Call Me Ted by Ted Turner, Bill Burke Read Free Book Online Page B

he is talking about. He lives in a different world.” After a little while I got talking to his son, and the only thing he would talk to me about was his work. I didn’t know what he was talking about either so I left early.
    If you are going to stay on at Brown, and be a professor of Classics, the courses you have adopted will suit you for a lifetime association with Gale Noyes. Perhaps he will teach you to make jelly. In my opinion, it won’t do much to help you learn to get along with people in this world. I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me.
    Oh, I know that everybody says that a college education is a must. Well, I console myself by saying that everybody said the world was square, except Columbus. You go ahead and go with the world, and I’ll go it alone.
    I hope I am right. You are in the hands of the Philistines, and dammit, I sent you there. I am sorry.
    Devotedly,
    Dad
    We were really feuding now and this correspondence set me off. I decided that the best retaliation was to send the letter to the college paper, which reprinted it in full. The letter soon became the talk of the school. In subsequent days, to get a rise out of his students, Professor Noyes—whom my father knew to be an epicurean chef—ended class by telling students he was off “to make jelly.” The room erupted in laughter.
    My father described my move as “dirty pool” and his anger over the letter’s publicity drove a further wedge between us.
    I was in a bad place at this point. I sensed that my college days were numbered and I was really upset with my father. I could have gotten a commission to the Naval Academy but he didn’t want me to go. When we settled on Brown he promised to support me for four years. His business was successful and he had more than enough money to pay my way. I don’t know if any of his negative feelings about college had anything to do with the fact that he never finished a full four years himself but regardless, it didn’t seem fair. Whenever I tried to talk to him about it, he’d only say that it was his right to do “whatever I damn well please,” and the case was closed.
    I worked for my dad’s company again that summer, saving as much as I could to pay for another year at Brown. I was living with my father and new stepmother at their plantation home in South Carolina but since most of my friends were back in Savannah, that’s where I’d go on weekends and evenings to enjoy some nightlife. Despite the strains on our relationship, my father let me borrow his car for these trips, only because he felt it was important for me to maintain a place in those social circles.
    That summer he had a new Plymouth Fury. This was the fastest production car built in the United States at that time, able to reach speeds as high as 150 miles per hour. One night I was driving back roads through rural South Carolina, in a hurry to get to Savannah for a debutante party. I was going about 120 mph when I approached an unmarked railroad crossing. I’d gone this way a bunch of times and had never seen a train pass, so I assumed it was just a side track. This was back in the days when many crossings didn’t have blinking lights or gates or other markings.
    Slowing to about 90 to cross I noticed an elderly black man standing on my side of the road and when he saw me he started going crazy—waving his arms and jumping up and down. I didn’t understand what he was doing until he was in my rearview mirror. Looking into that mirror as I skipped over the track, I saw a train flying through the intersection! I was going close to 100 mph and it had to be doing 70. We missed each other by a flash of a second. Once I was on the other side and realized what had just happened, my heart was beating out of my chest. I made it to the debutante party on time but when I got there my hands were still shaking. I came really close to dying that