Tommy Combs

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PREFACE This is a compilation of the thoughts and experiences in the life of Tommy Martin Combs. The idea of sharing my life and my experiences came to me as I was researching my ancestry. I wanted to leave something of myself. The purpose of this manuscript is to leave something behind for my children and grandchildren, so they will know a little more about me rather than just what they have seen so far in our experiences and interaction with each other. For those who are reading this manuscript, I hope that it sheds some light on my heritage and perhaps a better understanding of me as a father, grandfather, great-grandfather, husband, brother, uncle, cousin, and/or friend and co- worker. It is my intention to provide information about my childhood as I recall it, and relationships with my wife, children, friends and coworkers. I also hope to shed some light on the people and experiences that have shaped my life and career. and to impart information about experiences and other things that I feel may be beneficial to others. The structure of this autobiography will probably change as it develops. For now, I intend to start with my memories of my early childhood before school, my years from first grade through my senior year in high school, my parents, my brothers and sisters, the jobs I have held, my hobbies, my wife and children, my retirement years.

INFANCY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD I was born in a rural section of Rockingham County North Carolina approximately 12 miles northwest of Reidsville, NC, in the Midway community on June 1, 1940. My father, Clyde Leonard Combs, Sr. was a farmer who share cropped the farm of Dr. Michael Cummings Sr. My mother was a housewife who helped with the farming and maintained the home. I was the youngest of six children, four sons and two daughters. We were the typical farm family raising the majority of our food and sharing the work of raising and harvesting the crops with other families. Our main crop was tobacco with corn and wheat as smaller crops. Most of my early memories start about three or four years old. It was at this age that we moved from a small five room house to a 14 room older plantation home that had been the residence of the plantation owner in the 1800's. The farm was part of a former plantation that was originally over 6000 acres and had been divided between the son and daughter of the original plantation owner, parts had been sold off, the tract of land my father farmed was around 600 acres. To the back of the large plantation home were slave houses. These were basically log houses that were relics from the 1800s. My father used them as storage sheds and smoke houses for curing hams and shoulders from hogs that were killed each fall. One of the highlights of the year was when several families would get together and slaughter the hogs. The women would bake and prepare many delicious dishes while the men would prepare boiling water to scald and slaughter the hogs, cut up and preserve or freeze the meat, and make sausage and cracklings. It was usually cold outside and everyone came into the warm house and ate lunch together. This was done usually at the home of the person whose hogs were being slaughtered. The same scenario took place each fall when the corn was piled up and a corn shucking was held.

I do not recall much if any of my childhood before the age of three. I do recall vague memories of living in a small white house with my family, it was off a graveled dirt road a short distance from US Highway 158. I was born in this house and delivered by the owner of the farm, Dr. Michael Cummings, Sr. It was around the age of 3 that our family moved a short distance from the small house to a much larger house. The home we moved to was well over 100 years old and was the original plantation home. It did not have modern conveniences such as an inside bathroom. But it was well constructed and provided much more room for a family of eight. I shared a bedroom with my brother Horace who was two years older. My two sisters shared a bedroom and my two older brothers did also. The rooms were large, probably 20 x 20. There were probably seven or eight fireplaces around the home. However, we were never allowed to use the fireplaces but they were beautiful with marble mantles. The original kitchen of the old plantation home was off of a porch which surrounded the lower section of the home. This was where the servants or slaves had prepared the meals for the plantation owner's family in the past. There had been an inside bathroom but all the conveniences had been removed. It was large enough for my mother to use as a kitchen, where she cooked on a cast iron stove that used wood to heat the stove. The stove was well designed; you placed the wood in a chamber that was vented through a flue pipe up a chimney, there was a tank you could fill with water and it would heat up, there was an oven that worked as well or better than today's modern ovens and a space over the stove with doors that you could put food in and it would stay warm. You entered the home from the front porch into a room which was originally a parlor. My parents had prepared a sitting parlor off this room so my sisters had a place to meet their boyfriends when they came a courting or the room was used when special company visited. The family usually gathered for meals in a large room off the kitchen where there was a large table and chairs and when the table was cleared it was used to do homework or play games. The home was heated with wood stoves in the dining room, the entrance way, and the sitting parlor, later we upgraded to oil stoves that had fans to spread the heat through the living area. None of the bedrooms had heat or air conditioning, so you went to bed it a cold room in the winter and in the summer you raised the windows which had screens to enjoy the night time breeze. There was a third floor to the home, today you would describe it as an attic, it had a hardwood floor but no walls so it was a large space. My brother and I and our friends spent many a rainy day playing different games in this area. There was one other large building near the main home that we called the pack house. This is where my father would keep the tobacco that had been cured until it was time to take it to market in the fall. Tobacco was the main money crop for our family. Tobacco is a very labor intensive crop, it starts in the early spring where my father would prepare the plant beds. These are beds where tobacco seeds are sewed and would be about 100 by 200 feet. Prior to planting the seeds, my father would put plastic over the beds and treat it with chemicals to kill bacteria and weeds and grass that could attack the young tobacco plants. I distinctly remember conversations between my father and other farmers about the type of tobacco they would be planting. There were several varieties and it must have depended on the type of soil where the plants would grow as to what would be used. I do recall my father carrying samples of the soil to the US soil conservation service to get it tested. Once the beds were prepared the tobacco seeds were distributed throughout the plant bed and covered again to protect them from the cool weather of the early spring. In about two weeks you would begin to see small plants emerging. It took about 3 to 4 weeks for the plants to reach the growth level so they could be transplanted to the tobacco field. The young tobacco plants were pulled by hand and placed in bushel baskets and watered to keep them fresh during the day of transplanting. Transplanting the young tobacco plants took two people, one person held a hand trans-planter which was a light aluminum metal which you pushed into the ground and another person would drop a tobacco plant into the trans-planter. The trans-planter consisted of two chambers and a pointed end that could be pushed into the ground about 3 inches deep and the pointed end could be opened and closed by a lever that was controlled by a person's hand. One chamber held water where a small amount was released along with the tobacco plant that was put into the trans-planter by the second person. You then moved about a foot and a half to 2 feet to repeat the process. This may seem like a very tedious way to do this but two people could easily transplant 2 to 3 acres of tobacco in a day. Later as I was in my teens my father did get a machine where two people could ride behind a tractor and each would place a tobacco plant into a trans-planter that was a part of the machine. This was a major change in the way tobacco was transplanted. The work was not nearly as hard on the people doing the transplanting and increased the amount of work that could be done by about five fold. I forgot to mention that the field where the transplanting took place had to be prepared in the following way. First they took a bog harrier and broke the field up to get the soil lose so that could be molded into rows and also my father had to mix in fertilizer to assist the young plants with their growth. Here again they depended upon the soil scientist to recommend the type of fertilizer that was needed to grow tobacco and also based on the results of a soil test which measured the current nutrients in the soil. This was done by tractor as well as the making of the rows which were spaced about 3 feet apart. After the transplanting had taken place we had a little free time before the tobacco started to grow. However, other weeds and grass grew along with the tobacco plant and it was our duty to take a hoe and make sure the grass and weeds did not choke out the tobacco plant. So each week for about 3 to 4 weeks the grass and weeds between the tobacco plants had to be removed. Tobacco grows rapidly and takes about 4 to 5 weeks to mature once it is transplanted. Now there was other work that had to be done as the tobacco was growing in addition to removing the grass and weeds. The next item was topping the tobacco plant, this was a task that my father usually did himself for it took some judgment as to where to top the tobacco plant. Topping a tobacco plants is nothing but breaking the top of the tobacco plant off. The purpose is to force growth to the leaves that are left on the plant rather than the plant getting taller. If I remember correctly usually my dad tried to leave about 14 different leaves on each plant. Once the plant was topped the next item of work was suckering. A sucker is a small growth between the tobacco stem and the plant that is trying to produce other leaves of the plant. I guess they call them suckers because they sucked the growth from the leaf. The suckers usually grew from the top down and probably was nature's way of trying to replace the top of the plant that had been broken off. It was our job to catch the suckers before they reach the point they were taking away from the growth of the individual leaves so we had to examine each plant and remove the sucker and not damage the plant. Later as agricultural procedures progressed they had sprays that were applied by a low-flying airplane that prevented the suckers from growing. The next item of work was to keep insects and worms from feeding off of the tobacco. It was our job to walk through the tobacco field and if we found a worm or a grasshopper on the plant we would pull it off. Tobacco worms are ugly green worms that love to eat tobacco leaves I am sure they have a more scientific name for the species. I'm not sure what tobacco worms turn into because I don't think that is their final stage of development. (MAKE a note to check out the scientific name of a tobacco worm and their lifecycle.) I remember my father would take a spray which he placed on his back and I think he used DDT to spray the tobacco plants. I don't recall him using a mask or anything to protect himself. Later the low-flying airplane with an insecticide spray took over the duties of protecting the plants from insects. I recall many days walking with my father to the fields to check on the growth of the tobacco. He would always count the individual leaves and check the color to see if they were ready for priming. The priming was the process of removing the tobacco leaves from the stalk of the tobacco plant. The people doing the priming needed to know how many leaves to remove based on the color of the leaf. Since this was a subjective decision many of the farmers just told the people that were priming the tobacco to remove 2 to 3 leaves. The tobacco grows very close to the ground and the way you prime tobacco is you are bent over almost to the ground standing on your 2 feet and removing 2 to 3 leaves from each plant as you move along. As you remove the leaves with one hand, you place them under your other arm. You can probably go about 15 to 20 plants before you have to take what you have primed to a tobacco sled which was pulled by a mule. This is the reason farm boys have strong backs because it will really work on the back muscles. Once the tobacco sled is full it is carried to the tobacco barn to be strung. Stringing takes 3 people; one to do the stringing and two to hand the tobacco in bunches of 3 to 4 leaves to the stringer. Stringing is difficult to describe but it is simply tying bunches of tobacco together on a stick about 4 feet long so that it will stay securely on the stick. After a stick is full it is taken and piled together with other strung sticks. Equipment companies developed a tobacco stringer which was like a large sewing machine that tied the tobacco to the stick. Workers still had to place the leaves and the sticks on the mechanical stringer and remove the sticks as they were completed but it allowed about half the people to complete about twice the amount of work. Later the strung tobacco is placed in the tobacco barn. A tobacco barn was usually made of logs and could hold about 250 to300 sticks of tobacco which were placed of poles that were spaced about 4 feet apart and 4 to 5 tiers high with about 2.5 to 3 feet between tiers. Tobacco was cured in the barns and it took about 4 to5 days to cure. Originally my father used wood to stoke the furnaces which produced the heat and they were stoked from outside the barn. In order to maintain a steady temperature someone usually had to stay overnight at the barn to keep the fires alive. I recall many nights when I was allowed to spend the night with my farther at the barn. Later the wood furnaces were replaced with oil fired furnaces which were placed inside the barn and the heat would be regulated by setting a temperature gage. Curing was a skill and science that took knowledge of how hot to keep the tobacco and the starting temperature and ending temperature and how to tell when the curing was complete. Once the tobacco was cured it was removed from the barn and carried to the pack house and remained there until it would be prepared to go to the market. I recall there were always stacks of tobacco filling the pack house. After all the harvesting is completed we had to prepare the tobacco for the market which usually opened in September of each year. To prepare the tobacco for market you had to take the cured tobacco and place it in a cellar that had enough humidity to soften the brittle tobacco so that it could be handled without crumbling into small pieces. The final task before the tobacco was carried to market to be sold is called tying. In tying tobacco you take the in order cured leaves from the tobacco stick and select the best ones, you then bunch about 10 together and wrap a leave around them to hold them together. The reason you sort the good leaves (golden in color) from the ones with brown spots is to make sure that the bunches of tobacco that are placed on a pallet will be graded higher. I remember grades of a, b, c with a being the best and bringing the most per pound. This is how I remember the process from 65 to 70 years ago, I am sure it has changed drastically and has been mechanized where little or no hand work is required. I recall fondly those days and they are vivid in my memory. I also recall that most of my father's income came in the fall from the sale of tobacco. So that money had to last through the next twelve months. And I recall that it usually ran out around march or April of each year and my father had to operate on credit to keep us feed and clothed. So it was a cycle that never allowed him to get very far ahead in order to buy his own farm. I never recall not having food on the table so his credit must have been good. We ran a tab at the country store for necessities and a tab at the grocery store ( Apple's Grocery in Reidsville, NC)and he usually had to finance his fertilizer and farm supplies But we always seem to make it through each year. We knew not to ask for much because it was clear that times were tight most of the year. But in the fall before school new clothes were bought and at Christmas we each got one toy and fruits and nuts and candy and there was always an Easter basket for each child. We ate 3 meals per day and if we were caught eating between meals we were usually punished. In the summer I usually went barefoot and had to wash my feet before we were allowed to go to bed. Bedtime was usually around 9:00 o'clock and if it was in the wintertime you had to go to a very cold bed. but we had plenty of bed covers and it did not take long for body heat to warm up the bed. Getting out of bed each morning especially in winter was not pleasant because you had to get dressed in the cold before you went down for breakfast which was always waiting for us. We all started each meal at the same time and had to ask for permission to leave the table as we finished. Being the youngest I recalled that during the school year I was alone with just my mother and me, and my grandmother Alley. She lived with us for a few years. It was common practice in those days for children to take in a parent who was alone and had lost their spouse. Especially women, I recall many of my friends who had a grandmother or grandfather living with them. My grandmother was named Mary Alice (Martin) Alley and was the kindest and most pleasant person. She spent her time helping my mother and her specialties were making quilts and crotiaing. She would take pieces of cloth cut them into squares and triangles and make patchwork quilts. One of my favorite things to do was sit in her piece box and watch her sew the squares together. She would sing and hum as she did this. She later moved to live with her other daughters and sons living with each for a while. She died at the age of 83. I never knew my mother's father (Alexander Martin Alley) as he died in 1928 before I was born. I never knew my father's biological mother (Rose Brook bank) for she died when my father was one year old. My grandfather Combs were very ill most of the time I knew him and he slept most of the time I was in his presence so I never got to know my grandfather Combs very well. My grandfather (Horace Melvin Combs) remarried to my step-grandmother (Minnie M Combs) who had children of her own from a previous marriage. We spent many Sundays at my step-grandmother's house for Sunday dinner when all the adult children and their families would visit and the ladies would fix lunch. The men would gather and talk. Sometimes I would sit with the men and just listen. The topics were a lot different than they are today. They would talk about how their crops were doing and how the weather affected the growing. They would discuss what was going on in the neighborhood and sometimes they would take a drink of whiskey, usually the kind they made themselves or had bought from someone who had made it and sometimes someone would bring a bottle that had been purchased from the liquor store. Once the jar or bottle was passed around a few times the conversations got livelier and they started discussing how good they were at doing things and how strong they were. So I guess not much has changed in that respect. There were usually about 10 to 15 grandchildren present so there was always some kind of game or sport where you would choose up sides. My step grandmother Combs never mistreated us but she was a stern woman and you had to be quiet and could not run in her house. Looking back on this it was probably to keep us from waking our grandfather who always seems to be asleep. I also felt that she favored her biological grandchildren over the step grandchildren. Grandmother Minnie as we called her lived to be 95 and remained active until the day she died, so I got to know her better after I grew up and got married. She seemed to appreciate my visits in her later years and was always pleasant to me and my family. I served as a pall bearer at her funeral. Both my mother and father came from large families and back in my childhood days it was customary to visit with family on Sunday. We either had company for Sunday Dinner or our family would go to grandmother Combs or a brother or sister for Sunday Dinner. Dinner in those days was the Noon Meal. Breakfast was at 6am and Supper was at 6pm. Cousins got to know each other very well and we would see each other often on Sunday's. My mother had a sister named Roxie and my father had a brother named Donald who married before my parents. This is probably how my parents met were through their siblings. If Aunt Roxie and Uncle Donald had children they would have been our double first cousins, but they never had children. We saw a lot of Aunt Roxie and Uncle Donald as they came to visit us often. They both worked and always seemed to have new things like cars, a home of their own and could take vacations. Sometime they would come and take me home with them for the week end. I remember this nice home with all the modern conveniences such as air conditioning and electric stoves. They paid special attention to me andI loved these trips. I also remember going home with my Mother's youngest Sister Hester Alley for short trips.

