This is an oral history interview with Rem DuBose, class of 1948, conducted by Marilyn Summers on August the 14th, 1995 at Mr. DuBose's office. The subject of this interview is Student Life at Georgia Tech. First of all, thank you so much for having us here today, Mr. DuBose. We are delighted to be here. 

Well, naturally, Marilyn, I'm flattered. 

Now, you tell us the Rem DuBose story. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August the 3rd, 1922. Interestingly enough, I was a cesarean baby. That was a very unusual procedure at that time. We lived in a small town of Elyria, Ohio, which is southwest of Cleveland. My father had graduated from Georgia Tech, as best I recall, somewhere in the 1912 or 1914 time. And he, being a mechanical engineer, had gone to work for the National Tube Division of the U. S. Steel Company in Lorain, Ohio. Elyria was a bedroom community close to Lorain. My father came along during the depression. He went to work as a trainee engineer with U. S. 

Steel, but as the depression continued in our business cycle his salary was cut 10 % and 10% again and 10 % again and finally he was laid off. Those were very tough times. 

So he formed his own business called the Dubose Marine Service at a small town on Lake Erie in the city of Vermillion, Ohio, and he commuted from Malaria to Vermillion. 

All the time that I was growing up, I had one younger brother who incidentally also went to Georgia Tech for one year in 1941 and was later went in the military and did not return to Tech. 

But anyway, my mother and father were divorced while I was in the 8th grade, prior to going to high school in the town of Elyria. 

So we came back with our mother, my brother and I, to Rome, Georgia to live. And I went to Darlington School from 1936 through 1940. 

And I entered Georgia Tech, my father having always talked about being a mechanical engineer, and I vividly remember, Marilyn, that he told me, son, he said, if you ever make $300 a month, you are going to be very, very rich. And that was his attitude, that you just needed to go to Tech and get a job. 

So I entered in the fall of 1940. 

My father had moved to Tennessee in the meantime, he'd closed his business in Ohio, and he helped me a little in the first few months of school financially, but back in 1940, there were no government loans, there were no student loans, there were no bank loans, there were nothing that the school could do for you financially. 

My mother was a teacher in the first grade in the Pepperell Manufacturing Company at Lindale, Georgia, which is a small textile town just adjacent to Rome, Georgia. 

So my dad decided that he couldn't afford to help me any more financially, so we were against a rock and a hard place for money. 

We found out there was a man here in Atlanta by the name of Lee Ashcraft, of the Ashcraft Wilkerson Company, a chemical, basic chemical company. They bought and sold sulfur and basic commodities like that by the carload. Somehow, my daddy found out that Mr. Ashcraft would lend money on a signature to people that he felt were deserving. 

So my mother and I went to see Mr. 

Ashcraft, and we were interviewed in his office here in Atlanta, and I'll never forget the big roll top desk that this old gentleman had and he looked at us and he said I'll lend you all money and I want both of your signatures so we signed and the interest rate was three percent my mother thought that was usury bank rates at that time were one percent but anyway we signed and I'm happy to tell you that ultimately I paid him back while I was still going to school because my daddy did, having been at Georgia Tech, he knew some of the ropes. And he went to Professor McDaniel, who was the head of the co-op department. And I remember his secretary, McDaniel's secretary, was a Miss Green, as I recall. And I was able to transfer from regular school to the co -op program at the end of nine months. 

So starting in then the sophomore year as a mechanical engineer -to-be student, I went into the co-op program. 

Well, that was a godsend. 

The first co-op job I had was at Lindale in the machine shop at the Pepperill Manufacturing Company where my mama helped me get a job in their shop as a helper. I went to work for 40 cents an hour on my co-op, first co-op job. 

Before, I worked nine, let's see, three straight months, 90 straight days, never had a day off because in the machine shop you did maintenance on Saturday and Sunday. I got a raise of two and a half cents about the end of the second month. That was a big deal. That was really a big deal. 

I went back and I got to know Miss Green pretty well because she was the one that assigned co-ops to different jobs. 

She and I had an understanding that she would get me, no matter where it was, the job that paid the most money. I didn't care where I went or what happened. 

So fortunately, I got to be there doing football season. 

