>> And we are rolling.
>> This is an interview by Bill Kyle.
We are interviewing Ray Willis,
Corey Evans, and Al Rellis.
>> Ray Ellis.
>> Ray Ellis, E-L-L-I-S.
>> Ray Ellis, Corey Evans,
and Al Willis in
the San Souci Clubhouse in
Adairsville on October 4th, 2018.
So for the record,
can all three of you state your name?
>> I'm Corey Evans.
>> Al Willis.
>> Ray Ellis Senior.
>> And where were you born?
>> Adairsville.
>> I was born in Cartersville, Georgia.
>> Where were you born?
Springfield, New Brunswick, Canada.
>> Can you tell us about growing up in Adairsville?
What were some of your best memories?
>> The festivals one.
>> And then going on Friday night football games.
Playing sports here and there,
like baseball and football.
>> Mine was growing up in a small town.
You knew everyone in high school.
Now where they just
recently opened a new elementary school,
and whenever I was going to school on that same area,
that was the elementary school,
middle school, high school, and football field.
So I can remember the time before there was one midnight.
>> Mr. Willis, when did you come to Adairsville?
>> I started school in Adairsville
and I lived just a few miles at the road.
And I think I
was about three when
we first moved from Cartersville to Adairsville.
So I've been around here all my life.
>> And then you
said that you did not grow up in Adairsville,
so I'll exclude you from this question,
but could you talk about some good memories you've had in
Adairsville since you came here?
>> Well, I came to the United States in 1950 on a whim.
I'd often come by.
I was working on a dairy farm in New Brunswick in Canada.
And he says, Ray,
do you want to go to United States?
And I said, when are you leaving?
He says nine o'clock in the morning.
I said, I'll be ready.
I get to the border,
the custom agency says, where are you going?
And I said, I'm going to wait in
Massachusetts for six months to see if I like it.
He said, why wait six months?
He said, you do these three things,
go back into Canada,
get these three things.
He said, you can come across the border for good 30 days.
I thought about it. I said, okay.
So I went back into Canada.
I got a physical,
I got three letters of recommendation,
and I got a health clearance from the doctor.
Next couple of three weeks,
I went to the border again.
Custom agent says, where are you going now, man?
I said, well in Massachusetts.
He says, for how long?
I say, I got a passport for five years.
He said, how much money you got.
I said, I got $5.21
a one-way bus ticket to Wales, Massachusetts.
He looked at me and he says,
if you have could live in Wales,
Massachusetts with your uncle on $5.21 for five years,
you get on that bus.
I got on that bus. I ended up in Boston.
I got a bus waiting,
and I told the bus driver, I said,
you tell me when you get to Wales in
Massachusetts because I ain't got
the slightest idea where I'm going, and I didn't.
And I get to Wales
[inaudible] and I looked out the window.
And thank God,
there stood my uncle waiting on me.
So I stayed there and I got there on Thursday.
I went to work in Waltham, Massachusetts,
and I learned to be a operator to run the big pressures.
And my uncle asked me,
he said, Ray, do you want to vote?
And I said, well, sure.
And that was my downfall.
I went and voted and a few months later,
I got greetings, young man.
Jerry Truman sent the greetings to join the military.
And back then, you could enlist in whichever you wanted.
So I told him recruit
me and I'm going to join the Air Force.
The Air Force was only young men.
And and I told him,
I said, I'm a Canadian.
He said, you want to be an American citizen?
Went down there and got my license.
Next thing I knew I was in the Air Force.
I went to some place in upstate,
I can't think of the name for now.
Left there and went to Boston, Mississippi.
Left there and went to Gimpo, Korea, 1952.
The Korean war was on.
I come back to Andrews Airport base in
Maryland and I got my citizenship papers there.
And one day I was there and an education officer says,
I see you're not a high school graduate.
I said, yeah. He said, do you want to take it?
Do you want to be one? I said, yeah.
He said, you can be in a certain place at
a certain time and you can take it.
I thought about it. I said, okay.
It was on Thursday [inaudible] I guess,
it was about '54, 1954,
you got a three-day pass in the military,
you've done something outstanding.
And I didn't do nothing.
So I said, I'll go get.
Come 12 noon.
I finished it, all six batteries GED,
I think it is. I finished it all.
And he said, did you finish? I said,
to the best of my ability.
They had commanders call back then,
and they called me up there and said,
you passed the GED.
I said, well, thank you. And then
I stayed in the military for 20 years.
>> And so after you left
the military is when you came to Adairsville?
>> How did I get here?
>> No. You mention why and then you moved to Adairsville.
>> [inaudible] it was on 4th July,
I guess it was 1954,
'55, something like that.
[inaudible] I said, how about you and I getting married.
She said, and I said, Ray,
I said to myself, what in the Lord God do you do now?
So I left and went to
Tampa Florida [inaudible] and
she went to Cleveland, Texas.
She had a relative out there
in [inaudible], so we come back,
that was in August, who we talked to,
and we said we're getting married September the 10th.
We got married. I left Alaska.
She had to come back up here.
And then we traveled to California.
We went to to Newfoundland,
come back and went to England for
four years from flying status.
I flew, in fact,
Airborne command post in the communication special.
So we come back [inaudible] .
And when I was in England,
I got my two boys to become scouts,
and they didn't have a scrum master.
I was tech sergeant. They said,
you could be scrum master.
So I was scrum master until I left.
Because I take orders of Omaha,
Nebraska and they needed
a scrum master for the cubs and I put my boy on.
[inaudible] I think I'm going to retire.
So I retired and come here.
>> That was in 72, correct?
>> '71.
>> Well, it was
the 1st of August '71 I retired and came here.
And I had them two boys [inaudible].
So I come up here to [inaudible].
And I put him in there.
Well, then they had a cheap boy day.
They brought him out of the hospital
because he was disabled.
So they brought him out of that.
And just as soon as he did that, day was over.
