The Times-Tribune
CORBIN —
It was September. I was in fifth grade. It was the second year of Little League football in London.
Four teams, red, blue, green and white jerseys.
I was drafted into the Red Rockets. I wanted to play the guard position, after all, I had a mess of football experience.
I’d thrown, caught, kicked and run with a football, even been tackled, blocked and knocked down a few times and I was only 5 years old.
The Christmas when I was 5, I got a set of shoulder pads, a helmet and a red jersey with white trim, the helmet and pads “autographed” by Babe Parilli.
Parilli played for “Bear” Bryant from 1949 to 1951 when the Wildcats went 28-8 and played in the Orange and Sugar bowls and whipped Texas Christian University in the Cotton Bowl.
I’m not sure what my helmet and pads were made of, but I think the high school, collegiate and professional helmets then were mostly still made of leather, but I could be wrong.
My Christmas pads were some sort of stiff cardboard, I think.
So, I’m in fifth grade and just after school started, word went out that the teams were being organized.
We met at London High’s football field sitting on wooden bleachers one night and the four coaches began picking their teams.
I waited and waited and waited. Harry Houchens was picked, Tom Larkey had been picked and I think David Brown. It’s hard to remember those things. After all, that was 50 years ago.
And finally, the potential players were down to three or four and finally, I was drafted.
I think it was Jimmy Minnix who pointed me out.
So that Saturday we went to the London High gym’s basement and picked up our uniforms. I got the requisite football pants with the thigh pads, shoulder pads, a helmet and then they ran out of red practice jerseys.
I didn’t worry though, I had my red and white jersey left over from Christmas about five years earlier.
And when the first game came up, I got a shiny, bright red jersey with the number 75.
Oh, yeah, I got one of the new helmets, but there weren’t enough face guards to go around. I used it in practice and the only time I took the field in a real game I had to borrow the helmet of a teammate.
I was there maybe five or six minutes. It was my football highlight.
One of the other significant events for the Red Rockets that year was that we had won more games than the other three teams.
So as a gift we were taken to Williamsburg to play the Little League team there.
It was the only game we lost. And did we lose?
We thought maybe that we weren’t playing Little Leaguers but maybe Williamsburg High’s “B” team.
Of course, we really were playing a Little League team, but it sure seemed like they were bigger than we were.
And thus closes the football career of yours truly.
I tried Little League basketball one year. Only went to one practice session. Tried Little League baseball and dropped every ball that was thrown or hit toward me. Never made a game.
So I went for band. Tried cornet and wound up as a drummer, but that’s a long, long story.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, growing up in London was fun.
We played in the streets, flipping jump ropes and riding bicycles all over town. In our yards we’d play swinging statues, hide-and-seek of course, kick the can, tag, red-rover, dodge ball and kick ball.
But, what else was there to do? We had television, one channel, two if we were lucky, in London.
Air conditioning was rare in our homes and also in businesses. I remember that First Baptist Church had no air conditioning but used huge fans in the balcony pulling air into the windows of the auditorium and sending it out into the same hot air of summer.
First Christian was, I think, the first air conditioned church and Begley Drug the first air conditioned drug store.
So we spent a lot of time outdoors. And it was fun.
What a change electronics have made. We’ve gone from huge televisions so heavy that it took two or three people to carry them to televisions we can carry in our pockets or strapped to our wrists.
Books used to be printed on paper pages only. Now they also appear on plastic screens.
I feel sorry for the kids of today. Often they isolate themselves in front of a screen like the one I’m using to write this column. They make friends that they never meet in person.
We had places to meet, Finley’s Drive-in, Dairy Dart, Friend Bruner’s and the Krystal Kitchen in London.
And I remember a few places in Corbin, Gerry’s Drive-in, the Hungry Hound and a Krystal Kitchen.
Every weekend, Finley’s skating rink had a local band, one of which became nationally famous, playing and the skaters sock-hopping.
And the Finley’s was the home of the “short Coke.” You ordered it not hardly to the top of the cup so a few “additives” might be mixed with it.
Dates were found, couples were made and dissolved and drivers “circled” the drive-in so much that the circle had to be lengthened so more cars could get in line.
One night, a friend and I in his late 1940s Buick sedan circled Finley’s and put a hundred miles on the car.
You can’t do that sitting in front of a screen and keyboard.
Life ain’t what it used to be and I wish it could be.
Carl Keith Greene is a staff writer for the Times-Tribune and can be contacted at
cgreene@thetimestribune.com
