DOM

DOM

By Mark Reed

Back in the day, when I was a real working real estate broker, I started a tradition for Michelle and I. Whenever I would have a big real estate closing, and they were always big if you needed the money, I would take Michelle out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. Sometimes, I would invite another couple to be our guest.

For some years, back in the 80’s, our restaurant of choice was The Coach and Six on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. In my opinion, it was one of the top restaurants in Atlanta, or anywhere for that matter.

If I remember correctly, their steaks were the best, although they had wonderful seafood dishes, as well. Michelle’s favorite dish was the rack of lamb (with mint jelly, if you please).

On one particular occasion, I’m not sure of the specific closing that funded the dinner, I invited our good friends, The Crazy Cross’s (Mike and Marilyn) to be our guests. I called The Coach and Six and made the reservation. I told them to have a bottle of Dom Perignon (arguably the best champagne in the world) on ice at our table. This was back in our drinking days, before we exceeded our lifetime allotment of alcohol consumption.

During those years, I always drove a big old Cadillac. That was dad’s car of choice, and it rubbed off on me. His first Cadillac, by the way, was a pink 1959 Sedan de Ville – the one with spaceship tail fins. He taught me to drive in that car, and it was the one I first dated in. How cool is that? But I digress.

We picked up Mike and Marilyn and headed downtown to The Coach and Six. Now we had been there for dinner a few times before, but to say that we were regular customers they knew well would be a stretch. But when we pulled up to the entrance and the car valet opened my driver door, he said, “Welcome, Mr. Reed, your table is ready.” Now I must tell you, I was impressed that they knew my name. If truth be told, I think Michelle, Mike and Marilyn were impressed, as well. How the hell they knew it was me, I don’t know. Maybe every car that pulled up at our reservation time was greeted with a welcome to Mr. Reed, knowing they would get it right 25% of the time if there were four 8:00 PM reservations. I don’t know, but I was impressed.

They escorted us in to the prime table in the center of the room, and sure enough, there was a bottle of Dom iced up and waiting for us. I had the waiter break open that bad boy first thing, and we all four drank a toast to Reed Realty. We drank a couple more bottles, which put smiles on the faces of our team of waiters (not just one). I have to tell you, that night I received the best service I ever received, before or after. They treated us like royalty. And for that night, we were.

Thereafter, whenever Reed Realty had the gratuitous “big closing,” when making reservations, I would always order a bottle of Dom iced and waiting on us. That always got us great service, although the fine restaurants we frequented would have given us great service regardless.

I still wonder about those other three reservations being greeted with, “Welcome, Mr. Reed, your table is waiting.”

SIGMA PI STORIES -ANDY MARCHES TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER

SIGMA PI STORIES – ANDY MARCHES TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER

By Mark Reed

My good friend E. Andrew Morris (Sigma Pi at Murray State University, Gamma-Upsilon ’70) is the 45^th Grand Sage of Sigma Pi Fraternity, International. He is known as Andy, Andrew or Drew to most, but I refer to him as “45” for obvious reasons.

This story is only a small snapshot of Andy, for it would take a book to hit all the high points of his life and service to Sigma Pi Fraternity. So, the Worthy Grand Sage will have to forgive me for plucking these two little ditties to share with y’all. I will probably share more in later stories.

Andy attended Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, where he pledged Sigma Pi Fraternity. Andy was musically inclined, which many of our brothers may not be aware of. He was a drummer on the Murray State Marching Band.

He was also the drummer in a rock n roll band, called The Apollo 7, made up of Sigma Pi brothers and a girl singer. At a Sigma Pi Toga Party at Kenlake Resort on Kentucky Lake in October of 1969, the band was costumed in satin togas – Andy accessorizing his outfit with a white turtleneck. At the end of the night, the band played one last song, “The Party’s Over.” At that point, all remaining beer and wine was poured on the floor in front of the band and everyone, including the band, rolled in it. As Andy said when he relayed this story to me, “Those are days gone that the undergrads now will never enjoy.” Don’t be so sure.

