Speeding

  Some friends and I from school went down to Atlanta to go to Six Flags Over Georgia.  We had a great time.  Riding the rides.  Eating the food.  Just enjoying life.  There were six of us having a respite from all that studying (I didn't do much of that) and taking tests.  Just to say here that I didn't study but just a handful of times.  Usually, I would familiarize myself for a test, but I just didn't study.  Maybe because I had a genius IQ, or maybe because I was lazy, or maybe because I liked fun more than school.  Whatever the reason, I didn't study.  And when I did, I always had music or the TV on.  Distractions were important to me in school.

 Anyway, we were going back to school that night after a long day at Six Flags.  I have to be clear here that I wasn't driving.  The guy that was had his mother's station wagon.  I was asleep in the back seat, when I woke up to a lot of cussing and scared guys.  There was a police car behind us with its lights and siren on.  We were on I-85 in Georgia.  Our driver pulled over to the side of the highway.  The officer walked up to our car.  His belly was hanging over his belt.  He said, "You boys been to Six Flags?".  We said yes.  He then said, "Well, this ain't no roller coaster on this road!".  Then, he asked our driver did he know how fast he was going?  Before he could answer, the officer said "113".  

 First of all, it didn't seem like we were going 113.  In his mother's station wagon?  Secondly, if he was, the car felt like it was going very smoothly, like we were floating down the road.  We thought for sure that he was just going to give our guy a ticket, but no. He told us that he was going to take us to jail.  Okay, we were being arrested for speeding down I-85, even though one guy was driving.  We were all going to be arrested.  He told us to follow him into town to go to jail.  

 Those of us not driving asked for leniency.  How were we going to explain being arrested to our parents?  We would probably be kicked out of school.  We would have an arrest on our record.  This would kill any hope of getting a good job upon graduation or furthering our education.  The deputy then asked us how much money we had?  We pooled what we had, which came to about $130.  He took our money and told us to slow down.  So, we weren't arrested after all, but we did learn the concept of "highway robbery".  There was no way, though, that we were going to protest to him about taking all of our money.  We would have been in a heap of trouble.  Sometimes, silence is the best thing to do in a situation like that.  I hope he enjoyed taking his wife out to a nice restaurant or buying that new fishing lure.

John

  My brother is named John Kemp Durst IV, but he would rather be known as John Durst, Jr.  I know that might seem confusing, but he was named for my father.  John was born on December 10, 1945 in Atlanta, GA.  He was my parents' first-born.  Between 1945 and 1953, he was their only child.  My parents decided they wanted to have another child.  They tried, but my mother had a miscarriage.  It would have been a girl.  My brother was adamant that their next child could not be a girl.  He said that if it was, that he would run away from home.  Thankfully, their next child was a boy (me), so John stayed home.  He was very proud of me and even took me to his class for show and tell.  He said he won first prize.  I was a cute baby.

 Because there was an age difference between us, we lived separate lives.  About the only time we were together growing up was on vacations or at suppertime.  We liked to say our parents had two only children.  When we were in New Orleans, he had braces.  My mother would put him on a bus to ride across town to his orthodontist.  One day, his doctor wanted to talk with mother, so they rode together on the bus.  She didn't know that the bus went through the French Quarter, and John was seeing the strip joints.  After that ride, John changed orthodontists.

 When we moved to Columbia, John was in junior high, and I was in kindergarten.  He was in the first full class at A. C. Flora High School and graduated in 1963.  He went on to Furman University and majored in Political Science.  He graduated in 1967.  He worked for a while and then decided to go to Law School at the University of South Carolina, but he left school to work in politics.  He wrote speeches for Senator Fritz Hollings and Governor John West.  He moved to Atlanta and worked at a bank there.  He came back to Columbia to work at a public relations firm, and ran some political campaigns. Through his contacts, he was instrumental in getting several countries to train in SC ahead of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  Governor Hodges offered him the job as the Director for Parks, Recreation and Tourism for the State of South Carolina.  He was reluctant to take the job, as it would have been less money, but I told him that he could play golf for free anywhere in South Carolina.  John is an avid golfer.  He took the job and had to convince tourists to come to South Carolina after 9/11.  He also worked with the Premier of Queensland in Australia to get koalas for Riverbanks Zoo.  He later became the President of the Hotel and Restaurant Association in Columbia, as a lobbyist to the SC Legislature.

 John is now retired.  He lives in Columbia with his wife Martha. I am very proud to have him as my brother.  Despite our age-difference, it is amazing how much we have in common.  DNA keeps us together. And, never call him "Johnny"!

 

Mother

  My mother was born on January 2, 1915, in Anniston, AL.  Her name was Mary Frances Merrill.  Her mother was a schoolteacher, and her father was a lawyer and judge.  She had four brothers and one sister.  As a child, one of her jobs was to make sure their cow wouldn't wander off.  The cow had a habit of chewing through the rope that kept her near the house.  Mother would often have to find the cow.  Her father became the circuit judge for Cleburne County in Alabama, so they moved to Heflin, which is where she grew up.  As a teenager, she contracted rheumatic fever and almost died.  Her mother homeschooled her for a while.  She graduated from high school a year or two early and went to Alabama College in Montevallo.  She majored in English and loved to write.

