Mom Speaks: About Her Boyfriends

Where were we? Talking about your boyfriends.

Gene Benton from first grade.

Go ahead, talk about Gene.

Oh..it. It was first grade boyfriend. Laughs. What is there to say?

I don’t know what that is. I never had a first grade boyfriend.

Well, it’s just, you know…it was just a title. First grade boyfriend. Wasn’t anything to it. Let’s see- I think I got my first halfway serious boyfriend in sixth grade. His name was Mark Faulkner, and his best friend Buddy Aldridge, was my next boyfriend and I ended up marrying him right out of my second year of college. I stayed married for about a year and a half, and of course I was 18 when I got married, so we just grew apart. We were just kids.

Were you guys married from sixth grade, or?

Umm…no, I had a black boyfriend in between that time. Laughs again..

What was his name?

Joseph Hipp.

How did that happen?

It, just I was being rebellious. We had just integrated school in about the eighth grade, and some of the girls were interested in some of the black guys. So I just got involved with some of those girls, and they got me involved with a black boy, and that didn’t go over very well cuz then the whole town found out about it. The principal said I was “struck down in the prime of my life.” Laughter.

Wow. Who was the principal?

Old…white-haired man. I can see him. Uh…Mr Baloo. Yeah! His name was Mr Baloo.

Did he tell you that, that you were struck down?

Yeah. Yeah. It was the day that everyone (interrupted) that the whole school found out, because the, the black boy that I was going out with, his sister was pissed off at one of the other white girls cuz she was going out with her boyfriend. So she told the whole school and it was a huge deal so the principal took a couple of us girls home, during school that day, to get us out of there I guess.