Homecoming weekend at Murray in 1969 found Andy drinking way too much Colt 45 Malt Liquor (appropriately named looking back) on the Friday night before the football game on Saturday. Andy was to march with the band in the Homecoming Parade and perform on the field for the half time show. Saturday morning, Andy woke up, still somewhat inebriated and terribly hung over, laying in a BBQ grill some miles from campus, with no idea how he got there. He was covered with charcoal soot. He frantically realized that he was supposed to gather soon with the band. He hitchhiked back to campus, being picked up by a pick-up truck. He was made to sit in the open rear because of his filthy condition.

He was able to get back in time to take a shower, put on his uniform and make it to in time to join with the band and march in the parade. He then had lunch. Big mistake. As the band took the field for their half-time performance, Andy and his drum anchored one corner of the big “M” formation. As the band played, and he beat his drum, the screws started to come loose. Andy felt a rising nausea created by the mass quantities of Colt 45 he had drank the night before, topped off by a greasy lunch.

There in front of God and the entire assembled stadium of football fans gathered to celebrate Homecoming, Andy celebrated by releasing his stomach full of greasy food in a projectile manner all over his drum and his uniform. He spewed for all to see. Andy and the Band did not miss a beat. They continued to play, with Andy still beating his now slightly muffled drum. The beat goes on, as the old song goes.

What happened next is the stuff of legends. The entire stadium erupted in a standing ovation and cheered for the dedicated spewing drummer.

Twenty years later, while visiting campus, Andy was introduced to a Murray alumnus who said he looked familiar and thought he remembered him. Andy said he was a Sigma Pi, maybe that was it. No, the man said. Then he remembered. “You’re the drummer who threw up on the field at Homecoming!” Ah, fame. It is not fleeting in some cases, wish it as we will.

STORIES MY FATHER TOLD ME: BOOTLEGGER 2

STORIES MY FATHER TOLD ME: BOOTLEGGER 2

By Mark Reed

I shared in a previous story, Bootlegger, how my dad, at the tender age of thirteen became the financier of a bootleg beer enterprise that blew up in his face, literally. In that story, I mentioned how dad, during the 30’s and prohibition, worked for his big brother, B.F., as a carhop at the Don Ree in Marietta. He not only sold burgers and fries, but pint bottles of Old Uncle Stump Bourbon, which he had tucked around his waist hidden by the big white apron he wore.

By virtue of working at the Don Ree, he had occasion to meet some of the drivers who would deliver the bootleg whiskey to the back door of the Don Ree. They would pull up and dad would help unload the bottles.

He struck up a friendship with one of the drivers, a young man probably not much out of his teens. Even though dad was only thirteen, he was a big guy and mature beyond his years. The driver invited him to go with him on the continuation of one of his runs one day.

As dad told it, the vehicle was full of bootleg whiskey, and they were hauling butt down a curvy country road. They rounded a curve, probably going fifty miles per hour. There ahead of them was a police roadblock set up just to catch bootleggers on their runs. What happened next took less time than it does for me to tell it here. In an instant, really. The driver did not miss a beat. Without reducing speed, he hit the clutch and the gas at the same time while down shifting to second. Dad said it all happened so fast that he could hardly believe it. The driver spun the steering wheel to the left as far as it would go; the car spun sideways, turning a full one hundred eighty degrees and was going in the opposite direction at fifty miles per hour and increasing rapidly. Dad said the maneuver made him soil his pants.

They left the roadblock and the police cars behind in a cloud of burning rubber. I guess they were chased, but were not caught. Dad said he was never so thankful as when the driver dropped him off at the back of the Don Ree. Needless to say, he never went on another run.

One of the other drivers who delivered bootleg whiskey to the Don Ree was a little unhinged. I think all those drivers had to be a little off to do what they did. It was a dangerous profession. This particular driver was nicknamed “Crazy Carl.” He was the son of a farmer who grew corn for numerous bootlegger stills in north Georgia. “Crazy Carl” was not interested in being a farmer. He liked fast cars. He also liked to race. But “Crazy Carl” did not race on a track. He raced on the roads of Georgia and his competitors were police cruisers.

Once a month or so, “Crazy Carl” would stop and make a telephone call, probably from the Don Ree, to the Smyrna Police Department and tell them he was on his way and challenge them saying, “Catch me if you can.” Now this is the funny part. The Smyrna police would not set up a roadblock. They would park their two cruisers at the northern City limits, on opposite sides of Atlanta Road, facing south, waiting on “Crazy Carl” to show up. He would come barreling into town at top speed, and as he passed the two cruisers, they would high-tail it after him, zooming through downtown Smyrna at breakneck speed, sirens wailing. Everyone in town knew to keep off the road when this happened, so as to give “Crazy Carl” and his police escort safe passage.