I began public school at age 6. Back then there was nothing like kindergarten or pre-school to prepare you. However, being the youngest child and with two older sisters, I recall them teaching me many things about school so I was prepared probably as well as children today. Also when my mother had time she would read to me. I enjoyed school from my first day especially the reading. All at once I had access to the many books in the library. My favorites were fairy tales, mythology and the encyclopedia. We did not have a set of encyclopedias at home so having access to a set at school gave you information to learn new things and answer questions that were not there before. To me, having access to an encyclopedia was like having access to the internet today. My first grade teacher was Miss Carrie Sharpe. My recollections of her were that she was a large lady and very patient with the students. Nothing else stands out in my mind about the first grade except for meeting my best friend Carl Webster. Carl and I remained friends throughout the lower grades and into high school. Several times during a school year I was allowed to go home and spend the night at his home and he was allowed to come and spend the night with me. Carl had a younger brother and a sister who was just an infant. His parents were much younger than my parents and they were not farmers but worked in factories in the town of Reidsville, NC. I was able to see a different lifestyle than at my house. They did more things together than my family, but Carl's dad worked a second shift at the factory so I never saw him if I went to visit during the weekdays. My second grade teacher I was assigned to was Mrs. Clayton who was of Indian heritage, my brothers and sisters had jokingly told me that she would use a tomahawk on you if you misbehaved or talked in her class. I remember that I was terrified of her for that reason; evidently I reacted in such a way that they moved me to Ms. Edith Small's second grade class and she was anything but small. I recall her as a very tall lady. I remember her as being stricter than Mrs. Sharpe. You were not allowed to talk and move around in her class so we looked forward to recess where you got to go outside and run and jump and play on the playground equipment like slides, swings and jungle gyms. Ms Small never married and was present at our 50th High School reunion. She lived to be 92. I further developed my love for reading in the second grade. We had our second grade reader which I read from cover to cover early in the school year. I also recall two favorite books from the library, Aesop's fables, and Grimm's Fairytales. I could spend hours reading and rereading stories from these books. My friendship with Carl Webster continued and he was in my same grade. At Bethany School there were usually 2 first grade classes, 2 second grade classes, and so on up to the eighth grade when you had more than one teacher. My third grade teacher was Mrs. Evelyn Griffin. (Mrs. Griffin was present at our 50th and 55th class reunions and unless she has passed away recently is still alive and living in Greensboro, NC) In the third grade I became good friends with Jerry Snyder. I had seen him at school but he was always in the other class of the same grade. We became friends and along with Carl Webster were an inseparable trio at recess.. I still would spend the night at Carl's house during the school year and he would come to my house. Jerry's parents would not allow him to bring school friends home for overnight visits. It was in the third grade that I discovered Bullfinch's Mythology and I spent many hours reading about the gods and goddesses of the Greeks, Romans, and Norsemen. It was also around the third grade that I began reading and collecting comic books. My favorites were Captain Marvel and other members of the Marvel Family, Superman, Tarzan, Aqua man, Wonder Woman, and on and on. I was fascinated by Super Heroes. We would collect and swap comic books with our friends but if we were caught with them at school they were confiscated. Sometimes they would return them at the end of the school day as you were going home. Others kept them I do not know what they did with them maybe they destroyed the comics or carried them home. Today some of those comics would be worth a lot of money. My Fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Johnston. She was an older lady probably approaching retirement. Nothing significant comes to mind about the fourth grade except maybe that was when I discovered science fiction. On one of my saturaday trips to Trents Newstand and bookstore in Reidsville, the pulp science fiction magazines such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy , wonder stories etc caught my eye. I purchased Amazing Stories for 25Cents It was a tough decision because I could get 2 comic books for that price. From that day forward I looked forward to the monthly publication of the pulps. My favorite authors were Issac Asimov, A.E. Van Voght, Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Campbell, Arther C. Clark, EE Cummings, Andre Norton, etc today most of these are recognized as giants in their field. The Magazines had a brief section on science and space and I read every word of these articles. This was in the infancy of the US Space program and if I had the opportunity to choose a carreer back then it would have been in the sciences or space progam. The country school I attended did not give much opportunity beyond the basic education of reading writing and arithmetic so the avenues to develop this interest never presented themselves. Perhaps this is why the science fiction magazines and stories gave me the avenue to escape into their world of spaceships, aliens, and science. My Fifth Grade teacher Mr. Lanier, was my first male teacher so there were some adjustments in the way I viewed the teacher. He was young, slight of frame, not very athletic however he was strict and dedicated to his profession. Looking back I probably learned more math and science under him and I believe he was the best instructor I had up to that time in my education. However Mr. Lanier and I did not get along very well. I believe it was because as my personality developed I found I could make other students laugh and get attention by cracking jokes and making smart remarks. I was continuosly beirng disciplined and missed a lot of recesses for my actions. If I could go back and speak to Mr. Lanier I would thank him for his dedication and doing the right things. In the Sixth and seventh grade I had the same teacher Mrs. Cala Frazier. She was a very pretty lady and was probably the first teacher I had a crush on.There would be others but she was the first. The other significant item about Mrs. Frazier was that her husband was the Player Manager of the Reidsville Luckies, a minor league baseball team that played out of Reidsville, NC Eighth grade Mr. Noriss and Mrs. Smith There were two eighth grade classes at Bethany School and Mrs. Smith and Mr. Norris were our instructors. We went to Mrs. Smiths room early in the Morning and were taught subjects like english, literature, civics and social studies. Mr. Norris would come to the room for subjects like health, science and math. He also taught the boys physcal education which usually took place outside and involved games like softball, dodge ball , physical drills etc. In the eighth grade , the girls were beginning to wear lipstick and were beginning to develop into young women. I guess hormones were raging in both sexes and I went through the normal stages of puberty. I recall a growth spurt during this time in my life and I grew almost 4 inches in height that year. Some of the boys were beginning to develop relationships with the opposite sex by setting with a particular girl at recess or meeting with them before or after school. I wasn't one of them. I was mainly interested in the sports of basketball and baseball and when I wasn't working on the farm, or studying you would find me shooting a basketball at a makeshift goal made from a coat hanger or rim of a bushel basket. We also had many outside chimneys at our house that were made of stone and brick. I would pick out a particular stone or brick , pace off the distance of a pitchers mound and throw a baseball at that target. I became quite good at both of these pasttimes. Living in the country with the houses far apart and no organized recreation, team sports were only available at school. I was really looking forward to moving up to the high school level where I could try out for basketball and baseball. We did not have a football team. Ninth grade was a drastic change because you now had an assigned locker to keep your books and supplies and not a desk. You began each school day in your home room with an assigned teacher. My Home room teacher was Miss Anders a dark haired lady probably in her twenties. In addition to being my home room teacher she also taught English and Civics, The teachers each had an assigned room and the students moved from room to room for the different classes. Mr. Dallas Pope was my History teacher and he was also the basketball and baseball coach. School work came easy for me. I only had to read something once to remember most of it. My grades were mostly A's and B's. I never even came close to failing a subject. Most of the time I never carried books home in high school as I was able to do most of the homework in class or study hall. I made the Junior Varsity Basketball team in the ninth grade. Most of the time I never carried books home in high school as I was able to do most of the homework in class or study hall. I made the Junior Varsity Basketball team in the ninth grade. I had done well as a member of the Jr. Varsity Basketball team being one of the starting five. I played forward and moved to center when our center would foul out. I was an average scorer around 10 points a game but I was an outstanding rebounder. So I was ready to move up to the varsity in my sophmore year as a reserve. We had a strong basketball tradition at the school and had good player on the varsity. During the summer of my sophmore year my dad informed us that we would be moving to the Monticello community in Guilford County about 30 miles away. The son of the owner of the farm had often come out and worked with us while he was in college and we got to be good friends with him. He later built a house on the farm and decided to start a dairy. Built a dairy barn to milk the cows along with a silo to store the silage and hay which was used as feed for the milk cows when there was not much grass in the pastures where the cows would graze.He did this for several years and later when his dad died he decided he wanted to manage the entire farm so my dad had to find another farm to manage. He was fortunate to meet Mr. Lesley Lambeth an elderly gentleman who needed someone to mange two farms that he owned. I was 15 at the time and we would not be moving until around October of 1955. So I had to start the school year at Bethany in August and move to Monticello school at the end of October. The only children left in the household were me and my brother Horace who was 2 years older. He decided to jjoin the Navy rather than finish school. He did live with us for a few months until he left for the Navy. We moved from a large 14 room plantation home to a small home with a kitchen, living room and 2 bed rooms. The bedrooms in this house were small and where we could put two beds easily in the large rooms at the former home you could only get one regular size bed in the smaller bedrooms of the new home. It did have an inside bathroom. My brother and I were never close or best buddies but we tolerated each other. We had different personalities and interests and aspirations of our future. There was a small building about the size of a bedroom that had been built to be used as a chicken house for laying hens. For some reason no one had ever used it for that purpose. I talked to my dad and the owner of the farm and they agreed to move the building closer to the house so I could fix it up as a place to sleep. We raised the building Put two tree trunks under it and using a tractor placed it close to the house. The building had wiring for some reason so it was a small task to get power connected to it. The studs were bare and since I could not afford plywood or paneling I was able to secure pasteboard boxes and nailed them up like paneling. I don't recall where I got them but I do remember that they were new and had not been made into boxes yet so the pasteboard was double thickness so it worked pretty good. I put a regular size bed and a dresser in the place and had my room. My brother was still at home when I finished it and he decided he wanted to sleep there and I could have the bedroom in the house. It was not uncommon for Horace and I to get into a fight but they were usually short. This one was a knock down outright fight and I do remember kissing her my parents had to intervene. My dad usually took my brother's side in most of our issues but this time he said that I had done all the work so I got the extra room. Later I added a small wood stove to heat the place in the winter and during my high school years this was the place where we would come home late on week ends. sometime there would be three of us guys in the one bed. It was never a rendevous for members of the opposite sex, I don't know how I would have arranged that. It would have been an ideal place for that. I think that's what my brother Horace had in mind for it. However I learned later in life my mother always knew when I left and when I returned to my building no matter how late it was.. I added a small desk for studying, a record player radio and can now admit that I used to practice my dancing in this building. Looking back I am sure this building broke all the building codes for electric wireing, building materials and was probably a violation of most of the fire codes. I definitely would not have allowed my boys or my grandkids to sleep in that building but it provided me with the privacy I needed and I felt a sense of accomplishment for doing it. Those were different times so what else can I say. So at 15 years of age and in the middle of the school year I had to leave a school where I had been in since the first grade; leave my friends that I had grown up with and go to a school where I knew no one. The sophmore class at Bethany had 44 students and the sophmore class at Monticello was even smaller at 25. I lived only about 1.5 miles from the school so I could easily have walked but I rode the bus. My bus driver was named Naomi, a senior at the school. Even though I was close to the school I was Naomi's first pickup in the morning and her last drop off in the evening I was just the way her route was set up. We soon became fast friends and although she was 3 years older than I we became great friends.Naomi was a little more worldly than most of the girls I had met and I felt free to discuss things that I had never talked with girls about. Nothing ever came of the relationship however I learned a lot from Naomi. I do remember kissing her once. Naomi introduced me to many of the students and made my transition easier. I probably did more studying of my subjects during my first months at my new school since I did not know any one to talk to and did extremely well.All A's . on my first report card. My grades settled down to mostly A's and B's with a C every once in a while. I could have done better but looking back there was little to challenge an above average student. It did not take long to make friends at Monticello my closest friends were Kenneth Brann, a sophmore, his brother Wayne, a junior, Joe Bishop, a junior, Buddy Gordon, a freshman, Garret Chrismon,a sophmore, Bob Gordon, a sophmore, Bobby Joe Roberts; we were a kind of group where we would go to movies and do things together. I wasn't old enough to drive but like all kids we were interested in cars. Joe's dad was a mechanic who worked for a tractor repair place so he knew a lot about working on cars. He had a Henry J., which was a small car that had some age to it. That was the transportation for most of the crowd. sometimes we would have 5 to six people in that little car. I do not recall it ever breaking down. Wayne was allowed to drive the family car on weekends so sometimes he would drive. It was a Pontiac 4 door sedan. Our weekends would consist of a movie on Saturaday night in Greensboro. After the movie we would gather at the parking lot of the Summit Shopping Center in Greensboro. This was where most of the High School kids would gather to socialize and meet. There would be cars with just guys, cars with just girls and guys and girls dating. We called it cruising back then also. Also Wednesday night was a big night for cruising. Around 11 or 12 o'clock we would all go home. Each of the guys would give the driver a dollar to help pay for the gasoline he used. There was also a drive in eatery called Green's about half way between Monticello and Greensboro where we would top off the night with a sandwich, fries and a drink.and it was the gathering place for most of the high school kids during the week. I went out for the basketball team and made the team as a reserve. Monticello had a great basketball tradition and a very good team, especially for such a small school only about 130 students in the whole high school. Being a new student and just a sophmore I saw very little play in the game but I learned a lot during practice.. Coach Jones was a stickler for getting his team in physical shape. We spent as much time doing wind sprints, running backwards and endurance drills as we did on basketball. Practices would always end with him giving each player a vitamin pill. They probably would not allow that today. His teams were known for their stamina and many games were won in later minutes of game. Life settled down to a routine of school, basketball games, cruising and socializing at sock hops, these were dances that were usually held at the gym and everyone took off their shoes and danced in their socks. There was usually just two types of dancing.; slow dancing, where you held the girl close to you and bopping or rock and roll, where you danced holding each others hand and keeping time to the beat of the music while twirling the girl around or turning around while changing hands. It was fun and you could work up a good sweat to a fast tune. This was the era of Elvis, the Platters, Connie Frances, Paul Anka, Deon, Fats domino, Temptations, all the doo wap groups the Shirelles, the Silloettes, Franking and the Avalons, etc This was the mid to late 50's. I was good at the rock and roll dances and so was a girl named Sandra Gunter we were always encouage to dance. The school year ended at the end of May in 1956 and I turned 16 on June 1st. I had been driving a tractor for years on the farm and my dad had let me drive on the farm roads . You did not have to get a learners permit back then You could pass the written test and then you could take the driving test. I had studied the handbook for drivers and wasn't worried about passing. My dad took me to the drivers license bureau in Reidsville to take the written test. It was tougher than I had anticipated but I passed by about 2 or 3 questions. They let me take the drivers test the same day. I had a litle problem with the parallel parking having to line up twice to make it.but I was given my drivers license. My Dad had a truck and I really do not think he wanted me to drive it so when I asked for a car he said we would go and look for one. He had a friend who ran a used car lot in Reidsville and I got the car he felt he could afford a 49 chevrolet 2 door club coupe. I believe he had to pay 260 dollars for it. It was a stick shift . I wasn't crazy about it but I was glad to have my own transportation. I was the only one of the children in the family that had their own car. My older brothers and sisters made sure that I knew this. when they came to visit. I now was able to drive on Saturaday night when it was my turn and we would often visit at each others homes during the week. It was now my duty to drive my mother to get groceries and to carry her to church each Sunday morning and other places she needed to go.I did this willing and had no problems with it. I think this made my dad happiest and was probably the reason he was willing to get me car. Summer came and went and I was now a Junior at Monticello High School. I drove to school now rather than ride the school bus. I was more comfortable with myself and with my friends. However we were given