The scout master left
and left me hanging with the merger boys master.
So I took over as
scout master and I held it for 44 years, so they say.
Scout master for 44 years.
And I tried to get out of the scouts
but they wouldn't let me get out of it.
I'm still an honorary scout.
Now, I can come in and go [inaudible].
>> So that's pretty nice commission.
And we're going to talk a lot
more about scouts in just a minute.
So Mr. Evans, I want to ask you a little bit more
about Adairsville because you did grew up here.
Was there a specific spot
that local kids like to hang out,
specific events you guys went to?
>> Well, we always had to leave town.
[LAUGHTER] Ron, Calhan,
Carl down Kennesaw,
which we're growing up at Kennesaw, like it is now.
Like Elle said, I remember there was no red lights.
Down in [inaudible] was Little Rock and two truck stops.
I remember whenever all those, except the Little Rock.
>> Believe it or not. I say many times,
it was a volunteer fire department entirely.
And he was right up here.
And whenever they would get
called out to the fire, the mayor,
he was also the volunteer fire chief.
They would have to jump the fire truck off to go too.
Of course, we've had some pretty good characters.
Well, naturally, we had a man that raised a whole family.
All he ever done was made whiskey.
He had a big ride up one time in Atlanta.
That's all he ever done.
Everybody thought the world of him.
[LAUGHTER] He was a good man
even if he didn't make whiskey.
They say he made good.
[LAUGHTER] But there have
been a lot of changes in this town.
You can go down and see for red lines, things.
Now, like he said,
there are several places to eat.
Whenever I was growing up,
I could not imagine a Mexican restaurant in this town.
There was no way to serve a beer.
There was a little cafe right
behind main part of town here.
It's called the Little Rock Cafe.
You walked in and there's
a huge rock by the door that walked in there.
That where you walked in and
that's where it got name. Little Rock Cafe.
>> That was a good move.
>> Yes, sir. It was a good move.
And it was opened up during the day and at night,
you were on your own.
There wasn't anything in there.
>> Fan closed down.
>> Fan closed. The big thing in town.
Naturally, well, San Susy club
was a good thing to the ladies in the town.
But what was going on at the high school.
The ball games, and that was it.
And, of course, as a teenager,
if you wanted to see some action hit you,
more people, you went to
another town because that right up there.
That was it and it was closed in there.
And there was nothing wrong with that.
We all enjoyed small.
We were neighbor of Mayberry.
We were neighbor. I can
remember just had one police officer.
>> What's the name of him?
>> Jess Sexton was his name.
He was a police officer.
Period. That was it.
And then the mayor and a lot of changes is in this town.
It never came to
my mind things that are going on in the high school.
I've got four grandsons that are in school now.
At our high school down here,
we have a swimming pool in
the school. That was unheard of.
That was happening in big cities,
up north or maybe in Atlanta.
There was nothing like that around here.
Wrestling, there was no wrestling sports going on.
Soccer, that was unheard of around here then.
But we were all country folks,
so to speak, even if we lived in town.
We knew everybody but still country folks.
Everybody knew everyone else.
You didn't have to call on the phone and tell
one another that somebody is sick or
they've had a bad accident or something.
Because the time you got the telephone to call somebody,
everybody else knew it anyway.
>> That's right.
>> That's just the way it was.
We were family.
Everybody was family.
>> Telephone with four or five people on.
>> You all don't remember what party lines
are. Party lines.
Telephones, the last party lines
I had was two party lines,
which in other words,
man you picked up the phone you make phone call.
Once you picked the phone and then you talked to them.
But on a house phone.
You'd pick up and make a phone call on two party lines,
you and somebody else was on that line.
So if they was using it, you could.
You had to wait and they would go all the way up to what?
Five or six party lines.
Sometimes if you was lucky,
if you got to make a call
and you could pick up the phone and hear
somebody else's conversation. All day long.
[LAUGHTER] And you know what did not
be talking about some not be talking
about anything you didn't want
everybody to know.
[LAUGHTER]
>> When I came here in 1971 and I asked for a telephone,
they gave me a party line.
And I told him I couldn't have
a party line because I was working for
the Postal Service there and I've
been on call so they can see the line.
[NOISE]
>> That's a train. [LAUGHTER]
>> That made that train coming out.
But when I got a party line because I
worked for post office and they call
me at all times at work.
So I worked there.
And I guess, that was the beginning of
the outcast of the party lines because
I never heard of anybody else having a party line.
When I was in Canada,
they had party lines.
But there wasn't one or two or half of those.
You pick up and talk and you hear the other ones click.
You couldn't tell him nothing, you couldn't.
You couldn't say nothing that was writing. Jump on it.
>> So you all mentioned the school was
a big part of the painting.
So what school did
you guys go to elementary, middle, and high school?
>> Adairsville.
>> And it was all combined?
>> And it was all combined.
>> And did you all have the same classmates
generally? All graduates [OVERLAPPING]
>> Oh, sure. I graduated in 1971.
There was 31 in my graduating class.
The year before us,
there was 50 in the graduating class of 1970.
That was the biggest class at
that time that had ever
graduated from Adairsville High School,
was 50. But we had 31.
It would have been 32, but one gentleman,
he decided to quit school two weeks before he graduated.
But you knew everybody.
I'm still familiar with a lot of my classmates.
Several of them have passed away,
but we're still good friends and things.
>> Could you tell us a little bit about
that building where it was located?
Was that the brick building that had
been [OVERLAPPING] that had been built by John Schmitz?
>> Undoubtedly it was.
At one time, my understanding,
it was a college, because the name of that.
>> It started off as an academy.
>> As an academy.
>> It was College Street.
>> It was an academy, and then
it closed down the city bar.
And the school allegedly
run by the city were theirs to what?
In the '60s or something?
>> Maybe late '50s or something.
I don't know.
>> The only reason I know was because I heard
Mr. Bass talk about it.
