Caret. And that's how it got to be Jackson ride. And my mother was the youngest of 13 children born to her mother when her mother was 45. 

So when I came along, her mother was quite up in age and I already had a ton of great children to probably right. 

Well, she did. In fact, my grandmother had some 30 grandchildren because she had 13 children. Wow. 

So you grew up with a lot of family knowing a lot of aunts and uncles and whatnot. 

Well, I did in some regards and not in others. My grown-up history. In fact, the first 11 years of my life from 1935 and to 946. 

And I know this because I had my mother proud or a death record, the places and the dates we move we move 26 tabs 0 with my father be an in-service, of course, between 930 fab and 946. 

So your mother turned out to be one heck of a letter writer, did? 

She did, and she had four sons, three, to follow ME to take care of deer. And so they went from place to place. Stateside are always ask them abroad. They were always states tail after World War Two and we were we actually had orders for Japan. 

My father was already in Japan, but he contracted in neonates and was brought back to Walter Reed Hospital and they canceled orders of never went to live in Japan, which your mother was probably just as glad. Thank should've been a tremendous adjustment for her to do all of that. 

And we were glad you did your dad retire then from military will actually, at Walter Reed, he was given the option of getting our service. He had an illness. It turned out not to be chronic and disabling. 

But he was a civil engineer and decided that apps 17 years or so a move in about that, he was ready to settle down with four sons and decided to settle down and Jackson, Alabama, there were no engineer projects AS so he became a land survey IS his for the WHO also finished at Alabama was a land surveyor. 

Now, we're wish your father's birth place that it went up all his birthplace was a knee fall, Alabama. Was that far from Jackson? 

You fall. 

Marilyn is on the eastern border of Alabama at the light key fall, actually a devise Alabama and Georgia that geographics pretty close to Georgia, that right. 

And where's Jackson? 

Jackson is just north immobile and some 30 miles east of the Mississippi land, nestle down in the Southwest gone of Alabama. Okay. 

So two different home places in a sense, you must have thought of Jackson is your hometown. Yes. In fact, though my father had three siblings, none. I'm wherever mayor and and we really never spent much time with his I've said blends in. 

So really Jackson was your home place. 

But by the time you got back there to settle down and grow some roots, you, you must have had a gazillion, cousins and all your aunts and uncles, but everybody was different to you then you didn't know them all that well? 

I didn't know them that well. 

And since my mother was the youngest, shall she actually had nephews and nieces who were older than she. Oh, I'm sure. 

So we were the youngest, those thetic grandchild less and they were gone, made their marks for the most part. We mostly knew him by their accomplishments. Family lore is with them, their loyalty. All right. Let's go back to your earliest memory. You said you got your mom to record the spaces so you know where you were. 

But what's the earliest thing you remember if your girl and uptime remember him and had a tonsillectomy, remember having left this will hospital, but remember just very tangentially a small bit and I was age 3 then and remain I'm not sure why I remember it except that must have been quite painful. Trauma. 

So cores. 

The second thing that I remember most and I think maybe one of the defend and points in my life was at the age of five in Johnson City, Tennessee, collected some old newspapers and went out on the corner to sell them. And I made the sale first sale and only sale for Nicole and not fall down the street. Did the purchase again before he came back and wound is nickel bag. And I didn't understand why that paper did not have valves to give the Nickleback. Here. They give the neck or back and it was brutal, it paying off. It was my first economic sphere and that all by yourself. I'm et al Obama say, well, I'm sure you did. 

How much younger was your next brother? 

My next brother was about 18 months younger than I did close that. Pretty cool. 

So your earliest memories are having siblings. You don't remember being the only child? 

There was always the baby's kick, right. 

Do you remember when you started school? 

I do remember when I started school and I remember the first gray gray whale for three reasons are two reasons. One, my teacher was my mother's first cousin. She was still discipline air in and I was quite afraid of her. 

