"I was studying Civics in high school, and the word came out that President Roosevelt was at Warm Springs, and he was coming across Pine Mountain to Highway 27 and was going to Fort Bennett. So we turned our school bus up to the top of the…

"When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the world stood still for a moment. What are we going to do? And I thought, well, everybody is supposed to be doing something. So I decided I'm going to analyze the major armed forces. Army, Navy, Air…

"I received a scholarship from the Callaway Foundation. We called them work scholarships. If you qualified for the scholarship and received the scholarship, you would also receive a job so that when you were not in school, you could work three…

"The school system in Troup County went broke. And when it went broke, there was nothing to flow to the teachers, to compensate them, so they all retired, resigned. School shut down. We went to Harris County to see if it was possible for us to…

"Well, you know I wasn’t even interested in it, but somebody had found out my name and told Jane Tucker, and Jane Tucker called me, and she said, 'Would you come and tell us how you got your name?' 'Oh,' I said, 'I’d…

"I found a job in a federal bank, and I worked in the 'plan corps' division, and I don’t know to this day what 'plan corps' means, but when people had a business, and they wanted to do something for the government, they would…

"Well, it just absolutely scared me to death because the day it came over the radio, I was taking a nap and—curled up in my bed—and my parents had gone out for a walk, and I couldn’t tell anybody. So as soon as they got home, why, I said,…

"My mother said, 'I know this wonderful, wonderful school, and the girls all have all these toys to play with and each other, and nobody’s ever lonesome, and there's a big bedroom, and there’ll be thirty beds up there, and there’ll be…

"Yes, I went there…and…he did graduate, and I was there. My wife wasn’t there, she had passed away, but I sat there during that graduation and…I think I was kind of transfixed because my grandson was graduating from one of the best schools in…

"I had a wife. Her name was Mattie. I met her in college. We stayed married a long time. She passed away about 4 or 5 years ago. She was a teacher. She taught elementary school. She also taught special education, now, if you have any…