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| LBJ Asking Himself How'd I Get In This Mess? |
Did you know that 1968 was the year when LBJ gave a state of the union speech and said that he was gonna withdraw troops from Vietnam . . .
Click Here To Read More About The War In Vietnam
Click Here To Read More About The War In Vietnam
http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Viet2.html
I told you a couple of chapters ago about me having Psoriasis. In the early part of September 1968 I went back to Monroe I had it very badly, so bad that they put me in the hospital. I was there for about eight days. I would soak in an oatmeal bath and then they would put what looked like wet oats on my skin and then wrap me in saran wraps, I now know how an oatmeal cookie feels like. There was a man named Bill Martin that came to the restaurant lots. He was an aid to Governor Clement. He liked me and came to see me at the hospital. Boy I was happy. Just to think that someone as important as he was to come see me. He brought me flowers too. I will bring him up again later in this book. Guy came to see me also. He had been sober for a while. This thing about me having drunks as hero's, goes back when I told you about Bus Thompson in the Hartsville Chapter. Bill also was a drunk, and that makes three that were alcoholic. The list goes on later in my story . . .
I told you a couple of chapters ago about me having Psoriasis. In the early part of September 1968 I went back to Monroe I had it very badly, so bad that they put me in the hospital. I was there for about eight days. I would soak in an oatmeal bath and then they would put what looked like wet oats on my skin and then wrap me in saran wraps, I now know how an oatmeal cookie feels like. There was a man named Bill Martin that came to the restaurant lots. He was an aid to Governor Clement. He liked me and came to see me at the hospital. Boy I was happy. Just to think that someone as important as he was to come see me. He brought me flowers too. I will bring him up again later in this book. Guy came to see me also. He had been sober for a while. This thing about me having drunks as hero's, goes back when I told you about Bus Thompson in the Hartsville Chapter. Bill also was a drunk, and that makes three that were alcoholic. The list goes on later in my story . . .
I really didn't know that Bill was an alcoholic till I got to know him a little better. He kept it hid very well. He drank Vodka straight from the bottle. YUCK! After I came, home momma and daddy would let me ride around with Bill not thinking he would do anything wrong and well he really didn't. He just would be drunk and driving with me in the car, (which was bad within its self). He had a new Ford Thunder Bird and would ask me, "can I pet the kitty!" I would laugh and say, "if you get sober and stay sober I will let you." He would laugh and say, "well I guess I will never get to pet that kitty." I know that was a totally out of line conversation to have with a seventeen-year-old. I don't think he meant any harm. He never ever tried to quote "get in my pants." A lot of that happens from other people . . .
Back to Monroe I went when I got out of the hospital, I hated it. I was just another kid there but in West Nashville I had become friends with many people who were important and friends in the music business. I insisted that I was let go home to momma and daddy's. The counselor said no way. I was in the office one day, talking to my counselor trying to get them to let me go home. When a delivery came for me, it was one dozen long stem roses. WOW! I read the card out loud to the staff, "To the young love in some old fools life, love Guy." I went on to tell them that Guy needed me to help him stay sober. That should have been a sign to them that I didn't need to go home. I also told them that if they didn't let me go home that I would run away every day. The talk went on about one more week and then I had convinced them that momma and daddy had cleaned up their act and that all was well. I left Monroe the twenty-eight day of September 1968 . . .
