Meet My Roommates

My roommates over the years. I guess my brother was my first roommate, first on Wimbush and later on Kathryn Drive.

1977-1978 North Island Drive in Sandy Springs, I lived in Aunt Martha's baseball without a roommate. Every night for dinner I'd eat a Ken's frozen pizza. Sometimes I'd add extra cheese. Breakfast was cereal and milk. Once I tried powdered milk to save money. No thanks.

1978-1979 Tempo Trail Apartments in Chamblee - the Fox Pad. Roomies Wayne "Small" Smith from Kentucky, Don "Cuz" Sells from Chattanooga, and Mike Kirkland from Enterprise Alabama. Pork chops and instant mac'n cheese. Graduating senior Wayne Price (of Augusta) bunked with us for a while. Small got me playing softball at SPdL. Wayne Price got me coaching Mighty Mites and playing putt putt. We all played intramural football and went to church at SPdL together. Purchased matching bib overalls and zipper-front baseball jerseys at Charlie's Trading Post, across from the Federal Penitentiary - our usual outfit. One weekend I road-tripped home with Kirkland to Enterprise, near the famous Boll Weevil Monument.

One winter morning Don rode to school with Mike, and Small was with me behind the on the Shallowford Road bridge. Kirk turned left onto the I-85 South on ramp. I tried to follow, impatiently turning when I shouldn't have. A car smashed my rear quarter panel, narrowly missing Small. Dumb decision on my part.

Smith, Sells, and Price are Facebook friends, but after Tech Kirkland dropped off the face of the earth. He may live in the Douglassville area. Wayne and Becky Smith are grandparents in McDonough. Sells is a cool architect back home in Chattanooga with wife Shirley. After years of bachelorhood Price married Paula, moved further and further up I-85 (now in Braselton). A longtime employee at Jordan Jones and Goulding, he was just named Georgia Engineer of the Year.

1979-1980 BSU Resident Manager with roomie Mike Jackson of Galveston Texas (Good Hands to my All-State). The soft-spoken redhead attended FBC Atlanta and sometimes quoted Monty Python. Mike played wide receiver and loved basketball. I served as a groomsman in his wedding at FBC. He and Lisa served as missionaries in St. Petersburg Russia before settling in northwest Houston, where they work with college students. We had a cool our room - "The Cave" (it had no windows and only one entry door). Huge walk in closet and matching desks and bookshelves. I'd never had it so good. So what did I do? Anything and everything but study. Soon I flunked out.

1980-1981 Peachtree Park Apartments, behind Benihanas in Buckhead, just north of Piedmont Hospital and the Darlington Apartments. Roommates Warren Hammonds of Decatur, Eddie Parker, and best friend Jeff Yearwood (above), who had originated the bib overall craze. Eddie worked at the Georgia Tech Research Center. I was in discipleship groups with Warren and Jeff, and served as a groomsman in their weddings - Warren at his home church (FBC Decatur) and Jeff at SPdL. Later Warren worked at the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board in Richmond. Jeff took a winding road back home to Pike County, where he pastors a church. He sang in my wedding.

Newlyweds Fred O and Cindy Pitts lived in the building across the courtyard, and we'd attend Bible Studies in their apartment. When a train would approach Fred kept talking, first lowering his voice as the train neared, then just moved his mouth as the train rumbled past just yards away. When it snowed Fred was outside building a snowman. He pantomimed for me to join him, but I pantomimed back an emphatic no. He insisted. Of course I relented.

1980 choir tour went to Colorado Springs. Walton high school senior Rick Statham picked me to be his roommate. Our girlfriends were best friends. Rick married his girlfriend Miriam. They went to Mercer, then seminary. Now Rick pastors Salem Baptist Church in McDonough.