too much freedom and trust by our parents and the school administration. We came up with an idea that one of us would carry a written note(which we had written for each other and signed the parents name.) to the principle's office asking that we be allowed to leave early and then that person would leave then meet 3 or 4 of the guys at the back of the school and then take off to the nearest town Greensboro or Reidsville. We would be gone for about 4 or 5 hours then return just before time to go home and the driver would let the guys out and they would sneak back in the school. We got by with this the first two or three times we tried it but on the 4th time I was caught by Mr. Reid the principle. The other guys made it back in. Because I would not tell who the others were he decided to expell me for 30 days. I still do not know what transpired but somehow my parents were able to get Mr. Reid to allow me to change schools back to my old school Bethany High School. We were only about 2 miles from the county line between Rockingham and Guilford County so I could drive my car to the countyline store park it and catch the Rockingham Bus around six thirty in the morning the ride was around 1 hour and thirty minutes. I had to change busses at the elementary school to get to the High School. I did not get home in the evening until around 4:30 or 5:00 pm. So I was back at the school where I started, in my Junior year. I still had my friends from Monticello and we got together on the week ends. and during the summer months. I settled in to the routine and made pretty good grades. Summer came and went and I started my Senior year at Bethany. I went out for the basketball team and made the starting five so I was allowed to drive my car when we had basketball practice or a game. Believe it or not Bethany and Monticello were scheduled to play each other twice. Both games were close, the teams split the series each winning at home. I played well in both games but did better in the loss scoring 18 points. I also had cousins who were cheerleaders that went to Stokesdale a school in our conference. We were always talking to each other when we would get together about the basketball rivalry. Bethany won both the away and home games against Stokesdale and I was a major contributor to the wins. The reason for mentioning this cousin rivalry will come to light later in my story. I was really enjoying myself, doing well in school and even had a sort of girlfriend who played on the girls basketball team. I always sat with her on the activity bus to and from the games. I recall a lot of details about my high school days but right now I cannot recall her name. I was also dating girls from Monticello High School and I do remember their names but none were serious so I will not mention them. Life always has a way of changing your plans, mine changed one night on the way home from basketball practice. I was driving home on my regular route turning right at Waynick's store on US 158 and going into a curve on that road I lost control of my car. I do not know what happened I don't think I was speeding going around 55 mph. Maybe I took my eyes off of the road, maybe something happened to the car. I just remember waking up lying in a ditch with the car over me straddling the ditch. How I wound up in the ditch I do not know but if I had not landed in the ditch the car would have crushed me. I remember pulling myself out from under the car evidently I had been laying there for a while. A car had been behind me and had called the ambulance. I was dazed and bleeding from an abrasion on the side of my face. I was walking down the road when the ambulance got there. They carried my to the Annie Penn Hospital in Reidsville and called my parents. I had a slight concussion but no broken bones and a large scab on the side of my face. I was really, really sore for the next couple of weeks. My parents decided that I could no longer drive to school and that I should change back to Monticello. Mr. Reid was no longer the principle at Monticello and I was allowed to change back in the middle of my senior year. As a result I wound up with my picture and name in both Annual yearbooks. So now when the invitations are mailed out for class reunions I get invitations from both the Bethany Class and Monticello Class of 1958. And I go to both. So I was back at Monticello for the remainder of my senior year. It was not as dramatic a change as before since I already knew 99 percent of my class and schoolmates. I was allowed to play basketball which usually required a waiting period when a student changed school. I guess it may have had something to do with my circumstances. I was not a starter like I had been on the Bethany team but I was a major reserve and got a fair amount of playing time. Stokesdale where my cousins were students was on the Monticello schedule and they played them twice. I had already played against Stokesdale as a Bethany Bulldog and had good games. So when I got to play against Stokesdale as a Monticello Eagle and had two very good games it made for interesting conversations when the cousins got together at family gatherings. My life settled down to finishing the school year and graduating. My friends and I were constantly discussing what we would be doing when we graduated. Garret Chrismon and I decided we might want to try and join a branch of the armed services. My older brother Clyde had served in the Airforce and my brother F.D. had served in the Navy and my brother Horace was presently in the Navy. So we went to the Armed Services recruiting office in Greensboro and talked with the recruiter. We were given tests to see what we would be suited for and we both had good scores. I was told that I could have my choice of which branch I wanted to join. The result was that I decided not to join and Garret wound up in the Army. I had no desire to go on to college or what I wanted to do with my life. I knew my dad did not have the money to send me to school and full scholarships were not available to me. I just knew I did not want to be a farmer and I wanted a job where I could make some money and get on with my life. My father had a half brother John Clemmons Combs who worked at Sears Roebuck Catalogue Sales Warehouse, A regional mail order warehouse that employed over 4,000 employees in Greensboro, NC. He got me an interview with the personel office and I was hired as an Order filler in Section 3, Department 64, Building Supplies and Equipment. This was my first job out of High School, I worked 8 hours per day. I would pick up a order form that had been received and processed by clerical workers from people who would order an item from the Sears Catalogue either by phone or filling out an order form in the catalogue before it came to me. There were 5 people in Department 64. Lewis Bullins, our Department Supervisor, myself, Claude Hopper, James Pruitt, and one other who I cannot remember.I along with 4 other guys would read the items on the order form, go to the bin where they were stored; package them if they needed it and place the shipping labels on each package that accompanied the order. The packages were then sent to the shipping department where they were then sent to the customer. I would place my initials on the order mark it filled and return it to the order office. There were a lot of products that you had to know where they were located in the warehouse. It was hard work and there were few times during the day that you actually caught up with the orders coming in to be filled. You got a 15 minute break in the morning and a 15 minute break in the afternoon. You got an hour for lunch. You could either bring your lunch or eat in the cafeteria that was located in the plant. You could have left the plant for lunch but you had to check in and out of the plant and it did not give you much time to go to a place, order, get your food and get back in time to start your afternoon workload. I usually carried my lunch, a sandwich or ate in the cafeteria which had fairly good food and after working hard all morning you were hungry and most anything would taste good to an 18 year old. One of the reasons I brought my lunch of course was economics but we also had other activities during lunch like card games and ping pong. I wasn't very good at cards but I loved to play ping pong(table tennis). We had some really good players and I was one of them. I really enjoyed these lunchtime games. I worked at Sears for almost 2 years, one time being laid off for a period of six weeks because of a slow down in mail orders, and then being brought back to work when business picked back up. I learned a lot in my first job, that you needed to work hard, that your job depended on the economy and you need to take charge of your life because no one else will. I made a lot of friends and acquaintenances while working with Sears, many whose influence and friendship would have an impact on how my life would develope both careerwise and otherwise. One person would impact my life within the next year and one 40 years later. While I was working at Sears I had taken a correspondence course in drafting. I learned to use a slide rule and handle drafting tools. The course was composed of 24 lessons that took about a week for each lesson where you were given a drafting project to complete along with questions you had to solve and answer. It wasn't easy and it cost a lot. But it was an avenue to improve my chances at gaining a skill and getting a better job, so with a heafty down payment and monthly payments I managed. By the time I had completed around 14 of the lessons I got a break. There was a gentleman named Horace(shorty) Faucette who lived in our neighborhood and worked at the City of Greensboro as Asst. City Engineer. he told me of an opening In Engineering Office that would allow me to use my drafting skills. He got me an appointment with the city Engineer Mr Karl Ponzer, I interviewed and showed them some of my completed projectsand talked to him about what I wanted to do with my life. I do not recall what I said but I got the job. My position at the City of Greensboro Engineering Department was in the Assessment Division. It was our job to take the as built drawings of street improvement projects such as water and sewer installations, storm drains, paving, and curb and gutter and finalize them. Some were upgrades of existing streets but most were of new subdivision streets in housing developments that were being built in the existing city limits or had petitioned to come into the city limits. The construction division designed and drew the plans to build and improve the streets which consisted of a plan view and a profile view of the street to be built or improved. The plan view showed what was above the ground and the profile view showed what was below the ground such as the depth and size of the water, sewer and drainage lines. After the project was completed it was our division's job to take the as built drawing, which was pencil on linen. Make the pencil drawings more permanent by inking in the lines, then check the construction costs against the drawings from notes by the design engineer and survey crews and then apportion out the cost of the project to the adjacent property owners on a linear foot basis. For example the cost per linear foot of a water or sewer line could vary due to its size and the depth of the line in addition to the price a contractor would bid to complete the project. We would then determine the amount of front footage of the adjacent properties from deeds, subdivision plats, and other means and then apportion the appropriate costs to each lot based on their front footage. There were exemptions for items such as corner lots and street rights of way. The final result was a document called an assessment roll which was a legal document adopted by the City Council and became a lien on each piece of property. The adjacent property owner could either pay in a lump sum or finance it over 10 years at six percent interest on the annual unpaid balance. Of course I did not start out doing all of this right away. My first duties were to ink in the pencil lines on the line drawings and pass them on to the others in the office who would make the computations and check my work. I was pretty good at inking the drawings and was good at free hand lettering so I guess they liked my work. We always stayed several months behind the construction of the streets. My supervisor was Emmitt Sumner, and there were 5 others in this particular division, myself, Kenneth Russell, Jan Richards, Mr. Madder and Mr. Elliot. Most of the others had some type of engineering background. Mr. Madder was a refugee from Hungary who had been an engineer but because of age he did not want to go out in the field, Mr. Elliot, was born American but had spent most of his life in Nicaragua as an engineer he was in his sixties also. He had once been married to the daughter of that country's president. He had returned to Greensboro to look after his mother who was ill and when she died he came to work for the city. Jan had a couple of years at engineering school and Kenneth had been a crew leader on a survey crew who moved into the engineering office. As Emit gained confidence in my work he allowed me to gradually handle the computations and assessment rolls. I am deeply indebted to all the people in this office as they were willing to teach me the things I did not know how to do. I guess they saw me as a young guy of 20 who really wanted to learn. I kept a notebook with the formulas and instructions of the many engineering principles and mathematical computations I learned. I still have the notebook and have referred to it often over the course of my career. I particularly learned a lot from Mr. Madder and Mr. Elliot who had generations of experience and knowledge they freely shared. I remember many interesting conversations with them about their lives and experiences. Mr. Madder whose full name consisted of seven names relating to his ancestors had owned an engineering and construction company in Hungary, before the communist took it from him taught me many engineering principles along with Mr. Elliot. During a discussion about Hungarian goulash, Mr. Madder decided to take me home with him for lunch and show me. It turned out to be what I call beef would stew. The other nice thing about this visit was I got to meet his wife who was a very good artist and a very nice lady. I may not have gotten any college credits toward my education but I have always felt that these two men taught me more than I would have gotten in an engineering class. Doing what we did with the as built drawings was kind of like reverse engineering and often we would go and talk with the design engineer to make sure about what he had intended as the final result I was able learn from them also as they would explain to me the reasoning behind the design. I worked for the City of Greensboro Engineering Department for over 2.5 years and made many friends including people in the other departments like Planning and Recreation. I still had my friends at the Monticello Community but we were not as close as we had been, a couple had gone on to College and a couple had gotten married and we did not have that carefree lifestyle we once had. I had become close friends with a young guy a year older than me named Ron in another section of the engineering department and we began to do things together and sometimes we would double date. Ron had a steady girlfriend, I dated sporadically. Several times his girlfriend would line me up with someone. Ron and I had both discussed the need to go back to school We kept promising ourselves that we would start back to school at night but we were having too much fun to do anything about it. Ron and I would get together sometimes on weekends double dating and doing other things together. On one particular weekend, Ron asked if I wanted to go with him and his girlfriend to a park in Virginia. I think it was called Fairy stone Park. I said I would go if I could find a date. I remembered a girl who I had met while working at Sears. Her brother Donald Roberts was my ride to work at Sears.and one Monday morning when Donald picked me up his sister who also worked at Sears was with him. We introduced ourselves and talked on the way to work. Why I suddenly remembered Linda Roberts over a year later is a mystery. Maybe it was destiny maybe it was something else. But somehow I got her number and called her and she agreed to go with me on that particular Saturday. That is where my relationship started with Linda. After dating for 5 or 6 months, I asked her to marry me. Fortunately she said yes and we were married in the home of her pastor from Ellisboro Baptist Church. on December 2nd, 1961. We took a three day honeymoon to Asheville, NC. I remember it rained most of the time but I don't think we cared... We came back to our first home which was a rental on Oakmont Avenue in Greensboro. A 4 room house. Two bedrooms, a livingroom and a Kitchen. The rent was $63 per month. We furnished the house with money I had gotten from selling My 1959 Oldsmobile 98 to my dad and I had bought a less expensive car. I used the difference to buy the furniture from a company in Winston Salem where my Sister Betty worked. They basically furnished hotels and motels. After 51 years, we still have the coffee table and use it in our current house in Clinton. Linda continued to work at Sears and I would carry her to work each morning before I went to work at the city. I remember my sister Betty and Mother were visiting one Sunday because Linda wasn't feeling well. We had been married about 4 months