So I was on that quarter system and that was great because we were having good football teams back then, 40-41. 

My next three months, three different quarters, with the L&N Railroad, that's Louisville and Nashville, it's no longer in that name anymore, and we were headquartered in Mobile, Alabama. 

Well, you're looking at a mechanical engineer that learned how to used curves and everything's done now by computer. We drew the sidings of railroads. We cut the sidings on the G-Gulf. 

Let's see, it was called the G-M-N-O, the Gulf Mobile from New Orleans to Montgomery, Alabama, was the territory that our division covered on the L&N Railroad out of Mobile. I worked there, as I said, three different quarters. Interestingly enough, all that time we were getting ready and entering into World War II. 

They were building ships in the dry docks right along the Mobile River, Liberty ship, they would launch a Liberty ship every week. They were building them that fast in the Mobile shipyards. Those were tough times. We lived in a boarding house and we slept double. 

That is, they were two, the engineer that I worked for in the railroad had a bed and I had a bed and we slept at night. 

Those beds were turned over to shipyard workers to sleep in the daytime while we were at work and we back and forth like that. On the weekends, my running buddy's name was Frank Outlaw. He was my boss. Frank Outlaw was a bad to drink. 

He didn't drink during the week, but come Saturday, you couldn't go to a bar on Sunday, particularly in Alabama, but we'd catch the train and go down to Biloxi, Mississippi, where he could get a drink. 

Now, here I am, a young fellow, came up out of Rome, Georgia, and sort of a country boy. That was really an experience for me. 

Now, you say, what's that got to do with Georgia Tech? 

Well, it was a growing-up experience for this guy. Frank Outlaw, wonderful guy, great engineer. He knew all about surveying. I'll get off one other thing about working with the railroad. 

The Biloxi Air Base and the Gulfport Air Base that are still there today as part of our military, we cut the sidings. I was on the surveying crews. We had black men chopping the bush down and so forth. 

I've seen alligators and snakes and all like that as we ran the siding track in there, staked it out for the men to come along later and build the track. I'm going to tell you one other thing about riding on a freight train. 

When you ride in the caboose, you always, when you get in the bunk to take a nap, you sleep with your feet toward the engine. 

Now they didn't tell me that, but we were on a train and about 40 cars was a long train in those days. We're coming in to New Orleans. We're going down to New Orleans for the weekend. We rode the train, rode the freight train. Couldn't get on a Pullman passenger train that day. We rode the freight train. I'm asleep in the bunk. 

Well when the caboose finally stops on a train, the rest of the train has stopped with the slack in all the cars, and when the caboose finally stops, it's still going 20 miles an hour, because it's just catching up. The whole train's compressed. Wham! Well, your head goes right into the bulkhead. 

I'm telling you, that's the last time I ever rode the freight train with my glooming head toward the front. 

Now, back to Tech, I fortunately had enough grades to where Mr. McDaniel would put me in the co-op program as a freshman. Having gone to Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, I had good preparation first. I just thought Tech was a breeze. 

The first semester, that was when I was in regular school. 

The second semester, things came back to reality, and that old expression about the one on your left and the one on your right is going to be gone when they gave you orientation in your freshman year. We love all the students now. We try to encourage them and keep them. Back then it was root hog or die. You either in or you're out. 

If you make it, you did it because you did it on your own. Fortunately, I stayed. I got in the co -op program. I regressed a little bit. Talking about the wartime, we had a professor named Ajax. You know all about Professor Ajax was in charge of the Reserve Officer Training, ROTC. Most MEs belong to the Ordnance Department. 

If you were physically able in 1940 when you went to Georgia Tech, you went in ROTC. 

The electrical engineers were primarily in the signal co-op, the aeronautical people were in the aviation or something like that, and all of us that were co-ops, particularly ME co-ops, were in the Ordnance Department. 

Well, wartime came along. Mr. Japan dropped the problem on us at Pearl Harbor. 

And where was I the day that happened? 

Well, I'm telling you, I was in a make-up class in the physics department under Professor Ewalt. And Professor Ewalt was an interesting professor. 

He talked with a big mouthful like most of us do when we get dry mouthed, but You had a hard time understanding him, but tall man, tall man, very smart, Professor Ewald in the physics department. A number of us didn't get physics very well. I was number one in the class of not getting it too well, so I had to have a lot of help. 

