Surprises of My Youth

I’m not a dancer. In fact, never even liked Ball Room dancing when I was a teenager and many of us had to go to the Country Club to take formal dance class, with a boy, alas. We girls sort of moaned and groaned in our yearly just over the border teens. And most of us didn’t know any of the boys, who were being forced to take the class along with us. Well, the parents probably were friends. The only memory I had, knowing I was going off to boarding school that fall, whether I learned to dance or not at that club ball room. But I do have one small memory. In my class was the soon to be great young man who became founder of Federal Express, probably one of the most excellent firms in all the world. Of course, in those days, Fred Smith was in cahoots with John Fry and my only cousin, Johnny King and by strange chance, it was a couple of years later that summer when I had become a fledging journalist, taking my first stab at writing articles for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the first female on the desk (yes, the social section was run by women, but I, thank God, was doing the real stuff off City Desk when Malcolm was my boss.)

My summer 1960 was an adventure that taught me a whole bunch about writing anything the boss said to find, to research or to create so it was fascinating to the readers. But when my cousin Johnny asked if I’d write an article about their bursting out music business, I was happy to write about such a business, not knowing anything about it, though music was big stuff in Memphis in those days, and I had no idea who Fred Smith was, nor John Fry, who became a brilliant star in the world of Memphis music. Ironically, Johnny, through his life, collected music on discs so that when he died, he left behind for music lovers, one of the largest collections in the world. He donated that collection to a special place where people can go and listen to the great music throughout history and in a comfortable place.

Also, that summer, just to brag, I had a couple of encounters with Elvis Presley. I visited him in his home along with my brother and the millionaire son whose estate was right behind Elvis’ modest home, in those days. Elvis’ mother was not in good health but when we dropped in one late afternoon, and my brother and his friend Lenny Butler and I played pool with Elvis, who was still modest and not used to all the attention. The next day driving in my new yellow Chevrolet with the top down, I wanted to show my best friend that we had been at Elvis’ house. Just as we crept by, here he came backing out of his driveway in his blue Cadillac, top down, and he was with a couple of pals. He wondered if I would swap cars with him. Of course, my father had just given me the yellow convertible, and I wasn’t going to trade that for anything. It was a moment. We chatted awhile then we all went our various ways that day.

Things happen when one is growing up. There is the routine of school where you attend regularly, especially in those days, and had the same friends in math class as in Geography, and one tried to do their best to pass grades. I wasn’t brilliant, although I was somewhat of a writer, and my grades at Miss Hutchison’s School for Girls were average, nothing to, as we said, write home about. My Father, who wanted me to excel in school, realized I wasn’t brilliant or particularly popular. So, they sent me off to boarding school in Richmond, Virginia, where I wept and wept and hated the place, for a few days. I had to learn to live with a roommate. That finally crawled into a good situation. But two years there, I was the favorite, I think, of the English teacher, who was strange and creative and encouraged me to keep up my writing. So that sort of broke into what I would become in later years. First year I was director of the new girls night - we all had to perform at everything, and I sang an old cowboy song while dressed in cowboy attire and used my stuff horse (usually kept on my bed) as my western ride. I guess it was funny.

St. Catherine’s did me good and helped to make me, I guess, become the kind of person my parents I would learn to be. The summer of graduation, my best friend Adrienne and I went on an extraordinary trip through Europe with a group of girls, all led my A social lady who had plenty of patience. We became excellent representatives of young American girls. No one, however, despite the handsome sailors on both ships, hooked up with the sailors, although I was tempted by one sailor from somewhere in Europe. We corresponded about two times.

However, as I look back, I knew I was raised by African American women. But I didn’t have any African American friends. We had one girl from Africa in on3 whole school (St. Catherine’s.). It wasn’t something that I thought about in those days. Not until I entered college. I feel I missed so much not fighting for causes in the years at Hollins College, which was very open to letting us think the way we wanted to think and prove its power or it’s weakness. This turned me into the journalist that I became, spending from 1960 till about 1980 interviewing people, all sorts, the good, bad, and ugly, the smart and the fun, those with great stories and those with sad ones. I always wished I could have been part of Sunday Morning on CBS. They unearth so many wonderful stories in details. I can watch it when I am in Uruguay, thanks be to God. That and jeopardy have become my favorite challenges and laughs and learning places.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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