But then the county took it over,
and then it was county-ran.
Because I didn't go to that,
and I went to middle school and high school there,
but they had built the elementary school,
what '80, '81?
>> I don't know. It was
suddenly because all of my kids went there.
>> So that's where I went.
Once we got done with the elementary school,
we went to the middle school.
In the middle school, you had Pine Log Elementary
and the Kingston Elementary coming to. [OVERLAPPING]
>> Coming in.
>> But there's been a lot of changes.
It was a lot of good memories,
it turned bad,
made us feel bad whenever they tore the school down
because my first-grade room was still standing up there.
Whenever I started school,
there were two first grades,
and I don't know how many there are now.
Whenever I graduated, like I said,
it was 31 of us,
there was one homeroom.
And you knew the teachers
from year to year, they knew you.
I'll tell you how a lot of small schools work.
Now, if you even mention having a firearm,
you're locked up, period.
Then, you'd either drive your truck to school or
pick up a car and
you might have a gun laying in the gun rack.
And your truck stayed unlocked, nobody bothered it.
You might tell one of
your teachers that also hunted about it,
and say let's go out and look at it.
They would go look at your gun and find it.
That was just another time.
>> We used to have flags on them,
stuck our American flags.
Now you put an American flag on it,
somebody may be up there storming
but they'd get stormed too if I'm around.
>> I'm thankful that my son,
and Corey knows it too,
they grew up together.
But even some of his teachers and my son,
they would go fishing together.
And we're all in the country club.
And I wouldn't take
nothing for growing up in a small town.
>> When I came here, I didn't know what cotton
was and there was cotton fields all around.
Now, there ain't no cotton fields.
>> I was telling some of the scouts one night, I said,
whenever we grew up
if you wanted a little spare of money,
you pick cotton or you haul hay.
I said you didn't go to
Burger King or McDonald's and get a part-time job.
One of them said, why? I said they wasn't here.
[LAUGHTER]
There wasn't no such thing like that.
But that was still done like manual labor.
But I love a small town.
>> It was good.
>> It was.
>> My wife said to me,
"Did you ever pick cotton?" And I said no.
When I was in Arkansas, or something like that,
the big cotton field, she said,
"You'd just go up there and take
your fingers and do this."
I went up there and took my fingers and done that.
We looked back and there was a hole
there, a hole there, and a hole there.
>> A lot of cotton holes. [LAUGHTER]
>> I ain't cut the cotton yet.
I told her, look at my fingers and
she just laughed, had to kill herself.
But I said, no I ain't picking
no more cotton. That was it.
>> So I assume,
based on your previous answers what your answer will be,
but do you consider Adairsville a special place?
>> [OVERLAPPING] Oh, yeah. [LAUGHTER]
>> Unique people.
>> Yeah, it is. Unique people.
There are still some unique people around there.
This man right here, he's a landmark.
There's no telling how many of us
adults and how many kids he has helped along the way.
Ray and myself rode
thousands of miles on different scouting adventures.
We went to two
National Scout General [inaudible] where we'd
spend 2.5-3 weeks at a time working, paid work.
[OVERLAPPING]
We spent thousands,
I won't tell you how many times we've camped
out and we never had a cross word.
It's hard to say. I'm proud to
say it, but it's hard to say.
How much money did we make?
>> Nothing. [OVERLAPPING]
>> Not one nickel.
>> We took a trip to Mount Katahdin.
Everybody wanted to go to
the end of the Appalachian Trail.
We made $11,000,
this trip did, before we left this place.
We got us a bus, some of the adults went.
We went to Mount Katahdin.
>> Katahdin, in Maine.
>> In Maine. We went into Canada and the customs agent,
she says, who's the boss. I said I am.
[inaudible] He said,
do you vouch for all of them? I said yeah.
So we went into Canada and spent a day in
Canada to come back out
and the same customs agent says, you're coming back?
I said, yeah, I'm coming back.
[LAUGHTER]
We come back in.
And what we did,
we left here in a bus, went to Washington,
DC, to the Unknown Soldier,
and had one of the guards talk to us.
We left there and went to our old army.
>> I didn't get to go on that trip.
>> Anyway, went to the army thing,
and one of the boys climbed up
a ladder and fell off and broke his arm.
So we had it fixed and we went on into Mount Katahdin.
We stayed there I think two weeks.
And the boys tried to go to the top of Mount Katahdin,
but it was icy and it
was slippery, they couldn't make it.
So we stayed there
and we come back out and the bus driver,
they were staying by themselves,
him and his wife because it was the last trip.
He said, "I'm going to stay with y'all.
Y'all seem to be having a good time."
I said, "Yeah, that's what we've come here for."
So I said,
you can come on and be with us,
so then he came with us.
We come on back,
we stayed in New York,
some place in the County of New York,
and then come back into
some place in Tennessee and then come back in here.
If your body was so bad,
[LAUGHTER]
I guess and [inaudible].
>> At least.
>> We used to. Like Elle said, we'd go camping.
But we'd go caving.
There's a cave up your way.
>> It's one of them called Las
[inaudible]. We spent the night there.
>> Which [OVERLAPPING] caught Cameron Camp.
>> Cameron Camp.
>> He tried to come up through it.
He was my assistant.
And he got halfway and he couldn't go forward because he
was too big and he stopped in there.
>> We went all around the cars.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And so he was puffing it.
They get bigger because he got nervous.
And he said, well, this let me relax.
And maybe I flipped back
out and I happened to have another adult with me.
So we pulled him back out and he says, go.
So we pulled him back out.
And then we went to
the manager of a cave and told him about it.
So now, to get into cave,
to go, you have to put a rubber tire around you.
[LAUGHTER]
Was you there with me?
>> Yeah, I was there.
The other times. We went both times.
>> We were within the mountains of Tennessee.
>> Cabin.
>> Then there's one here in,
what's this one here in Georgia?