There were times when a property line or deed would be in question when finalizing a construction project and completing the assessment roll, which delineated the amount of property assessment the property owner would owe the city. When it could not be resolved in the office it would be necessasary to go to the register of deeds office at the Guilford County Courthouse and look up a copy of the deed or plat where the engineer and survey crews got their information... Sometimes you would have to replot the deeds and property lines to make the amount of frontage work out. I was in the County Register of deeds one day and happen to hear about an opening for a draftsman in a new planning department the county was creating. I decided to check it out and called the planning department. Durwood Curling answered the phone. He was the new County Planning Director they had hired, at the time he was the only employee in the department and he was looking for someone to help him in preparing maps of the county. He asked me to fill out an application and come over for an interview. In the interview I discussed my background, my family and what I was trying to do with my life along with the salary. The salary was the important thing for me because with a baby almost due and Linda not working finances were tight. He said that he had several applicants to review and would let me know. Well I got the job. I will always be grateful to Derwood Curling for giving me this opportunity. My career may have turned out completely different if I had not been hired. The week I was to go to work my oldest son Martin Wayne Combs was born at Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro. Linda was in the hospital for about a week and was to go home from the hospital on the day I was to go to work. So I went to work on the morning of September 14, 1962 worked for two hours asked off for two hours. Went by the hospital picked up Linda and Marty carried them to our home in Monticello and went back to work. I made up the two hours by working late and went home to my wife and new son. There were a lot of new experiences going on in my life at the time. New child, new job, working with new people. Marty cried a lot as a baby and I took my turn with Linda in walking him and feeding him at odd hours of the night. he grew out of the crying after about three to four months. The work environment was probably a lot easier on me because I was learning a lot of new things and really liked my new boss. The reason the county had created the Planning Department was to implement Zoning and Subdivision regulations in the county. My job was to prepare maps of each township from aerial photographs and to ride with Durwood each road in the county identifying the structures that were visable on the aerial photographs as to their current use such as residence, commercial, industrial, recreational or institutional. We did this with colored pencils, yellow was residential, red was commercial, blue was industrial, green was recreational etc. This was a huge undertaking for two people Derwood and I would spend time on three tasks, He and I would ride and identify the types of land use on the aerial photographs, I would work on drawing a map of each township, there were 13 in the county. It took us a little over a month to complete each town ship so we anticipated the initial work to take about a year and six months. He would work on writing the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations and once a month we would meet with the planning board;. a group of people appointed by the county commissioners to review and approve the work of the planning department. About three month later Durwood hired a secretary, Mellisa. Her job was to answer the phone, type up the new ordinances Durwood was writting and to take the minutes of the Planning Board. Melisa and I got along from the day she came to work she was about 10 years older than me. This was the basic routine for the next year except for smaller projects that would be given to us by the county manager. One morning when I came in Derwood informed me he had been offered the Planning Directors Job in the New City of Chesapeake Virginia. It was to be the largest city in area in the United States. They had taken the total county of Chesapeake along with the town located in it and incorporated into a city. It was apparent that this had been done to keep Norfolk. Va. from annexing portions of Chesapeake County. This was a really major move up for him and combined with the him being from that area he felt that he needed to accept the position. Evidently he liked my work because he offered to take me with him as an employee in the new department. I don't recall what discussion Linda and I had about the offer but I could not accept. With a small child and Linda had been back at work for. Less than a year at Sears and our families were located in Guilford and the adjacent county of Rockingham I felt I should turn down that offer... I had learned a lot about planning from Derwood and really liked him as a person. Later in my career I would have contact with him when he was the City Manager of Chesapeake., and when he was Executive Director of a Regional Development Agency created by the State of Virginia. Derwood's replacement was Lindsey Cox. Lindsey was a Local Landscape Architect who had worked for the State of North Carolina Department of Natural and Economic Resources as a Community Planner. Lindsey and I were immediately good co workers and also friends. He made sure you recognized his position during work but after work we played softball and basketball together. Another thing I liked about Lindsey he was willing to share his knowledge and skill as a draftsman, landscape architect and planner He was definitely a teacher. He also encouraged me to go back to school to get a College degree telling me that if I ever hoped to be a planner I would need a degree. Linda and I talked about me going to the night division of Guilford College which was close to the Planning Department offices. .. So after getting all my records in order and paying my tuition, I started class in the spring of 1963, taking two courses from the core curriculum. Guilford was a private school and was expensive at $35 per semester hour. So my tuition was over $250 including fees and I had to pay for my books. This was a lot of money for me but I managed. The school did allow you a couple of months to pay your tuition in full. So two nights a week I would go directly from work to school have classes from 6 pm to 10 pm and then go home. In later years after the department had grown; once a month the department would meet and discuss planning principles and problems. I usually knew the solutions and answers from having spent the first couple of years listening to his instructions and helping him with projects. After Lindsey came to work we changed to where I stayed in the office and worked on the maps and Melissa and Lindsey would finish up the land use surveys by marking the uses on the aerial photographs. Work moved faster with this schedule and in about eight months I had completed the maps of each township and transferred the land use data to each map. Lindsey had completed the drafts of the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations. It was time to introduce zoning and land use regulations to Guilford County. Guilford was only the second county in the state to consider zoning and land use regulations. The county commissioners felt that the explosion of housing developments out in the rural area required this protection for the property owners. It was not a popular move with farmers and those people who did not like government regulation. I felt it had the support of most of the people. Also it was about this time that the county was in the process of consolidating the many small high schools throughout the county into 4 larger high schools due to rulings on busing and segregation and did not want the development around these schools to take away from the large investment that was being made. It was decided by the Board of County commissioners to hold a public hearing to get comments from the people in each township. Lindsey had to develop the material that would educate the public about the reasons that zoning and subdivision regulations were needed. We spent about a month developing an educational brochure for the meetings. I did whatever Lindsey asked which mainly illustrating some of the principles on zoning and subdivions and putting together the brochure. I must have hand collated hundreds of this brochure to hand out to the public. It was about 20 pages. So armed with the maps, signs, brochures and a slide projector a public hearing was advertised and held in each township. As I had mentioned earlier the farmers felt we were trying to regulate them, and the developers who did not want to build the proper streets and just sell off lots along with the 15 percent who are going to be against most anything. We had our supporters and the educational materials used to explain what was happening helped a lot. But those opposed to zoning and land use regulations are always the most vocal. While we were educating public about the need to protect their property values, safety and health by establishing standards for development, space between buildings, setbacks from street lines, and proper engineering and planning for streets and utilities; by showing slides of junk yards next to schools and housing developments, large industrial buildings that created noise and pollution, and roads and streets where the pavement had deteriorated or there were large ruts and holes in them that prevented or hindered people from getting to their homes in inclement weather. We showed them subdivisions where the developer had sold of all the lots and had never finished the improvements such as streets and utilities and drainage. There was a small group of very vocal people who said we were taking away their right to use their property that we were going to be telling people where they could live and how many children they could have, that we were going to regulate the crops of the farmers and how many animals they could raise. We were compared to communists, Russia and China. Some of their arguments and actions were so outrageous and extreme that they defeated themselves. This was my introduction on how people can react when they think their freedoms or rights are being threatened. It was a struggle and on a couple of occasions there were implied and direct threats. In the long run common sense won out as people were beginning to see the examples we had pointed out in their own neighborhoods and when the final public hearing was held by the Board of County Commissioners the vocal minority had their say, but there were many others who spoke up for reason and championed the need for regulations that would protect the county's investment in its schools, the public's investment in protecting their neighborhoods from being encroached upon by undesirable or incompatible development, and protect the prospective purchaser of a building lot from the fly by night developers. The ordinance passed on its first reading by a six to two vote and by a similar vote on the second reading. Included with the ordinance was the thirteen zoning maps that I had been working on with Durwood and Lindsey for the past two years. I felt a real sense of accomplishment having been a part of it. Over the next year the department would spend the majority of its time adjusting the boundaries of the different zones and revising sections of the zoning ordinance. Also an ordinance had to be developed and approved that would regulate quality and density of housing developments, and design such as street construction, drainage and water and sewer utilities. The department grew rapidly, the first planner hired was Daryl who would enforce the zoning ordinance and handle the rezoning cases. I worked mostly with Daryl since I had prepared the maps and we had to put together drawings and related materials that went to the planning board and county commissioners. Lindsey was a hand on person and was involved in training Daryl. I was right there listening so I learned as much as Daryl, maybe more. The department was now divided into current planning which was basically zoning cases and enforcement of land development ordinances, future planning which involved creating ordinances, creating a future land use plan for the county (normally the land use plan precedes the zoning ordinance and maps but the directions given the department was to get zoning started as soon as possible) and undertaking research and conducting studies and recommendation on items the county manager gave to the planning director. I worked with both departments. Dennis Lynch was hired as the first planner in the future planning division. Dennis and I got along very well and would go to the Y during lunch to play basketball we did not socialize since he lived in High Point and I lived in Greensboro. Dennis only worked in the Department for a year and went back to school at Georgia Tech to get his masters in Planning. I really think Dennis decision was influenced by hiring of Pertu Virtanen who was brought in to head up the future planning Division. Dennis would be a further influence in my career about 3-4 years later. Over the next 3 years planners came and went some staying as few as six months. We hired an additional draftsman and I was promoted to Chief draftsman to supervise a new mapping program that included topography and much more detail at a larger scale, we also hired an illustrator with an art background to illustrate the many publications the department was producing. The department had grown to a director, current planner, chief planner (future) planner, planner, Chief draftsman, draftsman, illustrator and two secretaries. Planning was a hot career at the time and there were opportunities in many other counties and towns that were opening up departments. Since Guilford County had been one of the first to institute zoning and planning, Planners that came through the department went on to other jobs and higher pay. The current planner was the most volatile position and after working and with and training 4 current planners in 5 years I finally confronted Lindsay with what I had been thinking for at least a year. I told him I know how to do this job I have done it for you when you were between current planners, I may not have my degree yet but I have two years of college under my belt, give me a shot at it. Lindsey listened to me and I started doing the work of the current planner. I prepared the maps and recommendations of the zoning cases and reviewed the subdivision plats and worked with the developers in interpreting the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations I did not get the title of current planner because it required a degree in planning or a 4 year degree in a compatible subject. I was called Assistant Planner but I did get a raise in pay. I also continued to supervise the mapping program which took little time since all I had to do was review the draftsman's work and he was very good at his job. I worked for the planning department for 5 years, it was a time of growth and learning and many of my co-workers became lifelong friends that I would encounter in later stages of my career in different capacities and responsibilities. Chuck Boyd who was one of the planners who I had worked with at the Guilford County Planning Department was the Director of special projects for the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission. He called me about a position they had open for Assistant Director of Special Projects. I went and talked with him and the executive Director about the job and decided to take it. It was $2,000 more in salary than I was making.I felt it would give me experience in redevelopment and I did learn a lot. I assisted the Director in preparing the applications for redevelopment by surveying the structures and conditions in the area that we were presenting to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. They provided the majority of the funds to pay for demolition, rehabilitation and improvements to change the housing and living conditions in low income areas with deteriorating and slum residences. We had several projects going at the same time. Some were being completed and some were just starting and some were in between. Once a dilapidated residence or commercial building was acquired one of my duties was to work with the demolition contractor to see that it was demolished on schedule so that the grading contractors could move in and prepare the area for installation of improvements and new construction. Contractors were always blaming each other for hold ups so I had my hands full. I also had to interview the workers to make sure that that the private contractors were paying the required Davis Bacon Act wages for certain jobs. It seems that I was always arbitrating between contractors and writing violation warnings. While the pay was more than I had been making and I liked the people I worked with. I did not really enjoy the job or the work. I worked there for about 18 months and did not really enjoy the job or the work. I worked there for about 18 months and the opportunity to get back into planning came up. Dennis Lynch who I had worked with at the Guilford County Planning Department had been hired as the New Planning Director for Alamance County. Alamance had decided to institute zoning, subdivision regulation and other land use controls. He called and asked if I might be interested in coming to work with him. Dennis who now went by the name of Parker Lynch knew I had the experience of working in the early years of the Guilford County Planning Department and he had worked with me so he knew my capabilities and that my experience would be an asset for Alamance County. I was still going to Guilford College night division and had completed enough semester hours to be classified as a rising senior. I still lacked about 30 semester hours. If I took the job we would be living in Graham, NC which was only about 24 miles from the Night campus of Guilford so I could still finish my degree. We worked out the details of the job and I was hired as the assistant County Planner. I got a little over a thousand in raise which wasn't a lot but I was now back in an occupation I was more comfortable with and enjoyed doing. Dennis and I had gotten along really well when we worked together at Guilford County and we worked well together at Alamance County. Dennis was the consummate professional and placed high importance in his Master's Degree and professional organizations such as the American Institute of Planners and American Association of Planning Officials. I felt he was somewhat arrogant in this regard but that may have been because I had yet to achieve a Bachelors degree. Parker did give me the opportunity to write reports and prepare ordinances and studies; along with this I also used my drafting skills and knowledge of maps to establish a base of maps for the county's land use plan. Some of my work Parker accepted and was always complimentary if he likes it but, He could be overly critical if he did not like some of the items I submitted for review. I took the criticism as I hoped it was intended and learned a lot in those early years of the department about writing ordinances and working with Public officials. As I mentioned earlier there was a great demand for planners and the State Department of Natural Resources had established a six month training program for new employees they had hire that had a degree in a related subject but were not educated in planning. The program consisted of 14 students and the state allowed 3 or 4 local government employees to attend. Parker asked if I would like to attend I said yes. So we worked it out that I would go to the training program 3 days a week and work for 2 days and the county would continue my salary. We had hired two additional employees a secretary and a draftsman/illustrator. The two days I worked at the planning department were spent making sure that the work was continuing and moving along, most of the time it was necessary to work at least a half a day on Saturday and sometimes all day. Parker did not have to do this but he saw the value to Alamance County, to me and intervened to get me in the program. Looking back I really appreciate what parker did for me in this regard. This program was recognized and respected by municipalities and counties in the state and I was fortunate to participate. Of the 14 participants 11 were state employees and 3 were local government employees. We would have a full day of classes in a large house in Raleigh across from the Governor's Mansion that had been renovated for this purpose. We started at 9 am and got out at 4 pm, our instructors came from experienced planners working for the state as well as professors who taught at the NCU School of planning and the School of Government. In addition to the classes in Raleigh, I continued my classes at the Guilford College Night Campus. It was a busy schedule but I had already been exposed to the majority of the material we were covering in Raleigh at the Planning School so I did well in the program. The toughest part was getting from Raleigh to Greensboro on the days I had classes in both places. It was over 90 miles between the two cities; luckily I lived about 60 miles from Raleigh where I had to go first leaving at 7:30 in the morning getting out of class at 4 pm, driving to Greensboro for classes from 6pm to 10pm and getting home about 11 pm. . My grades at Guilford slipped a little because of lack of study time I did not have a lot of time for family but with the help of my wife, I made it through those six months. We completed the land use plan for the county along with a draft zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations, and initiated zoning around the 4 new consolidated high schools . The process went much smoother In Alamance County than in Guilford since the County Commissioners had seen the benefits in Guilford County. I received my Batchelor of Science Degree in Management and Managerial economics from Guilford in the summer of 1970, 8 years after I had started. It was sort of anticlimatic, I had no desire to go through the graduation ceremony. So I had them mail me my diploma. I was just glad to have finished and was relieved that I had more time for family and work. Parker informed me one morning in July of 1970 that he was taking the position of Executive Director of the Fayetteville/ Cumberland County Planning Department. He worked a three week notice and I was left as the person to run the department and work with the planning board and respond to requests from the County Manager and County Commissioners. I knew they were going to hire a replacement for Parker and while I felt I could handle the job, realistically I accepted I did not have the educational creditials that the job description required. I do feel that these few months of responsibility increased my confidence in myself and my ability to make decisions and direct an organization. Charles Sioussat was hired as the Planning Director for Alamance County in October of 1970. Working for Charles was different than working for Parker, he seemed to respect my opinions more and gave me less supervision in the projects where I had responsibility. He also let me present projects directly to the planning board and county commissioners. I had been doing this