And secondly, I remember the first grade because I moved three times in the first grade, entered school in Jackson and then we'd like to move to to Gainesville, Florida, and then to move beyond from which it was first gray wall and the first skirt. Oh, it's hard to make buddies when you're on the road. Yeah. Practically live in on the road when you think about it. I was introduced to a new group of bullies each to share your work. 

Nothing worse than be in the new kid to start over three times in one year, three times in the first girl, that's cruel and unusual punishment. And your brother wasn't old enough to go to school. 

So you are doing this by yourself. And he wrote an old enough to protect me know, probably never know if Lao what trauma. 

And did you like school at all or were you did you find it a terrifying place? 

Well, I found move and was was traumatic at that age. Children we as children were very cruel to H7. And I went through a lot of kidding. And there were young, young students who were a bit more physically, physical than I am. They did same to kinda pick on the new kid? 

Absolutely. Probably for the most part in those small towns, relatively small towns, you were moving to. They live there their whole life. You know, a lot of combining going in those areas. 

Now, I don't think for them I think ours was the exception because my father was in service. Yeah. That is pretty well. 

That's why they call you Army brats because you get you get an attitude when you get dragged around like that. Was it. 

You said for the first how many years there were 26 moves first 11 years we move 26 times between birth than. My 11th birthday. 

So it really wasn't until you were in the fifth or sixth grade before you had any roots at all, ride an actual app to finish the sixth grade? 

We move back to Jackson because at that time my father went to Japan. 

And so all of those moves when the gray during the grade school, at least some moves after I started SKU. 

The probably during that period of time, the most defining moment in grade school was that we moved at the beginning of the second grade to Nashville where my father was a middle tier instructive and a bail. And my neighbors, Joe Murray and Cliff keel run the third grade. And I was in second grade and I wanted very much to be a part of their fraternity. 

So after we started our class is in the second grade, I approach my teacher, told her that I had had these courses into three different schools that I had been in the first gray then how would lot very much for her to if we could give me a chance to go into the third grade. 

You want slow? 

She did promote me to the third grade with the with the requisite that I would have to prove that hour that I could do that work. 

So actually, that made me the youngest in the third grade. I was able to stay there and I didn't announce it to my mother until she received my my report card. Wanted to know what I've been up to. Then we'll fight for yourself. 

But I can imagine that the administration at the school was listening to you ways to do that? 

Well, and looking back on it, I can imagine a that one wonders what kind of school administration like, Hey, you could get away with that today, that's for sure. 

But that just made you even smaller in the third grade and second grade may be even smaller. 

And it may and my parents were very beer in determined that we had economic independence and in the third grade, my mother, hello, I'm made that since I had reached a level of grade school, there was 20 for any allowance and that How would have to make my own way financially. 

Phil, work ethic rules supreme and took off on two or three tangents and actually was fairly successful with what might they had been sorted. Little thing, well, I was the newspaper boy. That's economically was not terribly reward. It's dependable but defendable ride. 

But I had decided, Marilyn, that a package sale peanuts and the diameter is that band of bail. 

I could buy hours, determine because at that time during the war, we had rationale of gas and made and sugar and butter, and we had air raids. Remember this? 

I remember very well. And I was very fearful of being attacked in this country by enemies. And so they made you feel a little paranoid. I was, I was paranoid and meet the newspapers. Course. We had no television, but we listened to radio and everyone was trend to sell US bonds. 

And I thought if I went to Vanderbilt and was able to sell peanuts attack at some US bonds over a period of a year with my mother, bake in the peanuts and my bag in them and taking them and sell them at night in the dorm are saved enough to about $425 bonds and the Nashville van or somehow gotta hold that store and put a little bar on thing on the front page. 

And but I lost that peace a long time ago, so no one knows whether I'm telling the truth and all I do all your papers folded now we can't go back and look. 

I have not tried to go back and look and I've often thought that I would outlines and I saw Nashville banner. The Nashville banner. 

Well, you could do the math, figure out how old you were in. Maybe it's there. You probably would have to go look. It might be online. Who knows? 

We'll have to investigate that. Thank you. I believe you I know it's a good story. You couldn't make that up. 

So I find it interesting that you were that aware as a child of the war going on? 