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| Bobby Henderson & Momma Dancing in Dinning Room Pepe's |
Right after I got to go home to momma and daddy's, they started drinking heavy again. It was mostly momma started drinking heavy again. She got drunk one night and her mind went back to when she was adopted. She had found her real father. She wanted daddy to call the man and he said no. She got very mad and went across the street and kicked out a plate glass window at Bryant's Dry Cleaners. She came back across the street and was bleeding really badly. She had cut the left calf of her leg. She went back outside. We were in a strip mall of about six or seven shops and she went up the mall trying to kick all the windows out. She was bleeding really badly. She set an alarm off in one of the stores so the police came (remember we were friends with all the police) and the one cop that didn't know us came. He placed momma under arrest and put hr in cuffs. They took her to General Hospital to sew her leg up and then he took her to booking. They all knew momma at booking and would not book her and the NEWBIE cop was told that momma and daddy were their friends and that he better stay away from them or get it straight that they were friends of the police department. He was never told how much a friend they were. Momma and daddy by this time were drinking every night and momma and drinking meant fighting. She was a total bitch when she drank. When everyone else had gone home. She took it out on daddy all the time. Lee Ann and I have often ask ourselves why daddy stayed with her so long. He would just listen to her ranting and raving about whatever tangent she was on and never say anything. That was the later years he was the bad one prier to coming to Nashville . . .
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| Howdy Its Cowgirl Debbie |
One weekend there was this beautiful palomino horse there. He rared up a couple times on the man that was riding him. He started beating him with a two-by-four. I got mad and so did momma and Tony told me the horse was for sale. I ask momma to buy him for me. Yes, she bought him for me. We boarded him at the Hooper's ranch. We named him Honey Boy. Before we were through with him, he would do anything we wanted him to do. We put rubber shoes on him so I rode him in the Nashville Christmas Parade. Momma walked on the side walk beside me so if anything happened she would be there to help wow. That's a long way for anybody to walk exceptionally someone who doesn't do any exercises at all . . .
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| I Loved Riding It Just Came Natural |
Marsha and Betty and I were having a ball. Then one day we skipped school and did some drinking and I was pulling into a store on Hwy. Seventy at McCory Lane and a man came over the hill and SMACK right into the side of my car. We were lucky nobody was hurt. I told you about all the police that we knew well I was the only person in West Nashville that had a blue VW convertible and when the call went over the radios that a blue VW convertible had been hit, Chester Duffield and Opey Sory and Bill McKerdy all came to the wreck site. They took all the beer cans out for us and cleaned it up so when the care wreck investigator came he would not get me for DUI and underage drinking. Yes, the start of a new me yea right!
You would think I was in a heap of trouble, Yea right! Momma and daddy felt so bad about me being in Monroe that they just bought me another VW convertible, a red one this time. I was a little bit more careful as much as a teenager could be. I was hanging out with older people at this time. Guy with all his entourage, and policemen and, well almost all the people that came into the restaurant. Momma and daddy when they closed up the shop would go downtown and go to a place called Linebaulls. It was a restaurant that lots of the music people would go to after they would do a show. People like Doug and Rusty Kershaw and Roger Miller, Waylon and Willie Nelson and well the lists on. I was having a great time . . .
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| My Poor Bug |
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| Welcome To Pepe's Kitchen |
By now almost all the people that came to Pepe's was family to momma and daddy. I remember a time that there would be more people in the kitchen of Pepe's than in the two table dinning room. It was nothing to see five or six policemen or music people back there playing a guitar or even grinding cheese. It was home to many and momma and daddy loved them all. The picture on right is Chris Strother, and she had inherited Central Produce in Nashville. She lived in twenty five-room mansion in Belle Meade by herself. She felt more at home in the kitchen at Pepe's than at her mansion. The return for that was I never ever heard anyone talk badly about mommy and daddy unless the people who owed them money. It’s hard for me to talk about daddy without telling you about his funeral in 1996 cause it was such a great thing to see, I can’t tell you now about daddy death there is too much more to come in the life of momma and daddy and me that lead up to his death . . .
