Harold Mabry

As soon as I graduated (60) I moved to Mobile, Alabama where I married My son's ex mother, a country singer. I worked for Gayfers in Mobile and opened the Edgewater store. I had my son 3 years later. Moved from there to Summerville, S.C. , 23 miles north of Charleston. They ran me out of town saying I was a jinx. There hadn't been an appreciable snow in 60 years. Got 11 inches the night i arrived. They had to call out the National Guard. I wound up in Tupelo, Ms. as manager of Dictaphone, and was one of the first men in Mississippi to get custody of his child. Was transferred into Jackson as a Technical Sales Representative, handling mainly telephone solicitation,answering and paging systems. For years if you called Ms. Bureau of Vital Statistics my voice would answer giving you information on how to get records. My father once called 5 exterminators and my voice answered on 4 of the 5. After the 79 flood, I went into business for myself opening a company called The Phone Company. I added a Security and Investigation business, and broke up strikes and investigated theft in the fledgling Catfish Industry in the Delta. I was known to many in Belzoni as "Boss Hog". They just loved me so much. I even had to fingerprint and mugshot some of our classmates. They weren't guilty, thank goodness. Then I probably would not have been able to go to Reunions. I Worked as a body guard for managers of a Hud apartment complex who were getting death threats. I evolved into the electronic security and telephone business and met and married my soulmate Linda Cooper, from Pelahatchie in 1986. She retired from the State DHS and we bought several businesses which we ran in Jackson and Morton,Ms. Several years ago she was diagnosed with golfball sized anuerysms behind both eyes. We were inseperable for the last six years back and forth to Memphis trying to keep her alive. We were in a bad auto accident in February and the anuerysms broke and she died within minutes. I am trying to sell the last of my buildings in Morton and want to slow down and smell the roses.

I was kind of a quiet loner in school, and usually dated older girls from other schools. My senior year I was dating a teacher from another school who had just started teaching. We didn't even make the news.

I remember Mrs. Shell. If you did not have a fountain pen when it was needed, she would loan you one. She would always keep the cap so you could not walk out with her pen. She always had an apple on her desk and one day it just looked too delicious and I took a bite of it. She chastised me profusely. She even taught me those big words. The next day i brought her a bag of apples and wrote her a poem. Roses are red, violets are blue, here's your apple and a few more too. She forgave me.
I remember Mr. Thompson's paddle. Three weeks before graduation, i was managing a band and had booked a gig for them. Their leader refused to pay me and started badmouthing me to a friend. I walked into the coach's study hall and removed him to the hall, where i proceeded to teach him some manners. We were taken to Mr. Thompson's office. He listened to both sides and then told us we both would get licks. Ms. Shell's apple and this were the only times i had ever gotten in trouble in school. I told him i would not take the licks. I was told I could take the licks or not graduate. I decided to graduate. He sat us down and called the other boy into his office and closed the door. I felt the licks all the way thru the closed door. When it was my time, he said, you have never given me any trouble, and he hated to do this. I bent over with clenched teeth as he raised the paddle. I saw it swinging. Then tap-tap, he barely hit me. I was told however to keep my mouth shut the rest of the school year. I certainly did.