T GAMBLE: Virginia is for lovers … and KKK members

I wish to go on record and state I have never been in a high school or college annual in my life. And, if I have, I have no knowledge of any pictures, writings or other statements that may or may not be attributed to me.

Up until a few weeks ago, my high school annual served only to remind me that I was tall, frail and sitting on the end of the bench. I don’t know who takes annual pictures, but I strongly suspect the guy who takes driver’s license photos moonlights as a high school annual photographer. To think, I actually paid for these photos and my mother placed them around the house as if to say, “I know you are looking at him live right now, but he really looks this bad most of the time.”

In truth, my annual does not have much to get riled up about, but I guess annuals in Virginia are an entirely different matter. It appears every politician there dressed in blackface and joined the Ku Klux Klan. To my knowledge, I have never actually seen a live person in a Ku Klux Klan outfit or in blackface. Apparently in Virginia, you can run into both at the Waffle House and next month they will be elected governor.

My annual did have pictures of students at the smokestack. The smokestack was where kids could go to smoke. They had to get a permission slip signed by their parents to do so, and I suspect most signed their own. At any rate, imagine today a designated place for kids to smoke cigarettes. But back then kids puffed happily away and they put it in the annual. They also notated beside each name which kid was most likely to succeed, become famous etc. My folks’ annual had all that. My annuals did not say a thing beside anybody accept what somebody hand-wrote. I guess they decided nobody in my class was going to amount to a darn thing, and they were pretty close to right.

The most startling thing about Virginia is that most of these annual photos were in the medical school annuals. Oh boy, I might have to stop and think before getting medical service in Virginia.

When I was a kid they had shirts everywhere that said “Virginia Is for Lovers.” They left out the Ku Klux Klan advertisements. These Virginia Is for Lovers shirts were very popular and before long, in my hometown of Dawson, there were Dawson Is for Lovers T-shirts. For some reason they were not as popular as Virginia Is for Lovers, but I still had one.

These Dawson Is for Lovers shirts were even better because our Congressman was Dawson Mathis. Eventually he decided to run for the U.S. Senate. He put out bumper stickers that said something like “I’m for Dawson” or “Go, Dawson, Go.” Every car in Dawson had a bumper sticker that said Go, Dawson, Go, and I doubt 10 percent of the folks knew it was talking about a Senate campaign, not the town. Dawson folks were just glad we had bumper stickers talking about us. And I’m glad there aren’t any pictures worth talking about in my annuals.

Email T Gamble at [email protected].