in the months between directors. Whether this was by design on his part I'm not sure. But it made me feel I was more a part of a team and made me want to do the best job possible. Charles and I got along really well, we did not interact socially as much as Parker and I had but there was a mutual respect there and we made a great team. The department now had five people, a secretary, Draftsman/Illustrator, Planning intern, myself, and the Planning Director. The Planning Board consisted of 12 members, 8 appointed by the county commissioners and the mayor of each of the municipalities in the county. I got to know each of the board members well and on several occassions had worked on special projects with the towns. In 1972, I was approached by the mayor of the Town of Mebane who asked if I would be interested in interviewing for the Position of Town Manager. Mebane was a town of 2500 that strattled the county lines of Alamance and Orange. Counties. They had only adopted the Town Manager form of government a year ago and their manager was resigning. I had not considered Town Management up till then. But I reasoned my degree was in management and economics and in a small town the manager is planning director, personnel officer, budget officer so it would not be totally unfamiliar territory. So I agreed to the interview. After the interview I was offered the job at a better salary than I was presently making. I talked with Charlie about taking the position and although he said he would hate to lose me it would be a step up. I had also become good friends with Bruce Turney, the city manager of Graham, NC where I lived and I had done a couple of planning studies for the city of Graham. Bruce encouraged me to take the position and offered his assistance if I needed any help. The Town Board of Commissioners allowed me to continue living in Graham until Marty could finish the school year and there was only about 9 miles between the towns. So I became the Town Manager of Mebane, NC at the age of 31. I was responsible for the hiring and firing of a Staff of 35 employees and handling a budget of over 2 million dollars. I had done capital improvement plans and suggested capital budgets for some of the Towns in Alamance County. I initially looked at managing a town from the planning viewpoint but I quickly found that most management decisions I had to make were of a crisis nature. Something had broken or happened that required a quick decision or solution for a department to keep running or a service to be delivered. Of course a planning background was helpful in a lot of the aspects of managing a town, such as zoning, subdivion regulations, and if you could anticipate where and what your problems were you could devise a plan for remeding. I knew I had to learn a lot of new things about operating a town and making sure that it was properly staffed and that services such as police, fire, public works and water and sewer were delivered to the residents of Mebane in an economical and effecient manner. I spent a lot of time talking to my friend Bruce Turney in Graham and he helped me a lot in Budgeting. I depended a great deal on the existing staff to provide me with information. The city clerk/finance officer was a very knowledgable and hard working lady named Mrs. Whitfield The Water and Sewer Superintendent had been there 37 years, Gilbert Scarlett, The public works director was named Jack Fields and he had been there over 20 years. The Police Chief had been there for over 10 years. Mebane was just off of Interstate 85 and the city limits almost reached I-85. Growth was taking place both industrially and residentially and a lot of decisions had to be made in preparing the town for this growth. There was also a political problem of the old guard and those anticipating new growth. There were two commissioners representing White Furniture Company who for years had been the major employer in Mebane and had enfluenced local politics. They saw that they were beginning to lose some of their workers to new industry's that were paying a higher wage and in turn they were having to raise their wage rates to maintain their work force. One commissioner owned the local telephone company and he had a definite interest in growing his company's client base. the other commissioner was a professor at Alamance Community College and he was progressive, the fifth commissioner of the 5 was a native who had grown up in Mebane and had run a service station until he retired. He was the deciding vote on many of the decisions the board had to make and you never knew which side he would end up on. I tried to maintain a neutrality but it was difficult as I wanted to see the town grow and prosper and increase its tax base. My friend, Bruce Turney, had made me aware of a program offered by the NC Institute of Government at the University of NC. This was a program designed to educate new managers and those with ambition to manage in local municipalities and counties. The participants would attend class at the intitute of Government for two days a week over a six month period. During this six months the participants would be exposed to all aspects of town and county government. The instructors came mostly from the UNC faculty and experienced managers along with special instructors in selected fields. I got permission from the Mayor and Board of Commissioners to apply. They limited it to 36 students. Fortunately I was accepted into the program and began the program during my second year as manager of Mebane. I had to do a lot of work at night and on week ends to make up for the time I was away from the office and the town. When you take on the responsibility of the manager of a town, you obligate yourself to being on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week. A major fire, a severe storm, anything that may disrupt or threaten the services, living conditions, or saftey of a town requires the manager to be aware, be present, or make judgement calls to resolve or prepare the staff and town. During my first year In addition to serving as planner, purchasing agent, budget office I set out to learn all I could about the town even getting out on days and working with the laborers, department heads, and staffing attending meetings of any and all advisory boards appointed by the council. The list of items uncovered could fill a book. I admit I was inexperienced and green but I knew when things were being withheld from me and I wasn't getting full answers to my questions. I began to wonder if they were incapable of answering the questions I was posing or they were deliberately hiding or withholding information. During my first year these are just a few of the things I discovered. (1)The Town Hall was located in an old bank building and records storage and valuables were kept in the former vault. In cleaning out the vault where the records and information was kept, we found a cigar box with $75,000 in cash and a ledger with names of present and former town employees in it. No one seem to know what it was for. With a little detective work we found that the money belonged to the cemetery fund from the sale of burial plots. The former clerk who had died was making payday loans to town employees at 6% interest. We were never able to prove it but we think he pocketed the interest. (2) The town had an agreement with Orange County to supply water to an industrial park just accross the county line. The county had sold bonds to pay for the lines in the Park and the town had agreed to make the interest payments on the bonds. The idea had been to use the proceeds from the sale of water and sewer to generate the funds to pay the interest. The agreement had been in effect for 7 years and the county had not been sucessful in recruiting a large water and sewer user to generate revenue for the town. They had recruited several industry's but none were generating enough revenue to make the interest payments. Fortunately, when we pointed this out to Orange County they did restructure the agreement to apply only the amount of the revenues received in the park.. The agreement had been in effect for 7 years and the county had not been sucessful in recruiting a large water and sewer user to generate revenue for the town. They had recruited several industry's but none were generating enough revenue to make the interest payments. Fortunately, when we pointed this out to Orange County they did restructure the agreement to obligate the town for only the amount of the revenues received in the park. (3)I had noticed the water and sewer system was barely making revenue and some months it was in the red. While riding with the Water and Sewer Superintendent who was writing down meter readings called out by other employees, I noticed that the entries he made in the meter book were different than those called out by the readers. When I asked him about it he said that the meter was not working and he was estimating how much water they were using. When I further asked why they had not replaced the meters, he said he felt the town didn't have the money and he knew how many people lived in each house so he could estimate their usage. He actually thought he was saving the town money. After checking further I found over a third of the meters were not working. I informed the Mayor and Board and we initiated a replacement program for all the meters and we found houses with leaks in pipes. It took about 6 months but the revenue increase was about 6 times the expense of the new meters.. (4) I also noticed that most every town employee in the public works and water and sewer departments were getting several hours of overtime per week. I seldom saw anyone working late. I had a time clock installed at the public works garage and each employee would punch in and out each day. When the time cards were collected the hours totaled up to a lot less that had been turned in when the Department Heads were doing them by hand. So when they got their paychecks they started complaining about getting less money. Their explaination was that since they had not gotten a raise in pay they were told to add hours to each employees time card. After informing the Mayor and Board, I was given some leaway in resolving the pay by adjusting hours and looking at the pay rates.

I had little confidence in any information coming out of the public works sand water and sewer departments, there were many other things that I found were wrong or inaccurate that needed correction. (the department heads were 25 and 37 year employees) Neither had a high school education or any training in their field, they were good at hands on stuff and operating the necessassy machinery but they had been promoted primarily because of tenure and left to work out the management of their departments in their own way.I needed someone who I had confidence in and would help me institute change. With the Mayor and Boards blessing, I brought in a Public Works Director over both Departments, who was resented from the start. It was a tough environment to put a guy in. first he didn't live in Mebane, he did not get in the ditches and operate the machinery. It was a big change for all the employees. He did everything I asked of him, he probably could have been more diplomatic In his execution of changes but he was trying to get them to change from the old way to more modern methods. The employees were running to the Mayor and Commissioners, one commissioner in particular was friends with the two department heads and the PW Director had asked him not to come around during work hours. The Board finally came to me and asked me to fire the PW director, they were somewhat split with the commissioner who was friends with the department heads the deciding vote. I stood my ground and refused to do it. I explained that he was putting into practice some of the things I had suggested. The board did not object to the changes they objected to the person. A couple of the board members went to the PW Director and asked him to resign, which he did. I felt bad about the situation, they wanted me to stay but I felt I had lost control of the personnel. I had a good rapport with Mayor Bradley and told him that I felt I should resign in the aftermath. It was close to Thanksgiving. Mayor Bradley ran a jewelry store and he had his busy season coming up. He asked if I would stay on until after Christmas so I told him I would. Not only did staying on give me a continuing paycheck but it also gave me time to look for another job. This time I looked in both the private and public sectors for employment. I applied for jobs in other towns as manager and in planning departments. I also applied with private engineering and planning firms. In November, I got a call from the mayor of Clintonm NC, George Walston to interview for the manager The Town was about 8,000 people and the county seat of Sampson County. I had never been to Clinton but had passed by it once when I spent 4 days at White Lake with my school friends my senior year. I came in early and rode around town. The entrance off of 24 from Fayetteville were delapidated row houses and there were some areas of the town mostly in the black sections that needed major rehabilitation. During my first interview, I met with Mayor Walston and members of the Board A.E. Kennedy, Mayor Protempe, Joe Best, Harold Cook, Tommy Vann.and Carl Landes. I was very open about my present situation and explained what my accomplishments had been in Mebane. I was honest when asked my opinion of the town and outlined what I felt should be the plan for the town. I saw the possibilities and felt that I had some experience and knowledge that would benefit the town. Back then my personal plan was to work hard, do a good job and keep moving until I got the size city that I felt would pay a good salary. Mayor Walston called in about a week and offered me the position. I accepted and I moved with my family to Clinton on January 3,1973. I worked in Mebane right up to the day we moved to keep my promise to mayor Bradley. Clinton was different than any place I had ever lived, the terrain,(much Flater); the people,(they talked slower and lived a slower lifestyle.) While not drastically different, I could tell the differences. But I adapted and soon became comfortable with My Mayor, town board, my neighbors, and the people I served. Emsley Kennedy, who had been on the town council since 1955, replaced Mayor Walston( who retired from his position at the radio station and moved out of town.) The board stayed the same during the next election, Mayor Kennedy, who had been on the Town Board since 1955 was a natural as Mayor. He and I worked well together, primarily because we respected each other, I recognized him as a knowledgable, natural leader. He recognized me as a young raw manager that worked hard, was ethical and needed seasoning. We had out differences. Many times we would argue the merits of a particular program or project and would have heated differences. But once a decision was made we worked as well as two people possibly could. I learned a lot from Emsley as a person, and as a manager. One statement stands out through all these years. "I do not want to be the town manager and you should not try to be the Mayor" That says a lot. He told me once "I do not mind taking the manager's calls when you are out of town, but if I get a lot while you are in town, you are not doing your job." " The board meets once a month, if we are having a lot of special meetings during the month, you are not making the proper decisions as a manager." I took these statements to heart and reading between the lines, along with many other actions and words, my approach to life and work was changed by this small man. He certainly was not an imposing figure, he had a bad leg that had been disfigured by polio and he walked with a limp but he exuded character and leadership and held the respect of the town. He was fair and you could trust him. Over the next two years working together with the board Emsley and I made changes and improvements to the governing structure and facilities of the city of Clinton. But I got restless again, when I saw the ad for a manager in Elizabeth City, NC . Elizabeth City was around 12,000 people and in addition to water and sewer, operated an electric utility. I was familiar with investor owned utilities but had no experience managing one. I had become good friends with the City Manager of Fayetteville, NC The largest electric utility operated by a city in NC Guy Smith was about 15+ years older than I, but we had a lot in common. We liked golf, ping pong, and we seemed to get along well. Maybe I was the son he didn't have I don't know. About once a month, he would come to Clinton, we would play golf, go to the rec center play table tennis, and just talk about what was going on in our profession and our lives. He said it relieved a lot of the pressure on him because it seemed that there was always a reporter following him or asking him questions about a controversial issue. During one of his visits, I mentioned that I was thinking of applying for the Elizabeth City position. It was a larger city, paid a higher salary, and seemed to fit into my career plans. Guy encouraged me to send my application. I received a response right away from my application and went to Elizabeth City on a Saturday in October 1974. There I met with Mayor John Bell, and the 8 member board. I had never been to Elizabeth City before and was intrigued by its history as a port in early NC history. Its streets were narrow and a couple of historic districts retained the brick streets with granite curbing. Most however had been paved over. There were open alley's which ran down the middle of each block where the horse drawn garbage and rubbish trucks used to go. All of this along with the Waterfront on the Pasquatank river were fascinating to me. The interview was in the mayors living room, it was a Saturday, and I had carried Linda and the boys with me. The location and the interview was not typical of interviews I have had but I felt comfortable and answered their questions honestly and was open about my career and family. I got a call around Wednesday of the next week offering me the job. I really liked my Mayor and Board in Clinton and it was tough to break the news to them. They had treated me well. They did ask why I had not come to them before I accepted the offer and said they would match the salary. I had not expected that and almost did not go. I sought advice from a good friend who taught at the School of Government at UNC. He said to me, "you have already accepted the job, don't go back on your word It's good experience for you". So, after a thirty day notice to Clinton, I took a greyhound bus from Clinton to Elizabeth City. Linda was staying in Clinton until the Boys finished school I felt that was the best solution rather than have her drive the 180 miles(360) both ways. I did not realize there was a 6 hour layover in Suffolk Virginia and I had to sit outside the buss station from 12 pm till 7 the next morning to catch the bus into Elizabeth City. The Police came by and asked what I was doing there. I told them waiting for the bus to Elizabeth city. It was cold too and I was late for my first day in Elizabeth City, but everything worked out. Elizabeth City was a great experience for me. I had a great Mayor and board to work with and I quickly learned the difference between managing an electric city and one with just water and sewer utilities. There were immediate issues to address (1) Elizabeth City was considering along with other towns in eastern North Carolina that owned their electric systems of forming an agency that would own generating capacity. At that time we were buying electricity from Virginia Electric and reselling it to our customers.(2) The Water system treatment plant was over 50 years old, and their system of collecting water from shallow wells was in disrepair and briny water from the Pasquatank River was infiltrating the shallow wells. The people had just voted down a joint Elizabeth City/Pasquatank Water Bond issue of 12 million dollars to establish a surface water supply and upgrade the existing Water Plant. The city had decided to restart the water upgrade by utilizing the river and intermediate wells and upgrading the existing plant to treat either supply. I was given the task of selling a six million bond issue to the citizens right after the joint issue had failed. (3) Also I was faced with a bid opening for the city's first recreation center which came in $100,000 (20%) over the estimated cost.and there were issues about redeveloping the waterfront.

