sponsored in part by
Page 6 If I was making money then, I didn't know it, and I really didn't care. After all, I really wasn't considered a professional singer at that time. But you know? I should have gotten paid something. I mean, come on, that was theft of services. After all, I'm sure somebody was surely getting paid something. You know, people loved that show every day and they really looked forward to it, and I was getting quite popular on the radio. But this one day, I went strutting on in for my broadcast, and there were two big, burly cops blocking the door, and they said, "You can't go in there no more, boy." I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "We don't allow no more blacks to be singing down here in this radio studio. You can't go in there anymore. Get the hell out of there."
I became very upset. This guy that owned the station who was from Ohio, came up to me and said, "Listen, Carl, I'm sorry, but this is the south. You know that this is the south. That's the way it is down here. There's absolutely nothing I can do about it. It seemed that somebody called up the station and said, "We're sending the cops down there if you put him on the air again." It could have been anybody from that town. It could have been some members of the Ku Klux Klan. Anybody that didn't want to hear a young black man sound so beautiful and so good to their women or whatever. I think it was one of those things. You know, when you sound good like that, all the girls, it didn't matter what color, would fall in love with you. And they weren't having that, not in Tyler, Texas.
It had happened to Nat King Cole in Alabama. He got slapped and knocked down to the ground for singing so good. And that was in his own home town too. I felt that over the radio they had no idea if I was black or white. Actually, they all said that I sounded white. I was singing the Ink Spots songs. I had perfect diction. I was singing all the classics, all the romance songs. They didn't know what color I was. Yet and still I was moving too fast, too quick.
I started working all over Tyler for rich white people with a band from high school. Although I almost cried after that incident of being thrown out of the radio station, I knew that I had to keep going. I knew that I could not let that stop me. The lady who got me the job didn't say a word. They probably would have slapped the hell out of her if she did say anything. After that, I never went back to the Blackstone hotel again and I never heard or saw her again. I think they must.have blackballed both of us.
In the meantime, I went to work at Chestain's a department store, when given the opportunity I would burst into a song right in the elevator. You see, I was enthused and excited to let people hear me so I could go further and I could try to get out of Tyler, Texas. I wanted to start a career for myself because it was in me. It was God given through Mom. That was my gift. That was my ticket out. I was black gold Texas tea.
My younger sister, Carol, at that time, begun studying opera. She had one of the most fabulous colortura soprano voice that I had ever heard, and she still is a great singer. Her talent was so great. Yet and still, like Mom, she let someone hold her back. She got married to a guy that wouldn't let her pursue her career. I often wondered why she never left that foolish man and go out on her own and sing. My other sister Iris, on the other hand, stayed in Tyler, got married and had five kids. I continued to pursue my career. I was about sixteen when I decided to join the army. I didn't really like the army but I was at that point where I would do anything to get out of Tyler and in addition, I had gotten a young girl pregnant. I was scared, I was afraid and I ran. So, I volunteered for the army.
The Army, the Army, what can I say about the Army? I didn't even complete my time in the Army. I hated it. I did only one year. I tried everything possible to get out. I even faked that I was ill. After being in the base hospital for a week and they didn't find anything wrong with me they finally send me back in training. Now this is how I really got out of the Army. After I finished training with the infantry, I was assigned to the Captain's Special Service Division. I was working in the captain's office one day when I overheard a first sergeant and the captain talking about the new low IQ discharges that would be available. It seems that the Army would be testing men before they sent them over to this Korean War or Korean Conflict thing that had broken out. They wanted to test their IQ's and would be sending the men with the highest IQ's first.
The testing was to begin in a few days. I kept my mouth shut and told no one about my plans. I was among the first, being in the Special Services Division, to be tested. Don't you know, on the very first test I took, I purposely made a 40, and I got worse and worse and worse. The last test, I think I made about 28 or 30, something like that. I was determined to get out of the Army. I had become very good at being ignorant, test wise that is.
Well, in the next two weeks I had my vacation papers, or walking papers, as they called them. They came and said, "Gardner, go home. You got to go. We don't know how you made it this far, but your test scores are so low we have to send you home. I was escorted to the gate, I got on a bus and headed straight home to Texas. I had to play the game. I faked a broken heart and everything, all that mess. I over-dramatized but I had succeeded. I had completed my mission. I had gotten out of the Army with a low IQ honorable discharge.
CHAPTER ONE
BLACK GOLD TEXAS TEA