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High School Memories
Kathy Manos Penn is a native of the “Big Apple,” who settled in the “Peach City” – Atlanta. A former English teacher now happily retired from a corporate career in communications, she writes a weekly column for the Dunwoody Crier and the Highlands Newspaper. Read her blogs and columns and purchase her books, “The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday” and “Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch,” on her website theinkpenn.com or Amazon.
Unless you're my age, you may not recall that Lester Maddox was governor of Georgia from 1967 - 1971, a fact that looms large in the story I tell about moving here. I'd heard all about Lester Maddox--perhaps because Mom was from Macon or maybe because Lester Maddox and his ax handles made the national news. No matter why or how, I knew enough about the man to be horrified that we were moving to Atlanta.
He was famous for barring African Americans from his Pickrick restaurant in Atlanta. When a few "unacceptable" folks tried to enter the restaurant, he and his staff grabbed ax handles-yes, ax handles, and stood outside. I was telling this story just the other day when someone asked, "What are ax handles?" I'd never considered what they were exactly, but I now know they were the wooden handles for the axes-no blades attached.
Consider that no eighth grader willingly changes schools, and then imagine me moving from NY to Georgia at age 13. It was a culture shock. I went from having only recently convinced my mother to allow me to wear stockings to attending a school where girls most often wore saddle oxfords and sox. I owned neither but soon remedied that situation.
It was bad enough I had pierced ears and wore dangly earrings, wore short skirts, which back then meant a skirt slightly above the knee, and had a distinctive accent. When I recall those early days, I'm convinced my new classmates didn't know what to think of me. Probably my only saving grace was that my mom took us to Clarkston Baptist Church.
A story I always recount is having to write 100 times, "I will say 'Yes Sir'" and coming home in tears because my English teacher kept calling me a Yankee. The daily tears prompted my father to visit Clarkston High to speak to Mr. Biggs, the English teacher. Picture my dad, a full-blooded Greek with black hair and olive complexion, dressed in what I describe as his best Mafia suit, confronting Mr. Biggs.
I didn't get to hear that conversation, but it had the desired effect. And, for the record, my dad wasn't in the Mafia, though I think one of my older Italian cousins may have been. Even if he wasn't, we're all pretty sure he was a bookie.
Soon enough, I made new friends, made the drill team, and was even a contestant in the Miss CHS contest. I had no special talent, so goodness knows how I managed to compete. I still remember my friend Annette winning the crown by staging a fashion show with clothes she designed and sewed.
My claim to fame in high school was that Pistol Pete Maravich chose me when the yearbook staff sent him class photos of several senior girls and asked him to select the most photogenic. When they announced I'd been named Miss Angora, I was speechless. L'est you think it gave me a big head, please note that I usually say my title was Miss Goat since our mascot was an Angora ... goat. That thought will put a girl in her place.
Kathy Manos Penn is a Georgia resident. Her latest book, "Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch," and her collection of columns, "The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday," are available on Amazon. Contact Kathy at inkpenn119@gmail.com.
Go Back
Kathy Manos Penn with Lord Banjo
He was famous for barring African Americans from his Pickrick restaurant in Atlanta. When a few "unacceptable" folks tried to enter the restaurant, he and his staff grabbed ax handles-yes, ax handles, and stood outside. I was telling this story just the other day when someone asked, "What are ax handles?" I'd never considered what they were exactly, but I now know they were the wooden handles for the axes-no blades attached.
Consider that no eighth grader willingly changes schools, and then imagine me moving from NY to Georgia at age 13. It was a culture shock. I went from having only recently convinced my mother to allow me to wear stockings to attending a school where girls most often wore saddle oxfords and sox. I owned neither but soon remedied that situation.
It was bad enough I had pierced ears and wore dangly earrings, wore short skirts, which back then meant a skirt slightly above the knee, and had a distinctive accent. When I recall those early days, I'm convinced my new classmates didn't know what to think of me. Probably my only saving grace was that my mom took us to Clarkston Baptist Church.
A story I always recount is having to write 100 times, "I will say 'Yes Sir'" and coming home in tears because my English teacher kept calling me a Yankee. The daily tears prompted my father to visit Clarkston High to speak to Mr. Biggs, the English teacher. Picture my dad, a full-blooded Greek with black hair and olive complexion, dressed in what I describe as his best Mafia suit, confronting Mr. Biggs.
I didn't get to hear that conversation, but it had the desired effect. And, for the record, my dad wasn't in the Mafia, though I think one of my older Italian cousins may have been. Even if he wasn't, we're all pretty sure he was a bookie.
Soon enough, I made new friends, made the drill team, and was even a contestant in the Miss CHS contest. I had no special talent, so goodness knows how I managed to compete. I still remember my friend Annette winning the crown by staging a fashion show with clothes she designed and sewed.
My claim to fame in high school was that Pistol Pete Maravich chose me when the yearbook staff sent him class photos of several senior girls and asked him to select the most photogenic. When they announced I'd been named Miss Angora, I was speechless. L'est you think it gave me a big head, please note that I usually say my title was Miss Goat since our mascot was an Angora ... goat. That thought will put a girl in her place.
Kathy Manos Penn is a Georgia resident. Her latest book, "Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch," and her collection of columns, "The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday," are available on Amazon. Contact Kathy at inkpenn119@gmail.com.
Comments
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Kathy Manos Penn said:
( October 26th, 2018 @ 3:04 pm )
That North and South divide seems so inconsequential today, doesn't it? But it was real!
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Southern Politics was a rough and tumble battle in the 1960s. Carter apologist often forget the 1970 election.
"When Sanders was termed out as governor in 1966, then-state Sen. Carter placed third in the all-important Democratic primary. The nomination was eventually won by arch-segregationist Lester Maddox, who went on to be elected governor. Four years later, with Maddox unable to succeed himself, all signs pointed to Sanders' returning to the governorship with ease But somewhat surprisingly, next to nothing is being said about Sanders' final campaign, in 1970, in which he was defeated after a mean-spirited, racially charged campaign run by the man who would become Georgia's best-known politician of all: Jimmy Carter. "Carter had been a moderate state senator, but ran in 1970 as a very conservative segregationist," Bill Shipp, longtime political editor of the Atlanta Constitution, recalled to Newsmax. "It was a nasty, rough race." www.newsmax.com |
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I once met Lester Maddox at a church service near Nashville, Georgia when I was with my father back in the later sixties. He was a character back then that I did remember.
Who knows: Without Lester Maddox, there would have been no Jimmy Carter to balance out the racist, and without Jimmy Carter, there would have been no Ronald Reagan to balance out the incompetent. |
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Lester was first and foremost an Entrepreneur who was always on the lookout for a fast buck. The election was thrown into the legislature because neither candidate won a majority due to a write in campaign. Even though the Republican had the most votes in the election, the Democratic legislature elected Maddox due to the loyalty oath they took. It was not our finest hour.
He later opened a shop in Underground Atlanta (1972-73) and sold his now famous Pickwick Drumsticks. He had two versions a standard length handle and a shortened 15 inch model. In retrospect, I think he may have done more to advance the Civil Rights movement in Georgia because he was such an embarrassment to many Georgians. 
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From My Father, the bookie, to Pistol Pete bestowing greatest upon a shy young girl struggling into womanhood, you have some very rich personal history.
And I will also recount that Georgians in the sixties were not too found of Yankees. I was accused of being a Yankee, when I spent many summers in South Georgia, simply since I hailed from "North" Carolina. Still, I did like those Georgia girls. |
| DHHS Receives Results from Blood and Urine Testing of 30 Residents Near Fayetteville Works Site | The Ink Penn, Public Perspective, Body & Soul | Glimmer of Light from the Past |
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