Truckin' on the Western Branch

I didn’t have any goals—but I knew that there had to be something better. I was 15 years old in 1946 and lied about my age to enlist in Army—I heard the Army had three meals a day. I was sent to Richmond that afternoon then to Fort Meade, Fort Bragg, and then Germany. I celebrated my 16th and 17th birthdays in the Army. My officers had gone to West Point and Texas A & M and convinced me I needed to go back to school. I was in Germany when my grandmother forwarded me a letter from Wilson High saying I had missed homeroom for two weeks and there I was, 5'7 " , weighing 118 pounds, and lugging a radio backpack.

I came out at 17, a sergeant and qualified for the GI Bill. I went to Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, VA, where I was a private even though I was in the Army Reserve. I was called up in July of 1950 for the Korean War—and asked where is Korea? I served with the 11th Airborne for 21 months.

After Korea I went back to Hargrave and was 20 when I graduated in 1952. I married Mable, and we had a child. I went to Virginia Tech extension in Danville, then Virginia Commonwealth University, then Richmond Professional Institute, while I worked as a copy boy at the Richmond Times-Dispatch .

I knew I wanted to teach. I taught phys-ed and coached basketball for four years in Danville, then Portsmouth Catholic High, and then Churchland. I built a house on Forest Haven Lane.

Churchland grew quickly with the sudden transition of people coming out of Craddock, Shea Terrace, and Park View. There was a tremendous influx of new homes after World War II—the picket fence, one-bath bungalow dream. Johnson’s had been the only grocery. The area mushroomed when GE came in bringing people from Syracuse and elsewhere. That created Silverwood, Green Meadow Point, etc. When Western Branch High opened, I went over as the athletic director.

Howard coached in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, a national collegiate basketball highlight, for 20 years and was named the Sports Person of the Year by the Portsmouth Sports Club in 1983. He taught for another eight years after that.

Jeremiah Gaines Gaines Corner, the homeplace of the extended Gaines family, was just off Taylor and Pughsville Roads in Western Branch. That is where Jerry Gaines grew up. My father was a shipyard worker. My aunt lived next door. I had three older siblings—Janice, Jack, Jacqueline, and one younger brother, Jerold. We all went to Crestwood, the black high school. One day in 1966 my cousin Chasper Taylor and I were riding our bikes in Churchland near the football practice. We were tossing a ball around when Coach Brandriff asked if we wanted to play for Churchland—he could arrange a transfer. We went and saw integration beginning. There was some natural curiosity and small incidents but no major violence in Churchland. I played fullback at Churchland, ran track, played baseball, and graduated in 1967. I was the first African American to get a full scholarship at Virginia Tech—for track. Tech needed black athletes to maintain funding that would be cut off without any black athletes and wanted the “right one.” I grew up playing with white kids. We knew the rules of the race game but all played together. My father coached a Little League team that included blacks and whites. We were supposed to play a black team in Truxton and were told we couldn’t play as long as we had white players. Dad refused to the exclude white players so he started two teams—the Hawks and the Eagles—who would play each other.

Jeremiah Gaines. Image by Sheally

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