Random Memories: -- recollections from the youngest Ferguson brother
I was born April 16, 1954 in Lafayette, LA at the then Lafayette Sanitarium. I had a black ‘nanny’ – in the old days they would have used the term ‘Mamie’. Her first name was 'Vivian' and she was a kindly older woman at the time as I recall and remember seeing in one of our home movies.
Kindergarten was uneventful, with faint images of nice nuns, a classroom with crayon-filled work areas and clover in the yard for making clover flower chains.
The early elementary grades at Cathedral have left a few faint memories. I remember some kind lay teachers there and certain classrooms. I can recall doing a Halloween crayon etching where a crayon layer of one color was laid down on the paper and a layer of another color was laid on top of the first. By scratching away areas of the second layer, the color from the first layer magically appeared. I was fascinated.
Another memory from the same classroom, maybe a different year, I remember a spelling Bee where we each stood by our desks and had spelled words called out by the teacher in turn. If we misspelled a word, we had to sit down. I always wanted to be the last person standing, but never was.
I remember writing practice using Big Chief notebooks -- the ones with the brown paper that had little slivers of bark in them. When we were learning cursive writing, I remember a border high on the wall all the way around the classroom of big letters written in cursive to show us how our letters should look.
Being left-handed, my writing was messy. Let me explain why. As a lefty drags his/her hand across the tablet while writing -- they typically pass the side of their palm and pinky finger squarely over the area where the pencil just scribed. This is not a problem for righties as their pinky finger and palm are always leading the path over the paper. To make things worse for lefties, the way cursive writing causes the letters to lean to the right, the lefty's wrist and hand must turn at an awkward angle in order to make the letters slant 'correctly'. If the teacher does not recognize this and help the student correct it, smeared letters are the inevitable result. One way the teacher could help would be to encourage the lefty to hold their wrist straight with the result that the letters would lean to the left. This would be more comfortable for the lefty, but might not be acceptable to the teacher.( I do recall seeing other left-handers writng which slanted to the left, and understand why now.) In any case, left untreated the lefty would progress through higher grades where ink is used more often with slightly-less-messy papers, but with ink stained palms and pinkies rather than pencil-stained.
I do remember a teacher asking me why my papers were so messy. I showed her my graphite-soiled palm and finger and explained why. She did not question me again...
It was maybe 5th or 6th grade at L. J. Alleman school before I trained myself to write with my wrist straight -- resulting initially in left-slanted letters, then gradually vertical letters -- which is how I write to this day.
I was very shy in my early elementary years at Cathedral. I don't believe I mixed with the other children very much, and preferred to be by myself. I recall walking all the way around the school building pressing a penny as I walked along into the mortar cap along the outside brick wall. The end result was a faceless penny which was burnished shiny and smooth.
I liked to draw odd scenes for a boy from south Louisiana. One favorite desert scene contained cactus, a mountain range in the background and a two-way striped highway vanishing into the sun-soaked distant mountains complete with vanishing telephone poles and fences. A nice nun took notice of one of these drawings and encouraged me to keep up the good work. Perhaps she admired a rudimentary awareness I had at the time of perspective. I also liked to draw people in pits under the ground with trap doors at the surface and military tanks with big guns and, lots of wheels and treads rolling around above.
The school had a vending machine outside the cafeteria, where on days when I had some change in my pocket, I could buy the most delicious salt-water-taffy.
Although I don't remember this, I was told by one of my classmates, that I caused a bit of excitement in the classroom one day. The teacher asked me to stand in front of the class and apparantly I fainted. Just like in the cartoons, she poured the water from a vase full of flowers on my face to revive me. My classmate described the water as being dirty-looking.
I know I had to stay after school several times for not doing my homework, although I would make an honest effort to complete it in the graveyard adjacent to the school in the morning after the bus dropped us off. This probably resulted in my short career at Cathedral. Tuition was not cheap, and was likely being wasted on me when there were perfectly good public school alternatives.
My 5th thru 8th grade years at L. J. Alleman school were uneventful for the most part. I do remember catching crawfish in the ditch on the edge of the school grounds. I was pretty good at marbles. Any marbles you knocked outside of a ring scratched in the dirt you could keep. I took band in the 7th and 8th grades. I remember the band director asking me what instrument I wanted to play. I asked to play the drums. He needed a trombone player. I played the trombone, but not very well. I joined the basketball team, but was not very good. I just could not get the hang of avoiding double-dribbling. Maybe the coach thought I needed some confidence, so one day he asked me to go to each classroom to make an announcement about practice that afternoon. I made the announcements, then at the end of school proudly went to tell the coach that I had completed my task. He asked me where everyone was. Unfortunately, he had wanted me to announce that there WOULD be a practice that afternoon and I told everyone there would NOT be one. He was not very happy, and never asked me to make any other announcements after that.
On the academic side, I entered a model rocketry exhibit in the science fair one year and was invited to show my exhibit at the local university, which I did. I was very proud.
