Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
—Frank Sinatra, 1969
I read where the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame recently inducted another class without including me. There they were, Heath Shuler, an archer, an equestrian, and another Lady Vol, but no mention of that great Bearden High School quarterback from the teams of 1959-61, ole No. 11 in your program, but No. 1 in your heart, Bobby Pryor. Actually, I wore jersey No. 11 just my senior year. For some reason, my jersey number changed every year. Perhaps that’s the reason they could never retire it after I was finally graduated. Years later, after I started my law practice, I received the call to play in the “Old Timers Football Game” to raise money for the school sports teams. I was the starting quarterback for the oldest alumni team, and they broke my arm in the second quarter. Norma was with child and I was without pain medication. For weeks Norma had to bathe me while my arm was in a cast. She has never forgiven me. Seems as though that experience alone would qualify me for the Hall of Fame.
I’ve written several letters over the years to bring my playing stats to the attention of the nomination committee, but they don’t seem too interested in us high school stars. What’s a guy got to do? My career was exemplar – career starts, 8; yards gained, -12; passes attempted, 21; passes completed, 9; passes intercepted, 5; and plays running out of bounds to avoid being tackled, 16. My best skill was faking handoffs and creating backfield deception in general. I was great at handing off the ball and then faking a run in order to attract defenders. They said I was the best faker in school history. I was knocked down twice and I recall once in the mud. I regret not lobbying harder and allowing another year to pass me by. Maybe the Class of 2025 will be the charm.
I also regret that I refused to be the director of the Lincoln Park Elementary School first grade Rhythm Band. I was Miss Jessie’s first choice and my mother begged me to take up the baton, but I was stubborn and felt I was not cut out for show biz. It could have changed my whole life.
Miss Jessie taught first grade at Lincoln Park Elementary School for about 100 years. She taught my mother and all of her family in the first grade on Chickamauga Avenue. The Rhythm Band was a longstanding Parents Night tradition, and to be picked the leader was a great honor. My mother had been first tambourine in 1921 and her brothers, Gene and Floyd, played sticks and triangle (they involved practically the same skill level). The first in my family to be chosen leader and I refused musical stardom. It was a mistake that would haunt me for the rest of my life, and I believe it stunted my musical potential and probably caused me to lose my singing voice.
In the fifth grade, I entered the school talent show by performing a record pantomime (don’t laugh, it used to be considered a talent). I had lost my musical creativity and had to rely on the voice of others, but won first place in my effort to make up for the Rhythm Band fiasco.
As a child, I loved music and sat on the steps of my grandmother’s house in south Knoxville trying to play a toy guitar. She encouraged me, but everyone knew that I could not sing and never learned to play the guitar. I guess you could say I faked singing and playing the guitar kind of like I faked playing football. To play the guitar, you need long, skinny fingers, but my fingers were short and fat and I had a bad singing voice. Fresh off my talent show victory, I appeared for years as an entertainer on early Knoxville television and on the WNOX Saturday Night Tennessee Barn Dance acting out comedy records for laughs. As a budding local star, I actually received fan mail for lip syncing records on the radio.
Believe it or not, I finally ended up in Hollywood in 1956 to appear on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Another regret, Arthur Godfrey was ill on the night I was scheduled to appear and I got bumped because the guest host brought his own contestants. However, I was spotted at rehearsals by Capitol Records as a possible teen recording artist in the image of the new Tennessee sensation, Elvis Presley. This was my big chance to prove the boy who refused to lead the Rhythm Band actually did have musical talent. But, alas, he didn’t. I could never carry a tune and was far too pitchy. There I stood in front of the boom microphone that had been used to record Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Tennessee Ernie Ford. I had agreed to sing “Blue Suede Shoes” (with gestures), but before I could get to “. . . three to get ready, now, go cat go,” the recorders were stopped and the man behind the glass said something like, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” They never called, and Gene Vincent (“Be-Bop-A-Lula”) got the job. My search for fame died on the studio floor of Capitol Records. I regret I never took singing lessons.
Watching A River Runs Through It, on the big screen immediately made me regret I had never learned to fish. How great it would be at this stage of life if I could wade out into a stream and fly fish. I would look great in one of those olive fishing vests with flies hooked all over it and one of those floppy brimmed hats like Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond. In fact, I bought one of those hats in a vintage junk shop the other day, but only wear it to the Farmers Market. Years ago, a friend took me fishing on Tellico Lake one day, but he was a real purist and insisted on first catching our bait. It took him so long to catch the bait near the dam, I got hungry and ate half of the bucket of KFC that I had brought along just in case. By the time we finally got ready to fish, I was out of the mood.
One day while visiting the Boone-Blowing Rock area of western North Carolina, I kept telling Norma about my dream to fly fish and then fry trout for dinner in our little cabin by the stream. Sure enough, we passed a trout farm and in we popped so I could show my stuff and catch dinner. I couldn’t catch a thing on that cane pole. The fish just were not interested in my corn bait that day and then it began to rain. Finally, I hired a kid who was catching trout left and right to catch something on my pole. The worst part – Norma was watching the embarrassing spectacle and called all of our children to give a play-by-play description of my ineptitude.
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but, unlike Frank Sinatra, not too few to mention.