Sad News

Dear fellow Classmates,

I just received an email from Judy Kaufman that Richard Carroll died on July 10 in 2006 in Costa Mesa, CA. The services will be held on Monday, July 17, in Costa Mesa.

Also, since our June Rally I’ve discovered that John Speed, Wilson Prosser, Shirley Foster and Barbara Britt have died.

Sorry to be the one passing on this sad news,

Jimmy Knight

The following was sent to Jimmy Knight from Uldis Palde

Dear Jimmy,

When I saw your 7/14/06 email about Richard Carroll's death, my heart sank. I visited Richard and his 2nd family a couple of weeks after our 45th class reunion in 2002. They treated me like royalty and Richard was in great spirits. I was looking forward to seeing him again, perhaps at next year's 50th reunion.

So I called their home Sat. and talked with his 19-yr old daughter Elise. Richard was devoted to his family, and his daughter loved him dearly. She was delighted to hear about the class website and planned to visit it, since Richard had contributed news at times.

She gave me the particulars about last rites. Richard will be buried today after a service in Mesa Verde Methodist Church (in Orange County, California) starting at 10:00 am PDT (1:00 pm EDT). There will be a Marine honor guard with a rifle salute. Richard was very loyally attached to the Marine Corps.

I made arrangements for flowers to be delivered to the visitation or viewing in a funeral home yesterday (Sun), with the following inscription on a sympathy card:

"SEMPER FIDELIS
Uldis Palde, USMC and Richard's 1957 classmates of Russell High School, East Point, Georgia."

I hope there won't be any objections to this - If you'd like, you can post this email on the russell57.com site.

Sincerely - Uldis in Stone Mountain  July 17, 2006

 

Jimmy Knight shares the following memories of Richard

Richard and I grew up together, living less than a block apart.  I remember his Mother and Dad.  His Dad, Tom, was an East Point Fireman for a number of years and his Mother ran a beauty shop in their home.  Richard and I were in Kindergarten together.  In the Kindergarten Play, "Rags, Tags and the Velvet Prince", Richard was The Velvet Prince.  A picture of the kids in the play is posted under the Central Park Grammar School Pictures. One time his Dad brought home a lion and kept it in their garage.  I remember every kid (and parent) in the neighborhood going to their house to see the lion.  I think that lasted about a week.  Later, they had a horse.  One time the horse tossed Richard off and stepped on his leg.  My guess is that he carried the scar in the shape of a horseshoe for a life time.  We were also in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts together and we both enjoyed the outdoor camping activities.  In the seventh grade a test was conducted for the last half of the school year using round tables rather than the traditional individual desks.  Richard, Judy Javorsky, Judy Fowler, Jean Marshall and I sat at the same table.  There was another boy at the table, but I can’t remember who it was.  I remember the two of us exploring the ruins of the Connally Plantation slave houses when we were around 12 or 13.  One time we also tried to dig up what we thought was an Indian grave.  We worked on it for about a week and never found any bones.  Later in our Junior and Senior years in high school we double dated sometimes.  Before we married, Jeanette and I bought some of our first items of furniture from Richard when he worked at Haverty’s Furniture in Atlanta.  Sadly we lost contact for a number of years.  More recently, during the past 4-5 years we exchanged many emails.  Richard was very proud of his “second family” and enjoyed the successful achievements of his children.  We’ve lost a really nice person and a good friend.

 Jimmy Knight

In Richard's own words

Since Jimmy Knight brought up the Lion story above, below are comments in Richard's own words he  had left on the "Discussion" page.  He was addressing Jimmy Goad.  See the page for other interesting tid bits he shared:

"Jimmy (Jim Goad just doesn't sound right to me, so I will say "Jimmy" if you dont mind), My dog, the Irish Setter's name was "Red" and my great pal. We hunted squirrels together. with my 22. I would look for them and she had a good time scareing them off because she loved to run around under the trees in the leaves and that of course made a lot of noise. Red probabily saved many squirrls that way. Red had 48 puppies in her life, bless her heart. One litter was 18 puppies, believe it or not. I can see all of them sorrounded by my dad's legs as he sat on the ground with them. 2 died but 16 survived, The Journal of Constituion came out and photographed them. On Easter Sunday 1951 or 2 My Dad brought home a lion. I dont know if you and Johnny remember that or not. It's name was Zimba and he got it from a bananna boat captain in New Orleans for $128.00 one night while drunk. He brought it home and the Journal came out and photoed that too and did an article saying that "Carroll kids get a lion for Easter, instead of a rabbitt". He and I were on Jon Farmers TV show "Inside, Outdoors". remember that show. Any was there are stories about the lion. It was pretty big and not exactly the hit of the neighborhood. ( Did you read the Prince of Tides"? It was sorta like that). Another favorite place was at Jimmy knight's house. [Here he makes some comments about ] ......... Diane Leverett. Gosh she was a beauty. Have you ever looked back at her picture. Just beautiful. I also used to hang aroung the Fulton County Airport and fly airplanes with Lamar Seals. I do wish I could have some of those days back. We also used to smoke rabbit tobacco. Do you remember that? Do you remember Bill Nolan's house and his A Model Ford and Royce Jones old car with the wide runningboards and the spoke wheels."