But he was teaching us, and we were doing some makeup work, and when we came out of that class on Sunday afternoon, we went back to the dormitory. I lived in the dormitory. And at that time, the **** had already started dropping their bombs. There was no radio censorship at the time. 

Later, they've shown that the **** knew more about their effectiveness listening to American radio broadcasting from Pearl Harbor. At that time, there were two fellas that lived across the hall from me. One of them was named Hummy. I don't recall his roommate, but both of them were from Hawaii. They lived on the island that was being bombed. Those guys were absolutary. They were white as a sheet. They were so upset. Of course, back in those days, there were no women at Tech. Everybody was standing around in their underwear on Sunday. afternoon. They'd been sleeping late or they were studying. Everybody was out in the hall. 

It was quiet and radios were just booming in every room as they talked about what was going on at Pearl Harbor. I remember that very, very vividly. We were in the ROTC. We marched harder. We trained harder. Then Professor Ajax said that lots of you are going to be drafted. 

I don't recall what my draft number was, but I remember we were convinced that we should join the enlisted reserve. 

So most of us went down. 

I don't say that we all went at the same time, but we went down, we were sworn in, we raised our right hand, and we became members of the United States Armed Forces. 

Well, that was great because we were going to stay in school if we were in the reserve. 

Well, just like many promises in this life, things go awry. 

Three days after we, at least after I signed up, I got orders posted on the bulletin board, you report to so -and-so, such-and-such place, and three days later, I was in a six-by-six truck. 

A six-by-six truck is an army vehicle that all six, the tires and all have a drive wheel, and we were loaded up, and we were hauled down to Fort MacPherson, south of Atlanta, Georgia, and we were on active duty in the United States military. 

Well, that was something else. I'm going to get, you know, I've been courting Jean, my wife. She went to Agnes Scott. Oh, it was a big mess. Couldn't get a telephone to call anybody at Fort Mac. I couldn't even call my mama to tell her hardly. 

In the meantime, I'm getting shoes and I'm getting outfitted with all these clothes and a helmet and shots and physicals and three days later we were told that we were ordered to active duty by mistake and they sent us back to Georgia Tech. 

Well that is great, but you talk about being messed up, you don't study, you don't have your mind on anything, you don't know what's going on in your life. 

So we came back. I ultimately flunked physics. That's the only course I recall that I ever flunked. 

Well, we're getting wartime big time now. School starts at 8 o'clock in the morning on every day, including Saturday. I've still got my class program that shows I had six hours on Saturday. It was full blast. 

Well, we're back in school. I don't recall how much longer we stayed in school until they put us on orders again. This time to the basic training in Aberdeen, Maryland. Our whole ordinance group went to Aberdeen, Maryland to go through basic training. We went through basic training. and we finished basic training. 

I don't remember anybody in my group, and I wish I could get those pictures and show them to you, of the fellows that we had a group picture taken. They decided they needed to classify us after we finished three months of basic training. We were now all corporates. Oh, man, that was a hot shot deal. We're corporates. interesting thing they sent us to the citadel for classification so I've spent two weeks in the barracks the only time I ever went AWOL in my life from the military was at the citadel I'd heard about Folly Beach whatever that mean meant but I thought boy that must be a place so a bunch of us went over the hill as they say all day one Sunday we left the barracks we went without a passed without permission, we went to Folly Beach. I don't remember whether I got sunburned or had too many beers, but we all got back. They never did discipline us. They reclassified us. You know what they did with us, Maryland? 

They sent us back to Georgia Tech. They sent us back to Georgia Tech. This is now 19, this was about 1943. In the meantime, at Georgia Tech, the domitories were full. 

But all between the domitories, I can't describe exactly, but somewhere in y'all's pictures and memorabilia, you must find they had built one-story wooden barracks all over the campus of Georgia Tech. I vividly remember the plumbing that came out from the latrines, as we call it in the military. The plumbing ran overground out to get the piping system. We'd have been built that fast. The plumbing, all of those things were above ground. 

