Boss Radio: Revealed at Last
    Ron Jacobs & Bill Drake
    June 19-20, 1999       home

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Father Figures

RON JACOBS: What’s the first thing you remember in Donalsonville? At what age? ‘Cause I can’t remember much about anything at a really young age.

BILL DRAKE: Well, before my father went into the Army—I must have been what, five years old at the time.

RON JACOBS: 1941, the war starts, and you and I are four years old.

BILL DRAKE: It was actually 1942 because it was at the end of 1941. And then he enlisted in mid 1942 so I was five and a half years old.

RON JACOBS: I was living seven miles from where the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Do you remember when your father left to go to war?

BILL DRAKE: Um hm, I remember that, yeah.

RON JACOBS: How old do you think your father was then?

BILL DRAKE: I think he was 30. During that time, we lived with my grandfather, my mother and I. My grandparents, Mama and Papa Drake had twelve children, and they were all grown and had married and moved from home. So when my father went in the army—it was very usual in those days that people would move in with their parents so while Daddy was in the army, we lived with Mama and Papa Drake.

RON JACOBS: And your grandfather was retired by then?

BILL DRAKE: No, he was Mayor of Iron City, Georgia and the Postmaster. And had a farm, stuff like that, and owned some property.

RON JACOBS: So that’s a prestige thing, right?

BILL DRAKE: Well, it was particularly good during the war because with the Post Office thing it was a necessary thing so you had gas rations and had food.

RON JACOBS: So for you, that must have been sort of cool if you’re living with your grandpa and he’s got it made. Plus the kids are out of the house, so you’re with your mother and your grandparents and both of them are alive and they’re probably not all that old.

BILL DRAKE: No, well Papa Drake died when he was 98 years old, my grandmother died when she was 87 I think. My father didn't get back home until about eight months after World War II was over because he was wounded over there. And so he spent a lot of time in hospitals after the trip back over here. And the war ended in 1945 so it was 1946 before he got home. And he was back here but he was in hospitals. They had to give him two steel hips and half a diaphragm.

RON JACOBS: Jesus! From some horrible infantry thing or what?

BILL DRAKE: Well, it was shrapnel.

RON JACOBS: In Europe?

BILL DRAKE: He eventually wound up in those days—they can do wonders today—in those days that would put the steel things in and it worked. He could operate all right for like maybe about five years.

RON JACOBS: Operate?

BILL DRAKE: I mean he could function.

RON JACOBS: Did this happen in Europe or in the Pacific?

BILL DRAKE: It was in France and Italy.

RON JACOBS: When the shit was hitting the fan.

BILL DRAKE: Uh huh.

RON JACOBS: Jesus! So he got purple hearts and stuff?

BILL DRAKE: Oh, he got more than that.

RON JACOBS: So tell me.

BILL DRAKE: No, no, I don’t know a lot about medals, not familiar with that, but I know that he had half a diaphragm—

RON JACOBS: Well, I’m not talking about the physical part—

BILL DRAKE: —one lung, half a diaphragm, cut from here to here (pointing to his midsection). Steel things to replace his hips. And those things in those days didn’t last too long so eventually happened was that his legs wouldn’t function.

RON JACOBS: How did you deal with that emotionally?

BILL DRAKE: Well.. I dealt with it. I figured if he could deal with it I could deal with it.

RON JACOBS: So in a way that was probably character building.

BILL DRAKE: No, I wouldn’t say it was character builder.

RON JACOBS: For you?

BILL DRAKE: No, it’s basically a natural thing. I knew that it was bad and I knew that he would prefer that it hadn’t happened, but it had and he was dealing with it as best he could. And if he could deal with it then sure as hell I could. It was him that was hurting, you know.

RON JACOBS: I know but to me looking at it, journalistically or whatever, it sounds like character builder to me because we all have within us some Freudian thing for or against our father.

BILL DRAKE: Oh, that was a pretty natural thing I think, at the time. It was part of the mood of the whole country. People were like that back then, in the South. I mean I don’t know about you coconut boys over there in Hawaii. (Laughs).

