The Assassin

Class of 1967

Chapter 4

Class of 1967

Johnny Plans College

Our high school years slipped by quickly. We continued to mate on board the Seaward. We fished during the spring, summer, and fall. We hunted during the winter months. We played on the basketball and baseball teams at school. I excelled academically. Royce got by.

The class of 1967 at Cape Hatteras High School was about to graduate. Royce and I had both grown to 6'2". Our hair was blonde, and our eyes were blue. We were both lanky, but handsome by everyone's standards.

I applied to several colleges and was accepted at all of them. I decided to attend Berkeley. I wanted to go to college a long ways from home. It would help to keep me from being forced into a lifetime on a charter boat.

A career that didn't involve fishing on board the Seaward, or any other charter boat, was what I wanted. I had become persuaded that I had to have an education that provided me with the means by which I could see the world.

I hadn't told my parents that I had made my decision. I talked to them about attending college on frequent occasions, but they were both totally opposed to the idea.

They considered college to be a waste of time. Neither our dad nor mom had received any formal education. They didn't believe that they needed it and saw no need for me to have any further education after high school.

Our parents had always worked hard to support their family, and they expected me to do the same. They didn't believe that a college education would improve my chances. I can still hear my father ask me, "Just what is it that you expect to learn at college that will make your life better than what you have here?"

Our mom, Edith, was born on a tobacco farm in what we called Little Washington. Her own mother had died when she was only eight years old. She was left to help rear six brothers and sisters.

She did so without much help from either her father or her new stepmother. Neither of them had much patience with a houseful of children. My mom assumed primary care of her siblings. It was a heavy burden for a young girl to bear.

The operation of the tobacco farm where she was born had demanded all of her father's attention. He told her, "Planting tobacco and raising it takes all my time. Harvesting and preparing the crop for market means we all have to help. It takes us from daybreak to dark every day."

Neither she nor her brothers and sisters had time for school. Her father was tired at the end of the day. He had no time left for his family.

Life was hard for our mom on the farm. She had a lot of responsibilities. There were children who needed her attention and fields of tobacco that needed work.

She was introduced far too early to the difficulties of rearing a family. And when she wasn't attending to those chores, she was helping in the tobacco fields.

Our mom had never had much time to enjoy her own life. There had only been time for the difficult things in life. The idea of a formal education wasn't something to which she had even given much thought.

She was barely able to read or write herself. She had learned everything she knew on her own. And she saw no reason that I needed to be able to do any more. After all, when was there time to read? There was so much that could be done each day on board the Seaward.

"You need to stay here and work with your dad. If you leave to get a college education, you'll just end up back here anyway. So why bother leaving?