We lived in GI barracks that were temporary one -story buildings with bunks, just like we are still in the military, but we were back on the tech campus. We were there for about three months. Then they decided to move us again. Where did they move me and a bunch of my buddies back to Aberdeen. This time they sent us to OCS. You're looking at a 90-day wonder. I went through OCS. I survived it. Several of our tech people washed out. 

They had things back in those days, and I won't use a word, but at the end of about in the six weeks in your squad, you had to write your opinion of every other person in your squad that was you just you either said good things or bad things about your buddy it was a real experience but fortunately I survived OCS and I came out in the early part of 1944 as a no this was 43 as a first as a second lieutenant well you never know in this life when you're going to have luck you never know when you help somebody but you're looking at a guy who went into OCS and our class of about 120 was made up of 60 some Georgia Tech fellas 60 some Citadel fellas, three master sergeants from the regular army, and one VOC, volunteer officer candidate. This was a man named Billingsley. Billingsley was 34 years old. We were all 21 or 22. He didn't know his left foot from his right foot. 

But back in those days, they were ready to take anybody with a body that wanted to be in the military because it was just before the Battle of the Bulge and so on. 

This all ties back into Georgia Tech because I wouldn't be here today if it hadn't been for Billingsley. 

I helped Billingsley learn how to march and do the manual of arms with the rifle, all of which we'd learned in ROTC at Georgia Tech. We were pretty good at milling at marching. We knew something about the milling. We'd already studied map preparation and mapping and so forth in ROTC at Tech. 

I helped Billingsley on Sundays in the empty barracks on how to do to the rear march and how to shout commands and things like that. 

When we finished OCS, Billingsley and I were assigned together to the Ordnance Department at Aberdeen. Most of our buddies immediately went out in the field. We've got a tech graduate in the Ordnance Department. I'm trying to recall his name, and I will in a minute, that went into bomb disposal. Lee Howard. I don't know whether you know Mr. Howard. He had half of his face blown off in de -armoring a bomb sometime during the war. Many of our guys were killed. I stayed at Aberdeen after OCS for four years. 

Why? 

We learned later that Billingsley's older brother was the number two general in the Ordnance Department in Washington, D. C. Never during OCS did Mr. Billingsley, that's what we were called Mr., Never did Mr. 

Billingsley let anyone, did not let me know that ever Sherman Billingsley, that ran the Stork Club in New York, was his cousin. Never did we ever know that Mr. Billingsley had a connection with Washington, but he did. And he and I stayed there. I ended up being an instructor in OCS, both in drill and in arms and things like that as a teacher. Billingsley stayed in the supply end of it. He kept up with sheets and pillowcases and so forth. That gave me an opportunity never to go overseas. 

I don't say that with anything more than humble, prayerful pride that I didn't get shot at, other than in the infiltration course training people to learn how to crawl under fire. After the war, in 1946, I was separated from the service and came back to Tech. 

Well, we had a GI Bill then. We didn't need to work quarters or anything like that at co-op. We had sufficient funds. 

My wife and I came back and lived in her mother and father's home here, and I commuted by bus back and forth to Tech for two years, and thus I, as we say, got out in 1948 in March, and that's why my class is 48. 

So in summary, as far as I'm concerned, my original class was a class of 44 if I'd have been able to stay in regular school. As a co-op with the pre -junior year, I would have been in the class of 45. 

Again, all this is surmising that I would have passed, but actually I fell in the class of 48 because of that. I was actually in the military 47 months. You asked about professors and so on that my father might have mentioned. He always talked about a professor named Cy Kuhn. I don't know what Professor Kuhn, I assume, was in the mechanical engineering department. He talked about a professor, and I'm not sure whether D. M. Smith was there when my father was there, or whether Dr. D. M. Smith, who taught math, as I believe, might have been there when I was there. I regret. 

Now, as far as the professors that I remember, the one that was really, really fine for me was Professor Johns. 

Professor Johns was in the mechanical engineering department, and he taught drawing and other courses. 

But he was extremely willing to see you at 6 o 'clock in the morning if you wanted help. Professor Johns would be in his office, and he would help you. I'm trying to—there was a professor, Vitezik, when I came back. Vitezik. Vitezik's child was in grammar school where my wife taught at Home Park School. Home Park School is adjacent to Tech. I assume it's still there. I don't know at grammar school. 

