Interview with Bennie Tillman, Sr., July 12, 2013

Laura Duvacat: This is the First Person Project, interview number 18. I am Laura Duvacat.

Renee Donnell: And Renee Donnell.

Duvacat: And today we are talking with Bennie Tillman. We are in the Bob Short Oral History Studio inside the Richard B. Russell Library's Wilson Oral History and Media Gallery at the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries here in Athens, Georgia. Today's date is Friday, July 12, 2013. Mr. Tillman, can you start by telling us when and where you were born?

Bennie Tillman: Yeah, I was born in Athens, Georgia. I was born in 1915, 900 West Hampton Extension, Athens, Georgia.

Donnell: So, were you born in a house or you were born at a hospital?

Tillman: Born in a house.

Duvacat: How big was your family? How many siblings did you have?

Tillman: Nine of us. I had six brothers and three sisters.

Duvacat: Were they all born at home?

Tillman: All born there.

Donnell: Wow.

Duvacat: What 00:01:00did your parents do?

Tillman: They worked for my parents, but mostly washing iron. She didn't have time to work too much because she had to stay at home and look after us. And that was about the extent of it, until we got up, you know, where we could kind of help ourselves.

Donnell: Mm-hmm.

Tillman: Mm-hmm. I'd say it was nine of us, so when both parents left home, the oldest brother or sister was in charge of the rest of the family until they got back, and they didn't like it too much when I was left there. They called me "Papa Lightning" most of the time.

Duvacat: Were you the oldest?

Tillman: No. I had two brothers. Three brothers, and one sister older than I.

Donnell: Oh, wow.

Duvacat: So you 00:02:00were the--

Donnell: Middle child?

Duvacat: Middle, middle, right in the middle.

Tillman: Big part?

Duvacat: You were in the middle then?

Tillman: Yes, well, you could call it that.

Donnell: Backtracking a little bit, how many generations of your family before you lived in Athens? Just your parents or your grandparents, or?

Tillman: When I knew anything, I was in Athens. I was born in Athens. My parents were already here. My mother, I think she said she came from Jasper County. My dad was a slave, and he stayed near Jasper County somewhere. But when I knew my parents, I was staying in Athens, and I never did go back to their home, nothing like that.

Donnell: Okay. You said that your dad was a slave?

Tillman: Yes, ma'am.

Donnell: Oh, wow.

Tillman: He used to tell us how he was treated. And I used to say, "I wish I had it better now." 00:03:00I said, "Shoot, they'd have did me the same way they did him." But my daddy told me one night, we was just sitting and talking. He said, "Ain't nothing I ain't got time being beat on." And he bought him a pistol. One of those little two-bar guns. And he said the man came in, the boss man came in that morning, told him he was with a whip, and told him to get up. He told him, he said, "Now if you want to go back out that door like you come in here, you better go on back now." He said, when he got closer to him, he pulled up this one, threw it on him. He said, "They can't let me." Okay. Oh yeah, and I got tired of being beat on. And he-- gonna defend himself one way or the other.

Donnell: Okay.

Tillman: I can't tell y'all nothing, but he didn't tell me 'cause I wasn't there.

Duvacat: That's cool. Did 00:04:00you, um, did you go to school here in Athens?

Tillman: Yeah, I went to school. I didn't go to school too long. I stopped school about eighth grade and went to work. My parents had got old, and I felt like we needed somebody to help me with the rest of the family. So I went to work. I used to work for, I used to do, well I worked, did, used to work for a contractor, JK Davis.

Duvacat: Where was that located?

Tillman: It was located here in Athens.

Duvacat: Do you remember where?

