Welcome to the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History
|
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
Large
Extra Large
large ( > 500x500)
Full Resolution
|
|
ORAL HISTORY OF JACK BAILEY Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC. November 10, 2016 MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 10, 2016. I'm Don Hunnicutt, in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC., 170 Randolph Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take Jack Bailey's oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Jack, state your full name, place of birth, and date. MR. BAILEY: Jack L. Bailey, Jr. I was born May 8, 1944, in Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, what was your father's name, place of birth, and date, if you recall. MR. BAILEY: My father's name was Jack L. Bailey. He was born January 9, 1923, in Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know about your mother's maiden name, place of birth, and date. MR. BAILEY: My mother's maiden name was Mary Frances Crawford. She was born January 17, 1924, in Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, on your father's side, your grandparents, grandfather and grandmother, what were their names, and, if you recall, any places of birth or dates, give me those, please. MR. BAILEY: My dad's father was Elbin Dan Bailey. He was born January 25, 1898, in Poca, West Virginia. And, my maternal grandmother was Frances Villette Polsley -- P-O-L-S-L-E-Y. She was born in Raymond City, West Virginia, in 1901. MR. HUNNICUTT: How about on your mom's side? MR. BAILEY: On my mother's side, my mother's father was James Ernest Crawford, Jr. He was born in August, 1901, in Arbutis, West Virginia, which is in the Charleston, West Virginia area. My maternal grandmother was Frances Nash, and she was born May 18, 1900, in Buffalo, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you recall your father's school history was like? MR. BAILEY: He grew up in Nitro, West Virginia, which is just a few miles from Charleston. And, he graduated from Nitro High School in 1942. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, after that, did he pursue a college education. MR. BAILEY: Did not. He joined the Army Air Forces, in November, 1942, and served in, in the U.S. Army Air Forces, until June of 1945. He was a ball turret gunner, on a B-17, and was shot down over Germany, and was about 16 months a POW [Prisoner of War] in Germany. MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mother's school history? MR. BAILEY: Mother also graduated from Nitro High School in 1942. They were high school classmates, sweethearts. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, were they married before he went into the military? MR. BAILEY: They got married in November of '42, and he joined the service in December of '42. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was their home place? MR. BAILEY: In Nitro, Nitro, West Virginia, and Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she work any while, during ... ? MR. BAILEY: She worked a little bit. I was born in May of '44, which was after my dad was shot down. So, she worked some in Charleston, but I was 13 months old before my dad ever saw me. MR. HUNNICUTT: You have sisters and brothers? MR. BAILEY: Have one sister, Judy Bailey. She lives here in Oak Ridge. She, also, was born in Charleston, West Virginia. She was an Oak Ridge High [School] graduate in 1964. MR. HUNNICUTT: What caused the Bailey family to come to Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Job opportunity. My dad was working for Monsanto, in Charleston, and a friend of his that'd gotten a job in Oak Ridge, told him about it. So, my dad came down here for an interview, and was hired as a machinist at Y-12, and he started in June of 1951. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, where did the family live when they came to Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Interesting, when we first came here, we lived in the old, I guess, dormitories, out close to Jefferson Circle, for several weeks, while we were getting a house prepared. We wound up, first house, was at 106 South Purdue Avenue, in Woodland, and we lived there a couple of years, and then, moved to 196 Northwestern Avenue, also in the Woodland area. MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house was that, that 106 South Purdue? MR. BAILEY: Concrete block houses. That one and the one on Northwestern. A lot of the houses in the Woodland area were the block houses that were built, I think, around 1950. MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did the family move from 106 South Purdue to 196 Northwestern? MR. BAILEY: The ground settled on the house on South Purdue. We could see the outdoors through our living room without a window. There was a crack, probably, an inch to two inches wide. And, it was more trouble to try to have it fixed, and go through all that, than it was to just move. MR. HUNNICUTT: On South Purdue which side of the street is 106 on? It's on the left? MR. BAILEY: Well, as you turn ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Coming up ... MR. BAILEY: If you turn off of Manchester, onto South Purdue, it's on the right. There's a little cul-de-sac soon after you turn on South Purdue. Interestingly enough, one of the first persons, maybe, the first person I met in Oak Ridge, was Bob Presley. He lived on the corner of South Purdue and Manchester. And, Bob and I were classmates, went to the same church, at First Presbyterian. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, I had the ends mixed. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I was thinking the other end's beginnings. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: But it was where Bob lived. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how the family got to Oak Ridge? Did they come by car, do you recall? MR. BAILEY: Covered wagon. (laughter) No, my dad had a, it was a 1948 Plymouth, and, I think, it was the second car he'd ever owned, and that's how we got here. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall your mother saying anything about coming to Oak Ridge, whether she liked it, or anything. MR. BAILEY: No, no I don't remember anything like that. They just, they wanted to leave West Virginia. They just felt like there were better opportunities elsewhere, and there were better places, at the time, to raise their family, than in West Virginia. It was an opportunity to get away from some family dynamics, which, you might imagine, goes on in a lot of families. So, it was, kind of, a fresh start. MR. HUNNICUTT: During the time that you can remember, all the time you were growing up at home, do you ever recall your dad saying anything about what he did at Y-12? MR. BAILEY: No, not at Y-12. No, because he was there a couple of years, worked shift work. I remember we always had to be quiet during the day if he'd worked the night shift, and, he'd sleep during the day. But, after a couple of years, he got a job as a machinist at X-10, and worked over there. I do remember him saying something about working on the moon box, when he was a machine shop foreman out at X-10. Now, which box, or which flight, I don't know, but I do remember him mentioning that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, Y-12 had a big hand into that. MR. BAILEY: Did they? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Did your mother work any when she came to Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Not initially. We came here in the summer of '51. When I graduated from high school in 1962, my sister was finishing her sophomore year in high school, Mother decided she would go to work at that time. Lorena Causey was the Y-12 Credit Union manager, at that time. They were personal friends, bridge partners, and that sort of thing, and Lorena said, "Well, come to work in the office here, and you can start part time and see how you like it." She retired 25 years later. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Still part time. MR. BAILEY: No, no, she, actually, became the number two person at Y-12 Credit Union. She was offered the, the manager's job, at one point, but declined. She didn't want that job. MR. HUNNICUTT: The house that your family finally ended up, on Northwestern, describe how that house looks inside. MR. BAILEY: It was at the end of another cul-de-sac at Northwestern, just up the hill from the drug store and the grocery store, going away from Downtown. Three bedroom, one bathroom, oil heat. When you first walked in the door, the kitchen was off to the right with a small, I don't know if you'd call it a storage area, where the furnace area was. Had a, a kitchen, had the living room, then three bedrooms, one bathroom. Oil heat. I remember the guys coming with the oil tanker, and they'd run that line down to the tank to fill it up, periodically. MR. HUNNICUTT: They had a tank buried in the ground, if I remember correctly. MR. BAILEY: They did, yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a type house that had the heating elements, or the tubes in the floor, where the heat would go through the floor? MR. BAILEY: Right, right. We had a dog at the time. The dog liked to find the warm spots in the wintertime and the cool spots in the summertime. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the floor that warm during the wintertime? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it worked pretty well, sure did. MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the first school you attended in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Woodland. Went to Woodland, starting in the fall of 1951. I started in second grade. I had gone to first grade in Nitro, West Virginia. And, actually, you and I were classmates that first year. We had Miss Shirley as our teacher in second grade. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was Miss Shirley, is that what you just told me? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Just checking to see ... MR. BAILEY: You remember that? (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: I do remember that, yeah. So, second grade in Woodland, what do you remember, anything different from the first grade where you came, where you used to live, and the second grade at Woodland? Do you remember anything at all different in the two? MR. BAILEY: Well, thinking back to West Virginia, of course, we were learning our letters, learning how to read, that sort of thing. I did not go to kindergarten. They did not offer kindergarten in West Virginia, so my first experience with school was first grade in West Virginia. And then, coming to second grade, of course, we learned more as we went along. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like elementary school? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, good experience, it really was. I did well in school, and, you know, academics came fairly easy to me, after a certain point. So, yeah, it was a good experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, who were some of your other teachers at Woodland? MR. BAILEY: I had Miss Shirley in second grade. Ms. Morgan in the third grade. Miss Story in the fourth grade, and Mrs. Hamric in the fifth grade. MR. HUNNICUTT: We, we parted ways, after the second grade ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah, you moved, I believe. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, no, I stayed at Woodland to the fifth grade, but I had different teachers than you. MR. BAILEY: Ok, all right. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was the only grade that we had the same teacher. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Who'd you have? MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, let's see, Ms. Bryant was third grade. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: And I don't remember fourth, and Mrs. ... oh, I can't remember her name, right now. MR. BAILEY: Cramer, or something like that? MR. HUNNICUTT: No, Woody. MR. BAILEY: Woody. Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you ever involved with the safety patrol while you were at Woodland? MR. BAILEY: No, never. MR. HUNNICUTT: You missed out. (laughter) Just kidding. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I do remember one story, in second grade. You may remember Jimmy Jamison, lived up on South Purdue, a little bit farther down the street from where we lived. We went on a field trip to his house, I think they had an electric train set up, or something. She told us to stay together as a class. I ran ahead when we started back from Mrs. Jamison's house, back to the school, so when I got back to the classroom, Miss Shirley called me up to the front of the room, and spanked me for running ahead, and not obeying. I went back to my seat, laughing. She called me back up there again, and I wasn't laughing a second time. MR. HUNNICUTT: What'd she spank you with? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember. Probably a ruler. MR. HUNNICUTT: Those things hurt on the wrist, didn't they? Did you ever get hit on the wrist? MR. BAILEY: No, my mother used to, occasionally, get a plastic ruler and, if I did something wrong, she'd slap me on the calf with that plastic ruler. That stung. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever have to go pick your own switches? MR. BAILEY: No, I don't remember that. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: If you did, you would remember it. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's terrible, to have to go pick your own switch, and bring it in and have them switch you with it. MR. BAILEY: My dad had a wooden paddle, about this long, that he'd made in high school shop class. That was always in the hall closet. My sister and I knew where it was, and so, he didn't have to go get any switches. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summer months, between school grades, what'd you do? MR. BAILEY: Played at the playground a lot. We had the playground program, at that time, and I remember going to Woodland a lot in the summer time. Play soft ball, play the various games they offered at the playgrounds. I remembered a couple of my, have run into a couple of my old coaches, periodically, and, of course, we appear to be about the same age now, and I like to remind them that he was my coach, years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall one year, in Woodland, and I can't remember what year it was, that the whole school had this big, outdoor play, and it was related with cowboys and Indians, of some sort. Do you remember that happening? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember that one specifically. I remember we used to have May Day programs, where we were outdoors on May Day, May the first, May the fifth, whatever it was. But, I don't remember that specific program. MR. HUNNICUTT: This was, I'm pretty sure, it was the whole school, and it just so happened, I was an Indian. My mother made me these Indian pants. You took your shirt off, but some guys had short, shorts-like whatever they called, the Indians called that, but she, she made me Indian pants, and it was all, pretty well orchestrated about what we had to do, and go around, Ba-wa-wa, you know, in the circle, and all that stuff, like Indians ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... supposed to do, I guess. I haven't run into anybody yet that remembers that. I know I didn't dream that. (laughter) But, anyway ... MR. BAILEY: I'll talk to Pat, occasionally, about, "What do you remember about school days?" and she doesn't remember a lot of things from younger school years. So, I guess, some things stick with us, and some don't. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it does. Do you remember us doing air raid drills, or fire drills at Woodland? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, and it's kind of comical, looking back, because they'd say, we're going to have a, an air raid drill, instead of a fire drill, and we'd get under our desk, like that'd really protect us from a bomb. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Seem like to me, on the fire drills, we just went out in the hall, or did we leave the school? MR. BAILEY: I think we left the school to go outside. I guess that'd make us an even better target. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. But we had to walk in single file. MR. BAILEY: That's right, sure did. MR. HUNNICUTT: In a disciplined manner. Yeah, those were quite different days than they are today. You know, I didn't attend the playgrounds. I always -- our neighborhood had so many kids over there, that we seemed to entertain ourselves, I guess. MR. BAILEY: So, you didn't, in the summertime, you didn't go to the playgrounds? MR. HUNNICUTT: No, I didn't. I know I missed a lot, but I certainly didn't. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it was a good program. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about the drug store, and the grocery store, and there was a gas station somewhere up there at the Woodland Shopping Center. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, that was a neat shopping center. I remember the drug store, and IGA, Food Liner, our grocery store. I think was a Gulf gas station, at the time. There was a barber shop down the side. I think, a beauty salon, and, maybe, an insurance agency. But, we lived up the hill, going away from Downtown, and when I was a kid, we'd be watching TV, my parents both smoked, at the time. They would send me on an errand, to go down to the drug store, and buy their cigarettes. I would try to time it on the half hour, when one program ended, and another one started. I'd run down the hill, buy the cigarettes, run back up the hill, and the goal was to get it done during the commercial, so I wouldn't miss the show. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you live close to Bruce Anderson? You remember him? MR. BAILEY: Why, he lived across the street from the drug store. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, but he was up the hill, just a little bit, though. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, but, I think, his was the first house coming up the hill going toward Downtown. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: And, I lived on the hill going away from Downtown. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, Ok. MR. BAILEY: Judy Cole was -- fellow classmate -- was our next door neighbor. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let me get my bearings straight on that: Where was your house related to Newberry Circle? MR. BAILEY: Newberry's on the other side. It's going toward Downtown. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, ok, so you were on the ... MR. BAILEY: I was on the ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... hill, going up the ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: All right, David Bryant, the Bryants lived in that house on the left, I think, as you're going up the hill. Do you recall that? MR. BAILEY: That's right. They lived right down the hill from us. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. His mother was a school teacher there. MR. BAILEY: Right. Yeah, she was your teacher. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember his father having a rolling store? MR. BAILEY: I do. Yeah, that was a neat thing. You always get excited when the rolling store, or the ice cream wagon, would come around. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about that rolling store. MR. BAILEY: I just remember they had a lot of neat things, and, seems like, they had books, and knick-knacks, and inexpensive stuff that would appeal to kids. MR. HUNNICUTT: It was a truck with a big, enclosed bed, or cab on the back of it, I believe, wasn't it? MR. BAILEY: I remember it being more like a school bus. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, the one I remember he had was just like a big truck, like a moving van-type truck, that had a big box on the back, and, of course, you raised the door up. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Scales would be hanging in the door opening, and he had vegetables, and stuff, he'd sell. MR. BAILEY: Right. I don't know whether he had a garden somewhere, or not, but ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Bryant's Rolling Store. MR. BAILEY: Bryant's Rolling Store. MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another one, or two, seems like. I think Anderson's, that had Hilltop Market, had a rolling store, as well. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know, that, those were the good old days. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, Woodland was a neat neighborhood to grow up in. So many of our classmates lived in the Woodland area, too. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when they designed it, you know, they designed it where it was very convenient for, just about any place you lived in Woodland to, for that shopping center. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, the school as well. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Not complicated streets, but, some of the houses they built together, each other was, kind of, jammed in (laughs) I don't understand their logic there, but ... You'd look out your front door, and you're looking in somebody's bedroom. MR. BAILEY: Right. That may've been an outgrowth of the Manhattan Project, because houses were so close together during the Manhattan Project, maybe, they just carried that same thing forward. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Well, they sure did that, all right, that's for sure. After you left Woodland, did you go to Robertsville? MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, what do you remember, the difference of leaving Woodland, and going to the junior high at Robertsville? MR. BAILEY: It seemed like a big deal, at the time. You know, sixth grade, through ninth grade, at that time. Of course, going in as a sixth grader, we were the little kids. But, I remember that as being a pretty exciting time, getting to go from elementary school, all the way to junior high school. MR. HUNNICUTT: You remember when we went to the sixth grade, the ninth grade, at that time, was at the high school. And then, they moved it back. Well, at Jefferson, it was that way, and then, it came back. So, I went four years at junior high, where some people didn't. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, you're right about that, because the, the class ahead of us, the ultimate class of '61, got to be the big kids on campus in the eighth grade and ninth grade, because that's when they moved it back from the high school. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go out for any kind of sports, when you went to junior high? MR. BAILEY: I did. I played ... MR. HUNNICUTT: What type sports? MR. BAILEY: In the sixth grade, I ran track. In the seventh grade, I played basketball. In the seventh grade, I played football, but never got to play. Played basketball again. Eighth grade, I played basketball, and ninth grade, I went out for the football team, and got my nose broken in pre-season practice, and my parents wouldn't let me play, anymore, which still aggravates me. I played basketball that year, ran track that year. MR. HUNNICUTT: We probably played basketball against each other. MR. BAILEY: Could have. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Because I did in at Jefferson, as well. Well, what got you into running? You mentioned you ran between TV times, to this and that. What got you into running? MR. BAILEY: Probably, the first thing that I remember, as a kid in Woodland, you know, kids are always trying to think of things to do, and we'd get kids together, and run around the block, and, I would always win. Naturally, I had more stamina, I guess, than a few of the kids in the Woodland area. Ran track in the sixth grade. Did not run seventh and eighth grade, then I ran in ninth grade. I remember coming in fourth in the regional track meet, in the three-quarter mile. That's as long as you could run in junior high school. So, that was probably my first indication. MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you go about training for track? MR. BAILEY: Do what the coach tells you to do, and you go out for practice, and they'd tell you what to run. Looking back, it’s pretty primitive. There was nothing about nutrition, nothing about weight training, and nothing about off-season training. You'd just go out, and run track for a couple of months in the Spring, and you were done. So, it's much more advanced now. MR. HUNNICUTT: We'll get into that a little bit later. MR. BAILEY: Sure. MR. HUNNICUTT: I wanted to get to high school, about how much difference it was. What were some of the classes at Robertsville that you took? Did you take any extra classes? I know we had to have reading and arithmetic and all sorts of science, but ... MR. BAILEY: We took the basic classes, and you stayed in your homeroom for all classes, as I recall, in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I remember having Miss Smithson in sixth grade, and we had a, a wonderful class that, that year. But, as you might guess, sixth grade boys can be pretty mischievous, and I think we aggravated her a bit during the year. Seventh grade, I had Mrs. Miracle. In eighth grade, I had Miss Alexander, who's still here in Oak Ridge. That was her very first year as a teacher. And, in ninth grade, I had Mrs. Carr, as a homeroom teacher. In the ninth grade, we started rotating classes. We'd leave our homeroom class for a couple of other classes, whether it be math, or sociology, or whatever. I was the, that we, if you recall, we had homeroom class officers, and I was homeroom president, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, and ninth grade. In the ninth grade, the school was trying to experiment a little bit, so they selected three of us to take an extra class that year. Minetta Stone, Gail Hunt, and myself, were the three that they picked. I think that they just wanted to see whether some of us students could handle a little heavier academic load. So, I took an extra class in the ninth grade, and ... MR. HUNNICUTT: What was that class? MR. BAILEY: I took typing, which turned out to be a very beneficial class to take. But, it didn't require any homework. So, it was pretty easy, I think, to handle the extra load. MR. HUNNICUTT: I think a lot of boys missed the fact, the opportunity of typing. They didn't take that opportunity, because, of course, today in computer world, that's what you use, is a keyboard. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, in those days, boys thought like boys. They didn't think practically. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, in between the years at Robertsville, what'd you do in the summertime? MR. BAILEY: Went to the playground. Spent a lot of time at the playground. MR. HUNNICUTT: Which playground? MR. BAILEY: Woodland. MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh, same ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Stayed there. MR. BAILEY: And played baseball in the summertime. Loved baseball. It's always been my favorite sport. And, we'd play, they didn't call it Little League, but it was for the younger kids, and Coach Martin, kind of, directed that, along with Shep Lauter. Then, he moved into the Intermediate League, which was 13, to 15. And, after that, you moved to what they called the Junior League, which was 16, and up. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were the games played? MR. BAILEY: Down at the old Midtown ball park. Until you went to the Junior League at age 16, then you played out at the, I don't even know what they call it now, Ridgeview Park, or [inaudible]. MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh, out in Gamble Valley? MR. BAILEY: In Gamble Valley, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the, I can't remember the name of that ball field, either. Oh, we'll talk a little bit about what you know about the Oak Ridge professional ball team a little bit later. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, let's, let's go back to Robertsville, during the school years. Who was the athletic coach down there, during that time? MR. BAILEY: Bob Stuhlmiller. He coached football, and basketball, and track. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was quite a job, wasn't it? MR. BAILEY: It was. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he have any assistants that helped him? MR. BAILEY: Sam Wheeler helped him in football, and basketball. He would take the upper class, whatever it was, eighth grade or ninth grade, and then, somebody else would coach the year, the year below us. So, if he was coaching ninth grade, he had somebody else coaching the eighth grade team. But, we had Mr. Wallace in the sixth grade, as a basketball coach. We had Sam Wheeler in seventh grade, Dwayne Seagraves in the eighth grade, and John Price in the ninth grade. I think John Price is still in this area somewhere. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me where the basketball, the gym was located down there, because I think it's been moved, since then. MR. BAILEY: They may've built a new one, but it was down below the main school building. MR. HUNNICUTT: You had a curve ... MR. BAILEY: Fairly close to the track. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... U-turn there, didn't you? MR. BAILEY: You did, yeah... yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember the difference between that, and playing at Jefferson. Jefferson had the old round, metal backboards ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah, and we had the nice ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... Manhattan Project. And, you had the nice ... (laughs) rectangular-shaped ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... wooden backboards. When we'd come to play there, you had a different touch altogether about the ball rebounding off those board, versus those metal ones. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Quite a, quite a difference. Did you, I can't remember, did you tell me you did not play football in the ninth grade? MR. BAILEY: I, I played until I broke my nose, which was pre-season. MR. HUNNICUTT: There was an individual that was in your, on your football team down there, that was named Dick Truitt. You remember that guy? MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: He was the one that started that weight lifting, him and his brother, that people didn't do back in those days. MR. BAILEY: Right. Dick was really strong. He was ahead of his time, I think, if he was into weight training. I remember one time, in seventh grade class, he hit me over the head with a pencil, and you wouldn't think that would hurt, but it stung for a while. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did he do that? MR. BAILEY: I have no telling. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they offer any shop classes like metal- or woodworking, or anything like that, at Robertsville. MR. BAILEY: We took a class, I think, in the eighth grade, and I've still got a little, I've got two or three little, I don't know if they're metal, or aluminum ashtrays that we made. And I built a magazine stand out of wood that I've still got that. That's the extent of my handiwork for the rest of my life. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Jefferson had all the leftover high school shops. MR. BAILEY: Oh, did they? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, there was several different kind of shops: woodwork, and metalwork, lathe spinning, and all kinds of different things. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Did you take a lot of that? MR. HUNNICUTT: Some of them. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Mr. Heck was the shop teacher at, at Robertsville. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they offer mechanical drawing there, as well? MR. BAILEY: I don't know. My dad was, obviously, very good with his hands, being a machinist, and I can't drive a nail. I'm sure that disappointed him, that I didn't get that aptitude from him. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, you've got attributes that, I'm sure, he was proud of. Ok, now, now, we're going from junior high, to high school. Well, let me back up a minute. There's a question I asked males and females about going to junior high, from elementary school. You get that kind of rude awakening about having to take a shower at gym class, and the presence of other people in the gym class. Do you recall that? Did that bother you? MR. BAILEY: I, I don't remember it being an issue. Just, you know, you got to take a shower, so then, take it and leave. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. It's just, I just want people to understand what, what you had to go through in those days. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, modesty was quite high between individuals, back in the day. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Today it's not. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Obviously. But, it gives someone, kind of, a view of how we lived, back in those days, by me asking that question. That's the reason I ask it. MR. BAILEY: I guess, being involved in sports, too, it's just one of the things you had to deal with, that the locker room has a big shower, and you got to go take a shower, clean up to go home, so. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did, when, when you had gym class, or even ran track, or whatever you did, athletic wise, what did you do with your street clothes? MR. BAILEY: We had lockers, and we had a lock, so we could lock up our clothes, if I remember correctly. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know what we had at Jefferson? Had a basket with a number on it, from the high school. (laughter) MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, that's where we put our clothes. MR. BAILEY: Ok. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I think I've got one of those, still at the house. MR. BAILEY: Oh, do you? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: One more thing I might mention before we leave Robertsville. As you can tell, already, I've always been interested in sports, and we had recess, I guess, you'd call it. I remember going on, on the outside in sixth grade, and I saw a bunch of girls playing softball down at the far field. I remember noticing this blonde, in sixth grade. Didn't know what her name was, but turned out, the next year, we were in the same class, and it turned out to be Pat Hensley. I was, I guess, I was struck with that blonde (laughs). MR. HUNNICUTT: She mentioned something in her interview about that. I'll get your side of it. (laughter) Let's talk a little more about the baseball you were playing, during that time. Where did the teams come from that you played against? MR. BAILEY: They were all Oak Ridge teams, up until you get to the Junior League. MR. HUNNICUTT: Were they sponsored by different organizations? MR. BAILEY: Right, right. I played for the Moose Club. I guess, 13, 14, 15, three years. But, OCAW [Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers] sponsored a team, First Methodist sponsored a team. I don't remember some of the others, other organizations. MR. HUNNICUTT: What position did you play? MR. BAILEY: Infield. And, I played second one year, third one year, and shortstop another year. But we were fortunate to have good teams, so we, I think we won the championship two out of three years. MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you develop your ball playing skills? MR. BAILEY: Practice. Yeah, just get out in the neighborhood and throw the ball around with guys in the neighborhood, playing on a playground, you'd play softball instead of baseball. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a game on the playground that had a metal, vertical pole, and had a ... MR. BAILEY: Tetherball. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: You got to me before I got to it. (laughs) That was quite a game, wasn't it? MR. BAILEY: It was a game. I got beat, regularly, at that, for a long time. MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you determine who would hit the ball first? Do you remember? MR. BAILEY: Probably, grabbed the paddle, and hit it. MR. HUNNICUTT: I don't either. I hadn't found anybody that can tell me that, either. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, the object of the game was to wrap the ball around in the direction you were hitting it. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, when that was finished, you won the game. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, I can remember getting your arm, and paddle hung up in that rope (laughter) that came around through there. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. What, what do you remember, some other games they played, other than ball? MR. BAILEY: Played foursquare on the asphalt. It's kind of like, kind of like ... tennis. Same idea. And, you had paddle ball that you played with wooden paddles. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that outside or inside? MR. BAILEY: Outside. Then, on a rainy day, go inside and play basketball, or dodge ball. Of course, it was always fun to try to hit the girls with the dodge ball. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you think the gym appeared big, during that day? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, oh, yeah, it sure did. MR. HUNNICUTT: Go in there today, it's very little, isn't it? MR. BAILEY: It is, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: They've remodeled the face of that school since we were there. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it's all, kind of, a tan color, instead of the old red brick. MR. HUNNICUTT: And they brought out from the main office, a section that wasn't there ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it's kind of a new facade, I guess. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. When you left Robertsville, and you attended high school, what was some of the courses you took in high school? Other than the normal math. MR. BAILEY: You had to take algebra one at junior high, and algebra two as a junior, and we took plane geometry sophomore. MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you wear to school as a dress code for a boy? MR. BAILEY: Just shirts and pants. I don't ever remember wearing jeans. I don't think jeans were popular in junior high. I don't remember jeans being a, a popular thing to wear. I always remember wearing khaki pants. Yeah. Casual pants. MR. HUNNICUTT: Lace up shoes or loafers? MR. BAILEY: Loafers. MR. HUNNICUTT: Had pennies in them? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I think so. Had to have pennies. MR. HUNNICUTT: Which way was the penny facing? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember that. Probably out. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Why didn't you put dimes in there instead of pennies, do you know? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: So ... MR. BAILEY: Because then ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... penny loafers. MR. BAILEY: ... then it'd be a dime loafer. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: And, no money, just a loafer, right? MR. BAILEY: That's right. (laughter) I remember taking world history in sophomore year, with Miss Frazier, and that was a really interesting class. She was a wonderful teacher. One of the projects we had, one time, was to do our own family history, genealogy. So I knew my aunt had some information about our family, and so, I called her and got some information. But, that, kind of, whetted my appetite for genealogy and family research, which I got into extensively, later on. I remember having Coach Ira Green for health, and psychology. He was a good teacher. MR. HUNNICUTT: He was basketball coach, at one time, wasn't he? MR. BAILEY: He was, yeah, he sure was. He won two state championships. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, who was the track coach at the high school, when you went? MR. BAILEY: Ben Martin. MR. HUNNICUTT: What'd you see different in his technique, than the one at Robertsville. MR. BAILEY: Well, you know, in junior high school, you're, kind of, a neophyte. You're just learning what to do and how to run. Coach Martin was a master at putting together relay teams. His teams won seven state championships in an 11 year period. He would dominate in the relays, because, with Oak Ridge being a big school, he had more talent to pull from, so he could put together talented relay teams that would beat the other teams. He also was very good at ... at letting the seniors provide leadership. So, he was smart in that regard. He knew how to get the kids involved, and, you know, kids could motivate the other kids. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, tell me how he would teach you how to run. MR. BAILEY: I don't remember doing that. You know, you might get a little advice here, and there about shorten your stride, or keep your head up, that sort of thing. But, as far as teaching you how to run, you can't coach speed. You know, you've either got speed, or don't have speed. I think he was pretty good at identifying where kids might fit: sprinter, jumper, weight person, or distance runner. But, I just, the thing that sticks out, in my mind, is the fact that he was so good at putting relay teams together, and so good about getting the seniors involved in leadership on a team. He approached me my, in my senior year, and said, "Jack, you can run the mile, in the state meet, if you want to, based on what we know right now, you'll probably come in fourth or fifth. Or we can put you on a relay team, a two-mile relay, because we've got a lot of good half-milers, and y'all have a chance to win a state title." Which we did. And, that, I think that's an example. I'm sure he did that with a lot of boys. You can do pretty well as an individual, but if you work on a team, you can do really well. And, that's something that stuck with me throughout my life. The term, “the ability to pull together as a team,” and trying people who will work on my team, and work together... Because, it's so true, not only in different sports, but in the business world, as well. MR. HUNNICUTT: That's, that's, kind of, interesting. You would think, him being a head coach, he would just say, "Ok, Jack, I want you to do this, and this, and this," instead of giving you the option to perform on the relay team, knowing you were going to perform on the relay team, I mean, he probably figured you'd do that, even though he gave you that option. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, when he said that you're probably going to win, that gave you another motive to want to run on the team. MR. BAILEY: Why, you know, if you felt like you've got part in the decision, you got a better buy in. MR. HUNNICUTT: Right. MR. BAILEY: You know, if somebody told you, "You got to do this," or, "You got to do that," you may or may not buy in. But, when you got a hand in the decision, and you got teammates that you respect, and want to work with, it pays off. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you try any other events, like the pole vault, high jump, or broad jump, or any of that kind of stuff? MR. BAILEY: You know, you mess around doing stuff like that. Never the pole vault. You know, I couldn't do that. But, you mess around. But, you find out soon enough, "I can't jump as high as that guy," Or "I can't do the broad jump -- as we called it then -- as far as that guy," or "I can't get over the hurdles fast enough." You just gradually gravitate to what you do best. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, your best part of running track was long runs, or ... ? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, the longest you could run in Tennessee, back in the early '60s, was a one-mile run. That was the distance run. Now, you can run two miles, in high school, three miles, cross country. In college, you can run through 5K and 10K, which converts to 3.1 miles and 6.2 miles, where, back then, one mile was the longest thing you could run. So, if guys ran the mile, they quite often would double and run the half mile and mile. MR. HUNNICUTT: Why do you think they had that ruling back then? MR. BAILEY: Probably the same reasoning they had that girls couldn't participate in sports. They might get hurt, or might be too, be too demanding on the body. Pretty antiquated thinking, as we look back at it. MR. HUNNICUTT: They didn't have much information about that, apparently. MR. BAILEY: Right, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall trying to jump over the hurdles? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I never had enough nerve to try, but (laughter) how do you go about, how would you think you'd go about timing that, so that, to, to jump over it in a stride type ... MR. BAILEY: If ... if it were high hurdles, which, in high school, are 36 inches, I think, and low hurdles, I think, were 30 inches high, a really good hurdler is stepping over the hurdles, they're not jumping over the hurdles. With a really good hurdler, his tail will barely touch the hurdle, as he clears the, the, the hurdle. You know, it's just, snap that front leg down, and move along to the next one. And, they get the steps down, you know, whether it be seven steps, between each high hurdle, or 13 steps, between each intermediate hurdle. That's where the practice comes in, and, just, repetition to get that down. MR. HUNNICUTT: Does it matter which foot goes over first? MR. BAILEY: Most guys will have a dominant leg. The really good ones can do either leg. So, it doesn't really matter. MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the track surface at the high school when you ran? MR. BAILEY: It was a crushed cinder track and, at the time, it had the reputation of being the fastest track in the state of Tennessee. Again, probably, it was going back to Oak Ridge having the best of everything, as we grew up. So, it was a high quality track. My senior year, we ran against Knox East, and one of the guys from East won the mile that day, and ran it in 4:28, which was the fastest time ever recorded in the state of Tennessee. The existing record was set in 1930, so, I think the track upheld its reputation, if you will, of being a really fast track. MR. HUNNICUTT: What did the track shoes look like? MR. BAILEY: Just, not much, you know. Pretty tight fitting shoes with spikes on the bottom of them. Nothing elaborate. Nothing compared to what you see today. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you wear socks with them? MR. BAILEY: Never. Not in a race. You, you didn't want that extra weight. That may seem silly, but you didn't want the extra weight. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you first started running with track shoes, did you have a problem with blisters, or things on your feet that you had to get used to? MR. BAILEY: Sometimes, yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, have you ever looked at the records, when the high school was up on Blankenship Field, versus when they moved, and see if there's any difference in the numbers, from one year to the other about. Because that field, that track up there was cinders, originally, as well. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Well, that was not a good track, obviously, at, at the old high school location. I don't remember seeing any of the records from pre-1952. I think '52 was the first, first school year at the new high school. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what would make a track even better than another? MR. BAILEY: Just the composition of the cinders, and how it's packed down. They used to roll the tracks with a heavy roller, almost like a roadway grader, if you will, just to pack the cinders down. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall them doing that at the high school? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, would they do that just before track meets, or did they do it during track practice? MR. BAILEY: I think they'd do it periodically, you know, just to try to have as firm a track as possible. I remember going to Maryville Junior High School, and the track was like running in sand. It was terrible. Evans-Collins Field in Knoxville, terrible track. Just, it just wasn't the right composition, the cinders were not packed down, very loose, and, obviously, the looser the cinders are, the more it's going to slow you down. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, if you were a student running on a track like that, and you ended up coming to Oak Ridge, for example, in a track meet, you would be like a rocket man (laughter) on that. MR. BAILEY: Well, it'd be a better surface, for sure. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Now, how did you go about timing yourself, if you was running the mile, how did you go about training for that, personally? MR. BAILEY: Well, Coach Martin would give us work-outs, you know, whether it'd be quarter-mile repeats on Mondays, half-mile repeats on Tuesdays, something else on Wednesdays, and sprints on Thursdays. So, we'd have a regimen we'd go through, and the more you'd do that, the more comfortable you'd get with a pace, and you'd try to, try to run an even pace. Too many times, people start out too fast, and, you see it all the time, especially with younger runners, or less experienced runners, and they'll go too fast, and they're dead the last part of the race. So, if you can get that pace down, that's something you can handle, and then, hopefully, have a little bit left at the end for what we call a kick, you probably do ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what "second wind" is all about? MR. BAILEY: (laughs) That's, kind of, hard to describe, I think. You get into a routine, and, for example, if you run a quarter-mile, you're, probably, a little winded. But, if you go run a little bit more, you'll, you'll get into a breathe, breathing pattern, if you will, and it gets more comfortable. 'Second wind,' could be described as a runner's high. It happens more in longer distance races. You just settle into a routine, all of a sudden, you start feeling better, and feel like you can keep going. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's like you got a new shot of energy from somewhere, doesn't it? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, it's kind of hard to explain, but it's quite unique when it happens. MR. BAILEY: I think science, scientifically, I, probably, shouldn't even go there, but, I think, there are endorphins in the brain that kick in, and that, kind of, gives you that runner's high, which might be another term for 'second wind.' MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they hold track meets when it rained? MR. BAILEY: As ... MR. HUNNICUTT: If you started a track meet, and it rained, do you continue. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. That's just the ... the mitigating factor is lightning. If there's lightning. I do some track and field officiating, now. If there's lightning in the area, you have to wait 30 minutes after the last lightning strike, before you can resume the meet. I think they tend to call off meets, now, more than they did in the past. Probably because of insurance reasons, liabilities that might develop if somebody got hurt on a muddy track, or muddy field. MR. HUNNICUTT: What year did, was, do you recall, the best year for Oak Ridge High School track and field, from a state record, you know, winning the state? MR. BAILEY: Why, as I mentioned earlier, we won seven state championships in an 11 year period. I don't think that's ever been duplicated in the state of Tennessee. Coach Martin was the coach all seven of those years. You'll get different arguments about which was the best team. '52 was the first, the first team. Our class, '62, was the last team that won the state. Coach Martin always felt like his '59 team was his best team. They did not win the state. They dropped two batons in the, in the relays at the state meet, and lost the state championship by a half a point, I think. He, I remember him saying, he always thought that was his best team. Our '62 team scored, I think, 35 points, and next runner up had 16 and a half points, so we more than doubled the point score. Back then, you only got first, second, third, and fourth. So it was five points for first, three points for second, two points for third, one point for fourth. Now, they give eight places, and they give 10 places, 10 points for first place, so it's a much different, and higher scoring system. But, my senior year, we won all four relays in the state meet, and set two state records out of those four. So, being a little biased, I would say our '62 team is the best. But, you know, all ... MR. HUNNICUTT: I'll agree with that. MR. BAILEY: ... all seven of those teams, they're good enough to win the state, so they're pretty good. MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the fastest runner in 1962? MR. BAILEY: For Oak Ridge? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes. MR. BAILEY: I think Hank Cole was the face of our team. He was a really good quarter-miler. He won the state in the quarter, and anchored the mile relay, which also won the state. He got a lot of press that year, and very deservedly so. He went on to Yale, and ran track at Yale University, and was the captain of their team as a senior. He was quite an accomplished runner. MR. HUNNICUTT: What leg did you run? MR. BAILEY: On the two-mile relay? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes. MR. BAILEY: Usually second or third. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when you run a relay, if you start, if you're running all out, is that right, 'til you're handing the baton off? MR. BAILEY: Well, depends on which race it is. I mean, for the 400 meter relay, yeah, they're going flat out, because they can only run 100 meters, or 100 yards. By the time you get to the two-mile relay, where each person is running two laps, you got to pace yourself a little better, so, again, so you have something left at the end. MR. HUNNICUTT: How'd you feel when your competition was ahead of you, and you were running, you said, "Now, I don't want to run any faster or I'm not going to have any kick left." So, how did you control that? MR. BAILEY: It's just, yeah, I guess, it's an internal, internal thing. Some guys are better than you are, you know. They're going to run off, and leave you. By the same token, you're better than some of the other runners, and you can leave them behind. You try to stay in contact, was the terminology. In other words, if you're leading, I want to stay on your shoulder. I don't want to be 10 yards behind you. So, if I can stay in contact, so that if it does come down to a kick at the latter part of the race, you, hopefully have got enough to, to get around that person. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there a time where you know you're too far off, but you can't, you don't have enough steam to pick it back up, and you just have to ... MR. BAILEY: (laughs) That, that is a terrible feeling. That's a terrible feeling. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Hoping the next person you give the baton to has more get up and go. MR. BAILEY: Right, now, again, we were very fortunate at Oak Ridge, our senior year, we won all four relays in the state meet. We lost only one relay race the entire year. We ran a relay competition in Nashville, and we put in what I would call our second line of four by four hundred relay runners, and they did not win that particular race. But at every other meet we had, all year long, including the state meet, we won every relay. So, pretty, pretty dominant. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the tack ... passing the baton, and how critical that is, and how you go about practicing for accuracy. MR. BAILEY: That's where, I think, Coach Martin was a master at that, because he had us practice that a lot. Practicing the baton exchange, you'll see a lot of guys, now, in a relay race, they'll know how many steps for the incoming runner, and they'll go out and put a piece of tape down on the track, so when that incoming runner hits that mark, he takes off and then, hopefully, you’ve got a smooth exchange. It aggravates me when I watch the U.S. Olympic 4 by 100, the last couple of Olympics, they have dropped the baton. In the 4 by 100, it's nothing but a lack of practice. You know, the guys didn't practice the way they should have, because there's an art to doing the baton exchange properly. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, those guys are probably the fastest people on earth, yet if you don't practice the most important thing about the whole thing. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, or they don't practice enough. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Now, you, you mentioned putting a mark down on the track to, kind of, gauge where to start. Is that legal today? MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: If you didn't have that mark, how do you think that would affect it? MR. BAILEY: You'd see botched hand-offs, or somebody run up somebody's back, or taking off too soon. You've got, you've got 20 meters, now, for the exchange zone, that baton has to be passed in that 20 meter zone. Not the person, the baton has to be passed within that zone, and if, if they haven't timed that exchange properly, then, they mess it up. MR. HUNNICUTT: Are you disqualified if you don't perform that pass in that zone. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, if the official catches it right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Ok, now, you met this little blonde down at Robertsville. Did you all date through high school? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, we were, as I mentioned, we were in Mrs. Miracle’s homeroom class in seventh grade. We started dating in the ninth grade, so, at Robertsville, and dated all through high school, and then, went our separate ways for a couple of years, got back together, and, and got married in 1966. MR. HUNNICUTT: Can you spell that teacher's name? Just for the record so who does this transcript will be able to have it correct. MR. BAILEY: Ms. Miracle? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: With ... M-I-R-A-C-L-E. MR. HUNNICUTT: Ok. MR. BAILEY: You know, it's like, "miracle," but she pronounced it, "mire-a-kel." MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Tennessee pronunciation, I guess. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I guess so. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you go on dates when you were in high school? MR. BAILEY: Went to the movies quite often. Went to Oak Ridge football and basketball games. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a curfew to have to be home a certain time? MR. BAILEY: Normally, eleven o'clock. I remember one time, I -- this was still in high school -- I just casually mentioned to my parents that Pat and I had gone out to the old Elza Drive-in -- the restaurant, not the, not the movie theater, but the drive-in -- and had gone out there, and gotten something to eat. My instructions were: You cannot leave city limits. Well, as you know, the Elza Drive-in is outside the city limits by 100 yards, something, not much. When Daddy said, "What? You went outside the city limits?" then I got, I had my driving privileges suspended for about 30 days. He was strict. MR. HUNNICUTT: He meant what he said, right? How, how about Pat's parents? Were they pretty strict ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... about you all dating? MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall spending any time at the Oak Ridge swimming pool? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah, taking swimming lessons when I was eight, nine, 10 years. I think it took me three years to pass swimming. (laughs) But eventually learned how to swim. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever have a paper route? MR. BAILEY: I did. I had the [Knoxville News] Sentinel, in seventh, eighth grade, yeah, in Woodland. MR. HUNNICUTT: How big do you remember the papers were on Wednesdays, and Sundays? MR. BAILEY: I remember, of course, you remember Sunday being big because of all the ads in it, and Wednesday always had the grocery ads in it, for one. Of course, doing the Sentinel, you had to get up early on Sunday morning to deliver that one. I talked to, I think, Earl Nall, the other day, and he said he had an Oak Ridger paper route. He said he had Sentinel at one time, then he moved up to The Oak Ridger, because it was only Monday to Friday. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, I had a Journal route, and I had to get up every morning. MR. BAILEY: That's tough. MR. HUNNICUTT: Only in the summertime. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, do you remember how many customers you had? MR. BAILEY: I want to say 50 or 60. It was on Pembroke Drive, and Queens Road, and Quincy, down in that part of Woodland. I think, maybe, 50. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have problems with your customers paying you? MR. BAILEY: There probably was some, but I don't remember it being a big deal. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have some way of keeping up with who paid and who didn't? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I had a little book. I think, seemed like the paper gave us a little book, and we'd mark it off, to keep up with who paid, and who hadn't paid. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who your route manager was? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go to the Snow White Drive-in for any reason, other than eating, to meet the newspaper manager, or anything? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was the place they all gathered. MR. BAILEY: Oh, did they? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. (laughs) MR. BAILEY: No, I don't remember that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Sure did. How about, what do you remember the weather was like in old school, because it sure isn't the same today as it was, back in the day. MR. BAILEY: I remember more snow in the wintertime. It seemed like we had snow more often. We could do some sledding, playing out in the snow more than, than we've experienced since we moved back, 10 years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the Municipal Market Building, which is over behind where CVS is, now? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I think so. Was it on the Turnpike, or was it back a little bit? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, it was off the Turnpike. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I have recollection of some kind of grocery store, along the Turnpike there, somewhere. The only reason I remember that's because I remember my dad buying me some football cards, like, the Fall of '51. It's the first time I'd ever seen a, a bubblegum card. And, it was some store down in that area. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Lizz's Market was in there, at one time. Do you remember that? MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, I remember Lizz's Market, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: But then, she moved on down the Turnpike ... MR. BAILEY: Right, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... before she closed up. But, that's where that Municipal Market Building was. Well, actually, it was a cafeteria for the SED [Special Engineer Detachment]. MR. BAILEY: Oh, was it? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. It was there earlier. How about Jackson Hardware? Do you remember that? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it's up in the [Jackson] Square. MR. BAILEY: You know, living in Woodland, I don't recall much interaction with that part of town, except to go to the Center Theater, to get ... MR. HUNNICUTT: It was, basically, other than unless you went to hardware somewhere, you had everything else at that shopping center. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. My daughter likes to say that, that when I go in a hardware store is when pigs will start flying. (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who used to run the grocery store over there in Woodland? MR. BAILEY: Mr. Greene, if I remember right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And the gas station, do you remember who ran it? MR. BAILEY: No, I remember Mr. Roach was the pharmacist at Woodland Drug Store. Those are the only two names I ... And, Mr. Greene had an assistant, and I can't remember his name. But they were both there forever, I think. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go grocery shopping with your mother when she went, back when you were younger? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Must've trusted you and left you at home by yourself. Did you and your sister get along pretty well, or was it typical brother and sister. MR. BAILEY: Probably typical brother and sister. But, you know, ironically, we live side by side now, and we get along quite well. But, you know, we weren't necessarily ugly with each other, just typical brother-sister stuff. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: You, you'd feel like your relationship's pretty close today. MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, very good, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, after you graduated from high school, what'd you do? MR. BAILEY: Went to the University of Alabama. Personally, I think this is a good approach to trying to decide where you want to go to college. So many kids now, oh, I want to go to such-and-such a place, because it's close or I want to go to such-and-such a place, because of a variety of reasons. I wanted to be an accountant. I have always wanted to be an accountant. There was a limited way to do searches then, or try to gather information. I was told that the University of Alabama had a good accounting program, and that Florida State had a good accounting program, and Duke University had a good accounting program. I knew I couldn't go to Duke, regardless. So, Coach Martin wrote the track coaches at Florida State, and Alabama, you know, mentioning my, my background. Florida State came through with a half scholarship, and then, Alabama offered a full, four-year scholarship, so that made it easy. I wanted to go south of Tennessee. Had no desire to go to Tennessee Tech, or University of Tennessee. So, I wanted to go south of Tennessee, I wanted a good accounting school, and, hopefully, get to run track. So, all three of those worked out. So, off to Alabama I went. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you say a full, four-year scholarship, what does that include? MR. BAILEY: Tuition, and fees, and, room and board for your dormitory room, and your meals. And, all the tuition, the out-of-state fees, and all that. MR. HUNNICUTT: The major sports at a college, football, basketball and track, I guess, are the three major sports that get fully ... MR. BAILEY: And baseball. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... fully funded, you know, when the person is chosen for one of those. MR. BAILEY: They were then, because there were no scholarship limits. Now, football still gives a lot of full scholarships. Basketball still gives a lot of scholarships, but even then, they're, they're restricted. Football can only offer the equivalent of 85 full scholarships. Basketball, I think, is 13 to 15, I'm not exactly sure. Baseball has limitations, track and field does give 12 and a half full scholarships, or the equivalent. Women's track and field gets 18 or 19 full scholarships. The coaches are under tremendous amount of pressure to spend their money wisely. So, to get a full track scholarship anymore, is just, really rare. They'll give partial scholarships. And, and this is a good trend, I think. They're looking for kids who are bright, because then, these kids can get academic scholarship money, as well as athletic scholarship money. So, that's why some of these sports, you'll see the grade point average is pretty high, because they've gone after bright kids who are also athletically talented. MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your first assumption when you attended the University of Alabama? MR. BAILEY: (laughs) I went down for orientation. The summer before I went down, there was, like, a three day deal to, to go down and register for classes, or take some tests, and get oriented. Then, I went back, the first part of September, for my freshman year. My parents took me down to the old bus station, and I had two suitcases, and a footlocker and they said, "Good-bye!" MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the bus station located? MR. BAILEY: Down on where Bus Terminal Road, I guess where it is now, or was. MR. HUNNICUTT: Greyhound Bus Station. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. And, off I went. And, but it was very exciting. I was wanting to go away to school, because I think it's important to get in on his or her own and start making decisions for himself, and learn to function as, hopefully, an adult. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you had no homesickness? MR. BAILEY: A little bit. I remember, first six or eight weeks, little bit of homesickness. We always ran Tennessee in a dual meet in cross country each year, and as it worked out in my freshman year, fall of '62, we were in Tennessee in Knoxville, the morning of the Tennessee, Alabama football game. So, I got to come home, so to speak, six weeks after I'd gone off to school. So it was, kind of, neat. I got to, they gave me permission to stay over Saturday night in Knoxville. Seems like I rode the bus back to Tuscaloosa on Sunday. But, I remember a twinge of homesickness, but then, you get over it, and you're ready to move on. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did, the first time you ever saw or ever met Bear Bryant, what was your feeling about that? MR. BAILEY: Well, the guy commanded respect. The track was around the practice field, and Coach Bryant had his tower there at the practice field. And I don't, I'm not sure I even realized this when I went down there. They were defending national champions. They won the national championship in '61, then I went down the next Fall. We just, kind of, took it for granted, there was a football team out there practicing when we were out there running around the track, because we had access to it, of course. Those were four years, you know, we'd be out there, we'd work out on the track some in the Fall, but all the time in the Spring. So, we, we'd see the guys working out quite often. MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you think of him, I mean, what was some indicators that, that he presented, that gave him the respect that you refer to? MR. BAILEY: Well, he was a winner. Yeah, he had proven that throughout his career. Not only as a player, but as a coach. He won everywhere he went, and that's what you expect a coach to do, is to win, and develop his, his players. Not only as football players, but as responsible citizens, and he did that. He just had a presence about him. You know, we've all met people in our lives that just, they have an aura or presence about them, maybe, you can't put your finger on it, but they just command respect when you're around them. My senior year, I roomed with a football player, and he was a sophomore and I was a senior. But, they were just in awe of the man, just the way he went about his business. MR. HUNNICUTT: What he said, they did. MR. BAILEY: Absolutely. MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember an interview Joe Namath gave on the radio, in Knoxville, one time, when he first went. He said Bear was up in his tower, you know, and he finally came down and met him, and says, "We're going to make a stud out of you." (laughter) I never will forget that. MR. BAILEY: He always said that Namath was the best athlete he ever met, ever coached. When Namath was a senior in high school, he came to Alabama for a recruiting visit, and Bryant took him up in the tower. According to what I've read, that had never happened before. And they thought, who in the world is this guy, from Pennsylvania, that's getting to go up in the tower with Coach Bryant? MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think Oak Ridge High School curriculum helped you in your college career, and also, your personal business career? MR. BAILEY: Absolutely. MR. HUNNICUTT: From what perspective? MR. BAILEY: Right. I think, you know, when you think about the Manhattan Project, and they recruited the best and the brightest to come here to work on Manhattan Project, so, as you might expect, a lot of bright kids came also. I think, the fact that you're around a lot of bright kids, the fact that they brought in a lot of outstanding teachers, because they wanted the best educational system, set the standards high. So, it ... And, I was not an outstanding student, by any stretch, but, I think, that, that environment, of wanting to be, to do well, when you're around all these bright people, well, it was a good experience. I know people will probably joke about this, but when I went to University of Alabama, my first year was easy. When you think about the background that we had in the Oak Ridge school system, and moving into college, some kids struggled, obviously, because they were not as well prepared. But, I think, Oak Ridge school system prepares kids very well for college environment. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you and your wife get married? MR. BAILEY: First Presbyterian Church, here in Oak Ridge. She grew up in Oak Ridge Bible Church, which is very close to here, in Grove Center, and I grew up in First Presbyterian Church. We agreed that, that the Oak Ridge Bible Church, probably, wasn't a big enough venue, so we got married in my home church. MR. HUNNICUTT: Remember who your minister was? MR. BAILEY: Well, I do, because it was the school president at Pat's school. Pat went to Appalachian Bible College, in West Virginia. So, the president of the school was one of the officiating ministers. Then, her minister at the Oak Ridge Bible Church, George Luethge, was an assistant in the ceremony. George's son is an Oak Ridge police officer, you might know him. Dr. Howie, who was a minister at First Presbyterian, did not officiate in the ceremony, but he, obviously, gave us permission to get married at First Presbyterian. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did I ask you what the date was? MR. BAILEY: No, you didn't, but I'll tell you. (laughs) June 4, 1966. We just celebrated 50 years earlier this year. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, congratulations. MR. BAILEY: Thank you. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was your first home when you got married? MR. BAILEY: I had, because I changed majors from accounting to marketing, and you had to take certain courses in consecutive semesters, I had enough hours to graduate in the spring of '66, but because of the way the classes fell, I had to go back to summer school, in '66, to get those last four hours of credit. Pat worked with a guy, or went to church with a guy, Dr. Gene Carden, who was a professor at the University of Alabama and he worked for ORNL [Oak Ridge National Laboratory], in the summertime. He was going to be in Oak Ridge for the summer of '66, we were going to be in Tuscaloosa, summer of '66, he said, "Why don't you just live in our house?" So, he let us live in his house, rent free, that summer of '66. So that was, that was our first home. I took the four hours, and played a lot of golf. She worked in the engineering department. So, basically, we had a three month honeymoon. (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: I want to get to this, and then, we're going to back to some other things. Do you all have children? MR. BAILEY: We do, we have two. Our daughter, Kathy, was born in 1969. She's married, and lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and they have two kids. And, we have a son, Darrell, who was born in 1976, and so far, he's managed to stay single. He had a number of girlfriends, but he hasn't tied the knot, yet. He lived in Dallas for 15 years, and has just moved to Oak Ridge in the last several months, so we've enjoyed having some time around him. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let's go back, and back up, and talk about playing baseball. And, there was a particular, I think, summer league, or something, I can't remember what it was called, the Middle Town Ball Park. MR. BAILEY: Intermediate League. MR. HUNNICUTT: That we boys played in. MR. BAILEY: Right MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that? MR. BAILEY: I remember it being the highlight of the summer. We didn't play all that many games, but, again, Moose had a good team, so we won a lot. It, just, a good bunch of guys. I can still name most of the guys on the team. Just a good experience. Loved to play down there. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, we were involved in a little deal during the summer, down there, that '55, was it, 1955, I believe, it was. It was, seemed like to me, it was more of a, kind of a, baseball camp affair, that they taught us how to play ball ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... the different positions. And, Shep Lauter was involved in that. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Buddy Pope ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... and other guys, at the same field. Do you remember how long that lasted? I don't remember. MR. BAILEY: I don't, I don't remember how long the school lasted, you know, but I've got a picture that's got you and me, both, in that group picture. I think that may've just been one Saturday, or several Saturdays, just to learn some of the fundamentals about baseball. Then, you know, as you got a little bit older -- and we couldn't've been more than eight, nine, 10, 11-years-old, at the time, and they had some kind of league you could play in up to the age of 11. I think when you were 12, you didn't have any place to play, because you were too old for the baseball school that Lauter ran, and you were too young to play in intermediate league. So, that, that year was, kind of, a lost year, unless you fudged on your age, and, and played one way or the other. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, I've always tried to remember how in the world I got involved in that. Seems like, to me, my mother found out something about it, and sent me over there. I just walked over there ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... in a group. MR. BAILEY: Well, if you look at that group picture we've got, it's a real wide photo, and there, I mean, it looks like a couple of hundred kids in that, in that photo. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, there was several groups of kids that had photos made of them. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, a lot of them, I would've never known, until just about two weeks ago, that Ed Westcott made those photographs. MR. BAILEY: Did he, really? MR. HUNNICUTT: And, the reason why there's a photograph of me, I was a catcher, and a boy batting. And, I got to looking at that real close, and the stripes on my shirt, matched the same shirt I had on in the grandstands when he made that photograph. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, so you were there. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. (laughs) Who would've ever thought. Well, moving on, you took up collecting baseball cards, I believe, didn't you? MR. BAILEY: I did, at an early age. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, you got quite a collection, and been involved in that. Give me a little bit about that. What are some of the things you've been involved with that? MR. BAILEY: Well, I mentioned a little bit earlier, I remember my dad buying a pack of football cards, it would've been the Fall of '51, after we moved here. The next Spring, when I mentioned we went to First Presbyterian Church, we had a teacher in second grade Sunday school class, Chuck Caldwell, and, I think, he did this to make sure the boys would show up for Sunday school: at the end of class, he'd give us a penny baseball card at the, or two, or three, or whatever. So, that was always an incentive to go to Sunday school. At Sunday school, he'd give us some baseball cards. And, I think, it just took off from there. I just, I liked baseball, and I thought the cards were pretty neat, and so, I just started collecting, and never have stopped. MR. HUNNICUTT: You still have the first cards you got? MR. BAILEY: No, I don't, I don't know what that would've been. MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you think is the most valuable card, or rarest card you have? MR. BAILEY: I've got some cards that go back to the 1880s, when they first started making cards of professional baseball players. MR. HUNNICUTT: How'd you acquire those? MR. BAILEY: I go to these sports memorabilia shows, periodically, and you can find anything you're looking for at a show like that. EBay is another great resource to get things. MR. HUNNICUTT: Are baseball cards, sort of, like coins, that condition has a lot to do with the value of it. MR. BAILEY: Condition has everything to do with the value. You might look in a price guide, and it'll say, X amount for near mint condition. It may be half of that if it's only in excellent condition, and it may be only 10 percent of that value if it's in bad condition. This, this will blow your mind: There's an old card that was made about 1910, of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. It just sold, in auction, couple weeks ago for $200,000. The most famous card in the hobby, is Honus Wagner, which is a rare card. There're only 24, or thereabouts, known to exist, and one of them sold for over two million dollars, in the last year, or two. (phone rings) MR. HUNNICUTT: It's like anything else that collectors are willing to pay the price is what they're going to go for. MR. BAILEY: Sure, sure. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know, the value is only in the eyes of the payer, right? (phone rings) MR. BAILEY: That's right, that's right. But, it ... it's a fun hobby, and I, I've expanded my collection beyond baseball cards, to a lot of other baseball-related memorabilia, lot of score cards, University of Alabama football programs, a lot of different things like that. MR. HUNNICUTT: You're part of the alumni of Alabama? MR. BAILEY: Yes. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, being an alumni, what do you, actually, do? What does that involve? MR. BAILEY: Well, it' just means you've graduated from the university. There are a lot of supporters in the university, a lot of supporters, of a lot of different schools. There'll be fans, or supporters at a university, that never set a foot on campus. But, you know, I was pleased to go there for four years, a good experience, and proud to have my degree from there. As an alumni, you can choose to be as involved, or not involved, as you want to be. We've, we didn't do much at all, during my working career, because we moved around so often. I've gotten a lot more involved since we moved back to, to East Tennessee. Knoxville has the East Tennessee chapter of the Alabama National Alumni Association, and I started going to their monthly meetings not too long after we moved back here in '06. They meet monthly for lunch, bring in a speaker, occasionally. The big thrust of that chapter is to raise scholarship money to send students from East Tennessee, to the University of Alabama. And, that, that effort started years, and years ago. We've got almost a million dollars in the coffers of our own chapter foundation, meaning, we can take the investment money off of nearly a million dollars that provides scholarships to send kids to the University of Alabama. It's, it's, maybe, the strongest out-of-state chapter in the country. MR. HUNNICUTT: How does the organization determine who, who will be eligible for the scholarship? MR. BAILEY: We have a scholarship committee, and the, they're so sophisticated, now, in terms of getting information about students. If, if students apply for a scholarship to the University, by December 15, the chapter, automatically, is supplied with that information. So, we know, maybe, there're 200 students in East Tennessee who made application by December 15. So, you've got that list, you can contact that list, if you're interested in applying for our chapter scholarship. Send us the information, then we'll go through an interview process. Then, in the Spring, we'll have what we call a scholarship dinner, and we do a public recognition of, typically, three students every year, to go to the University. A couple of students from Oak Ridge have won that, in years past. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is the (phone rings) stopping line in the state of Tennessee, where you don't reach beyond that point? MR. BAILEY: We cover almost to Chattanooga, almost to Nashville, and up into upper East Tennessee, because there's a chapter in Chattanooga, there's another chapter in Nashville, and the University's got, I think, about 30 paid recruiters across the country. University of Alabama's doing a great job of recruiting academics, as well as athletics, the last 10 years, or so. And, it's working. The university has opened a new building on campus every 60 days for the last eight years. I mean, think about that, how many new buildings have gone on campus. And, they've done a great job of blending the old architecture, with the new architecture. So it's, you know, unless you really study it, is that a new building or an old building, because it just looks good. MR. HUNNICUTT: Are other universities doing anything like that? MR. BAILEY: Not to that extent, no. I mean, and I shouldn't be critical of the University of Tennessee, but, in my opinion, they're probably five years behind in their building program. They're starting to build, now, the way University of Alabama was building six, seven, eight, nine years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, is the University in Alabama, does the state of Alabama have financial aid to the, to the University? MR. BAILEY: It's a land grant university, just like University of Tennessee, so, they get money from a lot of sources. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you graduated from college, what was your profession you got into? MR. BAILEY: I, I, as I mentioned, I wanted to be an accountant. In my junior year, they said, “All right, you're going to take the gateway course, now. This will help you decide whether you want to be an accountant, or not.” It did. (laughs) So, I switched majors, and (laughs) ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Wasn't your gateway for accounting. MR. BAILEY: No, I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I got into marketing, took a retailing course in my junior year. Really liked it, because the guy who was the professor had worked for Bloomingdale's, in New York City, and he, just, kind of, brought the whole idea of retailing to life. And, I liked that. So, when you go through the interview process, as a senior, I must've had 30 interviews with all different kinds of companies, and just, kind of, gravitated to retail, and selected J.C. Penney. They didn't offer the most money, but, I just felt like it was the best career path for me. And, it worked out. I spent 38 years with Penney Company. MR. HUNNICUTT: They were, pretty well, established from the, for many years, and still are, I guess, today. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. It was, Penney Company started in 1902. J.C. Penney founded the company. First 15 years, he called it the Golden Rule Store, and that was his guiding principle. And then, about 1915 or so, changed it to J.C. Penney Company. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the first J.C. Penney's in Oak Ridge, in, when they built the Downtown area ... MR. BAILEY: It was. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... in '55. MR. BAILEY: 1955, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Been there ever since. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, where was some of the stores that you worked? MR. BAILEY: When I interviewed on campus, the college recruiter said, where would you like to go? And, I said, Well, I think Atlanta would be a nice place. Atlanta in the mid-'60s was a pretty attractive place, I thought. So, when I got my letter with my job offer, it was to go to Danville, Virginia. I had never heard of Danville, Virginia, but off we went. Ten days after I graduated from Alabama, we were in Danville, and started as a management trainee. We were there almost six years. I came to Knoxville when they opened West Town Mall, so I was part of the management staff at West Town Mall when it opened in '72. From there, I went to Dothan, Alabama, and helped open a new store. Then, went to Jacksonville, Florida. Then, had a, what we call a district staff job, also in Jacksonville, where I travelled. Then, we were transferred to New Orleans, which was a great career move, because that was the second largest store in the Southeast region, and the most profitable, so just a great career move. From there, went to Statesville, North Carolina, my first store manager assignment. And then, from there, to Tampa, Florida, and I managed two stores in Tampa, and we were there for 15 years, until I retired. I opened a new store in Brandon, which is a suburb of Tampa, and it didn't take me long to figure out, this is a good deal. So, I told anybody who would listen, “Leave me alone. This is where I want to stay.” So we were there until I retired, in '05. And then, Pat and I started talking about what we wanted to do in retirement. We'd built a house on a golf course, downsized, and thought we were set for retirement. The more we talked about it, our mothers were still alive, and we thought, You know, it'd be, kind of, neat to come back to Oak Ridge. So, we moved back here about a year after I retired, primarily, to spend time with both our mothers. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were moving from one store to another, did you have to pack up and move to that store area, and stay there for whatever period of time? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, we'd spent six years in Danville, year and a half in Knoxville -- shortest assignment we ever had, less than two years in Dothan, five years in Jacksonville, six years in New Orleans, four years in Statesville, North Carolina, and then, 15 years in Tampa. So, but the company would, would move you, so, yeah, you'd just have to ... MR. HUNNICUTT: What did your wife think about all that moving? MR. BAILEY: You know, we had that discussion before we got married, and, and, because, yeah, I knew what job offers I had. We talked about that. Said, now, here's the deal. Do we want to do this, and are we together on this? Because, you get into retail, you're talking about Saturdays, you're talking about, there wasn't any discussion about Sunday work, then, because stores weren't open on Sunday, especially if the state was a 'blue laws' state. But, Saturdays forever; two or three nights a week forever; move around, take the promotions to go to different locations. And Pat has always been a very supportive wife, and we were in it together, and agreed, that's the lifestyle we wanted. So, off we went. MR. HUNNICUTT: How difficult was it with your children, from one town to the next? MR. BAILEY: You ... you always have that issue, I think, because it's hard. They say that the three most traumatic things a person has to deal with are death, divorce, and a move. We moved half a dozen times, through the years. But, our kids adapted very well, and I would argue, it's good for kids to move around, because I like to think that both our kids are very outgoing. They're comfortable meeting new people, they've had a lot of different experiences, and each one of our kids only went through three school systems, you know. They went to, our daughter went to elementary school in Jacksonville, went to middle school in New Orleans, and went to high school in Statesville, North Carolina. She considers Statesville as her hometown. Our son went to elementary school in, in New Orleans, went to middle school, primarily, in Statesville, North Carolina, high school in Tampa, and he considers Tampa, Florida, his hometown. But, you know, our, it probably bothered our daughter more than our son, because our daughter's been pretty adamant about wanting to live in one town. She and her husband have been in Aiken, South Carolina, for 10, 11 years now, and don't have any plans to move. MR. HUNNICUTT: What, what're some of the job duties that a J.C. Penney store manager has? MR. BAILEY: Why, if you look at a management career, you start out as a management trainee, and then, you're promoted to department manager, and then, you're promoted to an assistant manager, and there're several different forms of that, and then a store manager. Back then, you worked your way through the ranks, and I was 41-years-old, with 19 years of manage, management experience, before I ever became a store manager. The roles of the store manager have changed dramatically the last 10 years. So, that kind of training is not necessary, anymore, because the role's not as demanding, in the sense of knowledge and experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: How would you rate that job, on a scale of one to 10, at stress level? MR. BAILEY: That's an interesting question. I've had people ask me, boy, isn't that stressful, being the manager of a store? In Brandon, I had 225 people that reported to me, in the store. I never found it stressful. I mean, I loved what I was doing. There was a parallel between being a competitive athlete and being a manager, because you're always competing to build the sales, trying to grow your share of market, trying to build a team. So, a lot of parallels between that and sports. I never found it stressful, because I enjoyed it. Stress, to me, if you'd ask me to take that 18-wheeler, and back it down into the truck well. Now, that would bug me. So, it's all what you get comfortable with. MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned earlier about getting a good team together. I suspect you had that, you should let your team do the job, instead of trying to micromanage it. MR. BAILEY: I learned that from Coach Ira Green. I mentioned I thought he was a good teacher. I was a playground director in the summers here, between college years. And, Ira Green was the overall playground director. He said, now think about this: when you go to a playground in the morning, you're going to have a bunch of little kids waiting on you saying, "Hey, coach, coach! Let me help!" You give one of them the bases, you give another one the bats, and balls, you give another one the, the arts-and-crafts stuff, and tell them where to take it. Delegation. And that works. The fancy word these days is, "empowerment." I'm going to empower these people to do something. You always have to accept the responsibility, but you can delegate the authority to other people, to do their job. So, I -- that's the approach I took, you know. You're in charge of that area, you've been trained, you've gained some experience, now go do your job, and keep me informed. MR. HUNNICUTT: You got involved in Rotary. What got you into that? MR. BAILEY: Mr. Penney was a Rotarian. He was a member of the Rotary Club of New York City, because their corporate office, at that time, was based in New York City. He was a strong believer in, not only living in your community, but giving back to your community, and Rotary's one way to do that. Rotary's the largest humanitarian services organization in the world. It's all about trying to live up to our motto of, "Do Good in the World." "No greater service than service above self." So, I always had an admiration for Rotary, and Rotarians. I had an opportunity to join other civic clubs earlier in my career, but I said, I'm going to wait 'til I become a store manager, and then, I'll get involved in Rotary, which is what I did. I joined Rotary in Statesville, North Carolina, and then, we moved to Tampa, I got involved in another Rotary Club there, and then, came up here and got involved with Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about Bill Sergeant, related to Rotary. MR. BAILEY: Bill Sergeant is an icon in the Rotary world. You know, sometimes, we take people for granted when you're around them all the time. He was Vice President of Rotary International. I think, there was a reasonable chance he could've been president of Rotary International, but there were some family issues with his wife, who got sick, about that time. He led the worldwide effort for polio eradication for 12 years. He took that job on when he was 75. And, you think about that. People would say, "I'm going to retire and sit in a rocking chair. I'm not going to do anything." Here's a guy that, age 75, took on a job that required travelling the world and did it for 12 years. So, he was a real inspiration to those around him. He was president of the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge, and then, he became a district governor for East Tennessee. Then, he got more involved with Rotary, and that led, ultimately, to a vice president's position on the board of directors. But, still engaged, and all the way up -- he had 50 years of perfect attendance -- and was engaged right up 'til couple months before he died. And then, he was just too sick to come to Rotary. But, not often do we get to meet a great person, or get to know a great person. He was a great person. Think about, you think about the impact that he had worldwide, in this polio eradication. Polio eradication is our signature effort. It's what we're best known for. When he took on that assignment, I think, there were something, like, 300,000 new cases of polio every year, worldwide. It's down to 27 in 2016. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that was a disease that effected our childhood. MR. BAILEY: It did, sure did, yeah. Couldn't go to the swimming pool, you know, for the fear of the virus spreading in water. MR. HUNNICUTT: Today, you don't think about that, because it's not heard of, much, anymore, like it was then. MR. BAILEY: Well, the last case in the U.S. was 1979. It's been eradicated everywhere in the world, except Afghanistan and Pakistan. And, the last case in Nigeria was in 2014. They just had an unexpected couple of cases of polio in Nigeria a few months ago, but they're so sophisticated in the tracking, now, they can tell what neighborhood it came from. They'll go do a mass immunization, so they, they've taken care of it in Nigeria, again. But, it's down to Afghanistan and Pakistan. There've been over 30 polio workers killed, in those two countries. It's a dangerous proposition, these days, but huge headway. Hopefully, the last case of polio will be in the next year, or two. MR. HUNNICUTT: Bill Sergeant was an SED person, during the Manhattan Project, here. MR. BAILEY: That's right. MR. HUNNICUTT: I was fortunate to sit down a little bit with him, with a tape recorder, to talk to him, many years ago, and it's quite an interesting conversation. It was before any of this oral histories that was taken for Oak Ridge, but I turned that over to the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History, and it's there for people to look at ... MR. BAILEY: Fascinating ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... and listen to. MR. BAILEY: Fascinating guy to talk to, just, he could tell stories. And, his memory was incredible. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, it was. I won't go into it, but he told me a story, when he first came, and it was just as comical as you could ever think about. You've been into the ranks, pretty heavily, yourself. What kind of accomplish ... accomplishments have you done during your Rotary career? MR. BAILEY: When I first joined Rotary, in 1986, in Statesville, North Carolina, I did it because of the influence of Mr. Penney. And, I showed up for the meetings. At that time, I think the attendance requirements were to make 75 percent of the meetings, which I did. I didn't do much else, just showed up for the meetings each week. Moved to Tampa, and, because of the store I had, it was pretty demanding, and I was not in Rotary for the first four years. Then, I joined a club in Brandon, and I thought, you know, the least I can do is show up for meetings every week. And, I've not missed a meeting, now, in 21 years. I figured that was, that was the least I could do, at least show up for meetings. Gradually, I got more involved, and, I don't know if you'll want to bleep this or not, when I'd been in the club about five years, we had a crusty old, retired Army colonel in our club. He was a past president. He walked up to me one day, and said, "Bailey, when in the hell are you going to become club president?" I said, it kind of took me back, because I wasn't expecting that. So, from that point on, I got more involved, and became club president, two or three years after that. Of course you got to work your way through a few steps. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, he just saw something in you that needed to be lit up, a little bit, to get you in the right direction. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Sort of like all those coaches you had during track, and everywhere else along the way. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. So, when I came up here, I joined Rotary Club of Oak Ridge, and I thought, you know, I'm going to sit back a little bit. I was a club president down there, and I'll just, I've done my thing, so I'll just come up here and try to be a good club member. I'd been in the club about four or five months, and our current vice president, at that time, had an illness problem, so he had to resign his position. They knew I'd been a past club president, so they asked me if I'd serve as a vice president, and I said, 'Yes." Bill Sergeant is famous for saying, "The only time you can say, "No," to Rotary is when you're asked to join. Thereafter, you're answer should always be, "Yes," to whatever you're asked to do." So, I became vice president, and then, two or three years after that, I became a club president, Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. Then, Bill Sergeant was, actually, the person who asked me to put my name in nomination to be district governor. So, I became a district governor in 2012-13, for East Tennessee, and it was a great experience. so ... MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you travelled throughout the state, and attended different Rotary clubs? MR. BAILEY: East Tennessee, 65 clubs, and about 3,200 Rotarians. See, one of your expectations is, that you go to every club, and make an official presentation, if you will. So, I did that for all 65 clubs. Then, you're involved with other things in the district, as well. You know, fundraising, polio eradication, putting together a district conference, and whatever else comes your way. MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned presentation. What do you mean about the presentation that you presented to a Rotary club? MR. BAILEY: With the help of my wife, I put together a PowerPoint presentation. I'm not very good on a computer, so, I gathered all the information, knew what I wanted to say, and she would put it in good order, on the PowerPoint. She went with me to about 40, out of the 65 club presentations. You do a 20 to 30 minute presentation, and try to, hopefully, get people fired up about that year in Rotary, and whatever the programs and issues are to deal with. So, just, just a great, great experience. It's pretty much, pretty much a full time job for about a year and a half. I admire people who hold down a full time job, and do the responsibilities of district governor. I would not have even considered it 'til I retired. MR. HUNNICUTT: There's three different groups that meet in Oak Ridge. MR. BAILEY: Oak Ridge was the first club, in 1946, and we sponsored the Breakfast Club in 1980 or '81. And, we sponsored the Sunset Club about 10 years ago, nine years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that just for, for working people, so they have an opportunity to attend ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... one of the three, or all three, if they wanted to? MR. BAILEY: Because, sometimes, you'll approach somebody, and say, Well, I'd like to do it, but I can't get away for lunch. Well, can you get up early in the morning and go to breakfast, or can you go after work? So, they've got three choices, and that's, that's ideal. It's unusual for a town this size to have three clubs. It just shows how strong the Rotary presence is. MR. HUNNICUTT: What is the population of the clubs here in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Our club has about 112 members, right now. Breakfast Club has about 85, and the Sunset Club has 35, thereabouts. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, knowing you as long as I have, I know about an award you received from the University of Alabama. And, you brought that today with you. I want you to show it to the camera, and tell the camera what it's all about (rustling noise). MR. BAILEY: I only brought this because you asked me to. MR. HUNNICUTT: This is an award that most people don't ever have the opportunity to be even nominated for. MR. BAILEY: Well, it's, it's ... This may not show up on the camera, it's, it's called the Paul W. Bryant Alumni Athlete Award. The University of Alabama Alumni, National Alumni Association presents an award to a former athlete at the University of Alabama each year. And, typically, they pick two former athletes. A friend of mine contacted me six months ago, and said, "I want to put your name in nomination for, for this award." And I said, "You got to be kidding." He said, "No, I'm serious." He said, "Because it's not based on your athletic accomplishments, while in college. It's based on what'd you do with your life after you got out of college." So, he put my name in nomination, and I got selected, and, again, typically, they pick two, two former athletes each year. They've been doing it for 29 years, so there may be 60 people picked over the last 30 years. The other guy who was selected this year was a former Alabama All-American in football, and played 10 years in the NFL [National Football League], DeMeco Ryans, but that's not why he was selected. As soon as he graduated, and signed his first pro contract, he set up a $300,000 scholarship program at the University of Alabama. Since he's retired, he's set up another foundation to help underprivileged children in Birmingham. So, he's, he's had a real impact. And, surprisingly, or, maybe, not surprisingly, a lot of professional athletes don't give back to the community, they don't give back to the schools. So, this guy's setting a great example in his community by getting involved like that. The award is based on four points: Character, Contributions to Society -- which, I think, means money -- Professional Achievement, and Service to Fellowman. So, those are their criteria. And, and I got selected. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think your Rotary involvement's what helped you get selected. MR. BAILEY: Right, I think, certainly, it helped some. Again, because Mr. Penney's influence in giving back to the community, I've been involved in a lot of things through the years, I've, at various times, and in various towns, I've served as United Way board chairman. I was Chamber of Commerce president-elect when we got transferred from one town. Other involvements with United Way, YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association] board chairman, and, and some other stuff like that. I was chapter president of our alumni chapter in Knoxville for a couple of years. So, I think it's important for people to give back to their communities, in some capacity. The people I really admire are folks who will get out and do Meals on Wheels each day, or they'll go help build a wheelchair ramp for somebody. You know, stuff like that, where they do one-on-one service, I've got a great admiration for the people that do that. But, anyway, it was quite an honor, and I was pleased to get it, of course. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me some of the other people that's gotten the award. MR. BAILEY: You want me to do some name dropping. (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: Correct. MR. BAILEY: Joe Namath was one of the previous recipients. Bart Starr, who later played for the Green Bay Packers. Mal Moore, who was the Athletic Director at Alabama, who recruited Nick Saban to Alabama. Bill Battle, the current Athletic Director at Alabama. Of course, people up here know him very well, he's a former coach at the University of Tennessee. A lot of others, if you're a real football fan, you might recognize some of the other folks. One guy's a former head coach at Mississippi State. I was the first male track and field athlete to be selected, which is pretty neat. The only female track and field athlete they selected was an Olympic gold medalist. But, again, that's not why she was selected. She'd been very involved in youth activities, and youth organizations in Tuscaloosa. So, the theme is obvious. Coach Bryant was a big believer in preparing his football players to win, but also, in preparing his football players to do well in life after they got out of school. So, that was the genesis for this award. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's a very high, prestigious award. I never heard of it before, until now, and those people that you name dropped (laughter) it has to be an honor just to be associated with it. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. My favorite story, I think I may have shared this with you the other day, one of the guys on the selection committee wrote me a little letter of congratulations, and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah ... And, he said, "I've always been very supportive of the lesser-known athletes." (laughter) I fit that perfectly. I saw him a few weeks later, and I said, "I thought you were very kind to say, "lesser-known." I would've used the word obscure." But, anyway, big thrill. MR. HUNNICUTT: Jack, give me your overall view of growing up in Oak Ridge. How do you remember, and how it was? MR. BAILEY: Overall, very fond memories, just a great experience growing up here. Again, educational opportunities were tremendous. School system was superb, athletic programs were superb. I probably appreciate it more now than I did then, but the cultural opportunities here're very good, too, in terms of the Playhouse, Oak Ridge Symphony, and so many other things like that, that are available to the citizens here. Just, overall, a great experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: Growing up, did you feel safe in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: I did. We left, left our doors open all the time. Left the windows open, all the time. One time, I do wish we had locked the doors. My, my grandfather went to Tennessee Military Institute in Sweetwater, back in 1917, 1918. He had his sword, with his initials on it, from his time at Tennessee Military Institute, and my mother had wound up with it. When we moved from South Purdue Avenue, to Northwestern, we're hand-carrying some stuff across the hill, because it wasn't that far. And I remember Mother saying, "Here, you take Granddaddy's sword, and couple of other things, and go over, take it to the other house, and come back, and get some more stuff," which I did. So, I, you know, all the way over there, I'm doing the sword, sword routine. I went back to our house on South Purdue, we gathered up some more stuff, came back, and somebody stole that sword, during that half hour we were gone, because we didn't lock the doors. So, somebody, obviously, saw me carrying that sword over there, and had to have it for themselves. That's a great regret, to this day, that I don't have, have that sword, because it'd be a great family treasure to have. So, there were incidents where, you know, it wasn't totally safe. MR. HUNNICUTT: You think your mother and father enjoyed living in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: I think they did. I really do. They never left. I remember one time, we talked about moving to Newport News, because of, I guess, all the shipbuilding going on, they needed machinists. We, actually, went to Huntsville, Alabama, one time, when I was in junior high school, and we went down there to nose around, maybe, to, to go to work at Redstone Arsenal. But, ultimately, we decided to stay here. And, course, I'm grateful for that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family take vacations during your childhood? MR. BAILEY: To go back to West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: That's where you went all the time. MR. BAILEY: Go visit the grandparents in West Virginia. The only trip I remember us taking, as a kid, was to see my dad's brother who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the summer of '53, we drove from Oak Ridge, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to visit my uncle. Stopped at a couple of places in Indiana to visit some of his old, I think, they were ex-POW, guys that he knew from Indiana. That's the only trip I remember us ever taking, as a, as a family, when I was a kid. I never saw the ocean 'til I was 27 years old. Just the way it was. MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you when you found out your father was a POW? MR. BAILEY: I'm guessing 10 or 11, maybe. He didn't talk about it. You know, I guess, it was a traumatic, had to be a traumatic ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Certainly. MR. BAILEY: ... experience. The, I don't know, maybe in the '80s, he started talking about it more. He got involved with the Smoky Mountain chapter of the ex-POWs. I think, that helped him, and it, probably, helped all those guys, because they could talk to people that had similar experiences. And they could relate to each other. Eventually, he would, he learned he could get a free license plate (laughs) from, from the government, so he had the license plate that said, ex-POW. He would talk about it more openly as he went along. Several years ago, I asked him to record the reminiscences about World War II, and I've got about, about a six-hour audio tape that we had converted to CD. My mother just sat at the kitchen table, and asked him questions. And, he, he talked about that experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: I bet that was, sort of, a relief on him, after doing that. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, probably was. MR. HUNNICUTT: Could make peace with himself, I guess, some way or another. MR. BAILEY: Friend of theirs transcribed it, so I've got, not only the CD, but I've got the transcribed script of that at home. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's a piece of history, that ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Very important to you, I'm sure. MR. BAILEY: We've gotten into genealogy quite a bit, the last 20 years, Pat and I, both. And, you know, that's an important part of it. MR. HUNNICUTT: We've talked about a lot of things. Is there anything you want to talk about we hadn't talked about? I mean, could talk for six hours, you'll agree, there's no doubt about it. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, we could. MR. HUNNICUTT: Your accomplishments have been many in your life time. Is there anything else you can think about you want to talk about? MR. BAILEY: No, you're, you're a good interviewer. You, you covered a, you covered a lot of ground, from start to finish. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, we've known each other for a long time, and then, rekindled our friendship when you came back. But, to me, that award you've got there, that you just talked about, is, is just such a prestigious thing that, you've got to really sit on top of the mountain to have something like that. I mean, that's ... it's an honor for me to know you, Jack Bailey. (laughter) Who'd ever thought these boys from Oak Ridge would develop into what, some of you guys, have? You know, we've got one of our classmates that's a state senator. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Randy McNally. You, with this award, and lot of, lot of our classmates have succeeded in life. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. But, again, it was a great place to grow up, and, I think, the standards were set pretty high here. Hopefully, people followed through as they grew up. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's very difficult to explain to somebody ... MR. BAILEY: It is. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... Oak Ridge, isn't it? MR. BAILEY: Well, you ask about any of the comments. One, one thing I would, maybe, close with: When Pat and I were going through high school, we could not wait to get away from Oak Ridge. Then, with my academic background, I was not a science-, and math-type guy. So, there wasn't any real future, that I saw, living in Oak Ridge, especially when I went on through college, and majored in business. But, we couldn't wait to get away from Oak Ridge, and explore the world, so to speak. Then, we came full circle. When I retired, we both agreed, we wanted to move back here. So, it's just, and it's been a great 10 or 11 years, since we moved back. Just really pleased we came back to Oak Ridge. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, personally, I am, too. And, there are other people associated with you, I'm sure, feel the same way. Well, it's been my pleasure to interview you, Jack, and, you're now part of Oak Ridge history, and record, for sure. And, one day, someone might be reviewing your interview, and read about Rotary, get enthusiastic about it, join. MR. BAILEY: They might. MR. HUNNICUTT: Or, maybe they'll want to be a manager of some sort. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's hard to say how these interviews turn out for people. MR. BAILEY: You hope you can have a positive influence on other people. MR. HUNNICUTT: Absolutely, yeah. Well, thanks again for your time, and ... MR. BAILEY: You're welcome. My pleasure. I enjoyed it. [End of Interview] [Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Bailey’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]
Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.
