James Roland Segroves1 was born May 02, 1939 in Bedford County, Tennessee1.
Notes for James Roland Segroves: On May 2, 1939, I was born in a house located in the Shelbyville Mills Village, outside Shelbyville, in Bedford County, Tennessee. The doctor who delivered me spelled my last name Seagroves on my birth certificate. This only affected me when I enlisted in the Air Force in San Antonio, Texas on January 8, 1959. I had to produce my birth certificate, was told I would enlist under this name or have it legally changed. I told them I would spell it with an "a" for four years and did so.
My earliest memories are at my Reed grandparents farm in Cannon County, Tennessee. I remember soldiers maneuvering in Papaw's front field. I remember Papaw's father, George Reed, lying in bed. I don't remember him talking or anything else about him. I remember their dog "Bowser" and the place he slept in the barn. At another place at the foot of the big hill on Rush Creek, there was a spring and spring-house across the road from the house. There was a pear tree in the front of the house that did not have water, electricity or plumbing. I do remember a crank telephone and a gasoline powered washing machine. Ma maw had a big black pot behind the house in which she would boil water for washing clothes. She had a wood rack nearby in which the ashes from the fireplace were emptied for making lye for making lye soap. It was a long time before I realized that corn bread (corn sticks) was not made from corn cobs. Ma maw would use corn cobs to fire up her wood cook stove. I would see her put in corn cobs and take out corn bread so I thought she was transforming one into the other.
Anna Lell, Larry and I use to play behind the house on some large limestone rocks. For play dishes, we used the glass insulators from the tops of jars used for canning. Anna Lell usually ran the show and told Larry and I what to do. I remember sitting on the porch at night (kids on the porch, adults in chairs) listening to the "grown-ups" talk. If we made any noise we were sent to bed.
Occasionally Ma maw would let me churn the butter. I can remember making the milk come out the handle hole when I churned too hard. It was in one of her cane-bottomed chairs that I first touched the floor with my feet while sitting.
When we finished eating at this place and later at their house on the hill in Bedford County, a sheet was spread over the food to keep the flies away until everyone came back later for more. In the summer in Bedford County, we would get a block of ice at the ice plant, mount it in the space between the bumper and the car and take it to Ma maw and Papaw's house. The men would break up the block of ice into smaller pieces, put these in a tow sack and beat them into even smaller pieces for making ice cream.
We moved from the village to a new house on Butler Avenue in 1940. I don't remember the chronology of these events but my memories from here are: Larry and I were jumping across a trash fire and I caught my britches leg on fire. We were throwing rocks at each other and "slobber box" nailed me above my eye with a rock. I still carry the scar. Mother would send Larry and me about a half mile away to fetch buttermilk in a gallon glass jug that had a wooden handle. I remember a blimp being tied near the Butler Street intersection with the Murfreesboro Highway.
We moved from Butler Street back to the village in 1944. We lived next door to Uncle Earl and Aunt Ethel Bullion. Mammy (Dad's mother) lived with Uncle Jackie and Aunt Lorine about a block down the street. Behind our house was an alley and a coal pile (I guess we heated with coal). We had a peach tree next to the front porch. In the winter of 44-45, after I had gotten mad trying to build a sled, I remember mom m letting me walk to Mamaw's house that had to be a good 3 to 5 miles away. Snow was on the ground so mamma dressed me warm. For gloves she used socks. When I got near the top of the hill at A. B. Alexander's house a German Sheperd dog scared me back to Aunt Georgia's house in the Cedars. She gave me a broom handle to use on the dog and sent me on my way. I don't remember any further trouble with the dog and finally arrived a Ma maw 's house. I was 5 years old. I started to school at Shelbyville Mills School in 1945. After about a week or two we moved to 620 Derry Street, where we lived until I went to Formosa while in the Air Force.
