Darwell Griffin Daniels Oral History Interview [November 07, 1996]

              Mary Lewis Deans interviewing Datwell Griffin Daniels
Interview date: January 17, 1996
DWD: This is Darwell Griffm Daniels. I was born Jlllle 10, 1935, and I played
basketball for Red Oak High School in 1950 to 1953, when we graduated. Our rivals
were, most of the time, was Nashville, Coopers, and sometimes Benvenue. We had
fun going to and from the games. Mr. Martin was our coach and our principal at that
time, and he was a reckless driver at times. He would be riding down the road, and
he would be giving us directions, turned all the way arolllld, with his head in the back
seat, most of the time, telling us how to play this game and how to play that and what
things we should do and shouldn't do.
l\1LD: Darwell, do you remember what sort of car he was driving?
DD: No, I really don't. But we were all in the back seat, and we were so scared
because we just knew we won't going to make it to the ball game. Most of the time
my mom would let me drive, and she would go with me. Daddy was on third shift at
Caramollllt Mlls, so he couldn't go. They wouldn't let us go with our dates. So Mom
would have to go with me most of the time. She enjoyed the ball games with me.
IvlLD: What position did you play?
DD: Since, I was tall, I played guard most of the time. I remember playing forward
sometimes. We won-out so we could go play in Raleigh. Mr. Martin would always
send, "We've got a guard that's 5' 9" tall," and I think I'd get the tallest thing they had,
the hardest thing to guard. Once in a while, if he flll1 short of a forward, where he
needed a lay-up, and I was a tall one, he always put me in as a forward to do a couple
of lay-up shots for him. Most of the time I played guard all the time.
Iv:lLD: I know you were a starter. Can you remember who was in the starting line-up
with you?
DD: There was Janice Etheridge, and there was Jean Faulkner, and we had the Rose
girl, Aim Rose. That's about all I remember that played with us at the time.
I\1LD: Tell us what your lllliforms looked like and what they felt like and how you
cared for them.
DD: They were red and white satin, felt real good. We took care of our own ball
suits, had them cleaned. Bought our own ball shoes.
I\1LD: How often did you have them dry cleaned?
DD: Probably once a month. We took care of them Probably once a month.
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l\1LD: Tell me about your shower facilities in your gym.
DD: Okay. What shower facilities? We didn't have any of that. This is an old gym,
and it was very cold in there, so you didn't do much illldressing and dressing. You
dressed before you got there, and you'd slip on some pants over it, and you'd go home.
But it was cold. We didn't have much heat.
l\1LD: Did you practice basketball during the school day?
DD: No, we practiced at four o'clock after school, two days a week, then two days for
traveling if we had to go out to play.
:MLD: Did you ever practice at night?
DD: No, the girls practiced in the afternoon. The boys practiced at night.
l\1LD: Do you remember what nights you played ball?
DD: Tuesdays and Friday nights. You practiced like Monday and Thursday.
l\1LD: How long did you practice.
DD: Probably a couple of hours. Four to six, something like that.
:MLD: Did you practice in your school clothes?
DD: No, we always carried our shorts and changed. Usually changed in the girls'
bathroom in the school house.
l\1LD: Do you remember how your gym was heated?
DD: Old heaters, old cold-stove heaters, in the old gym.
:MLD: Do you remember your most satisfying victory? ... Who did you like to beat
the most?
DD: Probably Nashville, 'cause we were so close to Nashville.
l\1LD: Do you remember who played for Nashville?
DD: I sure don't. I don't remember their names.
:rvtLD: Do you remember when you made first string?
DD: It was my senior year, my senior year.
:MLD: How did your parents feel about your playing basketball?
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DD: They didn't mind. They liked it.
rv!LD: Did you have any boyfriends back then?
DD: Oh, yeah, but we're not going to get into names.
rviLD: Tell me about what years you drove the school bus. Tell me about what kind
of testing you had to do to be a school bus driver, and tell me what you were paid for
driving the school bus and what your responsibilities were.
DD: Well, let's see, since I was forced into this driving the school bus ordeal by Mr.
Martin, and some of them, that we had to have a driver for my area. I did two loads.
I did the long Beulah Load and the short Loop Road. Since I was the only one of age
that was sixteen and could drive, I was the only one over in that section that could
drive the bus.
MLD: What loop road? Was it called Murray's Loop Road?
DD: No. Gosh, you know where Beulah Church is, that goes by the Rose's, that's the
Loop Road, that comes from Red Oak and comes back around on the Red Oak
Highway again. That's the Loop Road.
rviLD: Do you remember the number of the bus you drove?
DD: Yeah, 54.
MLD: What was the interior like?
DD: It was very crude. It just had regular seats.
:MID: Did it have benches?
