Page 46 - Sorghum
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Sorghum
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I always loved sports. Daddy would listen to the radio religiously, especially Ala- bama football games. He’d get a bird’s-eye view of the game by marking off a football field on paper, and then drawing a straight line show- ing how far each team went on each possession. We had a radio the size of a small portable today. With the aid of an outside aerial that stretched between two poles twenty feet high, we could get clear channel stations out of Nash- ville and Louisville, occasionally picking up a weaker signal station from Birmingham. We were only allowed to listen on Saturday nights and an occasional Sunday night, if our lessons were finished.
I’d also be involved in any pick-up game of whatever kind that happened at the school, since I was already there. We were so attuned to sports that when they finally paved the first road in Hamilton, Highway 78 to Birmingham and Tupelo, we immediately utilized it to play field hockey on our skates, marking off the field with chalk. About every fifteen minutes we’d have to terminate the game while a car passed by.
I played basketball, football and ran track. In summer we’d scrape off two tennis