I had just taken up tennis while living in Clinton and I was fascinated by it. I was not very good at it but I was a good athlete and had good hand eye co-ordination from playing table tennis. I did not have any golfing friends in Elizabeth City and there were courts a couple of blocks from where we rented a house. So I tried to get the boys interested and would carry them to the courts. Douglas was a natural, Marty was average. The boys never got the passion for tennis that I had although Linda developed a strong interest and we became regulars on the Harney Street courts. I picked up many close friends at the courts, Glenn Hassell, Ed Griffin, Tony Hornthal, Harry Dixon, Lon Hanford, all these people became important to me as friends and as tennis partners. I still maintain contact with them although we have been gone from there for over 30 years. We had a strong Tennis Association as a community with over 100 members, we met regularly, had tournaments, and the sport became a major outlet for me athletically as well as mentally.and I feel indebted to the sport and people I have made contact through the years. In 1981 I realized a dream of attending the US OPen Tennis Tournament. I didn't have a lot of extra money to spare but I was determined to go and only entended to stay 2 days. Linda wasn't to happy with it but I think she knew how stongly I wanted to do this. Peoples Airlines was a new concept where you walked onto the plane paid your $27 one way fare to Newark, NJ. Then you could take a bus to the terminal on 42nd street for $5. I did not have tickets or a place to stay. I had heard that you could buy tickets in the early rounds easily from people. My intention was to stay at the YMCA for a small amount. So I leave the Norfolk Airport with a small carryon at 7:00 am on Monday, arrive at Newark around 8:30 am, and the Terminal Station by bus around 9:30. Walked to the YMCA 5 blocks away, found out they were full up and that you had to be a member of the YMCA to stay there, which I was not. They referred me to a hotel nearby, I cannot recall the name but it was on Broadway Avenue, it was only $7 more than the Y which would have cost me $20. It was fairly clean, but had no air conditioning or tv. All I had wanted was a place to stay for one night as I was going to attend Monday's U.S Open Day and Night session and attend the next days session and fly back to Norfolk around 8:00 pm that night. My meals consisted mostly of blimpie submarine sandwiches at an average cost of $1.89. I got set up in my hotel room and took the subway to Flushing Meadow about a 35 minute ride to the Flushing Meadow site of the open. Sure enough there were people there with tickets for sale, I was able to purchase a box seat ticket for $25 In of all places the Gerrilitus box. It seems that the first rounds were not as heavily attended in those days and I lucked upon this guy who had connections with the Gerrilitus family. For me I was in Tennis heaven, there were 26 tennis matches going on at one time and you could roam around the grounds and see players you have read about. Usually the top stars play in the grandstand and your ticket reserves you a seat in the grandstand anytime you want to go there and sit. I spent most of my time just roaming from court to court because you could get right up next to the action by just standing at the fence that surrounds the court. I spent one night in NY took in the day session the next day and caught Peoples airline home to Norfolk at 8:00 pm , landed around 9:30 pm and was back home in Elizabeth City around 11:00 pm that night. From that day on I did not miss a US open til 2012. I think I spent a total of $225 on that first trip. In later years staying an average of 5 days, with Linda going with me and staying in much better hotels, attending broadway plays and eating in fine restaurants our average cost was around $2500. Many of those trips we were accompanied by friends and fellow tennis enthusiasts. It was a trip that was a highlight of our year and we always looked forward to it. I worked for Elizabeth City from 1974 until 1983 I felt that I grew both professionally and personally during those 10 years I served on committees in the city manager association both statewide and nationally. I served on the board of Directors for the state twice . I also served on the rate committees of the National Association of Electric Cities. I was Elizabeth City's representative on the Power agency that was created to develop a power supply for the electric cities of eastern NC and served on the personnel committee of NCElectricities and many other committees.. Working with a progressive Mayor,City council, and employees of exceptional ability, we accomplished many projects and programs. A successful bond issue and completion of the water treatment and supply, construction of the towns first recreation center, Knobbs Creek Center, a scada system for the electric system, purchase of a power supply for the electric system, several redevelopment projects especially the waterfront park off Water Street. We annexed several residential areas as well as Elizabeth State University into the corporate limits. The University was not a problem as I worked with the chancelor in the annexation which was to their benefit. I know there was some feeling at the time that bringing 2000 black students into the voting population of the city would change the political structure of the city. The residential sections fought the involuntary annexations primarily because they did not want to pay city taxes but liked the urban feel of being close to all the benefits that a city offered. I took the brunt of their criticism since I presented the need to the city council. I felt that I worked hard and had a good relationship with my Mayor and council and had gained the respect of the employees which I returned in kind. Overall I felt the people respected my role as City Manager and the actions I had to take on behalf of the city. After 8 years of working with the same mayor, he decided to step down and devote more time to his business. In the next election, an existing councilman won the mayors seat. I had worked well with him as a councilman and thought I would have a good relationship with him as Mayor. Shortly after he took office he brought me a list of 20 items he wanted me to do. I looked over the list and realized that there was only 1 item that I as city manager could address, the rest would take council action. When I informed him that I would need to take the other items to the council for action, he insisted that I should do them because he said to do it. 90% of the list was personal favors he had promised people during the election. Of course I didn't do it and our relationship deteriorated from that day on. He even went to department heads and tried to get them to do things that were against city policy. They came to me asking what to do. I told them they needed to refer him to me. When they told him this it frustrated him more. I never considered him a bad person, but he was young(late 20's) wanted people to like him and did not really understand the role of the mayor. I suggested to him that he should take the new mayors orientation offered at the Institute of government at UNC. His answer was "They can't teach me anything", I still functioned well with the city council and their committees, but every council meeting he seemed to bring up the managers position and would ask for a vote of confidence. It finally got to the point that the council approved a motion that they would not consider this for at least another 6 months. Finally after about a year and 7 months of this atmosphere I sat down with him and pointed out to him that we both were unhappy with the situation and offered a solution. I did not have a contract, in fact I never worked with a contract on any of the jobs I had as city manager from the beginning until my retirement in 2002. Both the boys had left home, Marty was in the Navy and Doug was living at the beach. Linda was working at the Community College. I simply said since neither of us are happy, I feel I can get another job as a manager but it will take time so lets work out a separation allowance, he agreed and offered 8 months salary, that was more than I expected so I took it. We carried it to the city council for approval, I still had my supporters and could have continued but I felt they were tired of the situation also. So I resigned in August of 1983. I received a rather large check from the city in the high 30's and luckily we did not have any large debts other than the house where we lived at 906 Colonial Avenue. It took me a few weeks to adjust to the situation and I began to send out resumes to cities and towns that had openings. Linda was still working at the community college and we had the cushion of the large check from the city. I was 43 and out of work for the first time since I was 18 years of age. I poured myself into my tennis game and played tournaments both locally and USTA in North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina. I knew it would take a few weeks to start getting responses to the resumes that I had sent out. So I spent the next 3 to 4 months interviewing for jobs and playing in tennis tournaments. I think Linda was getting a little edgy that I might not ever go back to work. I felt I gave good interviews each time I was called. and I was called back on two or three for second interviews. In these types of interviews, It is difficult to explain why you are not presently working. I was truthful about my situation but you never know how they will accept that situation. I feel that may have caused me to lose out on a couple of jobs. Then the position in Clinton came up, I had lost out in a job to the manager of Clinton who used to work for me and had taken my place when I left to manage Elizabeth City. I applied there and was called for an interview. The mayor I had worked with in Clinton, Emsley Kennedy was still mayor and I knew most of the city council. In February of 1984, I was offered two different managers jobs Clinton and a city in the Piedmont area(Carboro). I had interviewed there about a month earlier. The salary was more at Carboro and they had even given me a day where I could go into each department, talk with the department heads and also talk individually with each councilman and the mayor, I liked all of the departments and their people, and the council and mayor were good and likable people. But I could see that there was disension within the council and between the council and the mayor. Even though the salary was $9.000 more in Carboro, looking at housing costs and living cost I felt more comfortable taking the Clinton Job. When I called the Carboro mayor to inform him that I would be taking the Clinton job. They even offered to raise the salary more if I would reconsider. I sometime wonder where I would be if I had taken the Carboro job but I also feel that I made the right decision. After working in Clinton for just 2 weeks, I received another call from an even larger city where I had interviewed offering me the manager's job. That was a very tempting offer but my conscience would not allow me to do that, I felt my reputation was worth more. After explaining that I had been working only two weeks and did not feel that I should move that quickly they held firm on their offer. I turned them down and looking back I'm glad that I did. So I was back at work after 5 months not working. I stayed in the Rosewood motel the first week until I could find more permanent lodging. Linda remained in Elizabeth City to solution. Over the next 18 years we were sucessful in cleaning up the areas that had dilapidated housing, Made further inroads in bringing the downtown back to some semblance of vitality. Downtowns will never be the major shopping areas they were in the past and their appeal will have to be on specialty shops, restarants, craft stores and some services. Landscaping and making the areas more attractive will attract some clientel and shoppers, but the big box stores and shopping centers will be the majority of the retail shopping. There was a major upgrade in quality and capacity of the Wastewater Treatment plant to accommodate an expansion of Lundy Packing Company and the establishment of an industrial park. As the city grew there was need for more space for additional personnel. We renovated a former bank building we had bought into the police department and the fire department was moved from a 60 year old facility a couple of blocks to a new facility. There was a major addition to the city hall with renovation of the council chambers and additional space for the administrative offices of the manager ,clerk and mayors offices. The volunteer fire department was gradually replaced with a full time paid department. The volunteer firemen worked for a full time chief who was hired by and worked under the city manager. As firms were reluctant to allow their employees to leave work during the day to fight fires, it became more difficult to guarentee a certain number of firemen when the need arose. Cities are graded on the number firemen who attend fires, and equipment, along with water pressure and availability. These items determine the city's fire prevention and protection capability and insurance ratings which in turn determines the rates that city residents pay for fire insurance. A low insurance rating can save hundreds and even thousands on a residence and commercial/industrial firms insurance costs. It wasn't an easy transition as volunteer fire departments are very political and some of the council had served on the fire department so the volunteers had the ears of certain council. Some felt they were losing control of an agency many devoted their lives to. It was almost like a social club for many of them and they saw it fading away. The mayor and council saw the need for the transition and backed most of the items necessary in the transition. There were several times I had to back the full time fire chief in decisions that were required. There is always a mixture of hot heads and level heads in any organization and since many of the volunteers were business men who managed and owned large firms they saw the need for the actions that were taken. It took several years to stabilize but the town benefited with better training for its firemen, better fire prevention and protection with lowering of insurance ratings and lower costs to residents and business for fire insurance. Recreation can be controversial in a city and Clinton had its share of controversy. For many years the the city and county had an extraordinary relationship in recreation. Clinton had exceptional facilities, ballfields, tennis courts, track and field facilities, picnic shelters and professional staff. Clinton opened up its facilities and programs to anyone in the county at the same rate as the town residents. In return the county funded half of the operating cost of staff and maintenance of facilities. We even went together in developing a civic center and a recreation center on a 50/50 basis. This worked well until the smaller towns like Roseboro, Newton Grove, Garland, Salemburg, Autryville, and Turkey decided that they wanted facilities and programs in their towns. I could understand why they wanted this and since most of the county commissioners were from out in the county they sympathized with the smaller towns. In order to provide a solution, Clinton offered to provide staff for these areas with the towns providing half the cost of running the programs in their area for staff and maintenance and the county providing the other half. It should have worked but the smaller towns did not feel that Clinton would give as much attention to their areas as Clinton. The county could not fund all these areas and continue to fund half of Clinton's staff and facilities. The result was establishing districts and giving each district $60,000 for staff and operations. Clinton's funding dropped from $350,000 from the county to $60,000. Clinton was left with a staff of 11 people which required the city to come up with an extra $290,000. When budgets were prepared I was forced to cut staff from 11 to 6. Also residents of the county were continuing to utilize the facilities and programs of Clinton. The city was forced to initiate charges to those county residents when we could. That brought in an extra $50-60,000 dollars but it wasn't enough. County residents felt they should have full range of our facilities and programs without having to pay extra because the county contributed the small amount of the budget. They did not want to hear the city's argument of taking over a larger portion of the costs. All of this caused friction between the city and county, it pretty much ruined a good working relationship between the managers and even spilled over into other areas such as water and sewer extensions, and the Civic center. But this wasn't unique to Sampson County. Other counties had the same problems between City and County. It just caught up with us after many years of a good working relationship with our county. Primary among the reasons were shrinking revenues, the state legislators were providing less revenues to cities and counties because their revenues were dropping, there was an economic slump so we all had to adjust. We also went through the adjustments of racial representation. The members of the city council were elected on staggered terms of 4 year terms with 2 council members elected every two years and the mayor ran every two years. While we had a black member of city council, the black community felt they should have at least 2 representatives on the council. A lawsuit was brought against the council and the city protesting the current form of elections. The lawsuit never made it to court because the council had the good judgement to see the merits of election districts and we hired an expert out of the institute of government to help us set up representative districts that gave the racial groups the representation. five election districts were set up; two of them were predominately black and three predominantly white. Of course blacks were allowed to run in predominantly white districts if they lived there and vice versa for the Black districts. But it is generally conceeded that a voter will usually vote 95% of the time for a person of the same race. Unfortunately we haven't yet reached that stage in our society where we do not recognize the color of ones skin in the voting booth. I think every one is ok with equal rights regardless of color, race, religion, etc. ,however until we are all the same shade of skin color you are going to have groups that still stand behind a person of their own skin color. The elections were held and sure enough three districts had winning white candidates and two districts had winning black candidates. One of the predominately black districts had one white candidate and two black candidates for the council seat from that ward. The white candidate got a very small percentage of the total vote and the two black candidates ran a close race. Turn out was much higher than it had been historically. Not much changed in my relationship with the council except that each member paid more attention to their district boundaries and projects that were on going in their districts. Of the black members of the council one