>> In Tennessee, Ratan Mountain.
[inaudible] is in Tennessee.
>> But.
>> We dug him in eight times.
>> And I as an individual,
went to the cook course over here in Sydney too.
And is the oldest person to go through the cook course.
And that's been many years ago.
[LAUGHTER]
And I think I was
70 years old then or
something like that. I'm a little bit older.
And then nobody else.
Then get up and age,
goes out there for some reason.
And they asked me, they said,
would you go by officer again?
I said, you give me the opportunity.
And I go down at one time.
And there was too many boys in.
So I told them and I said, no,
I'll [inaudible] on this and I was a little bit older.
I was up there about 75 and something like that.
And I said, just hold off and let the boys have it.
They paid for months.
And so I went through.
>> Way as an adult, and later.
They teach the boys to understand.
But we learned from him also.
Had a boy and for a while was paralyzed by statement.
And he still lives in this town.
And we went, Ray,
and talk about it.
We went to the lost street one time.
Ray and myself pushed this boy in
wheelchair allover the place as far as we could.
Then when you get to spend a night in there,
you get to go what they called world tour.
So when you do the crawling and climbing,
young man looked at me and said, I'm going.
I said, son, I've been on this
before and I don't think you can.
He said, okay, sir, I'm going.
And so I said well.
He tried and he tried.
We pushed out wheelchair as far as we could get.
He come out of that thing.
He drove himself on his stomach with
his elbows and arms until he would give himself out.
He turned over and go on his back.
He turned back over and he finally done
that four or five times on each side.
And he said, in himself to death as far as I can go.
[LAUGHTER]
That will do something to you, to watch that.
One of the older guys said, I'll take him back.
So he picked him up and put him on his wheelchair.
I looked around at the other.
We were last, that boy.
I said, I don't ever want to hear anybody,
young or old say,
I can't do something.
Tell me you don't know how but don't tell me you can't.
And that would do something to you.
A guy asked me one time,
how much money we made off this? I said nothing.
He said, you carry kids all wherever,
you don't make a dime off of it?
My answer to him was,
if I can help keep one kid off drugs,
just one, I said it's working.
And it did. It really did.
>> I lived there. At the end of Hall Station Road.
>> I was telling from the bed.
>> He still lives there.
>> He's a fine young man.
I saw him rich in his store.
>> I want to start with you.
Can you tell us a little bit about
your childhood home and some of
the memories you have around the house?
>> My childhood home? Well, it was slick.
[LAUGHTER]
It was home though.
Where I grew up within a 10 mile radius, family.
If they wasn't family,
they were real close friends of the family.
So if you done something,
you thought you could get away with it
because your mom lives two miles that away,
the neighbors, usually your cousin
or your aunt, or somebody,
so you get a woman there,
and then they'd call and tell
your mama or your grandmother.
If you're lucky,
if they bob passed your grandmother
because my mama would work second, third.
When I got back, my grandmother didn't caught word of it.
So I get to Hickory then,
mama did wake up.
I get another spanking
for embarrassing her in front of so and so.
[LAUGHTER]
I made same thing here in town.
I'm into the Hollins to Kings,
pretty much Edwards,
everybody embarrassed pretty much be me.
So I had to walk the line
because I get punished
four or five times for the same crime.
[LAUGHTER]
You learn pretty quick.
>> Myself, I was raised, like I say,
a few miles from here,
and my parents both worked.
And naturally, whenever you
get home, well, I'll tell you,
one of the things we got home but we
knew to take off our good school clothes.
You put on play clothes or work clothes.
We had chores to do,
and I am seven you would dog poll or nothing like that.
But we knew what we were supposed to do.
The first thing I had to do,
I was assigned to get my homework. First time.
And then I didn't have anything to do.
I played or what, but I live.
Now, I live next door to where I was raised.
My mother still lives up there but
my dad passed away in 2014.
But my mother still lives up there.
And a matter of fact,
my son and his family live right down below.
So we, country folks and just enjoyed.
We work and had a good time. Enjoyed life.
>> You can't get anything better than a country focus.
My dad was a cheese baker. He was from England.
They come to Canada and married my mother.
And so he made cheese and he had three bats,
two 5,000 gallons and one 7,000.
My brother and I took the two small,
so 5,000 gallon, he took 7,000.
And we made cheese.
We had to run up and down that back.
It'd take me hours to
explain how to make cheese, but anyway.
We made we made home cheese. That could stop.
You kept quiet. I don't know what to do.
And then he passed away.
And so I was by myself.
So I went to school until I got
to the 11th grade and then I
quit because I had to because back then,
the oldest child took off the ball.
So I went [inaudible] for six six months.
Come out. I had a flu or something.
I don't know what I had
[inaudible] that's years ago [inaudible]
and I get hit
at the back of the head one of the [inaudible] ball
down and I think it never did
hit the [inaudible] what it did,
come up and hit me in the back of the neck.
It put me out. And he come running me down there.
So I did that.
Then I went and worked for the dairy farm.
Then I come back to another dairy farm
where I milked the cows,
pasteurized the milk,
bottled the milk, and delivered the milk.
And had a pick up truck. You didn't need
a driver's license back then to drive.
And I drove and I delivered the milk.
And in the wintertime, we cut ice.
I know you've seen it on TV how they cut ice.
You get the big box and then put it in.
And then in the summertime,
you deliver that ice.
And I did that. And I was working on the farm doing that
[inaudible]. I got up [inaudible].
When you was a kid,
you had something to do.
Although, I was the boss,
my mother still told me what to do,
but I think it's
just nature that that's the way things would go.
Then my mother died when she was 88.
They cut her leg off because she
lost her leg and she lay bed and that's it.
And now I got friends back there I don't even know.
They were little characters
when I left and I haven't see them since.
I went to my brother's funeral.
He spent, I think he
said,25 years the Canadian Air Force.
I was school.