Tillman: Beg your pardon, no, I don't know exactly where that was, but it was off of Wilcox. We'd just work in different places, wherever we had a job. That's where we would go and work, even contract building houses. We'd wait on a brickmason, you know, take a mud and brick whenever they needed. And they didn't have, it wasn't as convenient 00:05:00then as it is now. The only thing when we lacked, we had to take mud or bricks up on the scaffold. That's all I remember. We had buckets you could pull the mud up in, but you didn't have no way to get the brick up there. You had to pile them. And you had to put them bricks on the pile and throw them to the guy who was standing on the scaffold up where they were working at. And I used to have a little farm there because the guy didn't want to work down on the ground. And he had to catch the brick because I'd throw it straight at him, and straight at him, and I could throw it. He said, "Don't throw 'em so hard." I said, "Well, I got to throw it hard enough to get it up there." So, that's the way we worked it out. Well, it ain't a lot of fun working like that, but when I got about grown, I called myself grown anyway, I decided, I said, and I thought about that type of work. 00:06:00It was all of us outdoors. I said, now, if I ever marry her I'd have to get a house or something. I said, "If it rains, I won't have nowhere to work." So I started figuring out something else I could do. So my daddy was working for the university at the time. He used to pick up paper. He had a sack on his back like he was picking cotton. And he'd go all over campus with a stick, picking up paper. And the guy he was working for, they had him on camp. A university called Camp Wilkins, and they had 150 students stayed there, and they needed a part-time. And the guy asked me if I would like to take the job, told me I'd take it. So I started working. I worked at Camp Wilkins from 1936 to 1940, and the Navy came. I wanted a raise, and the lady wouldn't give me no raise, and I quit. 00:07:00I went on to where the Navy was. Over at Snelling Hall, Snelling Hall was down there. I worked in that building, and asked if I needed any more help, and they said, "Yeah." I said, "When do you want me to come to work?" They said, "Be over here Monday morning." I went. And I had a lot of fun about that afterward. I always had to buy the bread every morning. The bread man came by. The bread man came by the Navy, and he had to go to Camp Wilkins to leave bread there, and I always come by to the camp. And so the rest of the guys that was sitting there, they asked him, "Y'all waiting on Ben?" He said, "Yeah." He said, "Ben, I got a white cap and a white coat over at the Navy." So them guys got up and went to work there. But when they saw me, they blessed me out. But it was fun being away, but that's the way it was, so I went there about three years. 00:08:00I worked from '36 to '40. And it wasn't paying but a dollar a day. And from 7 o'clock in the morning, no, I had to go to work at 5:30 in the morning, make a fire. They had what we called a coal one, cook stove, cook stove, and I had to clean that stove out every morning. And if I didn't clean it out, around about 1, 1 or 2. Clunk, that thing would blow, but the pipe was stopped up and it would backfire. And all that soot would come back in there, in the building. They didn't have to ask me whether I'd clean it out or not, because they'd know if I'd clean it out, it wouldn't backfire. So, and that's what the type of stove that we cooked on. But when I started working in there, I started working in what they called a pot washer. They washed all 00:09:00the pots,and they called that the second cook. And I washed pots to where the cook got mad and he quit. And when he quit, then I had to do both of them. I had to help the dietician and do the main cooking and all that stuff with the help that we had there. And that's when I got tired of working for the same thing and wanted a raise. They didn't want to give me a dollar's raise, so I just quit and started waiting for the Navy. I worked for the Navy from '40 to '45. They closed down. And after I left there, I started working at the Athens Ridge, and I worked there about four or five years. And I ended up at St. Mary's Hospital. I worked for them, I think, from 1950. I retired from them in 1985. 00:10:00And I haven't worked since '85.

Donnell: What did you do for St. Mary's Hospital?

Tillman: I cooked for them.

Donnell: Okay.

