Mike Haynes, a high school classmate who had a long career in movies and television, called a while back to chat. He lives in Washington state, and we had not talked in months.
While we were catching up, my phone beeped with a call from Panama City, Fla. It was Thomas Byrd. He graduated with us in 1957, and it was the first time I had heard from him since then.
That coincidence of being contacted by two boyhood friends from opposite ends of the country within a few minutes generated a lot of reminiscing.
Haynes gained national attention as the Winchester Man for his billboards and media commercials promoting those little cigars. That led to a career in films and television.
He became a movie and TV stunt man and was elected president of the International Stunt Association. He worked with stars like Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles and Tom Hanks.
I did a column on him a couple of years ago. This time, though, we just talked about growing up in Springhill. Mike said the town in the 1950s was like a Norman Rockwell painting.
He kicked the extra point on a stormy Thanksgiving to give Springhill a 7-6 win over arch-rival Minden and says more friends from back home talk to him about that than his Hollywood days.
Mike and I have talked often about going to rodeos growing up, fishing in the mill ponds, playing snooker at the pool hall on Main Street, cherry phosphate sodas at Tennyson’s Drug Store and sock hops at the recreation center.
This time, one of us remembered our Boy Scout meetings. We would go to Camp Yatasi on Caney Lake an hour or so away for summer retreats. There was camping, swimming, archery, canoeing and other activities on those overnight adventures.
Both Mike and I still have vivid memories of leaving meetings at our “scout hut” in Springhill and meandering through the woods to a hobo camp near the railroad tracks.
We hid behind trees and watched men heat beans in cans over open fires, wash clothes in a little stream and hang them on tree limbs and bushes to dry.
Some of them jumped on boxcars and disappeared inside them as trains were just starting to pick up speed from the nearby depot.
All of this was fascinating and exciting to us, probably because our parents had told us so many times not to go near the hobo village.
Thomas Byrd had read one of my columns in the Springhill Press and called there to get my number. He still subscribes to the paper even after being away for six decades.
His home was destroyed last year by Hurricane Michael, but he should be back in it soon. If there is a silver lining to that tragedy, it is that his temporary housing is right on the beach.
We have a lot in common. Both of our dads had worked at the paper mill in Bastrop but moved to jobs at the new mill in Springhill. Mike was not a mill kid. His dad owned businesses in town.
Thomas and I were born just days apart. We were both delivered in our homes on Second Street in Pinehill, the mill village under the shadows and smoke of the paper-making plant. Dr. Rupert Butler delivered us.
The Byrd family was doing pretty well in those tight financial times, because both Thomas’s mother and dad worked at the mill.
They moved when he was little to a bigger house uptown in Springhill across from the school. My folks and I later upgraded from our two bedroom house on Second Street to a three bedroom house on Third Street.
Thomas was tall and wiry, and Coach Buddy Bonnette recruited him for the basketball team. He was good and made All-State. It was Coach Bonnette who hired me to work summers at the swimming pool.
The Cuban Missile Crisis exploded when Thomas and I were starting our careers. We both expected to be drafted. He was called up, and the draft board never contacted me. Thomas is retired after 46 years in the paper mill industry.
Those conversations with Mike and Thomas made me realize that boyhood bonds and the connections between classmates are strong and last through time even without much communication.
Visiting on the phone that day brought back memories of all those images Norman Rockwell could have painted.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES