Since leaving Oak Ridge in 1964, I have lived in several places around the country. Â Invariably, when you are new in a community, meeting new people they ask you where you grew up. Â I tell them I grew up in Camelot.
'Camelot?' Â They ask.
Yes Camelot!'
As you reminisce with old friends this evening and tomorrow, I hope each of you will spend some time reflecting critically on this special town where we grew from children to teenagers and spent our high school years.
Oak Ridge, Tennessee was a place unique in the world. Â We were a city born of war, enclosed behind a barbed -wire fence, where everyone had a job. Â There was no unemployment and virtually no crime.
Due to the nature of the work being done here, we had the highest PhD population per capita in the world. Â We moved among smart people and their smart families.
Our original homes were, in most cases, meted out primarily on the basis of the size of our families, not on the basis of our economic status. Â Whether you lived in a flattop or an 'F' house you were judged not on the construct of your dwelling, but on the nature of your character. Â
Our schools were new, equipped with the latest furnishings and technology of that time. Â Our teachers were bright and talented and the most highly paid in the South.
The Oak Ridge Playhouse and the Children's Theatre provided us the opportunity to experience live theatrical productions and the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra regaled us with the music of the masters. Â We had a ballet troupe and a public library filled with thousands of volumes.
These were creative and cultural entities unheard of in most cities our size.
We blossomed into our teens in an age of innocence. Â The early 50's gave us a world essentially without conflict, where our most dreaded drugs were nicotine and alcohol. Â Children could walk the streets or ride our free buses at any time of the day or night without fear.
We rode our bicycles everywhere. Â And whether it was to spend the day at one of the many fully supervised play grounds sprinkled throughout the city or to one of our four movie theatres, we left those bikes untethered while we played or watched and they were always there when we returned.
We actually ate wholesome lunches in a full service school cafeteria. Â We hiked to G Road and explored caves and swam in muddy streams. Â We caught lightning bugs and put them in jars to sell to ORNL for an undefined research project. Â We had paper routes.
We spent summers at Big Ridge State Park, played touch football in the streets of our neighborhoods, supported our athletic teams at home and at other sports venue3s throughout the southeast. Â We babysat for thirty-five cents an hour. Â Our windows and doors were seldom locked.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was President. Â Television was just being introduced into East Tennessee and I Love Lucy was the premiere offering of the time. Â Grace Kelly became Princess Grace and Gunsmoke aired its first episode. Â It was an age of innocence.
We piled into car trunks and slipped into movies at the Skyway Drive-In. Â We swam in the largest swimming pool in the south that featured the highest diving board any of us had ever seen. Â Remember the first time you had the courage to jump from that lofty perch? Â It was magical!
We drove endless circles around Snow-White Drive-In on the weekends to see who was there, and to be seen. Â We also ate a rat burger or two.
Our class of 1956 entered an almost new building in the fall of 1952. Â It was a building that was one of five in the nation that year to receive the award of merit for architecture from the American Institute of Architects and American Association of School Administrators.
Jim DeSonne and Hal Vayhinger made sure we behaved. Gil Scarborough taught us to make music and Bill llewis gave us our acting wings. Stansberry and Turner honed our writing skills and introduced us to Beowulf and Keats and Browning
Masal Turner, Olin Bryant Ripley, Jr., Ruth Benson and Eloise Dempsey led us through algebra, geometry, trig and calculus while Angie Perry presided over the dissection of frogs. Lone Sisk introduced us to the world of politics and gave us an appreciation for what was going on in the rest of the world.
Each of us had our favorite and our least favorite teachers, and I'll bet some of those names are running through your head right now. Don't forget the impact they had on your life.
Who can forget Margaret Barnes, sometimes referred to as 'Mamma'. She was an indelible character in our formative years.
We deposited a stuffed moose head on Mr. Dunnigan's front porch in the middle of the night and interrupted an assembly with the shrill bark of cap guns and shouts of 'Free Puerto Rico', mocking a real life incident in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Speaking of Mr. Dunnigan, he removed me from the stage one day in the middle of an assembly for telling off-color jokes. Jokes that are considered appropriate for nine year olds today.
Ethel Howell taught us to dance. And dance we did. From the Shriners Club in Gamble Valley, to the Edgewood Steak House, to the Wildcat Den to the school cafeteria, to the Penguin, Swankette and Sub-Deb functions, wherever they were held. We danced to the emerging and sometimes controversial sounds of rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Our favorite local band was that of Willie Gibbs which gave us 'In the Hills of West Virginia,' including the unforgettable refrain, 'the object of my affection changed my complexion from brown to mellow tan'.
Rock around the Clock, Money Honey, Shake Rattle and Roll, Ain't That a Shame, Sha Boom and Sixteen Tons, filled our collection of 45-RPM records that we bought at the Music Box in Jackson Square.
Our basketball team in 1956 had a starting five with only one player over six feet tall. They finished with a record of ten and eleven losing three games by one point and seven games by two points. Ben Martin was their coach.
Jack Armstrong and Don Bordinger led our football team to a record of nine and one in the 1955 season. Five opponents were held to a touchdown apiece, three didn't score, and one Nashville Litton drubbed us by a score of 33 to 13. We were all stunned. Nobody could be that good, we thought.
Our class was the first high school senior class in the South to integrate the races following the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. Our fellow students from the Scarborough school joined our ranks in the fall of 1955. This melding was achieved virtually without incident, a singular accomplishment in the South of that time.
There will never be times like those again. In many ways, growing up in Oak Ridge and going to Oak Ridge High School shaped who we are, what we believe, and how we act, and what we value more than any other single influence in our lives.
Think about those times tonight. Savor them. Don't ever forget them or give them short shrift in your scrapbook of memories.
Most important of all, tell your children and grandchildren about what you experienced here, if you haven't already.
Tell them about this place and how it shaped who you are today. Better yet, write about your fondest memories or make a video or audiotape of them, so others may know of your distinctive experiences in this place disparate from all others.
And maybe, just maybe, the next time someone asks you where you grew up, you might say------'I grew up in Camelot.'
Permission given by Michael Mount to Jim Campbell Web Administrator for printing his speech on our website