came in with the intention of representing his district but made it clear he wanted to work with the other council members. The other was a little confrontational when an issue came up that had a little tinge of race involved. He had been a member of the group who had brought the lawsuit against the city and the other black council member had not been a member of the lawsuit. I do think the other council members looked at the two a little different and it showed in their relationship with the council. While I got along well and knew what to expect from the one councilman I was not sure about the other black councilman. I made it a point if he questioned something at a council meeting to get him information about his question, I also gave both of the new councilmen literature on how our form of government worked (Council-manager) and invited them to ride their districts with me to point out their concerns. In doing this I actually became closer to the one who I thought would be a problem. We had a lot of the same interest, we both liked to paint, we had many enlightning discussions about race relations and how we felt. I helped him with computer problems, we just seem to like one another. Today 20 years after he last served on Council, I still consider him one of my best friends and visit with him to discuss how he is doing and make sure he is ok. He is now 82. There is still the black white thing present in Clinton, but it doesn't bother us. Ours is a sincere friendship. Ward politics continued throughout the rest of my tenure as manager but the council was able to put aside those politics when a decision had to be made that was in the interest of the overall city. Through most of my years as manager I had the same council members. One might change each election but the changes were pretty smooth and they got along well. The 2001 election was a changing point, the present mayor had been in that position since 1973, and had been on council since 1955. He was in his mid 80's, two of the council members had over 20 years of straight service and I had been manager for 20 years and in local government over 40 years. I had let it be known that I would probably be retiring in June of 2002. A gentleman who was recognized as an up and coming politician decided to oppose the mayor and the incumbents up for reelection had opposition. The slogan for the opposition was it's time for a change and that seemed to catch on. Actually if they had looked closely at the city's finances and programs and overall operation everything was operating better than ever. Its difficult to see those you have worked with closely for 20 years being attacked as too old to do the job and saying they have been in office too long and they need to be replaced with someone younger. I was hoping I was not an issue since I had already announced my pending retirement in June. But I am sure that I was too closely aligned with the current mayor and council and I probably did not hide it to well. The outcome of the election was that the mayor lost the election which I know hurt him since he had not lost an election in over 46 years. One of the 20+ year incumbents lost, the other one won re-election, and a lady who had been appointed to serve out the term of her husband was reelected, so we had a new mayor and a new councilman with the remaining incumbents. But give the new mayor his due, I am pretty sure he had made a deal with the black members of the council, at the seating of the new board mayor pro tempe nominations one white one black voting was close and the black member won by a close margin. not that she would not make a good mayor protempe (the mayor protempe fills in for the mayor in his absense or incapacity). I had looked forward to working with the new mayor knowing it would only be for a few short months. Usually a new councilman or mayor doesn't understand fully how everything works and or how the mayor and council person functions under the manager/council system. The authority for policy and approval of projects and programs falls on a vote of the full council. The manager carries out the day to day operations of the city and makes sure the codes and ordinances adopted by the council are administered fairly and equally. The mayor conducts the meetings, represents the city at official functions but cannot obligate the city for projects or programs without approval of the council, and makes certain appointments to citizen committees and boards. That's the official description of how everything works under this system of government. Unofficially, the mayor can be a very powerful figure with the permission of the council and how much trust the council puts in the mayor. In his campaign he had expressed the need for change and he wanted to be a man of his word. But many of the items he brought to me were campaign promises that conflicted with current codes and ordinances and required council approval or a change in the code or ordinance that governed that specific item he wanted done. Sometimes I think he felt I was deliberately blocking him. Also, when he would ask my opinion of an action he wanted to take, I did not always agree with him. I did not do it deliberately I was just expressing my experience of 40 plus years in local government. We were cordial and treated each other with respect relative to our positions but I could tell he was frustrated. I wasn't happy or comfortable because I could feel the tension and he wanted to get involved in the operation of the city more than I had been used to, I wasn't exactly sure of what he really wanted. I don't think he wanted someone who would follow him blindly but I was pretty sure that he did not want me. If I had not been only about 4 months from retirement his path would have been simpler. We did not have a problem communicating with each other, in fact we did that very well. it was just that we each knew exactly what the problem was. I had been in similar situations and had dealt with similar situations. In one of our discussions, I suggested a solution of leaving the job early but the city extending my pay until June 30, 2002. I would remain as a consultant to the person they brought in as interim manager and also work on developing a website for the city. It took me out of the picture but did not do any harm to my present plans of retirement. It gave him someone he could work with without the tension. We carried this to the city council, some did not like it at first and I had supporters still on the council. When I informed the council that this was mainly my idea and was what I wanted they approved it. It actually worked out well. One of my friends I had known for over 25 years was hired as interim manager, I even helped him find lodging at the same place where I first stayed when I came back to Clinton at Mrs Warrens apartment. I oriented him to the current projects and programs that we were working on, introduced him to staff. He did call on me from time to time about information I might have. and I worked on a website for the town with city's internet provider and went to city hall every two weeks to pick up my paycheck. Like I said things worked out well and he has been a good mayor for the city over the past 12 years and I entered a second career using the knowledge and experience I had gained in my 40 plus years in city and county government. For the first six to seven months, I did all the items new retirees do. Linda was still working at the community college as a student counselor, so my days were free from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm. I played golf with my friends, carved ducks, painted (on a canvas not on a wall), never been much for yard work. So I started looking around for something to do. I had let it be known that I was available for interim manager's jobs and had made contact with Elizabeth City, whose manager had just resigned. I had managed Elizabeth City from November 1974 until late 1983, and the mayor I had worked with for 8 of those years had just been elected again after 20 years from his last service as mayor. It was on a trip to Hawaii with 2 other couples (our first cruise and on our bucket list) that I received a call from him to come down for an interview with the board. I drove to Elizabeth City not sure of what I was getting into, but I was really excited because I had spent 10 years of my career and life there. Linda and I had many friends there, she had graduated from College of the Albermarle and from Elizabeth State University and I was looking forward to working with the mayor I had worked with for 8 years. But things were not as well as I had anticipated. The council was made up of 8 councilmen and the mayor, 4 were white and 4 were black, they were divided not only by race but by philosophy on how the city should operate. I will not say anything about the former manager; I knew him as a fellow manager but it looked like he had been caught in the middle of this division and could not please either side. There were other problems that I could see needed addressing. When it came to answering questions from the council, they knew that I had been manager there for 10 years, and that I had 40 plus years of experience, so qualifications were not questioned. I knew most of the council both black and white but the younger blacks had been children when I was there 20 years before, but I had known their mothers and fathers. One of the young black councilmen was very addiment against me coming in as interim manager, but I am sure any other white candidate would have had the same welcome he gave me. I was appointed interim city manager by a close margin and went to work. The current Public Works Director was serving as the interim manager and I could not have had a more co operative person to help me in the transition. He was a young black engineer who ran one of the largest departments in the city and did it well. We had no problem at all in our relationship. The police chief was on leave for mental anguish or something related to a nervous condition. He was very political and was embroiled in a legal confrontation with the city over a contract he had signed with the former city manager and it was under litigation with the city attorney and his attorney and of course he was black. He was also closely aligned with the black portion of the city council and it was clear he was pushing the buttons of some of the black council members. The Police department was being run by a police captain, who had been a friend of my oldest son when we he was in high school. There was turmoil in the department as well and I knew something needed to be done. The police chief was openly criticising the council and mayor, was drawing his full salary and there was no clear cut leadership in the department, he would periodically come into his office but would make no contact with the manager. Realizing that because the police chief was already under litigation with the city for a contract the council had not approved and disagreed with. I dismissed the Police chief and made the captain interim police cheif. An article came out the next day in the local paper with a statement from the police chief that I did not have the authority to fire him and he would continue to come into his office. I had cleared my action with the city attorney and he had given me the go ahead. I also had the locks changed in the police department and had his personal effects delivered to his home. Of course there was a little tension for a few days and I had visits from individual council members both black and white. But it did settle down, he claimed racial descrimination and continued his original lawsuit. Everyone had anticipated this as the eventual outcome, I had just brought it about with my action. It was clearly a power struggle and I was looked upon as a tool of the white mayor and white members of council. I certainly did not approach the job with racial issues in mind but you had to be aware of the racial tension. My approach to the job was first to get to know the staff and discuss with them any problems they had in their operations and to look closely at the finances of the city. Budget preparation was foremost on my agenda as we had only a short time to put together a budget to present to an already divided council. The department heads had preliminary budgets for their department in the early stages and the finance director had prepared the necessary documents and forms about their current budgets and forms for presenting their proposed budgets to the manager. In addition to the budget there were other pending items that needed attention (1) The city had sold the county .5 MGD (milliongallons per day) of its 4 mgd capacity for $70,000 to service an industrial park 3 miles outside the city. and the county was negotiating for an additional .5 mgd at the same price. Realizing that the cost to replace this capacity was between 3 and 4 million dollars. I quickly called a friend who had just retired as president of a large engineering firm and asked if he would be willing to give me a written engineering opinion of the value of this prospective sale of capacity to the county, taking into consideration growth, using capacity and additional sales and revenue for the city. He quickly agreed for what I thought was a small fee. The result was that I was able to point out to the mayor and council the one sidedness of this deal and we quickly went back to the negotiating table for a more realistic price and some major concessions by the county. When discussing this with the county manager, who I knew prior to coming in as interim manager. He said I knew it was rediculously low but they agreed to it so we took it. This is a common mistake some boards make when they have extra capacity. They look at the extra revenue in sales but ignore the replacement cost of the capacity in future years. (2) The city's general fund was a source of revenue for many social agencies and non-profit agencies such as homeless shelters, non-profits that were into housing, employee training, and other social and cultural needs. I recognized part of the problem was that most of the current council were serving on these non profit and social cause agencies board of directors; and that they were trading pet projects and funding for each other's agency. With the assistance of the finance director we were able to point out the financial disaster they would see if they continued to do this at the same level they were currently funding. We also pointed out that they were getting very little feedback from these agencies and it was difficult to determine the effectiveness of the monies they had been providing to these non-profits. My suggestion was to cut everyone by 50%, so we would not get into a dogfight with each agency on how much money they should receive. I further suggested that they set quide lines on who should receive funding and set up a process of feedback to determine the effectiveness of the funding. (3) Electric rates were high and it had been a cold winter and many accounts were as much as three months past due. Some were making small monthly payments but were getting further and further behind. It was clear that the current policies on cut offs and payments were not being enforced and that individual council members were intervening for friends and family on extending their utility bills. it was clear some changes needed to be made. (4) the city was getting bad reviews from state and federal agencies on its management of federal and state grants for community development. Some of the non-profits who had been given contracts were blaming the city, and most were not meeting goals and objectives and timelines set out in the grant specifications. Extensions had been allowed, primarily from a council members pressure who sat on the board of that agency. Part of the problem lay with The Director of Planning and Community Development who was to oversee the administration of these grants and programs. He was either not devoting the proper supervision or was incapable of providing the proper supervision. I was pretty sure it was lack of proper supervision because he was delegating these duties to secretaries who did not have the proper training or education to handle the supervision. I also think I knew the reason for this. He was a special case, He had carried the title of Assistant City Manager in addition to being the Director of Planning and Community Development. He was currently a candidate to receive his law degree from a university in Norfolk, Va. The city had paid his tuition and given him the time to pursue the law degree with the idea in mind that it would be good for the city to have a person on staff with that background. In my first interview with this person, I could tell he was not happy that he had not been named Interim Manager instead of the Director of Public works, (Who actually was supervised by the Assistant Manager In the previous chain of command and organizational structure.) It was clear to me that it was primarily because he was recognized politically with the black portion of the council and the majority of the council wanted someone who was not- therefore the appointment of the Director of Public Works. We had what I considered a very open first interview, in fact we had mutual friends both professionally and socially across the state. We talked openly about the conflicts of interest that I saw involving him (His wife was the Executive Director of one of the non-profit agencies that was receiving monies from the city.) He recognized that people may view it that way but he felt he had been an asset to the city. His next statement disturbed me somewhat but did not surprise me, "You won't have to worry about me much longer, I have finished my requirements for my law degree and as soon as I pass the bar, I'm outta here."