About this time is when Guy got drunk again and momma and daddy told him he had to find somewhere else to live. One morning he was gonna go swimming at the local pool on White Bridge Rd. It was a membership only swimming club. He had gotten a membership to keep in physical shape. One of Metro's finest policemen knew Guy lived with us and he was knocking at our door early in AM. Momma and daddy slept in day time and worked at night time. He told us that Guy was out in front of the restaurant doing ring around Rosie on the sign pole of Pepe's in a speedo ( speedo: a males bathing suit that is very skimpy). Daddy went and got him and told him to get some clothes on. Guy called someone to come get him and he went to the pool with the speedo on. The pool people ask him to either change his swimming suit or leave. It was sort of funny cause the same policeman came to the call at the swimming pool that had got daddy to get him off the street earlier on the day. If it hadn't been for momma and daddy, he would have gone to jail for indecent exposure . . .
Someone from WSM TV, Marty Vosick came and got him and he stayed with her. She had met Guy on day when he was on the Ralph Emery morning TV show. By this time Jenny Farris had just enough of Guys drinking and booted him out. Marty had a small two bed room apartment off Granny White Pk. She had a roommate name Brenda, she also a worker at WSM. What time I wasn't at the pizza shop I was hanging out with those three. They partied all the time. I would stay up till early am like six or so and then go home and go to bed for a few hours and then set out again. By this time I was drinking every day. My routine was sleep about on average five hours a night and then eat some food (whatever I could find ) and then go to pizza shop work a few hours. After that I would go to Marty's apartment and wait to see who was gonna be there and then P A R T Y!
Bottom Roll Jimmy Payne sitting on right who wrote Woman Woman in 1967 / Bill McKerdy sitting on left/ first Roll is Walter a sessions bass player next Freddie Fredricks WSM A&R / Marty Vocik Sound Person WSM /Brenda Is a WSM person/ Barren Binkley A&R WSM /Back Roll Daddy/ Conade Jones Sound Man WSM to my right I am On Back Roll Standing in a Chair. I don't know who the others are . . .
You know I was really lucky that I never tried hard drugs at all. There were many times that I could have but didn't. I guess God was doing for me what I should have been doing for myself. There were times that I would take what they called Black Widows or RJS's or white crosses ( speed ) so I could stay awake more to drink longer. I fell right into that drinking problem as so did momma and daddy and Guy. I was well on my way to being a full-fledged drunk too . . .
I would spend lots of time at WSM sitting in the control room and talk to a few A and R men. There was Barren Binkley, Dick Bracken, Conrad Jones, Freddy Fredrick's and so on. They all came to Marty's parties. Barren Binkley and Dick Bracken both would take turns, being Bozo the clown on channel four, you know the kids show. I was in with a good crowd though, they always looked after me to not let anyone take advantage of me ( I think.) Which means I blacked out almost ever time I drank. I called it being tired, yea right again . . .
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| Larry Loftis and His Guitar |
I started chasing Larry Loftis and am I glad that he was a straight up kind of a guy. I would have done anything to make him like me, YES that too. He had an aunt that had a small pie wagon at Fourth-Second and Charlotte Ave. It was a replica of a railroad lunch car, and her father built it in the very early nineteen hundreds. I started going down there and would wait till he would get off his shift. He worked three to eleven-shift. He would go down to Aunt Nina's and play music he played a guitar and sang. He was a great guy. He never took advantage of me and he could have. There were many people that went to Nina's to play music. They were all not professional players but they played great music. I remember one that Larry use to sing. Its Only The Wind and I Still Miss Someone, he also liked John Denver songs I'm a Country Boy, Country Home was also one he loved . . .
Momma and daddy were a part of a franchise. They were suppose to get a discount on the product because they were a part of the company. We had a salesman named Charlie Goad. He left his order book at our place (swore that he did it by mistake), but we knew he did it on purpose so daddy could see it and find out he was even paying more than a non franchise. Daddy confronted the owner of the franchise Don Hunt who also owned Wholesale Pizza and he could not explain it. Momma and daddy started to look for a place to open one of their own pizza places. It wasn't long before they found out that Bob McGowen had a place just a few blocks away from there on Charlotte Ave and it was a great location. He was one of our customers. So daddy struck up a deal and Jaco's Pizza was born . . .
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| Momma Hard at Work Pepe's Pizza |