Paul Berry Academic Scholarship Foundation

She [grandmother Annie Talley] had me--I would go to church on--we'd go to church, I'd go to church, a little church in (laughter), on Irwin Road and Old State Line Road, a little Church of God with Reverend and Sister Jackson. He was a minister. And we would go to church Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, whether we wanted to or not. I remember at eight years, I was teaching Sunday school. I could read from the age of, I think mom says three and a half or four years old. I was reading, reading the Bible, you know. And so my grandmother would have us--and at that time, Debbie was still with, was still--we'd go to church and we'd be sitting there. And in the church would be Reverend Jackson, his wife, my grandmother and Debbie and me. That was it in the church at that--and there's, you know, they're singing and we're singing. Debbie and I look at each other and then Reverend Jackson would get up, and he would preach. And he'd do the service, and Debbie and I would look at each other because we knew that my grandmother knew more Bible than he knew because (laughter) she had studied the Bible. So we knew. So who was he preaching to? Debbie and I didn't care (laughter). We didn't wanna hear it. And he would, and then he would say this--and this, and (unclear) (laughter), "Now, pardon my digression." And we, oh, God, that meant, here's a ten minute loop about--oh my God. And my grandmother would look over at us and throw her finger at, which meant, you didn't misbehave. Or she would, if you did, she would walk over with her hand held high, coming across to where we were sitting, and reach over and grab you on the arm, right here and turn it and dare you, dare you to say a word. You'd better not yell. She'd just turn it, pinch you. And she'd turn you loose and walk back. And that, now, she was known for it so much so that her younger sister, Carrie Presley, that was her nickname. She used to call her "Pinch," (laughter) because she used to pinch. You didn't wanna get pinched by our grandmother, but she would come over and she would, she'd wrap you up, boy. And we'd sit there, and, you know--and it was good. I mean I, I learned the things, and I would teach Sunday school. Then I traveled with the Reverend Jackson. We went to different--she felt comfortable that he was a good man, a good and decent man. And what I learned later was what she meant by that, she wasn't worried of turning me loose with this guy. She thought he was--and he was. He, there was never, ever any, a hint of anything at all. And I would travel with him, and it was great. And then, you know, he'd take his eight, nine-year old parishioner with him to, to what they used to have those conventions, church conventions here and there. It was great. I got a chance to travel. Then when I got back to--I was home at, I think about the age of eight or nine, my grandmother called me in one day. And she said, "Paul, I want you to learn to cook." She says, "You gotta take care of yourself." She said, "So from now on, once a month, I want you to plan a meal, go shopping with me to get it, come back and fix it, cook it, clean up." She said, "I want you to do that once a month. Would you do it?" I said, "Of course." When you're eight years old, that sounded like a huge assignment and wonderful. So we used to go into the A and P, when we--when I went with her or Kroger's at the time. I think it was an A and P Store. And we'd buy, she said, "What do you want?" And I'd tell her what I was gonna cook. And I would come back and I would cook that meal. And it was a wonderful learning experience. But I grew right--and I did it every year, eight, nine, ten. When I came back from--at eleven, twelve, and then probably at my twelfth or thirteenth year, and I don't know which one, I was outside playing. And I had boasted about the fact that I cooked, and I knew how to cook. And my friends, Tommy Sorminsky [ph.] and Mike Soransky [ph.] who lived across the street from us, they laughed at me. "Why are you laughing?" "You, girl--boys don't cook. Girls cook." That's what they said. And I remembered that. So she called me in one day. She said, (laughter) "Paul, come (unclear), it's time." And I was upset because we were playing out in the field or whatever we're doing and I gotta go shop and all that. And I said it to her. I said, "Mom, I'm a boy. I'm not a girl. I'm a boy. Why do I have to--girls cook." "Oh, Paul," she said, "really?" She said, "Now, where did you hear that?" I told her. She says, "Well, let me tell you something." She says, "I raised nine of my children," and she says, "I raised them so dumb in the kitchen that they didn't know how to boil water. I did it all." She says, "But with you I got a second chance, Paul. And I'm making full use of that." She says, "Now, you're gonna cook." And she says, "I'll tell you why." She said, "At one day in the future, you're going to grow up," she says. "And you're going to want to get married." She says, "But one of the reasons you'll get married is not because you're hungry. You'll know how to cook." And that was, and I looked at her. She said, "So go out. I'll do it," she says, "but you're gonna cook." She says, "You'll get married for all the right reasons, but you'll know how to take care of yourself." And I remember that to this day. "You know, you'll get married for a lot of silly reasons, but one of 'em won't be because you're hungry."$And so when King [Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]--I don't know whether it was King or Kennedy [Robert Kennedy]. Who got--King got killed first.$$First, right.$$When King was killed, it was censored out of Saigon, censored. I mean until they figured out how to broadcast. But you know where it wasn't censored on FM Tuy Hoa. And we broadcast--now, again, we weren't doing it as anti anything. We were just saying that the troops, here was the news. We picked up the signal. We got the reports, and we played that report right on--"[Reverend Dr.] Martin Luther King, Jr. killed, assassinated, or whatever they called it, and we broadcast that thing. Now, to understand the structure, the radio station was controlled AFVN [Air Forces Vietnam Network]. Our radio station, our little FM Tuy Hoa was controlled by the base commander, okay. So if I reported to anyone, I reported to him. He was the commander of Tuy Hoa, okay. And this was a installation that was sitting on his facility. So he was commander of it. But we weren't thinking about that. We, that was just a structure that we had to have in place because we were on the base. And sure enough, we broadcast the assassination of Martin Luther King. All hell broke loose because somebody heard our broadcast and the censors in Saigon went absolutely ape, and upset, and boy, we got, you know--you will not, you'll cease and desist, and you'll so and so, and that is, you know, it's unauthorized. And you don't have, and I mean, and we were like, "Well, Jesus, what is this? You know, I mean we were just giving out the news." Our theory was Americans fighting had to know what was going on at home. So we--and it's a good thing it happened then because I then had to explain. The, the--we stopped with the broadcast because we were told to stop. And at this point, we didn't know what to do. The commander of the air base at Tuy-Hoa listened to FM Tuy Hoa. It was his radio station, so he called me down to his office. "Lieutenant, what the heck's going on?" Why, you know, I told him what happened. And he says, "What?" I said, "Yeah, apparently--well, not apparently, sir, the, you know, the Air Force wants to, wants it censored information." I says not Air Force because AFRTS [American Forces Radio and Television Service] was a combination of all services, Armed Forces Radio Television Service. He says, "Well, how does that apply here?" I said, "Well, the commander-" He said, "The commander is not in charge of my facility. That's my radio station." And he says, "And you are now ordered to put--you go on the air with whatever you choose." He says, "As long as it's in good taste, the American soldier has a right to know. Thank you, sir." So, it got quiet. We went back on doing our broadcast, doing our written newscast. And then up comes the death of Robert Kennedy. And we were first--Reuters is the other news services that I was talking about, okay.$$Right, out of Britain.$$Reuters was the news service.