(These words would come back to haunt him later). I asked him to clarify his statement he said " I feel you have been brought in to get rid of certain people and I am one of those people." I tried to assure him that no one had given me any such direction and that my impression of him and his job security would be on how he did his job, that I came into the interim manager's position with no preconceived notions of any staff members and that I looked forward to working with him. I did inform him that because of my observance of the current situation his duties as Assistant City Manager would be suspended until further notice. Our working relationship was not bad, he was capable of doing his job. We did hire a community development specialist to handle the Community Development Grants. I left it up to him to narrow the candidates down and come to me with a recommendation on his final candidate. Ironically, the candidate he brought to me had been raised outside of Clinton, NC and I had met him when he was a graduate student at Saint Louis University. He had come to my office in Clinton to discuss my views on city government and what I felt about opportunities that would be available to him when he got out of school. I liked his attitude and his qualifications and since the Planning and Community Development Director had recommended him he was hired. ( Today he is a city manager in the midst of a very fine career and I consider him a good friend) . This employee brought some semblance of structure to the grants management. There was one other incident that involved the Planning and Community Director; it had to do with a grant the city had received several years before following Hurricane Floyd which damaged several homes due to flooding. The grant was to rehab approximately 10 homes. The grant was administered by the Community Development Department. The department contracted with a local person to administer the grant and document houses that would be eligible for these funds. He was paid a fee for each house he qualified. The problem was that he picked a house owned by his father, one by his uncle, and one by his grandmother. This person also handled the contractors who would do the construction work on the houses and he approved his brother in law for the majority of the work on rehabilitating the homes.. What made it even worse was this person was best friends with one of the councilmen and worked closely with the Planning Director's wife through another non profit. What brought it to my attention was that we received notice that some of the funds would need to be returned to the federal agency due to lack of documentation. This was so messed up I consulted the SBI. They confiscated the records and it was still under investigation when I left employment of the city. It was obvious that something inappropriate was going on. The relationship with the Director of Planning deteriorated due to his absence from work. I would go by the office almost daily and he would usually be out. At first I was told that he had just left the office and would be back shortly, later I was told he was out sick, when I finally caught him in, I first inquired about his health as he seemed to be doing well and then I asked about not being able to catch him at work and he had not returned my calls. His response was that he was in and out and that he had been out sick a few days. I had checked his sick leave and he had not reported any, so when I informed him of this he said he would take care of it that he had plenty of sick leave and was intending to turn it in the next week. I impressed on him the need to be at work and informing me when he would be out. I also let him know that if he needed to discuss any problems about work or personally that I would be more than willing to discuss them with him. I documented each of my visit's and conversations with this person. The final straw was when he attended a 4 day conference after reporting being out sick for the previous week. He took one of the secretaries with him to the conference. After returning from the conference he again reported that he was sick and was not coming into work. I knew why this was happening, he had failed the bar the first time he took it and was studying for the next time he could take it. (If he would have come to me and asked for time off to do this I would have allowed it. I would have required him to take vacation not sick leave). I sent a letter to his home via a policeman informing him that he was suspended until further notice and that if he did not contact me he was relieved permanently of his duties. He did come in, I met him in his office, we discussed the situation and I asked him to resign, that I would recommend he be given 90 days pay upon receipt of his resignation. He refused and tried to negotiate for 180 days pay. I immediately went to my office, wrote a letter to this person, informed him of my reasons for dismissing him and again made the offer of 90 days seperation pay. I ran this by the city attorney who advised me to remove the reasons for dismissal and the seperation offer and just dismiss him with a statement of unsatisfactory job performance and insubordination. This I did and had the letter delivered again by the police department to make sure that I had a witness that it had been delivered to him because I was sure he would not sign for it. he did bring a lawsuit against the city based on race discrimination, which drug on for years. he first tried to handle the lawsuit himself, then hired a law firm to represent him. It was finally settled out of court around 4 years later and he received my original offer of 90 days pay. he never passed the bar( to my knowledge) after three tries and remained in Planning and community Development. He even put me down as a reference for one of the jobs he was applying for. When I was called at least 9 years after (to my surprise), I responded truthfully to questions about his ability, but since I wasn't asked about his integrity or what happened during my tenure as interim manager in Elizabeth City, I did not volunteer any information. I know where he is working now and as far as I know he has been there for several years and is doing a creditable job. It was a busy 7 months while serving as interim manager in Elizabeth City, I had the intention of renewing friendships of people I had been close to over 20 years before. In actuality, I had very little time for this as the job took the majority of my time. I was not at all pleased with how I was viewed by the black community while there, but because I had to dismiss the black police chief and the black Planning Director for reasons that had nothing to do with race. I was viewed as a hatchett man. I was proud of the job that I did as the interim manager and could take consolation in the people who would come up to me and thank me for the job I was doing. Yes the majority were white but a few were black. I assisted the council in formulating a process for hiring a new full time manager. Over a three month process of reviewing over 100 applications and holding 10 interviews a manager was selected by the council.8 days before he was to come to work, the city was devastated by hurricane Isabel. I had experienced hurricane Fran while in Clinton, and recognizing the need for preparation before it the 100+ mph winds and heavy rains hit, we had made all the necessary contacts with contractors, supplies, etc., assistance to help with power outages. We knew the projected path could carry the major winds through EC and we held meetings each day to make sure we were ready and to make any adjustments in our recovery plan. Our best senario was that the hurricane would turn and go out to sea. It did not happen, it came right up the albermarle sound,so our preparations paid off. Sio the new manager came to work in a city that was partly without power, was full of debri and the devastation left by the hurricane. Normally, the interim manager works for a week possibly two weeks in the transition. However, the new manager requested that I stay on and assist him with filling out forms and attending meetings for disaster assistance. So I stayed an extra month to help him with the recovery. That was in 2003 and he is still at the position and I imagine he will retire there. He has had some rough times and there is still some issues related to race, but when you have a city that is 50/50 in racial make up, its probably inevitable. I still have ties with EC, my oldest son has retired there and we visit several times a year. Its usually on weekends so I do not have much of a chance to visit city hall.but have done so on 5 or 6 instances when passing through. Its always a pleasant experience to visit and recall the past whether good or bad. I was back in Clinton and enjoying the retirement life; Linda was still working at the Community College as a student counselor. Two to three days a week were spent playing golf with my friends. I was a member of two golf associations. The southeastern seniors golf association had over 100 members including ages 50 to 90 plus. There were only 2 members over 90 but they played regularly on Tuesday and Thursday of each week. We alternate between about 20 courses in the southeast ranging from Erwin to Wilson. We use our numbers(usually 60 to 90)in bargaining for low rates when we play. I first began playing with the SESGA when I was around 55. I would take a day off work about once a month and go play. Back then our fees were $15 per round, which included the golf cart. Some courses even gave us $12 rates. Also you would pay an extra $5 dollars and we would eat lunch, which was catered. Usually barbeque or fried chicken with the side items. We flight the players according to their handicaps and if you placed 1st or 2nd in your flight you would win a sleeve of golf balls. That was over 20 years ago. Today we usually pay $20, some charge $18 and 2 still charge $15. We no longer eat as a group when we finish and the golf balls got old so we anti up $5 and the winner of flight gets $10 and 2nd gets $7. We usually pay for gross score and net score using handicaps. Our games consist of single play, 2 man super ball, 4 man super ball and 2 man best ball. Golfers who are reading this will understand what I am saying. Others are just going to have to figure it out. We have a board of directors. I'm not sure how you get to be on the board of directors since I have never voted for anyone. Our annual dues are $30 and we have our own website with pictures of members, schedule and rules, there is a cartoon page and as we gradually die off we are placed on a memorial page on the website. Most of the work is done by the board of directors and one man, Mr. Earl Blizzard of Beaulaville, the rest of us just show up and play golf. Earle is getting up in age Mid 80's and I am not sure who will take his place when he no longer can do all the work he does. I am sure there is someone who will step into his shoes just as he stepped in for someone before him. This group of people even with all their aches and pains and illnesses manage to have more comraderie and fun than any group I am aware of. There is a group of 10 to 12 people from Clinton that have become close as a result of being in the SESGA. We have breakfast together and travel together on the days when we play golf. We also tend to look after each other when there is a need. The other golf association I belonged to was the Sandhills Senior Golf association that played on courses around Pinehurst. Only 3 of us from Clinton were members and they only played once a month. The fees were a little higher around $25 to $30 but this was about one half of what the fees were usually and we played on some really fine courses in the Golf Capital of the World. We had to drive over 60 miles one way to get to Pinehurst. I was only a member of this group for two years but would go back if I could get others from this area interested. I I had time for my hobbies of wood carving and painting and sketching in Pin and Ink so I spent part of the day doing that. Years of playing tennis had taken a tole on my knees and they were bone to bone . I had gone through having the injections to wearing knee braces but they still hurt. The final straw was when we were returning from our annual trip to the US Open in New York. That trip always involves a lot of walking and I was tired and my knees hurt. Just as I stepped into the terminal in RDU on the return flight, a terrible pain in my knee caused me to collapse. I could not put any weight on the leg, so they had to get me a wheel chair. Somehow, Tom, Joyce and Linda got me in the car and we returned to Clinton. Tom was my eye doctor, but he also had practiced general medicine. He said I had torn something either a ligament or the meniscus. We got home late that night and the next morning I went in to see Dr. Huff, my orthopedic doctor. He examined and x rayed my knee.and said I had a torn meniscus. Dr. Huff and I had discussed knee replacement before because earlier x rays had shown both knees were almost bone to bone. I had tried braces and injections prior to this and we agreed it might be time to consider replacement. He wanted to do one at a time, I wanted to do both at the same time. Finally he agreed to do both at the same time. So in November2003 he operated and replaced both my knees. With exercises and therapy I recovered to where I could walk without a walker or crutches, in about six weeks. I made it back to playing golf in about 12 weeks but the pain took all the joy out of it. My knees have been in for 12 years now and I am so glad that I had the operation. I would probably be in a wheel chair of my mobility would be curtailed. The pain of the first six to eight months was well worth it for the mobility I have today. They have greatly improved the technology in knee replacement since my operation and its hard to believe the short recovery periods of people having the same replacement surgery that I had. I had to give up playing tennis because I do not have the side to side movement I need to be competitive. But, I have gotten serious about golf and have improved each year since I gave up tennis. The years have taken away some from my distance, but around the greens and my approach shots have gotten much better. Around September of 2004, I received an inquiry from the town of Warsaw, NC about the interim manager's position. Their manager of 4 years had taken an assistant manager's position in a larger city. I interviewed with the mayor and council and went to work in late September. Warsaw was a town of about 3500 people and was only 12 miles from Clinton. The commute was only about 20 minutes. Warsaw had only had the manager-council form of government for about 2 years. One of the first things I do when taking over the reins of a town is to check out its finances. I have used the system developed by ICMA (Financial Trends Monitoring System) throughout most of my career; ever since it was developed back in the 1970's. I have tweeked it and changed it to include more detail so it can tell me the immediate problems a town is experiencing as well as the long term trends. Warsaw had experienced many of the economic woes of Eastern North Carolina. With the downturn in manufacturing, with the virtual elimination of tobacco as a major crop, and other factors that have resulted in lost jobs, Warsaw businesses were struggling to stay alive. The downtown area had numerous vacant structures that suffered from inadequate maintenance and had stormwater drainage problems. The outward migration of many of the long time residents had put local businesses at risk. Over the past few years, plant closings and the loss of jobs they provided, along with the resultant losses in tax base and water and sewer revenues had impacted the Town's ability to maintain streets, sidewalks, and other infrastructure. It had forced the Town to curtail recreation programs and other desirable activities. Since 2002, the tax base for the Town of Warsaw has been reduced approximately 17 %(25 million dollars). In the past 36 months Duplin County reported 7 closings affecting 1132 jobs and 1 layoff affecting 111 people, 385 of these jobs were in Warsaw. Also, many of the town residents worked in the neighboring county of Sampson which is 1 mile away, and the city of Clinton which is 12 miles away and they were experiencing similar problems. All of these closings had caused the unemployment rates and poverty levels to rise. Their fund balances were not in bad shape but they were decreasing, not increasing. The previous manager had recognized that the recreation program was a big drain on the towns budget and had closed its recreation center and eliminated the recreation department. (While it was probably a necessary step and eleminated a significant portion of the annual budget, it was a controversial move. The people were left to provide their own recreational activities at their expense. The town did continue to maintain the ballfields and parks with a small budget. The town had also cut expenses by eleminating positions in the public works department.and deferring needed maintenance and repair expenses. The streets and facilities were beginning to show the lack of maintenance and repair. The governing board consisted of the mayor( white male), 3 male white commissioners,1 female white commissioner, and 1 black male commissioner. The white mayor and commissioners were in their 60's and 70's and the black commissioner was in his 40's. The population according to the census consisted of approximately 60% black, 35% white and 5% hispanic. It was apparent that many of the hispanics were illegal and their portion of the population and the total population of the town had been undercounted. The mayor came in each day around 9 o'clock and usually stayed until around 2 pm. He was retired and a former Sears Executive, holding responsible positions on the regional and national level. He understood the council manager form of government and we got along well, we freely discussed the towns problems and he had the ear of most of the members of the council. He never tried to interfer with my role as manager. In fact we had closer ties than we realized. I did not realize it but he and I had both worked at the Sears Catalogue Order Center in Greensboro at the same time. One night Linda and I were talking and she asked who was the mayor of Warsaw? I gave her the name and she said that if he used to work at sears he had been her boss when she worked at Sears 40 years ago. Sure enough when I asked him about it, he had managed the credit department where Linda used to work. He wanted to get together for dinner so he could meet her, so we went to the Country Squire and I think they had a great time rehashing their former work experience and what the other people who worked in the department were doing now. It was a great evening for them, I just sat and listened.My relationship with the mayor was one of respect for our positions and background. We disagreed from time to time but we worked everything out. The staff and I got along very well, There were three ladies and myself in the town hall office. The bookeeper and town clerk, the tax collector, and the water and sewer clerk.The police chief and 12 police officers made up the police department. The public works department with a director who was in charge of streets,Garbage and trash collection, water and sewer, building maintenance, and vehicle maintenance. In a small town the manager wears a lot of hats, I was planning and zoning officer, personell manager, purchasing officer, budget and finance officer, code enforcement officer and made sure that the mayor and board of commissioners were kept informed of the operations of the town. They had worked under the council manager form of government for three years so they knew the proper chain of command. I allowed them to operate their departments but let them know I expected to be kept informed if there were problems or something was broken or not operating properly. I was a smooth transition. I also offered to assist the mayor and commissioners in recruitment of the new Town Manager. They did accept limited assistance the mayor handled the applications I helped him screen them and gave him my opinion on each candidate In the few short months I was interim manager I was able to work out some problems that was holding up the first phase of a streetscape project to improve the appearance of the downtown, finish a drainage project in conjunction with the US Corp of Engineers, Complete a Capital Improvement Program for the Water and Sewer system, work with the town's consulting engineer on grants for repair and expansion of the water and sewer system, apply for grants with the NC Rural Center for inclusion in the STEP program and apply for a grant for converting a former

NOTE: i WILL CONTINUE MY BIOGRAPHY AND UPDATE and Revise IT FROM TIME TO TIME