Gene taught in Home Park School while I was continuing my education at Tech in the latter part of 46, 47, and 48. Professor Vitasik was in the Mechanical Engineering Department. 

Now help me with who was the head of the Mechanical Engineering Department back then. Ram, tell us about the very first time you came to Georgia Tech. That's a neat story. 

Well, the first time that I came to Georgia Tech was while I was still living in Rome and going to Darlington. And a neighbor family that were friends of my mother's knew that my interest in Georgia Tech. And so Mr. Cooper invited me to come to go to a Georgia Tech football game. and my first time he had a great big old car and we came down to Georgia Tech this must have been 1936 or 37 and I remember very well we set up in the end zone which has now been torn down for the Wardlaw building and I got to see a Georgia Tech game it would be my great wish that I could tell you who the other team was but at least I knew I was at Georgia Tech I don't recall visiting the campus or anything at that time we we came to the game we returned to Rome Georgia my first real knowledge of Georgia Tech is when I came to enter as a freshman in the fall of 1940 and what was it like then Maryland as far as I know it was strictly work we went to school you talk about what was the social life like? 

Well, I did, at my father's behest, I did join the Chi-Fi fraternity. 

Now we've talked about being poor and I have no idea what the initiation fee was, but it must have been very modest. 

But I did become a member after a period of time, however long it takes to accept in the Chi-Fi fraternity. I never really held an office. 

I tried to attend the meetings and know what the handshake was, and all that kind of routine that you went through as a fraternity person. 

But really and truly, I was there to go to school. And in my first year at Tech, I lived with my aunt and uncle. I was not in the dormitory until I became a co -op student. 

The first year, I lived with Mr. and Ms. Palmer Johnson, my father's older sister. There was an Emma Bell Dubose Johnson that lived on E. Rivers Road out off of Peachtree Street, just north of E. Rivers School. And I commuted back and forth on the trolley car. 

Back in those days, trolley cars ran up and down Peachtree, and that's the way I went to and from school. There was social life on the campus. The fraternity life was pretty active. They had tea dances and things of that nature, but I didn't really socialize too much. 

I remember probably the first time I ever had a drink of beer or any kind of alcohol was like a hayride with a fraternity group. 

But those things, particularly after I became a co-op in 1941, I just worked and went to school. I did start living in the dormitory. My first roommate was William Emmett White. Billy now lives outside of Fredericksburg, Texas, and is retired. Billy introduced me to Jean, and she went to Agnes Scott. She went to Agnes Scott first two years, and her aim was to get out of Scott and go to Chapel Hill. 

She, back in those days, females could not go to the University of North Carolina, either state students or out-of-state students, until the junior year. 

And she went to Chapel Hill as a junior, just about the time we had the war coming along, and she went up there for two years. And in fact, we were still courting when I was in OCS. 

She'd come to up to Baltimore, Maryland to visit her sister, Frances, who was a graduate of the University of North Carolina in mathematics. Frances worked for them, called the Boeing Corporation's predecessor, known as Martin Bomber. The Martin Bomber company had a manufacturing facility just outside of Baltimore. Anyway, I don't remember much about social life at Georgia Tech. 

I'll guarantee you, when I came back to Tech in 1946, after the war, that I was living at home with my mother and father-in -law and my wife. 

You don't do much socializing when you're trying to catch up and finish that calculus and all those courses that you've been away from for four years. It's root hog then to get it and get going. 

So did you just occasionally get a date? 

You said you were... Not really. Not often. You'd go to these dances and you'd cut in on these girls. And there were a lot of Atlanta boys at Georgia Tech, particularly in the Chi Phi fraternity. There were not many of them that were from out of town. And Atlanta boys that were anywhere involved in society and at that time were called jellies. 

And the girls in Atlanta that were attractive and went in that same area of society were known as pinks, P-I-N-K-S, pinks. 

And if you called up a pink three or four weeks in advance, you might get a date, but they would tell you they already had a date. 

If you called them on Friday for something the next night, they'd tell you that they already were engaged or had a date, whether they did or not, because they wouldn't want it to be known that they hadn't already been booked up, so to speak, way in advance. 

So that was too much for me. I can name a lot of girls I'd have loved to go on with. 

