About Me

I was born in Cedartown Ga on the 26th of June 1957.  We lived around Cedartown until I finished the second grade.  My father Norman had gone to Winston Salem looking for work.  He found work helping build the Wachovia Bank building in Uptown Winston Salem.  Mama, my brother Keith and sister Kathy moved to NC to be with him.  The company he was working for moved us to Marion NC then to Salisbury NC.  With the exception of six months of my junior year of high school we lived on Peach Orchard road until the spring of 1975 when my parents bought a house in China Grove NC.  I went to work at the Rowan County airport when I was 13.  I worked for a man named Clay Swain, who it just so happens the airport is now named for.  After the airport I worked at East Innes Gulf pumping gas and I also worked at the Derrick truck stop my senior year of high school as a tire man. 

After high school, I enlisted in the United States Navy. I arrived in Orlando Fl on the 7th of July to begin my Naval Career.  After bootcamp I was stationed at NATTC Memphis, which is actually in Millington Tn.  I completed Aviation Fundamentals "P" school and then completed the Aviation Machinist Mate (jet) training.  My next duty station was in Virgina Beach, Virginia at VA42 FRAMP for training on the A6 Intruder.  I completed the Plane Captain course and was sent on to my ultimate duty station of VA85.  I arrived at VA85 in early 1976.  VA85 was attached to Airwing 17 aboard the USS Forrestal.  We completed workups and the ship went into the shipyard for repairs and upgrades late spring and early summer of 1976.  When the ship completed its yard period in early 1977 it was assigned a new homeport in Mayport Fl.  The airwing and ship began workups leading to a deployment (my first) to the Mediterranean in the spring of 1978.  Life aboard ship was no bed of roses but man was the adventure fun.  Some of the guys I worked with became lifelong friends and when we get together now, its like old times, laughing, joking and remembering.  The ship returned to Mayport in the fall of 1978.

At the end of my first enlistment I did something really stupid!  I got out of the Navy and moved back to China Grove NC.  I worked as an automobile mechanic at Pate's Import Auto and went to Rowan Tech at night.  Within a few months I realized the error of my ways and began talking to the Navy Recruiter about returning to active duty.