Pictorial Memorial for my Dad...

[1eyefishing]

As some of my friends here on the Forum know, I've been living with my dad for the last 2 years and taking care of him since he had a stroke. He passed away on May 30th. I've been wanting to do this for him but I've been very busy trying to empty and redo his house to sell and then close the estate. I don't ever for see me having enough time to do this thing in one fell swoop, so I'll just do it a little bit at a time...
Dad was raised on the outskirts of Marietta South Carolina in the Northwestern foothills of the state. He was the oldest of five siblings and made a dash from the tough life he had growing up when he acquired a basketball scholarship to Wake Forest University. Dad also had an outstanding outgoing personality that opened every kind of door for him during his life. His roommate in the athletic dorm was mr. Dick Tiddy. Dick was best buddies with Arnold Palmer, who was also an athletic dorm. The three of them paled around for years and dad became a supreme golfer but chose a business career in banking instead of golf. For years he maintained a handicap that was a handful of digits on the other side of zero. Once he played in The Dean Martin Pro-Am in Tucson Arizona. He also had a fantastic head for numbers and a sharp memory which aided him greatly in his banking career and also his love for gambling.
He always live life large and I've always felt that I could never come close to filling his shoes. More about this later, here's a few pics...

And his coach, Bones McKinney. A little more about him later also.

 

[work2play2]

Looking forward to more. Good start

 

[mark-7mag]

Very cool !

 

[lagrangedave]

Looking forward to the journey.....

 

[redeli]

Interesting

 

[Cmp1]

Very interested in more,,,,

 

[1eyefishing]

After college, he went directly into his banking career and soon became the youngest vice president of North Carolina National Bank. We moved around in the Carolinas, (Aberdeen, Loris, Florence) before he took us to Newport News Virginia to open his first bank which he was also president of. He then moved us to Norfolk where he founded and presided over another 'biracial' (!) bank.
About this time, I remember him making many trips to Washington DC to testify before a Congressional Banking Committee about the need for and the purpose he could fulfill with his new bank. He often took me along and we went to several Washington Redskins games. For some reason he was on speaking terms with Sonny Jurgensen, who had played football at Duke University. Here Dad also introduced me to Bennie McRae, a defensive player for the New York Giants. Dad's bank later financed Benny's business ventures in building and construction (mostly of government subsidized housing I believe).
Upon opening his last bank (Atlantic National Bank in Norfolk Virginia), I remember that he was responsible for transferring cash from the US Treasury on to the Navy aircraft carrier battle groups that were leaving port in Norfolk. I remember once it took an entire weekend for him and representatives from the treasury and representatives from the Navy to count and confirm $7 million in sequential numbered $100 bills to put on one of the carriers. I don't know how he did it, but I remember him coming home with one of those inch thick pads of $100 bills that was glued together on the top side by the red memo glue. He like to make a big show of pulling that thing out and peeling $100 bill off for someone. This was early seventies. That was a lot of money then; just imagine the kind of cash those Navy ships float around with nowadays.

 

[1eyefishing]

Click on the numbers under the thumbnail to read....
Having some trouble posting full-size pictures...

 

[1eyefishing]

 

[1eyefishing]

 

[1eyefishing]

... more about his second and third careers soon...

 

[westcobbdog]

Enjoyed your words and pics. Your Dad wa a baller if he played Forward at Wake Forest.
Looks like he was a fine man.

 

[sinclair1]

I was proud of my father, but heck, your pop had it going on.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Impressive group there at Wake Forest to include your Dad. Basketball was that school's game. Did Palmer get there by way of a golf scholarship or to play golf?
Then Tiddy being the pro at Palmer's Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando.

I've only been to Winston-Salem once. My sister lived there briefly before moving to Mount Airy.

I would imagine your Dad to be athletic and good enough for basketball or a golf career. Maybe banking was in his blood and his basketball abilities was his ticket to that education and path.
He was definitely a pioneer in the direction of a business of any type for Blacks and Whites.

Love the flat top haircut.

 

[Silver Britches]

You had a great father. Thanks for sharing his story.

 

[blood on the ground]

What a great story! Your dad was a mountain of a man and a great American also!

 

[1eyefishing]

Impressive group there at Wake Forest to include your Dad. Basketball was that school's game. Did Palmer get there by way of a golf scholarship or to play golf?
Then Tiddy being the pro at Palmer's Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando.

I've only been to Winston-Salem once. My sister lived there briefly before moving to Mount Airy.

I would imagine your Dad to be athletic and good enough for basketball or a golf career. Maybe banking was in his blood and his basketball abilities was his ticket to that education and path.
He was definitely a pioneer in the direction of a business of any type for Blacks and Whites.

Love the flat top haircut.

Yes, they were an impressive group. Dad joined the team the year after they won the Southern Conference Championship. So they wern't exactly hurting for recruits, I'm sure. This was either before the ACC or before they joined the ACC.
I'm not sure about Arnold Palmer's scholarship status, but I know he was one year ahead of Dad, so he wasn't there for Dad's senior year in '58. '58 is when Arnold Palmer won his first Masters.
Dad did take me once to Bay Hill and we ate lunch with mr. Tiddy and his wife. Arnold was too busy for lunch and when Dad said he wanted to introduce him to me, they said to get to it because he was on the first tee. We went out there and The King actually stepped down off the first tee to shake my hand!
Yes, Dad was athletic enough for either career, but but he had just started playing golf when he met these guys in college. His main asset was the will and the determination to succeed and a super gregarious personality that everybody just wanted to be around..

Yes, and as somebody else stated he was a real player. I played high school basketball in 10th and 11th grades and I remember once during the summer before I turn 16, we played a game of one-on-one and he beat me. He even marched around me to the hole and dunked on me! He would have been 39yo. We were both 6'3", but he had about 60 pounds on me.

 

[wvdawg]

Enjoyed the stories - your dad was awesome! I always enjoyed my dad's stories of coming back from the military to finish high school and his buddies and him hanging with the coaches after practice in the local bars. Times were different then. Your dad made a big difference in the world.

 

[Duff]

Wow! Great tribute and stories as well!!!

 

[1eyefishing]

So while dad was in business at Atlantic National Bank in Norfolk, we actually lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I remember we rarely missed a Virginia Squires game, especially when coach Bones McKinney's Carolina Cougars tank came to town. Dad had me down there on the sidelines regularly after the games where I was introduced to coach Al Bianchi, Charlie Scott, Rick Barry and others whom I don't remember their names. I always wanted to shake hands with Julius Erving, but he was always wrapped up in a towel and off the floor before we can get near.

So here comes the turning point in the story that is a little hard for me to tell without saying things that shouldn't be said.
Dad was a womanizer and a gambler. He was a risk-taker! And like everything else he did, he did those things supremely well also. One got him in trouble with my mother, and one got him in trouble with his business. He was indicted for fraud over a $100k loan he made to an individual that defaulted on the loan and let the cat out of the bag that he only got the loan because he owed dad a $100k gambling debt. Dad pled down to lesser charges but lost his banking license in the process.
So that was the end of his first of three careers.(Edit: ...and the end of his marriage to my mother.)
I will tell you ahead of time that the moral of this story is going to be :"You don't judge a man by whether or not he falls down, but by whether or not he gets back up!"
Much more later...