Ramblin’ with Uncle Billy

School Patrol

When I was in elementary school, they had school patrol boys. The patrol boys had long canes with a stop sign hanging from the end. Before and after school when students needed to cross the street, the school patrol boys would hold out their signs and stop traffic. This was an important job, and only the best were selected.

In 1947, when I reached the sixth grade, I volunteered and was selected to be a school patrol boy. I diligently performed my duties for about three or four weeks, then the rains came. I didn’t like standing out in the pouring rain. I then realized this would be a year- long job. I wasn’t about to stand out in the cold during the winter. I made up some lame excuse to resign my commission.

The following summer, I had spent the day at the city swimming pool and got very blistered. I went home and hopped into bed with my pain. Shortly afterwards, my grandmother came in and told me that there was a policeman out front who wanted to talk to me. I walked out very frightened and he said, “Are you Billy Davis?” I said, “Yes sir, but I didn’t mean to quit.” I was afraid he was going to take me to jail. He said, “The city has joined a program to reward school patrol boys. A drawing was held and you and a boy across town have won a trip to Washington D. C.”

School patrol boys from all over the country descended on Washington D. C. in July. Our group was a week late in arriving in Washington. It was great, we got private tours to all the national landmarks. We toured the White House, climbed to the top of the Washington Monument and visited all the other historic sites. We were met by our representative, Congressman Albert Rains. He took us on an underground railway from his office to the capital building. We joined him for lunch in the Congressional dining room. We then got a tour of the nation’s capital building.

The most exciting part of the trip was our visit to the FBI building. An agent gave us a tour of the building. We went into J. Edgar Hoover’s office and got to sit behind his desk. The agent then took us down to the firing range in the basement, and let us fire different guns used by the FBI. The most fun gun to fire was the Thompson sub-machine gun. We were spraying bullets all over the targets- what fun!

On the train trip back to Alabama, I decided that I wanted to travel for the rest of my life.. and I have!