Jefferson, Georgia: The Golden Years

Chapter 1 ~ Memories

          I found myself playing the “what if” game from time to time. That being, what if I had done this or that, what might have been the outcome? It was intriguing to think about the possibilities that might have defined my life and changed my destiny with just a minor adjustment here or there along the way.

          My earliest memories seemed to always involve people. I found myself without many lonely times during the days of my youth. There were always neighborhood kids for friendship and, of course, my brother Jack and sister Dianne, were constantly around to help me pass the time.

          As I look at the youth of today and try to compare the lifestyles of a fifties youngster with that of a twenty-first century youngster, there is simply not any comparison.

          I have always looked upon those childhood times as the happiest days of my life.

          As we move along through these early times it will become evident that family, school and sports were always a prime factor in my life. My youth shaped the path of my life. The lessons learned while growing up in Jefferson were instrumental in planting a desire to become successful as a man. I don’t know if my adulthood can be called ultra-successful, but it probably does reach the mantle of somewhat successful. I didn’t wind up in prison or out in the street. My life was constant and consistent. I attribute much of this consistency to the somewhat impoverished upbringing in that small white house about two miles out of Jefferson in the small Porterville community.

          What can I say about Porterville?  I loved that small community.  I was told that the name was derived from a man, Carl Porter, that owned all the land on the right side of the Jefferson-Gainesville road, ( highway 129 ) as you entered Jefferson. In the early forties he built about ten houses along the highway and sold them for amounts of $5,000 to $11,000. I remember hearing my Uncle Fred Bennett, who would eventually establish a residence in nearby Maysville, talking about paying $6,000 for the property and house. It was about an acre of land and a block, four room frame house. My grandmother, uncles Fred, Monroe, Cicero ( Buck ) and Robert Bennett lived in this small house until Fred married Latrelle Cody and moved out in the early fifties. In 1953, Uncle’s Fred and J.C. would build a large room onto the back of the house that became a kitchen. It was about this time that I was able to finally have a room to sleep in without a roommate.

          I was born in 1946 to Lucille ( Bennett ) and Hoyt Buffington. I would be the eldest of three children. Dianne was born in 1948 and Jackie in 1950. My earliest memories of my sister and brother were good memories. We enjoyed playing in the yard, climbing trees, throwing rocks and doing all the other things most kids at that age would do.

          Jack and I tossed a ball of some kind around whenever we got the chance. Dianne was sort of a mother’s girl and spent most of her time doing the girly things like playing with dolls and reading when she learned to read. I have never seen anyone sit for hours and hours and read like Dianne. She would just sit down on the floor and read a newspaper or anything she could get her hands on.

          I have heard several stories about how I came to live with my grandmother as a one-year old. The most plausible story was that both my father and mother worked at Jefferson Mills on the over-night shift from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. Before leaving for work every night they would drop me off at my grandmother’s house to spend the night. As the years went by I spent less and less time with my birth parents and became a permanent resident of the Bennett family in Porterville. I was told that I simply didn’t want to live with them after all the time I spent at my grandmother’s house. I know that my grandmother, Emma Bennett, became a mother to me and remained so for the duration of her lifetime.

          My grandmother was a very unique person. She had very little formal education. She had married Cicero Bennett at the age of 22 in 1913. There were six children over the next 20 years. The eldest was J.C. born in 1916. The initials were simply his name. They weren’t first initials of any other names. I once asked my grandmother why he had a name with just initials. She said my grandfather knew a man named J.C. and he just liked the name.

          Aunt Nell was the second addition to the Bennett family. Nell would later marry Ray Williamson. They were my next door neighbors for my entire childhood. You’ll read a great deal about the Williamson Family as we move along with the story.

          Uncle Robert was the third child of the Bennett’s. He was born in 1919.

          Later Uncle Cicero, my Mother Lucille and Uncle Monroe were added to the Bennett family. Monroe was the baby of the group born in 1933.

          I don’t remember my grandfather on my mothers side. He had worked with the Gainesville Midland railroad for over 35 years. His last few years were wrought with health problems primarily from his diabetic condition. His last year was spent in a wheelchair. His feet would stay so swollen he could not wear shoes. My grandfather passed away in 1946 at the age of 59. I was one-year old.

          My place of birth was the little white house in Porterville where I would live until I reached the age of twenty.  I was delivered by Dr. J.T. Stovall, a well respected man that served the Jefferson community as a physician for over 35 years. He was the last doctor I recall that made house calls. Many times this kind and gifted individual would make his way to our home to treat my grandmother, uncles and me shortly after receiving the call or word that we needed his assistance. I will never forget Dr. Stovall.  He would leave a strong legacy in the Jefferson community.

          One episode involving Dr. Stovall still stands out in my mind. Like most kids of the fifties era, a lot of misadventures occurred from youthful experiments and silliness. It was mid-May of 1955 when my best friend Johnny Pruitt, (you will learn a great deal about Johnny as we move along ) and I were smoking rabbit tobacco from home-made corn cob pipes. We had done this hundreds of times over the years without any complications arising from the practice. On this day I ate a banana sandwich for supper and it, combined somehow with the rabbit tobacco, to create the mother of all belly aches. For two days I threw up and moaned as I lay in bed. I can’t ever recall being as sick as I was at that time.