Tillman: I had to cook. That was a tough job. When I first there, see, they was trying to integrate everything. And they hadn't finished that St. Mary's. Put my window all that way. I had to fix one meat for the white folks, and one meat for the Black folks. I told the Black folks, I said, "Now, if the white folks ask you for some of this, tell them you can't have it, that's for the health." And I didn't make it no different, I made water for everybody, but, you know, it's good as hell. And finally, I said, "Now, if any white come by here and ask for this, you tell them you can't have it, that's for the health." And they did that, and finally they got tired of it. And I did, too. And they told us, "Now, whatever's out there on that steam table, you want, you go ahead and get it." But the way it started, this sounds stupid, 00:11:00funny, the dietitian told me that if the HIP wanted bacon and toast and jelly, if they wanted jelly and toast, they could have that. If they wanted toast and bacon, they could have that, but they couldn't have the jelly. Black folks had jelly and pork meat from time out into the world up until now. Because we used to raise hogs. We used to pick Blackberries, plums, you name it, we did it. And so they got that part of it straightened out. You could go to the same table and shoot, you could eat anything you wanted to. But that was, it was kind of worrisome to me at first. Because, see, when I left the university you could eat whatever they had there to eat. Let me tell you what happened when I was working with the university. I used to do the pastry, most of the pastry work. 00:12:00And we had, every Friday, they had fish. They wanted lemon pie. And they bought the filling in a case. And you'd have to make, add liquid to it. And that stuff gave out, and I told the doctor--it was out. She said, "All right," but she didn't buy none. So I went home at night, and I had to wake up and make about thirty-five pounds. I got everything right in it but the corn stalks. You know, it didn't sit. It didn't have time to start over. So I sit the pan out there on the table. I ain't gonna tell you about that 'cause I guess maybe I'm a little petty. There's a pan out there, a saucer out there, and a spoon, and boy, it wasn't nothing, whatever, but boy, men, we called 'em. They came out there and got 'em and walked around and ate 'em. What made me 00:13:00feel good, they walked around and ate it, said, "Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, good lemon soup." (laughter) They ate that stuff, and it made me feel good 'cause I didn't have time to start all over, and I got a spoon, too. I had to make 'em every Friday, but when that feeling gave up, shoot, I had to go away. And after I got away, now, shoot, I didn't have no more soul out of it. But I used to love to try to cook. I did that from '36. Well, I washed pot 'til the cook left. When the cook left, that's when I took over. But I used to love to wash, I used to love to cook. But the Navy, when they left, they recommended me to go out there and raise it. And I worked out there about five, between four and five years. And we used to have, they used to order 00:14:00half a cow, the old cow wasn't too big, and we had to cut it up. And so the dietician and I would be out back there cutting it, beat it up. You'd think two Black folks would be back there, we'd be climbing up. And a guy told me one day, he said, "Tillman." I said, "Yeah." He said, "You better quit on 'em with that one later." He said, "You get mad when they hit you with that knife, they ain't gonna do nothing but sew you up and send you with me." I said, "If I find me another job, I'm gonna leave you." So they needed a cook over at St. Marys. And wife had worked over there though. And I asked him about it, and he said, "Yeah, come on," said, "because I want to take my vacation." They said, "I can't take vacation instead of get somebody in my place." So I went over there and started working with them, and that's where I retired, St. Mary. In 1985, about seventy years 00:15:00 old.

Donnell: You mentioned that you were married. How old were you when you met her?

Tillman: About twenty-one or two when I met her. We stayed married like in about 2 months, being married sixty years. We didn't have any children, but we adopted one. I got a son that work over at Snelling Hall, where I used to work. He, uh, I think he works in this room somewhere. Anyway, he works there in the same building. So, that was it. So, I retired in '85. I felt like I could've worked about five more years. But, of course, I didn't hardly know my own strength at that time. I really didn't. I didn't. Anything I had to do, sure, I'd do it. It wouldn't be law doing it. But, I got old now, so you can't 00:16:00stand up. Can't stand up. But. I'm thankful that everything's the way that it is, or it could be a whole lot worse.

Duvacat: You said that people raised hogs. Did you have hogs or grow any of your own food?

Tillman: Do I have what?

Duvacat: Did you grow any of your own food or have hogs or chickens? Did you have a yard?