There were lots of kids to play with on Deery Street including Charles (Red) and Tommy Tucker, Charles Lowe, Bobby Henry, Walden Faulk, Freddy Prosser, and Donald Neese. The girls were Marie Henry, Carol Neese and a Potts girl who put on plays. During the proper seasons we played baseball, basketball, football, flew kites (many that we made), marbles and yoyoed. We had lemonade stands and swapped comic books. On summer nights we played kick the can, as I draw this magic circle and chicken in the coop. During the days we played bum bum bum, may I, Simon says, hide and seek, cowboys and Indians and follow the leader. Beside kites, some of the toys we made were: a whistle from a coke top, a trellis looking device from pop sickle sticks, a kind of moving wheel from a sewing thread spool and a rubber band, various rolling toys from old skates. These skates would screw to our shoe soles with a skate key one usually wore around his neck. We had BB guns that were used to decrease the bird population. We always fed these birds to the community cat. We all had pocket knives and would use these to whittle on rainy days in the woodshed behind Bobby Henry's house. We often carved out cars, airplanes, or knives. We would make pea shooters from cane and a popper toy that used a plunger whittled from a stick that would fit into the hollow cane. We made various things from folded paper (poppers, hats & cups) and had several string games ("Jacob's ladder" & "cup & saucer"). Some nights were spent telling ghost stories under a street light while bull bats dive bombed us.
I first entered school at Shelbyville Mills. I only went there for about two weeks until we moved to 620 Deery Street and I entered Shelbyville Madison Street School. Mother dropped me off and was I scared. I didn't know anyone but this soon changed.
I was in the high school band when I was in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades. I decided in the 8th grade to become a jock and quit the band to play football and basketball. Mother had me taking piano lessons from Mrs. Linda Huffman around the third or fourth grade. I hated practice and wasn't a very apt pupil. Other than mother, I guess Mrs. Huffman spanked me as much as anyone. My best memories of piano lessons were the sessions spent practicing for a recital. All her students would gather in the school auditorium. While waiting our turn most of us would entertain ourselves playing a squares game in which one would insert ones initials in a square made from a page full of dots. You could continue putting your initial in so long as it touched another initial. The one with the most won.
I remember going coon hunting with Dad from the time I was 9 or 10 years of age. One night we were hunting along Duck River on the old Moore farm that Dad's family had sharecropped when he was a boy. Dad told me about a hunting dog he had bought that would not hunt no matter how he tried to teach him. He told me that the place where we were standing was the place he finally took this dog and shot it between the eyes. I ask why on earth would he do that and his answer was because the dog wouldn't pull his weight. So, when I became 12 years old, Dad told me to get a job. I was expected to pay my own way. Dad would not help me get a job and expected me to ask for myself. Remembering the dog story, I got my first job at Dennis' Supermarket on Madison Street across from the main entrance to the Horse Show.
I didn't ask what the job would pay. I went to work at 7 or 8 in the morning and worked until 8 or 9 at night for 6 days. When I got $50 at the end of the week for 60 or more hours of work I quit. I asked Morton Renegar's father for a job at the drug store on Madison Street. He told me I was too young and to come back when I was ready for high school. So I got a paper route with the Times Gazette. I had route 5, which included our house on Deery Street. I had this job until I finished the 8th grade. I went to the drug store and was hired. This job paid $15.00 per week during school and $30.00 per week during the summer. During school, I went in each afternoon after school and got off at 8 during the week and 9 on Saturday. I worked every other Sunday from 1 until 7 o'clock. During the summer I went in at 9 in the morning and got off every other night at 6 and the other nights at 8 and 9 on Saturdays. Morton Renegar let me play sports if I wanted to do so. I kept this job until basketball season of my senior year. I told Dad I had enough money saved to see me through the year and he let me quit. The summer after graduating high school I worked for the state on the weed gang. The next summer I worked with the state surveying crew.
While at the drug store, anytime any old coins came in (liberty head quarters, V nickles, Indian head pennies, etc., I would exchange them for modern coins. When it came time to buy a senior ring I was getting short on money and I cashed about $25.00 of old coins, dollar for dollar, to buy a ring. The ring wound up in a hock shop in Taiwan.
