A NOTE TO COUSINS (Weaver and Hallman) and a few OLD FRIENDS:
I have been working on My Story for many years, hoping to someday, maybe, to publish a book. In the meantime, many, whom I would have liked to share this with, have left this world.
Therefore. I am placing the early part of my memories on-line where those who are still living can read them. If you do take the time to look, I would appreciate any comments you may have. I am open to criticism to accuracy but not necessarily to style. I am also open to opening a separate conversation with you about something in an email (bilweave@gmail.com) or Facebook (Willie Bill Weaver) exchange.
What I am sharing are excerpts from copyrighted material and should not be shared outside of the family. but you have my permission to make limited copies of selected portions to share with your family.
1.0
Introduction/Preface
I have always been an avid reader and somewhat of a writer. I was blessed with parents who encouraged me to read, study, and learn and a series of teachers who encouraged those activities and endeavored to help me master spelling and grammar.
Through the years I have written and filed away quite a number of things, usually sharing with only a limited number of friends and family who might have an interest in a particular piece.
Much of my writings have been an effort to give an account of the journey that took me from a log house to an exciting career in the USA Space Program.
I have dabbled in fiction and poetry and also produced various pieces related to my Christian faith.
The purpose of this book is to share my journey from a Log House in rural Alabama to the International Space Station (ISS). NOTE: I have not actually been on the ISS but I did help prepare some of the equipment for experiments that are being performed on the ISS.
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2.0
The Log House
I was born in 1937 at the Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. My parents carried me home to our log house located in a rural setting nine miles east of Tuscaloosa and near the small town of Peterson. Now that structure was not a log cabin, but a log house and by all accounts one of the most modern houses in the area at the time. This is not an Abe Lincoln tale.
The house initially consisted of two bedrooms, a living room, two fireplaces, kitchen, bathroom, and a large front porch overlooking the Tuscaloosa-to-Birmingham Highway across a large landscaped lawn. It also had a dirt floored basement for storage of canned fruits and vegetables.
Log House Photos
Before my memory, the kitchen was converted to a dining room and a larger kitchen, a washroom and a screened-in back porch were added. That porch had large windows on two sides that were hinged to swing up and attach to hooks on the ceiling so that the breezes could blow through or be lowered when the weather was too cool or too wet. My Dad called it his “Sleeping Porch” and it was his preferred sleeping place. Keep in mind, there was very little air conditioning in the South at that time.
The sleeping porch had beds for all of us and as long as the temperature permitted that was where we slept. Without air conditioning it was great for the hot summer nights but really became quite chilly in the fall before my Dad decided it was time to move back to the regular bedrooms.
Our community was in the coal mining area of northeast Tuscaloosa County and my Dad was in the coal business. For a while he operated a small coal mine but he had no patience or skill for managing a large work force and conflicts with the coal-miners union led him to give up on the mining operation. He then turned to delivering and selling coal. He supplied coal to a coal-yard operated by my grandfather on University Boulevard, just east of the current site of the Paul W. Bryant Museum. He also had contracts to supply coal to the Partlow and Bryce Mental Hospitals and to several businesses and school systems.
A contract with the Hale County school system took his trucks regularly to Greensboro, Alabama where he purchased pine logs. Each returning truck would bring back a load of logs. Those logs provided the basic material for the construction of a house for an uncle, my grandfather’s country store in Peterson, and for our log house.
Although we moved from our log home when I was five and my sister was almost eight, I have many fond memories connected with it. My sister and I always longed to return to that house and down through the years, each time we would pass by it, we would say or think, “There’s our log house.”
I knew some of the subsequent owners and was in the house several times in my teenage years. The log house is still standing and occupied. I visited with the current owner in 2010. The log house has had some changes. Some where along the way the logs had been covered with vinyl siding. The frame-built rear addition was heavily damaged by a fire and was rebuilt in a different configuration. One half of the large front porch was enclosed to add a bedroom.
The current owner had removed the vinyl siding and was in the process of repairing and replacing deteriorating logs. He had contacted me and asked for copies of any photos we had of the early days of the house. I carried him copies of the only two we had; a full front view of the house and a picture of my sister and me standing on the front steps.
