Scanned and retouched from a vintage photograph.......a small 'graduating class'.....6 guys and 14 gals.... During the Great Depression many Southerners were not fortunate enough to graduate from High School.....In Huntsville, many went to work in the 'Ragland Cotton Mills' of West Huntsville.....and, later, in Armament Manufacturing at the local 'Arsenal'......My mother is standing in the back row, '3rd from the left'.......making a 'face' for the camera......
I met Berenice when I was with Saks Fifth Avenue, at Phipps Plaza...in the late 1960's.....where I would haunt the piles/racks/barrels/walls/floors of Oddities, mostly....unclaimed 'salvaged' items.......My 'Collection' of Stuff, eventually, became fodder for opening a Gallery/Shop at The Atlanta Flea Market, on Piedmont Road, where REED SAVAGE ANTIQUES evolved from 'pickings' and Estate/Yard Sales last day leftovers............Berenice......aka 'Big Red', was only interested in 'the bottom line'.....'PROFIT'!.....and knew absolutely nothing about 'Fine Art' or 'Antiques'....so....over a period of about five years, I exchanged my rather arcane knowledge with Berenice.....for some 'first sightings' of 'Fine' Art, high-end electronics, Couture and "Oddities", before she dumped them into piles on the floor of her Brookhaven 'Salvage Yard'.............. Memories of Berenice flashed in my memory, this morning, after reading her Obituary....
SHIREY, Bernice BERNICE RALEY SHIREY Bernice Raley Shirey, 81, of Atlanta died April 29, 2009. The fiery redheaded basketball star from Avera, Georgia, moved to Atlanta in 1944 to attend cosmetology school. She married in 1948 and opened a tiny beauty shop in her home in Chamblee. By 1955, she had three children and moved to Doraville opening The Bargain Store with her beauty shop in back and her new real estate/insurance business next door. In 1958 she had expanded her family to four children and her businesses to include Quality Value Clothing, The Village Antique Shop, Shirey's Beauty Shop and Shirey's Beauty College all located on Peachtree Road in Brookhaven. In 1966 she moved her Quality Value Clothing up the street to a larger building which became the first Peachtree Quality Salvage. She eventually had eight locations operating for twenty five years. In 1987 she built a new headquarter store/warehouse in Cumming which later became Freight Surplus Sales. In 1998 the business transformed again into an auction house known as At The Auction. Through the years, she purchased and leased houses, shopping centers and retail buildings which became her biggest business. Not only was she a successful business woman, she was a top notch mother, wife and matriarch to her very close family. Her door was always open and there was usually one or two cousins living with the family. Every morning, before work, Mimi (as she was called), put a full breakfast on the table and every evening she tended her ½ acre garden before preparing dinner for her family and extended family. Weekends were family time with Friday night fish fries, Saturday night cookouts and Sunday picnics and fishing. She loved her work; she loved her family and she excelled at both. Bernice Shirey was preceded in death by her husband, John Leonard Shirey and grandson, Joseph Wayne Shirey, II. Survivors include her daughter, Pam Shirey Cannon, sons and daughters-in-law, John R. and Robley Shirey, Wayne and Pat Shirey, Mark and Vicky Shirey, grandchildren and their spouses, J* Shirey, Jonathan and Heidi Shirey, Kate Shirey, Rebecca Shirey, Hilary and Levi Shepard, Mallory and Frank Reid, Raley E. Shirey, Nicholas Shirey, Matt and Jennifer Shirey, Erin Shirey, Daniel Shirey, great-grandchildren, Raley L. Shirey, Jonathan Shirey II, brothers, Melvin Raley and Elton Raley. Funeral services will be held Saturday, May 2nd at 1 o'clock at Oglethorpe Hill Chapel. Interment Arlington Memorial Park.
I may have not done well in a sophmore "Statistics and Probabiities" course because the day before 'Finals' I received the EICO Amplifier kits for a make-it-yourself 'Stereo" system to replace the old GE "Swing out" crap that I lugged to Nashville a year before.....I coundn't resist dragging out the components and wiring an amp up for action.....forgetting, entirely...which wasn't that difficult, if you know what I mean.....to even attend the Mid-Term Test....As Punishment, I was told that I could not possibly receive higher than a 'C" on the test that I had to take in my Professor's office, with her glaring at me....the whole time....Sorry, Mrs. Shackleford!......can YOU write a good poem or short story???!!! Bet Not! At least, the $160 that I spent on these kits was a reasonable investment......I sold them, recently, for almost a thousand bucks....so there! I donated that old 'Statistics and Probabilities" book to a Library sale, where it garnered $0.50......Seems no one else was very interested in it, either....
Before 'Toilet Gator'...... Before "A Coupla of White Faggots, Sitting Around Talking".....Taylor Mead demonstrated that 'There Is No Such Thing As Gravity', as free-associates, with friends, in the Cinema Verite Style of the New York Underground.......Richard Lester was but one of others who utilized the b/w madcap style of "Hard Day's Night"......Robert Downey Sr. did this in, among his other work, BABO 73 (1974), with Tom Gaines, Taylor Mead and Jim Antonio......three of the first 'Beatiks' that I met in NYC, on my "Senior Class Trip".......after which, I felt a bit freed of the handcuffing, wrist-twisting, hand's behind the back repression of my previous Life in North Alabama.......