In the fall of 1957 I entered the University of Tennessee. Dad and I went up a few weeks before entering and rented a room in an old house. He dropped me off when school began and I was on my own. I started out in engineering carrying 21 hours. I wasn't cut out to be an engineer and after switching to a business major I lasted 3 more quarters until UT had their fill of me. After coming home drunk and getting caught I decided to leave home. Gary Throneberry and I left for Miami, Florida on December 26 or 27th, 1958. Gary had a 51 chevy into which we load all our possessions. We nearly starved to death. There was a recession on and many of the hotels on the beach were not opened. After several attempts at employment and a couple of temporary jobs we decided to go the Texas and join the Air Force. We were in Miami on new years eve when Castro ran Batista out of Cuba. We arrived in San Antonio, Texas on Monday, January 5, 1959. The air force recruiter put us up in the YMCA and we were sworn into the USAF on January 8, 1959.
I became the "barracks chief" and Throny was the secretary. Of course these two jobs were the best you could hope for. We had a lot of fun in basic. Our training instructor was Sergant Sudder who could sit on the barracks steps and march us around the block. He sure could holler.
After taking a lot of tests, I got the opportunity to try to get accepted into Yale University's Far Eastern Language school. This sounded very interesting and while I had little confidence about getting in, I tried very hard. After a lot of testing about 200 airmen were selected to be tested for going to Yale. Two or three men from Yale came to Texas to test us and at the end of the first day we were given a quiz on what was taught that day. The next morning, the instructor told us that anyone's name that was not read off was to leave. We were given more information and tested again at the end of the day with the same procedure the next day. This went on for 5 days when a class of 40 or 45 was selected. What we were not told was the first 40 or 45 guys whose names were not read went to a school in California to learn Russian. The next group learned Korean, the next Arabic and the last Chinese.
My group finished basic around the end of March. My school didn't start until May so I had some time in between. Usually people waiting for school went to a barracks and were always on call for "shit-duty". Knowing this, I went to my TI and asked him if he could keep out of this. He got it fixed so I would be his helper with his next flight. He got me a class A pass with the admonishment he wouldn't know where it came from if I got in trouble, and I had the barracks to myself. Barracks had 24 hour guards which were furnished by neighboring basic flights. These guards became my personal staff, since I had a stripe and they had none. I spent the next several weeks, reading books, going to movies, playing pool, playing bridge and essentially doing nothing. I shipped out the day a new flight was assigned to my barracks.
I finished 8 months of intensive training in Chinese at Yale University in December of 1959. It was like being in college, except we wore our uniforms and had to study. If anyone's grade fell below a B+, you were put on mandatory study hall and had 2 weeks to bring it back to a B+. If not, you were shipped out. I was enrolled in this study hall once and only one guy was shipped out.
From Yale we went to San Angelo to Goodfellow Air force Base for 90 days to be indoctrinated into the security service (USAFSS). At Yale we were given overseas assignments. Most people wanted to go to Taiwan. Since there was only a dozen or so spots available we were put in a hat and drawn out. I managed to get drawn.
The base at Taiwan was at a place called Shu Ling Kou where about 500 men were stationed. These men consisted of Air Force USAFSS, Army ASA, Navy NSG and some Marines. It was located on top of a mountain about a 40 minute bus ride from Tai Pei. Most of the work performed here was classified top secret. We basically were spying on the Red Chinese on the mainland. During my 17 month tour here I became a "pro op" (one capable of translating transmissions as heard). Sometimes an American plane would takeoff from Japan to fly a photo recon mission over China. About 5 of us were called into a secure area in our compound where on wall was covered with a map of China. The purposed route of the overflight was drawn on this map and my job would be to monitor the Red Chinese radar frequencies to see if they would spot our guy. He was flying so high and so fast they never suspected he was there. This made our job boring so one time and only one time I decided to have some fun. I started giving numbers as if I was receiving them that vectored a Mig group toward our airplane. The office in charge of our detail had to report this on a red phone if it became a problem. I let him know just before he picked up the red phone. He was not amused.
Friends of mine who had gone to Korea wrote to me wanting me to come there. They promised me they would get me on flying status if I would come. When I finally decided to do so and contacted them they started doing what they had to do to get me on flying status. In addition to do a snow job on the local commande, there were letters written to headquarters in the Philippines showing I was one of the top translators in the Pacific. Whatever they did worked. When I arrived in Korea, I immediately went on flying status much to the chagrin of the many airmen who had been waiting to get this job.