The outcome was always the same. The police would chase him all the way through town, not stopping at the southern City limits. According to legend, the police would chase him on past the City limits in hot pursuit. Some of the old hand Smyrna folks may remember that there was a turn in Atlanta Road where it went through an underpass at the railroad tracks some miles further toward Atlanta. There were concrete abutments on either side of the road holding up the railroad bridge. “Crazy Carl” would weave right then left between the bridge abutments, never slowing down. The police always broke off the chase right there. It is said that one night the bridge abutment stopped “Crazy Carl.” Something the police could never do.

THANGYAVURYMUSH

THANGYAVURYMUSH

By Mark Reed

Remember your very first Rock Concert? There are some iconic performers who rank right up there with the immortals when it comes to concerts. My first one was in March of 1956. I was all of nine years old. It was at the fabulous Fox Theatre on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. You have probably already figured out who the performer was from the title of this story, but if not, here goes…

My grandparents, mom’s parents, Ma and Pa Pep (Hattie and Earl Pepper) were visiting from Bloomfield, Missouri. Dad came home from work one day and announced that he had front row seats to a musical concert at the Fox Theatre for mom, her parents, Cynthia and me. Ma and Pa Pep were thrilled because they had yet to go to the Fox, but had heard all about it as one of the outstanding and most beautiful theaters in America. Mom was familiar with the performer, a relatively new Rock and Roll star, and she mentioned to Ma and Pa Pep that they might not like the music. They were adamant we had to go, if for no other reason than to see the interior of the theatre.

The day of the performance, mom drove the five of us downtown to the Fox. I remember making our way down to the front row to our seats facing the stage. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ceiling, which looked like we were outside looking up at the heavens from inside a castle. This kid was impressed.

The crowd seemed to have a preponderance of young teenage girls. Because I notice such things, I also noticed a lot of police officers near the stage. At the time, it struck me as odd. Why would they need a lot of police officers at a musical performance, Rock and Roll or not? I soon found out why.

I don’t remember the opening acts, all these years later, but I know there were a couple from reading reports later. What did happen was that it seemed like every teenage girl in the place had worked her way down to in front of the stage right in front of our seats, which were dead center. You couldn’t get better seats, even with all the girls in front of us. And they were loud, too. Mostly screams. I couldn’t quite figure that out, but it was interesting to watch. Ma and Pa Pep seemed to be handling it well enough, although I could tell they were a little nervous with all the congestion in front of us. Mom and Cynthia were on my left and Ma Pep on my right, with Pa Pep beside her.

Finally the featured act was introduced and out came this young man with a guitar around his neck. The girls went crazy. I’m not sure, but I think the first song was a little tune I had heard on the radio called “Hound Dog.” Ladies and Gentlemen, ELVIS PRESLEY! Did I mention it was loud? Not the music. The crowd of screaming girls.

I have two most enduring memories of the performance that day. First, at some point one of the girls pressed up against the stage was able to climb on stage and rush up to Elvis and touch his arm, whereupon she immediately fainted dead away. I remember a cop rushing out onto the stage and scooping her up in his arms and carried her off stage. Elvis and his band never missed a beat. While the screaming pretty much covered the sound of the music, you could see Elvis going through all sorts of gyrations and shimmies, mainly from the waist down.

That brings up my second most enduring memory. I looked over at Ma Pep and she was sitting there with a face of stone, frozen in this huge scowl with pursed lips of disapproval. She did not like Elvis. Pa Pep, on the other hand, was literally bouncing in his seat. He was a musician in the Bloomfield Marching Band and the Bloomfield Orchestra, as had been my mom when she was a young girl. He got the beat and stuck with it.

Not bad for a first rock concert, eh? It was all a wondrous event for Cynthia and me, although I still, to this day, worry about the poor girl who fainted on stage after touching Elvis.

