I attended my 50th high school reunion about three weeks ago. It was enjoyable and both painful. Part of the joy was seeing old friends and schoolmates and rehearsing stories from long ago that many of us shared. Painful was seeing how poorly some people had aged. Not thinking about the approximate third of the class that had already died.

A few weeks later I was looking on Facebook for the photos that had been taken during the reunion, and then seeing a note from Martha Burns Crawley regarding a play and presentations that were done in the 5th grade by those in Mrs. DeBerry’s class. The premier presentation was a group of boys that were lip syncing the song “King of the Road.” I wanted to be in that group, but wasn’t. Instead, I was assigned to a group of boys that danced & lip synced to the song, “I’m Telling You Now,” by the group, Freddie & the Dreamers.

Freddie & the Dreamers were a British group, and they did a dance during their song in which they flapped their arms and legs. “I’m telling you now. I’m telling you right away…”

I think we presented this song twice (probably to two different groups of students) during the day. But, I recall during one presentation, where our group of boys were singing and flapping our arms and legs, and I looked down on the front row of the audience to see them smiling, laughing and nudging one another. I looked down and saw that my fly was down. *I think I just kept dancing until the song was over. Isn’t the word, “mortified”. But I don’t recall any lasting negative effects of this incident, and I am probably the only one after 57 years that might recall this episode.

I enjoyed having Mrs. DeBerry as a teacher in the 5th Grade, and whether it was true or not, I felt that I was one of her “favorites”. I am qualifying this place of standing because a really good teacher probably makes many of their students feel “special.”

I don’t recall the exact year, but I think I was in the 11th Grade when I had Mrs. DeBerry again as a teacher. By this time Debbie Sutton and I had already dated, but I’m not sure when we split up. But, I definitely didn’t feel that I was one of Mrs. DeBerry’s “favorites”. I’m also not sure of whether Mrs. DeBerry had gotten a divorce by this time and was going by the name DeBerry-Newman.

Years later, I think Mrs. DeBerry-Newman became a part of the Department of Education in Onslow County.

I don’t recall the exact year, but I started working for the New River Baptist Association overseeing their “crisis ministry” which was called “the Hem of His Garment”. I had been working for the Salvation Army, and the experience there having become odious, I had finally been motivated to ask Gerry Hutchinson if there might be a job available. I didn’t know at the time that Gerry had probably already taken steps to start working for the Baptist Convention. He left shortly after I was put in the position at the Hem of His Garment in Jacksonville, NC.

I worked with Mrs. Mary Bell Jarman at the Hem. “Mary Bell” had a daughter that sometimes came into the thrift store (Hem) and sometimes had her children (Mary Bell’s grandchildren) with her. There was a young boy.

Bethlehem Baptist Church is located on Gum Branch Road, and for several years they had a softball field next to the church building, both adjacent to Gum Branch Road. At some point, I heard that Mary Bell’s grandson had been hit by a car and killed. They were playing softball next to the church, and someone had hit the ball across the road. The boy was crossing the road to get the ball when he was hit by a passing car. *I don’t know if they moved the ball field, or whether they stopped playing softball entirely, but the ball field by the church was abandoned, and I think it is now mostly a paved parking area.

Years later and probably just in passing, I was talking to my cousin, Mary Ann, and she mentioned that the person driving the car in the accident had been Barbara DeBerry-Newman. This shocked me, and Mary Ann said it had been “hushed up” at the time.