Tillman: Yeah, when I stayed on Rock Springs, that was right after we married. But if you don't know where high school--Athens High practice field, well in the upper corner up there where that goal post is, there's a house sitting in there and that's where I stayed. We moved from what the place is called Linnentown, moved over there and I bought about maybe a hundred chickens. But working 00:17:00at Camp Wilton, they had poultry at the university. And they had what they called second chickens when they'd hatch them out. And they would give them away. And the guy asked me, "Did I want any of them?" I told him, "Yes. Anytime you have some, bring 'em." So he would bring them to him, and I built me four coops off the ground and put them chickens in there and raised them. And we would settle when he got big enough, we'd settle for a dollar apiece. And my wife, I'd be gone away, she'd say, on Sunday morning, she couldn't hardly get ready to go to church before coming up there buying cigarettes. I said, "Well, if we ever get rid of these, I don't buy 'em no more." But we had a lot of fun up there. And the place, I had a garden. And I planted my garden, had corn, peas, beans, you name it. And I got a guy to fix me a row, raising--'cause I didn't know nothing 00:18:00about raising a watermelon. And he fixed me a bed for the watermelon, and I gave everybody in the community watermelons that year. And next year, I had some out there to shoot, and boys, I had, well, Rainer didn't know I had them out there the first year, and in the front I had corn up there, and they couldn't see in the back of the garden. The next year, I put some out there, and they found out out there to shoot every time I go out there. And them bees done bust them watermelons, so I just quit fooling with them. There was no need for me doing that, and they was gonna, you know, do like they did about it. But, I had fun doing it when I was doing it, but it always ended everything. I used to love to play golf. I wanted to play golf and tuna one day, you know. My wife didn't want me to play, she was about under the weather. And I played anyway, I played that Saturday. 00:19:00And she called the pastor's wife and told him, let's pray for the rain, but it can't play tomorrow. We went out there that Sunday morning, we were over here in the pasture. Went out there this Sunday morning, we played, started on the back side. Played number ten and number eleven, and started number twelve, and it started raining. I lost my club going to tweleve, I had to turn around and go back and get them. So when we got down to the lake, they got a big old lake down there. Everybody hit the ball across the lake and it started raining. There's a little shed up on the side of the hill. So we went up there and sit in that shed. Shed started raining, it started raining, they sound a gun, closed the course down, because we couldn't play. And we left our balls on the green, and when it started raining, you could just could see the top of them balls. So we went to the clubhouse, and that settled it. And when I got home, my 00:20:00wife came and opened the door, and I spoke to her. She spoke. She went in the bedroom, sat down, had a chair right inside the door, sat down, her head went back and walled her. I thought one of them dead, tell you the truth. And I called 9-1-1, they came out there. Worked with them guys, kind of straightened out. She was diabetic, she had no old medicator to send. And they asked her, did you want to go in the ambulance, or do you want me to bring her? She said, I'll get ready and I'll have her carried to the hospital. So, that's what I'm talking about. But they never did get that thing straightened out. But she lived a pretty good while afterward, but she just took too much medicine. Mind wasn't too good at the time. And she'd take medicine when she wasn't supposed to be taking it. And it kind of messed her up. But I used to love to play golf. Every Saturday morning, 00:21:00if they didn't have nothing special to do. And another guy named Marvin Billings, he was a schoolteacher. He didn't have nothing to do, we stayed on guard, of course, about all day. All day walk, I mean, we didn't ride, we walked. And I was just acting like that. I thought I was stronger than anybody else, that's the way I felt. I wasn't no better off than nobody else, but that's just the way I felt, man. I'd play golf now, but stand up, I can't stand up. Can't stand up, but stood up, shoot up. I couldn't swing, so I had to give it up. About two or three sets of clubs sitting around there. My goddaughter saw one bag sitting there the other day, talking about she's going to come over there and get them, take them out to the flea market and sell them. I said, "I don't know whether I want to get rid of them or not." They're just sitting there. 00:22:00But I used to love to play golf. They had a tournament out there the last of June. And one guy that used to play with me, came by the house and got me. Came out there and we got on a cart and roll right on part of the coat. I don't wanna get over it. (laughs) I wanna get on hit a ball so bad, I know what to do, but I can't stand up. And we don't need me getting up there and falling. But we roll around one guy from Florida. I hadn't seen him in quite a while. We rolled out until we found him. Went on back to the clubhouse. We sat down up there and they gave me dinner. Sit up there a while and I went on back to the house. But I used to love to play. I got several trophies at the house that I won when I was playing golf.

Donnell: That's really cool.

Duvacat: We also wanted to ask you about the house that you live in.

Tillman: The house we live in?