After 13 months in Korea I was discharged from the Air Force at Travis AFB, Fairfield, California. My total active service was three years, nine months and 22 days with 2 years 5 months and 25 days spent in the far east (Taiwan & Korea). I also had one year and 9 months in the Tennesse National Guard prior to entering the Air Force.
Between discharge and January 1963 I got caught up on my "running around" and entered MTSU. [garth roland segroves.FBK.FTW]
On May 2, 1939, I was born in a house located in the Shelbyville Mills Village, outside Shelbyville, in Bedford County, Tennessee. The doctor who delivered me spelled my last name Seagroves on my birth certificate. This only affected me when I enlisted in the Air Force in San Antonio, Texas on January 8, 1959. I had to produce my birth certificate, was told I would enlist under this name or have it legally changed. I told them I would spell it with an "a" for four years and did so.
My earliest memories are at my Reed grandparents farm in Cannon County, Tennessee. I remember soldiers maneuvering in Papaw's front field. I remember Papaw's father, George Reed, lying in bed. I don't remember him talking or anything else about him. I remember their dog "Bowser" and the place he slept in the barn. At another place at the foot of the big hill on Rush Creek, there was a spring and spring-house across the road from the house. There was a pear tree in the front of the house that did not have water, electricity or plumbing. I do remember a crank telephone and a gasoline powered washing machine. Ma maw had a big black pot behind the house in which she would boil water for washing clothes. She had a wood rack nearby in which the ashes from the fireplace were emptied for making lye for making lye soap. It was a long time before I realized that corn bread (corn sticks) was not made from corn cobs. Ma maw would use corn cobs to fire up her wood cook stove. I would see her put in corn cobs and take out corn bread so I thought she was transforming one into the other.
Anna Lell, Larry and I use to play behind Ma maw's house on some large limestone rocks. For play dishes, we used the glass insulators from the tops of jars used for canning. Anna Lell usually ran the show and told us what to do. I remember sitting on the porch at night (kids on the porch, adults in chairs) listening to the "grown-ups" talk. If we made any noise we were sent to bed.
Occasionally Ma maw would let me churn the butter. I can remember making the milk come out the handle hole when I churned too hard. It was in one of her cane-bottomed chairs that I first touched the floor with my feet while sitting.
When we finished eating at this place and later at their house on the hill in Bedford County, a sheet was spread over the food to keep the flies away until everyone came back later for more. In the summer in Bedford County, we would get a block of ice at the ice plant, mount it in the space between the bumper and the car and take it to Ma maw and Papaw's house. The men would break up the block of ice into smaller pieces, put these in a tow sack and beat them into even smaller pieces for making ice cream.
We moved from the village to a new house on Butler Avenue in 1940. I don't remember the chronology of these events but my memories from here are: Larry and I were jumping across a trash fire and I caught my britches leg on fire. We were throwing rocks at each other and "slobber box" (another neighborhood kid) nailed me above my eye with a rock. I still carry the scar. Mother would send Larry and me about a half mile away to fetch buttermilk in a gallon glass jug that had a wooden handle. I remember a blimp being tied near the Butler Street intersection with the Murfreesboro Highway. The people who lived nearby were nice to me. He wound up in prision for killing a man in a gambling game and his wife worked at a dry goods store on the square. He would fart and tell me it was a frog. He smoked and I would sometimes pick up his butts and act like I was smoking. One day he told me to suck instead of blow. That stopped me from doing that for a while.
We moved from Butler Street back to the village in 1944. We lived next door to Uncle Earl and Aunt Ethel Bullion. Mammy (Dad's mother) lived with Uncle Jackie and Aunt Lorine about a block down the street. Behind our house was an alley and a coal pile (I guess we heated with coal). We had a peach tree next to the front porch. In the winter of 44-45, after I had gotten mad trying to build a sled, I remember momma letting me walk to Mamaw's house that had to be a good 3 to 5 miles away. Snow was on the ground so mamma dressed me warm. For gloves she used socks. When I got near the top of the hill at A. B. Alexander's house a German Sheperd dog scared me back to Aunt Georgia's house in the Cedars. She gave me a broom handle to use on the dog and sent me on my way. I don't remember any further trouble with the dog and finally arrived a Ma maw 's house. I was 5 years old. I started to school at Shelbyville Mills School in 1945. After about a week or two we moved to 620 Derry Street, where we lived until I went to Formosa while in the Air Force.