DD: No, it had hard seats. It had benches when I growing up, going to school. But
when I started driving, it had, like buses now, rows of seats, that you sat in.
MLD: Where did you get your license for driving the school bus?
DD: Nashville. I had to go to Nashville.
:MID: Did you have any training?
DD: That's what we had to go to Nashville and take a series of driving things. Had
an instructor, and we'd have to drive the bus. Yeah, but I was the only one that was
sixteen and had any license. Everybody else, the boys and all, the girls were like
thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and they couldn't drive the bus. Although I was playing
ball, that's really what hindered me from practicing as much is because the fact that
they didn't have anybody to drive the bus in that area. So, I considered driving the
bus. So when I had practice in the afternoons, Bobby Joe [Fisher] would take my bus
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and drive my route. I'd practice, and I'd go pick my bus up after practice. Then when
we went out of town, he would drive for me. It made it a little bit hard, because I felt
like I had to drive the bus because nobody else was old enough to do it. Plus I
wanted to play ball. I guess that's why I didn't go first string for a couple of years
there. I was the only girl bus driver. There wasn't really any the first year I drove.
Then the second year they had some at maybe a couple of other school. So when we
made the picture, I was right in the middle of all the guys and all the substitutes. Here
I stood, the only gjrl driver. But I got an award that I was the best driver, school bus
driver. I was more alert. And I've got to say, M-. Waters, which was the head of the
transportation for Nash County at Nashville, he would always make sure my bus was
okay because he knew I was a girl and I didn't know anything about it. So he'd
always double check it out and be sure everything was okay.
MLD: Do you remember what you got paid?
DD: Pay, thirty dollars a month.
MLD: So, that was actually $1.50 a day because there were 20 school days in a
month. So, you got paid $1.50 for making four trips. What did you do with that
money?
DD: I think I bought ball shoes. I remember buying ball shoes. I think that's about
what the ball shoes cost. It really wasn't that much. Maybe I'd buy a skirt or
something, or a sweater, something that I felt like I bought and paid for.
MLD: Do you remember if they took out taxes and social security?
DD: I don't think so. No, they didn't do social security. They might have taken out
taxes on us. They might have done that. I can't remember. But I know it wasn't a
whole big check.
:MLD: You told me something about paving roads.
DD: Okay, I started driving about the time that they started paving roads over in the
long route, around the Beulah Community church. It wasn't quite as bad, but it was
still bad "When it rained and snowed. Although the other roads were fine, I had one
stretch of road that was really, really bad when it rained. I usually would get either
probably stuck or something. Somebody would have to pull us out. Then, the next
year I drove, the Rose Road, which was the straight road into the Red Oak - Nashville
Highway, and I would be going up Rose Hill, and they would have pulled in the dirt
and it would be like maybe a foot that was nothing but just mud. We would cross
over the bridge and we couldn't make it up the hill. I'd tell the guys to get out of the
bus. They weren't strict then. You could do about what you wanted to. The guys
would get out of the bus. I'd end up closer to the creek than I thought I should be. I
found out they were trying to push us in that ditch instead of pushing us out. If we
made it, I'd let all the kids get out. They'd just mire up in mud up to their knees. My
bus would be buried all the way up to the running board. It got to be such a chore
that last year that M-. Rose would sit at the top of the hill every morning and wait for
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my bus to come and he took the chains to it and pull us up. Mr. Martin and some of
the teacher didn't tu1derstand why we were late so muc~ and Mr. Ennis. So they
decided that they were going to ride me arotu1d one afternoon. They did. They fotu1d
out what a bad ordeal I had to go through. You'd just change gears, the four gears,
you'd change and you'd go, you'd move up maybe an inch at the time. You'd back up,
and you'd inch up, you'd back up, and you'd inch up. It was really, you were
exhausted when you finished. But after they rode arotu1d with me and folllld out what
an ordeal it was, they changed my route so I could go arotu1d by the Griffins and
come in the other way, direct. They gave me the authority to change my route any
time that it was bad weather, that I could get the kids to school, rather than to go
through getting stuck and being late coming in, about an hour or so every day. We
would change our route the days it rained. It was so bad.
:MLD: Which Mr. Rose?
DD: Henry Lee, Harry Lee Rose.
:MLD: Did he have children who had gone to school at Red Oak?
DD: No. He did not. But some of his nieces and nephews and all did, and they lived
in that vicinity, close by.
:MLD: I want you to tell me what your family did for fun on Saturday.
DD: Daddy loved the movies, so we'd go to the Meyers Theater in Nashville. Of
course, they flUl double features, plus a continued series. After we'd get out of that --­We'd
get there about 6:00 and see a double series, get out at nine, and Daddy would
ask Mom, "Don't you want to go to Rocky Mollllt to the other movie, to the Center or
the Cameo?" So, here we'd go. I'd jump in the back seat. Mama and Daddy was in
the front seat, and here we'd go to Rocky Mollllt; and we'd see another movie. But
we'd always go to town early enough to go up to Pure Oil's, and had hot dogs. You
could get hot dogs for like two for fifteen cents.