Duvacat: Now, yes. 00:23:00Tillman: I said I made a vow when I said when I get married, I didn't want to stay with my people, none of my wife's folks. But I stayed with my wife's people for nine months long, I intended to. But in those nine months, I ain't bought a lot. We moved in '46, I believe it was. We started trying to build a house, I bought a lot to build a house. And the guy who was gonna build a house, he said he had caught up with all this work. And he gonna stay there until the guy in the way we're gonna move with it and then know whether he's finished it or not. And so we got about floor level with the foundation. I went down there one day, he told me, still inside here. Said, I'm gonna have to leave you. Said, a guy want me to put a foundation around there on the street right now. But anyway, for them, and then 00:24:00I come back, I said, well, if that's what you're gonna do, we just call it a day. He said, who gonna build your house then? I said, I'll build it myself. I didn't know nothing about building or laying no rock. But my brother had been in serving, he had some masonry training. And so me and him started, after the guy left, me and him started building. And we built, just about built all of it. And I've been staying in it ever since 1948. It rained the other day, and it scared me. The basement got full of water, and the furnace was up under the house. And water got up in the furnace, and I was scared to go up under there and cut the gas off, so. I had a pump, but it ain't rained in so long, so I haven't got about a pump or anything, but I got a pump and a hole, too. So I called my nephew and I finally got him over there. 00:25:00He's, he know how to do plumbering work. So he's supposed to come back today. And if it dried out, enough to where he can get it, thank you, ma'am. Get it fixed back. My son messed around here last night. I worried him until he cut the gas off from the front. See, of course, I was scared that gas leak under there, she gonna blow all of us up. So we got it cut off, go back home, see if I can't get my nephew. And see if what we're gonna have to do to get it back on. Good. And right now, we don't have no, well, he cut it off from the furnace, didn't cut it off from the stove, so it's still cooks.

Duvacat: How has the neighborhood changed 00:26:00around you since the 1920s?

Tillman: Beg pardon?

Donnell: How has the neighborhood changed around you since the 1920s?

Tillman: It's changed a whole lot. When we first moved down there, where I stay now, if it started raining, we don't need to come out there to look for a way to walk. You didn't walk cause you was in the mud all the way, wherever you had to go. So they hadn't paved the streets around through that end. Even down Broad Street wasn't paved. It ain't been paved Broad Street, I think it was 1942. Broad Street wasn't paved in from downtown, from Milledge back downtown. They had them building blocks in the street. But they didn't have them on the other side. From there on out, it wasn't nothing but mud. In '42, I think it was, when they put the paved street out to them. Down the highway, and down that way I stay, when I moved down there, it was the same way. And so, I can't think what they're calling people that work down there. They'd sit there and call me 00:27:00one day and ask me, did we want the street paved? There was no water down there, no sewage. Told me we need all of it. So I got a, told me to get a sheet of paper and get the people to sign up. And I got in and had them sign it up. And they, finally when they got around to it, they put, fixed the street, put water down there and sewage too. I was just in the process of trying to get somebody to drill me a well. 'Cause I ain't got time to, you know, throw water from other folks there. You know. But they running water down there, you know, you see. Now, something happened in there, I got a letter today, they called, what they call that? Oh, some kind of name they got for their water. You know, I thought when you, when they paved 00:28:00your street and they put out a curb, you had to put the--your lot, as wide as your lot was, you had to pay for that. And I paid for it, you know. They called it storm water. And now, they sent me, I got a letter today. I had to pay them $42 for storm water. I said, "Well, I thought they could have been supposed to take the storm water off." And if it is, well, I'd already paid for that. But I'm still paying for it. I got a letter today. I don't know why they do us like that. I guess everybody do it. I think it was last year, I sent a letter, and it was dry. I mean, we had shown up dry. And I told them, when I put on the back of the letter, I sure would like to get my stove watered. [laughter] Ain't no water, no water, nothing. We made it, though. It's pretty fed out in there now. 00:29:00It's a whole lot better than what it was. A whole lot better.

Duvacat: What else has changed about it? What makes it better?

Tillman: What makes it better? Well, see, I got used to it. You don't have to step in that mud every time you step out the door. You don't have to step out in the mud, for one thing. I mean, it was muddy. By the time I had to do all that walking, well, of course, they didn't do that. Paving through there in the '30s. But I had to walk, whack, shoot. As I said, when you walked out the door, wasn't no need to look for nowhere to step. You just walked. 'Cause there was mud everywhere you went. You used to have, you know, you used to buy rubbers to put on your shoes. You'd buy mud to get on them, some rubber pullers to pull all you wanted, all nothing but your shoes anyway. So, it was something else.

Donnell: Has the population 00:30:00in the neighborhood that you lived in, has that changed any?

Tillman: Yeah. I just looked. Do you know anything about Athens?

Donnell: You live in the Rock Springs area, right?

Tillman: I'm right below Rock Springs.

Donnell: Yes.

Tillman: You know where Henderson Extension is down there?