1981-1982 back at the Baptist Center, Tennis England was my next roommate. A "campus minister intern" recently graduated from Southern Seminary in Louisville. I nicknamed him "Badminton Britton" or simply "Wimbledon." Not sure what ever became of ol' Tennis. One of my regular supper dishes was baked potatoes. I'd buy a bag of potatoes and eat one or two a night. Once I forgot and left it baking in the oven all night. The next morning it was black all the way through.

1981 choir tour went to Rochester New York. Was Yearwood my roommate? Or Don Head? One year I roomed with church organist Scott Atchison, who was my age - and a load of fun. When a host mom asked what we wanted for breakfast Scott would exclaim "Quiche Loraine!" Hard to believe Scott became organist at Peachtree Road United Methodist, where he directed all the choirs.

1982 Yearwood roomed with me in the BSU over the summer. In the fall the new campus minister intern moved in: Tom Leuze of Lenoir Tennessee, another Southern Seminary graduate. Tom was like a big brother. He liked baseball, MASH, and David Letterman. We wore Hawaiian shirts and preppy green pants. Good times.

1982 choir tour went back to Colorado. I roomed with Yearwood or Jim Johnson. I think.

1983 after graduation (and an extra quarter hanging out on campus) I moved to the Goldsboro Road Apartments, just down the hill from Little Five Points. Roomed with good buddy Jim Johnson - and who else? We may have lost a roommate. At chapel choir during prayer requests I mentioned we needed a roommate, and Lindsey McKinley spoke up. Jim and I were pals, singing in the Chapel Choir together and leading cheers at Tech games. Groomsman in his wedding, to bride Kimberly Kitchens at SPdL. Goldsboro was in a super cool neighborhood, overlooking a pool and basketball and tennis courts we never used. Within walking distance of Chandler Park Golf Course - but I hadn't taken up golf yet. High ceilings and hardwood floors. But I was unemployed, and it was a low time in my life.

1984-1986 next I moved into the legendary GT BSU apartment: "The Hubcap" - a dumpy nondescript L-shaped brick apartment for some reason plopped among aging Midtown homes on Goldsboro Road, just down the street from Grady High and Piedmont Park. Roommates came and went. Steve Givens and Doug Pace had just moved out. I lived with three other SPdL guys: Yearwood and two Augusta natives: Curt Shaw and Keith Harp. I remember staying out too late one night, then locking my keys in my car at the Texaco on the corner of Peachtree and Collier around midnight. I called the Hubcap but no one answered. I let it ring and ring, and Keith finally answered, groggily. He grudgingly drove over to pick me up. Keith sang in Revelation with Jeff. Now he and wife Karan live in Suwanee.

By then I had a real job, but living in the super cheap apartment was a great way to safe up a down payment for a house. Frozen pizzas wouldn't fit in the small over-iced freezer, so I ate canned BBQ, chili, or Brunswick Stew out of our only pan, dipped out with Kroger saltine crackers. For lunch at work I'd keep a package of hot dogs and a package of buns in the fridge at work. Once or twice a week we'd hit the buffet at Pizza Inn, or the Western Sizzlin potato bar. I'd be at church most of Sunday, and Wednesday night for church supper and choir practice. Monday night was the singles fellowship. Church-league softball or basketball on other nights. That was my life. The thought of nighttime graduate school or travel on weekends never crossed my mind.

When Yearwood got married Leuze moved in. We'd take nighttime runs through midtown and the park. We ran road races together, including one in Macon. Leuze took up golf. I should have. He road-tripped to Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. I should've tagged along. I was a groomsman for Curt in Macon and Tom in East Point. Curt and Paula live in Simpsonville SC and Tom and Vickie live in Louisville (I think). Maconite Billy Brundage moved in just as I was moving down the road to my grandfather's house on Hillpine.

1987. In March I closed on the Hillpine house. Tom and Billy vacated The Hubcap and moved in with me. Perhaps not a good idea - in April I proposed to Ceil. Perhaps the roommates were a good idea - in May my company announced it was closing its doors in June. Landed a job in July that started in August. In September Ceil became my final roommate.