I went t his funeral I went to
mother's funeral, and that's it.
>> Ray, he was in the Air Force 20 years.
And then he worked for
the United States Postal Service
where you worked 30 years for Postal.
>> Thirty-five.
>> Thirty-five. For 55 years
and he wasn't even born in the United States.
>> And that's what I tell my boys now.
And I tell my grandkids, I said,
if you're going to do something,
start it and finish it.
Don't start it and quit.
And I said, keep doing
something because I said the body is made to move.
It ain't made to sit in that chair and watch that TV.
>> But that's what you tell them to do,
do as I say, don't do as I do.
>> But you got to use common sense.
And sometimes I think common sense
went flying up in the air,
but as long as you use common sense and good judgment,
you can get anywhere you want to
and with no problem whatsoever.
There ain't nobody going to tell you no.
>> Corey, can you tell us what you did for a living?
>> Electrician.
>> [inaudible].
>> [inaudible] I've been electrician since
I graduated from high school.
>> And Earl.
>> I'm retired. You're retired?
>> Well, we know
Ray was in the Air Force
and worked for the Post Office. What did you do?
>> I worked I worked for Carpet Mill for 25 plus years,
I was the lead mechanic there.
And I decided it's time for me to do something else,
so I went here and there.
And I retired in
2015 from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
I was equipment, operator.
>> Corey how did you first get
involved with the Boy Scouts?
>> Ray here was
[inaudible] council district
[inaudible].
>> The only boy scout I had that
didn't want a big deal when he made Eagle Scout,
he said you give me Eagle Scout
on the tailbed of a pickup truck.
And I said,
all right. And that's him right there.
I give him give him
Eagle Scout on tailbed of a pickup truck.
That's what he wanted and that's what he got.
>> But [inaudible] and all those wires.
And I didn't want to go horseback riding,
repair and camping,
fishing and all this stuff.
You went and asked your mom and dad and
they signed you up.
October 31, 1988.
>> Is that when you got it?
>> That's my first [inaudible].
>> So how old were you then?
>> Eleven.
>> And Earl?
>> I was in Boy Scout in
a little town here called [inaudible].
They started a Troop,
100, and I'm a charter member there.
I was there whenever they started.
After several years, I dropped out.
And then I got married,
had a son and he decided to go into cub scouting,
but they didn't have a cub master,
so he recruited me.
I took for a few years and then for a year or so
I was cub master and assistant scout master too.
And I wore several different hats there for a while.
And I was assistant scout master for
20 something years under this man right here.
And you-all know how he got started.
>> So how did
joining the Scouts program impact your life?
>> [inaudible].
It's like going out with friends back then.
Nowadays ain't like it was then.
There are so many new rules
and it's like that everywhere.
Kenneth King was one of our assistants.
We went hiking 50 miles on
Appalachian trail and he's only one
there with us and he broke so many rules that nowadays,
you'd be banned for life,
but I've seen [inaudible] I've seen
Ray Ellis and Bob Jackson [inaudible].
You get a bunch of kids that age together,
especially around here, like I said,
ours was a unique bunch of people,
and you get a small town,
ain't got a whole lot to do,
so you find things to entertain yourself.
So you see some crazy stuff.
We were very laid back.
Troop 12 was very laid back.
Myself, I'm a prankster.
I love to play pranks on people,
and some of the other guys did,
but I also said,
now, if you play a prank,
expect one to get to play back.
Don't get me. Give you fine example.
Ray and I had a bunch of boys out camping one night.
He gets up in the morning to go outside the tent.
This is before daylight.
Grabs a zipper to unzip the tent,
go out, and both zippers follow.
What's wrong with this? Started, and t still followed.
One of the guys had tied the outside zippers together.
You couldn't get out of the tent.
That's just us. We always had a good time with the boys.
I had leaves put in my sleeping bags [inaudible].
I've had a brick put in, anything.
We just had a ball, but now
we can come along with these boys that are grown now.
He's always going to be a boy to us.
We can come along, do y'all remember
when we done so and so, when we went here?
Yeah, I remember.
We carried boys as far as far
north and that is Canada and
we carried just as far south as [inaudible].
>> What was it? Battleship?
>> We've been in Charleston, South Carolina.
We stayed on the battleship [inaudible] a couple
of times. That was fun.
Anything with the boys we had about,
mostly they learned respect.
Not a lot of people are teaching that these days.
Anything, they're not not teaching respect.
Our main rule whenever we would tell
the boys was always manners, an that's it.
Other than that, you boys have a good time.
Obey us, never had to have any trouble.
>> I had more things happened to me.
[inaudible] I had to
go to the bathroom. I went to the tent.
>> That's what I was telling them about them zippers.
>> Yeah, the zippers.
[inaudible] wanted to go to the bathroom.
I said, what's going on here?
So I finally got there was one
on the back that had a single zipper.
I had more things pulled on
me then. I don't know what.
And now, my grandson comes here the other day,
I went in there and put on my slippers and in
my slippers was a round night shocker.
So I went over and I went to bed,
put my hand underneath my pillow,
and there was another [inaudible].
There was another one that he put in there.
And there was this trick that they played on me.
Poor Al had tricks played on him,
I've had them on me, Cole had them on him.
And it's just part of it.
>> I'd said we went different places.
We've been out on the southeast.
And we would teach guys things.
One night, it would
give you an idea of something on that.
I told the guys, next week,
I said bring them a necktie.
One, I said bring a necktie.
We taught them how to tie a necktie.
My wife taught me how to tie a necktie.
[LAUGHTER]
I didn't know how to tie one.
Such as that, we would teach them all kinds of stuff.
As a matter of fact, one night,
we were having a recruitment session,
and Ray and myself were talking.
No, Ray and a council guy was talking,
trying to get him to join.
And they were talking about
different places we went and I liked that.
It came my time, I said,
what we don't know is go to exotic places,
we go camping and we learned things.