There were lots of kids to play with on Deery Street including Charles (Red) and his brother, Tommy Tucker, Charles Lowe, Bobby Henry, Walden Faulk, Freddy Prosser, and Donald Neese. The girls were Marie Henry, Carol Neese and a Potts girl who put on plays. During the proper seasons we played baseball, basketball, football, flew kites (many that we made), marbles and yoyoed. We had lemonade stands and swapped comic books. On summer nights we played kick the can, as I draw this magic circle and chicken in the coop. During the days we played bum bum bum, may I, Simon says, hide and seek, cowboys and Indians and follow the leader. Beside kites, some of the toys we made were: a whistle from a coke top, a trellis looking device from pop sickle sticks, a kind of moving wheel from a sewing thread spool and a rubber band, a spring-loaded gun from a clothes' pin and various rolling toys from old skates. These skates would screw to our shoe soles with a skate key one usually wore around one's neck. We had BB guns that were used to decrease the bird population. We always fed these birds to the community cat. We all had pocket knives and would use these to whittle on rainy days in the woodshed behind Bobby Henry's house. We often carved out cars, airplanes, or knives. We would make pea shooters from cane and a popper toy that used a plunger whittled from a stick that would fit into the hollow cane. We were always on the lookout for that perfect fork for a slingshot. I remember investing in a wintertime whipping by cutting the tongue out of one of Dad's winter shoes in the spring. That leather tongue, with felt on the back, made the best pocket for a slingshot and seemed worth the risk at the time. We made various things from folded paper (poppers, airplanes, hats & cups) and had several string games ("Jacob's ladder" & "cup & saucer"). Some nights were spent telling ghost stories under a street light while bull bats dive bombed us.
We listened to radio on a regular basis. During the week in the afternoon we listened to: "Bobby Benson & the B-Bar-B Riders" (he's riding hard, he's riding fast; its Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders). "Golden Arrow" (Conevil, fury!); "Tom Mix" (I guess Walsh was my favorite), and maybe "The Lone Ranger" (kemma savy); On Saturdays there was Henry Aldrich and "Buster Brown" (Hi, I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe; Arf, that my dog Tag, he lives in there too!; plunk your magic twanger froggie!). On Sunday afternoons we listened to "O'Henry", "The Shadow", (Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?) "Mr. District Attorney" (it shall be my duty as Mr. District Attorney to uphold to the fullest limit of the law...), "Crime Stoppers" I think, and others. During the day Mother listened to soaps: "Stella Dallas", "Portia Faces Life", "Lorenzo Jones" and others. At nights there were "Truth or Consequences", "Twenty Questions", "Baby Snooks", "Inter Sanctum", "Jack Benny" (Sundays), "Gracho Marks", and others; The family would sit in a semi-circle in front of the radio to listen. On rainy Sunday afternoons we would slip into Dad's car, lay in the floorboard and listen to the radio (taking a chance on running down his battery). Usually someone would hit the starter located in the floorboard under the dash that would make the car jump.
The Goat Man came to town about every summer when we were kids. The word would spread like wildfire. We would get on our bicycles and ride over to North Main Street. He would always stay at a spot near the fruit market just down and across the street from the milk bar. He'd have a ratty old waggon, pulled by goats and made his way from ?Iowa? to ?Alabama? each year. I think he sold postcards. We would go to check out the goats and smell the goatman (not much difference between him and his goats). There would always be a goat or more on the waggon. I don't know if they were ill or adventurous.
A Mr. Edwards had a building on the Wartrace Pike across from the Armory in which he produced Spanish peanuts in a square box that sold for a nickle and promised a possible prize of a penny, nickle, dime, quarter or half dollar. There were plenty of nuts, enough to fill up an RC Cola after drinking about a third of it. There were Dixie cups of ice cream you bought for a nickle and the first thing one did was to lick off the top to see what movie actor's picture you got. We saved the cowboys and threw away the rest. There was a nickle coconut candy that came in different colors lined up in a row. A good buy was the penny jaw breakers. Although there were a few dime candy bars, Mounds, Almond Joys, Mars Bar (I think) and others, I only ate the nickle candy bars. The others were for republicans.