RON JACOBS: I’m just saying had your father—I don’t want to belabor this—but had your father gone to the war, nothing happens to him, OK, everything happens normal. But, your father comes back with this terrifying physical stuff which doesn’t just wing him in the shoulder or whatever. Goes through the rehab which is nothing compared to today, and so you’re not just a guy seeing your father come back, you’re seeing a guy go through a lot of stuff and you’re saying if he can do it I can do it. And I think that’s character building.

BILL DRAKE: I don’t know if it was even that or not because you have to realize I didn’t see my dad’s point. And when he came back I didn’t see him right away. Neither did the family. My mother went down there. He was at a Veteran’s Hospital in Florida .

RON JACOBS: But you were aware when he finally showed up.

BILL DRAKE: Yeah, but you don’t see that. When he did get back they had him pretty well pieced back together. And he didn’t complain—

RON JACOBS: That’s what I’m saying!

BILL DRAKE: —and so I figured that was cool and of course when that happened you know, with him later eventually those things, those steel things they put in started wearing out the bone.

RON JACOBS: I don’t know, it seems to me—because I can’t think of a time—and of course you and I have professionally known each other. But I’ve never seen you come close to blowing your cool. And I think that that is maybe where that starts, I don’t know. And then also if you want to talk about genetically, you talk about a grandfather that’s such a respected person and you’re growing up. Probably when you were living with your grandfather, you realized you couldn’t even try to get away with anything.

BILL DRAKE: Oh, I tried.

RON JACOBS: Like, what’s the worst that you did?

BILL DRAKE: That he did to me?

RON JACOBS: Well, let’s start with what’s the first thing you did?

BILL DRAKE: Oh. Well, first of all—

RON JACOBS: Now we get to the good shit.

BILL DRAKE: I must have been—God, I think it had to have been before my father went back from the army—he used to smoke cigars and pipe and also chewed tobacco.

RON JACOBS: Jesus.

BILL DRAKE: Well, everybody did down there. But I remember when I was a kid I stole one of his cigars and it’s a large house. I went back to see it later. It didn’t seem nearly as large now but it seemed very large then. So at the far end of the house there was another fireplace and chimney so I’d go underneath the house and get behind that chimney with the cigars that I had stolen. Well, I ‘m back there puffing on this son of a bitch—

RON JACOBS: Did you get sick to your stomach?

BILL DRAKE: No. Well, I’d just started. And all of a sudden I hear “PHILLIP BOY”!

RON JACOBS: That’s what he called you, PHILLIP BOY?

BILL DRAKE: No, he just called me PHILLIP and when he was pissed he called me PHILLIP BOY. So this was PHILLIP BOY. I knew this was bad. ‘Cause he could see the smoke coming into the house, like the goddamn place was on fire.

RON JACOBS: Wasn’t he the fire chief too?

BILL DRAKE: No, he wasn’t. We didn’t even have a fire department then. But he hauled me into into the house and said, “You’ve been smoking out there haven’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“So, you want to smoke.”
“Uh huh.”
Now I wished at that point in time that he’d beat the hell out of me, which he didn’t. He said “Well, come on with me.”
So he had a big screen porch about half as big as this bar and sat me down in the chair opposite him. Lit another cigar. He lit one up, said “You want to smoke? Go ahead.”
Well, he made me smoke that cigar, I got so goddamn sick I wished he’d beat the hell out of me at that point.

RON JACOBS: Now this we call a character builder.

BILL DRAKE: I got so sick.

RON JACOBS: So it seems to me then at a time when it’s all formative that you really benefited from being around your grandfather.

BILL DRAKE: Oh, absolutely. I mean I used to totally try to impress him that I knew what was going on. I remember he had cotton fields and he had onion fields and he had different vegetables and this, that and the other, and one thing that he used to like to quote even when I was out here and would go back when he was still alive—

RON JACOBS: And he lived to?

BILL DRAKE: 98 years old.

RON JACOBS: What year, do you know?

BILL DRAKE: I can’t remember. But at any rate, he used to love to tell the story of when I was a kid that I would walk around behind him like this and—

RON JACOBS: With your hands on your hips?

BILL DRAKE: Because he’d be out talking to the people and he would do this, that and the other, and I would say, “Oh, Papa Drake, this cotton soon’s going to be big enough to eat!” (Laughs.) I didn’t even know what the hell they did with cotton! He used to love to tell that story. And he used to say, “How bright can you be, PHILLIP!”

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