Who knows how to cook? Of course,
every 10 and 11-year-old boy
knows how to make a fine meal and cook a hot dog.
They can cook a hamburger,
they can make a baloney sandwich.
I said, who knows how to cook an egg on a stick?
How? I said,
you come along and I'll teach you.
I had to teach him how to cook it. It can be done.
[LAUGHTER] Right? It could be done.
>> And I have a pair of stilts. You know what stilts is.
You walk onto them. And then there was a pair down
here at the [inaudible].
And I told the boys, I says, I can walk on them.
And they said, oh no you can't.
One says I'll give you a dollar to walk
to the [inaudible] back to here.
I said put the dollar right there.
And I got on them stilts and away I went.
[LAUGHTER]
Then to come back, he looked at me.
>> Before [inaudible] boys
and you had to learn to walk on them.
>> He said how could you do that?
I said all you got to do is get up and walk on them.
And we used to put cans on
the bottom of them and walk through mud puddles.
So we wouldn't get stuck and stuff like that.
And you could build a stilt to be
that high off the ground or
you want that high off the ground.
I've been up that high on them and walked.
[LAUGHTER]
Somebody swiped my stilts,
I don't know who took them, but they're gone.
[LAUGHTER]
You know who?
>> No.
>> But that's it and it's amazing to
me that I come in
here and like they was telling years ago,
say 40 years ago,
there wasn't that many people here.
But then to have a boy scout,
and I've had 50 boys myself down there all at once.
And I don't know if you guys are allowed to know.
And how can a little town like this,
was a scout troop right now,
is 102 years old.
It is said that
this scout troop in Adairsville is
the oldest continuous Boy Scouts in the world.
Now that's unheard of because scout masters come and go.
And the one Chief Boyd stayed here 65 years I think ago,
he retired and then
they had a couple come in before that,
and then I come in and I got 44 years still in there.
I've got 50 years of this this year, in scouts.
And it's unheard of in a small village.
Well, if you want to call us that.
Years ago, it used to be a small village.
You could come up here and go to town like they say,
in a half a second.
>> Now you were just talking about Chief Boyd,
did you actually know Chief Boyd?
>> You knew Chief Boyd, didn't you?
>> Yeah.
>> What can you tell me about him? What can
you tell me about Chief Boyd?
>> What can you tell him about him?
>> What, Chief Boyd?
>> Yeah.
>> Chief Boyd, he was in World War I,
that's where he got off [inaudible].
He went to [inaudible] universities.
He stayed in New York and
how he found out what Boy Scouts
was he was in England and
Boyd was so sick he couldn't find his way.
And then a boy scout come in
uniform and asked him what was the problem,
and he told him, and that boy says follow me and
took him to where his destination was.
And he'd come back and he went to
New York because he didn't have that in here.
He went to New York and went to the university.
I can't tell you, he went to several universities.
But while he was in New York,
he registered this troop down
here in 1915, I think it was.
>> Before he went to war. It was before he went to war.
>> Yeah, before he went to war and
then he went to war and got injured to come back.
And in 1916,
the scout master that was here, he left.
Whoever it was, God knows.
And this scout troop has
been since 1916 up till today has been active.
And he had it until I think it
was 1965 or something like that.
And then he had it for 65 years anyway.
And he come in here and they had different scout masters.
And then I came in and I got hooked
with it and I stayed here.
But to think that Adairsville
would have a scout troop
that would stay here for 112 years,
is unheard of, because they go, come and go.
>> How active is the scout troop now?
How many members does it have?
[BACKGROUND]
Are you still involved, Corey?
Tell us about your involvement
and how active the troop is now.
>> Well, when Ray stepped down,
he dumped it on me.
[LAUGHTER]
He wants to tell everybody they
got dumped on him and he dumped it on me.
I think we got down to,
let's see, I had two in it.
We got down to three boys.
Like I said, I didn't have any leader,
so I was actually having to go
to Shannon neighboring town over here.
Their troop meetings because I had to
be two leaders [inaudible].
And so we've [inaudible] gone
over there just to have a meeting.
Then we picked up some boys here and
there and picked up some dads here and there.
It looks like a roller coaster.
When I joined in 1988,
I think there are about 16 of them.
I think I maybe 17.
In two years, we had 50 some boys in and then next year,
you might have 60 some.
Some were active, some wasn't.
It goes back to like an [inaudible] atmosphere.
People from Florida move up here for a job or something,
and their kids was in scouts
from Florida and they come here
and, this didn't match.
[LAUGHTER]
You got country boys and then you come
up somebody's grew up in
a big city and everybody likes different things.
I've seen we're up to 11 boys
now expecting to get five more.
We picked up a pack again.
We didn't have a country pack for a while.
We have a pack now feeding directly into us.
But I had to step down because of my job.
I'm working 60, 70,
even 80 hours a week and it's hard to do
something because scout management is really tough.
It eats your time up and it eats your wallet.
Both of these gentlemen right
here ain't going to tell them
how much money they spent,
not on their kids, other people's kids.
You go somewhere, I forgot my deodorant.
I heard it was $2.50 because
[LAUGHTER]
you ain't going to smell them all week.
I forgot my toothbrush.
I had a boy go on camera for three nights.
I forgot my sleeping bag. So it's
always you're spending money.
And then you got kids that really needs helping
maybe from a single parent or
maybe both parents are gone,
grandma's raising a kid.
I'll pay for kids go to summer camp.
I got two and myself.
And I'll pay for five kids to go to summer camp for.
Because in my mind,
every kid needs [inaudible].
It's a good thing.
The last time I went to summer camp with the boys,
they had a foster boy.
He had just joined the troop
because he just went to these people's house.
And I live up there Sunday night
and he's over there by himself.
I said, "You all right?" He said, "Yeah.
I mean, I just don't want to be here.
Don't know why they made me come here."
Next day I saw him he's a little better mood.
