Shout-out to Jim McCallie
College fraternities are exclusionary by intention. I’m making these assessments from a perspective of sixty years ago (Vandy Phi 1962). It now dawns on me that that sense of being wanted, of being recruited, of being included is a lot of what hooks us in. I particularly remember the meals – breakfast lunch and supper – that were shared with those we were closest to on campus. After noon lunch we would often pull out the cards and play hearts until we had to break it up and head out to a 1 o’clock class. For me supper came after a day of classes and track practice; and it was the one hour all day that I didn’t have to think about assignments due or other stresses. Lingering as long as I could over the meal, I would finally tear myself loose to head to the library and try to stay awake over my studies.
My blood brother and fraternity brother Dillon, two years ahead of me, arranged for me to have Jim McCallie as my “big brother” in the fraternity. I frequently use the expression of “don’t miss the miracles;” well, this was a miracle at the time and for the rest of my professional career in education. I use the term arranged in explaining Dillon arranging for Jim to be my “big brother.” Jim, ten years later, arranged my marriage. I’ll explain that below.
I’d like to draw a few paragraphs out of my memoir[1] to show how important Jim McCallie has been to me:
McCallie, a boys’ school, was established in 1905 and quickly became one of the premier prep schools in the South, known for its academics and its character building. I signed a contract there for my first adult job, this in my last Vanderbilt winter. I was headed to McCallie for that 1962-63 school year. The co-headmaster responsible for hiring, Dr. Bob McCallie, was father of my fraternity “big brother,” which may have helped me get that job.[2]
That last phrase above about “might have” was written with tongue in cheek. I had nothing to distinguish myself from others in the stack of applications that must have been on Dr. Bob’s desk. It was only Jim’s word to his father that gave me that job. Talk about God’s plan: how different my career would have been if it weren’t for starting out at McCallie.
It was a full life with lots of bonding with an all-male student body. I worked hard; I earned $312 per month. There was no pampering of teachers, but neither did I hear teachers complaining. Every job hereafter I compared to my initial two years (and three summers) at the outset of my fifty years in education. I was imprinted with the sheer joy of how school is done well. I can’t imagine a better place for an eager young man to start his teaching career than McCallie School.[3]
I had vowed that I would never leave the classroom & sports field for an administrative job in education. In ignorance, this is what I said to myself: “If I wanted a desk job, I’d go into business.” Jim was God’s instrument for saying to me, “Somebody has to lead. It will never be as much fun as teaching and coaching, but it’s what I’m calling you to do”. Here is how Jim pulled it off:
[He] cleared with his Uncle, Dr. Pressley his visit with me, and arranged for us to meet in Westminster’s Carlyle Fraser Library after hours. “Chuck, I’ve been hired to start a new school and I want you to come and help me.”
“Wow, that’s exciting for you, Jimmy. So, you’ll be a headmaster. Congratulations! I don’t know about me, but I’m excited for you.”
“Thank you. But I want you to come and help me. It will be hard work, and I need you to do it with me. I can’t pay you much, but you can be the assistant headmaster.”
He talked about Columbus, Georgia, the site of this newly-named Brookstone School, as a sophisticated small city with many affluent prep school and Ivy League graduates who were serving on the Brookstone board. The account of that evening ends thusly:
At that he spread out a big roll of architectural drawings. He treated the plans with as much excitement as he would have had if he were showing me finished buildings with lush landscaping in place. I couldn’t see it, but Jim surely could.
Finally, without being coy, I said, “I can’t resist, Jim. I like the idea of helping start something, and I’d love nothing better than to work with you. I guess I’m a sucker for adventure.”[4]
So, it seems that Jim McCallie has been a MAJOR influence on my 50-year-career in education. But I know that you, the reader, are going to balk at the idea that he also set me up for an arranged marriage; but it’s true, and this is how it happened:
In the summer before the school’s second year, when I first saw the woman that Jim was interviewing for an art teaching position, I thought she was too pretty to have much to her.
Later Jim said during our afternoon tennis match, “Chuck, this is the hire I am most excited about. Come on, give me some credit for having discernment about people. I hired you, didn’t I.”
“I’m sorry, Jim. Of course I trust you. I just thought maybe you were swayed because she had been ‘Miss Alabama,’ or something like that. I should give you more credit.”
“No, she wasn’t ‘Miss Alabama,’ but I see what you mean. It’s probably only because she didn’t enter the competition. So, Chuck, you only had brothers growing up, right? So, you don’t know much about women, do you? You’ve judged wrong on this one.” … Such was my introduction to JoElyn Jones, in the hot summer of 1970. Little did I appreciate that as pleased as Jim was to hire a really qualified middle school art teacher, he was more excited that he might just have found a wife for his little brother, for whom he felt quite responsible.[5]
At age 29, I had not outgrown my fear of calling a girl and asking for a date, but within the first three or four weeks of the school year, I felt emboldened to call JoElyn:
I called JoElyn from New York where I was attending an SSAT Conference. I thought she would be impressed by my calling from New York. In the ’60s all phones were “land lines” and you made special arrangements and paid extra fees for long-distance calls. We had a conversation full of laughs at the end of which I asked her if she would like to go out with me that coming weekend. She readily said “yes.” This was unlike any interaction with a girl I had ever had, particularly one so pretty.[6]
JoElyn and I were married June 12 at the end of that school year, not by a marriage arranged by our parents, but one arranged by Jim McCallie. Fifty years for me in education and fifty years of marriage, and Jim has been at the center of both.
[1] See chuckjohnstonmemoir.com for the book’s website.
[2] Don’t Miss the Miracles, page 81
[3] Ibid, page 82
[4] Ibid, page 93
[5] Ibid, pages 95-96
[6] Ibid, page 97