 In 1936, she was called to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  She majored in Religious Education.  She wanted to be a librarian, but she met my father there, and they got married in 1937 in Heflin.  As they were serving at a church in Houston, TX, she entered a statewide poetry contest and got first place.  First prize was a book of poetry that was written by the judge of the contest.  She was the dutiful minister's wife, as my father was called to several churches.  In Atlanta, my brother was born in 1945.

 They moved to New Orleans, where I was born in 1953. I was named for her father, although one of her brothers laid claim to my being named for him, too.  One of my earliest memories of her and me was when I got lost in the grocery store.  I had gone to look at something, and when she turned around, I wasn't with her.  Panic set in for both of us.  A clerk found me and brought me back to her.  After that experience, I had to hold onto the hem of her dress or be in the grocery cart.  During that time in New Orleans, she was able to work part-time in the seminary's library.  

 When we moved to Columbia, we were renting a house while looking for a permanent one.  Her desire was that the house had to have a nice kitchen.  We looked at several houses, until we saw one on Belmont Drive.  She saw the kitchen and told Daddy that this was the one.  It was.  Since Daddy was gone a lot with his work, Mother was the one who raised us.  She loved music, especially Broadway showtunes.  At dinner, there would be music playing in the background from "My Fair Lady", "Camelot", "The King and I" or "South Pacific".  She heard a group called The Beatles on a TV show, and suggested I watch The Ed Sullivan Show to see them.  I was zapped through the TV screen thanks to her.

 She also loved to read.  Mainly mysteries and spy thrillers.  She was also in a Book Club of ladies who compared books they had read.  One of the kind of books she loved was the James Bond series.  She also loved movies.  One of the earliest movies she took me to was "Shane".  I also saw "Bambi".  Two incredibly sad movies.  When I became old enough, she took me to see my first James Bond movie, which was "Goldfinger".  I didn't understand some of the references, but I really like the action.  I was zapped through the screen at those films, too.  We saw every Bond film together, with the last one being "Live and Let Die" in 1973.

 She also loved to write.  Besides the poetry, she loved to write inspirational stories.  She had a strong faith in God which was in her writing.  She wrote devotionals for the Southern Baptist Convention, and later teaching suggestions for Sunday School teachers in the Convention.  She also taught Sunday School in our church to college girls.  After church each Sunday, we would go out to eat at a cafeteria.  We would put our Bibles in the car but not lock the doors.  She would say that if anyone would steal our Bibles, then they really needed them.  Mother had learned to drive, when we got to Columbia, since Daddy was out of town a lot.  

 Later in life, Mother developed macular degeneration.  She had ignored the warning signs, until it was too late to fix.  She could no longer read or write.  Also, during this time, she developed depression.  We didn't know it until much later, but she did.  Her joys had been taken away.  I would read to her.  She loved me to read funny things from books or the comics.  In 1991, she had a massive stroke.  She was able to get back to some walking and speaking through rehab, but she was never the same.  She mumbled a lot, but I could understand her and translate it to Daddy.  Eventually, they moved to a nursing home in Laurens, SC.  After Daddy died in 1999, the depression had gotten worse.  By 2003, she had stopped eating and wanted to die.  Her nurses would call us and ask us what to do, and we told them to force-feed her.  It was getting worse in 2004.  My brother and I realized that she wanted to go to be with her family in Heaven, so we told the nurses not to force food on her anymore.  Mother died on July 8, 2004 and was buried next to my father in Greenwood, SC.  She had wanted to be buried in Heflin next to her parents, but it was just too expensive to do that, so she relented in her last days to be buried in Greenwood.

 In 2013, my brother and I dedicated a memorial gravestone in the cemetery in Heflin for Mother.  It sits between the graves of her father and mother, and says that she is buried in Greenwood, SC.  She would have loved that gesture.  She was an amazing woman.  She inspired many people to do good.  She was very creative, which she passed on to me.  She taught me to be strong but kind to others.  She was my friend, my guide and my teacher.  She loved to laugh.  She was taught by her parents never to cry, because it was a sign of weakness.  I only saw her cry twice.  Once when Daddy died, and once when her favorite brother died.  She cried a lot inside, but she always had a smile on her face.  She never complained.  She lives on in my heart.

Daddy

  My father was born on July 21, 1911 in Greenwood, SC. His name was John Kemp Durst III.  He was the youngest of four sons.  His father died, when he was 13.  His mother was a schoolteacher and never remarried.  His mother was very strict, but she paid for three out of four sons to attend college.  They all went to Clemson.