By Wednesday, he's happy to live up here.
It grows on me.
And kids in that position,
they really need to do that kind of stuff.
It's just getting harder and harder and harder to do it.
It's more of a business than a youth club.
It's bad that you got to sell
popcorn that you can go to Walmart and buy for
five bucks for $20 to make pay [inaudible].
So the boys aren't really getting a whole bunch of
that. That's my biggest problem.
Because people like us,
it's starts from the front line,
they ain't getting paid for it.
We're spending money hand over fist to make pay.
I'm getting off topic here.
>> It's good.
>> But it's something really you can see the kids,
especially kids that ain't never had
the opportunity to do something like this.
You take a kid fishing.
Well, I didn't think much of that.
We went and we ran to some other boys,
couple of scouts that was coming there.
And I don't know, I think that's from the Atlanta area.
Me, my two boys was up there fishing.
This little boy come up, he's watching us.
I said, "You don't fish?"
He said, "I don't know how."
So there I am rest of
the day untangling lines and tying on hooks.
But it's a great feeling to actually help the youth.
They Iain't going to tell you how many grown adults,
there is a man who knows that man over there personally.
Because like I said,
when I was in late '80s,
early '90s, about everybody
[inaudible] and they moved [inaudible].
You say that people knows I'm still involved.
They see me, how's Ray doing?
How's this? And how's that?
This small town atmosphere
and I said everybody knows everybody.
It's getting harder now
because we get a lot of subdivisions
and everything's just growing.
When I was growing up, you had
SMH and then you had
the Mcintyre's up there and that was it.
Now we've got a food line and more coming.
>> You asked a question far ago about Chief Boyd.
I can remember whenever Chief Boyd would come to
school before I was still in school.
I went to school by the way.
[LAUGHTER]
And I can remember everybody respected Chief Boyd.
The gentleman I used to work with,
he's passed away now.
He told me one time said,
I'm going to tell you a story about Chief Boyd.
I said, "okay." He said, "Everybody respected him."
Now, this was back in the '40s,
'50s, I guess.
He lived in Pine Oak, the little town [inaudible].
He said,
"We'd have a meeting once a month and
we'd get to go up Chief Boyd's place.
He had his own camp up there.
The name of it was [inaudible].
It was a great name for a boy scout.
On top of the mountain [inaudible].
He said we'd get to go up there and said,
"Everybody loved Chief Boyd."
And said, "Then times were different."
Said, "You could write Chief Boyd a letter and say,
I haven't smoked a cigarette for a month."
And said, "Chief Boyd would mail
you $0.50, two quarters."
He said, "One day,
a cousin of mine and myself were behind the school."
He said, "And we had found us some cigarettes."
He said, "I put one in my mouth" and said,
"I strike the match" and said,
"I heard Chief Boyd say, on my honor."
[LAUGHTER]
He said, "I blew the match out" said,
"I never smoked a cigarette."
Said, "Because I had gotten my $0.50.
He said, "But I never smoked a cigarette."
[LAUGHTER]
He said, "Chief Boyd was the reason I didn't."
But he would do stuff like if
a boy didn't have a sleeping bag or something,
he might saw two [inaudible] together and give it to him.
I never did serve under him, but I can remember.
He had to be a good man.
My understanding, according to what Ray said,
even after he was in the hospital,
he was getting in bad shape,
if a boy didn't have the money to go to
summer camp or Jamboree or something like that,
he would write Chief Boyd a letter, the boy got to go.
[OVERLAPPING] He would.
He wanted you to have a good close hair
cut and stay clean.
[inaudible] good life. He hit you.
>> He didn't like the boys.
He said, this is funny,
but I got a letter from him,
and he said, "I'll send the boy to Philmont."
>> That's a boy scout ranch [inaudible].
>> He said, "If he's got
long hair, I'm not sending him."
If he had long hair.
That was it.
You had to have a hair cut,
like have something that was
now I've got it all the way down to the ground.
And he says, "If you got long hair,
that's all he wrote. He wouldn't do it.
And I got a couple of letters at
the house now that I got from Chief Boyd.
I got to bring over here to the museum.
I take they got some stuff
over there on the scouts, anyway. They did that.
>> I put a bunch of stuff over there.
>> So I'm going to bring them up there to
the library or to the museum and give them to them.
I was going through my stuff the other
day and I don't know what to throw away
and what not to because I got so much
of the scout magazine back in the '70s, I still got.
Now, whether they're antique or not,
I don't know. I got it.
I sometimes think I'll just put that stuff in a box,
because I got several and give it to the library
[LAUGHTER] [inaudible] or give it to the museum.
I used to be a trading station at
one time and give it to them.
Because I'm getting up
there in age because I don't have that far to go.
>> Don't say that.
>> I think you guys have any final questions you want to?
>> You all pretty much touched on, Miss Evans did,
I just want to have take real quick on
what it really means you being part of this true,
the legacy of it and just being [NOISE].
>> Well, it's like a family claim for me.
I had cousins, older cousin.
My mom was the youngest of seven.
So I got first cousins that's older than my mom.
So I had a cousin who labelled out of 12.
He led out underneath Chief Boyd,
and then I came along.
I even left from underneath grade.
My son's lives [inaudible] and he was our project.
He's going to eagle out. I'm hoping 12.
But it's just quite a close knit family.
Because we do community service every Friday.
I have a little dinner down there.
You have people come in
and I was in Troop 12 when I was younger.
These people, 70,
80, 90 years old.
I was in Troop 12.
I've actually forgotten where I was.
I was in Pennsylvania
and I haven't had all my shirts on like this.
>> I've got somebody in this room.
>> So boy came up,
he does have Troop 12.
He said, embarrassed?
And I said, yeah.
And it's not others was embarrassed.
>> A-A-R-E-S-A-U-W, [inaudible].
[LAUGHTER]
First I saw but I'm like, you know what?
And he said, my dad was in the military.
