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Edsel Johnson Interview – Page 3
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JB: You know, Jack’s first wife died and he remarried a girl from here.
Jack’s around 80 years old now. Jr: Tell Daddy about Jack Clifton. You know, there is absolutely no animosity for him. JB: Jack works for Guy Maddox over there (Blakeley, Georgia). Maddox had the First State Bank and he also had a peanut farm. Jack worked for him until he retired. He got elected to the school board over there, and he was Chairman of the school board. His kids went through the school system there, and they all did well. Jack’s very well liked in Blakeley. He’s well respected. Of course, he’s retired now. He fishes and hunts. Jr: Did Jack come to Ottis’ funeral? Sr. Yes he did. Jr: Do you remember seeing him there? Sr: That was a long time ago, I hardly remember where I am now !! Jr: Did you ever see the article about him and Ottis in the Dothan paper in 1995? SP: Yes, here it is (in the group of papers) Jr: Daddy and I went to the paper’s offices and they interviewed us. Sr: You know, I remember when we moved back to Evergreen from Atmore, they had a real nice ball park there that all of us kids would play at. I remember all the folks talking about Yam Yaryan, Virgil Trucks, Bill McGhee, and a few others that played at that Evergreen ball field. I can remember Snow’s Barbershop there in Evergreen, had a huge picture on the wall of that old Evergreen team from back then, I remember them talking about playing Union Springs. I was probably 14 or 15 years old back then. SP: Harry Rice was manager of the team there for a season. Sr: You know, Ottis was born in 1923, but when he was playing ball, he was listed as four years younger than he was. Jr: Yeah, you know that Tom Brokaw book, The Greatest Generation? They talk about that. Lots of guys took those four years that the war was on and don’t count them in there age. Sr: He was playing as a 24 year old when he really was 28. They’d used to do that so that baseball would consider them young enough to move up the ladder. From what I understand, Ottis was going to move up the next season. He was having a great year. He was a couple years ahead of me in high school, and anything they did for sports, they’d put Ottis and me on the same team. There was no splitting us up, we’d fight them if they tried. We were very competitive. What a great life, I’ve enjoyed it all. JB: You know, when you were playing ball, you managed to stay out of trouble. Sr: I was causing a lot of trouble! People tell me a lot of things I did that I don’t remember doing! A guy in Evergreen told us that one day after a game, we were all in the shower, and Ottis got down in a football position like he was going to charge at me. I said, « C’mon buddy! », and Ottis came flying at me full speed. I stepped aside and Ottis went head-first into a concrete wall. Now, I don’t remember that, but they say it happened. Jr: Ottis was stuck by lightning once, right Daddy? Sr: Oh yeah. There were three of us. We went out for a walk in the woods, looking for birds nests, and we found one in a Persimmon tree. The boy that was with me and Ottis was leaning up against that tree, and Ottis had his hand on the boys shoulder. I was standing next to Ottis, and lightning hit that tree. The boy had a baseball cap on, with the metal button on the top. That lightning split the boys head and knocked Ottis out. It blistered my feet all the way up to my knees. Ottis stayed unconscious for about 24 hours. I ran down to a house and got somebody to come help us. They brought up some water and I poured it on him, but it didn’t do any good. JB: We didn’t know about CPR in those days, did we. Sr: No we didn’t. On Ottis’ chest, there was a kind of picture of that Persimmon tree, and it stayed there for several months, then gradually went away. JB: That reminds me of a game over near Milton, Florida, where lightning struck the field and killed the shortstop, third baseman, and second baseman, and hurt the first baseman. Sr: That was in a semi-pro game, wasn’t it? JB: Yes it was. The next week we were playing down there in Rehoba and I was playing third base. A big cloud came up and lightning hit up there pretty close to where we were playing. I called time, and the coach asked me what I was doing. I told him that I had just read about those three boys getting killed and I was about to get killed myself. The umpire finally said, « You’re right », and called us in. Sr: We had played that same team maybe three or four weeks before that happened. Did you know that Ottis was ambidextrous? He could pitch left-handed just as good as he could right-handed. JB: Jack Carter, who used to pitch for the Dothan Browns, could pitch with either hand too. Sr: Ottis was born a lefty, but back then, folks didn’t want to have a left-handed child. Mother converted him to a right-hander. In some of the games we played in, we’d be acting a fool, and Ottis would pitch three or four righty, then change over to lefty. Boy, an umpire gets messed up with that going on! |