:MLD: Where?
DD: Pure Oil's, a little diner in Nashville. You could get gas, and you'd go in the
diner and eat.
:MLD: Can you remember the first Hardees?
DD: Yeah, the first Hardees. I was secretary to Sheenie Gardner; and his son, Jim,
went into business for Hardees. I was secretary, and I ate one of the first fifteen-cent
hamburgers that came off the press. Sheenie Gardner brought it back to me. He said,
"I want you to try something extra special, and tell me what you think about it," he
said. I told him, "This is pretty good." And he said, "And it's got pickles, too." I ate
one of the frrst hamburgers that he brought to me, from the very frrst one, the original,
that frrst morning they put them off the press.
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rvtLD: How long did you work at that job?
DD: Well, he sold out to Maola Milk and Ice Cream. I stayed on with Maola.
Probably about eight years. Maola bought out Gardner's Dairy, so I worked for Maola
an additional four years. So Jim and Jerry and all of them were down there when I
was working with M-. Gardner, his secretary, and bookkeeping.
l\1LD: Where did you get your secretarial and bookkeeping training?
DD: Woman's College, Greensboro, then Carolina School of Commerce in Rocky
Moilllt for my business degree.
l\1LD: Did you have any business training at Red Oak High School?
DD: Nothing but typing illlder Miss Beland, and that's when we jmnped out of the
windows and went to Rocky Moilllt, skipped school. That was the only teacher I think
we could jump out and get away from, wasn't it. Yes, we did We'd catch her out of
the room, and we'd take off
l\ltLD: Did your family keep pets when you were a kid at home?
DD: Yes, we had lots of pets. Course, you know, we had cows and hogs and stuff
like that, horses and ducks. :rvf.ama had turkeys. :rvf.ama loved pets.
l\1LD: Did you have a dog?
DD: Yeah.
l\ltLD: Was it a house dog or a yard dog?
DD: Yard dog. Mother never let us bring anything in the house.
l\1LD: Do you have a dog that you particularly remember?
DD: Well, we always had boxer bulldogs. My mama always loved pets, so we had
all kinds of pets. Mama used to have a little petting-type zoo where the kids at school
used to go, after I got grown and left home. She had all the different color little
bantams and all the little oriental chickens. She had little pairs, and she had little
cages for every thing. She had peacocks, anything that was liDUSual and different.
But she loved turkeys and guineas.
l\1LD: What did your mother want for you in life?
DD: To have the things that she never had.
l\ltLD: What did your father want for you in life?
DD: About the same thing. My mama and daddy came from large families. Mom
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had eight in her family. Daddy had seven in his. With large families, you don't have
the things that if you had just one or two children. So being the only child, I can't
ever say that I wanted anything that I never got. That's one thing my mom and dad
gave me. If I said I wanted something, I'd get it. Daddy worked third shift at
Caramollllt. Of course, we had tenant farmers; and he would be sure the farm was
looked after. He did that extra job, and Mom did curb market so that we could have
things like other people. I think Mama and Daddy got the --- I don't know --- I didn't
know but one more person that had a 1V 'When we got one. If somebody else had
something, Marna and Daddy tried to accomplish it and get it, too. I've never,
basically, I've always gotten 'What I, you know, within reason, let's put it that way.
Within reason.
l\1LD: What did your parents want from you?
DD: Education. They wanted me to go to college.
l\1LD: Do you feel that they feel that you met their expectations?
DD: Oh yes, they did. The only thing mother didn't like that I didn't do was to
accomplish playing the piano. I played it, but I didn't like to play it. I didn't love to
play it. Now I wish I had listened to her. She used to stand over me and make me
practice. I guess that's why I resented it. She wanted to play, and that's why she
pushed me so hard to play. It was something she wanted 'When she was growing up.
Although I remember growing up with my grandparents. They had one of these old­timey
organs that you pull the little things out, and you pedal. On one side of the
room was the organ; and on the other side was the self-player piano, which I have
now, with the rolls and everything. I'd go stay with her, growing up, I'd go play one
thing; and I'd get tired of playing that; and I'd run across the room and I'd play the
self-player. I remember growing up and enjoying it. Mom missed the opportllllity of
taking because her fmger was smashed 'When she was little, and it was crocked. She
couldn't play, and she just wanted that so much. That's the only thing I think my
mother wanted out of me that I didn't accomplish.
:MLD: Can you remember the day you met your husband?
