Newly Weds - Part Three

After we got back from Washington, DC, Brad and I found jobs with different mason contractors. Eventually Brad and Vivian moved back to Salisbury, NC for work and to be near his relatives. Hazel and I remained in Chalotte and Hazel and lived at Morris Field in Building 8 Apartment 225. I worked for several small contractors until I bought into Stonewall Jackson Homes where I worked building eight apartments. These were not far from Wilbur Fushee’s Grocery Store and Mr. Neal's Soda Shop.

With my new 1950 pickup truck paid in full, Hazel and I made a trip to Statesville to spend a few days and when we returned we brought my Mother back to Charlotte with us for a week. Since we only had two rooms in the house, we let mother sleep in our bed and we slept on the floor. Instant coffee had just come on the market; when we showed it to Mother she commented that she would never drink anything but perked coffee. Since the only coffee we had was instant, we put a few spoonfuls in percolator coffee pot and perked it on the stove. We were amazed that she did not know the difference and we did not let her know what we had done.

During the week we went to a drive-in movie on South Boulevard and on the way home when we were traveling down West Boulevard, a horse ran in front of us and I hit him on his left front shoulder and head. He wobbled down the road for a little ways, fell over in a ditch,and died. I call the county police to report the accident. Officer Keith Beatty came out to make the report. On his report, he indicated that I had knocked the horse for three hundred yards and it took me a hundred yards to get stopped. When I saw that, I explained to him that when I hit the horse I stopped right then and I just let my truck roll down the hill to get it out of the road. I told him if I had hit that horse as hard as he recorded we would all have been killed, but that did not seem to make any difference to him. He was the son to the Beatty’s that I lived with on Tuckaseegee Road. He said that I did not treat his Father very well by moving from his house to the housing barracks on Morris Field just because it had more room in the unit there. Neither one of us was hurt in any way. Keith took us on home and called a wrecker to tow my truck to City Chevrolet to be fixed and I had it back in three days. When I took Mother back home, I saw my brother Fred and he indicated that he wanted the truck. He had just bought a farm near where we lived and needed the truck. He had a 1950 Nash Ambassador so we just traded even and that is the car in these pictures. The picture of is front of our home at Morris Field. Listen to me tell this story.

Julian and Ann Laura lived right behind the Beaty’s in a small one bed room house. We were good friends and we would do many things together. One night we were in our little kitchen playing cards. Neither of us had children so we were free to do anything, anywhere, at anytime. One night about midnight someone said that they would love to go to the mountains and at once we decided to go right then. Shortly afterwards we were on the road in our new Nash Ambassador. Julian and Ann Laura did not own a car; Julian drove a truck and Ann Laura rode the bus to her job downtown. We arrived in Cherokee at 3:30 a.m. and at that time there were no rooms to be found. We ended up pulled over to the side of the road. We laid the two front seats backs flat down and we had a bed big

enough for us. Hazel and Ann Laura were in the middle and Julian and I were on the outside. We were doing really well until Hazel let out a big scream that woke us to see a big Indian with his face plastered right against the wind shield. When he saw us waking up in a state of shock, he ran away. At that point there was no going back to sleep! We found a place where we could wash up, get a good breakfast, and started on our way to have a great day driving through the mountains and looking at all of the natural beauty. This is a picture of me at the outdoor theatre for Unto these Hills shortly after it opened during the summer of 1950. We returned home later that evening. The next day we attended Enderly Park Baptist Church just a few blocks from home. We remained friends with Julian and Ann Laura until they moved back to Georgia and we lost contact with them. Listen to me tell this story.