I first entered school at Shelbyville Mills. I only went there for about two weeks until we moved to 620 Deery Street and I entered Shelbyville Madison Street School. Mother dropped me off and was I scared. I didn't know anyone but this soon changed.
I was in the high school band when I was in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades. I decided in the 8th grade to become a jock and quit the band to play football and basketball. Mother had me taking piano lessons from Mrs. Linda Huffman around the third or fourth grade. I hated practice and wasn't a very apt pupil. Other than mother, I guess Mrs. Huffman spanked me as much as anyone. My best memories of piano lessons were the sessions spent practicing for a recital. All her students would gather in the school auditorium. While waiting our turn most of us would entertain ourselves playing a squares game in which one would insert ones initials in a square made from a page full of dots. You could continue putting your initial in so long as a square was made with one stroke. The one with the most initialed squares won.
I remember going coon hunting with Dad from the time I was 9 or 10 years of age. One night we were hunting along Duck River on the old Moore farm that Dad's family had sharecropped when he was a boy. Dad told me about a hunting dog he had bought that would not hunt no matter how he tried to teach him. He told me that the place where we were standing was the place he finally took this dog and shot it between the eyes. I ask why on earth would he do that and his answer was because the dog wouldn't pull his weight. So, when I became 12 years old, Dad told me to get a job. I was expected to pay my own way. Dad would not help me get a job and expected me to ask for myself. Remembering the dog story, I got my first job at Dennis' Supermarket on Madison Street across from the main entrance to the Horse Show.
I didn't ask what the job would pay. I went to work at 7 or 8 in the morning and worked until 8 or 9 at night for 6 days. When I got $50 at the end of the week for 60 or more hours of work I quit. I asked Morton Renegar's father for a job at the drug store on Madison Street. He told me I was too young and to come back when I was ready for high school. So I got a paper route with the Times Gazette. I had route 5, which included our house on Deery Street. I had this job until I finished the 8th grade. I went to the drug store and was hired. This job paid $15.00 per week during school and $30.00 per week during the summer. During school, I went in each afternoon after school and got off at 8 during the week and 9 on Saturday. I worked every other Sunday from 1 until 7 o'clock. During the summer I went in at 9 in the morning and got off every other night at 6 and the other nights at 8 and 9 on Saturdays. Morton Renegar let me play sports if I wanted to do so. I kept this job until basketball season of my senior year. I told Dad I had enough money saved to see me through the year and he let me quit. The summer after graduating high school I worked for the state on the weed gang. The next summer I worked with the state surveying crew.
While at the drug store, anytime any old coins came in (liberty head quarters, V nickles, Indian head pennies, etc., I would exchange them for modern coins. When it came time to buy a senior ring I was getting short on money and I cashed about $25.00 of old coins, dollar for dollar, to buy a ring. The ring wound up in a hock shop in Taiwan.
In the fall of 1957 I entered the University of Tennessee. Dad and I went up a few weeks before entering and rented a room in an old house. He dropped me off when school began and I was on my own. I started out in engineering carrying 21 hours. I wasn't cut out to be an engineer and after switching to a business major I lasted 3 more quarters until UT had their fill of me. After coming home drunk and getting caught I decided to leave home. Gary Throneberry and I left for Miami, Florida on December 26 or 27th, 1958. Gary had a 51 chevy into which we loaded all our possessions. We nearly starved to death. There was a recession on and many of the hotels on the beach were not opened. After several attempts at employment and a couple of temporary jobs we decided to go the Texas and join the Air Force. We were in Miami on new years eve when Castro ran Batista out of Cuba. On the way to Texas, as vagrants, we were given the choice of staying at the local Salvation Army flop house for bums or the Baton Rouge jail. We stayed with the bums, although Gary quizzed the motorcycle cops about the jailhouse food and mocked their intelligence by asking them w
More About James Roland Segroves and <Unnamed>: Marriage: December 21, 1968, Moore County, Tennessee.1
James Roland Segroves (b. May 02, 1939)
Notes for James Roland Segroves: