September 5, 2023 - In 1950 at the age of 18, I hitch-hiked to Springfield, Missouri with three dollars in my pocket. I persuaded the College to let me enroll with the promise to pay as I could for a room in the dormitory. I was given a room shared with Don Walker of Tyler, Texas. It was complete with a lavatory, a Panel-Ray Heater a washcloth, a towel, a broom, and two bunk beds.
When I got the flu, the school nurse came to “paint my throat”. I held up my head and stretched out my neck as far as I could. “Hold down your head and open your mouth”, she barked. Up to this time, I never had a doctor and thought “painting my throat” meant painting my neck. She quickly crammed a swab down my throat and after a time of coughing and gagging, the nurse said I’d “be fine”.
After three days, I began recovering. My roommate, Don Walker, (now Dr. Don Walker of Tyler, Texas), took my picture. After a year of living on peanut butter and crackers, shoveling snow and washing dishes, I enrolled in ETBU in Marshall, Texas and received my B.A. Degree.
1950 was a hard year for many of us in Springfield, but I learned how good peanut butter was, met some of my dearest friends there, and learned that a “throat-painting” is not really so bad….
……when it makes you feel so good later.