          Finally, my grandmother called Dr. Stovall and he came to the house. Something as simple as Pepto-Bismol proved to be my wonder drug.

          I told the doctor about the rabbit tobacco.   I’ll never forget what he told me.

          “Son, you put any kind of smoke into your body and it can be dangerous. Why don’t you just leave that stuff alone?”

          You know, I don’t ever recall smoking anymore rabbit tobacco. I never had the urge to smoke anything and have never been a smoker to this day. I think the admonishment from Dr. Stovall was a major motivational factor in my reluctance to ever smoke tobacco of any kind. I had a great deal of respect for this kind and very professional gentleman.

          Throughout my life as a working adult and as a high school athlete, I received my share of stitches to various cuts and injuries. Anyone that knows me well is aware of a scar that runs from the middle of my nose, between my nose and mouth and under my upper lip. This cut occurred when I was two years old. I understand my Uncle Robert was making homemade ice cream in an old style crank-type ice cream maker. When I was told to come and get some ice cream, I went running toward the bucket, fell and cut my lip on the hinged handle on the side of the ice cream maker. I was taken to Dr. Stovall’s home where he placed three stitches in my lip. I returned home and went to work on eating my share of that ice cream.

          That scar remains visible to this day.

          There were other doctors of my youth like Dr. Adams and later my lifelong family physician and friend ~ Dr. John Crenshaw. All played a part in keeping me going health-wise as my life moved toward adulthood.

          Speaking of doctors, my grandmother was, in the words of Granny from the television series “The Beverly Hillbillies” somewhat of an M.D. The M.D. in her case stood for “mountain doctor.” When any of the babies around Jefferson developed the “Thrash” ~ a scabby, sore mouthed condition that seemed prevalent during the fifties, the parents would bring the child to my grandmother for treatment. She kept some oak leaves in a plastic jar above the coal heater. She would get these leaves, rub them inside the babies’ mouth and utter some secret phrase that she claimed would cure the ailment. Later on she wanted to teach me the secret. She said a man can teach the healing method and divulge the secret words to a woman or a woman can disclose the secret to a man, but not a man to a man or woman to a woman. I told her I wasn’t interested in having that ability. She always claimed it was what she said as she was rubbing that leaf in that child’s mouth that created the cure. To me it was hocus pocus that I didn’t want the responsibility of dealing with.

          Many times she would make cough medicine from wild cherries picked from a tree about one-hundred yards from the Williamson house. I was the recipient of many “doses” of that medicine. I don’t know if it helped me or not. I always thought it did as a youngster. Perhaps that was part of the treatment. A positive attitude that I was going to get well quickly couldn’t have hurt any. I guess I’ll never really know for sure now how effective that home-made medicine may have been.

Have you ever had a Vicks-salve poltice placed on your chest to help you breath when stricken with a bad cold or the flu?  You can bet I have.  Compliments of Dr. Bennett, the M.D. 

          One of her most unbelievable “cures” involved my uncle Monroe. He had picked up a fragment or particle in his right eye that he couldn’t get out. The pain from that small particle was causing him great distress.

          My grandmother told him to get a flaxseed from a bag inside a kitchen pantry and place it into his eye. She said it would adhere to the particle in his eye and then drop out of the eye.

          I watched with astonishment as my uncle placed this seed into his eye. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone scream as loudly as Uncle Monroe as that flaxseed disappeared into his eyelid.

          He screamed and actually rolled on the floor in agony.

          I couldn’t help but laugh at what I was seeing.

          Even my grandmother laughed as he ran around the room screaming and yelling.

          Finally, Uncle Robert piled him into his 1953 Chevrolet and took him to Dr. Adams.

          After removing the flaxseed, Dr. Adams, in some of the colorful language he was noted for, told my uncle, “I ought to leave the  #*&#&*%  thing in your eye after a foolish stunt like that. How can anyone be so  #&*%#  stupid as to deliberately place a large foreign object in their eye.” Dr. Adams was never one to mince words.

          By now you may have guessed that the challenges of living during this "Golden Age" in Jefferson history were without end.  As you move through this essay on many of my early Jefferson years, you will say, “Nah!, that couldn’t have happened the way he said it did. Could it”?  Suddenly you'll recall something similiar that happened to you. Then you'll believe it was not only possible, but very probable for that period of time.

          There will be many names you will recognize and some that will leave you wondering who they might have been and what they’re doing in the story. All were instrumental in some way of adding to my mental, spiritual, motivational and/or physical growth as my life moved along. All were acquaintances in some way, shape or form. I either knew them, heard about them or saw them around town during my ever present wandering. You’ll not read any deliberate negatives as you move through the book. Instances that may give off a negative signal were just the way things were during this amazing period of my life. This book is not intended to be about me, but about the forward movement and the citizens of a small Georgia town I called home. It's about how these amazing Jefferson leaders carved out the culture I grew up within and shaped my life for-ever-more.  People like Morris Bryan, Jr., Coach John Davis, Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Ash, Joe Baxter, John Godfrey and many, many others. This journal will cover the years 1945 ~ The year just preceding my birth and continue through 1959 ~ when I completed my eighth-grade year at Jefferson High School.

Why stop at that particular point ??

The sixties were another story for another time.