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At the outset ladies and gentlemen, I want to correct a journalistic error I
made in last week's column. Joann Bagwell's invitation to worship services was
for Providence Baptist Church on the city's westside. My mistake proves that I
can't leap tall buildings, or Jack's Hamburgers in a single bounce. I looked at
the calendar and saw that about 40 years ago the class of 1969 of Tallapoosa
High School boarded a train in our beloved town on a cloudy Sunday evening bound
for Washington, D. C. and New York City. The trip was perhaps the most memorable
journey many of us ever made. Our chaperones Curtis Watson and Mr. and Mrs.
Kermit Wood were a bunch of fun on the train ride through the night up through
the Carolinas and waking up just after dawn outside Culpepper, Virginia. Waiting
for us at Union Station was a bus driver who took us on our tours of the Capitol
Building and the Smithsonian. The bus driver resembled Don Knotts and we
nicknamed him "Barney" the next few days. We stayed at the Hotel Harrison a few
blocks from the White House. Several years ago on a trip to D. C. I stayed at
the Willard and stayed on the same floor as General U. S. Grant. I wanted to
move but they assured me that Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson never stayed at the
Willard. We visited Arlington Cemetary and the grave of John Kennedy that was in
the shadow of Robert E. Lee's home in Arlington. Seeing the eternal flame and
remembering the tragedy in Dallas, Texas 64 months earlier brought our usual
rowdy bunch into a sense of reverence. We had a great time and went to Ford's
Theater and the home across the street where the 16th president passed away. We
went to Mt. Vernon and the home of George Washington. I tried to toss a dollar
across the Potomac like our first president did when he was a lad. The dollar
kept blowing back in my face because of the wind. I recall my dollar wasn't made
of silver like his was in American folk lore. The trip continued to New York
City and we stayed at the Hotel Edison on Times Square. Some ladies in the lobby
offered to be our "dates". Mr. Watson and Mr. Wood notified the house detectives
and the last we saw of the women, they were being handcuffed and put in NYPD
patrol cars. We didn't see them the rest of the trip. We visited what most New
Yorkers have never been to, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.
I was dared by Greg Cook to climb the stairs of Lady Liberty. Looking through
the windows of the crown onto New York harbor is something we will never forget.
The tour of 30 Rockefeller Center was a favorite memory I have from the class
trip in that it defined what my future held. We went to WNBC radio and saw Big
Wilson on the air and I knew then that was what I wanted to do. We went to the
set of the Tonight Show that left a few years later for Burbank, California.
Touring the studio where Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, and Steve Allen created magic
was something I could never forget. We saw the movie "Herbie, the Love Bug" with
Buddy Hackett and Dean Jones at Radio City Music Hall and got to see the
Rockettes kick up their heels. I hadn't seen that many legs since we disected a
centipede in biology class. The bus took us back from the Big Apple to the
nation's capitol to catch the Southern Crescent back to Tallapoosa that Friday.
Just before we boarded the train, a special edition of the Washingon Post had a
headline that Dwight Eisenhower had died at a local hospital. He had been
president during 8 of our 17 years. He led the United States Army to victory
over perhaps the biggest challenge our country ever had in defeating Adolph
Hitler. Our trip south that Friday night into the predawn hours of Saturday
morning was much quieter than on the way to Washington. I was lucky to have been
able to go. I could not have made the trip without the kindness of some
Tallapoosa folks like Alta Dryden who was the city's mayor. Our neighbo rs Ray
and Virginia Hitchcock who made sure I could financially have the memory of a
lifetime. I have a picture of my class in front of the Capitol Building that is
a treasure I could never part with. Forty years ago seems like yesterday. It was
the trip of a lifetime.
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