He gave me a tour and asked about my memories of living there. He specially enjoyed me telling about how my sister, at five years old, would back into the corner of a room and bracing her hands and feet on the logs, she would ascend up the wall, bang her head on the ceiling several times and then giggle real loud. She was a show off. After descending, she would dare me to do it. I would back into the corner and ascend, maybe one log above the floor. I never grew brave enough to try more.
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3.1
Encounter With a Washing Machine
Even after all these years of association with the space program I am still amazed at the progress of technology during my life time, especially the progression from tube type electronics to micro-circuitry that has made such great changes in our ability to communicate and handle data. I have observed that every new technology development comes with fears that it may be misused or present some sort of hazard to the populous.
My first encounter with new technology and its danger came when our family abandoned the wash-pot and scrub-board and acquired an electric wringer-washing machine. That washing machine precipitated an incident that physically scarred me for life. It happened about the time I was just starting to walk. The incident is in my memory only because of the repeated telling by my mother and grandmother. Apparently, the trauma of the event completely erased it from my conscious memory.
Every Monday, Mama Weaver would come over to our house to help Mother with the wash. In our washroom two #3 galvanized wash tubs sat on a bench beside the wringer washing machine. When the clothes had been sufficiently sloshed about and agitated in the machine, they would be taken out of the washer, one-by-one, put thru the wringer and dropped into a tub of clean water for the first rinse. Then the wringer head would be swung around to the other tub and the clothes would be put thru the wringer and into the other tub for the second rinse. Lastly, the clothes would be put thru the wringer one last time and into a basket for carrying outside where they would be hung on the clothes lines to dry.
Occasionally, as the garments were fed into the wringer, one of them would fail to drop into the tub and continue around one of the wringer rollers. It only took a couple of extra turns for the thickness to build up and cause the safety mechanism to pop the two rollers apart and stop the wringing action. After some tugging and prying the tangled garment would be removed, the mechanism reengaged and the wringing of clothes resumed.
One wash day I played and watched as the ladies did the wash. My sister, Nancy, was helping by guiding the clothes into the rinse tubs. However, no one was watching the little boy when he reached up to examine the pretty pink rubber rollers. My screams and the “clunck” of the rollers popping apart quickly got their attention.
My left arm was stuck between the rollers up to the elbow as I hung suspended a few inches off the floor. For a moment everyone else joined me in screaming. As Mother held me, somehow Mama Weaver managed to extract my arm, now red and swollen, from the wringer.
Wash day came to a halt as the priority became to get me to the doctor for they were sure that my arm was crushed. They wrapped my arm in one of the freshly washed towels from the basket and since Mama Weaver did not drive she held me in her arms as we sped the nine miles to the doctor’s office in Tuscaloosa. My cries soon subsided to an occasional sob or whimper but Nancy cried most of the way about her little brother’s broken arm.
After an examination, the doctor assured them that my arm was not crushed but it was badly bruised and I had a deep wound on the underside of my forearm where all the the layers of skin had been scraped away by the turning action of the rubber roller. The healing process took a long time and many bandage changes and left me with a permanent scar about half the width of my forearm.
3.1.1
Follow-up to My Wringer Encounter
In 2008, about seventy years after the original incident, I was attending a church conference where Dr. Gary M. Benedict, President of our denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, was the featured speaker. During one of the sessions, he mentioned that as a young man he worked for a company that manufactured washing machines and that one of his duties was to test the wringers on the washing machines. I have to admit that I do not remember the biblical point he was illustrating with the wringers but I wanted to share my story with him. After the session was over, I made my way to him and introduced myself. As we talked, I rolled up my left sleeve and turned my scared arm so he could see it. He looked and immediately asked, “ How old were you when the wringer grabbed you?” Apparently, such incidents were not uncommon.
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3.2
AN AIRPLANE IN THE CHRISTMAS TREE
In December of 1939 and it was cold out side. For some time I had been fascinated by a tree containing bright lights and tinsel that had somehow grown in the living room of our log house. My sister told me that it was our “Christmas Tree” and that someone called “Sandy Claws” will put presents for us under it when Christmas comes.
I heard my daddy say “That boy sure likes that Christmas tree, doesn’t he?” He picked me up and held me near the tree as he says “Hey boy, you won’t have to wait until Christmas morning for every thing. Reach in there and get that Airplane.” Sure enough, sitting in the branches of the tree amid the lights and tinsel was a cross shaped rubber toy. I reached out and took it in my hands. He called it an “airplane”, but that meant nothing to me, so I just held it and chewed on it.
After a bit, he said, “Come here boy, let me show you how to fly that airplane.” He took it from me and holding it above his head, he moved around the room making a humming sound. I did not understand why, but now I knew how to play with an airplane.
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3.3
An Airplane Crash
In the Fall of 1941, my dad and I were about to leave the house to go to Papa Weaver’s country store in Peterson, Alabama, when an announcement on the radio caused him to stop and listen. I did not understand all the words from the radio but I was almost five year-old and I did comprehend that an airplane had fallen from the sky in Brookwood, Alabama. That seemed to be the reason for the ambulance, with siren wailing, that had sped eastward past our house a few minutes before.
As we drove to the store in silence, I remembered my toy airplane and remember hearing airplanes flying over our house and anxiously scanning the sky to catch a glimpse of them. I had been told that these small roaring and flying things were actually larger than my Dad’s large coal truck and had men driving them in the air much like a car being driven on the road. The thought of flying like a bird above the trees and looking down on everything below had often stirred my imagination, but now the thought of falling out of the sky to crash on the ground sent chills down my spine.
As we got out of the car at Papa Weaver’s store, we heard the siren of the returning ambulance. We stood and watched as it sped by taking the injured fliers to Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa. I knew about that hospital because I had spent some time there with pneumonia during the past year.
At the store, we learned that the airplane had crashed just behind my aunt’s house in Brookwood, Alabama. My Dad decided to go take a look at the crashed airplane. As we drove the seven miles to Brookwood, I again daydreamed about flying, but occasionally shuttered as I thought about crashing.
We parked in the driveway of my aunt’s house and Daddy told me to stay there while he went to look at the crashed airplane. I was not very happy about staying but I went inside to find my cousin, who was the same age as me. My aunt stayed on the porch talking to the people going back and forth to the crash site. When I found my cousin, he was also unhappy about not being allowed to see the crash site. We decided to slip out the back door and sneak through the woods to see the crash.
When we got there, we saw dozens of people. Some were just standing around talking, others were poking through the wreckage and taking pieces of the airplane for souvenirs. We tried to get through the crowd to get souvenirs also but Daddy saw us and made us stay with him until he was ready to leave.
The next morning we heard on the radio that neither of the men in the airplane had survived the crash. So I learned that flying was not always safe, but I remained intrigued with flying.
3.3
Story Time
Some of my earliest memories is of mother reading to us from a book of bedtime bible stories to us. There were about 40 illustrated stories told in simple language. We heard each of those stories many times. We each had our favorites and over all we acquired a fairly good concept of God, Jesus and Bible history. A used set of encyclopedias, which my father acquired somewhere, contained excerpted passages from some of the classics that would be of interest to children. One particular favorite of my sister and me was the story of Little Effie finding her way to Silas Marner’s cottage through the snow. I have no idea how many times she read that for us, but we would request it again and again.
One daily ritual was the reading of the “Funny Papers”. This continued into my third year of school until I began to correct any mistakes she might make. From that point on, I had to read the Funnies for myself.
3.4
IMAGES IN THE CLOUDS, STARS AND ON THE MOON
Once, while looking at the full moon with my sister, Mother explained that the moon was another world much like the earth. She also told us the “old-wives’ tale” of the Man-In-The Moon, who violated the prohibition of working on the Sabbath Day and was sentenced to perpetually burn leaves on the moon. That got me to thinking that maybe some day I could get in an airplane and go to visit that other world. (I never could make out that figure in the moon.)
On other nights, when the sky was full of stars, we would spread a blanket on the lawn and lie on our backs looking up into the heavens. She would tell us that the Milky Way was actually millions of more stars clustered so close together that they made this track across the sky. She would point out some of the more obvious constellations and tell us their stories. She would also encourage us to imagine what figures we saw in the various star groupings. We would often get the thrill of seeing a falling-star, which we learned were small rocks falling to earth from outer space and were officially called meteors. A meteor that is not burned up and lands on the ground is called a meteorite. Mother told us that when she was in school a man brought a meteorite that had fallen near Brookwood, Alabama to her school to show the students. She said it was small enough to fit in his hand and looked a hunk of melted medal.
Another feature of our night sky was a rotating spot-light located about 10 miles north of us. We were told it was a guide to the Tuscaloosa airport for night flying airplanes. We would often see small airplanes, with their blinking lights, flying through the night sky.
Sometimes we would spread that blanket on the lawn during a day when hundreds of puffy clouds were making shapes that we could identify as animals, dragons, trees, faces, people, trains, events, and so on. The constantly changing shapes gave us many more things to imagine. That was much more fun than finding figures in the star constellations.
3.5 I Climb a Tree
The first time ever I climbed a tree...
I followed my cousin, Jimmy, who was three years older than me, into the orchard on the west side of our log house. The fruit trees in this orchard had been planted by my dad as he was having the log house built and they were now mature enough to be bearing fruit. Jimmy looked up at the small green apples and decided he wanted to pick some but they were out of his reach. The apple tree had low branches which made it easy for him to quickly pull himself up. Once he was in the tree, it seemed he forgot about picking apples and decided to see how high he could ascend. Of course I wanted to follow him, but he said “No, no, get you own tree to climb!”
Disappointed, but determined to try this new adventure, I went to the next one which was a pear tree. The limbs of my chosen tree were lower but came out of the trunk and grew almost straight up. Without giving it much thought, I reached up as high as I could, grabbed two limbs, stretched my right foot up almost as high as my head and placed it at the junction of a limb and the tree trunk. Then, with all my strength, I tried to pull myself up into the tree. As my other foot left the ground, I found that I could not do it and I let go of the limbs. My left foot returned to the ground but my right foot remained wedged tight between the limb and tree trunk. There I hung, one foot in the tree, the other on the ground and feeling like I was being pulled apart. I was also making quite a bit of noise -- such as, “Help-help Mother- Mother- Help- sob-sob.”
My predicament and cries must have really scared Jimmy for he came down from his tree and ran screaming to the house where at least six adults were sitting about talking after lunch. I do not know what Jimmy told them but I do know that my mother was the first on the scene and had me back on my two feet and comforted before anyone else arrived.
4.0 Then Came The War
Less than a month before my 5th birthday the country of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and a short time later declared war on Germany as the United States entered the European conflict on the side of the Allies. Things began to change. The adult conversations seemed to alway be about the WAR. When the newscasts and bulletins came on the radio they became the center of attention.
4.1 Men Go to Fight
Many of the young men in our community volunteered for the army. Among them was my Dad’s younger brother (Hershel Weaver), who worked for him and lived with us. He spent the war in the Aleutian Islands between Alaska and Japan. My mother’s youngest brother (Charles Hallman) concealed a couple of physical ailments, joined the army and fought across France and into Germany where his toes were frozen. My oldest first cousin (Alvin Hallman) fought in Europe and received two Purple Heart awards. Another young man we knew lost his life in France and left a wife and baby son back home.
My mother maintained a correspondence with all three of our kinsmen while they were in the service. She faithfully wrote to them telling them about the home front and they faithfully wrote her in return, telling her about what they were doing and what they were feeling. Many times the letters were heavily shredded with censor cuts because they mentioned locations and events that were classified.
4.2 We Leave the Log House
Shortly after the war started, our parents sold the log house and purchased the store in Peterson, Alabama from our Weaver grand parents and they in turn purchased a small neighborhood grocery in Bessemer, Alabama. It was never explained to us children why this move was made, but I am sure it was economic. My father no longer had the coal delivery contracts with the schools but he kept one of his trucks and would make coal delivers for people on an individual basis.
My Dad used his coal delivery truck to move our belongings from our beloved Log house to an apartment behind the store. The sides and floor of the truck bed were made of large wooden boards and had a lift-out wooden tailgate. At the top of the tailgate, a thin iron bar was attached to keep the cargo from pushing the sides apart. Once the tailgate and iron bar were in place, the floor boards extended back about 5 inches further.