We'll add realized at an early age and mofo, he went in the service, was exposed to the possibility of being a casualty. Any word may greatly that I had three younger siblings and word a lot. A lot, which is about what would happen to them ha, care the burden. That's a lot to think of when you're just a child. 

Well, I'm not sure why he had those fears. 

They don't seem very realistic, but remember I'm there well, and you were aware enough at that young age that you needed to conserve and say You said that was a lesson your mom was telling you. She was a great motivator. It's stuck. What's it? 

She had to go in and work with you or 11 years old. 

How did you do in the sixth grade? 

Were you able to keep up with your buddies? 

Well, they promoted meant to the third grade. I was there. Great. That's right. And we're able to keep up with them. Yes, in fact, did quite well. 

I don't know, ranked in the class, but I did well enough that she left me there and and that put me a year ahead as time went. Wow. Else he had some disadvantage in terms of play and sports. And maybe some disadvantages overall. 

But it's the Tam, I thought it was a way out. Good. Because now is Richie Murray and Cliff kill that. 

Now, it was when you were in the sixth grade that you finally settled into Jackson or we're not going to be making the moves anymore. 

Russell, at that point in time, they have a system that was a middle school or we had we had one SKU fall grades. 

So action grade school, middle school, and high school. Right. 

So did you stay there then the rest of that time? 

I stayed there until I graduated in 1952 from ISACA. 

So after all those years of wandering, you finally got to stay put. They get a house. 

Did your folks get a house? 

Well, we live with our grandmother, maternal grandmother for a long time, been very old by then. Where else? 

Yes, she was under idea. 

And dad when I was maybe in the gray, It's quite an experience for a youngster to go through sharing with another generation. 

A good experience, I think in a lot of ways, don't you? 

That makes you a little more empathetic, insensitive to people we've had, gave, it, gave me a different perspective. In a way it's a privilege to have gotten to know your grandmother. It was a great privilege. 

She was only grandparent who really got to know URI and and so you actually did get to have a relationship with her after all those years? 

She was just the presence of very good relationship, plus she was quick to give me a nickel if I mowed the Goryeo, a real hit. 

My mother gray, I say every day she was a good motivator to near did you discover sports and what year? 

When I was a sophomore, I started playing basketball. I also played baseball and football. 

And as much as I like football, I was a bit lie when I was graduated from high school, you are still on the way to about a 110 and they actually put you in a fatality. 

Well, we didn't have many players, so we use everyone that played a bit a quarterback and that we used every ever walk in male. Did you enjoy it? 

I enjoyed it a great deal. All that in fact died. 

How did it play collegiate ball? 

But I understood and I heard that I was not did not have that kind of capacity, our ability. 

What your next brother was 18 months younger than you, but what was the youngest one? 

How many years difference between you and the youngest? 

They're about seven years. 

Marilyn, different between difference between mush, say FSA, you want to get to your next brother will pay fought with them a lot. That's so cool. We've thought a lot. Yeah. 

But he was tagged along behind you. 

He was having to come up do once you've got established there you are this sixth grade he would start and what first grade? 

I mean, what? 

Probably fourth grade guys extra two years. 

So he's gotta listen to you got promoted and you so how does your relationship with the Tiwi bad? 

Did it pick up where? 

Yes, his time went by? 

It picked a great day. 

Are we? 

Not because my pair on shared it with me, but I understood URL in the game that my father had been come back as a land survey and have in actually to depend on nature in terms of web as far as his work was concern and the demand for surveyors up for civilian work was not great. 

So we, the boys ran the crew. We cut the lands and care of the whole Clara chains. And they resented the swamps of South Alabama been eaten by fleas. And read said I made the determination that would never be a survey. Sometimes we have to have the taste of the really bad to do what we do want to do, right? 

Right. 

Did you get raised with the idea though that you would be going to college? 

Did your parents feel that you would be going to college? 

We never talked much about the subject of my mother hadn't been a teacher and my father haven't graduated from college. Expectations. It was the understand and have some of my first cousins were exceptionally successful.