Donnell: Yes.

Tillman: Well, that one corner, the Henderson Extension and the other street go through there. The house I was born in was sitting in that corner. And my parents, everybody, all, but your sister and brother left home, my parents died, rented the house out and sure enough the final thing that's run it down, and that's where I was, that's the house I was born in. But I said that, to say this, now you said you knew about Rock Spring Home? Well, see, there wasn't nothing, used to be nothing up there but pecan trees, pecan orchard, pecan orchard, people 00:31:00were farming on it. And now, right across from where I was born there, they got to build a pool down there, got a swimming pool down there. You know where the swimming pool is?

Donnell: Yes.

Tillman: But right across from there, where that last building they put there, in that vacant corner, that's where I was born there. And now, there used to be a big old ditch where they got their pool. It used to be a big old ditch coming down. From all the way up in Rock Springs, down across that field in the water, we'd go down in front of our house. There was a branch down below there, and we'd try to dip into--that branch. Now, during the summer, when I was at home, down where that water emptied in the branch, that's where we made our swimming pool. We'd dam that branch up and swim in it. Anybody come by there and wouldn't go in, we'd 00:32:00catch them and throw them over in there. So finally, when the rain would come and bust it down, we'd sit around there and watch. When it stopped raining, we'd go away and build it back up. We kept us a pool there all the summer until it got too cold to go in and swim in. Then we'd let it go. It was usually clear all up across them hills over there, picking Blackberries up there. That's where the Kroger's is. There used to be nothing but bushes across the street where the bank over there, the post office, that side over there, shoot all the way down. We used to pick cotton. All the way down to the river. It used to be, it looked like there'd been a little town up there like that. We used to hunt all up there, hunt rabbits. Cemetery up there, it's still there, they done rolled up so bad. 00:33:00His brother put--we used to play across them hills all the time, riffin' and runnin'. That's it. Used to be plum bushes around there, we'd pick plum, muscadine, scrub nines, whatever. Whatever we could find around there to do, shoot, we did. Had farms over there.

Duvacat: When do you think it started really changing? When did the development--

Tillman: Beg your pardon?

Duvacat: When did it start to change a lot? When did you notice the change?

Tillman: '40s started, late '30s and early '40s, started growing up. All that land, I'm talking about west, so Crowley, them Black folks on there, they said white folks, people don't matter, but they got it and started building out there. And they been building here since. I went to a place the other day, I ain't never been out there in a long while. 00:34:00It was on the other side of Lowe's out there. It looked like they was building another town out there. My goddaughter came out of the house, picked me up and carried me out there. It's like they said when they get through with it, she said people from the mall going to move out there. I don't know what they're going to do with all the places out there where the mall is. The thing about talking about the mall--down there where Haywood Allens used car lot--and we used to hunt all up in there, used to hunt rabbits up in there. Clean on up to where the mall was. Out there where Lowes and all of them. Shoot, we was hunting all out there. And that's gone of course. It was a lot of fun. I remember one day we was hunting out there, and I think I killed one rabbit. People were asking where we got this from. We got some houses up above where we was 00:35:00hunting at. They said, "What y'all killed?" One guy told me, "Me and Marvin killed one together." Killed the rabbit together. Both of them shot right at the same time. They don't know who killed it. (laughing) But we used to have a lot of fun out there. Them days ain't coming back no more. Ain't coming back no more. So that's about it.

Duvacat: Well, I mean, we have a couple more minutes.

Tillman: Oh, Okay.

Duvacat: Is there any other memories that you'd like to share about the, you know, the days gone by? The days that aren't coming back in Athens?