The truck was backed up the edge of the front porch and formed an easy walk-on loading of furniture. As the furniture was being loaded, I asked Dad if I could go with him and he told me I could. Finally, the truck had a full load, things were tied down, and the tailgate and bar were in place. I heard the truck crank up, I was not in the seat with Dad, but he told me I could go with him. I looked at the little ledge behind the tailgate, stepped on it, grabbed the iron bar, and we were on our way. I really enjoyed my ride on the back of the truck. When the truck stopped at the store, I was about 4 feet off the ground so I just hung on waiting for someone to help me down. My Dad and his helpers got out of the truck and were talking with my grand parents about the logistics of getting the furniture off the truck and into the building. Some man noticed me clinging to the back of the truck, picked me off and carried me to were thy were talking. Apparently, my stunt was upsetting to everyone. Dad began to fuss at me, but my grand mother took me from the man and told him not to fuss and just be thankful that I was not injured.
This move brought some big changes to our lives. The most drastic change was in our physical accommodations. We left a three bedroom house with hot and cold running water, fully outfitted bathroom. We moved into a two bedroom apartment, shared with the grandparents for a month, without plumbing and the only water source was a community well a block away. Mother, in addition to her household and family duties, became the chief clerk of the store. Our playground was no longer a large yard with playmates on all sides, but the apartment, the isles of the store, and the driveway behind the building. Our playmates were the children who came with their parents to shop.
4.2 Shortages and Rationing
I remember a lot about World War II. I remember that every adult in the town had to go by the school and pick up their monthly ration coupons for limited quantities of meat, sugar, bread, gasoline, etc. Without those coupons you could not buy. I remember people ready to fight because the merchants could not sell them more of something after they had used up their month supply of coupons. In addition to the ration coupons there was the OPA (Office of Price Administration) controlling rents and the overall cost of items that might be affected by the conflict. The coupons kept people from hoarding and the price controls prevented price gouging.
4.3 Military Convoys
The store was on, what at that time, was the main highway between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. That highway was kept quite active by University of Alabama football games, by trucks carrying coal, and by military convoys.
The convoys flowed both ways along the highway carrying troops and equipment. Convoy size varied from just a few to over a hundred. We kids liked to stand at the road side to watch, wave and yell encouragement.
A few of the convoys stopped in our town for the troops to stretch their legs and get snacks. The guys alway wanted cigarettes and they had the money and the ration coupons. However, we had regular customers who were dependent on the local merchants for their smokes, so when it looked like a convoy was stopping, the majority of the cigarette supply would be tucked away out of sight.
I remember one Army convoy stopping in our little town and emptying all the fuel tanks at the four stores that had gasoline pumps. Of course, they paid for it and even gave the merchants extra coupons, but that left the community without gasoline until the next delivery which was over a week away.
One function of the convoys was to bring wounded soldiers and German prisoners to U. S. Army Northington General Hospital. That hospital was located at the site currently occupied by the BAMA MALL and McFarlane Avenue. There was a prisoner of war camp (POW) attached to the hospital and the prisoners were employed by the army as hospital attendants and maintenance men.
On one occasion a POW convoy stopped and a small group of soldiers and POWs were getting snacks in our store. My Uncle James Hallman was in the store when another customer addressed him as “Mr. Hallman”. One of the POWs immediately became very excited and approached my uncle pointing at himself and exclaiming, “Heilmann, Heilmann, I am Heilmann”. (Our immigrant ancestor was named Heilman but had become Hallman upon entry into the USA). An animated conversation pursued between my uncle, the prisoner, and the corporal in charge. The prisoner was going to be held at the Northington Hospital POW camp. To make a long story short, a friendship developed between my uncle and the prisoner. Over a period of time, my uncle visited with the proisoner at the hospital. Years later when that man immigrated to the USA, he came for a visit with my uncle and his family.
5.0 A Discussion of The Color Line
5.1 Share Croppers
The Log House was on a sizable plot of land and it had a small house for a Tenant Farmer / Share Cropper. My understanding of that system is that the land owner provides a house, furnishes the seeds and fertilizer, farm animals and equipment, and the share cropper and his family provides the labor. When the crop is harvested, the proceeds are shared on an agreed to basis.
Early in my life a white family held that position but I was too young to remember much about them. After they left, a black family came to work the land. My sister and I knew them as Wes and Betty and their daughters, Carrie, Lilly and Rachael. Carrie was the oldest and had a baby of her own. The two younger girls were older than us but were often our playmates. I think, at that time, I had no concept of the racial divide.
5.2 Doc Blanton
When my grandfather owned the store he built a small cabin in the back yard for Doc Blanton his handyman. When my Dad took over the store, Doc stayed on as our handyman. I never knew Doc”s age but based on the rapport he had with my grand parents, I suspect he was nearer their age than my Dad’s. His duties were varied. He kept the store and the living quarters supplied with water by carrying two 2-1/2 gallon buckets back and forth to the community well. In the cold season he kept the stoves and fireplace supplied with wood and coal. He provided the muscle to carry and move any of the heavy items associated with the store such as boxes of canned goods to stock the shelves and the100 pound sacks of feed for the customers’ farm animals. He also provided an extra set of eyes to watch two children that more or less had the run of the premises.
To my sister and me, Doc seemed like one of the family, maybe an uncle or another grandfather. Although he was a black man, we were expected to give him the same respect that we gave all adults. Whether answering our questions or giving us some correction, he did it with few words, but gently and to the point. I have often wished that I had learned more about him.
When Mother fixed our meals, enough was prepared for Doc, but he ate after the rest of us. Occasionally, when just me and my sister were being fed, Doc may eat with us. However, if anyone outside the family were present he would sit at the side table. If he was sitting at the table with us and someone approached the back door he would get up and move to the side table, saying “I don’t want to make no trouble for you, Mrs. Weaver.”
5.3 At the Barber Shop
After we moved to the store, sometimes I would go with my Dad to make a coal delivery. At the coal mine, the truck would be driven under an overhead bin and the coal would be dropped into the truck bed by a chute. Since it was a flatbed truck with no dumping capability, it had to be unloaded with a shovel and a strong back. My Dad would usually hire an older teenager to come with us and do the heavy work of shoveling the coal.
There alway seemed to be someone hanging around the store looking for a ride to town or the chance to pick up a pocket change.
I remember one such trip when Johnny was the shoveler. As we left the store, Mother asked Dad to get my hair cut while we were in town. After delivering the coal, we parked near the court house. This was going to be my first real barbershop haircut. All previous cuts had been on Mr. Porter’s front porch. As we entered the shop, I noticed that all the barbers were black men dressed in starched white smocks. A grey headed barber had an open chair so Dad picked me up and sat me in it. He talked briefly with the barber and told him he had business at the court house and that Johnny would wait and bring me back to him after the haircut.
As he cut my hair the barber engaged me in conversation; actually I did not talk much but just said, “Yes, Sir,” and “No, Sir,” to his many questions. As he finished the haircut and was helping me out of the chair, the barber motioned for Johnny to come talk with him. He said to Johnny. “Would you, please, ask this boy’s daddy to teach him that he should not be calling me “Sir”, I don’t want him or me to get into any trouble.” I do not know what Johnny told Daddy, but later when I asked if I had done something wrong, he said, “No. you did what we taught you to do. Don’t let anybody change that.”
5.4 Black Customers
About one-third of our community was black. Most of them lived in a separate area beyond the schoolhouse, referred to as ”the Colored Quarters”. Many from the “Quarters” were customers of our store. Our store was their favorite because they felt unwelcome in some of the other stores. Even as a child, I realized that many in our community were not taught as we were, to treat every human being with respect and dignity. My grandparents had set the tone of the relations with the colored community and my parents carried it on. When my grandfather Weaver died a couple years after leaving the store, customers from the Quarters asked to attend his funeral which was to be held in Ruhama Baptist Church. Arrangements were made to reserve the back two rows for them. This shocked many folks in the community and some disrespectful gossip ensued but there seemed to be no lasting problem.
I was getting my education in the Segregation Protocols. I am so thankful for my parents, and other Southern adults in our lives, who taught us love and tolerance rater than hate and violence. They gently talked us through those times by reminding us of how we were raised and giving us hope that "one day" things would be better. We as a nation and a region have come a long way, but there are still those who want to drag us back to that time. I will return to this subject at various points in the telling of my tale as it impacts my journey.