I had a girl interested in me for a short while but didn't know what to say to her. After a few recesses of standing around looking at each other she dumped me, of course.
My father was from Leesville, :LA, a small town in north Louisiana next to a military base. He met my mother who was a nursing student during his residency at the local hospital and they fell in love. They went on to have 4 children of which I am the youngest (thus the title of this narrative).
My father learned how to hunt and fish as a child, and when we were old enough, taught us how to hunt and fish also. I enjoyed these times with him as he was a quiet person, and reserved, but kind and patient. He was proud of all of his hunting and fishing equipment, and kept it clean and in order. On fishing days, we would rise early -- 4:30 or 5 am, pile into my father's Ford Comet and head to the local diner for breakfast. Pecan waffles was, and still is, a treat for me, so that is what I would order. After breakfast it was a short drive to the favored fishing hole -- Henderson Lake, which marks the western edge of the Atchafalaya Spillway. Once at one of the several landings my father would select, he rented a 4 seat jon boat and placed his own outboard motor and fuel tank on it which he would have previously loaded into his car trunk. Once we had loaded the boat with snacks, drinks and bait, we would head out to the destination my father had picked out that day. Some days we would catch a lot of fish and some days not much, but it was always fun. On one of these days, we tied up to a tree on the edge of a canal. We started catching bream almost as fast as we could bait our hooks and drop the line into the water. That was a great day. Sometimes we would get caught out on the lake in the rain. Dad would give me something to cover with and he would head the boat toward the landing at top speed -- which was not really that fast with a 7 1/2 HP motor pushing 4 people -- but it seemed fast to me. He never complained. I don't even remember him cursing. I sure gave him cause on one trip when I accidentally dropped one of his nice Johnson fishing poles into the water. With only a slight hesitation, he jumped into the water and retrieved it. But, no reprimand for me though I deserved it. I wish I had that self control. Hunting trips did not make as much of a positive impression on me. I remember having cold toes and fingers while sitting in duck blinds and trudging through swampy areas with water up to my waist, but I was spending time with my father, so that was OK. One trip we met my uncle Dan (my dad's brother) and his son up in north Louisiana to hunt deer. I was dropped off at a deer stand on the side of a tree and climbed up to survey the area. The others went to their own stands. I remember hoping that I would NOT see a deer as I did not want to kill one, but I did not want to tell my father that. As it turned out, I did not see any to my relief and was able to fain disappointment over the fact. We did not go without a venison meal however, as my brother Steve did kill one and my uncle masterfully prepare it. It was one of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten. Life was good.
Nowadays, I enjoy just observing wildlife. I get my fish and meat from the local grocer, but, if I did need to hunt or fish for food, my father made sure that I have the skills to do so. I built a kayak out of exterior 1/4" luan plywood sealed with fiberglass tape and resin. It worked well but had a high center of gravity, so was a bit unstable.
I remember when we would build model rockets and go launch them out in the field next to Blackham Coliseum. Most had parachutes to return the rocket back safely to earth. My brother Joe built a little one that would go up like a bullet, but then the engine would backfire pushing it out enough for the rocket to unbalance and tumble back to the ground without damage. One windy day, an errant rocket landed in a nearby neighborhood. My father drove each street until, luckily, we found it in someone's front yard.
My father, Dr. J. R. Ferguson, was one of the first pediatricians in the Lafayette area. This was late 1940's, early 50's. He, along with a few other local doctors set up a Women's and Children's Clinic at 506 St. Landry St. across from the Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Lafayette. Many people have told me that he was either their or their children's doctor. He was my doctor as well.
Dr. J. R. Ferguson died February 8, 1996 after a bout of pneumonia at the nursing home near my mother's home. He was a good man, gone too soon, and I miss him. My mother wrote a considerable obituary for the local newspaper -- fitting as it was. Many people attended the wake, and I felt comforted that they cared about his passing. A local judge and friend of my oldest brother, Joe III attended the service as well as many other friends and relatives. During the service, Joe spoke of my father's character. We even laughed a few times. I could see it was difficult for Joe to do the eulogy, yet he had the character to speak for all of us, when we could not. That is one of the things that I admire about him.
Lafayette High School: 1968-1972
I decided not to pursue joining the high school band. I wish now that I had after seeing the closeness of the group when my daughter was in Band Auxiliary Color Guard and how it helped her to gain confidence in herself. My high school years were some with low self esteem, and extreme shyness -- which I since have come to believe was social anxiety -- a disorder not well understood at the time, but now treatable with medication. My next-door neighbor was a Spanish teacher at the high school, named Ruby Wortman. Her husband was a gentle man who always seemed to have a cigarette in his mouth and a mustache stained yellow from nicotine. Mrs. Wortman allowed me and some neighborhood friends to ride with her to and from school many times. She was very sweet. Her son and daughter-in-law have a Ceramics shop just outside of Duson, LA called Wortman Pottery.
