Life Takes Strange Turns

It was November 22, 1963 and I was in the 6^th grade at Dublin Elementary School in Union Lake, Mi.  The playground was crowded, as usual, and I was up to my ears in a hot game of basketball.  The game was back and forth and hotly contested.  When the ball came loose during an inbound pass I dove to try and save the ball.  The cinders that surrounded the court were slippery and my feet went out from under me.  I saved the ball.  The bell rang. The game was over and all the players ran for the school door.  I looked down at my knee and could see that I had torn my new flannel lined jeans and blood was seeping from my skin.  While the other kids ran for class, I walked to the nurse’s office for some last minute repairs.

A short time later I was on my way to class, a little late, when I passed the janitor’s room where his little transistor radio on his bench blared “President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas.”  I was frozen to my spot in the tile floor just short of the stairs leading to my classroom.  My ten year old mind could not fully understand what all this meant but I knew it was very bad.  After what seemed like an hour,   I’m sure it was only a few seconds, I bolted up the stairs to my classroom.  Not really sure what to do, late for class and full of dread, I treated it like I would most things in my life; time to tell the world.

I threw the door wide open to my class room and yelled “the president has been shot and killed.” To say I had my little class-mates attention would be an understatement.  They all had the same look that I had had on my face a few moments earlier at the janitor’s station.  My teacher, seeing he had lost the class’s attention, blurted in his I’m the boss voice, stop lying Hufford!  Sit down and shut up!  And I did but the mood of the class had definitely changed.  Notes were passed and words were whispered. The teacher shot me a look.  Eventually we all learned the truth when someone from the office came to our room and whispered to our teacher. I recognized the look on my teachers’ face and thought I saw a tear.  The rest of the day was a blur and the next weeks and months as well with the president’s burial, the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson, the arrest and subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Warren Commission’s investigation of the president’s murder. This day and these events were forever burned into the brains of me and my class mates.  Our lives were changed forever and nothing was ever the same.  Our sense of safety and security were exploded with those three shots from the Texas School Book Depository.

Twenty years later we had learned to live with the events of that fall day but always in the back of our mind was that dreaded feeling.  One evening in ’83 I was playing with my band at a little club in Ortonville, Mi.  Our first set was over and we were taking a short break when a young lady made her way to my table.  She sat down and said “your name is Tony Hufford.”  I looked at her and had no idea who this woman was or how she knew me. She continued “I’ll never forget your face.  You’re the kid who burst into our classroom and told us all that the president had been killed.” I will never forget you or that moment.” I began to see a vague resemblance.  It’s hard to see someone and guess what they looked like at 10 years old.  There we sat, connected through time with a horrible event that had changed both of our lives forever.  The entire country was changed and us with it.  We reminisced for awhile and then it was time for me to go back to work.  I played the rest of the night knowing that I was not alone in the feeling of helplessness connected to this horrific event and thinking how we never know how what we say or do might impact the lives of others.

 

Life Ain’t no Walk in the Park

You Just Gotta Keep on Walking.

Well another election is over and half the country is happy and the other half is sad.  Some foreign countries are making back up plans and others are licking their chops.  Yes, we have that kind of power in the world. We have been divided into voting blocks for way too long.  It’s okay to represent as a Republican or to be a Democrat or an Independent . . . but a voting bloc?  It just means you have been categorized by someone who has something to gain by your support. 

It was about 1964, I was eleven and my dad had something important to tell me.  I always knew when he grabbed me by the shoulders and looked straight into my face it was time to pay attention.  He said “Tony, if you ever have enough money in the bank so you don’t have to hit a lick for a couple of years, you might think you are a Republican.  If you don’t, you are a Democrat.” To tell you the truth I didn’t really understand what he was speaking about but I could tell he was telling me something important. That conversation took place in the space between that little garage and house in the picture.  I have witnessed nothing in the last 60 years that would make me believe anything different. However, I did have a couple of experiences along the way that have backed up my dads’ reasoning.  Let me tell you about one of them.  

It was 1981 and I had been laid off from the Foundry at GM, about 6 months after the Reagan Inauguration.  My new wife and I were surviving on unemployment and a little under the table gig playing music.  As time went on, things got tougher and unemployment only covered essentials with no room for unexpected expenses. 

My unemployment day was Tuesday.  So that morning I gathered up all the deposit bottles in the house and loos­­­e change from the couch so that I would have enough gas money to make it to the unemployment office.  My intention was for my check to get me home.  I drove to the unemployment office in my 76 Dodge Step-Side Pick-Up that I purchased while working in the Pontiac Foundry. On this day, like every Tuesday, the line was long and slow.  After about four hours of waiting I finally made it to the head of the line.  The lady who waited on me was obviously exhausted and perhaps a bit gnarly. But having made it to the desk I was all smiles and happy thoughts when I presented my paper work to the tired lady at the counter.  She took my papers and walked to the filing cabinet behind her and quickly came back; she wasn’t smiling.  Mr. Hufford today would be the day that you could start your Federal Extension because your State Unemployment has run its course.  However, we just got word that President Reagan has discontinued the Federal Extension so I have no check for you today. What . . . no check?  How will I get home?  How will we eat this week? This and many other questions flooded my mind.  I asked “could this be a mistake.” The lady behind the counter just shook her head. My heart dropped and I shuffled to the door.

Now for those of you thinking, why didn’t you just go out and get a job?  During that time, businesses didn’t hire laid off GM workers because they knew as soon as GM called us back we would leave and return to GM.

I did make it home that day, literally running on the fumes.  I did eventually find several part time jobs and was able to cobble together a living and in November of 83, I returned to GM but I never forgot about my trip to that unemployment office and Regan’s hand in that day or the advice of my dad.  Life ain’t no walk in the park…you just gotta keep on walking.