Rating | |
Title | Bailey, Jack |
Description | Oral History of Jack Bailey, Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt, Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC., November 10, 2016 |
Audio Link | http://coroh.oakridgetn.gov/corohfiles/audio/Bailey_Jack.mp3 |
Video Link | http://coroh.oakridgetn.gov/corohfiles/videojs/Bailey_Jack.htm |
Transcript Link | http://coroh.oakridgetn.gov/corohfiles/Transcripts_and_photos/Bailey_Jack/Bailey_Final.doc |
Image Link | http://coroh.oakridgetn.gov/corohfiles/Transcripts_and_photos/Bailey_Jack/Bailey_Jack.jpg |
Collection Name | COROH |
Interviewee | Bailey, Jack |
Interviewer | Hunnicutt, Don |
Type | video |
Language | English |
Subject | Dormitories; Housing; Oak Ridge (Tenn.); Recreation; Schools; Shopping; Sports; Y-12; |
Places | Midtown Shopping Center; Oak Ridge High School; Robertsville Junior High School; Woodland Elementary School; Woodland Shopping Center; |
Organizations/Programs | Monsanto Chemical Company; Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Special Engineering Detachments (SED); |
Notes | Transcript edited at Mr. Bailey's request. |
Date of Original | 2016 |
Format | flv, doc, jpg, mp3 |
Length | 2 hours |
File Size | 403 MB |
Source | Center for Oak Ridge Oral History |
Location of Original | Oak Ridge Public Library |
Rights | Disclaimer: "This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise do not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Governement or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Governemtn or any agency thereof." The materials in this collection are in the public domain and may be reproduced without the written permission of either the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History or the Oak Ridge Public Library. However, anyone using the materials assumes all responsibility for claims arising from use of the materials. Materials may not be used to show by implication or otherwise that the City of Oak Ridge, the Oak Ridge Public Library, or the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History endorses any product or project. When materials are to be used commercially or online, the credit line shall read: “Courtesy of the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History and the Oak Ridge Public Library.” |
Contact Information | For more information or if you are interested in providing an oral history, contact: The Center for Oak Ridge Oral History, Oak Ridge Public Library, 1401 Oak Ridge Turnpike, 865-425-3455. |
Identifier | BAIJ |
Creator | Center for Oak Ridge Oral History |
Contributors | McNeilly, Kathy; Stooksbury, Susie; Reed, Jordan; Hunnicutt, Don; BBB Communications, LLC. |
Searchable Text | ORAL HISTORY OF JACK BAILEY Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC. November 10, 2016 MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 10, 2016. I'm Don Hunnicutt, in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC., 170 Randolph Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take Jack Bailey's oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Jack, state your full name, place of birth, and date. MR. BAILEY: Jack L. Bailey, Jr. I was born May 8, 1944, in Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, what was your father's name, place of birth, and date, if you recall. MR. BAILEY: My father's name was Jack L. Bailey. He was born January 9, 1923, in Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know about your mother's maiden name, place of birth, and date. MR. BAILEY: My mother's maiden name was Mary Frances Crawford. She was born January 17, 1924, in Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, on your father's side, your grandparents, grandfather and grandmother, what were their names, and, if you recall, any places of birth or dates, give me those, please. MR. BAILEY: My dad's father was Elbin Dan Bailey. He was born January 25, 1898, in Poca, West Virginia. And, my maternal grandmother was Frances Villette Polsley -- P-O-L-S-L-E-Y. She was born in Raymond City, West Virginia, in 1901. MR. HUNNICUTT: How about on your mom's side? MR. BAILEY: On my mother's side, my mother's father was James Ernest Crawford, Jr. He was born in August, 1901, in Arbutis, West Virginia, which is in the Charleston, West Virginia area. My maternal grandmother was Frances Nash, and she was born May 18, 1900, in Buffalo, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you recall your father's school history was like? MR. BAILEY: He grew up in Nitro, West Virginia, which is just a few miles from Charleston. And, he graduated from Nitro High School in 1942. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, after that, did he pursue a college education. MR. BAILEY: Did not. He joined the Army Air Forces, in November, 1942, and served in, in the U.S. Army Air Forces, until June of 1945. He was a ball turret gunner, on a B-17, and was shot down over Germany, and was about 16 months a POW [Prisoner of War] in Germany. MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mother's school history? MR. BAILEY: Mother also graduated from Nitro High School in 1942. They were high school classmates, sweethearts. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, were they married before he went into the military? MR. BAILEY: They got married in November of '42, and he joined the service in December of '42. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was their home place? MR. BAILEY: In Nitro, Nitro, West Virginia, and Charleston, West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she work any while, during ... ? MR. BAILEY: She worked a little bit. I was born in May of '44, which was after my dad was shot down. So, she worked some in Charleston, but I was 13 months old before my dad ever saw me. MR. HUNNICUTT: You have sisters and brothers? MR. BAILEY: Have one sister, Judy Bailey. She lives here in Oak Ridge. She, also, was born in Charleston, West Virginia. She was an Oak Ridge High [School] graduate in 1964. MR. HUNNICUTT: What caused the Bailey family to come to Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Job opportunity. My dad was working for Monsanto, in Charleston, and a friend of his that'd gotten a job in Oak Ridge, told him about it. So, my dad came down here for an interview, and was hired as a machinist at Y-12, and he started in June of 1951. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, where did the family live when they came to Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Interesting, when we first came here, we lived in the old, I guess, dormitories, out close to Jefferson Circle, for several weeks, while we were getting a house prepared. We wound up, first house, was at 106 South Purdue Avenue, in Woodland, and we lived there a couple of years, and then, moved to 196 Northwestern Avenue, also in the Woodland area. MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house was that, that 106 South Purdue? MR. BAILEY: Concrete block houses. That one and the one on Northwestern. A lot of the houses in the Woodland area were the block houses that were built, I think, around 1950. MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did the family move from 106 South Purdue to 196 Northwestern? MR. BAILEY: The ground settled on the house on South Purdue. We could see the outdoors through our living room without a window. There was a crack, probably, an inch to two inches wide. And, it was more trouble to try to have it fixed, and go through all that, than it was to just move. MR. HUNNICUTT: On South Purdue which side of the street is 106 on? It's on the left? MR. BAILEY: Well, as you turn ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Coming up ... MR. BAILEY: If you turn off of Manchester, onto South Purdue, it's on the right. There's a little cul-de-sac soon after you turn on South Purdue. Interestingly enough, one of the first persons, maybe, the first person I met in Oak Ridge, was Bob Presley. He lived on the corner of South Purdue and Manchester. And, Bob and I were classmates, went to the same church, at First Presbyterian. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, I had the ends mixed. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I was thinking the other end's beginnings. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: But it was where Bob lived. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how the family got to Oak Ridge? Did they come by car, do you recall? MR. BAILEY: Covered wagon. (laughter) No, my dad had a, it was a 1948 Plymouth, and, I think, it was the second car he'd ever owned, and that's how we got here. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall your mother saying anything about coming to Oak Ridge, whether she liked it, or anything. MR. BAILEY: No, no I don't remember anything like that. They just, they wanted to leave West Virginia. They just felt like there were better opportunities elsewhere, and there were better places, at the time, to raise their family, than in West Virginia. It was an opportunity to get away from some family dynamics, which, you might imagine, goes on in a lot of families. So, it was, kind of, a fresh start. MR. HUNNICUTT: During the time that you can remember, all the time you were growing up at home, do you ever recall your dad saying anything about what he did at Y-12? MR. BAILEY: No, not at Y-12. No, because he was there a couple of years, worked shift work. I remember we always had to be quiet during the day if he'd worked the night shift, and, he'd sleep during the day. But, after a couple of years, he got a job as a machinist at X-10, and worked over there. I do remember him saying something about working on the moon box, when he was a machine shop foreman out at X-10. Now, which box, or which flight, I don't know, but I do remember him mentioning that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, Y-12 had a big hand into that. MR. BAILEY: Did they? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Did your mother work any when she came to Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Not initially. We came here in the summer of '51. When I graduated from high school in 1962, my sister was finishing her sophomore year in high school, Mother decided she would go to work at that time. Lorena Causey was the Y-12 Credit Union manager, at that time. They were personal friends, bridge partners, and that sort of thing, and Lorena said, "Well, come to work in the office here, and you can start part time and see how you like it." She retired 25 years later. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Still part time. MR. BAILEY: No, no, she, actually, became the number two person at Y-12 Credit Union. She was offered the, the manager's job, at one point, but declined. She didn't want that job. MR. HUNNICUTT: The house that your family finally ended up, on Northwestern, describe how that house looks inside. MR. BAILEY: It was at the end of another cul-de-sac at Northwestern, just up the hill from the drug store and the grocery store, going away from Downtown. Three bedroom, one bathroom, oil heat. When you first walked in the door, the kitchen was off to the right with a small, I don't know if you'd call it a storage area, where the furnace area was. Had a, a kitchen, had the living room, then three bedrooms, one bathroom. Oil heat. I remember the guys coming with the oil tanker, and they'd run that line down to the tank to fill it up, periodically. MR. HUNNICUTT: They had a tank buried in the ground, if I remember correctly. MR. BAILEY: They did, yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a type house that had the heating elements, or the tubes in the floor, where the heat would go through the floor? MR. BAILEY: Right, right. We had a dog at the time. The dog liked to find the warm spots in the wintertime and the cool spots in the summertime. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the floor that warm during the wintertime? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it worked pretty well, sure did. MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the first school you attended in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Woodland. Went to Woodland, starting in the fall of 1951. I started in second grade. I had gone to first grade in Nitro, West Virginia. And, actually, you and I were classmates that first year. We had Miss Shirley as our teacher in second grade. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was Miss Shirley, is that what you just told me? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Just checking to see ... MR. BAILEY: You remember that? (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: I do remember that, yeah. So, second grade in Woodland, what do you remember, anything different from the first grade where you came, where you used to live, and the second grade at Woodland? Do you remember anything at all different in the two? MR. BAILEY: Well, thinking back to West Virginia, of course, we were learning our letters, learning how to read, that sort of thing. I did not go to kindergarten. They did not offer kindergarten in West Virginia, so my first experience with school was first grade in West Virginia. And then, coming to second grade, of course, we learned more as we went along. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like elementary school? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, good experience, it really was. I did well in school, and, you know, academics came fairly easy to me, after a certain point. So, yeah, it was a good experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, who were some of your other teachers at Woodland? MR. BAILEY: I had Miss Shirley in second grade. Ms. Morgan in the third grade. Miss Story in the fourth grade, and Mrs. Hamric in the fifth grade. MR. HUNNICUTT: We, we parted ways, after the second grade ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah, you moved, I believe. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, no, I stayed at Woodland to the fifth grade, but I had different teachers than you. MR. BAILEY: Ok, all right. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was the only grade that we had the same teacher. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Who'd you have? MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, let's see, Ms. Bryant was third grade. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: And I don't remember fourth, and Mrs. ... oh, I can't remember her name, right now. MR. BAILEY: Cramer, or something like that? MR. HUNNICUTT: No, Woody. MR. BAILEY: Woody. Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you ever involved with the safety patrol while you were at Woodland? MR. BAILEY: No, never. MR. HUNNICUTT: You missed out. (laughter) Just kidding. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I do remember one story, in second grade. You may remember Jimmy Jamison, lived up on South Purdue, a little bit farther down the street from where we lived. We went on a field trip to his house, I think they had an electric train set up, or something. She told us to stay together as a class. I ran ahead when we started back from Mrs. Jamison's house, back to the school, so when I got back to the classroom, Miss Shirley called me up to the front of the room, and spanked me for running ahead, and not obeying. I went back to my seat, laughing. She called me back up there again, and I wasn't laughing a second time. MR. HUNNICUTT: What'd she spank you with? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember. Probably a ruler. MR. HUNNICUTT: Those things hurt on the wrist, didn't they? Did you ever get hit on the wrist? MR. BAILEY: No, my mother used to, occasionally, get a plastic ruler and, if I did something wrong, she'd slap me on the calf with that plastic ruler. That stung. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever have to go pick your own switches? MR. BAILEY: No, I don't remember that. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: If you did, you would remember it. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's terrible, to have to go pick your own switch, and bring it in and have them switch you with it. MR. BAILEY: My dad had a wooden paddle, about this long, that he'd made in high school shop class. That was always in the hall closet. My sister and I knew where it was, and so, he didn't have to go get any switches. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: During the summer months, between school grades, what'd you do? MR. BAILEY: Played at the playground a lot. We had the playground program, at that time, and I remember going to Woodland a lot in the summer time. Play soft ball, play the various games they offered at the playgrounds. I remembered a couple of my, have run into a couple of my old coaches, periodically, and, of course, we appear to be about the same age now, and I like to remind them that he was my coach, years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall one year, in Woodland, and I can't remember what year it was, that the whole school had this big, outdoor play, and it was related with cowboys and Indians, of some sort. Do you remember that happening? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember that one specifically. I remember we used to have May Day programs, where we were outdoors on May Day, May the first, May the fifth, whatever it was. But, I don't remember that specific program. MR. HUNNICUTT: This was, I'm pretty sure, it was the whole school, and it just so happened, I was an Indian. My mother made me these Indian pants. You took your shirt off, but some guys had short, shorts-like whatever they called, the Indians called that, but she, she made me Indian pants, and it was all, pretty well orchestrated about what we had to do, and go around, Ba-wa-wa, you know, in the circle, and all that stuff, like Indians ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... supposed to do, I guess. I haven't run into anybody yet that remembers that. I know I didn't dream that. (laughter) But, anyway ... MR. BAILEY: I'll talk to Pat, occasionally, about, "What do you remember about school days?" and she doesn't remember a lot of things from younger school years. So, I guess, some things stick with us, and some don't. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it does. Do you remember us doing air raid drills, or fire drills at Woodland? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, and it's kind of comical, looking back, because they'd say, we're going to have a, an air raid drill, instead of a fire drill, and we'd get under our desk, like that'd really protect us from a bomb. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Seem like to me, on the fire drills, we just went out in the hall, or did we leave the school? MR. BAILEY: I think we left the school to go outside. I guess that'd make us an even better target. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. But we had to walk in single file. MR. BAILEY: That's right, sure did. MR. HUNNICUTT: In a disciplined manner. Yeah, those were quite different days than they are today. You know, I didn't attend the playgrounds. I always -- our neighborhood had so many kids over there, that we seemed to entertain ourselves, I guess. MR. BAILEY: So, you didn't, in the summertime, you didn't go to the playgrounds? MR. HUNNICUTT: No, I didn't. I know I missed a lot, but I certainly didn't. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it was a good program. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about the drug store, and the grocery store, and there was a gas station somewhere up there at the Woodland Shopping Center. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, that was a neat shopping center. I remember the drug store, and IGA, Food Liner, our grocery store. I think was a Gulf gas station, at the time. There was a barber shop down the side. I think, a beauty salon, and, maybe, an insurance agency. But, we lived up the hill, going away from Downtown, and when I was a kid, we'd be watching TV, my parents both smoked, at the time. They would send me on an errand, to go down to the drug store, and buy their cigarettes. I would try to time it on the half hour, when one program ended, and another one started. I'd run down the hill, buy the cigarettes, run back up the hill, and the goal was to get it done during the commercial, so I wouldn't miss the show. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you live close to Bruce Anderson? You remember him? MR. BAILEY: Why, he lived across the street from the drug store. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, but he was up the hill, just a little bit, though. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, but, I think, his was the first house coming up the hill going toward Downtown. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: And, I lived on the hill going away from Downtown. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, Ok. MR. BAILEY: Judy Cole was -- fellow classmate -- was our next door neighbor. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let me get my bearings straight on that: Where was your house related to Newberry Circle? MR. BAILEY: Newberry's on the other side. It's going toward Downtown. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, ok, so you were on the ... MR. BAILEY: I was on the ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... hill, going up the ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: All right, David Bryant, the Bryants lived in that house on the left, I think, as you're going up the hill. Do you recall that? MR. BAILEY: That's right. They lived right down the hill from us. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. His mother was a school teacher there. MR. BAILEY: Right. Yeah, she was your teacher. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember his father having a rolling store? MR. BAILEY: I do. Yeah, that was a neat thing. You always get excited when the rolling store, or the ice cream wagon, would come around. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what you remember about that rolling store. MR. BAILEY: I just remember they had a lot of neat things, and, seems like, they had books, and knick-knacks, and inexpensive stuff that would appeal to kids. MR. HUNNICUTT: It was a truck with a big, enclosed bed, or cab on the back of it, I believe, wasn't it? MR. BAILEY: I remember it being more like a school bus. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, the one I remember he had was just like a big truck, like a moving van-type truck, that had a big box on the back, and, of course, you raised the door up. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Scales would be hanging in the door opening, and he had vegetables, and stuff, he'd sell. MR. BAILEY: Right. I don't know whether he had a garden somewhere, or not, but ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Bryant's Rolling Store. MR. BAILEY: Bryant's Rolling Store. MR. HUNNICUTT: There was another one, or two, seems like. I think Anderson's, that had Hilltop Market, had a rolling store, as well. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know, that, those were the good old days. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, Woodland was a neat neighborhood to grow up in. So many of our classmates lived in the Woodland area, too. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when they designed it, you know, they designed it where it was very convenient for, just about any place you lived in Woodland to, for that shopping center. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, the school as well. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Not complicated streets, but, some of the houses they built together, each other was, kind of, jammed in (laughs) I don't understand their logic there, but ... You'd look out your front door, and you're looking in somebody's bedroom. MR. BAILEY: Right. That may've been an outgrowth of the Manhattan Project, because houses were so close together during the Manhattan Project, maybe, they just carried that same thing forward. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Well, they sure did that, all right, that's for sure. After you left Woodland, did you go to Robertsville? MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, what do you remember, the difference of leaving Woodland, and going to the junior high at Robertsville? MR. BAILEY: It seemed like a big deal, at the time. You know, sixth grade, through ninth grade, at that time. Of course, going in as a sixth grader, we were the little kids. But, I remember that as being a pretty exciting time, getting to go from elementary school, all the way to junior high school. MR. HUNNICUTT: You remember when we went to the sixth grade, the ninth grade, at that time, was at the high school. And then, they moved it back. Well, at Jefferson, it was that way, and then, it came back. So, I went four years at junior high, where some people didn't. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, you're right about that, because the, the class ahead of us, the ultimate class of '61, got to be the big kids on campus in the eighth grade and ninth grade, because that's when they moved it back from the high school. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go out for any kind of sports, when you went to junior high? MR. BAILEY: I did. I played ... MR. HUNNICUTT: What type sports? MR. BAILEY: In the sixth grade, I ran track. In the seventh grade, I played basketball. In the seventh grade, I played football, but never got to play. Played basketball again. Eighth grade, I played basketball, and ninth grade, I went out for the football team, and got my nose broken in pre-season practice, and my parents wouldn't let me play, anymore, which still aggravates me. I played basketball that year, ran track that year. MR. HUNNICUTT: We probably played basketball against each other. MR. BAILEY: Could have. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Because I did in at Jefferson, as well. Well, what got you into running? You mentioned you ran between TV times, to this and that. What got you into running? MR. BAILEY: Probably, the first thing that I remember, as a kid in Woodland, you know, kids are always trying to think of things to do, and we'd get kids together, and run around the block, and, I would always win. Naturally, I had more stamina, I guess, than a few of the kids in the Woodland area. Ran track in the sixth grade. Did not run seventh and eighth grade, then I ran in ninth grade. I remember coming in fourth in the regional track meet, in the three-quarter mile. That's as long as you could run in junior high school. So, that was probably my first indication. MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you go about training for track? MR. BAILEY: Do what the coach tells you to do, and you go out for practice, and they'd tell you what to run. Looking back, it’s pretty primitive. There was nothing about nutrition, nothing about weight training, and nothing about off-season training. You'd just go out, and run track for a couple of months in the Spring, and you were done. So, it's much more advanced now. MR. HUNNICUTT: We'll get into that a little bit later. MR. BAILEY: Sure. MR. HUNNICUTT: I wanted to get to high school, about how much difference it was. What were some of the classes at Robertsville that you took? Did you take any extra classes? I know we had to have reading and arithmetic and all sorts of science, but ... MR. BAILEY: We took the basic classes, and you stayed in your homeroom for all classes, as I recall, in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I remember having Miss Smithson in sixth grade, and we had a, a wonderful class that, that year. But, as you might guess, sixth grade boys can be pretty mischievous, and I think we aggravated her a bit during the year. Seventh grade, I had Mrs. Miracle. In eighth grade, I had Miss Alexander, who's still here in Oak Ridge. That was her very first year as a teacher. And, in ninth grade, I had Mrs. Carr, as a homeroom teacher. In the ninth grade, we started rotating classes. We'd leave our homeroom class for a couple of other classes, whether it be math, or sociology, or whatever. I was the, that we, if you recall, we had homeroom class officers, and I was homeroom president, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, and ninth grade. In the ninth grade, the school was trying to experiment a little bit, so they selected three of us to take an extra class that year. Minetta Stone, Gail Hunt, and myself, were the three that they picked. I think that they just wanted to see whether some of us students could handle a little heavier academic load. So, I took an extra class in the ninth grade, and ... MR. HUNNICUTT: What was that class? MR. BAILEY: I took typing, which turned out to be a very beneficial class to take. But, it didn't require any homework. So, it was pretty easy, I think, to handle the extra load. MR. HUNNICUTT: I think a lot of boys missed the fact, the opportunity of typing. They didn't take that opportunity, because, of course, today in computer world, that's what you use, is a keyboard. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, in those days, boys thought like boys. They didn't think practically. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, in between the years at Robertsville, what'd you do in the summertime? MR. BAILEY: Went to the playground. Spent a lot of time at the playground. MR. HUNNICUTT: Which playground? MR. BAILEY: Woodland. MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh, same ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Stayed there. MR. BAILEY: And played baseball in the summertime. Loved baseball. It's always been my favorite sport. And, we'd play, they didn't call it Little League, but it was for the younger kids, and Coach Martin, kind of, directed that, along with Shep Lauter. Then, he moved into the Intermediate League, which was 13, to 15. And, after that, you moved to what they called the Junior League, which was 16, and up. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were the games played? MR. BAILEY: Down at the old Midtown ball park. Until you went to the Junior League at age 16, then you played out at the, I don't even know what they call it now, Ridgeview Park, or [inaudible]. MR. HUNNICUTT: Oh, out in Gamble Valley? MR. BAILEY: In Gamble Valley, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: What's the, I can't remember the name of that ball field, either. Oh, we'll talk a little bit about what you know about the Oak Ridge professional ball team a little bit later. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, let's, let's go back to Robertsville, during the school years. Who was the athletic coach down there, during that time? MR. BAILEY: Bob Stuhlmiller. He coached football, and basketball, and track. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was quite a job, wasn't it? MR. BAILEY: It was. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he have any assistants that helped him? MR. BAILEY: Sam Wheeler helped him in football, and basketball. He would take the upper class, whatever it was, eighth grade or ninth grade, and then, somebody else would coach the year, the year below us. So, if he was coaching ninth grade, he had somebody else coaching the eighth grade team. But, we had Mr. Wallace in the sixth grade, as a basketball coach. We had Sam Wheeler in seventh grade, Dwayne Seagraves in the eighth grade, and John Price in the ninth grade. I think John Price is still in this area somewhere. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me where the basketball, the gym was located down there, because I think it's been moved, since then. MR. BAILEY: They may've built a new one, but it was down below the main school building. MR. HUNNICUTT: You had a curve ... MR. BAILEY: Fairly close to the track. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... U-turn there, didn't you? MR. BAILEY: You did, yeah... yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember the difference between that, and playing at Jefferson. Jefferson had the old round, metal backboards ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah, and we had the nice ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... Manhattan Project. And, you had the nice ... (laughs) rectangular-shaped ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... wooden backboards. When we'd come to play there, you had a different touch altogether about the ball rebounding off those board, versus those metal ones. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Quite a, quite a difference. Did you, I can't remember, did you tell me you did not play football in the ninth grade? MR. BAILEY: I, I played until I broke my nose, which was pre-season. MR. HUNNICUTT: There was an individual that was in your, on your football team down there, that was named Dick Truitt. You remember that guy? MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: He was the one that started that weight lifting, him and his brother, that people didn't do back in those days. MR. BAILEY: Right. Dick was really strong. He was ahead of his time, I think, if he was into weight training. I remember one time, in seventh grade class, he hit me over the head with a pencil, and you wouldn't think that would hurt, but it stung for a while. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did he do that? MR. BAILEY: I have no telling. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they offer any shop classes like metal- or woodworking, or anything like that, at Robertsville. MR. BAILEY: We took a class, I think, in the eighth grade, and I've still got a little, I've got two or three little, I don't know if they're metal, or aluminum ashtrays that we made. And I built a magazine stand out of wood that I've still got that. That's the extent of my handiwork for the rest of my life. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Jefferson had all the leftover high school shops. MR. BAILEY: Oh, did they? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, there was several different kind of shops: woodwork, and metalwork, lathe spinning, and all kinds of different things. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Did you take a lot of that? MR. HUNNICUTT: Some of them. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Mr. Heck was the shop teacher at, at Robertsville. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they offer mechanical drawing there, as well? MR. BAILEY: I don't know. My dad was, obviously, very good with his hands, being a machinist, and I can't drive a nail. I'm sure that disappointed him, that I didn't get that aptitude from him. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, you've got attributes that, I'm sure, he was proud of. Ok, now, now, we're going from junior high, to high school. Well, let me back up a minute. There's a question I asked males and females about going to junior high, from elementary school. You get that kind of rude awakening about having to take a shower at gym class, and the presence of other people in the gym class. Do you recall that? Did that bother you? MR. BAILEY: I, I don't remember it being an issue. Just, you know, you got to take a shower, so then, take it and leave. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. It's just, I just want people to understand what, what you had to go through in those days. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, modesty was quite high between individuals, back in the day. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Today it's not. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Obviously. But, it gives someone, kind of, a view of how we lived, back in those days, by me asking that question. That's the reason I ask it. MR. BAILEY: I guess, being involved in sports, too, it's just one of the things you had to deal with, that the locker room has a big shower, and you got to go take a shower, clean up to go home, so. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did, when, when you had gym class, or even ran track, or whatever you did, athletic wise, what did you do with your street clothes? MR. BAILEY: We had lockers, and we had a lock, so we could lock up our clothes, if I remember correctly. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know what we had at Jefferson? Had a basket with a number on it, from the high school. (laughter) MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, that's where we put our clothes. MR. BAILEY: Ok. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I think I've got one of those, still at the house. MR. BAILEY: Oh, do you? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: One more thing I might mention before we leave Robertsville. As you can tell, already, I've always been interested in sports, and we had recess, I guess, you'd call it. I remember going on, on the outside in sixth grade, and I saw a bunch of girls playing softball down at the far field. I remember noticing this blonde, in sixth grade. Didn't know what her name was, but turned out, the next year, we were in the same class, and it turned out to be Pat Hensley. I was, I guess, I was struck with that blonde (laughs). MR. HUNNICUTT: She mentioned something in her interview about that. I'll get your side of it. (laughter) Let's talk a little more about the baseball you were playing, during that time. Where did the teams come from that you played against? MR. BAILEY: They were all Oak Ridge teams, up until you get to the Junior League. MR. HUNNICUTT: Were they sponsored by different organizations? MR. BAILEY: Right, right. I played for the Moose Club. I guess, 13, 14, 15, three years. But, OCAW [Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers] sponsored a team, First Methodist sponsored a team. I don't remember some of the others, other organizations. MR. HUNNICUTT: What position did you play? MR. BAILEY: Infield. And, I played second one year, third one year, and shortstop another year. But we were fortunate to have good teams, so we, I think we won the championship two out of three years. MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you develop your ball playing skills? MR. BAILEY: Practice. Yeah, just get out in the neighborhood and throw the ball around with guys in the neighborhood, playing on a playground, you'd play softball instead of baseball. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember a game on the playground that had a metal, vertical pole, and had a ... MR. BAILEY: Tetherball. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: You got to me before I got to it. (laughs) That was quite a game, wasn't it? MR. BAILEY: It was a game. I got beat, regularly, at that, for a long time. MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you determine who would hit the ball first? Do you remember? MR. BAILEY: Probably, grabbed the paddle, and hit it. MR. HUNNICUTT: I don't either. I hadn't found anybody that can tell me that, either. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, the object of the game was to wrap the ball around in the direction you were hitting it. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, when that was finished, you won the game. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, I can remember getting your arm, and paddle hung up in that rope (laughter) that came around through there. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. What, what do you remember, some other games they played, other than ball? MR. BAILEY: Played foursquare on the asphalt. It's kind of like, kind of like ... tennis. Same idea. And, you had paddle ball that you played with wooden paddles. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that outside or inside? MR. BAILEY: Outside. Then, on a rainy day, go inside and play basketball, or dodge ball. Of course, it was always fun to try to hit the girls with the dodge ball. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you think the gym appeared big, during that day? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, oh, yeah, it sure did. MR. HUNNICUTT: Go in there today, it's very little, isn't it? MR. BAILEY: It is, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: They've remodeled the face of that school since we were there. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it's all, kind of, a tan color, instead of the old red brick. MR. HUNNICUTT: And they brought out from the main office, a section that wasn't there ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah, it's kind of a new facade, I guess. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. When you left Robertsville, and you attended high school, what was some of the courses you took in high school? Other than the normal math. MR. BAILEY: You had to take algebra one at junior high, and algebra two as a junior, and we took plane geometry sophomore. MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you wear to school as a dress code for a boy? MR. BAILEY: Just shirts and pants. I don't ever remember wearing jeans. I don't think jeans were popular in junior high. I don't remember jeans being a, a popular thing to wear. I always remember wearing khaki pants. Yeah. Casual pants. MR. HUNNICUTT: Lace up shoes or loafers? MR. BAILEY: Loafers. MR. HUNNICUTT: Had pennies in them? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I think so. Had to have pennies. MR. HUNNICUTT: Which way was the penny facing? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember that. Probably out. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: Why didn't you put dimes in there instead of pennies, do you know? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: So ... MR. BAILEY: Because then ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... penny loafers. MR. BAILEY: ... then it'd be a dime loafer. (laughter) MR. HUNNICUTT: And, no money, just a loafer, right? MR. BAILEY: That's right. (laughter) I remember taking world history in sophomore year, with Miss Frazier, and that was a really interesting class. She was a wonderful teacher. One of the projects we had, one time, was to do our own family history, genealogy. So I knew my aunt had some information about our family, and so, I called her and got some information. But, that, kind of, whetted my appetite for genealogy and family research, which I got into extensively, later on. I remember having Coach Ira Green for health, and psychology. He was a good teacher. MR. HUNNICUTT: He was basketball coach, at one time, wasn't he? MR. BAILEY: He was, yeah, he sure was. He won two state championships. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, who was the track coach at the high school, when you went? MR. BAILEY: Ben Martin. MR. HUNNICUTT: What'd you see different in his technique, than the one at Robertsville. MR. BAILEY: Well, you know, in junior high school, you're, kind of, a neophyte. You're just learning what to do and how to run. Coach Martin was a master at putting together relay teams. His teams won seven state championships in an 11 year period. He would dominate in the relays, because, with Oak Ridge being a big school, he had more talent to pull from, so he could put together talented relay teams that would beat the other teams. He also was very good at ... at letting the seniors provide leadership. So, he was smart in that regard. He knew how to get the kids involved, and, you know, kids could motivate the other kids. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, tell me how he would teach you how to run. MR. BAILEY: I don't remember doing that. You know, you might get a little advice here, and there about shorten your stride, or keep your head up, that sort of thing. But, as far as teaching you how to run, you can't coach speed. You know, you've either got speed, or don't have speed. I think he was pretty good at identifying where kids might fit: sprinter, jumper, weight person, or distance runner. But, I just, the thing that sticks out, in my mind, is the fact that he was so good at putting relay teams together, and so good about getting the seniors involved in leadership on a team. He approached me my, in my senior year, and said, "Jack, you can run the mile, in the state meet, if you want to, based on what we know right now, you'll probably come in fourth or fifth. Or we can put you on a relay team, a two-mile relay, because we've got a lot of good half-milers, and y'all have a chance to win a state title." Which we did. And, that, I think that's an example. I'm sure he did that with a lot of boys. You can do pretty well as an individual, but if you work on a team, you can do really well. And, that's something that stuck with me throughout my life. The term, “the ability to pull together as a team,” and trying people who will work on my team, and work together... Because, it's so true, not only in different sports, but in the business world, as well. MR. HUNNICUTT: That's, that's, kind of, interesting. You would think, him being a head coach, he would just say, "Ok, Jack, I want you to do this, and this, and this," instead of giving you the option to perform on the relay team, knowing you were going to perform on the relay team, I mean, he probably figured you'd do that, even though he gave you that option. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, when he said that you're probably going to win, that gave you another motive to want to run on the team. MR. BAILEY: Why, you know, if you felt like you've got part in the decision, you got a better buy in. MR. HUNNICUTT: Right. MR. BAILEY: You know, if somebody told you, "You got to do this," or, "You got to do that," you may or may not buy in. But, when you got a hand in the decision, and you got teammates that you respect, and want to work with, it pays off. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you try any other events, like the pole vault, high jump, or broad jump, or any of that kind of stuff? MR. BAILEY: You know, you mess around doing stuff like that. Never the pole vault. You know, I couldn't do that. But, you mess around. But, you find out soon enough, "I can't jump as high as that guy," Or "I can't do the broad jump -- as we called it then -- as far as that guy," or "I can't get over the hurdles fast enough." You just gradually gravitate to what you do best. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, your best part of running track was long runs, or ... ? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, the longest you could run in Tennessee, back in the early '60s, was a one-mile run. That was the distance run. Now, you can run two miles, in high school, three miles, cross country. In college, you can run through 5K and 10K, which converts to 3.1 miles and 6.2 miles, where, back then, one mile was the longest thing you could run. So, if guys ran the mile, they quite often would double and run the half mile and mile. MR. HUNNICUTT: Why do you think they had that ruling back then? MR. BAILEY: Probably the same reasoning they had that girls couldn't participate in sports. They might get hurt, or might be too, be too demanding on the body. Pretty antiquated thinking, as we look back at it. MR. HUNNICUTT: They didn't have much information about that, apparently. MR. BAILEY: Right, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall trying to jump over the hurdles? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: I never had enough nerve to try, but (laughter) how do you go about, how would you think you'd go about timing that, so that, to, to jump over it in a stride type ... MR. BAILEY: If ... if it were high hurdles, which, in high school, are 36 inches, I think, and low hurdles, I think, were 30 inches high, a really good hurdler is stepping over the hurdles, they're not jumping over the hurdles. With a really good hurdler, his tail will barely touch the hurdle, as he clears the, the, the hurdle. You know, it's just, snap that front leg down, and move along to the next one. And, they get the steps down, you know, whether it be seven steps, between each high hurdle, or 13 steps, between each intermediate hurdle. That's where the practice comes in, and, just, repetition to get that down. MR. HUNNICUTT: Does it matter which foot goes over first? MR. BAILEY: Most guys will have a dominant leg. The really good ones can do either leg. So, it doesn't really matter. MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the track surface at the high school when you ran? MR. BAILEY: It was a crushed cinder track and, at the time, it had the reputation of being the fastest track in the state of Tennessee. Again, probably, it was going back to Oak Ridge having the best of everything, as we grew up. So, it was a high quality track. My senior year, we ran against Knox East, and one of the guys from East won the mile that day, and ran it in 4:28, which was the fastest time ever recorded in the state of Tennessee. The existing record was set in 1930, so, I think the track upheld its reputation, if you will, of being a really fast track. MR. HUNNICUTT: What did the track shoes look like? MR. BAILEY: Just, not much, you know. Pretty tight fitting shoes with spikes on the bottom of them. Nothing elaborate. Nothing compared to what you see today. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you wear socks with them? MR. BAILEY: Never. Not in a race. You, you didn't want that extra weight. That may seem silly, but you didn't want the extra weight. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you first started running with track shoes, did you have a problem with blisters, or things on your feet that you had to get used to? MR. BAILEY: Sometimes, yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, have you ever looked at the records, when the high school was up on Blankenship Field, versus when they moved, and see if there's any difference in the numbers, from one year to the other about. Because that field, that track up there was cinders, originally, as well. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Well, that was not a good track, obviously, at, at the old high school location. I don't remember seeing any of the records from pre-1952. I think '52 was the first, first school year at the new high school. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what would make a track even better than another? MR. BAILEY: Just the composition of the cinders, and how it's packed down. They used to roll the tracks with a heavy roller, almost like a roadway grader, if you will, just to pack the cinders down. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall them doing that at the high school? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, would they do that just before track meets, or did they do it during track practice? MR. BAILEY: I think they'd do it periodically, you know, just to try to have as firm a track as possible. I remember going to Maryville Junior High School, and the track was like running in sand. It was terrible. Evans-Collins Field in Knoxville, terrible track. Just, it just wasn't the right composition, the cinders were not packed down, very loose, and, obviously, the looser the cinders are, the more it's going to slow you down. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, if you were a student running on a track like that, and you ended up coming to Oak Ridge, for example, in a track meet, you would be like a rocket man (laughter) on that. MR. BAILEY: Well, it'd be a better surface, for sure. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Now, how did you go about timing yourself, if you was running the mile, how did you go about training for that, personally? MR. BAILEY: Well, Coach Martin would give us work-outs, you know, whether it'd be quarter-mile repeats on Mondays, half-mile repeats on Tuesdays, something else on Wednesdays, and sprints on Thursdays. So, we'd have a regimen we'd go through, and the more you'd do that, the more comfortable you'd get with a pace, and you'd try to, try to run an even pace. Too many times, people start out too fast, and, you see it all the time, especially with younger runners, or less experienced runners, and they'll go too fast, and they're dead the last part of the race. So, if you can get that pace down, that's something you can handle, and then, hopefully, have a little bit left at the end for what we call a kick, you probably do ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what "second wind" is all about? MR. BAILEY: (laughs) That's, kind of, hard to describe, I think. You get into a routine, and, for example, if you run a quarter-mile, you're, probably, a little winded. But, if you go run a little bit more, you'll, you'll get into a breathe, breathing pattern, if you will, and it gets more comfortable. 'Second wind,' could be described as a runner's high. It happens more in longer distance races. You just settle into a routine, all of a sudden, you start feeling better, and feel like you can keep going. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's like you got a new shot of energy from somewhere, doesn't it? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, it's kind of hard to explain, but it's quite unique when it happens. MR. BAILEY: I think science, scientifically, I, probably, shouldn't even go there, but, I think, there are endorphins in the brain that kick in, and that, kind of, gives you that runner's high, which might be another term for 'second wind.' MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they hold track meets when it rained? MR. BAILEY: As ... MR. HUNNICUTT: If you started a track meet, and it rained, do you continue. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. That's just the ... the mitigating factor is lightning. If there's lightning. I do some track and field officiating, now. If there's lightning in the area, you have to wait 30 minutes after the last lightning strike, before you can resume the meet. I think they tend to call off meets, now, more than they did in the past. Probably because of insurance reasons, liabilities that might develop if somebody got hurt on a muddy track, or muddy field. MR. HUNNICUTT: What year did, was, do you recall, the best year for Oak Ridge High School track and field, from a state record, you know, winning the state? MR. BAILEY: Why, as I mentioned earlier, we won seven state championships in an 11 year period. I don't think that's ever been duplicated in the state of Tennessee. Coach Martin was the coach all seven of those years. You'll get different arguments about which was the best team. '52 was the first, the first team. Our class, '62, was the last team that won the state. Coach Martin always felt like his '59 team was his best team. They did not win the state. They dropped two batons in the, in the relays at the state meet, and lost the state championship by a half a point, I think. He, I remember him saying, he always thought that was his best team. Our '62 team scored, I think, 35 points, and next runner up had 16 and a half points, so we more than doubled the point score. Back then, you only got first, second, third, and fourth. So it was five points for first, three points for second, two points for third, one point for fourth. Now, they give eight places, and they give 10 places, 10 points for first place, so it's a much different, and higher scoring system. But, my senior year, we won all four relays in the state meet, and set two state records out of those four. So, being a little biased, I would say our '62 team is the best. But, you know, all ... MR. HUNNICUTT: I'll agree with that. MR. BAILEY: ... all seven of those teams, they're good enough to win the state, so they're pretty good. MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the fastest runner in 1962? MR. BAILEY: For Oak Ridge? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes. MR. BAILEY: I think Hank Cole was the face of our team. He was a really good quarter-miler. He won the state in the quarter, and anchored the mile relay, which also won the state. He got a lot of press that year, and very deservedly so. He went on to Yale, and ran track at Yale University, and was the captain of their team as a senior. He was quite an accomplished runner. MR. HUNNICUTT: What leg did you run? MR. BAILEY: On the two-mile relay? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes. MR. BAILEY: Usually second or third. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when you run a relay, if you start, if you're running all out, is that right, 'til you're handing the baton off? MR. BAILEY: Well, depends on which race it is. I mean, for the 400 meter relay, yeah, they're going flat out, because they can only run 100 meters, or 100 yards. By the time you get to the two-mile relay, where each person is running two laps, you got to pace yourself a little better, so, again, so you have something left at the end. MR. HUNNICUTT: How'd you feel when your competition was ahead of you, and you were running, you said, "Now, I don't want to run any faster or I'm not going to have any kick left." So, how did you control that? MR. BAILEY: It's just, yeah, I guess, it's an internal, internal thing. Some guys are better than you are, you know. They're going to run off, and leave you. By the same token, you're better than some of the other runners, and you can leave them behind. You try to stay in contact, was the terminology. In other words, if you're leading, I want to stay on your shoulder. I don't want to be 10 yards behind you. So, if I can stay in contact, so that if it does come down to a kick at the latter part of the race, you, hopefully have got enough to, to get around that person. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there a time where you know you're too far off, but you can't, you don't have enough steam to pick it back up, and you just have to ... MR. BAILEY: (laughs) That, that is a terrible feeling. That's a terrible feeling. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Hoping the next person you give the baton to has more get up and go. MR. BAILEY: Right, now, again, we were very fortunate at Oak Ridge, our senior year, we won all four relays in the state meet. We lost only one relay race the entire year. We ran a relay competition in Nashville, and we put in what I would call our second line of four by four hundred relay runners, and they did not win that particular race. But at every other meet we had, all year long, including the state meet, we won every relay. So, pretty, pretty dominant. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the tack ... passing the baton, and how critical that is, and how you go about practicing for accuracy. MR. BAILEY: That's where, I think, Coach Martin was a master at that, because he had us practice that a lot. Practicing the baton exchange, you'll see a lot of guys, now, in a relay race, they'll know how many steps for the incoming runner, and they'll go out and put a piece of tape down on the track, so when that incoming runner hits that mark, he takes off and then, hopefully, you’ve got a smooth exchange. It aggravates me when I watch the U.S. Olympic 4 by 100, the last couple of Olympics, they have dropped the baton. In the 4 by 100, it's nothing but a lack of practice. You know, the guys didn't practice the way they should have, because there's an art to doing the baton exchange properly. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, those guys are probably the fastest people on earth, yet if you don't practice the most important thing about the whole thing. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, or they don't practice enough. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Now, you, you mentioned putting a mark down on the track to, kind of, gauge where to start. Is that legal today? MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: If you didn't have that mark, how do you think that would affect it? MR. BAILEY: You'd see botched hand-offs, or somebody run up somebody's back, or taking off too soon. You've got, you've got 20 meters, now, for the exchange zone, that baton has to be passed in that 20 meter zone. Not the person, the baton has to be passed within that zone, and if, if they haven't timed that exchange properly, then, they mess it up. MR. HUNNICUTT: Are you disqualified if you don't perform that pass in that zone. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, if the official catches it right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Ok, now, you met this little blonde down at Robertsville. Did you all date through high school? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, we were, as I mentioned, we were in Mrs. Miracle’s homeroom class in seventh grade. We started dating in the ninth grade, so, at Robertsville, and dated all through high school, and then, went our separate ways for a couple of years, got back together, and, and got married in 1966. MR. HUNNICUTT: Can you spell that teacher's name? Just for the record so who does this transcript will be able to have it correct. MR. BAILEY: Ms. Miracle? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: With ... M-I-R-A-C-L-E. MR. HUNNICUTT: Ok. MR. BAILEY: You know, it's like, "miracle," but she pronounced it, "mire-a-kel." MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Tennessee pronunciation, I guess. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I guess so. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you go on dates when you were in high school? MR. BAILEY: Went to the movies quite often. Went to Oak Ridge football and basketball games. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a curfew to have to be home a certain time? MR. BAILEY: Normally, eleven o'clock. I remember one time, I -- this was still in high school -- I just casually mentioned to my parents that Pat and I had gone out to the old Elza Drive-in -- the restaurant, not the, not the movie theater, but the drive-in -- and had gone out there, and gotten something to eat. My instructions were: You cannot leave city limits. Well, as you know, the Elza Drive-in is outside the city limits by 100 yards, something, not much. When Daddy said, "What? You went outside the city limits?" then I got, I had my driving privileges suspended for about 30 days. He was strict. MR. HUNNICUTT: He meant what he said, right? How, how about Pat's parents? Were they pretty strict ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... about you all dating? MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall spending any time at the Oak Ridge swimming pool? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah, taking swimming lessons when I was eight, nine, 10 years. I think it took me three years to pass swimming. (laughs) But eventually learned how to swim. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever have a paper route? MR. BAILEY: I did. I had the [Knoxville News] Sentinel, in seventh, eighth grade, yeah, in Woodland. MR. HUNNICUTT: How big do you remember the papers were on Wednesdays, and Sundays? MR. BAILEY: I remember, of course, you remember Sunday being big because of all the ads in it, and Wednesday always had the grocery ads in it, for one. Of course, doing the Sentinel, you had to get up early on Sunday morning to deliver that one. I talked to, I think, Earl Nall, the other day, and he said he had an Oak Ridger paper route. He said he had Sentinel at one time, then he moved up to The Oak Ridger, because it was only Monday to Friday. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, I had a Journal route, and I had to get up every morning. MR. BAILEY: That's tough. MR. HUNNICUTT: Only in the summertime. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: But, do you remember how many customers you had? MR. BAILEY: I want to say 50 or 60. It was on Pembroke Drive, and Queens Road, and Quincy, down in that part of Woodland. I think, maybe, 50. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have problems with your customers paying you? MR. BAILEY: There probably was some, but I don't remember it being a big deal. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have some way of keeping up with who paid and who didn't? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I had a little book. I think, seemed like the paper gave us a little book, and we'd mark it off, to keep up with who paid, and who hadn't paid. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who your route manager was? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go to the Snow White Drive-in for any reason, other than eating, to meet the newspaper manager, or anything? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: That was the place they all gathered. MR. BAILEY: Oh, did they? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. (laughs) MR. BAILEY: No, I don't remember that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Sure did. How about, what do you remember the weather was like in old school, because it sure isn't the same today as it was, back in the day. MR. BAILEY: I remember more snow in the wintertime. It seemed like we had snow more often. We could do some sledding, playing out in the snow more than, than we've experienced since we moved back, 10 years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the Municipal Market Building, which is over behind where CVS is, now? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I think so. Was it on the Turnpike, or was it back a little bit? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah, it was off the Turnpike. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I have recollection of some kind of grocery store, along the Turnpike there, somewhere. The only reason I remember that's because I remember my dad buying me some football cards, like, the Fall of '51. It's the first time I'd ever seen a, a bubblegum card. And, it was some store down in that area. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. Lizz's Market was in there, at one time. Do you remember that? MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, I remember Lizz's Market, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: But then, she moved on down the Turnpike ... MR. BAILEY: Right, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... before she closed up. But, that's where that Municipal Market Building was. Well, actually, it was a cafeteria for the SED [Special Engineer Detachment]. MR. BAILEY: Oh, was it? MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. It was there earlier. How about Jackson Hardware? Do you remember that? MR. BAILEY: No. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, it's up in the [Jackson] Square. MR. BAILEY: You know, living in Woodland, I don't recall much interaction with that part of town, except to go to the Center Theater, to get ... MR. HUNNICUTT: It was, basically, other than unless you went to hardware somewhere, you had everything else at that shopping center. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. My daughter likes to say that, that when I go in a hardware store is when pigs will start flying. (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who used to run the grocery store over there in Woodland? MR. BAILEY: Mr. Greene, if I remember right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And the gas station, do you remember who ran it? MR. BAILEY: No, I remember Mr. Roach was the pharmacist at Woodland Drug Store. Those are the only two names I ... And, Mr. Greene had an assistant, and I can't remember his name. But they were both there forever, I think. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go grocery shopping with your mother when she went, back when you were younger? MR. BAILEY: I don't remember that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Must've trusted you and left you at home by yourself. Did you and your sister get along pretty well, or was it typical brother and sister. MR. BAILEY: Probably typical brother and sister. But, you know, ironically, we live side by side now, and we get along quite well. But, you know, we weren't necessarily ugly with each other, just typical brother-sister stuff. Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: You, you'd feel like your relationship's pretty close today. MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, very good, yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, after you graduated from high school, what'd you do? MR. BAILEY: Went to the University of Alabama. Personally, I think this is a good approach to trying to decide where you want to go to college. So many kids now, oh, I want to go to such-and-such a place, because it's close or I want to go to such-and-such a place, because of a variety of reasons. I wanted to be an accountant. I have always wanted to be an accountant. There was a limited way to do searches then, or try to gather information. I was told that the University of Alabama had a good accounting program, and that Florida State had a good accounting program, and Duke University had a good accounting program. I knew I couldn't go to Duke, regardless. So, Coach Martin wrote the track coaches at Florida State, and Alabama, you know, mentioning my, my background. Florida State came through with a half scholarship, and then, Alabama offered a full, four-year scholarship, so that made it easy. I wanted to go south of Tennessee. Had no desire to go to Tennessee Tech, or University of Tennessee. So, I wanted to go south of Tennessee, I wanted a good accounting school, and, hopefully, get to run track. So, all three of those worked out. So, off to Alabama I went. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you say a full, four-year scholarship, what does that include? MR. BAILEY: Tuition, and fees, and, room and board for your dormitory room, and your meals. And, all the tuition, the out-of-state fees, and all that. MR. HUNNICUTT: The major sports at a college, football, basketball and track, I guess, are the three major sports that get fully ... MR. BAILEY: And baseball. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... fully funded, you know, when the person is chosen for one of those. MR. BAILEY: They were then, because there were no scholarship limits. Now, football still gives a lot of full scholarships. Basketball still gives a lot of scholarships, but even then, they're, they're restricted. Football can only offer the equivalent of 85 full scholarships. Basketball, I think, is 13 to 15, I'm not exactly sure. Baseball has limitations, track and field does give 12 and a half full scholarships, or the equivalent. Women's track and field gets 18 or 19 full scholarships. The coaches are under tremendous amount of pressure to spend their money wisely. So, to get a full track scholarship anymore, is just, really rare. They'll give partial scholarships. And, and this is a good trend, I think. They're looking for kids who are bright, because then, these kids can get academic scholarship money, as well as athletic scholarship money. So, that's why some of these sports, you'll see the grade point average is pretty high, because they've gone after bright kids who are also athletically talented. MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your first assumption when you attended the University of Alabama? MR. BAILEY: (laughs) I went down for orientation. The summer before I went down, there was, like, a three day deal to, to go down and register for classes, or take some tests, and get oriented. Then, I went back, the first part of September, for my freshman year. My parents took me down to the old bus station, and I had two suitcases, and a footlocker and they said, "Good-bye!" MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the bus station located? MR. BAILEY: Down on where Bus Terminal Road, I guess where it is now, or was. MR. HUNNICUTT: Greyhound Bus Station. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. And, off I went. And, but it was very exciting. I was wanting to go away to school, because I think it's important to get in on his or her own and start making decisions for himself, and learn to function as, hopefully, an adult. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you had no homesickness? MR. BAILEY: A little bit. I remember, first six or eight weeks, little bit of homesickness. We always ran Tennessee in a dual meet in cross country each year, and as it worked out in my freshman year, fall of '62, we were in Tennessee in Knoxville, the morning of the Tennessee, Alabama football game. So, I got to come home, so to speak, six weeks after I'd gone off to school. So it was, kind of, neat. I got to, they gave me permission to stay over Saturday night in Knoxville. Seems like I rode the bus back to Tuscaloosa on Sunday. But, I remember a twinge of homesickness, but then, you get over it, and you're ready to move on. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did, the first time you ever saw or ever met Bear Bryant, what was your feeling about that? MR. BAILEY: Well, the guy commanded respect. The track was around the practice field, and Coach Bryant had his tower there at the practice field. And I don't, I'm not sure I even realized this when I went down there. They were defending national champions. They won the national championship in '61, then I went down the next Fall. We just, kind of, took it for granted, there was a football team out there practicing when we were out there running around the track, because we had access to it, of course. Those were four years, you know, we'd be out there, we'd work out on the track some in the Fall, but all the time in the Spring. So, we, we'd see the guys working out quite often. MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you think of him, I mean, what was some indicators that, that he presented, that gave him the respect that you refer to? MR. BAILEY: Well, he was a winner. Yeah, he had proven that throughout his career. Not only as a player, but as a coach. He won everywhere he went, and that's what you expect a coach to do, is to win, and develop his, his players. Not only as football players, but as responsible citizens, and he did that. He just had a presence about him. You know, we've all met people in our lives that just, they have an aura or presence about them, maybe, you can't put your finger on it, but they just command respect when you're around them. My senior year, I roomed with a football player, and he was a sophomore and I was a senior. But, they were just in awe of the man, just the way he went about his business. MR. HUNNICUTT: What he said, they did. MR. BAILEY: Absolutely. MR. HUNNICUTT: I remember an interview Joe Namath gave on the radio, in Knoxville, one time, when he first went. He said Bear was up in his tower, you know, and he finally came down and met him, and says, "We're going to make a stud out of you." (laughter) I never will forget that. MR. BAILEY: He always said that Namath was the best athlete he ever met, ever coached. When Namath was a senior in high school, he came to Alabama for a recruiting visit, and Bryant took him up in the tower. According to what I've read, that had never happened before. And they thought, who in the world is this guy, from Pennsylvania, that's getting to go up in the tower with Coach Bryant? MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think Oak Ridge High School curriculum helped you in your college career, and also, your personal business career? MR. BAILEY: Absolutely. MR. HUNNICUTT: From what perspective? MR. BAILEY: Right. I think, you know, when you think about the Manhattan Project, and they recruited the best and the brightest to come here to work on Manhattan Project, so, as you might expect, a lot of bright kids came also. I think, the fact that you're around a lot of bright kids, the fact that they brought in a lot of outstanding teachers, because they wanted the best educational system, set the standards high. So, it ... And, I was not an outstanding student, by any stretch, but, I think, that, that environment, of wanting to be, to do well, when you're around all these bright people, well, it was a good experience. I know people will probably joke about this, but when I went to University of Alabama, my first year was easy. When you think about the background that we had in the Oak Ridge school system, and moving into college, some kids struggled, obviously, because they were not as well prepared. But, I think, Oak Ridge school system prepares kids very well for college environment. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you and your wife get married? MR. BAILEY: First Presbyterian Church, here in Oak Ridge. She grew up in Oak Ridge Bible Church, which is very close to here, in Grove Center, and I grew up in First Presbyterian Church. We agreed that, that the Oak Ridge Bible Church, probably, wasn't a big enough venue, so we got married in my home church. MR. HUNNICUTT: Remember who your minister was? MR. BAILEY: Well, I do, because it was the school president at Pat's school. Pat went to Appalachian Bible College, in West Virginia. So, the president of the school was one of the officiating ministers. Then, her minister at the Oak Ridge Bible Church, George Luethge, was an assistant in the ceremony. George's son is an Oak Ridge police officer, you might know him. Dr. Howie, who was a minister at First Presbyterian, did not officiate in the ceremony, but he, obviously, gave us permission to get married at First Presbyterian. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did I ask you what the date was? MR. BAILEY: No, you didn't, but I'll tell you. (laughs) June 4, 1966. We just celebrated 50 years earlier this year. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, congratulations. MR. BAILEY: Thank you. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was your first home when you got married? MR. BAILEY: I had, because I changed majors from accounting to marketing, and you had to take certain courses in consecutive semesters, I had enough hours to graduate in the spring of '66, but because of the way the classes fell, I had to go back to summer school, in '66, to get those last four hours of credit. Pat worked with a guy, or went to church with a guy, Dr. Gene Carden, who was a professor at the University of Alabama and he worked for ORNL [Oak Ridge National Laboratory], in the summertime. He was going to be in Oak Ridge for the summer of '66, we were going to be in Tuscaloosa, summer of '66, he said, "Why don't you just live in our house?" So, he let us live in his house, rent free, that summer of '66. So that was, that was our first home. I took the four hours, and played a lot of golf. She worked in the engineering department. So, basically, we had a three month honeymoon. (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: I want to get to this, and then, we're going to back to some other things. Do you all have children? MR. BAILEY: We do, we have two. Our daughter, Kathy, was born in 1969. She's married, and lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and they have two kids. And, we have a son, Darrell, who was born in 1976, and so far, he's managed to stay single. He had a number of girlfriends, but he hasn't tied the knot, yet. He lived in Dallas for 15 years, and has just moved to Oak Ridge in the last several months, so we've enjoyed having some time around him. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let's go back, and back up, and talk about playing baseball. And, there was a particular, I think, summer league, or something, I can't remember what it was called, the Middle Town Ball Park. MR. BAILEY: Intermediate League. MR. HUNNICUTT: That we boys played in. MR. BAILEY: Right MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that? MR. BAILEY: I remember it being the highlight of the summer. We didn't play all that many games, but, again, Moose had a good team, so we won a lot. It, just, a good bunch of guys. I can still name most of the guys on the team. Just a good experience. Loved to play down there. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, we were involved in a little deal during the summer, down there, that '55, was it, 1955, I believe, it was. It was, seemed like to me, it was more of a, kind of a, baseball camp affair, that they taught us how to play ball ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... the different positions. And, Shep Lauter was involved in that. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Buddy Pope ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... and other guys, at the same field. Do you remember how long that lasted? I don't remember. MR. BAILEY: I don't, I don't remember how long the school lasted, you know, but I've got a picture that's got you and me, both, in that group picture. I think that may've just been one Saturday, or several Saturdays, just to learn some of the fundamentals about baseball. Then, you know, as you got a little bit older -- and we couldn't've been more than eight, nine, 10, 11-years-old, at the time, and they had some kind of league you could play in up to the age of 11. I think when you were 12, you didn't have any place to play, because you were too old for the baseball school that Lauter ran, and you were too young to play in intermediate league. So, that, that year was, kind of, a lost year, unless you fudged on your age, and, and played one way or the other. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, I've always tried to remember how in the world I got involved in that. Seems like, to me, my mother found out something about it, and sent me over there. I just walked over there ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... in a group. MR. BAILEY: Well, if you look at that group picture we've got, it's a real wide photo, and there, I mean, it looks like a couple of hundred kids in that, in that photo. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, there was several groups of kids that had photos made of them. MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, a lot of them, I would've never known, until just about two weeks ago, that Ed Westcott made those photographs. MR. BAILEY: Did he, really? MR. HUNNICUTT: And, the reason why there's a photograph of me, I was a catcher, and a boy batting. And, I got to looking at that real close, and the stripes on my shirt, matched the same shirt I had on in the grandstands when he made that photograph. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, so you were there. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah. (laughs) Who would've ever thought. Well, moving on, you took up collecting baseball cards, I believe, didn't you? MR. BAILEY: I did, at an early age. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, you got quite a collection, and been involved in that. Give me a little bit about that. What are some of the things you've been involved with that? MR. BAILEY: Well, I mentioned a little bit earlier, I remember my dad buying a pack of football cards, it would've been the Fall of '51, after we moved here. The next Spring, when I mentioned we went to First Presbyterian Church, we had a teacher in second grade Sunday school class, Chuck Caldwell, and, I think, he did this to make sure the boys would show up for Sunday school: at the end of class, he'd give us a penny baseball card at the, or two, or three, or whatever. So, that was always an incentive to go to Sunday school. At Sunday school, he'd give us some baseball cards. And, I think, it just took off from there. I just, I liked baseball, and I thought the cards were pretty neat, and so, I just started collecting, and never have stopped. MR. HUNNICUTT: You still have the first cards you got? MR. BAILEY: No, I don't, I don't know what that would've been. MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you think is the most valuable card, or rarest card you have? MR. BAILEY: I've got some cards that go back to the 1880s, when they first started making cards of professional baseball players. MR. HUNNICUTT: How'd you acquire those? MR. BAILEY: I go to these sports memorabilia shows, periodically, and you can find anything you're looking for at a show like that. EBay is another great resource to get things. MR. HUNNICUTT: Are baseball cards, sort of, like coins, that condition has a lot to do with the value of it. MR. BAILEY: Condition has everything to do with the value. You might look in a price guide, and it'll say, X amount for near mint condition. It may be half of that if it's only in excellent condition, and it may be only 10 percent of that value if it's in bad condition. This, this will blow your mind: There's an old card that was made about 1910, of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. It just sold, in auction, couple weeks ago for $200,000. The most famous card in the hobby, is Honus Wagner, which is a rare card. There're only 24, or thereabouts, known to exist, and one of them sold for over two million dollars, in the last year, or two. (phone rings) MR. HUNNICUTT: It's like anything else that collectors are willing to pay the price is what they're going to go for. MR. BAILEY: Sure, sure. MR. HUNNICUTT: You know, the value is only in the eyes of the payer, right? (phone rings) MR. BAILEY: That's right, that's right. But, it ... it's a fun hobby, and I, I've expanded my collection beyond baseball cards, to a lot of other baseball-related memorabilia, lot of score cards, University of Alabama football programs, a lot of different things like that. MR. HUNNICUTT: You're part of the alumni of Alabama? MR. BAILEY: Yes. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, being an alumni, what do you, actually, do? What does that involve? MR. BAILEY: Well, it' just means you've graduated from the university. There are a lot of supporters in the university, a lot of supporters, of a lot of different schools. There'll be fans, or supporters at a university, that never set a foot on campus. But, you know, I was pleased to go there for four years, a good experience, and proud to have my degree from there. As an alumni, you can choose to be as involved, or not involved, as you want to be. We've, we didn't do much at all, during my working career, because we moved around so often. I've gotten a lot more involved since we moved back to, to East Tennessee. Knoxville has the East Tennessee chapter of the Alabama National Alumni Association, and I started going to their monthly meetings not too long after we moved back here in '06. They meet monthly for lunch, bring in a speaker, occasionally. The big thrust of that chapter is to raise scholarship money to send students from East Tennessee, to the University of Alabama. And, that, that effort started years, and years ago. We've got almost a million dollars in the coffers of our own chapter foundation, meaning, we can take the investment money off of nearly a million dollars that provides scholarships to send kids to the University of Alabama. It's, it's, maybe, the strongest out-of-state chapter in the country. MR. HUNNICUTT: How does the organization determine who, who will be eligible for the scholarship? MR. BAILEY: We have a scholarship committee, and the, they're so sophisticated, now, in terms of getting information about students. If, if students apply for a scholarship to the University, by December 15, the chapter, automatically, is supplied with that information. So, we know, maybe, there're 200 students in East Tennessee who made application by December 15. So, you've got that list, you can contact that list, if you're interested in applying for our chapter scholarship. Send us the information, then we'll go through an interview process. Then, in the Spring, we'll have what we call a scholarship dinner, and we do a public recognition of, typically, three students every year, to go to the University. A couple of students from Oak Ridge have won that, in years past. MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is the (phone rings) stopping line in the state of Tennessee, where you don't reach beyond that point? MR. BAILEY: We cover almost to Chattanooga, almost to Nashville, and up into upper East Tennessee, because there's a chapter in Chattanooga, there's another chapter in Nashville, and the University's got, I think, about 30 paid recruiters across the country. University of Alabama's doing a great job of recruiting academics, as well as athletics, the last 10 years, or so. And, it's working. The university has opened a new building on campus every 60 days for the last eight years. I mean, think about that, how many new buildings have gone on campus. And, they've done a great job of blending the old architecture, with the new architecture. So it's, you know, unless you really study it, is that a new building or an old building, because it just looks good. MR. HUNNICUTT: Are other universities doing anything like that? MR. BAILEY: Not to that extent, no. I mean, and I shouldn't be critical of the University of Tennessee, but, in my opinion, they're probably five years behind in their building program. They're starting to build, now, the way University of Alabama was building six, seven, eight, nine years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, is the University in Alabama, does the state of Alabama have financial aid to the, to the University? MR. BAILEY: It's a land grant university, just like University of Tennessee, so, they get money from a lot of sources. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you graduated from college, what was your profession you got into? MR. BAILEY: I, I, as I mentioned, I wanted to be an accountant. In my junior year, they said, “All right, you're going to take the gateway course, now. This will help you decide whether you want to be an accountant, or not.” It did. (laughs) So, I switched majors, and (laughs) ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Wasn't your gateway for accounting. MR. BAILEY: No, I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I got into marketing, took a retailing course in my junior year. Really liked it, because the guy who was the professor had worked for Bloomingdale's, in New York City, and he, just, kind of, brought the whole idea of retailing to life. And, I liked that. So, when you go through the interview process, as a senior, I must've had 30 interviews with all different kinds of companies, and just, kind of, gravitated to retail, and selected J.C. Penney. They didn't offer the most money, but, I just felt like it was the best career path for me. And, it worked out. I spent 38 years with Penney Company. MR. HUNNICUTT: They were, pretty well, established from the, for many years, and still are, I guess, today. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. It was, Penney Company started in 1902. J.C. Penney founded the company. First 15 years, he called it the Golden Rule Store, and that was his guiding principle. And then, about 1915 or so, changed it to J.C. Penney Company. MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the first J.C. Penney's in Oak Ridge, in, when they built the Downtown area ... MR. BAILEY: It was. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... in '55. MR. BAILEY: 1955, right. MR. HUNNICUTT: Been there ever since. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, where was some of the stores that you worked? MR. BAILEY: When I interviewed on campus, the college recruiter said, where would you like to go? And, I said, Well, I think Atlanta would be a nice place. Atlanta in the mid-'60s was a pretty attractive place, I thought. So, when I got my letter with my job offer, it was to go to Danville, Virginia. I had never heard of Danville, Virginia, but off we went. Ten days after I graduated from Alabama, we were in Danville, and started as a management trainee. We were there almost six years. I came to Knoxville when they opened West Town Mall, so I was part of the management staff at West Town Mall when it opened in '72. From there, I went to Dothan, Alabama, and helped open a new store. Then, went to Jacksonville, Florida. Then, had a, what we call a district staff job, also in Jacksonville, where I travelled. Then, we were transferred to New Orleans, which was a great career move, because that was the second largest store in the Southeast region, and the most profitable, so just a great career move. From there, went to Statesville, North Carolina, my first store manager assignment. And then, from there, to Tampa, Florida, and I managed two stores in Tampa, and we were there for 15 years, until I retired. I opened a new store in Brandon, which is a suburb of Tampa, and it didn't take me long to figure out, this is a good deal. So, I told anybody who would listen, “Leave me alone. This is where I want to stay.” So we were there until I retired, in '05. And then, Pat and I started talking about what we wanted to do in retirement. We'd built a house on a golf course, downsized, and thought we were set for retirement. The more we talked about it, our mothers were still alive, and we thought, You know, it'd be, kind of, neat to come back to Oak Ridge. So, we moved back here about a year after I retired, primarily, to spend time with both our mothers. MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were moving from one store to another, did you have to pack up and move to that store area, and stay there for whatever period of time? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, we'd spent six years in Danville, year and a half in Knoxville -- shortest assignment we ever had, less than two years in Dothan, five years in Jacksonville, six years in New Orleans, four years in Statesville, North Carolina, and then, 15 years in Tampa. So, but the company would, would move you, so, yeah, you'd just have to ... MR. HUNNICUTT: What did your wife think about all that moving? MR. BAILEY: You know, we had that discussion before we got married, and, and, because, yeah, I knew what job offers I had. We talked about that. Said, now, here's the deal. Do we want to do this, and are we together on this? Because, you get into retail, you're talking about Saturdays, you're talking about, there wasn't any discussion about Sunday work, then, because stores weren't open on Sunday, especially if the state was a 'blue laws' state. But, Saturdays forever; two or three nights a week forever; move around, take the promotions to go to different locations. And Pat has always been a very supportive wife, and we were in it together, and agreed, that's the lifestyle we wanted. So, off we went. MR. HUNNICUTT: How difficult was it with your children, from one town to the next? MR. BAILEY: You ... you always have that issue, I think, because it's hard. They say that the three most traumatic things a person has to deal with are death, divorce, and a move. We moved half a dozen times, through the years. But, our kids adapted very well, and I would argue, it's good for kids to move around, because I like to think that both our kids are very outgoing. They're comfortable meeting new people, they've had a lot of different experiences, and each one of our kids only went through three school systems, you know. They went to, our daughter went to elementary school in Jacksonville, went to middle school in New Orleans, and went to high school in Statesville, North Carolina. She considers Statesville as her hometown. Our son went to elementary school in, in New Orleans, went to middle school, primarily, in Statesville, North Carolina, high school in Tampa, and he considers Tampa, Florida, his hometown. But, you know, our, it probably bothered our daughter more than our son, because our daughter's been pretty adamant about wanting to live in one town. She and her husband have been in Aiken, South Carolina, for 10, 11 years now, and don't have any plans to move. MR. HUNNICUTT: What, what're some of the job duties that a J.C. Penney store manager has? MR. BAILEY: Why, if you look at a management career, you start out as a management trainee, and then, you're promoted to department manager, and then, you're promoted to an assistant manager, and there're several different forms of that, and then a store manager. Back then, you worked your way through the ranks, and I was 41-years-old, with 19 years of manage, management experience, before I ever became a store manager. The roles of the store manager have changed dramatically the last 10 years. So, that kind of training is not necessary, anymore, because the role's not as demanding, in the sense of knowledge and experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: How would you rate that job, on a scale of one to 10, at stress level? MR. BAILEY: That's an interesting question. I've had people ask me, boy, isn't that stressful, being the manager of a store? In Brandon, I had 225 people that reported to me, in the store. I never found it stressful. I mean, I loved what I was doing. There was a parallel between being a competitive athlete and being a manager, because you're always competing to build the sales, trying to grow your share of market, trying to build a team. So, a lot of parallels between that and sports. I never found it stressful, because I enjoyed it. Stress, to me, if you'd ask me to take that 18-wheeler, and back it down into the truck well. Now, that would bug me. So, it's all what you get comfortable with. MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned earlier about getting a good team together. I suspect you had that, you should let your team do the job, instead of trying to micromanage it. MR. BAILEY: I learned that from Coach Ira Green. I mentioned I thought he was a good teacher. I was a playground director in the summers here, between college years. And, Ira Green was the overall playground director. He said, now think about this: when you go to a playground in the morning, you're going to have a bunch of little kids waiting on you saying, "Hey, coach, coach! Let me help!" You give one of them the bases, you give another one the bats, and balls, you give another one the, the arts-and-crafts stuff, and tell them where to take it. Delegation. And that works. The fancy word these days is, "empowerment." I'm going to empower these people to do something. You always have to accept the responsibility, but you can delegate the authority to other people, to do their job. So, I -- that's the approach I took, you know. You're in charge of that area, you've been trained, you've gained some experience, now go do your job, and keep me informed. MR. HUNNICUTT: You got involved in Rotary. What got you into that? MR. BAILEY: Mr. Penney was a Rotarian. He was a member of the Rotary Club of New York City, because their corporate office, at that time, was based in New York City. He was a strong believer in, not only living in your community, but giving back to your community, and Rotary's one way to do that. Rotary's the largest humanitarian services organization in the world. It's all about trying to live up to our motto of, "Do Good in the World." "No greater service than service above self." So, I always had an admiration for Rotary, and Rotarians. I had an opportunity to join other civic clubs earlier in my career, but I said, I'm going to wait 'til I become a store manager, and then, I'll get involved in Rotary, which is what I did. I joined Rotary in Statesville, North Carolina, and then, we moved to Tampa, I got involved in another Rotary Club there, and then, came up here and got involved with Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about Bill Sergeant, related to Rotary. MR. BAILEY: Bill Sergeant is an icon in the Rotary world. You know, sometimes, we take people for granted when you're around them all the time. He was Vice President of Rotary International. I think, there was a reasonable chance he could've been president of Rotary International, but there were some family issues with his wife, who got sick, about that time. He led the worldwide effort for polio eradication for 12 years. He took that job on when he was 75. And, you think about that. People would say, "I'm going to retire and sit in a rocking chair. I'm not going to do anything." Here's a guy that, age 75, took on a job that required travelling the world and did it for 12 years. So, he was a real inspiration to those around him. He was president of the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge, and then, he became a district governor for East Tennessee. Then, he got more involved with Rotary, and that led, ultimately, to a vice president's position on the board of directors. But, still engaged, and all the way up -- he had 50 years of perfect attendance -- and was engaged right up 'til couple months before he died. And then, he was just too sick to come to Rotary. But, not often do we get to meet a great person, or get to know a great person. He was a great person. Think about, you think about the impact that he had worldwide, in this polio eradication. Polio eradication is our signature effort. It's what we're best known for. When he took on that assignment, I think, there were something, like, 300,000 new cases of polio every year, worldwide. It's down to 27 in 2016. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that was a disease that effected our childhood. MR. BAILEY: It did, sure did, yeah. Couldn't go to the swimming pool, you know, for the fear of the virus spreading in water. MR. HUNNICUTT: Today, you don't think about that, because it's not heard of, much, anymore, like it was then. MR. BAILEY: Well, the last case in the U.S. was 1979. It's been eradicated everywhere in the world, except Afghanistan and Pakistan. And, the last case in Nigeria was in 2014. They just had an unexpected couple of cases of polio in Nigeria a few months ago, but they're so sophisticated in the tracking, now, they can tell what neighborhood it came from. They'll go do a mass immunization, so they, they've taken care of it in Nigeria, again. But, it's down to Afghanistan and Pakistan. There've been over 30 polio workers killed, in those two countries. It's a dangerous proposition, these days, but huge headway. Hopefully, the last case of polio will be in the next year, or two. MR. HUNNICUTT: Bill Sergeant was an SED person, during the Manhattan Project, here. MR. BAILEY: That's right. MR. HUNNICUTT: I was fortunate to sit down a little bit with him, with a tape recorder, to talk to him, many years ago, and it's quite an interesting conversation. It was before any of this oral histories that was taken for Oak Ridge, but I turned that over to the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History, and it's there for people to look at ... MR. BAILEY: Fascinating ... MR. HUNNICUTT: ... and listen to. MR. BAILEY: Fascinating guy to talk to, just, he could tell stories. And, his memory was incredible. MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes, it was. I won't go into it, but he told me a story, when he first came, and it was just as comical as you could ever think about. You've been into the ranks, pretty heavily, yourself. What kind of accomplish ... accomplishments have you done during your Rotary career? MR. BAILEY: When I first joined Rotary, in 1986, in Statesville, North Carolina, I did it because of the influence of Mr. Penney. And, I showed up for the meetings. At that time, I think the attendance requirements were to make 75 percent of the meetings, which I did. I didn't do much else, just showed up for the meetings each week. Moved to Tampa, and, because of the store I had, it was pretty demanding, and I was not in Rotary for the first four years. Then, I joined a club in Brandon, and I thought, you know, the least I can do is show up for meetings every week. And, I've not missed a meeting, now, in 21 years. I figured that was, that was the least I could do, at least show up for meetings. Gradually, I got more involved, and, I don't know if you'll want to bleep this or not, when I'd been in the club about five years, we had a crusty old, retired Army colonel in our club. He was a past president. He walked up to me one day, and said, "Bailey, when in the hell are you going to become club president?" I said, it kind of took me back, because I wasn't expecting that. So, from that point on, I got more involved, and became club president, two or three years after that. Of course you got to work your way through a few steps. MR. HUNNICUTT: And, he just saw something in you that needed to be lit up, a little bit, to get you in the right direction. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Sort of like all those coaches you had during track, and everywhere else along the way. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. So, when I came up here, I joined Rotary Club of Oak Ridge, and I thought, you know, I'm going to sit back a little bit. I was a club president down there, and I'll just, I've done my thing, so I'll just come up here and try to be a good club member. I'd been in the club about four or five months, and our current vice president, at that time, had an illness problem, so he had to resign his position. They knew I'd been a past club president, so they asked me if I'd serve as a vice president, and I said, 'Yes." Bill Sergeant is famous for saying, "The only time you can say, "No," to Rotary is when you're asked to join. Thereafter, you're answer should always be, "Yes," to whatever you're asked to do." So, I became vice president, and then, two or three years after that, I became a club president, Rotary Club of Oak Ridge. Then, Bill Sergeant was, actually, the person who asked me to put my name in nomination to be district governor. So, I became a district governor in 2012-13, for East Tennessee, and it was a great experience. so ... MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you travelled throughout the state, and attended different Rotary clubs? MR. BAILEY: East Tennessee, 65 clubs, and about 3,200 Rotarians. See, one of your expectations is, that you go to every club, and make an official presentation, if you will. So, I did that for all 65 clubs. Then, you're involved with other things in the district, as well. You know, fundraising, polio eradication, putting together a district conference, and whatever else comes your way. MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned presentation. What do you mean about the presentation that you presented to a Rotary club? MR. BAILEY: With the help of my wife, I put together a PowerPoint presentation. I'm not very good on a computer, so, I gathered all the information, knew what I wanted to say, and she would put it in good order, on the PowerPoint. She went with me to about 40, out of the 65 club presentations. You do a 20 to 30 minute presentation, and try to, hopefully, get people fired up about that year in Rotary, and whatever the programs and issues are to deal with. So, just, just a great, great experience. It's pretty much, pretty much a full time job for about a year and a half. I admire people who hold down a full time job, and do the responsibilities of district governor. I would not have even considered it 'til I retired. MR. HUNNICUTT: There's three different groups that meet in Oak Ridge. MR. BAILEY: Oak Ridge was the first club, in 1946, and we sponsored the Breakfast Club in 1980 or '81. And, we sponsored the Sunset Club about 10 years ago, nine years ago. MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that just for, for working people, so they have an opportunity to attend ... MR. BAILEY: Right. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... one of the three, or all three, if they wanted to? MR. BAILEY: Because, sometimes, you'll approach somebody, and say, Well, I'd like to do it, but I can't get away for lunch. Well, can you get up early in the morning and go to breakfast, or can you go after work? So, they've got three choices, and that's, that's ideal. It's unusual for a town this size to have three clubs. It just shows how strong the Rotary presence is. MR. HUNNICUTT: What is the population of the clubs here in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: Our club has about 112 members, right now. Breakfast Club has about 85, and the Sunset Club has 35, thereabouts. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, knowing you as long as I have, I know about an award you received from the University of Alabama. And, you brought that today with you. I want you to show it to the camera, and tell the camera what it's all about (rustling noise). MR. BAILEY: I only brought this because you asked me to. MR. HUNNICUTT: This is an award that most people don't ever have the opportunity to be even nominated for. MR. BAILEY: Well, it's, it's ... This may not show up on the camera, it's, it's called the Paul W. Bryant Alumni Athlete Award. The University of Alabama Alumni, National Alumni Association presents an award to a former athlete at the University of Alabama each year. And, typically, they pick two former athletes. A friend of mine contacted me six months ago, and said, "I want to put your name in nomination for, for this award." And I said, "You got to be kidding." He said, "No, I'm serious." He said, "Because it's not based on your athletic accomplishments, while in college. It's based on what'd you do with your life after you got out of college." So, he put my name in nomination, and I got selected, and, again, typically, they pick two, two former athletes each year. They've been doing it for 29 years, so there may be 60 people picked over the last 30 years. The other guy who was selected this year was a former Alabama All-American in football, and played 10 years in the NFL [National Football League], DeMeco Ryans, but that's not why he was selected. As soon as he graduated, and signed his first pro contract, he set up a $300,000 scholarship program at the University of Alabama. Since he's retired, he's set up another foundation to help underprivileged children in Birmingham. So, he's, he's had a real impact. And, surprisingly, or, maybe, not surprisingly, a lot of professional athletes don't give back to the community, they don't give back to the schools. So, this guy's setting a great example in his community by getting involved like that. The award is based on four points: Character, Contributions to Society -- which, I think, means money -- Professional Achievement, and Service to Fellowman. So, those are their criteria. And, and I got selected. MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think your Rotary involvement's what helped you get selected. MR. BAILEY: Right, I think, certainly, it helped some. Again, because Mr. Penney's influence in giving back to the community, I've been involved in a lot of things through the years, I've, at various times, and in various towns, I've served as United Way board chairman. I was Chamber of Commerce president-elect when we got transferred from one town. Other involvements with United Way, YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association] board chairman, and, and some other stuff like that. I was chapter president of our alumni chapter in Knoxville for a couple of years. So, I think it's important for people to give back to their communities, in some capacity. The people I really admire are folks who will get out and do Meals on Wheels each day, or they'll go help build a wheelchair ramp for somebody. You know, stuff like that, where they do one-on-one service, I've got a great admiration for the people that do that. But, anyway, it was quite an honor, and I was pleased to get it, of course. MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me some of the other people that's gotten the award. MR. BAILEY: You want me to do some name dropping. (laughs) MR. HUNNICUTT: Correct. MR. BAILEY: Joe Namath was one of the previous recipients. Bart Starr, who later played for the Green Bay Packers. Mal Moore, who was the Athletic Director at Alabama, who recruited Nick Saban to Alabama. Bill Battle, the current Athletic Director at Alabama. Of course, people up here know him very well, he's a former coach at the University of Tennessee. A lot of others, if you're a real football fan, you might recognize some of the other folks. One guy's a former head coach at Mississippi State. I was the first male track and field athlete to be selected, which is pretty neat. The only female track and field athlete they selected was an Olympic gold medalist. But, again, that's not why she was selected. She'd been very involved in youth activities, and youth organizations in Tuscaloosa. So, the theme is obvious. Coach Bryant was a big believer in preparing his football players to win, but also, in preparing his football players to do well in life after they got out of school. So, that was the genesis for this award. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's a very high, prestigious award. I never heard of it before, until now, and those people that you name dropped (laughter) it has to be an honor just to be associated with it. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. My favorite story, I think I may have shared this with you the other day, one of the guys on the selection committee wrote me a little letter of congratulations, and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah ... And, he said, "I've always been very supportive of the lesser-known athletes." (laughter) I fit that perfectly. I saw him a few weeks later, and I said, "I thought you were very kind to say, "lesser-known." I would've used the word obscure." But, anyway, big thrill. MR. HUNNICUTT: Jack, give me your overall view of growing up in Oak Ridge. How do you remember, and how it was? MR. BAILEY: Overall, very fond memories, just a great experience growing up here. Again, educational opportunities were tremendous. School system was superb, athletic programs were superb. I probably appreciate it more now than I did then, but the cultural opportunities here're very good, too, in terms of the Playhouse, Oak Ridge Symphony, and so many other things like that, that are available to the citizens here. Just, overall, a great experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: Growing up, did you feel safe in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: I did. We left, left our doors open all the time. Left the windows open, all the time. One time, I do wish we had locked the doors. My, my grandfather went to Tennessee Military Institute in Sweetwater, back in 1917, 1918. He had his sword, with his initials on it, from his time at Tennessee Military Institute, and my mother had wound up with it. When we moved from South Purdue Avenue, to Northwestern, we're hand-carrying some stuff across the hill, because it wasn't that far. And I remember Mother saying, "Here, you take Granddaddy's sword, and couple of other things, and go over, take it to the other house, and come back, and get some more stuff," which I did. So, I, you know, all the way over there, I'm doing the sword, sword routine. I went back to our house on South Purdue, we gathered up some more stuff, came back, and somebody stole that sword, during that half hour we were gone, because we didn't lock the doors. So, somebody, obviously, saw me carrying that sword over there, and had to have it for themselves. That's a great regret, to this day, that I don't have, have that sword, because it'd be a great family treasure to have. So, there were incidents where, you know, it wasn't totally safe. MR. HUNNICUTT: You think your mother and father enjoyed living in Oak Ridge? MR. BAILEY: I think they did. I really do. They never left. I remember one time, we talked about moving to Newport News, because of, I guess, all the shipbuilding going on, they needed machinists. We, actually, went to Huntsville, Alabama, one time, when I was in junior high school, and we went down there to nose around, maybe, to, to go to work at Redstone Arsenal. But, ultimately, we decided to stay here. And, course, I'm grateful for that. MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family take vacations during your childhood? MR. BAILEY: To go back to West Virginia. MR. HUNNICUTT: That's where you went all the time. MR. BAILEY: Go visit the grandparents in West Virginia. The only trip I remember us taking, as a kid, was to see my dad's brother who lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the summer of '53, we drove from Oak Ridge, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to visit my uncle. Stopped at a couple of places in Indiana to visit some of his old, I think, they were ex-POW, guys that he knew from Indiana. That's the only trip I remember us ever taking, as a, as a family, when I was a kid. I never saw the ocean 'til I was 27 years old. Just the way it was. MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you when you found out your father was a POW? MR. BAILEY: I'm guessing 10 or 11, maybe. He didn't talk about it. You know, I guess, it was a traumatic, had to be a traumatic ... MR. HUNNICUTT: Certainly. MR. BAILEY: ... experience. The, I don't know, maybe in the '80s, he started talking about it more. He got involved with the Smoky Mountain chapter of the ex-POWs. I think, that helped him, and it, probably, helped all those guys, because they could talk to people that had similar experiences. And they could relate to each other. Eventually, he would, he learned he could get a free license plate (laughs) from, from the government, so he had the license plate that said, ex-POW. He would talk about it more openly as he went along. Several years ago, I asked him to record the reminiscences about World War II, and I've got about, about a six-hour audio tape that we had converted to CD. My mother just sat at the kitchen table, and asked him questions. And, he, he talked about that experience. MR. HUNNICUTT: I bet that was, sort of, a relief on him, after doing that. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, probably was. MR. HUNNICUTT: Could make peace with himself, I guess, some way or another. MR. BAILEY: Friend of theirs transcribed it, so I've got, not only the CD, but I've got the transcribed script of that at home. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's a piece of history, that ... MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Very important to you, I'm sure. MR. BAILEY: We've gotten into genealogy quite a bit, the last 20 years, Pat and I, both. And, you know, that's an important part of it. MR. HUNNICUTT: We've talked about a lot of things. Is there anything you want to talk about we hadn't talked about? I mean, could talk for six hours, you'll agree, there's no doubt about it. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, we could. MR. HUNNICUTT: Your accomplishments have been many in your life time. Is there anything else you can think about you want to talk about? MR. BAILEY: No, you're, you're a good interviewer. You, you covered a, you covered a lot of ground, from start to finish. MR. HUNNICUTT: So, we've known each other for a long time, and then, rekindled our friendship when you came back. But, to me, that award you've got there, that you just talked about, is, is just such a prestigious thing that, you've got to really sit on top of the mountain to have something like that. I mean, that's ... it's an honor for me to know you, Jack Bailey. (laughter) Who'd ever thought these boys from Oak Ridge would develop into what, some of you guys, have? You know, we've got one of our classmates that's a state senator. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: Randy McNally. You, with this award, and lot of, lot of our classmates have succeeded in life. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. But, again, it was a great place to grow up, and, I think, the standards were set pretty high here. Hopefully, people followed through as they grew up. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's very difficult to explain to somebody ... MR. BAILEY: It is. MR. HUNNICUTT: ... Oak Ridge, isn't it? MR. BAILEY: Well, you ask about any of the comments. One, one thing I would, maybe, close with: When Pat and I were going through high school, we could not wait to get away from Oak Ridge. Then, with my academic background, I was not a science-, and math-type guy. So, there wasn't any real future, that I saw, living in Oak Ridge, especially when I went on through college, and majored in business. But, we couldn't wait to get away from Oak Ridge, and explore the world, so to speak. Then, we came full circle. When I retired, we both agreed, we wanted to move back here. So, it's just, and it's been a great 10 or 11 years, since we moved back. Just really pleased we came back to Oak Ridge. MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, personally, I am, too. And, there are other people associated with you, I'm sure, feel the same way. Well, it's been my pleasure to interview you, Jack, and, you're now part of Oak Ridge history, and record, for sure. And, one day, someone might be reviewing your interview, and read about Rotary, get enthusiastic about it, join. MR. BAILEY: They might. MR. HUNNICUTT: Or, maybe they'll want to be a manager of some sort. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. HUNNICUTT: It's hard to say how these interviews turn out for people. MR. BAILEY: You hope you can have a positive influence on other people. MR. HUNNICUTT: Absolutely, yeah. Well, thanks again for your time, and ... MR. BAILEY: You're welcome. My pleasure. I enjoyed it. [End of Interview] [Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Bailey’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.] |
|
|
|
C |
|
E |
|
M |
|
O |
|
R |
|
|
|