 Daddy majored in Architecture, which came in handy later in life.  He was called into the ministry while at Clemson, but he taught school in Greenville after graduation to save some money to go to seminary.  In 1934, he set out for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX by train.  The train went through Arcadia, LA, where he saw the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde laid out in front of a funeral home.  Daddy majored in Religious Education and graduated with a master's degree from seminary.  He also met my mother there, as she was also in the education program.  They were married on May 25, 1937 in Heflin, AL, where she was from.

 He worked in churches in Spartanburg SC, Houston TX, Atlanta GA, Asheville NC and Richmond VA.  He was the first full-time paid Minister of Education in a local church in the Southern Baptist Convention.  He then became an Associate Professor of Religious Education at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and got his doctorate in Religious Education from Southwestern in 1956. He was very proud to have an earned doctor's degree than an honorary one, like a lot of people did.

 In 1958, he became the director of the Sunday School Department for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.  He was also their Church Architecture Consultant, using what he learned in college.  He stayed in that position until his retirement in 1976.  

 As I was growing up in that environment, I knew my father as Daddy.  I also knew he had a lot of friends who were big in the ministry, but I just knew them as his friends.  When we would go on vacation, the trips were usually centered around his work.  We spent two weeks every summer in the mountains of NC at Ridgecrest, while he was leading Sunday School conferences.  We spent a couple of weeks in NM at Glorieta, which was just outside Santa Fe.  He led conferences there.  We would go to the Southern Baptist Convention in places like Houston, Atlantic City and Philadelphia.  He was there for work.  We were there on vacation.  He would try and expand our trips to see the sites.  One of those trips took us to California by way of the Old West.  We were supposed to meet up with Roy Rogers in California.  He was one of my father's friends.  That didn't work out, but we did get to go to Disneyland.

 Daddy was away a lot with his work.  He did Sunday School campaigns in Alaska, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Hong Kong and Macao.  He used to say that travel broadens one.  During that time, Mother raised us more than Daddy did.  If he was home, he would sit in his chair to watch TV and fall asleep.  He would never talk about his work.  He was very humble and very strict.  My brother and I had to play cards under a sheet with a flashlight at night.  When I was 16, I talked back to Daddy, and he slapped me across the face.  Spanking was a regular occurrence growing up.  

 It wasn't until about two years before he died that I made him tell me about his work.  I knew a lot of it already, but I didn't know about all of the stuff I took for granted.  Things like his work in developing a curriculum for Sunday School teachers from Children through Adults.  His working with Education Ministers around the state to create opportunities for witnessing to others.  His reputation in the country and around the world in Religious Education.  He was the humblest man I ever knew.  He never did his work for the fame.  He did it for God's glory.  Daddy died on September 28, 1999 in Laurens, SC.  His heart gave out on him.  In many ways, his influence has carried on beyond his death.  I have a growing respect for him, and his humbleness has been transferred to me.  Osmosis is a bizarre thing.  I am grateful to have had a father who taught me to be humble.

 

Fame

  One of my goals in Life was to be famous.  I grew up in a world of TV and movies.  I loved both as far back as I can remember.  My parents used the TV as a babysitter.  I watched everything.  I wanted that for me, too.  I wanted people to adore me as much as those people on the screen.  I started reading, when I was 3.  It was in the great literature called the newspaper comics.  By the age of 5, I was writing.  I wrote a TV commercial for OK Cereal starring Yogi Bear.  I sent into the advertising people, and they told me to come back in 18 years.  By then, OK Cereal was no more.  In the 4th grade, I wrote a song called "People".  A few months later, Herman's Hermits had a song called "Listen People".  It was remarkably like my song, but I didn't know anything about copyrighting at that time.  I knew I was creative, and I knew that was a step to being famous.

 By the time I got to junior high, my peers started calling me a loser.  They said I wouldn't amount to anything.  Even my high school guidance counselor told me that.  I started to believe them.  I had successes in high school Speech tournaments, but I wasn't famous.  I did find from that experience that I also had a talent for being someone else, which brought me to acting.  I didn't have to be me anymore.  I could escape into a character on the stage.  I got applause for my work.  People told me I was good.  In some circles, I had achieved fame.  But, I wanted everyone to know my name.

 I got roles in movies and on television.  I did commercials, too.  Some people would recognize me on the street, which was flattering, but I still wasn't famous.  At least, not in my mind.  I also had success in retail.  I sold more stuff than anybody in several departments.  I got a lot of awards, but I didn't see myself as famous.  

 Then one day, I realized something in talking to an actress friend from California.  She was famous.  People knew her from her name and her face.  She had loads of money from her work, but she told me something that struck me.  She wanted privacy.  Sure, she wanted to work and support her family, but she also wanted to go to the grocery store without being hounded by fans.  She wanted a life.  I told her that fame is put on you by others.  You are not famous by yourself.  Others put that moniker on you.  It is still good to work at your craft, but you are you.  No one can take that away from you.  

 For most people, fame is something one might have right now, but maybe not when History is written.  I appreciate people telling me how talented I am.  I may have attained fame in some circles.  However, it is no longer important for me to be famous.  I am me.  The rest is gravy.