[_private/discRH_aftr.htm]

 

NEXT, in a note to John Mullinax Alston says, "I don't mind if you add our 52nd Anniversary picture but we kind of like the old one when we were young.  As a matter of fact, I have misplaced my copy of the old one taken at the prom (1956?) so when I want to show it to someone I go to your web site and copy it from there.  We're just old farts now and really don't know if we will be alive at the next time a reunion is held (well, does anybody?)  I had hoped that we would be able to get together on a smaller scale (not as expensive) in less than five years but I guess that is not going to happen.

OK, I looked at the website. Who’s the guy in the photograph? Was anybody ever that young?

I misspent a lot of my time at RHS drawing cartoons, and that’s sort of where life took me. A bit of playing Marine after graduation, then art school, then college, then grad school, then two years teaching at LaGrange College, from which I was summarily fired (I was the campus radical; that means I didn’t wear a tie to class, occasionally skipped Chapel, and was careless in the matter of regular haircuts – it was 1967, after all).  Lamar Dodd rescued me from oblivion and took me on at UGA, where I misspent another 10 years. Then my burgeoning disillusion with the academic factory-system and underlying disrespect for authority overtook me again and I traded a no-longer-promising teaching career for one year of saying exactly what I thought. I left Georgia (some say under a cloud, some say in a blaze of glory) for the world of bright lights, loud music, fast women and strong drink in Noo Yawk Siddy. What I found instead was the Guggenheim Museum and my wife-to-be Merrill Mason, and settled into a life of soft lights, chamber music, a smart woman and Chardonnay. After our regulation 15 minutes as (God save the mark) “a cool New York couple” had elapsed, we moved to Philly, where we now reside. Neither of us is retired (she’s a mere child of 58). We both work in the art industry (she’s a museum development officer; I’m regional manager of a fine arts packing and shipping company). She’s more an artist than I am (textiles, cast-iron sculpture and photography), and though I still draw a little every now and again (and occasionally crank up enough energy to go out an’ boogie til I puke), I just don’t have that much fire-in-the-belly any more.

in September [2006], my scruffy gang of Northeastern Liberal Vegetarian Pacifist Intellectuals (see illustration – that’s me on the left, in case you’re wondering) flew with all our tools and equipment to Ft. Carson CO, where we worked twelve straight 10-hour days packing and moving the 3^rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Museum (lock, stock, and barrel… literally) to Ft. Hood TX

(and I got to do my famous imitation of George C. Scott doing his famous imitation of George S. Patton – see illustration [“Fragile Flower” is my callsign]).

Is the guy in these photos the same as the one in the RHS yearbook? Yeeah, I guess you’d have to say so. Maybe not quite so shy and awkward.…

Some of you might remember the Unfortunate Fishpond Incident — I blew it up in yet another of my futile, self-destructive attacks on authority and got expelled from Russell. I had to go downtown to the Board of Education and see the Superintendent himself to beg my way back in. That caused me to graduate in January of ‘58.

After that, I continued my anti-authority ways by getting thrown out of the Navy — see a pattern there? After reading entirely too many Jack Keroauc books, I decided the road was where it was happening and spent the next couple of years hitch-hiking around the country. (It was the sixties, a time in which I participated with vast enthusiasm) A very wise young woman who let me recuperate from the rigors of the road at her parents’ farm told me that right now all of this irresponsible running around I was doing was fun, but if I did it one more year I’d be throwing my life away, so I decided to go to college. (I can’t even remember this young woman’s name but I thanks her every day of my life.) Given my grade point average, attitude and complete lack of money, my higher education choices were limited, so I went down to Florida, where a great community college system was developing and found a junior college that would let me in. As soon as I attended a class there, I knew I wanted to teach in one.

Still, my road lust hadn’t completely died down. I kept dropping out to travel aimlessly. The turning point came when I returned from an 18 month trip out west and walked into the bar where I’d hung out before I’d left. All of my friends were still sitting on the same bar stools they’d been sitting on when I left and, when I came in, Ken McNally turned to me and said, "Cain! Where you been, man. Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks." That was a wake-up call. I saw my probable future if I didn’t make some changes and it wasn’t pretty. (I also thank McNally every day.)

Finally motivated, I finished my junior and senior years in 14 months and took off for New York City, where I worked as a social worker in East Harlem while trying to learn to write good modern poetry. After a year or so of that I entered a Master’s Program at Hunter College so I could fulfill my ambition to teach in a community college.

I found a job in Catonsville, Maryland, and became as close to a responsible citizen as I can come. I still distrust authority but I’m no longer self-destructive about it — being married to the great love of your life and raising four children tends to temper your self-destructive impulses.

Over the years, I’ve published a few books and right now I’m living, writing and raising two teen-aged girls in Frederick, Maryland. My grown son and daughter (and twin grandsons) live nearby. To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, I have grown progressively happier with each year that I have lived and have absolutely no desire to relive my youth.

Incidently, not to blow my own horn too much, but if you go to www.rambles.net scrolled down to staff, click on it and then scroll down and click on my name, or to go directly there http://www.rambles.net/ms_cain.html  it'll give you a complete list of the music and book reviews and articles I've done for them.

— Michael Cain

July  2011 Update

Education

Graduate Ga Tech 1962 Industrial Management.
Naval Officer Candidate School graduate December 1962.

Service

Lieutenant U S Navy 1962 thru 1965 active duty.
Administrative Aide Admiral Julian T Burke Comphibron 6 Little Creek. Virginia.