And he said, my mom had
some family living in Adairsville and
he was stationed out of land [inaudible].
One or more problems or somewhere or another.
And he said that stay two years, he said.
And I joined Troop 12.
He said I was in Troop 12 for two years.
And he did. The sound of
12 and saw the [inaudible] Pennsylvania.
It's just while we had a little benefit ray.
What? Two years ago?
A guy from Mississippi came.
He's an eagle scout Troop 12 and he caught wind of.
He was here in town visiting family
and state what was he stayed? Extra week or two.
He stayed extra two weeks
just to go to this little dinner
because we invite anybody that was ever associated
with 12. He stuck around.
It's just wild that people that you meet out and about.
That's actually come through with
ours, it was part of Troop 12.
It's extended family.
Y'all are in college and you've got friends and
sororities, it's like that.
You remember for life. [LAUGHTER]
>> That's like me. I started out as a club master chief.
He was one of my chief.
Know what those terms are about.
Anyway, we had kids
that started and the parents came in and said,
what do you want me to do?
Now, those kids have kids in there.
Like you said their parent.
And people will come up to me and say,
are you still in scouts?
Are you still involved?
No, I'm not involved in any anymore.
If you remember when we done
this, whenever we done this.
>> We do.
>> And they will come up
to me and say, do you know who I am?
No. He was a comedian co-scouts.
My son is in Boy Scouts now.
This is the way it goes.
And once it gets into the blood, if you're in.
I have met some of the finest people in
the world and boy scout that they'll have big names.
But they've done so much for boys down to the years.
A lot of have been [inaudible] you
and I have like Edmonson.
He's in his 90s, excellent wood carver.
And then it just gets in your blood
and you trying to help raise kids,
I guess, so to speak.
Itching your glove. It does.
My grandsons are not involved in
scouting but they would
say they don't know how to build a fire.
I'm going to teach them how to
build a fire out my front yard.
They know how to do it.
Do you know how to do that?
I said, I'm going to teach you how to cook in a ditch.
I said we cook a piece of copper out front yard,
if you want to do that, whatever you want to cook.
I'm going to teach them how to do that.
That's what scouts does.
Also, scouting teaches
you how to get along with other people.
Whenever I was at the National [inaudible] in 2005,
I'm a licensed Baptist minister.
There was any denomination that was camped around us.
I had good conversations with the Jewish rabbi,
with a Catholic priest,
with a Methodist minister.
You get to know people from all over the world.
I've got a great friend.
Whenever he's seen,
was it first time I've seen him in boy scouts?
He was dressed in co-scout blue. He was a co-scout.
Now, he's on up the ladder in South Georgia in
the big city of Hay Hire and Valdosta.
He's a great friend of mine.
And he's a page scout.
His two boys may be scout.
But it is in your blood.
You make friends and do associates.
You make friends.
There's a difference between
friends and somebody you just meet up with.
A gentleman came to my house last year,
I met him in 2010 and we spent time
together at the National [inaudible],
and me and him, we both cut up everything.
He's in South Carolina.
I haven't seen him till then.
He called me and said, what are you doing on Friday?
And they came,
we met after Cracker Barrel
had lunch and they came and spent
some time with us and he and
his wife spent time with me and my wife.
And we're going up there to visit him.
You made friends.
It just bonds.
You can't explain it.
I can't explain it but there's something about it that
draws people together. Families together.
>> That's like me. I go to Cracker Barrel
before I get to the store, in the restaurant.
Somebody will say, hi, Ray.
I'll look over there, and I don't know
because when he was
[LAUGHTER] then they grow up. And I don't know.
Didn't they come and say,
I did this if they did something wrong.
I don't think that.
[LAUGHTER] I said, now [inaudible].
But the majority of them they come and I can't go
nowhere without somebody saying, hi, Ray.
That in the post office.
Because I was standing in the line over there at
Cracker Barrel and the man was two behind me.
He said, didn't you work for the post office?
And I said, yes, sir.
He said, that's where I've seen you.
So this day, I wondered how I did it.
But I [inaudible].
And I was in the post office for
the last four or five years,
I've went to clerk trained.
I trained with the clerk for this area.
I was in the post office found Congers.
The wife did not have been there
with him and she done the problem.
I didn't do nothing.
I stood back and listened to him.
Then I said something.
The girl said, hi, Mr. Eels.
[LAUGHTER]
She said you talk to me, I walked away.
Just because I asked her,
I said, how did you recognize me.
She said by your voice.
Some people say I got
a different voice than the regulars.
I don't know whether I do on not.
But it's just isn't the same thing as boy scouts.
If you teach them writing,
they know the rest of their life.
And and to me,
it's a miracle for
such a country place to start
off because when I
came here all those years he was cotton farmers.
Now, you can't see a cotton field unless you go up with.
But it's just amazing how people
stay and know because I'm
87 years old looking at ADA around the corner.
Now, how I got there,
I don't know, but that's all right.
But when I retired from the postal service,
I had hired operations.
I got a cow down in here and I know
how to move a cow back, I can move too.
And they said they give you eight years. [LAUGHTER]
>> Can you give milk?
>> What.
>> Can you give milk? [LAUGHTER]
>> But when I first came here,
my in-laws had cows when they died and they said,
you don't do city shit. You don't know how to milk.
I said, I milk more cows than you see.
And it's just that way here.
And then there's still that way people holla at
what they holla at you because he was in scouts.
And how they, just this stations, like they say.
When I first come here,
you could run down the middle of down Main Street
five minutes and you'd be gone because it was not here.
The only thing was a restaurant was
behind the police station. What was the name of it?
>> Little Rock.
>> Little Rock Cafe.
Now, you can't move out restaurants.
And they got some more coming in.
So what can you do?
>> Have we been doing it?
>> Yeah, I was going to say that was the perfect ending.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Thank you, gentlemen.
>> Now I got to [inaudible]