STORIES MY FATHER TOLD ME – WAR STORIES: ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

STORIES MY FATHER TOLD ME – WAR STORIES: ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

By Mark Reed

Dad had said a number of times that he came closer to being killed during his time as a test pilot than he ever did while flying combat missions in B-17’s over Germany. While this was an exaggeration of sorts, there is no question that test pilots have a very dangerous job. Dad’s job was doubly dangerous, because not only was he taking aircraft up in the sky and putting them through every hard maneuver he could in order to see if the craft would hold together – that was dangerous enough – but he was doing it in aircraft that had been damaged in some way, either being shot up in combat, or in a crash landing or in some other way needing to be repaired.

Because of the critical nature of his job and the over-riding job of supplying much needed combat aircraft back into the skies over Germany, only the best were assigned to The Depot, which is what his unit was called. He said he had the best crew chief in the Army Air Corp, and that the chief had assembled the best aircraft mechanics in the theatre of operations. Dad had the utmost confidence in his crew. When they gave him an aircraft, usually a P-51, to take up, he took for granted that it was put back together as good as it could be.

His crew chief would give him a holler and tell him he had another bird ready to be shaken up. Dad would head out to the flight line where the plane was waiting for him; he would hop in and strap himself in, and take off. His orders were to always wear a parachute just in case he had to bail out. With a laugh he said he had no intention of jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft. He did in fact ride a few into the ground doing belly landings, all of which he walked away from, and all of which he probably should have bailed out of.

One of those near death experiences occurred on one of these test flights. His crew chief gave him the go ahead and he taxied out and took to the skies as always. He was up there doing all sorts of dives and turns, putting the P-51 through its paces, when he happened to glance out his cockpit and noticed something that made his blood run cold. The pitot tube still had its cover on. The pitot tube was located on the tip of the wing and had a hollow opening on the tip to intake air. It was the way the pilot knew how fast the aircraft was flying. This is an important piece of information because if you don’t know how fast you are going, it is likely that you could stall out in certain maneuvers, usually while landing. If you fell below a certain speed, the P-51 would fall like a rock.

There was no operational radio in the aircraft, so he couldn’t radio for help. He buzzed the field a few times wagging his wing tips, but was unable to communicate his problem. Finally he saw some fighters practicing in the distance and he flew up to them. He was able to point to his pitot tube and get another pilot to see what his problem was. The pilot flew beside him all the way down to a safe landing.

He taxied up to his crew chief near the hanger, and as the chief climbed up to talk to him in the cockpit, dad pointed over to the pitot tube and said, “Are you trying to kill me, chief?” Whenever dad ran into the chief in a pub or bar thereafter, the chief would not let him buy a drink. They became best of friends. And by the way, Dad never got into an aircraft again without checking to make sure the pitot tube was uncovered. But for the remainder of dad’s time at The Depot, the chief made sure that never happened again.

BIGGEST PILOT

BIGGEST PILOT

By Mark Reed

During World War Two, my dad, Bill Reed, joined the Army Air Corp to become a pilot. At that time, the height and weight limitations, governed by being able to fit in a cockpit, were 6’3” tall and 220 pounds. Dad was 6’4” and weighed 220 pounds. He said that the day of his first flight physical, he made sure to scrunch a little in order to fall under the maximum height allowed.

At the end of WWII, dad, like most in the military, came home to a hero’s welcome. A story I never heard before was relayed to me when an older gentleman came up to me at Howard’s Restaurant in Smyrna a few years ago. He asked me if I was related to Bill Reed. When I affirmed that fact, he shared the following story.

In 1945, when dad returned to Smyrna from his combat tour flying B-17’s and fighters in the skies over Europe, he was still in the Army Air Corp. After being welcomed home by the family and friends in a celebration gathering, dad excused himself. Wearing his uniform, he drove up to Marietta to the military airfield next to the Bell Bomber Plant (to be Lockheed), where they had had a few fighters on the runway. Dad talked himself into the cockpit of a P-51 and took off headed south to Smyrna.

The way the old gentleman relayed it to me, the noise of the full-throated P-51 flying down main street, Atlanta Road, at telephone pole and tree top level, brought everyone outside to see what was going on. The old gentleman was a student at Smyrna High School (the old Smyrna Elementary building I attended in the 50’s) where dad had graduated in 1940. The man said the school emptied to see what was happening.

As dad made his turn and second run back up Atlanta Road, he buzzed the Reed House where the entire family was gathered. He pulled up in a barrel roll directly overhead and then flew back to the airfield where he returned the fighter.

Upon arriving home, Mayor J.Y. Wootten, accompanied by the Smyrna Police Chief, was waiting for him on the front steps, surrounded by the Reed relatives. As dad joined them on the front steps, Mayor Wootten got in his chest (he was too short to get in dad’s face) and chewed him out for his reckless stunt. The Mayor said that there were older citizens who almost had a heart attack. He promised dad that he was going to make a complaint to the Army Air Corp and have him court-martialed. Dad just stood there with his ever-ready smile on his face and replied, with a laugh, “What are y’all going to do to me? Send me somewhere I might get killed?”

The Mayor and Police Chief stormed off. Dad loosened his military tie and had a drink with his brothers. The old gentleman who shared this story said that Bill Reed became the hero of every boy in Smyrna after the tree top flight and barrel roll over Atlanta Road and downtown Smyrna.

A year or so later, dad and his new wife Virginia “Jennie” Lee Pepper Reed, moved back to Smyrna after his discharge from the service. They moved into the Reed Home with Big Papa and Big Mama. In September of 1946 I was born.

Not long after that, dad’s brother, B.F. Reed Jr., decided he wanted to be a pilot, so he bought a Fairchild 24, a single engine top mounted wing aircraft. He asked dad to teach him to fly, which dad gladly agreed to do. That first flight did not last long. When they landed, dad exited the aircraft and told B.F. he was never flying with him again. He said, “You will kill us.” It turn out that B.F. was not too keen on taking instruction from his baby brother, much less anyone else. B.F. just laughed, turned around and got back in the plane, started it up, taxied out onto the grass runway and took off alone. Basically, he taught himself to fly that day. Not only that, he did not kill himself or anyone else.

In subsequent years, as B.F. became a more proficient pilot, he was known to take his children on flights. That activity ended after a few airsickness events by my cousins. After that, B.F. would do his imitation of 1LT Bill Reed buzzing downtown Smyrna in his Fairchild 24, where his kids on Bank Street would stand out in the yard and wave.

Some years later, B.F. was flying in the north Georgia area when he had some sort of emergency situation whereby he was obliged to make a crash landing in a farmers field. The Fairchild was no longer flyable without major repair, but B.F. was uninjured. The farmer came out to see about the visitor to his pasture. As they talked, the farmer mentioned he had a lowboy hauled by a truck. B.F. negotiated a trade right then and there with the farmer – the airplane for the lowboy and truck. B.F. drove the vehicle back to Smyrna leaving the farmer with a slightly used (and severely damaged) Fairchild 24 that likely would never fly again. That is how B.F. got into the heavy equipment and earth moving business, which he operated out of the Reed Building Supply Company in Smyrna, located on the east side of the railroad tracks north of Smyrna.

In his later years, B.F.’s cockpit was restricted to his favorite Brumby rocking chair. He was a testimony to the almost indestructible nature of the Brumby Rocker. It accommodated his 300 plus pounds with no problem. We have two of the famous rockers – the best money could buy.

Fast-forward over 50 years. I received a telephone call at Reed Realty from a gentleman asking if I were the son of B.F. Reed. I told him no, that B.F. was my uncle, since deceased, but I was in touch with B.F.’s children. He said he owned a family farm in north Georgia he inherited from his father, and there was an old airplane on one corner of their pasture. He said he had found some old records of his father’s, which indicated that a B.F. Reed had owned the plane. I was familiar with the story and confirmed the plane was most likely the one B.F. had crash-landed back in the 50’s. The gentleman said he was hopeful he could get B.F.’s children to come get the airplane off his property. I laughed and said I would put him in touch with B.F. “Ben” Reed III, the oldest son.

It was after this that Ben supplied me with the photo of B.F. standing beside the Fairchild 24 in an article published in Skyways magazine. The article was actually a letter to the Editor in which B.F. Reed was reputed to be the biggest licensed pilot in the United States at 330 pounds. B.F. was always a big guy. All those Reed boys were big men. My generation shrunk a little because those Reed men had a habit of marrying short women. Of course, short is a relative term, since there were not many six-foot tall women.