DD: I kind of grew up with the family, his brothers and Billy helped my daddy on
the farm as extra day labor, putting in tobacco and stuff like that. I remember them
being arolllld. I remember playing football in the cow pasture and dodging the cow
pads. I remember playing tackle in the cow pasture with them We were a
community 'Which was like a little circle. Everybody aromd that community, about
twenty-five girls and boys, we'd play together every Sllllday and ride bicycles to Red
Oak and Nashville. We'd play football, basketball, 'Whatever. We had a good time.
J\1LD & DD are joined by Ronald Deans 'Who was in DD's graduating class at Red
Oak High School.
rv!LD: Will you please tell me about getting a car 'When you were sixteen years old
and 'What you did with that car 'When you drove it to school.
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DD: I was sixteen in Jme and that fall, when Daddy sold the crop, he decided that I
could have a car. So we went to Davenport in Rocky Momt. I picked out a blue
Pontiac, and everybody was thrilled to death because they knew I loved to go. We
loved to have a good time. Every day that they knew I drove the car to school, that
Mom and Dad let me drive it, that I'd park over there in front of the dormitory,
teachers' dormitory. Everybody'd look out, and they'd see the car sitting over there,
and they'd say, "Uhhhh, we're going to skip school today." Everybody would get real
excited. About lunch time we were going to head over to Rocky Momt, to Rocky
Mount Senior High. Of course, at that time we had to check out the guys over there.
So the girls, Eleanor Flowers, Nancy Vick, Jackie Teachey, sometime Sue Jones, just
different ones at different times, and we'd all go over to Rocky Mount and eat lunch at
Spears Restaurant. It was on the comer over there, down from Belk-Tylers. We'd eat
at Spears. Sometimes we'd go out to the Dairy Bar, a lots of times, and eat over there.
Then we'd go back by Rocky Mount Senior High. That would be about the time
everybody was getting out. Then we'd check out the guys over there, just have a good
time, be back at Red Oak before school turned so everybody could catch their bus
back home, so they wouldn't know they were skipping and missing during the day.
J\.1LD: How did you square that with your teachers?
DD: Most of the time they didn't know we left. Lots of times I had, and some of us
had, typing, was anyway, a lots of times it was after the last thing. Lots of times we'd
leave and jump out of the windows, out of the typing room, which was Miss Beland's
typing class. She never really acted like she was really concerned. She knew that
everybody was going to be young once in a while and have a good time. She really
kind of covered, not covered up, for us, but she just didn't make it known. Let's put it
that way. She was a good sport. I still see her once in a while, right now. She's in
Scotland Neck. She lives in Scotland Neck, I believe it is, now. She married a doctor
up there, I believe. I bump into her once in a while in Rocky Mount. We grin and
talk about the old times. She was a lot of ftm. We'd go to Nashville, like at night,
we'd take off and we'd go to Nashville, or we'd go to town, whatever. I remember one
time in particular --- Mama always thought that if I went at night that some of the
guys had to go with me. I guess Bobby Joe [Fisher] was kind of my little, older­brother,
but he and Ctntis Perry went with me one time to Rocky Mount, one night.
We come around the curve, over there, coming from Rocky Mount, before you get to
Benvenue, that sharp curve.
J\.1LD: Pate's Curve?
DD: Yeah. I was going around, you know, kind of real fast, and we were having a
good time. When I took that curve, the next thing I knew, Bobby Joe and Ctntis Perry
was in the foot. They were scared to death. It was a little while after that before
they'd ride with me, because they thought I was going too fast. I did like to drive fast.
Daddy always told me I drove too fast. I did wreck the car. Yeah. It was my senior
year, and we had snow. It must have been that bad year. We did have a lot of snow.
The snow hadn't quite melted. I was going from home to Nashville, I think, to get
something for my mom. There was a great big old --- I thought it was a clump of
snow, in the road. I was in the front of :Miles Joyner's, just past Bennie Womble's.
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There was a great, big, old lump in the road. I thought I could nm over it and it
would be all right, because I thought it was just a clump of snow. But we found out it
was a rock covered with snow. It hit up under the car, and it totaled it. It busted the
shaft and stuff under there. It was totalled The car looked fme, but it was
underneath. It just tore all to pieces. They said it was no fix to it. But it looked like
just a clump of snow.
:MLD: Did they get you another car?
DD: Not at that time because I was going off to college in the fall. I did \Vfeck the
car. In fact, it might have been the year I went to college. I guess it was. It was that
fall. Yeah, probably so. That's how it got wrecked, and it could never be fixed. But
they got a car after that. I forgot what kind it was.
:rvtLD: Maybe we need a collection of Pate's Curve stories.
DD: Do you want me to tell you about the one when we went to the ball game at
Nashville? There's a street over there. I can't remember what street it is, but it's got a
real big dip. We'd jump that next dip.
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