I remember a few of my teachers and classes. I had Mrs. Duhon for Civics. I think she really liked me. I had George Bowles (who later ran for mayor of Lafayette, but lost) for Physical Science. He brought a geiger counter to class one day and showed how it detected radiation with a meter and by clicking. My biology teacher, Mr. Riett, fascinated the class one day by boiling water in a beaker at room temperature by placing it under a bell jar and vaccuuming the air out of the jar. The rest of the year was rather boring for me, and his class was right after lunch -- my nap time. When I realized that I was going to fail his class, I begged him to give me a D, which he did. I imagine he did not look forward to another year with me either. It is odd to think that I went on to get a B.S. degree in Zoology (animal biology)! I remember looking into the Physics lab and wishing that I could use that equipment, but I was a weak student and not in that 'track'. I was not very athletic. I tried throwing the javelin, but was unspectacular.
My post high-school years took me to different jobs: working at a pizzeria, washing dishes at a Walgreens store, and working at an oil field service company on Grand Isle, LA as a warehouseman. It was the first time I lived away from home. I worked there Monday thru Friday, and spent my weekends back in Lafayette. I drive back and forth in an old red 1966 Datsun truck that I bought for $600. It was the first vehicle I had ever bought. Prior to that, my brother Joe had given me some motorcycles and cars, one of which was an Opel GT which looked like a roadster, and ran OK, but had some electrical problems which I did not know how to fix. He also gave me a Dodge sedan, which I used for a while, painted with cans of spray paint, then gave to my brother Steve. Steve married Sharron Lightfoot, the middle sister of my high-school friend Jimmy Lightfoot. Jimmy and I would put our money together on the weekends and go riding with friends out in the countryside past the airport on what we called 'Stone Road' (called Garber Road today).
After high-school I took a year's vacation from education, then in 1973 I attended the local university. I tried majoring in Engineering first, but the math was too difficult. Music was next, but I had only taken those 2 years of band in 7th and 8th grades and had a few guitar jams with friends, but nothing serious. I saw some amazingly talented people in the music program, so I realized music as a career was not for me. After drifting through my college courses for several years, I finally settled on Zoology to finish my college career and start making some money for a change. But employment opportunities with a Biology degree were limited, and I did not want to pursue a masters degree in order to teach at the college level. So, I taught math, science and social studies at the elementary and high-school levels for four years in the St. Landry Parish school system. While those years were rather uneventful, I did develop an interest in computer programming, when my wife bought me my first computer, a Commodore VIC 20, at a local store. It was not very powerful, required a TV for a screen, and had very little memory for programs. But it did have a tape drive to store programs, and a few game cartridges were available. I began by copying programs from the included manual, then progressed to writing drill-and-practice software for my weaker students, an algebra equation solver, and dabbled in multiple-choice test-generating programs to simplify creating test papers. I also wrote an assembler and assembly program for a terminal program to display 40 characters per line rather than the standard 22 when connected to the university mainframe computer. Without an Education degree, I was teaching with a temporary or ' T'-Certificate until the schools could find qualified teachers to fill the position. During these four years, I began taking education classes during the summers to become certified to teach. All I was missing was my student teaching. At the end of the summer after the fourth year, I was not picked up for a teaching position. My wife saw this as an opportunity and asked if I wanted to go to Graduate School in Computer Science. I jumped at the opportunity, but later found graduate work too difficult, so I switched to the undergraduate program. I entered the undergraduate program in 1985 and three years later in 1988 graduated with my second B.S. this time in Computer Science, Business Option. By this time, my study skills and skills in math had greatly improved. My first computer-related jobs were some free-lance programming jobs and a teaching job at a local technical college. From there I went to Baton Rouge for several years to work at what was then Gary, Field, Landry and Bradford (with Jimmy Field, Public Service Commissioner), and later to merge with the much larger Jones, Walker firm. The office was situated on the 5th floor at 8555 United Plaza Blvd. in south Baton Rouge. My duties there were maintaining an existing software and upgrading computer equipment.
After the merger with Jones, Walker my duties were shifted to database development -- which I did not care for -- and computer-related training. I eventually tired of sitting behind a desk and decided to seek a job where I would work with my hands as I liked to do when I was younger. One of the first businesses where I inquired, was looking for someone to upgrade their network and train as an operator of computer-operated machine tools. I got the job and upgraded the computer systems, but was eventually moved into the position of Quality Control. I struggled with this position for some time until I came to the conclusion that it was not for me. My wife's uncle was ill at the time and they needed part-time care-giver for him. I offered to do it, so quit my job at Begneaud Mfg. I have been a care-giver since then, first for Doc, then his sister Eva, and currently the oldest sister Bertha. This takes only a few hours each day, and leaves me the rest of the day to spend as I wish. I had a full-time handyman business in 2007 and have been doing handyman jobs on and off since then for spending money. I have two beautiful grandchildren, Emma 8, and Jasey 2. and enjoy it when they sleep over or come to visit.
Scott Ferguson
September 20, 2010