Tillman: Uh, let's see. I'll take that and think, uh, right now. Oh, yeah. We have, you know, around there on Alps Road, used to be a, uh, club out around there. There's a lake around there, too. And, 00:36:00uh, when the country club closed down, they, uh, made an iron hole, and they had it back over there on the west side, Milledge or where Milledge Circle--back in there. And, uh, they had a lake up there, and they used to have to put lime in it, you know, to, uh, sterilize it, I guess they called it. And, so I used to go there some, some mornings, go over there to the catamounts and, you know, get an old boat, and put that lime in a bag, a crocus sack, and ride in the boat, you know, and that's the way they sterilized the water with that. And, uh, so one day, I dived off the boat. And I told the guy, I said, "Man," I said, "I thought I never will get to the bottom." He said, "I thought you never will get back to the top." But I made it, and they 00:37:00drained that lake one year. And, uh, we used to get, um, take a Kroger bag and get in the stream where them fish would come out and we'd catch a bunch of fish, take them back home, and, you know, scale them and cook them, make us a fire, and yawn, then. We had a lot of fun doin' stuff like that. I fell one day, I was over there at the clubhouse, in the fall of the year. We was lookin' for Clamp Street to get some muscadine. And the tree I was in was leanin', and a guy named Kim, I said, "Kim, get over here, let me get in the tree with you, this thing can break, that thing about to pop." And my head was up to here. When I hit the ground, my feet was up to here, my head was down to here, and I wrenched that right ankle there, and I didn't wait until the caddy master pulled me up. He didn't get 00:38:00off around about 6, 3, or 7 o'clock, and I had to wait that long. That happened about 4 or 5 that afternoon, and I had to sit there and wait until they got off before I could go home, and it got so stiff, I had to hop from where I was sitting to the car. When I got home, I hopped and got on the porch and told them what happened, and they went up there, the same Rocks Spings thing you were talking about, Henderson Extension, went up that side of the road, got some red mud, deep. Brought it back home, beat it all up, and took a flour sack. We used to get some flour in a little 24-pound bag, and they used to save them. And so they took one of them bags, beat that dead up, put some vinegar in it, and wrapped it around that ankle when I got home, and kept it wet that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And Monday morning, shoot, I went back. If you know where 00:39:00West Broad Street School is, I went on back to school that morning. That Monday morning, I could run around and get around like better than what I'm doing now.

Donnell: From playing vinegar, that's interesting. Huh? I said from playing vinegar. That's pretty interesting.

Tillman: But, we had a good time up across them hills around there, riffing and running, riffing and running. I used to go up and play football. I played football about three years for Athens High, and I didn't get hurt bad enough to come out of the game but twice in them three years, we were playing Spencer High in Columbia. It was '34, I believe it was. I was tackling folks. I used to tackle them high, now I 00:40:00tackle them low. I used to tackle a lot of low shooters. I brought a knee up there. I don't know what he called that nut, being up there a nut, but it's there. You know, I had to go and sit down. The first time I had to go and sit down, I got out of the game. And I started feeling a little better. I said, "Coach, let me go back out there." He said, "Run up and down the line now. I said, "Run up and down the line?" He told me to go get it. I didn't have my mind on it, but one thing, they guy that knocked me out, all I wanted to do was get my hands on him. And when I got my hands on him, they did him just like they did me. I had to come and get him. (laughs) I had a lot of fun playing though, I really did. And when I retired from work, I felt like I could have worked five or six more years, but they wouldn't let me work. That's why I had to quit, 00:41:00so I've been retiring ever since, 1985. Well, I think what got me to open up was--you got this Kleenex lying anywhere? I can't get it in my pocket, I'm sitting so close. Before I--let me see what did I start to say. Oh yeah, when I first started working for the Navy, that's when I almost used to cry when I got paid. They had a figure on the envelope, but wasn't nothing in it. Not to compare it to what they had on the outside. You know, I worked 00:42:00and worked and worked. Theres a member of our church named Murray. And he was having the same problem. He didn't have no dependents. He was working and making pretty good money, but he wasn't getting nothing but figures on it. Just like I was. So, I just got one day. We was sitting out talking like we talking now. I was mad at folks when I was working with the Navy. I said, "They get paid pretty good," but I said, "I didn't get nothing but figures." There wasn't no money much in the envelope. And I told them how long I hadn't been retired. I said, "You know I got all my money back. It's gonna skew me." He said, "Hell yeah, you got your money back. Some more too." But I feel that I ain't got it back. But I guess I have, because I've been drawing Social Security since '85. And I think I'm about got it back. But I feel pretty good just can't 00:43:00walk, can't stuff. Thank you ma'am. If I could walk like I used to, I wouldn't worry about nothing. Just can't walk. Sit down there all day, watch TV, sleep a while, and watch TV a while. So that's about it, y'all.

Donnell: That was nice.

Duvacat: Thank you very much.

Donnell: Yes, thank you very much.