But you'd go to these dances as a stag, and you could cut in and dance with them and so on. It was a lot different from today. I understand now children date, and they only go with one, and they only do things one-on-one. Back in those days, everybody went and had a good time when they went, and I did not go a whole lot. Did you ever go to the varsity? 

Seldom. Seldom. I remember the varsity was very attractive. 

I always ate in the dining hall when I, as I recall, we had tickets or something that gave us the entry to the dining hall. Again, we didn't have the funds. 

When I lived at home with my in-laws, I took a sack with me and we ate out of the sack and maybe got a drink or something like that, a Coke or something to eat your lunch. 

Do you remember ever going to the Fox or any of the other movie theaters? 

I remember going to the Fox when my graduation was held. Tell us about that. The Fox, it was held in June even though I'd been out of school for almost three months. We finished in March. April, May, June they had the graduation in the Fox Theater. I do not remember going to the Fox but a few times. 

Every time I went to the Fox they had the organ would come up out of the stage, and they'd play at the bouncing ball, and they would go over the music and things, and everybody would sing along, and things like that. Do you remember your graduation? 

Very little. Did your folks come? 

No, no, I don't, I don't believe any of my folks came. 

My wife was there, but I don't, my mother may have been there, I'm not sure, but I know Jean was there. 

When you think back of your time on the campus, you worked hard and you were worried all the time about money. It was a constant struggle. 

Still, all those things considered, what was the experience? 

The experience was one of getting an education and getting out, particularly after the war. Just think, we were mature. I mean, we were 26, 27 years old, and it was time to get out and get a job. And I don't, I have no regrets about any of it. I have no thoughts about I didn't do this or I should have done that. That's never occurred to me. It was like a factory. you change classes with a whistle you were there to do business and and it was strictly work not not objectionable work but hard work there was nothing appealing about it other than that that you were going to get an education and that had been instilled in me as a child that you needed a college education and and that you had to work to get it, and I'm proud of that. I'm very satisfied with that, and I hope I'm answering your query properly. 

Where do you think the tradition and the loyalty of tech comes from, from alums? 

Is it because of that work ethic? 

I would hope so. I would hope it's not brainwashing. I know all about brainwashing. In the military, we went every Friday afternoon to look at the films as officers. 

We went to see exactly who got shot and who got blown up the week before from the war films like These Young Men Are Taken. All those films came back. It was secret information, and we hated the enemy. I don't feel like I was brainwashed in any way about Georgia Tech. 

I feel like it grew on me gradually over a period of time of appreciation for what I was getting by being able to attend Georgia Tech. Rem, let's talk a little bit about the athletic activities. You mentioned that we had a good team in those days, and you did enjoy going to the games. Did you ever participate in any athletics? 

Anything I ever did was in intramural. We had to take physical training, PT, twice a week. That was a required course. 

But I don't remember doing anything more than exercise or whatever was required in PT. I'd been on the golf team at Darlington. I was number five or number six on the team. 

But when I came to Tech, I had to give up golf. I've not had a golf club in my hands since the summer of 1940 before I came to school. I don't regret that. I've never played golf since, and that's nothing that I'm upset about. 

But as far as athletics at Tech, I was an observer. Did you enjoy that? 

I really did enjoy football. I enjoyed football. 

I remember when we came back when George Matthews was playing, and the Navy was just about to score on Tech down at the north end of the field, and I was sitting in that temporary stands. you'll have to get back and y'all look up the date but the Navy guy was coming around as I remember around left end and he fumbled the ball and George Matthews caught the ball in the air and ran over 90 yards for a touchdown and the Georgia Tech beat the Navy now you're looking at a fellow that saw that right in front of his eyes, not a replay or anything like that. Things like that were pretty exciting. They were highlights. Did you ever have any encounters with George Griffin? 

I did not. 

Now George Griffin was very devoted to a lot of people and vice versa. 

I've heard a lot about George Griffin in my latter years with the Alumni Association, but I cannot say, Marilyn, that I even knew George Griffin existed because he was more involved with the Navy. I don't say that that's anything. I have high regard for Mr. George Griffin's reputation, but I did not have any school *********** with him. How about George P. 

Burdell? 

Did you ever run into him in your military days? 

Well, that was, of course, a name, and there was a dog named Sideways, and I'm not sure when Sideways was there, but they were joking type things like George P. Burdell. I guess maybe I was sort of a sober side when I was at school. I didn't get involved in all those kind of pranks. They were always shirt tail parades and stuff. 

I must have been, you know, hesitant to get involved in all that carousing around, and I don't want to get off the subject, but I don't recall any instances where I was involved in stealing the T off the top of the administration tower or anything like that. I didn't get, maybe I didn't get the opportunity, I don't know. And I'm not saying that because I'm trying to protect Rem Dubose. I'm just saying that I'm not your live wire kind of guy that was always in trouble. I got almost in trouble back at the Citadel. It wasn't enough excitement. 

Well, in hindsight, that was a potential real bad. 

So school was really a challenge and we're keeping all that together. Right. I was not the smartest student in the world. I mean, if I finished with a three -point average or a little better, I was doing well. And it's not because I didn't apply myself the best I knew how. I'll give you a little vignette when I came back. All of us were given an opportunity as a part of being GIs from the war to come back to Tech. They gave us a placement opportunity to have a placement test like Dr. Sidney Janus or Mike Yort now does for Tech. I'm not a bit bashful to tell you that my first interest was in sales or people activities. I don't recall what number two was, but engineering and design was number three. I'd tested, and I'd already been in school essentially three years. 

So I don't know that I would, none of my children, we have five children, as you know, I would ever send them to Georgia Tech just because I went to Georgia Tech, or any other school for that matter. Let them test, let them see what these youngsters have as an opportunity. 

But what does the psychologist tell you that you were better, potentially better at? 

I don't fault anything that I did. I'm fortunate that I had the basic training, but I've never done any engineering. I've never done any engineering. What did you do with your tech degree? 

I came to work with my father-in-law. That's what you call a silver spoon SOB when you go to work for the family. Mr. 

White told me in later years that if I'd be good to the company, it had been good to him, that he hoped it would carry on. This company was founded in 1910 by Mr. White. Started instantly enough in Rome, Georgia, didn't last long in Rome, went on to Columbus, Georgia. 

But when I finished at Tech in the spring of 48, I went to Columbus, Georgia and worked there for White Electrical for four years, and then I came to Atlanta, and I've done everything except keep the books, but my primary duties have been dealing with people, and a contractor's business is people, reputation, and money, and all everything else he has are beat up trucks and broken tools, but it's mainly people, reputation, and money, and as long as we can keep the bank happy with the money and we keep a good group of people working with us and maintain our reputation and we're very fortunate we we have been able to do that and I consider myself second -generation management my son's coming along now owns the business and he's third generation there are not many contractors that do that of any kind but that that again is not braggadocio that not just as history and facts. 

So the Tech Foundation served you well? 

Absolutely. I know the difference between right and wrong. I know that two and two is four. 

No matter what they tell you in accounting and other things like that or politics, it happens to be four. 

And if you stayed with your reputation and you stayed with what you believe is fair and right, here I am beginning to preach, but it will prove, and I learned through discipline at Georgia Tech and discipline in the military that you had to do what's right. 

I have a saying that my folks, some of them don't like, but people do what you inspect, not what you expect. And I've always carried that out. I still go to jobs and I travel. 

I've got just under 4,700 miles on a 10-month car, and that's not off riding around looking at the beach or the mountain. that's visiting various customers and job sites I always worked hard when I was a co-op I never had anybody discipline me as far as jobs or anything of that nature tech gave me that discipline because when you know a hungry dog Marilyn hunts the hardest and I grew up as a hungry dog I can remember living in Ohio, when my dad and mom didn't have anything, we had applesauce and mashed potatoes three times a day, day after day. 

Now, there are not a lot of people that will tell you that, and I don't say it with anything but sort of a chill up my back and tears in my eyes, but that's the way it was. 

Now, I wouldn't want any of my children or any of you all to have to go through that, But when you have been through that, and you've seen it, and you've seen what my mother did not come from a wealthy family, but she came from a family of means. Her great-grandfather was the first president of Shorter College, Dr. Guatney, in Rome, Georgia. 

