“I started working on standing on one finger in 1947 when I saw a circus performer do it. I couldn’t come close to being the balancer that he was. I worked on it for about 15 years and could finally do it for about 10 seconds. When I did it, there were only about five people in the world who had done it. I fell many times before I finally got up there. In gymnastics, you learn to fall. I will turn 94 on February 12 and can’t stand on one finger now. 

I grew up in Toulminville, outside of Mobile. I was 14 when I won the Mobile city yoyo championship in 1942.  The prize was a new Schwinn bicycle, and I was going to win it. The bus fare downtown was a nickel. I used the one nickel I had to take the bus to Bienville Square. It was a six-mile walk, but I thought I was going to win the bike and ride it back. There was a kid from the other side of town who was as good as me. We faced off against each other and did all of the tricks, so the winner would be decided by who could do the most loop-de-loops. Both of us were well into the three hundreds. I beat him by five loops. I still have that yoyo.

We used to go down to Three Mile Creek and catch crawfish. We stood on a board and sank it to the bottom of the ditch. When we let the board up, it would be covered in crawfish. 

I graduated from Murphy High School on Friday, the following Monday I was in boot camp. World War II ended soon after that, but I was still a veteran of World War II. 

I became a world-class weight lifter. I weighed 129 pounds but lifted 302 pounds overhead. I was small for my age and wanted an equalizer. I found I could gain muscle fast by working with the weights. Coaches at that time were against athletes working out with weights because they thought it would make you muscle-bound and slow you down.

While I was serving in the Navy in China an executive officer heard about my weight-lifting accomplishments and thought I was a good candidate for the Olympics. He tried to get clearance for me to travel from China to Philadelphia to compete in the Olympic trials, but he couldn’t do it. Transportation wasn’t what it is now. I think I could have won because I had beat the person who won the gold medal in a previous competition. 

I wasn’t too interested in China, but I wish I had learned more about it. I wish I had learned more about everything that I was exposed to. I didn’t learn much in high school. I graduated from Murphy High School, but if you averaged out my grades, they were probably a D minus.

When I got out of the Navy and said I was going to college, people laughed and said I would never make it. But college was easy when I finally learned to apply myself. I competed in gymnastics at Southern Miss and won the Southern AAU all-around championship.

I even got my doctorate.  I taught all day at Mobile College then left at 4:00 p.m. for the two-hour drive to Southern Mississippi. I took classes for four hours a night, five nights a week. I couldn’t afford not to work, but I got my doctorate in less than two years. I was proud of that degree because once again people said I couldn’t do it. 

I was one of the original faculty members at Mobile College, now the University of Mobile. It started in an office in downtown Mobile. I was the last of the original faculty members when I retired in 2011. I was there for 48 years. I taught kinesiology, exercise physiology, and statistics. I wrote the textbooks on health and statistics because there weren’t any good ones available. 

In 1982, I decided to make a train engine, but it was my first attempt at woodworking and I didn’t have the tools. The engine was pretty good and I was hooked. I made yo-yos, slingshots, popguns, helicopters, bi-planes, and rocking horses. I sold wooden toys at the arts and crafts festivals in Fairhope, Daphne, and Mobile.

When I was a professor at the University of Mobile, I taught all of the athletes. Every year on my birthday, I brought in the workout wheel that I made. I told them that anyone who could do just one roll out with the wheel would get an A in the class. I showed them how to do it first. I was in my 80s and would do 30 of them. The young athletes would try and fail, fail, fail. Only one person was able to do it, and he made an A on his own. I did that every birthday until I retired.

I also wrote poetry. After I learned I could prove myself, I was always interested in doing all I could in life. I have a great family and would do it all over again.

Gene

You can Go Either Way

Don’t be despondent

If this isn’t your “day,”

And don’t feel “blue” 

When all your dreams

Just seem to fade away.

Don’t let it “bug” you

If all the “signs” say stop!

Just step remember-the last step 

On your way to the bottom

Is the first step

On your way to the top.