My father had three sisters and two brothers, and they all had sufficient income that they didn't have to work because of the income that was coming from the Chamberlain-Johnson -Dubo store here in Atlanta. 

But the devastation that they realized when all of that, the store went bankrupt in the Depression, and I mean the Depression. We've had recessions and hard times, but we've never had anything like the Depression. They couldn't cope with that. I don't know that I could cope with it. 

But I went through that, and I saw that, and that's why I worked hard. at Georgia Tech. That's why I've always tried to pay my bills. Never owe any money if you possibly can. 

All this, my dad mama would turn over in their grave if they knew, you know, how much you can borrow and go to the bank. 

Think of that 3% versus 1% for me to be able to continue my education as a co-op until I could get a little stipend working on my own. All of this ties into the makeup of your life. That's why tech taught me discipline. You had to get it to get out. 

Do you have any other memories you want to share with us, Rem? 

Well, I want to talk about one or two of those other professors. One of them was Professor Bortell. Professor Bortell was also in the Physics Department, and he had a nickname named Shorty. And you didn't call him Shorty, but he was a diminutive fellow. he he also talked but he never talked to you or to the class he always talked to the bulletin board and he would write with his right hand and you're supposed to be taking notes we didn't have all this computer business and all this we had slide rules and so on shorty would write with this hand and he's a racing with that hand faster than you could ever take notes it was a chore to follow that professor. 

But that was Professor Bortel. One of the best courses I ever had and I wish I knew the professor was a course in public speaking. I had never had any opportunity to do that. That was the only course that I remember in the second semester of my first year that I made an A. 

But I made an A in public speaking because I've been fortunate. it. 

My mama told me to get up, speak up, and shut up, but that's an old trite saying, but that's a trite saying. 

But I enjoyed public speaking, and the professor there and I got along very, very well. I remember no female professors. As far as I know, the entire faculty was male at Tech. Back in those days, obviously, there were no females. There was no thought of the female. To my knowledge, there were no ******. I don't know whether you want to put that on the camera but I've said it. 

That complexion of the campus to me makes no difference but those were the situations that occurred during the early 1940s. The professor McDaniel only met me once or twice. 

His lady that I've mentioned two or three times, Miss Green, was the go -between that I had as far as my continuing opportunities with the classes. 

I wanted to, a moment ago, to try to think of the professor that was the head of the mechanical department. He died not long ago, and we're going to get that for you sometime. time. He was the drawing professor when I started in 1940, and he later became the head of the department. He was a very fine professor. I admired him because he started out as a drawing instructor. There's nothing like drawing anymore. It's all computer and screens and this that and the other. 

But we had T-squares and triangles and we did it in ink on vellum and that was a big deal but he was great in teaching us to get the third perspective and how to understand the third dimension and so forth. 

I remember another professor in my last some but I remember whether we on the quarter of a semester back in 47 and 48. Professor Gross Close. Professor Gross Close was in the, back then, it wasn't called the commercial, but it was... School of Commerce? 

No, the School of Industrials, something or other. Professor Gross Close, he taught us a little bit about stocks and bonds and investing. I took two or three electives. There was another professor, a Dr. Janus. Dr. Janus taught psychology. I took, Mr. 

White was telling me I better get something besides physics and calculus if I was going to be in the electrical contracting business. I better learn a little bit about business. 

So I took a course in psychology. I took a course in business, law, and things of that nature that were taught. 

I guess you would call it now industrial management, perhaps back then, and I don't know what these young fellas call it today. They've changed all those names since Dr. Cresign came, and all for the good. 

But back in those days, those were elective-type courses that I took in my senior year. 

But I remember Professor Grossclose, a pretty interesting fellow. I think he told us a lot about the stocks he already owned. 

But he was very, very interesting from that standpoint. 

Well, thank you very much. 

Well, I hope I haven't wandered, Marilyn. You haven't wandered at all. These are wonderful memories, and we thank you for sharing them with us. 

Well, I'm proud to do it, and I'm looking forward to that tape. I can take it home and show my wife. she'll say, you big ox, you should have told them about this, that, and the other. 

She'll probably come up with some of these society -type things that you wanted me to recall that I really didn't. I've told you extemporaneously the best I could. Thank you so much. It's been a great fun.